Eye of the Storm

by TheDriderPony

Day 2

The sound of grumbled rants and passive aggressive stomping echoed through the halls of Canterlot Castle. That is to say, the sound did its best to echo. The echo was having a rather rough time of it, finding the usual marble corridors muffled by a gratuitous excess of banners and curtains and carpets all branded with the same catchy logo and layered as thoroughly as necessary to cover up the copious sun and moon and pony iconography.

The muttered complaints continued as Storm King, Conqueror of Canterlot and all the Southern Lands, shouldered his way through the double doors of the throne room and made his way across the chamber.

"...for twenty minutes! Is that so much to ask? I don't think I'm being the bad guy here. They're literally in chains! How hard is it to keep them quiet? And the excuses! Don't give me excuses, just do it!"

He sank into Princess Celestia's throne with an angry slouch as he massaged his temples. "It's like herding Abyssians, I swear."

"Rough day?"

Storm King, unrivaled warrior of the Hurricane Archipelago, shrieked like a little child and leaped out of his seat. There was a statue of a pony tucked between the two thrones that hadn’t been there before. Most of a statue.

“Good morning, your highness!” Derpy smiled.

"You. You're that..." He snapped his fingers a few times, hunting for a word. "That pegawhatever from yesterday that my guards mistook for a princess. Why are you still here?"

She shrugged. Tried to. Settled for a side-to-side bob. "I can't really leave on my own."

He rolled his eyes. "Obviously. But I know I gave the order to have you moved out of my sight."

Derpy nodded. That much she could still do. "You did. I was here when you yelled it, but I don't think your guards understood. Once they showed up they just argued and kept moving me back and forth and back and forth and back and forth around the room before they gave up and set me back here."

It hadn’t been quite so straightforward. In truth, it had taken some fast talking to convince the guards that their boss wanted her to be "rearranged within the throne room" rather than "tossed out the window into the sculpture garden". But the yeti guards weren’t so bad once she convinced them she was supposed to be there. One had even scratched her nose for her and placed her close enough to the thrones that, if the itch returned, she’d be able to scratch it herself.

Nice fellows. She’d make sure to remember them once she started officially dating their boss. They deserved a raise, or at least some time off.

"Ugh. Idiots," he growled as he rolled his eyes and retook his seat with much more formal posture. "You can't get good help these days."

She nodded again and tried to look understanding (even though she'd never had anyone working under her in all her employed years). “What did they mess up today? You sounded stressed when you came in."

He eyed her suspiciously. “Why are you so interested? Looking for some kind of weakness? Some way to escape?”

“Nothing like that. I don’t think I could escape if I wanted to.” She wobbled in place. “I’m rock solid, remember? I’m just bored. Really, really bored.” She gave him a commiserating look. “And you sound like you really need someone to vent to.”

He gave her a long look through those stormy eyes of his. Derpy relished the moment and allowed herself to get lost in them. “Fine.” She snapped out of it as he looked away. “If you’re going to be a piece of furniture you might as well be a useful one. Those dimwits couldn’t hold a conversation with both hands and trying to get a reaction out of Tempest is like talking to a brick wall.”

“Tempest?”

“My lieutenant,” he answered. “You probably saw her during the invasion. Angry unicorn, sans the horn? Big fan of lightning and explosions? Personality like a badger with a stick up its—”

“Oh! Yeah. Her.”

Tempest. So that was the name of her rival for Storm King’s affections. A worthy foe. Their battle would be legendary.

Assuming she didn’t just win outright while the mare was off doing something else. It’d be her own fault then for leaving such a hunk of a stallion alone and unspoken for.

Derpy banished those premature thoughts. She’d earned his tolerance, but that was just the first step. “So what was it your guards did that was so bad?”

Storm King reclined back in his throne and let his staff idly tap against his crown. "You wouldn't believe it. They've set a new low bar for themselves."

"I believe a lot of things."

"Hmph. Well, get a load of this:"

With that, he launched into a truly unbelievable tale about how three fillies had nearly escaped by convincing the guards that they were actually guards themselves who’d been cursed and transformed and switcheroo-ed into a cage by a unicorn who’d since escaped. Apparently they managed to cross nearly half the city and draw over thirty guards away from their posts to form a posse to hunt down the “escaped unicorn” before they made the mistake of heading for the castle and running into King himself.

After that, it was like a dam burst. Morning turned into midday that stretched into afternoon as Storm King worked his way through an endless backlog of complaints to the first willing (if captive) ear he’d had in years. Incompetence and idiocy, laziness and lollygagging, misinterpreted orders and off-brand merchandise. Every grievance under the sun and then some. For most, Derpy could offer nothing but affirmations and agreement, assuring him that, yes, he was in the right (it helped that a lot of the time he was). But for some tales, she had retorts. The post office had a tendency to attract a lot of oddball seasonal workers, so she had stories to rival his own. Not every story was suitable to share, though. She quickly learned to steer away from anything too sentimental or happy and focus on ones where culpable ponies actually faced consequences or caused policy changes. Eventually, that segued into conversations about her work in general and management in specific.

“…so if you take sick days and vacation days and bundle them together as a unified PTO, they’ll actually take off less over the course of the year.”

“Brilliant!” her sharp-dressed stallion cackled as he scribbled away on a notepad. “Another new way to boost productivity! I never would have thought a pony could have such a head for business and logistics.”

Derpy just smiled and took the compliment. They weren’t even her ideas. Just normal policies at the post office and a few other dead end jobs she’d worked at before that. Though his joy at their “devilish duplicitousness” was making her wonder if maybe her bosses had been taking advantage of her.

“Hey.” Her head snapped up as his attention turned back to her. There was something different about his voice. It wasn’t any warmer, but it had lost a little of the harsh edge. Had a few hours talking broken down the barriers between them? Was he already ready to confess his love?! Derpy’s heart sped up like a hummingbird as she waited for his question.

“You still interested in a change in career?” Not quite a confession then, but a good start. Bosses fell for their secretaries all the time, or so said the gossip columns.

He slapped his hand against his stack of notes. “This is good stuff. Management stuff. And I’ll be honest, even if I’m going to be running this place I’d still rather deal directly with ponies as little as I have to. So I need someone who knows how ponies think to enforce my policies.”

This was it. Her first big step towards his heart would be through his wallet. Not the usual stomach-based route her mother had always spoken so highly of, but if it worked, it worked. But just to put her concerns to rest… “What about Tempest?”

“Tempest’s not a…pony’s pony. Wow. Boy, do I hate your language. Anyway, blah blah blah hammers and nails and problems: do you want the job or not?”

There was no doubt in her mind. “Yes! Absolutely!”

“There’s no benefits and the pay is your choice between company shares and Storm King Bucks which can be redeemed at the Storm King Company Store.”

“Still yes!” She raised a hoof and— “Uh… I’d shake on it but… you know…”

“I’ll overlook it this time. Welcome to Team Storm King…”

“Derpy. Derpy Hooves.”

“Derby?”

“Derpy.”

“Birdy?”

“Der. Py.”

“Yeah, whatever. I don’t care.” His smile dropped as he lost interest.

She waited a moment to see if his mood would bounce back, and when it didn’t, she bit the speartip anyway. “Soooo… since I’m an official employee now—”

“Wow. Five seconds on the job and already discontent. That’s gotta be a record.”

“—do you think I could maybe get unstoned?”

Storm King eyed up the rest of her body that was still obsidian crystal. She didn’t mind, but only wished she’d been stuck in a more flattering pose. At least her wings were nice and spread to show off her span. “Oh right. That. You know, I would, but I didn't actually buy any reversal potion for the petrification orbs. Seemed like an unnecessary expense at the time.”

“Ah. I see.”

He stood and cracked his back, muscles rippling under his armor and sending all of Derpy’s blood rushing to her face. “Welp. Time to clock out. Still have to check and make sure there’s been no other escape attempts today. You be up bright and early tomorrow; we’ve got a company meeting first thing.”

“Right! Of course… sir?”

“Sir’s good. I like sir.” He lifted a clawed hand as he left. “Good night, COO.”

“Good night your maj- sir.”

As the door closed, she wondered about his last comment. Coo? Like a bird? Was he already giving her pet names? She grinned in the low evening light. Maybe she was better at this whole seduction thing than she thought.