The office responsible for taking care of all of the villains and ne'er-do-wells after the Elements of Harmony get through with them is getting audited. By the Princess of Friendship. There's about to be some layoffs.
The Canterlot Reformation, Reintegration, and Parole Office. Where supervillains, other-dimensional monstrosities, and general ne'er-do-wells are sent to become better people and reintegrated into society after their encounters with the Elements of Harmony. Some are just there for the therapy.
Surrounding some concerns about the turnover rate of villainy and general evildoing in Equestria lately, Twilight Sparkle (a.k.a. the entire reason the department EXISTS), decides to take a good look at the inner workings of the CRRaP Office. Or, more accurately, audit them.
Unfortunately, its staff includes five mares who are a hair's breadth away from turning evil themselves. If they could be bothered to give a damn.
If anyone ever tells you being a secretary is an easy job, do me a favor: punch them right in their cocksockets, the lying little beelzebubs. Being a secretary is hell on earth, with antidepressant sprinkles. Of course, you could argue that it all depends on where you work. Unfortunately, I work here.
The Canterlot Reformation, Reintegration, and Parole Office. Affectionately referred to as the CRRaP office. Thank Celestia I don’t actually have to sit down in private with any of these chucklefucks. Like this guy in front of me. Some religious zealot looking assplow griffin with blue and white feathers and a cape to match. “Right, and what’s your name?” I ask as nicely as I can.
“I am Grand High Priest Tyrantotaur of the-”
I cut him off as politely as I can, cause I just know he’s gonna keep going if I don’t. “Right, Tyrantotaur. Have you filled out your intake forms?”
“-wha, how DARE you interrupt the Great Grand High-”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t allow for self-designated titles here. Only first and last names, and any titles given to you by the government.” I slide the necessary paperwork towards him, trying to keep my hoof steady, and not fly off in a series of surprisingly punch-like nervous twitches.
He gives the paperwork a disdainful grimace, then takes a quick glance at my nametag. “Listen here, little miss Sunny Flare, you will address me by whatever title I deem necessary, and furthermore-”
This time it’s not my speaking that interrupts him. Instead, I deign to grab him by his collar, and bounce his head off the countertop. Then I drag his face as close to mine as I can get without actually touching the fluffy bastard. “No, YOU listen, you little smegstain. I know exactly why you’re here, and so does everyone else. You’re just another in a very long line of pains in my flank that the Elements of Harmony laid the smackdown on, and now you’re here to become a decent fucking member of society. Your asskicking was televised. Now, if you would kindly take it upon yourself to remember that this is, technically, a division of the royal guard, and we are permitted by law to wail on your pansy ass should the need arise, I would think you’d want to do yourself a favor and GIVE ME YOUR FREAKIN NAME.”
I’m pretty sure my purple coat is now a deep shade of crimson, which is apparently one of the few colors High Priest Tumbledick responds to. “I-it’s Tyrantotaur...”
I give his collar a squeeze. “And?”
“T-tyrantotaur Cuddlestuffs. They wouldn’t let me change my last name,” he whimpers, trying to bury himself in his cape.
I slap the form onto a clipboard, and shove it into his chest. I almost broadside him with the damn thing. He rushes back to one of the many uncomfortable plastic chairs surrounding the horrendously colorful waiting room, and fills out his paperwork in quiet. A familiar draconequus a few chairs down just points and laughs at the guy, while I call up the next douchebag in line. “Wh-how do you pronounce that? Lulu… lulla… HEY TRIXIE!”
A powder blue unicorn pops her head up. She’s dressed in a magicians cape and hat with stars everywhere. “The Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie is here!”
Being a secretary is the worst job on the planet.
---------------------------------
Being a counselor is the worst possible thing you could do to yourself, short of actually dying. I mean, we all have enough problems of our own, don’t we? Who the hell wants to get paid to listen to someone elses? I mean, we’re not even paid well. ‘Oh, be a counselor’, my parents said. ‘You’re so good at putting on a cheery face! Everyone will open up to you!’ Yeah, and now I wanna close them back up again with some knitting needles and razor wire.
Never listen to your parents, kids. It’s a terrible idea.
“Sour Sweet? Your 3 o’clock is here. She looks like she’s about to cry. Again. You might want to bring a new box of tissues.”
I groan and massage my temples with my wingtips, then bang my head against my desk a few times. “Thank you, Sugarcoat.”
“Also, I wouldn’t hit my head like that, our health insurance doesn’t cover self-inflicted head trauma.”
“Thank you, Sugarcoat.”
“And your 5 o’clock isn’t returning their calls, so you’ll probably need to do a housecall if he doesn’t show up.”
I grit my teeth, trying my best not to start screaming. “Thank. You. Sugar. Coat.”
“You’re welcome,” she adds, walking away calmly. Why do all the unicorns I know make me so damn angry. I peek around my office door to make sure she’s gone, then start gathering my files for my next patient. And a box of tissues.
“I wouldn’t use those tissues, she’s allergic to aloe.” I jump as Sugarcoat’s voice takes me by surprise. I still don’t know how she moves so damn fast.
“Thankyousugarcoat,” I grumble, trying my damnedest to look appreciative.
“Also that vest is a horrible color on you, you should really consider getting something less appalling to wear to the office.”
“THANK. YOU. SUGARCOAT,” I roar, slamming the door to my office. In the process, of course I spill tissues and files everywhere, which just makes me even angrier. I swear to something I’m gonna start breaking ponies.
“You shouldn’t slam the doors, they take damages out of your paycheck, and you’re already behind on rent.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!”
----------------------------------------
Being Doctor Sweet’s personal assistant isn’t a bad job. She screams a lot when she’s not around patients. And cries. And is generally unhappy. But she doesn’t really take it out on anyone. She needs the job too much. And she’s really bad at pretty much everything except pretending to care about people. And archery. I don’t know why she’s good with a bow. I think it’s an overcompensation thing.
I watch her storm out of her office towards the therapy rooms, then return to my desk. Her schedule is a mess, but it’s not unmanageable. For some reason she’s rather popular amongst our patients and parolees, so she’s constantly overbooked.
I’d tell them all what she was like outside the office, but she’d get fired. Then I’d get fired. And I like money. And having a place to live. So I don’t.
Well, that, and I’m prohibited from speaking with clients. Something about telling a unicorn parolee where the Alicorn Amulet was.
A loud rolling noise and muffled rock music tell me Lemon Zest just arrived with our mail. I can hear those roller skates from across the building, if I try hard enough. They sound surprisingly like yelling, most of the time. I lift my head up just in time to see the bright green mane of the office mailmare zip down the hall, and push my seat back just in time to keep her from crashing in to me. She brakes right at the edge of my desk. “Hey Sugah!” she yells. I pull her headphones off her head with my magic, and drop them in her saddlebag.
“Your music is too loud. You’re going to blow out an eardrum again. Mine.”
She laughs like I’m joking. “Oh, sorry. Here, I got a buncha stuff for Sour Sweet. Thank you letters, some chocolate… I think… Oh! And you got something!”
My ears perk up unwittingly, as receiving mail at the office is rather rare for me. Most ponies I know don’t even know where I work. “What is it?”
“Some cereal, supposed to be good for ya,” she quips, snickering at her own joke. Which I’ve heard probably a hundred times before. I lost count. Picking it out of the pile, she passes me a flimsy envelope. It has the buildings address on both the sender and recipient spaces, so it’s inter-office post. “I got no idea, some guy in corporate said you needed this today.”
I look at the envelope curiously as it sits in my hoof, and wave Zest off to do the rest of her rounds. Not learning anything more about its contents from the envelope, I tear it open and start reading.
Dear Ms. Sugarcoat,
It has come to our attention that-
Forget what I said earlier. My job is garbage.
-----------------------
Being a mailpony is easy as hell. I skate around and give people stuff. And for the most part, it’s their stuff. Come on, we have like a dozen mares with Sugar or Sweet or Candy-something in their name. I get diabetes just looking at the mailing list.
I hop on the elevator back to the sorting room, when I feel my phone vibrate in my bag.
It’s Sugarcoat, texting the group.
SC: Drinks tonight. Need alcohol. Bent Unicorn at 7.
“Aw yeah, gonna get hammered!” I start typing furiously, and soon the whole group is writing back and forth.
LZ: Hellz yeah. We gun get fckd UP!
SS: I might not make it to 7. Someone just bring me whiskey and hangover gravy now.
SF: Double that order.
LZ: Ruff day?
SS: What are you, a fuckin dog?
LZ: I AM good with my tongue.
SS:...I will kill you unless you buy the first round. With my TEETH.
SC: Zest, aren’t you on the elevator?
LZ: Yeah, why?
SF: Oh my god. Look up, you retard.
I poke my head up from my phone, and see a lot of ponies staring at me, or trying to squeeze past me into the elevator. “Oh… heheh, muh bad,” I apologize, cramming myself into a corner.
I put the phone away till I get off the elevator, then whip it back out again ans I zoom across the lobby on the gound floor. I’m just in time to see Indigo Zap walk in the front door. I call out to her as I roll by, “Drinksat7atBUgethammeredorgetnailedscrub!”
I think she nods, but I’m around the corner before I can be sure. And just in time for my boss’s boss’s boss to step out of a stairwell as I’m going a hundred and one hojillion. I screech to a halt just before I hit her, yet she doesn’t move a muscle. “Ah, Ms. Lemon Zest. I do hope you’ve brought me some good news to offset this blatant disregard for office safety,” she says in that cool, creepy horror villain tone of confidence and spite specially brewed in Tirek’s anus.
“Uh… yes, Ms. Cinch. Lemme...” I dig around my bags for something with her name on it, and hand her the first thing I can find.
She coolly snatches the letter out of my hoof with magic, and tears it open, wasting no time in reading it. As she does, her face darkens like storm clouds. Or my future. “WE’RE BEING AUDITED?!”
I fuckin hate my job.
--------------------------------------
Lemon Zest whizzes by just as I step in the front door, and all I catch is “Drinks at 7 BU.” Which, honestly, is all the information I need. I could use a break after all the running around today. Not that I don’t love my job. Being a parole officer is awesome. I get to tell people what do do all day, and chase down dumbasses who think ‘If I can run faster than this pegasus I don’t have to do this thing I don’t like.’ Protip: you can’t. Hell, I’d try out for the Wonderbolts if I didn’t love my job so much.
I trot up to the front desk, grab a key from Stallion McWhatshisface, and make my way to the Cages. Well, they’re not actually cages. It’s just a bunch of rooms where the PO’s do office work and make calls and stuff. But that sounded really boring, so we all pitched in and got a plaque that said “Cages” and hung it on the door. Said door creaks open as I brush past my coworker, a griffon too busy on the phone to do much more than nod and keep walking.
There’s not a lot of guys in the office right now, since we’re all mostly out in the field at this hour. I drop today’s papers in my box, a small cubby in the wall, dig around in it for my phone, and turn it on to see I missed a bunch of messages. Mostly about us grabbing drinks.
SF: Is Zap not answering her phone? The fuck?
SC: She’s in the field. You know they can only have office phones out their. And you can’t send personal messages on an office phone.
LZ: Iz ok I just saw her and let her know.
SC: Did you actually talk to her? Or just yell stuf really fast as you skated by?
LZ:...yes?
I chuckle to myself and join in the conversation.
IZ: It’s ok, I understood most of it. I’m down to drown in some tekillya.
SS: Oh no. No tequila. The last time you drank Horse-e` Cuervo you almost died.
IZ: Pssh, that wasn’t even the alcohol, that was traffic.
SC: The fact that you even need to make that distinction is a good indicator that you should stick to something safer. Like whiskey, or paint thinner.
IZ: Whatevs, booze iz booze. Anyway, gotta go, just dropping off some paperwork. Meet at the bar?”
SF: Yeah, sure.
LZ: Hellz yeah.
SS: No, I figured we’d rendezvous in a darkened parking structure with trenchcoats.
SC: The last time we did that we all got arrested.
The rest of the girls chatter back and forth in small bursts while I turn my phone back off. Just in time, as my boss pokes his head in immediately after I drop the phone back in my box. “Hey Zap, you got a minute? There’s some paperwork I need you to fill out.”
I fucking hate my job.
---------------------
We all meet up at the bar after what seems like an eternity of filling out forms, and find our usual table rather quickly. Some minion takes our drink orders and scurries off, leaving us to our own devices. Not a great idea.
“Are you actually trying to be bad at this? Cause you’re really bad at this,” Sugarcoat points out.
“Yeah, shut up. You don’t know the kind of day I’ve had,” groans Sunny Flare, who’s trying to balance a pencil on her nose while we wait for our drinks.
“Can’t have been worse than mine,” says Sour Sweet over her glass of water. “God, who knew unicorns were such crybabies.”
Sugarcoat and Sunny Flare both give her death glares, while Lemon Zest tries poorly to hide a laugh behind her hoof. “Please,” she interjects. “I bet I got you both beat.”
I shrug. “Eh, not that bad. I had to do like an hour of paperwork, but nothing out of the ordinay. Why? What made your days to craptastically unique?”
Before anyone can get a word in, Sour Sweet starts spitting fire. “It’s this whiny unicorn magician chick! Holy balls does she have issues. She’s got this-”
Sugarcoat shoves a hoof in her mouth. “Doctor-patient confidentiality. Also, none of us care.” She puts her hoof down just as our drinks arrive, and she takes a long draw of Manehattan Iced Tea. “I got another letter from HR today. Something about making one of the other therapists cry.”
“Again?” Zest asks incredulously. “Which one?”
“I don’t know. Not all of them tell on me.”
The green-haired pegasus rolls her eyes. “I’m surprised you still have a job. Hell, after next week, I’d be surprised if any of us do.”
“At least you didn’t get groped by a mino- wait, what?!” Sunny Flare interjects, chorused by the rest of the group, myself included. “What do you mean we might not have jobs?! I NEED my job!”
I take a shot of whiskey, since they vetoed my tequila, and add, “Yeah. What did you hear? Were you eavesdropping on the upper floors again?”
Lemon shakes her head. “Nah, I almost ran into Ms. Cinch -literally- and gave her a letter to keep her from firing me. Turns out it was from one of the Princesses.”
“Oh, you have GOT to be shitting me. Who?! It can’t be from Luna, she’s a client!” Sour Sweet yells. And she’s off.
“No, better,” Zest continues between sips of beer. “Princess Twilight.”
The whole table groans involuntarily. “What the hell now?” I grumble, really wishing I had some Cuervo right now.
“Apparently she wrote something to Cinch about how not everyone is staying reformed, and they’re having issues after the fact, and blah blah blah ponies keep trying to take over the world. SO she wants to come down here herself and see how we do things. At least, that’s what I got between all the yelling. Cinch did a lot of that,” Zest added.
Before anypony can follow up, our waiter comes back. “Can I get you anything else, ladies?” he says shakily. I recognize him as one of the unfortunate stallions who always seems to be working whenever we go drinking.
Sugarcoat speaks first. “We’re going to need a LOT. of. Tequila.”
Chapter 2: “Get in the handbasket loser, guess where we’re going?”
Chapter 2: “Get in the handbasket loser, guess where we’re going?”
“Oh, gods the tequila. Oh why. WHY,” I groan into my pillow. It doesn’t help. Stupid useless fluffy bedthing. Rolling over onto my back makes it worse, as the sun shines directly onto my bed, and my eyes. One mother of all cries of anguish later, I all but throw myself out of bed. I can just hear Sugarcoat now:
“I told you tequila was a bad idea, Ingido. You always make a fool of yourself at night, and regret everything in the morning.”
Ok, either I’m hallucinating, or she actually did just say that.
“Also, putting your bed directly in the path of the rising sun is a horrible move for someone who drinks as much as you on the occasions you do drink.”
And I know I didn’t just think that. I scramble up from the rather unflattering position I landed in, to see Sugarcoat gracefully wiping her eyes and putting her glasses on. In my bed. “Oh no. We didn’t- you and I did NOT-”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re right. We didn’t. But after all the booze, I couldn’t afford a cab, and was too drunk to teleport home safely. One of the very few sensible things you said or did last night. So you dragged me to your apartment, which is suspiciously close to a lot of bars-”
“I DON’T HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM.” Oh god. Oh the yelling. Oh why did I do that sweet mother Celestia whyyyyyyyy.
“You shouldn’t yell when you have a hangover. Also, I know you don’t have a drinking problem. You have a lightweight problem. Nopony who goes down after so little alcohol has enough experience drinking it to have a ‘problem’,” she explains, somehow making even the morning after crawl out of bed look graceful. Sunny Flare would spit.
“Ok, ok. So we didn’t bang-”
“Not for lack of trying on your part.” I want to yell at her for interrupting me, but my head is still pounding from the last outburst.
“We. Did not. Have sex. That’s one less nightmare to worry about. Did I do anything significantly job-endingly stupid last night?” I start looking around for my goggles, as they are not on my head as per usual, hoping Sugar doesn’t have a good answer for that.
“No, not really. I’d have told you already if you had, and would most likely continue berating you for it,” she explains as she makes her way to my bathroom. Which I don’t remember telling her the directions to.
Oh thank Celest- “You did do a lot of puking, and hitting on us, and karaoke. Sweet Discord, the karaoke.”
Part of me shrivels and dies inside, but I put on a brave face. “Me? Pffft, nah. I suck at singing! Why would I sing karaoke?”
Her answer echoes out of the open bathroom door. “I dared you to. And I regret every minute of having done so.”
“Gee thanks you’re so nice I hope we stay friends forever.”
She pokes her head out, which is already done up in her trademark ponytails, mouth full of toothbrush. She takes it out long enough to retort: “I know you’re being sarcastic, but so do I.” She doesn’t give me a chance to respond before she disappears and closes the door.
A small smile catches me by surprise. Maybe she’s not so bad. Then another uncomfortable sensation hits me.
“Oh god Sugarcoat open the door I have to pee please merciful Celestia OPEN THE DOOOOOOOOOOOR.”
“No.”
“Why are we friends?!
------------------------------------
“Lemon Zest, if you don’t turn this alarm off RIGHT NOW I’m going to STRANGLE your DAD,” each shouted syllable is like opening a hellmouth in my eardrums, but they’re quickly overshadowed by the horrendous racket pouring out of this stupid fucking alarm clock shaped like a subwoofer.
She pokes her shaggy main out from the kitchen, where she’s making what she calls her Zesty Hangover-Bendover Surprise. Like hell I’m eating it. “That’s not an alarm, Sunny, that’s a subwoofer! Just like, turn the big black dial on top to the left!” she shouts over the music. The fact that she has to shout to be heard in her own home would surprise me, if not for all of the soundproofing I noticed when we first walked in last night.
I desperately flail a hoof over the top of the black box, and scramble any and all of the dials I can reach. The result is an even more horrendous cacophony of pitched, shrieky rock music. Eventually I turn the damn thing off through sheer luck and force of will, then throw myself down onto the couch, where I’d slept last night. “Why?! Why did I let you convince me to crash here instead of just hailing a cab?!”
“Cause your apartment is on the hojillionth floor and you would have died just trying to find the place you were so plastered last night,” she says in her normal, only slightly louder than talking, voice. She’s brought with her what smells like dead everything and waffles. “Ta-da! One Hangover-Bendover Surprise! The fast-acting colon-impacting up-your-ass it’s-time-for-class headache ender for every bender! It’s a must from dawn to dusk for any and all booze-induced mistakes, headaches, and DT shakes from here to the Great Lakes!”
Every word out of her mouth makes me want to tear it off and bite her with it. “Ok,” I say slowly, trying not to maul her, which in itself is a great show of self-control on my part. “But what the fuck is IN IT?!”
“Wheat-based waffles with a huge pile of three-type gravy, potato chips, hay fries, and a double-scoop of deep-fried rocky road ice cream!”
I almost projectile vomit myself out a window as my body rejects everything she just said.
“What.. uh… what types of gravy are in that?” I ask hesitantly, poking a queasy hoof in the general direction of the Artery Destroyer 5000.
“That’s a secret. As in, you really don’t want to know,” she says waggling her eyebrows villainously. There’s normally now way in hell I would eat anything she said was on that plate, let alone all together, but this headache is so bad I’m willing to try anything. Plus I need to be NOT hungover when we meet up with the girls for lunch, so we can plan how NOT TO GET FIRED. So, shakily, I take a bite.
And another.
And two more.
“Why is this so delicious?!” I sob.
“It’s probably the bacon grease.”
I continue eating what shouldn’t be the tastiest thing I’ve ever had in my life, crying my way through a plate of shamefood. “Wu-hu-why are we frie-he-hends?”
-----------------------------
I drag a still-complaining Indigo out of her apartment, not-so-gently reminding her that we need to come up with a plan to keep our jobs, or we’re all screwed. And not in the fun “meet me in the copy room in twenty minutes” way. Her bitching settles to a dull roar as we eventually reach the outdoor food court to the strip mall we’d all agreed to convene at. Lemon Zest and Sunny Flare are already at a table, the former looking shamelessly proud while the latter looks like she wants to cry her way through a box of chocolates.
Indigo unceremoniously throws herself into a chair, stretching out over the table like she’s spooning it. I sit down like a normal pony, albeit not without raising an eyebrow to Lemon. “What did you do to her?”
She smiles even wider, but before she can respond, Sunny groans through the fabric on the table, to which her face seems thoroughly glued. “Hangover-Bendover Surprise. Oh god the Surprise. Why? Why does it taste so good? I’ve never been more ashamed in my life.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” says a familiarly cheery voice behind me. I turn my head in time to see Sour Sweet take her own chair next to me, patting a hoof on Sunny’s back on her other side. “We’ve all lived that secret shame, even me. Did she tell you what’s in the gravy?”
Sunny just sobs louder. That would be a yes. “Even I don’t understand why it’s so good, and I helped her make it,” Indigo groans, raising her head up and making a rather valiant attempt to sit like a normal pony.
Although she probably shouldn’t have said that. “YOU,” Sunny growls, lifting her face enough to glare daggers at Zap. “You did this to me. YOU. I will END YOU.”
Sour Sweet rubs Sunny’s shoulders, the later dropping her head back into the tablecloth. “It’s ok, dear. We’ve all eaten it at least once. Hell, I’ve had it a few times. Only in emergencies, mind you. Like the time I went drinking right before an 8 o’clock appointment with Discord. Trust me, give it time, and you’ll feel much better.
“It’s not the hangover. That feels much better, somehow. It’s the shame. I feel like I need a million showers,” small sobs shake her body.
“Yeah, well, maybe if you let yourself eat something other than that boring health food all the time you wouldn’t be such a drama queen over a little grease, salt and sugar,” Lemon protests. Although I can tell she’s beaming with pride over having finally broken all of us. We’ve all had that morning after cry. Although I’d never admit it.
“At least you didn’t spend the night in Indigo’s bed,” I point out, trying to make her feel better.
Everypony but Indigo looks at me. “You… you didn’t...” Lemon tries to ask, hesitant.
“No, we didn’t ‘bang’.” I accentuate the last word with air quotes, something I do rather sparingly. “But she only has one bed, no couch, and her floor is full of exercise equipment and less-lethal weaponry. I almost tazed myself on accident last night. And that’s not the worst part. Her whole bed smells like gym socks.” I turn to glare at her. “It’s called doing laundry.”
“It’s called suck it up!” she growls back. “At least you didn’t accidentally teleport yourself to an old ex’s house. AGAIN.”
I shudder slightly, insomuch as I let myself. “There is that. Well, now that, I assume, we’re all done feeling sorry for ourselves-” Sunny sniffs loudly- “Can we finally talk about how we’re going to keep ourselves employed? Ideas? Anypony?”
Everyone has little more than blank looks and shrugs to offer. “We could go on vacation,” Lemon Zest suggests. I know I have enough vacay time packed away to be gone the whole week she’s supposed to be here.”
“That wouldn’t be a horrible idea if I hadn’t used all my vacation time going to the worlds shittiest family reunion,” Sour Sweet points out, unhelpfully, “But I DID, so it IS.”
Indigo rolls her eyes. “I was wondering where your ugly half was hiding.”
“It was content for a while watching Sunny Flare weep openly for all the carbs she just ate.”
The aforementioned drama queen lifts her head up, seemingly over her crying jag. “What about sick days? We could say we all got something wicked bad from that bar we went to last night.”
That actually doesn’t sound like a bad plan, till Lemon Zest starts shaking her head. “No can do. Convention pox, remember?”
We all shudder involuntarily as the memory of Lemon Zest coming back from her sci-fi convention with the measles rears its ugly head. “That was a terrible week,” I recall. “And we can’t very well mix-and-match our vacation days and our sick days all at once, they’d get suspicious. It’s be easier to pass off a group vacation or all of us getting sick at the same time, but any combination of the two might raise eyebrows. Especially given the timing.”
“Well,” Sour Sweet grumbles. “Do you have any good ideas, dear?!”
I tap my hoof to my chin. “We could try… being good at our jobs?”
The group exchanges looks for a moment, then bursts out laughing.
“Ha! Hahahahawe are so fired,” Indigo laughs nervously.
“This shouldn’t even be a problem!” Lemon whines, glaring at a menu like it’s mortally offended her. “Sunny, you’re the smart one here, can’t you just like, think our way out!”
I can’t stop myself rolling my eyes like bowling balls. “Oh, sure. Hmm, let me give it some thoug-WE’RE SCREWED.”
“Normally I’d argue with her but I got nothin’,” Indigo drawls, drowning her sorrows in chocolate milk. She even had the gall to order one of those curly-wurly straws. Which looks like fun why the FUCK didn’t I think of that. “And what the hell do you mean she’s the smart one?! I’m plenty smart!”
Lemon dismisses her with a hoof. “Nah, you’re the punchy one. Sour Sweet’s the crazy one, I’m the lovable idiot, and Sugarcoat’s the slutty one.”
Her assessment is met with a few audible growls and glares. Not wanting to argue with my position as the brains of the operation, I instead turn my attention to something more interesting than Sour Sweet trying to kill the punk rocker with her eyes. “Uh, Sugarcoat? You don’t seem to be doing much counter-arguing here. Anything you wanna say?”
Pigtails continues to browse the menu with mild interest. “No, not really. She pretty much hit the nail on the head.”
Indigo raises an eyebrow. “Um… not that I don’t like punching a fool, but aren’t you a little… offended by the ‘slutty’ part?”
Sugarcoat, the undisputed master of eyebrows, calls and raises her own eyebrow. “Being the only one at the table who’s actually had sex in the last four months, no, no I do not. Although I think Sunny is almost as much the ‘punchy’ one as you are.”
“Wha-I am NOT!”
Sour Sweet sniffs loudly. “Sunny, my friend, you clean blood off your desk almost daily. The guard actually tried to recruit you. TWICE.”
I search my feelings, knowing it to be true. “Yeah, but Indigo punches way more ponies than I do!”
Zap’s expression turns wistful. “Yeah, I do.”
“And what’s this about me being the ‘crazy one’?!” Sour growls, returning her attention to Lemon Zest.
The entire table stares at her.
“...yeah, ok.”
The conversation dies down a little, so I flag a waiter. He trots over with his best ‘I actually hate everything but I’m getting paid to be here so smiles it is’ smile. “What can I get you ladies?”
Lemon, who only seems to remember just now that we were actually here for food, buries her muzzle in the menu again with some urgency.
“I’ll take a big-ass tray of hayfries. And I mean greasy,” she ends her sentence with the kind of intensity usually reserved for serial killers and salesponies.
Sour looks ready to cry again. “No carbs. Please, for the love of Celestia, anything but carbs!”
Sugarcoat just points to a thing on her menu, and the waiter nods. “Oh, and some lemonade.”
The waiter turns his attention to me, “And for you-”
“PANCAKES!” Zest shouts. The waiter almost jumps out of his leafy green fur. “I need pancakes! And syrup! DROWN THE BASTARDS!”
“Uh...ok…,” the poor colt mutters, writing furiously on his notepad. I suspect he’s drafting a restraining order. He then looks to me pleadingly, wanting very much not to be at our table any more.
I nod to Sugarcoat. “Whatever she’s having, but make mine an iced tea. Unsweetened.”
Sugarcoat raises her other eyebrow at me with the kind of fluidity usually reserved for cell animations, but says nothing. The waiter nods, and trots off, looking grateful to be anywhere Lemon Zest is not. Which is not an uncommon sentiment.
------------------------------
We chat amicably, and unproductively, for a dozen minutes or so, before a different waiter shows up with our food. A mare this time, she gives Lemon a cautious glance as she slides what looks like a prisoner’s last meal of pancakes and maple syrup stacked to her eyelids across the table. She snatches her hoof back almost immediately as Lemon almost lunges at her fork. Without a word the little devil starts eating with all the table manners of a timberwolf.
The next plate to hit the table is a light salad accompanied by a glass of water for Sour Sweet, who sniffles a “Thank You” before poking the plate with her own fork, taking a reasonable bite.
Then the waiter puts my fries in front of me, and I see the face of GOD in the still-sizzling starchy gold mine. “Oh my yes,” I pray, sticking a forkful into my face. It tastes like heaven and heart problems. I try to say thank you but all that comes out is an unintelligible grunt.
Sugarcoat translates: “She says thank you.” The waiter nods with a smile, and puts Sugarcoat’s food down in front of her: a triple-hayburger with cheese, onion rings, and bbq sauce. For a second, a look crosses the unicorn’s face, the kind one normally sees on lonely stallions at burlesque shows. It’s gone in a moment, but I say a small prayer in my head for the poor food in front of her.
And then one for Sunny Flare as her eyes widen in abject terror at the mountain of food before her. She looks at Sugarcoat pleadingly, but gets no response as the bluenicorn takes a bite out of her sandwich that would traumatize a small child. Or Sunny Flare. That’s definitely an ‘I need therapy’ look.
We all eat (mostly) in peace, the only sounds coming from the occasional crunch of salad, and the ungodly cacophony coming from Lemon’s general direction. I don’t think I’m alone in deciding NOT to look at her.
“So,” Sugarcoat says after a few minutes of horrible chewing noises. “Any thoughts as to how we keep our jobs?”
Sunny Flare looks up from her half-eaten sandwich (she made it through HALF holy shit girl), with a defeated look on her face. “I got nothing. I think this… thing is making me dumber by the bite.” She wipes a bit of sauce off her mouth with a napkin, then looks around the table. “Anypony else?”
Sour Sweet, the poor girl, is wiping the last of her dressing of the plate with a slice of cucumber. “I don’t think so. And I’m so booked with my clients this week I doubt I’d be able to do anything different anyway. Maybe we just hope she doesn’t come anywhere near us?”
“Maketh thenthe,” Lemon Zest says between bites. Or during. Fortunately for everypony, she swallows before she talks again. “I mean, when I got audited by the iris-”
“I. R. S.,” Sour Sweet growls.
“Right, those losers. Anyway, I didn’t even see the guys. They just looked at a bunch of papers and called me like a month later saying they didn’t find anything. Maybe she’s just gonna sit in some dingy office and look at paperwork all day?”
I blink. Then again. Nothing changes. “Am… am I still drunk, or did that make sense?”
Sugarcoat looks genuinely surprised. Also, her burger is gone (HOW?!). “I… I think she’s right. We might not even see the princess for more than a few minutes.”
Sunny looks almost religiously hopeful. “So… we don’t have to actually do anything?”
“Maybe not,” Sour ponders. “Maybe not.”
--------------------------------
Monday morning arrives, and I’m sitting here with the rest of the crazy train, surrounding a conference table. The only additions are our boss, Ms. Cinch, and Princess freakin’ Twilight Sparkle. “Well, ladies, I’ve assembled you all because you have the most… expressive employee files in the company, and thus the Princess has elected you five for her little audit.”
“Yes!” She says excitedly. She looks to each of us in turn. “I’m very excited to see how you perform your daily functions, so for the next week I will be shadowing each of you in turn!”
The other four girls glare daggers at me. I try to make myself as small as possible, wishing wholeheartedly that I’d been allowed to take my headphones into this meeting.
“And today, Lemon Zest, I will be following you!”
The glares turn to malicious smiles, and I want to cry.
“So… this is the mail room,” I say, pointing a hoof in the general direction of the door. It says ‘Mail Room’ on it in big letters, so I don’t know how anypony would miss it. Twilight looks at me expectantly. I roll my eyes, and open the door for her. Of course, I let her walk in first.
Which was my first mistake. “OH MY DEAR CELESTIA!” the Princess yells, and I almost jump out of my hooves.
I run into the room behind her. “What, what?!” I look around, expecting to see another raccoon, or homeless guy, or extradimensional portal with a bit meaty paw coming out of it. Discord is super grabby. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, though. There’s nopony in here, as our mail staff consists of me, my boss, and one other mail pony, and the other two don’t show up til like, an hour after I do. I’m supposed to open up, and start sorting. “What is it?” I ask, returning my attention to the alicorn.
“This place is a MESS! How do you find anything?!” She looks frantically around the room, like it’s offended her somehow.
I give the mail room another once-over. Mail sorted by department, large bins full of mail yet to be sorted, packages in their designated bins. “It looks fine to me, wha-”
Twilight’s wings twitch. “Fine?! Look at all this unsorted mail! You have all this stuff sorted by department, but not by recipient! And your packages are all just… just… in a bin! And don’t get me started on your outgoing!”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, please, it’s not that bad. We only lose like, one or two pieces a week-”
“ONE OR TWO?!” she bellows, “That's unacceptable! What if it’s really important?! What if it’s super-private information?! What if one of your patients or doctors gets their identity stolen?!”
I feel the MIGHTY NEED to stifle a laugh. “Um, have you met our patients? Or our doctors? Nopony wants to be them. I mean, for serious, that’s dumb.”
Her eye twitches violently. “Dumb?! There’s nothing dumb about being organized! Out! I need to sort ALL of this!”
“But I need to-”
“OUT!”
-----------------------------
I’m pacing back and forth in front of the mail room, just waiting for somepony to yell at me. Again. There’s another crash behind the door, but I don’t investigate. The last time I did I got kicked out. By a torrent of envelopes. Multiple, so many papercuts.
It’s been like, half an hour, and I’m supposed to have sorted a bin and started delivering by now. I’m totes gonna get fired. And, as if on cue, my boss walk around the corner. A big, hearty earth pony stallion with a deep sea blue coat and steel-gray mane, who I probably would have tried to bang by now if he wasn’t like forty years older than me. Still looks really good. Like one of those ex-military types who kept in shape long after he retired. He levels a well-disciplined glare at me. “Lemon Zest, why, exactly are you in the hall?” he says calmly.
I heave a sigh. “Well Mister Weight, Princess Twilight has started auditing the company and her idea of an audit is to start job shadowing a bunch of different ponies who all apparently have interesting employee files so today she’s following me around and she took one look at the mail room and started organizing-”
He holds up a hoof, and I see his eyes have gone wide. “Princess Twilight is here? In my mail room? Organizing?!”
“Y-yes sir...”
“Oh dear Celestia,” he says quietly, and runs into the mail room. “Princess Twilight!” I hear him yell, as the door closes.
This is followed by a muffled serious of loud noises, and yelling, and what sounds like a thousand angry paper birds. The door flies open, and Paper Weight is pushed back into the hall by a torrent of paper. He pushes back valiantly, forcing his way back into the room despite the onslaught of stationary. The door closes behind him, and I hear it lock. The yelling and loud noises continue.
Just as I think I must be hallucinating, my other coworker shows up, coming down the hall from around the other direction. “Hey Zest. Sup? The hell is that noise?”
“Hey Quill,” I nod to the gangly unicorn. He’s got paper-bag brown fur and a light-tan mane, done up in gawdy spikes. “Paper Weight is in there fighting with Princess Twilight Sparkle about how we organize or mail room.”
He tries to raise one eyebrow, but fails, just looking really confused and kinda dumb. “Uh, it sounds like a war zone in there.”
Oh my Celestia. “Did you not here what I said? Our ex-military boss is fighting with the Princess of Friendship in there!”
Quill whistles quietly. “Whoa. THIS I gotta see,” he says, unlocking the door with magic and walking in.
“No wait, Quill! You’ll get murderlized!” He doesn’t listen, and the door is slammed shut with the force of… something, and I hear screaming.
I look around, kind of panicked now. “Oh, man. If they both die, I’m a thousand percent fired! But… papercuts. So many. So sharp. But… aww, damnit!” I yell, throwing the now unlocked door open, and running into the fray.
------------------------
Cinch looks around the room at the collection of wounded ponies. At one end of the rather familiar conference table sits Princess Twilight, her hair wildly frazzled, covered in bruised, with bits of paper stuck in her wings. At the other, Mail Chief Paper Weight, head-to-toe in paper cuts and forwarding address stickers.
The two smaller ponies, Lemon Zest and Quill Feather, sit across the table from Cinch, both covered in cuts, stickers, ink, bruised, and Celestia knows what else. Zest’s mane is a runaway whirlwind of paperclips and postage stamps. Quill just looks like a giant bruise with enough postage to reach the other end of the world.
President Cinch massages a temple with her hoof, sitting as calmly as possible, and asks a simple question: “Who, exactly, is responsible for this?”
Three hooves point immediately to the Princess, the smaller ones still shaking. Cinch raises an eyebrow at the Princess of Friendship.
Barely looking up from her seat, Twilight mutters, “The boxes started it.”
Monday, apparently, had been a serious disaster for the mail office. Something about sorting and fights and… well, to be honest I didn’t really care. As long as there wasn’t any permanent damage and I still got what little mail actually came to me, it’s fine.
Having Twilight hover over my shoulder while I do my job, however, is not. “You’re hovering.”
I hear uncomfortable shuffling behind me. “Sorry, Sugarcoat, it’s just… the filing system you’re using-”
“Is an office-wide institution that has kept us functioning since you established this department. A filing system, if I remember correctly, that you created,” I add, not turning around.
She coughs loudly. “Yes, well, I’ve made significant strides in alphanumeric sorting and category condensation in the last few years and-”
“-and I don’t really care that much because implementing a new filing system would also have to be an office-wide institution which would put us even farther behind in our work than you seem to think we are, and the time we could hypothetically make up with the possibly more efficient system would take so long to cover the time we lost that it would be nigh incidental. Now please, Dr. Sweet is double-booked multiple times this month and I would very much like to get this sorted before patients start calling my crying again,” I explain.
Twilight walks around the desk to sit opposite me, making sure she’s in my field of vision. “Double-booked? Isn’t that seriously irresponsible?”
I feel a sigh escape the cage of my ribs like a scene out of Shawshank Redemption. “No, it’s because she’s wildly popular. She’s the most successful therapist we have, and so has a lot of repeat business. In fact, compared to some of the other therapists we have, she’s basically the entire department. She’s double booked because she takes all calls herself, and makes a valiant attempt to accommodate everypony you guys keep sending our way. Unfortunately, this involves making promises before she even gets to look at the schedule, which falls to me to clean up.”
She has the courtesy to look sheepish. “I- sorry. So… can I help?”
“Yes. Be quiet.”
She looks slightly offended, but complies. From what I understand, she’s still not used to the actual ‘Princess’ part of her job. “Oh, ok.”
I work in quiet for a few minutes, until I’m interrupted by office post. Zest still has the bruises from yesterday, which Twilight gives her an apologetic look about. Zest scurries away rather quickly, and without a word. Rather unlike her, but I guess a rampaging princess in your workplace can humble most anypony. I sort through the mail rather quickly, there only being a few pieces, most of which are in poor condition. Surprisingly, there’s another letter from me. Inter-office post again.
It’s from Zest, taking advantage of her position to deliver what amounts to a text message on office stationary.
Sugar
Don’t make Sparklewings mad. She scary.
Zest
I roll my eyes, throwing the lot into the trash can, and return to my work.
After a few minutes, I realize the Princess has been uncharacteristically quiet, yet I can hear more paper shuffling than I’m actually doing. I look up to see her perusing some files she’d brought with her when we’d started today. Normally, it wouldn’t be distracting, but the one she has open right now just happens to have my picture clipped to it.
“Anything interesting, Princess?” I deadpan. It’s not exactly polite to peruse somepony’s employee file in front of them.
She jumps a little in surprise, then looks up at me with a rather curious expression. “Well, your work history looks fine, but there are some… entries here that worry me.”
I raise a much-practiced eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Well, it’s… reports from other staff members. A therapist last week said you made her cry-”
“It’s not my fault her manestyle was horrible.”
“-and a janitor who claims to have locked himself in a closet because he ‘feared for his safety’-”
“All I did was relay a message from one of our clients about how he’d offended them and should await his slow, agonizing demise in the darkest corners of his life. Not my words.”
“-and a report from one of your retrieval specialists-” fancy name for bounty hunters “-who say you tipped off their mark?”
I roll my eyes. That one was from Indigo. “I did not tip off her mark, she[/i[ tipped off her mark. All I did was send her a text message, which she would not have received had she been following protocol and left her phone in the office, that she thought was funny, and she laughed so hard the guy she was staking out ran away.”
Twilight looks back over my file with some concern. “It just seems to me that most of your… complaints seem to stem from the fact that you’re, well, brutally honest.”
Another sigh makes a jailbreak. I push some paperwork to the side, making room for me to lean on my desk so I can address the alicorn properly. “Princess Twilight, I understand that you’ve spent most of your life either in Ponyville, or under the wing of the ruler of Equestria. I can understand how you’ve been raised to believe that being polite, telling a white lie here and there, and in general being nice can get you pretty far. It might actually do just that for you, I don’t know. But we’re in Manehatten. DO you know what being nice gets you in Manehatten? Run over. Stomped on. Ignored. Do you know what telling lies gets you? Arrested. Fired. Also ignored. The city isn’t a small, warm community where everypony knows everypony and we’re all good friends who break into song at random. The city is a living, breathing thing where each pony is a cell that does it’s job and if it doesn’t, it dies. The city cleanses itself of any piece too weak or to dirty to function correctly. You have to be either crazy, brutal, or extremely talented to work and live here. I, unfortunately, am not crazy, nor do I have some outstanding talent that makes me super rich doing something I love where I can just buy my way into anything I want and make ponies go away with a wave of a bit bag. My special talent is seeing the truth for what it is, and bringing it to light. What other ponies do with it is their problem entirely, not mine.”
It surprises me a little when I finish my rant to find the Princess paying rapt attention and considering me rather seriously. “I hadn’t thought about that, Sugarcoat. I apologize. I’ve only ever been to the city once or twice, so I hadn’t considered that the few unpleasant experiences I’d had in the past were, well, the norm. But if you’re so miserable, why do you live here?”
Another raised eyebrow. “When did I say I was miserable? The city- this city, is my home. It’s the perfect place for somepony like me, because the short, sharp attitude gets me exactly where I want- left alone, with only a few friends that I actually trust, instead of a whole bunch of fake ones waiting to take advantage. I am, actually, happy here.”
“Then why don’t you smile more?” She asks, genuinely curious.
“Wrinkles,” I answer simply. An answer I’ve had at the ready for years, amidst a lot of ‘You should smile mores’ and ‘Why so sad’s?
She gives a hesitant nod, and goes back to reading her file. After a few minutes of quiet, wherein I actually get some work done, she pipes up, “Sexual harassment? Seriously?!”
Normally, I don’t take ponies out with me when I’m tracking a jumper. Unfortunately, this particular tagalong outranks everypony ever, so I’m stuck.
“Why are we just waiting here? We’ve been here for an hour, Indigo!” Twilight whines.
I put my binoculars down and sigh to the heavens, my eyes rolling to the sky. I flip the hood down on the jacket I’m wearing and glare at my ‘partner’. “Aaauuuughh. Princess, it’s called a stake-out. I don’t know where this jumper goes all day, but I do know that she comes back to this house all the time. So I have to wait here until she returns, so I can force this fat stack of legal papers down her gullet, and tell my boss that she has, in fact, been served.”
“Wait, I thought we were here to arrest her,” Twilight mused.
I lift my binoculars back to my eyes, and stare out over the large hedge we’re hiding behind. “No, Princess, you’re thinking of bounty hunting. That’s where you track down criminals who have jumped bail and need to be dragged before the courts. My job is to track down guys and gals who have been skipping on their mandated therapy, haven’t reported to their parole officers, or who we think might be relapsing into previous, usually felonies, behavior. I serve them paperwork, report their location to the guards, and in some, really extreme cases, I slap a tracking bracelet or an inhibitor ring on their ugly mugs. We may be legally defined as a branch of the guards, but they don’t send out just some random pegasus to drag in somepony or some griffin who’s, I don’t know, tried to take over the world.”
Twilight nods sagely, making a few notes in this little notebook she has. “So wait, what good does just handing them some legal documents do? Coudln’t they just dispose of it and say they never got it, or...”
“There’s a Geas spell on the paperwork.”
She gasps, really loudly. “A Geas spell?! Bu those are illegal!”
I roll my eyes again and shush her. “Will you keep it down! And no, they’re not! Only civilians aren’t allowed to use them. If you’re high enough rank in the guard they give you access to all kinds of nasty spellwork. You should see the kinds of magical shenanigans the royal dungeons have on them.”
Twilight quiets down, but looks extremely uncomfortable. “But, what’s to stop somepony from Gaesing a parolee off a cliff, or something?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “What the Tartarus kind of ponies do you think we have working for us? We’re a branch of the guard. Everypony is vetted a bajillion times before we even interview them! We’re not gonna hire somepony who’s just gonna off all our jumpers because they feel like it!” I lift my binoculars back to my eyes, just in time to see my target opening her front door. “Shhhh! She’s here! Now stay here, I gotta do my job!”
I tuck the paperwork under a wing, and pull the hood of my jacket over my head. Trotting up the front steps, I cough quietly. “Excuse me, miss? I’m sorry to bother you,” I start, keeping my head low. My mane drops in front of my face, obscuring it slightly. “I was wondering if you had time to sign this petition...”
She doesn’t even turn around. “Piss off, will ya? I got bigger things to worry about than some charity case or ‘savin’ the birds’ or whatever.”
“Actually, it’s a petition to relax the restrictions on parolees, and to make tracking bracelets illegal,” I lie through my teeth.
She whips around. This one’s not particularly smart. “Wait, seriously? Hells yeah! Gimme that!”
I slap the paperwork into her outstretched hoof, and the documents glow as the Geas activates. I flip my hood back and laugh at her. “HA! Served, lady! See you in therapy next Monday!”
“Wha- buh- DAMMIT ZAP!” she growls, as she looks at the paperwork with venomous disdain.
I laugh my way back down the stairs, and tap Twilight on the shoulder as I march past. “Come on, Princess, there’s just one more and we’re done for the day!”
------------------------
I step into the Cages, halfheartedly patting the last little flame on my now-charcoal mane out with a wing. I’m so past angry I don’t even think I have an expression for it, so my face is just a dour frown.
Twilight trots in behind me. “I’m sorry! I had no idea it would explode!”
Not bothering to turn around, I bark over my shoulder, “What did you THINK would happen? KITTENS?! It was a barrel of sodium! Didn’t you pay attention in chemistry?!”
“They don’t teach chemistry at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns! I learned alchemy!”
I wheel around on her. “Well, here’s your first three lessons, princess. Number one: sodium, potassium, and other heavily alkali metals explode in water!. Number two: magnesium plus friction equals FIRE. Number three: PEGASI ARE FLAMMABLE!."
“I said I was sorry! Is there anything I can do to help?”
I throw myself onto a bench near the lockers. “Yeah, please put out the fire on my tail. Also, please forget that I just yelled at a princess?” I add hopefully.
She smiles sheepishly, and I hear the hum of magic behind me. “Already forgotten. Now hold on, this water spell will just take a second...”
“Princess Twilight, please. I have work to do,” I state firmly, glaring across the conference room table at the purple alicorn. Who, by the way, hasn’t looked up from her notes since we sat down.
She holds a wing up, shushing me. “Just a second.” Three minutes later, she finally looks at me. “Ok, Sour Sweet. I called you here because, thanks to doctor/patient confidentiality, I’m not permitted to sit in on your appointments with clients.”
“Of which I have a very large number to do today.”
She dismisses my argument with a wave of her hoof. I feel an aneurysm coming on. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I rescheduled your next few appointments with some other therapists who had surprisingly sparse schedules,” she says in a cheerful tone. I think she thinks she’s being helpful.
She’s NOT. “You did what?!”
Giving me a surprisingly stern look, she explains, “Having founded this department, I am technically your superior. Altering your schedule is well within my purview.”
There’s this little blood vessel in the back of my neck that’s being rather worrisome right now. “Princess, while I understand your authority here, I don’t think you understand the mindset of some of my clients. And the fact that there is a reason most of those schedules are so sparse.”
She huffs. “I seriously doubt a small change in schedule is going to affect your clients so thoroughly, Doctor Sweet.”
I rub my forehead with a wingtip. I can feel my pulse at the nape of my neck, now. “Princess Twilight, will all due respect, you send us some of the most disturbed, unstable, and maladjusted citizens in all of Equestria. We had to be made into a detachment of the Royal Guard just to keep these folks in line. One of our patients tried to break reality because her friend went to school before she did. These are the kinds of ponies, griffins, dragons, and draconequi, which I didn’t know there were more than one of until you teleported into my office, whose entire lives have come to revolve around the stability and regiment of having a very set schedule with the same ponies every week. Sometimes, every day. So I would think that the Princess who put them in this mess to begin with calling and telling them they can’t see the therapist that 90% of them requested would run the risk of setting at least one of them off. Need I remind you they’re all criminals?!”
She blinks at me like a deer in the headlights. “Oh… well, I mean, it’s already done now, so there’s not much we can-”
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”
“Oh, buck me,” I groan, recognizing the voice instantly.
A large volume of smoke fills the room, as a thunderous female voice rattles the glass in the windows. “How DARE you usurp Trixie’s therapist for your own selfish ends! Has Trixie not suffered enough at the hands of ‘Princess’ Twilight?!” The smoke clears, and a very familiar blue unicorn in hat and cape is standing on the table. “You shall pay for this grievance, you little-”
“Trixie,” I say simply, before the two of them can get into it. The magician turns around to see me staring at her. I must have my disapproving face on because she dons a rather embarrassed expression. “Oh! Doctor Sweet, I didn’t-”
“What have I told you about interrupting?” I cross my arms and lean back in my chair at her. “Come here.”
She steps down off the table and trots slowly over to me, stopping at the arm of my chair. “Trixie… is sorry.”
I soften my expression a little, and curl a wing around her head. “It’s ok. I know we were supposed to have an appointment today. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“But you didn’t!” Trixie protests. “SHE stole you!” she exclaims, pointing an accusing hoof at Twilight.
“But I didn’t-” Twilight starts.
“SHH!” I hush the Princess. Her mouth closes almost reflexively, and she looks surprised at herself. I look back at the sad-looking magician. “It’s ok, she’s just new here. She doesn’t know.”
“But, but… she’s always stealing Trixie’s stuff! She stole my fans, and then my Alicorn Amulet, and she’s been trying to steal my friend Starlight, and….”
Twilight opens her mouth to protest, but closes it again when I glare at her. “It’s ok, this is a safe place. We can take this to my office.” Trixie sniffs, and nods, following me out of the room. I turn back to Twilight. “You coming?”
Twilight jumps, then nods, gathering all her paperwork.
------------------------
It’s half an hour later, and I now remember why I don’t do group therapy anymore.
“I’m so-so-sorry!” Twilight cries, bawling into Trixie’s shoulder. “I just wanted to he-he-help!”
“Trixie knows!” the other mare bellows, crying just as hard. They’re both hugging each other really hard, tangled up on my couch and crying like someone died. Which might still happen. “Trixie is ju-just jealous! WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
The vein in the back of my neck is acting up again, and I wonder to myself exactly how painful an aneurysm would be. Might be worth it.
“Where are we going?” I feel a wide grin cross my face as I think about the answer. Little Miss Book Horse wants to follow me around all day? Fine. Let’s see her do just that.
“Oh, don’t worry. You like school, right?”
Her eyes widen excitedly. “I LOVE school! Learning is the best! So many books!”
Oh my god she’s five. “Well, we’re going to class. I take it every Friday as part of my on-the-job training.”
She claps her hooves. “Yay! Finally, something I LIKE!”
---------------
“IRON WILL SEES WE HAVE SOME NEW MAGGOTS IN CLASS TODAY!”
I can almost hear Princess Twilight’s pupils shrink as she stares at the big, beefy, muscular… the minotaur. Right. My martial arts instructor, Iron Will.
“WHAT IS YOUR NAME, MAGGOT?!”
Twilight shrinks in on herself, our instructors raw imposing physique and overbearingly loud personality seemingly erasing the fact that she’s a Princess right out of her head. Or maybe it’s just her ingrained response to teachers everywhere. Either way I’m trying really hard not to laugh. He’ll yell at me if I do. Oh Celestia, the yelling…
“Um… Twilight Sparkle?” she says in a small voice.
Iron Will scoffs. “SPARKLE?! THAT’S A SISSY NAME! FROM NOW ON YOUR NAME IS… Sunny Flare help me out here,” he adds, beckoning me with a hand to come up with an answer.
I think for a second. “Starbomb?”
“STARBOMB! FROM NOW ON YOUR NAME IS STARBOMB, IS IRON WILL CLEAR?!”
“...yes?” she squeaks.
“IRON WILL CAN’T HEAR YOU! WHEN PONIES ARE TOO QUIET IRON WILL STARTS A RIOT! WHAT IS YOUR NEW NAME?!” he bellows, inches from her face.
“Starbomb, sir!” she barks, sitting up straight.
I love this class so much.
Iron Will marches back to the front of the class, and I shamelessly stare at his glutes while he walks. Dear Celestia, just like, do me already. “ALLLLLRIGHT!” he yells to the entire class. Besides the Princess and myself, there’s a couple rows of ponies and griffons. Indigo is in the front row, stoked as always. She glances back at me in the split second Iron Will can’t see her, and we trade smiles. “IRON WILL WANTS TO SEE SOME PUSHUPS! IF YOU GOT WINGS, YOU DO WING-UPS. IF YOU GOT MAGIC, THEN TOUGH LUCK, TOOTSY! WE WORK ON MUSCLES IN THIS ROOM!”
I go about my pushups with practiced ease, noticing yet again the ridiculous pace Indigo sets for herself. Twilight, however, looks like she’s having trouble. She’s doing the wing-ups ok, but nowhere near as fast as she should. Especially since-
“STARBOMB!”
That.
“Yes, sir?!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“W-wing-ups, sir!” she pants.
“THOSE AREN’T WING-UPS! IRON WILL WANTS TO SEE YOU MOVE THE GROUND!”
He stomps away, after she increases her pace just the tiniest bit, off to scold somepony else. “Oh… oh my Celestia… he’s worse than Rainbow Dash...”
“He’s the best,” I pant, upping my pace. If Twilight catches up to me Iron Will would just yell at us both. Not that I’d mind, but Indigo would never let me hear the end of it.
“SOLAR FLARE!”
“Yes SIR!” I bark. Indigo picked my name. I’d hate it if I didn’t love it so much.
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! DID I SAY YOU COULD TALK?!”
“Just talking about how nice your ass is, sir!”
Twilight splutters, almost slipping on her wing. Iron Will doesn’t notice. “GOOD! IRON WILL WORKS HARD FOR THESE GLUTES!”
Oh Celestia, I know. “Sir, yes you DO, sir!”
---------------------------
An hour an a half later, Twilight, Indigo and I are all resting in the locker room. Some of us more than others.
“Oh… my stars… so much… aching...” Twilight pants from the bench she’s splayed out on.
Indigo scoffs. “Pffft…. You had plenty of moxy when we were runnin’ from that fire, didn’t you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Fire?”
“Said… I was…. Sorry...”
Indigo ignores her. “Yeah, the Princess here knocked a barrel of potassium powder into a puddle.”
I flinch. “Didn’t… didn’t you take chemistry in school?!”
“Took… alchemy… potassium… no… magical… applica… tions...” she rolls over, somehow staying on the bench, so that she’s lying on her back. Her chest heaves with the effort of her labored breathing. “So… many… laps…”
“Yeah, whatever,” Indigo says dismissively. “Speaking of laps,” she adds, smirking at me. “When are you gonna go a few rounds with Iron Will, huh?”
My eyes glaze over at the idea. “Mmm… well, as long as he’s my instructor we could get fired for that, but I’m only going to be in his class for another month, so… probably the day after I leave.”
I would swear you could cut the tension in this room with a knife. Twilight had piled us all into that conference room we’d used on Monday, twice, I reminded myself. I still had papercuts all over my everywhere. It had taken me a while to clean up the mess in the mailroom, that was fur sure. I’d ended up pulling overtime twice this week just to make up for the delays.
At least my paycheck would be super sweet. Even if it might be my last one.
“And done!” Twilight announced. I looked in time to see her drop her pen on the table and close her file folder with a flourish. I grimaced, an expression all my friends seemed to share. With Sunny and Sour on either side of me, and Sugar and Zap to the far right, we all looked like a police lineup in office chairs. Twilight and Cinch sat across from us like a corporate-themed ‘Good Cop Bad Cop’.
“Now, Princess Twilight, I would like to address-” Cinch starts, before Twilight cuts her off. I’ve never seen anypony do that before. Though I guess if there’s somepony who can it’s a freakin’ Princess.
“A-ba-buh!” Twilight tuts, shaking a wingtip disapprovingly. “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Cinch. I’ve already reached my conclusions.” She looked to each of us one at a time, while Cinch just looked ready to explode. She stared at me for a moment. “Your office is barely organized.” She turned to Sugarcoat. “Slightly archaic.” Then Sunny. “Overly demanding.” Indigo. “Barely legal.” And finally, Sour Sweet. “And staffed and attended by ponies and others I can only generously refer to as ‘unstable’. If your employees,” she stresses the word with a meaningful glance at Cinch, “Would like to make a case for themselves, I would like to hear it before I give you all my final verdict.”
We all start talking at once, which is just a bunch of noise until Twilight shushes us. “Bah-ah-ah! One at a time!” She pans her gaze across the lineup. “Sugarcoat. You first.”
“I think your judgment is wildly off base.”
Twilight blinks, waiting for Sugar to say more. When she doesn’t, the Princess asks, “Excuse me?”
“Your judgment. It’s terribly skewed. You introduced yourself as a variable in your own experiment, thus corrupting the findings. Our work days would have been drastically different without your presence. Lemon Zest wouldn’t have had to put in overtime if you hadn’t made a mess of the mailroom. I wouldn’t be behind in my desk work if you hadn’t interrupted me every ten minutes. Indogo wouldn’t have caught fire if you hadn’t been an unnecessary safety risk in the field. Sour Sweet wouldn’t be dealing with distressed clients and a horrible schedule backlog if you hadn’t changed it for her. Sunny Flare… ok she’d basically be doing what she’s already doing. But your presence disrupted our work in such a way as to provide inaccurate and wildly skewed evidence to support your verdict,” Sugarcoat explained. At least, I think I got it all. She talks quickly.
The Princess’s ear twitches, but her smile remains. Which is kind of scary. “So what your saying is that had I kept myself out of my observations entirely, you would have performed better,” she says. Doesn’t sound like a question.
“Yes.”
The smile brightens by like a hojillion kilowatts. “Perfect!” Twilight declares, picking up her pen again and scribbling furiously. After a few seconds, she looks up expectantly. “Anypony else?”
Indigo raises her hoof, but doesn’t actually wait to be called on. “You’re gonna cover our medical, right? I mean, I’m still partially exploded and Lemon Zest looks like a Nightmare Before Hearth’s Warming toy.”
I open my mouth to protest, but decide against it when I feel the cuts on my face twinge in pain from the movement.
Our auditor’s smile changes to a sheepish grin. “Um, yes. Your medical expenses will be covered by the Royal Treasury.”
Zap sits back in her chair with a ‘hmph’. “Good.”
Looking around at the rest of us expectantly, and not finding any other protests or arguments (given Sugarcoat’s succinct summary of the week), Twilight claps her hooves. “Right! Now, for my report. I’ve found that, while your filing systems are slightly outdated, and in some cases rarely used or even ignored, this does not impede your progress. Your tendency to overbook your therapists shows considerable concern for your client’s preferences. Your on-the-job-training,” she winces and rolls a shoulder, “Is more than sufficient to keep your employees in shape. And the lot of you seem to have a bit of a… rogue’s gallery air about you that makes you uniquely qualified to this line of work. So all in all, I’d say my investigation was a success!”
This time Cinch finally gets a turn to talk. “What, exactly, do you mean, Princess? I was under the impression you were here to audit us in regards to the continued operation of this office?”
Sparkle raises an eyebrow at our boss. “What? Why would I do that? I have no intention of putting this office in danger, much less finding a way to shut id down myself. Where the Tartarus would I send all the whack-a-doodles I encounter on a monthly basis if I did? No, no, no. I came here to determine whether your office was fit to handle a relatively… complicated clientele.”
Sour Sweet rolls her eyes. “And Discord isn’t complicated?”
“Well, yes, he is. But he’s also got friends outside this office now, as do some of the other clients I send you. Unfortunately, one of those friends happens to be a giant pain in my flank with a penchant for annoying literally everypony he comes into contact with,” she glares off into space, her eyes narrowing in frustration. “But that’s another story. No, the new… clients I intend to send your way are of that rare group of… ponies genuinely interested in reform. Unfortunately they’re so difficult to deal with that their current environment is almost counter-productive to that end. So I decided to see if this place would be a better fit. And honestly, Sugarcoat,” the unicorn raises an eyebrow as the Princess addresses her. “Even without your argument, I would have considered this office the perfect environment for them.”
Sugar’s eyes go wide. “That is an… alarming endorsement.”
Sparkle shrugs. “Well, they’re an alarming group. Speaking of which, I should probably introduce you all. Come on in, girls!”
The conference door opens, and three of the weirdest-looking mares I’ve ever seen walk in. The first is a bright blue pegasus with a long mane or blue and darker blue hair, tied back so that it arcs over her shoulders. She looks around the room with a bright, kid-like smile. The second is a really violent-looking earth pony with a purple coat and a similarly striped mane, in purple and darker purple, done up in pigtails. She’s wearing a lot of spikes. And a really nasty glare.
The last one is a bright orange unicorn with, WOW that is a lot of hair. Just like, a LOT of hair. Her mane is this big poofy orange THING somehow tamed into wavy locks across her back. She’s a bit… curvier than the other two, and is looking at all of us like she’s deciding who to flirt with first. She sees me staring and gives me a wink, licking her lips. I feel my eye twitch.
I notice they’ve all got musical cutie marks, with like hearts and stuff. And they’re all actually wearing spikes, just in their manes. Purple violent chick is the only one wearing them anywhere else. Well, really, everywhere else. Her collar, her hooves, her tail. I wouldn’t be surprised if her teeth were like, filed down.
Twilight looks between the newcomers and the rest of us expectantly, and says with what looks like a really forced grin, in an obviously forced cheerful voice, “Everypony, these are the Dazzlings!”
Of the three new natural disasters that just walked into the room, the one that worries me most is the pegasus. This purple mare seems nice and violent, which we deal with all of the time. That’s why we have ponies like Sunny Flare and Indigo on staff. The orange one seems to think we’re either an all-you-can-’eat’ buffet, or is trying to think of how to seduce her way out of this. Also not unusual.
But nopony, and I mean nopony, ever looks excited to be here. And the blue one, who Twilight has introduced as Sonata Dusk, is smiling for all the world like she just walked into a toy store. Either she’s in for a very disappointing day, or we’re all in for a lot of trouble.
“..and this is Adagio Dazzle,” Twilight finishes, just as I tune back in. I have a tendency to ignore long-winded speeches, and yet somehow retain all of the information. I found it a very useful skill back in college. More so than my Fine Arts Degree, I’ll tell you that. The princess looks around the table expectantly, waiting for either a response, or some sort of group interaction.
“Question,” I say, putting my hoof in the air.
“Um… yes, Sugarcoat?” Twilight says tentatively. My coworkers exchange amused glances that they don’t think I notice.
“Why do you keep calling it the Friendship Laser if it doesn’t actually work?” I ask.
The look on her face is something akin to impressionistic art. “Ex-excuse me?”
“Well, to be more accurate, it only seems to work about half the time” I elaborate. “The entire point of a Friendship Laser, to me, would be to inspire its… target with the desire to be friendly, benevolent, and give up their evil ways. So far that’s only worked on two of your enemies. Well, I assume two, since one of them is in another dimension. The other is Princess Luna, so bonus points there. Besides those two, all the laser seems to do is somehow defeat the enemy in the most efficient way available. Like, turning someone to stone, ripping all of the magic out of their body and casting them to Tartarus, or, in the case of these ‘Sirens’, rob them of their immortality and natural singing ability and leave them weak and mortal in a rather hostile environment. That’s not very Friendship of you.”
My explanation is met with a mixture of amusement, indignation, and exasperation. All of which I’m used to in varying degrees.
Adagio is the first to speak up. “Oh my, miss ‘Princess of Friendship’, she seems to have a point. How could you so callously cast us out into the big bad world with nothing to survive on but our wits and guile after so brutally defeating us in public like that?” She holds a hoof to her forehead in melodramatic fashion. Her acting skills are rather sharp, I admit. Plus she is rather attractive.
“Yeah, that’s so not ‘Friendship’ of you,” drawls Aria Blaze, not bothering with the melodrama. She instead settles for a mocking sneer and a hair flip.
Sonata throws her arms around her unicorn sister, and starts crying. Like actually crying. “But I thought she said we were frie-he-hends!”
Twilight looks to me, then to the siren sisters, and facehoofs rather impressively. “Sonata, we… are friends,” she says in a rather pained voice.
The pegasus gives an overdramatic sniffle and asks, “Then why do you sound so mad?”
The alicorn points a hoof at me. “I’m mad at her.”
“That’s fair,” I admit.
Twilight sighs and levels her gaze at the newcomers. “Alright, look. You lot are here because somepony somewhere needs to teach you lot how to survive in the real world without, you know, brainwashing everypony into doing what you want. Do I expect you all to come out the other side of this… mad science experiment being all goody-two-shoes? No. No I do not. What I do expect is for you three girls, who are older than almost everypony I know and I know the diarchy, to learn how to shoulder some responsibility, get jobs, NOT be criminals, and overall function in society like the quote unquote normal ponies you now are. OK?”
Her rant is met with varying degrees of disinterest. Sonata seems to still be upset, Aria couldn’t care less, and Adagio is doing that thing where you pay perfect attention to somepony but purposefully forget what they’re saying as they’re saying it just to make them mad. I do that last one a lot. “Sure thing, Princess,” says Adagio, with what I would assume on anypony else to be false cheer. On her it’s more like… sadistic glee.
“I don’t think they actually intend to do anything you just said, actually,” I point out.
Twilight’s eyebrow twitches. “Yes, Sugarcoat, I had gathered that much,” she growls through gritted teeth, not actually looking at me. “Look, can you three just… try not to commit any crimes for a few days while we do this thing? I got you a decent hotel room in the city just so you could try for a fresh start here. As much as you three seem bound and determined to do exactly NOT THIS,” she waves a hoof in our general direction, “I really do want you to succeed. I know what it’s like to be the fish out of water.”
Lemon Zest tries and fails to suppress a laugh. “Snrk, ‘fish out of water’. Get it? Cause they like, used to be fish ponies?”
Sour Sweet’s head hits the desk at superluminal speed. “OH MY GOD, ZEST.”
Adagio looks at this interaction with a worried expression. “Um...”
“RIGHT!” Twilight exclaims, much louder than necessary. The whole room jumps in response. “I’ve dropped you off, made introductions, and now I’m going to go do something… away. Bye!” She teleports out of the room with a flourish and one last eye-twitch, leaving the rest of us to a somewhat awkward silence.
Aria , to my surprise, is the first to talk. “So like, what do you girls even do anyway? I mean, I know this is some kind of reformation program, but what do you,” she points to us all individually, “actually do here?”
Sunny just kind of glares at her. “Out jobs. Which, by the way, all fall under the grace of the Royal Guard. Which means we’re allowed to use non-lethal force at will, and lethal force if necessary.”
“Well, ‘at will’ is pushing it a bit,” I correct her. “But yes, we’re all empowered by the crown to use physical force when necessary. Or, in Sunny’s case, when convenient.”
Aria’s eyes narrow. “Is that a threat?”
“Actually, no,” Zest chimes in. “Sunny’s really, really specific with her threats. And creative. And like, Sugarcoat doesn’t threaten ponies. She just talks a lot.”
“And sleeps with half my office,” Sour Sweet grumbles, her face still trying to fuse with the furniture.
“Only one-third,” I correct. “Your office is rather small, anyway, so that hardly counts.”
Adagio seems rather interested in the conversation, all of a sudden.
Most of my job is a pain in the ass. I get to spend my day filling out forms and yelling at folk, with nothing but a room of stupid faces for scenery. Then we get to the part of my job that straight up sucks feathers, the intake interviews. Yes, this is my reponsibility.
What it boils down to is me asking them a bunch of questions about what they did, what kind of dumbass they are, and whether or not they’re a threat to the ponies around them. None of which I particularly enjoy the answers to.
My first interview today is with the S&M poster pony, Aria Blaze. Either she’s trying to hard, or she’s not trying hard enough. Neither of which impress me much. The interview room is a bit cozier than the rest of the office, with a lounge chair on one side, a loveseat on the other, and various bookcases along the wall. There’s a desk, too, but it’s mostly just a depository for paper crap.
The purple pincushion looks about as happy to be here as I am. I short, this is now the grumpiest place in the building, and we have holding cells.
“Right, name?” I ask shortly. Nopony said I had to be nice.
She raised an eyebrow in an expression that obviously questioned my intelligence. “I already told you my name, what’re you, stupid?”
“Ok. What’re You, Stupid. Got it,” I remark, writing it in. I always use pencil for the actual interview in case they try to be a smartass about it.
“No, that’s not- Fine! My name is Aria Blaze! Sweet Discord, you’re a pain in the ass,” she growls, rolling onto her back.
“Species?”
She gives me another look. “Are you just gonna read all the fuckin’ questions on that thing one by one to annoy me, or are you really so dense you can’t answer them yourself?”
I smile viciously. “Species?”
Again with the eye rolling and bitching. “Sweet mother of god, I’m an ‘Earth Pony’,” she says with no lack of sarcasm. “I mean, how do these asshats even get anything done? At least the pegasi can fuckin’ fly!”
Oh yay, she’s one of those. “Gender?”
In a move that should surprise me, but doesn’t (mainly given the number of times it’s happened in this office), she shoves her butt in my face and lifts her tail. “Gee I fuckin’ wonder!”
“Little bitch, got it,” I say sweetly. Well, as much as I can. Sour Sweet’s much better at feigning politeness.
“Oh you did not just-”
“Crime?”
She fumes for a second at being cut off. Then she throws herself back on the couch and goes off, “Well, we got kicked outta Equestria because Starswirl the Pussified decided we weren’t allowed to ‘make ponies feel bad and fight anymore’, whatever that means. So then we spent like a thousand years in humanland doin’ our thing, getting people to fight, bitch, moan, and all but kill each other- actually scratch that a couple people did kill each other- until the Twenty-First Century came around in that world and suddenly it’s all ‘safe spaces’ and ‘participation trophies’ and all our meal tickets dried up because we weren’t ‘PC’ enough. God, it was like living in Equestria again, but with more entitlement and a lot less food. So we found ourselves some Equestrian magic and tried to drink up enough to make our way back home with all our powers again, till we got Rainbow Rape Lasered into being… mortals,” she shuddered.
I write all of this down with the well-earned practice of dictating villainous rants. “Right. So why do you want to be reformed?”
She rolls back over onto her stomach lazily, and grunts something into the couch cushion.
“What?”
She props her head up. “I said… cause my sisters want me to. Sonata’s all about being the good girl now, since everybody just seems to hate us on principle. I mean, I’m used to it, but at least we could make them think they liked us. She’s… not used to all that hostility being directed at her, and she keeps going on and on about how bad she feels. And Adagio… well, Adagio was always about the positive attention. I mean sure, she could drive a guy to murder just like the rest of us, but she preferred having people worship and adore her. So now she’s trying to be all nice and sexy and stuff, without, y’know, inciting riots. Or wars. And they’re both on my case that we gotta do this ‘as a family’ and… and I don’t want them to leave me behind.”
My eyebrows say hello to my bangs for a second before returning to their post. “That was… surprisingly nonviolent. You know, besides the war and riots part.”
She laughs, a nostalgic expression crossing her features. “Yeah, I do kinda miss that. But now the humans have these things called ‘video games’ and I can blow shit up and kill people on TV without actually hurting anyone. It’s surprisingly cathartic. Plus everyone leaves me alone now. It’s almost… enjoyable.” She groans and flops onto her back again. “And apparently I gotta be a decent person so that when we all become adults I can keep doing all that and still hold down a ‘job’. Mortality sucks ass.”
“Yes, yes it does. Now, next question...”
--------------------------
The rest of Aria’s interview was rather easy, once she started actually answering the questions properly. I ushered her out of the office, and leaned my head out the door. “Next!”
I’m barely back to my chair before Cheesy Poof walks through the door and stretches herself out on the couch languidly. It’s like she’s expecting to be photographed for a porn magazine. Sugarcoat’s gonna love this chick.
“Name?”
“Oh honey, call me whatever you want,” she purrs.
“Cheesy Poof, got it,” I remark as I scribble the name down.
Her eyes widen as she frowns. “Ex-excuse me?”
“Species?”
She waves a hoof, sitting up straight and addressing me seriously. “No, wait, go back,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Ok, my name is Adagio Dazzle. I’m a unicorn. Now. I mean, I used to be a siren.”
“Ok,” I mutter. “Adagio Dazzle, unicorn. Sex?” I can’t help myself. I know she’s just gonna answer-
“Female.”
-wait what?
She raises an eyebrow at me. “What, did you expect me to say something like ‘Yes, please?’ Honey that joke is older than I am, and that’s saying a lot.”
Oh good she’s not stupid. “Fair enough. Ok, crimes?”
She thinks for a moment. “Before or after our banishment?”
“Yes.”
Adagio gives me an amused grin. “Oh, honey, I don’t think you have the time-”
I raise a hoof to cut her off. “I did Discord’s intake interview.”
Her eyebrows almost leave her face. “Oh. Well, ok then. Let’s see,” she start tapping her chin, counting them off, “Extortion, prostitution, accessory to murder, treason, treason, I think some more treason, assisted suicide, more prostitution, attempted matricide, slavery, slave trading, assault and battery, inciting a riot -multiple counts- prostitution again, attempted murder...” she trails off, watching me write.
It takes me maybe a second to catch up. “Is that all?”
She chuckles, “Oh honey, that’s pre-banishment. Now then, where was I? Oh yes, murder, prostitution some more, assassination, sodomy -which technically isn’t a crime anymore but it was back then, humans are weird- regicide, more murder, slavery when that became illegal, murder again, still more prostitution, violent protest, a few counts of assaulting an officer, lots of petty theft, and then we tried to brainwash a whole school in an attempt to regain our Equestrian magic and return home to our true forms.”
I scribble the last few notes into the proper categories. “Is that all?”
“That I can remember,” she says thoughtfully. “I doubt all of my arrest records even exist anymore.”
“Ok then,” I say, tapping my clipboard with a sigh. “And why do you want to be reformed?”
She gives me an amazingly sultry look. I have to remind myself I’m straight for a second. “Because you can catch more flies with honey, darling,” she purrs again.
I really have no problem believing all the prostitution charges now.
-----------------------------
Escorting Adagio out of my office at speed is more for my own sake than hers, as I fan myself with my own clipboard. She gives me a steamy look as she leaves, and I avoid eye contact. “Sonata!” I call, my voice cracking.
I have to stop myself watching her walk away as the pegasus zips into my office and tackles the couch cushions. Taking my own seat, I pull out another clipboard, sliding Dazzle’s into a tray on the wall. “Right, name?”
“Sonata Dusk,” she says firmly. She seems to be taking this seriously. Even cheerfully. Lemon was right, there’s something off about this girl.
“Species?”
She looks at her wings. “Well, I guess I’m a pegasus now, cause I used to be a siren, then a human. It gets all kinds of confusing.”
The sound of my pen fills the short silence. “Pegasus, ok. Gender?”
“Female,” she answers politely.
This should be pretty easy, actually. “Crimes?”
She takes a deep breath-
-----------------------
The cold wood of the bar feels great against my forehead, as my glass of whiskey shakes slightly in my telekinetic grip. I pull my head up just long enough to drain it, then set it down next to its fallen comrades. “Bartender!” I cry, waving my hoof again.
The bar is relatively empty at this time of day, so he gets to me pretty quickly. “Geez, Sunny. Usually you don’t start drinkin’ like this till Hearts and Hooves Day. Last time I saw you all liquored up at noon you’d done finished interviewing Discord.”
I stare wistfully at the wall. “Discord. Yeah… I miss him.”
“Lady I’m cuttin’ you off.”
Chapter 12: Sour Sweet, Please Don’t Traumatize the Clients
Chapter 12: Sour Sweet, Please Don’t Traumatize the Clients
Will all of the therapy I provide to other ponies, you’d think I’d have my shit together. Ha. No. I usually spend my time between each session banging my head against the desk a few times until Sugarcoat tells me to stop, or finds some new and annoying way to interrupt my peace and… well, my peace.
Today it’s to introduce my newest client, one of the siren sisters. I believe her name is Aria Blaze. Sugarcoat ushers the earth pony in with little to-do, and walks right back out. I assume to stay as far away from the spikes as possible.
My poor couch.
She flops onto it lazily, and just rolls her eyes, waving a hoof in small circles as if to move things along faster. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
Her approach to therapy isn’t one I’m a stranger to, of course. There are many in our reform program who assume that the mandated therapy is useless. These are usually the ones who cry the most. Of course, I would be very remiss as a psychiatrist if I didn’t know the proper questions to ask. “So, why the spikes?”
“Uh, to keep ponies off of me, duh,” she drawls.
“Hmm… so, you don’t want ponies to touch you, is that it?” I muse, making some notes.
“That’s basically what I just said.” I can almost hear what she’s thinking: ‘Oh yay, she’s useless and stupid’.
“Does that mean everypony? What about a hug? DO you not want to be… intimate with anypony?” Serious questions time.
She sits up a little, glaring at me. “What’s it to you? I can just take ‘em off if I wanna get laid or whatever. They’re not like, attached, you dumbass.”
There’s a point in any good psychiatric session where the therapist asks a question that sounds both extremely rude and extremely personal. It usually hurts to hear, and most therapists don’t like asking them, but it cuts right to the chase. At least, that’s how it works for me. “Yes, but who would want to?”
Her eyes grow really wide, and she looks at her spikes, then at me, then at the ground. She looks like she’s getting teary-eyed, even. “Hey, I get plenty of action, y’know! There’s all kinds of stallions that want a dangerous chick! Some even ask me to leave the spikes on!”
“Is that the kind of stallion you want, though? Somepony who just wants you to hurt them? I can’t imagine there’s any warmth in that,” I muse.
She sniffles a little, then gives a quiet sob. “It’s just… I’m always the bad pony, right? The villain, or whatever. All our powers did was make others mad. That’s how we survived. We made ponies do what we want, get all angry at each other, and fed off of it. Who’s gonna want some domineering psycho like that?”
“So why the spikes, again?” I repeat myself.
She looks down at her attire. “I just… Adagio always said we should look like the bad girl so we got more attention. I tried looking all sexy and stuff like her, but it wasn’t working. And Sonata’s all cheery and stuff, with a weird twisted side, you know? So there wasn’t really any role I could fill in that wasn’t copying my sisters without… this. I just… wanted to look as angry as I felt all the time. I-” she pauses, and her eyes go wide again. She clears them out, and gives me an annoyed glare. “How the Tartarus did you do that? What… what was that? Some kinda voodoo bullshit?”
“It’s called therapy, sister,” I gloat. “Now, let’s talk about your parents.”
“...oh hell no.”
-----------------------
I walk the blubbering mess that is Aria Blaze out of my office, who doesn’t even look up at Sonata as she passes her sister by. The pegasus looks at her sibling with concern, but doesn’t say much as I waive her into the room.
Sonata just sits properly on the couch, looking very much like she’s trying to play the good girl. According to Sunny she actually wants to take this reform thing seriously, so I’m hoping this will go a bit smoothly. “So, Sonata. Aria had a lot to say about you girls,” I inform her.
She looks at me with alarm. “What, what? Did she tell you I was stupid? Cause I’m not!”
“No, nothing like that. She just has some… image issues you might want to talk to her about. She also didn’t have very many good things to say about your parents,” I add, pulling out Sonata’s folder from my desk. It’s… surprisingly thicker than the other two.
“Well, yeah. Our parents suck ass. Like, who just up and vanishes and leaves a bunch of little girls to fend for themselves? If we weren’t immortal we’d all be totes dead!” she grumbles, crossing her arms like a pouting child.
That’s… alarming, to say the least. “So how did you go from being orphans to being some of the most feared and revered monsters in Equestrian history?”
She laughs sarcastically. “Lotsa violence. And singing. And sex, but mostly on Adagio’s part. Like, a lot of sex. She was super pissed when we became mortal, cause now she has to worry about stuff like STD’s and birth control. It was totes funny.”
“Did you mind becoming mortal?” I probe, making both a mental and physical note to keep Adagio and Sugarcoat on opposite sides of the building. Or, you know, the planet.
“No way! It’s awesome! I mean, being immortal in Equestria was one thing, you know? We were awesome giant sea demon creatures with all kinds of power. Being immortal in humanland? The worst for realzies. There’s like, a bunch of dirt and gross humans and all kinds of weird animals. And almost no magic! It’s soooo dumb. But now that we’re mortal, I can get older!”
“...yes, that’s kind of the definition of mortality.”
She leans across the couch as far as she can without falling off. Which is an impressive distance, I’ll admit. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve been a B-Cup for over a thousand years! Mama wants real boobs!”
“...I literally have no idea what you’re saying,” I concede.
She sits back in a normal position and thinks about it. “Ok, so when we got kicked into boringland we were like, teenagers? Imagine… ok, imagine finding out that you’re immortal, but it’s the day before you get your Cutie Mark. And it’s gonna BE the day before you get your Cutie Mark for the rest of your life. FOREVER.”
I think that over, and shudder. “So that’s what… boobs are?”
“Well, actually they’re a sexual organ designed both to feed young and encourage reproduction. But yes, boobs are SUPER important,” she explains.
I make a few notes rather quickly. “Is there… anything else about becoming mortal you enjoyed?”
---------------
Almost an hour later, I’ve got a whole notebook full of notes to add to Sonata’s folder, and she’s still explaining things. I make a note to get to the human world as fast as possible. She makes it sound very fun, and NOT THIS.
Sonata walks off to join a much-less-blubbery Aria, while I look around for their sister. “Adagio? Adagio! Where’s Adagio? Wait… where’s Sugarcoat?!”
Aria smiles ruefully. “Oh, they left like an hour ago. Something about an unused conference room on the fourth floor.”
Paper Weight is giving me a royal chewing out about the last couple of days. Well, to be honest it’s not really me, he just needs somepony to stand there and look sad while he yells a lot. This happens more often than you think. I’m pretty good at it.
“And why did they even call you up there to being with?! You’re a bloody mailpony! You don’t even TALK to the clients!” he yells, not even at me. He’s just pacing back and forth in the mail room while I sort today’s deliveries with a fake frowny face. I actually agree with like, all the things he’s saying right now, but he doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s built up steam like this. He prefers to wear himself out. Not to mention he’s more productive when he’s mad. The guy’s zipping through the outgoing sorting piles like a freakin’ wizard. A space wizard or something.
“Who in their right mind would even let you work with the clients?! You’d probably run them over, AGAIN!” *Scribble scribble FWIP* goes an envelope. Then another. “And why the Tartarus did Princess Twilight even come down here?! What part of ‘This is the MAILROOM’ does nopony understand?!” *Scribble scribble FWIP* “And another thing-” *Scribble scribble FWIP*
Then there’s a knock on the door. Which, on top of being horrible timing, is relatively uncommon. Most ponies in our office try to stay away from our mailroom. Actually, mailrooms in general across Equestria seem to share the common trait of being wildly avoided by most ponies.
“WHAT?!” *Scribble scribble FWIP*
The door opens, and our boss walks in. Which, to most anypony else, would result in them stopping anything their doing and trying not to get fired.
Not Paper Weight. “The buck do you want, old hag?” *Scribble scribble FWIP*
“Nice to see you too, Paper Weight. Now, While I can see you’re busy, and have quite a productive bad mood going-” *Scribble scribble FWIP* “-I have something rather important that requires both your and Miss Zest’s attention.”
PW glares at me. “I DID NOTHING!”
Cinch nods, and coughs into her hoof. “Correct. This is not a disciplinary interaction.” Oh Celestia. I hate that phrase. Somepony had made the mistake years ago of getting Cinch a productivity manual for her birthday as a gag gift. She took it seriously. Now we don’t have “punishments” or “disciplinary hearings”. Everything is a “disciplinary interaction”, which ranges from getting yelled at to straight up getting fired. She continues, “As you are aware, The Canterlot Reformation, Reintegration, and Parole Office offers a job-placement service to certain clients who… qualify. As part of this service, we offer job-training and temporary employment. As it happens, one of our newest clients has taken a keen interest in this offer, and as such I have brought her here to work in your department.”
*Scribble scribble FWIP* “Excuse me?!”
Hoh boy. This can’t be good. Please don’t be the cheery one please don’t be the cheery one please-
“Hi guys!” Out jumps a bright blue pegasus with a giant grin. DAMMIT
“...and who are you?” Paper Weight asks. *Scribble scribble FWIP*
“My name’s Sontata! I’m the new mailpony!” she answers excitedly. “This is gonna be the best job for realzies, I can tell!”
*Scribble scrib-* “I’m sorry what?”
Cinch looks down at Sonata, then at us, her expression unchanging. Like usual. “Miss Sonata here is taking her reformation very… ‘for serious’… as she puts it. I expect you to treat her as well as we treat all of our clients. Also, don’t let her get eaten. That’s not a form I enjoy filling out,” she adds, then leaves quickly, slamming the door behind her.
Sonata takes a second to catch up to that last sentence. “Wait, what?”
I shrug, leaning into the cart I’m sorting, as the last few envelopes are near the bottom. “Yeah, that happened. Like, once, I think. Once since I’ve been here, anyway.”
When I resurface, she’s still smiling, although now it’s a bit of a nervous smile, and she’s looking between me and Paper Weight like she’s expecting one of us to start laughing. “Oh… kay. So, where do I start?”
Paper Weight goes back to sorting. I think he’s on his second cart. “You don’t.” When Sonata looks like she’s gonna whimper or cry or something, he sighs, and continues. “I mean, you don’t start yet. All the morning stuff is for ponies who know the sorting system. I can’t realistically give you anything to do at your skill level for another hour or so. Although, when Zest finishes sorting her cart, you can follow her while she delivers.”
I give my boss a look that says Oh please Celestia NO.
The look I get in return says Celestia YES.
My head droops as I sigh heavily, then reach into the cart for the last few bits of mail. Dropping them into the appropriate boxes, I start bundling them all together.
Then I hear somepony breathing, right next to me. I turn, and almost jump out of my skin as Sonata is all up in my business. “Whatcha doing?”
“Uh...” I glance at PW, who just shrugs. “I’m puttin’ all the mail together by office? So it doesn’t get all mixed up?”
“Okay!” she chirps. Not moving.
I pause for a second, my personal space disappearing by the second. “Um, why don’t you… go sit down in that chair over there until I’m done. I’ll be like, five minutes, tops.”
She raises a suspicious eyebrow. “You sure?”
“...totes.”
“Right-o!” she cheers again, and zips over to the chair.
It’s the slowest five minutes of my life.
-------------------
“So, what office are we going to first?” Sonata asks, as we crowd onto the elevator.
I push a button on the panel. “Well, first is the Cages,” I explain.
She gasps loudly. “Cages?! You lock ponies up in here?!”
I shake my head and waive my hooves defensively. “No, no way! That’s just like, a nickname for the Parole Office!”
“Oh, ok,” she says, quickly shifting gears back to that smiling, patient pose. She’s so weird.
The Cages are near the top of the building, so it takes a while to get there. “Hey, why don’t we do all these other floors first?” Sonata asks.
Finally, an intelligent question. “Because the Parole Office is the first one open. After we deliver their stuff, the rest should be either open or halfway there, so we work floor by floor on the way back down. The very top office is the executive stuff, and we don’t have access. They pick up their mail from a special mailbox, or from us personally.”
“Right-o!” she salutes. Somehow, and as if on cue, the elevator shudders just as she puts her hoof down. “Um… is that supposed to happen?”
It shakes a little, but keeps moving. “Eh, it’s old. Does that like, once a week. Usually nothing to worry ab-” BYOOoooo…. The elevator stops and goes dark. “...well, dammit.”
Sonata starts to panic. “What?! We’re trapped?! What if the elevator falls?! WHO’S GOING TO SAVE US?! HELLLP!”
“Will you shut up?!” I growl. She goes quiet with a quick “eep” and huddles in the corner. So now I feel bad. I take a deep breath, and add, “Ok, sorry I yelled. Look, it’s not a big deal. We’re stuck in a big metal box, sure. But there’s plenty of ventilation, lots of security measure thingies, and even in the worst-case scenario we’re in a big tower filled with all kinds of unicorns and pegasi who could probably just fly up the shaft and push us to safety. We’re gonna be fine.”
She takes a few shallow breaths, then one deep one. “Ok, ok, you’re right. Getting all panicky is super bad for realzies.”
“Right,” I agree, with a nod and smile. That I’m not sure she can see.
“Hey, you wanna sing songs till they rescue us? I AM ORNERY THE EIGHTH I AM-”
I start pounding on the elevator door. “HHHHEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLP!”
Normally, when I have to go into the field to find a pony, there’s one of three reasons: either they slept through an appointment or forgot, and just need a reminder; they’re actively avoiding their court-mandated therapy, and I need to reel them back in; or somepony somewhere tipped off the office that one of our dear clients is up to some nasty not-niceness.
Very rarely do I have to track somepony down because they didn’t show up for work. Which is exactly what happened this morning, so now I’m on my way to the Siren’s temporary residence. Because Sonata Dusk apparently doesn’t understand that when somepony asks you to do a job, you have to do it every day. Their house isn’t particularly difficult to track, as it’s just one of many apartments in a building that our Office has a contract with to house some of the clients that either don’t or can’t work, or are working for our office.
I live on the fifth floor. Rent is super cheap.
The Siren’s abode is a few floors above me, and rather easy to find. Not because of the yelling, because there’s plenty of that going on in this building. Not the smell. There’s a lot of that, too. Not all of them pretty. It’s not even placed conveniently. The thing about their apartment is that it’s the only one in the building, and I mean the only one, that looks like it’s actually excited at the prospect of visitors. Even my door has a “Beware of Attack Pegasus” (me) sign on it.
Sonata Dusk, however, seems to be one of the few genuinely happy people in the whole complex, and as such, has decorated their front door with flowers, light blue color, and an honest-to-goodness Welcome mat. It’s almost heartwarming, if not for the fact that she’s an ex-criminal.
Ok, it’s a little heartwarming. I’m not made of stone, despite what my muscles say.
I knock on the door, and hear a bright, cheery voice say, “Coming!” A few moments later, there’s some scuffling, and that same voice says “Ow, OW! GET OFF ME, ARI!”
“Shut up, you moron! What if it’s a crook?!” another, deeper female voice barks.
“Then you’ll stab them, too, you psycho!” chimes in a third voice, almost as deep, but more mature. The door opens, and Adagio Dazzle greets me with a curious expression. “Can I help you, miss...”
“Indigo Zap. I’m here to pick up Sonata, cause she’s supposed to be on-shift today. Client-Employees who don’t show up for a shift are considered in the same category as skippers, so here I am,” I explain.
Adagio rolls her eyes. “I knew getting that featherhead a job would be a headache. She steps aside to turn around and face her sisters, giving me a good view of the other two mares wrestling around on the carpet. “Aria, let her go! She needs to go to work!”
Sonata looks up, surprised. “But… but it’s FRIDAY!”
I nod. “Right. Your days off are Saturday and Sunday.”
She frowns cutely, like a small filly. “But that’s STUPID.”
I have to agree, actually. “Yeah, it’s kinda dumb. But it’s not so bad. The office is kinda bare on Fridays, so there’s a bunch of room to goof off. Lemon Zest says it’s like, the easiest day ever.”
She leaps to her hooves with a wide grin. “Zesty is there?!”
There’s a little voice in my head that says I should just nod politely and take her in, but there’s another, slightly louder voice in my head that goes, “Wait.”
“...yes. Yes she is. And she’s super-excited to work with you today! She had tons of fun in the elevator the other day, so she even got there super early!” This isn’t entirely a lie, as she gets to work early on Saturday every week, as it’s her job to sort and bundle the newspaper.
“YAY!” Sonata chirps, and rushes out the door. She blazes past me, and I barely have time to step aside before she’s tearing down the hall to go to work.
Aria gives me a wary look. “...that was a total lie, wasn’t it?”
I shrug. “Like, eighty percent.”
“Do you… not like this Lemon Zest girl?” Adagio asks curiously.
“Oh no, she’s fine. I’m just a terrible pony sometimes,” I admit. I mean, I do enjoy my job a little bit too much.
Aria gives an evil grin. “We should totes hang out.”
-------------------
I make a couple more stops before I head back to the office, filling out the end-of-week paperwork. The Cages bustle a bit with some of the other guys, when my phone goes off in my locker. I give my super a look, and he shrugs an “OK”.
I dig out the little device, and read:
LZ: Can we totes get drunk this weekend, please?
SF: Absolutely NOT. Not after last time. And besides, I already got plastered this week.
I chuckle, remembering the afternoon Sunny Flare stumbled into the office after hours because she forgot her purse. And how to walk.
IZ: Oh come on, we could use a designated sober, anyway. You know you love the idea of all that blackmail.
SF: Fine. But I’m not drinking.
SC: Yeah, sure.
SF: I’m NOT.
SS: Of course not. By the way, what do you girls think of the new… girls?
SC: I like Adagio.
IZ: Of course you do.
SF: She’s the only mare I’ve met who likes sex more than you.
SC: Words hurt, Sunny.
LZ: So what, they like to bang. Least she’s not that Sonata Dusk girl.
IZ: Oh, she’s not that bad.
LZ: EAT ME, ZAP.
IZ: I think we should take them drinking.
SS: NO
SF: NO
LZ: NOPE
SC: Sure.
LZ: DAMMIT SUGAR
SC: Caps lock is not a font, Zest.
IZ: Well, I’m bringing that Aria Blaze girl.
SS: Well, she’s not that bad. Kind of cry-y.
SF: Everyony’s cry-y around you, Sour.
LZ: Is that the ultraviolence chick?
SF: Yes.
LZ: Ok, cool. She can come.
IZ: Awesome. I’ll ask her if her sisters are busy, too.
LZ: NO!
I close the convo, ignoring the newest wave of text alerts, and give Aria a call, having gotten their number earlier. “Hey, Aria?” I ask, after somepony picks up a few rings in.
“Nope, sorry. Let me get here for you. Hold on. ARI!”
“...what?!” I hear from down the phone line.
“PHONE!”
“...who is it?!”
“Who may I ask is calling?” Adagio asks politely.
“It’s Indigo. The girl from this morning that picked up Sonata,” I explain.
“Ok, hold on. IT’S THE HOT PEGASUS FROM THIS MORNING.”
I smile smugly. Hell yeah it is.
“...Ooh, gimme!” There’s a bit of shuffling as Aria steals the phone from Adagio. “Sup, girl?” she asks, in a much clearer voice.
“Hey, you wanna get stupid-ass drunk with me and the girls tonight?”
“DO I?!” she cheers. “HEY DAGi, WANNA GET SMASHED?!”
“...DO I?!” she yells in the background.
“Cool, bring the third one, too,” I tell her, then give her directions to our usual spot, and a time to meet.
“Right on, see you there, chick!” she hangs up the phone before I can say goodbye.
I laugh, and re-open the group text chat. There’s a bunch of messages arguing whether or not the Sirens should join us.
Getting all of us together for a drink is way easier than it should be. We’re all gathered around our table at the usual spot at the Bent Unicorn, and between our usual group, and the addition of three new mares, all of which look like the kind of ponies you shouldn’t be serving alcohol to, the waitstaff had had a small argument about who was going to be working our table tonight.
The loser, an adorably small Earth pony mare who I’ve never seen before, comes nervously up to our table as we all sit down, and asks politely, “Um, hello! What can I get started for you?”
Most of the group ignores her, too busy arguing with each other. Adagio looks at her like a shark circling the waters, and I almost feel bad for her. “How about a pitcher of Red to get us started?” I ask.
She looks eager to have such a quick out. “Coming right up?” she squeaks, and darts away.
Adagio gives me a disapproving look. “Oh, come now, Sunny. You didn’t even give me a chance to say hello.”
Sugarcoat chimes in from the far side of the table. “Probably because your ‘hellos’ should be co-opted into our sexual harassment seminars.”
The eldest siren gives her an amused smile, oozing with sexuality. “You didn’t seem to mind yesterday, dear.”
“That’s because she’s already been co-opted into the seminars,” Sour Sweet grumbles. She smiles slightly, though, as our waitress returns with a giant pitcher of ale, a bunch of glasses, and sets them all out with impressive speed. A speed she then quickly tops by leaving the table again.
Lemon Zest tears her attention away from whatever heated discussion she was having with Sonata. “Aw yeaaaahh, BEER!” she cheers, pouring herself a draft and taking a large gulp. “Ahhhh.”
Indigo and Aria quickly follow suit, almost spilling the stuff everywhere. Again. Sonata just makes a face at the pitcher as the rest of us pour ourselves more reasonable amounts. I raise an eyebrow at her. “Not a fan?”
“Blech, no,” she groans. “That stuff’s for scrubs.”
Indigo gives her an indignant look. “Scuse me?”
“Oh, ignore her,” Adagio says soothingly. “She thinks anything less than 90 proof is just glorified water. When Sonata drinks, it’s to get drunk, not to taste anything.”
Aria leans against her new bestest buddy, Zap. “Yeah, ignore that one. She wouldn’t know good ale if it rammed itself sideways up her lady-hole.”
Another, more seasoned waiter, who I’m convinced has spent most of our tips on therapy, trots up to the table. “Can I get you ladies anything more… specific?” A question tailored after many, many visits from our office.
Sonata raises a hoof and barks, “Triple-D absinthe!”
The rest of the table flinches, as does the waiter. Adagio simply muscles past it, adding, “I’ll take a vodka tonic.” After a moment’s thought, she adds, “And whatever that adorable little pony from earlier is serving,” she adds with a well-groomed eyebrow.
Sugarcoat takes a measured sip from her drink, and says, “Same.”
“...on the drink, or...” the waiter says hesitantly.
“Yes.”
I roll my eyes, trade glances with Indigo, and we both chime in, “Tequila!”
Aria surprises me with a “Buck YEAH To-kill-ya!”
Sour bangs her head on the table, and mumbles something unintelligible. The waiter gives her a sympathetic look. “The usual, miss?” Sour just nods, rubbing her forehead against the teak tabletop.
After a second, I realize I haven’t heard Lemon’s order yet. I turn to get her attention, only to find her chugging the pitcher. I mean the actual PITCHER. “DAMMIT ZEST!”
She slams it down on the table, and gasps happily. “Whiskeeeey!” she cheers, with an already heavy tint to her cheeks.
Sour raises her head up long enough to take a respectable swallow. “Ooooh, this is gonna be a long night,” she groans.
-----------------
About an hour later, there’s only a few of us left at the table. Aria and Indigo have gone off to play darts, a feat made much more interesting with the presence of alcohol. Sonata and Zest, and to my surprise, Sour Sweet are all engaged in hogging the karaoke machine.
All that’s left is myself, Adagio, and Sugarcoat, all nursing whatever our newest drinks are. I’ve kind of lost track. There’s also a large pitcher of water and a basket of potato wedges, which are filling me up fast. “I’m honestly surprised,” Adagio says pointedly, with a wistful look at her sisters.
“Why?” I ask, trying not to slur. It’s not polite. As Sugarcoat has pointed out multiple times. Of course, she’s too busy leaning way too far into Adagio’s lap to chastise me right now, but she probably would anyway.
Adagio heaves a sigh. “When we first got to the human world, we were surprised how quickly they all wee to fight. All that conflict. It was so far-flung from what we were used to, all of the friendship and joy ponies revel in, that we thought we’d finally found somewhere we belonged. Even if our circumstances were less than favorable. Of course, as it turns out, humans are a bunch of violent sociopaths, so that dream didn’t last long.
“Then, when we recently encountered the students of Canterlot High, there was so much… getting-along-ness that we thought we’d found a weird side-dimension of Equestria. It was like there was no middle-ground. Everyone was either completely sadistic and aggressive, or something out of a kid’s book. Even when we were defeated, and found our way back here, we’d found that not-much had changed. Oh, of course there was conflict, hat’s unavoidable. Petty squabbles and the like. But my sisters and I always seemed to fall into some sort of gray area that didn’t exist anywhere. Until, that is, we found you lot,” she added thoughtfully.
“Not sure how to take that,” I muse, taking a sip of what turns out to be a strawberry daiquiri.
Adagio shrugged, and laughed lightly. “I’m not even sure how I meant it. But it’s… nice, to see ponies so much like us, that can still survive in modern society. I’d honestly thought we were just doomed to deal with ourselves, and only ourselves, without any kind of environment we could fit in. Then we met you lot. So aggressive. But not… humanly so. You just did for yourselves, and somehow managed to stay friends. It was like viewing my household from the outside. I guess what I’m trying to say is… I’m grateful. They are, too. Although Aria wouldn’t admit it. You could just as easily have looked at us like everyo-pony else does, like criminals. Even some of the occupants of our apartment complex veer away from us.
“But you didn’t care. To you, we were just part of the job. You didn’t have any preconceptions, any biases. And here we all are, actually enjoying ourselves. With other ponies. I can’t even remember the last time we were all so… social,” she concluded.
“Alcohol probably has to do something with that,” Sugarcoat chimed in, her head now firmly settled against Adagio’s side.
This got a laugh out of the siren. “Oh please, dear. You think I haven’t gotten somepony drunk before? This is… different. I mean sure, Sonata is typically a social mare, and Aria never turns down a challenge, like some other ponies I know, but it’s like… like we don’t need to worry about what happens afterwards.”
I give her a sideways glance, then look down to Sugarcoat. Then over at Aria and Indigo, who have foregone darts for hoof-wrestling. I don’t even need to look at the karaoke stage, as I can hear the horrible butchering of ‘Endless Love’ going on, peppered by verbal jabs and scuffling. Not from the staff, they’d long since stopped trying to corral us, instead taking rather dreary notes on what we might have to pay for once we’ve sobered up.
“Are you sure you’re looking at the right group?” I ask, concerned.
She gently strokes Sugarcoat’s mane, who I see has since passed out. “I am now, thank you.”
-----------------------------
The next morning, I roll out of bed, nursing yet another hangover. For once, I’m in my own home, alone. It’s a nice change of pace, as I can recover properly by myself.
Then my phone starts going off.
LZ: Dudz, how much did I drink last nite?
SC: All of it.
LZ: :(
SS: Somepony tell me I was NOT singing Endless Love.
Sonatata: I would, but the internet doesn’t lie.
Amidst my surprise that Sonata is in our group chat, a link appears on my phone. It’s a video of Zest, Sour, and Sonata all singing terribly, terribly off key. When they’re not fighting over the mic.
SS: OH. MY GOD. WHO TOOK THAT?!
Blazbitch: MORNING!
IZ: Oy yeah, I dragged Aria into the chat. I think. Anyway, that’s her.
SS: I don’t CARE who it is, who put my mug on the INTERNET?!
Blazbitch. :P
SS: ...Aria, we are going to have a LONG talk about your mother on Monday.
Blazbitch: >.<
Adazzle: Aria, enough with the emoticons.
SC: Oh, I also added Adagio.
LZ: Who added Sonata?
SF: No idea.
IZ: Not me.
Blazbitch: Nope.
Adazzle: Nor I.
SC: Nope.
There’s a few minutes of silence, which I take advantage of to use the bathroom. As I’m washing my hooves, a thought occurs to me.
SF: Sour?
SS: Hmm?
SF:...did you add Sonata?
Sonatata: Hee hee hee.
SS: ...maybe
SF: Oh, my god.
SS: SHUT UP.
IZ: Somepony has a new BESTIE!
SS: ...I hate all of you.
LZ: WHO NEEDS HANGOVER SURPRISE?!
SF: NO.
IZ: NO.
SC: NO.
SF: NO.
Sonatata: Wassat?
SS: It’s awful. It’s terrible. It’s the worst thing you could ever put into your face.
A few moments pass.
SS: It’s delicious. It cures hangovers.
Adazzle: Oh my OCEANS, yes.
Blazbitch: Sounds good.
Sonatata: I’m in!
The next few texts are various warning from the other girls, and lots of encouragement from Lemon Zest. I decide to nurture my hangover with some hot tea, some toast, and a warm blanket. SO much so, that I end up falling asleep.
I’m awoken a few hours later with a series of upset texts.
Adazzle: WHY?!
Blazbitch: I hate you all. ALL.
I laugh to myself, knowing that the newest members of our unfortunate group have been properly indoctrinated by the horrible feast Lemon Zest has, at one point or another, conned us all into eating. Then another message pops up.
Sonatata: What’s bacon grease?
I pause, processing this question. And it’s context.
