Putting the "douche" in "fiduciary"
Standard Deduction blinked his ice-blue eyes and tried to process what his short but fiery red-coated boss had just told him. A few moments of beetling confusion later, he settled for blurting: “You want me to see who?!”
His boss pushed her spectacles higher on her muzzle. “Come on, Standy; I know you might have some conflicting feelings about the Princess, but you’re the best we’ve got at sorting out complex messes, and hers is a doozy.”
“Conflicting feelings” wasn’t quite how Standard Deduction would’ve expressed it—especially not after flicking a quick glance at the large framed poster on his cubicle wall that showed Princess Twilight Sparkle lounging languidly upon a veritable ocean of books. A knowing smile played across her muzzle, while the word “READ” adorned the bottom third of the image. A friend had given it to him last Hearth’s Warming after he’d spilled a bit much about his fondness for the Princess over pints. Supposedly it was a genuine ex-library print… but the rising heat in Standard’s cheeks left him with fresh thoughts that it might’ve been a custom commission.
I owe that lad another pint, to be sure…
A loud slapping sound rattled Standard out of his reverie. He looked down on his desk and noted the hoof-thick folder that his boss had just deposited with her amber-colored magic. Even looking at the name typed in thick monospace letters at the top of the folder made his pulse quicken.
“Okay. All right. I’d be happy to meet with her, I guess. When’s she coming?”
“Hm? Oh, she’s already out in the waiting room. Gross Dividend was supposed to be helping with walk-ins today, but he took one look at her file and ‘called’ in sick right to my face.”
Standard’s eyes went wide. “P-P-P-Princess Twilight is here? Now?!”
There was a gentle knock on the metal frame at the edge of Standard’s cubicle. And around it stepped a vision in lavender whose radiant eyes made Standard’s blood alternately freeze and explode with fiery fervor, depending on which end of his barrel was being considered. His eyes were drawn to her star-marked flank like paperclips to a magnet, and he tried very, very, VERY hard to keep his wings plastered to the sides of his deep-blue-colored body as he watched her sashay over and plop down on the armchair opposite his desk.
Standard was brought back to reality when his boss used her magic to raise his lower jaw back up into a closed position.
“So anyway, Princess, like I was saying: Standard Deduction here is one of Financial Pro Plus’s most experienced agents. He specializes in tax work, but he can offer a full gamut of services. I’m sure he’ll be able to get you into the right kind of policy!”
“Good to meet you,” Princess Twilight said to him.
Sweat bloomed on Standard’s brow. He reached a trembling hoof down to pick up a pen and managed to hoofwrite the name “Twilight Sparkle” at the top of a Prospective Insured form in barely-legible script. He glanced up, met her eyes—and nearly had a heart attack as he realized that the harsh fluorescent light of his cubicle did little to diminish his client’s absolutely radiant beauty. The flowing liveliness of her purple and lavender mane all but begged to be touched. The softness of her smile gave him goosebumps.
He glanced down, and his eyes went wide at the faux pas that he’d already committed. He hastily scratched out her name, starting again with “Princess Sparkle” in the space below the line. Technically it’d be against policy to write outside the intended field on the form, but he—
A demure clearing of a throat brought his gaze up off the paper. “It’s all right, please go ahead and use my full name. It isn’t ‘Princess,’ of course.” His client spoke in a melodious, if slightly peevish voice, which made Standard Deduction’s imagination catch fire with visions of taking a long walk on the beach before a long, sweaty, passionate night of preparing their quarterly taxes together—and filing jointly.
She giggled. “Um, you’ve got a, ah.” She giggled again.
Standard Deduction’s gaze flicked from one side of his body to the other, and he issued a choking gurgle as he realized his wings were not cooperating! He batted at the left one with his right hoof, inadvertently jabbing it with his pen in the process. A none-too-muffled curse escaped his lips, both from the pain and the embarrassment of having a torrent of rich black ink come gushing out over his feathers. He tried to swipe at the wing with his other hoof, but the angle made it difficult, and he ended up shoving the wing—and a fair measure of ink—into his red-colored mane.
“My goodness, are you all right?!”
“YES!” he blurted, looking up at her from the growing stickiness about his person. “Yes. I’m sorry, miss—ah, P-Princess Sparkle.”
“It’s Twilight, please,” she reiterated, nevertheless managing a warmth and friendliness in her tone that threatened to send his pulse running for the hills. “Listen, mister—” she glanced down, double-checking his name placard “—Standard Deduction. I appreciate that you’re taking the time to help me here. I’m afraid I’ve had a real Tartarus of a time trying to get my insurance situation straightened out since everything happened last month.”
“Your… oh! Of course, your file.” Standard flipped it open with his least-ink-stained appendage, which seemed to be his right wing. He scanned the summary page that had been typed by somepony in underwriting, and blinked twice at the bold red words that emblazoned the final line:
EXCESSIVE CLAIMS HISTORY — SUPER-NON-PREFERRED — SEE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER’S NOTE ON PAGE 432b
“Oh,” he all but whispered.
“Right,” she said, smiling nervously but with such allure that Standard could feel his attention becoming more rapt by the second. “I mean, I know I’ve had my share of property, medical, and general liability claims since I moved to Ponyville… and several before I moved here… but having Tirek destroy Golden Oaks library was the first time I’ve actually had to claim a total loss on any of my policies. And I mean, that’s just renter’s, right? Stuff’s like… a couple dozen bits per year?”
Standard’s eyes drifted back down to the file. He used his primaries to quickly flip through the claims section, and spotted highlights about everything from monster attacks to chemistry accidents. As promised, the very last page showed a claim on a renter’s policy that had been terminated following the property’s explosion.
He looked back up at Princess Twilight, saw the hope in her bright, amazing eyes… and felt his chest tighten with the awful realization that he was going to have to give her bad news. He’d have to turn down whatever she was coming in for today. Though actually, he wasn’t sure why she’d come. He decided to rectify that, but, “So… uh…?” were the only words that managed to escape his lips.
“Oh, of course! How silly of me.” She giggled, and a fresh wave of heat washed over Standard. “I’m sure you’ll want to see the deed.”
Standard blinked. Hard. “The… deed?”
“To my new Friendship Castle!” She lit her horn, and a long piece of crisp parchment popped into existence on his desk. “I’m a homeowner now. Well, technically a castle-owner. But I live there too, and it occupies land that was already zoned as residential, so I think it qualifies as a primary residence for both tax and insurance purposes.”
“...ohh… oh. Yes. Um.” He fought to dispel the resurfacing mental images of long nights getting hot and heavy with her on a tax conversion table. Instead, he scanned the deed, noted the property’s dimensions, and did a quick mental calculation of how many millions of bits of insurance she’d have to buy to keep the place properly insured. Then, factor in the multiplier that the Super-Non-Preferred rating would impose on anything she tried to buy…
He swallowed. “T-Twi… er, Princess… um.”
A tentative smile stole across her features, and took his heart with them. “Do you think you can help me?”
The heat that had already bloomed in Standard’s chest and cheeks grew even hotter. He knew it’d be professional suicide to write her any kind of policy at all, much less one she’d be willing—or able—to pay for. It was the worst thing imaginable to finally meet Princess Twilight, make an utter fool of himself with the ink pen and his inability to get a full, coherent sentence out—and then to leave her uninsured on top of that.
“You… you can’t help me, can you?” Princess Twilight’s ears turned down, followed by a drooping of her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I like to think that I’m a good friend, but I’m not blind to my propensity for causing damage to things… or to having things take damage that are near me, or that I’m at all loosely associated with in some way.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “Watch, I bet the next villain we face will blow this office up just because I stopped in for a meeting.”
Standard burst into tense and doubtlessly unnerving laughter, before clamping a hoof over his mouth—for an idea had occurred to him.
“Self-insure,” he blurted.
“Excuse me?”
His mind and pulse raced as one as he leapt from conclusion to conclusion. “Y-You have the authority to levy taxes in keeping with your role both as a Princess and as the de facto guardian of Ponyville, correct?”
“Er, well... I suppose I might enjoy such privileges as a royal? Princess Luna certainly didn’t waste any time imposing a small candy tax after her return, though there was historical precedent for her taxation authority…”
“Of course! Ha. Ha ha ha.” Standard realized that the laughter was coming out nervous and wooden, but he leaned into it with all his worth. “We could run the numbers for a baseline tax package that—if the proceeds were invested wisely—would effectively let you self-insure not only your new property, but also cover your outstanding—and I do mean outstanding—liability exposure.”
“Wow!” Twilight’s smile returned, and it was like a sunrise full of beaming glory to Standard’s desperate eyes. “You know, I bet you’re right. I’d been carrying my policies with Financial Pro Plus because I thought that was the responsible thing to do, but I bet that I could solve a multitude of problems through taxation!”
“Errr… wait, I think—”
Twilight popped up from her seat and gave him a quick nod. “Thanks, mister Deduction! I look forward to seeing your filing next year!”
Standard watched her bounce out of the room as if in slow motion. The trio of shocks he’d had by meeting her, speaking to her, and possibly assisting her—however indirectly—wracked his overstimulated brain. The fact that she’d be meeting her financial goals through direct changes to tax policy was almost more than he could bear.
“Hey… hey Standy, what happened there?” asked his red-coated boss, who slowly edged herself into his field of view. “Did I just hear you tell her to cancel her outstanding policies and levy new taxes on everypony?!”
“I did,” he breathed.
“Why would you do that? I mean, even if she’s Tartarus on wheels with property-casualty, it’s not like all of her policies were direct drains on our bottom line. And I mean… new taxes? Seriously!”
“I know,” he said, settling back in his chair, and not even bothering to try to keep his wings in control anymore. “That was the absolute hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
His boss frowned at him. “Let me guess… you’re gonna be out sick for the rest of the day, too?”
“Yes I am, ma’am. Yes I am.”