You Can Fool The Elements, But You Can't Fool the Government
“Alright, look, it doesn’t matter what exactly your position is-”
“Yeah, but what is it?”
“-You’re Grooms of the Stool, legally, but that doesn’t matter. I am literally just inventing your positions to cheat extra money out of the government to keep your broke asses out of debtors prison.”
Twilight’s horn lit, and a stack of six official-looking government forms fwoop’d onto the table. “Now, look, all I need for you to do is sign the second and third pages of these forms and I’ll send them off to the government revenuers and you all will be getting a healthy little sum of bits a month in the mail.”
Rarity blanched a little. “The mail dear? In this town? With our mail carrier?”
Twilight looked thoughtful for a second, then scribbled an extra line onto the top form. “Right, yeah, direct deposit. Send me your routing numbers later.”
Applejack looked at the little princess with no little disdain. “Ah, dammit Twi, you know I don’t engage in usury! We all know banking is a tool of-”
A blue hoof found itself place directly into the mouth of the farmer. “Look, whatever, just write down your mattress as your bank AJ, we don’t care about that shit. How much cash are we talking here, egghead?”
“2700 bits a month.”
Five faces assumed positions of shock, ranging from Rarity’s mild pleasure about the income of two extra dresses a month to the terminally broke Fluttershy’s abject glee at the tripling of her monthly income.
“Oh, and you need to pass a cursory background check, but that shouldn’t be a big deal aaaaaaannnd why are you all looking at me like that?”
Those same five faces had blanched really quite impressively, which, in Rarity’s case, was extra impressive, as before this time it has been a matter of debate as to whether a white face truly could pale.
Applejack snorted and stamped lightly with a foreleg. “Ah, horseapples, Twi, I ain’t gonna pass that.”
Twilight’s eyebrows raised up, “You can’t pass a background check?”
“Well, uh, yeah, I head a feller in a bar talkin ‘bout my brother, an’ course he’d been drinkin, and I’d been drinkin, and he said a some things he shouldn’t have, and sure enough we both ended up outside and got to tusslin’, and, uh, basically I ended up with a couple of charges for the fightin’. Ain’t like I need the money anyway, really.”
“Well, alright, that’s understandable I guess. I’ve still gotta write your name on this form though, already applied for it.”
“That’s fine. I ain’t got nothin to hide.”
With that permission, Twilight picked up a quill and scribbled the farmer’s name on the top form. Slowly, one by one, the bottom half of the page filled up with the complete legal history of Applejack.
CITIZEN: APPLEJACK, CLAN APPLE
3 COUNT: PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS
4 COUNT: ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON
1 COUNT: VOLUNTARY PONYSLAUGHTER
2 COUNT: BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE CROWN
1 COUNT: PUBLIC URINATION
Rainbow Dash whistled softly. “Hooooly shit AJ, that must have been some fight. You straight whacked a dude?”
“Uh, yeah, turns out if you buck a feller into a trash can full of glass bottles they tend to, uh, die from exsang – exsing – ex sangeue - “
“Exsanguination, dear?” Rarity helpfully offered.
“Yeah, that’s it, all their blood fallin’ out.”
Twilight just looked on in stunned shock, “Dear Celestia, one of my friends is a murderer?”
Rarity countered, “Well, technically, dear, it’s just 2nd degree ponyslaughter if it’s in the heat of passion, although I must say I am really quite concerned over how exactly the, er, relieving of one’s self relates to this whole sordid night.”
AJ blushed slightly, “Well, y'know, the booze was talkin', so after I sent that guy through the dumpster I, uh, mighta walked over to him and, uh, yeah, on his face.”
Twilight slammed her face into the table. “You pissed on his corpse. One of my very best friends killed someone and pissed on his corpse.”
“Well, I didn’t know he was dead yet! It wasn’t until his wife ran over and checked his pulse I knew I might have kicked him a little too hard.”
Another slam. Luckily, alicorn skulls were very durable. “Unbelievable. You left a widow. You left a widow with her husband’s piss-soaked bloody corpse. How long ago was this?”
“Shoot, coupl’a years now. Technically I think I’m on a work release to my own farm from the prison.”
After a few more smacks, Twilight had managed to compose herself enough to carry on. “Ok, right, well, that’s out of the way then. Whose next?”
As if on cue, a bright blue blur grabbed the next form from the stack. “Ha! I know I don’t have anything to worry about! I just passed one of these bad boys a month ago.”
“What, for the ‘Bolts?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah, they gotta check and see if you’re awesome or awesomely felonious. Or, uh, something like that, this metaphor kinda breaks down when you – look, I’ll just write my name, let’s get the boring part done.”
Once again, the form began to fill up with charges.
“Well, it might not be as boring as you think,” Twilight punctuated. “This is a form EQ-4473, not the military form, after all. I think this one goes a little farther in depth.”
Rainbow’s pupils shrank slightly and her right wing twitched just a little bit. “Uh, oh, well, I’m sure it will be fine. Statues-”
“Statutes, dear,” corrected Rarity.
-of limitations or whatever.”
The first charges had appeared.
CITIZEN: RAINBOW DASH
3 COUNT: SPEEDING
18 COUNT: TRESPASSING
Rainbow exhaled contently. “Phew. Those are all misdemeanors, don’t worry about those, shouldn’t be a proble-”
JUVENILE
13 COUNTS: ARSON
22 COUNTS: VANDALISM
3 COUNTS: BURGLARY
1 COUNT: RIOTING
1 COUNT: RESISTING ARREST
“-shitfucks, I thought those had expired.”
Pinkie gasped in amazement. “Wow Dashie! Arson? I didn’t even know clouds could burn!”
“Ah, well, the clouds don’t, but the air carriages we piled in the intersections sure did.”
“...You passed the military test?” Twilight asked incredulously.
“Yeah, well, they don’t really care about the early stuff. Something about ‘second chances for troubled teens.’”
“You’re twenty-six.”
“Well, I was at one point a troubled teen. The front lines of a hoofball riot wasn’t exactly the best place for a 14 year old to be.”
Twilight stared forward at her wall for a slightly uncomfortable amount of time. It was, after all, a nice wall. Eventually, however, social decorum mandated she respond to her friend. “Fine, yeah, sure, I’ll just mark out the second section. They probably won’t notice. Fifty-fifty at least.” She filed Rainbow’s form into a government envelope, then turned her attention to the other three friends at the table. “Alright, we’re a little less than one for two here girls. Who’s next?”
Rarity demurely pushed her form away from herself. “Ah, Twilight, darling, I’m not sure it’s really necessary for any of us to take another of these dreadful tests, really, so let’s-”
“And it’s Rarity! Very brave. Let’s just write your name on this form-”
“-That’s, um, really not necessary Twilight, let’s-”
“-I-T-Y-space-B-E-L-L-E. Alright! Let’s see what the next one of you sinners has managed to accomplish.”
“-oh please no anything but this.”
Despite her protestations, the form dutifully began to fill.
CITIZEN: RARITY BELLE
3 COUNTS: SOLICITING A PROSTITUTE
All eyes shot to Rarity, whose cheeks had now achieved a truly impressive crimson. “W-well, you know, it can get just so lonely in a lady’s boudoir, and they had that sting operation, and-”
11 COUNTS: PRACTICING PROSTITUTION
Rarity had passed her already impressive flush and was now approaching a color generally reserved for fire wagons. She was sweating profusely, her speech reduced to nigh-incomprehensible stammering and giggling, “Weeeeeell you know those first years money was so tight and the payments and so I just had to make a little extra and those stallions were so nice-”
3 COUNTS: FELONY TAX EVASION
There were more gasps, but Rarity had stopped her histrionics completely. “Well, of course. What, you bunch actually pay your taxes?”
Rainbow looked at her, her face utterly transparent in her abject confusion. “Uh, yeah Rares, we all pay our taxes. Y’know, like normal ponies.”
Rarity scoffed. “Ha! As if those bits are ever getting spent on us. I, for one, would rather have them here than in the hands of some Canterlot bureaucrat.”
Twilight, in an impressive show of restraint for someone born without the inherent knowledge of her newfound earth pony strength, managed to only knock off a sizable chunk of the table, rather than annihilating the whole piece of furniture instantly. “Rarity?”
“Ah, yes, dear?”
“Whose castle are we presently sitting in?”
“Yours?”
“What is the castle representative of?”
“Your position of rule over the… local… government.”
Twilight snatched the dressmaker with a quick glow of her horn, dragging her across the table into what was shaping up to be a truly impressive choke-slam. “Those bits go to ME Rarity. They’re MINE. Do you know what we had to cut off the budget last year? Indoor plumbing for the school. THE SCHOOL RARITY. Your sister has to shit in a BUCKET at school because we were short FIFTY-SIX FUCKING BITS. YOUR FIFTY-SIX BITS RARITY. A BUCKET RARITY! A BUCK-”
“Ah, sugarcube, she’s, uh, turning a little blue, I think she’s, uh, unconscious.”
Twilight looked back at Rarity, whose eyes had not only fully rolled back into her head but were now pointing in different directions, a true testament to the sheer drill-sergeant-esque power of what was indeed a highly impressive royal choke-slam. “Ah, yes, I see that now. Well, let’s not turn this assault into a murder. Can’t be getting a rap sheet like you guys after all!” With a giggle, Twilight dropped Rarity to the ground, where she resumed breathing. “Just kidding! All laws are written in my name, so I literally cannot commit a crime, nor be subject to law enforcement. Just food for thought!” Then, with a flourish, Twilight threw Rarity’s form into a pocket of an organizer, which, to everyone else’s discomfort, was labeled solely as ‘DUNGEONS’ “Right! Well, I don’t see how it can get much worse than that, so let’s move on to Fl-”
“OOH OOH PICK ME I’M NEXT I’M NEXT.”
“Ah – Ok Pinkie, just sign – no, that’s mine, yours is the one with your mark on it - “
“AAAaaaaaaaaaand done! Let’s see what I’ve done!”
Once again, the form began to fill. This time, there was only one charge.
CITIZEN: PINKAMENA DIANE PIE
29 COUNT: INVOLUNTARY PONYSLAUGHTER DUE TO GROSS NEGLIGENCE
Fluttershy gasped in horror. “twent-twenty-twenty ni-TWENTY NINE?”
“Yeah! I was trying to have this suuuuper big party for Hearths Warming, and I was like what’s more festive than those little glass stars? And if one of those is great, how about 241 of them? And oooooooh what if I loaded them into the party cannon and shot ‘em all out so they could fly like snowflakes? Because I bet those orphans from that mean ol’ orphanage down the street really could use some holiday cheer! But it turns out that if you put glass in a cannon you create something the guards called ‘An extremely lethal weapon’ and ‘an absolute atrocity’ and you do something they called ‘the worst terrorist attack since the Trottingham Troubles’ but I mean HEY who ever learned something without cracking a few eggs except this time it wasn’t eggs it was twenty-nine orphans!”
The room was utterly silent, except, of course, for the haggard unconscious breathing of Rarity. Finally, Rainbow Dash spoke, “How, uh, aren’t you in prison right now?”
Pinkie grinned and pronked happily in place. “That’s the best part! They were orphans, you know, so there wasn’t really anybody to press formal charges! They basically just had to let me go after a cursory sentencing, just as long as I see the nice stallions in the white coats at the hospital every other day! What hunks they are, let me tell you, real braniacs, I bet you’d love ‘em Twi!”
Twilight didn’t even respond, instead just grabbing the last form and shakily writing Fluttershy’s name in the blank. “Please, dear Fluttershy, sweet, sweet little angel Fluttershy, you’ll be fine, right? You’ll be a good friend and not a dangerous degenerate who pisses on corpses and burns down buildings and kills orphans and pays her taxes, right?”
“Um, well, there’s, uh, some-”
CITIZEN: FLUTTER SHY
2 COUNTS: SHOPLIFTING
“Hey! I’ll take that! That’s a minor misdemeanor! I’m sure with your money sometimes you have to do what’s best for your anima-"
46 COUNTS: FORNICATION WITH BEASTS
“Uh.”