Familiar grey, freshly washed and filed hooves that shone like diamonds, cantered on the floorboards of her great-grandfather's mansion. Each step emitting a clicking rhythm echoed throughout the near empty hallway. Silver Spoon passed by the large medieval knights armor, the odd guard pony with a stone cold expression that could make a foal piss himself on the spot, and expensive not-needed portraits of the family bloodline that seemed to follow her with their nonexistent eyes.

The large corridor's twists and turns seemed to go on forever until finally, Silver Spoon arrived at her destination; her father's study. Raising a hoof to knock on the polished oak doors, Silver Spoon fished out the letter she had found in the mailbox.

"Who's there?" Her father's deep voice made their way out of the closed doors.

"It's me, papa! I have something to discuss with you."

"Well, then come on in Silvy!"

The doors creaked as she pushed the open with a hoof. Her father sat back -hindlegs criss-crossed over the top- in his tight leather office chair. The interior of the study was a cliched one, but still quite impressive. Large, intimidating bookcases well over 7-feet tall were filled to the brim with old books and encyclopedias that anypony had to wonder, how exactly did the shelves that held them in their woody embrace not break under the combined weight of paper, glue, and leather covers?

His desk lay on a perfect circle carpet with splashes of brown, caramel, and dark chocolate in a hypnotic pattern on it's plush surface. Like the rest of the floor in the mansion, it was a freshly waxed, spice brown wooden floor.

Regardless of the description, even a pony who needed glasses and/or was near blind could tell it had an extraordinary interior. His lit up his collector's limited edition Sherclop Stables pipe and readjusted his spectacles."Tell me, my dear Silvy. What did you need to speak to me about?"

"Well, I was getting the mail today as usual as you requested me to, and I was flipping through it when I noticed this. It looked like I should show it to you urgently." Silver Spoon brought out the letter from earlier and placed it in front of her father.

Dear Silver Tray III,

It has come to our attention that you haven't been paying your taxes, as you are requested by Equestrian law. We have looked into your bank records and have noticed you are short on the money you need to send to us. We are sorry to say that if you do not mail the money we need from you, we will have to evict you from your home that we are aware your father's father built up from the ground with his own four hooves. This will not be easy for us, as Equestria is supposed to be a land of happiness and harmony, but this is what it will have to come to if you do not comeplete what we kindly request within the following year.

Sincerely,

The Tax Collectors of Ponyville

*Plink* Silver Spoon looked up at her father. New tiny drops of tears slowly dropped onto the expensive desk from the tip of his grey muzzle."Papa? I-is everything alright? If I can help I would do anyth-"

"No, no. It's quite alright Silvy. W-were just. . . . . . .were just falling behind without our main resource selling as much as it used to. Nopony seems to need silver anymore. We don't have as much money that's been flowing in the last 12 generations of our family and with gold and diamonds on the rise, we just can't compete. You can try whatever you can Silvy, but. . . .I think we might have to move away from Ponyville to start a new life. You did always say you wanted to live in Canterlot or Manehattan one day." She silently nodded, letting the feeling sink in for a few moments, then left the study leaving her father to cry.

1 Month Later

Great. . .Another useless attempt at earning money failed. A rock went flying again as Silver Spoon nocked it off the dirt road, only landing a few hooves away. The past month had been dreadful. The reputation of the Silver family had gone down, as word got out they were going to be evicted from their home and have to move out of the 3 generation old mansion.

Money was slowly flowing down the drain like an over-sized sand timer. Even though friends of the family attempted to give giants amount of help, and offerings of money came in from close relatives plus the Rich family, her father wouldn't accept their favors. He didn't want to trouble anypony, no matter the situation they were in.

"Oof!"

Silver Spoon quickly gathered her senses."S-so sorry!"

The pony she bumped into hissed and muttered something to themselves. Coffee soon found it's way to wetting her hooves, along with the cup bumping into it."Quite alright. I wasn't paying attention at all. Don't worry so much either." Before Silver Spoon could say something to the pony(Who she noticed had an accent) they held up a hoof to stop her from speaking.

"If you're going to ask how I know you worry to much, the way you apologized said it all. No pun intended. If you were going to say 'But it was my fault!' it was both our faults. Neither of us were paying attention so we both bumped into each other. It's simply cause and effect."

The pony, now that she had a good look at them after backing up, graced her with a devilishly handsome caring smile. He had a white coat with beige spots over it. His mane look as if he had lazily combed through it, then shook it out like he just noticed an arachnid in it, slowly crawling onto his muzzle. His eyes were a shiny dark brown, but worked well with the rest of his plain, but charming features. His frame was similar to the iconic Big Mac of Sweet Apple Acres, but a bit more like Caramel's. A shiny gold earring sat loosely in his left ear.

"Well. . .I must be going. My shipmates are going to think I was stabbed in the gut and mugged by some land lover."

"Okay. . ." Silver Spoon was now sitting down, mesmerized by the stallion's handsomeness. Not even noticing her tail was getting soaked in the rest of the spilt coffee. The stallion galloped off, not even glancing back at her.

Then a piece of paper found it's way in the sky to slap her out of her trance."Seriously, how many times am I going to be hit out of a trance!?" She ripped it off her muzzle so fast it earned her a clean new paper cut, but was too angry with the world to care about it.

But what she saw on the paper shocked her."980,000 bits for Pipsqueak the Pirate." And a wide grin to slowly spread across her muzzle.

Author's Note