A disgruntled grey stallion, wearing a tattered, sweat-stained suit over his back, sits at the Applespice Café with a tall mug of apple cider in front of him and a weathered black hat angled down. He takes a careful sip of his drink, taking care not to angle his cap too high.
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ the waitress asks, wearing a polite smile.
‘No, that will be quite alright,’ the stallion replies, speaking in a vaguely foreign accent masked by a certain roughness that matches his attire. ‘This cider is enough for me, thanks.’
‘Alright! Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me—I’ll be walking around the café for a while!’
As quickly as the waitress had arrived, the stallion meets once again with an atmosphere of isolation—just as he wants it. The café is at a dull roar, most of its occupants keeping to themselves or speaking to one another in hushed whispers several tables away. The stallion takes another sip of his cider.
A light sound of pit-pattering scurries towards him, soon followed by a somber, quiet voice. Through the bottom of his cap, he can see his visitor’s hooves, four trembling brown limbs short enough to make up two of his own stacked on top of each other.
‘E-Excuse me, sir,’ the voice says, pausing and waiting until he receives a nod in reply, ‘b-but I am in need o-of something to eat or d-drink... please, please! I’ll take anything that you can spare!’
The stallion raises his cap ever so slightly, now catching sight of a young green colt staring back at him from deep, brown eyes. He peeks out to the rest of the café, where the rest of its residents stare with contempt at the lad. He pauses for a moment—the boy is not one that he would normally talk to, let alone share stories with. He'd be hard-pressed to find another like him in an establishment such as this.
He’s perfect.
‘My name is Cerulean, sir,’ the stallion says politely, lifting his cap higher and pointing a hoof to the seat in front of him. ‘Please, my dear young friend. Have a seat, why don’t you?’
The young colt raises his eyebrows, and hesitantly stumbles over to the seat. ‘I... I’ve never been called a “sir’ before, sir. You don’t need to—’
‘No, please. You’re my guest; I only treat my guests how I want to be treated in turn.’ Cerulean lifts his hoof and shouts: ‘Waitress! I think a round of apple cider and a hot meal would do well for this young colt, here.’
‘...My... my name’s Olive.’ Olive blushes. ‘This is awfully kind of you, sir, I only wished for scraps.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Olive. Odd name, I’ll admit, but I’m sure it has a wonderful backstory.’ Cerulean smiles a toothy grin. ‘But think nothing of it. I’m always willing to hear a story after a rough day.’
‘What happened to you?’ Olive asks. ‘You don’t sound much like us folks in the streets, but your clothes are so tattered that you sort of look like us.’
Cerulean dusts off his shoulder and inspects his ragged clothing. ‘A scuffle, of sorts. Ruffians tend to get you a little agitated if you let ‘em try.’
Olive ponders for a moment, then smiles. ‘Maybe talking about it will make it easier to move on from today?’
‘No no, I’d rather not bore you with my silly stories. I’m much more intrigued about your journey to this very spot.’
‘I insist, sir!’
Cerulean sighs. 'Do you know much about office politics, and are you at all interested in them?’
‘...No and sort of, I guess?' Olive says, tilting his head. ‘I’ve never even seen an office before.’
Cerulean’s face begins to redden, he frowns, and his muscles tense up. He doesn’t look at Olive, merely turning to face an unseen object outside the café window. ‘I mean, why in Equestria should there be precedence to helping everyone over helping the rich? Clearly we’re only out to get everyone’s money—why don’t we just get rid of the entire damn industry and just steal from everyone?’
‘Sir?’
‘Ah, I do apologize.’ Cerulean takes a deep breath in, and lets it out slowly. ‘Like I said, it’s been a rough day. It was a silly thing at the office, and my anger already got the best of me today when I met a few ruffians out on the street. Woke up this afternoon in the dirt next to a child's playground—can you imagine that I didn’t have a single bruise on me? For an unlucky day, I seemed to have lucked out there. To be completely honest, I don’t remember it all too well.’
The waitress comes with a tall mug of cider, and quickly leaves and returns with a plate of warm mossgreens—grease-soaked mosses covered on a layer of mixed flower pâté. Olive’s mouth waters, but he quickly turns to the stallion seated opposite to him, busy taking a hard swig of his cider.
‘Thank you, sir... but aren’t you going to eat something?’
After finishing his mug, Cerulean lays it down, licks his lips and smiles once more. 'You seem like a nice kid. I underestimated just how tired I was a few minutes ago; I’m likely to crash at any moment. I’m afraid I’ll have to go home and sort some affairs out before hitting the sack for the afternoon—but, before I go,' he adds, digging a hoof into a suit pocket with a small hole sticking out the front, 'I think you would enjoy this.'
Cerulean removes a small brown pouch from a suit pocket, and tosses it over to Olive. Confused, the colt scratches his head as he stares at the bag—when he looks back up, Cerulean is walking with a confident stride out of the café, leaving only the bag and several golden coins on the table.
'...Huh?'
'Ooh, he left a nice tip,' the waitress says, collecting the coins from the table and leaving a fresh newspaper. 'Was he your dad?'
'No, ma’am. He seems like a kind soul, though.'
'Well, he paid for the newspaper. It’s all yours, I guess.'
The waitress leaves to another table, and the smell of the mossgreens soon overwhelms Olive. Excited, he digs in—he glances at the newspaper, though, and notices a familiar figure on the cover. He reads: "Corporate Executive 'Cerulean Voice' Disgusted With New Management!", and the figure in question makes him raise both eyebrows.
The mossgreens were quickly forgotten as the bag of mystery still lay on the table—what could an executive, with loads of money and seemingly oodles of values and morals, possibly have put in that bag?