It is quite an interesting experience, waking up to the first rays of the sun peeking in through your window, the smell of a kitchen wafting up through the floorboards, the crisp chill of the air above the blanket, the tickle of the point of a knife at your throat. The knee jerk reaction that fully wakes you up in a start when you realise what the feeling is can often be fatal. Sale Craft however fought through the feeling and stayed perfectly still, and looked up slowly into the face of the cloaked and masked pony holding the weapon.

“Just hand over whatever cash you have on you and no one needs to get hurt” said the intruder. The mare spoke with a voice as low as she could possibly make it to avoid recognition.
Sale Craft raised one eyebrow. “And if I don’t have any money on me?”
“... Umm... Well... you’d better hope you have some hadn’t you?” came the shaky reply.
“Oh no, whatever shall I do!” declared Sale Craft, a highly sarcastic edge to his voice. “Help help, there’s a mysterious pony in my room who’s holding a knife to my throat! I sure hope I don’t accidentally cut my throat on this knife she’s holding to my neck! Police! Ambulance! Mummy! Help me, help me! Oh I’m so scared! I mean I have absolutely no idea who this pony is; she could be the Butcher of Baltimare for all I know! Somebody save me! SOS, SOS!!!”
“Be quiet!” Hushed the masked pony. “Be quiet, or I’ll...”
“Really? You really still think you’re fooling anyone? Come on Stage, just take the disguise off.”
“Umm.... Who is this Stage of whom you speak? Sounds like an awesomely cool pony...” the pony ended with a weak chuckle.

Sale pushed his muzzle forward and touched the blade with his neck, then moved forward slowly, pushing the blade backwards into the hilt. With a sudden yell, he jumped up from the bed, flying tackled the masked pony backwards onto the floor and pinned her. He then pulled the mask and cloak off, revealing a grey earth pony with bright orange hair. He then proceeded to mercilessly tickle her ribs until she couldn’t breathe with laughter, ignoring her gasped protests. After a minute he stood up and let her catch her breath.
“Sale... You... Bastard...” she gasped slowly.
“You really thought I wouldn’t recognise my own sister? You’re not that great an actress” Sale chuckled. “I will give you credit though, it did take me a few seconds. You’ve been practicing.”

Sale pulled his sister up and they embraced for a few seconds.
“How’ve you been then? I haven’t seen you in months!” Sale asked.
“I’ve been alright,” the mare, Stage Craft, replied. “I’m in the Bridleway production of Cats at the moment, so life is good. How’s about you? Still bankrupting ponies for a living?”
“That was only one pony!” Sale protested. “And besides, how was I supposed to know that Nightmare Moon would choose that night to reappear? I wasn’t responsible for all those Moon-Spider eggs hatching! I told him not to leave them out in the moonlight too long, but would he listen? Oh no, it’s the Midsummer Sun Celebration! The moon will go down ages before they get enough moonlight to hatch! And I did try to get there when I realised what would happen, but we were both too late!”
“I know, I know, I’m just teasing” laughed Stage Craft. “How long are you staying for anyway? You’ve got to come and see my show at some point before you leave, will you come?”
“I’ll come, I’ll come. I’ve got one delivery to complete in the city, and then I’m free until I find somepony in need of my services.”
“Awesome! What load have you got? Where’s it going? Can I come?” Stage asked rapidly.
“Yeah you can come along. I don’t know the exact place I’m going; you might need to guide me. I’ll spend the day with you if you really want, although I’ve promised Flowing Hoof that I’ll drink with them this evening.”
“Aw... Ooh wait, that’s great! I’m in the afternoon show, so you can come and see us this afternoon and I’ll come out this evening!” Sale gave Stage a smirk, which earned him a smack in the muzzle. “You know what I mean.”

~

After splashing some water on his face and running a hoof through his mane in a half-hearted attempt to make it behave, Sale ushered his sister out of the room, locked up, then led her, past a Greyfeathers discussing some leave to visit family with Tempered Scotch, out of the inn, and round to the parking lot, where he hitched himself up to his cart and started trundling out towards the street. “Downtown Park Row?” Stage turned right, and Sale followed her lead.

With last night’s rain gone and the sun shining on the freshly washed Manehatten, the city sparkled with the glitter of glass and steel. The skyscrapers reached up towards the blue expanse of the sky, each taller than the next. However, none could compare to the Goblet Skyport, a gigantic circular pillar made of polished chrome reaching up and spreading out at the top into a wide circle, with docks at regular intervals around the edge. Though it could not be seen from the ground, 4 runways ran in a square around the central point of the pillar, which housed the freight and passenger terminals and lifts from the ground level.

The Craft siblings eventually turned on to Park Row, and Sale took a few looks up and down the road before turning right, leading his sister down through Zebraville.
“Well at least I’m convinced that you’re not selling anything illegal,” Stage commented. At a curious glance from Sale, she pointed at a building on their right. “That’s the Guard headquarters, 1 Police Plaza. There’s no pony stupid enough to do something illegal around here.”
“This is Police Plaza?” Sale asked, looking around. “Right then.” He turned off the road and trundled past the Guard house to the building next to it. He chuckled as he watched his sister’s face when she realised they were going into the Guard Armoury. Fishing a letter out of his saddlebags, he approached the gate.

“Halt. This is a restricted area,” The unicorn guardspony on duty at the gate held his spear out, barring their entry.
“Hey there,” Sale began. “My name’s Sale Craft, and I’ve got a load of steel for you.”
“Papers please.” Sale hoofed over the letter, which the guard opened, quickly scanned through, and then looked at Stage Craft.
“She’s with me,” Sale said quickly. The guard nodded, then passed the letter back and lifted his spear up to allow them through.
“Turn right, then it’s the third door you come to.” The guard turned back to his silent vigil.

Stage stuck a hoof in Sale’s ribs as they moved around the armoury to the large entrance that they had been directed to. “You never said we were coming here! I feel all guilty, as if I’ve done something wrong!” Sale looked at her and grinned.
“You never asked. Now let me do the talking.”
They entered a large hall, passed two guards, and came to a stop by what was obviously an unloading point. A pegasus and an earth pony approached them, as Sale unhitched himself and gave them a winning smile, holding out the letter again. The Pegasus took it and began reading.
“Welcome,” began the earth pony. “I’m Gilded Forge, Master of the Armoury, and this is Packed Bags, Manehatten Quartermaster. I hear you have a delivery for us.”
“3 tonnes of steel for your new armour,” replied Sale, beaming at the two. “Delivered 2 days ahead of schedule!”
“So, this is the new stuff eh?” asked Forge, clearly unimpressed. “We’ll but it from you for... how much is this worth do you reckon?” He asked his companion. “100 bits?”
“100 bits?” Sale exclaimed. “Don’t insult me. This stuff’s worth at least 3 times that.”
“What, for some steel? You know how hard steel is to shape? We’re already having to upgrade our metalworks, we can’t be going around overpaying for every single little load of metal.”
“I’m sorry, but this stuff is worth a lot more than 100 measly bits,” Sale looked at Forge as seriously as he could. “I brought this stuff all the way from Detrot, do you know how difficult it is getting through the Detrot Woods at this time of year? Everything with a pulse is looking at your flank wondering how it would taste with barbecue sauce! It’s not quite the Everfree, but still. And that’s just normal travellers, I had to lug three tonnes through that place on my cart, and only just made it out! I was chased by timberwolves all the way to the treeline!”
Forge looked unimpressed, but nodded. “All right, I’ll give you 150 bits for it if you insist. I won’t go higher though.”

Sale looked angrily at the Master of the Forge. “I still say they’re worth 300 at the very least. I would have thought a good forgemaster would know good steel when he sees it, or are you not that good at your job?”
“Well good luck finding another buyer in Manehatten,” Forge retorted.
“I really didn’t want to have to do this...” muttered Sale, just loud enough so that Forge could hear him. He turned to Packed Bags. “Can you tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Packed Bags replied, non-plussed. “I don’t know my metal as well as Forge does, I trust his judgement on this.”

“You don’t know either?” Sale laughed. “Really? Didn’t you ever study history? This is from Detrot.” He waited for a few seconds. “Ugh... Cloud Steel?”
Packed thought for a moment before he looked up with the expression of the suddenly enlightened. “Oh...”
“What? What’s so special about Detrot Steel?” Forge asked.
“You want to tell him or should I?” Sale directed the question to the quartermaster. Packed gestured for him to go ahead. “All right then Mister Forge, here’s a little history lesson for you. This is a story about the founding of Equestria. You’ve seen the Hearth’s Warming Eve’s story right?”
“I know the story yeah. How does that all relate to some steel?” Forge asked, sounding confused.
“Well” began Sale, “back before ponies moved down this way, there were the three tribes – the unicorns, the earth ponies and the pegasi, right? And each had their own role within the fragile alliance that existed between them, controlling the heavens, food production, weather control and so on. With me so far?” Forge nodded. “Well, the Pegasi had two main roles. They were in charge of the weather, and that’s the bit that everypony knows. However, most ponies don’t see the reason why Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy were so important as to represent the Pegasi at the Winter Conference. The pegasi made up the majority of the fighting force of the pony tribes. Their job was to defend the ponies against attack. That’s why the Guard is so popular among pegasi even to this day.”
“Everypony in the Guard knows this” Forge interrupted.
“Right. Well, back in those days, the pegasi armed forces were almost always on call to battle threats to the earth ponies or the unicorns. Nowadays, what with Equestria being the global superpower that it is, ponies don’t need protecting so much, and so the Guard has armour made out of gold, which has the obvious downsides – if anything gets through the protective enchantments, gold isn’t very resistant, and is also extremely heavy. Back in the day, the pegasi couldn’t be dealing with something that could fail at a critical moment, and also didn’t trust the unicorns with their lives. So they created Cloud Steel – basically iron mixed in very specific quantities with storm clouds, which makes the resultant steel extremely lightweight, and yet provides infinitely more protection than any other metal you could care to name.”

Comprehension began to dawn on Forge’s face. Sale Craft pressed on. “The pegasi struck a deal with a village of earth ponies who lived near a high concentration of iron, and built factories to produce the stuff. And when the move to what became modern day Equestria came, the settlement that produced Cloud Steel found the Detrot iron deposits and settled there. The woods provided the ideal natural protection for the production centres, and so Detrot grew. Ever wondered why Cloudsdale makes regular stops over Detrot? It’s because of this ingrained relationship between the pegasi and the ponies of Detrot.”

“Cloud Steel was also instrumental in Celestia’s decision to send her sister to the moon during the Nightmare Moon Crisis of 3998 AD. The Sun Guard of the day had already switched to golden armour, but the Night Guard still relied on Cloud Steel. If the two armies had been forced to clash, as it was inevitable that they would had Nightmare Moon not been dealt with there and then, Celestia knew that her forces would lose in a heartbeat. Now that Luna’s back and is now friendly with her sister, it is her order that the guard be made into a more effective fighting force. I’m quoting her here, she said she had ‘intelligence that threats to the peace of Equestria are beginning to stir, and so the Guard should be better prepared than they currently are’ unquote.”
“I never knew what she meant by that” Forge admitted.
“Well then, it’s lucky you had me as your delivery boy then eh?”
“I have a question” Packed Bags piped up. “How do you know so much about our history?”
“Well, partly due to what I was told at the Detrot Refinery, but mostly” Sale turned to indicate Stage Craft, who smiled and waved, “due to my sister’s talent for acting. She single hoofedly researched, organised and ran our school’s production of the Hearth’s Warming Eve Carol back when we were kids. I couldn’t help but learn a bit second hoofedly.”

“Well then Mister Craft,” Forge decided, “it seems you are carrying some quite valuable materials. As such, I will give you 200 bits for your load.”
“250 bits”
“225”
“Done.” Forge and Sale shook hooves. “Just out of interest, how much were you willing to give me at the start?” Sale asked.
“300 bits” admitted Forge. “What about you? How much would you have sold for?”
“100 bits” laughed Sale.

The deal done, Gilded Forge, called out an order, and a few unicorns came in, levitated the steel off the cart and carried it away into the armoury, as Packed Bags paid Sale. As the Craft siblings left the two guardsponies, Packed asked “What happened at the end there? Why did you both argue over the price?”
“Ancient earth pony tradition, my friend” Forge replied. “If either of us accepted the first offer the other gave, it would have been insulting. Besides, we both walked away happy in the end, which I suppose was what the tradition is for.” And Packed Bags learned.

Author's Note

Yeah, I think that's good for this chapter. Eh? Well I did say that his sister told me this story didn't I? No, I think it was before we met you. She was pretty hot. Actually, want to meet her? I think she's in the touring production of the Manticore King at the moment, which I think is in Canterlot this week. Yeah, that's where Sale's gone I think. Want to go see a musical? We can come back to this later. In that case, just let me get a quick bite to eat then we can go. No, your hair is fine. No, you don't need to get ready... oh you know what? Go get ready. I'll have a quick nap then we'll go see the evening performance. Yeah, meet you at the reception at 6? Cool.

Stallions... Well, at least Trixie has time to put a little something in. As Trixie said before, send me a scroll with any mistakes you might find. Also, if you liked it, maybe say something about it? The comments in the Canterlot Express should do, so long as it's a glowing reference. If not, the humble and respectful Trixie will listen to your well reasoned criticism and take it on board.