Clean Corners

Clean Corners

Hello. My name is Cleaned Corners. It's a mundane name for a pony, especially a housekeeper like myself. However, my life has been anything but boring. Let me tell you a little about when I started working for the Princess.

Princess Twilight Sparkle had needed a little helping hoof around her castle, and I had stepped up to the plate. She had put a request to the other castles for an experienced housekeeper, and I secured it. Many ponies applied for the position, but I had a slight advantage. You see, I don't play fair. During the selection process I ensured my competition was eliminated. Some were simply not qualified—I ignored those—but others had been encouraged to seek employment elsewhere.

I decided to transfer from the Crystal Empire when my job became too frustrating. I knew the frustration was my own fault, I take great pride in my work and no detail goes unnoticed. More than that, I simply can not allow a single thing out of order. It makes me a little crazy, and not in a fun way. And the Crystal Empire Castle was too busy and hectic for a single pony to keep in order. It wasn't just me working there, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor had a small army of cleaners, tidiers, and sweepers employed. At the end of the day it was a story of too many ponies trying to accomplish the same goal.

Even though I understood this, it frustrated me to no end. I would find myself shaking with rage when I would dust a bookshelf sparkling clean only to have some half-wit maid come through and decide it needed to be wiped with an abrasive, wood damaging cleaning fluid. An ancient mahogany shelf needs to be cared for with the utmost delicacy, not drowned in a harsh chemical poison. So I would remove the source of my troubles. Maid after janitor after butler would cease to be a problem, being taken care of by any number of carefully utilized designs and being forced to find work elsewhere. I kept a clean castle after all.

Unfortunately, equally ineffective replacements would be hired by the Princess, and I would have to remove them as well once they made critical mistakes. I was careful over the years, and my record was nothing but a shining, perfectly ordered history of excellent performance. My record was a key part of how I was able to secure my position with Princess Sparkle. Officially, I requested to be transferred in order to be leave the climate of the Crystal Empire behind and bring my expertise to the new princess. The actual reason for my transfer was much less altruistic. I needed more control. I knew I could control a smaller castle much more efficiently, especially if I was the only pony on staff to serve the royals.

Of course, what I'd done to get the position was all legal, if morally questionable. I had always made every effort to never actually break the law. I'd definitely bent it over backwards a few times, but I'd never broken it—at least until Twilight Sparkle changed my plans.

By then I had served under her highness, the Princess Twilight Sparkle, for a month or so. We had come to a comfortable understanding. I accomplished my cleaning duties throughout the day while Princess Twilight would occupy her day with studies, reports, and royal matters. Mr. Spike the Dragon would occasionally assist me with tasks, and then focus his attention on the library.

For the evening, I made dinner for all three of us. When there were guests, I would cook and Spike would play butler. The time after supper was my own, and I was given two days off a week. I would usually use those days to wander the castle, looking for hard to reach places that might have been missed during the rest of the week. I rarely found any, but the time spent was relaxing.

The Princess demanded I refer to her as Twilight when no visitors were around, dropping the royal title. In return she called me by name, Cleaned Corners, or simply Clean. Occasionally I would tease her by calling her “Princess”, and she would respond by pretending to be demanding. Spike was less demanding, having been a royal assistant himself in the past. Technically Spike was a legal prince, Twilight being his guardian, but he insisted on continuing a few his previous duties for Twilight.

My cutie mark is a simple affair, a feather duster shooing some dust away. It represented bringing order and cleanliness, and an impeccable desire to make sure every little corner is perfect. Straight, dust free, swept completely and utterly clean. And it was my job to ensure every corner of this castle stayed exactly as clean as I intended it to be.

My daily execution had been perfect, and my life for the last few weeks had been one of contentment. At least until I heard the plan Princess Sparkle was considering. She wanted to hire some more staff, so I could have more free time to go make friends or some such nonsense. Luckily, Spike was against it. The little dragon was fiercely territorial—it had taken quite some time, and no small amount of bribery on my part before he was willing to accept me as something like an assistant.

So, as a simple matter of course, Spike and I plotted. It's a time honored tradition between princes and their heads of staff. He had offered to help me cook, buying some private time for us while Twilight studied.

I was distractedly tapping my hoof on the crystalline counter while I cooked, my mind buzzing with worries. “What are we going to do, Sir?” I had no way to stop Twilight from hiring new ponies, and it was driving me mad.

“I dunno. It is Twilight's castle, and she thinks you need some more time to yourself.” Spike scratched his head and looked to the side, pondering the situation as he paused chopping the vegetables.

I huffed indignantly, firmly pressing my nervous hoof into the counter so it would cease it's rebellious shaking. “This is my job, Sir. I take great pride in my work. I enjoy what I spend my time on.” I was getting angrier and more animated as we talked. I didn't want to just say it, but more ponies meant more problems. Problems that I have to clean up after, and cleaning up other ponies eventually gets messy.

“Yeah... I hear ya man.” He rolled his eyes in mild frustration. “I mean, what kind of assistant would I be if everypony else did my job?” he held his hands out questioningly to me, waiting for my response.

“Sir, you are excellent at your job. It's a simple matter of too much for one pony, or dragon, to take care of with your new castle. But I do believe that the two of us are quite enough. The problem is how do we convince Princess Twilight of this?”

Spike thought on this for a while. He was still young, but dragons are never something to be underestimated. They can be terrifyingly intelligent when they need to be. “Well, we've just got to make her understand that the two of us can handle it. Twilight wants you to spend some more time on yourself, go out making friends or read a book or something. Maybe if you can make the time to read a few books she'll accept that you aren't working too hard.”

I thought on it. It wasn't a grand scheme like I would come up with, it was simple and honest. I was thinking something more along the lines of carefully instilling a fear of hiring new cleaning staff. I'd tell Twilight horror stories of how newly hired cleaning ponies handled romantic affairs. Sometimes on very expensive book cases and with very old books. Something that would register with her, but not negatively affect me. Still, the drake had a good plan; there was no harm in pursuing it.

We came to the conclusion that for a certain amount of time every day, I was to read from the library. I would find a small amount of time during the day, and continue to study during my off time. It was a simple plan, but I could never have guessed how it would turn out.

I spent the next few weeks reading every chance I got. I studied all manner of things, but I kept coming back to similar titles. A history of slavery. Myths and facts of hypnotism. Psychological experiments. How to cook the perfect quiche. At first, I failed to notice the pattern. But while reading a colorful case study on a psychopath, I realized something important.

While the book's author expressed confusion at his actions, I understood the subject's motives completely. Of course he killed those mares. They were messing up his neatly arranged garden. I had dealt with similar issues my whole life. Ponies getting in my way, and forcing me to remove them in whatever manner was the most efficient. The only difference between this fellow and I was that I had the foresight to not get caught, and always metered my responses based on the potential for punishment. I just hadn't had the resources available to comfortably exercise a murder. Quite frankly, I was significantly more intelligent than the subject in the book.

Calculating risk versus reward was something I'd learned at a young age. Sure, I could hit the foal who was mocking me in order to stop his bullying. But then I'd have to go to detention, which wasted even more of my time. So I learned other ways to deal with obstacles like bullies. Instead of fighting with him, I tricked him into playing chicken with a griffin. A game he lost and I won. My bully spent the summer in the hospital. The risk to me was minimal; nopony knew I was involved in any way. And the reward was far greater than a simple blow to a fools face. But while children were simple, adults were not.

My obstacles became more complex as I aged. Just removing them from my life was often not enough. I had to be more creative. A rival suitor for the mare I had my eyes on? He would find himself in jail for a few years for fraud and theft. Fired from a job at a bakery? The building became mysteriously infested with termites and bore weevils while the owner dealt with his wife's sudden bout of infidelity. All the while their teenage daughter that they had trusted to run the shop fell in deep with an unfortunate crowd. Competition for a position at the Castle? A series of unfortunate accidents, never lethal, but occasionally hospital inducing. Only, of course, for the most serious contenders.

It turns out I am a bit of a control freak, and more importantly I have very little to no concern for the well being of other ponies. I react swiftly and strongly when things aren't going my way. I've always known that I was different, but to see it explicitly spelled out in a book was exhilarating. It was as though I had been born blind and now could suddenly see. The whole world was quickly becoming clear.

A psychopath was a pony who acted as a criminal, as I had, with complete disregard for other ponies. I had simply never been caught. I had never truly loved anypony, my parents had only been two more obstacles in my life, just like the pony in the book. There were only two noticeable differences between myself and the pony in the book—I learned from my mistakes, and I held regard for laws only so much as they could affect me. It seemed as though I had a mild case of antisocial personality disorder.

Before I read that book I had known that ponies would never appreciate my real personality, but the book convinced me absolutely. I was convinced that no one must ever know the workings of my mind. The treatment for sociopaths, and other ponies like me, was incredibly unpleasant, and I would never allow myself to be subjected to it.

I had a few tools to avoid that fate—I was charming, very persuasive, comparatively intelligent to most ponies, barring of course Princess Sparkle, and increasingly well read. I also was under a royal position, one that if managed carefully, could allow me a very large degree of freedom and privacy.

While the book had made me aware of what I was, it had also filled me with dread. It became all the more imperative to ensure no more ponies would move into my happy little home. No, it had to stay Princess Sparkle, Spike the Dragon, and myself for as long as possible. I could not leave my fate up to any other ponies. Even Princess Twilight and Spike were a threat to me. So I decided to do what any good psychopath would do. I started planning.

I read every trick I could, and managed to gather quite a few tools to assist me. The drive I have when I put my mind to something is very focused. It also played to my advantage when Princess Sparkle was pleased to see me going in and out of the castle on my own. She was excited that I was throwing myself into studies, and would often ask about my reading. At the time, Twilight was happy to have a fellow bookworm in the castle. I doubt she would have been as pleased if she had known my true intentions.

When I noticed how happy she was with me I thought that she probably wouldn't replace me right then, as pleased as she was, but I had to be completely sure. I wasn't one to leave a potential threat unanswered. However, Princess Twilight was far more valuable to me as long as she remained alive and my boss. I just had to make sure she did exactly what I wanted. And I had found a few books on hypnosis and psychology that contained just the knowledge I needed.

I started slow. I'd excused Spike from making the dessert tea, professing that he get some time with his other family member. I made it a habit. By the end of the week, it was understood that I made tea for the two of them, and would take my own tea in private to allow them time to bond. I experimented with the tea, coming up with a dark and flavorful brew that could mask additives.

Once I was comfortable with the recipe, I began to add just a hint of a relaxant to the tea. I even informed Princess Sparkle that I was switching to a bed time mix, informing her that it was to help relax for the evening. She wouldn't take it every night due to her studies, but she would take it most nights. After tea time, she and Spike would often curl up on the couch and talk for a while until it was time for the little dragon to go to bed.

Sometimes I would watch them from the darkened kitchen, the firelight flickering warmly across their faces as they lay content. I don't know what I was thinking, but the sight of them caused me a small and strange measure of joy. If Twilight ever noticed then she never said anything about my skulking. Eventually, Princess Sparkle would either retire herself, or push on through the sedative and move to her studies. More than once I found her dozing peacefully in her books.

Once they were reacting to the drug reliably. I gradually increased the amount of it. Because the increase was slow, Twilight never noticed that I was making it stronger. During this time, I believe she suspected I had a rare Neighponese tea recipe. That wasn't incredibly far from the truth with the leaves I was adding to her brew. Between the brewing process and the ingredients, it was closer to a potion than a tea at this point.

My plan had been going on for several months, and nopony was any wiser. I spent quite a few bits on odd herbs and mixes, but the locals always just assumed they were reagents for Twilight’s experiments. Spike and Twilight slowly became conditioned to take my tea, and then fall asleep almost exactly half an hour later. It was perfect. Our life became like clockwork, falling asleep exactly on time and waking exactly on time.

The threat of more ponies moving in had passed, but at this point I was much too far along to have any intention of stopping. Twilight was my master, and it was my duty to serve her. It would serve her best to have a perfectly ordered life, it suited her personality and her checklists. I'll also admit that I was intoxicated with the control I'd gained, so of course I continued.

After a while I noticed that they had become addicted to the sedative. Twilight would never intentionally skip her evening tea, and in the event Spike was left alone with me for the evening he would request a cup before bed. I kept the recipe a secret, joking that they would have me replaced once they knew it. I laughed with them, but only I knew how close it was to the truth.

I kept upping the dosage, carefully monitoring them. Twilight was taking enough of the sedative that she wouldn't wake for quite some time, at least a couple of hours once she had fallen asleep. Even though he was young, Spike's draconic biology made him quite resistant. As a result, the alicorn and dragon took about the same dosage. Spike might sleep a little heavier and a little longer, but neither of them were ever in any danger. I've always been careful with my toys.