“Mr Ledger, a memo from corporate acquisitions has arrived on my holoscreen link, shall I forward it to you?”

I have always been a 'work from home' kind of pony, even when on assignment from my actual place of residence, most of my time is spent working from an 'executive suite' at the local hotel. I mean, there is nothing more off putting than going for a shit to be met by a rather large brown stain glowering back at you indignantly, what do these ponies actually eat? Little wonder hospitals were groaning under the weight (pardon the pun) of self inflicted 'injuries'. Gastric bands are no longer seen as a last resort any more, but a lifestyle choice.

Anywho.

We were rapidly approaching the end of our second day at the office. The meeting yesterday concluded swiftly and consisted of little more than Harvest giving a general outline of what the heads of divisions hoped from out little sojourn. Garde spent that time making what appeared at the time, to be excessive notes. Presumably on my behalf. Most of my time since had been spent reviewing an apparently never ending stream of acquisition requests and personnel files. The rest of the time I spent staring at Garde.

It was entirely unintentional, and I was not simply being a pervert you must understand.

I had never possessed a PA in my retinue. I never had a retinue to begin with, and I was entirely unsure of what to expect. Needless to say, my expectations were far surpassed. Frankly I was beginning to wonder how I had ever coped without her help. Admittedly the assignments I had been on in my years of service to date were not quite of the scale of this current task, and I never had to contend with such distractions before, but nonetheless, I was simply in awe.

Standard grav manipulators come primarily in the 'bracelet' form, a thin silver looking metal band, approximately an eighth of a hoof wide encircling the leg beneath the fetlock, usually worn on the right foreleg. Manufactured by one of the four big 'everything corps' (Callisto Conglomerate to be more precise) of which Io is one, they became, a long time ago, an integral part of Equestrian society. My understanding of their usage is honestly, a little vague. Amounting to basically 'think thing move' and 'thing then moves'. Being an Unicorn, and I am not exactly in the minority of my kin, many Unicorns don't use them as they have a built in horn sticking proudly out of their foreheads that does the exact same job.

Well that is honestly what I thought anyway.

The way Garde was using her manipulator was almost poetic.

“Yes, thank you Garde” I blinked from my admittedly creepy staring, and looked to the window which had a pleasant view of the small park to the east of Parliament building. The sun was beginning to creep a little closer to the horizon now, and long shadows from the leaves of a large old oak drew a pleasing pattern across the perfectly tended grass. Garde gave a little nod accompanied by an restrained smile which slowly dropped as she turned back to her work.

Watching her work had rapidly become one of my favourite pastimes. A carousel of papers seemed dance a circle about her head as she annotated sheets and transposed more important nuggets of information to her holoscreen, which she collated and brushed in the direction of my holoscreen. I have actually counted and it seems that fourteen individual items seems to be her limit, not that I actually think she was taxing herself.

How is that even possible?! I know supposedly mares are expected to be able to multitask better than the average stallion, of which I am one decidedly average stallion, but that seemed a little excessive?. I struggle at times to even lift a brandy glass half empty of Armagnac, although in my defence, the conditions surrounding said levitation were a little more stressful.

I glanced back at my holoscreen again and began levitating my stylus towards its mail icon, swiping away the files I currently had open.

Acquisitions had become steadily more insistent over the last couple of days, that each item be checked and double-checked considering the quantity of stuff we were ordering and authorising. Given the time-scales we were working with it was understandable, to a degree. Honestly though I think they were delaying so some poor fucker didn't have to work late to actually buy and ship what we wanted, hoping we would miss the cut off time. Still, it was tedious confirming confirmation mails simply saying 'yes we did order that... yes we do want that' or some-such similar iteration of the above. This particular form consisted of primarily foodstuffs, three particular items highlighted in red. Powdered milk, powdered eggs and cornstarch. Sugar was highlighted in orange, obviously not the life or death situation that the fucking eggs, milk and cornstarch were though. I racked my brain whilst looking at the staggering quantity of aforementioned items requested.

What the fuck?

Custard?

I let out an entirely stallion-like giggle.

“Is there a problem, Mr Ledger?” Garde almost whispered whilst looking up from her vast array of documents of floating materials and raising an eyebrow inquisitively. I was still getting used to the intonation of her speech at the time. She had a peculiar, decidedly un-Prench habit of dropping her tone towards the end of a sentence, making everything sound unlike like a question. Maybe my initial conclusion was a little hasty, there was certainly the sound of time spent in Prance in her voice though, of that I was certain.

“Oh, no not really thank you Garde, just some mistake it appears” I sighed, quickly dispelling my humour at the oversight while I started to tap my reply with the stylus I was still levitating. “It looks like some zeros were added to an order in error”

Garde knitted her brow and bit her cheek; “Are you sure Mr Ledger? I double-checked all those numbers myself” Her swirling carousel gently floated about her person and stacked itself on her desk as she rose to view the order I was already beginning to amend. She trotted gracefully to my side and looked over the list. She was wearing an faint perfume which reminded me of lavender. “ah, I see your concern, but everything is as it should be Mr Ledger. The request was from Enyo office directly and will go a long way to helping us I felt”

But. Custard?

I like custard as much as the next pony but, really?. The way she said it though I honestly felt like I could not refuse.

Fine, fucking custard.

Can't refuse a pretty face.

“Okay Garde, if you are certain” I started tapping my response as she started her trail back to her desk across the room. “Also. please call me Bound, Mr Ledger makes me feel old”

“Of course Mr Bound.” She said with an impassive face, her eyes though betrayed her amusement at my expense. I swear this mare was baiting me to see if she could garner some kind of response. I wish I could have seen her cutie mark, I am almost certain it would be of a grinning face smirking right back at me. On the contrary though, I actually had to suppress a smile. Most humour these days has lost all subtlety.

Reply sent, I quickly flashed through the rest of the seemingly insignificant data trying to pick out anything of note. We were to depart to the starlift via the grav-rail link early the next morning so I did not wish to linger simply out of some kind of backwards duty. The shuttle waits for nopony and I wanted to be well rested.

“Garde, unless there is anything of immediate concern, we should finish for the evening.” I waited for a response for a moment but got nothing in return. “Remember we have a long journey tomorrow and there is going to be a lot of work to do, no point in wearing ourselves out now is there? Besides, most of what we are doing can be finished on the shuttle” A lie of course, and I was certain Garde knew this. It was only a two hundred league journey and it took a mere thirty minutes on the rail.

Garde let out a little sigh before neatly stacking her papers and collapsing her holoscreen back into its crystal cube.

“Of course, Mr Bound. The hour is getting late and we must still head over to the security offices R and D wing before they close for the evening.” She lifted the cube and tucked it into her mane.

Perhaps after that I should offer to buy her dinner? I thought to myself. It was not as if we had really gotten to know each-other over the last two days, aside from small talk our conversation had stayed strictly within the bounds of our profession. We were going to be spending an significant time together, primarily in close proximity and keeping everything business only in those situations can become a little tedious and uncomfortable.

“Besides, afterwards I must meet some friends who I have not seen in some time before we go.”

Maybe not then.

Author's Note

I wrote this chapter after eating custard if you cant tell.

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