The Voices (In My Head Again)

“Luna? Luna! Wherefore art thou Luna!?” Sketch shouts as he roams the halls, he forgot how to get to the throne room and is hoping that being loud would get someone’s attention and then they can point him in the right direction. Sadly, the plan is a complete failure.

“I am here, now could you please stop shouting? I’m about to start the night court and the nobles have just arrived.”

“Oh, can I help? I know a lot about government.”

“Really? How so?”

“Well after marine biology school was too expensive and I had to quit that then I went for telecommunications, but I always had a thing for history, if telecommunications fell through I would have tried to be a history teacher. The only way man, or in your case, pony, can take a step forward we must learn from our past mistakes to avoid further conflict.”

“Hmmm, maybe you could be of some help,” Luna says as she puts her front right hoof to her chin. “ How much do you know about diarchies?”

“Quite a bit actually.”

“Then we shall give it a shot, yes?”

“Yes, I will try to keep up.”

Sketch follows princess Luna to the throne room, really, how could he have forgotten already?

“So, care to tell me about your kingdom?”

“Why of course, first there was…” As Luna began her epic tale of the two sisters rising to power as diarcs and the tale of Nightmare Moon and the elements of harmony and the six element bearers. Sketch just walks in silence as Luna speaks of their culture and how everything came to be. The only odd thing was that she never explains why they were princesses, shouldn’t they be queens or something? Sketch isn’t sure how the whole thing works but he lets that one go.

“So… you used to be evil.”

“At one point in time, yes, then tantibus tried to take control and made our little ponies suffer in their dreams after we were cleansed.”

“And you were purified by Twilight and her friends before this tantibus thing?”

“Indeed.”

“You think they could try that on me?”

“Why? Are you possessed or is something ailing you?”

“Kinda, oh, looky here, we are in the throne room now.”

“Do you always announce things like that?”

“Yeah, but the readers need to know where we are.”

“Readers?”

“It’s an anon thing.”

“Anon?”

“Ask your sister.”

“Okay then, now onto business.”

A guard steps forward.

“Now onto the first session, taxes.”

“Yay math!”

“You actually enjoy this?”

“Yup, took calculus in high school.”

“High school?”

“Yeah, I in my world that is our ninth through twelfth year of school. I think, I kinda don't know whether or not to count kindergarten.”

“Mhmm” A noble pony in a suit clears his throat to get Luna’s attention.” May we please begin?”

“Of course.”

“And what sort of thing is standing next to you?”

“I’m a consultant of Luna’s” Sketch improvises.

“Now as for the taxes, I feel they are too much for my businesses and I am losing profits as the days go on, what do you plan to do about it, why not tax the lower income ponies in the kingdom and lower them for us since we are t-”

“The minority, no, Luna may I make a suggestion here?”

“Go ahead Advisor Sketch.”

“I say we do a percentile tax on everyone, that way joe everybody doesn't get taxed more than necessary.”

“But how will that help me?” The noble pony asked.

“It helps you because if they tax you 16% and they tax the common citizen the same percentage they will have more money to buy your wares and then hence making you more money. Works where I come from.”

“I see, I see, excellent point good sir, I will await the new taxation request from the Princesses.”

“I am impressed Sketch, you managed to solve that problem easily, you seem to be a… What is it called when you are good at many things?”

“Jack of all trades, master of none?.”

“I wouldn’t say that, oh well, next.”

The next pony to step up to be heard looks like a farmer who has worked everyday day of his life, Sketch could tell because sweat matts his coat and he looks exhausted.

“Princess Luna, is there a way for you to help with the parasprites eating all of mah crops?”

“Luna, can I take this one as well? Please?”

“Go ahead.”

“Don’t try a pesticide, but rather something similar to ipecac that is specific to their kind that would make the bugs eating your crops sick, then as more and more get sick from eating it. Luna, do you have rat poison?”

“Yes, why?”

“Humor me.”

“But ya’ll didn’t make a joke.”

Luna sends off a guard to retrieve the aforementioned rat poison, and Sketch begins reading the ingredients on the box.”Here’s what you need, an emetic. It is in rat poison to make sure that when ponies or what have you ingest it you throw it up safely and it removes the toxins from your system. If you can find a way to make this a temporary effect on your crops and then remove it before you bring it to market problem solved.”

“Sounds good to me, thanks whatever ya are.” And thus the happy farmer trots out of the throne room.

“Sketch, how do you know all this?”

“Remember, jack of all trades, master of none.” At this Luna just laughs a little.

After those two Sketch really has no idea what he is doing so he just leans up against the throne like the night before and listens to Luna deal with issues the ponies of her kingdom has.

After the majority of them having their problem solved Luna steps down from her shared throne and nudges Sketch who is half asleep.

“Are you still awake?” Luna asks kindly.

“Wha? Oh, *Yawn* yeah, I’m still awake.”

“Care for a walk during my break?”

“That sounds lovely,” Sketch says as he stands up and pops his back as the pops echo throughout the throne room getting Luna’s attention.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just that sitting still for a long time for me gets my body a little stiff so popping my joint helps a whole lot, does it bother you?”

“No, not at all, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting so many that loud,” Luna admits.

“Sorry. So, where do you want to go?”

“I find the garden quite peaceful at this time of night.”

“That sounds nice, care to lead the way?”

“You landed there not too long ago, did you already forget how to get there?”

“Yeah, I have no sense of direction, plus all the hallways here look the same,” Sketch admits as the two meander over to the garden.