It was an evening like any other. The sun over the Crystal Empire had set a few minutes ago, the light of a long day was beginning to fade, and traffic on the streets was slowly but steadily dying down.
Shining Armor gave a groan as he tilted his head back and forth, feeling the remains of a long day of training his soldiers in the royal guard still sitting heavy in his bones. With directed steps, he walked through the splendid hallway of the generously sized castle he inhabited together with his wife and daughter.
Said daughter was still in her room, and -contrary to her regular evening protocol- had not yet come to her parents, teeth brushed and pyjama equipped, to get her goodnight-kiss like she normally did. Knowing the filly, she probably was too focused on playing with all the new toys she had received for her fifth birthday last week, and had simply forgotten about the time, so her father had decided to scout the situation.
Coming to think of it, Flurry Heart had spent a lot more time than usual in her room these past days. If Shining Armor remembered correctly, she had spent most of her recent free time playing with a toy-shop she had received from her parents as a birthday gift.
It was a simple construction that allowed her to become a store owner and sell all sorts of plastic-fruits and faux-groceries to anyone who happened to pass by her room - most of the time these ponies turned out to be her mother, or the occasional guard passing by during their patrol.
Before long, his daughter had come to declare the store her ‘own company’, calling it Flurry Inc. and pretending to do real business deals on the counter of her little store, instead of just selling groceries.
Shining Armor smiled to himself as he stopped in front of the closed door leading to his daughter’s room. What he’d given to have one of those shops as a colt.
But he shook his head, placing a hoof on the doorknob and slowly shoving the door open.
“No no, I said Thursday. I need the goods till Thursday. Not Saturday, not Friday, Thursday. Got it?”
Shining Armor stood like thunderstruck in the doorframe of his little daughter’s room, watching in wide-eyed awe what was going on in front of him.
Princess Flurry Heart, his five year-old daughter, was sitting behind what appeared to be a heavy, brown oak desk, leaning back on what looked like a fancy executive chair. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of noble-looking sports sunglasses, her magic holding the receiver of a colorful toy phone she had received for her second birthday against her ear.
“I don’t care if all of you will have to work overtime. I can guarantee you that heads will roll if the Maretsubishi-deal falls through!” the filly spoke into the receiver, seeming quite worked up. “We agreed on Thursday, so get your act together, or you’re dog meat!”
With that, she slammed the receiver back onto the toy phone, which made a silly sound effect in return.
“Hey sweetheart.” Shining Armor spoke up softly, attempting to hide his confusion about where in the world the desk, chair and sunglasses had come from
“One sec, babydoll.” Flurry Heart replied offhandedly without looking at her father, her magic picking up the receiver again, and her little hoof typing on the phone’s colorful keypad. The toy imitated animal noises with each button she pressed - a cow, a pig, a bird, another cow, and a lion.
Shining Armor cocked a bemused eyebrow. Babydoll? Where had she gotten that from?
“Sally?” Flurry Heart spoke up again, her face seeming a bit more relaxed now as she spun her chair, turning away from her father, “Book me a flight down to Fillydelphia, will you? I gotta make sure those nitwits won’t screw up another delivery.” she remained silent for a moment, seeming to listen, “Yes, on my credit card.” she nodded, “Yep, first class. … Booked?” her chair spun back around again, a grin on her face, “Steak sauce. Enjoy the weekend, Sally.”
And with that, she lowered the receiver again, her look finally arising from her desk and going back to her father who had watched the whole conversation with a slightly bewildered face.
“Whassup Daddy-o?” Flurry Heart addressed her father, welcomingly spreading her arms, “You shoulda made an appointment if you wanna shoot the breeze, but hey…” she shook her head, a toothy grin on her face as her concealed eyes seemed to look him over, “Family comes first, right? So spill the beans! Whazzup?”
“I, uh…” Shining Armor began, unable to hold back a bewildered snicker at his daughter’s strange behavior, “I think it’s time for bed, sweetie. Look…” he stretched out a hoof, pointing at the large window behind the desk where the last beams of sunlight were vanishing, “The sun has set already.”
His gaze was caught by the wall next to the window, where the colorful paintings of rainbows had since been covered up with motivational posters and something that looked like a sales forecast. He cocked an eyebrow for a second, but shook his head, his look focusing back on his daughter, “Don’t you think it’s time to go beddy-byes?”
At that, the filly remained silent for a long moment, then leaned her head forward and focused her father over the rim of her sunglasses, her light blue eyes focusing him with an ‘are you serious?’-glance.
However, she shook her head shortly after, instead turning to the side and reaching for a stack of papers lying ready. “Actually, now that you’re here, you can sign that for me. Stupid feds think I need the signature of a ‘legal guardian’ on my tax declaration.” she shook her head, shrugging as she shoved the papers into his direction, “Seriously, they should consider themselves lucky I’m still doing business in Equestria and not moving my HQ to Lynxembourg like everyone else.”
Shining Armor looked back at her, blinking numbly a few times.
“Actually…” Flurry Heart spoke up again, having by now picked up a fountain pen with her magic and writing something on an empty piece of paper in front of her, “Let Mom sign it, will you? You’re the MVP and all, but I think having a Princess-signature on there will teach those feds not to mess with me.”
Her father opened her mouth to retort something, but was cut short as his daughter looked at a big, swanky golden watch strapped around her hoof, and rolled her eyes. Shaking her head, Flurry Heart turned back towards the toy-phone standing on the desk next to her. “Sorry fam.” she said offhandedly, “But I gotta get Neighpon on the phone ASAP. This deal’s a big fish. This company’s toast if it falls through.”
Another sequence of animal-sounds was heard, then Flurry Heart span her chair again, turning away from the captain of the guard.
“Flurry, I’m not kidding.” Shining Armor said, his voice a bit sterner, “I know you like playing business, but it’s time to-”
“Hai.” he was cut off by his daughter speaking up again, straightening out her back and assuming a more focused seating position. “Flurry Heart de gozaimasu. Kuroki-san desu ka?”
“What the…?” Shining Armor whispered to himself, his face screwing up as he watched his daughter appear to speak in some… strange, foreign language, seeming to be quite focused on the dialogue with whoever she pretended was at the other end of the line.
But he shook his head. He knew his daughter, and he knew she would try everything to escape bedtime. Granted, this was one of her more… advanced attempts, but he was going to see through it.
“Princess Flurry Heart.” Shining Armor said, by now having resorted to using his authoritative Dad-voice. “I told you, it’s time to go to bed. No more playing businesspony until after kindergarten tomorrow.”
His daughter, having turned away, probably to drown out her father’s scolding voice, gave an annoyed sigh, and turned back towards him.
“Sumimasen.” she spoke into the phone, then lowered the receiver and glowered at her father over the brim of her sunglasses, “Give me some space here, alright? This thing’s kind of a BFD.”
“I don’t care.” Shining Armor said defiantly, shaking his head as he stepped closer to her desk, “You’ll have to be in kindergarten tomorrow, so you gotta sleep now.”
“Oh yeah, you’re gonna have to cancel that.” she said with an offhanded swish of her hoof, "I gotta fly to Filly, then have a video conference with Neighpon, so… eh?” she said, shrugging. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” she said, her magic raising the receiver of her toy phone again, “Gomen'nasai Kuroki-san. Watashi…”
She was cut short as her father’s magic wrapped itself around the receiver, and slammed it back onto the phone with a thud, gaining a happy party horn sound effect, followed by roaring applause, from the toy.
“I said it’s time for bed!” Shining Armor declared, sounding slightly worked up too.
Slowly, stiffly the businessmare-turned filly turned her head, focusing her father through her mirrored sunglasses, before again leaning her head forward, and pushing her glasses forward with a hoof.
“Not very cash money of you, Armor.” she said reprimandingly, “Not very cash money.”
“How… how did you just call me?” Shining asked, cocking an eyebrow with disbelief, but then shaking his head, “Look, I’m your father, so you’ll just call me Dad, okay?”
“Yeah yeah.” Flurry Heart put him off with a nonchalant swish of her hoof, “Save your Vader-talk, will you?”
Again, Shining Armor cocked an eyebrow. “What… what in the world is a Vader?” but he frowned as he watched his daughter pick up the phone’s receiver again, probably ready to go for another round of calling her imaginary ‘business partner’, but Shining Armor was having none of it!
“Hey!” Princess Flurry Heart squealed as she felt herself picked up from her chair by an aura of blue magic, realizing what her father was doing. “Not cool, old man! So not cool!”
But the captain of the royal guard merely smirked as he lifted his daughter over her desk, pulled the glasses off her muzzle and loosened the heavy gold watch from her hoof, and began walking, heading for the princesses’ private bathroom adjacent to her room.
“Trust me, you can consider yourself lucky security is only going to start working tomorrow! Otherwise I’d have you dragged off the premises already!”
“Yeah yeah.” Shining Armor said with an indulgent nod of his head as he stopped in front of the bathroom door, opening it with his magic and setting his daughter down on the tiled floor. His face became serious again as he looked down at her, giving her an admonishing look. “Now, I want you to be all ready and done - teeth brushed, mane washed, and pyjama equipped in five minutes, okay? I’ll check!”
His daughter lowered her gaze, muttering something about the ‘damn patriarchy’.
Her father gave a brief snicker, then ruffled up her mane with a hoof, and turned around again, closing the bathroom door behind himself and walking back into his daughter’s room.
Incredible how fast these kids grow up nowadays. Back when he was her age, he used to play with toy soldiers and footballs…
His gaze went over to the desk, and he grinned.
Now his daughter was pretending to run her own business, with ties to foreign countries and everything. Celestia knows where she was going to stand when she’d reached his age.
However, Shining Armor’s thoughts were interrupted when the shrill sound of a bell hit his ears. He perked up, quickly identifying the source of the sound to be somewhere on the desk to his side. Closer examination revealed the culprit to be…
He raised an eyebrow.
His daughter’s phone; his daughter’s… toy-phone was ringing.
That, normally, wasn’t something uncommon, as this pesky thing was programmed to pipe up when it hadn’t been used for a while. Normally, the toy would play a happy, cheerful melody, and -upon answering- would inform the listener that Scubbie Snuffleface ‘just wanted to tell you that you’re a wonderful little pony!’
However, this time the phone wasn’t playing a cheerful melody, but instead blaring with the obnoxious sound of a school bell - a sound that Shining Armor didn’t even know it was capable of producing.
Screwing up his face in confusion, the stallion slowly walked over to the desk, watching the colorful lights integrated into the toy blink with all the colors of the rainbow, all the while filling the room with its shrill alarm.
Maybe this was a malfunction? Not like this phone was actually connected to a real phone line… hell, it was a toy for crying out loud! It didn’t even have a functional microphone!
Shining Armor hesitated for another moment, but then shrugged, and picked up the receiver with his magic.
“Hello?” he asked, more out of instinct associated with lifting a receiver to his ears than anything else - he knew that he wasn’t really going to get a reply anyway.
Or… well, so he thought.
“Dōshite itte shimatta no, Flurry Heart-san!?” the voice of a… very angry sounding stallion poured from the speaker, prompting Shining Armor to pull the receiver away from his ear, “Anata wa kyōmi ga arimasen ka?”
Shining Armor listened to the angry-sounding pony at the other end of the line for a few seconds, then slowly lowered the receiver again, and hung up, causing the angry voice to fade away with a soft click, followed by another a happy party horn sound effect, and a second round of applause coming from the toy.
“...what?”
Author's Note
Yes, I know the Japanese parts were just Google Translate-jumbles. I don't speak Nippon.
Also everyone who got all the references in this one gets a cookie!
