Author's Note

NineTailBeastBall and I are happy to present you all with this first chapter of the lovely Mayor Mare and I also want to tell you all that this story takes place 2 months after he ended up in Equestria. It also takes place within the 7 months during Baritone and Songbird's tour.

Gentleman of Town Hall

A Love Life Outside the Office

Written by Israel Yabuki

Edited and co-written by NineTailBeastBall

When you think you know what your goal is, you realize it’s not what you had hoped it would be. You were born in the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple, or New York to be precise. Ever since you were a little boy, you’ve wanted to become a prosecutor. Your mother was the only family that loved and supported you, as your father wasn’t at all a good role model. All you really know about him as that he abandoned the family the moment he found out your mother was pregnant with you.

You learned about your father walking out on you like that when you were only 6 years old and resented him for it. It got you so mad, you wanted to see him behind bars. By the time you turned 10 years old, you gave up on your childhood and decided to study to become a prosecutor, which worried your mom. She still supported you, but it hurt her to see that you would make yourself suffer.

Turning 11 years old, you had developed some accurate deductive skills that ended up getting a couple of kids at school suspended when you found out all of the bad stuff they’ve been doing. There was even this school bully who picked on you and you got him expelled and you’ve never seen him since. You decided to convince yourself that he had to move away with his parents.

In high school, you were filling out an application for college at the age of 15. Your mom was still proud of you, but she still wanted you to see the brighter side of life. On some occasions, she would take you out for smoothies or a burger. Just anything at all to brighten the mood. Every day, you would come home with straight A report cards and you never expected anything from her in return.

College was a little tough, but you graduated and later on became a prosecutor at the ripe young age of 21. Some of the people you prosecuted were either petty criminals, corrupt cops and somewhere along the line, you came face-to-face with the man you thought you’d never get to see again, your father. His crimes were possibly the worst. He had a second wife and a daughter whom he had betrayed by abusing them and almost killing them. You put all of your knowledge to good use and got him a life sentence with no chance of parole.

As he was being carted off, you can still recall the last thing you said to him: “How did I end up with a sack-o-shit of a father like you, huh? You’re nothing like me. You never were and you never will be.”

You never acted the same after putting your own father away. You achieved your goal of putting away your father behind bars, but now... it’s like the spark has finally gone from you. It’s been 5 years since you incarcerated him and a total of 12 years since you became a prosecutor. You still had your job, but you’ve been questioning your life choices for quite a while.

This change in your behavior, luckily did nothing to harm your loving relationship with your mother, who was still as supportive as always. She didn’t go to your father’s trial 5 years ago, as she can’t possibly forgive him for breaking her heart, let alone abusing his new family. For that matter, you both decided never to bring him or the trial up anytime you came to visit. Even if you wanted to, there was no way to change your father’s sentence and talking about it only made things harder.

During your time off of work, you were visited by your half-sister, Lindy. She was about 6 years younger than you: 29 years old. She seemed like a bright young lady and you and her got along pretty well. She didn’t bother bringing up your father and risk making the moment awkward. What you were shocked about was that she was a defense attorney and half of the cases she worked on involved falsely accused people, whom she helped get off the hook. She said that finding the absolute truth was her real goal.

She wasn’t the only one you were visiting, as 3 years ago Lindy was finally engaged by her college sweetheart, Miles, who had trouble proposing to her when your father was still around. She had two kids, Viola was born first and then Phoenix two years later. You made sure to hide your career troubles whenever you came to visit, those two really made you feel like the uncle that you technically were.

When you met Miles, Lindy’s sweetheart, you immediately gave him a bro-hug. He explained how he met and fell in love with Lindy and how they spent a lot of time together in college. After Viola was born, Miles moved in with Lindy into her house, stepping up as both a student and a devoted father.

As happy as you were for Lindy, you yourself never tried to form any romantic relationships. You were afraid that if you ended up getting married and having kids of your own, you’d end up the same way as your no-good father. Taking such a big step wasn’t worth ruining the life of a mother and a child. You were just too insecure and too paranoid to start a family.

That being said, as of right now, you were sitting in your office, going over each case you had completed and as usual, the spark inside of you hasn’t gotten brighter. And of course, the forecast for rainy weather didn’t even remotely make things better.

On the bright side, you didn’t have work tomorrow and it would give you a chance to settle down and enjoy the peace and quiet. Putting the last of your papers into your briefcase, you grabbed your umbrella, which was waiting by the door and got ready to call it a night. Walking outside the building, you saw that the rain had already picked up quite a bit and made your way to your car once your umbrella was open.

You unlocked the door to your car and stepped inside the car while closing your umbrella. Closing the door, you started up the engine, fastened your seatbelt and drove away. Your house was quite a ways away from the office. You had to be extra careful while you were on the road right now, as the rain was turning into a downpour.

You ended up making a huge mistake by slowing the car a little bit, as there just happened to be a car behind you that wasn’t being as careful. You were on the freeway and when you slowed down, the car from behind crashed right into you, causing you to swerve out of control. Next thing you know, you saw the railing and started to panic. The car busted through the railing and tumbled down the hill. You felt the heavy impact of each bump your car hit. When you reached the bottom, your car was flipped upside-down, your body was hurting and you tried your hardest to open up the door.

Sadly, your vision was failing you, the world around you grew silent and finally... everything faded to black.

From what’s been explained, one would think this tragedy happened just moments ago when in fact the opposite is so. Indeed you were alive and well, but no longer were you living your life as a lawyer. For the past 2 months, you’ve been trying to adjust to this world inhabited by talking ponies which you found yourself in after the accident.

Ponyville... probably the last name you thought a town would be called. You learned the hard way that you’d never be able to go home. For that matter, you’ve already gotten over the fact that you’d never again see your mother, or your half-sister, your brother-in-law, or your niece and nephew. It was heartbreaking to know that your previous life was over. Worst part is... you never got to say goodbye to your family.

Believe it or not you never once lost your composure in this new world, even when you came face to face with one of these ponies for the first time. From the moment you opened your eyes, you went beyond logic and theorized you were in an entirely new world and therefore prepared for what you would learn. One of the ponies, who went by the name of Starlight, had a human husband named Chance. And they gave you the rundown that humans in Equestria are a thing now and that they’ve learned to adjust to their new lives.

As an experienced man with such calm and collected behavior, you didn’t have any problem with finding a job and a well-paid one at that. Mayor Johanna Justice, or as everyone called her, Mayor Mare, was looking for someone to help her with organizing the office, due to the fact that “she can’t see the floor.” This included organizing documents for house deeds, upcoming fundraisers and such.

Compared to being a prosecutor, this job felt like you were giving something to this world. Back then, you always took people away from the world so they’d never harm anyone. Now, anytime you bring something out into the town, everyone is constantly smiling. True, there are hardships in this land just like back home, but they seemed less stressful and easier to cope with.

Things would continue to get interesting 2 weeks after your arrival when the mare who is recognized as the kingdom’s most talented singer, Songbird Serenade got an invitation to Ponyville for her next tour gig. She wasn’t alone either as apparently while on tour, she befriended a human called Baritone who had his own skills in music. This could be your chance to find out what you’ve been missing.

Back home, you were so focused on pursuing your prosecution career that you didn’t have time to fool around, attending concerts and “busting your ear drums from the loud music” as you used to put it. But thanks to one of your co-workers, you were dragged into coming to the concert. In her defense, she said she wasn’t going to waste the ticket she bought for you out of sympathy for your inability to go home.

Anyway, Songbird and Baritone’s singing was indeed incredible. Like two peas in a pod, they made any song they sang sound original. Since you didn’t listen to music so often, you were taken by surprise a bit when they announced some of these songs were written by musicians from your world instead of Equestria. You felt like coming to this concert was actually worth it and you had a whole new respect for music and musicians.

As for where you were staying, Johanna found a nice two-story house close to Town Hall. While your place of work was one of the tallest buildings in Ponyville, second only to Princess Twilight’s castle, it was no place to sleep overnight. Even though she was a generous mare, Johanna naturally had a strict side as the mayor and you remembered one time her previous employee slept in the office overnight, they ended up getting a whole box full of documents to scatter all over the floor and it took hours to organize them in alphabetical order.

When defining Johanna being ‘strict’ for this incident, the employee’s recklessness resulted in a penalty of a 20 bit deduction from their pay. You sighed in relief as that employee was actually your friend and the consequences could have been much worse.

Anyway, you were just about done with today’s work. Apparently, one of the residents, Filthy Rich, has an appointment scheduled with you and Johanna. It’s in regards to paying his taxes, basic legal stuff. You weren’t the least bit fond of Filthy Rich’s wife, Spoiled Rich, but they did seem to have more than enough bits to even cover for next year’s taxes as their names implied.

“You almost done in there?” Johanna asked putting her coat on, signaling to anyone watching that she was done for today. You nodded and handed her the paperwork. “I wouldn’t say this in front of the other employees, but you seem to finish the work much faster than any of them.”

“I’ve had a little experience around stuff like this, so it comes as 2nd nature to me,” you said with a shrug. You wondered if you should have brought that up as Johanna grew curious and came over putting her hand on your desk.

“What do you mean?” she asked. You sighed and decided you might as well answer instead of try to lie to the mayor after all she’s done for you.

“I used to be a prosecutor back home. Naturally that means I know my way around the legal system a little bit. To be honest, looking over the cases of criminals and handling documents are kind of like the same thing,” you explained. Johanna’s expression showed she was both impressed and a little shocked to hear of your former career.

“I’ve met many humans who’ve lost so much after being summoned to our land. Is being a prosecutor something you miss, because if it is, I’m sure I can work something out,” she offered. You gave her a small smile, but shook your head.

“There’s no need, you’ve already done more than enough for me. Believe it or not, before I died I was considering retiring from my job to search for something else.” You stood up as Johanna already began walking to the exit and knew the drill. Sometimes office employees leave after the mayor and are entrusted with locking up town hall on the way out. That was the case with you for tonight, as you pulled the ring of keys out of your bag to get the job done.

Ponyville was known as the friendliest town in Equestria, but it still felt nice to have Johanna walk you home. She was only looking out for you since you were not only one of her favorite employees, but also her friend.

“No offense hun, but it would’ve been interesting to know sooner that you used to deal with criminals back in your world. Why keep it to yourself?” she asked.

“There’s a bit of a dark twist to why I chose to become a prosecutor. It had a lot to do with some family issues I had going on when I was a child. I don’t like talking about it because of a certain someone who puts me in a bad mood when I bring him up...” you said as the mood grew tense. You took in a breath of the cool, night air to make sure you remained calm like usual.

“You’ve been through a lot...” Johanna said softly. You confirmed her theory with a nod, but didn’t look her in the eye.

“I’m an honest man but there are many things that I probably will never be able to bring myself to share with others, Johanna...”

“I understand. You don’t have to say anymore,” she spoke a little louder this time and touched your cheek. While it was probably just to comfort you, you felt a little awkward, yet soothing at the same time. As such you did nothing to pull her soft hand away.

She kept her word, and didn’t pressure you to explain your past any further and you soon arrived home. “I’m looking forward to seeing more progress from you tomorrow. Please get a good night sleep.”

“Yeah, I think we could all use a little sleep,” you said. As if reality wanted to make a point, you couldn’t stop yourself from yawning. “Well, good night, Johanna. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night,” Johanna replied. You closed the door on Johanna, who began walking to back her own home, exhausted from another day’s work. While having to deal with Filthy Rich was easy, Spoiled Rich was just way too much. She probably likes to hear herself talk, bragging about living in a mansion, constantly giving you a hard time. In all honesty, you’re surprised that Filthy has put up with her this long and hasn’t divorced her yet.

That aside, you went upstairs to your room and got yourself out of your work clothes. Changing into your sleeping clothes, you then climbed into bed, wrapping yourself up in the blankets. You stared up at the ceiling and sighed before whispering, “Good night, mom. Good night, Lindy, Miles, Phoenix and Viola...” Then as you closed your eyes, tears slid down your cheeks, proving that you haven’t completely let them go after all.

Morning arrives and you woke up to the sound of birds chirping. Among the many things that work in the land of ponies is that the sun is raised by the revered Princess Celestia. And she also happens to be the ruler of Equestria, along with her sister and their husbands. This world was certainly unique from your previous world.

That being said, you got out of bed and stretched out your body and changed out of your sleeping outfit and put on your work clothes. You headed downstairs into the kitchen and got yourself some toast and tea. There wasn’t any TV in this world, so you settled with reading a book to pass the time.

After finishing breakfast, you grabbed your briefcase and left the house, walking over to Town Hall, ready to start another hard day’s work. You didn’t think of it as a competition, but it was nice to know that you were one of Johanna’s best employees. In addition to being on time and hardworking, you always made sure you were presentable. For today, you wore a red suit with a grey necktie.

Being on time doesn’t necessarily mean you were the first employee to arrive. When you made it to Town Hall, you saw that aside from Johanna, who always came to the building before any else, there were 3 other employees who have made it to work on time. Of course, there were still plenty of other workers that still haven’t come in yet.

“Good morning everypony,” you said having adjusted to Equestria’s choice of words.

“Good morning,” they replied.

“Ah, right on time as usual. Come on in, we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’ve got a couple of documents we need you to help us sign,” Johanna said pushing her trademark glasses up.

“Sure, what are they about?” you asked.

“Just a few payments that have been made. I need you to sign them so that Town Hall can confirm that they were made. There’s also a fundraiser for the sick fillies and colts at the hospital. Can you do that for us, please?” she asked. It was probably a rhetorical question as there was no reason that you turn down doing your job.

Taking the documents, you retreated to your office so you could get to work. Pulling the quill that rested on your desk out of the ink, you got to work on signing the papers. Interestingly enough, Johanna had followed you back to your desk.

“Do you need something?” you asked, using a proper tone like you always did. Having finished signing one paper by the time you noticed the mayor’s presence, you put it aside before putting the quill back into the inkwell so you could give her your full attention.

“Well, you and I both know I take my job as the mayor very seriously, but things have been a bit boring around here ever since Songbird Serenade and Baritone finished and left to continue their tour...” She began tapping her nails against the desk signaling she was thinking of something to do. “To repay you for being so committed to your work, I’ve been considering inviting you over for a nice dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?” you asked just as Johanna stopped tapping the desk. “I don’t see why not, it’ll be better than going straight home after work. What time?”

“I should have everything ready at 7 PM, tonight,” she answered with a nice smile. “Now I believe I’ve kept you away from your work long enough. Feel free to carry on.”

“Alrighty then and thank you.” Once the mayor had left your office, you grabbed the quill again and moved to the next paper. Thinking about dinner as you worked, you seriously doubted that this was meant to be a date and thought of it just like Johanna said, a way for her to show her appreciation. If your opinion somehow did change by the end of the day, you would ask her about it.

Looking through the files about the sick foals in the hospital, you silently prayed for them to make a quick recovery. Unlike Viola and Phoenix who you couldn’t possibly do anything else for, helping these ill foals was something that was within your power to do. With each document that was pushed aside, you became more and more hopeful for the young hospital patients.

Naturally, Johanna didn’t walk you home after work this time as she needed to get a good start on preparing dinner. While it has been explained before that you didn’t think of this as a date, some of your co-workers happened to have been eavesdropping on the conversation and thought otherwise. They approached you a few times, teasingly asking if Johanna has taken a fancy to you. Of course, you weren’t going to dignify that with a response and continued your work without even once answering their silly questions.

Date or no date, being the sophisticated man you are you weren’t going to come over unless you were presentable. After taking a good shower, you put on a nice grey suit with a black necktie and made your way over to Johanna’s house. Her house was no more than a 10 minute walk from your own, which is another reason she doesn’t mind accompanying you after work.

Now that you’ve arrived at her house, you knocked on the door a few times and she opened it. “Oh, you’re here. Wonderful, please come in,” Johanna said. She too wanted this dinner to be formal, as she wore a sleeveless scarlet dress and had on these matching gloves that seemed to glitter and sparkle just like her dress.

“Thank you,” you said, wiping your feet on the mat before stepping inside. “By the way, you look really lovely, Johanna.”

“I could say the same thing to you. You look rather handsome in that suit, it’s very original,” she complimented, admiring your attire. “Come along, dinner’s finally ready.”

You did as she told you and walked inside the kitchen where the dining table was at. You set your suit jacket on the chair and sat down while admiring the decor. Ironically despite being fond of one another, you never saw a reason to come over to Johanna’s house before, so her living arrangements were all new to you.

Despite her instructing you to stay put, you didn’t feel right about leaving the mayor to retrieve the food on her own and decided to be a gentleman. You got out of your chair and helped bring over the food from the stove to the table.

“Oh, thanks. It’s nice to have another set of helping hands around here,” Johanna said.

“I couldn’t leave you hanging with all this food,” you reassured. Once everything was gathered at the table, you and Johanna sat down, or more specifically, you took a seat after your hands were washed. You took another look at what’s for dinner, seeing a big plate of bread bowl vegetarian style clam chowder. You can see the diced carrots and mushrooms inside of the bread bowl. As for beverages, a nice bottle of wine was set in the middle of the table along with two cups.

“Would you care for some wine?” Johanna asked.

“Sure,” you answered and being a gentleman once again, you went on and opened the bottle for the both of you. You poured some in Johanna’s cup first, then in your cup before closing the bottle up.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I could have opened the wine you know,” she said. You shook your head as you returned to your seat with your cup of wine.

“I just thought I’d show some good manners,” you replied. After taking your first sip of wine, you decided to start eating the bread bowl chowder. You owed your well-mannered behavior to your mother, who raised you right throughout your life. When the taste of the chowder hit your taste buds, they started to tingle but you waited until after you swallowed to compliment Johanna’s homemade cooking.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had some delicious homemade cooking as tasty as this,” you said.

“Oh, that’s nice. I’m glad you like it. I thought I’d try a brand new recipe for dinner and I guess it came out nicely,” Johanna said. “And, I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t sure how this dish was going to turn out. You know that ponies are incapable of eating meat, that includes fish, right?”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that. Is there a reason why you bring this up?” you asked.

“Well, recently some of the humans here weren’t exactly feeling too well. It was due to their lack of proper protein to keep healthy muscle tissues. So we had to pass on a bill where they could be supplied with some fish at least,” Johanna explained.

“I don’t mind it one bit. I can understand the situation this town’s facing. Whether we want to believe it or not, humans are omnivores by nature, but there are only certain meats that we are allowed to eat. Fish being one of those options,” you said.

As the dinner progressed, you continued having a pleasant conversation with Johanna, talking about some of the recent events that are about to take place. You remained a good houseguest and helped putting the plates and silverware away so they could be washed. Though that doesn’t mean that your dinner was over, for Johanna told you there would be some delicious strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Up until now, Johanna was keeping the cake reserved in the fridge, but as she went to take it out you were sure it would be worth the wait. She returned to the table carrying two small plates each with a nice, tasty piece.

“Enjoy yourself, honey,” she said setting your plate before you.

“Thank you very much. I’ve heard about how tasty these are,” you said before taking a bite out of the cake. “You know Johanna, I probably should have told you before but some of the employees overheard us today. They took the chance to poke some fun at me by insisting this was meant to be a date.”

“Would you have any problems going out with an old mare like me?” she asked, leaving you unsure how to respond. Suddenly she broke the silence with a soft laugh. “Relax, honey, I’m only joking. I’m actually not a year older than 39.”

“And yet you still look as young as springtime. You know, you’ve been a wonderful hostess. Maybe one of these days, I’ll invite you over to my house for dinner whenever you’re available,” you said smiling and then going back to your cake. Because you were looking down at your dessert however, you failed to notice that your compliments have caused Johanna’s cheeks to turn a deep shade of red.

“Me, young as springtime? You’re simply just too kind. I’m not sure if that’s true, though...” she said, placing her hands on her cheeks. You failed to hear that last sentence since she had said it so softly.

After finishing your dessert you shook Johanna’s hand and grabbed your suit jacket. “Thank you again for inviting me over for dinner, Johanna. The food was delicious,” you said.

“It was my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow and have a safe trip back home,” she replied. “Oh and don’t forget about the upcoming charity potluck next week. I trust you’ll find a dish suitable for the potluck in due time.”

“Sure, one week is all the time I need to prepare for the potluck. Anyways, I’d best be heading back home.” You didn’t stop Johanna from giving you a short but nice hug before you left. This has been one night you wouldn’t forget anytime soon.