Wilbur was always a cynical pony.
He’d been stupid enough to spend all of his hard-earned gambling money on a pig farm, because there was supposedly 'good money' to be made in the truffling business. Truffle pigs would bring up good truffle mushrooms that could be sold for quite a lot of money, and Wilbur had hoped to make his fortune in selling truffle sniffing pigs.
However, every pig he sold was returned within a month, and his customers always came back without the smiling faces they had left with, demanding refunds. It didn't take long before Wilbur lived up to his nature and began to view his entire situation cynically. Most specifically he was cynical about his pigs,; to the point that he upped prices, dieted his pigs, and changed his business name from "Wilbur's Truffling Pigs" to "Wilbur's Famous Equestrian Truffle Pigs".
He had to widen the sign to fit the name, but it worked out.
How long could his cynicism last, how many days would it take before he eventually snapped or finally learned his lesson? Not even Wilbur knew. Since the day that his father found out about his misfortunes, he stopped keeping track of what day it was, because he quit caring.
His father had told him, "You don't know the first thing about how to train a pig, what in Equestria made you think that this would be a good investment, Wilbur? It'd take a miracle for you to get anywhere with this!"
He felt that if his pigs were useless last week, they'd be the same old useless pigs come next week, too, and no miracle would change that.
Even when he woke up that morning, he felt as though nothing was going to change — but for a stallion with such an ignorant mindset, he couldn't have possibly guessed that his whole view on life was about to flip.
It was an averagely terrible morning for Wilbur. He woke up, got out of bed, made some breakfast, and spilled the milk.
With a groan and a grumble he cleaned up the mess, threw the bowl into the sink, and stomped out the door without even lifting the spoon.
"C’mere you worthless pigs," he shouted and grabbed a bag of food.
All of the pigs scurried to the other end of the pen, but when Wilbur poured food into the troughs they immediately waddled over and began to chow down.
"Yeah, that's right, eat up. Not like you're doing me any good anyways," he grumbled.
The sound of loud, obnoxious chewing drove Wilbur up the wall. After sitting the bag back down rather carelessly, Wilbur stormed off back into his house and slammed the door.
"What am I going to do about this business? I'm barely making any money, I've had to change my business name just to draw in fresh customers, and if they aren't stingy they'll pay the fee and I'll have enough to live... for another month!"
In anger, he kicked the air but stubbed his hoof against the corner of a doorway.
After a loud scream of profanities he caught his breath and checked if he had cracked the wood, but the shrill squeals of a pig caught his ears.
Fantastic, he thought. Scaredy pigs, can't even bare to hear a desperate stallion yell!
"Oh, shut up you worthless animal!" He hollered.
But the squealing didn't stop, and Wilbur only grew more angry.
"Oooooh, you're really making me come out there? Really!?" Wilbur groaned and once again stomped out of the house.
Upon reaching the pen, he swung the gate open.
The plan was to out-yell the pig. It had worked before, but then again with a massive creature charging over and screaming, who wouldn't be frightened into running off and keeping a safe distance?
"Ahhhh!" he began to shout, and trotted forward.
With a loud squeal the pig turned towards him and bolted.
In a fantastic display of might, the pig went right through Wilbur's legs, sending Wilbur flying forward in a flip. By the time Wilbur was back onto his hooves, the pig was gone — a clean getaway, straight out of the pen. All of the other pigs seemed to be frozen, looking at the open pen like a bunch of stunned deer.
"I can't just let next month's rent gallop away, get back here you filthy swine!" Wilbur wiped the mud off of his face, shut the gate behind himself, and galloped after the pig.
Behind his little farmhouse was a copse of trees that led up a great hill, one so massive that it shielded the sun until it was directly overhead. Standing right at the edge of the treeline was his muddy pig.
"Get back here! I'll sell you next, you little–"
The pig oinked and disappeared into the woods, as if taunting Wilbur to chase him.
"Oooh, you've done it now," he growled and busted back into a gallop, pushing straight ahead and into the woods after his pig.
He couldn't see anything through the underbrush that concealed his legs, and the pig along with it, so Wilbur had to watch ahead of himself for any movement in the bushes. It worked for the first five minutes of exhausting running, but when the bushes stopped moving, Wilbur froze in place.
Finally tired of running, huh?
He held his breath and looked for any sudden movement, but nothing changed in front of him.
Suddenly, an oink came from his left.
Wilbur jumped and turned his head. About twenty paces away, his pig was on a slope, sniffing the ground.
Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, Wilbur began to slowly creep towards the pig, trying to be as quiet as possible. When he stepped on a twig, causing it to snap, he froze and watched the pig.
Luckily, the pig didn't seem to notice. But then, as if bad luck had swooped in to even the odds, the pig farted and scared itself. It squealed and took off uphill, leaving Wilbur to grumble and begin his chase again.
Up the massive slope he went, slipping occasionally on leaves and rocks. Each time he had to quickly regain his balance and start galloping again.
"You haven't given me any reason to want to keep my business running, other than to keep myself alive with what little money I’m earning from scamming ponies! When I catch you, I'm selling you, you hear me? Selling you!"
The hill gradually evened out, and Wilbur realized they had finally reached the peak.
With a chuckle, Wilbur caught his breath and watched the pink animal sniff around to its heart's content. He didn't think anything of it until the animal dug at the ground with its hoof and pulled out a little black mushroom using its snout.
"Praise Celestia, is that what I think it is?" Wilbur muttered to himself and began to casually approach the pig.
It turned and looked up at him, and even let Wilbur get close.
He got on his haunches and reached out to scratch the pig’s head. In turn, the pig dropped the truffle, and for the first time in his life, Wilbur smiled. "I take it back, you might just save me and my entire business, piggy!”
Quickly the pig picked the truffle up again and ate it. Wilbur was just about to scold the pig, when it reached behind its front leg and tossed Wilbur some gold bits.
Astonished, Wilbur’s jaw dropped as he looked at the coins. When he looked up to see the pig again, it was gone. In its place, a piece of paper that had been written on terribly using mud.
Picking it up, reading it, and grumbling, Wilbur tossed it over his shoulder and went back down the hill. Slowly fluttering down before landing on the ground, it read; When pigs buy.
