Dumb Luck
Hearth’s Warming Eve. Centuries ago, the three pony tribes united as one people when their leaders were trapped together and forced to rely on each other to survive a fierce winter storm. The bringers of the storm, the windigos, were driven away by the friendship they shared, and the snow stopped. From conflict and desperation, friendship and hope came, and then a nation that was now the most expansive and prosperous in the known world formed.
Klugetown didn’t celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve. If they had ever seen snow, no one remembered. If the town had existed in ancient times when Equestria had been founded, no one bothered to keep track of it, and if they had then no one living now cared to know. Klugetown’s history was unwritten. For all any of its inhabitants knew or cared, the town had sprung up one day when a bunch of merchants were too lazy to keep traveling and decided to set down roots and hawk their wares to each other instead of towns and villages.
All things considered, a story like that was more fitting and more likely to be the origins of Klugetown, rather than some tale about enemies banding together and overcoming prejudices.
Klugetown didn’t have friendships. Friendships caused trouble; harder to do business with someone if they have friends. A creature with friends is a creature with morals, and morals were worth less in Klugetown than the dirt under your feet. Far better to do business with someone who has no friends, so you can presume they have no morals until they prove otherwise, and thus they’d do whatever you want if you paid them enough.
Greed was the virtue that Klugetown residents understood and respected instead of friendship. An honest deal struck with generous terms bought loyalty, and as long as you understood and went along with the terms of the sale, you’d be treated nicely and kindly for as long as the deal was good. If someone else paid you more to turn on your last buyer, well, that was just how the coin flowed, no hard feelings. It was a simple dichotomy – the creatures with money cut deals to get more money and maybe they’ll let you have some if you earn it, and creatures with more money would buy your allegiance from them if they felt it was worth the price.
If you didn’t have money, and if no one was willing to pay you, that was when you had hit bottom in Klugetown. At that point you had two choices – look for a quiet spot where no one will bother you to lay down and let yourself starve to death, or look for opportunities to start climbing back up and make sure you don’t lose your grip.
In Klugetown, the sight of six ponies wandering the streets, obviously looking for something but no idea where it might be, was an opportunity that couldn’t be ignored. What did they want, where did they come from, why were they here? Questions with answers that didn’t matter. What did matter is that they were an opportunity to reverse one’s fortunes.
They were looking for something and were unfamiliar with Klugetown – that was an opportunity to present yourself to them and win their trust by convincing them you could help them. And once you could be sure they weren’t about to run away, it was time to treat them like every other commodity in Klugetown and find a buyer for them. Earth ponies with their physical stamina were well-suited for hauling cargo or working on a farm. Pegasi could work on airships. And unicorns, if you had a good one, could be put to use on almost anything you’d need.
With the cargo resting at home and you waiting for the buyer to come by, all you had to do was be patient and make sure they didn’t leave. Be patient, keep them inside, and not let yourself get distracted. Distractions were another kind of opportunity, but only if you were smart and quick enough to recognize it. Distractions were good for pilfering market stalls and snipping purse strings. Distractions were something you could put a price on.
A good tailor job was also something you could put a price on, but typically a far lower price since needle and thread were far less versatile than distractions. A sewn-up tear in a sleeve, a few buttons on a coat collar, those were things with price tags attached, but they were price tags not worth paying, not when there were far more valuable things in Klugetown to buy. Like six ponies, for example.
But what if you didn’t have to buy a tailor’s services? If you actually thought that you’d meet such a tailor in Klugetown, clearly you were just passing through and hadn’t been here before. No one did anything for free in Klugetown, everything had its price. Some creatures were more discreet about it than others. They’d do something for you without asking, then refuse payment for services rendered and say that you can consider it a “favor”. If you were smart, you would try to avoid doing business with those creatures again.
Favors were a dangerous commodity in Klugetown. A favor was a debt, and like all debts, it would have to be paid back sometime in the future, with interest. A favor like a quick sewing job could buy sneaking a group of ponies onto an airship bound for Mt. Aris. A needle and thread traded for six airship tickets. All things considered, not the worst deal one could make in Klugetown. But pretty darn close. Not to mention risky to all the dealmakers involved.
But regardless of risks, it was done, the deal was made and the ponies were gone. Debt paid, favor returned, time to move on with life and look for the next opportunity to cut a deal. And when opportunity came in the form of a different pony demanding directions, you had best be sure not to get distracted again. Especially not when dealing with a pony like this. This is a pony who isn’t going to be tricked and bought, they’re going to be doing the buying and you’d better have something worth selling.
Remembering the tailor and her needle and thread, that was a distraction with a high price. Far too costly, ignore it, focus on the opportunity being presented and seize it.
At least, that’s what you would do if you were smart.
If you were stupid, you’d lie and lead this new pony on a wild goose chase, hoping she doesn’t wise up and realize you’re tricking her. Stupid, because of course she will, sooner or later, and she’ll make you pay when she does. Stupid, because what did you think you were going to get in return for this risk? The five ponies and their tailor are gone and you’ll probably never see them again. It’s not like they’d come back to Klugetown someday, who would?
If for some reason you felt like doubling down on your stupid decisions, you could go and find the ponies and their tailor and help them. You could help overthrow a king and fight off an army. And if you were lucky, you’d live, and that’s the only reason you would live; it won’t be because you’re smart. If you were you wouldn’t have come this far.
But, somehow, you might be lucky enough to survive it all, and see the ponies happy. Their tailor might even give you a brand new coat and a new hat to match. And there’d be fireworks and singing and rainbows and everyone would cheer and be happy.
Equestria wasn’t like Klugetown. When a pony does a favor for you in Equestria, they do it because they want to do something nice for you for its own sake. When a pony gives you a gift, they don’t expect you to pay for it. And when a pony does pay for things, it’s upfront, direct, and the deal isn’t going to extend any further than that moment where money is given and something is received.
That’s why those five ponies and their tailor were so out of place in Klugetown. Because ponies like them, creatures like her, a town like Klugetown doesn’t produce that kind of thankless, selfless generosity. This isn’t a town that produces beings of grace, of compassion, of beauty. It produces creatures of greed, selfishness, and misery, and if you ever meet anyone born in Klugetown who isn’t that way, it’s certain that they don’t live there anymore. The only creatures who stay in Klugetown are the ones who are too poor and stupid.
The stupid creatures are the ones who, after a taste of adventure and freedom and meeting an incredible pony tailor, go back to Klugetown. They don’t burden themselves by looking for opportunities to ask friends for favors, they don’t look for help getting out of Klugetown. They go back, but they don’t return to business as usual, as that might be mildly smart.
Those kinds of creatures, they start doing favors for others. They reach out to creatures who need help and can’t afford to pay for it. They’re particularly keen to help ponies that pass through town on their way to Mt. Aris to visit the reborn hippogriff kingdom. A smart creature in Klugetown would look at ponies like that and see opportunity, in some form or another.
It’s a stupid creature that would look at them and see that they could use a friend. The visiting ponies need someone to help them, someone who could show them around and advise them of dangerous places and creatures to stay away from. And they do it for the ponies as a genuine favor, to help and not to call in the debt later. Oh, they’ll take a few bits when offered from the kind ponies who appreciate a tour guide, but they won’t ask for it upfront and won’t protest when some of the ponies go on their way without paying a thing.
And when snow comes to Equestria, blanketing the land in a beautiful, soft, white veil, while Klugetown is the same ugly, dry, dull desert, that is when further repayment of a favor may be offered on a past deal thought closed. Repayment in the form of an invitation to Equestria, to revisit the five ponies and their tailor for Hearth’s Warming Eve. At that point, it isn’t even fair to call it repayment, the debt has swung the other way and now you owe the ponies. It’s only right to accept their generosity and then repay them as you can.
But, that’s the thing with ponies. They don’t think about things in terms of debts and payments and money. Those are words Klugetown lives by, not Equestria. A pony thinks in terms of friends and family and gifts. They invite creatures into their homes, give them food, cider, even a bed to sleep in. And she thinks nothing of it, because that’s the kind of warm, generous creature she is.
That’ll be when the old-fashioned Klugetown selfishness kicks in. You ask to come back next year, and because she’s a good friend, she agrees. And then she does invite you back next year, and the year after that. You show up without announcement the year after that because you assume you don’t need an invitation. You’re correct, she was expecting you sooner or later and is happy to see you.
If you were smart as well as selfish, you’d tell her how you feel, try to keep that generous spirit all to yourself. But you don’t. A pony like her deserves the world and she has the will and the ability to take it herself, she doesn’t need any help you could provide. She deserves more than some Klugetown sneak thief who would have sold six ponies into slavery if one of them hadn’t had the mind to do a quick tailor job for you.
Then comes the year your luck runs out. The pony is moving to Yakyakistan and leaving her sister in charge of her old shop. Yakyakistan is too far to make the journey from Klugetown every year, and she’s going to be busy. She has a business empire now, and who’s to say Yakyakistan will even be her residence for very long?
So, you stop visiting and settle for letters. And when the time of year comes that the ponies are getting ready to celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve, you start acting stupid again. You spend good money on a pine tree from Mt. Aris that’ll die in a couple of weeks, and you spend even more money on fake diamond trinkets to hang on it. And it would be extremely stupid to try and teach yourself how to sew, so you could take that filthy old coat you had, cut it down to something a pony could wear, sew up the ragged edges, and then mail it to her as a gift. But for some reason, you do that anyway.
It’s stupid and selfish to keep making her think about you, to keep reminding her you exist down in Klugetown, because who would ever want to think about this place? She’s busy living a life beyond anything you could ever have for yourself, much less give her. She doesn’t have time to waste thinking about you. Why would she want to? She has dozens of friends across Equestria and beyond. You’re just some creature she did a favor for one time and then put up for Hearth’s Warming Eve for several years. You’re nothing special to her, and that’s exactly what makes a pony like her so special.
If you found yourself in that circumstance in Klugetown, sitting alone on Hearth’s Warming Eve by a shoddily decorated tree, pining for a pony you haven’t seen in years and probably doesn’t even remember you exist, that would be a sure sign that you had made some very, very stupid decisions.
No one ever said love was smart.
On the other hand, if you happened to have a letter in your hand, written in swooping, delicate curves that read “Thank you” and “I’ll be visiting Mt. Aris in the new year, perhaps we can meet up”, then maybe your stupid decisions weren’t so stupid after all.
Or maybe you just got lucky.
