Bow Down Before The One You Serve

Posey breathed in the acrid air of the dark room she was in. She could hear moans echoing off the concrete walls where she was sitting and it wasn't any voice she knew- or if it was, the pain the pony was in was warping and stretching their voice into an unrecognizable mess.

She heard the metal door scrape against the floor as harsh florescent light came in from the hallway as a pony walked in, shut the door, and leaned on the wall. They acted like they owned the place and as far as Posey knew, maybe they did. She had heard rumors of Canterlogic having a prison such as this. . .with how her parents disappeared, the thought of them in a Tartarus hole such as this had always been there working a knot in her memory.

"Good morning. . ." the guard took off her black helmet and a surprisingly long pink mane fell out. "I'm Warden Sundance. Unlike certain accomplices of yours, I can't just do this whole pony to pony talk thing like I'm used to. We don't get a lot of knocked up mares down here in the basement. Especially not with your pedigree. Not the hybrid sort- we get all kinds. Unicorn/ Earth pony hybrids are the worst. Still can't figure out if its the rampant magic that has no easily escapable way out, the incompatible breeding, or the whole welcoming tone we have here, but those rare crossbreeds usually go a bit nutty down here." The white mare sighed. "But less about me, what makes the future boss's fucktoy do crimes? Is it the feeling of untouchability? The need to be worshipped as somepony that can be anything they want to be? The idea that we can't just you know. . " Sundance stared directly at Posey's middle. "be done with that thing?"

Posey defensively curled up and tried not to get too nervous. She had been on the receiving end of enough harassment as a foal that while she had become used to how things were, there was always a part of her in the past, her walls surrounding her most vulnerable parts built over years. Ponies saw her as a complete and utter bitch. Maybe she was. But it was a defense layered over years and years and letting that down was dangerous. "I'd like to see you try. If you did, Sprout would come down on you with such a terrible mood, he'd probably dismantle all of Canterlogic, brick by brick until there was nothing left."

Sundance laughed, the walls muffling her mirth immediately. "I've seen how he purports himself, but sure, maybe he would. Just be glad that there's an itty bitty unwritten rule that has Cloverleafs be welcome here and go without harm." The earth pony shrugged. "And unless you gained like forty pounds recently for zero reason, that baby or babies, I am a terrible judge of those things- I try to keep me as parasite free as possible- that foal is keeping you nice and safe down here. Though comfortable is relative. Food and water, yes. Five star resort accoutrements? No- the prisoners we've had from the outside rave about how nice Zephyr Heights' prison system is. We scoff at that shit. That breeds weakness. Earth ponies aren't weak. Neither are our prisons, though the Sheriff's Office makes the first impression look like we are namby pamby pussy bitches."

"How do you know about-"

Sundance ran a hoof through her mane and got on all fours. From where Posey had been sitting and how the mare carried herself at first glance made her seem imposing and far, far taller than she was. When the Warden was on all fours, she was barely taller than Pipp. And then she opened her mouth and Posey shivered as her voice rose an octave, the sickeningly sweet voice being entirely different than the low gruff tones of the mare. "I'm part of the final defense against the whole town getting wacky and weak. I run the M.A.R.E Team- Multiple Areas of Recon and Evac- I'm the fixer when shit gets too hot to handle and it all comes back down to somepony like you. I'm the fixer and I love my job. Plus most ponies don't expect little old me to run something like this. It's the cute and unassuming factor. Plus I'm a pink and white pony- there's just so many I blend right in."

"I won't talk. You don't scare me."

Sundance giggled. "In another life, I might have been really good friends with you. Usually I run that spiel to the normal pony and they start pissing themselves out of fear and that's before I put them to the myriad ways my team has for getting info out of uncooperative sorts. But you are something else. Your file was extensive and riveting. . . the videos of you and Sprout rutting like animals in public? Hot. . .but I don't have to talk to you. There's two others that don't have a spawn of the company in them." Sundance got up and flashed a smile. "Makes me feel butterflies and rainbows when I think about it."

***

Sprout stared daggers into the Canterlogic receptionist as she worked. He didn't want to come off rude- the years of training his mother put him through to shape him into the perfect Canterlogic CEO still wore heavy n his mind whenever he dealt with an employee- but the news of his wife and two others getting thrown into earth knows where made him act like his mother. And after all the time trying to make up for being a dictator- he really didn't want to come off as yet another Cloverleaf. "Yes, yes. . .Happiness was it? I know this is a bit much, but can you just phone my mother?"

The blue earth pony tapped her hooves together and tried her best customer service smile as she brushed a hoof through her two-toned mane, the pink and yellow strands twirling nervously as she tried not to stare at Sprout. "I can not do that, sir. Company policy. Rule number twenty seven in the hoofbook- "Do not let in rowdy ponies at any cost. Addendum seven: especially if they are a Cloverleaf."

Sprout's eye twitched. "That's not in there. I know the thing back to front and unless the company amended the damn thing, which by your own rules has to be sent out in a company wide email or mail related thing to finalize the change, there is no way that's a rule. Canterlogic has wild company parties all the time. My mother was the rowdiest pony in multiple parties. She wouldn't make a rule that impacted her ability to get drunk."

"Yes, well, have a nice day. Leave your message after the beep." The mare hid behind her desk and tried to curl up in a ball to look less threatening. "Beep."

Sprout rolled his eyes and paced towards the nearest noticeable camera- he didn't have to look hard- and stared up at it. He didn't want to use this, but it was the only thing that might get him to see his mother. If not her, at least somepony that had actual power who could do something. He had been ranting and raving for ten minutes straight trying to get an answer from a nice pony, true, but most ponies here were a brick wall to his efforts.

He cupped his hooves and shouted the bombshell as loud as he could. "Hey, do you know that I'm fucking married now? And that you have my wife in some shitty prison somewhere down here? I'm guessing the basement cause that's where you put all the things you don't like thinking about. A spacious basement full of secrets overflowing and waiting to come out."

A loud ding came from the computer and Happiness inched up to see what the noise had meant. It wasn't a common buzzing noise, or a cool tone. Those were happy messages that meant meetings and outings for work stuff. A clipped harsh tone? That was new and unfamiliar to the overworked earth pony. "Uh, this message reads: You may let him in?"

"Good. Toots come with me."

"Sprout, I really shouldn't. . .you know work. . .I have things to do."

Sprout turned around and gripped the pudgy stallion by his tie and stared up at him. "You are coming with me. I'm not going to easily leave this building without Posey and if I have to, I'm going to sleep here until I get her out. And either you are going to help me negotiate with this stupid company or so help me I'll be truly angry."

Toots gulped. "This isn't you being angry? Cause this really feels like anger."

Sprout nodded. "This is me being reasonable. If I was angry, I'd use you as a battering ram. Now march."

Happiness peeked over the edge her lavender eyes like pinpricks until Sprout and Toots walked into the elevator. As the doors closed, she got up and let out the breath she had been holding for far, far too long. "That's it. I'd probably be better as a foalsitter or anything else than deal with this. She quickly typed up her two weeks notice and sent it straight to Pony Resources. "Wonder how my daughter will take it though, she was looking forward to Bring Your Foal To Work Day. . ."

Sprout walked through the upper floors of Canterlogic with Toots trailing behind him. He looked straight ahead, focused on his mission to get Posey out. He probably looked a bit mad as he stomped through headquarters like a bull in a porcelain shop but he didn't care.

"It's through here. . .uh, should I call you Mr. Cloverleaf or just Sprout? I mean its kind of hard to figure out how to call y'all by your names." The short earth pony mare looked up at Sprout. "I mean Mrs. Cloverleaf makes sense, she's the boss and all, but since you said you were married, just by association and the like or at least by decorum- I probably should call you Mr. Cloverleaf."

"Sprout is perfectly fine. . uh. ." Sprout didn't know this mare's name. He hadn't recognized a fair few of the ponies throughout the floors and all that. He knew it had been, at best, a while since he entered Canterlogic on good terms. At worst, it probably had been since the whole Emperor Sprout fiasco- he had tried to distance himself from entering most Canterlogic facilities on principle. Or at least his guilt made it awkward to get near a major place like this. "And you are?"

The cream colored earth pony smiled. "Name's Truly. Just the one name. Not like Toola Roola, Blue Belle, Bow Tie, Lickety Split and a fair few others from what I know here. I mean Canterlogic's huge and all and sometimes it feels like there's like five floors- I'm part of the first- public relations and all that. . oh sorry, rambling again. I'm just such a rambler when I get somepony new to talk to. You know laser focused on the job and all." The white pony smiled and ran a hoof through her messy dark pink mane. "And here. You know you are going to be the talk of Canterlogic- probably gonna edge out the whole implementation of the Big Brother Pony program. . . that was a doozie. But what can you do. Company mandated thing and the town went just all nutso."

Sprout looked at Toots and sighed. "What is the Big Brother Pony thing?"

Truly clopped her hooves together. "Silly name. And no, its not a raging pile of stallions gallivanting around saving the day whenever we need it. It's the new cops. Marketing came up with the whole bend to it. A completely inviting pile of ponies that just love doing their jobs. Like the ideal co-worker and all that."

"Great."

"Isn't it? And with that our little run through of Canterlogic is finito, completed and done. And only ten minutes to get you through all the winding bits and bobs of Canterlogic. New personal record. Ta-ta for now. Hopefully your mom can congratulate you on your marriage."

"Yeah. I hope."

***

"And done. Was that so difficult? We had a fun time. Or at least I did."

Jazz felt Sundance loosen her ropes and she just slumped forward as the Warden cantered out of the shared prison cell. Not in pain- no she was physically fine. But the echoed sounds of what this sadistic pony did to Rocky while she just watched it happen. That was an emotional pain that she didn't know how to handle. The most stressful thing she normally had to do was coordinate Pipp's entire day and while that was a pain in and of itself, Pipp was simply easier to handle than Sundance- Pipp thought ponies were nice.

Jazz had only told the truth whenever she was asked to elaborate further.

Sundance never stopped asking questions, probing each and every response until she got what she wanted. Even if it was just a lie born out of coercion, that was an easier thing to reconcile with than the truth- picking up some ponies that weren't actually committing a crime and tossing them to the wolves. Though Jazz could see why it looked suspect. Two mares carrying out an unconscious stallion? She'd be wary and on guard too. After a long session not getting the answers she wanted out of Jazz, coercion and intimidation clearly failing to distort the truth, Sundance had gotten creative.

She couldn't be wrong, it had to be something deeper than that, some kind of flaw in a plan she just couldn't parse. She was good at her job, the medals and commendations given by the company telling her that she was a special kind of pony. She had shook the hoof of the CEO, she was a necessary cog in the company machine. Her unit's job was to sniff out wrongdoing and there was naught but one thing to unravel in this confounding mystery.

She saw the odd bond between an earth pony and a pegasus and saw something she could use, the forbidden tie of friendship condemned by her training. Pegasi were liars, tricksters, and cheats. Sundance's eye twitched. She had years of experience cracking even the worst criminals in the Bay and yet this mare had rebuffed her efforts.

Posey- and Sprout by extension- had formidable allies.

She fell back on the one thing that was infallible- her years of training told her that pegasi- and unicorns- were free game to test out her sadistic fantasies. Everything was permitted down here and she was in charge, able to twist Canterlogic's ideas about how earth ponies were superior. She rarely had earth pony prisoners down here- the odd half breed notwithstanding- Posey was off the table and Jazz would take too much effort to crack. Yet Rocky here was malleable and a surefire way to make sure she wasn't getting rusty.

And so she had spent time grilling the pair of ponies again with no results. . .but Sundance felt better in control about that.

Jazz slowly got to her hooves and walked slowly to the other side of the room, careful to not step in the blood spatter that littered that side and gingerly touched Rocky's neck to check if he was still alive.

From where she was standing, it wasn't a sure thing.

His wings were bent unnaturally at a forty five degree angle away from his body. She had heard the snap of multiple bones and tried desperately to block out the whinnies that echoed through the small concrete box this place called a prison cell. She swept over his body with a light touch as she could see the mottled bruising all over him, like he was covered in ink, blues and black spots fading into yellows and gray as time had passed. She could see his labored breathing as his chest rose and fell in a hitching pattern of breaths as he tried to breathe through the pain.

She swept aside his mane and gritted her teeth as she looked upon his face. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I just wanted to. . .ask you out on date and then do more. Not sit here in a concrete cell-"

Rocky groaned and tried opening his eyes which was a nearly impossible task due to the swelling around his face, and moved his head in Jazz's direction. "I thought we already were dating."

Jazz blinked away tears as she scooted towards him. "We were? I didn't think so. I mean nopony asked- you never said that you wanted to date me. I thought we were just good friends."

Rocky wheezed out a laugh. "Oh. Yeah there's some broken ribs there. Don't make me laugh, it hurts." The pegasus inched his way back towards the wall and leaned himself on it, wincing as he did so due to the mangled mess of his wings. "Did I have to ask? We watched reality tv together, ate whole dinners together every few days, I even had a key to your house. We slept in the same bed. . ."

Jazz blushed. "That was just because it felt weird having you sleep on my couch. I mean I know how hard my couch is and I wouldn't let anypony sleep on it if there was a better arrangement. And that only happened like one time."

Rocky groaned. "Sure and I'm the King of Zephyr Heights. You know. . .I was surprised we didn't have sex then. I spent the whole night staring up at your ceiling while I wondered if your labored sleeping was a sign that you were awake and trying to give me a hint. You nearly climbed on top of me and straddled me like you were ready then you rolled over and curled beneath a wing. It was both cute and the most uncomfortable I'd felt in forever. I was worried I'd poke you in the side and wake you up. Would have been a real nightmare to explain away. I felt awful about the whole situation." Rocky coughed. "Second worst pain I felt in my life. This makes that feel like foals' play. "

Jazz cocked her head. "I sleep perfectly normal. I think." She ran a hoof through her mane in thought. "I should ask Pipp about doing a sleep study for content just to check that." She shook her head to let that thought float away in the stale air of this place. "You mean I could have asked you, at any moment, on a date and you'd have accepted it?"

Rocky painfully nodded. "Totally would have got all up in your business in a manner of speaking. . .to a normal pegasus, you're incredibly attractive. Well toned, good head on her shoulders, relatively exotic. Like most of the hobbies I have. I was shocked you didn't have a coltfriend already. For the longest time, I thought you were just attracted to mares."

Jazz looked at nothing in particular and thought of every clumsy attempt to ask Rocky out. "Are you fucking kidding me? I spent months thinking of a way to get past my nerves and cobbling together a perfect moment and that's all it would have taken? No moonlight serenade under the stars? No five course meal leading into a proposal? No beachside vacation? No long and passionate lovemaking while we watch the fireworks? No heartfelt marriage and you then rip off my garter with your teeth to show your desire?"

"You might be mentally skipping a few steps there but no. Also please get another reading hobby outside of romance novels. As a proud and card carrying member of stallionhood- you just had to be breathing." He coughed and bits of congealed blood scattered onto the floor. "Bit of a joke to lighten the mood here. . .but not too far off the mark."

Jazz crossed her hooves before going back to Rocky's side to check for more injuries. "So why didn't you? I mean I was good and ready. I wasn't writing my name in lights and inviting every stallion, but I thought I was enough of an open book to read. You should have relaized I was tongue tied around you."

Rocky tried to wave a hoof. "You always seemed so busy. Whenever I tried to ask you, you were setting up Pipp's whole schedule from sun up to sundown. Add to that your normal work at the shop and I just wanted you to have a relaxing time. Though I did try a few times. There was the whole Nightmare Night pumpkin search. I might have put in some fake clues to hint that I wanted to ask you. . ."

Jazz thought back and groaned. "That's why we went to Posey's flower shop, and the little church, and the whole view over the Bay. . .I thought those clues were hastily written and hard to read. Though they didn't look like your writing."

Rocky sighed. "I never knew how hard hoofwriting is. Sure we have phones and computers in the Heights and every pegasi knows how to use that, but the main focus for writing is wing dexterity. Every pegasi knows plume cursive. Just a few feathers to grip a pen or a quill- in a pinch an old molting feather and boom. Perfectly legible scrawl. It takes an odd pegasi . . .or the royals to know how the other races write like."

"Well shit." Jazz laid back on the cool floor and stared up at the ceiling. "I could have had a relationship without any of this. Ir only Pipp was competent at time management I could have got laid before rotting away in some awful prison."

***

"Two weeks? Your program of hardline cops arrests my wife and a few other ponies and you think detaining them for two weeks is a great compromise?" Sprout slammed his mother's desk with a hoof as he tried to stay as calm as possible. He was failing.

Phyllis ran a hoof through her unstyled mane. She hadn't left Canterlogic since the riot and she didn't plan to. Walking out on the street when the undercurrent of discourse saw her as a tyrant ready to genocide everypony brought the slight paranoia out of her. She just didn't want the situation to get worse. "Sprout, she wouldn't be your wife if you didn't gallivant across Equestria and elope with her. It would make this so much easier. Just two earth ponies, one with pegasi blood tainting them and another cavorting with the pegasi element. Simple and clean."

"They have names you know. Jazz and Rocky. They aren't just some nameless statistic to write up in some unseen report coolly explaining how there's nothing wrong in Maretime Bay."

Phyllis sighed. "There really wasn't. You know how nice it was before the influx of pegasi and unicorns came in? Sure there were a smattering of them in the Bay before. The edges of society. We could deal with those just fine. A lynching here, a disappearance there. But you know what Sunny and her friends did? They opened the gates to everypony and destroyed the perfect equilibrium we had. Now I can't look out to our town and not see pegasi about or unicorns."

"That's normal. They aren't that bad when you get to know them."

Phyllis shuddered. "I taught you better than this and. . .not that bad? I have the town on the brink of anarchy because of their unstable natures. I have a whole file on this 'Izzy Moonbow' unicorn Sunny Starscout has sex with and every other sentence is some psychotic magical anomaly or glitter flood or noise complaint. I've seen Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights, begrudgingly and the magic horns fry the unicorn brain. They become a neurotic mess. While the ability to fly causes pegasi to have oxygen deprivation that shrinks their brains. Earth ponies don't have the best-" Phyllis spat out the word like it was poison. "Magic, but we are just technologically superior. It's all about phrenology."

"That is ridiculous."

Phyllis got up and tapped a hoof on her desk. "It's scientifically proven. It's just how it is and sure maybe we were wrong on the cannibal baby stealing idea but I've rerun the riot footage for the last month over and over and over again and all I see is a dangerous element that Hitch wasn't stopping. He fucks one of them for earth's sake. And looking at the census of the town and comparing it to the Canterlogic Food Pantry records, we aren't a majority here anymore. It's an earth pony town and we're being overrun by the absolute worst refuse of Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights. . ."

Sprout looked at his mother and felt the briefest twinge of pity . "Have you gone outside?"

Sweets spoke up. "Sprout, its just not a good idea for her. She's just a bit overworked and exhausted. Put aside the rhetoric. Phyllis Cloverleaf? Outside? Now? That's an assassination attempt right there if I ever saw one. I already screen her food for poisons. Adding a whole dimension of watching each and every pony from the smallest to the largest would be a nightmare. You know how easy it is for ponies to grab knives or create explosives with magic?" The pink earth pony stared at Toots and watched him back away. "She's just stressed out. It's unprecedented times." She gripped tightly on her hoof file. "You know what? I'll call downstairs and tell the Big Brother Pony in Charge to treat your friends with colt and filly gloves. I mean it's just what your magnanimous mother would do. I should know. I've been here for years- heck I've drafted rules and carried out laws when she gets like this. It's surprisingly easy to do. Been doing something like this for a while. Simple and effective delegation- your mom says what she wants, I temper it into a nice and digestible solution to lessen culpability. One pony controlling the hydra of Canterlogic? That's just ridiculous. Who'd have the time for that?"

Sprout looked at Sweets with new eyes and realized that he hadn't paid much attention to his mother's assistant. He had written her off as just another pony his mother lorded over, a paycheck in a book. But time and this new reality had shifted the power dynamic between the two. He had been hoping to talk to his mother one on one and get her to change her mind.

He hadn't realized that she was just an impotent figurehead closed off from the world, now too scared to go outside. He breathed out and resigned himself to the terms. He wasn't happy about it, livid even, but he wasn't going to rant at a pony who had zero power and another one that already had made up her mind. "Is that an acceptable compromise, Mother?" He saw her weakly nod in his peripheral vision. "Good. Be glad I didn't choose to sleep here."

Sweets rolled her eyes. "We'd just call security and then bar you from the premises. Simple solution for a foalish problem. Now please go on and shoo. Your mother has been having such a hard time these last few months, I think you understand? Right? I mean most of her problems are your fault."

Sprout stared daggers into Sweets and angrily walked out and slammed the door behind him.

The pink pony smiled and popped a piece of gum in her mouth, quickly blowing a bubble and letting it pop. She saw the video feed of the hallway outside this fancy office and saw Sprout fruitlessly pace back and forth silently before slamming a hoof to the elevator door button in anger and skulking into the elevator like a wounded puppy. She grinned and leaned back on the couch for a moment, letting Toots stew in fear. Oh Sprout would be a problem sooner or later, but after years of running Canterlogic as the number two pony in charge, he was decidedly a simple problem dwarfed by the unrest outside these slate gray walls.

"Now Toots, I told you explicitly not to fraternize with the enemy. . ." Sweets tapped a hoof on her nail file. "But you let him in here and I didn't want to cause a whole incident. Can't just have our gang of strongmares waltz in and detain a future CEO. Think of the rumors and the headlines."

Toots nervously straightened his tie. "He found my number and we talked and well one thing led to another. . ."

Sweets shrugged. "Gonna have to read the chat log to see if that's true. Either way, I thought we were buddies. I get told what to do by Mrs. Cloverleaf, I tell you what to do. It's a nice chain of command when it works."

"That it does."

Sweets rubbed her temple. "So do your damn job next time. I have a hard enough time trying to keep this place going." Sweets glanced at Phyllis slumped in her chair. "I can't just have Sprout waltz up and make our CEO have a mental breakdown or a near one. You know how hard it is to run a company on the verge of a major collapse? Balancing the tight rope of investors and public relations, It's a draining mess. They expect their CEO to be infallible and she's just one mare." Sweets waved a hoof and Toots hightailed it out of there.

Phyllis laid her head on her desk and sat in silence. She had been doing a lot of that lately. It was like the mare that was just so bombastic and full of rage had the wind in her sails disappear and she was adrift in the ocean, a drowning mare. To Sweets, it was incredibly sad.

Sweets carefully rung up Sundance and waited a bit to see if the mare would answer her. She normally did since Sweets had set up the new Big Brother Ponies and their new police powers in carefully defined terms. They had a problem they needed to solve and she had given the order to crack down as hard as possible against rogue elements in town. Mrs. Cloverleaf had agreed once she saw the myriad reports of unrest. Sure, some of the reports were fabricated, but perception is more important than the truth sometimes.

She got Sundance's voice mail and sighed. "This is Sweets, now I won't mince words here so you can understand me- do not lay a hoof on the prisoners you got today. . .if you have already, then starting tomorrow you are going to treat them as well as you can. They get two weeks in the hole and they get out. Anything else outside of the nicest treatment you can muster and I'm cutting your funding entirely so you can understand the difficulty of training your soldiers without bits or jangles or whatever you use for money."

Sweets frowned and rubbed her head as she tried to figure out what to do. It had been so, so, so much simpler when Posey and Sprout skipped town. Would have been way, way easier if they never came back. She sighed and cantered her way up to her still quiet boss. "It's fine. Sprout just doesn't see it our way. I told you that this switch to less of the carrot and more of the stick method would be hard. And what worked before Sunny messed up the equilibrium of this fine town won't exactly work now. Unity and hugs and rainbows and all that jazz."

Phyllis Cloverleaf looked up with faint tears in her eyes. "I taught him all I know and he's just unable to see what I did for this town. I kept it stable for nearly thirty years and that should count for something. Is it my methods? Or something else.

Sweets ran a hoof through Phyllis' mane. The interview had violently shaken the normally resolute mare letting crippling self doubt take a firm root in her and Sweets' affirmations and careful twisting of reports was the only things keeping her boss going. Was it lying? In a certain point of view, but it was better than giving the town over to complete anarchy. Canterlogic was the main job market. If it collapsed, so did the Bay. Even if the current CEO was a mess of growing neuroses and self doubt, it was better to have the perception of smooth sailing. "No, the results are what matters and they worked for so, so long. It's not your fault they had to change. You never expected an alicorn or even magic to come back. Nopony could have foreseen that."

"But Sprout is married now and its not just a rumor." She ran a hoof over the tablet in front of her and traced the signatures on the marriage certificate on its small screen. Phyllis laid her head on the table again. "Maybe I was too harsh and he ran straight into the first cunt that showed him something I didn't."

Sweets rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you screwing him would have worked. . .seriously, it's probably just the Cloverleaf way. I mean you are a bit stubborn and he is too. It's what I admire in you so very, very much." Sweets stared down into Mrs. Cloverleaf's green eyes for one moment before kissing her hard on her lips and leaving it there for a moment.

Phyllis Cloverleaf reciprocated before breaking off the kiss and scooting her chair back. "I'm sorry for putting so much work on you, especially now. But its been-"

Sweets put a hoof on Phyllis' lips and grinned as she got down on her knees. "I work for you. Even if hypothetically I took all your duties as CEO and left you as a figurehead. . .which I haven't. . .I'd always do it for you. And I've just taken a few jobs- communication and the like. The difficult ones, you know how hard the public is, especially now after that trap of an interview. I'll take the worst of it and you just relax. You still have the say so and run the purse strings. I do the drudgery so you reap the rewards. Sit back and relax. Take a few drinks. Live it up a little. The program will work, Sundance and the others just need to know that Posey and Sprout are currently off limits. Iron out that and boom, everything is right back to normal Better than normal. More stable than before." Sweets stared up and winked at her boss before digging in to her favorite meal of the day and burying her snout deep into the gilded vagina. She tasted the faintest hint of bubblegum as her boss began her first of many orgasms and she lapped up the resulting flood since it wasn't a good idea to leave a drop of evidence.

What would the janitorial staff say?

It was highly inappropriate for Pony Resources, but what they didn't know didn't hurt the business. And each of them got something out of the secret arrangement. Mrs. Cloverleaf got a gentle hoof that knew myriad pleasures of the flesh and relax while Sweets got to be the true power behind the throne.

***

Sprout sat alone in Posey's kitchen and tapped a hoof upon the table, the lingering silence suffocating him as he wondered about what to do. He had never talked directly to Sweets and he hadn't expected his mother to stay so relatively quiet about her assistant being so forward about the current situation. He tapped a hoof over and over as he tried to get that nut to crack and make sense but all he came up with were images and thoughts he didn't need to see.

"Shit."

He quietly moved up his plans and decided the moment Posey got out of there he'd jump directly onto his plans. He had thought he could work slowly, building support slow and steady until he could oppose his mother for the CEO position, he had it all right there in his head, a perfect dismantling of everything Canterlogic stood for and rebuilding it into something he'd actually be proud of.

That was before.

Now he just wanted Posey back, the dull ache of loneliness sat heavy on his heart and he sighed as he didn't even want to rub one out- it just felt wrong. It wasn't like he hadn't tried, he had, but without Posey's soft touch and words he just couldn't fully get it up. So he just sat there angry at the world and unable to fuck it.

The doorbell rang and Sprout glanced at the time. A little after nine at night and he wasn't expecting anypony to show. He grumbled as he walked to the door and opened it and saw that Pipp stood there, her little tiara missing and her hair an uncharacteristic mess, her mascara running as she looked up to him.

"I'm sorry about the whole, uh, late time. . .but I've been all over town trying to find both Rocky and Jazz and you're the last hope I have to figure out where they went. I tried calling their phones but they were off or disconnected which is odd cause jazz always has her phone on her just in case I have a superstar emergency or an idea or anything and then I thought maybe they eloped. You did. But I called my mom and Bridlewood and nothing. Then I had to do a podcast but Jazz always runs the booth while I talk so I had to do an impromptu stream and that was a nightmare since she always acts as a mod and that is a-" The short pink princess trailed off as she started hyperventilating over her day.

Sprout just stood there unsure if he should shut the door or let Pipp inside. He decided against his probably better judgment to let her in. Even if he wasn't in the mood to deal with a pink princess dealing with the reality of doing things by herself. He picked her up- she was currently curled up into a ball having a crying fit- and carried her inside.

He cantered back into the kitchen and pushed her into a chair. She was still sobbing about how difficult her meetings had been without Jazz and he put that blubbering out of his mind. He briefly wondered what Hitch saw in her and decided that he easily had the better mare out of the two of them.

At least when Posey was having a moment, it was a relatable thing and not some weird influencer problem that ninety nine percent of people dealt with every single day and didn't have a complete fit over. They just moved on and dealt with it.

"Jazz and Rocky are in jail. With Posey."

Pipp looked up and wiped her face with a cloudy wing. "I looked there. I went to the Sheriff's Office and-"

Sprout rolled his eyes. "Real Canterlogic prison. I don't exactly know why, but it happened."

Pipp nodded. "So there's a second prison in this town. I hope it's like Zephyr Heights' prisons. I think Jazz needed a break and having a room to yourself where you have a whole spa treatment and smoothies and watch tv all you want would be a great thing for her. I told her to maybe take some time off and she looked at me weird. Maybe if I had told her she was going on a all expenses paid cruise with Rocky, she might have taken me up on the offer. I mean think of the possibilities and all that. I see the two of them like each other. . ."

"Yeah, one of these days I'll have to show you how prisons actually work in other places outside of your hometown."

"Now that's an idea. 'An Equestrian Guide to Prisons 101.' Think of the possibilities. Though I'd have to run it by Jazz. And we're back to the same problem."

"Tried to talk to my mom." Sprout groaned. "It didn't exactly go the way I expected. I got them to say they'd release them in two weeks."

"Two weeks? I can't just not run Mane Melody for two weeks. I have product launches planned, hair appointments to do, podcasts to record, and songs to release. It's one of the best release windows and I'm not dealing with releasing music and competing with The Rockin' Beats or Knight Shade and the Shadowettes, the idea that I push back a record for the first time in my career. . ."

"Well do it." He grit his teeth, almost ready to yell at Pipp but held his tongue. "I did all I could and that wasn't enough to get them actually out of there. I doubt you can do better." Sprout imagined Pipp strutting around town with a sign or putting Canterlogic on blast in every livestream she did. "I really doubt it." He sighed. "Sorry, long day. Do you want to stay for dinner? I was just going to put a pizza or two in the oven."

Pipp glanced at Sprout's body language and nodded. "I would like that. Do you have a healthy option, like a cauliflower crust pizza veggie supreme?"

"No. That doesn't sound edible."

Pipp sighed. "Fine. Just don't tell Zipp about me cheating on my diet- she'd never let me live it down."

Sprout got up from bed and walked over to grab a pillow from Posey's closet. He had had a fun time with Pipp watching some zombie movie that she said Hitch would never watch with her because it was "too scary" and her presence had made the house feel less empty. A voice that wasn't his echoing off the walls made him feel normal and secure. And yet here he was alone, sitting in the dark and hearing the normal sound of the house just breathing as it settled in the cool night air and the faint hum of the fridge going on and on. Sounds that he wouldn't even notice if there was Posey here with him.

He grabbed the largest pillow he could and trudged off to bed once again, the creak of the stairs telling him his ocation in the inky blackness of the house, his phone's flashlight app being the only light he had since he didn't feel like turning on a bevy of lights to walk down a hallway or two.

He returned back to the bedroom and quickly placed it in the middle of the now much larger bed- no Posey sleeping sideways or curling around him like a snake as she blissfully slept on made the cool blankets feel too cold to the touch, no body heat outside of his warming up a king size bed.

He pulled over the covers, turned off the light, and wrapped his hooves around the large pillow until it was wedged comfortably like how Posey would be sometimes where she would nuzzle up close and tease him relentlessly until they had sex over and over again.

He had grown used to it and besides the dull ache of need that radiated from his crotch, he felt much less lonely with a pillow to hold on to.

He breathed in the faint scent of Posey still lingering on the bedsheets and fitfully went to sleep.