Confined With a Goddess

"And you learned that all on your own?"

Celestia nodded. "I'm not taking anymore handouts."

"I'd take any amount of kindness that was given to me," admitted Jake, shaking his head. "I can't really afford to refuse right now."

"That's how you go into debt," warned Celestia. "If you are indebted to somepony, you could find yourself at the wrong end of a deal."

"Is that what happened to you?"

"No, no... Well, yes, but not in this instance."

"So what did happen?"

Celestia shook her head. "I'd really rather not talk about it. What about you? What landed you here?"

Jake paused for a moment, then smirked. "I was with the Royal Mounted Police, and Princess Luna assigned me to wat-- I mean, shipwreck. Yeah, shipwreck."

Celestia let out a chuckle. "A shipwreck, was it?"

"Yep. That's my cover story."

Celestia nodded along. "So, what's the rest of your cover? What led up to your shipwreck?"

"Well, I was always a boring, quiet kid. and I just kind of grew up like that."

"You see yourself as boring?"

"No, but other people thought I was boring. Their words just kind of stuck after awhile. Sometimes, it was great. When there was a problem, it would ignore me. Like this one time, there was a fight in the school cafeteria, and everyone was punished for it, even the students that had nothing to do with it. But it was so easy to just ignore me that I just slipped out of the room without being noticed."

"You weren't involved with the fight?"

"Well... I mean, someone grabbed my yogurt and smashed it over another student's head, and I did have people shoved into me, but my first, second and third instincts told me to flee, and my fourth instinct didn't want to fight the other three, and just gave them what they wanted. I couldn't make it to the door before the room was locked down, but I did manage to slip out when no one else was looking and pretend that I had been eating in the hallway. The hall monitor couldn't remember if I'd been there or not, so... My word against nothing."

Celestia nodded. "I see. But boring and forgettable don't land you on a prison island."

"Right. Well, like I said, I was quiet, too. I wasn't loud and bombastic as a bunch of other applicants to jobs, and even though I applied early and often, the managers would forget me all the time. They'd tell me to come in for an interview at half past three, and I'd show up ten minutes early, and they'd have forgotten the appointment. Then I'd call three days later, and they'd ask me to come in for another interview because they couldn't recall how I'd answered anything."

"Sounds like they really didn't consider you for the job."

"I mean, it felt that way..."

"No, it was that way. Trust me, they threw out your resume the moment you walked out the door. They didn't even think about it."

Jake lowered his head. "Yeah..."

"Anyway, go on."

"Well, I was pretty desperate, so I begged for a job at a gas station. I would be a janitor, I'd scrub toilets, I'd sort trash; just anything to have my own income. Turns out, that's a pretty important role, and they'd already hired someone to do that. But they could put me in the deli. I could make sandwiches and warm up hot dogs and taquitos and burritos and chimichangas and stuff like that. I mean, I had to pay for all of the safety certifications, but there was a work experience program that said that my employer would cover the cost of training, but I wouldn't be paid for the first six weeks."

"And is that normal?"

Jake stopped. "You know, I honestly can't say... Some of the things we're taught is that it's rude to compare salaries, especially with other people in our same field, because it could make them very upset to find that their salary is lower than yours for the same job. If I found out that the same position I had was paying better half a block up the road, I'd be pissed. And I think a lot of people would leave their jobs if they knew that, going for the higher-paying ones."

"Sure," nodded Celestia. "But if everyone is trying to take that money, there's going to be a lot of competition to take it. And once more, you'd be forgotten."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind being forgotten when the weapons come out," Jake smiled as he resumed walking. "People have killed and injured each other for less. I don't want to die, I just want to make enough income keep myself fed, watered, clean, and under a roof. And I'd like a new XBox, too."

"I don't know what that is."

Jake waved his hand. "Don't worry about it. Not a big deal."

"Is this "XBox" what landed you here? Was it that little black brick you had in your drawer?"

"No, that was my phone. Still really bummed about that not working, too."

"You still haven't told me how you ended up here..."

Jake shrugged. "Well, there are these guys that come in every day to buy slushies, and they were making fun of me for having a nothing job that any four-year-old can do, that I wouldn't last a week in a survival situation. And I just had to open my big mouth and say it wasn't hard; that any idiot could go catch a fish and then make it for dinner. I just didn't have a boat. And my boss decides to give me an advance to go prove I could. So I came out here on a boat to learn how to fish, to prove I could do it."

"And then you wrecked."

He nodded. "Big storm. I wasn't ready for it. In hindsight, I guess it was stupid to just dive in with no knowledge of the subject."

"I could have told you that," snorted Celestia. "Still, you learned something."

"Did I?"

Celestia nodded. "My student, the one whose panties you wore, used to write letters to me when she learned something. Compose to me, out loud, a letter telling me what you've learned."

Jake shrugged. "I guess I learned tha--"

"Ah, ah... That's not how you start a letter. Try again."

Jake was silent for a bit, then sighed. "Dear Princess Celestia..."