After having graduated from Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, Twilight Sparkle decided that she needed a new challenge. As such, Twilight started working on post-graduate education to become a government official, likely serving in Celestia’s Royal Court, much like her father served the royal court. In hindsight, it would be nice to serve alongside him.

While Twilight cherished her time with Princess Celestia, she was acutely aware of the princess's responsibilities ruling Equestria and sought ways to ease her burden without imposing.

While being Princess Celestia's personal student had been the pinnacle of her achievements, Twilight recognized the need to evolve beyond that role, even as she strived to maintain her relevance.

Twilight eagerly embraced the opportunity to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration preparations, relishing the chance to contribute meaningfully to Equestria's governance as a prelude to joining official civil service.

Becoming the Element of Magic wasn’t something that she had planned on and living in Ponyville after saving Princess Luna from the darkness of Nightmare Moon was interesting.

Though Twilight treasured her new friendships, the weekly friendship reports to Princess Celestia began to feel more like a tedious obligation than a meaningful exercise, despite fulfilling the princess's request.

As days turned into weeks, Twilight found herself adapting to the rhythms and quirks of Ponyville life. Between running the library and working closely with Mayor Mare to ensure the town was running smoothly, she also had to contend with Spike’s infatuation with Rarity, Rainbow Dash’s pranks and Pinkie Pie’s parties.

In contrast, Fluttershy's animal care and Applejack's orchard management provided a grounding counterpoint to the town's more eccentric elements, which explained why Twilight spent so much time helping them with their work when she could.

Twilight's efforts in solving friendship problems proved crucial, particularly when she helped dispel the town's suspicions about Zecora, fostering understanding and bringing a measure of calm to the often-chaotic Ponyville.

Twilight savored this period of relative calm, finding solace in her books and tea, a welcome respite from the constant crises that had previously defined her days.

That calm didn’t last long as a short time later, a magical portal to a place called ‘Earth’ was discovered in the Everfree Forest by Zecora and a lot of ponies were scared when Zecora brought the equally scared human to meet Twilight for the first time.

The humans towered over ponies, had omnivorous diets, and possessed strength that could be intimidating, yet this particular human appeared friendly and unarmed, offering a glimmer of hope for peaceful relations.

Recognizing the gravity of the situation yet uncertain of her own authority, Twilight deferred to Princess Celestia's wisdom and experience in handling the matter.

It took a little magical experimentation with the portal and about a year to work out the details, but a treaty was worked out between Equestria and the nations of Earth. When Princess Celestia asked for volunteers to go to Earth as part of an Equestrian Worker Exchange program, sometimes called the EWE, letting humans into Equestria and ponies onto Earth to work, learn new skills and learn the culture, Twilight jumped at the chance with Princess Celestia’s and her parents’ permission.

While initially elated to be granted permission, Twilight felt a pang of loneliness realizing none of her friends shared her eagerness for the journey. She consoled herself with the knowledge that it was only a six-month assignment. She had to hope that she would be able to make new friends.

After having gained permission, Twilight was thoroughly briefed on what to expect from the experts that helped write the treaty. Going through the portal was a little unpredictable, given that while the Equestrian side always exited into the Everfree Forest, the portal to Earth seemed to exit almost at random in ten different places. Given the logistics of letting ponies work on Earth to learn the human culture and gain human job experience, it was decided in advance that wherever the portal sent you, that was where you worked, though that dashed the dreams of a lot of ponies that wanted to live in a particular part of Earth.

In Twilight’s case, she had arrived on Earth on the North American continent, in the nation of the United States of America, in the southern state of Texas. She knew that America was a constitutional republic with elected officials, but it almost seemed like everything was divided into smaller and smaller jurisdictions to allow for more people to run for and hold elected office.

The complex layers of human governance struck Twilight as potentially inefficient and ripe for corruption, not unlike the noble circles in Equestria. However, she reminded herself that her mission was to observe and learn, not to judge, hoping to glean insights that could benefit Equestria in the future. The human French Revolution’s execution of nobles was unsettling for most of the upper class in Equestria… and they seemed to take notice while trying to learn more.

The towering skyscrapers and endless stretches of asphalt overwhelmed Twilight's senses; a stark contrast to the quaint, organic architecture of Equestria. Even Manehatten couldn’t compare to Houston, Dallas or Austin.

The heat and humidity of a Texas summer was also very different than the summers in Equestria. While Equestria's climate was generally mild, the Texas heat and humidity were oppressive, especially for a fur-covered pony unused to such extreme conditions.

Twilight was given a week to acclimate to the area, complete with free room and board, while the EWE was trying to find her a job and she was given $2,000 American Dollars to start her new life with. The other ponies she had arrived with were given the same amount. The other mares seemed willing to pair up and combine their resources with each other, but Twilight was determined to make it on her own. She had already left behind Spike and all her friends, and she wasn’t here to make friends with the other pony workers; she needed to make human friends.

Examining the unfamiliar currency, Twilight could only hope that the sum would suffice until she received her first paycheck, acutely aware of the economic differences between Equestria and her new temporary home.

Earth's wage system puzzled Twilight. Whether paid hourly or annually, employees typically worked for two weeks before receiving payment on the third Friday, followed by biweekly pay thereafter. Only a few companies paid weekly, but that was still different than Equestria.

In Equestria, workers received daily wages, making Earth's biweekly pay schedule feel alien to Twilight. Budgeting for two weeks at a time seemed like a daunting challenge.

She did put her time to good use. She started by doing research into renting an apartment for a 6-month period, which she found out was almost impossible to do because most apartment leases were for a full year. Even when she could get them to give her a 6-month lease, the cheapest apartment she found in the area was $850 dollars per month, with the first month and last month rent due at signing, along with a pet deposit of 250 dollars, which they wouldn’t waive because she was a pony and the fur would be hard to get out the carpet after she moved out.

When she pointed out the morality of charging her extra and treating her like a pet when she was a sapient race the same as them, they simply shrugged and replied that American Federal Law hadn’t yet been updated to force landlords to treat the Equestrian ponies to the same standards as humans. Legally, the argument was sound, but it was morally questionable and could be eventually challenged in court. While she liked fighting a good fight, Twilight didn’t feel like it was her place to help challenge or change Earth’s laws. Right, wrong, or indifferent, she was a guest of Earth, and she had to live within the rules of the current society.

The overall encounter, however, made Twilight reflect on the warnings she'd heard about human prejudices, wondering if there was more truth to them than she'd initially believed.

If she had agreed to that deal, it would take nearly all the 2,000 dollars the EWE gave her to start with. She was starting to realize that the other mares pairing up weren’t for safety in numbers or even for friendship; it was impossible to afford the cost of living alone here.

Reflecting on her pre-arrival briefings, Twilight realized nopony had warned her about Earth's living costs, though she acknowledged these would vary by location, much like in Equestria. Ponyville was a lot cheaper than Canterlot or Manehatten and it had to be similar on Earth. From her research, she knew that Tokyo was more expensive than Houston, although a lot of ponies seemed to want to live in Tokyo because the anime coplayers made ponies feel more welcome into human culture.

Her research instead turned to renting a hotel for 3 weeks, looking at a concept called a ‘weekly rate.’ To her shock, even with a weekly rate discount, a hotel was even more expensive than renting an apartment, even with the pet deposit. While the rates varied by the quality of the hotel, the price ranged from the cheapest being about 350 dollars a week to the most expensive being over 1,000 dollars per week. The cheapest one was a valid option, but it wasn’t in a very safe area according to the reviews and she still had no idea how the average human would treat an Equestrian pony. At least she could pay weekly and wasn’t required to pay for all 3 weeks all up front in case something came up.

That would give her more money for food, but she was confronted by the fact that vegetarian meals and other ‘healthy options’ seemed to cost more. Hay wasn’t readily available unless she went to a feed store for animals, like Tractor Supply, though Wal-Mart had oats and grains in a variety of flavors that tasted good. Flavored oatmeal quickly became her favorite breakfast option given that it was both cheap and healthy.

Transportation posed another challenge for Twilight. Unless she could teleport to work, she'd need to hire rides, with taxis being the safest but most expensive option due to their licensing. The prevalence of crime reports made Twilight wary of ride-sharing services, like Uber and Lyft, and the prospect of using her magic defensively, potentially causing harm, filled her with dread. How did humans live like this?

The week went by quickly while she reviewed all her options, and she came to conclusion that she would have to go to work that first Monday and then wing it.

As the week drew to a close, Twilight found herself the sole remaining pony awaiting job placement at the EWE office, a situation ripe with both opportunity and uncertainty.

Twilight steeled herself for a tough negotiation, but she knew she would only have one chance to get this right…

* * *

Twilight

The male EWE placement agent smiled at me. “Good morning and happy Friday. I am pleased to tell you that we do have a job lined up for you starting Monday morning. The agency will get you transportation to the job site and then after work, you’re on your own. If you lose the job or can’t handle it, the agency can get you placed elsewhere but we won’t be able to provide room and board while you are unemployed. Any questions?”

I nodded. “Just a few. Are we expecting any more ponies to show up? It would be cheaper for me short-term if I had a roommate.”

The placement worker shook his head. He seemed unsurprised about my request for a possible roommate.

“I knew that there would be a problem with having an odd number of ponies arriving in this group, but the short answer is no. No more ponies are coming here until your group leaves in six months. Also, you can’t go back early because learning how humans live and learning to adapt to our culture and society is part of why you’re here.”

Suppressing a sigh, I shrugged. “So, what’s the job?”

He placed a sheet of paper in front of me. “Pipeline Express needs order pickers. It’s blue-collar work in a non-climate-controlled warehouse environment but it is literally the only thing we could find for a unicorn at this time.”

A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead at the mere thought of working in a non-climate-controlled environment in Texas. Yes, Equestria didn’t have air conditioning, but it also wasn’t 100 degrees with a ‘feels like’ temperature of 110 degrees, in the shade.

I cleared my throat. “I have the Equestrian equivalent of a bachelor’s degree and I’m almost done with the Equestrian equivalent of a master’s degree. I should be doing sales, clerical work or management… I don’t remember agreeing to do blue collar work in my placement contract. I was promised a human job that took my education and experience into account. My most recent job was as a librarian.”

He nodded, having been at least partly briefed. “Pipeline Express will give you a sales job in a few weeks, but you must start as an order picker to learn the products. I promise that you don’t know anything about the American oil and gas industry. Don’t worry, the office spaces for the sales team are climate controlled once you know enough to sell the products.”

I pursed my lips and conceded the point. “I suppose that makes sense. I can’t sell items that I know nothing about. Very well… I am willing to work as an order picker for one month to learn the products but I want the sales job guaranteed in writing with a breach of contract clause written in that states that Pipeline Express will owe me a full five months of pay in a lump sum at the higher salespony pay rate if they fail to provide the agreed upon job with full knowledge that I would be quitting to pursue other work if they can’t be bothered to honor their agreements.”

He mumbled as he drew up the modified contract. “You really are well educated, huh.”

I snorted. “I am the personal student of Princess Celestia herself and my father is a member of the Canterlot Royal Court. I did not come here uninformed, and you better believe that the Princess and my father will be receiving weekly updates on my progress in learning human culture. I would hate for a negative report to negatively impact the relationship between our peoples.”

It was his turn to sweat as he looked up slowly to meet my eyes. “I wasn’t aware that you had direct ties to the Equestrian government…”

I glared at him. “I was fully briefed; I don’t see how you weren’t. As the Princesses personal student, I’m as close to being the heir to the throne of Equestria as any non-alicorn could ever be. The princess doesn’t have foals of her own and I always got the impression that she treated me as she would have treated her own daughter, had the princess had one. Such was the perk of being her most faithful student.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I see. Are you concerned about the nature of the work we're offering?”

I shook my head, trying to maintain control but not scare him. “No, I am not a noble. My family is upper middle class, with my father working as a civil servant and my mother being a published writer, although my older brother is a high-ranking member of the Equestrian military. I do know how to get my hooves dirty; I just don’t do it so often. While I'm eager to learn, I also seek a position that aligns with my qualifications and potential for growth. Like I said, I am willing to start as an order picker, at the entry level, but the company had better be willing to honor the contract or there will be trouble.”

He nodded as he finished drawing up the contract. “I’ll be sure to make sure they know all of that.”

I snorted. “You say that as if they wouldn’t read the contract.”

The agent winced while putting final touches on the contract. “Ironically, the average human doesn’t read the contracts that they sign. Most contracts are only read word by word by lawyers and paralegals.”

My brow creased in a frown as I clicked my tongue once. “That sounds dangerous.”

He nodded as he got to the last line. “Humans can be lazy or stupid. Reading a basic contract is easy but you’d be surprised by how many people can’t be bothered to take the 5 minutes to make sure that they aren’t being screwed over.”

He slid the contract over to me and I read every word and made a few changes. Specifically, I added that I wanted full compensation for any work I did with magic that would be otherwise impossible without magic, paid in addition to and outside of my hourly rate or salary, and slid it back. He grunted when he read the new conditions, not bothering to dispute that such a thing was possible, since other unicorns had already proven it possible. While he retyped the contract so that the changes I made were included, I asked him a question.

“What else can you tell me about Pipeline Express?”

He sighed. “Pipeline Express is owned and operated by a Fortune 500 company but is managed as a separate company. With less than 500 total employees nationwide, Pipeline Express offers Fortune 500 benefits with a smaller and more family oriented ‘Mom and Pop’ small business management style. It is a hard job though. They go through a lot of temps, but the core of the business is a small group of seasoned employees that have worked there for years.

The local location has approximately nine order pickers plus however many temps are currently there, the warehouse coordinator, about five sales reps, the sales manager, transportation manager, warehouse manager and the corporate regional manager has his office at this location, marking it as a very important location for customer service.

The regional manager, Allen, manages 5 of the company’s 10 locations, making him a very high-ranking member of the corporate management. However, all Fortune 500 companies and their subsidiary companies have agreed to participate in the Equestrian Worker Exchange program in exchange for tax breaks and they are bound by the contract that we are currently negotiating, even though they won’t be directly signing it, as I am acting as their agent. They need you more than you need them, which is at least part of how you can negotiate your contract terms instead of a take it or leave it offer like most humans get.”

He gave me the final draft only to be exasperated by me reading it again.

I giggled. “Just making sure that all my changes made it into the final draft. I firmly believe in the expression of ‘Trust but verify.’ In all honesty, the EWE contract states that you have to provide me with room and board until my first job placement. I could have flat refused this job and your hooves, no… hands, would have been tied. You’re lucky that I want new experiences.”

He nodded as he watched me sign it, and he signed it himself, making me three copies to keep as I had requested.

His curiosity got the better of him. “Why did you want three copies?”

I hummed. “Insurance. I’m going to send one copy to my father, one copy to Princess Celestia and I’m keeping a copy for myself. I also expect you to keep a copy in my EWE file here at the office. I want to believe that humans aren’t that bad, but I’ve watched your news channels. Either there is a lot of crime here or that’s the only thing that the news cares to report. I’ve seen very few things about this area that I like so far. At least with more than one copy of my signed contract, nopony can claim that it got lost or that the terms aren’t being met. I will hold Pipeline Express accountable for what we both signed and if you know they won’t hold up their end of this agreement, then you had better keep looking for replacement employment for me. I don’t want to be unemployed for long even with five months of pay as a lump sum payout.”

He handed me some additional forms. “You’re going to need these forms to file a compensation claim for work done with magic that would normally be impossible without magic, per your contract. You will need a manager to sign off on approving anything that you try to claim so keep your magical acrobatics reasonable.”

I didn’t comment on his advice as he walked me out of his office. He continued to speak.

“I can respect that you have a plan, and that you seem to know how to take care of yourself. I will do my part to hold up my end of this agreement.”

Though skeptical of the agent's assurances, I recognized that I had little choice but to proceed with cautious optimism. With nothing else to say, I left, and I had to hope for the best.

* * *

Monday morning was the worst time of day on the worst day of the week for Tim. He had worked for Pipeline Express for two years although it had felt like a lifetime.

At 27 years old, he could handle the back-breaking work and having lived in Texas his entire life, other than a brief stint in the military, he could handle the heat. Tim’s desperation to provide for his family, coupled with his lack of time and resources for further education, had inadvertently made him an ideal employee for the demanding job. Blue collar for life, though he wasn’t proud of that fact.

Tim's daily routine of dropping his daughter at school before work, knowing she'd spend her after-school hours in daycare until he could retrieve her, weighed heavily on his conscience.

He wished that he had more help taking care of his daughter, but his situation didn’t allow for a lot of chances to date, not that he was sure he was ready yet after the recent death of his wife. It had been a little over a year, but the wound was still too fresh. He still needed time to heal but his daughter needed a mother. Her needs would always come before his.

Monday was also the hardest day of the week because a lot of the bigger clients tended to order all the 55-gallon drums they needed for the entire week on Monday. The drums weighed between 20 pounds each for the thinner walled plastic drums and up to 65 pounds each for the thinker walled steel drums. Rolling 208 drums to palletize eight drums to a pallet for a full truck of 26 pallets could take a worker over two hours if they were stuck doing it alone. Nobody liked having to do it alone but sometimes we didn’t have a choice.

Daily, the company shipped seven full 53-foot trailers and three 26-foot bobtail trucks of assorted products, sometimes more if drivers made double trips. This required emptying at least seven trailers each day to prepare for the next shift's loading. On a good day, we could unload pallets of pails. On bad days, it was rolling and palletizing drums. We weren’t lucky enough to have a lot of good days and the temps usually got stuck with unloading and palletizing the drums. Rolling drums for a whole 8 hours was the hardest job we had at our location and the management wondered why the temps kept quitting. It wasn’t rocket science; it was a shitty job.

The products we sold ranged from pallets of 1-gallon pails, plastic and steel all the way up to 13-gallon pails, plastic and steel. Drums of all types and sizes from 20-gallon drums all the way up to 85-gallon drums plus 275- and 330-gallon totes.

In addition to oil and gas supplies, we also carried restaurant and medical grade containers. Having that level of product diversification prevented a slowdown and kept us busy. Even on a slow day, we didn’t work less than 8 hours. Heavy days could last a full 12 hours or longer, but we couldn’t leave until all the orders were pulled and all the trucks were loaded. As we used to say in the military, the only easy day was yesterday.

The company was growing and despite as heavy as our workload was, there just wasn’t enough justification to build another location in Texas. One location in Houston and one location in Dallas served the entire state. A new location opening in San Antonio or Austin would have helped lighten the load, but it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime; the company was too cheap. It would require more customers in West Texas or getting clients in New Mexico or Arizona to force an expansion like that.

It was too bad that we couldn’t seem to get a unicorn willing to work for us. Tim knew that his manager, Melvin, was worried about adding something like magic to our workplace but he thought that having some magical help would be amazing. Well… depending on how long a unicorn could use it without needing to rest.

Tim didn't envy his co-worker, Cory, who typically handled new hire training. Training a unicorn would present a steep learning curve for both trainer and trainee.

He chuckled wryly at the unexpected twist of fate.

Cory doesn’t even like horses. A talking pony would be worse for him. I can’t wait to see it.

* * *

Tim

Pulling into the gate, I was the last person to arrive, as always. Dropping off my daughter at school every morning always made me late according to our normal start time, but since someone usually had to stay late to load late arriving trucks, it worked out because it allowed me to stay late without getting too much overtime.

Getting out of my car, I walked to the warehouse coordinator’s officer where the time clock was and punched in. The coordinator’s name was Juan, and he was something of an assistant warehouse manager. He printed all the bills of lading and made sure the order pullers were working. His smile this morning had me on edge.

“I got a special task for you, Tim.”

I sighed. “It’s too early in the morning for this crap. What is it? 1,000 drums?”

Juan laughed at me. “If only it was so easy. Melvin wants to see you in his office.”

I grumbled as I walked to the main office spaces. I had a good working relationship with the Warehouse Manager, Melvin, but I wished he listened to me more. Things didn’t have to be as hard as they were, but the company refused to innovate. The only thing worse than getting a late start daily was being further delayed by management nonsense. When I arrived at Melvin’s office, I walked right in without knocking since the door was open and I froze at the sight of a lavender unicorn sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

She seemed to freeze also, taken aback by my sudden appearance in the office.

Melvin nodded at me curtly. “Let’s get right to it. This is Twilight Sparkle, as you can see, she’s a unicorn, and she’ll be starting today. I want you to train her, any questions?”

My jaw dropped. She’s quite pretty.

Caught off-guard, I shook my head and fumbled for a response. “I don’t understand. Why assign this to me instead of Cory? He usually handles new hire training.”

Melvin shook his head. “Cory is on vacation this week and you are the only other person I have that I trust to train her correctly. Two of the three temps we had last week quit so we are shorthanded again. Probably going to be a long Monday.”

I sighed as I rubbed my eyes. “Yeah. Sounds about right. I guess we will start with drums like normal. I’ll grab the outgoing drum orders and see if we can pull those first to make figuring out which trailers will be the easiest to unload afterwards.”

Melvin nodded. “Just remember to have Joe check the trailers first to make sure they don’t need maintenance. No sense unloading a trailer that we can’t use.”

I nodded in agreement and turned to Twilight. “Okay, I guess you just follow me, and I’ll explain everything while teaching you how to do the work. May I call you Twilight or do you have a preferred name?”

She smiled. “Twilight is fine. My brother used to call me Twily if you prefer something less formal. What’s your name?”

I almost facepalmed as I had forgotten to introduce myself and the manager never said my name, but I smiled as I composed myself and spoke warmly.

“You may call me Tim. Let’s get started, shall we?”

* * *

Author's Note

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At 5 dollars per 1,000 words, I'm one of the cheaper writers on the site. If you have a story idea, E, T or M, please DM me and we'll work something out.