Chapter One: An Apple a Day
Mad Mares
An Apple a Day
Thick grey smoke slowly enveloped the room, rising up to the ceiling and trying to break through the closed window, out to the sunlight-covered streets of Manehattan downtown. The lazy fan screeched and moaned, miserably rotating a few centimetres below the ceiling, threatening to fall down onto the rectangular wooden table that rested regally in the middle of the room.
This May was especially hot, dancing on the edge of twenty-five above zero, and the three mares in the room longed for the thin stream of air that the fan produced, suffering from the unbearable heat. The Manehattan skyline was picturesque, as usual, and, glancing out of the window on the top floor of Heartstrings & Co, one could only marvel at the glassy skyscrapers and glossy office buildings, sixteen-storey blocks of flats and TV broadcast towers that seemed to be piercing the sky; one could only revel in the smell of cool, fresh wind manoeuvring around the buildings, near the ground, where idle chatter died in the wake of klaxon shrieks and griffin vendors' fervent call-outs as they tried to outsmart each other in terms of cheap slogans, the wind that carried almost imperceptible hints of cut grass and dirt, and baked apples, whose flavour was, no doubt, sickening, given the heat. One could do all of that; but not the three mares in the room.
"Dammit, I want an ice-cream," a mint unicorn lamented, sitting at the head of the table, taking a deep drag of her cigarette. "Vinyl, could'ja get some?" she addressed a white unicorn, who was resting in a chair in the corner, smoking her Mareboros one after another.
"Go buck yourself, Lyra," the unicorn replied lazily, shifting in the chair, her blue spiked mane glistening with sweat. "How about you raise your flank and fetch one yourself?"
Lyra frowned, casting a weary glare at Vinyl. "I'm still your boss, Scratchie." She scratched the back of her head, and, putting off the fire, flicked the end of the cigarette into the bin.
"Yeah, call me Scratchie again, and I'll kick your flank, regardless." The white unicorn smirked, going for another Mareboro, using the still glowing end of the previous cigarette to light the new one.
"Please, fillies, can we concentrate on work, for a change?" a grey earth pony mare grumbled from her seat in the same corner as Vinyl's, only lying on the floor, her shirt sweaty, her tie lying nearby. "I'm dying from heat, and I'd rather we wrapped up the next affair so that I could go home and take a shower."
Vinyl's face broke into a huge grin and she wiggled an eyebrow, looking at the grey mare. "Oh, I wouldn't mind sharing a shower with you, Tavi~" she cooed in a sing-song voice, reminding Octavia of low-tier griffin jazz vocalists.
"Shush, you," she retorted with a blush, averting her eyes and inspecting the wall that was dangerously close to crumbling. Despite all the profits, Lyra still refused to invest money in renovating the building. Some day, this will be the end of us, the grey mare thought with a sigh.
"A'ight, fillies, I don't give two bucks about what you do in your free time." Lyra rose from her seat and lit up another cigarette. "We have a peculiar client on our hooves." The mint unicorn approached the other end of the table, which was adorned with an array of bottles of various alcohol, and three clean glasses. She poured herself a Daniels, and turned towards the other two mares, who were now arguing in hushed whispers. "What'd'ja like?"
Vinyl was the first one to break the argument, her eyes flickering at the mentioning of alcohol. "A Daniels, as usual. Make it a double, will ya?"
Lyra smirked, filling another glass with the light-brownish liquid. "It wouldn't be whiskey if it wasn't a double," she said satisfactorily. "Octavia?"
"Do you still have some of that unpeated Jura?" the grey pony wondered and smiled, receiving a nod from the mint unicorn. "I'll have a double."
"Pfft." Vinyl rolled her eyes. "Unpeated Scotch. What for?" She quickly received a nudge from Octavia, rubbing the sour spot. "All right, all right, Tavi, you made your point."
"The Apple Family," Lyra said, sipping on her drink as she once more placed herself in the chair, "is suffering losses. Has been for half a year already." She lit up a Pone Mall. "As usual, we need to promote them, gather profits, and move on to the next big fish."
"Wait." Vinyl raised a hoof, blinking, trying to remember something. A fly crawled across the ceiling, checking the room for any trails of food. Finding none, the insect rocketed out of the office, into the busy streets of Manehattan, where it was more likely to find some remnants of something-or-the-other.
The white pony stood up, trotting towards the improvised bar. She grasped a bottle in her telekinetic grip, rotating it slowly. "By Celestia's beard - the Apple Family?!" Vinyl looked at Lyra in bewilderment. "They make Applejack Daniels! How come they're suffering losses?"
"Maybe some ponies have begun to realise that Daniels is a poison suitable only for griffins?" Octavia called out from her corner, curled up in the chair, gulping down her whisky.
Vinyl and Lyra frowned simultaneously, exchanging knowing glances. Vinyl's eyes said, All right, go ahead, you're the boss. Lyra's replied pleasantly, Oh no, you're the one who lives with her. It's your battle.
"Daniels is a real drink for real mares," Vinyl said, stomping her hoof against the floor firmly. Lyra's eyes widened, and she immediately took up her notepad, scribbling down something. "Jura, on the other hoof, is usually ordered by stallions," she carried on with a smile that irritated Octavia even further. "And that, my dear Tavi, is why I always top."
Vinyl's grin faltered somewhat as Octavia got up from the floor, edging dangerously close to the white unicorn. She slapped her tail against the white mare's flank. "Oh, do you?" she whispered, loud enough for both Lyra and Vinyl to hear. "What about last night, then?"
"A'ight, fillies!" Lyra tapped her hoof against the table. "Leave your bedroom affairs for the evening." She shifted in her seat, cursing the heat and whomever invented it in the first place. "I wanna hear your ideas on how to make the Apple Family the most successful vendor at the market. That clear?"
Vinyl nodded eagerly, backing down from Octavia, who replied with a single graceful nod. The fan screeched miserably and ceased its movement, evoking a groan from the mint unicorn.
"For buck's sake..." Lyra sighed, waving her hoof in the air. "A'ight, let's all go home and have something cool to drink." With that, she was the first one to exit the office, leaving her two colleagues-subordinates behind.
***
There had never been a city more beautiful than Manehattan. It seemed that Celestia herself had chosen this place to become the centre of Equestrian nightlife, in addition to being the pillar upon which daylife held as well. Even as the sun set, the City never fell asleep. Laughter chiming in the air, cars shuffling up and down the road, the sound of murky jazz and bawdy bop; the smell of refined whisky from the pony bars and the retching odour of cheap beer from the griffin bars - just on the other side of the street; the shouts of mares ordering another Daniels and the meek compliments of their stallions sipping on their Coltba Libres; and the lights - lights everywhere: lights radiating from the bars, and the blocks of flats, and the old lampposts in the park; light from the moon and from the stars, and, of course, the warm lights of the cars' headlights, everywhere. Manehattan never truly slumbered.
Archie's wasn't the best place around; far from it. With its tin-like rusty walls, and lack of windows, and the screeching door that led to the steps to what would seem to outsiders a refurbished basement, and the clumsy griffin waiters, and the subpar musicians - Archie's definitely looked like a cheap bar for poor ponies. Even stranger was the fact that Lyra Hearstrings, CEO, Heartstrings & Co, enjoyed visiting this place wholeheartedly. Maybe it was the music that reminded her of college - the place where she first met Vinyl and Octavia, where all of them had been studying Music; maybe it was the lack of light - only the dim lamps on the ceiling, nothing extraordinary; maybe it was the atmosphere of lust and bewilderment that usually escaped more refined places. Anyway, this was her place, and right now, she was sitting at her table in the corner, staring at her notebook, sipping on her Daniels, in this almost griffin-tier bar.
A real drink for real mares, Lyra read the only note that adorned the white-ish yellow paper. Dammit, I need ideas. Ideas... Ideas... However, her brain refused to work in that direction, instead opting for inspecting the griffin jazz band that was playing on the small stage that could barely hold the five of them: drums, bass, sax, trumpet and piano. They played rather well, Lyra had to admit: being an ex-musician, she could distinguish between musical failure and decent performers.
Through the smoke-covered haze came a griffin in a ragged white tuxedo, the kind of outfit worn by either a servant or a very rich griffin who tries to look like ponies, but fails due to his being a different species, and instead looks plainly ridiculous. This griffin, however, didn't look rich or daring; his eyes were old and tired, and wrinkles lined his forehead and baggy cheeks.
"Another one, ma'am?" he asked in that terrible Harelem accent that leaves an impression of a foreigner speaking Equestrian, even if the speaker is a native; the kind of accent that makes it impossible to distinguish between 'class' and 'glass', or 'warm' and 'norm', or 'love' and 'laugh'; the kind of accent most ponies would frown at - but Lyra simply smiled indulgently, tapping at her glass.
"Sure," she said, watching the griffin lift the glass in his claws. "Wait." The waiter stopped, looking at the unicorn with his bland, worn-out eyes. "Do you drink?" The griffin nodded. Lyra leaned back.
"Daniels?" she wondered, pointing at her glass.
"No, ma'am. I'm male, ma'am," he explained, as if apologising for his gender. "Daniels is a female's drink." There was no disdain in his tone; on the contrary, there was that sweet captation that all males of every age and race had while talking to females, all around the country.
Lyra lit up a Pone Mall. "So, what'cha drink of choice then?" she wondered, puffing the smoke in the air, some of it passing through the waiter's face.
"Joneigh Trotter, ma'am," the griffin replied, standing perfectly still. "S' cheap, and fit'n for a male."
"But of course it is..." Lyra mumbled, eyeing the griffin while puffing on her cigarette, the expression on her face calm and concentrated. "Say, if Joneigh Trotter was no longer at the market, would you skip over to Daniels instead?" she enquired, her eyes piercing the waiter for an answer; the right answer; the say-what-I-want-to-hear answer.
Tell me what I want to hear. Isn't it what we all desire, though? Don't leave me hanging there! Don't you see I need support? Sure, I do. Of course I do. Then say what I expect to hear from you, dammit! Okay, shush. Here. You are right. Happy? Yeah, was that so hard? No, not at all.
We don't want the truth; we want the expected. Why hear something that we can't predict? Unpredictability. The fear that something can go down a different route. The fear of unknown. The greatest fear. That's why we like to re-read books much more than choose to read something new. That's why we like those shows on TV that depict the everyday life. We already know it. There's no news there. News is somewhere else, far from us. Can you hear it? Neeeews? What's thaaat? Nope, there is no news. News is history now. Everything's been founded, everything's been invented, everything's been discovered. Only a long, happy, uneventful life ahead. Yes. I like that.
The griffin, however, didn't bulge. "No, ma'am," he said in the same bland, tired, dusty tone. He didn't want to argue; but even less did he want to lie. His father, now deceased, a bulky, strong griffin, used to tell him, "There's no use lyin' to ponies, son; tell 'em the truth and see how it rolls from there. Them pay the piper, son. Them choose the tune." The waiter had a wife and three children. After his shift, he'd have to work at the coal mine to provide for them. That work paid pennies.
"No?" Lyra repeated, visibly surprised.
"No, ma'am," the waiter repeated firmly. "I'd just go for beer or rum, then."
Lyra fell silent, rubbing the cigarette in circles, slowly pressing it into the glass of the ashtray, watching the little ashes die and lit up again from the friction, and then die again, now forever. "I see." She glanced at the glass. "Repeat that."
With a brief, yet noticeable, bow, the griffin vanished, taking the glass with him. Lyra sighed, leaning back, and lit up another Pone Mall, watching the band play on and on into the night.
***
The main office of Heartstrings & Co had always been incredibly hectic, even when compared to other huge corporations of the City that thrived on the fertile political soil of Manehattan. You want to build a company? Good, because I know just the politician who help you with that. You'll need some money, though. What? You paying? Good, I like that attitude! Don't have money? Don't worry - there's always Canterlot for ya. And so on. Straight business. Manehattan is all about business.
Countless stallions roamed about the office, the smoke of cheap cigarettes floating in the air as they rushed from one typewriter to another, from a screaming telephone to a pile of documents that had been lying there for an hour already and don't you know you had to deliver them post-haste?! Go! Go!
Drifting through the sea of secretaries, Lyra made her way to her personal office, where, if the accident will, Vinyl and Octavia were already waiting for her with a whole new explosion of bright ideas. In reality, though, she expected them to be hungover and meek, tired after a night of passionate lovemaking. What I have to put up with... The unicorn sighed and approached the door, noticing a slight change of the exterior: an array of golden letters engraved in the door, reading, Lyra Heartstrings, CEO.
"Miss Heartstrings, ma'am!"
Lyra turned her head towards the source of the sound, seeing it to be a blue unicorn stallion, in one of those cheap, yet expensive-looking, suits that are sold everywhere from a buy-what-you-want department store, Tailor Street, 17, to the chic boutiques on the Ritz that want to shrug those off to the unsuspecting customers; his black mane neatly cut in a classical fashion; he seemed to be of that intermediate age when a stallion's old enough to grow a beard but not old enough to grow a pair and start a family.
"Yep," Lyra replied, putting on a polite smile, despite her exhaustion, used to playing one mask after another. The iron-hooved boss to her employees, the indulgent leader to her partners, the light-hearted, whiskey-drinking, cigarette-smoking interlocutor to her friends - it was all about choosing the right mask.
"Do you like the inlay, Miss Heartstrings? I worked all night to make it, ma'am!" But of course. A newbie. Always doing their best to reach for the boss, to please the boss, to make sure the boss is cheerful and happy, to make sure the boss will notice them; anything to make more money as a result.
"It's nice," the unicorn said and enveloped the knob in a telekinetic field, having no desire to waste her time on secretaries. "And you are?" she wondered, out of sheer politeness and a deep feeling of subordination. After all, knowing one's team was the key to success, if success could ever be determined by teamwork, that is.
"Curvy Flank, ma'am," the stallion replied with a slight blush. "That's my name, I mean," he stammered, backing down a little. "It's my first day here; I got transferred from Californeigha."
"It shows," Lyra mused aloud, inspecting the stallion lazily. Celestia, it's so hot, she thought, feeling her fur dampen with sweat, as not a single tiny rivulet of wind reached the main office, leaving all temporary inhabitants longing for some cool relief. "The West-coast accent, not the curvy flank," she added with a smile.
"Um," the stallion mumbled sheepishly. Lyra chuckled and gave him a playful slap on the rear as she disappeared behind the door.
With a sigh, she slammed the door behind her, leaning against its cool wooden surface. Her gaze fell upon the table, where, to her immediate mental approval, half a bottle of whiskey - bourbon, not that whisky brew Octavia seemed to enjoy - was waiting for her. Levitating the familiar red pack of Pone Mall, she took a cigarette, chewing on the filter, as she walked, practically crawled, towards the table, suffering from the intense heat.
As the tobacco curled up at the tip, emitting a thick curve of smoke, Lyra took a fine sip of her whiskey, seating her rump on the sofa, letting her head drop back. The unicorn's head felt a little lighter, and the burning touch of heat wasn't so unbearable anymore. A Daniels a day keeps the problems away.
But why, if we look away from the glamour and poshness of bars, do we drink? Why do we have this barren longing to stuff our bodies with one or another fine beverage, varying from high-class Prench Cognac, XO, because hey, is there any other brandy out there?, to perfume, because what else can a poor griffin afford? Why don't we opt for juice or water or tea or coffee or anything else there is in the wide wide world of Equestria? Why do we strive to become temporary, if not permanent, citizens of Whiskytown and Beerburg, Cidershire and Vodkagrad, Brandyville and Ginland? Because it feels good. Is it so? Because we're mares. Because that's what mares do. That's more like it. That's the same thing.
Letting out a whiskey-stained, smoke-drenched sigh, Lyra glanced at the ceiling. The broken fan was gone, unreplaced. What captured her attention, however, was the white rectangular device attached to the wall on the left. An air conditioner, the unicorn groaned mentally. Vinyl's been spending money again. Nevertheless, the heat overwhelmed her, and she reached for the conditioner with her telekinesis, pressing the sacred button.
A wave of cool fresh air hit her on the cheek, and she faced it, gulping in the blessing coolness, inhaling the air, feeling it rush against her skin. Maybe it wasn't such a useless investment, after all, she mused as the whiskey burned her throat from the inside, the kind of pleasant burn that didn't add to the insufferable (not so insufferable anymore, thanks to the air conditioner) heat, but warmed her from head to stomach delightfully.
"One new ad, incoming!"
Lyra sighed, not even bothering to open her eyes as Vinyl burst into the office, followed by a grunting Octavia. The mint mare raised her head lazily, watching Vinyl dragging a clipboard in her telekinetic grip, her green tie hanging loose. They'd probably had a quickie in the bathroom already, Lyra mused. Newlyweds were always like that, passionate and cheerful, until they grew old and tired and spent afternoons on the couch discussing the latest Manehattan Today and sipping their soda-spoilt rye.
"Let me ask you one thing." Vinyl held what, apparently, seemed to her a dramatic pause. "What do stallions want?" She set down the clipboard on the table, pouring herself a Daniels, courtesy of the Apples.
"Who cares?" Octavia lamented as she lit up a cigarette. "Honestly, Vinyl..."
"Don't listen to her." Vinyl waved her hoof, taking a swig of her drink. "I rutted her so hard yesterday that her brain's not working right now." The white mare winked at Lyra, immediately receiving a punishing blow to the back of her head, courtesy of Octavia.
"I kinda want to know too," Lyra said, getting up from the floor and brushing of the specks of dust from her suit. "Who cares what stallions want? I need an ad for Daniels. A real drink for real mares." Of course she would use Vinyl's slogan. Or is it? When spoken, an idea ceased to be the property of one mare; it became company property. And company property was Lyra's property.
"No, you don't." Vinyl downed the glass. "You want to sell Daniels. So do I. So does Miss I-Can't-Contain-My-Orgasms." Before Octavia could say anything, Vinyl lifted the clipboard for Lyra to see. There, scribbled in an unprofessional, drunken hoof - Lyra immediately knew it wasn't Octavia who had drawn this - was a drawing of pegasus mare, sitting at a bar counter, her wing wrapped around an Old Fashioned glass. Next to her was sitting a griffin, a similar glass in his claw. On the right, a unicorn stallion was already downing a glass of his own.
"We do not choose who we are," Vinyl began, her presentation brought with a smug grin on her face. "But we choose what we drink." She flipped the page to reveal the slogal, in crude, sleepy hoofwriting, a slogal that she didn't hesitate to immediately voice out: "Daniels. It's Your Drink."
The room fell silent. Octavia downed her drink with a wince. Lyra flicked her cigarette away.
"Why the hell is there a griffin there?" the mint mare pointed at the clipboard, prompting Vinyl to flip back to the concept drawing.
"Well," Vinyl replied, "That's part of the new campaign. No matter who you are - mare, stallion, pony, griffin - you drink Daniels. That would raise the sales by... what's the number, Tavi?"
Octavia sighed, rubbing her chin. "Negligible. Maybe four, five per cent." She looked at Lyra pleadingly. "But it will scare away the already existing clients! Lyra, we can't risk that!"
The mint mare frowned at the despaired tone of this weak, young mare, the poor paper-muddler, the artist of the salesmares, who never took a hit and never had to face adversity and she dares be desperate?! "We won't. Vinyl, your ad is rubbish. Griffins aren't part of any target audience. They buy what they can afford."
"There are rich ones, Lyra," Vinyl observed very quietly, but loud enough for the mare to hear. "Times have changed."
Lyra rubbed her temples with a sigh, shapes of the day dancing before her closed eyelids. "Times don't change. Rich griffins will just buy what ponies buy, that's it. Listen, fillies." Lyra straightened up, her cigarette making its way to the ashtray. "Not admitting that you've made a bad ad is worse than making a bad ad, a'ight?" Octavia nodded eagerly. "Could'ja stop rutting each other like rabbits in heat and start working on something good, for a change? Something that we can sell?"
"I'm giving you a good idea, dammit!" Vinyl slammed her hoof at the clipboard. "It's right here! It's a good idea. It's one of the best. You don't do shit and you expect me to rewrite all my stuff?"
Lyra met Vinyl's glare with one of her own: while Vinyl's eyes were angry, burning, boiling, Lyra's held no irritation: they were the eyes of a mare who had earned her place in life, a mare who knew how hard, painful, and unfair life was, a mare who had faced adversity and fortune, and knew the price of bits. And ads. "Yes. You make ads. I sell them. If I don't like your ads, I don't sell them. I have the connections with the clients. You don't. I pay you to make ads." Lyra lit up a new one. "So, you are going to go and make a new ad for me. An ad that I will like and sell so that you can get paid." She narrowed her eyes just a little, for emphasis. "Because it works like that."
A dirty, uneasy pause hung in the room. "Well, I can't work like that," Vinyl said finally, storming out of the office. Octavia sighed. Lyra chewed on her cigarette's filter. Finally, the grey mare approached her boss, placing a hoof on the mint shoulder.
"She'll chill down, you know her." Octavia offered a small, friendly, apologetic, trembling, disgusting smile. "I never liked that ad, anyway. We'll make a new one. Once Vinyl has calmed down."
Lyra frowned at the promise. "Just go home, you two. Order a take-out or have a bath or smoke some weed or whatever you ponies do to get creative. And then make me an ad. I don't wanna see your sour faces in the office today." Octavia gave her one long, lingering look, and moved towards the door.
"Open or closed?" she called out from the doorway.
Lyra winced, downing a rich gulp of whisky. The air conditioner was soothing her with rivulets of coolness. Cigarette smoke curled up all around the office, leaving the room gradually through the window and the doorway.
Lyra placed the glass on the table. "Closed."
