3/27

“As luck would have it, I previously cleared my schedule,” Angel Wings née Celestia said. “Because you see, I have already found the perfect job for you.”

“Wait, really? That’s amazing! What is it?” The whole process of trying out a dozen different jobs seemed exhausting, but if anyone could nail it in a single shot, it would be Celestia.

“You are going to be my diplomat.”

I froze in mid-revery. “What? Nononono. Diplomats are like, cool and collected.They have all the answers and know a load about politics. I’m like, a loser!”

Abruptly, Celestia stood up, shoved her snout up against mine, and narrowed her eyes. “You. Are not. A loser.” It was a level of intensity that I was unused to, so I merely yelped and nodded. “I will not have anyone refer to you with such terms, and you yourself are no exception.”

There was a long pause as the crackling subsided, and I decided to rephrase. “I don’t think I’m properly trained as a diplomat, I mean.”

She sighed and nodded, patting me on the head. “You are correct. But for the most part, diplomacy has little enough to do that. There will be aides and assistants for whom the job is to figure out the treaties, the technicalities. For the most part, being a diplomat is about you, about making sure they understand and desire your value.”

“...and you think that because my special talent is literally being valuable, I’ll be a shoe-in.” I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. “I guess it can work. But I still need practice.”

“Of course,” Celestia said. “And I have two issues lined up that you will assist with solving. I’ll feed you information, keep you safe, and in exchange, you’ll speak with the ponies involved and convince them to take the solution. Any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary,” I mulled over the words. “Okay… let's give it a shot. Where to first?”

--

“Her name is Monsoon. Captain Monsoon at first, then casually slide into calling her Monsoon after that,” Angel Wings told me, trailing behind me. “Captain of the local weather control for the castle. Their job is pretty nasty, high winds and high expectations. They feel a bit stressed and are looking for four new weather ponies to light the load. Your job is to talk them down to two.”

I looked back at her. “Okay… Why?”

“Large-scale budgeting reasons,” Angel explained. “We have the money, but an increase in spending here would prompt a similar request across half the departments in the castle, which would mean a lot more money, which sets a precedent for budgetary problems in the future… Its a bit complex and nebulous. That’s why your job is to make it seem plain and simple. They don’t need four, they can do the work with two.”

“They don’t need four, they can do the work with two,” I rolled the phrase around in my head. “Okay. I can work with that.”

We started off onto the furthest parapet to the east of Canterlot Castle.