Gaining Momentum

Griffon Headquarters, December 19th, mid-day

Here he was again.

Though, it couldn't be helped, since he wanted to do this in the way that would cause the least amount of trouble with the griffons, since they were the ones in charge at the current moment, and they could take away everything that he worked for so far if they caught him doing anything illicit.  He had scheduled a meeting with Cornelius after meeting with Adophus to discuss his plans for a building on the plot of land that he was allowed to use for the time being, until he paid off the debt that he had to actually own the land.

Taking to heart what Adophus told him the other day, Tida spend the majority of the 18th going to the piece of land, looking over its size, and thinking about the size of the house that he wanted to put on it.  He wanted a house that wasn't too big, but not too small for his needs either, since it probably would be expensive to build even a small house.  After he finished thinking about it, he tried to measure the house that he envisioned as best as he could, and drew up plans, making sure to be as detailed as possible to make the meeting go as smooth as possible.  He had also returned to his current place of residence in the eastern district to get 50 bits in case a fee was needed when he did meet with Cornelius.  He was pretty much out of money, but it would be worth it in the end.

Like the last time he went to the headquarters, he departed from the Eastern Residential District early enough so that he would arrive at the headquarters 30 minutes before his scheduled meeting time.  Before he left, he made sure to dress in warm clothes since it was snowing a lot today.  He was still nervous as he approached the headquarters, albeit not as much as when he first came here.  It was still unnerving, as the structure seemed to suck the surrounding light from around it, giving it a look of despair and hopelessness.

Making his way through the checkpoints to the inside of the facility, Tida noticed that the griffons guards were giving him disdainful, and hateful looks.  Luckily though, the guards didn't do anything else as he made his way to the familiar waiting room.  The griffon that was escorting him was the same griffon that had escorted him before, and while the griffon didn't say outright that he would kill him if Tida did anything suspicious, he made it very clear that he didn't like him, or ponies in general as he went back to what he was doing before.  Sitting on a chair, Tida waited for his meeting with Cornelius as he tried to calm himself down; he wondered how Cornelius' attitude and demeanor would be like.

Stupid pony. Cornelius had so many better things to do, but his time was taken up by a pony. Admittedly - though he certainly wasn't the one to admit it - this meeting had been on schedule since two days ago and technically shouldn't take long, but that of course didn't change the fact that a lowly pony was wasting his time. Until a moment ago he had hoped that the pony would miss it, but no, he was even overly early! But that wouldn't work with Cornelius. The griffon made a point in letting his client wait all the 30 minutes until the appointed time, and then 10 minutes more before finally deciding to interrupt reading his book and get this over with.

------

"Sir Cornelius is ready to see you now", said the scarred guard gruffly after entering the waiting room, and waited for Tida to follow him to the office.

Tida was waiting in the waiting room for what seemed a long time.  Looking at a clock that was in the waiting room, Tida noticed that it was 10 minutes after his scheduled meeting time with Cornelius.  He must be busy with another client for him to not be ready.  Moments later, the same griffon that escorted him to Adophus' office came and informed him that Cornelius was ready to meet with him.  Even though Tida knew where his office was he gave the griffon a slight bow of his head and quietly followed the griffon, as he didn't want to seem arrogant.  That would cause trouble and more likely than not kill his chances of starting his farm, which would have more repercussions as a result.

The office Tida eventually entered was quite different to the one he'd been in two days ago. Where Adophus had gone for elegant simplicity, Cornelius liked to pretend that he was a griffon with style befitting his wealth and position. After all, he was the one overseeing any (official) construction going on in Manehatten for the city, and he had to show that this demanded respect. Or so he thought. The desk mostly just screamed "I'm expensive", as did everything else in the room.

Cornelius watched his guest with appropriate contempt as he spoke. "So, what is it that you're wasting my time for, pony?

Tida mentally sighed so Sir Cornelius is one of those types of griffons that thinks that everything but their kind is filth, and will tell it straight to their face... I hope that I can get this over with quickly.  Keeping a neutral face, Tida bowed his head deeply to Cornelius.  "I would like to have building plans that I drew up looked at so it can be approved and a building can be built on the land" he replied simply.

A bowing pony? At least he showed proper respect. Still didn't really lighten Cornelius' mood, but it helped to momentarily just accept the unwanted presence in his office. "The plans", he simply said as he held out a talon. Probably this pony had no idea of proper architecture and he could easily deny the construction.

Tida reached into his bags and pulled out the plans that he drew.  Walking over to Cornelius' desk calmly, he put the plans into his talons.  Afterwards, he took a step back and waited for Cornelius to asses his plans and to answer any questions that he might have.

Building plans:

With a frown Cornelius take a look, and moments later gave an annoyed huff that seemed to say 'exactly what was to be expected'. "I see, so I'm expected to count boxes and do calculations with the square root of 0.5 to see if this makes any sense, whatever it is supposed to be", he began. "No material information, no wall thickness, and where is this thing even supposed to go?" He threw the plan on the desk, believing that he had given enough reasons for the pony to go away. "This isn't a construction plan, it's just a random scribble."

So that's what Sir Adophus meant when he said to be very specific with the building plans... I should keep those things in mind the next time I do another building plan like this Tida thought.  Giving Cornelius an apologetic bow of the head, Tida said "I'm sorry that the plan really isn't much of a plan, but I'm not well versed in architecture.  If you would like, I can give you all the specifics of the building, such as the material that it would be made out of, the thickness of the wall, the total square footage of the building, as well as each area of it" giving Cornelius another bow of the head, hoping that he would listen and give him a chance to explain.

Cornelius looked between the plans, Tida and his book still lying near the desk's left edge, seeming to actually consider the request. Or trying to find an excuse. He found one. "I need to archive the plan for later reference, it needs to be right", he said, looking at tida. That was only half true. It was common practice that detailed construction plans were archived, simply because they were created anyway - for bigger constructions anyway. Manehatten didn't see too much of those, and the actual requirement was much simpler: Room layout with the measurements directly readable. The plans before him could quickly be fixed up to suffice, possibly even without doing much math if Tida recalled width and length of the rooms correctly, but 'quickly' wasn't really quick enough. Not if it was purely in the interest of a pony. "Get an architect and stick to what little you actually can do." He didn't even really recognize the insult he had just offered.

Tida would be mad, but he met others who acted like this, and was trying his hardest to be calm more than anything else since he knew from the start that Cornelius was like this, given his attitude and how the room looked like.  It was no surprise that Cornelius really wouldn't listen to him and try to help, nor was Tida even really surprised at all that he would insult him on how little he knew about architecture.  At least he had the decency to tell me off in front of my face instead of talking bad about me behind my back Tida thought.  He also thought that now would be a good time to leave, as he had the feeling that Cornelius wanted him out of his sight immediately.

Tida gave Cornelius a deep bow.  "Thank you for considering my plans, and I greatly appreciate that you took the time out of your busy schedule to meet with me.  Please excuse me" as Tida started to make his way out of the room calmly.  Hopefully, Cornelius didn't see the sad, worried expression that Tida had on his face; he didn't want to give Cornelius the satisfaction of seeing him like this.

Two neighboring doors in the corridor opened near simultaneously. One revealed a brown feathered griffon wearing a content expression. The other one revealed a pony in a much different mood. Being drawn by hoofsteps next to him, the griffon turned his head, and recognition immediately set in. His smile growing a bit, Adophus closed the door and greeted the pony. "Mister Tida, it's nice seeing you agaain!" With a second, closer look he realized that Tida didn't look exactly happy. Adophu's smile was quickly replaced by a frown of concern. "Even if you weren't coming out of his office, I'd probably guess you just had a meeting with Cornelius. It didn't go well, I presume?"

Tida walked out of Cornelius' office and closed the door behind him.  He quietly sighed, as he needed to figure out how to proceed from here, since it looked like that he wouldn't be able to build a house on the patch of land.  He didn't notice Adophus coming out of his office around the same time that he exited the room until Adophus greeted him.

Realizing that Adophus was talking to him, Tida immediately turned towards him and forced a slight smile, bowing deeply as he greeted him "Hello again Sir Adophus."  Tida let his facial expression fall as he knew that Adophus knew that the meeting with Cornelius didn't go well.  "Yes... it didn't go well.  To be honest, I have a feeling that he took no interest in helping me to get the building plans approved, as he believed that I was an annoyance.  I can't really blame him though, as it was my fault for not being specific enough when I drew up the plans."  Tida quietly sighed as he went back to thinking about what he could do.

"I'm actually pretty sure he is to blame", Adophus snorted with a muffled voice to not catch the attention of others nearby. It unfortunately wasn't unusual for griffons to think themselves better than ponies, but in many cases they still did their job. But Cornelius often found excuses to deny ponies even if everything was alright. It would be so much simpler to simply put a stamp of approval on it and be done with it, but Cornelius didn't seem to recognize that. Adophus sighed. "Maybe I can help. May I see the plans?"

Hearing that Adophus was willing to help him, Tida gave a small smile.  Thinking a little, his smile turned into a slight frown.  He kept his voice to a level in which others nearby wouldn't be able to hear him unless they were really listening as he spoke.  "I greatly appreciate that your are willing to help in any way you can, but I don't want you to get into trouble because of me.  I would think that in the eyes of the other griffons, especially griffons in the military and in the government they would think that it would be a treasonous act to help a pony more than what would be necessary" Tida said with absolute sincerity, as he really didn't want Adophus to lose his job or have something worse happen to him because of Tida.  "I would like to try to not cause trouble, since you have many other things that you need to take care of" he said as he gave Adophus a bow of his head.

"Also, it's not like I'm homeless... I have a place to stay, and I don't mind traveling between where I'm staying and the piece of land to farm.  If you would still like to take a look at them however, here they are." Taking the plans out of his saddlebags that he took back, from Cornelius, he gave it to Adophus.

"Nonsense, you're not causing trouble. It's not like any of them could rightfully say something against helping one of our citizens", Adophus said reassuringly. "Besides, the situation won't get any better if we're just keeping up the hostility. We need to finally get over that."

With only a short look at the plan, he smirked - and at the sometime somehow frowned at Cornelius' office. "This is a five minute work to fix, if even that much. I suppose Cornelius didn't tell you what exactly was required?" he said as he opened the door to his own office and invited Tida inside.

Tida nodded when Adophus said that the continued hostility wouldn't make the situation better, and that everyone needed to move past that.  He liked that Adophus thought that continuing down the path that Manehatten was going in was terrible, and actually cared enough to listen to the citizens of Manehatten as long as they were respectful.

Being invited inside of Adophus' office, Tida unconsciously gave a slight bow as he entered.  "He didn't tell me exactly what was required, but he did tell me that my scale was in a strange measurement, though I should have made it so that each square was equal to 1ft² instead of 0.5ft².  He also said that I didn't have any material information, wall thickness, as well as things he was unsure of where it is supposed to go" as he pointed out the things that Cornelius had pointed out.

Adohpus shook his head. "As I expected, a lot of unnecessary nonsense." He rounded his desk, but laid the plan out for Tida to read. As he continued talking, he also produced a ruler and writing material, laying them next to the plan. "There are only two things missing here. One is width and length of each room, and the other is simply the address of the property. For simplicity however, I would actually suggest changing the scale to one square being 0.49 or... 0.5625 ft², then you'd have a manageable square length of 0.7 or 0.75 ft respectively."

Tida made his way over to Adophus' desk, and started to make the necessary changes to the plan.  He first wrote the address of the property above the drawing.  He then changed the scale of a square to 0.5625 so that it would be easier to calculate.  Lastly, he used the new scale to calculate the length and width of each room, then wrote it below the drawing.  "Are the changes alright?" Tida asked Adophus.

Adophus took only a short look to confirm that all measurements were present and nodded. "Though not like an architect would have done it, it fits the requirements." With a sour look at the wall behind which he knew Cornelius to be, he continued. "He will probably try to turn you down again. I can only advise you to stand your ground with the knowledge that he has to accept this. If he doesn't, I'll talk to him, but I think it would be better if you didn't back down, if only to show him that he can't push equestrians around as he wishes. That's certainly a lesson he needs to learn."

Tida took the corrected plans from his desk and put it into his bags and gave Adophus a deep bow.  "Thank you again for all of your help.  I wish there were more level-headed ponies and griffons like you... It would certainly make solving the problems in Manehatten a lot easier."  Tida then made his way to the door, turned around and gave a slight bow to Adophus before making his way back to Cornelius' office.

"Good luck", Adophus said right before the door was closed.

-----

A rapping on the door disturbed Cornelius again. He frowned as he put his book down once again, but quickly forced himself to hide his annoyance behind a neutral mask. After all, it might be a superior or at least some worthy member of (griffon) society. "Come in", he called out, and regained his frown when the door opened. "You again? Didn't I just tell you that your so called 'plan' isn't sufficient?"

Tida bowed his head as he entered Cornelius' office, ignoring his blatantly obvious disdain for him.  "I was thinking about what you said, and I made changes to the plan so that it's sufficient to build a building on the plot of land" as Tida took out the corrected plans from his bag, walked over to his desk, placed it on top, and backed away afterwards, waiting to see what he would say about the plans this time.

This boomerang had come back sooner than expected, and even before seeing the plan Cornelius was intent on sending it back on its way as quickly as possible, while failing to see what the quickest way would actually be. "I seem to remember telling you about missing materials and wall thickness", he quickly spotted what Tida had 'missed', and added with a grunt. "Don't waste my time with this."

Tida was going to hold his ground, but he was going to do it in a way in which Cornelius couldn't accuse him of being violent and dangerous.  He also didn't want to drop names, since that could come back to bite him later on.  "I'm sorry for not writing the material and the wall thickness in, but I would think that unless the building that is being built requests for another type of material to be used, the material that would be used is wood.  For the wall thickness, I would imagine that it wouldn't be necessary since the ones who actually build the buildings would use a standard to build them.  Writing those pieces of information would seem like it would be unnecessary" Tida calmly stated, giving a slight bow of his head.

Cornelius spent a by now hardly surprising amount of thought on how to deny the pony, but he quickly ran out of possibilities that might work. "Can you identify yourself as owner of this property?" he finally asked in an almost sarcastic tone that clearly indicated that he didn't believe so.

Tida gave a bow of his head "Yes, I can" he replied calmly.  From his bag he took out the certificate with Adophus' seal on it, which signified that he was indeed the owner of the property.  He put it on Cornelius' desk and backed away slightly, waiting to see what he would say next.

Tida had every right to get this construction going, and as much as Cornelius wanted to go out of this as "winner", it finally became to tiresome for him. Grudgingly he pulled out an empty form out of his desk's drawer, and jotted down the number of the rooms, as well as overall size and some other key data before providing the paper and the plan both with a seal. He carelessly threw the form at Tida (not very successful, a sheet of paper doesn't fly well) while keeping the plan, not giving another comment and just waiting for the pony to leave.

Tida picked up the form that Cornelius threw carelessly at him, and put the form, and the deed to the land in his saddlebags.  He gave Cornelius a deep bow of his head.  "Thank you very much for your help.  I greatly appreciate it" Tida said sincerely, as he started to make his way to the door.  Before he left, Tida turned around and gave a slight bow, then exited the room, closing the door behind him.

Cornelius was already waiting outside, and quickly mustered Tida for signs of the outcome. After a moment a smile showed itself on the griffon's face. "So you've been successful this time, yes?"

Tida waited until he was fully out of Cornelius' office and closed the door before a slight smile creeped across his face.  He was slightly surprised to see Adophus waiting outside of the office.  "Yes, I got the approval to build a structure on the land" he said as he pulled out the approved form from his bags and showed it to Adophus.  He put it away in his bags and gave Adophus a deep bow "Again, I would like to thank you for all of your help... I greatly appreciate it."

"Really, there's no need to be bowing all the time. I see your gratitude well enough while you stand and look me in the eyes. And I'm happy that I've been able to help", Adophus said, by now actually making it a point to be seen and heard by other griffons, something Tida's been concerned about. But thinking about it, Adohpus had decided that the best way of changing the difficult situation between equines and griffons was to show them that there was a better way. "Well, since this situation is resolved now, I think I'll return to my original plan of fetching dinner. I'd offer you to join me, but I fear you wouldn't enjoy the messhall here very much."

Tida thought about what Adophus said.  "I would like to join you, but I don't know if I should, at least not for the time being.  It's not because of the mess hall, as I know that the griffon diet is different from our diet, but rather that there are still a lot of griffons who don't take kindly to equines.  Even though I'm a citizen of Manehatten, there are a lot of others who don't think in the same way you do.  In fact, they probably would think that we're an annoyance and don't deserve anything, since they conquered the city.  The other griffons would probably be wondering why someone such as myself would be in the mess hall, with a griffon official, and that could cause trouble for you."

"However, I would like to join you sometime to talk, as I would like to learn about the griffons.  It's not everyday that one can learn about the griffon's culture and history from a griffon, and I'm fascinated by histories of others, as each one is different."

"To be honest, I'd rather be seen with somepony like you than somebody like Cornelius", Adophus said, and noticed a griffon passing them throwing him an odd look. He wasn't deterred, but with a frown he acknowledged that the mess hall really was no option. "But you're right, more privacy would be prudent. How about we meet in the evening then? I know a café in Main Street, the Topclaw Teahouse, frequently visited by griffons and ponies alike."

Tida nodded.  "That sounds good.  Around what time are we meeting?"

"Does 7 sound good as well?"

"Yes, that sounds great.  I'll see you at the Topclaw Teahouse at 7.  Again, I greatly appreciate all of your help" Tida said as he unconsciously gave Adophus a slight bow "please excuse me."  Tida walked to the door, turned around and gave a slight bow before leaving Adophus' office.

Characters: Tida, Cornelius (NPC), Adophus (NPC)

Summary: Tida comes back to the Griffon Headquarters to get a building permit for his farm, but Cornelius - the griffon responsible, with a strong disdain for ponies - doesn't make things easy. With a little help from Adophus still manages to get the permit.