“Is it two spoons or three?” Silver dipped the little spoon in the jar of rye, one eye keeping close watch on the boiling kettle beside her. It ought to whistle in about three… two… now. Silver’s tail wrapped around the kettle’s handle and lifted before the first gasp rang out.
A renegade biscuit rolled off Tealove’s tray. She ducked and caught it inches from the floor. The porcelain tea set that balanced upon her withers didn’t rattle a bit. “Two.” Tealove puffed a strand of mane out of her face and smiled. “It’s only three spoons on the first of the month.”
Right, right. Silver Spoon should have known that. Thanks to two months of haywire scheduling, she’d gotten rusty with her apprenticeship. Amazing that Miss Tealove still remembered Silver’s name, considering how little they’d seen each other. Even so, only one mare in town wanted rye in her tea at all, much less rye mixed with mistletoe.
“Miss Shoeshine takes that with two lumps and a dash of cream, right?”
Tealove winked on her way out of the back room. “You got it!”
The teaspoon twirled in the cup until the clouds of cream settled into a calm murky brownish-green. At a glance, one couldn’t tell the difference between the tea and a cup of Froggy Bottom Bog water, and in Silver’s opinion, rye didn’t mix well with mistletoe in the first place. She’d offered to add other herbs and flowers to brighten the blend before, but Shoeshine declined every time.
Hey, so long as she’s happy with it. Silver Spoon arranged the small tea set and napkins on the tray and stepped into the teahouse.
The Sunday crowd packed the tables end to end in a cornucopia of scents and tea blends; simple black with lemon melded with the peppermint, yerbas, raspberry, and green teas, all wafting through soft scents of honey, flowers, and fresh biscuits. Even so, the strong scent of monkshood could draw Silver Spoon to table nine with her eyes closed.
The mare sat alone at a small table in the corner of the room, bolstered by the walls and shadowed under a cabinet of purchasable glaze ware. Her coat matched the soft blues and whites of the teahouse, and unless one thought to look for her, they wouldn’t notice her at all.
“Good morning, Miss Shoeshine.” Silver smiled and nodded over the teapot as she poured. “I apologize for the wait.” She left the teapot on the table. Shoeshine rarely had more than one cup, but one never knew.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Silver Spoon. It’s busy in here today.” She shrugged with a little smile. “I should’ve gotten here when you opened, but that’s what I get for sleeping in, I guess.” Steam curled beneath the dark rings shadowing Shoeshine’s burgundy eyes. The tip of her nose twitched at the scent. She’d never been a pony to rush her tea. “Besides, it’s more than worth the wait. Nopony makes it the way you do.”
“They don’t?” How strange. The blend might have been unusual, but it had a straightforward process no harder than a normal lavender-chamomile. Silver saw no reason why Tealove or Jasmine Leaf, the tea seller, couldn’t make it. Shoeshine herself could probably manage it in her own kitchen. “Is there something that I do differently?”
The plump white curls of Shoeshine’s tail flicked between the table legs while she thought. “I know it’s kind of a strange tea. Mistletoe and rye don’t normally go together, do they?”
“No, ma’am.” In fact, Shoeshine was the only reason they kept rye in their usual stock at all.
“Well, you see…” Shoeshine checked to see if Tealove hovered nearby. She didn’t, but Shoeshine erred on politeness and lowered her voice anyway. “Other ponies can get the ingredients in the same cup, and they can measure it out the right way, but that doesn’t mean the ingredients will want to talk to each other.”
Silver blinked. “Talk to each other?”
Miss Shoeshine sipped her tea and nodded. “Or sometimes, a pony can get them to talk, but the conversation won’t work. The rye is too loud, or the mistletoe is too bold, and the cream can’t do anything except sit on the sidelines and watch. It technically works, but it doesn’t feel right. But when you put them in the same cup, Silver, the rye and mistletoe don’t just talk. They laugh and smile and want to dance, while the cream plays a waltz and the sugar—” She shook her head and laughed to herself. “I’m sorry. This sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
“No, Miss Shoeshine.” A familiar warmth blossomed behind Silver Spoon’s smile. Goodness, how had she stayed away from this teahouse for so long? “I don’t think it’s silly at all.” Silver Spoon glanced at the rest of the teahouse. The Sunday morning rush had wound down, and Tealove seemed to have the rest of the place handled. She could spare a few extra seconds. “Excuse me, but is it okay if I ask you a question? About your tea?”
The mare blinked several times. Her eyes flicked between the table and her swamp-green tea. “Oh, sure.” She turned a slightly paler shade of blue. “What is it?”
“Why—” Silver Spoon paused.
For the past year, Shoeshine never failed to come in for her Sunday mistletoe and rye—a blend that she never seemed especially fond of, either from monotony or taste. Judging from the plentiful cream and sugar, Silver guessed the latter. But as she now examined Shoeshine’s paling face, she considered two things.
First, and most important: mistletoe came from the Top Shelf.
Last winter, Tealove had dedicated an entire month to introducing Silver Spoon to the Top Shelf. Drinking the wrong amount of tea from that shelf, she’d said, could put a pony in the hospital. Or worse. Measurements had to be exact. Save for the mistletoe—which needed an additional month of training before Silver could brew it on her own—most of the teas didn’t go into circulation except in the spring. Top Shelf tea served a purpose: red clover when somepony wanted a new foal, parsley when they didn’t want a new foal, and pennyroyal for when they really didn’t want a new foal.
Silver didn’t know what mistletoe did—Shoeshine didn’t seem like the baby type, and she drank it year-round, not just in spring—but nopony drank from the Top Shelf unless they had a very good reason.
The second thing Silver realized was that this reason was none of Silver Spoon’s concern. She didn’t like Apple Bloom poking into her business all the time. Miss Shoeshine wouldn’t like it either.
“Why don’t I mix you a blend to take home? I can measure it out, so all you’ll have to do is brew it.” Silver held up a hoof to clarify, “In sachets, not teabags.” Seriously, whoever thought of grinding tea into tasteless dust ought to be thrown in a dungeon.
“Oh!” Miss Shoeshine brightened. “Oh, thank you, Silver Spoon, that would be wonderful. I mean, if it’s not too much trouble or anything?”
Silver Spoon puffed her chest. “You’re welcome, ma’am, and don’t worry, it’s fine. I do this kind of thing all the time, like this one time during pageant season, I brewed this special hibiscus and ginger blend for…” The words rotted under her tongue. “Uh, anyway, I can have it ready by this evening, Miss Shoeshine. Should I bring it to the farrier or your house? “
“The house,” Shoeshine said. “Please.”
“Then I’ll do that. I need to get back to work now, though. Bye!” Silver took the tray back and headed back to the kitchen.
The tablecloths rustled in an open window’s cross breeze. A voice carried in the wind. “Psst. Spoons.”
Silver’s ears pivoted. She scanned the tables, but couldn’t find the source.
“Down here.” A purple hoof poked out from under table thirteen’s tablecloth and waved her over. “Act natural.”
This probably crossed talking to a table off the list. Luckily, that angle had been covered. The Dink’s mom waved from table thirteen, happily enjoying her croissant and steamed milk. “Hi there, Silver Spoon!” She smiled down at the rustling tablecloth. “Dinkums is on a stakeout.”
“Ma!” hissed the tablecloth. “It’s not a stakeout if you tell everypony in the place. Sheesh, we’ve been over this.”
The Dink’s mom broke off a piece of her croissant and slipped it under the table.
A short pause. The tablecloth rustled with muffled chewing sounds. “So, spill. What’s the skinny on her, Spoons?”
Silver sighed. “I didn’t get anything.”
“Rats, she’s sneakier than I thought. I’ll bet she knew you were coming.” Dinky gasped. “Which probably means she already knows I sent you, which means—”
“Relax, Dink, Shoeshine doesn’t know anything.” Not that Silver had seen, anyway. “I didn’t ask.” She frowned at the grouchy face surely brimming beneath table thirteen. “I’m not digging into a customer’s personal business; it’s rude.”
The tablecloth tsked. “Some things are more important than being polite, Spoons.”
“Sorry, Dink. I’m out.”
“Whatever.” A yellow tail tip lashed against the lace. “Just don’t come crying to me at the next full moon.”
Silver shuffled her hooves in the teahouse carpet. Usually, the right thing to do would be to give back her fee, but in this case… “Listen, Dinky, I know this was supposed to be a favor for a favor, but we really need more hooves on the playground project today. Foals haven’t been showing up.”
“Well, I don’t really blame ‘em. I wouldn’t want to help somepony who wanted me to get eaten up by a marewolf either,” grumbled the tablecloth. “But I kinda already told my mom I’d do it, so I guess I’m stuck. But you still owe me, Spoons.” The Dink’s face poked out from under the taffeta and lace. “Oh, and ears up.” She pointed over Silver’s shoulder. “Somepony’s got their eye on you.”
Silver followed Dinky’s hoof to table six. Her eyes widened at the sight of purple wings and a regal face smiling in her direction.
Princess Twilight Sparkle rose slightly from her chair to wave her over. “Morning, Silver Spoon. Do you have a minute?”
“Of course!” Silver rushed over as quickly as politeness would allow. Remembering that the princess didn’t like it when ponies bowed in full, Silver dipped her head. “Do you need anything, Princess Twilight? More milk or sugar?” She glanced at the levitating cup of jasmine tea. “I could go get Tealove if there’s a problem with—”
“Oh, no, everything’s wonderful, thanks.” Twilight folded her droopy wings in close and clasped her hooves upon the table. The princess’s violet eyes stretched wide and friendly, but the smile on her face didn’t reach them. “I wanted to talk, that’s all.”
If it were anypony but literal royalty, Silver would have excused herself to go back to work. “Um… okay. What about?” She tried to stay optimistic. Maybe the Princess of Friendship just wanted to talk about Father’s antiques, or she also wanted to custom order a new tea. One never knew.
“I’m sorry, Silver Spoon!” It popped from Twilight like a button on a sweater three sizes too small.
Silver hopped back in surprise. “You—I-I’m sorry, but what are you sorry for?”
“Your appointment! I missed it last month.” The cup of jasmine sank down to the saucer with a clink. Princess Twilight gripped the tablecloth hard in her hooves. “The bugbear came in so suddenly, and I thought we could defeat it in a half-hour or so, but then it got into the supply of red herrings and became three times stronger, and none of my research ever mentioned bugbear hides being immune to shield spells, and before I knew it, the sun was already setting. The time got away from me, but oh, that’s no excuse.”
Silver stared back, speechless. The princess almost looked upset enough to cry. That didn’t make any sense; princesses didn’t cry, did they? Only foals—and maybe some very emotional adults—ever did that. Pinkie Pie once told Silver that ponies usually didn’t cry because they felt sad, but because they felt frustrated. They cried when they didn’t know what to do, but the princesses were like Equestria’s moms; they always knew what to do. They didn’t cry.
Princess Twilight hung her head. “You had a friendship problem—no, a friendship emergency—and there I was, off fighting bugbears. I should have done a follow-up visit, or tried harder to reschedule. I had a whole thirty minutes of free time the Thursday before the class election. If I’d only visited then…” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Silver Spoon.”
“That’s alright, Princess Twilight. I’m not mad.” It didn’t seem to bring the princess much comfort. Silver stepped closer to the table, staring into the depths of Twilight’s teacup. “The Crusaders told you Diamond Tiara and I broke up, didn’t they?”
Twilight shuffled her wings. “Applejack did.”
Meaning that Apple Bloom’s big sister found out sometime during the weekend Diamond stayed at Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack never struck Silver as the gossipy type; hopefully Twilight had been the only pony she’d told. However, considering the tight-knit group she ran with…
Silver’s ears wilted. “Princess, does… does Pinkie Pie know?” She hadn’t even considered it until now. Poor Pinkie would be so sad. No, worse: disappointed. “She told me a party pony is supposed to spread smiles. They’re supposed to keep harmony in their heart and try to understand their fellow pony.”
Half the time, Silver barely had to try. She could break ground and break bread with somepony like Button Mash or Scootaloo, even if she didn’t particularly like them. These days, she’d gladly take a ten-week burping marathon with Snips and Snails before another council meeting with Diamond on staff. Just standing near her put the fuzz in Silver’s tail.
Silver Spoon glanced at Miss Shoeshine quietly sipping her mistletoe and rye in the corner. “Young ladies aren’t supposed to stay bitter, either.” The Wisteria Codex never mentioned anything about it, but it did imply that a lady should move on from drama with grace. “But I am bitter, Twilight, and I’m… I’m so mad at her, still. Apple Bloom keeps telling me I should accept Diamond’s apology, and then it makes me even madder.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle folded her hooves and tilted her ears. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t seem overtly disgusted by Silver’s behavior. That had to be a good sign, right?
“And the worst part is…” Silver dipped into a whisper. They were still speaking in public, and rumors spread like ponypox in this town. Who knew how many already knew Silver’s business thanks to Apple Bloom’s big mouth? “The worst part is I can’t stop being mad.” She stamped the carpet. “I don’t want to stop being mad.” Silver Spoon chewed her bottom lip. “Does that mean I’m a bad pony?”
Purple feathers curled around Silver’s back. The wing didn’t have the same shape that White Lightning or Fluttershy’s did. Twilight’s wings arced just so to create a dip in the center, a perfect shape to wrap somepony’s withers like an egg wrapped its yolk. “No, Silver Spoon,” said Princess Twilight Sparkle. “I don’t think it means you’re a bad pony at all. And you know, it’s natural to feel angry with other ponies.”
An invisible “but” clung to the end of that sentence. Silver fought to keep her ears straight and not flatten them like a petulant foal. “But you think I should forgive her, too. Don’t you?”
Twilight blinked at her sadly. “I think that from what I’ve seen, you two have been very good friends, Silver. A friendship like that is worth fighting for. Always.”
Silver’s tail gave a rebellious swipe. Two years of friendship. Twenty percent of her whole life. And within that twenty percent, ten months—ten months at least—of battling Diamond’s seasonal hurricanes. Ten months fighting to keep their tiny little ship stable as it thrashed through crashing black waves and thundering skies. The flotsam of Hurricane Diamond lingered in Silver Spoon’s coat, her tail, her hooves. Saltwater stung her eyes, clung to her tongue and ruined her meals.
Sure, the sun shone now, but for how long? This could still be the eye of the storm, and everypony knew the eyewall was the worst part. Even if the hurricanes were over, storms came in seasons. Sooner or later, another one could come to try and capsize their little ship again. And Silver Spoon was so sick of being seasick.
“What if you’ve already fought for your friendship and lost?”
The princess sipped her jasmine tea, flicking her straight tail in thought. “Well, that depends.” She tilted her head a perfect twenty degrees to the left. “Did you lose the battle or the war?”
Thoughts of noble Silver Sword sliced through Silver Spoon’s mind. A steadfast, quiet mare with rapier tight in tooth as she battled the Unicorn Kingdom’s tyranny, the unyielding frost of windigos, the despair of dungeons, and the ferocity of timberwolf packs. Her sons and daughters grew up to face battalions of gentry within the Celestial Court and beyond, armed with quill, skill, and wit. The Silvers never rushed headlong into a skirmish; they fought cautiously and wisely, but fought all the same. Never in a pointless fight, however. A nobly unwinnable fight, perhaps, but never a pointless one.
So she’s still your best friend, huh? Even miles away, Apple Bloom still managed to get under Silver’s skin.
Silver Spoon shook off the memory with a toss of her braid and reconsidered the question: Did you lose the battle or the war? “Honestly, Twilight, I don’t know.” What’s more, Silver couldn’t tell if Diamond wanted to fight for it either. Diamond didn’t want to fight for anything, lately.
“Hmm. ‘I don’t know’.” Princess Twilight repeated the phrase slowly, savoring the taste of it in her mouth. A languid grin poured across her face. “Star Swirl the Bearded used to say that’s the best sentence in the entire Ponish language.”
Star Swirl. A pony namedropped by Great Uncle Silver Chalice more than once when he spoke of magic and spellcraft, and second only to Mage Meadowbrook herself. Silver Spoon didn’t know much about him, but if Princess Twilight and Uncle Chalice respected him, he must have deserved it.
“Why would he say that?” Silver wondered aloud. “If you don’t know something, isn’t that like admitting defeat, or saying you’re stupid?”
“Because that’s the exciting part—then you get to find out the answer for yourself. You get to learn something you never ever knew before!” Twilight Sparkle fluffed her feathers and arced her wings. “Personally, I can’t think of anything more exciting, but…” She settled in her chair again and shrugged. “Then again, some ponies are happier never finding out. I mean, who doesn’t like a good mystery, right?”
Silver Spoon looked up.
Twilight’s wide eyes smiled down at her, the violet of an evening sky twinkling with the promise of new knowledge. “So I guess that’s another question for us. Are you a pony who likes unsolved mysteries, or a pony who discovers something for herself?”
In the past week, one thing had become clear to Silver Spoon. Whether she wanted to break things off with Diamond or patch things up, it had to be done cleanly. The cut at the election had been less a surgeon’s scalpel and more a flailing cleaver. It left loose threads and tatters that tangled in Silver’s tail and dragged behind her in the street. One way or another, those loose threads had to go.
Silver nodded in resolution. “Mysteries are dumb. I want to find out for myself.”
“Paisley!” Peachy Pie sat up so fast she almost fell off the broken merry-go-round. She clapped her yellow hooves, beaming ear to ear. “Let’s paint it paisley!”
Sunny Daze gasped with huge awestruck eyes, and took her best friend’s hooves into hers. “Oooooh, that’s a great idea, Peachy-P! Oh golly-gosh, it’ll be the prettiest slide ever!”
Peachy bowed her head with a giggling blush. “Aww, thanks, Sun-Sun, but you’re really the one with all the bright ideas!”
“Oh no, Peaches, you’re—”
If Silver didn’t cut in now, she’d lose her teacakes. She liberated the white birch. “Okay, first, paisley’s not a color, it’s a pattern.” An ugly pattern. She gestured toward the blueprint draped over the massive crate behind her. “And second, whoever heard of a paisley jungle gym?”
“Exactly! It’ll be extra-special that way!” To hear Peachy talk, a pony would think three-tier five-section jungle gyms with an underground lounge sat on every street corner. She wrinkled her nose at Silver’s unenthused expression. “Well, pooh to you. I think it’s a great idea, and Sunny agrees.”
“Yeah!” Sunny Daze tried to copy Peachy’s nose wrinkle but it just ended up looking like she had to sneeze.
“You’re not in charge of Project X anyway.” Peachy Pie stretched her neck up to the crate. “What do you think, Diamond Tiara?”
Diamond swung one leg over the side of the crate as she adjusted her position on top of it. She examined the blueprints, imagining Project X in bright paisley patterns. “Well, it’s a really… unique idea, Peachy Pie.” She looked like she’d swallowed a bucket of slugs.
Silver waited for the second part of that sentence. This should have been the part where Diamond let the filly down gently, or suggested a less idiotic-beyond-all-reason option. It never came.
“Excuse me, can I have the birch?” Truffle Shuffle took it from Silver and tapped it against the crate. “Guys, we already have a list of fourteen colors to choose from.” He indicated a maxed-out notepad page of color suggestions.
Peachy put her hoof on her hip. “So what? That doesn’t make any of those colors better than mine.”
“Paisley isn’t a color,” Silver said again.
Peachy Pie ignored her. “I’ve got the same right to be on the list, ‘cause everypony gets a say. That’s what the president and Diamond said, and they’re the boss of Project X, Truffle Shuffle, not you.”
The vice president turned to Secretary Silver, who rolled her eyes. He looked to the president, but he only shrugged.
Berry Pinch raised her hoof. “Yeah, well, I’m the art director and I still say we paint it black and green.” She glanced at The Dink. “Or black and red, that’s cool, too. Besides, paisley’s ugly and stupid.”
“Not as ugly and stupid as painting it black and puke green,” shot back Peachy.
“Not as ugly and stupid as your face!”
Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie gasped in unified shock.
Before Sunny turned on the waterworks and did something everypony would regret, Pipsqueak broke in. “Order, order! C’mon now, nopony’s got a stupid face. We are getting a little stuck on the colors, though. Truffle’s right, we can’t use all of them.” He glanced at Diamond for some support. They needed a firm and final word.
Diamond Tiara glanced between the council’s watchful stares, Peachy’s petulant sulk, and a dozen other hopeful ponies certain their color would grace Project X. “Technically, paisley’s a bunch of colors already. Maybe we could use all the colors we’ve gotten so far and use them in the pattern?” She smiled weakly.
Silver huffed and pointed at the color list. “Including neon plaid?” She shot Sweetie Belle a meaningful glare.
Sweetie Belle and her abominable taste stuck her nose in the air. “It’s pretty and you know it.”
Yeah, pretty ugly. Out loud, Silver sighed and steered the conversation somewhere more productive. “Look, the jungle gym’s not even built yet and it can’t be painted before then. Why don’t we shelve this for now and—”
“You’re just saying that ‘cause you want it to stay boring old gray!” Scootaloo called from the crowd.
Better than firecart red. Ick. “—and so we should move on to what we actually need to do today.”
Silver took another quick headcount of gathered foals. Between the student council and the Crusaders, the eight of them had managed to round up a little more than half the class by lunchtime. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon. Not great, but not bad.
Thankfully, Prickle Berry had been among the first to arrive, and she’d come on her own. That meant initiative, which meant she’d actually bother to get something done today. Silver nodded to the pigtailed filly, who sat quietly with Carrot Crunch by the broken merry-go-round. They needed all the earth pony strength they could get.
Frowning, Silver leaned in Truffle’s direction. “Any sign of Snips or Snails yet?”
The vice president shook his head.
“Rats.” Snails might have been as sharp as a wad of chewed gum, but the colt had one of the strongest levitation fields in the class. Paired with The Dink’s finesse and the extra help of Sweetie Belle and Berry Pinch, they might have set up half the playground today. Oh well. “That probably means we’re skipping setting up the swings and tetherball.” They might get one done, but not both.
Finally taking some darn initiative for once, Diamond raised her voice. “Mister Vice President, may I please have the birch?” The stick passed from Truffle’s hoof to Sweetie’s horn to the crate. Diamond Tiara tucked the birch behind her ear, nodding at the playground. “Today we need to focus on clearing out the rest of the broken old stuff. We got some of it yesterday, but all of it should be gone so the builders can have a clean slate to work with. How’s that sound?”
Nods all around. Nopony could argue with that, and most of the work had been done already. Miss Cheerilee, Big Macintosh, and Applejack had cleared out the bent tetherball pole and twisted swing set, so the new ones could be put in today. If they got nothing else done, they’d at least get a clean field.
Diamond hopped down from the crate, landing in the grass with a slight stumble. She trotted a circuit around the crate of the would-be Project X. “’Kay, so we’re gonna do it like we did yesterday afternoon. Everypony here will work in teams—especially the clean-up crews—except for Truffle, who’s gonna be on safety watch. And Miss Cheerilee too, of course.” She waved to their teacher on the far side of the schoolyard, setting up supplies by the fence boards. “Everypony remember the teams they chose?”
Again, nods all around. Most ponies already sat with their teammates, the same teammates everypony always chose for school projects: Dink and Pinch, Sunny and Peachy, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Shady Daze and Pipsqueak, Prickle Berry and Carrot Crunch. In retrospect, maybe it had been a good thing Cotton Cloudy’s usual partner had gone to a nerd convention this weekend. Not that it did Silver much good today.
Diamond blinked at Silver, who sat alone in the grass as Truffle broke rank to review their plans with Miss Cheerilee. She skimmed the list of teams with a slight frown. Her ears flicked out of synch. “Oh right, Cotton Cloudy had to go with her mom to help with the snow clouds today.”
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo pricked their ears and exchanged eager glances. Frenzied whispers wired between them in some scattershot new conspiracy. As one, all three swung around to stare pointedly at Diamond Tiara with huge shiny eyes.
Diamond, to her credit, ignored them. “Is anypony willing to be Silver’s partner with the fence today? Like, maybe one of the groups of three can spare a pony?” She didn’t look at the Crusaders or name names, but the playground project had only one group of three.
“Yeah, ‘cause we all know sweet widdle Silver Spoon can’t build a fence all by herself.” Berry Pinch snickered. “She’s so delicate, ya know.”
The Dink chuckled with her, but offered a sympathetic smile in Silver’s direction that said, Parents, am I right?
Silver Spoon withheld a groan. The incident had long passed, and couldn’t be helped. A proper young lady could only hold her head high and weather the social fallout with dignity. Still, she wished she'd asked Brass Tacks to walk her to school instead. Father had meant well. He really had. But for sun’s sake, why, WHY did he have to talk to Miss Cheerilee about “delicate constitutions” and “the dangers of heavy lifting” and splinter infection statistics in public?
Silver cleared her throat. “I’m okay working on it by myself, actually.” Manual labor didn’t suit a proper young lady, but it was the lightest job on the list, aside from safety duty. Besides, she wasn’t made of glass and plywood; she’d be fine. “It’s only a fence.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay too,” Diamond said. “I mean, if you’re sure…”
“I am. Everypony’s already set up in their teams. I don’t want to mess anything up.” With a wary glance at the Crusaders’ whispering conspiracy, Silver raised her hoof again. “Is it alright if I get started on it now? Like, right now?”
“Yeah. Yeah, go on ahead, Silver Spoon.” The tip of Diamond’s tail waved in the air while she watched Silver pack up her things in her saddlebag. Her eyes slowly angled to the whispering filly behind her. Out of the side of her mouth, Diamond whispered, “No. She doesn’t want to, Apple Bloom.”
Scootaloo whispered something back. Sweetie Belle added to it.
“Because I just know, okay?” Diamond Tiara returned to normal volume. “So Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie are handling the tetherballs, right? Right. And Prickle Berry, you’ll be moving the merry-go-round with…”
The meeting faded into the background as Silver crossed the grass, watching for bits of stray metal and wood. Miss Cheerilee waved at her. Silver Spoon waved back and surveyed the work she and Cotton had done yesterday. Five wooden poles jutted from the ground, each spaced perfectly with Cotton Cloudy’s advantage of flight and Twist’s math measurements. They’d even managed to paint all of them before everypony had to go home for the night.
“That means all I have to do is put up the fence planks.” Silver smiled at the little piles of wooden planks, sliding a box of nails closer with her tail. She took the hammer in her jaws and tapped it against the wood a couple of times to get the feel of it. “Easy. I’ll be done by evening!”
“I'm sure you could be, Silver Spoon, but remember to take your time. I don’t want anypony getting hurt because they tried to rush through it.” Miss Cheerilee frowned, looking about. “Where’s your partner? I thought you were all working in groups.”
Silver pulled the first plank in her lap, mentally measuring out where it would go. It’d be sensible to do the bottom plank first; then she could use it for balance when she did the top one. “I can do the fence by myself, Miss Cheerilee.” When Miss Cheerilee didn’t appear enthused by this news, Silver shot her best adult-soothing smile. “It’s the easiest job on the list, I’ll be fine.”
After all, Apple Bloom did this sort of stuff on the farm all the time. If she could do it, how tough could it possibly be?
Technically, Silver Spoon had been right. Hammering in nails wasn’t hard at all after the wood got measured out. The plank slid from her hoof and bopped Silver’s nose. “Ow!”
Silver rubbed her muzzle and stepped back to recalculate. She glared at the treacherous plank that swung from her perfectly hammered nail, mocking her. Nailing a board, indeed, wasn’t hard. Holding it up while keeping it level and hammering the nail all at the same time, however, proved slightly more difficult than she’d accounted for.
The other side of the wooden plank lifted and stabilized. Diamond Tiara held the other end with two forehooves and a wary smile. “Hey, uh… need a hoof?”
Silver worked her teeth around the hammer handle. Polite fillies didn’t speak with their mouths full.
“Miss Cheerilee didn’t like the idea of you working alone, and everypony else is busy, so…” Diamond rocked back on her heels. “Yeah.”
With a noncommittal shrug, Silver let her gaze wander back to her work. She steadied the hammer against the nail and blinked in acknowledgment. Not in approval or disapproval, but acceptance. This was a matter of circumstance. That was all.
Tap-tappa-tap-tap-tappity-tap-tap. Tap. Second nail done. Tap-tap-tappa-tap-tap. Third nail. It got easier the more she did it. Faster, too. Tappity-tip-tap-tap-tappa-tap-tap. The vibrations of the hammer rattled Silver’s molars. How did other earth ponies do this all day?
There. First plank done. Silver stepped back to inspect and gave the board a test shake. It held. She glanced down the line of waiting posts. “Two down, eight more to go.” Her tongue ran along the edge of her smooth white teeth. “Ugh, I’m going to end up with teeth like Apple Bloom’s by the end of this.”
“Oh please, it’s eight planks in a fence, not a whole barn. You’re not gonna get carpenter’s jaw from one day of work.” Diamond Tiara’s laughter died halfway out of her mouth. She bent her head to a humbler angle and brought out that cloying zirconia smile of hers. “It’s good work, though!”
Silver Spoon rolled her eyes and turned away.
Diamond followed her to the woodpile. “No really, it is! You’re off to a great start so far. I know physical labor’s not your style, and I just wanted you to know that I appreciate all the hard work you’ve done lately.” The smile faded at Silver’s blank face. “I wasn’t trying to make fun of you earlier. I can help with the rest of the fence, but if you want, I could always ask Twist to switch jobs with me. We need two ponies to a task, but Cheerilee doesn’t mind who’s on them.”
Silver’s ears twitched. That could work, actually. In more ways than one.
If she really wanted to, Silver could deal with her Diamond problem once and for all. Hypothetically, she could sow a quiet little rumor into the student council that Diamond had stolen the playground idea from Silver and taken it for herself. Meanwhile, Twist didn’t have a sly bone in her body. With the right word choice and a slight rearrangement of events, she’d believe it. Truffle Shuffle might not buy it from Silver’s mouth, but he’d never doubt Twist.
This sort of scandal would cripple any goodwill Diamond had garnished so far, and it wouldn’t be hard. A long record of jerkitude worked against her. They’d still get a playground, and Silver Spoon’s trouble would be over. It would be easy.
Friendship is worth fighting for. Always. Twilight’s voice echoed in Silver’s ears. Did you lose the battle or the war?
Twist’s faraway reflection skimmed across Silver’s glasses. It would be so easy. But, no. Only lazy cowards chose the easy way out. Besides, Silver Spoon didn’t need that kind of blot on her conscience. And Diamond didn’t deserve it.
“You can stay and help if you want, Diamond. I mean, if you don’t mind risking a chipped tooth.” Come to think of it, Diamond Tiara had avoided most jobs that needed a strong jaw. “Pageant season starts soon, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I’m covered. Mom got my smile insured a few years ago.” Diamond Tiara pulled out another plank, one eye on the crate containing Project X’s parts. “The season’s not until after Hearth’s Warming, anyway.” She frowned. “Mom still says she’s coming down for the holidays. We’ll be done by then for sure.” Her hoof kicked over the plank. “Here, you hold it this time and I’ll hammer.”
Fine by Silver. She moved the nails to Diamond’s side and held the wood in place. “We’ll probably be done by then. Maybe.” She shrugged. “It depends.”
The hammer beat out a steady rhythm. Diamond’s gaze flicked up to Silver, then back to the nail in an unsaid question: Depends on what?
A dozen diplomatic responses flipped through Silver’s registers. Subtler, kinder methods of getting the point across without a fuss. She could suggest bringing in professional builders, or gently suggest a schedule rearrangement.
But that smile.
That insipid little smile curled around the hammer handle the way it curled around the student body for a sweet Get Out Of Dungeon Free card. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred bits. Maybe Diamond won Oligarchy nine times out of ten, but Silver still knew how to play the game.
Still, Silver had always been more of a Battleclouds type of filly. “Depends on when you decide to drop the act.”
Hit to cloud five. The hammer slowed to a stop. “What are you talking about, Silver Spoon?”
A question that stupid didn’t even deserve a sarcastic answer. Not when they both already knew the real one. Silver leveled an even stare. For good measure, she added a cocked eyebrow.
The silence gnawed through Diamond’s zirconia smile like a parasprite. “I’m not playing at anything, Silver, this isn’t an act.”
“Oh? Then what is it?” Silver sniffed. “Because I already know it’s not a lie; you’re a much better liar than this.” A twinge rippled beneath her coat. You’re better than this all over. Silver’s eyes narrowed into slits, and her tail curled upwards in a smooth silver crescent. “No, seriously—I’m curious, Di. What is all this? Enlighten me.” A tiny smirk coiled at the base of her muzzle.
“I—it’s not anything.” Diamond shied against the fence. Her hammer tapped out rapid little hits on the first nail, then the second. As she reached the last nail, her gaze trailed back to Silver’s. “This is just me.” The last nail hammered in sloppily. “A better version of me.”
Silver’s smirk twitched. “Sure, Di.”
A ridge of hair bristled at the base of Diamond’s neck. With a slow breath, it went flat again. “You don’t have to forgive me if you don’t want to. You don’t even need to accept my apology, but that doesn’t mean you can be nasty about it.”
“I don’t need to buy this hacky little act, either. And who’s being nasty? You’re the one getting your tail in a knot.” Silver’s own tail snapped with flourish.
Diamond spat the hammer into the grass. “I told you already, it’s not an act! I’ve changed; I’m trying to be better. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Right, I forgot.” Silver Spoon tossed her head with a sharp and breathless snap of a laugh. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders waltzed in with the magic of friendship and a pep talk, and five seconds later ta-da! You’re the sad, sweet little filly you’ve been deep down all along. Equestria’s precious sweetheart who giggles and smiles and gives out candy to everypony, who’s never mean to anypony and never ever gets mad.” Silver rolled her eyes and snorted. “Celestia’s sake, we already have a Fluttershy in this town.”
Whatever remained of the zirconia smile shattered in the lightning flash of Diamond’s blink. “For somepony who thinks they’re so much smarter than everypony, you still don’t know how to answer a simple question.”
“Oh. Okay. So now you want to know what I think?” Silver put her hoof to her chest, fluttering her lashes in mock astonishment. “Does that mean I finally have Her Highness’ permission to speak freely?” The smirk vanished. “Fine—you want to know why I can’t accept it? Because I don’t take checks that bounce.”
Diamond stepped back with a slighted little huff. “My checks do not bounce.”
“Uh-huh. Sorry to break it to you, Di, but ponies can’t step in and out of a clubhouse and switch personalities like a new pageant outfit. You can’t. It’s not my fault you’re dumb enough to believe your own hype.” Silver Spoon’s laugh wheezed sour and low. “You didn’t change one bit, Diamond Dazzle Tiara. You’re just telling everypony what they want to hear.”
“Hey, what can I say?” The ridge of Diamond’s muzzle crinkled in an ugly little sneer. “I learned from the best, Silvie. Fine, maybe I didn’t instantly get better. Unlike some rich fillies who’d rather wallow in their own snobbery, at least I’m trying to be a better pony.”
“Can’t fault you for that. After all…” Silver bared her teeth in a dark smile. “Everypony tries. Winners succeed.”
Both ears went rigid. The left one twitched once, then twice. Thunder rolled across Diamond Tiara’s features. “Watch it, Silver Spoon.”
“You’re not the boss of me, Diamond. I’ll watch what I want, so there.” Silver Spoon braced her shoulders and held her neck high, sneering down at the snarling filly by the fence. She still had dirt on her hooves. Gross. You’d think a pageant filly would know better. “I don’t know why I should listen to some pathetic new-money tryhard with mommy issues.” Silver turned her nose up. “You’re beneath me.”
The field went quiet.
Silver twitched her ears. She glanced back.
Diamond’s head slammed into Silver’s jaw.
Silver Spoon stumbled back with the vague taste of iron on her tongue. She blinked, stunned. “Did—”
Diamond tossed her mane and charged.
Silver reared and jumped back, but her back hoof caught the stack of wooden planks. The ground slammed the breath out of her.
Ears ringing, Silver Spoon scrambled and rolled before pink hooves crashed down on her face. “This is SO typical of you!” She heard the rush of grass and lashed out with her legs, but Diamond ducked them. “Every time something goes a little wrong you need to throw some big stupid tantrum—whoa!” She ducked a flying hoof. Move now. Quip later.
Silver wiped blood from her muzzle. She dared a glance over her shoulder. Cheerilee and Truffle Shuffle strolled by the schoolhouse. Could they hear her call out from all the way out here or would she have to run for—
“What, can’t take somepony face to face?” Diamond Tiara pawed the grass. “You gonna run off with your tail between your legs to tattle on the new-money bully being mean to delicate widdle you?” She snorted. “And you say I’m predictable.”
Silver Spoon spun on her heel and rushed her. Diamond braced and grinned.
Their heads collided in a solid thwack. Poll against poll, Diamond planted all four hooves in the ground and shoved. Silver’s designer horseshoes slipped back a few inches, but she held firm. Grey bangs tangled with white and lavender.
Diamond’s ragged breathing fogged Silver’s lenses. “You’re not better than me, Silver Spoon!” The salt of her sweat mingled with the full earthy scent of dirt and grass and wood and steel. “I don’t care about your stupid old vases or your stupid old-money school with your stuck-up old-money friends!” She stomped both front legs. “You. Are. Not. Better than me. You’re not!” Diamond shoved. Hard.
Silver’s legs crumpled under her and she stumbled back. Her skull hit one of the fence poles. The wood dug into her spine and her head felt dizzy.
Everything looked fuzzy. She couldn’t stay here. She had to stand up. Her legs tangled together and she couldn’t see. Where did her glasses go? Diamond’s hoofbeats thundered in her ears. She had to move. She couldn’t move. Silver squeezed her eyes shut and curled into a ball and braced for—for…
Nothing.
No hooves slamming down on her face. No kick in the ribs. Nothing.
Dirt crunched next to Silver’s ears. She opened one eye.
Diamond Tiara stood over her, a faceless pink and purple blur. Her breath hissed between her teeth. “My dad says it doesn’t matter where you’ve been, it matters where you are.” Grit and grass crunched under Diamond’s hoof. “Know where you are, Silver Spoon? In the dirt.” The hoof pressed against Silver’s chest. Diamond’s face zoomed in close enough to see her red-rimmed eyes. “You’re in the disgusting Ponyville dirt in dirty old Ponyville with the farmers and the lawn-biters and th-the new-money tryhard who could buy you if she wanted.”
With a wet sniff, Diamond lifted her hoof and stepped away. Her voice trembled, but it didn’t break. Barely. “And don’t you gimme any of that lame Wisteria ladies-don’t-fight garbage.” Diamond Tiara gulped a breath. “Ladies don’t stab their friends in the back, either. Ladies are honest. Ladies are grateful and kind and true and loyal.”
Slowly, Silver’s ragged breath returned to normal. She blinked tears out of her eyes and stared at the pink blur on the grass. That sounded a lot like the introduction to Madam Wisteria’s codex.
“Yeah, I read your dumb guidebook. I know what a lady’s supposed to be, and that’s not you. All you are is polite—any lowlife on the street can be polite. You’re no lady, Sterling Silver Spoon.” A warm droplet slid from Diamond’s chin and plopped on Silver’s nose. “You’re a snake. You’re a snake, just like she sai—”
Something crunched. Glass tinkled. All of Diamond’s venom vanished in a gasp. “Oh… um. I… found your glasses.”
“You broke my glasses?!” Silver rolled on her hooves, rubbing her hurt withers. Something sharp dug into her stomach. She glared at the steel tiara in the grass and kicked it away. A splitting headache throbbed between her ears. “It’s not good enough to throw me into a fence, you have to blind me, too?”
“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t even see them there and it… I… Aw, horseapples, I’m sorry.” Diamond Tiara sniffled. “It doesn’t look that bad? Here, look.”
Her glasses settled on the bridge of Silver’s muzzle. Diamond’s red puffy face came into focus, tearstained and obscured by a massive crack in the left lens. Whatever, at least she could see now.
Silver Spoon checked her vitals; nothing felt broken, but the pain in her back and chin and ribs said there’d be bruises later. Father would have an absolute fit. Brass Tacks would be even worse. Slowly, she rose to her hooves and shook the grass off her coat.
“I’m sorry,” Diamond whispered again. She covered her mouth with her hooves, staring with wide blue eyes. They grew wider and wider as the last few minutes settled upon her. “Silver, are you okay? I just—you—oh no, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah…” Silver tested her legs, tail, neck, and ears. She had the broken lens and some dirt stains and bruises, but nothing life-threatening. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She flinched and grabbed her throbbing head. “Sort of.”
“Okay, good. I-I-I mean—I don’t mean it’s good, but—” Diamond dragged her hooves over her face. “Auuugh, why did I DO that?!” She stomped the box of nails and kicked it against the messy woodpile. “Ugh, that was stupid! That was so stupid, why’d I do that?!” She drew her trembling hooves away from her face. “I’m gonna go get Miss Cheerilee, and she can—”
“No.” Silver didn’t need a million questions right now. Especially not when Truffle Shuffle would be tagging along with Cheerilee and then he’d have questions and then everypony else…
Silver groaned and rubbed her temples. “No, don’t. It’s fine, Diamond.”
Diamond Tiara stifled a sob. “No it’s not!”
Silver Spoon looked at her for a moment. “No,” she said, “it’s not.” This morning’s cinnamon toast and mulberry tea tried to bubble up from her stomach, but she forced it back down. “It’s really not.”
“I know. I’m sorry anyway.”
“Okay.”
Silver Spoon stretched out on the grass, letting her braid snake out into a spray of dandelions. They’d barely gotten progress on the fence—what little they’d built stood pretty well, considering a foal got smacked into it—but getting headbutted in the jaw seemed like a good excuse for a rest.
She closed her eyes. Her head still hurt, but it didn’t feel like her brain was going to pour out of her ears anymore. Silver didn’t even want to think about what her mane must have gone through.
The grass rustled as Diamond settled into it. She didn’t say anything, but every few seconds her throat made wet little hiccups. Either she was crying or trying very hard not to.
Voices of their classmates piped farther off in the distance. Too far to still be on the playground. Everypony must have gone inside for a snack break. Or maybe they’d snuck off seeking funner ways to spend a Sunday. Silver didn’t know and didn’t care.
A cricket hopped on Silver’s haunch, chirping a slow November dirge for the approaching winter. Dandelions bent in the wind, tickling the insides of her ears. Silver Spoon opened her eyes, staring blankly into the flat blueness of the sky.
“Diamond? I’m sorry, too. You’re not beneath me; I shouldn’t have said that.” Strands of silver waved in the corner of her eye. Her braid must have been coming undone. She didn’t feel like going through the trouble of fixing it. “I don’t think I’m better than you.”
“Liar.” Diamond’s upside-down face hovered over Silver’s, glaring with bloodshot eyes. Her bottom lip twisted up tight. “You-you know what? I’m sorry I pushed you into the fence, and I’m sorry about your glasses, and I’m sorry I headbutted you, but I’m not sorry about calling you a snake, ‘cause you’re still lying to me.” Di’s ears went so flat Silver couldn’t see them anymore. “You do too think you’re better than me.”
Silver rolled on her belly and curled into a ball. She wrapped her tail tight, the tip flicking beneath her nose. “Don’t you presume to tell me what I think and don’t think, Miss Diamond Dazzle Tiara. I’m not lying, but fine. Be that way.”
Trying to talk sense into a natural disaster was a stupid idea. On the other hoof, she didn’t have any reason to walk on eggshells anymore. It couldn’t possibly get worse than it already had. “You never listened to me anyway, why start now?” Silver’s gaze rolled up to Diamond, who sat with her back to her, staring at the crate full of Project X parts. “I said all I can say. If you want to believe Spoiled Rich over me, that’s your business.”
Diamond bent her neck low to glance behind her. Grass stains capped the sharp pink points of her withers. Her bangs covered the beginnings of a bruise on her forehead. “Mother did not tell me you think you’re better than me, Silver Spoon. I’ve got eyes. I’ve got ears.”
“Yeah, now if only you’d use what’s between them.” Silver shook out the remains of her braid, smoothing her hooves through the tangles to get her mane somewhere close to respectable. She kicked over the tiara lying in the grass. “And take this back before I hurt myself on it again.”
The tiara flipped over in Diamond’s hooves, tilting this way and that while she examined it for damage. The little comb holders bent at odd angles, and the steel needed polish. A lesser metal would have snapped on impact, if not snapped years ago. “I can use it just fine, Silver. I figured it out before Mother even came back from her business trip. It’s not like I needed extra help to know you didn’t think I’m good enough for your fancy exclusive cuteceañera.”
Silver blinked at the spoon on her flank. Her cuteceañera? From forever ago? “Of all the dumb—that wasn’t an exclusive thing, Diamond, that was a family thing. I told you it was a family thing. I told you twice.”
“Really? Because last time I checked, Fancy Pants isn’t a Silver.” Diamond Tiara smirked at Silver Spoon’s befuddled expression. “Yeah, I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”
“It’s not like I’m the one who wrote the guest list. Mr. Pants is my auntie’s friend, and she probably only invited him because she needed help opening her new art gallery. That’s business stuff; Canterlot parties are always business stuff.” Silver edged closer through the grass. “Di, come on. You seriously think a grown stallion doesn’t have better things to do than go to a little filly’s party? Like, all my cousins are almost old enough to be my dad. I would have loved somepony my age to talk to.”
Which is why she probably could have pushed harder to bring Diamond Tiara along. At the time, Silver hadn’t wanted to rock the newly stabilized boat. She’d assumed Mother declined the idea because Di had been new money, or because she’d been a new friend in general and not yet privy to such a private event.
But maybe not.
Granddad Silver Tongue certainly held no love for Diamond’s step-relatives. “A stench of desperation clings to that house; the Canterlot Rottens are not misnamed.”
How far back had her family connected the dots between Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara, the Rotten-Milks, and whatever nasty baggage came with them? It didn’t sound to her as if their families had had a serious incident—Granddad or Father would have spoken up for anything too serious—but one never knew. Or maybe it really had just been because Diamond was new. The real reason, Silver supposed, didn’t matter in the end.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Diamond Tiara.”
“Sure, like you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings when you didn’t stand up for me to your Manehattan friends?”
“Okay, did I hit my head harder than I thought, or have you, like, gone totally mental?” Silver rubbed the sore spot on the back of her head. Hurt a little less, but still hurt. She glanced back to Diamond, who still glared at her. “Seriously, if you think that Toplofty of the Manehattan Loftys ever looked like my friend, you’re the one who needs new glasses.”
“That’s not better, Silver Spoon! It’s like, ten times worse!” Diamond hooked her leg around the fencepost, jabbing her head at the horizon. “If any of my pageant rivals came after you, I’d stop them. I’d say something. I’d protect you.” She kicked over a stack of wooden planks. “Or I’d try, anyway.”
And try she had. Silver’s ears drooped, remembering Diamond’s protests against her stepmother in the Crystal Empire hotel. And that happened when Di had still been mad for losing the flag competition. Even so, not the same thing. “Your pageant rivals aren’t going to come after your blood in five years, though. It’s not like I wanted to get jumped at my own party, Di. I did the best I could do.”
Silver Spoon might have done better with more preparation, or if she’d realized Toplofty and Palanquin had been sharpening their knives for her. Might have, but she doubted it. One couldn’t adapt to Ponyville and not go a little soft.
Now that Silver thought about it, that whole trip to Manehattan began on the wrong hoof. Diamond left for Canterlot bouncing out of her horseshoes and returned dragging her tail. “Hey, what did Mrs. Rich say to you when you guys went on that shopping trip for the winter gala? Did she tell you I invited you as a joke? Because I didn’t.”
Diamond rubbed her withers. “Didn’t say it, but…” She flicked her tail around her hooves. “I heard her talking to Dad before we left. Something about ‘pulling a Zirconia’ or something, I dunno. I dunno about a lot of stuff.” The tiara flipped upside down in her hooves. She brushed back the lavender corkscrews of her mane and sighed. “I really didn’t know Mother came after you like that at the school board meeting, Silver Spoon. I’m sorry.”
“Good!” Silver shouted so loud the crickets ducked for cover. “You should be sorry! I-In fact, I hope you’re sorrier than, like, a whole bunch of sorry ponies at an I’m Sorry Convention, because it’s your fault I was ever at that meeting in the first stupid place!”
Two weeks of waterlogged ugliness burbled in Silver Spoon’s chest. So much that she couldn’t keep it in and it bubbled up through her tightening throat and into her eyes. Her head hurt. Everything hurt.
“Spoiled Rich embarrassed me in front of the school board and the student council and Miss Cheerilee and I couldn’t even do anything about it even though I was trying my best and the only reason I got back ON student council was ‘cause you wanted to run for president!” Silver Spoon rubbed her eyes with a choked little sob. “M-may-maybe I’m not the best pony all the time but for-for the past three months all I did—all I ever, ever, EVER did—was try and help you, Diamond Tiara! I’m not the pony who wanted to do talent shows or pageants or run for student pony president, and I still cancelled my appointments and woke up at five in the morning for you. Not ‘cause I owed you a favor. Not because I’m your employee, but because I’m your friend! All I wanted to do was help my friend an-and-and the-then I’m… I’m… you say I’m not even allowed to spea—”
It fell apart. It all fell apart and Silver didn’t know if it could get put together again. She hid her face in her forelegs and wept.
For a long time, Diamond Tiara sat there and didn’t say anything. She moved a few inches closer, but no more than that. When Silver finally stopped crying, Diamond cleared her throat a couple of times. “Are… you feeling better?”
Silver gulped down air. “No.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Diamond’s tail flicked through the air, close enough to tickle the hairs in Silver’s coat. “Sorry about the election, Silver. I know I already said sorry before, but…”
“Oh, sure.” Silver brought her head up and shot a weak glare over her hooves. Far across the playground, the Crusaders looped rope through one of the new swings. “You remembered to say sorry after you went to bat for a bunch of fillies you hated five seconds ago. I-I don’t even know why you even wanted to come talk to me in the first place. You’ve already got three new best friends.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her fetlock and keened softly in the back of her throat. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“Silver Spoon, don’t be dumb! Of course I need you.” Slowly, Diamond inched closer, her hoof hovering over Silver’s shoulder. When it didn’t get pushed away, she let it rest there. “I mean, look at the playground so far. Maybe we don’t have Project X built yet, but we wouldn’t even be close to where we are now if not for you. And if… if we weren’t fighting, we’d probably be done by now.”
Silver Spoon narrowed her eyes.
“Not that I’m blaming it on you, I mean! I just mean we work good together, Silver. We always did, and I’m not only talking about projects and stuff. Apple Bloom’s cool and all, but it’s not like I can talk to her the same way I always talked with you. We’re friends, but it’s… different. They’re all on a different wavelength; the Cutie Mark Crusaders are each other’s best friends, not mine. You’re my best friend.” Diamond curled her lush tail around a crushed box of nails, picking it up and putting it down again. She took her hoof back and picked at the grass with it. “Or, you were. I think.”
“You think?” Silver Spoon rose to her hooves, shaking out the dirt and grass in her coat. “What the hay do you mean ‘you think'? What were the past two years to you, hoofpainting and stalling for time?”
Diamond screwed up her face in something bordering close to anger. “Look, I told you, I don’t know about a lot of things right now. It’s… weird, with everything that’s happened.” In a low voice, she added, “And everything you did…”
“What, do you honestly think the thing with the Foal Free Press or me not inviting you to my cuteceañera means we weren’t ever best friends? Seriously? Seriously, Di?” Silver bent her neck to fix Diamond Tiara with a firm stare. The remains of her braid came undone in the breeze, and thin ribbons of pale silver fluttered over her shoulders. “What about all the times I covered for you? Yeah, one time out of twenty I didn’t have your back, but those other nineteen times suddenly don’t count anymore, I guess.”
“Of course they do!” Diamond snapped back. “They’d probably count for more if I knew why you did ‘em, though.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying that I’m not the only filly who writes bad checks, that’s all. What about all those other times? How am I supposed to trust anything you say to me when you’re scheming off the top every five seconds? You can’t keep your eyes on the prize when you’re too busy watching your own butt all the time. I can’t—” Diamond snorted and stamped around the tiny scrap of fence they’d built in a tight circle. “I hate it! I hate second-guessing everything that comes out of your mouth ‘cause it went through like thirty rough drafts first! I have to read between the lines so much my eyes hurt. You never give me a straight answer, Silver Spoon.”
“Uh, duh?” Silver’s hoof swung upwards to indicate her glasses. The fracture in her lens glinted in the autumn sunshine. “Look what happens when I do! I don’t know what stupid little thing’s gonna set you off—of course I have to think before I say anything.” She took a tiny step away from the fence, tail lashing between her legs. “If you bothered doing that every once in a while, maybe you wouldn’t have lost the election in the first place.”
“Hey, but you—I—” Diamond’s guilty expression flinched and fluctuated until it swung around into indignation. “What you said to me today was not being honest, Silver Spoon, that was just being plain mean! I’m not an idiot, I know when somepony’s trying to get under somepony’s skin, and that’s all you were doing.” She jabbed her hoof between the fence boards. “You pushed me into getting mad on purpose!”
Silver Spoon clicked her tongue, twitched her tail, and eyed the box of nails. “…Maybe. A little.”
“Why?!” Diamond’s voice cracked. “Why’d you do that to me, Silver Spoon? Are you trying to wreck me or something?”
Silver pursed her lips. “No.” Not deliberately, anyway.
“I’ve been doing good, Silver. I’ve been doing so good this week, and you wrecked it. I didn’t yell or get mad at ponies anymore, not even when they did something kind of dumb—”
“Like a paisley slide?”
“—and it worked. Sorta. I-I mean, I thought it worked. Ponies didn’t hate me anymore. I still didn’t feel so good sometimes, and I ran out of all my allowance money, but at least nopony hated me.” She huddled against the fencepost, tail clutched tight in her hooves. “But it… it didn’t go away. I’m still angry, Silver Spoon.”
“Princess Twilight says it’s natural to feel angry with other ponies sometimes.” Silver Spoon didn’t think that advice really helped anything, but it felt like the best thing to say at the moment. There had to be something useful in it if a princess said it.
“Yeah, but I’m mad all the time.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Enlightening as this therapy session had been, it didn’t get any fences built. Silver ran her tongue along her gumline, pleased not to find any coppery tastes or loose teeth. She didn’t know how rough she looked, but if they didn’t at least have some work done to show for it, they’d lose a decent alibi. Silver Spoon didn’t know if Ponyville Schoolhouse expelled fillies for fighting, but she didn’t want to risk it. If it didn't get them kicked out of school, it could still kick them them off of the student council.
Diamond kicked the nails under the fence. A couple of fresh ones rolled in the frog of her hoof, ready to use. “I think it’s your turn to hammer. I did the last one.” She picked a wooden plank without any hoofprints on it and lined it up with the second fencepost.
Clenching the hammer hurt Silver’s teeth. Her jaw wouldn’t thank her in the morning for this. “It’s kind of hard for me not to notice how mad you get, Di.” She lined up the nail and took aim. Tap-tap. “Cleaning up your messes and fixing your reputation’s not exactly easy, you know.” Tappity-tip-tap-tap.
“I never asked you to.” Diamond glanced at the progress, shifting her weight so the hammer could get the second nail in. Holding the board tighter made it easier on Silver’s jaw. “I didn’t get foaled yesterday; I don’t need somepony holding my hoof all the time.”
The second nail banged in with one last solid hit. Silver Spoon set the hammer in the grass, rubbing her jaw while she examined her work. First side looked good enough. She went to the other side of the plank, eyes on the bottom to assure it stayed level. “Well, which is it, Diamond? Do you need me or don’t you?”
“What I need is a friend to help me, not micromanage. I don’t need a yes-mare, and I don’t need a third mom, either. Two are more than enough.” Diamond shifted her hooves out of hammering range as the third nail went in. She let her ears sink into her mane and mumbled, “Sometimes, I swear you’re almost as bad as Spoiled is.”
Silver Spoon’s head jerked up with wide eyes. The hammer wobbled in her jaws.
“Hey, quit looking at me that way. I said almost. And only sometimes.” Diamond’s hooves ran under the length of the board. “You both do that we-gotta-look-totally-perfect-in-public thing all the time. Maybe that’s just a thing fancy ponies do.”
Silver Spoon couldn’t nod and hammer at the same time, so she managed a muffled “uh-huh.”
“Figures,” Diamond sighed. Three nails in, the board didn’t need her support anymore. She sat back down in the grass, watching Silver work. “Don’t worry, you’re not near as bad as she is. I mean, you never tried to win anything for me.” She hooked her hooves over the fencepost and pressed her cheek against the wood. “I still can’t believe she did that. Didn’t ask me about it, or mention the school board meeting, or anything. She says she wanted to help, but it… it’s like she doesn’t have any faith in me at all.”
If that were true, Mrs. Rich probably didn’t have much faith in Diamond’s judgment in other ponies either. Silver finished the last nail, relieved to give her jaw a break. “Is that why your stepmom hates me so much?”
Diamond’s ears flew up. She laughed. A real laugh. It sounded foreign and bizarre after days and days of fake giggles. When had been the last time she’d laughed that way? “What? Silvie, Mother—” She shook her head and laughed again. “Mother does not hate you, believe me. I mean, she really doesn’t like you, but I don’t think she likes anypony besides me, my dad, and Princess Cadance.”
“Princess Cadance?”
Diamond Tiara shrugged. “Something to do with her job, or an arranged marriage or something… I dunno, doesn’t matter.” She brought her head up. The tip of her tail played with the hammer’s head, picking it up and letting it flop in the grass again. “Silver, if I ask you something, can you answer me? Like, with a regular yes or no answer?”
“Um. Sure?” Quickly, Silver Spoon double-checked that answer. If Diamond wanted honesty, it’d be better to cover her bases now rather than later. “I mean, if there is a normal answer.” She twitched her ears in frustration. True or not, it still sounded like weaseling. “I’ll do my best. What’s the question?”
“Silvie, look at me.” Diamond dropped to all fours. She met Silver Spoon nose to nose through the slats of the fence, eyes bright blue against red rims. The same steadfast gaze that pinned Mrs. Rich to the ground and negotiated detention sentences. “I’ve got to know for real: Is Spoiled Rich right about you?”
Silver Spoon’s heart skipped fast. That old familiar black ooze of guilt returned, this time with a splash of confusion and a dash of shame. It bubbled beneath her coat, broiling into a sticky cocktail that pasted her stomach to her lungs. “I don’t know. What does she think about me?” She had a good guess, but a legitimate answer needed all the details first. Even details she didn’t want to hear.
“Well, it’s like I said, she doesn’t hate you—I’ve seen how she gets with ponies she hates—it’s that she doesn’t trust you. Mother says your family treats ponies like chess pieces and puppets. She told me the Silvers don’t have any friends, just allies, and only if you’re useful to them. That you’re all like… like vipers.”
Silver Spoon couldn’t help an offended flick of her tail. “You know, Miss Fluttershy raises snakes, and you know what she says? She says that snakes aren’t ever out to bite anypony. They only bite if you step on them first. I’m not out to get you, Diamond. I’m not out to get anypony, but I don’t want to get stepped on, either. Not even by accident.”
Silver’s hooves played with the loose ends of her mane, sectioning them into panels to rebraid her hair. “Things can go wrong when you’re not careful with the ponies around you, Diamond. They can go really, really wrong.” Her cheeks and ears flushed warm. “I’ve seen it happen.”
“So you think I’m going to step on you?” Diamond Tiara kept her voice level, but her ears went flat. “That’s why you ruined my job at the Press, right? That’s what you said, you got scared. You got scared and covered your own butt because you don’t trust me. I knew you didn’t trust me, you jerk!”
“Hey, I didn’t—okay, fine. I didn’t know what you were going to do with the Press, and I hadn’t talked to you in a long time. But I knew you needed more juicy stories, and I knew that your stepmom knew why the Silvers came to Ponyville, and I… I saw danger coming. I panicked, and I did something stupid.” Silver Spoon adjusted her cracked glasses. “Kind of like how you do stupid stuff when you’re angry. I was wrong. You were wrong. And that’s it.”
Diamond sucked her teeth and adjusted her tiara. She didn’t seem too satisfied with that answer. Silver couldn’t blame her.
“So,” said Silver Spoon, “now what do we do?”
Diamond Tiara lashed her tail impatiently. “For starters, you could answer my question like I asked you to.”
“You asked me a complicated question; did you want a fake short answer or an honest long one? I can’t do both.” However, she’d already finished giving the long part of the answer. At the root, it had been a yes-or-no question. Silver Spoon played with the strands of hair in her hoof. “No. I try to be smart and safe with other ponies, but… no, Di. You’re not a chess piece to me.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t even like chess. It’s so boring!”
“Ugh, I know, right? Mother’s all like ‘you’ll like it, it’s got strategy and math’ but it’s not, because it doesn’t have any solid numbers and it goes on for-ever!”
The two of them shared a short laugh. It felt good. Really good. The best Silver Spoon had felt in a long, long time. But eventually, the laugh faded back into the silence, and there they were again, alone in the field with Silver’s question: What do we do now?
“Silver, listen, I don’t—” Diamond Tiara squeezed her eyes shut and gulped down a lump in her throat. Bracing herself, she tried again. “I don’t want you and me to end up like my mom and dad.”
Meaning the first mother, then. “Do you mean the way your mom and dad were before they got divorced, or after?”
“Both. Either way, they fight all the time.” Diamond shook her head with a long tired sigh. “Silver Spoon, if you really don’t want to be my friend anymore, then you don’t have to be. We’ll go our separate ways and I’ll… deal with it. But this frenemy stuff, all of this…” She wheeled both forelegs to indicate everything around them: the fence, the smushed nail box, the raggedy manes and cracked glasses, the burning throats and eyes and stressed-out stomachs. “This thing we’ve been doing, it’s not working. It’s not okay, and I don’t wanna do it anymore.”
“Me neither.” Silver Spoon rubbed her sore jawline. “I don’t want to do this ever again.”
“Is it okay if I ask you another question?”
Silver nodded.
“Silver Spoon, I want to be friends again.” Diamond Tiara chewed her bottom lip and looked at the ground, twisting her tail in her hooves. “I mean, if you want to be. Do you want to be?”
Another yes-or-no question. No asterisks with this one. No strings, no invisible consequences lingering over Silver’s head. No measured scales or connections laced with other connections. Again, Miss Sterling Silver Spoon found herself faced with a question not of duty or logic or cunning or safety, but of want. One of the precious few times when what Silver Spoon wanted actually mattered. It’s nopony else’s friendship but mine.
The question sat in her lap like an unmarked gift basket. One she actually wanted. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” Silver stepped through the fence to stand shoulder to shoulder with the filly on the other side. “On one condition.”
“Okay. What is it?”
Silver squinted. Indeed, this foal still looked like the same filly she’d known for the past two years who hated cheaters and alfalfa, and who took so much sugar and cream in her tea she barely left room for the hibiscus and cinnamon. She looked like Diamond, yes, but many rocks looked like diamonds to the naked eye.
“I want to be friends with Diamond Tiara, not…” Silver made a wishy-washy gesture with her hooves. “Whoever’s been trying to build a playground all week. And not trying very hard, either.” Before a word of protest dropped from Diamond’s mouth, Silver Spoon pointed at the giant crate of Project X parts. “The Diamond I know doesn’t let ponies walk all over her like an imitation Yakyakistani rug, or run her allowance dry giving out bribes while she does it. The Diamond Tiara I know would have been half done with Project X by now because it’s her project and she loves it.”
Silver narrowed her eyes, peering over the rim of her glasses. “Maybe I’m not a multimillionaire anymore, but I’m still rich enough to know the difference between a diamond and cut glass. The Diamond I know believes in her project the way she believes in the ponies working on it.”
The wood creaked under Diamond’s hooves as she rocked back and forth on the fence. “But nopony liked that Diamond Tiara.”
“I did.” Silver moved in closer. She laid her hoof on Diamond’s withers and smiled. “I always did—even when she was being a giant butt. Usually.”
The steel tiara brushed back into the thick of Diamond’s curls. It stayed there and sparkled. Diamond leaned against Silver. “Yeah…” A bashful laugh trickled out of her. “I’ve been kind of a butt trumpet lately, huh?”
Silver Spoon nuzzled her ear. “You’ve been an entire butt orchestra.”
“You know, it’s kind of a shame we made up. Now I can’t use any of the awesome mean names I came up for you.” Diamond grinned and winked. “I couldn't decide between Silver Snake and Slither Spoon.”
“Slither Spoon’s better.”
Diamond gave a solemn nod. “That’s what I figured. Oh, and a butt orchestra? Seriously, you’ve been hanging around Berry Pinch too long.”
“I don’t even know what a butt orchestra would sound like.”
“Forget what it sounds like.” Diamond laughed—a little sputter that exploded into a full guffaw. “What would it smell like?”
Silver Spoon giggled. She knew proper young ladies really shouldn’t giggle at fart jokes, but hey, who would even know? “I don’t think we want to find out.”
A shadow fell over the fillies. “Whoa, what happened to you guys?”
Rumble zipped down through the clouds, followed closely by Tornado Bolt. Power Pony lanyards dangled from their necks; they must have come fresh from the con. Rumble landed on a fresh fence rail with his strong wings flared for balance. Frowning, he tilted his head to the side and pointed at Silver’s glasses. “You okay, Silver Spoon?”
“Oh! Oh no, we’re okay.” Silver tried and failed to smooth her mane into place. She didn’t have a mirror, but knew she must have looked a sight: half a raggedy braid, coat rumpled and dirty, muddy hooves, cracked glasses lens, and her eyes were probably all red and puffy. “We were building the fence and we had an accident.” She glanced at Di for backup. “I fell building it.”
“The fence, that is.” Diamond nodded. “She fell and so I tried to help and then I fell. We both fell.”
“Together.”
“We both fell building the fence together.” Diamond Tiara shrugged with a chuckle. “Clumsy us.”
Tornado Bolt hovered over one of the free-standing fenceposts. “Whoa, you guys should be more careful!” She smiled at Rumble, who still had his eyebrows all furrowed. “They look almost as bad as you did last year, remember? When Snips said Trixie could beat Thunderlane in a race and then you guys scuffled in the ditch?”
“Yeah,” said Rumble, “did you guys get in a kick-fight or something?” He laughed at his own little joke.
Silver mustered all the dignity she had left into a serene tail flick. “Ladies don’t get into kick-fights.” And nopony had kicked with their hind legs. Everypony knew it only counted as a real fight if you used your hind legs.
“Ladies usually don’t build fences either, but Silver made an exception this one time, because it’s important for everypony to help get the new playground built. Her dad didn’t really want her building stuff, but Silver insisted.” Diamond glanced at the wood stacked behind them in two rows of three. They’d only put up four planks so far. “Cotton Cloudy’s supposed to be helping her, but she couldn’t come today. I saw Silvie trying to build the fence all by herself, so I came to give her a hoof.”
Tornado Bolt rubbed her forehooves together with a guilty glance towards the paltry assembly of foals hard at work in the schoolyard. “Oh.”
“Not many foals showed up to help this weekend.” Silver Spoon dipped her ears low, smiling her saddest I-tried-my-best smile. “Building a fence by ourselves is a little harder than we thought, though.”
“Yeah, we’ve been at it all afternoon,” added Diamond. “It’d be great if we could get some extra help, but I guess everypony’s too busy. Oh well.” Diamond wiped her sweaty brow with her fetlock and sat up smiling. “By the way, how’d Power Con go?”
“It went good. We had lots of fun.” Tornado Bolt landed quietly beside Rumble. She eyed the stack of wood and nails, and ruffled her wings awkwardly. “Sorry we weren’t here.”
Diamond shrugged. “It happens. I mean, you probably got those tickets, like, months ago and I kinda sprang it on you last minute. Glad you had fun anyway.”
Rumble brightened a little. “Yeah, Power Con was pretty cool. Look, Jack Derby signed my lanyard.” He leaned his neck down, letting his ID card dangle in the grass to show them. Rumble blinked up at Silver Spoon, who peered at him inches from his nose. In a clumsy clap of feathers, he scrambled into the air. “Hey, uh, since we just got back, we’re not busy right now. We can still help you guys out if you want.”
“That’d be great!” Diamond’s ears twitched as she surveyed their progress with the fence. “We’re almost half done with this and still need to finish, but it’s not a top priority.”
Across the yard, Sunny Daze had tangled herself in a tetherball cord. Peachy Pie struggled in vain to lift the pole and untangle her friend at the same time. Silver heard their pathetic squeaking without even straining her ears.
Diamond nodded toward the playground. “Do you think you can help Peachy put in the new tetherball pole? If somepony can keep the ball out of their way, it’d be easier for them.” She lifted a hoof before Rumble could go higher in the air. “Not you, Rumble. You’re the fastest flier in class; I need somepony to zip by Featherweight’s and see if he can help, too. It’s fine if he can’t, but I want to check anyway. Can you do that?”
Rumble fluffed his feathers proudly. “You can count on me. I can be there and back in ten minutes.”
“Awesome! See you then.”
Silver Spoon waited until the pegasi went out of hearing range before she let out the sigh she’d been holding. It seemed like they’d be done with fence work for today. Now would be a good time to pack it in and head home, but if she left it would signal other ponies to go home, too. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and clean up a little bit.” Silver shook out the bits of grass and twigs from her mane and headed for the small washroom in the back of the schoolhouse. “How terrible do I look?”
Diamond followed at the hip. “Honest answer or nice answer?”
“Honestly nice answer.”
“Like you fell off the fence and landed on your face. Twice.” Diamond brushed a lock of tousled mane away from Silver’s cheek. “I still think you should see Cheerilee about that. Or Truffle, he’s the safety guy.”
He'd end up blaming himself for not keeping close watch, too. Silver Spoon grimaced. “Truff’ll freak out worse than Cheerilee. They’ll find out on their own eventually; I’ll take care of it then. Nothing’s broken and I’m not bleeding. I’ll live.” She traced Tornado Bolt’s flight path to Sunny and Peachy. Her eyes lifted north, in the direction of where Bulk Biceps had built his cloud house. “You really think Rumble’s going to be back when he says?”
Featherweight could be flaky sometimes, but if Diamond’s claims of his crush on Rumble held any water—and it sadly did, judging from the gooey eyes at Rumble’s aerial dives—the chances of him showing up tripled. Rumble still had to make it there in the first place, however. Even ignoring Diamond’s recent weak command of her fellow students, Rumble had never held Diamond in high regard.
“Oh, he’ll be here on time. In fact, I bet an oatmeal cookie he’ll be here before the ten minutes is up.” Diamond grinned. “After seeing your broken glasses and hearing how much you needed help, he’s flying like his feathers are on fire. Nice teamwork on that, by the way.”
“Thanks, but why does that matter? It’s not like Rumble likes me or…” Silver Spoon slowed to a stop outside the washroom. Thinking back on it, he’d come around to her apology really fast, even though the colt couldn’t look her in the eye half the time. “Does he?”
Diamond waggled her shoulders with an irritatingly innocent smirk. “Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? The world’s a mysterious place.”
“You’re such a butt.”
“Takes one to know one.” Diamond opened the bathroom door for her and checked it out. “Coast is clear, go get fixed up. I’m gonna try and get everypony together again.” She flinched at the sound of a crashing see-saw. “I think we need another pep talk.”
Nopony had to tell Silver twice. She double-checked under the bathroom stall for hooves, grabbed her saddlebag, and approached the mirror. Not a pretty sight. The crack in her glasses ran top to bottom in an ugly lightning bolt, and the rest of the lens had been scratched. No bruises she could see, but the knot on her jaw told her one was on its way. She couldn’t do anything about that part, but at least Silver could fix her coat and mane.
The methodic metal bristles of the currycomb through her coat relaxed her muscles. It couldn’t get the grass stains out, but it smoothed out the ruffles and buffed her grey coat to a dull shine. Now the real work began. She fished out the comb for her mane and went to work.
Midway through Silver’s third mane combing, the bathroom door moved.
Silver pricked her ears and watched the mirror.
The door stayed cracked. Two familiar voices whispered on the other side.
“I dunno, Sweetie Belle, it feels like cheating.” Scootaloo’s lack of indoor voice made for terrible whispering.
Silver went back to combing.
“It’s not cheating,” Sweetie whispered back, “it’s strategy.”
“What if she’s pooping? It’s not fair to pounce on somepony who’s pooping.”
“Don’t be silly. Rich ponies don’t poop in public.”
Silver Spoon teased out a knot at the base of her neck. “I can hear you guys, you know.”
A quiet pause. The bathroom door creaked open for Scootaloo’s muzzle to poke in. “You’re right, she’s doing her hair. Three… two…”
Sweetie Belle kicked the door open like the protagonist of a tacky detective paperback and marched up to the sink. “Silver Spoon, we need to talk.” If she didn’t know better, Silver might have expected another fight. Might have, but even in serious-business-mode, Sweetie Belle had all the bluster of a fluffy sparrow.
Silver shook out her mane—nice and lush after exactly seventy-five brushstrokes—and began braiding. “Yes?” With effort, she squashed a brimming smirk. “Well, don’t we look serious today?”
“It’s ‘cause we are.” Scootaloo flanked her from behind, blocking off an easy escape route. “This has gone on for long enough, Silver Spoon.” When Silver only stared back dumbly, the pegasus flared her wings and doubled down. “I get that you’re really mad. If it were me, I’d be mad too, but you can’t keep giving Diamond the cold withers forever. You and her have been best friends ever since you came to Ponyville.” Scootaloo buzzed into the air, hovering over Silver’s shoulders so that she had no choice but to look at her reflection. “We know you’re probably sick of hearing this, since you already heard it from Apple Bloom—”
“—but suck it up, you’re gonna get it from us again, anyway.” Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes, watching Silver finish her braid. “It’s gotta be said, whether you like it or—what happened to your glasses?”
“An accident.” Somewhere in the fray, Silver had lost the coordinating hair tie for the braid. She went with one of her emergency barrettes and turned to face her would-be interrogators. “The problem’s taken care of. Thanks for your concern, but I’m fine.” Silver stepped away from the sink and headed out the door with two-thirds of the Crusaders flanking her like guards.
Squinting in the sunlight, Silver shaded her eyes and searched the playground. A crowd of classmates had gathered around the crate of Project X parts. Something shiny twinkled in the center of them; Di must have started her pep talk already.
Sweetie Belle stalked Silver’s left, swinging her tail low. “Says you.” She puffed herself up, clearing her throat. “I tried to be nice about this, but it seems you give me no choice: Miss Silver, I’m calling in my favor.”
“What? Since when do I owe you a fav—” Silver sighed and shook her head. “Sweetie, I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time for this; I’ve got work to do.” She trotted through the playground, bobbing her head in the direction of the swings. “So do you.”
Scootaloo shadowed Silver’s right shoulder, buzzing like one of those new magical razors. “We’re taking a break to keep you company.”
“Suit yourself.” Silver skimmed along the edge of the crowd, straining her ears. Above her, Featherweight, Rumble, and Cotton Cloudy listened from the schoolhouse roof. Rumble waved at Silver Spoon’s approach, but Silver barely saw him. She steadied her gaze upon the pink hoof gesturing over Snails’ head. “I want to hear this, hold on a second.”
“…remember what this roof looked like a few weeks ago? I do. It had a hole over the chalkboard so big it could fit a whole buffalo through it, with all these grody scorch marks on the sides. It came from one of the magical blasts.” Diamond’s hoof waved along the edge of the roof, measuring out where the hole had been. “I could tell where it came from, because there used to be smaller one just like it in the roof of my house.”
Silver Spoon’s ears pricked high, swiveling and twitching to catch every word. Something about this speech sounded familiar.
“A-hem?” Sweetie Belle punctuated it with a fake cough. “It’s been a second.”
Silver waved her off. “Ten more secs. You made me miss part of it.”
“I never actually saw the flames. I never even saw Tirek, but we know he dropped by, because we saw him and felt him in my house for days. Like, talk about a rude houseguest, right?” The class smiled at Diamond’s little joke. A few even laughed, including Apple Bloom who stood a few feet behind her. “I saw the charred bits of wood that fell in our game room, and the whole wing smelled like smoke forever. I thought I’d never play pinball again.”
Button Mash gasped and put a sympathetic hoof to his cheek.
Sweetie barged into Silver’s line of sight. “No, you used up your sec, and this can’t wait. I’m calling in my favor, and you can’t ignore me. Remember when I helped you get to Twilight’s castle when the bugbear blocked the road? You said you owed me.”
Darn it. She did owe the marshmallow a favor. “I’m listening.” Silver could listen to a lecture and a speech at the same time, sure.
“…but here’s the thing: in the end, it was only a bunch of smoke and burnt hay. That’s all. At first, it seemed totally impossible to fix, like my house could never ever be the same. And know what? It couldn’t. You can’t un-burn a roof, and you can’t un-break a playground. But you know what else? That’s okay. We could still get fresh hay and more wood. It’s not the same roof; it’s an even better roof. It cost a lot of money, too.”
Silver’s mouth fell open. I do know this speech. Somewhere in the background, Sweetie Belle had gone into full lecture mode. Silver didn’t hear a word of it.
“Like, having lots of money helps a filly out in life, sure, but money didn’t stop Tirek from burning the roof in the first place. Money alone can’t get this playground built, either. It needs horsepower for that. It needs us. ALL of us.” Diamond Tiara’s smile cut through the crowd, bright and dazzling and warmer than the sun in summertime. A smile meant for Silver alone, even if nopony but them knew it.
I don’t believe it. I wrote this speech! The very one Silver had written for election day. The one Diamond tore up and threw to the wind. She’d memorized it after all. Memorized it and reworked it so that it worked even better than before. Silver Spoon beamed.
Sweetie Belle took a deep breath and moved into her thesis statement. “It’s down to this: We’re not saying you have to forgive Diamond Tiara right away, but be willing to hear her out, that’s all I’m say—” Sweetie paused. She frowned. “…wait.”
Scootaloo blinked at Silver Spoon’s bright smile. She glanced at Diamond grinning from the throng of encouraged foals. “You guys made up already, didn’t you?”
“We heard each other out,” said Silver Spoon. She adjusted her glasses and turned her ears back to her speech.
“The school board doesn’t think we can build a new playground. Maybe some of you here don’t think so, either.” Diamond’s hoof clacked hard on Project X’s wooden crate. “Well, I’m here to tell you you’re both wrong. You can—no, we can build this. I know a quality investment when I see it, even if you don’t.” She’d even remembered the footnotes.
The speech didn’t have the three-digit price tag of imported teas and a jade teapot from Neighpon. Any smart shopper knew that the most valuable stuff didn’t have price tags at all. “But I think I might be able to do the forgiveness part, too.” Silver glanced back. “Oh, and good job wasting your favor, by the way.”
“What? But that doesn’t count! You—” Sweetie Belle groaned loud enough for a couple foals in the crowd to glare at them. “I spent a whole hour getting that speech ready, you jerk!”
“I told you I had it taken care of,” Silver Spoon said. “It’s not my fault you didn’t want to believe me. I still did what you wanted, I just did it ahead of time.”
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other. Scootaloo shrugged. After a moment, Sweetie did the same and shook her head with a laugh. “Whatever, I’ll take it. Guess we’re even.”
“Good.” Silver nodded with a smile as she threaded into the thick of the crowd. “Now if you don’t mind, I really want to hear the end of this speech.”