Silver Spoon stood there and sighed. Over the past hour or more, she had to stand there in front of a mirror in her parent’s bedroom whilst her mother, Silver Tray, and the maids had spent a long time grooming her. Silver Spoon liked to look good and enjoyed being groomed up to a point, but not this much. First, she had been carefully brushed from her muzzle to her withers and hindquarters, until her grey fur shone softly in the light. Her hair had been put into a plait tied with silver thread. Her hooves had been thoroughly cleaned of any dirt and dust, her horseshoes had been likewise cleaned and painted with silver paint, and her hooves had been painted silver with a harmless and easily removable make-up based paint, as had the silver spoon cutie mark upon her flank. Her teeth had been brushed and cleaned, which she appreciated as it helped to stave off decay, and her mother had looped a pretty pearl necklace around her neck, before kissing her gently on the forehead and telling her, “You’re beautiful.”
“Mother, I know everypony should look good upon their cute-ceanera, but isn’t this rather over the top even for such a party?” Silver Spoon asked politely. “Anypony would think you were getting me ready for my wedding day.”
Her mother replied “Amongst the many family members and friends at your cute-ceanera we have invited the Rich family, and we want you to befriend Diamond Tiara Rich, the daughter of that family. In fact, in the long term, for such a thing cannot be hurried, we want you to do more than befriend her. We want you and her to become friends, then best friends, and then a coupledom. But, and this is very important, you are not to tell anypony, least of all Diamond Tiara, that your parents want you to be together, otherwise if she found out she might be disgusted and want nothing more to do with you. She has to think that it is all coming from you and only you.”
“But mother, I…I like colts. I mean, I like mares as well, but when it comes to romance I want a coltfriend, not a marefriend. Why do you want me and Diamond Tiara to be a romantic couple anyway?”
“It is for the good of the Silver family to be linked with the Rich one. We are one of the oldest and most noble families in all of Equestria and were around when the Princess was young, advising her, normally with good advice. However, the past two centuries have not been kind to the Spoon Family. First, one of our ancestors accidentally gave Princess Celestia bad advice. Very bad advice indeed, that caused the most discord since, well, Discord was free. Very few ponies know the exact details, since Celestia censors the history books, but on the advice of Silver Knife Celestia started a new tax, a poll tax, where everypony would pay five bits a week. For the noble families this was hardly anything at all, for the middle class families it was moderately annoying, but for the poor ponies it was most of their wages going to pay tax.”
“Silver Knife must have thought that there was nothing that the poor ponies could do about it. The next thing he knew, ponies filled Celestia Square to protest, first in their hundreds. When the Royal Guards, who were a bit more warlike in those times, drove them out, they returned in their thousands and then in their tens of thousands and then in their hundreds of thousands and began to chant, “The ponies demand the fall of the regime!” Celestia herself had to go and talk with them. It turned out that they were not against their living goddess, but just against this tax. Celestia had to give way on two counts; the poll tax was abolished and there would be no reprisals legally or otherwise against anypony who took part in the protest. Only then did they leave the square and go back to work. Celestia blamed Silver Knife for the whole fiasco and banished him from the royal court, and our family lost a lot of its influence as a result.”
“Things got a bit later when fifty years later our family was restored to the royal favor, but then Celestia brought in death duties which weakened our family further, and then your father made a few bad financial decisions. Don’t worry, we are not paupers, we still have plenty of bits, but to really prosper we need the help of the powerful Rich family. And that is where you come in. By making Diamond Tiara your marefriend, you can indirectly get her family to help us where a direct request for help would just be refused.”
*****
Several streets away at the Ponyville mansion of the Rich family, Diamond Tiara was filling a little irritated, but held her anger in, for it would not do to start shouting at her own family. In the past hour she had a tooth clean, which at least was useful, a hoof clean until her hooves shone, her hair had been combed with care, her purple coat had been brushed until it shone in the sunlight, and the finest thin silver leaf had been used to make her tiara cutie mark glitter. Filthy Rich and Screwball Rich gazed happily at their daughter. “You look wonderful,” Filthy told her, “and there is a reason why we want you to look so good. Over the past few years I have made a few financial decisions that were…unwise. Don’t worry, the bailiffs are not coming to take all our bits and possessions and throw us out on the street. But for us to regain our old stature, we need to ally ourselves with the powerful and influential Silver family.”
“Why do you need me for that?,” Diamond asked. “I’m not even a fully grown mare yet. How can I help you?”
“The Silver family has a daughter your age called Silver Spoon. We want you to befriend her at her cute-ceanera, after all, friendship is magic. Then we want you to become her very best friend, and then we want you to take things a bit further. We want you to slowly, gently seduce her and become her marefriend. Softly softly catchee pony.Once she loves you, you can loosely influence the Silver family in a way that would not be possible if we asked directly. Of course, we would still have to provide a quid pro quo if we wanted anything major from the Spoons, but with you on the inside it'll be a lot easier. Of course, she must not know, nopony should know, that we, your family, put you up to this. If the Spoons found out our plan to gain influence with them through their darling daughter would be in tatters. Silver Spoon has to think that you are with her because you want to, not because your family want you to be with her."
Unlike Silver Spoon, Diamond had in the past had crushes on both colts and fillies. None were really serious, she had been too young for that until now. All the same, she was worried, and it showed in her eyes. "What if she does not like me? What if she just likes colts, not fillies? Does she like the same sort of things that I do?"
"Of course she likes the same things you do, we would not try to match you up if there was no hope of success. And if there was even a chance that she would fall for any filly, it would be you. You are of her class, beautiful, and intelligent too. Remember, take it slow. You have to walk before you can gallop; in the same way she must be your friend before she can be your marefriend.Let's go, the cute-ceanera of Silver Spoon awaits."