//------------------------------// // A Pony in Costume // Story: Diamond Tiara and the Hand of Phoe // by Mudpony //------------------------------// Applejack's hoof came down on Diamond Tiara's shoulder, turning the shocked filly around. "And why the hay were you lookin' for Apple Bloom?" "Um, no reason. We were just playing a game is all." Diamond Tiara grinned, sheepishly. Experience had taught her that lying with a cute expression tended to work better than the truth, especially when the truth was that Applejack's darling little sister was in fact a no-good menace to society.. "And so you just barge into mah house and wake up Twilight?" "But at least I didn't wake your grandmother," Diamond Tiara helpfully pointed out. "It's alright, Applejack," Twilight said, stifling a yawn. "I need to start getting dressed for the costume ball anyway." She paused for several seconds. "Actually, I'm surprised Rarity isn't here yet. She was going to help me put on this dress she designed. I don't think I've ever seen a costume with so many pieces, but she assured me it would look absolutely fabulous." "Oh, um, she might be a bit busy at the museum," Diamond Tiara said. The two older ponies cast inquiring looks in her direction, so she continued. "Her cat got in there somehow and might have broken some stuff." She quickly moved one scratched foreleg behind the other. "That's what I heard happened, anyway." Twilight's legs shot out, grasping Diamond Tiara around the shoulders and pulling her face close to Twilight's. "The Llamtec Exhibit? Was anything important damaged?" Diamond recalled the scene. The pieces of pottery scattered across the floor. The torn pieces of cloth. The delicate piece of jewelry that had wound up flattened under the hooves of a panicked mare. All the work of a civilization long lost in the annals of time. "I don't think so," she said, shaking her head. The pottery's paint had faded after all, the cloth was like way old, and the jewelry was totally not in style. "Nope. Nothing important." She paused. "That I heard of. Because I wasn't involved." She shifted her face to her best helpful yet innocent smile, adding a few cute blinks for good measure. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the filly. Turning to Applejack, she said, "Well, I guess we'll have to make due without her. I don't suppose that you could..." She tilted her head toward where her costume for the night's ball was laid out carefully on a chair. "Help you put that contraption on?" Applejack looked at the pile, then shrugged. "Ah reckon Ah can. Can't be too hard now, can it?" "I fear she might have gone a bit overboard in her excitement at making a costume fit for a princess," Twilight said. "So many different pieces." Applejack chuckled. "That's our Rarity." She walked over to the chair and picked up the piece on top, looking it over. "This, um, must go..." She held it up, trying to match it to part of Twilight, then flipped it over and tried again. "Right hind leg?" she said. "Maybe?" She carried it over to Twilight and put the piece in place. Twilight winced as Applejack tightened the laces. "Is it... supposed to... be that tight?" Twilight asked, between Applejack's tugs on the laces. Diamond Tiara snickered. "Of course not. She's got it on the wrong leg." Applejack scowled at the filly, but undid what she had just done and tried it on the other leg. "Wrong again," Diamond Tiara said. "You got it upside down now." "Ah'll have you know I wore something sort of like this when Ah lived in Manehatten." She looked over at the pile. "Well, maybe not quite so fancy." She shrugged. "But Ah know up from down and Ah reckon Ah can figure it out without the help of some snooty little filly. And speakin' of that, why are you still here? Shouldn't you be skedaddling on home?" "I can't." "You can't?" Applejack raised one eyebrow. "Well, see..." Diamond Tiara struggled to think of a way she could explain that something had made her come here and would not let her leave. A way that would not make her sound crazy. "Well, just watch..." She took a step out the room, then another. Nothing abnormal happened. "Hey, it's working! I can walk!" she exclaimed with glee. She continued to move, one hoof in front of the other, her eyes watching every step while her smile grew bigger with each one. Behind her she could hear Applejack comment. "That filly ain't right in the head." "You aren't right in the head," Diamond Tiara said softly to herself. But she couldn't stay angry right now. She was free to move as she wanted to again. With that, she broke into a gallop, looking forward to leaving the farm behind. She had to find Silver Spoon and apologize for running out like that. But first she had to figure out why the world was suddenly moving like she was spinning head over heels. With a loud oomph, she collided with the ground. "Oh, come on!" She glared at her legs, which had once again betrayed her. "Now you stop me? Couldn't you have done it inside? And when I wasn't running?" Diamond Tiara looked around for the source of the voice but saw nopony. "Don't suppose it was you?" she asked a bird sitting on a nearby tree. "No, of course not." She kicked a rock. "Great. Just great. First my legs don't work right, then I'm talking to myself, and now I'm hearing things!" "And the crazy voice rhymes. Of course it rhymes. I'm going insane. Applejack is right. I'm not right in the head. They're going to lock me up and I'll sit in a padded room all day talking to myself." She could see it already. She would be sitting there in one of them jackets, a trickle of drool hanging from one side of her mouth, thanks to the meds they would have her on. Silver Spoon would visit her and tell her what was happening beyond the walls. And the whole time, Diamond would be on the verge of breaking out into hysterical laughter, not sure if Sil was actually there or if it was all just in her head. "That'll be me! Insane in the membrane. One day she just snapped, they'll say. My glorious life. This is so not fair." "What? I'm supposed to go be Celestia's new student? But then why make me come here? And what are you anyway?" Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she realized. "You're the paw thing. And you want me to be to study with the crazy library lady?" "Hand, paw, whatever. Can't even— Wait a second. That didn't rhyme!" The voice did not answer. Diamond Tiara stumbled back to her feet, taking a moment to brush off the dust. With care, she picked up her tiara, inspecting it for damage. For once, something went right today and it was fine. She wondered if the absence of wrong even qualified as right, but shrugged it off. Today it most certainly did. Carefully, she placed it back on her head. "Okay, Oh Most Worthless Artefact ever. Ye who can't just make things happen, poof, like that. Who tortures those unlucky enough to ask it for help. I'll do what you want, because it isn't like you're giving me any choice." She wiped a smudge of dirt she'd missed earlier off her coat and growled. She reared up and shook a hoof at the sky. "Is this how you get your jollies? Making innocent fillies do things just so that they can become a princess?" She stopped, dropping back down to all fours, her eyes wide open. "I'm going to be a princess," she whispered to herself. "A princess!" She squealed with glee, bouncing around a circle. "Princess princess princess! "Get control of yourself, Diamond. Be calm. Be in control," she told herself. She began counting, doing her best to slow her breathing. "Okay, here we go." She slipped back into the house, tip-hoofing past the still sleeping Granny Smith, and up to the door. She cautiously peeked inside the room, nearly falling over while trying to restrain her laughter at the sight. Pieces were on the wrong limbs, inside out, upside down, and in some cases, all three. It looked almost as bad as the time the blank flanks had decided to try their hooves at dressmaking. "Maybe you'd better let me help?" she asked. Applejack looked at her work and frowned, while Twilight took advantage of the opportunity to check herself out in a mirror. "I'm sorry, AJ, but maybe it might be a good idea if she helped a little?" Before Applejack could respond, Diamond Tiara spoke up. "Not so fast. I'll help, but only if you agree to take me on as your personal student. Your... that fancy word the mayor said? Protage?" "Protégé?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "That's the word! Protégé." Applejack glared at the little filly. "A pony could use your help and you hold it for ransom? You cold-hearted, little—" "My dad always says to negotiate from a position of strength," Diamond Tiara said, giving a curt nod. With a wicked smile, she went in for the kill. "Unless the princess wants to be... late? Applejack took a step toward the filly. "Why I oughta have a—" "It's alright, Applejack," Twilight Sparkle said, looking into the mirror with a sigh. "I think she's got me over the proverbial barrel. Besides, with Spike in Canterlot helping Princess Celestia with the delegation from the Union of Democratic Dragon Republics, I could use a helping hoof." "Ah could help," Applejack volunteered. "For the whole week? You've got a farm to run. And our other friends are busy as well. Rarity's got to catch up on the orders she put off to make this dress. Dash has to manage to weather. Fluttershy the bird choir and her animals. And I think Pinkie has two dozen parties planned." "Well, maybe Apple Bloom and her friends?" Applejack held up a hoof to stop the reply before it came. "Okay, okay. That would probably wind up creating more work." She lifted the hat off her head and brushed her mane with her other hoof. "Fine. But Ah don't like how this went down. This ain't the proper pony way to do things." "Me either, but one thing I've learned from Celestia is that sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation." Twilight turned her head toward the filly. "Alright, Diamond Tiara. I'll accept your offer," Twilight Sparkle said, causing the filly to bounce into the air repeatedly, "but on two conditions. First, you'll be working for me, so you'll do what I say. And there's going to be plenty to do, so expect to be busy. And second, this is only until Spike comes back. Then, we'll see where we stand. Okay?" Diamond Tiara stopped bouncing and frowned. A trial basis? The librarian princess wanted to put her on a trial basis? She almost rejected it just at the indignity. She was Diamond Tiara! But then she shrugged. There was no way it wouldn't continue. Not with all her style, grace, and keen diplomatic skills. Not to mention, she had the hand-paw thing backing her up, although that particular thought worried her more than it comforted her. Well, whatever. She would pass this test with ease. No doubt by the time Spike returned, Twilight would be ready to ship him off to the dragon orphanage or a zoo or wherever unwanted dragons went. She turned her gaze to meet Twilight Sparkle's and extended her hoof toward the princess. "Deal! You just wait and see! I'll be the best princess protégé you ever had." She liked the sound of that, actually, repeating it in her head, while she shook hooves with Twilight. Diamond Tiara, Princess Protégé. And later, Princess Diamond. Princess Diamond of Equestria. No, she would definitely have to found her own kingdom. Princess Diamond of Dazzlandia. Yes, that would be it. With a giant castle, studded with diamonds and surrounded by statues of her, gifts from her grateful subjects. Applejack cleared her throat, breaking Diamond from her daydream. "The dress?" "Huh? Oh, yeah, the dress!" The filly released Twilight's hoof and launched herself at the alicorn, babbling instructions and comments, as well as a few criticisms of the design, working quickly to undo the tangled disaster Applejack had created. Doing her best to avoid the flying clothes, Applejack fled the room, before Diamond Tiara could start issuing her orders like she was doing to Twilight. Besides, she had a dress of her own she needed to get into anyway, though thankfully one that was not nearly as elaborate. Twilight Sparkle, now properly adorned in the overly fancy getup, shook her head in amused disbelief of the little filly proudly prancing ahead of her, and frowned a bit at Diamond Tiara loudly announcing that a princess was coming through and for other ponies to get out of the way. She turned her head toward Applejack. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Applejack snorted. "And Ah'll be sure to tell you Ah told you so when it happens."