I-solation

by Lapis-Lazuli and Stitch

Day 5

I-solation

Day 5

Last night was different for me. I didn’t let Magic talk. She would start to try to go off on some story, I could tell in her tone, which meant she would stop eating. That bothered me for some reason, though now that I think about it, it was probably from me being so hungry I couldn’t understand why somepony wouldn’t want to eat. After she tried to start I think around five times, I ended up just telling her to shut up and eat. And instead of frowning and huffing at me like most ponies back home do when I give them my good opinion of whatever it is they’re doing, she just smiled, laughed, and ate. When we finished, she told me she’d had a good time meeting me (I don’t know how since all we did was slurp up hot soup) and that she’d be back to get me back on my hooves the next morning. Part of me wanted to protest how stupid that idea was since I hurt all over, but I only ended up being able to move my mouth up and down wordlessly before she pushed the cart out and closed the door. I think I may have squeaked something after she was gone, but I don’t remember.

So when I wake up this morning, I can’t understand why I feel… excited is the only word I can come up with. I’m excited to see her again. I reason it’s just having somepony around whose name I know, and who seems to care about my well-being at least a little bit. I can tell it’s early from how quiet and still everything seems around my bed, and when I look out the window, I’m glad to see the skies are very, very blue. I want to lean up to get out of bed, but I catch myself just as my forehooves are beginning to push against the mattress. I ease myself down again, grateful I caught myself. The last thing I want is to start my morning with is a searing pain on my butt. On the plus side though, my face doesn’t feel as big and puffy and isn’t so sensitive to me touching it with a hoof. And I can open both eyes now.

It’s not long after I’m fully awake and feel like I’ve been waiting for several long minutes that I hear some bustle below me. Creaking wood and clattering hooves is the most prominent for a few seconds, but the loud shouting of colts takes over pretty quickly. And once they’re noisiness gets so loud I can almost make out some of the language they’re using with each other through the floor, more and more voices and sounds join them until it almost sounds like the rain yesterday. Except it’s inside the building instead of out, and I have a gut wrenching feeling I’m about and expected to be drenched in it.

And sure enough, my eyes have just locked onto my door in dread of hundreds of annoying colts bursting through when the door flies open and it’s… only Magic. I don’t even bother looking further, just letting out a sigh and leaning my head back onto the pillow. I’m safe for the moment. Really safe from my own brain more than the noisy ponies in the building. I must have been delirious last night, because I can’t remember the exact way I was thinking about my tiara or Daddy or much of anything for that matter. But it did something whatever it was. I just feel this numbing cold deep in my chest and a constricting tightness up near my throat. I push it away. It’s better than crying and screaming (I’m sure I ended up doing those two last night, a lot actually) but something about it makes me feel worse inside.

“Good morning, newcomer!” Magic squeals, and even though she’s only in the doorway, it feels like she’s right at my ear. But even if I moan and do what I can to roll my head under the pillow so I don’t have to get my ears looked at by a doctor later, Magic definitely keeps me from thinking about what’s going to happen to me. “Oh, that’s a good sign!” she continues on, and I can hear her trot over to my bedside. “Miss Veny always says that not wanting to get out of bed is a sure sign that you should get out of bed.”

“I’m hurt,” I say, and even to me it sounds muffled by the mattress. For good measure, I add, “And everypony out there sounds crazy.”

“Nah,” Magic blows off my comment, and I can imagine her waving a hoof. “We’re all just ready for breakfast! C’mon! You’ve gotta get up an’ move around at some point, so give it a shot.” I lie there for a while, unmoving. Unlike yesterday, I actually feel like I’ve got the energy to move around and walk, but I still don’t want to talk much. If I’m honest with myself, I just want to be around somepony else so I can watch and be occupied by them instead of myself.

“It’ll be too painful,” I mutter, which seems a weaker excuse than it was yesterday for some reason I can’t explain.

“Um, yeah, it’ll hurt,” Magic says to me with frank touch to her voice. “But not soooo bad you won’t be able to get up. Miss Veny even said it’ll be good for you.”

“How does she know?” I ask, my voice clearing up but still breaking some. I swallow several times to try to keep it from doing it again.

“Nopony knows, actually,” she replies with an airy, curious note. “But she’s never given us bad advice before. Hey, I know! How ‘bout I help you get stood up, and you can take it from there?” Again, I don’t say anything at first. Usually I’m able to make decisions on what I want faster than anypony I know, but nothing seems to want to make a decision inside my head.

“Fine,” I say and throw the pillow off onto the foot of the mattress. When I look at Magic, she’s absolutely ridiculous. Her orange mane is styled into a spiked mohawk like the kind I see the colts in Ponyville do sometimes when there’s a music group in town, but she’s still wearing fuzzy black pajamas. Or a bathrobe. I can’t tell.

“Try to sit up like you did for supper last night,” she tells me. “You should at least see if it’s better or worse.” I can’t deny a test would be smart, but when I throw the sheets back, a small yelp escapes my throat, and I grab them back up around me. The whole room is freezing cold, like there’s ice all around it. At least that explains Magic wearing the pajama things. “Here,” she says, and she peels the robe off while holding back giggles. “It takes a while for the whole place to warm up, so you should wear this ‘til we go down a couple floors.”

I take it from her outstretched hoof, and she’s been wearing it for a while already judging by how warm it is. But, I’ll have to sit up to put it on and remembering how badly my flank hurt last night, I’m hesitant to just go for it. “Stop bein’ a wuss,” Magic says to me, impatiently offering a hoof out for me to grab onto. “I’ll catch you if you fall, but you’ve got to do this yourself, newcomer.”

“You know, we have crutches and braces for this sort of thing - Ow!” I grunt through the shout as I pull myself upright. I squint my eyes tight as the fire lashes up my thighs, but I don’t let go of Magic’s hoof. Keeping my eyes shut, I end up gritting my teeth together as I ease myself down onto all fours. When I do let go and my weight settles on my hindlegs, it’s like they’re tensed up and unable to relax. I wince some as I try to move them, but it looks like Magic was right. It hurts less than I thought, and even though I’ll end walking around more slowly than some old geezer, I will be able to at least walk.

“We good?” Magic asks after I’ve stopped easing my hind legs into a stretch and throw the fuzzy robe on. It feels nice with how cold the room is, but it’s thinner in some parts than others. It’s definitely past it’s prime. I nod to her, and to my surprise, she doesn’t take off and wait for me to catch up. We walk out of the room at the same, slow pace, and the more I move my hindlegs, the easier it is to know how far I can move them before it hurts. Magic takes the lead, showing me down staircases and hallways so narrow, for a moment I wonder if the place used to be a haunted house attraction for Nightmare Night. Except for the floor, ceiling, and walls, I don’t see any matching parts. Every doorknob and candleholder come from a different set, and the pictures hanging around the place go from being worthless scraps of paper with crayon marks from a foal to what look like museum quality pieces of real art.

“So… this is where we eat our meals!” Magic declares grandly before throwing open a door after we’ve gotten onto what I think is the ground level. The wave of smells and noises inside bombard me with their suddenness and strength, so much so that I blink and shake my head to acclimate to them. The room is about as big as my bedroom back home, but this one is made of solid brick walls. There are two, party-length picnic table shoved in on either side, and they are filled with stallions and mares my age down to foals who look like they can barely speak. Both tables are centers of excited yelling and talking over a variety of different bowls and mugs. Whatever is in the bowls must have come from the massive black cauldron in the middle of the back wall. There’s a stallion stirring the biggest wood spoon I’ve ever seen with his magic, and the smell of warm oatmeal is rising from the pot with a little bit of steam. Obviously I can’t hear them over the din all the others are making, but the stallion and Miss Veny are talking to one another.

“Hey ya louts!” Magic roars out to the crowd of ponies, and I cover my ear nearest to her. I didn’t think it was possible for her voice to get any louder. I’m not sure if her yell was really louder than the chattering of everypony in the dining room, or if they heard something that sounded like her and took notice, but the result’s the same. Each and every one of them quiet down and turn to look at her. Then at me. I normally love it when ponies give me their visual attention, but this feels just wrong. They’re not admiring me (I know I look like an unloved rag doll), but instead, they’re ogling me.

“Let me get a good ol’ House of Pain cheer for the new girl!” Magic eggs them on, but I only faintly register what she says. I’m trying not to look at any one of the ponies staring at me for too long, but my eyes keep catching on little things that are making my skin itch under my fur. At least five are blind, some of the pegasi are missing a wing, most of the older ones have several ugly scars across their faces and necks. Others just look plain grungy.

“What’s ‘er name Gale?” one of the stallions who is probably several years older than me calls out.

“She hadn’t said, Millet,” Magic answers him. “Doesn’t like talkin’ much. So -”

“I’m -” I say, but stop and stutter unintelligibly when every head turns in my direction. This is all I have left now. My name. And I almost just threw it out there.

“Spit it out there filly!” the stallion Magic called Millet calls out. “We ain’t mind readers here, and it ain’t like you’re the princess or somethin’. Besides, we gotta know what ta call ya so we can give ya good nicknames! Right boys!” The vast majority of the colts and other young stallions whoop and holler in reply, and I swallow hard. They’re right in a way, but I don’t want to tell them who I am. I’m not just some other poor, street filly.

Except you are now, a little voice whispers in my head.

And mercifully, before it can stab at my head any more, Magic murmurs in my ear, “You can tell just me if you don’t wanna tell all of them yourself.” I turn to look at her, and she’s got an encouraging smile for me.

I lean over to her ear, and I swallow hard for the third time already this morning, and whisper, “Diamond… My name… I’m Diamond Tiara.” I feel stupid now. It wasn’t hard, and the way Magic grins in response brings out my own small smile.

“Fancy schmancy!” Magic cat-calls to the others. “This here’s Diamond Tiara, fillies! Now let me get that cheer!”

“WELCOME HOME, DIAMOND TIARA!” the small crowd belts out in their loudest voices. I start to protest to Magic. To tell her that I’m not like the rest of them. That I’m just lost and trying to get back home, but she grabs me by the hoof and leads me inside while everypony on either side of us stamps and whoops… for me.

“Morning Bowlful. Morning Miss Veny,” she says to the stallion at the cauldron and, obviously, Miss Veny.

Bowlful just grunts at both of us and goes back to concentrating on stirring the oversized pot. Miss Veny, on the other hoof, gives us both warm smiles. Her mane is soft looking, but pretty curly, and it reminds me a lot of the Mayor’s back home, just brown instead of gray. She levitates two bowls to us, and says to me, “Good Morning Diamond Tiara. How does everything feel?”

“I’m sore. A lot,” I manage to say. “I couldn’t get out of bed on my own.”

“But you’re walking, so we’ll thank Celestia for that and be sure to make sure you stay that way,” she replies. “Now go ahead and eat before you get cleaned up.” She ushers me along to the base of the cauldron and Magic follows with a little prance in her step.

“You hold the bowl up like this so Bowlful doesn’t slosh any on you,” she smirks up at the stallion while extending her foreleg out high and long. A plop of steaming oatmeal falls into it a moment later, and she moves aside to give me room. I’m uneasy about this, but I hold out the bowl like she showed me and wait for Bowlful to drop the ladle of oatmeal into it. It seems to take forever for the glob of the stuff to fall, but for all the preparation in my head, I still squeak and yank my bowl away just as it gets close. Half of it smacks into the bowl and the other half runs down the side like glue.

There seems to be a reigning silence in the room, but before I can begin to panic, another massive hollering cheer flies up from the crowd. “SHE CAUGHT HALF! FIRST TIME!” the voice of Millet roars over the others as they descend into laughing. “C’MON GREENS! COUGH UP!” Heartier laughing follows, and when I turn around, no end of trinkets and candies (I swear I see a whole cupcake at one point) are flying up and down the table from pony to pony.

“You just made a whole buncha days there! Mine included,” Magic says and wraps me around the neck to lead me over to where some of the fillies and colts have already cleared a spot for the two of us. I sit down with her, unable to stop wincing at the pain of sitting compared to walking. When I open my eyes again after blinking away the rise in the sore feeling, a gold coin thinner but wider than a bit is rolling down the table until Magic stops it with her hoof. “Check it fillies! Don’t bet so high when you’re dealin’ with me! Don’t wanna lose anymore griffon ingots! Hahaha!”

“You… I was bet on?” I ask her in disbelief.

“Oh yeah,” she says through a mouthful of oatmeal. “ ‘e alvays ‘et on ‘e noo’s.” I’m not sure exactly what to think about that, especially since Daddy has always had such a strong opinion on gambling. So I just decide to enjoy the oatmeal and the orange juice (which doesn’t take long to make it’s way up and down the table several times). Not once does the volume go down in the dining room, at either table. Most of the time, they’re actually yelling and threatening each other, but always with smiles on their faces. Magic joins in at every opportunity, and I have to duck down several times when bouncy balls end up being hurled back and forth between her and somepony else. None of the ponies bother me much despite how uncouth and rowdy they all are, which is a nice surprise, I’ll admit. I wouldn’t be able to be heard over all of them anyway.

But something happens that I don’t hear, because even faster than they did when Magic yelled at them, the entire dining hall goes silent and the random bits of junk and half-valuables stop flying through the air. I lean up to see past the others all turned toward the center of the room, and Miss Veny is just standing there. “Everypony,” she says, and while her voice is still as nice as I remember Momma’s being, there’s a level of command too that I can only compare to the princesses. “It’s Thursday, so we all know what that means.”

“Cleaning day, Miss Veny,” everypony echoes her back, obviously unhappy. And I can’t say I blame them. Don’t big places like this have servants for things like that while the younger ponies go to school?

“I’m going to be making the rounds, like always,” Miss Veny says, “but I’ll also be showing around our newest housemate, Diamond Tiara. Don’t think you can get out of a job well done just because I’m doing two things at once. Magic will be with me to catch anything I miss. Now. Get those brooms and get to work.” The whole room erupts into shuffling bodies as everypony slips off the benches with their bowls in hoof. Four lines form just like they would at school back home, and before long, I’m dropping my bowl into a sink in a back corner where five colts are already rinsing, scrubbing, and drying them.

“Righto, thisaway, Diamond,” Magic tells me when we’ve deposited our bolls. I follow her to where Miss Veny is still standing in the center of the room. Everypony is grabbing a broom or duster or cart of some kind and conversations are starting to pick back up. I guess this is probably what the servants’ ready room looks like in the morning at my house, but I can’t be sure since I’ve never even had an inclination to go down there. “Ready to get a move on, Miss Veny?” Magic asks her, as chipper as always and now flipping the griffon coin with one hoof.

“Well, do you have any questions first, Diamond?” she asks me.

A million different ones spring to mind, but the one I still can’t quite figure out and that I think is simple enough, is, “Where am I, really?”

“This is the Baltimare Charity Home,” Miss Veny answers smoothly. “I founded and run it to take little ones like you and Magic off the streets.”

“House of Pain,” Magic quips and does a longer flip with her new coin.

“Anyway…” Miss Veny continues on with an amused smile at Magic, “that’s what we do. Anything else?”

“I’m not an orphan, or disabled, or poor. I know I don’t look it, but nopony believes that I’m a royal mare. Please believe me!” I say. I guess it’s how much she reminds me of Momma, but it all just spills out right there. “I’m trying to get back home.”

“We can walk and talk,” Miss Veny tells me. “I just want to show you the rooms and such. Showers too. You look like your fur would thank you for one.” My heart starts beating faster as me and Magic fall in step beside Miss Veny while she starts out into the halls and peeking into each of the rooms. Is she going to ignore me like everypony else? Should I run now? Daddy definitely wouldn’t think to look for me here of all places. I really should run, but she starts talking again, and her words keep me following for some reason. “Sweetie, if any royals had gone missing, I would know.”

“How?” I ask.

“Here, let me break it to ya hard, Diamond. We always check missing ponies lists when we find somepony on the street,” Magic says with a blunt hardness that’s weird coming from her squeaky voice. “Your cutie mark wann’t anywhere on any of ‘em.”

“But… no…” I whisper, and my legs stop working. I’m standing in the middle of the hallway and nothing wants to work. “Daddy wouldn’t… Momma… loves me… I’m…” My brain’s all mush like the oatmeal I just ate.

“Diamond,” I hear Miss Veny say, but I jump in place when her hoof rests on my head. “I’d know if a royal foal went missing because I’m from Upper Canterlot. I have friends there.”

“Then you should… Wait, you’re royalty?” I gawk at her. For a moment, that impossibility alone drags me away from the idea that Daddy really did just leave me behind, but it’s only for a moment. “Ponies with class don’t just dump their foals! It’s not like we’re poor and think our foals are worthless! Daddy wouldn’t abandon me!” I fall back on my flank, and at this point I can’t feel much of anything. I think Magic hisses something, because before I know it, I’m alone in the hallway with Miss Veny sitting beside me.

“Dear,” she says in the softest voice I’ve ever heard. “You know, being part of royalty doesn’t mean anything. Anypony can be anything, no matter where or to whom they’re born. And that means the good and the bad. That’s why I left and came here.” I’m listening to her, but I have a feeling it’s not going to mean anything for a while. Daddy left me. He’s not coming for me on the fastest train from Ponyville. I lean over and bury my face in Miss Veny’s side and cry. Really cry. I’m pretty sure I’m loud and making somepony else somewhere uncomfortable, but these aren’t tears I can control. I have to let them come and all the hiccuping and sharp breathing that goes with them. At some point my hooves are gripping on her fur too, and she’s patting me on the back.

“But Diamond, rich or poor, good or bad, royal or common,” Miss Veny whispers for me, resting her hoof in my mane and stroking it like Momma used to, “we’re all a somepony on the inside. It’s just, that somepony is who we and we alone make her outside of what we’re born as. And here, we all take care of each other’s inside someponies. Don’t you ever doubt that. Come on, let’s get you to a proper room and get those tears dried up.” She stands up, and the way I’m holding onto her as tight as I can, I’m forced onto my hooves as well. I guess she might be right. Being royalty must not matter all that much, since Daddy threw some away…

Comments

[Silver Thread]

You look your fur would thank you for one.

you look like*

[Inky Jay]

4031636
Fixed and thank you.

[TheOneAJ]

Good, no, great, some, but not a lot of grammar problems. However, my biggest nit picks are, one, cut the paragraphs in half, and unless you don't give a dam and are willing to put a chapter out, every single day, be aware of complaints if you miss a day.

[ferret]

"My daughter? The one who attends school every day has been absent? The very foals she torments are starting to get worried about her? Oh that's because I left her in Baltimare three weeks ago. What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"