Divertissement (Revised)
Diamond woke up late, having forgotten to set her alarm clock the previous evening, and practically fell out of bed in her haste to get ready. The only reason she was awake at all was down to her father, whose hard knocks on her door had shocked her into this sudden movement.
She didn’t need to look at the clock to know that she was late; her room was much too bright: the light entering it was nearer to the intensity of the midday sun than the muted early-morning glow she was used to.
Against her better judgement, she looked at her clock and was jolted yet further awake by what she saw upon its battered time-worn face: half past ten. Her friends would be arriving in thirty minutes – less than that, now – and she had only just gotten out of bed.
Panic turbocharging her every movement, Diamond scampered across her bedroom’s lushly carpeted floor and yanked the door open wide. Running downstairs as fast as her hooves could safely carry her, she hurriedly made her way to the kitchen; dashing past her father’s chef in wordless dismissal of his offered services on a flight path for the cupboards.
Bowl. Spoon. Cereal. Milk. Diamond placed the gathered items precariously balanced on her back and skittered across the tiles back to the dining table, immediately setting to work on preparing her breakfast for immediate, swift and efficient consumption.
Her father, coming downstairs at a far more relaxed pace, scolded her on her incredibly unladylike table manners and reminded her of the existence of indigestion. She ignored his first point, and whilst she supposed his second point was valid, that particular detail would be future Diamond’s problem.
As soon as the bowl was empty of cereal, she shot off upstairs to the bathroom to make herself ready. The clock she passed on the way up read ten-fifty-three: it would be a tight squeeze, but she might just-
Knock… Knock… Knock… “Crap!”
That piece of wishful thinking abandoned, she carried on into the bathroom in the faint hope that she’d be somewhat presentable by the time her father let her friends in. No such luck: as she raised her toothbrush to her teeth, the unmistakeable, exuberant chirping of Dinky echoed its way upstairs and Diamond sighed in resignation.
Hoping that if she ignored her, the filly would not find her so quickly, she commenced brushing her teeth: to her surprise she actually finished brushing and was able to comb her mane into something somewhat presentable by the time Dinky actually caught up with her.
The reason for this serendipitous reprieve was evident the moment Diamond turned to face Dinky: standing outside patiently, rolling her eyes at the unicorn filly’s disregard for personal space, was Auburn.
“Hey, Diamond!” cheered Dinky, either unaware of or unconcerned by the fact that Diamond had been awake less than half an hour. Sighing in regret at the sorry state of her usually perfectly-styled mane, Diamond nonetheless greeted her with a genuine smile.
“Morning, Dinky…” Diamond said, before turning to her other guest, “Hello, Auburn.”
“Hey, Diamond-“ the taciturn pegasus answered, looking curiously at her face, “-You not been up long?”
“Not even half an hour… I forgot to set my alarm” Diamond grinned sheepishly.
Auburn winced appreciatively; “Ouch – So that’s why you looked overwhelmed when Dinky came in – I wouldn’t want to deal with her that early in my day, either. Way too much excitement, way too early.”
“I am still here, you know,” Dinky pointed out, feigning hurt but grinning smugly in such a way as to sabotage the whole effort. She moved backwards out of the bathroom to allow Diamond to leave her impromptu prison, and together the trio made their way downstairs to the ground floor.
Noticing Diamond’s confused gaze as the filly surveyed the room below, Auburn answered her unspoken question.
“Copper had to go back for something – she’ll be along in a minute.” After a moment, she added: “Whilst we’re waiting for her, what’s the plan for today?”
“Uh…” Diamond began, not having thought that far ahead the last night and being too groggy to think this morning. Luckily – or unluckily, depending on whose luck you’re asking about – Dinky had an idea, which she suggested with a cheerfulness and vigour that made it nigh-impossible to refuse.
“I know! Why don’t you give us a tour of your house?”
The level of exuberance contained within that simple question was too much for the barely-conscious Diamond Tiara, and she sighed in grim acceptance of her fate as she answered.
“Alright, Dinky. I’ll show you all around... I didn’t get my mark for being a tour guide, though, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
She had hoped that this would put a temporary end to Dinky’s cheerful ramblings, but it merely seemed to excite the filly further; a development which made Diamond want more than ever to simply return to her bed and the blissful silence of sleep. Fortunately, Copperwing arrived at the door before Diamond could completely lose her mind, carrying a set of paints under each wing and clutching a packet of paintbrushes in her teeth. She set these down on top of the shelves in the short hallway and hurried to meet the others.
“Sorry I’m late; I thought you might want to borrow my paints to decorate your figures, so I went back for them.”
Diamond smiled gratefully at her explanation, and the apologetic expression fell off of Copperwing’s face as the earth filly replied:
“Thanks, Copperwing – I don’t actually have any paints, so that’s going to make personalising the figurines a whole lot easier.”
Gesturing to the room behind her, Diamond added: “Oh, by the way, Dinky’s managed to con me into giving you all a tour of my house - interested?”
“Sure,” nodded Copperwing, and Diamond turned away to begin the tour.
*
“This-“ Diamond began, waving a hoof half-heartedly at the room beyond the short entrance hallway, “-is the dining room. We eat all our meals in here, and through that door over there is the kitchen, where our cook works.”
It was a large, spacious room, wallpapered in delicate pink with gold detailing and at night would be well lit by the twin crystal chandeliers which hung from its ceiling. A large polished oak table dominated the room’s centre, surrounded by a multitude of masterfully crafted wooden chairs, whilst a set of wide, softly carpeted stairs rose up on the left to provide the other main feature in the otherwise rather sparse room.
Her three companions looked around the room, faces full of many different emotions as they surveyed their surroundings. Dinky’s mouth hung open in an absurdly cartoonlike ‘o’, somewhat astonished by the sights now that she had actually taken a moment to look at them, rather than rush past on an intercept course as she had done earlier.
Auburn looked thoughtful as she slowly ran her gaze over the sights presented to her, humming her appreciation of the tastefully restrained décor. Whilst it certainly wasn’t wanting for luxurious features, it didn’t flaunt them like you’d expect in a rich family’s home, and instead let the room’s contents speak for themselves: she had to admit the approach worked really well.
Copperwing, on the other hand, was feeling around herself with her sensitive wingtips as she stared up at the chandeliers, attempting to discern their maker from their exquisite features. She’d always had a thing for the Crystal Empire – first fuelled by the tales of its banishment by Sombra and its prophesised reappearance; and in the last few years by the returned kingdom’s unique culture – and this was most definitely a fine piece of Crystal Empire craftwork.
As Diamond led them further into the room, a series of paintings along the far wall became more visible, as did the small selection of framed photographs sitting on the top of an old, expensive looking grand piano: these new sights drew their attention away from the rest of the room, even Copperwing took her eyes of the chandeliers for a moment.
Some of the pieces were clearly there just because they were nice to look at, but a small number of gold-framed paintings depicted similarly brown-and-black-coloured ponies to Filthy Rich: the three visitors assumed they were relatives of his, some of them clearly from centuries prior judging by their clothing and the darkening of the paints.
One portrait, however, did not fit this trend. A plump, magenta-maned mare grinned out from the canvas, her pink coat crinkling with joy around her soft turquoise eyes. Not one of these colours matched Filthy Rich’s own, but the mare’s mane was only a few shades darker than Diamond’s; her eye colour was a darker, greener variety of the filly’s own, and her coat, whilst not as pale as Diamond's, was similarly pink in hue.
Auburn, respecting Diamond’s privacy, refrained from prying for information – not that she really needed to be told to know who this mare was – but Dinky’s mouth, racing as ever several minutes ahead of her ability to think rationally, opened... and out tumbled the question.
“Who’s that in the painting?” asked Dinky, clapping a hoof over her mouth a moment too late to stop the words’ escape: Copperwing cringed visibly at this, and all eyes fixed to Diamond Tiara in waiting for the answer. Though they'd half-expected her to be angry, the fire did not come: instead, Diamond merely looked sadly at her friends and answered in a small, fragile voice.
“She was my mother… I hardly remember her; she died a long time ago. ‘Complications in childbirth’ is what the medical records say…”
She said all this matter-of-factly, albeit with a touch of the sadness often heard in those who’ve been told that an acquaintance no longer roams this world. Diamond sighed, shrugged her shoulders and continued leadenly.
“It doesn’t really matter what you call it; she’s gone and so is my little brother. It’s hard to miss somepony you never really knew, but... sometimes I wish this house wasn’t so empty, you know?”
Silence greeted this final statement, her friends taken aback by the dark turn the morning had taken, but eventually they gathered their thoughts and, one by one, expressed them. Dinky galloped forward to wrap her forelegs around Diamond’s neck, looking with pleading golden eyes into her friend’s sad blue ones as she repeatedly and sincerely apologised: “I’m so sorry, Diamond; I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Diamond looked her dead in the eye and said, seriously: “It’s fine, Dinky. I barely remember her, and if I hadn’t wanted to tell you, I would’ve just said that it was personal and left it at that... Don’t worry about it – if anything, it helped being able to talk about it for once.”
After Diamond held her gaze firm, Dinky ceased her apologies and disentangled herself from the earth filly, her happy mood slinking its way back into her expression as she did so. Next up was Auburn, who stopped just in front of Diamond to say her typically short piece.
“It means a lot that you’d tell us about all this, Diamond. If you ever need to talk…”
With this, she shrugged slightly and pulled Diamond into a tight, reassuring hug, before releasing her and stepping wordlessly to the side, out of Copperwing’s way.
“Thanks, Auburn,” Diamond replied, sending her a grateful smile before turning to face her third friend with a feeling of nervousness and curiosity.
She’d known pretty much what to expect from Dinky and Auburn from similar experiences earlier in the week, but Copperwing was unknown territory when it came to more personal conversations. To Diamond’s pleasure, she didn’t go off on some long, apologetic speech about how sorry she was for Diamond’s loss, and simply said:
“I know we aren’t quite the same as a family, but you’ll always have us; your friends. Any time you need us, we’ll be there.”
It wasn’t as deliberately concise as Auburn’s statement, and was clearly all the filly could think to say, but its earnestness and slight hint of Copper’s rebellious side in the way she almost dared her listeners to disagree gave it extra weight in Diamond’s heart.
“Thanks, you three,-“ Diamond replied gratefully, “-I don’t know how I’d manage without you… Um, do you still want to do the tour?”
“Another time, maybe,” Copperwing responded, vocalising the trio’s thoughts. Seeing Dinky and Auburn nod in agreement, Diamond grinned before looking thoughtfully out the window.
Turning back to them, she shrugged and asked:
“Park?”
*
Five minutes later, the fillies found themselves amongst the verdant plant life of Ponyville’s park, under a brilliant blue sky and warm, golden sun. It was looking to be a beautiful day, and they were not the only ones to have the idea of visiting: the Cutie Mark Crusaders dashed across the path ahead, cloaks fluttering in their wake as they raced off on some poorly-thought-out mission to find their talents. Trotting through the tree-lined path; dappled shadows from the canopy above running over their small forms as shimmering beams of sunlight shone through the gaps in the leaves; they meandered further into the park without a care in the world.
Eventually, they made their way to the edge of a large pond and stopped to watch the gracefully swimming swans pass by; laying down in the grass at the pond-side, the four fillies relaxed and let the minutes float by. Diamond gazed pensively out over the water; it had been a long time since she’d felt this contented, and longer still since she’d had real friends like these: life, it seemed, was finally good again.
Her train of thoughts came to an unscheduled stop as a mare’s voice rang out from behind them, the softly spoken greeting rolling easily through the quiet into her ears.
“Good afternoon, little ones” said the mare as she came to a stop beside Diamond, looking out from the water’s edge. “I see you’ve found my little piece of heaven here – it’s quite the peaceful scene, isn’t it?”
Diamond turned to look at her, following the mare’s mulberry foreleg upwards, craning her neck to meet the soft gaze of the newcomer.
“Miss Cheerilee!” Diamond exclaimed happily, getting to her hooves to stand beside her teacher. Behind her, Dinky and Auburn likewise rose from the grass, whilst Copperwing looked on in curiosity.
“Hello, Diamond. It’s nice to see you’re still friends with Dinky and Auburn; they’ve done you good: I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy in a long time. So, what brings you four to this particular neck of the woods today?”
Dinky joined the conversation at this point, chirping her response before Diamond could open her mouth to answer Cheerilee.
“Diamond invited us round her house today, and we thought it would be a good idea to play outside for a while, so we went to the park.”
“We were just seeing what we could find, I suppose, but then we found the pond and decided to stay here for a while. Not much more than that,” Auburn added, unusually talkative.
Cheerilee smiled down at them, her gaze flicking over to Copperwing, who was hanging back nervously. “Hello there, don’t be shy. I’m Cheerilee; I teach at Auburn’s school… I’m guessing you’re her sister?”
“Yeah, I am… My name’s Copperwing, by the way; nice to meet you.” Emboldened by the exchange, she joined the group proper on Diamond’s left, smiling lightly at her acceptance into the conversation.
“I'd have let you be, but I just wanted to say how proud I am of you,“ Cheerilee began, a genuine smile growing on her face. “All of you: Diamond, for trying to make things right and being so brave in assembly; and you three for giving her a chance as a friend.”
When the teacher stopped speaking, the oldest filly of the group mouthed the disbelieving question - ‘me?’ - at her apparent inclusion; which Cheerilee spotted and answered with a warm smile.
“Yes, even you, Copperwing. I don’t know you personally, but yesterday, Dinky mentioned how you offered your friendship to Diamond despite knowing what she’d done beforehoof: if that doesn’t deserve praise, I don’t know what does.”
“Thank you,” Copperwing said happily, and a comfortable silence fell over the five ponies as they returned their attentions to the breeze-rippled water. After a while, Diamond turned to Cheerilee and asked:
“Do you have the time? I promised Dad we’d be back for lunch.”
Cheerilee checked the small wristwatch affixed to her left foreleg, squinting a little as she read the numbers on its face.
“Twelve-twenty-five – I suppose you’d better start heading back, then. It was nice seeing you fillies.”
Taking her advice, the four fillies made their way down the path to the main dirt track running through the park, on a course for home and freshly made lunch.
*
Unfortunately, out of all the ponies visiting the park, the one they happened to run into on their way out had to be the one most sure to pop their freshly-inflated balloons of happiness.
She was a light, blue-grey coated filly of a similar height to Diamond, with piercing orange eyes and a finely styled mane of silver and indigo, and she was not in a good mood. That is to say: she had been in what appeared to be a good mood, but mustn’t have been; since nothing could possibly sour an expression as fast as hers must’ve if the thing to ruin her day was the arrival of Diamond Tiara.
With a confrontational glare on her mean little face, she stamped her way up to the happily chatting quartet and promptly stopped dead, forcing them to stop also.
“Diamond Tiara,” she spat, as if the name made her physically sick to keep in her mouth for any longer than was necessary to say it.
Diamond raised her eyebrows at this greeting, having never seen the filly before in her life, and cautiously answered:
“Yeah... that’s my name. Who are you, exactly?”
“Argent Gleam, you backstabbing piece of trash.”
“Excuse me?” Auburn asked in Diamond’s stead, incredulous.
“I said: backstabbing piece of trash; mutinous pile of crap; disloyal waste of space; turncoat wretch – it was an insult, you cretin, and I have plenty worse than that if your fillyfriend here won’t stop playing dumb.”
“What in Equestria is your problem?!” exclaimed Diamond, bewildered and quickly growing angry.
“You are - you and what you did to cousin Silver, you traitorous cow.”
“’Cousin Silver’?” The pieces came together in Diamond’s mind and she groaned in frustration. “Oh, Celestia – she just can’t let things lie, can she?”
“’Let things lie’?!” sneered Argent, “Of course she’s not going to let things lie, you imbecile. The Argentums don’t forget, and you’ve really dug a hole for yourself. You pushed her into doing what you tell her to do for years, then you hit her and made up a ridiculous sob story to get her kicked out – did you really think you’d get away with that?”
“That is complete and utter horseapples, and you’re an idiot for believing her. ‘Cousin Silver’ is a manipulating little monster, and if you can’t see that, then she’s really pulled the wool over your eyes for good.”
Diamond knew antagonising her was a bad idea, but the reality didn’t hit her until Argent’s hoof nearly did the same; being parried aside by Copperwing’s wing in one smooth movement: a technique Diamond guessed she must have learnt from her mother.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t even try to hit my friends, you messed-up little shit,” Copper spat angrily, lowering her head to glare into Argent’s eyes.
Unperturbed, Silver’s cousin struck again with twice the force, right at the pegasus’s muzzle - only to find that her target had already moved. Copper had ducked under the blow and now rose up to strike back herself, twisting her torso left and right whilst whirling her wings one after another into the other filly’s shoulders. The earth pony tried to beat her wings away, but she was too slow, too weak and too uncoordinated to have any real success, and found herself being driven back step by step by the unrelenting force of Copper's wings.
Once Argent was a safe distance from her friends, Copperwing ducked backwards, propelled by her wings out of striking range, and raised her guard once more. It wouldn't be a good idea to get complacent now; even if she'd dealt with the threat of Silver's cousin without really having to hurt her.
“Give it up,” she instructed, aware of approaching footsteps from behind her. “Picking a fight with my friend was a bad idea, but picking one with me? Big mistake. Rule number one of being a schoolyard thug: don’t try to beat a Guard’s daughter at hoof-to-hoof combat.”
The footsteps stopped and the voice of Cheerilee cried out for the second time that week: “What in Equestria is going on here?!”
Copperwing answered her without taking her eyes off of Argent, who still looked angry enough to try something stupid the moment she was occupied with other things.
“That filly came up to us and started insulting Diamond; Dee-Tee was pretty reasonable about it, considering what was said to her, but of course she was going to say something to defend herself. Little Argent Gleam here didn’t like that and she tried to hit Diamond - then when I blocked it, she tried to hit me, too.”
Cheerilee groaned – if fights like these kept breaking out, it wouldn’t be long until she started breaking down. “And what were you just doing?”
Argent Gleam seemed to have calmed down somewhat now that she realised the adult was not simply going to go away after a brief conversation. By Copperwing’s reckoning, she was probably coming up with some lie – likely revolving around the ‘she’s older than me and therefore a bully’ argument – but as long as she was occupied that way, it should be safe to at least turn her head in Cheerilee’s direction.
“Getting her away from my friends. It’s a standard Royal Guard unarmed technique for pegasi: in place of a spear, use rapid, alternating wing strikes to drive the threat away from civilians, then retreat out of their striking range and raise your guard in readiness for further attacks.”
“…I see.” Replied Cheerilee, needing a little more reassurance than that to allow herself to fully believe that the older filly hadn’t been trying to start a brawl in the middle of the park. “It was self-defence, then? You weren’t trying to hurt her back?”
“No… well, no more than was unavoidable. If I'd wanted her hurt, I could just have punched her back.”
“I'm glad that you didn’t do that, Copperwing - it'll make it much easier for me to take the issue up with her parents.”
“You know her parents?” asked Diamond: Cheerilee nodded affirmative and elaborated on what she’d said.
“Yes. She’s supposed to be one of my students next year, so naturally I was the one to show her parents round the school. I have their address, and whilst this incident is not technically under school jurisdiction, I am well within my rights to raise concerns about her violent behaviour. “
Argent Gleam had gone a whole ten shades paler over the course of the conversation, and now she looked ready to bolt the scene altogether. Cheerilee noticed this and frowned at her.
“You can run away if you want, young mare; but I will be in touch with your parents about this. I won’t stand for this sort of behaviour, whether it’s in school or not.”
At this latest threat, the filly sent Diamond and her friends a withering glare before turning tail and fleeing the area as fast as her hooves could carry her. Seeing her retreat, Cheerilee shook her head and turned away, raising her head to call out to the crowd which had gathered around them.
“Did anypony see all of that? I need more evidence than just my say-so if that filly’s parents are going to do anything about this.”
Most of the crowd turned and walked away at her question, but a few answered her positively: “I did,” replied one stallion, and a mare to his right trotted forward and said “Me, too.”
A few more of the crowd came forward after that, and Cheerilee found that she had gathered a satisfactory five witnesses. As she was preparing to ask one of them for their testimony, the patter of small hoofsteps pulled her attention away from the ponies. The source of the sound, Featherweight, came to a stop at her side, grinning widely whilst clutching a large, expensive looking camera, a reel mounted on its side.
“Hello, Featherweight,” she greeted pleasantly, wondering what he had to say, “What brings you here?”
In answer, he raised his camera triumphantly and grinned all the wider as he explained.
“I was out filming the wildlife when I heard raised voices, so I followed the sound and found that other filly calling Diamond Tiara names. I still had my camera, so I filmed it – I have everything which happened after she called her a… ‘traitorous cow’ recorded on reel, and a version with half the frames on crystal imprint as backup.”
Cheerilee’s eyes widened, before she broke into a grin to match that of Featherweight, exclaiming:
“Featherweight, you’re brilliant. With this on film, and some eyewitness accounts, there’s no way Argent’s parents can weasel out of dealing with her attitude.”
Turning to face the aforementioned witnesses, she stepped up to the closest one and asked: “Now, if somepony's got something to write on, I’d like to get started on those witness statements.”
Still stood somewhat awkwardly off to the side, Diamond and the others lay themselves back down in the grass and waited for Cheerilee to finish, losing themselves once again in the returned peace of the park.
*
After she was finished with the ponies in the park, Cheerilee escorted the quartet of fillies back to Diamond’s house: this was partly so they didn’t get into any trouble, but also because after seeing the violent confrontation with Argent, the mare’s maternal instincts had kicked in on overdrive.
She was protective of all her students, but she felt a greater closeness to Diamond Tiara following their week of shared challenges than she did towards the others, a closeness which had no doubt been strengthened by the events of that day. It was this closeness which had driven her to such determination to deal with the Argent Gleam problem before it spiralled any further, and which now propelled her purposefully towards Filthy Rich’s house with the filly in tow.
To her surprise, the door to the house was already open, and Filthy Rich stood on the doorstep in conversation with another stallion. The last few words were exchanged between the two before she could get in earshot, but she was sufficiently close to hear Auburn and Copperwing’s exclamations of “Dad!” as they charged the departing stallion.
Cheerilee smiled as the fillies’ father pulled them into a brief hug and left them to their father’s attention, still leading Diamond and Dinky over to the house as she walked away from the reunion. Before she got to the doorway, however, the two had rejoined her and their father was hurrying off the way they’d come, back into the village. She frowned in confusion, but nevertheless kept walking along the road to Rich’s front door, putting the mystery aside for a later date.
As she drew closer, Filthy Rich waved hello, his face creased with slight concern at the sight of his daughter’s teacher leading her group of friends to his door; she returned the wave and added a friendly smile to reassure him that she meant well.
“Good afternoon, Rich,” she said, finally coming to a halt at his front door.
“Cheerilee!” he replied pleasantly, although clearly surprised to see her. “What brings you to my door today?”
“I bumped into Diamond in the park and thought I’d bring her home, seeing as she told me you’d be expecting her back soon… Although, there is something I’d like to talk to you about, if you’ve got a minute – nothing bad… well, nothing Diamond’s done, at least.”
Filthy Rich looked a little uncertain about what such a talk might entail, but Cheerilee’s friendly demeanour did a lot to reassure him that it would not be a painful one. Thinking quickly to find a way of accommodating the mare, he returned his smile to his face and answered her.
“Uh, sure… If you wanted to come in, we could maybe talk about it over lunch – our cook made a little too much pasta, so if you’re hungry we’ve got food to spare.”
He’d been a little worried how she’d take the invitation, but to his relief she smiled wider and accepted it without complaint – far from it, in fact.
“That’s really generous of you, Rich. I think I’d enjoy that.”
“Shall we go inside, then?” He asked graciously, reaching for the doorknob as if to open it for her, but she saw the gesture and shook her head with a smile. She’d never been one for acting ‘like a lady’ as Rarity put it: just acting like a pony was good enough for her.
“After you – it is your house, after all.”
In response, he pushed the door wide open and trotted inside, holding the door courteously so that Cheerilee could enter unhindered. Shaking her head at his continued gentlecoltly behaviour, she trotted after Filthy Rich into the house and, with the fillies having already slipped inside whilst the pair were talking, shut the door behind her.
It was going to be an interesting lunch, that much she could be certain of.
*****
Stats
Page generated in 0.026 seconds
Total duration
656 users online
797,438 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Rich & Cherilee, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
And then Applejack came over and told them to get the hell out her tree.
Cheerilee's maternal instincts. Did I smell forshadowing ?
5271133
....Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash is able to nap, safe in the knowledge that she isn't in immediate danger of forcible tree eviction.
5271180 Nope, just burnt toast.
5271269 YEAH TOAST!