Tarnish
The mare panted, lather showing through her grey coat. Her flowing silver mane was plastered to her face and neck with sweat. Her eyes were glassy.
A midwife stood by, coaching her soothingly as her body heaved and convulsed. Two attendants hung close, waiting for instructions. A unicorn stallion with a bright silver coat and pure white mane paced along the length of the far wall, keeping well out of the way.
"That's good..." the midwife said. "Just a little longer...almost there..."
After what felt like forever, the foal was born. The midwife smiled. "Congratulations," she said. "You have a beautiful daughter."
The new parents heaved tired, happy sighs. "Is she...what is she?" the new father asked. "Is she a unicorn like me, or...?"
The midwife looked apologetic as she cleaned off the newborn foal and placed her where her parents could see. "I'm sorry...she isn't a unicorn. Or," she added as she looked at the mother, "a pegasus."
The grey mare sighed, ears drooping. "It...it doesn't matter," she said. "So long as she's healthy, it's fine if she's an earth pony."
"I don't understand," the father said petulantly. "How could she be an earth pony if...?"
"It just happens sometimes," the midwife said. "I'm sorry, Sterling, I really am. Pony genetics are a mysterious thing. I've seen two pegasi have a unicorn, two earth ponies have a pegasus..." She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense, but it happens."
"It's fine, Sterling," the young mother said with a smile as she extended a wing over the tiny foal, smiling down at her. "In fact, it's better than fine. This way, we're a completely balanced family, one of each!"
Sterling Silver looked to his wife's Cutie Mark, a black cloud with a bright silver lining, and chuckled. "Always the optimist," he said. "You're right...it doesn't matter if she isn't a unicorn like me, or a pegasus like you. She's our foal, and that's all that matters."
* * * * *
"Mama?"
"What is it, my little Silly-filly?"
The two-and-a-half-year-old filly looked up at her mother with greyish-violet eyes—the same eyes as the filly's father—and asked, "How come I don't have wings?"
Silver Lining smiled down at her daughter, who had almost the exact same coat and mane color as herself, and ruffled her soft silver hair with a hoof. "Because you're not a pegasus, Silly-filly. You're an earth pony."
"Oh." The filly paused. "How come I don't got a horn?"
"Because you're not a unicorn, Silly-filly. You're an earth pony."
"Oh."
Silver Lining leaned down and kissed her daughter. "It doesn't matter what you are on the outside, Silver Spoon. It's what you are on the inside that counts."
"On the...inside?" Silver Spoon replied, looking at herself as though trying to see past her own skin.
"Yes. On the inside, you're our beautiful, shining daughter, and we love you very much. Just because you can't fly like Mama or do magic like Papa, it doesn't mean you're not special. And before you know it, you'll find that one special thing that even Mama and Papa can't do, that only you can do. And then you won't care about wings and horns." She kissed Silver Spoon's forehead again, smiling down at her. "Now, it's time for sleep, my Silly-filly."
"'K, Mama."
* * * * *
Three-year-old Silver Spoon rode on her mother's back as the pegasus flew up high into the clouds.
"It's scary up here, Mama," Silver complained.
"Don't worry...Mama won't let anything happen to you."
Silver Lining coasted to a landing in Cloudsdale. "Now, hold on tight to Mama," she said. "You can't walk on clouds like Mama can."
"'K, Mama."
"Oh, hello Silver Lining!" a light blue mare with a bright white mane called.
"Hello, Fleetfoot!"
"We hardly ever see you around Cloudsdale anymore!" Fleetfoot said.
Silver Lining rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well...married to a unicorn, have an earth pony daughter...kinda keeps me grounded."
"Oh, so THIS is your little girl!" Fleetfoot said, beaming. She leaned down to the timid filly. "Your mommy and me are old friends!"
"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
The two mares spent quite a while talking. After that, Silver Lining went all over Cloudsdale talking to a number of other pegasi and showing her daughter off. Silver Spoon, unable to do anything but cling to her mother's back, was soon bored out of her mind. *Why did Mama bring me here?*
* * * * *
Almost a year later, Silver Spoon's parents informed her she'd be starting school. When the dreaded day finally came, Silver Lining escorted an unwilling Silver Spoon to her fate.
"Well, here we are. Ponyville Kindergarten."
"Mama, I don't wanna!"
"Now now, Silver Spoon. You're a big girl now, and big girls have to go to school."
"But I don't WANNA!"
"Don't you want to make some friends? I'm sure there's another little filly in there who's just dying to meet you. Maybe two or three or more!" Silver Lining nudged her daughter toward the gates of the kindergarten. "Now, go on..." She smiled. "And if you're a good girl, we'll get cupcakes after school!"
Silver Spoon's eyes widened. "At Sugar Cube Corner?" she asked. At her mother's nod, she added hopefully, "Where Pinkie Pie is?"
"That's right, Sil," Silver Lining smiled. Pinkie Pie was a young mare who had only recently come to Ponyville, and lived and worked at Sugar Cube Corner. Silver Spoon loved listening to Pinkie Pie's jokes and silly songs.
"Yay! I'll be good, Mama!"
"That's my girl." Silver Lining nuzzled her daughter. "I'll see you later! Have a good day!" She spread her wings and took off.
Silver Spoon watched her mother fly away and sighed. *I want pretty wings like Mama,* she thought.
* * * * *
The teacher, Lucky Clover, was a very nice, kind mare. Silver Spoon listened attentively as she spoke to the class at length. After she talked to them, she told them to mingle and meet one another, so that they could make new friends.
Silver Spoon looked around at the other foals in the schoolhouse. In one corner, she saw a little orange pegasus filly who looked alone and miserable. In another, she saw a pale yellow filly with a bright red mane talking to a few other fillies, including one with the frizziest mane she'd ever seen. *They're smiling and laughing...they seem nice.* Silver Spoon started to head in their direction...
"Oh, you don't want to talk to them," a voice piped up to her left. She turned to see a pink filly with a wavy lavender mane with a bright white stripe.
"Huh? Why not?" Silver asked.
"Because those girls are losers," the pink filly replied, rolling her eyes. "Your daddy is Sterling Silver, right?"
"Yes, he is."
"I thought so," the new filly said importantly. "I've seen you two in my daddy's shop. Sterling Silver is a very important pony, which makes you a very important pony. And very important ponies don't associate with loser farm trash like that Apple Bloom." She tilted her head and ran a hoof through her mane. "I'm Diamond Tiara, by the way. Diamond Dazzle Tiara."
"Um, I'm Silver Spoon."
Diamond Tiara smiled a smile that, for some reason, gave Silver Spoon a chill. "You're my new best friend," she said in a tone that made it sound like a command.
"Um...okay..."
* * * * *
The Silver family had been invited to a dinner party at Filthy Rich's manor.
Silver Spoon sat beside Diamond Tiara at the end of a table full of very fancy adult ponies. They were telling jokes she couldn't understand and talking about money and things the little grey filly didn't understand. "Just listen and learn," Diamond Tiara advised.
Silver listened, and she tried to learn. She wasn't learning about the difficult things the grown-ups were talking about, though. She was learning about the way they talked, their body language...the attitude of important ponies. Her mother and father didn't move and talk the way these ponies did. Diamond Tiara's father didn't really seem to either, except when he was talking to some of the more important-seeming ponies who wore the fanciest clothes and apparently came from Manehattan or Canterlot.
Late that night, in front of her mirror, Silver Spoon practiced what she had seen and heard that day. "Puh-LEEZE," she said in a snooty voice, giving her mirror a haughty look and waving a hoof airily. "Could you BE any more pathetic?"
She paused, studying her reflection in the mirror, and shook her head. "Is that really how important ponies are supposed to sound? Do you have to be mean to be important?"
* * * * *
"Hey, Sil!" Sterling Silver called as Silver Spoon walked into the house after school. "Come here, I want to show you something."
Silver Spoon trotted into her father's private workshop, and looked around in awe. She'd never actually wondered about what her father did for a living, and had never been inside his workshop before. "Pretty!" she said.
Every surface in the workshop was covered in silver. Silverware, silver jewelry, silver ingots, and even lumps of unrefined silver, waiting to be turned into something precious.
"I figure you're old enough now to show you what your old dad does for a living," Sterling said. He gestured around the room with his hooves. "You see all this? I made it all."
Silver gasped. "You make pretty stuff?"
"Yes, I make pretty things out of silver." Sterling's horn lit up, and one of the dull, uneven silver lumps floated over to the workbench next to him. The glow of his horn intensified, and the lumpy bit of silver began to flatten out, spreading into a rough-edged round sheet. Then, a number of small saws, hammers, and other tools began flying through the air, forcing Silver Spoon to duck. The filly watched in awe as, over the next half hour and with a lot of things going on she didn't understand, her father turned the flat silver sheet into an ornate candlestick. "Well?" he asked as he polished the finished product to a high shine. "What do you think?"
"That's so cool!" Silver Spoon said. "I wanna try!"
Sterling chuckled. "If you'd like, I'll start teaching you the basics of silversmithing," he said. "But I should warn you...it may be a little harder for you to pick up. You'll have to do everything by hoof since you don't have unicorn magic like me."
Silver deflated at the reminder that her parents were special ponies and she was a boring old earth pony. "Yeah..."
"But I'm sure you can do it!" Sterling said. "Hay, I bet one day you'll be a better silversmith than me!"
Silver smiled weakly. "I'll try, Papa."
* * * * *
Silver Spoon was almost five years old when her eyesight became blurry and she could no longer read the blackboard at school.
The eye doctor made a thoughtful sound as he examined Silver Spoon. He nodded, making notes on a floating clipboard. He turned to Silver Lining. "She's going to need glasses," he said. "She's nearsighted."
"I was afraid of that," Silver Lining said. Then, brightly, she added, "but it's okay, because the right glasses can give a pony a unique sense of style. Right, Sil?"
Silver Spoon rolled her eyes, which ached from the eye exam. "What-ever, Mother." Her mother's eternally cheerful, positive attitude had started to grate on her nerves by the time she was ready to graduate from kindergarten and start attending Ponyville Elementary.
The doctor led her to a room where a smiling mare showed her a big case full of all sorts of different glasses. She snorted in disgust as she looked at them all. They were so dorky and lame! Diamond Tiara would have a cow if she dared show her face wearing any of those glasses!
"Do you have any others?" she asked. "These are so..." She stopped herself, knowing that if she said something nasty, her mother would punish her. "I don't really think they're me."
"Sure, no problem," the mare said, bringing out a second case of glasses. Silver's gaze was immediately drawn to a large pair of oval-shaped, light blue frames. "Those," she said.
"Good choice, Sil!" Silver Lining said brightly.
An hour later, they left, Silver Spoon wearing her new glasses.
* * * * *
"Love the new look, Sil," Diamond Tiara said with a smirk.
Silver Spoon rolled her eyes. "It's better than not being able to read," she said. "I mean, can you imagine not being able to read? It'd be like...being some lame farm pony."
Diamond Tiara giggled. "Good one, Sil!"
Out of the corner of her eye, Silver Spoon could just see the cross look Apple Bloom shot her at that remark. She felt a twinge of guilt.
* * * * *
Silver Spoon studied the simple, inelegant letter opener she had spent all week crafting from raw silver. She'd had so many problems along the way—nearly overworking the cold metal, losing some of the shape to heat-treating, spending an entire afternoon polishing and buffing out firescale, and almost having to start over from scratch when she botched the sharpening of the blade. But now, finally, it was finished. It wasn't fancy, but it was polished to a high shine, and would easily cut through the seal on any scroll or envelope.
Sterling Silver entered the workshop. "How's it coming along?" he asked. He walked over and examined the finished, polished and cleaned letter opener. He let out a delighted gasp. "Excellent work, Sil!" he exclaimed.
Silver Spoon rolled her eyes. "It's just a stupid letter opener. It's nothing compared to what you do."
Sterling laughed. "Sil, I was almost twice as old as you are now before I could even make a halfway-decent butterknife. This...for your first ever piece, this is incredible."
"Really?" Silver asked, tilting her head. "It's that good?"
"Yes, it is," Sterling said proudly. He trotted over and rubbed his daughter's head with a hoof. "I'm very proud of you, Sil."
Silver Spoon beamed. "Thank you, Daddy."
Sterling grinned. "Now, go play. It's not healthy for a young filly to spend all day cooped up inside." He turned to his workbench and started flattening out a new lump of ore...
"WAIT!" Silver cried.
"Hmm? What?"
Silver trotted over and leaned down, peering intently at the lump on the workbench. "You can't use this," she said.
"I can't?" Sterling asked, blinking. "Why not?"
Adjusting her glasses, Silver picked up a hammer and chisel and, with a hard strike, split the lump in two. All through the center, the metal was mottled and uneven. "I thought so," she said. "Look at all the nickel and pyrite in there. This one's worthless."
Sterling's jaw dropped. "Well, I'll be," he said. "Nice catch, Sil!"
* * * * *
"Like, check out that lame-o Derpy!"
"I know, right? Mother says she's the worst, most useless pegasus she's ever flown with!"
Diamond Tiara giggled. "You're lucky," she said. "You have a pegasus for a mother, and a unicorn for a father. I wish I were a unicorn."
Silver snorted. "Unicorns aren't that special. And I'd so much rather be an earth pony than a pegasus." She stood up on her back hooves and waved her body back and forth. "Ooooh, look at me! I'm a pegasus! I can fly! And that's it! That's all that's good about me!" She dropped back to all fours, rolling her eyes. "Who needs it?"
Diamond Tiara snickered. "Well, it'd still be nice to have unicorn magic."
Silver rolled her eyes. "Puh-leeze," she said. "Do you have ANY idea how tiresome it is dodging flying hammers and saws because Daddy has no concept of personal space?"
Diamond Tiara blinked. "Hammers and saws?"
"You know, silversmithing tools," Silver said. "The stuff we use to make all the pretty silver we sell."
"Oh, yeah, right." Diamond frowned. "I didn't know you actually made all that stuff."
"Well, yeah, we do," Silver said. "Daddy makes most of it, but I've been making some too lately. It takes me a lot longer to make one piece than it takes my unicorn father to make five or six, but I've got a better eye for pure silver than he does." She smirked. "And you know why?"
Diamond tilted her head. "Beeecause...you're an earth pony?"
"Duh!"
"Still...having to actually work with your hooves? That's...I just can't even imagine it! You'd better not let on that you actually...ugh...work. It makes you sound so...common."
Silver Spoon frowned at her. "But it's something I like doing. Why should I be ashamed of that?"
Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. "Oh, Sil. You have so much to learn about being important..."
"But Daddy's important, and he works. And so does your dad."
"Okay, okay! Chill! If you want to get your hooves dirty doing...ugh...work, that's YOUR business. Just...remember why you're important, and remember who your friends are."
Silver Spoon had gone home in a foul mood that day.
* * * * *
"Hey DT!"
"Oh, hey Sil. What's up?"
Silver Spoon turned her flank to her friend. "Check it out!"
Diamond Tiara's eyes widened. "No WAY! You got your Cutie Mark?"
"Totally!" Silver said. "One of Daddy's important friends bought a platter I made for twice what Daddy was asking. When Daddy told him I'd made it, he praised me and said I was the best silversmith he'd ever seen. And then, my Cutie Mark appeared!" She smiled. "That just proves that earth ponies are the best ponies." Then, she glanced over her shoulder at Apple Bloom, who was playing frisbee with Featherweight, and smirked. "Well, some earth ponies are," she said.
Diamond Tiara giggled. "Yeah, some earth ponies are just worthless bumpkins that'll never amount to anything, unlike us." The two fillies grinned at each other, and raised their hooves...
"Bump, bump, sugarlump, rump!"
As the two fillies trotted into the schoolhouse, neither noticed the grey pegasus perched on the roof of the schoolhouse, who took wing, silent tears streaming from her eyes.
*My little Silly-filly...why didn't I see it sooner? You've tarnished...*