//------------------------------// // -32- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Well this is serious…” Chrysalis started off calmly with Plentiful Thorax in front of her at the changeling embassy portion of the castle. “We have to do something about this secret plot.” Plentiful Thorax once again underestimated the queen’s resolve; then again he should have seen what was coming given what he said. “Someone is planning something big for Canterlot!” “I know, the only secret plot around here should be what I plan to do to make my butt a better place to peruse! Can you imagine what their butts are like?” Because Chrysalis obviously had her priorities straight when there was a shady organization threatening both her people and Equestria as a whole. She even had a look of horror on her face. “Why their butts might even be much better than mine, I’m not coming in last place next to Discord if that’s the case!” “Are you seriously still going on about that butt of the year thing?” The flat tone Thorax took with his queen didn’t anger her, he was thankful that she had mellowed out since becoming friends with the princesses. “I think we have more important things to worry about.” “My ass is something important to worry about! I mean the rest of my body is a complete and beautiful work of art, but I can’t attract mares or stallions for crap without a good caboose sans disguising myself to look like I have one Mr. ‘I transform into rocks every day and still somehow get laid every other week without trying’. You’re almost as bad as Boulder Bottom who ran off with that Maud Pie mare to live with her and her family in that asteroid field run by the Pie In The Sky Mining Company; aside from you he was our best rock disguise artist! That and I assume the shadowy organization you are talking about will eventually make an assassination attempt against me. It’s just the same cloak and dagger crap we’ve been doing our entire lives as changelings Thorax, it’s nothing to really concern ourselves with.” Chrysalis then narrowed her eyes at Thorax. “Then again you’re one to talk about important things, you’ve got a nice butt and you don’t have to worry about sleeping with ponies as you’re the friendliest changeling around according to the news. And I mean you really get ‘around’, you are popular with both mares and stallions all because you have a nice butt.” “Can we stick to business and stop talking about my butt please? Also to be fair I’m not getting laid on purpose, every single one of those ponies jumped me and wanted to do really kinky things that I’d rather not have been a part of in the first place. Apparently there’s a double standard when it’s pony on changeling.” One would assume that changelings like Thorax were as bad as Chrysalis was, nope the changeling queen was the only real evil among changelings and they considered her ways absolutely necessary as she’s done a bang up job so far. Also the fact that Thorax didn’t like kinky things threw the common thought that changelings were highly promiscuous out the window, in fact changelings actually preferred more emotionally built up romantic relationships. A real relationship for a changeling was like being served a constant ten star meal at a five star restaurant and five stars being the maximum value the rating system normally went to. “I’m still a little unnerved that Cadence is planning a herd for me in one of her romance files. I still don’t understand how you and she came to an understanding after you tried to marry her by force and subterfuge, which leaves me wondering why I found some of your cliff notes that basically stated that you agreed to let Cadence handle my love life?” “Sure we can’t talk about the changeling with the gorgeous and interesting butt to discuss the more boring things I’ve likely already figured out.” If you were Chrysalis you’d be grumbling about this too, on the other hoof she decided to get to the task at hoof and actually humor thorax’s freshly given intelligence. Or lack thereof as the minute she heard Back Draft’s name her mind made several connections before Thorax could even finish giving his spiel. “Let’s see, Back Draft was recently incarcerated. So whoever the pony they are calling ‘Mare-Do-Well’ happens to be has obviously survived the fight with him. Quite frankly they didn’t know if it was a mare or not, but your description is telling that it is indeed a mare. She has a large cape, mask, costume and wide brimmed hat to hide her race… heck she could even be one of us acting as a super hero… wouldn’t put it past Ruby District to be here without checking in first. On that note, let me get out the files while you bumble about and maybe spout off something worthwhile. Also was that mare’s rear end any good? I need you to describe it to me in detail.” “Okay, I think I can see why we made you queen now.” Seriously Thorax could see that the queen was completely off her rocker about the butt thing and the blasé attitude she had about even the remotest chance of a possible attempt on her life irked him. It did make some sort of sense considering that nobody has been successful at outright killing Chrysalis and or leaving a permanent injury she couldn’t heal from yet. The queen was about as immortal as Luna and Celestia were, in the sense that she wasn’t going to die of old age as long as she stayed well fed. Regular changelings could only live as long as normal ponies do, this made the similarities between them and ponies all the more noticeable. “You’re so certifiably nuts, that nobody in their right mind would want to steal your title from you and you’ve made yourself so indispensable that it’s impossible to depose you unless you wanted to be. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong Thorax. It’s that I’m so hyper competent that I’m indispensible, not because of the fact that I am what would be a psychiatrists worst nightmare to deal with. Besides what would a pony psychiatrist know or understand about changelings anyway? I’ve driven more shrinks insane than I care to list off because apparently Celestia thinks that I might have a problem. Aside from that I have yet to get a knife in the back that I can’t turn back on my enemies given some time to pull it out covered in my own spinal fluids. Actually had to do that once, wasn’t very pleasant for the guy doing the stabbing in the end when I finally figured out that it wasn’t an open offer for sex. He made so many innuendos possible too, I thought we really had something there from the minute I met him when he dropped from the ceiling rafters. Why I remember him shouting, ‘why won’t you die you unholy abomination’? It was quite frankly the nicest assassination attempt that day and I found his passion for wanting me dead really endearing.” Not that Chrysalis would deny that she was insane in finding death threats to be something of a turn on for her; then again most things were a turn on for her. She was going to prove herself to her subordinate that would become her proxy swiftly and without pause by just boring him with all the facts as she pulled the files from the cabinet. She tossed several files in front of Thorax for him to look over as she spoke. “I’ll just drop the truth on you now, ‘Mare-Do-Well’ is actually just a placeholder name the newspapers have for her. The mare you saw is actually ‘The Mauve Mare-auder’ or at least the next one in line; the original was a very real pony hero. That she’s here means she’s the real descendant of the original Mauve Mare-auder that the Power Pony comics became based off of, I know this because Ruby District is the fake Mare-rauder personally working in Saddle Arabia right now keeping the legend alive and the newest real one was working in Manehatten a little less than a year ago before going silent. The real one is definitely not a changeling or else I would know about it. The mention of not wanting a Pegasus finding out about this situation by the unicorn criminal Mind Field means that they were likely talking about Daring Do, also known as Arcane Keeper Yearling an archaeologist bent on protecting the world from apocalyptic things Celestia’s ancestors probably left lying around protected by traps in similarly designed temples across the planet. What you witnessed is a local Cabelleron Cabal gang getting some suspicious goods from a shadowy organization that we’ve got practically no knowledge on with big plans. This is what Celestia has me looking out for and is paying me very well to do so and wants me at the gala. She thinks someone’s trying to steal a rug from her, though payment is pending I will bring the knowledge that they are trying to get the top quality samurai out of Canterlot so they can launch an assault of some kind. The Royal Guard is crap at anything other than policing so this is of mild interest. Quite frankly I’m surprised we don’t know more about this shadow organization or have yet to intercept their communications, they must really be changeling proofing everything if their movements haven’t been caught by us yet. This is the map of locations I want changelings to be in, all dark and decrepit places evil organizations usually end up having meetings at.” A map was slid over to Thorax with a lot of recently marked red X’s pointing out places Chrysalis wanted Changelings to investigate, half the places were of noble or aristocratic homes in the upper districts near the castle and the others were abandoned warehouses and the like where a noble wouldn’t be caught dead near in the lower districts without a secretive reason. The almost untouched districts were all for middle class ponies or beings, mostly people who wouldn’t be suspicious of any wrong doing whatsoever. “I… can’t actually say that I’m not impressed with hearing all this and the map has really good coverage. Wait, we have a changeling acting as a mythical pony hero in Saddle Arabia? Why?” Thorax was going to quickly find out that nobody did confusion tactics better than Chrysalis, she was a confusion tactic all her own and nobody could tell if she was actively obfuscating anything on purpose anymore. He rapidly shook his head to get things back on track. “No, that’s not important; you completely ignored the question as to why I found your notes on a file that belonged to Cadence about me specifically?” “Oh, now you want to talk about yourself and your glorious buttocks. Well make up your own damn mind already! Do we talk about you or this shadowy organization encroaching upon Canterlot? I vote for the former just knowing you’re going to bore me to death with the latter.” After a moment of watching the poor changeling come to understand the kind of conversation they were having, Chrysalis smiled at causing him such mental pain and suffering. “You might want to get that eye checked out; it’s kind of twitching badly. The Mauve Mare-rauder we have in Saddle Arabia is humorously enough a changeling with a masculine orientation and is quite a sexy voiced one at that. I love being queen of a primarily hermaphroditic race that has a hoof in many pies… in one case literally with Boulder Bottom being one of the few changelings we have out in space. I can’t wait to leave you in charge so I can go up into space myself.” Plentiful Thorax just sat there with his right eye twitching violently; he had two options here knowing the queen. One was to ask about Cadence’s file on him specifically where Chrysalis would continue to talk about how his butt attracts ponies, the other would be to discuss what he felt to be clearly more important matters that Chrysalis found particularly uninteresting. He knew Chrysalis was evil, but did she really have to mess with him like this? Yes, he decided, yes she did because that’s who she was as his jerk of a queen. “Okay, let’s talk about my butt and Cadence’s file on me.” Concisely stated Thorax clearly upset about it, Chrysalis’s broad smile was the end result of his decision. He picked his poison; it was still surprisingly better than listening to the queen whine about how boring he was being. - Manehatten was a nice place; currently waking up in a nice little corner street hotel room in the morning was Rarity. After a long day of ferrying supplies up to Shining Jewel, she, Coco and Greta got a single room for the night where she slightly regretted being a bit of a cheapskate. They weren’t paying for the hangar space at the local space port for the Caravel Boutique and were leaving it docked with Shining Jewel up in space. They probably should have paid for the docking space, but it was far more expensive than the hotel they stayed the night at. Besides that, the hotel had free international breakfast bar Rarity wanted to try. Upon waking up in the hotels bed Rarity found that she couldn’t move, the reason why she couldn’t move was quickly discovered when she removed her sleeping mask using her magic and turned her head to the figure currently snuggled up against her. Greta was basically for all intents and purposes spooning her and she had the right to be slightly upset with the passive sexual predator. “Greta, please be a dear and wake up.” Rarity shifted about in Greta’s arms as the griffon snuggled her, her resistance quickly got the griffon to quickly wake up and blinking. “Huh, boss lady… what’s the matter?” A sleepy Greta said not taking into account her current position, with a wing wrapped tightly around Rarity’s torso. “I would be remiss in hurting you in such a state where you can’t recognize your actions, but you are currently spooning me and I would like it if you were to let go of me now.” Speaking in an even tone that brooked no argument, Rarity hoped that she had gotten through to the obviously gay griffons brain. Greta froze and her eyes widened, she was at Rarity’s back and her beak was currently sniffing Rarity’s hair. It didn’t help that Rarity smelled nice nor did it help that she was cuddly and soft like a plush toy. However Greta quickly calmed down and took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but could you possibly take care of your tail first? I think it’s wrapped around my waist.” A bit of shifting from the pony later and Greta saw Rarity give her a stern look. “Besides we’re still dry and I’m pretty sure nothing bad happened… though I feel this rather odd pinch in my flank.” “My tail is not wrapped around your waist; it’s between my legs like it always is when I sleep.” The reason for Rarity’s calmness was so that they didn’t incidentally wake up Coco who was supposedly on the couch. “So you must be mistaken about me being an issue, but I know for a fact that your wing and talons are wrapped currently wrapped around me at the moment and I would appreciate it if you let me go now. I need to use the bathroom to freshen up for the day.” “Right right, but then why do I feel like I have something completely wrapped around my waist then?” Hearing Greta question their current circumstance Rarity rolled her eyes and quickly lit her horn to pull the covers off them. “Well now, that’s kind of awkward and it feels it too. I am so very sorry about this boss lady and I apologize for the current situation, but in my defense I happen to have chronic snuggling problems and I’m relatively used to getting my ass kicked out of bed by Gilda.” “Indeed and duly noted, now if you will let me go so that I can relieve myself darling?” The claws and one wing were instantly off of Rarity as if the griffon had been scalded with hot water. She rolled out of bed, flicked her messily curled tail out and made for the bathroom to freshen up. She was leaving behind a hopeless looking Greta, but before she closed the door she had one last thing to say. “Thank you Greta, oh and don’t do anything too sudden or untoward to my friend. I’m sure this is as embarrassing for Coco as it is for you.” What was Greta’s current situation? She had Coco drooling on her butt with her teeth biting into her flank; Coco’s right hoof was uncomfortably close to something Greta would rather not have the pony touch on the inside of her thighs because she didn’t quite like Coco in that way. Then there’s the final fact that her other wing was being used as a blanket by Coco which was held in place by aforementioned right hoof, the left hoof was calmly twitching up and down Greta’s back underneath her awkwardly bent wing. - The three sat at breakfast quietly, Coco’s face was still red and Greta was looking anywhere but at the two mares. “If this is how we’re doing and what we’re starting our day on, then I wonder how the others are handling their wake up call?” Taking a bit of cinnamon fried toast into her magic, Rarity nibbled at it lightly in a delicate while the other two slowly ate their food. There was a lot of tension around them. - “Don’t tell anyone this, but I think I actually might miss waking up to Greta being right next to me to pound the living daylights out of.” Gilda stayed still as her bio cast removal was in progress and she was having a psychiatric session with Vera Blossom and Sassy at the same time. “It’s almost become second nature to me by now.” “Almost perfectly understandable, though I’m a little concerned as to why you won’t give her at least a date.” Vera was hold her other arm and Sassy’s other hoof. “She seems rather smitten with you and the time of day seems to go a long way for her.” “Because she has yet to actually ask me on a date properly, it’s taking her a while to actually figure that out.” Here Gilda looked a little bit amused. “I’ve made some bet with a few guys in Griffonstone I can collect on if she does eventually indeed get the idea in her head to do so the right way.” “Well that kind of explains something about your relationship.” Sassy intoned softly before bursting out into a fit of soft giggles. “So what’s on the agenda today aside from me watching my Lion Heart show, by the way Lion Heart is actually the guy’s name Vera.” For the record, yes Opal had a CAT pointing at Vera at this very moment. “You’re actually going to watch that stuff with her?” Questioned Gilda to Vera with a raised brow, she didn’t particularly care for the show and would soon be busy building things that nobody could possibly even dream of. Hopefully she would never make a mistake in the design process, which meant she might have to make a request to Rarity to find a test pilot to add on as a crew member. “Yes, the things currently going on between the actors Trixie and Sunset are rather intriguing. I think Trixie might even mean half the things she says to Sunset while they are acting in the more romantic scenes, it was quite hard to watch her try to dismiss their budding affections. I mean the expression on her face and her inability to say she doesn’t like Sunset in costume is quite telling.” After a moment to pause and think on it Vera added. “Isn’t that show shot on this planet?” “Why yes it is, are you suggesting we do a few orbital flyby pictures? They’re doing an outdoor episode today and are using a live manticore for one of the scenes.” Both Opal and Vera smiled at the idea. “Hey at least give me some time to send a message to Rarity while we’re still in range, they are doing that scene on the other side of the planet for crying out loud!” How would Gilda know that if she didn’t watch the show? They all gave her a curious look. “Greta watches it and ships the characters damn near constantly.” - “I’m sure they’re doing perfectly fine and are not getting into any sort of trouble.” Rarity finally said after finishing off her toast. “At least I hope Opal isn’t causing any trouble, whether they know it or not foal sitting Opal is just as much a fulltime job as was doing so with my little sister. I suppose we should adjourn to the park given we didn’t get much of an opportunity yesterday with Mr. Bar checking our cargo manifesto near constantly.” “Yeah, that was a little strange.” Coco finally dropped from red faced to light pink. “What was he expecting to find?” “Well it is kind of his job to make sure contraband isn’t moving around right?” Greta was happy that Rarity wasn’t feeling to awkward about being snuggled, Coco on the other talon was really quite embarrassed to wake up to the taste of griffon and the comment that she tasted like chicken didn’t help in the manner either. How would Coco even know what that tasted like anyway? It left Greta slightly afraid of the earth pony and she was the actual meat eater here. Well technically there were certain types of meat she wouldn’t eat, oh great she now felt her cheeks heating up again. “Please tell me you’re not thinking something inappropriate right now.” Poor Coco, her hopes were quickly dashed when Greta quickly dug into her fried potato pancake with a light drizzling of ketchup and didn’t meet her big soulful eyes. “Right then, this is just getting terribly awkward. Can we all agree that how we woke up, while interesting, wasn’t the worst of positions we could have been in.” It was up to Rarity to try and make things less awkward between all of them. “Speak for yourself Rarity; you weren’t almost… touching a friend inappropriately.” Finished Coco in a more childish manner, but it was a nice way to put it. “Yes, well, I was kind of expecting Greta to be the one doing that. So color me surprised that it was you that was close to doing that Coco darling. Now please get over it!” The tone was that of finality as Rarity wanted them to get over it and to move on with their lives. What happened had happened innocently enough for her tastes and nothing untoward happened at all aside from the hickey embedded in Greta’s rear. “If could get ourselves back on track and on schedule today, then let us never speak of this again. We have a full day ahead of us to enjoy the park and tomorrow we’ll catch a train to Canterlot. I also do need to work on your gown Greta, so we’ll spend the latter half of the day on making you look exquisite and maybe it’ll help you with Gilda if she sees you in it. I also promised Coco a dress and I always make good on my promises eventually.” - The park was rather nice this time of day and ponies enjoyed parks far more often than any other species alive, whether it be rolling around in the grass or smelling the flowers they enjoyed life in a grassy meadow and there was a show going on today. Currently the magician was being watched by Rarity and friends as she was in the midst of practicing her act. “Hello one and all, I am Trapeze Star the magician acrobat! And this is my partner Bernard Slashuhrough, my bunny companion. I will perform and amaze you today as I am a one of a kind act! Surely you’ve all noticed I am an Earth Pony, as such I would like someone from the audience to come up and inspect my top hat.” Pulling her hat off her blue haired head with said hair done up three consecutive buns and a following flourish she looked out to the crowd with her yellowish fur gleaming brightly. Her tail was equally curled up in a bun and the only thing missing was a decent costume for the hoof standing mare with blue stars above a trapeze marking her flanks. “Um, excuse me, but isn’t that a Lagotorphin?” The gray rabbit standing on the magicians head suddenly snapped his gaze to Rarity’s as he hopped off and gave Trapeze an upset look. “… huh… well that would explain why the latter half of his name sounds violent when he wrote it down for me. That and rabbits are not usually intelligent enough to write in the first place.” Trapeze rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “No matter, he still works for carrots and he’s been my rather stalwart companion. I’ll just have to start getting fish jerky for him as well, would you like to come up on stage Ms.?” “Belle, Rarity Belle, it is a pleasure to meet you Ms. Star, even if your audience isn’t particularly big at the moment.” It looked like Rarity made a new friend as she came up on stage to have the hat thrust into her hooves, she checked it over and didn’t see anything off with the hat and she knew hats. “I happen to be a fashion designer and might I say that this top hat is quite flashy, but there doesn’t seem to be a costume to go with it.” “We’re a work in progress Ms Belle and I really like my purple top hat with the pink ribbon. Maybe we could even do some business later.” The mare stated simply, Trapeze then coughed and reached deeply into the hat to pull out a deck of cards that hadn’t been in there a moment ago. She started to shuffle them and perform acrobatic flips and card juggling while doing so. It earned her some stomps of applause; she quickly finished it off coming out of a forward somersault into a standing position fanning out the cards before Rarity. “Pick a card my fair lady, any card at all and I will simply amaze you!” Rarity picked out a card and it was the queen of diamonds, she smiled a little at that. “Now I will hand the deck off to my assistant, remember not to look through the cards this time Bernard.” Trapeze got a few chuckles for the comment as the alien rabbit started to do just that. “Make sure you remember your card and show it to the crowd, but neither me nor Bernard. Now, if you would put it in the hat with the face of it pointing downwards.” Rarity did so, and then Trapeze took the deck back from Bernard and threw it haphazardly into the hat and covered the brim with one hoof and started to violently shake it. She took the back hat back from Rarity and placed Bernard in the hat; she quickly flipped that hat over and slapped it to the stage making sure none of the cards came out from under it. The next thing she did was walk off the stage much to Rarity’s confusion. A few seconds later Bernard came hopping onto the stage looking about in panicked, much to the crowd’s confusion and he looked under the hat. Trapeze poked her head out of the hat. “Not yet Bernard, I’m still trying to find the card, but I think this might be it. Give me a minute if it isn’t right.” She passed a card to the rabbit and pulled her head back into the hat, the crowd was quite stunned and amazed. The rabbit showed the card to Rarity. “No I don’t believe that was my card, though it is a queen of diamonds.” In fact the diamonds had been quite clearly red on the card she chose. “The color wasn’t black diamonds.” “Oh, so that’s why all these other cards are red.” Slowly two rear hooves pushed downwards out of the hat and it slowly rose up as Trapeze wiggled her way out of it until it was up on her head like it had originally been. She stepped away from a pile of queen of diamonds that were all red. “Here I thought it would have been the odd one out.” “Why that’s quite simply amazing.” This was Rarity’s only response as everyone crowded around the pile of cards that Trapeze had stepped off of and started sifting through all of the cards. “Not really, I lost the queen of diamonds you pulled from my deck. I guess I’ll just have to try harder to find it later then.” Even then there was a smug grin on Trapeze’s face; she couldn’t have even possibly known what card Rarity had pulled from the deck. After a minute she frowned looking at all the cards the crowd was sifting through. “I think may have also lost my deck too along the way in the performance, oh well! I’ll just buy a new one. Who’s ever heard of a deck with a black queen of diamonds that has fifty one red sisters anyway?”