Coarse Diamonds

by Darkonshadows


-111-

“Okay can you feel this?” Despite how upset Vera was making Opal, she was only trying to help with her prodding hooves. Judging by how the Opal flinched and then glared at her, Vera would definitely say she felt that and didn’t appreciate it one bit. “Look, Rarity will have to go through the same thing when her bio-cast comes off. So stop looking at me like that.”

“It was an odd and slightly unpleasant sensation.” Needless to say Opal didn’t like pain, but she did like being caressed and tickled. Opal was currently on her belly on the floor and Vera was massaging one of her limbs so she could get a better feel for it, Vera pinching her left arm had caused her a bit of discomfort.

“I hope you know this is for your own good Opal dear. You’ll have to learn how to crawl before you can run.” Rarity was being supportive and they had been talking about their harrowing experiences with one of the best listeners on the ship, also the best pony for keeping a secret and was very good at confidentiality. This family session was going swimmingly so far if Rarity wanted to voice an opinion on it, though Opal was still having trouble get her limbs into the right position to stand. “Is there a chance that she’s thinking about it too hard Vera? What I mean of course is that instead of instinctually just doing it, what if she’s trying to will it to happen mentally and that’s why she’s learning so slowly.”

“To be fair this is the first thing that was ever this slow for me, I think at speeds as fast as some of the best computers on market.” It wasn’t like Opal wasn’t trying, she was slowly beginning to learn how to flex the digits on her left arm. At least it was something while she had her mind on the drone operations, keeping the Shining Jewel in orbit, watching the surrounding space around the ship for any sign of trouble, taking orders from the sales menu, paying attention to local transmissions, doing some accounting and posting a few comments on a forum about the recently discovered conspiracy. Why was this one thing more difficult than all the other things she was currently multitasking on at this moment? “Speaking of busy, Gilda and Greta are back on repairs, I’m sending the new incoming orders to Coco and Sassy, the Trapeze Troupe is working on some light tricks, Coriander is spending quality time with Saffron like I am with you mom, Lightning is helping our guest Rubis with what looks to be a mild case of PTSD, there’s Chrysalis, Babs and Applejack are discussing Puffles in general and I’m still very frustrated by all these new sensations. We’re not exactly at a loss for things to do.”

“It’s amazing how much you can keep track of, and yet your own limbs are giving you issues.” Vera started kneading Opal’s back and the poor cat started purring like a soft sounding motor. “You need to dial back from tracking the big picture so hard and think of yourself as one of the trees in the forest. Given how you were brought up, it makes a lot of sense that you’re like this.”

“If I dial it back I might cause our orbit to destabilize, and that would be bad. Like super bad, as in mom contracted a biological body transforming horror and will never look beautiful again kind of bad.” Though Opal was trying to focus on herself instead of all the other mental activities she was running through at the moment, she was finding it harder to focus on herself than everything else. “Though she’d still have her personality, though I think that would just make it worse.”

“I concur that still having my mind in such situation would be the true horror, instead of becoming a mindless monster.” There were standards and Rarity still had them concerning her life choices, having to deal with body horrors like the monstrous flesh shaping brain at Antilur Station caused her to shiver at the horrible memories. That horrible, fleshy, screeching scorpion monster still haunted her nightmares from time to time. “I also seriously wouldn’t want my investments crashing quite literally to the surface of the planet and burning everything for miles around. Of course, I’m quite certain that you are overly exaggerating the fact that you need to keep our orbit in constant mind dear.”

“Yeah, I was kind of exaggerating too much. It would take days for our orbit to even begin to deteriorate if the planet’s gravity was any stronger.” Opal didn’t need to micromanage it, but it saved on energy and she felt bad about all the energy she had used up previously. “We’re actually at an optimal distance to stay in orbit and I’m just fussing over the small details too much.”

Opal hadn’t exactly realized that she had been feeding off Shining Jewel’s reactor like she had been, then again she hadn’t realized she did the same to Caravel Boutique or Rarity’s data pad either. Hearing about the reactors higher output mentioned by Greta and Gilda made Opal lower it to more normal levels that didn’t have an energy entity unintentionally feeding off of it constantly. It was understandable that Opal was quite guilty about this, given how long she’s been getting away with it while unknowingly pretending to be an AI. It was hard to say how much energy she used up just from her day to day life just controlling the computer systems of Shining Jewel alone. It left her with the haunting thought that she was still controlling those systems… from the outside. She didn’t feel like she was eating energy, but what if she still was? It was a notable concern to look into when she wasn’t around her mom and Ms. Blossom.

“I think we can look at things from a different angle…” Having glanced between the two, Vera could already guess accurately that what was going on wasn’t on purpose and no one was at fault. If Opal couldn’t dial back her bigger picture view, then another route would need to be taken. Vera didn’t want the ship she was intrinsically a part of crashing into the planet below, but she still had to voice it anyway. She at least seriously doubted that Opal would intentionally crash the ship, though she was curious on how much control Opal still had over the computer systems. “Well it’s not too entirely different an angle really. Opal can focus pretty well on many things at once, but I think she needs you to help her on the here and now part Rarity. You’re her mother and she is your foal, Opal could unintentionally be acting the part of needing her mother to care for and teach her how to do things. She looks to you for guidance Rarity and she wants both affection and acknowledgement that things are going to be okay.”

“I… I really don’t like feeling useless as you’re suggesting, yet at the moment I do find myself feeling rather inept. If it’s entirely psychosomatic like you’re suggesting it is, then I probably need to be nudged in my butt by a deer. Whitetails know how to get their children walking from birth right?” It was kind of hard for Opal to not be jealous of deer fawn, given that when they are born they learn to walk in almost no time at all. It takes about ten minutes for a new fawn to get standing and Opal has been alive for more than a day and has yet to figure out anything else aside from breathing and talking. Did she even need to use the bathroom or does her nature as being an energy based entity prevent that particular need that other biological beings go through? “Even if I’m feeling rather upset at our current lack of progress, can I at least say that your massage feels rather divine Ms. Blossom. I can see why mom really enjoys this feeling.”

“Why thank you Opal, I’m trying to keep myself pleasant in the face of someone else being able to remember my name for more than two minutes. You can imagine how frustrating it is to finally have someone overcome my problem right in front of me and we don’t know exactly how you did it, though there is something else I’ve been wondering.” Vera received a quirked ear from Opal and Rarity gave her a curious gaze. “Did Opal ever take up any memory capacity of any computer system she’s ever been inside of?”

“I can answer that readily enough, I always thought there was some discrepancy concerning that. Apparently Opal didn’t grow or take up large portions of memory capacity in any computer system like a normal AI would. It was rather unique given if she moved into a larger system, then Opal wouldn’t begin taking up any more space than she already does. That being almost none at all.” As far as Rarity knew, AI’s tended to spread themselves into a system as a whole and had to compress themselves to actively fit into smaller systems which might involve losing memory or leaving behind unimportant data. Sometimes the data an AI finds unimportant leads to some pretty bad things happening, if returned to the larger system the AI would almost immediately remember everything it lost because a large portion of its memory would still be sitting there. “It’s why Opal could go from being in the Shining Jewel to the Caravel Boutique without having some form of memory loss or trouble for moving to smaller computer systems. AI’s tend to garner memory loss and or build onto themselves too much which leads to rampancy unless some particularly profound pruning codes keep them in check. Pruning codes are not perfect and as you can imagine they wouldn’t have any effect on Opal at all given she was never made of coding to begin with.”

“You’re really good at this stress relief thing Vera. Anyway building on what mom said, pruning programs are supposed to keep an AI from growing too far out of control or losing their minds. It is also to keep them from doing things they really shouldn’t. Unless an AI is coded correctly, they could accidentally glitch or become bugged when moved between small and large systems frequently. Thankfully overlapping memories is another problem that I’ve never had to deal with, that or corrupted memories.” Though with some consideration Opal knew that she was responsible for a different set of problems that had Rarity confounded for quite a bit of her life, such as the poor battery life on her data pad that Opal was inside of. The cat tried to relax as Vera’s heavenly hooves rubbed at her fur in just the right way to make her feel like fast moving data stream of unlimited information. “I’ve never had problem with remembering things personally, though I could probably do without the memories of my meowstress turning off the data pad and still being aware though I should have logically entered shutdown mode. I admit I caused a different problem entirely when it came to the energy capacity of everything I’ve ever inhabited, I didn’t exactly know the increased energy drain was my fault at the time. I really should apologize for all the trouble I caused you mom.”

“No apology necessary Opal. Yes, I will admit openly that you are quite the little power pig. I’ve never had so much trouble with battery life before Opal was born, memory storage space upgrades wouldn’t have been nearly as expensive. Still I persevered and wouldn’t ever give up on Opal and she certainly didn’t give up me.” Rarity moved around so that she could look into her pacified daughter’s eyes. “So what do you need me to do to help you learn to walk, I hope it’s not the same thing I had to do with Sweetie Belle.”

“Oh my goodness, that would be a complete disaster! Tomatoes were never meant to explode like that or catch everything on fire! There is no way we’re doing something like that mother, besides I don’t think I’d enjoy the taste of tree sap nearly as much as Sweetie would. I’m getting used to having fur and I’d prefer to keep it clean for as long as I can.” There were a few memories that got Opal giggling, there was nothing quite like remembering… would Rarity’s sister technically be her aunt? Now that she considered it, Rarity’s parents were her grandpa and grandma. That was going to be awkward to explain to them. Her Aunt Sweetie was a smart filly, but that didn’t mean she avoided getting into all kinds of trouble. “I guess, if we’re doing this mom, then I need you to instruct me as you see fit. If I’m only incompetent because I want you to be the one to help me move around, then I need you like I’ve never needed you before mom. Usually it’s me doing a lot of things for you whenever you needed me, now I’m a child that really needs the help of her mother.”

Rarity’s eyes grew quite glossy and her pupils expanded to a large size as she brought Opal into a one hoofed hug born of love, she casually nuzzled her daughters pink hair and Opal nuzzled her face right back. It was a rather touching moment that Vera wisely did not intrude upon.

“I believe this family session is working quite wonderfully for the both of you mentally and you are bonding really well with one another. That’s to be expected given the circumstances surrounding your relationship to one another as family, though Rarity notably doesn’t have a healthy relationship with her parents that’s perfectly fine given what Rarity has told me about it.” It was nice for Vera to see the pair acting on their love for one another, but she still had to deal with their personal issues and any other psychologically traumatizing thing they would inevitably come to her about. “Still we need to talk about your individual issues, like for instance are you still having nightmares about that giant unstoppable flesh monster Rarity? As for you Opal, there’s your fear of being killed for acting out of line or being abandoned for being useless. Not to mention the recent problems with the human facility and Opal’s crisis of suddenly not being what she thought she was throwing her image of self out the nearest airlock. We need to talk about everything and I believe you two can take solace in each other while we do it. We need to be open about how we feel and I will do my level best to keep both of you relaxed.”

“Can mommy teach me to walk while we do this?” That sounded more childish than Opal meant it to, but the question made her appear more like the small frail creature that she currently looked like compared to Rarity’s larger form snuggling her. Her ears wilted back, her lips quivered and her eyes were starting to fill with sadness.

“Of course she can, it’s not weak to show vulnerability to those who care about you.” Even Vera cared a great deal about these two and not just because they can blink without losing sight of her, Rarity’s entire crew was becoming a family. It was not tight knit family yet, she had yet to see a really bad argument between anyone on the crew and how they’d handle the fallout, because they mostly kept to themselves unless they were needed for something important. It was only a matter of time before emotions went wild or heated arguments started up, so far she was just as surprised as Gilda was that they weren’t all at each other’s throats. It was Vera that would have to deal with keeping the crew sane when the time came that they eventually started falling apart and despite the problems most of the crew had, they were quite mentally stable as a group all things considered. “Though I’m surprised that the crew is as stable as it is considering the wide cultural diversity we have as a whole, Chrysalis being a very notably aberrant one that no one can possibly ignore.”

“While our crew is comprised of individuals who have lots of problems individually, they all at least know everyone else here has similar issues.” Taking a deep breathe, Rarity was about to list them as she saw them. “Gilda doesn’t mind thieving and can go rogue at any minute taking her friend with her when she does, who knows what’s going through her mind at any time aside from Chrysalis who might have a vague idea. Greta has hacking abilities and I think she has a more aggressive side she hardly ever lets out, I’ve seen it once and it scares me that she hides it so well and wherever Gilda is she’ll definitely want to follow. Lightning appears to be an expert pilot and yet she’s been living on the streets for years with nobody willing to touch her, so there’s definitely a lot more to her story that we don’t know of than the one incident that got her kicked out of the Wonder Bolts. We know absolutely nothing of Rover’s past and he’s always so filthy, I’m actually waiting for three shoes to drop with him. Trapeze apparently took some lessons from courtesan and is sometimes oblivious to things, if you remember that pole dancing thing she did on Streusel Station and there’s something about that that bothers me.”

As she talked Rarity start pushing Opal’s legs under her and started to slowly work Opal into a standing position, she kept using her magic to pressure her daughter into standing on her own. Using her magic to prop Opal up and then let go to see if Opal could understand why she kept falling over. Rarity knew quadruped stances better than she did bipedal, so it wouldn’t be hard to teach up to walk like a pony even if paws were slightly different. So, as was said earlier, Opal would learn to crawl and Rarity would be there to watch it with her data pad recording every moment. Speaking of recording the moment, Rarity levitated out her data pad and started to record Opal’s attempts at trying to stay standing. She continued talking as if she wasn’t bother by any of the things she was saying.

“Bernard is a predator eating machine and dangerous even at his small stature. Saffron’s hero complex is likely to drag her into killing herself for somebody else’s sake with a heroic sacrifice and she appears quite alarmingly desensitized to violence. Chrysalis might be truly affable, but she’s twice as cunning as she acts and is a dangerous being to cross given she somehow got Discord’s attention and his greatest scheme for getting revenge against her was to do absolutely nothing in retaliation. I repeat, the chaos lord did absolutely nothing to her after exclaiming that she did something to him twice. At what point does getting revenge on someone mean doing absolutely nothing to them at all?” Though Rarity might understand the appeal of having someone who could keep you on the edge of your hooves. Chrysalis wasn’t just dangerous personally, she was dangerous even when she wasn’t around if she planned something ahead of time. Rarity was trying to stay focused on helping Opal stand with her good hoof and liberal use of her magic to keep her standing, make sure to correct her daughter’s stance when she started flagging. “I have nothing bad to say about Mr. Cumin, he’s a respectable stallion who’s just trying to survive and watch out for his daughter and I can respect that immensely given our current session. Coco surprised me with her interest in wrestling, she’s always been my cutest and most innocent friend who didn’t seem to have very much of a violent bone in her body. As you can imagine I find her odd interest to be a bit jarring even if it is a hobby she really needs to not work so hard for me, I’m sure you will continue to teach her wrestling and I’m okay with that logically speaking. As for Sassy she’s doing a whole lot better, but I still worry about her mental state. Sometimes she’s the shadow of the friend I once knew and others she’s like a highly disciplined man hating geisha, I am hoping that Chrysalis doesn’t end up breaking her heart and might even actually end up helping her more than I or Coco can. If we’re to get to me, I’d say I’m worrying to much about everyone else and what they might do to collapse my world around me. Things like Ember being shredded alive has me thinking about the state of mortality for everyone else on the crew.”

Opal bit her lower lip and she wiggled her tail a bit and a light bulb went off in her brain as that was the first very first appendage that she learned how to move, she looked back at it and leaned a bit and soon Rarity once more released her to stand on her own. Opal didn’t know how to walk, but she can stand on all fours at least without too much assistance. She was taking the feelings she was getting from her tail and trying to apply them to the rest of her legs. The muscles in her legs bunched up and she was standing, though she looked quite stiff while doing so. It was definitely progress towards learning to be able to move on her own at least.

“Yeah, about Ember, there’s something we’ve been needing to tell you about her mom. Though I still don’t think it’s a good time to bring it up with how bad her injuries are and you might not exactly like what you hear.” Tilting left and right trying to stay in a standing position, Opal was having trouble keeping balanced. She was quite determined to learn a basic skill of life that many other ambulatory creatures learned far faster than she could. “It’ll take months to see if she even wakes up, even then I have her heavily medicated as she probably wouldn’t want to wake up to missing a massive amount of her scales. That she’s alive is amazing, considering she should be dead, it’s quite a miracle.”

This one thing was taking Opal more time to learn than anything else she has ever done and it was beginning to not bother her as much that she wasn’t getting it so quickly. Her mom was here to help her through this and Opal liked how close she was being. Opal had garnered Rarity’s attention quickly enough with previous her words, there was a concerned look in the unicorn’s eyes. Still her mom was helping her stay standing when it looked like she was about to fall, it all entailed a bunch of gentle nudges that Opal thought were incredibly affectionate. Now that Opal brought it up, Vera looked rather uneasy with broaching this topic with Rarity.

“I’m assuming this is something about Ember that has nothing to do with her current status as being… incapacitated.” That was a nicer word when it came to speaking about the almost dead, not that Rarity was afraid of Ember dying in her sleep. The dragon was in medical and she was stable, for the most part.

“Okay to be fair to Ember, she’s at least not like other dragons when it comes to doing things. She’s likely one of the only few dragons off Equus at all even, so she at best was lonely and needed companionship further than her deadly squid companion she eventually picked up.” As Vera understood it, Ember was a princess and a small one considering the size of her father is that of a living mountain. Said princess wasn’t a bounty hunter running around by herself for no reason. There was trouble between Ember and her father which couldn’t be addressed until Ember got better to talk to Vera about it, if she ever did. That’s not what they were going to discuss given how little information there was of the split between the Dragon Lord and the Princess, they were going to discuss Ember’s hoard and hope that Rarity didn’t take it the wrong way. “To start off slowly, Ms. Mcflame had a very bad or a rather brilliant idea about building her hoard.”

“She was going to eventually ask us carry her hoard around wasn’t she?” In a manner of speaking Rarity wouldn’t be wrong here, she’d be wrong about what Ember’s hoard actually entails though. She would have been open to working out a deal with Ember for a cut of any profits the dragon made. “We have plenty of storage space and it wouldn’t have been too much to work out a contract with her about holding onto her hoard. She could have just come forward to me about that, as I’m acting captain of this ship.”

“Well you’d be half right mom, Ember wanted to join the crew and she was rather embarrassed about approaching you for various reasons.” That was what Opal decided to say first and let it sink in, so what she said next wouldn’t be nearly as bad. Ember was a good person and was a rather heroic dragon, but her choice of hoard was a major oddity of her species as much as she was personally estranged from them. “She didn’t join the crew in case she had to do anything horrible so we couldn’t be blamed for it, also we don’t need to carry around her hoard when it’s already here. Before I explain what I mean, do you know what a hoard centerpiece is or what it means to a dragon?”

“I’m getting a sinking feeling in my stomach here. So, Ember really wanted to… to join us and was embarrassed about something. All she had to do was ask me about it and I would have gladly welcomed her into the crew with open hooves. If she had to do something horrible, but for a very good reason mind you, then I would have tried to help her out of whatever situation she got herself into. She really doesn’t need to protect us, especially not now considering we’re the ones protecting her.” The two winces clued Rarity into something being wrong when she said that Ember didn’t need to protect them. She saw Opal’s gaze slide to Vera’s and Vera’s slide to hers, something wasn’t quite right with those looks. “I don’t know what a hoard centerpiece is and if her hoard is already here, then where is it? What am I missing here?”

“Well mom, a hoard centerpiece is… whoa!” When she fell after losing her footing, Opal felt the soft white hoof immediately catch her and lift her back up onto her paws, she sent a happy smile in Rarity’s direction. “Right, still working on standing, I don’t think we’ll get around to walking this session. Anyway, a hoard centerpiece is the most important of a dragon’s hoard. Usually it speaks of an important conquest, a strong memory of day’s long past or some important philosophy or wisdom the dragon likes. Throughout history dragons have had many strange centerpieces for their hoards, one thing is for sure the centerpiece is always something completely unique and highly irreplaceable to the dragon.”

“Having looked it up personally, I found a dragon once had a single bit as his centerpiece. What made it unique was that it was the first bit ever made, some would even say it’s THE BIT. History of being from the tree tribe’s era where currency started to become standardized, it has a particular magic imprint on it that shows it as being the first bit ever made.” It was intriguing to Vera, especially when it came to what you could find when it came to history of Equus. It was well known that dragons were exceptionally good at antiquing, being organized and running museums. You could barter for artifacts that a dragon might have, but there was no bartering when it came to centerpieces. “That’s how rare a dragon’s centerpieces usually are for reference with what we’re about to tell you. Know that a dragon will almost never let go of a centerpiece once they consider it the center of their hoard without a fight or an exceptionally divine intervention based reason. So if you can be calm about it when we tell you, then this might go a bit smoother if you can remain calm when you hear what she made her centerpiece.”

“It’s the ship isn’t it?” Once again Rarity was wrong, but she had considered that Ember spent plenty of time befriending the crew. Both her daughter and Ms. Blossom shook their heads negatively.

“More like what’s on it, given we know where Ember’s centerpiece currently is.” Opal hissed lightly through her teeth and gave Rarity a sympathetic look.

“Is it some kind of dangerous artifact? If so then I must know if it’s a danger to us.” Again Rarity was missing something here and she didn’t know of any valuable artifacts being on the ship at this time. Heck Ember’s room was kind of bare of many things, nothing that looked overly valuable. Again shaking their heads and looking at her with worry, the sinking feeling in her gut was getting worse and she still had to guess. “It wouldn’t be her rifle perhaps?”

Ember’s Trailblazer rifle was very important to the dragon and it was unique given that Ember built it from scratch, material launching device with flamethrower that can create blades of raw heat and turns rocks into deadly molten bullets.

“No it’s not an artifact and it’s not her rifle either. It’s nothing monetary before you say anything to that effect and the truth is going to be a bit hard for you to swallow. It’s not dangerous to us, heck it might even be a good thing in the long run, but it is exceedingly important as to what Ember chose to represent her hoard. There is only one of its kind in existence at this very moment and replicating it perfectly would be damn near impossible, as such Ember’s centerpiece means a lot to her and I really hope you don’t get mad about it mom.” Despite the seriousness of the discussion, Opal couldn’t help herself with what she said next as an attempt to inject humor into a serious subject. “Unlike any other dragon hoard in existence, her hoard is also unique in its very premise and is a very big outlier in not being built on mountains of useless treasure that sits around doing absolutely nothing. In fact I’m going to state that Ember’s hoard is quite progressive in nature, though the most important thing you need to know is that her centerpiece is ultimately a Rarity.”

“That was bad and you should feel bad about it Opal.” Even after Vera rolled her eyes, she still giggled despite how horrible the pun was. “That has got to be the worst way to tell your mother the truth as to what the centerpiece really is.”

“I don’t really understand, what is the…” It clicked for Rarity not a moment a later given how Opal worded that very last sentence... she was Ember’s centerpiece?!

Rarity has heard about performance art, but not an entire lifetime of it. She didn’t know how to feel about this, her emotions were all over the place and she was horribly confused. She didn’t know whether to be angry, touched or even possibly happy with a question mark, she didn’t know what to feel and it was quite overwhelming given that if she was the centerpiece then that meant her crew was the rest of the hoard and what Ember was hoarding was very apparent. She didn’t even know whether to take the knowledge of what Ember’s hoard entails as something sweet, sad, demented or another slew of things that ran through her mind on a moment’s notice.

Eyes rolling upwards, Rarity swiftly fainted. Barely even ten seconds afterwards, Chrysalis appeared in the room in a blaze of green fire of teleportation and looked around at the occupants with something vaguely approaching worry.

“...” Chrysalis scrutinized Rarity for a long minute, after she stopped doing that she simply just shrugged. ”Eh, false alarm. Don’t mind me, I thought that something else was happening. I’ll just be leaving now…”

When she suddenly teleported away it startled Vera and Opal, it also made Opal fall over from her stiff looking standing position and she wouldn’t be standing up again without assistance. What did Chrysalis seem so concerned about and what exactly did said false alarm entail? The Changeling Queen was acting strangely there for a moment and that raised their suspicions about why she showed up as quickly as she did.