Two parents finish setting out breakfast, take their seats, and pause, looking at the door.
“Where is diamond?” they ask simultaneously, despite a complete lack of anypony to answer the question, before turning to the clock.
“Late,” they then answer their own question.
Spoiled rises from her seat to talk out of the room. “Where is that filly?” she mutters, as she goes.
Filthy watches his wife leave the dining hall and go stalking off in the direction of their daughter’s bedroom. Then he sets his head in his hooves and lets out a sigh. It had been only yesterday when her tiara went missing, and she replaced it from he knows not where. Again, it had only been yesterday when she suddenly seemed so different, in the face of her mother. Said mother had been happy- very happy, as a matter of fact; she seemed to think Diamond had finally caught on fully to her lessons.
But Diamond had shown a very different face whenever her mother wasn’t there. He’d kept his eyes and ears open all day. When he’d talked to Ms. Cheerilee, he’d made it sound like the whole change had happened a couple days ago- but that simply isn’t true. No; he’d started noticing changes a few days ago, ever since she got back from being missing those three days. A gradually building… confidence, he thinks. She’d seemed surer of herself than usual, stronger, somehow. Even though he’d never noticed her lacking either of those. The massive increase in muscular strength had been very sudden, but not only was it fading but she had been learning to control it better.
She’d changed the most that one morning, that he’d noticed. He doesn’t know if her muscular strength had continued to fade or started growing again; she’d had perfect control of it either way. He’d even sensed, as had his wife, little touches of her earth pony magic dropping out with each step she took, firmly anchoring each hoof to the ground until she decided to go. His wife had been delighted- with that kind of tricky skill mastered, even a monsoon couldn’t blow her down- and it also gave her a certain assurance of her footing that even he struggles to attain.
Nevermind that meant that she simply couldn’t be snatched. A foalnapper would have to remove her legs in order to separate her from the ground on which she stood. And cutting a scoop of the ground out wouldn’t work either- earth pony magic has massive area of effect, so they’d have had to scoop up a few hundred tons of dirt and rock… assuming she didn’t move. Or extend that grip, simply by dumping more power into it. After all, the step-hold he’d seen had used so little power she could probably have gone up by an order of magnitude and still not needed to dig into her thaumic reserves.
He had been outright impressed with how she had handled herself that day. The part that made him worry, the part he spent half the day hunting for answers on, had been when his wife wasn’t there.
She hadn’t lost that subtle earth magic hold. No; if anything, that was stronger in her mother’s absence, almost like she’d been afraid her mother would notice it.
She also hadn’t lost the perfect control over her muscular strength.
But he’d noticed other things. She was a lot less… Well, sticky. In her mother’s presence, as well as away from her mother on days prior, she used the same formulaic, holier-than-thou behavior as her mother. He doesn’t approve of that behavior, and often doesn’t use it himself (except when dealing with the Canterlot nobles, as they don’t deserve anything nicer), but as he’d told himself long ago, she could suit herself. If she wants to do that, he won’t stop her.
Last night, outside her mother’s presence, it seemed like all that went out the window- particularly when she thought he was out of earshot, he’s pretty sure. She’d held onto some of it near him, but not nearly all of it. She’d been tense when he asked her about her tiara- but earlier, he’d seen her chatting peacefully with Sweetie Belle. At least, that’s what it looked like. Later, he’d seen her talking to Princess Twilight in similar manner as, say, Applejack might, not a trace of her mother’s “noble” behavior.
Then she’d been a perfect little noble at dinner, and after dinner as well, when he explained the curse on her earlier tiara to both her and her mother. When her mother had asked about the one she was wearing, she’d told a fictitious- yet very believable- story of some classmate that was good with mock-ups, and was able to furnish her with a look-alike for until she got her real one back, since she didn’t feel complete without it. She’d said she still didn’t feel complete with the fake, and planned to return it as soon as the real one was either returned or replaced.
Completely aside from how she’d almost seemed defensive earlier, when she’d told him she’d made it herself.
Then Spoiled had demanded to know why she’d seen Diamond going into the Crystal Castle earlier.
Diamond had answered simply that she’d gone in to have Twilight spell it to be impossible to curse. She’d stated she planned on getting a similar spell on the real one, assuming it didn’t already have it, whenever it was returned or replaced.
Nevermind that that’s one of the things he’d looked into when he’d first purchased it- and such a spell simply doesn’t exist. Dark magic is too varied- and powerful- to block entirely with any spell. Spoiled had swallowed that story hook and sinker, though, so he hadn’t mentioned that little problem.
He had, however, begun wondering why his daughter was deceiving her mother… and planning on asking her later, away from the same. He doesn’t normally approve of lying any more than Applejack does- but she knows that, and she has to have known he’d known she was lying when her answers had differed so massively from the ones she’d given him before.
Which means, she must have a reason good enough she’d figured he’d be okay with it. Otherwise, she would have given him her falsified answer as well. And come up with a better excuse for visiting Twilight; she’d no doubt expected both conversations, even though the timing of his- out in that street- appeared to have been a surprise.
Speaking of which, she’d told him why she was going to Twilight as well- even volunteered that information. That answer had not been the same. He’d brushed over it at the time- but having Twilight tell her what “something strange” Sweetie had seen was… is very different from having Twilight apply a spell that doesn’t exist to her tiara. Though, the way she’d worded it in the street had sounded like that “something strange” was in her, not her tiara.
A sudden scream from upstairs draws his attention away from his deliberation, and his head snaps up as he draws in his breath, turning to jump out of his seat.
Then he stops just as fast as he’d started. The thuds of his wife’s distant hooves echo through the structure somewhere upstairs- and Diamond herself is halfway to her seat, from the door, pausing as she makes eye contact with him.
He lets breath back out, turning back forwards in his seat; Diamond resumes her path. “Where’ve you been?” he asks.
“Fighting the monster that stole my tiara,” she states, before climbing into her seat.
He raises an eyebrow at the tiara on her head. “You mean the first one?”
She only nods, before Spoiled explodes around the corner.
“Filthy!” his wife begins, drawing in a quick breath for whatever else she had planned to say.
But whatever that is, he supposes he’ll never find out, as her gaze zeroes in on Diamond.
“Diamond!” she practically explodes, marching over behind her daughter, who has only closed her eyes, declining to turn towards her mother.
He puts a hoof to his face. “Spoiled,” he begins.
She ignores him. “What were you thinking?” his wife demands. “Not only were you late for breakfast, but what in Equestria have you done to your room? It’s atrocious!”
“Spoiled,” he states again, as she goes on and on about the mess she’d apparently found in her daughter’s room. While irresponsibility certainly isn’t a good thing, he doesn’t think exploding in her face like that would be really any kind of effective.
He watches his daughter’s expression tighten in anger, of all things, facing away from her mother, as Spoiled goes on. He watches her muscles tense- spots the crack appear on the expensive glass salad bowl held in her hooves as she sets it down, slowly and deliberately, eyes still closed.
He raises his eyebrow. The bowl is replaceable, even if she’s not supposed to break them- but while this tirade is a little much, her reaction seems to him to be a little out of proportion. Perhaps this is a bunch of pent up frustration from times past, being pulled to the surface by her mother’s tirade? Perhaps he’s about to find out what’s behind all the strangeness these last few days? Find out what she really thinks of his efforts?
… He figures the bowl is probably a side effect of her strange physical strength probably returning, without her strange control over it, compounded with the muscle tension coming out of her anger. Probably why she put the bowl down, too- too much strength and she could make it explode.
“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” Spoiled finally finishes her tirade. “Hmm?”
He opens his mouth, filling his lungs to speak, but Diamond beats him to it. He can feel her putting her earth pony magic into her voice, producing an effect reminiscent of the Royal Canterlot Voice; even though she speaks quietly, the entire room rumbles with her words, dishes clattering. Her already damaged bowl completes the break, splitting cleanly in two and spilling salad dressing onto the table.
“Shut. Up.”
He doesn’t move, closing his jaw and folding his ears against the inevitable explosion from his wife, even as he decidedly suppresses that information for processing later. He’s always been good at that, whenever something shocking or surprising comes up, allowing him to retain function in the present.
Spoiled steps back, jaw articulating up and down as she blinks in shock, lacking his ability. “What… What did you say?” she demands, slowly.
Diamond turns to her mother, eyes opening to blaze at her mother. “I said, Shut. Up,” Diamond repeats, this time without adding her magic to the equation. “For six years, I’ve done exactly what you wanted me to. For six years, I’ve been an insufferable prick at school. For six years, I’ve had no friends at all.
“Last night, I fought a dark-magic-wielding monster. He trashed my room while I got help, then the battle lasted six hours after that, during which all three of us could have died several times. After we killed him, I then went on to save the life of one of my classmates. And lose half of myself in the process.
“Then you come jump on me for showing up thirty seconds late to breakfast? You’re lucky I showed up at all!” She stands on her chair, Spoiled shrinking away from her. “You try fighting all night on an empty stomach, pulling somepony out of mortal danger, and chopping off half of your own mind, then showing up on-time for breakfast!”
She lets out a sigh, jumping down from her chair, and her expression falls away from anger to more of sadness as she leaves the table, abandoning her breakfast uneaten. Probably a good thing, with the broken bowl. “I’m done,” she states, walking towards the door. “I’m done with beating ponies up. I’m done pretending. I’m-!” She takes a deep breath, and he realizes she’s crying as she walks out the door, putting one hoof on the open door without looking back. “I’m done ruining my life for you,” she states, before slamming the door so hard it cracks before it bounces back open, her tail vanishing around the corner.
He blinks- her physical strength must have returned at some point, no even alicorn should be able to fling the door closed that hard- and hops off his chair, abandoning his salad, to follow after her. Unless he’d missed his guess, her tirade had been aimed at her mother, not himself- but he still plans on keeping a safe distance until he can make sure of that. If she’s strong enough to break the door, she’s strong enough to break him.
As he approaches the door, Spoiled recovers- and gallops past him, thrusting him violently aside before she explodes out the door, screaming as she charges after her daughter. He recovers and emerges in time to see her drawing close to her daughter- and to see both of Diamond’s hind hooves leave the ground together, at the same time as Diamond turns her head sharply to glare at her mother though the corner of one eye.
He ducks.