//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Mother Dearest 
// Story: Harmonic Gift From The Stars 
// by DTavs exe 
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After returning from the fashion show, Rarity was enjoying a stroll on the market, something she always liked was the smell of all the products sold there, from carrots to candles, from flowers to cutlery, from apples to firewood, all these scents were like music for Rarity's nostrils, they helped putting her ‘in the zone’ but today a peculiar scent caught Rarity’s curiosity, something rare, exotic and expensive, she followed the smell until she found the source, one of her best clients Spoiled Rich accompanied by her daughter Diamond Tiara, since hearing how she bad-mouthed her little sister and friends, she has been avoiding the Rich mare as best as she could, but in her field it was impossible not to cross words with a mare like Spoiled Rich, as much as she hated dealing with such a rude pony, it would hurt her business if she were to deny any services to her. Anyway, one thing was for sure, this  was the first time she has seen Spoiled in the market without an event going in the town, the Rich family had workers that should be doing the shopping for them, it was too interesting to leave it like that, Rarity sneakily follow them just close enough to hear them talking.

“I can’t believe your father’s recklessness, how dare him letting all our workers leave on vacation at the same time!” Spoiled mouthed with a face full of indignation “Now I have to do the shopping, I ‘Spoiled Rich’ am not a simple commoner.” Rarity’s face contorted in an expression of pure rage listening to the rude mare.

“Mother, I don’t mean to be rude, but you were in charge of managing the workers schedules, time offs, leaves and holidays, and because you neglected this they had several vacation weeks due.” Diamond replied to her mother on a monotone tone.

“How dare you talk back to me you little rascal? I swear since befriending those troublemakers you have turned into a ruffian,” Spoiled shouted, Diamond was taken aback by her mother’s outburst but after a deep breath, her mother regained her composure, “let us get this over with, what is next on the list?” Diamond just looked down and pulled a scroll from her saddlebags.

“This is an outrage, that is not the way to treat a little filly, and even less one trying so hard to make amends!” Rarity was boiling mad ready to roundhouse kick that mare until next week, but she knew that she had no right to intrude on a parent way to discipline their child, if that travesty of behavior can even be considered discipline, powerless to do anything for the little filly, she decided to continue her way to Carousel Boutique, now that her day was ruined she was going to open one of her ‘angry bottles of wine’ and sulk for the rest of the day.


~♥~♦~♣~♠~


Just outside Twilight’s castle, two friends were discussing “But Applejack, poor Diamond Tiara doesn’t deserve any of what she is getting, she has been so apologetic since our sisters got their cutiemarks, she has helped me and many ponies she has wronged in the past, we need to do something,” Rarity almost yelled at her friend.

“Ah know sugarcube, and Ah appreciate her change of heart, but Ah reckon it’s out of our hooves, Spoiled is her mother and we have no say in how she raises her kin,”

Applejack just fixed her hat with a stern look, Rarity knew AJ was right but it was really hard to accept that she could only look from outside, meanwhile that sweet little filly just suffered for trying to be a better pony, sometimes life just isn’t fair. They entered the Castle where her friends were waiting on Twilight’s studio as it has been for the last few weeks to listen a song from the music box.

“Hi RariJack!” Pinkie said gaining a blush from Rarity and Applejack.

“Would you stop it, how many times have we told you not to call us like that, darling?” 

“26 from Applejack and 43 from you, counting this one,” Pinkie quickly answered with a smile and a wink on her face, everybody else greeted them normally and they were on the circle surrounding the music box.

“Is there something wrong Rarity?” Asked Spike noticing she was upset.

“Nothing Spikey-Wikey is just… wait, Twilight can you use your princess title to do something so save Diamond Tiara from her mother?” Rarity plead Twilight but she only lowered her head.

“I’m sorry Rarity, I heard the rumors of what happened on the market yesterday and I would love to do something about it, but unless her life is in danger, I can’t overrule a parent's judgment,” Rarity’s ears flopped feeling powerless to do anything “but I can at least talk to her mother and see if there is any advice I can give them, maybe trying to find the reason she behaves like that,” this made Rarity felt a little better, but she still felt that it wasn’t enough “Hey why don’t you turn on the music box, I’m sure something good will come from it today”

Rarity stood up and approached the music box, “This button?” she asked and Twilight nodded, after pressing it was silence but then a voice accompanied with music started playing.




“Did she said ‘mother’?” Rarity asked.

“Ah reckon she said it, but what’s ‘hell’  y’all?” 

“That’s a way to call the most deepest part of Tartarus, so from the beginning we can tell if ‘hell’s vengeance’ boils in her heart, she is not that good of a creature.” Twilight replied her friends

“Woa woa woa, wait a minute there, did she just asked her own daughter to kill this Sarastro dude?” Rainbow asked “man that’s brutal.”

Fluttershy just stood there with her hooves on her muzzel, she didn’t want to admit it, but even if the story of the song was disgusting, she liked the tone and tried to memorise the music.

“And to top it all, she is going to disown her if she doesn’t agreed to take this Sarastro’s life, that's not a mother that is a monster!” Rarity stated, disgusted by the singer's actions.

"Well say anything about her actions, but that's an impressive voice she got," Starlight mentioned while munching on her popcorn.

"Yeah but she is still a big meanie pants, how can you forget your own daughter for not doing what you tell her to do, that's a big no-no" Even Pinkie knew that this was not the right way to threat family.

"And now she'll destroy her if she doesn't do it, if that alien was in front of me, Ah'll show her a thing or two about parenting!"

"Oh, it seems that they have deities, so they must have religion... or religions" Twilight said as she wrote on her notepad for future references.

"Ah don't know 'bout them aliens, but for me there is only one true God and that's Faust almighty"

"Applejack, I respect your beliefs but let's not go there, religion is a really sensitive subject to bring between friends, it seems that the song is over so what did you think?" Starlight tried to bring the conversation to another topic, knowing that talking about religion or politics among other topics, never ends well.

"Ahm sorry 'bout that sugarcube, the song was good, but that singer needs to learn how to treat one's kin,"

"Indeed, that sounded like opera so it's probably just a story and not real. I wonder what the rest of the story is, why this female singer wanted Sarastro dead and why she wanted her own daughter to kill him? we might never know" Twilight had several questions, she wrote a lot on her notepad.

"These Aliens seem quite violent," said Fluttershy "so far we know they have feelings of love but they hurt them, they have wars, they also have orchestras and now that they have stories of mothers trying to have their daughter kill another alien."

"Yeah but we still don't have the context, the war might have been for a good cause, the sad feelings might be because that alien was hurt and maybe this last one, this Sarastro was a bad creature and she was trying to have her daughter help her get rid of it, what do you think Rarity?" Starlight asked her friend,  but she was no longer in the room "Has anypony seen Rarity?" all the girls and Spike looked around but none even noticed when the alabaster mare left the room.


~♥~♦~♣~♠~


Rarity's maternal instincts exploded after listening to the song, she was running as fast as her hooves let her, she didn't even care if the stones ruined her hooficure, she decided to do something about Diamond Tiara before her monster of a mother made her do something as terrible as the one in the song.

"Don't worry little filly, Rarity won't let you suffer anymore with that mare, even if that mare is your own mother" finally she reached the house of the Rich family, she jumped the courtyard wall ruining her mane in the process, something that was pointless since there wasn't a door sealing the wall, Rarity approached one of the windows ready to jump in but something stopped her, she could hear Spoiled and Filthy Rich through the window.

 "Spoiled this is the last straw, how can you excuse behaving this way?" This was Filthy Rich's voice and he sounded angry "not only you didn't take care of the obligations, the little tasks if I may say, that we both agreed you were in charge of, but now I discover that you have been, not just belittling but also unfairly criticizing our little child's actions!"

"You wouldn't believe what she told you over my own word would you?" Spoiled responded to the accusations.

"You better believe I would, I know you Spoiled and because I know you, I'm certain that you don't even know what you did is wrong, besides, it wasn't  just her... since that outburst in front of the school, I've heard rumors Spoiled, bad rumors about you" he approached his desk pulling some files.

"But you wouldn't believe rumors about me, would you?" she was getting worried.

"No I wouldn't, that's why I hired a private eye," he put the papers in front of Spoiled "I didn't want to believe them, but what this neutral investigator found was something I didn't expect from you," Spoiled went through the papers and pictures, it showed times where she yelled at Diamond Tiara for little things like correcting her, or even when she tried to befriend some of the workers "I finally confronted Diamond with this evidence and she burst into tears and confirmed every single of this events and more, do you want to know why she never told me about this?" Spoiled looked like she was ready to cry as well, "she told me that she felt like she deserved this, after all the ponies she bullied, she felt that she was atoning by being mistreated by you, look at me Spoiled, LOOK AT ME!" he pulled her wife so they were eye to eye, a dark tear rolled on her cheek and she could see that Filthy also had teary eyes "you know I love you, you are the love of my life and that's not going to change anytime soon, but I can't allow you to make our child feel like she deserves a punishment this harsh,"

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

“It's not what I'm going to do, it's what we are all going to do, starting tomorrow we all are going to therapy,”

“No honey please, what will the town say, the scandal,”

“We are too late for that dear, ponies already talk about us and both you and Diamond need this really bad,” he calmly said.

“You can't make me!”

“No, no I can't, but I won't let you ruin my baby's life even if it pains me to do this, if you don't take therapy with both of us, I'm afraid I'll have to file for divorce.”

Spoiled's world came crashing down around her, she might be spoiled and sometimes ungrateful, but deep down she truly loved her husband and daughter even if she didn't show it often, outside Rarity was covering her mouth with her hooves, streams of tears came from her eyes, she wouldn't dare to make a noise, inside Spoiled was sobbing wrapping her arms around Filthy's neck.

“Please no, anything but that, I promise I'll go to therapy, I'll do anything you ask, just don't leave me alone!” both were sobbing wrapped in each other’s hooves, “I promise I’ll change, please don’t leave me.”

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after or even in a few years, but what I know is that I’ll do everything in my hooves to keep my family together, I love you Spoiled and I love our daughter and I know she loves you as well.”

“Daddy mommy, are you crying?” from the door they could see a worried filly on her pajamas, “is it something I did?”

“No princess, come here and give us a hug, I was just talking to mommy don’t be afraid,” Diamond Tiara slowly approached and hugged them, “everything is going to be fine princess, mommy and daddy love you so much.”

Outside, Rarity was leaving the property as fast and silently as she could, she ran and ran until she reached a house by the lake, she opened the door and went straight to the master room where Hondo and Cookie were sleeping.

“Mom, dad!” Rarity finally spoke

Cookie Crumbles awoke at the voice of her daughter meanwhile Hondo kept snoring, “Rarity, honey what’s wrong,” she turned to see her clock “It’s almost midnight” Cookie woke up her husband “dear Rarity is here,” 

Hondo just grumbled but then asked “is there something wrong?” 

“No, is just that I don’t think I ever told you how much I appreciated you loving me all my life, you are the best” she then jumped on their bed and snuggled with her mother “please, let me sleep here tonight, I promise I’ll tell you everything in the morning.” Rarity’s parents were really confused by the sudden behavior of her oldest daughter, but agreed to let her sleep with them. Rarity felt protected, she knew that her parents loved her and she hoped that from now on, Diamond Tiara was finally able to feel the love she deserved as well.


To be continued