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// Chapter 2: Whispers and Rumors 
// Story: Lonely Is the One Who Endures: The Life of Spark Valor 
// by Spark Valor 
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One Month Later
Diamond Charmer knew something was wrong. All of her friends and family had stopped talking to her and she hadn’t received a single letter in almost a month. She was worried she had done something to offend them. She had tried to ask them what was the matter but they all acted like she wasn’t there. It was heart breaking to her. After many years of dinner parties, weddings and countless activities that she had went to with them, they one day decide not to acknowledge her? She couldn’t leave the house without seeing a single person she used to call a friend. All the shops in the city turned her away and every diner would leave her in the waiting room. But when they thought she wasn’t in ear shot or was looking the other way they would stare and whisper to each other with cruel faces. 
She no longer cared for her appearance, leaving her once beautiful golden mane in knots and tangles. Her coat was ragged and dirty. She walked with her head hung low and a dead look in her eyes. The one thing that kept her from falling apart completely was her child. She had named him Spark Valor, breaking away from the family name to create something unique like him. He was always so quiet and was always happy around his mother. His father didn’t spend enough time with his son for her liking. She was always trying to get him to watch him or play with him but he always left on some sort of “business”. She just wished she knew what was going on. 
As another day passed with no contact from any pony she thought of as important to her life, she decided to stop lying down like a floor mat and to pull herself together. She had a child to take care of and she was in no condition to do so dragging herself around like this. She took the time and made herself presentable and left for her favorite diner where she knew her “friends” would be. She made sure Spark was sound asleep and quietly went downstairs and left. She could feel the ponies stares the second she left the house. She hadn’t looked this nice since arriving from the hospital. She kept her head high and her eyes forward as she proudly left her home to confront who ever she found. As she walked down the street she could hear the whispers start already. As she turned around she found the source. It was a young grey stallion with an almost smoke color mane. His cutie mark was a firework exploding. That would explain the smoky mane she thought. He hadn’t realized she heard, until he turned to see her advancing on him with a cold look in her eyes, freezing him in place with a look of horror on his face. 
“If you have something to say, please do it so that we can all hear.” Diamond said coldly, still advancing on him. He was backed up to the wall now and had to stand on his hind legs to avoid being crushed by the mad mare. “Please, I am dying to know what it is every pony loves to talk about every day behind my back!” She was scared of herself but couldn’t stop now. She had to find out what it was that every pony had to say. He looked fairly familiar…but she couldn’t quite place where she knew him from.
“I-I…y-y-you…I-I…p-p-please” The stallion stammered. “Just please leave me alone!”
“Not until some pony tells me what is so damn important to have my family and friends to stop acknowledging I exist!” Then it hit her. This stallion was a friend of her husband’s. His name was Silver Sparkler and he ran the fireworks in Canterlot. She also knew he would never give up a secret. She left him and he collapsed in a heap and quickly gathered himself and ran off. The other ponies that had started to gather quickly dispersed as well. Diamond ran down into an alley and followed it until she came up on a dead end. She couldn’t hold herself together and collapsed sobbing into her hooves and letting all the emotion she had gathered in the past month to explode out of her. The joy of being a mother, the confusion of being forgotten by her friends and family, and how her husband seemed so distant since the hospital. She hated herself for being so…viscous towards Silver Sparkler. She hated her family for abandoning her. She hated her friends for spreading whatever rumors that she was involved in. She hated her husband for not doing a single thing to stop it. But…she hated herself for causing it. She didn’t even know what these rumors were about but she knew she had caused them somehow. She sobbed harder, not caring if some pony heard. She curled up into as small of a ball as possible, trying to keep the world away from her. 
She must have passed out at one point because when she awoke it was almost dark. As she got up to stretch her tight limbs, a blanket fell off of her. She couldn’t imagine who would do this or how they knew she was here. She looked around but she knew this was futile. She used her magic to lift the blanket up so she could get a better look. It was a very simple design, one side a bright golden yellow with a sun stitched into it. The yellow faded into a gray in the center and then a midnight blue with the mare in the moon stitched into the other side. She stared at it for another minute and folded it. She placed it on her back and left to complete what she set out to do. She emerged from the alley and quickly searched if any of the ponies she once thought of as her “friends”.  She didn’t find any of them. 
As she made her way to the diner, she found Silver Sparkler, who ran to the other side of the street when he saw her and the determined look in her eyes. She felt bad for him. She had never lost control of herself like that before. You can’t think like that right now Diamond Charmer told herself. She picked up her pace, trying to keep herself from backing out at the last second. As she entered, the waiter at the front had to do a double take of Diamond. He looked around nervously, obviously having heard what happened to Silver earlier. She walked past him and entered the dining room and searched through the ponies. 
She found two in the corner that she knew fairly well. One, Starshine Flourish, was the owner of the local salon and was always fretting with her purple mane or nonexistent spots on her pink coat. The other pony was Emerald Circlet, who ran the jewelry shop. She had a pound of jewelry on each of her yellow hooves, never wearing the same two on her them and a large gold hair band in her blue mane. Diamond wouldn’t exactly call them close friends but they were friends still. As she maneuvered her way through the room, a silence fell as the diners saw her and began to whisper and point at her. The two ponies in the corner didn’t realize she was there until she sat down with them. The looks on their faces were of pure and utter shock. They looked for a way out but she stopped them. 
“Please Starshine, Circlet, sit…we need to talk” “” said in a way giving them no choice. 
“I know you two hear a lot in Canterlot…so what are all these ponies saying about me. My family has stopped talking to me…my friends won’t acknowledge me…my husband is never around. So tell me…what are they saying and who started it!” She yelled as she slammed a hoof on the table hushing the room again. 
Starshine just looked at her friend and started to play with her hair nervously. Circlet could only gape at Diamond as she waited impatiently for one of them to snap out of their daze. Finally Starshine stopped playing with her hair and looked down. She sighed and lifted her head just enough so she could make eye contact with Diamond. 
“I don’t…I don’t think you want to know the truth Diamond. We’re not supposed to talk to you.” Starshine whispered to her. 
“Or let you in our shops…” Circlet whispered, not brave enough to make eye contact like her friend. She just kept her head down. 
“Who told you this?” Diamond asked her angered residing slowly as she saw how her friends were being torn up by this. Through years of helping ponies, they knew how to keep a secret and to be telling her this touched her deeper they might have realized. “Please…I need to know…” Diamond pleaded with the two ponies. 
“It was…your…your…” Sobs began to consume Starshine and Circlet tried to comfort her and as she began to speak a new look of terror came across her face. 
“I think it’s time to come home Diamond.” A deep voice said behind her. She couldn’t possibly believe that her husband was here and was keeping her from finding the truth. How dare him! She thought. She got up slowly and placed the blanket on her back again and bid farewell to her friends. They couldn’t respond. Starshine was sobbing harder and Circlet was still in shock slowly patting Starshine's back. 
Diamond was confused the entire walk back to her home. Why had her husband stopped her? How had he found out where she was? She couldn’t piece it together. She didn’t want to start questioning her husband until they were back in the privacy of her home. He didn’t say a word; he just kept walking ahead of her, never looking back or giving a hint of emotion in his stride. 
As they entered their home he turned and waited for her to close the door. The second the door was completely shut, he smashed a hoof upside the head. Diamond didn’t see it coming and as she collapsed on the floor, she saw stars. She blinked to try and clear her vision and shakily tried getting up. Another hoof smashed into her head and she lay on the floor. He vision was blurred but she could make out her husband standing over her with a cloth cleaning his hoof. 
“W…Why…”Diamond whispered. Her head was pounding and she could barely think. The one thought that penetrated her skull was if Spark was awake or not. 
“Why? Why! Because you lied to me!” He yelled at her. She could make out the veins in his neck ready to burst and the foam at his month. She had never seen him this mad before. “You told me that thing upstairs was my son! I could never produce a mutt like that!”
“I...I don’t understand…he…is your…son.” Diamond tried to stammer out. What was he saying? He…didn’t trust her? After years of long marriage…how could he say this?
“You don’t understand…let me put into simple words for you. You are an unfaithful harlot who was with some pony else. And now every pony knows it.” He said cruelly with the most evil smile she had ever seen creep onto his face. “You know how popular I am…so when I told them you were a whore…they believed me. I told them to never make any contact with you. They listened and know they keep watch on you for me.”
“But…but…he is…your son” She whispered weakly. She felt broken inside. Everything had been explained, yet she couldn’t believe a single word of it. 
“HE IS NOT MY SON!” He screamed. He used his magic to lift her and he threw across the room, crashing into a glass table. She could feel the glass sink into her. She lied still trying not to make it worse for her. She couldn’t hold herself together and sobbed deeply. He laughed. It was the darkest sound she had ever heard. That laugh did her more harm than the glass in her back. 
She lay there for what felt like hours. She couldn’t stay there any longer. Spark would be up soon. As she got up she could feel each shard of glass move deeper in her. She grabbed the blanket off the floor where it had fallen by the door. The small puddle of blood followed her up the stairs. She took care of herself first but not to of self preservation. She didn’t want to scare Spark. The glass covered most of back and left side. Most of them wouldn’t leave scars. One would though. A glass shard about an inch long and three wide had lodged itself almost all the way into her cutie mark. She didn’t care anymore. Her husband had abandoned her and her friends and family were either too scared or liked him too much to help her. She slowly left her room covered in small bandages to check on Spark. 
He was awake but he didn’t make a sound. He just watched her enter his room with his warm gaze. She couldn’t help but smile at him. He tried to fly out of his crib to meet her half way but she used her magic to keep him down. He laughed at the feeling of the magic on him and tried to fight it. She wasn’t trying hard and let him fly to her. He clamped his arms around her neck and she returned the hug with one arm. She draped the blanket around him like a cape that was far too large for him. He just laughed harder. She could feel her tears run down her cheeks. This is my reason to live now…