She would always remember exactly what she'd been doing at the moment when her daddy started to give her The Talk.
Not the one about sex. Diamond had decided she knew all about that. Which was entirely to her own credit, because it wasn't as if there had been very much information offered up in class. This actually hadn't been Miss Cheerilee's fault: the school board had been oddly squeamish about allowing any actual details to reach the single available lecture, and it had apparently taken some fairly major blunders in back-of-the-schoolhouse nuzzling attempts for any of the adults to change their minds. Diamond had decided the best way to truly learn was through performing her own investigations and, after closing the last of the scant books offered up by the librarian, concluded that it was way too early for her to be worrying about personally attempting any of it. Also that when she was ready, she was clearly going to be extremely choosy. It was the sort of decision which required a lot of advance preparation. There was a deep-down, rather frustrated portion of her which was hoping that the party who was theoretically being prepared would eventually notice.
So she didn't need to receive that kind of lecture from her daddy and all things considered, she much preferred to spare him the embarrassment of having to attempt it. Especially since Diamond had gone to a lot of trouble in translating from the academic & biological and accordingly, probably knew more than he did.
It wasn't the sex talk. It wouldn't take very long into the real talk before she would start to wish for the educational version. As an improvement.
Where was she, when the disaster officially launched itself off the precipice? In the new dining room on a cold winter night, having a hot dinner with her daddy. They usually ate alone, because it was just the two of them. It always had been.
Well... not really, not if she was going to think about what had clearly taken place in order for her to be present at all. There had been a time which preceded 'always' and unlike the bulk of history, it had been a period which Diamond had actually been present for. A factor which made it important.
But all she could remember was two.
Strictly speaking, that wasn't quite right. Cameo had a place at the table, because a pet needed to eat and one who was loved was going to do so in close proximity to her pony. Diamond had investigated the offerings made by those who created custom furnishings for dollhouses, paid for some rescaling, and now Cameo ate dinner with them. Of course, for a jeweled scarab, that was mostly a blend of exotic grasses and strange roots added to foreign leaves and stems. Diamond grew all of it herself, because Saddle Arabian plants could flourish under an earth pony's care -- which clearly required some personal attention. And it didn't hurt to have the miniature plates match the rest of the table's settings.
Silver slept over sometimes: something which had started fairly early in their friendship, and maintained to the current day. There had also been a pair of more recent, fairly occasional additions on top of that: two laughing presences who tended to make dinners a little more messy and, because asking boys to fully control themselves was a lost cause, quite a bit louder. The servants ate with them on special occasions, or if there was something to talk about. And very rarely, her daddy would invite a businesspony to dine with them, because he was trying to establish a relationship and there was something about fresh bread which seemed to help.
Then there had been an... 'interruption' was something of an understatement. And once the reconstruction side of that had resolved, another filly had occasionally began to turn up at the table.
Five factors which could change the numbers. But there had been a period of several moons during which the third and fourth had never applied and the first two had felt oddly awkward, because it was sort of hard to invite ponies over to dinner when you weren't eating at your own residence. And during the time in which they've been staying with others, there would be four ponies at the table, sometimes five, there was a chance for six and once you took the visitors out, that was family.
Maybe that was what counted. (For the Belles, the number went up to four.) And when it came to family...
Diamond loved her father. He cared about her more than anypony else in the world. Each was the only pony whom the other had in the world.
That meant something.
Two. For ponies, it was two.
It wasn't supposed to be two. Something had happened, and -- Diamond didn't remember. She hadn't even been a year old yet: she had an excuse. But it was just like every other portion of history: when it came to making things official, her witnessing presence somehow wasn't required. Most of the world insisted on operating without her direct supervision and as with what had taken place shortly after her birth, it had proven that when left to itself, it made very poor decisions. Diamond and her father had to live with the results.
Two. The two of them together. Always. Two.
It wasn't the way it should have been. But that was how it was. Two worked, because each could give all of their love to the other.
Her daddy should have understood.
The new dining room, as with the majority of the fresh structure, had come out somewhat smaller. Diamond's bedroom was one of the few exceptions: she was growing up, and her daddy had decided that she needed a little more space to suit. The conservatory was roughly the same size, and the new flower clock at the side of the building had been exactingly replanted. But her daddy had decided that they didn't really need a ballroom, because it wasn't as if they were really ever going to have any formal dances: a somewhat smaller area for potential parties was enough. Some storage space had shrunk, a number of unused closets had been outright eliminated, and the dining room no longer featured a table which required anypony who entered at the far end while carrying hot food to worry about the dish becoming cold along the way. It was a dining room where you didn't have to shout, which was sort of a shame because Diamond had once found entertainment in tracking the echoes. Not that the boys had initially cared about that sort of thing, but then they'd both remembered about burping and once that had happened, a happy investigation into the science of sonics had officially been under way.
(Burping had been the soft option. You had to put up with a lot, when you had boys over and both of them frequently forgot the rather basic fact that they were visiting a girl. This irritated Diamond, because she really needed one of them to acknowledge that. Or ideally, both: she was only working on true preparation for one, but having both of them recognize the fundamentals of biology would allow for mutual reminders.)
With the new building... they didn't really live in a mansion any more. More of a fairly large house with some guest sleeping areas and a couple of special function rooms. But her daddy had said there was really too much space for a pair of ponies, a few servants, and one jeweled scarab who, while effectively having the run of the place, still spent a lot of time in what Diamond was hoping would be officially acknowledged as the world's most elaborate terrarium.
Maybe that was part of what had started him thinking about it. Space. Because Diamond's new bedroom was somewhat larger -- but her daddy's was still the same size.
He'd purchased the same kind of bed...
They were wrapping up dinner, and Cameo had already started on dessert. Diamond liked to watch her companion tuck into dessert, because doing so meant the jeweled scarab was healthy. Also, she was especially proud of the tiny nectar trough.
Her daddy reared up a little from his bench, and the right forehoof pushed a plate aside.
"Diamond?"
She looked up, and... he looked tired. Her daddy often did, because there were fifteen stores in the franchise --
-- sixteen soon: Appleloosa's branch was only a few weeks away from opening -- there had been a delay -- they were probably going to travel there for the occasion and Diamond wasn't sure what to bring for a trip to the desert, but Cameo would probably love the heat --
-- fifteen stores (going on sixteen), with a single stallion responsible for every last one of them. The stores and, ultimately, everypony who worked there.
He'd been talking to Diamond about that part over the last few moons. What it felt like to know that the normalcy of so many lives depended on his finding a way to succeed. The weight of it. There was a tremendous responsibility there, and... trying to fulfill it made him tired. He wanted her to truly understand, because she was going to take over someday and she needed to be ready.
Her daddy's talent was for business. He found ways to haul the burden. Diamond...
...he looked tired. He often did. But there was also quite a bit of worry there, and Diamond was sure it wasn't due to anything she'd personally done. (Not recently, anyway.) Weariness, concern, and... lurking under it all, as if unsure as to whether it could fully peek out and make itself known, an odd sort of anticipation.
"Daddy?" she asked, because that was usually a good way to let him know that she was ready to listen.
His head dipped for a moment. The brown chin nearly hit the table, and his mane seemed to sag under its own weight. But then he looked up, and a weary, worried blue gaze looked over her face.
"I'm going to try something tomorrow," her father said. "Something I... haven't done in a very long time." And sighed. "Honestly, Diamond, I think it's --" paused, and his right foreleg lifted. Bent in, until the hoof touched his bare neck. The place where the tie rested, on the increasingly-rare occasions when he bothered to wear one.
She used the opportunity to check on the leg. It had healed nicely. Multiple moons of rubbing in burn cream had eventually done the trick.
"'I'm'," he corrected. "Not 'it's'. I think I'm going to fail. Because..." and the laugh was short without being sharp, almost embarrassed about being caught out in public at all. "...of course I'm going to fail. Why wouldn't this not work?"
She was already worried: a quick side glance at Cameo found feelers moving with equal confusion. The scarab could pick up on moods, and -- her daddy allowed Cameo to ride upon his mane, every now and again. He was always so careful when moving around the house, forever on the lookout for where the insect was...
Her daddy was worried. Really worried.
It was probably some kind of new business deal. A rookie supplier asking for a partnership: that happened sometimes, and the results weren't always positive. There were times when he just needed somepony to listen, and Diamond was willing.
It was also possible that he was looking for a fresh perspective. Advice. But his mark was for business, and hers wasn't.
"I don't know," Diamond carefully said. "You haven't told me what it is yet. Maybe if I heard..."
He nodded.
"I wanted you to know before I tried," he told her. "No matter how it worked out, so it wouldn't be a surprise one way or the other."
It was her turn to nod. (Cameo's carapace briefly lifted, and wings spun a dance of light.) And then she watched him searching for words, looking within and without to find the right ones.
He usually didn't do that. Her daddy almost always knew what to say.
A seventeenth franchise?
His tail was starting to twist on itself.
This was going to be big --
"As much as anything else," her daddy began, "this is because of --" hesitated, and now he was watching her shoulders. Her ears, and then her tail. Checking for a reaction. "-- Tirek."
Diamond didn't shudder. It had been moons, and... she was getting better.
"He was the wake-up call," he eventually continued, after visibly reassuring himself as to her continued calm and forward-rotated ears. "A reminder. That we all only have so much time, Diamond. Nopony can know when theirs will run out." It was only a half-smile upon his face now: wry, but -- sad. Mourning. "And when you live here..."
She blinked.
"Are we moving?"
Everything she knew was here. Everypony --
"No," he quickly reassured her. With a much lighter laugh, "Especially not so soon after putting together a new house. Ponyville is home, Diamond. And with -- Tirek -- most of the business owners in the local Association grouse about what having the Bearers here does to repair bills, and all of the reconstruction. But he came here because eventually, he was going to go everywhere. He'd finished with Canterlot, and we were..."
There's a giant shadow over our bodies. It's shaped like a hoof.
I'm weak. I can't really move. She's next to me, and I can't lead her out from under the shadow. I can't get her to safety.
I can't do anything.
My daddy is racing towards us. I'm screaming at him, telling him to stay away. His forelegs are soggy and burned at the same time, because he was in Canterlot when it started and he didn't know how to make the train's boiler work right. He shouldn't be able to move at all and he's galloping and the shadow is coming down and
But she wouldn't react. Not while he was watching her. She didn't want him to see her shiver. Shake. Ever. Because that scared him.
And she was... getting better. She really was.
"We were convenient," he finished. "The next thing he could drain. That was all."
Diamond was sure that it hadn't looked as if she'd forced the nod. She was good at that sort of thing.
The really hard part was in being as good as she thought she was. Or... needed to be.
"Everypony came through it," her daddy said. "We came through it --" and then his head dipped again. "No. Everypony here saw Sun rise again. There were those in Canterlot who can't say the same. Who... can't say anything, Diamond."
Her eyes closed. Then she felt a minimal, familiar mass alight upon her mane, and she opened them again.
It was her mane, these days. She was still trying to decide if she wanted a new tiara. The last one had been a gift, just about the final thing she'd done during the giant centaur's attack was arrange for it to be presented to a crack in the giant hoof, and...
...she didn't know.
"Only so much time." This smile was sad, small, and -- almost timid. "And I thought... if Miss Fluttershy could somehow find a way to manage the feat with Miss Dis Lee, when that might have taken a different monster attack to fully ignite..."
The temperature of Diamond's blood dropped by fifty degrees.
She was amazed that Cameo had stayed with her. The jeweled scarab, so far from her birth home, liked it hot. (Diamond put a lot of effort into maintaining the heat lamps in the terrarium, and she frequently kept her room considerably warmer than the usual. It typically left her sleeping on top of the sheets, but -- you did a lot for the ones you loved.) Having the support's internal flow spontaneously convert to slurry should have sent the insect fleeing towards the nearest vent.
He's talking about --
"There's this mare," her father slowly said.
Several key bones were now laced with ice. Diamond, unable to move, waited to see which ones shattered first.
"And," her daddy wearily added, "I've... been lonely for a long time --"
"I'm here!" Diamond desperately pushed into the world. "I'll always --"
This time, his foreleg reached across the table, and the hoof gently rubbed at the base of her ears.
"It's not the same."
It wasn't as big a table as it had once been. Her daddy sat at the head of it, and Diamond was just around the right corner.
"There's different kinds of lonely, Diamond," said the one she loved. "I just told myself that it was... natural, after a while. That anypony I looked at... if they looked back, all they would be seeing was bits. There was no point in searching, because any mare who was smiling at a mound of metal wasn't worth the effort. And... it didn't feel like there was much of a chance for getting one to see me. I got lucky once. Just once. And... that was more luck than some ever have. I didn't have the right to look again, not after..."
He stopped. His foreleg dropped down, and... he looked so tired...
She kept her eyes on him. Diamond wasn't entirely sure she had the strength to move her head anyway, and if she turned --
-- they had guests sometimes. Arranged along the table. And some of them got close. But...
Don't look at the other side.
Don't look where nopony ever sits.
And then her father turned his head.
He looked at that spot. Exactly that spot, and continued to regard it for ten endless heartbeats before facing his only daughter again.
"I told myself that," he informed the lone foal. "I told myself a lot of things. And then I had a wake-up call, Diamond. I'm lonely. I'd... like to try."
She tried to find words. Anything she could say, do, muster which would stop it. Two syllables desperately moved forward.
"A mare."
Those clearly hadn't been the right ones.
"A very distinctive mare," was accompanied by a decidedly awkward smile. "Even beautiful in some ways..."
The words felt familiar --
-- memory sparked and in doing so, ignited the fire of panic.
oh no
"But you probably just think of her as the mailmare," her daddy added.
Her stomach was now ablaze and her blood hadn't defrosted. Diamond had no idea how that worked.
"So did I, for a while. Especially because it's taken a surprising amount of effort to learn her name," he ruefully mentioned. "I've had less trouble running down the real addresses for a few failed enterprises, and that was with ponies who were trying to hide. At this point, I'm just hoping I actually have it right."
say something, say anything, stop this
It was like trying to use her talent on herself. It felt as if something should have been happening, and yet all she could do was just sit there and listen while the world cracked and everything started to fall apart --
"I wanted you to know, before I tried," her father kindly added. "To warn you. But... Diamond, if this somehow works... I need to keep you out of it for a while. Because..." The hesitation stretched out for a while, and Cameo's wings emerged: the downdraft shifted two whole strands of Diamond's mane. "...you've -- said things to her."
Well, of course she had! She'd seen the mailmare, and when just about anypony got a look at that wandering right eye --
-- Diamond had... said a lot of things. To a lot of ponies. And apologizing was hard. Feeling contrite had become sort of natural, but she still had trouble looking that way. Diamond had Resting Superiority Face and hadn't really seen it as being a problem. And when it came to being properly sorry -- exactly how was she supposed to remember every single inspired (and usually brilliant) comment she'd ever made? She kept coming across those for whom she'd just misplaced the offenses, and it felt as if the fallout was never-ending.
She needed somepony who could both keep track of it all and book apology appointments. Her very own Secretary Of Insults. But Silver hadn't been there for everything, and it was usually just Diamond trying to remember exactly what she'd said. Followed by trying to figure out a new spin on 'sorry', because that was a word which had never been meant to do so much work.
"If she says no," her father hastily kicked in, "it's not necessarily because of you."
He was an honest businesspony. He always stressed the importance of remaining so, and did his best to be ethical in all things. It was good for the business, helpful in the community and in Diamond's opinion, didn't make him into a particularly good liar.
"Truthfully," the adult added. "I think she's going to say no. And that she would have said it anyway, possibly to anypony who asked." Wryly, "Telling myself that might make the upcoming rejection feel less personal. But... I want to try, Diamond." The smile slowly worked its way in, then noticed where it was and fled for its life. "I finally want to try again. I haven't felt that way for a very long time, and... maybe that's worth something all by itself. And I wanted to warn you either way." He took an exceptionally deep breath. "Because I'm going to do it tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," his daughter just barely managed to echo.
He nodded. "The asking. Not the results." Even the chuckle sounded weary. "Not that I'm expecting results. But I've got the day shift at the store. I'll be there when she brings in the mail, and I'll make sure there's some privacy. One way or another... at least I'll have asked." Ruefully, "I've been putting this off for half a moon. And that included telling you, because I didn't want to try until you knew."
Blue eyes carefully focused on her frozen features.
"You're okay with this, aren't you?" rippled across her body in waves of open concern.
Say something.
Anything.
Anything...
She tried to force a grimace of pain into speaking for her, the inadequate results cracked into something which faintly resembled a thin smile.
"...it's just... trying," she finally voiced. "You try a lot of things. It's like any new items you bring into the store. Some of them work out. Some of them don't."
Good. That was a start. Now she just needed a followup which would definitively explain why this particular mare had been destined to go into the Clearance bin --
"-- thank you," her father exhaled. "Thank you, Diamond. For understanding."
I don't --
But then he was rubbing at the base of her ears again. And The Talk was over.
She allowed that rubbing, because she loved him and it was how he showed how much he cared. But it still took one of the greatest acts of willpower she'd mustered in her life simply to get through dessert. And once that was over, she just barely kept control over her own body long enough to reach the nearest bathroom.
...it was a new house. She'd thought it was the nearest bathroom.
The coat closet had mostly been empty. Getting rid of the residual scent still took an hour.
It was absolutely not a rant. Her daddy had told her that one of the best ways to see how a plan truly sounded was to describe the details out loud, and do so in front of an audience. Watching their reactions was a good way to figure out whether you actually had something viable, and that meant marching back and forth in her bedroom while declaiming the whole of it was nothing more than giving a presentation.
Additionally, Cameo was extremely attentive and could be presumed to agree with everything Diamond said. So there.
"Dating! It's been just the two of us for years --"
The jeweled scarab reared up against the front glass wall of the terrarium. Four of the six golden legs waved at Diamond.
"-- three," Diamond generously corrected. "Now it's three. But you haven't been here that long." Almost smugly, "And for ponies, it's still two. That's counting properly." She made the turn by the textbook-occupied cabinet, and the streaks in her tail angrily lashed across the spine of bound centuries. "Dating...!"
You couldn't trust the majority of adults. That was a simple fact, because most of them had no idea how to think properly. Her daddy was one of the rare exceptions and even then, he'd been through some failures. Diamond wasn't entirely sure what happened to ponies during the maturation process to make their brains mostly stop working, but she had figured out that she needed to be on perpetual guard against any signs of deterioration in herself. Frequent self-checks would probably be enough.
There were certain things she trusted her father to do. 'Run a business' was high on that list. But when it came to dating...
How could anypony trust him to date? There was no way she could rely on him to find somepony! Frankly, it had clearly been something of a miracle that he'd managed it the first time around --
-- actually...
...he hadn't.
"The first time I saw her?"
The filly listened. She rested at her father's forehooves within the sunlit glass conservatory, ears rotated forward, and drank in the past.
He took a few breaths. Looked out the window, stared across the years, and then focused on his daughter.
"She was trotting across the Gate. That was what we called the open space between the college buildings in Vanhoover, Diamond. The Gate, because -- if you finished school, and walked out for the last time -- you were supposed to feel like you could go anywhere. The gate which led to the rest of the world."
The flower clock was visible through the glass. Her father kept it going, every year. Something which was hard for him, because his magic wasn't as refined as that of the mare who'd first planted it. He didn't have the same level of fine control. But he did everything he could.
"I started keeping track, without really knowing that I was doing so. We didn't share any classes, but -- some of the ones we were each attending started and let out at the same time. She walked across the Gate three days out of five. After a while, I started to figure out which class she was leaving. What her major was. And I kept waiting to see her trotting with a stallion. Or different mares, or trotting a little closer to one of them. Because there had to be somepony who'd already tried. There had to be."
The filly resolved to ask what a 'major' was. Later. Much, much later. And she felt her tiara grow warm, and she listened.
Halfway between speech and whisper, "I saw her for about two minutes, three times a week. And I was trying to think of what to say, when everypony in the world must have said it to her before. Somepony must have found the right words long before I did. And I was just this plain brown stallion whose self-worth began and ended with a bank account which I was afraid to mention to anypony, just in case that was the only thing they saw about me. You'll... have to be very careful about that, Diamond. When the time comes."
What did she have to be careful about? She hadn't even started school yet and the filly knew she was going to have plenty of bits. Money was power. Why wouldn't she want ponies to know she was powerful?
"I was afraid to tell anypony my name."
That was just silly. Her father was a very silly pony. That was one of the reasons she loved him.
"It was two weeks before she changed course. She went into a light gallop before I could move. And then she was right in front of me."
He was smiling. But his eyes were wet. You weren't supposed to feel both ways at the same time.
"She said one of us had to start this relationship and it clearly wasn't going to be me."
Obviously.
Softly, "I couldn't move. I just... stood there. I couldn't believe it was happening at all. I had to be dreaming. I kept waiting to wake up, and she... went behind me. I thought I'd lost my chance. That if it had been real, I'd lost the only hope I'd ever had."
Except that it hadn't worked out that way, because the filly was there to listen --
A little ruefully, "Then she bit down on the end of my tail."
The filly giggled.
"She just about dragged me for the first three hoofsteps. She was that strong. You get that more from her than me. I started moving just because I wanted my dock to stay attached."
The giggles kept coming.
"There were ponies all over the Gate, staring at us. She acted like none of them were there at all. And she kept pulling until I started to move with her. But she didn't let go until we were in the student union, at the cafeteria."
There was more moisture on his eyes.
Then it was being absorbed by his fur.
She didn't want to make her father cry. Not ever --
"She tried to buy me lunch." And the laugh was soft. "She said... with the way I groomed myself, trying not to stand out at all... I probably didn't have the bits for a good lunch. Because she didn't know who I was. I saw her reaction when she finally found who my father was, Diamond. From about six hoofwidths away. She never had a clue until that moment, especially when I would only say my name was Fil. She paid that day, and..."
The fur was saturated now. Moisture fell onto the filly's face.
"...I guess you could say that I spent the next few years trying to pay her back..."
...which proved that he wasn't capable of dating. Somepony else had seized his reins, and that had been an entirely sensible decision because if it hadn't been made, then the world would currently be suffering from a total lack of Diamond.
Worse: the world wouldn't even know what it was missing out on. And there would be nopony around to make sure things were done properly.
He was lonely? Well, she understood that. He'd said that this had started because of Tirek, and the centaur's attack had triggered multiple varieties of madness. Some of them were clearly ongoing. Diamond was getting better, but her father had obviously been wounded more deeply than she'd originally suspected. She would have to keep a closer eye on him. Because for him to consider dating --
-- the mailmare...
...no, seriously: the mailmare?
Diamond pictured the pegasus. It took an effort to move her internal attention away from the right eye.
He could do better.
Not that he had to. He already had Diamond in his life. When it came to not being lonely, that was clearly enough for anypony.
It's not as if he could do any worse. She's clumsy and she blunders into things and she's always setting off lightning, I think she's broken as many things as Sweetie and the other two combined and it's not as if anypony calls her on it.
She wouldn't understand if they did call her on it, because she also talks like she's the stupidest mare in the world.
Why her?
Diamond thought about it.
The most obvious conclusion was that her father had no taste. The more charitable version decided that a decade-plus of not considering anypony at all had resulted in a certain amount of atrophy.
"Atrophy," she said aloud, and then spent three minutes explaining it all to Cameo. Wings buzzed in an appreciative manner. "And it's not just that..."
Powerful legs bent, gathered power, and Diamond leapt onto her bed. Mattress springs creaked against the impact of earth pony density. Her mane, disrupted by the force of the landing, sprawled across the covers.
"He'd be thinning out resources," Diamond realized, and the shock of it nearly sent her tail straight.
Cameo was looking at her.
"Love exists," Diamond carefully instructed. "That's obvious. And it's an exchange." She reconsidered that. "Potentially, anyway. If you give love, then you have a chance to get love. So if it works out, then there's love going back and forth. But Cameo... if anything exists, then..."
The adolescent hesitated.
"...it exists in a finite quantity. You can't have a demand without a limited supply." With somewhat more confidence, "That's business. And if he... there's only so much, and..."
The math didn't work. Anypony should have been able to recognize that and somehow, her father hadn't seen the divisor lurking within the equation.
Diamond would be getting less.
Unacceptable.
She stared at her companion. Tiny claws sympathetically moved against the glass.
Diamond held position on the mattress for a while. (It was new. Everything in the room was new, because it had to be.) Thought.
"It won't work," she finally said. "He thinks she'll say no. She's too dumb to understand the question. So it'll be a no." (This was internally repeated a few times, for reinforcement.) "But... just in case..."
She carefully climbed down from her bed. Moved over to the balcony door, pushed it open, and quickly stepped out into the cold winter air. The glass was hastily slid shut behind her: Cameo didn't need the exposure.
Diamond gazed up at Moon.
There were a few adults who claimed that only foals prayed. And in Diamond's opinion, some prayers were in fact pointless. It was obvious that the Princesses never heard anything unless you were standing a few body lengths away and even then, they couldn't always do much.
But if you were really going to try, then you had to seek a greater power. And when it came to this level of potential crisis, it was crucial to call in any potentially available resources.
"No," she told the orb. "It has to be a 'No'. So make that happen."
And then she went back inside, planned to arrange for her daddy's favorite meal after the next day's rejection because he would clearly need some extra comfort, and went to bed.
Diamond typically got home from school well before her father finished the day shift. It let her meet him at the door, with the appetizer tray already balanced on her back.
He was glad to see her.
He had some news.
Diamond listened.
She immediately resolved not to speak to Moon for a week.