…What on Earth have I gotten myself into?
If anyone ever told me that taking care of a little filly (basically the equivalent of an eight- to nine-year-old human child) would be easy, I’d either tell them to go buck themselves or give them Diamond Tiara for a few hours and see what happens.
Then again, I am dealing with the proverbial ‘problem child’ of Ponyville, so I guess I should’ve expected this. I could only imagine how much of a burden she was to her parents. But then, maybe the safety cushion of immense wealth softened the blow.
Having grown up eating mostly gourmet Equestrian meals, she always had something to say about the food I served her. Were the fruits fresh? Were the vegetables grown organically? This was ‘too hot’, that was ‘too cold’. But my personal favorite was this little gem:
“This looks like something a Diamond Dog barfed up!”
Granted, I was far from being the best cook or baker, but I knew enough about cooking to get by; my ego was a bit bruised after that one. I tried giving her the old ‘if-you-don’t-like-it-you-can-just-go-hungry’ line my parents fed me when I was her age, but that was met with a…mixed reception. I decided to be less roundabout and simply asked her what she liked to eat. After a bit of dancing around her words to spite me further, she eventually revealed that she liked apples. Not at all surprising, I thought, given her family’s business ties to Applejack’s.
Apples…
I served her a slice of the apple cobbler Summer’s mom had made. Her eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed at the first spoonful. I wondered if it was the best apple cobbler she’d ever tasted. It sure was for me.
“…Not bad.”
Anyway, if it wasn’t my cooking skills Diamond Tiara critiqued, it was my taste in clothes. She’d pointed out how I didn’t have any high-end or designer outfits, or even anything for her to wear. Once again, I’d mentioned how I was a human and not a pony, and that, as a male of my species, I didn’t own any dresses. This would be the first of many times throughout the day she’d demand I took her shopping. I regretfully told her that doing so was a bad idea, glossing over the specifics of the consequences such an idea would have. Of course she whined over this too, but I couldn’t help but think: depending on how long I’d be taking care of her, I didn’t want to keep her cooped up inside the whole time. I’d decided I wanted to arrange some outings for us where she could get some fresh air without being seen. Just another thing to add to my ever-expanding to-do list.
Even now, she was tight-lipped about how she came to arrive in my world. What reason could she have had for keeping it a secret?
After an absolute headache-inducing afternoon, I prepare a small dinner for myself and Diamond Tiara. She’d worn herself out wailing at me all day, and was now resting in my bedroom (at least one of us was getting their beauty sleep). I approach my closed bedroom door with a plate of food for her: pasta, salad, lightly buttered bread, and a piece of apple cobbler for dessert.
I bring my hand up to rap quietly on the door. “Diamond Tiara?” I call out. “Are you awake?” No reply. Either she was still asleep, or she was wide awake and ignoring me out of spite. I assume the latter and let myself in. What I find inside nearly causes me to ‘d’awww’ like a giggly pegasister. The filly was curled up on top of the bed sheets, fast asleep, her chest rising and falling with each calm breath. I couldn’t hold back a smile at this.
Diamond Tiara: bratty when awake, adorable when sleeping. Who knew?
I set the food down on the dresser and sit on the bed beside her, being careful not to wake her by accident. I reach a hand over and start stroking her mane. It was soft as silk, and she looked so peaceful; it was like who she was when she was awake and who she was when she slept were two completely different ponies. I could put up with ‘Awake Diamond Tiara’, but I wanted to get to know ‘Sleeping Diamond Tiara’ better.
There were fresh tear stains under her eyes. She’d been crying again.
Poor thing. So far from home, with neither of us having any idea how to get her back there and me wondering if those looking for her had any idea where she was. My heart goes out to her. Why was it she only let herself be sympathetic and vulnerable when she was alone?
I look to the window. Ugh. Snowing again? Thanks for nothing, Mother Nature. Like I don’t feel like crap enough.
I take my cell phone out of my pocket. I’ve put this off for long enough, I think. I quickly dial a number and press the phone to my ear.
“Come on, pick up… Pick up…”
The ringing on the other end torments me, slowing my heart rate and adding to the anxiety I was already experiencing. I didn’t really want to do this, but fate’s forced my hand.
“…Jesse! Glad I caught you!”
Jesse sounded pretty pleased to hear from me. He wanted to know how my ‘dinner date’ with Summer had gone.
“It went great – I never should’ve doubted you, man – but that’s not why I called. Listen, are you on your way to work?”
He replied in the affirmative.
“Okay, good. I need you to do me a huge favor. Hugest favor ever.”
His tone had gone cynical.
“No, I’m not in a holding cell, and I don’t need bail money.”
He continued in an odd blend of cynical and apprehensive.
“No, I’m not about to ask you to do anything illegal. Would you just listen?”
Another joke and a short laugh on the other end of the line fuel my unease.
“Jesse, please! This is important!”
He immediately stops.
“Something’s come up, and I won’t be able to come in to work for a while; I don’t know exactly how long. Could you cover my shift today? Actually…for the next few days?”
He was annoyed. I expected that.
“I-I know, I know, I didn’t mean to drop this on you so suddenly, but it just kinda…came out of nowhere.”
He presses me for details.
“I…can’t really get into it right now, sorry. Just trust me when I say it’s really important and it’ll likely keep me busy for a while.”
Silence.
“…Jesse? Hello?”
More silence. And then…he asks how much time I need.
“Like I said, just a few days, a week tops. …Please.”
…He finally agrees. I sigh in relief. What’d I tell you? ‘Bro of bros’.
“Thanks, man. I owe you big time. I’m serious, this means a lot. And I promise I’ll explain everything when all’s said and done. …Also, the next time you see Summer, could you tell her I said thanks for the apple cobbler? …Great. Thanks again, man. You’re the best. Later.” I press ‘End Call’, and my arms fall to my sides. It had been such a long day. It was only a short while after sundown, but given how exhausted I’d felt, it might as well have been two in the morning. With Diamond Tiara asleep on my bed, I enter the extra bedroom and collapse onto the simple bed face-down. I look out the window briefly. Still snowing. Just great.
“…You’re going out?”
It was the following morning. Diamond Tiara and I are standing by my front door; I’m bundled up in winter gear, preparing to leave the house for a bit. If not for the reason I was about to give her, I wouldn’t have left her by herself. I kneel down so she could meet my gaze more easily. “It’s only for a little while,” I assure her. I felt like a father telling his daughter not to cry over her daddy leaving her alone. “There are some things I need to pick up, like my dry cleaning and fresh groceries.”
“How come you get to go out and I have to stay here?!”
“I told you, it’s too risky for you to go out right now, especially on your own.”
“Why? Is it dangerous or something?”
“For you…something like that. Besides, you remember what almost happened yesterday. Your parents would kill me if I let something bad happen to you.” She lowers her head in both disappointment and shame. I grasp her chin gently and pick her head up so she’d meet my eyes again. “I promise, once I make sure it’s safe for you, we’ll go out and do something. Okay?”
She pulls away and frowns. “Fine. But what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”
“I left some food out in the kitchen if you get hungry, and…uh… Oh! Here!” I stand up from kneeling and move toward the television, turning it on. “You can watch some TV.”
“What’s ‘TV’?” she asks.
“Uh, well… You have movies in Ponyville, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it’s like that, but it’s on 24/7. And every thirty minutes to two hours, something different shows.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, lots of things! Action shows, adventure shows, comedies, fantasies, dramas – anything you can think of. What kind of movies do you like?”
She ponders for a moment before answering. “I like romance stories.”
I grin. “Then I’ve got just the thing!” With remote in hand, I cycle through the channels until I reach the Disney Channel. As luck would have it, a number of classic movies were airing back to back, no doubt as part of some holiday/end-of-year tie-in. And one in particular was just starting, though we’d missed most of the opening dialogue.
“—As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope…for who could ever learn to love a beast?”
Want a great romance story? Look no further than this one. Diamond Tiara had already moved over to the couch, her eyes glued to the TV screen as the first musical number starts up. I chuckle lightly to myself and grab my keys and head out the front door. Too easy.
Once outside, my hood pulled up to ward off falling snowflakes, I make my way over to my car and double-check to see if I have everything. Wallet. House keys. Car keys. Cell phone. Grocery list. Dry cleaning ticket. Wait, where’s…? I check an inner coat pocket, and something pointy pokes the palm of my hand. There it is. Good. Not even the snow could dampen my mood today. I was a man on a mission.
I return home a little over an hour and a half later, groceries and dry cleaning in hand. As I enter through the front door, I spy Diamond Tiara over on the couch, captivated by the movie playing on TV, which I see is just about over.
Seeing me enter, she quickly wipes away her tears – tears that, I presumed, were due to the ending – and gives me her signature scowl. “Took you long enough,” is the first thing she says to me as I arrive.
True, I had more on my agenda than just what I told her before leaving, but it was only an hour and a half. Surely, with her attentions directed at the TV screen, the time just flew by. But I didn’t want her angrier with me before I had a chance to spring my surprise on her. “Sorry,” I tell her. “My errands took a little longer than I thought.”
“Whatever. Movie’s over anyway.”
“Did you like it?”
She tries desperately to hide the fact that she loved every minute of it. “It was alright.”
Her attempts at being aloof were just too adorable. If Paige were here, she’d take Diamond Tiara into her arms and never let go. I glance at the clock. It was nearing lunchtime. “You hungry?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I power off the TV as she makes her way into the kitchen. I pick my head up to look at her when I hear her humming faintly to herself. I recognized the melody right away as one of the movie’s many catchy songs. My mind was at war with itself. Dammit, universe, you aren’t playing fair! A few days ago, I hated this filly, and now she’s just too cute to hate!
I hang up my dry cleaning to sort through later and join Diamond Tiara in the kitchen, preparing a small lunch for us using my recently acquired groceries. I’d spent more money that day than I planned to, but my Christmas bonus provided me with a bit of a safety net until I returned to work. I hope Jesse isn’t too upset.
“…Someone came by while you were out,” says the rose-coated filly between nibbles.
My head shoots up at her. “What?” My voice was shaky.
“There was a knock at the door. I hid behind the couch before they could see me through the window.”
I sigh, relieved. That was pretty quick thinking on her part. I can’t believe I didn’t account for people stopping by while I was out of the house. “Did you see who it was?”
“Only as they were walking away. It was a girl. Blond hair, tall, kinda scrawny-looking.”
I knew in an instant. Summer was here? Jesse must’ve told her I was taking some time off and she came by looking for me. I nearly kick myself for not being here to greet her. But her finding I wasn’t home was preferable to having her discover Diamond Tiara. I was thankful for that, but I didn’t want Summer to think I was deliberately avoiding her. At my earliest convenience, I would give her a call later on.
“Was that your marefriend?”
I nearly choke on my food and cough violently at her implication, knowing full well that ponies used the term ‘marefriend’ in the same context in which one would say ‘girlfriend’. “S-She’s not…! W-We’re not…!” I stammer uncontrollably.
Diamond Tiara has a laugh at my expense. “You totally are, aren’t you? It’s written all over your face!”
I chug a bit of juice so I can breathe easier. “W-We’re really not, actually. Summer’s just…a really close friend.” I cringe inwardly at my utterance of the word ‘friend’. Heaven knows how I wanted for us to be much more.
“Hah. Sure she is. And Prince Blueblood’s my uncle.”
I didn’t want to dwell on this further. “Alright, enough about my love life, okay? What about you, huh? I thought you were gonna tell me how you wound up here.”
“Hmm… Nah. Don’t feel like it anymore, blank flank.” Having finished her lunch, she eyes the slice of apple cobbler I’d set aside for her, licking her lips greedily. She reaches out with her hooves…before I yank the plate away from her. “Hey!”
With a smirk, I counter, “Well, maybe I don’t feel like giving you any dessert.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Tell me what I wanna know, and you can have it.” I almost felt dirty using Summer’s kind gift to me as a bargaining chip, but if I wanted the information I sought, I had no choice but to stoop to Diamond Tiara’s level.
And as expected, the little pony was none too pleased about it. She had her hooves on the kitchen counter, grinding her teeth and ready to buck me in the face. All I do is smirk as I withhold her dessert. “Argh! Fine!” She leans back in her chair in a huff, crossing her forelegs across her chest. “…It was Hearth’s Warming Eve. Mom, Dad, and I had tickets to the pageant in Canterlot and were on our way to catch the train. But there was a commotion in the Ponyville town square. Apparently, that windbag Trixie – this traveling unicorn magician – was back in town and putting on a magic show to ‘make amends for past transgressions’ or something like that.”
I remembered well the Great and Powerful Trixie’s first appearance on the show. Her performance, however impressive it was, was spoiled by her pompousness and constant boasting, and she’d left the ponies of Ponyville on less than friendly terms.
“She needed a volunteer for some stupid vanishing act, and my dad hoisted me up over the crowd so Trixie could see me. I told him I didn’t want to, but he was insistent. So I go up on stage, Trixie does her showmare shtick – ‘what’s your name?’, ‘we haven’t met before today, right?’, blah-blah-blah – and drapes a big velvet cloth over me. I hear Trixie say the magic words, and there’s some kind of popping sound, and then…nothing.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?”
“Exactly what it sounds like: nothing. I couldn’t hear Trixie anymore. I couldn’t hear the crowd of ponies. I couldn’t hear anything.”
“…What happened?”
“I have no idea. When I pulled the cloth off of me, I wasn’t in Ponyville anymore. I was in some park, surrounded by trees. Trixie, Mom, and Dad – they were all gone. …I was alone. I thought it was part of the magic trick, so I got under the cloth again, hoping the next time I pulled it off, I’d be back in Ponyville, onstage next to Trixie. …But nothing happened. For nearly an hour, nothing happened at all. I was still there, in that park. I called out for my dad, but he didn’t call back to me. I called out again. Still nothing. Then I started hearing voices. I thought it was other ponies at first, but when I saw they weren’t – that they were ‘humans’ – I ran away from them. And everything around me was so different! Giant carriages that weren’t horse-drawn! Buildings that looked like they touched the sky! And the ponies that lived here – they all walked on two legs instead of four! They were so weird-looking! So…! So…!”
“…Scary?”
“…If I wasn’t running for my life, I was hiding in the dark somewhere.” Diamond Tiara hangs her head, and I hear her starting to sob. “…I was so scared. I kept wishing it was all just a really bad dream. I just wanted my mom and dad.”
Once again, my body was moving of its own accord. I rise out of my seat and walk around to Diamond Tiara’s side to comfort her. She takes notice of me there and dives forward into my arms, wrapping her stubby forelegs as far around my torso as she could. “I want my mom and dad! I want to go home!” she cries, her voice somewhat muffled by my shirt.
With the sobbing filly in my arms, I fall to my knees and hold her close, not caring in the slightest that my shirt was getting soaked with tears. It had finally sunken in: here, in this world, I was all Diamond Tiara had. In a world of countless unknowns, I was the only person she could depend on for warmth and support. Here…I was her only friend.
I wait for her crying to die down before attempting to speak, holding her even now. “…Diamond Tiara,” I start in a whisper, “I said I’d try and help you get home, and I will. I… I don’t want to lie to you and say I’ll get you there for sure, but I’m gonna try my best, okay? Until then…you can stay here as long as you want.”
She pulls away from the embrace to look up at me, tears still falling from her eyes. She sniffles. “R-Really? Even though I’ve…been so mean to you…?”
I brush her bangs away and kiss her lightly on the forehead. “Yes, even though you’re a big pain in the rump, I’m still gonna look after you. I found you in the streets and took you home, so that makes you my responsibility. Is that okay with you…‘Tiara’?”
She doesn’t protest my calling her by her nickname this time, and gives a smile, probably her first sincere smile since she’s been here. “Okay…you weirdo.” She snuggles up to me again, now more trusting of me than before.
My smile remains for a few more moments…before it leaves my face. I felt like having a cry myself. I now knew how she arrived in my world – it was magic (big surprise there) – but what difference did it make? Diamond Tiara was counting on me to get her home, and I had absolutely no idea how I was going to do it.
My gaze moves for the window again. Still snowing. It was supposed to clear up by the next day. “…Hey.”
Diamond Tiara pulls away from me a second time. “What?”
“Do you like snow, by any chance?” I ask her out of nowhere.
Predictably, she cocks her head to the side, confused by my unexpected question. “Sure, why?”
“…You’ll see.”