Characters: Filthy Rich & Angel Bunny (with a tie)
Location: Random restaurant
~~*~~*~~
Just Desserts
Filthy Rich perused the restaurant menu with casual indifference. The average pony would have carefully weighed the food received versus its cost to find the best deal, to get the most value possible out of their bits, but Filthy Rich was a successful business stallion, and nopony with his income had to deal with any of that.
If he wanted, he could probably just buy the whole restaurant, the fountain out front, and the manager’s house without batting an eye. A few overpriced meals now and again were nothing.
Ever since his cutie mark first appeared when he had managed to sell something for far more value than it was actually worth, he had been raising bits for him and his family at an astonishing rate, using the traditional aggressive style he learned from his father. Old habits die hard, but over forty years after the fact, all of that had mellowed; his eyes were commonly lidded in relaxation, his mane was slicked back, and his demeanor was very laid-back and amiable, but the sum of bits he owned to his name was no less vast. Even triple digit prices that would put most ponies into debt were naught but a speedbump in the road for him.
“Ooh, this looks pretty good, daddy! Can I get this to eat?”
Filthy Rich looked over at the menu item his daughter, Diamond Tiara, was pointing out with a hoof, and sighed.
“Dimey, you know that that dessert’s not good for you,” he calmly chided his daughter, dropping his usual easygoing smile for a moment. “And we haven’t even eaten yet, so please order something normal.”
The small, pink foal seated in the opposite booth pouted, her forelegs crossed as her face took on an exaggerated frown. She held it for a couple seconds before her eyes widened and shimmered with fake tears, a technique that had twisted and warped the minds of fathers to young fillies everywhere. With Filthy Rich, the ruse lasted for only seconds.
“No.”
She dropped the facade in an instant; her father almost never raised his voice these days, so any time in which he did let even Diamond Tiara know that her biggest wish wasn’t worth facing her father’s wrath.
Content that she had stopped with her usual shenanigans, Filthy Rich gave a weak smile as he returned his eyes to the menu. Beside them, their waitress stood, waiting, trying to pretend she wasn’t tapping a hoof impatiently.
“Sir, miss,” the waitress addressed father and daughter in turn, giving a friendly smile, “are you ready to order?”
“Yes.” Filthy Rich gave the waitress a smile in return. “I’ll have the...house special, with a salad on the side.”
“Very good choice, sir. And you, miss?” the waitress replied, turning her gaze to Diamond.
The small filly had swept up the menu with an all-too-wide grin on her face, likely about to point out something on the dessert menu. Filthy Rich resisted the temptation to roll his eyes.
“She,” Filthy Rich cut in, “will have the salad from the Little Filly’s menu. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it, won’t she?”
Diamond’s grin faded in a flash, replaced with her usual scowl.
“Yes, ma’am...” she muttered through clenched teeth, offhoofedly returning the menu to the waitress.
“Your orders will be ready shortly,” the waitress said cheerfully, oblivious to Diamond’s bad mood as she turned away to head back to the restaurant’s kitchen.
“Thank you,” Filthy Rich said, nodding towards her retreating form.
~~*~~*~~
“So, how’s school been?” Filthy Rich was attempting to have a conversation with his daughter, but his questions were often met with curt, annoyed answers. That didn’t keep him from trying to bond with her, regardless.
Diamond Tiara took a sip of her water, one forehoof clutching the glass while she rested her head on the other. “Okay, I guess.”
“I talked to Miss Cheerilee the other day. I heard you didn’t do so well on your long division assignment.”
She took another sip, eyes half-lidded with boredom. “Long division is stupid.”
“Your geography assignment had a lot of red marks on it, as well.”
“Geography is stupid.”
“And evidently your grammar test didn’t turn out that great, either.”
“Grammar is stupid. Nopony did good on that test, anyway. Well, except for Twist, but she’s such a complete nerd that she doesn’t count.”
Filthy Rich briefly frowned at his daughter’s insult. “But you did get an ‘A’ on that history test. I’m proud of you,” he said, smiling warmly.
Diamond Tiara’s eyes went wide, blinking twice in surprise, though her head remained rested on her hoof. “I didn’t know I did that well.”
She resumed her bored expression. “It’s still stupid, though...” she muttered, but Filthy Rich heard the difference in her tone; she was clearly pleased with herself.
Filthy Rich wasn’t sure how to respond to his daughter’s apathy about her education, so the two of them sat in silence until both ponies’ state of ennui was broken when the sound of plates being set next to them rang in their ears.
“Here you are! Enjoy!” the waitress said.
“Thank you,” Filthy Rich answered, but the waitress had already hurried off, evidently to go take more orders.
~~*~~*~~
Filthy Rich swallowed the last of his meal as he set the empty plates aside. Diamond Tiara looked over at him, incredulous at how quickly he had finished his food. It shouldn’t have been a surprise on her part; Diamond Tiara spent more time picking through her food than actually eating it. A small pile of tomato slices, olives, and the rest of the salad parts she didn’t like was shoved off to the side, with the pile stacked higher than the rest of the salad itself.
He was about to chastise her eating habits, or lack thereof, when he saw her actually eat two leaves of lettuce.
“How’s Silver Spoon?” he asked, attempting conversation again.
She chewed as she pondered the question, then swallowed the lettuce.
“Alright, I guess. She hasn’t been in school the past few days.”
Filthy Rich looked a bit worried. “Why not? Is she sick?”
Diamond Tiara finished off her water, complete with obnoxious slurping noises as the glass ran dry. “She isn’t sick. It was just some family get-together thing she got dragged to. She’ll be back by the end of the week, I think.”
Filthy Rich’s attention was stolen away from his conversation when he heard the jingling of the restaurant’s door. A cursory glance towards the door revealed the restaurant’s newest guests: a yellow pegasus mare with a long, pink mane and three butterflies for a cutie mark, and a white rabbit perched on her back, wearing a comically oversized tie that dragged behind him and a seemingly perpetual frown. One of the rabbit’s tiny feet drummed impatiently on the pegasus’s back, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her head was dipped slightly, as if trying to escape attention.
No chance of that, considering Filthy Rich’s eyes followed the pegasus all the way to her seat. He was taken aback by how...pleasant...her appearance was, the color of her mane blending with the color of her body to create a truly adorable sight. And the way she seemed to care for that still-frowning bunny despite his grumpy attitude was too sweet for words. Why, such a pegasus could only be complemented by the pink hoof appearing out of the corner of his vision, tapping him roughly on the cheek and-
“Daddy, she’s gotta be at least thirty years younger than you. Stop it.”
Filthy Rich hadn’t even noticed he’d spaced out until her voice pierced his brain. He shook his head roughly, trying to act as if everything was normal, which was probably just damage control at this point, considering the look his daughter was giving him.
“Besides, she’s just Fluttershy,” Diamond added curtly, turning away to inspect her forehooves in the restaurant window.
“I didn’t know you knew her, Dimey.”
“I don’t, really. I’ve never actually met her. And don’t call me ‘Dimey,’ daddy,” she muttered, blood pooling in her flushed cheeks, a rare sight. “You know I hate that name.”
“And you don’t think the other foals at school hate it when you call them, ‘blank flanks.’” Filthy Rich countered. It wasn’t a question.
“Ugh! This again,” Diamond muttered. “I told you, that’s different! ‘Blank flanks’ is what they are!”
“But that’s not a bad thing. Some ponies just get their cutie marks later than other ponies, and it’s not right to make fun of them for that. Missus Smith’s youngest granddaughter and her two friends are trying very hard to earn their cutie marks, young mare, and just because they haven’t gotten them yet doesn’t mean you can hold yourself above them.”
“That’s only because they don’t have any talents...” Diamond Tiara muttered, her voice so low that even her own ears had trouble picking up what she said.
“What was that?” Filthy Rich asked. The bags under his eyes seemed all the more pronounced in his scolding glare.
“Nothing, daddy. You’re absolutely right, like always!” The pink filly’s sarcasm, loud and obnoxious, was very clear. An awkward, extended silence permeated through the restaurant.
“Oh, you wanted to order that, Angel Bunny? I don’t know... Can we afford that?”
It was a testament to how quiet the restaurant was that even Fluttershy’s usual tone, all the volume of a soft whisper, could be heard at all, let alone from halfway across the room.
Both Filthy Rich and Diamond Tiara glanced towards the source. Diamond turned her eyes away, inspecting her forehooves in the mirror again.
“I don’t see what the big deal is about Fluttershy,” she mentioned indifferently, as if bringing up how sunny it was outside. “Miss Cheerilee’s always talking about how ponies should be nice like her, and I think all the colts in our class have a crush on her.” She pressed a hoof to her chin in thought. “Some of the fillies probably do too, now that I think about it. But she’s not that pretty. Not like me...”
Filthy Rich turned back to his daughter. “Well, ponies should be nice to each other. That’s not a bad thing to look up to her for.”
Diamond Tiara snorted.
“She gets bossed around by her animals! The only reason anypony knows who she is is because she talks to those animals, and that’s because she’s too scared to talk to a real pony!”
Filthy Rich glanced over towards Fluttershy’s table, and saw that she had evidently picked up Diamond Tiara’s words, hurt clear in her eyes. The bunny, somehow, had also heard Diamond and glared over at the two of them with anger in his expression. It was enough that the bunny’s oversized tie didn’t lessen the tension any.
“If you say one more bad word about her or any other pony, it’s no dessert for a month, young mare.” His voice didn’t increase in volume, but the weight of his statement was no less significant.
Sometimes, Diamond Tiara’s brain had no concept of ‘stop,’ however.
“My friend Alula told me at school that Fluttershy fell out of Cloudsdale years ago because she can’t fly. A pegasus that can’t fly, daddy, can you believe that? That’s almost worse than being a blank flank.”
Filthy Rich’s disapproving stare held strong. He wasn’t foalish enough to make a scene in the middle of a public restaurant, but he already decided that Diamond Tiara was in heaps of trouble when they got home.
When Fluttershy trotted past their table, and Filthy Rich noticed the sniffling, the red eyes, and the tears, all the telltale signs of her being deeply hurt, he left his seat and went after her.
“Diamond Tiara, you are grounded,” he called over his shoulder, before picking up speed.
Filthy Rich had rounded a corner when he came face-to-face with a door, one that Fluttershy had clearly gone through. Cursing the fact that he had had only seconds to prepare what he was going to say to her, he opened it with a hoof and gave it his best shot.
“Miss Fluttershy, if you’re in here, I just want to apologize on behalf of my daughter. She’s really not a bad filly, it’s just that she’s sometimes...insensitive and-”
He was cut off by a very girlish shriek, before he felt a hoof slap him harshly across the cheek.
“What are you doing in here? Get out!” yelled the irate unicorn who had slapped him.
Filthy Rich pressed a hoof to his cheek, feeling that the slap was rather uncalled for.
“There’s no need to be violent, miss,” he said, trying to smooth out the situation. “My name is Filthy-”
“And you sure live up to it!” she retorted. “This is the mare’s restroom, you old pervert! Or can’t you read?”
One cheek was already as red as his tie from where he had been slapped, but his other cheek joined in when he mentally traced back the events of seconds before and realized that he had, in fact, wandered into the wrong restroom.
“Right...” he trailed off, sheepishly, “I’m sorry. It’s just, there’s a yellow pegasus in here by the name of Fluttershy, and I need to speak with her, so if you could just tell her that, I’d be really happy.”
The unicorn only glared at him.
“...I’ll be going now,” he said.
~~*~~*~~
Outside, Filthy Rich waited as the blush on his face gradually disappeared.
Come on, he rationalized to himself. It was an honest mistake! Anypony could’ve done it!
He checked himself out in the mirror for what seemed like the fiftieth time in the past five minutes. That slap was going to leave a mark, for sure, but any other trace of his previous embarrassment seemed to have gone by now.
Knowing Diamond Tiara would eventually ask what had happened to his cheek, he tried to formulate a lie that seemed plausible enough as he made his way back to the table.
I rounded the corner, he thought, and then a frying pan! Right to the face! Complete accident, but- no, that won’t do. Wait, what is that bunny doing?
It was clearly the same one that had accompanied Fluttershy to the restaurant; Filthy Rich could’ve known that tie anywhere. What he hadn’t expected was the bunny to be jumping up and down on Diamond Tiara’s head, ignoring her yelling as he glared down at her with each bounce.
“Ow! Quit it! Do you know who I am?” Diamond yelled at the bunny, cowering as best as she could with her forehooves. “I’m Diamond Tiara - Ow! - and my daddy’s name is- Will you quit your stupid hopping?”
She looked up, and hope shone in her eyes as she noticed her father standing there.
“Daddy! Wait - Ow! - what happened to your cheek? Never mind - Ow! - get this bunny off me, please!”
He wordlessly swung his hoof, snatching the bunny from his daughter’s head and watching as it wriggled helplessly in his grip.
“Angel Bunny!”
Filthy Rich didn’t think Fluttershy could be that loud. She ran up to Filthy Rich, but seemed to lose her bravado as she approached him, gradually shrinking back.
“Oh, um, sir. Put Angel Bunny down, please, or, um...” She was back to her shy whisper.
He would’ve rather tossed the bunny out of the restaurant for daring to try and hurt his little Dimey, but upon seeing Fluttershy’s tear-stricken face, he had no choice but to comply. No sooner than he had set the bunny down did Fluttershy scoop him up, hugging him closely.
“Are you okay, Angel Bunny? Did that old stallion hurt you?” she cooed. “Don’t worry, Angel, I’m here.”
“That ‘Angel Bunny’ was attacking my daughter.” Filthy Rich said, unamused.
“Yeah!” Diamond Tiara chimed in. “What’s wrong with your bunny? Is he infected? Does this place have any sanitizer?”
Angel wrestled his way out of Fluttershy’s iron grip of a hug and started wordlessly motioning to Filthy Rich. Filthy Rich, being not at all fluent in the language of charades, was baffled by Angel’s message.
“Uh, I’m...not sure what you’re telling me. Um...the restaurant’s on fire?”
Angel shook his head, his frown unchanged, before grabbing the eating utensils from his table and arranging them in the shape of a diamond.
“...A square?”
Another shake of the head. This time, he rotated the utensils, keeping their shape, so that Filthy Rich could view it from a better angle.
“Little Habbit’s trapped in a well?”
The bunny buried his face in his palms. He ripped off the tie -- “Oh, that took forever to tie just right...” Fluttershy quietly fumed -- before setting it next to the utensil arrangement.
“Diamond...tie...” Filthy Rich mused to himself.
Angel’s eyes narrowed again, having clearly lost what little patience he had as, this time, he snatched the tiara straight from Diamond Tiara’s head, before kicking the tie away and replacing it with the tiara.
“Hey!” Diamond yelled, but didn’t make any further protests lest the bunny resume its hopping rampage.
“Diamond...tiara...Diamond Tiara!”
The bunny nodded, finally removing the frown from its face. Angel began gesturing again, looking to be pantomiming speaking. Still, Filthy Rich wasn’t quite sure, as he only cocked his head to the side. Angel regained his stony glare.
“Um, sir,” Fluttershy interrupted, “I think Angel Bunny wants your daughter to apologize.”
“That does sound like a good idea.” Filthy Rich agreed.
“What?” Diamond Tiara whined. “That bunny was hitting me! Why do I have to say sorry?”
“No, I think Angel wants you to apologize to Miss Fluttershy here.”
Angel nodded, glaring harshly at Diamond.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Fluttershy said, starting to back off, “I hear things like that all the time and-”
“No, it’s not okay.” Filthy Rich countered. “Diamond, what you said was very hurtful. Say you’re sorry to Miss Fluttershy.”
“But-” Diamond Tiara started, before a glare from Filthy Rich stopped her words in her tracks.
“...I’m sorry,” she muttered, seeming like she was trying to out-quiet Fluttershy.
“Hm? Didn’t hear that.” Filthy Rich responded.
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy,” she muttered again.
“One more time, so we can actually hear it.” her father said. Diamond Tiara glared at him before sighing.
“I’m sorry, Miss Fluttershy,” Diamond Tiara corrected herself. It was a far cry from being completely sincere, but it could be heard, and that was probably the best he was going to get from her.
Fluttershy, grinning, wordlessly swept Diamond Tiara up in an embrace. Diamond Tiara’s forelegs went limp and hung at her sides, but under the watch of Filthy Rich’s stare, she rolled her eyes and completed the embrace.
Fluttershy’s mood seemed to have increased tenfold by the time she returned to her seat. Angel Bunny’s mood might not have improved any, but Filthy Rich had no way of knowing.
“There! Now, was that so hard?” he asked, gazing down towards his daughter.
“I guess not,” she muttered. She picked up one of the few remaining pieces of lettuce in her salad -- only to find that Angel Bunny had, in addition to his rampant head stomping, apparently helped himself to nibbles of her lettuce.
“That bunny of hers better not be infected with something.” Diamond Tiara said, trying her best to chew around the bunny’s teeth marks.
~~*~~*~~
After paying for the meal -- a generous tip, of course -- they had just gotten up to leave, when-
“So, how’d your cheek get so red?”
Filthy Rich grimaced; he’d been hoping that the topic would’ve been forgotten amidst all the chaos from earlier.
“You know,” he answered, dropping the topic altogether, “that was a very mature thing you did back there, apologizing to Miss Fluttershy like that.”
“Yeah, well...” She didn’t seem to have a response for that. “That’s good, right?”
He chuckled. “Of course it is. I’m proud of you.”
“So am I still grounded then, daddy?” she asked, her words going a mile a minute as she glanced upward into her father’s eyes. Judging from her expression, she was trying to see if the old ‘puppy dog’ eyes trick would work. This time, it did. Sort of.
“Yes.”
Diamond’s expression sank.
“But maybe just no desserts for a week, now...”
Diamond Tiara looked both pleased and annoyed, stuck between being unsure of whether to risk bargaining for more or not, and being happy at getting her sentence reduced.
“...Dimey. I’m still going to call you that, you know.”
She groaned under her breath again at that nickname of hers being snuck in, but there didn’t seem to be any trace of the usual malice this time. Filthy Rich smiled when he felt a weight pressed against his leg.
He glanced down at his daughter once again. She looked up and, seeing her father’s smile, offered him a reluctant one in return. He still saw the warmth and genuineness behind it, though, and felt warmth at the brief appearance of the sweet daughter hidden underneath her bossy and condescending exterior.
A rare occurrence, for sure, but hopefully time would remind him more often that, sometimes, what’s spoiled can still be sweet.