"See you around, blank flanks," Diamond Tiara laughed as she trotted away. Silver Spoon wasn’t far behind her.
"Come back here and say it again," Scootaloo yelled.
Silver heard a scuffle, and turned back to see Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom holding her back. Scootaloo looked like she was ready to take both her and Diamond on at once.
"Scootaloo, you'll be in big trouble if you're caught fighting again. Miss Cheerilee already warned you once," Sweetie reminded her.
As their voices faded in the distance, Silver just looked down at her hooves as they walked. While she liked spending time with her only friend, her actions always left a bad taste in her mouth. She usually went along with it, not wanting to lose her friendship...
"Hey, four-eyes!" Diamond yelled, clapping her hooves in front of her face. "I'm trying to talk to you, and you're in dreamland somewhere!”
Diamond’s teasing was not limited to the Crusaders. Sometimes, when nopony was around, she would turn on Silver Spoon. Diamond always told her that she was toughening her up, helping her to develop a thicker skin.
“Sorry, Diamond,” Silver replied.
“You were thinking of Featherweight, weren’t you? Thinking of how you want him to lean close, whispering stuff to you that would make you swoon, coming in for that sweet kiss on-”
“D-Diamond, stop it,” Silver interrupted, blushing furiously.
Diamond was the only pony alive that knew of Silver’s secret crush on Featherweight, and she used it to her full advantage. Mostly friendly teasing, though she has used the secret to blackmail Silver at times.
“Well, anyways, while you were daydreaming about your love life, I was trying to ask if you wanted to grab your swimsuit and come to my water park,” Diamond continued.
Diamond’s water park was once a public water park sitting on the edge of the Rich family property. Boasting a water slide, two large pools, a hot tub, and a kiddie pool, it was the place to go on a hot day. After Diamond went, she came back to complain to her father about the crowds and the long line at the water slide. Wanting to make her daughter happy, Filthy Rich bought out the water park and extended his property lines around it, making it her daughter’s personal playground.
“S-Sorry, Diamond,” Silver said, her mind trying to think of an excuse not to go. “I...have to get my homework done. You know how Miss Cheerilee is about that.”
“Just have a servant do it. Which reminds me, I have to give that one an earful about the C minus that was on my last essay,” Diamond replied.
“Diamond...I can’t right now. Maybe next time,” Silver said, then beat a hasty retreat before Diamond could say anything else.
When she got to the front door of her home, a grey three floor mansion, she leaned a hoof against the door and stopped to catch her breath. As she stepped inside, she thought about how she wanted to spend time with Diamond, but can't risk her finding out her secret.
---
Silver Spoon took a deep breath and relaxed, as she entered the sanctuary of her bedroom without running into her father. Her room was much like any other fillies room, with plushies, a writing desk, old unused dolls, books, and a bed with pink sheets. It was a lot larger than average though, and the connecting private bathroom made it even larger.
Pulling out a notebook, she sat down at the desk, turned to a blank page, and started to work on a picture of Featherweight, just a simple sketch. As she started on his facial features, she started to blush a bit. If only she had Diamond’s confidence...
“Miss Spoon, it’s time for dinner,” one of the butlers, an old green stallion named Good Service, told her.
“Thank you, I’ll be down in a moment,” she answered.
As the red tail disappeared from her door frame, Silver reluctantly got up, not wanting to talk with her father, knowing where the conversation would probably head.
---
She made her way down to the fancy dining room, only to find her parents sitting at either end of the long table. Silver knew that when her parents sat like that, they were in some kind of heated argument, and didn’t want to sit anywhere near each other. The table was large enough to sit ten comfortably, but it was usually the three of them.
Her parents were the owners of a company called Spoon and Smith Silverware. Her father, Silver Smith, handled the mining of silver and gold ore. Her mother, Shining Spoon, ran the part that turned the ore into silverware that was sold all over Equestria. They combined their names to come up with their daughters name, and want her to take over the whole company someday.
Silver chose a seat that was halfway in between them, not wanting either of them to think she was choosing their side, and her bowl of Zebra grass salad was placed in front of her. Hard to get, and very expensive, it was considered a delicacy among ponies. One that most could never afford.
“So,” Silver Smith asked, “What did the teacher have you learning today?”
“Well, there was a continuation on the lesson about fractions. And also, there was the lesson on Gryphon customs, and how they differ from the ones in Equestria,” Silver answered the silver earth pony.
“Hmph, useless things that one of your workers would probably need to care about. Nothing important about the business world,” he answered. “If you weren’t friends with Rich’s kid, I would pull you out of that school and put you in a private school. One that can teach you about running a business.”
“Silver Smith, she may need to know this stuff someday,” the tan Unicorn mare sitting across from him answered.
“When you’re the owner of a company, you can delegate this stuff off to someone else,” Silver Smith answered, his black tail twitching in annoyance. “You need a clear head to make important business decisions. Decisions that our daughter will be making.”
Shining Spoon just let her head fall into her hoof, her silver hair pooling around her face. She levitated her glasses off her head and wiped them off with a napkin, before slipping them on and replying, “I know about owning a business. And there are things that need to get done, things I prefer to do myself. That way, I can be sure they get done right. She needs to know the basics if our daughter will ever run our company successfully.”
Silver knew from experience that this could explode into a full on argument soon, one that she did not want to be a part of. So she quietly excused herself from the table and went to her room, leaving her dinner mostly untouched.
--
She stepped into her bathroom and turned on a shower for herself. As she went in and stood under the water, the cascading liquid hit her flank. As the water went down her side, the spoon that was known as her cutie mark started to smear. In time, the paint washed off completely.