Diamond Tiara was humming to herself in her room as she brushed the mane of the beautiful Twilight Twinkle before setting her down at her Paradise Estate playset beside her other dolls. She looked up and across the room towards her friend Silver Spoon, who was reading a magazine with a cookie halfway in her mouth. “Hey, can you pass me the cutie mark stickers? They’re all blank flanks right now.”
Silver Spoon reached her left hoof down to her side and felt around for the sticker sheet until her hoof came into contact with it. She picked it up and tossed it lazily to her side, allowing it to fly an entire ten centimetres before fluttering slowly to the carpeted floor beneath her. “There.”
“… Gee, thanks,” Diamond said as she rose to her hooves and walked towards the sticker sheet herself. “What are you even reading? You’ve been on that page forever.”
“It’s the latest article on Trenderhoof,” Silver Spoon said, showing the page to Diamond Tiara for a split-second before returning her attention to it. “It says here he’s moved to Appleoosa… and now I’m not sure if I want to go there on my next vacation or not.”
“Too bad you missed him here in Ponyville, huh?” Diamond said in a teasing tone as she walked back towards her playset.
“Stupid cold,” Silver Spoon muttered as she dug her nose even further into her magazine.
Diamond Tiara simply giggled as she returned to her playset and reached for her Firefly doll… which was no longer there. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong?” Silver Spoon asked.
“I can’t find Firefly.” Diamond Tiara looked around for her little doll but found nothing.
“Looking for this?” A small brown hoof offered the red pegasus doll to Diamond Tiara.
“Oh, thanks,” Diamond Tiara said as she took the doll and stared at it for a few seconds. Her head shot up to the one who had given it to her. There was a small pegasus filly, likely younger than her, staring back with a huge smile as she hovered in the air.
“Hello!”
Diamond Tiara jumped and watched as the zipped past her and landed on her bed. “W-Who are you?!”
“Hello! I’m Zippoorwhill! I got bored so my daddy told me there was a filly at this house I could play with who was very nice!”
“Ah, I see you found Diamond’s room just fine,” a voice called out from behind Diamond Tiara. Diamond turned around to find her father, Filthy Rich, standing at the doorway.
“Daddy, who is this filly, and why is she in my room?” Diamond Tiara demanded to know.
“Now Diamond, sweetie, your father’s old friend has just moved back to Ponyville recently,” Filthy Rich explained, “And we are catching up on old times together downstairs. Zippoorwhill here is his daughter, and we thought that it might be nice if the two of you could get along. Perhaps you could show her your doll collection?”
“But Daddy-”
“I know you’ll be a good girl to our guest and that you and Silver Spoon won’t leave her out of your games. Right, pumpkin?”
Diamond Tiara turned her head and grumbled, “Yes, Daddy.”
Filthy Rich smiled and turned to leave. “Well, have fun you three. Try not to make too much noise up here.”
Diamond Tiara turned to Zippoorwhill, who was bouncing up-and-down on her bed. “Stop that! You’re messing up my sheets!”
Zippoorwhill stopped mid-bounce, her wings fluttering to keep her suspended in the air. “Hey, you wanna see my new cutie mark?” Without receiving an answer, Zippoorwhill turned to show off her new cutie mark-adorned flank to Diamond Tiara. “Isn’t it just the most superific-splenderific-greatastic cutie mark you’ve ever seen?!”
“What?”
“What? Aaaanywho, I got it last week when I was out walking my dog Captain Cuddles!”
“What does it mean?” Silver Spoon asked. “Paw tracks… Are you a hunter?”
Zippoorwhill shook her head with a pout. “It mean I can understand animals well and get along with them! I’m gonna be a vet when I grow up, just like Miss Fluttershy!”
“Technically she’s not a vet, since she doesn’t have any official qualifications,” Silver Spoon pointed out, “But that sounds… interesting.”
“Working with animals sounds terrible,” Diamond Tiara said as she placed her doll back onto the floor. “They’re always drooling and yapping and doing their business on the floor. It’s so gross.”
“Well I think they’re super fun and I love when I play fetch with Captain Cuddles and when we snuggle up together all warm-snug-in-a-hug-like in bed!”
“You sleep with your dog?” Silver Spoon, a look of disgust on her face. “Aren’t you afraid of fleas, or saliva?”
“Captain Cuddles gets a check-up every month and he’s always clean, and he only licks my face to wake me up, which is important ‘cause my dreams are so fun I usually don’t wanna leave them but if I don’t leave them then Daddy will get sad and lonely.”
“Why are you so weird?” Diamond asked as she watched Zippoorwhill begin to fly circles around her room.
“Daddy says being weird is good ‘cause then I stand out from the crowd, and anypony who says that bad is just jelly ‘cause they don’t have my high energy or my cute face!” Zippoorwhill landed in front of Diamond Tiara and brought her face closer to the startled filly. “See? Daddy says I’m the cutest little pony in all of Equestria!”
“I-If you say so. Now back off,” Diamond Tiara said as she pushed the filly away. Suddenly, Zippoorwhill gasped. “Now what?”
“I don’t know your names!” Zippoorwhill jumped into the air and performed slow somersaults. “Ooooh, this is bad this is bad! I can’t make new friends if I don’t even ask their names first! Stupid Zippy, stupid stupid!”
“Calm down and stop spinning,” Silver Spoon said, glaring at the filly who had suddenly halted in the air. “I’m Silver Spoon, and this is Diamond Tiara.”
“Yay!” Zippoorwhill bolted forward and crashed into Diamond Tiara, knocking her to the floor. “New friends! I’m so happy! This is like the fifth greatest day of my life, next to getting my cutie mark, my birthday, my other birthday that was just a little better, and my first day of school!”
“Friends?” Diamond Tiara asked as she crawled her way to freedom with Silver Spoon’s help.
“Right! Friends! I love making new friends, ‘cause it means we can do so much fun stuff together! So, what kinda things do you two like to do, anyway?”
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon looked to each other, and then back to Zippoorwhill. “Well,” Diamond began, “We like to…”
“Have tea parties.”
“Sit still, and stop slurping your tea!” Diamond Tiara demanded. “You have to act with more grace and dignity, like us.”
“Refill time!” Zippoorwhill shouted as she place her teacup down and reached her hooves towards the kettle in the centre of the table.
Silver Spoon gasped and shouted, “Don’t-”
But it was too late. Zippoorwhill’s hooves made contact with the kettle and then immediately pulled back. “OWWWW! OWIE OWIE, BURNY FEELING!” Zippoorwhill fell onto her back and kicked her hind legs as she screamed in pain, knocking the table over and causing the tea to stain the carpet.
“My floor!” Diamond Tiara screamed.
“My hoofsies!” Zippoorwhill cried.
“Groom our dolls.”
“This is the latest line of Pretty Pony Princess dolls,” Diamond Tiara said as she ran a brush through her new, limited edition Charity doll, whilst Silver Spoon placed the accessories onto her new Applesack doll. “They’re really going overboard with the whole rainbow thing, though.”
“Hey guys!” Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon turned to Zippoorwhill to see what she had done with the spare doll Diamond had given her. “What d’you think?”
Diamond Tiara blinked as she took in the sight of a former beautiful princess whose head had been removed and replaced with that of a shark’s.
“AAAAAHHHHHH!”
“Cool, huh?!”
“Play games.”
“HELP!” Zippoorwhill cried as she choked before a panicking Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. “HELLLLP!”
“WHY DID YOU EAT THE HOUSE?!”
“IT LOOKED SO YUMMY AND TASTY!”
“I’ll go get your dad!” Silver Spoon shouted as she ran towards the door, stopping after hearing one particularly loud gagging sound that was followed by complete silence.
“… All better!” Zippoorwhill declared.
Diamond Tiara removed the plastic house piece that was stuck to her face by a patch of saliva and her eye twitched as she glared at Zippoorwhill smiling back at her with an invisible halo floating above her head.
“Wow, you guys are fun!” Zippoorwhill said. “What else do you do?”
An idea presented itself to Silver Spoon and she rushed up to Diamond Tiara’s side, pulling her aside to whisper in private. Zippoorwhill simply tilted her head as she waited for the two to finish talking about whatever it was that they were talking about.
After some moments passed, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon turned to Zippoorwhill with new grins on their faces. “Actually,” Diamond Tiara said, “Silver Spoon and I were just thinking about playing some good old hide-and-seek.”
“Ooh!” Zippoorwhill danced in the air at the proclamation. “I love hide-and-seek! I’m so good at it! I can find anypony super fast!”
“Yes, well, Diamond always goes first,” Silver Spoon said. “It’s a rule we have.”
“Right, so why don’t the two of you go and hide and I’ll count to one hundred,” Diamond Tiara said.
“Yessiree bob!” Zippoorwhill said as she landed and grabbed Silver Spoon’s hoof. “Let’s go!”
Silver Spoon nodded and followed Zippoorwhill out of the room, turning around for just a second to flash a wink Diamond Tiara’s way.
“So, where should we hide?” Zippoorwhill asked.
“Follow me,” Silver Spoon whispered. “I know the perfect place.”
“This is a guest bedroom,” Silver Spoon told Zippoorwhill as she walked across the large, empty bedroom and pulled the wardrobe open. She turned around to find Zippoorwhill looking impressed at the room. “Hurry, get in here!”
“In there?” Zippoorwhill asked as she entered the wardrobe. “Wow, it’s big!”
“You stay in here and I’ll find somewhere else to hide,” Silver Spoon said. “Just remember, don’t come out until Diamond finds you, no matter what.”
“You got it!” Zippoorwhill said with a salute as Silver Spoon closed the wardrobe door.
After leaving the guest bedroom, a smile cross Silver Spoon’s face and she walked casually back towards Diamond Tiara’s room. “Disaster averted.”
“Girls,” Filthy Rich called out as he opened the door to Diamond Tiara’s room, walking inside with a tray of food on his back. “I thought you might like a snack and some drinks… Where’s Zippoorwhill?”
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon froze on the spot with their dolls in their hooves as they stared up at Filthy Rich, who was staring back with a suspicious look on his face.
“Uh, she’s… around,” Diamond said.
“Yeah, she, uh… went to the bathroom!”
“Oh, is that so?” a voice said behind Filthy Rich. A rather large pegasus stallion came into view. “Perhaps I should go and get her, then. It’s time for us to go, after all.”
Diamond Tiara bit her lip whilst Silver Spoon dropped her doll in panic. “W-We’ll get her!” Diamond said as she shot up to her hooves.
“Yeah, we want to say goodbye to her anyway,” Silver Spoon added. “And besides, she could have, like, got lost on the way.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” the pegasus stallion said. “Alright, I’ll wait here. Just don’t take too long now.”
“We won’t!” the two fillies shouted in unison as they bolted past the two stallions.
“It’s so nice to see our fillies getting along,” Filthy Rich said to his friend.
“Yes, and that Silver Spoon filly looks like she would be a good role model, too. Smart and dependable.”
“You think she’s still there?” Silver Spoon asked. “She might’ve got bored and left.”
“What else can we do but check?” Diamond Tiara responded. “Hopefully she’ll have got the message and won’t bother us if she comes over again.”
Silver Spoon opened the door to the guest bedroom and the two walked in. They stopped as they looked over towards the wardrobe that the filly was in… and heard sniffling.
“I’m bored… and I’m lonely… When will Daddy finally say it’s time to go?”
The two fillies exchanged glances, but didn’t move from their spots.
“I just wanted to play. Why does nopony ever want to be my friend?”
Silver Spoon inhaled a sharp intake of breath whilst Diamond’s ears fell to the sides of her head.
“W-What did she say?” Silver Spoon whispered. “Is she, like, crying?”
“I-I don’t know,” Diamond Tiara whispered back.
“Should we get her dad?” Silver Spoon asked.
“He’d kill us!”
“But we can’t just leave her like this.”
Another sniff came from the wardrobe. “Maybe being weird is a bad thing. Maybe everypony thinks I’m a freak…”
Diamond Tiara bit her lip and quickly walked forward, grabbing the wardrobe door and pulling it open. “Oh, hey, there you are!” she shouted down at the little filly curled into a ball before her.
Zippoorwhill simply looked up at Diamond Tiara with large, teary eyes as a confused squeak escaped her lips. “Sheesh, Diamond, it took you long enough,” Silver Spoon chimed in behind her friend.
“We turned this house upside-down looking for you! You’re a really good hider, you know?” Diamond said, sweating as she gave the filly her best toothy smile and prayed to Celestia that her acting skills weren’t terrible.
“You mean… you didn’t leave me here on purpose?” Zippoorwhill asked.
“Whaaaat? No!” Silver Spoon said quickly.
“Like, no way!” Diamond Tiara added. “Why would we- Don’t be silly!”
“Like, totally ridiculous!”
“Overactive imagination much?”
“B-But I’ve been here on my own for days now!”
“Actually, only an hour,” Diamond Tiara said, cursing herself mentally as soon as she realised what she had said. “But, er, we found you now! That sure was fun, huh?”
Zippoorwhill held her hind legs tighter and looked down at the floor. “I was on my own all this time, in the dark… It wasn’t fun at all…”
Diamond Tiara gulped. Silver Spoon nudged her aside to take over. “Well, let’s not play that game again then,” she suggested. “Or maybe set up some ground rules on time. Now come on out.”
Zippoorwhill looked to Silver Spoon’s extended hoof and reached out for it, slowly walking out of the wardrobe and wincing at the natural light entering her eyes. “Owie! Light bad bad baaaaad!”
Diamond Tiara scuffed a hoof against the floor and her lips trembled as her eyes darted all around the room. “Hey,” she said, getting Zippoorwhill’s attention. “… S-S-S…” Diamond Tiara clenched her eyes shut. “S-S-S-S-S-” Silver Spoon sighed and walked around to Diamond Tiara’s side, raising a hoof and bring it down on Diamond Tiara’s back. “SORRY!”
“Me too,” Silver Spoon said, bringing a confused looked to Zippoorwhill’s face. “W-We didn’t mean to make you cry or feel bad. That was, like… our bad…”
Zippoorwhill snapped to attention. “Oh! I wasn’t crying!”
“… You weren’t?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Nope! I wasn’t! I really, reeeeeally wasn’t, so you don’t have to apologise!”
Realisation struck the two older fillies and they both nodded their heads as they smiled. “Oh, your dad says it’s time to go,” Silver Spoon said, suddenly remembering why they were there in the first place.
“He did?” Zippoorwhill asked with a frown.
“But you can come again!” Diamond Tiara quickly said. “I mean, you dad and my dad are friends, right?”
“You totally should come over again,” Silver Spoon said. “We’ll show you our dolls and give you a makeover, so that your classmates will want to play with you, too.”
Zippoorwhill’s eyes lit up and she shot into the air, bouncing around the room with a series of ‘yes’s and ‘woohoo’s before bolting out through the door and down the hallway.
“… Why did we say that?” Silver Spoon asked Diamond Tiara. “After all that work trying to ditch her.”
“I don’t know!” Diamond Tiara hissed. “I just… couldn’t let her keep crying like that! It was bothering me!”
“Me, too,” Silver Spoon said. “Well, at least she’s happy now… and he dad didn’t find out about what we did to her.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to worry about her again,” Diamond Tiara said, with Silver Spoon nodding in agreement.
One week later, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon the last to leave Cheerilee’s classroom as their morning classes came to an end. As they walked down the dirt pathway discussing their coming sleepover that weekend, something caught their attention.
“You’re so weird, Zippoorwhill!” a colt cried out to at the end of the pathway. He and three other foals, one more colt and two fillies, were surrounding their target, who seemed to be smiling as she hovered in the air… but to Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara, they could see past her brave front.
“This is why nopony wants to be friends with you! You act like a total spaz!”
“Who even brings a dog to school, anyway?”
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon exchanged nods and pressed on down the pathway, approaching the group of younger foals. “Oh my, Diamond Tiara,” Silver Spoon announced as soon as they had reached the group, “Your daddy is really visiting Princess Celestia this weekend?”
“Well of course! Everypony in Ponyville knows my daddy is the richest, most important pony around!” The two pressed on through the crowd of foals, stopping at Zippoorwhill, whose smile grew tenfold upon their arrival. “In fact, I actually have an extra invitation to bring somepony along to see the princess herself.”
“It’s too bad I won’t be able to make it.”
Diamond Tiara nodded and turned to Zippoorwhill. “Well, maybe you would like to meet the princess with me, Zip?”
“The princess?! You mean the super-nice super-amazing pony who gives us the sun every day and keeps baddies from foalnapping us in our sleep?!” Zippoorwhill wrapped her forelegs around Diamond Tiara, who stumbled backwards a bit and looked around uncomfortably.
“I-I’ll take that as a yes,” Diamond Tiara said as she pushed the filly off of her. “Well, it’s only fitting that you should go, seeing as you’re the most important pony in this entire school, after myself and Silver Spoon.”
“Like, way cooler than any of the other kids,” Silver Spoon said, grinning as she glanced back at the foals behind her, who all quickly turned tail and retreated towards the schoolhouse. “Who is also under protection from the most powerful families in Ponyville,” she quickly added, delighting in the flinches that resulted as a result from the other children.
Diamond Tiara giggled as she herself watched the retreating foals. She then turned back to Zippoorwhill and reached up to the top her head to adjust the tiara sitting on top. “Ugh, you keep messing it up. It’s always crooked whenever I see it.”
“Wow, we’re really going to see the princess!” Zippoorwhill cheered, performing a flip in the air. “I can’t wait to tell Daddy! This is even better than having the Pony Tones at my party a few days ago!”
“Uh, yeah…” Diamond Tiara said, sweating as she turned and took a few steps away from the filly. “W-Well, you’d better get to class now. Silver and I will be waiting for you in the park later.”
“Oh!” Zippoorwhill landed to the ground and ran quickly towards the schoolhouse, stopping at the entrance to wave goodbye to her two friends. “Bye Diama! Bye Spoony!”
Silver Spoon waved back whilst Diamond Tiara continued walking. She quickly caught up to her friend and asked her, “So, how are you going to get an audience with the princess?”
“Oh don’t worry. I’ve got a perfect idea that will-”
“Your dad won’t be able to arrange one on such short notice.”
Diamond remained silent for a few seconds as the gears inside her head turned. “Okay, plan B. Silver Spoon, how good is your acting?”
“Well, good enough to convince my mum that I’m sick, at least. Why?”
“We’re going to the library,” Diamond Tiara said, a devious grin on her face, “And Princess Twilight Sparkle is going to ‘accidentally’ hurt your leg.”