The Toity Finish Estate was a jointly owned mansion which stood on the premium side of Ponyville where both Hoity Toity and/or his wife Photo Finish stayed whenever they were in town, which was not often. While Ponyville never appealed to either of them, they decided not to sell the estate because it was the only property of theirs that their only child, Silver Spoon, liked enough to call home. It was also the only property they owned in which Silver Spoon did not get lost on a regular basis, a distinction which had a lot to do with her fondness for it. The estate was adequately staffed so although Hoity Toity and Photo Finish may not have conducted enough business in Ponyville long enough for them to visit Silver Spoon often, somepony was always available should their daughter have need of anything other than her parents. Everypony who was employed at the estate was quite fond of Silver Spoon and, knowing her eccentric parents the way they did, they often wondered if she was adopted.
The fashion merchant and the high profile photographer were a detached couple at best and could be perceived as competent parents provided that one knew nothing about them. Having similar lifestyles and personalities, the two ponies had a whirlwind romance and wed shortly thereafter. Their honeymoon was short lived as they soon discovered that they could not stand each other’s company; the reason being that they had similar lifestyles and personalities. A divorce was in the works but not long before it could be finalized and announced at a press conference, Photo Finish learned that she was carrying Hoity Toity’s foal. True to their clueless nature, neither of them had any idea how this could have happened. Photo Finish refused to believe that she was with child but the five consecutive pregnancy tests she took, which all came up positive, had managed to convince her. (Fluttershy, Ponyville’s animal caretaker extraordinaire, is still offering a five thousand bit reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the pony or ponies responsible for killing five wild rabbits and dumping their bodies in a trash bag.) The power couple’s good fortune would continue to evade them as rumors of the pregnancy leaked prior to the date of the press conference. With the eyes of Equestria now upon them like never before, both ponies decided that it would be in their mutual best interests to remain married until their offspring reached an age where he or she could cope with a divorce. Rather than cancel the press conference, it went on as scheduled to announce that the couple was expecting their first foal.
When news of the train accident had reached Hoity Toity and Photo Finish’s public relations managers, they insisted that their clients spend quality time with Silver Spoon at their Ponyville home. Failure to do so might cause the tabloid reporters to fall on them like a pack of rabid timberwolves for denying their daughter the comfort of parental attention following what must have been a traumatic experience for a filly.
A late dinner was served for the three ponies in the dining hall of the Toity Finish estate that evening. Filthy Rich denied Diamond Tiara’s request to allow Silver Spoon to accompany them to their house for a sleepover, thereby separating the two fillies. The members of the kitchen staff were less than thrilled to receive a visit from their employers this evening since they had already served dinner to the rest of the staff when the kitchen was still in operation. Such was the nature of being well paid to be on call at a moment’s notice and the majority of them took it in stride for Silver Spoon’s sake. Like the staff, Silver Spoon was a permanent resident here and she apologized to every member of the kitchen staff for needing their services despite the kitchen officially closing hours ago.
“You simply must tell me what it is about that shabby little school that makes you want to stay enrolled in it so badly, darling,” said Hoity Toity after swallowing the last mouthful of his dinner salad. “Canterlot is home to the most prestigious finishing school for young fillies in all of Equestria. The girls of some of my finest clients are enrolled there... not to mention that you’d be closer to Dad-dyyyy.”
Yeah, right, Dad, thought Silver Spoon. I could be in the same room as you and you’d still be miles away.
“Dad, we’ve been over this,” said Silver Spoon flatly as she agitated her soup with her spoon halfheartedly. She was hungry but did not partake of the food. “My best friend Diamond Tiara attends Ponyville Elementary. I love both of them too much to leave them behind.” Silver Spoon stopped herself from making a snide remark about loving somepony too much to leave them behind being a concept too difficult for her parents to understand.
“If you love them so much, why don’t you marry them?” asked Hoity Toity, doing his best to be corny. He chuckled a rich pony’s chuckle at his own attempt at comedy and looked to his wife Photo Finish for her reaction to it. The blue mare laughed at her husband’s silliness.
“Ha! A filly marryink a schoolhaus!” blurted Photo. “Ha ha ha! Oh, Hoity, you do crack me up.”
Silver Spoon blushed and turned her head as a grin took hold of her face. Having Diamond Tiara’s hoof in marriage was something that would never come to pass. That fact didn’t discourage her from fantasizing about it as often as her free time permitted and when compared to the dream of living a normal life with normal parents, it was actually likelier to come true.
Hoity Toity glanced at his daughter casually but then quickly did a double take. He lowered his sunglasses to examine his daughter’s grin of bliss. He didn’t see her that often but when he did, and she looked happy, it was usually because she and Diamond Tiara were in the midst of a playdate. Hoity Toity stroked his chin and wondered if he had accidentally stumbled onto something with his comical remark.
“Sweetheart?” he said.
Silver Spoon snapped herself out of her daydream and looked up at her father.
“Hm? Yeah?” she asked.
“Are you... in love with Diamond Tiara? As in love love?”
Silver Spoon had picked up some minor skills during her bully apprenticeship with Diamond Tiara. She could taunt. She could bring a foal to tears with nothing but her laughter. She could mock with the best of them. The one skill that she couldn’t get the hang of was lying, especially when the pony to whom the lie was being told was an adult. Furthermore, the more serious the subject matter, the harder it was for her to conceal the truth.
“Oh, Daaaaad,” said Silver Spoon, avoiding eye contact as she waved a hoof at her father. “You’re such a kidder.” She quickly dipped her spoon into her bowl of soup and took a sip. “Mm, you know what? This turnip and cauliflower soup is, like, super yummy!” She flashed a nervous smile to her father, hoping to hold onto her secret a while longer.
Hoity Toity had dealt with enough two-faced ponies in his line of work to know when somepony was trying to change the subject.
“Photo?” called out Hoity Toity. “I believe our daughter is a filly-fooler.”
Silver Spoon had just taken a bite of her dinner roll when her father spilled the beans to her mother who would have been the last pony in Equestria to catch on to her orientation.
“Yah, yah, I knew zat, dear,” muttered Photo Finish. “Vait... our daughter? Silver, is zis true?”
Of all the times that they could have picked to be perceptive, they had to pick now. lamented Silver Spoon to herself. Well, I might as well get this over with. They would have found out sooner or later... and they aren’t especially bright so however they choose to approach this is bound to be stupid.
“Yeah,” sighed Silver Spoon. “It’s true.” The servants had been professionally trained not to listen in on private conversations but, knowing them as she did, Silver Spoon imagined that the revelation she dropped was one that was putting their training to the test.
Photo Finish dropped her salad fork, apparently stunned by the news. It clattered noisily against the edge of her bowl. Her mouth hung open as she cast a bespectacled glance at Hoity Toity.
“Ach! Zis is wunderbar!” exclaimed Photo Finish as she cracked a smile.
“Isn’t it, though?” gushed Hoity Toity who also smiled.
“Dwah?” asked Silver Spoon.
“Can you believe our good fortune?” asked Hoity Toity as he hopped on the dinner table.
“Zis is ze best night effer!” declared Photo Finish as she hopped on to the table and smiled.
The odd couple stood on their hind legs about to hug when they suddenly remembered how little they actually liked one another. They stopped short of embracing and settled for sharing a gentle, congratulatory hoof bump.
“Hold on a sec,” said Silver Spoon as she buttered a dinner roll. “I just admitted that I was a filly-fooler. Is that really something to celebrate?”
“Epselutely!” declared Photo Finish. “Don’t you know how chic it is nowadays for mares to play for ze same team? Eefen I vas seduced by a mare vunce.”
Silver Spoon scraped off the butter she had finished applying and returned the dinner roll to its platter. Even if she could have eaten the roll, the threat of nausea being a carelessly shared disgusting word away would have made keeping it down quite the challenge.
“You were?” asked Hoity Toity, having never heard of this. “Whatever became of this mare?”
“He married me!” replied Photo Finish, pointing a hoof at her husband. “Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Oh!” cried Hoity Toity. “Ha ha ha ha ha! Somepony call the burn ward! Ha ha ha ha ha! You flambéed me with that one, dear; no question. Brava!”
“Sank you, I’ll be here all veek… Vell, not really. I haff to attend a gala in Bitaly in sree days but you know vhat I mean.”
Silver Spoon was irritated by her parents’ repartee. Whereas other parents would say loving things to one another across a dinner table, hers derived genuine amusement from sniping at one another with insults.
“In all seriousness, coming out as a filly-fooler has really become all the rage, Silver Spoon,” stated Hoity Toity. “One might even go so far as to call it fashionable. I’m feeling so inspired that I’m going to commission Rarity to design a new line targeting filly-fooler couples. The Canterlot elite will eat it up!”
“Ya, und I vill open a new gallery zis veekend featuring nossing but photos of my beautiful little lesbian liebchen! Smile for ze camera, Silver Shpoon! Giff me somesing zat says ‘I am a beauuutiful, delicate flower... zat craves ze coochie like nopony’s business’.”
Silver Spoon scrunched her eyes shut and shielded her face with her forelegs. She despised flash bulbs. Having a world famous photographer for a mother, she had been subjected to having her picture taken with flash bulbs literally since birth. The light always hurt her eyes and neither her father nor her mother ever seemed to care. And while she had no scientific evidence to support her suspicions, she was convinced that flash bulbs contributed to her dependence on eyeglasses at such a young age.
“AAAAAAHHHH!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I KEPT THIS FROM YOU TWO!!” cried Silver Spoon. “You learn my biggest secret and all you can do is apply it to your own careers! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you care more about your careers than you care about me!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, sveetheart," said Photo, putting her camera down. "You’re eckzaggerating.”
“Am I, Mom? Then show me your eyes.”
Photo Finish instinctively covered the sides of her head, making sure that her sunglasses were in place.
“Hah! Tchah! Pfah! Sha! How could you eefen suggest such a sing, darlink? I sought ve’ve discussed zis already! My eye color must remain a vell kept secret from ze vorld! I must maintain... ze mystique!”
“I’M YOUR DAUGHTER! What foal doesn’t know their mother’s eye color?”
“Don’t feel too badly, Silver,” suggested Hoity Toity. “I’m her husband and even I don’t know her eye color; not that it bothers me one way or the other.”
“Don’t you love your own family enough to trust them with a secret?” asked Silver Spoon. “Neither of you knows a thing about love.”
“Now see here, young lady,” said Hoity Toity. “Your mother may have a heart of polished marble but I’ll have you know that I happen to be an expert on the subject of l’amour.”
“You?” asked Photo Finish. “An ecshpert on love? Ha! Since vhen? Talk about vell kept secrets.”
“If you’re such an expert on love, then prove it,” demanded Silver Spoon. “Kiss mom.”
Hoity Toity’s mouth hung open. The test that his daughter had placed before him was tougher than he was expecting.
“A... kiss, you say?” he asked.
“A kiss, I say,” replied Silver Spoon.
“On the lips?”
“On the lips.”
“Hey, do you mind?” asked Photo Finish. “I’m trying to eat here.”
“Why are you so opposed to kissing each other?” asked Silver Spoon. “I’m living proof that you’ve swapped more than spit at least once. Like, how did you even figure out how to have a foal?”
“Vell, vhen ve conceived you, hoo boy, vere ve ever hammered! Do you remember our honeymoon, Hoity?”
“Not at all,” remarked Hoity Toity with a hint of pride in his tone.
“Neizer do I! Best honeymoon effer!”
Both Hoity Toity and Photo Finish shared a rich pony laugh. When they ended their laugh, they did so simultaneously with a sustained sigh that was, oddly enough, in the same key.
“So you want me to kiss your mother on the lips, do you?” asked Hoity Toity. “All right. I’ll do it. But first...” Hoity Toity reached for the bottle of vintage hard cider that sat on the table. He held it between his forehooves, pulled out the cork with his teeth and poured himself a glass. “Photo, would you care for a glass?”
“Vould I care for a glass?” asked Photo Finish. “To kiss you, I sink I’d care for my own bottle.”
“Done.” Hoity Toity clapped his hooves together and one of the servants approached the table. “Francois? Another bottle, if you would be so kind. And be a good fellow and dim the lights a touch.”
“No,” said Silver Spoon. “No booze. No change in lighting, either. Just kiss in full sight of each other like any normal husband and wife would do.”
“Oh, come onnnnn, sweethearrrt!” whined Hoity Toity. “You want to watch your parents kiss each other while they’re stone cold sober? What kind of sick games are they teaching you in that common school?”
“Your fahzer’s right,” noted Photo Finish, accepting the bottle that one of the servants brought her. “Didn’t ve raise you better zan zis?”
“No,” replied Silver Spoon. “You didn’t.”
Photo Finish was cut to the quick by this oversight.
“Didn’t veeeeeeeeee... pay somepony to raise you better zan zis?” she asked.
Silver Spoon facehoofed.
“This is what I’m talking about!” she exclaimed. “What the hoof is wrong with you? You’re parents! Act like it!”
Hoity Toity and Photo Finish looked at one another and then looked back at their daughter.
“Und ve should do zat by doiiiiink.... vhat, exactly, darlink?” asked Photo Finish.
“Yes, help us out here, Silver,” said Hoity Toity. “We are first time parents, after all. Just tell us what you want us to do and we’ll do it. We do love you so and we want you to be happy. All we’re asking is that you help us out a bit.”
Hoity Toity’s words would have given Silver Spoon some hope if she hadn’t been disappointed by them so often.
“It kind of loses its sincerity if I have to hold you by the hoof and tell you how to react… but...” Silver Spoon shrugged and held out her forelegs. “I don’t know; be upset with me because my orientation means that you won’t be grandparents? Or... like... be happy that I felt comfortable enough to tell you about it? I’m pretty sure that’s what normal parents would say.”
“Say no more,” said Hoity Toity. “Photo, you be disappointed, I’ll be happy, and then we’ll switch.”
“What?” asked Silver Spoon. “No, wait, I didn’t mean at the same time-”
“Ya, okay, Hoity,” said Photo Finish as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Ach, Silver, how could you do zis to your dear, sveet and fashionable mohzer? I must haff... ze grandchildren type babies! Von’t you eefen consider a shperm donut?”
Silver Spoon enjoyed glazed donuts as much as the next foal. Now, she would never be able to look at one again, thanks to her mother.
“Mom!” cried Silver Spoon. “Gross!”
“I believe your mother meant to say ‘sperm donor’, darling,” said Hoity Toity. “Then again, she is from Germaney so I could be wrong. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Photo Finish quickly covered her mouth with her napkin.
“ACH!” she cried as she removed the napkin and laughed. “You liddle monkey! Ha ha ha! You almost made me shoot cider srough my nose! Zat was a good vun. Hee hee. Ya... my home country’s a liddle kooky.”
Pushing her bowl away from her, Silver Spoon closed her eyes, pounded her forehead into the table three times and rested her chin on the table.
“Is it possible to be too sick to puke?” she asked rhetorically.
“Okay, my turn,” Hoity Toity wiped his mouth and cleared his throat before speaking. “Silver, darling, thank you for sharing with me that you’re a lesbian.” Hearing the L word coming out of her father’s mouth made Silver Spoon want to spontaneously combust. “Let me share something with you now: when no one’s around, I like to occasionally yank out strands of my own hair and then nibble on the white roots at the end.”
“I... huh?” asked Silver Spoon.
“They’re just so juicy and crunchy!” gushed Hoity Toity ever so daintily as he tapped his forehooves together. “They’re like little irresistible bean sprouts made of skin!” Photo Finish seemed unfazed by this admission. Either she was already aware of her husband’s quirk or she didn’t care.
“That’s so disturbing that I don’t know how to feel,” muttered Silver Spoon, finding it curious that her father had a hair-related disorder when she had her own hair-related fetish.
“That’s not the point,” stated Hooity Toity. “The point is that we’re sharing! And sharing is caring! Switch tiiiime!”
“No! Stop!” cried Silver Spoon.
“Are you terminating this experiment early because we passed with flying colors?” asked Hoity Toity.
“Ya, are ve Parent Of Ze Year nominees yet?” asked Photo Finish. “Oh, zat reminds me. Beck! Call!” Two ponies rushed to Photo Finish’s side. “Order a new trophy case and haff it sent to ze Neighagra Falls estate. My seventh vun is running out of shelf shpace.” Her assistants nodded and ran off to do as their employer instructed.
“Oh, my dear, sweet Celestia!” Silver Spoon’s eyes spun as she held her head in her hooves. “Why did I think for a second that you could pull this off? You’re the most clueless adults I’ve ever known! It’s like I can’t even be mad at you! I might as well be mad at a fish for not being able to sing opera! I-I-I-I think I need therapy!”
“Serapy?” asked Photo Finish.
“Therapy!” barked Silver Spoon. “Thuh! Thuh! Tongue between the teeth, Mom! The-ra-py! I think I need it... and I know that both of you do!”
“And what makes you say that?” asked Hoity Toity. Photo Finish experimented with sticking her tongue out between her teeth and hissing out a breath. She shook her head and dismissed the idea as folly.
“Do you really not know?" asked Silver Spoon. "What am I saying? Of course you don’t know. All right, here’s why I think you need it. The only thing that hurts worse than you not understanding me is that you don’t see the value in even trying! You’ve made it clear to me that I come second to your careers! And I’ve known for a while that I wasn’t planned. I’m a product of meh! Don’t you see or care how that makes me feel? There’s no love in this family! You don’t love her, she doesn’t love you and neither of you love me! Sure, you love me enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the table and I appreciate all that... but there’s, like, a lot more to parenting than providing for your foal’s basic needs. I have emotional needs, too. The only reason that both of you are even here in the mansion at the same time is because I got arrested and you don’t even care enough about what I’ve been through to ask me how I feel about what happened! Most of the kids at school have loving parents who listen to them. Their parents see them every day, not just once or twice a month or whenever they’re in town – Every... single... day. And they do it because they want to. That alone makes those kids, like, a hundred times richer than I’ll ever be. I see how happy they are when their parents come pick them up after school. They’re practically beaming.” Silver Spoon gritted her teeth, imagining the happy faces of her classmates and their parents. “I can’t stand seeing somepony else feeling so special from having loving parents when I don’t get the same. Sometimes those foals come up to me and they’re like “Wow, Silver Spoon, you live in that huge mansion! Wow, Silver Spoon, you always have such pretty clothes! We’re so jealous of you!” And I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ They have no idea how stupid they are for being jealous of me when I’m the one who’s jealous of them. It makes me so mad that I pick on them until they feel just as miserable and not-special as I do! Whether it’s a cutie mark or a mansion, if I have it and they don’t, I remind them of it and laugh in their stupid faces every chance I get! And, yeah, I know that they didn’t do anything to deserve being treated like that but I just... don’t... care.” She thought of Twist and how she regretted her involvement in her death. “Recent events... have changed that a little. I’m starting to learn how to care... but I’m teaching myself this lesson since I sure as hoof don’t have any role models at home. So, yeah, I think we could all use therapy. All three of us should go together because there’s nothing wrong with me that a therapist can fix that you two can’t just break apart again.”
“You know, you’re absolutely right,” said Hoity Toity.
Silver Spoon’s eyes widened and she blinked. Were her parents really willing to participate in family therapy? Sure, they were dense but maybe if another adult was around to supervise them, the love, respect and attention that she craved might not be as out of reach as she originally believed. Was there really light at the end of the tunnel?
“I… I am?” asked Silver Spoon.
“Oh, quite,” said Hoity Toity. “This turnip and cauliflower soup is exceptional.”
“Ya, zis is good shtuff,” noted Photo Finish. “Hmm... Lightink!”
Photo Finish’s servants brought studio flood lights into the dining room and aimed them at the table. Feeling inspired, Photo Finish took out her camera and began taking pictures of the soup in her bowl.
“Just what the world needs,” noted Hoity Toity. “An eccentric, gray-maned artist obsessing over soup.”
Silver Spoon was struck speechless by the fact that her parents hadn’t listened to a word she had said. She dared to hope and she was let down for the umpteenth time for her troubles. It was her own fault for wanting blood from a stone. She finally broke her silence with a chuckle. She rose from her seat at the table, chuckling even more. Hoity Toity and Photo Finish looked at one another, perplexed by the shift in their daughter’s mood. Silver Spoon left the dining room and walked toward her bedroom, her chuckling evolving into full fledged laughter at the madness of this whole situation.
“I was under the impression that it was proper etiquette for a young filly to excuse herself from the table before leaving the dining room, Silver, darling,” said Hoity Toity. He turned to face his wife to verify his belief. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Ach, don’t be such a stick in ze mud, Hoity,” said Photo Finish. “I ‘go’ all ze time.” She turned her bottle of cider upside down to verify its emptiness and then pointed at her husband’s bottle. “Pour me some of zat, vould you?” She pushed her cider flute toward him and smiled.
“Certainly.” After Hoity Toity finished pouring his wife a drink, he leaned back in his chair as he spoke out loud to his daughter who was nearly out of hearing range. “Good night, Silverrrr. We love you, sweethearrrrt. Do be sure to always use condoms, all right?”
Silver Spoon stopped walking down the corridor and squealed with laughter at her father’s ridiculous advice. If ever there was a statement that Silver Spoon could point to as a legitimate contributing factor to her eventual nervous breakdown, it was this fractured pearl of wisdom.
“Don’t worry, dad,” replied Silver as she turned around, lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes free of tears. “I’ll insist that every filly I sleep with wears one.” She turned once again and continued on her way. When she reached her bedroom, she slammed the door shut behind her, hopped into her bed, tossed her glasses and pearls onto her nightstand and plopped face first into her pillow. She released a scream of frustration into the pillow – and then began to weep.
“That girl is an emotional roller coaster,” noted Hoity Toity. “Being a parent is exhausting work. Should one of us go after her and... I don’t know... talk to her, maybe?”
“I vouldn’t vorry about it,” said Photo Finish “She vas laffing ven she left, vasn’t she? It’s probably just a stage she’s goink srough. Her grades are fine, she’s healsy, vhat more could ve ask for, right?”
“Hm. Grandchildren would have been nice, I suppose.”
“Vhy can’t ve haff grandchildren?”
“Because she’s not into colts, dear.”
“Silver Shpoon is a filly-fooler?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Ach! Zis is wunderbar!”
“Isn’t it, though?”