Chapter 2:
Diamond Tiara
Diamond Tiara pulled her friend's paper over toward her. “What'd you get for problem one?” she asked Silver Spoon. “I, like, totally didn't get what we were supposed to be doing there.”
Silver Spoon glanced over at Diamond Tiara's paper. She had copied out the problem and then drawn a very detailed bubble-letter question mark beneath. Silver Spoon scratched out the question mark with her quill. “See, to get what x equals, you have to cross multiply,” she said, drawing lines between the various terms. “Here.” She pushed the paper back to Diamond. “You try now.”
Diamond Tiara scratched her quill on the edge of her desk. She'd been friends with Silver Spoon long enough to know that Silver wouldn't be any fun until she'd finished her homework, but she just couldn't hold it in. “Do you think Rumble is hot?” she asked.
“What?” Silver Spoon looked up from the problem that she'd been working on.
Diamond Tiara blushed. “You know, Rumble. Thunderlane's little brother. D'you think he's hot?”
Silver Spoon gave a noncommittal grunt. She flipped a page in her math book. “I mean, sure, I guess. I don't know. I've never really looked.” Silver pushed her glasses back up; they had slipped down to the tip of her nose. “Why?”
“I don't know.” Diamond Tiara turned back to her math homework. “So who do you think is hot?” she asked, trying to make it sound offhand.
Silver Spoon shrugged. “I don't really have a crush on any of the colts in our class right now.” She scribbled an answer in her notebook.
“Oh.” Diamond Tiara sat back in her chair. She wanted to talk more about Rumble, but it felt weird to bring it up. She contented herself with doodling hearts in the margins of her notebook while she waited for Silver Spoon to finish the math homework; she would do it later.
After a couple more minutes, Silver Spoon set down her quill. “Do you want to head down to Sugarcube Corner?” she asked Diamond. “I could use something sweet.”
“Sure,” Diamond replied, hastily crossing out the embarrassing doodles in her margins. “Let me go tell Randolph where we're going.” She hopped off of the chair that she'd been sitting on and trotted out into the hallway.
Diamond Tiara had been worried about Silver Spoon for a while now. Even as the summer had been winding down, she'd been wondering about their relationship, and now that they were in a new and bigger school, she was even more afraid that their friendship might fall apart. It was more of a mutual respect than anything. Even over the last year, Silver had been growing more and more distant, only hanging around once a week or so. Diamond Tiara had sometimes wondered if Silver was hanging out with other fillies; she knew it was silly, but sometimes she was afraid that if Silver Spoon started making other friends, Silver would forget about her.
She was rudely jarred out of her thoughts when she bumped into Randolph, the butler. “Do watch where you're going, Miss Tiara,” he chided her in a kindly manner.
“Uh, yeah.” Diamond Tiara shook her head in an attempt to clear it. “Me and Silver Spoon were going to head down to Sugarcube Corner. Tell Dad when he's not busy, okay?”
“Of course, Miss Tiara.” He offered her a thin smile. “But do try to watch where you're going, eh?”
She rolled her eyes. Although he was getting on in years, and she found his wheezy laugh rather off-putting, she still held a soft spot in her heart for Randolph. His teasing was done with a genuine heart, and she'd known him her whole life.
Diamond pushed open the door to her room. Silver Spoon was packing up her saddlebag. Diamond Tiara jerked her head at the door. “Randolph says it's fine. You ready?”
Silver Spoon nodded and followed Diamond out of the room and down the stairs.
Diamond Tiara took a deep breath as they exited the house. The air had that same cool, crisp back-to-school flavor. The biting feel of it rinsed the smell from her nose. She knew her father tried to keep the house perfect, but it bothered her that it always reeked of that “new car” sort of smell, as though the house was only actually another object to show off. It was just a subtle hint that the mansion, in all it's glory, wasn't really lived in.
The two fillies made their way down the gently sloping street towards the center of town. Both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon lived in the Heights, the more affluent district on the edge of Ponyville. Stinkin' Rich had built their house on the hills outside of town not long after he'd settled, and Filthy Rich— that was her father— had been building expansions on the house since it had been passed on to him. Slowly, after Stinkin' had settled, several other families had cropped up in the area. Streets were cobbled, streetlights were installed, and conveniences were made accessible, and soon real estate in the Heights had become some of the most sought-after in all of Equestria.
They turned a corner past Carousel Boutique. The town hall was up ahead, and Sugarcube Corner not far after. The two carried a comfortable silence with them as they walked through the center of Ponyville, each filly consumed in her own thoughts.
As the two fillies arrived at Sugarcube Corner, Diamond Tiara pushed open the door, causing the bell above it to ring. Pinkie Pie bounced out of the kitchen, beaming as usual.
“What can Ah do ya for?” she asked in an uncanny impression of the Applejack's southern twang, causing the two fillies to exchange giggling looks. “Th' usual Ah take it?”
Diamond Tiara took a slight bit of pride in the way in which Pinkie Pie had their name and usual orders memorized; she almost felt as though it garnered her acceptance into some sort of exclusive club of Sugarcube Corner regulars. True, Pinkie knew everyone in Ponyville, and probably all of their usual orders as well, so it wasn't really that exclusive, but she'd take her pride where she could get it.
The two fillies nodded and fished out a few bits; Pinkie rushed into the back to start preparing their drinks. Diamond Tiara had never really understood why teachers yelled at you so much when you excluded other foals. Sure, it could hurt if you were the one being excluded; that was part of life. Life wasn't fair. But there was also an upside. When something is exclusive, she'd realized at a young age, it's worth that much more to be a part of it. There was a reason why most ponies would rather go to Hoofvard University than Canterlot Community College, and it wasn't just superior teaching. There was an allure, a glamor, inherent in exclusivity, yet among fillies and colts, it was simply considered mean. The entire concept was really just a giant double standard. The two fillies nabbed their favorite two seats— a few of the stools on the counter that ran along the bakery's window.
Pinkie Pie whizzed out of the back room, carrying two overflowing metal cups. “Two vanilla milkshakes,” she announced. “One for you,” she said, laying one down in front of Silver. “And one for you.” She put the other one in front of Diamond Tiara, flipping a straw into it. “Enjoy!”
The two fillies looked out the window at the street outside. A small brown colt who Diamond thought she recognized from one of her classes walked by, his nose buried in his Joy Boy. He had a rather odd propeller hat beanie on, causing Diamond Tiara to snicker.
“Look what he's wearing!” she whispered to Silver Spoon. “Did he fish that hat out of the garbage, or did a pegasus just vomit up a rainbow on his head?” She took a self-satisfied sip of her milkshake, glancing over at her friend.
Silver didn't respond immediately. She sat for a few seconds, stirring her straw in her milkshake. Her gaze was averted from Diamond Tiara's incessant glances as she sat in thought. After a while she tucked a lose strand of her mane behind her ear and turned to face Diamond Tiara.
“Diamond, why do we pick on ponies so much?” she asked, her voice steady but quiet.
Diamond Tiara was taken aback. “What?”
“I mean, why do we even care about how ugly that colt's hat is?” she looked away again. Her voice was slightly flat, almost to the point of sounding rehearsed. “We don't know him. I've never seen him before in my life. What has he ever done to offend you?”
Diamond shrugged. “Geez, chill out Silver. It was just a joke.” She stirred her milkshake. “What do you want me to do, apologize or something?”
Silver shrugged. “I really should be going now.” She looked hurt for some reason, as if the insult had been directed at her rather than at the colt outside. “My parents will be getting worried.”
“Oh, come on Silver. Your parents know you always spend Monday afternoons at my place.” Diamond looked incredulously at her friend. “You know, if you don't want to spend the rest of the day with that, you could just tell me.” She tried to keep her voice in check, but it was still rising along with her anger.
“All right, fine then.” Silver slipped off of her stool, and placed the empty frappe cup in the self-bus bin. “I don't really want to spend the rest of the day with you. You spend your time thinking up petty insults, you aren't even a good student, you're a clingy friend, you're a control freak, you have no regard for other ponies' feelings, and the only reason anypony ever looks up to you is because you have a rich dad.” Silver's voice was rising as well in a shrill crescendo that was practically abrasive to Diamond's ears. “You have no redeeming qualities at all. You're sitting around dreaming about Rumble when he probably thinks you're a bitch, just like the rest of the ponies in our class.”
“Wait, don't—”
“— No, I won't wait. Don't you get it Diamond? Ponies don't think you're cool anymore. They've all grown up.” She turned to walk out the door, but paused on the threshold, turning around to look at Diamond Tiara one last time.
“You haven't.” She slammed the door.