As it happened, Cheerilee and Filthy Rich had no trouble finding somewhere to eat without being overheard: Diamond had taken her friends into the living room in search of a more suitably sized table for four small fillies, leaving the main oak one free for the adults’ use.
For the first few minutes neither pony spoke, instead tucking heartily into the ample portions Rich’s chef had provided and enjoying the calm atmosphere which surrounded them. A comfortable silence fell, broken only by Cheerilee’s infrequent hums of appreciation as she bit into a particularly delicious forkful of the skilfully prepared pasta, and this remained for quite a long time, due in part to neither party wanting to break it.
But broken it had to be, and Cheerilee had not come to the house without reason: setting her fork down gently into her bowl, she took a final sip of water and looked her host dead in the eye. Somewhat apologetically, she cleared her throat to draw his attention and began.
“As much as I hate to break the good mood, I do still need to talk to you about what happened in the park.”
Filthy Rich nodded in agreement, straightening himself out in his chair so that he was no longer slumped lazily in it and clearing his own throat in an attempt to appear more professional.
“Indeed. You say it wasn’t Diamond’s fault? Another student, then? Maybe something to get back at her?”
“Put simply, no, no and – in a way – yes. By all accounts Diamond and her friends did nothing to trigger the events, and I have film evidence of such, courtesy of her classmate – and amateur photographer – Featherweight."
After letting this information sink in for a moment, Cheerilee elaborated on the exact cause of the events in some detail.
“Argent Gleam – the filly who started the confrontation – isn’t a current student, but she is in the enrolment process for the next academic year. From what I hear, she and Diamond had never met before today, but she quite clearly had a very detailed description of your daughter in order to so quickly and accurately identify her. Presumably she obtained this information from the same filly she was acting on behalf of: a certain ‘Cousin Silver’.”
“Oh, for the love of buck!” Rich exclaimed in exasperation, his expression quickly turning from furious to apologetic as he realised how his outburst may have made him look. “Ahem... sorry,” he said sheepishly, looking nervously over his shoulder to make sure none of the fillies had heard him.
Cheerilee shot him a wry grin and a sympathetic look in response. “Don’t be – I can think of a few choice words which came to mind when I heard that particular detail – if that filly is anything like her cousin, dealing with her is going to be my own personal Tartarus. I have the evidence and the power to make her parents deal with this, but if she’s spent as much time around Silver Spoon as her behaviour would suggest, even that might not stop her from causing further problems. I expect we’ll both have more dealings with Argent Gleam before this whole mess is cleaned up.”
Rich nodded in agreement, letting out a deep sigh and running a hoof across his brow in a visible manifestation of his conjoined frustration and dread.
“So, what exactly did this ‘Argent Gleam’ filly do?” he asked, wanting the full details even if he wished his Daughter had been able to at least visit the park without having to deal with things like this.
Cheerilee didn’t answer for a moment, instead getting up from her seat and trotting away into the hallway, returning after a short while with the strap of her small hoofbag slung over her shoulder and a smile on her face. From the inside of the bag, she extracted a reel of film which she proceeded to triumphantly hold out to him.
“I don’t suppose you have a projector anywhere in this mansion of yours?”
Realising what this reel had to be, he grinned back at her and said: “As a matter of fact, I do.”
*
Meanwhile, in the living room, Diamond and her friends had already finished their lunches and now sat around the table in the comfortable armchairs, chatting happily.
Well, perhaps some more happily than others: Diamond herself was looking utterly lost, having been roped into a conversation about Legends of the Three Kingdoms strategy and left adrift in a sea of jargon-heavy confusion, with Dinky’s ‘helpful’ explanations merely providing an additional current which took her still further from the shore.
Fortunately, her equally bored friend Copperwing noticed this and was more than willing to act as Diamond’s lifeguard, smoothly pulling her from the deep waters with a smoothly thrown lifebuoy of a sentence.
“That reminds me: Diamond, you haven’t painted your units yet, have you? If you wanted to start now, I could lend you a hoof.”
Diamond jumped on the opportunity to escape and agreed eagerly and immediately: together, she and Copperwing retrieved her box of undecorated figurines and the paints and trotted over to the small workstation her father had bought for her to do her schoolwork at. Working as a team, the two of them made quick work of preparing it for use; with Diamond fetching the old newspapers out of the bin and removing the individual sheets and Copper then laying them down on the table top quickly and efficiently; building a barrier to protect it from the inevitable mess of the paint.
Once this small task was finished, they got out Copper’s tubes of paint and palette, a selection of pictures Diamond had procured to use as references and the entire box's worth of the figurines; placing these items down tidily on the small table before sitting down opposite each other.
“So, how do you want to start?” began Copperwing. “Maybe paint them black all over and add detail later?”
Diamond nodded. “Yeah, but not all of them are going to be black. I looked it up, and changelings actually come in quite a few colours: browns and greys and blues, sometimes greens, reds and beiges. Most hives tend to be the same colour, but those weren’t really formed until centuries after the Three Kingdoms: they would’ve been a mixed bunch back in those days, which means more variety for us.”
“You’ve really done your homework on this one,” Copperwing said, looking impressed. “So which colours do you want to use? Browns and greys will be easy, but I guess you’ll want some of the more interesting colours too.”
“Yeah. Let’s just start with black, grey and brown and do half of them like that, and decide what colours the others should be when they’re done.”
“Got it.” Copper immediately set to work squeezing the paint from the bottles, mixing them with her brush to make a dull spectrum of greys and browns on the palette.
When Copperwing had finished mixing, Diamond turned a few of the drones over in her hooves in indecision before settling on one changeling in particular. Setting the others aside, she reached out and dipped her own brush into the near-black grey which had become synonymous with the changeling race following the failed Canterlot invasion, delicately applying the first coat of paint to the drone with the grace and drive of an artist.
Following Diamond’s lead, Copperwing began painting some of the other drones herself in order to speed things up, keeping an eye on which colours Diamond used so that she would not use one of them disproportionately. They fell into a steady rhythm, and by the time the last of their allotted units had been given their first coats, the paint had dried on the first, allowing them to apply the second and final coat of their base colours.
About halfway through the process of giving a wave of her figurines their final coats of grey-brown paint, Copperwing noticed that Diamond was leaving large sections of her pieces without their second coat of paint; painting around the gaps purposefully before setting them down to allow their half-coats to dry. Shrugging at this odd behaviour, Copper returned to her own task and decided to wait until Diamond explained before questioning what she was doing.
Simply enjoying each other’s company, she and Diamond moved onto the more unconventional colours without needing to say much beside which blends of the colours to use, neither being bothered enough by the silence to break it. Once again, Diamond left unpainted sections during the second coat, and once again Copperwing gave her own figures a full coat and waited for her friend’s reasons to become more obvious. When the last licks of paint had been applied to the final few pieces, Diamond finally spoke.
“I’d like to do the details myself, if that’s okay with you-“ Copper nodded immediately in agreement, “-It’ll be a while until the paint dries, anyway, so why don’t you tell me about yourself. You’ve apparently heard a lot about me from Auburn, but she hasn’t given much away about you, so I’m honestly more than a little curious.”
Copperwing looked surprised at this turn of the conversation, but her expression quickly settled into a comfortable smile and began speaking.
“Alright. You already know that I study at Canterhoof General Academy, don’t you?”
Diamond nodded, and Copperwing continued with increased confidence.
“Well, it’s a great school, and the teachers are all good at their subjects; but it’s also a pretty big place and I can’t help feel alone most places I go, not to mention I've always had a bit of agoraphobia. It doesn't help that I don’t really have many real friends there, either – plenty of foals will be perfectly happy to talk in class, but there aren’t many of them who’ll take the time to hang out with me.”
“Yeah, I know how you feel,” Diamond replied with a sympathetic smile; slowly beginning to paint the details on the newly-dried changelings whilst she listened to her friend speak.
“Anyway, I have a lot of time to myself out of lessons, so I write a little bit to pass the time. I’ve actually started on a book idea I had - although I’m not sure it’s any good - just to have something I can work on whenever I have spare time. I’m most of the way through the first main part of the story now, so I might have something to show you in a month or two – if you don't mind reading amateurish, half finished novels, that is.”
The one eye of Copper's Diamond could see had fixed its gaze self-consciously to the pegasus's paint-smeared hooves, and she made sure to inject even more enthusiasm than she'd originally planned into her reply.
“I’d love to give it a read – what’s it about?”
“Well, it’s pretty weird: heavy sci-fi stuff, y’know? There’s a bit of story before it to set the scene and everything, but the main part is about a space mission to investigate a mysterious object orbiting a gas giant after scientists find something similar on the moon. There aren't many main characters, just the two crew members who aren't in cryosleep and the ship's artificial intelligence, but I don't think it really needs that many to get the story across."
“That actually sounds really interesting – it’s not often you get sci-fi which isn’t just aliens and ray guns, so you’ve got a pretty unique idea there – what are you going to call it?”
“I was thinking of calling it something like ‘Odyssey’, but I’m not sure yet.”
“Odyssey sounds good, but maybe it’d be more memorable if it was a little longer? Perhaps you could add the year it’s set in, or where it happens. It’s just an idea, so you do what you think is best.”
While they’d been talking, Diamond had mixed a new set of colours and added details such as eyes and mane colours to the majority of her figurines, setting the ones Auburn aside when each was finished but keeping her own where they had been, presumably in preparation for further painting. Copperwing fell silent for a while, looking pensive, before she opened a new line of conversation with renewed enthusiasm.
“So, Diamond, how long have you been living in Ponyville? Dinky mentioned you moved here from somewhere else, so I was curious where you were from originally.”
“We’ve been here about three and a half years. We used to live in Manehattan, but after mum died Dad needed to get away. There was too much to remind him of her there, I think, but Ponyville’s been good for him: I think he’s nearly managed to put what happened behind him.”
Copperwing cringed at the mention of Diamond's mother, inwardly cursing her social ineptitude and praying to Celestia she could go the remainder of the day without reminding Diamond of what she’d lost: fearing she'd upset her friend, she hastened to apologise. “I'm so sorry for bringing up your mum again, if I’d known that was why you moved away I wouldn’t have asked.”
“I told you before: it’s fine. She’s gone, and I miss her, but I’m not about to start a crying fit just because you reminded me that she existed. Celestia, Copper, you could give Fluttershy a run for her money if you keep apologising for nothing. Relax.”
“I'm sor-" Diamond looked hard at her, and she stopped herself proving her point by apologising yet again, "-I’ll try... Say, how are things going at your school?”
“Still rocky, but it’s better than it was. I still get nasty looks, but they’ve stopped making fun of me for not knowing things and a few of them have been almost friendly. Oh, and one of the foals I tried to say sorry to earlier in the week apologised for walking out on me - I think we’re going to be able to get on pretty well from now on.”
Diamond had been half-expecting a teasing question about just how well she and Rumble would be getting on, but Copperwing merely nodded and smiled down at her.
“That’s great! Nice to hear things are working out for you, although I guess you wouldn’t have had to put up with things much longer anyway, since there isn’t long until you graduate from Elementary. About that – have you got any idea what you’re going to do afterwards?”
“I’m planning on staying in school for a few more years: I’m not sure what I want to do as a job and the higher education can’t hurt. Probably going to go to school somewhere around Ponyville, even if Dad could probably afford to send me off to private school: Ponyville is my home, and I don’t want to leave my friends behind just after I’ve found them.”
“Does that mean I might see you at Canterhoof, then? I mean, there’s only really two good higher education schools in the area, and Auburn’s probably going to go to CA since I’ve already got an idea of how it all works there – that way she doesn’t have to go in blind like I did – I don’t know about Dinky, but I reckon she’ll go whichever school has the most ponies she likes.”
Diamond nodded, having had similar thoughts about her friends' future directions.“Yeah, Dad can’t really see much difference between CA and Everside either, so I’ll probably stick with you and Auburn. It’s be a shame to split up the group so early, wouldn’t it?”
“You're right, it would: it's been really nice having you and Dinky around; even if you’re more Auburn’s friends than mine, I’ve had a great time hanging out with you two.”
Once again, the older filly stared holes in her own hooves, giving Diamond's reply an extra ounce of energy.
“Copper - I’m just as much your friend as I am Auburn’s, so you can drop that whole idea about me caring less about you. Just because I don’t see you as often or know you as well, doesn’t make you any less of a friend to me. I invited you because I like you, not just because you’re Auburn’s sister.”
This seemed to cheer her up immensely, and Copperwing thanked her earnestly, looking happily out at her friend from under her mop of dirty-blonde hair. As the pair descended into comfortable silence, she noticed that Diamond had finished painting her changelings and leaned in for a closer look, her mouth falling slowly open in awe at the filly’s skilful decoration of the figurines.
The changelings Copper had painted looked impressive: their leg holes had all been painted a darker shade than the rest of them; their manes, wings and eyes all given believable yet eye-catching colouration and their bodies painstakingly dotted with freckles and subtly shifting chitin tones to give them an additional air of realism. Some of them even had their horns detailed still further with the addition of their magical auras, the amount of paint on them representing varying stages of the act of spellcasting: from the weak glow of a spell only just begun, to the vibrant flare of one about to be cast forth.
The real stars of the show, however, were the changelings Diamond had painted unevenly: it was now abundantly clear to the awestruck Copperwing what she’d been trying to achieve with this, and the resulting effect rendered her temporarily mute. The areas of the changelings which had previously lacked a second coat now carried the bright colours synonymous with pony coats, and the edges of these sections were adorned with infinitesimally detailed magical flames: in short, Diamond had painted an army of changelings mid-transformation; the chitin either being converted to skin and fur or coats being switched back to chitin.
Amongst these metamorphosing ‘lings were: a changeling in the process of assuming the identity of a Royal Guard, golden armour and all; a pegasus stallion whose wingtips and jaw were wreathed in green fire as the true being beneath emerged and one which was entirely engulfed by its own violet inferno as it began its transformation.
“…Diamond-“ Copperwing began, having finally regained her ability to speak, “-These are amazing! How did you even manage to make them this detailed?”
Diamond blushed modestly under the praise and shrugged her shoulders. “My talent is to do with decoration, especially fine detail: the tiara on my cutie mark’s more symbolic than anything – despite popular belief, I’d actually be hopeless at making jewellery besides choosing which gems to use.”
Copper nodded. “That explains a lot. Do you get a lot of ponies assuming your talent’s with jewellery? I imagine that would get really annoying in no time at all.”
“Yeah, I get that way too often. You’d think the knowledge would spread, given how often I’ve said it, but apparently what my cutie mark means isn’t worth mentioning.”
Gesturing to the image on Copperwing’s flank – a navy blue hammer covered over its handle by two crossed wings, one a similar yellow to her mane, the other a brighter hue of her wingtips – she asked:
“What’s your talent? I’d have thought it was something to do with the guard after what you did at the park, but your mark doesn’t really fit that idea.”
The pegasus, following Diamond’s gaze, glanced at her mark before looking back at her friend and answering the question.
“My talent? Well, it’s pretty much the same as Dad’s: just shaping metal into things ponies would want. He let me have a go at shaping some copper when I was ten and, long story short, it turned out I was good enough at it to get my mark. The hammer on my mark is actually the same one I used: see the little cut in the handle about halfway down? Matches the handle of the real thing exactly.”
Squinting at the mark, Diamond could see what Copper meant, although the filly's well-formed flank did its best to divert her attention from it. Snapping her eyes back on her friend's face, she forced her thoughts back onto the subject at hoof by hastening to reply.
“Cool! If you and your dad are good at the same thing, then you’ll always have somepony on hoof to help: that’s got to save you a lot of trouble learning the ropes.”
“Yeah, it’s great having my own personal expert right there at home, ready to help whenever I need him. Beats paying for a tutor, that’s for sure – some of them charge two hundred bits an hour, would you believe it?!”
“That’s crazy! That said, with prices like that their students are going to be a constant stream of arrogant noble-foal brats, so I guess karma isn’t totally broken.”
“I guess so… Hey, I wonder what the others are up to: we’ve been gone nearly an hour and they still haven’t come looking for us. D’you think we should find them?”
Diamond shrugged and sat up in her chair. “Probably. How much do you bet they’re still talking about ‘Kingdoms?”
Copperwing laughed heartily at the remark, following Diamond’s lead and standing up from the table. “I’d bet my life savings on it, if I wasn’t so sure that fate would have them be doing something else just to spite me. C’mon, let’s go nerd hunting.”
*
“Well, I must say it’s been really nice talking to you, Rich,” Cheerilee said earnestly, standing with the stallion in the hallway.
Rich smiled. “It has been a lot of fun, no doubt about that... Now that I know you better, though, I can’t help feeling guilty about what you’ve been through, with regards to dealing with Diamond. I mean, I’m her father, I should’ve-“
“And I’m her teacher, Rich-“ Cheerilee cut him off sternly, refusing to hear his self-doubting apology, “- I won’t say you’re blameless in all this, but it was just as much my fault as yours... Look; we’ve both made mistakes with Diamond, but the point stands that we’ve both started to make up for that.
“Just look how much has changed for her this week – she’s split off from Silver Spoon; she’s apologised to all of the students in her year; she’s even made some good friends – and before you say that was all my doing, I know for a fact that Diamond wouldn’t have been able to do what she’s done these past few days without the support and guidance of her father.”
Her stubborn rebuttal rendered Filthy speechless for a moment, the stallion being truly astonished that Cheerilee didn’t blame him for what had happened.
“I-I…” he began, trying to find some fragment of his argument that he could still use to express how guilty he felt. “Cheerilee, you don’t understand: I promised myself I’d keep her safe after her mother died, I swore I wouldn’t let her come to harm, but you know as well as I do how badly I’ve failed her in that regard.”
Whilst she could sympathise deeply with him – she was pretty sure her heart had broken a little at the revelation that Diamond’s mother was dead – Cheerilee remained unrepentant in her assertion that he was laying far too much of the blame at his own hooves.
“That may be so, but perhaps I’m not the only one who 'doesn’t understand'. I took an oath when I qualified as a teacher to protect all of my students from harm, no matter whether that harm was big or small, physical or psychological. I know exactly how you feel about this, because it’s exactly what I’m feeling.
"We both had a duty to protect her, and to be frank we both failed… but that duty still stands – we are in this together, Rich, for as long as we have that task to fulfil... I know it's not long until she's no longer my student, but Tartarus, if you still want my help, I’ll stick around after she leaves school.”
“You… you’d really do that?”
“Of course I would. I don’t just care about her because I’m her teacher, you know. She’s a lovely filly, Rich, and if you’ll let me I’d like to make amends… for letting Silver Spoon twist her away from that, and for dropping this whole mess on you… You aren’t the only one who feels guilty about all this.”
Touched by the offer, Rich’s voice cracked. “Thank you, Cheerilee. You have no idea h-“
“I think we’ve established pretty well that I know exactly how you feel, so you can stop that sentence right there or so help me I will set you maths problems that would make the punishers in Tartarus cringe at the idea of making somepony answer them.” Though her voice was stern, Cheerilee’s mouth was cured upwards in a playful grin, and Rich couldn’t help but laugh.
“I think I’ll pass on that one, if that’s alright with you.” He said, and she smiled in response.
“Good. Now I’m sorry, but I have a figurative tonne of paperwork with my name on it waiting back home, so I’ll have to finish our little chat here. Goodbye, Rich… I’ll see you around.” With that, she turned and left the house for the sunny streets of Ponyville and her own home, looking back one last time to respond to Rich’s goodbye with a cheery wave and a smile.
*
Returning with a smile curling the corners of his mouth, Filthy Rich headed off in search of his two pegasus guests, having a message to relay to them from their father. Re-entering the house proper from the hall, he spotted the elder of the sisters – Copperwing, if memory served – and Diamond trotting leisurely into the living room.
Glancing round, he couldn’t see the other two fillies, leading him to assume that they were in the same room his daughter had just entered with Copperwing. Acting upon this deduction, he began to walk purposefully towards the living room, the smile falling from his face as he assumed a more serious expression.
As he had expected, Dinky and Auburn were indeed in the living room, talking happily with the newly arrived Diamond and Copperwing about something which his old brain could not begin to fathom. With a pang of regret at interrupting such a cheerful conversation, he cleared his throat and watched as the four fillies faced him, surprise written on their faces.
“Sorry to interrupt, fillies, but Auburn and Copperwing’s father gave me a message for them.”
Without needing to be asked, the two mentioned pegasi disentwined themselves from the group and followed him out of earshot into the dining room. Whilst he didn’t think the news was of the sort to be particularly detrimental were the others to hear it, Rich felt it was best to respect the pair’s privacy and let them tell their friends as much or as little of it as they wanted.
“What is it?” Copperwing asked, as soon as they stopped; beside her, her sister stayed pensively silent, her eyes watchful yet inextinguishably curious. Rich took in a deep breath and began.
“Something’s turned up in the Everfree and the Princess’s Guards wanted some input on what exactly they could expect in the forest besides what they’re looking for, along with a capable guide. Your mother fit the bill perfectly, seeing as she’s an ex-officer with a lot of past experience in the Everfree area, so she’s gone with them in an advisory role.”
Copperwing hummed thoughtfully at his answer, letting her taciturn sister take her turn at asking the pair’s questions. “So, is she going as a civilian or as a reserve Royal Guard? She can take care of herself, but I’d feel better if she had the protection of Guard Lorica too.”
Rich frowned thoughtfully, giving his answer slowly and with a lot of care that he wasn’t misunderstanding their father’s words.
“Your father said she’d be fully kitted out for the mission, so I assume she’s acting as a reserve Guard. I doubt there’s anything in that forest a Guard contingent couldn’t deal with, especially with your mother looking out for them, but I understand that you’d be more comfortable with the idea of her going in armed and armoured.”
Copperwing nodded in agreement and started to turn back towards the living room, but Auburn stopped her, sensing that there was more yet to be said. “I appreciate you telling us this, but that’s not all you needed to say, is it?” She plied, confident that she was right in her assumption.
“No, it isn’t,” Rich admitted. “Your father can’t cancel his meeting in Manehattan, so you’re going to stay the night here. Your mother should be back tomorrow, but until then I can’t leave you home alone. It’s the weekend, so you and Diamond could probably turn this into a sleepover of sorts if you wanted, as long as you don’t stay up too late.”
“Hay, yes!” exclaimed Copperwing gleefully, and even her more reserved sister couldn’t help but grin at the prospect.
Chuckling, Filthy Rich let them gallop off back to Diamond and turned himself with a sigh of resignation to the stairs, likewise directing his thoughts to the veritable mountain range of paperwork which awaited him at the top of them. This was going to be a long night.
*****