The preceding week had been a curious one for Diamond Tiara. The silver-haired Judas that had once been her best friend, and her stupid pet that she had replaced her with, hadn't been at school for an entire week. On Monday she had shrugged their simultaneous absences off as a mere coincidence. By Tuesday, she had surmised they were playing an extended game of hooky together. Wednesday had come around, and there was still no sign of either of them. Thursday and Friday, again, they were no-shows...
Whatever.
It wasn't like Diamond cared, or anything. It was just the idea of those two suddenly disappearing without a word to anypony, as if they had just ran away and eloped, was so infuriating that it was sickening. The teacher wasn't even calling their names during morning roll call. Diamond had asked Miss Cheerilee several times about their whereabouts, but the only information she would disclose was that they were both out of town.
It was Monday now, and Diamond Tiara did as she had been doing every morning since the great betrayal. She simply sat at the same picnic bench in the lunch area near the playground, and it was there she awaited the strident scream of the first bell to announce the beginning of the school day. From where she sat, she usually had a perfect view of them. Button Mash and Silver Spoon never ceased to enjoy wasting their morning and midday recess under the shade of the tree near the jungle gym, taking turns playing with that stupid JoyBoy. But that tree had been lonely for a whole week now.
Diamond just sat there and sulked at the picnic bench, wondering and "not caring" at the same time about Silver's whereabouts, when suddenly Dinky took a seat across from her.
"Hey Di!" she said in that annoyingly upbeat voice of hers. It should be illegal to be as cheery as she always was so early in the morning.
Diamond ignored her. Dinky was supposed to be her new Silver Spoon. The real Silver Spoon, however, didn't seem to notice her former best friend's new BFF, which embittered the tiara-clad filly all the more.
"I got a new magnetic checkers set," Announced Dinky. "Wanna play a game before school starts?"
Diamond Tiara lifted her head up, scanned the school yard vainly for any sign of Silver or Button Mash, then sighed irritably. "I guess."
Dinky smiled and removed her new checkers set from her backpack. "I doubt you'll stand a chance against me. I played five consecutive games with my mom just yesterday, and I beat her every single time."
It's Monday, and they're still gone? Diamond thought in dismay, not bothering to acknowledge her faux friend's incessant prattling as she set up the game pieces.
"Wanna flip a bit to decide who goes first?" asked Dinky, smiling, looking genuinely excited.
Diamond rolled her eyes. "No, I'll go first," she said, laconic and absolute.
Dinky's energetic smile became an awkward one. "Oh... Okay, sure."
Diamond reached over the table and swiped all of Dinky's pieces off the board. "I win."
"You can't do that," frowned the indignant filly.
"The queen does what she wants," smiled Diamond Tiara.
"There are no queens in checkers!"
"I was referring to me, Dunken."
"It's Dinky!"
"Your name is whatever I say it is." Diamond Tiara sighed and hung her head. Being mean to Dinky just wasn't fun anymore. What was the point in even pretending to be her friend when Silver wasn't around to see it?
Suddenly.
"Hey," Dinky said, "is that Silver Spoon?"
Diamond Tiara's head snapped up. "Where!"
"Wait, no, that's not her."
It was all Diamond Tiara could do to suppress a growl as she let her face slam down on the table.
"Wait a minute. Sweet Celestia, that is Silver Spoon!" Dinky suddenly leaped from the bench and ran off.
"Dinky, I'm not in the mood for your stupid...." That was when Diamond Tiara looked up and saw her. Silver Spoon. She was walking along with that pleb of hers, Button Mash. She had some strange, white, round-looking thing for a backpack. The frames of her glasses were black, and had some sort of ugly, ridged boxy design at the bottom edges. Her long silver hair wasn't even braided. It was bound at the tip and dangled over one shoulder. The two strode along the dirt trail that lead onto the campus, their tails intimately interlocked.
They're holding tails now! Diamond cringed. Seriously?
Silver Spoon was giggling at some sort of jape the buffoon in the stupid propeller hat had just made when a group of classmates began to encircle them.
Diamond Tiara sneered as she hopped down from the picnic bench and made her way toward them. When she arrived at the throng, she was just in time to see Silver Spoon giving a few curious students a look of that weird backpack of hers.
Silver Spoon proudly held it out for everyone to see. Dinky seemed especially curious. "What is it?" the little blonde unicorn inquired.
"It's my new backpack. It's cute, isn't it?" Silver said, flapping its little triangular arms over its beady black eyes. When she did this, the bag made a mischievous giggling sound as tiny red lights activated under the fabric across its face, as if it were blushing. "Button's mom got it for me at EGE."
"But what is it supposed to be, though?" Asked Dinky, eyeing the thing's wicked smile.
"It's called a Boo." Silver responded.
"What's a Boo?"
Button shrugged, chuckling. "And you wonder why I call you a casual."
Dinky tilted her head. "Yeah, and you still haven't told me what that means."
"Every time I try, we get conveniently interrupted. Like, for instance, Dinky, a casual is—"
"You two!" Diamond Tiara interjected.
"Ya see that?" Button said, pointing a hoof toward the interruption. "I don't even do that on purpose, it just happens!"
Diamond approached Silver Spoon and sat on her haunches when she was in front of her. The two stared daggers into each other until Diamond decided to break the silence. "And Just where the hay have you two been?"
Silver Spoon harrumphed with a haughty turn of her nose. "None of your business."
"We were at EGE!" Button replied, as if blissfully ignorant of the animosity between the two former friends.
Diamond cast a scornful glare toward Silver Spoon. "Just what the heck is an EGE?"
"It's the Electronic Gaming Expo!" answered Snips from the circle of students, who sourly crossed his arms over his chest. "Button usually takes me with him, but no, he's too good for me now that he has a girlfriend!"
Diamond's jaw dropped. She looked at Silver disbelievingly. "You... Y-you... You ditched school for a week to run off with this nerd," She pointed a hoof at Button, who smiled as if he had just been complimented. "To go to some kind of stupid Star-Trek convention?"
Button again answered. "It's actually a video game exp—"
"I wasn't talking to you, dweeb!" Diamond barked. She then pointed a hoof toward Silver. "What's happened to you? What's with your glasses?"
"My..." Silver Spoon touched the edges of her glasses' frames. "Oh, they're called pixel frames. I like to refer to them as my plus twos."
"Because they add plus two to awesome," Button put in. "I was the one that came up with that, by the way."
Silver smiled at Button affectionately, then turned an acid gaze to Diamond. "And for your information, we didn't ditch school. Miss Cheerilee gave us an assignment to do over the course of the week, to make up for the days we would be absent."
Diamond Tiara raised an eyebrow. "An assignment?"
"A book report," Button responded.
Silver Spoon nodded. "A song of ice and fire."
"A song of what?" Dinky asked. Some of the other school kids exchanged confused glances.
Silver Spoon and Button Mash looked at each other, sighed, frowned, and said in unison, "Game of Thrones!"
"Oh," came the group's cacophonous reply. A couple of them could be heard saying, "They made a book of that?"
The expression on Diamond Tiara's face was becoming more incredulous by the second. Whatever trace lingered of her former friend was now completely gone. She had gone to this place, this EGE, and she had come back a complete dork. "You read..." The pink filly's face twisted in disbelief. "Game of Thrones?"
"That we did," smiled Silver. "We read it together, didn't we, my sun and stars?" She reached over to Button and rubbed his chin.
The colt smiled, lifted his head, and purred, "That we did, my Khaleesi."
Diamond Tiara face-hoofed. "Next thing you know, you'll be telling me you've got one of those stupid JoyBoys like Button has."
The silver-haired filly, as if in response to her former friend's comment, began to dig through that odd backpack of hers. "Actually, no," she said.
Diamond watched her curiously and offered, "Well at least there's some hope for you."
Silver Spoon smiled when she discovered in her bag what she was looking for. She drew an object from it, an electric blue, rectangular device. "It's actually the new JoyBoy 3D XL DS SP light. So no, it's not like Button's."
Snips eyed the device in wonder, practically foaming at the mouth with envy. "The 3D XL DS SP light? That doesn't even come out until next month! How did you get your hooves on one?"
Silver Spoon looked dreamily at her son and stars and said, "My Button Mash won it for me in a Smash Brothers contest! I was the happiest girl in the world at that moment... And I still am. He stood on top of the stage as the winner, and then when the announcer asked him what he was going to do now that he was a champion, he said he was..." Silver removed her pixel-framed glasses and wiped a tear from her eye. "He said he was going to give his prize to his Khaleesi, because I was already the greatest prize of all."
The crowd of School children D'awwd in unison. A couple of them scoffed and acted like they were going to be sick.
"Thath tho preciouth!" Twist put in, dewy eyed.
"It could have been mine!" Roared Snips. "Silver Spoon, you suck!"
Button Mash snapped a hoof toward the colt in response and quipped, "Shut up, Snips! Your dad works at Wal-Mart!"
The crowd went silent. Snips' eyes went wide, he looked around, then he slowly backed down.
Silver Spoon smirked at Button. "Harsh," she critiqued.
Button stroked her cheek with a hoof. "Nopony talks to my Khaleesi that way." They leaned into each other and rubbed muzzles.
Diamond Tiara's pink face turned red. She trembled with anger and looked acidly at the ground. "You two," she hissed between clenched teeth, "even your pet names you have for each other are geeky."
Suddenly the bell rang. The group of school children said their greetings and welcomed back Button and Silver as they gathered their things and dispersed for class.
"Hu'tegh!" Silver cursed. "I was hoping to get some game time in before the bell rang. Layton and Wright call to me, beckoning me. Espella must be rescued!" she pouted as she placed her JoyBoy in her bag.
"Where Are you in that game, by the way?" Button asked as he watched her zip her 'Boopack.' "Have you found out yet that the Storyteller is actually—"
"Button, don't tell me! I'm not that far in the game yet!" Silver replied as she slung her bag over her back.
The colt rubbed the back of his head, chagrined. "Oh, right, sorry. I won't say anything."
"There is one puzzle I may need your help with, though."
"Is it that hidden bakery puzzle Patty gives you?"
"Yes! How'd you know?"
"I had problems with that one, too. It was the only puzzle in the game I had to use my hint tokens on."
Diamond Tiara watched as the couple walked to class together, their tails intertwined as they spoke of things she had absolutely no knowledge of. Seeing Silver this way evoked a revelation: Silver Spoon was happy. She looked happier than Diamond had ever seen her. Admitting this to herself made her angry. Angry, she realized, and jealous, and heartbroken. That was her best friend at one time... Gone...
Diamond Tiara looked down, lost in thought until a couple of hooves entered her vision. She looked up. It was Dinky. "What do you want?"
"Aren't you coming to class?" asked the unicorn.
Diamond Tiara hid her face and wiped her eyes as surreptitiously as she could. "Why do you care?" she snapped. "You're going to be late if you stay out here."
Dinky smiled cutely. "I don't mind. We can be late together. Maybe Cheerilee won't come down as hard on us if we're both tardy at the same time."
"Why would you be willing to take that risk?" Diamond looked at her suspiciously.
The carefree unicorn shrugged. "What are friends for?"
"Oh..." Diamond was touched, though she didn't want to show it. "I guess... I guess we'll just both be late, then?"
Dinky smiled that stupid, cheerful smile of hers, and the two made their way toward the classroom. The late bell had already rang. Diamond watched as Dinky was about to push the door open, when a thought suddenly popped into her head: maybe just moving on wasn't such a bad idea. She was sick of being jealous, and bitter, and, she even dared to entertain the notion that she may have been just the slightest bit selfish... "Hey, Dinky."
The unicorn stopped just before her hoof touched the door. She looked back at Diamond, curious.
"I uh... I have something for you."
Dinky's eyes lit up. "Something for me? A gift? For me? From you?"
"Y-yeah... You might not like it, but..." Diamond Tiara went into her bag and withdrew an old pink hair tie. She looked at it fondly. Several times she had tried to throw it away, but she never could bring herself to do so. "Here, you can have this, if you want it."
Dinky took it, and gazed at it for the longest time. "It's a hair tie."
"Yeah," Diamond said, feeling awkward. "You can give it back to me if you don't like it." She reached out her hoof to reclaim the object, but Dinky clasped it between her hooves and pulled it away protectively.
"But you said I can have it!"
"You actually want that old thing?"
"Well, yeah, I do. I mean, sure my hair isn't long enough to be able to tie it back, but I can grow it out. I wonder how my mane would look all long and bound."
Diamond finally allowed herself to smile. It was an awkward smile, but a smile none the less."If you want," she said, "I have some extensions back at my place. Maybe you can come over some time and we can see what it would look like on you?"
Dinky's eyes grew wide with disbelief. "You're actually inviting ME to come over to YOUR place?"
"I am," replied Diamond. "We have to see how that hair tie looks on you, don't we? Maybe we can hang out by my pool afterwards, or go to the spa."
"I would really like that!" Dinky nodded, beside herself with excitement. She then giggled and said, "you know, Diamond, for a little while there, I thought you were just using me to make Silver Spoon jealous."
"Oh, Dinky," Diamond flicked her hoof and rolled her eyes, "would I do that to my best friend?"
THE END
FOR REALSIES THIS TIME