Letters From a Little Princess Monster
Mirror - rorriM - Part One
The weight room in Snowflake’s Gym was silent for a time as Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo stared at each other in abject shock. It was a perspective that neither of the little fillies had ever experienced before, other than in front of a mirror, but even that was a weak substitute for finding one’s body and one’s mind swapped with your mortal enemy.
Scootaloo’s diamond tiara glittered in the corner by the barbells where it had been kicked during their vicious battle, decorated with a few yanked violet and white hairs indicating its removal had not been without a struggle, while more than a few of Diamond Tiara’s short orange feathers still floated down from the ceiling, with one even sticking out of the corner of Scootaloo’s mouth. Well, her present body’s mouth.
The moment was very confusing. It was also fairly short.
“Gimme back my wings!” screamed Scootaloo, lunging forward in an awkward half-hop that betrayed her inexperience with using a body that did not have some sort of aerial propulsion system for speed and distance boosting. Diamond Tiara fairly bounded upwards and remained hovering just out of reach, no matter how much Scootaloo could make her stocky earth pony legs jump. “Come down from there!”
“She’s flying!” gasped Apple Bloom.
“I’m flying?” asked Diamond Tiara, her eyes getting larger by the minute. “I’m flying!”
“How can she be flying!” Scootaloo turned on Monster, who was still frantically paging through her book. “Twilight, how can she be flying?”
“Don’t know,” whimpered Monster, paging through the book in a blur. “Instinct?”
“Well, she’s instinked it enough. I want my body back!”
Monster paged through the book even faster until the pages started to smolder. “Supposed to just see things. Not swap.”
Although Scootaloo (in her present body) opened her mouth to add to the conversation, she found both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle’s hoof firmly inserted, making her comments come out more as a muffled snort than what was originally intended.
“This is so cool!” Featherweight flew up to the ceiling and snapped a few quick pictures of ‘Scootaloo’ in flight, even if her hover was fairly wobbly and only maintained by considerable effort. “I’m going to make like a gazillion copies of this and send ‘em to everypony!”
While Twist finished wrapping the bandage around Bulk Biceps bloody nose, Sweetie Belle squinted at the small flying pegasus who had caused the injury and the ground-bound earth pony in which she was presently housed. “She’s flying just like Twilight did when she first got wings.”
“Thatth right,” said Twist. “Twilight uthed to hover jutht fine, but thee can’t any more. I wonder why.”
Monster held herself very still, clenching the book tightly to her chest as she tried to control her breathing. There was something there, an obvious fact that was being covered up by her panic, and in an attempt to get it to the surface, she spoke it out loud. “Instinct. I read books on flying. Followed the instructions. One: Upstroke with wing angled up. Two: Top of stroke, angle wing back. Three: Downstroke with wing held steady. Four: Angle wing up again. One. Two. Three—”
There was a sudden startled cry and Diamond Tiara lost control of her wings, tumbling down to the gym mat with a solid thud which was promptly followed by Scootaloo jumping on top to hold her down.
“Now, Twilight,” she called out. “Zap us again!”
Monster stood trembling with the book still clutched to her chest, looking at her friend and the struggling pony she had trapped underneath her. Scootaloo had flown, although with somepony else running her wings. Switching them back should have just involved using the spell on them again, but that would put them right back where they were just a few minutes ago. Scootaloo would not be able to fly, Diamond Tiara would still be a bitch, and Trixie would be mad at her for using the spell without supervision. Twice. There had to be another answer that could solve the problem, but before she could think of it, Diamond Tiara wriggled around and bit down just as hard as she could on Scootaloo’s current tail.
Both little ponies let out an agonizing squeal and jumped forward to wind up in different piles, each rubbing their own tail.
“Whoa,” said Featherweight, snapping another picture. “Freaky.”
“How did you do that?” shouted Diamond Tiara, rolling into a crouch with her little wings sticking up and her tail somewhat painfully cocked to one side.
“Do what?” shouted Scootaloo right back, mirroring her opponent's stance almost perfectly, except for the wings.
“Synaesthesia!” said Sweetie Belle proudly. “My sister had a book that told all about it. See, there were these two sisters who were so much alike that each one could feel what the other was feeling, but she took it away from me before I got to the good parts where one of them was out on a date and the other was home all alone, and the stallion…” Sweetie blushed. “I don’t think my sister knew the word I was asking about either. She seemed awfully embarrassed.”
“Seeing from each other’s eyes,” mumbled Monster with the smallest hint of a smile.
“I don’t wanna feel like her!” snapped Scootaloo. She jumped forward and kicked the little pegasus in the face, then stumbled back with a hoof to her chin. “Ow!”
“Serves you right, Scootalooser!” snapped Diamond Tiara in return with a hoof over her own chin. “Tell your freaky friend to change me back, right now!”
“No.”
“What?” All of the little ponies echoed the word, including Bulk Biceps, who despite the bandages across his face, wore a look of concern almost identical to Scootaloo’s little friends.
“I said no.” Monster stomped one hoof, which did not make as loud a noise as she wanted, as she was still standing on the gym mat. “Won’t. Not until you both understand.”
“Understand what?” Diamond Tiara waved an orange hoof at Scootaloo, who seemed to be caught in unaccustomed thought. “That she’s a total loser? I understand that already. Now turn us back!”
“No!” This time the hoof stomp echoed through the gym, and a small circle of charred plastic surrounded where Monster had put her hoof down on the mat. “I won’t do it, and neither will Trixie. It is hard to change another’s spell. This was a very hard spell, so you won’t find anypony else who can.”
“I think I see, Twilight.” Scootaloo walked over to the crumpled pile of wires that had once been a diamond tiara and picked the broken remains up. “If we fight, we not only hurt each other, but we can hurt others too. Not that she cares about hurting others.”
“I do too care!” Diamond Tiara fluffed up her wings unconsciously and glared at Monster. “I’m a good pony. Daddy says so!”
Monster lowered her eyebrows and squinted in what was supposed to be an intimidating fashion. “Prove it. You act like Scoots and she’ll act like you for a few days. If you’re a good pony… If you’re both good ponies, I’ll change you back.” Her intent glare at the two battered little ponies was distracted by Featherweight, who had a hoof up in the air and was waving it around.
“Me next!” he chimed.
Ignoring Featherweight, Scootaloo shook her head. “It won’t work, Twilight. My aunt will see through her act in a minute. I mean I can act all stuck up and snooty, but—
“What do you mean, stuck up and snooty?” protested Diamond Tiara. “I occupy a higher social position than you could ever manage to fake. Daddy will see through you like a window.”
“Oh, yeah?” Scootaloo stepped forward to push her forehead against her former body.
“Most definitely,” said Diamond Tiara, returning the gesture in nearly a mirror image head butt that would have inevitably led to violence if the front door to the gym had not slammed open at that moment.
And Filthy Rich stepped through.
* * *
Anger was not an emotion that Filthy Rich had ever been comfortable dealing with. His father, Stinking Rich, had been a stallion of extreme calm under any circumstance, even when his idiot son had gone out of his head at business school in Manehattan and returned home with a foal, but even Stinky had exchanged more than a few biting words with him before accepting Diamond Tiara as his granddaughter.
Filthy Rich missed the old coot, but his angry words came back just as plain as if he had returned from the grave and was standing at his shoulder. Diamond Tiara was not a mistake that would ruin his life. She was brilliant and beautiful, two characteristics that Diamond’s mother had in great abundance and that Filthy had missed so much over the last eight years. Filigree had captured his heart and soul, and all he had left of their time together was the small crying ball of pony that he had raised on his own, all the way through midnight feedings and messy diapers up to braces and dance lessons. Every moment in her precious presence struck a chord in his heart, a resonance with the young pony he had once been.
In love.
The jagged fragments of his memories remained scattered around him like a shattered plate glass window. How could he have been so blind not to see the pain that his daughter had inflicted throughout her life? He had not wanted to see what Diamond had become, but once he had opened that letter, he had done far more than just see.
He had expected the simple folded sheet of paper to contain words written in the childish script like the outside of the letter, but there was nothing written inside the blank paper at all, a seamless nothing that had pulled at his senses in one long jolt until he felt himself hiding in some alley in Ponyville while peering out at two little arguing ponies. It was terrifying to be trapped in somepony else’s memory, but far worse were the hateful words he could hear in Diamond’s normally soft voice as she humiliated her schoolmate. He wanted it to stop, to wake up from this waking dream, but there had been no way to fight the sensations that flooded through his overloaded senses as he flickered in a series of teleport spells after the anguished little pegasus, his heart hammering beneath his sweat-slicked coat and his trembling wings tucked tightly against his flanks. Thorns and branches had clawed at his face during the cautious pursuit with echoes of memories from his knees still seeming to bear the scrapes of raw and splintered rocks from the terrifying climb to the top of the precipice at Ghastly Gorge, and every time he looked down since then, he expected to see the sharp points of jagged rocks far below instead of the simple dirt of the Ponyville roads.
Even after that terrifying letter, he had doubts. Diamond had been so plaintive when he had confronted her at home, but as much as he wanted to believe her, he could see the lies for what they were now, and he had ordered her confined to her room while he tried to make sense of his experience. After all, the letter could have been a deception, but the locations he had seen turned out to be perfectly accurate, right down to the few small pink hairs on the edge of the dumpster where Scootaloo had thrown her trademark scooter and fled his daughter in tears.
After walking around in a daze for a while, he made a decision. First, he had gone straight to Cheerilee’s house and apologized profusely. So many of the school letters she had sent made perfect sense now, and he reassured the teacher that Diamond would not be a problem in the upcoming school year. There was a finishing school in Canterlot that specialized in difficult little fillies, expensive, of course, more so on such short notice, but it would be worth the bits if it could turn the monster he had now into the precious little gem he remembered.
He had not been looking forward to the conversation when he returned home, but it needed to be said and done. Wrapping steel around his heart to protect against those dangerous eyes that reminded him so much of Filigree, he had walked into Diamond’s bedroom suite…
Only to find she had defied his order and left the house.
That was the last straw. Diamond Tiara had never directly disobeyed him before. Certainly, there had been times when she had exploited loopholes and exceptions to the point he thought he was raising a lawyer, but this was the first time she had just outright defied him.
He was vaguely aware of walking back into town while stewing, and later would remember the way the townsponies took one look at him and pointed his way without asking a single question. Snowflake’s Gym was an unlikely place for her to hide, as she barely even used the weight room at home, but when he opened the door and spotted his Diamond, the churning fury in his heart rose to a raging boil. She had been fighting, from the obvious signs of bruises and blood, brawling like some common street criminal instead of the delicate filly she was supposed to be.
He said something, not quite sure what it was due to the red fog that nearly blinded him, before striding forward and separating his daughter from the other little ponies. Without another word, he put one shoulder to his little Diamond and shoved her towards the door. If she had put up even the slightest objection, he was fully prepared to clamp his jaws down on her ear and drag her kicking and screaming through the streets of Ponyville all the way back home, but after one strangely plaintive glance back at the other little ponies, she meekly shuffled along ahead of him. Once they arrived at home and totally contrary to his expectations, Diamond did not argue or fuss when ordered to her room, or even bring up any objections as he sat down and detailed just exactly why she was going to be attending Miss Puressence’s School for Young Fillies and what a disappointment her behaviour was.
In the end, as his fury burned out into cold ashes, he sat in his daughter’s bedroom and just let the silence speak for itself. Diamond did not move other than to just look at the floor and breathe, her soft pink sides smeared with bits of dry blood and the faintest of bubbling in her nose from the injuries he so wanted to kiss and make better.
This was for the best. She had to understand that. He loved her so much that at times he was afraid.
When he could no longer stand the wordless silence, he swallowed a lump and asked if she understood just exactly what he had said. He expected arguing, or a counter-proposal, anything at all other than what she said in a quiet voice without a trace of tears.
“Yes, Mister Rich.”
He turned without another word, and left her bedroom at a slow walk, down the corridors of his home and passing the silent household staff until he reached his own bedroom. The door closed behind him with a loud click, echoing through the empty room as he staggered forward in awkward steps until he threw himself down on the huge cold bed and cried.