Horse apples.
Diamond Tiara had just walked into class. Ms. Cheerilee was at her desk going over the agenda for the day, and all the students were bustling about. The sound of thumping hooves and rustling papers resonated throughout the busy room as the school day was nearing its hearty beginning, and everyone in the room seemed to be busy and content...
Everyone except Diamond Tiara.
The pink filly squirmed in her seat, her eyes darting back and forth in an effort to examine her escape options. Her day was perfect all up until that one moment, the moment where her world crumbled around her.
Diamond Tiara had sat down in her seat as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary there, she does that every school day. How else is a filly supposed to stay idle during class hours? Not by standing, that's for sure. That would be way too much effort for the child. Then again, standing up for the entire school day would have been celebrated by the lavishly adorned earth pony like a massive festival held commemorate a lottery win compared to what was to come.
As per usual, the filly opened up her bag to gather her materials and to scope out her supplies. She wanted to make sure she hadn't missed a thing during those long hours away from the school house, as each and every piece of learning equipment was crucial to educational success. Alas, when she peered into her bejeweled parcel, she was met with a horrifying revelation. It was so terrible, that the tyrant Lord Tirek himself would revile in horror at such macabre and disturbing sights!
At the bottom of Diamond Tiara's saddlebag lay a worn pencil and a blank, crumpled sheet of paper with just three devastating, skull-shocking words written at the top of the page in graphite, which was now smeared and fuzzy due to the misplacement:
My Science Project.
Diamond Tiara struggled to muffle the agonized, unrelenting gasp that desperately tried to escape past her lips. She forgot to do her homework, and it was due today.
I had nine months to work on this thing... why isn't it done?!
What was supposed to be a three page report about the filly's finding on earth pony magic was a limp, wordless sheet of paper that was roughed up in the crevice between her opulent pencil box and her homework folder. You know, the place that the project was supposed to be in the first place: safely tucked away within the welcoming confines of her homework folder.
Diamond Tiara was sweating bullets at this point, causing her to scream internally. She spent three hours fixing up her fur and mane, only to have the neatly combed pink fur upon her face desecrated and soiled by her own sweat. Fantastic. Now she had overdue work and icky fur.
As the seconds on the schoolroom's clock ticked by, Diamond Tiara's whole career came crashing down within her head. She imagined the fierce scoldings from the teacher, the jeering, taunting classmates, how her parents would disown her, how all of the prestigious universities in Equestria would no longer be interested in who they would soon be calling "dumb, useless mud-pony filth." Not even her inheritance could save her from the wrath of the educational system.
Just when the filly thought her situation couldn't get any worse, the joyous fanfare of militant bugles filled her ears, sending a wave of horror rushing throughout her entire body. She knew exactly what that trumpeting meant, and who it was for. She recognized that fanfare quite easily, seeing as how there was a bookish lavender noblemare living in a giant castle-tree thing smack dab in the middle of Ponyville. Diamond Tiara's pupils shrunk to the size of pygmy parasprite eggs the second she realized what was happening.
Two ironclad stallions marched through the door, each taking his own individual position on either side of the door's open frame. They raised their lances into the air for a split second before bringing them down once more to hit the floorboards, causing a loud, solid whack to echo throughout the entire classroom. They stood at attention, perking their ears up as the noble crests upon their breastplates gave off a radiant sheen in the sunlight, which seemed to become brighter as a series of light, gentle hoofsteps drew closer to the room. Time seemed to slow as Diamond Tiara caught that first glimpse of a pristine white hoof trot up through the door, adorned with well polished horseshoes bearing a familiar shape and shine.
Diamond Tiara felt lightheaded as the unusually tall pony entered the room; her flowing, regal mane seeming to shimmer with greater radiance as the princess stood in the light of the doorway. She resisted the urge to faint as soon as the golden goddess cast a warm, sunny smile upon the gaping schoolchildren, who were simply in awe at the sight of the powerful and majestic creature that lay before them. Ms. Cheerilee looked up from her work, jumping swiftly to her hooves to greet Princess Celestia, wholeheartedly welcoming the goddess to her humble, rural classroom. As soon as Diamond Tiara's fuzzy vision began coming back into focus one again, Ms. Cheerilee began to speak.
"Thank you for taking the time off of your busy schedule to observe our class, Princess!"
The alicorn gave her subject a warm smile. "It's always a pleasure to see how my littlest ponies are doing in their classrooms. I always enjoy seeing how well our hardworking teachers are helping Equestria's smallest citizens bloom."
Diamond Tiara began hyperventilating. Simply containing her fear became a life or death struggle. One small screw-up, and Diamond Tiara would be doomed. She would make a mockery not only of herself, but of her family, her friends, her teacher, her peers, her father's business and all of Ponyville in the presence of Equestria's own wisest and near-omniscient goddess! As Diamond Tiara struggled to regain her composure, she silently cursed her foul memory and the Equestrian educational system simultaneously.
Diamond Tiara fell behind on Cheerilee and Celestia's conversation, but she did pick up the fact that Celestia would be staying in the classroom until noon through her screams of silence, which meant that every foal in the class would have a chance to present their project in front of the Equestria's one and only Sun Goddess.
Soon enough, the time for the first presentation rolled around. First up to bat was Scootaloo, who designed a wind-powered contraption that was capable of alerting a pegasus of an oncoming or sudden storm during flight. How a pony with absolutely no flying experience nor past displays of scientific intellect could manage to build a device of such nature was completely beyond Diamond Tiara, but that was the least of her worries.
Next up was Twist, and as soon as Diamond Tiara heard the sound of Twist's bubbly voice directly followed by the sight of a massive, metallic device whose gears whirred and whistled as soon as the cream colored pony put it down, the wealthy pink filly had to try her hardest to suppress a frustrated groan. The object was almost half the size of Twist, causing the tiny pony to strain herself in an effort to carry the contraption to the front of the room. Before Twist could collapse in the middle of her trek to the center stage, a golden aura enveloped the filly and her project as Princess Celestia levitated them to the front of the room, releasing the young innovator's unintentionally self-imposed burden.
Twist described her complicated machine as a device that automatically manufactures miniature candies; complete with fully functional candy wrapping mechanism (so long as edible rice paper is present inside of a tiny slot on the side of the contraption), and is powered by the movements of the tectonic plates beneath the planet's surface. As Twist went into detail explaining the planet's different layers and how her machine actually worked, Diamond Tiara let out a slow and seething, yet inaudible sigh through clenched teeth.
Great. I'm going to be shown up by Twist. Of all the ponies to look better than me in front of the princess, why did it have to be Twist?
As the time passed, Diamond Tiara grew increasingly anxious. In a feeble attempt to forget her inevitable plight, she began to focus less on the presentations before her, and more on her surroundings. Eventually, her gaze fell upon Princess Celestia's golden regalia, specifically her horseshoes. She was absolutely starstruck by them. You couldn't just buy those from a fancy boutique for thousands of bits. Those boots were specifically commissioned by the princess herself, and fitted by a specialized cobbler.
On the front of each shining shoe was a faint engraving, which became more clearly visible in the sunlight. The solar goddess' crest lay on the upper portion of the middle of the shoe, just beneath her ankles. Beneath the image of the sun were small lingual engravings, written in the finest calligraphy. At first, Diamond Tiara had difficulty making out what the writing said, since it didn't seem to be written in modern-day Equuish. Eventually, the pink furred foal recognized the Dominus-Equuish symbols.
At first, she was taken aback. Dominus-Equuish was a dying language that was over 1000 years old. In fact, it was actually the native language of Celestia and Luna before they came to Equestria. How a cobbler could inscribe such detailed and complex letters without blemishing the surface of the shoe astounded Diamond Tiara. Celestia must have had one darn good cobbler if the writing was this clear and precise. It took Diamond Tiara three years to master writing a single symbol in the Faust-forsaken Dominus alphabet, much less write a grammatical sentence. She focused on the writing, taking her father's personal language tutoring to heart in an effort to read the inscriptions that the princess bore upon her hoofwear.
Ecquod nostra terras frugiferentis concelebras obsidionem sol dominae ritu moliri concordiam reuocare in die irae.
Diamond Tiara gazed in awe at the princess' gold plated horseshoes. That was no Gucci, that was no Trotta; that was the shoe of royalty. No top-tier fashion designer could ever dream of replicating a shoe even vaguely resembling that regal, majestic shape and size. That glimmering overcoat of polished gold; meticulously painted (with real, pure melted gold using an enchanted brush that doesn't melt) atop a sturdy titanium plating that could resist even the strongest of cannon fire. A sheen on the surface of the powerful metal that could only be achieved by a master goldsmith, Diamond Tiara's name drifting through the air in a long, droning note that filled the filly's lax ears with-
Wait... what?
Diamond Tiara derailed her train of thought, sending that hypothetical string of rail cars sailing off the tracks above the candy clouds and plummeting into the abyss of consciousness as Ms. Cheerilee called her name once more.
"Diamond Tiara, are you alright?"
"Huh, wha...?"
Diamond Tiara snapped to a complete state of awareness, perking her fuzzy ears upwards and giving the magenta schoolteacher her full, undivided attention. A few fillies in the back of the room giggled, seeing as how Diamond Tiara was not usually one to zone out during class time. The wealthy foal's cheeks reddened beneath her pink fur. She was lucky that her fur was thick enough to conceal the simmering skin upon her cheeks. Cheerilee motioned for Diamond Tiara to stand.
"It's your turn to present, Diamond Tiara," she said with a kind, cheerful voice. "Do you have your project ready for the class?"
Yep... That mental train was definitely crashing in the most violent and horrific way possible, with Diamond Tiara's imagination screaming in pure horror as every ounce of happiness she felt was burned away by the hungering flames spawned by the tragic death of the pink filly's oblivious, blissful daydreams. At least the candy clouds and mind rainbows were thick enough to obstruct Ms. Cheerilee's view of the imaginary carnage.
"Hang on a second, Ms. Cheerilee," Diamond Tiara said quickly, trying her hardest to conceal panicked, half-choked breaths. "I uh... have to look in my bag for a minute to find it."
Diamond Tiara leaned down to rummage through her saddlebag, attempting to lower her head as far as possible to hide herself from the inevitable, burning shame of being tardy and irresponsible in front of a god. This was the end for Diamond Tiara. She was going to fail in front of the princess, and her father's reputation would go under. Then she'd have no home, no room for a college education, and no chance at politics.
Who would want to associate themselves with a pony who couldn't follow the path their cutie mark has paved for them? After all, Diamond Tiara's special talent was leading other ponies and taking charge, so how could she use her abilities without any money, or even any power in different aspects of Equestrian life? She was surely soon to be without a house or loving parents, so what power would she have in this cruel world? What use is a leader who can't even lead?
Diamond Tiara quickly tried to dispel her worries upfront and focused on scouting the bottom of her bag for some measly objects she could try to pass off as a project, though her militant fears still lingered in the depths of her mind, like a predator waiting for the perfect chance to strike its target.
The pink filly managed to gather a pencil, an eraser, some scraps of paper, a paperclip, and a piece of lint from her cavernous saddlebag. She hastily assembled the materials into a misshapen wad of junk before hearing the voice of the magenta schoolteacher once more.
"Well, Diamond Tiara? Do you have your project with you today?"
Diamond Tiara lifted her head ever so slightly from the depths of her bag, holding her position in her seat. She remembered from when the Cutie Mark Crusaders got their cutie marks, and how they were so compassionate towards her, even when Diamond Tiara constantly put them down. She thought about how she had stood up against her own mother's abuse, and how much she had grown in the past few months. Lying had gotten her absolutely nowhere in the end, so what good would dishonesty bring her right now? Like an act of kindness, dishonesty is never forgotten. Unlike an act of simple, charitable kindness, dishonesty would bring negative only repercussions and a wave of distrust from her classmates, even if it was only from a work-ethic standpoint.
Was it really worth it to piece up a blatant lie in an attempt to salvage what little dignity she had left in front of an important pony? Diamond Tiara rose from her seat empty-hooved.
" I don't have my project, Ms. Cheerilee."
"That's alright, Diamond Tiara. We can schedule your presentation at a later date, so you can make it up and still get a grade."
Diamond Tiara took a small step forward. "No, Ms. Cheerilee. I didn't do the project at all."
A wave of silence was ushered into the small room by those last seven words. Every foal in the room sat silently, staying completely still as to not shock and appall the goddess sitting in the front of the room. The guards by the door maintained their monotonous expressions; silent, unmoving, fleshy statues decked in shining armor that sat by the entrance of the school. Ms. Cheerilee glanced nervously at the alicorn princess sitting by her desk, then made her move in an effort to keep things moving along.
"Why not?"
Diamond Tiara sighed, allowing her head to hang low. "I guess I forgot to do it, but that's still no excuse for failing to even start on something that I had nine months to work on, Ms. Cheerilee."
One of the guards' left ear twitched upon hearing the amount of time allotted towards giving the students time for a project at home. As the pink filly up front caught his movement out of the corner of her eye, a nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that he must be silently judging Diamond Tiara's failures. After all, he must attended school around the same time as Cheerilee, given his approximate age, so he must have had far less time to work on his school projects. Nonetheless, the lavender maned pony continued.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Cheerilee. I should have done my homework and turned it in on time, just like everyone else. While ponies like Applebloom and Twist brought amazing contraptions to show all of us, I showed up in class with a paperclip and a piece of lint sitting in the bottom of my saddlebag. I should have been more responsible for my work, and it's my fault that I didn't work on my project."
Another rush of much loathed silence invaded the room. Diamond Tiara didn't look in the direction of the princess for fear of seeing her most definitely negative reaction. She lowered her head and braced herself for the worst, waiting for her time of judgement as the Sun Goddess brought her endless wrath upon the schoolfilly. She closed her eyes...
It never came.
Instead of fiery pillars of divine judgement spearing her tiny body with hatred and disdain for Diamond Tiara's irresponsibility, the pink filly was met with a small chuckle. Like the chorus of tinkling silver bells on Hearth's Warming Eve, the celestial entity's brief bout of gentle laughter filled the room. The goddess rose from where she sat and walked over to the young filly, smiling all the way.
"It's not every day that you see a pony brave enough to admit their faults," Celestia noted.
Diamond Tiara opened her eyes, her face awash with bafflement and confusion. Her head remained suspended in its modestly loathing position. Why was Princess Celestia telling her this? Why was there no judgement fire spewing from the ground and burning Ponyville to a crisp for Diamond Tiara's abhorrent failures? Was the princess just stalling to give Diamond Tiara a shred of false hope before launching death flames into the sky?
"Not even the wealthiest, highest politicians in Canterlot could muster that level of humbleness and honesty. Even if a pony were to pay them thousands of bits up front, those cowards would fail to deliver a truthful sentiment. It's almost as if they're greedy little Smooze clones disguised as fluffy ponies, eating up Equestria's wealth of shiny golden bits each and every day."
A round of quiet laughter arose from the ponies who dared to show emotion towards the princess' remark. Surely enough, the atmosphere in the crowd of sitting foals was loosening as they realized that Celestia was not going to give Diamond Tiara a stern, loud lecture about responsibility like most grownup ponies, what with Celestia bearing the burden of an entire kingdom herself.
Princess Celestia leaned down in an effort to match Diamond Tiara's stature more effectively, giving her a soft smile as she did. She gently lifted the filly's chin upwards to meet her gaze, showing her that there was nothing to fear.
"Everypony makes mistakes, young one. Although a lot of ponies tend not to forget massive school projects, it's understandable how you may have allowed it to slip your mind. Life gets in the way of work all the time, even for me."
The Princess of the Sun let out a quiet laugh. "In fact, after I banished Nightmare Moon, I stayed in my room for a whole week, crying like a tiny foal in need of its mother's milk. I thought my sister would never forgive me for sending her to the moon, isolated out there in space, on a freezing rock with only an evil and dreadfully envious creature to keep her company. I even hid under my bed one day so the guards couldn't find me when the time for my royal duties came! I didn't want those ponies to see my face after I had let my own sister down, even if they were showering me with endless praise for preventing a devastating era of endless night."
"Falling over once or twice won't end up killing a pony. You can get back up, fix your mane, trim your fetlocks, and straighten your tiara. Not every mistake has everlasting effects, and you do still have the opportunity to make up the assignment. You still have a chance, and even if you flunk your actual presentation, it would not be the end of the road for you, young one."
Diamond Tiara gazed at the princess in awe. For one, the alicorn acknowledged all of Diamond Tiara's fears with a few small sentences; it was almost as if the princess could read her mind. Diamond Tiara wasn't dead, and it didn't look like the princess had a shred of anger within her bright eyes. Still, she couldn't help but gape in awe at the fact that Celestia showed no intention of destroying Diamond Tiara's career due to her disgusting mess of an academic slip-up.
"So you're not mad at me?" Diamond Tiara asked, still slightly worried about the horrifying possibilities that played out within her worried subconscious. "You're not going to burn all of Ponyville down in a storm of flaming justice over my lack of punctuality?"
A look of pure confusion spread across Celestia's face as she processed this question. After a short moment, she burst out laughing as a wide, amused grin spread upon her cheeks.
"My dearest little pony, whoever gave you that idea?"