Of course, she had to make it through school first.
“Can anypony tell me what the oldest city in Equestria is?”
It was hard to concentrate when one was carrying around a hundred bits at the bottom of one’s school bag, after all.
“Canterlot!”
Not the least of which because Dinky Doo couldn’t have it with her at her desk. She needed to leave it along the classroom’s side wall, along with everypony else’s bags.
“Not quite. Canterlot is a very old city, in fact it was the first city built in Equestria after the three pony tribes came together. But it’s not the oldest city in Equestria.”
Anypony could just take Dinky’s bag if she wasn’t careful. Of course, nopony had a reason to do that. Nopony knew that she had a hundred silver bits in the bottom. It wasn’t something that she advertised, after all; that would potentially spoil her secret, even if she was finally going to disclose the information to somepony today
“How does that work? If it was the first city built in Equestria is has to be the oldest!”
What was especially jarring was that, due to the positioning of the desks in Ponyville’s school house, Dinky could not currently see her bag. There were several students in the way.
“It is the second-oldest, but after Equestria was founded the oldest city was moved inside of it. In fact, this city has the distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited city in the whole world!”
Nopony could have taken it, though – Dinky’s was watching the room’s entrance like a hawk, and nopony in the way had moved enough to discretely grab it.
“Scootaloo? Can you take a guess?”
Unless a unicorn had telekinetically grabbed it. Dinky wasn’t the only unicorn in class, after all, and some of the unicorns in class were further along with their telekinetic practice than she was, thanks to usually having unicorn older siblings or parents to teach them.
“Scootaloo, you’re asleep, aren’t you? …again.”
“She’s just, um…resting her eyes!”
“Nice try, Sweetie Belle.”
Dinky leaned back, trying to see if her bag was still there. She was not going let a whole year of saving her bits go to waste!
There was a bang, probably the sound of a hoof slamming on a desk, which Dinky jumped slightly at, but didn’t otherwise take notice of.
“Buzzah wha?”
“Scootaloo, please see me after class.”
“I wasn’t sleeping! I was…um…resting my eyes! Honest!”
“Oh really? Then can you tell me what the oldest city in Equestria is?”
“Cloudsdale!”
Can’t…see…Dinky scooted backwards as nonchalantly as possible. It’s still there…right…?
“That’s correct, Scootaloo,” Miss Cheerilee said, which sounded utterly bizarre coming from her mouth, and she knew it. “Was that a guess?”
“No,” Scootaloo responded quickly. Miss Cheerilee eyed Scootaloo, and after a moment the pegasus filly looked down, dejected. “Yeah, it was. I’ll see you in a few.”
I mean I know nopony has any reason to take it but that’s usually when the worst things happen, right when you don’t think they will…
“Yes you will. Dinky Doo? Can you tell us why Cloudsdale was so important to early Equestrian history?”
There’s a hundred bits and that’s fifty weeks of work, I don’t want it undone just because somepony like maybe Snips or Snails thought it’d be funny to hide my bag but then they see that there’s money in it and take it and –
“Dinky Doo?”
Just because nopony knows that there’s a hundred bits in my bag –
“Dinky Doo!”
“I don’t have a hundred bits in my bag!”
There was a bout of silence when somepony exclaimed that. Dinky blinked. Who else could have had that much money on them? Not Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon, they didn’t need to carry money around with them since their parents would just get them anything that…
…oh. Wait. That had been her. Dinky stared, wide-eyed, at Miss Cheerilee, as Miss Cheerilee stared back, equally baffled by Dinky’s exclamation. “I mean…um…” Dinky tried. She glanced at the chalk board, saw the words Ancient History written on it, and took a leap of faith. “The Smooze?”
Miss Cheerilee blinked a few times, her confusion seeming to grow. “…that’s correct,” she confirmed. “Among other things, Cloudsdale’s position, high in the Equestrian sky, allowed it to avoid many of the disasters that plagued early Equestria.” She eyed Dinky. “That was a guess too, wasn’t it?”
“Too?” Dinky asked. Had she guessed on an answer earlier without realizing it? “Um…I mean…” Dinky wanted to lie, but she held back the desire. Lying to Miss Cheerilee rarely worked, and Dinky knew lying was bad, anyway. “Yes, Miss Cheerilee.”
Miss Cheerilee looked disappointed, even more so when her eyes fell upon Dinky’s desk and the page of half-completed, mostly incorrect notes that sat there – notes set atop a book titled Arithmetic, the first class of the day. Dinky hadn’t been paying attention since then.
Dinky hated seeing that disappointed look. “Please see me after – ” Miss Cheerilee began, when the school bell rang out, a signal that class was over and lunch break and recess would begin. Technically, nopony was supposed to leave until Miss Cheerilee gave them permission, but the earth pony teacher knew better than to try and stop the classroom of colts and fillies from getting up from their desks and heading towards their school bags. Even the ponies sitting right next to the wall, though, weren’t as fast as Dinky Doo was in reaching her school bag. Dinky let out another sigh, this time a long one of massive relief, as she hefted her bag in her teeth and felt the comforting weight of a hundred bits still pulling it down. She turned to bring it with her over to Miss Cheerilee’s desk, but found herself instead face-to-face with the better part of the foals in class.
“Do you really have a hundred bits in there?” Featherweight asked, eyeing Dinky’s bag dubiously. Dinky let go of it with her teeth, instead opting to hug it close to her barrel, holding on tightly with her front hooves.
“There’s no way!” Silver Spoon objected, as her constant companion, Diamond Tiara, nodded in agreement. “Her mom’s just a mail mare!”
Dinky bristled at that. “My momma’s not ‘just’ a mail mare! Being a mail mare is a super-important job and – ”
“I’ve never seen a hundred bits in one place before!” Archer exclaimed. “Can I see?”
“Did you steal it?” Diamond Tiara asked. “I bet that’s it.”
Dinky’s eyes grew wide. “N-no! My momma has Miss Fluttershy take care of me on the weekends since she has to work all day both days, and I help Miss Fluttershy with her animals and she pays me – ”
“Right…” Silver Spoon interrupted, rolling her eyes. “From what I hear Fluttershy is even poorer than you!”
“No she’s not!” Dinky objected. “And we’re not poor, we’ve got each other – ”
“Dinky Doo,” Cheerilee called from her desk, which Scootaloo was sitting in front of – Dinky idly wondered what the pegasus filly had done this time. “Could you come over here, please? Everypony else please go and enjoy recess – no, Scootaloo, that doesn’t mean you until I’ve talked to you!”
“Aw…”
One by one, the other colts and fillies of the class shuffled outside. Dinky made a point of ignoring them as she made her way over to Miss Cheerilee’s desk, bringing her bag with her as she did. Scootaloo eyed it. “Do you really have a hundred bits?”
“Now, Scootaloo, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Miss Cheerilee said, before Dinky could respond. She looked to Dinky. “Both of you. I know that history class can be boring for some ponies, but it’s important that you learn to focus.”
“Yes, Miss Cheerilee,” Dinky confirmed, again hugging her bag close as she eyed Scootaloo. The orange pegasus filly continued to alternate between looking at Miss Cheerilee, and glancing at Dinky’s bag, though she did at least nod to what her teacher had said. Dinky guessed that there were even odds as to whether or not Scootaloo had actually heard Miss Cheerilee, or if she’d just nodded at the appropriate time.
Cheerilee let out a sigh as she mostly likely reached the same conclusion. “I’m giving each of you extra homework for tonight,” she said. “I want a two page summary of the history of Equestria, from its founding until when the Princesses first arrived. Alright?”
“But that’s, like, a bazillion years!” Scootaloo objected. Apparently she was paying attention, which Dinky privately admitted to herself was surprising.
“It’s about a hundred, Scootaloo.”
“Same difference…”
Miss Cheerilee looked more disappointed. “Everything you should need is right in your history book,” she assured the filly. “And you two will need to make sure that you do this homework for the test in a few weeks. You, especially, Scootaloo.”
The pegasus sighed. “Okay, okay…” she grumbled.
“Alright, that’s all. You can go outside now; I need to talk to Dinky Doo in private.”
Scootaloo’s wings and ears both perked up at that, as she turned once more to Dinky. “Do you really have a hundred bits?” she asked again, her melancholy at her extra work forgotten – along with, most likely, the extra work she had to do. “That’d be so cool…”
Dinky couldn’t stop herself from nodding. Now that her secret was out, at least to all the ponies here, she may as well take pride in her accomplishment. Toot your own horn because nopony else will, as her mother said (though Dinky understood – now, after trial and error – that the phrase did not refer to the actual horn on her forehead). “Uh-huh!” Dinky confirmed after a moment. Before she knew it, she had opened her school bag, removed the paper bag that had her lunch in it, and was showing off the contents to Scootaloo, while glancing in herself, just in case. She was happy and relieved to discover that, in fact, her bag still contained a few school books and, at its bottom, her hundred silver bits.
The pegasus filly’s eyes widened at the sight. “Wow! What do you have it for? How’d you get it? What are you gonna get with it? I can’t even – ”
“Scootaloo,” Miss Cheerilee interrupted. “I need to talk to Dinky. If she wants to, she can tell you during recess.”
Scootaloo’s head and wings sagged. “Okay…” she moaned, trotting over to her bag and bringing it with her outside of the school house.
Dinky waited for Scootaloo to leave before speaking. “Am I in trouble?” she asked.
Cheerilee offered a slight grin. “Well, for not paying attention in class, yes, but I think I can understand why,” she said, getting out from behind her desk and coming around to Scootaloo’s former school, current treasure bag. Her smile dropped after a moment, however. “But I have to ask, where did you get this all?”
“Miss Fluttershy,” Dinky said. “She pays me three bits every weekend for helping her around her house, and I’ve been keeping and saving up two each week for a whole year now. Secretly. But today I’m going to spend it all.”
Cheerilee nodded. “Your mother mentioned that she leaves you at Fluttershy’s on the weekends…but Dinky, why did you bring it into school? Don’t you think it’d be better – safer – to just ask your mother to take you into town?”
Dinky’s eyes widened, and she shook her head furiously. “Uh-uh! Momma can’t know that I saved all this up! Not ‘till her birthday, anyway. I’ve been saving it all up for her to get her a birthday gift for the end of the week, but if she knows then it’ll ruin the surprise!”
Miss Cheerilee faltered a little at that. “You’ve been saving up money a whole year for that?” she asked.
“Yup!” Dinky’s teacher apparently needed a moment to digest that fact, which confused Dinky. Why wouldn’t she have saved up for her mother? “It’s just…last year I made her a card in arts and crafts, and it was nice and all, I guess, and she was really happy, but I’m pretty sure I misspelled a word or two and my drawing was awful and there was too much glitter, and momma liked it but I know she just liked that I made her a card and not the actual card. So this year I’m getting momma a necklace, or bangles, or earrings, or something nice!”
Cheerilee stared a few moments more. “I have a toothache,” she noted.
Dinky frowned. “Maybe you should go see Doctor Minuette,” she suggested, naming Ponyville’s resident dentist.
“…maybe,” Cheerilee confirmed, then shook her head to clear it. “Nevertheless, Dinky, I wish you had told me about this at the beginning of the day. If you were so concerned about all this money that it was distracting you in class, I could have held onto it for you.”
“Oh,” Dinky said, scratching the back of her head with one hoof. “Yeah…I guess I could have done that…” In fact, it probably would have made her life much easier, or at least prevented her from having extra homework to do tonight. Miss Cheerilee was an Element of Harmony too, just like Dinky’s mother, after all – specifically, the Element of Laughter – and had helped Dinky’s mother save Dinky from Corona, and incidentally save the world in the process. She was completely trustworthy.
“It’s alright. But would you like me to hold onto it for the rest of the day?”
Dinky nodded, passing her bag over to Miss Cheerilee, who took it easily in her teeth and put it into one of her desk’s larger drawers, locking the drawer securely afterwards as Dinky watched. “There we are,” Cheerilee said. “Just come to me after recess for any books you need.”
“Okay!” Dinky confirmed, as she grabbed the paper bag that contained her lunch from where she’d left it with her telekinesis. She’d learned to only grab on to part of a delicate object, in this case the top of the bag, in order to avoid squishing whatever was inside of it. Usually.
“And let me know if anypony is bothering you too much during recess,” Cheerilee continued as the two made their way to the door. “Don’t be surprised if you’re suddenly the most popular filly in school…”
Dinky nodded in confirmation as Cheerilee opened the school house’s door – and Dinky Doo and Cheerilee found themselves looking straight into the eyes of the dozen or so colts and fillies of Ponyville’s elementary school, who hadn’t gone far from the schoolhouse, least of all since Scootaloo had come out and, from the looks of things, confirmed the existence of Dinky Doo’s hundred silver bits.
Dinky stared.
The colts and fillies stared back.
“I’m going to just have lunch inside,” Dinky decided, backing away a few hoof-steps. She didn’t get far.
“Me too!”
“Me three!”
“I wanna eat inside too, Miss Cheerilee!”
“’Cause the sun’s too bright!”
“Yeah!”
“Where’d you get all those bits?”
“Gah!” Dinky exclaimed as the stampede hit.
---
Ditzy Doo would have had to commit some kind of treason to get fired from her job. After three years of working at the post office, she may not have been a post master quite yet, but she was utterly indispensable. She knew every job and could cover for anypony, knew every delivery route by heart, could find any missive, no matter how lost it was, in record time, had never failed to complete her route. The hours were long, yes, and sometimes seemingly random from week to week; and yes, the pay was awful, but she had basically in all other ways had turned the post office of Ponyville into her own little Castle Doo, with Ponyville as her fiefdom and herself as its duchess, and little could truly make her unhappy while she reigned.
Her current task – delivering mail along the longest route in Ponyville, this following two very long, very tedious shifts of running the office over the weekend – was making a serious attempt at it, though.
“Soon as I’m post master…” Ditzy grumbled as she trudged away from Fluttershy’s, which had been the halfway point of her route, “soon as I am…every route in Ponyville is being redrawn. Especially this one. Who lays down a route that goes from the Everfree to Sweet Apple Acres?”
Ditzy paused as she considered her own question. “Not a word, me,” she insisted, knowing full well what blond-maned, gray-coated, wall-eyed foal of a pegasus had done so, as she’d convinced post master Silver Script to add Fluttershy’s cottage to this route, as it was Ditzy’s typical one, and Fluttershy would accept mail and deliveries from nopony else.
Well, it wasn’t all bad, at least. She had a relatively short shift today, and tomorrow off. Tomorrow she could sleep in as late as she wanted – Dinky was more than old enough to make her own breakfast – and when she was up, could spend the whole day with Dinky Doo, do anything that her daughter wanted…
Ditzy Doo’s thoughts trailed off as she noticed somepony galloping up the road. Slowing her trot, she saw that it was, of all ponies, Trixie. The blue-coated unicorn, Ponyville’s new Night Court representative, was dressed in her normal ensemble of a wizard’s star-studded, purple hat and cape, but more importantly her eyes were wide in slight panic.
Ditzy Doo liked Trixie. For one thing, the unicorn had seemed to take a shining to her daughter, had helped Dinky develop her nascent telekinesis, a task that Ditzy, being a pegasus, was almost completely unable to help in. For another, Trixie was the Element of Magic, and had helped save the world alongside Ditzy and the other four ponies who had ventured into the Everfree Forest two months back.
Two months? Had it really only been that long?
In any event, seeing Trixie panicked like this was enough to get Ditzy worried. “Trixie?” Ditzy asked, as the unicorn skidded to a halt in front of Ditzy Doo. “What’s wrong?”
Trixie tried to speak, but could only suck in air for a few moments – unicorns were frail compared to the other two pony tribes to begin with, and Trixie was frankly used to a life of relative comfort and luxury in Canterlot. She waved off Ditzy’s concern with one hoof, however. “Nothing!” The unicorn swore when she could speak. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Everything’s in hoof. In hoof. Fluttershy has chickens, right?”
Ditzy stared. “Trixie, normally you’re a lot better at lying than this.”
“Lying?” Trixie asked, eyes wide. “Moi?”
“Vous,” Ditzy confirmed.
“Alright, I’m lying, but it’s almost certainly nothing permanent as long as Fluttershy has chickens and I get them to Lyra in…” beneath her hat, Trixie’s horn glowed as she closed her eyes, “soon.”
“In soon?” Ditzy echoed, concern mounting. Lyra was another Element holder, in her case, Loyalty.
“Yes. Chickens? Fluttershy?”
“What did you do to Lyra?”
“Probably nothing but I don’t really have time to explain it. Unless Fluttershy doesn’t have chickens. Then I guess I have time.”
Ditzy’s concern peaked at that. “Yes, she has chickens – ”
“Great!” Trixie said, getting ready to set off again.
“Wait!” Ditzy interrupted. “You’ll probably need me to talk to Fluttershy if – ”
“See, that assumes I’m asking permission, which I don’t have time to do,” Trixie said as she took off at a gallop, horn glowing. As Ditzy watched, Trixie seemed to be rubbed out of reality by a blue glow, the glow itself fading from sight within moments. “Don’t worry!” A voice, now without an obvious point of origin, called back. “All I need are a few chicken feathers!”
Ditzy stared down the road, blinking a few times. She raised a hoof to start chasing down Trixie, or at least to tell Fluttershy of what Trixie was up to, but considered how that scenario would probably play out.
“Fluttershy,” Ditzy Doo explained as calmly as possible, “Trixie is stealing chicken feathers.”
“Wh-what?” Fluttershy asked, looking into her chicken coop. “B-but I don’t see her!”
“That’s because she’s invisible. In fact, she could be standing right next to you now.”
“Eep,” exclaimed Fluttershy, before she fell over, dead from fright.
Ditzy Doo shook her head. Fluttershy didn’t need to know that a pony she was already irrationally afraid of, whom she believed hated her for completely unfounded reasons, could turn invisible. Sighing, Ditzy Doo turned back to her mail route. Trixie almost certainly wouldn’t have done anything too horrible to Lyra, and Ditzy strongly suspected that whatever she had done involved spellcasting, something that Ditzy wouldn’t have been able to offer much help on anyway. She’d finish her route as quickly as possible, then see what was going on.
At least that's my surrealism quota for the day, Ditzy Doo supposed.
---
Dinky Doo had picked up a second tail to compliment the normal one on her dock. This second tail consisted of most of the colts and fillies from school, following close behind her as she trotted from the schoolhouse at the end of the day. In fact, the only missing filly was Diamond Tiara, whose father had picked her up at the end of the school day, and Dinky had a feeling that she’d be seeing her fairly soon.
The remaining foals would probably have been swarming around her rather than merely following, but walking next to Dinky was Miss Cheerilee, who had decided that Dinky shouldn’t be carrying a hundred bits around on her own without a chaperone, something that, given the effect it was having on everypony in school, was probably a good idea.
Not that it prevented them from trotting up alongside of her in groups of twos and threes and asking, of course.
“So what’s it really for?” Featherweight asked.
“I told you,” Dinky insisted, “it’s a surprise for my momma.”
“But not all of it.” Snips insisted. “You’re not gonna spend all of it just on your mom, right?”
“I’m gonna try! It’s my for my momma’s birthday!”
“That’th tho thweet!” Twist – an earth pony filly who had difficulty with her s’s, and who also wore thick glasses – exclaimed. “What are you going to get her? I bet your mom would look great with bangleth!”
“If you don’t mind my advice, Dinky,” Miss Cheerilee piped in, “I wouldn’t get bangles. They look pretty, but they tend to chafe the fetlocks.”
“Okay!” Dinky confirmed, happy for the advice – she certainly wasn’t sure what her mother would want most, but eliminating something that would be uncomfortable to wear was a step in the right direction, at least.
“But really, all of it?” Scootaloo asked, wings buzzing as she galloped in front of Dinky, though she kept moving so that Dinky wouldn’t have to stop. “Think about what you could get with that. Like a scooter! I'd get a new scooter."
“Did yours break again?” Sweetie Belle asked her friend, calling out from behind Dinky Doo.
“No, but if I could have two scooters I bet I wouldn’t wear ‘em out so fast,” Scootaloo observed.
By now, the impromptu field trip was reaching its destination. They had reached Ponyville’s town center, and were on the same street that Amethyst Star’s Fine Jewelers had set up. Surprisingly, despite it being a new building, it had been built to match the general rustic aesthetic of Ponyville, a two-story building with a thatched roof. The front of the building had large glass windows, however, displaying a variety of finely wrought necklaces, bangles, earrings, horn-rings, and other jewelry, mostly wrought from silver and with all manner of gemstones set into most of them. The store displayed price tags with daunting numbers on them, but the store also had a banner on it reading Grand Opening - 25% off everything!
“Miss Cheerilee, how much is that?” Dinky asked, pointing at the banner.
“It means everything is reduced by a quarter in price,” the earth pony explained. “So if something had cost a hundred bits, it now only costs seventy-five, for example. That’s actually pretty lucky, Dinky, because – ”
“’Cause now you can keep twenty-five bits for yourself!” Scootaloo helpfully filled in.
“Or,” Miss Cheerilee continued, “you could buy something that would normally cost about a hundred and thirty bits, for just a hundred bits.”
Dinky’s eyes widened at that, and a broad grin split her features. “That’s great!” She exclaimed, putting her hooves to the window as she looked over the jewelry in the window with that new tidbit of knowledge. She spotted a pair of earrings and a horn-ring both within that price range. The horn-ring she couldn’t really get her mother, of course, but the earrings, maybe – and who knew what else was inside?
“Okay, class,” Cheerilee said, turning around to face all the foals. “I think we should leave Dinky Doo alone to make her decision, and I doubt Miss Amethyst Star would like a whole classroom of foals showing up without intending to buy anything.”
The foals all looked somewhat disappointed in that, but did begin breaking up, leaving to head to their respective homes. Scootaloo lingered a moment more, however, along with Sweetie Belle. “I guess it is pretty nice, what you’re doing for your mom,” the filly admitted after a moment. “I’d still want a new scooter or something.”
“Yeah, but this is for my momma’s birthday,” Dinky said. “It’s important.”
“I guess,” Scootaloo repeated, as she and Sweetie Belle turned around and took off. “See you tomorrow!”
Dinky waved goodbye, then turned and looked to Miss Cheerilee. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Miss Cheerilee.”
“Anytime, Dinky,” Cheerilee responded. “Would you like me to come in with you and help you decide?”
Dinky thought a moment, then shook her head. “No thank-you. I think I want to decide for myself.”
“I can understand that. I’m sure whatever you pick, your mother will love it.”
Dinky nodded at that, though inwardly she was grinning. “Okay. See you tomorrow, Miss Cheerilee!”
“Tomorrow,” Cheerilee confirmed, turning around and trotting off.
Dinky, meanwhile, turned around and back to the door. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a lake that she knew was going to be cold, but that she was going to jump in anyway. “Here we go…”
---
Dinky had earlier denied that she and her mother were poor, but, well, that had been an impulsive lie. She knew that money was ‘tight,’ that they ‘couldn’t afford to waste it,’ and all sorts of other things that her mother said to her that really meant that they were poor, or at least they had been prior to Ditzy Doo being rewarded for saving the world. Dinky didn’t know exactly what they were now, but she did know that her mother’s penchant for being careful with money hadn’t just disappeared just because money wasn’t as ‘tight’ as it had been. Dinky was used to her mother browsing in the market, always seeking out the best deals, and never buying something until she’d confirmed that it was definitely what she wanted. Therefore, Dinky had not been expecting to walk into Amethyst Star’s fine Jewelers and immediately set eyes upon the perfect birthday present for her mother.
But Lo and Behold: there it was. The inside of the shop was set up with a U-shaped trio of display cases, with the opening of the U being the wall with the door. And straight across from the door, in the exact center of that display case, right at Dinky Doo’s eye level, there it was: a necklace, with a bright silver, almost white, thin chain, which held a pendant with a yellow gem in it, cut to be eight-sided, and which was either the same color as her mother’s eyes, or so close that Dinky couldn’t tell the difference.
Price: 127 bits, but Miss Cheerilee had said, with everything reduced by one-quarter in price, that she could buy something that normally cost up to a hundred and thirty bits, so Dinky would even have bits to spare. Not quite enough to buy a scooter, but that was alright as Dinky didn’t want a scooter anyway.
Dinky had only just finished opening the door, had only just heard the bell on it ring, but somehow Dinky knew that necklace was what she was going to get for her mother, regardless of what else was in the store that she could afford.
“Hello, welcome to – ” A bright, cheerful voice began from behind a display case as Dinky finished walking in. Dinky looked, and saw a purple-coated, purple-maned unicorn, with a trio of brilliantly cut gemstones as a cutie mark, standing there. On the other side of the display case was an earth pony stallion wearing a jacket and tie, and standing next to him, a certain pink-coated filly – Diamond Tiara, and the stallion was her father, Filthy Rich. Those two looked surprised to see Dinky.
The unicorn behind the counter, however – probably Amethyst Star herself – had a look pass over her face, on seeing Dinky Doo, that didn’t take Dinky long to recognize – anger, or something even beyond that, firmly directed at the filly. Dinky backed up in fright at the intensity, but even as she did the unicorn shook her head, and the look disappeared, replaced by one of surprise at her own emotion, and regret.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” the unicorn said, slowly and non-threateningly walking around from behind the display case, but she didn’t get any closer to Dinky. “I’m sorry, it’s just…you look like somepony I…” she shook her head again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Dinky blinked a few times, before realizing that she had a front hoof raised, ready to bolt away in fright. Slowly, she set it back down onto the ground. “O-okay,” she said softly.
“What’s your name?”
“D…Dinky.”
“Well, Dinky, I’m Amethyst Star, but you can call me Sparkler, if you like. Everypony I know does.”
Dinky just nodded.
“Why’d you come in here?” Amethyst Star asked. “Are you lost?”
Dinky took a few more moments to take in Amethyst Star. She didn’t look angry anymore. In fact, she looked ashamed that she had gotten angry at Dinky for no good reason, and she seemed to be nice now. Cautiously, Dinky took a few steps forward, and shook her head, summoning up her enthusiasm again – admittedly, it wasn’t very hard. “No. I’m here to buy something!”
There was a snort, and Dinky was reminded that she and Amethyst Star weren’t alone in the building. Glancing, she saw Diamond Tiara rolling her eyes. “Right,” the filly said. “I’ll believe that you have a hundred bits when I see them with my own eyes!”
Still recovering from the adrenaline of Amethyst Star’s shock, Dinky decided she’d had just about enough of Diamond Tiara. “Okay!” she exclaimed, using her telekinesis to lift her bag off her back, grasping its bottom in her hooves, and turning it over. A few books and papers came spilling out, but more importantly, so did a hundred silver bits, each stamped with the image of the Princess of the Night on one side, and the Equestrian coat of arms on the other. Many of them were old or dirty or worn, but there was no denying the pleasant sound of a hundred silver coins spilling out onto the floor.
Dinky realized what she’d done only after she’d smiled triumphantly at the sight of Diamond Tiara’s jaw dropping. She blinked rapidly a few times as well, looking quickly to Amethyst Star and wondering if she’d managed to make the much older and larger and scarier unicorn angry again by making a mess of her floor.
Instead, however, she noticed that Amethyst Star – Sparkler – had a hoof to her mouth, hiding an amused chuckle at Dinky’s response to Diamond Tiara’s challenge. After a moment, her horn glowed lavender - almost the same color as Dinky's own aura, in fact - and she easily hefted the hundred coins, books, and papers off of the ground telekinetically, and slid them all neatly back into Dinky’s bag.
“Okay, Dinky,” Sparkler, as she wanted Dinky to call her, said. “Let me just finish up with Mister Rich, here, and then we’ll see how I can help you. Okay?”
Dinky suppressed a sigh of relief. She decided that as scary as Sparkler had seemed at first, it was definitely just an accident on the other unicorn’s part; she hadn’t meant it, seemed honestly sorry, and just seemed nice in general. “Okay!” she responded.