//------------------------------//
// Heart-to-Heart 
// Story: Light of a Diamond 
// by SirNotAppearingInThisFic 
//------------------------------//

She was ready for this.  She had spent the walk home running through everything that she or her parents could say, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had even provided her with the small glimmer of hope that even if the imminent conversation went poorly, she may still have options.

Yet now that the iron gate to her home stood before her, it seemed even more ominous than when it was decorated for the darkest of Nightmare Nights.  Diamond Tiara could almost hear her mother call out her name in a voice dripping with cold disappointment.

She tried to relax her body.  If her mother really did call out, she was poised to jump all the way to Canterlot.  A few long, slow breaths steadied her.  It wasn’t “now or never”, because “never” wasn’t an option.  She was going to start another chapter of her life regardless of the outcome of this conversation.  She couldn’t fail this time.  Not completely, at least.  That had to count for something.

She pushed the gate open.  This was it: no more obstacles, no more worries.  It wasn’t quite as easy as it sounded, so she focused her thoughts on getting to, and then through, the front door.

Her mother wasn’t waiting, which was less of a surprise after all that had happened in the last few days.  Randolph, however, was.

“Ms. Tiara, you may find your parents in the parlor.”

Parents?  Father was home already?

She nodded, took a step, then glanced back at Randolph.  Were her parents waiting on her, or had Randolph told her for her own sake?  Before she managed a question, Randolph gave her a slight smile and slipped out of the foyer with more grace than she normally expected from somepony whose age was written in question marks.

She pushed her uncertainty aside as best she could and continued onward.

When she entered the parlor, though, she didn’t find the harsh expressions and righteous attitude that she normally encountered.  Her mother sat in a chair across the room, and closer to her side, and her father occupied the sofa from behind an issue of The Hoofington Post that proclaimed “Royal Guard Refutes Rumors of Infiltration of Restricted Archives”.  From behind it, she heard him talking.

“... even though you did cut ties with your mother, you still carry a lot of her values.”

“I’ve told you already, that’s what I grew up with, and all the stress of carrying everything you’ve been ignoring hasn’t helped anything!”

“Barnyard Bargains is doing better—”

“—better than our family.”

Filthy hid behind his newspaper.  “Perhaps.”

Things didn’t seem right to Tiara, especially since her father was already home from work.  Still, she had to start somewhere.  “I’m home, and we need to talk.”

Her mother jumped slightly, and her father sat up in a hurried manner.

“Tiara!” he said.

From the looks of it, they hadn’t been expecting her... but it was already well past the time she normally arrived from school.  If both of her parents had expected to be busy, they would have warned her, like they always did.  Granted, she may have taken off rather quickly that morning, but so far as experience had to offer, Randolph didn’t mind any time of day, and it wouldn’t have been the first time he had been the one to inform her of guests, gatherings, or anything else that she had to keep in mind when she came back from school later that day.

Not that there were any ponies other than her parents in the room at the moment.  Father coming home early was uncommon, but not unheard of, though that plus the tense mood of the room didn’t bode well.

She tried not to shiver at the thought of the moments that were surely soon-to-follow, but given how much she had to have been on their minds recently, the idea that they planned on putting her back in line didn’t seem unreasonable.

“I, uh, think you’re right, Tiara,” he father replied, looking her almost in the eye.

“Indeed,” her mother said, whose glare remained directed at her father.

She did her best to ignore the chill that ran down her spine.  She had planned for this, hadn’t she?  No matter what, she would not let them hold her back.  Still, her father lacked his usual air of confidence, and her mother’s glare was, for once, directed at somepony else.

Whatever it was, they could fight it out after she was done.  If she was going to get any traction, she couldn’t let them start this conversation like every other one, in a way that always seemed to end up with them talking to her rather than with her.

Right on track, her father started another one of those ‘talks’.

“I know you’ve had a hard time these last few weeks—”

To her surprise, though, her mother beat her to a scoff and rebuttal.  “‘Know’ is a strong word for somepony who wasn’t even there for most of it.”

“I already told you I’m sorry, but—”

“Mother, father,” she said as she realized that she had to seize her moment before they got any momentum, “I can’t even count the problems that being your ‘perfect little daughter’ has caused me anymore.  Just trying to meet your expectations has nearly ruined my life.”  A little dramatic, perhaps, but she figured that the truth behind it was justification enough.

The shift in mood was subtle, but the following silence was reminiscent of the unknown after one of her first forays onto a frozen pond in winter as a little foal, when she had heard and felt a deep cracking noise around her.  This time, though, her parents weren’t on her side, and it had been a long time since either of them had reassured her that anything was going to be okay.

The silence continued far longer than she had expected.  Why weren’t they defending themselves or trying to shut her down?  Was her mother avoiding looking at her out of... shame?  It dawned on her that, perhaps, between the three of them, none of them actually knew what to say next.

The silence lingered for a couple of seconds longer before her father finally spoke.

“That... has been a point of, uh, contention, lately, between me and your mother.”

“Your father and I come from families with… different values, and it seems that they come into conflict when he spends more time working than everything else put together.”  Her mother’s glare was back, but it didn’t carry the intensity that it had before.

“And your mother turned to the questionable parenting methods of her mother to make it easier even though she moved to Ponyville to put that behind us.”

Her mother appeared subdued, but quietly remarked, “I would not have if he had spent more time with his family.”

“I think we’ve… uh, mostly resolved our conflict,” her father said.  “And I’m sorry.”

Diamond raised an eyebrow.  Just because her father had said it didn’t mean either of them—

“I apologise for the expectations that we... that I placed on you.  If you have listened to a single thing that I have tried to teach you, you should understand the outside social pressures that demand certain standards… though my way of achieving them has been unfair to all of us…”—her mother gave a reluctant sigh—“especially to you, Tiara.”

But they couldn’t actually be sorry.  It… had to be something else.

Right?

Had she ever heard her mother use such a soft tone of voice?

And did it matter if they were sorry?  Pity wasn’t what she had come for.  Would anything come of their words?  What had she come for?  She hadn’t even made any demands yet.  What was the plan now?

Her parents were looking right at her.

Diamond Tiara blinked, and realized that she had been scrutinizing their response for more than a minute… and they still hadn’t said a thing.  The next realization simultaneously twisted up her insides and released most of the tension she had built up in her posture:  They were waiting – possibly even hopefully – for her reaction.

This wasn’t anything like what she had expected.  “You hated me yesterday, and now you’re… sorry?”

Her father flinched.  “Tiara,” he said, with a slightly dumbstruck expression, “we have never hated you.”

“But what were all the punishments for?  Why were you so upset when I lost the election?  Why aren’t you ever on my side?”

Curiously, her mother was shrinking back a bit.

Her father continued.  “I told you directly not to get too wound up about the election for class president.  The situation had already become… complicated, but your mother and I have had several discussions recently.  If we were upset, it wasn’t with you specifically.”

“There has been agitation on both sides during our… ‘discussions’,” her mother added with a small roll of her eyes.

Her parents’ responses didn’t help her to untangle her rapidly jumbling thoughts, which might even have been easier if they weren’t being so much more pleasant than usual.  Their mildly worried expressions a moment later suggested that some part of her own had informed them of her dissatisfaction.

From the back of her mind, she wondered just how much of what they had just said was true.  If it was all true, then perhaps it was time to lay out her demands. If it wasn’t… then it was probably time to make her demands anyway.

“So, am I just supposed to just accept your apology and move on?”

After a brief pause, her mother replied, “if you want to.”

“That is to say,” her father quickly added, “you aren’t supposed to do anything specific.  To put it plainly, we made a few mistakes a while back, and in the last couple of days, we’ve been working to resolve them… but a consensus has been somewhat difficult to reach.  I thought that I had made this at least a bit clear when I talked to you before the election.”

Diamond Tiara thought back a bit.  She did remember that her father had said something about her not needing to win the election, and that she hadn’t much believed anything else he had said after that.

“Does this mean that you won’t get upset with me if I make choices that you don’t agree with?”  In a nutshell, that was what she wanted, wasn’t it?  Even the Cutie Mark Crusaders could make mistakes without suffering needlessly at the hooves of their parents.

Her father squirmed a little.  “Well, uh… I think that depends on why we disagree. We plan to avoid making the same mistakes, but that doesn’t mean that we are going to give you free reign.“

She tried not to roll her eyes too dramatically.

“Alright,” her father relented.  “We won’t hold you to any standards that would be unreasonable to ask of most other foals your age.”

“Fine,” she replied.  “That’s good enough… for now.”

There was a subtle release of tension in the room following her words, as though some spell that kept them in the room had been broken.  Given the headache that she had from trying to understand everything that had transpired over the past couple of days, she didn’t plan on lingering.

“I’m going to go find Randolph,” she said.  Her mother frowned.

Before dinner or not, if they were serious about what they had just said, she was getting a cookie.  At least this once.









Dinner had been awkward.  She wasn’t surprised, really.  At least Randolph hadn’t tried to patch things up as they ate in uncomfortable silence; there probably wasn’t anything he could do.

When Diamond Tiara woke up the next morning, everything seemed clearer.  She didn’t have to go to school, as it was the weekend, but she did want to talk to a few of her classmates.  Informing her parents that she was going out for a while was uncomfortable mostly because she wasn’t entirely sure if she was asking for permission, or simply letting them know.  They didn’t object, at least.

It was definitely going to take some time before things settled.  Before she trusted them again.  They probably knew that, too.

When she was properly away from the house, she took a breath of the cool mid-morning air.  Only days ago, she would have been making her way through the morning chill to Spoony’s house.  Her one and only friend.  Today, she had a different destination in mind.

Or she would, if she knew where one could find the Cutie Mark Crusaders on a Saturday morning.  The back of her mind, full of now-obsolete habits, jested that she would only need to follow the stench of failure, but she was pretty sure that it would just lead right back to herself.

With a roll of her eyes, she noted to herself that she’d have to try and clear out all of her witty remarks, comebacks, and… probably especially the bundle of lies that she knew would cause some damage in the wrong ears.  It was a shame, though, since there were a few that she had never gotten to use that she was almost proud of.

Back to thinking on her problem, she knew Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo would probably be accompanied by their parents if she went knocking on their door, and Apple Bloom might be tied up in some farm thing.  That was assuming that they were still at home.

So far as she knew, the only places that they usually hung out at were Sugarcube Corner, and their clubhouse, with their clubhouse being the most likely, given how many strange things they did, and how infrequently she had seen them elsewhere.  They had to be plotting somewhere.

She resolved to check their clubhouse, and if they weren’t there, try to catch Apple Bloom’s attention if she was outside.  Failing that, Surgarcube Corner seemed like it would be a great next stop for multiple reasons.

As she walked towards Sweet Apple Acres, she considered the unlikeliness of her present action.  She almost found it amusing that she hoped to find the Cutie mark Crusaders to thank them as friends.  Days ago it was different, but even yesterday morning felt as though it was from another time altogether.  A week ago could have been from another life.

And here she was, walking through the stands of Ponyville’s iconic Apple trees.  No school trip.  No parents prodding her.  She was there for entirely alien purposes, and, for once, not a single hair stood on end, no vein was ready to pop, and no stupid bunny suit waited for her to put it on.  This was her trip, and she wasn’t afraid.

That was what she wanted to thank the Crusaders for.

Admitting that she had fallen that far, and that the they had played such a brief yet important role in her recent past would be embarrassing, even though they already knew.

They already knew the first part, at least.

She arrived at the clubhouse, but it appeared to be unoccupied.  She took a quick look inside to be sure.  Her disappointment mixed with the idea of getting a treat from Sugarcube Corner, leaving her with the all-too-familiar feeling of an empty heart.  No Spoony, and no Crusaders.  Without anypony to enjoy it with, she wasn’t convinced that she would actually follow through and buy herself anything.

With any luck, she’d simply run into one of the Crusaders on her way over.  They weren’t gone, she just hadn’t found them yet.  Still, she figured on swinging closer to the Apple Family house, just in case Apple Bloom was nearby.

Even before she could see anything beyond the next dozen trees in front of her, she made out Apple Bloom’s voice.  What Apple Bloom was saying was unintelligible.  When she made it out of the trees, in view of the house, a dog started barking.  Tiara almost let her hoof up to her forehead.  She had completely forgotten that they had a dog.  Now everypony there would take notice of her.

Sure enough, Granny Smith stuck her head out of a window a moment later... and waved.  She was somewhat thankful that the cool air kept the heat out of her cheeks, but doubted that the same could be said for color.

The barking was closer.  As soon as she realized, something fluffy and wet pushed against her, hard enough for her to lose her balance.  “Whoa—ooph!”

“Winona!” Apple Bloom called from somewhere up above.  “Calm down.  You’re gonna lick her to death.”

The assault ceased promptly.  Diamond Tiara tried not to think too hard about her partially damp coat as she pulled herself off the ground.  “Ugh…  Get some disinfectant, or at least hot water.”

Apple Bloom rubbed the dog behind its ears.  “It’s not that bad.  Anyway, what’s up, Tiara?”

“Well, I was hoping to talk to you girls...”  She didn’t really want to have to repeat herself, though.  “Together?”









Despite neither Scootaloo nor Sweetie Belle being at their homes, Apple Bloom took little time to find them.  Now they sat around one of Sugarcube Corner’s less conspicuous tables, each with a large sundae before them.  Diamond Tiara was the only one of them who had to consider her toppings, as apparently the Crusaders came often enough that they only had to ask for ‘the usual’.

“Did you talk to your parents?” Sweetie Belle asked shortly after they settled in.

“How’d it go?” Apple Bloom added.

“Dey idn't gwound you,” Scootaloo said through a mouthful of her ice cream.  Fortunately, she swallowed before continuing.  “So it couldn't have been too bad.”

“Uh… well, I talked to them last night, and it didn’t exactly go as I planned,” Tiara said.  “Things went… better, I guess.”

She tried not to shrink back too much at the round of their cheering that followed, but they were turning a few heads.  “It doesn’t mean that everything between us is fixed now… but, they might get better over time.”

“So you got all the bad stuff out in the open, right?” Apple Bloom asked.  “I remember Bic Mac and Applejack didn’t wanna talk to each other for a couple‘a days once until Granny made ‘em talk out their problems.”  Sweetie Belle quietly asked Apple Bloom a question that Diamond Tiara couldn’t make out, but the reply gave her a reasonable guess as to what was asked: “I think it was two barns ago, the one we got next to the house was due for a good cleanin’, and Big Mac got rid of a few too many ‘potentially useful’ tools.”

Not quite sure why she felt compelled to know, Tiara asked for more.  “What happened after?”

“They tried to yell at each other from what I heard.  I think they forgot all about it a week later.”

She sighed to herself in relief.  Sure, the Apple Family was well-known for their close bonds with each other, but their advantage aside, it did relieve her to think that it was at least possible for some ponies to repair their relationships, even if it had only been broken for a few days.

This still prompted an interesting thought: the Cutie Mark Crusaders had been the recipients of her teasing for far longer than she had considered her relationship with her parents ‘broken’, yet here they were.

“There’s still so much I don’t understand,” she said.

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow.  “What do you mean?”

“Well… every time I think about how I used to be even a few days ago, I feel like I’m looking into the life of somepony else.  I don’t even know if I know how to be me… whoever that is.

“And my parents weren’t angry or upset at me like I thought they would be.  Father said that they had talked about it for days already, but I didn’t notice any change in how they acted.”

She took a breath, careful not to let it imply that she was done.

“And then there’s you.  I still don’t understand why you’re willing to set aside everything I’ve done over the last few years; why you’re here, talking to me now… or why I want to say ‘thank you’, as a friend.”

“When did you become so sappy?”

Scootaloo got a sharp nudge from Sweetie Belle.

“You’re welcome... I think,” Sweetie Belle replied.

After a just a moment of silence, Apple Bloom asked, “That was you sayin’ thanks, right?”

Diamond Tiara hadn’t been counting the number of times she’d embarrassed herself over the last several days, but the number almost certainly rivaled her allowance.  Or at least, the allowance she used to have.  She wasn’t clear on what was going to happen between her and her parents with those details.

To answer Apple Bloom’s question, she said, “Yeah, that’s why I wanted to meet with you girls today.  I don’t think I’d have made it work without knowing that at least somepony supported me… even if it was only you three.”

Sweetie Belle’s smile vanished.  “Hey!”

“No no I don’t mean it like that,” Tiara hastily added.  “I mean… nopony else cared....”  Not even Spoony.

The silence lingered long enough for the Crusaders to shift uncomfortably.

“What’s on your mind, Tiara?” Scootaloo eventually asked.

She sighed.  She’d come this far, why not a little farther?  “Well, um… Spoo— uh, Silver Spoon and I… aren’t exactly friends anymore, and it’s my fault.”

“Weren’t you listenin’ before when we told you that you aren’t the same Diamond Tiara that we used to know?”  Apple Bloom pushed her sundae aside and continued.  “So far as we’re concerned, This Tiara didn’t spend all her time thinkin’ up new ways to bully us.  This Tiara’s tryin’ to make the best decisions she can.  The old Tiara who made all of those bad choices is gone.  I bet that’s why you feel like you’re lookin’ at somepony else’s life.”

“I gotta admit,” Scootaloo added, “you changed pretty quick on us.  It’s still a little weird for us, too..”

“I think if we can see that about you, Silver Spoon could,” Sweetie Belle said.  “She might forgive you if you talked to her.”

Diamond Tiara looked down to her hooves.  The Crusaders probably wouldn’t think that she found them interesting for a long time, but it gave her a moment to come to terms with what she had just heard.  She could apologise to Spoony, but would it help?  No… that wasn’t that right thought.  She should apologize to Spoony, even if it didn’t help.  If she could improve her relationship with her parents, rebuilding her friendship with Spoony would be relatively simple.

“Okay, then.  I still have one more question.”

Rather than ask what it was, the only sound that came from any of the Crusaders was Scootaloo’s attempts to get the last of her sundae out of the bottom of her dish.

She continued after a moment.  “I don’t really understand how Father could be telling the truth when he said that they were talking about my problems for days, as if they were already on my side that whole time.  All I’ve seen them do is talk about how much to punish me....”

And at the time, that seemed like a bad thing.  Now it was starting to make sense.  She continued eating the ice cream in front of her, feeling a bit sheepish for not putting those thoughts together before.

“I don’t suppose you were trying to see the worst in that?” Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie Belle added, “It does sound like the kind of thing that would be bad, but doesn’t that fit together?  Your parents might have been talking about in a good way.  Well… in a less bad way.”

“I don’t know,” Diamond Tiara said.  “It’s all been a lot to take in, but I think things will make more sense soon.  Maybe I was a little bit upset with them at the time, which might have… changed how I looked at things.”

She looked down at her own sundae to see only another bite or two of ice cream remaining, half melted into a puddle at the bottom of her dish.  Now that she had covered everything that she had in mind, the conversation seemed to be drawing to a natural close.  Some part of her mind presented the next most important task of the day: talking to Spoony.

The last of her sundae disappeared, and so far as she could tell, so had theirs, even though she hadn’t noticed them eating much.  There had been several things on her mind, though.

“Thanks, girls.  I think you’ve helped a lot, actually... again.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tiara,” Apple Bloom replied, getting up off of her seat.  “While it is kinda nice to hear our former bully makin’ up for everythin’, we like helpin’ out whenever we can anyway.”

“Yeah, especially that first part,” Scootaloo added in a rather cheerful tone.

Tiara turned to glare at Scootaloo, whose slightly smug smile reminded her that while everything may have been forgiven, it had not been forgotten.  And now the tables had turned.

She tried to sidestep out of Scootaloo’s attention, but her hoof met her chair, and let her know all about it.  When she had recovered, she said, “I, uh… should probably get going.  There’s something else I want to do today.”

They engaged in another round of goodbyes, and she made her way through Sugarcube Corner.  Behind her, she heard the Cutie Mark Crusaders conversing again, ending in a collective “Yeah!”.

She hadn’t quite yet made it to the door when something gave her a tingly feeling.  A really tingly feeling.  At her hooves, she noticed her own shadow cast before her, despite the sunlight coming through the front door.  The few ponies in the building gasped, and she turned around to see what was happening.

She winced at the very bright white spot right about where the Cutie Mark Crusaders stood a moment ago.  Something told her to run, maybe get help for her friends, but at the same moment, the light died down.  The Crusaders were still there, and they looked a bit disoriented.

And they had cutie marks.

The next gasp startled her, because it was hers.









Ponies were milling about Ponyville now, in preparation for the cute-ceañera that Pinkie Pie would promptly be throwing for the Cutie mark Crusaders.  Diamond Tiara made her way through them, her desire to talk to Spoony still in mind.  The Crusaders’ marks perplexed her about as much is it could perplex a pony whose mind had recently been stretched like hers.  Getting marks simultaneously wasn’t unheard of, but the similarity in their marks, while still being unique, was curious.

She still wanted to talk to Spoony, though.  She had promised to attend her friends’ cute-ceañera before she left.

Before long, she stood before a very familiar door.  This time, unlike her own door the day before, she wasn’t afraid.  She had come to fix what she had broken.

She knocked.  Hoofsteps – Spoony’s – followed a few seconds later.  The door opened.  When they looked each other in the eye, Spoony’s expression remained neutral.

All she had to do was apologise.

“I’m sorry about everything, Spoony, especially what I said after the election.”