Diamond Tiara and the Hand of Phoe

by Mudpony

A Pony Using a Tool

"Don't you have servants for that? What's the point of being a princess if you don't have servants?" Diamond Tiara asked.

Twilight laughed. "No, no servants. Normally Spike and I do it every week, but I'm afraid that with all the coronation stuff that we've fallen a bit behind."

"I could get one of our maids to come do it, until you can get some servants of your own," Diamond Tiara helpfully suggested.

"It's just a bit of dusting, Diamond. No need to bother anypony else about it. Besides, you said you wanted to help, right?"

Diamond Tiara frowned. She wanted to be a princess, not help. Princesses didn't do menial housework. But Twilight was a princess, and she was talking about dusting. So there had to be something more going on here, she reasoned.

"Oh," she said, stretching out the word. "I totally get it now. This is a test, isn't it? Some sort of test of my character."

Twilight bit her lip. "Sure, fine, whatever. It's a test. Now can you handle dusting the library?"

Diamond nodded her head up and down repeatedly, her tiara nearly falling off her head from the speed of the motion. "Of course! I'll do the best dusting job ever. You just wait and see!"

---

Diamond Tiara stifled a yawn.

It had been a whole ten minutes and she had only finished a single shelf. At this rate, it would take hours before she finished the entire library. That was completely unacceptable. She'd totally miss her tea party with Silver Spoon and Alula. Oh, and she might fail the test.

Resolving to go faster, she pushed the ladder over to the next shelf and clambered up. With the duster held in her mouth, she brushed the top row of books. Dust flew into the air and into her nose. She scrunched her face, trying to hold off the inevitable, but it was too late.

She sneezed hard, nearly losing her grip on the ladder. The duster, taking advantage of her open mouth, tumbled downward. She rubbed her nose to ward off another sneeze, then looked down at the fallen duster.

"There has got to be a better way to do this."

---

She grinned at the sight of it sitting proudly in the middle of the library. The Cyclone 9000, the biggest and most powerful vacuum cleaner on the market, with more than twice the ponypower of its nearest competitor. It was loaded with features, like the ability to reverse the airflow. It could even make toast. And best of all, her father's store carried it. It had taken some effort for her to convince the manager to let her borrow it, and more still to ponyhandle the display model all the way to the library, but she had managed it. Now she'd get the place clean, impress the princess, and still make her tea party with time to spare.

She quickly glanced over the instruction manual, skipping the unimportant stuff like the words in the sections labelled 'caution', 'warning', 'operating instructions', and 'safety'. It was probably all obvious stuff like not to use it in a swimming pool or something anyway. Sure, that was pretty much the entire manual, leaving only the pictures, but she was on a tight schedule and anything really important would have a picture anyway, she reasoned. Satisfied she knew what she was doing, she tossed the manual aside and looked over the hose attachments, settling on the biggest one.

"Now, low, medium, or high?" she said, looking at the power settings. "High, of course." She turned the knob, then noticed the switch beside it. With a grin, she flipped it. "Turbo power! That'll go even faster!"

Ready for action, she bit down on the handle and turned on the machine. She strained against the pull of the air being sucked into the machine, wrapping her forelegs around it for good measure, and directed it toward a pile of books. A series of thumps shook her as three books flew off the pile onto the end of the tube.

Diamond Tiara's stomach felt uneasy as the pitch of the machine shifted as it struggled against the impeded airflow. For a second, the first book managed to resist the pull, but then, with a ripping sound, it came apart, blocks of pages pulled down the tube.

"No, no, no!" she yelled, desperately trying to free the other two books from the clutches of the machine with one of her hooves. With a sickening slurp, the second book was gone, and then the third.

She watched in horror as other books started to slide off the pile toward the devouring maw of the vacuum cleaner. One even lifted into the air and flew right into the infernal machine's insatiable gullet. No more, she decided, wrapping all her legs around the hose. With a loud grunt, she wrestled the hose down, a hoof searching for the switch at the end. "Got it!" she yelled and flipped the switch.

Silence fell across the room as the machine stopped and the books stopped their slide toward doom. She gave herself a celebratory hoof pump. She'd successfully saved them. She turned her attention to the vacuum cleaner and rubbed her chin.

"Okay, maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Opening the bin, she reached inside and examined the contents. "Let's see... Elements of Harmony, Supernatural Remedies, Dragons on Dragons: the Complete Guide to Dragons, and The World Through the Mirror..." She wiped her brow in relief. Nobody would ever want to read those books; she was sure of it.

She grabbed the ruined books and stuffed them in the garbage can, making sure to bury them beneath the other contents. Her tracks covered, she turned her attention back to the machine. She'd been so sure this would work. She frowned as she looked over the machine's settings. There had to be a way. She threw her head backwards and laughed as it came to her. The reverse airflow feature! That way, she could blow all the dust away and no books would get torn apart.

"Another potential crisis averted by your keen intellect, Diamond Tiara," she said as she changed the setting.

Grabbing hold of the end of the hose again, she activated the machine. It roared to life and she directed it at the nearest shelf. Dust flew into the air and Diamond mentally cheered. It was working! At this rate, she would be done in a minute. She directed the air to the next shelf, with similar results, and then the third. Unfortunately, she noticed just a bit too late that this was a shelf for storing scrolls and pieces of paper. Within seconds, the library looked like a snow globe, the contents of the shelf floating through the air..

"No!" she said, followed by an "Oh no!" as she realized she'd just released her grip on the machine. She snapped at it, but it whipped away, and just as quickly reversed direction and slammed into her. Diamond Tiara felt the air knocked out of her as she collided with the wall and slid to the ground.

Diamond Tiara's jaw dropped. The hose seemed to have a life of its own, whipping through the air like some crazed demon snake. Everywhere it went, papers, even whole books, were flung into the air. It left small cyclones in its wake, which spun off causing even more chaos. A small part of her brain managed to point out that at least all the dust was gone from the shelves, before the rest of her brain pummeled that part into silence.

With a snarl of rage, she picked herself up off the ground and tackled the tube. It barely seemed to notice her, continuing its frenzy of destruction. Her legs ached, and she took several hard blows as she was slammed into objects. Still, she hung on, slowly crawling up the tube. She had to reach the power switch. There was still time for her to fix this. She stretched out a hoof, trying to reach the end of the hose. Just a little bit further, she encouraged herself.

Suddenly, a purplish glow surrounded the end of the hose and the machine fell silent. For a second, Diamond Tiara hung there, up in the air, clinging onto the hose, before gravity took its course. Her legs flailed wildly, trying to gain traction on the air, but sadly, lacking the wings of a pegasus, gravity won the battle and she found herself reunited with the ground. All around her, she heard the thumps of books hitting the floor.

She blinked, trying to make out the fuzzy blob amidst the leaves drifting down. Slowly, her vision cleared, revealing a rather angry, paper-covered alicorn. Diamond looked up rather sheepishly. "I finished dusting," she said, giving her most winning grin, but the princess gave no response. Diamond Tiara swallowed. "And I was just going to, um, reshelve everything."

Twilight said nothing, though her eyes and flaring nostrils spoke volumes, before she turned around and walked out, slamming the door so hard the entire tree shook.

Diamond Tiara sighed. It looked like she'd be missing the tea party after all.

Comments

[Mudpony]

Prompt: Draw a pony using a tool/Draw a handy pony!

Between a non-weekend day and Monday being family dinner (with my brothers, sisters, parents, nieces and nephew), just barely got this finished after the deadline. As such, pretty much no time to polish things. Also not the most useful prompt for the story.

[FinalFan]

I guess the hand only gives so much help, eh?

[ColdGoldLazarus]

Yeah, DT is going to have to work real hard to make up for this...