Diamond Tiara and the Hand of Phoe

by Mudpony

A Pony on the Rise

The air was loud with cheers as the ponies crossed the finish line, the watchers rushing in from either side to congratulate their favorites. Above it all hung a single hot air balloon and, within its basket, two ponies.

"Thanks again for letting me watch the race up here with you, Pinkie," Twilight said.

"Oh, it was no biggie, Twi. It'd have been boring without anypony to talk to anyway, with my usual co-announcer being out of town and all."

"I just really didn't want to deal with a crowd at the moment." Twilight leaned out and waved at the crowd below, before turning back to Pinkie. "You should have seen it, Pinkie. Books were everywhere but on the shelves, paper were scattered about, and scrolls were draped across the furniture."

Pinkie's brow furrowed, as she tried to imagine it. "Ooooh, I got it! It must have look just like when you're busy on some big research project, right?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight rested her head upon her hooves, not really hearing what Pinkie had said. "It was a simple thing. Just dust the books. And she brought in some huge device and near destroyed the entire place. It'll take me hours to reshelve everything. I was really hoping to catch up on some reading tonight. I had it scheduled in and everything, see?" She pulled out a schedule and pointed to the relevant section. "What am I going to do with her?"

Pinkie pondered, then her face brightened. "I know. Let's go higher!"

Twilight looked at Pinkie. "You want to go higher?"

"Uh-huh," Pinkie said, nodding her head rapidly. "It's a really nice day and I think from higher up we could see everything clearly. It'd be a shame to waste the chance, don'tcha think? It's really amazing how much you can see from up on high."

Twilight frowned. She lifted her head and peered at Pinkie. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe some distance would be for the best. Take us up."

"Okie dokie, here we go!" Pinkie said. "This'll be so much fun!" As she turned up the flame, the balloon rose higher into the sky, the ground and all its troubles shrinking into the distance.

---

Diamond Tiara looked at her progress so far and sighed. This was taking even longer than the dusting had and already she felt her legs getting tired from all the lifting. Some of these books were way bigger than they needed to be. She looked at the book in front of her. Did anypony even care about all the collected works of Coltstoy anyway? She reached out to grab it. With a frown, she tried a different angle of approach, only to get the same result. She tried one last time, opening her mouth as wide as possible, but was still unable to get a hold on the thick book.

"This is hopeless," she said, sitting down.

<The princess's approval must be sought or all this will be for naught.>

"Oh, sure, now you pipe up. And with the rhyming again. Couldn't you have said something useful earlier, like, say, about not using the vacuum cleaner?" Diamond Tiara titled her head expectantly, but no answer was forthcoming. "Yeah, thought so. Well, it doesn't matter, because there's no way I'm going to get all this cleaned up in time anyway. There's no way she'll let me stick around after this mess."

<What would the princess do?>

"Order some guards to do it for her?" Diamond Tiara asked. Diamond Tiara was not sure how a disembodied voice could sigh, but it did. Perhaps that was just further proof that she was going insane. The voice tried again, with a slightly different phrasing.

<What would Twilight Sparkle do?>

Diamond Tiara tried to recall what she'd heard about the princess. "Well, she'd probably make a list of things to do, then panic. After which she might go crazy. I suppose I could do the list thing, because then I'd be three for three."

She kicked the book in frustration. With a sigh, she lay down, resting her head upon it. "Well, at least you're good for something," she said, half-closing her eyes. She let her mind wander, thinking of the day outside. How she wished she had spent it on the hilltop with her friends, having a tea party and then watching the race, the way they had planned. Her eyes shot open.

"Her friends. They'd help her."

<Now you're thinking.>

She leapt to her feet and raced to the door. Weaving through ponies, she ran as fast as she could toward the hilltop they had chosen. Hopefully they would still be there. Hopefully Silver Spoon wasn't too angry with her.

---

Twilight Sparkle thanked her lucky stars that nopony was in front of the library. She was getting pretty confident in her ability to glide, but her landings still left something to be desired in the grace department, especially when she knew somepony was watching. But beyond that, she preferred some privacy for the events to come.

She paused before the door, taking a deep breath. She didn't like it, but try as she might, she couldn't see any other choice. The whole point of accepting Diamond Tiara's offer had been to make her life easier, and now instead she was faced with extra work.

True, the filly had been helpful the previous night. Without her help and with Rarity a no show, Twilight was sure she would never have gotten the costume on right. But even then there had been issues. Twilight had almost lost count of the number of times she had needed to rein in the over-anxious little filly when she went off on some poor pony for a supposed breach of protocol. Her face would get this fierce little expression and then she'd step forward. And each time Twilight told her it was alright, that it was not an issue, her face would get this pouting look, and Twilight could tell that she was barely holding herself from explaining why it most definitely was not alright. Twilight was kind of surprised she never tried. No doubt, at some point in the future, she would. No, Twilight was certain, her life would definitely be simpler without the help. She'd just have to make do until her number one assistant returned.

She took a deep breath, steeled her nerves, and pushed open the door.

She blinked her eyes, not believing what she saw. The entire library was spotless. The books were on the shelves, the papers neatly stacked, and there was no sign of the device that had caused all the mayhem. In the center of the library, curled upon the rug, Diamond Tiara raised her head off a thick book and yawned sleepily.

Twilight met the filly's eyes. "You did all this?"

"Yup," Diamond Tiara said, bouncing to her feet. "Well, sort of. My friends helped me. See, I was looking at the mess and then I asked myself what you would do. And that's when I went and found my friends and together we got everything cleaned up. We were going to put them all alphabetically, but then we had a better idea."

"A better idea?" Twilight Sparkle asked cautiously.

"Oh yeah. We put together a whole system, grouping books by subject." She pointed to one of the shelves. "That one is the one hundreds. That's for books on gardening." She pointed to the one next to it. "The two hundreds are for beauty and fashion." She continued around the room. "Three hundreds: romance stories. Four hundreds: business. Five hundreds: Flying. That one was Alula's idea. Six hundreds are for history and science and stuff, so we can easily find stuff we need for school. And then the seven hundreds are for all the less important stuff, like medicine, philosophy, and unicorn things.

"I call it the Diamond Decimal System," Diamond Tiara said, beaming as proudly as a dog with a new bone.

Twilight's jaw slowly dropped. Not only had Diamond Tiara cleaned up the entire mess she had created, but she'd come up with a new cataloging system as well? Twilight compared the system she had just implemented the previous month. Slowly, she nodded. "I can definitely see some benefits to the idea..." Diamond Tiara's grin returned in full force. "But I think the categories could definitely use some tweaking though."

"Oh," said Diamond Tiara, frowning slightly and looking down. She looked up cautiously. "Can we keep the name though?"

Not a chance in Tartarus, Twilight Sparkle thought, but looking at the filly, she didn't have the heart to tell her so. "We'll see. Now, what do you say we get started on improving things. I've got a few ideas already..."

Comments

[Mudpony]

Prompt: Draw a pony on a hilltop/Draw a pony on the rise.

Relatively light use of the prompt, though in a way it does apply to each scene. Twi rises in the balloon, DT goes to meet her friends on the hill, and DT manages to hang onto her Twi's student status for another day, something necessary for her to reach her lofty goal. Got to say I miss the time to improve things, or for that matter, to write more. Meeting up with Spoon and Alula should have been covered. Guess DT got their help somehow without having to reveal much.

[Mudpony]

3083385
Indeed. The pollen from the jungle flowers was just too much for them to handle.

And fixed. Thanks :)

[Mudpony]

3083512
The way I figure it, between free will and the number of things it has to keep track of and manipulate to turn the possible into the probable, it has its hand full. Plus it might be a bit rusty from having been out of the game for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to dive into it more later.

[FinalFan]

Isn't it Twilight Sparkle's balloon, and Pinkie has the gyrocopter thing? I mean, title sequence, Discord-Rainbow-Dash chase sequence, etc.

She'd just have to make due
make do

[Mudpony]

3083562
Ownership isn't really established. Pinkie uses it in Fall Weather Friends, while it also gets used by most of the gang in other episodes like Return to Harmony Pt2 and Wonderbolt Academy. And then there's Cherry Berry, who has it in the Mare Do Well episode, as well as Spike At Your Service, where she's giving people rides in it (so potentially her livelihood), and MMC.

The toyline does call it Twilight's (which makes sense from a marketing standpoint), but my head canon says that it is Cherry Berry's, and the gang borrows it from her. Twi having a hot air balloon doesn't really make sense with what we know about her.

But no matter who owns it, if Pinkie asked to borrow it to announce a race, it still would be bad manners to just invite yourself along.

[FinalFan]

3083644 Fair enough.
Although, as far as the plausibility of having a hot air balloon goes, who knows what kinds of doodads a princess's protege is liable to accumulate? It is also in line with her being a "science nerd" given the technology of the series.

[ColdGoldLazarus]

Diamond Decimal System. That's actually pretty brilliant!