Shining Like Diamonds
The empty plate was pushed away by a pair of gray hooves, and the filly turned to hop down from her seat. The older mare at the table cleared her throat significantly, causing the filly to hesitate. "Silver, dear," the mother said slowly.
Silver Spoon turned and sat up straight in her chair again. "May I be excused, please?" The mare nodded and Silver popped off her chair like a spring-loaded snake in a can. She galloped away from the dining table and straight to the staircase, passing by the paintings and decorative pottery in the hallway. She went up the stairs two at a time, her eyes bright, and burst through her bedroom door.
It took her but a few seconds to pluck up her saddlebag and slip it on. Into one pocket, she quickly stuffed a wooden tripod. Into the other, she slowly slid a brass tube. She was down the stairs, through the hall, and out the front door a minute later, calling a quick "goodbye" to her mother as she went.
Down the road, around a corner, over a bridge, and up a hill. She didn't slow down until she reached the highest point on the massive mound of grass-covered dirt. Moonlight shone down on the filly, and she paused as she caught her breath, staring at the pale orb in the sky before pulling the tripod from her bag. She popped out the three legs and put it down on the grass. Then she slowly lowered the brass tube into its mount and went about anchoring it into place, batting a hoof at the wide screws to turn them.
Silver made the last few turns of the screws with her mouth, then aimed the telescope around a bit. She loosened one screw, swung the tube upward, and took a seat behind it. Her eye went to the rear of the scope as a hoof pushed her glasses up out of the way, another hoof tilting the tube down a little.
Silver Spoon brought her eye away as she heard a rustling somewhere, the little smile on her face growing wider. Her smile shrank again as she took a look around at the empty hill. There wasn't anypony else in sight, save for a stallion walking along a street back in Ponyville. Silver's sigh was barely audible as she turned back to the sky.
She went on like this for about twenty minutes, her smile becoming smaller with each glance around the vacant hill. Her left foreleg found its way up to her mane, twirling the silvery braid around a hoof as her eyes turned to stare at the tripod's rubber feet. Her gaze remained there until the gentle sound of grass crunching down broke the peaceful quietude on the hilltop. Silver Spoon turned toward the source, and her smile returned in full force.
Diamond Tiara was trudging up the hill, the corners of her mouth turned down. When her line of sight met Silver's, however, her pace quickened and her frown turned around. Her best friend waved a hoof in the air as Diamond approached.
"My dad made me read that stupid book about the history of White Tail Woods before I came here, that's why it took me so long," said Diamond as she settled in near the telescope.
"You still hadn't read it yet? Cheerilee told us to read that on Monday. It's Saturday."
"Hmph. I suppose you got through it by Tuesday, huh?" was Diamond's reply. Silver spoon slouched down with a little smile, exposing her white teeth. Diamond shook her head, commenting, "You're such a nerd, Silver Spoon."
Silver shrugged a little, her eyes turning back to the sky. "How is your dad, anyway?" she asked.
Diamond shrugged slightly. "He's fine, I guess. He hasn't complained about work much lately, so that's good. How's your mom?"
"I think she's doing better. She hasn't mentioned daddy in sixteen days, but sometimes she still stares at our old photos when she thinks I'm not looking."
"You still gonna go see him in Manehattan next month?" Diamond asked.
Silver Spoon nodded, her hoof reaching back up to play with her mane. Diamond's eyes slid to look at the blades of grass her forehoof was batting at, and Silver let her gaze linger on the stars as the two fell into silence.
A few minutes passed before Silver Spoon blurted out, "You know, stars are, like, really hot?" Diamond looked up from the grass for a moment as Silver continued, "I mean, you can't feel it like you can the sun, but that's because they're really, really far away."
Diamond Tiara sighed, rolling her eyes. "Silver Spoon, do you realize how boring stargazing is? It's, like, just the same thing over and over again. It's like looking at the same painting every weekend."
Silver Spoon's eyes were fixed on her friend. "You know, you don't have to come stargazing with me every weekend if it's so boring."
Diamond just shrugged at that, continuing to play with the grass at her hooves, her eyes downcast.
Silver Spoon's hoof slipped away from her mane, a small smile forming on her lips as she turned her head skyward and resumed her topic. "In fact, those stars are so far away that it takes years for their light to reach us. Some of these stars might actually not exist anymore, and we might not know it until they disappear one day."
"You're such a nerd, Silver Spoon." Diamond batted at the grass a little more, but slowly lifted her head again. "Wait, how can it take so long for the light to reach us? Isn't light just kinda there or not there?"
Silver Spoon's smile hadn't faltered, and she explained, "Light moves really, really, really fast. Like, so fast you can't even see it move from a candle to the walls when you light it. It looks like it moves instantly because the distances down here are so small. But it's not instant, it's just so fast that it seems like it."
"So... the stars up there are just that far away? It really takes years just to get here?"
Silver Spoon nodded.
"Wow. That's... kinda cool." Diamond stared up at the stars for a few seconds before adding, "In a totally nerdy way, I mean." Silver chuckled quietly at that, and the two fell quiet again as they took in the constellations and passed the telescope back and forth between them.
As Diamond looked through the scope at the moon, Silver Spoon slid her glasses off and took a deep breath. Her mane went back to being twirled around her hoof as she slowly asked, "Diamond, have you ever, you know, liked somepony?"
Diamond didn't move from the telescope, though she hesitated before answering with a question of her own. "What do you mean?"
Silver's other forehoof came up to help the first play with her braided mane, her violet eyes directed at the tripod's feet again. It was a few more seconds before she clarified, "Like, you know.... Have you ever had a crush on anypony?"
Diamond finally pulled back from the scope, her eyes moving to the grass as well. "Uh, maybe." She narrowed her eyes suddenly, her tone growing harsher. "Why? Have you?"
"Yeah, I do right now," Silver said with a tiny smile, her eyes briefly going to her best friend before returning to stare at the tripod.
Diamond's tone softened again. "Does your crush know how you feel?"
Silver Spoon shook her head, but said, "I don't know if she does. It probably isn't hard to guess, though."
Diamond pulled her prized tiara from her head, turning it in her hooves as if looking for something on it. "Is- is it anypony I know?"
Silver Spoon nodded, her silvery mane slipping around her hooves as she tugged at it.
"And do you already know her? Like, are you friends?"
Silver nodded again.
"Do you spend much time with her?"
Silver sighed quietly, replying, "Yeah. We hang out a lot, especially on the weekends."
Diamond found a dirty spot on her tiara that may not have actually been there, and rubbed a hoof at it.
Silver shook her head, still looking at the little rubber feet. "I don't know how she feels about me, though." She finally turned her head back to look at her best friend, who was still trying to rub out the spot on her tiara. After ten seconds of silence, Silver's gaze fell back to the tripod as she bit her lower lip, the redness in her cheeks barely visible in the moonlight.
Slowly, Diamond stopped playing with her tiara and turned her blue eyes to the sky. "Well," she began slowly, "you're, like, really nice and stuff. And you're a good friend, you know? So, like, if you told her, she'd probably say she liked you back."
Silver's hooves left her mane alone at last, turning back to look at Diamond. "You really think so?"
Diamond nodded, a little smile growing on her face. "Yeah, I know she would." She put her tiara back on, settling it into her mane. The reddish tint in her cheeks was barely visible by the light of the moon and stars.
The two fillies sat back on the grass, both gazing up at the sky. Silver brought a hoof up, pointing out Ursa Minor, and Diamond giggled softly. She shook her head, grinning as she said, "You're such a nerd, Silver Spoon."
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That was really, really-really sweet.
That was beautiful.
Cute!
Going to agree with the sickly albino pony. It is indeed cute.
Couple of typos:
The
Missing comma after "it's".
And one suggestion:
Probably should start a new paragraph after this or else add a dialogue attribution for DT. Having a Spoon action tag right after DT paragraph starting dialogue sort of associates that dialogue with Spoon rather than DT. Couple more cases like this in the story.
3549247
Thanks for catching those. Imma blame the first two on the fact that the first half was written using an iPod before I could get a hold of my laptop, and that thing sucks for word processing. The third is a common problem for me, it seems, and I've been making an effort to avoid such issues lately. Story edited.
OML OML OML OML
OH MY LUNA!!! that was so adorable! HEAD CANON ACCEPTED!
That was really nice.
Here, take my like.
A standard rule of romance in fiction is that any two characters who look up at the moon together are destined to be strangled by the red string, no matter how contrived the relationship may be. That's not to say the romance in this story is contrived, but considering the fact that this is a romance story, the punch line was delivered the second Diamond showed up, and considering the tags, no actual reading is necessary to figure out what it was.
Given the story's length, I'd say you have a fittingly short story here. Silver Spoon goes stargazing, Diamond shows up, and they have a small, friendly discussion. No arguments, no falling out, and the only real conflict exists in the implied romance. There's not really much I can say about the story itself simply because it's so simple, but luckily the story has much more interesting factors to mention.
This story does a great job at setting the stage and describing what's happening. Between your word choice and the way you go about explaining everything, you have the setting locked down to the point of absolute clarity. Also, I don't believe I caught an instance of telling in this story. Every bit of characterization and emotion was revealed through body language and dialogue. Nothing was explicitly stated outright, and that's not an easy trap to avoid. Good job.
The characterization was standard type B romance. Dialogue is friendly and romance is held back by an invisible wall that may as well be made of butter. Though romance is this story's only real conflict, it doesn't really exist in this story to be a conflict. It's more of an additional aspect of their characterization that emphasizes their bond. It's left ambiguous, but only to those that aren't up to the task of pushing past some butter. The moon's already answered the question for us, so really this story's main purpose revolves around its emotional value.
This story is very much an emotional piece, which is unfortunately outside my realm of understanding. However, I can say it is a very well-phrased friendshipping piece with minimal errors that does a great job of implying without stating. I'd call it a bite-size cupcake with a standard amount of frosting. It's fast, it's sweet, and it's generic, but I can see the homemade effort you put into it.
Make the most!
3550896
I'd actually never heard of that rule about the moon being inherently romantic, but now it seems obvious. I'm not sure what that means. The whole idea came within a few minutes, with the romance being the last concept I added before I compiled the ideas into a rough outline.
Yeah, there really isn't much substance, and it's rather generic. No defenses or excuses from me; that's just the way it is. I'd never really tried doing anything romantic at all before this (at least not seriously). This was built to be short, simple, and hopefully sweet.
I thank you for your kind words. Even though this is basically nothing but fluff, I did my best to make it something worth having a look at, and it's great to see that someone liked the way I went about narration and characterization. Thanks for the analysis, as well as dropping by to give it a read-through in the first place.
3549178 & 3549180 & 3549868 & last, but not least, 3549779
Thanks to all of you. Hope it didn't give you diabetes.
Special thanks to ServingSpoon, without whom this story wouldn't exist. If I'd hoped to please anyone with this tale, it was you.
3551158
thank you so much. You really did my OTP the justice they deserve (squee)
please let me know if you do more Silver Spoon fics, especially DiamondSpoon shipping.
3551190
You know, I just might make a few more of these. Maybe even with some continuity among them. I have considered doing more about these two, and not just because they've been my highest-rated tales. No promises, but I could definitely see myself writing about these two again in the future. I'll be sure to notify you if I do.
3551259
Serving Silver Spoon is like, so following you right now.
I cant wait to see more my freind
You know my Serving Spoon is a follower of Luna and lover of the night. So I can easily incorporate a love of star gazing and astronomy into my tumblr pone RPs when appropriate.
thanks for giving a new facet to Silver's personality.
and the "you are such a nerd" is something my DT says to her lover constantly in a playful and endearing manner of course. It's like you wrote my SS/DT ship from my tumblr blog
3551330
Whoa. I honestly didn't even know you had a tumblr blog. That's.... Actually, it's not that weird for me. I often joke that I'm psychic, but stuff like this has happened a few too many times, and sometimes I truly wonder. Pretty cool, but a bit creepy sometimes.
P.S.: I know of at least one more DT and SS story I've been planning for a while, so you'll get at least one more for sure. I'll say one thing about it: it involves Babs.
3551374
http://servingspoon69.tumblr.com/ eeyep
3551374 You had me at Babs.
Such a tragic end to what was possibly one of Babs best experiences. Like her feeling empowered and accepted, going to lengths to keep others happy by doing more of what makes them laugh, it's that sort of mentality where its like "Wow, they really like me. I feel bad, but it sorta feels good too. They really like me!" or something.
They spent three mostly entire long weeks together. So much you can play with there. So much the show couldn't touch on because it was an episode being developed solely for Bully Awareness Week. But whatever. It was a fantastic episode if you really spend time with just their scenes, not the CMC but Babs.
I've no idea what you have plan or what genre, but I'm down for anything that attempts to build some real insight to possible events between the three. Even if it was just a Babs POV, I'd love to see one. You have such a way with narratives and dialogues that it's almost a crime your stories are so short.
Best of luck on whatever you're gonna do. And happy thanksgiving :3
3550896 3551051
Of course, the idea that the moon is romantic is by no means limited to just literature.
Here's one of many examples.
3552057
Wow, that's some high praise (at least to me). Thank you kindly. And don't fret too much, as I have longer projects I'm working on. One such should start being released very soon, in fact, once I review it some more and make sure it's good enough for submission. I'll try not to disappoint you, or anyone else.
As for Babs.... I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like what I have in mind. I'm not really sure if it's been done before, but it's an idea I've had for a while and something I've been wanting to work on. I'll just have to see how well I can put it together. It was indeed an interesting episode, and it's a bit too bad we didn't get to see more of the bully trio's dynamic. But filling in the gaps is what fanwork is for, I suppose. Best of luck to you as well, and I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving as well.
3553278
Heh, good point.
That was made of so much adorable that the Cake Twins in a ticklefight would be hard-pressed to compete with it. You did a great job conveying emotion without explicitly pointing it out, and the little touches of the girls talking about their families really fleshed out their characters and gave them a sense of "being in a larger world" despite the story being so very short. It's something a lot of writers don't really think about, as focused as they can be on conveying a given moment. It feels like a small part of the bigger story of life instead of a self-contained moment of time devoid of context.
Very, very well done.
3557572
"If a thing like this is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right."
- Raoul Duke/Hunter S. Thompson
Thank you very much. For this piece, I just did what felt right to me and tried to make something worth reading, even if it doesn't have much going on plot-wise. Having them talk about their families seemed like the thing to do, since it's what I figure these two kids would probably talk about on a weekend when school isn't on their minds as much.
I typically strive for authenticity and a true-to-life feel with my work, and this story is no exception. If it makes it feel like this is part of a larger world where more than just this moment occurs, that's because it really is and this moment is just what we're happening to see right now. That's how I see it, anyway, but I'm not most people. I'm also a veteran roleplayer (mostly tabletop), so that probably has something to do with it. I'm glad you liked it.
Loved it!
D'awww!
A nice vignette, and one which succeeds in making Ponyville's least sympathetic characters seem human. Well, equine. Nicely done.
3767271
Thank you kindly. I did my best to portray them as being not flat antagonists, but just two friends spending time together.
Very sweet story.
I enjoyed it a lot.
Dawwww
Now that's how you tell a gal you like her.
Cute.
Cute story, I really like it. Thumbs up!
awwwwwww! They didn't kiss!
It was a great story, though
I read it again, maybe for the third or fourth time actually. And I have to say you REALLY succeeded in what you set out to do. I love how both Silver and Diamond seemed to know what the other was talking about even though neither just came out and said it. It feels so natural and a precursor to having them develop their relationship beyond mere friendship.
Once again this is one of my fav fics depicting my OTP. Thanks so much for writing!
Awww, this is cute! Silver's confession does seem a little sudden though, but otherwise, beautiful imagery!
8610228
Hmm. Now that you mention it, yeah, it kinda comes outta left field. Could've had a better lead-in. Ah well. Thank you kindly, and I'm glad you liked it.
Very nice story, I love these two characters together. I am a big fan of Astronomy - and seeing Silver Spoon interested in it makes her even more of my favorite character.