Dink of Disaster
"Mommy?"
Ditzy's ears perked, and she set the dish she was washing on the kitchen counter. That tone, that careful blend of hesitance, guilt, and weaponized cuteness, deserved only one response.
The pegasus reached the entry hall, dishcloth still in wing, and sighed. "What did you do?"
Dinky scowled and opened her mouth, probably to defend herself. A moment later, she shut it and slumped into a sitting position. "I, um, I kinda broke the bully."
Ditzy processed this for a moment. "The bully."
"Uh huh."
"Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon?"
"Tiara."
"And not any of her possessions. You broke the bully herself."
"Yeah."
Further pondering took place. "How, exactly?"
Dinky simply squinted her eyes shut. Her horn gave off a faint glow, much dimmer than usual. She then jolted up and clapped her forehooves over it. "Ow ow ow ow ow..."
"My little filly's first overchanneling." Ditzy leaned in to nuzzle her wincing daughter. "From the sound of it, you got exactly what you deserve." Her smirk collapsed on itself. "But I still don't like seeing you in pain. Come on, food will help."
"Um..."
Ditzy whipped her head from side to side. That hadn't come from Dinky. Something had snuck by her. It sounded like a filly, but—
"Oh, yeah." Dinky blushed. "Um, can we have Diamond Tiara over for lunch and mbfxrmgc?"
Diamond Tiara? Well, that would explain the matter of who — though it also meant Ditzy wasn't totally ruling out demons — but it didn't address where. The filly's lone utterance had been too quiet and brief to pin down her position, and she wasn't showing up at all... on... mana sight.
Ditzy ceased her pacing about the front hall. "Dinky? What exactly did you just say?
"Can we have Diamond Tiara over for lunch and mbyfxhrmgc."
Ah. What Ditzy had thought she'd said. "Maybe fix her magic?"
Dinky gulped. "Um. Yeah. That."
"What do you mean 'maybe'?" There was Diamond Tiara's voice again. She'd probably wanted the question to sound indignant, but it came out more horrified than anything.
Still, it was enough for Ditzy to pinpoint the pink filly. More or less. Her eyes kept sliding off of her, but when the pegasus could focus, Tiara made for quite a sight. She was devoid of the faint light Ditzy saw in everypony. She seemed almost... compressed. Flat. And that was just her metaphysical appearance. The fur under her eyes was tear-soaked, her body shook with suppressed sobs, her tail was held tight against her backside...
Ditzy had no love for the spoiled little monster that thrived on the suffering of her peers. This wasn't that pony. This was a filly who'd had not just the rug but the whole darn house pulled out from under her. "Alright," Ditzy sighed, "I'll fix this as best I can." She turned back towards the kitchen. "Come on, Diamond."
Judging from the sound of the hoofbeats behind her, the earth filly was tottering like a month-old foal. "Th-thank you, Miss Doo."
Ditzy winced, then winced at wincing just because Diamond Tiara was being sincerely polite. "Dinky, I'm going to need details. What you did, how you did it, as much as you can give me."
"Well..." Dinky hesitated. Ditzy wanted to believe she was gathering her thoughts. "It all began when she said..."
"Oh look. It's the dud."
Dinky paid Diamond Tiara no heed. Just keep walking, she told herself. The bully can't do anything if you don't let her.
"Aw, has the dud gone deaf?"
The sound wasn't fading. Tiara was following her. Dinky kept walking. The nuisance was probably just bored. Stay uninteresting and she'd move on.
"Well, it's a perfect match, really. A mom who can't see and and a daughter who can't hear."
Right, that did it. Dinky whirled on her tormentors. "What do you two–" Tiara was alone. "Where's Silver Spoon?"
Tiara rolled her eyes. "Piano lessons."
Dinky tilted her head as she thought over the earth filly's actions. "Were... were you talking to yourself, trying to get a rise out of me?"
Tiara scowled. "It worked, didn't it?"
"And you went after my mom's eyes? Really? After she saved the town? And the universe?"
Tiara snorted. "Please, everypony knows it was Twilight Sparkle and her friends, like always."
Dinky recalled a maddened creature of pure energy, ready to split the world in two in order to save it. "Do they?"
"Duh, when is it ever anypony else?"
"Sure, whatever." Dinky turned around again. "I don't have to stand here and listen to this."
"Yeah, go and play with the Blank Flank Brigade." The voice remained constant. Tiara was still following her. "At least they don't have complete failure for a special talent."
"And they don't kill time trying to make other ponies feel bad about themselves. Aren't you rich? Shouldn't you be ordering servants or learning how to run a business or something?"
"Not if I don't want to. And right now I don't."
"You'd honestly rather heckle ponies than do anything else?"
Tiara hummed at that. For a moment, Dinky hoped she'd gotten the bully to actually take a look at herself. "You know," the bully finally said, "you may be a waste of a unicorn, but you're a decent dictionary. 'Heckle.' I like that word."
Dinky came to a sudden halt, Tiara nearly walking into her tail. The unicorn took a deep breath and turned back to her tormentor. "What do I have to do to get rid of you?"
The earth filly gave a half-lidded, sneering grin. "Are you kidding? You're standing up to me better than my entire class put together. You're interesting."
Maybe it was Tiara's aside. Maybe it was to disprove that "waste of a unicorn" comment. Maybe it was just the sheer desire to be rid of her. Whatever the reason, the wheels in Dinky's head started turning. "I think I get it."
"Good. I wasn't sure how much simpler I could make that."
"You couldn't," Dinky muttered, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. "It's right there on your flank."
Diamond Tiara frowned. "What?"
"A tiara. A crown. What does it mean? Authority. The authority of a monarch. Somepony who was born important."
Tiara primped a bit at that. "Go on."
"Not because she's done anything."
That got a frown. "Don't go on."
The faint glow over Dinky's horn and behind her eyes made it clear that that wasn't going to happen. "There's no reason she's important, no source for her authority. She just is. She just has it." She wandered into an alley, Tiara tailing her. "She can be the rudest, cruelest little beast on four hooves, and it won't matter, because that unquestioned authority is still there." Dinky blinked, and the glow dispersed. She focused back on a scowling Tiara. "It all makes sense now."
The earth filly shook and sputtered like a sealed teakettle. "You little... I can't believe..." And then the teakettle burst. "How dare you!? I am going to my daddy and he's going to make sure that retard mother of yours gets run out of town on a rail, and you along with her!"
"If you were a unicorn, you'd probably have talent with mind control spells."
"Did you hear me, you little purple horse apple? I'm going to ruin your life!"
"If a pegasus? Probably would've been a decent flier. You'd browbeat the air into submission."
Diamond Tiara shoved her muzzle into Dinky's. "Pay attention when I'm yelling at you!"
The unicorn smirked. "But you're an earth pony. Your magic is subtle, passive, constant. And that's the key. You always command respect. That's why you're the most popular filly in your class despite being... well, you."
"Then respect me!"
"No. Because I know the trick now. I know what to look for. That's what my special talent is, Tiara. I know how magic comes together." The glow returned to Dinky's eyes and horn in a blinding refulgence. "And I know how to take it apart."
It is difficult to describe what Diamond Tiara then felt to any creature that doesn't normally possess a high amount of innate magic. Think of it as the silence that comes when a sound one has heard all one's life comes to an abrupt halt, the sudden inability to perceive the color orange, the spontaneous and unwelcome transition from nudity to nakedness (distinguished largely by the crippling sense of vulnerability.)
Her legs shook, and there was an indefinable shallowness to her footing. Her mane felt strangely limp, and her tiara leaned to one side of her head. Her gut clenched, and she felt fear — not anxiety or shock or indignation but true bowel-loosening, thought-freezing fear — for the first time since she got her cutie mark. "Wuh..." Tiara paused and licked her lips. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth. Her eyes couldn't focus, kept darting from side to side. Nothing felt right. "What did you do?" Not even her speech sounded right. That was supposed to have been an angry demand. It came out like a frightened kitten's squeak.
"I..." Dinky staggered. Her vision blurred, spots briefly dancing before her eyes. She could feel the heat radiating off of her horn. She sat, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on breathing. "I don't feel so good."
"You don't feel so good!?" There, thought Tiara. That was a bit better. Still far wimpier than anything that should've come out of her throat, but still. She stumbled to the resting unicorn and shoved her. This only pushed Tiara herself backwards and made her feel like she'd run a mile. "What about me? What did you do to me?" Darn it, that was just whiny.
Dinky grimaced and flattened her ears. "Not so loud," she hissed.
Diamond Tiara planned on shrieking "I'll be as loud as I want!" Somewhere between brain and tongue, it became a plaintive "What did you do?"
The unicorn gave a pained chuckle. "Weren't you listening? No, of course not. I tore your magic apart, Tiara." She sucked a breath in through her teeth as her cooling horn started to ache like it was caught in a vice. "Never gonna do it again."
"Okay, fine, you proved your point." Tiara dredged up her courage. She wasn't sure if she could do this. "I... I'm s-s-sorry I said you failed at being a unicorn." Despite being surrounded by wrongness, she smiled for a moment. Just for a moment. "Now fix this!"
"Dunno how," Dinky mumbled. Her legs splayed out. "'M tired. Real tired. Too much magic."
Tiara gawped. "Don't fall asleep! This is an emergency!" She tried to shake the other filly by her withers, but couldn't get a grip. She settled for poking Dinky in the side. "Get up!"
"Don' wanna."
"I'm. Going. To. Keep. Poking. You. Until. You. Do." True to her word, Diamond Tiara punctuated every word with another jab to the ribs. "So. Get. Up!"
"Ugh, fine." Dinky struggled to her hooves, head drooping, eyes still mostly shut. "Now I know how Mommy feels after the Hearth's Warming rush." She noticed Tiara had moved in front her, pouting. "What?"
"Fix me!"
The unicorn sighed. It felt like her whole body was made of lead. "You're not going to leave me alone until I do, aren't you?"
"Yes! Wait, no!" Tiara groaned. "Whichever one means I get back to normal!"
Dinky took in the filly before her, the welling tears, the listing tiara. She'd done this to another pony. Not a very nice pony, but a pony, a person, all the same. If she didn't try to fix this, was she any better than Tiara herself?
"What are you waiting for!?" Tiara cried, having no respect for other ponies' internal monologues.
Under her breath, Dinky muttered, "Mommy, you raised me too well." More loudly, she said, "My horn feels like it's going to fall off, and even if it didn't, I wouldn't know where to begin."
"Why not? You wrecked everything just fine!"
"Yeah. It's like blocks. It's a lot harder to build something than to knock it down."
Tiara plopped down on her rump. "Oh."
Dinky rubbed just under the base of her horn as she thought. "You've got two options, I think. Either go to Miss Twilight or—" She shut her mouth far too late, finally realizing where her train of thought was headed.
"Or?"
The unicorn silently regretted not knowing any good bad words. "Or we can ask Mommy."
"And so you came to me," Ditzy concluded. She smirked. "I'm guessing you tried the library first?"
"Twilight Sparkle wasn't there," Tiara muttered around her sandwich.
"Miss Lyra was," added Dinky. "She said Twilight was on some important mission from Princess Celestia." She blushed. "I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay, Muffin." If she was honest with herself, Ditzy knew her ability to cast spells like a unicorn was something of an open secret in Ponyville. After Luna literally shouted her name from the rooftops, ponies were going to pay attention to her, and Rainbow Dash wasn't exactly the most discrete pony in Equestria. Still, ponies didn't like challenges to how they thought the world worked, and could paper over the occasional inconvenient memory. But that depended on plenty of uneventful time after that memory. And yet leaving Diamond Tiara disenchanted wasn't an option.
"So," said Tiara, calmer than Ditzy had heard her all day. "How are we going to do this?"
Ditzy turned to her daughter. "Dinky, can you explain what you did?"
Dinky frowned and pondered the question for some time. She began speaking a few times, but cut herself off after a word or two with a shake of her head. After several such attempts, she admitted, "I don't really have words for it. I remember what happened, but..."
Her mother nodded. "I know the feeling." Some magic defied explanation. After all, the only word that consistently described the Blind Eternities was "indescribable." "Try to remember what you were thinking."
"Well, it was when I figured out what Diamond's cutie mark means. It was kind of like... like getting two puzzle pieces to fit together, and then all the rest coming together around them. Only the puzzle was how her magic is put together. And then I saw somewhere I could hit and make the whole thing fall apart and then I realized I was already starting to and..." Dinky fell silent, looking down, ears flat.
Ditzy understood. "You could've stopped, but you didn't."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, Muffin."
Dinky looked across the table. "I... I really am sorry, Diamond. I never... I shouldn't have done something so terrible, just because you were getting on my nerves."
Tiara remained silent, refusing to look at either Doo. "Diamond Tiara?" Ditzy prompted.
"What?" the filly spat. "Accepting her apology isn't going to fix anything."
Ditzy rolled her eyes. She'd led the pony to water, but she wasn't going to dunk her head. "Well, I'm fairly certain I can."
"'Fairly'?" The shout was fearful, yes, but there was some of Tiara's usual fire and scorn there as well.
"Well, you aren't dead, which is always an encouraging sign." Ditzy held back a smirk at the look of shock this garnered. "That means that Dinky didn't implode your soul or anything else irreversible. However, she didn't just sever your access to your magic. I'd still be able to sense it if that were the case." Such a nice, ambiguous word, "sense." Ditzy allowed the next smile to come. "So, I think we're going to clear two clouds with one kick."
Tiara gulped. "What do you mean?"
"Well, this should both fix whatever Dinky did and fix the little moral quandary I've been having over this." Before either filly could ask anything else, Ditzy opened her right wing, channeled sky blue energy into the pinions, prodded Diamond Tiara in the middle of the forehead with one. The earth filly vanished in a puff of mist, which quickly dispersed.
Dinky gaped at this. "Mommy?"
Ditzy pushed in the chair and gathered the dirty dishes. "Yes, Muffin?"
"What did you do to her?"
"Oh, she'll be fine in a few minutes. She won't remember the past... oh, hour or so, I'd say." Ditzy began rinsing off the plate. "It effectively never happened to her."
"Oh." Dinky smiled, feeling a tightness in her heart relax at that.
"Of course, it did happen, and we are going to have a long talk about the responsibility that comes with your powers."
"Oh." There went the smile.
Diamond Tiara blinked and glanced at the sky. The sun wasn't where her usually flawless sense of time said it should be.
She sighed. She must have been so bored she'd spaced out while waiting for Spoony. Still, the lesson should be over any minute now.
A quick jaunt to her friend's luxuriously appointed villa (not as luxurious as her villa, of course,) ate up any uncertainty. Pulling the bell ringer summoned Argent, the Silver family's unicorn butler, in short order. He nodded to her. "Miss Tiara. Your timing is impeccable. The young mistress finished her lessons but moments ago. Would you like me to fetch her, escort you to her, or simply inform her of your presence?"
It was a formality, really. Both knew Diamond wanted Spoon brought to her. Twice the work for the help, none for her, as was right. But as she opened her mouth, the butler's horn gave her pause.
She shook it off. "Escort me, please, Argent." She was in a good mood.
If the stallion was surprised by the deviation from the norm, he showed no sign of it. "Very good, Miss."
They reached the conservatory in short order. Once she saw Silver Spoon, Tiara dashed to her, easily putting Argent out of her mind.
One sugar lump rump bump later, Silver took rare initiative in the conversation as the servants fetched refreshments. "You know, I think we've been going a bit heavy on the Crud-saders."
"Oh?" Tiara sipped at her tea. Adequate.
"Yeah, we may want to branch out a bit, let them think they're off the hook for a little while."
Tiara savored the idea with the tea. "I like it," she declared. "Who should we heckle instead?"
"Heck— oh. Right." Silver took a cookie. "Well, I was thinking, our class is all about the same age. A few moons here or there aren't going to mean much as we get older. A full year, though..."
An odd discomfort made itself known in Tiara's gut. A memory from before she'd mastered the art of passing the bit identified it as guilt. Huh. "That... Spoony, there's making sure everypony knows who's the best, and then there's just bullying little foals."
"And we'll be sure not to cross that line," Silver said breezily. "Besides, the filly I have in mind is too perfect. She's even better than a blank flank! Her cutie mark's a broken wand, for Celestia's sake!"
"No."
Silver Spoon blinked. "Huh?"
"Not Dinky Doo." Tiara had a distant, haunted look. "She's... just no."
"But her mom is—"
"I said no, Silver Spoon." Tiara wasn't sure why she was so certain, but the chill in her heart told her this was a bad idea, and Daddy always said to listen to her instincts. "In fact, this whole idea seems kind of... well, evil."
Silver slumped. "Well, okay. Your call, DT."
Tiara nodded sagely. "Let's just pick on Twist." She smirked. "After all, thhe's harmlethhh."
"And that's how you supercharge peppermint oil!"
"Wow! Thith ith tho cool! I'm tho glad I'm your apprentithe, Mith Bonbon."
Power Dink 3(wu)
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature is 1/1, has no abilities, and can't have or gain abilities.
On a plane as magical as Ungula, the power to suppress magic is fearsome indeed.
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I personally like "Glimpse the Undinkable" best. Man, this chapter is going straight into my headcanons.
Yeah, I can see that as Diamond's special talent. What about Silver, though?
So Power Dink is essentially a more costly Darksteel Mutation? I suppose the benefit here is that you can target the creature affected by Power Dink with a simple kill spell.
Though I suppose not being able to gain abilities is good too.
You forgot Kitchen Dinks.
3950200 Spoonforge Mystic?
What does (wu) mean? Is that supposed to 8e W/U?
~Vriska Serket
Rainbow Dash wasn't exactly the most discrete pony in Equestria.
In that she's almost always intangible and not self-contained?
Think you mean "discreet," there.
... Where did you get the idea Diamond Tiara is the most popular in her class?
I've certainly seen zero evidence of it. Oh sure, lots of people show up to her parties but that's because she's rich and they're enjoying the free stuff. As far as I can tell, she has one friend. One. She doesn't have the customary hangers-on that a popular bully would have at school.
5708162
Diamond's magic can make ponies respect her, but her personality keeps most of them from liking her. Her opinion has undeniable value among her peers. Her favor is desirable, her disfavor devastating, at least when going by the Crusaders. Diamond isn't exactly given much chance to shine beyond acting as their antagonist, so we don't really know whether the rest of the class respects her from afar or is just mooching off of her extravagance. Furthermore, the class consists of maybe a dozen ponies, and the rest aren't exactly titans of charisma. The Crusaders are social nonentities when they aren't abusing their connections to royalty, and the rest have no indications of personality whatsoever. "Most popular" just means "more popular than anyone else."
(Also, this is a setting where a pegasus is casting spells using a system largely incompatible with pony magic as we know it, and that's the bit that you question?)
The explanation of Tiara's magic is the best part of this chapter for me! But the rest of it is just great!
"bowel-loosening, thought-freezing fear — for the first time since she got her cutie mark." ... Wait... does her Mark give Confidence too? So her mark means: Unshakable Ruler?
When else did she feel such fear?
Typo:
"At that's the key."
Dinky was incredibly awesome this chapter. Between doing the magical equivalent of a Kirk Summation and her going 3/4 Ender Wiggin on DT, this stuff was great.
You really need to start using [hr]’s to indicate your scene changes.
Hmm... If Dinky can figure out how a pony's Talent works... Could she replicate the talent in a spell?
Although, even if she could, the 'figuring out' part seems to take focus or time or something?
7639904
It would take a while to figure out, especially non-unicorn magic. Even then, it may still end up being outside Dinky's own capabilities. No amount of magical dissection will allow her to perform a Sonic Rainboom, for example.
7639924
Perform one, no.
Create one, yes.