Collapse, Collide

by Zombificus

Recrudescence

Filthy Rich sat at the desk in his cosy office, trying to work through the never-ending stack of paperwork which obscured much of its surface. Trying, yes, but failing: tonight held more in store for him than paperwork, and he was too excited by the prospect to concentrate. He'd returned from Ditzy's house nearly an hour ago and ever since, he'd been unable to shake the peculiar mixture of gleeful anticipation and inexplicable dread which had come over him at the thought of seeing Cheerilee again. He hadn't felt like this in... well, years, now that he thought about it.

How long had it been since he had last spent time with a friend? A long time, certainly; too long... Cheerilee couldn't arrive soon enough. Abandoning his half-hearted paperwork sorting, he pushed his comfortable chair back from the desk and stood. Stretching, his back popped and he sighed in satisfaction before straightening up again and trotting to the door to his office. Turning the handle, he pulled the door open and stepped out onto the landing, before making his way steadily down the staircase to the ground floor.

A glance at the clock told him that Cheerilee should be arriving in the next hour, so he casually went about the process of setting up the little movie theatre he'd had installed next to the wine cellar in the basement. He hummed as he worked, setting up the well-worn sofa for use in place of the more traditional cinema seats he'd use with business guests. The seats were top-of-the-line and very comfortable, but both Rich and Diamond preferred the sense of togetherness the sofa provided, and he hoped Cheerilee would feel the same way. Satisfied with his work, he headed on upstairs to his movie collection, selecting a few he thought his friend might like.

As he was setting these down on the table, a knock on the door caught his attention and he went to answer, although the clock told him that Cheerilee wasn't due to arrive for nearly another half hour. Humming to himself, he trotted through the living room, weaving between the furniture on his way to the front door. The knocking stopped, and Rich was close enough to hear the patter of hoofsteps pacing back and forth on the porch.

A moment before he got to the door the knocking resumed, so when he removed the chain and opened the door, a pink hoof arced through the air, freezing in place just short of his broad chest. Following the hoof back along the leg to its owner, Rich's eyes met the bashful face of Cheerilee, nervousness showing through her grin.

"Uh... Hi, Rich!" Said Cheerilee, lowering her outstretched hoof to the ground and chuckling nervously, though the fillyish sparkle in her eyes didn't fade.

Rich returned her grin, leaning casually against the doorframe as he greeted his friend. "Hi, Cheerilee. I... uh, I didn't expect you so early. I mean- Not that that's a bad thing, I'm glad you're here." He flushed slightly at his near faux-pas, but Cheerilee seemed not to have minded.

"Glad to be here, Rich." Cheerilee's grin widened, before falling in returning nervousness. "I'm not... too early, am I?"

Rich practically jumped to assuage her doubts, wincing a moment later at his own over-eagerness. "No, no! Not at all. I was just picking out some films we could watch, actually, so it's good you're here now. We can choose together this way... I guess being a teacher has given you a knack for being in the right place at the right time, huh?"

Cheerilee laughed, eyes crinkling as her smile stretched towards her ears. "Maybe, maybe. I'm just glad I'm not too early, that could've been awkward."

Smiling contentedly, Rich stood up straight and took a few short steps back into the house. "Yeah, it could have. Uh... if you're ready, come right on in and we can get started picking what to watch."

Cheerilee followed him inside, gently closing the door behind her, and trotted alongside Rich as he wandered over to the table where he'd left the films he'd picked out. As he slowed, she nudged him lightly and he turned his head to hear her say: "Hey, you know, it's good to see you again, Rich."

He beamed, tenderness in his eyes, and rubbed the back of his neck absent-mindedly. "Thanks! Ah.. you too, Cheerilee, really good to see you..." He trailed off as he arranged three of the films in front of his friend on the table. "Now: Total Recall, Ghostbusters or The Empire Strikes Back?"

Cheerilee hesitated, her hoof hovering indecisively over the movies. "Which one do you think I'd prefer?"

Rich met her question with a bashful grin, his hoof back to rubbing the back of his neck, and chuckled softly."...No, I meant: which do you want to watch first?"

The schoolteacher laughed musically and drew one of the films off of the table in her hoof, her gaze meeting Rich's own, who happily matched her grin. Looking away with matching blushes, the pair stood together for a moment, before Rich snatched up the other two movies and gestured to the stairs down to the cinema.

"Shall we?" He asked, and Cheerilee laughed again. Rich sighed happily; Sweet Celestia, he'd missed this.

*

Overshadowed by the hospital at their backs, four fillies made their way along the path from the hospital to the rest of Ponyville. One of them, the smallest, skipped along light-hoofedly, whilst the second-tallest took steady, measured steps by her side. The tallest of the four wobbled on her hooves, watched in concern by the final member of the group, poised to catch her at any moment.

"Copper," Diamond called, halting her friend mid-step, "Copper, stop." Planting her raised hoof back on the ground, the pegasus turned to face her. Hurrying to her side, Diamond pressed herself up against her friend supportively. "Lean on me, let me take the weight for you, okay? That's better... maybe you could put your wing over my back? Would that help?"

"Thanks." Copperwing croaked, complying and unfurling one shimmering wing over Diamond's back, with which she held her friend close, leaning her weight onto the smaller filly. The duo began moving again, much steadier now that Diamond had lent her support, and joined Dinky and Auburn where they waited further along the path.

Auburn seemed happier now, no doubt due in part to her having Dinky's undivided attention (and limitless enthusiasm), and as the group slowly proceeded into town, the upbeat tones of their happy conversation filled the air. Their talk morphed into a good-natured debate about Legends of the Three Kingdoms lore: Auburn argued with logic and reason, whereas Dinky's eloquent ripostes were more along the lines of 'but the Griffons look cooler', and as Auburn apparently won the argument with a nigh-incontrovertible point, Dinky responded by booping her on the muzzle and declaring herself the victor. Auburn rolled her eyes, unable to erase the grin on her face, while Diamond and Copperwing met each other's gaze with a knowing smile.

"Better now?" Diamond asked, nuzzling Copperwing lightly on the cheek. Though she couldn't see it, close as she was to the other filly, Diamond could hear the smile in Copperwing's voice as she replied fondly.

"Yeah, much better; thanks, Dee-Tee... You know, it's really strange to think we've only been friends for a week or so; I don't know how I coped without a friend like you."

"Aw..." said Diamond, touched. "Thanks, Copper."

They fell silent again, comfortable in each other's presence, before Copperwing eventually broke the quiet.

"Getting back home is going to take forever."

"Yeah, I don't think we'll be sprinting to any gold medals at this pace."

"Sorry. I don't mean to be such a burden, Diamond, I just-"

"Stop. Stop right there. Look at me, look into my eyes and listen. You are not a burden - not to me, not to anypony. You're kind and funny a-and beautiful and forgiving to a fault; you're everything I'm not, everything I want to be, so please just stop, okay? You're my best friend, Copper, and I'm not going to let you get hurt again, even if it means protecting you from yourself."

Diamond had leaned her neck out so she could look right at her friend as she spoke, and Copperwing had done as Diamond asked, so the earth filly was able to watch in close detail as her friend's eyes widened in shock, then softened in gratitude, then took on another emotion Diamond couldn't quite place. As the heat of the moment cooled, and the two watched each other's eyes, Diamond became acutely aware of how close Copper's face was to her own, blushing deeply as she realised that were it not for both of them leaning their necks away from one another, their muzzles would be touching. The awkwardness in the air was thick enough you'd need a knife to cut it, but Diamond, in her infinite stubbornness, refused to look away until she was sure the message had gotten through to her friend.

"Please, Copper, don't ever think of yourself like that. I care about you, we all care about you, and it hurts to see you like this. I know it's hard not to think that way when you're down, Celestia knows I do it too much, but promise me that you'll talk to me when you feel like this?"

Copperwing, her own face as furiously crimson as Diamond's, nodded as she tried to put words together in response, fighting her suddenly uncooperative tongue every step of the way.

"I-I uh, yeah, I promise, Diamond."

Diamond smiled and broke eye contact, raising her hoof to move on, only to freeze up as Copperwing leaned in and nuzzled her tenderly on the cheek. Pulling back a little, it was Copperwing's turn to freeze in indecision, before wincing in anticipatory regret and shooting her lips forward to leave a fleeting kiss on her friend's cheek. Blushing furiously, neither filly could look quite muster up the courage to look at the other, a sharp contrast to their endless eye contact earlier.

Copperwing, noticing that their friends had gotten even further ahead during their awkward little exchange, said: "W-we should get moving."

Diamond, without turning her beetroot face to face her friend, agreed. "Oh, y-yeah. Uh, let's go. Left front first?"

Copperwing, who'd become lost in her own stream of thoughts, started in confusion. "W-what? Oh, yeah, yeah; left front first."

Both fillies stepped, but at different times, and they swayed dangerously. Various apologies volleyed back and forth between the two, and with some effort and a little luck, they were able to right themselves again.

"Okay," commented Diamond, rolling her eyes. "Well, that went well."

In response, Copperwing snorted, a small grin breaking out onto her face.

Diamond, relaxing a little and taking command again, tried to restart their attempt to catch up. Ignoring Auburn, who was smirking knowingly back at her from further up the path, she swivelled her eye to glance at Copperwing.

"Alright, let's try that again. Since we apparently can't walk in sync anymore, we'll just have to use the numbers."

Copperwing groaned. "Oh, come on. I haven't had to use the numbers since I was three!"

Diamond refused to back down. "Neither have I, but our team efforts seem to be as stable as a two year old's, so we'll both have to suck it up and deal with the numbers until we're walking like grown fillies again."

Her pegasus friend let out a whine of annoyance, but made no other move to reject the proposal.

"You ready?" Asked Diamond, planting all four of her hooves in the starting position used in conjunction with the numbers to teach foals how to walk.

"Let's get this over with," replied Copperwing, reluctantly mirroring her friend.

"Okay... One!" Together, the fillies stepped as one.

"Two," grumbled Copperwing. Again, the fillies stepped in unison.

"Three!" Diamond said, falling into a drill instructor's tone.

"Luna-cursed four."

"One!"

*

Elsewhere in Ponyville, another pair of ponies headed along their own route. These ponies, however, did not travel together. The lead pony, a grey-coated, silver-maned filly whose indiscriminate glare sent foals and adults alike scurrying out of her path, strode purposefully through the buildings on the edge of the growing town. On her flanks was her namesake, but nopony here needed to see it to know who the filly was. She was the one they'd all hoped to have seen the last of: Silver Spoon.

The second pony, shorter than the average adult, followed Silver Spoon from a distance, features concealed under a faded, light grey cloak. They moved along the outsides of the crowds, keeping to the edges of the street and keeping as close to cover as they could, in case their quarry should look back. Whereas Silver stalked forwards like a filly possessed, this pony walked in an unhurried, almost casual way. Looking closely, though, someone might see a tension in the way the follower held themself, a tension which spoke of a pony deliberately holding back for stealth's sake.

Silver Spoon turned the corner, and made her surefooted way to the door of a house along the street onto which she'd turned. Spoon stepped confidently up to the door and knocked, the scowl on her face vanishing and a saccharine look of innocence replacing it, complete with puppy-dog eyes and an angelic smile. The door opened and a dark grey mare poked her head out, smiling as she caught sight of her visitor.

"Oh, hello, Silver! How's my favourite niece doing?"

"Hi, Auntie Sheen," chirped Silver. "I'm doing wonderfully, thanks! Is Gleam home?"

"Yes, she is. Did you want to see her?"

"Yes, please, Auntie Sheen."

Smiling kindly, Sheen turned away and led Silver Spoon into the house, gesturing up the stairs with a hoof.

"She's just up there, Silver. Call me if you need anything!"

The older mare trotted off into the house, and Silver muttered insults under her breath, her scowl returning as she turned away from her aunt with a rude parting gesture and stormed up the stairs.

Having seen their quarry vanish around the corner, the follower had sped up to move after her, but skidded to a halt and turned back the way they'd come, their attention caught by something they'd passed. The cloaked figure approached a lanky colt with a cream coat, a brown mane and - most importantly to the follower - a new and expensive looking camera around his neck.

"Hey, you there," said the cloaked pony, their voice clear but quiet, and deliberately absent of ill-intent. The colt started, but did not step back, to the cloaked pony's relief.

"Me?" he asked, pointing at himself with a hoof. "Uh, what do you want?"

"I need to borrow your camera... I have one of my own, but yours is better suited to what I need right now."

"Erm... What's your camera, if you don't mind me asking?"

The cloaked pony, with some effort due to their hood, pulled their own camera from around their neck and held it out to the colt.

"A Crystalclear 5470? B-but mine's just a Shutterbug T80, yours is worth five times as much! What do you need mine for?"

The cloaked pony snorted. "If price meant quality, I wouldn't need yours, would I? For all its so called 'advancements' the 5470's really not as good as it should be. I need a clear shot through glass. The 5470's good for a lot of things, but it's far from the best for that; yours, on the other hoof, is more or less perfect for my needs. I tried to find one myself, but it's discontinued."

"Oh... Okay." The colt narrowed his eyes. "How do I know you'll bring it back?"

The cloaked pony hoofed him their camera. "We'll swap cameras. You keep mine while I use yours. If I don't bring yours back, or I break it, you can keep the 5470. Do we have a deal?"

The colt hoofed over his own camera. "Yeah, we have a deal. I'm Featherweight, by the way; what's your..." Featherweight trailed off: the cloaked pony had gone. "Oh... Never mind," he sighed.

*

"Daaaaaaad! Daaaaad, we're hoooooooome!"

Auburn, with her head stuck through the door to her house, took a deep breath and continued calling for her father. Beside her, Dinky hopped up and down, doing something resembling a cheerleader dance, possibly in support of her friend, possibly just because she wanted to. Behind this dynamic duo, Diamond and her sister stood together, still entwined in Copperwing's wing-hug; whilst silent, they were comfortably so.

"Daaaaaad!" Auburn called again, unrelenting. "Daaaaa-"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" replied a deep voice from within the house. "Pipe down, you noisy rascal, I heard you the first time!" Despite his gruff tone, there was clear affection in his voice, and his hoofsteps were quick with excitement.

Auburn backed up to give her father full view of the fillies gathered on his porch and moments later, he stuck his head out of the door in unintentional mimicry of his daughter just a few seconds before.

"Hey, Dad." Auburn greeted casually.

"Hey, Wakey, good to see you home - and with half the town in tow, it seems!"

"Daaaad!" Auburn whined, cringing at the nickname. "Don't call me that!"

"Come on, Wakey, it's not as if you're the only one with a nickname. Can't a father just be happy to see both of his daughters home safe without having to deal with teenage angst?"

"No." Auburn pouted, though she couldn't quite stop her smile from breaking through.

"Ya know," Dinky began, earning an interested glance from Brass Twister. "Now that you mention it, I can think of somepony else with some embarrassing nicknames... A certain business-stallion's precious Little Gem, also going by the alias Dee-Tee."

Now it was Diamond's turn to blush in embarrassment. "Dinky!" Diamond complained, her reaction lessened in severity a little by the reassuring squeeze of Copperwing's wing. Noticing the movement, Twister looked over to his elder daughter and her friend and smirked playfully.

"Oh, I see you pair have gotten closer, hmm? Tell me, when's the wedding?"

Both fillies blushed furiously, turning radiant crimson at the teasing question.

"D-Daaad!" Copperwing spluttered, unconsciously squeezing Diamond tighter with her wing for comfort. "I-I... W-we are not a c-couple!"

"Is that so?" Teased her father.

"Y-yes," answered Diamond, regaining the ability to speak. "Copper's... still a little weak so I was just giving her support while she walks. That's... uh, that's all."

"A likely story!" Brass Twister declared with playful dramatism, though his teasing smirk gradually fell into a sincere smile. "Ah, that's enough teasing for one evening. Come on inside, I was just putting the kettle on."

He turned and trotted back into the house with Auburn hot on his heels, though she couldn't resist sending a look of barely contained schadenfreude back at Diamond and Copperwing. Dinky paused for a moment, waiting long enough to leave one last comment.

"For what it's worth, you'd make a pretty cute couple... Almost as cute as your dad and Miss Cheerilee."

Diamond blinked. "W-what? Dad and Cheerilee are just friends, Dinky!"

Dinky smirked, glancing meaningfully between Diamond and Copperwing. "Just friends, huh?"

With this parting taunt, she pirouetted on the spot and traipsed inside, leaving a bemused and somewhat embarrassed pair of friends standing outside the home. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, during which both fillies had gone back to avoiding eye contact with one another, Copperwing straightened up.

"We... uh, we should get inside," she said, nudging Diamond lightly.

"Y-yeah." replied Diamond.

*

As the two fillies made their way inside, another pony was settling in for the long haul, outside. Cloaked in dull grey and clutching a well-worn camera, the pony perched in a tree overlooking the rear side of a house, specifically that of Dazzling Sheen and Minty Fresh, parents of Argent Gleam and aunt and uncle to one Silver Spoon. Lying flat on their stomach atop one of the thicker branches of the tree, the pony was concealed near-perfectly by the foliage, the only visible trace of them being the battered silver camera they were poking through the leaves.

Squinting through the viewfinder, the cloaked pony angled the camera towards one of the windows, twiddling the knobs atop the camera to zoom in and examine the room beyond. The first window yielded a typical view of a bedroom, with a queen-sized bed and tastelessly flashy decor. It was empty: the pony moved on. The next window was small and made of a deliberately distorted glass; despite the glass concealing the interior, it was a good bet that it was a bathroom.

Huffing in frustration, the pony moved onto the last visible window on the house's upper floor. Movement inside caught their eye, and further zooming confirmed that the room was occupied by two ponies, talking to one another: Argent Gleam and Silver Spoon. The cloaked pony zoomed a little closer and took a shot of the two. There would be no telling if the photo would be useful, but it was better to have too many photos than to miss an opportunity by taking too few.

Within the room, Silver Spoon was moving animatedly, gesturing wildly with her hoof and ranting. The cloaked pony didn't need to hear what was being said to imagine what it must be like in that room, and felt a small pang of sympathy for Argent Gleam, caught in the mad-filly's web. Panning the lens across the room, the cloaked pony took multiple shots of the interior, zooming in occasionally to photograph certain objects within. An antique mirror, a bookshelf filled with enough books to make Twilight Sparkle proud, an issue of the Foal Free Press and a typewriter.

Zooming back out after photographing the typewriter, the shutterbug caught a glimpse of Silver Spoon's face, a face twisting into an eureka expression with such malice behind its joy of realisation that it made the photographer shiver. The cloaked pony took a photo and zoomed back out to the usual levels, following Spoon across the room with rapid clicks of the shutter, before gasping quietly at the sight of Silver Spoon picking up the Foal Free Press newspaper and turning triumphantly to Argent Gleam, gesturing pointedly at it with a hoof. The shutterbug captured all of this with multiple photos in quick succession: this was important.

In their eagerness to photograph all this, however, the cloaked pony forgot to take their camera's flash into account, and had to yank the camera back through the leaves as Argent Gleam, her eye caught by the rapid flashes, stared out of the window with a piercing intensity. The cloaked pony hid there, deathly still, not wanting to look through the camera and check that the coast was clear for fear of revealing herself if Gleam was still watching. After several minutes of this, they finally mustered the courage to push the camera back through the leaves and check the viewfinder, letting out a sigh of disappointment at the sight of an empty room.

Clambering back down from the tree, which hindered their descent by attempting to steal the cloak off of their back, the cloaked pony left the scene and returned from the small park in which they'd found the tree to the residential roads leading into Ponyville's main street. They had a camera to return and, more importantly, photos to get developed. The cloaked pony knew one thing for certain: whatever Silver Spoon was planning, whatever it had to do with that newspaper, it wouldn't be good, and it was up to them and them alone to stop it. Rejoining the main street, the cloaked pony slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

*****

Author's Note:

Obscure chapter title is obscure. I wanted to call this chapter 'Return', but I already did that, so I had to go synonym hunting and found a pretty fitting word. To recrudesce, according to Dictionary.com, means 'to break out afresh, as a sore, a disease or anything else that has been quiescent.' This, I feel, is quite apt given who's made her comeback.

Comments

[dracone]

Nice to see Copper's home again, but it'll still be a while longer before her mom is out of the hospital as well.

[Rhanoa]

I hope DeeTee will have unfair school bonus thanks to the "friendship" between her father and her teacher.