Imploration
Diamond Tiara was sitting at the breakfast table across from her father, trying – but so far failing – to eat her breakfast. It wasn’t that the food was bad; her father employed a group of highly skilled cooks, after all; or even that she didn’t like it; she just had no appetite: the space in her stomach apparently completely full of the whirling butterflies who’d made it their home that morning.
She knew exactly why she felt this way; knew what had her so worked up, but she refused to think about it: that would only make it worse. Think about anything else: Dinky, Auburn and Copperwing, the Cutie Mark Crusaders – Tartarus, even Snips and Snails – anything but the assembly.
There, she’d gone and thought about it now, hadn’t she?
Her eyes and the corners of her lips drooped out of the deliberate, rigid neutrality she’d locked them in; Diamond’s face finally showing the emotion she’d been suppressing all morning: and as she had known he would, her father noticed it.
“Diamond, sweetie, is everything alright?” He asked, leaning over to her with a concern-etched expression.
Diamond gulped. “I’m fine, Dad… Just got butterflies about assembly today.”
Her father’s eyes widened in understanding, before confusion clouded them once more.
“Oh, are you doing a presentation for your schoolwork? You should’ve said something, I have to do those sorts of things for work all the time - I could've helped! Ah, but I’m sure you’ll do fine anyway, you’re a brave filly…”
Much quieter, so that Diamond wouldn’t hear, he added “…just like your mother.”
Diamond supposed she ought to explain why she was worried fully, instead of hiding behind her father’s assumptions. She owed him that much – and after all, she’d done the latter for three years – and how had that worked out?
“Actually, Dad, it’s not a presentation… not exactly, at least. Miss Cheerilee and I thought a good way of gaining a little more understanding from my classmates would be if I told them what happened myself, rather than wait for the rumours to misinform them. I… I still think this is the right thing to do, I’m just scared.”
“What did I say? You are so, so brave – and don’t let anypony tell you otherwise. You’ll do just fine out there, just tell them what you told me and Miss Cheerilee and I’m sure enough of them will listen. After all, the… what do they call themselves? Cutie Mark Crashers? – Anyway, they believed you even after what that filly made you do to them, so the others have got to follow if you say what you said before.”
Diamond smiled in gratitude up at her father: she felt a little better now; maybe the odds weren’t as against her as she’d thought.
“The Cutie Mark Crusaders will be helping me convince everypony – and Dinky, too. I guess it might go okay if our luck holds out… thanks, Dad.”
The gruff stallion’s face softened lovingly, and he beamed affectionately down at her.
“That’s my filly! Now, you’d better start getting ready, Diamond – time waits for none of us, after all.”
Diamond held onto her spark of optimism with both metaphorical hooves as she trotted off to the bathroom to brush her teeth, losing her thoughts in the steady, rhythmic motion of the brush across her teeth. There was nothing she could give today but her best efforts, and that was all anypony could reasonably ask for.
*
Diamond found Dinky and Auburn where they’d first approached her the day before. As she approached the two, she gave them a friendly wave and pondered how she’d gotten so close to them in just one day. To be fair, her apology on Tuesday had probably helped a lot – no insignificant detail that Dinky had always been the sort of foal who wants to get on with everypony – but still, it amazed her how comfortable she felt around two fillies who had been little more than strangers at the start of the week.
“Hey, you two!” She beamed; her worries momentarily forgotten.
“Hi!” responded Dinky in her usual enthusiastic way; beside her, Auburn grinned welcomingly and waved a hoof.
“How’re things?” asked the tall pegasus asked as Diamond arrived outside the classroom, head tilted a little to the side in an unconscious display of her curiosity.
“Alright, I guess… I’m a little worried about the assembly, though. Could hardly sleep last night – I kept thinking of things that might go wrong. It’s the right thing to do, but still…”
She jolted in surprise as her friend pulled her into a hug, a wing curled comfortingly around her back as Auburn’s foreleg held her tightly against the other filly.
Diamond could only blink: she’d have expected something like this from Dinky, perhaps, but the taciturn, no-nonsense pegasus hadn’t seemed remotely the type for physical shows of emotion. Perhaps she’d misjudged her, Diamond mused; held reassuringly under the willow tree of coppery hair.
The embrace only lasted a moment before Auburn pulled away again, but that was more than long enough for Diamond to get the message: this wasn’t a ‘good to see you’ hug or even an ‘it’ll be okay’ hug – and it certainly wasn’t an ‘I love you’ hug – no, this was a hug which said, better than words ever could, ‘I’ve got your back, no matter how it goes out there.’
Blushing slightly, Diamond thanked her quietly and stood a little taller: her waning hope renewed in full. Dinky stepped in now, brimming with optimism as she exclaimed: “It’s gonna go great, Diamond, just you wait and see. We’re gonna go out there and make them understand, and if any of them bother you after that… well, Auburn is the daughter of a former Royal Guard commander…”
As the trio sidled into the classroom, their teacher having finally arrived, Diamond turned to her companions. “Thanks, both of you,” she said, earnestly. “You’re the best friends I could’ve asked for.”
*
Cheerilee was waiting for Diamond in the room behind the stage which had been installed during the school’s expansion: most of the time it was used by the Drama students, but on Fridays it also served as the platform from which whomever was leading the assembly spoke.
“Good morning, Diamond!” Greeted the teacher, smiling down at her student.
“Morning, Miss Cheerilee.” Diamond answered, her mind too focused on the near future to put any enthusiasm into her response.
Cheerilee, sensing the reason behind the filly’s leaden tone, stepped closer and lifted Diamond’s chin to face her, smiling maternally as she spoke words of comfort.
“Diamond, it’s going to be alright, I promise you. I’ll be right by you from start to finish, making sure nopony treats you with anything less than the respect you deserve… I know it’s hard to talk about what happened, but once you do this you won’t ever have to do it again.”
Diamond looked up at Cheerilee for a moment, before her eyes brimmed with tears and she looked away; ashamed at herself for breaking down before she even reached the stage. Whispering soothing phrases, Cheerilee wiped the filly’s tears away with a gentle hoof and after a little while the waterfalls stopped flowing once more.
Wrapping her forelegs around her teacher’s neck, Diamond hugged her briefly before breaking away, embarrassed.
“Thanks…” she muttered, and Cheerilee couldn’t help but smile at her as she added: “I think I’m ready to go out there now… well, as ready as I’ll ever be, at least.”
“Alright then, I’ll go introduce the assembly and call you when it’s time.”
She trotted away, and Diamond looked back down at the floorboards mournfully: the clopping of hooves stopped, however, and she looked up in surprise as Cheerilee called her name: "Diamond?"
“Y-yeah?” she replied, shakily. Her teacher was looking at her with a peculiar expression on her face; it reminded her a little of how her father would sometimes look at her, but with so many unreadable emotions cramming in from all sides it was hard to tell what Cheerilee was thinking.
“I-I know you’ve done a lot of harm in the last three years, but you’ve been so brave to break free from all that and try to make amends. A lot of foals – even a lot of grown ponies – wouldn’t have bothered; but here you are, facing your fears to get the truth out there. You’re becoming a fine young mare, Diamond, and I am so, so proud of you.”
Her proud smile did not drop as she turned away again and slipped out through the curtain onto the stage. Meanwhile, Diamond had to push down the new surge of emotion which threatened to burst her tear ducts with unadulterated joy and instead focus on what she was here to achieve. Listening as Cheerilee began to speak, she sat and waited for her time to come.
*
“Now, the main part of today’s assembly is going to be a little different to the usual. One of our students has something she needs to say to you all, and I am going to let her and some other students who also have something to contribute speak in place of myself.
“I want you to listen to what she has to say and treat her with respect both whilst she is up here speaking and out of this room. I will not tolerate any behaviour to the contrary… remember, the detention rooms always have seats to spare. Now that I’ve said all I need to, it’s time for Diamond Tiara to say her part…”
The students let out a collective gasp of surprise, but said nothing more in fear of Cheerilee’s harsh judgement. The magenta-coated mare in question turned expectantly to the stage curtain, the roomful of fillies and colts holding their breath as the seconds ticked by.
*
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had just arrived when Diamond heard her cue to go out onto the stage, and she took a moment – the time she was spending burning a hole in her mind as she did so – to poke her head out of the door and make sure Dinky was on her way. At the first glimpse of her friend, she ducked her head hurriedly back into the room and trotted up to the curtain, pushing it aside cautiously in fear of what lay on the other side.
The assembly room was far brighter than the darkened room she’d just been in, and Diamond blinked for a few moments to readjust her eyesight. As her vision came into focus again, she saw the encouragingly smiling face of Cheerilee looking back at her, and also the packed hall of students whose gazes she could feel burning into her skin. Gulping, she resumed her trot over to the pedestal from which Cheerilee had been speaking and tried to stay calm.
Panic rose within her at every step, and as she arrived at the pedestal, she found that she couldn’t speak. The urge to bolt from the room spiralled dizzyingly upwards from her heart to her brain, but just before it forced her to act on her fears, a certain pair of pea-green eyes found hers.
It took a moment for her breathing to get back to normal levels again, but with the help of Auburn’s encouraging smile she managed it. Sucking in one last breath as if her life depended on it, she let it out slowly and opened her mouth to speak.
“I-I just want to say, before I begin, that I’m not trying to say that what I did to you all was right, or that it’s all going to get better just because I’m apologising. I only want you to hear me out, just this once… you can think what you like, but please let me say my side of things first.”
Contrary to her expectations, there was no chorus of jeers from the onlookers; indeed, some of them even seemed to relax somewhat and slump back in their seats casually.
“Thank you... I suppose that the best place to begin would be three years ago, when I and Silver Spoon first met. Her family had just moved to the area, and her father wanted to show the mayor that he was doing his part for the community, so he offered my father a deal: he’d supply high-end silverware for dad’s shops and in return he’d get a cut of the profit. You might think I’m going off on a tangent here, but this is actually a big part of how I and Silver even became 'friends' in the first place.
“Anyway, a few months after Silver’s family arrived here, her father arranged a little playdate for me and her to keep us out of the house while our parents made business deals. I’d never really bothered with friends before, but I wanted one and Silver, well, she seemed alright back then.
“Our friendship grew a lot over the next few months, but eventually things took a turn for the worse. She’d driven off all the other foals who might’ve been my friends – not that I noticed that before it was too late – and then she started saying that we were better than everypony else. At first I disagreed, but she put up such a good argument that eventually I started to believe it… I was only ten, what did I know better?
“A little while after that, she started calling other fillies and colts names and encouraging me to join in. She said that we were putting them in their place, that it was just something that the better foals did to the others – and I wanted so badly to be special, to be one of the ‘better’ ponies, that I just went along with it. By the time I came to my senses, it was too late to just walk out – if I even mentioned letting the others be, Silver would threaten me; call me a coward; accuse me of being a ‘common-lover’ – anything she felt like saying.
“I gave up after that, just doing what I was told like a good little filly and trying not to make her mad. I wanted to tell my dad about it, but he seemed so proud that I was ‘getting on so well’ with Silver, and by that point dad’s business wouldn’t survive without Silver’s family supplying us jewellery, so I kept it to myself. I didn’t want to disappoint him, or ruin his work with Silver’s father, so I took the coward’s way out and did nothing at all.”
A full silence had fallen at some point, Diamond only noticed its presence when she took her mind off of talking to examine the crowd of her classmates which currently stared up at her with cloudy expressions. Taking courage from their continued lack of interruption, she continued with her recount.
“From that point, things just carried on the way they had been going. Silver got more and more manipulative and threatening, and I got dragged along into her schemes further and further. I couldn’t go one day without having to please her by calling one of you names, or stealing somepony’s lunch money; and it only got worse as time went on…
“I wish, more than anything, that I had just stopped it all before it even got started… if I had the option to go and change anything in my life, it would be the day I met her. Things would never have gotten to where they are if I had just walked away... But I didn’t, so here I am.
“Anyway, by this time last year it had gotten to the point where if I tried to go easy on you, she’d threaten to hurt me or make up some lie to her parents to mess up daddy’s work. I disobeyed her once, you know… that time I came into school with a black eye and a limp? Yeah, that was Silver’s work. She said she’d hit me until I couldn’t get up again… and that’s what she did – or tried to, at least.”
Unconsciously, she rubbed the foreleg which had taken the brunt of Silver’s vengeance and looked down at her hooves, trying to force back the tears gathering in her eyes.
“I know you all got the worst of it, but my life wasn’t much fun either back then. Ordeals like what she put me through aren’t easy to cope with, and I got unhappier and unhappier as time went on. After a while, even though she terrified me, I started getting angry about what she was making me do – really angry – and I wanted to make it stop. And last summer, I tried to do just that.
“I don’t need to tell you that it didn’t go to plan, but nopony besides the few I’ve told knows exactly what happened. Long story short, I went to Silver’s place to tell her that I wasn’t going to take it anymore... and she laughed in my face... Then she got mad; she just yelled and yelled and yelled at me until I couldn’t speak and then she…”
Diamond stifled a sob. “She- she said that if I didn’t do what she told me to; if I even put one hoof out of line; if I made one simple mistake; she’d go to her parents and make sure that they finished up business with my father once and for all. What sort of choice is that? Keep hurting you, or ruin daddy’s life… what was I supposed to do?!”
The tears came freely now, and she no longer cared enough to stop them, sobbing in between mournful repetitions of “what was I supposed to do?!” as she collapsed heavily onto her rump and took her head in her hooves.
Cheerilee trotted over to her, face painted bright with concern, and helped the filly to her hooves, escorting her off to the side of the stage where Dinky welcomed her with a comforting hug. The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked amongst themselves in indecision, before an assertive intervention from Scootaloo steeled the group to their purpose and they trotted up to the abandoned podium.
Scootaloo, being the one whose idea it had been to take over the role of speaking after Diamond left, naturally ended up speaking first.
“I think Diamond got to the main point of her story; you can all imagine what it would’ve been like for her after that and you know for sure what the results were. And I don’t think anypony here’s been living under a big enough rock not to hear about what she did on Monday – which, for the record, was a magnificent punch – so I’ll skip all that nonsense and get to the point of why we Crusaders are here… and no, it’s not to get a cutie mark in public speaking.
“The point is, we three got the worst of Silver and Diamond’s bullying, but we’ve forgiven her as much as we can manage. We listened in when she told Cheerilee all this on Monday, and no filly’s a good enough actor to fake what we heard her say. She’s a good filly at heart – though, granted, she’s done some horrible things in her life – and if we’ve forgiven her, why can’t you give her a chance. You don’t need to like her, you just need to let her show you how much she’s changed… Apple Bloom, you want to say something?”
“What do you think, asshole” Apple Bloom muttered ill-temperedly, before nevertheless stepping up to the microphone and saying her piece:
“Now, I think I’m like a lot of y’all – Diamond did some nasty things to me, no matter how good her reasons are, and I didn’t really want to forgive her. I still don’t like the filly, but I’ve made peace with her and what she did, and I think y’all should try to do that, too. It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Sweetie Belle was the last of the trio to step up to the podium, and she glanced around nervously before speaking, the large crowd taking her a little by surprise.
“In the end of the day, you have to remember Diamond’s just a foal like the rest of us. We all do things we regret, it just so happened that she couldn’t fix her mistakes as easily as we can fix most of ours: she got dragged into Silver’s schemes, and that vicious little monster of a filly wouldn’t let her go. She did some bad things for some good reasons, but all that’s over now. It’s a new story from now on, and I for one would rather this one had less fighting in it… that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Cheerilee had been watching all of this and congratulated the fillies quietly as they returned to their seats before turning to Dinky and signalling it was her turn to go up there. To the teacher’s moderate surprise, Diamond Tiara accompanied the small unicorn to the podium, at whose enthusiastic wave the third member of their newly-formed friendship circle fluttered up onto the stage from the audience.
“A lot of what I could say has already been said better than I ever could by those three,” Dinky began; capturing the crowd’s attention with her cheerful demeanour despite her slightly lacklustre opening line.
“But the main difference between the Crusaders and us is that they aren’t Diamond’s friends… but we are, and proud of it, too. She apologised to me on Tuesday, and I forgave her there and then – all she’d done to me was take my lunch money… and even though she was sneaky about it, I saw her when she put it back a few months later. I suppose I’ve had an easier time from her than most of you, but my point is that she’s nothing like the filly I thought she was.”
Auburn, who’d been standing to one side and comforting Diamond with her soft-feathered wing, took this opportunity to add her own ideas to Dinky’s monologue.
“The real Diamond Tiara – the one who was hidden from us by Silver Spoon until this week – is a fantastic filly. She’s kind, modest, never too quick to judge and she can be really smart when she wants to be. It’s clear as day that she’s doing her best to make up for what she’s done, and as far as I’m concerned she’s doing an absolutely stellar job of it. Please, give her a chance and I promise you won’t regret it.”
Their pieces said, the fillies stepped back to allow Diamond access to the podium she’d fled from minutes earlier. Her eyes shone with pride rather than tears now, and she managed to smile down at the collected fillies and colts.
“I think we’ve said all we can, and I’m really grateful to you all for listening to it all. Even if we can’t all be friends, the fact that you’ve paid attention through all this makes me feel a little better about my chances of making things right with you all. I just want to say, one last time: I’m sorry; for everything… I’m so, so sorry.”
With that, she left the stage: Dinky on one side and Auburn on the other, heading for her next lesson buoyed by the satisfaction of a job well done. No matter what happened now, she’d done the best she could – with a little help from her friends, of course – and what might come next was momentarilyirrelevant.
She’d done it! 'It' wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t the end of the hurt she’d caused and received, but it was a beginning of something new, and that’s all she really wanted right now.
*****
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Applebloom has a potty mouth.
5210875 Yes, yes she does.
Good thing? Bad thing? Neutral?
This chapter was a bit bitter sweet, and in my opinion that's exactly what it needed to be. Here's to hoping the next chapter isn't delayed due to issues, heck if were lucky we might get to see a double update. Only time, and Zombificus, can tell us for sure.
5212063 Unless I'm incredibly unlucky, this sort of disaster won't happen again. I've been putting backup files of everything I write all over my computer (and on CDs) to avoid this in future. But seriously, who expects their computer to crash and half their files to corrupt?
Probably won't be seeing a double-update, even though I'd really like to (next chapter follows on from this one seamlessly) due to the fact my other story was also hit by the corruption and I need to work on writing the next chapter of that before it's delayed too far. If I finish it before too long, I might be able to upload the next Collapse chapter a little early, but I can't promise you that will happen.
Glad you thought the chapter's mood worked well, I wasn't too sure about whether it was quite right when I uploaded, so it's really heartening to hear.
Well, that went smoothly enough. Seems DT has a ways to go before making things right by Apple Bloom. But it's a start. Auburn is just adorable, but I wonder what will happen from here on?
And might I suggest that thing that saves people from harddrives that die on average within their first two years? Try google documents or just Ctrl+S as often as you can when you write a paragraph or something you're happy with. Even typing on fimfic you can archive your progress. It's a few of the things I do at least. I always expect the worst, especially with anything not directly built with my own hands that's Acer or Dell on it. Though at least Dell has good customer support. Least they used to, haven't owned one since the Dino ages.
Looking forward to the next chapter in these fillies' lives!
5221574 Glad you liked the chapter, and it's great to hear from you again. I've got a fair few good ideas of where to take the story before it ends, some of which I plan to start foreshadowing in the next few chapters, so keep an eye open.
Diamond would indeed have a lot of work ahead of her if she tried to make things right with Bloom: that filly is certainly not going to be starting the Diamond Tiara Fan Club anytime soon.
On a side note relating to Bloom, I am a little surprised no one's noticed the surface-level inconsistency in Apple Bloom's attitude to Diamond: she has gone from organising a bailout for Filthy Rich to nearly refusing to help Diamond with the assembly, after all. I've not yet explained this in any detail in-story yet, but Bloom has never liked Diamond: she just helped out because she isn't the sort to let that kind of thing happen to somepony if she could do something about it, no matter her personal feelings towards them.
In case you were curious about how much longer the story will continue for, the story so far has happened in late May and I intend to end the story when Diamond and Co leave Ponyville Elementary for good in early July. The story so far has taken place over one week, but when it comes down to it Diamond's life - as with everyone's - is rather repetitive, so we won't be having the full two months being told day-to day: instead, I want to focus on her more interesting days with the same level of detail and hour-by-hour pacing I've used so far. We're maybe a quarter of the way through at the minute; perhaps more, perhaps less.
As for the computer situation, I have tried GDocs in the past, but could never figure out how to transfer that over to FimFic successfully. I might try again, though, or I could write the chapters straight up into FimFic and publish them when they're ready. Given the scale of the Wednesday Cataclysm, I am certainly looking for alternative methods of storing my pony-words. Thanks a lot for the suggestions, I'd been a little lost on how else to go about writing than what I've been doing up 'til now.
5223274 Thanks. I keep a pretty close eye on this one and Silver Marriage. Currently, since you two update fairly regularly and the stories are pretty enjoyable. Diamond Tiara stories feel like they've been in a drought for a few months. Not as many epic adventures or comedies as I'd like. But I'm thankful enough there are writers like you two who try to expand and do something meaningful with the characters to make more fun and interesting stories.
The whole Apple Bloom thing, especially after helping DT's dad and that clubhouse scene, I was pretty much at that point thinking you either had a good reason for that or you thought or someone hinted that Apple Bloom's character was just too accepting and nice about the situation and you were trying to rebalanced her without having to rewrite her. With that said, I'm glad it was the former and very much anticipate getting to read more of things unravel. After all,
And don't mention it, if you really want to work offline though I would strongly suggest a USB flashdrive. Personally I prefer MicroSD cards as they can be used in smart phones that don't suck, 3DS(mines came with the adapter to use the older standard size SD cards), and with a simple MicroSD USB stick adapter you end up with so much portability.
Life is pretty much at its busiest. It's only been a couple days now that I've been able to somewhat unwind. Did so finally with some "Tears to Tiara 2" which was like buying an anime boxset in the form of a visual novel that looks like a game that actually DOES have an amazing combat system that you're eventually introduced and broken in to easily, yet has a very fun ranking system with ways to score bonus loot with capturing objectives and completing the battle requirement which is more for people who just love the extra challenge that actually reward the player.
Still, 'playing' is more reading and listening to the characters talk and walk around the game world which pictures of the characters pop up when conversations start and change expressions based on those interactions.
So, Tears to Tiara 2, essentially is just a really good book that doesn't want to be *just* a book or a simple 'visual novel'. It's certainly not for Tales of fans or those big into action. But if you love visual novels. You like anime style with a rather fun cast, and you want a good story, Tears to Tiara can totally deliver on that front. And if you're in to wanting to enjoy the story but don't want to spend the whole day reading, it's 100% fully voiced and comes with an auto-play feature that really does make it feel like you're watching a really low-budget, but very pretty, anime.
And that's all the stream of consciousness I'll be sharing for now. xD
See you next chapter(s)!
P.S. Recently came in possession of a ton of JRPGs games then I can shake a pony at. If a new chapter is ever released and I'm not heard from within 2 days, I'm probably immersed in Tears to Tiara!
Is anyone else waiting with baited breath for Silver Spoon's revenge?
5228192 Shush, you.
You might be waiting a while for it, but it's on the cards. Until then, breathe normally - I can't afford to have you die of asphyxiation, now can I? I won't say any more than that, but you're quite right to fear the return of the grey menace.
Unlike Silver Spoon.