Silver Marriage

by cdcdrr

Hail for the Princess

Chapter 13: Hail for the Princess

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's breakfast was interupted by another crash from the living room, eliciting a deep sigh from the latter.

"I bet you it is this morning's Ponyville Express." Diamond wagered as she got out of her chair to confirm her suspicion.

True enough, another stone had been tossed through their new window, wrapped up in paper. Seperating the rock from paper, she could see it was indeed a page from the newspaper.

"I win." She declared with nary a hint of triumph in her voice.

"What is it this time?" Silver Spoon asked fearfully.

This was already the third window shattered by a rock. The second had come with the page containing the Apple Front's stance on single gender couples Silver had read about. It had seemed to Diamond Tiara that Berry Punch had received the same digest.

"Let's see. Berry Punch has been officially charged for the disturbance at the mayor's estate a week ago. The prosecutor is demanding compulsory rehabilitation in a closed clinic to overcome her alcoholism and that she be fined for damages to the mayor's estate." Diamond neatly folded up the page. "I expect there'll be another newspaper delivery before this trial is over. At least this is more evidence that Berry Pinch is involved."

"You're still not considering Apple Bloom as a suspect? After she was framed by the mayor?" Silver argued.

"Framed for Berry Pinch's deeds, yes. But she's already got a restraining order against us. Funny how swift justice is when it coincidentally banishes your political campaigning to a small corner of Ponyville Market." Diamond Tiara noted.

"A corner that didn't see a lot of traffic from ponies until Apple Bloom established herself there with her soapbox." Silver noted glumly. "I see more ponies listening and taking stuff from her every day I go shopping. It's starting to scare me."

"Well, put those thoughts aside. We're supposed to see the surprise I prepared for you today, so don't let this get you down. I think I'm done with breakfast. You'll clean the table, I'm going to do something about this latest act of vandalism." Diamond declared as she put the newspaper page down.

"Please don't do anything stupid." Silver Spoon begged, knowing it was futile when the authorities were less effective than the resident spirit of chaos.

"I won't. If the mayor's not going to do something about this persistent intimidation, I'll appeal to a higher authority. Just don't touch the crime scene." Diamond demanded before opening the door to leave.

"Please don't take long! I feel vulnerable... while I'm alone in here." Silver Spoon trailed off as she realized Diamond Tiara was out of earshot.

* * *

Diamond's knocking was promptly answered by the pony whose help she hoped to enlist.

"Oh, hello Diamond Tiara." Twilight greeted her. "I hope you're staying out of trouble. Last time I saw you, Discord had rearranged some pony's home. It took them quite a while to fix that. You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with that?" She frowned and Diamond.

"That's actually why I'm here, your highness. Berry Pinch and I have gone back and forth bothering one another, but for weeks now it's turned into outright bullying. Silver Spoon is starting to feel unsafe in our own home, and we keep having to repair the damage she causes." Diamond Tiara explained.

"If that is why you had Discord do what he did, you should have gone to the mayor. She handles disturbances of this sort." Twilight reprimanded her, but Diamond knew better.

"I know that, your highness. The mayor isn't doing anything. I tell her it must be Berry Pinch, she tells me I have no proof despite some of the evidence leading back to her. It's because she dislikes me personally. She's petty and selfish, and doesn't care about the ponies that aren't going to vote for her." Diamond complained, keeping her seething rage bottled.

"Please, call me Twilight." The librarian insisted. "And the mayor doesn't seem like such a heartless pony. I doubt she'd be unwilling to help."

"You are a princess, of course she's putting on her best smile for you even as she scowls at me for pestering her with my problems. You haven't ever had her for a boss, have you?"

"Well, no. But what do your expect me to do?" Twilight asked, sincerely wondering where Diamond was going.

"You must have some kind of authority to exert over her to make her take me serious. I don't expect you to call the royal guard to arrest Berry, just ask her to look into it more seriously and see for yourself how Mayor Mare reacts."

"I have a better idea. Why don't I look into this myself? I've read plenty of mystery novels, I know a few good methods to obtain proof that will get the mayor to take you serious." Twilight offered, beaming brightly and confidently.

"Novels don't make you into an investigator, Twilight." Diamond sceptically told her. "But if you think it'll help my case, I'm not going to turn you down. At this point, any help you give is needed."

"Great. Wait while I get some things ready. Spike can watch the library by himself for today." Twilight ducked her head back inside and could be heard heading up the stairs.

When she returned, she was levitating a bag next to her and wearing a cap on her head.

"A deerstalker? Really? Have you been reading Sureclop Pones?" Diamond Tiara could not resist smacking a hoof against her forehead, even within royal company.

"I was actually re-reading my collection of A.K. Yearli- oh, nevermind." Twilight caught the rhetorical nature of Diamond question in time to avoid embarrassing herself further.

The trip back to the crime scene took only a few minutes, allowing Diamond Tiara to go into detail why Berry Pinch was so angry with her. Twilight gave the usual advice of how to treat a bully, but Diamond wasn't having it. It was too late to be the better pony. Even if Diamond Tiara had created this monster herself. Maybe exactly because of that.

Investigating the outside of the house, Twilight didn't take long in finding something Silver Spoon had failed notice on her last cleanup.

"Aha! A smashed, rotten apple!" Twilight proclaimed triumphantly.

"Yes, Berry had a habit of throwing those at our house." Diamond Tiara explained, rather unimpressed.

"You don't understand the significance, so allow me to extrapolate my dear Diamond." Twilight floated the rather smelly apple up to her face, causing Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara to gag and scramble backward.

"These type of apples are grown here in Ponyville at Sweet Apple Acres. No vendor in town sells these imported. We can already conclude the culprit is either a local, or an out-of-town pony who comes her specifically to harass you two. Which seems too elaborate."

"So it was Apple Bloom after all?" Silver Spoon insisted on casting the hoof of suspicion at their former classmate.

"Unlikely, for one good reason. How would a pony from Ponyville acquire apples in this state of decay? The Apples sell their produce fresh, so it would take a fair amount of time for it to spoil so badly. As funny as it is to throw these at underwhelming artists or politicians, nopony keeps a supply of spoiled foodstuff ready for the off chance they need to voice their disapproval in a non-verbal way. We thus have to conclude that whoever is doing this to your house works with fermented apples in some way." Twilight deduced proudly.

"The Apples sell cider annually. That's made with fermented apples, right?" Silver Spoon tried to argue, only to be shot down.

"Not so. You see, a chronic complaint about Apple Cider Season is that there is never enough of the stuff. The only time there was, it had been made by the Flim Flam brothers, and that was too long ago for this apple to remain intact." Twilight took a second look at the side of the apple that had left a large splotch on the window before correcting. "Well, mostly intact. The point is, this couldn't have been Apple Bloom because her family converts every unsold apple into cider before it spoils. But who else would keep apples in bulk for fermentation?"

"The Apples?" Silver Spoon tried again. She was becoming worried that naming Berry Pinch as the suspect was just making things worse.

"Berry Pinch." Diamond Tiara pointed out the obvious.

"Almost. It's her mother. Aside from wines, she produces the only other locally made cider. And her brewery just went bankrupt, leaving her with a large stock of unused apples unsuitable for sale. That would mean, however, she will not care if somepony took from her stock of old apples. And Berry Pinch would indeed be the pony with the easiest access to them next to her mother."

"That's... quite impressive." Diamond Tiara admitted. This was going better than complaining to the mayor.

"Elementary, dear Diamond." Twilight patted her on the head in a manner she found absolutely patronizing, but refrained from blowing up at the princess.

"So you can nab her now? This is proof." Diamond pointed at the apple, wrinkling her nose at the thought of delivering it to Mayor Mare personally. And the reaction she was most likely to get for depositing it on her desk.

"This is a clue, not concrete proof. I'll have to pursue this lead. But I don't want to keep you two up. I'll do the rest of the investigation while you go about your daily business. Just one more thing." Twilight moved to stand behind the two mares. "Lift your hind legs."

"Uhmmm..." Silver looked back in confusion.

"Your highness, I did not know that you were thus inclined." Diamond shot her a flirty look. "Are you trying to seduce me?"

"I just need to know your shoe sizes and patterns so I can distinguish them from other tracks I may find in the vicinity. It would be easier to got this done right now."

"Very well." Diamond complied, just a tad disappointed. She admonished herself for misbehaving in front of her wife.

A short moment thereafter, Twilight got to work, and Diamond felt it was time to show Silver Spoon the surprise. She left her yard, for the first time not fearing the state the place would be in upon her return.

Author's Note:

It took me a while to force myself to sit down and write this chapter to completion. Holidays induce lazyness. I did enjoy getting to write about Twilight, and there is some fairly obvious influence from MMMystery on the Friendship Express. And in case somebody wonders, yes, the Golden Oakes Library is still intact in this story. Apparently, I'm with the crowd who finds it hard to let go of our beloved treehouse. Or maybe they planted the new one from a seedling of the old tree. Earth Pony organic construction is nifty stuff.

Comments

[MissytheAngle]

This is long overdue, and I apologize. College exams kick you in the rump. I hope you're not upset I'm only going through the first chapter, also, because I do have my reasons. Either way, I'm MissyAngel from WRITE, and as you requested, I'm here to review what I can of your story.

First chapters should not judge what the story's quality is. However, a first impression still needs to be strong in order to keep up the anticipation of the readers, so they'll want to read more. This chapter showcases decent writing, especially when it's your first story her, and I always appreciate good starts. Especially when they're not as bad as one might expect. The writing came across as pretty good overall. However, there are some things that can throw this impression off.

A huge problem I see is that there's a lot of backstory detailing what happened in this one chapter. I'm sure the audience would love to know what happened with Diamond and her father, and the background itself does seem very sad. However, if it's given right at the start, not only do you take time on backstory as opposed to the present story, but tossing info dumps into the first chapter can be downright boring if not done properly. We can't quite feel the emotions as strongly if the whole story is given to us in a single exposition. A good way to do it is by giving us the story piece-by-piece throughout the story. Not so much to make it seem like a mystery, but to keep us wondering more on the background of Diamond Tiara's relationship with her father or Silver's with her parents. If this doesn't seem that important to put like that, then simply minimize what was written down, because if it takes most of the first chapter, it's disappointing that we only see so little going in the present with these two characters.

We get so much of what happened before I can't quite get into these characters yet. Will they in the second chapter? Hopefully. But a lot of reviewers focus mostly on the first chapter not because it summarizes the whole story, but it's a greeting to the reader, and you want it to be the best.

Other small nitpicks are just that--and they're centered mostly around grammar. There are a few run-on sentences and a little problem with the dialogue. Like I said, it's small, but it's still somewhat important to point out, since writers should know how to write things out properly:

"Ah yes. I believe it was about the lack of oversight of their previous editor-in-chief." Silver giggled as the irony was not lost on her.

For narration continuing beyond the dialogue, if it's addressing who's speaking, put a common if it's a period.

"Ah yes. I believe it was about the lack of oversight of their previous editor-in-chief," Silver giggled as the irony was not lost on her.

Also to note:

They ate their soup in silence, Silver seemingly noticed her wife was in thought.

First off, perhaps this is just a personal preference (sorry if that's the case), but 'seemingly' never seems like an appropriate word to use 90% of the time. Especially when it's obvious she does notice. Also, what does she notice about her wife? Is she staring off into space? Poking at her soup with her spoon? Details are important to the surrounding environment to add taste and style to the story.

Overall, I can't say much else about this because, like I said, there's not much going on in the present. It's all narration on previous events. Which can be a bad thing if it takes up most of the first chapter. Anyway, I'll try my best to see if there's anything else in the next chapters to review, but I can't make promises. I hope this helped you out in some way.

[cdcdrr]

5397587
I apologize for not getting back to your sooner, but the holidays took a lot of my time. Firstly, thanks for your response. Don't feel bad if you think it was overdue. My reply here is to.

Concerning infodumps, I can see the problem. I don't believe I have spoiled Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's entire history in the first chapter, and there is sufficient in later chapters to develop on the premise, and some parts I wanted to establish for the first chapter. It is, indeed, exposition before the main characters begin interacting with the rest of the characters.

About run on sentences, I do not know if it is a language thing. I'm not from an English speaking country, so there may be a difference in standards with American English. But admittedly, this isn't something I paid attention to when reading books in the past in any language. I'm not sure if I can get used to changing my writing to conform to that rule easily.

The third point, on the pointlessness of the word 'seemingly', I have to say it seems rather silly indeed when put under a microscope. Especially in the contexts of its use. If I ever do a rewrite of that chapter, it's the first thing I'd change to gave it actual purpose.

[ServingSpoon]

"Why miss Twilight are you trying to seduce me?"

Excellent!