Silver Spoon & The Kintsugi Castle
The sword whipped through the air, inches from Silver Spoon’s haunch. She danced several steps back and to the side, eyes trained on the stallion looming over her. Her own sword—actually, did foils still count as swords?—wobbled in her teeth, springy and practically useless in the mouth of an amateur. At least she hadn’t dropped it this time.
Slowly, the stallion circled her. Clouds of breath puffed through the mesh of his mask as he stared her down: unreadable, expressionless, and unrelenting. He stood a head taller than her, dressed in jet black from head to hoof. Sunshine through the open window threw his shadow across the tile floor, rolling over Silver’s shoulders when she ducked him a second time.
The bright green dot of the rubber foil tip thrusted for her. Silver Spoon pulled back and tried not to look at it. Instead, she focused on his hooves. Don’t see where he is. The stallion came for her once more, smooth and effortless on the tile as a duck upon the water. See where he’s going to be.
In a pale pathetic imitation of his hoofwork, Silver stumbled and clacked over the tile. Her teeth dug into the soft handle of her foil. She couldn’t keep this up forever. Even if he didn’t catch her—and he only hadn’t caught her by sheer luck—he’d outlast her without a sweat.
There had to be an opening someplace.
The stallion in black shifted his weight, neck arced low to strike. Back hooves planted. Left leg curling upward and rising. There.
She let him come and swung her neck up hard. Steel struck steel.
The stallion in black paused and stepped back. His grey ears pricked high, twitching with interest. After a moment, he bowed his head and sheathed his sword. “Excellent parry, Brightness.”
Silver Spoon shook her braid free, removing her mask. “Thank you, Father. Are we taking a break, or are we finished already?” She searched the gym for a clock before remembering it didn’t have one. After the fifth time of being scolded for checking the time instead of her hoofwork, Father had moved it to the outdoor patio.
“Hm. Done for today, I think.” Father nodded to Tacks, who magicked both their foils away for storage. “We can resume tomorrow. I’ve other matters to attend to this morning. Brass Tacks, is my travel desk ready?”
“Prepared and waiting, sir.” Brass Tacks bent to Silver Spoon. “Young Miss Silver, you are awaited downstairs.”
Silver’s fencing uniform came away in a satisfying snap of buttons. She rolled her withers, savoring the chilled air on her coat. “Downstairs? But I thought I wasn’t allowed in the base—” She blinked at the gym’s porthole window overlooking the stairs and banister. “Oh, right.”
Two weeks into fencing practice, she’d gotten used to blades in her face and masks strapped behind her ears, but somehow hadn’t come around to the concept of a second level to the Silvers’ house.
Opening the door, Silver Spoon peered down the hallway. A rug rolled past the doors and down the stairs in a shock of indigo and gold. Sconces flickered along the walls, illuminating the tasteful wood paneling. Nothing more.
She’d once overheard Mother describe the upstairs décor to Rarity as “minimalist” and “concise”, which sounded much nicer than “barren” and “lonely”. Traveling from the lavishly furnished main hall downstairs to the thin hall upstairs might as well have been a trip from the jungle to the desert.
From a functional standpoint, the décor made sense. The scant rooms up here consisted of the gym, Father’s office, a small library, and Mother’s specialized acoustic-friendly practice room. A space for work, study, and training. Before now, Silver Spoon had no reason to come up here at all; all of her work could be done in her own room.
Exploring a brand new section of the house she thought she’d known for years ought to have felt exciting. It should have felt like an immense rite of passage that came with the package of a noble family fencing tradition. And it did… to an extent.
Silver Spoon examined her reflection in the gym’s porthole window; her withers rose well above the windowsill. However, she hadn’t expected the upstairs to feel so small.
A remarkable side effect of the natural transition from a Young Miss to a Young Lady to simply a Lady, in Silver’s opinion, was the constant resizing of things. Over the years, she’d become accustomed to sizing up from dresses, shoes, and saddlebags as she grew taller, and the fattening of books, schedules, and workloads as she grew older. Accustomed, yes, but it never ceased to fascinate her.
It felt as if bookshelves and wardrobes expanded or shrank with the seasons, but of course, the truth was quite the opposite. A dress today would be the same dress tomorrow, next week, or five years from now. But last year’s Silver Spoon didn’t have the same withers, legs, or barrel as this year’s Silver Spoon. The different—yet not all that different at all—filly required different dresses.
And all this without even getting into the matter of shifting tastes. Last year’s Silver Spoon would have fainted at the thought of plaid, yet the purple tartan scarf Sweetie Belle gave her after the Crusaders’ cuteceañera was the highlight of Silver’s new winter wardrobe.
She’d become used to resizing clothes, but as long as she would live, Silver Spoon didn’t think she’d ever get used to the resizing of entire buildings. The upstairs hall shrank before she’d even gotten the chance to meet it: a lonely place, cramped and immense, vast and unexplored with no leg room to spare.
It was all very strange, and Silver wished she knew what to make of it.
“Hey, Silvie!” Diamond Tiara’s voice bounced up from the foyer, amplified by the tall ceiling. “Are you gonna stare at your reflection all day? Your hair’s fine, come on down!”
Blinking, Silver snapped out of her trance and made for the stairs. “Hello, Di. Hold on, I’ll be right there.”
She considered pointing out that young ladies shouldn’t shout indoors. Then again, young ladies shouldn’t spend five minutes idling in front of a window when they had guests waiting, either.
They met at the bottom of the stairs and hoofbumped. “If I knew you’d be coming, I would have put the kettle on.” Silver motioned towards the kitchen. “I can still get your blend started if you want.”
A peaceful brunch tea would be a fantastic way to cap off the morning and start what would be a promising afternoon, judging by Diamond Tiara’s dropping by unannounced. Perhaps she’d grasped onto a new project, or discovered a social catastrophe she needed Silver’s expert advice on. Or maybe Diamond didn’t have anything better to do today and just wanted to hang out. All good by Silver’s count.
Instead, Diamond shook her head. “No, thanks.” She shrugged apologetically at Silver’s disappointment. “Sorry, I’m just dropping in real quick. Hi, Brass Tacks.”
Tacks nodded to her on his way back upstairs, his mouth full with Father’s attaché case and his horn levitating a stack of office supplies.
The two fillies slipped into their usual synchronized canter on the way to Silver’s room. On the way, Silver tilted her head up to see Father’s open office upstairs, where papers shuffled and hooves trotted about excitedly. It sounded like a deal had gone through.
Diamond entered first, dropping her saddlebag before she sat. “Truffle Shuffle wanted me to drop off the ideas for the spring fundraiser. I meant to do it last week, but then the Crusaders had that giant all-day cuteceañera, and then Battletag… well, it’s Battletag.”
A notebook coated in a rainbow of pastel sticky notes plopped open upon the tea table. Suggestions from the student body included but were not limited to: a student-led skill-sharing program to help blank flanks discover cutie marks, “Fancy Bake Sale Part Two: Eclectic Rendezvous”, a demolition derby, a historical reenactment of the first Grand Equestria Summit, and a ten-part seminar/lecture/stunt-flying demo/scooter relay quantifying the many accomplishments of “Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash: Awesomest Wonderbolt Reserve Ever Ever”.
To Silver Spoon’s alarm, that last one already had four votes tallied.
Diamond Tiara stood and watched while Silver spread notebook pages across the table in a broad-strokes arrangement of likely candidates. “You know that the thing—whatever it is—isn’t happening for like, four more months, right?”
“Yeah, but we’re still voting on it in three weeks. We’ll need extra time depending on what wins.”
Silver frowned at the extensive notes for the music festival. The festival wasn’t even a student function; this was just an effort to bring a celebrity to a Ponyville event already in the making. Did that even count as fundraising? Either way, it already had twelve tallies—the winner so far—from the straw poll. Her frown deepened. She’d only passing knowledge of Countess Coloratura from Diamond’s pageant playlist, but Silver knew for sure that an A-lister would be tough to book.
“I guess so.” Diamond pawed the soft rug, examining Silver’s doll collection, the bookshelf, the new velvet bedspread, and the armoire saturated with tea sets. “You’ve got a really nice room. I don’t think I ever told you that.” She grinned, breathing in the scent of roses and tea leaves. “It’s like… calm and stuff.”
“Thanks.” Silver admired the blue filigree wallpaper that bordered the room. Two years on, the splash of color still tied the room together. It is pretty nice, isn’t it?
“And I’ll bet nopony cleans it up for you—even though it doesn’t need to be cleaned because you’ve got a system—and moves all your stuff where you can’t find it, either.” Diamond wrinkled her mouth like she’d bitten into a hunk of rotten cheese.
Silver Spoon leaned forward. She smelled storm clouds forming. “You feeling alright, Diamond Tiara?”
She nodded without enthusiasm. Diamond’s ears worked in a shiftless twitch, quietly working out something to herself while her eyes traced the blue filigree down to the fish tank to watch Ferdinand.
Behind the betta’s fins, little flashes of red, blue, violet, and silver zipped and bounced within the walls of the underwater castle and weaved through the jungle of plants. It looked as if Ferdinand was swimming through one of Miss Vinyl’s loud glowstick parties.
One of the neon flashes stopped to nibble a stray food flake, long enough for Diamond to get a good look. “Oh, hey!” she called in an eager change of subject. “You got new fish!”
Now that she knew what to look for, Diamond Tiara grinned and searched the tank for more flashing scales in the water. Her brows lifted as she followed the tetras schooling through the castle to the suckerfish eating algae in a quiet corner of the tank. Above it all, a tiny frog dozed on a lily pad.
“You got lots of new fish! There’s…” She did a quick headcount. “Twenty… six? Wait, there’s a snail in the rocks. Twenty-seven.” The grin faded. “Wow, you got almost thirty new fish. It really has been a while since I’ve been in your room. Or I was too full of myself to notice…”
Silver stopped her with a hoof. “What’s passed has passed. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You had a lot going on; we both did.”
“Maybe, but that’s no exc—”
“Yes,” said Silver Spoon, “it is. I got most of these fish the weekend after election day; we weren’t even speaking then. The rest got here a couple days ago. Also, I think you counted some reflections, because it’s twenty, not counting Ferdinand. Hi, Ferdinand!”
Ferdinand paused his swim through the reeds to peer back at them. He fluttered his tail fin to match Diamond’s wave hello.
“Miss Fluttershy said he seemed lonely, so I got him some friends.”
After swimming solo in a forty-gallon tank for so long, Silver had worried the influx of new fish might upset Ferdinand. The week they arrived, she’d rushed home every day after school to check on them. What if Fluttershy made a mistake and he’d started a fight with the tetras, or the frog bit his fin?
“I think the new company startled him at first. He’s never seen so many fish before, but—oh, here come the minnows!” Silver waved to Figaro, Pagliacci, Carmen, and Don Jose as they threaded the sunken ship. “He got used to it, though, and I think he actually likes it better this way. It’s no fun being alone all the time.”
Diamond Tiara bunched her shoulders, staring out the bedroom window. On the other side of the fence, Randolph stood watching the house. Noticing Diamond, he pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat with a meaningful nod. She turned back to the table. “No, it’s not.”
Silver tilted her ears forward with a frown. “Diamond, are you sure you’re feeling—”
“I said yes, didn’t I? Why does everypony need to be so nosy about how I’m feeling all the time?” Diamond shoved hard off the table and lumbered out of the room, saddlebag half-detached and dragging behind her.
She didn’t look back when Silver Spoon followed, though she did grind her teeth. “I thought I told you I don’t need a handler and I don’t need you holding my hoof. I’m fine. Everything’s good now: we’re friends again, the school doesn’t hate me, it’s fine.”
Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses and, with effort, held her tongue.
“Why does everypony have to keep picking at stuff?” One blue eye glowered over Diamond’s shoulders, daring somepony to say another word. Her hooves left shallow imprints in the hallway rug. “All I want to do is get ready for pageant season, write a Hearth’s Warming list, and hang out with my friends. I don’t think that’s asking a lot!”
Alright, that tore it. Silver stepped in Diamond’s path. “Hey, all I did was ask a question. If you were really fine as you say you are, you wouldn’t bite my head off for asking, either.”
Diamond flattened her ears, shifting to the side.
Silver followed without breaking the stare. “Something’s going on with you, and crazy me, I thought that maybe you could trust me enough to tell me what’s going on.” She drew her head up, jaw tight. “You want a friend, not a yes-mare? Newsflash, Di: being concerned is what friends do. Bare minimum, you could respect me enough not to totally brush me off.”
“It’s not that!” Diamond Tiara flinched at the echo of her own voice.
The anger ebbed, and in the grand hall of Silver portraits, Diamond dwindled to a small size. The same size the filly had always been; the same size they’d both always been. Silver Spoon wished the scale of this house would make up its mind already.
“Can you keep a secret?” Diamond’s eyes trailed upward to the balcony, where Brass Tacks and Father spoke quietly outside his office. Neither indicated they’d heard Diamond’s outburst, but both fillies knew better.
The wall pressed against Diamond’s side. “I mean, it’s really secret,” she whispered. “Nopony can know. No. Pony.” She shot another glance at the balcony. “At all.”
“Oh.” Silver Spoon blinked. “O-of course.”
“I want your word.”
“Then you’ve got my word, Diamond Tiara.” The weight of the pact sat heavy. She’d never outright sworn to keep something from the family before. What did I just get myself into?
“Okay.” After a deep breath for composure (and a little bit of drama), Diamond lifted her head. “I can’t hang out today because Dad thinks our family could benefit from some external consultation in order to confidently further navigate our ongoing paradigm shift.”
Well, the secret was safe; Silver couldn’t leak it if she tried. Note to self: find “paradigm” in the dictionary tonight. “Oh. Uh.” She blinked. “Is... that… good?”
“Maybe?” Diamond scratched the back of her neck. “We’re… seeing somepony. Like a doctor, but for your head. To help you work out emotions ‘n’ stuff or whatever.”
Silver Spoon brightened. “Ohh! You mean a thera—”
Diamond clamped both hooves over Silver’s mouth. “What part of secret don’t you get?”
“Sorry. Why is it such a big secret, though? It’s just talking about your problems with somepony, right? Isn’t that what Princess Twilight does when ponies have a friendship problem? Or what the Crusaders do when they’re not busy breaking stuff?” Joining Diamond by the wall, Silver leaned back to peer up at the portrait of Silver Lining. “After Tirek happened, my cousin had to see a doctor to help his nightmares go away. That’s what doctors are supposed to do, right? They help you.”
Rising to her hooves, Diamond walked to the front door. “I guess, but my parents still said nopony but us is supposed to know. It’s nopony’s business but family’s.” She gestured toward the silhouette still waiting outside by the fence. “But if we can tell Randolph, I think you’re fine to tell too.” Idly feeling at the doorknob, Di averted her eyes. “‘Cause you’re like… you know.”
Silver smirked. “A butler?”
Diamond’s tail smacked Silver’s shoulder. “Like family, you snot.”
“Snot?” Silver gasped and clutched her chest in mock hurt. “This is how you treat family?”
“Sure. Why do you think we need a therapist?” Diamond glanced back before opening the door. “Seriously, though: you spill the beans, and I’m telling the whole school you still sleep with dolls.”
“Lady Mimic is not a doll! She’s an educational historical reenactment tool. That also happens to be good for hugs.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Silvie.”
Diamond got a few steps down the brick walkway before she stopped and signaled Randolph to wait another second. From the butler’s expression, he’d been waiting several seconds too many already. “Before I forget again, Cheerilee says we’ve got a newbie coming during winter vacation. She wants to know if you can show her the ropes before school starts again.”
Grabbing her yellow tartan scarf, Silver followed Diamond outside. “Sure, but isn’t that the president’s job?”
Twist had spearheaded the proposal for new student orientations after that bumper crop of ponies moved in at the start of the school year. It had been her last big act as Student Pony President, and in Silver’s opinion, her best one.
However, it was also a job tailored for the president, being the official representative of all the students. Whoever won the presidency already had charm and charisma—no other way to win popularity contests—so they’d be the logical choice to charm a newbie.
Silver Spoon knew how to maintain a solid popularity base, but she was and always had been an A-minus-lister: well-known, well-liked, rarely well-loved. Not the worst choice for a first impression by any means, but Pip, or Diamond, or even Truffle would be a far better choice to represent the schoolhouse. So why her?
Silver lifted an eyebrow, fishing for the catch.
“She’s one of yours. A former Wisterian.”
The other eyebrow went up. “I see.” A thousand speculations fired off at once, but Silver filed them away for when she’d need them. “I’ll do my best to represent us, then.”
Diamond Tiara met Randolph at the fence like a mare condemned. “I know you will. See you, Silvie.”
“I could walk with you to the house if you want?”
Diamond turned to Randolph, who didn’t show signs of disagreement. “That’d be nice.”
Ponyville skimmed the razor’s edge of winter, and the wind whistled sharp and sheer to prove it. Leaves carpeted the ground in a solid block of reds, golds, and browns. They only found the road thanks to the trail of powdered foliage trampled by countless hooves.
As they crested a hill, Silver traced the crushed leaves’ path down into the lower valley, where a great herd of ponies thundered through the woodland. The tree branches trembled in their wake, freshly naked and spindly against the blue sky. Echoes of a microphone narrated the Running of the Leaves, but the balloon floated too far away for Silver to make out the words.
Diamond watched the race with interest, stretching her neck around to find the front of the race. “My mom won that, you know.” Her smile rang bittersweet. “Five years in a row. The medals are still in the War Room.”
“That’s impressive,” Silver told her, because she couldn’t think of anything better to say. She stopped to consider the ponies who lived here: farmers, tillers, and cloud shepherds. Ponies with real muscle under their coats. “That’s really impressive, actually.”
“Naturally. It is my mom, after all. No losers in my family.” Diamond grinned, but it faded as the roof of the Rich mansion breached the horizon.
Diamond grew still and solemn. She stayed quiet for a moment. Then, “Did I ever tell you how I got my cutie mark, Silver Spoon?”
“Sure, you—”
Actually...
Silver frowned. “Well, you told me you got it onstage at the nationals in Applewood. It helped you win that, right?” She nosed the tiara higher on her friend’s head.
“Yeah.” Smiling, Di brushed her hoof over the little steel spires. “I figured that since it helped me win, my special talent must have been winning. It all added up: winning makes me happy. Winning’s what I’m good at. It’s always been what I’m good at. Now I had solid proof, not just in the War Room, but on my flank so everypony who saw me would know. So I’d never forget how good I was, even when I got all dumb and weird and scared and started doubting myself.”
The Running of the Leaves crossed the bridge over the river. Dozens of silhouettes massed together in a long stretch of writhing shadow, barely visible against the shining ribbon of water. Diamond watched them with her tail pulled close. “And then, I came home and did nothing but lose. I lost to ponies who weren’t even committed to winning—ponies that barely even tried. I didn’t get it.”
Tresses of white and lavender curtained Diamond Tiara’s face as she bent her head. “I still don’t get it.” She chewed her bottom lip, and wouldn’t look at Silver Spoon when she brushed her mane back. Diamond swallowed hard and tried to laugh. “My talent’s not winning, though. I know that much.”
Silver Spoon wanted to reassure her, to find the right thing to say. But she hadn’t known the right words before, and she didn’t know them now. At best, she could only offer a watered-down “you’re still great” or “winning’s not everything”. Empty platitudes and quick fixes that fixed nothing.
Silver knew better than to insult Diamond Tiara with pity or participation trophies. Instead, she opened her hooves and pulled her friend into a hug.
Di let her. Her withers went slack, leaning against Silver Spoon’s weight. She stayed there.
“So…” Silver’s quiet voice ruffled Diamond’s mane. “If winning’s not your special talent, what is?”
“It’s like you said, Silvie: I got it in the last round, not when I won. I forgot about that part. The last round’s the Q-and-A section, and I’m usually awesome at that category, but Royal Ribbon was on the judge’s panel that day, and she’s never liked me much. Then I remembered a hint Coach Razzle told me that morning: Ribbon likes sincerity.”
Diamond brushed her mane back and drew from Silver’s hug, though she kept Silver’s hoof around her withers. “I stood up there under the spotlight staring out into the dark. I saw Royal Ribbon and the rest of the judges. I saw the hundreds of ponies who’d come from all across Equestria to watch the finals, and I wondered how many of them came out here to watch somepony they loved. How disappointed they’d be when their filly lost… I mean, one winner, twenty-nine losers, right? I’d never thought about that before.”
Echoes of the announcer’s loudspeaker bounced over the hills, ghostly and indecipherable. The Running of the Leaves competitors vanished into the thick of the woods. A steady stream of dead leaves winding through the trees marked their course.
“But then I looked at the rows up front, and there I saw them: Golden Glitter and Filthy Rich, sitting together. They weren’t looking at each other and they didn’t talk, but there they were, together and not fighting. And I knew I might never see them like that again.” Diamond’s ears twitched when the breeze brushed against them, but aside from that, she stayed perfectly still. Almost as if she felt frightened of what might happen when she moved. “So when Royal Ribbon asked me what I’d do to help Equestria if I were princess for real—not just a pageant winner—I thought about it. And then I told the truth.”
“And?” asked Silver Spoon. “What did you say?”
“I, uh…” Diamond rubbed her foreleg. “I actually don’t remember a lot of the details; it went on a little long. I talked about all the ponies I saw in the crowd, and how they all wanted the same things I wanted: to be happy and proud of each other. If I had the power to help them get what they wanted, I’d do it. So we could all, like, not be miserable and fight each other anymore.”
Diamond flicked her tail with a shrug. “It sounded a lot better at the time. Maybe because I cried a little bit? That usually helps.” She shrugged again. “Anyway, what I said doesn’t matter—like, I meant it, and all—but it doesn’t really matter, since the speech did what it was supposed to do ’cause when I looked into the audience again… You know how ponies can sit next to each other, but it’s like they’re sitting on the other side of the world?”
Silver nodded.
A faded smile crept along Diamond’s muzzle. It grew. “My parents weren’t sitting that way anymore. They still didn’t love or even like each other, but for a little while, they agreed on something: I did good, and they were proud of me. That’s all I wanted.” She nodded to the blue crown on her flank. “Like I said, Silver Spoon, I get ponies to do what I want. Even if they don’t do it for very long.”
“Sounds like you really earned it.” Silver smiled at Diamond’s mark, then at the tiara upon her head. The early winter light skimmed through diamonds and battered steel, tossing light refractions over Silver’s hooves. “It suits you,” she told her. “You make this thing look good.”
Diamond gave a confident flick of her mane. “I know. Thanks anyway, though.” She gestured toward the house, where Mr. and Mrs. Rich waited by the window. “Anyway, I’d better get going before I’m later than I already am.”
“Okay. See you around after it’s over? You’d be right on time for late-afternoon tea.” Silver smiled at Diamond’s nod. “Father’s taking me to get some new tea from Zecora today; you can try my new blend. Or would the usual be better?”
Diamond Tiara smiled back. Not quite a grin or a salesmare’s flash of teeth, but something small and honest. It suited her more than the tiara did. “Surprise me. You know what I like.”
“Without further ado, it is my privilege and honor to present to you the future Ponyville Museum of Royal Art and Antiquity!” With a grand flourish of his hat, Father stepped back to reveal… a crumbling stack of mold and mossy stones in the forest.
When Silver Spoon peered closely, she could see where it used to be a building before parts of the roof caved in and the forest overtook the walls. And the floor. And… everything, really. At a glance, she couldn’t tell where the outside ended and the inside began. They’d come through a set of double doors, so she presumed they were inside. Silver stepped through a patch of grass, shivering from the draft and squinting in the sunlight pouring down from the dilapidated roof.
“Well?” Father rubbed his forehooves together eagerly. “Don’t hold me in suspense, what do you think?”
Tatters of a moth-bitten banner dropped off the wall. Brittle bits of moldy fringe dusted over Silver’s hooves. “I think I know why they call these things ruins.”
Brass Tacks broke composure with a snort of amusement. “You did ask, Mr. Silver Laurel.”
“Fair enough.” Father chuckled to himself and put his bowler hat back on. “It has been quite some time since the old place had a touch-up. Your mother tells me that Miss Rarity attempted a sort of restoration project last spring, but I don’t think much became of it.”
No kidding. Silver's tail swatted at some fuzzy sticky thing brushing against her flank. She pulled away from the wall to discover shiny strands of spider webbing matted in her tail—spider still attached.
Summoning every scrap of her decorum, Silver Spoon repressed an unladylike scream. She breathed slowly in a manner befitting dignified fillies who absolutely did not panic at the sight of awful little spider legs wiggling around and touching her coat. “Tacks? Please?”
A flash of blue magic scooped up the spider and shooed it into the forest. Brass Tacks combed out the bits of dust and webbing in Silver Spoon’s tail, then pinned it up to avoid any more stowaways.
“Thank you.” Silver flattened her ears with a shudder. “I’m glad you’re working closer to home, Father, but couldn’t you have chosen a location that’s less… um…” What’s a politer term for dilapidated garbage? “…broken? It’s not too late; we can still ask Mayor Mare to build a brand new museum.” One where trees grow outside the building.
This had not at all been how Silver Spoon imagined her afternoon. Her peaceful outing into the Everfree to sample kei apple skins and rooibos from Miss Zecora had been an insidious plot all along to drag her into the grossest, dirtiest, drippiest place in Ponyville city limits.
Father’s attaché case opened with a click. He brought out his folder of documents, a notepad, and a fountain pen, which he tucked behind his ear. With a flick of his hoof, the case flipped over to convert into a travel desk. Father slipped the strap over his neck, making sure the desk sat snugly on his barrel before arranging his things upon it.
“I suppose we could request a new building, yes, but then we’d have lost an optimal learning opportunity.” Father’s indecipherable mouthwriting scritched and scribbled across the notepad, devouring page after page in riots of ink. He smiled around his fountain pen. “It isn’t a matter of what this place is now, but what it used to be. Can you guess what that is?”
Not at all in the mood for riddles, Silver clicked her tongue. “It would be faster to just tell me.”
“Mm, yes. It would.” Meaning he’d locked her into another history lesson.
In the weeks ensuing the Silvers’ negotiations with the Riches, Father had returned to the Castle of Friendship many, many times to thoroughly research and prepare for the new museum. It seemed that Princess Twilight shared his affinity for antiquated art and the histories thereof; he’d barely gone through half of his proposal before the princess gave her seal of approval.
Instead of his weekly Canterlot commute, Father now left at sunrise and returned after dark, carrying along a song in his heart, a spring in his step, and double the workload he’d left with. Unfortunately, Twilight’s knack for scholarly lectures had come back with him, too.
With no hope of coaxing out a hint, Silver Spoon sighed and gave the ruins a deeper look. She peered at the carved arches sloping overhead as she trailed in Father’s hoofsteps. “Well, it’s old. It’s also made of stone, and stone takes forever to break down, so these ruins have to be ancient—like, five hundred years old.”
“Double that, and you’re close.” Father’s voice echoed from the other room. A real room this time, with four walls and a roof with a broken skylight. “It’s been abandoned for roughly a thousand and... two years, if my math is correct.”
He indicated a jagged slab of wall, where the epicenter of a massive spider web crack split the stone. “Brass Tacks, mark the fractures for this room, if you please.”
Sticky notes rose from the travel desk and fanned across the room like a flock of paper birds. They coated the room with so much yellow it looked like a crime scene.
Maybe it was.
Silver prodded a slab of marble that had once been a statue. “This one didn’t get worn away. It’s broken.” Running her hooves along the sides, she found the curved bend of a pony’s spine, a broken haunch, and an elegant neck without a head. Violent punctures marked where wings should have been. “It’s broken on purpose.”
Brass Tacks nodded while he filed away Father’s freshly highlighted notes. He pointed to the precise cuts in the marble. “Quite right, Young Miss Silver. Clean breaks like these are created by magic—” Tacks’ lean frame braced, ears suddenly pricked. “—magic blasts.”
The unicorn peered behind them, where a grove of young trees rustled in the entry hall they’d just come from. “Hm.” Light flashed from his horn a few times before he moved on.
Now that they’d been pointed out, Silver Spoon noticed similar magical fractures in the walls and balconies. The great hole in the roof where they’d entered might have had them too, but with all the moss, she couldn’t quite tell. She touched the statue’s headless neck again. “A battle happened here.”
With his mouth full writing notes, Father only nodded. What had he called this place, again? A “Museum of Royal Art and Antiquities”?
Again, Silver Spoon felt at the ruined wings, tracing the ridge of the statue’s spine down to the haunches—broken off before the cutie mark, she noted—and the remains of a tail, full of curves and waves to communicate lushness. Silver twitched her ears. Or perhaps… perhaps to show the ethereal flow of an alicorn’s tail. “This statue used to have a horn, didn’t it?”
“Look well, my Brightness. We stand in the Castle of the Two Sisters.” Father stepped through the center of the room, where sunlight poured across his back. Shadows of the broken skylight wobbled through the light like a fracture through the sun. When Father lifted his head, the shadow snaked down his face and across his spine as if a massive crack had split him in half. “Our Princesses, Celestia and Luna, spent their early years in this very castle. They might have lived here all their lives, if not for… well, I suspect you can guess the rest.”
Father’s muzzle twitched in a melancholic smile. “Many, many winters before this one, the battle between Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon shattered this section of the castle.” His tail swept through the dust and dead leaves. “Time did the rest. I’ve seen paintings of this castle in its prime: regal, shining, glorious… even Canterlot Castle can’t compare. Celestia could have restored it anytime she wanted, you know, but she didn’t.”
“Why didn’t she?” Silver Spoon followed her father through a hall of armor and barding. Helmets glowered at her from their pedestals, hollow-eyed with a grim luster that time hadn’t eroded. Sharp cruel points of the barding winked in the sallow light.
“I can’t say,” Father said, “but from what I’ve heard, she’s not overly fond of the place these days.”
Silver couldn’t blame her; the creep factor of the abandoned castle was starting to get under her coat. When she blinked, Silver thought she saw a pink shape—kind of like another pony—shift in the reflection of a flanchard, though when she turned, she found nothing there. If Silver Spoon were the silly sort of pony, she might have thought she’d seen a ghost, but of course, ghosts weren’t real.
Brass Tacks twitched his ears again, leaning into Father’s ear. He kept his voice low. “My utmost pardon, Mr. Silver, but you must excuse me for a moment.” He lit his horn and stepped away towards one of the empty rooms. “I believe there may be something that warrants my attention.” With Father’s nod, Tacks quietly took his leave.
Their hooves fell soft upon the thinning carpet. Rooms flanked them on both sides of the hall, stretching down and down until the doors became tiny dots in the distance. Peeking through the open doors—or what little remained of doors—Silver saw chairs, cushions, and shelves nestled in the darkness of their rooms. Many of the tables sat at awkward angles, as if somepony had pushed away from them in a hurry.
Passing through one of the doorways with no door, the Silvers came upon what appeared to be a study for an important statesmare. Everything, from the candlesticks, to inkwells, to the dressing gown draped over the bench had been left exactly as they’d been a thousand years ago.
Silver Spoon paused to examine a withered scroll half-unfurled across the desk. In Classical Era Ponish, the letter excitedly detailed the birth of a new foal from somepony named Gardenia Glow and pleaded for Northwind to visit right away. Apparently, the foal’s wings were a very big deal, though Silver didn’t know why. Another more official-looking letter reported suspicious characters and unusual activity around the town of Hollow Shades.
“Now that I consider it—” Father’s voice made Silver Spoon jump out of her skin. He gathered up the scrolls and placed them in a preservation box for safekeeping. “—I’m not sure Celestia knows about this project at all. The museum plan's been in Princess Twilight’s domain from day one; I think she’s more excited about it than I am.”
Silver Spoon agreed. “It’s the first major government project she’s done so far too, right?” Unless regularly beating up threats to the kingdom and solving friendship problems counted as a government project. “Now she gets to do that and also educate other ponies.”
“I only wish I hadn’t waited so long to launch a proposal. We could’ve started months ago, if not for my reticence.” He gave a gentle little tsk, shaking his head. “Silly, really.” Relics untouched in centuries skimmed across the reflection of his monocle. Father smiled with his ears and eyes low. “After Manehattan, I didn’t think the historical art community would let me get within three miles of a pre-classical tablespoon, much less allow the curation of a museum.”
Silver reached up to give her father a nuzzle. He looked like he could use one. “I’ll bet you’re happy about not working at the modern art museum anymore.”
A job, she now realized, that he’d likely only gotten because Aunt Silver Frames owned and curated that museum. Through it all, Father had maintained his composure with the proper amounts of grace and gratitude, and not once complained, save for the long commute between Ponyville and Canterlot. Still, Silver couldn’t help hearing the bitter detachment in his voice whenever he’d discussed work (which he rarely had).
Father laughed and rocked back on his hocks, delighting in the company of ancient tapestries and oil paintings. “If I never see another abstract statement deconstructing the sociopolitical power structures of Equestrian gender roles by way of carrots in fishbowls, it will be entirely too soon.”
He seemed so happy, and Silver Spoon didn’t want to bring him back down again, but the word was already on its way out before she could reconsider. “Father?”
“Yes, my Brightness?”
“Um, I’ve been wondering…”
Silver Spoon stared at her hooves. Two years after the fact, broaching the subject still felt entirely inappropriate. A young lady shouldn’t pry into the private affairs of her elders, especially not with questions she didn’t want to know the answer to. However, an answer unwanted was not an answer undeserved.
If she’d earned the right to wield a sword, then she ought to have earned the right to know the truth. Silver brought her eyes back up.
“Why did we leave Manehattan?”
The little question didn’t echo, though it filled the entire room.
Father turned and regarded Silver Spoon quietly.
Nopony said anything. The silence put ants under her coat, and Silver rushed to fill the dead air with more words. “I-I mean besides the money and Mother’s opera career. I—” She licked her dry lips. “Everypony keeps saying you did something, but I still don’t know what that thing is. If it’s a family secret, I promise I won’t tell, but I’m your family too. What happened?”
Father cast his ears down, still saying nothing for a time. Then, “Alright. Come along, Silver Spoon. I wish to show you something.”
He led her back through the hall of armor, past the library roped off for research purposes, and under the massive web of creepy star spiders, until they arrived at the foyer where they’d first come in.
Knowing what she knew now about what this place used to be, Silver supposed she ought to feel some sort of reverence. If not reverence, then some sort of humbleness or sorrow… maybe even fear? Yet even now, with her small grey hoof upon the grey (once white) throne, all she felt was dust and grime.
Father pulled a cleaning cloth from his travel desk. Gently, he wiped and dabbed at the headboard to reveal Princess Celestia’s cutie mark carved underneath. It gleamed brilliant white against the dirt. “I have an affinity for this place, Brightness. It reminds me of us.”
“Us?” Silver Spoon flicked her ears, unsure of whether to feel insulted or flattered.
A thin film of dust coated Father’s monocle, fading the bright amber of his eye. “You and I, and the eight generations before us, we are earth ponies of privilege. It’s a rare thing for our tribe, even rarer to have it for so long. We are used to certain comforts, but over time, those comforts build up.” He breathed lightly on the monocle and wiped it clean. “Given enough time, comfort begets complacency. And complacency,” he told her, “can be a dangerous thing.”
The sun carved into the throne hung a few measly inches above her nose. Little Silver Spoon stood closer than anypony of its native era would have dared; she could touch it if she wanted. Up close, shadowed by dust and ivy, the symbol felt so surreal. It belonged on official statements and castle gates, on flags and coins, on a living, breathing flank. Not here.
“Are you saying Princess Celestia became complacent?” The sentence felt treasonous—blasphemous, even—upon Silver Spoon’s tongue, and she lowered her ears in apology.
Foals could get complacent, maybe grown-up ponies too, but Celestia—the grownups’ grownup and the princesses’ Princess—didn’t get to be a princess for a thousand years by messing up. She wasn’t allowed to be wrong.
Biting winter chills rolled through the magic-blasted holes in the roof. Silver shivered. But if princesses are never wrong, then… Out loud, she continued, “Is that why Nightmare Moon happened?”
“Personally? I believe that was part of it, yes.” Father brushed a layer of dust off a carved crescent moon and jotted a few more notes on his pad. “However, these things are composed of many parts, Brightness, and historians don’t have them all. I’m not sure if even Celestia and Luna have them all. When a break cuts that deep—a break forming for so long—it’s hard to find all the fault lines.”
Silver Spoon touched the spot in her jaw where Diamond Tiara had headbutted her. “I guess that makes sense.” She stretched over the portable desk to blink at her father. “What does all this have to do with you, though? Did getting complacent hurt you, too? Did it hurt your reputation so badly you couldn’t fix it?”
Father coughed into the frog of his hoof, rolling his neck against the desk strap digging into his coat. “Well, I, uh…” He struggled to introduce the topic gently, stopping and starting a series of metaphors that never got off the ground.
“Father, please—a straight answer, that’s all I want.” She met his eyes directly. “I can handle it.”
“Forgeries, Silver Spoon.” Gently, Father nudged her off the desk, though he didn’t break the gaze. “Dealings in art forgeries. By the time it became public, the scandal had been in operation almost eight years, and I never noticed. I didn’t see the errors in the portraits, and I never bothered to look closer at my assistant.”
“You mean Miss Penny Drop?” Silver remembered that name being kicked around a lot during those hushed few months in the penthouse. At the time, she’d assumed Father’s assistant had been promoted or moved to another museum. The only reason she knew otherwise was that she’d overheard Brass Tacks mention Penny Drop’s parole hearing last year. “She always seemed so nice, though.”
“Indeed, she did,” Father agreed, “and at a glance, the Pinto Picasso I saw every morning appeared authentic.” He clicked his tongue. “Bad Penny runs a tight crime syndicate, I’ll give her that.”
Silver Spoon furrowed her brow. It still didn’t add up. “But how? Your Special Talent is all about art appraisal. You’re the best classical art expert in Manehattan—one of the top three in all of Equestria. The Stall Street Journal said so. Five times!”
“Was a top art expert.” Father held up his hoof before Silver could argue. “Things don’t always stay as they are, Brightness. There is no shame in ‘was’; the past has passed.”
That still didn’t explain how it could have happened in the first place. An expert, first in his field, being fooled was a hard pill to swallow; Silver Spoon began to see why he’d needed Granddad’s army of lawyers. “My friend Berry Pinch says that ponies who don’t think they can get conned are always the ones who are.”
Father laughed at that. “Your friend’s not wrong.” He shook his head with a sigh. “Sometimes, you can be so accustomed to having your Talent that you forget to actually use it.” Silver Laurel, former appraiser and curator for The Manehattan Museum of Art and Antiquities, future curator of The Ponyville Museum of Royal Antiquity, breathed in the fresh forest air and millennium-old dust. “It’s not something you forget twice.”
Something clattered upon the ceiling. It sounded like a shower of hailstones or a stampede on the roof. Aquamarine light flashed outside the windows, in the shadows of the trees overhanging the castle, and the air sizzled with the distinct scent of magic.
Father brushed Silver Spoon under his forelegs. “What in—?”
Bolts of cornflower blue magic shot across the broken skylight, and chunks of the roof tumbled down in cascades of pebbles.
A dome the same color of the magic blasts spread over both Silvers before the debris hit. Broken glass and stone bounced harmlessly off the top. Brass Tacks skidded to a stop at the edge of a hole in the roof. The light of his horn flashed blue and bright under the shadows. “My deepest apologies, Mr. Silver. I pray I haven’t hindered your research.”
Father’s ears swiveled to follow the clattering on the other end of the ceiling. No doubt of it now; those were hoofbeats. “The damage is nothing this castle hasn’t already seen, but for peat’s sake, what’s happening out there?”
The unicorn bowed deep, the tip of his horn scraping the roof. “No need to worry, sir, I’ve got it handled.” More aquamarine magic bounced off the invisible shield around Tacks’ shoulders. “I have located a loiterer skulking about the property without the proper clearance.”
Silver Spoon craned her neck to follow the silhouette dashing along the stained glass skylight.
Another shot of magic bounced off Tacks’ shield. Without looking up, he shot one of his own. A branch cracked, a mare yelped, and the silhouette vanished from the skylight. “I am currently in the process of asking her a few questions.”
“What? I didn’t think this area had been marked off quite yet.” Father checked his paperwork to be certain. “Nopony needs security clearance for this castle.”
Tacks’ expression hardened. “Yes, so it stands to question why she bothered forging a false identification badge.” Something landed hard in the trees outside. Brass Tacks bowed again. “I shall leave the barrier, but for now, you must kindly excuse me again.”
In one swift motion, he leapt off the roof.
Silver Spoon tugged her father’s jacket. “Should we go home?”
Father shook his head. “If we had to leave, he would have said so. If Brass Tacks says he’s got it covered—” Outside the window, blooms of blue and green flashed and poured like fireworks. “—then he’s got it covered. Come along.”
The dome of protective magic followed their path, shrinking and expanding to cover both Silvers when they came closer or moved farther apart. If the two of them had decided to stand at opposite sides of the castle, it might have covered the whole building.
Silver Spoon understood the necessity of precaution—especially with that nothing-to-worry-about unicorn outside—but the blue tint over everything meant they had to get close to see anything normally.
Carrying on with museum preparation, Father narrated their way into the castle’s upper levels. He pointed out which rooms did what and housed who, along with what purpose they’d serve after the castle’s conversion. “We’ll preserve the throne room and royal bedrooms as they are with a standard archive-strength Velvet Rope enchantment, but I still don’t know what to do with the letters. A glass showcase in the library, perhaps… can’t imagine Princess Twilight leaving the scrolls and books where they are after the museum opens.”
With Brass Tacks momentarily occupied, the responsibility fell to Silver Spoon to manage the inks, papers, notes, and stamps. She examined the building’s floor plan while Father labeled rooms in different colors and scribbled in the margins.
Silver wrinkled her nose at the ruined walls that needed rebuilding, the rugs that needed re-threading (if not a total replacement), and the furniture needing reupholstering. She didn’t have Diamond’s skills in money management, but she suspected the invoice for this project had to double the cost of a new facility plus the labor of artifact relocation.
“I still think getting a new building’s a better idea than restoring this one.” Silver nudged over a fresh pad of purple ink before Father ran out. “It would be cheaper and easier. Faster, too.” By the time they finished, she’d probably be in college.
“Absolutely correct on all points.” Father tipped his hat backward to wipe his brow. “That’s why we’re not restoring it.”
Silver Spoon tilted her head. “We’re not?”
“Oh, we’re still cleaning it up as best we can, and we’ll rearrange some furniture to accommodate a new layout, but for the most part, the castle stays as is. Nothing’s wrong with the stone, and I think the moss adds a bit of character, don’t you?”
Miss Silver chose to keep her opinions to herself. “What about the roof? It’ll rain on everypony, and all the twigs and leaves and things will fall inside.”
A new sketch unrolled on top of the floor plan. It looked sort of like another blueprint, but a blueprint of what, Silver Spoon couldn’t say. It had the same layout and design of the castle, but this one had big splotches of grey and white all over it. It almost resembled tile, but tile had geometrical patterns, and these patches splashed out at random with bold yellow borders separating them. If anything, it reminded Silver of a piece from the abstract wing of Aunt Frames’ gallery.
“These,” Father said, tapping the largest splotch, “are where we’ll patch in the new stone roofing, but we’ll leave the rest of it be. These lines here?” He indicated one of the yellow squiggles. “They run with the fractures in the ceiling. See? They match.”
Indeed, the veins and cracks in the ceiling above their heads were a mirror image. “Wait, but then…” Silver Spoon flipped her tail with a frown. “If you do that, everypony will see where you patched the roof. They’ll see all the cracks and things.”
“That’s the idea. See, we’ll fill the cracks and seal the patches with a special melted gold—weather-proofed and magically reinforced, of course—so that the whole roof’s shot through with it. We’re doing the same with the walls, the doors, everything! ‘Mend what was once broken, and let it be all the more beautiful for its breaking.’ Mistmane said that; legend has it she invented the technique.” Father stared through the hole in the roof with stars in his eyes. “Kintsugi, she called it.”
With the last room on the list finished and labeled, Silver began rolling up the materials and giving them back to Father to store in his case. “So this way, you can see where Nightmare Moon and Celestia broke things? But then, why bother doing anything?” She gestured to the blue shield above their heads. “If you put a magic bubble around it like this one, you could leave the ruins alone and not do a thing.”
“I agree, but permanent spells of that capacity exceed the budget. We still need a roof, yet we shouldn’t ignore the battle scars. They’re part of Equestria’s history—of our history.” Father gave the room one last glance before he locked it behind him. “Our history is who we are, bad parts included. We shouldn’t forget it.”
As they passed through the entry hall for the last time, Silver Spoon’s hoof idly traced an ugly gash in the stone. Not a battle scar, but the natural result from centuries of neglect. “Back at Wisteria, Mister Martingale said that, too. It’s how we learn to do better next time.”
Before the door shut behind them, she stole one last glance at the Castle of the Two Sisters. Hours had passed during their time here, and the sun positioned itself just so behind a broken turret so that the rays fell in gentle pools of light. A web shimmered in the crook of a battered statue. Its threads thrummed like a guitar string while a spider repaired the hole Silver had torn through it earlier. Hoofprints in the dust crisscrossed the marble floors.
Old and decrepit though it was, the place did have its charm. Still smelled like mold, though.
“Your teacher’s right, and frankly, I can think of no better place for this museum than Ponyville.” Father stretched his hoof to the rope bridge connecting the castle and the Everfree Forest.
At this height, the lines of trees dipped just below Ponyville’s rooftops. A patchwork of homes and roads and businesses rolled over the hills: the stone cap of town hall, the shiny metal of the Apple family’s silo, the broad terrace of the Rich mansion, the neighborhood of cloud homes drifting over open fields, and way off in the distance, the shining crystalline turrets of a brand new castle. A flyover nowheresville with an alicorn princess. A sleepy hamlet where nothing ever happened, except for when the world turned upside down. It was still tiny compared to Manehattan, but grew by the day, faster than a dandelion in the sidewalk.
The town made no sense two years ago, and it made even less sense now. Still, not a bad place to live, once one got used to it.
Father’s tall shadow fell over Silver Spoon’s withers. “We could have gone to Canterlot you know. The manor’s always open to us, but I thought we might be due for a change of scenery.”
An odd choice of words, Silver Spoon thought. The scenery changed whether one moved to a new town or not. Ponies, too.
She wrapped her tail around herself, staring into the evergreen of the Everfree. In the hills above, Ponyville’s barren trees swayed in the wind. “I don’t think I like things to change. What’s so wrong with things staying the way they are?”
“Fair point. Allow me to answer your question with another question.” Father turned to the castle ruins jutting high behind them. “Nopony's touched this castle for a thousand years. In all that time unchanged, do you think it's done it any good?”
“No,” Silver said. “I guess not.” Despite some uncomfortable bumps in the process, she had to admit, in the end, the stark change of scenery had benefit. Young ladies knew how to use their circumstances to their benefit, and if circumstances constantly shifted, then so too did the benefits. “When we first moved here, Mother said that the country air would do us good. I think she was right.”
Father nodded solemnly. “That, and it’s cheaper.”
The forest air turned sharp and crackling, the scent of smoke and ozone mingling with leaves and soil. In a pop of aquamarine light, a unicorn appeared. Scorch marks licked the back of her hocks and tail, and she glanced about the forest, flicking her ears and pawing the earth. A scroll floated in the glow of her horn.
“Hey! You guys know which way to the castle?” The strange mare tossed her sweaty purple mane over her shoulder, nodding to the ruins behind them. “Not that one, the new one.”
Silver Spoon frowned and sheltered close to Father’s legs. “You’re the pony Brass Tacks was chas—”
The mare’s horn flashed once, twice.
The whole world went aquamarine.
When the greenish light faded from her sight, Silver Spoon found herself blinking dumbly at the trees. The forest spread before her in deep greens and browns, yet that didn’t seem right. Hadn’t there been a blue tint to everything a moment ago for… some reason?
Silver rubbed the back of her neck, wondering where Brass Tacks had gone off to. They hadn’t seen him since the hall of armor, and it wasn’t like him to vanish for no reason. Why bother coming all the way out here only to leave? He was supposed to help Father with his research materials.
She wanted to ask Father about it, but it would be rude to interrupt. He stood beside her, talking to the pink unicorn with pretty blue eyes.
“Please, I’ve been lost in this forest for hours, and I need to find Princess Twilight’s castle right away! It’s an emergency.” The unicorn certainly looked the part. From her disheveled mane, sweaty coat, and all the little scrapes and scratches, she must have been wandering the Everfree all day.
Hoofbeats sounded in the distance. A tall unicorn’s silhouette plowed straight for them, head lowered and horn pointed in their direction.
The mare blanched. “I need to know, like, now.” Her eye twitched. “Right now.”
“Oh, we’re headed for the castle ourselves, as a matter of fact,” Father told her. “We’d be more than happy to accompany you as soon as we find our butler.” He followed the mare’s line of sight and brightened. “Ah, here he comes now!”
The strange unicorn’s eyes bulged. “That’s your butler?”
Silver Spoon nodded. “The best money can buy!” She reached up to touch the mare’s leg; she felt cold and clammy. Maybe she’d fallen ill from her forest adventure. “Are you feeling okay, ma’am? When Brass Tacks gets here, maybe he can help—”
The foreleg yanked out of Silver’s grasp. “No!” The pink mare cleared her throat. “Uh, no thanks, I mean. I don’t want to trouble you, I just need to go home and clean up first. Meeting a princess, after all!” She laughed too casually for it to be casual, with a hysterical edge to the sound. “Just directions.” She dropped the laughter like a hot iron. “Now.”
Silver frowned. Something about this didn’t feel right.
“Over the rope bridge, there, then due north to Ponyville.” Father raised an eyebrow at Silver Spoon bracing against his haunch. “Take two rights until you find the shop with the candy cane fence, then look for the crystal spires. It’s a straight shot from Sugarcube Corner; you can’t miss it. But really, miss, you ought to let somepony examine your inju—”
She’d already run off.
“What a rude pony.” Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses, glaring at the pink shape darting into the trees on the other side of the bridge. She didn’t think she liked this unicorn at all; she’d been very short with them when all they’d tried to do was help. “She didn’t even say ‘thank you’! I mean, it’s the least she could do.”
“Miss Silver!” Brass Tacks thundered through the branches, nearly worse for wear than the strange pink mare. The light of his horn blazed bright, cloaking both Silvers in his magical aura. “Oh, Miss Silver, are you alright?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t we be? Tacks, what’s happening? Where did you go?” Silver Spoon furrowed her brow while her guard’s magic scanned her head to hoof. “You left us all by ourselves, and…”
Poor Brass Tacks’ sides heaved with exhaustion. He had the haggard, whetted air of a pony who’s fought through Tartarus and back. Twice.
Silver’s face fell. “We’re not mad at you, but I don’t understand. Why are you so upset?”
In a thick copse of trees far across the bridge, the strange unicorn vanished in a flash of light.
Brass Tacks stepped back and let his horn go dark. His eyes flicked to where the mare had teleported away, gritting his teeth hard. Under his breath, he growled, “Memory spell.” When both Silvers peered at him in complete bafflement, he shook his head with a sigh. “I’ll explain on the way home.”
“I’ll brew you some emergency tea when we get there.” In Silver’s opinion, he needed a long nap and a bath to go with it, but Tacks had never been one to relax properly. They’d be lucky to get him to skip his workout tonight.
“That’s very kind of you to offer, Young Miss Silver, but it’s really not—”
“It is. I insist.” Silver Spoon touched the torn sleeve of his suit jacket. The brown coat under it was scorched and bruised. “You need one, I can tell. You still take yours with flax instead of lavender, right? Heavy on the cinnamon, light on the honey?”
Brass Tacks’ sigh took half the air out of him. Dark rings circled his bright eyes, and every muscle braced tighter than bowstrings. He must have been so tired and stressed, whatever he’d been doing. Her bodyguard slouched, tired, disappointed, and frightfully angry—more at himself than anypony else. Not unlike Diamond Tiara through most of last year.
Silver Spoon offered a smile. “It’s alright, Tacks. I know you did the best you could do.”
“That’s… kind of you to say, miss.” He sighed again, softer this time. “Emergency tea sounds wonderful, Miss Silver.”
“It always does.”
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That's all she wrote. Stay tuned for the epilogue!
8830216
The end of an era!
Kudos to you on delivering a HUGE and delightful festival of jerkfilly rise, fall, corruption and redemption. Bravo!
Ooh, nice! It's good to see more of Silver's dad, and the explanation of why they left Manehattan makes perfect sense.
Also, Brass Tacks is good at his job. Going against Glim-Glam is quite an achievement, even if she did get away!
It's weird to envision a fencing mask that still leaves the mouth exposed for necessary gripping purposes.
It's good to see the Riches working past their issues... though the fact that they feel the need to keep the therapy a family secret only highlights just how serious those issues are.
I love how the ballooning announcers for the Running of the Leaves quickly became a tradition.
Huh. After her cutie mark story, I can't help but think that Diamond Tiara still doesn't fully understand the meaning of her mark. It's definitely deeper than she's giving it credit for.
Double huh. I wouldn't think the Castle of the Two Sisters would be within the Ponyville city limits, but I suppose it's a shorter trek when you know where you're going and you don't have to complete a series of virtue trials en route.
"For peat's sake" makes for a great earth pony oath.
Wonderful use of Mistmane, and of kintsugi as a metaphor for the story as a whole. Though I suppose it would be gintsugi in the Silvers' case if we want to be especially thematically appropriate. Whatever the metal, this is a story of building and learning from mistakes. Not hiding them, not hiding from them, and certainly not letting them drag you down into a death spiral hurricane that wipes out all surrounding coastal towns. That never ends well.
Oh, and major credit to Brass Tacks. Starlight's far from easy to pin down.
Hard to believe this is coming to an end, but it's not like there's much more concrete data you can use for Silver. It's a been a long, strange, glorious trip. Thank you tremendously for this story.
damn, badass butler is badass
That bit with Starlight asking for directions to Twilight's castle was weird. The implication with her cameo in the S5 Discord episode and her rant in the finale is that she had been stalking Twilight for months. That combined with the fact that the Friendship Castle is the largest and most distinctive building in Ponyville means that she should have no reason to not already know.
Great to learn what happened to Laurel. I hope by the end of this story we learn about Silver and Diamond taking that cooking class together. Wish Di luck in her therapy!
Why am I thinking of a sequel?
You know, adult Silver Spoon, Brass Tacks is retiring, and she’s looking for a new butler…
Starlight misusing magic all over the place
8830745
Indeed. The symbolism is strong. The castle is cracked, showing the rifts between Celestia and Luna. Goldie's expectations led to the very real crack in Diamond Tiara's hoof, in turn putting a rift between her and Filthy. The growing hostility between Filthy, Spoiled, and Goldie led to the inside of Diamond cracking as well, like a toy pulled in different directions. And she in turn almost broke Silver Spoon because the pressure was too great. Another fissure, another crack.
DT's family and Silver's family are about to do something similar too. Like you explained. They're going to try to fix some of the damage, but not by pretending it was never there. By working through it. By learning from it. By not letting themselves be defined only by the hurt and the brokenness.
If it weren't for...
...I'd be thinking Palanquin, or somepony of that ilk. I suppose it could still be, but right now I'm thinking Fair Weather at worst.
By the oddest of odd coincidences, I spent this morning in The Cloisters, where I saw the Unicorn Tapestries in person for the first time.
("The Cloisters? Oh, it's at the ends of the earth--it's almost in Yonkers!")
"Now be careful with that neuralyzer, Pinkie."
*FLASH* "Wodjer say, Brain?"
"I said, be careful with that neuralyzer, Pinkie."
*FLASH* "Wodjer say, Brain?"
"I said..."
Silver has grown up so much!! Level headed and well rounded...not acting like she is, but rather being. It's a beautiful thing to see!
Huh, that's something that can't be covered by canon. Guess you're deviating and calling an end to things. Ah well, I'll sure miss it. I have enjoyed this little slice of Silver Spoon's life.
Just noticing this on the reread:
Not just "Berry Pinch", not "my classmate Berry Pinch", but “my friend Berry Pinch". If you'd told Silver Spoon two years or even one year ago that she'd be calling Berry Pinch "my friend"...
Very fitting that the conversation about learning from past mistakes happens as Starlight is passing by, though Brass Tacks being able to hold her off strains credulity a tad.