Desert Water

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 1: Desert Home

The metal and wood body of the vehicle hummed and shook, vibrating and hissing with magic as its mechanical parts churned and thrummed. Under its hood, a magical engine continually- -and loudly- - transferred the energy of a complex and terribly expensive magical crystal battery in to a system of pistons and gears that clicked and popped as the wheels spun, carrying the vehicle ever forward down its path.

A sudden rut in the road jostled the occupants, and Diamond Tiara let out a small cry as she was knocked from her seat and onto the floor.

“Ow!” she cried, rubbing her head and checking to ensure that her eponymous headgear was appropriately aligned. “Stupid driver…what in Equestria does daddy pay him for if he’s not even going to do his job correctly?”

Silver Spoon, who had been sitting next to Diamond Tiara on the hideously brown faux-leather bench seat, did not answer. The bump in the road had not even remotely detached her from her wide-eyed death grip on the door and seat. Her eyes vaguely seemed to register that Diamond Tiara had been dislodged from her position on the slippery seats, but mostly just continued to hyperventilate.

Annoyed, Diamond Tiara crawled back into position and propped her head on her hoof, staring out the window at the rapidly passing landscape, only to find that even having an active view of this particular segment of the world was only marginally better than her view from the floor of the automobile.

Outside stretched an endless desert. Everywhere Diamond Tiara could look, she saw nothing more than empty, unused land populated solely by rocks weathered by endless wind and trees that had been reduced to dry, bleached husks by the light above. The soil itself was not dirt so much as it was baked sand, or even dust that had settled from some unseen source high above. The landscape- -if this dead and overheated plane could even be called that- -rushed past at a speed faster than any cart could travel, but even then, it never really changed. On the train, they had seen it pass for hours without the slightest differentiation, disembarking only to get into the automobile and continue through that same homogenous emptiness for almost five hours.

Diamond Tiara frowned, and glared at the pointless land outside. She did not like it, but the feature that bothered her the most was how utterly isolated it was. There were no signs of civilization: no shopping malls, no exotic locations, no evidence of any of the luxuries that she was accustomed to or anything that would be remotely appealing even to a common twelve year old filly, let alone her. There were not even towns, or buildings. Even a dusty village filled with sleepy and ignorant tumbleweed farmers would have been better than nothing.

The road itself seemed to reek of abandonment. The asphalt had been bleached by the sun to the point where it was dull gray and cracked, with the most anemic and inedible looking grass Diamond Tiara had ever seen sprouting up from the cracks. Along it ran randomly spaced, tilting telephone poles, their normally greasy surfaces dried and crusted by the sun. They did not even have wires anymore.

The isolation and already oppressive boredom made Diamond Tiara angry, but something about the landscape irritated her on a different, more instinctual level. It was unnerving. Something about it made Diamond Tiara shiver, even though it was clearly not cold, and some element of that emptiness caused an annoying dread to creep through her mind. After considering it for a long moment, she realized what it was: the bigness. Diamond Tiara had spent most of her life in Ponyville, surrounded by forests and mountains that framed her idyllic- -if rustic- -town in green and beauty. This desert, though, was different. It was too big. The land stretched out seemingly forever beneath the bright blue dome of the sky, ending only at the border of distant, dry mountains. Mountains that were surely empty, that no pony dwelt on and perhaps that no pony had ever climbed. No pony had cause to climb them. No pony had cause to go to them, to go out into this desert. Apart from Silver Spoon, the car’s driver, and Diamond Tiara’s parents in the forward compartment, they were completely and utterly alone, simply because no other ponies came out this far.

Diamond Tiara would have declared the place Celestia-forsaken, except for the fact that Celestia clearly seemed to have blessed the area with an over-abundance of sunlight. While giving glorious light to something like a beautiful tropical island with perfectly manicured beaches and waiters bearing pineapple juice made sense, Diamond Tiara had no idea why Celestia would put so much effort into lighting such a pit as this one.

“Sweet Celestia,” she said at last, flopping back into her seat. “It’s as empty as Snails’s head out there.”

“I think,” muttered Silver Spoon through her hyperventilation, “that I saw…a rock a few miles…back. A rock…passed it at…fifty miles per hour…”

“Are you okay?” asked Diamond Tiara. “You’ve been like that for, like, five hours. Your stretching the seat upholstery.”

“I’m fine,” wheezed Silver Spoon, trying to loosen her grip only to tighten it suddenly as the vehicle crossed a minor bump and let out a low squeak. She closed her eyes. “What would give you the impression that I’m not? As long as we go straight….sweet Celestia Luna Cadence and Twilight, let us keep going straight…”

Diamond Tiara shrugged and accepted her friend’s explanation. “A rock…” she mused. “So maybe not as empty as Snails’s head. Probably Snips’s. I swear I can literally hear the gravel rolling around in there when he nods.” She thought for a moment, visualizing the tall yellow pony and the short, fat gray-blue one. “Actually…have you ever noticed?”

“That a watermelon that hits a rock at fifty miles per hour turns into…” Silver Spoon gulped, “…juice?”

“No. That they’re both unicorns. I mean, aren’t unicorns supposed to be really smart or something?” Diamond Tiara paused to follow that line of thought for a moment. As bored as she was, there was not much else to do. “Hmm…maybe the horn presses on their brain or something?”

“Impinges,” suggested Silver Spoon, meekly.

“What did you just call me?”

Diamond Tiara suddenly stiffened as the glass partition between the rear and middle cabin dropped. She sat up perfectly straight and silenced.

“Diamond Tiara,” said Spoiled Rich, “pleeeese try to control your volume.”

“Yes, mother,” said Diamond Tiara, obediently. She leaned slightly, looking through to the rest of the limousine. She saw her father sitting across from her mother, his back against the window and his face buried into the stocks section of the newspaper- -except that his paper was upside down. Over the top of it, Diamond Tiara could see that his face was ashen with a greenish tint.

Spoiled Rich turned to Silver Spoon. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Silver Spoon, dear, you are stretching the upholstery.”

“I can’t help it,” squeaked Silver Spoon. “I’m sorry Mrs. Rich, but I’m white-knuckling it here.”

“Ponies don’t have filthy ‘knuckles’,” corrected Spoiled Rich, sounding vaguely disgusted- -which seemed to be her default setting.

“Nevertheless, ponies were NOT meant to move this fast!”

Spoiled Rich sighed hyperbolically and clicked her tongue, a noise that made Diamond Tiara flinch to suppress the shuddering that always accompanied hearing that sound. “Silver Spoon, dear, we are going no faster than we were on the train.”

“A train has tracks. It can’t…” Silver Spoon gulped. “Careen…”

“Besides,” said Spoiled Rich, now completely ignoring Silver Spoon. “This vehicle is the epitome of luxury. Why, it cost over one hundred thousand bits! Isn’t that right, dear?”

Filthy Rich nodded. “Magical combustion engines are the future of- -ohhhh- -transport.”

“Combustion?” squeaked Silver Spoon in a voice several octaves higher than her normal pitch.

“The vehicle a pony rides in speaks volumes of her character,” said Spoiled Rich in what Diamond Tiara had come to mentally refer to as her “lecture-voice”. “This car is charged with class and sophistication, and it just screams ‘wealth’ to all who see it! Far better than any dirty cart can…”

“But there’s nopony to see it,” said Diamond Tiara, pointing out the windows.

“It doesn’t matter if there are ponies around to see it,” said Spoiled Rich, as though that were obvious. “As long as it is seen.”

Perversely, Diamond Tiara realized that by her mother’s bizarre logic, that made sense. IT was the same reason that Diamond Tiara wore her tiara even when she was alone: because being seen being rich did not require being seen at all. It was a state of being.

“I don’t even know why we’re out here,” she said, crossing her hooves. “This place is so…dirty.”

“And full of rocks. Fast, fast moving rocks,” added Silver Spoon.

“Admittedly, it is isolated,” said Spoiled Rich, looking out the windows with the same annoyance that her daughter just had been. “And the scenery is not at all appropriate for ponies of our class…but it is our duty to inspect our most recent acquisition in person.”

“Another house?” whined Diamond Tiara. “What is this, our sixth?”

“Eighth,” corrected Spoiled Rich, sharply. “Diamond Tiara! I thought I taught you better than that!”

Diamond Tiara stiffened again. “Yes, mother. Sorry, mother.”

“A pony can never have too many houses! Or any possession, for that matter! There is no such thing as too much money, too much jewelry, too many fine dresses, too many cars and carts and THINGS. Remember, Diamond Tiara: it is your possessions that define you, what you are able to buy that shows the world who you are.”

“Yes, mother. Thank you, mother.”

Spoiled Rich smiled. “That’s my daughter. Remember, image is EVERYTHING.”

The window slowly closed, and Spoiled Rich went back to whatever it was she was doing. Diamond Tiara released her breath, and then collapsed back into her seat. Then she leaned to her right, putting her head on Silver Spoon. At Diamond Tiara’s touch, Silver Spoon relaxed just slightly.

“I know she’s my mother,” whispered Diamond Tiara. “But sometimes I really hate her…”

The car jolted to a stop. It was not the sudden noise that caused Diamond Tiara to awake, but rather the sudden cessation of the engine sounds, and the deafening silence that seemed to creep into the strange dreams that, once she awoke, she could not recall.

“Huh? What?” she said, groggily wiping away the drool from her mouth. As her eyes began to focus, something gray and heavy pushed past her with great speed, tearing open the door and knocking her out onto the ground.

“Ow!” cried Diamond Tiara. “Silver Spoon, why did you- -”

Silver Spoon was already across the dirty ground, though. She ran behind a nearby bush and spilled her oats with all the quiet, ladylike grace expected of a filly of the upper class. “Oh,” said Diamond Tiara, and, making a face. “Eeew.”

Silver Spoon stood up, gasping, and wiped her mouth. “Ponies…ponies were not meant to move that fast,” she said, wobbling back to Diamond Tiara. Silver Spoon parted her mane and drew out a strand on the tip of her hoof. “EEK!” she cried, “Look what the stress did to me! I have a gray hair!”

“They’re all gray, Silver Spoon.”

Silver Spoon directed her eyes upward at her silvery bangs. “Oh. I forgot.”

Diamond Tiara sighed and wiped her forehead. In the car, it had not been apparent just how hot the desert was. Diamond Tiara had known that deserts were supposed to be hot, of course, but she had no idea what that heat felt like until she stepped out of the limousine. Without the perfectly controlled and conditioned air, the outside world felt like an oven. Diamond Tiara felt herself sweating, and that was something she hated doing.

Then, as if it had snuck up on her without her noticing, Diamond Tiara became cognizant of the massive house looming overhead. There was no other possible word to describe what it was doing. The building was by far the largest single structure that Diamond Tiara had ever seen. It seemed to sprawl out in all directions with no apparent order or overarching architectural theme; instead, it seemed to be a mass of additions upon additions, each one stylized in accordance to the time when it had been built. It was a ghastly sight of architectural parasitism: buildings built upon buildings, feeding off what had been set down before to form something that was more like a town than a single house.

Even with its disparate elements, however, the entire thing seemed oddly united in its strange age. The house was paradoxically weathered and undamaged. Its numerous windows were dirty to the point of near opacity, but none were broken. The many colors of paint had been faded by endless sun exposure and were beginning to peel while the wood beneath remained as strong as ever. The brick of the endless additions had clearly been built in almost every color imaginable, and yet over the years- -or decades, or centuries- -the desert wind had cut endlessly away at them, fading away the reds and yellows to a single, nearly homogenous color.

With its worn color and the dry vines that grew up over its stonework and masonry, the house seemed to almost have risen from the desert itself. It was old and worn, just like everything else in the desert- -but at the same time unbroken. Alive, even.

Diamond Tiara stuck her tongue out and grimaced at the expanse of gauche, plebian design that spread out before her- -but at the same time shivered. The size of it alone, and the height, and the fact that she could not see exactly how big it was from the front unnerved her. As if the ugly shell of the building held something much larger and much older within.

There was a clicking sound as Driving Glove, their driver, opened the door to the limousine’s center compartment. Spoiled Rich stepped out first, her hair protected from the sun by a stylish kerchief and her eyes covered in wide, expensive sunglasses.

“Oh, this heat!” she immediately complained, fanning herself.

Filthy Rich followed his wife out of the car. He wobbled for a moment, and then produced a bottle of Pony-Bismol and chugged half the pink contents of the bottle. Seeming to be satisfied with the result, he looked up at the house that continued to actively loom over all of them.

“There it is!” he said, proudly, apparently oblivious to its appearance.

“Daddy,” said Diamond Tiara, “you can’t be serious.”

“No, I am,” he said, checking his notes. “This is certainly the correct location. My little Diamond, say hello to our new summer home!”

“It certainly seems to have an overabundance of summer,” noted a sweating and overheating Silver Spoon.

“But we already have a summer home!” whined Diamond Tiara. “We have, like, three! And the others aren’t in the middle of nowhere!”

“I think we passed the middle a long, long time ago,” said Silver Spoon, looking over her shoulder at the long, empty road that led all the way out to the mountainous horizon.

“Well, that’s part of the charm,” said Filthy, smiling and putting his hoof on his daughter’s shoulder. “It’s quiet, isolated. No telegraph lines or rapid mail. A place to get away.”

“From what, the police?”

“From the hectic life of a businesspony,” sighed Filthy Rich, his normally patient exterior breaking slightly at his daughter’s attitude. “That, and Rich’s Barnyard Bargains is going to be expanding into the Los Pegasus district market soon.” He looked to one side of the house, toward where a surprisingly abundant field of surprisingly pointy plants were growing. “I’m thinking we can add a private airship dock. Los Pegasus is barely two hundred miles out.”

“That, and we will most certainly need it to host parties,” suggested Spoiled Rich. “Los Pegasus is known for its tumultuous and high-stakes high society. If we will have any hope of being competitive, we will need a grand location to host.”

“That, and it was a great deal.”

“Not that we need to worry about how much money we need to spend,” snapped Spoiled Rich.

“No,” said Filthy, trying to keep his wife calm. “But the ability to spend wisely is an important skill for Diamond Tiara to learn, so that when I give the company over to her son she will have taught him the correct values.”

“Indeed,” sneered Spoiled Rich. “We wouldn’t want our descendants to squander our hard-earned station like some old-money hacks.”

“Out of curiosity,” asked Silver Spoon. “How much was it?”

“The asking price was ten,” sight Filthy Rich with an oddly somber expression.

Diamond Tiara’s jaw nearly dropped to the dirty gravel below. “TEN MILLION? Do you know how many tiaras that could buy?!”

“Ten thousand,” said Filthy.

“Ten…ten thousand bits?” The sudden shock of such a low number floored Diamond Tiara in the reverse direction. Most ponies her age could barely conceive of how much money their parents even made, but Diamond Tiara had grown up as the daughter of the most powerful business mogul in all of Ponyville. She understood property values well, and knew just how much ten thousand would normally get a pony. “That’s barely enough for a two-bedroom in Ponyville!”

“Or enough for a month’s rent in Canterlot,” suggested Silver Spoon.

“You only paid that much for this…this…”

“Behemoth?”

Diamond Tiara glared at Silver Spoon. “Don’t finish my sentences, Silver Spoon. It’s annoying.” She turned back to her father. “You paid ten thousand bits for this behemoth?!”

“We paid six million,” said Spoiled Rich flatly.

“Six- -six- -” Diamond Tiara put her hoof to her head. The combination of the heat, the light, the ugly house, and the numbers was giving her a migraine.

Filthy sighed. “We got into a bidding war with Upper Crust and Jet Set.”

“And there was no way we were going to let a pair of Canterlot unicorns outdo us.”

“You paid six million for a ten thousand bit house…” groaned Diamond Tiara.

“Yes…and with the low value, there’s no way to liquidate it to recoup the cost…”

“But it was worth it.” Spoiled Rich smiled. “Just to see the look on that unicorn witch’s face. Diamond Tiara,” she said, her “lecture voice” causing Diamond Tiara’s posture to immediately improve. “Never forget: if you give the unicorns half a chance, they will stomp all over you like trash, just because you are an earth pony. It is in their nature to think that anypony without a horn is a filthy commoner. It is our duty to prove them that we are not.”

“Yes, mother,” said Diamond Tiara, hoping that she would not get the “unicorns are elitist jerks, Pegasi are never rich because they blow all their money foolishly, don’t even talk to a filthy bat-pony EVER” speech yet again. Instead, though, Spoiled rich turned back to the large building. She sighed deeply.

“Rich,” she said. “This place is certainly large enough, but it is positively filthy.”

“Well, it has been empty for nearly thirty years,” said Filthy. “But the agent assured us that it is in full working order. We can hire ponies to clean it.” He produced a small pad and flipped through it. “I have already hired attending staff, and scheduled for supplies to be mailed to this location.”

“Mailed?” said Spoiled Rich, raising an eyebrow. “And just who did you contract for the supply drop?”

“Heh,” said Filthy, tugging at his collar. “A very reputable local buisnessmare.”

“You hired that mental deficient Derpy, didn’t you?” Spoiled Rich groaned loudly. “That is so like you! Anything to save money, even if it means having a brain-damaged mare deliver our goods? She’s going to fail, and break everything! I mean, have you seen her?” Spoiled Rich feigned shuddering. “Those eyes…her whole family is a detriment to Ponyville. Forcing to school go mainstream that challenged daughter of hers, and she doesn’t even know who the father is…probably that fez-wearing Shriner in his ridiculous blue box…”

“Mother,” said Diamond Tiara sharply. “Dinky is three years younger than us, and she still gets straight A’s in our class. And her mother is not named ‘Derpy’. Her name is ‘Muffin’.”

“And she has a duel PhD in synthetic and inorganic chemistry,” added Silver Spoon. “Which…I guess makes the muffins taste better?”

“Diamond Tiara!” cried Spoiled Rich. Diamond Tiara stiffened again. She knew that her mother would never strike her, but with the look on her face, she seemed to be pretty close. Even if it came to that, Diamond Tiara knew that it would be worth it. She may have been mean to the other students, but she had been making an effort recently to be their friends. She would not let her mother drag poor Dinky’s name through the mud.

Spoiled Rich leaned closer and whispered. “Never, NEVER correct me. I am your mother, and I am always right!”

“Not about this,” hissed Diamond Tiara.

“Now, now,” said Filthy, separating them. “Ms. Muffin is a very reputable mail pony. And she will not be doing this alone by any means. The supplies are going to be air-dropped when the Pegasi come through on a weather mission.”

“Weather?” said Silver Spoon, looking up at the perfectly blue and sweltering sky. “When was the last time that this place had ‘weather’?”

“Sixty seven,” said Filthy.

“Sixty seven?!” cried Diamond Tiara. “Are they being lazy? That’s like…thirty eight years ago!”

“No,” said Filthy. “Not that sixty seven. The one before.”

“Oh.” Diamond Tiara paused. “How did you know that?”

Filthy Rich smiled broadly, and then ran back to the car where Driving Glove was busy fanning a steam burst from under the lifted hood. Before Driving Glove even had a chance to help with the luggage, Filthy tore through it and removed a wide binder, one overstuffed with mismatched and seemingly disorganized papers inserted into it.

“When we purchased the house, I had Princess Twilight herself assess the provenance.”

Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. With the way her father said had said it, it sounded like he had used his connections to gain some kind of immense favor from royalty. In reality, as Diamond Tiara and most of Ponyville knew, the Princess was a tremendous egghead. There was probably nothing she would rather do than to dig up information out of dusty old books about a dusty old house.

“So it does have some history,” said Spoiled Rich, smiling. Diamond Tiara sighed under her breath. Her parents seemed to have a tendency to declare that anything that was “old” with “history” was inherently more valuable. There was a section of extremely old and extremely ugly paintings on loan to the Canterlot Art Museum that proved that.

“Indeed it does!” said Filthy Rich, excited. “But let’s get inside first. This heat is…invigorating. Perhaps too much so.”

He led them forward toward what he determined to be the front of the house. In actuality, it was part of a wide system of porches with oversized, weathered columns and a ridiculous looking wooden double-door. Just walking up the sand-covered stone steps in the heat was exhausting, and standing in the shadow of the house somehow did not improve Diamond Tiara’s opinion of it.

“Let’s see here,” said Filthy Rich, taking the key in his hoof and inserting it into the lock in the center of the door. He struggled to twist it against the stuck mechanism, and then with a resounding click through the desert silence they key turned suddenly.

All four of them stood silent for a moment. Even Driving Glove, now beginning to unload their luggage, stopped and turned. It was as though something deep within the house had clicked in unison with the door. Like it had been waiting.

“There it goes!” said Filthy Rich. He wiped his forehead as if turning a key- -even an oversized, old fashioned one- -had been laborious work. Then he pushed open the door.

A sudden surge of stale air poured out at them.

“Aack!” gasped Silver Spoon, holding her nose. “It smells like a million grandmas!”

“Two million if you ask me,” gasped Diamond Tiara.

“Well, it’s been sealed up for thirty years,” said Spoiled Rich, holding her breath as she entered with her nose held high, as if she could look down it at a smell.

Diamond Tiara had not expected it to smell bad, though. As Silver Spoon had suggested, it smelled like old people, but also like a number of other smells that a house should not smell like. Deep within the odor was the scent of really old dust, and something like a mix of bad curry and horseradish. Deeper, though, was an oddly floral scent, like stale perfume that had lost all its higher scents by evaporation and retained only the most durable and least likable remnants of its original fragrance.

Slowly, though, she followed her father into the darkened halls beyond. Once inside, she found herself in a large foyer lit by the yellowed light of high, dirty windows. The light poured downward in bright beams through the dust, and struck the bizarre floor which was, of all things, tiled with mirrors. They were dirty and dusty, but they still reflected well.

“Cool,” said Silver Spoon, lifting one leg and looking in the mirrors. “Undercarriage inspection.”

“Am I even old enough to know why the floor is like that?” sneered Diamond Tiara.

“Well,” said Filthy Rich, opening the binder. “According to this, some of the architects were…eccentric.”

“Ya think?”

“Only sometimes,” replied Silver Spoon, investigating a tall, brick-red column with an arabesque top and bottom that, with the mirrors reflecting it, seemed to extend both upward and downward at the same time.
` Fithy Rich started walking, looking upward toward the high blue-painted arches of the ceiling or the three asymmetrical staircases that ran to three different additions built off the main entrance. He flipped through the book that Twilight had given him.

“Ah, here it is,” he said, leading them into a wide, dark hallway. “From the start. Apparently, this land was first discovered by Assyrian missionaries during the Second Era. They built a monetary here…” He looked up and around at the empty hall and the doorless rooms branching off from it. “Actually, over there…I think…it should be in the center of this whole place.”

“How do you know?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Because the monetary was replaced by a fort, which this house was built on. It was constructed during…” he looked at his notes. “Wow, actually. It saw most of its use, apparently, during the Nightmare Moon Insurrection. Afterword, though, it was abandoned until they expanded it during the medieval period, adding the outer walls and expanding the central keep…but it went abandoned shortly after that.”

“Abandoned? Why?”

“From a logistics standpoint? Too far from Canterlot would be my guess. Impossible to set up a proper supply line. Remember that, my little Diamond: always make sure shipping channels are clear before setting up a satellite location!” He turned back to his notes and flipped the pages. “Let’s see…it almost disappeared for centuries until the Cowifornia gold rush. Some miners apparently got lost and ended up here.”

“Heck of a place to get lost.”

“It was indeed,” said Filthy Rich, smiling. “They never got to the gold…because they struck silver.”

“Silver?” said Silver Spoon, suddenly interested. “Where?”

“Beneath this place, apparently. The mines were quite extensive, deeper than any in Equestria. The vein was tremendous. The fort was developed into a processing center and shipping house, and expanded into a small town. A lot of the buildings outside the walls- -where we are now, I suppose- -are built around what used to be a mining town.”

“But then why did they leave?” asked Diamond Tiara. All the other ponies looked at her, as if confused. “I mean, there’ gone now, aren’t they? Did they dig it all up or something?”

Filthy Rich flipped through his book. “No…they all just left.”

“Left?”

He nodded and squinted at the page. “It just says that something was wrong with the silver.”

“Like low quality? I really hate low quality silver,” suggested Silver Spoon. “Might as well just use pewter at that point.”

“Perish the thought,” added Spoiled Rich, shivering at the very idea of pewter flatware. It actually took a great deal of coaxing just to get her to use any utensils that were not solid gold.

“No…” said Filthy, confused. “It just said that the ground went ‘sour’, and that the silver came up bad.” He flipped through the pages again. “All the miners left, and a religious order bought the place…‘Daughters of the Veil’?” He looked to his wife, and she shook her head, not recognizing the probably long-defunct organization. “Well…they refitted this place into a sanitarium for glanders patients. It only ran for five years before the cure was found, though, and the place went abandoned again until it was bought by a wealthy burro around the turn of the last century.”

“A burro,” groaned Spoiled Rich. “Of course. That does explain why this place is so…disorganized.”

“From then on, it just kept changing hooves. Nopony kept it very long. Just enough time to build onto it. Then they would sell it for a ridiculously low price. Or the bank would.”

“The bank? You mean that everybody who bought it got foreclosed on?” asked Diamond Tiara, panicked by the idea of a financial curse.

“No,” said Filthy, frowning into the pages. “They just…left.” His family- -and Silver Spoon- -all paused for a moment. Then he smiled and slammed the binder closed. “Well. Good fortune for us, I suppose. And you know how much I love a good fortune.”

They all chortled with laughter- -but Diamond Tiara could not help but feel that her own laughter was far more hollow than it usually was.

“Come on, Silver Spoon!”

“I’m trying,” said Silver Spoon, slipping nervously on the sandy slope and coming dangerously close to a threatening looking cactus. She picked herself up and dashed up the hill as well as she could, though, and joined Diamond Tiara at the summit.

Out on one side of them stood the house in the distance. From her vantage point above, Diamond Tiara could see just how big it was. Its shape was a remnant of what it had once been: a tall stone keep, which still stood, now overgrown with wooden torrents and other mismatched architectural growths, surrounded by a large, star-shaped stone wall. The space outside the wall was covered in its tendril-like, ever-expanding presence, and the space between the walls and the keep had likewise been filled with a mixture of tall institutional buildings from every age that surrounded courtyards of every possible size. Many of those courtyards were small and shaded, and some were large, marked with cross-shaped stones. All were overgrown with weedy, spiny plants.

From above, it was also possible to see that the whole of the house was surrounded by an overabundance of greenery. Cactuses and needle-covered trees grew in the miniature valley that the house resided in, stretching out in wide lines into the desert but growing the best in its shade. Diamond Tiara imagined that they might be the relics of gardens that the previous residents of the houses had once had, although she had no idea why they would have planted such hideous and aggressive looking things.

As much as Diamond Tiara disliked being outside, especially in the dust and dirt, she could not stand being in that house for one more minute as her parents talked endlessly about how “charming” or “quaint” various obsolete features were, or planned the parties that they might throw. That was somewhat normal, of course, at least for them. What had bothered Diamond Tiara was the house itself. How every room seemed to be filled with relics of the past. Not the useless junk that ponies sometimes left when they moved, but whole furniture, all of it old and dusty, amongst family portraits and displays of fine china. Some of it was covered, but most of it was simply abandoned, as if nopony had even bothered to try to pack and take it with them when they left; as if their lives had just suddenly stopped and faded into the dust and darkness in the house.

Silver Spoon caught her breath, and her and Diamond Tiara looked in the opposite direction of the house. There, in the west, was a devastatingly beautiful sunset. Celestia had indeed blessed the desert with excessive heat, but as the cold winds of her sister’s night began to drive away the heat, she had blessed it one more time by lighting the entire sky orange, casting the dry desert in a glow that made it look like the surface of an alien planet.

“Wow,” whispered Silver Spoon. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s okay.”

Silver Spoon looked down at the desert. “I wonder if this is how it looked to Luna…when she was on the moon…”

“At this point, we might as well be on the moon,” muttered Diamond Tiara. She sighed, realizing that what she had intended as a sarcastic remark was true. They were alone out here, with absolutely nothing to do but wait until they could go back to Ponyville- -which, as it had been for Luna, was not in Diamond Tiara’s control at all.

They watched the sunset in silence for a moment: Diamond Tiara staring of into space, not really seeing the color, and Silver Spoon scanning the horizon to catch every last glimpse of it.

“Hey,” she said, after a moment, nudging Diamond Tiara. “Look over there!”

“What is it now?” Diamond Tiara looked to where Silver Spoon was pointing. About a quarter of a mile away was a second peak, about as high as they were. It had almost no vegetation, and it took Diamond Tiara a moment to find what Silver Spoon was looking at, but when she saw it, it was clear.

There was an object on top of the other hill. Not a rock, but something darker. Diamond Tiara held her hoof over her eyes to shade them and squinted.

“Is that…a pony?”

To her, it seemed to be. He- -or she- -was dressed completely in dark colors, and the rags that the figure wore seemed to be trailing slightly in the breeze. Of course, at the distance, Diamond Tiara imagined that she could be wrong, that it might have actually been a rock or perhaps a flagpole with a long-decayed flag. Then she saw it move.

The figure turned toward them, looking at them through what Diamond Tiara knew to be a mask. Then it retreated, walking back on its hill and vanishing behind it.

“What…the…actual…BUCK,” said Silver Spoon, hiding behind Diamond Tiara. “Did you see that?”

“I don’t know,” said Diamond Tiara. “It was too far.”

“Celestia’s rump! That WAS a pony!”

“I don’t know!” repeated Diamond Tiara. “It might have been. But it might just have been an animal!”

She shielded her eyes again and looked at the hill, but the figure was still gone.

“Come on, Diamond. I don’t want to be out here anymore!”

“What? You’re the one saying it was just a pony!”

“I never said ‘just’!” Then, whining, “Diiiiamond, come onnnn!”

Diamond Tiara groaned. “Fine. But only because it’s getting cold out here.”

Silver Spoon rapidly descended the hill back toward the house- -again trying to avoid the cacti that grew from its side- -and Diamond Tiara slowly followed. Before she started the slow and probably dirty trek down the cliff, though, she looked back at the hill one more time. The sunset had changed color from orange to blood-red, and she could not help but wonder what exactly it had been that she had just witnessed.

Then she slid down the slope with Silver Spoon, back toward the waiting house below.

Comments

[FarmFreshAppleTarts]

I love any fic that shows Filthy the respect he deserves. Poor parent but cool guy. Sucks he's married to a high socitey racist, but I imagine he'd be proud behind Spoiled's back that his little princess is making proper friends.

[Fiddlebottoms]

They built a monetary here
Because the monetary was replaced by a fort

I can't tell if this is a typo or if it is supposed to be a joke at Filthy's expense that he doesn't know what a "monastery" is.

[LeylaQuartz]

“You hired that mental deficient Derpy, didn’t you?” Spoiled Rich groaned loudly. “That is so like you! Anything to save money, even if it means having a brain-damaged mare deliver our goods? She’s going to fail, and break everything! I mean, have you seen her?” Spoiled Rich feigned shuddering. “Those eyes…her whole family is a detriment to Ponyville. Forcing to school go mainstream that challenged daughter of hers, and she doesn’t even know who the father is…probably that fez-wearing Shriner in his ridiculous blue box…”

This dialogue actually made me angry; I felt my pulse accelerated. I wanted to grab Spoiled by the throat and sink my nails into her flesh while pulling out her teeth.

[Moosetasm]

I’m picturing this place like the Winchester House. There’s a core somewhere, surrounded by countless additions, none of which match.