Thirty Minute Ponies

by Arcainum

A Beautiful Heart

Prompt #84: The pony who holds Diamond Tiara’s heart

Still Blue wiped the sweat from her brow as she narrowed her eyes and focused her magic. The needle hovered before her, trembling slightly in the uneven grip of her shaky telekinesis. Slowly, very slowly, she lowered the gleaming metal sliver toward the fabric spread across the table.

“Okay, Blue… you can do this…”

The needle quivered as she took a deep breath and readied herself, then, in one fluid motion, it flashed into the fabric and back out again. Blue bit her lip and peered closer, praying that she had, just this once, gotten it right.

Perfect. Not a millimetre out of place. The needle fell as she released her magic and pranced joyfully.

“Yes!”

Her months of hard work were paying off. Maybe soon her magic would be back to normal, and she could while away the days making dresses once again, like she had done when she was but a filly.

She fell to her haunches and sighed happily, casting a quick glance around her small, plain room. It still needed tidying, scattered with failed practice fabrics and musty scrolls as it was, but that could wait. Briefly, bitterly, she considered not bothering at all, seeing how unlikely it was anyone would ever notice.

It had been years since anypony had visited her of their own accord. Even her parents had almost ceased contact, busy as they were with…

She snorted, cursing her own thoughts. They weren’t busy. They didn’t talk to her for the same reason nopony else talked to her.

Stupid mark.

She sullenly flicked her eyes at her flank, as she so often did. The tri-coloured triangle sat there as always, taunting her as it marked her for what she was. A freak. A reject. A failure.

Her reverie was broken by a furious hammering on her door. She jumped and leapt to her hooves, calling out nervously. Who could it be? Nopony visited her.

“Um, hello? W-what do you want?”

“Blue, you have to let me in! Please! It’s me, Red Ink!”

Blue’s mind reeled. Red Ink? Her teacher from kindergarten? She trotted to the door, still unsteady with surprise. Red’s banging continued.

“You can, um, stop that. I’m opening the door.”

With a twist of magic she probably couldn’t afford after her intensive needle practice, she swung the door open. Red Ink stumbled in, and she gasped. His maroon coat was was matted with blood, and his breath was hoarse and ragged. There was a deep cut across his right eye, which was tightly shut, and he was wearing tattered saddlebags, their stitching barely holding together.

She stepped back in horror as collapsed at her hooves. As he gasped in pain, she caught herself and moved closer, kneeling at his side. “By the Triad, are you alright?! What happened? I haven’t seen you in years!”

Red coughed thickly, scattering blood on the floor before him. “Oh, Blue, thank the Sun I’ve found you. You have to listen to me.” He reached back to his saddlebag, wincing in pain, but his weak hooves fell limply to the floor. Blue instinctively moved to help him, hesitating until he nodded. She reached into the bag and pulled out a gleaming gem, a diamond, no bigger than the quails’ eggs she had once tried in… happier times.

“What… what is this? What happened to you, sir?!”

Red smiled weakly, looking up at her. His speech came in fits and starts as he visibly fought to stay conscious. “It’s… not important. What’s important is… you have it now. Listen… very carefully… to what I say, Blue… Equestria… depends on it…”

She leant closer, the sharp smell of his blood growing stronger as he pulled himself up to whisper in her ear.

“In the same of the Sun, the Diamond’s will must be fulfilled.”

He sank back to the floor, breathing shallow and fading. Blue dropped the gem and pulled him to her, cradling him as he faded. In her youth, he had been the only pony to show her anything beyond contempt and dismay, and now he was dying in her room.

“Mr Ink, sir, please! What do you mean?! You can’t go! You can’t just reappear and then… and then…”

Red Ink looked blearily up at her as the tears welled in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, Blue… I said it before… You are the best of us… and the Triad were wrong…”

“Mr Ink! Please!”

Red Ink’s eyes drooped closed, and his voice faded into a rattling whisper.

“They were wrong… and she was right… Her heart… was in the right place…”

He lapsed into silence, and Blue felt his breathing stop. She held him tight and cried for the only pony who had ever understood her, missing so long from her life and gone the moment he returned.

Behind her, the gem glinted in the midday sunlight piercing her grimy window. Within, something moved, the faintest glimmer of some strange life. The flitting shadows marked the shape cut into the diamond’s surface, a shape that could only be found in one other place anywhere in Equestria, on a statue in the palace gardens.

A stylised tiara, shining from within.

Note: It's strange how things work out. I was pondering ways in which I could expand "Faith," and then the very next day, the prompt is Diamond Tiara! So... this happened. I guess if this were a full fic, "Faith" would've been the prologue. The Still Blue here is obviously older, somwhere in the region of a young adult. She's a little more jaded, a little more bitter, but... she's come to terms. People can get used to anything, even being alone.

Comments

[RTStephens]

Ever think of expanding on this? It's got my interests peeked at what this could all mean.

[Firebirdbtops]

Alright, now for the commemorative spoon!