Double Parties and Glimmering Diamonds: Options and Consequances

by AlexWolfy03

Same old

Author's Note:

Translated by online translator and edited by me a little, so If you wanna help me to fix some mistakes — you're welcome.

It was a day. Double Diamond realized that nothing had changed.

It may seem to someone that these sentences are not related to each other in any way, but this is not so at all: at night the changes seemed even less noticeable, and therefore the feeling of stagnation did not let him go until dawn. Now he began to experience similar feelings in the light of day…

But first things first.

The stallion woke up with the first rays of dawn, which unceremoniously burst into his room through the window and gray curtains. His body begged him to spend at least five extra minutes in bed — even though it was terribly uncomfortable, in the morning even stones can seem like a sweet featherbed. Nevertheless, he got up without delay, made the bed in an exemplary manner, took the necessary water procedures, while being dissatisfied with the fact that he had to spend more time on it than usual - as it turned out, combing an uncut mane is not so easy. Only after this obligatory set of morning rituals was done he allowed himself to show his nose out the door.

It was early morning, the day under the auspices of Celestia had just entered into possession, the night had just changed; the pinkish sun was again indifferently watching the life of a small town lost somewhere in the mountains of Equestrian Patagonia. Well, not exactly a town... more like a village. Or how else can be called a bunch of barracks in the middle of a steppe surrounded by mountains, where instead of earth there was dust on which nothing grows except stunted thorny bushes?

Double Diamond, a stallion the color of the purest snow from untouched mountain peaks without a single spot of color with a mane as snow-white as himself, stood out very much against the background of general withering. When he walked along the only street in the city, where everything — the houses, the landscape, and, it seemed, the atmosphere itself had the color of dust, he felt like an imperishable snowflake in a cold desert. However, there were other, non-cosmetic reasons for this…

All the other ponies had also woken up a long time ago and left their houses; activity was booming, which means that Diamond still really spent a little more time on his mane than he would like. Maybe some of the sleepy ponies stayed at home, but there were clearly not many of them. Even though they no longer practiced morning formations, roll calls, joint exercises and rounds of the "sleepy ones", which means that everyone had the right to stay in the domain of Luna for as long as they wanted, adherence to the old schedule was not so easy to eradicate.

Morning was the time for work. However, if earlier they were all divided into squads, to which supervisors were assigned, and then sent to work for the needs of the village (Only Diamond knew that the reasons were somewhat different), now everyone was doing their own business. Most of the ponies were digging in their gardens, which were now allowed to be set up. Others simply imitated the activity, trying not to look too bored.

"Starlight made them work so that they didn't have time to get bored, so that they didn't have time to think that something was wrong, as if we were marking time in one place. In the end, she believed that working for the common good was the right way to eradicate individualism and selfishness, and with them, any manifestations of inequality," the stallion flashed through his head, contemplating the universal routine. "Now... now they are working on the machine, because they are used to it. Because this way they don't get bored and don't think that we are still marking time. Nothing has changed... nothing at all..."

He shook his head, banishing the sad thoughts. He had a whole night ahead of him for them.

Diamond looked up from the ground and saw two mares talking to each other. They were obviously discussing something interesting and undoubtedly funny, because carefree giggles kept coming to his ears. But most of all he was interested in their smiles. They did not smile as widely as they once did, but these smiles were completely sincere, not feigned and not forced.

Maybe the stallion was wrong after all? Maybe there were some changes after all, he was just paying attention to the wrong things?

"Good morning!" he greeted the mares passing by him in a friendly way and waved his hoof at them, putting on his muzzle his most radiant and, importantly, sincere smile.

The ponies were transformed on his eyes. They froze, and the sweet sincere smiles suddenly turned into the same grimace, the same clumsy attempt to look friendly and cheerful that he had been contemplating in this village for many years.

"Good morning!" they answered in unison, pulling smiles from ear to ear, more like a snarl of hypocrisy. Even the voices themselves seemed to be imbued with the antipode of sincerity.

Double Diamond sighed sorrowfully and wandered on, staring at the ground and not paying attention to anyone or anything.

Well, of course.

It was all about him.

After all, he used to be nothing but the right hoof of Starlight Glimmer — an imperious dictator obsessed with the idea of universal equality. She is the root of all the troubles, she is the cause of the decline that befell their city; she played with the inhabitants of this lovely village as if with dolls, inflicted irreparable trauma on them, because even after such a long time after her exile, every local pony sees her in nightmares. No question about they never managed to completely get rid of the patterns of behavior imposed on her. Damn it, they couldn't even come up with a name for the village! It used to be called "Starlight Village", now it's just "village". The most radical thing they did was demolish her house. They burned it, scattered the ashes and planted a tree in that place, which was supposed to serve as a reminder to all of them that they were different now.

Doesn't sound too rosy, does it? However, he was not only her right hoof, but also her most loyal follower. He considered himself her shadow; he believed that he understood her best of all, always wrote down her speeches and even independently prepared propaganda materials about equality — books, leaflets, pamphlets, articles.

And now there was a price to pay for that loyalty.

Yes, they elected him mayor, but could this be considered as respect? Rather, they threw him a job that no one cared about. Seriously, what were his responsibilities? Make sure that houses don't fall apart on the only one street in the city, as well as occasionally lay supply lines for merchants and take orders from local shopkeepers? What nonsense!

With such thoughts and with a hopelessly spoiled mood, he reached Sugar Belle's shop, where rare ponies were already sitting at the tables. Not everyone is used to the fact that now a light pink unicorn with a purple mane could bake something edible.

"Good morning, Double," the shop owner greeted him with a sweet smile. "Thank you for setting up our supply with Ponyville, I now have a lifetime supply of apples here. Oh, I get goosebumps when I think about what I can bake out of all this! Speaking of which, do you want an apple pie? You're entitled to a free portion. Refusals are not accepted."

"Glad to be useful!" he smiled back. "I'll happily taste what you cooked."

"I'm sure you won't regret it!"

Even though they were supposed to be friends, he sensed a certain detachment, a certain coldness in her intonation. Yes, she had a nice conversation with him, she smiled quite sincerely — and for it he was very grateful to her — but she behaved this way with absolutely everyone, even with those whom she saw for the first time in her life. The only difference was that it was with him that she kept a certain distance — she said exactly what was needed to maintain a small talk. However, she could be understood: she was one of the dissenters, and therefore she had to be afraid of Diamond like fire, because it was he who was responsible for identifying the so-called "strays". Perhaps if he had managed to uncover her plans at the time, their relationship would have been ruined hopelessly. In any case, he was grateful to her for being almost at ease with him, and was happy to keep up a conversation about nothing and for nothing.

"I really hope so. How's Night Glider doing? Haven't seen her for a long time."

"As usual, she's in the clouds. Literally. Since the restrictions on flights were lifted, she spends almost all her time in the sky. She seems to have recovered quickly. Other Pegasi are still afraid to fly."

"Yes, I'm glad for her, she's a fine mare," Diamond replied, keeping silent about the fact that the day before he saw the pegasus, seeing him from a sufficiently high altitude, instantly landed on the ground, almost crashing.

"Any news from the outside world?"

"I’ve heard that Equestria has established trade relations with some country of griffons. I asked one of the Ponyville ones to send a couple of caravans to us too."

"Wonderful! I've never seen a griffon. How do you like the pie?"

"Just great, thank you! Will you wrap one for me with you?"

"Of course!"

"Is this really how we've been communicating all this time? It is impossible to comprehend…" he thought.

Then he spent the first half of the day at home. Earlier at this time, he was engaged in the development of event plans and the preparation of "educational materials" — he was one of the few holders of the privilege of working from home, all the other ponies had to work outside at this time. The official reason was that fresh air is good for health. Unofficial, which only he and Starlight knew about — in comfort it's much easier to "deviate from the course". It's much easier to control ponies when they're in your sight.

Now, instead of pieces of paper with propaganda and correction lists, he had to deal with pieces of paper with trade estimates, invoices, applications and other bureaucracy. In fact, it could easily have been done in an hour, even taking into account the fact that he had to plot a trade route from Manehatten on the map, since one of the shops left a request for textiles there. It would seem that he could pay any caravan, since almost all of them pass, if not through Manehatten, then next to it, but lack of sleep did affected him — even if he went to bed at the time when the lights out was set earlier, he did not manage to fall asleep right away. And now, at first, he spent half an hour trying to find Mainhetten on the map, and when he finally thought of turning it over, he could not fill out the papers in any way, because he forgot the letters, because he wanted to sleep, because his thoughts constantly returned to the same thing.

Starlight Glimmer.

Talent and diligence, talent and diligence…

"No, no..."

He pushed all thoughts of her away from him. After all, they had a different life. Yes, nothing, in fact, has changed, but still...

"No, no... not now."

He had all night to think about it. And now he had things to do.

He sat at the papers for lunch, during which the ponies used to take a break for "enlightenment" — Starlight gathered everyone in a circle, and together they discussed literature about equality, or reasoned on the questions posed like "what would you do if your friend lost his way", "why equality is important", "how the command economy contributes to the eradication of individualism," "why collateral damage is inevitable," and so on. However, Diamond did not always attend these meetings, because he was the author of most of the books and manuals used by their leader.

He was released from work only after lunch. He went out of the house again and found the ponies working again — nothing had changed except the position of the sun in the sky.

Now he had to make a small detour, but this time not to incriminate the "parasites", but to check the general condition of the city — whether the walls were askew, whether the brick crumbled, whether the paint peeled off somewhere and everything like that. However, when he walked down the street, the ponies immediately began to violently imitate the activity or ran home.

Yes, another life, of course…

After another slam of the door behind him, he could not stand it and, before reaching the end of the street, turned around and went home again.

Comments

[Catpaw616]

I love reading stories about what happened to Starlight's village after the events of The Cutie Map. Can't wait to see how this all works out :D

Diamond looked up from the ground and saw two mare talking to each other. They were obviously discussing something interesting and undoubtedly funny, because carefree giggles kept coming to his ears. But most of all he was interested in their smiles. They did not smile as widely as they once did, but these smiles were completely sincere, not feigned and not forced.

For the first sentence, I think it should say "two mares", since " two" makes mare plural. Hope this helped ;)

[Starswirl the Beardless]

I think you have a good story buried in this, but it's hard to get at it due to the faulty prose. There are a significant number of mechanical errors (grammar, punctuation, etc) and odd phrasing, which make this very difficult to follow. If this was translated from another language, I can understand these problem being there, but the fact remains that it's just too difficult to read as-is.