What Color Is Your Ocean?
The current problem with devoting any time to saving her daddy was that Diamond also needed to put in a certain amount of ongoing effort towards saving herself. Or rather, her grade point average. The experiences she'd gained from visiting Silver's family and staying in the Belle household suggested just about every parent treated those two very different things as being one and the same.
Diamond was no longer allowed to copy somepony else's homework and claim the creation had been hers all along -- well, technically, she'd never been allowed to do that, but it was the sort of thing where the rule had only truly kicked in after she'd been caught. Unfortunately, so had the punishment. And the adult effort to make sure anything submitted to Miss Cheerilee's desk had actually been written by Diamond? That was ongoing and even worse, a truly accurate description could casually kick in a 'still' while leaving room to swap out for the extremely dejecting future opinion of 'permanent'.
She'd been writing her own papers for moons. Honestly. Honesty was one of the virtues, and virtue was supposed to be rewarded. Diamond felt that a suitable reward for her steadfast virtue would be having the supervision stop, and anything she nosed over was still being scrutinized with what felt like twice the regard of anypony else's efforts --
-- anyway, she'd put in several hours at the store. This had been work or rather, it had been WORK. Then she'd had to trot home, because having a hired hansom waiting outside the store to bring a weary employee to her rest was the sort of thing which absolutely needed to be in a practical budget and therefore, she really didn't understand why her father hadn't thought of that already. The lack of waiting wheels had left her trotting as huge pieces of shelf-won dust bunny corpses had dropped from her fur. In front of adult witnesses, far too many of whom had Moon-shadows suggest that their half-concealed expressions were mostly hiding smirks. Also, having pieces drop away was clearly the easy option, because the harder one was carrying the rest of the battlefield home.
Her father had reached the house before her. And he hadn't greeted Diamond with the nuzzle meant for family, because she was dirty and he understood how she felt about touching or being touched when she was dirty. Diamond fully understood that putting forth a real effort could mean getting some mud on your hooves. She also recognized that a lot of ponies based their impressions on that first moment of contact, along with not always offering the opportunity for a newly-met personage to get cleaned up first.
(He'd tried to joke with her, saying it was the dirt of an honest day's labor. Something to be proud of. All that told her was that her brilliant father had once been a boy and therefore, by exacting and oddly painful definition, he'd never been a girl. He didn't understand girl stuff. Diamond had wondered if there was a spell which could turn every colt and stallion into a girl for a few days, just to give them a basis for comprehension -- but then she vaguely recalled that certain kinds of magic operated by something called The Law Of Balance and in this case, the same theoretical spell probably required her to be rendered into a boy. There were prices which could be paid in the name of universal understanding and in Diamond's opinion, that one was far too high.)
She'd spent some very necessary time in the bathroom. Just about all of her clothing had been sent to the laundry. Food had been offered, and her proudly beaming daddy had made sure some of her favorites were waiting because it had been a first day at work and you only got that once. Diamond presumed the cooking had been excellent, because it had all stayed down until she'd gotten away from the table. And once she'd dispensed with the 'How did it go?' questions for which he'd surely been told the answers by a dozen spies...
Diamond had put in her first intern shift. Work or, to be more accurate about it, WORK. And then she'd gone home to find more WORK waiting for her, because Miss Cheerilee had assigned HOMEWORK. By definition, this was the sort of WORK which was supposed to be done at HOME. Except that Diamond had arrived at her HOME several hours after she normally would have, because she'd been at WORK. And the amount of HOMEWORK assigned was just about enough to completely fill the hours between that standard arrival time and dinner, plus there had to be some studying afterwards because there was a test coming up. It was school and by further extension of the original definition, that meant there was always a test coming up. Summer break just put one off by a few moons.
She had to do all of her homework, by herself, without copying from anypony. And then there was studying and then, if she'd budgeted her time efficiently, there would be a precious hour or so for just getting to be Diamond. For playing with Cameo, thinking and planning and maybe going through a history book in search of a lost stratagem because nopony ever seemed to expect things to repeat from a thousand years back, except when they did. And for coming up with ways to save her father.
Dinner was over. And if the world had been normal, she would have been in personal time. Doing everything she could to protect the one she loved.
But she'd been at WORK.
The HOMEWORK still needed to be done.
And neither job cared very much about what the other wanted.
She was sprawled across her mattress, with the portable desk tray currently near the pillows because there was a divot in it for the ink bottle and all things considered, staining liquids needed a secure place to rest. Textbooks surrounded her. Finished papers were head-tossed to the nightstand or, given the way paper normally moved, the floor. Cameo, forbidden to offer scholastic advice and who possessed a distinct lack of skill at writing anything down, could provide no more support than was offered through watching. And that helped, but it didn't exactly get the words mouthwritten any faster.
(Diamond had a real desk and used it on occasion, but the mattress sprawl was just more comfortable. Plus she was feeling oddly tired after her shift, fully recognized it, and wasn't sure if starting from the desk would allow her to reach the bed. It was best to start from a position of safety.)
Two jobs. That was the fully irritable way to look at it, and the sudden burst of justified anger nearly had Diamond bite through the quill. She had two jobs, because school was work. Or rather, for those who no longer had the luxury of copying their answers, school was WORK. And at the same time, work was also WORK. This seemed to indicate that Diamond was doing at least twice the work of anypony else and just to make that even more frustrating, nopony was paying her for any of it.
Education required money to be paid in: therefore, education could be seen as a business. For public schools, those funds came from taxes. Miss Cheerilee's salary was essentially a herd effort, with every earning adult in Ponyville making a contribution. She was an employee of the town. An instructing supervisor. And when you rather sensibly decided to see it that way, then it immediately became clear that the students worked for her. Hours into weeks into cumulative moons of their lives spent doing completely unpaid labor. Because the education was supposedly its own reward, and that was all too close to the sort of thing which budding artists and copywriters occasionally got tricked into believing. In the sense that you were technically receiving something, it was entirely possible to be paid in exposure -- but unlike bits, you couldn't trade it for food and rent.
Diamond, on her first night as a double-shift fully non-compensated worker, had already determined that taxes needed to be higher. It was the only way to make sure students got paid.
Even so, they would probably wind up needing to unionize first --
-- she yawned and in doing so, lost her grip on the quill. It dropped to the tray. Ink-resistant lacquer picked up a few beads of downwards-flowing black. Diamond preferred black ink. In business, it was a color which suggested all was well, even when it wasn't.
She blinked a few times, then forced her neck and body to twist until she got a bare glimpse through the glass which blocked off the path to the balcony.
A thin silver of cloud-obscured orb sent a tiny shaft of reflected light towards her. Most of it got muted by the steady glow of device wire.
"Was that you?" she asked Moon. "On the street, when I saw her?"
No answer.
Had helping her to spot the mare been Moon's first true attempt at assistance? She'd asked that it --
'Information is power. That's what my daddy always says. It can be subtle power, but it's power. So, just to start us off -- at least show me something. Let me see. And then I'll know.'
Maybe she only remembered the words because they hadn't been part of an insult.
She'd been shown... the mailmare. How was that supposed to help?
Diamond wasn't sure.
Although to be fair, she was still trying to work out what kind of employ -- serva -- benefac -- helpful assistant Moon was. Some ponies required exacting instructions before they could be trusted with any labor: anything not precisely explained created a gap which disaster readily filled in. (MIss Dash was one of those, only she had a known tendency to replace any carefully-recited list with whatever she'd wanted the other pony to say.) Others actually did better when somepony did no more than describe the goal -- followed by, with careful intent, leaving them almost completely alone. You checked in once in a while, made sure they were eating properly, and finally collected the finished result. That was it.
She'd largely left Moon to make its own decision on how the goal should be achieved, and she'd gotten -- a view of the mailare, plus an overstuffed mailbox. This didn't feel particularly helpful -- but it was still more than she'd had.
Even so...
How am I supposed to use that?
She didn't know.
"You may need to be a little more direct," Diamond concluded. Maybe they could talk about that after she finished her homework. But it was getting late -- no, it was already late, and there was still so much more to do...
She turned back towards the tray. Took up the quill between her teeth again, and nearly lost it in the next yawn.
Direct help. Was it cheating if Moon did her homework? Miss Cheerilee would probably think so. Anyway, there seemed to be very little chance of having the orb's efforts mistaken for hers. Moon's mouthwriting had to be horrible. The orb no longer displayed a pattern of scarlike shadows in the rough shape of a mare's head and therefore, no longer had a mouth --
-- Diamond blinked. Her eyelids seemed to reopen on time delay.
Just get it done.
She tried. But her head kept drooping. This created ink spots on the page and where she couldn't clean them up, she had to effectively start over. There were times when she lost track of which word she'd meant to write next. The most typical result was to pick up the essay two brilliant sentences down the line, scrawl out a full page in open satisfaction and, upon rereading to check her work, discovered a two-sentence gap which now had to be filled in. The tiny editorial space between letters wasn't sufficient for the editorial inclusion.
Just finish...
It was getting late.
Running out of --
-- time?
Diamond felt as if she was forgetting something. Overlooking a detail. Something important. But she had to get her homework done before she could try to confront it. Completed homework, good daughter. That was part of the current standard, and would remain so just as long as she was the one who completed it.
Earth pony endurance could get her through this. It had to.
How much work was left? Diamond wasn't sure. Miss Twilight would have probably said that the best way to determine the answer was through reviewing a checklist.
She was pretty sure she'd left one in her nightscape...
"Diamond?"
The answering "Huh?" was just barely expressed through half a mouthful of wood.
"What's that around your neck?" Snails asked as the group tried to navigate down the Sun-lit trail towards school -- followed by, possibly in the event that she had something else hanging off the back and being really specific was required, "That stack of folding panels. Which goes out in front of your mouth. With all the hinges, and the little ridges --"
She didn't answer, because she had now had a mouth full of wood and the brass hinges felt odd against her tongue. Snips verbally stepped in.
"It's a portable reading shelf," the bookbinder's son declared. "My mom's got a couple around. The ridges are to keep stuff from sliding off."
"Oh," Snails decided.
"It's a good one, too," Snips observed. "See the little clips there? That's to keep pages from slipping back. Diamond?"
She now had just enough space to manage another "Huh?"
"Why are you wearing a portable reading shelf?"
"Because," Diamond explained, "now it's a portable writing shelf."
She'd borrowed it from her father's study. He only used it on long train rides, or if he anticipated having to wait in a line for several chapters. Her daddy certainly wasn't going to need it today, and he'd always told her that the resources of the study were hers to use.
He'd probably meant the books. Diamond had made a game try for the books that morning, because her father had a few international dictionaries: doing business across the borders made precise translation into a necessity. So she'd gone for that one shelf, and -- well, some things were still being replaced. Books were one of them. But she'd at least managed to verify that 'Derpy' didn't appear in Griffonant.
There hadn't been much time for doing even that. Not only had she needed to get dressed (and she was down at least one layer from yesterday), but breakfast hadn't gone well. As organs went, the stomach was a tyrant. Sure, the brain was supposed to be in charge, but just try telling any part of the digestive system that. It had an automatic override, along with likely veto power and the ability to expel anything it found offensive from the body public.
She was almost entirely sure her daddy hadn't spotted the problem. Girls her age had a lot of reasons for repeatedly dashing off to the bathroom.
He'd also seemed -- distracted. Concerned and, at the same time, anticipatory. Worried. This had made it easier to get the little things past him. And she felt as if she was supposed to be worried about that, as if she was still overlooking something -- but she was low on calories, fighting for focus, and --
"Why do you need to write?" Silver carefully asked.
"I didn't finish a few things yesterday."
"Like what?"
"Math."
-- short on homework.
"...math," her best friend checked.
"And History," Diamond added. "Half a century of it. But Literature's in my left saddlebag. I got up to the main plot twist before I cleared the bathroom." She thought about that. "I hope it's the main plot twist. There's only forty pages left. It would be really mean if the author kicked in another one."
"Diamond --" a tripled call of concern reached her.
"-- I'm okay," she immediately insisted. "I just didn't think working at the store was going to be so much work. And we really got a lot of homework yesterday." How was Snails getting it all done? She'd have to ask him about his study schedule, especially since he actually had one. "You know how Miss Cheerilee operates. She'll collect each assignment about half an hour before we start that subject, and she'll go in the usual order. I can finish as long as I write through lunch. And most of recess. Twice."
Silver took a careful breath.
"We can't do any of it for you --"
"-- I know --"
"-- but I'll look it over. Check your answers."
"Thanks."
Cautiously, "How bad was work?"
The smaller boy abruptly snickered. "I'm gonna say it sucked," Snips confidently stated. "It usually does. Because it's work."
Silver ignored this. Diamond placed and clipped a blank page, then went for a quill.
"Diamond?" her best friend checked. "How bad --"
"-- I can't talk and write at the same time."
Silver hesitated.
"We really need to talk about --"
"I have to write now!"
Silver's mouth closed.
He noticed the shelf.
So he does pay a little attention to what I'm wearing.
...I've been trying to show off my streaks for the whole winter and the first time he said anything about how I was accessorizing, he brought up the shelf.
Snow crunched under four sets of hooves. Diamond, who (accurately) considered herself to be the strongest of the group, took the lead.
"It's a decent shelf," Snips judged. "But it's still got the usual problems."
"Like what?" Snails asked.
"Well," the smaller boy thoughtfully said, "they're really not great with wind. The clips help, but you've still got to get the pages under them and hope the gusts don't get too strong."
Which was followed by the sound of spitting.
"Snips!" Silver instantly protested.
"Just checking! Direction and speed!" The grunting laugh echoed through the woods. "Anyway, it's just what the Bureau put on the schedule today. So wind's not really a problem right now. But the rest of it..."
Diamond concentrated on the paper. Writing while trotting... even with a support for the page, the motion was jarring any rendered characters. She had to make sure her mouthwriting came out properly.
"...just for starters," a rather distant-seeming voice continued, "they're really meant for when you're gonna be stuck somewhere for a while. Like a train, or in a carriage. And sitting. Or lying down. You shouldn't move. Or if you do, it's gotta be really slow."
"I don't get it," Silver reluctantly admitted. "Why can't you move?"
"Because of the shelf," Snips explained. "It's gotta be where you can see it really easily, or it doesn't work. And if somepony's reading, then the shelf is pretty much the only thing you're looking at. And if you're just trotting around --"
Snow crunched under Diamond's hooves.
The elevated curving root, raised above soil level while still hidden under half-trampled white, didn't crunch at all.
Everypony helped her up.
It took them most of the final minutes before school started to get the shelf back together. Snips did nearly all of the work: something which wasn't quite lost in the shadows of the building. There was an audience.
Diamond felt as if most of it was staring at her.
She spent nearly all of the first recess session in writing and in order to maximize the time available, didn't bother with much in the way of layering. Lunch went the same way, especially since her stomach was continuing its coup. This was a benefit. If she didn't trust herself to eat, then she had that much more time to work.
Her consultants kept dropping by her station. She'd chosen to work in the best light available, on the northern side of the building. Something which made her easy to find. Simple to spot, and watching was just a matter of backing off until a good distance observation post was found.
Sometimes the prey sense went off. The need to look up from the shelf, combined with the remote locations, mostly left her with a view of retreating tails. One of them was blonde with lighter shading along the edges and when compared to the other spectators, the dock was closer to the ground.
Silver checked her work. Once the little unicorn knew what was going on, so did Sweetie. The boys came and went. And Diamond fought, struggled, smuggled her textbooks outside because Literature needed to finish its vendetta against her with that stupid second twist on Page 212 (which any sensible book about books would have warned her about in the Table Of Somepony Else's Contents), and just kept pushing.
The others kept trying to remind her of -- something. She never let them get far enough to say what it was. She needed to finish her homework. Priorities.
But she did finish. With about six minutes left before the final recess bell, she recorded her honest feelings about the whole plot, thought about making a copy to slam onto the library's Public Reviews corkboard, and looked up from the shelf to find Snails in front of her. Watching carefully from about half a body length away, with his lanky body low against the ground.
He wasn't paying attention to what she was wearing. His gaze hadn't ventured anywhere close to her streaks. All of his attention was focused on her face. On her.
It was more than a little frustrating.
"Want me to look at it?" he asked.
She shook her head. It had been the Student Opinion section. Miss Cheerilee felt that when it came to Literature, you couldn't really have a wrong one -- but the opinion had to show you'd actually read the book. Or in Diamond's case, had it inflicted upon her, without mercy.
"Okay," the semi-dull voice decided. Dark fuschia eyes focused. "We've still got a few minutes. Maybe that's enough time for parent stuff --"
A neuron wearily fired.
"-- how are things with your dad?" Diamond quietly checked. And waited.
Snails blinked.
As short sentences went, "My dad," didn't seem to be buying time for anything. He just sounded surprised that she'd asked.
"You're spending some time with him tomorrow, right?" Which was the start of the weekend. She'd have more hours for homework over the weekend. Which presumed the intern schedule hadn't tried to claim most of the calendar first. "It's going to be his first visit since..."
"Since he moved out," Snails quietly finished. "So I don't know how things are with him. Because it'll be the first time."
"For now," Diamond corrected. "He's just moved out for now." Not that it would be any true loss if the status became permanent. "So what are you going to do?"
"Dunno," the boy admitted. "I just know how many hours he asked for. Not what he wanted to do with them." And shrugged. "We don't do a lot of stuff together normally, so I don't know what he'd pick."
Not doing stuff with your father?
Then again, it was Lyon Gastrope. Winning the chance to not do things with him could be the basis for a full contest.
"What would you usually do?"
"Some sports stuff," Snails replied. His left forehoof scraped at half-exposed dirt. "We go to games together. Sometimes. Maybe a movie. He'd never really been interested in the farm." The trench got a little deeper. "I mean, he doesn't mind it or anything. Not any more."
"Not any --"
"-- not since we talked about my mark. Really talked. He knows it's gonna be entomology all the way for me. The college stuff, eventually." The sigh felt exceptionally soft. "He was happier once my grades came up. But with the farm..." Slim shoulders shrugged. "Mom's said it, a couple of times. That it's not easy to have an insect farm in the house. Especially if any of my friends try to get out and explore the whole house. One of the tarantulas went for a walk once. I had to make some new rules after that. To keep anyone from getting hurt."
"Tarantula, " she tried. She'd been introduced to most of the farm, but --
"-- the bigger eight-leggers. Hair on their bodies. Fangs always point down."
Diamond blinked a few times.
"Frederic," Snails clarified.
Species could be hard to remember, because there were so many of them. Names were occasionally easier.
(Her father remembered just about everypony's name. She'd wondered if it was an aspect of his talent.)
"...oh."
"Yeah."
"Frederic got out."
"And into the bathroom. Through the vents. He was hanging out on the toilet trench lid. My mom went in, and..."
Screens on vents.
If we live together, then screens on all the vents.
There were adolescents laughing, somewhere off in the distance. It was surprisingly hard to make out any details.
Snails' eyes briefly closed.
"Mom's worried about me spending time with Dad."
"Why/"
"She thinks he might try to do something stupid."
Diamond tried to picture that adult doing something smart and in doing so, proved that imagination had limits. "Like what?"
"Take me," a too-steady voice replied. "Keep me. But she'd send Chief Rights to get me. And -- even in winter, I could always find someone to send back. He knows that. And I don't think Dad would ever do it in the first place. She's just -- scared."
"Do you want me to come with you? When he's taking you out for the day?" She'd have to check on her internship schedule, but her daddy would understand needing time for this and besides, any chance to make Lyon Gastrope uncomfortable --
"Nah. I'll be fine." Another shrug. "It's just my dad. But we need to talk about yo --"
The schoolbell rang.
"-- horse apples," the boy muttered. "Maybe after school."
She shook her head. "I've got to go straight to the store." She'd checked that much of her hours before leaving on the prior night. "It's going to be a gallop." Diamond was convinced that somepony had adjusted her start time just to see if she could make it before the Town Hall clock stopped going off.
They both stood up. Diamond tucked her belated homework away, then refolded the shelf.
"Diamond," Snails dully checked, "are you ready? For what's happening tonight?"
A weary neuron took the rest of the afternoon off.
"Sure."
"You're really sure --"
"-- I'm fine."
And they went inside.
Two parents. Snails was receiving love from two parents. But if the separation held...
Is it love?
She had spent just enough time around the boy's father to master the exacting art of despising him.
Or is it just an asset claim?
In Diamond's extremely informed opinion, Snails' father was stupid. If he was that stupid...
Keep an eye on Snails.
She was still trying to establish her own claim. The interruptions of morons would not be permitted.
Internship was apparently intended as a tool to let somepony learn the entire business from the ground up. As such, every given duty supposedly had a visible purpose. (The poorly-hidden one was 'Let members of the staff get their chance at revenge on me,' and Diamond was still trying to remember what most of them were seeking vengeance for.) And some of the most basic things weren't really for learning about the business. They were meant to help new hires learn the store.
Inventory? Count every single item in an aisle and if you didn't have that section fully mastered when you were done, then you probably needed to work on your memorization skills. Which meant the next aisle was probably going to be Books, because there might be something there which would help -- but you couldn't really start on it until your break. Or unless you got sent into the basement to trot along the treadmill which wound the clockwork for the store's fans. Reading was encouraged during that trot and because you were winding the fans, summer was mandatory.
What about returned items? Take everything which could be sold again and put it back where it was supposed to be Which meant knowing just where it had originated, or finding that location in a hurry. And you had to return it to the assigned place. All too often, putting something back where it had come from just created a new problem for whoever had to do shelf cycling next. Which was probably going to be Diamond.
And today...
"Straightening," she slowly said. The individual syllables were carefully drawn out, all the better to examine them for conspiracy.
"Just go up and down the aisles and look for things which are out of place," Jestine told her. Pale blue feathers softly rustled. "Then put it back. There there's anything on the floor, pick it up. Make sure any given peg is carrying the same item --"
"-- straightening," the intern interrupted, "is meant to let ponies learn the store's layout. Where everything is, and where it should go."
"Everypony straightens," said the youngest Purchasing hire. "That's what Mr. Rich asks for. To keep the store clean and in order. If you see something out of place --"
"-- I've been in the store since before I could talk!" insisted a decent amount of justified-if-muted outrage. "I probably know it better than anypony! I don't have to learn the layout!"
The pegasus took a slow breath.
"You know the layout," she seemed to acknowledge.
"YES!"
"Good," Jestine decided. "Then when you see something out of place, you'll know exactly where it should be. Go straighten."
The prey sense was back.
She was having some trouble in pinning down the source, probably because it wasn't singular. Something was watching her? When she'd been stuck on cycling, ponies had been passing down the aisle. Some of them had moved in ways which dodged her lashing tail, which at least meant they'd noticed her tail and might have even registered the streaks. Others hadn't quite gotten out of the way. But if they'd seen a tail and hindquarters sticking out from the shadows of the shelving, then they'd certainly looked.
And now she was out in the open. Adults kept passing her as she labored, and...
...this was the store's slow season. Were there supposed to be this many adults shopping? Maybe they were coming in to see her work. Watch her go through what had to be perceived as punishment and if that was the reason, then her own age group might not be all that far behind. There had been multiple witnesses who's gotten to see her cart retrieval incident, even more ponies had been within range of the audio, and the word had to be spreading...
...there were ways in which the thought felt silly. But that didn't mean it was invalid. And as thoughts went, at least it was something she could hang onto. Other concepts were slippery things, skidding out from underneath a hoof at the moment she tried to pin them down. True mental pressure was sending ideas skittering into dark corners.
She'd barely eaten. (She was afraid to eat.) There wasn't very much fuel in her body. It made thinking that much harder, and... she kept feeling as if she'd forgotten something. Overlooked it. Something important...
Diamond tried to pin that down. But whenever she tried to isolate the missing factor, it skidded away from her. Or the prey sense would come back, or something would fall.
So many things were falling. Had fallen. Kept coming down.
Why was the store so messy?
It was as if colts who liked to play in the mud had decided it was clearly too much trouble to go wash up somewhere after, and all they needed for getting rid of the big clumps was rolling around on her carpet. Not that the store had carpet in the aisles, because that would make the cleaning even more endless than it already was. But the principle was the same. The store was her house and nopony respected that. They put things down anywhere at all, they shuffled contents on pegs while looking for items and didn't bother shuffling anything back, boxes were hidden behind bottles and bottles were nudged between bottom shelf and floor, and the place for a discarded impulse item was decided entirely on impulse.
She knew the store. Where everything was supposed to be. Diamond instinctively recognized every potential hiding spot: the shadows where shoplifters tried to smuggle items into their saddlebags, and the darker spots in the basement where employees retreated to get some personal time. Or, because ponies had been known to treat employment as a chance for pairing up, some time for themselves. Plural. Certain sections of the lower level backup inventory maze held makeup, and others intermittently hosted Makeout.
Diamond briefly considered trying to watch some of that. It might be possible to pick up a few tips --
-- but she was stuck on the sales floor. Straightening. And she could do that without any real thought at all, because she knew the store. Spot a piece out of place, take it up in her mouth (which often tasted like whatever the last customer had eaten, because nopony had a mouth guard for her yet), and bring it back to where it should be.
She knew the store. And even when she was tired, barely able to truly think... she knew it shouldn't be this messy.
It didn't take long for even an exhausted mind to spot the trend. Especially when it was being pointed out to her.
"You missed that."
"I was just here!"
"And that," Jestine continued: a wing flared towards the offending item. "And that..."
"I was in this aisle two minutes ago!" She thought it had been two minutes. Time was beginning to slide. "I got everything! I can show you where I put it...!"
The Purchasing employee's features softened.
"Maybe somepony went through right after you," the adult allowed. "It only stays perfect when nopony's here."
One of her daddy's sayings. "Yeah."
"So straighten it again."
It kept happening. And it happened shortly after the prey sense surged, wherever she'd just been. At least one aisle behind and over, fully out of sight.
There were times when her ears rotated, drawn by the sound of something hitting the floor in those zones. Others located a followup of sorts: something which came across as a soft, half-muffled giggle. And she doubled back, suddenly convinced it was being done on purpose, if she just raced to the right point then the tormentor would be caught --
-- she nearly took the corner too fast, had to dodge a startled customer and wound up losing precious sounds to preventing her skidding hooves from sending her into the endcap. It occupied all of the scant attention she could give. And she thought she heard a little gasp, followed by one more giggle and light reflecting from several cans as Diamond slid by --
-- she reoriented. Picked herself up, got back to the entrance for Albums as quickly as she could.
A dozen records were scattered across the floor.
The prey sense was gone.
At one point, she glimpsed her daddy moving through a cross-aisle. His grooming was much more exacting than usual, and twin lines of moist disruption under his eyes suggested he'd recently tried to do something about the usual dark spots. There was probably a new supplier coming in for a meeting. And she wanted to speak with him, but Spices was just ahead. Spices were the store's equivalent of creative cookery. Ponies head-tossed the little bottles anywhere and figured it would all work out.
Her daddy was groomed, and... he looked -- nervous. A major supplier?
Forgetting something...
She tried to focus. She almost had it. And at the moment before her teeth clamped down on the fleeing tail of slippery memory, she heard another box hit the floor.
Diamond found and retrieved it. Her snout nudged the container back into position, then pushed it in a little more, giving the box some distance from the edge. Backed away, and felt the sharp tip of the thorn contact her rear --
"OW!"
"Sorry!" the somewhat-older deep red adolescent male desperately yelped. She assumed his fur was deep red, as that was most of what she could see past the other colors. "Sorry...!"
There had to be a pony somewhere in there. Most clockwork didn't talk, and the ones which could usually weren't very good at it. But the overall impression was of two very large groups of flowers which had found some saddlebags, added hooves for increased mobility, and finished it all off by inviting several dozen extra friends. There was a twin floral cloud trying to make its way through the store, and it really didn't have enough room. There wasn't even enough space in the saddlebags to hold all of the stems. Or thorns. Some of the thorns kept poking out.
Roses. Peonies. There were springs of lilac, and Diamond spotted a few gerberas. Winter meant multiple greenhouses had been involved in the assembly.
We don't sell flowers.
...no, that wasn't quite true. Hearts And Hooves Day was coming up. There were usually a few arrangements near the registers for the holiday, because those who were desperate for last-minute gifts usually wanted something edible to go with them. Maybe the supplier was sending over samples.
Forgetting something...
...and now there were petals all over the floor.
She was hungry enough to wonder which ones were tasty. (It was probably all of them. Holiday arrangements were like that.) But it wasn't worth the risk and besides, if anypony saw her eating off the floor...
There were dustpans hidden behind key endcaps. Diamond wearily trod towards the closest one.
She found a clock or rather, she found all of them. The store could be helpful that way. There were always clocks, and a few of the ones in that section were kept wound up.
Diamond looked at one. Then she looked at a few more, checked all of the results against each other, decided they probably hadn't ganged up on her, and sought out Jestine.
"It's been hours," she told her current supervisor. "I have to go home."
The adult nodded. "You can head out when you're ready."
The adolescent felt oddly worn out. Run down or, to be more accurate about it, lightly trampled. And it was going to be a long, long trot back to the house.
I could hire a hansom. Having somepony bring her back in a carriage would make the trip easier.
Or she could travel with company.
"Is my father done for the night?"
The mare looked at her. Just -- looked.
"He already left."
Diamond pulled up a copy of her daddy's schedule in her head. The lettering seemed oddly blurry.
Forgetting something...
"He already --"
"-- about an hour ago," Jestine interrupted. And then, with a small smile, "Probably earlier than he should have. But who wants to be late to their first date?"
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This is not going to go well, not with Dulcinea being a non stop paranoia shop.
Thank GOD for small mercies!
Now I'm starting to suspect that everypony from Cheerilee to the store staff are conspiring to overwork Diamond so she can't disrupt Filthy and Dulci's date night...
It may be hopeless...but I think Diamond might be good with Snips. Just a hunch.
At this point, it's just pattern recognition.
And yes, Mr. Rich really didn't consider Diamond's preexisting workload. Or at least underestimated it.
By giving you an opportunity to see her, and not her reputation. But the thing about the mare with the lazy eye is that it's so hard for others to see what's right in front of them. And to some degree, that's intentional.
It is nice to see Snails concerned for Diamond's well-being. Meanwhile, she's fallen into the trap of focusing on her followers' welfare rather than think about her own. Let's hope that gets addressed before she collapses.
Very interesting how the issues at Barnyard Bargains could be either Diamond missing things in her increasingly starved fugue or deliberate sabotage by somepony who feels almost identically as she does about her father's potential date. Just the other way around. Really, Dinky, there's no need to kick her while she's down, assuming it is you.
Oh boy. Given just how all-out Mr. Rich is going with this, it's entirely possible Dulci could see it as exaggerated mockery. But we'll worry about that if and when it comes about. For now there's the matter of Diamond dealing with the realization that this disaster has already come to pass. And hopefully the realization that she needs to eat something, assuming her rebelling stomach permits her to. Of course, opening up about her insecurities could help, but that would mean actually being vulnerable around others, which might be even more terrifying than losing a majority share of her father's love.
In any case, looking forward to more.
Well, somebody was definitely messing with Diamond work. Whenever it's to keep her busy or some kind of petty revenge is to be seen.
Oh damn. She is gonna flip out lol. I could see it being a combination of customers, employees with grudges, and Dinky all contributing to Diamond's difficulties, on top of her lack of rest or meal.
For some reason reading the section about the homework had me thinking what she had forgot had something to do with school and not having as much work as previously thought. Kind of fucked that the first thing Snails thought of was his Dad might try and take him, and I'm ngl my first thought when he said if he was that stupid was way darker, like a murder/suicide scenario. I know that's not even remotely possible here but it's where I went sadly. 😅
Thought the small touch on the differences between boys and girls near the beginning was quite interesting, and its such a small thing but I like the use of those terms specifically? Idk but it flows better than colts and fillies off the tongue for me. Thanks for such a meaty update!
I can’t believe I’ve gotten to the point where I am saying this but, I really feel bad for Diamond Tiara. Shes being ground down and hasn’t yet learned how to express to others the problems shes having, likely out of fear of thinking its backsliding to her old ways. She is trying, really hard in fact, but things just keep piling on her. I do hope she makes it through this intact because under enough pressure, even diamonds crack.
I am curious as to why Filthy suddenly decided to start Diamond in this new job…. She’s definitely spread thin after not eating, and while her friends can easily see it her father seems to remain unaware, which I have to guess is due to his preoccupation with his date. While we know that Diamond is wrong about the limited nature of love to spread among those we care about, I suppose his focus on Dulcinea and not on Diamond doesn’t exactly break her of her notion.
I do wonder if she will come to recognized that her own interest in Snails doesn’t come with any diminishing feeling for her father…
My mind made a weird connection while reading this, and I don't think anyone else in the comments mentioned it, so I'm not sure whether it's something anyone here even considered.
Reading Diamond Tiara complaining about basic aspects of life being unfair (and oblivious to them being mundane necessities) reminds me of reading about Zephyr Breeze in the Anchor Foal sequel similarly complaining about the same topic, with the same obliviousness. Certainly, there are some things Diamond Tiara is dealing with which are a bit much. Despite that, her opening internal monologue about it being unfair students weren't paid for learning in school shows just how out of touch she is, in exactly the same way Zephyr's thoughts did when we got treated to his perspective. The tone of the narrator even has the same whiny vibe for both characters.
Oh this is about to get interesting.
oh, this reminds me of a comic strip i saw in DeviantArt called "the phantom me" where something like that happened, to Rainbow Dash and another pony.
it was partly Rarity's fault, and partly the fault of a weird pony called "Mixie", a potion-maker.
and yes, Mixie looked a LOT like Trixie.
11841994
That makes alot of sense but she keeps thinking "but my mark" so I was worried that she might be working against her mark.
👍
Pity the story ends here.