Self explanitory really. It's a young Discord's Diary. 'Daddy asked him to write it.'
'My Daddy told me to write this story you know?...My Daddy's great.'
Many years after Discord was defeated we look back into what his life was like growing up through his own eyes, how he came to be such a monster, and how he saw the world right from the begining.
A big thanks to Enderstorm for doing the new amazing artwork for Diddy. Cute isn't he?
Just to say that Diddy means small. It seemed to be a word some people didn't understand but that's what it means. A big Thankyou to Tricondon who thus far has pre-read every one of the diary entries
Erm...I don't know what I'm supposed to write.... Daddy gave this to me this morning as a surprise gift...he said it would help my...erm...self-steam... or at least that's what I think he said. Though why he wants me to steam I don't know.
My Daddy's the greatest pony in Equestria, he really is. It was him that actually gave me my name 'Diddy'. I was actually born 'Dandelion' because my Mommy said it sounded pretty and she wanted her little pony to sound as pretty as she looked. Daddy said she had a massive shock when I was born. Not only wasn't I a girl, but I couldn't even be counted as a pony really, due to my mish-mash of different body parts. Mommy was so upset when I was born that Daddy said that she could still call me 'Dandelion' if it made her feel better. Mommy didn't know, but she so wanted a foal with that name that she went along with what my Daddy suggested.
It wasn't until I turned one that my nickname really kicked in. One day when Daddy took me out in my pram to the park I got really angry at a big toddler pony who was kicking sand in my face. I roared at him to make him leave me alone but he wouldn't leave, he was just a big bully (or so that's what Daddy says). Daddy ran over to get rid of the foal and started laughing at my mewing; he said I sounded just like a kitten who had got its tail trapped. That's why my name was changed to Diddy Lion because of that pathetic roaring I did. This then got shortened to Diddy and that's who I am now. Daddy always makes me laugh by calling me other names to. He's the best Dad in the whole world.
My Mommy's okay, I suppose. I don't get to see her much; she's always too busy to play with me. She works with the Lords and Ladies of Equestria to keep peace and run the land so that everything is in harmony. Mommy really likes harmony; she's dead serious about it. Daddy always jokes that she needs to get some more chaos into her life, then she would feel happier and less stressed. That's why Daddy says I'm his little Harmonious Chaos, I can be really nice and sweet when Mommy is around, and then when it's just me and him we go crazy. Daddy is the craziest pony I know, which is why I always wondered how Mommy put up with him. She doesn't like crazy ponies, yet she loves my Daddy. Everypony loves my Daddy. I love my Daddy. Have I already said that? Well, it's true...he's the best pony I know.
Not that I know many ponies as it is. Mommy doesn't like it when I leave the house, I think she's ashamed of what I look like, though she's never said it before. I told Daddy that's what I thought one day, but he promised that Mommy loved me very much indeed and would never be ashamed of me. My Daddy is a really bad liar, but he gave me some special berries he had found in the wood and it made me feel a lot better. Even if Mommy was ashamed of me, Daddy would never be.
He takes me out to the park still sometimes. When Mommy's not around. We play games like Hopscotch and Catch together and he lets me win. He pretends that he didn't let me, but he is much better at these games than me. He's teaching me how to play chess as well. I like chess, ecspecially when I get to have the white pieces. The white pieces are pretty, ecspecially the white knight, the horsie one. Horses always look better in white, at least that's what I think.
The only time's I'm ever upset with Daddy is when he leaves. Sometimes he has to go to Canterlot on a mission for the Leaders. That's what comes out of being a Highly Decorated Royal Guard. Though why he has to Decorate himself I don't know; he's not a Hearth's Warming Eve tree after all. Though knowing my Daddy he'd look great no matter what he was dressed up in.
I remember when he dressed up as Princess Platinum in the holidays. Well, he dressed as her after the holidays; he couldn't make it on the actual day, he was on some mission or other like usual....He looked so funny in the purple dress and silver tiara. I don't think he ever told Mommy that he borrowed her clothes, ha ha ha....I'm only kidding Diary, Mommy would never wear such a fun outfit. It wouldn't be harmonious enough for her.
I'm never going to be like Mommy, and I don't think she'd ever want me to be anyway. No, I know what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'm going to be a Daddy, and I'm going to be as good a Daddy as my Daddy is. I'm going to be exactly like him. I'm even going to be decorated like him. That's right, I'm going to be a guard pony just like him except I'm going to be even better. Everypony will look up to me because I'll be a grown up and not just a little foal (well sort of).
Erm...Mommy's calling me, Daddy must be home finally. He left this morning to do something for the unicorns. He never tells me what actually happens on these missions, but I'm going to find out one day; you see if I don't. Yes, when I'm grown up I'll protect this land just like my Daddy does and everypony will love me....Oh...Mommy's calling me again...I'd better go and see Daddy, I can't leave Mommy waiting or she'll get angry... I'll write some more soon.
...Wow, Daddy was wrong, I feel as if I've let off steam rather than gained it. Oh well, even perfect ponies aren't always right...
You'll never guess what happened today...Well, go on and guess then...Oh, right, you can't. Well I'll tell you anyway. I went to school. Not a fake school like the one's Daddy always makes for me in the sitting room, but a real one. With other foals and everything.
It's called StrongHold School, and you know what, it's the first school in the whole wide Equestria that all different types of ponies learn in. There's unicorns, and earth ponies, and pegasus's...That doesn't look right: Pegasus's, Pegasusis, Pegasisis...Oh well it doesn't matter, now I'm going to school I'll soon be able to spell any word I want, just like a grown up can. I can already spell enough words to write this diary though can't I? Mommy taught me how to spell. She may not play with me but she likes to bore me with lessons and serious stuff like that...That's another good thing about school, Mommy can't get me there.
Mommy didn't want me to go to school; I know she didn't. I heard her argue with Daddy a few nights ago about it; I should have been asleep but I like to watch the outside when it's night time. Daddy says that every star is a symbol of a special pony that's been born, and everytime that special pony does something really special their star gets brighter. My star's up there, right next to the big white circle. It's not got brighter yet but it will one day; when I'm a Daddy it will shine brighter than all of the stars in the night sky. I check on my star every night though, just in case it is shining more than usual. That's why I was awake when Mommy and Daddy were arguing.
It took a long time (and some big fancy words I can't spell) but Daddy won the fight. Daddy always wins every fight. Mommy loves him so much that she'll change her thoughts to fit his quite quickly, that is if my Daddy fights hard enough. I was signed up to school the day after. And then, like I said, I actually went today.
Mommy had to take me though; Daddy had gone away on another mission. He didn't even tell me he was leaving this time, and he didn't say goodbye either. I heard him leave last night when I was looking at my star again. He said goodbye to Mommy but he didn't come and say goodbye to me...I don't like it when he doesn't say goodbye, even if he did think I was asleep.
The gates on the school were really big and shiny. I think they were made of gold, though Mommy growled at me and said I was stupid for thinking that. I still think they're made of gold though, no matter what she says. The school house was big to; even bigger than the (golden) gates...I think you could fit about a gazillion herds of Buffalo into there, though Mommy just told me I was stupid again when I said it. I hoped she would go when we got there but she took me to the room I was staying in. I don't know why she did, she never would usually do that. Daddy must have made her promise to do it (she never breaks a promise that she promises to Daddy).
I was glad when she left. All of the foals stared at me when I walked in with my Mommy; they thought I was a big baby thanks to her. That must have been the reason that hardly any of them came near me during class or playtime; they thought I was a Mommy's colt. Well, I'm going to show them that I'm no Mommy's colt, just you wait and see. I've got a plan. A big colts plan.
Well, it's not my plan really. It was all Nocturn's idea. He's my best friend that I made today; he's really cool and brave. You know in fairy tales there's always a pretty Prince? Well that would be Nocturn if he was in a fairy tale. He's the best looking pony in the whole school, no, in the whole of Equestria, no, in the whole of the Universe. And he chose to be best friends with me...He thinks I'm cool too.
I didn't think Nocturn would like me that much, let alone think I'm cool. He's the most popular foal in the whole of the school, no, the whole of the...oh wait I've already written this...erm...well you get what I mean. I think the fillies love his velvet mane the most; it's done up really nice like. Unlike my mane which is only tiny and sticks up no matter what Mummy does to try and make it look nicer...it hurts when she tries to make it look nice.
Daddy says he really likes my mane. He calls me 'Spikes' sometimes and gels his mane up like mine so we can have the same mane type. He looks funny with a spiky mane...my spikes just look like a little tuft on the top of my head. I don't mind really, Daddy just says it looks dis...dis...distinquisher...or I think that's what he calls it. Daddy uses big words sometimes, that I don't understand. Mommy is worse though. Sometimes during when she argues with Daddy she uses angry big words that Daddy says I must never repeat to anypony, let alone to Mommy herself. He says that they're words that even grown-ups shouldn't use because they're mean and serious and they can hurt ponies feelings. Mommy needs to be told these rules, then she could grow-up like Daddy has.
Anyway, I was talking about my cool, brave, best friend Nocturn. Well, Nocturn has a plan for me to be able to fit in in school. It's a really cool, heroic plan that will give us 'street cred' (whatever that means). We did the first part of it today. You want to know what we did Diary? Well, I'm going to write it anyway....We put berries, the really juicy kind, on all of the seats in the classrooms, and when everypony sat down KERSPLAT. They had juice dripping down their legs and they were all crying for their Mommies, it was so funny. They couldn't call me a Muommy's colt now. They were the one's crying for their Mommies not me...hahaha... Of course me and Nocturn didn't put berries on our own chair's, that would have just been silly. Nocturn put some on the teacher's though. Miss Lolli wasn't very happy about her, now, berried bottom.
She came after us, really angrily. Since we were the only one's who didn't have juice running down our ankles, she knew it was one or both of us. Nocturn didn't even blink when she came over to us. Even when she was yelling, he didn't say anything. He did pass me something behind my back though. I took it; I thought it was some kind of letter to me or something. I never got to find out. I pulled it to the front of me and Miss Lolli snatched it out of my hand. She turned around, looked at whatever it was; the next thing I knew she pulled me out of my seat and to the room that the Headteacher lived in. I don't know why they call him a head. He had hooves, a body and a tail just like my Daddy did.
I didn't hear most of what she said because she sat me down outside his room while they talked. She talked just as loudly as my Mommy did when she was using the angry words. She used a lot of big words like Mommy too. That reminds me, I'll have to ask Daddy what 'discorded' means. She said something about me being a 'discorded colt' I think.
I got punished for that plan of Nocturn's. I have to clean all of the classroom in playtime tomorrow...Nocturn says he'll snatch a juice box for me while Miss Lolli's not looking. I was glad about that, I didn't want to miss out on juice like Miss Lolli said I had to.
Mommy's not happy about what I did at school...but Mommy gets angry at everything I do; so I don't think it really mattered what I'd done. Nocturn's got a new idea for what we can do in a couple of days, after my punishment is finished. I can't wait to find out what it is.....I wonder when Daddy will be home...he promised to be here for my first night back after school...Where is he?
It's going to be great this week, you know why? Because Mommy's not going to be here. She's going away to do something or other with the leaders, which means I get to spend a whole week by myself with my Daddy. I bet he's got all sorts of fun things planned and everything: like chess, and catch, and jumping on pogo sticks, and rambling (I don't know what that is but it sounds fun), and he might even take me to the maze if I ask nice enough.
The maze is brilliant. It's massive, so massive that I think every pony in the whole of Equestria could fit into it. I told that to Daddy, he smiled and said it probably could. That's a good thing about Daddy, he always trusts me like I trust him. We went in the maze a few times when I was younger and I always got lost. One time, when I was really little, I lost Daddy in the maze and I started crying and refused to move 'til he found me. He did find me though; it didn't even take him very long. He's very good at finding lost ponies because he does it in his job. I practice finding lost ponies by making Daddy hide my toys around the house, and then I have to try and find all of them. I still haven't found Mr Wubs. Daddy gave me Mr Wubs when I was born, I love him with all my heart. Before I lost him, he used to like coming to the maze too.
I'm not scared when I go into the maze anymore, I know my way round it now. Daddy doesn't even have to come in with me anymore because I'm a big colt now; I can take care of myself. I like being in the maze....It makes me feel like I'm the only pony in the whole wide Equestria that matters. I don't have a Mommy, I don't have other foals staring at me all the time, and I don't have any pony to call me names. The only thing that is still living is me in the maze....and Daddy of course, he's living too.
Sometimes when I'm in the maze, when I get to the centre, I lie on my back and look at the blue skies and the yellow sun. The sun's a big star you know, Nocturn told me that, he learnt it from a book his Daddy was reading him....And if the sun was a star then that must mean that there was a very special pony out there, because the sun seems to get brighter every day. I want to meet that special pony, maybe they can give me tips on how I can make my star brighter.
Yes this week's going to be great....much better than last week was. Daddy was away on a mission for a whole week, so after school every day I had to go to work with Mommy for what seemed like forever. I didn't even get to see anypony when I was there. Mommy put me into a room and locked the door so I couldn't get out. Worse, there was no bathroom attached to the room that I could go to...and sometimes I really needed to go. That means that it was all Mommy's fault. The accident would have never happened if she'd let me go to the loo. I tried to tell Mommy this but it just made her even angrier. I can even remember all the words she said...or should I say spat at me because I ended up drenched by the end of it. I'm going to write down what she yelled so I have it to show Daddy later, she said:
'You are a horrible, dis-grace of a foal and further proof that discorded colts are an (big word I can't spell) and they should just (angry word Daddy says I shouldn't spell) off'
That word 'discorded' showed up again. Lots of ponies seem to call me that, even Nocturn calls me it because he says it sounds cooler than 'Diddy' or 'Dandelion'. I asked Daddy what it meant the day that Miss Lolli called me it and he wouldn't tell me what it meant, he just told me that whoever said it where all big liars who hadn't learned to grow up yet. All of the foals call me it at school, not just Nocturn, but they say it in a horrible hissing way. I miss the days when I used to be only called Diddy because that's who I was...and who I still am. Daddy still calls me Diddy; even Mommy does when Daddy's still in the room with us.
I like being called Diddy. I'm not so sure I like being called 'Discorded', it sounds mean and I'm not mean. I don't even like it when Nocturn calls me it and he's my best friend. Most of the time he's a brilliant best friend as well; he's funny and charming and handsome and awesome and cool. He's even got a fillyfriend, she's called 'Crystal Crown' and she's really pretty. She's also pretty mean most of the time; she made Teeter Totter and Wishee (yes, real names) cry the other day on purpose. Nocturn didn't care though, he really likes Crystal and is really happy when they're together. I'll never be that crazy over a filly or a mare; and I'd never be a coltfriend to any of them either....Yuck...
It's okay at the moment though Diary...we're not at school this week because the leaders are giving the schools a holiday while they go and have this special meet-up. That's why Daddy's looking after me all week; I can't wait. He might take me to the maze...oh..wait, I've already written about the maze...erm...well, I really like the maze. Nocturn's coming over one day as well...well he said he would, if he could get out without his Dad finding out. I don't know why Nocturn doesn't like his Dad very much, though no Dad could ever be as good as my Daddy. Anyway, Nocturn promised he'd come one day this week so we could work on our next plan together...
None of the other plan's have worked yet...They've all been really funny and brilliant but all that seems to happen is I end up at the Head's office. Nocturn went to see the Head once to admit that he was part of the plans as well but the Head didn't believe him...I didn't actually hear myself what they talked about, but I know Nocturn would have tried to help me, right? My hands are really sore after cleaning the classroom so many times; and I'm really thirsty from the amount of juice I've missed during playtime. A few times I've not even been allowed to have pudding at lunch...and one time when I was lined up for getting my dinner, the foal behind me poured his Tapioca over my head...He said he slipped but I still wasn't happy; I know for a fact that he didn't eat Tapioca because he didn't like it so why did he even have it in his hooves? This is all Mommy's fault; because of her everyone thinks I'm a Mommy's colt.
But I'm not going to be this week. I'm Daddy's colt this week; only Daddy's. And Daddy's going to be all mine too. It's going to be the best week ever...
My name's Diddy's Daddy and I want my little Harmonious Chaos to come and play with me.
Daddy's not allowed to write in my Diary. My Diary's for me to write in.
Well I guess I'd better stop writing in it then...and start tickling the little colt...
Daddy's a really good tickler. I have to go with him to make him stop tickling me. He's so funny; he makes me laugh. I need to go now Diary but I'll be back soon...Me and Daddy are going to go have some fun....
It's really unfair, Nocturn got his cutie Mark a few days ago....it's a really good one and everything. It's not like I'm not happy for him or anything, it's just that every time I look at my flank it's as blank as a new born foals behind. It makes me seem like I'm just a baby, when I'm not...and I'm not a Mommy's colt either.
His cutie mark is really flashy and cool, just like Nocturn is. I don't know what his talent is meant to be though; his cutie mark is like a sword with flashes and stuff coming out of it...He says that it came onto his flank without him even noticing, whilst he was on a trip with his Dad at the armory museum (though I don't know what his cutie mark has to do with arms. Arms are on monkey's and things, and monkeys could never be smart enough to hold a sword). I have no idea what his talent is at all...but Nocturn's still really proud of it. He's been showing it off at school ever since Monday.
Crystal Crown's been doing nothing but following us ever since he got it; I think that she's stalking us or something. She's not got her cutie mark yet either, although one time she came into school with a picture of a bag of money on her flank. It turned out she'd just drawn it on her backside with some magical crayons that belonged to her Mom...and even after we all found out, the crayons wouldn't come off for weeks. Crystal is so stupid sometimes, I don't know what Nocturn sees in her...
You know, Nocturn told me that he wasn't called Nocturn any more. He said that now he had his cutie mark he wanted to have a cooler name that more suited what his talent was. He's making me call him 'Nox'. I don't like that name, he was cool enough when he was called Nocturn, but I had to promise to call him that because I'm his best friend, and best friends always do what their best friends ask, don't they?
Anyway, I'm in trouble at the minute at school. I don't know why, I don't think I even did anything wrong, and even if I did it wasn't done on purpose. I was sitting by myself on the jungle-gym at playtime; Nocturn had gone to the armory that afternoon with his Dad, so I was all alone. Some of the other foals decided that I'd be a good target for spitball practice...I tried to stay as calm as possible when the hard paper pellets started to whack me in the side. In fact I did that counting thing that my Mom does whenever she seems angry with my Daddy...Whenever I went up a number a paper ball hit me in a new place....
1- I was hit on my side.
2- My paw got hit.
3- A hit on my claw.
4- My left wing got a big splattering.
5- My foot felt sticky and wet.
6- The right wing was all goopy after a big wad hit it.
7- I flinched as a sticky pellet went inside my ear.
8- Pacemaker got me on my horn and the paper stuck to it.
9- My other horn got a covering.
10- It was the final straw....they hit me right in the eye....
....I don't really remember what happened after that...I blanked out for a second and when I woke up all of the foals were hugging inside the trash can...it was so funny; I couldn't help but start giggling.
If Miss Lolli hadn't been on playground duty then I don't think I would have got into any trouble. She saw me laughing and dragged me by the ear to the Head's office. I thought I was going to have to clean the classroom again. No such luck Diary. You know what they did? They sent a message to my Mommy at work...She had to come and talk to them about my behaviour. Mommy was not happy...
My bottom still hurts from where she slapped me...it's really red too. I can't even sit down without crying out in agony. Daddy wasn't even here to comfort me or to stop her...he's been away for two weeks already and he still won't be back until Tuesday. I miss Daddy... He usually comes into my room and spends time with me when something bad's happened. He usually sings me his special lullaby so that I can fall asleep happy. He's not here to sing it now; I guess I'll have to sing it to myself. I know, I'll write it down in here; that way if Daddy's not here I can just look in this Diary to remind me of it. Here it goes:
Diddy's Lullaby by Daddy
My Little Colt, Poor Little Boy Who lost his faith in all that joy brings. Come on and smile, my little one; Experience a life full of laughter and fun.
See the dark clouds fade away, Instead the pink clouds drizzle chocolate rain. You open your mouth wide Let the happiness inside And join in the chaos parade.
Everypony will wave and adore you; They'll be happiest when they're near you. Night will become day Or maybe the other way around. It will all be your own choice, you have your own voice, Make this World yours and mine.
That will be the day The nightmares run away. No pain, no tears, Just you and me facing fears. We'd stay strong together As we get our happily chaotic ever after.
I don't want to write this down; if I write this down then I know that means it will stay true forever...and...if it stays true forever that means that what happened really happened...I don't want it to have happened. It's just so unfair.
It was all Nocturn's idea in the first place...but I went along with it...and...I shouldn't have gone along with it. I just really wanted to get my cutie mark and Nocturn said that if I did what he said then I could discover my true talent just like he had.
It took us a long time to plan what we were going to do...I shouldn't have helped in planning but I did...Eventually we decided that if we went to the top of the highest mountain just outside our village, 'Mount Bleak', and set off a whole bunch of fireworks and things then we could create a display that the whole village would love and admire. Nocturn said it would work and make the other ponies think that I'm the best in the whole of Equestria.
He came over really early in the morning so we could start to climb...I didn't tell Daddy that I was leaving. He was looking after me that day because Mommy had gone to a meeting for a couple of days....Maybe if I had told him what happened wouldn't have happened.
Me and Nocturn started to climb; me carrying all of the fireworks and Nocturn leading the way up the safest path he knew. Nocturn knew a lot of the paths because his Dad had taken him up this mountain many times...but he'd not expected that it was going to be so windy at this time in the morning. Snow was blowing into our eyes so heavily that at one point I actually thought I'd gone blind... Maybe if I had gone blind we would have been stuck where we where. Then we wouldn't have got to the top of the mountain and everything could still be what it used to be.
It turns out I wasn't blind, which meant that we carried on and eventually got to the top of the peak. Nocturn planted all of the fireworks and aimed them in the direction he wanted them to go. I thought back then that they were pointing in a weird direction....I wish I'd said something before we set them off...or should I say before I set them off. It was only an accident; I didn't mean to, but something scary happened. A spark flew out of my hands when I was rubbing them together...I was only trying to warm my hands up. I don't know what the spark was but it was really powerful. The fireworks set on fire and burst like explosive balloons. Nocturn froze in fear...I was terrified, but somepony had to be the one to pull Nocturn out of the firing range. Otherwise we'd have both ended up as fried foals.
I grabbed hold of Nocturn's neck and jumped off the side of the peak. I just about managed to grab onto a ledge and pull us up. That ledge saved our lives....if only he had been that lucky.
I didn't know that Daddy would wake up so early...if I had known I wouldn't have gone. But Daddy was scared when he found the note from Nocturn saying about our trip. Daddy went off up the side of Mount Bleak to try and find us both; to try and save us both...He...he....he went up the quickest route he knew....The quickest route isn't the safest route...
The...the...fireworks started a big avalanche that rushed down the mountainside...the snow was really close to pulling me and Nocturn down off the safety of our ledge...but Daddy...Daddy wasn't on a safe place. The snow swallowed him whole, like a big monster with frozen teeth...
I thought Daddy could survive anything, being a guard and all...but guards are still ponies...and nopony can live forever...I learned that the hard way...I just want Daddy back...I don't want him to be gone forever...He needs to be here with me, where he belongs...Daddy...
...Daddy...if you come home right now...I won't even mind that you pulled such a horrible joke on me; at least you'll be back....Please come back...I need you...I need you so much...
Daddy never came back home...he never will now. The funeral was held a few days ago; Mommy wouldn't let me go no matter how much I shouted and cried. I would have just followed her when she left but she locked all of the windows and doors so I couldn't get out. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Daddy. It was like he had gone on one of his night-time missions and hadn't wanted to disturb my sleeping...except this time I wouldn't see him ever again. I wouldn't care if he'd have disturbed my sleeping now; at least he would be alive and with me, where he belonged...
I cried all the time that my mother was at the funeral. She was gone for a long time, and yet when I was hungry I couldn't eat without feeling sick in my tummy. I tried to swallow through my tears but it just made me feel even worse. The food my mother had brought us tasted of nothing, and the fun food my Daddy had hidden away from my Mother's view tasted sickly without him there to eat it with me. Nothing was the same without Daddy.
I used up all of the towels in the bathroom trying to dry my eyes before Mother came home. I so hoped that he would come back with her; that he'd be standing there, arms out-stretched, ready to hug me and sing me his special lullaby. I've tried looking back at the written version that I put in you Diary but every time I try to turn to that page I always see the entry where he...where he...left me forever.
Forever's a really long time. Daddy said the stars last forever, but Daddy was sometimes wrong. I looked at the sky the night that he passed away and you know what?... I saw nothing but pitch black. No lights, no stars, no moon; just darkness. This is the problem with the sky, it's on a strict amount of time; it never changes. So why did it suddenly decide to go black just as Daddy was no longer beside me? Just when I needed the stars most they were gone.
Mother came back alone. I glared at her when she opened the door, trying to show her that I was unhappy with what she had done. She didn't care, she just glared back. Then she went to the fridge and pushed some of her horribly healthy garbage in my direction. I wouldn't eat it, I didn't want to. I sat there with my arms crossed, not caring in the least if it made her unhappy or angry.
I made her angry. Without warning she slapped me across my cheek, squeezed my nose, and then pushed all of the food into my open mouth. I coughed and spluttered, tears coming from my eyes; begging her to let go and stop the pain. She wouldn't let go. Not until all of the food had slid down my throat. It was horrible, and a large lump of the mush had become lodged into the centre of my wind pipe. I could hardly breathe with it crushing me like that.
She nodded her head, satisfied, and let go of my nose. I wheezed, the sickly feeling in my stomach even more powerful now. I knew what was coming next...Vomit. It got everywhere: the curtains, the floor, the chair, the table; I even managed to aim well enough for my mother to get a large splattering on her chest. She wasn't happy. I was just happy that I'd caught her in the blast. She'd deserved it.
It only resulted in another beating. It still hurts where she hit me. I had run to my room as fast as possible, I just needed to escape, but I couldn't. Daddy would have wanted us to stay together...I have to do what Daddy would have wanted. Not only would Daddy have wanted me to stay with her but he'd also want me to keep going to school...and that's the only reason I'm going there anymore.
I heard what Nocturn...no, Nox...had said. I heard what he really thought about everything. I don't care what anypony says about snooping being wrong, I'm glad I snooped around the corner when he had been talking to the other foals in our class. Crystal Crown and the others hung onto his every word...but they would, wouldn't they? Every word he says to them is like a word from the leaders themselves. I will never be so foalish to fall for his act ever again.
There I had stood, around the corner, listening to him lying about how he had been the one that had saved me from the avalanche, and that it had been him that had tried to stop me from lighting those fireworks, because, of course, it was all my idea in the first place....I could have hit him there and then...but Daddy hadn't raised me to hurt other ponies; he'd raised me to never try and injure another creature....But putting some magic potions into his food hadn't physically injured him...well, not for long... One day I'll get even with 'Nox', just you wait and see.
That's what my life is at the minute: a tormenting Mother who drinks too much wine in her spare time, an ex-best friend with whom I have to get even with, and then there's me: a small pawn on a chessboard; not able to move until somepony comes to pick up the pieces and start my game again....
Daddy never did come home and the more and more I wished, the more the stars blinked at me in confusion. None of them seemed to want to talk to me anymore.
Mother doesn't talk to me much either. She doesn't talk to anypony at all. She just sits on the couch drinking grown-up drinks and staring at the wall. That wall used to be pretty; decorated with pictures and the sparkles of my Daddy's shiny medals that we were all proud of. It was a happy wall back then. Now it just glares at us with fading colours and dull silver stuff. It just can't be happy without Daddy here to cheer it up.
I should have guessed that Mother would do what she did. After all, she never really did love me even when Daddy was here with us; she only put up with me because she could see that it made Daddy happy for us to get along. I'm actually surprised she put up with me for as long as she did. I wouldn't have if I were her.
She did it when I was asleep so I wouldn't notice. I must have been asleep for a long time because I didn't even know where I was when I thought I'd woke up. The whole big wide Equestria was pitch black and everything was in darkness. Even the stars refused to come out and do their recent taunting dance in the sky.
The sounds and smells were all there though; tons of them, all of different kinds. At one point it was sweet and nice (like the perfumes Daddy used to buy for Mother) and the next moment it would smell like the garbage dump just outside our village. It was horrible. Mother hated bad smells; always complaining she had a sensitive nose, so I couldn't figure out why she would come to that horrible, dank and dark smelling place.
Every now and again whatever I was riding in would go over a massive pothole or something and I'd shoot upwards into the air and them come down crash, bang, whollop onto the seat again. My bruises got bruises with all the bumping and jumping. Mother didn't care though, she just carried on walking to wherever she was taking us.
Wherever we were going it seemed to be taking a really long time to get there. And when I say really I mean a really, really, really, really, really, long time. Equestria could have been created four times over in the amount of travelling we appeared to be doing.
It's really boring sitting still in darkness. There's nothing fun or exciting or good about not doing anything. It was like a rubbish version of Blind Colts Bluff that was going on for far far too long. I know Daddy always said that the 'joy was in the journey' bit it's not when you haven't got anything to do. Anything would have been good enough. I don't like being bored, it always makes me sleepy with its dullness. I was bored and...well you could easily guess: I fell asleep.
A large noise woke me up and I shot out of my seat. Light flooded into my eyes and noises filled my ears. There was ponies....lots of ponies...but no Mother. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad that she had gone and left me in this strange place. I kind of missed her in a weird way. She was the only thing I had left now that Daddy was gone. I cried like a foal, even though I'm mot a foal, I'm the growed up colt of the family.
Ponies stared at me. I didn't like it, being stared at. They looked down on me just like all of the foals back at school had. A hoof fell onto my back and I turned my head.
I was foalish then. When I saw the flash of the armour I thought it was Daddy come back to save me from this horrible town. It wasn't...and it turns out that if you hug a strange Knight stallion then they don't really seem to like you very much. The other Knights sniggered but I didn't. If he wasn't my Daddy then he didn't deserve a hug....Knights also don't like it when you pout and turn away.
He led me....or more dragged me to a big building not too far away...The Knights training place. It was big. Very big. And if that was big then the royal house further up the mountain must belong to Giant Ponies.
The Knights gave me a room, all bare and ugly; not like home had been at all. Then they left me, telling me to be down for dinner by 1900...though I kept telling them that I was sure we hadn't got close to that year yet. I didn't want to wait hundreds of years to eat something even if the Knights could. They ignored me Diary; that's why I decided to write all of this down...And I'll keep writing and writing all of this day and the next until I find somepony who does actually do fun stuff around here. I'll never stop writing...
Well, except now; a stallion just brought in some toy soldiers.
I can’t sleep at the minute. The bed in my room is really uncomfortable; not like the one I had at home. My one at home had been ‘specially made for me by Daddy’s friend in his workshop. It had carved edges in the shape of the horse chess pieces on its bolsters, and it was painted in a mish-mash of different colours. I helped Daddy to paint it. I made sure that each little horse was coloured in white; white is my favourite colour…besides rainbow. Is rainbow a colour? I’m not sure.
Anyway, my new bed doesn’t have any of that. It’s all bare and ugly and the mattress hurts my backside when I lie down on it. It doesn’t have the old rainbow bed sheets I had before; just this grey old blanket tucked tightly into the edges of the bed. It took quite a fight to get it loose enough for me to slip under the sheets, and even when I was under I could barely breathe from the pressure it was pushing down onto me.
I could have maybe slept under there, and I did for a while, but then I had a really scary dream and it made me jump and bang my head against the headboard thing. It hurt a lot. I cried for help but nopony came. I cried even louder and still nopony opened the door. Why didn’t anyone come when I needed them most? Daddy would have if he was there…but he’s not here. The ponies that are decorated like Daddy are here; I saw them at Dinner time. They looked all stiff and lifeless, staring down at every other pony like we were their pets or something.
The other stallions that sat with me acted like dogs though, they ate their food far too quickly. If I had eaten it like they were Mother would have knocked me round the ear and sent me howling to my room. I soon learnt not to eat without chewing ever again; it was bad manners, Daddy had told me, and that’s why Mother had got cross. Mother thought a lot of things I did were bad manners; she would have had a shock seeing these other ponies, they would have got more bruises than I had by the time she was through.
The food was nicer than my Mother’s disgusting healthy food…I guess, but it wasn’t sweets or chocolate milk so I couldn’t get interested in what I was eating. I only ate because I was hungry, and being all alone without anypony I had known all my life just made me even more hungry…I was…I was…Ravaging?...erm…Rabbiting?...erm. Oh, ravishing. I was ravishing (I don’t know what that means but the soldiery ponies said that I was it and it sounds kind of cool when you say it).
Yes I was ravishing and the guard ponies were really hungry as well. I saw food challenges everywhere. Whether it was who can swallow the slippery slime the fastest or who can fill their mouth with the most cinnamon oat flakes, they all did something. I hadn’t seen such competitions since me and Daddy were alone in the house a few months ago (Mother hated when you didn’t eat her food properly). I missed them; they were the best things to do with food in my view. I had no idea that Daddy had taught all of the other stallions our special games too.
None of the soldiers asked if I wanted to join in with them. In fact, they barely even spoke to me at all while I was there. Apart from telling me some big words that I had to pretend to understand they barely even noticed I was there it seemed. I would have hoped that I would mean something to them, but I suppose grown up colts don’t get the special attention that foals get.
Speaking of foals, no matter where I looked in the hallways up to my room and the eating area (which they called a ‘Mess Hall’ for some reason. It was actually quite clean) I could see no sign of any other foals being there. I know there must be some because the guards kept talking about a school and fillies and colts, so there must be some foals here as well as the large ponies. But I couldn’t see any anywhere…and I looked for a long time, believe me. I suppose I could leave my room now if I wanted to go and find out but it’s too dark; my eyes can barely see.
You know, there’s only a tiny window in this room and they’ve put it right at the top of the wall so I can hardly see anything out of it. Even though the stars weren’t exactly friendly anymore it didn’t mean I didn’t want to be able to see them; I really wanted to be able to see them. I loved the stars and their shiny…erm…shine, they were so beautiful and magic. My star’s up there as well, and Mother’s, and Daddy’s. I wonder what Daddy’s star looks like now, or if it’s still there. It has to be still there right? It can’t just vanish as soon as he’s gone away can it? I hope not, that star is the only way I know that Daddy is still with me. And he is still with me no matter what mean words Mother used to say about it.
Sometimes I wished I could have stood up to Mother and told her exactly what I thought about her, but the truth is she was actually quite scary and I wasn’t strong enough to beat her yet. It’s the same with that good for nothing Nox and that idiotic Crystal Crown, they weren’t stronger than me maybe, but I’d trusted them and they’d broken that promise. Daddy always said to forgive and forget and I am trying but it’s hard. Why should they be allowed to get away with hurting my feelings while I have to be moved away? It’s so unfair.
I suppose I can wait until I grow up to beat them. Maybe, if I behave well enough, the stallions here will let me borrow their sharp swords; then Everypony that’s been mean to me will feel the blunt force of my power (Well, I know a sword’s sharp but that phrase sounded cooler in my head). I wonder what all of the ponies in my village are doing right now; having a celebration that I’ve left maybe. I knew they’d never liked me, despite the fact they loved my Daddy, and amazingly, they loved my Mother too.
That bed at the side of the room is annoying me now. I swear it’s telling me to go to bed and go to sleep on it. It’s scary; I don’t like it.
Tomorrow, I’ve been told, that I’m going to a ‘special place’ for the day. I have no idea what they mean by special, I hope they’re taking me to my maze. Maybe if I wander far enough Daddy will be waiting inside and he’ll yell ‘Surprise!’; lift me into his arms and we’d both go off and live happily ever after. Handsome Princes always got happily ever after’s in the story books so it could happen in real life. Daddy said they could be real ‘because the King himself found his true love in that same way. I loved listening to that story as a foal.
I just heard a noise, a scary noise. Oh no! If one of the guards figures out I’m awake I may not be able to go to the place tomorrow; then I might not get to see Daddy again. I need to get into bed, quickly.
Diddy here again. You'll never believe where I went today. Go on; guess. Wait, you can't, you're a book. Well, you know that special place I told you about the other night, the one that I thought was my maze? Well for starters it wasn't a maze at all (sad face) and for finishers it was a school. A school with tons of other foals and stuff in it...You know? School stuff.
I wasn't so happy about going to a school again. I hadn't even liked my last one very much but oddly it didn't seem too bad. True, all of the other foals stared at me when I walked in but they looked away faster that any other pony I'd ever seen and nopony turned and whispered to their friends at all. Everypony was silent.
The teacher seemed okay, kind of mean though. If ever you said the wrong answer to a question she made you go and stand facing the wall with a strange bucket on your head. I don't have any problems with that though, I'm actually top of the class even though I've only been there for a day. Thanks to Daddy's stories when I was little I knew every one of the answers to Miss Tache's questions (Miss Tache was a good name for her; my Daddy shaved more than she seemed to).
She only had to look at me and bark 'You, colt, tell me what manouver you would do if you were surrounded all four ways' and I would smile at her and say 'The split and dodge ma'am' (She demanded that I should call her m'am even though she's not my Mother). She was really upset that I didn't get it wrong; seemed like she enjoyed punishing foals, but she didn't have to wait for long until another foal made a complete donkey of himself by answering the same question and saying he would do as they said and move over. That made me giggle. When I was little I thought manouver meant move over as well. I can still remember the confusion on Daddy's face when I stepped to the side to let him pass.
I liked the other foals in my class. They actually seemed to be really impressed with my braininess ( I never did get why they had to press against your mind to think you're amazing. Must be a weird adult thing). I have friends too. We did some sort of strange dance during playtime, something about a drill, though I didn't see any tools anywhere.
And tomorrow's even more exciting. We're doing about manners in class and my Daddy always said that I had the best manners out of any colt and filly (Mother didn't seem to agree).
I'm still in this ugly room at the minute, bit I learned that there's tons of other foals who have rooms quite near to mine. There's even another colt called Blankety living two doors down from me. The big stallion said if we were good the next day Blankety and me could play together in our free time instead of being alone. I hear Blankety has some really cool toy soldiers.
I really love this place, it's nicer than I thought it was. I know that wherever Daddy is he'll be glad that I'm happy.
We had a party tonight. It was really fun and we all got to dress up in a costume that we made in textiles class. It took me three whole weeks to make mine, but Sergeant Pickaxe said it was the best one in the whole class. I’d made a uniform the same as my Daddy had worn whenever he had gone to meetings and things, it looked really good, as good as Daddy’s always looked. Daddy would’ve been proud if he’d seen it. I looked just like him, a great warrior for King and country.
And that’s what the party was for. The Royal family, living in the big house at the top of the cliff had had another foal that same day. It was cause for celebration apparently, though I don’t know why. Everypony seemed really happy about it, as if foals were only born once in a blue moon (which is funny Diary, because when we looked into the sky there was actually a blue moon. I could see it).
There was a competition in our school over naming the new foal, which was a filly by the way. Each one of us had to come up with a name and then the royals would pick which one they thought was best. Blankety said that if they wanted a good name for a foal they should call her what he called his Princess doll, ‘Lady Blankety’. He really liked the idea of the new Princess being names after him. I think he wrote down the name gazillions of times on his piece of paper just so that they could see how much he wanted it. There were other names from our class too, like ‘Twilight’ or ‘Airy Fairy, or even ‘Picnic Princess’ but none of them were picked in the end. I didn’t think any of the names were good for a Princess anyway, I didn’t write anything like that; I decided to put down something to do with what my Daddy used to tell me.
When we were at home he used to tell me the story of a lunar Princess who controlled and watched over all of the stars in the sky. It was this Princess that created and cared for the stars that belonged to a pony on Equestria. So my star and Daddy’s star and Blankety’s star and even the new Princess’ star would be protected by this lunar mare. I loved that story, it was my favourite. That’s why I thought there couldn’t be any better name then something to do with that story. I wanted the new Princess to be a ‘Luna’ Princess, just like the nice mare in the story. And guess what…The King picked my name out of all the rest. The new filly was named Luna.
I was really proud when the King gave his speech and told us that I was the winner. There was no other prize but I didn’t need one. I was really happy. Even when Blankety won the costume competition dressed as Lady Blankety I didn’t mind, I cheered like anything. His dress was really pretty and it was brave of him to dress up like a mare so he did deserve it. Lots of ponies danced with him on the dance floor and kept stepping on the dress; he got really annoyed when somepony stepped on it so hard that a piece of the fabric tore on the bottom of it.
I didn’t dance much. I stood by the drinks and food watching everypony else. I was still really happy about my name being picked. Another foal was stood next to me, a white filly. Her dress was really pretty and I told her that. She smiled at me. She had a nice smile; she had the same pearly white teeth that I had. Not many ponies have teeth like mine. She didn’t have one sticking out like I did, but she said it made me look cute. ‘Cute’ I told her ‘I’m the bravest stallion in the whole of Equestria’. This made her giggle for some reason. She had a really nice laugh.
She was wearing a costume just like the rest of us. A pretty pink dress with glass slippers and a face mask. I couldn’t see most of her face but I could see her eyes. She had nice eyes. Daddy used to say that ponies can tell whether somepony is going to be nice or not by looking at their eyes and seeing if they looked kind. She definitely looked kind, and she acted it too.
I spent most of the night stood with her. She didn’t like dancing, that’s why she was standing as far away from the dance floor as possible. I tried to make her come and do a dance with me but she refused, blushing at me because she felt bad about it. She didn’t have to feel bad about it, I understood what she was feeling.
She was really proud of me when I told her about my coming up with the name of the new Princess, she even thanked me for it. I knew that somepony would like it. Every now and again she would look around, but she still listened to what I was saying, and she answered back. I liked her, she was really nice. And she seemed to like me too.
I thought that maybe we could’ve spent some more time together but she’d left when I’d gone to the toilets because I’d drank too much milkshake. I was really upset when I saw she’d gone. I wanted to be friends and find out more about her. I suppose it’s okay though, she goes to my school and she’s probably in my class so I can find her quite quickly. I haven’t found her yet but I think that Punelope at the back keeps staring at me, like she remembers what happened at the party. She’s the funny filly in our class.
Oh well, I’ll see what she says tomorrow. Right now I’m tired and my tummy misses the milkshake so it’s growling at me really angrily.
I’ll find the filly tomorrow.
Is it a bird? Is it a pegasus? No, it's Entry Eleven
Still no sign of my friend at the dance. I followed Punelope around for a while-- she hit me in the snout. It hurt a lot; my friend would never hurt me like she did so it couldn't be her. Diary, I know you're just a book but, could you tell me what's meant by an order? I know it's when you put things in line but what does restraining order mean? Oo, maybe all the fillies want me to put them in line and choose who it was that way. That must be what that sheet of paper meant. Well, I'll do that tomorrow then. They'll have a surprise at break time when I come and tell them to move it and get in line so I can check them out.
Checking them out might be the only way to find out which one was the lovely pretty filly at the party. You know what I've started calling her? Well, she's a pretty mare who wore a pink dress, had glass slippers on her feet, ate lots of Pumpkin snacks and disappeared at mignight. So I call her--- Peter, peter, pumpkin eater. Clever, yes? Hehe, she'll love that one when I tell her. If I ever find her that is.
I don't know. I've been searching for a thousand-hundered weeks now and I still haven't been able to discover where she went (although she's certainly not under 'dis cover. Ha, I made a funny. I can tell her that one two. Diddy sure is clever, she'll say). Still I'm not going to give up. I will find her, if it's the first thing I do.
I'm in hot water with Blankety at the minute actually. I accused Lady Blankety of coming to life and being the filly-- or stealing the filly's soul and trapping it in her dolly body to feed on forever. Hay, it was only natural that she had to be punished by drowning in hot water-- to wash her sins away like Mother used to do with me all of the time. Anyway Blankety wasn't so happy with her new look so I've been locked out of his room forever and ever and ever. I miss playing with him. But he says that you have to respect a Lady's dignity, or something like that. Apparently I've been reading too many stories and got crazy ideas in my head. No! I don't read, I walk through words. That's what Daddy used to call it. If I say that now everypony just laughs. Daddy's always right.
Daddy. What would he do? How would he find the filly? Simple, he'd go out and do what I'm doing. He'd search high and low to find the mare; rescure her from a burning building or a high tower. Like a Princess, and he'd be the Prince. Only this time I'm the Prince. I have to be the brave one. I have to find her.
Oh that's an idea. The King knows everypony in the land because he's a King and that's what King's do. Y'know, King stuff. He should know where my pony is. I could-- I could sneak out in the night, heroically run to the palace (or jog, I'm not a good runner), and beg him to tell me her name. He'd be sure to know.
The only question is, do I have the bravery to do that? I told the filly that I was the bravest stallion ever, but am I? Well I must be. Because I'm my Daddy's son. I'm a Militant-- like a millipede only better, and with less legs. Yes, that's what I'm going to do.
Something weird happened last night. And not like funny 'ha ha' weird either, but weird weird instead. You know what I mean? Oh, duh Diddy, of course you don't, you're a book. I sometimes forget that; I suppose because you're the only pony I feel like I can tell my secrets too. You're really real to me, it's like somepony or something else is reading what I'm writing as well.
Anyway, I left my room after the switch of the main guard (I know, clever right?) to go up to the palace and find the King. It only took a little bit of effort to sneak through the bars; it sometimes helps being as skinny as I am. No other pony could've got through them bars, but I'm not any other pony, I'm Diddy the Greatest Warrior in Equestrian history. I started singing some theme music quietly to myself like 'dow dow dow de dow de de dow' sort of thing. IT WAS AWESOME. I felt like some sort of secret agent or something from a play Daddy had taken me to see a year ago. Name's Bond, Dandelion Bond... 'dow dow dow de dow de de dow'. It was so much fun, but I didn't stay in one place for too long. I had to get up to see the King.
With my quick little legs and wicked lock picking skills (all I have to do is put my antler in a lock, turn my head a bit and it opens) it wasn't long before I'd made it into the palace gardens. That's when I heard barking, and hoofsteps charging towards me. Thinking quickly I dived behind a bush, as any sensible stallion would do...dow de dow de dow. Guards ran past without even seeing me. I couldn't be stopped, not by anypony.
Well, that's what I thought anyway. A clever Knight had come behind the bushes too, carrying some kind of object in a bag. Obviously he'd brought something to catch me in. Drat, I'd thought, and I'd lifted my arms up to surrender. And he payed no attention to me whatsoever. Didn't even seem to notice I was there at all, which was weird (though not as weird as the weird thing I'm going to tell you about soon). He soon pushed right past me in the dark and ran... the guards all came past so I ran for it too. There was no way I was going to get to see the King tonight, that Knight must've seen my face. He was probably going to turn back round and go tell on me soon. No, it was safer if I went back to my room and played innocent. I could do that easy-peasy milk and cheesy.
So I ran too. Ran all the way back, got through the fence...dow de dow de dow. And then I saw him again. The Knight had beaten me to it. He'd snuck down here to tell on me. I couldn't let him. I was doomed. Doomed to get into so much trouble, and Blankety would laugh at me and tell me 'I told you so,' which he did, so it would be even more annoying.
I don't know, I panicked. The first thing that popped into my head I did. I decided to go over to the stallion and look as meek as possible, then maybe he'd let me off with a warning. So I went over to him and he jumped out of his skin. It looked like he was going to hit the ceiling.
"Please sir," I said in my cutest voice, "I didn't mean to hurt nopony, would you pwease not tell them about it? Pwease!" I knew the lisp would seal the deal. He looked at me in shock. Oh no, maybe I'd said something wrong; maybe the lisp had come out like a snake and not cute at all. Oh chocolate and fudge, what was I going to do now?
There was a small whimper from the pack he was carrying. That was odd. I didn't know bags could talk. He sort of panicked like I had then. He shoved me over onto the floor and charged at me. That's when I panicked. It'd really hurt my chest when he'd hit me. And now he was going to hit me again... just like Mother used too. I shut my eyes in fear and then...
I opened them. Everything had gone quiet. The Knight was on the floor, knocked out cold. The whimpering started up again. What had I done? Had I-- had I killed this pony- another pony? No- anything but this again. I couldn't handle it, and when I heard hoofsteps running my way I ran for it to my room. Dow de dow--de-- No, I couldn't do it anymore. I was too scared. For that whole night I couldn't sleep. I could've run away but I didn't have a clue where to go. If I left I wouldn't have a home anymore. There was nothing I could do but face up to what I'd done. I was never going to find that filly; I didn't deserve the chance to see her again after what I'd done. Even though I hadn't a clue what I'd done anyway.
Next morning I was eating breakfast (and when I say 'eating' I mean 'falling asleep in') when a Knight came to get me. The King had summoned me to the Palace. Any other time I'd have been overjoyed, proud even, but now it seemed like the worst punishment possible.
That's when the weird thing came. The King-- King Alicorn-- thanked me. He thanked me. Apparently he 'owed me a debt of attitude', though I don't know why an attitude against me was a good thing. And now-- you'll never guess-- I'm moving. Into the palace. The King has some friends, a mare and stallion, that want to adopt me and care for me after what I'd done. It all happened so fast I could barely believe it. The Queen, hugged me? She really did. Kissing me for saving her so much pain-- I didn't have a clue what she was talking about.
So tomorrow I'm moving in. I still have to do lessons, but now I'll be doing them at the palace school. Which means I'll be leaving Blankety behind, but he and I are still allowed to see each other sometimes. We promised we'd be friends forever, and Lady Blankety has forgiven me since I'm such a brave hero (need I say-- dow de dow de dow de dow dow dow).
I'm moving on up to the castle-- moving on up-- King Dandelion is King of the Hill.
everything's going great. My new Mummy and Uncle La Loo (he told me I didn't have to call him Father if it didn't feel right for me) are really great too. Not only do I get two really nice parents but FOUR-- yes FOUR-- really cool brothers as well. And one of them, Galloway, is the same age as me. The great news is we both get along really well and the even greater news is, he loves to play Knights as well. He wants to be one of the King's most Loyal knights when he grows up and he's practicing really hard so that it comes true.
Mummy and Sir La Loo have even signed me up to go to the same Knight training lessons as Galloway, so I'm going to be privately taught all the stuff they tried to teach us at the Military school. Apparently Uncle La Loo is dead impressed with my school report and how well I knew battle strategies. He says I'll be a good influence on his other 'layabout' sons.
All of them had laughed when he's said that. Even Vain-- and he hardly laughs at any joke that isn't his own. My other two new brothers (oh, that feels so good to write. Brothers, brothers, brothers, brothers. Okay, I'll stop now. Brothers. Sneaked one in.) are Gregory Gareth, or GG for short, and Tender Heart, though most of the family just call him Tenny. They're both super awesome too. Tenny's the eldest. He's already working for the King part-time, shadowing the loyal magical advisor. Apparently that mare is really fun even though she's got such a hard job. I can't wait to meet her.
I can't wait to meet everybody. Tomorrow I start my new school, with all new royaler, richer students. Aren't I going to feel posh Diary? You'll barely recognize me in my dapper new uniform (yeah, I think dapper sounds like 'diaper' too but GG said it made me fit in if I used it). It's-- well it's like this:
It's a good drawing isn't it? Mummy said it was the best she'd ever seen. I stayed in the lines and everything. Well, mostly.
Anyway I can't wait to be at school with Galloway. He keeps telling me about all of the fun stuff they do there. Apparently there's only one teacher we have to avoid but the others just let you get away with anything you want. Though it's not done for regals to pull idiotic jokes-- doesn't stop them doing them sometimes. So looking forward to it.
The Headmaster seemed really nice when I met him. He treated me just like any other pony. And he called me Diddy. AND he gave me a WHOLE bag of lollipops. It was great. Oh, why can't tomorrow just be here already? I hate wating around like this. Makes me feel all giggly in the stomach.
School is going--
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Sorry Diary, Galloway came and asked if I wanted to play with his new sheilds he'd just got so I had to stop writing before.
Everything's just so amazing here. Daddy would have loved it. Though he would have told me: "Now don't go and let it go to your head. You're still Diddy, right?". He's right. I still am. And I'm proud to be too.
I never did manage to find out why the King and Queen did all of this for me. They keep sending me all sorts of goodies and treats. I've never seen so many bottles of Chocolate Milk before in my life. If the Pegasus' had any sense they would have made it rain chocolate milk by now. Everypony wants that to happen, not just me.
Oo, and popcorn and candyfloss keep showing up on the doorstep as well. I sent some to Blankety at my old school. I can't believe I'm not there anymore. I've been there for months and now I've just gone and left. It feels weird.
Sorry Diary, but I've really got to go to sleep now. The sooner I sleep, the sooner I wake up and go to school.
SCHOOL WAS AWESOME. But no more on that because I have even bigger news to tell you. Guess who I saw? Bet you can’t. You’re only a book after all. Anyway, I found the filly.
And she’s even better then I remembered. Her coat’s shiny white, just like my favourite chess pieces were. Oh yeah, and she likes to play chess. Imagine that, a filly who likes chess; I’ve never met anypony besides my Dad who’d want to pay chess with me. Noc—I mean, the mean ex-friend I had once, used to tell me I was boring and chess was pointless; and I believed him. Why did I believe him? He was nothing but a mean bully with mean bully problems.
But I don’t have that trouble any more. Everypony really seems to like me in my class. But that doesn’t really matter to me. The main thing is I’ve got a new friend in the filly that I’d been looking for. The strange thing is—she wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.
It’s not like I was expecting her to be anything amazing. I didn’t think she’d be powerful or beautiful or fun, those kinds of things are reserved for the greatest of ponies like King Alicorn or my Daddy. And yet, she was exactly like this. She was so much fun we ended up spending most of our lessons playing Moons and Sunshine’s on our paper (of which I won just as many times as she did. See, we’re just as clever as each other too). Her beauty couldn’t be denied by anypony—every colt, even the Knights, thought she was the prettiest little filly in the whole world.
And as for powerful; well, her name says it all—Celestia. Tia as I call her. Celestia as a word is to do with the sun and stuff, I know because she told me. Her Daddy’s really cool too, just like her. You know who he is Diary? KING ALICORN. That’s right; I made friends with a Princess. Galloway could hardly believe it when Tia asked if I wanted to come over to dinner at hers that night. Apparently nopony had ever been invited to the Palace by the Princess. She didn’t want other ponies there in her room and looking around at her stuff. But she trusts me, she really does. Apparently I made a really good impression on her at the party (must’ve been my impression of a Knight. I can do the yelling voice really well). Not only that but she’d been hoping to see me again and was really happy to find out I’d been the brave foal to save the royal bundle—whatever that means.
Galloway watched me go into the carriage with her, jealous as anything. I don’t know, I kind of felt sorry for him; after all he is my brother and he’s never left me behind in the time I’ve been with him so far. But I wanted to spend some time with Tia so badly I didn’t want to ruin the opportunity. And let’s face it Galloway hadn’t got an invite and had Knight training that evening anyway. He can come next time though, I asked Tia and she said he could. We’re going to have some real fun together.
She took me all around the Palace and gave me a really big tour. We ran into the King’s Royal Advisor on the way. The purple unicorn pony that was supposedly the wisest, cleverest mare in the whole of Equestria; nopony could rival her in magic, not even the King himself. I don’t know who I met then; the purple unicorn I met was as hyper as anything. We had to stop for a whole hour (maybe even longer) just for her to finish talking. She was funny in a weird way. Tia certainly kept laughing, though later she told me that ‘with Aunt Marelin you just have to smile and giggle at the right moments. Then she’ll consider you her best friend forever’. I think I’ll try that next time. If I get in her good books Tia says she might teach me some magic spells which would be fun to learn, especially if she has a spell that can make anything into candyfloss. I love candyfloss.
There was this really big bedroom in one place where a maid was doing some work. I didn’t think it would be nice to disturb her, after all she looked so busy, but Tia said it would be okay. The maid just smiled at us both when we came in, holding her hoof to her lips to tell us to be quiet. I hadn’t got a clue what Tia was trying to show me.
And then I saw her. A little blue filly lying down fast asleep, peacefully dreaming of all the things she would do when she was a big foal like me. ‘Luna,’ Tia had whispered to me, ‘I really like the name you gave her Diddy. Though I call her Loony—don’t I Loony?’ And then she’d kissed her sister on the cheek. Having a sister sure did look nice, I had to admit it. I even told Tia but she just laughed and said even she didn’t know yet whether that was true. Loony hadn’t been around too long, so she couldn’t judge.
It was okay. She had her whole life to decide. It wasn’t like Luna and she were ever going to be split apart.
King Alicorn walked past us with his friend and gave us a nod. He was too busy to come and talk to us, and he wasn’t able to join us for dinner. And my, what a dinner. All the fanciest, prettiest form of carrots ever witnessed by pony-kind lay before our eyes. I’ve never seen such a feast. Blankety would have loved it. Honeyed carrots were his favourite treat—and mine. The servers congratulated me on my appetite and gave me two helpings of carrot cake for pudding, and they gave us as many refills of chocolate and strawberry milk as we could stomach. It turns out that both me and Tia love chocolate the best out of any flavours. She loved my idea of clouds that rained chocolate milk. One day we might even be able to ask Marelin to make it for us, if we’re on our best behaviour apparently.
I was sad when I had to go home, even though I loved my new home. Uncle la loo came and picked me up in his chariot. It was awesome. Galloway’s training went well and he’s managed to sign me up to be in the same private lessons as him so we get to spend a lot of time doing fun-stuff together, though he says he likes to focus on his work during this time. He really, really wants to be a Knight when he’s older.
There’s so much I haven’t seen at the palace yet. Tia said she has another brother and sort-of-cousin as well. They were away doing some other royal duties today so we didn’t get to see them, but maybe next time. Her older brother, Miamore, is meant to come up with some really fun games. I can’t wait to go.
I had a really weird but okay day today. Everypony was really busy and couldn’t hang out with me as much. Galloway was having extra Knight training by himself so he was busy with that. GG and my other older brothers had gone away to a special camp for the weekend. Mommy and Uncle La Loo had to go back to their old castle because they had some stuff to do there; they wouldn’t tell me what and they wouldn’t let any of us come. Galloway said that was normal, they did it a lot. So it seemed I was going to be pretty much alone for the weekend.
But then I thought I’d go to see Tia. After all I’ve been to the Palace a few times now and she said I had an open invite to come over whenever I wanted. And right now I really wanted to go. There’s only so many times you can see how high you could throw popcorn to catch it in your mouth (got right up to the ceiling once. Who rules? Diddy rules). So I took a short walk over to see her. A Butler opened the door for me and told me that Tia was doing some royal Princess duties that day. Which meant that Tia was also really busy. I felt really upset. I just wanted to spend some time with one of my friends. ‘Perhaps Blankety,’ I thought, making up my mind to go back down to my old school to find my old friend. After all I knew the way down there from the gardens; I’d come in the night once and the dark hadn’t stopped me.
It wasn’t too long a walk until I was down there, and then guess what? Blankety wasn’t even there. He’d gone to see his Father in the new town they were building. Which meant I still had nopony to play with. It was getting ridiculous. “Why looking so mopey kid?” a voice had said in front of me. I looked up to see Prince Miamore staring back at me. Of course I knew it was him from the many family portraits hung up in the hallway outside Tia’s room. And next to him stood a really tall, blonde-maned, blue-hide colt. A bit younger than the Prince I think, from what I’ve heard; and this simply must’ve been Gallophad.
They both smiled at me. Miamore had a nice smile. Gallophad didn’t really smile, he sort of smirked. I desperately wanted to laugh; it looked like he had gas. Maybe from all the milk they drink up at the palace. I really want some milk now. Anyway Miamore recognized me after a while from the stories that Tia had told him.
“Oh, it’s Diddy,” he’d said, “Well Diddy, since you look all mopey and you’re clearly the best Knight foal in the entire schools of Equestria maybe you want to come and do some boring chores with me and Gallophad, even though you’re obviously too good for them.” (Okay I might have added some bits, but it’s my Diary, I can believe what I want to right?). Well I said yes; I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. How could I say no to two royal ponies? Miamore was King Alicorn’s eldest son after all, and Gallophad—I actually have no idea what he is. Tia just said he lived with them like a sort-of-cousin but even she wasn’t sure who he actually was properly. Even so I didn’t want to laugh at him, though it was super hard since he constantly screwed up his face like he needed to go to the toilet.
The tasks we did together were a bit boring; just stuff like signing sheets of paper and practicing putting books on their heads in case the ever couldn’t find a bag. At least I assume that’s what they were doing, otherwise why put books on your head? You should just read them.
Miamore was actually really funny and sweet. I liked him. While I was with him he told me all about himself. It turns out that although his Daddy’s the King, and so he’s an Alicorn like Tia and Luna, his Mother was something completely different. A changeling. Yes that’s right, a changeling. I didn’t even know they really existed outside of stories. Black bug like creatures with big blue bug eyes and holes all over. It sounded like a scene from a Horror play my Daddy had taken me to see once (or where they in the secret agent play? I can’t remember). Miamore doesn’t look anything like that though, he’s really handsome. Some mares came past when I was with them and fainted when Miamore waved at them. And now I know how fast a mare can fall down a long drop—and the answer is, very fast. Thankfully I think they weren’t hurt.
I wish that ponies could fall over for me. That would be amazing. Miamore just brushed it off and said it was normal. He didn’t mind, he actually needed it to keep going. And anyway he already had a mare friend. I know, I met her; I don’t like her. Neither does Miamore I think, she’s like a crazy stalker pony. I think she was watching us from the bushes all the time. They had an argument. Gallophad, with his serious face suddenly broke into laughter when the mare suggested tying her and Miamore up with rope so he couldn’t talk to other mares.
“Yes, you should definitely tie the knot,” he’d giggled. Miamore frowned at him and he went back into his serious potty expression. It took me a while to understand the joke but when I did a minute later I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why, it wasn’t that funny, but I just couldn’t stop. Then Miamore started laughing along with me and Gallophad giggled again. The mare yelled something at all of us and stormed off.
“Thank alicorn we managed to get rid of her,” Miamore had said. That’s when I realised that he didn’t really like her. I thought you had to love the pony you cared for. “That’s what’s best,” Miamore told me, “Don’t worry Diddy. I’m not going to be with her much longer.”
“So, no more mare friend’s for you for a while then eh?” Gallophad raised his eyebrow and grinned.
“Shut up. You know I can’t do that and neither can you. How long until you break up with your mare friend?”
Gallophad had blushed. I didn’t really get what they were talking about but it was nice to be with them all the same. It was strange because Gallophad didn’t seem too much older than Tia and me, yet he already had a mare friend? Then again some other ponies my age had one as well. Maybe I need one. I’ll ask Tia, she’ll know.
Halfway through their book training somepony really special walked up behind me and asked if I wanted to walk with them. Well I couldn’t refuse and miss the chance to walk with the King himself. He showed me all the places he liked in the garden; some parts he even helped to grow himself. His most favourite part he called ‘Little Everfree’ after a forest of some sort where he’d got the plants from. He really seemed to care about this place though he didn’t tell me why other than ‘it was where it all started’. I had no idea what he meant. Everypony seemed to speak in weird riddles around here. I hope I’ll get used to it eventually.
The walk didn’t last long but I enjoyed it all the same. It was weird talking to the King like we’d been friends for my whole life. But it was nice. But best time at all is when he gave me something really special. A medal in a fancy case.
“It was your Father’s when he was a Knight. He left it in his barracks so I got it back for his son. Passing from one generation to another is really important.”
So now I have Daddy’s medal on the table next to my bed, along with a picture of the special Knights the King had found for me. It was a portrait they’d had done a couple of years ago but in a smaller version. The big version’s hung up in the Hall of Heroes, which the King says he’ll take me to if I want. Of course I want. I want nothing more.
I know I say this a lot Diary but: tomorrow’s going to be awesome.
Today was a great day. Because a very special pony came for a visit to my new home after weeks of us being apart. That’s right. Blankety came for a visit. And he didn’t even bring Lady Blankety, which he always carried with him so he could feel safe. He says he feels super brave with me around because I’m such a hero around Equestria. Hear that Diary? I’m a hero. A hero. A hero. I don’t know what for but I’m a hero and that’s cool. Maybe one day my portrait will be in the Hall of Heroes with my Daddy’s—oh, or on a picture on one of the stain-glass windows (all the famous heroes get shown on them along with the thing they’ve beaten)—oh, or maybe even a statue. Wait, no, I wouldn’t like to be a statue, that’s much too cold and still. I don’t like that idea after all.
Blankety was as happy as anything when I said we could go over to the Palace and meet all of my other friends. Before we went he was shaking as much as anything and he was super shy but it didn’t take long for my friends to make him welcome and he became more confident as the day went on. We had Dinner at home; Galloway, me and Blankety playing games together before we went in to eat. Mommy had made sure the cooks made something really nice for us since Blankety was coming to stay. And I’d told her what Blankety’s favourite food was so he was presented with like a bajillion versions of honeyed carrots. He loved it. The joy on his face said everything.
After we’d eaten everything the carriage came to the door (the fancy carriage piloted by one of the King’s own friends) and Blankety’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets. We took the scenic route round to the castle and then arrived on a landing pad reserved for special guests. Galloway and I were used to this but Blankety certainly wasn’t. He had the shock of his life when he saw Tia, Miamore, Gallophad, Loony AND the King and Queen waiting to greet us. Everypony had gathered together to make this day super special for him. I was really proud of them.
The King and Queen politely said hello and offered Blankety the chance to come back whenever he wanted but then Uncle Alicorn (yes, we’re that close now) had to go to a meeting of some sort and the Queen felt ill so had to retire to her chambers. She’s been feeling ill a lot recently I’d noticed, but nopony else seemed to say anything so I stayed quiet. We went round to the gardens to play some games together. Miamore made Blankety get on one knee and took a REAL ceremonial sword, tapped him on the shoulders and said he was now an honorary Prince. I’ve never seen Blankety feel pride before but he certainly did now. Even though I felt sort of green that he’d got to be a Prince and I hadn’t, I still felt happy for him. Tia whispered in my ear that it was a good thing I was already one of the family otherwise I’d have had to go through this as well. Me, part of the family? It felt nice to be called that.
Then we started to play Knights. Miamore being the Captain and the rest of us being his Privates. Loony was given the role of General and sat down on a velvet picnic blanket. The game was fun and Blankety really seemed to enjoy himself. The strange thing was when I had played this kind of game with Blankety before he had always demanded to be the Lady trapped in a tower, but now he seemed perfectly happy to be a Knight instead. He seemed to have changed while I’d been gone; and I’d missed it. I realised how much I’d really missed him even though I had new friends. Thankfully this was the first of many invites to come to the Palace for him so I’d hopefully see him a lot more. We might not be in the same school anymore but we can still stay best friends through anything. Our friendship rules.
The maids came along with bowls of ice-cream so we stopped our game and sat down to eat, laughing when Loony managed to spill it all down her. Well what did we expect; she is a really little foal after all. Her nanny came down to take her to clean up and put her down for her nap. We waved her goodbye and laid down for a short nap ourselves. It was tiring work all of this marching.
Blankety was awake long before the rest of us. When I woke up I found him sitting up looking at the view of Equestria below us.
“You’re so lucky Diddy,” he’d said to me when I’d sat up next to him, “Not only are you brave and handsome and not afraid to be who you want to be, but now you have everything a foal could possibly ever want.” (Not actually making up any of them words; he really did say all that about me).
I didn’t know what to say. I knew I’d been lucky, really lucky, to get all the friends I had and all of my new family. But I was so used to being called unlucky and other horrible stuff at my old home, especially by my Mother, that being thought of as lucky felt really strange. Blankety seemed really out of it looking at the gardens and view; yet he seemed quite peaceful as well. I didn’t know whether he was upset or not. I gave him a nudge on the shoulder.
“You know, I think I’m lucky too,” I’d said, with a grin, “Because I have you as one of my best friends.”
“But Tia’s your best friend; you looked for her for ages,” he’d pointed out. “Yeah, but it wasn’t until I left that I realised I was lucky to have you too. I like having you here. You need to come here more often Blankety—and next time—you can even bring Lady Blankety.”
He smiled at me and we both started making chains out of flowers. I made mine out of Daisy’s and he made his out of Dandelion’s, or Diddy lion’s as he called them and said they were his favourites. The others joined in when they woke up but not long after they started Galloway had to have a bandage put on his hoof. I think he knows not to try making a chain out of roses next time. And that was the end of the day. But don’t worry Diary—
We’re going back next weekend :) . (See look, if you do some grammar stuff you can make faces ;) )
I can’t believe my first term at my new school’s almost over. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I started there. Actually, I don’t think it was that long ago that I started there; it was half-way through the term already when I started. Oh well, it still feels strange. But then again most of these diary entries recently have said how strange things feel. It must get a bit boring me saying it all the time—even if I’m the only one reading it.
I’ve got some fun things to look forward to over vacation. Spending time with my family and friends being one of them. Blankety’s coming to stay here for the WHOLE Summer so we get to spend a lot of time together. We’re going to Mommy and Uncle La Loo’s own castle (you know, the one they visit without us usually) for a few days, and I get to help them with some of the jobs they have to do, like a big foal. Galloway says they have some good training equipment there; not as good as the Palace, but alright if you just want to have some fun training.
I also have a few holidays with my friends planned. We’re going camping near the Everfree forest next week. Tia’s just as excited as I am; it’ll be her first time going there as well. A few of the Knights are coming with us to make sure that we don’t get hurt and to protect us if any creature comes out of the forest. I wonder which ones will be coming. I know most of them quite well now after spending a lot of time at the Palace.
The good manners thing worked out because Marelin, the court magician (and much more) agreed to teach me and Tia some magic. Loony can’t join in sadly, she’s much too little. But she’s getting bigger every day. Yesterday she said her first ever word, ‘dandelion’. We’re not quite sure whether she meant me or the flower but Tia keeps telling me she was definitely talking about me. I think she was too. I love spending time with Loony, almost as much as hanging out with Tia. There’s nothing more relaxing when Tia’s busy than coming into Loony’s room and showing her all the dolls and giving them all names and stuff. Blankety sometimes comes with me. He was always good at playing make believe. Loony loves it.
Tonight was the last night of school so all of the parents got sent home a special report card. I’d had them before at my old school and I knew what came out of them: anger. A lot of anger. Teacher’s comments making Mother mad every single day. Daddy always tried to comfort me but you could tell he was ashamed of the reports I always got. However it wasn’t like that this time. Mommy and Uncle La Loo were super proud of my report. I was top of the class in quite a lot of subjects, especially English. My story, ‘Lady Blankety and the Brave, Brave Knight Diddy Lion’, got me a special round of applause when it was read out at the last assembly of the year. It earned me a gold star on my report, just the same colour as my star up in the sky. It was brilliant.
Galloway came first in the strategies test. He should do, he’d been studying for it for ages. He was desperate to at least pass. And guess who was second? Tia—only joking, it was me. The test was easy-peasy, milk and cheesy; most of the stuff I could do in my sleep (not really, the only thing I can do in my sleep is make pig noises). Daddy had taught me all about the stuff in the test, and I’d helped Galloway study so much with his; not to mention helping Blankety with a sort-of-same test he was doing, so I knew pretty much all the stuff about strategies. But come on, second is still pretty good, and it meant that I got a ginormous lollipop from my teacher.
King Alicorn gave us all a present as well; he was really proud of us. Tia got a pretty necklace/amulet thing to wear around her neck; Galloway got a small wooden shield made by the King’s own royal carpenter (with his own special Galloway-crest on it in silver); Gallophad was given a special golden cup; Miamore got a special love heart case encrusted with diamonds which the King said ‘made sure he didn’t give his heart away too easily’. Miamore laughed at that. Blankety got a bowl full of carrots sent down to him at his school. Loony got a special amulet with a moon on it, for when she was older. And I got a drawing pad and pencil crayons (I’d been telling Uncle Alicorn how much I wanted to draw my own comics for ages and now I could with the finest pencils possible). It was great. We even had a special feast to celebrate.
The Queen’s retired to her chambers even more now and Uncle Alicorn doesn’t seem to spend much time with her. I don’t know what to do, I like the Queen; she’s really nice to me. But the King doesn’t seem to want anypony to speak to her. Tia said she was ill and needed time alone but Miamore said there was definitely something else going on. He’d noticed a lot more than his Father probably wanted him too. We all agreed to not say anything about it. It might get better on its own without our help. After all we were just barely-older than foals; we didn’t have the right to question anything the grown-ups did.
Alicorn’s spending a lot of time with us at the minute. It’s fun. He knows some really funny jokes. Anyway we don’t have to worry about anything when we’re camping. We’re just going to have some fun, fun, fun.
We’ve arrived safely on the outskirts of the Everfree forest this morning. It’s now night time so I have to write this by firelight. Tia wants to read it but I keep telling her that although she’s my friend I can’t let her read my Diary; it just isn’t done. Miamore told her to stop so I’m safe for a while—as long as I hide this really good before I fall asleep. Otherwise she might try to read it when I can’t stop her, and when even Miamore couldn’t stop her.
The Knights lighted the fire for us. We got some of the best ones on King Alicorn’s force. Sir Emblem, Sir Shimmer and Sir Pines joined us on our little expedition. I know all three of them; they’re okay. Sir Pines is one of the best ponies to bring camping. He knows everything about everything when it comes to plants and animals. I know tons of stuff I never knew before thanks to him. Galloway learnt his lesson about plants the hard way; never make a flower chain out of the blue flower near the Everfree. At the moment the Knights are having to make a remedy to stop him smiling. He looks like a Cheshire cat—a really creepy Cheshire cat with hooves instead of claws and a cutie mark instead of stripes. It’d be funny if he didn’t look so scary.
Blankety’s eaten nearly all of the smores in the camp, even though they were meant to last us the whole week. To be fair Gallophad helped him finish all of them; I never realised but he really can eat like a horse (get it? Ha!). He cheered up a lot when he saw all the chocolate, marshmallows and crackers coming over to us. We witnessed the biggest event in Equestrian history and also one of the rarest- Gallophad smiling. It really is great, for that one brief moment before his face goes back to usual. I told Miamore this once but he just laughed at me. He’d seen his younger brother smile lots of times. To which I’d replied, ‘younger brother?’ and he’d just laughed again. Their family’s really confusing. Next I’m going to find out that Loony is really the Mother of Tia or something weird like that. Actually that seems really funny. Imagine Loony trying to boss anypony around. She can barely talk more than two words. And even they’re just ‘Dandelion’ and ‘Tia’ (she nearly said ‘Blankety’ once but fell asleep mid-word).
I can see the stars from where I’m sat. They all shine so brightly down here away from the Canterlot streets; you’d really truly believe that there was life up there. My Daddy’s up there right now, I know it, and he’s looking down at me and feeling proud of his colt; his little Diddy. I’ll never forget him and he’ll never forget me. That’s a deal. As Mommy says, ‘cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye’. Me and Galloway have made some actions to go along with it so that it looks really cool. It’s become our secret handshake, one that we won’t show anypony. We haven’t even taught Blankety or Tia it because it’s for us brothers only. We have a special relationship.
Gallophad and Miamore showed us the fencing skills they’d been practicing at their school recently (‘fencing’ is sword fighting. I did wonder at first why they were practicing to be carpenters when they had one ready to build anything they asked for anyway). They were really good at it and Miamore won the fight by a long way. Being the oldest and biggest we didn’t think Gallophad would be much of a challenge, but actually he was really good at it to. Almost as good as Miamore. Galloway demanded a lesson afterwards. There was a move they’d done he wanted to learn so they took him to one side to teach him it.
That just left me, Blankety and Tia together. We didn’t have a clue what to do; after all we’d already played too many games of eye-spy in the carriage ride getting here (we had to go by ground instead of air since we only had one pegasus with us and Sir Pines couldn’t pull the carriage all by himself). Thankfully Sir Shimmer came over and asked us if we wanted to go get water from the stream with him. We were reluctant at first, thinking it was going to be really boring, but it wasn’t—oh no, it most certainly wasn’t.
It was a stream—but almost as big as a river. There were critters of all sorts playing everywhere. Tia fell in love with the little beavers building a pile of sticks over the running water. I liked the snake best. He slithered everywhere he went and dived under the water with a happy grin on his face. Blankety couldn’t really look at the river too much because the running water and the amount of smores he’d eaten made him feel really poorly. He turned green and had to be rushed behind a bush to throw up. It was gross. But after that he seemed to cheer up a bit.
Being sick certainly didn’t stop him eating all of the barbequed sweet corn and carrots we had for tea. After that not much happened. We sang some songs whilst Sir Emblem played on his guitar; we did this until we felt too tired to go any further. Miamore got really annoyed and really wanted to tell scary stories as well but Sir Shimmer, noticing how tired we all were, said we’d get the chance to do it tomorrow. There was plenty of time to do all of the fun stuff we wanted to do; we were going to be there for the whole week.
Everypony’s agreed, just before we are going to go in inside our tents (I was sharing with Blankety and Galloway), that this place is really fun. This is like our safe place where we can all be happy together. Miamore said we had to remember this place if we ever got upset. This would be the Capital of our own little world.
And we had to remember how happy we were here throughout any trouble that was to come. I don’t know why he told us so many times; we got the message.
Oh well, I’d better go hide you Diary. Tia’s coming over again to say goodnight and I bet she’ll try to take another sneaky peak. Quick, abort, abort.
Everything seems to have happened at the palace while we were away camping. Uncle Alicorn greeted us back but then he keeps disappearing every day and not coming back for a long time. Mommy’s spent a lot of time with him recently, trying to help him. His Royal Advisor doesn’t seem to know what to say to him and has been getting really stressed with what she’s having to do to keep the Kingdom going while the King deals with his own problems. It's good for her that she always has Sir Shimmer nearby to make sure she doesn’t work too hard. I know he takes her out of the Palace most nights so she can get away from her work. I’ve never seen her frown before now. Everypony seems really on edge at the moment.
Tia always has dark circles under her eyes and Miamore gets really tense in moments when somepony mentions his Father. Gallophad’s getting the worst of anypony. Miamore doesn’t seem to know what to say to him, and Gallophad doesn’t know what to say to him either; so there’s just this never-ending silence between the two of them. Galloway spends most of the time at training at the moment to stay away from everypony and concentrate on his work.
And every time I go round to the Palace all I can hear is crying. Whether it’s Tia or the Queen or Marelin or even the King, there’s always bound to be one pony at least found balling their eyes out. I can cheer Tia up no problem, all I have to do is do a funny little shuffling dance and she laughs her head off. But I can’t do that with the King or any of the others; they’re older than me and not so easily impressed.
You can hear really little baby foals screaming as well from being ignored. And I don’t just mean Loony. That’s where the problem’s come from. There’s a new baby at the palace. A Unicorn colt. The new little Prince of the Kingdom. You’d think everypony would be happy about that right? But they aren’t, and I don’t get why.
I tried to ask Miamore but he wouldn’t tell me. He said it was too much for me to understand. King Alicorn didn’t say that when I saw him though. He was sat all by himself in the ‘Little Everfree’ garden muttering under his breath. I thought it best to leave and let him be by himself but he saw me out of the corner of his eye and called me over. Well I had to listen to him; it’d be rude if I didn’t.
“What do I do Diddy?” he’d asked me. I was both excited and scared that he’s asked me for help, but I didn’t even understand the question, let alone know the correct answer.
“What do you do when somepony you love betrays you?” He looked really sad when he said that. I couldn’t let him be sad.
“My Daddy always said that love was infinite,” I told him proudly. “You can never run out even when they’re gone. And you have to try and forgive them for the sake of the love.”
I’ve got to admit that I still don’t understand what that means, but it sounded clever and Uncle Alicorn certainly seemed to feel better hearing it. He turned to me and smiled. “Your Daddy was a smart stallion Diddy.”
“I know.”
And then he hugged me. It felt nice to be hugged again. Maybe I’d actually managed to make things all right again. I thought so at least.
Yet, even though I’d made him feel happier and the family started being together a bit more you could tell they still weren’t happy together. There were a lot of arguments that we could hear even in the gardens when the Queen and King were in the palace together. Uncle Alicorn didn’t even like going anywhere near the new foal’s room which the Queen now slept in too saying she couldn’t bear to leave him at the moment. Uncle Alicorn spends a lot more time by himself, with my Mommy or with us at the moment and really seems to struggle to be anywhere near Tia’s Mother.
On the brighter side I’ve started taking some private magic lessons with Aunt Marelin when she has some free time. So far I can turn a stone into a gem; a really neat trick but not exactly the great magic I wanted to learn (like the chocolate milk cloud, hint, hint). However Aunt Marelin says that if I practice the really simple stuff first then eventually she’d be able to teach me all sorts of other stuff. She wasn’t used to teaching a draconequous- -whatever that may be. I don’t know what teaching that had to do with teaching a little pony like me (oh and do you like me being able to spell that? Marelin made me practice spelling it at home as many times as possible until I could spell it all by myself. I can’t yet—but that counts as another time copied I think).
Soon I’ll be able to do all sorts of magic and then I’d be able to make everypony smile properly again with all my tricks. I promise I’ll make them smile again. I just have to. After all, who else can make ponies have fun like Diddy Lion? Nopony.
Everypony seems to have cheered up a bit recently though I still don’t see much of the Queen anymore. Uncle Alicorn still seems a bit down but that might be because his best friend, one of the knights, has just vanished. Aunt Marelin’s stressed out about it as well. He was her friend to.
Cedar (the new foal in the palace. Not as good a name as Loony's was I have to say) comes out of the room and his pram’s put next to Loony’s now. Call me psychic but I don’t think Luna likes her new brother very much; she always frowns when he’s next to her. I think he’s quite sweet in an odd sort of way. He’s the first one of the royal foals who isn’t an alicorn (or a pegasus like Gallophad). All of Uncle Alicorn’s foals were alicorns like him so far, they were even named after him: alicorn, because they had wings as well as horns. Cedar wasn’t given the family name like the others, though the King did decide that he was finally allowed to be called ‘Prince’ Cedar. I thought he’d never let him have a title after all the worry it seemed to cause him.
I play with Cedar now as well as Loony. Blankety loves the new foal. His favourite game now is to pretend that he’s the Daddy in a happy home with a small family. Loony and Cedar both play the children which only leaves somepony to play the Mother. Sadly when Tia’s not around that means I have to put on a stupid dress and play Mommy to the two little foals. If any of the foals from all of my schools could see me now they’d pick on me forever. I wish Blankety still liked being Lady Blankety, then he’d be the Mommy and I could be the Daddy. Daddy Diddy—sounds sweet and caring enough to me; and butch and tough as well. Nopony would be able to hurt my babies. I’d beat the meanie with my great and powerful magic- you know, when Aunt Marelin teaches me a powerful spell and not just one that turns one thing into another more pointless thing. I mean, who would want to turn popcorn into a corn of cob? Surely that should be the other way round.
Galloway’s been really busy with his training this Summer. The only time he’s taken off was when we went back to the Everfree for the weekend to get away from the grown-up issues we weren’t allowed to take part in. I’ve been doing training as well. Not as often as my brother, but enough.
Parrying, thrusting and stuff; it was hard at first but you get used to it after a while. I don’t know though diary, I don’t enjoy using my sword as much as I enjoy my magic lessons. Using a sword involves a lot of logical quick-thinking which you need to make sense of in order to be good, and I’m just not very good at making sense of things when I could be having fun instead. Try as I might I can’t find any fun in making sense. I like to run around and pretend to be a daring Knight attacking a dragon, I can’t help it. The trainer told me off for doing it. He said it was ‘mean to all the nice dragons that live around Equestria’. Even Galloway had to admit that there’s no such thing as a nice dragon; they’re born to be greedy. It’s in their nature.
The trainer’s okay I suppose. Just very strict. Our school’s so easy-going that it’s hard to get used to doing anything like hard work. Unless you really, really want to do it like Gallows you’re pretty much stuck in snoresville. Playing with Tia and the others is much easier.
Tia has a lot of hard work to do as well. Royals do plenty to keep them busy. Cutting ribbons, having their portrait’s painted, visiting and having dinner at noble’s houses—she does a lot and all by herself without her family as well. Tia doesn’t really enjoy it most of the time either. Her favourite part is when she’s given a treat like a cake or something, but even then she’s told to only eat a little bite of it to be polite. If she eats too many puddings she gets a big tummy ache. I’ve had tummy aches before and they’re not nice but I’d still eat cake if I had the chance; even if they did hurt my belly. It would be worth it in the end. Living without cake for Tia is like me living without chocolate milk—I don’t know how I’d survive if I couldn’t have anything with milk in it like GG. How does he survive?
Ugh, Knight training again. I suppose I’d better go. If my Daddy did all of this then I can do it too. I know I can.
Miamore got me and Tia thinking today. But to understand that you have to know what happened to him while we were playing in the gardens.
So all three of us were having a lot of fun: Tia, me and Loony (who can now crawl around with us a lot. We’re teaching her to trot. Ha! Rhyme.) with Miamore watching us from the picnic blanket. The picnic hadn’t been brought out yet and we were waiting for all the food. Then suddenly we heard a high-pitched screech from the flower-bed in front of us. A mare stood there, in a really ugly puke-coloured green dress and she just stood staring at us. Miamore rolled his eyes and got onto his hooves. Through gritted teeth he called to her, “Lucinda, it’s so good to see you here—in the gardens—in my home—which the guards weren’t meant to let you in.”
She ran over to us shouting, “Yes, I just snuck around the back. I simply had to see you coltfriend.”
Coltfriend? Tia and Loony laughed at that. I grinned. Miamore didn’t have a mare friend at the moment, we all knew that. He’d broken up with his last one—and she wasn’t even her so it couldn’t have been that she didn’t know they weren’t together anymore. Somebody has a stalker—somebody has a stalker. Hopefully Miamore won’t find my Diary and read that otherwise he might beat me up. He never likes to talk about the many ‘special somepony’s’ he’s had. There have definitely been a lot of them though. About five in the last two weeks if Tia’s chart’s right.
After she showed up we couldn’t seem to get rid of her. She was like a nasty parasprite hanging round a large bowl of apples. And she wasn’t into fun games; all she wanted to do was spend all of her time next to Miamore, which he didn’t seem too happy about. I don’t know what happened but after a few minutes Miamore took her to a corner and then she ran off all upset. Miamore sighed. Not because he thought he’d hurt her feelings, but because this was about the third time she’d shown up today and each time he’d told her the same thing. It was getting boring. Even Tia was bored by it and she was used to it.
We carried on playing, pretending we hadn’t noticed everything but I knew that Celestia would be adding more stuff to her ‘Miamore’s love life’ chart tonight. Miamore sat down again and carried on watching us. The game was amazing. We pretended to be a family; two parents and the foal. With me as the Daddy for once—and I was a brave Knight who went around saving all kinds of mares in distress, getting tons of attention, but always having time to come home to see my loving family. I was a great Daddy. The best in fact. Even Tia had to admit that. Not that she wasn’t a great Mommy, because she was. The foal she was going to be Mother of in the future is sure going to be lucky. But we’re both happy with Loony being the foal for now. She grizzles happily every time one of us pulls her in for a cuddle or plays peek-a-boo with her.
It was when we were playing that Miamore started laughing at us. We had no idea what was so funny; we searched everywhere to see what he was looking at. Us, he was looking at us. We stared at him, confused. All we’d done was played a game; we’d done that tons of times and he’d never laughed like that before.
“It’s funny,” he’d said, “here’s me with my screwed up love life and yet I’ve got the example of a match made in heaven right in front of me.”
Tia and me still didn’t get what he was talking about. Older brothers could speak really funny sometimes. I never seem to understand what Vain talks about no matter how I try. Our confusion only seemed to make the whole thing funnier for Miamore.
“Don’t you get it tiddlers?” he’d asked. We were quite offended actually; we were much better than any old game involving a pot and some discs. “You two are going to be married for real someday. If not I’ll eat my crown.”
Tia? And me? Going out. I know, right, it sounds properly insane. We thought so too and we told him that, but he just chuckled again.
“No. You’re definitely going to be married. Tia and Diddy sitting in a tree; K.I.S.S.I.N.G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a foal in a little foal’s carriage,” he sang. It made me and Tia feel sick at the thought. That was just disgusting. I know how to spell and there’s no way I would ever kiss Tia. That’d be like kissing my best friend. I’d never kiss Blankety, so why would I kiss Celestia? There’s got to be some kind of law against kissing your best friend (though when I asked King Alicorn about it he said that he was in love with his best friend. Yuck!).
Thankfully the picnic came down at that point so we didn’t have to talk about it anymore. Food fills up your mouth so you can’t talk, so boo, boo to you Miamore. Actually he didn’t talk about it after the picnic either. He fell asleep and started snoring instead. Loony also fell asleep. The maid’s left her with us to have her nap nowadays. They said she was big enough. I’m not so sure; I think they just have their hooves full looking after little Prince Cedar.
So while everyone was busy Tia and I went for a walk around all of the gardens. The water garden looked really pretty today with the shine reflecting from the sun. We were stood there a long time looking at it—that was, until Tia spoke up. “You think Miamore’s right Diddy?” she’d asked me. By that time I’d forgotten what had happened, so I shrugged.
“Diddy,” she carried on, “I’m serious. Do you think he’s right?”
“Being serious is boring Tia.” Well, I didn’t want to answer the question did I? Especially since I still didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Diddy, maybe he is right. Maybe we are meant to be together. Aunt Marelin always said destiny played a big part in our lives, and maybe that’s our destiny. To be together.”
Yuck! I didn’t know she was going to go all soppy and filly on me. Of course we weren’t going to be together. We were best friends and that’d just be revolting. Imagine kissing her—and Blankety shows up in my head too. Wrong in so many ways.
“How would we find out Diddy?” She was asking me far too many questions today.
“I don’t know. ‘Suppose we just wait and find out. If we meet somepony else then we’re not meant to be together. I mean, we don’t love each other now right?”
“Not in that way,” she’d answered.
“Then if we find somepony we do love in the future then we’re not meant to be together.”
I blew Tia’s mind with that. She knew I sounded just like a grown-up then, and she knew I was right too.
“Okay Diddy. How about we make a promise?” she’d said holding her hoof out to me. “If we don’t find somepony to love before we’re really old—like Miamore—then we’ll try being together instead.”
I think I sighed at that point. What? I only shook her hoof and agreed because I wanted her to stop talking about it and go back to normal. Which she did after I’d shook on it. Now though, I can’t help being scared about what I’d just agreed to.
Today I found a place where I belong. A great place where all sorts of ponies and other things can live together and have fun for all to see. Our World.
Okay, so it’s not actually a real place. At least not in Equestria, but it will be to me and my friends. It was all Blankety’s idea. He came up with the idea of drawing a world of our own that we could put whatever we want into. It was meant to be a sort of ‘before going back to school’ thing that we could remember forever and keep us all together even though we weren’t. And after all the excitement we’d had over vacation we needed something to distract us. Especially to distract from the fact we knew new ponies had moved right near us and we’d all been told to not disturb them. Our interest was too great to ignore them; the project would help us focus on something else. We hoped.
It was a lot of fun putting all of the stuff together. We all liked different things and so everything was all different. We agreed that the place outside the Everfree where we went camping would be the Capital of the world we created. Every one of us loved that place so much. Even Galloway didn’t mind taking time out of training if we were going there for a short trip. So it was decided quickly that this would be the main hub of the new place.
Each one of us added a different thing. As it was all Blankety’s idea he got to choose first, and so he drew some oxen in tutus dancing everywhere. I knew he’d liked the ballet we’d gone to see, even if he didn’t want to admit it to the others because he thought he’d seem really wussy. Good for him being truthful. To be honest I hadn’t minded it either; I especially loved the music. It was pretty, and good to shuffle too (I’m a great dancer).
Miamore wanted ponies to be able to walk on walls and things so we all agreed to that. Gallophad decided it’d be good if nopony had to control the sun and moon. If nopony had to control them then they could spend all of their time playing and having fun instead of being bored all the time. I agreed with this; being bored was no fun. That goes double when you’re spending that time being bored with an extremely boring pony. Loony clapped about Gallophad’s idea and gurgled happily. The moon and the sun would come and go as they wanted; one second it could be dark and the next it could be light. That way nopony would ever lose interest because it would always be something different and new. Awesome right? I know.
Galloway wanted all of the dirt roads to turn into soap. That way he could have a bath whilst walking to his training session, so no time wasted having to wait for water to boil and stuff. Plus you could get anywhere much faster by skating along it as if you were on ice. I’ve always wanted to try ice-skating. Daddy could never do it himself so we never went. But riding on soap sounded like fun too. I bet I could be amazing at soap-sliding. Better than anypony probably. Everypony would watch me sailing past and they’d say, “Wow, look at that. Isn’t he amazing? Who is he?” And then my friends would be all like, “oh that’s Diddy Lion, he’s my friend.” They’d be really proud for everypony to know that they were friends with me. I’d love that; to be admired and remembered. Sounds cool.
We were talking about what the houses could be like when Loony tipped over and stood on her head. That’s when we had the idea of putting some of the houses upside down. That way when you walked on the floor you’d really be walking on the roof. Everything would be all weird and strange that you’d never not find something to laugh at.
I added my candyfloss clouds that rained chocolate milk. Everypony else laughed because of how many times I’d told them I’d wanted them. Now I got my chance. Miamore chuckled and said we might as well have popcorn everywhere to give some different kind of food as well. He might have meant it as a joke but we added it anyway.
Tia’s was the best idea of all of them. The whole ground of the Capital and beyond would be patterned like a chess board but in different pretty colours. Imagine playing a game of chess over a massive hill and with real black and white ponies. It sounds amazing. Tia’s as good at the game as I am, but I bet I could beat her at a life size version. Easy peasy, milk and cheesy. There’s plenty more that we put on there like cardboard cut-out houses that were easy to move and stuff, but none as good as the rest of our ideas. We’d add more as we came up with it we decided. Now all it needed was a name. By High Tea we still hadn’t come up with anything so went off to eat and hoped an idea would come to us.
Little did we know that my Mommy would give us the answer to our problem.
“Hello troublemakers,” she’d greeted us at the tea table. “How’s our little chaos makers today? That’s what we need around here at the minute isn’t it? A little bit of nice chaos to make everypony feel more happy.”
“How would chaos help?” I’d asked. Mummy grinned at me and rubbed my head. I like it when she does that, it’s soothing. Mother never used to do that with me ever back at my old home.
“You should know little Diddy, you’re pretty much the lord of chaos around here.”
Then she left. But after that we knew what our land was all about. A land built on chaos—happy, joyful, funny chaos—that would make everypony smile, and never be dull. And Blankety (since he was the one who came up with the idea) was King of the whole Kingdom.
But I got the greatest job of all, as—
Diddy Lion, the great Lord of Chaos.
That’s me. And I’m going to do everything to protect it and carry on making my friends smile.
I can’t believe it. This can’t be happening. They can’t be here. They just can’t be here. No, no. Oh Diary I don’t know what I can do. If they’re here then—it won’t be long before everything gets messed up all over again. I might lose my friends. I don’t want to lose my friends. Tia certainly seemed to like them. She said we should play with the new pony at school, to be nice and help them relax. And then she told me I was being a real grumpy-little-foal when I said I didn’t want to.
I had my reasons. She doesn’t understand. Nopony understands. Galloway loves them because they’re doing Knight training as well. Apparently they’re really good but I don’t care. I’m fed up hearing from Galloway how great they are at everything. I JUST DON’T CARE. And now Gallows won’t talk to me until I apologise. My own brother, fooled by another pony. It seems so horrible. It’s like I’ve woke up in my own nightmares. I’ve actually had nightmares about this when I sleep. About me becoming less popular and hated by the one’s I care about.
Thankfully Blankety doesn’t go to our school so they’ve not had the chance to meet one another. And they never will if I’ve got anything to say about it. The more friends I lose the more it proves that they’ll always win. Nopony understands. And I can’t tell them the truth. I just can’t.
Even Miamore said I was being silly. He said it was stupid to be really scared of another pony stealing your friends; true friends would never leave your side. But he doesn’t know—he could never know. More importantly, I don’t want him to know; I don’t want anypony to know. Not even Tia or Blankety. I can’t even tell Uncle Alicorn, he’d never understand. Mummy noticed I was looking glum and found out from Galloway what was wrong. I heard her talking to Uncle La Loo about it. She wanted to comfort me but Uncle La Loo said it was just a phase I was going through; it wasn’t unusual to be jealous of somepony else. They just don’t understand. I’m not jealous of the new pony; not anymore. I’ll never be that silly again.
I couldn’t even answer all of the questions in class today. My teacher told me not to worry, it was harder work, and she couldn’t expect me to be good at it straight away. And it might have been a bit hard but I should have been able to answer them. Instead ‘they’ answered all of the questions and got all the credit from the other foals about how perfect they were, and how smart they were, and how handsome they were. They’d never called me handsome before. They loved them more than me. I was losing my way.
Maybe getting angry with everypony wasn’t the best way about it. I mean, they’re all still my friends. Soon they’d be able to see the truth; it would just take a bit of time. I could make myself seem a lot better if I was nice in return. Then they’d see. I was much better than them and always would be. Always have been. I’m nice. I’m the Lord of Chaos remember? I rule.
But then—that smirk the new student gave me—they remembered—they remembered. And they were going to ruin everything. They want nothing more than to ruin my life. How do I deal with that? I don’t want my life to be ruined. No, I don’t want my life to be ruined. And when they walked over to me and offered their hoof to shake I couldn’t help but glare at them. I hated them. I really hated them. And always would.
But because of that Tia doesn’t feel happy with me. She’s upset with me. What do I do to fix that? I know I can only fix it by being polite to the new foal—but Diary, I really don’t want to. I really don’t want to.
Daddy—Daddy on the hill. It was horrible. All I can think about is that day. That horrible, horrible day. And it’s all their fault. IT’S ALL HIS FAULT.
It can’t be him. It just can’t. It’s not fair. Why did he have to move here?
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.
I hate him—and I don’t know what to do. He’s going to ruin everything. Go away. Go away—
Everything feels like it’s going wrong at the minute. I’ve tried and tried to be polite and nice and all the goody-goody stuff Mommy tried to teach me, but it’s just not working. He’s still pushing me further away from the ponies I care about. And the scary thing is I don’t know what to do anymore.
I just want everything to go back to how it was before he came. How can I even try to be my cutie-pie little self if he’s just pointing out my flaws to everypony? Okay, so he doesn’t just stand there talking about everything foalish about me, but he acts so grown-up. I’d like to see his face if I poured pepper all over his nose… oh, and I could put some cardboard houses around him and then he’d think he’d destroyed a bit of Canterlot—then maybe he’d leave. He’d go far, far away from me and my life. My life is mine, not his. Why should he get to just come and barge in again?
Thanks to him I’ve been acting a bit sulkier than I should recently. Everypony’s teasing me about it. Even all of my friends are doing it. Nocturn saw my face one day and now he’s given me a stupid nickname—More Dread. As in ‘Look, more dread’s coming our way. Run for your lives’. Jerk. But now Tia’s calling me that too. All of them are; they think it’s funny but it’s not. Daddy always taught me to believe that good things could happen if you tried, so I don’t bring more dread when I come into the room. So ya, boo sucks to you Nocturn. You’re nothing but a stupid foal even if you try and hide it behind being a grown-up.
Why don’t you run back to Crystal Crown? I’m sure she’s missing you. After all she always did wait on you hoof and hoof; she was your willing servant, not these foals; not my friends. Go back to Crystal. Go back where you belong—down under the ground. Just go anywhere that isn’t here.
No Diddy’s got to keep on smiling. Diddy’s got to be nice to the new foal because he’s a polite young colt and has to make him feel welcome. Diddy’s got to do this—Diddy’s got to do that. I’m not a yo-yo; I can’t just go this way and that when you pull me on a string. But no, Uncle La Loo says I’ve got to at least try to be a good colt and get along with the new student. Nocturn’s probably feeling really nervous moving here and I have to remember that anything he does wrong is probably just because he’s new here.
I didn’t say it to his face, but that’s utter garbage. I know Nocturn; Nocturn’s just like that. He always has been, even though I didn’t see it like that at first. It’s not that I want to make my friends upset by pulling them away from him; I just want to protect them from what he does. If Tia has the same treatment as I did, or even as Crystal did, then I don’t know what I’d do. I’d have to kick Nocturn in the flank—but then I’m not the better pony. A good Knight only fights when necessary—if words can solve it then they’ve got to be used. How do I do that though? Like HE listens to anything I say. He’s so big-headed that even the biggest big-head in the world couldn’t match him. I hate him, and I can’t seem to hide it. Oh Diary, what about if he tells anypony about what happened to my Daddy? If they find out it was all my fault they’d never speak to me again. And the trouble is I don’t know if I could defend myself; I don’t know if I was the one who caused it or not. Maybe I was; maybe trouble just follows me everywhere. Maybe I’m the cruellest cruel pony in Equestria and I didn’t even know it. I could hurt my friends without even wanting to because I’m horrible and always would be.
Diary, I’m not sure any more about myself. I’ve always felt like I’m a nice colt—and I like playing really fun games and stuff—so does that mean that I’m a meanie from meanie town? Surely just wanting to have some fun isn’t a crime. Yet if it hurts those I care about—I don’t want it to. I want everything to go back to the way it was before.
I want Tia, and Galloway, and Blankety as my friends. Miamore and Gallophad like Nocturn too—but I don’t want them too. Nocturn’s been invited to the palace so many times now I’m losing count—and now Tia hardly ever invites me because she doesn’t want me ruining the fun that she has when she’s with Nocturn. Apparently I’m far too grumpy to spend any time with her anymore. But I’m not Tia, really I’m not, I just know the truth and am too scared to say it.
Loony’s about the only one who still likes to see me. She smiles at me when I go to see her—at least her cot’s far away from the intruder. Poor Loony has to be put in her room all day when Nocturn’s around; he doesn’t like seeing her but he told Tia he had an ‘allergy’. What of, ponies? He really is nothing but an idiot. Tia- how could you not see that? Come on, allergic to ponies? There are so many things wrong with that I couldn’t even begin to write them all down. Not that you’d listen anyway.
This is all getting stupid. AND I’M NOT MORE DREAD. So stop calling me it!
Daddy I miss you. Please come back. I need you to tell me what to do. Write in my Diary—tell me something—anything. It doesn’t even have to be clever. Please Daddy, sing me your lullaby. Make me feel sleepy so I can dream this all away. I’m begging. Please. Please. Please.
Entry twenty-five and still nothing’s got better. Nocturn’s always round at the palace nowadays. You’d think he lived there or something. Which only means that yours truly doesn’t get to go unless he walks over to visit Loony in her room. As much as I like doing that, and I love seeing Loony, I miss Tia and Galloway and Miamore. I even miss Gallophad and the rare moments he smiled before going back to need-the-potty face. Why can’t everything just go back to normal?
I went over to see Aunt Marelin today, hoping she’d be able to answer some of my questions. I asked her if there was a spell that could turn Nocturn into a dog—then wouldn’t he look silly—she said there was but I shouldn’t use it to get back at somepony. I tried to tell her it was to use on myself for a game I was playing but she didn’t believe me. Aunt Marelin’s never usually so smart as to guess when I’m lying; she really is cleverer than I thought. ‘Maybe she’d make a good friend and play games with me and stuff,’ I’d thought. No idea what I was thinking; Aunt Marelin said no straight away. As much as she really wanted to play around instead of doing work she had a lot to do and had to get it done or she’d be in trouble.
Captain Shimmer came in then so I had to leave. Being around Captain Shimmer and Aunt Marelin when they were together was yucky. After that I didn’t really know who to go to. I walked around the gardens for a bit and spent a long time staring at the ‘Little Everfree’. The more and more I looked at it the more I longed to go back there. There were no traitors there, just me and my friends; the way it should be. I sighed. At least I think I sighed otherwise King Alicorn suddenly appearing behind me and saying, ‘you should close your mouth before you start a hurricane,’ would make no sense whatsoever. Though like I’ve said before I don’t understand making sense anyway, I’d much rather have fun. Explains why me and Nocturn don’t get along—at least it might be one of the smaller reasons we don’t get along.
Uncle Alicorn sat down next to me and smiled. His smile is really nice—just like Miamore’s—you can’t help smiling back at him. He always reminded me of my Daddy, being able to make me laugh when I felt like bursting into tears. I miss my Daddy so much right now. He’d know what I should do. Uncle Alicorn might’ve known what to do, but he didn’t know what I’d done. And because of that he didn’t know that I already knew Nocturn before he came here after me like the stalker he is.
He was really nice to me though; even gave me some of his home-grown food from his personal garden that he never lets anypony inside. I was confused as anything when he gave me a pot and a bag.
“The bag has a seed in it for a cacao tree. You can plant it and look after it.”
I didn’t know why this seed would help me in any way but when he told me that cacao tree’s fruit made chocolate—and chocolate milk with a bit of skill—I was hooked. Imagine a whole tree full of chocolate milk. It was the nicest idea I’d ever thought of in my wildest dreams. When we’d designed our World we’d made all the fruit on the trees and stuff grow really big so that our giraffe-like animals would be able to eat twice as much—but that didn’t sound nearly as cool as a tree growing chocolate milk.
Uncle Alicorn showed me how to plant it and what I should do to look after it. The speech was a bit boring but I promised I’d look after CM (I gave the plant a name, see). He was the nicest gift I’d ever got and I’d never lose him.
There was a question I’d always wanted to ask Tia’s Daddy—a really BIG question—and now, when everypony had left me, I thought it might have been the right time to ask him. I asked him why he liked me and tried to help me so much (a bit stupid I know, but I’d wanted to find out ever since I started coming to the palace).
“Well,” he’d started, “for one thing you saved my child when we were afraid to lose her.”
This was news to me. Oh but maybe he meant it like a metaphorical thing—we learnt about that at school. It was on the spelling test and I’m a good speller.
“Not only that,” he carried on, looking at me, “I know what it’s like to be an outsider Diddy; to not look like the rest. I was the first alicorn remember—so according to the Kingdom I was a monster, and a discord.”
A discord? I’ve only just realised that that’s what my old teacher used to call me all the time. I never knew what she meant but it must have been something really important and powerful if King Alicorn was called it too. Yes, I’m really important and powerful. I’m not Diddy, I’m not More Dread (growl)—I am Discord, hear me roar.
Ha! Only joking Diary, I’m still Diddy. I don’t think I want to be anything different from myself anyways.
After that Sir Ember came down to find Uncle Alicorn, so he had to leave. Ten-ish minutes went by (I can read time by the sun. Daddy taught me) and I got really bored so I took a walk down to Blankety’s school. He should’ve been out by now and hopefully would be able to play with me.
But when I got there I couldn’t seem to find him anywhere. He wasn’t in his room (and neither was Lady Blankety), he wasn’t in any of the classrooms; he wasn’t in the courtyard or the gardens. Eventually I found him in the corner of the gym, snuggled up under a few of the drill team sticks and uniforms, crying. He looked up when I walked over and more tears fell down his face.
“Oh Diddy,” he cried (because he was crying), “they got rid of her. They burned her all up.”
I don’t know how but as soon as he said it I knew who ‘her’ was. The Sergeants had always threatened to get rid of Lady Blankety, saying he was much too grown up a colt to have her and she was too old and faded to be important. Blankety never told anypony why she was so important to him—but he’d told me. I knew that his Mommy had died when he was little, and that before she’d died she was the one who looked after him whilst his Daddy was away. Lady Blankety had been his Mommy’s favourite doll when she’d been growing up, though it was just ‘Lady’ to her until she gave it to her son to cheer him up one day.
Lady Blankety was all he had left to make him feel safe and to show him that his Mommy was still there. And now he was scared. And crying. Those mean, hateful piggy’s had got rid of something really special to him—and how could he stop them? He was trapped here whilst his Daddy was helping guard and fighting. One day he may lose his Daddy too and then he’d have nothing. Just like I had once.
There was only one thing to be done. I gave Blankety my little plant.
He looked a little taken aback but he accepted it. His smile grew even wider when I told him what it was—and even though I wasn’t so happy when my CM was given a new name of Lady Blankety the Second I still beamed back at him. I’d made my friend feel better, that’s all that mattered. Even Nocturn and my other problems didn’t mean anything anymore. The truth was that I knew what Blankety was going through, it’d happened to me and nopony had been there to help; so now I’d do everything in my power to make sure he got through it just like I had. He wasn’t as brave as me so he’d need a bit of help.
I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t know who I should go to. It’s all so big and worrying that even my bravery’s not going to cut it. Oh I’m sorry; I’m not explaining this right.
So it all started this morning when everypony else had gone over to the palace. I was going to go too but when I found out that Nocturn was going I decided to stay at home away from the trouble. However Mommy didn’t like me ‘moping’ about the house so she told me I should go out and see somepony. The only problem was I didn’t have anypony to see; they’d all gone off with Nocturn. So Mommy told me I had to go over and see Shadow—another foal at my school.
But I didn’t even know who Shadow was until Mommy showed me a picture of our class and pointed to him. It was the colt who always hid in the background and didn’t speak to anypony. All I knew about him is he was really good at races—the fastest in fact—but as for where he lived or who he really was, I had no clue. Mommy still said I had to go because she’d spoken to Shadow’s father who was worried about his son not having any friends, which then meant of course that she said one of her sons would come over and see him. And just because I’m the kindest, handsomest son she has it had to be me to go (and because, like I said, I had nothing to do at the moment and she didn’t like me doing nothing).
She gave the driver of the carriage his address, put me on the seat and told me to have fun. Fun? I didn’t even know if Shadow liked having fun; he was way too quiet. Nopony even tried to make friends with him because he wouldn’t say anything to you if you said anything to him. Most ponies just thought he was rude; so they didn’t even bother anymore. I’d made friends with Tia and the others so fast I hadn’t even tried to talk to Shadow. I was told he was rude so I didn’t.
His house was massive. Even massiver than my house and my house is pretty big. Shadow must be pretty rich to be able to afford a house like that. Or his parents are related to royalty or something—it was nearly as huge as the palace. Shadow’s Mother answered the door. I was pretty wary of her when I first saw her though I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the mare beyond being really tired. She took me straight to Shadow’s room and pushed me inside, with a really weird, eerie-sort-of-smile. Shadow didn’t even flinch; he just carried on sitting there looking out of the window. The door was shut and LOCKED behind us. LOCKED! She LOCKED the door! It was like being stuck in a really scary horror story, like the one we read in class at my old school but even worse.
This was it, this was the end, I’d thought. Eventually Shadow looked around and came down to me. I tried to smile but the fear took over and I more did a Gallophad potty-face than anything. Shadow still didn’t show any kind of emotion, until a few seconds later when he started laughing.
“Yeah. I go round to the palace a lot. And we do flight training together.”
“You do flight training?” I’d asked again. Still not sure how this was even possible.
“Top of the class. Flying’s the only thing I love to do.” He sighed then and looked out of the window again (Ha! Rhyme).
“Why don’t you go out of your room and fly then?”
“Mommy won’t let me go out unless I’m at the school, or the palace, or flight training. She says I’d only disturb her or Daddy’s work.”
He sighed again and looked really unhappy. It must be horrible to be locked inside all of the time without a chance to do the thing you really loved. Maybe Shadow isn’t so messed up after all; maybe he just doesn’t say anything because he’s not happy being inside. During the races he does seem to perk up a bit.
We were locked up in the room for a long time it seemed. Must’ve been at least a couple of hours; maybe even more. Shadow got more and more bored the longer we were together and I have to admit that I felt exactly the same. I tried really hard to think of things that would make this a lot more fun. Then it hit me. I could play all the games I’d played with Tia and Blankety but with Shadow.
After a while we were having such a good time that we didn’t notice being locked up anymore. He especially loved the game ‘The Lion (that’s me), the Shadow (that’s him), and the Wardrobe (it was as wooden as Nocturn. Ha!)’. We went to an amazing land which I made up in my head because Shadow wasn’t very good with making stuff up. It was covered in snow and ice and we had to find a way to save all the creatures by finding a magical sword that could melt all of it. Then when we’d saved everypony we’d be made the two Kings of the land. Shadow loved it.
In fact we were having so much fun we didn’t notice the door opening behind us and Shadow’s Father coming in: Lord Rangler.
“Well, well,” he said frightening us both (we thought the beaver we’d been imagining had actually come to life), “what’s going on here Bolt?”
I looked around the room but couldn’t find anypony but me and Shadow. It turned out that Bolt was just Shadow’s nickname his Father called him. He beamed at his Father and told him about our game. I thought he’d be mad about all the noise we’d been making, we hadn’t tried very hard to be quiet, but he seemed really happy that we’d been enjoying ourselves.
Sadly I had to leave then. It was time to go home for Dinner. Shadow went back into his usual sad-self when I got my stuff ready to leave but cheered up a lot when I promised to come back. I said I’d even bring Blankety if he wanted, and he nodded as fast as anything.
Lord Rangler walked me to the door. I didn’t know what to say to him. Uncle La Loo was a Sir and I’d thought that was really high up, but a Lord; that was something new. And it wasn’t like Shadow’s Father was a Knight or anything—he didn’t even work for the King—he’d got the title from his Father, and his Father had got it from his Father and so on. It was a long drawn out family thing. Shadow would be a Lord when he grew up too. It was great; I was now best friends with a Lord as well as royals. Apparently Lord Rangler’s family had a close connection with the Royals. His wife was somehow related to them—distantly. Shadow’s Mother didn’t show up to say Goodbye.
I walked down to the carriage whilst Shadow’s Father left to go back to his station at work. We both flew off in separate directions. It was only when we were halfway in the air I realised I’d left something behind. My Daddy’s medal—that I carried around everywhere.
The driver landed back on the ground and I ran back inside the house. I was just about to go upstairs when I heard a noise coming from a door at the side. Somehow—and I don’t know why—I really wanted to find out what was going on. All the noises were ‘CRASHING’ and ‘BOOMING’; I thought somepony was hurt. I ran over and pushed open the door, slowly creeping down the stairs.
It was quite a few steps down before I stopped in fear and looked through the bannisters. There was this huge bubbling pot with steam seeping out of it and in that steam—was a face. I foal you not, there was a FACE. And it wasn’t a nice one either.
Shadow’s Mommy was talking to it like they’d known each other their whole lives. I didn’t catch much of what they were saying at first but then the creature began to shout a bit louder.
“You little foal, how can we destroy King Alicorn if you don’t work hard enough? I SHOULD BE IN CONTROL BY NOW.”
“Calm yourself Nightmare. I’m working on it. King Alicorn will be gone before you know it.”
“HE HAD BETTER OR ALL THAT YOU WANTED WILL NOT COME.”
I was so scared that my foot slipped and banged hard on the wooden step making a loud bang sound come out of nowhere. I had to run—they must have noticed me.
I ran as fast as possible up the stairs, out of the main door and shot into the carriage; leaving the medal behind. And now I’m sat here with you Diary, not sure what to do. Should I tell somepony what I heard? Would they even believe me? I’m not sure I even believe me. The face in the purple smoke—it had been so horrible. I’m sure it must have heard me. I couldn’t eat any Dinner or Supper because I was scared of it coming to get me. And now I can’t sleep.
She’s going to get me. What do I do? How do I save myself? What do I say? Does Shadow even know what’s in his basement? Who can I tell? Is it safe to drink my milk and eat my cookies?
I have too many questions and Diary— I’m so afraid.
I need help really badly now. I haven’t been able to sleep in days and I make somepony try my food before I eat it which is freaking out my family. They’re all really worried about me, but I can’t tell them what’s wrong. If I tell them then they might get hurt too and I don’t want anypony I care about to get hurt. So I pretend, like there’s nothing wrong. Even when Shadow came over and talked to me at school I didn’t say anything about what I’d seen in his house. If I told him and he hadn’t known then he might be in danger too. Sure his Mother was down there and you’d think she would never hurt her own son, but I don’t think she really liked Shadow that much. She certainly didn’t like Uncle Alicorn.
How could anypony ever think of hurting Uncle Alicorn? He’s the kindest, nicest stallion (besides my Daddy) anywhere in Equestria. Nopony could want to get rid of him surely. And if he died imagine how Tia, Miamore, Cedar, Gallophad and Loony would feel. The Queen’s already disappeared; their Daddy going too would just destroy them.
I had to tell them what was happening. I couldn’t keep it to myself. At least that’s what I thought. I thought I could trust them with what I’d seen and that they’d believe me—but now I don’t even want to see them at the moment. They’re still my best friends and they always will be but what happened today was too horrible.
Me, Blankety and even Shadow (who’d got permission to come by his Father) were walking through the palace gardens to find the others. Shadow and Blankety seemed to get along really well which was good, but I couldn’t think of anything except that I had to find the others and tell them what I’d seen. Tia would understand at least—she could tell her Father. Or maybe Miamore- he was really strong and could fight against them. Hadn’t his Father just said that he could look after one part of the Kingdom near the Crystal Coves? Surely he could do something about this if he was good enough to protect a whole herd of ponies.
The closer and closer we got the more my tummy tied into a knot. I felt sick and dizzy; possibly from the small amount of sleep I’d been getting. We heard laughing not too far away. Sounded like they were having a lot of fun. A voice drifted through the bushes; a voice I knew and had once worshipped like anything—Nocturn!
“Yeah, he’s a right little player. Thinks he’s the best thing in the world. ‘Oh look I’m Mister Boring from Boring Town and I’m not going to do any work at school because I’m not serious or smart enough to do any of the work’. So stupid.”
More laughing came from my friends.
Blankety and Shadow looked startled when I stopped and listened. They stopped too. Nocturn’s voice came round again. “He thinks he’s so special just because King Alicorn talks to him, but the teachers and stuff only give him special treatment because he’s such a freak. I mean have you seen that weird horn he has—it looks like a cross between a pipe cleaner and a stone cow’s udder.”
Again, laughter. The anger inside me bubbled up. He was talking about me behind my back again! How dare he! “Not to mention his own parents abandoned him. His Mother went right away and killed herself because of how un-proud she was of him. Her body was found not too far away from Canterlot—and his Father, what a wuss, worst soldier ever. It’s a good thing he died or he’d have had to see his ugly-monster of a son turn into the worst thing possible. More Dread; just like his dear old Daddy—a fool.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. How dare he talk about my Daddy like that! I rushed round the corner and ran straight into him with my ‘pipe cleaner/stone cow’s udder’ horn and winded him right in the chest, knocking him to the floor. I saw red and kept on hitting him as hard as possible; my fists turning into the best weapons ever been seen. All the others just watched me, open mouthed. I heard Shadow and Blankety telling me to stop but I couldn’t. This was my revenge and I was getting it.
Nocturn shook me off and stood up, a few areas of his body bleeding. I charged at him and kept pummelling him. He didn’t fight back; he stood there, a coward to the end.
“What’s going on here?” I heard a few stallions shout and felt a rough pull from behind. The Knights caught me up in their hooves and wouldn’t let go. I screamed wildly.
“Let me go! I’m going to rip his eyes out!” I shouted. Nocturn barely blinked. Aunt Marelin put her hoof round his shoulder and patted at his wounds. Nocturn laughed and pointed at me.
“See, you discord. Still the same murderer that I knew before. You never changed.”
I saw red again and kicked and screamed.
“I didn’t. I didn’t. I would never kill anypony. Daddy—Daddy—“
And then I started crying and couldn’t stop. Tia was crying too, and Cedar and Loony. Miamore watched, not sure what to do. All of my friends hated me, I could feel it, and it was all his fault. Daddy wasn’t there to help me. I cried and cried and cried.
Then I blanked out. I think without sleep I was just too tired to take it anymore; I just passed out. The next thing I knew I woke up with a bandage and had a Doctor staring at me as if I was mad. The Knights had taken me back home and put me to bed.
NOCTURN got to be put in a bed at the palace and have the royal treatment. That used to be me Diary. It should have been me.
Uncle La Loo’s banned me from drinking or eating any of my favourite foods for two whole weeks; he says I’m getting let off light, but I don’t think I believe him. They still don’t understand.
None of the others have come to see me: Tia and them. Shadow’s sent me one of his favourite books over and Blankety’s given me the new Lady Blankety until I feel better. That was nice of them both. They’re really good friends—but I don’t get why Tia hasn’t come. I bet she’s hanging out with Nocturn. And it’s all my fault for getting mad apparently. But I couldn’t help it could I?
There’s a big problem now though: who do I tell about that Nightmare monster? They’d never believe me now; they’d think I was just making up silly stories. And I’m not—am I? Was I just seeing things because I wanted somebody else to hate besides Nocturn?
Diary—I don’t know what to do. You’re one of the only friends I’ve got left now. Tell me what to do.
I-I-I- just don’t k-know anymore (yes that written stutter is because I’m really upset).
Tia won’t talk to me at the minute. She tried to make small talk with me but she started talking about how much she liked Nocturn and I couldn’t stand it. She was only doing it to try and make us be friends according to her, but I don’t care; she doesn’t know him and I do.
Everypony knows the truth now. They know that me and Nocturn used to be friends back in our old home. And yet they still think that it was due to my ‘anger issues’ that our friendship broke up. What use is there having friends when all they do is turn against you at the first sign of trouble? Destroying a friendship is a lot easier than making one I can tell you. I know Nocturn properly—they don’t understand the full story. It seems Nocturn left out the part of the story where it was HIS idea to go up the same mountain my Daddy died on. Everypony thinks Daddy’s death was my fault—they say they don’t, but I know they do.
Galloway, Miamore and Gallophad go to do extra training together just to get away from me. Not very loyal. I thought they were my friends and they don’t believe me; I’m nothing if not honest. Nopony can say that I tell lies, I hate stupid liars. They’re mean and stuff. Only really big bullies tell lies; I just want to have fun and a bully wouldn’t. Galloway would sell his own friends for a new pair of fancy wings—I hate him—but love him at the same time. I don’t know what I think about him. I just want him to be friends with me again. Is that too much to ask? For everything to go back to normal again? I wish our World existed now; then we’d all be together forever like we promised.
Anything but that maze. And anything but that monster Nightmare. Daddy- Daddy- was so mean to me. I saw him Diary; he came down from the sky to talk to me in our special safe place. He told me to not worry about Nightmare- it was all a trick of my imagination- but I didn’t know whether to believe him. Then he got mad and started yelling at me; he yelled really mean and cruel stuff at me. There was so much he could have done if he’d have never had a little monster like me for a son. Ever since I was born he’d lived a terrible life anyway. He was glad when it’d ended finally. All that stuff we had done together had meant nothing to him—he used his trips away from home to escape and keep his sanity. His lovely wife, my Mother, was not that lucky. And it was all my fault she’d left me…. Everything was all my fault.
I don’t know what to do Diary. Even Daddy’s ghost is ashamed of everything I’ve done. Nightmare’s either real or not-- I don’t know which, but she felt so real. I still can’t tell Shadow- I’m scared for him. I can’t tell Blankety because I don’t want him to get hurt. And now the only ponies I could tell that could actually help wouldn’t believe me if I told them. This is just horrible.
School’s a nightmare in itself now that I only have one friend there. Shadow’s far too shy a pony to join in on too much—but Nocturn’s the hero of the hour since he humbly apologised to me for what I’d overheard. I refused to apologise back. He didn’t mean what he said, I know he didn’t. So why should I say I’m sorry about giving him what he deserved? I shouldn’t that’s what. Tia and the others were even more upset with me not being the bigger pony.
Nocturn certainly isn’t the bigger pony. After ghost Daddy had left and I was crying my eyes out he’d crept up behind me and shoved me to the floor. I looked up with tons of soil in my mouth. He laughed at me. I hate when ponies laugh at me and not with me. It’s just not fair. How would they like it? And then he’d threatened to ruin everything I’d had here if I dared go against him again. Everything I’d ever worked for—all gone. I couldn’t help but cry again. To which he’d called me a little baby foal and chucked a stone at my head. It hurt really badly.
And then he’d just run off. The great news is he didn’t know his way around the maze like I did so I’m fairly sure he’d got lost. I yelled after him the same rhyme my Daddy had told me when I was small—‘Twists and turns are its major plan, then find the entrance back where you began’. I hope that puzzled him and that he got lost even more. It must have been hours before he came out again being helped by the Knights. Ha!
Galloway came to find me next—first time he’d spoken to me in a while, though I’m fairly sure he was looking for his new best friend Nocturn. He saw me and smiled. “Hi More Dread,” he’d teased, after seeing me crying. And from that moment I hated him. I couldn’t hurt him—I love him as well, you know—so I just refused to speak and stormed out. Tonight he wasn’t so lucky- I found a whole herd of beddy-bye bugs and put them in his bed. They were nice and scratchy and left him awake for as long as possible.
That nickname is not fun. I don’t like it. And they won’t stop calling me it. I’m Diddy. My name is Diddy, not More Dread. Diddy Lion- the brave, the great, the hero—the friend. And now I don’t know what I am. I don’t like it.
Diary, I still don’t know what to do. What’s happening now seems far scarier than any monster.
I ran away from home. Well, I couldn’t stay there any longer could I? I had hardly any friends because everything’s been wrecked. There’s only one place where I feel safe anymore—in our Capital, just near the Everfree. I hitched a ride on a few wagons and brought a small sheet with me. If it starts raining or anything I’ve built myself a little tent with sticks—my Daddy showed me how to make them when I was small because my stick houses kept falling over. But now I know that Daddy didn’t even care about me anyway so I don’t care. Food is easy. I’ll just get stuff from the Everfree and hope that when I swallow it, it doesn’t kill me instantly. It’s okay, I’m sure I’m smart enough to figure out which plant is nice and which plant is not nice. Top of the class remember; I can do anything. Anything but keep friends.
I can’t help it Diary, I miss them. Tia can be boring sometimes but she’s also one of my best friends and I miss her. Don’t forget I searched for her for ages so she’s really important to me. And Loony—I really miss Loony. She was the cutest, littlest friend you could ever ask for. Me and her got along so well; better than anypony else I think. Her first word was my name—and my last word would be her name I know. I miss her so much.
Everypony I care about is gone. The only way I can get them back is through my memories at this place. The world we created was for us, and it always will be. From Gallophad’s balloon garden (I know, who knew he liked cool stuff?) to the newly installed flying pigs that Shadow added (he believes that every animal should have the chance to have as much fun flying as he does. Plus the more flying creatures the more races he can have). Everything belongs to us as a group—and best of all, nopony can hurt us here. I’m safe here just like everypony else is.
Hitching lifts was scary. Especially since I had to hide from the driver because they might try to take me back if I didn’t. One driver noticed me and I had to run as fast as possible to get away from him. Thankfully, as small as my wings might be, I managed to flutter up a big tree and get out of danger. Dow de dow de dow de dow. It’s been really hard work trying to not be noticed by anypony. I was especially careful leaving home past the guards—they know me so well that I was sure they’d see what I was doing even if I pretended to be just going on a walk. Thankfully as well as they know me, I know them. Which means I know who falls asleep where and when they switch shifts with one another. I am Diddy Lion, hear me roar.
And now I’m here—all by myself—near the Everfree—all alone. I miss the others. Somehow I thought that if I came here I could feel them here with me. Blankety—I can feel that he’s with me still—feasting on a massive number of smores and making himself twice as sick as he has been before. Shadow’s never even been here; he wouldn’t be allowed anyway. There’s no way his evil ‘friends-with-a-monster’ mother would ever let him come so far away. She scares me. I’m scared that Uncle Alicorn’s going to get hurt and I’m not going to be there when it happens. I’m never going to see him again. Being alone is lonely.
Please, please Everfree, make everything right again. Make my friends come back to me and spend time in the woods here; make them see that I’m not a bad guy. I’m not the villain, I’m the victim. With both Nocturn trying to ruin everything and the evil monster, Nightmare, hoping to get rid of me—I don’t know what else to do but hide away from everypony. No matter how much I want to go back I just can’t. Nopony can save me if I do. I just can’t go back.
--------------------------------------------
I’m back. Back home to all the rush and stuff. Nopony even properly realised I was gone. They thought I’d just gone for a walk and missed Dinner, not knowing where I really was. Only one pony noticed that I’d left and traced me to where I was; Uncle Alicorn.
I was just going to get some foraged fruit in the woods when he landed on the grass in front of me. He made me jump really high in the sky. My wings started working without me and then I came back down crash, bang, wallop. He’d only laughed and gave me a hug.
He’d asked me why I’d come to the camping site, so I told him the truth. The whole truth—about how Daddy died, and how Nocturn had talked about it—and everything. He understood. I couldn’t believe how nice he was to me about it. He said he’d gone through the same sort of problems growing up so I didn’t have to worry about it. The only not nice thing he said was that I was being silly getting at Nocturn about it- neither of us really did anything to my Daddy, and both of us have had time apart to understand each other better. Yeah, I understand he’s nothing but a mean nasty poopy-face. Ha!
Anyway, I didn’t tell Alicorn that, and I agreed to come home where I’d be happier. It was getting cold anyway. And there was nothing really nice to eat or drink in a wood. I tried eating a leaf and it tasted all woodsy and disgusting. Candyfloss tastes much better in my eyes. Actually, candyfloss eyes would be pretty cool—though wouldn’t ponies try to eat them? And how would you see? Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be that fun after all. Still I’ll keep it in mind for some time when it might be needed.
Home sweet home. And everypony seems friendly with me again so I think we’re going to be fine. It’s time I showed Nocturn who the bigger pony of the two of us is.
P.S. In case you don’t know, that’s me. I’m the bigger pony. Just thought I’d make sure to remember that later. What’s that big word that means to make ponies understand what you’ve said? Oh yes, carrot-fry—I’m carrot-frying what I mean. See, smart.
I did it. It was me. Nocturn didn’t even do it—it was me. It’s my entire fault. And what’s worse is I know I did it. Everypony knows it was me—Blankety- knew- it- was – me.
I made Loony and Cedar cry. I made Tia cry. And now I can’t stop crying because it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault Diary. I should have never got angry—I should have stayed calm and told Nocturn what I thought of him. I definitely shouldn’t have used my magic—now, there’s nothing I can do to make it all right.
Nopony’s ever going to trust me or be my friend ever again. I’m—I’m a monster—a discord.
I’m a More Dread.
I admit it. Nocturn was right all along—I must’ve killed my Father. I destroy everything I touch. Who would want to be around an ugly little creature like me? Everything was so much better when we were just a pack of friends having fun and playing games. Even our own world couldn’t protect anypony from me and what I could do.
Blankety—
Why did you get in the way? Why did you decide to come and see me just then when I was angry and stupid? No. No. It’s not your fault Blankety; it’s definitely all mine. I should go to your funeral when it happens. I know I should, but I can’t. If I go I could hurt you even more. Honestly though Blankety I never thought in my wildest dreams that my magic could do that—I never thought it could kill. I wasn’t even trying to kill Nocturn—let alone you. So why did it happen?
Maybe—maybe I’m worse than that monster Shadow’s Mommy looked after. Perhaps she was the one who shot you without me realising. Oh please, please let it not be me who hurt you so badly. Let me not be the one who destroyed you. You didn’t deserve to go—you were my friend.
And you always will be. You and me Blankety—in our Chaos capital. You sit on your throne ruling over as the King and me your Lord of Chaos—I’ll protect you through everything. No matter who comes to hurt you I’ll knock them down. I promise, I’ll always be there to help and protect you.
But- But you’re not here anymore and I don’t know what to do. I just can’t believe you’re gone. Nocturn should have stayed still; he shouldn’t have jumped out of the way of my blast. If he hadn’t you wouldn’t have walked up behind him and be hit instead.
You came to give me a present. You’d bought me a drawing of you, me and Shadow on a pane of glass like the one’s in the palace that show Equestrian heroes. Me? A hero? I can’t ever be that anymore. My Daddy was right—I’m a monster. Mother was right—I’m a beast.
My old teacher was right—I’m a discord.
If I hadn’t been born then nothing bad would have happened to any of you. And now I’m too scared to come out of this room and see you.
The Knights had to pin me down and tie me up. They couldn’t risk me killing anypony else. I was locked in this room in the Palace—but it won’t be for long. Alicorn has been called over. Soon he’ll be in here and he’ll decide what’s going to happen to me. I don’t want to know—I don’t want to go.
I want to rewind all of this back to when we went camping.
Look! There’s Blankety eating all of the smores and holding Lady Blankety in his hooves. He looks so happy. I’ve never seen him so happy to be with other ponies before. Tia and Galloway are laughing in the corner at something Gallophad has said—Tia’s probably doing it to be polite, she doesn’t find Gallophad very funny at all. Gallows maybe likes the joke though—he always did like ‘knight’ humour.
Miamore’s with one of his mare-friend’s again. It looks like he’s finally found the mare of his dreams. Strange. Miamore liked going out with lots of mares—why does he suddenly want to tie himself down to just one? And wait—isn’t that Marelin and Sir Shimmer nearby to them? Are they kissing? Yuck. Who would want to see something like that? Ah but it’s okay. Loony’s here too, playing with Cedar as if she loved him with all of her heart. They’re so happy together. Shadow’s here too, playing alongside them, practicing flight moves just above the crowd of joyous ponies.
Mommy and Uncle La Lo are singing along to a guitar. Uncle Alicorn and the Queen are there too, humming along to the tune. They love being together. They’re both really happy couples.
And is that... is that Daddy? Singing his lullaby and holding out his hooves to me? He wants me to come over to him—but I want to stay here—in my Capital, where everypony is happy. Maybe if everypony wished hard enough it could all become real.
Blankety would still be here.
I wouldn’t have done what I did.
Everything would be all okay.
SING ALONG ALREADY PONIES. SING MY LULLABY.
Have fun—smile. There’s no point in crying or being boring. If we all play—we should all play forever. What fun is there in making sense? The more we make sense the more things hurt us. We can avoid it if we stop and just have fun instead.
WE SHOULD STOP.
We should stop and do what we want.
Stop being so boring Tia. Don’t cry. Ignore Nocturn. Be my friend and have fun again. Please—please. I need you to smile. I need everypony to smile. Please. Please.
Blankety—come back to life. Tell them to smile. I need them to smile. STOP BEING SO GRAY.
Uncle Alicorn help. Take me back to our world. I should have stayed there all along. Coming back was a stupid idea. I should have never come back.
Please; please. Just smile.
All I really need’s a smile. Smile—smile, from happy friends of mine. SMILE.
I always knew that I'd be punished a lot for what I did (I deserve it too, I'm nothing but a monster) but I never imagined that Uncle Alicorn would do this to me. Okay, yes, he does say I won't be gone forever-- but any amount of time away from the ponies I love is forever to me. He doesn't want to send me away, I know he doesn't, but other ponies are making him do it to me. Uncle Alicorn is the only pony who understands but he's too weak to come up with his own decisions. Every other pony comes before me-- and so I have to go.
Go far, far away to a 'special school' as he calls it. Mommy will still be able to come and see me once every two weeks if I'm good, but that's it; that's all the pony company I get to see in two years of my life; maybe even longer. And Diary, I'm not allowed to take any of my stuff with me-- including this Diary. I can't write anything in here for ever and ever and ever and ever. That's FOUR evers. That's a long time Diary. A long time to not do something I really love to do. I know you're just a few pieces of paper that only I can read but I don't know-- I sort of feel like there's other ponies out there too; listening to everything I say and understanding how I feel. Writing in here makes me feel like somepony out there cares about me. They can't get rid of that can they? They can't get rid of everything I love.
I-- I don't want to leave you Diary. I don't want to leave Lady Blankety either-- he'd have wanted me to look after her. She needs to be here to share in our world; without her it won't feel real.
Tia and Loony have been told they can't come down to my house to see me off. Their Mom thinks it'll be too dangerous. I don't care; she's a horrible unloyal mare anyway. Always had been, even to Uncle Alicorn.
Mommy told Galloway he had to see me, so he ran straight past my room, glimpsed at me and locked himself in his own room. Yes, maybe he had 'seen' me but he hadn't wanted to really look. My own brother hates me and has chosen to stay over at Nocturn's the night before I leave. It's unfair. Nocturn gets to stay here whilst I'm really far away from my family and friends. Although I suppose he didn't destroy anypony he cared about-- but only because he doesn't care about anypony anyway. Ha!
Aunt Marelin came round to see me. She's the only one who has. I like her so much it makes me want to cry just thinking about leaving her behind. I'll always care for Aunt Marelin more than any other pony. You know, she even tried to talk Uncle Alicorn out of sending me away. If he wasn't so weak against other ponies he would have listened to her too. She brought me some chocolate milk and popcorn straight from the palace-- knowing that where they're sending me they won't let me have my favourite treats. I SO badly wanted to tell her about Nightmare Moon. I almost did. But then I looked at her smiling happy face and noticed that her eyes weren't as shiny as usual-- her coat was quite dull compared to how it was usually too. Something was wrong; I didn't want to add to it.
That's the weird thing about ponies coats. They go really dull when you're upset. Aunt Marelin taught me all about the energy inside ponies coats that do this strange colour-change. She said it could be used against a pony; no doubt that the monster knows that too. I bet Aunt Marelin would be really happy in the Chaos World. She loved things like that.
After a while she had to leave and I was left alone with you Diary. I'm still here now, all alone. Mommy and Uncle La Loo sent my Dinner up and stayed downstairs. I can hear them arguing in their bedroom. Mommy sounds like she's crying-- or that could be Uncle La Loo. I've seen him cry more than Mommy. Foal.
It feels just like when I came here and ended up at the Soldier School. Does that mean there's good things to come? They're here to collect my stuff to put in another place. Which means-- Diary-- you've got to go. I promise to come back. I promise, promise, promise, promise. That's FOUR promises.
We'll miss you too Diddy. We always do. Thanks for the letter. I've put it in here to keep ALL of you close to us.
To Tia and Loony,
I'm at NEMI... and I'm bored. They hardly let you do anything here, and they give me yucky medicine to eat everyday. Silas says you get used to it but I don't think I want to. I'd much prefer to stop taking it altogether. The great news is Silas (he's my friend here; Loony'd really like him. He can be really funny sometimes), well, he says that if we're good for so long then we can have any visitor we want here.
Okay, here's the question then. You see, Silas always gets his best friend to come see him, and I thought, since you're my best friend Tia, that maybe, if you'd like to, you could come over and see me? It'd be really fun and we can play some of the games we always used to play. Would you like that? Or we could play new games. I can come up with some great ones.
I know you have Nocturn for a best friend now, but I thought maybe you could leave him for a bit and you could see how much better I'm getting.
Tia, I didn't mean to hurt Blankety. I've never forgiven myself for that-- but Silas is helping me learn to see better. I'm not the only one who's made terrible mistakes in this place, and everypony regrets it. Silas certainly does.
The visiting day is in two weeks time. Can't wait to see you there. I've told everypony all about you and they can't wait to see you too. They wouldn't believe how wonderful you really are, but they can see it when you come.
See you soon Tia (and keep being cute Loony).
And Tia... you really are my best friend. I love you for that.
Love from,
Your Diddy Lion
I'm so sorry Diddy. I just couldn't. It was too early. It was all my fault.
As you may recall my name was Diddy Lion, the cream of the lovliest ice-cream sundae seen in Equestria-- but now, I'm not exactly as sure. It's been two years since I left this place and now I've arrived again.
I've noticed in my departure Celestia had opened my book and written words when I couldn't. However, I also don't know how I feel about that. This Diary-- was mine-- and I didn't want anypony seeing inside of it at any point in my life. Hopefully she didn't read any of my old entries. Even I don't like remembering what happened back then. But I know now that I'm not a monster, I'm just different from other ponies. Being different is hard for ponies to understand, they're too used to being locked into their own ways to not fear change. Even King Alicorn had been a change.
There had been many challenging forces that he had to face-- and he still faced them now. Alicorn-- Uncle Alicorn-- poor him. So much more has destroyed his life than could ever destroy mine. I'm lucky, at least I can still find joy everywhere I look. And yet he, as powerful as he is, can't seem to escape being hurt by all those he loves. Then again they only want to do what's best for him right? Perhaps everypony who does something horrible thinks they've done good-- If you think you've done something right and get praise for it then you'll be bound to act as if you've done the right thing and carry on doing so. Silas taught me that when I entered NEMI and he was never proved wrong all the way through the experience. Although I can't say I miss NEMI itself, I do miss the ponies I met there. Other than a few of the nurses and doctors they understood pain and suffering and were more accepting to ponies/creatures who had 'lost their way' we'll say,
Not that things are too much different at home than they are over there. I still have to take my medicine everyday in order to keep my thoughts organized and less manic. It supposedly helps me see the more calm, relaxing side of life. Although I don't especially like the tablets and taking them once each day I feel like I must in order to keep my Mom happy. She certainly seemed happy when she came to pick me up with Sir Midnight Shimmer today.
Somehow though, even though I was happy to see them both again, I felt slightly disappointed when I arrived back home to see none of my old friends around the area. It seems that my brothers have gone to do something away from the Manor until night in order to give me some chance of becoming used to my surroundings once more. Celestia and her family have given no such excuse, they merely have not come round. Maybe because they're busy, being the royal family and all.
Tonight a banquet of food is being prepared to welcome me home. Except I'm still on a strict diet so I cannot eat anything with too much sugar inside of it. It seems the sugar counteracts my treatment. Anyway it doesn't matter too much. I don't need the sugar now to feel better. All I need is to breathe and keep a calm head, as perscribed by Doctor Arteriole. Breathe deeply and remember all of the techniques learned in the classes.
That reminds me, I must ask Celestia why she didn't come to my open day when I'd invited her. She says it had been too soon in here-- I wish to find out what this means. Blankety would have wanted us to carry on being friends. He certainly wouldn't have wanted us to never see each other again. I may have been his eventual demise-- but I know that he doesn't blame me for it. He can't. I never meant to hurt anypony and I never shall do ever again. Silas has given the same promise as me, so if he can do it I can too. There's no way that either of us will do anything as cruel as we may once have done. We're not the same ponies we once were.
My impulsive nature has gone as long as I keep my treatments going, yet I still feel as if it should be I who makes the first step talking to Celestia and the others. It was my faults originally that caused them such pain; that's why I was taken away, but now it should also be I who resolves our differences.
I shall go now and return tonight. I need to make things right-- to make things better.
It's good to write in here once more. Everything's going to be all right this time, you'll see. Nothing can go wrong in my new beginning.
I have recently discovered a happy thing that has happened whilst I was away—a cause for celebration. There appears to be love in the air around Canterlot at the moment. Not only are Miamore and Princess Lilac engaged to be married in a year or so but it seems that other friends have found their hearts beating for another.
I found it out yesterday when I went to the palace. The first pony I saw there, walking through the gardens, warmed my heart. A little blue foal charged at me almost knocking me to the floor in the force of her happy hug. She let out a large shrill ‘Dandelion!’. It’s good to know that she still remembers her first words from those years ago. Yes that’s right; Loony’s grown up and is cuter than ever.
Honestly I can’t believe she still remembers me. It feels like forever since I saw her last, and other than a few letters I managed to send every now and again we’ve had no other contact. But Diary, she really does still love me as a brother, I swear. Almost instantly she begged me to come and play with her and her Nanny (she later revealed to me that this Nanny did not like ‘fun games’ like I did and would only let her do ‘princess activities’). I noticed her speech was much posher than mine or Tia’s had ever been. It was different but I liked that about her; I was glad she was different and was trying to behave like a proper royal. When I told her this she simply said, her memory astounding me, “I can remember when thou used to play games were thee and thy were royalty. Thou always spoke with the Royal Canterlot talk.’
I bowed to her and answered back the same way (still amazed how well spoken she was. Could I speak that well when I was barely a filly...er, colt?). She laughed and said I sounded silly. Her Nanny scowled at that point and told ‘her Royal Highness Princess Luna’ that she was going to collect Cedar to play outside also. It was Loony’s turn to frown then. I could always tell even when they were foals that she wasn’t fond of her brother; it’s quite sad to see that she still doesn’t seem to get along with him. It certainly seemed that way when he came out.
I have to say that although young, Cedar has the makings of a handsome colt like his Father. He’s a unicorn oddly, even though only his Mother was a unicorn. Loony seems to hold it over him that she’s got wings AND a horn and he’s only got one of them. Quite funny really. Certainly entertaining from another pony’s point of view.
But they weren’t the only ponies I saw today. In the distance I spotted Gallophad talking with some knights, but decided not to talk to him just yet. He’s very grown-up now, even though he isn’t really a full grown stallion yet. As far as I know he’s been helping deal with an issue in the changelings region. I couldn’t bug him when he was busy. Anyway, Shadow was the next one I properly spent time with.
He’d appeared to talk to Gallophad it seemed but noticed me from up above (he was flying into the gardens). It seemed he almost fell from the ground in shock of seeing me. Turns out that nopony had actually told him I was ever coming back—in fact he thought the complete opposite. Still he was happy to see me. I noticed a spark appear in his eye the moment he started talking. Makes you wonder how long he’s been feeling dull for. He should meet Petie; he’d help him out with any problems. If anypony would understand it would be Petie.
Shadow took a walk with me in the gardens to show me a surprise of his. After leading me quite far into the private grounds I saw something amazing. A giant statue of Blankety looked at me from high; a medium sized cocoa tree reminding me of memories from what seemed centuries ago. Blankety and Lady Blankety reunited again. But… I didn’t like it. He didn’t look like himself anymore. His fur was freezing to the touch, his breath ran cold and absent, and the heart that I knew all about no longer existed. It was a constant reminder of his death, not a festival of his life. I got out of there as fast as I could, running off without Shadow to stop me (thankfully he understood why I did it and forgave me).
And that’s when I saw the happy moment. I heard a voice I recognised from around the corner. The voice of a white filly that I’d always cared for, paired with that of another deeper, gruffer voice. Giggling came from the mare’s throat and silence came. Out of joy of hearing Tia again I charged round to find her.
What did I find do you think Diary?
Tia and Nocturn, kissing. They jumped when I appeared and let go of one another. Tia blushed and I gave her a smile. And as I told them then, I could never be happier for anypony. They belong together. If Tia’s happy then so am I. After all Nocturn—Nox even—isn’t the same colt I once knew who lived to knock me down. He’s growing up into a charming stallion and he proved that by bowing to me today and acting ever so polite.
I’m happy for them. I am.
Right now I’m even preparing a cake to celebrate their one-year anniversary. It says ‘Tia+ Diddy’… er… Nocturn I mean, ‘two hearts forever’. Quite sweet really. They love each other. Really, they do. I’m sure of it. I mustn’t judge if I don’t know the full thing that’s gone on. Nox really cares for Tia; he makes her happy. I used to make her happy too. And I destroyed her life. But Nox will be better I’m sure. Why would he want to hurt Tia? She’s the nicest mare I’ve ever met—a tad bit boring sometimes but she’s worth it.
Yes, Celestia’s always been worth it.
I can still remember how she laughed and said to me, ‘well, at least now we know we were never meant to be right?’. That was… awkward to say the least. Totally fine though. She’s happy.
They’re all happy.
And it’s going to stay that way this time. I have to remember to keep calm and everything will be okay. Nothing bad can happen now Diary—not with the new Diddy.
The new Diddy’s the best. He’s calm and nice and friendly. He’ll never get angry at anypony. They’re in love.
Love’s in the air for everypony.
Except discord. Nopony loves discord. Harmony is the most important thing in Equestria. And I’m going to be the most harmonious colt they’ve ever met.
Let's go for a little walk under Entry Thirty-Four
I seem to have made a very close friend recently. Loony has visited me every day, twice a day for the last couple of weeks. I've never known somepony want to spend so much time with me. And the last time I saw her she told me that she couldn't live without me being near; she didn't want to go through it again. Diary, she said that she missed me when I was away. Even though she was only very small when I left she always knew something was missing and now her whole world seems whole again.
I can't even begin to explain how much those words meant to me. All this time, whilst I waited to come home from the centre, all I could think about was the endless worry that came from trying to make amends with the ponies I cared for most-- and with Loony at least it went by smoothly. Perhaps, yes, she can't remember the 'incident' as well as the others can, but still it's a start right? At least it's good to know that Loony would never do anything to hurt or make problems for me. She'll always be on my side in a fight.
The other day when I was round at the palace, walking with Loony, her Mother came out and yelled to call her over. It was clear what they were talking about. Her Mom was telling her she wasn't allowed to be with somepony like me but Loony didn't care. Somehow she managed to argue back and her Mother ran away as fast as possible. It was a little unsettling since she looked like she was crying but Loony seemed quite happy. Apparently her Mom's hardly ever not crying nowadays. Her parents don't even talk to one another or even stand in the same area.
That reminds me-- yesterday I spotted King Alicorn out in the garden looking at the statues in the area. A stone casing surrounded a young stallion. He looked to be very brave-- a knight maybe. His armour looked like he must be a knight. Alicorn couldn't stop staring at it. I didn't know what to say. Loony and me just stood behind whilst I watched him stare at rocks. Eventually he spoke to cut the silence.
"His name was Beech Wood," he told me. "Once upon a time he was a knight, and at another once upon a time he was killed for me."
His head didn't move. I went closer-- or I should say Loony dragged me further towards him. I didn't ever imagine King Alicorn could look so sad. He seemed to have aged a lot in the two years I'd been gone. I suppose in some ways I always imagined he'd stay young forever-- like a Legend would.
"Daddy, Diddy played Moon landings with thy today. 'Twas fun," Loony told him prodding him in the side. Just for a second his eyes lighted up as he looked at her. I couldn't believe it-- I'd never seen him look as lovingly at Tia as he did at Loony. His smile went away when he looked at me and turned to a more ashamed kind of face. It made me feel-- bad. Could I be the one that made him feel so sad?
"That's nice dear."
He looked at the statue again.
"Beech was a brave stallion." A long pause came (seriously, you could have heard a flea sneeze). "Then again they always are." A tear slid down his cheek.
Loony didn't understand what was going on. She carried on playing with his tail and running her head into his chest. He didn't try to stop her; it seemed to offer some comfort.
"Ponies may say they died for the right reasons but it doesn't make it any less painful. There's no right reason to watch somepony die."
"But it's not your fault," I told him without even stopping to think about what I was going to say. "You've got to remember that it's not your fault."
"Isn't it Diddy? Isn't it?" Another tear slid down his cheek. Loony was startled and hugged him closer.
"Don't be sad thy Father. Thou must smile. Diddy says thou must always smile."
What can I say-- he attempted to be more cheerful for Loony but I could still see that he was upset. Even when we left him he still could never look like the same Alicorn I once knew and loved. The simple truth is Diary, he's not the same pony and I can't feel anything about him anymore. I want him to be the way he was before I left.
Strange really. I want everypony to act how they used to be apart from me-- and Nox. Actually he's doing alright now. He's charming, polite, well-mannered. Honestly he obviously adores Tia. The other day he even dropped going to an important school day just so that they could spend the day together-- a week and a half after their anniversary celebration-ey sort of day.
Only just realised how many times I've wrote the word 'day' in this entry. Sorry.
I'm just really excited at the minutes. In two days Princess Lilac and Rosen are coming to stay at the palace with Miamore. And do you know who they're bringing with them?
SILAS.
That's right, Silas is coming to stay with us for a week or so. It's going to be so much fun. I always said one day he could meet my friends. Well, I told him that Tia was going to visit at the Centre about two hundred and seventy three times-- but that never happened so he can meet her now instead. I know he'll see just how wonderful she really is.
Silas finally showed up in Canterlot after three hours of waiting anxiously on the doorstep of the palace. Everypony turned up for the visit. There were decorations everywhere. Not for Silas mind you; no the special treatment was all due to the great and powerful Princess Lilac of the Crystal Empire (a.k.a. Miamore's bride-to-be).
I'd never actually met the Princess until today. In fact the only two of the party I have met were Silas, of course, and Rosen who I'd met for short amounts of times when she'd come to NEMI to visit Silas.
A large splendid carriage, lighted with what seemed thousands of glowing crystals, flew in from the sky above. Miamore rushed forward, his cheeks red and opened the door to the visitors. You should have seen him when he held Princess Lilac's hoof-- I thought that Nox and Tia loved each other, but these two were on a whole other level of romance. It was quite clear they'd do anything for each other, which seems strange since Miamore had always been such a 'never-less-than-a-minimum-of-two-marefriends-at-once' sort of stallion/colt. Something had clearly changed in him since I left all that time ago. Even Gallophad managed a smile when encountered with his brother and fiancé.
After Lilac followed Rosen, closely stalked by my good buddy Silas. He was as calm and collected as when he left NEMI a few months before me-- this of course was due to all of the hard work the ponies put into taking care of him, and the tablets he takes. They're not the same as mine though; I take another colour to him because of our different problems. When the adults went inside Silas bowed to me and gave me a grin. I was glad, he'd looked too formal to be Silas at first.
We strode over to one another and shook hooves/claw. Rosen followed suit. My friends gathered round to meet them.
"Silas," I'd said to him, "this is Princess Celestia."
Celestia blushed slightly.
"Charmed I'm sure," said Silas trying to hold in his giggles. He kissed her on her hoof and added to the redness of her cheeks. Nox didn't look too happy about it, but then again it's understandable that he doesn't want his marefriend going away with anypony else. Rosen smiled at me.
"It's great to see you again Diddy. How's everything been going?"
That was just like Rosen to ask. She asked me the same thing everytime she visited NEMI and she always listened and remembered your answers. I gave her a quick overall run of what had happened since I last saw her. Silas appeared to waver a bit and Rosen looked concernedly at him. He didn't seem to look very well to my eye either.
"Are you okay Silas?" I asked. He nodded and gave me a smile. He certainly seemed to perk up and become his old self again after that.
Loony didn't seem to get along with Silas that well. In fact she didn't even like going near him. I asked her about it later and she said that she 'felt something wrong around him'. There's nothing wrong with Silas, I told her, if there was I'd be the first one to realise. She still stayed wary but she began to try and talk to him a bit more.
It's only been one day but it's been a good one. Admittedly we haven't managed to do much together yet but the visiting party were all tired from their long journey so went to bed early.
Tomorrow I'm going to see Silas again and show him around. I've spent the last year or so telling him all about how wonderful this place is and now he'll finally get to see it for himself. Now if only I could find out where I've put my medication it'd be all alright. The last time I saw it was when me and the others went to dinner with the royal family. I hope Silas doesn't lose his meds as well, they were right next to mine on the table. Maybe he saw what happened to them though.
Anyway, I suppose I can ask one of the maids to go get another lot. It's not like I do this often.
Diary, everything's gone wrong. I can't find my tablets anywhere and Silas swears he hasn't seen them. In fact it seems his have gone missing as well. This could mean big trouble for everypony-- big, BIG trouble. It's got even to the point I have to stress how big it is by using capital letters so it seems like I'm shouting on paper. That's seriously BIG trouble.
Silas hasn't been acting the same I swear. He's sweating a lot and has a nervous twitch. It must be the effect of losing his medicine that's doing it. We're so dependant on the stuff that when it's gone we don't know what to do with ourselves. I just don't know what to do. I would ask Mum and Uncle La Loo but they're busy with King Alicorn at the minute-- their royal guests are the only things that are important, never mind us lesser few. Because me and Silas don't mean anything compared to Princesses and their coltfriends.
No, that's an unfair thing for me to say. Lilac hasn't done anything to me; neither has Miamore. The only thing wrong with those two is that they can't seem to see the fun side of life at all. I haven't seen the fun side of life for a while-- I was trapped. We were trapped. Tia's still trapped... with him.
I wouldn't have noticed but Silas pointed it out. The looks-- the smiles-- the laughs-- oh yes, he knew what it was alright. Only I'm the silly one who wanted to see the good in everybody including him. But now I've seen that he's not changed at all from when we were younger. What was it that Silas had told me? A unicorn can't change its horn. Just like an pegasus cannot change its wings, and an earth pony cannot stop its-- earth? Whatever, you know what I mean Diary.
I saw him anyway, eventually. Out walking whilst Tia was away and busy with the visit. Silas had already seen him try to make a move on Rosen-- who was his crush, not Nocturn's. He sure has a habit of stealing everypony else's crush-- not that he's stolen mine or anything. No, he's just stolen my best friend's from me. One of them will never come back now... and the other, the boring yet lovely... beautiful... caring... always ready to go along with my jokes one is lost forever to him. But I will find a way to get her... I mean, them... back. He's not going to win this time-- tablets or no tablets.
Me and Silas did some scouting today to find out what he'd been up to. 16 MAREFRIEND'S. He has 16 MAREFRIEND'S. And he hadn't even told one of them about the others. He hasn't even told any of them what a donkey he really is... and how he's SUPPOSED to be dating a Princess right now-- a perfect, intelligent Princess who can't see him for what he really is and see that she really lo--likes me, not him (as a friend of course). It makes me so mad to think that I tried to give him a second chance after all he'd done to me in our foalhood. I tried to be the grown-up colt but he wouldn't let me with his prissy, 'I'm so much better than anypony else' manners'.
See, that's the great thing about the Land of Chaos. I wouldn't let things like this happen to anypony. Blankety wouldn't either. It might be better if that land was real and this one was just gone. Only my friends could live there with us. Loony would be the baby Princess just like from when we used to play our games and everypony would be happy. The most important thing would be that everypony would be happy-- because HE wouldn't be there to cause any damage.
And you know what, there wouldn't be any King Alicorn's either. It'd just be Blankety, the best ruler ever, above the rest of us. And I'd protect that legacy and him forever.
I don't want to live like this forever.
Sometimes I go down and look at the statue of Blankety in the garden-- and, you know what I think? I think of all the reasons I'd be happier like he is now. There's no troubles when you're stone. You're just there to be looked at and admired or despised. There's no in between and the best news is that you wouldn't be able to feel anything. You'd wake up rejuvenated and ready to put your plans into action. That's how to live-- to live forever encased in a blanket of stone.
But then I think of all the reasons Blankety didn't deserve to be there. How, even though his life would be shorter in the real world than in stone, he would have still had a REAL life, with REAL choices, and REAL friends and family. You can't get anything real there. And if you want to celebrate what you're doing right now you have to live life as if to remember that you're not trapped in stone. Candy floss and chocolate milkshakes can still be consumed and pleasured right to the end.
Even Tia used to agree when we were younger that being trapped as a statue would be the worst punishment ever-- nopony deserved that horror to fall upon them no matter what they'd done. Putting them into a statue would be as evil as locking somepony on the loneliness of the moon. It would just be unfair. That's why me and Loony made a pact to stop anypony EVER trying to do horrible things like that to anypony, no matter how tempting it may be sometimes.
Shame Tia wasn't listening when we made the pact. She'd sort of faded off and then ran off to find her oh-so-precious special somepony. That Traitor's not worth her time I'm telling you.
And what action am I taking you ask Diary? I'm doing what I can-- telling somepony. I know it's not my usual method but Silas and Rosen can back me up this time. Nocturn can't win.
I seriously don't know what to do anymore. Everypony looks different to me now. Try as I might to stay calm as I was taught I keep feeling on edge; lost with nowhere to run to. I would run away to the campsite, where everything was always better, but I'm trying to resist. This needs to be faced alone without the comforts of my capital.
At least Silas is still here, he keeps me sane. The loss of his tablets don't seem to have affected him so badly. In fact it was his idea that I should go spend time with my old friend Shadow today to help calm my nerves a bit about Nocturn. You see-- I did a bad thing-- a really bad thing again.
I was only following him again to find out more but when I actually saw him KISSING another mare and talking about Tia to her as if she was nothing more than a piece of trash who didn't deserve her crown-- I just flipped. Nopony's allowed to talk about my Tia that way. Tia's the greatest. Someponies would consider themselves the luckiest colt alive to be dating her for who she is. To someponies, who's lives aren't as clean and cosy as his, Tia's the only pony they have standing between themselves and pure loneliness and insanity. And it's those type of ponies that deserve to have her love, not him. Some of us actually want her to be near and have nopony else but her.
I know they do.
Like Loony for example. She looks up to her big sister a lot.
And Miamore and Gallophad care for her too.
So do Galloway and Shadow.
And me I suppose. I care a lot for her too. She may be boring and dull sometimes but I'd only say that to her jokingly, never in a mean way. Why would I ever want to hurt Celestia?
Her Father on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. He shouldn't have talked to me in that way; as if I was just some little piece of dirt covering up a wonderfully big diamond. He's so obsessed with diamonds recently it drives me mad. So much for being generous to everypony. If anypony even goes near his precious collected stones from the Everfree he goes ballistic.
Not to mention his crazy attitude towards some of his loyal followers. I've seen how his eyes go when he lies to them. Somehow he's deluded himself into believing that he has to be dishonest all the time. Says that some giant piles of talking apples told him to fear ponies like Leafy Pines and Midnight Shimmer.
In fact the only pony he seems to trust at the minute is Marelin.
Now, she's the only pony I actually like at the minute. Aunt Marelin's still as amazing as ever. She may act like a small filly from time to time but she's nice, gentle and kind. True, she's due to have a foal any minute but what does that matter? When her foal comes I'll be the sweetest friend it could ever want. I know Alicorn's really excited about it being born, but he's also really worried about Marelin. Maybe that's why he's acting so grumpy-- but still he shouldn't have banished some of the ponies he has done out of fear. He's being too overprotective of Marelin, and she's tried over and over to tell him this I know.
He won't even listen to his own advisor anymore. It's all getting so ridiculous.
That's why I went to Shadow's. To get away from it all-- to get away from them all. But I got more than I bargained for.
When I went to the front of the house the door swung wide open for me. I don't know why but my hooves/claws seem to work of their own accord but didn't go in the right direction. That evil witch down in the basement had cast some kind of trick on me to go towards her, down below.
I was trapped right? I was going to be eaten alive?
No, you're wrong. Shadow's Mother wasn't even there. Only the cauldron with the face. The terrifying Nightmare monster I'd lived in fear of for two years. But I didn't see her as that anymore. She was a friendly face; somepony different than all this horror all around me.
She was kind to me. She offered me the deal of a lifetime. To help her in the demise of King Alicorn once and for all. She offered me things I could only ever imagine-- the chaos capital in real life. The chaos land could become reality with her help.
Better yet, she could make me all-powerful like her. I could never be destroyed again. She'd let me live forever.
It's my choice that I have to think about.
And all this: love, happiness, chaos-- all it would cost me is one little murder. One little murder of the pony that no longer was the stallion I thought before. The stallion who was already dying mentally anyway and deserved to finally let go of all of his and everypony else's troubles.
It would take a few years, she agreed, but eventually we could rule Equestria together. And Tia would be free from Nocturn-- because he would be under my control from then on.
But I still don't know what to do Diary. I just want everything to go back to the way it was. Isn't there another way other than joining Nightmare?
I don't know what to do anymore. There's only one pony I could ask and that's Silas.
Yes I'll ask Silas. He'll probably be shocked and appalled when he hears all that that monster said to me. There's no way he'd agree with her.
Through everything Silas will always be a reliable, good-natured friend. He'd never want anypony to get hurt-- especially not if me or him where the one's doing it.
I've been thinking a lot recently. Thinking about things that I would never want to tell anypony for fear that they would be hurt by my own thoughts. It's just that beforehand I would've never even considered the Nightmare monster's offer, but recently I've started to doubt myself more than ever. This isn't helped by the fact the new medicine I got to replace the old one I lost has now suddenly vanished again, as has Silas', in the exact same place as last time. Silas swears there was nopony but me and him anywhere near the bottles, but there must have been otherwise where would they have gone?
I'm seriously beginning to suspect ponies for trying to do something bad to me. Most likely Nocturn if it's going to be anypony. But I don't understand why he'd want to hurt Silas. He's never done anything to him. I mean they've only just met each other properly and they really haven't spoken at any point. Silas said he didn't want to speak to him because of what he's been doing around Canterlot. There's plenty of ponies that my friend wouldn't want to speak to in my life. Somehow they've all gone really weird.
That's what I've been thinking about-- the changes that everypony has been through, and whether or not they're good or bad anymore.
I mean, what about Tia for example. She's technically a victim in all of this mess, but didn't she bring it on herself? After all it was her pride getting in the way when she chooses to believe Nocturn over me, just because she doesn't want to admit that she may have misjudged his character and I was right. True she's kind, and generous; not to mention extremely magical-- but you can't have these three things only and expect to be harmonious. If anything Loony's much better at harmony than the 'harmonious, perfect princess' is.
But Loony's my little bundle of chaos and I wouldn't want her to change. She's honest to an extent that she isn't afraid to tell somepony that they're an idiot or yell at her Father for not caring about his kingdom anymore. That's a bad and a good thing. And she's so into laughter that she giggles at the silliest of things-- I couldn't imagine her ever not being able to laugh, unlike her sister who hasn't laughed since we were young foals. The most important thing about Loony is that she's loyal. She'd do anything for me. Even if it meant being banished for trying to help me or somepony else, even if it was to the moon or to the Griffon lands, she'd still do it because she cares about those who are loyal to her in return. Out of everypony she's the one I'd be most dependant on... but she's still too young to put into danger. I wouldn't want her to get hurt. When I think about her when she was a baby filly, it just makes my heart melt. I miss those days.
Dr Calamity used to tell us at NEMI that thinking about all the positive elements of the ponies we loved is the key to getting over our illness, but I don't see how that helps when you're struggling. Especially when you're just starting to realise that those ponies you loved aren't the ponies you loved anymore. When change takes over and rules Equestria. Change can be good too, that's what chaos was all about-- that would be what Blankety wanted.
He's still alive you know, I can feel it. He's not left just yet. As long as I'm here fighting for him he'll never leave. For King and chaos I will fight. What was it I used to say? Dow de dow de dow dow dow de dow. Ha!
Nopony else would understand that joke. Maybe Rainbow Dragon might-- he's a guard I met once at NEMI. He used to tell the most insane jokes and make us laugh. Sometimes he'd even sneak us out of our room at night, take us to the kitchens and we'd have an insane midnight feast with ghost stories and everything. When he was with us we were all happy. Even Morning Glory, the night nurse, used to let it slide when she found our room's entry. Sometimes she even joined in with the feast, though that was barely ever.
Glory reminded me so much of Mummy-- it made me feel better when I'd had a nightmare if she came and lulled me to sleep. That's why it was so upsetting when she left-- and then Rainbow Dragon disappeared as well. Fired we think, for what they'd allowed to happen with the patients. Somepony must have snitched on us. We never figured out who but somepony did.
I never saw Morning Glory or Rainbow Dragon ever again after that. Some say that they simply had to go find another job-- other's say that that the punishment for the workers was a lot more ferocious than that. They say that they never even left the building-- not alive that is. But we don't think that's true-- at least I hope it's not. Silas was one of the firm believers that it wasn't. He even swore in his letters that he'd seen them both after he left the hospital and that they were fine and very much alive.
Though I don't know whether he was telling the truth.
See, that was another change we had to go through that wasn't positive. Even Dr Calamity left after his consultancy was no longer needed on the special case he was working on. It's not fair that ponies go away. It's true what they say, change makes more change come. And I don't like it.
My brother's, including Gallows, barely talk to me anymore either. They're too busy training, preparing themselves to give their lives for the zombified King Alicorn who cares more for his own sadness than anypony else's.
Everypony is so stupid. Aside from a few there's nopony I wouldn't like to just end their misery once and for all. Without them in my life I could make Equestria so much more fun-loving and free. The kind of world we all wanted in the first place-- a place where even if they were gone they could still live on forever. And all could become true if I just joined the monster.
I wouldn't be the death of my friends-- I would be their salvation. A hero to the masses. The Lord of Chaos-- the most famous, and greatest colts ever to exist. Everypony would be able to control their own destiny and have fun whilst doing it, and why? Because there'd be no boundaries. If we wanted corn that popped into popcorn it could be ours. If we wanted to be able to drink the glass and still have the drink to go then we could. Nothing would be impossible.
And most importantly everypony'd be happy. Apart from those who deserved to be miserable. Those who would try to stop me or hurt my family-- like Nocturn or Alicorn. They wouldn't be there to get in our way anymore or send us off to another place when they couldn't understand and didn't want to know.
There on the hillside, robes wrapped around his two claws, could be seen the most dashing knight ever to exist in the realms of the kingdom. He looked onto the chaotic surroundings and breathed in the delicious fresh air. ‘Ah, sweet,’ he said taking a sip of his glass containing the most ultimate power source you could find in Equestria or beyond: chocolate milk.
Beside him, slowly quickly making her way up the hill was the prettiest silliest bravest little filly ever to come into the land of ponies. The knight smiled to her and she smiled back, their joy warming the hearts of every plant growing among them.
“Welcome,” said the knight to the filly, “to the land of our dreams, The Land of Chaos.”
They began their trek through the area and up to the palace where they were greeted by the King in his large, crystal crown with his Queen stood loyally by his side. The King was glad to see the two heroes, for they were great friends of his and he would do anything for them (and them the same for him). It had been two years since he'd last seen their faces; around about the time when they had fought the great two headed pony-dragon-beast, the all powerful Nox, and had won. Ever since that moment King Blankety knew he owed these two a lot more than just a knighthood, but also a friendship as well.
Unfortunately it was not on happy business he had called them today.
“I’m afraid that my poor, darling daughter has fallen for witchcraft,” he told them. The knight gave a nod and his sidekick friend nodded her head along with his. “I don’t know why but she’s acting so weird,” the King said. “It seems she’s trying to turn my whole land into somewhere boring were nopony would want to live.”
“Why not call thine other knights?” asked the little filly. King Blankety and the Queen shook their heads in sorrow.
“They too have fallen for the curse and are trapped in their grey states forever.”
With one click of his hoof the knights walked in through the door magical revolving stairway. Drool fell from their lips and their eyes, like their bodies, remained stiff and lifeless. The knight sucked in his breath.
“Do not fear King Blankety,” he said, “I will save the Princess and the rest of the land.”
“So will I,” said the sidekick friend.
“Good,” said the King and clicked his hoof again. A massive carriage bald monkey showed up and the two heroes got on his back. The monkey made a weird noise and set off along the soap roads, slipping and sliding until they arrived at their destination. And what a horrible place they saw before them.
All of the soap roads had turned to filthy, disgusting soil and dirt. The usual fun things, like the popcorn plants and candyfloss clouds, had been turned into just regular old clouds and sweetcorn. Everything in the town seemed boring and out-of-place in the great almighty Land of Chaos. In the middle of all of this misery stood the young Princess, her white coat and rainbow mane blowing behind her in the softly moving breeze.
Magic shot out of her horn as she blasted everything with her ‘Make-everything-dull-ness spell’. Nopony was safe. Ponies began to look drab and acted with no joy in their hearts at all. It was painful to watch, especially for the bald monkey who ran away from the village with a yelp.
The knight’s sidekick friend ran into a corner out of fear (but quickly came out again because she was far too brave to run away. In fact she most likely just went somewhere else to do something brave for a few seconds).
“Princess,” said the dashing knight, “you don’t want to do this. This isn’t you.”
The white pony’s head shot round and stared at the two who dared to face her. She gave a laugh to see the knight and his sidekick friend.
“I do want to do this,” she said. “I want to make this place as boring as possible. The less fun their having the more power I have over what they do.”
She clicked her hoof and a mad swarm of six grey ponies shot out of the streets near the knight and the little filly. The two heroes bravely fought them off and knocked them to the ground. Nopony was a match for this knight (and the little blue filly).
“That’s impossible,” said the now evil Princess.” The knight laughed.
“Not impossible when you have chaos on your side.”
He clicked his left claw and charged at a wall. The Princess watched him as if he was doing the stupidest thing she’d ever seen, but secretly he had a cunning plan; for this knight wasn’t only just dashing but smart too. Just as he was about to hit the wall he clicked his claw again and a powerful beam of magic reflected off the bricks, which surprisingly gave a yell of pain; though of course the knight knew it would do this. The knight stopped running and pulled the magical monster off his hiding place.
“Nox,” he said, “I knew it would be you, you little coward.”
“That’s impossible,” said Nox, “how did you know? You’re not smart enough to have figured that out.”
“I guess there’s many things you don’t know about me Nox,” said the knight.
With a laugh Nox pulled himself away from the knight’s grasp and ran backwards. He caught hold of the Princess and held her closely to him.
“Fine Knight,” he said, “but you can’t stop me as long as I’ve got her. Nopony can get me as long as she’s on my boring, no-having-fun evil side.”
He gave an evil laugh typical of any evil villain/monsters in a story or play. The knight didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t harm the Princess, even if she had done horrible things to the Capital of The Land of Chaos, but he couldn’t let Nox get away with his evil plan to take over either.
His little brave sidekick friend gave a cough and pointed to a large floating pepper pot slowly making its way to our their area. The knight gave a small nod and they put their plan into action. The filly ran forwards at Nox, aiming for the gap between his two heads, and held his attention whilst the knight jumped onto the floating pot. From above he was able to drop down right onto the monster with his sword and stab it right where the sun don’t shine—the monster’s one weak spot. Nox gave a cry and fell to the floor in agony.
“No, not again. You can’t be that good. No pony is as perfect, dashing, smart and brave as you appear to be.”
And with that he fell down and burst into flames. The ponies regained their usual colour on the floor and woke up with a bad headache that they would feel for weeks (so much so that they wouldn’t notice when the sidekick friend stole all of her favourite food and drink out of the royal pantry). The knight took hold of the Princess’ hoof and lifted her up. She wobbled slightly but the knight held her steady.
“How can I repay you o-loyal knight?” she asked, her eyes meeting his.
“Marry me,” he said to her. “And we’ll call it even. I may even save you from the next monster that comes along as well.”
“Oh, Knight, I would love to marry you,” she said, and they all lived happily ever after.
And the little filly, sidekick friend to the knight, was appointed ruler of the moon and stars and was happy too.
I've finally made my decision and I felt I had to write it down in here before I went through with it-- just because it may help me clear my mind slightly and assure any possible readers in the future, if this Diary is found hundreds of years from now, that what I did was for the right reasons and not one of petty, silly vengeance.
The truth is that although I love all of my friends and family, including King Alicorn, they're not the same ponies I once knew. It kind of feels like I don't even have any friends anymore; or perhaps I never have and was just fooled into thinking I once did. I don't know-- but what I do know is that in Equestria I'll never be happy like I once was. Blankety was one of my best friends, one who'd never change, but I got rid of all that-- and now the only way to stay true to him is by staying in the Land of Chaos which we loved when we were together. In fact I'd say I had more friends in the Land of Chaos than I've ever had in Equestria. That's why I have to go through with it-- I have to help the Nightmare monster.
Even Loony's not doing very well in the world we live in right now. She's lovely and everything but what she needs is some place she can be free and do what she wants to do without anypony stopping her or belittling her like they so often do. The Nightmare monster would never hurt her, I know, because she knows how much I care for Loony and how much I just want to look after her. I love Loony with all my heart. She once said I was like her older brother, but the simple truth is she's just like a younger sister to me too... maybe even closer than any of my own brothers.
It's not that I want to hurt anypony, I don't. In fact I'm going to aim to make sure that Nightmare doesn't hurt more than is necessary. Alicorn is practically dead inside anyway so it's better if we end his misery now while we can-- it's a blessing for him; I'm going to save him from himself. And once he's gone I can make the world a better place and bring peace and prosperity, I know I can. Even Silas says I'm just the right colt for the job-- he's even agreed to help me with it and guide me through the dangers as best as he can. He's a good friend Sombra Silas; he always has been.
I began training with the rest of the monster's crew a few days ago and I've got to say I quite enjoy it. They're all really impressed that I'm so close to the royal family-- in fact they seem eager to please me because of it, despite the bad things I've done in the past. I would say they were 'friendly' but they're not really my friends, and never would be. Even Silas doesn't seem like the friend I once knew, but that's probably because he's so eager to get this done. I am too. I just want it all to be over and done with so I can go back to the fun, less serious parts of life.
Sadly it's going to take a few more years to make sure we're ready to pull it off. First I've got to make sure I stay close to Uncle Alicorn, and second I need to get him to trust me, and get him further away from the others so that they don't feel too upset when he's finally gone. I figure the more distant the others are from him the less of an impact it'll have-- though that may just be the new meds Nightmare has given me talking. They're slightly strange in that I seem to be able to see colours a lot more brightly and vivid than ever before-- I don't think I've ever seen Equestria so bright and colourful in my life; it makes everything seem far more easier. I like it.
Who knows Diary, I may change my mind about the whole plan before the time comes. Maybe I'll become a boring stiff like Tia and try to make everything all black and white and stressful. Maybe I'll even begin to like Tia more than I ever have before-- our games could one day be the reality, and why not? Why shouldn't we be able to have our happily ever after together? The only things in our way are Alicorn, and her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Nocturn. I say soon to be because the first thing on my agenda is to get rid of him once and for all; just as I had wanted when I was a small colt.
For now I train and practice. I find ways to get close to all those ponies I used to consider my friends. It shouldn't be too hard; I'm quite good at pretending so I'm told. Don't worry Diary, I'm going to make sure nopony gets too hurt. Marelin and her new baby will be safe from harm for a while anyway-- she's only a few days away from having her foal now. I'm going to do my best to help her with the little one-- maybe that'll help make up for what I'm going to do in the years to come. I hope so anyway.
I'm sorry Diary. This has got to be the end between us as well. I can't risk the chance of somepony either finding this, or me losing time on my mission by writing in this. I've got to hide you, far away from anypony. One day, maybe, I'll tell somepony I trust where they can find you, but for now you have to remain hidden. I couldn't bare to lose all the memories you hold-- all the friends I feel I have left inside the pages.
Just know, if anypony does find this Diary, they will be the most special pony in my whole entire life. Whoever reads these words are my only friend, and always will be.
I'll only tell somepony where you hide when it's really important, or it's all gone wrong for me, and then it'll be up to that pony to carry on my fight. I pray, for Alicorn's sake they can get this right.
I'm so sorry this had to happen Diddy; that I had to be the one to do this to you. I felt so bad about it, even though you were the one supposedly in the wrong. I never wanted to hurt you Diddy, really I didn't. The truth is I loved you more than I've ever loved anypony I've ever known-- even my own family is nothing compared to you.
Maybe I should care about the death of my Father, and I do, but he was less of a family than you ever were. You were kind, considerate, funny-- all the things I could wish for in somepony I cared for. I've had so many bad relationships in my past; it took you to be gone to realise that I had a good one right in front of my very eyes.
When you took over the Kingdom I and my sister had to run-- accompanied by Aunt Marelin. We had to escape so you and the Nightmare Monster couldn't hurt us anymore. And when I remember all of the corpses I'd seen as I ran through the gardens and the land surrounding Canterlot, it makes me physically sick. This wouldn't be what you'd have wanted-- I know you Diddy, and your Diary just proves who you really were. Now, you're stuck in stone and I go to see you every single say. I cry looking up at your still stature, your painful scowl, and I think about all of the happy times when we were together. Of all the ponies I miss, it's you I miss the most.
Even though I have lost many of my real friends (the list would be too long to write), and even though my brothers have also gone and left me for a better place now, I still care for you the most. Just you-- relieving your mistakes over and over in your head whilst you wait to be rescued from your torture.
The monster tricked you, I know she did. Sombra wasn't a help either. I blame them both for being your end; they're evil and deserve to be punished severely. Oh, but you wouldn't like that would you? Nopony should ever be trapped on the moon or in statue form-- I've already broken one of your earliest promises to yourself. If only I'd have paid more attention to everypony I would have seen that you were having problems and could have helped you with it. I was just too young-- I'll always be too young to be sensible.
Now it's what you say-- you told me the location of the Diary just before I and my sister acted upon your fate, though I did not want to hurt you as my kingdom would have me do. It took a while to find and I promise to show nopony else its words-- at least not until you yourself want it to be so. For now I am your chosen one, and in being so I must carry on your work and make sure this kingdom doesn't become the dull, boring, stressed place some would have it be.
My powers shall rejoice in ponies having fun. Even though I'm only powerful enough to control one part of day I'll make sure that I use that time in the right way. I promise that I shall do everything in my power to make your wishes come true-- Nothing can stop me. It's the only way I can make you live on next to me.
