“Since when has Diamond Tiara’s mansion had a hallway this long,” Silver Spoon asked the walls to either side of her. “Or with this many pictures of her.”
All along the walls were placed paintings and pictures of Diamond Tiara at various stages of her life as Silver Spoon had known her, starting from when they were both years younger. There was one from when Silver Spoon had just moved from Canterlot, alone and scared.
“Did I really look that scared?” Silver Spoon asked, pausing to reflect on the picture. Diamond Tiara was right beside her, offering her a candy. “That was so long ago. I don’t…”
A sound from the other end of the hallway caught her attention and she trailed off. What had that noise been? It was like laughter, but…
It came again. “Diamond Tiara?” She asked.
No answer came back but another strange, twisted laugh. Not evil… Not exactly, but unsettling, it sounded like her friend’s voice; and yet, it wasn't.
The lights behind her, the way she had come, began to shut off and plunge the hallway into darkness one section at a time. Fear tingled up her spine and settled in a cold lump in her stomach. She didn’t want to be caught in the dark.
Leaving the picture of a happy Diamond Tiara behind, Silver Spoon trotted down the hallway. The darkness followed. The faces on the walls she passed now were angry, with sneers and pointing hooves. She passed picture after picture pointing a hoof at her that mouthed insults that wound through her mind like snakes.
“You’re wearing that?”
“Sure, if you want to look stupid.”
“You really should do something about your mane.”
The petty insults stung, piling on one after another until she couldn’t hear anything else and felt their sting like a dozen tiny fly bites at her flanks. She ran faster, her hoofbeats disturbing the paintings so that they followed her along the walls, crowding together and chanting insult after insult.
A doorway appeared at the end of the hallway, looming out of the gathering gloom like a golden, glittering promise of hope.
The massive gold plated panels on the door also featured Diamond Tiara’s haughty visage, seeming to glare down at her for even daring to approach. But they opened as she ran towards them, inviting her inside. Not caring beyond getting away from the shadow rapidly gaining ground behind her, she dashed through.
She found herself suddenly elsewhere. There was no up or down, no point of reference. All she could feel was something underneath her hooves. Silver Spoon twisted around, looking every which way. Nothing but darkness surrounded her.
A harsh light snapped on from high above and surrounded Silver Spoon with its unforgiving radiance. Every flaw in her silver coat was suddenly obvious and every imperfection on her hooves seemed to get its own spotlight. Horrified, disgusted, she looked away.
The light brightened, pushing back some of the shadows as she looked around.
She was sitting in the middle of a giant table like an executive meeting table. What was worse were all the other ponies around her, shadowy figures lost in the gloom to either side and showing nothing but their eyes; glowing like flint sparks of malice in the darkness.
This wasn’t better than the hallway. The golden, glittering door had lied to her with its promise of safety.
Another, more radiant and beautiful light snapped on above Diamond Tiara, sitting at the far end of the table and casting her in a glow of absolute perfection.
“You’re late!” Diamond Tiara’s voice boomed.
“Late?” Silver Spoon asked after a long moment of looking around, seeking some sign of a friendly presence, some glimmer of sympathy in those harsh eyes. There was none, and the eyes never left her. “For what?”
“For what?!” Diamond Tiara yelled, then continued in a quieter voice. “Don’t tell me that you forgot, Silver Spoon. You are in enough trouble as it is.”
“Please, tell me! I’ll remember. Just tell me what I forgot and I’ll never forget it again!”
Diamond Tiara sneered and smacked her hoof against the table. “We’ll see.”
The light dimmed around Diamond Tiara until all that Silver Spoon could see was the twinkle of malevolence in her eyes and the sparkle of the diamonds encrusting her friend’s namesake.
“It’s time to account for your lackluster friendship performance. The board hasn’t been happy at all with your performance this year, Silver Spoon. Not. Happy.” Then she smiled, the whites of her teeth visible in the darkness, and continued in a more familiar haughty tone. “You’re very, very lucky that I, as Chairfilly of the board, have granted you this gracious opportunity to explain your failures.”
“Failures? But, I’ve been your best frie-”
“I see that we’ll need to review your performance. Again. You forgot.” Diamond Tiara’s eyes narrowed to glinting slits. “Again.”
The chairfilly loomed out of the darkness, the malice in her eyes no less menacing than it had been before. Between her teeth she clutched a slender steel pointer that seemed entirely too long and whip-like for Silver Spoon’s taste.
“Where to start?” Diamond Tiara asked, tsking as she looked over a list that was suddenly there at the end of her hoof. She shrugged after a moment and slapped the list on a white board that was also suddenly there.
“First! My thirteenth birthday.” Diamond Tiara slapped the pointer against the board with a resounding smack that sent a crack shooting through the center of the board. An image of Diamond Tiara’s last birthday appeared over the crack. “The gift you got me was sub par, at best!”
Silver Spoon flinched back.
The image shifted to showing the elaborate wooden carving of a spoon, just like Silver Spoon's. She'd meant it as a token of their friendship.
“Second!” Another slap and another image, this time of Diamond Tiara alone beside her pool. “You didn’t make it to my pool party three months ago! I had to sit by the side of the pool alone for hours.” The image flickered through several still images of Diamond Tiara looking more and more bored.
“But-” Silver Spoon protested, cutting herself off and biting her lip. She had been with her parents that day… It was a rare treat to spend time with them, since they were so often gone on business.
“Third!” The whiplike tip of the pointer left a sizeable dent in the board this time and widened the crack down the center. Silver Spoon fell to her belly and covered her ears as the sound echoed louder and louder throughout the chamber. When she looked back up, there was a picture of herself, from just seconds before.
“Pay attention!” The Chairfilly shouted, suddenly in her face. “Third! Interrupting me! Never interrupt me!” Diamond Tiara stopped and took a deep breath before stepping back to stand by the board.
“But you weren’t all bad this year,” the transition from raging to calm was shocking. “No… You did actually manage to do something good,” she grumbled, then murmured, “Celestia only knows how.”
More gently this time, she tapped the tip of the pointer against the whiteboard and an image of them both standing nose to nose against the three Cutie Mark Crusaders appeared.
"You were there with me to try and bring down the Crusaders again so that I could win the competition and represent Ponyville at the Equestria Games. It would have been a coup d'etat! Nopony would ever doubt me again, and I would have had even the Cutie Mark Crybabies grovelling at my feet.”
Diamond Tiara smiled and closed her eyes, shivering with what Silver Spoon could only imagine was joy. The silence lasted only moments. “But even there you failed, Silver Spoon; snatching defeat from the hooves of victory."
Diamond Tiara slapped the pointer against the board again, and a moving picture appeared, showing Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon planning their routine to break the Crusader’s spirit.
"See, right here! I had to come up with the plan on my own. You didn't contribute anything. It was almost like you didn't want me to win!"
“No! I did want us… you-” her mouth clicked shut of its own accord. Surprised, Silver Spoon tried to talk again, and when nothing came out, she reached up with a hoof to touch her muzzle.
Gone! She had no muzzle!
Diamond Tiara smiled and tipped her chin up, continuing her lecture on Silver Spoon’s failure to help her capture the flag.
Tears came again, and this time she couldn’t stop them, nor did she try. Maybe her tears would soften her friend’s heart? What else could she try?
“Stop crying!” came the thunderous roar, shaking the board room.
The tears just kept coming. She staggered to her hooves and tried to find a way out, only to fall again and again as she lost her footing.
Why can't I stand up?
As though the thought were a curative, she found her footing. Only to see that all around her the other ponies of the board had closed in, still shrouded by shadow and leaving no gap between them. She was trapped.
“Be still, Silver Spoon. You don’t want me to have to take corrective action. You wouldn't like that." The Chairfilly paused, then continued as though Silver Spoon's terror meant nothing to her. "Things are already bad enough for you. Don't make them worse."
Diamond Tiara lifted a hoof to tap at her chin, “Now... Where was I? Oh yes… Then there was the worst incident of them all.” This time the loud thwack nearly broke the board, and one corner toppled away to land with a loud thunk on the table. Cracks began appearing in the surface of the table, spreading with alarming rapidity towards where Silver Spoon stood.
No longer paying attention, no longer hoping to do anything but survive, Silver Spoon scrambled away from the jagged cracks, but found everywhere that she turned more appeared out of the solid surface of the table.
A resounding crack shook the chamber, tearing the table into two and sending her spinning and adrift below the half where Diamond Tiara still stood. All around her, her half of the table got smaller and smaller as piece after piece fell away.
"Are you even listening to me?!" her friend shouted again. Chunks of Diamond Tiara's table crumbled and spun off into the roiling darkness below, narrowly missing Silver Spoon and her rapidly dwindling island.
Silver Spoon buried her muzzle under her hooves.
Please... Just let it- She blinked. Her muzzle was back!
"Ahem."
Diamond Tiara seemed to be expecting something, and her impatient scowl grew angrier the longer Silver Spoon paused.
"Please! Please just let me make it all up to you!" Silver Spoon yelled up at her, "I promise I can be a better friend, just let me try! Please! I don’t want to be alone!"
"I don't believe you. You've always just said whatever it is that you thought I wanted to hear, haven't you? You've never meant any of what you've said to me. Admit it!"
Silver Spoon shook her head wildly, "No! I wanted to be your friend! Why can't-" She cut herself off and clapped a hoof over her mouth.
"Why can't... what? Why can't I be nice to you? I have always been nice to you. But you don't ever seem to appreciate the advice that I offer. You're still wearing that same, silly braid, those same silly glasses, and that same old string of pearls."
Silver Spoon cringed. It was all true. Wasn't it? A small part of her whispered, No. Maybe it was time to listen to that part of her?
"I think it's time that I explore other avenues. I just don't think that you could make up the friendship mistakes you've made, and I can’t have a friend who doesn't appreciate me for all that I give back to them. Can I?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, didn't you already figure it out?” Diamond Tiara's table spun above her, so that Silver Spoon had to turn if she wanted to keep an eye on the monster that her friend had become. She dare not turn her back now.
“Oh, wow. This is just too rich!" Diamond Tiara laughed. "I don't know how you lasted this long as my friend being so dim witted. I suppose it makes sense, though. I came up with all the ideas, you just followed along, dragging at my success, drinking from my fountain of knowledge. Useless toadie that you are. What have you contributed? Nothing."
“But I-” She spun around, trying to keep Diamond Tiara in her sight, but the monster kept eluding her, sneaking around behind to tear away another chunk of table just beside her hooves. She had little room left to stand. Already, she felt one hoof slipping. “I-”
"And you’re pretty stupid, too. You can’t even form a complete sentence anymore. Useless, pathetic, simpering stooge."
Shame and anger curdled inside Silver Spoon and helpless tears streamed down her cheeks as she stood up taller, lifting her head and planting her hooves on what little ground was left to her.
She had been a lot of things. Tagalong, toadie, yesmare… but one thing she was not and had never been was stupid. She was tired of the constant nitpicking, the subtle bullying and the incessant snide remarks about her appearance.
"No. I'm not stupid. I'm not your stooge. I don't need a friend like you!" Confidence growing, she stamped a hoof down, and continued, "You think you’re so high and mighty, so perfect? You’re not! You’re mean, capricious, selfish, and-" Silver Spoon paused in her tirade to catch her breath and flinched when another piece of table fell away under her hoof.
“What was that?” The whisper sent yet another chunk whirling away, “What did you say to me?”
Silver Spoon lifted her chin; enough was enough. “I said-”
“Lies! Liar!” Diamond Tiara’s roar shattered the small island of table and flung Silver Spoon into the waiting hooves of two guard ponies. In an instant, calm fell over Diamond Tiara and she smoothed back her mane. Somehow, that was more terrifying.
"Guards,” she said sweetly to the burly unicorns. She smiled again, but there was nothing pretty in it and it widened into a manic insane grin that split her muzzle from cheek to cheek. "Take her cutie mark away. She doesn't deserve it anymore."
At first, she remained defiant, and struggled against her captors. But then the light around her dimmed, dropping all but the two stone faced unicorns and herself into a deep gloom with nothing but fiery lights to mark their eyes.
Terror and a mad, panicked laughter that threatened to burst out bubbled up inside Silver Spoon. This couldn't be happening! How could she take away her cutie mark? Could she? She had no doubts now that if the monster that had been her friend could, then she would.
It wasn’t possible, was it?
She struggled, pulling at the iron bands that seemed to serve as one unicorn’s legs. She was unable to move even an inch away from him. The other approached her with a blank expression.
"What are you doing?! Get away from me!" She flailed about with her hooves, striking his face with a sound like, well, like a hoof hitting a rock.
"We're taking your cutie mark, stupid little toadie," the one holding her growled, his voice comparable to the sound of rocks gnashing together and just as sympathetic. "Boss's orders."
"You can't have it! It's mine!" The unicorn in front of her, the one she had kicked, approached her again, this time putting a rock hard hoof against her belly to hold her still. “Get away from me!”
Somehow, she found the strength to push him away, kicking again at his face with both hind feet and connecting solidly enough to chip away a little bit of the stone veneer. Underneath there was nothing… Just a hollow statue.
Heartened, she kicked again and again, but managed to do nothing else. Chips and flakes flew, but no more crumbled away. Her strength faded faster than she was destroying the statue.
"I earned it," she whimpered as her legs dangled. She no longer had the strength to keep fighting.
"You may have earned it, Little Spork, but you have to use it to keep it," a voice said in her ear, belonging to neither of the unicorns nor to Diamond Tiara.
"My name is Silver Spoon," she growled, kicking out at her tormenter once more with a brief surge of energy that quickly gave out again.
"Ooh, anger. Good. You'll need that." The voice left her.
Silver Spoon gasped as the one in front of her dipped his head and shoved his horn into her belly. There was no pain, nor was there any blood. Terror and confusion warred within her, and she could only watch in horrified fascination as the unicorn statue pulled back, drawing out a spark of silvery, shimmering light.
As soon as it left her body, it transformed into a spoon and fell away. She recognized it instantly.
It was her spoon.
~
High above the scene unfolding in the boardroom, outside of the dream, Luna sat bound up in chains by none other than Discord. She struggled against the bonds of his power, but even here in her place of power, she wasn't strong enough to break free of his binding.
"Let me go, Discord! You can't do that to her!"
"Oh, but I already have." He held out a silver spoon and tapped it against her nose. "Trust me, Luna. This is for the best."
"Trust you? Why should I trust you? You just... What did you do?" His ability to manipulate dreams, she was forced to admit, was at least on par with her own and far more subtle than her usual approach. But even so, she hadn’t expected the result to be quite so… disturbing.
She usually stopped things before they got anywhere near the point they had in this dream. It was almost a relief when the bubble of Silver Spoon’s dream popped, banishing the remnants of the nightmare.
Beside her, Discord sat back down on the path, looking curiously introspective and tapping the spoon against his chin.
“Was it honestly necessary to be so cruel, Discord? Did you have to push her so hard? She put herself through an ordeal far worse than I have seen in a long while, and then you-” she cut herself off, feeling ill and not trusting her lunch to stay down as the images that she now could not keep from seeing flashed through her mind.
“Oh, lighten up. It’s no different than the nightmares she’s inspired in others.” He glanced at the spoon in his paw, “Well… Maybe a little different. But I had to push her, to get her to… well, you saw her at the end? She was ready to fight back.”
"Fight back? Against what? You?" The queasy feeling returned. “Surely there was an another way to do what... whatever it is you intend,” she pleaded. Perversely, she found herself hoping that his answer would be negative, that the anguish Silver Spoon had suffered hadn’t been just because she wasn't powerful enough to stop Discord on her own.
She had learned long ago to never underestimate Discord’s abilities or what he was capable of; reformed or not, she did not trust him. But he was necessary. Celestia had tried, time and again to impress that upon her, that he could do good, and was doing good. But here, she just couldn't see it.
“Against me? Oh no, Luna. I'm not so petty as to hurt a child just for the sake of doing it. As for what I intend, there really was no other way. At least not one that I can see. If I were to just leave it as a disturbing dream, she would dismiss it as such and go back to being just a drab, little, grey spoon.” In his paw the spoon shriveled and shrunk, tarnish covering most of its surface.
He held out the spoon for her to inspect. “See.. this is our little spoon before tonight.” He covered it with his eagle claw for a moment only and held it out again, “And now.”
The spoon was still covered with tarnish and shriveled, but there were also places where the tarnish was beginning to flake off. “With the right polish and some effort, she could really shine and straighten herself out. As much as it pains me to put little Silver Spoon through this, I cannot shine her for herself. She needs to discover how to do that all on her own."
“I will weep for your pain later,” Luna growled, under her breath. “Why was this the only way that you could get her to shine? By tormenting her?"
“Tormenting her? Oh no. Well... maybe a little. Just a teensy bit," he held the talons of his claws together so close she couldn't see between them. "She's been oh so awful to one of my bestest pals. And one of yours too, if I recall.”
“Then why are you even bothering? I do not recall you being this compassionate when my sister and I faced you the first time. For all I know, everything you just said was a lie and you’re just tormenting her like you did to everypony so long ago.”
“Luna… You wound me. I intend only the best, I assure you.”
“Then why chain me up? Why not explain all this to me?”
“Well, if I recall, you came in ready for a fight right at the start. I couldn’t very well let you stop me right at the crucial moment of the dream, now, could I?”
“It’s not like I could have stopped you, apparently,” she growled, looking down at her chains. “And,” she conceded, “there’s not much I can do to stop you even if you let me go.”
"What was that?” He cocked his head and held his paw to an ear, “Oh, that's right! The precious elements of harmony are all tucked safely back into the tree, aren't they? How could I have forgotten about that?" He snapped his talons together, "Oh, right. I didn't."
“Are you done teasing me?"
"Teasing you? Is that what this is?" He pulled his goatee off and fluffed her chin with it, "I'm trying to educate you. But let's be a little more blunt about it."
He snapped his talons and everything went white for less time than it took for Luna to blink.
Instead of sitting beside him and in chains, Luna found herself sitting in a far too small desk in the Ponyville Schoolhouse while Discord stood at the front of the class with a long pointer. An outline of a pony with a Discord cutie mark on its flank was drawn crudely on the board.
Instead of being painful, the desk was flexible enough to hold her without biting into her legs. She bent her head down to bite the desk, only to jerk upright when it tried to bite her right back. When she looked up again, he had a book open in his lion’s paw and began to read from it.
“A pony’s cutie mark is more than just a picture. It’s a mark of understanding, deep and profound, that touches upon a pony’s entire life. When a pony achieves a stage of enlightenment about themselves and what they are meant to do, through a profound realization of what it is that they most enjoy doing.”
“What? I am quite aware of that, thank you!” She strained and flapped her wings, but the desk had suddenly grown as heavy as a boulder.
“Shush dear, teacher is giving a lesson.” Discord droned, looking over horn rimmed glasses at her. He snapped his cloven hoof and something heavy settled onto Luna’s head.
She shook her head to knock it off quickly, only to see that it was a dunce cap. Seething, but unable to do anything about it, she buckled down on her ire and settled in to listen. It wasn't likely that he was going to just let her keep interrupting him. Her muzzle might be taken away next.
Discord didn’t seem to notice and continued his lecture.
“This realization ignites a spark within the pony, bolstering her spirit and granting her clarity whenever she focuses on a task within the purview of her talent. A pony with a talent for growing flowers, for example, will be able to understand the flowers she grows more profoundly than any pony that tries to grow flowers without that talent and, by extension, be able to tend to them more ably and produce a healthier, more beautiful flower. Yada, yada, beauty, wealth and kindness, blah blah. Ah. Here we go.”
Discord flipped through the book towards the end and began reading again.
“There does not appear to be any way to lose a cutie mark through any means, or to gain one by trickery or by means of magical assistance without serious side effects.”
He held up a talon and pointed it at the book, “Now here’s the important part: a cutie mark must be gained by understanding that comes from within. Without that understanding, a cutie mark is meaningless.” He snapped the book closed to show Starswirl the Bearded’s mark on the front of it and popped it back to wherever it had come from.
At least Luna hoped that it ended up where it had come from. “That does not explain anything,” she grunted, straining against her chair again.
“It explains everything, my dear. Silver Spoon is a one in a million case. She forgot what her talent was. That is the only reason why anypony, even a being as powerful as I, would have been able to take her cutie mark from her. For her, it was just a picture on her flank. But the spark remains. That cannot be removed; even by me.”
He snapped his talons and broke the desk down into pieces on the floor, dumping her unceremoniously to her rump amidst the ruin. She rushed him, trampling the dunce cap on her way, and pressed her horn under his chin, "You need to give her cutie mark back! Before-"
Appearing completely unconcerned, Discord laughed and pushed her horn away, "Before what, Luna? Are you going to tell her that big bad Discord took her cutie mark away? What kind of lesson would she learn from that?" He held his upper legs up to his chin and pranced about, "Oh! Save me, the big bad monster took my things!"
"That's not funny."
"Was I laughing?" He asked. Snapping his talons, he was suddenly by her side with an arm around her neck. "Luna, I'm reformed. I only want what's best for all of my little pony friends. But none of what you all were doing was helping her. Admonishments, discipline... She's still the same pony she was, if not worse. It's my turn to try."
Against her better judgement, Luna did not disagree. "Will you at least give her some sign of hope? Or let me do it? She needs a friend right now."
"Of course. I'm not evil, Luna. I'm chaotic. There is a difference, you know. Not that you seem to care."
Luna sighed. He had made some valid points, and she was forced to agree with his reasoning, even if she didn't agree with his methods. But, she could not let one thing stand. She tapped into the fury she’d felt when she first saw Discord tampering with Silver Spoon’s dream.
"You may think that you have done good here Discord, and perhaps you have. But do not think that you can do whatever you please in the name of what you consider good, Discord," she said in a voice roiling with barely contained, cold fury.
He yawned. “Yes, yes. Doom upon my house, curse upon my name and cockle-burs in my stockings. All very dramatic.”
She paused, glaring at him. "I will be watching you. If you think you can capture me again and do what you wish to one of my subjects, think again. If you even try, I will become your own personal nightmare until the end of time. Do you understand me?"
"Whatever."
She kept her gaze level with his, "Don't test me, Discord."
He sighed. "Fine. I'll ask pretty please with a cherry on top next time."
It wasn’t an apology, but it was probably the best she was going to get out of him for now. She might as well argue with a rock. She sighed, instead and shook her head.
"And I will listen,” she conceded, “You've made a... an argument." She still refused to admit that it was a good idea, but there wasn't much she could do to stop him at the moment. And he had made at least one good point amongst all those he’d tried to use. Some ponies just didn’t respond to gentle correction the way that most others did; whether by their own willfulness or that of another impressed upon them.
"Oh, fine. I'm sorry I didn't ask first. Will you at least let me try to help her my way?"
She wanted to say no. "No more nightmares," she said instead.
"No more nightmares," he agreed.
"And you won't let her suffer?"
He snapped down a white screen from the air to show a short movie of him skating around an ice rink made of the Apple Family’s pond. In the foreground, Fluttershy had a sterner than usual expression and refused to even look at him until finally he turned the pond back into a farm.
"If she doesn't experience hurt from this, then she won't learn that being friends with a petty little tyrant is bad for her finish,” he tapped her nose again with the still tarnished spoon. “I will promise that I won't add any more to it, if that's what you're asking."
Luna conceded the point only grudgingly, and nodded. "I will accept that promise... but I will watch you, Discord. Will you give her back her talent at least?"
"Oh no. I didn't even take that away. Weren't you listening?" He snapped his talons and a wash cloth flew up to smudge his image on the blackboard. "I took the picture away."
“But I thought-” Luna began, stopping herself as she tried to remember what he'd said. Most of it was hazy; she had been just a little angry, after all.
Discord flicked her nose with his talon, cutting off her train of thought. “Weren't you listening to my lecture?" He looked down at the dunce cap pointedly. "What you saw was illusion; smoke and mirrors. What you saw was a bright light transform into a spoon.”
He clucked his tongue at her. ”Seriously, Luna, you shock me. I would have thought that you, of all ponies, would understand the power of symbolism in dreams. The spark is still within her. All I've done is add some kindling. It's up to her now to reignite the fire.”
“Then you will return her cutie mark?”
“When she realizes what her talent is, I won't need to.”
Silver Spoon struggled against the stone unicorn that still held her against its cold stone chest. Down below, the silver spark of her falling spoon was fading fast and she was desperate to dive after her cutie mark and get it back.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" She cried, straining her back against the unicorn's stony front.
Much to her surprise and sudden dismay, the statue listened to her. The grip around her chest loosened and she began to slip free. Down below, the darkness roiled with unseen danger. Terror clawed at her mind, trying to freeze her cold.
She fought it and tried her best to hold onto one of the unicorn's legs, wrapping her legs around a surface that was suddenly smooth as glass. She held on, teeth gritted and tears streaming down her cheeks as the unicorn lowered his head to push her off.
"No! Wait!"
She plunged down into the darkness below.
~
Don't let me-! her stomach flopped and she jerked awake. Distantly, the laughter of Diamond Tiara, Nightmare Tiara, taunted her. Then she was alone in her room again, with nothing but the sound of her own ragged breathing and the sporadic nighttime noises that came out to play when nopony else was around.
It was just a dream. Instead of relief, all she felt was resignation. Just another Nightmare Tiara dream.
Something about that line of thought just didn't feel right. Nightmares usually ended before they got so bad, didn't they? Shivering under her covers, Silver Spoon tried to go back to sleep. Her mind wouldn't let her forget the details of the dream and kept dredging back small details that she almost certainly imagined.
The hallway and its pictures suddenly became a slide show of her life with Diamond Tiara in fast forward, showing a rapid progression of mean spiritedness that wasn't at all like the filly she knew in private. Sure, she could be a little snarky and hold petty grudges. But that's all they were; petty.
But it was so real. A crawling worm of doubt snaked through her mind, What if it wasn't a dream? That was ridiculous, of course. She closed her eyes and resolutely tried to ignore it, all the while chewing her lip and pushing back the tingling she most definitely did not feel on her flank.
Laying there, trying to ignore the itching on her flank was like trying to ignore the need to breathe or cough. She tried rubbing at it with a hoof under the covers, but that did no good. Her mind kept entertaining the fear that looking would make the dream real, that her cutie mark really was gone.
She flipped back the covers with a kick of her hind legs and sat up. The itching had become a burning, gnawing sensation that demanded her attention. She twisted about to look at her flank in the darkness.
The familiar shimmer of her silver spoon was gone.
Gray fur, ruffled from nighttime turning, was all that decorated her flank. There was no spoon, no heart, not even an impression or a shadow of any kind to indicate her cutie mark had ever been there.
Chills crawled down her spine to settle in a lump in her stomach. Licking her lips, suddenly dry, she reached a shaking hoof that weighed entirely too much down to scrape at her flank. Nothing changed. She tried again. What she was seeing couldn't be possible. Again, she scrapped at her flank.
Again and again, nothing changed.
Mad laughter bubbled up in her mind and gurgled in her throat, but nothing came out except a strangled sob.
Mind blank and unable to even blink, all she could do was stare at the place where her precious spoon had been not even a day ago. And scrape, and scrape to no avail. The harder she pressed, the faster her heart beat, thudding in her chest and thunderous in her ears.
It's got to be a dream still! It has to be!
Icy waves of nausea thrilled through her stomach as edge of the bed rose, then fell.
Suddenly, the edge felt too close and the floor too dark, too similar to the dream. Edging back from the side of the bed, she caught her pillow in between her legs and hugged it close and tight. Something solid to hold onto, something real and warm.
She fought back the tears that came with the echoes of the worst parts of the dream danced around in her mind and played themselves back in the dim moonlight streaming in through her curtained window.
“Take her cutie mark away. She doesn't deserve it anymore.”
Just a dream! Then why was her cutie mark missing?
“...doesn't deserve it anymore.”
I do! What could she do?
“...doesn't deserve it…”
Silver Spoon's breathe caught in her throat and she clutched her pillow more tightly and wet warmth spread under her cheek as she cried to herself, alone and lonely in her bed.
Quietly at first, so that it hardly seemed there, but growing stronger, a voice began to sing a wordless lullaby.
“Mom?” She asked, looking into every shadow, but seeing nothing. But that couldn't be. She was off in Manehatten with her dad, maintaining the wealth of the Spoon family. She almost cried again and pulled her pillow even tighter against her chest. Her parents would have known what to do.
The voice trailed off into silence.
“Wait! Please, come back!” she called into the darkened room.
Something was watching her from the shadows. Curiously, she did not feel afraid. The presence in her room felt loving and, for a moment, she was able to forget the sorrow that she felt from losing something so precious as her cutie mark.
“Hello?” She asked, lifting her head from her pillow to look out into the gloom.
"In order to gain back what you have lost, you must remember what you have forgotten," the voice answered.
Then the unknown mare's voice and presence both vanished as unexpectedly as they had come. Silver Spoon waited, hoping to hear that kind voice again. The silence stretched on, interrupted only by the whirring of her moon clock quietly marking the seconds passing by.
“What I've forgotten?” She asked finally.
There was nopony and nothing there in the room with her anymore. She was as certain of that as she was that her cutie mark was missing. But, she reminded herself, not lost. She felt some of the anger she'd felt in the dream rising again. “No. Not lost." She stood up on her bed and faced the darkness and her fears, "I'll get it back."
"But how?" she asked herself. The darkness in her room loomed again. There was no more answer from the mare, and nothing in the shadows so much as hinted at a hidden presence either good or evil.
"What will happen when I go back to school without a cutie mark?" The thoughts of all the ponies she had put down for not having a cutie mark came back to her. They had been the ones in the boardroom, she realized; the shadow ponies. They'd come to see the one who had belittled them handed her comeuppance.
Four solid thumps of somepony getting out of bed interrupted her thoughts. It was the middle of the night. Who could be up at this hour?
Besides yourself? She thought, keeping as quiet and still as possible as the hoofs steps got louder and louder, then passed her door without stopping and began to recede.
Upon further reflection, she decided that it could only be Mrs. Peach. She was the elderly live in friend of the family that her parents asked to stay with her while they were off travelling to who the hoof knew where. She'd almost forgotten that her parents had left, again, just yesterday. What was she doing up at this time of night?
The sound of running water answered her question.
What if she sees me without a cutie mark? What will she think?
Worse yet, who would she tell? Mrs. Peach had a reputation as the worst gossip in Ponyville, a reputation she preened and maintained like one of Diamond Tiara's father's pet birds. If she found out, then it would be all over town before breakfast was even lukewarm.
Plodding hoof steps creaked and cracked the floorboards just outside her room again. And again, they did not stop. On they went, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing. She heard nothing else coming from down the hall.
“Thinking about it is getting me nowhere.” But what to do to get somewhere?
Moonlight glinting on her pen sitting atop her desk caught her attention. Maybe that was the answer. Planning. She could make a plan and stick to it.
So what if she had lost her cutie mark? Nopony had to know. There were more than enough frilly cloaks and long dresses in her closet that it would never seem odd that she chose to wear one every day. So she wanted to look pretty. Was there anything wrong with that?
But, she reminded herself, Diamond Tiara will suspect something is up, and if she does find out, she'll eventually tell everypony. Friend or not, she's almost a worse gossip than Mrs. Peach.
"I'll just have to be very meticulous when planning is all," she reasoned and hopped lightly from her bed to sit at her desk.
Her notebook and pen lay together in a pool of moonlight bright enough for her to read by. For a moment, she considered pulling her diary out from under her bed, but she wasn't even sure she could admit to her diary that she had lost her cutie mark.
She opened the notebook and stared at the first page, tapping her hoof lightly against her pen. The task ahead of her felt daunting, especially since she had no idea what it was that she had forgotten or how to go about remembering it. What if she never did?
"Don't think like that, Silver Spoon," she told herself. Picking up the pen, she considered what to do. What was it that Cheerilee said about solving problems? Write out the problem.
She did so and stared at the words. She wanted to erase them and never look at them again. But doing so wouldn’t solve anything.
I've lost my cutie mark.
She pushed down a tingle of panic that threatened to come back up. "Okay..." she mumbled around the pen, "Now what?"
"What's the first step?" Miss Cheerilee's voice came through her mind then, whispering soft assurance. She could almost feel her teacher looking over her shoulder at a math problem she'd started.
"Hide the fact that I've lost it?" she asked. There was no answer. "Try to remember what I've forgotten?"
Still receiving no answer and having a choice between trying to solve the problem and trying to put off solving the problem until she could find the right time.
"But how do I solve the problem if I'm being teased and laughed at everywhere I go?" Still, there was no answer.
"I get it... Solve it on my own." She sighed and looked up at the moon through the gap between her curtains. The light on her face felt comforting. Did Luna make the light feel so good? She closed her eyes to bask in the cool light of the midnight moon, letting it soothe the ache behind her eyes and smooth away some of the tightness left over from crying.
Eyes still closed, she mused, "I can't solve my problem if I can't focus on it. I..." Chewing on her pen, she contemplated that possibility and came to a decision, "I need to hide it for now. Just a day, is all."
She wrote down a first step in her notebook.
Hide it.
Now that she had a direction, it was time to start filling out the rest of the plan. She hunched over her notebook and began to plan out the next day.
~
Morning crept in while Silver Spoon made her plans. She knew what she was going to say to Diamond Tiara, to Mrs. Peach, and to the other school foals. A voluminous, heavy linen cloak from her winter was already clasped about her neck, long enough to almost touch the floor and more than enough to cover her flank.
She'd made copious notes, trying to think of every little detail that she could. Some were frankly absurd, even in her mind, and she suspected others of being equally so. One item in her notebook, the name Cheerilee, had a big question mark next to it and a small pile of eraser fluff shreds made a neat little nest about it.
Mrs. Cheerilee was the one big potential hiccup in her day and she was running out of time to come up with something that would convince her to let her keep the cloak on. Mrs. Cheerilee’s list of rules was a short one, but right near the top was the rule against wearing outerwear indoors, and she abided by those rules unconditionally.
The big question mark taunted her. If she couldn't get past it…
“Silver Spoon!” Mrs. Peach called from down the stairs in the kitchen. The smell boiled oats and cream drifted in from under the door. Her stomach reminded her that she'd been up most of the night. It also meant that she needed to be ready for school.
Hoofsteps clattered on the stairs up to the second story. Time was up. She flipped the little notebook closed and slipped it into her saddlebags. She would just have to improvise.
Mrs. Peach tapped a hoof on her door gently. “Wake up, little Spoon. Your breakfast is ready!”
Silver Spoon dropped to the floor from her stool and swept her cloak down about herself just as Mrs. Peach cracked open the door to peek in.
“Oh! My word, you’re up bright and early. No loitering in bed for you today?” She felt the older mare's eyes try to peel away her winter cloak. The decision to wear it in the middle of summer seemed like a silly idea, but none of her summer cloaks had felt long enough.
Silver Spoon fancied she heard something like suspicion in the caretaker’s voice. Play it cool. There’s no way she could know.
“I’m just so excited to get to school! Diamond Tiara and I have the most amazing-” her mind froze. What had she written in the journal again? “The most amazing… thing!” She smiled, wishing that she’d studied more instead of worrying about the Cheerilee dilemma. She might not even get that far!
“A thing? What sort of-”
“A... dance!” She interrupted the caretaker. She paused, then swished the front edge of her cloak with a hoof. “You see, that’s why I need the cloak. I have to have it for the… the dance!” Inwardly, she cringed.
“Oh. Okay…” Mrs. Peach looked as though she believed the lie as much as if Silver Spoon had claimed she was the Princess of the Night. While dancing. She wouldn’t have believed herself. “Well, breakfast is ready.”
Mrs. Peach left the door open as she walked away, the clopping of her hooves on the hard plank flooring not quite masking her nearly unintelligible grumbling about silly fillies and the strange things the foals were up to these days.
Silver Spoon followed after her, misgivings gnawing at her belly. She tried to push them aside. Even if her first test hadn’t gone as gracefully, or smoothly, as she’d imagined, she could do this. What truly mattered was hiding the truth of her predicament; at least for now.
~
“Are you sure, little Spoon?” Mrs. Peach asked her as Silver Spoon backed down the walkway. “You barely even touched your oats.”
“I'm sure, Mrs. Peach,” she replied, “I'm not hungry. Really.”
“You're not feeling sick, are you?”
Again, Silver Spoon got the impression that she was deeply suspicious. She couldn't help but glance back behind her to make sure her flank was still covered.
“I’m sure!” She shouted, then turned and made a dash to the gate, “Bye!”
She slowed down as soon as she turned the corner. One hurdle down. She didn't want to think about how many more remained. Sitting at the table with her cloak on was hard enough and keeping it from flapping open had been awkward at best. She knew her behavior was puzzling to say the least. She dreaded hearing the questions that would come up during her next trip to the day spa.
Diamond Tiara was waiting at the corner for her. She had to force herself to see her friend as she was, and not through the lens filter of the horrific… Was it a nightmare? Nightmares didn't take away cutie marks.
“What’s with the cloak?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Oh…” She had rehearsed this question; it had been the easiest one to answer out of all of them. “Bad tail day,” she murmured, looking down at her hooves and pushing her glasses up higher on her muzzle. “It just frizzed up for no reason.”
“You wouldn't want the other fillies to see that,” she agreed, then sniffed and lifted her nose, “You really should stop seeing that barber of yours. Cloud Dancer says the new spa has the most divine mane and tail dresser outside of Canterlot.”
“Cloud Dancer?” Silver Spoon tried to place the name. It didn't sound even close to anypony that she knew, and she was pretty sure she knew most of Diamond Tiara’s father’s friends.
“Oh, that’s right. You haven't heard.” Diamond Tiara bit her lip and looked around before whispering, “Daddy started dating another mare.”
“No! What happened to Rain Flower?”
“I don’t know! I liked her… She...” Diamond Tiara’s lower lip quivered for a moment, then firmed up into a more familiar sneer. “She’s gone now. That’s all that matters, isn't it?” She said it as if she didn’t quite believe it herself. Silver Spoon had rarely, if ever seen her friend so vulnerable.
“I know you liked her, Di.” Silver Spoon bumped up against her friend and the two walked quietly down the road to the schoolhouse. The companionable silence was a rarity. She didn't make one… well, she didn’t make another snide comment about her fictitious tail frizz. It was a small, hollow victory.
She glanced back at her flank for the briefest second and caught herself. All things considered, the day could have started a lot worse.
Their classmates passed them on the way to the schoolhouse. Some tried to chat, but Silver Spoon warned them away with a glance. It wouldn't do her any good to disturb Diamond Tiara’s fragile vulnerability.
“Good morning, girls,” Cheerilee said in a cheery tone, trotting past them with full saddlebags and a fresh, shiny apple perched on her head.
“Good morning Miss Cheerilee,” they chorused together. Diamond Tiara fell silent again, brooding, the rest of the way to the schoolhouse. Silver Spoon was only happy to let her be; she had enough on her mind as it was.
When they got to the schoolhouse, Diamond Tiara stopped her before she opened the door. “Don't you worry. Your secret is safe with me.”
Guilt fluttered through her stomach. Had she done the right thing by not telling her best friend? By lying to her? What if Diamond Tiara would have helped and actually kept quiet? Stop second guessing yourself! It's done already. No turning back.
“Thanks, Di. You’re the best," she said, hoping the lie sounded convincing, and pushed open the schoolhouse door and then held it for her friend.
“I know.”
Inside, Cheerilee was shoving aside the debris of a desk that had somehow been squashed in the middle of the night and on the board was a crude drawing of a pony with an unrecognizable, smeared blob instead of a cutie mark, as though someone had tried -and mostly succeeded- to erase it. Sweetie Belle picked up the remnants of a dunce cap that had been trampled into a mess with her magic and tossed it in the garbage.
“Well, class. I’m not sure what happened last night, but you can be sure that I'll be looking into it. I can’t have any of my little ponies sitting on the ground!“
Last night. Her dream. The pony on the blackboard with its cutie mark erased. Heart thudding, she froze. It had to be a part of the dream still! But what if it wasn’t? What if this was real? What if whatever had taken her cutie mark was letting her know that it was still watching her?
What do I do? If this is a dream, I can just laugh it off. But if it’s real… oh, it feels so real. But then, so did the dream. How do I tell? Do I-
“Silver Spoon?” Miss Cheerilee said, interrupting her train of thoughts, “Is everything alright?”
What do I say? I never- Wait. Simple question.
“It’s fine, Miss Cheerilee. I-” I what?! Think! Something not stupid, please! A crude drawing of a bee on the wall, the work of a younger class, caught her attention. “I thought I saw a bee.” She pointed a hoof at the bee. Why’d I do that?
Cheerilee rolled her eyes and pointed a hoof to the coatrack by the door. “Oh. Well, there’s no bee in here. Now put up your cloak and come sit down. Class is already late as it is.” She turned away again and lifted a hoof towel to rub away the last of the pony figure on the board.
The ground dropped out from under her hooves.
“Miss Cheerilee-”
“Silver Spoon…” Cheerilee sighed, turning back around. Silver Spoon shivered, the cutie mark was the only thing she had managed to erase. “Please do as I ask.”
“Please! I need to-” She started again before being interrupted by Cheerilee stomping a hoof firmly and pointing the hoof cloth covered hoof at her.
“Silver Spoon, I am willing to put up with a lot from you. Not following the classroom rules is not one of those things.”
Shame burnt her ears and her cheeks, but she couldn’t back down. She stamped her hoof firmly on the floor and shouted “You need to listen to me!”
The faint murmuring that had been going on in the class halted. Everypony was staring at her in open mouthed shock. Nopony ever yelled at Cheerilee, and especially not her students.
“Fine.” Her voice turned flat, “I’m listening. What do you have to say?”
“It’s… private.” She knew what others would think. She knew Diamond Tiara was thinking it. It was more than a frizzy tail. She could feel the stares on her, trying to get underneath her cloak to see what she was hiding. She shivered and looked away from them.
“Let’s go outside to talk then, alright?”
Cheerilee ushered her out of the classroom and into the schoolyard, empty save for the balls and game areas. “Everypony else, please start reading chapter four out of your history books.” She shut the class door behind her and led Silver Spoon a little ways away, out of easy earshot.
Of course, as soon as something exciting happened - like exactly what was happening then - everypony had to see what was going on. Silver Spoon glared at her classmates staring out at her. It did no good; they were going to stare whether she willed them to or not. She shifted a hoof step to the side so that most of Cheerilee's hind legs were between her flank and the bank of windows.
Cheerilee was looking at her expectantly, the worry still there, but beginning to fade. She was running out of time fast and her mind refused to do anything but suggest useless, obvious lies.
I could always… She bit her lip and felt a weighty decision settle about onto her back. The day obviously wasn't going to go as she planned. She couldn’t even remember anymore what the plan had been. Helpless tears trickled down her cheeks as she pondered what she was going to do. She fiddled with the clasp on the front of her cloak. Just a twitch and it would come off.
“What is it, Silver Spoon? What’s so important that you had to interrupt the class to tell me?” Silver Spoon felt Cheerilee’s leg drift around her neck, “What’s bothering you so much?”
“Miss Cheerilee,” she cried, “I don't know what to do! I lost... I-” She couldn't say it. Her hoof pressed harder against the clasp. She took a deep breath and leaned into Miss Cheerilee's embrace, seeking both comfort and the strength to do the only thing she could think of to do, no matter how painful it was. Now or never.
“Please, I need your help!” A quick twitch of her hoof and it was done.
“Of course I will help, my little pony. You were about to say you lost... something? What did you lose?"
"I- I-" She still couldn't say it. She waited, hoping that the wind would do the hardest part for her. No wind came, and Cheerilee hadn't seen her undoing the clasp, apparently. Resigned, she lowered her head to tug at the cloak and let it slide off her back.
Cheerilee stepped back to let the cloak fall away. "Now, what did you…” her voice trailed off.
Moments ticked by. A bird chirped in the distance.
Silver Spoon was afraid to look up, afraid to see the look of... anything on her teacher's face. Her fears resurfaced. What if Cheerilee was disappointed in her? What if she was afraid? What ifs and might bes started to pile up in her mind, each one clamoring for attention.
Each one brought an image of Cheerilee's face twisted into a wild caricature of one of her fears. Disgust, contempt, loathing... She didn't want to see any of those things.
But the silence was worse. “Miss Cheerilee?” She whispered.
“Sweet, merciful sisters! Your cutie mark!”
Cheerilee's exclamation jerked her attention back around to the schoolhouse. Had they heard? Somepony had. Her heart skipped a beat.
Diamond Tiara had stuck her head out from the schoolhouse door and was staring at her, mouth agape. She thought she saw confusion, then shock. An array of other emotions flittered across her friends face, too subtle to guess at. But the one it settled on was one she was all too familiar with.
It was the face that Diamond Tiara showed when she felt betrayed. She'd seen a small hint of that this morning. How long had been dealing with Rain Flower's leaving? This was fresh. Hurt played across her friend’s face before it twisted into an angry scowl. She glared for a moment longer before she disappeared back inside.
What Diamond Tiara had said earlier played through her mind again like the echoes of her dream.
"She's gone. That's all that matters, isn't it?"
Silver Spoon had never felt so alone.
