Proud

The bright July sun slowly warmed the ground as McIntosh stepped to the rear of the wagon to give his aging siredam a helping hoof down while his sister unloaded the baggage over the sideboard.

“Thank y’, McIntosh.” The old green swayback earth pony mare smiled at her grandson. The yellow and orange flower print shawl about her shoulders shivered slightly as she steadied her old legs back on the ground.

“Eeyup.” The big red work pony nodded back. “You’re welcome.”

“C’mon, Granny Smith, we need to get you on the train and settled. It’s going t’ be a long ride,” the young orange mare urged as she lifted the two sets of apple-motif embroidered saddlebags onto her own back. Saddlebags settled, she picked up a pale-brown, well used, rounded suitcase with a well weathered lariat loop stitched into one lower corner. Inside the loop, if one looked carefully, the faded initials O.B. could still be seen.

The two pony siblings escorted the elderly family matriarch onto the station platform. McIntosh walked Granny Smith to the door of the coach, seeing that she didn’t stumble as she crossed the gap from platform to car as she stepped aboard, as Applejack handed off their baggage to the purser at the baggage car further down. With the elder pony safely aboard and the conductor lending a helping hoof to see her to her seat, McIntosh turned his attention to where his sister was trotting up jauntily, her own saddlebags still across her back.

McIntosh shifted his position slightly at his sister’s approach, barring her path to the coach door. The years of experience as siblings let her know that he had something he needed to speak with her about, and she slowed to a halt as she reached the spot where he stood.

“Mac,” Applejack opened, inviting him into the conversation with her easy and familiar tone.

“Are you sure about this, AJ?” Mac asked softly, leaning in towards his sister who kept a fair distance between them by lowering her head slightly such that the brim of her Stetson touched the end of his muzzle. He’d been toying with how to broach the subject ever since she had made her will known at the dinner table just over a week ago, having caught both him and Apple Bloom more than a bit by surprise with her announcement. Now, with just moments to spare before she stepped on the train, he simply went with the basics.

“Ah’m sure, big brother.” Applejack raised her head, offering a small, but loving and genuine, if sad, smile as a stray ray of sunshine glanced off a window and into her emerald eyes setting them a glitter. “I’ve had a long talk with Ma ‘n’ Pa in my heart, and I know that this is what I need to do. We Apples have always been about family, and I guess in all my zeal for that family I somehow lost sight of what that means to us somewhere, I couldn’t see the orchard for the apple trees so to speak.”

McIntosh nodded sagely, and knew what she meant. He’d seen her every morning for over a week, strangely up before he was, sitting in front of their parents’ graves in the ‘family grove’ near the entrance to the main orchard. Often he’d approached quietly, out of concern for her, only to hear her sniffling quietly and murmuring ‘I’m sorry.’ He’d respectfully given her her space. He’d often gone to the grove for his own reasons, or to great-grandad’s walnut grove near the edge of the Everfree*, when he needed to take those moments to listen to the wisdom of his ancestors. It wasn’t often his headstrong younger sister showed her philosophical side, but that fact she had her moments just reaffirmed to him that Apples didn’t fall far from the tree.

“So you’re sure about this.”

“Eeyup,” Applejack flashed a wry smirk in reply, “and I know that even if this turns out to be a mistake, I’ve got friends and family I can come back to who will be there to help me through it.”

“Eeyup,” Mac echoed.

“So, as long as we’re on the subject, what did you see in …” Applejack paused as she struggled with herself for a moment, the words not wanting to come out right.

“Diamond?” Mac finished for her.

“Yeah,” AJ swallowed hard before finishing, “… Diamond.”

“I’ll be honest with you AJ, …”

“Is there any other way for an Apple to be?” the blonde-maned farmpony ribbed him as she gave him a friendly chuck in the shoulder with a well groomed hoof.

McIntosh smiled at his sister’s remark as he continued, “I don’t rightly know, it took a bit of thinking right there that morning, but I guess when I thought about it I saw something that reminded me a of a ‘little princess’ I once knew, who lived in an enchanted wood, and who was a little hard to get along with at times …”

“I was not …” Applejack began defensively, only to haul up on her own reins before she went any farther.

McIntosh said nothing, and merely gave his sister a wry half grin, watching as she tumbled her thoughts around in her head before she replied. “You think, Mac?”

“I know.”

A sharp double blast from the train’s whistle broke the isolation of the moment for the two ponies as the conductor called out, “All ‘board!”

“Well then, take care of the castle, my good Ser.” Applejack smiled at her brother before rearing slightly to throw her forelegs around his neck and giving him a mighty hug, “… and your lady as well.”

Mac hugged her back with one leg before she broke it off and hopped aboard the outbound train with a final wave, which he merrily returned, along with his parting words.

“As you wish.”

* * * * *

Not the way I planned it.

Not the way I planned it.

This is not the way I planned it.

The mantra repeated itself over and over in Diamond Tiara’s head in time with the clickity-clack of the train’s wheels on the rails as it wound its way through the Equestrian countryside. No, this was not how she had planned things at all. Her plan had been in the letter she’d sent to McIntosh the day after her epiphany in the lobby of the Shady Rest Hotel.

In the letter she’d told him about her realization, and how she wanted to proceed in light of it. She had told him how she would like him come out and join her in Hooferville at the end of the month, for the weekend, before returning with her to Ponyville. Diamond sighed softly to herself as she watched the countryside whiz past outside the train car window, whiz by like the last three weeks had.

She had wanted to have him alone, in a place she felt safe, when she made her confession. Her confession, the pink near mare-grown filly mulled the words over in her mind. Confessions and apologies, that was something she was going to be doing a lot of in the next while, she figured, and she’d wanted to start with him. There were so many ponies that she had snubbed over the years, enough she knew she couldn’t remember them all. So many misdeeds …

Easy there girl, a voice inside her offered as a phantom hoof softly stroked the base of her crest, no sense digging yourself a pity pit to wallow in now, is there?

No, there wasn’t any sense in that, Diamond had to agree with herself as she tried to focus on the reflection in the train car window. Very faintly she could see, if she tried, the image of the tiny pink mare sitting contentedly the base of her mane. It looked like a miniature version of herself, even down to the five-arched silver tiara on its head matching the one Diamond had ‘left behind’ in Ponyville. The only real difference beyond size, and corporeality, was the battered golden circlet, with one fractured section taped back into place, that hung rather lopsided above its head.

I guess not. Diamond though to herself.

Of course not, the mini-mare yawned as she snuggled down into the luscious frost and lavender locks of Diamond’s mane. Now, you’ve got things to do, but I’ll be right here if you need me.

Diamond could almost hear the muffled grumble of disapproval from somewhere back in the darker reaches of herself, where the little imp, the other half of her conscience, sat sullenly with its muzzle stuck in a corner like a scolded foal. Diamond smiled inwardly at the image of the sulking homunculus. She knew she’d never be rid of the little imp as much as the imp now realized it could never be rid of its benevolent twin, or the fact that Diamond was now in charge of both of them.

Changing her line of thought, the young mare shifted her position on the seat so she could lean against the window. As she did so, a happy metallic clink of coin on coin, many of them if fact, could be noticed quietly emanating from her saddlebags as her flank nudged against them. When McIntosh’s unfortunate reply, that he would not be able to make it out to Hooferville as she’d asked, had arrived just over a week ago; there had also been a package that he’d sent to go along with the letter, in addition to a copy of the stud contract as she’d requested.

Diamond had many a time over the last few weeks had kicked herself for not reading the contract before signing it. Even now, there were so many questions that hadn’t been answered having read the damnable document. But it was all in the past now, she’d trusted her father to treat her like his little princess as he always had. She’d naively expected her father to clean up her messes and to keep letting her do as she wanted. Well, this time she had run into genuine adult size consequences to her filly bred machinations, and it was nopony’s fault but her own. She’d befouled her apprenticeship opportunities, lost her right to inherit her family’s business, and if being placed as a contract broodmare to some overworked sharecropper was to be her fate, well, she at least she could make sure she got the pick of the litter if nothing else.

But, that wasn’t the case entirely; there was something about McIntosh that didn’t add up, something that definitely did not add up at all from what she’d seen. It was that… that intangible, nagging, something about him that had kept the gears in her head turning ever since she’d left Ponyville in that horrid rush just over a month ago.

That first night together in the little breeding shed that earth ponies chose to call a ‘Love Shack’ he had been … well, not what she’d expected at all, and it bugged her. If he’d just sauntered in and mounted her like she’d expected, taken her brusquely and roughly like Applejack had wanted, and made her scream like the crowd of revelers gathered outside had been hoping… If that had happened she’d never have considered coming back after having run away. But it didn’t.

Instead he’d been, if she had to pick a word now, she guessed it have to be reluctant. His first stop after entering the shed had been not her, but the side bar. Even when she had begged, cajoled, and goaded him to just get it over with, he hadn’t. He did slap her flank hard enough to get her to yelp and bring a cheer from the gathered eavesdroppers outside, and when she’d slapped him back once he’d let her go, he had been the one to apologize. Even more, she recalled, he’d said he deserved it, though she now regretted having slapped him.

Then the conversation had begun. Choices and consequences, she recalled, had been the initial topic. He’d peeled her psyche like an onion, or perhaps, as she now thought, an apple. She’d had to admit he was right; with every point he’d made as he slowly pared her to the metaphorical bone that night, he’d been right. But there had been something else, too, in the course of that conversation she was now slowly realizing, and it was not in what he’d said, but in what he’d done.

He’d been in control.

Clam, collected, calculating, even distant, yet in no way cold. He had been in total control of himself, and her, that night. It didn’t matter how reluctant he might have been to use any of it, the simple fact was that he had had it, achieved it, with almost no effort that she could deduce. In fact he hadn’t used it, except to encourage her to be aware of her situation, to realize the consequences of her actions, and choose how she would accept the consequences of the choices she still had to make. In the end she’d chosen remain in the shed, to accept him, and the contract. Diamond smiled to herself as the conductor called out the upcoming stop. She remembered telling him when it came time for her to again pick her fate ‘I choose the contract.’ It wasn’t true; she’d accepted him that night, not the contract.

As the train settled to a halt Diamond rose and placed her saddle bags on her back, the coins in the left bag shifting and clinking as she did so. The package that had McIntosh had sent along with the letter and contract, Diamond smiled at the thought, had contained two-hundred neatly rolled bits, and after all her expenses and debts, and the one way ticket to Ponyville, she still had just over one hundred bits left. It had been tempting to splurge on herself with the windfall, but she had opted not to. Well, mostly not. There had been a little candy run she’d made, parentally approved of course, to Bucker’s Store with Mrs. Bridley’s three fillies for peppermints, redhots, and taffy.

Her saddlebags in place, Diamond made her way to the coach door, her head high and level, back straight, and her stride measured, proud and strong. A curtain of steam from the engine billowed by as she reached the door. For a moment she could see McIntosh waiting on the platform before the cloud obscured him. Undeterred, Diamond stepped from the coach door onto the platform, straight into the crushing arms of a massive raspberry and periwinkle quartropus.

“Ooooohhh, you’re back, you’re back, you’re back!” it shrieked with unbounded glee as it elatedly and powerfully tried to squeeze the living essence out of Diamond.

“Puh …” Diamond gasped for air against the ever tightening grip enveloping her.

“We were all so worried about you after you ran away, and your parents were so, so, so, sad, especially your mother. I was so worried about her, and you …”

“Pi …”

“And then you sent that letter, and …”

“PINKIE!” Diamond managed to finally call out, and the bruising grip abruptly ceased, the azalea amoeba withdrawing its pseudopods and reverting to its normal appearance.

“What?” the party pony par-extraordinaire quirped cocking her head to one side as if to ask ‘what’s wrong with a hug?’

Diamond just ignored the comment focusing instead on the big red form of McIntosh as her muzzle wrinkled into a scowl and her furrowing brow pinched her crystal blue eyes into gleaming daggers of deadly intent. Across the platform, the scarlet stallion drew his head back nervously, green eyes widening at her visible display of ire.

Easy there girl, a faint voice whispered from somewhere behind her ear, best hoof forward. If he’s the stallion you suspect he is there’s probably a reason, right?

Diamond relaxed herself, exhaling her rage in a soft breath that dissipated in the platform air with the last of the wisps of steam from the locomotive.

“Pinkie Promise, right?” Diamond offered with a soft and genuinely brilliant smile to the big red colt as he approached. She watched his own shock melting back into the gentle placid form that so many knew him for.

“Eeyu— ”

“Of course silly filly,” Pinkie cut off Mac’s reply, “as soon as he’d told us that he’d gotten a letter from you saying you were safe, I made him Pinkie Promise to tell me that if you ever mentioned when or if you might be coming back that he had to tell me …”

Diamond slowly tuned out the ongoing ramble of the party pony as explanations and qualifiers were spliced and added on to one another as the perky pink pony continued on and on. Diamond shot a pained glance at McIntosh silently asking ‘How do we turn it off?’

* * * * *

McIntosh took in the pained expression of exasperation Di gave him, and he felt for her. This was definitely not what the young mare was expecting on her return, most certainly not. She had told him in her brief final letter from Hooferville that she’d be taking an afternoon train back to Ponyville from Pretty Colt Junction, and would be arriving near dusk. She had also explicitly asked him in the letter not to tell anypony else that she was coming. Unfortunately, as Mac had already known, Di had been too late to buy in on that hand, as Pinkie had already extracted her promise from him earlier to tell her. But, he had made sure when he had learned of Diamond’s impending return to extract a promise from the pink party pony, prior to telling her, to keep the knowledge to herself, and she had.

Still, he couldn’t let Diamond’s silent plea for assistance go unheeded, and a quick glance up and down the platform brought him the information he needed.

“Um, Pinkie,” he began in a soft easy tone, “where are the foals?”

The pink pony’s plethora of perky prattle ceased instantaneously. Mac watched as a small muscle twitch made its way from the base of her tail up the ridge of Pinkie’s spine causing a subtle shift in her mane as the hairs at the base rose to attention. Pinkie always said of her ‘Pinkie Sense’ that it was something beyond her control, but this was the one ability that Mac knew to be an exception to the rule, and it was called ‘Find the Foals’.

Pinkie’s head snapped up, almost telescopically atop her neck, eyes wide and ears scanning intently as she panned the station platform before fixing on the location of the wayward siblings, and she was gone in a shot.

Diamond gave another small sigh of relief as she got to her hooves from where she’d been unceremoniously released from Pinkie’s welcome back hug and rapid departure.

“Hello, McIntosh,” she addressed him. Her voice was articulate and even, poised and purposeful. It was a pleasure to hear it again. But as she spoke, he could see a shiver ripple beneath her well brushed coat, her poise melting somewhat as her ears dipped slightly, tired more than anything, it told him. Her eyes held steady on his though, and through them he could see signs of the growth occurring within.

“No, no, no, you two,” Pinkie chided the twins as she walked by, her head lowered in reproach of the pair so her muzzle was in line with Pound and Pumpkin’s rumps as she herded the twin terrors of Sugarcube corner off the platform. “We do not try to mail our baby sister to Abu Dhabi, ever, no matter how cute they are. Kapiche?”

Diamond’s head turned as she and Mac watched as Pinkie marched the pair down the platform steps past him and Diamond. On Pinkie‘s back was a large cardboard box, and in the box none other than the most recent addition to the Cake family, Velvet Cake, rode like some eastern sultana atop a pink elephant. The crayon scrawl on the side of the box reading; “One little sister: To Abu Dha-”

The little, deep chocolate-red earth pony foal, with her two-tone silver and frost mane complimenting her golden honey-brown eyes, just glanced about smiling like the grand marshal of some parade, looking sweet as sugar and cute as a kitten. She was going to be a guaranteed heartbreaker when she grew up by almost universal concurrence. Of course, that was provided her older siblings didn’t accidentally succeed in mailing her to a foreign nation at some point.

“It’s good to see you, Diamond.” Mac turned his attention back to the mare in front of him, a smile of pleasure and relief in accompaniment of the words.

“Mac, I …” Diamond began, but Mac cut her off with a subtle but firm shake of his head.

“Not here, please. How about we talk over dinner?”

Mac watched as Diamond mulled the request a moment then answered, “Eeyip,” a warm and wily smile spreading across her muzzle as she spoke. Mac smiled back and gestured with a hoof for her to lead the way off the platform.

As they made their way from the station, Mac noted that Diamond slowed her pace and shifted her position, allowing him to come up alongside her and actually overtake her. Diamond adopted a close place of a neck’s length trail to his right side, as she seemed to try to hide herself from one side, shielded by his greater bulk from the setting sun.

“So what’s for dinner?” her voice was soft enough to carry only to him and he turned his head slightly to yield her greater attention. “I’d really love some of Granny Smith’s apple dumplings with oats and blackstrap. Oh wait, it’s Friday, Applejack usually does the cooking …, uhm, carrot and sweet potato casserole?”

“Nnope, and nnope.”

“Umm, Apple Bloom usually cooks on Thursdays, you’re usually out in the orchards every day until nearly meal time …, so I’m making dinner?”

“Nnope,” Mac gave a single chuff of amusement, “Granny and AJ left for Manehatten this morning. AB and the girls took the Crusaders on a campout over to Beaver’s Bend, and I’d be a right big fly collector of a meadow muffin if I were to make you cook dinner right after getting off the train.”

“Yeah,” Diamond interjected her bemused agreement, “you would at that.”

“I thought we might eat out tonight,” Mac finished as he leaned in to offer a friendly nudge to her ear with the tip of his nose only to have her shift away from him before he could, a wary expression in her eye.

“Actually, a hayburger and fries would be really nice right now.” Diamond brought herself to a halt as she spoke and glanced about cautiously at the area of town they were now in, “but Hayburger is on the East side of town and we’re … heading for the North side.”

“Eeyup,” Mac tossed his head confidently, flashing a grin of approval at Diamond’s deductive awareness so far. She was learning, it seemed, to look with her mind and not just her eyes.

“The only restaurant up this way is … the one at The Lucky Clover.”

“Eeyup.” Mac smiled and nodded as Di made the connections, though something in the tone of the last words didn’t speak of confidence in them.

“Well then,” Diamond’s voice took on a higher air to it, “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t spend all of the bits you sent.”

McIntosh felt his mental apple cart bounce hard in a rut at Diamond’s statement, but he held his composure and resisted the urge to facehoof. Did she really think he expected her to pay? He just looked at her blankly as she seemed to weigh the bottom of the bag with the end of her nose. He could hear the bits clinking, probably around a hundred if he was right.

“Hmm,” she sniffed without looking at him.

Sweet Celestia’s sorbet colored tail, Mac thought as he felt a phantom smack upside the back of his head, she actually did.

Still got some work to do there, eh Bucko? Came the voice from a devilishly dapper dressed, horns included, miniature image of himself in a black suit and opera cape now sitting on the left hame ball** of his yoke.

Aw shut it, ya horny goat-brain, of course he knows he’s got work to do. How’s she supposed to know stuff she hasn’t had a chance to learn yet? Retorted a voice from the right, where a second self image wrapped in a flowing white toga now sat, halo above its head.

Nut’s to that, all she had to do was bring the hot buns for the sausage party when she signed that contract. Ooh yeah, and what sweet buns they be ... The darksider exalted lasciviously, rubbing his hooves together as he did.

Um, Sam? The toga wearer addressed his counterpart uneasily.

What Ralph?

I think we’re pissing the boss off.

Both homunculi paused a moment and looked at their parent form with trepidation.

Eeyup, Mac mentally affirmed as the pair shot a quick glance at each other before diving out of sight.

“This should be more than enough actually.” Diamond’s voice drew Mac’s mind back into the moment.

“Nnope.” Mac stopped her.

“Oh come on McIntosh, Daddy never paid more than 180 for three of us, including tip. It’s not like it’s the Silver Cup tearoom in Canterlot. If we split dessert we’ll easily be under 100 for two of us.”

Mac watched as Diamond finished her explanation, sure of herself in her assessment. Mac had to agree, the math was sound, as was the reasoning. It was the pretext, though, that was flawed.

“Nnope.”

“And why not?” Diamond moved around to face him head on. He could hear the confusion in her voice as the timbre rose with it. He could also see the tension growing in her posture, along with the formative scowl on her face as her tail swished uneasily. “I hope you didn’t plan on getting me drunk and taking advantage of me tonight.” the near mare-grown filly off-hoofedly sniped at him, “I’m only drinking water if that was your plan, so it won’t work.”

When Diamond had started in Mac had been bracing for a prolonged storm of words. The ensuing tempest was shorter than he had guessed. Her body language still said ‘ticked’ though, but the steady gleam in her eyes and her even breathing said ‘I’m waiting to hear you out’. He needed to answer.

“Nnope.”

Mac watched as a wave of tension made its way from Diamonds withers to her rump, the muscles tightening to her increasing frustration, her frown of disapproval tightening into a taught line of displeasure. Mac watched the change pass over Diamond but it was in her eyes that the dancing sparks within finally exploded as her temper finally tore through her calm.

“Nnope? Nnope!? What in the name of Nightmare Moon is that supposed to mean you thick-headed, scruffy looking, applebucker!?”

Mac took an easy breath of the evening air, letting the calm pass through him as Diamond simmered silently in front of him. Her beautiful toned form was still trembling from the outburst as she stood there her eyes fixed to him, brilliant blue and diamond hard. The embers of rage were slowly fading, but still present, full of hot glittering emotion ready to catch fire at a moment. He knew he had her full attention as her breathing remained strong and even, and not hot and ragged from rage.

“It means, Diamond,” Mac began, channeling a deep soothing calm into his tone, “that I did not expect you to have to pay for dinner, not even half, and never did. I’m sure you have a number of other questions as well. However,” he paused to glance off-angle at the approaching sunset, recalling the date and noting the angle to the horizon as he did, “the reservation I made at The Lucky Clover is in about ten minutes from now, and I’d prefer to continue this conversation at that time.”

Diamond just stood there, the tension trembling inside her as Mac moved to step past her, before pausing.

“One more thing,” he moved his head in close to hers, his voice trimmed, soft and gentle. “I’m sorry I made you lose your temper, Sugarplum.” And with that he planted a soft peck on her forehead just below her forelock and turned back up the street towards the Hotel Restaurant.

* * * * *

Diamond’s rump hit the ground hard. Her rage, tension, and frustration draining away like the rush of a dam burst, washing the strength from her legs. All she could do was stare as McIntosh calmly walked on towards The Lucky Clover Inn.

You get back here you contemptible sack of road-apples! How dare you manipulate us like that! I’m gonna castrate you, you ass, and use your nuts for a hacky sack! The red horned imp stepped from between Diamond’s forelegs, head tilted down to place its horns aggressively at the fore, pawing the dirt as it did.

Well, I have to agree with you on that; that was rather rude. The halo wearer stepped from behind Diamond’s tail. Hardly the way to treat a lady, but maybe there’s …

Aw shut your cake hole you prissy pink powder-puff, he’s a penniless sack of mule crap and the whole town knows it.

Enough, both of you. Diamond stared down at her two ego imps, and You, Diamond fixed her attention on the darker half of the pair, corner. Now!

Rude, slightly, Diamond had to admit regarding Mac, but he was aware of it and she knew it, he apologized after all. He was just showing her he was still in control, just like the night in the shed. And once again, like in the shed, he was offering to help her, and now she had to step up and accept if she chose. Diamond got to her hooves, giving herself a shake and feeling her confidence growing again as she brought her head up, squaring her shoulders. She put her best hoof forward as she set off after him.

She caught up to him just as they reached the edge of The Lucky Clover’s outdoor patio.

“Ah ha, Monsieur McIntosh,” Haute Cuisine, the restaurant’s Ariégeois owner, beamed as he finished wiping one of the tables, giving a friendly duck of his head to the larger pony, “jeust in time. I have your table ready right here; and mademoiselle Diamond, enchante, as always.”

“Eeyup.” Mac gave Haute an assured nod as the smaller stallion approached the pair.

Diamond favored the restaurateur with a polite smile as he lifted her right forehoof and kissed her fetlock in the manner of his homeland, before embracing Mac and kissing him on each cheek in a similar customary greeting.

“Actually, McIntosh,” Diamond slipped her two bits into the conversation with a tone and smile charming enough to make a sapphire blush, “I believe I’d prefer a table in the back if possible, if you don’t mind.”

Diamond caught a twitch of a smile at the corner of McIntosh’s mouth as she spoke.

“Eeyup.” Mac gave his affirmation and a nod for emphasis to the suggestion.

“But of course, mes amis, I have jeust the table for you, please follow me.”

The table was located in a small demi-alcove behind the bar near the kitchen. A golden glow lamp in an antique windowed lantern shell hung above the table adding a warm flickering light to the setting. Mac waited for Diamond to be seated on one of the sapphire-blue cushions, a fleur-de-lis embroidered in gold in each corner near the tassel, before taking the cushion opposite her at the table while Haute went to retrieve menus for the pair.

Diamond just sat and looked across the table at the scarlet stallion as he kept his gaze fixed on her, neither saying so much as a word as they waited for the menus to arrive. She had to admit that McIntosh wasn’t all that scruffy, the big wooden yoke and somewhat unruly mane definitely gave him a sort of rustic scruffiness to him, but he was otherwise well groomed. He had a shapely head, thick neck, powerful shoulders and flanks, and a well groomed and brushed coat. He was the kind of stallion so many of the trashy heart throb magazines splashed over the cover at times. But there was more to him, Diamond knew, as he kept his emerald gaze on her. His eyes weren’t the hollow bedroom eyes of those cover colts; there was a heavy, powerful, presence to them. A presence she knew that was now looking deep inside her, gauging her, assessing her, and at the same time calling to something inside her.

“Drinks, my friends?” Haute Cuisine asked as he placed the menus on the table.

Diamond shook herself free of her reverie then replied, “Frostbite Falls, Fresh Glacier, please.”

“And for Monsieur?”

“Dos Equuis, if you would.”

“Of course.” The grey-cream Ariégeois nodded with a tip of his head.

The drinks arrived and Diamond placed her order, followed by McIntosh, who called the restaurant pony close with a gesture. Mac whispered something into Haute’s ear.

“But of course my friend.” The pony entrepreneur smiled at the big colt and quickly departed.

“So, what do you think Mrs. Bridley would have been making for supper tonight?”

Diamond started a bit as Mac initiated the conversation. She hadn’t expected that. She took a sip of her glacier water and placed the glass back on the table beside the remaining half bottle.

“I had asked her if she could make her baked spinach and whipped potato pie with roast corn and grilled turnip greens, with her blue ribbon winning pecan pie for dessert.” Diamond smiled back, as she calmly answered his most unexpected question.

“Sounds wonderful, sort of sorry we had to miss it.”

“Yes, yes it is.” Diamond elegantly voiced her agreement, as Haute’s son, Truffle Shuffle, arrived at their table carrying their meals; carrot and spinach ravioli served in a beet infused Alfredo sauce with alfalfa sprigs for her, and a grilled vegetable medley platter with herb and garlic sweet potato croquettes, and a side of red wine sauteed mushrooms for him.

Diamond smiled at the short rotund grey colt with the curly slate-grey mane, and thanked him. Her one time schoolmate merely tipped his head slightly in recognition with a small and strictly professional smile and returned to the kitchen, leaving Diamond feeling chilled. A rumbling ‘Mmm’ of approval from McIntosh as he took in a savoring whiff of the piping hot food drew her attention back to her dinner companion, and left the coolness to fall from her mind in favor of the savory aromas from the plate before her.

“I believe the next question should be yours, I’m sure you have several.” McIntosh offered the reins of the conversation to her before leaning down to take a bite of one of the croquets on his plate.

Diamond could feel the nervousness building inside her. He was right, she had a lot questions for him, and they were all swirling around inside her begging to be put to voice that they might be granted answers. So she went with the first thing that came to her.

“So, how is it that you plan to pay for dinner tonight?”

“Money, of course, Diamond.” Mac replied with a tone and small grin that seemed to knowingly ask ‘You don’t think I can, do you?’

“But you’re just a poor farm pony, you can’t afford this.” Diamond could have kicked herself right there for her poor choice of words, she could hear the foul little imp giggling from its dark corner of her mind. She was about to apologize for her faux pas, but Mac calmly answered all the same.

“Nnope.”

“Nnope?” Diamond echoed as the word caught in her craw. “What is it with you and ‘Eeyup’ and ‘Nnope’, why do you keep giving one word answers?”

Diamond’s heart was twitching nervously as McIntosh swallowed his mouthful of zucchini and peppers only to see him smile forgivingly back at her.

“Now that is a smart question, Diamond, and the answer is; because most ponies ask ‘closed questions’, questions that are easily answered as positive, negative, or unknown. A smart business pony learns to ask ‘leading’ or ‘open questions’, questions that invite answers that involve explanations that can be harvested for gainful knowledge.”

Diamond slipped another bite of her meal into her mouth and chewed the savory stuffed pasta as she digested his words.

“But you’re not a …” Diamond began, but suspended her question as she surveyed the immutable edifice of his face. She had been going to finish her question with ‘business pony’, but she realized that was both a closed question and likely wrong. He’d probably answer it with a simple ‘nnope’, she needed to ask a leading question, it’s what he wanted.

“Go on, Diamond.” Mac nudged her verbally as he set down his drink.

“I was going to say ‘You’re not a business pony’, but that’s both a closed question, and I believe wrong as well. You are a business pony. But how?”

“It’s a long story, but the simple version is I always wanted to be a business pony like your father, and my damsire.”

“Your damsire is a business pony?” Diamond interrupted in surprise, she’d always pictured the whole lineage of Mac’s family as rubes, hay-shakers, and bumpkins like his cousin Hayseed. Who was this business pony? She knew his mother’s name was Orange Bloom, but who was her father?

“Eeyup.”

Diamond flinched at the answer she got, as she realized the error of her closed question. But she didn’t dwell on it for long; she needed answers and knew the question to ask.

“So, who was your damsire, anypony I might know of?” she asked, her eyes fixing on him the way a cat fixates on a mouse.

“My damsire was J.C. Orange, by Bold Rind, out of DelMonte Royale.”

Diamond’s jaw nearly landed in her half finished meal. Her brain zigzagged back up and down the lineage she’d just heard. J.C. Orange had been a moderately well known stockbroker. Her father used the same firm, Rind, Juice, and Pulp, for his own market dealings. But DelMonte Royale, youngest daughter of The DelMonte family. Diamond was thunderstruck, the DelMonte family was one of the wealthiest earth pony lineages in all of southeastern Equestira, and McIntosh, as well as Applejack and Apple Bloom by extension, were blood relations! Diamond hadn’t felt this elated since the time when as a filly she’d first met Princess Twilight face to face.

“So,” Diamond paused as she took a sip from her glass pondering her next question, “if your mother’s bloodline has enough gold in it to make King Bullion jealous, how come you work at Sweet Apple Acres, Cornstalk Corner, and Golden Harvest’s father’s farm?”

“I like to see my investments pay off.”

Diamond cocked her head in curious disbelief at McIntosh’s answer. “Care to explain that?”

“Do you know who owns those farms you mentioned?”

Diamond shook her head; she assumed that the farmers did, like Applejack did Sweet Apple Acres.

“I do,” the big red stallion grinned at her, “or, more accurately, I hold the leases on them.”

Diamond’s jaw worked to try to form words for a few moments, but none came, and she eventually sought solace in her glacier water.

“Surprised?”

Diamond nodded as McIntosh continued to explain how after his parent’s deaths Granny Smith had considered selling off large parts of Sweet Apple Acres in order to raise capital to pay the hired hooves that needed to be brought in to work the farm, until AJ, AB, and him were old enough to carry the load. He went on to explain how he had devised a different plan with the help of Diamond’s father; A plan that involved land leasing for both agricultural and civic development. It had been tough to sell Granny Smith on it, especially when it came to simplifying McIntosh’s calculations and projections so the older mare could understand it. The Ponyville athletics grounds, the two adjoining farms, and a number of other venues were all on Apple land held by him and his family, and he worked his hump off on the farms to ensure that harvests were brought in to market for profitable sale.

“But what about your mother’s side of the family? The Oranges? Didn’t they help out?”

“Other than Ma’s younger brother Mosley Orange, her family had pretty much disowned her for joining the rodeo circuit and not becoming a society-mare like her dam and grand-dam wanted. Worse, was when after breaking her leg, she chose to stay here to work on the farm and marry my Pa. Granny said something about ‘apples and oranges’. Ma just said it didn’t matter, we’re all just fruit after all.”

As Diamond finished the last of her meal and wiped her muzzle with her napkin, she raised her hoof politely to McIntosh and was about to enquire about dessert for them only to have him shake his head in quiet dissuasion as Haute again approached the table, his head held high. Balanced on the end of the Ariégeois pony’s nose was a serving tray held high enough so Diamond couldn’t see what was being carried on it. With a fluid motion leading into a bow, Haute set the tray down on the table.

Diamond felt her eyes go wide as she looked at the tray. Before her was a baked Brie, smothered in a raspberry compote, drizzled in chocolate, and topped with fresh whipped cream.

“How …” Diamond gasped as Haute took the knife from the tray and cut the sumptuous dessert into serving portions delivering Di’s plated portion to her balanced on the tip of the knife with an expert server’s skill.

“One of Fluttershy’s little birds told me.” McIntosh grinned back, looking more like a giant red Cheshire cat than a pony for the moment.

“You’ll have to thank them for me.” Diamond smiled gracefully as she moved in and took her first bite of the savory dish. As the first morsel melted over her tongue she luxuriated in its flavors and textures, warm and cool, firm and creamy, sweet, tart, and bitter all at once. So many ponies brayed at length about Neigh York’s signature cheesecake, but this was every bit in Diamonds mind as good, superior in fact, as it was served warm as opposed to chilled.

Such a wonderful colt, Diamond thought before correcting herself, as she and McIntosh enjoyed their dessert in blissful silence. Stallion, he’s a stallion, the perfect stallion. It made what she wanted to tell him all the harder; so perfect, so gallant, and so much more she had learned. So much she felt she didn’t deserve.

“Diamond?!”

The sharp outburst of surprise and disbelief carried across the room followed by a clatter of hooves as the interloper rushed over to the table. Diamond flinched as she swallowed the last of her Brie. A glance at McIntosh told her he was as shocked as she as her mother skidded to a halt beside the table. Her father wasn’t far behind, moving quickly to keep up, but with cautioned concern.

“Oh my little pony,” the older mare sniffed through tears as she invaded Diamond’s personal space, wrapping her forelegs about her in a possessive hug, “you’re back. I missed you so much, my precious girl. I’m so sorry for what I said that day, I really am, please forgive me for being so callous. Please?”

Diamond had seen the tears of emotion in her mother’s eyes as the lavender coated mare rushed up to her. She could now feel them on her face as her mother’s cheek rubbed against her own.

Her mother’s grip eventually loosened, the elder mare drawing back slightly while still holding her forelegs about Diamond’s shoulders as she looked her daughter over with a smile of relief.

“It’s nice to see you too, mother, father.” Diamond offered her greetings to her parents with a detached calm. She had certainly not anticipated seeing them so soon. In spite of the lovely dinner Mac had arranged, a hayburger and fries at the Hayburger might have been a better choice for sake of current company as her father smiled proudly at her and McIntosh. His head moving as he took his time looking back and forth between the two of them. Her mother’s gaze was focused solely on her.

Diamond had expected to hear a polite confirming ‘Eeyup’ from McIntosh but her dinner companion held his silence. Though perhaps he had exchanged simple greeting with her sire, she couldn’t recall over her mother’s emotional greetings.

Diamond could feel the staring contest going on inside her between the two halves of her ego. It was an intense affair as she fought herself for the right words for the situation. The two psyche imps each waiting for the other to blink, and then it happened. Silken Sash spoke first.

“I’m so glad you two are getting along. I take it this means the contract is still on? You two make such a lovely couple.”

Diamond closed her eyes like she’d been slapped as inside her head the halo-wearer blinked. The horned imp raced to the fore, casting a bridle of rage around Diamond’s muzzle, yanking the reins of emotion hard enough to make the bit of anger bite painfully at the corners of her mouth.

Oh no you don’t, Diamond thought as she gave her head a single sharp flick sending the foul homunculus flying back into the dark reaches of her mind, and fixed her sights on her parents.

“The contract.” Diamond stood, pressing the words out with weight and authority, slipping out of the vestigial embrace her mother held her in. “I’m gone for a month after discovering your intentions by accident, and the first thing you have the audacity, or is it stupidity, to ask me about is about the contract?”

Diamond could feel the strength flowing through her, each beat of her heart empowering her as she purposefully stepped forward, driving her mother back onto her haunches. Her father moved in to keep his wife from toppling over completely as Diamond continued her iteration.

“Let me tell you about my decision regarding your precious contract. You can take your beloved contract and can both go out and piss yourselves dry on the damnable thing for all I care!”

Diamond stepped clear of her parents, in the direction of the door, certain that the whole of the staff and patronage of the restaurant had heard her willful outburst. She closed her eyes as she moved and turning her nose up over her parents to address McIntosh in a slightly more restrained tone. “McIntosh, please settle the bill and bring my saddle bags, you’re walking me home. I’ll be outside.”

Author's Note

* The spot where he’d received his cutiemark, and witnessed the deaths of his parents

** Hame - the ball topped prong on the upper part of a yoke of a draft harness