Forced

"Now-" Filthy paused to take another drag of the cigarette hanging from his mouth, "you can have the next order of red delicious done by Tuesday?"

Granny Smith shooed away a chicken that had busied itself at her hooves.

"Like always Filthy, Macintosh'll meet your cargo-ponies that mornin'. But enough bout' all that now, would you and yer daughter care fer lunch?"

Filthy smiled despite the repeated use of his first name. The old mare had a very special place in his heart, which was only natural as his grandfather had built his business with the Apple family's help.

"I'd be delighted Granny." Filthy took the cigarette from his mouth with his hoof and turned to call to his daughter.

"Diamond!"

Diamond Tiara, the only daughter of the recently widowed Filthy Rich, was playing hopscotch alone when she heard her fathers call. She obediently jumped from the third square she had drawn in the dirt and trotted up to the tired looking stallion.

"Yes daddy?" Diamond took extra care to be nice to her father these days.

"Are you hungry sweetheart? Granny Smith has lunch cooked." Filthy bent down to nuzzle his daughter, taking care to keep the cigarette away from her.

"No daddy, I'm still full from breakfast." Diamond returned the nuzzle in earnest.

"All right. Go play with Apple Bloom and her friends then, I'll be inside if you need me." Filthy turned and walked back to his old friend, the touch of his daughter calming him and warranting a growl from his stomach.

Diamond didn't argue. As much as she despised the Cutie Mark Losers, she knew better than to argue with her father right now. She hadn't seen him eat in days.

Filthy Rich followed Granny up the steps of the porch and through the screen door to the kitchen, pausing only to snuff his cigarette in an old coffee can. The wooden floorboards, peeling wallpaper and assorted knickknacks were a welcome change to the dullness of his own home. Here the home smelled of old furniture and the lingering scents of food; in his house the immaculate white floors smelled of cleaning chemicals, new plastic, and air fresheners. He decided he much preferred the Apple family home to the loneliness of his own.

"Take a seat dear, I'll whip ya up some of the cassaroule." Granny set about pulling a pan from the oven, where the dish was kept warm. Filthy eased himself into a chair, feeling his fatigue for the first time that day.

"Thank you Granny, would you happen to have any coffee left?" Filthy rubbed at his eyes with a hoof, feeling a bit of crust scrape about in the corner of his left.

"Just made a batch an hour ago, it's still warm if you want it,"

"Yes ma'am, I'd appreciate it." Filthy waited until Granny slid a plate in front of him where a particularly appetizing looking green bean casserole caused his stomach to growl again. Granny smiled sadly at the poor stallion, knowing full well he had forgotten to eat that day.

"How are you Filthy?" The old mare asked softly.

Filthy swallowed a bite of the casserole, his stomach instantly hushing as it attacked his first meal in two days.

"I'm surviving Granny," he answered back with a sigh. He knew she knew he was lying. The proof was in the bags under his eyes.

"You've never smoked before Filthy, neither did your father." Granny poured a cup of black coffee for her guest, adding just the touch of sugar she knew he liked.

"My father never drank either," Filthy gave a long, tired sigh and ran a hoof through his mane.

"And a stallion can't run on a bottle alone." Granny sat down in front of the stallion, a cup of sweetened coffee to compliment Filthy's held in her hoof.

"It tastes worse than grandpa said it did." Filthy took another bite, all the while keeping his head low. Admitting he drank heavily was not something he thought he'd ever tell the mare.

"It's not good fer yer kidneys, the Tarts could tell ya that much," Granny took a slow sip from her mug, careful not to scald her tongue on the hot sweetened liquid.

"Yeah, my wife said that too when I went out to Baltimare a years back with an old friend." Filthy did his best to hide a grimace.

"You should listen to her, she was a smart mare."

It took a few seconds for a reaction to come out of the stallion, his mind seeming to stumble and hang at "was".

Filthy forced a quick "yeah", managing to form the word without the choking sensation in his throat cutting it short.

"Well yer' a grown stallion Filthy so I can't tell ya how ta live,"

Was.

"And I'm sure yer pa would have told me the same thing, knowin' how stubborn he was,"

Was.

"And I'm.....Filthy? Are ya alri-"

Oh god.

She "was".

Filthy dropped his head further, desperately fighting against the wheezes and sobs his lungs begged for. The old mare, however, noticed the light reflecting from the tiny pearls running down the bridge of the stallions nose. Soon his lungs managed to push a crack into the stallion's resolve, his shoulders rising and falling with the rapid intake of air.

"What am I going to do without her?" Filthy bit down on his hoof as she sobbed, his body shaking with his inhales. The old mare smiled sadly and rested a hoof over Filthy's, the same hoof that still held onto the fork like it could save his life.

"She--was the one who c-c-" Filthy stopped talking altogether as a fresh wave of sobs took his breath away again, his emotions robbing him of his dignity.

"It's alright dear, your take yer time." Granny Smith understood this pain quite well. There were three places at the table that her grandchildren had only recently been able to fill.

Filthy's breathing eventually calmed as his head sunk down onto the table, his cries now quiet and even. Granny smoothed down his mane gently, her own motherly instincts kicking in to comfort the broken stallion she had come to see as a close friend.

"....she was the one who convinced me to stay." Filthy wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his business coat, sniffing to keep his nose from running.

"I wanted Diamond to be born in Manehattan. Give her more opportunities growing up. But....Penny." Filthy paused to rub his nose with his sleeve.

"She said she wanted to stay in Ponyville. Bring up Diamond away from the city, where the air was cleaner. So I gave up trying to write and asked father if I could work for him."

"You know Penny wouldn't wanna see ya this way Filthy. 'specially when you've come so far ,"

Filthy just sniffed and wiped his eyes harshly against his business jacket.

"And I'm sure Diamond needs her daddy more than ever,"

"Ugh, Diamond Tiara why do ya always hafta be such a spoil-sport!?" Applebloom flung the blueprint Sweetie Belle had painstakingly mapped out in crayon. Diamond Tiara snagged it with her hoof and kicked it away in disgust.

"What? I'm just saying this idea is dumb. Who ever heard of a Cutie Mark in tactical whoopy-cushion drops?"

"What? It's like combining a spy movie with comedy! It'd be cool and funny at the same time!" Scootaloo reasoned, devastated that her idea wasn't considered absolute gold.

"Pfft yeah maybe if your an immature lunkhead. I'm doing you blank flanks a favor, try something more realistic."

"But we've tried durn' near everythin'! What else could we do ta get a Cutie Mark?" Applebloom sat heavily down in the grass on her haunches, the blueprint now sailing away in the summer breeze.

"Hey wait a minute," Sweetie Belle trotted up to Diamond Tiara, stopping to balance on her front hooves to lean into the bully's face.

"Why are you trying to help us today? Are you trying to make us do something silly?" Sweetie's stern gaze contracted as Diamond pushed her back with one hoof, sending the fillies weight back onto her rear legs.

"Just because I don't like socializing with you losers doesn't mean I can't be charitable every now and again." Diamond's eyes darted back to the house for a second before they locked back sternly on the fillies in front of her.

'And maybe Daddy would feel better,' a small voice in her head spoke.

"Well ya could at least make a suggestion instead a' just pickin' on everypony!" Applebloom flung a crayon at Diamond Tiara's hooves, silently wishing the spoiled filly would share at least a few secrets with them as to how a Cutie Mark could be obtained.

"Welding pays a lot in certain places." Diamond said simply. She crossed her hooves and said nothing further to the Cutie Mark Crusader.

Applebloom blinked.

Welding.

Practicality served up on a plate.

"How much are we talking here?" Sweetie Belle asked in a rare show of business oriented thought. Diamond however hadn't the chance to answer as Sweetie was swiftly grabbed by the other two and dragged back towards the gates of Sweet Apple Acres.

Diamond heard a "thank you!" shouted in the distance from the dust cloud that was kicked up by the Crusaders. She rolled her eyes and checked her hooves for scuffs.

'Those three blank flanks probably haven't tried ANYTHING realistic since they had gotten together' she thought. Diamond might have considered feeling proud of her good deed had it not been so dirt simple. She simply didn't understand what was so wrong with being paid for one's talents.

Perhaps it was her daddy's blood in her.

She sighed, losing interest in the two hoofs that had been painstakingly polished to a sheen. A scuff or two wouldn't kill her she supposed, so instead of chasing after the fillies that were rapidly becoming a blur in the distance Diamond decided upon touring the crop fields.

Autumn had been setting in and the Apple family had been busy harvesting what crops they could in preparation for winter. Dead leaves that had been particularly adventurous had flown far from their trees to land in the lush dirt of the carrot and cabbage patches. It was here that Diamond, having immersed herself in the rich scent of the earth and not paying attention, had happened across a large red stallion.

She couldn't believe she had missed somepony of his size from the road, and in broad daylight to boot! Quickly ducking behind a bale of hay kept to the edges of the cabbage rows, she watched as the massive figure set about his work.

From what she could tell from her pokey and scratchy hiding spot, the stallion in question was a good foot taller than her father. And her father was already quite the tall pony (or so her small frame would tell her in comparison) as it was. He wore a thick plow collar about his neck, which was currently bound to a rather rusty looking plow.

The stallion dug his hooves into the dirt and lurched forward, veins jutting from his thick neck as the nose of the plow forced its way into the earth. His legs seemed to transform their shape as large muscles expressed themselves under the bright red fur. The plow, in turn, resembled almost a piece of driftwood in the ocean, the dirt parting smoothly around the nose as the stallion drug it onward.

Diamond watching awe as the large stallion worked, having never actually seen manual labor performed before. Of course the old mare who brought her and Silver Spoon's lunches had mentioned once or twice that her husband hauled trains for a living, so she had some concept of the working class. However she was having a hard time believing that the stallion in front of her was dragging quite a weight through solid ground with what seemed to be the greatest of ease; the stallion hadn't once made a sound beyond chewing on the wheat stalk in his mouth.

The filly settled down behind the bale to watch as the stallion pulled the plow several yards away and stopped. She scooted a bit farther back behind her hiding spot as the stallion shrugged off the plow collar and turned around. He had short locks of blonde for a mane that seemed to be wet with sweat, yet his face betrayed no fatigue he might have been feeling. In the sunlight she noticed his fur had a bit of a shine to it and seem ruffled in places, obviously having been subject to sweat from the labor.

This stallion began a light trot, keeping his half lidded eyes unfocused. Diamond panicked as she realized the oblivious stallion was headed straight for her sanctuary, though perhaps not at an angle that he might see her. She watched as his oddly unfurred hooves drew closer and closer to the hay bale, before finally dropping back to huddle herself into a ball.

A few seconds passed before she heard rustling sounds from above her, a sound that seemed not unlike the hot friction of a small rope being pulled untied. Then everything went silent for a few seconds; the only sound to grace Diamond's ears was what was perhaps a squirrel or a rabbit scampering about in the tall unkempt fields of grass beyond Sweet Apple Acres.

"Ma'am?"