It started with an overheard whisper in the lunch room. Silver Spoon was in the little fillies' room, and Diamond was amusing herself by weaving in and out of other ponies' lives. A whisper here, a titter there, and the social order danced beneath her hooves. Then she heard it.
"Did you see the way she stares?"
"Who wouldn't? She couldn't be more obvious."
"Do you think they're together?"
"Couldn't be. You don't see Tiara staring back, do you?"
If the pink pony had been paying attention before, she was captivated now. "What are you talking about, girls?"
Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie turned to smile at Diamond Tiara, then fell to fits of giggling as they realized it was her.
"We were just talking about the filly who's crushing on you."
Diamond put on her best innocent smile, as though she hadn't heard half their conversation. "Somepony has a crush on me? I mean, not that I'm surprised," she fluffed her mane, "but I didn't know there were any takers in this year's class."
"Oh, she's more than a taker." Sunny giggled. "I'd say she already has you."
"By the scruff of your neck," Peachy added. Diamond blushed.
"So, who is it?" She leaned forward, her eyes wide and her smile wider, weaponizing her cuteness against them. But instead of the usual d'aww face and confession of all secrets, the gossipers stared at Diamond as if she had grown wings.
"You seriously don't know?"
"You don't see the way she stares at you?"
"The way she hangs on everything you say?"
"The way she..." Peachy Pie looked to her left and to her right, looking for anypony who might be eavesdropping. "...licks her lips when you walk in front of her?"
The pink pony turned red. "I... I... I had no idea...who is it?"
Sunny Daze looked around, and started giggling. "I think you can ask her yourself."
The color drained from Diamond's face as she turned around. At first, she didn't see what the gossipers were on about. Silver Spoon had come back from the little fillies' room, and she was making her way towards them. Her braided mane almost seemed to shine, and Diamond thought she detected a hint of glitter in those silver locks. The filly smiled at her the same way she always did, and Diamond felt those grey eyes dancing all over her body, soaking in every detail, just like...
A blush surged across Diamond Tiara's entire body as the pieces clicked together. Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie erupted into laughter behind her, but she barely heard them. Her attention was on Silver Spoon, who was starting to look confused.
"Is something the matter, DT?" She smiled a nervous little smile, the same as countless others, and yet Diamond couldn't help but see it in a different light.
"Silvy," she trilled, trying to sound casual, "I just heard the juiciest little rumor." Silver's smile became a mischievous smirk, and she took a few steps closer.
"Apparently, there's a pony in our class who can't stop staring at me when I'm not looking." The smirk evaporated, replaced with a terrified grimace.
"Silver?" Diamond took a few steps closer. "Do you have a crush on me?"
The grimace was replaced by a dropping jaw, and Silver turned crimson. Diamond lifted a hoof to stop her friend, but Silver Spoon had already turned tail and fled.
"Well, she took that well."
Sunny Daze went home with a bloody nose that day.
The next day, Diamond Tiara stood on the threshold of the Silver household. Silver Spoon hadn't come into school today, and nopony had the slightest idea where she was. Only Diamond Tiara, Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie had the slightest clue, but none of them had anything to go on other than what had happened the previous day.
Diamond knocked on the door, her touch as light as possible. Silvershire Manor was a very old house, some might say as old as Granny Smith, and all the money in the world couldn't hide its age. When the door creaked open, Diamond almost expected it to fall to pieces.
"Ah, miss Diamond Tiara. Such a pleasure to see you in our house again."
"Hello, Retainer." The Silver butler was almost as old and creaky as the manor he supervised, and the beaming smile he flashed at Diamond Tiara contained a grand total of three teeth. Still, it wouldn't do to be impolite to servants. "Is Silver Spoon home, by any chance?"
The old pony's smile faded away. "The young mistress is in, but I do believe she has taken ill. She has not left her room since returning from school yesterday."
Diamond sighed, and shuffled her hooves a little. "Yeah, no, she's not sick or anything. It's just, I found out that she had a crush on me. She's probably just embarrassed."
"A schoolcolt crush, you say?" Retainer pursed his wrinkled lips in thought. "Odd. I did not think that the young mistress had an interest in romance yet." He shook his head as though to get the thoughts out, and offered another barely-toothed smile. "Well, I suppose you may as well come inside."
"Thank you, Retainer." Diamond made her way inside the manor, and stared in awe at the immaculate hallways. Every pane of glass sparkled as sunlight streaked through them, and there wasn't even a single speck of dust dancing in those rays of light. The age of everything was undeniable, but so was the care put into them.
"I do apologize for the abysmal state of things. I was not told to expect company."
Diamond Tiara stared at Retainer in disbelief, and couldn't help but laugh. "You're kidding, right? This place looks great!"
Retainer bowed low. "Thank you for your kind words, Miss Tiara." He began to wander down the hall, each hoof meeting the floor with the sharp precision of a stallion determined not to let his age get in the way. Diamond followed after him, looking around at the manor's ancient trappings. The sight of one chandelier, draped once in silk and twice in cobwebs, proved so captivating that Diamond ran right into somepony coming the other way.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry, please..." The words died in Diamond's mouth as she looked up at the old mare. Judging from the color of her coat, the style of her mane and that subtle air of confident superiority, she could only be Silver Spoon's mother. But the moment their eyes met, the old mare turned the palest shade of grey.
"You... you're real?" Her voice trembled like a leaf in a tornado. "You're the... you're..."
"Um, are you okay, miss?" Diamond Tiara was starting to get a little scared of this mare. "My name's Diamond Tiara, I'm Silver Spoon's..." Diamond stopped. What was she to Silver Spoon? And what was Silver to her? "We're friends," she finished meekly.
"Oh, yes. Of course you are." The mare sounded terribly unsure of herself. "So, um, Retainer, are you taking this young filly to Silver Spoon's room?" The butler nodded. "Good, good. Um, just, be a dear and go find the hose when you're done."
The old mare left as quickly as she had come, disappearing around the first convenient corner. Diamond Tiara stared after her. "What was that all about?"
"The mistress has some... exotic tastes," Retainer whispered, waggling his eyebrows. Diamond blushed and nodded, and was very quick to follow after the butler.
It wasn't too much further before they stood in front of a door, and Retainer was raising his hoof to knock. There was barely any sound from the other side, and Diamond Tiara was surprised when the door suddenly opened.
Silver Spoon didn't look sick. She didn't look lovesick. She didn't even look embarrassed. The little grey filly looked just the same as she always had, mane perfectly styled and not a hair on her body out of place. Everything was immaculate, refined, and utterly spotless. Silver smiled at Diamond, and a part of the pink filly was glad that even the smile hadn't changed.
"Mistress Silver Spoon, may I present miss Diamond Tiara. She was worried when you didn't attend school today, and has come over to see you."
Silver's smile grew. "You were worried about me? Oh, Diamond, you have no idea how happy that makes me!"
"I might have some idea," Diamond teased, and she grinned when that remark managed to wring a blush out of Silver. "May I come in?"
"Well, yeah!" Silver all but disappeared behind her own door, leaving Diamond to chase after her. What she saw inside took her breath away.
It was as if all of the rot, decay and decrepitude that had failed to infect Silvershire Manor had been squirreled away in that one room. The wallpaper was a green fading to black, such a sickly color that Diamond Tiara wondered if it was really just mold. The only proof against that theory was how the wallpaper was peeling off in places, revealing blood-red brick. The floor was even more suspicious, feeling more like fetid earth beneath Diamond's hooves than a plush carpet. Scattered and half-embedded in the 'floor' were half-melted candles, bent spoons, and various other inexplicable oddities.
At the center of this fiefdom of decay sat a single black chair, its every limb so thin that it made one believe a chair could starve. It was the only piece of furniture in the entire room, and although Diamond Tiara was not a master of the art of forensic furniturology, she would bet her father's business that Silver Spoon slept in that chair more often than not. It would certainly explain how stiff her back usually was. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.
"Where's your bed?" Diamond wandered closer to the chair, trying to ignore the floor beneath her.
"What's a bed?" There wasn't a hint of sarcasm or irony in that question, and Diamond Tiara decided she didn't want to look Silver Spoon in the eye right now. Instead, she looked around at what little else there was in the room. Her eyes alighted on something even more disturbing than Silver's answer.
There was a picture of her, Diamond Tiara, hanging on the wall. From her position in the chair, Silver Spoon wouldn't be able to avoid staring at it. It showed Diamond smiling with a hoof raised to her chest, probably prattling on about how she was the best at everything, or at least better than whoever she had been talking to. It was tacked to the wall at all four corners, and there was a huge tear right through her left cheek.
"I don't have a crush on you, DT." Silver Spoon's voice was flat, practically monotone, and it sent a chill running up Diamond's spine.
"Then why is this picture of me the only thing on your wall?" Diamond leaned in closer, examining the tear.
"I don't have a crush on you," she repeated. "I want you."
Those three little words made Diamond Tiara shiver in all of the worst ways. "H-how do you want me?"
A second too late, she realized what had made that tear. A second too late, she started to turn around. Exactly on cue, the knife buried itself in her back.
"I want you," Silver Spoon whispered in her ear, "the way dragons want gems. I want you the way griffons want gold. I want you," she licked Diamond's cheek, "the way timberwolves want ponies."
Diamond Tiara slipped into the inky blackness of unconsciousness, and a small part of her prayed she wouldn't be forced to wake up.
