“Here you go, sweetheart.”
With a flick of his head, Filthy Rich tossed the bit bag through the air. It landed next to Diamond Tiara on her bed with a soft thump, while the filly looked about ready to explode from excitement. In a split second, she had the bag in her hooves and was using her teeth to pry loose the string holding it closed. By the look on her face when she got it open and peered inside, one would think her father had just given her Celestia’s crown on a silver platter.
“Oh, thank you so much, daddy!” she said. Leaving the bag on the bed, she hurried over to her father and wrapped her hooves around him in a genuinely affectionate hug. “You’re the best daddy in all of Equestria. No, the whole world!”
Filthy Rich laughed softly, and returned his daughter’s embrace. “Thank you, dear.” After a few moments, they pulled apart and Filthy picked up his briefcase before turning back to the door. “See you next Saturday. Promise you’ll be a good filly while I’m gone?”
Diamond placed a hoof over her chest. “I promise, daddy,” she said.
“Goodbye.” And with a single nod, he stepped through the door out of sight.
Diamond wasted no time in returning to the bag and dumping the bits inside onto the floor, before she began counting them all. Twenty even, the final total was. Most foals would be lucky to even get a fourth that amount. Of course, most foals weren’t rich and important like she was. Or smart like she was.
Diamond scooped up fifteen of the bits and put them back into the bag. The remaining five, however, she brought over to the piggy bank on her nightstand and dropped them in one after another, relishing in the soft clinks each one made as they hit the bottom. She then tied the bag up again and placed it on her back before heading out the door. After she fetched Silver Spoon from her house, the two of them were gonna go on the greatest spending spree ever!
Being rich was such a wonderful thing!
The Ponyville marketplace was very busy today, Diamond noted, as she and Silver Spoon came upon the marketplace. To and fro, ponies bustled about, going from stall to stall, purchasing food and supplies. With so many ponies out and about, the ambience was filled entirely with their chatter, forcing the two fillies to speak up in order to be heard.
Coming upon the first line of stalls, Diamond took a good, long whiff of the air. It smelled of flowers, chocolate, and money. Mostly money, in fact. The more money somepony had, the more important they were, and she would have lots and lots of money when she inherited Barnyard Bargains from her daddy, enough that maybe she’d own all of Ponyville. The thought brought a wicked smile to her lips as she imagined all the changes she’d make when that happened. Installing a giant marble statue of herself in Town Square was a definite.
“Lots of ponies out today,” Silver Spoon mused, looking at all the activity around them. “Wonder if we’ll get stuck in any lines?
Diamond snorted. “Not like that’s happening,” she said, and gestured across from the line of stalls next to them to another. “There won’t be any lines where we’re going.”
With that, she trotted off toward the other line of stalls. Silver Spoon followed right behind, curious as to where Diamond was taking them. Her answer came quick, and she beamed when they arrived at Sweet Swirl’s N-Ice Cream stand. As Diamond Tiara had said, were no ponies waiting in line at all.
Sweet Swirl greeted them with a warm smile as the two fillies stepped up to the counter. “Welcome to Sweet Swirl’s, ladies,” he said. “What can I get you two to go along with this lovely day?”
Diamond stepped forward. “Two chocolate swirls with oats, please,” she answered while reaching into her bit bag, fishing out two bits and tossing them up into Sweet Swirl’s waiting hooves. “And make it quick; we’re on a tight schedule, here.”
“Coming right up then!” Sweet Swirl took all of five seconds to prepare the fillies’ ice cream before passing both down to them. “And here you go.”
“Thank you,” Silver Spoon said as she and Diamond took their cups, before turning to her friend. “Hey, how’d you know there’d be no line here?”
Diamond Tiara chuckled. “Every colt and filly in Ponyville would be coming here if they had bits, but they don’t; only my daddy trusts me with money because I’m so much better and more important than any of them.”
Silver Spoon smiled. “Yeah, you’re the bestest friend ever!” she replied, before the two did their ‘bump, bump, sugarlump, rump!’ routine.
The two then set off through the marketplace, enjoying their ice cream along the way while musing to themselves.
Let’s see… the giant statue of me can replace the one in Town Square. Those stain glass windows of me would look best at the schoolhouse. Oh yeah, I need to save up enough to buy the deed to Princess Twilight’s castle. She’ll agree, I think. Maybe. Daddy will make sure she does anyway.
“Tiara?”
She turned to Silver Spoon. “You say something, Spoon?”
Silver Spoon let out an exasperated sigh. “I asked where we were going next on our spending spree?”
“Oh, right, uh…” Diamond pondered for a moment, smiling as a thought came to her. “Important ponies like us deserve to be pampered. We’re going to the spa for a couple of facial treatments!”
Silver Spoon beamed. “You always have the best ideas, D.T.”
“Whoa.”
The two fillies stood outside the Ponyville Spa, staring in awe at what could only be described as a three foot tall, multicolored snake winding its way out through the front door and looping around the entire building. The ponies in line chattered, their mixed voices indecipherable but their faces beheld expressions of frustration and exasperation. No doubt, they too hadn’t expected to be greeted with such a long line upon arriving at the spa.
“I had no idea the Ponyville Spa was so popular,” Silver Spoon mused.
Diamond Tiara blinked once, before she huffed and began walking toward the entrance. “C’mon, Spoon! We’re not gonna stand for this.”
“Oh, uh, right, sure,” Silver replied, and followed after her.
The two fillies made their way inside the building, bobbing and weaving around ponies, eventually making their way up to the front desk just as Aloe finished up with the next customer in line. The next pony made to move forward, only to be cut off by Diamond and Silver, resulting in both her and Aloe casting disapproving glares at the two fillies.
“My friend and I would like a couple of facials,” Diamond said, placing eight bits on the counter.
“Yes, yes, we will be happy to serve you two,” Aloe said in her accent which Diamond had always found stupid. “But we do not tolerate cutting in line, so please move to the back and let the ponies who have﹘”
Diamond put two more bits on the counter.
“﹘Right this way, girls.”
Diamond let out a sigh of content as she slid into the refreshingly cool mud bath. A pair of cucumber slices rested over her eyes, and she couldn’t wait for the divine sensation one feels during and after a facial she’d heard so much about from adults.
“And if you need anything, just holler,” Lotus said, before leaving to tend to more customers.
“Thanks again for treating me to this,” Silver said from the mud bath next to Diamond. “Like I said, you’re the bestest friend ever.”
A smug smile stretched across Diamond’s muzzle. “Of course I am,” she said. “And like I said, we’re important ponies; we deserve to be pampered.”
“Totally,” Silver Spoon agreed.
“And some day, I’m gonna own this town, and then we’ll really be important.” Diamond took a moment to adjust one of her cucumber slices before settling further into the mud. “Diamond Tiara, Queen of Ponyville; I like the sound of that.”
“Wait, are you serious?” Silver asked.
Diamond nodded, then realized Silver couldn’t see her through her own cucumber slices. “Yep,” she replied.
“How are you gonna do that?”
Diamond’s smile was the coyest she’d ever had. “I can’t tell you and risk somepony overhearing, now can I?”
“True.”
“Don’t worry, Spoon, we’ll both have this town in the crook of our hooves eventually, and we’ll rule over it like the queens we are.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“You’d better.” Diamond felt herself fully relax as the mud’s rejuvenating properties began to take effect. “But for now, let’s just enjoy this pampering.”
“I hear that.”
Once done with their facials, Diamond and Silver left the spa feeling totally refreshed. They carried themselves with an air of regality as they walked back through Ponyville, holding their heads up high and refusing to make eye contact with all the less-important, even less-so rich ponies going about their business.
“So, how much money do you have left?” Silver asked.
“Three bits.”
“What’re we gonna get next?”
Diamond mulled over her options for a moment. There wasn’t much else she wanted besides ice cream and a facial, and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot left she could get for three bits besides more ice cream. She could just put the rest of the money in her piggy bank, but that wouldn’t be fair to Silver Spoon, and she still had a drive to buy stuff.
It was then that she noticed two ponies, Alula and Cotton Cloudy, playing hopscotch along the road. A few moments of thought resulted in what she decided was one of her best ideas ever. She turned and headed over to her fellow classmates, who stopped to watch as she and Silver approached.
“What’cha two doing?” Diamond asked, putting on her best fake pleasant tone of voice, the one she often used to fool everypony into thinking she didn’t intend to own them someday.
Alula and Cotton Cloudy stared blankly for a moment before Alula replied, “Playing.”
Diamond nodded. “Yeah, screw chatting. Listen, how’d you two like to earn some money?”
Instantly, both fillies brightened. “Really? How?” Cotton asked.
Diamond gestured between herself and Silver Spoon. “When we do Show & Tell this Friday, you two have to stomp for us,” she explained, before reaching into her bag and pulling out two bits. She waved them in front of the fillies’ faces, relishing in their envious gazes as they stared at her symbol of importance. “So, how about it?”
“Yeah!” the fillies shouted in unison.
Diamond smirked, and tossed the bits at their hooves, where the two fillies immediately scrambled for them. They picked one each up in their mouths, smiling around them like a couple of homeless ponies having just been given a piece of bread.
Alula spit her bit onto her hoof and turned to Cotton. “Let’s go get some ice cream, Cloud!” she said.
Cotton spit out her own bit and returned her excited gaze. “Yeah!”
With that, the two ran off in the direction of Sweet Swirl’s.
Diamond turned to Silver. “And that is how you move up in the world.”
Silver Spoon looked confused for a moment, before a small smile crossed her muzzle and she nodded. “Yeah… sure.” She glanced at Diamond’s bag. “So, only one bit left, huh?”
Diamond reached into her bag and pulled out the last remaining bit of her allowance. “Nothing we can get for the two of us with just this,” she said, before shrugging and tossing the bit away. It hit the ground a few yards away. “Meh, whatever.”
“Wait, why are you just throwing it away?” Silver asked with a cocked brow.
Diamond shrugged. “I’m feeling generous.” Then she smiled. “Wanna go for a swim in my pool?”
“You bet!”
With that, the two set off for Diamond’s mansion.
