Light Pollution

Chapters

First Day: Melancholy of a Diamond Princess
First Night: Diamond Cut
Second Day: Ace of Diamonds
Second Night: A Diamond's Magic
Third Day: The Diamond and the Rough
Third Night: Diamond Heist
Fourth Day: Between a Diamond and a Hard Place
Fourth Night: Blood Diamond
Fifth Day: Diamonds and Their Facets
Fifth Night: Diamond in the Sky
Sixth Day: Pressurized Diamonds
Sixth Night: Shining Bright Like a Diamond
Seventh Day: Diamonds are a Filly's Best Friend
Seventh Night: Diamonds are Forever

First Day: Melancholy of a Diamond Princess

She could almost see the cab graze the skyline as it sped across Manehattan. Even within its heart, she could still see sprawling skyscrapers in the distance, almost as if the city was some endless maze waiting to be explored. Maybe, if she stared at it long enough, she could will her mother’s stern glance away and make everything else dissolve with the rain, so that it would only be her and the place she’d always wanted to see.

Then again, this sort of view was far from unfamiliar to Diamond Tiara. Whether with her mother or with her father, she’d had to travel all across Equestria to cities just like this one either to mingle with fellow rich ponies or to watch from the distance as her parents gave their latest sales pitches. Everypony else told her they all looked the same, and to be honest, they did after a while. But she always knew that this one would be different. Something about it just made it feel like it was hers every time she saw it, even if it was just in a picture. It was the type of feeling ponies would get when they claimed something had happened in a past life of theirs.

Perhaps, in hindsight, that was why she’d gotten involved with her in the first place.

She shook herself out of her daydreams and went straight back to her plan. Diamond had to shake her mother off somehow if she had any hope of making it to her destination by sunset—or at all, for that matter. Spoiled had never liked, nor had she trusted, the pony her daughter had met up with a year or so ago, and if word ever was to get out that Diamond was still dwelling on her…

Well, with the way she was used to these sorts of shenanigans, that wasn’t going to happen. She had to protect herself, one way or another, and she had a feeling that the address on the piece of paper was the first step towards that. Towards becoming the pony she wanted to be, and towards mending one of the worst mistakes she’d ever made.

The entire ride there, her mother had done nothing but gush over this new coltfriend of hers. Though Diamond had hoped to read some more of the book Cheerilee assigned for spring break, an odd one about spiders and pig-eating ponies, even she had to admit that this side of her mother was far better than what could’ve been. She seemed to have let the whole class president thing slide for the last few days, at least.

Anyways, it was just another step closer to shaking Spoiled off for good—watching as she got so involved with another stallion that she forgot about everything else. Then the custody battle would be gone—just like that. Then, at least, she wouldn’t have to live in fear any more.

The rain piled up and the cab’s wheels kept rolling for blocks and blocks, barely giving the two enough time to take everything in. Instead, there was a quiet distance between them, even though Spoiled had nothing to hide, much less mull over. It could’ve just been boredom, but with the way the older mare had been talking her up on the train, Diamond could already tell something was suspicious here.

For the first time in hours, she met her mother’s glance. All she could see was the same sort of cold fire that she’d been met with after the election.

And then, it happened in a split second.

The cab screeched to a halt. The door swung right open. Out of the corner of her eye, Diamond could see somepony’s hoof try to push her out.

She shoved them right back.

She couldn’t defend herself any more than that.

Her back hit the pavement. Her paper flew to the wind.

All she could see was her mother cantering away with a yellow blob. Trying to focus on anything else about the coltfriend made dots pop up in her eyes.

Drenched in rain, aching all over her body, all she could remember were two phrases. “Welcome to Manehattan.” “Enjoy your independence.”

Her eyes drooping along with her spirit, she couldn’t help but realize that maybe her mother had never really forgiven her for everything after all.

****

“Ugh,” a mare muttered to nopony in particular, “what is with him? He knew we were supposed to do inspections today, and off he goes to who knows where.”

Diamond’s eyes squeezed open, and right away, she knew that she was in a very different place. It wasn’t so much a room as it was a cluster of dresses and sparkles, with only a sofa, a dresser, and a few chairs, and she could barely imagine trying to walk through all this mess. Glitzy posters lined the walls, only further completing the overpowering impression this room gave.

She scanned them over, hoping for some hint as to where she was. Most of them were glossy prints of actors and playbill-like posters, but then again, those were probably everywhere in Manehattan.

Her doubts, however, were quickly cleared when she turned to the blanket she’d been wrapped in, which was really a star-studded magician’s cape.

“Oh, sorry,” the mare whispered, this time addressing her. “I just couldn’t find any blankets in the back. We don’t really plan for this sort of thing here.”

She gave Diamond a nervous smile as she spoke, which swept into a genuine one when she finished. As pretty as she was, it was clear that she hadn’t gotten anywhere near enough sleep the night before, with tiny strands of her light blue mane out of place and bags under her matching eyes.

“Are we…in a theatre?” Diamond asked. It wasn’t exactly the most intelligent question in the world, but she was still barely in any condition to think straight.

“Yep,” the mare replied. “It’s a bit crazy in here, since we’ve got a play premiering next week, but I wanted to make sure you were all right. I’ve seen fillies left out to the streets here before, and whenever I find one, I make a goal of helping them out. Not sure I’ve ever seen that happen to any fillies with fancy tiaras on their head, though.”

Hoping she would’ve been able to hide her wealth in case the other pony couldn’t be trusted, Diamond blushed and replied, “It’s a long story.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just have one thing I want to ask, though.”

A solemn silence crossed the room, almost as if the walls themselves anticipated what the mare was about to ask.

“That mare who pushed you out of the cart,” she whispered, “was she your mom?”

Deciding she didn’t want to get into all the complicated matters her family had been going through lately, Diamond simply nodded.

“I did kinda make her mad last week. School didn’t go as well for me as she wanted it to. Typical foal issues.”

“Still,” the mare continued, “what makes you think she can treat you like that?”

As soon as she said this, she shook her head as if doing that would sweep the thought away.

“Actually, I think I know. You probably got used to that sort of thing over the years. My parents—they never did anything like that—but my old boss was a lot like that, cutting me down to size and all. I’m still getting over it now, to be honest.”

Just realizing she’d forgotten something, the mare blurted out, “My name’s Coco, by the way. Coco Pommel, actually. I’m the new costume designer here.”

“I’m Diamond Tiara,” the filly replied. “Mother and I were supposed to come here to meet up with her new coltfriend, but you can probably tell how that went.”

She gave Coco a nervous shrug, still not quite sure what to think of the new pony. Granted, she at least knew now that she was rested up enough to defend herself in case things didn’t pan out well here, and she at least somewhat trusted the mare who’d saved her. But she’d also heard that the glamorous life was even more cutthroat in Manehattan than it had been back home. If she shared too much, who’s to say nopony would overhear it and bring the news straight back to Ponyville? Or worse, laugh about it straight in her face and make her the laughingstock of the city already.

Diamond gave a tiny gulp and tried her best to change the subject.

“Shouldn’t you be working?”

After realizing her voice had come off as being a bit too abrasive, she added, “Just out of curiosity.” Even after saying this, she was internally facehoofing at herself for the insensitive comment.

“Actually, most of the things I still have to do are pretty small,” Coco answered. “I prepared a lot for this sort of thing a couple of months before so opening week would be easier on me. The only outfits I still have to make are spares in case anything were to happen, and I just need to repair some of the costumes that got damaged during dress rehearsal. I made the capes a tiny bit too long, and some of the actors tripped on them.”

Seeing the uncertain look on the older mare’s face, Diamond stared at her in confusion and suspicion.

“Okay, half the actors did,” Coco admitted hesitantly. “But hemming them will be easier now that most of the excess got torn off anyway.”

Diamond finally started to dig herself out of the cape she’d been wrapped in. Her body heat was picking up quicker than she’d ever remembered before. After rolling herself out, she examined the piece of cloth, looking for any telltale signs of tears or other flaws.

“Wow,” she muttered sarcastically, “looks like I got one of the good ones.”

The diamond-and-star pattern on the pink cape was darkened with her sweat and a little bit too gaudy for her tastes anyway, but other than that, nothing else seemed to be wrong with it.

“I figured you deserved it,” Coco replied. “Having to put up with all that, it was the least I could do to help. Besides, it suits you, and…”

Coco let out a slight giggle after saying this, almost as if she was in on something that the filly wasn’t.

“…And what?” Diamond asked indignantly. After a while, the paranoia of high society could make a pony forget that this sort of situation could be completely harmless. If they laughed without reason, they were doubting your authority and they wanted to see you fall. That was the first lesson any decent rich foal learned: never give anypony else an opening, and they would never be able to stab you.

Hypothetically, that should mean that you would never get hurt. But really, Diamond knew that that just meant you’d end up getting hurt in other ways.

“What I meant to say that the filly that had that costume originally always complained about it getting too hot on stage,” Coco clarified. “So I made one out of a lighter fabric for them, but I figured that I could still get some use out of this old thing.”

Just when she looked like she was about to stop talking, though, her face darkened and her eyes fell to the ground.

“But why did you make those faces when I laughed like that? For a minute there, you almost looked like you were scared of me. And, well…I don’t want that.”

“It’s nothing,” Diamond muttered.

Normally, the ponies in her house would’ve just let her off then and there. But when she saw the stern look in the costume designer’s eyes, she couldn’t help but be reminded of the way other foals’ mothers would look at their children. More skeptical than angry, in a way.

“It’s not nothing,” Coco answered. “Something got to you there, and I’m not going to stop asking about it until you tell me.”

She sat down with a tiny pout, and everything about the situation was so rehearsed that Diamond doubted the mare was even trying to be serious.

“You’re enjoying this whole thing, aren’t you?” the filly finally spoke.

“Hey, I don’t get very many chances to act like a mom on set,” Coco protested. “Most nights, I work so late, my filly’s already asleep by the time I get back.”

“It really is nothing. It’s just that, well, when a pony laughs without warning where I come from, and you don’t know why, you kind of assume the worst.”

Her tail drooped ever so slightly as she tried to keep her poise. Somehow, she had ended up in the city that had always fascinated her, and yet as soon as she took two hoofsteps there, every hair on her mane was on end. She’d always thought she could handle the toughness Manehattan ponies had, but now that she was there, she feared that everypony was hiding a little of that, and that nopony could be trusted.

“Sorry about that, then. I really didn’t mean to startle you, and I’m sorry for setting you off.”

“You just apologized twice,” Diamond observed.

“Well, it just means I’m twice as sincere about it, I guess. But anyway…where exactly do you come from? If you’re okay with answering, that is. It sounds even tougher than this place, and sometimes I swear Manehattan takes pride in being the harshest town in Equestria.”

“I’m from Ponyville.”

The second she said it, she could already see Coco’s eyebrows widen in confusion.

“Wow, things must’ve really changed there,” she said solemnly. “A pony from there gave me this job, and she was really nice. And last time I visited, everything seemed pretty friendly.”

“It is,” Diamond answered. “But in my parents’ crowd, not so much. My father’s probably the only decent one in the whole rich clique.”

“Then it sounds like what you really need is a good family. One who you know won’t get you riled up into thinking everypony’s out to get you.”

“Well, at least I’m halfway there.”

For a second, Diamond barely realized what Coco was getting at. But once she did, she jumped up with a start.

“What you’re doing is really nice,” she admitted. “But…are you trying to adopt me or something?”

In that moment, she started to realize that maybe this mare took the whole “helping needy foals” thing a bit too seriously, and she was already looking for the quickest exit out of the building.

“Of course not,” Coco answered. “I meant more of a temporary family, if you will. Some ponies to take care of you while your mom is off somewhere else. Besides, adopting the filly I have now was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but to be honest, one of her relatives is already trying to bury all of us into the ground. The last thing any of us, including you, need is to have your mom turn out the same way.”

“I guess. But I thought you were going to be busy with finishing up the play this week.”

As she gathered her things into a small saddlebag, Coco gave Diamond a knowing smile. The filly knew when somepony else was planning something she wasn’t in on, and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

“I may be busy, but I know who won’t be.”

****

Now that Coco’s meeting with the mysterious pony who never came back to practice had been cancelled, both her and Diamond left the theatre early and trotted towards the dining district. Coco hadn’t told the filly much about what they were about to do or why they were there, but somehow, they’d ended up at a large castle-like restaurant made out of orange bricks. Diamond had tried to make a remark about how ugly the color was, hoping she’d get a laugh out of the fashion-minded mare, but Coco remained silent and very much serious.

In fact, it wasn’t until they’d walked into the place, which looked much fancier on the inside, that Coco cracked any semblance of a grin. But as soon as Diamond saw a pair of unfamiliar-looking ponies on a waiting bench, she noticed that Coco was suddenly all smiles. She’d waved her hooves over from the other side as soon as she saw the older of the two, an orange mare wearing a newspony’s cap.

“Hey, Bambi!” Coco yelled. “How’s your spring break going?”

“I still can’t believe it myself,” the orange mare said with a chuckle. “I just walked right over to my boss, told him my home life wasn’t so good, and he just gives me a week’s vacation to sort it out! And here I was, afraid of asking this softy about it ‘cause I thought he was too tough.”

“Oh, come on,” the filly accompanying her muttered. “You don’t have any right to call anypony a softy, sis. You’re just as much of one yourself.”

When she first heard it, Diamond had thought the other foal had meant it as some sort of threat. But when her older sister playfully shook the filly’s hair in response, she saw that she’d been taking things far too seriously again. She’d heard about siblings teasing each other, but she’d never quite understood how it was any different from what she used to do at school with the Crusaders. To be honest, for the longest time, it’d actually kind of creeped her out when they did that.

However, it didn’t creep her out near as much as what she was just about to see. The filly, turning her head towards the other ponies, wasn’t nearly as unfamiliar as she’d thought. She still hadn’t noticed Diamond yet, but it’d only be a matter of time.

Back in Ponyville, when Diamond had still been looking forward to everything, she’d thought this would be easy. She’d even wanted to see this filly, to pour her whole heart out to her so that she’d finally understand.

But daydreaming about her from a distance and assuming the best would happen was one thing. Seeing her face-to-face was another.

Just like the city itself, everything about the other filly was overpowering, and when she looked at her, she felt like everything about her was collapsing, drowned out only by fear and unintelligible noise.

All she could focus on was one thing.

“Diamond,” Coco began, “these are Bambi Byline and Babs Seed. My family, and the ponies who are going to be taking you in this week.”

Diamond could already feel the grudge in the air coming straight for her.

She had never liked coincidences, and she especially didn't like this one.

Author's Note

Just trying out a new kind of story here, and I hope you enjoy it! The title's all about how Diamond Tiara's light has been "drowned out" throughout her life, and how the city, someplace that should drown it out more, only polishes her more. It's going to be a bit lower-key than If You Give a Little Love, so I hope you enjoy it!

Title taken from this song.

First Night: Diamond Cut

Everything in the restaurant had a sort of constant, swirling motion to it. The pendulums on the clocks moved back and forth in time with the wing-shaped ceiling fans that barely even blew any air onto the tables. In the center of all of this, a grand fountain trickled with streams of water. Signs surrounded the fountain, but hordes of foals found their way around them, splashing and running through it without a single worry about what their parents would think.

She’d never really thought about it that much before, but when it came down to it, Diamond Tiara really did wish she had that sort of luxury. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to get her mane wet and messy, but instead the feeling of just wanting to be in a place without having to fret about what to say or what to do. She thought she’d escaped those fears for the time being, especially considering the way her mother had brushed her off for—for how long exactly? A week, like she’d assumed up until then? Or forever?

Watching the fan go by, she shook those thoughts out of her head. If she was going to survive in this city, she had to have her priorities straight. And if she had any hope of staying with Coco’s family, she had to patch things up with Babs like she’d planned on doing anyway. Somehow.

All she knew at this point was that focusing on her mother was not going to help. So she tried focusing on other things, even insignificant ones, just to keep the stress off the situation so she could seem as sincere as possible.

The rest of the table seemed to be at a similar loss for words. Diamond had heard Coco try to explain the situation to Babs and her sister while they were waiting in line to be seated, but after that, everything about it had been dropped. But she could tell Babs was sizing her up, just like she was doing to her.

After a while, she’d been staring off into space until she’d forgotten where she was. While she didn’t forget who she was with, everything just seemed to blur into some indistinct mass, and for all she knew, she could’ve been anywhere in Manehattan. So when a single hoof went towards her front leg, she flinched without thinking.

Strangely enough, she could barely feel anything when the hoof actually did hit her fur. With all the tension in the room, she’d half-expected it to be Babs waiting for the right moment to punch her out of her chair. Honestly, that was probably what she deserved, anyway. Latching onto Babs’ mother only months after bullying her cousin, barging into her hometown without warning, interrupting what could’ve been a peaceful family gathering.

Instead, when Diamond’s focus returned to the real world, all she could see was a gentle smile from the one mare she knew didn’t have a grudge against her. Probably.

“I just wanted to ask if you knew what you wanted yet,” Coco whispered with a slight chuckle. “No need to be so jumpy about it.”

“The spicy vegetable pizza looks good,” Diamond answered, trying to act natural.

Instead, she was met only with blank stares from the rest of the table, the first time she’d been addressed in over fifteen minutes.

“You might want to take a look at the menu,” Babs’ sister, Bambi, said. From her tone, Diamond still wasn’t able to tell whether she was on her side or not, and her face certainly didn’t reveal anything of the sort. “Seeing as you just happened to pick the one Manehattan dish the Cheesecake Mill doesn’t serve.”

At that moment, Diamond was half-tempted to see if the giant fountain had a hidden pile of quicksand on top of the base. It’d almost be preferable to this whole situation, that was for sure. And even if there wasn’t, anything would be better than staying there to face her past faults.

Just as she was about to step off the seat, however, another hoof reached out to stop her. Diamond looked up to see the pony’s face and saw the one she dreaded most, with her head as close to hers as it could be.

“Common mistake, assuming everyplace in Manehattan has pizza,” Babs muttered. “I was like that, first time I came here.”

Diamond stared at the filly in confusion. She still didn’t know very much about Babs, even after spending an entire week practically tied at her hip, but she’d always assumed she’d never been anything else other than a Manehattanite. Then again, that would just have to be another distraction she’d figure out once she actually got in good with this family.

The top priority now was figuring out why the first words out of Babs’ mouth had been casual, even though her face was still tight with suspicion. Was forgiveness really going to come that easy?

“Heads up,” Babs spoke softly, tilting her head towards the waitress approaching their table. “If you still can’t decide, I have a feelin’ you’d like the pepper and mushroom sandwich.”

And that had been the last encounter they’d had when the food came. Diamond had taken up Babs’ advice about the sandwich, but she still wasn’t quite sure what the filly was thinking.

She’d made a show about enjoying her meal, hoping that compliments would get her somewhere, but there was still no response. She’d went through all the friendship-making techniques she’d been secretly learning at Twilight Time, but all of them seemed too embarrassing for the situation.

Then again, playing it cool had never really gotten her anywhere, especially not with the Crusaders. They’d only chosen to forgive her after they saw how close she was to breaking. While she had no way of replicating that with Babs, she could make herself vulnerable in a different way.

“Hey, Babs,” she said just as the brown filly had returned from the bathroom, her cutie mark fully visible. “I feel like you and your cutie mark could really help my father. After all…he always has liked to cut costs.”

After saying this, she laughed and pumped her front hooves back and forth towards Babs, trying her best to hide her nervous smile.

Pinkie Pie had told her that bad puns were the key to making good friends, and that, after making one, you had to move your hooves around like, in the party planner’s own words, “a pirate pony loading a cannon.” Yet when she did this, Babs looked unaffected and maybe even a bit insulted.

Maybe that one wasn’t bad enough, Diamond thought to herself. The whole idea of intentionally doing something badly to make friends had confused her from the beginning, and maybe she was still trying too hard to make a good joke. With that on her mind, she decided to try again as if her life depended on it. Which, if it rained again like it did today, it probably would.

“Wow, I mean, getting a cutie mark before any of your other friends? I really did underestimate you all along. You really were cut out for this!”

Another round of laughter. More hoof cannons. Still no response.

“I really am sorry about what I did, I promise. Treating you the way I did, I really did deserve to be dragged through the mud that way. But I promise, I’ve changed. And I’m open for any cutting remarks you might still have about me.”

Diamond only got a few moments of laughter in before realizing that this plan was having the exact opposite effect on everypony. Coco and Bambi were staring at her oddly, both trying to figure out what she was trying to accomplish to no avail. And more importantly, Babs’ blank stare had soon turned into a scowl.

“To think I’d thought you were actually bein’ sincere about that,” Babs muttered with a sigh. “And I was actually gonna think about acceptin’ your apology up until you dissed my cutie mark.”

“I didn’t—oh…“

She stopped there, realizing what her comments could have sounded like without context. What they could’ve sounded like to somepony who’d known the old Diamond Tiara. The fact that it’d been about cutie marks certainly made it seem that way, at least. At that point, the best thing she could’ve done probably would’ve been to shut up about it and never bring it up again, assuming she got another chance.

But ponies didn’t tend to give her another chance and more importantly, she’d never really been the best at getting herself to shut up. Her mind, and everything else about her, had ways of digging her into bigger holes.

“I really…didn’t…mean it like that,” she muttered, barely struggling to get the words out. “If I’d wanted to make fun of ponies, I certainly wouldn’t have come here to do it. It’s so far away from everything I’ve known, and Manehattanites are supposed to be insane.”

“We are,” Babs replied, half-threatening, half-teasing. “But if you didn’t mean it like that, then how else could you have meant it?”

She breathed in deeply, sighed out, and continued, “I really, really don’t know about you. Don’t get me wrong, Apple Bloom briefed me on it and everythin’, talkin’ about how excited she was to get her cutie mark, how worried she’d been about you. Celestia knows how I wanted to believe you, the way my cuz has taught me to see the best in ponies. I know there are a lot of us out there who deserve forgiveness, but I’ve been hurt before more times than you know. Back then, I even thought you were the answer to keepin’ me from bein’ hurt. I even thought, after that whole thing with your mama, I thought I could do the same for you. But seein’ after what you said to me…it doesn’t seem like you want forgiveness.”

“I thought it would break the ice, all right?” Diamond answered, all the words suddenly flowing out of her mouth. “I talked to as many ponies as I could about how to make friends, and especially about how to make friends with ponies who didn’t like you, okay? And none of them were working, and Pinkie had this really dumb idea about making bad puns so you’d laugh at me, so I figured I’d try it. Because I came all this way to Manehattan and got shoved out of a cab just so I could be forgiven by the one pony who understands me most. All this time, nopony understood what I was going through, but you did. And I just wanted you to know that.”

At this point, Diamond was panting, desperate, and trying her best to hold down tears. Confessing to these sorts of things had never been the easiest on her, but knowing that there was a fifty-fifty chance they could fall on barren ground hit her harder than any other confessions she’d had to make before.

“Well, if that’s what you meant all along,” Babs sighed, “then you should’ve just stopped putting on all those airs and just cut it out.”

As stupid as it was, hearing that was enough to make Diamond stop wanting to cry. She knew it wasn’t something she should’ve been laughing about, but she did anyway. Realizing her mistake, Babs soon followed.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen!” the brown filly blurted out, waving her hooves from side to side in embarrassment. “I swear!”

“I guess it means it cuts both ways now,” Diamond shot back.

Babs gave her a slight look of disapproval and tried to maintain her cool composure, which lasted all of five seconds before she joined in laughing. After both fillies’ throats gave out from all the laughter, the table was quiet yet again.

But this time, Diamond couldn’t help but tell that the quietness was different. While she suspected that she wasn’t quite out of the woods yet with Babs, at least she seemed willing to give her a chance, and that was more than she could’ve said a day ago. When dessert came to the table, Babs had even given her the largest slice of the strawberry cheesecake.

“We’ll make a deal,” the brown filly whispered. “No more puns, and I’ll try to give you another chance.”

Diamond could tell from the way she smiled, though, that she was much more excited about this than she was letting on. Maybe she wasn’t the only pony who needed an understanding hoof once in a while.

“And what about staying with you?” Diamond asked. “Do you really think you could live under the same roof as your old enemy without, you know, going insane?”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Babs muttered.

Later, Diamond would realize that her voice hadn’t had a hint of playfulness in it when she’d said that. If Babs had meant it the same way she’d meant everything else in the conversation, then Diamond would’ve been able to tell. But her potential new friend had a flicker of seriousness in that moment, almost as if there was still some mystery she didn’t know. As if, even then, there was still some distance between them.

“Something tells me I can handle it.”

That flicker had already faded once Babs opened her mouth again, only to be drowned out more by happy family chatter and heaping slices of cheesecake. But that didn’t make it go away, not by a long shot. Just looking at Bambi and Coco’s concerned gazes made that even clearer.

Diamond didn’t know anything about Babs’ past or the darkness it had held, she realized. All she really knew was that, somehow, she understood.

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed the first full segment of this story (day+night)! There'll still be some tension between the two, but for the most part, a lot of this story will be dedicated to them discovering each other and growing ever closer as friends. Also, I had too much fun making Diamond explore the world of puns. :rainbowlaugh:

P.S. The restaurant in this chapter is half-fictional, half-based on reality. I've never actually eaten at a Cheesecake Factory, so I tried to imagine what one would be like based on being inside one once, while still giving it a fantasy touch.

Second Day: Ace of Diamonds

Diamond Tiara could just barely feel a hoof run past her mane as she slept, willing herself to flip her body over when it got too close. As much as it’d stirred her in the night, she still wasn’t quite sure what time it was when it had happened, and were it not for the strangeness of it all, she would’ve forgotten it by morning. For the time being, she’d chosen to write it off as her imagination sensing things that weren’t there, since this was one of the first unfamiliar beds she’d ever slept in. Anything besides hers, her parents’, and Silver Spoon’s were probably enough to give her night terrors just being in them, as much as she’d hate to admit it. Even then, it was still so much better than thinking that some big-city creep was watching her as she slept.

She still wasn’t anywhere near used to living in a building with other ponies that weren’t her family, but unfortunately, that was just part of the arrangements here. As a rising Bridleway costume designer, Coco probably still earned a pretty decent amount even for Diamond’s standards, but Manehattan’s central district was just too crowded for anypony to have anything other than a mishmash of rooms inside a mishmash of a building. The ponies she was staying with assured her that the condo was perfectly safe and installed with an impeccable security system, but she still eyed the neighboring blocks with caution.

Thankfully, though, there hadn’t been a breach in the system, in spite of her fears. The only alarm she’d heard was the one by her bedside, and as she stretched her legs on the other pillow, she could feel a piece of paper hidden underneath. Picking it up and staring at it with still-fatigued eyes, Diamond could see drops and smears of ink covering it in strange places. In fact, the parchment was almost ripped in areas from the sheer pressure the quill’s tip had placed on it, even though the scrawled hoofwriting on it was nowhere near as messy as the rest of the letter.

Diamond—

Help needed on set. My boss is insistent. He wants me to come as soon as I can. I probably won’t see you much today, if at all. Sorry. Be sure to have fun without me and tell me all about it later!

--Coco

Her caretaker for the week had drawn a tiny heart next to the last sentence, almost as if she’d forgotten what a rush she was in. Still, at least she’d bothered writing a letter to begin with instead of outright disappearing to her job without warning. Diamond sure couldn’t remember the last time somepony had done that for her.

Even though she knew she shouldn’t get too attached to the family living here, she stuffed the letter into her saddlebag almost without thinking and turned to the window soaked with water droplets. Hidden behind the skyscrapers, she could just see the first thing that’d caught her eye when she and her mother had ridden into the city: a huge track-like structure almost like a railroad that seemed to touch the clouds. She’d noticed some sort of box attached to it, too, where ponies would come in from the ground and let the structure take them up like a pulley. There were more of these moving structures all around it, and all of them seemed to do different things: going around in circles, launching ponies up and down a tower, squirting water all over the place, and so forth. Back when Diamond had asked her mother about it, she’d simply ignored her, probably so she could plot the easiest way to get rid of the load she called a daughter.

Today, the structures didn’t seem to be moving at all, and as she went down to the kitchen for breakfast, Diamond almost wondered if she’d imagined that, too. Last night, she’d thought about asking Coco if she could investigate them today, but the words had never come. In fact, she’d almost be afraid to ask about them now if she wasn’t so curious about the whole weird thing.

“They only move when it’s not raining,” Babs’ sister Bambi explained with a strange look in her eyes. “It’s not safe for ponies to go on them otherwise.”

“So it’s not their job to go on them?” Diamond asked. “I always thought ponies didn’t cancel work when it rained.”

The mare stifled tiny chuckles at hearing this, but surprisingly enough, Babs had the same look of awe about the whole situation that Diamond Tiara did. Babs had probably seen the place with the track millions of times before, Diamond reasoned, but maybe she hadn’t seen the ponies go up it yet. To another pony hearing her story, this whole thing probably would’ve sounded quite odd.

“It’s not their job,” Bambi replied with a smile, putting waffles onto the table. “They’re having fun. They pay to get in, and they can ride as often as they want. It’s hard to describe, but going on stuff like that tends to make ponies your age happy for some reason. Like going down a slide, I guess, except way faster.”

As soon as Diamond heard “ponies your age,” she barely had to think about what it translated to in her mother’s terms. Ponies that weren’t her, that weren’t high society, that didn’t have the pressures she did.

“I always thought it was some messed-up train track,” Babs muttered finally. “And they actually enjoy themselves doin’ that?”

The brown filly shrugged and took another bite of her waffle, not even giving the place a second thought. But Diamond couldn’t help but wonder deep down why she, too, was so unfamiliar with the place. Come to think of it, even from far away, somepony could still tell that mainly foals and families were riding the ride. If it was some sort of experience every foal had, then why was Babs so confused by it?

Diamond shook it out of her head as soon as it had come. She hadn’t meddled in other ponies’ affairs or uttered a single word of gossip in months, and she intended on keeping it that way.

“Anyway,” she continued, trying to shove the intrusive thoughts out of her mind, “can we go together when it’s not raining? If you and Babs aren’t too busy with your own things, I mean.”

“Sure,” Bambi answered. “The weatherpony here says it’s going to rain all week, but we’re so far away from pegasus cities that he’s always wrong anyway. I keep telling the paper they need a more reliable system or at least somepony who’s right twenty percent of the time…”

Thinking back to her job, the mare buried her head into her front legs in frustration and just started muttering even more.

“That’s a yes, by the way,” said Babs. “She just gets like that sometimes. As long as you don’t make me ride that freaky train track, I’m in, too.”

Bambi got off the table, pulled out the newspaper, and began to do the crosswords inside her own publication. The last thing Diamond Tiara thought before breakfast came to a close was whether or not this could be considered cheating. All else was still.

****

With all this in mind, all Diamond could do was sit at the table patiently and stare at the window as if she had the magic to will it to stop raining. She would’ve stayed there forever if Babs didn’t tap her on the shoulder an hour and a half into waiting.

“Whoa,” the other filly whispered. “You’re a lot more patient than I figured you’d be.”

“And you’re a lot more nosy than I thought you’d be,” Diamond quipped. “I didn’t think anything I did was any of your business.”

“Yeah, well, Coco wanted you to have fun here, and you won’t have fun starin’ at rain for hours on end. That’s the only reason I care.”

Diamond cracked a slight smile at hearing this, even though Babs’ tone would seem disinterested and rude to other ponies. Really, though, this was the sort of inside joke she’d developed with the few friends she’d had: coming up with little pretend arguments and pretending not to care just to get a chuckle out of somepony. Watching her get in on it was at least a start in a potential new friendship, whether it was sincerely meant or not.

“Well, for your information, I’m having the time of my life,” Diamond spat, trying her hardest not to laugh. “I’m not waiting for that place to open, I’m like, watching the raindrops run into each other. It’s tons of fun seeing how big they can get before a bigger one gets them.”

Babs just rolled her eyes and blew her mane away from her eyes like usual. Even as everything between them had changed, that much had at least stayed the same.

“Suit yourself, then,” she said as she trotted away. “Bambi’s got games set up in the other room. But sure, keep watchin’ your raindrop demolition derby.”

As soon as the other filly was gone, Diamond suddenly lost any interest she’d faked in the raindrops altogether. Cheerilee had a couple board games stored in her room in case it was too rainy for recess, but Diamond had always just talked to Silver Spoon and kept herself away from everypony instead. She figured that, if anything, it’d be more interesting than waiting for something that probably wouldn’t come.

Her thoughts were only further confirmed when she noticed Bambi sitting next to the coffee table in the living room, shuffling cards like she’d had too much experience with this sort of thing.

“Oh, good, I was just about to come in there and call you over,” she said when Diamond trotted past her. “I figured we’d start off with something highbrow so you’d feel a bit more at home.”

Granted, Bambi wasn’t exactly wrong when she said this. But as she set up the cards, it looked less and less like a foal’s card game and more like the kinds Filthy Rich would invite other stallions to play when Spoiled was off doing something else.

“Um, isn’t this illegal?” Diamond asked.

“Why would it be?” Babs answered with a shrug. “Sis and I used to play it all the time, and it wasn’t like the police barged through our door or anythin’.”

There it was again: the “used to.” Even though she hadn’t particularly noticed it before, Diamond realized that at the dinner table last night or at breakfast today, Babs had always referred to her relationship with Bambi in past terms, as if something had changed to get to where they were now. Before, it’d been a little piece of chatter she hadn’t caught up on. But if she had any hope of making friends with Babs again, she knew she’d have to face her with the question someday.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder why the filly had to be so darn mysterious about everything.

“It’s not gambling if it’s not for bits,” Bambi explained with a chuckle. “I bet your teacher has you play bingo at classroom parties, right. Same difference.”

The pink filly still had a skeptical look on her face, but shoved it to the side, realizing that a newspony like Bambi probably wouldn’t con her into illegal acts for article fodder. Even a then-devious mind like Diamond wouldn’t have dared try anything like that when she ran the Foal Free Press.

As if to show how low the stakes really were, Bambi poured out a bag of lollipops and split them amongst the three ponies. Each one was heart-shaped and swirled with two different colors, and none of them looked like anything Diamond could buy in Ponyville. Looking across each pile, she saw that only a few of them looked exactly alike, and that their color combinations seemed almost endless.

“It’s simple,” Bambi began. “You place your bets in Spade Suckers, put them in the middle of the table, and try to get your cards to add up to twenty-one. If nopony reaches twenty-one, the closest one to that gets the Spade Suckers in the pot.”

Diamond still wasn’t quite sure how this was supposed to be a family-enriching activity, especially considering the look on Babs’ face when she saw the lollipops. That was most definitely the look of a filly with candy cravings, and Diamond suspected that getting in between that could turn either violent, competitive, or potentially both.

“Where did you even find these…Spade Suckers?” she asked, assuming that Bambi was referring to the lollipops. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“Coco’s mom makes ‘em,” Babs replied. “She and Coco’s dad have a general store on the other side of town called Heart and Spade, and these’re some of their biggest sellers. They say they’ve got a different flavor for every coat-mane color combo you can think of. Mine is cherry cola.”

“Tropical punch for me,” Bambi continued. “But you should’ve seen what they did when they found out about their daughter adopting Babs. They renamed the flavor after her!”

“That’s how you tell you’re real family with ‘em,” Babs answered back. “Getting a Spade Sucker named after you, I mean. Coco’s the only other pony they’ve done that with, and she’s blueberries and cream.”

Even if Diamond wouldn’t have been listening, Babs probably still would’ve been prattling on about the lollipops. For once, she actually seemed to be excited to tell her former enemy about her hometown, to everypony’s surprise.

“Tell you what,” the brown filly said with a wink, “I’ll bet a pink-and-purple one right now, if you really think you can get it. It’s one of my favorite kinds, but hey, watching you win at cards will probably be worth losin’ it.”

As much as she hated to admit it, the Spade Sucker fever was even getting to Diamond, and she couldn’t help but wonder what special thing her matching one would taste like. That, plus the teasing glint in Babs’ eyes, was enough to get her going through the first round. Friendship or no friendship, being showed up by anypony else still wasn’t something she craved by any means.

After drawing a few cards, she looked at everypony with beaming eyes. There was no way she could lose this time. Everything was moving in her favor. She was about to start her time with this family in the best of ways, and her time to shine was now. All she would have to do was place the cards on the table, and they would talk about Diamond Tiara, blackjack prodigy, for days and days to come…

“Twenty-four!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, slamming her cards out so hard the coffee table shook from the impact. “Twenty-four!”

Bambi and Babs both eyed her with the utmost shock. In that regard, she supposed her plan of beating them at their own game had worked. The two sisters whispered to one another, trying to figure out how best to break the news.

“You lost,” Babs finally said bluntly, without a hint of mockery to her voice.

“What?” Diamond replied. “You guys rigged this! You said I had to get as close to twenty-one as possible, and twenty-four is even better than twenty-one! That lollipop is mine.”

Both of the others looked to each other again, this time trying their best to stifle laughter at the situation even as Diamond had no clue what was going on.

“Nah, nah, it’s okay,” Bambi said finally. “We’re not laughing at you, it’s just cute. Of course a pony who’s never played this before wouldn’t know going over twenty-one automatically disqualifies you.”

“What kind of rule is that?” Diamond asked indignantly. “What, do you just pull them out of nowhere or something? What’s next, you’re going to tell me that only the red cards count towards the total?”

Even knowing the other ponies weren’t laughing at her, losing to them at the lowest-stakes card game imaginable was still humiliating. She’d put everything into the next few rounds, still trying for that Spade Sucker, but the hands she’d been dealt were never as good as the first time. After losing to them for who knows how many times, Diamond finally put her head on the table and sighed.

“You’re takin’ this way too seriously,” Babs told her, stroking a strand of her mane out from her eyes. “I mean, Apple Bloom told me in that letter that your mama’s always pushing you to be the best and all, but she’s not gonna care if you lose fourteen rounds of blackjack in a row—“

“Fifteen,” Diamond corrected.

“—fifteen games of blackjack in a row, and neither will we. If you’re not havin’ fun with this, we should move on to somethin’ else.”

The pink filly opened her mouth to protest, no longer thinking about her mother or anything else like that. All she really cared about at this point was something that she’d lost the chance to get fifteen rounds ago.

“Oh, almost forgot,” Babs interjected, shuffling through a pile she had on the floor. Before Diamond could do anything about it, the other filly shoved the pink-and-purple lollipop into her mouth. It wasn’t quite like anything she’d tasted before, almost like a mix of sugar cubes, cream, and marshmallows all at once. Still, she found herself licking it as fast as she could.

“What flavor’s this supposed to be?” she asked, desperate to find out where she could try something like it at home.

“Cotton candy,” Bambi answered. “They sell it over at the amusement park you were looking at today.”

“And don’t worry,” Babs chimed in, “once we go there, I’ll buy you the biggest stick of it we can find. That’s a promise.”

****

“Ha! You landed on my exclusive Pony Place resort! It’s time for you to pay up!”

Hours later, Diamond had finally found a game she could win at and was flaunting it as much as she could, flinging paper money all across the room. The other two looked at her with exasperated, but still proud, grins on their faces, willing to placate the filly and let her revel in her victory.

However, as tired as Bambi and Babs looked after an afternoon of rainy-day game playing, they were still nowhere near as much so as the mare who walked into the room just as the game ended. At first, Diamond thought she was the only one who noticed her, seeing as the other two didn’t even look her way. But then she noticed the way they both stared at the table with heads down to the ground, almost as if they were too used to the situation to look her way.

The mare groggily came out of the room just as tired as she’d been when she trotted into it, and just when she was about to go straight out the condo door, Diamond galloped straight up to her.

“Coco!” she yelled. “I had a really good time today, you know. Do you think you’ll be able to do something with us later?”

Coco gave her a tiny smile before walking out of the room, just barely looking back to her. It was then that the way Babs always called Coco by her name and not “mother” finally seemed to make sense.

All that mattered in that moment was Bambi’s resigned voice talking to nopony in particular. Almost as if to tell her that life in this family wasn’t without its hardships, either.

“She’s been like that ever since she met up with that scoundrel. That boss of hers never lets her alone, does he?”

Author's Note

Fun fact: the blackjack scene was actually taken from personal experience with my parents. It's an inside joke in our family to this day.

Coco won't be as much of a presence in the story as she was in the first two parts, but trust me when I say she doesn't mean to be distant. As you'll see later in the story (or as you can start finding out right now), she's going through her own trials over this spring break, too. Enjoy the rest of the parts!

Second Night: A Diamond's Magic

By the time it finally stopped raining, Coco had already been gone for hours, and from the way Diamond Tiara watched the other two members of the household approach the situation, she realized that maybe things here weren’t so different from back home after all. She’d certainly noticed from the beginning that the condo itself wasn’t anywhere near as cramped or as cluttered as she’d always expected Manehattan residences to be, and there were some occasional luxury decorations around it. While she still had no idea just how rich Bambi and Coco were, a place like this certainly couldn’t have come cheap, and more likely than not, it probably didn’t come from a newsmare’s salary. A designer’s, maybe, but even Coco was fairly new at her job.

Then again, from what little she knew of the situation, maybe that was half the reason Coco seemed to vanish so often in the first place. Diamond had at least some concept of ponies marrying and getting into relationships for money; that was what the rumors had always said about her parents, after all. But considering the way Bambi had reacted about Coco going off to meet this mysterious stallion, that didn’t seem quite right.

Besides, she had to remind herself that, no matter what she’d faced in her life, the ponies here were completely different from that. Coco didn’t seem to show any interest in conning her way up the social ladder like her mother had, for one. She was just a parent who was never around, probably spending all that time just working herself to death and using the relationship as a release. In the end, though, she only ended up even more confused about how the two mares managed to pay for such a nice place, and her mouth dropped almost to the floor when she saw what Bambi held in her mouth as she considered this.

The tickets she was holding were nowhere near the kinds you would normally see in Ponyville; they were navy blue and shimmered with starry sparkles. If she didn’t know any better, Diamond would’ve thought they were for the Grand Galloping Gala. And here this mare was, just casually examining the time written on them and checking the clock like she was about to go to a movie, completely unfazed by their appearance.

“I was hoping she’d be able to make it tonight,” Bambi muttered to nopony in particular. “She was supposed to be off early, but of course, somepony had to throw a wrench into things…”

At this point, most of what she was saying had turned into either incomprehensible grumbling or conversation about things Diamond didn’t understand, so she just kept staring at Babs’ sister oddly as if she had nothing else to do.

“Right,” Bambi said, finally noticing the pink filly. “I guess it’s a good thing she’s busy tonight, then. Wouldn’t want to leave you behind, after all. Sorry if I didn’t come off all that excited.”

“It’s fine,” Diamond replied. “You guys didn’t exactly plan for me to come over here, anyway. So I could always buy a ticket for…whatever this thing is if Coco could go.”

Bambi finally took her eyes off the tickets and faced the two fillies.

“One, it’s a magic show. Two, it’s sold out already. And three—“ The mare shook her head repeatedly and placed a hoof to her face. “Three is that even if it wasn’t opening week at her show, I wouldn’t expect Coco to be there. Ever since she met that stallion, it’s been like this for us. It’s not her fault, really. She’s been under a lot of pressure, and he really hasn’t been helping, and—let’s just forget about that and have a good night out.”

“She doesn’t sound all that convinced ‘bout that,” Babs muttered, whispering in Diamond’s ear almost like they were close friends.

And, judging from the look on Bambi’s face, Babs had pretty much read her sister’s mind. She still looked exasperated from the whole situation, her eyebrows still drooping low on her face as if she was about to tear this stallion to pieces. And so, Diamond figured it was about as good a time as any to ask her question.

“How did you end up getting all this?”

“The tickets?” Bambi answered. “The show’s in Coco’s theatre. So, you know, perks of the job and all. Nothing really fancy.”

Diamond wanted to bang her head against her table and show just how annoyed she was by this answer. At least, that’s what she would’ve probably done a few months ago. But now that she was trying to be a better pony, and especially with Babs around to potentially judge her, she instead sighed deeply and thought about how her statement could’ve caused misunderstanding.

Though the tickets were worth quite a bit, the attire was relatively simple compared to what she was normally used to. And with Coco’s designs, there was a free range of things to borrow. But still, even though she wanted to keep herself out of this family’s affairs, the same question rang through her mind, the same one that wouldn’t be satisfied tonight.

“No,” she told Bambi. “What I meant was, how do you have such a nice house and decorations, and all that? I’ve never seen you at gatherings or galas or anything.”

The orange mare just gave her a wistful smile as she listened to the question.

“So you really have made your way in society, considering how you already know so many rich mares from other cities. I wish I’d had your opportunities growing up.”

“But how did you three end up getting all that money to begin with?”

“We’re not thieves, Diamond,” Bambi replied with a chuckle as her mood changed yet again. “I just happen to be an heiress who doesn’t like playing all those games rich ponies usually play. I’d rather be with a family and keep my own secrets, because that’s my way of staying safe here. So, I assume you’ll won’t tell anypony, either?”

Diamond just nodded her head, realizing that this was the kindest family of mysteries she ever knew.

****

The sense of disappointment only continued when she noticed the name on the marquee. On the bottom of the list was a show set to start five nights from now, Spellshock, the one she assumed Coco was in. On top was a name that could barely even fit onto the sign.

The Rich family had never been known for being cheapskates, but they could at least smell a scam when they saw one.

“They’re charging how much for these?!” Diamond yelled, losing her composure for a second.

“Two hundred bits for the cheap seats, miss,” the pony at the ticket booth replied civilly. “Why you askin’, kid? Not enough in your piggybank?”

Even though any decent pony would end the conversation then and there, the worker’s trademark Manehattan sass was what really nailed it for her. This wasn’t a complaint about her not being able to afford it, but one of a lazy mare charging higher prices in a higher-demand community.

“I’ll have you know that your ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’”—she rolled her eyes and spun her hooves in a circle in imitation of casting a spell—“routinely performs in Ponyville for twenty bits. No bits at all sometimes, even. And you think that just because you put her in some fancy theatre, ponies are going to fall for it. Well, I’m not.”

“I’d say you’re the first one not to,” the ticket pony said. “Point is, it’s not just the venues we’re payin’ for here. It’s a popularity charge. More ponies have been wanting to see her, and if that means stayin’ in their Manehattan proud hometown and not traipsing through some folksy tourist trap, then so be it.”

“Tourist trap?” Diamond replied. “Please. This whole city is more of a tourist trap than Ponyville will ever be!”

At this point, though, she found herself being pulled by the tail by an annoyed Bambi, who’d already turned their tickets in to the box office.

“Now, now, don’t get into it with him too much,” Bambi muttered. “It isn’t worth it. If you ever really want to protest ticket scalping, I’d definitely start with the higher-up ponies.”

Though Diamond was at least a bit surprised at how casually they seemed to be taking a situation that would’ve resulted in some serious punishment back home, her surroundings shocked her even more. While it’d only been a day since Coco first found her in this theatre, she hadn’t really had a chance to examine it from the front, and seeing it now, it looked far larger than even her recent memories knew. It was certainly bigger than any she’d ever been in before, though she never would’ve admitted it to anypony’s face. The lobby was fully stocked with all sorts of booths selling everything from concessions to magic sets to souvenirs for other plays. Before she could get a closer look at anything, Babs had already cantered straight over to the souvenir booth, almost knocking Diamond’s tiara off with her enthusiasm.

“Look!” she cried out, waving towards Bambi with her hoof. “They’ve already got the Spellshock stuff out!”

“We should come by again opening night,” Bambi advised. “It’s only five nights away, and we’d probably get a discount from being with the crew.”

Nopony had been paying much attention to the play memorabilia anyway, probably questioning why they had it out so early like the three of them had. But she could already see that there was a particular emphasis on the show’s costuming, with replica capes and dresses adorning the booth. It was a little strange, seeing how most of the plays she’d been to had more general merchandise with the play’s name printed on it, but she figured it was a Bridleway thing.

Though she tried to appear undistracted as she entered the theatre, when Babs mentioned the booth again, Diamond couldn’t help but ask about some of the things on display.

“Yeah, Bambi says most of ‘em aren’t normal,” Babs admitted. “The acting company who does shows here wants to be the most popular one in Manehattan, so they’re going all at it with this one. They were pretty close before, but Coco was able to take advantage of that. She got into this place completely by chance and got a very powerful ally from the Oranges, one of the big head honcho families here. They’ve got a lot of stake in Bridleway too, so as long as things go well with her and them, she’s on the path to becoming the hottest new designer on stage. But enough about that.”

Babs paused as the three took their seats, looking straight at the other filly.

“You sure seem interested in our family. If I didn’t know you better, maybe even a bit too interested.”

“I guess I just want to understand you guys more,” Diamond replied. “Or at least, I hope that’s why. I just keep getting this feeling that there’s something off here. Not about you guys, but about…”

“About what then?”

“About how you came into Ponyville and didn’t seem all that different from the other fillies. But then somehow you have a family as rich as mine.”

“Not quite as rich as yours,” Babs answered. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“It’s just strange, how you guys act like you’re so normal one minute, but then you get all mysterious and weird.”

Babs gave her an understanding smile in response, waiting several seconds before finally choosing to chime in.

“That’s just how you are when you’re with a new family. I get ya there. Just…don’t overthink it so much, I guess. Like with the cards and everything.”

It was the first time she’d realized that maybe the mysteries seemed so surprising to her because they weren’t there. That maybe things seemed so different because everypony seemed so affectionate towards each other and nothing more. Not everything had to be such a big revelation, and yet she still couldn’t shake the strangeness she felt about this family.

But the show was about to begin, and so the conversation quickly shifted elsewhere.

“So you said you’d seen this show in Ponyville?” Babs asked.

“I never said I’d seen it,” Diamond admitted, “but yeah, the other foals seem to like it when it comes. I always thought it was too cheesy and pointless to even bother showing up.”

“So in other words, your parents didn’t let you see it?”

“Well, my mother wouldn’t, at least. But even if I did get to go, I wouldn’t have wanted to. I mean, she’s already a unicorn, and she’s making a show out of doing magic? If I wanted that, I could’ve just asked anypony in town.”

Realizing she was getting out of line yet again, she quickly corrected herself.

“But I’m sure if a venue like this booked her, it’ll probably be better than it sounds. Thanks for inviting me, by the way.”

Just before Diamond was about to finish talking, however, an incredibly loud voice pierced the stage. One that she’d heard throughout Ponyville a few times before, but was somehow made even more obnoxious by the acoustic magic that surrounded the area.

“Good evening, Manehattan! Why wait for a performance with inferior fake unicorns when you can feast your eyes upon the talents of the infinitely Greater and Powerfuller Trixie!”

As the sound blared throughout the auditorium, Diamond could only say, “’Powerfuller’ isn’t even a word,” in the weakest and quietest voice ever before being assaulted with it again.

“The fire exits are to the left and right of the theatre,” another voice uttered from the loud speaker. “In case of explosions, please run directly towards the stage, where you will find a secret passageway into our gift shop and a button that says ‘I survived a theatrical explosion.’ Strobe lights will be used in tonight’s performance. If you wanted something less stimulating, you should have gone to the Saddlespeare theatre down the street. I hear they’re playing A Midwinter Day’s Delight there. I love A Midwinter Day’s Delight…”

For her first trick, Trixie muted the loudspeaker, which had been rambling for minutes. Everypony stood and applauded.

“Does…this usually happen here?” Diamond asked in confusion.

“Only when they let that guy run the P.A. system,” Babs replied, shrugging and shaking her head before turning to the stage. “But look! She’s making that table levitate.”

Sure enough, the blue unicorn was managing to do so without a single glow of her horn, making it look almost as though she was doing it through pure will alone. However, Trixie was still very slightly touching its tablecloth, something that seemed so obvious, yet something that nopony seemed to notice.

“She’s still grabbing it,” Diamond said, almost without thinking. “If she could really levitate it without her horn, she wouldn’t be grabbing onto it.”

“She’s got a plan for everything, though,” Babs answered, already enraptured by the show. “I’ve seen her a few times before. There’s a reason she’s not letting go.”

And, as much as Diamond would’ve liked to have believed this, she still didn’t see anything resembling a reason for her clutching it. Even as she switched to slightly more believable acts, she would go back to that same table every couple of minutes or so just to do another trick with it. The table could dance around in midair, go through loop-de-hoops, and even catch on fire without burning. But her hoof was always on the tablecloth.

A half hour into it, Diamond had finally had enough of this nonsense. As much as she hated to admit it, everything else about that show was stunning except for that table gimmick, and she was going to make sure that everypony there knew just how duped they really were.

“Let go of the tablecloth!” she finally yelled without thinking. The blue unicorn only gave a smile and a chuckle in response.

“Trixie was waiting for somepony to say that! Fair enough, I shall let go of it, and you shall see that—“

With every movement of the tablecloth, Diamond could see the table gradually disappearing, while the items on top floated in midair.

“Why should the Great and Powerful Trixie reduce herself to a mere tablecloth trick when she can do that and more? Not only does everything remain tethered to its invisible surface, but the table itself has vanished to the abyss of time.”

To further exaggerate the effect, a spotlight crept right into Trixie’s face as the mare gave off a few ghostly wails and waved her legs around. Then, she levitated the tablecloth itself without holding onto it or activating her unicorn magic, further proving her heightened abilities, and when nopony expected it, the table reappeared behind her in a puff of smoke.

“See,” Babs said, “Told ya she wasn’t faking it. Like I said, sometimes things are only weird ‘cause you make them out to be.”

This certainly wasn’t the sort of thing Diamond was supposed to be excited over, and even without her mother’s presence, she was all too aware of that. She had to maintain at least a bit of skepticism and distance if she had any hopes of not making a fool out of herself. So, as impressive as these acts seemed, and as much as Bambi and Babs wanted her to enjoy herself, instinctually, she still acted as if they were trying to catch her off guard.

“Fine, fine, so maybe she’s kinda good at this,” she admitted hesitantly, trying to hide the fact that a corner of her gaze was still directed towards the stage. “But this is a theatre; they probably just took that other table from a prop closet or something. Point is, I’ve had to deceive ponies before, and somepony with my experience in this sort of thing can clearly see—“

The last ‘e’ of that sentence was drawn out even more by panic and surprise. After seeing what was occurring on stage, she could barely think of anything else except the one squeal coming from her mouth.

“S-she just cut that mare in half!” the filly yelled, almost loud enough for the surrounding ponies to hear. “And she’s alive, and not even bleeding, and—“

“You’re some master of deception, aren’t you?” Babs replied teasingly.

But by then, Diamond was too caught up in the impossibility, and in all the other impossibilities occurring on stage, to even care about embarrassment. She just let herself be taken in like everypony else, not even holding herself back from reacting at the sights. When the two sisters turned and looked, they saw a certain shine in Diamond’s eyes that they hadn’t seen for all of two days, even since they’d met her, for that matter.

“You shouldn’t keep bein’ so serious all the time,” Babs whispered, almost too low for anypony to hear. “When you’re not, as much as I hate to say it, it’s almost…cute.”

****

Yet even then, Diamond didn’t know that the most memorable part of that night wasn’t going to be found at the show, or even in the auditorium. Still in a slight daze from the sheer fascination she was feeling, she could still tell that she needed to go out into the lobby and relieve herself, and so she found herself alone once more.

The lines for both restrooms were rather long, even in the middle of a performance, and so after waiting a few minutes, she almost felt tempted to go back to the auditorium and forget about it. She’d already missed so much of the show, she reasoned, and it didn’t seem quite so bad after walking around. So for her, breaking through the line and moving onward seemed like the only response.

Surprisingly enough, though, she’d noticed that a stallion from the other line had randomly chosen to excuse himself right after she did. Though it was probably a coincidence, ponies would have enough reason to follow her for some sort of unscrupulous purpose, especially assuming they knew about her wealth in this town. She figured that the best course of action was to ignore it, hoping he was too stupid to keep himself from getting distracted by the other attractions in the theatre.

When he ended up calling her by name, the alarm bells started to go down in her head. After all, she realized, in an establishment like this, a foalnapper probably wouldn’t bother paying high ticket prices just to steal some rich filly away. Even as she still failed to recognize him upon sight, she remembered that many of her parents’ closest allies were ones she barely knew to begin with.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, still choosing to be skeptical just in case.

Instead of adopting some sort of threatening stance, the stallion just cocked his head in minor confusion before suddenly bursting into a slight smile.

“Sorry for bothering you,” he spoke. “I must’ve given you quite the scare, coming up to you like that. But I’d heard that you and your mother were in town, so I figured that if I saw you, I might as well get to be on some footing with you here. To be honest, while I’ve seen your mother around, I haven’t seen you, so I was a bit worried for the sake of my new clientele.”

“It’s a long story,” Diamond replied. “And it’d be better if it stayed within the family.”

The stallion made a quick pull on his suit collar, all the while still looking as confident and composed as he had from the beginning. Emitting, in a way, the same sort of air her father always had when he was completing a deal, even though he was only talking with a filly.

“Understandable,” he answered. “And if you’re wondering about my side of the story, your family and mine have been making trips back and forth to make sure everything is in its place. You see, my family has been seeking to expand throughout Equestria, and we think Barnyard Bargains is a proper start for that. Ponyville’s population is expanding, and yet our name is barely known there. Through these dealings, I aim to change that.”

While Diamond understood the diplomacy behind her father’s contracts and the leaps ponies took to make a good impression towards him, she was still more than a little confused about the issue in general. Watching the clock tick by and losing opportunities to see the show by the minute, she somewhat wished the stallion would even leave her alone, especially considering that the information he was giving her would probably be parroted by her father at home.

“So why come up to me?” she asked. “If it’s my father you’re looking for, I mean.”

“I have a point of getting to know the families behind businesses,” he responded. “There’s no particular reason behind it, but it sort of solidifies the alliance to me. You just happened to be the only one I hadn’t seen yet, and I felt like you ought to know about what was going to happen with your parents’ business. I’ve already talked to your father and, well, let’s just say I’ve gotten to know your mother very well in Manehattan.”

That last comment barely registered in her mind when she first heard it, already hurried by thoughts of magic and spectacle. Yet, thinking about it later, she realized that this could be at least the first lead in the mystery she’d been trying to piece together from the moment she was first taken in. And all she had to do to get more was to let the stallion keep talking.

“You’re wondering why I’m in this theatre?” he continued after just the slightest of pushes on her part. “That’s part of the reason I want my family name to reach out more, actually. In Manehattan, you wouldn’t even need to ask why I was here. As a part owner of this very theatre, they just know. But that sort of knowledge can only go so far, and when the theatre gets far enough away, we can’t just rely on one celebrity. So although I don’t actually work in the same division as the rest of my family, this at least is my way of giving back to them.”

Finally noticing that the filly was starting to lose attention from all the business talk, he chimed in, “But who am I to keep somepony like you from enjoying the events here? After all, this does happen to be this show’s final night here.”

“So what happens after that?” Diamond asked. Even though she knew about Trixie’s status as a traveling performer, she’d never really processed it much for herself. Where would she end up going, and what would end up taking her place?

“This place will be closed for four more days, and then the play I produced performs here. I intend for it to be one of the most long-running plays here, and I have every intention of seeing your family there. Just seeing all of you in the seats should make it my most successful opening night yet.”

Already trotting towards the auditorium door and barely paying attention otherwise, a statement from before finally crossed Diamond’s mind. She was already beginning to realize that this pony could be the start to everything.

“What exactly was your name?” she asked. “So I can know who my parents are talking about when they make the offer, I mean.”

The offer was only the beginning, though, as she saw how much the tidbit of information from before lined up with just who this stallion really was.

“Mosely Orange,” he finally replied just as he trotted away. “You may have heard of me.”

Author's Note

Babs is still pals with Trixie like in comic canon, and she means "cute" in a completely platonic way. If anything, Diamond would be the one to have a crush on her. Yeeeepppp...

Also, I presume the choruses of "goddammit, Quillamore" will start in this section due to a particular sentence (you know the one). I've never actually had that said to me after a plot twist, and would actually welcome the opportunity. Authors are weird like that. ;)

DISCLAIMER: Mosely shenanigans will happen only in one very, very short mini-arc, and this story will not become a more serious one like If You Give a Little Love. Just to make things clear.

Third Day: The Diamond and the Rough

Bright lights scattered along the horizon like a rainbow as the cab approached the amusement park. Sure enough, the weather had been kind to the three ponies, providing a sunny day and a warm climate for the event they’d been awaiting. Yet, even as the attractions came ever closer into sight, Diamond Tiara was far from focused on any of them.

Her hoof seemed almost permanently glued onto her chin as she puzzled through the same situation that’d been on her mind all morning. For once, though, these doubts didn’t center around the family that had picked her up off the streets on a whim, but on somepony she’d barely considered over these past few days, and on a thought she never suspected she’d have.

To think, she’d spent so long trying to gather clues about Babs and Bambi, and in that one tiny moment she’d spent thinking about her mother, the facts were dropped straight into her lap.

The cab glided through the streets, the sound of the wheels beginning to drown out all else. With each turn, the gears of Diamond’s brain moved in tandem.

She lied to me about being with another stallion, she thought. Mother thought it’d be easier to explain it like that than to just tell me she was off on another business deal. But why go to so much trouble when she knew what she was going to do with me?

As she was taking in all the facts of her case, and pondering what else her mother might have hidden from her, she felt a poking feeling on her back. Suddenly jolted out of her thoughts, she saw the mare next to her and did a double take.

“I was just about to tell you we were almost there,” Bambi spoke, cocking her head to the side slightly. “I would’ve thought you’d be more excited about this, actually.”

“Yeah,” Babs replied. “You wouldn’t stop talkin’ about it yesterday, and you’re just quiet all of a sudden. If ya don’t feel up to it right now, we can turn back.”

Diamond honestly couldn’t remember the last time anypony had called her “quiet,” and hearing the word seemed comical, almost insulting, to her. That, at least, was enough of a jolt to take her back into reality and the break that was supposed to be a vacation to begin with. She awoke for the second time that day to see her two hosts staring at her intently as if doing so would solve a mystery in and of itself.

“It’s nothing,” she muttered, still somewhat out of sorts. “I just ran into a stallion who knows my parents last night, that’s all.”

As soon as she blurted that last part out, her hooves darted straight towards her mouth. If she had any sense in her, she wouldn’t have admitted anything like that so bluntly. The whole affair was a rather dumb one to ponies outside her family, anyway, and in all likelihood, even she was probably overthinking it.

“Somepony you knew?” questioned Babs.

Diamond shook her head about as slowly as she could, as if even that detail was something she wasn’t entirely sure about.

“It was really weird. He just went up to me, even though I had never seen him in my life. Mother told me she’d come here to see a stallion, but he started telling me she was here to seal a deal with him.”

The cab skidded across the pavement and came to a sudden stop, yet even as the three ponies descended from the vehicle, the uncertainty about the strange incident seemed to have spread to all of them.

“If she was so focused on everything else, then don’t you think she was right to leave me?”

The words hurt like acid on Diamond’s tongue now that she’d finally got around to speaking them, the ones that had slept in her mind without consequence earlier. Once again, she turned to the other two, only to see an absolutely blank look on Babs’ face as Bambi shook her head from side to side.

“It really is a sad thing when a filly trusts a stranger’s words more than her parent’s,” the older mare whispered, glancing at the ground. “But it really shouldn’t matter what she’s up to in Manehattan. Anypony who’d abandon a foal deserves to rot in the lowest depths of Tartarus, with no friends by their side but the all-consuming flame of punishment.”

At that point, Bambi’s gaze had become far more intense than either filly had likely seen in their lives, and one of her front hooves was fixed straight underneath Diamond’s neck. Suddenly, silence permeated the entire area, and Bambi came to the sudden realization that yelling this sort of colorful language was not typical behavior to be done in a theme park entryway.

“Sis,” Babs said, prodding her with her hoof, “ponies are staring.”

Apparently, Bambi’s voice had elevated in tone to the point where the subject of abandoning ponies was quickly forgotten, and all ponies could decipher was that she wanted to pull somepony into Equestria’s hellish prison. All she could do was let out a few nervous chuckles, scratch at her neck, and quietly wait until ponies would stop noticing and go about their business.

“Sorry, but I’ve just come across some bad experiences of that in my line of work. But my point still stands. If you leave a foal to the streets on this newsmare’s watch, I won’t go easy on you. That’s one crime I can’t excuse.”

Something about her words came across as infinitely more personal than anything she could’ve experienced on a reporting spree, but Diamond let it slide for once. She’d thought through enough things at this point without another thing throwing a wrench into it.

Just before the three of them agreed to set everything from last night to the side, though, one of them asked Diamond if she recalled the name of the pony she’d met. It didn’t quite register which of them had posed the question, since the reaction she got seemed to blur out everything else.

The two sisters’ reactions mirrored one another like tragedy and comedy masks, with the younger’s eyes glowing and the elder’s glowering. For once, Diamond thought to herself, there was actually something that divided the two of them.

Just as they were about to pass through the park gates, Bambi stopped Diamond suddenly with a new strictness in her eyes. Almost, it seemed, one that carried a hint of sadness to it as well.

“I want to make sure you get as much time as you can here, so I’ll make this short,” Bambi started, her voice carrying more determination than anger. “If Mosely wants anything to do with you or your family, it isn’t good. He may have a lot of fame going for him, but I know more about him than anypony else, and I’ve seen what he’s capable of. Be lucky he let you off with what you did last night.”

This was a mare who was a rising star in her field, who probably had to have faced criminal masterminds and possibly even supervillains themselves to get to where she was. Yet here she was, cautioning Diamond about the same sort of interchangeable rich stallion she’d spent her entire life around. Like his ability to blend in was what made him so sinister in the first place.

Diamond was willing to let her off at that, and actually did for the rest of the day. Bambi’s last few warnings didn’t really come back to haunt her until the adventure had caught up to her, when she was left alone at night with nothing else to think about.

“If only our family had been handed the same fate.”

****

Up close, the sheer size of the park was overwhelming, as it appeared large enough to be a city in and of itself. A cluster of shops were crowded by the park’s front, and a particularly large one served as its entrance.

“Get used to this,” Bambi said with a chuckle, having already regained her mood from before. “Every one of the big rides does this same little trick. You can barely do anything here without being bombarded by souvenir stands.”

Before the rides came into view, Diamond almost wondered if she had the right place, as it looked more like a shopping center than the miraculous vision of machinery she’d seen before. But they came into her view, she couldn’t stop her eyes from flashing back and forth between them.

Everything, even the coasters, sparkled with crystals—likely fake, but still stunning nonetheless. A few of the makeshift gems even had lights within them like candles. But most importantly of all, all the structures shimmered like ice—or rather, the illustrations she’d seen of Crystal Empire structures.

“They made all this after the Empire was found?” Diamond asked. “Surely they couldn’t have. I’ve seen how long it takes to build stuff like this, and there’s no way.”

“But that’s just what they did,” Bambi answered. “It’s amazing what city ponies can do when their tourism is at stake. The Crystal Empire was bringing in tons of ponies, so we just figured we’d plop a little one here in Manehattan so you wouldn’t have to travel as far.”

The whole idea of what the place was meant to represent—a replica city with a bunch of fun-inducing machines—was still a bit odd when Diamond really got to thinking about it, but it was certainly every bit as inviting as Ponyville. For a moment, you could forget you were in a big city as you watched the parents, grandparents, foals trot by. A relationship that previously incited only jealousy in her became one that she actually felt comfortable in now.

Forgetting she was in a city, it turned out, meant forgetting Babs and Bambi weren’t her family either.

Just as Diamond was about to zone out again, Babs picked the first ride, one that looked like a giant swing set for pegasi. As the three placed themselves at the end of the line, she was tempted to sneak past everything and clear a way to the front, only for the other filly to stop her.

“Sorry!” she replied, jumping a little at Babs’ touch. “Force of habit, I guess.”

The line moved slightly, and yet there was still nothing but silence from the other filly’s part. Cursing herself for having taken another step back from a potential friendship with Babs, Diamond apologized once more. It was something that a proper Rich mare would never do, and yet it was the thing that seemed right in the situation.

“It’s fine,” Babs finally said. “It just kinda made me remember how hard it was for me to change. ‘Course you’re still gonna try to act up like that.”

If it’d been in any other context, the brown filly dismissing Diamond’s previous behavior as natural to her would’ve been the most insulting thing in the world. And yet somehow, it’d never really occurred to her that Babs ever had to change—from the last time they met, she’d gone completely from befriending her to defending the Crusaders almost at the drop of a hat. That, more than anything, had been what had made the whole incident so painful to everypony involved.

What had made Diamond, all too deep down, both resent and admire her once former, now possibly current, friend.

“The other lines aren’t as long, though,” Babs continued. “Guess it was more of my fault for picking the longest one, huh?”

“How did you change?”

The question came out abruptly and surprised both young fillies just about equally. It was certainly nothing that Diamond had even considered asking this early on, after only a few days of really getting to know Babs. Yet just like how nothing about her apartment or her status seemed to add up, neither did this.

“It’s taken me so long,” Diamond whispered, a hint of some strange emotion in her voice. Desperation? Certainly nothing anypony of her standing was used to, but even in these Manehattan days, trying to be good felt like having a rope pulled against her.

Before she could stay down for long, the ride finally opened itself up. Diamond soared straight through the air multiple times on multiple different contraptions, one after another, trying everything to distract herself from the way she’d opened herself up to the public. Humiliated herself in front of somepony she barely even knew. At a certain point, just as she’d planned, she got so caught up in the festivities that she barely remembered what she’d said in the first place.

Even then, though, it was still at the back of her mind. Just like everything else she’d had to push there.

“So,” Babs finally asked, “are you having fun?”

The group had mainly been left to their own devices for most of the day, staying together but not conversing much. Now that they were sitting at a patio table eating second-rate hayburgers, they were back to some semblance of what Diamond pictured a normal family to be like—just a gathering of ponies sitting back, telling their stories, and enjoying life.

“Yeah,” she answered, nibbling on the huge stick of cotton candy Babs had insisted on buying her. “More than I’ve had in a while, actually. And I can’t believe I actually got you to go on the coaster with me.”

“Just this once,” Babs warned. “That thing’s scary as Tartarus. I swore I was gonna fall off, even! If you ever try to make me go on it again—“

Bambi stared at the fillies with a wide smile, chuckling as she saw them interact.

“Still, I wouldn’t have thought you’d have the courage to try it,” she teased her younger sister. “Especially with the way you looked at it all the way up here.”

Babs crossed her front legs and made a tiny pout for a few seconds before jumping back into the conversation. If the two ever had another game day together, Diamond noted, she could definitely beat the other filly when it came to holding that pose for extended periods of time.

“Anyway,” Bambi continued, “I heard they have events at night, too. They don’t cost a whole lot more, so if you two want, we can stay here longer and do those. If it’s your first time here, we might as well go for the full experience, right?”

While it was a bit early to be discussing this, as the sun had barely reached its highest point in the sky, both fillies’ heads nodded in agreement without even asking anything else. Diamond had noticed some ads for the night attractions, with things like a “boardwalk” and an “escape room,” but both had been foreign concepts to her like everything else. However, if the rides had been such a diversion from her thoughts today, she figured an extra dose of it later would do her even more good.

Yet she still wondered, and even that simple action of trying to cut through line made her question what she’d been working for. Perhaps even more perplexingly, she realized during this lull in the day’s events, neither of her hosts seemed willing to talk about it, or about how she could work to change herself. Instead, they flipped back and forth between different sorts of chatter, almost as if the mistake itself had never occurred.

“So,” Diamond finally spoke as Bambi left the table for a few slight moments to relieve herself. “You never did answer my question.”

“’Course I didn’t,” Babs replied. “If I would’ve, we’d have held up the whole line. How I changed, it ain’t somethin’ I can say in a few neat sentences. And if you’re thinkin’ it happened right when I turned on ya that one time, it wasn’t like that, either.”

The brown filly shrugged and casually took another sip of her drink, as if all that had just poured out of her effortlessly. Her face was utterly unreadable, her mouth at once smiling and straight. The one thing Diamond could tell, though, was that Babs’ expression lacked anger in just about every way.

“It sure seemed that way, though,” Diamond barely whispered, too full of wistfulness to really register what her companion was saying.

“Then that means I got you good. Thing is, once everythin’ caught up to me back there and I realized what’d happened, I hated you so much. I’d never bullied anypony before that, took pride in it, even. But then there was somethin’ in you that made me go wild and hurt ponies, and I wanted to do the same to you. For changin’ me like that, I mean.”

As Babs admitted all this with the calmest of looks on her face, Diamond suddenly felt a fear rise through her that was greater than any of the thrills the rides had given her. The other filly had sure acted civil enough, but she still hadn’t forgotten. All Diamond could do at this point was glance around herself, hoping against hope that her companion wouldn’t beat her into the ground then and there.

“But then, I realized somethin’,” spoke Babs. “It had never been you, or anypony else. What kept me from getting better for so long was thinkin’ you were the one who did it to me, and not me doin’ it to myself. So by the time I thought it all out, Apple Bloom told me about what’d happened to you, and the anger was out of me. It was still there a little, but for once, I understood. If we both messed up to protect ourselves from messed up stuff in the world, maybe we could help each other out.”

Taking another sip of her drink, she muttered, “’Course, I was a bit suspicious when ya showed up out of the blue like that a couple days ago. Seein’ anypony do that would’ve been weird. But I can’t say I hated you.”

Now it was Diamond’s face that was frozen in place, her mouth open wider than anypony likely thought it could go.

“You’re a lot more forgiving than I thought,” she finally whispered after the shock wore off.

“Well, I figure Coco was willing to forgive me for everythin’, and I didn’t mess that up. With the types of friends I have, I figure I should return the favor. And I think that’s the key to it all. You want to change, you gotta have a chance to. It may not seem like your mama’s willin’ to give you that chance, but I am. That’s what matters as long as you’re here.”

Bambi had already returned from the restroom, but she stayed in the distance, watching these fillies mend things up all on their own after only three days together. She would’ve liked to have thought that all this was simply out of kindness or understanding, but deep down, she knew. The things Babs had wanted were the ones Diamond took for granted, and it would only be so long before she would have to know. With the way Mosely was already interfering, it might only be a few more days like this, before Diamond would have to learn about how the family had suffered from the shadows.

Still, Bambi thought to herself, Coco would be proud.

Author's Note

Just realized all this is probably a lot more mysterious for people who haven't read If You Give a Little Love yet. Hope it isn't too much of a bummer for people who already have.

In any case, I'll try to update this more. Babs' softer side does seem to come from Coco quite a bit, doesn't it? ;)

Third Night: Diamond Heist

Diamond Tiara could practically feel the alarm bells piercing her mane. The entire room was illuminated by alternating streaks of red and green, and lasers crisscrossed through walls. Sweat wiped down her face as she watched Babs fiddle with some sort of odd device from what seemed like oceans away.

“Get over here!” she could hear the other filly yell, the stress of the situation ebbing away at any sense of empathy the Apple might’ve felt. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

All Diamond had to do to get her point across was to gesture to one of the many streams of light speeding through the room. From simple observation, she’d been able to tell that they reconfigured themselves into different patterns every minute, so getting through to the other side would take speed and finesse. Neither trait was something she could really summon at the moment.

And to think, she thought in frustration, some ponies do this for fun.

Just before the other filly could yell at her any more, Diamond finally decided to push her limits, taking it one potentially deadly laser at a time. Taking extra care not to hit her tiara against the lethal limbo line, she couldn’t help but curse whoever’s idea it’d been to go to an escape room in the first place.

Granted, Manehattan’s escape rooms were the most renowned in Equestria, and more importantly, she currently lived with the two ponies who suggested it, so perhaps things weren’t quite as bad as she made them out to be. But, as opposed to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Diamond Tiara most certainly did not thrive in adventure.

As if to further emphasize this point, the alarm bells started to scream at her yet again, and it took all of five seconds for her to realize that her tail had gotten caught in one of the laser lines. Even though the more rational side of her knew it was only a light projection no more harmful than a unicorn’s aura, she could still practically feel the burn coursing through her body. Letting fear take over any particle of subtlety she still had, she willed herself over every obstacle she faced. It almost would’ve been an impressive sight, if she hadn’t screamed all the way over to Babs.

Sure enough, the other filly was hunched over a safe and cracked a lock with little to no expression on her face. For a few short seconds, all the effort Diamond had taken towards befriending the Manehattan filly ebbed away into smoke, and her eyes practically reddened in rage.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she scoffed, staring straight into Babs’ mane.

For all she knew, the other filly probably didn’t even know Diamond was there, with the way she barely even turned her head to acknowledge her partner. Judging from how Babs didn’t even try to counter with a snarky remark, she was probably completely transfixed with this weird jewel thief roleplay thing they’d been roped into.

It was really hard not to hate her at times like this.

Just when Diamond found herself at her limit, though, the lock clicked suddenly, revealing at least fifty fake diamonds inside. They barely looked fancy enough to be rhinestones, much less any sort of cubic zirconia, yet she felt a strange feeling of satisfaction looking at them. At the very least, at least she’d have somepony to talk to now after all that hullabaloo.

“Coulda sworn I’d tried that sequence before,” Babs muttered, staring at the safe in confusion. As she turned to Diamond and saw the annoyed look on her friend’s face, she exclaimed, “That must be it! Your death glare made it open all on its own!”

While Babs made a whole show out of her realization, Diamond’s glare only deepened. She wasn’t quite sure if she was really annoyed at her friend or if she was just doing it to play along.

“Hey, it’s a gift,” continued Babs, playfully jabbing Diamond in the leg. “Apple Bloom says there’s a mare in Ponyville who can make animals do what she wants if she stares at ‘em long enough. But your stare even works on inanimate objects! If you’re gonna be ashamed of it, do it when there isn’t less than a minute on the clock.”

Diamond Tiara had barely realized it in the heat of the moment—or as “heat of the moment” as a simple escape room visit could be—but had the two fillies not solved the puzzle at the exact time that they did, they would’ve lost the whole thing. In true action-adventure fashion, the clock had stopped at thirty seconds.

In her own twisted way, it looked like Babs was congratulating her on a job well done. And, whether she’d actually helped to solve it or not, Diamond knew she should never turn down praise. The two fillies high-fived and embraced each other, and once again, in the heat of the moment, they barely noticed something was amiss.

However, after five minutes of celebrating her victory, Diamond came to the sudden realization that nopony else seemed to be around. As Bambi had explained before leaving them to their adventure, normally somepony would come by to take them back to the amusement park. Judging from the way Babs turned her head from side to side, both fillies were likely wondering the same thing.

After a few short attempts at waiting patiently, Diamond hesitantly approached the exit door, only to find that the knob didn’t budge. Shortly afterwards, she could see her friend trying to headbutt the door with similar results. The other filly ricocheted across the room, landing straight onto the safe she’d cracked only a few minutes before, and Diamond cringed at the sound of the impact.

She was almost about to ask Babs if she was alright, but sure enough, the brown filly managed to shake the pain off just about as soon as it had hit her. Considering how many times she’d seen Apples ram parts of their bodies into random objects without complaining, she almost wondered if it was some weird family gene or something.

“Looks like we’re stuck here,” Babs finally said a few seconds later, rubbing her head as she spoke.

“Duh. I could’ve told you that, and then you wouldn’t have had to ram yourself into everything.”

She quickly shut her mouth after the outburst, realizing that bickering in a locked escape room with anypony, much less somepony she was already in a tense relationship with, wasn’t an ideal situation. Still, Babs only responded to it with a simple shrug of understanding and came closer, showing her friend her lack of visible wounds.

The strangely forgiving nature of some ponies was still something to get used to, for Diamond at least. On the other hoof, she could get stranded in dark rooms every week for the rest of her life, and it’d never stop being as awkward as everything had been in that moment. The two fillies stood in silence for five whole minutes before both of them gave up on trying to get the door to unlock with their minds.

“So, those alarms really freak you out, huh?”

Diamond whipped around, almost forgetting there was another filly in the room. The area was darkening with every passing minute, and she could barely see Babs now. That, or tell whether she was asking a simple question or mocking her.

“Yeah,” she hesitantly replied. “They’re a bit too much like the ones at my house.”

Really, she wanted to go on and on about how the idea of being caught at anything, even without the alarm, made her think of how much her mother would end up yelling at her, but she figured Babs didn’t need to know all that, or see how embarrassing she could really be on the inside.

“Guess that makes ‘em extra accurate, if they sound that much like a Rich family alarm.”

Babs laughed harder than Diamond had ever heard her laugh, and she probably would’ve been offended any other time, now she was just relieved the other filly bought her excuse. However, Babs’ next question hit her just as hard.

It’d come after the brown filly had rolled over in laughter for a few more minutes and the room was ignited with silence once more. From what little concept of time Diamond had in the darkened room, at least fifteen minutes had gone by without any outside interference. Yet, as soon as she heard the question, she knew that the intrigue behind it would be enough to stave off her fear.

“That stallion from last night,” Babs began in a surprisingly urgent tone. “Did you get any more info from him? Did anything else happen that I oughta know about?”

Her eyes were shrouded by darkness, as was everything else, but Diamond could tell just by hearing her voice that they were glowing. Come to think of it, the redheaded filly had seemed far more excited than she should’ve been about the revelation, a detail that had been lost to the rush of the day, but one that had resurfaced nonetheless. While Diamond wasn’t quite sure why this stallion interested her companion so much, she’d never been one to turn down a mystery.

Especially, of course, when the alternative was waiting in a locked room and doing nothing.

“No,” she replied. “He didn’t mention you at all, if that’s what you’re wondering, or hurt me. He just rambled on about his family business. The whole thing was really weird, if you ask me.”

Silence streamed through the room again. Disappointment, Diamond figured. The type of disappointment that came over and over again, only for ponies to get their hopes up just as many times. That was the feeling that came through the darkness as clear as day, and the one that would keep filling the room with its negativity unless she did something.

“So, how do you know him?” she asked, hoping more than anything that Babs would trust her with this sort of deeply personal information, the sort not even she herself would share.

With a quick sigh, the other filly responded, “I…was kinda in a bad situation a few years back. I was too young to remember my parents, but he was the first pony who took me in after they left.”

As grave as Babs’ situation seemed to be, a single question went through Diamond’s mind as she listened in.

“Coco isn’t your mom, then?”

She could practically feel Babs staring her up with everything she had as soon as she said this, burning lasers into her turquoise eyes.

“’Course she is, and anypony who tells ya otherwise had better be prepped to deal with me. Like I said, I don’t even remember my other mama, so she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had. And since I know you’re gonna ask, Bambi and I are still sisters. Other than the Apples…she’s the only blood relative I really have.”

Red hair grazed the ground, and more than anything, Diamond wanted to reach out and touch the other filly, to tell her she didn’t need to go on with this. Even somepony who’d been as rotten as Diamond Tiara was knew nopony deserved to go through anything like this. Yet still, somehow, Babs exploded into her story, tracing the details with even worse revelations.

“But Momo—er, Mosely—was Bambi’s dad, and after a while…it felt like he was mine too, ya know? I don’t like talkin’ about the things that separated the two of us, even to a friend like you. But what matters is that after those things happened, I never saw him again.”

With a nervous blush Diamond could only barely detect, Babs finished, “I shouldn’t have been so hard on ya for not gettin’ anything from him. But a few minutes ago, all I thought was that this was my chance. If your family really is makin’ a deal with him, and you told him you and I were friends, there’d be no way he’d ignore me anymore. He and Coco would get together, and we’d finally be a family again…”

Two things struck Diamond more than anything else about the situation: that Mosely had to be the crew member Coco was dating and what Bambi had told her before.

Anypony who’d abandon a foal deserves to rot in the lowest depths of Tartarus, with no friends by their side but the all-consuming flame of punishment.

That’s one crime I can’t excuse.

Who had she really been talking to back then, only a few short hours before? Diamond, or somepony else entirely?

Another mystery, another question. For once, Diamond found herself driven not by the promise of blackmail, but by genuine concern for her friend’s situation. These were answers she needed to know, ones that could make or break her growing relationship with her former enemy. Ones that could help that enemy turn the corner from the jaded filly she knew into the beacon of light she deserved to be.

She’d never felt more like a Cutie Mark Crusader, doing the same thing to somepony else as they’d done to her. Yet somehow, that revelation wasn’t quite as scary as it should’ve been.

“Can I ask you something else? If it isn’t too hard for you to talk about?”

Babs nodded her head, realized there was no way Diamond could’ve seen it, and whispered a single ‘yes.’ She wasn’t the laughing filly from before, but Diamond got the distinct feeling that this was a start, at least.

“All that stuff with him leaving you behind…that’s why Bambi hates him so much, right? But that couldn’t have been his fault, whatever it was.”

“That’s what I always tell her,” Babs answered, telling Diamond all she needed to hear. “She still thinks he’s gone bad somehow. Sometimes she thinks it was my mom breakin’ up with him, or somethin’ about his own family issues. Either way, she thinks somethin’ about him snapped a long time ago, and every time she sees Coco worn down from work, she’s reminded of just how bad he is.”

Trying to recruit Diamond into his family business and dating his costume designer. Neither particularly struck the pink filly as anything worthy of the hatred Bambi had for him. Surely, the stress Coco faced as a producer’s marefriend was one anypony in the same situation would have. And even if Mosely had abandoned her friend so long ago, as Babs herself reminded her, she could change the tide. Getting past Bambi would be one thing, but then again, Diamond had gotten past her fair share of ponies in her short life.

“But even if he is bad, weren’t the two of us like that before?”

This time, Diamond let the silence permeate the room and let Babs reflect. If she was really going to pull what everything around her told her she had to pull, it would take a plan greater than she’d ever had before.

Once it finally came to her, a smile of devious satisfaction crossed her face, one expression she hadn’t felt in months. The escape room might’ve been a bust, but its puzzles and strategies might end up having some use after all.

Thirty minutes after the safe had been cracked, the door finally opened. In the distance, Diamond could barely hear a park employee apologizing profusely, but other thoughts dominated her mind.

Who better to reform a bad guy than two other bad guys?

As the two walked out hoof-in-hoof, Diamond turned her head ever closer to Babs’ ear, trying to fit everything they needed to do into her mind before Bambi came back.

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders have their missions. Why shouldn’t we have ours?”

The look of excited agreement on Babs’ face, yet again, told Diamond everything she needed to know. This was the direction she would have to take if she wanted to keep the other filly by her side.

With a wink, she whispered, “Welcome to the Mosely Orange Reformation Society.”

Author's Note

Hey guys, I just found a new synonym for "lost cause!" :rainbowlaugh:

This fic's gonna be updating a lot more so its completion time can sync up with IGYALL. Look forward to it, everyone!

Fourth Day: Between a Diamond and a Hard Place

The first few hours of the morning went past like a dream—barely remembered except for someplace within the recesses of the mind. Diamond rushed through what was quickly becoming her daily routine, guided herself through the steps, yet the plan was the only thing that really had her full attention.

She and Babs hadn’t had a whole lot of time to contemplate it the night before, or even to really get to know the stallion. All she knew about Mosely Orange came from her friend’s stories and, of course, from the gossip grapevine. Whether it was from his Bridleway productions or his family’s orange empire, everypony knew he was a pony everypony should know. And yet, why was everything about him, even the reason he went bad in the first place, such a mystery?

Diamond Tiara shook those thoughts out with the bathwater, though, once she realized what an oddity she used to be to the Ponyville population. Any number of ponies could’ve tried to pin her down back in the day, and that proved all the more reason to keep going with this odd quest. Not just to reunite Babs with a lost family member, but maybe even to find another kindred spirit. To figure out just how many ponies in high society were doomed to fall under the weight of their own corrupt teachings. Those were the thoughts that crossed her mind as she plowed through the book Cheerilee had assigned for the break, the one excuse she had for going out so late, the one thing that gave her time to collect her ideas.

For now, though, against her better wishes, the Reformation Society’s plans were on hold, as Bambi had insisted on accompanying them to the Statue of Livery that day. On any other day, seeing such a landmark would’ve fueled Diamond’s Manehattan fantasies more than ever, but now, all she thought about was some way she could sneak off with Babs and figure this whole thing out.

Thankfully, Bambi was spending so much time in front of the statue’s pedestal, reading all the signs around it like she hadn’t seen it a million times already, that both fillies might have a decent chance of conspiring without her noticing. Diamond gave it a good five minutes or so before realizing the older mare had absolutely no sense of what was going on around her and was too wrapped up in whatever historical fantasies the displays were trying to evoke.

“So how are we gonna do this, anyway?” Babs finally asked, just as Diamond was about to open her mouth. “We can’t traipse around stalkin’ Momo, and if we try to meet him in the theatre, Bambi’ll get suspicious.”

Placing a hoof to her chin in thought, it took the pink filly all of ten seconds to devise a plan. Granted, she could cook up a scheme much more quickly on one of her better days, but the idea behind it was nevertheless good enough to try.

“If your mother’s dating Mosely, and Bambi’s still suspicious of him, we could tell her we’re sneaking up on one of her dates. I’d say she’d be all for it, but…”

Making sure the aforementioned mare still wasn’t listening in, Diamond still found herself struggling to collect her thoughts into words. As eager as she’d been about this whole idea last night, the world of sleep had brought doubts into the equation. In truth, she’d barely rested once the chilling concept flowed into her mind.

For all she knew, admitting it to the filly she still couldn’t believe saw her as a friend would bring her even more sleepless thoughts. It took a few seconds to collect herself, to tell herself that considering this was part of the equation, before she could finally tell Babs.

“I think we need to update our tactics if this is going to work,” Diamond finally spoke, giving Bambi one last glance before moving into her business speech. “I mean, think about it. We were both reformed, obviously, but what makes him different from us?”

Babs banged her two front hooves together in what had to be the most exaggerated gesture of realization Diamond Tiara had ever seen. Her face lit up likewise, as if the young Apple had made some amazingly Equestria-shattering scientific discovery.

“Of course! It’s because Momo’s a stallion, right?”

To say that Diamond facehooved incomprehensibly hard would’ve been an understatement.

“No! I mean, yes! I mean, yes, but that’s not what I meant!”

With a barely audible annoyed sigh, she continued, “Both of us were lucky enough to be reformed when we were still fillies. But if somepony’s stayed bad for long enough, I feel like it’d be a lot harder to get them to change. Normally, when older ponies change, it involves a lot of magic blasts and the occasional Element of Harmony. But seeing as we have neither of those things, we need to figure out a way to get to him that goes a bit deeper than what we’re used to.”

“Trademark Diamond Tiara manipulation?”

In any other case, Diamond might’ve been offended by the other filly’s implications, but for a few blissful seconds, she realized how easy everything would be if she did just that. But then, just like everything else in this case, that sense of security faded away just as quickly as it’d appeared.

“I appreciate your faith in my abilities, but I highly doubt I can outcon a bigshot producer. Believe it or not, my cutie mark only gets me so far, and I daresay yours would be more effective in this case. I feel like shaving a famous stallion’s mane straight off his head would get him to do some pretty drastic things.”

Once she saw the horrified expression on Babs’ face, however, she soon backtracked and clarified that such a strategy was only to be used as a last resort. Both fillies erupted into laughter at the misunderstanding, looking more like innocent friends than ponies conspiring to change another’s heart. But they knew better than anypony else that such a moment couldn’t possibly last.

Thankfully, the laughter had been the first thing Bambi noticed as she gestured for the fillies towards the statue’s entryway, and for the time being, their cover was safe. And yet somehow, almost as if they were twins themselves, they both came to precisely the same conclusion at precisely the same time: something would happen that day that would change their operation and their lives forever.

****

Their chaperone was far more diligent this time around, always peeking around the nearest corner to ask if the two of them were enjoying themselves. And, for their parts, both let their bodies become marionettes, taking on the image of excited fillies at a field trip even as Diamond told herself she probably wouldn’t remember a thing about it by the time the day was over. The sound of the tour guides’ voices melded into one alongside the various historical plaques, turning the statue into a place of incomprehensible cacophony. Fact of the matter was, the two couldn’t have heard each other plan things out even if they’d wanted to.

The statue itself was a series of stops leading up to a tall spire, just like Diamond had watched Button Mash play as she’d learned to socialize more with her classmates. She could pick up on bits and pieces of the information, like how the landmark had been a gift from some town in Prance to honor its sister city, but for the most part, her eyes stayed firmly fixed on the windows. Partially to experience the feeling of looking out through a pony’s legs or belly or torch, but mostly as if some figure in her quest could pop up at any moment.

Diamond rubbed her head in annoyance and muttered a few choice words at the realization. Going on like this really was making her think like she was in a video game, and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

Meanwhile, as she turned to her companion, it seemed as though Babs had gotten completely caught in the moment. Her eyes shown with a kind of rapture that couldn’t be faked as the tour guide went on about the sailors that would cross nearby, and Diamond doubted the tour would end without the filly begging the docent for some sort of pirate story. Yet again, Babs was perplexing beyond even Diamond’s own belief, as it almost felt like the filly had never been to the monument in her life, not even on a field trip.

Babs’ mysterious foalhood—or rather, her mysterious lack of one—was something that’d always perplexed her friend, and the concerns were only beginning to become more frequent. Sure, Diamond had never had much of one herself, but Babs had a family who cared for her, even after the misunderstanding with Mosely. The pink filly made a mental note to herself to finally ask about it later, but judging from the way the other foal had reacted just last night, something told her no answer would come.

In any case, time moved by far quicker than she’d expected, even as she plowed through stairwell upon stairwell to reach the top of the statue. Even though the tour guide was certainly taking her time—and the tourists felt the need to stop at every single checkpoint to take pictures—Diamond barely noticed the sun traipse through the sky, and by the time they were finally at the top, it was already four in the afternoon. While the trip up took only two hours for ponies to complete, she’d made sure to stop at every museum exhibit, watch every video, and for the most part, Bambi had complied.

Yet it wasn’t even that she was interested in this place. It almost felt as if the nearby sea was calling her and urging her to stay there as if she’d find the answers to everything, and so she’d stretch it out for however long it took. And yet somehow, after a half-hour on the top staring out at the Manehattan skyline, she saw an all-too-familiar figure cross the corner of her eyes.

Diamond quickly turned away from the window, hoping against hope that what she’d seen was just a trick of the eye. There was absolutely no way in Equestria that the pony she’d seen would ever be caught dead in a blatant tourist trap like this one, even if it was a historically significant one. But here she was, less than fifty feet in front of her, the absolutely last pony she’d want to find her.

Her mother, Spoiled Rich, was on the observation deck of the Statue of Livery, cantering with an inexplicable urgency towards some unknown location. By the time Diamond managed to hide behind one of the viewfinders, Spoiled was already too far away to spot her. However, whatever moments of initial relief her daughter had had were soon replaced with utter confusion. One image in particular had stood out—before the Rich mare had run off towards wherever she needed to go, she’d stood in place, refusing to take in any of the scenery.

Almost as if, Diamond presumed, she had been waiting for something.

She pondered over this possibility for a few more seconds until somepony grabbed her by the tail and gently tried to nudge her away from the viewfinder.

“What were you doin’ behind there?” Bambi asked, seeming more entertained than upset at this odd behavior. “You’re supposed to look at it from the other end, y’know.”

Without thinking, Diamond launched into a quick and panicked explanation of the situation, but since Spoiled herself was out of sight and seeing as it would’ve been impossible to pick her out of the large crowd anyway, all Bambi could do was stare at her skeptically.

“You’re sure? You said yourself that she’d probably have better things to do than sightsee. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never advocate abandoning your foal to a city like this, but if she was just going to do this all this time—“

“I know, something’s not adding up,” replied Diamond. “But I know what I saw. And I also know she wouldn’t come to a place like this without a good reason.”

Babs, suddenly catching wind of the conversation, trotted towards her two companions and shot Diamond a glare nearly identical to her sister’s.

“Okay, something my mother thinks is a good reason. Which is almost never what other ponies would consider one.”

Both sisters gave sudden nods of understanding and began to weigh the possibility that Diamond’s mother was, in fact, less than a few blocks away from them. What had seemed like a fillyhood irrational fear only minutes before now became all too clear to them, and so all three felt as if the statue was about to fall on them at any moment. All they could do was take in the details, figure out what the wealthy mare was doing inside the statue, and (preferably) take measures to avoid her.

“Do you remember which way she was going?” Babs questioned, her voice taking on more authority than usual. Though such an occurrence could have been chalked up to her love of mystery solving, Diamond almost preferred to believe that Babs really did want to protect her that much. Granted, it was more than she deserved, but at the time, it was nothing if not comforting to hear.

“Left, I think.”

After saying this, Diamond rummaged through her saddlebag to find the statue map she’d been given earlier. It took a few minutes of struggling to figure out which direction “left” would be on a map, but soon found that the only thing near that area was a very swanky café, one that even the tour guides admitted very few ponies ever visited.

Every ounce of instinct in her was telling her to move forward and forget the incident had ever happened now that she knew her mother wouldn’t cross her path, but somehow, she found her hooves moving towards the café. That same inexplicable feeling that’d been guiding her to this place all along was taking her there, telling her there was something important she needed to see.

Sure enough, she’d managed to blend into the crowd when Bambi was distracted, but she knew the older mare would catch up to her soon enough. All she had to do was catch a glimpse of what was going on in there, get at least some closure on why she’d been stranded in Manehattan with this family in the first place—

Diamond stopped short, realizing that she’d been followed all this time. Not by an enemy or one of her mother’s confidants, but by Babs. The other filly flashed her a mischievous look, almost as if she knew exactly what Diamond was up to.

“So, I guess if you’re so willing to help me reconnect with my family, I might as well help ya reconnect with yours.”

Even though Babs seemed so cynical at times, Diamond always swore she could still see a tiny trace of naïveté in her from time to time. The kind she herself had never been allowed to have as a member of the Rich family, something many of her wealthy peers saw as nothing but shameful. Yet, then and there, Diamond almost felt like crying just from that tiny sentence. It’d only been a few days since their paths had crossed, but somehow, Babs really did care.

“There’s no reconnecting to do,” she admitted. “My father divorced her a few months ago, and they’re already trying to decide who’s going to get to keep me. Right now, I just want answers.”

“So why not go for them? Bambi told me this whole thing’s about givin’ you the fillyhood you never had, and what’s more filly-like than spyin’ on your parents?”

Those words would be the ones that echoed throughout Diamond’s mind for the next hour or so, as the two friends approached the café with the quietest steps imaginable. Wordlessly, they approached the nearest empty table and hid underneath it, and even though they saw Bambi at the entryway, neither of them worried.

This was, after all, the mystery that brought them together in more ways than either of them could have imagined.

Wait staff aside, the café was serving all of two ponies at the moment, both at the same table and both staring deeper into each other’s eyes than Diamond and Babs had ever seen before. Even from a distance, their faces were crystal clear, ones that each filly had seen on all too many occasions.

What was more unpredictable than Spoiled Rich showing up at the Statue of Livery? As the two fillies struggled to piece this scene together, they found that the answer to this question was her showing up at the Statue of Livery with Mosely Orange.

“This…is not good,” Babs finally muttered, barely able to keep her voice below a whisper.

As Diamond stared at her friend, she couldn’t help but notice that her green eyes shone with a fire even greater than when she’d implied Coco wasn’t her mother just the day before.

“Because my mother’s a terrible pony, and being around her will keep him on the wrong path?”

Just as Babs was about to open her mouth, the bits and pieces Diamond heard of Spoiled’s conversation told her all she needed to know.

The blue-maned mare who’d just marched into the café told her all the rest.

By the time Diamond had had the time to register the full intensity of what was going on, other ponies were already beginning to fill the tables, providing the newcomer with a perfect audience. For a slight moment, Diamond Tiara’s face poked out of the tablecloth, long enough to catch the mare’s eye.

Coco gave the filly a sad sort of smile as she peeked underneath the table.

“I know I’ve been gone a while,” she whispered, “and there are a lot of things I’ve been meaning to tell you about Babs and everypony else. Things that might be all too relevant now that he’s getting involved with your mother. Tell Bambi and Babs to leave right now, and meet me at the exit in a half hour.”

Stroking Diamond’s hoof gently, she finished, “Before I tell you any of this, though, I just want you to know one thing.”

The words shook through Diamond’s mind as she scrambled through the staircases, bringing the biggest mystery she’d had to face in this city. That, and what few glimpses she’d managed to get of the drama that unfolded in the café.

That day, she’d learned that stallions weren’t supposed to be involved with more than one mare, and since Coco and Mosely were a publicized couple, Spoiled lacked the upper hand for once. Mosely had insisted that the meeting was unplanned, that Spoiled had snuck up on him without him knowing, that it was just another case of a business partner trying to seduce a wealthy stallion. Everypony in the café seemed to believe it, anyway. But Diamond was a master when it came to wearing a mask, and she could tell just from the way the scene had unfolded that something was amiss.

Coco played the scorned mare as well as anypony could, but deep inside, Diamond could see fear permeate her seemingly fierce glare. She threatened to storm off and cancel the date, yet still looked expectedly at nothing in particular as if questioning if this was what she ought to do. And above all, Diamond remembered the way she was so close to tears when she’d breathed the last words she’d say to the filly before this whole drama was over.

“I’m sorry.”

Author's Note

The next part will explain a lot about this mystery and why Coco's been gone for so long. It may be familiar material for people who read this and IGYALL, but there's still gonna be a few surprises thrown in.

Also, I realize this might be the last controversial plot twist I get with this idiot Orange. I'm gonna miss coming up with them.

Fourth Night: Blood Diamond

Just like before, nothing had been particularly memorable about the trek back from the Statue of Livery. Any excitement Diamond might have had before about finally getting to the source of the mystery had vanished, and only a strange feeling of dread remained. In fact, she didn't even realize until she came down that she’d managed to do so in less than a half hour’s time, an amazing feat, even for her.

Sure enough, just as she’d promised, Coco was waiting for her at the exit, acting as natural as she could as she searched through the gift shop. As soon as she saw Diamond, though, she quickly embraced the filly, making her younger companion wonder why she’d ever seen her as a distant mother.

“I’m so glad they didn’t catch you,” she whispered, stroking the foal’s fur. “At least now, if they do, you’ll know what you’re dealing with. I’d say it’s far more than anything your mother could come up with on her own.”

Diamond tried to press further into the conversation, but just about as soon as she opened her mouth, the mare whisked her off to the nearest taxi and cupped her hooves around the driver’s mouth. Wherever they were going, it had to be a place ordinary citizens didn’t even know about, as Coco seemed to spend an awful long time guiding him on how to get there. Like always, the ride seemed to continue on for hours at a time until they finally approached their destination, and Diamond Tiara suddenly had a fleeting fear that she would be pushed out of this taxi as well.

If that were to happen, she realized, she would be in a far worse place than before. Unlike the glitzy Bridleway district she’d first witnessed, this area was as eroded as could be, filled with cracks in the road and abandoned buildings. Somehow, this entire part of Manehattan had turned into one of the ghost towns Cheerilee had told her about. Yet, it lacked the sort of collateral damage that would indicate that one of Equestria’s many villains had attacked it.

“This place used to be part of our industrial district,” Coco explained, opening her mouth for the first time since they’d left the statue. “Nopony really knows what happened to everything around here. But I do know what happened to one place in particular.”

The cream-colored mare looked the entire street over, glancing at each popping streetlight as if trapped in a memory. Diamond couldn’t imagine what somepony like Coco would’ve done in a place like this, but all too likely, this was nothing more than the quietest place she could find.

“Where are we going?” Diamond suddenly asked.

“Suri’s boutique. It’s just another block or so, and then I’ll explain everything.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere, not from a fashion magazine or anywhere like it. Still, Diamond couldn’t quite picture a place like that in a part of town like this, and stayed shocked at the situation for the next few minutes. Until, that is, she laid eyes on their final stop.

Like just about everything else, its windows were boarded up, yet the building had a certain color to it that the others lacked. Remnants of a sign showed that it had once been a corner pharmacy, but they were so faded she figured it had to have left over fifty years ago. Other than that, the front of the building seemed thoroughly unmarked.

Stranger still was the fact that, even though this place had been closed for who knows how long, Coco managed to find a key in her saddlebag that matched the door perfectly. It creaked as it opened, and as the mare turned on the light, Diamond saw the last thing she could possibly imagine.

The inside still glittered with all sorts of dresses and accessories, almost as if the store had been suddenly abandoned. Some sewing components, swatches of fabric and the like, still remained, strewn all over the place. There was even a cramped cubicle area in the back, where the designing team would congregate and create their latest works.

Diamond shuffled through the racks, trying to figure out where she’d seen some of these items before. Now that she thought about it, she felt like Rarity had mentioned somepony by that name, and if that was the case, then this place had to be familiar for a reason. Still, she couldn’t help but notice that, rather than stopping her, Coco appeared to be watching her intently.

“Recognize any of these?” she finally asked, back to her usual meek voice.

Diamond gave a brief nod and continued searching, not even noticing the way her companion seemed to hang her head in shame.

“I’d imagine a pony like you would. This was my old workplace. It just got shut down a month or so ago…for running a knockoff ring. Everything you see in here is fake, myself included.”

Come to think of it, the filly had heard about something or other like that going out of business. All too likely, it’d been another, similar one, but her mother often railed about such establishments in large cities that catered to social climbers. Supposedly, they were meant to be near-indistinguishable from the real thing, and regrettably, Diamond hadn’t yet honed the skill it took to tell the difference.

What she could tell, though, was how dangerously close Coco’s sea-colored eyes were coming to tears. If the confession itself stressed her out, it was likely that choosing this venue had only exacerbated her condition, and Diamond tried to calm her down as best as she could.

“So you made it from here all the way to Bridleway? You must really be talented, then.”

“Talent…is one word for it,” Coco sighed. “More accurately, I got the job I have now because Rarity put in a good word for me. And if you knew the lengths I went to in order to keep it, you just might wonder if I’m really in a better place.”

Coco continued to canter around the boutique, searching through the racks of merchandise as if there was a particular item she was looking for. Diamond followed, more out of habit than anything else, and her eyes practically bulged out of her head when she saw the dress the older mare picked out. It looked as if it had been coated in flames, protecting it from the mundane unoriginality that all too many of the clothes had. The designer stared at it absentmindedly, only to cast it off to an empty rack and continue her speech.

That, more than anything else, made Diamond fear the mare. Not necessarily for her safety, but rather for the lack of life or anything else that she seemed to show. Even her mane was far paler than it’d been the first time the filly had met her, and as she spun her story, her eyes had never been duller.

“The police were aware of the ring’s existence, but we survived by moving from one abandoned building to another. This was simply the one they were able to track down, and the investigations here have been so intense, they aren’t even close to clearing it out. Because, as it turns out, it was linked to another string of Manehattan criminals, one that had a foal in their ranks.”

She turned back to the dress and explained, “In fact, I suppose you could call this a collaboration between Babs and I. Most items in here are, or between Babs and the other workers. For, you see, our pasts happen to be linked, and if you knew how we’d met, you might just ask yourself if we were meant to be mother and daughter. I know I have.”

Even though this was meant to be a briefing, Diamond found that Coco spoke in riddles for the first half hour of their visit. She’d look from one place to another, punishing herself by flooding her mind with memories of her past. That much, Diamond Tiara knew from experience. But everything else seemed to be the utterings of a madmare, one who’d trapped her someplace nopony could find her.

Yet, for every moment she had like that, she had another where Coco broke down into tears, breaking down on the ground in a way Diamond would never imagine a Bridleway costume designer to do. Finally, after at least three of these depressive episodes, Coco revealed the one thing Diamond had been wondering all along.

“How was Babs involved with this place?” the filly asked for what seemed like the millionth time.

“She was kidnapped as a foal. I’m not sure how much you know about her story, but before I found her, a gang of criminals got to her first. They were our suppliers, no different from the way your father sells products from the Apples. They were employing all sorts of ponies that shouldn’t have been employed in the first place: the sick, the elderly, and everywhere in between. Including foals, unfortunately.”

It took a few minutes for the implications to fully sink in, but once they did, Diamond’s pupils became little more than pinpricks. Granted, she’d heard of such things happening before—her father had attended numerous conferences that instructed businessponies like him on how to avoid such schemes—but she always figured it couldn’t happen in Manehattan. Especially not with Babs.

Yet somehow, it made all too much sense and lined up with every mystery she’d been faced with so far. Babs had been able to help so much because she hadn’t had a foalhood in the first place—but her reasons turned out to be far more dire than anything Diamond could’ve imagined.

“By the time I found her, she’d already been kept there for at least a couple years,” Coco continued. “I didn’t know anything about her, but once I saw her, I didn’t need to. I was supposed to pick up a delivery and come back here, but I distracted the suppliers long enough for her to escape. When she first saw me, she told me she was surprised anypony had tried to save her in the first place.”

The next time Diamond turned around to look at the ornate materials in front of her, she almost jumped. Now that she knew, she could practically feel the blood of the sweatshop ponies on it, and suddenly, everything in the room lost its beauty. She felt as though she was in an armory after a major battle, contemplating the weapons that had brought casualties onto innumerable ponies.

All except for the flame-patterned dress Coco had shown her earlier. Unlike her other projects, manufactured for ponies who didn’t care what consequences came out of their desire to fit in, not a single piece of it was unoriginal, and the costume designer spoke of it with an odd amount of pride. It had to have been a memorial of sorts, a way of showing off the filly’s skills without exploiting them for profit. In that moment, it seemed far more of a monument to Diamond than the statue she’d stayed at all day long.

“I had to hide her from my boss,” Coco went on, “and the hours were just about as long here as they probably were for the factory ponies. When I finally got to the hospital, they told me that she had severe respiratory problems from the work and she was underweight for her age. It took months just to get her body back into healthy shape, much less to make up for all the school she lost over those years. Once this place closed down, I thought I’d make up for everything and adopt her, but even that didn’t seem to work out. Because just when we were making progress with her, somepony showed up to ruin all that.”

The previous sentences shocked Diamond so much that she barely even thought about Coco’s ominous last words until it was too late. She’d known Babs as a tough and unbreakable filly for so long that she could barely imagine the tiny mass that must’ve greeted Coco, the one that barely fought for her life in a hospital. The truth was, she’d always chalked the warning signs up to coincidence—the small scars on Babs’ flank, the way she seemed so skittish around ponies at times, the way she’d turned on Diamond so suddenly.

She’d expected trust from a pony who’d probably never received it in her life, she couldn’t help but realize. Even with the way she’d behaved under her mother’s influence, if she would’ve known sooner just what the filly had gone through…

“It started a month or so ago, at my new job,” Coco finally continued.

She’d seemed all too emotionless during Babs’ story, almost as if she’d had to tell it far too many times to count. The revelation that came next, however, was one Diamond could tell had almost never been brought into words, and Coco struggled just to let sound escape from her mouth.

“I wasn’t on my guard then. Everything seemed so perfect—I’d finally managed to track down Babs’ sister Bambi, and the three of us finally had some semblance of a family. But there’s a reason I haven’t been part of it lately, and it’s something so bad that, even if I do manage to escape it, I may never be part of it again.

“Word had gotten out of my past dealings, and a lot of ponies on Bridleway didn’t trust me at first. I wasn’t even sure if I could keep this job Rarity gave me, but then my producer, Mosely Orange, came to me with a deal. Or, at least, that was what he called it.

Now, I don’t like bringing up anypony’s past, since I’ve had to deal with enough of that lately, but from what I know of yours, I suppose you know what it means to blackmail somepony?”

Diamond nodded, but her past deeds didn’t even register at this point. At any other time, she might’ve recalled how she’d convinced the Cutie Mark Crusaders to stay on the Foal Free Press, or one of the many other times she used the technique Coco mentioned, but the way Coco said it gave her pause. One look at her, and Diamond knew that she certainly wasn’t the pony doing the blackmailing.

She might not have known about the foal labor ring in Manehattan, but she’d certainly heard enough gossip about Bridleway executives to know exactly where this conversation was going to go. And if it went that way, she had a feeling that this Mosely Orange was far worse than any of the fillies the Crusaders had reformed.

She could practically hear flushing sounds as the Reformation Society went down the drain.

“Well, from the way you’re looking at me, you’ve probably figured it out,” Coco continued. “I didn’t become Mosely’s marefriend by my own choice. By the time I figured out I was forced into it, I was also able to find out about some of his past activities. Since he’s Bambi’s father, and Babs was staying with him before she was kidnapped…I have reason to believe that he targeted me in order to separate the three of us.”

“So you’re saying he intended all this to happen? But why?”

Coco gave a regretful sigh and shook her head just about as slowly as it could go.

“Even I don’t know why. A lot of us think it was because Babs’ mother had her with another stallion, but not even Bambi knows for sure. And as for Babs…she doesn’t even remember that he betrayed her. At this point, I’m almost afraid to tell her because, well, what does that make me, really?”

As much as Diamond wanted to tell her that she couldn’t have known any of this, that she was just as much a victim as anypony else, she knew from experience that Coco wouldn’t believe it. Being reformed had a way of sticking guilt complexes into you, ones that words couldn’t always heal. And yet, even then, she couldn’t help but notice a severe flaw in Mosely’s plan.

“So if he’s so focused on ruining everything for you guys,” she finally asked, “why’s he dating my mother, anyway? Wouldn’t that kind of blow his cover?”

“Because he can get something even more valuable out of it,” replied Coco. “Thankfully, I made enough of a scene back at the café for him to tell me everything. He could very well be lying again, but he claims he was never attracted to your mother in the first place. He wanted something I didn’t have.”

Diamond could envision several possible responses: money, fame, or anything else, really. Anything Coco had, Spoiled had more of—intangible qualities or morals excluded, of course. Except none of those things could possibly appeal to a stallion who already had it all. Even as she puzzled and puzzled over the answer, however, nothing could prepare her for the truth.

“He’s practically given up on Bambi, since she’s made her own path over the years. What he wants, what your mother wants, what just about every rich pony in this town or anyplace else wants—is an heir. Which, unfortunately, you seem to be all too qualified for.”

Coco briefly cursed under her breath, so low that Diamond almost couldn’t hear it. But it was clear that all the pain the mare had dealt with over the past few months was nothing compared to the terrifying possibilities unfolding around her.

“Your mother abandoned you in the middle of one of the most dangerous cities in Equestria, and pushed you to do unspeakable things on top of that. If two ponies like that managed to get together and raise a child…do you really think anything good could come out of that?”

Yet again, tears were streaming down her face, yet for the first time today, they weren’t for herself or for Babs. They were for the filly she had barely known, the one her blackmail had torn her away from just as much as it had with her own daughter. The one she’d accepted into her own home without hesitation.

One who’d been raised by a pony almost as bad as Mosely was, or perhaps even worse.

Almost thoughtlessly, she pressed Diamond Tiara to her stomach and held her tighter than she’d ever done to anypony else.

“I let this happen to Babs. I didn’t fight anywhere near enough to save her. But even though I’m still scared of him…I’ll fight him with everything I have if he ever comes near you! You don’t deserve to be another pawn in his games, or in your mother’s.”

That, above all, was very likely the most shocking thing the filly had heard all day. She’d caused her daughter nothing but grief, but here Coco was, holding her closer than her own mother ever had. For a slight moment, she could feel everything Babs had felt when the mare rescued her, every ounce of desperation and the way it mixed with relief.

Neither do you, Diamond almost said just as Coco unleashed her final bombshell.

“Before we go back home, let me tell you something. I’m going to fight against Mosely and your mother getting together with everything I have, but if they still do, and if they try to challenge your father for custody…I will always be there to protect you. Even if it means gaining another daughter. I may not have been the best mother to Babs, but I guarantee I’m still better than anything they can do to you.”

Coco’s distance had never been her own fault, not even once. And every last word she said then were the truest ones Diamond would hear.

“If you’re ever put through anything like that ever again, our door will always be open for you.”

Author's Note

Note: none of this necessarily means Coco will end up adopting Diamond. It's more of a worst-case scenario type vow. Still, I like to consider her part of the family now.

A lot of the things in this chapter are covered in way more detail in If You Give a Little Love, so if you're looking for a further exploration of this situation, you'll be able to find it in Act II of that story.

Fifth Day: Diamonds and Their Facets

As embarrassing as it was, that image had been the one that stayed in Diamond Tiara’s head the whole night, and even into the morning. Every time she closed her eyes in her restless sleep, all she could see was Coco, and all she could feel was her embrace. Broken, misunderstood, miserable, suffering, beautiful, motherly Coco.

Among all the tragedies this family had withstood, Diamond thought Coco’s social status had to be the worst. Even with her heartfelt confession the night before, something told the filly that few in Manehattan were likely to believe it like she did, considering the way she’d sold knockoffs and lied to just about everypony in the city before. Surely the costume designer deserved the attention and glory far more than her own mother did.

That, at least, was better than thinking the most humiliating thought she could possibly muster. Yet somehow, that was still on her mind. Everything else was just an easy way of ignoring the obvious.

As dawn broke all across Equestria, Diamond felt Coco gently tuck her in before leaving for work, something that might as well have been leaving for war. And yet, as Diamond felt herself easing back into the tendrils of sleep, the idea still invaded her mind.

I barely know the mare, she thought to herself, but I can’t help but wish I’d been born into this family for real.

****

Hours later, she eased herself out of bed and went through the drill Coco had coached her on after they’d left the boutique. If she needed to talk to anypony, Bambi knew as much about Mosely as Coco did. Even more, in fact, since she was his daughter and surely had to face just about everything Diamond had faced with Spoiled. Once that thought entered her head, she told herself that even if Mosely didn’t trouble her throughout the day, she’d still have to seek Bambi out and hope the older mare could give her advice nopony in Ponyville could.

But the most important thing of all, Diamond realized as she forced herself through her daily routine, was the masquerade. From what Coco had told her, the costume designer was going to quit Mosely’s troupe as soon as the play hit theatres tomorrow night, and nopony was to know why. Though Diamond could hardly tell from looking at her, supposedly Babs was in such a fragile mental state that knowing about Mosely could break her for good. The sweet lie she lived in, the one where he’d loved and defended her until the end, had to be maintained at all costs.

If somepony would’ve told her that before, she would’ve thought for sure Babs would’ve been able to handle it. But as Diamond trotted through the morning, she realized that not even she herself could. It was a revelation that unraveled the more she thought about it, and one that seemed to stick its talons into her even when she tried to take her mind off of it.

Babs should have been like her. She should have been the Orange heir, or at least the closest thing to it. She and Diamond should have been equals, but instead, she was little more than a recovering street urchin seeking answers. Answers that, no matter how much she wanted them, Diamond would have to ensure she never received. To save her friend, she’d have to lie and hide secrets from her all over again.

Being a reformed villain really was the worst.

“So,” Bambi finally spoke, “what were you thinking about doing today?”

As soon as she realized her real predicament, all Diamond could do was curse herself. She’d been zoned out for so long, figuring out the real implications of everything, that she barely even touched the pancakes that’d been meticulously laid out for her. Judging from the look on Babs’ eyes, even she had noticed the strange shift in Diamond’s behavior. Thankfully, however, the other filly said nothing in response, and she was safe for the moment. She wasn’t sure if her natural skill towards lying would get her through the rest of the day, though.

“I really don’t know,” she replied. “Coco and I did a lot last night, and I’m still a bit tired from everything. Plus, I feel like I’ve seen a lot of what I wanted to see here.”

Way more than I wanted to see, even, Diamond added to herself.

“Well, I feel like we should do something extra special today since we’re going to spend most of tomorrow getting ready for the play. So when the two of you think of something, get back to me right away, okay?”

With a sigh of relief, Diamond shoveled the pancakes into her mouth and whispered a few words Bambi’s way. She claimed they were about a potential cutecenera present when Babs asked, but the filly still appeared suspicious. Even then, Bambi gave Diamond a nod of understanding and agreed to talk about the situation later, but not before giving her more than a few shocked looks.

In any case, she knew she’d have to get Mosely out of her mind before she could pretend to be anywhere near normal, and so she excused herself for an hour or so to read her spring break novel. She hadn’t had much time to read it with how hectic things could be at Coco’s condo, but she’d already finished half of it anyway. It had a way of sucking her in like no book of its genre could or should, especially since it took place on a farm of all places. A year ago, she would’ve died before reading such a thing, and yet somehow, she found herself enjoying it.

Hopefully, hearing more about the pig and the spider could keep her mind off things no foal deserved to think about. After checking the last few pages to make sure she didn’t forget anything, she eased herself into a comfortable reading spot and prepared to hone her speed reading skills. Just before she could do so, however, she heard a knock at the door, and once she opened it, Bambi practically burst through.

“Babs is getting ready right now,” she explained. “But I have a feeling I know what Coco told you about, and I also have a feeling you need somepony to talk to.”

In that moment, Diamond almost wished the ponies in this house were as uncaring as the ones in hers--or in her father’s case, barely present at all. At least with them, she’d never have to humiliate herself with talk about her feelings. But somehow, the slightest glimmer in her almost appreciated Bambi’s calmness towards the situation and her willingness to lend an ear.

All it took was a few more seconds for that first one to come flying out the window. Even though Bambi had probably known the secret for Celestia knows how long, she still seemed to have a panicked look in her eyes that Diamond couldn’t quite decipher. The older mare slammed the door shut and shifted her gaze from left to right, ensuring that nopony could hear the conversation or enter the room. After she’d been sufficiently ensured of that fact, her eyes regained their normal color, and she continued on as usual.

Still, Diamond decided to wait a few minutes to fess up just in case. She’d barely known the mare for a week, and in all honesty, the situation was freaking her out a little. Once she knew for sure that Bambi’s frantic state was temporary, she decided to tell her everything she knew.

“Coco took me out to explain everything last night. Even though I’d heard similar stories before from the company my parents keep, it was still a lot to take in.”

“Just how much does your ‘everything’ entail?” Bambi asked, narrowing her eyes. “Is there anything else I need to set straight? Anything she could’ve missed?”

The room was as colorful and elegant as any in Coco’s residence, but somehow, it felt more like an interrogation area than anything else. While Diamond knew Bambi wouldn’t do anything to harm her and condemned just about everything her mother had done to her, the newsmare’s intense focus was still enough to catch her off guard. Instinctually, she turned her face away from Bambi’s and back toward the book.

“Sorry, that probably wasn’t the best way of asking it. You’re not in trouble at all. I just want to make sure you’re okay after hearing all that. From what I’ve seen of you today, you don’t really seem that way.”

Bambi gently lifted Diamond’s chin off her book and smiled at her, a strange gesture that still comforted her like nothing else. On top of that, the older mare took pains to lower her voice as much as she could, though it was still shrill in places. From all that, Diamond was able to deduce that however affected by the secret she had been, it had been ten times worse for Bambi, even years after the fact.

“Well,” the filly began, “she told me about where she used to work and how Babs came into that. She also said Mosely’s planning something with this family, and that he could’ve stopped Babs from being kidnapped.”

It took everything she’d had to keep a neutral tone at the confession, even as she mentally corrected herself every time her voice wanted to crack. Even in a situation like this, a true mare of wealth would never break down in front of her peers, no matter how much she wanted to. As soon as she looked Bambi in the eyes, though, she wondered if she’d seemed too distanced from the issue.

Her last statement had practically shoved an arrow into Bambi’s back, and the older mare zoned out for what seemed like hours. Just yesterday, Diamond would’ve never thought she’d see anypony go through as much pain as Coco had, and yet somehow, it looked like the rest of her Manehattan trip would turn out to be a string of these sorts of events. And, just like before, all she could do was to stand helpless before the traumatized mare, unable to cure her pain or to even come close to doing so.

The old Diamond would’ve laughed, or even gone back to her book during those moments. That thought, at least, was the only solace she had as she watched Bambi’s helpless face.

“I think he did a lot more than that,” Bambi finally spoke. “Nopony’s ever confirmed it, but I’ve always been convinced that he arranged the whole thing. Nopony dared to break into our place before that day. Even when I was just a student journalist, that all seemed fishy.”

She plopped onto a conveniently placed pillow and crossed her front legs. Diamond tried to look for some trace of misplaced affection in her eyes, but they appeared to burn with pure hatred. However Bambi had done it, that’d been one step Diamond hadn’t crossed yet, and yet another thing she found herself admiring about the mare.

Somehow or another, this outspoken, indignant newsmare had been a prim, perfect Orange heiress once, one who’d probably faced even more pressure than Diamond had. Yet nothing about her seemed to want to go back, and she fought for her new family with a fierceness the filly had never seen. She, like everything else in the condo, was nothing short of a mystery.

“So you’re saying you don’t feel anything towards him?” Diamond asked without thinking.

“Why should I?” Bambi replied with a scoff. “He never felt anything towards our family. My mother couldn’t function for years, all because of the way he treated her. She was never allowed to be her own pony, just some programmed Orange clone. He rejected his own flesh and blood because she wasn’t a good enough tool for him. And, as much as I hate to bring myself into this, he--”

The rest of the words faded away once Bambi forced herself to make eye contact with her sister’s new friend. Then, and only then, did she realize Diamond had never meant to be accusatory. She’d thought she didn’t understand--but she understood all too well.

“--probably treated me a lot like your mother treats you.”

Bambi was about to trot out of the room, utterly ashamed of herself for exploding at her guest, when Diamond suddenly stopped her in her tracks.

Bambi had never been as soft or comforting of a figure as Coco had, but somehow, the revelation had drawn Diamond closer to her than ever. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever find another pony who understood her situation ever again, and so this was the only chance she had of ever taking the next step. The one that’d bring her to the pony she wanted to be.

“What I meant to ask was--how did you get over it? I mean, no matter how much my mother keeps me away from the life I want to live, I still find myself loving her. Sometimes, I still want to go back to how she wanted me to be. But you don’t seem to have any of those problems.”

With a quick sigh, Bambi answered, “Watching ponies get hurt because of the ones you love can do that to you. All I can say is that it takes time, and if your mother doesn’t try any funny business, it might take longer for you. What I did then was what I had to do to survive, so there’s nothing wrong with going at your own pace. Any progress is still progress, I’d say.”

She smiled at the filly and continued, “And as much as I’d like to see more journalists out in Equestria, and as much experience as I know you have with that, you don’t have to copy me on everything. You can definitely keep going to me for advice, but I’d like you to forge your own path. After all, I think both of us would agree that we’re going in the direction we’re heading in to avoid having other ponies tell us how to live our lives, right?”

While it wasn’t the sort of advice Diamond had been expecting, she gave an appreciative nod all the same. She knew that she’d want to go out and explore the city more later, and Bambi had even arranged for the three of them to have a picnic in Equestria’s largest park. But for now, all she wanted to do was sit by Bambi’s side and listen to a pony who’d come across the same hardships as she had and made it through kicking.

Sooner or later, the moment would have to break, and sure enough, Babs knocked on the door about a half hour into their conversation. But even then, the three of them found a way to be together, and once Babs noticed the book Diamond was reading, she eagerly begged Bambi to read it to her.

As it turned out, the book with the spider and the pig had been one of the few good memories the sisters had gotten to share together before their lives had gone to Tartarus. And so, in a rare act of mercy, Diamond jumped onto the nearest pillow, looked out the window, and settled in for a long day of reading.

A single day where the best of memories could come back to life, and the worst could be forgotten.

Author's Note

Even if Bambi's just an OC, I find that she and Diamond are still a good pair. I know this part might take away from it being a Diamond-Babs dynamic story, but I hope you enjoy Diamond bonding with Coco's family nonetheless. :twilightsmile:

Fifth Night: Diamond in the Sky

On a corner of Manehattan, not so far from the one Diamond Tiara was staying at, work on Spellshock, the next big Bridleway play of the season, was running into the night. Everypony was either trotting from the stage and back, sorting out issues with the cast, or had left work already. Ponies came and left in shifts, knowing every second that what they did was critical. Tomorrow night had to be a success, or else--

Mosely Orange didn’t even let himself consider that possibility as he looked out at the town, steadily falling into sunset. It was simply a given--that script had been perfectly calibrated to hit all the right notes and all the right trends, and with him in charge of it all, there was no way it could fail. And yet somehow, he couldn’t help but find himself wishing that his nerves could be chalked up to those simple, albeit amateurish, fears.

Before him was a letter, its paper selected from his best stationery and its contents marked with his trademark politesse. In truth, ponies had been wondering about his sincerity far before that rumor was a blip in anypony’s eye, and he’d deal with that story about the filly the same way he always had. Deny it with a smile, and try not to think about just how much closer they got to unraveling the truth every time. Thankfully, those whisperings had been successfully quarantined, and only the ponies on his set knew--and only a few of them at that, even.

Spoiled Rich had been a much, much more difficult pony to crack. Thankfully, Mosely had managed to silence the conversation before it could reach the papers, as usual. But as much as he would’ve liked to seal the business deal with Barnyard Bargains, things were getting too complex, even for him.

Sure, he’d navigated through the traditional list of suitors before ending up with his dear divorced wife, and he tended to know what he was up against when it came to rich mares. But he was acutely aware that this particular one was his equal in every way, which meant that she could manipulate ponies against him as easily as he could against her. There was, after all, a reason he never got involved with truly bad ponies, or at least, why he tried to limit himself to the relatively harmless ones. And yet, months ago, when the two of them had continued their liaison and when Mosely had seen another mare on the side, the stinging feeling he had now wasn’t there. Out of all the terrible ponies in Equestria, he’d actually managed to have at least some feelings of attraction towards Spoiled.

Ponies like them could make a dynasty together, and that was what the Oranges were all about. If he would have had a chance like this ten years ago, or even ten months ago, he would’ve taken it without question. But as he struggled through the letter, two reasons for rejecting Spoiled’s advances came into his mind.

One: he swore he saw her foal running out of the Statue of Livery that fateful day. She’d been the one advantage Spoiled had over all his other potential suitors, the heir he so desperately wanted, but he’d barely seen her throughout the entire trip. Never with Spoiled herself, come to think of it. Molding foals into the next entrepreneurs of Equestria took time, and it seemed all too likely that the mare was shirking her responsibilities. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d almost say she’d abandoned a perfectly fine foal on the spot and looked at her with nothing but shame.

But while that could be a valid excuse to tell Spoiled, he knew that there were too many bleeding-heart Manehattanites out there who’d take him for a hypocrite the minute they found the letter and learned his secret. Only the wealthy could really understand, after all. Getting rid of a filly like Diamond Tiara, who had breeding and potential like nopony could realize, was the worst waste anypony could imagine. Comparing something like that to getting rid of Babs Seed was practically an insult.

Yet he knew there was something that could spite Spoiled even more, that could play up his own reputation for everything it was worth while hers plummeted. Any opposition to it would land straight in the papers, and by the time the Rich mare had a chance to rat him out, nopony would believe her, anyway. She’d just be another decaying lunatic, and every plan he ever had would come back into place.

If only it didn’t go against everything he’d ever known.

Mosely thought for a brief moment about how his own family would think, knowing that he was so close to throwing away a potentially advantageous partnership for something so small and selfish. For somepony who’d never really been more than a pawn in the first place. But then, he decided that he knew better. As long as he could say that Spoiled had convinced him into everything, he could keep the alliance and then some.

Because Spoiled had never been anypony other than somepony in the right place at the right time, whose luck could unravel just as quickly.

Because there was somepony else who deserved to take her place and become far greater.

After endless seconds of poring over the dregs of drafts, Mosely picked up the nearest pen and decided he knew exactly what to say.

“I’m in love with Coco Pommel.”

****

Meanwhile, Diamond Tiara curled her hind legs onto her stomach, the feeling of dread finally beginning to overtake her. Coco’s family had already started making plans for the next day, and as soon as they did, Diamond was struck with a revelation that should have came to her days before. If her mother truly cared about her--or, rather, if she truly pretended to care--she’d likely send her henchponies across town within hours in search of her. Whatever punishment Spoiled had meant to inflict on her had gone on long enough, and she was probably starting to realize that if Diamond wasn’t found soon, Filthy would start getting suspicious.

She was just about to open her mouth to warn them when she heard the cab hit a bump in the road, presumably due to a particularly large piece of gravel. On any other occasion, the noise wouldn’t have caused her any trouble, but the place the hastily created family was heading to was mostly devoid of sound, which contributed to the jarring effect. Or, at least, that was what Diamond liked to think.

It was most certainly not because the carriage was heading towards a dark forest, and not because she had a slew of bad experiences with cabs this week. It was just a hugely unexpected surprise, no different from the feeling she got when somepony sneaked up on her.

In any case, Bambi and Babs didn’t seem to notice, but Diamond could still feel Coco slightly brushing her fur. As much as she hated to admit it, since doing so would be admitting to the fear in the first place, she actually didn’t mind Coco’s comforting touch. The mare didn’t say much else, but she gave a knowing glance to her fellow passenger, her eyes practically glowing with the surrounding starlight.

As terrible a shock as the gravel road was, Coco’s appearance tonight was one surprise Diamond could actually get behind. Apparently, she’d made such a big show of the Statue of Livery scandal that Mosely had actually decided to give her some space, even though it was the night before the play. Whatever spectacle she’d put on at work earlier, Diamond couldn’t help but think it had to have been one of Coco’s most assertive moments yet.

If she keeps going on like this, Diamond Tiara thought to herself, maybe she can free herself from that miserable stallion.

Even as Babs pestered her with more requests about the Reformation Society, Diamond didn’t see her shifting feelings about Mosely as anything unnatural, really. It was simply a matter of other ponies knowing less than she did, a feeling that she wanted to avoid more than anything once she got back to Ponyville. And besides, even if Babs knew, her feelings towards Mosely, her mother, and herself were really too complicated--she’d kept herself from thinking it for nearly a day, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about how connected the three of them were.

If my mother approves of a stallion who does bad things, and only approves of me when I do bad things, what does that say about myself?

Just as she was about to wallow in the reformed self-pity she always told herself she’d never wallow in, the cab came to a sudden stop, causing her to let out a tiny yelp of frustration. That, at least, was only a bit less pathetic than what she was about to do, she told herself.

“You sure this is the place?” Babs asked, more to Coco than the cabbie who’d driven them there. “I dunno what I’m supposed to be seein’, but it sure seems like a whole lot of nothing.”

Sure enough, the area before them was little more than a simple clearing with little more than plain grass and mossy stones, where there wasn’t even a single cloverleaf to be found. It was a nice, peaceful space, especially considering the fact that it was barely a half hour away from a city that never slept, but not even Ponyville forests were quite like this one. Diamond listened for animal sounds and was faced with complete, unbridled silence.

Maybe there were places scarier than the Everfree, after all.

As soon as Babs asked that, however, Coco soon nodded as quickly as she could.

“You said I got to pick the place this time,” she replied teasingly. “And this is where my parents and I used to go on nights like this. I figured it’s someplace Diamond ought to see before she leaves...and that it’ll calm me down before opening night, at least.”

Coco chuckled nervously just after saying this, and Diamond could only wish her nerves were due to simple stagepony jitters. If Spoiled didn’t come running out for her tomorrow, Diamond decided, she had half a mind to tell a particular stallion to stay away from Coco for good. She was just a filly, but hey, she figured she might as well use the leverage she had as Rich family heir for something.

In the distance, both Babs and Bambi were still giving Coco quizzical looks, and the mare soon perked up as she took the whole place in.

“Anyway, I’m surprised this place is still here. I guess the city can grow as much as it likes, but ponies have still gotta have a place to see stars.”

Sure enough, as everypony raised their heads to look, Diamond could see that the stars were really that much brighter here. Maybe even brighter than they were in Ponyville, she supposed. Still, the whole idea that Manehattanites had to go a half hour away from the city just to see the night sky was mind-bogglingly odd to her.

From the looks of it, they weren’t going to be doing any professional stargazing, not like the kind Cheerilee had taught her about, at least. The cab had been completely bare when the four of them left it, and to her knowledge, Coco hadn’t packed any telescopes or star maps for the journey. For that matter, nopony’d brought any camping supplies either, which convinced Diamond that maybe, just maybe, Coco hadn’t gone off the deep end and decided to cut herself off from society the night before her major production. That, at least, was more than encouraging, especially considering the fact that this was the first time the family had been together since she first arrived in Manehattan.

She could only hope that, after she left, they’d get many more moments like this. With Coco showing everypony around, Bambi taking everything in, and Babs being her usual self, still slightly confused about everything.

“Aren’t there observatories in Manehattan?” Babs asked as she gazed around the area. “Ones that don’t take you forever to get to?”

“Ah, but can you really see them like this out there?” Coco replied. “You can get your fancy telescopes in the city and look up close, but if you just want to look at the sky from where you stand, you’d be hard pressed to do it. Plus, last time I checked, those observatories aren’t free.”

She gave a tiny nervous chuckle as she said this, and Diamond couldn’t help but wonder how much of her knockoff artist instincts were still in her. Sometimes, watching Coco could be a lot like watching a pony who didn’t realize they’d won the lottery. But, then again, Diamond supposed she’d won it in more ways than one.

She was quickly interrupted by these thoughts, however, as Coco started to settle in. She guided the rest of the ponies towards a small fire pit, and all of them sat in front of it as if a fire was really burning in front of them. If it would’ve been any other night, Diamond probably would’ve cursed them for forgetting to bring supplies, but the easy spring wind was just warm enough to keep her satisfied. This wasn’t the sort of place her family would ever willingly take her to, but she was still almost instantly attracted by it. By the silence, and by the warmth that came with being with some of her newest and most cherished friends.

“Now, you’re going to have to forgive me,” began Coco, “since I’m not an expert in this sort of thing. There’s a reason I’m not a scientist. But what I do know is that light has a sort of balance in Equestria. It knows where it’s needed, and when it’s not. Since ponies can’t replicate it, and since we don’t really want to, Celestia’s sun touches every inch of every city. But Luna’s stars are just a bit fussier.

“The more ponies live someplace, the harder it is to see them. The scholars who study this sort of thing say it’s because we create artificial lights that dim them out, like all the fancy displays in Manehattan. They may seem small, but if you put them together, you can block out the stars themselves. Kind of like ponies, in a way.”

Diamond had enough experience with that, considering the way just three Crusaders had put her on the right path. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was entirely right. It’d only taken three to point her to goodness, but it’d only taken one to get her away from that to begin with. So did that make her mother some extremely bright searchlight that blinded everypony she touched, or did it make her a black hole any attempt at light that hit her path?

Diamond Tiara simply shook her head. Even she had to think she was overthinking this way too much. After explaining the situation to Babs, the brown filly gave her a tiny pat on the shoulders, something Diamond couldn’t have even imagined her doing before the trip. But, as the two started to move closer to one another, Coco suddenly continued her speech.

“That was what I believed up until Princess Luna returned to Equestria, but now, I think it’s a little bit different. The princess was always somepony who wanted to be in the spotlight, even when she was blocked out. So the more ponies she was around, the more distant she got. She assumed they were there to look at the artificial lights, so she only wanted them to pay attention to her. Nightmare Moon wanted to remove the sun, but I feel like she might have wanted to remove the stars, too. Only once in a while, and only in some places, so ponies would remember her and realize what they did wrong without being forced into it. Maybe someday soon, Princess Luna will learn that having more ponies around would give her strength, and that she wouldn’t have to feel alone in the world. Or maybe it isn’t something she can control, and the stars will still mask themselves in our city. But that makes this place all the more important.”

A gentle wind flew past the fire pit, and everypony gazed at the sky in silent awe. Even Diamond, who’d often taken such simple things for granted.

That feeling, however, was shattered just about as soon as Bambi cuffed Coco’s leg and started laughing.

“Wow,” she playfully whispered, “when did you start getting so deep?”

“Hey, I can think from time to time, even if I’m not a reporter!” Coco replied, just as teasingly. “I figured it’d be something that all of us needed to hear. Especially this next part.”

Warming up her voice yet again, she continued, “We don’t really think of the false lights as doing anything good or bad as long as they’re there. But when they begin to outshine the stars, scientists call it ‘light pollution.’ So if we think of ourselves as stars, and everypony else as lights, we can see that it can be good to surround ourselves with light, so we can absorb it and become better ponies. At the same time, there are ponies who might try to outshine our star or change it somehow. You may not be able to cut them out of your life completely, but you can make sure your star keeps shining.”

She gave a tiny nod to Diamond, winking as if she knew everything that would happen the next day, and turned to Babs, giving her space to tell her own stories and insights. And throughout the night, it went on all across the fire pit.

Yet somehow, the speech Coco had made still struck her, even as the cab left for the night. Diamond wasn’t sure how much of it Bambi and Babs really caught, if they really knew that part of it had been a cry for help, a revelation to how much Mosely had changed her, but the message resonated all the same. In the moonlight, Diamond swore she could see Coco reclaiming her former glow, at least a little. Urging Diamond herself, however silently, not to make the same mistake.

The filly stared at the sky one last time before reentering the starless city and vowed that no matter what happened when she had to leave for good, she wouldn’t forget these moments.

Her star had been clouded before, but she’d make sure it shone forever.

Author's Note

I apologize for the weird beginning, but I felt like I had to have some framing in place for the next part. It'll get a bit more serious from here onward, but it won't all be doom and gloom. :raritywink:

I had this metaphor in mind from the beginning, but even I wasn't expecting Coco to lay it on so thick. Maybe it was because I had "Lullaby for a Princess" in my head when I was writing it... :twilightsheepish:

Sixth Day: Pressurized Diamonds

By the time Diamond got back from the forest on the other side of town, she’d already forgotten that Coco’s play was premiering soon. But the minute she woke up to a new morning, she already knew. Partially because she’d started to take an interest in these ponies’ lives, sure. But it was mostly because nopony in the entire condo let her forget about it.

They’d all woken bright and early, even Babs and Bambi, and filled entire conversations with talk about the premiere. From what Diamond could see of the newspaper at breakfast, it hadn’t made the front page, but Bambi was quick to fill in the missing details. It was supposed to be a play about a huge group of unicorns competing in a traditional magic duel, and even though Bambi hadn’t been too sure about the plot in the beginning, she’d warmed up to the production. She’d come to the practices whenever she could, helped Coco brainstorm the costumes, and practically blended into the crew itself.

“But then again,” Bambi told the two fillies as they ate, “it’s what I always used to do, so I barely have to think about it. Back in the day, I had a backstage pass to all the musicals here.”

Yet again, Diamond was finding it difficult not to blow the whole secret apart then and there. Deep down in her brain, as much as she knew Coco deserved the recognition, she wished today didn’t have to be a day to simultaneously praise Mosely Orange. Though, judging from the look on Bambi’s face, Diamond had a feeling she wasn’t the only one thinking such things.

It was just a tiny glance, but somehow, she could tell that it was every bit as hard on Bambi as it was on her. She’d never bothered to ask Bambi just how long she’d known her father was a terrible pony--for months, years, or even a decade--and yet she could tell that not a day went by without the mare thinking about it. How long had Bambi been tempted to tell Babs about what she’d been through, and how did she end up stopping herself?

Somehow or another, Diamond could barely imagine doing that for anypony, and yet here Bambi was, going through every day like nothing had ever happened. She’d already started to admire Bambi near the beginning of the vacation, but at this point, she was sure the Orange mare had some sort of unearthly strength in her heart.

Realizing that she was staring at her hosts, Diamond soon turned her face towards her cup of milk, trying her best not to blush as she did so. Thankfully, from what she could tell, neither Babs nor Bambi noticed that she was zoning out. Either that, or they still weren’t quite awake themselves.

“Oh yeah,” Babs finally whispered. “What was it like, anyway? I was always too young to go with you and Momo back in the day, but you two always seemed to enjoy it.”

Just from looking at her, Diamond already knew that Bambi was about to deflect the question and deny the good times she had with her father to her final breath. Sure enough, she did just that, but the revelation she brought with her was one not even Diamond knew about.

“I hope you’re able to,” Bambi finally whispered. “Because it’s going to be the last night this play runs.”

To Diamond’s utter shock, Babs didn’t seem to react to this statement, almost as if this sort of activity was typical in Manehattan. The pink filly, however, knew better. Even Ponyville community musicals played more than just one night, and surely Bridleway ones lasted even longer. There was only one explanation--and even that was one Diamond found almost impossible.

“Has it already been cancelled?” she asked with a quick tilt of her head.

As soon as she said it, Bambi had already placed a hoof to her chin in thought, trying to imagine how best to break it to her. Once she did, she cleared her throat and suddenly donned a seriousness that Diamond had never seen from her before.

“No, but Coco’s confirmed that she’s quitting tonight,” she explained. “You see, the Spellshock director and producer have been at each others’ throats for months, and one of them’s finally decided he’s had enough. So, since Coco’s been good friends with this director for a while now, they’re both going to leave and hopefully make some sort of statement.”

With a quick sigh, she continued, “After the things both of them have gone through become public, everypony will want to hire them. We’ve had this planned for weeks now, and we think it’s finally ready. We give everypony one last chance to see the work they’ve slaved over for months and then watch as the lights go out. It’s the least we can do to see Coco happy again.”

All it took was a single look of concern in Diamond’s eyes, and Bambi immediately whispered into her ear. Told her that Babs would have nothing to do with any of this, and that only Coco’s secrets would be revealed. That Babs would never have to know why Mosely targeted her mother.

And just like that, the conversation verged onto another track--the preparations for this one-night-only play. Rather than the excursions she’d grown used to, Diamond would have to pitch in with odd jobs around the stage, something she would have shied away from months before. But for once, she didn’t feel like she was doing it out of the manufactured kindness she adopted around the Crusaders. For once, it felt completely natural, and the reasoning flowed straight out of her brain.

It wouldn’t just be any good deed.

It would be the least we can do to see Coco happy again.

No, she said to herself, it’s the least I can do to see my family happy again.

As much as she loved her father, as much as she held onto some shred of attraction for her mother, for once, she didn’t bother to correct herself. Because even if they weren’t in blood, this was basically what this family had become in her heart.

Yet another perfect thing that she considered “hers,” even if she had to leave it behind.

****

The theatre, as always, was full of the hustle and bustle and drama that Diamond remembered so vividly. Today, however, it had never seemed smaller to the foal, especially considering how many ponies had already crowded around the entryway. If she’d been one of those lesser ponies who weren’t used to crowds, it would’ve intimidated her like nopony’s business, but she trotted on with her head held high. This was her element, and as much as she’d enjoyed the freedom this week had brought her, she’d missed this feeling, too.

So much so that she didn’t even realize until she walked past a particular part that this had been where it had all started. Where Coco had saved her and where she’d first met Mosely Orange. One event she’d treasure forever, and one of many she’d wished had never come to pass.

However, she could be forgiven for not coming to this realization immediately. The atrium could not have looked more different from when Trixie had taken the stage a few days ago--fancy drinks were carefully placed along the double doors, and the velvet floor had been freshly vacuumed. If it weren’t for the ponies rushing in and out of the auditorium, Diamond would’ve almost considered it the most orderly place in Manehattan.

As she turned to look at Bambi and Babs, she could tell that both of them were equally enthralled, even though they barely seemed to show it. This moment of decorum lasted all of a minute before Babs started jumping up and down in front of Diamond.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to her friend. “I know you’re excited. You don’t have to hide it in front of us.”

“Thank Celestia!” Babs replied. “Y’know, it’s just too perfect that my first play’s gonna be one my mom helped put on. You can’t get much better than that!”

Diamond was about to ask why Babs had only just now started calling Coco her mom, especially since the filly had insisted on calling her by name the whole time Diamond had been there, but she let the thought slide. With all the bigger mysteries she’d unraveled, something like this was tiny enough to dismiss in an instant.

“You didn’t do plays for school or anything?” she asked instead.

“Nah. Apple Bloom says Ponyville does one for every grade, but the kids skip a year here. Only the even grades do plays. And the less we go into where I was a couple years ago, the better it’d be on the both of us.”

All Diamond wanted to do was facehoof and move towards the nearest table, but she just nodded instead. With the way the past week had been, mistakes like that were already par for the course for them.

And so, the two continued chatting for awhile as Bambi talked with Coco backstage, presumably about issues she wanted to keep from Babs. Just like before, the two fillies managed well enough on their own until a surprisingly familiar stallion crossed their path.

Babs had thanked Celestia before, but it was all Diamond could do not to think the same thing as the earth pony visitor trotted by. For once in this terrifying town, Mosely Orange had not sneaked up on her. While the brown stallion before her was equally rich and well-dressed, he probably had to be the one pony in the world she’d never shy away from.

His presence was always welcomed, and it would be welcomed now. Because as much as Diamond loved her new family, it was always good to get back to the one pony who’d loved her through everything.

At first, Filthy Rich’s face was nothing but confusion, but as he processed the situation, all he could do was smile. For a few moments, Diamond thought it was just because he was happy to see his daughter, but as he scanned the scene, she realized it was something even greater.

“So that’s where you’ve been,” he finally said with a chuckle. “Your mother goes to Manehattan, and all you can think about is meeting up with your old friend. You’ve already changed so much.”

Hidden in his words was a phrase she knew she’d never hear her mother say. I’m proud of you.

With a smile, she remembered that her father had never been as hard on Babs as Spoiled had been. Where her mother saw a Manehattan miscreant, Filthy had seen an Apple, a valuable ally. When Diamond had told him that she’d finally made friends with an Apple, she swore he’d almost broken into song.

But as great as those memories were, they still didn’t answer her real questions. Namely--what exactly was her father doing in Manehattan, anyway, and how much did he know?

Diamond figured she couldn’t ask him up front if he knew, just in case Spoiled kept the same secrets from him as she did from everypony else. She’d have to ease her way into it, and thankfully, Babs managed to ask the same question she’d had on her mind.

“Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Barnyard Bargains is entering a business deal with one of this play’s top ponies. He’s been generous enough to give us tickets on opening night to seal the deal. But I feel like I should be asking you the same thing.”

As he pointed to Babs, Diamond could tell there was nothing but curiosity in his voice. He’d been through this whole deal enough times to know what was really going on, to know that his tickets hadn’t really been some act of kindness. But somehow, the naivete in her father’s voice was enough to make her lips curl in disgust.

Not because he was surprised to see Babs in one of Bridleway’s fancy theatres, but because he was foolish enough to think Mosely was even capable of generosity to begin with.

If Filthy noticed her weird face, he clearly didn’t show it, instead staring at Babs like he thought he’d never see her again. Judging from the way Diamond had been before, she almost felt like he’d probably believed that at some point.

“My mom’s the costume designer here,” Babs said. “She adopted me after I came to Ponyville that one time, so you probably wouldn’t recognize her.”

From her father’s face, Diamond wasn’t quite sure what shocked him more: the fact that Babs didn’t have a biological family or that her mother was at least somewhat famous. Still, he looked on with interest and chatted with the filly for a few moments before asking a dangerous question.

The only thing Diamond was thankful for was that it wasn’t the one she’d expected to hear. Not the one about her mother, about her and Babs making up, about anything that implicated or involved her in any way.

She’d tuned out during most of Filthy and Babs’ short conversation, trying to see if anypony needed any help, but the second she heard it, her heart still dropped anyway.

“Isn’t she the costume designer involved with Mosely Orange?”

Babs just nodded nervously, something she could just as easily have covered up by saying she was shy around such an influential pony. She, at least, was able to sweep the thought aside and continue her conversation. But, as glad as Diamond was that the two of them were getting along, she couldn’t help but snag on one particular detail.

The gossip had already reached Ponyville. Not only that, but it’d managed to get to her father, the one rich pony who avoided that sort of thing like the plague. Sure, he probably only knew because he had to do research on the Oranges for his business. Sure, he probably only meant for it to be a talking point for his next meeting.
How’s life going with that marefriend everypony’s talking about? What does she think about this whole deal? I really would love to meet her when you’re free again.

Completely innocent, but it still hurt. For a pony to be known, and only known, by their associations. It shouldn’t have, really, since it was something Diamond had lived all her life. But she had chosen to be a member of the Rich family, to make friends with Silver Spoon, not to run away when she got the chance.

Coco hadn’t, and she was already starting to be known as somepony she wasn’t.

However Diamond had managed to keep up the masquerade then wasn’t working now, and everypony around her knew it. It’d only taken a few words for her to drift off into some invisible space, something that every filly except Diamond did from time to time. And just seeing her father’s reaction was enough to force everything out.

Everything she’d spent the last week hiding.

Before he even thought to ask her what was wrong, she knew what he needed to hear. She knew that she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Mother wasn’t out on a business meeting,” Diamond slowly explained. “She probably told you that, but she was trying to seal the alliance another way. So she spent the whole time with Mosely and dumped me out in front of this theatre. I thought it was a punishment at first, for the way I treated her a few weeks ago. But from the minute I saw her out with him...I felt like she thinks this relationship’s more important than us.”

She paused for a few seconds, seeing the look of utter horror on her father’s face. He’d known how terrible Spoiled could be even before Diamond had. By the time she’d decided to be a better pony, her mother and father had already gotten divorced. But, in that moment, she realized that Filthy had always had some amount of faith for her mother, even if it wasn’t based in love. Faith that whatever had torn the two of them apart wouldn’t happen again, that Spoiled would be a better pony in the end.

Diamond could practically feel that faith shatter all around her as she confessed. Her father was always one to get the facts from both sides, but at this point, he didn’t even need to. From everything that’d happened over the past month, he just knew.

She should have known, too.

“Babs and her mom Coco were able to find me before any other ponies did. I was able to make up with all of them, and do some of the things I could never do as my old self. But the more I found out about everything, the more I started to wonder--”

Silence permeated the area, too filled with horror to reply with anything else. Filthy was still struggling just to collect himself, let alone gather his ideas. Diamond herself was speaking at little more than a whisper, forcing herself to ask the one thing she didn’t want to know.

“Was the Orange deal even your idea? Or was it just something Mother suggested to you?”

Thankfully, as Filthy confirmed, it had been brought up long before the divorce, before Spoiled could dare touch another stallion. It’d seemed natural to him, he told Diamond. Make friends with the Apples, make friends with the Oranges, how could you lose?

The minute he said this, though, she knew just what to do. She wasn’t sure if she thought of it because she wanted to kill any chances her mother had, or because she genuinely wanted to protect Babs. This would be one case, though, where intentions didn’t matter. That was what she told herself as she opened her mouth yet again and did the most terrifying thing a Rich mare could do.

She waited until the inevitable moment when Bambi came over and called for Babs. When the two turned the first corner, Diamond didn’t follow them. She already knew that Bambi, and all of them, would thank her later for what she was about to do. Even if it meant this would be the last time she could see them.

She’d spent this whole trip wondering how she could ever make it up to them, and she was about to do just that.

“While I was with Babs’ family, I was able to get some information on the Oranges,” Diamond finally spoke, summoning her inner businesspony with everything she had. “Facts that might make Barnyard Bargains think twice before allying with them.”

If Mosely wouldn’t fall tonight, Diamond would make him fall.

Author's Note

Sorry this part took so long! Since this day/night pair takes place at the same time as my favorite IYGALL arc, "Madmare in the Attic," it was a struggle to write this without retelling the whole story. So this is just going to be "Madmare" from a different perspective. I hope it doesn't come off as too much of a recap for IYGALL readers.

Sixth Night: Shining Bright Like a Diamond

From what little Diamond knew of Bridleway, it was customary to seat yourself hours before the production, especially on the most cutthroat night of all. Opening night, and by the time Filthy and his daughter made their way to their seats, half the theatre was already full. But it was the one pony who wasn’t there--Spoiled Rich herself--that changed everything. She’d been off the grid all week, and from the look of it, this would only continue.

Her husband, at least, was none too upset about this matter. The minute Filthy had heard about just what his wife had gotten into, he’d switched seats with Diamond so she wouldn’t have to face her. He was already about to do it the minute he’d heard that Diamond had been abandoned to the city, but the news that came shortly after it had shaken him even more.

It’d taken Diamond herself at least an hour to explain the entire incident, and while her father had seemed skeptical at first, his eyes were wide and terrified by the time she finished telling her story. To her surprise, he hadn’t even bothered to ask any questions, like his usual businesspony self. All he could do was nod, listen, and shudder about the alliance he’d almost made.

“The minute we get home,” he’d finally said after processing the whole thing, “I’m notifying everypony in charge of the Orange negotiations. They have to know this, and Barnyard Bargains will not complete this deal. It may be a little harder on all of us, but we cannot let our morals be compromised, and with any luck, other businesses will follow suit.”

As much as he tried to put on his best authoritative voice, the cracks were already about to show. It’d taken him everything he’d had just to enter the auditorium, figuring Coco and everypony else who’d worked on the production didn’t deserve to have a high-profile pony like him cancel out. But judging from the way his eyes moved all over the place, Diamond had a feeling that he’d been severely frazzled. He could never see anything about this theatre, and the stallion who’d sought to become his business partner, the same ever again.

For once, though, seeing her father like this was worth it. Even if she couldn’t pursue further justice, even if she had to leave the rest to Coco and her family, she could take pride in the fact that she’d done at least one small thing to disturb the Oranges at their roots. Sometimes, she thought to herself, being a rich pony definitely had its perks.

However, even after a half hour of waiting, Filthy still had yet to mention anything about her friend’s ties to the case. He’d only reacted to the parts of the Orange scenario that concerned his business, and if he was anypony else in Equestria, Diamond would have figured he just didn’t care about Babs. Yet from the way he’d talked to her earlier, plus the way he’d always seemed to treat the filly with kindness, Diamond figured that was probably what had hit him the hardest. So hard that he couldn’t even open his mouth to speak about it.

All these months since Babs had come to Ponyville, and he had never even known anything about her. Just how hurt she really was, what she’d been through, how she’d have to go back to her hometown with all that knowledge crammed into her head. How she might never, even in a hundred years, be able to forget those things.

Thinking back, Diamond had never even thought to get to know Babs, either. But now that she had, she’d do anything to make sure her friend was avenged, both for the things she and Mosely had done to her.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t had time to go back and see Babs, since Coco and everypony else were already busy preparing for the play. Diamond could only wish that this would be enough.

****

Nopony was exactly sure just when Spoiled Rich decided to show up and rain on everypony’s parades, as there were no clocks in the auditorium. And, even if there had been, nopony would have really cared. She might have been a public figure in Ponyville, but it was no secret that Filthy’s reach extended far beyond her own. Still, even as she entered the theatre, everypony knew that she had to be somepony important. Nopony else would dare show up so late before the play, and it was clear that she thought herself above such measures of punctuality.

As she trotted inside, she tried to think of this night as an escape from her failures. Granted, her attempts at making it big in Manehattan had failed, so much so that Mosely Orange himself had rejected her for a mere commoner, but she at least had this. The hottest ticket in town, and one that she absolutely knew everypony back home would drool over. She’d tell them that she’d had a passionate romance with the producer, got the tickets from him, and left the relationship to its gradual fizzling out afterwards. Ponyville did know her to be a gold digger, after all.

She just wouldn’t have to tell them about the other part, about how she’d been a lovestruck mare who’d gotten her heart broken. That simply wasn’t her character, and even if she did tell the truth, she’d get laughed out of Ponyville for saying it. For once, she was glad she’d followed Filthy’s business advice and built herself an image.

Calm and collected. That was the type of pony she was, and the type she would have to present herself as in the moment. Sure, she’d lured him away from a certain little upstart who thought she could make her way in the fashion business, somepony so low on anypony’s radar that Spoiled herself had almost forgotten her name. (Like a good rich pony, she remembered that mare’s family name--Polomare--and forgotten everything else.) Sure, she’d let him date another mare on the side who could give him leverage on his goals. She’d just never expected in a million years that it was just an excuse for him to stop seeing her, and--

By the time she saw the Apples seated on the other side of the front row from her, she was practically fuming. If it had been just Applejack, she could have understood a little--as much as she hated this fact, Applejack was an Equestrian hero. But to practically bring her whole brood along with her, she had to have some kind of connections.

Spoiled’s mask was almost coming off, but she straightened it anyway, if only so she could get rid of her daughter’s stifled chuckles. As if to add insult to injury, she had to sit away from Diamond, the daughter she’d cultivated after all these years, and next to the one pony she could not have less affection for. Even this, however, was not enough to faze her.

What Filthy Rich said next did.

“It’s a nice place here, isn’t it?” he muttered in the most passive-aggressive voice either of his family members had ever heard from him. “It really is a good thing that you dumped Diamond off here, and not at the abandoned factory district.”

It was Diamond’s turn to be speechless. First, her mother had come in out of nowhere, and next, her father unleashed an insult so multilayered that it took her a few minutes just to think about it. He’d addressed that he A) knew about the issue, B) knew about Babs’ abandonment and where it’d taken place, C) knew about Mosely, and D) knew that Spoiled and her coltfriend were similar enough to be Mirror Pool clones. If Diamond was her old self again, she would have given her father a hoofbump for placing such vitriol in so few words.

After stammering for a few seconds and nearly falling into her seat, Spoiled finally worked up the energy to counter him.

“Dear,” she began, “you do know our daughter isn’t exactly the most honest pony out there, and that she prides herself in wrapping you around her hoof. I don’t know what she’s told you, but I can tell you that it’s all--”

“When I first saw her, she was with somepony you hated and have made no secret of hating. The minute I saw that, I figured something had to have gone wrong.”

With a quick sigh, Filthy whispered, “The minute that Apple filly left Ponyville, you told Diamond you never wanted to see her again. Believing that you abandoned her to the streets of Manehattan, to put it quite simply, is easier than believing you would renege on that order.”

Even with the shocked look on Spoiled’s face, the mare still continued to argue with the clear facts. Diamond herself had started to space out, staring at the red Bridleway curtain like she could change the events that unfolded behind it. What she could tell was that her parents were arguing, and making quite the scene of it, at that. But, for all the times she’d thought her father had never stood up for her, what he was saying now more than made up for.

There was just one small detail she’d snagged on, something that she’d forced herself to hear. It was the one thing that’d tuned everything else out until the curtains drew back and the actors revealed themselves. It was the one thing that took all the feelings she’d had for her mother and intensified them by a millionfold.

“Of course I knew what Mosely did. And I’ll say this: that filly deserved everything she got.”

For the rest of the wait, and even for a little bit afterwards, Diamond would have to hold her father’s hoof down to make sure he didn’t do something he would regret. And every time denying the simple fact that, the minute her mother said it, Diamond had wanted to do the same.

****

As it turned out, Spellshock opening night tickets would become far more valuable than anypony had ever imagined. In the coming years, ponies would whisper to one another, “You were there?” “Was it as crazy as everypony made it out to be?” “Did the cops really have to break it up?” “When did you realize he did it?” It was a cultural phenomenon in all the ways nopony had expected it to be.

For Diamond, and for everypony else in that audience, it had all started at intermission. Bambi had told her the day before that Coco was about to come out to receive some award, either for being the best costume designer or the best marefriend Mosely had ever had. But something had gone wrong. Something big.

Instead of the awards showcase everypony had been expecting, a single pony took the stage. She claimed that she was Cameo Citrus, Mosely Orange’s ex-wife, and from the looks of it, Spoiled hated her from the minute she took the stage. She started off slow and simple enough, telling everypony about how bad her marriage had been, but then, just as slowly, she set off a bomb.

All the doors were locked. Nopony could enter or leave the room. And as Diamond heard her say that she was Babs’ birth mother, everything suddenly clicked. Somehow or another, this mare had crashed everything at the risk of making herself look like a madmare. Nopony knew her intentions.

But even then, it was everything Diamond had ever hoped for and more.

Nopony said a word during Cameo’s speech. It was almost an unspoken rule that Bridleway had that night. It was terrible news, and yet nopony could resist a gossip. All Diamond could hear were a few odd shouts of “show those receipts” and nothing more. One way or another, this moment would stick out for everypony more than the play itself would.

Diamond almost wished she’d thought of it herself, and from the look on Filthy’s face, it felt like he’d almost wished he had, too. It was nothing short of a pure miracle, the one thing that could change everypony’s fate. Coco wouldn’t have to quit, Bambi wouldn’t have to worry anymore, Babs wouldn’t have to--

No. No!

With more energy than she’d ever had before, Diamond whipped out of her seat to check the one thing she hoped wasn’t happening. And yet, there it was. There was no way in Equestria Babs would miss a single second of her mother’s play, even if the doors were unlocked. Even if it would be better off on her, and Diamond, and everypony else, if she’d never heard anything at all.

There was no way in Equestria that Diamond could drown Cameo out, even if she screamed. And so there was no course of action in the world that could come without Babs Seed learning everything.

Diamond could practically feel everything she’d worked for being ripped out of her. From what she’d seen, Babs was still skeptical of everything around her, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. As Diamond thought about this, she could already see Mosely taking the stage with Coco, addressing the allegations head-on. Eventually, even he would have to crack, and reverse the one good thing she’d ever done for anypony.

“She doesn’t deserve this,” she finally brought herself to whisper. With the ruckus of the crowd, she wasn’t even sure if anypony could hear her, and yet she said it anyway. “She never knew...never had to...and now…”

Everything suddenly tuned out, and Diamond didn’t notice the way her face contorted until it was far too late. Her father reached a hoof out towards her, wiped a tear out of her eye. And, as if he knew how her mother would react, he blocked her out of anypony else’s sight.

If only Babs had somepony to block her out, too.

“Her mother probably thought it was the only way,” he responded. “Parents, good ones at least, never make their children go through anything they can’t handle. And I’m sure Cameo feels the same way.”

At first, Diamond couldn’t stand the thought of Babs’ birth mother being anypony other than an enemy, but as she continued spinning her story, Cameo mentioned that she’d felt forced to give the filly up. She’d fallen in love with the wrong stallion twice: one who wouldn’t let her go, and one who’d died in her grasp. It was too much loss for any one pony to take, and so that was why she’d turned to the worst pony possible. Because, like Filthy Rich, she’d wanted to believe her ex could be better.

Even in her tears, none of these similarities were lost on Diamond. Her father had a point, one that all too likely spoke from experience. But watching everything unfold in front of her was still torture.

She didn’t even bother to look back at Babs. She already knew that the one secret she would have kept with her life was already out wreaking havoc. For all she knew, the filly she’d reconnected with would be gone by tomorrow, replaced by somepony she didn’t recognize.

And then, somehow, something inside Diamond snapped. All of a sudden, the same waves of energy that’d accompanied her when the Crusaders got their marks reemerged. She couldn’t go up on stage or go to help Babs, but there was one thing she could do.

“She never deserved any of this!” she shouted, no longer hiding her tears as she tore into her mother’s gaze. “Maybe I got out of hoof when she was in town, but that was all on me. I was the one who dragged her away from the Crusaders, anyway. She never did anything to hurt you, or anything to hurt me. So how in Tartarus could you just say that about any foal? About my friend?”

In another lifetime, Spoiled might have yelled right back. However, she’d gotten all too used to her daughter calling her out like this. At this point in the game, she wasn’t even sure throwing her back out again would do anything, and the worst thing was that she just didn’t care anymore. All she cared about was preserving her legacy, and that meant justifying the stallion she’d loved.

“It was the only way. Not that it’s something either of you would understand, but her existence would have destroyed the Oranges for good. That’s what Mosely told me, and that’s what I believe. Whether or not you like the filly in question has no bearing on the situation.”

“In case you haven’t already figured it out,” Spoiled continued in possibly the most condescending voice she could muster, “that filly shouldn’t have been born. Her mother, disgrace of a rich mare that she is, thought it’d be a good idea to get together with a Skim. From what I’ve heard, she’d always say he wasn’t a con stallion like his brothers Flim and Flam, but to Mosely and I, it never mattered. Letting her into the family would have been a slippery slope, the end of Equestrian aristocracy as we know it, and--”

Before she could say anything else, everypony’s eyes had already turned on somepony else entirely. By the time the Riches’ argument culminated, Cameo had already stopped talking. And, more importantly, Coco had started up. Standing in the spotlight, just as she was supposed to tonight, except instead of praising Mosely left and right, she finally made her voice known.

The last pieces of the puzzle were unraveling right in front of them, but for once, there was no satisfaction in anything they heard. And, before any of them knew it, it was over. The play and its spectacle had taken its place.

All Diamond could think was that if the fates had chosen a worse day for her to leave Manehattan behind, it would be tomorrow. And, for those reasons, she chose to suggest the impossible as the three left the auditorium, as Filthy looked at his ex-wife with scornful eyes.

“Dad,” Diamond finally said, “can we stay here for another day?”

She expected annoyance, or possibly indifference. But instead, all her father could do was stare into her eyes and wipe her tears yet again.

“If it’s for the reason I think it is,” he replied, “then you have no idea how proud I am of you.”

Diamond barely needed to hear anything else to know that, even in this whirlwind of tragedy, she had become a better pony. And she was never going back.

Author's Note

For those who came into this before reading IYGALL, I sincerely hope this isn't too much of an infodump for you. If it is, my apologies.

I honestly can't believe this series is only two parts away from being done. I hope you all enjoy the rest!

Seventh Day: Diamonds are a Filly's Best Friend

For the first time in almost a week, Diamond found herself in a different bed than the one she’d become acquainted to. In fact, even though her time with Babs’ family had been short, waking up in a hotel room had been jarring beyond belief. For a few beautiful seconds, she completely forgot everything that had occurred the night before, and as she steadily rose out of bed, she slowly realized what she had to do.

If Spoiled had been with her, she would’ve called it a ridiculous whim and sent Diamond off home. But almost minutes after Diamond left the auditorium with her father, Filthy Rich had postponed the cab ride home, allowing the two of them twelve more hours in Manehattan. From there, just about everything else was uncertain: Filthy, perhaps acting against his usual self, had called the cops over when Mosely was arrested and told them everything. Spoiled may have been from Ponyville, but they assured the two of them that they could take action against what she had done, since she’d abandoned Diamond on Manehattan territory. The filly had spent so long thinking about her mother’s motivations for doing so that she’d almost forgotten it was a crime, something that thankfully was not lost on her father.

And so, both Mosely and Spoiled were arrested just before their alliance was truly put into action. Apparently, even though the audience had been held captive in the theatre, somepony had still made enough ruckus to alert the police last night, and by the time the second act was finally about to start, they were already there. If it had been a story, Diamond would have been immensely pleased with the results: both villains disposed of in a breathless moment, an act that avenged years of crimes. And yet, in real life, Diamond knew that was not so.

That was why she launched herself into the shower and through her daily routine at a breakneck speed, all the while hoping against hope that she would return and find the condo exactly as she’d left it. As she stood in front of it, though, she already knew at least one thing was missing. Judging from the way the window was angled, Coco didn’t appear to be with her family. Instead, Applejack was talking away inside, presumably counseling the two remaining members on what to do after the previous night’s events.

Filthy Rich had already left, but not before assuring his daughter that this was something she could do on her own. Those had been easy words for him to say, she could tell, but Diamond knew that she would have to be back at the cab station by three o'clock, and that was barely enough time to heal a wounded heart even on a good day.

Nevertheless, she let out a single gulp, knocked on the door, and told herself she would try.

It took a few agonizingly long moments, but sure enough, Bambi was at the door like usual, trying her best to regain her composure even after everything.

“You again?” she asked. While her voice seemed annoyed and raw, Diamond knew it was more due to the situation than anything else. “I thought you’d left last night.”

Diamond took a deep breath in a meager attempt to ease her nerves and brought herself to speak again.

“I was supposed to, but I figured after everything Babs and I have been through...I didn’t want to leave it like this again.”

She’d barely thought about it until now, but when it came down to it, that was probably her worst fear after all. That, after all this time of rekindling, somehow or another, the minute she returned to Ponyville, it would all start again. That she and Babs would cut themselves off into another awkward situation, one that could even break their friendship for good. If there was one thing Diamond had learned since their last parting, it was that friendship was worth fighting for.

And, as she shot Bambi a strangely determined glance, she decided that was exactly what she’d do.

****

As Diamond trotted into the familiar condo, she couldn’t help but realize how unfamiliar the place had become. Unlike the boisterous events of days past, it was as quiet as a house up for sale, and while Applejack and Bambi talked in hushed whispers, even those didn’t seem to carry. With all this in mind, Diamond practically dreaded the minute she’d see the filly she left behind again.

Fortunately, she was able to find the pony in question before that feeling kicked in all the way. To her dismay, however, Babs seemed weaker than she’d ever been, laying unresponsive on the bed as if asleep. Or, Diamond thought to herself, perhaps even worse.

She’d heard ponies say that they were dead inside before, but seeing how motionless Babs was made her wonder if you could feel dead on the outside as well, without actually dying.

Shoving that thought to the side, she opened the door and let the tiniest amount of light shine into the dark room. Even still, Babs didn’t notice a thing. In fact, it took her a few moments just to notice Diamond’s presence.

“Everything all right in here?” Diamond asked, practically kicking herself for saying it. Perhaps even worse, Babs didn’t even have a sly remark to counter it at first.

If she’s not in the mood to tease me, it’s probably worse than I thought. I may need to get out the big guns.

“You did hear about last night, didn’t you?” Babs finally croaked.

“I was there.”

“Then that probably answers your question.”

Just when Diamond thought her friend was about to acknowledge her for good, Babs plopped back over onto the other side and stared into a surprisingly undecorated wall. In all the times Diamond had been in this room, she’d never noticed the sparse decor, but now she figured that was just another casualty of Mosely’s havoc. So much time spent on staying one step ahead of him, and so little on the things that really mattered. So little that this place was still barely a home.

With a deep breath, Diamond attempted to gather herself yet again and push the other filly back into conversation.

“Sorry. I’m...not really used to this whole ‘consoling ponies’ thing. It’s not exactly something ponies like me learn in charm school.”

Babs still didn’t face her, but a strangely unfamiliar sound entered the room all the same. It was something so nonsensical that Diamond almost thought she was hearing things at first.

Babs had chuckled after hearing what she’d said. The last thing she should be doing in a situation like this, but still something that came out anyway. Almost as if her friend had made it flow out.

“You really went to one of those?”

If it had been any other time, Diamond would have hated herself for that “charm school” comment, but at this point, she supposed it could help Babs if nothing else. After all, Pinkie Pie did tell everypony laughter was the best cure for things like this. It may not have worked on Diamond yet, but maybe she could at least make it work on somepony else.

“No. But my point still stands. I heard what happened last night and I decided...I couldn’t leave Manehattan without checking on you. If nothing else, I know what it’s like to have somepony you love abandon you, and I don’t want you to have to go through it alone.”

Even after she placed all her heart into that speech, she still wasn’t sure if Babs would buy it. Yet, by some miracle, the other filly finally turned to face her, revealing eyes far redder than her usual green. If she’d gotten any sleep that night, the truth had already haunted her into the daytime, and Diamond shuddered at all the mornings she’d have to suffer through like this.

“Just so you know,” Babs said with a sigh, “I already got a lot of this discussion from Applejack. I practically begged her to let me stay in the Apple family after that whole Flim Flam deal. Still can’t believe I’m related to them, but somehow, that’s the least surprising thing outta all this. At least it explains my mane.”

Diamond was tempted to laugh at the joke, but she knew all too well what it was hiding. From what little a pony as young as her knew of psychology, she could tell that detachment was a stage of grief, another side of the same coin. From everything she was seeing, Babs was practically willing herself to act normal, the way they once had together.

“You don’t have to hide anything from me,” replied Diamond. “I know you’re not telling me the whole truth, and even though I’m not good at this, I do want to help you.”

“Sure. But you’ve gotta answer somethin’ first. If this whole secret surprised everypony as much as it did, why aren’t you like that? Come to think of it, where were you that one night? What’s even goin’ on?”

And just like that, Diamond saw the one face she’d never wanted to see again. That same pained, distrustful face she’d watched the first time she’d met the filly, just after the two had parted in the worst of ways. Even though she knew betrayal had shocked Babs to her core, seeing that look focused on her again hurt all the same.

“I was with Coco. You probably don’t want to hear this, but she told me everything. About her deal with Mosely and about you.”

In her desperation, Diamond voiced the only words her mother had ever banned her from saying, the ones that conveyed the greatest weakness of all.

“I’m sorry.”

Never once had she imagined Babs confronting her over this, let alone her knowing to begin with. But here she was, telling her friend that there had always been secrets and that nothing had ever been honest between the two of them. For all the times Diamond swore she’d tell her and struggled to hold everything in, she knew deep down that this was the only way Babs would ever find out. She would have kept it through death itself if she needed to, and it’d only taken one other pony to blow it.

After all these years, everything her mother had told her about keeping things from ponies was true. Two ponies couldn’t know the same secret without revealing it.

“I didn’t want to hurt you again.”

In any other situation, Diamond had a feeling Babs would lash out at her for this alone and break off their friendship for good. However, with everything that’d come last night, Babs’ anger only barely broke through the tears. Her green eyes pierced into Diamond’s for the slightest of moments before she flopped onto the bed yet again, as if somepony had cast a sleeping spell on her.

“I’m sure you probably meant the best,” she muttered, “but it would’ve been better hearing it from you.”

“A lot of things could have been better,” acknowledged Diamond, “if we’d known what was going to happen back there. But I didn’t, and I thought…”

The tears were slowly starting to take over Diamond’s mind as well, and by the time she started sobbing, Babs hesitantly began to look her way again. Diamond wasn’t sure how the filly could have any trust left after everything, but somehow or another, Babs did. And, like Filthy, she wanted to believe the one she loved could be better than she was.

Diamond, on the other hoof, wasn’t so sure about that. But it lifted her heart through the tears all the same.

“I thought you’d never need to know. When I found out about everything that had happened to you, I couldn’t figure out any way to make it up to you. I thought maybe, eventually, you’d forget about it and never want to know who did it. I wanted to protect you, so you’d never have to think about anything like that again, but I guess I’m just not made to protect anypony.”

A tiny, sheepish smile appeared on her face, almost as if admitting that simple fact brought all of Equestria off her haunches. And, just like that, she apologized again and moved towards the door, assuming everything would be like it was before. The one pony she’d wanted to come back to would be out of her life forever. If it had been a story, it would’ve put her straight back where she had started and plunged her into an endless quest for redemption. The worst kind of poetic justice, and therefore the saddest kind of tale.

Thankfully, as Diamond had seen several times before, her life wasn’t that sort of predictable story. Just as she was about to close the door, she could clearly hear somepony calling after her on the other side.

“I understand,” Babs finally said. “And for the record, I’m sorry, too.”

Her hair was a mess and her eyes were as red as they’d been all day, but somehow or another, she’d found her way out of bed. More importantly, her hoof was blocking the door, making sure Diamond couldn’t leave the situation so easily.

“Sorry for ever doubting you, even back in Ponyville. And for not being strong enough to get through this alone.”

Somehow or another, Diamond had never imagined the healing process would be this instinctual. She’d always imagined that a shriveled-up heart like hers couldn’t be of any use in times like this. But somehow, she still found herself taking the other filly into her arms and letting her cry through her issues like she’d done it a thousand times.

“You never had to,” Diamond replied. “I’ll still be there to protect you, anyway.”

And, in those fragile moments, Babs let out every last fear she still had, ones that she wasn’t even willing to tell Coco. And every time, Diamond listened in and tried to break through every one. By the time Filthy was supposed to return, Babs had already healed quite a bit already, and that was the worst part of all.

Diamond couldn’t be there to heal her all the way, even if she lived in Manehattan. But for now at least, this was a start. They would make their first steps towards removing the toxic ponies in their life in the exact same places, and as long as that was true, they could always walk together.

As Diamond made her way out of the condo, she knew that this would be her last time seeing it as it was. But for once, that thought didn’t seem so bad. The next time she went there, she would see something completely new. After all, Manehattan was a town full of opportunities, both large and small, and she had a feeling Coco and her family would be no different the next time she saw them.

Diamond once more kept a copy of Babs’ address by her side on the cab, but this time, it would be for something far greater. The two foals had agreed to send each other as many letters as they could until they could finally leave their demons in the dust.

It wasn’t a happy ending by any definition of the word, but until they met again, it would be enough. Because once that happened, they could create one together.

Author's Note

So, here we have the last full-length part of the series. The much shorter epilogue should be coming in a day or so.

These two fillies still have a lot to resolve on their own, but I hope you enjoyed getting to see them together again as much as I did. :twilightsmile:

Seventh Night: Diamonds are Forever

By the time Diamond returned to Ponyville, the sun had already sunk sleepily into the sky, and somehow or another, she felt like doing the same. Whether it was from trying to comfort Babs, the continuing events she’d faced in Manehattan, or just normal fatigue, all the pink filly wanted to do was flop back onto her familiar bed and try to avoid drama for at least a couple of days. And, for a short while at least, she was able to do just that with no distractions.

She’d been laying in her room for at least an hour, trying to will herself into sleep without really finding it. All she could really do was take the whole situation in and think about just how peaceful things were here. For a while, she’d missed the hectic life that’d come with her Ponyville misdeeds, but after visiting Manehattan, she’d felt as if she’d had enough adventure for a lifetime. So she lay quietly, thanking the stars above that she could leave this drama behind and start anew. She knew all too many ponies who didn’t have that privilege now.

As she tired of her idle routine, Diamond trotted over to her mansion’s kitchen, where newspapers folded out like tablecloths every day. As a business stallion, her father was expected to know all the news in every sector of Equestria, so the Riches were one of the few families in Ponyville that subscribed to more than one paper. Diamond’s first instinct, of course, had been to check the Manehattan Times to see if the Spellshock incident had made the front page, and she slowly moved onward to the other papers from there. Sure enough, Manehattan had been the only town to mention it, but with the way stories moved through Equestria, it would only be a matter of time before Ponyville knew everything as well.

Diamond hadn’t heard anything when the cart took her and her father towards her house, but for all she knew, the news might already be out there. Regardless, she knew the mystery she’d spent all week uncovering would be common knowledge within days. And strangely, even with all the guilt that brought her, it somehow didn’t feel that bad this time.

She couldn’t lie and say that she’d recovered, but from what she could tell, Coco was going to have more time with her family again and Spoiled would be out of the picture, at least for a little while. That in and of itself was enough to satisfy Diamond for now.

Yet again, she ended up lost in her thoughts as her eyes scrolled through the newspapers, barely even noticing that somepony else was approaching her.

“That should do it,” Filthy Rich muttered in the tiredest voice Diamond had ever heard. “I was barely able to get everypony together on such short notice, but tomorrow morning, Barnyard Bargains should be meeting about the Orange deal. From some of the letters I’ve gotten, it might not be a popular decision, but I’ll make sure everypony knows what a disaster getting involved with them could have been. Seeing this story blow up in the news should be able to do the rest.”

At first, Diamond could barely manage a response, but she still eked out a proud smile. If her mother and father would have still been married, and if Spoiled had still held any position in Barnyard Bargains besides the ceremonial one she had now, the process might not have been so simple. But here her father was, doing what he did best and delivering a big heap of justice in the process. And for once, she’d been a part of all of it.

As if he could read her thoughts, Filthy added, “Though I couldn’t have done any of this without you. You may not have gone in there expecting any of this, but you were able to get some good information out of it, anyway. I get the feeling you may have gotten even more out of it, too.”

“Absolutely,” Diamond finally said. “It might sound weird saying this, but I actually felt like a regular foal this week. As bad as it got back there, there wasn’t any pressure or anything. I could just be the pony I wanted to be, and that time, that pony was Babs’ friend.”

For the briefest of moments, she noticed that her father was looking towards some other document he’d been holding. From what Diamond could tell, it wasn’t any correspondence between him and his employees. Rather, it had a far different look to it, one that seemed like some legal documents Cheerilee had showed her in class. As much as she tried to hide her curiosity, though, Filthy caught on quicker that she’d thought.

“I figured that was how you felt,” he whispered, bringing the document closer to the table. “I know you’ve probably already heard it from a few other ponies recently, but I’m sorry, too. When I first married your mother, I thought she was a different pony, and even after that, I thought she’d go back to the way she was eventually. For a while, I thought you even needed somepony like her in your life. All those things kept you from being like other foals, and I just want to say that it doesn’t have to be like that anymore.”

Her first instinct was to console him as she had with Babs, but just when she was about to move towards him, Filthy simply placed a hoof towards her.

“It’s fine. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, even. Ever since those three fillies earned their cutie marks, you’ve become a different pony, and now I realize I want that pony to stay the way she is. Even if it means giving up on somepony I loved once...for good.”

He finally extended the document out towards Diamond, but it might as well have been written in another language. It couldn’t have been a divorce--her parents had already gotten one--and the only hint she got as to what it was about was a tiny snippet of a phrase.

‘Filthy Rich, Full Custody’

Even those weren’t the full words, but everything else around it made Diamond’s head swim in confusion. The second she was about to ask, her father answered her in simple terms.

Even if the charges against Spoiled were cleared in Manehattan, the way she’d abandoned Diamond to the streets was still enough to prove that she was an unfit mother. If this piece of paper made it through the courts without any objections, it would mean she would never have to see her mother again.

Once, a long time ago, she might have seen this as the worst punishment possible. But now that she knew the world outside Spoiled’s standards, it would be her saving grace.

“It might be hard on the two of us for a while,” Filthy admitted. “I’d have to step down as the president of Barnyard Bargains and take a lower position. But if this is what you really want, I’ll make sure I’m there for you every day, so you’ll never have to feel as alone as you did when we lived with her.”

“You’d do all that for me? Even give up the thing you love most?”

With a playful spark in his eye, Filthy Rich shook his head and picked up his filly.

“I’d do that all for you, because you are what I love most. Not some position that anypony in Equestria could fill. If I had known that from the beginning, maybe none of this would have happened.”

Somewhere, on the other side of Equestria, Diamond hoped Coco was giving Babs this exact talk right now. Because somehow or another, just seeing a parent’s love could be enough to clear all the clouds sometimes.

If this decision meant Diamond would be able to see more of it, then she would pick it every time, even if doing so made her the most selfish pony in Equestria. If it meant becoming somepony new, even if that somepony was only half of what she’d been in Manehattan, it would always be worth it.

“Besides,” Filthy whispered yet again, “if what I saw in Manehattan was any indication, I feel like the best leader of Barnyard Bargains will be right here.”

If she would have heard that any other time, her mind would’ve jumped straight into fantasizing about the future, of the day she could finally make her mother proud. For once, though, issues of pride were the least of her concerns, and for once, just being a friend had been enough to save everything.

Her father’s business. Her family’s honor. Coco’s freedom, and her own, too. There was one more, too, but it almost seemed too dramatic to even think about it. Too frivolous, the sort of thing a pony everypony should know should never think. But Diamond could certainly feel that way, and so she shouted it in her mind with pride.

Friendship saved my life.

Author's Note

My full commentary on this story should be up on my blog tonight. For now, thank you to all the people who read it to the end!

It took me a while to get into this new setting, but I might even write a oneshot about Diamond's new life with her dad...eventually...