Diamond Song's Diary

by Lucky Star 33094

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life
Length: 5368

A young filly dreams of attending Princess Celestia's school for gifted unicorns.

Diamond Song is the daughter of a baron growing up in a small town. Ever since she was born she has been preparing to attend the most prestigious of Unicorn schools and possibly catch the eye of the Princess herself.

Now if only she could pass the entrance test. With her final chance at passing looming overhead, Diamond Song can only hope for the best.

Teen rating for possible immature humour

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2017-05-17 01:10:19 UTC

August 9th year 4LT (Luna’s Return)

August 9th year 4LT (Luna’s Return)

Today was my birthday and for all intents and purposes I suppose it was a rather good one. Mother and Father even allowed a few of my classmates from the little school I attend in the village to come and a few of them even brought gifts for me. The gifts were rather random and not quite to my liking. It’s not their fault though as they would have had to at least know me to properly select a present. The few gifts from classmates were toys mostly, a doll filly from Niffle, a horn puppet from Peppermint Sun, and rather lovely crystal Celestia statuette from Lazuli. I could tell it was actually glass but I didn’t dare tell her that. Mother and Father got me the same sort of presents they always get me, books, and one brand new diary to replace the one from last year which had become dangerously close to needing replaced three months ago. I wanted to make it last though, so I started cutting back on my entries. Oh, my name is Diamond Song by the way. It’s probably weird to write at somepony in a diary but I like to think that if I keep my diaries safe that they may be used as historical data some day in the future. I mean, what could make a historian happier than first hoof accounts? Especially considering the times we all live in.The monsters from old Equestria seem to be returning one by one and on top of that we’ve had the return of Princess Luna. No pony even remembered who she was aside from the nightmare moon stories, and even those had been passed off as stories to scare foals on Nightmare Night. Equestria gaining a second celestial monarch has changed the way our government has worked for over a thousand years. Though one must of course admit that Celestia still has a tight grip over the country's politics, Luna’s addition of the night court and the return of the bat ponies can’t simply be ignored either. As time goes on who knows what changes Equestria might see as Luna adjusts to being back and the two acclimate to duel leadership. But a filly like myself has more… Age appropriate things to worry about I suppose. Just on the off chance these diaries become scattered in the future and this is the only one you have, I’m actually only eight at the time of writing this. But mother and father didn’t raise an illiterate, they raised me for scholarly pursuits. Which is why I spend most of my time keeping my grades at the top of the class and why mother tutors me on things even my teacher calls pointless. Not that I think it’s pointless too or anything! Mother and Father have a goal that I share. I only wish I could fulfil that goal. That goal of course is to attend Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns and possibly catch the eye of the princess. After all, she has yet to select a new personal student to replace Princess Twilight. So since the year I turned six we have gone to Canterlot for the entrance and exam each year. This will be my third time taking the test.  The test is a challenging one, at least for unicorns at my age. Levitate a dragon egg. The thing about dragon eggs is that they absorb magic the moment it touches the shell. They feed on this energy to grow within the egg. To describe it in laymare's terms, holding a dragon egg in your magic is sort of like trying to hold an ember on tissue paper. As the egg eats away at your magic and falls straight through (Luckily dragon eggs are incredibly hard, though I doubt they would be used for the test if a fall could break them). To fix this you’re forced to increase the output of your magic to replace the magic being eaten away. It can be rather difficult when your special talent isn’t magic in some way.  I don’t exactly have a special talent being a blank flank but neither did Princess Twilight Sparkle when she passed her exam, or so my mother keeps telling me. For the past two years I’ve been practicing levitation spells for at least a half hour everyday to increase my magical output. I started with a small wooden ball, and then we added another one and then another one soon after that once I was levitating two at once with relative ease. The idea is that the more objects I can levitate at the same time the higher the magic I can generate will become. I’d like to say it worked rather well, that is to say that out of my entire class I can levitate the most object at once while most of my unicorn classmates still have trouble with more than one or two things at a time. I imagine it has to do with how different our training is. They seem to focus on how heavy or light an object is rather than how many they can do at the same time. As for how well the training has worked for the egg during my second exam.. I managed to make the egg roll a few inches.After my failure at the second exam I was upgraded from wooden balls to stone ones. Those were harder but as time went on they became as easy as the wooden ones were and I couldn’t be prouder. Though mother still has her concerns. She worries that if I fail this year then I might be too old next year to bother trying. Of course there’s no actual rule for what age a foal must be to take the exam as long as they’re at least school going age, but there is a certain tradition of going in early or not at all to contend with and I’m already two whole years behind. But I don’t want to give up. Even if mother decides to call it quits I want to keep trying. What was the point of all of this if not to keep going? In one week we’ll be boarding the train for Canterlot and I’ll be passing that test. I simply must pass that test. I don’t know what I could do if Mother really decides that it’s time to call it quits… I suppose there are other magic schools we could look into. But do I really want to think of that? No, not really, because it sounds like another failure to add to my resume.  That’s rather bleak isn’t it?In other news, one of pegasi from the weather team caused a major blunder in Mother’s garden today when a lightning bolt caught one of our cherry trees on fire. I tried to explain to her that we had plenty more of them but she only got cross and yelled at me. She hid it well enough when the guests started arriving but I could tell she was still upset over it. I hope she isn’t still angry tomorrow.

August 10th year 4LT

August 10th 4LT

Mother gave me a big lecture this morning after Nanny got me out of bed. The work load has nearly doubled as the date for the test approaches. She wants me to study one of the new books I got yesterday. It’s one of the new textbooks they’ll be adding to the required list this year at Princess Celestia’s school and mother says I should familiarise myself with the contents earlier rather than later. After that she left to go and speak with a pony at the weather hub in the village. I was hoping she would let it go but I’m not surprised in the least. I feel badly saying this about my mother, but I wish she wasn’t so trying sometimes.  For breakfast Nanny made me oats with a side of homemade banana pudding. She let me eat it out on the veranda. She even said that if I wanted to I could bring my book outside to study. Nanny only ever let’s me do that when Mother is going to be out of the house all day. I hope she had plans beyond going to the weather hub or at the very least none of my classmates see her. I think I’ll take Nanny up on that offer. It’s such a beautiful day that it would be a shame to stay indoors. I pity Father for being stuck in that little office. Nanny say’s he’ll be meeting with some council leaders until sometime in the afternoon. I don’t know too much of what’s going on, but I overheard mother and father talking about trouble with merchants taking away business from the local earth pony farmers. I suppose their committee is pushing for stricter regulations on merchant trade. I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Why would anypony want to buy imported fruit from the merchants when the fruit here is fresher?Nanny is an Earth Pony, so maybe she’ll know.  For now I’m going to finish up on breakfast and then fetch the new textbook from my bedroom. I’ll write more before bed. 6:47PM as observed on the grandfather clock in the west wing dining room. Mother seemed back to her normal self when she arrived home again. Though I couldn’t help but notice a slight rigid air to her tone. I wonder if things didn’t turn out the way she wanted them to? She started quizzing me on the textbook almost the exact moment she came into the room, she had flash cards and everything! I was so surprised that I think I missed the first few more out of nervousness than anything else. Mother either didn’t mind because I only just started the book today, or she noticed how flustered I was. After that we both retired to the sitting room, I with my book and mother with her cross stitch. That’s where we stayed until father returned home to pick up some documents. She followed him upstairs to the study. I followed them as far as the staircase before it became clear that she wanted to be alone with him.  It was getting on to that time of the day anyways, so I decided to return to my bedroom and practice my levitation spell for a while. Several minutes later Mother stopped by my room to tell be she was stepping out again. She looked flustered. I wonder if she and Father had a row over something. I hope not, the week before the test is stressful enough on us.

August 11th year 4LT

August 11th 4LT

A few of the fillies and colts from the village came to the estate to invite me out to play with them today. Don’t they know I have studying to do? I think the worse thing about it was that Mother was out of the house if she’d been here instead of Celestia knows where Nanny would never have made me go with them. Sometimes I don’t think she likes my mother very much. You know how sometimes when adults are being nice to one another but the air is so heavy it feels like they’re having an argument instead?

Sometimes it works to my advantage, like Nanny letting me study outside on the veranda, or letting me have an extra seed cake after dinner. But then there are times like this where she sends me out of the house to play like a  normal filly.

We took the country road through the cherry groves. It was a lovely day with the sun shining through boughs and a pleasant coolness to the air. We waved hello to some of the earth ponies working the orchards and one of them even gave us some cherries to snack on while we walked.

I blushed bright red when he called me Little Madame. I suppose that’s in reference to what they tend to call my Mother, Madame Red Wine. The name really fits her I think, her mane is a lovely red over her dove white coat. I’ve got a mix of both my father and my mother, his curly mint coloured mane with her coat colour.

Lazuli’s brother works in the orchards and I could tell she was keeping her eyes open for him in case we saw him along the road. Watching those two makes me wish I had a brother or sister. I asked Nanny if she thought Mother would ever have another foal and she said that it wasn’t likely since Mother’s ‘cherry tree had gone and wilted’. This confused me terribly.

I tried asking Father what this meant and he started laughing! I might have asked Mother what it meant if he hadn’t told me not to.

We spent some time playing tag near the edge of the orchard where we didn’t see anypony working. After a time we grew bored of the game and decided to split into teams of two for a game of hide and seek. It wasn’t normally played in teams but we decided it would be fun to change things up a little bit.

After all the fuss about not wanting to go I’m surprised how quickly I started to enjoy myself. Niffle and I decided to partner up and when the others were ready we gathered around to decide which team would be seeking first.

There were six of us in all and none of us wanted to be on the seeking team. We were all sort of just standing there silently for a good few minutes trying to think of a way to decide when out of nowhere that weird little colt, Hollow Row, shouted: “Seeker says what!”

In the span of a single second my mind sprang to the ‘not it’ gag one often sees in these sorts of situations and gut reaction occurring faster than logic forced a loud “What!” from my lips. It was only after I said it had his words finally registered in my mind, I felt like such an imbecile for confusing the two. The other started laughing and I looked over at Niffle to say I was sorry.

Niffle said it was alright, and I suppose it was. At least she didn’t seem upset over it. She was too busy trying to hold back her laughter for that. The face she made while she held it back, though, lips contorted into a half frown half grin as she made little-coughing noises. It was so ridiculous that I found myself laughing with the others. Then with me laughing she finally let loose and laughed harder than us all.

The other ran off into the trees as Niffle and I stood together, our eyes closed and counting slowing to a hundred. At first, our counting was slow. "One Appleloosa, two Appleloosa, three Appleloosa..." but the higher we got the faster we counted until we found ourselves stumbling over the words and having to stop and figure out our place. Soon we weren't bothering with the 'Appleloosa' part at all. We weren’t perfect but we were at least honest.

We were laughing again by the time we reached a hundred and I felt energised and ready to seek the others out.

I couldn’t see them anywhere.

Now that we were finally looking for them I realised we hadn’t set any ground rules on where we could and couldn’t hide and the orchards were a big place. Niffle seemed to be thinking the same thing as we started out into the trees.

We started by looking behind trees and eventually looking up into the branches as we circled the area.

I nosed my way into a poofy looking bush, pushing aside branches with my magic. No luck. From behind, I heard Niffle cough.

“Soooo, I heard Shady Vale burned down one of your trees the other day.”

I pulled myself out and turned to face her. “You heard about that?” Niffle scratched at the ground with her hoof.

“Well yeah, everypony’s talking about it.”

I felt a sinking in my stomach. “...What exactly are they saying?”

Niffle looked down at her hooves, “Mostly stuff about Shady getting fired from the weather team.”

“Did my mother…?”

“I’m really sorry, Diamond.” Why was she saying sorry to me? My Mother wasn’t the one fired from her job over a silly mistake. “If it makes you feel any better your mom didn’t mean to get her fired… She’s been going down to the weather hub raising all kinds of hay bales ever since she found out about it. I guess she just wanted to complain, not, well, you know. Not what happened.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, finally, I muttered,“It’s fine, Niffle. I just hope Shady Vale gets her job back.”

We started walking again but this time in silence. It wasn’t much longer until we started finding the others. Lazuli and Hollow Row were up in a tree. They didn’t prove difficult to find when they couldn’t even muffle their laughter long enough to stay hidden. Though they might have managed it if Niffle hadn’t started calling out bad words. Every time she did they’d start laughing again until it felt less like hide and seek and more like Marco Polo with trees.

“Long Schlong silver!” Niffle cried. It wasn’t long before she was hopping around under the trees singing loudly, “Old Mcdonald sitting on a bench! Beating his d*ck with a monkey wrench!”

I hopped from left and to the right as we walked on, nervously eyeing our surroundings for the possible sight of adults and urging her to quiet down before somepony heard her and scolded us.

Needless to say, I was about ready to get down on the ground and thank Celestia by the time we found the right tree they were in.

They followed along after us as we kept searching. Hollow Row kept making silly jokes about having twig flank. I wasn’t really in the mood for joking by this point and I kinda wanted to go home again. But I felt bad about wanting to leave when we were in the middle of a game.

Around the fifth time Hollow Row made a twig flank joke Lazuli shoved him with her shoulder and told him he was a twig flank. It was immature I guess but enough to finally get me to smile again. Maybe things really would work out with Shady Vale and either way it didn’t really have anything to do with me, besides, I wasn’t going to help by moping around about what ponies might think.

Hollow Row side walked over in my direction until he was pressed up against me as we walked. “You don’t think I’m a twig flank, right, Diamond?”

“N-no, of course not,” I replied and quickened my pace to put some distance between us.

"She's just saying that to be nice, you know." Hollow Row blew a loud raspberry in her direction.

It took us at least another hour to find the others and by the time the first round was over we were tired of the game entirely. Thinking back on it I’m kinda glad I hadn’t been on one of the hiding team, it ended up taking so long to find everypony that I imagine it got a bit boring for them. Though I’m still fairly sure one of the other teams had been changing hiding spots mid-game. I was so certain we'd already checked that patch of trees.

The sun was hanging low in the sky when we settled down on a hill towards the edge of the west orchard and took in the view. The clouds flitted across the sky like stretched strands of cotton and I couldn’t help but mutter their scientific name under my breath as I took the scene in. “Cirrus…”

My chest seemed to fill with the most strange sensation as I watched the horizon transform into the radiant pinks and oranges of sunset like heavenly paints smeared across Celestia's canvas.

The others were still walking around. Niffle had flown up to sit in the branches of a cherry tree and was picking some for the others. I wished I had wings like her. I turned back to the sky and imagined myself floating up and up until I was over the clouds and not a care in the world could reach me.

“Hey, Diamond.” It was Hollow Row. I turned to look at him expecting to see a smug grin but instead, I found him frowning.

“Yes..?”

Instead of replying he simply sat down on the grass beside me and looked up into the sky. He was an earth pony and just as ground-bound as myself. I wondered if he was imagining the same thing I was. I was about to ask him when he turned and looked at me.

“Is your mom taking you to Canterlot for the test again this year?” I stared back into his emerald green eyes and a messy crop of hair that looked oh so much like the colour of dying grass. It stuck up at odd angles like grass too. His coat was a splotchy mix of greens with an ever so slight mix in of slightly lighter greens that blended in well enough you’d have to look closely to notice there was a difference in the first place.

“Of course she is,” I replied.

“Think you’re gonna get in this time?”

I snorted. There wasn’t any way I was going to entertain the thought of failing again, especially not out loud in

conversation. “Of course I’ll get in. I’ve been practising all year.”

We were silent for several moments.

“So I guess that means you’ll be off to Canterlot..”

“Yes, it does.”

“Will you ever come back?”

I rolled my eyes, “They'll have to drag me kicking and screaming,” I meant it as a joke but I found my tone more serious than I’d intended.

I felt him press his lips against the side of my face. He was already back onto his hooves before I even realised what he’d done. “I guess that means I’ll have to go to Canterlot too,” he called over his shoulder as he galloped down the hill and disappeared from view beneath the trees.

August 12th year 4LT

August 12th year 4LT

Night had nearly fallen by the time I made it back to the estate. Lazuli walked me back to the front garden and after that she walked off of the road and into the trees to go see if her brother was still helping out at the barn.

Mother was waiting for me in the dining room. Her mouth was curved into a deep frown as she looked up from her bowl of oats. I felt my stomach drop as her eyes followed me to my chair. I knew what was coming, any moment now she would yell at me, tell me I would never make it to Celestia's school. She would say I was grounded until the end of the exam for skipping out on my studies.

My heart pounded in my chest as the moments ticked by. I was going to throw up. Why wasn't she getting onto it? Was she trying to torture me? Finally, her horn glowed pale red and a scroll floated up from under the table. "What are the magical uses for quartz crystal!?" She barked. I slowly turned to face her, her expression was firm. Wasn't she going to yell at me? "Um, they can be used to absorb excess mana from unicorn foals with unstable magic and are used as batteries in inexpensive magical devices," I answered back. She wasted no time getting to the next question on her list.

This went on for several minutes, I didn't even notice when Nanny brought out my bowl and sat it on the table.

When dinner was over I was sent straight to bed. Mother didn't mention me leaving the house once. A part of me wondered why, the other was just happy nothing happened.

~*~

I woke to the sound of knocking on my bedroom door. Rolling out of bed I wobbled over to the door. My horn flickered with warmth as I grabbed the doorknob in my magic and pulled it open. I began to tell Nanny good morning but it wasn't her. It wasn't anypony I knew.

He was a tan earth pony stallion, his yellow mane flowed over his head like water before flipping up into a wave over his face. "Why good mornin' little miss. The name's  Good Briar, Ah'll be filling in for your Nanny while's she away." He held out his hoof for me to shake it but I stepped back instead.

"She didn't say anything about leaving... Where did she go?" Good Briar frowned.

"Ah don't really know, whatever it was it must have been real urgent. Your folks didn't even have time to find a replacement, your Ma had me take a break from the orchards for this."

"Oh.."

Nanny didn't even say goodbye.

Both of my parents were out of the house for the day so it was just me and Good Briar. He had a scroll from my mother listing all the things I needed to study and even my mothers flash cards. We sat in the library for a good chunk of the day studying together. I could tell most of the stuff he was quizzing me on confused him. He couldn't even read magical script, though with him being an earth pony I guess that was just to be expected. Nanny never did this kind of stuff with me. I tried to explain that but he said they were orders from my Mother.

After lunch, we returned to the library for levitation practice. But instead of the normal exercise, he took out a large egg shaped piece of rock. It was grey and perfectly smooth. I lit my horn and lifted the rock easily into the air and he reached out his hood and pressed down on it knocking it out of my grasp and causing it to land on the carpet with a loud thud. "Hey! Why did you do that."

He gasped, "Sorry, Sugar, that's just what it says to do in the note your Ma left."

"Really..?"

"Is this new? Ah'm sorry I didn't tell ya."

I frowned, "It's fine." I lit up my horn again and lifted the egg back up into the air. Now that I knew what was coming I collected a mass of mana into a cone under the rock. It took him longer to push the rock out of my aura this time. I gritted my teeth trying to push more magic under the egg. It was great practice for the real test. I wondered why we hadn't been doing this all along.

After a while, he sat the stone egg on the floor and rested his hoof on top of it. Then he told me to try and pick it back up. I wondered what Nanny was doing. If she would start doing this with me when she got back. I sighed and lit my horn back up.

Mother returned home for dinner just as I was walking up the stairs to my room. I ran up to her right away asking her questions about Nanny but she just asked me about my studies and shooed me off to bed. Did something bad happen with Nanny? Was it my fault? Is somepony in her family sick... or worse?

I miss Nanny so much. I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole day.

Nanny, please come back soon.

August 14th year 4LT

August 14th year 4LT

It's been two whole days and Nanny still hasn't returned and nopony will tell me why. I've been asking Mother every chance I get but she always ignores it and starts drilling me with questions. The training has been tougher than it ever was before.

I thought we would be sticking to the stone egg but the next day it was replaced with a brand new one made of crystal. Crystals absorb manna much the same way dragon eggs do though not nearly as fast.

Training always gets a little.. frantic before the test but this is the first time it's gotten this bad. I've barely had enough time for meals let alone time for writing in my diary.

Today we finally began packing our luggage for the train. A few outfits, my spell books, the new crystal egg, and some snacks for the train ride found their way into my trunk with the help of Good Briar. He's such a laid-back fellow, even Nanny would have found dealing with Mother during this ordeal frustrating. But then again she's been with us long enough that she doesn't seem worried about telling mother off when she becomes too overbearing.

I hope she comes back before we leave for Canterlot.

The other foals haven't been back to visit me since that time in the orchard. I hoped that I might see Lazuli again when she comes to walk her brother home from the orchard but I've barely even looked outside of the library except to receive meals and go to bed.

I haven't even been able to take a bath it's been so hectic! Mother must have only just realised that this afternoon after dinner. She was about to kiss me goodnight instead she stepped back and yelled for Good Briar to draw me a bath! I've never been so embarrassed.

Speaking of embarrassment... I've been thinking about Hollow Row. Why did he go and do such a thing? There's no way he could like me, we barely know each other! What do I know about him?

I know his father runs a carpentry business. It was him and his team who helped do the repairs on the barn last summer. I know his Mother works in orchards. I know he doesn't get very good grades in school and that he doesn't seem to care all that much about it. Somehow, I don't feel like that's enough.

Wait. I've read about this sort of thing before. It's just a crush, it has to be. I mean we've only every played together when Lazuli calls us out. He's there because of her, I'm there because of her. We talk sometimes but it's never really gone past idle chit chat. So the only thing he has to really like about me must be my appearance..? NO, NO, NO, that's too embarrassing to even write down!

What was that talk of him going to Canterlot anyways? He couldn't have been serious. He'll definitely get over his crush and things will go back to normal once I've been in Caterlot for a few days.

A great poet once said that the love of youth floats to and fro like a butterfly on unsteady wings. Or was that from one of Mother's romance novels..? In any case, I've got bigger turnips to fry right now.

I'm so tired... I've been using my magic all day. I'm getting to the point where even holding this quill is becoming annoying.

We'll be leaving for Canterlot the day after tomorrow and arrive sometime later in the day. I'm going to keep my hooves crossed and hope Nanny pops up before then. I've been wondering about that a lot as you already know, I'm starting to feel like I know the truth about what's going on. I feel like dirt, trampled dirt.

The only thing about it though is that Good Briar he was just filling in for her while she's away right? So I couldn't be right about what happened. A family emergency popped up and she had to rush to get to them. She'll definitely come back.

Anyways, I'll try to write more tomorrow night.