Diminishing Returns

by PatchworkPoltergeist

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Filthy Rich, Spoiled Rich
Length: 9472

Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is a pattern. Filthy Rich knows this pattern, and he's smelled this quiche before. It's time for a talk.

Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is a pattern.

Filthy Rich knows this pattern. The delicious smells of freshly baked eggs, cheese and pastry tell him that something has gone terribly wrong, and he can't help the feeling Diamond's note has something to do with it.

Patterns are made to be broken. It's high time for a talk.

A side story in direct continuity with The Silver Standard and What Riches Still Await. Familiarity is highly recommended, but not required.

Published 2017-08-27 20:40:04 UTC
Last updated 2017-08-27 20:40:04 UTC

Or: There's No Such Thing As A Free Quiche

The note twitched in the breeze of the ceiling fan. A small thing, hastily written in purple ink and small enough to nestle in a suit pocket. It contained no bombshells, no bad news, and nothing to worry about, aside from a small dip in funds. It did seem slightly unusual, but probably nothing.

Probably.

He couldn’t plot the points from the note alone, but his gut knew a pattern when it saw one.

As a stallion of business, Filthy Rich recognized patterns. He couldn’t always predict what the market would do—nopony could, despite the economists’ best efforts—but based on what he’d learned and observed, he could form an educated guess. To know the patterns of the market demographic meant knowing the patterns of individuals within it. Six years of business school helped him on that front, but in Filthy’s modest opinion, all the schooling in the world couldn’t match good old-fashioned experience.

After nearly forty years of Ponyville life experience, he’d familiarized himself with the patterns of an earth pony in distress.

The weekend after Bright Mac and Pear Butter’s funeral, Big Macintosh insisted on weeding Filthy Rich’s two-acre lawn top to bottom. Before she’d begun her regular hospital visits, Shoeshine offered to deliver groceries for anypony and everypony she knew. The year Quills & Sofas teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, Davenport knitted the Cakes no less than eight baby blankets.

On his walks to work, Filthy used to find Berryshine—two years before everypony started calling her Berry Punch—rethatching the roof of her house. In the dark hour between moonset and sunrise, he couldn’t see her bruises when she waved down at him. Filthy’d nod and wave back, maybe compliment Berry’s job on the roof, and neither of them questioned why the other was awake at four in the morning.

The morning his ex-wife packed her bags for good, Filthy Rich took it upon himself to help every Barnyard Bargains employee do their taxes. By the next day, everypony from the vice president to the cashiers to the janitors had their paperwork on the way to Canterlot two months early.

Everypony had something: gardening, bureaucracy, cleaning, building, cart maintenance, cooking, mural painting, whatever. Always a job unconnected to their career or cutie mark—something one liked to do, but not born to do. Something useful to their household, their community, their health. A solid, steady distraction when the bottom fell out of their world.

In their darkest hour, a pony could turn to their beautiful new fence or those old debts squared away, and know that at least they’d done this thing right, and done it well. Sure, you’re a failure everywhere else, but damn this is a good quiche.

Smoothing the note beneath his hooves, Filthy glanced at the photographs at the edge of his desk. He smiled, and his wife smiled back behind the glass.

Mrs. Spoiled Rotten-Milk Rich, now that mare baked a damn good quiche. Best in town, if not all of Equestria. Best in the world, maybe. A veritable miracle of baking—by all rights, it should never have existed.

A high Canterlot gal from her bones to her bank account, Spoiled never had to cook a single thing in her life. For the most part, she didn’t, not then and not now.

“It’s a matter of principle, Fil,” she’d told him once. “The wealthiest mare in town hoof-deep in vegetable paste like any old two-bit baker or radish farmer? It’s just not done, and besides, we’ve got better things to do.”

None of that stopped her from baking that first quiche, however.

Years after the fact, Filthy couldn’t recall if that dinner at Spoiled’s townhouse had been their second or third date, but when he closed his eyes he still saw the freckles of mozzarella and cheddar in the hollow of her throat. He recalled a distant smell of burnt crust smothered under scented candles, and the velvet tablecloth twisting in Spoiled’s hooves while she watched him chew.

“How is it? Is it okay?”

“Ha! ‘Okay,’ nothing—this is amazing!”

“…It is?” She cleared her throat. “Well. Of course it is.”

When his Spoils smiled, her whole body smiled with her. An aurora borealis rolling over the icebergs, reflecting rainbows across the midnight sea. Not everypony had the privilege of seeing an aurora. Not everypony could stand the cold long enough to see one. Their loss. A tasty quiche was one thing, but that smile stuck to Filthy Rich’s ribs for weeks.

Not to discredit the quiche, of course. Had it been the second or twenty-second attempt? Where had she gotten the idea to combine spinach and coriander? For that matter, how had she learned to make it in the first place? Maybe she’d borrowed a cookbook or consulted her brother for advice. Spoiled hadn’t learned it from her mother, Filthy knew that for certain.

“Let me guess.” He licked the crumbs off his muzzle and winked at her. “First try, right?”

“First try.” Two auroras in one night. Land sakes, if this kept up, she wouldn’t be the only spoiled rotten pony in this house.

The first week she moved to Ponyville, Spoiled Rich cooked a quiche for dinner. She knew Diamond liked mozzarella, so she’d added extra cheese and went easy on the coriander because she’d read younger ponies didn’t like fancier spices. A backup with the regular recipe waited in the oven, just in case.

Diamond Tiara didn’t like quiche, as it turned out. Of course, she’d still finished her slice—it wouldn’t be very nice not to at least give it an honest try, as her father reminded her—but she clearly didn’t care for it. At all.

It wasn’t personal.

Diamond was barely eight and still deep in that stubborn pizza-or-bust stage. Most foals weren’t crazy about spinach. It was a new food, and new foods took some adjusting to. Everypony had their tastes; cheese and spinach quiche just wasn’t Diamond’s.

But it wasn’t personal. It wasn’t. He told Spoiled it wasn’t. He told her several times.

Spoiled had nodded and said that she understood. She said she believed him. But Spoiled Rich never made another quiche after that.

Blinking, Filthy returned to the present. He steepled his hooves, bent his neck, and let his eyes slide back to the note upon his desk.

It arrived ten minutes ago, by way of his secretary, by way of Mrs. Spoiled Rich, by way of Diamond Tiara. Leaning back in his office chair, Filthy Rich read it a third time: a request in Diamond’s mouthwriting to fund a new playground for Ponyville Schoolhouse.

No hard numbers for the cost, though Diamond guessed a ballpark range in the margins, complete with little hearts and a smiley face to soften the blow. A short statement explained that the school budget couldn’t cover the new equipment, so could her daddy pretty please with cinnamon sugar on top help buy a new one. The postscript pointed out the tax deductions from such an investment, along with another smiley face.

An additional postscript mentioned that Diamond would be joining the Apple family for dinner and a sleepover.

Filthy smiled at that. He couldn’t recall her mentioning anything about a sleepover—he must have missed it, what with pre-Hearth’s Warming planning and all—but it was always good to see Diamond making more friends. If those friends’ relatives were already tight business partners with Barnyard Bargains, all the better. Those spats Big Macintosh told him about had been just that: a foalish spat and nothing more. Fillies would be fillies, after all.

As for the rest… “Hmm.” Beads flicked across his abacus while Filthy ran some numbers through his head. Diamond had a point about the tax deduction, plus it never hurt to lend a philanthropic hoof to his hometown. That five-digit guesstimate got him a little sweaty under the collar, but he could make the bits back, no trouble.

It’d need to be a private donation. Going through Barnyard Bargains would be cheaper and easier, but that put school property under corporate sponsorship, which meant lots of Red Tape, and seeing that mare once a year was more than enough.

At worst, the playground cut into the Rich family vacation budget. They’d have to downsize the island trip from five weeks to four, or else choose a cheaper destination, like Whinnyland.

He ran his hoof along the deep crease in the paper. “Sure seems odd, though…” Spoiled headed the school board since last spring, and this had been the first he’d heard of this playground issue.

A brown little pegasus bobbed up from the file drawer. “What seems odd, sir?”

Filthy Rich tilted his ears toward the secretary and answered her question with another. “Typeset, the Tirek incident happened in September, didn’t it?”

“Late September, yes.”

When the company was wrapping up their third-quarter and preparing for the fourth, while the investors had their bi-annual panic attack and Filthy battled his quarterly migraines. So naturally, Miss Golden Glitter chose the ideal time to roll into town with the literal worst of Tartarus on her tail. His ex-wife always did have a knack for sniffing out his weaker moments.

That evening, with the stink of smoke and fire still clinging to the furniture, Diamond Tiara broke the news that she would run for student pony president. The following Monday, Spoiled’s interest in school board affairs spiked to record levels. The week after that, the both of them could be found in the greenhouse every other night, discussing the school election.

I feel for you, Spoiled, but I don’t see why you’re so determined to ruin my foal just because you can’t have your own.

And all this after Goldie tore through the mansion, claws out and teeth bared. There and gone like lightning, or a stroke. Strokes slammed quick and merciless, and damage could be irreparable. Impossibly Rich had one when Filthy was still a colt; his mother had gone from a business juggernaut with a hole in her pocket to an invalid in under fifty-two hours.

You’ve turned my daughter into a loser.

Filthy Rich steepled his hooves, ears pinned flat.

He combed through every dinner conversation, bedtime snuggle, evening walk, and sleepy breakfast before Tirek came to Ponyville. There had to be at least one time his family mentioned politics. Spoiled despised last-second scrambles, and this sort of project took weeks to plan. Somepony would have said something.

But no, not a word before late September.

Filthy reread the note with a long, hard look between the lines. He found no answers, only more questions.

Diamond Tiara understood the value of face-to-face negotiations; the filly could sweet talk Princess Celestia off the throne if she put her mind to it. Why, then, would she send a note? Why not ask directly? Why send it through Spoiled? And why hadn’t he heard a peep of this new playground business until the day after Diamond lost the election?

Documents towered in Filthy’s outbox. He glanced at the day planner stacked end to end with company meetings, business lunches, strategy sessions, investor presentations, and supplier visits. Might already know the answer to that last question.

Filthy took a last glance at the note and folded it in his pocket. Something old and familiar ghosted down his spine. In a blink, shadows of pageant trophies and bloody horseshoes traced through the office.

It was probably nothing… but Filthy Rich knew the pattern of “probably nothings.”

“Typeset, cancel my six-o-clock.”

The scent kicked him square in the teeth.

Filthy Rich set down his briefcase by the door, sniffing at the air. Peppers and garlic. Thyme, onions, and rosemary. Spinach and coriander and cheese. Lots of cheese.

“Randolph, could you pay a visit to Sweet Apple Acres for me? Diamond’s over there.”

The old butler twitched his ears curiously.

“Tell her it’s alright for her to stay the night, but be sure she knows I want her home early Saturday morning. We need to have a talk. After that…” Filthy rubbed the bridge of his muzzle. “I think after that, I think you oughta take the rest of the night off.” He smiled at Randolph’s questioning frown. “Yes, I’m sure. ’Sides, you need more breaks.” The smile calcified. “Honestly, now: scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”

Randolph slowly blinked his rheumy eyes and hummed to himself. “Started at an eight. Closer to a seven now, perhaps seven and a half.”

Seven and a half. Bad, but not catastrophic. Besides, Spoiled’s eleven was more like Goldie’s five. He could handle a seven. “Alright, thank you, Randolph. Give Diamond a hug for me.”

Filthy Rich traced the scent through the halls of the mansion. Something moved in the corner of his eye. Outside the living room window, Pine Fresh and Dusty Trails shared cheesecake by the pool, still wearing their maid uniforms. The cook nursed his own slice near the fire pit. Their cook didn’t know how to make cheesecake.

The note burned in his jacket pocket as Filthy’s stroll shifted into a trot. Slowly, he opened the kitchen door.

Three cheese and spinach quiches cooled on the marble countertop, sitting amongst a storm of mixing bowls, dripping whisks, vegetable choppers, cheese graters, and other baking debris Filthy didn’t know the names of. Mrs. Spoiled Rich perched upon a stool beside the oven, staring at the fourth quiche baking inside. Dried milk and flour stuck to her limp tail, and her white two-hundred-bit apron had turned into a modern art piece.

She blinked at Filthy’s reflection in the oven and turned around. Either Spoiled’s makeup worked worse than he remembered, or she’d gotten new bags under her eyes. “Oh, Fil. You’re home early, dear.” She wiped her spinach-green hooves with a washcloth. “Didn’t you have to meet with accounting tonight?”

“Evenin’, Spoils.” He bent down for a kiss hello. “We decided to postpone until Monday. Somepony on staff had a family emergency.”

“Oh,” Spoiled said. Her gaze flicked between the quiches and her husband. “I… thought it might turn into another late night, so I thought I’d take you something. I know how you get this time of year; it’s like you completely forget what a clock looks like. If I don’t get you to eat something, who will?” Spoiled turned back to the oven. “You’re always forgetting to eat, Filthy.” A pretty good lie; probably because it was mostly true.

“Spoils, give me some credit, now. I forget a lunch here and there, but I don’t go skipping a whole day’s worth of meals.” Except for that one time. Filthy gestured towards the three and counting quiches in the kitchen. “We could feed the whole board meeting with all these.” Not a bad idea, now that he thought about it.

Mumbling under her breath, Spoiled untied the dirty apron and let it fall at her hooves.

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s not supposed to be three.” She sneered at the smoking pastries on the counter. “First two didn’t come out right.”

The quiches looked perfectly fine to Filthy. The second got a little burned on the edge, and the third came out lopsided at the top, but it was dinner, not a beauty contest.

A second stool squeaked across the kitchen and Filthy took a seat next to his wife. “Well, I’m sure this last one’ll turn out nice and tasty.” His nuzzle left a nose print in the flour on her neck.

Spoiled Rich sucked her teeth. “Maybe.”

The kitchen heat smoldered. He hadn’t noticed until he actually sat in front of the oven. Filthy removed his blazer before any sweat could hurt the silk lining. “That was real nice of you—that cheesecake for Dusty and everypony?” He smiled at her. “I’m sure they appreciated it.”

“Hmph. Well, I should hope so.” Spoiled’s mouth pinched in a distinctive effort not to smile back. “Came out terrible—not fit for proper ponies at all, but it’s idiotic letting the whole thing go to waste. Might as well let the help have it.”

“You ever think of doing something like that for a school board meeting?” When his wife turned with an incredulous expression, he smiled at her again. “Hey, nopony doesn’t not like free food.”

“Cheerilee’s lactose intolerant.”

For a second, Filthy considered suggesting a dairyless recipe, then thought better of it. Spoiled had never spoken to a cow in her life, much less milked one, but that didn’t make her any less a cheese heiress. A businesspony and a gentlecolt knew better than to insult a family trade.

“So, uh, speakin’ of the school board, Spoils…”

Spoiled’s ears dipped a bit, and her shoulders tensed.

He pushed on with a smile neither of them believed. “How’d today’s meeting go?”

“About how I expected. Pencil Pusher managed to put down those trashy, insipid paperbacks of his and pay attention for once.” A second part of the statement hung unsaid. Spoiled’s lashing tail kicked up a cloud of cinnamon dust. “The new student council wanted to meet with us about installing a new playground, and Cheerilee insisted we let them. Supposedly, it’s the new president’s idea.” Her pointed nose twitched with a sneer. “Supposedly.”

Filthy Rich raised his eyebrows. “Wait, the student council can actually do that sort of thing?” In his day, all the council did was try to get longer recess time and cupcake snacks on Fridays. Pear Butter organized a dance once—had she been secretary or VP?—but in retrospect, that had just been a conspiracy to score a slow dance with Bright Mac. “Foals sure are ambitious nowadays.”

“Oh, but didn’t you hear, Filthy?” Spoiled bared her teeth in a sharp, jagged laugh. “The student council’s all-powerful these days. Playground equipment, insurance adjustments, school policy—why, there’s no limit to what an eleven-year-old can do.” She rolled her eyes. “Celestia forbid anypony tells them no. We can’t crush their precious little dreams just because they want to squeeze a forty-thousand-bit project from a school that can barely afford a new bell.”

“The school bell, you mean? I thought the royal stipend covered that.”

“You’re thinking of the smashed bell tower, and insurance covered that. Barely.” After a quick check on the quiche, Spoiled stepped away from the oven to stretch her legs. Stars knew how long she’d been on that stool. “We used the stipend for replacing desks and the chalkboard—necessities, not playthings.”

Fair enough, a pony needed their priorities straight. Still, it seemed to Filthy the school could have at least petitioned the mayor or the princess for a little help. Not to point hooves, but technically, it had been her magical throwdown that blasted the bell tower. Tight budgets could always stretch, right? If nothing else, somepony in town could have donated a teeter-totter they’d built themselves.

Metal bowls and measuring cups dumped in the sink with a clatter. Spoiled rinsed them off, then dunked in the whisks and utensils to soak. “Children their age don’t need a playground anyway. Most of that class already earned their cutie marks; they shouldn’t even have time to waste on a slide.” She stamped her hoof and swung into a quick-step pace around the kitchen. “Surprised they didn’t ask for a pinball machine and a couch to loaf around on—and don’t you give me that frown, Filthy Rich.” She swung on him, one hoof on her hip. “When you were Diamond Tiara’s age, what did you do on your breaks?”

He thought on it. “Homework, mostly.” That and figuring out how to get Rainbowshine to talk to him. Eventually, young Filthy Rich economized his recess by asking Rainbowshine for help with his poetry homework. Granted, he spent more time staring at her bouncy mane than stanzas. “No time for it, otherwise.”

“Right. And why didn’t you have the time after school?” Spoiled trotted up to meet him nose to nose.

The two ponies stared at each other. In unison, they said, “Apprenticeships.”

“Exactly. You had to work in the store, I had my lessons with Madam Truly, my sister Honeymilk went to magic lessons, and Early...well, my brother was supposed to be at flight camp, but nopony could keep track of him.” Spoiled nodded to settle the argument. “If Diamond’s classmates aren’t preparing for the real world, that’s their problem, but I am not breaking a sweat or the budget over a playground they don’t need, can’t afford, and is an insurance nightmare in this liability-ridden town.”

Now, that sounded more like the Spoiled Rich he knew. Which also meant that the real reason for those three quiches had nothing to do with the board meeting. Filthy shifted back on topic. “Did you try telling the kids that the school couldn’t afford it?”

“Twice.” Spoiled tapped her chin. “Thrice, actually, but you know children don’t listen to anypony but themselves. Out for themselves, too.” When she caught Filthy’s judgmental frown, she braced and stood her ground. “Look, I never said it made them bad, Filthy, but it’s the way ponies are built. It’s natural—oh, we care about each other, sure, but when the town’s on fire, you’re not running to save the neighbor’s child, you’re running for yours.”

Spoiled cracked the oven open and squinted inside. She stared at the quiche a little longer than necessary. After a quiet moment, she continued, “And if I see Diamond about to drown, I’m dragging her out of the lake.” The oven shut with a clang. “If somepony gets hit with my boat, then they should’ve moved.”

Filthy Rich rubbed the sweaty ring under his shirt collar and waited to see if she needed more space to vent. Judging from the way her face tightened, and the shortness of her breath, she still needed plenty.

The stool creaked under Spoiled’s weight. She closed her eyes, sighed, and went quiet.

“And uh, out of curiosity, how exactly does all this relate to the playground budget problem?” Filthy leaned forward to meet her eye. “Correct me if I‘m wrong, but I thought Diamond wasn’t even at the meeting.”

“No.” Her voice dipped into a growl. “But the Silver girl was.”

“Aw, for goodness—” Sun, moon, and stars help me. Filthy slumped in his seat. “Honeywallet, you said you were going to drop this.”

“I did!” Spoiled jolted upright, both hooves against her chest. “I dropped it for months and didn’t say a word. I stood back and I let it play out, and you know what happened?” A powdery hoof poked at Filthy’s tie. “I’ll tell you what happened: exactly what I told you what would happen. I said from the start that filly’s shadier than the Everfree; it’s not my fault I was right. Conniving, that’s what she is.”

“Spoiled, come on.”

“She staged that entire fiasco with Diamond’s editorship, and I’ll bet you—Filthy Rich, I’ll bet you money—she orchestrated this whole playground idea from the start. I caught her planting the whole thing in Diamond’s head last week, and—”

“Spoiled.”

“—and I guarantee you she did the same thing for the other side, too.” Contempt twisted through her tight-lipped sneer. “Riding everypony’s coattails up the ladder until she can throw them off of it. I know this game.”

“Spoiled!” Filthy took his wife’s fidgeting hooves into his and stared her in the eye. “Spoils, honey, listen to yourself. You’re talking like she’s a-a changeling agent or a sleeper cell or something. The child is eleven. Don’t you think you’re overblowing this a little bit?”

The stare held.

Spoiled blinked first, but her frown tightened. “It doesn’t matter if they’re seven or seventy; Silvers look out for Silvers, Fil. Even that’s not a given if Silver Shill’s anything to speak of.” She snatched her hoof back, breaking the stare. “My daughter is not another rung to be stepped on—not by a Silver, not by anypony. And I won’t sit around and let Diamond’s defeat get rubbed in my nose, either.”

A beat of silence passed over the kitchen.

Slowly, he turned to her. “Spoils,” he said. “What did you do?”

“I…” Flushing, Spoiled flicked an ear and averted her gaze. “Stop staring at me like I trampled a duckling. Moon’s sake, I didn’t do a thing to the child. I already told you what I did: explained the budget issue. They wanted to be stubborn about it, so I gave them the budget book and let them figure it out the hard way.”

Harder than necessary, Filthy suspected. Where Goldie’s temper had raged and razed, Spoiled’s bad moods dug beneath the skin and festered for months. Spoiled Rich burned cold.

So did he. Colder, maybe.

Thing was, when anger burned that cold, it didn’t even feel like anger anymore. It felt rational. Sane. Calm. Correct. That was the scary part. A pony could spend their whole life icing over, then look up one day to find their whole house burned down.

Spoiled switched the oven off. “It didn’t matter in the end, anyway.” The quiche’s golden, green-flecked surface crackled behind the glass. One long string of cheese dripped over the pie pan and into the oven. “Diamond Tiara arrived at the last second to bail out the student council.”

Meaning she’d bailed out Silver Spoon, of course. Filthy glanced at the note poking out of his breast pocket.

The potholder slipped into Spoiled’s muzzle. She slid the oven open and stepped back to view the quiche. “The filly trips her up, stabs her in the back, and throws her under the carriage the second Diamond’s not useful to her anymore.” The potholder trembled in her mouth. “And Diamond Tiara still runs across Ponyville to bail her out and yell at me.”

Filthy pricked his ears. “She yelled at you?” He crept a few steps closer.

“Yes.” The potholder fell to her hooves. Spoiled frowned at it, and didn’t move to pick it up. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, “why she’s so damned determined to cling to somepony who only hurts her. She hurts her, Filthy, that’s all she does. Never there for her, holed up there in Applewood all the time, and only bothers showing up two stupid days out of the whole year—”

The words choked off midsentence. Spoiled Rich squeezed her eyes shut and put a hoof to her mouth.

Filthy Rich dove to embrace her. Without looking up, she huddled against him. An awful little sound stifled in Spoiled’s throat—something like a dry-heave, something like a sob—and she buried her face in his shirt collar.

He nuzzled the soft fur inside his wife’s ears and held her close, wondering where in the conversation she’d stopped talking about Silver Spoon and started talking about Golden Glitter. From the start, maybe.

“She hates me, Filthy.” Spoiled’s sigh ruffled through his mane. It hurt him worse than the dry-heave noise. “She always did.”

“Spoils, honey, just because Diamond yelled at you doesn’t mean—”

“No.” She shook her head and pulled back. “Fil, no. This wasn’t like getting to get her to eat her alfalfa or go to bed on time. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear her.”

A little frightened of his own question, Filthy asked, “Did she say she hated you?”

“She didn’t have to. Diamond Tiara hates me, and…” Spoiled ground the apron under her hooves. She glanced at the oven, then back to him. “…and I don’t know what to do about it.”

That made two of them.

It used to be that an unruffled Spoiled Rich could be satisfied with a kiss and space to vent. That and some alone time far from the ponies she didn’t like—roughly ninety-eight percent of the population—and close to the two ponies she did.

Something bright flashed in his eyes. Filthy tilted his head to see the boat parked outside the kitchen window. The Laissez Faire gleamed pink and orange in the sunset. The yacht’s brass banisters threw golden lines across the stove, brighter than a five-bit coin.

“I thought we were getting better, Fil.”

“I know,” he said. “So did I.”

If it were up to Filthy Rich, he’d gather his family up and sail them out past the horizon. To where, he didn’t know. Someplace nice. Monacolt, maybe. A Hearth’s Warming in Horseshoe Bay, that would be nice. (His ex-wife had said something about wanting Diamond to visit her half-deserted desert home in Applewood for the holidays, but Golden said a lot of things.)

A fine idea, but…

His gaze followed the banisters up to the deck chairs where Spoiled had curled for half the summer. Filthy still felt the spray of the sea on their faces, the sand underhoof while they watched Diamond Tiara balance herself on a surfboard.

“Look! There, I did it, and I didn’t even need those extra lessons after all! Mother, are you looking?”

“I’m looking, sweetheart—remember, be careful on the water.”

That had been a good three weeks. The best three weeks Filthy Rich could recall in a long, long time, in fact.

“I know, Mother. I’ve got a life jacket on, see?”

“Be careful anyway! And stay where I can see you; there could be sharks.”

But if a boat hadn’t fixed anything then, it wouldn’t fix things now. A stallion could buy his way out of a lot of things. This wasn’t one of them.

The quiche hit the counter with a thunk. Spoiled hovered over it, scouring the crust for imperfections. Strings of cheese and spinach burst from the center in a gooey puncture wound. “Awful.” She snorted and shoved the quiche to the side.

The scent of mozzarella and cheddar coiled around a lovely compilation of spices Filthy couldn’t identify. It purred beneath his chin and scratched him behind the ears. “Smells wonderful to me.”

“Don’t you patronize me, Filthy Rich.” Spoiled rolled her eyes and swatted him with her tail as he peered over her shoulder. “I know a bad quiche when I see one.”

His tail flicked her right back. “Maybe so, but I know a good quiche when I smell one.” Filthy’s stomach growled to back him up. For the record, he had eaten lunch. Two apples counted as lunch. “And I’m not patronizing you, I’m disagreeing with you.” He cut himself a slice before she could stop him. “So there.”

“No, you’re not. Seeing and smelling are two completely diff—don’t put that inferior quiche in your mouth!” Not that she could do anything about it after he’d already bitten into it. “You are impossible, Filthy Rich. If you burn your mouth, it serves you right.”

Ignoring the scalding cheese on his tongue, Filthy smiled his smuggest smile at her. He began to lob back a retort when he noticed something under the mixing bowl. Curious, he nudged it aside. An old issue of Finer Stalls and Stables lay beneath, spine cracked back to a familiar quiche recipe. The pages had hardened, warped and browning with age and slight water damage, but otherwise in good condition.

Noticing her husband’s discovery, Spoiled stiffened, then sighed and pulled it closer. No point in hiding it now. “It’s not exact; I modified it a little with some sorrel.” She tapped the photograph above the recipe. “Now, this is what an actually good quiche—not the mistake you have in your mouth—is supposed to look like.”

Filthy looked. He beheld a pristine crust in a shining tin on a spotless table cloth in a perfect house’s perfect kitchen. “Uh, honeywallet, I’d hate to break it to you, but you can’t make a quiche that looks like this.”

“Thanks, Fil. I didn’t feel lousy enough today.”

“No, I mean nopony can make a quiche that looks like this.” He flipped the magazine on its side, examining at the flawless spheres of condensation on the accompanying lemonade glass. “It’s fake.”

Spoiled twitched her ears with a small grumble. “Well, I know photography tricks get these things to appear better than they are, but—”

“No, Spoils, honey, I mean this is literally fake. It’s all foam and plaster inside and glazed with paint. If you ate it, you’d be at Ponyville General in seconds.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe the coroner, depending on that paint.”

A very convincing fake, Filthy had to admit. If he hadn’t been married to his head of marketing for six years, he’d never have spotted it.

“I love your quiches, Spoils. Maybe they’re not the prettiest picture, but we can still eat it. That’s what it’s for.” To prove it, Filthy bit into another slice. He pulled at his sweaty collar and glanced about the kitchen. “You weren’t planning on baking another one, were you?”

“Not really.” Spoiled cut a small slice of quiche for herself. After a moment’s thought, she cut two more. “Why?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s a bit stuffy in here. Come on, let’s eat somewhere else.” He slung his jacket over his shoulder, took a proper dinner plate, and wandered into the halls in search of a place to sit.

Spoiled trotted beside him, balancing her own plate and a stack of the good napkins. One of the maids had turned on the lights ahead of time and lit a fire in the living room. Ponyville’s Novembers didn’t need fires to chase the chill away—even if it did, the house had a central heater—but it still felt nice to have a fire anyhow. Spoiled’s quiche rested on the coffee table while she curled in the crook of the sofa—the new one from Davenport’s that matched her eyes.

Filthy watched her stare vacantly at the steaming pastry in his hooves. Sighing, he sat next to her. “You did the best you could with what you knew, and maybe it didn’t come out how you wanted. Maybe you messed up somewhere in the recipe. It happens.” He took another bite and gestured to her plate. “Even when it turns out good, though, it’s never gonna turn out looking the way it did in the magazine or in your head, ’cause those were never real to start with.”

Spoiled raised an eyebrow. “Just to be clear, is this your idea of a parenting metaphor, or are we literally talking about food?”

“Uh.” Filthy blinked at the quiche, then at her. “Actually, I’m not sure.” He risked a sheepish laugh. “Let’s pretend I’m really wise and say that it’s both?”

“Huh. First try, right?” One of those precious aurora borealis smiles flashed across her face. In a heartbeat, everything about Spoiled Rich glowed, and it had nothing to do with the firelight.

It didn’t last. The smile folded into itself until only a thin line remained. “Fil? Are we friends?”

“Well, I should hope so!” Filthy rolled back his sleeve to show off the platinum wedding band upon his fetlock. “I mean, we got matching friendship bracelets and everything. There was a whole party about it, remember? We had cake and everything.”

“You gave me a necklace, not a wedding band.”

“Let me have my joke, honeywallet.” Filthy Rich kissed his wife’s cheek and wrapped a foreleg around her shoulders. “Of course we’re friends—best friends, even. I love you, Mrs. Spoiled Rich, and if you don’t know that, then you’d better learn.”

Spoiled’s tail curled in Filthy’s lap in a smooth purple arc, highlighted with white flecks of cheese. “No, I know, but it never hurts to double-check, right?” She ate with her back curled against him and her chin resting on the backboard of the sofa. Behind them, the hallway stretched toward the trophies of the War Room.

Filthy traced her line of sight. “Don’t suppose you’re feeling any better, now?”

“Yes.” The tip of her tail twitched, then snapped. “A little bit.” Spoiled turned back to her plate with a frustrated sigh. “No. I don’t understand what happened, Fil. These past four weeks, Diamond and I got along wonderfully. She stopped avoiding me all the time and we actually talked in sentences with more than four syllables. I thought a project could work for us—you know how Diamond loves her little projects—and I picked one good for her future AND one she should have won with her eyes closed. A school election’s just a popularity contest with speeches; it’s the same damn thing as a pageant but without the dresses!”

She set her plate on the coffee table hard. “Four weeks, Filthy. For four weeks it was working—WE were working—and then…” Spoiled fell against the sofa, motioning a vague gesture in the air. “Then all of… this.”

Filthy hummed a thoughtful, wordless murmur. He could follow Spoiled’s logic. On paper, the plan read airtight. In action, at a glance, it progressed the way it should have. But when he stopped to think about it—really think about it—the details didn’t jell.

Diamond’s drive lacked the joyful enthusiasm of not only her pageants but also her talent show rehearsals and newspaper work. The morning of the election, she’d eaten her cereal and read her speech with all the optimism of a market crash. Her election work actually looked like… well, work. A special talent should never feel like work.

Filthy had sensed a shift in the air that morning. He should have recognized the pattern, should have said something besides wishing her luck, should have done something besides letting her practice her president smile at the table.

To say nothing of Diamond’s face the night after the election… He’d tried to talk with her then, but she hadn’t been in the mood to talk and went to bed early. He’d promised himself a long talk with her Saturday. A day too late, it seemed.

“Maybe I was too rough after the election. We ran into each other while I was in the middle of preparing for our guests from Canterlot, and—” Spoiled took a small bite of quiche, chewing it slowly. “I don’t know. Do you think I’m too hard on her?”

“Maybe?” Filthy shrugged. “Honestly, I never thought about it.”

He’d never had to. Outside pageant practice, Goldie had given Diamond carte blanche to do whatever whenever. To this day, Spoiled had been the only pony to establish a solid bedtime and stick with it every night. (Filthy had gotten better, but half the time it ended in negotiations for an extra half hour.) Diamond herself had never mentioned any problems with Spoiled at all. Not directly.

“I mean, nothing seemed that outta the ordinary. Not to me, anyhow. Most ponies in our price bracket go about it the same way, or else leave the foals with the help and never see ’em at all.” Granny Smith—richer in land than liquid assets—had run a tighter ship than Daddy did. Between a rabid timberwolf and an angry Granny, Filthy preferred the timberwolf. “The Silvers aren’t too hard on their filly, I think.” Though with Silver Spoon’s automatic “yes sirs”, one had to wonder.

“Of course they aren’t.” Spoiled clicked her tongue. “That’s what Wisteria’s for. There’s a reason the finest earth ponies send their fillies there, and it’s not for the syllabus. High society’s a lot of things, but it’s not nice. It’s a hard world out there, Filthy Rich, and Diamond doesn’t have a Wisteria.”

Her hoof stretched to the living room’s massive glass window. Beyond the hedges and the fence and the pool, Ponyville prepared for bed. Beyond the Everfree and up the mountains, Canterlot twinkled, wide awake. “Ponies out here are sweet, but they’re softer than whey. And our poor Diamond’s so trusting; she thinks everypony’s like that.”

“Mm.” It’s a hard world out there, Filthy. It had been a long time since somepony told him that. It had been said with love then, too. Said with the best intentions. He’d got his name that way, after all. “You’re not wrong, Spoils. It’s hard, but I’m not sure it helps to make it harder.”

Spoiled gave a halfhearted shrug. “Couldn’t be that bad. It worked for us.”

“Did it? ’Cause looking back, I’m not so sure.” Filthy rubbed the back of his neck and rose to stretch his hooves. “You know, not a day went by in my foalhood that my daddy gave me a break. Not a one. Never mean about it, never cruel. He loved me then, same as he loves me now.” Pausing, he glanced at the liquor cabinet tucked away in a quiet corner of the living room. “But once I finally got off the chain and out on my own…”

Spoiled’s head rose from the couch. She tilted her head and blinked at him. “What?”

Filthy reached under the cabinet’s frame, letting his hoof trail along the bottom until he felt a raised latch. “Well, let’s put it this way: you remember the summer of eighty-three?”

“Of course.”

The liquor cabinet unlocked with a click. “I don’t.” At some point, there had been a club, a train, Golden Glitter, three other ponies, a black eye, and somewhere along the way he’d turned two thousand bits into eight. Somehow. “She needs boundaries, but the field’s got to fit the filly. Diamond’s bigger now. Maybe she needs to stretch her legs a little.”

“Maybe.” Spoiled returned to her dinner.

“All that aside, I know one thing for sure: nopony in Equestria’s going to come down harder on Diamond Tiara for losing than Diamond Tiara. She doesn’t need our help on that front.” After some thought, Filthy rose on his hind legs and fetched the ’97 pinot noir and two glasses from the top shelf.

His wife nodded but didn’t have anything to say to that. Her ears deflated into her mane.

“Spoils, Diamond doesn’t hate you.”

“She doesn’t love me, either.”

“Well, that part’s not up to you. Our job’s to love her and do our best to see she comes out better than we did. That’s all.” Filthy Rich sank back into the sofa and popped the bottle open. “Besides, even if she does hate you, it can’t last. Everypony hates their parents for a good couple of days. Diamond didn’t want anything to do with me the first month we brought her home, but she got over it eventually.” He poured a glass and waved it under his wife’s nose.

Spoiled rolled her eyes and took it. Sniffing the glass, she didn’t come close to smiling, but the misery faded from her face. “A baby’s not the same. They’re too little to even know how to hate anypony.”

Easy to say for somepony who’d never had their child literally push their face away with all four hooves. The way Diamond had acted, a pony’d think Filthy had bitten off the foal’s tail.

“I’m not her mother,” Spoiled said.

“Welcome to the club. Congratulations, Spoiled Rich. Cut yourself some cheesecake.” Filthy’s laugh rolled out bitter and cactus-soft. A harsher laugh than he’d meant it to be, but Golden Glitter always had a way of dragging out the worst in him.

The pinot noir went down smooth and light. Berry Punch’s specialty could knock down a unicorn, but it’d still be a couple hours before either of them felt anything. “The night we came back from Vanhoover, Diamond clutched Goldie’s neck the whole ride home with her little hoof fresh in bandages.” He downed the rest of the glass. “You know, if we’d waited any longer to get to the ER, the doctor said Diamond could’ve gotten a permanent limp?”

Spoiled Rich blinked slowly. The path of this conversation had to lead them here eventually. She edged closer to him. “Do you really think the crack was an accident?” she asked. “Like she says?”

“Golden’s not gonna cripple her own kid on purpose, especially not in the middle of Nationals. ‘Course it was an honest accident.” Filthy closed his eyes and breathed slow through his nose. The wine pitched in the glass. “But waitin’ ’til the end of the competition sure wasn’t. Pushing through the last round of dancing and show jumping wasn’t, either.”

Sun, moon, and stars bless her heart, Diamond Tiara didn’t cry once through the whole ordeal. She’d bitten her lip hard when they drained out the crack and stapled it, but no more than that. To this day, Filthy didn’t know if he could credit that to bravery, exhaustion, or six years of “winners don’t cry.”

“I wanted her to ride on my side of the cabin for the trip home. Hurt hooves aside, we’d barely seen each other all that weekend. I missed her.” Filthy shook his head. “Diamond wouldn’t have none of it. She didn’t let go of her mama’s neck ’til she fell asleep.”

The passing years fogged up memories of that night a bit, but not that train ride.

He still saw Vanhoover’s two-AM streetlights lighting up Diamond’s cast as it bounced on Goldie’s knee. Di chose the sky blue over the neon green and royal purple because it matched her pageant dress. He felt the texture of the satin slipper in his hooves, brown and crusted over with blood.

Through the churn of the train, he heard Goldie’s sweet voice whispering in the dark. “There’s my big tough girl,” and “Next time, watch your landing position on the jumps so you don’t get hurt, okay? That’s why we practice.” As if an exhausted six-year-old even knew how to land on a fractured hoof she shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

“She WANTED to keep going, Filthy! I asked her twice if she wanted to go home, and she didn’t.” As if a child had the perspective to make that call. As if the accident had somehow been Diamond’s fault.

“How do you think that ride felt, Spoiled? You think you’re the only one hurt by this kind of thing?” Filthy set the glass down with a firm clack. Droplets of wine splattered the table. “No, it’s not fun when your kid don’t want nothin’ to do with you. It’s awful. It kills you. But you suck it up, build a bridge, and get over it.” Softer, he added, “It’s not her job to love us. It’s our job to love her.”

In the grand expanse of their living room, with darkened lights hanging from the tall ceiling and the wall-size window full of night and stars, Spoiled Rich never looked so small. She folded her hooves close to herself, focusing on the crackling logs in the hearth. “You’re right.” Her voice tucked into itself, all blunted thorns and sanded edges. ”Of course you’re right. I’m sorry, Fil.”

“Spoils, I can’t blame you for feeling upset over this. I know you’ve been trying.” He leaned in for another nuzzle. “But whatever it is Goldie and Diamond have together, that’s not something you can replicate.”

For better or worse, the pageant ring offered something unifying, passionate, and unequivocally theirs. Teamwork, glory, and parental bonding aside, it also gave them an annual meeting ground on neutral territory. Goldie refused to set hoof in Ponyville if she could help it; if not for the pageants, Diamond might only see her mother every couple years. If at all.

“Not a business model you want to follow, anyhow.”

“Mm. True.” Spoiled clucked her tongue with a slight smirk. “There’s better mares to emulate than some spiteful pixie-haired gold-digger in the desert.”

“Now, honeywallet, be fair; Glitter earns her own money.” Filthy placed a hoof on his wife’s shoulder with a solemn nod. “She’s a double-dealing cutthroat, not a gold-digger.”

She laughed one of her wheezy little laughs, the kind that sounded like she’d choked on her own smile. “My mistake, dear.” The laughter petered into a sigh. “I suppose Silver Spoon’s the right-hoof mare for Diamond’s other projects, anyhow.” Spoiled played it glib, but the sentence still had a bitter aftertaste.

“Give the Silver kid a break, Spoils. It’s not her fault the family patriarch’s a supervillain.”

“Silver Tongue’s a lawyer, dear.”

Filthy blinked. “Is that not what I said?”

“Silvers are bad enemies, anyway. I hear they’re partial to duels, and I never learned to fence.” Spoils wrinkled her muzzle. “I had to learn the harp.” Her tail curled into a violet crescent, the way it often did when she got thoughtful. “So. What’s our next move?”

Filthy glanced at their barren plates and smiled hopefully. “Dessert?” Maybe Dusty and Pine left them some of that cheesecake. It had been so long since he’d had cheesecake.

“After dessert.”

“Well, Diamond’s at the Apples’ for a sleepover.” The half glass of pinot noir swirled in Filthy’s glass. “We could unlock the real liquor cabinet, break out the salt, have a private party in the rec room, and go to bed.”

Spoiled narrowed her eyes.

Filthy shrugged and innocently rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Hey, we can have a party in bed first, that’s fine too. After that…” He shrugged again. “When Diamond comes home, I guess we’re due for another talk, all three of us. …Or four.”

Spoiled nodded. “I suppose so, yes. At least we’ve got the whole weekend to do it.” Her ears flicked up. “Wait.” The neutral frown pooled into a scowl. “What do you mean, four?”

“We might benefit from…” Filthy’s hoof waved through the air, searching for the least provocative terminology. "…external consultation in order to better navigate our current paradigm shift.”

“External con—” Spoiled glanced over both shoulders. In the hallway, Pine Fresh yawned on her way back from cleaning the kitchen. When the maid had long passed up the stairs, Spoiled lowered her voice to a whisper. “External consultation? You don’t mean like a shrink?”

“Well, they prefer the term—”

“For Celestia’s sake! We’re not perfect, but we’re not crazy.” At a clip, Spoiled crossed the living room and closed the curtains. “We couldn’t, I—” Still clutching the curtain ties, she stared at him with that Canterlot brand of scandalized horror. “What would ponies say?”

“They’re not gonna say a thing,” Filthy slowly said, “’cause they aren’t gonna know. It’s nopony's business but ours.”

He followed her to the window and opened a corner. The pool glowed the bright, unearthly turquoise of changeling eyes. Possibly too cold for a swim, but some time by the fire pit could be nice.

“We’re not crazy, Spoils.” At least, Filthy hoped so. “But it never hurts to see where you stand health-wise. One thing you’ve got over Golden Glitter, you’ve got the decent sense to know when something’s gone wrong. If we’re working in diminishing returns, it helps to find an accountant to balance the books.”

“Hm. Go see a doctor before the crack gets worse.” A low grumble rolled in Spoiled’s throat. “You know Diamond Tiara’s going to dig her hooves into the carpet and not say a word, right?”

Forget the carpet. When the subject of her mother inevitably came up, Diamond would plant herself so deep she’d hit bedrock.

“Yeah, but I assume somepony in that line of work knows how to deal with that sort of thing.” They’d have their work cut out, though. Filthy predicted at least two full sessions of Diamond’s silence bleeding out his wallet.

Spoiled’s gaze sank down to Filthy’s shirt pocket. The tips of this afternoon’s note poked out of it, the purple ink bleeding through the paper. “You’re not seriously considering that, are you?”

Casually, he leaned against the window. “Maybe.” Definitely.

“Filthy Stinking Rich!”

“Hey now, no need to bring middle names into this. C’mon, it’s just a little old school playground—whole thing’s, what, ten, twenty grand?”

Spoiled pursed her lips. “Try forty.”

“Forty counting labor and installation, or forty with only raw materials?” A smile curled at Filthy’s muzzle. “It’d be cheaper to get the equipment by itself, and technically, the equipment’s all she asked for. A team of locals could handle installation on their own, and you know what else?” He knelt and folded out the note on the floor. “I think Diamond Tiara already knew that.”

Spoiled Rich blinked at the paper. She blinked again. “Impossible.” Lying down at eye level with the note, she stared at Diamond’s ballpark estimate. The filly had guessed twenty-five grand, not far from Filthy’s estimate for raw materials. “How? Diamond barely knew anything about the playground budget! What, did she guess?” Her tail flicked in thought. “Did the Trottingham colt say something?”

“Could be. Or she based it off what she heard around the office when we opened that Manehattan location for Barnyard Bargains.” That or a lucky guess. “Diamond Tiara’s a better listener than she lets on. The filly’s a bright one.”

“I know that!” Spoiled snapped. The paper rustled under a frustrated sigh. “She’s smart, but that doesn’t always mean she stops to think.”

“She’s eleven, Spoils. Of course she doesn’t.” Filthy gave Spoiled’s shoulder a friendly shake and smiled at her. “It’s mean out there, but give the kid some credit; she’s tougher than she looks.” His smile grew at Spoiled’s small nod. “We didn’t name her Diamond for nothin’, you know.”

She nodded again, but the tip of her tail still swished and fidgeted. Under her breath, she grumbled, “Twenty-five grand for slides and swings they’re not even going to use…”

“Twenty grand. I’ll try and whittle it down to eighteen unless Diamond Tiara can give me a solid reason not to.” Filthy slid the door open and stepped out into the crisp November evening, eying the pool. Didn’t that thing come with a heat function? “Mediation’s important, and the filly’s got to learn how to budget proper. This’ll be a nice way to learn how to work with bigger sums.” He reached down and brought his wife to her hooves. “’Sides, it’s only fair.”

Spoiled’s gaze followed to the pool and Filthy’s unspoken invitation for a warm autumn swim. After a moment of thought, she stepped outside and turned on the heat. “Fair, how?”

“You got to spend sixteen grand on that statue with your money, so I oughta throw some of mine around on something, too.” One hoof dipped in the water and jumped right back out. Still way too cold. “Say, I’ve been meanin’ to ask—what’d you ever plan on doing with that thing?”

Both of Spoiled’s back hooves dipped into the pool, waving in the water while she tossed her designer blouse safely on a pool chair. She slipped in nice and slow, so the chilly water could sink into her coat. A slow grin lazed across her features.

The tip of Filthy’s tail jerked in and out of the water with a shiver.

“You big baby, it’s not even cold.” Spoiled rested her chin on the edge of the pool. Purple tendrils of mane floated on the water, mingling in the shiny spots of moonlight. “I planned on keeping the statue in the conservatory, but I’ve been having second thoughts. What do you think about the front yard?”

Filthy mentally traced the stone path from the backyard to the front. A solid acre of zoysia feathergrass stretched inside the fence. It could use a bit of decoration. They could place it in the northeast corner; maybe build a nice little awning to keep the worst of the elements off of the limestone. He didn’t fancy the idea of storms weathering away such a pretty statue—goodness, why had Spoiled chosen limestone of all things?—but it couldn’t be helped. Wear and tear came with the package, and a garden statue that size had no business indoors.

“Sounds perfect, Spoils.”

She smirked. “Of course it does.”

The water had a ways to go until it got warm, but at least it didn’t feel like the frozen north anymore. Filthy dipped his front hooves in. “I still think you oughta bring something for the school board meetings. The student council might like it.”

Spoiled lifted an eyebrow. “Fil, you know very well Diamond doesn’t even like my quiches.”

“Oh, I know, but if I remember right, at least one foal on there’s something of a gourmand. I bet he’d like it. And doesn’t Silver Spoon do tea parties? She probably likes fancy pastries and whatnot.” Filthy Rich leaned his neck over the water, inches from Spoiled’s nose. He grinned with all his teeth. “I suppose you might call it—”

“Don’t you dare.”

“A quiche market!” Filthy tossed his head with a laugh. “You get it? Cause it’s like a niche mar—”

Spoiled Rich snatched his tie and yanked him in the pool.

Author's Note

If it suits your fancy, further thoughts and author notes can be found in the story followup. I say all I can really say about Diminishing Returns there. Due to the personal nature of this story's origin, I've opted to abstain from responding in the comment section, but please feel free to leave your own.
Thank you for reading.