Last Call at The Big Reveal

To Diamond Tiara’s credit, she did take a week before she returned to Canterlot. A long week, full of business meetings, appointments, and debating if she was doing the right thing or not.

She still didn’t know for sure.

Diamond pulled out one of the photos, looking at Silver Spoon again. She still wore that braid and the same glasses.She hadn’t changed much during the last five years.

Diamond brushed a strand of lavender hair out of her eyes. She was already dying it to hide traces of grey hairs, and she wasn’t even in her late-twenties yet. She looked up from the photograph, scanning over the other ponies in the train car with her. Business ponies reading their papers. Families going up the mountain for the weekend, their foals at the window with their noses and hooves pressed against the glass to watch the countryside go by. There was a couple sitting up front, snuggled together contently.

Diamond leaned against the cold glass and looked out at the scenery herself.

”What happened to us, Silvy?"

”What happened to me?”

She remembered how it ended, of course. How could she not?

Five years earlier, Diamond Tiara sat alone at a table at Sugarcube Corner. She stirred her chocolate milkshake without looking at it, instead glaring across the street at the dance school. Every once in a while, she took a sip, barely tasting the increasingly unappetizing dessert. The Ponyville Clocktower struck the quarter hour, and Diamond’s eyes narrowed.

”What is keeping you?”

The answer came as Silver Spoon stepped out of the studio along with her teacher. She noticed Diamond and winced, holding awkwardly still as the middle-aged mare obliviously hugged her. As the teacher returned to the studio, Silver rushed over to Sugarcube Corner, glancing at the clocktower on her way over.

“Di, I’m sorry, I-”

“You should be!” Diamond snapped at her. “I’ve been waiting out here for the last half-hour!”

“My class wasn’t even supposed to be out until fifteen minutes ago,” Silver pointed out evenly. “And we got a late-”

“You can give me your excuses when we get home.” Diamond pushed herself away from the table, tossing a few bits on the table and storming down the street, clearing a swath through the marketplace crowd as she went. Nopony wanted to get in the way of the Rich daughter on a good day, but her head snaking back and forth as she practically marched home and the firm set of her jaw made it clear that this was anything but a good day.

Silver followed her, suppressing a sigh. Her ears and eyes darted around, but the other ponies around them all pointedly avoided looking at either young mare, particularly not Diamond Tiara. Twist walked past them with heavy, fragrant saddlebags, and glanced sympathetically at Silver. Diamond’s head pivoted as if she could hear somepony else paying attention to her marefriend, and the curly-haired filly made her escape.

Mercifully, they reached the front door of the relatively modest ‘guest house’ on the Rich estate that they called home without any further altercations. Diamond Tiara opened the door, holding it for Silver to step through. It had been a sweet gesture once. Now, Silver Spoon had to swallow a lump in her throat before she stepped through, leaving the relative safety of the outside, where Diamond wouldn’t want to make a scene.

It had to end.

Diamond followed her in and slammed the door behind her. Silver turned around and opened her mouth to speak, but Diamond was already starting.

“All day,” she said calmly, evenly. It always started like that. “I work for my Dad’s company. I work in a job that he gave me, but I work hard! I’ve fought my way up to being the youngest contract negotiator on staff, busted my tail proving I’m not just Dad’s money, and why?”

“Di-”

“So that we can have something of our own! ” Diamond shouted over her. “Something that we weren’t just handed on a silver platter, like this house, like my job, like everything I’ve ever pretended was mine! And all I ask in exchange? All I ask is that I can trust you!”

“You can!” Silver protested.

“Oh, I can? Then what happened tonight, huh? Let me guess, the foal-fiddler just wanted you to help her clean the closet?”

“Sweet Celestia, Di, she’s married with foals of her own! To a stallion! She doesn’t do anything with any of her students, let alone the young ones!”

“Don’t give me that, I’ve seen her with her hooves all over you!”

“That was one class we took together when we were kids, and she was correcting my form!”

“Oh yeah, she was really concerned with your form all right! With getting your leg up high enough they could see if you were winking from across the room!”

“Di, we were both wearing tights,” Silver sighed. “So was everypony else in the class!”

“And those tights were pretty nice on that Tender Taps, weren’t they?” Diamond continued ranting. “At least he moved to Manehattan so I don’t have to worry about him any more! I know he was trying to take you away from me.”

“I have never cheated on you, Diamond Tiara, and you know that. I’ve never even wanted to. Tender was a friend and a classmate; he was dating Applebloom most of the time we knew each other anyway!”

“Like that would have stopped either of them from going after you if I hadn’t told them off.” Diamond’s eyes narrowed and she stepped closer. Silver Spoon stepped back, keeping her distance as well as she could.

“And now you’re taking these ‘modelling classes’ with the dance teacher, for some reason, because I guess you don’t have enough ponies ogling you already! What am I supposed to think when you’re actually taking classes on getting ponies to stare at you?””

“So I don’t get to do anything to help us build a life?” Silver snorted. “What am I supposed to do, Diamond, just sit here and keep the house clean?”

“Why do you have to do this though? Why don’t you take up painting, or write, or any of a thousand other things that don’t involve you flashing your teats at a camera while some producer changes the sheets on the casting couch?”

“Di,” Silver said patiently, “you know I’d never do anything like that.”

“Do I, Silvy? And even if I do, what does it matter when some of those scumbags don’t take ‘no’ for an answer? I’m trying to keep you safe!”

“I can take care of myself! And for your information, ‘some of those scumbags’ came by the studio today and-”

“I knew it!” Diamond shrieked and swept a vase off the end table. “I knew there was a reason you were late!”

“And I’m leaving, Diamond!” Silver shouted over her.

Diamond Tiara stared at her marefriend, trying to process the words in some way that made sense.

“What, they hired you for a shoot?” She asked, trying to build her momentum back up.

“They hired me for a job, Diamond. A long-term job. That I’m moving for.”

“And you just took it, without even asking me about this? Where are you even moving to, I’ll have to commute I-”

“I didn’t say we’re moving for it.” Silver said evenly. “I’m done, Diamond. Today just proved it. I’m sick of you always suspecting me, always suspecting everypony around me? I’m sick of all of it! I’m not some whorse, and even if I were, you know what? At least I wouldn’t feel like a canary in a cage with the cat!”

“Oh please, I’ve never hurt you and I never would!” Diamond protested. “How can you make out like I’m doing something wrong, all I’m doing is-”

“Is smothering me, Diamond!” Silver cut in, fighting to keep from crying. She wasn’t going to give Diamond the satisfaction of seeing that. “I can’t be five minutes late without you thinking I blew the cashier for the groceries! We don’t even have friends any more, not after you ‘told off’ Applebloom for asking the both of us out on a double date! I want a life, Di, and I can’t have it here with you!”

Diamond stared at her, her expression darkening as everything sank in.

“Well maybe if you’d just make up your mind what you like so I don’t have to worry about you fucking every other mare and stallion in town, I wouldn’t be so worried!”

Silver Spoon stared at Diamond, the house dead silent as the businessmare’s words seemed to echo through it.

Silver Spoon’s hoof came up and slapped Diamond across the face. Diamond barely felt it, though she knew it would bruise later.

“You’re as bad as your mother,” Silver seethed. She ran past her stunned marefriend, barely glancing behind her to make sure she wasn’t being followed before she opened the closet and dug a duffel bag out of the back. Slinging it over her neck, she ran out of the house and down the street.

Diamond finally turned around, running back to the door, but Silver was already halfway across the grounds, running towards the Ponyville Station. She closed the door, resting her forehooves and forehead against the wood, starting to shake as she absorbed what had just happened, what she’d said.

She slowly returned to all fours, stepping back into the house she’d shared with Silver Spoon. She looked around, seeing art on the walls they’d picked out together. Photos they’d taken together. The flowers she’d bought for Silvy the day before were already on the floor amidst shattered crystal.

Diamond looked around the home she’d been building, and she screamed.

Later that night, Filthy Rich awoke from the ledgers he’d been napping on when he heard Alphonse knock politely at the door to his office in the Rich mansion. Snorting and blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he turned to face his butler.

“What time is it, Alphonse?” He yawned.

“Half past midnight, Sir. Sir… Diamond needs you, she’s in the front room and very upset. I left her with Merry taking care of her. I gather… there was another fight between herself and Silver Spoon, Sir. A very final one, from the sound of things.”

Filthy was out of his chair as soon as he heard the word ‘Silver,’ and pushing past his elderly butler almost before he was done speaking. He broke into a canter, then a gallop once he was down the stairs and could see into the front receiving room.

He got through the door just as Merry, their pastel-green unicorn maid, finished bandaging Diamond’s hooves. All four of them were wrapped in gauze, an open first aid kit sitting between his maid and his miserable looking daughter.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir, I believe there’s a mess that needs cleaning up,” Merry said politely, standing and closing the first aid kit with a sharp click before carrying it out. “I’ll be back once I’ve finished.”

“Thank you, Merry,” Filthy sighed, going over to take her spot on the couch next to Diamond Tiara. He put a leg around her shoulder, pulling her close into a hug and resting his muzzle against her mane.

He could smell powdered drywall there, stuck in her mane. A glance at a nearby trash bin showed bloody bits of glass and wood pulled from her hooves. He held his daughter close, rocking her back and forth, and not asking any questions as she started to sob brokenly against him.

Back on the train, Diamond’s eyes were closed as she cried silently, occasionally reaching up to wipe away her tears.

”How can I ever make it up to you?”