Spoiled Rotten, Diamond Rough

It was one of those rare weekends. She had no homework to worry about, no obligations to meet. Winter had been wrapped up weeks ago; the afternoon sun shone cheerfully overhead while a few clouds played the laziest game of tag beneath. The weather was perfect. Still, the forecast wasn’t looking good for Diamond Tiara.

She kicked at a stone, sending it skittering down the platform, as she waited with her friends at the Canterlot train station.

One of them noticed her mood and her muttering and tried to offer some sympathy, in her own way. “Stuck with your mom for the whole weekend? Forget it,” Scootaloo exclaimed, buzzing in from one side of the platform to the other on her skateboard with the low roar of wheels on wood and the occasional crack of a botched trick. “I’d just stay at the school.”

She glowered up at the perfect sky, her brows low and heavy over lashes dark with just the right amount of mascara. “I don’t even want to go!”

“Then why are you going, Di?” asked Sweetie Belle, her mane as full-bodied as she had become, bouncing with her every skipping step.

She lifted her head and tossed her own mane behind her ear, straightening the white streaks through a mane of pale violet ringlets. She hadn’t worn a tiara outside of a pageant in years—aside from the one on her hip, of course—but the glint of light across her curls and her simple pearl earrings made up the difference. “Well, I mean, it’ll be nice to spend some time with Daddy, at least.”

Silver Spoon’s eyes lit up behind her tortoiseshell frames. “Oh, will Mr. Rich be there?”

“He’d better,” Di muttered. “If not, this is going to be the worst weekend of my life.” Even a few days spent studying political science and city planning until her brain melted and ran out her ears would be better than a day and a half alone with her mom.

Scootaloo snorted and ollied over a gap, spinning the skateboard beneath her with one hindleg and landing with a thump as the board escaped her again. “It’s about to be Apple Bloom’s, too, if she doesn’t hurry up.”

“Girls!” a young mare called in a rich twang, so on cue that Sweetie Belle would have nodded appreciatively if she’d been paying attention. “I’m here!” she panted, breathing hard enough to strain the ends of the bandanna she’d tied into a bow on the back of her neck.

“Just made it, slowpoke.” Scoots tousled her mane on the way past.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Apple Bloom dug hurriedly through her satchel. “It’s worth it, I promise. You know how you were talking all week about how much you were dreading this weekend, right, Di?”

Immediately Di felt her shoulders tense. “Oh, Bloom, tell me you don’t have another of your plans in mind—”

“Ta-da!” She fished out a pair of vials, one full of bright red liquid and the other bubbly blue.

“Oh. You do,” Di said, accepting the vials with a strained smile. “Great.”

Bloom swept a book from her satchel and showed it off for all the girls to see. It was an old tome, the cover more dust than paper, so old that the girls had to strain themselves to read unfamiliar letters and unfamiliar spelling.

“The Alchemists’ Alchemical Alch-thology of Alchemy?” Sweetie Bell read aloud. The name alone made Di snort in derision.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s better than it sounds.” She opened the book and pawed through it, an eye on the train and an eye on the pages as she searched. “Listen, Di, I know how you and your mom get, and I know it’s been getting worse with your dad away all the time—”

A buzzcut buzzed past with a buzz of little wings. “That woman needs to get laid.”

“Scootaloo!” Silver Spoon barked, reaching out to swat her and falling far short. “That’s her mom!”

“Yeah, and her mom needs to get laid!”

“Can we not talk about my mom and dad’s sex life until I’m out of earshot?” Di asked glumly, keeping an eye out for any funny looks from passersby.

“Girls, seriously! I got something that I think might help. Check this out... ” She spun the book around and passed it to Di.

The calligraphy upon the offered page was so worn that her eyes drifted away from the faded title to the potion’s description. “‘If one of the mares in your life is causing a... a fuss…’” She glanced at Bloom, who urged her onward. “...‘keep her docile with a taste of Braided Chain’s Amenable Elixir!’”

“That’s the blue one.”

Di stared at the vial as if the bubbles within might pop under pressure at any moment. “Three drops in her glass, and she’ll be feeling sleepy in just forty winks—’ How fast is forty winks?”

Helpful as ever, Sweetie Belle began blinking rapidly.

“Forty winks means a nap, doesn’t it?” Bloom said thoughtfully. “Maybe one of them overnight things.” She shrugged and flipped the page, on the hunt once more. “They’re usually pretty quick. Slip it in her breakfast and see what happens.”

“Why are alchemy texts always so vague and poetic?” Silver Spoon whined.

“Something like ten seconds.”

“That’s the blue one,” Di asked uncertainly, “but what does the red one do?”

“Well, if the Amenable Elixir doesn’t work,” Bloom says, hoofing through to another page, “then try this one.” She showed Di the title: the Domino Draught. “If you can’t avoid an argument with her, at least you can hold your own in one.”

Again Di strained her eyes to read. “Tired of the endless nagging of endless nags?”

“‘Endless nags?’” Silver Spoon muttered bitterly. “Who even wrote this?”

“The Domino Draft will give you the means, the strength, and the confidence—yes, ladies, even you—to handle any mare, any time!’” Di took a moment to process it all. “Wow,” she said flatly. “Sexist much?”

Bloom glanced down at her hooves. “Yeah, the book’s, like, a thousand years old. Maybe that’s why it was in the restricted section.”

Di’s jaw dropped. “Hang on. The restricted section? Of the Canterlot library?”

“That’s how you know it works,” Scoots said reasonably.

“I hope so,” Bloom said, her words a sigh. “Di’s gonna need all the help she can get.”

“I don’t know, Bloom. I’m not really comfortable with the idea of—” Di looked around nervously and leaned in close. “—of drugging my mom,” she hissed as she passed the vials back to Bloom, “let alone with formulas you pulled from the restricted section of the Canterlot library!”

“Formulae,” Bloom said smugly, rolling the potions upon her hoof. “What’s worse, letting Missus “Spoiled-Rotten” Rich sleep in until noon or having her stick her nose in your tail every minute of every day for the next week?”

Di groaned under her breath. “I know, but—” The echoing call of an engine’s whistle interrupted her train of thought.

Scoots put a hoof on each of their shoulders and steered them gently away from the issue. “Argue on the train, girls. You’re off in a couple of minutes, and I’m due for practice in thirty. Big track meet coming up on Monday!”

“Good luck, girls!” Sweetie sang cheerfully, waving and bouncing even more than usual. “Let us know how it goes!”

“Good luck at practice,” Di says to Scoots with a brief hug, “and be careful on that board, okay? We can’t have you spraining a hoof this weekend, can we?”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Di,” Scoots smiled, throwing in a little flex for good measure. “I’m tough as nails. You just worry about yourself.”

She snared Silver Spoon in her forelegs and squeezed as Bloom did the same for Sweetie Belle, and then they hoisted their saddlebags and made for the train. “Thanks again for seeing us off, girls!” Di called. “See you in a couple of days.”

As usual, the train ride from Canterlot was uneventful. Di found herself staring out the window through the pale pink of her reflection, wondering at each station they passed if she might see her father’s face in the crowds or catch him on the way home from this business trip or that. Most of all, she hoped to see him waiting for her at the Ponyville station. Her father was a lot of things to a lot of ponies, but to her he would always be Daddy, and she needed him to be there more than anything else in the world.

The forecast, though…

Her mood wasn’t helped by Bloom’s insistence. “I don’t know, Bloom,” Di said again as the train rolled into their destination, the Ponyville station. “It seems a little skeevy. Besides, you can’t just brew something up out of a restricted text and expect it to be safe! Did you test it at all?”

“I’m familiar enough with the ingredients,” Bloom argued. “Look, Di, if I’m bein’ honest, the two I want to give you, that’s the second dose I brewed up. I made some for myself first, in case Applejack is in one of her moods. That’s when I figured if anyone needs ‘em, it’d be you. But would I ever do something to put AJ in harm’s way?”

“No, but—but this is alchemy!”

Bloom laughed. “Barely! This blue one ain’t no different than a calming herbal tea, bubbles aside, and who doesn’t need a pick-me-up now and then? That’s what the red’s for. Confidence and strength.”

Di sighed through her nose and looked out the window once more. “I could use some of that right now.” There in the center of the crowd, as usual, was Bloom’s sister-in-law, Sugar Belle, standing head and shoulders above the rest astride her husband Big Mac’s back. She studied the faces and cutie marks of Ponyville, some that she recognized and some that she didn’t. “Are you here this time?” she whispered.

“Di,” Bloom said, her voice low. She bumped Di with an elbow and pointed. At the back of the crowd, standing so far from the platform that she didn’t seem to be waiting at all, was an older mare. Lines crossed her forehead not from age but from irritation, half-hidden by the swoop of dark purple bangs. Her stormy teal eyes matched her turquoise dress, which was so ornate that it almost put the gold and pearls and more that decorated her pale pink coat to shame. Spoiled Rich, Diamond Tiara’s mother, did not look pleased.

“Alright,” Di huffed. “You win. Give me the potions.”