CHAPTER 4

Rarity and Sweetie Belle sat on chairs next to each other. Sweetie Belle was looking down pensively. As Rarity looked at her little sister, she couldn’t prevent a feeling of melancholy from creeping up in her heart. She turned toward the therapist who was sitting on the other side of the desk.

“I'm worrying, Doctor. She hasn't spoken to me or even smiled once during the last two days…”

Doctor Starsong adjusted her glasses on her muzzle with a wing while nodding. She turned toward the younger sister and asked, “Sweetie Belle, do you wish to talk to me alone?”

Without looking back up, Sweetie Belle nodded.

“Alright.” Doctor Starsong turned back to Rarity. “If it's okay with you?”

“Of course. If that is what Sweetie Belle wants.” Rarity walked out of the room.

Sweetie Belle looked up at Starsong once she heard the door closing behind Rarity. She said, “I don't know if I can really tell you everything.”

“I won’t force you to tell everything. And I promise that whatever you say, it won’t come out of this room, unless it's from your own mouth.”

Sweetie Belle inhaled. “Okay… I– I will try to… explain some of it…” She sobbed a little, then swallowed her saliva. “So… Opalescence, Rarity's cat… I know why she disappeared. It was… my fault… kinda…”

Doctor Starsong didn’t say anything. She simply nodded as she listened.

“And…” Sweetie Belle continued. “It earned me my cutie mark.”

Sweetie Belle lifted her cape, which she had been wearing since the incident, showing the mark that had appeared on her flank that fateful night: a silver key that oddly bore a strong resemblance to the one which hung from her necklace. She then let the cape fall back over her, hiding the mark.

“It sounds… like a complicated story.” Doctor Starsong commented.

The young unicorn simply nodded. She appeared silent once again, looking at the floor.

“You know that Rarity doesn't blame you, right?”

Sweetie Belle nodded once again, hesitantly.

Starsong placed her hooves under her chin. “You know what I think you two need?”

Sweetie Belle shook her head.

“You need some bonding time together.”

Sweetie Belle looked back at the therapist.

“You two sound like very loving and understanding sisters. There is no bad blood between you both, so you shouldn't let whatever happened that night break your relationship. That’s why I'm proposing that you two get to spend some time together, having fun.” Starsong smiled gently at Sweetie Belle. “What do you think?”

Sweetie Belle scratched her chin, looking at the door behind her, then back at Doctor Starsong. “Okay… We could try… It's not like I could hide my cutie mark for very long anyway.”

****

“What's the name of the play, by the way?” Silver Spoon asked Diamond Tiara as they sat down on their seats, in the front row.

“It's called The Frenemy,” Diamond Tiara responded. “It's fiction, but it's somewhat loosely inspired by Princess Platinum's relationship with Clover The Clever.”

“I see…” Silver Spoon took a mouthful of her popcorn as the lights in the theater went dim and the stage was being spotlit, indicating the start of the play.

As the audience stopped chatting among themselves, a mare walked on the stage. She announced: “I'm about to tell you the story of two friends. One was a princess, the other a baroness. What brought them together wasn’t their interests, but rather, their gold and social class, nothing else.”

◇◇◇

Two ponies were walking down the castle halls. The first one, a pink unicorn mare with a purple mane, was clearly looking tired. “Walking, walking, over here, over there. That's it!” She turned toward the other pony. “Baroness, I need porters to carry me, quick!”

The other pony, a gray pegasus mare with glasses and a chic suit and bowtie, rolled her eyes. “Just to go from your bedroom to the room across? Please! I know you're lazy, but this is ludicrous.”

The unicorn took offense in that statement. “You do not talk to me in that tone, Baroness!”

The baroness sighed. “And you can just insult me minutely, Princess?”

The princess, clearly not taking this well, snapped back. “Shut up! Should I remind you that I outrank you?” She paused, then took on a sinister tone. “Be careful, Baroness, for I'm richer too. You would be better off on my good side, my friend. All of my enemies wish they could make amends.”

The baroness wasn’t at ease, but she tried to keep a straight face. “I… understand, Princess. I won't bother you more.” She fixed her bowtie and walked away, not looking back at the princess.

“You better not, Baroness. You don't want a war.” The princess stood in silence for a while. She looked down at her legs, then shot her head back up. “Baroness, come back here and fetch me some porters!” She waited for a while, hoping for the baroness to come back, in vain. She grunted. “Why can't my underlings just follow my orders?”

**

The baroness had gone for a walk in town. It wasn’t too unusual for her to go in the streets of her barony alone. She liked to talk to the town ponies to hear what happened in their daily lives, to be in touch with them. That was something that she was heavily discouraged to do when around the princess, who she was often demanded to accompany, whether it be for a trip, a ball, or just to chit chat. Today however, the princess was waiting in her castle for her staff to bring her porters, so the baroness would have some alone time in town.

The baroness trotted in front of a boulangerie and stopped to think for a moment. “Maybe I could buy myself some bread for a snack,” she said. She adjusted her glasses in reminiscence. “I don't recall ever coming here in the past.” She entered.

Inside, there was a white earth pony with a curly, pink and purple mane who was baking bread. She turned her head around as the entry door's bell rang to see her new client. “Ah, isn't that the baroness? Welcome! Welcome!” She took the now baked bread out of the oven and placed it on display with the rest. “What brings you here today? Surely not my bread buns.”

“Actually, your bread is exactly why I'm here.” the baroness replied in a friendly tone. “But if you want more from me, then talk, I'm all ears.”

“Well, a good chat would be a good start, wouldn't it?” the baker said as she leaned on the counter. “I reckon you don't come here often to visit. So tell me: what brings the baroness here today in my humble boulangerie besides what I bake?” she said, as she put the baroness's bread into a paper bag.

The baroness sighed. “I just wanted to get out of those castles and talk to real ponies that don't make all things so bland.” The baroness threw her forelegs upward in exasperation. “Seriously, I just had one who wanted porters to move her across her own hallways and quarters!”

The baker chuckled. “That sounds amusing.”

The baroness joined in the chuckles while she paid for her bread. “Trust me, it's annoying. The princess is someone I prefer avoiding.” She stopped chuckling and frowned. “Alas, as her ‘friend’, I can’t abandon her.”

The baker cocked her head. “Are you two really friends?”

“No, I just can’t stand her,” the baroness replied, while taking the bread she had bought with a wing. “But enough about me. How was your day, Baker?”

“Is there much to say about a quaint bread maker?” the baker said cheerfully.

It turned out, there indeed were a bunch of things to talk about from the baker's life. Things that the baroness found way more interesting than her boring castle life.

The two bonded together rather quickly, first over small talks and conversations, but soon they would start to hang out regularly. Whenever the princess wasn’t dragging her along with her, the baroness came to the boulangerie to spend time with her newer friend.

Over time, the baroness would start to rethink her relationship with the princess.

◇◇◇

Later that day, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon left the theater.

“That was boring,” Diamond commented. “The play went on for waaay too long. Also, they were trying so hard to make the princess look like the villain it was actually pathetic.”

Silver Spoon didn’t listen to Diamond Tiara's rambling, nor did she even make it look like she paid attention to it. Instead, she was making herself her own opinion on the play.

She thought about the characters, and their arcs…

Then she thought about her own life, and compared it to the play…

‘I can’t keep hanging out with her,’ Silver Spoon finally thought, while glancing at Diamond Tiara.

Author's Note

I'm trying something with this. I hope you will like the way it'll pay off in the next chapter.

Also, yeah, Starsong is a therapist in this universe. Go figure.