More than This

More than This

by Damocles23

Chapter 13: Diamond Tiara

He sees his daughter trotting happily on her way, finally seeing her at peace, or at least something very close to it. This achievement and the smell of the autumn leaves quells his heart; after all, she’s the only thing he will leave in this world and he wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s isn’t perfect, but, then again, nopony is. Least of all himself.

“So, Mr. Rich...” Applejack inches her way toward the stallion on the wheelchair. “Ah hope it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Just a little, old squabble between father and daughter. I’m starting to like them, with time.” He cracks a little smile.

“Ya know, ah heard some of the things she said an’, um, well ah would have slapped her silly if she had spewed so many mean things to me.” She adds a weak chuckle at the end while mimicking a very painful looking slap with the back of her hoof. She sighs in relief under her hat when he chuckles in return.

“You know, she is the reason I wanted to talk with you. Hope you have time.”

“Always have time for friends, Mr. Rich.” She tips her hat to him.

“I’m glad you think so. This is more than I deserve, after all.” His smile falters, while the orange mare approaches him with concerned eyes. “You see, I wanted you to keep an eye on Tiara after, well, after I’m gone.”

The mare looks flabbergasted, but holds her ground, the gleam of a tear hiding under her hat. “Ah guess we have to have come to this, at some point.”

“Yes, we have. I just wanted to know if I could count on you with that. Having somepony older and wiser that can give her advice, somepony that can be a friend or even a big sister for her. She needs the influence of a mare in her life. An upstanding mare, perhaps.”

“Wel’, ah think ah know somepony like that.” She snorts and stifles a little laugh. “Hope ya know what ye’re doin’. Ah don’t think she likes me very much.” She blinks. “Ah don’t think she likes anypony very much.”

“Well, her heart can’t be conquered so easily, but in your case it’s a bit more complicated. When she sees another mare so close to me, well—”

“Yeah, ah can read her like an open book. She actually thinks ah might fancy ya!” The laugh morphs into an embarrassed grin, her hat covering more than half of her blushing face. “Ah mean, no offense but ah know you’re a married stallion.”

The laughter stops dead, not because he doesn’t appreciate levity, but because this is too important for him. “So, I hope I can trust you on this?”

“Of course you can.” The strong, prideful mare stands there with absolute resolution. “But if ya trust me so much, there’s one thing ah have to know: Why aren’t ya tellin’ her the truth about the whole situation? The truth about you, about her father.”

The wheelchair spins, and his back presents itself to Applejack while his eyes dig for something in the horizon

“Because I’m too weak for that.”

Tiara blinks and the silence after the vision ends.

The landscape returns, as depressing as it was before. A vast, charcoal-colored desert encompasses the horizon and extends in all direction, infinite and merciless. There are no moon or stars up there, in the black sky, so the passage of time seems irrelevant. There’s nothing to make her feel less lonely or to pray to or even a landmark, something that could help her find her way. Not that she has any right to pray, now. She feels neither cold nor hungry, just tired. She can’t do anything but walk with no hope of finding somepony or somepony that can help her. There isn’t anything else to do after all: if she doesn’t do it, she may start thinking. Thinking about things that will cause her to scream her heart out.

“I’ve been walking for so long...I think.” Time has lost meaning. She could have been there for years as far as she’s concerned.

Tiara passes a hoof on her face and notices that she’s completely covered in that awful sand. Touching it feels like ash in her hooves and the smell does nothing but confirm it.

She can’t help but cry softly, not because she doesn’t know where she is, stuck in the worst place in the world, not because all of that dirt making her feel so vulnerable and lost, but because of the false hope that keeps plaguing her heart even now.

She could’ve sworn in multiple forms, in every language of the planet and to every possible authority, all the way up the four princesses and even distant, ancient gods that could possibly exist, that she really saw her father in one of those afternoons of autumn that changed her life. She even saw that country bumpkin at his side...talking about a secret.

A lie, a dream conjured by her desperate mind. The only mare who has been dishonest is her. Her and only her. She had the luxury once of blaming the whole world, including Bloom, for her mistakes, but now it’s just pointless and foalish. This place, this loneliness, is just a consequence, a punishment...

Maybe this is Hell, or Tartarus or whatever they should call it: names won’t change a damn thing. All her mistakes and regrets are the only company she should expect, reflected in that black sky and greyish sand, the ash filling her lungs. After what she did to Spoon, to Bloom, to her father, to everypony she ever loved... She has no hope of seeing good ponies like them here, where hope is long dead.

“I hope she’s alright. Please, Celestia...I hope she’s alright.”

In the worst of places under the world, she can only think of her. She remembers her touch, but it doesn’t give her warmth: in this place there’s no room for it. She falls on her haunches and lies her head down in temporary defeat, too tired and sad to think.

“At least I did something good.”

She draws, or at least tries to, Silver Spoon’s face in the sand, her glasses a little too big for her face and a crude, but pleasant, smile right next to Applebloom with a comically oversized bow. It’s the only place in which those two can’t possibly fight, at least. She tries to remember them being happy and at peace, before they fell in love with that magenta colored disaster, but it doesn’t work. The image of the two ponies she loved trying to kill each other is burned in the back of her mind and she always sees it, every time she blinks.

She doesn’t blame Spoon, though. She can’t: It may sound horribly selfish...It is horribly selfish, but she could have avoided this. A long time ago, on multiple occasions, if she had just opened her eyes and noticed Spoon.

Right in the middle, she starts to draw herself but after some details, like her contour or the shape of her mane, she stops, feeling an unstoppable rage at the mere sight of that face and smudges out the figure with an angry stomp.

“Like you can’t imagine them without you...” Tiara snarls out.

She bends down and gives a quick, awkard kiss to the two figures drawn in the sand. She feels the awful taste of ash in her mouth, but is a small price to pay for respite.

It wasn’t that bad.

“What are you talking about?” She remains unfazed, barely giving much thought to the words from the darkness.

You have a place there. You always have.

“You’re right. I ‘had’ a place there. Now it’s gone.” She picks up a hooffull of sand and lets it slowly seep through her grasp back to the ground. “I’m gone. They’re better off without me.” She shakes and weeps, hiding behind a foreleg.

It’s not too late. It’s never too late to make things right.

“AND WHAT DO YOU KNO—”

She spins on herself, turning toward the voice, but the sound of her anger chokes her mouth, seeing it directed at nothing. The voices speak sweet lies once again, but she’ll have none of it this time. Not this time, no... she’s had enough of that. But something seems to be missing: the silence returns with no comforting words to fill it.

“I’m sorry, please talk to me again.”

She never imagined the day she would be begging for the attention of a disembodied voice, but there’s a first time for everything, as they say.

“W-Who are you?” She squints her eyes as hard as possible but they’re not adjusted to the darkness of the place.

A friend.

“Never been the ‘friend-making type’,” she sighs, almost choking out a sob, thinking of Silver Spoon... The thought perishes, leaving her more miserable than ever before. Now is really not the time.

“Alright, ‘friend’. Where are we? Is this Hell? Or worse? And more importantly is there a way to get out? I’m kind in a hurry.” Straight to the point, like the old, brash, uncaring and smirking Diamond Tiara. Always a use for that attitude, even in the darkest of places.

It’s a place in between. Everypony’s got his personal one. It does not spell the end for you.

The voice sounds calm, detached even: The least threatening disembodied voice Tiara has ever heard. It’s the first she’s ever heard, though, so experience means nothing.

You can’t get out until you will think it’s time.

“Not the end? I was pretty sure it was the end for me.” She blinks and pouts, throwing a curious glare at the voice’s general direction, hoping that to be the right one. “Wait, you said that everyponys got one of this ‘in between thingies’. What are you doing here, then? Shouldn’t you pay me the rent, then?” A weak, forced chuckle follows from the mare. It’s the best joke that’s came out in a while, and nopony else will even know it.

Lost ponies belong together. That’s why I’m here.

“So much for answers...” Tiara groans, defeated, and slumps down with her back on the ash, her eyes staring wildly at the immense black ceiling above her.

It’s never too late to make things right, the voice booms back with same patience and soothing tone as before.

She tries not to sound or look relieved at this: she tries not to believe the same sweet lies.

“I tried, but I guess it wasn’t enough.“ Tiara sniffles, while the voice draws closer and yet she doesn’t see anything.

Do you want to talk?

“Don’t have much of an alternative, have I?” All of a sudden, she feels it. Warmth. It seems like ages since she last felt it, like the warmth of a foreleg circling her shoulder. She doesn’t question it and her mind has no place for fear, instead welcoming any sort of relief. “Anything is better than being alone.”

You’re not alone.

“Well, there’s you, I guess. Still better than nothing. I had somepony before, but I guess I’ll never see them again. But they’ll be okay, even better without me.”

The ones you drew, weren’t they?

“Yeah, but they look better in real life, trust me.”

Why did you say that? Better off without you?

“Because I loved them. More than life itself and I brought them only pain. It’s a long story.” She tries to take a look of the voice she’s speaking to, but the veil of darkness wastes her efforts. Even if she should be afraid or at least suspicious...she isn’t. At all. Somehow she knows him and always did. At least she can clearly tell this is the voice of a stallion.

We have time.

“I guess you’re right, we have all the time we need. It all started with my Daddy. I loved him and I lost him forever, all because I was too selfish. The best dad in the world...”

How’s so?

“There was this mare. There’s always one, after all. I loved her, truly. I think I still do...and that’s where my father comes into the picture.”

Was he in love with her, too? A chuckle seems buried halfway in the question.

“I hope not! It would have just been even more complicated.” A nervous smile follows and quietly dies, drowned by a muffled sob. “She made me happy and I made her happy, even though we started out hating each other. It was just little squabbles between little fillies...But you know the thing about little fillies?”

They grow up?

“I like you. You’re smart.” She smirks. “At least she did. The growing up part. Things is, the love of my life just happened to find me in the darkest moment of my life. Even though I was so in love with her, even though with her I felt complete and worthwhile—”

Did you really need somepony else to feel like that?

“Maybe. Maybe if at least a pony loves me...I won’t feel like the villain of somepony’s else story. Nopony loves real villains so, to use an understatement, I valued any kind of love and friendship that were given to me. Even if it was so little...Even if I didn’t deserve it.”

Everypony deserves to be loved, Tiara. Always.

“Not me, after what I did to him. For him, it all started with a mare, too. I guess you could call her my mother. Not that she had any proof of that. But anyway...She left him. Just one day, no explanations, but a flimsy one. I guess there was yet another mare in the picture, if you know what I mean.” She flashes a sultry smirk with little to no sentiment behind it, just to drive home the point.

Ouch. I hope you’re really sure about that.

“I still have nightmares about those screams behind the wall. It’s like I can still hear them.” She shudders. “It all began because of that mare.”

I’m tired of this!a voice sneers, this one different from the fatherly tone that spoke to her moment’s before.

She closes her eyes just for a second and that shrill, hateful voice pierces her brain like a bullet, thoughts and words that aren’t her own except in her nightmares.

I’m tired of you waiting like that. I could be more than some kind of emotional crutch.

The voice sobs and cracks. If that mare were capable of crying, Tiara would swear she was doing exactly that. Something feels missing, though. Or actually, found again...She dares not to whisper that word, but her lips can't stop themselves, "Mom...?"

What happened with yours, then? the other, friendlier presence speaks again, washing away the remnants of that awful moment. It seems like a dream...or a long distant memory. Maybe both. But this supposition falls into pieces as soon as Tiara dismiss it as such.

“She was happy with me. So happy that she didn’t want to hide it from the rest of the world, starting with my Dad. Looking back at it, I think it was the right choice. I owed him the truth and he owed to know that I’m a f—”

She bites her lip to the point of cracking the skin and tasting blood, but she doesn’t feel the pain. She doesn’t feel anything at all, least of all fear or shame.

“...A fillyfooler.” She sighs, “Can’t believe I admitted it.”

It’s just who you are. You shouldn’t be afraid.

“Being what I am is what has caused me all my troubles. I wish I could have just apologized, but...there wasn’t time. I was the thing he probably hated the most and I couldn’t tell him. He saw it!” A whimper, a squeal of pure pain comes from her throat as tears rile her cheeks and warm to a burn on her coat. “He saw it...the thing two mares do when they’re in love,” she repeats, staring at the comforting darkness of her own forelegs.

I’m so sorry for what happened to you, so sorry. I truly am.Tiara can hear his voice break. She can imagine a comforting hoof patting her head. What happened next?

“He couldn’t bear it. I thought I had lost him then and there, but that wasn’t the case. He went on to live for a few more weeks with only the company of that disgusting little thing of a daughter. I had no excuses, and even if he could’ve talked to me, what would have he said? How much I disgusted him? How much I lied, no, Bloom and I lied to him? Even so, I never left his side until he was...gone.” She sniffles again, “I just hope he found some peace without me. Do you think he would have accepted it? I mean, if he knew, if I had told him?”

He loved you. I’m sure of this. That alone would answer that. I think that there was more to that than there seemed to be.

“I really would like to believe that. Just a few words from him, a few clear words, would have been enough. More than I deserved.”

And what happened to your fillyfriend? Surely she couldn’t have left you in a moment like that—

“She did just that.” She stares at the void in front of her, her voice soulless and monotone, barely aware of anything. “She blamed herself more than I did and...did it for my sake. I hated her for it. A lot. But with time I understood her reasons. Besides, I just couldn’t let her go. Once you love somepony like that it’s impossible to stop doing so. It’s not like flipping a switch.”

I never thought that.

“None of the ponies I know think so, sadly. That’s where Silver Spoon comes into the picture. Oh, Spoony...” She sulks. “What have I done to her? I couldn’t be her switch...Why does everypony I touch ends up like that?”

YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!, She prayed to hear Silver just one more time. She got her wish, twisted beyond repair, directly taken from the worst moment of their life.

The six words carve into her conscience and keep booming and echoing in the remains of her heart and soul. She keeps feeling responsible, guilty of neglect, guilty of having stolen Spoon’s heart and condemned her to years of longing and rage. Maybe she knew all these years about those feelings and didn’t act so she could keep watching Spoon’s plight, so she could feel...

Desired.

Fulfilled.

Adored...

“She was my replacement. Yeah, I know it’s horrible. It’s like the whole universe is telling me that.”

I didn’t say anything.

“She was my best and only friend. Never asked anything in return, never judged me and she always had a kind word for me when I felt down. When I was with her, we felt like we could take on the whole world.” A glimmer of light in the abyss, summoned only by words of praise. Not a figure of speech, even. She could swear to just saw it, a glimmer in the distance, even for a second. “She was there for me when everything happened, told me that she loved me and—I guess that was it. Maybe there was something in me that thought the same, that knew it was right, healthy and fair.”

You followed your heart again. That is nothing to be ashamed of.

“I can’t help but to feel like that, at least. Things were looking good, really good...Too good. I could have just lived the rest of my days with her and have been happy for once, but I wanted closure. I just couldn’t be satisfied. I knew I needed to know if it was really the end for me and Bloom. I wanted to know if she really felt that way. Turns out neither of us did. Turns out neither of us could give up the other.”

I guess your best friend thought so too.

“Once again, I was seen in the embrace of somepony I loved and all three of us suffered. They had a fight, totally out of nowhere and---I tried to save her. Silver Spoon, I mean. She was angry, confused and desperate about the whole thing. She would have never seen it coming. Nopony could have see it coming. So I saved her. I wasn’t totally successful as you can gather from the fact that I’m here. But you know what? I deserve this.” She wipes out her tears, unaware of them until they rilie her cheeks, and stands on all fours facing the dark in front of her with dignity. “You said that I can leave whenever I want.”

Kind of.

“But I don’t want to. I won’t cry about that, even. I simply don’t deserve it. I tried and tried and tried to be happy at the expense of the ponies that loved me. No more! No more fathers that have to pay for foalish lies, no more sweet, beautiful mares that have to run away from me for guilt. No more of best friends...” She touches her face to see it completely stained with tears. They have to be: there are no clouds and no pegasi to blame. Pride doesn’t mean anything anymore and sadness is no more a hated companion.

“No more best friends that lose their heads because of me.”

Are you sure about that? Don’t you want to see her again? Don’t you love her?!

“Of course I do, but...I’m afraid of going back to her. I promised myself that I wouldn’t hurt her again and I did just that.”

She will suffer more if you refuse. Give yourself another chance.

“I’ve done enough.” She says in a somber tone, “I was right the first time. I’m poison. The best I could do was saving her life and she would have never been in peril if not for me. I just want to stay here, thinking that I did some good in my life.”

You can’t give up like that. You can’t change what happened and no matter how painful it was, life goes on. It has to. Ponies will always do mistakes, but that doesn’t mean life isn’t worth it. You should go on. At least for Spoon’s sake.

A spark, a glimmer of force flows in her veins. She can see it: a tiny ray of moonlight entering. “What if I’m right about me ruining other ponies’ lives?”

You never did ruin her life, Tiara. Not all things happen because of you. Not all things are your fault. The world turns even without you. For some ponies you may be the center of their world, but it’s their heart that makes their choices.

“You’re saying I should just blame her, instead? Is that it?”

No. I’m saying you should stop shifting the blame onto something or somepony and just live. Cherish what you have and never look back. Go back to her, go back to the ones you love.

“Because they’re so few. M-Maybe you’re right. If I still have a chance. Oh, Celestia. I have to see if-If she’s alright. Maybe she’ll be relieved to see me---No, overjoyed, maybe! Maybe this time I won’t screw up!” She chuckles a bit, “Oh, if I had a bit for every time I said that!”

At least you try. At least you have regrets. At least you still have time. Time to tell the truth and how much you love her...You showed her that you’re willing to die for her. Now she needs somepony to live for her.

“It almost like you’re speaking by personal experience. I-I want to thank you. It’s always nice to have somepony to talk with.” Her hoof wanders in the dark, expecting to meet another one. Instead, she feels an embrace, a strong, caring, comforting embrace that seemed long gone. She isn't afraid, because, somehow, she recognizes the strength in those forelegs. He called her Tiara...

My daughter is not a filly anymore. I love you, Tiara.

“I love you, Daddy. I’m so sor—”

Don’t cry anymore. The only thing I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Now wake up and do so.

She can feel her heartbeat again and that perfect crescent Moon stands tall in the sky.

He sees his daughter still standing at his side after such a long day. He’d like to talk to her, to tell her that he loves her and he will miss her. To tell her the truth and that she doesn’t hate her. He never did.

Too weak and too ill to say that, he sees guilt and shame in her eyes whenever he looks at her daughter, without knowing that his fate was sealed before. The lies he had to forge, even his wife had to play that part...The last thing she said to him was that Tiara didn’t deserve to be left in the dark. The last strain between a mother and a daughter, just to keep the lie from fading.

“You can have anything you want,” he blurts out. Whatever she wants to be, whatever way she wants to live, he will love her. Always. But the words fall on sleeping ears.

She twitches in her slumber, covered up to her chin with a blanket on that old chair, plagued by some bad dream, probably.

He prays to be forgiven and for one last chance. One last moment to comfort and protect her. But this wish will always be a dream. A dream in which he can barely hear a flutter of wings...