“Hey, DT?” Pomarbo doesn’t fully pull himself out from under the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, but his brown foreleg can barely be seen waving about. “Can ya get me that?”

Diamond Tiara stops staring out the barn window, pausing her assessment of all the ponies attending the new School of Friendship. Dam always cautions her about finding potential problems before they find you, but lots of the students are from far-off cities like Vanhoover and Stratusberg where she doesn’t have reliable contacts. Still, it is important to develop the ability to read ponies on your own, and not be wholly reliant on the opinions of others. It helps that many of the new arrivals are more than happy to chat with the scion of the Rich and Milk families, a propensity she exploits to the fullest.

She finds it only slightly disconcerting that Pomarbo doesn’t need to elaborate as to which of the myriad items on the table he is referring to. She grabs the pack of four recharged batteries with her mouth, dreading when he gets to the container of oil that’s blacker than soot and even harder to scrub out, and deposits them into his waiting hoof. She takes care not to show that discomfort; a Rich pony, as her dam would say, only shows her disdain when she means to, and the Apple scion is not a prudent target of that disdain, no matter how much she detests the Cider Squeezy.

No, ‘detests’ is too strong; she merely shares Applejack’s apprehensions about the unicorn-designed-and-powered machine. It’s important to get your descriptions right, her dam says. And it has nothing to do with how much of Pomarbo’s time it occupies! That isn’t… What are they harping on so much at that new School of Friendship? Honesty? Maybe Applejack mentioned it once or twice as well. Regardless, it wouldn’t do to upset the precarious balance between the three pony breeds.

It’s one thing to maneuver during a time of upheaval to come out on top, should these unicorn contraptions become more widespread. What’s next - projectors and screens as tall as buildings, while everypony (and she means everypony) carries around a limitless dragonfire messenger small enough to fit in a knapsack? She has no clue, but more importantly - much like her dam - she doesn’t see a sound and reliable way to profitably ride that storm. What would an earth pony like herself have to offer? She’s heard stories about Twilight during her time at Celestia’s School of Gifted Unicorns, capable of growing a plant faster than an earth pony. A unicorn foal beating out the most capable earth ponies! And, if the tales were true, able to manufacture more of the concoction! With so many alicorn foals along the way, and how many more after that!? If the only thing she has to offer is under her tail…

She scowls, if briefly, then chides herself about letting her countenance slip. She runs through her exercises: six smiles, six frowns, six grins, six neutral, six scowls, and six beams as bright as she can manage. No, she resolves during that time, I will not let that be my most important attribute.

She grabs a set of long screws and screwdriver before Pomarbo needs ask, waits patiently for him to finish pulling out the spent batteries, and makes the swap. She takes them to a device Ocellus helped rig up, that collects ambient magical energy and stores it into said batteries. It runs on organic compounds, much like the Cider Squeezy if less ravenous. She unstoppers a dark jug of cow blood (the concept barely fazes her now), pours it into the tank, and replaces the full carafe of pure water with an empty one.

“Hey, DT!” Cozy Glow’s high-pitched voice calls from the open window. After a brief moment of hesitation the pegasus lets herself in, shuddering as she carefully avoids the closed container of oil.

“Hello, Cozy Glow,” Diamond Tiara replies, coyly batting a bit of her purple mane. The ponytail doesn’t bother her as much, and it helps keep her mane away from getting as gunky. “That extra class over already?” It is Stallionsday, and she’d hate to be stuck in class an extra day, but maybe it would be worth it to enroll at the new School. Not worth giving up School Pony President, though.

“For the most part,” Cozy Glow answers, folding her wings up and peering at the colt working underneath the Cider Squeezy. “Mister Doug took over for Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. He was doing a really good job, too! They were talking about politics and relationships and cannons as deterrents. But once they started talking about bore sizes and flak…”

Diamond Tiara frowns, because that’s what one is supposed to do when that particular topic comes up. Those days are supposed to be long behind them, after all, when earth ponies devised tactics against pegasi. But, she supposes, anything good against a pegasus works against a griffon. Leave it to the human to not know what is appropriate to talk about. Except, aren’t they supposed to be Friends now? “It didn’t go well after that?”

“Oh, golly, no, it was going great. Until Princess Twilight stepped in and made us talk about friendship instead.” Cozy Glow sighs, dejected, and settles against the packed dirt floor. “I mean, I know friendship is supposed to be great and all, but I just don’t see it.”

Diamond Tiara glances at Pomarbo, but the colt is as engrossed as always in the Cider Squeezy. “Well, of course not,” she consoles, keeping her tone saccharine. “You barely knew anypony when you got to Ponyville. Are your friendship lessons going any better?”

“Oh, definitely! I thought I was going to flunk out until you helped me!” Cozy Glow’s grin is missing something, perhaps the way it doesn’t fully extend to her eyes. “It must be nice having your dam as one of the instructors!”

“What can I say,” Diamond Tiara laughs, again batting at her bothersome mane. “It does pay to be a Rich pony.”

“I guess,” Cozy Glow says with a long sigh. “I mean, you have friends, that’s great, you get them to do things for you. I just don’t see how friendship helps the little pony.”

Diamond Tiara allows a thin smile. “Are you saying you don’t want to be friends?”

“Oh, golly! No! Not at all!” Cozy Glow’s curls flip back and forth wildly as she shakes her head. “You’ve been a big help! But, I just don’t know where to go from here. How can a tiny pegasus like me make more friends?”

“Well,” Diamond Tiara soothes, “you have the chess club, don’t you?”

Cozy Glow nods, but stays sullen. “That’s not enough. I need something big, something that makes everypony want to be my friend!”

“Something big?” Diamond Tiara frowns to herself. “Like, turning Nightmare Moon into Princess Luna big? That certainly did it for the Apple herd.” Well, that and Doug helping Princess Celestia out, but she doesn’t want to make her reasons for courting Pomarbo too obvious, even if he is completely oblivious.

Pomarbo’s shudder briefly confuses her until she realizes why her tactless mention of Nightmare Moon might bother him. His prone position exposes the long scar between his foreleg and barrel, two hairless ridges of skin that stubbornly refuse to heal together, even with stitches and magic.

“Yeah! Something like that!” Cozy Glow’s momentary elation doesn’t last long. “Aww, but there aren’t a whole bunch of villains just waiting to be reformed. The Storm King is playing nice, King Sombra got defeated, the changelings are on our side. And how would I go about reforming them, anyway?” She slumps over, making little circles in the dirt with a hoof. “Wait! That, um, centaur. Tiwek!”

“Lord Tirek?” Diamond Tiara slowly nods. “I heard he got locked back up in Tartarus. But if you’re trying to change somepony, the first thing you need to figure out is what they want, what they’re after. That’s what Twilight did with Queen Chrysalis and the changelings, and look where they are now!”

“Wow,” Cozy Glow stammers, in awe. “You’re really good at this whole ‘friendship’ thing. Why aren’t you a teacher there?”

“I should be, right?” Diamond Tiara grins.

“But how would I go about making Lord Tirek our friend?” Cozy Glow flies to the window, staring outside. “I could go visit him and talk to him!” Diamond Tiara coughs. “Oh, right, Tartarus. Maybe I could send him a letter! We could be, um, what’s it called?”

“Pen pals.” Diamond Tiara glances at Pomarbo, not hiding her trepidation. “Are you ready for the pan?”

“Eeyup,” the colt calls, grabbing the flat metal sheet and carefully positioning it much like Applejack might move a basket. A few twists later and he waits, takes a breath, and makes a final twist, yanking his hoof away but not fast enough to not get a splash of black oil against his brown foreleg. “Ugh,” he complains, shaking his head and replacing the filter. He slides out from under, pushing the scooter he was laying on against the wall. “There’s got to be a better way than that.”

“Having a horn?” Diamond Tiara laments through the oil container in her mouth.

That gives Pomarbo pause. “Ah suppose it would,” he agrees, even if that wasn’t Diamond Tiara’s intention, before taking the oil and climbing to the open engine block. He wipes the oil-stained hoof against his face, right under his safety goggles, putting a black smear right under the eye. “Ready?”

Diamond Tiara detests this part, and she means to use that word this time. She grabs an oil-stained glove, but it always feels like it seeps through anyway. Why Pomarbo doesn’t care if he gets dirty is beyond her, but more than likely has to do with that sire of his. Urgh.

Wait.

“Cozy Glow, would you like to try?” Diamond Tiara asks in a way that is entirely not asking.

“Um, sure, I guess.” Cozy Glow takes the glove and peers underneath the Cider Squeezy. Black fluid oozes from a circular metal ring, weeping like a grieving dam. It splashes into the flat pan, the ripples fading from the viscous liquid long before they reach the sides. “What do I do?”

“He’s going to pour some oil into the top,” Diamond Tiara explains patiently. It wouldn’t do to have her patsy - no, assistant - flake out on her. “It’ll force the rest of the old oil out, so we have to wait a few seconds. Then you tighten the filter. Righty-tighty.”

“Righty-tighty,” Cozy Glow repeats, looking happy to be involved. She grins as she moves in position, hoof dangerously close to tipping the half-full pan over. Diamond Tiara takes an innocuous (she hopes) step backward. “Ready!”

“Here goes!” Pomarbo starts dumping the oil in, slowly at first.

At first, nothing seems to happen, long enough for Cozy Glow to lean forward as if she might detect the blockage visually. As much as Diamond Tiara would find that hilarious it wouldn’t do; she reaches forward, yanking on Cozy Glow’s tail and pulling her back right as the first glob splurts out and into the pan. “Thanks,” Cozy Glow says, genuinely appreciative.

“Twist it,” Diamond Tiara orders, saved from having to tighten the filter by her earlier action.

“You got it!” Cozy Glow sticks the glove into the ongoing flow, biting at her lip as she shuts the valve. “Done!” She grins, beaming at Diamond Tiara, and picks up the full pan. “Where do you want this?”

“Careful,” Pomarbo cautions as Cozy Glow takes to the air. “It’s very-”

The oil, behaving like a liquid and not a sheet of wood, quickly exaggerates any imbalance in how it is carried. Cozy Glow, unprepared for the sudden shift in weight and attempting to hold on with a slick glove, can’t keep her grip. The entirety of the pan sloshes forward, smack into Diamond Tiara.

“...easy to spill,” Pomarbo finishes after the fact. He gulps.

A tortured shriek splits the air as black hooves paw at screwed-shut eyes, Diamond Tiara’s barrel collapsing into the sodden dirt. Black marrs the white streak of her ponytail, dripping onto her back and down her sides, her tail no less spared.

“I-I’m so sorry!” Cozy Glow lets the rest of the pan spill from her hooves, nervously flitting this way and that, not wanting to land in the brackish mud. “Here, I can-”

“No!” Diamond Tiara opens a reddened, unfocused eye, tracking more by sound than by sight. “Stay away!”

Pomarbo, after emptying the oil can, hops down and grabs the carafe of water. “Tilt your head back,” he commands, not caring how oil splashes on his hooves or how his foreleg gets covered when he helps Diamond Tiara roll to her back and tilt her head. “Eyes open.”

As much as it pains her to do so, Diamond Tiara opens one eye, barely able to hold back her scream as water mixes with tears to wash away the oil. She desperately wants to thrash about, his hoof helping hold her in place. “You owe me,” she spits out to the pegasus above, who returns a nervous nod. “Big time.”

“You two can kiss and make up later,” Pomarbo orders, much like his sire. Diamond Tiara finds herself drawn to the authority in his voice, even if he is a colt. She forces the other open, mostly able to make out the concern in his features through the tears and water spilling into the corners of her eyes. She can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness: here she is, covered in filth, yet wouldn’t want it any other way.

Next Chapter: Ch. 111 - First Snow, Part One Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 27 Minutes