Most days, Diamond Tiara isn’t bothered by clear skies. Or open skies, for that matter. She, like everypony, loves the warm caress of Princess Celestia’s sun on her coat, invigorating even in the throes of winter. She misses it when the clouds cover the sky and runs from the rain when the sun leaves early.

But when she looks up and sees Clear Skies and Open Skies arguing over the clear, open skies? It’s a sad reminder that Ponyville’s head weathermare isn’t around, for all the chromatic-maned pegasus gripes about getting up after her morning run and nap to make sure everything runs smoothly. At least the missing ponies aren’t locked up. Hopefully. Though the struggles of the two assistant chiefs translates far too easily to the rest of the town.

Take Sugarcube Corner. The cheery exterior doesn’t compensate for the lack of Pinkie Pie hawking her latest confectionery masterpieces outside or the… wait, bright windows? And the open sign on the door advertising some special? That isn’t how the Cakes run things.

Despite already having eaten she pushes open the door, curious who is inside.

Nopony is at the counter, but a few subdued groups of ponies munch on decidedly non-customary breakfasts of tall stacks of hay pancakes and syrup. Curiously, they all have little notepads and pencils next to them. The front display cases are nearly empty, none of the specialty cakes or pies or muffins that normally grace the bakery anywhere to be seen. Somehow even the carefree swirls on the ceiling seem somber. Or maybe it’s just the fact that there isn’t a sugar-filled pink streak taking her order as soon as she steps hoof through the door.

Diamond Tiara steps up to the counter, scanning back and forth like it is a seedy salt bar. She barely has to stand up and reach to ring the bell next to the register. Such a difference from just a short year ago! She could barely see over the counter then, even standing on her hind legs.

“Be right there!” comes the muted call from the back kitchen before the door swings open, revealing Meringue sitting on a counter surrounded by a dozen full bowls of mix. Lemon deftly carries a towering plate of pancakes in her teeth and easily balances two just-as-tall stacks on her back. She brightens as she spots Diamond Tiara, somehow smiling through the plate, and bounds over to her as soon as she makes the delivery.

“Hey, D-T! What can I get you? Meringue’s doing some A-L testing again, so pancakes are half off! Five bits if you want a whole dozen!”

“No, thanks, I… Wait, five?” Diamond Tiara eyes Lemon suspiciously. “Aren’t you losing bits at that price?”

Lemon raises a hoof, twisting it back and forth. “It’s for science?”

As much as Diamond Tiara wants to take advantage of such a deal? It would be unbecoming to carry the leftovers out of the shop with her. She shakes her head. “No, thank you.” She glances out the window, but can’t see the missing library from this angle. “I already ate.”

“That’s cool.” Lemon glances at the door as two pegasi walk in, reeking of sweat and damp feathers. “Be right with you!” she calls before turning back to Diamond Tiara. “So, what brings you here?” A worried look flashes across her face, but she perks back up instantly. “It isn’t about yesterday, is it? It’s, just, more and more ponies were coming back, and the Cakes weren’t among them. Somepony has to keep Sugarcube Corner up and running, it’s not like we can just shut everything down every time there’s a crisis and-”

Diamond Tiara holds up a hoof, silencing Lemon’s upcoming rant. The yellow earth pony offers a toothy grin, mercifully silent. “No, it’s not that.” A nervous tremble enters her voice. “I-I was just wondering.” She glances around the store, the two pegasi waiting at the counter watching her curiously. “Do you have time to talk?”

“Talk?” Lemon brightens. “Yeah, sure! Lemme just get you set up over here. Can I get you something to drink? We have apple juice, lemonade, pear juice, orange-”

Diamond Tiara waves a hoof dismissively. She knows the menu, having spent many a school lunch in the bakery. And then she nearly slaps herself. Of course! You have your loss leader that gets the pony in the store, the pancakes, and whatpony wouldn’t need something sweet to wash down the fluffy, sticky confections? Did they learn that sort of business technique from Pinkie Pie or the Cakes, or did they just stumble upon it randomly?

Still, she is a little thirsty. “You have hot chocolate, yes?”

“With the little marshmallows?” Lemon nods, grinning. “And it won’t be larger marshmallows cut into smaller pieces. You only make that mistake once.” She winks as she stops at the corner booth furthest from everypony else.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo are already there. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle glance up from their plates of pancakes while Scootaloo remains slumped over next to an empty plate, lightly slumbering.

“Hey, DT!” Apple Bloom greets with a chipper wave. Her head tilts slightly at the serious expressions on Lemon and Diamond Tiara’s faces. “We were just about to head back to the castle! Though we might need to stop at the farm first.”

Lemon briskly trots away as Apple Bloom pokes Scootaloo in the side. The pegasus grunts as she opens one eye to glare at her sister.

“Actually, this is perfect,” Diamond Tiara whispers as she hops into the booth. “I wanted to ask you...”

The conspiratorial tone draws Scootaloo out of her funk, the three Crusaders leaning in.

“What is it?” Sweetie Belle asks, flipping aside her curly pink and purple bangs to better focus on the earth pony.

“Well,” Diamond Tiara hedges. It’s not a conversation she thought she would ever have and isn’t sure how to continue. Only ten of the thousand changelings came to Ponyville. They went to larger herds or more prominent ones, like hers, and ponies don’t really talk about them like they talk about everything else. It gives her a poor baseline to compare, and she doesn’t like that, not one bit.

Her words blurt out, more direct than she might have intended. “What’s it like having a changeling in your herd?”

The three Crusaders raise an eyebrow with eerie synchronization.

Scootaloo begins. “Who, ‘Cellus? She’s cool, I guess.”

“Keeps to herself, mostly,” Sweetie Belle adds. “I think she’s shy. Or because she’s used to working alone.”

“Ah haven’t spent too much time with her, either,” Apple Bloom concedes. “She’s been workin’ on one of the barns, gettin’ Big Mac’s help on occasion.”

“Big Mac?” Diamond Tiara says, brow furrowing. It’s too similar to her own dilemma to not notice. “Do you think she and Big Mac ever did… anything else?”

“Anything else?” Sweetie Belle asks innocently, only for Scootaloo to snicker loudly. Sweetie Belle’s glare is brief, especially when she realizes it is having no effect, and turns back to Diamond Tiara, again smiling like there is a halo above her head.

“Does she ever ask you…”

Diamond Tiara trails off. It’s not like they don’t know about this stuff, right? The four of them, five if you count Silver Spoon, all got their lesson in anatomy from Big Mac together, after all. They’re good friends, like when they helped her win School Pony President and get her cutie mark! It shouldn’t be so awkward to talk about this with them!

The other three stare at her, waiting for her to continue.

Diamond Tiara reluctantly does. “To do things with her?” She makes a little motion with her forelegs, hooves tapping against each other. “Weird things?”

“You mean like when she needed love?” Scootaloo shrugs nonchalantly. “Sure. It was, what, once a week?” She glances at her sisters.

“It wasn’t that often,” Apple Bloom corrects. “‘Cause there’s a bunch of us. ‘Specially compared to the Rich herd. Ah mean, it’d be friendly nuzzles. A long kiss.”

A blush spreads across Sweetie Belle’s face. “Sometimes, she’d use her tongue. That got really awkward.”

Scootaloo interjects with a wicked smirk, “Like the time you gave Spike a hoofjob?”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes go wide, but it’s nothing compared to Sweetie Belle’s. Or how the previously white unicorn matches the pink pony’s coat.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle hisses out.

“You did what?” Diamond Tiara demands, but keeps her voice down. Fortunately, none of the other customers are close enough to hear. Not that everypony doesn’t know about the budding relationship. Spike did turn into a colossal dragon and foalnap her from the schoolhouse in front of everypony. And if that doesn’t end a relationship she isn’t sure what will. At least it’ll be a great story to tell their foals, if they can have them.

“What?” Scootaloo says obliviously, obviously having inherited her dam’s social grace. “I’m just saying, if you used your mouth like ‘Cellus, he might have wanted another one.”

“T-that wasn’t the problem!” Sweetie Belle insists, feverishly looking at anything in the room but Scootaloo. Diamond Tiara’s inquisitive stare gets her to explain. “I-it’s just because he isn’t mature enough.”

“Ah thought he turns sixteen in a month,” Apple Bloom says, confused. “Ah’d almost say he was too old.”

Diamond Tiara stiffens. Most ponies stick to those born close to them, but there aren’t any hard and fast rules. And it’s loosened even more if you transplant from one community to another. But the idea that you are thinking like that about a pony who hasn’t even been born, much less gotten her mark? She knows she needs to wait for Pomarbo to get his, but judging by the rest of their herd she won’t need to wait too long.

“Biologically speaking,” Sweetie Belle elaborates, and she tries to keep her voice from trembling. “Yes, he’s eight years older than us, just like Daddy and most of the mares, but he’s a dragon. We don’t know much about them.” She sticks her tongue out at Scootaloo.

“Yeah, or it could be that your hooves are too rough,” Scootaloo counters, sticking her tongue right back.

Sweetie Belle gasps, rearing back with a hoof against her chest.

“What?” Scootaloo says, glancing at Apple Bloom for support and finding none. “I’m just saying, you don’t use your horn as much as most unicorns, so they look like Apple Bloom’s.”

“Hey!” Sweetie Belle objects. “I go with dam to Aloe’s for a hoof shave and pamper, thank you very much!”

“Did you start after you tried with Spike?” Scootaloo asks snidely.

Sweetie Belle snorts, turning her nose up and away from Scootaloo in a manner very reminiscent of Diamond Tiara.

“Maybe ya should try with your horn,” Apple Bloom suggests guilelessly, drawing a curious glance from the others. “Ya know. It’d be good practice, and Ah’m sure he’d enjoy it!”

“M-maybe,” Sweetie Belle stammers, obviously conflicted. “H-he just said that it hurt, but that it wasn’t my fault or anything. A-and it’s not like anything came out.” She gulps, then turns to Diamond Tiara. “But as far as I know, Ocellus hasn’t done anything like that.”

“‘Cept with Daddy,” Scootaloo corrects.

“None of the mares?” Diamond Tiara asks, carefully keeping her face neutral. It’s hard, she desperately wants to blurt it out. But getting ponies to do what you want them to do doesn’t help if you don’t know what the right thing to do is. And she’d never impugn her dam like that!

“Uh,” Apple Bloom draws out, frowning as she looks between her sisters. “Not that Ah know of?” She turns as Lemon approaches with a mug of steaming hot chocolate. “Hey, L! Has Pinkie Pie ever been, ya know, intimate with Ocellus?”

Lemon doesn’t bat an eye. “She’ll try anything once.” She slides the mug in front of Diamond Tiara, who grins at the dozen little marshmallows making a tiny crown. “But I don’t think she did it again.”

Diamond Tiara harrumphs. Maybe it was a one time thing for her dam, too? Her words come out more spiteful than she means. “Well, what about Big Mac? Think she ever messes around with him?”

A deep scowl crosses Apple Bloom’s muzzle, a rare sight for a normally chipper pony. “That’s mah uncle you’re talkin’ about,” she spits out. “And mah sire. How’d you feel if your dam weren’t gettin’ enough attention, and went to somestallion else?”

“Hey!” Diamond Tiara shouts, drawing the attention of many of the other customers in the bakery. Towering above them on the booth isn’t quite enough, and she stomps her forelegs onto the table. “You take that back! My dam would never do that!”

“She’s not saying she would,” Sweetie Belle cut in, ever the peacemaker. It does little to soothe Diamond Tiara’s fury. “But do you think I was happy when Rarity thought about finding somestallion else? Even with Daddy’s okay?”

Diamond Tiara’s breath catches in her throat. She never suspected there is or was that kind of rift in the Apple herd. She retreats to the booth, tucking her head down.

“Of course not!” Sweetie Belle huffs. “It’d mean I wasn’t good enough!”

“You’re good enough,” Scootaloo consoles, nuzzling her sister. It brings a small smile to the unicorn. Scootaloo frowns, looking back at her wings. “Me, on the other hoof…”

“Don’t talk that way,” Apple Bloom commands sternly.

“Yeah!” Lemon cuts in. “Besides, all your dams are having another!” She winks at Scootaloo. “Even if Dash is only doing it 'cause she found some old-fangled way of proving her Loyalty.”

Scootaloo snorts. “Yeah,” she concedes, snickering as she shakes her head. “During her heat? She wouldn’t even give Daddy a muzzlejob. Any other time? She’d jump him faster’n anymare.”

“I always thought of the changelings as any other mare,” Lemon says, shrugging. “In the herd, at least. And some mares like to foal around with other mares. It doesn't mean they’re neglected or anything.”

“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara says ambivalently. She feels a lot better about seeing her dam and Thorax together. “And the changelings would get love from anypony, mare or stallion.”

Lemon nods. “And it’s been, what, a week? Less than that? Since the changelings don’t need to steal love. Now that they don’t need to be shacked up to some big herd that can provide that love?” She shrugs again. “I bet we’re going to see some big changes around here.”

“Not that there hasn’t been enough of that already,” Diamond Tiara says with a wide smirk. She raises her hoof as she looks over at Lemon. “You know, maybe I will take some pancakes.”

Lemon grins as she taps that hoof, then bounds over to the kitchen.

Next Chapter: Ch. 15 - Survival Instincts, Part One Estimated time remaining: 29 Hours, 53 Minutes