Friendship has a Generous Heart

by Sirius_Face

First published 4th of December, 2012

Can the magic of friendship turn a long time bully into a friend?

Sweetie Belle has always had a heart that knows how to give without wanting anything in return, including second chances. With Rarity's help, she'll try to give the magic of friendship to the last pony she would expect to accept it from her - Diamond Tiara, who is unaware of a plot against her life by a pony driven to the brink by bullies like her.

From the discovery of one filly's strange and unruly unicorn magic, to another filly's desire to define herself as being better than everypony else, Friendship has a Generous Heart will explore a series of events that will reveal secrets and put to the test the magic of friendship against the shadows in our hearts.

“I want to make her your friend!”

The first rays of dawn filtered through the open windows and kissed the nightstand by the filly's bed. A wonder of the world sparkled on it in the morning light – a diamond as large as a lemon, masterfully crafted into the shape of a bell. Only ten were known to exist, three of which were owned by Princess Celestia herself. As the sun warmed the diamond, the unicorn enchantment inside it awoke, and the sweetest ringing began to chime from the diamond bell.

It was from that soft melody that Diamond Dazzle Tiara awoke.

She had slept well in her king-sized bed, both the mattress and pillow made with expensive memory clouds contained inside a mattress. The nest of sheets over her were thick silk, soaked in vibrant hues that brought out rich rose reds and stunning pinks, as if the color was stolen from the twilight skies and bottled, just to make the finest bed sheets for the best filly in Equestria.

What had made her rest so nice wasn't the luxury she was resting in – that of course was common everyday pleasure – it was from one of half a dozen pillows on her bed that she had wrapped her front legs around. Silver Spoon had slept holding the very same pillow two nights ago, and the filly owned a perfume that reminded Diamond of freshly blossomed sweet pea flowers bathed in fresh rain; that perfume had lingered on the pillow.

Mmm, I’m going to see you later tonight. It’s going to be just you and I, and every clothing and jewelry store in all of Canterlot. No crummy second-rate school with a bubble-head teacher and peasant foals breathing our air - I can’t wait to see my best friend.

Though the bed tempted her to stay under the warm covers, Diamond Tiara pulled herself away, off the elevated bed onto a thick bearskin rug imported from the Frozen North. She had her bed on a raised platform, rather liking high places where others had to raise their heads to look at her. The platform also had coals inside it that her personal unicorn butler would ignite, which would serve to preheat the bed before Diamond Tiara would retire for the night.

Behind her, the enchanted diamond bell still rang its tune, and Diamond didn't mind the early morning music. Nothing in the world could create so pure a sound as a hollow diamond, and nothing was more fitting than to have such a treasure ring with praise for its owner every morning. It was flawless – like her.

She approached the double-oak doors of her bedroom and tapped on it twice, then walked away to her three mirror vanity to inspect herself. The doors opened softly and a green unicorn entered, dressed smartly in a butler’s jacket. “Good morning, princess.”

It was one of the many rules of Diamond's home that the help showed proper respect to her family by addressing them according to title. Her father was the master of the house of course, and referred to as “Lord Rich”. At his side was the second-in-command; her, the princess of the manor.

“I'll be having breakfast in my private living room. Have the morning paper brought to my table. Also, have the chef prepare a lunch for two. I'll be traveling with company tonight.” Diamond paused as she took in her reflection. Her mane was a little dis-heaved, her coat needed a brushing as well. “After I've eaten, I'll be taking my morning bath.”

The butler kept his head bowed, waiting still. Diamond Tiara had to recall that her father was away at Manehatten on business, and wouldn't be returning for a week. It was day four of that week, and she couldn't think of anything else that would be worthy of her attention other than a full day of shopping with her best friend.

“That is all, you're dismissed.”

The butler gave a stiff nod to the back of Diamond Tiara's head and wordlessly left her room.

The diamond bell had stopped ringing, though Diamond never noticed when it actually stopped. Her attention was on the vanity mirrors reflecting back to her a winning smile. Little photos were stuck into the gold trim of the mirrors, mostly photos of herself and Spoony, some with her father, but every morning there was only one photo she paid attention to first.

It was a simple polaroid taken over a year ago, kept in a frame trimmed with flawless sapphires and emeralds. In the frame was a picture of herself, standing on a stage surrounded by roses that had been tossed at her. Her smile in the photo wasn't smug, but a rare smile of genuine happiness. It was a side shot of her, mane perfectly styled, coat shiny and silky, smiling with that happy angelic smile she never made nowadays, and sporting the moment her cutie mark appeared. It was the day she discovered herself and how good it was to be her.

In a glass display case against the wall of her bedroom, several pieces of jewelry rested on royal blue velvet. The choice piece of her collection was the diamond tiara she always wore, tipped with three round cut blue diamonds and two sky blue diamonds. The actual tiara itself was twenty four karat white gold.

Her smile twisted into a smirk. It certainly was good being her. She turned her eyes back to the vanity mirrors, admiring what she saw as she placed the tiara on her head. It was early morning, but in a couple of hours she would be out of the backwater town called Ponyville. There was shopping to be done, snacks to be eaten, drinks to be shared, and better company that what was currently around her to be enjoyed.

This day was going to be perfect, Sweetie Belle told herself as she trotted by her big sister's side. She had thought it would have taken quite a lot of work to convince Rarity to take her on a gem excursion, but Rarity had surprisingly agreed rather quickly to the idea. Sweetie Belle only had to swear up and down and left and right that she would listen completely to what she was told, go only where she was told, and do nothing that would cause even the idea of trouble.

The gem fields were a few miles away from Ponyville, and they had left just before dawn. Celestia’s sun was just starting its journey when the sisters arrived at the desired spot.

“Hmm, I believe this will be good enough,” Rarity said after a moment of taken in her surroundings. Sweetie Belle sighed with relief, letting go of the small wagon she had been pulling with her tail. She had been so eager to leave with her sister that she insisted she pull the little red wagon that Spike normally pulled for Rarity, allowing her to save up her magic for casting the gem-seeker spell. Rarity would never think to physically pull her own wagon.

It was that very spell, the one to which Rarity owed her cutie mark to, that Sweetie Belle was going to learn tonight. Many ponies may have thought that Rarity’s special talent was making dresses, and in some ways that was true, but her true talent was gemstones. No one could find gems as well as Rarity, and if that kind of talent ran in the family then there was a high chance that Sweetie Belle could earn her cutie mark in finding precious stones – she could have a talent that would match her big sister!

“Great! So when do I start finding gems?” Sweetie asked, positively beaming.

Rarity glanced back at her sister’s glowing complexion with a stifled giggle. “Well, first I simply must explain the method I use to sense where gems are in the ground. It is rather sensitive magic that not many unicorns can use – even Twilight has had trouble focusing in on her surroundings to detect anything more than average crystals.”

“TWILIGHT has trouble with this spell? But... how am I suppose to cast this spell if even she had trouble using it?”

“I only said that she has trouble finding anything more than crystals. Twilight can cast this spell just fine, but she can’t fine tune it the way I can. Any unicorn could cast this spell and find a crystal or a gem here and there, and depending on how strong that unicorn is with magic, the results will be different. To my understanding, Twilight can sense and see gems in the ground when she casts this spell. However, if she were to look some specific type of gem, she wouldn’t find it right away, or at all. It’s all about practice, learning not just how to cast the spell but how to understand it as well. I have full faith that you will be able to cast my gem-seeker spell, and if you keep practicing with it, you’ll even be able to fine tune the spell the way I can.”

The look of concern and self doubt on Sweetie Belle’s face instantly transformed into a grin that stretched as wide as Rarity had ever seen on her little sister before. Rarity’s explanation made complete sense to her now.

“It’s just like leveling up my character in a game! I can start with the basic spell, and keep practicing until I reach the maximum level. If I spend all day level grinding, I’ll get the hang of it and at the end of the day we’ll come home with a wagon full of diamonds!”

Rarity looked completely confused. “Uh, Sweetie this isn’t a ga-”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Sweetie Belle Gem Hunter YAY!!”

Rarity smiled, despite the high-pitched shout that was making her ears ring slightly. Her little sister might have gotten on her nerves a few times in the past, but in rare moments like this she often found herself very proud of the kind of pony her sister was – passionate, determined, with just enough hard-headedness to not be a doormat. There was a lot of herself in Sweetie.

“Yes, well, it would be nice to find a couple of diamonds to take home, but that’s not why we’re here. I picked this spot because this is where we’ll find the gems I need for a very important client’s dress. We most likely won’t find any diamonds here, and that’s where the first lesson of my spell comes in; you have to know what you want before you start seeking.”

Rarity spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone, and waved a hoof out in front of her. “Now Sweetie, tell me what you see.”

The question struck Sweetie Belle as dumb, and the look on her face reviled as much. “Uh…dirt and rocks?”

Rarity rolled her eyes, but shook her head and waved her hoof again. “Take your time, look at your surroundings and see what’s obvious and what’s missing.”

Sweetie looked out around her once again, this time doing as Rarity said and taking her time. All around her were boulders, some seemingly as big as Rarity’s shop, and the smallest were as big as she was. There was no grass around, the earth felt soft under-hoof, and it was quiet, which meant there weren’t any animals around. Sweetie looked a little longer, but without being really sure what she was looking for she could only take guesses at what Rarity wanted to hear.

“Well…there’s lots of rocks, and soft dirt?” Sweetie asked finally.

“Well yes, I suppose that much is obvious. I’ll explain why that’s important,” Rarity’s horn glowed, the aura of silver-blue magic danced around her carefully filed horn, and Rarity walked a couple yards away from where she and her sister had been standing, with Sweetie Belle pulling the wagon as she followed behind. “You see, dear, this area is very dry. The ground is mostly made of dry, loose soil. There’s no wildlife out here because there’s no water left. We have all these big boulders around us because once, maybe a thousand years ago, this area was under water.”

Sweetie Belle looked surprised at her sister, unsure how Rarity could know such details about the land around them just by looking around her. “So, why’s that important?”

“It’s important because it means this land shaped the rocks in a certain way, and if you want to find certain gemstones, you have to know where they could have been made first. Remember what I said about fine tuning my spell?”

Sweetie Belle nodded quickly, wide-eyed and absorbing Rarity’s lesson with more drive than she ever showed in the classroom.

“My gem-seeker spell can find gemstones and crystals just about anywhere - that’s the basic level of the spell, I suppose you could say. I’ve been using this spell for years, I know everything I can make it do. If I want to find only a specific gem I have to be at the right place, and I have to know what I’m looking for. Now for this client I’ll have later, I need garnets, but not just plain old orange or red garnets. Those are far too outdated for today’s fashion for a young filly. What we’re looking for are rare green garnets. Not as overpowering as an emerald and not as subdued as a green topaz; green garnets have a color to them that has the perfect balance of a vibrant green color, like wet grass on a bright summer day.”

Rarity had a dreamy look on her face as she thought about the kind of dress she was going to make with even a small cache of green garnet stones. Sweetie was still trying to understand how the dry land they were in could be a place to find rare gems.

“Okay, so we need to find rare green gems that were only made here. So if we know where to look, it should be really easy to find them, right?”

Rarity frowned, and with her magic pulled a shovel to her from the red wagon, which started to dig in front of her on its own. It was at that moment that Rarity wished she could have brought Spike along with them; his claws were ideal for digging up the earth and opening the gem veins she could find. A shovel required too much work and magic, and if she did it too much she would start to sweat, something that she was adamantly against.

“Not quite. You see, this location might be the most ideal place to find the garnet stones I need, but that doesn’t mean they’re here. Oh, we’ll find some garnets alright. For example,” Rarity moved away from the deep hole that her unicorn magic had already dug up to allow Sweetie Belle to see that her big sister had already found a cache of gems.

“You did it already?! But we barely just got here and you still haven’t showed me how to cast that spell yet!” Sweetie looked upset, thinking that her sister was just playing games with her, until she realized what had just been dug up. “Wait, they aren’t green.”

Indeed, the cache that had been dug up offered only two rough orange garnets and one red garnet. The stones were dull, faded, looking nothing like the gems that Rarity would use on her dresses.

“That’s right, and that is something you’re going to have to remember about using this spell. It can find gems easy enough in the right area, but depending on how rare the gem is, it can’t always find you exactly what you might want. There’s a fair bit of chance that goes into using this spell, and you have to be very patient when using it. I’m constantly trying new ways to perfect this spell. Green garnets are considered rare gems, and they are harder to find than common garnets like reds and orange. Also, If you get discouraged that you aren’t finding what you want, the spell gets weaker. You need a clear calm mind to use this spell, or any magic for that matter. Take what you find, and hope it’s what you wanted. This works for me because no matter what I find, I can always use more gemstones.

“This is exactly why I wanted to bring you with me. I certainly would never make you try and find the rare garnet stones I need for this dress when you’ve never even cast this spell before. I’ll be doing that - you on the other hoof will be looking for garnets like these. I can always use more gemstones.”

Sweetie Belle nodded quickly. This was finally going to be her chance to not only do something sisterly with her big sister, but also help her too! And the more Rarity talked about it, the easier it sounded to her. All she had to do was keep calm and cast magic – it couldn’t be that hard to do.

“Now, I’m going to have you start casting this spell. Fir-“

Rarity was cut off by the excited filly’s shout of joy and her sudden bounce off the ground. The filly’s high pitched soprano voice struck Rarity like whip to her ear drums. The look of annoyance mixed with slight pain caused Sweetie to blush rather brightly.

“Hehe…clear calm mind you said?”

Two hours had passed with zero luck.

Rarity had explained the spell well enough, but Sweetie soon realized that executing it was a different story. Tiny sparks of green magic would burst from the tip of her small horn, teasing her with the sense that if she just focused enough on the spell itself she could finally cast it. In the end, Sweetie couldn’t cast the spell at all, while Rarity had already dug up two more gem caches with orange and red garnets, but not a single green gem.

The angry scowl on the filly’s face was easy to spot, and Rarity was doing her best to keep her sister calm.

“Let’s stop for breakfast now. You’ll need a full stomach to keep casting the spell.”

Sweetie Belle let out an unladylike groan as she walked with her sister to a boulder that was smoothed over one side. Rarity was quick to open her saddle bags and lay out a clean picnic cloth over the sun-kissed ground, along with plates for herself and her sister. Sweetie slouched against the rock and sighed, staring at the ground. It was always a challenge for her to cast any magic, and the gem-seeker spell felt simple enough. It was like needing to sneeze, only for the sneeze to go away, come back, and go away again.

“Dumb horn. I’m never going to be able to cast anything at this rate. Isn’t there something else I can do to make this spell work? Didn’t you say that when you first got your cutie mark the gem-seeker spell started on its own without you controlling it?”

Rarity looked up from the spread of dandelion sandwiches she was preparing. The mare blushed and made a small frown at the memory of her youth; she rarely liked talking about it.

“Well yes, I suppose when I first discovered the spell it was cast differently than the way I do it now. If I recall correctly, Twilight told me once that unicorns occasionally cast magic without meaning to at a very young age when they feel exceptionally driven, such as when she was taking her entrance exams to hatch Spike. At the time, I was so driven to make the costumes for my class play just perfect that I simply could not focus on anything else. I suppose Rainbow Dash also helped in her own brash way.”

Rarity thought about how those events worked out for her, looking to Sweetie Belle and wondering what drove her sister, what passions she had inside her heart. Finding her cutie mark was certainly one such passion, but there had to be more.

Before Rarity could ask, Sweetie Belle spoke up excitedly “I got it! Let’s call Rainbow Dash to do another one of her sonic rainbooms while we’re looking for gems. Maybe that will help me cast the gem-seeker spell AND get my cutie mark!”

Rarity couldn’t help but laugh. “Sweetie, while Rainbow Dash might have accidentally helped my friends and I find our special talents, she wasn’t the direct cause of them. If she were, we would all have rainbow cutie marks.” Rarity frowned momentarily at the idea. “Even if she did one right now, it wouldn’t get you your cutie mark any more than it would bring us the gems we need to find.”

The disappointment was clear on Sweetie Belle’s face, and rather heartbreaking to see. “What’s so special about these green garnets anyways? Why do they have to be green? You have lots of emeralds back home.”

“They are important because they are what the customer wants.” Rarity paused, taking a quick breath as she set herself up for something she knew would be difficult. “I think you know her too – she’s classmate of yours. Her father commissioned me to make a dress for her, and green garnets were the gems he asked for.”

“You’re making a dress for a filly in my class?” Sweetie Belle asked. Her sister’s dresses were always bright and flashy and sometimes a little gaudy to look at. No pony in her class was like that… with the exception of two fillies.

“Just who are we finding these garnets for? Who's the dress going to be for?”

Rarity swallowed her food and wiped her mouth with a napkin, all of which took too long for Sweetie Belle, before she replied. “It’s for Filthy Rich’s daughter, Diamond Tiara.”

The name alone was enough to sour Sweetie’s excitement for the day. The spell she had so desired to learn was to be used for Diamond Tiara’s benefit? Sweetie Belle would rather never learn the spell at all if that were the case.

“No way!” Sweetie shouted, stomping a hoof on the picnic cloth and spilling the sandwich from her plate. “Diamond Tiara is the most stuck up, rude, mean-hearted mule in my class! The last thing I want to do is help her get anything!”

Rarity was shocked into silence at how Sweetie Belle, who normally was a polite, well-mannered filly, had just blown up in a fit of uncharacteristic anger. She looked angry, ready to reprimand her little sister for speaking so unladylike, but frowned instead.

“I know. I know she’s been bullying you and your friends for months.“

Sweetie Belle was about to say something else before getting blindsided by Rarity’s comment.

“You know...?” she asked softly, feeling dumbstruck. She never talked about her bullying because she was always the first of her friends to get over it, to let it go and accept that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were just mean ponies to be ignored. She could take their bullying - it wasn’t even that bad, not like how Babs had bullied her and the others. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon always had a mean word ready for them, but they never went out of their way to make her life miserable. They weren’t the proactive bullies that Babs had been.

“I spoke with Applejack after the... trouble... you and your friends had with Apple Bloom’s cousin. Needless to say I was distraught! The very idea that my little sister was being victimized for so long without my knowing had me in a fury that I rarely allow myself to feel! But... I thought about it for several days, and... well I suppose I should have said something sooner, but the appropriate time never presented itself.”

While she spoke, Rarity dragged her hoof across the ground without seemingly thinking about what she was doing. Sweetie Belle noticed the dirt building up around her sister’s pristine white hoof and knew something was really bothering Rarity.

“So, you know I’ve been bullied, and you still want me to help you find gems so you can make a dress for the pony whose bullying me?” Sweetie asked with a slight bit of fear behind her tone.

Rarity looked like she was unsure of how to answer. “This made so much more sense when I spoke with Applejack,” she muttered to herself.

“In a word... yes.” Rarity finally said, earning herself an outraged look from her little sister. Rarity could already see the angry tears forming in Sweetie Belle’s eyes, and quickly continued.

“I want to make her your friend!” Rarity shouted, just before the first tear could be shed.

“What?! You want to make her my what?! Rarity, do you even know what you’re saying? Have you ever even met Diamond Tiara?”

Rarity licked her lips and pushed herself to keep going as her heart start to speed up with anxiety.

“No, but I know her type! If what Applejack told me was true, than I know just what kind of bully she is to you, because I use to be a bully just like her.”

“This can’t be right!”

Even as she told herself this, there was no denying the obvious evidence in the filly’s personal planner. She had gotten the dates mixed up – today she was to pick up a custom order dress here in Ponyville; it was next weekend that she and Spoony had their shopping date in Canterlot.

The filly flung her planner book away, sulking in the cushioned high back chair of her personal living room. The space was for her personal uses, such as entertaining friends. It was huge, with thick sofas and plush couches, polished glass tables and crystal lamps that glowed when touched. Windows occupied most of the space over three walls, allowing Diamond Tiara to see out into the impressive flower garden that was tenderly kept by the hired help. Outside was a vibrant display of nature’s color palette grown just for Diamond Tiara’s pleasure.

At the moment, she didn’t give a damn about the scenery. The filly glared at the flowers from her favorite love seat, which fit her rather big thanks to her small size. It was big enough that often she and Silver Spoon would sit side by side on it, sharing gossip or just… talking.

The thought of her sugar-lump buddy was not making Diamond feel any better. She had been looking forward to seeing her best friend and spending the day with her. The thought of the new dress waiting for her in Ponyville had lost its entire splendor now that she wasn’t going to be able to show it off to the one pony whose opinions actually mattered to her.

That left the filly with a nagging question – what to do now?

She wasn’t going to stay home on this weekend. The living room was rich and vast, but it was also very empty. The hired help were busy with their jobs, and Diamond Tiara was not about to bother herself with their company. Such a thing would be beneath her, as if she simply had to have some pony around her, like she was a pathetic attention seeking loser.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Never the less, she didn’t want to stay inside doing nothing either. Her day was free, aside from picking up the dress in the later afternoon. She had a couple dresses from Rarity, and she had to admit they weren’t that bad. This dress had been ordered from her father, so she knew it had to be something to fit her tastes. Whatever daddy liked, she liked, and they both only liked the best.

It was still early morning, and the silence of the living room was starting to get to her. There were few options left to her. Reaching for the night stand, she bit down on the handle of a gold bell, ringing it softly by shaking her head in a gentle, dignified manner.

Seconds passed before the butler that had waited on her when she got out of bed appeared at the doorway to her living room. The green unicorn, whose name Diamond had trouble remembering, waited at the entrance – he had been called, but he hadn’t been given permission to enter the room.

“Princess?” the unicorn asked in a deep, flat voice.

“There is a change of plans,” Diamond Tiara didn’t even turn her head to look at the butler. “I will be going to town alone tonight. Have only one lunch packed.”

The unicorn’s face was emotionless as he responded in a matter of fact tone. “We have your lunch packed already, princess. As well as the other you requested earlier.”

“Then throw the other one out,” the filly ordered with a huff of annoyance in her tone. If she couldn’t share her food with Silver Spoon, she wasn’t going to let any lesser pony have it.

The unicorn raised his head, just enough so that the sunlight reflected from the massive window of the living room onto half his face, illuminating it, especially around his earth brown eye. The look he had for the back of the filly's head was something Diamond Tiara would have taken notice of, and might have even been concerned about.

“Very well, princess. How else may I serve you?” the unicorn asked, his mask like face starting to tighten at the corners of his eyes and lips.

Diamond Tiara heard nothing in the butler’s tone that attracted her attention. She thought about anything else she might need, but came up with nothing. Already her mind was busy making new plans for the day.

“That is all. You’re dismissed. I shall be leaving in half an hour.”

“Indeed,” the unicorn smiled, a small tight-lipped smile. He pulled his face away from the sun, and it transformed once again into the emotionless mask he and the staff had mastered in the time they had working for “Lord” Rich and his daughter.

Diamond Tiara didn’t even hear the door close when the unicorn left. Already she was thinking about shops she could go to, perhaps even visiting the local spa treatment place before getting her new dress. But before that, she would have to visit one of the better candy shops in Ponyville. Certainly not Sugarcube Corner! There had to be better sweet shops than that place…

The second lunch that had been packed that day was being devoured by Sharp Dresser, the green unicorn that waited on Diamond Tiara. The head chef has certain made an excellent lunch – freshly cultivated daisies, with blackberry jam brushed on fine baked wheat bread with oats, and dried salted red and pink rose chips for a snack. To hear the stuck up foal had wanted perfectly good food thrown out had been the last straw from the careless and selfish commands she had made of him over the year he had to wait on her.

As his magic held the sandwich afloat, his attention was focused on the dried bright purple flower in front of him, its slender petals being picked off one by one and crushed into a fine powder that was sprinkled into Diamond Tiara’s sandwich.

Passion flowers were supposedly very toxic. With enough blackberry jam and some dark lettuce to mask the flavor, the little filly wouldn’t realize what she was eating. Once she would start seeing things that weren't there, the chances were that she would never make it to a hospital in time to stop the poison.

He had threatened to do this for a year, but only to himself. A sudden buck down the stairs, a push into oncoming traffic, a pillow over her ugly face in the middle of the night... there had been lots of ways Sharp Dresser had thought about putting an end to the filly who treated him like dirt. All his life he had been bullied or picked on, and it always seemed to come from stuck up mares like Diamond Tiara.

Not anymore. I won’t let the little foal push me around anymore. It’s time I finally started taking a stand.

The chef would be to blame, or so Sharp Dresser assumed. It really didn’t matter. There would be no proof tying him to the poison, and there were so many servants in the Rich manor that anyone of them would have been suspected - they all hated the little mule. Sharp Dresser highly doubted anyone would care, not even Filthy Rich. In his eyes, he was doing the world a favor.

Finishing off the last bite of his sandwich, the unicorn wrapped up Diamond Tiara’s lunch and placed it in her saddle bags. He felt good, proud of himself even. A lifetime of bullying was ending with his first act of fighting back.

“You were... a bully?” Sweetie Belle felt like she was looking at Rarity differently now. It wasn’t so far fetched to believe, but at the same time she didn’t want to believe that the sister she looked up to had ever once made another pony feel the way Diamond Tiara made her feel.

“As loath as I am to admit it, I am afraid I must confess the truth. I know it’s hard to believe that I could ever be so selfish, but yes Sweetie Belle, your perfect big sister has a dark and shameful past. It wasn’t until after you were born that I started to change my deviant ways. Once I got my cutie mark, I felt like the best filly in Equestria. Can you imagine how good it felt to discover that you had the talent to make anypony beautiful? That kind of power... oh Sweetie Belle, I was just a foal, I didn’t know how to use my talents for good instead of fueling my own ego!” Rarity hid her face with her arm, looking away before her sister could see the tears of shame forming in her eyes.

“I bullied anypony who wore clothes that weren’t as good as the clothes I made. I know how silly it is to think about it now, but at the time I was fully convinced that I was the best dressmaker in Equestria, because in my class only I could find and use gemstones to make the perfect ensembles. Oh, I was the worst, the absolute worst! But then...”

Rarity wiped her eyes and reached out to take hold of Sweetie Belle’s front legs, holding them up and looking into the confused and worried green eyes of her little sister.

“But then mother and father told me I had a new baby sister. And when I saw you for the first time, the very first thing I did was sew your first diaper.”

Sweetie Belle made a shocked face and turned beet red. “Eww Rarity! I don’t want to know about that!”

Rarity ignored her sister’s complaint and continued. “I used ivory silk and embroidered your initials with gold thread. I even used two white diamonds I had been saving for a special occasion to fasten your diaper together. My new baby sister had to have the best! And when I showed mother and father they laughed and told me it was a nice thought, but silk isn’t very good at absorbing.”

“Oh come on! I don’t want to know about this!”

Rarity dismissed her sister’s embarrassment. “The point I’m trying to make is that for the first time I was using my talents not to show up other ponies once you entered my life. Proving I was the best at what I could do didn’t matter anymore to me. All that mattered was that I had a beautiful little sister, and I could make her even more beautiful.”

Sweetie Belle forgot her embarrassment. Her big sister had just called her beautiful - she never called her beautiful. Not once that she could remember did Rarity ever compliment her on her looks.

“But, you don’t make dresses for me. You haven’t done that in years.”

Rarity smiled sadly and let her sister’s legs go, wiping at her eyes again. “That’s because I quickly learned that you were going to be a very active foal. You either ripped, stained, or completely destroyed every dress I made for you.” Rarity chuckled, thinking back to those times. “You use to make me so mad. But, when I was making your dresses, I felt really good about myself. And after a while some ponies noticed how nice you looked in my clothes, and asked if I could do the same for their foals. After that, I started making clothing and dresses all the time, and discovered it was my passion for life.

“On some level, I always knew that making clothes would be my dream job. But until you came into my life, all I could think about was what I could do for myself. When I started making clothes for you, I felt good inside. I stopped bullying others, and I made amends to all those ponies I use to taunt by making them something special. It felt so much better to give than it did to criticize. And then Applejack told me about your bullying. This Diamond Tiara sounds like me when I was your age. Always showing off how much better she is than others, flaunting what makes her special, and taunting anypony who didn’t understand her - she sounds like she’s going through the same phase I went though.”

Sweetie Belle was trying to following along with her sister’s thinking, but she wasn’t making the connections. “Diamond Tiara is an only child though. How is she suppose to turn a new leaf the way you did if she doesn’t have a baby sister?”

“It’s not that she needs a sibling to change her ways, she needs a reason to give. You’re a very special pony, Sweetie Belle. Without even meaning to, you made me want to be a better pony, and all you had to do was smile towards me. Now, as somepony who knows a thing or two about the upperclass, I have a feeling I can make some safe assumptions about this filly. She’s rich, so she’s most likely always gotten everything she’s ever asked for. Believe or not, but that gets very boring after a while.”

Sweetie Belle raised her eyebrow and looked as if she didn’t believe her sister at all on that point.

“I suppose it is hard to imagine, but getting everything you want from ponies you expect to get things from loses its meaning after a while. It stops feeling special and starts to feel phony. You start to realize that you’re getting what you want because the ponies giving to you are expected to give. There’s no meaning behind it. But, if you received something from somepony you never expected to get anything from, that is different. It’s special. I think if you showed this filly a little honest generosity, she would stop being a bully to you, and see you in a new light.”

“It... almost sounds like I’m buying her friendship though.” Sweetie Belle said, trying to imagine Diamond Tiara ever being grateful to get anything from anyone. Rarity might have had good intentions, but she didn’t know how nasty Diamond could be. Not once since Sweetie Belle had known her had she ever shown herself to be anything but stuck up and mean.

At the same time though, the idea of turning Diamond Tiara into a friend was very tempting. She never would have considered it before, but if Rarity was being honest about her foalhood, then it was possible for a pony to turn from nasty to nice. Maybe the two of them could actually be friends, and then Diamond could stop bullying Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, and they all could be friends together! The possibilities only got better from there - as friends, maybe Diamond Tiara could help the crusaders find their cutie marks! Maybe Silver Spoon would turn nice too and they could all be one big group of friends, the way Rarity had her big group of friends!

It could work! She could see it all so clearly in her head. Befriending Diamond Tiara by showing her the kindness of giving, getting passed her mean and snobby personality to the real filly underneath. She could do it!

“Oh no, it’s not buying her friendship at all! It’s like a peace offering really. I think once this dress is -” Rarity stopped mid-sentence, looking up from Sweetie Belle’s growing grin to the sparks of green magic coming from her horn. “Sweetie Belle, your horn is glowing!”

The filly had no time to respond. A bright flash of green light exploded from her horn, blinding both sisters. The magic in Sweetie Belle’s horn was stronger than it had ever felt before, and with surprising force, it lifted her off her hoofs and started dragging her away!

Sweetie Belle cried out for her sister, but the light of her horn was too bright to see where Rarity was, or where she was being dragged off too. She felt her hooves dragging against the ground, bumping over hard rocks. She could hear Rarity calling her name, but the magic from her horn was buzzing like a hive of bees, making it hard to hear as well.

She could make out that Rarity was trotting after her, telling her in an excited tone not to panic and to let her magic do what it needed. Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but panic as she blindly got pulled away, feeling herself getting dragged over a large boulder, having a couple of seconds of weightlessness, and then feeling her stomach rise up into her chest as she fell back down to earth. Her hooves hit the ground running as she kept being dragged away.

The experience had felt longer than it really was, but Sweetie Belle’s horn finally had dragged her to the spot it wanted her to be at, pulling her whole head right onto the ground as if to mark where she had to be. The impact of skull on dirt, even soft dirt, had Sweetie seeing stars.

She was aware of Rarity nearby, saying things Sweetie couldn’t make out. There was a ringing in her ears, and the sudden rush of adrenaline she had been feeling was gone now. The sensation of having cast the gem-seeker spell was no longer felt so intensely inside her horn. The experience was a lot like waking from a dream, barely able to hold on to the sensations and emotions of the whole experience, and even then questioning if it had been real or just made up.

Rarity pulled her sister up from the ground, forgetting that all of Sweetie’s kicking and struggling had worked up a cloud of dust that now stained her white coat as she held her sister to her.

“Sweetie Belle, please tell me you’re okay! I kept trying to tell you not to fight the spell. Are you hurt? Your head isn’t bleeding is it?”

Rarity fussed over Sweetie Belle while the filly tried to get her bearings. She was out of it of course, but she was quickly starting to get a handle on what had happened to her, as she gently pulled away from Rarity.

“I’m fine... my head hurts a little, but I’m fine.” The filly rubbed her head with a hoof, feeling a slight, throbbing bump. She winced and pulled her hoof away, rubbing her eyes instead. She was looking down at the ground, but she could still see stars.

Her eyes widened, realizing just what kind of stars she was seeing. They were a hue of green she hadn’t seen outside of her sister’s workshop, and only under special lighting. These stars seemed to glow in the light-less embrace of the earth.

They were the green garnets that they had been trying to find.

“Your horn suddenly went off! It was just the same thing that happened to me when-”

Sweetie pushed a hoof in her sister’s mouth, the dirt covering her hoof doing more to silence Rarity than the hoof itself.

“Wait. Look. Can’t you see them? They’re right there! The garnets are right there!” She could see the cache of gems clear as day, the magic of her spell lingering in her eyes even though her horn had stopped glowing like a green mini sun and was now only dimly lit.

The growing smile on Sweetie Belle’s face couldn’t have been bigger.

“What is she, like your secret marefriend or something?”

My lunch sounds so tempting right now... but on the other hoof, I’m almost there.

Diamond Tiara stopped to look around, seeing that she was only two more blocks away from Sweet & Savory; the premiere candy shop in the better part of Ponyville. She had been there only once before, but could still recall that the building was two stories tall and shaped in a similar style to Sugarcube Corner. While the famous bakery was built to look like an elaborate gingerbread house, Sweet & Savory had a less cartoonish build, but sported several elements of its product as building decor. The windows and door trim were painted like green and red striped candy canes and the roof was tiled with half circle lollipops in a rainbow of metallic colors. It wasn’t over the top and still kept a professional appearance.

It’s better than Sugarcube Corner. I won’t be caught dead in that place after those three blank-flank losers showed me up at my own party!

The memory alone was enough to make Diamond Tiara more upset than she already was. She was still disappointed in knowing she wasn’t going to see her best friend, but the disappointment stung worse because it was solely her fault. She hated being wrong.

Diamond Tiara was lost in her thoughts about disappointments when somepony bumped into her, knocking her down.

“Oww! Oh no, I’m so sorry!”

It happened very fast, and Diamond felt her shoulder ache from the fall. Her first thought went to her coat being messed up and dirty to the sudden and unfamiliar sense of pain she felt. Her threshold for pain was low, and tears already threatened to sting her eyes and were ready to be shed, if not for the sound of the filly’s voice sounded younger than her. She wouldn’t lessen herself by looking weak in front of a pony younger than her.

Diamond made herself get up quickly, ignoring the pain in her shoulder as she started glaring daggers at the filly who had bumped into her. She was a unicorn, her small horn half covered by a mane as yellow as fresh hay. She was smaller than Diamond Tiara, and younger, just as Diamond suspected. It only took the older filly a second to see that the clumsy unicorn didn’t have a cutie mark.

Dinky Hooves... oh you will be sorry, blank-flank.

“You’re not hurt are you?” Dinky asked, “I was in a hurry to get back home from the library and I wasn’t paying attention...” Diamond Tiara didn’t reply; the look on her face spoke clear enough. She looked down at her hooves to see a cookbook on the ground. She lowered her gaze to the unicorn, a plan forming quickly in mind to get back at the clumsy filly. She lowered her eyes back down to the book, lifting up one hoof.

“Is this your book?” Diamond asked.

“N-no. I just rented it from the library. I wanted to surprise my mo-”

Diamond Tiara cut Dinky off by stomping hard on the book.

“What are you doing?!”

Dinky rushed to grab her book, but was met by Diamond Tiara’s other hoof, pushing her down roughly. The young filly gave a cry of pain and wrapped a front leg against her shoulder - she had scrapped herself against the hard stone sidewalk just as Diamond had.

The pain on the filly’s face made Diamond Tiara smile a little. It was the beginning of payback. Diamond had wanted to tear up earlier; now she was going to see that Dinky not only teared up, but that she sobbed as well.

“What does it look like I’m doing, Dorky? I mean really, who seriously walks and reads a book at the same time? That takes, like a special kind of dumb, but given who your mother is I guess it’s not too surprising.”

Dinky whimpered, looking up at Diamond Tiara’s growing mean smile and feeling afraid and angry that her mom was insulted.

“Don’t talk bad about my mom... it was just an accident. I’m sorry I bumped into you.”

“That was a really weak apology. Try again. You’re sorry for being a dumb blank-flank that bumped into me.” Diamond Tiara scrapped the library book on the rough cobble stone ground, “let me hear you say it properly, Dorky.” She stomped on the rented book again, her hoof print damaging the cover. The pages underneath could be heard being crumpled and torn.

“I... I’m very sorry I bumped into you.”

“That’s not what I told you to say. I know you’re dumb Dorky, but I just told you what to say. Now say it!” There was bite in those last two words, enough bite that the grey unicorn didn’t try and get back up. She looked around her and saw no adults, no other ponies anywhere. Diamond Tiara narrowed her eyes at started grinding the book on the ground harder, dragging it with her hoof.

“I’m sorry for being a dumb blank-flank that bumped into you!” Dinky said quickly. Diamond Tiara smirked, and kicked the damage library book at the unicorn, where it came very close to hitting her head.

“Apology accepted. You’re a unicorn, so try and remember next time that unicorns aren’t suppose to be so dumb. Really, talk about being an embarrassment.”

The filly was sniffling, but bravely tried to hold back her tears. Diamond Tiara accepted the end result - Dinky wasn’t sobbing, but she knew the filly would cry later, and that was good enough for her. Her sour mood had been forgotten, but she still wanted to end on a high note.

“Hope you don’t embarrass your mom like this too,” Diamond Tiara said as she walked away from Dinky Hooves, who gently picked up the ruined library book, sniffling still.

The older filly smirked, and now felt she had earned herself a tasty treat from Sweet & Savory.

Sharp Dresser paced back and forth. His fears had been easy to ignore at first, but as the minutes went by, they grew and grew until they felt like a buzzing in his ears that he couldn’t stop. He was starting to have second thoughts about poisoning Diamond Tiara.

He had locked himself in his private room in the Rich manor, a spacious room filled with fine furniture and a closet of excellent suits for any occasion. He lived comfortably, rarely ever wanting for something he couldn’t just buy on his own. The windows of his room were covered by thick curtains, hiding his room and himself in shadows as he walked in a circle, plagued by his doubts.

“Maybe I was wrong. She’s just a foal, she’s not too old to change her ways yet. Surely... surely she doesn’t have to die?”

Sharp Dresser was alone in his room. The hired help often commented that he had a habit of talking to himself. They had never heard him answer himself though.

“She won’t change. You know that. Ponies like her never change.”

He stopped and felt a sliver of fear grow inside him. It was true, he had never known a bully to change their ways.

“But, I really don’t know that. She’s just so young...”

He turned his head towards a wall, where a gold framed mirror had been hung. It was huge, easily bigger than himself, and reached from floor to ceiling. His reflection stared back at him, showing the concern he had.

“It has to be this way. This is what you wanted all along. You wished for courage and you finally got it. You’re finally raising your head up high and taking a stand against ponies who bully others. You know how hard it is going through life feeling like a victim, like somepony always has to rub your flaws in your face, laugh at your fears, and mock your feelings. You’re doing the right thing.”

Sharp Dresser sat on the floor, still facing the mirror. His uncertainty still haunted him. He had felt very brave after Diamond dismissed him earlier, when she told him to throw away perfectly good food just because her bratty friend wasn’t going to be with her. The sheer selfishness of the filly had been the last push he needed to finally do something about her. It had felt like the right thing, at the time.

“I’m going to be a murderer though.”

“No pony will know it was you. You only had the one flower. The chef made her lunch. Everyone hates her. Everyone wants her to go away. You hate her.”

Hearing the word hate felt oddly heavy to him. Diamond Tiara was a rude, selfish, thoughtless pony with a bad habit of cutting down others for her own amusement or cruel gain. He had seen it before as he had grown up, from the very first mare who use to bully him for his taste in clothes. Even as a grown stallion, he still remembered the old hurts of the filly named Rarity who always had to cut him down for the clothes he wore, and of course for not having his cutie mark at the time.

He hated bullies like that, more than anything else.

“You’re right,” Sharp Dresser said softly, placing his hoof against the smooth glass surface of the mirror, where it connected to his reflection, “I do hate her. So why do I feel like I’m doing something horribly wrong? I felt so sure of myself earlier.”

“It’s a scary thing sometimes to do what is right. It takes courage. You have courage now, and soon you’ll have a little revenge too. Dear ‘Princess’ Diamond won’t be missed. She had nothing good to offer the world - just her resentment and cruelty for others.”

It all sounded so right to him. In truth there wasn’t much he could do now anyways. He couldn’t go find Diamond Tiara out in Ponyville and take away her lunch without explaining why. Chances were the fat filly had already eaten the poison, and was dying alone in the streets or in an alley somewhere. It was a cruel end for a cruel pony.

The doubts in his heart still wouldn’t go away.

“I don’t feel brave anymore. I thought by doing this, I could finally feel brave? What happened to the courage I had earlier?” Sharp Dresser asked his reflection.

There was no response this time. The unicorn searched his own face, not liking what he saw. His eyes felt hot and fear was boiling inside him.

He didn’t notice right away that the reflection of his horn started to glow, an aura of red magic changing what the mirror showed to reveal Diamond Tiara on the cobble streets of Ponyville’s business market, just as she pushed down a grey filly smaller than herself.

“Put your doubts aside and see why you’ve done the right thing.”

He couldn’t hear what was being said nor he didn’t want to. The face of the grey foal spoke loud and clearly to him. Diamond Tiara had that look on her face that Sharp Dresser hated to see; a smugness about her that came from an inflated sense of superiority. He saw her ruin the foal’s book, and felt the hate inside him quash the fear and doubts that had been gnawing at him just moments ago.

“That horrible mule,” Sharp Dresser growled.

“See? This hateful little pony deserves to be done away with. Today you’ve helped ensure that the foal you see will be the last one Diamond Dazzle Tiara ever makes a victim out of. Be proud, Sharp Dresser. You had the courage to do what’s right.”

When the image on the mirror faded, Sharp Dresser was shown his reflection again. He was smiling now, the corners of his mouth pulled high into a tight mean grin. The warm brown of his eyes looked darker in the mirror, as if a trick of the light and shadows turned them into a slightly brighter hue, like the color of rich dark red wine.

“It’s just a matter of time now,” Sharp Dresser’s reflection said.

“So, it was just a fluke?”

The frustration and disappointment was easy to read on Sweetie Belle’s face as she and Rarity walked towards home. Sweetie Belle pulled the red wagon with her tail as it was now mostly full of gems. In all, she had found seven green garnet gems using the gem-seeker spell. Rarity had showered her little sister with praise - the gems were of the highest quality she could have hoped to find. To Rarity’s surprise, all seven gems were flawless. To have found such perfect stones on the first real attempt at using magic had made Rarity very proud of Sweetie Belle.

The problem came after finding the seventh gem - Sweetie couldn't find any gems at all after that. Rarity confirmed there were still normal red and orange gems in the area, digging up a few just to add to her collection, but Sweetie couldn’t make the spell work again to find those gems. It made no sense to either of them, and had made Rarity start to question aloud if Sweetie simply had beginners luck.

Now, she was trying to step back from that assumption, not wanting to ruin her little sister’s confidence.

“Well no, I wouldn’t call it a fluke. You did succeed in finding the gems I was hoping to find. And such excellent gems too! It could be that your magic is still developing, and tonight happened to be a successful spurt of magic at the most opportune time.”

“Seriously?” Sweetie asked in a flat tone. Even she didn’t believe that her magic just happened to work right when she needed it to, but wouldn’t work again when she simply wanted it to. “I mean, I did everything right, and I used the spell just like you taught me. I could see those garnets clearly in the ground, just like you could see all the other gems around us. It doesn’t make sense that we’d get different results using the same spell the same way.”

Rarity’s shop was coming into view, though Rarity herself was focused on her sister. Sweetie wasn’t upset so much as she was disappointed, and that sense of frustration that comes from doing something right but getting the wrong result was something Rarity could understand very well.

“Well, I might not be an expert on the matter, but magic works different for all of us. Remember what I said about the gem-seeker spell and how I can use it in ways others cannot? Sometimes our magic will give us different results with the same spell. This is not a science; magic follows different rules. But I think once we arrive home we can try practicing with your magic again. I’m going to need your help to finish up that dress.”

Sweetie’s eyes lit up at the offer her sister had made. Her heart made a leap and excitement sparked inside her and even around her horn in tiny green bursts that lasted less than a second.

“You mean it? Like... a big sister helps little sister family fun activity?” Sweetie Belle asked, her smile huge and white, her eyes growing wide with hope.

“Of course dear! As your big sister, it is my duty - no, my sacred duty as your big sister to see to it that you develop your magic to its full potential and promise. As soon as we get home Sweetie Belle, you and I are going to take the small progress you made today and we’re going to grow it into full fledged magic, from simple things like raising your teacup properly to complicated feats like putting your makeup on perfectly!”

“I get to wear makeup now?” Sweetie squealed excitedly.

“No of course not, I just got caught up in the moment. What I mean to say is that as soon as we get back to my shop, you’re going to help me finish making the dress for Miss Tiara. I’ll guide you on how to control thread and needle, fetch fabrics, simple things like that.”

Sweetie’s excitement faltered, having nearly forgotten why they had even been out looking for the garnets in the first place. “Oh right, her dress. How is that suppose to help me with my magic again?”

“Well it’s quite simple really. You’ve succeeding at casting magic today. This means that you know what it feels like to use your own natural magic. You just need to remember what that feeling is like and should be able to start using your magic for the things you couldn’t do before.”

There was clear doubt on Sweetie Belle’s face as she hung her head low. She couldn’t feel as confident as her sister did about feeling her magic.

“But if I couldn’t use the gem-seeker spell to find those normal garnets, what makes you think I can do anything else?”

Rarity stopped and smiled down at Sweetie Belle, smiling big as if Sweetie had made a joke. “Because the seven stunning green garnets in that wagon prove you have magic ready to be used. The gem-seeker spell is just one spell. When we get back, we’ll do some basic unicorn magic like levitation and telekinesis. I was being very serious about wanting your help in finishing this dress for Miss Tiara. Not only are you going to help make it perfect, I want you to be the one who gives it to her when she stops by.”

Sweetie Belle’s ears flattened against her head as she stepped back. “ME? Alone? But WHY?”

“Simple - the dress is going to be your token of good faith to her. Remember how I said that she most likely doesn’t know what it is like to be given a gift she didn’t already expect to get? I bet no pony has ever given her something she never had to ask for. Now it’s true she’s expecting this dress, but she won’t expect it to have been made by you. Generosity can have a powerful affect on others. Remember Sweetie Belle, friendship has a generous heart.”

Sweetie wasn’t so sure, but Rarity’s confidence was hard to ignore. Her sister seemed so sure of herself, and it was that kind of confidence that she admired in her big sister. Sweetie Belle wanted Rarity to be right, because if she could turn Diamond Tiara from a bully into a friend, the way Babs had changed, then it would make all their lives better.

And if she got to improve on her ability to use magic in the process with Rarity’s help, she’d be foolish to say no.

The dress was mostly completed, needing only a few touch ups to meet Rarity’s approval. Sweetie knew only the basics of how to sew, as was evident by the cutie mark crusader capes she had made long ago. She and her friends had put those capes through a lot of abuse, but they still wore the originals - Sweetie had only needed to patch them up once in awhile, but had made them well enough that the girls hadn’t destroyed them despite the shenanigans they got themselves into.

It was with that sense of accomplishment that Sweetie started to help her big sister with Diamond Tiara’s dress. She didn’t miss the irony in that the first time Rarity had ever allowed her to help make a dress for a client would be when that client was the last pony she’d expect to do anything for.

“Careful now! Push the needle through the fabric gently. Remember don’t pull with your mouth too hard or your seams will pull too much on the material.”

Rarity, to her credit, was handling Sweetie’s help very well. She had Sweetie Belle work only on the small details, nothing that was beyond her ability, or could accidentally set the dress on fire. The trim of the skirt on the summer dress was something that didn’t need to be quite as perfect, and Sweetie Belle was small enough that it wouldn’t hurt her neck to sewn that low to the ground the way it would for Rarity.

The dress was being modeled by one of Rarity’s smaller ponikins. The main feature was the skirt that would drag just an inch off the ground and dyed to be a neutral shade of cerulean blue trimmed with magenta dye. The torso of the dress was completely done in the same shade as the skirt, with short sleeves for the front legs that had a small sample of white frill trim to them. The outfit would be completed with a main accessory - a ribbon collar in magenta dye, studded with the green garnets Sweetie Belle found.

As Sweetie finished off the trim, she noticed her sister carefully fixing the green garnets to the collar of the dress. The gems had been styled into princess cuts, which Rarity had explained to Sweetie would, “reflect a high degree of brilliance” which she knew translated into being “really shiny”.

Sweetie took a moment to consider what Diamond Tiara would say when she found out the gems, seven 24 karat rare garnets, came from her. She couldn’t be sure if Diamond would appreciate it or not, or if she did, would she suddenly start being nice to her simply to get more things out of her?

“Rarity, are sure this plan is going to work? I mean, Diamond’s just so... so...” Sweetie tried to think of the right words she wanted to explain a pony such as Diamond Tiara, but the words just weren’t there. She wasn’t mean most of the time, just dismissive and stuck up, but that was only when you caught her attention. The rest of the time Diamond just hung out with Silver Spoon, the two cutting themselves off from the rest of the world. The two didn’t make it a habit to go out of their way to make her life and her friend’s life miserable.

“Stuck up.” Sweetie finally decided on.

Rarity’s magic fixed the last gem on the collar of the dress before she turned her attention to her sister.

“Of course she’s stuck up,” Rarity said casually, much to Sweetie Belle’s shock, “She’s extremely well off, has no siblings so she has never had to share, and has never known what it feels like to want something she can’t have. That makes for a very spoiled kind of character. And, I’ve seen her cutie mark - her special talent is being herself, so there has to be a higher than normal level in pride in a pony like that.”

Sweetie was still trying to get over the fact that her proper big sister just called a filly stuck up. She wasn’t sure if she should laugh a little or a lot.

“But, all that does not make her unredeemable. I’m speaking from a position of experience here. Until you were born I was all those things as well. Sometimes, it takes a special pony to come into your life to make you see things in a new and better perspective. What we’re going to do is help in that by having you be the one to give this dress to her. It will make for a good conversation piece, and before you know it you both will be talking and treating each other friendly.”

It sounded easy, way too easy in fact. Her time crusading for her cutie mark had taught Sweetie Belle that whenever something sounded easy, it often was anything but easy.

“It’s a good thing this dress didn’t have to be overly complicated. It’s just about done and there is still more than an hour left before she’s suppose to show up. Sweetie Belle, lets try using your magic again for some simple levitation. See my bolt of cerulean cotton? I want you to try using your magic to pull two feet of that fabric.”

Sweetie Belle frowned, looking to the corner of Rarity’s workroom where several bolts of cloth were hung. She had tried earlier to use her magic to lift a sewing needle, but her horn never lit up and she was forced to use her mouth to do the sewing.

“If I can’t lift a tiny needle, what makes you think I can lift cloth?” Sweetie asked.

“You won’t know until you try. Just remember to recall the feeling of your magic around your horn. Call that feeling back, and direct it towards that bolt of cloth. Imagine you have it in your mouth and are gently pulling it towards you.”

Rarity went over to her sister, giving her a one-armed hug that she rarely ever did. The sign of affection made Sweetie Belle gasp, and quickly throw her front legs around Rarity’s neck in a tight hug.

“Okay! This time I’ll do it for sure!” Sweetie felt full of confidence as she pulled away from Rarity, feeling now like she had to do this simple magic because her sister believed she could.

Rarity stepped back, giving Sweetie Belle room she didn’t really need. The young filly reminded herself about how it felt when her magic went off, how her horn tingled and the way her magic aura wrapped around it. It was a lot like snuggling down in a thick blanket - her horn had felt warm and comfortable in a way she didn’t realize it could feel.

That feeling was firmly in her mind as she stared at the light blue bolt of cloth. She could imagine taking it super carefully, just like Rarity would want her to do, and pulling on it from the middle.

Her horn tingled, just a little. Sweetie held onto that feeling and focused on it harder, shutting her eyes even just to get her horn to light up. The feeling started to become more and more noticeable, as was the aura of green light around her horn.

From behind her, Rarity smiled excitedly and urged her sister on. “You’re doing it! Just hold on to that feeling Sweetie Belle. Extend it out.”

Sweetie opened her eyes, seeing her horn was actually glowing now. The green aura of magic was waving excitedly around her horn and Sweetie grinned. She focused on taking that feeling in her horn and reaching out, until she finally felt like she had a hold of something.

It was one of the most curious feelings she had ever known. The gem-seeker spell felt like a pull on her, like something was tugging on her horn and then seeping into her head and filling her eyes. Casting levitation magic felt different; she felt like she was holding something, but not with her mouth. The closest feeling she could use to describe it was holding something between her hooves. She started pulling, gentle as she could, and felt something give.

“Yes! Yes! You’re doing it Sweetie! You’re... getting the wrong cloth.”

Sweetie Belle blinked, her attention so focused on her horn and the way the magic felt that she hadn’t realized she was pulling on the wrong bolt of cloth - she had taken a hold of Rarity’s olive green silk.

“Uh, opps. Let me try that again,” Sweetie imagined letting the cloth go, and the green silk fell gently to the floor, about two feet having been pulled. She stared at the cerulean cotton and reached out with that feeling again.

Once more, her magic took hold of the green silk, and pulled out another two feet of cloth.

“That’s not where I’m aiming you dumb horn!” Sweetie growled, frustration making her magic aura flicker around her horn.

“It’s okay, just take your time Sweetie Belle...” Rarity gave a small smile while her eyes held great concern. Sweetie had pulled on the green silk two more times, then a bolt of expensive pink cashmere, followed by accidentally opening a drawer to pull out a large bundle of pure wool fleece.

“Come ON horn!” Sweetie yelled, making her horn glow bright. Her magic aura reached out above the bolts of cloth, to a light blue painted chest, pulling it roughly towards her. The force of the magic had launched the large chest right towards Sweetie Belle. She yelled in fright and covered her head with her front legs, just as Rarity’s magic aura caught the chest before it could hit her sister.

The momentum of the chest had flung its lid open once Rarity caught it, and the clothing inside spilled out onto Sweetie Belle.

“What happened?! You were grabbing all my expensive cloths-” Rarity went silent. Sweetie Belle was half covered in a mess of royal purple and dark violet cloth. A wide-brimmed hat that was too large for her head covered her face, but as she pulled it away she saw the mess she had made, and also what she had accidentally found.

All around her were the Mare-Do-Well costumes Rarity had made long ago. Rarity’s blush was as deep as it could get as her magic gathered up the costumes, folded them in midair, and tucked them back into the chest.

“Let’s just pretend you didn’t see that.” Rarity said, but Sweetie Belle was suddenly on the chest, opening it up and getting better look at the costumes.

“Rarity! You made these? You were Mare-Do-Well all along?”

Rarity yanked the chest away, using her magic to tuck it back on the highest shelf of her showroom where it had been nice and forgotten.

“No I wasn’t, though I did make the costumes. It is just a silly project I did for a friend and they served their purpose. And before you ask, no - I am not secretly a crime fighter and I won’t tell you who I made them for. Honestly, I’m embarrassed to say I even made these now. But what made you get this chest, and why were you grabbing all my fine cloth instead of the cotton I asked for?”

Sweetie’s excitement at having found Rarity’s secret stash of clothing was quickly forgotten by her inability to use her magic right, even though she had at least been able to use it period.

“I don’t know... I kept reaching out for the cloth you said, but I couldn’t control where it was going. I’ll roll the bolts back up right now!” Sweetie rushed to the bolts of fabric, using her hooves to roll up the feet of cloth she had accidentally pulled. Rarity would have told her not to, but she held her tongue. Her little sister had used magic, even if she had used it wrong and nearly gotten herself hurt. Some progress was better than none, and the last thing she wanted to do was undercut any confidence Sweetie had at finally getting over her inability to use magic.

“Well, I suppose it’s okay. The main thing is that you’re making progress. Finish rolling the bolts up and we’ll take a break for lunch. And Sweetie?”

“Yes Rarity?” Sweetie asked as she used her front hooves to roll up the bolt of green silk.

“Remember - forget that you ever saw those costumes.”

The filly smiled and gave her sister a nod. She wasn’t that big of a fan of superheroes anyways, though she thought it was cool that her sister knew a real superhero.

“Before I forget about those costumes, what did you use to make them? They felt really different from spandex.”

The look on Rarity’s face was the same look she made whenever Sweetie tried to cook. “Ugh, spandex? Honestly Sweetie Belle, when do I ever make anything with such gaudy material? I’ll have you know that I used very rare spider silk for those costumes. A spider’s silk can be as strong steel with half the protective qualities of Kevlar. Now let us never speak of this again. Consider it on the No-No List.”

“You mean the list you put that big rock you named-”

“Never speak of it again!”

Outside the front of Sweet & Savory, a yellow earth pony with a brown mane and two blue horseshoes for a cutie mark was busy sweeping away dead leaves from the front of the store. As Diamond Tiara approached the shop, the stallion took notice of her and paused his sweeping, setting the broom down and opening the front door just as Diamond got to the front step of the shop.

“Thank you, sir.” Diamond rewarded the stallion with a dazzling smile. Of course an establishment like this had to have only the finest ponies working for it. It was another reason she had chosen to come here, rather than Sugarcube Corner - there was less chance she’d run into any undesirables, be them blank-flank losers or just lower class ponies in general.

The thought of such ponies brought to mind the faces of three certain fillies, three lousy blank-flanks that made her smile flatten into a small frown. Always, before she could think too heavily on them, she reminded herself that they were inferior to her, and not worth wasting any brain power on. Assuming the three losers ever did get their cutie marks, they would always be losers to her. If she had been a shining gem in school grounds, those three were the dirt that surrounded her.

As Diamond entered the candy shop, a small silver bell rang to announce her arrival. The smell of chocolate filled her nose as she stepped inside, followed by other, cooler smells of peppermint and citrus. The floor was polished and checkered black and white. The front displays showed several different milk, white, and dark chocolate bon-bons, all beautifully designed with colorful flowers, stars, and patterns of every shape.

To her right, wooden barrels leaned forward to offer their contents. Jelly beans with dozens of flavors were presented to her, all with rich color to them. Behind those barrels were more barrels filled with jawbreakers, candy corn, peppermint drops, shiny-wrapped hard candies, and chocolate bites encased in hard shells in every color of the rainbow.

At her left were the packaged goods, mostly for ponies who wanted to treat their special somepony to something nice or romantic. Gold and silver boxes lined the shelves, filled with a collection of impressive sweets. There were large chocolate hearts with romantic inscriptions on them and packaged samplers with bright ribbon.

There were endless choices for her, and she could have whatever she wanted in the store.

Before any choice could be made, the sound of hoofs coming made her turn her head. From behind the front counter came a grey filly with a big smile on her face.

“Welcome to Sweet and-”

The filly stopped, staring at Diamond Tiara in shock. Diamond stared back and all thoughts of sweets left her mind at the sight of Silver Spoon in a pink apron.

“Silver Spoon?”

The grey filly looked away from her best friend, clearly struggling for the words she needed to say. Diamond Tiara had a load of questions to ask, but the shock of seeing her best friend behind the counter of a candy store still had her dumbfounded.

She tried to recall what Silver Spoon had told her her plans would be for this weekend but nothing was coming to mind. Given that she had mistaken the dates, she couldn’t be sure about anything that Silver Spoon may have told her she was doing. Though, she was sure that her best friend never once mentioned that she had a job. The very idea was absurd.

“Uh... well, this is kinda, majorly awkward,” Silver Spoon pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose, a habit that Diamond Tiara knew was something the filly did only when she was hiding something. Diamond also noticed that her friend had been looking away from her since she stepped into the shop.

“What are you doing here?”

It was the only question that Diamond Tiara had the sense to voice. The other questions she had were pressing at the front of her tongue, wanting to be spoken but held back by a strange and gripping fear. The Silver Spoon she knew wouldn’t have to take a job doing anything. Both their families were loaded, and bits were never an issue for them.

There was a striking sense of wrongness in seeing Silver Spoon like this.

“Everything okay?” a third voice called out. The high pitch of voice seemed to snap the attention of both fillies like glass shattering on the floor.

Twist, a filly who was only marginally better than the three losers Diamond Tiara hated most in her class, trotted up with what Diamond considered to be a stupid grin on her stupid freckled face. She had an apron that matched the apron Silver Spoon was wearing.

“Oh, hi there, Diamond Tiara! Did you come to pick up thome thweets? We have a thale on our new intenthe dark chocolate thoirees with thea thalt!”

Diamond Tiara didn’t respond. While she normally wasn’t a pony who found themselves at a loss for words, she could only stare dumbly at Twist’s goofy face, to watching Silver Spoon look even more guilty.

We? We, as in you, and my best friend?

“What did you say?” Diamond Tiara asked, the edge in her voice sharp enough that even Twist picked up on it, looking to Silver Spoon and silently asked if she had said something wrong.

“It’s okay, Pepper - I mean, Twist! I can help Diamond Tiara by myself. You still have to prepare the mix for the next batch of candy canes. Why don’t go take care of that?” Silver Spoon was already pushing Twist with her head back through the door into the kitchen. Thankfully for Silver, Twist seemed to pick up on the hidden meaning.

“Oh, yeah, my candy caneth. I’ll just go do that. Uh, nice to thee you again Diamond Tiara. I’ll just be in the kitchen if you need me, Thterling.” Twist called out, just before she disappeared behind the door.

Once Twist was gone, Silver Spoon turned back to Diamond Tiara, biting her bottom lip nervously.

“Listen, Diamond-”

“Sterling? Since when did you start going by your middle name? And Pepper?”

The grey mare blushed, realizing she was standing on thin ice right now, ice that seemed to be cracking all around her.

“Well, yeah. That’s her name too you know? Peppermint Twist.”

In truth, Diamond Tiara did not know that. She couldn’t recall once ever hearing Twist’s full name.

“No, I didn’t. Why would I care about the full name of some loser pony who talks like a foal in diapers? I don’t care about that. I care about why my best friend knows that though. I care about why you seem to be working with her, and why you never said anything about it to me!”

Silver Spoon gave Diamond Tiara a look of mild annoyance before she spoke back. “I’m... tutoring her. It’s really complicated okay? I mean, like...” Silver Spoon sighed to herself, trying to think of how best to explain her actions when she felt she shouldn’t have to explain anything to Diamond Tiara. “I’m trying to help her get over her lisp. I’ve been tutoring her for a couple of weeks now. It’s a sweet deal; I help her with her lisp, I get a big discount on all the candy I want. And have you seen the stallion they have working here? He has a coat like butter, and he looks just as yummy.”

“So... you’re doing this to get cheap chocolate?” Diamond Tiara asked, giving Silver Spoon a skeptical eye.

“And time with the buttery goodness sweeping up outside!” Silver Spoon flashed a smile that often won her instant believability from adults. It was an award winning smile, one Diamond Tiara had taken time to teach Silver Spoon. It didn’t work on her in the least.

“What is she, like your secret marefriend or something?” The accusation had all the bite of a snake, with just as much venom.

“No! What are you talking about? Pepper and I are just-”

“Pepper? Really now, THterling? What, does she have something over you? Is she blackmailing you?”

“I’m allowed to have other friends!”

The shout from Silver Spoon was like a slap in the face for Diamond Tiara. She once again found herself dumbstruck, unsure of how to even respond to what Silver Spoon had just said.

“I mean, like okay, she talks funny. I’m helping her with that. She makes the best candy I’ve ever tasted. And she’s nice. I mean, in a dorky way for sure, but she’s nice. She’s a nice friend to have.” Silver said, putting emphasis on the word nice, which Diamond didn’t pick up on.

Something inside of Diamond Tiara felt like it was cracking. A strange sense of falling was coming over her, like vertigo. She had to shut her eyes and focus on standing on her own four hooves before she could think of how to respond to what Silver Spoon had just told her.

She didn’t even get the chance, Silver Spoon seemed determined to keep going.

“Seriously, why am I even explaining myself to you? I’m still your friend. I’m her friend too. It’s not like she’s some loser blank-flank. I have standards after all!”

That Silver Spoon could consider Twist meeting her standards for friendship made Diamond Tiara wonder where that put her, if not on the same level as Twist, a filly with a name that wasn’t even worth remembering.

You don’t need her. I’m a better friend than she can be. I’m better than her!

“This is horseshit.”

Silver Spoon gasped, looking at Diamond Tiara like she had grown a second head. Her glasses fell off her nose, dangling around her chest as she took a step back from the angry filly.

You’re suppose to be my best friend. Mine. I’m better than that foal. I have more money, better looks, and I don’t speak like a retard.

“I’ll leave you with your new friend then. I hope you two have fun making your candy canes.”

“Diamond-”

The pink filly had already turned her back, walking for the door and giving it a hard push. The bell that hung just above the door swung quickly, ringing loudly in protest.

Diamond Tiara wasn’t paying attention to how far she had walked from Sweet & Savory, only that she needed to walk, and fast. She wanted to get away from the candy shop, away from Silver Sterling Spoon.

In the back of her mind she knew she had overreacted a little, but the initial shock and insult stung too much for her to see past the selfish behavior. It hadn’t helped that Silver Spoon and Twist addressed each other with different names. Something about that kind of connection made Diamond furious. She and Silver Spoon didn’t have special names to call each other by.

Of course, that didn’t matter anymore.

We’re not friends anymore now... I just lost my only friend. My best friend. I shared secrets with her. What am I suppose to do at school now?

Diamond Tiara stopped as a growing panic started to settle inside her. Silver Spoon had been her only friend, the only pony she actually talked to at school. Losing her friendship meant having no friends, no pony to talk to, becoming a loser and a social reject.

She stomped her hoof on the ground, panic feeding anger. Why Twist of all ponies? Diamond Tiara hardly understood half of what Twist said. There was no redeeming qualities about her, yet there was something about her that made Silver Spoon want to befriend her, and put her on the same level as herself - as if Diamond Tiara and Peppermint Twist were equal ponies.

And now I have no where to get candy. I’ll have to send the help to buy all my sweets now.

Her stomach growled, and Diamond stomped her hoof again. It was twice now that she had been looking forward to something, only to have it ruined.

She took in her surroundings; she was in the shopping district of Ponyville, just a block away from the farmer’s market. Ponies all around her were going about their daily lives. Many of them looked happy.

Diamond Tiara couldn’t get herself to put on a fake smile. Seeing that there were a group of cider trees close by, she walked to that area while avoiding having to look at anypony else.

Settling herself by a tree, she opened her saddle bags and pulled out the sandwich that had been wrapped for her. She remembered how she had her chef make two, intending to give one to Silver Spoon. She was glad that she ordered that sandwich to be thrown away now.

She bit into her sandwich hard. If she couldn’t be friends with Silver Spoon anymore, she would have to find others. The only problem was that there weren’t many rich families in Ponyville. Her options were severely limited. Canterlot was the only place where she would find other ponies like herself that she could be friends with now. Maybe even Manehatten. As she ate she made plans for the future - she would still be going out of town next weekend, she could use the time to check out the schools and find one that she could convince her dad to send her to. It would mean having to go the rest of the week alone at school, but it would be alright once she got to leave town.

She would still see Silver Spoon at school though. And Twist.

The anger inside her was cooling down enough for her to try and understand what Silver Spoon was getting at.

Maybe she does make really great candy. Fine, I can accept that. We all have our special talents at something. But why didn’t Silver Spoon tell me? She kept it a secret. From me.

That was what made it hurt so much. If Silver Spoon had some plan to get really cheap candy from a sucker like Twist, why not let her in on that plan? Silver Spoon might have liked candy more than Diamond, but that was no reason to keep it a secret.

“But she’s nice. She’s a nice friend to have.”

“I am nice too.” Diamond Tiara said to herself, finishing off her sandwich.

What did she mean by that anyways? I was always nice to Silver Spoon. I let her sleep in my bed! I couldn’t be nicer!

She was still too upset to understand Silver’s actions. There were other things she simply couldn’t accept, like how Silver and Twist called each other by different names. That was just plain weird no matter how she looked at it.

I can’t handle this right now. I need to figure out how I’m going to make a new friend. Maybe I don’t have to change schools - there must be some pony in this town that meets MY standards.

Ponyville was small, but not that small. She truthfully hadn’t paid attention to a lot of the other fillies and colts in her school and the only ones whose faces she could recall were all the lame peasant ponies. She would have to start paying attention now to find the ponies worth befriending.

There’s that dress too. Daddy ordered it for me; I bet it’s ready now. I can start looking for a new friend after I treat myself. I certainly deserve it now.

There were rose chips to go with her lunch, but she packed it away. The sandwich had tasted funny, so she would complain to the chef later. Chances were that after what happened with Silver, no food would taste quite right to her. She would simply go out and get her dress, and she would feel a little better with something new to wear.

I bet Twist doesn’t have custom made clothes for herself. Stupid foal. I hope you’re happy with her Silver Spoon.

Diamond Tiara sniffled and rubbed her hoof over her nose.

Gah. I won’t feel sad. I’m not a baby. I’ll get my stupid dress and then something to drink, like a hayshake, to wash the taste of that awful sandwich out of my mouth.

Author's Notes:

This story was proofread by the talented Raaron. I owe him a lot of thanks for his help in making this chapter the best it could be.

“I’d like it if you were my friend.”

Sweetie Belle gently poked a hanging roll of Rarity’s discounted canary yellow cotton fabric with the tip of her horn, feeling nothing special. She had tried this with the cerulean cotton that had been used to make Diamond Tiara’s dress and even with the orange and red garnets her sister had found in the gem fields. Each time, her horn never reacted. Prodding the green silk and garnets she had found with just the tip of her horn had given some small reaction that she couldn’t quite name.

I don’t get it. What’s the connection?

She stood alone in the showroom of Rarity’s shop. The rolls of fabrics on display were meant to give customers a chance to see the current shades and patterns that were in fashion for the season, while more bolts of fabric were hidden in her big sister’s workroom waiting to be crafted into new fashion trends. Rarity herself was in the kitchen still, cleaning up from the lunch they had finished. Even at the table, Sweetie hadn’t been able to use her magic to lift her tomato sandwich to her mouth the way Rarity always did. She couldn’t levitate her napkin to her mouth nor could she lift the plates to take to the sink.

Staring now at the rolls of cloth, she sat uncharacteristically still and quiet. Her magic was there, she had used it and knew what it felt like, but it wouldn’t work when she wanted it to. All she had to go on where the silks and the gems she found.

What’s so special about those silks and those green garnets? The gems are rare, but it’s not like my special talent is finding rare gems. These silks aren’t rare, just expensive. The gems are expensive too, but…

She raised her head above the collection of bolts to the light blue chest she had pulled earlier. Inside were the costumes that Rarity had made, something she had no idea even existed until her magic nearly slammed the chest into her.

Those costumes are expensive too, but Rarity wouldn’t sell those. Whoever Mare Do Well was, she must have stopped being Mare Do Well because Rarity has those costumes back. That means she must not have sold them in the first place...

It didn’t make sense to Sweetie Belle that her sister would go through the trouble of making expensive, fancy costumes she never intended to sell. Rarity was no superhero; the thought alone was laughable. They couldn’t have been made for Rarity’s friends either - none of them were the superhero type, except Rainbow Dash, and she was out of the question for being Mare Do Well.

Rarity would never refund a customer if they returned used damaged clothing either. That was besides the point though. Sweetie Belle focused her horn on the chest, reaching out with her magic like Rarity had taught her.

The chest shuddered. Her horn glowed softly, covering the folded costumes inside. She could feel three of them, as if they were in her hooves. Not wanting to upset Rarity, she let the feeling go and her horn dimmed, the magic fading away again. The excitement she wanted to feel was held back by more confusion.

Okay. So my magic can work when I want it to work, but only on certain things. Only on certain clothing?

Sweetie Belle let out a loud groan of frustration, rubbing her face with her hooves and feeling a headache coming on. She could have assumed her special talent had something to do with expensive things, but her magic couldn’t be used to make Diamond Tiara’s dress, and that was suppose to be very expensive. It never reacted to the cloth or the thread and needles. The dress was sure to be expensive from just the garnets alone but her horn only responded to the gems and not the whole expensive dress.

“I don’t get it! How am I supposed to make sense of my magic?!” Sweetie sighed and stood up on her hind legs, mimicking her sister’s often overly dramatic sense of despair as she let herself fall back, landing on a plush red pillow that zipped on the floor just in time to break her fall.

“Sweetie Belle, dear, it is just going to take more time to figure out how your magic works.” Rarity said as she came up behind her sister, her magic wrapped around the pillow that Sweetie Belle had landed on.

“But I finally started using magic! I’m just one step away from finding my special talent and getting my cutie mark!” Sweetie’s voice was higher than normal, a sign that she was getting genuinely upset. The filly’s voice had all the pent up frustration from the day’s disappointments. Sweetie had expected to get her cutie mark when the gem-seeker spell went off on its own; the way Rarity had gotten hers. When that didn’t happen, she expected to get it when she started grabbing Rarity’s silks and wools, but instead she had been left only more confused. She felt like she had taken two steps towards her goal, only to go back a step now.

“Well, be that as it may, you are just going to have to hold off on it for now. I expect Miss Tiara to arrive in the next ten minutes or so to pick up her dress and I want to go over what I would like you to do.”

Sweetie Belle nodded, though she couldn’t help but feel nervous as she rolled off the pillow and stood back on her legs. Part of her had hoped that, if she could have gotten her cutie mark by now, Diamond Tiara would at least not be able to call her a blank flank anymore. She truthfully had no idea how to reach out to her, and was trusting Rarity to have the answers she needed.

“Okay. What do you need me to do?”

“Firstly, I want to be sure you want to be this filly’s friend in the first place. I’ll admit that when the idea first came to me I went with it and might not have given as much thought to your feelings as I should have.” Rarity gave Sweetie a small apologetic smile. Sweetie Belle was already used to her sister not being as thoughtful as she would have liked, but in this case she wasn’t the least bit mad.

She hadn’t been completely sure at first if she wanted to be friends with a pony like Diamond Tiara. On the outside, the rich filly had a lot of faults. Knowing that her sister had once been like Diamond though, she began to see her bully in a new light.

“I think I do. If you hadn’t told me about how you use to be a bully too, then I would have said no, but now I want to try. Are you sure this can really work?”

Rarity smiled knowingly, in a warm way that Sweetie Belle only saw when Rarity was really happy.

“I believe it will. But even if it does not work and she does not accept your friendship, I want you to know that I will be proud of you for even trying. This is a very mature thing you are doing, and it is not easy to give a pony a second chance, more so when they have been rather beastly towards you. If she does not decide to be your friend, hopefully she will at least treat you better when she sees the dress you helped make her.”

Rarity used her magic to bring the ponikin wearing Diamond’s summer dress out onto the greeting area of her store. It was covered with a red cloth that was meant to be pulled away for a big reveal.

“Now listen, Sweetie Belle, when Miss Tiara arrives we shall greet her together. The dress was a little pricier than average, so her father informed me that when the order was finished she would come with a letter of credit rather than bits. I will explain to her that the dress is ready but that I need to take the letter to the bank at once - letters of credit do take a dreadful amount of time to process. After I leave, you take over. You will be the one to show her the dress. Tell her about how fabulous it is, and be sure to highlight the parts you helped with, especially those magnificent garnets.”

“That’s it?” Sweetie Belle asked, thinking that the plan sounded a little vague. Outside of the dress, she wasn’t sure what else to say to Diamond Tiara. She couldn’t even be sure that the pink filly would really care what Sweetie had helped with.

Rarity didn’t seem the least bit worried. “It may not sound like a lot, but in truth, Sweetie Belle, it is not a great undertaking to befriend some pony. Do you know how you became friends with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom?”

Sweetie nodded, thinking the question sounded so simply it was almost silly.

“Of course! Scootaloo and I can to Apple Bloom’s rescue when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon started bullying her about being a blank flank.”

Rarity smiled more and nodded, “Before that, how did you become friends with Scootaloo?”

Sweetie thought back, trying to recall how she met Scootaloo.

“We went to school together, for the afternoon class. I met her when she nearly ran me over with her scooter after trying to do some mid-air loop. She apologized to me and we just started talking.”

“And when you first met Apple Bloom, after you heroically came to her rescue, what did you three do?”

“We started talking. Apple Bloom asked if we were friends at that point and I didn’t even think twice about it.”

Rarity clapped her hooves together, happy with Sweetie Belle’s response.

“There you have it darling. You just answered your own question.”

Sweetie Belle looked unsure. “I don’t get it. How does any of that help me make Diamond Tiara my friend?”

“It’s quite simple really. You do to her what you did with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom – talk to her. Have you ever had a conversation with Diamond Tiara before?”

“Not one where she wasn’t picking on me.” Sweetie responded with a flat tone in her voice and a look of annoyance in her eyes.

“Well she will have no grounds to pick on you with this dress. Use it to start a conversation with her. Once you two start talking, I believe you will both open up to each other, just like you did with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.”

Sweetie Belle looked surprised. The young filly never considered how easy it had been to become friends with the two fillies she trusted the most, and that it had all come about by simply talking to them and getting to know them. She had never had a real conversation with Diamond Tiara before.

If I did just start talking to her and getting to know her, maybe it would change things.

“Wow sis, that sounds like it could really work!” Sweetie Belle said excitedly, feeling like she had just been taught an amazing life lesson.

“Oh I’m sure it will. I just wish I had smart and beautiful big sister that could have shared such valuable life experiences with me. Even if this doesn’t work Sweetie Belle, it is important to at least try. I wish I could go back and try talking to the ponies I bullied at your age. That is why I planned this all out. I don’t want to see you miss out on the chances I was too blind to take for myself. I might have had more friends now than I currently do, and might have been a happier filly for it. It’s too late for me, but not for you.”

Rarity pulled Sweetie Belle into a hug, feeling more connected to her little sister than she had in a long time.

“Thanks Rarity,” Sweetie Belle said as she snuggled against her sister’s silky fur, “I’m going to try my best.”

It was at that moment that there came a knock on the door. Rarity turned her head to the clock on the wall and let Sweetie go.

“That must be her. Are you ready to try and make a new friend?”

“I’m ready!” Sweetie Belle said confidently.

I feel sick…

Diamond Tiara’s stomach was starting to ache as she walked down the street. When she first started to feel bad, she had felt like she would throw up, but that terrible feeling never came. The sandwich must have been bad, and she would yell at the chef once she got home for using cheap ingredients.With the way she was feeling, she would tell her daddy to fire him.

She passed other ponies without paying them much attention, feeling miserable and cold with each step, making her move slower than she realized. It was a physical kind of misery that mirrored the misery in her heart. She still hadn’t gotten over Silver Spoon and Twist’s secret friendship. The more it weighed on her mind, the more she found herself actually wanted to be included on that secret friendship. If the candies she enjoyed from that shop had been made by Twist, she would have been willing to overlook the filly’s embarrassing speech impediment to milk her for free treats.

That’s not what Silver is doing though. No, Sterling and Pepper are actually the best of friends when Silver Spoon isn’t pretending to be my best friend.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she nearly bumped into a mare on the street. Diamond had to stop suddenly as a pink pony with a black and white polka-dot mane walked right in front of her. The mare had come up from behind Diamond, walking quickly when she suddenly cut in front of Diamond’s path, never once acknowledging her as she walked right into a wall and then through it without breaking her brisk walking pace.

Diamond Tiara blinked, too shocked to know how to respond. She looked behind her, seeing other ponies going about their day, none of them showing any sign of having seen a pony walk through a solid wall. Rubbing her eyes with her hoof, Diamond wondered if she had just imagined it. She decided that she had to - ponies don’t have polka-dot manes anyway.

She chalked it up to being tired. Walking was starting to become a chore. The muscles in her legs felt weak, though she couldn’t think why. She hadn’t done a lot of walking around that day, though her body felt like she had already walked all over Ponyville.

Maybe I have food poisoning. Maybe I’ll die. That would show you, Silver Spoon.

Diamond stopped and rubbed her eyes again. She hadn’t meant to think that way, but knew she was starting to feel tired and irritable. The bright side was that she was nearly at the Boutique.

I’m better than Peppermint Twist.

Diamond turned her head to look behind her. Though she was far away from it now, she could still make out Sweet & Savory. The candy decorations of the roof melting in the hot sun and dripping down the walls and over the windows slow as a snail on the ground, leaving behind a slimy white trail of bubbling sweetness.

She blinked and the slime on the walls wasn’t there anymore; she was too far to be sure she had even seen what she thought she saw.

I must be getting tired, I’m starting to see stupid things.

She turned to continue on her way when two stallions walked past her. They were in a heated conversation about the appropriate tier of cuteness of the town librarian. Diamond Tiara stood shocked as both stallions had the biggest teeth she had ever seen in her life.

Each tooth was white as a pearl, but as thick as a ice cube. Their speech sounded fine as they walked away, the huge teeth doing nothing to alter the sounds of their voice. She couldn’t help but marvel that the teeth on both stallions were perfectly straight.

“Excuse me.”

Diamond Tiara squeaked as she quickly stepped aside. A unicorn with a minty green coat walked past her, giving Diamond Tiara a questionable look with two eyes that were the size of softballs, bulging from the mare’s eye sockets and held in only by thin red veins. The mare’s eyelashes were thick as earthworms, and the pupils of her eyes were the deepest blackest pits Diamond had ever seen; she felt like she could push her whole hoof into those pupils.

“What are you staring at?” the mare asked, and Diamond Tiara realized then how she had been leaning closer to the mare’s face, drawn in by the large eyes. The pink filly shut her own eyes and started running, too afraid to even think of screaming.

She traveled only a block away before finally stopping, her legs feeling even more sluggish. Opening her eyes finally, she looked around frantically for ponies with giant teeth or huge eyes.

Every pony around her looked perfectly normal. The streets weren’t very crowded, but the ponies she saw didn’t look like mutated freaks at least. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she rubbed her eyes again.

What’s wrong with everypony!? Am I the only one who sees this? Buildings are melting and faces are warped!

Yet as she looked around her, there was nothing to suggest anything she had seen was real. Every pony looked perfectly normal, going about their normal business in a normal way.

I must be seeing things. I’m just really tired. And stressed. Maybe I didn’t really see Silver Spoon with Twist. I must be imagining things...

The idea seemed the most logical to her, though as she assured herself of that fact, a grey pegasus with one eye looking to the sky and another eye looking to the ground passed her. The mare was balancing a muffin perfectly on her head.

Yeah... things are normal. I’m normal. Every pony is normal. I didn’t see Silver Spoon with Twist, being her best friend. She wouldn’t need her when she has me. I’m a better friend for her than anypony else.

Reminding herself about that notion made the filly walk faster as she started heading for Rarity’s shop, ignoring how her body wanted to rest. She believed that to be true of any filly in Ponyville; she was better than them all, and Silver Spoon was a fool to ever doubt that.

I don’t need to be nice. I’m better than that. I’m… better than Silver too.

Diamond shivered from chills, though she wondered if it wasn’t from the thought she allowed herself to have. If she was better than Silver Spoon, why did she need her to be her friend so badly?

She never got to answer her own question as she arrived at the front door of the Carousel Boutique. Diamond Tiara lifted a finely manicured hoof and knocked on the door. Her hoof made ripples of tiny rainbow mushrooms spread out from her hoof over the door, springing up from the dried paint until they reached the door frame.

I just saw sound...

Diamond wanted to throw up again, but she had to swallow the sick feeling away as it took only a few seconds before the door opened and Rarity appeared, welcoming Diamond with a happy smile.

“Welcome dear! Please do come in.” Rarity stepped aside as her magic held the door open, allowing Diamond Tiara to walk in a little slowly.

Praise the fat flank of Celestia, she looks normal at least.

She was about to greet Rarity in turn, when she spotted Sweetie Belle.

“Hi Diamond Tiara. Uh, you’re looking good.”

Sweetie’s coat was sparkling like a diamond in direct lighting, making her glitter like a crystal pony. Tiny bursts of gentle light were exploding in four point stars all around her.

Diamond gave a smile that was less than confident or welcoming. At school and on the playground the two never talked, and that was how they liked it. With an adult around though, they both had to play roles, and Diamond Tiara wasn’t feeling up to it as Sweetie smiled at her and shinnied like a polished gem.

“So my dress is ready?” Diamond asked Rarity, ignoring Sweetie Belle who pouted at the back of Diamond’s head. She needed to get the dress and go home as soon as she could.

“Oh yes, it’s all done. I understand your father left you a letter of credit for the dress?” Rarity had also noticed the snub Diamond had given Sweetie, but she let it go, knowing that there was still work to be done between the two of them.

Diamond gave a nod and reached into her saddle bags, the stiffness in her neck making the simple action seem hard. She couldn’t help but let out a groan of protest as she reached with her neck and clamped her mouth on the sealed letter Rarity needed. Once she had it, turning her head back felt just as hard.

Rarity and Sweetie Belle noticed the minor difficulty Diamond Tiara had, but neither said anything about it. Rarity assumed the filly was just stiff. Sweetie Belle, who knew how Diamond Tiara liked to always present herself as if she were showing off for an unseen camera, was realizing that something was off with her.

Rarity’s magic took the letter from Diamond’s mouth, breaking the seal and opening it. Her magic also brought her glasses to her face, giving the letter a quick read over.

“Excellent. Everything is in order. I need to fill out the paperwork on my end for this, and for that I need to make it to the bank before they close. I’ll be having Sweetie Belle show you your dress. I’ll try not to take long. Sweetie Belle, please show Miss Tiara to her dress.”

The two sisters gave each other a quick wink, completely missed by Diamond as she discreetly rubbed her neck. Even moving her leg to do that felt hard – it was getting harder to move at all.

She watched as Rarity trotted out of the room, and Diamond realized just then that Rarity was walking out of the shop and closing the door behind her.

“Wait… what about my dress?” she asked, sounding both annoyed and tired.

Sweetie Belle blinked with confusion and moved to face Diamond. “Rarity just said she was going to take care of the letter. I’m going to show you your dress.”

Diamond Tiara looked to Sweetie Belle, whose coat was no longer shining. The filly looked as normal as she always did, but that only left Diamond Tiara more unnerved. She couldn’t be sure what was real and what was fake anymore. She wanted to sleep, to hide her head under the pillows - maybe even cry a little.

Seeing a nervous smile on Sweetie Belle’s face banished those thoughts as quickly as she had them - she never cried. Crying was for babies.

“You don’t know how to sew,” Diamond said, finally breaking the silence.

The comment caught Sweetie Belle off guard. It sounded too weak to be an insult, and even if it had been an insult, it wasn’t cutting like Diamond’s insults often sounded. Sweetie Belle knew that the rich filly had seen the capes she had made for the crusaders – she knew that Sweetie could sew.

“Well, I know the basics,” Sweetie started, remembering how Rarity told her to use the dress as a talking point. “I helped Rarity make your dress. I just took care of the easy stuff, but I also found the gems to go with it too.”

Gems? Daddy got me gems too?

She followed behind Sweetie Belle to a covered up ponikin, her legs feeling very heavy now. She wasn’t sure she would make it home now with the way she was feeling. She wanted to nap more than anything now.

Taking the covering cloth in her mouth, Sweetie pulled it away and revealed Diamond’s summer dress. Under the special lighting Rarity had set up, the dress looked great but the catching point was the garnets in the collar.

“Rarity said your dad wanted green garnets for your dress. They’re supposed to be really rare, so I only found seven of them, but they’re flawless. They’re in a princess cut, so they… uh… they’re extra shiny that way.”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes went to the collar before they even took in the dress. They reminded her of Sweetie’s eyes.

They were in fact Sweetie’s eyes.

“I’m sure it will go great with your tiara.” Sweetie Belle offered, trying to get some kind of positive reaction from an unusually quiet Diamond Tiara.

The rich filly stayed quiet, looking back into the seven lidless eyes green with what she was sure had to be jealousy. Her legs were beginning to tremble as she took in the rest of the dress in a passing glance, only to look back at those eyes.

“Diamond Tiara?”

“I get it now. I’m dreaming.”

Sweetie Belle looked confused as Diamond Tiara looked at her with a tired expression on her face. “What? You’re dreaming?” She looked back to the dress, thinking that it didn’t look like the best dress Rarity had ever made to earn such a compliment.

Diamond sighed and lifted her front leg to rub her eyes, only her leg felt too heavy to lift. She gave up midway, looking at Sweetie Belle with glassy eyes.

“This is all one big nightmare. I’m still in bed, and Silver Spoon is still my friend. You’re not really here, you stupid blank flank loser.”

Sweetie Belle looked at Diamond Tiara with concern, taking a step away from the filly. She knew something was wrong the moment Diamond tried to insult her. Now, she was starting to get concerned. All thoughts about trying to win the other filly over had been pushed aside.

“I… are you okay Diamond Tiara? What about Silver Spoon?”

She watched as Diamond tried to lift her other front leg again, but stopped herself. It seemed to Sweetie like Diamond couldn’t lift her legs. She was moving sluggishly, and her eyes were half open.

“Did you spread your loser germs on me? Is that why I’m dreaming about you? Are the other Cutie Mark Catastrophes here? I bet they’ll melt out of the walls any moment now. With the way this dream is going, I bet Chickenaloo is going to show up with freakishly huge wings and still won’t be able to fly.”

Despite the insults, nothing Diamond Tiara was saying made sense, but the filly was insistent, and before Sweetie Belle could say a word, Diamond spoke up more.

“Don’t look at me with your huge eyes all sad! And stop making them spin! This dream is stupid! You’re stupid! You’re STUPID!” Diamond Tiara yelled as her body started to shake.

“Diamond-”

“NO!” Diamond Tiara yelled, her glassy eyes wide and scary for Sweetie Belle to look at. She shut her eyes, as if Diamond Tiara was having trouble seeing, and then quickly opened them again - they suddenly looked bright and clear a second. “I remember... you said once that Apple Bum was full of potential because she didn’t have a cutie mark - well you’re wrong! If that loser ever does get a cutie mark, or if any of you get cutie marks, I’ll always have more potential than any of you! She’ll have some dumb cutie mark about apples like the rest of her hick family because that’s all the potential she has! My cutie mark is special; I can do and be whatever I want because everything I set my mind to is within my talent! My talent is being the best me I can be! That’s why I’m better than you! I’ll always be better than you no matter how many friends you have!”

Diamond was panting, trembling, and crying all at once. Her eyes had been darting all around Sweetie as she gave her speech, as if Sweetie Belle herself wasn’t standing perfectly still, watching the rant with a look of confusion and concern. Diamond Tiara wasn’t just upset, she was talking crazy and looking around as if she was seeing things that weren’t there.

“I’d like it if you were my friend.”

It was the first thing Sweetie Belle had gotten to say since Diamond Tiara had started ranting, and to her surprise the words rang truer now than they had felt before. Her normally high soprano tone of voice sounding a little more squeaky as she made her confession.

“I don’t care if you think you’re better than me," Sweetie spoke softly and with a small smile on her face, "My sister always thinks she’s better than other ponies because of her good looks. But she doesn’t rub it in other ponies faces, and neither should you. You can be pretty and rich and important without hurting other pony’s feelings.”

Diamond Tiara didn’t move. She looked at Sweetie Belle through hot eyes, shaking so much that Sweetie Belle was sure that something was wrong.

“You’re not my friend. You’re not Silver Spoon. Nothing you say matters. I want to wake up now.”

The more she spoke, the more slurred Diamond’s speech became. She took a step towards a now scared, angry, and confused Sweetie Belle, only to fall forward when her legs gave out. Her tiara fell loose and slid away.

“St-stupid dream legs... I caann’t staannd up.”

Sweetie Belle shrieked at the sight of the fallen Diamond Tiara. The pink filly was kicking her legs out in a hopeless attempt to stand up. She had begun to drool out the side of her mouth, and her eyes dilated and half open. She looked like she had a hard time breathing.

Panic set in and Sweetie screamed.“RARITY!” Sweetie Belle had nearly forgotten that her sister had left for the bank - she was all alone with a very sick Diamond Tiara
“HELP! Somepony, I need help!”

Sweetie almost ran for the door, but stopped herself, remembering Diamond. She was torn between going to her side and running out of the shop.

“Siiilver?” Diamond asked as she looked up to Sweetie’s face from the floor, “Heeelp meee?”

“Rarity?”

Sharp Dresser felt a weight drop in his stomach at the sight of the grown filly that use to tease and bully him. The last thing he expected to see was a grown Rarity welcoming Diamond Tiara into her clothing shop.

The mirror showed Diamond as the poison began to make her hallucinate; it had been an amusing sight to watch the stuck up filly see things that weren’t really there. The mirror however wouldn’t let him hear what was being said between Diamond Tiara or Rarity, or the small white filly in the shop with them.

Rarity… she really grew up to be beautiful.

Sharp Dresser’s thoughts wandered to the possible what-ifs that he often asked himself. What if he had stood up to Rarity, defending his own taste of clothing – could he have won her over, or at least convinced her that just because he didn’t keep as up-to-date on fashion as she did that he still knew what clothes made a pony look good? His special talent allowed him to see the best colors in the right patterns and styles on any given pony. Had he the confidence in his talents, he would have been up there with Photo Finish and Hoity Toity; he would have servants, rather than be a servant himself.

His dimly glowing red eyes glared at the images in the mirror, watching as Rarity left the shop and the two fillies alone, a smile on her face that made Sharp Dresser grind his teeth together. An old hate was growing again in his heart. It had been Rarity’s fault that his confidence was so weak thanks to her teasing, her hurtful comments, and her needless cruelty.

Rarity... once Diamond Tiara is done with, I’ll kill you next.

With that thought, the spell on the mirror ended, showing him his reflection once more. His shocked eyes were a darker red than he remembered them being. In fact, he could have sworn his eyes use to be brown.

“It’s over now. You failed.”

The statement was a slap in the face to Sharp Dresser. His reflection stared back at him uncaring.

“What? What do you mean I failed? Diamond Tiara ate the poison. I saw her stuff that sandwich into her fat little mouth. She’ll be dead in a hour the way she was looking.

His reflection was unmoved, even as Sharp Dresser stepped closer to the mirror.

“No. You saw her with that filly. She’ll call for help. She’ll save Diamond Tiara, and you’ll be ruined.”

Sharp Dresser opened his mouth to argue back but was stopped short. His reflection was right. The little foal in the shop with Diamond would see something was wrong, and she’d go running for help. The poison wouldn’t work fast enough and he knew that. Passion Flower was a slow but painless death; it was suppose to be a kind way to die for a pony who had been anything but kind to the others around her. His kindness was going to cost him everything.

The despair in Sharp Dresser chilled him to the bone. His vision blurred with tears as he slammed both hooves on the polished mirror. His reflection never moved.

“Help me! It was you who convinced me to take matters into my own hooves. You told me how to poison her; you said making her go away would give me what I wanted. I’m a grown stallion for Celestia’s sake - but I’m still intimidated by bullies like her! Killing her was going to fix everything!”

“You had your chance. By yourself, you couldn’t do it.”

By himself; Sharp Dresser had always been by himself and it had gotten him nowhere in life. With a face wet with tears, he leaned his head against the mirror, the tip of his horn grazing the polished surface.

“Please help me... I’ll do anything.”

“Anything for revenge?”

The question filled Sharp Dresser, as if the voice reverberated inside him. He felt something in his heart break, like a final line had been crossed.

“Anything for revenge” he said as he blinked away tears that, instead of falling down his cheeks, evaporated into a mist that steamed continuously as the whites of his eyes glowed a sickly green. He reflection warped, turning darker until it faded away into the blackness of the mirror that he had somehow never noticed before.

From inside that darkness on the other side of the mirror, dozens and dozens of glowing green eyes snapped open, holding the unicorn in their mournful gaze. Hooves reached out and passed through the surface of the mirror, slow and gentle, taking hold of Sharp Dresser and pulling him through the mirror.

Had he been able to focus, he would have seen the one pair of glowing green eyes that weren’t mournful; they were wide with hunger.

“Sharp Dresser, you have a heart weak with pain. But fear not, my little pony. We will take your hate and despair for my cause. In exchange, we will see to it that you get your revenge. We shall fill your heart, and you shall be my slave.”

She didn’t know what to do.

It was in that moment of panic that Sweetie Belle, who had only ever had to deal with occasional mishaps at home and a few sticky situations with her friends, found herself in a life and death situation, with no grownup around to help her.

If she left, galloping out of the shop as fast as her small legs could take her, she could get help, but that meant leaving Diamond alone. The filly had been trying to talk, but her words came out like slurs, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like she couldn’t control it anymore. What had scared Sweetie most was watching Diamond’s glassy eyes close - maybe for the final time.

Sweetie had tried to keep Diamond awake, talking and even shouting at her to keep her eyes open, but the pink filly had stopped responding, looking blankly at Sweetie Belle like she didn’t recognize her. Every time Diamond had started to close her eyes, Sweetie would shake Diamond a little, trying to keep her awake. Her body felt slack, like she was dead weight. When it was clear Diamond Tiara wasn’t going to open her eyes again, Sweetie Belle set her bully to lay on her stomach on the floor.

What do I do?! What would Rarity do?! Diamond needs help, I’ve got to get her to somepony who can save her!

Sweetie Belle clung to that idea, using it to keep her as calm as she could manage. She would take Diamond Tiara to the nearest adult and get her help that way. She went to the filly and tried to lift her up, to carry Diamond on her back, but the other filly was too heavy for her. It didn’t help that Diamond was essentially dead weight and not helping in the least. Sweetie Belle would never make it far with Diamond Tiara loosely on her back.

She needed to be held on her back with magic.

Past failures were ignored as Sweetie Belle shut her eyes and focused her magic to her horn as fast and as strong as she could.

You have to work this time, horn. You HAVE to work!

There had been enough attempts were her magic had worked that Sweetie could recall how her magic felt to her, how to hold it, and she could feel her horn lighting up as she pointed it at Diamond Tiara. There some was something inside of filly that Sweetie’s magic could respond to.

Please, I just need a little more...

A lime green aura wrapped around the body of Diamond Tiara, but she wasn’t being lifted. Sweetie’s magic enveloped her completely, but the filly wouldn’t budge.

“Come on! Work!” Sweetie shouted, pulling more and more magic from inside her into her horn, making it glow brighter and hotter. The aura around the sick filly glowed stronger, and Sweetie could feel something for her magic to grab, but it felt small, too small to be Diamond Tiara.

The effort of using her magic in such an inexperienced way was draining Sweetie fast. She was forced to stop, opening her eyes and panting from realizing just how much effort she was blindly putting into trying a simple telekinesis spell. Her horn still glowed, Diamond was still wrapped in magic, it was all more than Sweetie Belle had even done with her horn before; it was all not good enough.

Maybe if... I touch her with my horn?

Maybe distance was all that mattered. There was something in Diamond she could take hold of with her magic, she had felt it. Stepping up closer to the filly, who was taking shallow breaths, Sweetie pressed her horn on Diamond Tiara’s head, pouring her magic into trying to lift the filly up.

She felt something then. Her eyes began to glow as they had with the gem-seeker spell, letting Sweetie Belle see past the pink coat and into Diamond Tiara. It wasn’t muscle and blood she saw but a light, trying to shine clear and bright inside of the filly but was clouded by inky clouds.

It was wrong. It was making Diamond Tiara sick, but Sweetie couldn’t name it nor could she name the light inside Diamond that was being choked. She saw how her magic was seeping into the light inside the filly’s body, helping it to shine. Her enchanted eyes showed that the brighter the light inside Diamond Tiara shined, the more the inky clouds around it were pushed back, or faded away altogether.

There was no telling what this meant, but in her own heart Sweetie Belle believed this would help. She focused her horn to keep pouring magic into the body of her bully, to take it all if it had to. Her magic was making that light inside Diamond bright as a candle flame, and brighter still as the inky clouds around it were pushed back, even when they seemed too thick and dark to be lit. The light was burning away whatever was trying to choke it; whatever Sweetie Belle was doing, it felt like it was working.

It was also hard. Just as it seemed like she could do this for as long as she needed to, Sweetie’s sight of the light in Diamond Tiara faded, and the enchantment on her eyes stopped. Her horn stopped glowing, and the white filly felt like her legs would give out from under her.

I can’t do it anymore... I don’t have enough magic. I should have... should have ran for help. I don’t even know what I’m doing.

She didn’t know, but it had felt right to her. Something inside Diamond Tiara was making her sick, and she swore that her magic was helping to fix that, burning up whatever those inky clouds inside of the filly were.

I need to try again. Maybe just a little more magic will help... it has to help.

There was no choice anymore. Sweetie Belle felt too weak to run out for help now. Her heart told her that whatever her magic had been doing, it was helping. She had no idea how it related to finding gems or lifting certain kinds of clothing, but it was helping.

She didn’t get the chance to start again as the room around her darkened, as if a cloud outside was blocking the sun. This darkness was unnatural though - it spread too fast and was just too dark to be only shadows. Sweetie watched in fear as those shadows blocked out the world from the windows. The shadows grew darker and thicker as they began pooling by the front door as if to block any pony getting in or out.

“What... what’s happening?” Sweetie asked, feeling something very wrong happening around her. She stood in front of the helpless Diamond Tiara, fear rooting her hooves to the floor.

Silently, the shadow of a pony pulled itself up from the floor, the darkness dripping slowly off it like oil as a green unicorn stallion in a fancy black jacket pulled himself up. His eyes were a sickly green as purple mist steaming from the corners. The red pits of his iris’ felt like they could burn as he glared at a terrified Sweetie Belle.

“Move,” he growled, and his horn fired a burst red magic at Sweetie. She screamed and held her front legs up to defend herself, but no pain ever came to her. What she felt was a sense of weightlessness as she realized she was floating off the ground, trapped in a bubble of red magic and slowly floating away from Diamond Tiara.

The unicorn paid her no mind as Sweetie started slamming her hooves on the magic holding her, trying to make her horn light up again.

“St-stop! Stay away from her!” she shouted with all the courage of a foal who was terrified. "Don't hurt her!"

Sharp Dresser ignored Sweetie as his magic pulled a nearby pillow. With a look of satisfaction on his face, he gave Diamond’s body a rough shove with his foreleg, making her lay on her side so that he could stand over her as he pushed the pillow over the filly’s face with both hooves.

“Should have done this from the beginning” he growled, pressing with the pillow as hard as he could.

“H-Help! Somepony HELP!” Sweetie kept slamming her hooves on the bubble she was trapped in; bucking it the way Applebloom had taught her to buck trees. For all her effort, she continued to float slowly away from a smothered Diamond Tiara, too weak and out of it to even put up a struggle.

The panic was blinding her with tears. She couldn’t do anything but watch as a strange pony with terrifying eyes suffocated the filly that used to consider her enemy. She might not have liked Diamond Tiara, but she never wanted to see anything bad happen to her. As bad as Diamond Tiara could be, never once did she ever think somepony could be so full of hate that they would try and kill her.

She tried to make her horn glow again, focusing on just making it light up as she reached out with her senses as she had done with the gem-seeker spell.

There was the blue chest with the Mare-Do-Well costumes inside it. She could feel the costumes responding to her magic as her horn lit up bright green. It wasn’t the chest itself that responded, but the costumes inside. Shutting her eyes, Sweetie Belle pulled with her magic as hard as she could, just as Rarity had tried to teach her before.

The chest flew off the shelf that Rarity had put it on, and slammed right into Sharp Dresser.

Sweetie opened her eyes to the sound of a loud crash and a scream from the stallion. The pillow he had been using fell away from Diamond’s face, but Sweetie couldn’t stop to see if the filly was still breathing or not as she fell back to the ground; the magic holding her had been broken.

She got up quickly, seeing Sharp Dresser try and do the same. From under his black mane, blood was flowing over one of his eyes. The chest had hit him perfectly, breaking his concentration on the magic that had trapped Sweetie Belle. Without wasting any time, she pointed her horn on the costumes that had spilled out around the stallion, fitting them in her magic, pouring out all she could.

The costumes floated up around Sharp Dresser as if there were ponies inside them. Three costumes in total surrounded the unicorn, and jumped on him before he could activate his horn. The spider silk outfits wrapped their sleeves around him tightly, the capes of the costumes cocooning him in material that, as Rarity had told her, was half as strong as steel. Even his face was covered as the stallion fell to the side, struggling on the floor.

Sweating, Sweetie Belle hurried to Diamond Tiara. She was using more magic than she ever realized she had inside her, and she wasn’t sure how long she could make it last. Her own only hope was to drag Diamond away and lock themselves in a room until Rarity could come back.

She grabbed Diamond by her shoulders, hooking her front legs under the pink filly’s and started to drag her away. Diamond was dead weight, but not totally dead yet. Sweetie only managed to get a few feet away when she saw the wrapped up bundle of the stallion start to smoke. She lost her balance and fell on her back, dropping Diamond Tiara as the unicorn stood up.

He was using his magic again, and had burned away some of the costumes. With an angry growl Sharp Dresser tore himself out of the ruined costumes. His horn was glowing as red as the blood on his face.

With one eye open and smoking, he yelled in animalistic rage and charged at Sweetie and Diamond. With her horn still glowing and her senses still open, she felt something inside of the stallion that felt loose, and she pointed her horn at him. It was either trust her horn, or risk being killed with Diamond.

Her horn shot out a beam of green light that pierced Sharp Dresser in the chest. Everything happened in that single instance. The possessed butler fell forward, his momentum making him roll forward until he was a short distance away from the fallen Diamond Tiara. Like her, he wasn’t moving anymore.

Floating above him was a black sphere, perfectly round and large as a heart. Sweetie’s green magic crackled around it, and though her horn had stopped glowing, she had no idea what her magic was doing.

The orb cracked, smoke billowing out of it as more cracks appeared and Sweetie’s magic grew dimmer. She saw her magic disappear completely, and the orb silently exploded, releasing a black mass of howling shadows that seemed too great to have fit inside the small orb.

She was trembling now. Her vision was becoming blurry and her legs felt weak. She wanted so badly to close her eyes and sleep as the growing darkness spun around her. She wanted to call for help, but she couldn’t move her mouth.

Gently, she felt herself being lifted once more. The spinning shadows coiled around her and cradled her the way she once had been cradled by her mother when she was just a baby. The feeling felt familiar and pleasant; making her want to sleep all the more.

The pony holding her was of course, not her mother. As the face began to take form, her fatigue was forgotten.

It was not a pony, at least no pony she had ever seen before. It was a he, that much she could be sure of. He was all around her, and suddenly she wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming, having a lucid nightmare. She tried to make her horn light up again, but there was no chance of that as the shadows engulfed her small horn, and the rest of her head and body, leaving only her face. It felt like being in the bathtub, but with cold and heavy water that made her feel like she was in something stickier and thicker than tree sap.

Her teeth began to shatter as the face in front of her took more shape. The teeth were the first things she noticed. They were sharp and long, and there were so many she couldn’t count them all. He had a mane that melted into the shadows. A horn that was long and curved, sharper than Rarity’s sewing needles. The eyes were red, the whites replaced with green and full of hate just like the stallion that had suddenly appeared in Rarity’s shop, but these eyes were different.

The hate was still there, and there was so much it that Sweetie Belle felt a wave of hopelessness flood over her.

She was going to die, the eyes told her so.

She would die never having gotten her cutie mark.

She would never see Rarity again. Her big sister would never know what happened to her.

Her friends would never know either. They would eventually move on and stop being friends without her.

She was going to be forgotten.

She never mattered.

“You never mattered.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes never once blinked as they too started to change and smoke at the corners. But even as the transformation took place, she weakly spoke out.

“Liar.”

It was all the fight she had left in her. The face that stared her down smirked.

“So brave. So young. Too young for me?”

She could hear the voice in her mind, loud and deep. The monstrous pony face was considering something, its eyes still holding Sweetie’s.

“I can smell it on you. Harmony. You stink of it.”

The face growled, and the growl could be felt all the way in Sweetie’s bones.

“You've cost me a slave, my little pony. Shall you replace him? Is there room in your heart for me?"

Sweetie Belle could feel herself sinking. She was going away, and there was nothing she could do about it. The shadows were starting to rise to her cheeks.

What are you? Sweetie Belle thought, just as her eyes were covered in darkness. Her last conscious thoughts were filled with the monster pony’s voice in her head.

“Your king. The king of the shadows in your heart. Ssssombra…”

"I don't need friends, I need power."

“Well lookie what we got here. I guess it must be darn tiresome being her, now that she’s all special and such.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Apple Bloom’s bitter voice. She sat up in her desk, unsure of where she was or how she had gotten there. Right away she tried to think about what had happened to her, only to come up with nothing. Time felt like it had gone missing, and even though she could see she was in the schoolhouse sitting in her desk, she couldn’t recall when she had gotten there, or how long she had been there.

Was I having a nightmare all this time?

“Come on, AB. We have more important things to do than waste our time with her.”

To her side, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom gave Sweetie Belle glares that they normally only reserved for Diamond Tiara. To see them aimed at her snapped her attention to the here and now very quickly.

“Guys? What’s going on? Was I sleeping in class?”

Apple Bloom sniffed and tossed her head up in an overly dramatic act of snubbing. Scootaloo chose to be a little more straight forward with her feelings.

“Did you hear something, AB? I could have sworn I heard a traitor nearby.” Scootaloo’s words were as sharp as the edge of a knife, and were practically dripping with venom as she glared straight at a confused Sweetie Belle.

“I reckon I heard sumthing, but best we ignore it, Scoots. We don’t associate ourselves with those kinds of ponies.”

Scootaloo’s eyes, which often shone as bright as her smile and sweet as her laughter, held an uncharacteristic coldness in them that made Sweetie feel afraid. She never knew Scootaloo could even look so disgusted at anyone, least of all at her. The past concerns about having had a terrible dream she couldn’t remember were replaced with the sudden and scary reality before her as she saw her friends starts to walk away from her.

Sweetie Belle pushed away from her desk, knocking her chair back as she ran up in front of her two friends and blocked their way out, much to their annoyance.

“Guys, what’s going on? Why are you saying those things to me? I don’t remember... I don’t remember even coming to school today.” Sweetie couldn’t remember anything about the day before. She had a feeling she had been planning to do something with Rarity, but the details were fuzzy. She didn’t understand why she was still in school when all the students and Cheerilee were gone already.

“Move, traitor.” Scootaloo growled, her small wings snapping out behind her to make herself look bigger than she really was. “Don’t try and play dumb with us.”

Sweetie Belle felt the tears coming despite her confusion, but she held them back, refusing to move and lose any explanations for what was happening.

“Why are you calling me that?! I’m... I’m not a traitor. I haven’t done anything to betray you guys. I would never do anything like that. You’re my best friends!”

Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked unmoved at their scared and confused former friend, but it was Apple Bloom who raised an accusing hoof at Sweetie Belle.

“Oh yeah? How’d ya explain that there then?”

Sweetie Belle looked behind her, seeing only the open door to the outside cast in a golden glow. The sun was setting and not a single pony could be seen outside in the vast, empty, silent world.

“Oh please, are you that stupid?” Scootaloo sounded utterly annoyed, slapping her hoof to her own face at Sweetie Belle’s lack of understanding. “She means your flank.Your cutie mark.”

Sweetie Belle gasped, her head turning quickly to check out her own flank as excitement suddenly made her forget that her friends seemed to hate her. And they were right, she had gotten her cutie mark... one Sweetie Belle didn’t recognize.

The mark itself was strange, patternless, and hard to make out despite how closely she was looking at it. The cutie mark looked like nothing at all, and the excitement she had felt froze inside her. She had a cutie mark at least, but it was a shapeless mass of dull colors that she couldn’t understand.

“Wha-what is it?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“It’s the mark of a traitor!” Scootaloo yelled.

“And a dirty liar too! Ya said we’d all get our cutie marks together, yet here ya go and find yurself a cutie mark all on yur own without us! And ya ain’t even telling us how ya done did it!” Apple Bloom sounded just as angry as Scootaloo, tripping over her own words and letting out more of her southern accent than she normally did. Sweetie Belle was shaken from the sight of the hurt and jealousy in the eyes of her friends.

“But... but...” Sweetie Belle’s tears started sliding down her furry cheeks. She struggled between trying to understand what her strange cutie mark was and the sudden realization that her supposedly best friends now hated her for having one. “I swear... I didn’t even know I had a cutie mark until just now! I can’t even make out what is it.”

“Of course you can’t. If you told us what your cutie mark was, then it means we could try and do what you did too and finally get our cutie marks. You’re just keeping it all a big secret.” Scootaloo was practically in Sweetie’s face as she made those accusations. The unicorn had never seen her friend so angry before, and when she looked at Apple Bloom for help, she saw the yellow filly wipe her eyes roughly, trying not to cry.

“But... you guys know me. I would never do that to you. You’re my friends... my best friends...”

“Then tell us how you got your cutie mark!” Scootaloo shouted in Sweetie’s face, and the little unicorn gasped in fright and backed away, sniffing loudly and sinking to the floor.

“I don’t know... I’m not lying... please believe me! I don’t know what my cutie mark is or ho-”

Sweetie didn’t get to finish. From her side, Apple Bloom had shoved her with her hooves, knocking Sweetie Belle against a desk and tipping it over as she fell back with a cry of pain and a loud crash of furniture.

“I won’t have anymore of yur lies! What kind of pony don’t know her own cutie mark! Ya really think so little of us that we’d buy a cock and bull story like that?” Apple Bloom yelled in outrage.

“I really thought we were friends, Sweetie Belle. We all want our cutie marks more than anything, but I guess you wanted it more than we did. I hope it’s everything you wished it would be.” Scootaloo turned away, eyes shutting tight to stop the tears from flowing.

Sweetie Belle sobbed quietly, huddling up on her side. She was too confused to know what to say to her friends, and too afraid to even look at them anymore.

Without another word, she listened as they walked away from her and out of her life. She wanted to call out to them and beg them to forgive her, to trust her in saying that she didn’t know what her cutie mark was or how she had gotten it, but the words never came.

The sun was setting outside and the shadows of the empty classroom grew large enough to blanket the crying filly.

I’m sorry... I never meant to betray you guys. Please come back. Don’t leave me. We’re suppose to be crusaders... we’re suppose to be friends.

It was hopeless. In her heart, she knew they weren’t coming back. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had shown themselves to be so bitter with envy that they now hated her. It had been clear in the cold, distant way Apple Bloom had spoken to her, and it had been crystal clear in the outrage that had been in Scootaloo’s face and voice. Her so-called-friends wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

When she felt like she had cried all the tears her little body could hold, Sweetie Belle got up slowly. She sniffled loudly as her sobbing turned into hiccups.

She took another look at her cutie mark, still unable to recognize the image. There was no shape or pattern to it, no shade of color she recognized, nothing at all that she could understand. Yet it was there, the symbol of everything she had worked so hard with her friends to achieve. Now, ironically, she found herself wishing she were a blank flank again.

What kind of friends were they, if they just... turned on me like that?

They weren’t, Sweetie realized suddenly. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo hadn’t really been her friends all along. They had worked with her to get their cutie marks and some free capes, but that was it. She could see that now, obvious as the starless night sky. Real friends would have never acted that way towards her. She always thought they would be happier than anyone else, happier than even she would be, when she finally discovered what her special talent was.

“You guys... you’re the real traitors.” Sweetie Belle roughly wiped her nose with her hoof, and in a moment of frustration, she bucked the nearest desk and broke one of its legs.

“Traitors! Traitors!” Sweetie Belle screeched to the open doorway. Her hot, wet eyes glowing a dim red as her angry replaced love in her broken heart.

I don’t need friends like them... I don’t need dumb blank flanks for friends.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes began to brighten a deep and sickly green as her young heart began to hardened.

“Momma! Momma!”

Diamond Tiara blinked and turned around. She was standing in the main hallway of her home, the white and gold-veined marble floor polished to a shine that came from the light of a setting sun outside, let in through floor-to-ceiling windows that led into a lush courtyard of flowers.

She looked around, unsure how long she had been standing at the entrance to her home, or why she had been standing there at all. She felt like she had been spacing out for hours, and couldn’t remember her plans for the day. She had a feeling she was supposed to have gone out shopping, or have gone to meet somepony, but she couldn’t think of why or who. It felt like she had lost a lot of time, and had forgotten something important that had already happened.

In the main hallway of her home, a grand stairway with gold hoofrails stood in front of her, the steps layered in a thick, red carpet. A crystal chandelier glittered above her, breaking the sunlight into specks of color on the walls. Diamond Tiara felt like she was taking it all in for the very first time.

“Momma!”

Her attention went to the top of the stairway, where a small pink filly ran excitedly by, pushing through one of the doors into the west wing of her mansion; the wing where her father had his private bedroom and study, among half a dozen other rooms for his private use.

The voice of the filly sounded strange yet familiar all at once.

Momma? Who is that filly? What is she doing in my home?

Diamond Tiara rushed up the stairs, her hooves never making a sound as she hurried up to the top and through the doors that she had seen the filly run though. She thought it was a cousin of hers that was visiting, but she didn’t think any family of hers would visit; they hadn’t visited her and her father in years.

“Momma, look! Look what grandpa got me!”

Diamond Tiara stopped once she entered the room. There was supposed to be another hallway, but instead she found herself in an old bedroom that was not supposed to be used anymore. The doors shut behind her, but it didn’t matter; Diamond Tiara’s full attention was on a much younger version of herself, standing eagerly in front a lazy, laid out pony.

“See, momma? This is Crown Jewel! She’s the princess of the Frozen North. Grandpa Stinky got me three dolls for helping him plant lav...lavad...lavender outside!”

The younger Diamond Tiara gave a huge grin to her distant mother. She felt proud to have pronounced the hard, three syllable word, and prouder still to hold up three different style plush pony dolls of the same character.

I remember this. That’s me... years ago.

The younger Diamond Tiara’s mane was shorter, and not topped with her trademark tiara; she wouldn’t get that for several more years. Her flank was noticeably bare as well. To see her old self again, Diamond Tiara had trouble believing she had ever been so... stupid, as a foal.

The pony the younger Diamond Tiara called ‘momma’ didn’t appear to give a damn about what the little filly was showing her.

Ruby Slipper had never been interested in her daughter, as far as Diamond Tiara could remember. She never yelled or even raised a hoof to Diamond, but not once could the older filly recall her mother ever really looking at her either. When she spoke, it with was with a voice that was refined and sweet as a robin’s song, but also far away. She had a coat of the softest shade of pink Diamond had ever seen, but it was contrasted by a mane and tail of bright vivid red. Her mother wore her mane down, loose and full of waves. She couldn’t remember what that mane smelled like. Her tail was a single thick braid with a white silk ribbon braided into it. On her hooves she wore glittery red horseshoes that sparkled in the sunlight.

From out of her wild red mane, a soft pink horn pointed out, polished to a fine shine. It glowed in a purple aura that matched Ruby’s eyes. The magic aura was doing what the present Diamond Tiara always seemed to remember it doing; holding up yet another drink, no doubt her third appletini.

“That’s nice.” Ruby said after giving the dolls a quick glance. She didn’t seem to notice Diamond Tiara’s bright smile start to dim. “Go... play outside with your toys, or something. I have something important I need to think about.”

She’s leaving me and daddy... this is the last time I’ll see her.

The real Diamond Tiara felt herself rooted in place, her legs not moving as she watched her past self lean in closer to her mother.

“Can we play outside momma?”

“I don’t want to get dirty.” Ruby waved her shiny hoof dismissively at her daughter.

“We can play inside and you won’t get dirty.”

“I’m busy.”

“What about after your you’re not busy?”

“No.”

Diamond Tiara ground her teeth together, forced to watch the proud smile on her little face shrink into a small pout as her younger self took up her dolls in her hooves and put them back into her saddle. She heard herself sniffle, watched as she turned around to leave, and felt the outburst coming, even though it had happened years ago.

“I hate you,” both the past and present Diamond Tiara whispered. Even years later, the words felt true to Diamond.

She remembered saying that with a little fear in her heart. What she didn’t remember was the look Ruby Slipper gave her. Not a mean look, not the look of an angry or hurt parent. Ruby Slipper seemed only mildly surprised as she watched the back of her little filly walk away, hurt and dejected once again.

“Hmm, it doesn’t matter,” she said softly, with a hint of wonder in her voice.

Diamond Tiara had had enough. She pushed her way through the doors behind her, trotting quickly out of the room and back into the hallway. The windows showed the sun had set and night had settled in the world, and once Diamond Tiara was through the doors, they closed on her again, fading into the wall this time. She was at the opposite end of the hallway from where she had entered it. It was dimly lit, and down the way she could see her little self peeking through a golden crack in a door, a door which led into her father’s private study room.

This has to be a dream, right? I’m just having a bad dream.

She knew she should have felt worried, even afraid, but those emotions never came as she saw the worried looked on her younger self’s face as she clutched one of her Crown Jewel dolls to her chest and listened in on a conversation she was never supposed to have heard.

“When did she leave?” Filthy Rich’s voice growled from inside the room. The present Diamond Tiara sniffled, biting her bottom lip as she walked silently to her younger self, sitting behind her as she looked through the crack in the door, already knowing what she would see.

“It happened after we dropped Diamond Tiara off at kindergarten. The servants said she came into the house, grabbed an already packed set of suitcases, and left without saying a word.”

Grandpa Stinky...

Diamond Tiara felt the heat in her eyes suddenly rise at the sight of her grandfather, Stinkin Rich. He looked old to her now, but she remembered him looking older still. His mane had turned grey all over, and he had grown a short beard that she remembered would scratch her whenever he would kiss her cheeks. She could recall all the attention he used to give her, the pride and joy in his eyes whenever she would enter the room, more than her own father had in fact.

Hearing his voice again, years after she and her father had lost him, made her cover her mouth with her hoof to hold back a small sob. She had forgotten how badly she missed having him in her life.

“There’s some more bad news, son. She cleaned out her bank account. Luckily she didn’t touch the joint accounts, just the ones in her name only. I won’t go into the number of bits she took with her, but I’m sure you already know how much she most likely has now, and how much of that was tied into Barnyard Bargains.”

“I don’t care about the sun damned damn bits,” her father growled, drinking down a small glass of something dark and most likely strong, “I can make up the bits, sell some of the land we owe if I have to. I want to know who she left with.”

Diamond wanted to know too. This had been years ago and the memories had been fuzzy then, but this was a second chance for the truth.

“What good is that going to do you? She’s gone, and she’s not coming back. You weren’t even happy with her, Filthy. This is a blessing in disguise.”

“It was supposed to be on my terms damn it!” Diamond watched as Filthy Rich’s hoof was trembling from rage, spilling a generous amount of precious whiskey around the shot glass he was aiming for. “She’s humiliated me, and I won’t know a day of peace unless I know just who that ungrateful horse left me for. I deserve to know.”

Through the crack in the doorway, Diamond Tiara could see her grandfather look conflicted, and so much older than she remembered. Her slouched in his chair, watching his only son drink like a fish.

“The carriage driver.”

Filthy Rich laughed without a bit of humor.

Diamond Tiara tried to remember who that driver was, but no face came to mind. Being older, she completely understood the insult her father must have felt. She looked down to her younger self, who seemed only confused. Her front leg reached out to hug the small filly, but stopped short, deciding against that idea.

“The servants said they saw her enter the family carriage. She spoke some words with the driver and then they took off. The driver hasn’t been back since.”

Filthy Rich stayed quiet for a few seconds, just before he threw his shot glass at the wall.

“This is horse shit!” he shouted, and Diamond Tiara could feel her younger self flinch at her father’s raised voice. She flinched as well.

“The driver? The driver?! I’m better than him in every way! I could have given her anything she wanted: bits, gems, airships, summer homes, winter homes. And what will this driver give her? Huh? How is he supposed to meet her high standards? This is a joke!”

Stinkin Rich was already out of his chair and holding his son, just as Filthy started to break down in his father’s arms.

“What am I going to tell my daughter? What do I say when she asks where her mother has gone?”

“We’ll... think of something.” Stinkin said softly, his old face heavy with grief and heartbreak for his son.

“I don’t understand, dad... I’m better than him. I’m better than him!”

Diamond Tiara wasn’t aware that she had been crying until she felt the tears fall onto her hoof. She looked down to see that her younger self was gone.

Raising her head, she saw that the room had suddenly changed around her. She was in her own room, all her familiar things displayed around her. The windows were tightly shut, but there was still enough light to see her younger self sitting in her elevated bed, looking curiously at the real Diamond Tiara, like she had been waiting for her.

“This... none of this is real is it?” Diamond Tiara asked softly as she wiped her eyes with a hoof.

“It comes from your heart. It’s real.”

It wasn’t her voice. The tone was deep and seemed to come from all around Diamond Tiara, vibrating on her bones and in her brain. The small filly on the bed had a calm curiosity in her unnatural eyes.

“Am I... dead? Am I seeing my life flash before my eyes or something?”

Her younger self chuckled, and Diamond Tiara noticed how the eyes of the little filly weren’t just unnatural, they were simply wrong. They had begun to glow green as hemlock leaves, smoking a sickly, poisonous purple at their corners. In the middle of that poisonous glow, the center of the little filly’s eyes held red-orange pinpricks of light.

“You saw what makes you strong.”

Diamond Tiara wanted to take a step back, but she stood her ground. She had a feeling she couldn’t get away from this, and the surreal aspect of seeing and talking to herself made her want to stay.

“Why?”

The filly took a deep breath, as if giving her response some thought.

“To judge you.”

The filly Diamond Tiara stepped off the bed, her pink coat getting darker and her wavy mane slithering around her head, growing and reaching out behind her as the filly’s body grew longer, taller, and thicker.

“Who are you?” Diamond Tiara asked, feeling, strangely enough, unafraid. Even as she saw her young body grow and change from mare to colt, from familiar to terrible, she felt only a strange excitement fill her body.

Diamond Tiara was experiencing something she couldn’t understand logically, but she could feel it as she watched the pony’s shape take its final form. Every strand of fur on her body felt it; she was seeing something that older and more educated ponies would define as sublime.

“I am King Sombra.” The dark stallion growled, smiling with a unsettling grin full of teeth, as he towered over Diamond Tiara. His glowing horn was large and curved in a way that Diamond Tiara had never seen on a unicorn before. Unlike a normal unicorn, he had fangs that could intimidate a timber wolf.

“And you, my dear Diamond, have been judged worthy.” His voice was like thunder in the heavens and the roaring of the earth during a quake. His voice commanded absolute attention. He spoke to Diamond the way she imaged a god would speak. To her credit, she had enough presence of mind to still ask a question.

“Worthy of what?”

“Worthy... of my love. You, my dear, respond to hurt by causing hurt back. Paying pain with pain. Weaker ponies would surrender to their broken hearts, but you break hearts instead, and grow stronger for it. I could use a strong pony such as yourself.”

Diamond Tiara trembled as King Sombra spoke to her. She hadn’t yet realized that she was panting. Her vision was taken up by the intimidating presence of Sombra, feeling his power all around her. His words made her feel good inside, like she was more powerful than she understood. Powerful enough to be noticed by a king.

“You can be pretty and rich and important without hurting other pony’s feelings”

Diamond Tiara hesitated. She couldn’t recall when she had heard those words, but she remembered them, and the pony that had said them to her.

“I don’t know...” she said softly and truthfully. She didn’t know if she wanted to really be the kind of pony that grew stronger from hurting others, but she also didn’t know if she believed other ponies feelings were as important as her own. If she didn’t think of herself, who would?

King Sombra seemed only amused by her hesitation.

“Isn’t this your chance?”

The new voice struck Diamond Tiara’s ears like a whip, despite how slack and lazy the voice sounded. It was enough to make her forget the awe she felt from speaking with King Sombra and turn around. The bored expression of Ruby Slipper greeted her.

“You’ve always been such a boring pony. I wish you had been born a unicorn instead of a common dirt pony. For all your big talk about how much better you are than anypony else, it’s still just words, and words can’t make you special. This is your chance to put some action behind those words.”

The voice was exactly like she remembered it to be, but still sounded different now that she was older.

“You’re not really my mother, but you annoy me as much as she used to.”

“I hear the past tense in that sentence, which would make one think you weren’t annoyed anymore. But that isn’t true is it? The truth is, you see me all the time, even though I am not physically around anymore. It gnaws on you; I can see it in your eyes. Never knowing if I’m off having more fun than you, or if I’m happier without you in my life. The latter is most likely true. I mean, I wasn’t all that happy with you around before.”

Diamond Tiara growled, her nostrils flaring as she stamped her hoof in anger. “I don’t need to listen to you! And I don’t need you. My life is better without you ignoring me. I didn’t lose anything after you left, and I am happier without you in my life.”

She turned to King Sombra, who watched the exchange with unreadable eyes. “Why am I seeing her? You said I was judged worthy.”

“Indulge me.”

Diamond Tiara wasn’t sure how to do that, but she turned back to the image of her mother, looking bored as ever, and felt her heart harden.

“I don’t need a pony like you. My dad doesn’t need a pony like you either. No one needs you, and that is why I’ll always be better than you. It’s better to not need a pony than to not be wanted by anypony. Now go away. I hated you then, and I hate you now!”

Diamond Tiara stomped her hooves down once again, and this time a crack in the floor was made from the impact. The fissure shook the room around her, opening the floor up as the crack spread, snaking its way to Ruby Slipper, who tried to avoid the fissure but missed her footing, falling into the dark recesses of the fissure with an echoing scream.

She didn’t feel the least bit sorry for the mare that she had called mother.

“That is why you are worthy,” King Sombra spoke with all the softness of a tiger’s growl as he wrapped a front leg around the empowered filly, “Serve me. Pledge loyalty to your king. I welcome the shadows in your heart, Diamond Tiara, and I will reward you with power you so richly deserve.”

This is wrong.

Even as her heart hardened and she wanted nothing more than to lash out and destroy something, Sweetie Belle held back the negative feelings festering in her heart. Even with how bad the experience with her friends at been, when they had all but trampled on their friendship, the young filly hadn’t given in to the hate that threatened to drown her.

I don’t want to hate them. They’re my friends... I can’t just give up on them!

The doubt was still there though. They had given up on her, rejected her after she had gotten her strange cutie mark. They had said mean things, but that was because they were hurt inside, as brokenhearted as she had felt earlier.

She didn’t believe that they hated her now. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had been her friends for a long time, and all the experiences and adventures they had had together couldn’t all be pushed aside because of one misunderstanding. She had to have faith in the ponies she laughed and smiled with so often.

The more she thought about this, the better she felt, and the more her eyes reverted back to normal.

“This can’t be real. My friends would never act like that towards me,” she said to herself, looking around the schoolhouse again, and outside to the unnaturally starless night. “This isn’t real. None of it is.” She looked up longer into the sky, noticing how unnaturally black it all looked. The sky was never stark black.

It’s not the sky... it’s something else, something... something...

Something she had sunk into. Sweetie Belle gasped and remembered helping Rarity make Diamond Tiara’s dress, finding her gems, learning how her magic only worked on certain clothing and certain gems, and seeing Diamond Tiara sick and being attacked by a strange colt that she stopped when her magic took out a black sphere inside him, just as it had burned up inky clouds in Diamond’s body...

My magic... I think I understand now. The clothes, no, the fabric and the gems, they’re pure. The gems were flawless, they didn’t have anything bad in them. And those costumes too; they were made without any flaws in the silk. But that means Diamond Tiara and that colt had something flawed... no, something impure inside them. My magic took that away.

The answer was on the tip of her tongue, and the more she thought about it, the more her horn started to glow. The green aura of magic cast a cool glow around her, and when she turned her head to look at her cutie mark again, she saw the unrecognizable mark start to fade in a puff of black smoke.

“It’s a fake! That proves it then! I know what my magic does now and why it only works on certain things. And I know it will work here!”

Sweetie Belle’s smile was as bright as her horn as she felt her magic gather and swell inside it until she felt like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. With quick stamp of her front hooves, she shot her magic out into the sky, light streaming from her horn and piercing through the black night above her.

The world lit up and the shadows were pushed back. She felt herself fall onto a hard ground, and her ears were ringing with the sound of crowd wailing all around her. Sweetie Belle’s head was throbbing at the sudden sense of waking up from a dream that she couldn’t be sure had really been a dream at all.

Above her, a dark cloud of featureless faces were wailing around her, pushed back by the bright light of her small horn.

It was a lie... I knew it!

She was still in Rarity’s shop. The colt that had attacked Diamond Tiara was still motionless on his side. Diamond Tiara was suspended in the air, the wailing faces in the shadows circling around her.

“Get away from her!” Sweetie yelled, and charged for Diamond with renewed strength. She shone her horn at the pink filly, and the wailing faces pulled back. Sweetie was able to catch Diamond on her back before the filly could hit the ground.

Diamond Tiara groaned as she opened her eyes, feeling as sick as she looked to Sweetie Belle.

“Hold on, Diamond. I’m going to get us out of here before it comes back!”

Sweetie had to struggle to keep Diamond Tiara balanced on her back, but adrenaline helped her focus her magic still, keeping it bright and spreading out as much as she could make it. The wailing cloud of pony faces cried in protest as they were pushed away from the two fillies, and Sweetie felt Diamond Tiara start to move.

“Stop... you’re hurting him.”

Sweetie couldn’t be sure she had heard right, but Diamond Tiara didn’t repeat herself with words but with actions instead. She pushed herself off of Sweetie Belle, standing on shaky legs as she pulled away from the unicorn.

The dark cloud rushed around her, making a wall that separated Diamond Tiara from Sweetie Belle, even as the little filly shone her magic on it.

“You don’t understand! Whatever that is, it’s trying to trick you!” Sweetie shouted as the wailing became louder. She couldn’t make her horn shine any brighter, but with the light she could manage, she released it at the dark wall with impressive force, earning a cry of anguish from the ponies that made it.

“Enough!”

The voice boomed as one around them, and the cloud shrank, concentrated into a single shadowy form coming from Diamond Tiara that quickly became the shape of a stallion’s head above her.

The face Sweetie saw was the same face she remembered seeing just before waking up in the schoolhouse. It was the face of the monster, pretending to be a pony, and it filled her with dread. Her horn dimmed to see his glowing eyes glaring at her.

“You’re the one that doesn’t understand, you stupid blank flank. He’s not tricking me, he’s shown me that I don’t need anyone; not Silver Spoon and certainly not you. I don’t need friends, I need power.”

Diamond Tiara smiled as the shadowy form around her thickened, and her eyes began to change and match the eyes of King Sombra.

“I have seen your heart, Diamond Tiara. You have a heart that is strong with pride. You are better than any filly in the world. Serve your king as his... princess... of your own free will, and you will have power that should have been yours by birth.”

Sweetie Belle felt the dread in her heart grow as Sombra spoke, but she kept her magic glowing bright, fighting through the natural response to be afraid.

“He’s trying to use you!” Sweetie Belle cried, “Think about Silver Spoon! She’s your best friend! She wouldn’t want to see you like this! I don’t want to see you like this!”

Diamond Tiara looked at Sweetie Belle while the dark cloud of King Sombra started to sink into her body. Sweetie Belle imaged the light she saw in the filly being blocked and consumed.

“Friends, or power?” Diamond Tiara asked as the smile on her face grew larger and meaner. “I choose power.”

King Sombra laughed and his floating face was pulled in along with the rest of the dark cloud into Diamond Tiara’s body. The wailing had stopped and the windows and doors that had been blocked were now letting in the light from outside. Sweetie Belle’s horn stopped glowing, exhaustion from using so much magic finally demanding that she stop.

A blast of red magic shot out at her horn, encasing it and Sweetie’s head as she screamed in sudden pain.

A second blast of red unicorn magic was sent at the fallen tiara on the floor, picking it up and placing it on top of Diamond Tiara’s head, just above a curved, ethereal horn.

Her eyes glowed with the same power and hate that Sombra’s eyes had shone with. She poured newfound magic into Sweetie Belle’s head, loving how the unicorn filly was crying out in pain as she struggled to keep standing.

“Such a waste. You would have made a good slave, but alas, there is no room in your heart for me. But this filly, she will serve me well. And you, my dear...”

It wasn’t Diamond who spoke. Sombra was using Diamond’s body, channeling his own power through her to lift Sweetie Belle up by her head, pulling the struggling filly closer.

“Snapping your horn would raise unwanted questions. Ah, but if those questions should not be believed...”

Sweetie Belle felt the magic from Diamond Tiara gripping her mind as it travelled down her head, wrapping around her throat like a clamp. Her eyes were shut tight as she pawed at her neck with her hooves, gasping in agony. The possessed face of Diamond Tiara could only keep smiling at the sight. The red magic started to pull back, slow and painful, until it finally faded and Sweetie Belle was dropped to the floor, gasping and trembling.

“Your king has blessed you with a gift. You shall suffer the the curse of knowing. I will allow you to remember what has happened on this day, but no pony who knows you will believe what you tell about my return, or of the events that have happened this day. And when I return to my full power, I will seek you out first, Sweetie Belle. Perhaps then, you will find it in your heart to serve your king.”

Sweetie Belle struggled to keep her eyes open, but the curse had taken its toll. She fell back into the darkness of unconsciousness.

In the back of her mind, Diamond Tiara knew she had made a mistake. She felt the power of the ghostly king filling her up, and pushing other things out because of it. Important things, things she couldn’t quite name, but with them went a sense of control over herself as well.

I just want to have things go my way...

She felt herself slipping, as if ready to sleep and dream. She wanted to sleep and let go of the heaviness in her heart.

“You will have your way and more, my little princess. From now on, you belong to me, and me alone. I will fill your heart with the shadow of my love, and you will serve me faithfully. You will be the catalyst for my return, and the instrument of my will. You will be my Malicious Intent.

Diamond Tiara felt herself smile as she slipped into oblivion.

“Nurse, is there any news?”

“We’ve gotten our tests back. They’re going to be okay.”

Rarity sighed with relief, feeling a huge weight lifted from her. Beside her, Filthy Rich turned his head away, wiping his eyes.

It had been a day since Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara had been brought to the hospital in Ponyville. By the time Rarity had returned home expecting to have found two new friends, her neighbors had rushed her, telling her that a strange pony had broken into the shop and attacked the girls.

She wouldn’t forget seeing the fallen body of her little sister any time soon.

“The doctor and I have some questions that we’re hoping either of you can answer for us.” Nurse Redheart stood outside the room shared by Diamond and Sweetie, both fillies sleeping peacefully and hooked up to monitors showing their steady heartbeats. “We’ve confirmed that the poison in Diamond Tiara’s system is now completely gone. The shock to her system has kept her sleeping, and she is fine of course. I understand the girls were not hurt by the home invader when you found them?”

“Yes, thank Celestia. Why do you ask?” Rarity asked.

“Well, in regards to your sister, she suffered acute mana-fatigue. According to our tests, we’ve concluded that Sweetie’s magic purged the poison in Diamond Tiara’s body. Her magic lasted after her initial casting of the spell, and after the break-in by the home intruder. Is your sister very adept at magic?”

Rarity shook her head, feeling the eyes of both Nurse Redheart and Filthy Rich on her. “No, quite the opposite in fact. She’s never been able to use her magic properly. The poor dear can’t even lift her food with magic. I’ve been trying to help her learn to control it, and she did cast some spells the other day, but she has no real skill. She certainly doesn’t know any healing magic.”

“Oh no, this wasn’t healing magic your sister used. That’s why our tests took so long. Sweetie’s magic purged the poison, it didn’t heal Diamond Tiara’s body, hence why she is still asleep; she needs time to recover from the shock. In fact, as far as our tests can measure, Diamond Tiara has never been healthier. This wasn’t healing magic, it was purifying magic. This is rather uncommon for unicorns because it’s a type of magic that reacts to purity and corruption, going back to the talents of our ancestors. You’re going to want to get a professional to evaluate her, but the reason for her acute mana-fatigue seems to stem from this remarkable form of a magic that, in my professional opinion, saved your daughter’s life, Mr. Rich.”

Filthy Rich sniffled, turning his head away to wipe his eyes again. He had been an emotional wreck when he had arrived at the hospital, demanding to see his daughter right away only to be held back by nurses when he was told they needed more time to give him answers.

“When should they wake up?” he asked, composing himself again.

“That depends on them. Mana-fatigue can take a day or two to pass. Diamond Tiara will wake when her body is ready, which I believe should happen later tonight. You’re welcome to visit them now. Once they wake I’ll present you with the discharge papers.” Nurse Redheart gave both Rarity and Filthy Rich an understanding smile before leaving the two to their families.

“I owe your sister a debt,” Filthy Rich said, looking to Rarity but not making eye contact with her. “I… understand my daughter has not been the most forthcoming of ponies to your sister. I get letters from her teacher from time to time, though I am not always home when they come. Perhaps if I was, I would have realized one of my staff…”

Filthy couldn’t finish his sentence. There was anger in his eyes, though he knew now was not the time to be angry. The disgruntled employee had been caught and would face justice – and the rest of the household staff had been dismissed for good measure.

“I’ll be sure to tell my sister that.” Rarity gave a polite smile, feeling a little upset that Filthy Rich knew about his daughter’s bullying but hadn’t bothered to act or correct it.

“If I may, Miss Rarity, I would like to tell her myself. Should my daughter wake up first, I’ll have her sent home where she can rest in comfort. I personally don’t like these hospitals. The least I can do is apologize in person to your sister for the trouble my daughter has caused her. She gave my daughter her life back, despite the treatment I don’t doubt Diamond Tiara has been giving her. I would be much honored, Miss Rarity, to pay for any expenses that would go towards getting Sweetie Belle evaluated and trained in the use of her magic, so that she might learn how to control this rare form of magic she seems to have. I will also be covering the cost of the medical treatment to both our families.”

Rarity was taken aback by the sudden generosity Filthy Rich was showing her. It was the exact opposite of what she had expected from Diamond Tiara’s father.

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly accept all that. I’m just happy that your daughter and my sister are safe.”

“Please, Miss Rarity. It’s the least I can do. All the bits in my bank accounts don’t hold a penny to the real jewel of my life. What good is my money if I can’t use it for my family? Right now, all the family I have is my daughter, and your sister saved her. I insist that you let me cover these costs.”

Rarity hesitated, but in the end relented to Filthy Rich’s request. Sweetie Belle was going to need a lot of help if what Nurse Redheart said about her magic was true. There was another benefit to the deal though that Rarity didn’t miss. There was now a chance for the relationship between her sister and Diamond Tiara to really start to improve. Once the girls were awake and okay, she would start laying down the groundwork to change the relationship the two fillies had.

After seeing the familiar stallion that was being charged with attempted murder of Diamond Tiara, Rarity was determined to make sure that the bullying that had been going on would end in the only way it really could – with friendship.

Author's Notes:

This chapter was proofread by ArgonMatrix. I couldn't be more thankful for the help - this chapter would have read like crap without it.