The bag of bits weighed heavily in Diamond Tiara’s saddlebag. It was quite a lot of bits, more than she usually carried with her. While she may have been a very wealthy pony, daddy always took care of the finances, and Diamond simply got to enjoy the benefits of all that money straightforward. She didn’t know how much there were; she hadn’t even taken the time to count. Time was of the essence now, because she had to time it right so that she could catch the train before anypony could get wise.
It was simpler for a filly to purchase train fare here. Nopony was wary of runaways, since it certainly wasn’t out in the middle of the big nowhere grassland north of here. And since Rosy had kept Diamond a tight secret, nopony knew she had even been here long. “I really like your town!” Diamond said enthusiastically to the fare pony as she slid the required bits over the counter. “It’s very... rustic!”
The faremare looked down at her uneasily, and just said in a scratchy voice, “Filly, are your parents around?”
“Mommy is over there!” Diamond said cheerfully, pointing at a distracted mare talking to to a stallion by the platform, a mare who had mostly the same shade of pink fur that Diamond did. “She said I could buy my ticket all by myself!”
The faremare smiled at that, a silly sloppy smile of somepony who thinks they know more than you do. “And you certainly can, young filly!” she said happily. “Where is your family headed?”
Perfect.
“Baltimare!” Diamond said cheerfully, having carefully inspected the posted routes. That was a stop past Canterlot, which means Diamond could get off the train at Canterlot and nopony would be suspicious of that.
“Oh, dear that’s quite a ways,” the faremare said. “You’ll have to transfer at Dodge Junction. Is that the ticket your mommy wanted you to get?”
Diamond only hesitated a moment before saying, “Oh, yes she wanted that other place, sorry. But we’re still going all the way to Baltimare!”
“Alright,” the faremare said punching out a ticket. “Just put your bits on the table, and you can have your very own train ticket!”
Diamond paused hesitantly. “...how many bits?” she asked carefully.
“Well, how many did your mommy give you?” the fare pony asked Diamond. Before Diamond could panic the fare pony added, “It’s 8 bits for a one way fare.”
“Oh, yes that’s exactly how much bits mommy gave me!” Diamond said confidently, fiddling with her saddlebag and trying to be as quiet as possible counting 8 bits out of her supply. She forgot train tickets were so expensive. Being strapped for bits sucked so much. Diamond couldn’t wait until she had this all behind her, and never went for want of bits again.
She even got a window seat, and as the train hissed, clanked, and started chugging puffily away, Diamond could only thank herself for her foresight and good thinking that got her through these hard times.
“Strawberry!!”
The voice sent a cold shock through Diamond’s spine. She leaned out the train window, looking back and gaping incredulously at the mare trotting beside it. Rosy Gala, she’d followed Diamond! She was going to stop the train! It was all going to go badly! “Strawberry, come back!!” Rosy shouted, as Diamond trembled there in absolute terror. But... the train didn’t stop. It started to outpace Rosy, and she couldn’t keep up!
“Strawberry!” Rosy shouted one more time, gasping to a trot beside the chugging train. “Why?!”
Diamond felt a triumphant grin grow on her face, watching the horrified Rosy stumble to a halt, and quickly diminish into the distance. It really worked. Just like it was supposed to. Diamond pretended to be friends, then took everything from them, and now they were lower than her for as long as she could stay above them. She was gonna be on the top forever!
The minutes the train chugged along stretched into hours, and Diamond luxuriated in her giddy sense of achievement. But then it... didn’t work for some reason. She tried to remind herself how she did good, and it went so perfectly, but she was all alone on this train, and the noisy clanking and clunking was kind of unsettling, like the echo of a hidden calamity going on underneath the train cars. The ponies here were strange, strangers even more than Rosy had been. And none of them were paying any attention to her. Not that she wanted them to, because then they’d find out and stop her, but she just... started to feel really small for some reason.
She occupied her time looking out the window, watching the landscape roll by with those icy blue eyes she was born with, just a quiet, solemn, and maybe even a little bit scared expression on her face. She really wanted to get past this as soon as she could. She wanted to find some familiar ponies, and... and buy stuff from them, or something. She didn’t really know what she was feeling, but that’s what she usually did when she sought ponies out. She just had to find her stallion, and then he’d give her all the money she needed, and everything would be just perfect. But until then, it was kind of, maybe, a little bit... scary.
All the way from Appleoosa, it was an overnight train ride to get... mostly where she wanted to go. There were sleeping cars, but those cost extra and you had to have a f-family to be a filly who got one. So Diamond just chilled on the train bench, feeling cold despite the pleasant summer weather through her fuzzy pink coat, as the crunkles and clanks continued to remind her of that terrified night spent hanging between two train cars and hoping she didn’t get knocked over into the wheels.
Diamond was really hungry when she woke up, but that was okay because she had bits. It was... uncomfortable to talk to the bus pony walking along with the food tray, but it wasn’t that mare’s job to tell fillies they couldn’t be on the train, so ultimately she just gave in to Diamond’s persistent and well reasoned argument, and Diamond’s bits too. It was okay, she had plenty of bits for food. She bought sweet drinks, and lots of cookies, and one of those little bags of caramel wheat sticks, and had plenty of stuff to eat, even if it did make her feel kind of queasy toward the end of the first day. It was actually a two night train ride, so she woke up sore and creaky again wishing she was in Rosy’s... in a bed somewhere instead of on this hard train bench. She felt kind of... weird about sweets then, and just got some salty chips, and some sparkling water to wash them down with. She also got some gummy candies, to snack on for later. They didn’t have any fresh fruit but well, it was train food, so what can you do?
On the evening of the second day, Diamond was too stir crazy to sit still. She already hated the train, and just occupied herself by walking around and getting into things. Seeing if there was anything she could take without being noticed. She asked the one pony if she always had a hump on her back or if it grew there. Just random stuff. It’s not like there were any grownups who were going to tell her to behave or anything. No, Diamond was a big grown-up mare now, and a budding mother to boot, so nobody did anything besides get mad at her, and make her feel like hiding behind the train bench for a while.
But she was so glad to get off that train. She just about bowled over the conductor to get out of there. Diamond had been to Dodge Junction before, on her longer train rides with Daddy, but it really seemed different when she was alone. She kind of felt like ponies were looking at her and kind of felt on the spot. Normally she loved attention, but she was just worried or had jitters or... something. That’s what she thought, at least, until she found herself lost at the train schedule billboard.
It was a huge map, so big she couldn’t see it all at once when she got up close to it, with trains going all over the place, to Las Pegasus, Clover City, Manehattan, Spurville, and Canterlot. But there were like three ways to Canterlot, so she was trying to figure out which one cost the least bits. Except it turned out one of the ways stopped at Canterlot, and that messed up Diamond’s plan to pretend to go on past it, then sneak her way in. There was also a warning affixed to Canterlot, as well as some other stops, that said on the bottom of the map “Warning: departure requires at least a level 3 clearance pass at these stops.”
So, Diamond studied it, and was feeling really lost and scared, but she would totally have figured it out. But then a pony in a train uniform came up behind her, really quietly. She was startled when the stallion said, “Hey there little filly, where are you parents?”
Diamond turned to look at him as calmly as possible with her fur practically standing on end. “They’re right over there,” she said raising a hoof and pointing to a cluster of... ponies who looked like they weren’t watching her.
He didn’t leave, just stayed silent, so she turned away nervously and looked up at the schedule again. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, little filly,” his words came, the calmest and friendliest words ever, that made Diamond feel like she’d just been dropped in a barrel full of ice water.
Surprising him, Diamond bolted right away. If she could just—she fell on her face. She tried to scramble to her feet again but, the—the stallion wasn’t surprised! He expected her to run! She realized this, once she saw his mouth firmly clamped around her beautiful violet and white tail, holding her confidently, and definitely. “I can explain!” Diamond said, “I–I-I’m going to meet them later! They’re just on the next train I mean they’re in Canterlot—Baltimare! I need to go find them in Baltimare! Let me go, you stupid stallion!!” but none of her reasoned arguments would work. He just dragged her butt first across the train platform, Diamond’s future, and the train schedule map receding away from her before her very eyes.
He wasn’t responding at all, so she just shut up and glared at him resentfully while he dragged her butt along. Once he got her into the building the train station had, for train... stuff or something, another mare was in there also in a train uniform. Diamond looked at her suspiciously and started to complain to her too and then noticed she had clenched in her mouth a... a bridle!
“You’re not going to—!” Diamond said in alarm, scrambling to her hooves. But another mare then grabbed her from behind. “I don’t need a—that! Stop it! Leave me alone!” Diamond shouted, but she was so small compared to these grown-up ponies, and she was so easily subdued. She couldn’t even be angry at this point, only scared of what they were doing to her. She could only cry hot, terrified tears as they held her mouth closed so she couldn’t scream, and shoved the thing over her face, and then forced it in her mouth, latching it over her mane and—and putting a bridle on her!
It was terrible. Diamond couldn’t even talk around the stupid bit. And she learned why bridles were so effective even if they looked like such slim, flimsy things. Made from strong leather they wouldn’t snap even if she pulled on them, and even if she could have broken them, they were tied to her face! It actually really hurts to try to pull away from somepony, when there’s something yanking your sensitive nose aside and pulling your lips back. It was like some kind of diabolical face torture device, except it didn’t... hurt when you followed along with the halter. So Diamond did. She felt so humiliated. She couldn’t believe what they did to her! But she... went along with it, and helped them lead her the way they wanted, because it hurt to do otherwise. That made Diamond feel... a really weird kind of bad.
They had her in a room, tied to a post no less. And since they weren’t yanking her around, they undid the part covering her mouth. Not so Diamond could scream for help, but so they could... interrogate her. Diamond was kind of too shaken to scream for help anyway, just totally unsure of her feelings right now. So she sat in that room on the floor, while a pony came in, a really rough looking mare who didn’t have a very sympathetic glint in her eye.
“So, filly,” she said walking past Diamond. “What’s your name?”
“S-strawberry Dancer,” Diamond lied. It... wouldn’t really explain her cutie mark, but it was all she could think of, okay?!
“And where are you headed, little miss Dancer?”
“B-baltimare.”
“Relatives there?”
“Yes ma’am,” Diamond said trying to put some note of respect in her voice.
“Why are you all by yourself, all the way out in Dodge Junction?” the mare asked.
“V-vacation,” Diamond mumbled.
“You had a lot of bits in your saddlebag—” she stated, Diamond interrupted her.
“Those are mine! You can’t take them!”
The mare looked at the half bridled Diamond with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to negotiate here,” she said.
“I–I need them,” Diamond said trying to sound submissive. “To get to Baltimare. For my family.”
“You know, I don’t think you have a family in Baltimare, little Dancer,” the mare said in an admonishing tone.
“I do!” lied Diamond desperately. “I really have them! Their names are D-dancer uh... Second, and—”
“If I didn’t know better,” the mare interrupted her, “I’d say you were a lost little filly with no destination in mind.”
“I’m not!” Diamond whined. “I do have a destination! You can’t do this! I had bits. I could pay the fare!”
“You wouldn’t perchance also be pregnant, now would you?” the mare said in a totally fake surprised tone of voice.
“So what if I am?!” Diamond stomped angrily.
That left the mare staring at her in silence. Incredulous silence.
“Well, that makes my job easier,” the mare said bemusedly, biting her pen and scratching something off on the clipboard stand on her chest. Then she walked over, and started to put Diamond’s bridle back on! “I think we’re done here,” the mare said, despite Diamond’s protests. After Diamond couldn’t effectively scream anymore, the mare just left without a word.
Diamond was alone again. So very dreadfully alone. She should have been watching her back. She should’ve run right away. She should have... what were these ponies even doing? Why were they just foalnapping fillies on the train platform, just because they thought she didn’t have any parents? And the worst part is, they put the bridle on her. They stuck it in her mouth, and she couldn’t bite their unforgiving hooves and...
And with it on her face, Diamond Tiara couldn’t even cry. Because that’s what she did. Just this low wail tearing its way out of her chest. But it didn’t sound tormented, or frightened. It just sounded retarded. It sounded like a pony trying to cry with a bit shoved into her mouth. Because that’s what it was! And somehow that made it so much worse, that Diamond just lost it, and didn’t even care if she sounded stupid. She just cried and cried there in that room, unable to stop the tears trailing down her cheeks, unable to stop the wails of confusion and betrayal coming out of her, and unable to make them heard because she was freaking muzzled like a rabid dog.
You could hear ponies—normal, ordinary ponies walking past her door on occasion, out of which there was only a little window she couldn’t even reach to see. There were plenty of ponies here, and she was still just right here at the train station, but somehow Diamond Tiara felt more lost than when she woke up in a sack out in the middle of nowhere, and even more alone.
She didn’t know how long she was stuck there. She fell asleep at some point, but the artificial light outside in the hall was relatively constant. When they came to take her, it was... guard ponies who came in. Strong looking stallions in gleaming armor. She thought they were here to save her at first, but they didn’t unbridle her, just unlocked her halter, and led her out of the room by her sore, snotty nose. They put her in a pen, with a... with other ponies who had been bridled. But not adorable little fillies, no. They were vagrant ponies! Dirty, snorting, coughing ponies that all seemed to have something wrong with them. One even had a cut across his eye, the pupil of it milky white and unseeing. Diamond was so scared she... she found another filly.
Diamond was so glad to see another filly that she just about jumped on the girl when the slim little thing emerged from behind a mare with a ridiculously glandular weight problem. Diamond wanted to say ohmigosh to the orange/pink filly with the light tan mane, who had a cutie mark of three fruits, but of course the two of them were both bridled. They couldn’t have any sort of a conversation together. The filly clung to her just as much as Diamond clung to her, and they just looked at each other, and... and hid against each other from the others. The awful ugly vagrant ponies who were crowding at the edges of the paddock, giving the fillies a wide berth to separate themselves from, and there absolutely exhausted, she and Diamond both fell aslee—
“Two of them in one week?!” came the elderly mare’s alarmed cry. Diamond woke with a snort in a... oh right, paddock, bridle, vagrants, Dodge Junction: worst train station ever. She looked up from where she and the other filly were sleeping, and there was a soft pink mare with a bleached white mane in a bun looking down at Diamond Tiara and...whoever this is.
“You know how the season went this year,” the guard pony guarding them said in a gruff but steady baritone.
“Yes but...” the eldermare seemed nervous on her hooves as she said, “I’m only authorized to take one!”
“This group’s shipping out tomorrow,” he said waving his nose over his shoulder, “So you better just pick one.”
The mare was looking at two of them... two of something, and Diamond and this filly were two of something. Maybe they were something special? They certainly weren’t missing any eyeballs or teeth. But this mare could only save... one...
Diamond knew what she had to do. She had to push down this filly, make her lower, hurt her so that she couldn’t—be the one picked. The mare was looking down at them desperately, and Diamond only had to push the filly away, and stand up and reach for that elder’s hooves. The other filly wasn’t even trying to fight her, just looking with fear and trepidation at the mare.
It should have been so easy. Who was this filly? Nopony, that’s who! Diamond never met her, or even talked to her, or anything! They just sort of happened to be there, and she wouldn’t huddle with any of the other ponies. It was just a matter of convenience, so Diamond would just toss this filly away like a cheap hat, and it would work out good, and she’d win again. Why wasn’t she doing it? Diamond just couldn’t stop thinking about how desperately they were holding onto each other, all night long. She had to hurt this filly. Diamond had to... she had to win! She didn’t want to win! She just...
They just sort of huddled there, holding their shaking hooves around each other, and the mare closed her eyes. Diamond was going to lose. They weren’t going to pick her! Something bad was going to happen! She just... she just couldn’t. Care.
So the mare calmly spoke out Diamond Tiara’s doom. “Oh, I suppose I’ll be getting Tartarus for this,” she said grumpily, frankly. “I’ll take them both, thank you sir.” Diamond just burst into despairing...wait, what?
It took Diamond a while to cry, because she was just in shock. She and the other filly were led out of the paddock, and were now in the capable mouth of this strange elderly pink mare. Still bridled, just stumbling along on either side behind the old mare. They were both... winning? Somehow? Diamond didn’t understand. She simply could not wrap her head around it. She didn’t even notice where they were going, through an unfamiliar city that Diamond had only ever seen the train station in. She didn’t notice, until she noticed that all the older ponies in the building she’d been led had... they were mares with long black cowels on their heads.
The Sisters of Mercy were not a hypocritical organization. True to their name, they assisted the helpless and downtrodden, ponies on their last legs... who were sisters, or potential sisters. They separated her and the other filly, not that either of them had any choice but to follow those stupid bridles, and led the two of them to small grey individual rooms with modest accomodations, a stiff cot to sleep on. A small sink and faucet on the wall. A cheap little dresser to try to pretty the place up, nothing to put in it though.
Released from the bridle, Diamond backed herself in the corner of that room, confused and suspicious as to these mare’s attentions. Diamond didn’t know very much about nuns other than that they wore long, black cowels and were really stuffy fuddy duddies. She certainly didn’t know that they dealt with slave...guard...whatever that was. Mostly she was confused at the fact that they let her go, and weren’t trying to make her agree to anything in return. The mare who dropped her off here didn’t even exchange one single word with Diamond, just backed out of the room with a sad look at the filly, and closed the door behind her.
Diamond didn’t even check the door at first, just lurked there in the shadows, slowly eased of her frightened tension by the quiet emptiness of the place. You could hear some ponies quietly singing somewhere in a chamber distant from here, too distant to make out the words, and you could hear the wind in the leaves outside, but that was the only sound. They left her alone, Diamond finally comprehended, and there was no imminent danger at least. She went over in her head what she did wrong: not watching her back, trusting the guards when she knew there were evil guards now, and something about that strange filly... she wasn’t sure. It was obvious what Diamond did wrong, but it utterly boggled her why these ponies were doing this. It wasn’t illegal to be a young filly even if you were just wandering around the train station. At least, in Ponyville the worst they would do is chase you off and shout at you to stop lollygagging. Which is stupid because lollipops tasted really good.
But Diamond hadn’t ever heard of this happening, even in a big city like Dodge. She didn’t... exactly ever talk to other foals except to tease them, except Silver she gossipped with sometimes, so if it was normal to get treated like this, it could very well have slipped past Diamond Tiara’s notice. Not like she cared if this happened to other foals, because they weren’t her, and she was lots more important than them. But if she was so much better than them, then why did she get snatched up and stolen away too?
Diamond’s eyes widened as she finally started to realize what was going on here. They had snatched her up because she was better than all the other foals, and they wanted to steal that betterness for themselves. They were probably calling Daddy even now to try and ransom her off like the common brigands that these ...nuns were... disguised as? It wasn’t much to go by, but it was enough for Diamond to cautiously explore the room she was in, climbing up on the bed, nosing around on it animatedly, checking the empty dresser drawers, and then looking with lowered ears at the door she came in from.
Did she really even want to go out there? She was so tired of all these scary ponies who weren’t doing things the way she expected. She could understand if she was diseased or something, but she was in perfect health. Would they stop her if she just... walked out? Would they just let her walk away, then foalnap her again? What was outside that door, she couldn’t even remember. She almost didn’t want to know, but the fact remained that somewhere beyond that door was Diamond Tiara’s unfinished business. She couldn’t just sit here alone in the room while her favorite stallion was in danger by the evil spies who were trying to keep Diamond from reaching him. So with a thudding heart she reached up and turned the door latch. It didn’t budge.
Diamond rolled her eyes. “Locked, of course,” she said, then looked around and backed up nervously, her voice sounding unnervingly loud in the silence she had been immersed in. “Hello?” she asked. She thought to call out louder, but her voice was really hoarse. How long had it been since she had anything to drink? She trotted up to the sink, and tried turning the spigot, rewarded by a thin stream of water pouring out of the faucet. It was humiliating, but there wasn’t any pony around to see her, so Diamond just stuck her muzzle down into the stream of water and sucked down half mouthfuls of water. It tasted kind of metallic but she didn’t really care because she was really really thirsty.
She still felt kind of scratchy, but Diamond called out again, "Is anypony out there?"
She was surprised when somepony answered, in a thin, wispy filly’s voice, "I'm out there!"
Diamond paused at that, the voice of another filly echoing down from the hall. "Who are you?" she asked cautiously.
"I'm the filly you... came here with?" the voice sounded confused.
Diamond paused, her hoof on the door out of here. "Are we the only ponies here?" she called back.
Another pause and the voice responded, "I think so!"
"What's with all the nuns?" Diamond asked in an irritatingly confused tone.
"I don't know," the filly responded. "I think they're... taking care of us?"
Diamond crossed her hooves and frowned. That wasn't enough information to go on. The question remained why—
“What’s your name?” the filly in the other room called out.
“Dia—” Diamond Tiara started to call out then remembered she was supposed to use a secret alias, so nopony could turn her in! As a matter of fact, how were these foalnappers pretending to be nuns going to ransom her off, if they didn’t even know she was anypony important? In fact, what if this filly was in on it? Maybe this filly was just pretending to be foalnapped, so that Diamond would spill all her secrets!
“Secret...” Diamond answered waveringly, “...Lollipop!” A pause and she repeated, “I’m Lollipop Secret.”
“Oh, I love lollipops!” the filly said in excitement. “What’s your favorite flavor?”
“S-strawberry,” Diamond offered a little nervously. It was kind of a stupid name now that she thought about it. But she had to stick with it or the nuns would find out and start trying to steal her daddy’s money, using her as the bait! It was like in those adventure stories she read, where the hero had to go incognito and really blend in with her secret identity.
The filly didn’t say her favorite flavor, only hesitated silently, and said, “My name’s Peach Puff. Sorry I can’t see you. Can I call you Lolly?”
“Yeah, that’s w-what everypony calls me,” Diamond said as confidently as she could with that ugly feeling in her gut that she didn’t know how to deal with this situation.
Peach Puff didn’t know why she was here, or either that or she didn’t want to say, and Diamond Tiara didn’t want to say either. Maybe they were both on super secret missions? Well, Diamond wasn’t going to try to find out Peach’s secret identity now, though she kept it on the back of her mental checklist for possible ways to exploit her later. They were talking and having fun and then Peach had to go spoil it by starting to cry, and saying, “I’m hungry...”
Diamond hadn’t eaten since... yesterday at least. She was practically starving on her hooves! So she kind of cried too while she was telling the other filly to shut up about being hungry and stop reminding her. They were all quieted down though when a mare came with food for each of them. Diamond smelled the oatmeal before the mare even walked in the door. A grey blue mare whose cowl covered up her mane, tail, and most importantly cutie mark. The mare held in her teeth the rim of a bowl steeping with a plain bowl of oatmeal. It was the sort of thing Diamond would never eat, without any cinnamon or honey or grade A dark amber maple syrup. But it was food, and she just stuffed her face into it and started eating it. She didn’t even care if it was getting on her face, except in that she made sure to lick it off so that every single bit got into her belly.
The mare just smiled at Diamond silently while she ate, but when Diamond was finishing she asked in a thick voice, “Might I have your name, little filly?”
Diamond stopped eating and blanked for a second, wracking her brain to remember that name she thought up. “Lollipop Secret,” she said confidently though, when she remembered, making a point to remember that for sure from now on.
“That’s a lovely name, dear,” the mare said to her. “I’m here to tell you how things are going to work, here.”
Diamond kept eating oatmeal, and eyed the mare with a wary, sideways glance.
“You are a very lucky filly to have come to us,” the mare said gently. “We will make sure you have enough to eat, and we can give you a place to sleep while you’re still... with us. You don’t need to worry anymore, little filly. We’ll do our best to give your foal the best chance possible.”
Diamond froze. Swallowing she said uneasily, “I–I never told you I was pregnant.”
The mare seemed to find that amusing. “The guard told sister Smilejoy that you practically announced it to them,” she said simply. “It’s perfectly alright, we won’t judge you, even if you have erred so terribly in the ways of the world. Your foal has every right to live as any other pony’s and we will do our best to ensure you have as easy a birth as ...possible.”
“I–I uh, thanks I guess?” Diamond said, backing away from her now, still eyeing the mare. “I’m not like... showing yet, am I?”
“Goodness no, child!” the mare arrounced in bemusement. “It’s barely been half a month since estrus was over. You know how long this sort of thing can take, do you?”
“Eleven... months,” Diamond admitted reluctantly. “I don’t want to wait that long though. I’ll be like, old by then!”
The elderly nun pursed her lips, but did not comment on that. Instead she said in a tighter voice, “You might be a little bit grateful it takes so long. It’s the best chance you got.”
“Chance for what?” Diamond asked suspiciously.
The nun just shook her head silently, then said, “You’ll be admitted to the regular dormitory after you’ve had a night to collect yourself. I’m sure the other fillies would love to make your acquaintence.”
But no, it turns out the other fillies very quickly came to not like making acquaintences with Diamond Tiara. At all.
The nunnery building complex... charity place was a ways out of the city limits, and it had a nice tall wall around it that made the prospect of just walking out difficult, at best. Diamond still spent some time scoping it out seeing what her best strategy were to be should it come to just going over the walls. There was a little playground, but even the one at the Ponyville schoolhouse put it to shame, just a seesaw and a four square. The regular dormitory was mostly populated by (mostly elderly) nuns, but there were a whole gaggle of young fillies who Diamond came to find out all shared something very important with her.
She began to find out, by latching onto Peach Puff the moment she got thrown in with the rest of the fillies. She didn’t make a very good surrogate Silver Spoon, but it was something at least. Diamond made sure to act mean to the other fillies to show Peach that she was higher on Diamond’s echelon than the others, but Peachy never seemed to really get that. She did like how Diamond was all nice and sweet to her though, trying to learn all her secrets. Typical filly, so trusting and malleable.
It didn’t take long for Peach to confess. They had been sitting together after the meager lunch that the nunnery provided the fillies, with the other fillies pointedly avoiding Diamond Tiara. They’d keep crossing her as the days went by, but they would learn their place eventually, she was pretty sure. Actually she wasn’t pretty sure of much of anything anymore. But she did know how to treat fillies, and she worried her way right into little Peach’s heart.
“So, were you at the train station too?” Diamond had asked Peach, once when they were trying to choke down some of the tasteless oatmeal that seemed like the only thing they served at this orphanage. “That’s where they got me. They’re just foalnapping ponies right off the platform!”
“Oh, for me it was in the city...” Peach said reservedly.
“I tried to pretend I wasn’t on my own and had parents, but they totally didn’t fall for it,” Diamond sighed in exasperation. She was so freaking hungry these days, but was having trouble keeping just about anything down, so this stupid oatmeal that tasted like paper was actually not the worst thing they could have served. But salt, that she could have used. Salt was such a rare commodity here in this tasteless convent of no fun and asceticism. Diamond would have murdered somepony for a nice salty carton of hayfries, or even some time at the salt block, like with Blueberry. “Now I’m stuck here with these stupid nun ponies,” she sighed bitterly. “You had parents though, right? Or, did you have to pretend that you had them too?”
It didn’t look like Peach was going to answer, but then the peach filly squeezed her juice box tighter and said, “My parents kicked me out.”
“They ...kicked you out?” Diamond said uncertainly.
“They said I... couldn’t live with them anymore, and they chased me away. I don’t live in the city so I just got lost. I... I was getting really hungry and ponies didn’t want to help me, so that’s when the guards p-picked me up.”
Diamond inwardly grinned maniacally as she stroked Peach’s ego saying, “Oh, that is so unreasonable of them. Why would your parents go and do something like that? It’s not like you did anything wrong, right?”
“No, I... I did something wrong,” Peach said softly.
“Well spill it,” Diamond said eagerly. “What could you do that would make your parents do that?”
Peach just lay there, staring morosely at her belly. Diamond prompted her, saying “C’mon—”
“I’m pregnant,” Peach blurted out hurriedly. “I got pregnant,” she said slower and more deliberately. “Estrus came really early this year and I... let a stallion... do things to me.”
Diamond nodded at that, saying “Aaand~?”
Peach gave her a look. “That’s why,” she said frankly. “They kicked me out because I got a f-foal inside me.”
“That’s why?” Diamond blurted out in surprise. She looked at Peach incredulously, saying, “You didn’t do anything bad or not nice at all?”
“Having a foal is bad,” Peach insisted. “We’re not supposed to be with stallions like that. I–I didn’t mean to, but it was so hard to say no, and he wouldn’t stop until he d-did it... me.”
“But what’s their problem with foals?” Diamond persisted, really not making the connection here.
“W-well they do eat a lot?” Peach said uncertainly. “We couldn’t really afford it... I guess... they didn’t have to kick me out, though!”
“Ohh, I get it,” Diamond said in satisfied understanding. “Your family was poor! Wow, that must really like, suck. I totally feel for you.”
“We weren’t um... I guess?” Peach said fumbling with her hooves and blushing. “My mom worked at the new steel plant, so she had a job; she wasn’t a bum like... I dunno.”
“Well, don’t worry I won’t tell anypony that you’re poor,” Diamond lied, patting Peach Puff on the back. “We can’t all be rich like I am. I bet they’ll let you right back home as soon as you have the foal.”
“That’d be... nice,” Peach admitted reluctantly. “They never liked me much anyway, though. At least here I don’t get...”
“Don’t get what?” Diamond said persistently.
But Peach Puff would not be moved. “Never mind,” she said sullenly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Something about Peach’s “crime” was really throwing Diamond, because it really seemed like this filly didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Diamond wasn’t sure why she felt like that. Every time she tried to think of ways to exploit Peach’s secret, she just kept thinking instead of ways how if she were Peach, she would have told them to be better and made them listen to her. And exploited them so that they couldn’t dump Peach off and tell her to never come back. It was weird to hate ponies you couldn’t see, when you should have been hating the one who was right here who could actually hurt you.
But Diamond Tiara still tried to find out more, and when Peach opened up again, it really threw Diamond for a loop.
“You know what,” she whispered to Peach during one of their frequent moments of ostracised alone time, “If we’re both pregnant then that means we both had stallions. I bet your stallion wasn’t as good as mine though.”
“How was your... stallion good?” Peach asked with a note of disbelief.
“He was so nice to me,” Diamond purred, feeling like waxing poetic on the amazing feels she felt. “He made me feel so good, it was like I was flying whenever we were together. We’re clearly perfect for one another, the perfect special someponies! He felt better than everything in the world, when he went inside me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Peach Puff said uncertainly.
Diamond blinked at her. “Um... no?” Diamond said. “Why, was your stallion really that bad?”
Peach blushed hotly at that. “I–I don’t know. I guess? He wasn’t... very much anything. Just kind of mean, and it was scary.”
“It can be scary when a stallion goes in there,” Diamond said soberly, “But hey, at least it feels really good, right?”
Peach blinked at her.
“Right?” Diamond repeated uneasily.
“I guess you could... like that feeling, I guess?” Peach said. “I sort of felt good. It uh, helped my estrus and all. But it wasn’t really all that great. He just puts it in, and it hurts pretty bad at first, and then he’s done and...” she touched her belly. “Yeah.”
“W-what about your other stallions?” Diamond asked Silver Puff, but she just shook her head confusedly and said,
“There was only the one. This is my first estrus, after all!”
“You mean you’ve never...?”
Peach Spoon stared back at here with an equally questioning look.
“Okay, okay just tell me exactly what happened,” Diamond Tiara said. “This is really important, because stallions sometimes get it really wrong.”
Peach Puff bit her lip and looked around, but then whispered to Diamond, “It wasn’t anything special. I had estrus and that was making my... filly place really you know, squirmy. A-and a stallion in town found me alone, when I was emptying the barrels. He told me to turn around and raise my tail, and then he put his hooves on my back. H-he was supposed to do that right? Because I liked—”
“Yeah, he was, but what then?”
“Then he e-e-entered me, and it really hurt, but he wouldn’t stop pushing and... it didn’t feel good I just wanted him to stop, or somepony to help me or something. But I didn’t know he was going to put a f-foal in me, so I just let him do it and... I just wanted to stand there and like... take him inside there.
“That’s when it started feeling g-good, I guess,” Peach continued giving the wrapt Diamond an uncertain look. “And then he stopped, and started wiggling in there and... I guess I should have been more worried that he was squirting weird stuff inside me, but I just sort of... didn’t care?”
“Okay, and then...?” Diamond prompted.
Peach looked at her in confusion and said, “That was all it took. I was pregnant, then. He pulled out and let me run away then, and when my parents found out they... took me to Dodge.”
Diamond facehooved. “And this was the only time you were ever with a stallion?”
“It only took one,” Peach said somewhat resentfully. “N-now I can’t do anything but let it grow and grow.”
“Good grief,” Diamond sighed to herself. “And here I thought I was the only one.”
“What?” Peachy said, looking at Diamond curiously.
“I got pregnant,” Diamond said feeling a little pride when she added, “But my stallion loves me, and he’s in trouble but when I save him then everything will be good again.”
“If you say so,” Peach said accomodatingly.
“And I don’t know about you, but stallions like that don’t come around very often,” Diamond said with an indulgent grin, “He could totally do things to me that no other pony could do. So like, I can’t imagine many other fillies got a chance to be pregnant like this. I mean, sure it’s a shame that your stallion wasn’t like that, but you know... how many other pregnant fillies could there be?”
Peach stared at Diamond like she was some kind of weirdo. Diamond shifted nervously under that gaze. “All of them,” Peach said in a note of puzzlement.
“All of who, now?” Diamond asked nervously.
“All of the fillies here are pregnant,” Peach murmured. “I was talking to Lemon Dolly and she said she got picked up by the guards too, and Sparkle Medley found out from other fillies too. I don’t think there are any who aren’t pregnant.”
“R-really?” Diamond said with a nervous curiosity. Then her anger flared up and she said, “Hey! Why were you hanging around with Sparkle Medley? Don’t you know she’s a total loser?”
“I um... I don’t know about that,” Peach said hesitantly. “She is pretty... low, like you said, but it’s still fun to talk to her, you know?”
“Of course it’s fun,” Diamond rolled her eyes. “That’s why it’s dangerous. If you talk to her, then you’ll be friends with her, and she can mess you up, and make you just as much of a loser as she is.”
“How do you know?” Peach Puff asked with a bit of a hurt expression.
“Trust me,” Diamond said waving her hoof dismissively, “I have a lot of experience with this. Losers and failures only hurt you if you try to help them. My daddy is a successful businesspony, and nopony else gets to be, because he never let them get him down, and other ponies did.”
“I–I um, but—” Peach stuttered as she looked at Diamond so fearfully. Diamond just leaned closer to her, sort of liking the feeling of being this in control of the other filly.
“This is a big. Secret,” Diamond emphasized, “So if you whisper one word of this to anypony else, you’ll be sorry you did. I’m giving you an opportunity here, and if you work with me then I’ll make sure you won’t regret it.”
“I suppose it would be a secret, I mean, I don’t want other ponies to hurt me,” Peachy said, staring at the ground before their bench. “You are really good at protecting me,” she said to Diamond with a smile, “I don’t think anypony would even think about hurting me, when I’m with you.”
“W-well good,” Diamond said blushing nervously at the compliment. It made her feel too good about what she was doing. She didn’t want to go and make friends with Peach Puff or anything. They were just like... allies, and somepony to talk to, but not friends. Just like Silver.
“I still don’t get how so many fillies here could be just like, pregnant. Did they all have terrible stallions like you did?”
“Well, no...” Peach said thoughtfully, “I mean, I don’t think so. Some of them seemed to like their... stallions. For Lemon Dolly, she said it was a colt who... used to be her friend, before she had to run away. B-but most ponies don’t like to talk about this stuff, so I don’t really know...”
“Really?” Diamond said in puzzlement. “I thought we just had to keep it secret because it felt so good, and other fillies would want to take our stallions too if they found out.”
“It’s hard for ponies to talk about something that hurts them...” Peach offered solemnly.
“Well not me,” Diamond scoffed. “I always tell everypony all about it, so they can’t get away with it one bit around me.”
“You are pretty brave,” Peach admitted with a small smile. “I wish... I had a good stallion.” She looked at her smooth belly, and rubbed it wistfully, quite cognizant about what was inside there.
Diamond got a devilish smile on her face.
“Well I can’t get you a good stallion,” Diamond deliberately emphasized, “But how about a mare?”
“How could you say no to that face?”
“How could I say no to that tongue?”
