//------------------------------// // The Journey // Story: Sticks and Stones // by Amethyst-ACE //------------------------------// “Are we there yet?” Ravewind asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time since they started walking. “NO!” Everyone else answered in perfect unison for the hundredth time. Lilly the traveling singer pony, and her bodyguard/boyfriend ACE had spent a week in Ponyville following Luna’s concert and the events that had transpired. Once the week had ended, they decided to head to the city of Baltimare where Lilly’s next concert would be performed. Chroma Sketch and Ravewind decided that this time, rather than waiting for Lilly and ACE to gallivant all over Equestria and meet them when they returned to Ponyville; they would go on tour along with them, for their own reasons of course. Chroma Sketch was always curious about other forms of art that occurred outside of her home. She decided she was going to see the art of the world and try and learn as many forms as she could in that time. Ravewind’s goals were much more straight-forward: he wanted to attend a party in every city of Equestria. Chroma Sketch wasn’t entirely sure how to react to that, but she decided it was best not to question Ravewind. She knew all too well that whether she approved or not, it was inevitably going to happen. The group had been on the road for a little over twenty four hours and the journey was starting to take its toll on Ravewind. ACE suspected that he wasn’t completely ready for what traveling on foot would bring. “Remind me again why we didn’t take a train to Baltimare.” Ravewind complained. “Again,” responded Chroma “ACE and Lilly don’t have any money, and they can’t afford to travel any other way.” Ravewind continued to contest their choice of travel. “I could have just covered the cost of all four of us, I have more than enough money, and my family is pretty wealthy.” Lilly looked at Ravewind with a warm smile. “That’s kind of you Ravewind, but ACE and I have been doing this since we met. It’s really the only way we know how to travel, or want to know for that matter.” Ravewind moaned and his head sunk. Chroma shook her head, not sure what to make of the colt who was becoming increasingly immature as the journey went on. “Honestly Ravewind, what did you expect?” She asked him. “I expected for this to take less than two days.” He replied. ACE sighed. The white furred unicorn that had remained dead silent up until this point decided it was his turn to speak. “Look Ravewind, we’ve made it to Rumbling Rock Ridge. It will only take us a day to get through here then another and we’re at Baltimare. You think you can handle that?” Ravewind sighed. Three days, 72 hours, he could do that. “Fine” he responded, “but can we take ten? My hooves are killing me.” Chroma Sketch shot Ravewind an annoyed glare. “Ravewind!” She snapped. “What?!” Ravewind panicked and jumped into the air, he floated there and watched as Chroma’s glare turned into a smug smile. “If your hooves are hurting, use your wings.” She said with a tone that was calm but still had traces of annoyance left on it. “Oh yeah, I have those don’t I?” Ravewind muttered. Lilly and Chroma Sketch laughed, ACE let out a sigh and the group carried on into the Ridge. Rumbling Rock Ridge was a large elevated land mass that was too big to be a hill but too small to be a mountain. There was a spiraling path through the ridge which the four ponies were currently traversing that lead through the area and ultimately to Baltimare. The area would frequently vibrate and shake causing small amounts of stone to tumble down the path and off the side of the ridge down a rather steep looking cliff. While the shaking took you by surprise, it was never enough to knock you off your feet, so despite it the ponies continued on with little need for caution. The group continued on until the sun went down, passing the time by talking about each pony’s goals, dreams, and their past. ACE learned that Ravewind actually spent most of his life on the ground with his father. He lived mostly in Dodge City and Appleoosa due to his father’s lucrative cider business. He also learned that Chroma’s mother was the famous artist Mona “Lisa” Sketch. Ponies always seemed to have the most fascinating stories about their past no matter who they were. Looking back on it, ACE didn’t have much of a history. He was born from an experiment, and spent his whole life giving orders from a lap of luxury. Not a day went by that he wasn’t grateful for meeting Lilly. At sun down the group set up camp in the safest place they could find. ACE didn’t sleep much so he was able to cover most of the shifts for watching over the camp, but every so often Ravewind or Lilly would take over for him for an hour or two. It was about 11 at night when a thundering roar awoke the ponies; they rushed out of their tents to find ACE staring up the side of a massive land formation. A massive lizard like creature stood atop the massive rock, roaring and smashing its tail into the side of the rock causing the whole ridge to vibrate. “Sweet Celestia is that a dragon?!” Yelled Ravewind. ACE shook his head. “No, but it’s not exactly a good alternative.” “ACE what is that?” Lilly asked her boyfriend in a fear induced panic. “It’s a King Basilisk.” ACE explained, “and from the looks of it, he’s not happy that we’ve camped here.” The basilisk smashed its tail into the ground the resulting vibration was more aggressive and violent than the ones in the past. The result was a full blown rockslide that was heading straight for the four ponies. “Move!” ACE yelled to his friends. The group picked up any supplies they could grab then made a dash for the end of the ridge, even if they couldn’t make it to the end at the very least they could get away from the King Basilisk. ACE knew that basilisks were as territorial as dragons were greedy; they wouldn’t move out of what they believed was their land. As they ran for cover the rocks accelerated, moving towards them faster and faster each second. Ravewind and Chroma Sketch had to resort to flying to avoid the rubble. ACE could speed himself up using his magic, but he knew doing that would leave Lilly, who was an earth pony, in the dust. His instincts as a bodyguard kicked in, and ACE ran up next to Lilly. “ACE what are you doing?” Lilly asked. “I’m getting you out of here!” ACE’s horn began to glow a bright green color, then with a violent thrust of his head a magical current engulfed Lilly and shot her forward like a bullet. ACE jumped to the side just in time to dodge the falling rock meant to crush them both, but he found himself jumping completely off Rumbling Rock Ridge as a result. ACE could hear Lilly screaming his name as he tumbled down the ridge and out of sight of the others. ~~~~ ACE slowly began to awake at the sound of a rather squeaky-voiced pony. His vision was blurred from the fall, but he could hear well enough. The voice was repeating the words “come-on” and “hurry-up” over and over franticly. Suddenly after coming to his senses a sharp pain shot up his hind leg. “Ah geez what in the name of-” as ACE’s vision returned to him he was cut off by the sight of one of his legs caught under a pile of rocks. Looking up he saw a young mare franticly running about. She was an earth pony about the same color as Lilly but a tad darker, she also had light grey almost silver hair that covered all of her forehead, a little of her eyes and one of her ears. Her cutie mark appeared to be a rock of some kind, almost resembling a geode. “I know this looks bad, but it’s not as bad as it looks, I mean if it was as bad as it looks, I wouldn’t have told you it’s not as bad as it looks and-” The mare went on and on as she franticly dug ACE’s leg from the pile of rocks. “Come on, come on, come on.” The mare managed to pry loose the largest rock from the group causing the rest of them to tumble down. ACE sighed with relief as he felt that the pressure being removed. Now that he could concentrate again, he used magic to lift the rest of the rocks up and off of him. Making sure to do it slowly and double check that his disguise was still in tack. As the mare helped ACE to his feet he bowed his head and thanked her for the assistance. “That’s quite all right; my name is Blinkie Pie by the way, welcome to the Pie Sisters Rock Farm!” ACE had heard of Blinkie before. Pinkie Pie back in Ponyville use to talk about her sisters to her friends whenever they would ask her. He remembered having to listen through the story of how Pinkie got her cutie mark; he didn’t remember much from the story, but he did remember that at some point the story rocketed off on a tangent about how Equestria was made or some nonsense like that. “It’s nice to meet you Blinkie, my name is ACE.” Blinkie smiled in response. “I love meeting new people! Nice to meet you Ace.” Blinkie paused then stared at him a bit. “Wait a second are you that famous champion tennis player pony?” ACE sighed, he didn’t know why but ponies asked him that almost every time he was introduced to anyone. Some people even asked him why he shaved his mustache, which really annoyed him because he never had one. “No sorry, you have me confused for some other pony. My name is Ace also, but all three letters are capitalized.” Blinky tilted her head to the side with a bit of a dumbfounded look on her face. “Really? That’s weird. Why is your name so weird?” What was so weird about his name? ACE thought to himself. Sure he found out the hard way that having more than one capitol letter in your name was strange for ponies but she didn’t need to go calling him weird over and over again just because of that. ACE decided it was best he changed the subject. “I noticed you said the ‘Pie Sister’s Rock Farm,’ is it just you and your sister working here then?” Blinkie nodded, her expression changed and was almost starting to turn sad. “Our father died a couple months ago, and our mother is not very well these days so she tends to stay inside in her bed.” “I’m sorry to hear that” ACE responded. “Is she sick?” Blinkie shook her head this time. “She’s just old, and working on a rock farm takes its toll if you’re not careful.” ACE didn’t know anything about working on a normal farm let alone a rock one so he simply shrugged. “In that case, perhaps I could be of some assistance to you? At least until tonight, as a way of showing my appreciation for you saving my life.” ACE noticed the joy and happiness quickly returning to Blinkie’s face she began to yell and bounce up and down excitedly like a kid in a candy store. “Okay! Okay sure! I’ll introduce you to my older sister Inkie Pie, she usually handles the bigger jobs. I’m sure she could use a hoof or two, and since you have magic that will be like lending thirty hooves!” ACE shook his head slightly but couldn’t help but crack a small smile. She was related to Pinkie Pie alright. ACE wondered if the older sister, “Inkie Pie” was anywhere as remotely bombastic as this. ACE and Blinkie Pie made their way to the main building of the Pie’s Rock Farm. There Blinkie pointed out her older sister Inkie, a grey earth pony with dark grey hair, a combination that most ponies would probably find “boring,” but ACE appreciated the simple color scheme. Inkie was hammering away at a rather large rock attempting to break it in half when she heard her sister yell out to her. “Inkie! We have a visitor! He says he wants to help us out some!” Inkie turned around to face Blinkie and ACE, and what ACE saw utterly stunned him. She was quite literally the spitting image of Lilly. The hair style, the look in her eyes, she even had a couple earring holes where Lilly usually kept her piercings. There were some obvious differences of course. Inkie was grey and didn’t have any freckles; she also had a vastly different cutie mark. This one was a rock like Blinkie’s but looked more like a lodestone, but other than that ACE was almost completely certain he was looking at an off colored Lilly. Inkie found herself staring at ACE as well. It had been a while since she had seen a colt, and this one seemed…different from others she had met in the past. He had an odd cutie mark for starters; she wondered what the three different colored overlapping cards represented. The more she looked at him the more fascinated she became, suddenly she felt a slight numbing feeling on her neck she reached up with one of her hooves and felt the black leather collar that was wrapped around her neck. ACE failed to notice the collar up until she reached for it, there was something strange about it but he couldn’t put his hoof on it. “I’m imagining things.” Inkie muttered to herself. She trotted up to Blinkie and ACE to introduce herself. “Nice to meet you Li…Inkie.” ACE had to cut himself off to avoid calling her the wrong name. The resemblance was uncanny. So much so that it scared him a bit. Inkie smiled. “So do you have a name?” “This is ACE big sister!” Blinkie cut in. “Oh before you ask it isn’t the tennis player.” ACE rolled his eyes and Inkie giggled. “I could tell that much from his appearance.” To ACE’s surprise, Inkie seemed to be the exact opposite of her sisters. Blinkie was hyper, Pinkie was…well, Pinkie, but Inkie Pie had an aura of calm maturity around her. ACE guessed that she must have been the eldest of the three sisters; it seemed like the most logical explanation. “So Blinkie says you’re going to be helping us today?” Inkie asked giving ACE a look of inquisitive interest. ACE felt a little uncomfortable all of a sudden, the only other pony that ever gave him that kind of look was Lilly. “Blinkie pulled me out of an avalanche. I figure helping you out would be the best way to repay you.” Inkie smiled and tossed ACE the rock hammer which he caught using magic. “I could use a break if you want to take a couple swings at this guy.” Inkie pointed at the rock she was chipping away at. ACE nodded. “Sure I can do that.” As ACE walked up to the rock and looked it over Blinkie bounced up to her older sister. “You like him don’t you?” She asked Inkie with a giggle. “I…do not…” Inkie stuttered. “He’s just…interesting…” Inkie looked down at her collar and slowly ran her hoof along it. “Why?” She asked herself.