~ \m/ ~
Want to talk. Please come
back to the house.Talking with dad
Need to talk.
Yes
When are you coming
back to the house?Maud give it a rest or
ill shove this phone where
the sun dont shineWhy would you put your
own phone there?YOU KNOW WHAT I
MEANIt was just a weird thing
to say.IM COMING BACK
I’m down in the basement.
Please keep your phone to
yourself.MAUD I WILL END YOU
~ \m/ ~
Wood creaked underfoot as Limestone tromped down the stairs to their home’s basement. She squinted in the dim light that filtered down from around the corner to the kitchen upstairs.
“Maud?” she called into the darkness.
“I’m in the workshop,” came a muffled voice from deeper in the basement.
Limestone worked her way down the central hallway until she came to a turn and another short hallway. At the end of that one, she saw light leaking from around the frame of a closed door. She walked over to it and knocked. “Maud, come on. What are you doing down here?”
The doorknob turned, and Maud pulled the door open. She stood before Limestone in a comfortable shirt and jammy pants.
“Thank you for coming,” Maud said, stepping aside and waving Limestone into the room. Though it had never been drywalled, it was swept clean, and it had several tables filled with various heavy tools and equipment such as a pair of drill presses mounted next to each other. There was also a table off to the side that had a desk chair next to it, several small drawers full of tools, and a heavy fluorescent light hanging above. A number of tools and small stones were laid out on the table.
Limestone walked over to it, then looked back at Maud.
“I still find it soothing to do small-scale stone cutting and gemological work from time to time,” Maud said. She walked over and picked up a tiny but breathtaking blue-and-white striped stone. “Have a look at this lace agate I’ve been working on today.”
“It’s good.” Limestone frowned at Maud. “But we’re not here to talk about rocks.”
Maud gave her a flat look. She stayed quiet, forcing Limestone to make the first move.
Limestone sighed. “Fine. Okay, listen, I don’t think this is such a good idea, having me date Flash and tell you about it. It’s pretty clear that you have feelings that are going to get stepped on if we keep going like this.”
Maud looked down. “What did Sunset say about telling him about the lyrics?”
“She told me I should tell him, so I told him. And he didn’t care.”
“He…” Maud blinked. “Not at all?”
Limestone shrugged. “He said you were a really good writer. I dunno, I didn’t think he’d be so cool about it either, but he seemed glad I was telling him even when I did.”
“I see.” Maud looked at the project table. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this.”
“Nobody made you.” Limestone sighed. “I know I wasn’t sure about this at first, but now I like him. And I’m pretty sure he likes me too.”
“Mom and Pinkie put your flowers in a vase up in your room.”
Limestone blushed. “Maud, what am I supposed to do here? I don’t want to hurt you; I really don’t. But now I actually like him. How do I reconcile those two things?”
Maud shrugged. “You have to choose what matters more to you.”
“No. I don’t want to choose between you guys, Maud. Because I love you, but I also want to give this dating thing a chance, I guess.”
“I understand,” Maud said. “But bear in mind that what this situation does is force us to compete.”
“Except it isn’t much of a competition, is it? He went out with me, and he wants to do it again.”
Maud’s facial expression stayed frozen but her eyes spoke volumes about her inner turmoil. “It does seem like you hold all the proverbial cards here.”
Limestone pointed at her. “Say what you want now that you see how it’s going, but just remember, you’re the one who put me up to this. I could’ve just flipped him off and walked away!”
“That’s certainly true,” Maud said. “I suppose I forfeited my right to complain when I orchestrated this whole situation to begin with. My biggest mistake was failing to anticipate that it would go so well.” She paused. “I’m sorry that I bet against you actually being able to start a relationship with Flash.”
“Look, it’s all right,” Limestone said. “I mean… it’s not all right. It’s…” She looked down at the table and picked up the lace agate. “Okay, bear with me on this, but I bet it took years for this to form under the pressure of the earth, right? And even when you dug it out, it probably didn’t look like this; you had to spend hours cutting and polishing it.”
Maud gave her a slight smile. “So you do listen when I talk about geology.”
Limestone pursed her lips. “Sometimes. But it's kind of like us kids, right? You know the kind of pressure we grew up under. I think Pinkie’s gonna do all right for herself, but the rest of us need polishing.”
“I… suppose.”
“Well, you spent years getting polished by your time in a real school, even if you didn’t always like it. And now you're working on the next step with your whole geology thing. It’s like… you already know where you’re going with your life, and you’re on your way there. That’s a whole lot better than I’ve been doing.”
Maud’s expression became even flatter than usual. “Limestone, you’re stretching this metaphor to its breaking point.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t done yet. Look, I know that dating isn’t everything, but it’s giving me new kinds of thoughts about my future. Stuff you’ve already figured out, y’know? Like I’m actually thinking more about what I really want to do instead of just doing the same things I’ve been doing for years.” She paused, and shrugged. “I guess I feel like my gemstone’s finally getting polished here. That’s a good thing, metaphorically speaking.”
Maud blushed. “Saying you and Flash are polishing each other’s rocks could carry other kinds of metaphorical significance.”
Limestone sighed. “Come on, Maud. Fight me if you’re gonna, but don’t snipe at me.”
Maud looked at the ground. “You’ve made an argument that I can hardly refute, much as part of me still wants to.” She paused. “I suppose it would make sense, then, to establish new parameters for us regarding Flash.”
Limestone narrowed her eyes. “Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that I’m not gonna like where you’re going with this?”
Maud gave her the faint hint of a smile. “I’ll keep letting you and Flash use my lyrics for your music. I’ll even write you more. But if this is having the benefits that you describe, then I would like to see you continue to get serious with him. Really serious.”
“I don’t know, Maud. If you’re already this upset about him bringing me flowers, I don’t want to see what you’d do if he sticks his tongue down my throat.”
Maud gagged slightly. “I don’t mean ‘serious’ like rushing physical intimacy for the sake of letting me watch your relationship unfold from a distance. That would be disturbing.”
“Thank you, I was worried for a minute there.”
“What I mean is that I want you to actually figure out what you want to do with your life, and see what he says about that too.”
Limestone frowned. “Dad pretty much said the same thing.”
Maud blinked. “You know, he has some good advice, and he’s surprisingly good to talk with aboutー”
“Please let that sentence end where it just did.”
The sisters looked at each other in silence for a few moments. Then Limestone stretched her right hand out. “All right, I’ll get serious with Flash and see where things go.”
Maud shook her hand, then blushed again. “You may be right; perhaps that isn’t the best way of saying it.”
Limestone growled in reply, but let the issue drop.
Okay nevermind, this is my favorite chapter now. The banter between these two are great, I love how Limestone can easily be one-upped by Maud despite the fact that Limestone is winning the overall battle. Talk about well-written dry humor.
Social interaction, like any rock tumbler, takes time to achieve its intended goal. Limestone still has plenty of rough edges to smooth off. Fortunately, sedimentary rocks are usually soft. For rocks, at least.
This was a great chapter. The interaction between Maud and Limestone was great.
8046614 Yeah, wouldn't hurt for more dads in ponyfic. Probably won't be liked for saying that but it does add a something that feels missing from some tales.
8048152 There's also Mr. Cake, but we don't see him except for scenes where he is working and taking care of Pound and Pumpkin. No, Pinkie DOES NOT count. Does Shining Armor count now that he's a dad?
8048445 Most definitely, but he's overused, need more OC dads in stories and I'm not trying to be chauvinistic or such but I feel it would add a little more realism to some of them.←even these are the only male emojis too choose from!
8048485 Yep. The majority of OC's here apparently can range from five years old at the youngest and the oldest ones are usually at their early thirties. I've yet to encounter any OC over the age of well, thirty. But I guess you're right: Mr. Cake is overused and Shining Armor is fairly new and is already running himself ragged taking care of Flurry Heart and the Crystal Empire's military.
8048615 Sorry meant Shiny is overused as an answer to the last question in your comment
8048706 ...Oh.
8047755
8047805
Fantastic to hear! TBH this is the chapter I was most afraid of screwing up. It should all be downhill (uphill?) from here.
8047773 I can't decide if your comment rocks, or if you're full of schist.
8048152
8048445
Nah, dads are boring. Trust me.
In all seriousness, I wonder if we'll see more exploration of dads and dad-issues as the fandom ages and the show does more with the M6's parents. People who were teens/young adults when it started might well be having kids by now and going through all of the changes parenthood brings. Shining and Cadance are a perfect way for the show to "go there" without being too obtrusive, though of course that also probably leads to them being over-represented in fan works.
I mean, I can't be the only weirdo out there using ponyfic as a vehicle for self-reflection, right?
8049048 That's why this story would just keep going. This humor is too good. And it shouldn't be getting so many downvotes, its too good for that!
8049048 I'm mid 40's my old man is 83, he's healthier than I am (at least he's not wheelchair bound). Still comes around happy to cut the bit of grass for me in my yard and other odd things for relief of his boredom. Can't envision the world without him when he finally passes. Sorry if that sounded sad it wasn't meant to.
Anyway it would be good in canon if they did an ep of Shiny, Mr Cake and Filthy Rich having a dad's only supervise the foal(s) day, maybe a slice of life thing jumping back and forth between them. Finally having them all come together in the park with all 3 dads falling asleep on a bench. Then Cady finds them!!
8049048 Well it came out great. I will be waiting for the next chapter.
I don't have any inane commentary for this chapter. Maud is just the best.
Well, both characters have a lot of growing to do even beyond this story. Like most rocks each one of the sisters has their unrefined edges but like a lot of rocks the tides of time and experience will round them out into who they will become. So in turn each one will have to venture:
I'm not actually certain what happened in this chapter, but those text messages at the start are hilarious! XD
Wonderful formatting on the texts, especially with how you had typos done naturally.
ugh i love Maud so much
so many wonderful lines i have to stop myself from quoting them all. ugh you know these characters so well, i love this!
ooh, way to call out the shippers
perfection. again, hard to stop myself from quoting every bit of dialogue exchange. i just love how each of them do their self-reflection in their own way and how they talk about it to each other and on top of that, this high-quality banter! ugh, so good.