In the beginning, it was just the two off them―the father and the daughter, living together in their world beneath the world. They were safe there, and through the daughter's powerful magic, they had everything they could want. Everything, that is, except anypony with whom to share it. The daughter could conjure up any inanimate thing the father described, as well as most plants and some animals, but when she tried to create ponies, something about them always came out wrong.
Those imperfections, the father would later realize, were deliberate. He'd noticed it in her inanimate works, such as how the plants grew not toward the sun but in whichever direction they pleased, how the water sought to flow upward to collect in mountain pools rather than downward to rejoin the sea, and how the clouds, during certain times of day, hung low enough as to form stepping stones into the sky. Such deviations were the result of his failing to explain why something was a certain way and her deciding that that something would be so much better another way. And while they brought them no end of amusement, there was no good way to describe ponies.
In the end, they decided―at least for the time being―that they didn't need anypony else. They weren't, after all, going to stay down there forever. The daughter had a great destiny to fulfill. The father just had to keep her safe until she was mature enough to face the world without fear of the consequences.
Unfortunately, at least for the father, that time came sooner than they desired. The time he spent in such close proximity to the daughter and the way she interacted with magic was changing him. Though the years hadn't been unkind and he looked more or less the same as he always had, his magical essence had been fundamentally altered. In many ways, it had been strengthened, but if the change progressed much further, it wouldn't be long before his body started to change too, taking on characteristics of the daughter's. That wasn't undesired, necessarily, but at the time, it could only cause trouble.
The daughter, for her part, still hadn't grown into her abilities enough to fully separate herself from the pony way of doing magic―the only way the father knew to teach her―and allow her world to take on a life of it's own, much less to free the magic of the world above from its shackles. She had to stay behind.
The father promised to visit as soon as his magic stabilized, took to his leathery wings, and disappeared into the sun.
The daughter waved. He had assured her that she hadn't done anything wrong, that she was actually doing exactly what she was conceived to do, but the fact remained that he was leaving because of her. If her destiny involved driving away the ponies she loved, she didn't know if it was a destiny she wanted to fulfill. Instead, she practiced magic the pony way and turned her mad world into an idyllic grove untouched by ponies and full of beautiful trees, crystalline pools, and wild animals.
Months passed, but the father did return. He looked considerably older, as if many years had gone by in the world outside. He brought another pony with him, a mare.
The daughter had eluded them for hours, hiding among the treetops, out of suspicion for the newcomer, but as she watched, she saw how the father trusted her and how she marveled at the world the daughter had created. She approached them.
The mare was appalled at the daughter's grotesque appearance, but the father managed to calm her. Given time, she would become more comfortable with the idea that the father's next of kin wasn't a pony. Though the pony mind is easily snapped, given time to adjust, its elasticity knows no bounds.
As the evening progressed, the daughter learned of all that had happened in the years that had, in fact, gone by.
The father, in his loneliness, had sought a wife in the pioneer town of Vanhoover. Most ponies could sense, on some subconscious level, the otherworldly air that hung around him and were repulsed by it, but there was one, a kindred spirit, who was intrigued. They returned to the plot of barren land he had allegedly bought with the intent of turning it into a prosperous farm. The mare had protested that no plant would ever grow there, but the father had assured her that the land would provide, and it did. Their crops were not grains and vegetables but mineral veins and precious gems not found anywhere else in Equestria.
They spent many days working their hooves to the bone in the fields and many nights sleeping together under the stars, but in time, they had enough money to have a farmhouse built. At the daughter's request, the father described it in detail.
The daughter offered to let them spend the night and promised that the predators that stalked through the woods wouldn't come near.
The father and the mare accepted the welcome break from their arduous work and ended up staying several more days. When the time came for them to part ways, they parted on the best possible terms.
When they returned to the world above, however, they found that the seasons had changed. They had promised to visit again, and they fully intended to do so, but they knew that in the future, they couldn't stay more than a few hours.
The next time they came to visit, they brought a foal. They met the daughter in the same clearing they had before, but this time, there was a cottage there. The inside resembled the description the father had given of the farmhouse, while the outside had been adapted to fit in with the forest. As intended, they left after a few hours, but not before the daughter could notice that the foal's magical essence was altered in the same way as the father's, albeit to a lesser degree. She neglected to mention it, not knowing how they would respond, and suggested that they return when the foal was old enough to remember her.
Thus, a tradition was born. New members of the family―the Pie family, as they had taken to calling themselves per the daughter's suggestion, in reference to the first meal they had shared in the daughter's cottage―would be taken to see the daughter when they came of age as a way of initiating them into the mystery of the rock farm. There were exceptions, but the general trend was that each generation bore a little less of her mark.
The elders of the Pie family never forgot that the rock farm existed to keep a secret, but in time, they forgot why that secret existed. The father had started a prosperous family, and since he no longer felt that Equestria had betrayed him, he failed to instill that feeling in the generations that followed. In time, the visits grew less frequent.
Though it hadn't felt like more than a year, the daughter knew in her heart that decades had passed since she'd last seen the ponies she called family. The ones whose names and faces she knew were probably dead. She longed to leave her world behind, for better or for worse, but she remembered the father's warning. All she knew of the world above was what he had told her, and the last thing he'd told her was that she wasn't ready. Trusting that her family would come to get her when the time was right, she kept the portal open.
Many more generations came and went without ever knowing she was there, but one day, she sensed a lone child of the Pie family blundering into her realm.
***
"All that work, all that planning and coordination... all for this, a dead end," Skyline said. He got up and walked away, taking the only light source―his horn―with him. "You two had best get back before your parents find out you left. Pinkie, I'm leaving. You can come if you like, or you can stay here. It doesn't make much difference, because our work together is done. I'm sorry I wasted your time."
Inkie and Blinkie exchanged glances.
When Skyline didn't hear Pinkie following him, he cast a curious look over his shoulder.
"Just like that, you're giving up?" Pinkie asked.
Skyline turned to face her fully. "Of course I'm not giving up! This is the most important project I've ever undertaken. I'm just realizing that there are better ways of going about it than sneaking around your estranged family's farm in the dark, and furthermore, that I'd rather like to get out of the rain."
"Hey!" Pinkie said. She took several menacing steps toward him, that the could better see each other's eyes. "Don't call my family estranged!"
"Pinkie, do you even know what 'estranged' means?"
"That's not important."
Inkie watched the exchange with as much amusement as she could manage, given that her future hanged in the balance.
Blinkie was more interested in the cliff face.
Not wanting to interrupt but deducing from the way Skyline opened and closed his mouth that he wasn't making any headway in formulating a response, she noted, "The trail doesn't end here."
"What?" Inkie asked, her hope returning. "How do you know?
Blinkie looked at her cutie mark in the green light, as if to make sure it was still there, and looked at her. Her expression wasn't sarcastic; she was genuinely perplexed.
"Yeah, never mind," Inkie mumbled. She kept her head down as she moved past her toward the cliff face, that the others might not see her embarrassment. Pressing her ear up against the rock, she tapped it with her hoof.
Meanwhile, Skyline had given up on arguing with Pinkie. Knowing nothing of Inkie or Blinkie's talents, he started to say, "Inkie, what―"
Pinkie shushed him. She didn't know either, having left before either of her sisters got their cutie marks, but she was a lot quicker on the uptake.
Without apparent warning, Inkie spun around on the spot and bucked the cliff face with all her might. A deafening crack echoed through the gorge, and the rock shuddered for a fraction of a second before exploding inward, expelling a miasma of dust, stale air, and screeching, bewildered bats with eyes that trailed a green glow.
Her cutie mark was a broken geode full of purple crystals.
She looked back at the others. Blinkie was gazing off in the direction the bats had fled, Pinkie was grinning, and Skyline was staring at her, open-mouthed. Her chest swelled with satisfaction, but she affected perfect casualness when she said, "Oh, look at that: I seem to have solved both your problems."
She stepped through the opening she'd made into the darkness before letting a gleeful grin spread across her face. She thought she'd be embarrassed about showing her strength in front of a stallion, but instead, it made her feel, well, strong. She knew she was stronger than him, and if it made him uncomfortable, if it was something she'd have to keep under wraps, he wasn't the stallion for her.
Blinkie followed her straight away, as did Pinkie.
Skyline followed last, and his horn illuminated a passage into another world. Down there, the mysterious veins that were spread so thinly above ground had had centuries to grow uninhibited. They covered every visible surface and merged around the outcrops of pure crystal that sprouted out of the floor, walls, and ceiling and glowed like ghostly lanterns as Skyline passed by. He'd lead the party this far, but finding the thickest thread, the one that would lead them to the proverbial ball of yarn, was next to impossible when they were all so thoroughly interlaced.
Blinkie didn't see it that way. She wandered away from the group and looked up at one of the crystals that hung from the ceiling. Her head tilted ever so slightly, and her hooves carried her forward as her eyes traced one of the veins down the wall and over the ground. It didn't follow a linear path, and it was nothing like the minerals she knew―it was more like the root of a weed―but she found that the same skills applied.
"What's she doing?" Skyline asked nopony in particular.
"She's doing what she does best," Inkie answered. "Follow her."
Skyline followed Blinkie, and Inkie and Pinkie followed him. Nopony spoke, not even Pinkie. They were too overcome with the beauty and magnitude of their discovery.
Blinkie favored Skyline with a grateful smile before returning her attention to the vein she'd singled out from the other, seemingly indistinguishable ones. She followed it like a tether that pulled her deeper into the darkness, through countless twists, turns, and forks, up and down many slopes, and into several obstructions, at which points she was forced to backtrack―sometimes a fair distance―before picking up the trail again.
As the hour wore on, Pinkie, quite without realizing it, gave in to her basest instinct and engaged Inkie and Skyline in conversation.
They welcomed the diversion.
Blinkie didn't join in, but neither did she mind. She was self-conscious about ponies watching her work.
Finally, she found the source, and it wasn't at all what she'd expected. She didn't know what she'd expected, exactly, but it certainly wasn't a great big hole in the floor, big enough for a pony to fall through, that filled the tunnel with light so bright that she had to squint. She approached it cautiously and peered over the precipice. Far below, a great forest stretched out as far as the eye could see.
Skyline was the first to join her. He dimmed his horn, ostensibly because it wasn't needed. In reality, he did so because the air around the hole was so thick with ambient magic that it would be entirely too easy to be overwhelmed. By comparison, the ground had completely transmuted into crystal. It glowed even without his magic. For his part, he had expected to find something like this. He couldn't have known that it would be a portal into another world, and he couldn't imagine the kind of magic it would take to maintain such a thing long enough for the excess to bleed out and crystallize―he didn't even know portals worked that way―but he'd known well enough that whatever was hidden beneath the rock farm, it wasn't supposed to be there. When Inkie and Pinkie joined them, forming a half circle around the portal, he asked, "What do we do now?"
Pinkie scrunched up her face in concentration. Then something dawned on her, an idea, or perhaps a memory, and she exclaimed, "Oh, I know!"
The others looked at her expectantly.
"Wait here," Pinkie said. Before anypony could ask what she was about to do, she took a few steps back, ran forward, and dived into the hole in the ground. As she plummeted to her death, she squealed, "Weee!"
"Dear Celestia," Skyline said in disbelief. Diving in after her, he called out over the howling wind, "Hang on, Pinkie!"
"They're both insane," Inkie muttered.
Blinkie watched, fascinated.
Meanwhile, Pinkie was starting to feel a bit disconcerted by how quickly the canopy was coming up to meet her. It would break her fall, she knew, but it would probably break a few other things too. She didn't understand why it wasn't working.
Skyline channeled the ambient magic through his horn and into a levitation spell, but the magic was even stronger than he'd expected. His skull felt like it'd been split in two. His magic fizzled, and a cry wrenched itself from deep in his throat.
Pinkie hadn't realized he'd jumped in too, but when she heard his cry, unbridled determination took over. Urging muscles and ligaments she didn't have to spring into action, she growled, "Come on, wings!"
Miraculously, impossibly, a pair of beautiful white pegasus wings sprouted from her back and began flapping as naturally as if she'd been born with them. She pulled out of her dive seconds before she would have shot through the canopy, spun upward, and intercepted Skyline. She'd never had to carry another pony before; she could barely keep the two of them aloft. Seeing a small clearing, she half flew, half fell toward it.
She had the presence of mind to tuck her wings in and roll when she hit the grass. The impact jumbled her senses. The world tilted at such an angle that she feared falling off, but the smell of the wet soil brought her back. She pulled her front hooves under her, looked around, and called, "Skyline!"
When the world reoriented itself, she saw him lying in a heap a short distance away and ran toward him. He was still breathing, and none of his limbs were twisted at awkward angles. Bending down, she cradled his head and asked, "Are you all right, Skyline?"
Skyline opened his eyes. He ached in places he didn't know he had, and his vision was blurry and full of black spots, but what he could see were the deep violet eyes of a pegasus pony mare. She had a golden mane, and her fur was as pure and white as the clouds. She seemed concerned, but he couldn't imagine why. He knew he must be dead, and normally, that was the kind of thing that would bother him, but just then, he couldn't think of a single thing that he would change.
Brushing her cheek with his hoof, he said, "My dear valkyrie, if this is the afterlife, my only regret is that I didn't meet my match in battle sooner. You've come to take me to Valhalla, I assume, but perhaps you'd stay with me awhile, just until the feeling returns to my legs. Would you do that for me, my love?"
Pinkie wore a playful smirk he couldn't see, took his hoof in hers, and whispered, "If only I could, my Skyline, but there are others I must save lest their spirits be forced to wander the earth, reliving their last battles until the end of the world. But fret not, for I promise we'll be together again soon."
She kissed his forehead before turning away, spreading her wings, and taking off into the bright blue sky.
"Farewell, my valkyrie," Skyline said. He thought he saw her pause in her flight to cast a glance back over her shoulder. He couldn't be certain, but he waved anyway before laying his head back down and closing his eyes.
Pinkie flew back up toward the hole in the sky and hovered unsteadily just beneath it. From a distance, one could imagine that it was the sun, locked in an unending eclipse. By night, the glow of the crystals would give quite a different effect. She looked forward to seeing it again. Locking eyes with Inkie, she called up to her, "Hop on!"
"Can't you fly any closer?" Inkie asked.
"Sorry, I really can't," Pinkie answered. "The magic is already weak this close to the portal, and I'd rather not try skydiving again. I'll catch you if you miss."
"Oh, that's encouraging."
"I'll do it," Blinkie said. She stepped up to the edge, took a deep breath, and jumped. There was a queer moment of not-quite-weightlessness, a taste of free fall, but then she landed awkwardly on Pinkie's back. She reoriented herself, her hooves around Pinkie's neck and her muzzle by Pinkie's ear.
As Blinkie was much lighter than Skyline and she'd been ready, Pinkie had no trouble staying aloft this time. To Inkie, she said, "I'll be back for you in just a minute."
Inkie had to assume that Pinkie didn't realize she'd been gone for over an hour last time. Before she could say anything, Pinkie had flown away. Another hour passed before she heard Pinkie's voice again, and when she did, she was so eager to leave the cave that when the time came to jump, she didn't even hesitate. She was heavier than her sister, but Pinkie had gotten the hang of ferrying ponies to the ground. Getting everypony back up when it was time to leave would be another matter. With any luck, they'd have help.
When they landed, Skyline was still unconscious. Inkie went to check on him, and Pinkie lay in the grass and stretched and folded her wings experimentally. She knew there was something pegasus ponies did to ease the soreness after really taxing flights; she just wasn't quite sure what it was. She'd have to ask Rainbow when she returned to Ponyville, if only to satisfy her curiosity.
Blinkie lay down beside her. She said, "That was impressive."
"Huh?" Pinkie asked. Then she saw Blinkie. "Oh, yeah... Just a trick I picked up the first time I came here. The trouble is getting back up."
"May I?" Blinkie asked.
"Oh, of course. Just, um, be gentle... Not that I have to tell you that." Pinkie offered one of her wings for her to inspect.
Blinkie unfolded it to its full length. Her touch as light as the breeze, she ran her hoof along its leading edge. She felt the smooth muscle and the stringy ligaments that attached to the hollow bones and concluded that Pinkie's angelic wings were as real as the body from which they grew. A body, she couldn't help noticing, which was now as lean and aerodynamic as hers. It was definitely Pinkie's, but rather, it was what Pinkie's would be were she a star athlete instead of a pastry chef.
Her eyes lingered on Pinkie's cutie mark, which was purple instead of yellow and blue but kept the same pattern of three stylized balloons. She wondered if it had the same meaning, and indeed, how Pinkie might have discovered her talent had she been born a pegasus pony instead of an earth pony. She was staring, but as there was nothing but curiosity in her large bronze eyes, Pinkie didn't mind.
"How did you do it?" Blinkie asked, shifting her eyes back to Pinkie's wings. She took to realigning the feathers that had gotten messed up in the crash.
Pinkie looked around.
Inkie was still busy with Skyline.
Pinkie trusted them, but the secret wasn't hers to tell. She'd offer some explanation if asked, but she preferred not to be. Blinkie was an exception. She could tell Blinkie anything. "Maybe I can tell you more later―I think Skyline is coming around―but for now, let's just say that Granny taught me."
Blinkie's eyes widened, if that was possible. Her hooves fell away from Pinkie's wing, and her eyes searched Pinkie's―for what, Pinkie wasn't sure. "Is this where you used to disappear for days on end?"
Pinkie gave an abashed smile. "It felt like a few hours from here."
Blinkie, for her part, had never doubted Pinkie's stories. She'd known enough to know that there were things she didn't know, and anyway, she was pretty sure that if Pinkie knew how to lie, she'd never felt the need. "But how did you get in? The passage was sealed, and without magic, we wouldn't have even known it was there."
Pinkie looked thoughtful. "It wasn't always sealed, but as for why I left home and went into Galloping Gorge... I don't remember. I might have been running away, or something might have drawn me here. But I bet Granny remembers! We'll have to pay her a visit before we leave. That way I can introduce you. I told her I'd bring you and Inkie next time I came to visit, but I never did. She's probably wondering what happened to me."
"I have a feeling Skyline's search will take us right to her door."
"Yeah, I'm getting that too."
"You know the way, don't you? Should we just tell him?"
Pinkie shook her head. "It's not my secret to tell." She smiled. "Anyway, I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. He came here for adventure and discovery, and he's found it. Or he will once he wakes up. Why take that away from him?"
A gurgling noise signaled that Skyline was coming around, and one flash of light in Blinkie's peripheral vision later, Pinkie was her normal earth pony self again. The drawn-out transformation had its dramatic appeal, but it wasn't necessary.
Skyline rose unsteadily to his hooves and surveyed the surrounding forest. He nearly tipped over when he lifted a hoof to his forehead to peer up through the canopy at the hole in the sky. Mumbling something about ambient magical fields, dimensional bubbles, and the proper time and place for a solar eclipse, he dragged his hoof through the dirt to form what could generously be called a circle.
Only Inkie, who stood and watched from a respectful distance, was close enough to hear what he actually said, but she looked no less confused than Blinkie or Pinkie. Unlike them, however, she decided to play along. She craned her neck to catch his eyes and asked, "What's all this, Skyline?"
Skyline looked up as if seeing her for the first time. He must have liked what he saw, because he smiled. "Focusing hexagram, my dear. When I cast a spell, I picture something like this in my head, and all the magic accumulates in my skull. Trying to cast anything more involved than levitation that way gives me a headache, though, so I do this. The hexagram stores the magic and gives it purpose. All I have to do is channel it from the ambient field which, in this little pocket of reality, is exceptionally potent. If I knew the spell, I could probably just teleport us all right where we need to go."
Another circle and six intersecting lines later, the focusing hexagram began to look like itself. The six glyphs between the outer two concentric circles were crude and inscrutable to the other ponies, but he looked pleased.
Inkie latched onto the only part of his explanation that made sense. "You know where we need to go, then?"
Skyline grinned. "Not yet, but this―" He gestured to the hexagram. "―is going to tell me. It's a tracking spell that I modified to seek out the greatest source of magical energy in the area. Should point us right to it."
"Isn't that dangerous, modifying a spell like that?"
"Not really. Well, sometimes, but I'm an expert. This is what theoretical thaumaturgy is all about. Now hush. I need to focus. Ha! Get it? Focus?"
Inkie stared at him.
"Oh, never mind." Skyline took a deep breath and channeled magic into the lines in the dirt. They glowed like the crystalline veins that had guided them through the caverns above. Several seconds passed. He stopped channeling, and the light faded.
As he scuffed the lines with his hoof to hide his work, Inkie stated, "Nothing happened."
Skyline looked up. "What, were you expecting a light show? Maybe a magical familiar to lead us through the forest with its otherworldly howling? That's a neat idea, actually, but it'd be a waste of magic―familiars take a lot to maintain. Utility spells aren't showy. Point is, I know what direction we need to go now."
He consulted his compass briefly and waltzed off into the forest.
Inkie glanced back at Pinkie and Blinkie before following him.
Pinkie followed at a more leisurely pace, knowing that the unfamiliar terrain would slow Skyline down before long.
Blinkie walked beside her and said, "I remember reading a story like this. There weren't any pocket dimensions or earth ponies turning into pegasus ponies, but there was a self-taught unicorn pony who claimed proficiency in the most advanced spells―spatial displacement, time manipulation, and so on, but when he went to apply to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, they turned him away without a second thought."
"Because he couldn't even lift a tea cup without using a hexagram," Pinkie said, smiling. "I remember that one too. Fetlock Holmes, right?"
Blinkie smiled back. "That's right. He was the villain, albeit one of the more sympathetic ones. He never wanted to hurt anypony; he just wanted recognition."
They walked on in silence for awhile. Blinkie was comfortable with silence, but she knew how much Pinkie liked to talk. She asked, "What's wrong?"
Pinkie cocked her head. "What do you mean?"
"You're being unusually quiet. Either something's on your mind or you've forgotten how to work your voice box, and I know it's not the second one."
Pinkie smiled with her lips, but her eyes bore none of their usual mirth. It was unsettling. She stopped walking. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?"
"No, but there's no need; I'll never tell."
"I've already said too much."
"About Granny?"
Pinkie nodded. Then she sighed, sat down, and stared at the ground. "She was really afraid of other ponies finding her down here. She said they wouldn't understand, so she made me promise not to tell anypony about this place or about her, family being an exception. I can't imagine why―it's wonderful here, and so is she―but that's not the point. I made a promise, and I think I broke it when I led Skyline here."
"I don't think you did."
Pinkie raised her head. "Oh? How's that?"
"Skyline would have found this place whether you agreed to help him or not. He was perfectly willing to ignore Father, after all. If anything, he led you here. At least this way, when the two do inevitably meet, you'll be there to act as a mediator."
"That's a good way to look at it," Pinkie said. She smiled, and it was genuine. "Thank you, Blinkie."
This was the part where she'd hug her, but she held back. It wasn't a good time. Inkie and Skyline were out of earshot, and though night was falling, they were still within sight. Instead, she said, "We'd better catch up with the others. Night comes on fast here, and even if your eyes are as good as I remember, we don't want to be walking in the dark."
She cantered down the path, slow enough that Blinkie could easily catch up but fast enough that she had a chance of catching up herself.
Blinkie sighed and took off after her. She'd thought it was a perfect time, but there would be another. She saw no reason why the time they spent apart meant they couldn't be as close as they once were, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. It worried her.
***
"If you keep pacing like that, you'll wear a hole in the floor," Mother said. The disapproving look she gave him would have looked comical were she wearing her reading glasses―the ones with the half-moon lenses and the beaded gold chain.
Father stopped in front of the door and looked at Mother, who sat at the edge of the four-poster bed that was one of the only two furnishings in the bedroom. The other was the squat dresser where he kept his collar and tie and where she kept her shawl and glasses. There was a hook on the door for his hat, and she normally kept her opal brooch, the one he made her as a wedding gift, on the windowsill beside the bed. At present, it was in the dresser drawer with their other garments. A solitary oil lamp provided the only light in the room.
He asked, "And what if I do?"
"You'll fall through and probably break something, possibly your neck," Mother said reasonably. "Then I'll rip the canopy off the bed and hang myself with it, because I'll sooner die than run home to my parents to tell them I made a mistake in marrying you."
"Don't say that."
Mother rose. "What would you rather have me say?"
Father stared.
Mother walked to the window and drew back the curtains. Darkness swallowed the rock farm, and rain attacked the ancient panes, just as it had two months ago, the night a strange unicorn pony had come to the farm. In the morning, she had gotten up early to make a breakfast fit for a family. That was the day she would have stepped out of Father's shadow and attempted to mediate the conflicts that he was so determined to ignore, but when she'd gone upstairs to wake Inkie and Blinkie, she'd found Inkie's door ajar. There had been no sign of her daughters. She asked, "Where do you think they are now?"
Father started pacing again.
Mother turned away from the window. "Igneous, I asked you a question."
Father glared. "Did I ever tell you how I dealt with all the questions I had―about this place, about my role in it―that didn't have answers? I stopped asking them. I don't know where they are, but I know there's no sense thinking about it. They're gone. They're not coming back, but they can take care of themselves."
"You know, in times like this, most husbands would be comforting their wives."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not most husbands. I'm just the one you married, but I'm sorry you're regretting that decision. If it's any comfort, they're probably better off."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." Father lay on the edge of the bed. "Anyway, you'd be surprised how often this happens. My brother ran away. So did my aunt. Half the ponies you see in those frames in the hallway didn't stick around. They weren't cut out for this life."
Mother didn't say anything. She wasn't cut out for this life. Her daughters certainly weren't. She didn't think anypony was. They did it because they had to, but the explanation for why they had to never stacked up to her. The three boulders that made up her cutie mark represented a talent for discernment―they weren't identical―and she could see the gaps where information was conspicuously absent. It was a wonder to her that nopony else had seen that the Pie family was hiding something. Nopony except that unicorn pony, Skyline. "Is that why you sent Pinkie away?"
"Not this again," Father grumbled.
"Tell me."
"No."
Mother walked over to him. "Then tell me the real reason."
Father, who had never read a novel or seen a play and thus had no concept of cliches, said, "She knew too much."
"What did she know?"
After a pause, Father admitted, "I don't know."
"You're not lying, are you?" Mother asked. "You really don't know."
"Don't you think I know better than to lie to you?" Father snapped. "The best I can do is not tell you anything, but there's nothing I know that you don't."
Mother climbed onto the opposite side of the bed and lay across from him. "Igneous, you shouldn't have to. You don't have to."
Father went on unabated, "My father was the one who told me, and he didn't know either. It's been generations since anypony in this Celestia-forsaken family has known what it is we're supposed to be protecting." He laughed harshly. "I guess that's the best way to keep a secret, isn't it? If nopony knows, nopony can tell."
"Is any secret worth keeping when it forces you to hurt the ponies you love? Isn't the point of keeping secrets to protect them?"
Father finally met her eyes, but his eyes weren't the eyes she knew. There was a glint in them that hadn't been there since he'd resigned himself to a life chained to the rock farm. He was Prometheus, only there was no vulture picking at his entrails; he had yet to give any such gift as fire to ponies; and his imprisonment was self-imposed. He asked, "Do you think this is an argument? Because it's not. I absolutely agree with you. Did I ever tell you my big dream? I wanted to be a sailor. I wanted to establish trade routes with Zebrica to our east and Imperial Griffia on the far side of the known world."
He got up and walked around, not exactly pacing, but not going anywhere either. "And don't tell me it's not too late to do all those things. All I know how to sell is rocks, and I certainly can't make an international business out of that. For one thing, there'd be nopony to run the farm, and for another, there'd be no better way to draw more prying eyes from Canterlot. Celestia herself might even get involved. Trade taxes or some such nonsense. I don't know. It doesn't matter."
He let out a sudden, maniacal laugh. Then he saw Mother's expression, and by way of explanation, he said, "It doesn't matter!"
Moving with an energy Mother hadn't seen since the night Pinkie got her cutie mark, he fastened his tie and collar around his neck, plucked his hat off the door with his teeth, and flipped it onto his head. Seeing that Mother hadn't joined him by the door, he said, "Inkie and Blinkie are gone, and with them, so is any hope of keeping the rock farm going. The Pie family dies with us, but that doesn't mean we have to die here. There's a fortune in the Vanhoover bank that we couldn't spend before. We can even sell the farm. It doesn't matter if anypony finds what's buried here, whatever it may be, because we'll be long gone by the time they do. Are you coming or what?"
Mother tried to keep up, automatically getting up to put on her shawl and glasses and tie her loose green-gray mane into a bun. She wasn't going to let him out of her sight until she was done talking, but neither was she going to go anywhere unless she was properly dressed. "What about your ancestors?"
"Buck my ancestors!" Father laughed and stamped the floorboards with his hoof. "You hear that, you stuck-up bastards? I don't care about your secret anymore. You can bloody well find some other family to keep it for you."
Mother knew he had a dual personality, but it'd been so long since she'd seen this side of him that she'd wondered if he still had it. Idly, she wondered if Pinkie was the same way. Nopony could be that elated or that depressed all the time. Her experience in business had taught her that there had to be a balance, and she felt ponies were no different.
Finally ready, she turned to him and asked, "Where are we going?"
"Vanhoover. I think it's time we met your parents, and after that, we'll withdraw our savings and charter a ship far away from here. Better yet, we could hire a band of privateers and steal one. Ah, but first, I have a special treat for us."
"What's that?"
"We're going to see what all the fuss is about."
"How?"
Father went to search the bottom drawer of the dresser for his saddlebags. "It's a long shot, but Pinkie told me about a passage like an abandoned mineshaft in the depths of Galloping Gorge. She said it goes under the rock farm and connects to a great big forest where 'Granny Pie' lives."
"Her imaginary friend? You mean she was real?"
Father unhooked his pickaxe and a length of rope from the wall and stuffed them in his saddlebags. "Beats me. I went down there once, but I didn't see any mineshaft. Just sheer cliffs as far as the eye could see. Who knows? Maybe it was sealed off. Maybe that's where she went after I sent her away. Maybe Inkie and Blinkie joined her. If so, they wouldn't feel like they'd been gone more than a few days, just like when Pinkie used to disappear. She said time flows differently there."
Mother, who had intercepted letters from Pinkie to Inkie and Blinkie and hid them so Father wouldn't try to destroy them, the return address being in a town called Ponyville, chided him, "Don't play with my hopes like that."
"I'm not saying we'll find them. I'm not even saying that's where they went, but I have a feeling we should at least take a look before we go. I haven't thought about that place in a long time, but it feels like something's drawing me there. If I'm wrong, call me crazy, but you'll be calling Pinkie crazy too."
"Pinkie was crazy."
"She was the good kind of crazy. Now we'd better go before the rain comes back."
Between her husband's mood swing and the conversation that had preceded it, Mother hadn't noticed that the rain had stopped. "I'll meet you outside."
Father left.
Mother closed the curtain, knelt beside the bed, and pulled up a loose floorboard. Beneath it was a lockbox, which she took out and opened. Within it sat a stack of yellowing envelopes bound in twine, all of them addressed to Inkie and Blinkie. She took it out, set it on the bed, snuffed out the oil lamp, and picked up the envelopes. After a moment's thought, she took the lamp with her, along with a book of matches, and walked out the door. Outside, she slipped the envelopes into Father's saddlebag.
"What are those?" Father asked.
"Nothing," Mother said. "Let's go."