Rock farming, there could not possibly be a more abysmally dull occupation.
The flat, gray expanse of dry quarry existed just outside Manehatten city proper, mostly devoid of life, and certainly of plant life, but it was a fundamental part of the city’s growth. The Pie family had been some of the first to settle the area, Clyde and Sue. They had originally come with a large caravan going north in search of gold and diamonds. Clyde was the first to realize that Iron and Marble could be equally valuable.
Clyde and Sue, a young married couple at the time, built a small farmstead out on the dry plains, and it was the last wooden house the area would ever see. Accounts differ as to whether it was Clyde or Sue who first developed the process of building houses out of stone, but it was the first step toward a series of innovations that would become the basis for the city of Manehatten.
Pie Rock Farming Industries sprung up almost overnight as a business success. The incoming flood of settlers who smelled gold needed houses and with plant life still in the process of migrating north it would be years before wooden houses in the area would even be a possibility. The masonry industry exploded, and within a year Clyde owned the rights to half the land on the stone plains and had several dozen workers to support the ever-growing success of the rock farming business. By the year after that he was the father of twin fillies, Blinky and Inky Pie.
Manehatten was officially declared a province five years later, and by that time they had become Equestria renowned for their achievements in art and architecture. Brilliant builders had migrated in the early days and families had paid through the nose to have their children apprenticed under them. All this only served to increase the rock farm’s productivity even more, serving to form a veritable monopoly of the stone resources of Manehatten.
The ten year anniversary of Manehatten was celebrated on the same day as the Pie’s third child’s seventh birthday, and naturally she was delighted. Pinkie Pie, to the intense jealousy of her older twin sisters, had already gotten her cutie mark, and the anniversary celebration, coinciding with her birthday no less, did nothing short of allowing her to host one of her best and biggest parties ever. Though very young at the time, she already had big plans.
When Pinkie Pie was fourteen, she declared quite vehemently to her parents that she had no intention of staying on the farm for the rest of her life. She declared, on no uncertain terms, that it was her destiny to make the lives of other ponies better, and masonry was no way to go about doing that. It was lucky she had such kind parents, who far from taking offense at this, were proud that their little girl was finally growing up.
Hardly a month later Pinkie Pie was on her way to the little, plant farming town of Ponyville to study under the Cakes, a nice young couple who already had one apprentice and were eager to take on another. Pinkie was of course, delighted, showering her parents in gratitude from the moment she received the news to the time she got on the bus. Clyde and Sue would miss her, of course, but it was really whatever was best for their little girl. They didn’t need her on the farm after all, not only did they still have an abundant supply of workers, but Blinky and Inky had both stayed on the farm.
Blinky had all but had her destiny on the farm determined by her talent. Most of the gold in the area had been mined by the buffalo before pony settlers had arrived, but she had developed an innate ability to spot the remaining veins. Her childhood, to her delight, was spent exploring the caves on the dry plains, at least the ones her father had deemed safe. She had turned out several pounds of gold per year through this process, of which her parents took a forty percent cut. The rest went into her allowance, or salary as she had insisted on it being called from her teen years forward, and was later cut down to twenty, so she could be as her parents put it “self-sufficient”.
Inky was an author, and a damned good one at that. She wrote mystery novels predominantly, always with a taste of adventure thrown in with it, and the dry plains were her muse. She told tales of wondrous treasures and terrible traps hidden by buffalo in caverns lost by time. Blinky would often aid her in these parts, as Inky only had a cursory knowledge of the caverns her sister made a living in. Her first novel, “Compass Crusade and the Crimson Diamond,” was on the top of the bestseller list before the book was even released in paperback, and stayed there for almost a full month. Compass Crusade had continued her adventures into an entire series after that, totaling forty books altogether before she started on her next project, which she co-authored with one of Pinkie’s friends from Ponyville.
This brings us singularly to the present day. The two young mares in their early twenties saw no reason at all to leave the farm, so they simply didn’t. Inky never pursued the romances she was writing about in her new series, and Blinky never had any interest in those sorts of things at all. Their mother didn’t do much work anymore, falling into a predictable sort of housewife routine, but Clyde never gave up his leadership role, and was always out in the quarries with all the workers. There was a vague sort of underlying envy of Pinkie’s adventures which through many letters was revealed to be intensely interesting, but none of the other Pies cared for adventure in actual practiced form.
Blinky and Inky shared a room, and they did it very well. While usual sibling rooms had some clear dividing line where one’s territory ended and the other began, the Pie twins blended seamlessly together. Posters of TV tropes were on all four walls and pedestals with the greatest achievements in gem hunting were on all corners of the floor. They shared the same wide desk, put carefully between their two beds so they needn’t bother with chairs, for both writing and refining. The result, naturally, was a room so intensely cluttered that a tornado could’ve hit it and the change would be indiscernible. Not that the Pie twins cared. They reveled in the mess, calling it a sort of ordered chaos, and considering they both had clutter heavy occupations, neither criticized the other.
Inky sat on the edge of her bed, pen held delicately in the device writers used when the mouth was no longer neat enough, and worked diligently on her next masterpiece. “Darkened Heart gazed deep into the twin blue pools that were his lover’s eyes,” she spoke to herself, as she always did while she wrote, “And despite the many rare and fantastic facets of precious stone that surrounded them both in the cavern, he knew that her eyes were more beautiful than them all. Those brilliant oceans in which his mind was free to swim as he moved closer, those delicate sapphire eyes slowly closing as they…”
There was a crash, snapping Inky out of her trance-like concentration and causing her hoof to jerk out and draw a black line over her manuscript. She couldn’t help but release a sigh as Blinky walked backwards into the room, her familiar brown bag of rocks following her in. “I had a great scope out today!” She said excitedly, and Inky felt, obliviously “I checked that old redacted mine shaft in the north field and found this great big diamond deposit! When I get these polished I’m going to be rich!”
“You say that after every haul…” said Inky with a sigh “And yet you still somehow only manage to come out with a layman’s salary. I don’t think you really understand your own market.”
“Hey, I sell for big bits!” said Blinky indignantly, taking an unassuming rock out of her bag and slamming it down on the desk “But after mom and dad take their cut back for the farm, my stock market investments, insurance, retirement fund, etcetera, etcetera, you know.” She smiled widely “They’re pretty crude diamonds though, industrial grade, not worth as much as the ones you can get all pretty and put on jewelry.”
Inky smiled “So you’ll be the richest mare in Equestria but not until you’re old and gray?” she said.
“At least I’m not gray already,” said Blinky, prompting a snicker from Inky as she sat down to her stones with a mop of steel wool “Oh! You’re writing again! Do I get co-author’s credit on this one?”
“No, stop asking,” said Inky, though not at all unkindly “Novelle is actually working with me on this one and she would have my flank on a platter if I put any names other than hers and mine on the cover. Knowing her she would be mad if hers weren’t larger as well… Having a whole mystery series with your name on it isn’t good enough for you?”
“Whatever happened to credit where it’s due?” said Blinky, reading the manuscript upside down “It looks to me like you’re still using the cave scene for the infamous first kiss.”
“It’s a classic scene!” said Inky defensively “My fans always love it you know! Ever since the first time in the first book I’ve had at least one point where there’s a cave kiss, or a subtle reference to one. It’s like an easter egg.”
“So now you’re just putting it outright?” asked Blinky, quickly losing interest and beginning to polish her rocks again.
Inky sighed “Yes I suppose I am,” she said “Novelle insisted we cut back on the action in the series a bit. This is supposed to be a romance novel after all.”
There was a slight cacophony as Blinky upended her rock bag onto the desk, spilling her findings haphazardly across the hardwood. “Ugh… they all look so dull…” she said in a disgruntled tone “It’s going to take me all night to get these ready to sell… want to give me a hand Inky?”
“No, I most certainly do not,” said Inky huffily, having quickly moved her papers out of the way “In case you didn’t notice I’m trying to write here, I have kind of a deadline to meet.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Blinky as one last slab fell onto the table with a thud “I just thought a little actual work might inspire you to write a little more.”
Inky had a perfect retort to this almost instantly, but was distracted by the slab of rock that had slid off the pile and almost off the table. “Where did you find this?” she asked, staring at the carvings on the front, “It looks like some sort of tablet…”
“What’s that?” said Blinky, looking up from a tiny red jewel poking out of an otherwise unassuming brown stone “Huh, that’s funny… I don’t remember picking that up…”
“It looks like some sort of map…” said Inky, sliding it over for her sister to have a look “It’s in English so it can’t be that old. What cave were you exploring again? That could give us a better idea of where it starts.”
“North mine shaft…” said Blinky, pondering the inscription “If that’s where it starts then it points to somewhere outside the farm… not much use to us if it’s a treasure map leading to somewhere that isn’t on our property.”
“Wait a minute,” said Inky “What if those rocks there are the standing stones in the south field? That would mean this labeled path is pointing straight to them!”
“Hold on though…” said Blinky “If that’s right… the path doesn’t start at the north shaft, it starts…”
“Right here at our house,” said Inky, a look of definite interest crossing her face “Blinky, I’ll bet some buffalo tribe used to have a camp right where we’re standing! I’ll bet they hid this tablet in the cave to mark the location of a buried treasure somewhere in the plains!”
Blinky’s head tilted incredulously “You’re kind of running away with this…” she commented “Remember I find that thing in a mine shaft, not a cave.”
“Don’t spoil the adventure of it!” said Inky, eyes brimming with barely contained excitement “We’ve got to go out and find this! What time is it? Shoot, too late to go today… Tomorrow then, at the crack of dawn! You’ll have to come along too of course, you’ve got those super sensitive eyes. Oh I’m going to get so much inspiration for my book!”
Her sister could only roll her eyes at these antics. It was a very Pinkie Pie sort of thing to do, but she wouldn’t criticize her for it. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had anything more exciting planned for tomorrow than polishing rocks.
“Alright fine,” said Blinky, stopping her sister mid-bounce “Here’s the deal. We go and find this treasure with whatever applicable skills we both have and we’ll split whatever profits we get from it 50-50, deal?”
“Deal!” said Inky, spitting on her hoof and pounding her sister’s to secure the deal “We’re going to be rich sis! Just you wait…”
The next day would find both the Pie twins standing outside the doorway to the farmhouse. Blinky was carrying the excavation tools while Inky carried their map, a write out of course the tablet was far too heavy to carry on the expedition, and a lunch in case they found it an overly time consuming adventure. By her insistence the sun was barely poking over the horizon anyway, so it was a somewhat unlikely idea, but they felt the need to be prepared for anything.
“Fifty bits says we get to the standing stones and don’t find anything,” said Blinky “It’s a tourist trap, if there was any sort of treasure someone would’ve already found it already.”
“A dry plains equivalent of a tourist trap remember,” Inky pointed out “It’s just a bunch of upright rocks, there’s a huge chance someone could’ve overlooked something.”
“Stop romanticizing it,” said Blinky “It’ll just make the disappointment worse when we finally get there.”
“I’m not in it for the treasure,” said Inky “I’m in it for the inspiration, and romanticizing it will do just that. If there is a treasure I’ll be inspired even more, but if there isn’t, then the excitement of the journey will fill the resulting void.”
“Authors…” said Blinky, rolling her eyes.
“We’re just too deep for you to ever understand,” said Inky, sticking her tongue out for emphasis “Now come on, we said we were going to leave at the break of dawn so now you have to get a move on. Tut suit sister!”
“I’m coming, Celestia…” Blinky cursed huffily, hoisting the supply pack more comfortably onto her back.
They began the trek across the stony landscape, Inky proceeding with an energy Blinky had only before seen in her younger sister. It wasn’t a particularly long venture, but it was over unforgiving terrain that caused their legs to stress every time their hooves came down. Imagine, if you will, taking a walk down a long concrete road, except the only way to hold your balance would be in the sort of bounding step motion that ponies walk with. As many long distance runners will tell you, moving like that on concrete can cause your tendons to strain very quickly.
Naturally by the time the standing stones actually came in to view Blinky was cramping up, and the huge pack of tools on her back wasn’t helping things at all. Inky was showing similar signs of fatigue, but without the extra weight she was holding up much better. The stones were just as unremarkable as their name suggested, but they were literally the only visible landmark on what was otherwise a sea of flat rock. Inky was right in affirming it as the “dry plains equivalent” of a tourist trap. Usually during the summer a hoof full of ponies would stop by to take pictures, and the Pies didn’t fail to capitalize on postcard sales, but autumn was starting to creep into winter, and the standing stones had been left pretty well untouched.
Inky reached the rocks first, poking around each one of them. “There’s got to be something here…” she said determinedly “Some clue or something that tells us where to dig… have you found anything?”
Blinky, who had only just struggled into the circle with the pack, didn’t grace the question with any more answer than a frustrated glare. She dumped the pack next to one of the larger pillars with an unceremonious clattering sound and joined in the search. She didn’t have any real hope of finding anything, and was giving it a very obvious quarter flank effort, but Inky’s enthusiasm was contagious.
Five minutes into their analysis however, neither of them had much hope left. It wasn’t all that large of an area to search and it didn’t take much effort to go over what very well could’ve been every discernable inch of the place. Blinky was the first to give up hope, having had less to begin with.
“I’m beat…” she said with a sigh “You want to take five for lunch?”
Inky hesitated a moment, torn between her mounting hopelessness and her still constant determination to unearth something from the adventure. “Fine” she said “What time do you think it is? The sun’s really gotten up there hasn’t it?”
“I’m guessing it’s somewhere around noon,” said Blinky “We really should’ve taken our bikes at least, maybe even the wagon. At this rate we’ll pretty much have to turn around and go straight home if we want to make it back in time for dinner.”
“I think you’re right…” Inky sighed, procuring two daisy sandwiches and their canteens, tossing one to her sister “I don’t figure it’s that big of a deal though. We’re grown mares Blinky, they can’t penalize us for being home late.”
Blinky nodded, taking the sandwich in her mouth and leaning against one of the thinner pillars. She had meant to say something along the lines of actually wanting a wholesome meal, but was cut off as the pillar behind her shifted in response to the weight. She overbalanced, her legs flailing on either side of her so she was completely unprepared for the sudden gray mass connecting with the crown of her head. There was a crack of rock meeting skull and Blinky leapt up, howling in pain.
“Blinky look!” said Inky excitedly “It’s another tablet! It must have been on top of the pillar! Oh I can’t believe we didn’t check the tops!” she sighed “It broke when you hit it with your head, but I think I can still draw it on the back of our first map.”
“I’m fine thanks for asking…” said Blinky, flushed from a mixture of pain and fury. She watched over Inky’s shoulder as she rearranged the broken fragments, trying different combinations before finally settling on one that seemed to work.
“I’ve got it!” said Inky, taking the map and a pencil out of her bag “It’s clearly marking our position here, and there’s a huge X over here near the rock blossom field! Blinky, I think this is it! This is the clue that leads to the treasure!”
“The rock blossom field is another hour by hoof,” Blinky grumbled “And it doesn’t put us any closer to home. I think we should turn around now and get back before the sun sets.”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” said Inky in a self-assured tone that quite frankly infuriated her sister “Come on, grab the tools. We’ll save time if we eat on the way!”
Blinky moved to argue, wanting to insist they at least finish eating, but it was to no avail. Inky finished the rest of her sandwich in one great gulp and started toward the west, ignoring completely the fact that her sister and the tools were still not ready to go. This left Blinky in the awkward situation of cramming over half a sandwich into her mouth and hastily arranging the tools, which she felt very heavily, would not be needed, onto her back to once again set off on this infuriating wild goose chase.
The sun had overtaken another great portion of the sky by the time the twins arrived, tired and sweaty, at the rock blossom meadows. The meadows were an interesting little part of the farm, named for the way the rocks turned inexplicably to dirt in small patchy patterns. Nothing grew there of course, seeds couldn’t get this far across the solid rock, so no one was really sure how dirt had ended up there in the first place. But they still called it meadows, if for no better reason for the twin’s disastrous attempt to cultivate the area with dime store seed bags when they were young.
The meadows were fairly desolate, farming being inconvenienced by the remoteness and the dirt providing a distinct lack of marble or cobblestone. It was the rock farmer’s equivalent of a wasteland, and it had been all but completely ignored after Blinky had been over it. However, as Inky very aptly pointed out…
“It’s the perfect place for a buried treasure!” she was panting, too tired to get completely coherent words out but trying nonetheless “I mean think about it, everywhere else is solid stone… can’t dig through that now can you?”
“Yeah I get it already!” said Blinky, even more exhausted “Let’s just find your stupid X marks the spot so we can get it and go home…”
Inky took a shovel off her sister’s back, causing her to lose her balance and fall flat on her face. To Blinky’s mounting fury however, Inky ignored the fall and trotted about the patches of dirt, intent on finding the treasure that was likely not even there. The demon wrath was cozying his way into her heart, and as soon as she got out from under the tool sack she was going to give her bratty sister the what-for.
“I found it!” came Inky’s giddy voice from the side of one of the dirt patches “Oh my god Blinky I found it! It’s marked here with a great big X! Just like in all the old stories!” she drove the shovel into the dirt as hard as she could “Come on sis, give me a hoof with this. I don’t think I can get it on my own!”
Inky leapt back as a second shovel forced its way into the ground barely an inch away from her nose. “What the hay Blinky?” she exclaimed “You almost hit me with that!”
“Shut up!” Blinky shouted back “Just shut up!” I am so sick and tired of hearing your stupid, pompous attitude!”
“What do you…?”
“You know exactly what I mean!” shouted Inky “How many times now have you dragged me out here to go looking for your precious inspiration? And I get nothing out of it, ever!”
“Blinky, I don’t mean…” Inky tried to start again “I know exactly what you mean!” shouted Blinky, tears welling up in her eyes “You look at me like some sort of pack mule instead of your sister! You care more about fictional characters you created than you do about me!”
“Blinky please…” said Inky desperately “You know that isn’t true…”
“I hate you!” Blinky continued to rant. It wasn’t rational anger, even by the standards of such a violent emotion. She was tired, as well as hungry, which made her more than a little irritable. She was lashing out at her first legitimate reason to be angry at someone other than herself. “You know what? You can dig up the rest of this stupid treasure by yourself! I’m going home!” she tossed down the shovel and turned around, walking away at the quickest pace her tired legs could muster.
There was a sliding crunch as Inky’s shovel entered the dirt. Blinky couldn’t help but feel betrayed by the sound. It proved her right, proved she wasn’t interesting as a sister, didn’t deserve to have credit on one of the most popular series in Manehatten. Didn’t deserve the hoof wrapping around her shoulder, pulling her to a stop…
“Well in that case I’m not going to dig it up either,” said Inky, clearly disappointed, but dead set “I don’t want you to think I care more about some musty old box than I do about you.” She tightened the hug “I’m sorry sis…”
Blinky suddenly felt extraordinarily guilty “It’s okay…” she said, returning the hug quickly. The exhaustion steadily fading from the warmth of the embrace, making her earlier arguments seem silly in hindsight.
“We should probably get the tools though…” said Inky, turning back to the dirt “I’ll take half this time so you don’t…” her sentence was cut short as she uttered a high pitched scream. Blinky spun around to see the ground under the large X heaving up from some huge force underneath. Zombie ponies? Monsters from the abyss? She didn’t want to know…
The dirt that was forcing itself upward was suddenly thrown back, the lid of a treasure chest coming into view right behind it. But the sight of a buried treasure chest opening on its own didn’t shock the twins nearly as much as what was inside. Their jaws dropped together at the tangled mess that rose slowly out of the box.
“Pinkie Pie?” they exclaimed together.
The frizzy maned pink pony popped out of the box and stretched “Of course it’s me silly!” she said in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone “Who do you think hid all those tablets for you to find? I’ve been waiting here all day for you guys to show up! My hooves are sore like you wouldn’t believe!”
“But…how? Why…? When…? What?” Inky babbled.
“I just thought I’d come for a little visit to my favorite big sisters!” said Pinkie, as if this explained everything “But I wanted to make it a surprise! So I gave you clues to come find me here!”
“But how did you… with the tablets… and the box… and…” Blinky stuttered.
Inky sighed, and answered before her little sister had the chance to explain “She’s Pinkie Pie.” She said with a smile.
“Oh! And that’s not the only thing!” Pinkie exclaimed, reaching into the treasure chest again “I brought a picnic blanket, and salad, and cupcakes, and punch, and all sorts of picnic stuff! We should eat before going back!”
“How did you…?” Inky started.
“It’s Pinkie.” Blinky stopped her.
Without questioning it any further than that the girls went about setting up the picnic. Rocks to hold down the edges of the blanket were naturally easy to come by and Pinkie had all the commodities. There was enough food for all three to stuff themselves silly and still bring home leftovers. She had also brought a small bunch of helium balloons, which again no pony dared question.
“Well today was officially the most interesting day I’ve had since you left the farm,” said Blinky, beaming at her little sister “I forgot how boring it got around here without your weekly parties.”
“Aw shucks, you guys give me too much credit!” said Pinkie cheerfully “A party is only as good as the ponies who are invited!”
“This would make a fantastic story.” said Inky, “You know what I think I’ll write this up! It’s not enough for a full length book of course but it would make a marvelous short story.”
“Maybe you could send it to a magazine,” said Blinky thoughtfully “I mean you haven’t ever done short stories before so you can’t exactly make a collection.”
“I don’t know…” said Inky “I’m not even sure I could write about this without a little professional bias. Maybe I’ll send it on to Novelle.”
“I can pass the message along when I go back!” said Pinkie cheerfully “It’ll be called ‘The Pie’s grand adventure for the fantastic picnic’!”
“Oh...but Novelle is going to be busy,” said Inky “I mean, we both are, we need to get our novel done before we start on anything else…”
“Maybe I could write it!” said Blinky, prompting laughs all around.
“Oh hold on!” said Pinkie “I do know one guy who could do it! He’s sort of up and coming as an author though. He has two novels, one about at time traveler and the other about a prince I think… But he has a few short stories out too!”
“Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” said Inky “Actually that sounds like a pretty good idea. I’ll write up a summary and you can take it to him!”
“Just please…” said Blinky “Make sure it has a better title…”
They all laughed again, the sound travelling across the dry plains on a gusty wind. It was true they still had a long walk home ahead of them, but that didn’t matter right now. They would live in the moment for now, laughing and enjoying themselves, and reveling happily in the world around them…
-FIN