Rumble and Apple Bloom walked wordlessly towards their destination, awkwardly taking glances at and simultaneously avoiding each other as much as possible. It made for a really weird spectacle to observers – a colt and a filly, strolling down Ponyville’s main street side by side as friends, and yet not looking at each other at all. Most were wondering what was going on. Others recalled past crushes that ended awkwardly just like this one. A few took quiet bets on how long “RumBloom” would last, with most hedging on the colt being like his brother and leaving for some fresh tail at the end of the week. Additional pieces of paper with numbers on them, the largest being over ten thousand, were circulated. Every last one of these papers passed through a discerning, entrepreneurial pale pink or gray hoof.
As was not usually their custom, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon decided to sit and watch this one out. Silver had proposed the idea of beginning a betting pool after telling Diamond of “their immature game that I had absolutely no interest in joining” and discovering something between their two classmates. Diamond had agreed, especially when Silver proposed that they take one per cent of all bets once RumBloom broke up.
Diamond in particular watched Rumble and Apple Bloom with great interest, as she and some of the most valuable bets were set against odds that the pair would break up before the end of this first day. She had no idea what their plans were, but she didn’t care. She and Silver had already made almost a thousand bits on their awkward love. She was sure they would cash in. She snickered as the couple disappeared out of sight, Silver Spoon mimicking her best friend.
Apple Bloom and Rumble were too absorbed in their own worlds to notice. However, the kind of awkwardness that hung around them was temporary, and as they had been walking for ten minutes, it was bound to collapse any second, and it fell first for Rumble. He became bored about two minutes later, as the path to the entrance of the cave came into view.
“So, the cave.”
Apple Bloom jumped, shaken out of her self-box by the statement. “Y-yeah? What about it?”
Rumble gained an anticipatory smirk. “What’s it like?”
Apple Bloom thought for a moment, reflecting upon all the different caverns, claustrophobia-inducing pathways, and a couple odd, large domes – one with a latticework stone ceiling that allowed just enough light for a small tree and a patch of surface foliage, the other, a glittering jewel factory that Apple Bloom was sure Rarity had visited a couple of times. She decided against describing the route in detail, instead opting for a much more vague description.
“You’ll see.”
Rumble’s face dropped. “Is that all I’m getting?”
“Eeyup.”
He groaned. He was bored. He wanted to know where his red-headed friend was leading him and what to expect. When he goaded her again in an attempt to persuade her to talk, she simply taunted him with a hum of sadistic enjoyment.
“Oh, come on, Apple Bloom! Just tell me!” he demanded.
At that precise moment, Apple Bloom turned off the path and slipped into the foliage alongside the road. Rumble perked up and quickly followed her. Immediately, he shut up as the cave yawned, its eternally open jaw before them. However, he quickly noticed Apple Bloom enter, not in the large opening, but in a smaller tunnel down and to the left of the larger opening, underneath a small crag overlooking Ponyville from about nine or ten feet up.
“The first time Mac and I passed through here,” she said as she approached a cliff, “Mac had a hard time gettin’ through.” She dropped on her belly and swung her hips down off the edge. She lowered herself down from rock to another ledge, then waited for Rumble. “It took a lot of effort to get him in.”
Determined to forego the use of his wings, the pegasus lowered himself down. Apple Bloom made no further attempt at conversation as they hopped off the little crag and slid down a small slope before simply carrying their momentum into a trot. The highly reflective golden stones of the luminescent underground were revealed by way of the small entrance they had just entered. Reflection after reflection spilled light deep into this large cavern, unveiling a series of pathways over a pit of stalagmites, while similar golden spears displayed their glory from above. Stones from ceiling to floor and a few scattered gemstones peppered the rest of the cave. Occasionally the angle of the path would rise and fall and become rough, then smooth, and they would scale or descend other cliff faces, but their trajectory always seemed to be heading upwards.
At least, that’s how it felt to Rumble. They had climbed their way past the original assumed entrance, at least, that’s what Rumble guessed, and were now about thirty feet from their original point of entry. He was surprised that it was only here that the reflected light began to dim.
“What’s this place made from?” he asked.
Apple Bloom puzzled for a second as they walked. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever asked that question.”
“Hmm.”
Rumble puzzled for a while as they made their way to the first narrow section.
“This is where Mac and I had to stop last time,” Apple Bloom said. “He couldn’t fit through. I came back here with the Crusaders once an’ we dove deeper. Nearly brought a whole shaft down on us.”
Rumble gulped, unsure if he wanted to be underground anymore. It concerned him that a pony would be able to bring a roof of heavy stone crumbling upon him or her. He longed for the sky, free of such obstructions, obscurities, and dangers, though of course he knew not of such large words, instead simply referring to the ceiling as “a thing that could kill me.”
Apple Bloom just chuckled. “Don’t worry. They cleared this area for spelunkin' just a few weeks ago. They had a geologist pony in t’look at the rocks. Strange pony, that one. Dark gray coat, purple mane, always playin’ with rocks… Didn’t have much-” she grunted as she hopped up to the hole and slid herself in on her belly “-t’ talk about otherwise, but accordin’ t’ Applejack, she was one heck of an athlete. Even saved her sister from a rock slide ‘r somethin’… with her bare hooves!”
Rumble, who had made his way into the hole and was now gripping himself tightly with his wings, spoke up once again.
“Well, if she was able to make it to her sister in time, she could have just pulled her out with her hooves. I don’t see what’s so amazing about that.”
Apple Bloom stopped and thought about that for a minute as she subconsciously swished her tail. Rumble caught sight of something he really wasn’t supposed to be looking at and quickly averted his eyes. Unfortunately, the male mind, such as it is, can never forget certain traits, especially about the other gender, and the vision quickly filled his mind’s eye as soon as he subjected himself to blindness. He quietly shook his head, gritting his teeth in the process, and pointedly looked at the rocks between his hooves as she continued.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she replied and moved on.
Rumble let loose a breath he had no idea he was holding as her tail shifted back into place. However, the damage was done. He began feeling a sensation in himself that soon had him in great fear. It was the same one that told him he was attracted in a feral manner to another pony, one that soon told him his attraction would be on display for all to see. They soon got back to the sweaty, grimy work of slogging through the tunnel, which he expected would calm him down. However, that wasn’t what would do it.
Apple Bloom soon stood up straight and moved off to the side. Rumble extricated himself from the hole and moved near to her. This room, besides some small bioluminescent mushrooms dotting the wall, was pitch black.
“You have your helmet on, right?” Apple Bloom asked.
Rumble nodded. “We put them on back at the farm house.”
Without further ado, the two young ponies clicked on their lights. Magic flooded the illumination gems in the helmets and blew a blast of light clear across the room, easily two dozen feet across and less than four hooves high, just enough for them to stand up. Rumble took a quick look around, his light passing over a lot of different formations and a few scattered gems. What he couldn’t get, though, was this giant patch of black just in front of him, at his hooves.
“Apple Bloom, why’s there no floor in front of us?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. That hole goes down for miles. I dropped a flashlight down there when Mac and I tried explorin’ this cave, before he realized he couldn’t get through that hole. It just… disappeared.”
Rumble couldn’t tell what her facial expression was. However, from the way her voice dropped and her shuddering breath afterwards, he knew she was grimacing and scared. The creepy echoing of two sets of breathing ceased in short order.
“Anyway, I had to use his voice and his lamp to get me back t’the hole,” Apple Bloom said, quickly trotting away.
Rumble kept an eye on his hooves and hers as he followed, nervous about the pathway that soon narrowed into a barely-hoof-and-a-half wall-like walkway snaking over the abyss. He found he had to walk similar to Flitter’s seductive strut to stay above the pit. He soon found he couldn’t take his eyes off the floor for a second – this sole walkway snaked its way around in loops and circles, occasionally dipping down under and up over routes they had already passed.
Honestly, to him, it felt like they were going in circles!
“Apple Bloom,” he whined. “When can we take a break?”
“Not long now, Rumble,” she replied. “The ledge should be here soon.”
Indeed, experience won out over youthful impatience. They were soon rewarded with a widening path, then a full ledge. The cave seemed to brighten here, but just a little. Rumble looked around for the light source and found a single, tiny ray of light from a small gap in the rocks above. It leaked a slow, steady stream of water that continually dribbled to the floor. He followed that line right to another, which snaked not to the edge of the plateau, but to another hole in the wall. He heard dribbling from his side.
“What’cha lookin’ at?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I think there might be a lake on the other side of this wall,” Rumble suggested.
Apple Bloom shook her head. “It’s more of a pond. When we find the tunnel on this plateau, I’ll show you.” A beat. “Then I’ll show you where that pond goes.”
Rumble was unable to catch a glimpse of her face as she turned, but he swore she was smirking. He both liked and didn’t like being led on like this. He preferred to know what was coming, and yet preferred to be held in suspense. It felt like water that didn’t evaporate was in intimate contact with fire that wouldn’t be extinguished.
He loved the dichotomy.
He took a breath and followed Apple Bloom along the wall. She made sure to keep her headlamp trained on the wall so as to avoid the creaks and cracks that occasionally interrupted her trajectory. Eventually, she came to a square-shaped opening just large enough for ponies of their size to trot through with little effort, save for an occasional duck of the head as they avoided stalactites, or a tight squeeze in avoiding a stalagmite. This time, Rumble noted they were descending. A few other gems gathered and reflected their lights, but they had clearly reached the furthest that gems could be found in this cave. They were few and far between.
Yet, for some unexplained reason, light began returning to the cave. Rumble couldn’t see how that was possible – they had clearly gone far deeper into the mountain than light would normally permit. At the same time, he began smelling something sweet.
“What in Celestia’s mane…?”
Apple Bloom smirked. “Our lunch,” she said. “Zecora asks me to bring her these… what did she call them, ‘fermenting daisy feathers’, I think… from time to time.”
“Daisy what?” Rumble asked.
“It’s a weird flower. It looks like three purple phoenix feathers cupped in white tulip-like petals.”
“How does it survive down here without light?”
“Something about feeding off the residual magic expelled by the world’s living creatures.”
“Like a tree does with oxygen?”
“Yeah, yeah! Like that. It takes the magical carbon dioxide and turns it into magical oxygen, or something.”
“So why don’t we have any of these on the surface?”
As they came around a bend, once again resuming their upward trajectory, the answer immediately became clear. While the flowers had some structure, they were clearly magical constructs in and of themselves. Though their stems looked like they disappeared into the ground, one flower in particular did so in a way that should have been biologically impossible. The flower’s stem disappeared into a large, solid boulder.
Rumble looked at it with his headlamp on and promptly blew it away. He gasped and shut off the lamp.
“No!”
“Don’t worry about destroying one of them,” Apple Bloom said. “There are lots of those things down the path. They light up the cave. Keep your helmet off, though.”
Once again, Rumble followed his guide down, which had again become up, the path. They vaulted up a cliff side where platforms were plenty and plants were increasing in number. Rumble began noticing a few things about these plants that defied nature. Their stems were arranged from red to violet, like a rainbow whenever they were grouped together, while singles had random selections of colours. Sizes varied wildly, from barely hoof-bone height to nearly ceiling level. All the properties above their stems remained identical. Their magical glow entranced the young pony, his eyes taking in as much as he could of the wacky flowers.
“Rumble!”
He snapped to and saw Apple Bloom about seven pony lengths ahead of him, near what seemed to be a reverse-funnel-like opening to the path they were on. As he caught up to her, he looked past and gasped. The flowers became as thick as grass, amalgamating seamlessly into an actual grassy field. A small pond of water, sourced from the little waterfall from earlier, pooled at the base of a giant tree. The dome of rock, clearly visible among the ether emissions, surrounded them completely.
The little pegasus suddenly felt very, very small.
Apple Bloom saw no problems with the area, though. She descended the four or five switchbacks to the cave floor and trod forth.
“See? What’d I tell ya?” she declared. “Lunch!”
Rumble swallowed and gradually followed her. He had barely taken his sixth step down the winding path when the world suddenly heaved. His hooves went out from under him. The pathway collapsed around him. The cave shed a few more rocks, some plants, a stalactite, a stalagmite. The narrow path in the previous room they had just crossed was now an open pit. Amidst the chaos, a frantic filly cried out for her traveling partner as well as her family. Rumble could barely tell which end was up as the universe seemed to choose him as the focal point for the end times.
And just as he began wishing he was back home, he was knocked unconscious.