“So tell me, Tarnish, given some thought about leaving?” Maud asked in a flat deadpan, her sleepy looking expression as unchanging as the columns of stone all around her.
“Wait, how did you know?” Tarnish replied, feeling a bit of panic.
Maud blinked. “I didn’t know until just now, when you confirmed it.”
Wincing, Tarnished Teapot shook his head, feeling a burning sense of embarrassment for being outsmarted. More than anything else at the moment, he wanted to crawl down into the earth and die. Maud’s stare unnerved him and he didn’t know what to say.
“That’s pretty stupid, you having a broken leg and all.” One of Maud’s ears twitched as a gust of wind blew through the rocky ravine. “You wouldn’t have made it very far, and I would have had to come looking for you.”
It was time to change the subject to something less embarrassing, something less painful, something where Tarnish no longer felt the need to crawl down into the earth and die. Tarnished Teapot had no idea what to say though.
“You liked my cave. There are other things I want to show you. If you left now, I would be very disappointed,” Maud said in the same droning monotone that she always used.
“Maud, why the fixation with rocks?” Tarnish watched Maud, hopeful to see some expression, some reaction, perhaps some flash in her eyes. “I’m curious… what is it with you and rocks?”
There was nothing. Maud’s face remained impassive and blank.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, Maud, I would really like to know,” Tarnish replied.
Maud’s head tilted off to one side, but her expression remained stony. “You are the only person outside of my family to ask me that. Okay, very well then. I shall tell you about my fascination with rocks.”
The earth pony settled her backside into the grass, getting herself comfortable, and looked Tarnish straight in the eye. She blinked, cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and then she said, “I grew up on a rock farm. We grow rocks. We put the rocks out in a field and we move them around, and sometimes, the rocks change. Sometimes, the rocks get mineral growth, like copper, zinc, silver, and even gold. Other times, the rocks get precious gems.”
Tarnish’s mouth fell open.
“When I was a little filly, I wanted to know why this happened. My father was bothered by my curiosity. He told me that why wasn’t important, only that it happened. We lived on a plot of land that made rocks change. Not much else grows there, and the land itself is more than a little weird.” Maud paused, took a deep breath, and then continued: “I was smart by any standards and I never stopped asking questions. My mother, she saw my potential, and she talked my father into making certain that I got the best schooling that we could afford. I completed both primary school and secondary school by the time I was fourteen. Turns out, I was a prodigy.”
Tarnish nodded.
“I was smart. Real smart. And I was motivated by one thing; I just had to know why our rocks did what they did. I was offered scholarships to several universities and a number of ponies came out to our rock farm to talk to my parents, trying to coax them into making me go their school. There was a lot of competition. Eventually, I went to the University of Las Pegasus and joined their geology program. I completed school with a double rocktorate degree in both geological sciences and theoretical thaumaturgical geology when I was eighteen years old. Sadly, I did not have an answer, but I had ideas.”
“And those ideas are?” Tarnish saw something in Maud’s eyes, or at least he thought he did. It might have been his imagination. But he could swear that he saw something.
Maud took a deep breath. “Mind you, this is only a theory.” Maud’s eyes narrowed somewhat. “Ley lines. I suspect that it has something to do with ley lines. We’re sitting in a place where ley lines intersect. The rocks here are mineral rich. There are quite a number of geodes. But not every ley line intersection has geological oddities.”
“But your farm does, doesn’t it?” Tarnish asked.
“The Pie family rock farm sits right on top of a ley line intersection,” Maud replied. Her ears pitched forwards. “There are different types of ley lines. That is what I am going around and studying. I am uniquely suited for this endeavour. Not only am I knowledgeable about the subject, but I am well defended against the hazards. Not all ley line intersections are safe. Poison joke grows in quite a few places where ley lines intersect. Not only does it change the rocks, but the local flora and fauna as well. Magical mutations are common. Water can run uphill. Weird things happen. Time slows down or runs fast. And bad things happen to ponies to go into these places to study. But not me.”
Tarnish’s lips pressed into a straight line.
“I am a rock.” Maud’s voice remained a passive monotone. “Both metaphorically and physically, I am a rock. I am completely immune to poison joke and hostile magical effects don’t bother me much.” She paused for a moment and allowed her words to sink in.
“What?” Tarnish’s mouth fell open.
“That’s why I’m not worried about your magic. I’ve walked into chaos vortexes with hardly any ill effects. It earned me quite a reputation when I was in school. And now that I am out of school, I am doing my own research. It costs money to research, which is why I take on odd jobs and do geological surveys for mining companies.”
“You go walking through poison joke?” Tarnish asked.
“Many times. It is a common hazard in a number of geologically curious sites. It needs magically rich ground for it to grow. Never once has it bothered me,” Maud replied.
Shaking his head, Tarnished Teapot stared at Maud in disbelief. “How is this even possible?”
“My cutie mark is a rock.” Maud shrugged. “You know Tarnish, a little science education might do you good. Make you feel better about yourself. Poison joke can survive in places so hostile to all other forms of life that no other regular life can survive there. I’ve even seen places where nothing but poison joke will grow, it sprouts out of the cracks in the rocks and it is the only living thing in the whole area.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Poison joke only needs a few things to survive. A place to put down roots, a source of magic to keep it nourished, and sunlight. It is known as the unkillable weed among scholars. Despite dedicated efforts to eradicate it, it continues to thrive in places where nothing else can.”
“But I am not poison joke… it is only my cutie mark.”
“And I am made of flesh and bone and blood, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am a rock.”