Approximately 640 years after the banishment of Nightmare Moon...
There was little the residents of Stony Nook had to fear from the silent evening moon. Nightmare Moon was just a foal's tale, often repeated only to scold or excite depending on the occasion (and on the temperament of the foal). Throughout the town's short history there hadn't ever been any threat as dire as the frightful Mare in the Moon. The townsponies hardly ever worried about even so much as harmless pipsqueak monsters, let alone mythical civilization-ending tyrants. The most recent story of such cataclysmic mayhem was some sort of dragon attack on Canterlot which was already forty years a hazy memory and from before the time of Stony Nook itself.
The only real threats feared by Stony Nook were economic: seasons a little short on food, slowdowns in their exports, or lacking the migrant hooves to get done all what needed doing. But dragons, demons, and monsters? They weren't worth fearing any more than the everyday hard work needed to forge a comfortable frontier life.
Stony Nook was nestled in the northwest, though much more west than north. It wasn't as far out as the places where the buffalo roamed, lands dry and red which were all dust and rust, but it was also not near enough to the central plains to catch the forever winds which roamed the endless verdant grass. Stony Nook's land and weather were something in between. The grass was never green but perpetually a color brown-and-yellow, far from dead but thirsty all year since the pegasi of Cloudsdale were miserly with their rain for a place so thinly populated. The wind was doled out with the same selective regard. Lonely breezes took solitude in the rocky hills and only occasionally found friends to race through the sparse, roomy forests.
The liveliest resident of the land was the powerful river which coursed down from the nearby mountains. Here and there the white rush got stormy, and elsewhere it almost always jogged at a healthy pace, but the ponies of Stony Nook had been wise enough to found their village on the river's widest and slowest bend. They knew the river as a mellow neighbor whose calm caress hugged them on the north and east.
Founded a little over two decades ago, Stony Nook was still small enough to have only one official road: an unpaved, dusty street which cut straight through the center of town, indistinguishable from the east-west country road it was a part of. It was a fat trail that had been beaten flat since before the time of Stony Nook itself. Nothing so much as a stepping stone decorated it; just pebbles descended from older pebbles, and the tracks of wagon wheels carved deep through the years.
To the east the road crossed the river via a simple but sturdy stone bridge, and it traveled several lengthy miles out before it hit a crossroads. Some ways led to Stony Nook's nearest neighbor villages. A road further east shot across the country. Another way winded north towards the cold lands which had once been the Crystal Empire. One path split south and turned into a sunkissed highway which eventually broke southeast towards Canterlot. The crossroads didn't choke with travelers at any point throughout the year, but Stony Nook wasn't far enough out of the way to be ignored by the frequent-enough migrants, traders, merchants, and supply caravans who saw profit in an extra stop.
The western road out of town was a very different story. It was long and lonely for a mind-numbing amount of miles before it hit any crossroads. The days of walking it took to get anywhere within horizon-distance of another pony village was reason enough for most ponies to avoid taking it, coming or going. Usually the only folks to venture that way were travel-hearted ponies who wanted to head southwest by the slow and scenic route.
And scenic it was: the road for a great stretch hugged the mighty Pearl Peaks. They were some of the largest, most picturesque mountains in all of Equestria.
The range seemed to have no beginning or end. Mountain followed after mountain forever, each shimmering white at their cap just as their name implied, like a tribe of lazy giants reaching their painted fingertips up to stroke the sky. Every morning they basked brilliant in the sunrise, and every sunset they gently caught the falling sun as it faded through a rainbow of cooling colors into sleep.
For most ponies the Pearl Peaks were the end of the frontier, or at least the end of that particular edge of it. Only pegasi and other hardy travelers suffering from adventuresome itches ever bothered navigating past the mountains to see the other side. They were regular enough that they passed through Stony Nook from time to time, but to the ordinary townsponies living their day-to-day lives there, the mountains weren't much more than a beautiful mural painted across the western horizon.
Stony Nook had most of the staples expected from a frontier town: one post office, one tavern, one schoolhouse, one general store (with short-lived new competition every odd year), one squat water tower, one doctor's office, one town hall so small that town meetings usually took place right on the main drag... Really, two or more of anything was just plain excessive, with the natural exception of how many strong working hooves one should have. The buildings lined themselves on either side of the road, never more than one deep, with only just barely an alley's worth of room to squeeze between them.
A notable absence was a train station. Daytime doldrums were never broken by the piercing whistles of rolling trains, and exciting new visitors never came in droves. The missing station wasn't for lack of petitioning the railroad authority to extend themselves, though. The never-fading grumbling around town was that the lazy city ponies who financed and managed the lines couldn't screw their heads on straight enough to add Stony Nook to the route, but the unfortunate truth was less palatable and more mundane: there already existed rail lines which passed not all that far to the east and south of Stony Nook, and the financiers had yet to justify the expense of such a small detour. As it stood, anypony who needed a train had to travel over four dozen miles along the eastern road to reach the neighboring town of Mule's Head where the closest train station was.
The lion's share of the town's exports went to Mule's Head too, for the same reason.
Stone was Stony Nook's bread and butter, at times reinforced with ores of varying natures. True connoisseurs of lithology could recognize the superior excellence of what Stony Nook quarried, or so the dedicated ponyfolk of the village had always told themselves. They were the foremost experts on quality stone (again, in their own minds), and their stone was what had put them on the map (when those blasted cartographers remembered that their village existed at all).
All of the town's buildings, commercial to residential, were proudly built from locally quarried stone, braced with timber framing and topped with thick hay roofs. The stocky, enduring structures had bumpy faces of unvarnished gray; walls pockmarked by whole stones. The invincible armies of rocks held back the cold, wind, rain, and every unwelcome element which might have ever threatened homely comfort. There was no doubt that the dwellings would stand without care for a long, long time to come if Stony Nook were to ever have been abandoned.
But certainly the townsponies could have never imagined fleeing their well-loved home. They had always gotten by as best they could, working hard as they had for a generation in their quiet, close-knit, neighborly town. Friends and strangers had always cooperated all as one family, through good times and bad, laboring tirelessly during Celestia's days and resting peacefully at night under the silent light of the moon.
And the moonlight that particular evening seemed no different than any of the nights which had come before...
There wasn't much of a nightlife in small Stony Nook, but the tavern offered the best it could.
Out front under the building's long canopy hung a wooden sign which always creaked in the breeze, and the painted name wasn't refreshed nearly often enough to stay readable. Not that locals had any trouble identifying it, or visitors either for that matter. One had to but follow the loud trail of laughter and chatter, or look for the door which spat out ruby-cheeked ponies in happy stumbles.
Inside, the usual evening revelry was well underway. The vacant tables looked like they had seen a war: wet rings where had once stood fine soldiers, signs of their blood spattered across the battlefield, and dribbled crumbs left behind like drying bones. No doubt sooner or later the rest of the tavern would look the same! Merrymaking ponies nursed drinks, traded talk, and shared laughter both light and loud. There wasn't a mousehole there which didn't ring with tales of the near, the far, the everyday, or the extraordinary. Some of the guests wore new faces – out-of-towners or recent arrivals – but they were welcome to join the fun as if they had always lived there.
All in all, the usual for the tavern.
Though up at the bar there was something unusual.
It was normal for a few solitary ponies to sit at the bar and share wet-whistled words with T. Totaler, the establishment's proprietor and a mare quite generous with the taps. That night however, instead of the odd drinker or three, there were six smiling ponies at the bar. They occupied stools all in a line, and they were an excited little party all their own.
Mrs. Totaler was a late middle-aged earth pony of straw yellow complexion, though almost always her color was covered by an apron whose long-set stains read like a navigational chart. Her mane was short and frizzy, not so different-looking from the foamy tops of the six mugs she filled from the back wall's most popular cask. The mugs went on a tray, the tray went in her teeth, and she turned it over to the bartop with enough perfect speed to swish the golden drinks up to the lips of the mugs (but not enough to spill a drop!). Twenty-five years of practice did that for a pony, or maybe it was just the cutie mark of two ready mugs on her flank.
"There y'are!" the proud bartender slapped the tray down before her guests and tipped her head at them. "Six ciders. Enjoy!"
All the party waited on the sunny-gray earth mare who sat at the end of their row.
The gray mare, first peeking down the line at her patient crew, took on a flattered look and leaned forward on her stool. She pulled off a mug from the tray for herself.
Permission thus granted, the remaining five ponies leaned in together and claimed their drinks.
But before anypony took a sip, the gray mare pushed a prepared stack of bits towards the bartender; enough to cover all six ponies' ciders and more, if they wanted.
"Well ponies, drink up!" she then heartily invited, and she lifted her mug high above her short, straight, pale pink mane. "Let these be the first of many tonight!"
After some fast cheers of celebration they all followed orders, throwing back their drinks and gladly guzzling most of their first round in one go. The gray mare's own swig was a little less greedy than the others, but all the same she smacked her lips in delight when she finished.
A cough came from Mrs. Totaler. Nothing harsh; just a polite signal for attention.
The gray mare looked to see the bartender rest a hoof over the payment. The older mare sifted out a small allotment – just a few bits – before she dragged the bulk of the money off the bartop and into one of her apron's pouches. The spared portion she pushed straight back to the gray mare.
"Li'l discount for you," Mrs. Totaler said, topping her gesture with a closed, friendly smile.
"Mrs. Totaler, come on now!" the younger mare protested gaily, showing her refusal by nearly tipping her stool over backwards. "Fair is fair! I don't mind paying when I want to treat my little ponies to something special!"
"Nonsense, Crumble Pie!" the bartender gladly countered. "After all you've done for this town? All you're still doing? No, no! Sure enough I know I'll get my due in time. New quarry you've been slaving away to get going is gonna drag a lot of business back to Stony Nook; maybe enough to earn us a railroad, heh! No doubt in my mind we'll see another boom, just like the last one when you opened that old quarry all those years back. You bring in them thirsty workponies again, and I'll be drowning in bits in no time!"
"Too kind, Mrs. Totaler! Too kind!" Crumble Pie relented happily. She took back her discounted bits and went for another swig at her delicious drink.
Hailstone, another one of the six, hoisted her mug as high as she could reach, even popping out her frosty-blue wings to get an extra inch of lift.
She agreed wholeheartedly with the bartender, "Yeah! Hear, hear! To Crumble Pie!"
More cheers; more swigs.
Some humble chuckling came from the gray mare, and she told them, "It's nice to feel appreciated, but I haven't done anything too special."
"No way!" said Hailstone. She used the bartop to push herself up. "First you come along and set us up with the quarry that all but gave Stony Nook its name! Then when that dried up you set us up with another quarry? As far as I'm concerned this party is for you!"
Again encouraging cheers blared.
But before the partygoers could drain whatever drops were left in their mugs with another round of celebratory swigs, Crumble Pie insisted, "It's a party for all of us. Nothing I did, I did alone. Not the old quarry. Not this new one. We've all put in a lot of hard work together to make this happen. And I couldn't be prouder to work alongside such great ponies."
The other five vacuumed up the inclusive praise, though they only felt worthy of it due to their rock solid trust in their forepony.
Mrs. Totaler lauded, "Aw, an admirable pony through and through!" She had returned to the bartop prepared to deliver a fresh round of cider, and this time she distributed the little barrel-shaped mugs herself. Her hooves worked on autopilot, one sharing drinks while the other collected any empty mugs, and meanwhile she spoke unhindered, "Still, Stony Nook wouldn'ta gotten half this far if you hadn't been here to whip us into shape on the matter."
"No, no," Crumble Pie shook her head gently. "I'm trying to tell you: starting a quarry isn't difficult. There's no special tricks involved. It's just a lot of hard, time-consuming work. Anypony can do it if they've got the drive."
"Well," Hailstone laughed, and she finally gave up on the war of compliments, flipping back the white wisps of her mane, "I'm glad you were here to help start ours twice anyway."
The rest of her work crew spouted concise agreements.
"You're plenty welcome, fellas" the gray mare responded, and then she took a deeper draft from her drink.
But when she set the mug down and wiped the moisture from her lips, a few retrospective thoughts had obviously entered her; old, old thoughts which in recent years had been growing younger.
She lowered her voice into a tone very serious but otherwise still sprinkled with the party's mirth, and she said, "I think two's my limit though. Whenever this new quarry eventually goes south like the first one, well then I'm going south too."
Mrs. Totaler, taking a respite, folded her forelegs on the bartop.
"Say it ain't so, Crumble Pie! You'd leave us?"
"Not without missing you all, of course!" smiled the gray mare. Yet she wanted there to be no confusion. Likewise resting herself on the bartop, she said solemnly, "But yeah... I'd go. A pony can only break their back starting up quarries on the frontier for so long, you know? At some point I got to move on to other things."
"We're not trying to make you feel guilty," Hailstone assured her. "We'd just miss you too."
All the crew agreed earnestly.
A silence followed whose melancholic undertone Hailstone didn't care for. She injected some happy energy right back into the party, asking her boss brightly, "So why south? What sort of plans are you making for a future down there?"
"I'm not absolutely sure," Crumble Pie rubbed her chin. "South; southeast, maybe... The land that way is quite a bit flatter but still has plenty of stone. Could start a rock farm there. You know, a lifestyle a little more sedentary than all the heavy labor out here. A little, heh."
"A quiet life on the farm?" pondered the pegasus in amusement. "I never would have pictured you like that, but now that you mention it: that is totally you!"
"It'd be a chance to really settle down," justified Crumble Pie. "Do some of the things I've never had the time or inclination to do because of all this quarry business." She wiggled her bottom such that her stool rocked loudly side-to-side, and she joked with mixed sobriety, "Age isn't making these hips any better for bearing foals!"
Everypony laughed, though after hers Mrs. Totaler warmly offered, "Nice dream to have, Crumble Pie. Way you run a quarry, I'm sure you'd make a wonderful family mare."
Unlike all the sincere praise before, the older mare's comment was enough to paint a strip of color across Crumble Pie's nose, and she silently nodded.
"Hey, speaking of family," Hailstone chimed in boisterously, "where's Scrolldozer? He should be here with us!"
"Oh by Celestia's sunny mornings," the gray mare cracked, "give the guy a chance to see his filly!"
The pegasus winced, feeling embarrassed by her short memory.
"Is that where he went?" she smoothed over her error as coolly as she could. Then, with legitimate concern, "We'll be seeing him tonight though, right?"
"I'm sure we will eventually," Crumble Pie replied. It surprised none of her crew how she explained the whole situation with open-hearted sympathy for the absent pony, "We were gone longer than usual and came back later than usual, so of course he went to spend some time with his little girl. Once he's tucked her in, read her a story, and kissed her good night, then he'll be here to finish out the evening with us."
"Suppose I should be settin' aside a drink for him then," Mrs. Totaler said, and she lifted herself off the bartop to get back to work.
Crumble Pie pointed a hoof and said, "No cider, though. You know how that big softy likes his milk."
"'Course, 'course."
While the bartender made another round through her tavern, the party reveling at the bar continued to swish, swig, sing, and laugh the night away. Their little quarry company needed no better company than themselves, and their conversations wandered and danced no differently than family banter at a dinner table:
"Hey Crumble Pie! How long until the quarry's fully ready to open? A month?"
"Balderdash! Two weeks at the most, and then we send the word out: Stony Nook's looking for hard-working hooves! Why do you think I got the mayor to lure some builders to town already? Gotta get some new lodging up for all the ponies who'll come to work the quarry! So I hope you're not thinking of slacking off just cause we're so close to finished setting up!"
"Me? Slack? Never, haha!"
...
"So that's when Scrolldozer said to me, ‘Oh no, I've stacked them in the wrong corner again, haven't I?’"
"Hahaha! Please tell me that this time you let him know he hadn't?"
"Well-"
"Cause last time he stayed up all night without telling anypony so that he could get all five tons of rock moved around only to find out next morning that he had been right to begin with and had to move them back!"
"I told him, I told him! Don't worry!"
...
"You can't think of anything?"
"What? We took all our supplies with us when we pulled out from the old quarry. There's nothing left behind to retrieve!"
"No, I mean, from all the stone still there."
"Oh. No. We left bad stone behind. All the quality stuff ran dry."
"I thought when we shut down you said it was cause the quarry floor was getting unstable."
"Yeah, that too. The whole thing was a big sinkhole waiting to happen; cavern or something under there. But even so, whatever halfway-decent stone is left wouldn't be worth floating down the river."
...
"No no, you're wrong. They're very safe, practically designed, and easy to use. Toss'em around, stomp on'em; I guarantee you're never going to set one off by accident."
"So you really think that makes it okay to trust just anypony with those things?"
"Anypony responsible, sure. And trained. I don't let a pony near a blasting charge if I think they'll blow their own hooves off with'em. But with the requisite know-how, even a foal could handle one!"
"‘A foal,’ huh? Is that why I saw you teaching Scrolldozer's-"
"You think she doesn't have the smarts for it? Not that you're ever going to tell her father that I showed her how they work, you understand?"
...
"Let's see... um... three years ago? Yeah, three years; when I went to see the Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot."
"Goodness. Yeah, I haven't seen her since I was a filly and my parents took me to the Equestria Games."
"Well if you were a big important princess then how many of the little hamlets out in the middle of nowhere would you visit? Your parents took you to see her, but I can't even convince my mom to fly out here for a visit!"
"Heh. I'm just saying: maybe catching a glimpse of the ruler of all Equestria is something a pony should do more than once in a lifetime?"
"So are you going to be hosting tea parties for her on your rock farm, then?"
"And you won't be invited, hah!"
...
"Crumble Pie?"
"Yeah?"
"Just... again... thanks for everything."
"Stop trying to make me blush! I mean it when I say it: we're a team and I'm proud to stand with you ponies and see this through."
And so the chatter continued replete with laughs and awash with drinks all the way until their missing crewmember arrived. His appearance was no surprise, however a special little surprise did come along with him.
Through the tavern's swinging door at last came Scrolldozer.
A unicorn with a squat horn; it was packed with a startling amount of power, at least whenever it came to heaving heavy rocks around. The horn poked out of his short black mane like a thick root jutting from a craggy pile of coal lumps. His hide was neither brown nor orange but something dull between the two, and his face was so plain that it sat down in a crowd. He wore his withdrawn posture like a suit he was going to be buried in.
The great surprise he had brought along was a bolt of lightning packed into a small bundle of hooves, tail, and mane. Bright-eyed, exuberant, irrepressible beyond reproach; behind him came his young daughter. The filly skipped through the door with far more energy than was proper for such a late hour.
She had inherited her father's most orange side, sparkling far above his drab shade, but her red mane had come from her mother, vivid almost to the point of glowing. Thick waves of hair poured out of her head, and it would have flared out like matted fur if it hadn't been braided tightly together. Down the left of her neck the rope of hair fell, hanging near the floor and tied at the end by a single ribbon of stunning violet which matched her eyes.
Like both her parents she was a unicorn, but her tiny horn had never demonstrated much magic. Not that she had ever complained, however. At an unusually early age she had learned to read and it hadn't been spellbooks she had voraciously dug into. Extensive reading had already earned her a cutie mark, and it was of a thick tome laid flat and open, holding infinite worlds within which beckoned to be read.
It was very unlike Scrolldozer to have allowed her out during the moon's reign; she was still in that youthful phase were early bedtimes were one of the right vitamins for healthy growth. But they knew their friend well enough to know how litigious his filly was, and no doubt she had twisted and wrenched her father's leg until he had given in and allowed her along.
Crumble Pie wasn't bothered at all that they were blessed with seeing her. She turned on her stool and leaned down, calling in welcome to the approaching filly, "Well, if it isn't the little wiggler!"
"Ms. Crumble Pie!"
The filly pranced ahead of her father and tackled the hanging hind legs of the seated mare, rocking her stool.
After a quick hug at uneven heights Crumble Pie grabbed the filly, hoisted her up, and held her out.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" the gray mare teased.
"Nope!" was the filly's cheeky answer.
"Oh, believe me: I tried," Scrolldozer said. He shambled up to the bar, though his tiredness was made more of weary joy than potent exhaustion. "I tried."
He climbed onto the barstool next to Crumble Pie, at the very end of his group of coworkers, and he sank himself onto the bartop.
"Not tonight," he shook his head and chuckled. "No story was setting her to sleep tonight. It was easier just to let her come along."
Crumble Pie bounced the filly in her limbs and laughed, "Bookworm, you troublemaker! Are you being a stone in your father's horseshoe again?"
"But Ms. Crumble Pie," protested Bookworm, "I wanted to come see all of you and join your party!"
"Wanted it bad enough to hassle your poor father, I see! Well—" The gray mare rolled her voice in phony consideration, and past the little filly she snuck a wink at Scrolldozer. "—I guess if you promise to behave and go to bed on time for the rest of the month, then we can let you stay up and have some fun with us just this once."
"Uh-huh! I promise!" Bookworm unsurprisingly vowed, patting a hoof over her heart.
"Just a promise?" Crumble Pie knew to ask, leading the filly on with a knowing smile.
"I super promise!" Bookworm smiled right back.
"That's better! I can trust that!"
And the gray mare pulled Bookworm in for a hug and a kiss, each attack raising squeals of laughter from the filly.
Bookworm spun back to look at her father, throwing him a glance which was a little too eager with childish vengeance; ‘told you so!’ in the non-verbal language of schoolyards.
His answer was to sigh contentedly, much more in need of a good night's rest than his bedtime-overdue daughter.
The father shifted to make himself more comfortable on the bartop when he suddenly snapped up, alerted by a frothy and cold glass of milk which slid into position before him.
Mrs. Totaler smiled at him warmly and said, "And if you give me but a moment, I'll have a li'ler glass for your lovely lady as well."
The bartender nodded to Crumble Pie and tapped upon the bartop, a signal the gray mare took as permission to set Bookworm down upon it. As promised, the little filly was delivered her own miniature glass of milk. But if anypony had hoped that the milk would have put her in a sleepy mood, they were foiled by her thirsty interest in their goings-on; she hardly found the time to sip her drink!
"So did anything happen out there this time, Ms. Crumble Pie?" By the speed which she had asked it, Bookworm's imagination had obviously already dreamed up its own fanciful answers. "Anything exciting?" she begged.
"Haha, no!" the gray mare said, happily exasperated. Every time they had returned from the quarry, the tale-hungry filly's question had always been the same even though the answer had never changed. Needling the little one, Crumble Pie asked, "Don't you think your father would've told you about it already if something had happened?"
"I try to tell her every time!" Scrolldozer explained like only the parent of such a delightful frustration could. "All we do is work: planning, building, digging, moving, excavating, carving..." For each boring item on his list he lovingly scratched the side of his daughter's neck.
Bookworm's hopes weren't deterred.
"Come on, Ms. Crumble Pie," she pleaded, "there's gotta be something you can tell me! You do a lot of digging, right? Did you find anything buried in the ground?"
"Yes! Stones!" Crumble Pie smiled, and then she elatedly admonished, "Oh wiggler, it's a quarry! There's no big story behind it! There's no old civilizations buried there! There's no monsters in the ground! You don't go there for adventure! You're going to have to accept that your father's right: we work, and we only do things you'd find dull."
The second denial, like usual, managed to dent Bookworm's optimism. She still held onto her hopes though; she needed them. All her books had been filled with eye-opening, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, imagination-stirring things; stories she had insatiably devoured one after the other. But though they were so familiar to her that she could see them in her memories, she had of course never actually encountered any of those sorts of fabulous things while trapped in little everyday Stony Nook. It was always her hope to catch real glimpses of such great stories from those ponies who did come and go.
Crumble Pie was very familiar with the tiny reader's lust, and she pried innocently, "Don't you have your new book? You know, if you want to hear about all sorts of interesting things and not boring quarry work?"
"I finished it!" Bookworm boasted.
The gray mare, shocked despite knowing the filly's appetite, gazed wide-eyed at Scrolldozer for confirmation.
"It's true," the father informed Crumble Pie, and there was a rare bit of personal pride which he pinned on his chest. "She tore through the whole thing while we were away."
"Well roll me down a rocky hill!" crooned the gray mare, astounded enough to need another gulp of her drink. She rubbed the top of Bookworm's mane. "How are you going to stay busy if you read that fast?"
"It's okay!" the filly contended. "I'll just mail that one back to Mom and she'll pick out another one from the Canterlot library to send me."
"At your rate even the library of Canterlot is going to run out of books to read," Crumble Pie warned playfully.
That threat, in a small way, actually seemed to worry the little filly.
"I don't think so," she maintained, though a significant weight had fast pulled her hopes down into hushed tones.
There was a sudden excited rapping on the bartop.
"Hey! I got a story for you!" Hailstone said. Excess cider was drooling from her lips. She turned her voice eerie and shared the gossip with everypony, "Anypony heard the latest about those mystery attacks on the west road?"
Scrolldozer's spine froze stiff.
"Hailstone, no," he pleaded like any worried parent would have, "please don't get Bookworm worked up with that!"
"Ooooo!" the filly didn't share her father's concerns in the slightest, and she started leaning her way down the bartop towards Hailstone. "You've heard something new?" she panted and begged. "Tell me, tell me!"
"Bookworm, honey, please," her father implored. Two sparkles from his horn snatched her ears and folded them down. "We don't want to hear about this, baby."
She thrashed her head to try and shake off the magic, whipping about her braided mane, and she complained loudly, "But I do, Dad! I don't get to hear about this stuff when I'm always stuck at the schoolhouse or with the sitters whenever you're gone!"
"I don't want you hearing about it!"
"Dad! Come on!" Bookworm whined, her bitterness growing.
The father frowned painfully.
Crumble Pie was quietly conflicted. Scrolldozer was her best friend, but sometimes he really had a way of making the friendship cumbersome.
Any new details regarding the mysterious attacks were of interest to the gray mare; she was curious as any regular townspony to keep up with worrisome local happenings. She was a little fearful even. The wellbeing of the whole town was important enough to her for even rumored risks to be given serious regard.
But she also didn't question the father's desire to have absolutely nothing to do with such threatening rumors. He was the only crewmember with a foal. The quarry was far enough away that daily commutes would have been senseless wastes of daylight, so every time they went to the quarry it was for days at a time. The father always had to leave Bookworm behind in Stony Nook in the care of trusted townsponies.
Maybe he was still being a little too overprotective though. If his ravenous filly really wanted to find out the gruesome details then she would one way or another, and probably during one of her father's regular absences. Better that the story be shared here while he was around to talk with her about it.
"Hey," Crumble Pie brought a soothing, natural tone to the conversation, "it's alright, Scrolldozer. Hailstone's not trying to scare anypony (right, Hailstone?) and there really isn't any way to keep the wiggler from the news if she wants it. But she'll handle it." She gave a grin to the filly. "She may still be a growing pony, but she's a very mature and smart pony all the same."
A big, loud, long, exhausted sigh; Scrolldozer didn't relent so much as he reluctantly accepted. The glow of his horn faded, releasing his daughter's ears much to her victorious delight.
Hailstone had picked up on her boss's hint and secretly slapped a little sobriety into herself. More considerate of the anxious parent, she held back from any further flourishes. She only cradled a hoof around her drink and spoke matter-of-factly.
"Well, actually," she said, "all I heard was that there was another attack just yesterday. This one was the worst so far they were telling me. Some poor pony came through town with a big haul of goods and was going to take the west road along the mountains, but he got jumped several miles down the way. They said he lost everything."
Bookworm gobbled up what few details there were, but she longed for more. Meanwhile, her father's mood dangled between thankfulness for the brevity of the tale and fright over the third such report of something so unsavory.
Crumble Pie, however, was hardly moved in any way save skepticism.
"That's it?" she asked. "How is it ‘the worst’ when it hardly sounds any different than the last two? All these stories of attacks are turning out kind of thin."
"I dunno. It's all I heard," Hailstone remarked. "They've always happened while we're out at the quarry. Ponies like us just get the rumors afterwards."
The gray mare snorted, doubt-filled but amused, and she brushed the whole thing away, "Always the west road; always travelers from out of town..." To placate Scrolldozer she added, "I wouldn't be surprised if it's just inexperienced ponies getting daunted by the long, lonely road and then spooking themselves, or maybe getting spooked by some harmless wildlife."
"Oh, not this time," Mrs. Totaler broke in.
The bartender had just returned from collecting the used mugs and dishwares of other patrons. She set the stack aside in a sink, splashed water onto just one mug, and brought it with her to the bar where she stuffed a rag-coated hoof into it to dry it. Each twist had the same sober, sad quality to it that her words did.
"I got to see this feller myself, 'fore and after. One heck of a change."
Most of the work crew shifted closer with moody interest, tipping their stools towards the bar. None was more taken than Bookworm who leapt excitedly to her hooves... only to have her butt slammed back down by her father's magic. The nervous father pulled his foal across the bartop closer to himself.
"So... what's the story?" Crumble Pie asked, speaking low and intently as if she was part of a backroom deal. Like everypony in town she had a lot of trust for the longtime bartender's accumulated news. Her half-finished drink she pushed aside, and she folded her forelegs onto the bartop and listened.
"Well...," began Mrs. Totaler with a heavy sigh.
Decades of bartop chatter had made her a talented, natural storyteller. She cleared her throat and softened the twists of her rag, resetting herself so as to begin the tale like a rising dawn; incidentally where the story also began:
"... So... he trots into town last morning; very early, probably stayed in Mule's Head the night before and got up ahead of the sun to make it here. Big wagon behind him; hauled it himself; freight-type of some sort, right fat with commodities stacked high. Wandering merchant. You all know the type; they come through often enough: thick legs for taking his wares far and wide, hard-faced from all the weather he's weathered, but pleasant-voiced from dealing with so many kinds'a ponies all everywhere, and tail's always just a little dirty from too much dust and not enough showers... He must'a had a real trip in him too cause that wagon was loaded proper with goods: dry foods and preserves, barrels of different drinks, all kinds of blankets, and tools, and trinkets, and something for everypony. Real journeypony and-"
She stopped herself. In the silence she set the spotless mug aside and then snapped and folded her rag.
"Point is," she resumed, resting a leg on the bartop, "I know'em when I see'em, and he wasn't no neophyte. Some of the clay caked on his wagon wheels probably came all the way from Fillydelphia. Anyway, where was I? ... Right, so... pretty usual stay for a pony like him: comes into town, chats a spell, makes some sales. I even bought a small case of Cloudsdale Rainwater Mead off'a him myself."
The bartender keenly pointed to one of the shelves behind her bar and highlighted a simple, unlabeled box which had recently taken over a vacancy there.
"Save it for a special occasion I think; fair trader, he was. But, ain't here nor there I suppose... He was around two or three hours at the most; no longer. Stony Nook was a mite too small for'em; finished his sales quick and weren't nothing else for him to see here, so he was on his way. Left on the west road; seemed pretty excited about it too. From what I gather he knew exactly how long it was and where it led; wanted to enjoy the long, quiet trip; a traveler's heart in him."
Again she took a moment away from the tale, letting her words settle in while she folded her rag and shined her bartop clean.
The usual clamor continued on all around the tavern. Happy guests were enjoying their evening, from those who only whispered warm words to those who were pounding on their tables with laughter. Yet up at the bar the party was sieged by anxious silence, all waiting for the story to continue.
A grim night fell upon Mrs. Totaler's tale.
"So, 'fore noon, he was gone. And that should'a been that. But... come late that afternoon..."
Her wiping of the bartop slowed to a crawl, then ceased altogether. She laid the rag very carefully aside.
"... he came running back into town. Really running; tripping over his own hooves. No wagon with'em anymore; just the broken remains of its hitch still clinging to his body and draggin' on the ground behind him. And he was screaming for help; wailing, top-of-his-lungs-like; something about... fire and fangs... Weren't no bold traveler anymore; no, he was jus' a knee-knocking mess of a pony. Looking into those eyes of his, I tell you... all my years and I ain't never seen a fright like that. It was something."
The bartender clacked her tongue, sighed, and then grabbed her rag and began wiping again.
She muttered one more time, "It was something..."
Everypony in the party had different muted reactions.
Scrolldozer was unsurprisingly regretful for having allowed the tale to have been told so far. Mrs. Totaler's natural talent for storytelling had incidentally played the drama in the exact worst way for his fatherly fears. By the story's end he had pulled Bookworm so close that his one leg had her snared in a protective hug while another had tightly twirled itself around her tail.
But of course the filly had hardly noticed because she had been so deeply drawn into the story. Her enthusiasm heedlessly flooded right through all the cracks in her father's hold as she beseeched the bartender, "So what happened to him on the road? Huh? Huh? What happened?"
Scrolldozer clasped his daughter more tightly, trying to rein her in.
Crumble Pie, in contrast, was taken by curious apprehension.
"Yeah, what exactly happened?" she echoed Bookworm somberly. "Where's this guy now?"
"Gone, again; other way this time," Mrs. Totaler replied with a shrug. "Can't tell you what really happened; couldn't get it out of him. Terrified pony just kept shouting and babbling in a way that didn't make no sense, and whenever we tried to ask it outta him he just kept begging for help in getting away. In the end this big heart of mine took pity on him. He lost everything so I gave him a canteen of water and a sack with a few haybiscuits, and then I convinced the mayor to spare him the bits for a train ticket. We sent him on his way back to Mule's Head, and that was that. He dashed out of here right quick, running down the east road for all he was worth; couldn't get far enough fast enough."
She clacked her tongue again and shook her head.
"Really makes a pony wonder just what could-"
"I'm sorry but I think that's enough, Mrs. Totaler," Scrolldozer pleaded for mercy, with his grip so tense that he was practically squeezing all the air out of his daughter.
"Oh! Awful sorry, Scrolldozer," the bartender realized.
"Aw, come on, Dad!" Bookworm fought. The enticing little tidbits had only made her appetite more bottomless. She fantasized out loud, "Maybe it was a dragon that got him! Can you imagine?"
"Oh, Bookworm, honey," the father very much didn't want to imagine. He gently rolled his filly's face around to his own and instructed her, desperately entreating, "Don't treat others' misfortunes so lightly. This isn't one of your bedtime stories. That was a real pony who lost everything. There are real consequences to what happened. Please don't have fun with this."
"But Daaaad-!"
"Bookworm, baby, no. I don't want you getting curious about this," admonished Scrolldozer. Then to the others he implored, "That's enough of this horrible news. Let's drop it. Please?"
Without a word the party agreed, if only for their friend's sake. Legs lifted off the bartop, hooves returned to mugs, stools shimmied back a step, and some quiet whispers picked up new conversations (or at least pretended to).
Bookworm was upset enough that a blaze of typical young grumpiness ignited inside of her. She squirmed and wriggled within her father's possessive claws, never saying a word but instead spitting out grunts and whines.
Unfortunately familiar enough with her temper, Scrolldozer released his hold. He expected, like usual, that she simply needed some time and space to cool off. She wouldn't go far.
Sure enough the filly stood up and right away hopped down from the bartop, first onto the vacant stool next to her father and then onto the floor. Turning her grouchy backside towards the parent who had so displeased her she nestled herself between the legs of the empty stool and gave a low, dim huff.
Crumble Pie polished off the rest of her drink and politely waved off Mrs. Totaler when the bartender signaled if she wanted more. The fresh rumors were still being turned over and over in the gray mare's head, and she twiddled her hoof slowly around the top of her empty mug while analyzing Scrolldozer.
The standoff with his daughter hadn't broken his heart; not that it was easy for him, but it was no more than a typical spat between them, fighting her tiny tantrum with his patient love. Now that all the horrible hearsay was over, the father was actually much calmer and very relieved. A battle with his foal was a thousand times more preferable than any parental nightmare, no matter how remote.
The gray mare knew how grueling the cycle was for the father: three or four days away at the quarry, two or three days back in town, week after week. Good stone was only harvestable in the more distant hills, away from the fresh water of the river, and sadly for Scrolldozer that meant he was more often away than around his one and only daughter. She was all of his love since his wife's responsibilities left her almost entirely absent.
It honestly had been unfair to have tortured Scrolldozer with Mrs. Totaler's savage story. Bookworm was his responsibility, but he was no great storybook hero who could protect her always and everywhere.
Crumble Pie made a mental note to discuss the suspicious road attacks with Stony Nook's mayor as soon as she could. Now that there had been a third such report, maybe the town should consider taking some sort of action?
In the mean time though, she had to maintain the health and happiness of her dear coworker. Not just because she owed it to him for having pushed Mrs. Totaler into telling her tale in the first place. And not just because she didn't want him distracted at work since he was the most incredible dang earthmover she had ever seen, with magic more muscular than a bodybuilding dragon!
Because simply he was her best friend.
And she had a clever plan ready to net him a tiny bit of sweet relief.
Stealthily she rapped on the bartop to draw Scrolldozer's attention, and she motioned for him to be silent and watch. Tilting her stool back she leaned out to look around him, and she called down to Bookworm very intentionally.
"Hey, wiggler!"
The filly didn't look back, but her ears twitched in obvious alertness.
"Hey! Wiggler!" the gray mare called again, louder and buttering up her voice.
This time Bookworm turned her head enough to peep back around the stool's leg, showing just the teeniest corner of her eye.
"Mm?" she moaned.
"Now," Crumble Pie bargained, "I know you're not very happy at the moment, but I think I got something to cheer you up. How about when we head back to the quarry in a couple of days, why don't you come with us just this once? What do you say?"
Right away a spark of electricity jolted the filly, though she tried to hide every sign of it. Her childish indignation was just a bit too proud to give up so soon.
"I thought you said I'd think the quarry was boring," she tried to grouse, except really it was just eagerness poorly disguised.
The gray mare snuck around her previous truth with ease, saying through a crafty smile, "Yeah, most of the time I think you would. But who knows? We can explore a little around the nearby hills and see what's there. Sound good to you, wiggler?"
It became that much harder for Bookworm to keep her excitement under wraps, and she squirmed in her seat.
"I guess I'll go," she quickly responded, still putting up a grumpiness as false as it was paper-thin. Yet at the very end the honest truth snuck out of her in a quiet, "Thank you, Ms. Crumble Pie."
"Don't mention it!" replied the gray mare, at the same time giving a wink to Scrolldozer.
He repaid her with a thankful and simple smile, though one also twinged with mild reluctance. Escorting Bookworm on their next trip was hardly a perfect solution: she would miss some schooling, there was scantly any time to foalsit her while there because of all the work that had to be done, and they had never taken her along in the past because he already knew that she would indeed find it boring; it was a dusty bin of rocks, not the wonderlands she found in her books.
But he'd roll that whole boulder uphill if he had to when the time came. It was at least worth the peace of mind, and thank goodness for Crumble Pie who understood that much.
A tired sigh popped out of the father and he tapped his drained glass of milk loudly enough to summon the bartender.
"How about another one?" he asked.
"You sure you don't want something a mite stronger?" Mrs. Totaler smirked, retrieving the used glass.
"Please, no," the tired pony chuckled softly. Waving his head back and forth he humorously lamented, "I can't take any more than I already do."