Seeing another group of ponies ahead, Maud stopped. Still covered in mud and grass, both Maud Pie and Tarnished Teapot were quite a sight. Ahead there was a wagon, a smaller two wheeled cart and what appeared to be a family of ponies.
“The road is washed out,” a pegasus mare said as she pointed. “It drops off into a ravine and the slope on the other side of the road is too steep to traverse.”
“Hello,” an earth pony said in a baritone rumble. “My name is Quakehoof. This is my wife, Flying Grace. Our two foals are over there, Storm Blitz and Bright Hope.”
“My name is Maud Pie… this is my husband, Tarnished Teapot.” Maud looked at the washed out road. “I think we can fix that.”
A little earth pony filly darted over to her father’s legs, ducked behind them, and then peeked out. “You’re muddy.”
“Hope!” Flying Grace said, looking mortified.
“We um, kinda fell down into the mud trying to get the wagon out. It was sunk in up to its axles.” Tarnish gave his new acquaintances a sheepish grin and then, feeling worried, he looked down at his amulet. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw a flash of blue.
“Do you have an idea to pass this?” Quakehoof asked. “We were thinking about abandoning our wagon and just walking across.”
“We’re going to need some big rocks,” Maud replied.
“Rocks?” Quakehoof looked puzzled.
“Rocks.” Maud blinked and twitched her ears, causing some dried mud to crumble and fall away. “We push in some big boulders and then I can smash them into gravel. We can fill in the washout. Should be crossable with a wagon. When it rains again, since this seems to be a drainage area, the gravel will allow the water to flow down into the ravine.”
“And if Quakehoof was a little bit smarter, he might of thought of that, instead of thinking of abandoning the wagon.” Flying Grace rose into a hover and glared down at her husband, her forelegs folded over her barrel.
“I can punch a rock into gravel.” Quakehoof ignored his wife’s stare. The big earth pony began to look around for rocks.
Tarnished Teapot locked the brake lever for the wagon while Maud began to unhitch herself from her harness. He didn’t know what to do to help so he began to look around for suitable rocks.
“Are you a mudicorn?”
Tarnish froze in place and then he gave a slow turn of his head to look at the curious little filly staring up at him. His eyes darted over to Flying Grace. She had zoomed off to look for rocks. Tarnish began to realise that he had been left with two foals, both of which were looking up at him with wide, curious eyes.
“Hi.” Tarnish said, suddenly feeling nervous without knowing why. He looked down at the two foals, his eyebrows raised. One little earth pony filly and one little pegasus colt.
“This is my brother, Storm Blitz. He smells.”
The pegasus colt fluttered his wings but said nothing. Tarnish looked around, hoping for some advice on what to do, but he was alone. Everypony had gone off, leaving him alone with what appeared to be two yearlings. He wasn’t sure. They were tiny, little things.
“We’re moving to some new place,” Bright Hope said.
“We’re always moving to some new place.” Storm Blitz scowled.
“I like moving to new places.” Bright Hope smiled. The cheerful filly was very much the opposite of her brother. “Can you do magic?”
“I’m not very good at it,” Tarnish replied. He had no idea how to make conversation at this moment. Garnet and Rowanne were little as well, but not this little. Tarnish looked around, feeling afraid of danger, not quite knowing how to protect something as small and as vulnerable as two yearlings out in the wilds.
He heard the flapping of wings and looked up. He saw Flying Grace whizzing through the air, pushing a cloud. She stopped overhead, smiled down at him, and then gave the cloud a good kick. It started raining, causing both Bright Hope and Storm Blitz to run away, squealing about getting wet and muddy.
“There there, it’s not so bad. It’s an earth pony thing… they like rolling around in the mud. She got you, didn’t she? This is just something that they do… Quakehoof has flung mud at me a few times,” Flying Grace said as the raincloud sluiced the mud off of Tarnish.
The water felt cool and refreshing. Tarnish found that he was grateful for the shower. The deluge was leaving him quite clean. Traveling with a pegasus must be nice. He closed his eyes and allowed the downpour to rinse the mud from his eyelids.
“The last time that Quakehoof got me muddy, I had Bright Hope.” Flying Grace heaved a sigh. “That was a lot of fun…”
Tarnish felt his ears burning. He tried not to think about how delightfully slippery Maud had been. How she had wiggled free when he had tried to grab her. It had been a lot of fun trying to hold on to Maud while she was slick with mud… and it could be a whole lot of fun trying to hold on to Maud while… Tarnish gulped and banished the thoughts from his mind before something embarrassing happened.
Opening his eyes, Tarnish could see two earth ponies rolling a large boulder back to the place where the road had washed out. Tarnish began to study the land around him. The road dipped in this place as it wound its way along the slope. One side of the road sloped upwards on a steep bank, the other side of the road dropped away into a ravine. Looking down, Tarnish could see flat ground about fifty feet or so down. He realised that Froggy Bottom Bogg was just the place where all the water that drained went to. Looking up, he saw tall, rolling hills and in the distance, he could see the black trees of the Everfree.
“Well, since you rolled around in the mud with your wife, are you expecting anything cute, small, and fuzzy?” Flying Grace asked, snapping Tarnish from his thoughts.
Tarnish let out a startled yelp and then looked up at the pegasus. He shook his head, making an emphatic ‘no.’ Drenched, dripping, Tarnish felt an odd cold chill course through his body.
“Well why not?” Flying Grace, hovered with her forelegs akimbo, looking down at Tarnish. “You have them young… as young as you can… so that way, when they grow up a little, you are still young enough to have fun with them and play with them. I mean, who wants to hang out with an old pony… sheesh. Unicorns… no common sense at all.” The pegasus rolled her eyes.
Tarnish stared upwards with pleading eyes, hoping this would end.
“How old are you?” the nosy pegasus asked.
“Ma’am, I’m sixteen.”
“Ma’am?” Flying grace looked around, her head whipping about. “Funny, I don’t see my mother anywhere…” She looked down at Tarnish. “You’re a tall one. I thought you were in your twenties. Sixteen and already married. Hmm.”
Flustered, stammering, Tarnish tried to say something and couldn’t. He saw Flying Grace’s expression soften. She kicked the cloud again to get a bit more rain out of it.
“Earth ponies make good mates. Quakehoof was ready to settle down at a young age and so was I. Other pegasi were a bit too flighty. Reckless youth and all that. But Quakehoof gave me a promise that he could be good to me.” Flying Grace turned to look at the two earth ponies pushing the boulder. “He has been good to me. No doubt, she’ll be good to you, if you are good to her right back.”
“I love her so much that it drives me crazy sometimes,” Tarnish said, his voice now squeaky and coltish. He watched as Bright Hope chased after her brother, Storm Blitz. “I would follow her anywhere she went.”
“Quakehoof has a bad case of wanderlust as well. A lot of earth ponies do. He goes wherever he is needed, doing odd jobs, going wherever fate takes him. Most of the time, we hit the road and we don’t even have a plan. We just go.” Flying Grace watched her husband’s muscles ripple and she grinned. “There’s still a lot of mud around. I wonder if Quake wants another foal.”
Tarnish blinked and said nothing.
“Do you think you could foalsit for me?” The pegasus looked down at Tarnish and grinned a manic grin.
“You put your hoof right here, and I’ll put my hoof right here, and on the count of three, we both punch it. The boulder should shatter,” Maud said as she tapped with her hoof on one of the two weak points.
“Okay.” Quakehoof stomped on the ground a few times, getting warmed up for his task. He then stood near the boulder, raised a front hoof, and got ready.
It had taken several minutes of tap-tap-tapping upon the boulder before finding the schism point that ran through the rock. Most rocks had one, but not all. Some weak place that could be struck, breaking the rock and turning it into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Maud studied the earth pony beside her. He was, she supposed, a bit like her. He had a sense for stone. She stood ready, flexing her right front foreleg, and taking deep breaths. This was only the first of many boulders they would need today. Maud, fighting fatigue, banished away all thoughts of sleep. She took another deep breath.
“One… two… three.” Maud slammed down, striking the rock with terrific power and control. It was like anything else she did in life. Her fine sense of control allowed her to touch Tarnish and not break him, even during more intimate moments when it felt as though her control was slipping. Maud’s life was all about control; holding back all of her strength and power.
Quakehoof also struck. The rock, slammed with titanic amounts of force, and only being a rock, shattered upon the dual impacts, forming a pile of gravel. The gravel filled some of the area of the washout, but it was not enough. More gravel would be needed. Little wisps of smoke curled upwards from the gravel, a subtle sign of the energy that had been released.
“We need another boulder,” Maud said in a flat, tired sounding monotone.
“Indeed,” Quakehoof replied.
Tarnish had trouble believing what he was seeing. The washout, which had seemed so bad, now seemed crossable. The gravel formed a flat enough surface for a wagon. He heard a gasp from Maud, turned his head, and saw that Maud was getting a raincloud shower from Flying Grace.
“And then Daddy was like POW!” Bright Hope punched a piece of rock. Nothing happened. Disappointed, the foal stood there, her lower lip protruding, upset that she couldn’t punch a piece of gravel into an even smaller piece of gravel.
“Well, this is as good of a place as any to set up camp,” Flying Grace said in a cheerful, chipper voice. “Our new friends look tired. I think we could all use some rest.” The pegasus gave the cloud she was hovering near a good kick.
“Everything is wet… where do we sleep?” Quakehoof asked.
Flying Grace shrugged.
“Down the road a ways, there is a campsite I think. Should be about a mile or so west. I remember seeing it the last time I was through here.” Quakehoof looked over at his colt, who was chasing bugs. “Might still be a little damp though.”
“I could go for a little sleep,” Tarnish said.
“Let’s see if all of our hard work was worth it.” Quakehoof looked at the gravel and then headed off to the two wheeled cart to get hitched up.
“Thank you for the shower.” Maud, drenched, her mane plastered to her face, peered upwards. “We’ll go with you to the campsite. This might be nice. But I really do need some sleep. Tarnish and I pulled an all nighter.”
“Oh, I bet you did!” Flying Grace began to titter and covered up her mouth with her hoof. She kicked the cloud away and then flew around in a circle, laughing, amused by her own joke.