Lunch consisted of... normal pony food, Big Mac was surprised to find. It was a little on the plain side, but there were carrots, turnips, rolls, and even a bowl of oats for every pony at the table.
“Don't be too disappointed, Macintosh,” Limestone ordered. “We only have rocks on special occasions.”
“Mm-hm,” Marble agreed, taking a delicate bite of her carrot. Big Mac grinned at her and dug in to his oats. He was just fine with this being a normal occasion.
“Oh, and you're working with me today,” Limestone informed him. He stared at her. “I don't want you getting distracted. Or you either, Marble!” she added, when Marble turned to her, frowning. Marble ducked her head at her older sister's tone, and Big Mac stifled a sigh. He had a whole season, he supposed. No sense rushing things.
“Tonight I shall prepare quartz quiche in honor of thee, our guest,” Cloudy Quartz told him, smiling. He smiled back, a bit painfully. Marble's glow of happiness distracted him from the impending dinner, however, and he wondered if quartz quiche might not be as bad as it sounded.
“All right, come with me, Apple,” Limestone ordered as soon as she was finished. Big Mac chomped down the rest of his lunch and followed her out the door with one last look back at Marble, who gave him a tiny wave. Limestone sighed in disgust and shut the door.
They walked for several minutes until they reached a mine filled with crystals, where Limestone was apparently already in the middle of opening up a new section. She pointed at a pile of debris near a shallow depression in the rock wall.
“Take all that outside to the gravel pit. You'll go left when you leave the mine and go past the feldspar beds, take a right, go through the megabreccia and it should be obvious.”
Taking a pickaxe in her mouth, Limestone walked to the end of the section and started chipping away at it, leaving Big Mac to his task. He spotted a small cart near the entrance to another branch of the mine and began loading it up with broken rocks. When it was full he hitched it to himself and started walking. Judging by Limestone's pace, he figured he'd be able to keep up with her without too much problem. Hauling heavy carts was hardly a difficult task for him, after all.
He didn't know what a feldspar bed would look like, much less what a megabreccia was, but a gravel pit seemed like an easy enough thing to find. He reached the entrance, turned left, and immediately saw a flat plain full of little translucent pink rocks, obviously partitioned off. Nodding to himself, he dutifully walked past the bed and turned right. At first he thought he saw rocks in the distance that seemed worthy of being called something with the prefix “mega,” but as he came closer they turned out to be only about as big as he was, and he didn't see how one could go through them in any way. Taking a few steps past them, he looked around, hoping for some clue as to where he should go. The flat plain stretched out before him, devoid of any more rocks, but containing, Big Mac observed with a sigh, a fence. He'd reached the edge of the farm without seeing a single thing that looked like it could be called a gravel pit.
Big Mac hesitated. He could go back and try to figure out where he'd gone wrong and possibly wander around forever, or he could go ask Limestone to give him new directions and humiliate himself in the process. Neither prospect was appealing, but it seemed to Big Mac that he simply had to choose between getting the work done or his pride, and while he had plenty of the latter, the former was, as he'd tried to inform Applejack many times throughout her life, far more important. And he could hardly, he thought with a mental grimace, be a hypocrite to his little sister, now could he?
With a painful sigh, and not a little bit of dread, Big Mac turned around and walked back to the mine. His teeth clenched and his ears down in annoyance, he plodded up to Limestone and said,
“What's a megabreccia look like, exactly?”
Limestone turned around, and for a second Big Mac was sure he saw something in her expression that was pleased. She certainly didn't seem surprised.
“It's a rock,” she said slowly, “that has lots of little rocks embedded in it.”
Big Mac nodded, turned to go, and then turned back one more time.
“What's a feldspar bed look like?”
Limestone heaved a great sigh and rolled her eyes.
“It's a white, rectangular stone,” she explained, again at a speed and tone reserved for the very stupid, “with small striations and high opacity.”
Striations was a new one to him, but he knew perfectly well what opacity meant. He nodded again, and walked briskly out of the mine, determined to make up for lost time.
This time he walked past the little pink rocks and eventually found a bed of small white, rectangular stones. The path to the right of them was obviously well traveled, and it was only a minute before he came to a large rock shorn down the middle, the path winding through it. As he passed through the gap, large enough for three of him to walk abreast, he observed with interest the small boulders and large rocks embedded in it like seeds in an apple. Once through, the ground fell away, revealing a large pit full of broken and jumbled rocks. He dumped his cartload in and trotted back to the mine, satisfied.
The pile had grown. Significantly.
“Hurry up, slow poke, we don't have all day!” Limestone growled at him as he entered.
“Eeyup,” he said grimly, and got to work filling his cart. This time he trotted his way to the pit and cantered back, the empty cart rattling behind him.
The pile was even bigger than it had been. By a lot.
Big Mac stared at it. Then he stared at Limestone, chipping away at the stone at an almost leisurely pace, and then stared at the pile some more. Frowning, but not yet ready to draw any conclusions, he filled his cart once again and cantered his way to the pit, keeping his pace to a canter on the way back in deference to the poor cart.
The pile was even bigger this time.
Big Mac took in a breath, fixed a glare on Limestone, and then hesitated. He was not exactly new to hazing or pranks, and he knew perfectly well that simply calling her out would not only lead nowhere, it would certainly not endear him to her. Were she simply an employer, that would hardly matter, but she was his potential sister-in-law: future family, if all worked out. If it were Applejack pranking him the last thing he'd do would be sit there and whine about it. No, if this were Applejack he'd simply get even. Big Mac let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled.
“What kind of rocks are these?” he inquired as he slowly, not too slowly, but not very quickly, filled up his cart with rocks.
“That stuff is just gabbro and basalt,” Limestone said, waving dismissively. “I'm digging for quartz and gypsum, or malachite, if we're lucky.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, lifting the last rock into the cart. He walked casually out to the entrance, but once there he broke into a canter, dumped his load as fast as he could and galloped back, willing the cart to stay together.
The pile had grown, but less than before. Limestone shot him a glare as he calmly and unhurriedly filled his cart and plodded easily out of the mine, this time making it to the gravel pit and back in even less time than before.
Aha! The pile was actually smaller this time. She had added to it, yes, but not as much as he'd taken away. If he kept this pace up he'd win!
She seemed to be catching on, however, because she no longer pretended to be working at a normal pace in front of him. Slowly, he increased his own pace as he loaded the cart, and slowly she matched him, every time, until both of them were working as fast as they were physically able. Big Mac was pouring sweat, and every so often it would spill into his eyes, making them sting. He paid it no mind. He didn't have time to wipe his brow, and besides, he knew the route by now. Limestone was gaining on him. He had to win. The satisfaction of seeing that pile reduced to nothing drove him until finally Limestone bellowed,
“Alright, alright, enough already!”
He stopped, breathing hard, the pile only as high as his chest. Limestone stood panting as well, and it was several minutes before she found breath enough to speak.
“You work hard,” she rasped, her voice rougher than ever.
“So do you,” he told her. He'd never seen someone decimate a rock wall like that.
“I still don't like you,” she growled, but there was no bite in it. Big Mac chuckled breathlessly.
“Ain't here to make you like me,” he said. She glared.
“You better be good to her.”
“That's the idea.”
She peered into his eyes, sizing him up, and then snorted.
“Get back to work, Macintosh,” she said dismissively, but there was no real ire in her voice. Big Mac smiled.
“Eeyup.”
Quartz quiche was exactly as bad as it sounded.
“Dost thou desire seconds, Big Macintosh?” Cloudy Quartz inquired. Big Mac was tempted to say no, but he caught Marble's gaze out of the corner of his eye and had no choice but to acquiesce.
“Eeyup.”
Smiling, Cloudy Quartz cut him another slice and slid it onto his plate with a high-pitched clink. Big Mac had never had a quiche that went clink. He was having a lot of new experiences today. Dutifully he took another bite, the ache in his teeth overpowered by the sight of Marble's gently smiling face across the table from him.
“How goeth the opening of the new deposit?” Igneous inquired of Limestone.
“Not bad,” she said. “It's going faster than I planned, but I think it'll be worth the effort. How long do you think the rocks in the south field have left before we need to rotate them?”
“But a fortnight remains, by my estimation.”
“Good, I think I'll have the new shaft open enough by then that Marble can start working on it. You ready, kiddo?”
“Mmhm.”
“Any problems in the west field today?”
“Mm-mmn.”
There was a short silence filled only with the crunching sounds of chewing. Then Limestone added, speaking to no one in particular,
“Big Mac did alright, I guess.”
Marble beamed at him.