The two ponies stood diagonally from the other, one holding a precise brushing tool in its mouth and gently swiping away a thick coating of dirt across the cracked stone pillar. The other, a unicorn, levitated a small carving pallet around the construct's edges, scraping off crusted moss that had formed over centuries of idle placement.
"This material is tougher than I thought it would be," the male, turquoise unicorn remarked with a slight strain of effort on its horn. "I was hoping the growths would've been a bit more malleable."
The earth pony, a grey colt, continued its scrubbing of the pillar's outer surface as it responded, not taking its mind off the surprisingly laborious task. "The lack of rain makes it lot more hardy, especially around here. The forest canopy's great at blocking any moisture from getting to the ground."
The unicorn stopped scrapping for a moment and looked up at the high-topped oaks around him, and the shield of green leaves that formed up in an almost uniform curtain. Large rays of sunlight still penetrated through the overlay, but a direct light was nowhere to be found.
He wiped away a trickle of sweat from along his brow. "The shade's still nice. I bet this place is beautiful in the winter. You know I haven't even been using my tent since the entire team got here? There's not all that many bugs around so you can actually sleep right in the open air. It's incredible."
"Is that so?" the earth pony said as it continued brushing, still not detracting its attention.
"Yeah. You should really try it some time. Totally beats the smell of musty tent canvas over your head." The unicorn paused for a moment and noticed that his companion hadn't ceased for a moment in his job. He looked puzzled at this and expressed the sentiment to his friend.
"Silver Cloud, don't you wanna take a break? We've been going at this for well over an hour."
Silver Cloud shook his head. "I think I'll pass, Quills. I'm not tired yet."
Quills paused and looked down at the white bricked support leg that rose just past three feet into the air. "I doubt the remnants of an old aqueduct pillar are going anywhere."
"I think this one's more submerged than the others ones in the dig site," Silver Cloud remarked while still brushing at his steady pace. "Call it hunch but I think this one might just be where the epicenter was."
Quills grinned. "What, can you sense that from the dirt? Last time I checked you weren't a unicorn."
"Then maybe it's earth pony intuition. Dirt is our specialty after all."
Quills laughed and set down his scrapper, resting his body casually against the adjacent side of the pillar his friend wasn't facing. Sighing, he looked back up at the gleaming green patchwork above. "So what's your thoughts on the trip so far? You think it was worth selling out a whole week of class?"
"For the credit hours we're getting? Totally. We can make up whatever we missed when we get back to the University. But no way could you make up for missing a trip like this."
"Or being around the professors for 24/7."
Silver Cloud grinned as he scrubbed. "I'll admit the History Department does have a few...special kinds of ponies working for it. But they're not all bad. Sure, Professor Ards does like to wear that helm of his whenever he gets the chance, and Professor Dorian loves speaking in Old Equestrian but I think it's still kind of fun to be with them."
"Yeah," Quills said with a roll of his eyes, "especially when we're the only other students here. It's like being a frosh all over again."
"What about Professor Neuro's assistant? Isn't he a student?"
Quills grimaced at the very thought of stone-cold Professor Neuro Parapraxis and his assistant. He'd rather not think about the two if he didn't have to, but the conversation always did favor swaying the way he'd prefer it not to.
Groaning loudly, he stamped his hoof in mild frustration. "Oh, don't get me started on those two. If I'd known that dynamic duo was coming along for the ride I would have opted out the first chance I got. But of course, no one took the liberty in telling everyone else, so it all turned out as a fantastic little surprise the day we left. You know, it's especially that assistant of his that bothers me sometimes, and not just--"
"Quills," Silver Cloud interrupted cordially, "not that I'm not riveted by what you're saying but would you care to come over here a moment. I need your opinion on something."
"On what?"
Silver Cloud, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, rose from his stooped position and gestured downwards at the pillar's edge he'd been brushing. It was through his efforts that a significant portion of the outer dirt had been swept away, creating a rigid indentation against the object's side. And inside that fairly shallow indentation, was a strange object of some sort.
Quills blinked in bewilderment at just what was lying before him. The composition was stone, a smooth variant that almost resembled a dull silver. It appeared circular, or at least, it had been. The object appeared to have been cracked off from something larger. What lied in the dirt was a jagged slice, unharmed across its top but jagged along its edges. The surface was entirely barren of markings or indentations hinting to earlier Equestrian civilization, giving the stone slice a quite alien look to it.
"Do you have an idea of what it is?" he asked with his eyes transfixed on the ground below him.
Silver Cloud shrugged. "You tell me. You're the Archaeology major; I'm the Quadropologist."
"They're not that different from each other."
"But different enough that I've never seen anything like this in any of the textbooks or lectures. Now, is there anything that you can tell from this?"
"Let's see," Quills said as he lowered himself to the object's level, his eyes combing over whatever details he could decipher from the artifact stone that was no larger than his hoof. "It appears fairly recent by the looks of it. There're no major marks of damage from being buried here for an extended period of time, and the fact that it's so close to the surface further hints that it's new here."
"Can you tell how long it's been there?"
Quills spread his hooves in dismissal. "Cloud, what you've seen here is about my entire college education to this point. We'd have to ask a professor about anything past that."
His friend nodded. "Then I think we should do that. They're gonna want to see this."