Title: Hitting the Jackpot
Pairing: Limestone Pie/Starlight Glimmer
Limestone leaned sideways and hissed from the corner of her mouth, “Exactly how long are they planning on staying again?”
Marble gave one of her useless shrugs and continued trying to hide behind her mane. Limestone rolled her eyes.
On the other side of the quarry, Pinkie leaped onto a giant stone and hopped about in a series of poses that nearly had her toppling right back off again. Below her, Maud gazed up implacably while the pale pink unicorn stared with something like alarm.
“I don’t see why Pinkie couldn’t come home alone for once. I mean, she’s always dragging along her dumb friends nowadays.” Limestone’s shoulders hunched. “It’s like we’re not good enough for her anymore or something.”
Marble shook her head.
“Well that’s the way it feels. First it was those friends of hers, then the whole freaking Apple family, and now some dumb unicorn she didn’t even warn us she was bringing! I mean, we’re totally off schedule now!”
Marble shrank away from her raised voice.
“Sorry, Marble. It just busts my boulders, y’know?”
“Mmmhmm,” Marble agreed, sounding like she was doing so just so her sister wouldn’t lash out.
Limestone loosed a rough sigh. “I’d better go get Maudie back. If we hurry, we can still make today’s quota. We’re about due to hit a seam in the north quadrant and I’ll be damned if my careful planning goes into the shale pile just because Pinkie’s pals can’t stay away from our farm.”
She stalked across the quarry like she owned the place – which was partially true, but not as much as her gait implied.
Pinkie noticed her first, hopping up and down and waving madly. “Limey! Limey! Limey! Hi! Hi! Hi!” She gestured downward. “This is my new friend, Starlight Glimmer! She’s learning about friendship and how not to take out your personal demons on the world because misery really doesn’t actually love company after all! I brought her here to –”
“Whatever.” Limestone took up her favourite stance: slightly forward, head tilted back exposing her chin, the better to glare down at ponies taller than her and let them know she was boss. “Maudie, we’re off schedule. Can you get back to the north quadrant? Double time. Sunset in less than an hour and seam imminent if we dig t the co-ordinates and depth I showed you on the map.”
“What kind of seam?” Maud inquired.
“Amethyst if my calculations are right.”
Maud nodded and walked away without bothering to bid anypony goodbye.
“Well … that was rude.” The unicorn whose name Limestone did not know wrinkled her nose.
“Some of us have work to do,” Limestone snapped. “We can’t all be lazy mares who go off visiting places and ponies regardless of whether they’re wanted or not.”
The unicorn looked shocked. Then angry. She opened her mouth to respond but Pinkie jumped down between them.
“Limey! That’s not very nice!”
“I’m not very nice,” Limestone replied without missing a beat. Nothing made her crankier than somepony busting in on her workplace and knocking her off schedule.
“That’s pretty obvious,” the unicorn murmured.
Limestone snorted and scuffed the ground with a forehoof. “You got something to say to me, hornhead?”
“Limey!” Shock laced Pinkie’s tone. “That’s racist! What would Granny Pie say if she could hear you say that?”
Finally Limestone backed up, if only mentally. Images of her grandmother’s disapproving expression flickered through her mind. Granny Pie had been dead for years but she and her steadfast values were still the biggest influence on her granddaughters’ lives.
Limestone’s eyes dipped. “Uh … ah ponyfeathers. Sorry Pinkie.”
“It’s not me you need to apologise to, Limey, it’s Starlight.”
“Ugh.” Limestone drew in a breath, Granny Pie’s voice thrumming through her. “I’m sorry I lost my temper and called you a hornhead. I just hate being off schedule when we’re so close to hitting a seam. We need a boost of bits to repair the roof of the farmhouse and this kind of break would really help with that.”
Pinkie gave Starlight Glimmer a look over her shoulder. Starlight clearly struggled, but bit out: “What does that mean – a seam?”
“A seam is a … a seam.” Limestone searched for a way to describe it to somepony not born into a family of rock farmers or the creatures they traded with. “Of gems. In the ground.”
“A seam like in a dress?” Starlight Glimmer blinked at her, clearly not understanding.
“Ugh.” Limestone pressed her hoof at the tight spot between her eyes. “Follow me. It’s easier – and quicker – if I just show you.”
“Oooooh, Starlight! You get to see an actual seam of gems! You’re so lucky! Not even Twilight has seen one of those here. Neither has Rarity.” She paused. “Though she may actually be able to help us locate them, come to think of it. Hmm … I wonder why I never thought of that before.”
Limestone shook her head. Pinkie had turned so much weirder since she moved to Ponyville.
They heard Maud before they saw her. Or rather, before they saw the cloud of dust she was churning up. Maud herself was concealed within it, hammering away with her forehooves like jackhammers. Other rock farms only wished they had a pony like Maud working on them.
Abruptly the noise stopped and a pair of purple hooves appeared over the side of the crater. “I hit it,” Maud deadpanned, hauling herself up.
“Already?” Even Limestone was impressed. She had calculated another forty-five minutes at least, even with Maud’s help.
“I’ll go tell Father.” Maud ambled away like hitting the source of their income for the next few months was nothing special.
Limestone motioned at the hole in the ground. “A gem seam. We pry them out and sell them for profit.”
“C’mon, Starlight! Wheee!” Pinkie leapt into the cloud of dust like there couldn’t possibly be any jagged rocks concealed within to impale her.
Starlight Glimmer was more circumspect. “Ah … is it safe?”
“It is if you wait to see what you’re doing,” Limestone replied.
“But Pinkie Pie –”
“Pinkie is Pinkie.” She shrugged.
Starlight Glimmer swallowed. “Uh, right.”
“So what are you even doing here? She hadn’t ever talked about before.”
“I’m … new to her … friendship group.”
“New. Right.” Limestone rolled her eyes. “Just a ‘friend’. I get it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, it’s fine. Our dad’s real conservative but I don’t care if Pinkie’s dating a stallion, a mare or a timberwolf, as long as she’s happy.”
Shock wreathed the unicorn’s face. “I’m not-! We’re not-! I don’t like mares!”
“Suuure you don’t. Seriously, I couldn’t give a monkey’s buttcheek who warms her bed, but if you want to play it that way, your secret’s safe with me. Just don’t hold up my work schedule again, okay? Oh, and if you hurt my sister, I’ll break your nose with a hammer.”
“I’m not dating your sister!” Starlight protested.
“Of course she’s not!” Pinkie’s voice floated from the dust cloud. “She’s totally in love with Twilight!”
“I am not!” Starlight actually stamped a hoof this time.
“Oh?” Pinkie paused. “Fluttershy, then.”
“No!”
“Oh.” Another pause. “I could’ve sworn you had a thing for her. You invited her into your house at night and everything. Then who are you in love with?”
“Nopony!”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
“For absolute realises?”
“Yes!”
“Aw, that’s so sad.”
“It is not!” Two stamps this time. “I was too busy trying to change the world for the better to worry about silly, petty things like … like romance!”
“So, so sad.” Pinkie sniffed loudly.
“I am not! I-I mean, it is not!” Starlight tossed her head and scowled into the cloud. “You’re being very aggravating, Pinkie Pie! Twilight specifically told you not to do that before we left Ponyville! You’re supposed to teach me about laughter and finding fun in difficult situations, not pair me up with half your social circle!”
“She does this,” Limestone sighed. “When the Apple family came to stay for Christmas, she tried to pair up our other sister with the big red stallion.”
“They looked cute together!”
“Quiet, Pinkie.”
“You’re just jealous because I didn’t match-make you with Applejack.”
“Pinkie, I may be into mares, but even I have my limits!”
“She could say the same about you.”
“Celestia damn it, Pinkie, your friend is right: this is aggravating!”
Pinkie let out a manic giggle. The distinctive sound of her bouncing faded away, as if she had left the quarry under the cover of rock dust.
For a moment Limestone and Starlight stood in silence, waiting for her to come back.
“Celestia’s hairy butthole, I hate it when she does stuff like this,” Limestone growled. “She’s just so … so random!”
“I’ll say. Also, that is a disgusting turn of phrase.”
“Oh bite me.” Limestone released a pent up breath and picked up a pickaxe somepony had left nearby. Probably one of the temp workers. They were a bunch of workshy layabouts. “C’mon. I’ll show you what an amethyst seam looks like until she gets back.”
“Oh. Am I … supposed to bring one of these tools as well?”
“Unless you’d like to use just your horn and hooves, yeah.”
Gingerly, Starlight lifted another pickaxe in her aura.
“Follow me.”
“I thought you said it was dangerous.”
“I know what I’m doing. Just follow me and you’ll be safe.”
Carefully, Limestone picked her way down into the crater. She was sure-footed as a mountain goat. Too bad for her even mountain goats have trouble when other goats leave tools laying around will-nilly.
“Whoa!” she cried out as her hooves shot out from under her, helped along by a carelessly discarded hammer and chisel.
“What’s the matt – oh!” Starlight’s question devolved into a shriek as the kicked chisel hit her in the knee and she pitched forward.
Limestone’s face hit the ground with a smack. She had the good sense to drop the pickaxe before she broke her teeth on it. A breath escaped her as Starlight crashed into her from behind.
“What’s all the shouting about?” Pinkie bounced into view, apparently all concern – at least until she saw them. Immediately, her hoof raised to her mouth and she let out a stream of laughter so thick, it clogged her throat and she coughed.
Starlight struggled to untangle herself from where she had fallen against Limestone’s upturned rump. Limestone tried not to buck her for the unfortunate way she had landed. Starlight’s face re-emerged with an mortified gasp. The position was compromising, entirely accidental and deeply embarrassing. Likewise the fact that when Starlight tried to stand, her legs became tangled in Limestone’s and they fell again, rolling over in the dirt until they fetched up against a larger rock sticking up from the ground.
Limestone stared up into Starlight’s face. It was entirely too close to her own. She could smell the other mare’s toothpaste, feel the warmth of her breath against her own snout and see the flecks of gold in her blue irises. Up close, the hard lines of her scowl smoothed into broad surprise, she was actually quite pretty. Her mane fell down around her face, giving her a rumpled look that was … actually pretty cute; especially with the late afternoon sun behind her, giving her a weird golden halo.
“I g-guess I should have match-made you two after all!” Pinkie hooted.
Starlight’s throat bobbed. “Ah –”
“Get. Off. Me.”
“Yes. Exactly what, uh, I was thinking.” Starlight prised herself loose and scrambled to her hooves.
Limestone followed, moving carefully and absolutely not looking at the other mare and definitely not thinking about how close together their mouths had just been and most definitely not how long it had been since she last went on anything resembling a date. “Pinkie?”
“Y-yeah, Limey?”
“If you don’t stop laughing, I’m going to feed you this pickaxe. Sideways.”
Pinkie snorted into her hooves. “Whatever you say, Limey.”