//------------------------------// // The Chambered Heart of Teacup Town // Story: The Silver Standard // by PatchworkPoltergeist //------------------------------// Diamond Tiara smushed her cheek against the blimp window. Her breath fogged on the thick, chilled glass as she struggled to catch a good angle. “Ooh, Silver Spoon, look! Look, you can see all of Ponyville from up here!” She pointed to an ominous dark green splotch on the white landscape that sucked in the sunlight. “There’s the Everfree Forest, so that must be Fluttershy’s house.” “Ooh.” Silver Spoon cradled her cup of morning tea and peered at the miniature cottage. Tiny animals mulled by a coin-sized pond and stared at the strange shadow at their paws. Farther out lay Ponyville: a branchwork of icy streets lined with tiny roofs peeking out from snowy blankets. Needlepoint hoofprints crisscrossed the lumpy sheets of snow. Silver held her teacup to the window. At this distance, all of Ponyville fit inside of it, with Fluttershy’s cottage at the handle and the road to Canterlot skimming the outer rim. “It’s all so tiny from up here,” Silver said. “Even though we’re coming in to land.” The lights of Manehattan had chased them for hours, even after they’d climbed miles into the atmosphere. Fillydelphia’s sprawl had lingered from dinner to bedtime. At full height and speed, the blimp would have passed Ponyville before Silver finished her tea. “It’s kinda like seeing a toy town, isn’t it, Di?” “I know, right? It’s, like, so weird. Like a whole different place.” Diamond squinted at a golden weathervane winking in the pink sunlight. “Oh hey, there’s my house! See the pool?” Golden Glitter sat up in her lounge chair. “It’s the same size it always is, Diamond.” She left her Iron Will self-help book on the table and joined her daughter at the window. The mansion’s little reflection skimmed across her sunglasses. “But sometimes, you need distance to see things the way they really are. That’s called perspective, Diamond Tiara. Remember that.” “I will, Mom.” Diamond smiled up at Golden a moment and glanced away from her house in search of some other point of interest. “I bet you could see your house from here too, Silver.” A white house in the middle of a snow-laden town? Silver doubted it. “Yeah, maybe. It’s not far from here.” Wholly uninterested in the likelihoods of sighting the Silver house, Golden tilted her head at the black and gold behemoth resting on the Rich property. “What in…” She leaned over Diamond’s head for a better view. “Is that a boat? He bought her a boat?” “Um, Dad…” Diamond Tiara tiptoed around the syllables, weighing the consequences of her words before she spoke them. “Dad called it a yacht. He got it for all of us.” A safe, neutral statement. Golden’s frown soured. Not safe enough, apparently. “He bought it for—it’s for the summer, when we go to the bay, but... Um.” She licked her lips, running out of safe ways to lead the conversation. Silver bumped Diamond’s leg and nodded towards Sweetshine Lake. “But we might test-run it on the lake after the ice melts in a couple weeks!” Diamond watched the tension unwind from Golden’s expression and her words eased into the regular tempo. “We’re gonna take it around a couple of laps and maybe have my next Summer Sun Sleepover on the deck. Right, Silver Spoon?” “Yep!” A boat party actually sounded like a nice idea, provided Diamond could actually convince Spoiled to let her do it. “Mm. You still do Winter Wrap Up by hoof, don’t you?” Golden Glitter gave Ponyville’s icy roads a mild sneer and returned to her seat. She cracked her book back open, but didn’t read it. “Uh-huh, just like every year.” Diamond Tiara waved to Sassaflash, Cloud Kicker, and Tornado Bolt as the pegasi flew past the window. She grinned and stuck her tongue out at Tornado’s astonished face. Tornado Bolt flattened her ears and banked higher. Silver Spoon smiled politely and lifted her cup to the flock. “Don’t you mean the pegasus ponies and the Winter Wrap Up Crew do it by hoof?” “Right. And that Wrap Up Crew is Ponyville. Dad’s running the seed bank again, like he does every year.” Diamond flicked her tail with a snort. “Ugh, and we’re still on Junior Wrap Up Brigade, what’s with that? We’ve got our cutie marks, we should be on the grown-up teams by n—oh! Hey Silvie, what team did you sign up for? Maybe we can work together.” Silver stared at Diamond over the lip of her teacup while her mind backtracked to somewhere coherent. “Your dad’s doing the seed bank?” She took a hearty gulp of white-blackberry tea. “So when you say Ponyville cleans up winter, you… you literally mean the Ponyville ponies clean up winter? Like, as in, us?” “Uh, yeah?” Maybe the high altitude was messing with Diamond’s head. She quirked an eyebrow and stared back as if Silver was the pony not talking any sense. “Who else would?” “I don’t know, like… a crew or whatever?” Admittedly, Silver didn’t entirely know who cleaned up Manehattan’s winter, only which streets closed down when they did it. Half the time she hardly noticed it happen at all. Silver would enter Wisteria on a crisp winter morning and walk home in the spring afternoon sunshine. Sure, wrapping up winter by hoof made sense for some ponies—the weather pegasi, the farmers, and so forth—but ponies like Mother and Father and Mr. Rich surely had better things to do than break icicles and cart snow. “Why not use magic or machines? Or hire somepony else to do it? Cloudsdale brought winter, they should take it back.” Diamond shrugged. “I dunno. We just don’t.” “I don’t get it, Di.” Silver shook her head and sipped her tea. “How does Ponyville get anything done if everypony’s busy with winter? Who runs the banks and stuff?” “Nopony does, dear.” Golden Glitter’s voice rose from behind her book. She flipped a page. “Whole town shuts down all day to fuss over when to wake the bunnies and how to cut ice.” A gnarled sound rumpled at the back of her throat, something like a gagging laugh. “All day… more like three days. Three if you’re lucky. It’s just something Ponyville does, hon.” Silver frowned. “Okay, but why?” “Because they always have, Silver Spoon.” Golden flipped up her sunglasses. Dark rings sagged under her hard, violet eyes. She smiled at them like she shared a secret. “That’s just the way of it, girls. Towns are like flowerpots. Some give plenty of room for the roots and the flowers to get lots of sunlight. Some places expand, they change.” Golden let the sunglasses fall back on her muzzle. “Others don’t.” Diamond Tiara whipped her tail and drew her lips into a tight little line. She glanced between the windows and Silver Spoon, but she kept whatever she thought to herself. “We’re gonna land soon. Better get our coats.” Her shoulder jostled Silver’s as she went. For a moment, Silver considered following her. She sucked her teeth and turned back to the window. It’s always something with her. The dollhouse town grew to life-size with the blimp’s gradual descent. Rows of black, naked trees grasped for them with crooked talons for branches. They scraped against the windows and bounced off the balloon’s fat sides, as if eager to get at the little ponies within. Ponyville, fully awake and bustling already, went about its business. Silver Spoon noticed Thunderlane eating breakfast with Rumble and Blossomforth. Further up the street, Berry Pinch’s mom walked the dog. Time Turner took a nap on a bench. Snails rolled a massive snowball under his hooves, probably waiting for Snips. Lyra strolled past him, in no hurry to be anywhere. Now that Silver thought about it, none of them were in a hurry. Why would they be? They’d nowhere to be, nopony expecting them, nowhere to go. No rush. If old money walks, and new money runs… Silver Spoon’s eyes fell upon Mother and Father awaiting her arrival in the town square. Gawkers and bored commuters stopped to watch with them, their necks stretched back to see the blimp and their mouths hanging open like caught trout. What about the ponies who never move at all? Rainbow Dash hovered above the crowd, scowling up at the sky and complaining about something. According to Cotton Cloudy, Rainbow Dash used to live in Cloudsdale and could make the Wonderbolts without breaking a sweat. Tornado Bolt said Rainbow knew so much about weather patterns and cloud control that she could trailblaze a top-tier weather team in Cloudsdale or Las Pegasus if she wanted. But if Rainbow had that kind of potential, what was she still doing here? The carpet rumbled under their hooves as the blimp touched down. Silver finished her tea and went to fetch her coat. Not far away, Golden Glitter ran through a bullet-pointed pep talk about drive and diligence and “remember to practice your routine Diamond. Regionals start in March and we don’t want another Vanhoover incident, do we? No, we don’t.” Diamond nodded and mumbled something back from behind her fluffy scarf. The door cracked open and Ponyville’s chilly wind swept through the cabin. Golden didn’t set hoof outside the blimp, but she saw them off at the door. “It was nice to meet you, Golden Glitter.” Leaving out the “miss” still left a weird feeling in Silver’s mouth. “Until next time, Silver Spoon.” She shook Silver’s hoof the way adults shook hooves with each other. “You keep that good head on your shoulders, okay?” Golden clicked her tongue and adjusted Diamond’s tiara. “Like roses growing in a paint can. It’s a blasted shame.” Ponyville didn’t have a lot going on. Silver Spoon understood that. That’s why the town threw parades every month and held celebrations every other week. But some things she just couldn’t follow. Diamond’s mom explained the whys of it. Miss Cheerilee explained the histories and hows of it. Though a newcomer herself, Mother did her best to explain the reasoning for it, that all places had their own special way to welcome spring. None of it stuck. But even if Silver didn’t understand the reasons for a rule, she at least understood the pomp and circumstance of tradition—even an obtuse, silly one—thus, here she stood: knee deep in the snow instead of studying in a warm schoolhouse. Silver side-eyed the crowd of foals popping around her with squeals and excited murmurs. Like they’d all just die if they had to wait another second to snap icicles and shovel snow. Several of them were ready to go since last week. A few actually wore their team sashes to class yesterday. The crowd fell quiet when Amethyst Star stepped up with her clipboard. “Okay, ears up, Junior Wrap Up Teams!” In the boughs of an oak tree, a flock of pegasus foals stood to attention, climbing to the edges of branches and readjusting the blue sashes on their chests. “Air weather team, you’re with Sassaflash. She’ll be here in a few minutes to tell you where you need to be.” The purple unicorn nodded to the foals at the foot of the oak. “Ground weather team?” Beside a fat tree root, Scootaloo shouldered her pair of filthy hockey skates and looked up. Diamond Tiara sat on the root’s opposite side, shining the new skates she bought last week. An unspoken out-of-sight-out-of-mind truce kept them civil. “We don’t need to score the ice for another few hours, but I want you guys to move out now, anyway. You’re all on pond duty with Pinkie Pie and will be moving through a lot of locations, so you need to stay with the group.” Amethyst pointed at the pair of giggling, whispering fillies next to Scootaloo. “That means you, Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie. Got it?” The Junior Weather Team nodded. “Okay. Junior Plant Team A, raise your hooves...” Silver Spoon curled her tail around her haunch and rubbed her sashless shoulder. She watched Amethyst pluck out the Plant Team and sort them into their subsections: seeds, fertilizer, markers, messengers, flag ponies, and refreshment crew. All the Teams had foal refreshment crews, the only spot Silver actually wanted. Truffle and Twist signed up for it back in September, and refreshments only had two spots. She watched the disorganized herd of little bodies siphon into their proper places: matching sashes in circles within circles. Silver’s little patch of snow widened to an empty field. She searched for somepony else sitting without a sash. Snips and Snails kicked up a spray of snow on their way to Hibernation Team B, the bug team. Dinky Doo marched a few lengths behind them, in their general vicinity but not in their group. She trotted past the other teams in wide figure eights, winding out in a random new direction before she could fall into a group’s circle. Her worn black trench coat trailed behind and swept up her hoofprints. Silver tilted her head and watched the unicorn pass by. “What are you doing?” The Dink paused mid-step. “Classified.” She waved to Berry Pinch, who waved back as Cleaning Team A moved out. Turning back to Silver, she grinned. “Hey, Spoons! I didn’t think I’d see you out here with Team X. Nice.” Silver Spoon raised her eyebrows. “Team X?” “That’s us.” The Dink poked Silver’s sashless barrel and winked. “Me and you, we’re special ops. The only ponies with the guts to venture into the wild unknown. I mean, that’s what spring’s all about, Spoons!” She wrapped a strong foreleg around Silver’s withers and took a deep breath. “Adventure! Can’t you just smell it?” “N…Yes?” Silver just smelled frozen earth and The Dink’s musty old coat. Close enough? “Is anypony besides us on Team X?” The Dink nodded to Amethyst Star approaching across the empty field. “Guess it’s just me and you this year.” “So, it’s the leftovers team.” “Pretty much, yeah.” She reached up to hoofbump Amethyst up high and down low. “Heya, Cuz. What’s the assignment? Are you finally gonna give us the snake burrows?” Amethyst shook her head. “Sorry. Not for a couple more years.” She skimmed down the clipboard and nodded. “Now, let’s see… Silver Spoon and Dinky Doo…” The littler unicorn flattened her ears and frowned. A teasing smirk broke through Amethyst’s professionalism. “Codename: The Dink. You guys have bell duty in the southeast warrens.” She levitated a pair of tan Animal Team sashes and dropped them into the fillies’ waiting hooves. “That’s the entry point by Fluttershy’s and The Everfree Forest.” Silver raised a hoof as she wiggled into her sash. “It’s marked off for us, right?” “Right, Silver Spoon. And Dink?” Amethyst Star crouched down to eye level and frowned. “I want this by the books. No surprises, no séances, no monster hunts.” The Dink placed a shocked hoof upon her chest. “My dear cousin! Why, I would nev—” “Hearth’s Warming, 98. The Krampus incident.” “Okay, so maybe that one time.” “Uh-huh. And the calamari episode? The contradiction creature sighting?” Amethyst raised an eyebrow. She could go on all morning and then some. “That one time you said Auntie got possessed by—” “Technically, it only counts as a possession if it’s an ectoplasmic or infernal creature. Also, I was right about that one.” “Not the point.” Amethyst bopped The Dink’s nose with the pencil eraser. “By the books, Dink. I mean it. Your gear’s ready and waiting for you with Fluttershy, so be sure to ask her if you’ve got questions.” The fillies set off at a brisk pace. The Dink plowed through the snow as if on her way to fight a changeling army, looking over her shoulders and humming Firefly’s Battle Hymn of the Storm. “Wish I’d worn a different coat...” The tan sash didn’t match Silver’s nice blue parka at all. She should have taken skating lessons so she could score the ice with Diamond. Even if they had to share the ice with Scootaloser, at least she’d have stuff to talk about instead of getting stuck with… Silver flicked an ear in thought. “Dink? What exactly is bell duty?” Dinky Doo gave Silver Spoon a weird look. “Hey, I never wrapped up winter before, give me a break.” “Bell duty’s awesome, Spoons. Almost better than Hibernation Team B.” The Dink pounced upon a snow pile and frowned at the disappointing splat. “It’s one of the new jobs; we gotta string up all the bells for when the main Animal Team rings them to wake up the hibernating critters.” Sounds easy enough. Silver smiled. Fast, too. With luck, she’d be finished well before teatime. Fluttershy met them behind her cottage beside a massive and gaping hole in the earth. Two bags of strung brass bells waited by her hooves. “Good morning, Dinky.” She brought her head up and blinked. “Oh, and Silver Spoon, too! What a nice surprise. Are you all ready for Winter Wrap Up?” “Good morning, Miss Fluttershy.” Silver squinted at the upturned earth and faded paw prints scattered around the entrance. “Why is it a surprise? We’re only hanging a few bells, right?” “Oh.” Fluttershy stretched a wing to them and smiled reassuringly. “Oh, no, I don’t really mean it’s a surprise. It’s only that not everypony wants to go down into the warren tunnels, and you’re such little fillies. Even though there’s nothing but sleeping little animals down there, some ponies still think it’s too dark and scary.” “Yeah, but this is nothin’ for Spoons. I know she might look like a prissy tea nerd, but under the designer clothes and fussy… fussiness, she’s totally hardcore.” The Dink laughed and nudged Silver’s barrel. “Didn’t even flinch when she found out we’re on bell duty in the tunnels, didja Spoons?” Silver Spoon felt blood drain from her face. She stared into the gaping hole with new eyes. “You mean we’re actually going in the tunnels? Like, underground? Can’t we ring the bell out here? In the sun?” “We do that for the shallow burrows and dens,” said Fluttershy, “but some of the animals hibernate deep, deep underground and they can’t hear the bells from that far away. It would be like putting an alarm clock in the hall instead of in your room.” Fluttershy knelt down to Silver’s eye level and rested a wingtip on her shoulder. Together, they stared into the black depths of the tunnel. “That’s why it’s such an important job; none of the animals can be left out.” Dinky puffed out her chest. “Toldja we’re special ops.” “That’s right.” Fluttershy’s wing patted Silver’s tense withers. “But of course, there’s lots of other important jobs ponies still need help with.” An out. Fluttershy never said it outright, but Silver recognized a merciful hoof. No shame in rejecting a scary job, especially if somepony didn’t know what they’d signed up for. Silver flicked her tail. On the other hoof, Fluttershy’s not scared of the tunnels, and she literally runs away from her own shadow. Gingerly, she took an equipment bag. “How will we know where we’re going if we’re in the dark?” The Dink lifted a flashlight out of her own bag. “We’ve got my horn and these.” She crossed her eyes trying to see her own forehead. “It doesn’t count as using magic if I just use my horn for light, right?” “I think it’s okay. But please, not too bright, Dinky. Everyone’s still sleeping.” Fluttershy hovered to a metal pipe poking out of the snow. “Remember, if you need any help, call out near one of these and we’ll hear you.” “Yeah, they mark the path and make it so we can’t suffocate to death down there. We hang the hooks from them and—well, you’ll see in a second.” The Dink tested her footing and skidded into the hole. When she glanced back to find Silver Spoon still hesitating by the entrance, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re not thinking of backing out on Team X, are you? Spring’s counting on us, Spoons.” “I’m not backing out.” At least, not after Dinky called her out on it. She took a few cautious steps, and then a few more until the light got dim. “But I still don’t get why we need to do it. This seems more like a job for an adult.” “When you find a grownup small enough to squeeze in these tunnels, you can tell ‘em that.” The golden light from The Dink’s horn flashed so bright that Silver’s eyes watered. Dinky stuck out her tongue and whittled the light to a dim glow. It shone bright enough to see worms wriggling in the walls but not the path ahead. “Oh, there’s the first mark.” A white metal hook shimmered in the hornlight, a chilly draft wafting through the hollow tip. Fluttershy’s whisper hissed into the tunnel. “Are you alright down there?” “We’re cool, Flutters,” The Dink stage whispered back. She shot a confident grin at Silver. “If baby bunnies can handle it, so can we.” Silver Spoon slung the first bell upon the hook and let the string roll out. “Mm-hm. Simple as instant tea.” Ten bells into the excursion, once Silver accustomed herself to the dim light and the claustrophobic press of peat and soil, she decided she didn’t hate belling the tunnels. She didn’t love it either, but she’d take it over Hibernation Team B any day. Creepy environment notwithstanding, the job itself was straightforward and idiot-proof: find a hook, bell it, and trace the wire to the next hook. Several yards stretched between each hook, so the hardest part was making sure the wire didn’t get tangled up between them. “The wire’s gotta stay smooth and straight,” The Dink said, “’cause when Animal Team pulls the string, it’ll go all the way down to the deepest parts of the tunnel. We get ‘em all at once that way. I think Twilight came up with it.” “Probably. She’s pretty organized.” Silver Spoon stopped short of tripping over a pair of sleeping ground squirrels. The hibernating animals started popping up somewhere after the third hook. Most of them curled themselves into a burrow dug into the sides, but a few had sprawled themselves out in the open. “Hmm.” The Dink tilted her ears forward, watching their shadows creep and swell along the dirt walls. “Know what this reminds me of?” She didn’t wait for Silver to answer. “Diamond Dog tunnels. You know about the Diamond Dogs, right?” Carefully, Silver Spoon stepped over the ground squirrels. She kept a hoof pressed against her bag, in case the jingling woke them up. “Of course. Who hasn’t?” Silver rolled her eyes at Dinky’s grin and the creepy Diamond Dog story lurking behind it. “I already know the story about Dogs stealing horns and hooves—that didn’t happen, by the way—so don’t bother.” “Shows what you know. That’s not even the story I was gonna tell. This one really happened like a year ago, when Rarity—” “Heard that one, too.” The yellow light flashed and swung into Silver’s eyes, The Dink a silhouette against the glow of her horn. “Okay, Miss Heard-It-All, why don’t you tell a story?” Silver Spoon flattened her ears. “No. We’re working, not telling ghost stories.” She slung another bell and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “And we’re supposed to be quiet.” “Nah, we’re fine if we don’t shout. These little dudes sleep like rocks, see?” Dinky nudged a comatose hedgehog with her hoof. She scratched the back of her neck, considering a new angle. “So, Diamond Tiara says you guys visited your old Manehattan school. Real old place, like four hundred years old?” “Four hundred and sixty-one.” No more hooks for several paces. Silver cantered up to Dinky’s shoulder. “What about it?” The cramped tunnel breathed out wider and the fillies could move at a trot instead of a crawl. The Dink flowed back into a march, her coat fluttering at her fetlocks. “A place that old’s gotta have a ghost or ten. Ever seen one?” Silver rolled her eyes again. “Don’t be silly, of course I haven’t.” Fair Weather once swore she’d seen the spirit of Royal Blue crying on the balcony, but Fair said a lot of things. Silver flipped her mane and tipped her muzzle in the air. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Dink. Everypony knows that.” For a second, that seemed to shut her up. The Dink clicked her tongue and bunched her shoulders up, but cool ponies never let little jibes get under their fur—not openly—so she shrugged with a nonchalant little chuckle. She belled the next hook and put her hoof in her coat pocket. “Yeah, sure.” A sly little smirk twisted the edge of her mouth. “Just like Nightmare Moon’s not real, huh?” Silver Spoon cleared her throat and pushed ahead. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, Miss Dinky Doo.” The next hook waited a few paces ahead, but as Silver reached in for the next bell, she paused. She frowned and twitched her ears. “…could see the wreck from a block away…” A voice hissed through the tunnel, rubbing against Silver’s ears in echoey whispers, fading in and out like bad radio reception. “…awful accident... hope her family’s doing alright. We just buried her father last month, poor thing…” The breath hitched in Silver’s throat as she bit back a squeal. No screaming. She dug her hooves in the soil. No running, either. It’d risk waking every animal in the tunnel. Besides, Silver had no intention of breaking in front of The Dink. I bet she’s faking that stupid voice, anyway. How Dinky learned to imitate a grown mare’s voice, Silver didn’t know and elected not to care. “…have the headstone by Tuesday, if you can…” “Whoa.” The Dink stopped mid-step and stared with wide, yellow eyes. “Spoons, you hear that?” Before she’d finished speaking, another voice—older and distinctly male—cut in, louder that the first: “Thank goodness little Rites is going into the business soon, or we’d be plumb out of luck…” Silver Spoon hugged the saddlebag to her chest. Unless she’d learned how to cast voice-throwing spells, those voices couldn’t be The Dink. The saddlebag slipped off Dinky’s shoulder as she rummaged through her coat pockets. She tugged out a chewed-up pencil and a battered, stained notebook already turned to a fresh page. “Wow, I gotta take you on some monster hunts, Spoons. You attract this stuff like ants on candy.” “No I don’t, because that is not a ghost.” Silver stamped her hoof and ignored the slight tremor in her voice. “I didn’t say it was. Could be a lot of stuff… but probably a ghost.” With her magic, she scribbled lines of notes down the page, folded it down, and flipped to another section. The Dink tapped her chin with the pencil eraser. “Maybe legendary creatures get mad when they’re not believed in? Quick—say you don’t believe in ghosts again and see what happens!” She patted her pocket. “Don’t worry, I’ve got salt and garlic if something goes wrong.” That explained why The Dink smelled like a cheap pasta restaurant. Silver followed the voices down the path, twitching her ears. “There’s two voices down here. Maybe three?” The male voice spoke up again, in clear, complete sentences this time. The words had an arthritic shake to them; this pony sounded even older than Granddad. “Oh, she’s not so little anymore, Shoe. Why, my Last Rites is just about Pinkie Pie’s age now. You’ll see for yourself, soon as she comes back from Whinnypeg.” Since when did ghosts know Pinkie Pie? Silver’s eyes fell upon the white hook awaiting them and nodded to herself. “Hm. That’s no ghost.” She weaved around a snoring raccoon and put her ear to the hollow metal. “That’s only the funeral director, Mister… um….” “Waddle.” The Dink strung the bell and clicked her tongue, disappointed. “Just old Mr. Waddle and Shoeshine, still alive and kicking. Oh well.” “Remember the first party Pinkie threw for Ponyville? I never saw so many…” The voices faded into the dark and the fillies pressed on. The white thread skimmed behind them, glimmering and easy to see even without much light. Silver edged closer to The Dink, eyeing the tunnel networks around them. What began as a straight and simple path branched into a winding tangle of underground trails. The hooks marked their way, but it took just one wrong turn to get lost. Possibly forever. Silver’s heart thudded in her chest. One mistake, one wrong hoof in the wrong direction, and she might never be heard from again. Ahead, voices dripped from the next hook like water from stalactites. Nothing of real coherence, just shards of memories and small talk. “…feels like we held a baby shower for the twins just las...” “—hen are you finally gonna pop the question to Matilda?”  “…hooves simply can’t take another...” A chill settled in the marrow of Silver Spoon’s bones. She shivered. “You shoulda brought a scarf.” Ahead, The Dink looked up from belling a hook and patted the hoof-knit scarf around her neck. She’d systematically folded it under her coat to hide the duckies waddling down the sides. It hadn’t worked. “I’m not cold,” Silver said. “Just thinking about something.” Dinky’s pattered march slowed to a walk. “Hm. ’Bout what?” “Nothing, really.” The saddlebag felt lighter. Silver moved the bag into the hornlight. Six left; almost done. “Just that there’s scarier things underground than ghosts and Diamond Dogs.” In a great snap of oilskin and dust, The Dink spun on her hoof. “Yeah?” The little unicorn practically salivated at the thought. A story introduction hadn’t been Silver’s intention, but they were already here, and Dinky wouldn’t let it go without a fight, so… “Have you ever heard of the Gem Wizard?” The Dink flicked her tail and ran it through her mental catalogs. Squinting, she hummed and ran through it again. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” She glanced at their cargo. “No pun intended. What’s a Gem Wizard? Is it a pony? A monster? A pony that turned into a monster?! What’s it do? Is it real?” “Shush!” Silver’s tail swept across Dinky’s mouth. She glared and bobbed her head towards the skunks sleeping in an adjacent den. “No, the Wizard isn’t a pony, and he’s a ‘he’, not an ‘it’. And I… don’t know if he’s real. I hope not.” The next hook came into view. Before Silver could reach for a bell, Dinky snagged it, along with the string. “I got the last few. You keep going.” “I saw him in the tapestries in the pre-classical wing of Father’s old art museum. They all hung together and made a story, like comic panels.” Silver double-checked the reflective white nylon trailing behind them. “Nopony seems to know what kind of creature he is. He’s kind of like... a skinny minotaur, but with a flatter face and a bushy beard. No hooves, either. He wore a robe and had these freaky little monkey paws. Father says the unicorn artists liked to exaggerate, so the tapestry’s probably not accurate. If he’s real, I mean.” That didn’t stop The Dink from drawing a composite sketch. She strung the bell with her mouth while her magic ran a pen over paper. The glow pulsed steady without the wobbles or fizzles that plagued other unicorn foals. Why Dinky still hadn’t earned a cutie mark yet, Silver had no idea. “The Gem Wizard never came out in daylight. When the sun set, he’d reach out with long, nasty arms and capture ponies on the street—get them alone, walking home late from the market or lost in the mountains, you know?—and drag them down into his underground kingdom. Then, he’d force them to mine for jewels.” The Dink examined her composite sketch (it looked like a sickly baboon in a bathrobe) and tilted her head. “How’s that any different from a Dog?” “He wasn’t an idiot and had magic; I think that’s different enough. In the dark, he made ponies work night and day, every day, every hour. No sleep or food or anything, just work until they dropped. And when they dropped?” Cringing, Silver Spoon flattened her ears. She always used to close her eyes and walk quickly past this part of the tapestry. “The Wizard plucked their eyes out and crammed gemstones in the sockets. Enchanted gems, so they didn’t need to eat or sleep. They couldn’t die, but still felt hungry and tired. All the time. I don’t know if the gems let them see or not.” “Probably did.” Dinky nodded to herself. “If they’re enchanted, some sort of healing’s involved, I bet. But then again, I guess there’s no point if it’s dark all the time. Maybe the gems gave ‘em night vision?” Silver shrugged. “Maybe. The tapestries ended with a new recruit leading a pony rebellion and bucking the Gem Wizard into a huge chasm. Father says he got kicked all the way to Tartarus.” “Huh. Interesting.” The Dink flipped her notebook closed and slipped it back in her pockets. “So, the Gem Wizard plucking your eyes out is the scariest thing?” Memories of silk blood spilling from the tapestry ponies’ bejeweled eyes made Silver shudder. “That’s awful, but… no.” She lowered her voice, as if her words might stick to the wall and follow them. “It’s what comes after. Withering away in the darkness forever and nopony ever knowing what became of you.” The Dink rolled that idea around in her head a bit, picking at the scruff of her collar and chewing the tips of her mane the way she did on test day. “Yeah,” she admitted, “that sounds pretty rough. I think being a ghost would be worse, though. Then you gotta be like that forever.” No argument from Silver Spoon. Her ears twitched at the low murmurings echoing from the hook above their heads. They had to be beneath town square, or else a street away from it. Mother said the Main Animal Team was stationed there this year. “So you’ll know where to find me,” she’d said. In a thousand years, Silver Spoon never could have imagined her mother volunteering to labor in the snow, much less without complaint. At worst, Mother had seemed cautiously optimistic. The Dink tilted her ears and crept to the lip of a side tunnel. She muttered something under her breath that Silver couldn’t hear. Probably something about creepy junk, as if the tunnels weren’t creepy enough. Hard-packed walls made for good acoustics in this section of the warren. Streams of voices from farther tunnels met and flowed down here in a river of sound. Conversations bled in and out of each other until Silver Spoon couldn’t tell the voices apart. The undulating pitches, volumes, and cadences coalesced in a quagmire of small-town concerns: —ast Tuesday should do it. How’s it? Oh, you know. Don’t ask me. Work is fine. Work is a slog. You know how it goes. When do you think we’ll get the first batch of corn? How’s cider season coming along? Your twins are gorgeous! You featherbrain, cider season’s not for another four moons. They stopped teething last week. Silver Spoon flattened her ears flat as she could. Voices bounced off the walls, trapped in an echo chamber. She stared at the piles of slumbering animals in disbelief. How could they possibly sleep through this? How could anything sleep though this? Come on, work’s not that bad. Who’ll run the stand while you’re on vacation? I think our son’s a better mailpony than anypony else in our family. Oh honey, why don’t we have another foal? I miss Mom. When’s Auntie coming back? The hook, bone-white and cacophonous, hung inches above Silver’s head. No others awaited them down the path. Her hoof reached into her saddlebag, nearly empty, save for the flashlight. “Okay. Last one.” Don’t be silly, we can’t have another foal now. Do these feathers go with my coat? No it doesn’t. Yes it does. Those aren’t fashion accessories, put those back! I hope we can finish these nests before lunc… Voice upon voice churned together, rising and crashing in great waves until Silver’s ears drowned in empty banter. She tried to ignore it. "Get the job done. Go back to bed." Gritting her teeth, Silver slipped the last bell on. Finished. She turned to go find Dinky. “Pitch Perfect, that ribbon work is phenomenal! The toile is going to lead the jays right into it.” Mother’s name crested the ocean of voices. Silver paused in midturn. “You think so, Bumblesweet? I’ve never made a bird’s nest before, but I do know how funny singers can be with…” Mother’s voice shimmered in the flotsam, a proud old schooner in the sea. “…not the same thing, but I did once work in my aunt’s hat boutique…” And gone again. Perhaps something attracted Mother’s attention and she’d stopped speaking. Perhaps the ocean of other voices swallowed it back up. It was impossible to tell. The Junior Wrap Up sash squeezed against Silver’s ribs. I want to go home, she thought. Yet at the same time, another new (yet, not that new) thought buried it: This is your home. A hoof touched Silver’s flank. “Hey, Spoons?” The Dink’s voice broke through the waves. “You alright? You’ve been staring at that last bell for a while.” “Oh. No, I’m fine, Dink.” Silver took a deep breath and stepped away. The voices faded to a dull roar. “Just got a little distracted.” The unicorn followed her line of sight and chuckled, brushing back her dirty yellow mane. “Isn’t it ‘improper’ for young ladies to eavesdrop, or some junk?” “It is. And I wasn’t.” Young ladies didn’t go spelunking in filthy rabbit warrens, either. Did Silver fully qualify as a young lady anymore? She still had her good name, after all, and names had value. However, there was such a thing as diminishing value. Diamond said that’s what happened when new things stopped being new or became damaged. The more time went by, the less valuable something became. “We should go, Dink. I think I need some air, it’s getting… cramped down here.” “Oh! I’ve got just the thing for that!” Dinky grabbed Silver’s hoof and tugged her down the tunnel. “See, while you were busy being a snoop, I poked around and found something really killer a couple tunnels ahead, but I’m not super sure what—” Silver wrenched her hoof out of the unicorn’s grip and turned away with a lash of her tail. “Not in the mood for a creepy cave adventure, Dinky.” “It’s not! It’s just this thing I found, like a… an ancient relic or something. You like historical stuff, right? Your dad’s a museum guy.” Dinky reached for Silver again, but she’d already started down the tunnel. “Maybe you can help me figure it out.” Silver didn’t look back. “The only thing I have to figure out is how soon I can get out of here.” “Well, okaaay…” Something suspicious lurked in her tone. When Silver turned, a wily look flashed in The Dink’s eyes. “But we’re supposed to stay together. If you leave me down here, that’d be breaking the rules. You don’t wanna break any rules, right?” “That’s playing dirty, Dink.” If Silver Spoon came from a different neighborhood, she’d have half a mind to bop that toothy grin off Dink’s face. “And going off to explore weird stuff isn’t following the rules either. Amethyst told you to do this by the books.” The yellow light of The Dink’s horn angled down the warren tunnel, lighting a little path of sparkling bells. “Right. We strung the goods, just like the bosslady said.” She leaned against Silver Spoon’s shoulder and waggled her eyebrows. “But nopony said anything about what happens after.” Nothing about this was legit, but The Dink had Silver on a technicality. The kid would probably grow up to be one of those annoying mares that got in the Mayor’s mane all the time and used red tape as jump rope. Silver felt something like respect spark up in her, but kept it to herself. A filly still had standards. Silver Spoon wrinkled her nose and tugged out a flashlight. “You’re almost as annoying as Berry Pinch, you know that?” “I choose to take that as a compliment. C’mon, it’s right around this corner.” The Dink jumped over a chipmunk nest and skimmed through the winding tunnel. The coat flared and flapped behind her like a battered grey flag. Silver tailed her at a tiptoed clip. The tunnel walls squeezed in and fanned out around them, as if the earth took great heaving breaths. A gentle slope in the dirt and some residual earth pony instinct told her they delved deeper underground. The walls sighed wider and wider until the shadows swelled and Silver realized they no longer walked through a tunnel at all. No compacted soil at her sides or above her, only open air. “You’ve found a cavern,” whispered Silver Spoon. No, that didn’t seem quite right. “An underground chamber.” “A secret chamber.” The Dink tilted her head upwards. The light of her horn scraped a domed roof gripped by winding tree roots. Encircling the chamber, roots wormed down the walls in fat rolls and slithering veins. “It looks kind of like a heart chamber, huh? The Heart of Ponyville.” She grinned wide at the sound of it and whispered the name to herself again. The little unicorn wiggled in an excited little jig. “Aaaaah, this is so cool!” “Wonder where we are.” Silver Spoon mentally skimmed a shortlist of Ponyville’s large old trees. A cavern and tree this large couldn’t exist under farm fields, save maybe Sweet Apple Acres, and that lay too far away. So did Everfree. Silver adjusted her glasses and prodded a knotted root. “You think we could be under the library?” “Town square’s not far, so… yeah, this’d be the right spot for it.” Dinky stepped closer and squinted at the wall. “What’s that under your hoof?” “The root?” Silver stepped back to see if anything weird had rubbed off on her. “No, there’s something else.” The Dink brought her horn closer. Indeed, there was some sort of shape imprinted on the wood. Something structured and inorganic. It looked a little like a drawing. “I think…” Dinky Doo squinted, wrinkling her nose in concentration. “I think somepony carved this.” Her tail brushed away some of the dirt. She clicked her tongue and frowned. “Shoulda brought my excavation kit. Spoons, can you give us more light?” Silver flicked the flashlight on and let the light skim over the ground and up to the tree roots branching above them. The chamber stretched taller than she thought; Princess Celestia could stand up in here without a problem. She could even jog a few laps. Ancient scratches and indentations scarred the fat roots, and faded ink markings crawled along the dirt walls—many too filthy or faded to make out. “I think somepony found this place before us, Dink.” “Yeah. Lots of someponies.” The Dink waved her hoof over the markings. “I don’t think these are runes or spells.” She leaned in close to highlight a carved hourglass symbol. A pair of linked horseshoes hovered next to it. “Could be a code? Hm, but not many of the symbols repeat. Don’t think they’re letters… words, maybe? What do you think, Spoons?” “If it’s a code, it’s not a very good one. They’re not in any order—look; they’re all in random places.” Silver pointed to the etchings on the ceiling. “They’re not in lines or circles or patterns or anything.” All these little carvings had something in common, though. Silver Spoon just couldn’t put her hoof on what. “I feel like I’ve seen these before.” The Dink’s head bobbed up with a gasp. “Cutie marks!” She tapped the hourglass with her pen. “This one is Doc Turner’s and that one up there’s Shoeshine’s. Oh! Over there, it’s Cheerilee’s! And Bon Bon’s!” Lifting her forehoof, Silver discovered three money bags painted on a flat skipping stone. “Here’s Mr. Rich.” She shone her light over it, tilting her head curiously at the letters next to it. Written in marker, dirt and time eroded it to near illegibility. “I think these are initials. ‘B.F.F.’ and ‘G.A.’. I guess ‘B.F.F.’ still means Best Friend Forever, but I have no idea what G.A. could be.” “Doesn’t have to be name initials; maybe it stands for something else, like ‘Groovy Abomination’.” Before Silver could point out there was literally zero reason Filthy Rich would initial something that stupid, The Dink shook her head. “No, wait, they’re names after all. Here’s W.S. and C.T. for Aunt Harvest and Uncle Script, and up there on the ceiling’s S.M. for Medley. Wonder why some are cutie marks and some aren’t…” “Well, blank flanks had to let ponies know they were here somehow.” If Silver were a blank flank down here with other ponies, that’s what she’d do. “Foals are the only ponies small enough to fit the tunnels that lead down here. Everypony must have come down here as kids. Can’t imagine why. You didn’t string bells down here before last year, right?” “Nope.” The Dink nodded over her shoulder at the warren tunnels full of hibernating hedgehogs and ground squirrels. “I bet critters didn’t sleep down here before Flutters took over the cottage. That or everypony came down in the summer. Doesn’t explain why, though.” Silver shrugged. “Bored foals with nothing to do?” “Nah.” The Dink stood on her hind legs and tipped her neck back to get the full scope of the chamber. She rubbed at the lining of her coat, dropped back to all fours, and turned in a circle, trying to see all the angles of the place at once. “I bet it was, like, an ancient test of bravery to see if you could come down all by yourself. Or maybe a secret meeting spot where all our teachers and parents came down to hide their treasure and perform forbidden blood rituals!” “Come on, Dink.” Silver Spoon blinked and shied from Pinkie Pie’s carved cutie mark with a frown. “Blood rituals? In Ponyville?” “Hey, it’s not impossible. Maybe it’s part of why we have a parade every other week. Ooh, or—OR!” Her mouth fell open with a little gasp. The sort of gasp one only gasped upon discovering something ponykind was never meant to know, some existential nightmare to haunted souls through the ages. “Or. They came down here… to kiss!” Cold dirt and twisted tree roots didn’t exactly scream “romance” to Silver Spoon. It seemed more likely than blood rituals or hidden gold, though. Dinky’s pen scribbled off a list of chicken scratch notes and checkmarks. She cross-referenced a lopsided chart on the notebook cover and ran her flashlight over a cluster of apple cutie marks. “Jeepers. Looks like almost everypony who grew up here’s on this wall. Even Mr. Waddle’s down here and he’s a jillion and ten moons old. It must be a tradition.” “A lost tradition.” Silver blew dust off Flitter and Rarity’s cutie marks. “I can’t find anypony younger than Pinkie Pie down here. I think you were right, Dink. I bet they stopped coming when Fluttershy started taking care of the animals.” Metal clinked against glass and stones as Dinky rummaged through her enormous pockets. “Then, let’s restart it!” She struck a pose and brandished a permanent marker like a sword. And I thought Diamond Tiara was dramatic… Silver raised an eyebrow. “Uh. Why?” “It’s an ancient, sacred Ponyville tradition, Silver Spoon. It literally goes back generations! We can’t let a tradition go un…traditioned.” With a flick of her head, The Dink tossed something from her pocket. “Heads up.” A fluorescent blue marker plopped into Silver’s hooves; the glittery, glow-in-the-dark kind for writing on black paper. Silver held the object at a distance and stared at it. “It’s like our duty, Spoons. We’re Ponyville foals, right?” Dirt and grime caked Silver’s horseshoes. They had no shine at all anymore, not even on the sides. The marker rolled over them with a soft clacking sound, like the clack of a train in the distance. “…Right.” The marker bobbed in Dinky’s teeth as she chewed on the cap. She paced a few laps around the chamber—clockwise, counterclockwise, and some sort of spiral pattern—in search of the perfect spot to leave her mark. For a time, she studied an open spot upon the ceiling, but in the end, she decided against it. “A-ha!” The unicorn attacked a jagged gap between the lower roots in three hard, swift swings of her horn. THE DINK cut the dark in slime-green glow-in-the-dark marker, the letters slanted and capitalized like a vigilante’s calling card. The Dink stepped back to admire it. “You know, I think I like that even better than a cutie mark.” Silver picked a (mostly) dirtless spot that was more stone than earth. Her tongue ran along the edge of Dink’s marker. It tasted the way the coat smelled; of smoky fabric, and stale hayfries. It had probably been in that pocket since last winter. Slowly, the fluorescent blue marker tip touched the rock. Silver’s shoulders tensed. She hadn’t made a mark yet; she could still turn tail and pretend she’d never seen the place. After all, they’d only Dink’s guess—correctness notwithstanding—that it was a tradition. Even if it was, Silver couldn’t be obliged to it. Nopony even did it anymore. Nopony would know. Nopony except The Dink. If she told everypony what had happened, then everypony else would want to know the reason why, or worse, make up reasons of their own. If Dinky kept it to herself, then it became a secret. Secrets had power. Silver only trusted two ponies with that kind of power, and Dink—though a nice kid—didn’t stand among them. Silver couldn’t see The Dink, but she felt her watching. “Hey, can you not? I’m trying to concentrate.” “What’s to concentrate about? You’re just drawing your cutie mark; you sign it all the time.” The Dink turned away with a theatrical sigh. “Perfectionists.” Let’s get this over with. Three swipes and you’re out of here. Silver breathed deep and let the marker tip slide over the rock: a little heart handle, the long, elegant stem, and one smooth loop for the spoon’s bowl. She stepped back and shone her flashlight to see her handiwork. The mark of Sterling Silver Spoon sat adjacent to Mayor Mare’s and a few inches below Pinny Lane’s. A spoon among the clutter of clouds, scrolls, apples, berries, quills, hourglasses, feathers, and peaches. A tea maker amongst shopkeeps, schoolmarms, and weatherponies. A permanent mark etched in stone. The fluorescent sky blue gleamed in the flashlight beam, fresh and new. Yet, Silver knew in a matter of weeks or months or years—Celestia, she’d been here almost a whole year!—the dust and sediment would crust over it. It’d lose the shine first, then the color. By the time somepony found this place again, the spoon would be a dull, lifeless blue; wholly unremarkable in the cloud of other cutie marks. Silver Spoon felt her breath get shallow. She stared at the ceiling and tried to force images of roses wilting in paint cans out of her head. “I’m never getting out of here,” she said to the roots. The Dink pricked her ears and looked up from analyzing the G.A. “Yeah, alright. We can go now. They’re probably wondering about us.” “You don’t think we held anything up, do you?” That’d be all Silver needed now: derailing spring. “Nah, we made awesome time. See?” The Dink held up her glow-in-the-dark pocket watch. It had a spider web cover and little black skulls instead of numbers. “We’ve been down here two hours and our max time was two and a half.” “Oh.” Silver smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, that’s good. Good job, Team X?” Dinky lifted her head with a grin. “More like great job, Team X!” When she looked a little closer at Silver, her ears waved thoughtfully. The smile shrank a little bit. “You know,” she kindly said, “You’re pretty good at this kind of stuff, Spoons. We oughta hang out more often.” Silver Spoon turned her back on the chamber. Her eyes lingered on the reflective string trailing their path out of the tunnel and into the town small enough to fit in her teacup. “Thanks, Dink. Maybe I’ll keep that in mind.” The fillies kept a decent pace through the tunnels. Not slow, but certainly not what one could call fast. It was a stroll, an amble. When she finally saw sunlight, Silver didn’t bother picking up the pace. No need to run. After all, she had nowhere to go.