Lithification

by SleepIsforTheWeak

Limestone, One

Author's Note:

In which Limestone gets into another fight, and our story begins.

Limestone Pie was back in town.

That had been the talk over the steam of coffee that morning. And what a talk it was: the whispers spread like nothing else, a soup concoction of fact, rumor, and innuendo that passed from one to another, each adding their own choice spices to make it more succulent.

It was a rich broth, with more than enough of its fair share of sex, scandal, and secrets. In a town that had been repeating the same three-month-old rumors over coffee every morning, this was undoubtedly a story that would entertain them for the next year. Maybe it would even be a legend.

The Great Beyond knew that Limestone Pie was already on her way to becoming a legend in their small community.

Some grumbled that there would be trouble. Bound to be. Trouble hung around the mare like a bell around a bull’s neck, they warned. Wasn’t it Limestone Pie who had decked the school principal one spring morning and gotten herself expelled? And wasn’t it Limestone Pie who, in the cover of night, carved her initials three feet deep in Rock Bottom’s fields just because his son had, what, bumped into her at school, or something?

And surely it was Limestone Pie who’d chucked a table—and that fool Gem Dust—through the plate-glass window of the Empty Barrel one hot summer night.

Ah, it had been a quiet three years around town without Igneous’s second daughter. It was even kind of boring without Tartarus’s favorite spawn. At least with her around they always had fresh gossip over coffee, and the entertainment of seeing her beat up on every drunk little snot-nosed brat that swaggered through the doors of their tavern.

Make that, taverns. Ever since Martingale rode into town, they’d seen more and more… prosperity. And with… prosperity… came trouble. And not the type of trouble that followed Limestone Pie.

But that was another matter, another story, for another time.

Nopony doubted that Limestone Pie was looking for trouble. And, in the end, she found it. Perhaps it was for the best that she did. If she hadn't, she would have caused plenty of her own.

She settled on pool and hard liquor that morning, witnesses said. The dim, smoke-choked bar suited her. The slam and crack of pool balls hitting each other was just violent enough, the gaze of the wry and small-shouldered Night Brew was just uneasy enough. The wariness in the eyes of the other customers was just flattering enough.

While a cigarette dangled from her mouth, Lime squinted against the smoke and eyed her shot. Her mouth was set in a grim line and she held the cigarette in clinched teeth. With a solid smack and a follow-through smooth as silk, she banked the cue ball, kissed the seven and made her pocket. And then she scowled all the harder afterwards.

“Good thing you’re lucky at something.” At the bar, Hot Coal tipped back his mug calculatingly. He was, as usual after sundown, mostly drunk, and mean with it. He’d been in the same class with Maud all through school, some two or three grades above Lime, and had once held the hearts of more mares than any of them would care to admit. Now, more past his prime than most his age, his body had begun to bloat and sag and his mane recede.

The black eye he’d given his wife that morning hadn’t really satisfied him.

Lime barely spared Coal a glance. There was comfort in old regularities, and Hot Coal being a bitter, stupid ass was one of them.

Could he not sense the curtain of dark danger than hung around her? Could he not see how wired she was?

Did he not read the paper and know what had happened to her in the past two weeks?

Obviously not, since he decided to pick a fight still.

“That so?” she asked casually, trying to do that thing that Marble always did to rile ponies up. “I’d say I’ve been rather lucky, actually. Don’t see you earning millions.”

“Don’t see me spending those millions on whores and drugs, either, Limestone.”

Ah, so he did posses the ability to read. Who knew?

Lime grinned tightly and spit out her barely finished cigarette, lifted her own cup to her lips. She drank as they completed the ritual before battle and customers shifted in their chairs to watch.

“How are things going at your place? Still able to lift that blacksmith’s hammer, Coal?”

Hot Coal spit on the ground nastily. “Least I got money,” he snarled. “Least I’m not coming back to crawl to my big sister’s doorstep.”

“Mm,” Lime hummed. “And how’s your wife? Still putting in twelve hour shifts to pay the bills?”

It felt good, to find that first tipping edge. She was starting to think she’d lost her touch. But no doubt about it, as soon as Coal jumped out of his seat, her adrenaline started pumping in victory and preparation for the battle ahead.

“Shut your mouth about my wife. I earn the money in my house. I don’t need no mare paying my way, like your mama had to for your daddy. Then he up an’ died on her.”

“Yeah he died on her,” she whispered, old anger and grief and guilt welling up inside. “But at least he never laid a hoof on her. At least she never had to hide behind dark glasses and scarves when she came into town, making excuses about how she had taken a fall.” She laughed loudly and cruely. “The only thing your momma ever fell over was your daddy’s hoof.” She spit the last word, put acid and meaning behind it, and it felt good.

“That’s a lie,” Coal whispered. “And I’m going to ram that lie down your throat.”

“Try it. I’ll make you my bitch, just like he used to. I’ll even let you call me daddy.”

It was too much. Even for her, it was too much. She knew it, and she probably should have cared, but she needed the action too bad, needed to bring up someone else’s bad situation to cover her own.

He punched her for it. He got her good, and she was completely expecting it and could have dodged it easily.

But, she let him have one because, well, it really was too much.

She deserved to be hit for that one, and so much more. So much more.

So she didn’t fight back. Even as he kicked her in the ribs, and then straddled her and methodically started pumping a hoof into her face. She’s been knocked out many a-time in her short life, and as soon as her vision started blurring and darkening, she let herself fall into unconsciousness.

Perhaps death would take her. Perhaps it deserved to, for her stupidity.

---

Limestone Pie was back in town.

As soon as the whispers reached her, Maud knew she had to find her little sister. Just like everypony else, she knew what had… transpired… over the last month. She wanted to make sure Lime was not completely unstable, and she had to reach the mare before she did something stupid or dangerous, or Limestone-like, which was usually both dangerous and stupid and whole other slew of things that Maud knew she shouldn’t be doing right now.

She found her just a moment too late, sprawled out on the floor of the Empty Barrel, being beaten to a bloody pulp by that punk Hot Coal.

Rage settled in her stomach like a block of ice. She hissed her breath out through clenched teeth and made all the patrons in the bar shrink under her cool gaze. She held her gaze on Night Brew the longest, until he coughed and started wiping out some glasses with his filthy rag, and then she stalked over and pried Coal from her unconscious sister.

She eyed Coal darkly, wanting to make him hurt and relieve herself the anger and fear, but he was drunk and it wasn’t worth it. Instead, she tossed him into the tables and chairs, getting a satisfying crunch of either his nose or the furniture breaking for her trouble. She didn’t look to see, instead gathering Lime up on her back.

As soon as she was outside and she could breathe, she felt guilty. She was beyond and above, she thought, of feeling the rage that had taken her so swiftly moments before.

She carried her sister home and put her in bed, started cleaning up her bloody, swollen face. She wondered if Lime would wake up tonight, or if she would have to wait until morning to speak to her about the past year.

Limestone woke up right as she was thinking that.

“Owwww,” she groaned pitifully, and then reached up to touch her face. Maud batted her hoof away easily.

“Don’t touch,” she instructed sternly.

“But it huhuhurts,” Lime whined softly. Regardless of being awake, she didn’t seem to be all the way there. Maud frowned and ran a hoof through her sister’s mane, feeling for any large knots on her skull. “What are you doin’?” Lime muttered, weakly trying to swat her away.

“Making sure you don’t have a serious head injury. Hold still.”

“That you, sis?” Lime suddenly asked, turning her face towards Maud, though both of her eyes were swollen shut.

“Yes, now lay still.”

“Heeyyy,” Limestone breathed, slurring and drawing the word out lovingly, like a song. “I missed you.”

Maud paused, working her jaw in circles as relief sated all the fear in her gut, sitting there for the last two years like a rock. “...Missed you, too.”

Lime nuzzled her foreleg, and Maud pulled her hoof out of the mare’s mane.

“I messed up bad, sissy,” Limestone whispered, and Maud licked her lips, inhaling. She almost didn’t want to hear, didn’t want her sister to relive it.

“Yeah,” she whispered, throat dry as something hot and wet hit her foreleg where Limestone was nuzzling into it. She squared her jaw and shoved away her emotions. "The papers said..."

"The papers love their drama," Limestone muttered. Then she sighed. “I guess I should start at the beginning…”

“Lime…” Maud protested. “You don’t have to…”

“It is, after all, a very good place to start,” Limestone chuckled, completely ignoring Maud’s weak protest. She hugged her older sister and pulled her down onto the bed to lay beside her, using her chest as a pillow. “When I left that summer, I headed to…”