Avalanche
Trixie did not make it down to dinner that night—Marble explained that her back was still too sore, although Limestone suspected they just wanted more time together—but the two of them announced their plans the next morning at breakfast, and the farm was thrown into a flurry of happy activity. Ma ventured into an obscure corner of the silo and came back with the Pairing Stone Book, which apparently contained all the traditional instructions for how to make a formal visit to the Pairing Stone to get its approval for the match. This work was divided into two main subjects: decorating the Pairing Stone Cart that they would take there, which Limestone agreed to help Pa with, and preparing a special Pairing Stone Dress for Marble to wear before the Stone, which Ma and Marble would work on together. Somehow this left Trixie, who didn’t need her own special costume because she was not from a rock family, in charge of the entire farm.
At dinner Marble put her hoof over Trixie’s and asked happily how the farm had been treating her, and Trixie, looking exhausted but still excited, shook her head. “I don’t know yet! I thought I understood how everything worked, but just because I know how to do things on the farm, doesn’t mean I know when to do them. I’m learning… there’s so much more to rocks than rocks.”
Limestone and Marble looked at each other across the table and laughed. Trixie tilted her head. “Are you making fun of Trixie?”
“Oh, no, no, never!” Marble caught herself and laughed again. “Well, sometimes. No, that was just something that Limestone and I used to say to each other before you came along.”
“It’s really not a big deal if some stuff doesn’t get done,” said Limestone. “The crystals are still our biggest sellers, and they’re probably the easiest rocks to get, so you can stick to that if you want. We can miss a week… or two, since it’ll take a while to get to the Pairing Stone and back again.”
“Oh,” said Marble, “do we have a timetable now?” Either she’d forgotten she was still holding Trixie’s hoof or she simply had no interest in letting it go. Limestone grinned.
“Pa and I think we’ll have the cart all ready to go by Saturday morning, maybe evening. Is that enough time for your dress?” Marble mm-hmmed happily. “Great. So we figure we’ll leave Sunday, a week from today, and that way we won’t miss market day Saturday and anything mined this week will still be fresh. Then we’ll probably miss the next one, depending on how long the trip takes, but we won’t have had any time at the farm anyway so that won’t matter. Sound good?”
“Yes!” Marble was simply radiant these days, Limestone noticed, with more than a hint of pride. They had come so far from the pair of dispirited sisters who couldn’t sell a single rock. “And then we’ll get married!”
“When the Pairing Stone chooseth the two of you,” said Ma, leaning across the table, “ye shall write proper invitations to Pinkie and Maud. Then we will wait for their arrival. Then shall ye two be wed.”
Trixie bowed her head to her. “Indeed, Cloudy Quartz Pie. I look forward to meeting them both… and to proving to them I am worthy to live on this farm with Marble.” She grinned, dropping her deferent act for a moment. “And to someday calling you just Ma, of course.”
“Hmmph!” But Limestone couldn’t help noticing that Ma looked pleased.
Later, as Ma and Pa dealt with the dishes, Limestone noticed Marble and Trixie talking near the fire. They weren’t making any particular effort to be silent, so she lingered in the doorway and listened.
“So Trixie… if everything goes right with the stone, and Pinkie and Maud show up and we get married and all that… do you want to keep living here afterwards?”
Trixie looked up from brushing Marble’s hair, apparently about as surprised by the question as Limestone was. “Do we have a choice? This farm needs ponies to work it, and besides, I have learned a lot about rocks.”
“Yes, but Limestone will still be here, and she or Pa could hire somepony else.” Marble rubbed one leg up against Trixie, who smiled. “It is traditional for daughters to marry away, after all. Pa grew up here, since it’s Holder’s old farm, but Ma came from Quartz Quarry some miles south of here. Or you might want to get back into magicianing.”
“It sounds like you want to leave.”
“I don’t know! I haven’t decided yet, and really it should be our decision. But I thought I should at least let you know it was an option, so you have something to think about this week while we’re making you do allllllllll the hard labor.” She turned her head around to steal a kiss from Trixie, who accepted this gracefully.
“I don’t have a farm to take you to, though. I suppose we could build one someday, but all the money has been going into Limestone’s jewelry supplies, and building the crystal mine, and food, and…”
“That’s… not quite true,” said Marble, and Limestone leaned forwards a bit, suddenly recalling a conversation from a long time ago. “Um, stay here for a moment.” Marble got up and walked toward the fire, and as Limestone and Trixie watched from their various vantage points, she reached for a specific stone in the fireplace and pulled it out. Inside, as they saw when she carried it out to Trixie, was a brown bag about the size of a small pony’s head, tied shut with a red cord but with an unmistakable glint of gold inside.
“Marble…”
“Mm-hmm.” Marble opened the bag in front of Trixie, revealing more money than Limestone had ever seen at one time. But not more than she’d ever seen in her life, because this had to be all the money they’d been earning at market, hadn’t it? Every last little bit that wasn’t spent on the things Trixie had listed, saved away in that brown bag hidden in the fireplace, and Marble had never taken it out until today. As Limestone marveled, Marble confirmed her suspicions, explaining that it had been saved up over the weeks and months and years of market visits for this very occasion.
“It’s my dowry,” she said, but her voice held none of the sorrow that it had when she’d introduced the concept to Limestone back near Shining Pass. “It’s all the money we’ve been saving for when I get married. Traditionally it’s supposed to be a gift for my partner’s family, but I wanted it to be for me… so I kept it hidden until I truly was sure I had found the pony I love.”
“This could buy…” Trixie trailed off, her voice awed. “Anything. Marble, you’re amazing.”
“Heehee! No no, not anything, of course. We’ll have to keep working for a long time, and if we choose to stay, we can put it all into the farm. But I wanted you to know that we do have other options, and we can think about those as long as we need to, okay?”
Trixie nodded slowly, still staring at the money. “Yes. Trixie is feeling very impressed right now. I… I do love you, Marble Pie.”
“Awww!” Marble pushed the bag of bits aside and flung open her hooves. “Come here!” And that was very much Limestone’s cue to leave.
The rest of the week was both very long and far too short. Limestone and Pa worked relentlessly on the cart, transforming it according to specifications from a tradition from long before either of them were born. It was Pa’s second time making such a cart, since he’d helped his father Feldspar Granite in the same tradition years ago, while Ma’s Quartz family had made her dress. Limestone learned more about her parents’ marriage in that week than she thought she had over all her days before then, though she had to admit she was also just more interested in the subject than she’d used to be, now that it was about Marble’s immediate future happiness and less about abstract concepts of romance.
Limestone had always felt she had a complicated relationship with rock farming traditions, but she found herself enjoying the cart work, even if the context was probably contributing to her happiness. Not much of the work they did made sense to her, but she was coming to understand that tradition didn’t always have to make sense to be worthwhile. They didn’t paint the cart wheels blue and white because it was necessary for getting them to the Pairing Stone safely, but because by doing so, they were welcoming Marble Pie to a long history of rock farmer wives and saying that they, her fellow tradition holders, accepted her in that line. She did ask Pa about the wheels in particular, but he only hunched his shoulders and said the tradition’s origin was sure to be in the book somewhere, but the two of them didn’t need to know what it was.
Ma and Marble got out dressmaking equipment that Limestone couldn’t remember seeing in a long time, if in some cases at all, and similarly spent the week in a long, careful, and ultimately idiosyncratic mixture of the practical and the traditional. Limestone didn’t witness many of the details of the dress work, both because she was busy and because by helping with the cart, she seemed to have recruited herself into a traditionally male role for the Pairing Stone preparations, and somehow that excluded her from interacting much with the dress. The first time she was denied entry to come and see how Marble was doing, it stung a little, but then she did have plenty of things to do on her end.
And the farm work, or at least a subset of it, continued under the watchful eye, hoof, and horn of Trixie. Like Limestone had suggested, she spent most of her time working at the crystal mine, both carrying out newly picked crystals to be processed and later sold at market (for this she used her magic, giving the mine cart a wide berth) and also strengthening the mine’s entrance and other supports that they’d placed inside the inner caverns. A couple of times she ventured deeper into the crystal mine but did not report finding either an end to the caverns or or a change in the crystals, since even she got nervous getting too far away from the wooden supports.
Trixie also spent a lot of time staring into the fire, looking worried, and Limestone always felt sorry for her when she had the time to walk past. Another thing the traditional work was for, she was realizing, was keeping the family busy. There was no time for anypony to suddenly realize that Marble Pie was going to be married and have everything catch up to them so quickly that they needed to lie down and page through old photo books for hours. Instead they were kept busy at all times between meals and bed, transforming the cart or creating Marble’s dress, and every subtask needing to be done to get them a little closer to the Pairing Stone was exactly that: a task. Every subtask they finished made Marble’s impending marriage a little bit more of a concrete fact in their lives to be accepted, not marveled at.
But Trixie had none of that, and the ancient traditional structure had not accounted for her, so there was no one to keep Trixie company and make sure she wasn’t overwhelmed by the enormity of what she’d agreed to. Marble and Limestone both took as many moments as they could to talk to her, but Marble needed to be inside her in-progress dress at most times, and Limestone wasn’t always sure what to say. She’d made the mistake of asking early on if Trixie had anypony who she wanted to invite to the wedding—the Pies all took it for granted that the Pairing Stone would approve the match—and Trixie had simply said, “No.” Limestone found it very difficult to pick up the conversation again after that.
Besides, there was Pinkie’s letter. Limestone had removed it from the cart before the Pairing Stone work had begun, so nopony else had seen it yet, but she’d managed to forget about it for a few days. Now, though, time was rapidly running out before Marble’s future would be all but set in stone, and though Limestone hated to disturb Trixie with unpleasant questions about her past when she already looked so worried, she also knew rationally that if anything was wrong, she would hate herself forever if she overlooked it now. But when, with everypony always so tired?
Saturday morning brought the realization that nopony had been selected to represent Igneous Rock and Daughters: Fresh Rocks at market that day, and moreover that the vehicle they usually used to bring their materials there had been all but completely transformed into a special Pairing Stone Cart. This seemed to spell disaster for market day until Trixie raised her hoof.
“I can do it,” she said. “I understand the route’s very simple, and I can levitate everything, so I won’t need a cart.”
Marble looked at Limestone; Limestone looked at Trixie. In the morning light she looked terrible, bags under her eyes and loose hairs in her curvy silvery mane, an effect of her relative isolation while everypony else had busied themselves around her. Some fresh hill air might very well be good for her. “I’ll go with you,” said Limestone, remembering Pinkie’s letter, and Trixie smiled at her gratefully.
Pa shook his head. “I need thee here, Limestone. We can finish the cart to-day, but only if we have time afore the sun setteth. Trixie may our clan represent by this market.”
Limestone protested a few more times, but she recognized it was futile, and they bid Trixie adieu to cross Shining Pass and sell that week’s crystals. Then it was back to work for the Pies, putting the final touches on all their preparations for the next day’s trip and making sure nothing had been forgotten. Marble welcomed Trixie back with a huge hug around sunset, but Limestone watched them carefully, and could not avoid thinking that Trixie looked scarred. She nodded to herself; they would need to talk tonight, once everypony had gone to bed, just like when she’d recruited Trixie to help her open the crystal mine however many long weeks ago.
The evening passed painfully slowly, and then it was nighttime and Limestone stood alone in her room for at least a quarter of an hour, not daring to lie down for even a minute in case she would fall asleep then and there. At last she decided her family must have fallen asleep, and made her now almost familiarly cautious way up the stairs to Trixie’s room. There were not many creaky boards in the farmhouse, but she avoided every one of them, and soon was standing outside Trixie’s door and listening for sounds. There were none.
That wasn’t good.
Trixie had snored like a herd of wild horses the last time Limestone had visited her at night, but now she was completely silent. Well, Limestone supposed she could understand if Trixie was having trouble falling asleep on this of all nights, with the trip to the Pairing Stone to decide her fate ahead of them in the morning. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Trixie was not there.
What was going on? Had they eloped in the night?! Forcing herself not to think of any worse possibilities, Limestone happened to glance out the closed window on the other end of the room. Outside, she could see a small red bubble—Trixie’s sound-canceling spell?—moving away from the farm in the direction of Shining Pass.
Cursing quietly, Limestone considered her options. She was in too much of a hurry to navigate the house without waking up her family. Instead she pulled open the window and leapt out, bounced a little off the awning below, and finally made an unceremonious landing in the cold outside dirt. Limestone took off after the red bubble at her fastest gait, now cursing freely as she navigated the dark landscape with much more familiarity than Trixie could possibly manage. She had lived at this farm her entire life, and there was no way Trixie was going to escape her now.
When she’d gotten within a few dozen hoof-lengths from the fleeing unicorn, Limestone was surprised to see the red bubble of silence expand around her too. Trixie stopped and turned to face her, and Limestone saw—not that she’d had any doubt left at that point—that Marble wasn’t with her. She was wearing her old traveling cloak from the day Limestone and Marble had first met her, and there was something else levitating in the air beside Trixie’s head, but it was too dark for Limestone to be sure she could identify it.
“Limestone… please go home.”
Limestone Pie had not been prepared for Trixie to sound exhausted or for her face to be streaked with tears. However, Limestone Pie did not especially care. “If I’m going home, you’re coming with me.”
“No.”
“You come with me or I make you come with me. I understand you’ve had a rough week, but you are not running out on my sister. Not like this. Talk to her if you must, but this… no.”
“You think you can make the Great and Powerful Trixie come with you? By force?”
“Your magic is illusions.”
“Not all of it. Do you really want to find out how much?”
“No, I want you to come back with me to the farm!” Limestone punched a nearby rock, and smiled thinly at the sight of Trixie flinching. The logical part of her brain knew that Trixie was right; it had taken her a while to make that explosion in the wall blocking off the crystal mine, but that had been because she’d been trying to do it very carefully. If she really wanted to stop Limestone, a non-careful explosion would certainly do the trick. And she still didn’t know if those chains from the hot spring had been fire or illusions, or any number of other things. Somehow, though, none of those otherwise alarming facts felt important in the face of Limestone’s need to protect her sister.
“You will always be Trixie’s friend, Limestone,” said Trixie, who seemed no longer capable of looking Limestone directly in the eye. Her voice was still exhausted and miserable, but there was no doubt in her words, no matter how closely Limestone listened for something to grab onto, something to use. “Every time I praised you, or your sister, or your whole family… I meant every word. Please believe that. But this was never Trixie’s destiny.”
“So take her with you, you idiot!” Limestone leapt forwards; Trixie leapt back. She restrained herself from trying again, knowing that physical confrontations were probably useless against such a unicorn. “Didn’t you two talk about this just the other night? You can move away! She loves you enough to go!”
But Trixie shook her head. “I would never take Marble where I’m going. Listen, Limestone. I believed I would be happy living with you, marrying Marble… I did. I was happy. But you said yourself that I shouldn’t give up my dreams. And the only dream I have left, after everything I’ve suffered through from Equestria, is for revenge, and even if I did marry Marble… I would never stop wanting that.”
“Because you said you had defeated the Ursa Major, and a couple of foals found you so amazing they wanted you to do it again.”
“Yes! One lie, Limestone. One! And for that—that!—I am shunned and jeered at by all the land?” There was anger in her voice now, but her face was still covered in tears, for all she did not yet dare look at Limestone again. “You weren’t at the market today. I was. Everypony who recognized me hated me. For nothing! For one little lie—practically nothing!”
Limestone tossed her hair behind her head, still looking for any opening, physical or emotional. “I don’t know about the rest of Equestria, but you told us a second lie when you left out that detail from your sob story. And if you leave Marble now, while she’s dreaming beautiful dreams about your future together… that’s what we will hate you for forever.”
“I do understand. From you, and you alone, Trixie has earned her hatred. But you will not stop Trixie from taking her revenge on the world, and I will not let Marble watch me as I do.”
“Okay.” Limestone paused for a moment and was sad to observe they were only arguing in circles. Trixie did love Marble—she had to believe that. But she had decided her old dream of hate meant more to her than her new dream of love, after a week of solitude and a horrible day at the market. If Limestone had ignored Pa and gone with Trixie that morning, would things have gone differently? Maybe. If they’d found a place for Trixie in the preparations for the Pairing Stone, would she have held on more firmly to her love? Maybe. But there was nothing that Limestone could do about any of that anymore.
“Trixie… tell me what that thing is that you’re levitating,” she said, and Trixie’s knees gave out from under her for a moment. Limestone almost pounced, but Trixie regained her footing just in time.
“Please,” said Trixie. “Please. Don’t make me say it.”
“I’m not letting you take any shortcuts. Not now.”
Trixie nodded wretchedly, and when she spoke her voice was only the faintest of whispers, but it carried like pure ice into Limestone’s blood, for it was the last conclusion she had desperately refused herself permission to reach: “It’s the money.”
“No, it’s my sister’s dowry. Her dowry, that we all saved for her—and for you—to live a happy life together.”
“It’s the money I need to buy the Alicorn Amulet.” Trixie’s voice was a croak now, but physically she was pulling herself upright, and the hairs along Limestone’s back went cold with fear. “I told you about that once. I know where it is. It will give me the power I need.”
There was no time left, no time. Limestone could see Trixie preparing to leave, and yet there was nothing else she could think of, nothing more she could say beyond one last desperate emotional appeal. “Trixie, please… taking her very dowry money, you can’t do this, you can’t run away and do this to the mare you love… you even told her you couldn’t live without marrying her…”
“Oh, my poor Limestone Pie. Didn’t Trixie tell you so many times?” From nowhere, there was an enormous puff of black smoke that blinded Limestone completely and filled her lungs with coughing. When she finally regained her vision, Trixie and her bubble of silence were nowhere to be seen, and all that remained were the last echoes of Trixie’s words as they echoed and reechoed off the hills surrounding the rock farm.
“Trixie can do anything.”
The group of ponies standing before the Pairing Stone was missing only one member from its original plan, four instead of five, but it felt far smaller. Ma and Pa spoke mainly to each other, occasionally withdrawing from conversation to touch Marble gently or to offer her some meaningless words of comfort or courage. Limestone simmered with a fury whose target had fled. And Marble had scarcely stopped sobbing over the last three days.
They had very nearly canceled the trip altogether, but Marble had been adamant that she still wanted to go. “I want to see if it has anything to tell me,” she’d said, and they were in no position to deny Marble anything. So they’d bundled up her dress and all the food for the trip, and climbed into the cart, and departed on the worst journey of Limestone’s life.
Limestone still hadn’t told any of her family the details of her conversation with Trixie at the foot of Shining Pass. Instead she’d forged a note in a faked hoofwriting style and left it in Trixie’s room for anypony to find. She should have realized it would be Marble who’d find the note first, or maybe she did realize and merely ignored it; either way, she thought it would be a long time before she could fall asleep again without remembering Marble’s scream that morning.
“So that’s it?” Marble asked, not that she or Limestone had any doubt. The stone was thick and tall as six ponies stacked one on top of another, but split in two at the top where, it was said, it had been ever so gently grazed by a bolt of lightning. Flowers littered the earth around it, not quite belonging in a place of rock and yet this was a rock of love and flowers and love were forever linked. From the angle they viewed it, the Pairing Stone blocked out the sun’s rays entirely, leaving them all standing in a gloomy darkness.
When her parents had agreed that it was, indeed, the Pairing Stone, Marble Pie walked slowly and purposefully toward the huge monument. Some ancient magic came to life at her approach, and reddish pink light blossomed from the stone, bathing it and her in an all too brief glow before fading away entirely.
“What was that?” asked Limestone as Marble made her slow return to the group, tears still falling indiscriminately from her eyes.
“That’s the stone’s magic,” said Ma. “It meaneth that there’s yet somepony out there for Marble, if only she can find her. Or him.”
“Huh,” said Limestone, and walked over to the stone herself. No light of any color surrounded either Limestone Pie or the Pairing Stone. She waited a few seconds more to make sure, then came back to her parents and sister, feeling oddly relieved in spite of everything. She wouldn’t have had the first idea how to handle something like that anyway.
For a while they stood awkwardly around Marble, nopony willing to suggest that maybe it was time to go home until she was ready. Then at last she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at them each in turn. “I’ve brought dishonor on our name,” said Marble Pie, speaking every bit as slowly and miserably as Trixie had on that horrible night. “Everything that has happened was because of me.
“It was my idea to bring Trixie home with us, when every pony in Equestria knew she was trouble. My idea to give her work, when my sister warned me we didn’t know her. My idea to ask her to marry me, when we were happy the way we already were. My idea to show her the dowry, when she didn’t know that we had the money her to follow her old dreams. Everything I said only made things worse.”
Marble turned her face up to the Pairing Stone and closed her eyes. “I vow that I will never speak a word again until our family honor is restored.”
There was another silence as Limestone wrestled with her thoughts, knowing her sister was wrong but not knowing if she should say so. Limestone was the eldest sister, and taking in Trixie had been her responsibility, not Marble’s. She had failed to talk with Trixie so many times, either to offer her comfort or to ask her about Pinkie’s letter, until finally it was much too late for either one. She’d even failed to keep Trixie from stealing her sister’s dowry despite being right there on the path with her and arguing with her for so long.
But… she couldn’t tell Marble any of that, not right away. Marble was miserable about Trixie and no longer trusted herself even to speak; she needed to trust Limestone if Limestone was going to be able to do anything for her in the months or years ahead. Maybe they’d even sleep in the same bed for a while in case she got nightmares. So some secret failings would have to go unsaid, at least for the time being, and her love for her sister would have to make her lie.
“Let’s go home,” said Pa, stirring the women of his family from their respective reveries. “Rocks are honest, and the simple life cureth all ills. We shall sow our rocks; grind our stone; sell our labor; and seal that mine.”
“Are you mad?!”
Words Trixie had told her once, that sometimes to gain ponies’ respect you needed to shout at them, flashed through Limestone Pie’s mind as she glared at her father. “Are you seriously suggesting that we get rid of everything—everything!—that Trixie so much as touched? Our profits have tripled or better since we opened my mine! There is no way I am going to sit back and let you or Ma destroy everything I’ve worked for to improve our lives just because Trixie happened to be involved in them at one point!”
She wasn’t angry at Pa; not really. No more than usual. But Trixie wasn’t there anymore, and she couldn’t shout out her frustrations at herself, and she needed to do something or she knew she would explode. “I’m done being depressed. I’m done watching other ponies make mistakes and not saying anything! I’m the only pony here who knows how to make our farm—my farm—work, get it? I can work with our traditions. I can think of new ones! I won’t let anypony else break into our lives and try to destroy our family again! And I am not going to rest, not ever, until I find a way for my baby sister to be happy again… do you all understand me?!”
Ma and Pa only stared at her. The Pairing Stone stood implacably overhead. And her wordless sister looked at her in her rage and, for the first time since Trixie had left her, smiled.
“Mm-hmm,” said Marble Pie.
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Well written with great characterisation and I loved reading it.
Damn it, Trixie!
Reading through this, I was touched by all the wonderful characterizations that you wrote up. I liked Limestone and Marble and I even liked Pa and Ma Pie, even if their roles were limited.
Limestone made for an interesting choice to follow the narrative, as she's probably the most neutral party out of the available characters. She brings forth all the pros and cons of everypony's decisions, acting almost like a story narrator. But, she still makes her own decisions, for good or for ill. She's very relatable and for that she works perfectly.
Marble comes across as a little naive, but she still has her moments were she thinks ahead. Having her speak also breaks out her character more. Too bad that leads me to...
Trixie. Damn it, Trixie, why couldn't you have just let it go?!
I was hoping beyond hope that this would be an alternate universe, but that dashed against the rocks when Trixie saw the money. She was doing so good too, using her unique talents to shake things up for the Pies. She brought so much change that it's hard for me stay angry at her. It's this side of Trixie that I wish we got to see more often because she honestly has a soft heart under all the bluster. But, this is marked tragedy, so with all the good comes the bad, and Trixie's final betray not only cuts at the Pies, but for us readers, too. It's these complex swirl of emotions that make reading fanfiction worth it.
A wonderful job keeping continuity in a series that struggles to maintain it itself! I've got my fingers crossed that you may do a sequel down the line where we see how the Pies and Trixie turn out.
6589390 Thanks for the kind words! I don't disagree that Marble's more naive than she could be, but there are a couple things to consider there: she does acknowledge at the beginning the risk that Trixie might someday leave and break her heart, which is roughly what ends up happening, and also Limestone never really tells her anything. When Trixie talks about needing money and wanting revenge, she's talking to Limestone, not Marble. So the blame can be spread around a bit.
As for sequels, there are two! They're called Magic Duel and Hearthbreakers.
I prefer to see her as aroace as we all know she reproduces via the limestone cycle.
Get it?
Just me...? Ok...
Science jokes aside, this somehow managed to be adorable, tragic and touching all at the same time. I can think of one negative: it ended. But that's selfish of me. I give it three Marble marbles out of three.
It's nice to see us Aces getting some love too. (Metaphorically, that is.)
Clever episode-welding premise paired with your usual quality writing, and hardly anyone has read it? That's the tragedy here.
Really enjoyed this, especially the development of the Pie sisters.
(hi Violet)
That was great, I enjoyed it a lot.
As always, the best thing is the way you sell me on the characters. My favorite part was Pinkie's letter (this is exactly how she would write!), but Limestone and her sister too, and even Trixie.
I appreciate that the story is thoroughly anti-chliché. There are a lot of things which would have bothered me that weren't there (such as the pies following the father's suggestion and distancing themselves from everything Trixie-related), and nopony is stupid for the sake of the narrative. And... there's no villain. I love when that's the case. Well, I guess you could say Trixie is the villain, but given how horribly unfair she has in fact been treated, I hardly think that's fair (although, the implication is that Rarity and Applejack (and, to a lesser extent, Twilight) have been dumb and rude and caused a lot of damage and got away with it freely, but that's just boast busters canon...).
The thing which makes the least sense is that Trixie wants revenge exclusively on Twilight. This is also the show's fault, but you sort of made it worse, or at least called attention to it, by having Trixie not be an idiot.
The callbacks are neat. It often bothers me when writers do this (I may have said this before) because it's often not natural and breaks immersion, but you make it work.
Oh, and - maybe Trixie goes back to Marbel after Magic Duel? I guess the money is gone, but... maybe they can forgive her, given that she has helped to improve their lives, at least a bit? Even though I'd give most of the credit to Limestone.
6791721 Thank you! Can you highlight where you thought Trixie puts too much emphasis on Twilight? I did a quick word search and I don't think she ever so much as mentions Twilight's name, only "But you will not stop Trixie from taking her revenge on the world." The only one who seems to float Twilight as a possibility is Limestone, and she thinks of Snips and Snails first. But you've read it more recently, so there might be something I'm forgetting that's not showing up by word search...
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Oh no, sorry, it's not in your story. I just meant, she only wants revenge on Twilight in Magic Duel, which doesn't make a lot of sense after reading your story (but also doesn't make a lot of sense anyway). So again, not your fault.
6793108 Oooooh, I see. Does she, though? She takes over all of Ponyville and treats everyone horribly, Snips and Snails included. I think you could reasonably say the reason she challenges Twilight to a duel is in order to get rid of her because she's the only real threat in town. Even to whatever extent she is targeting Twilight, she also claims to have her mind influenced by the amulet, which might well be drawn to sources of extreme magic. Y'know, seeking out its next host.
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I think it's pretty clear. When Twilight asks her "why are you doing this" she says "because you humiliated me," and shows the flashback, blaming only Twilight, specifically for "showing her off with that Ursa Minor". (The only thing Twilight did to her except saving Ponyville from a dangerous monster was to call her show 'bragging' when she says "I was so intrigued by Trixie's bragging that I [did some research]")
In the end she says "I treated you and your friends so horribly when I was wearing that alicorn amulet." It's not explained what exactly she's blaming the amulet for, but I don't think it's her initial hatred against Twilight. If she wants revenge on other ponies, she never shows it.
6795396 She has Snips and Snails pull a wheel-less carriage and whips them, and before that turns them into a single pony after yelling "you two!" She transforms Rarity's clothes and Rainbow Dash's wing. Plus all this stuff, which notably doesn't involve Pinkie Pie, who didn't interact with her in Boast Busters. Also, "you" can be plural.
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It kind of does involve Pinkie. Not on that picture, but in the same scene a few seconds later, she forces Pinkie to dance (for some reason). And it involves the cakes and the Mare, who all did nothing to her. And Fluttershy, too. And she does cast this muzzle-removal spell on Pinkie, and doesn't even reverse it.
And yep, a sad ending as I was expecting. While you do a good job at straying away from turning this into an alternate universe, I think the premise by itself DOES kind of turn it into an AU, in the sense that I can't see Marble having the reactions she does to Big Mac in Hearthbreakers following this story. She feels like she'd still be too heartbroken to even think about pursuing romance again.
6814968 Thanks for the thoughts. I think enough time passes between Magic Duel and Hearthbreakers that Marble should have been able to calm down... however, the fact that I go out of my way to set up practically everything in Hearthbreakers, right down to Marble and Limestone sleeping in the same bed, probably gets in the way there: if nothing else has changed by the time the episode begins, why has Marble? So I think your reaction makes sense.
This is one of the most horrifically sad and tragic fics I've read on this site. It's beautiful. And criminally underrated/underexposed.
Knowing how her decision plays out in the end, I feel really bad for Trixie here too.
Damn. This story is criminally underrated and deserves over a thousand likes, not the paltry amount it has now (at least as of the time of this writing). The writing style here is great, characterization is delightful, and serves to explain the general attitude and personality of the entire Pie family. Furthermore, this is tragedy is meant to be: a glance of true happiness only for it to be cruelly taken away.
Now, Limestone was was a fascinating choice to follow in the narrative, and I don't say that just because I have a natural love for cynical characters. Her down to earth attitude, inner conflict to make a life for herself and family while dealing with how much she hates it on the farm was wonderful to behold. Now, I think the story could be improved a bit if we had a few bits from Marble's perspective and got glimpses into her thoughts as she was swept up in love and ultimate tragedy, but what we have here works surprisingly well.
I won't lie: I really hoped this would be a true AU where everything ended happily, but well the tags don't lie, and knowing this really created a tension considering I knew everything was going to go wrong, just not how.
However, while I can admire how much effort-good effort mind you-you've put into making this fit canonically with the series, I have to admit that, in my opinion at least, it's a bit to AU. I say this because there's no way Marble would have reacted to Big Mcintosh the way she did in Hearthbreakers, considering the tragedy she'd gone through. However, seeing as how this is a relatively minor thing in the grand scheme of things, it, in my opinion, hardly bears any relevance in the grand scheme of things, and it certainly does not have a negative impact on the fic.
I. Love. This. STORY!
I really hope that the Seattle's Angel review garners this story the readership it deserves! It galls me to know that there are so many exceptional stories hidden away in FIMFiction's basement with almost no views, making them nearly impossible to find.
Okay, so I kept expecting the Pairing Stone to just be like...nope, you guys can't get married. Are you crazy? And then the Pies to just give Trixie the money, because of everything, but then Marble to say she wanted to wait for the Stone to approve, and Trixie, heartbroken and angry at everything, leaves, her new raw emotions a catalyst for Magic Duel. Needless to say, this ended a lot differently than I expected, but I absolutely loved it. I still feel like it's AU, mostly because Pinkie would probably try to get Marble to talk, even if she knew why Marble had made the vow, but I think that just comes down to different character interpretations, so no fouls.
Still, with a ship that hit me out of left field, I adored this story. You've done a wonderful job.
6861971 I think, given the thrust of the story before then, had the pairing stone said something like that, then Marble would have told the pairing stone what for and ignored its advice and gotten married anyway. Placing all the fault of their split on an inanimate piece of rock that was hardly a character beforehand would not have been a satisfying ending.
As for Pinkie... well, that's kind of lesson retread, innit? She already learned in A Friend in Deed that sometimes it's okay to let your friend (/sister) be quiet and alone for a while. And when that happens, you seek out your friend's estranged lover and bring them back together and...
hmmm.
*ponders*
6862437 Yeah, that would have been a thing, wouldn't it? That's a really good point about Pinkie, though, I hadn't considered it. (Also, ponder as long as you'd like, that is a brilliant idea). Like I said, though, I loved the story.
Holy horseapples. This story is freaking superb. I'm so glad this was recommended to me. Your characterization of Limestone is just amazing, I love her! I found myself pretty much in constant empathy with her (as a somewhat unexpressive asexual myself), and the way you tie this into continuity while still building up the rock farm's own story and personality is just brilliant. This fic needs way more views and likes.
That is one of the most adorable things ever. XD
I haven't read this, and because I am weak and refuse to read tragedy I probably never will, but I commend its existence based on its concept and pairing alone. Everyone else's comments make me wish I had the emotional fortitude to read it, because it sounds like you've got some fine writing to go with the excellent abstract.
This is a stunning story. I'd forgotten it had the tragedy tag when I was reading the first two chapters, assuming it would become AU. Watching it fall apart was heart-wrenching and beautiful. I'm going through a bit of a Limestone Pie obsession at the moment, so I really appreciated her as the POV character. But she really suited the story, too, and I loved what you did with her character. Marble and Trixie were also expertly handled; true to canon but expanded for the new situation. Very smooth how you handled their character transformations to line up with those we saw in Hearthbreakers, and how canon is weaved so cleverly through the story.
Do you think there's a way to square this story with what the show has done since? Maybe now Trixie is friends with Starlight, whose other close friend is Maud Pie, Trixie finally musters up the courage to go back to the rock farm and apologise?
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Something like that, surely. But my internal sense of everyone's characters is mostly still stuck somewhere in season 3, so I wouldn't want to take the time to go through and figure out how Trixie has changed since then. Plus that would involve trying to figure out how much time has passed in-universe since Magic Duel, which I suspect is a difficult effort.
Wonderfully put together and devastating in its inevitability. That last chapter is well-titled; it all comes crashing down, and by the time anyone realizes what's happening, it's too late to do anything about it. Thank you for it. I'd love to see a post-"No Second Prances" story where some combination of Pinkie, Twilight, Maud, and/or Starlight drag Trixie back to the farm.
This was rather heartwrenching
Even the first scene, before Trixie ever turns up, is fantastic. It did a beautiful job of setting up Limestone’s character, and made her recklessness in latching onto the opportunity Trixie provides totally believable despite the reservations that she quite reasonably expresses.
But I think the thing I adore the most is the choice to show it all through Limestone’s eyes, even the clandestine Marble/Trixie scenes. I don’t think I was ever that sold on Marble and Trixie being in love, which makes me think that showing scenes of them from either Marble’s POV or Trixie’s would’ve rang a bit hollow and fallen flat as a result. But I could absolutely buy that Limestone recognized Marble loved Trixie, and that realization was plenty to drive the anguish of the ending home.
This is exactly the kind of thing that the tragedy tag made me hope it’d be, and I wish there were more stories like it. Thanks for writing!
You can has review!