Fault Lines

by helmet of salvation

3. No joy in Maudville

"Hey Maud, come check out the granularity on this gabbro here."

The sunlight enhanced the rich colour of Arkose Monolith's coat and the shadow of a nearby Institute of Rockology flag—a flagstone, of course—seemed to point towards him. Maud suppressed her outward signs of nervousness without much difficulty yet her hoofbeats sounded even louder than usual in her ears as she walked along the cobblestone path to where the stallion sat.

As she drew next to Arkose, Maud lowered her haunch a little more deliberately than her wont, taking care that when she reached the ground, her thigh caressed his. It was a perfect touch: not a push, yet neither so delicate that Arkose would fail to notice. The touch sent a volcanic sensation flowing through Maud's body and she silently warned herself not to lose control then and there. It was now up to Arkose to respond.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Maud. Here, let me make some more room for you." Quietly annoyed at his own thoughtlessness, Arkose shuffled his hindquarters across the ground to create a comfortable space between the two ponies.

Alas, the stallion could scarcely have given Maud less comfort if he had kicked her. Yet Maud was new to this flirting business—so was Arkose, for all she knew—so she couldn't expect romance to erupt immediately. She needed patience. The way to Arkose's heart wasn't with a pickaxe but with steady, gentle erosion.

Arkose rolled the irregular lump of rock towards Maud. "Can you imagine how slowly the magma must have cooled to attain this degree of coarseness?"

"Nothing like a nice, slow cooldown." Maud made her voice slow and slightly breathy, hoping to give it a sensuous quality.

If Arkose noticed, he did nothing to indicate thus. "Beautiful contours on this specimen, don't you think?"

Maud wholeheartedly agreed but managed to draw her attention away from the rock, onto another specimen altogether. "It's not often one sees such magnificently defined contours." She had been practising her supposedly "sensuous, vulpine, mare-of-mystery" gaze in the mirror; she felt silly but if this was what stallions wanted...

Not even Arkose Monolith was too oblivious to notice Maud staring at him; even more strangely, she wasn't staring at the gabbro specimen directly in front of her. He glanced up and forced himself to look at her eyes, rather than around them. "Maud, is everything all right?"

"It certainly appears to be, from this vantage point."

"Oh, good." Reassured, Arkose rose to his hooves. "Well, I have to get to my lab now."

"I know. We have the same lab."

"Oh, yeah. Great. Let's go."

Steady erosion, Maud told herself. Steady erosion.

Days later, the only things Maud felt steadily eroding were her own patience and self-esteem. Fed up with her steamy gazes and subtle attempts at enticing language bouncing off Arkose like scree off a volcanic plug, she pushed aside her raging mental dissonance—as well as the rhyolite collection Arkose had laid in front of her—and made up her mind to take a direct approach.

"Arkose."

"Yes?" Already taken aback by Maud's active lack of interest in his amazing rocks, Arkose gave her his full attention.

"Um." Maud's eyes flickered downwards, her resolve slipping.

"What is it, Maud? You know you can tell me anything."

Firming her foundations, Maud forced herself to look him in the eyes. "Do you like me?"

Arkose blinked. "I'm not in the habit of showing my rhyolite collection to ponies whom I dislike."

Who would be, thought Maud, taking a deep, calming breath. "I mean, do you ... like me?"

* * *

The trio occupied Pinkie Pie's bed in silence. Maud sprawled prone, facing away from the bedhead, staring at nothing in particular. Before her lay Boulder, a small, roughly hemispheric chunk of magnesium-rich basalt. Pinkie herself sat up against Maud's side, one foreleg draped over her older sister's back.

Pinkie had hastily procured four helium-filled balloons from her supply. One was a round, sunny yellow; one a bright red love heart; one resembled a light purple flower; the fourth was long, thin and pink, curving in multiple directions. She had tied one to each of the four posts of her bed, arranging them by shape and colour for optimal generation of happiness.

Yet Maud paid the decorations no attention. She just sprawled and stared, absently rolling Boulder in a ragged, elliptical orbit on the bedspread in front of her.

Pinkie's mind raced for other options to draw Maud out of her funk. Cupcakes iced with smiley faces? An upbeat song with self-accompaniment on an accordion? No, heartbreak of this magnitude needed something stronger.

A party? Those took planning; this was no time to leave poor Maud's side and gallivant around rustling up funny hats and designing invitation layouts. Besides, she doubted Maud would want the whole town to know she had just struck out with the stud of her dreams.

Pinkie felt a creeping sense of helplessness. Maud had come to her in need of cheering up. She couldn't just sit here, doing nothing, saying nothing.

Maud's monotone finally broke the anguished silence. "What could have led me to imagine that a faultless specimen like Arkose Monolith would ever consider a pony like me as more than just a friend? I must have had rocks in my head."

Pinkie gently jostled her sister. "Hey, what kind of talk is that?"

"You're right." Maud's eyes lowered towards her pet rock. "Sorry, Boulder."

Boulder was not offended.

"I mean, you shouldn't put yourself down like that," said Pinkie.

"Then how should I put myself down?"

"You'll make a terrific special somepony."

"Arkose doesn't think so."

"Okay but plenty of other rocks in the quarry, right?"

"I don't want plenty of other rocks. I want Arkose. And he doesn't want me."

Pinkie closed her eyes and sighed, then looked back at Maud. "I know it's really hard to let go of something you've wanted, something you thought was right for you. But you can't go being mean to yourself. You will find that special somepony someday because you're so special and smart and strong and funny and——"

"Strong," Maud broke in. "Arkose was strong." She let out a sough. "Listen to me. I can't stop thinking about him. One stallion rejects me and I crumble like talc. You call that strong?"

"I call that being a pony, Maud. You're hurting badly now, just like we all do once in a while. It doesn't change how super amazingly awesome you are."

"So you keep saying."

Pinkie drew back. "Excuse me?"

For the first time in several minutes, Maud looked the pink pony in the eye. "You always see the best in everypony, Pinkie. What if those rose-tinted glasses of yours have blinded you to the possibility that your super amazingly awesome older sister isn't so super amazingly awesome after all?"

"All right missy, let's get a couple of things straight here. First of all, the only time I'd wear rose-tinted glasses is at an eye-catching eyewear party. And I've never even been to one of those. Because I just made it up. It does sound like super fun though. Remind me to jot it down later.

"Secondly, if you think I always see the best in everypony then you really do have rocks in your head, no offence Boulder. Just because I don't dwell on ponies' shortcomings doesn't mean I don't see them. Sometimes I even mention them if I think they can learn a valuable friendship lesson from it."

"In that case, tell me one of my faults."

Pinkie blinked. "You're kidding."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" replied Maud, who never looked like she was kidding.

Pinkie bit her lip and darted her eyes around. "Oh Maud, now's not the time to go into that."

"Now is exactly time to go into that. If you can't be honest about my weaknesses, how can I believe what you tell me are my positive facets?"

"Fine, you want to know one of your faults? I'll tell you one of your faults: you're silly. You can't see how much you mean to your loved ones so instead of trusting us when we support you, you ask us to pick on you. There, happy?"

"No. That was praise, thinly disguised as criticism."

"Okay, you uh, you're, uh, you—you focus too heavily on your studies."

"That sounds like something I'd say at a job interview."

"But I—you——" Pinkie grunted in frustration. "I can't believe you're making me say this." She exhaled. "You are obsessed with rocks."

Maud had grown so impatient that her eyes narrowed slightly. "Pinkie, I'm serious."

"So am I."

Now it was Maud's turn to blink. "What?"

"Whenever you're with my Ponyville friends it's always 'Look at the cute spider holding the pretty flower.' 'I was looking at the rock.' 'Don't these homewares look divine?' 'Not as divine as the cracks in the sidewalk.' Every time somepony tries to interest you in something, you have to make it about rocks, or ignore it to focus on the rocks."

Maud opened her mouth to protest but there was no stemming this verbal rockslide.

"Take Twilight Sparkle. She lives for magic and reading. How would you like it if you showed her a rock that you thought was really interesting and she was like 'Urgh, can't I just read about it in a book?' or 'Hey, wouldn't it be great if I changed it into a top hat?'

"Everypony has different things they love, Maud, and no pony's passion is better or worse than another's. But just because you don't share another pony's passion is no reason to discourage them from sharing theirs with you. They don't want you to like what they like. They want you to like them, they want to get to like you."

"I didn't know I was discouraging them. I thought I was just letting them know what I care about." Maud digested this sobering revelation for a moment. "I guess you really must think I'm pretty special."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Well, duh-h."

Maud returned to her sprawled position on the bed, tucking Boulder between her cheek and foreleg. "So why doesn't Arkose agree?"

"Heck if I know. Stallions, huh?" Pinkie lowered her head. "This is my fault. I pushed you into this."

"No, Pinkie, I couldn't go on pining for him forever. If we really aren't meant for each other then it's best I find out sooner rather than later." In that one last word Maud's voice acquired the tiniest hairline fissure.

With an involuntary moan, Pinkie Pie threw herself down beside Maud, coiled her foreleg around to the other side of her sister's barrel and squeezed. As the pair lay wordlessly together, a single droplet of salty fluid emanated from Maud's eye and made its way down the contours of the pony's face. A tress of pink hair snaked up and nestled against the droplet, absorbing the moisture into itself.

"I'm sorry," said Maud.

"For what?"

"For breaking down and blubbering uncontrollably like that. I promised myself I'd keep it together. I didn't want you putting up with my melodramatics."

Pinkie squeezed Maud again. "What are sisters for, silly?"

"You've done so much for me already today."

"Me? I haven't done much at all. Most of the time I've just sat here like a lump, not saying or doing anything."

"Which was exactly what I needed. I didn't come here for polkas or party favours. I came here for you, Pinkie Pie. I just needed you to be here for me, like a rock. And what could be more demanding for you than to sit still and be quiet?"

Pinkie thought with gratification of the last time she had to do such a thing for her friends. Sitting in a roomful of her clones, staring dumbly at a freshly painted wall for what seemed like forever, was indeed one of the toughest challenges she had ever faced. She smiled at the irony. Proving she was the one true Pinkie Pie by acting as unlike herself as possible.

"Just glad I could help my super amazingly awesome older sister."

Maud averted her eyes.

"Come on, who's my super amazingly awesome older sister?"

Maud mumbled something into an upfold of Pinkie's bedspread.

"Maud, look me in the eye and say it."

Maud soughed, mentally prepared for a few seconds, and turned to face Pinkie.

Then flinched away so suddenly she almost cricked her neck. Somehow, while Maud wasn't looking, Pinkie had managed to don some outsized spiral-lensed eyeglasses, a cute red clown nose, a drooping black moustache, two protruding incisors and a pair of foam moose antlers.

Pinkie couldn't see Maud's face, nor hear any sound from her, yet she recognised that bodily tremor anywhere. Had she tried such a joke a few minutes ago it would have come across as insensitive and hurt Maud even more. Now, she had nailed it. All in the timing.

So much joy flooded through Pinkie at the sight of Maud's laughter that she didn't notice her own tail twitching at first. In a rush, she glanced towards the ceiling, forgetting that the falling object her Pinkie Sense portended might instead be——

"WAAAGH-oomph."

From her unceremonious position on the bedroom floor, Pinkie looked up in time to see Maud's rear hoof draw back from over the edge of the bed. "Too subtle?" she asked innocently.

Maud's voice quaked with poorly suppressed mirth. "I will end you, Pinkamena Pie."

"Yeah, I always figured you'd be the end of me."

"Although I suppose I could spare you, as long as you Pinkie promise not to tell anypony about this whole Arkose thing, or that your super amazingly awesome older sister is a great big crybaby."

Pinkie whipped off her novelty headwear. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. Now, speaking of cupcakes, what say we head downstairs for a gigantuan helping of scrummlicious Sugarcube Corner comfort food?"

"Pinkie, you've already cheered me up. I don't need to numb my pain by guzzling down a quart of mineral water."

The pink pony gazed at Maud with imploring eyes and a quivering lower lip, a plaintive whimper duetting with a low rumble from her belly.

"You eat, I'll watch."

Pinkie flashed her brightest beam, emitting a squeak of excitement, and zipped out of the bedroom.

Maud gave Boulder one last adoring look before placing the rock in her pocket, then moseyed out, secretly hoping she could catch another glimpse of those heart-meltingly adorable twins to cheer her up even further.

THE END