An Eternity of Rocks

by McPoodle

Credits & Acknowledgements

Credits & Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank my pre-readers: Anonymous, Faña Farouche and Sage Wolf, for keeping me from making a bigger fool of myself than usual.

“Hey, I thought I was your pre-reader,” noted Starlight.

Maud closed the book and reclaimed it. “This last part is boring, and a bit disturbing. You don’t want to waste your time reading it.” She walked it back to its place beside the fake telephone. “I think there’s still an hour or two to fly our kites.”

Starlight got up with a shrug and followed Maud to the cave entrance.

She snuck back into the cave late that night, grabbing the book and teleporting into the mirror pool chamber. “Pfft, it can’t be that bad, can it?” she muttered under her breath as she summoned a light and flipped to where she had left off.

In a strict legal sense, the world of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is the property of the Hasbro corporation, and so I cannot write a work set in that milieu without their implicit permission. Artistically, the core characters are the creation of Lauren Faust, and she at least has no qualms about fanfiction.

I myself am the creation of Noelle Benvenuti from the episode of the same name, perhaps with some input from my voice, Ingrid Nilson, while Starlight Glimmer was created by Meghan McCarthy and M. A. Larson. The extensions of both characters for this story, however, are entirely the work of my own imagination. [Do not think about this sentence too deeply, or your head will explode.]

The chapter names are from the Mohs Hardness Scale. Oh I’m sorry, the [equine pun of the human name Mohs] Hardness Scale. I’ll take the best—or since these are puns, worst—suggestion from the comments.

The key episodes referenced for this story are “Friendship Is Magic – Part Two” (written by Lauren Faust), “The Cutie Mark Chronicles” (written by M. A. Larson), “The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000” (written by M. A. Larson), “The Cutie Map – Parts One & Two” (written by Meghan McCarthy with assistance from Scott Sonneborn and M. A. Larson), “Hearthbreakers” (written by Nick Confalone), “The Cutie Re-Mark – Parts One & Two” (written by Josh Haber), “The Gift of the Maud Pie” (written by Josh Haber, Michael P. Fox and Wil Fox) and “Rock Solid Friendship” (written by Nick Confalone).

The initial inspiration for this story came from the fanfics “We Can Do This Forever” by Empirical Deduction and “Twilight Fights Starlight for Eternity” by Diamond Aura.

The description of the phone only has eight numbers and two symbols, as a rather stubborn carry-over from the early episodes when it appeared that ponies had an octal numbering system.

“Palomino manuscript” is the Equestrian equivalent of a “Tijuana Bible”—have fun looking that term up on your Google. Their existence is the most-obviously non-canon element of this story.

The Palomino manuscript about Twilight was inspired by the Canterlot reporter’s question in “Fame and Misfortune” (written by M. A. Larson). I’m sure that Rarity’s manuscript has no resemblance to any existing story whatsoever.

Rainbow Dash as a Daring Do fanfic writer (or would that be Palomino manuscript writer?)—The closest thing to canon would be a line dropped in “Spike at Your Service” (written by Dave Polsky, teleplay [whatever that is] by Merriwether Williams), where she says she’s writing a novel about a pegasus who rises to become captain of the Wonderbolts.

The poem is adapted from the opening of the song “Playing with the Big Boys” (written by Hans Zimmer and Stephen Schwartz), from The Prince of Egypt (property of DreamWorks corporation, written by Philip LaZebnik and Nicholas Meyer, directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells). What can I say? McPoodle sucks at poetry. (And yes, that’s another head-exploding sentence.)

Tuesday: This isn’t even subtle. Go through the episodes, and anytime they bother to give you the day of the week when everything blows up, it’s always Tuesday. Which obviously means that it takes three days to convert reality into animation.

Granny Pie is mentioned in “Friendship Is Magic – Part Two” as the one who taught Pinkie Pie how to laugh at the things that scared her.

The nonsense phrase that Cloudy Quartz Pie used as her code-phrase? “Equestria doesn’t need the gold standard for financial stability.” No, just kidding. It was “By the power of the gray skull.” And no, I don’t care to know what particular power the grey skull possesses.

Peach Cobbler: Oh look, an original character. One of only three named OCs in this story. Collect them all.

The Orange Conglomerate: We do not speak of the Orange Conglomerate. I’ve said too much already.

The Orange Conglomerate’s theme song is “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes.

Rockville is the nearest town to the Pie Family farm. Gazette sounds like the right name for Rockville’s newspaper.

All of Cloudsdale’s attractions other than the Weather Factory and the Cloudeseum: Stolen wholesale from the fanfic “Scootaloo in Cloudsdale,” by Tamar.

The existence of day-to-day enchanted objects that are not horrible world-dooming artifacts: Not yet established in the show, but common in fanfics; for example “Grounder” by JustAnotherEarthPony.

The only origin we have for Saddle Rager comes from her Enterplay trading card, Series 3, PP5: “The incredible Saddle Rager is the strongest there is! Spruce Spanner was just a mild-mannered scientist before she had a ‘little’ accident. Her high-tech invention to treat animal illness overloaded, and she saved all of her patients at the expense of being exposed to mysterious radiation! Now, whenever Spruce sees the defenseless being mistreated (even just a teensy little firefly), she can’t control her temper. She transforms into the Saddle Rager and makes sure those big meanies pick on somepony their own size!” Everything else is my own addition, some of it informed by Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk comic (such as General “Thunderbolt” Ross as his arch-enemy).

Gerry le Grand (named OC #2) comes from the rule that griffon names all have to start with “G”, and the fact that Starlight was spotted spying on Twilight while eating at a Canterlot fine restaurant, presumably Gustave le Grand’s, in the episode “Amending Fences”.

The ratatouille subplot was stolen from the animated film of the same name, property of Pixar corporation, written and directed by Brad Bird—almost an Equestrian name, that.

“Anyffony”, for those asking, is the griffon equivalent to “anypony”, originated to the best of my knowledge in the 2013 novel The Best of All Possible Worlds by McPoodle.

The name Vogue On Jets (named OC #3) is a play on the name of the antagonist from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Vogon Jeltz.

The “consumer protection” bill: In 2005, Congress passed the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act”. There was an argument made as the bill was being considered that it was a ruse devised by credit card companies, and the very opposite of a “consumer protection act”. The argument went that the bill would remove a necessary safety net for poor people who suddenly lost their jobs or had to deal with the costs of chronic illness—they would no longer be allowed to declare bankruptcy, but instead would be hounded by creditors until the day they died.

Jet’s plan to deal with Nightmare Moon was more or less lifted from “Winning, and the pitfalls therein.” (sic) by RandomNPC. And no, despite all evidence given in “The Cutie Remark – Part Two”, I cannot give up the conviction that had Nightmare Moon won and truly instituted eternal night, that it would mean the extinction of all life on Equestria.

Pinkie Pie quotes are taken from “Friendship Is Magic – Part Two”, “Party of One” (written by Meghan McCarthy) (among others), “A Friend in Deed” (written by Amy Keating Rogers), “Sweet and Elite” (written by Meghan McCarthy), “The Last Roundup” (written by Amy Keating Rogers), “Secret of My Excess” (written by M. A. Larson), “A Friend in Deed”, “Luna Eclipsed” (written by M. A. Larson), “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”, “A Friend in Deed”, “A Friend in Deed” and “Castle Mane-ia” (written by Josh Haber).

Pinkie Pie vectors are “Vector #710 – Pinkie Pie #31” by DashieSparkle, “Vector #429 – Pinkie Pie #23” also by DashieSparkle, “Pinkie Party” by AxumGR, “Pinkie Pie” by EmberFiremane, “Pinkie Pie – Half-Hiding” by GeoNine, and finally “Pinkie Pie Vectoring Herself” by VladimirMacHolzraum. Follow the links to see what episodes they were pulled from.

And finally, Hock Fetlock was the subject of a hoofball trading card that Spike wanted in “The Cutie Map – Part One”.

If I got any of the above wrong well I’m sorry—I can only feel your millions of eyes staring at me, nothing more. Pinkie’s the one who can actually look back at all of you, and I refuse to believe most of what she tells me she sees.

I told you that you shouldn’t have read this, Starlight.

“…Alright, you win, Maud.

“The most nightmare-inducing part is that I almost remember who ‘Meghan McCarthy’ and ‘M. A. Larson’ are.”

Comments

[Zero Moment]

The name of chapter 5 should be spelled Fluorite, unless you're doing a baking pun.

[McPoodle]

8804778

You're right--fixed.

[forbloodysummer]

Interesting story! Well done for carrying off Maud perspective for so long

[i_am_the_jam]

So there was no telescope or binoculars?

[FanOfMostEverything]

Fantastic work all around. The entire story is a great character study of Maud by proxy, outting both her thought process and self-image on display. No wonder she didn't want Starlight to see it. And the chapter ttiles work on multiple levels: Not only does the Maud in the story have to face ever harder social challenges as time goes on (and major kudos to her for taking only one loop to actually carry out her mission!) but it gets harder for author Maud as Starlight goes through the story, dreading what she'll think of each successive chapter more and more.

Thank you very much for a gripping read.

(Also, my vote's for Rose Hardness Scale, after Cloudy's grandmother Rose Quartz.)

[LackLustre]

Psst you forgot to mark your story as completed.

[McPoodle]

8806109

I believe the point of a cover illustration is to encapsulate the emotions the whole story will leave in the prospective reader, similar to how many comic book covers illustrate scenes that never happen in the story, or how "The Best of All Possible Worlds" does not in fact feature a watch with Celestia as a gear floating in intergalactic space.

In this case, I am smooshing together the scene where Maud sees Rainbow Dash fall out of the sky and the scene when she's in Cloudsdale trying to spy on the race into a single image that can be easily seen in less than 250x250 pixels. Without the telescope, there's no possible way that you'd be able to tell that the pair of blue pixels in the corner is actually Rainbow Dash--try clicking on that image to get to the DeviantArt original to see what I mean. Now if the only reason you wanted to read this story was to get a description of how optical devices work with absurdly-big pony eyes, then I'm sorry I disappointed you.

I'd be interested to know if there's any particular scene in this story that you (or anybody else) feels would make for a better illustration.

I do hope you don't think I'm lashing out at you--I honestly had a really hard time coming up with a cover illustration this time around, especially given my limited artistic skills.

[McPoodle]

8806745

Oops! I hope changing the status just now informs anybody putting the story on their "Read Later" lists...

[i_am_the_jam]

It's not that the cover art needs to be changed, the thing is that it just seemed logical for Maud to first try to get a closer look at Cloudsdale to see what was happening, I really was expecting her to get a telescope or binoculars.

But then, this is her story.

[Alondro]

And so we see that Maud has 4th Wall-destroying powers equivalent to Freakazoid's.

[Orbiting Kettle]

This was truly a lovely character study of both Maud and Starlight, and a fun adventure on the top. You even captured the Pie's tendency to break brains and reality and keep it charming instead of obnoxious.

I'm starting to suspect that the tradition of restraint the older ones observe is a carefully crafted safeguard against themselves.

[Alondro]

8812822 You ain't seen NUTHIN' yet!

Or apparently a good many of my comments since 2011.

[Hay Omelette]

I enjoyed this. Their conversation is laid back, it's about deeply personal things and hypothetical nothings all at once, and it reminds me of real conversations gone by. Nice work; thank you for the tale.

[Kris Overstreet]

I use " Hay-Mows Scale."

[AleaJactaEst]

Actually really liked it, huh.

[Zubric]

You captured maud very well. It’s was a goof read