Metamorphic

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Maud Pie is a simple pony in a complicated world filled with nearly-impossible-to-understand creatures. Why don't others just say what they mean instead of using all those unnecessary words? Why don't they understand her when she says exactly what she means? If she tries to provide proper context to help them, they get bored. Still, she tries her best to be clear and make herself understood, even in the face of questions whose context is most of her life and the geological history of the world. In those little pauses before she speaks, Maud thinks fast. This is one such question.

Proofread by the wonderful Scribblestick

Glorious artwork and many others are from SambaNeko

Winner of Bicyclette's Maud contest!

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Comments ( 8 )

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Gavier

Gavier #1 · Mar 28th, 2022 · · ·

A Maud writing contest? It seems Heart's Warming came early this year!

I really loved this story, wish you the best of lucks on the contest

“That boulder is no common stone,” Igneous said, following her gaze briefly, “buta great amplifier of earth magic, hence its presence in the dragon’s hoard.

You missed a space on the "but a" btw

Gnarlwood

Gnarlwood #2 · Mar 28th, 2022 · · ·

11194216
By all means, check out the other stories as well. I'm glad you enjoy such things, and thank you for your reply, and the correction, I shall attend to that at once.

Diamond Sparkle

Diamond Sparkle #3 · Mar 29th, 2022 · · ·

Your Maud is so well written. 10/10

Gnarlwood

Gnarlwood #4 · Mar 29th, 2022 · · ·

11195357
You are kind to say so, thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.

new55

new55 #5 · Mar 30th, 2022 · · ·

That was a good story.

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #6 · Apr 29th, 2022 · · ·

“Hi!” the pegasus said brightly. “You’re Pinkie’s sister, right? We heard you were visiting and wanted to ask you how you got your cutie mark.”

i really like this frame story! it just makes too much sense as a "missing scene" from the show itself

The time was barely an eyeblink compared even to the pebbles under her hooves. And so she remembered.

i love how Maud's timescale of reference is instinctively geologic, augh. it's such a great aspect of her character to explore, and how it affects her thinking and the way she moves through the world. i've written it into my own fics and it is just so great!

Limestone was angry with her for taking so long to think about how to answer questions and for never being able to think of anything good to say. She called Maud slow once, and even though afterwards was one of the only times she’d apologized for being mean, it still hurt to think about.

aww, i can totally imagine Limestone having this interaction with Maud in their foalhood! come to think of it, we really don't see them interacting much in the show itself!

“Hi!” Pinkie said, smiling at her. Maud smiled back, though hers was much smaller, nearly invisible. Pinkie never needed her to use words. She liked Maud just for being Maud. She never pushed.

best sister friends forever!

“Sometimes I think words are like that,” Pinkie went on, picking up a few pebbles out of the cart and squinting at them. “There’s lots of them and they’re all different, but most of them all end up saying the same thing, just like how all your different rocks are in that wagon.”

i love the way you portrayed Maud's internal reasons for her laconic way of speaking, which feels very real and lived-in. and linking her love of rocks to it is a very interesting idea!

Maud could stand Limestone being mean or Pinkie being Pinkie or Marble being afraid most of the time because she knew what was underneath all of it. She knew who they were. She didn’t know who any of these fillies and colts were and she didn’t think they could or would tell her. They weren’t satisfied when she did manage to answer their questions, they wanted to hear her repeat the same thing in lots of different ways, to use more words than she needed to. They didn’t like it when she didn’t want to talk about things that didn’t matter to her. She had taken to finding places to be alone during recess and lunch, usually outside where there were plenty of interesting rocks.

oof, i can really feel this.

They haven’t started anything yet, I can’t hit them, they’ll just blame me but they can’t have it they won’t have it it’s mine mine mine it’s the only thing in this school I’ve ever wanted but I can’t start the fighting. I have to give up something. They want this spot and the rock. That’s an easy choice.
“You can have the spot,” Maud finally said. “But I keep the rock.”

ah, love it when the anxiously-but-logically-thinking-through-a-social-situation thing bears fruit in a good response!

Then he jumped as an outraged shout of you little sneaks! came from the far corner of the schoolyard, followed by a growing scuffle. He and Evening Star looked over to see Sun Break, wings beating madly as she desperately tried and failed to hold Limestone back.

augh, this is so Limestone, i love it!

Maud was standing on her hind legs, holding the entire rock, at least as big as she was, over her head. The entire schoolyard was staring now, even Limestone had come to a stop, with Sun Break’s wings drooping as she too gaped up at the sight.
“Where…” Maud grunted. “…should I…put it?”

love the implications this has for how earthpony magic and strength might work!

Her sister was smiling, incredibly wide, and mostly without the evil glare that went with it.

hehehe, loving that "mostly"

I wish it was small enough to take home with me.

foreshasdowing!

Limestone, the only one of the sisters who had heard it (until now, it seemed), had told the other three privately that the story wasn’t worth waiting for but the destination was.

i get the feeling Maud will be more equipped to appreciate the story than Limestone was!

“You would not think one grain of sand matters much, but when it is stuck in your eye, it becomes the entire world,” he answered, resuming his steady pace down the path. “Your connection to the earth flows through you. It cannot be opened until you understand how it works.”

ooh, love this bit of rock pony wisdom

“Our work matters that much?”
Igneous nodded. “Aye, that it does. If thou dost wonder why I and thy mother did not tell thee and do not tell thy sisters even of that until thou art ready, know that we merely seek to give all of thee a proper appreciation for the labor rather than the rewards of that labor.”

i swear, Holder's Boulder and everything about the Pie Family rock farm in "Hearthbreakers" (crystals growing out of the ground randomly? what?) were just bait for fanfiction writers to elaborate on, and i always love to see it! this was also a great way to tie in the theme of earthponies as a tribe being overlooked, which Maud clearly notices is A Thing given her standup routine.

Taking a key from his hat, Humble unlocked the door and tugged it open.

wait, is there a third pony here? or does this link back with Maud remarking that Pinkie's name was Pinkie when talking to her, but not always?

Pinkamena is different, she takes after my side of the family, from when Humble Pie defied his family’s tradition of baking to marry into our line, but thou seemst to take after the Quartzes of old.

so that explains the rock farm family having the surname of Pie!

“Thou seemst to have skipped from the beginning to the end of this particular lesson,” he murmured, his almost-smile growing wider. “Yes, in the end, it matters not what anypony thinks of the earth. It matters what the earth thinks of us. Even rocks of the same type are not perfectly alike. How the earth flows through thee depends on thee alone and thou art much more complex than any rock. How thou interacts with it is important. It gives thee purpose and meaning in your life.”

and the way Igneous talks about the earth really feels more like a religious worldview than anything, fascinating stuff!

“I ask thy pardon, Maudalina,” he said, although his tone was a warning.

always love when fics reference Maud's long name

Reason after reason piled atop each other until it seemed she would never be able to sort through them all and get to the center of the matter. She briefly despaired before trying another tactic and considering just part of the question. Why was I thinking about everything? I mostly think about rocks anyway, maybe that’s close enough? That one’s much easier to answer, but is it the right answer?
Maud paused for a good five seconds before answering. “I wanted to know.”

and this ties back to the pebble-cart metaphor from earlier! loving the craftsmareship in this character arc

How can anypony not see how amazing and beautiful it all is? She looked, really looked into the vastness of geologic history and felt her soul shudder with awe, wonder, terror, and excitement. A small part of her mind whispered that she needed to go and tell her father what she’d realized, but for once in her life she was tired of waiting.

and oof, this does a great job in capturing that feeling of an intimate encounter with that which is so much greater than ourselves. the difference between knowing abstractly that the universe is much too vast and complex to relate to on our scale, and feeling the awe and wonder that comes with trying to absorb it all the same.

“Nana Pinkie said you’re the most talented pony she’s ever seen and also one of the stupidest, to try something like that alone!”

this made me do a double-take, since i would have expected an OC to be mentioned before being referenced, but i found out that she was mentioned once in one of the episodes? haha, i'm a fake fan i guess!

and it's nice to see a scene of Maud interacting with Marble, completing the set of sisters.

Reaching down, she picked it up, hearing a tiny, musical note from within, a child of the greater song, just like her.
“Your name is Boulder,” she said. “After your parent.”
She felt…complete. And, looking back, she saw a brand-new cutie mark on her flank, a grey diamond to denote the beauty in rock and stone that she, among few others, could see, understand, and love.

augh, the origin of Boulder, a rite of passage, and her cutie mark story, all in one! love how this finale brings together all the lines laid down earlier: the cutie mark from the frame story, Maud's earlier magical encounter with the boulder, her awe at geologic time. it also makes me wonder why the origin story for Boulder she began to tell Rarity in "The Gift of the Maud Pie" is so different from this, but that also fits in perfectly with one of my favorite headcanons for Maud, which is that she really enjoys trolling other ponies with her deadpan wit. augh, i love her!

“Do you think that if we thought a lot about rocks, we could get cutie marks?” the earth pony put in hopefully.
Pause.
“Maybe. But probably not.”
A chorus of groans rose into the air.

perfectly Maud, and perfectly the CMC's reaction to Maud. a perfect end!

I just like Maud Pie and all the ways that she's 'different,' as I tend towards the literal-minded myself.

i, too, also just like Maud Pie and all the ways that she's 'different'! she was one of the first non-main characters to really stand out to me as having a lot more depth to explore than her surface reading as a one-note character, and this fic was a great showcase of that. thank you for it!

Gnarlwood

Gnarlwood #7 · Apr 30th, 2022 · · ·

11226240
Thank you very much for all of your kind words. If it was likable enough, then that's enough for me. To address a few of your remarks, the Humble thing is an error from an earlier draft. I stopped watching the show at the end of season 3 so I learn about later things through TV Tropes, like Maud's father's real name. Forgot to update it with the rest of the story. That's also how I came up with Nana Pinkie, never saw the episode, but she has a little entry on the TV Tropes page, so you're definitely not a fake fan! For the same reason, never saw 'The Gift of the Maud Pie,' hence the different Boulder origin.

And I appreciate the sentiment, I always enjoy it when other authors highlight minor characters, so I'm glad my own attempt was well enough.

Jedimk Pony

Jedimk Pony #8 · May 12th, 2022 · · ·

This was a great story!

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