Being a rock farmer is simple. You just have to move and break rocks. Couldn't be any more complicated than that. Someday Limestone Pie is going to be as good at it as Papa! Absolutely nothing can threaten this.
Nothing, that is, except Great Uncle Holder Cobblestone and his stupid boulder.
A cutie mark story for everyone's favorite grouchy pony.
Slightly AU because I altered the history of the Pie Farm a bit, but I was convinced by one of my pre-readers that the AU tag wasn't warranted. We shall see!
All my thanks go to NumberFifth and Serketry for their pre-reading, editing, and plot suggestions. Seriously, it helped a lot.
Cover art belongs to Aureai. Tried to get permission but received no reply. Will change it if they ever ask.
Chapters (1)
Oh wow, that was a quick turnaround. Reading!
Don't know if you'll find it much improved, but I did try to take a lot of what we discussed into consideration.
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Yeah, there's a marked improvement.
Yoooooooo it's out! Glad to be a part of this project, minuscule as my contribution may have been. Anything to bring more Limey into the world.
Thanks for writing, and for letting me pre-read!
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Glad to have you! You were more help than you might think.
Oh, hey, this is a thing!
I've been on a work-related involuntary hiatus from writing for the last few months, but Serketry has been keeping me posted about this project. Now that it's up, I had to stick my head out of the mire of Powerpoint slides that currently entraps me and give it a read.
Overall, I like the concept, although there's a few things that stuck out to me.
In and of itself, "I will cede the farms to the pony who is willing to abandon the possibility of acquiring all of them, to make sure that his own farm doesn't get neglected" is decent logic. However, this is a test with a nonzero risk of causing catastrophe. What if Igneous tried to destroy the rock with explosives or something, and there was an accident? Great-Uncle Holder would be in serious trouble if somepony managed to get hurt or killed because of his plan. That's especially significant since he seems to already have made up his mind that Igneous is the right pony for the job? I might be reading his statements to Limestone a bit too literally/honestly, but if he really has decided, then all this distress he's causing isn't necessary.
Additionally, I feel like we.... kind of missed the stakes, here? Like, I thought it'd be fun to see more of the other brothers and why it'd be a bad thing for them to end up in charge; have all the contenders meet up in a neutral location at the start, and give them some characterization to make them easy to dislike. As it stands right now, they're very abstract. In fact, currently we know so little about them, that Holder has no way of knowing if they also abandoned their rocks, or even also broke into them somehow.
Finally, I realize that all of the information about these Chaos Stones is being filtered through the doubly-unreliable narration of Holder talking to Limestone, but if it's really possible for chemistry-set acids to erode them, I cannot imagine Limestone is literally the only pony to have tried that. So the claim that "only Princess Celestia is able to damage them" doesn't really hold water.
All of that said, though, I really like the concept of this being how Limestone got her cutie mark. Getting into the voice of an eight-year-old is surprisingly difficult, but this story is able to pull it off, and I particularly liked this portrayal of Baby Maud as essentially a chia pet that blinks. This is another story where my ultimate gripe is that I am disappointed there was not more of it, and if I want more of it then that means it's fundamentally worth reading.
Congratulations: You have just turned Limestone into the best Pie of all.
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In my defense, we're seeing everything through Limestone's eyes and I intentionally tried to make her an unreliable narrator, so I wouldn't hold her account completely at face value. That being said, her solution (pun not intended) was not part of a child's chemistry set. If it had been she wouldn't have been scouring technical books from the local library.
As to Holder's Big Plan, yeah, it is a little ridiculous. I wanted it to be, at least a little. But you're right, finding a way to get the cousins there in the early scenes would have been a good idea. I wouldn't have wanted them to be unlikeable or even bad ponies, just not equipped/interested in owning the farms. But from Limestone's perspective? Yeah, they might have come out looking like "bad guys".
Glad you enjoyed the overall concept, though! That's good enough for me.
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You say that like it wasn't already so.
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I blame her notable absence in Bulletproof Heart for that.
So really, if there was ever doubt that she was the best Pie, it's your fault.
Apology accepted.
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Rarity wears her jacket. She's there in spirit.
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I could totally see that working; the whole rock thing is kind of a formality and the stakes come from a combination of Limestone's misinterpretation of things, and Igneous's pride and desire to crack the thing for its own sake. It'd also be funny to have, at the end, the others show up and congratulate him and confirm to Limestone, who previously thought of them as Captain Planet villains, that no, they don't actually have any interest in making her family work 12-hour shifts in branded slave collars if one of them ended up owning the farm.
:O! Wow, I've been craving Limestone fics recently and seeing one of my fav authors post one is surreal. Haven't read it yet, but I'm sure its just as excellent as anything else of yours I've read. Hope to see more of everyone's favorite (pony) tsundere from you.
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Yeah, well, it's still your fault.
I for one thought this an amusing look at the world through grouchy-pony's eyes. Limestone is slow to trust, and in the height of her childhood arrogance had a fear/hatred for anything she couldn't understand/explain. That said, she'd be the staunchest of allies, the sort to say "if you want my sisters/family/farm, you'll have to go through me first" and would give everything she had and more to fight whatever it was that she saw as a threat.
Holder's boulder was always a bit of a mysterious non-entity in canon, beyond it being perhaps an unusually large and oddly shaped rock, we were never really given anything definitive about it. Heck the Pie family wasn't ever really covered all that well beyond the one or two episodes and Pinkie's cutie mark story (?). I get the feeling that the whole "Thou art welcome to ourn humble farm" thing was designed solely to be a humorous counter to Pinkie's extravagance. Doing a bit of looking, one popular fan theory is that maybe the boulder is/was a petrified egg (perhaps of draconic heritage) or some other ancient relic.
All in all, a fun narrative that while perhaps never going to the world-building extremes of BPH, was a nice treat.
This is a great destiny for Limestone to have, and it was a joy to see how their family functions with a unique love all their own.
Finally got around to this, and what a treat! The adorably stubborn child saves the day and makes her family proud, even though she wasn't exactly supposed to.
That was a good story.
If there was ever one negative lesson I believed children could take away from FiM, it’s eye-rolling. Sure it’s super emotive and translates well from big pony eyes, but in the real world it can develop into an action that is akin to using cursing as sentence enhancers.
Also, is there a character who rolls her eyes more than Twilight Sparkle?
Maybe Rainbow Dash, but I’d describe her more common reaction as a ‘looking off up-and-sideways’; which is also kinda rude? Don’t use performance enhancers, kids.
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Starlight Glimmer, I bet.
A lovely story, thank you for it. Baby Maud is best filly.
Well now if this wasn't adorable as all get-out.
Great story, PaulAsaran.
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
This was such an excellent read! What a wonderful origin story not just for Limestone, but also Holder's Boulder and the connection shared by the two. I just adore how much the love of Limestone's family shines through, the way they've accepted and accommodated Limestone's inherently touchy nature. How Limestone's burning temperament just won't allow her to rest, even when that would be the best thing for her. How the force of her anger can be channeled into passion and ambition. All the characters are so well-realized and Great Uncle Holder was a ton of fun. I loved it ^^