Maud Pie's not like most ponies. That's okay. She has a wonderful Ma and Pa, a sister coarser than sandstone but who still gets her, and she has rocks. Rocks make sense, unlike ponies. Rocks always tell you everything about them from the outside.
This unicorn filly is the opposite of making sense. She's dirty and hungry. She prefers to talk about Maud over herself, something nopony else does around Maud for long. And despite her age, she doesn't have a cutie mark.
Still, Maud's not one to look some gift quartz in the mouth. Maybe this stranger can help her. Herself too, for Maud's idea involves rocks. And rocks always cheer Maud up.
This story was written as a gift for darkcyan as a part of Jinglemas 2023. Happy Hearth's Warming!
Chapters (1)
I can safely say that it was not, but also that it was a delightful surprise indeed!
Maud's voice here was great, her observations-without-understanding-the-full-picture of Starlight were very well done, and although you don't mention it explicitly in your author's notes, I also thought you did a fantastic job with the Pie family as a whole; we see very little of them in canon and what is there tends to be somewhat dour and opaque, the care mostly visible in the negative space, and I like how even though Maud sees things differently, she still sees the love her family has for her and each other very clearly -- and her family sees and accommodates her, too.
Just made me genuinely happy, and the entire conversation between Maud and Pa was honestly one of my favorite scenes in the fic; I love how it works on both an in-story level (with Maud getting the reassurance she needs) and on a meta level of establishing how this is a family that could lovingly raise Pinkie despite how superficially different they are.
And I know I haven't talked about Starlight at all yet, but I thought she was also great here -- a natural extension of what we see of filly Starlight in canon, with all of her anxieties and misconceptions, yet also with the same good heart that couldn't let Maud be seriously hurt when she had the power to stop it (and who was pretty easily bullied into cleaning up the kitchen
). I thought for a bit mid-fic that you'd be going in an AU direction with Starlight having found in Maud another early friend who could help her get past her misconceptions -- but I think I like it as a deepening of both of their canon histories -- showing the roots, as you mention in your Author's Note -- even more.
Also
Is this Boulder? I hadn't ever really thought about where Boulder came from before, either, but it feels appropriate somehow if he were also to have come from this chance meeting.
Anyway, tl;dr: this was great, I had a lot of fun reading it, and I hope you're as happy with your gift as I was with mine! Happy Jinglemas!
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They do tend to be gimmicks in canon – Amish Parents, Abrasive Eldest Sibling, Monotone Atypical Divergent Pony, Fluttershy crossed with Big Mac – so it can be tricky to show care while remaining true to those aspects. Being honest, that was one reason why the rest of the Pies are mostly at the margins in this fic (besides your requested duo, of course
), to get it across from just a little bit that I could revise and make sure I didn't screw up. That, and not wanting to muck up Igneous' Old English – one scene with him I could handle. On the other hand, bookending the fic with scenes with Limestone and Igneous was there from the start, and the former in particular did energise me. I don't know if I'll ever feel motivated to do anything with the Pie family again – I need lots of external motivation to write anything outside of my comfort zone – but Li'l Limey* did surprise me quite a bit.
* Limey was going to be Maud's affectionate (?) nickname for Limestone that Limestone would grudgingly put up with, but it didn't feel right wherever I tried putting it in. Also, she ain't British.
All about the layers! You know, if one doesn't take Pinkie's recollection in "The cutie Mark Chronicles" of there being no smiling or talking literally. Tis memory, where we heighten the extremes on both sides.
I did worry this connection to Pinkie's future, and Maud's future rapport with her, wouldn't work as well once I had to veto Pinkie & Marble being born offpage during the fic in favour of the pregnancy just being confirmed, due to Pinkie's birthday not being in winter as depicted in "Party of One". Glad that still rang true!
Starlight has always utterly believed in what she's doing and that it will help other ponies. I did want it to be ambiguous whether Starlight could have lifted/levitated Maud at the bottom of the quarry were it not for the danger of the fall – cutie mark experiences do sometimes bring out potential ponies otherwise don't reach for years thereafter, as we've seen.
You can't not be the younger sister to Limestone and not pick up a thing or two.
Even as little fillies, those Pie sisters can be forceful. Though Starlight being an absolute bundle of nerves helped.
I actually had a stance to not have everything about Adult Maud be present at this young an age. It's the main reason behind her just collecting lots of different rocks – a childlike "more, More, MORE!", even in her monotone way – and in the future, she will mellow to keeping those that matter to her.
As to whether this particular rock she found on this day is Boulder?
Up to the reader!
Glad you liked it, considering how dramatic and bittersweet and melancholy much of it is! Was worried about how that would go over.
Eeeee this was so good! What a lovely and compassionate portrayal of Maud's autism, Starlight's insecurity, and Limestone just being worst pony.
I actually never even noticed that Starlight didn't give her name at any point.
I had to look up aragonite to check that it's a real rock, which it is. Was it also a nod to a certain Fimfic author? :)
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And eeee! This comment made my day.
I am surprised at how the quasi-tragic, bittersweet and melancholy angles at play here haven't rubbed anyone the wrong way. But comments like this make me think that genuine affection for the characters, and a desire for the best for them, can carry the story and the reader through some turbulent and borderline-sad patches.
That, or the fact Maud doesn't understand blunts the elements' impact, in which case I just shot myself in the foot with the approach here.
It is deliberately vague what kind of neurodiversity Maud has, and not just for it being impractical to state it in the story. But hey, if the fan theory people have off the show is that she's autistic, it stands to reason one would think the same from her portrayal here!
Given your love for her, I presume you mean "Best worst pony".
She does do her fair share that's right over the fic, and contrary to Maud's thoughts, was going to come back for her to field inspect later. She knows better than to break a Pie Sister Promise (which may or may not be a precursor to a more well-known variant 
).
Just be glad I had the good sense to revise her backstory squabble with Maud from a deliberate shove to an accidental shove off stumbling. The original would have made it her fault the syenite ended up on the ledge, and subsequently, her fault for what almost happened to Maud and what did happen to Starlight.
You were fully invested in the story then!
Unlike my other "invisible character quirk" for Vinyl in New Wave of the Frozen Variety, this was actually meant to be something the reader did notice, though not on the level of Maud asking and Starlight sidestepping it, that would have been too obvious. Just Maud finding it tricky to latch onto and keep info that isn't rock-related, and her relative inexperience with unicorns meaning that label did the trick. That, and kids in general can go longer in a conversation without asking for the other's name – hence why Starlight didn't and we get several written attempts at what she heard Limestone call Maud before settling on her original-as-written-in-the-show-scripts spelling (possibly my favourite inside joke
).
Let's be glad the "places in Equestria are analogous to North America, and places beyond it correspond to the rest of the world" fan take is firmly behind us, for otherwise, some may take objection to putting a mineral that, while found elsewhere in the world, is most common in its type location within Spain.
Maybe.
Maybe it was just one that leapt out when reading about rocks as having a good ring to it, and I only noticed the nod after the fact. 
Maybe it was a little from Column A, a little from Column B.
I love this take on filly Starlight - the time between Sunburst's cutie mark and what we see of Starlight in her village is an intriguing gap in her story and you did an absolutely wonderful job with it! Really great portrayals and explorations of both characters :)
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A little-known fact is that the early scripts for "The Cutie Map" outright specified Starlight to be elderly, then middle-aged*. That was rescinded by the final draft to not specify her age at all (I'm guessing either because Hasbro prefers youthful ponies without age signifiers so kids can more easily project onto them, or because DHX found it harder to get across in design), but I have latched onto her being in the range of a decade older than the Mane 6 as a result. It just makes sense, by her attitude, demeanour, way of speaking and manestyle in Season Five. Plus, the notion that she was rooted in her vendetta against cutie marks for longer than the dozen-odd years if she is the same "young adult" age as Twilight and co. is more poignant. What with all the studying and self-training she would have done.
This story isn't that: it's just an early snapshot of one of the earlier stepping stones she would have had from moving past just wallowing in denial. But I had all the above aspects in mind, and they certainly coloured the margins of how Starlight was written.
* Other scripts HAVE had such details survive: Legend of Everfree had Timber Spruce aged 16 and Gloriosa Daisy aged 21.
I actually locked Starlight's part and characterisation quite early, once revolving the story around her getting her cutie mark sprung to mind. Maud was the one who required more effort to pin down. As fits, being the perspective character and all.
Anyway, delighted you liked it so much, thank you!