Trixie comes to the rock farm of Marble and Limestone Pie, the only place she can find work after her humiliation against the Ursa Major
Well before Big Mac came to the Pie family rock farm, there was another pony who caught Marble Pie's eye. That pony was very different from Big Mac... and at the time, so was Marble Pie. But her oldest sister, Limestone, was there to watch and to worry.
Defensibly contains spoilers for S5E20, despite being set earlier in time than that episode. Cover picture by senseidezzy.
Limestone Pie, matriarch-in-training of the Pie clan, blinked at her baby sister. She wasn’t really a baby anymore—none of them were—but in any family of sufficient size, somepony had to be the baby, and so that honor fell to Marble Pie.
Marble stood behind the other end of their cart, hammer clasped in her two front hooves as they worked to convert it into a booth for market day. She wore her baby-blue dress with the rock-patterned hem, the one that had cost the family a month’s worth of rock sales income, but even Limestone had to admit it sometimes felt worth the money when she saw Marble smiling like that. Marble was the beauty of the family, with her loving purple eyes and her stylish forelock, and any profits went to her. Limestone had accepted this long ago.
But all the love for her sister in the world couldn’t make her lie. She shook her head. “Not many.”
“But…!” Marble stopped in mid pound of the hammer to stare back at Limestone. “But we harvested the obsidian field this week, remember? Obsidian stones are so beautiful!”
“Yes, they are. But… they’re rocks.”
“Yes! We sell rocks.”
“No, we try to sell rocks. There’s a big difference.”
Silence descended over the two sisters for a while, broken only by the regular pounding of their hammers as they rearranged the last few boards of the booth/cart. Market didn’t start for another seven minutes, and all they had left to do was get the awning out of the back and hang it up, so they had plenty of time. Limestone had been working market day for many years, ever since Pa had hurt his leg on Shining Pass one day; she’d kept it up even after he’d recovered, finding that she liked the opportunity to see how other ponies lived, even if it was only for a few hours. Her oldest sister, Maud, had helped her for a while, but now she was at school, and little Marble was better with customers anyway.
Igneous Rock and Daughters: Fresh Rocks. The text on the awning was simple and blockish, painted in the same simple rock tones as the farm itself. There was no use gaudying up the sign or pretending they were selling anything more exciting than they really were. Rocks were honest; that was Pa’s philosophy, one which each of his daughters strived in her own way to uphold. Pinkie and Maud had left, knowing they were destined for things outside the farm. Limestone had stayed, knowing their parents needed her help. And Marble…
“I don’t know, I think this could be a good day! Remember Mrs. Plumsweet? She was visiting her family last week, but she should be here today, and she loves rocks!”
“She feels sorry for us, that’s all. She sees two girls standing at their booth every week, surrounded by ponies buying groceries and trying to sell them rocks instead. She gives us money so we won’t be completely miserable.”
“I’m not miserable, though. I like rocks! I like selling rocks. And even when I do get tired of rocks, I can always remember that someday the Pairing Stone will pick me and then I’ll be married.”
Limestone only shook her head. “Push up your side of the awning a bit more. It’s not level.”
There was Marble’s honesty: she wasn’t miserable. Pinkie had discovered parties one day, and somehow her twin had inherited a little of that happiness, even years after they’d both been born. Marble’s was a happiness in spite of her life, her family, her occupation, and her future, but somehow she maintained it, farming with a lighter step than Limestone ever managed and greeting their few market day customers with cheery familiarity. Limestone would never understand her sister. But she would continue to work, day and night, to make sure she always had some reason to smile.
The last ties of the awning were fastened, and the sisters retreated to arrange their obsidian stones to capture the most attention. They had twelve with them that week—not a great harvest, but the weather had been bad lately, and anyway obsidian captured higher prices than most of their wares—but a three by four grid was too simple, so they spent the remaining minutes trying out different patterns and seeing how this or that stone caught the light. Times like this, Marble had said once, were when she liked rocks the most: playing with them, making them look beautiful, not just worrying about when and how to get them out of the ground. Limestone had no strong feelings on that subject, but as ever she appreciated the chance to make Marble happy, so rearranging stones it was.
“Cherries! Fresh cherries, right off the tree!”
“Bread! Baked bread, get it while it’s hot! Free star cookie for the first twenty customers!”
“Dresses! Fancy dresses, look like the Canterlot nobility for a fraction of the price!”
Market day began at precisely noon with the typical hawking of wares from all corners, and Limestone turned to Marble, gesturing for her to do the honors. Marble smiled and cleared her throat.
“Rocks! Volcanic glass formed from felsic lava, black without crystals! Authentic rocks, lifted out of the earth and sold at bargain prices! Not food! Rocks!”
The obsidian did not sell well—even Mrs. Plumsweet only bought one, claiming the color didn’t match her décor—and Limestone spent market day staring helplessly at all the more popular stands and wondering how it would feel to make something that other ponies actually liked. Their neighboring booth sold turnips and was hardly the most popular place in the market, but the good-natured stallion running it still racked up seventeen different customers, most of whom bought more than one turnip during their visit. Then those seventeen customers hurried on through the market, barely stopping to so much as glance at Igneous Rock and Daughters: Fresh Rocks. By 3 PM, Limestone had stopped even looking up from her hooves when ponies passed their booth, and by 4 PM, Marble had given up nagging her about it. When the final bell of the afternoon struck and they started turning their booth back into a cart for the two hour walk back to the farm, neither sister had much to say. The white-coated pegasus mare running the market exit gave them a sympathetic smile as they trudged off, but Limestone couldn’t find it in herself to return it.
They stopped to rest about halfway through the pass, near the turn where Pa had hurt his leg once, and Limestone stared up at the peak of the western hill. The sun was setting behind it already, surrounding the rocky top with brilliant orange and purple sky, and beams of light hit the stones all around them and lanced off in a thousand different directions. It was a beautiful sight, and Limestone could see why old Holder Cobblestone had named this place Shining Pass and founded the farm nearby. Rocks had been exciting and new to Equestria then, in a reunified world which could finally take time to think about questions other than where their next meal was coming from, which suddenly had time for the pretty things in life.
But rocks were heavy, and you needed a large number of them to make a really attractive front yard for yourself, but then they would get in the way of all the flowers. And Equestria did have so many ponies with gardening talents. So rocks had given way to flowers for home decoration, and now they were something you maybe took the family to see every once in a while, but certainly not a major commodity. Not anymore. Even the great ‘pet rock’ boom that had brought in so much money in Limestone’s youth had been over for years.
Limestone turned to her sister. “There has to be more to rocks than rocks,” she said, and Marble laughed a little, because they both knew Limestone had said that exact line many times. Never within earshot of their parents, of course, but out here in the wilderness, with no one around but Marble and Limestone themselves, it was easy to… think. To dream.
“Plenty of ponies still make their livings on rocks,” said Marble, the next line of their familiar conversation. “Remember the famous Sandstone Sisters of Saddle Arabia. They produce the walls for half the capital’s houses, and their queen visits their quarries personally every year.”
“Mass production. We don’t do that.”
“Harry Winstallion and his diamond dogs work a mine twice as deep as Cloudsdale is high, and they sell to all the jewelry makers south of San Palomino.”
“Still mass production. You know Pa wouldn’t hear of us selling anything that isn’t hoof-grown, hoof-picked, and hoof-polished. We’re stuck selling to the local market until the day he dies.”
Marble looked up at the sky for a while. “And then?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“And then what? You’re gonna be in charge of the family someday, right?”
“I guess so.” Limestone bit her lip. “Not for a while. Pa’s still strong, and Ma too, and I’ve got you to worry about until the Pairing Stone finds somepony for you. It’s good old traditional rock farm life for me for a while yet, just like Holder Cobblestone always wanted.”
“But someday…? When I’m gone, and Ma and Pa are gone, and Maud has her degree, and Pinkie’s… whatever? When there’s nopony left for you to take care of?”
Limestone smiled coldly. “When that day comes, I’m going to leave this place and never look back.”
The next week Mrs. Plumsweet was out of town again and the sisters couldn’t make a single sale, which hurt the more because they had gone there to sell shards of limestone. Marble had given one stallion a truly inspiring explanation of all limestone’s fascinating properties, but he’d kept asking why it didn’t have any pretty sand in it, and wasn’t interested in their explanations that he was thinking of dirty limestone and theirs was only the purest quality stone possible. But he left, and nopony else was interested enough to stop at their booth before closing time at 5.
“There has to be more to rocks than rocks,” Limestone said a while later, as the familiar rock silo came into view over a bump in the road.
“Plenty of ponies still make their livings on rocks,” said Marble immediately, before stopping to decide on her next example. “What about… Sledge Hummer, the Singing Stonemason? His mines provide foundations for half the houses on the east coast, and I used to get his newsletter every month when we had regular mail delivery.”
“You only got his newsletter because you thought he was cute.”
Marble shrugged. “He is cute. You never know, if the Pairing Stone is slow enough I might just get married all on my own.”
“What, to Sledge Hummer?”
“Oh, he doesn’t even know I exist. And I don’t think I want to marry another rock pony anyway if I can help it. “
Limestone looked quizzically at her sister. This was not a usual turn in the conversation. “You’re supposed to be the one who actually likes rocks,” she said carefully. Besides Maud, of course, but Maud had always been different.
“I do! I… guess I do. Maybe.”
Limestone stopped pulling the cart, and a second later Marble noticed and stopped walking. Limestone looked her baby sister over and frowned. Marble looked… unhappy. Tired, or worried about something, or sick, she couldn’t tell, but definitely unhappier than usual. The farm had gone through rough financial patches before, Limestone remembered, but Marble hadn’t reacted this way on those other occasions. She’d stayed positive and helped the rest of the family to get back on track. So…
“What’s wrong, Marble? Moping and feeling tired of rocks is my thing.”
“Well…” Marble looked up at the sky, perhaps trying to guess how much time they had before the sun went down. Limestone waited patiently; there was no use trying to rush a rock farmer. “Well… how do you think the Pairing Stone works?”
“Huh? Magic, I think.”
“No! I mean, yes, of course. But from Ma and Pa’s stories, what do you think is actually going to happen to me? How does it work for us ponies?”
Limestone, who did not anticipate ever finding another pony so much as physically attractive, let alone romantically, hadn’t paid the most attention to the story of how their parents had met. Still, it did come up in connection with Marble increasingly often as her baby sister got older. “As they tell it… not very much, I guess,” she said. “One day you’re going to get some kind of calling to go meet somepony, and the stone will call him too. You and our parents will go meet him and his parents, and they’ll talk it over, and then you’ll get married. Right?”
“No.”
“…no?”
“No.” Marble sighed. “I thought all that too. But I talked to Ma this week. Did you know I’m actually older than she was when she and Pa got married? And, um… the Pairing Stone is actually more like the last step than the first.
“Now that Maud’s school is basically paying for itself this year, we don’t need to put the money Pinkie sends home into that anymore. So apparently, for months now, all our savings have been going into making a ‘dowry’ for me. That’s, um, a big sum of money that we’re going to offer along with me, so that somepony agrees to marry me. And at the last minute the Pairing Stone will decide whether the match is okay or not.”
Limestone stood very still, not trusting her legs to keep her upright if she tried moving them. She stared at Holder’s Bolder in the distance, that huge, ovoid symbol of all their family traditions. What other surprises was Holder, well, holding? “You’re saying,” she said slowly, not daring to look at Marble, “we’re going to pay somepony to accept you. Because we don’t think anypony would love you otherwise.”
“Not even that. We’re going to pay somepony’s parents… my new husband and I won’t even get any of the dowry to live on.”
“…I’m going to kill Pa.”
“Limestone, no!” There were suddenly hooves around her neck, but after a moment of panic, Limestone realized that Marble was only hugging her. She forced her front legs off the ground to return her baby sister’s embrace, because that was sure to fix her problems. Parents raising money to sell you? Don’t worry, Limestone will hug it all away! Feh.
“No,” Marble was saying, “don’t hurt him! It’s not his fault anyway, his or Ma’s. It’s just tradition!”
“Tradition.” Limestone did not think that was an adequate excuse for ruining her sister’s future. “So it’s Holder’s fault?”
“Oh, I don’t know whose fault it is and anyway that doesn’t matter!” Marble had buried her face in Limestone’s neck, and Limestone was alarmed to feel tears soaking into her coat. “Getting angry isn’t going to solve anything! We need to make things better, not get mad at each other.”
“Fine.” Limestone disengaged from the hug and readjusted the cart’s reins on her back, making ready to move. “So I’ll talk to Pa, without any arguing, and…”
“I’ll talk to them,” said Marble, and Limestone was so surprised that her baby sister had cut her off that she stopped and listened. “It’s my future, remember? My money, even? I want to be the one to talk to them about this.”
“But…” Limestone looked at Marble helplessly. “But I’m the eldest. I want to take care of you!”
Marble nodded, a bright fire ablaze in her purple eyes even as her tears still lingered. “I know... so I’ve got a job for you too. I want you to be happy again. I want us all to be happy again. I don’t care if we have to throw out the entire rock crop and replace it all with flowers… I want you to find a way to save the farm.”
“But our traditions…”
Marble Pie smiled at this. “Buck tradition.”
So Limestone tried. When they got back to the farm that day, neither sister breathed a word of their conversation to their parents; then, while Marble and Ma spent the next week in quiet conversation, Limestone roamed the rock fields, wondering what she could do to change their lives that Pa wouldn’t think was spitting on Holder’s grave or anything similar. She kicked at unharvested stones, stared listlessly into the barren distance, and even tried to sleep under the shadow of Holder’s Boulder, hoping their distant ancestor might somehow impart some words of advice to her. He did not. She spent a couple of hours poking through Pinkie’s supplies that they kept around for her visits, wondering if there was any money to be made in parties, but even if there was, Limestone had no idea how she would get started. Parties were not her special talent.
She considered putting aside her pride as the eldest and writing to her sisters for advice, but she doubted they would have anything useful to suggest. Pinkie had never understood rocks, and in the few years when she had lived on the farm with them, she’d felt even more miserable than Limestone did. She’d stayed only until Granny Pie had finally passed away. And Maud loved rocks, but that didn’t mean she understood how other ponies, ones who hadn’t grown up on a rock farm, related to them. No, whatever solution she found, Limestone decided she would need to think of it herself.
Of course, she’d already thought of a solution years ago: careful study of their surrounding lands, with Maud’s help while her sister had been only just beginning her studies, had revealed that they sat practically on top of an immense natural crystal depository. Ponies loved crystals. But she had failed to convince Pa to invest the money it would take to blast open an entrance to the depository, and he had never shown interest in reexamining the topic, so she would have to stick to ordinary rocks.
The answer finally came to her on Thursday evening while she lay on her back in the granite bed, staring up at the clouds shining with the sun’s light and waiting for the call to come in for stew. Sledge Hummer, Harry Winstallion, the Sandstone Sisters… yes, they worked in mass production, and that was too fundamental a transformation for Pa to ever accept. But they were able to afford those workers and quantities because they sold rocks and jewels to be used for specific purposes. Limestone couldn’t say with certainty what their occasional market day customers did with the Pie family rocks, but she assumed that outside of plain decorations, the likeliest use for individual specimens was as jewelry. But not many ponies were jewelers. So why couldn’t they cut out the middlemare and sell their rocks as jewelry directly?
Limestone couldn’t build up the nerve to bring her idea to Pa that evening, nor the next, but on Saturday, a few scant hours before she and Marble would need to go to bed in order to get to the market on time the next day, she called the family together for a meeting. She explained her plan, emphasizing that the rocks they harvested would be every bit as hoof-grown, -picked, and –polished as ever, and that they would only undergo one additional processing step before being brought to market. She laid rough concept drawings out on the dining room table and mentioned that she would be happy to incorporate designs from the rest of her family if they were interested. She gave a rough financial breakdown of the cost of materials she would need for setting their stones into and promised she would be willing to pay for them from her own personal savings if the family insisted. Then at last she sat down, sweating, and held an equally nervous Marble Pie’s hoof while their parents spoke with each other so quietly their daughters could not make out a word.
At last Igneous Rock Pie turned to her gravely. “If this be thine idea, thou hast our blessings to try.”
The next day at market, for the first time she could remember in years, Limestone abandoned their booth to Marble’s sole control and struck out among the rest of the sellers, finding and haggling for bits of gold and wire she could use over the coming week. Many of the ponies recognized her as one of “those poor rock girls” and agreed to give her discounts, and Limestone put away her shame and accepted. She returned to Igneous Rock and Daughters: Fresh Rocks practically overflowing with confused emotions and there found that Marble had somehow managed to sell half their basalt stock in her absence. Maybe, Limestone supposed, having her gloomy face behind the booth all the time was bad for business. But that was all going to change! She had her new supplies. She had the week ahead of her to make them work. And then… and then she would find out if her idea was any good.
The last of the moonstone necklaces, cut into the shapes of lilies and set in a gold border hung from wire, were sold just after 2 PM, less than halfway through market day, and Limestone turned to look at Marble as their last customers trotted away. Marble was smiling helplessly, tears in her eyes, and Limestone could feel the same expression on her own face as they hugged each other close for lack of words to describe their success. They had sold the necklaces for more bits than the basic rocks to begin with, wanting to cover the costs of labor and other materials, and they’d even raised their prices another two times over the course of the day, and yet each time their sales had if anything increased.
“You did it,” said Marble. “Limestone, you, you… yes! This is it! You’re going to be happy now!”
“It’s only the first day,” said Limestone quickly, but she didn’t believe the warning herself. Money! Ponies had finally valued her life’s work enough to give her money! They could make enough to let Marble to do anything she wanted with her life, maybe even tell Pinkie that she could stop sending so much home and save more for herself instead! Limestone wasn’t used to… well, hope, but it was a curiously infectious feeling.
Marble too seemed to have ignored Limestone’s warning, as if she was tapped directly into her sister’s thoughts. “Just think,” she said, “we could hire somepony else to work on the farm with us! Then Ma and Pa could relax more as they get older!”
“And if you do get married, I guess I’d have somepony around to talk to.”
“Well… we’ll see.” Marble frowned for a moment and looked away. “I’m working on that. But come on, Limestone, let’s go home and celebrate! Or do you want to leave the cart as a booth for a while longer, to get ponies looking forward to next week when we’ve got more stock?”
“No, no, let’s go. I want to see Pa’s face when we tell him the news!” Limestone hugged Marble again and looked up at the awning. “You never know, maybe someday we’ll buy a separate booth that rides in the back or something, so we don’t have to do turn the cart into a booth and back again every week…”
A stranger interrupted them. “Did somepony mention the need for help with a transforming cart?”
Limestone and Marble turned to face their new visitor. The mare—she’d had a mare’s voice—stood a few hoof-lengths away from their booth, wearing a large thick cloak that covered all of her save for her brilliant azure front legs. Her voice had sounded proud, though Limestone couldn’t help but identify a certain element of weariness there too—unless that was just Limestone’s own life’s weariness seeping into her perceptions.
Marble looked at her uncertainly before turning to the cloaked figure. “Um… I dunno if I’d really say we needed help. It’s more of a long term goal right now…”
“No worries!” The mare raised one of her azure legs to point toward the Pie sisters’ booth behind them, though this time Limestone noticed the leg was wobbling. “Trixie knows everything about carts! And you wanted to hire somepony for your farm, yes? Trixie can do anything!”
Again Marble and Limestone looked at each other, and this time Limestone tried speaking to the strange mare. “Who is this… Trixie?”
“You plebeians have never heard of the Great and Powerful Trixie!?”
Marble looked blank. “Um… no.”
“Sorry,” said Limestone.
“Oh,” said the mare, “thank goodness.” And then she collapsed to the ground.
There did not seem to be any way to wake the mare up again. Limestone was sent to find one of the ponies in charge of the market, and retrieved the pegasus mare who typically watched the exit, but she only said she didn’t think the market had any resources for fainted ponies. “It’s never been an issue,” she said. “We usually only get the happiest and healthiest ponies here.”
Limestone rolled her eyes. “Because anyone unhealthy knows you’d be no help?”
The pegasus stumbled in midstep. “Uh… I don’t know. Did you get a name? I could find a megaphone and see if anypony knows her?”
“Oh, yes. I think she called herself Trixie. The… grand, powerful Trixie? Something like that.”
“…ah.” An odd expression passed over the pegasus’s face, and she bit her lip for a few seconds before turning to look at Limestone. “I’ve heard of this Trixie,” she said. “If I were you, I would leave her where you found her and go home.”
At this the pegasus flew back to her post, and Limestone returned to Marble and the sleeping Trixie, confused but also beginning to feel quite angry. What could this pony have possibly done to justify dumping her in the dirt? Marble, when Limestone reported back to her, was similarly incensed, and after a fruitless search for other options, they ended up returning from the market with an unfamiliar azure mare unconscious in the back of the cart. Her cloak partially fell off while they were lifting her into the cart, revealing that she was a unicorn; her mane was a sort of silvery blue, but Limestone got the impression it had not been brushed in a long time, going by its disheveled state and the unpleasant smell that met them as they carried her. She was also very thin, with ribs showing through her chest at points they should not have been able to see ribs.
Fortunately one of the few luxuries the Pies kept at their rock farm was a natural hot spring used for daily cleansing and relaxing, and Limestone ended up taking Trixie there once they got back. She’d wanted to surprise Pa with the news of their sales herself, but now they also had a mysterious unicorn to explain, and she knew that Marble got along with their parents better than she did. For a moment she still considered dumping Trixie in the spring and heading back to receive her properly due praise for her jewelry idea, but that carried the risk of her drowning the unicorn by mistake, so she sighed and climbed into the hot spring, carrying Trixie slung over her side as she went.
Predictably, the shock of the hot water around her was enough to finally wake Trixie from her coma. Less predictably, Trixie had only been awake for a few seconds before she sprang into action. Long, curving chains of fire sprang into existence from the air around them and shot toward Limestone, stopping mere inches away from her neck as she sat, stunned, partially submerged in the spring. She’d had very few encounters with unicorn magic in her life and had no idea whether the fire was real or some kind of illusion, since the heat of the spring water around her made it hard to tell whether the fire chains were themselves emitting any heat. So she sat very still and waited for Trixie to make the next move.
“What is this?!” shouted Trixie, evidently satisfied that no counterattack was coming. “Are you trying to drown Trixie?”
Limestone looked carefully down at the fire still threatening her, but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer. She risked an answer. “I was trying to give Trixie”—she rolled her eyes at herself, and corrected her grammar—“trying to give you a bath.”
“A bath?”
“Yes. Because you fainted in the dirt in front of me and my sister. And smelled terrible.”
There was some hesitation in Trixie’s face now. “Trixie did?”
“Yes!” Limestone did feel a little sorry for the other mare, waking up in such a confusing situation, but not sorry enough not to resent the fire magic still poking dangerously at her neck. “We met at the market, remember? You tried to get us to hire you to work at our farm, then you fainted, so we brought you home with us.”
“Oh.” Trixie frowned. “That sounds… not unfamiliar. Perhaps, strange grayish pony, you two have saved Trixie’s life. You have her thanks.”
“I’d rather have her magic not licking at my throat.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” Trixie’s horn glowed for a fraction of a second and the chains of fire vanished as quickly as they had come. Slowly the other mare lowered herself into the waters of the spring, sighing contentedly as she did so. “This feels wonderful. Trixie has been traveling for… too long. I don’t remember my last bath.”
Limestone’s eyebrows shot up at that last sentence. “So you can talk like a normal pony!”
“Hmmm? Yes, of course. Trixie can do anything!”
Limestone was not sure what she could say to that, so for the next ten minutes or so they simply lay in the hot spring, Limestone relaxing and Trixie making a more active effort to get herself washed. Her silvery mane, which had sprouted from her head in all directions at the market, she had thoroughly washed and was attempting to make straight again with a brush Limestone lent her. She’d even attempted to scrub her body clean against the rocks along the sides of the spring, but had found them too rough, so her mane was getting the most attention.
With her life no longer in immediate danger, Limestone took the time to notice Trixie’s eyes, which were a rich purple, not dissimilar to Marble’s but with noticeably less shine to them. Unless, Limestone supposed with a faint smile, she was simply that much biased in favor of her little sister. There was a certain intensity to Trixie’s expression, even when she busied herself taking care of her mane and later tail, and Limestone wondered what odd story had brought her to their farm.
But of course she could simply ask. Limestone had troubles speaking up to her parents sometimes, but most other ponies she could trust herself to be direct with, especially when they were taking a bath together. So she groaned and raised her head out from the water in order to be able to hear Trixie’s responses, shook out her mane a little, and said, “So, Trixie.”
“Yes? I don’t remember catching your name.”
“Oh. I’m Limestone Pie. I’m the eldest daughter of the Pie family, the owners of this farm.” She decided at the moment to leave out the detail that it was a rock farm; ponies tended to ask questions about that, and for the time being she had her own questions to ask. “My sister, who I found you with, is Marble Pie.”
“I see. Trixie remains grateful.”
“Right. So, uh… before we brought you here, I talked to another pony who recognized your name. She said we should have left you in the dirt and gone home.”
Trixie shrugged and continued brushing her tail. “I have many enemies these days.”
“Okay, but… why? You’ve been…”—Limestone stopped, searching for a phrase she could use honestly—“mostly nonviolent since you woke up. And you seemed pretty poor and miserable at the market. What in Holder’s name did you do?”
Trixie’s eyes narrowed slightly at the reference to the Pie’s ancient ancestor, but she did not question it. Instead she shrugged again and put on a self-righteous expression that Limestone had trouble trusting. “Very little,” she said grandly. “But as thanks for your timely rescue of Trixie’s person, I shall favor you with a tale of my great travails… for no charge!
“Once, Trixie was a humble traveling magician. My cart of wonders and I roamed from town to town across Equestria, entertaining the locals with shows of illusion magic and tales from faraway lands. In return, ponies would pay me for bringing magic and adventure to their dull, predictable lives. It was a happy time, a mutually agreeable arrangement that benefitted all involved.
“Unfortunately, not all ponies out there understand the finer arts of the great magician. A few hecklers are normal at any performance, of course, but Trixie knows tricks enough to shut them up and turn the crowd against them, so that she looks the more powerful—and yet, of course, always generous and magnanimous in her victories! Again, standard fare, completely to be expected of a traveling magician.
“But one day I came to a village—I shall not deign to repeat its name—with inhabitants stupider than any Trixie had ever seen. Two schoolfoals, understandably enthralled by my presence, summoned an enormous monster to terrorize the town, and goaded me on to destroy the creature.” Trixie sighed, long and loud. “I failed.”
Limestone, drawn in to the story despite herself, frowned at this. “But you keep saying you can do anything.”
“I can! Well… perhaps not anything anything.” Trixie crossed her front hooves in front of her and glared out across the hot spring’s rippling surface. “My special talent is with illusions. I have some other powers too—a certain facility with explosions, a good sense of light and color, a mastery of smoke—but I am an illusionist at heart. A performer! No foals in their right minds would require a performer, even such an excellent one as myself, to vanquish a massive monster, and yet…
“…and yet, they did. And when Trixie failed, the word was sent out across Equestria that she was a fraud. A cheater. A villain!” Trixie positively spat the last word, and Limestone flinched. “Everywhere I have gone, ponies have laughed at me and kicked me from their inns, their streets, their very doorsteps. I have lost my magic cart and even my hat and cape. All I have left in the world is my traveling cloak… and my immense skill and pride, of course.”
Limestone nodded. “So you asked us for work, hoping we hadn’t heard of you before…”
“And we’re only too happy to accept!”
At the end of the dirt road leading up to the hot spring from the farm stood Marble, a loaf of bread on a plate balanced on her back, smiling one of her warmest and most welcoming smiles. Trixie’s eyes widened at the sight of her, though Limestone suspected she was actually reacting to the bread on Marble’s back, what with how worryingly thin Trixie was. Indeed, in no time Trixie had clambered out of the water, splashing Marble indiscriminately, and had started levitating chunks of bread to her without asking the least bit of permission first.
Marble, far from being offended by this, giggled and even patted Trixie on the head. “I thought you looked hungry!” she said. “Don’t worry, it’s okay! I talked to my parents, and now that we’re making more money again, we can take you on as a farmpony until you get back on your feet, okay?”
Trixie looked up, and her latest chunk of bread stopped just before reaching her mouth. “You’ll give me work?” she asked. “Just like that? As a… farmpony?”
“I’ll teach you anything you need to know,” said Marble. “I think Limestone is going to be worrying about business stuff more now, so I could use another pony out on the fields with me!”
Trixie looked Marble slowly up and down, her eyes lingering from time to time on spots that Limestone wasn’t sure were entirely appropriate. She’d always said her sister was pretty, and certainly Marble usually had better luck with the customers at market than she did—though personality had to play a role there too—but there was something oddly… appraising about Trixie’s gaze. But then, what did Limestone really know? She’d never looked at another pony like that at all, nor noticed herself being looked at either, so maybe Trixie was only acting normally. Besides, it was Marble’s life, not hers.
Nonetheless… there was a difference between Marble’s life and the rock farm’s future. So she pulled herself out of the hot spring and beckoned Marble over to her while Trixie laid claim to the remainder of the bread loaf. Marble came quickly, almost skipping, and Limestone watched her warily.
“Marble…” she began, once she thought they were probably out of earshot, but Marble quickly interrupted her.
“Isn’t she beautiful? Limestone, isn’t she the most beautiful pony you’ve ever seen? I mean, I know she’s really thin right now, but…”
Limestone didn’t even bother looking back again to check. Trixie did have long, silvery hair with some natural curl to it, and purple eyes, and a brilliant coat, but together they all added up to… she shrugged. “Marble, you know I don’t think about anyone that way.”
“You tell me I’m beautiful.”
“You’re my sister. That’s different.” Limestone shook her mane out a little and sighed. “Look, Marble… I know we were talking about hiring some more help. But we literally just got started. We don’t know if our new sales will last, and we definitely don’t know if she’ll be helpful.”
“We can at least give her a fair chance! She needs food, badly. And self-respect too.” Limestone, who’d heard more of Trixie’s accounts of her skills, snorted at this, but Marble ignored her. “She might die without us!”
“I know, but…”
“Limestone, you were miserable and we let you take a risk, remember? And your jewelry worked! Let me take a risk too.”
Two and two, struggling against all mental and biological programmings in Limestone’s body, finally fitted themselves together to make four. “You want to marry her.”
“No, no, nothing as serious as that! Not unless we get along really well. But she’s so pretty, and it would be so nice to get to try, just once, you know?”
Limestone did not know, and she fidgeted. “She’s a traveling magician, Marbs. She’s probably been traveling all her life. One day she’s going to want to go away again and break your heart.”
But Marble only watched her calmly. Rocks were honest. “Okay. But maybe I’d rather have my heart broken than have never had a heart to begin with.”
Marble was Limestone’s baby sister… but she was older than their mother, Cloudy Quartz, had been when she’d gotten married. She was beautiful, but she had a mind of her own. She made friends in the marketplace. She stayed positive and helped the farm through its rough spots. Maybe she could take care of herself. So that left Limestone, as the eldest sister, with two choices: to keep her safe, or to make her happy.
“I think Trixie feels dangerous,” she said at last, “but I’m willing to give her a try for your sake.” And Marble hugged her close, and everything felt right with the world.
Marble prescribed Trixie a few days of rest to get her strength back before they tried her out on the fields, and Limestone agreed after only the briefest flicker of annoyance. It did make sense; the unicorn was extremely thin. So she spent her first full day in bed and joined the Pie family for dinner, and they stayed up late while Trixie told tales of her travels across Equestria and all the strange things she’d seen and done. Limestone remained skeptical of some of Trixie’s more outlandish claims of her accomplishments, but Marble looked fascinated, and Limestone didn’t want to disappoint her sister by disputing anything. Eventually even Ma and Pa entered the conversation to ask Trixie if she had ever met this pony or that whom Limestone and Marble had never even heard of, and sometimes Trixie said that she had, and they traded stories of mysterious figures from Limestone’s parents’ youth until everyone was falling asleep at the table.
The second night, as Limestone’s hooves and back recovered from a long day of pushing over rocks and hauling cartloads to and from the silo, Trixie came outside to treat the whole family to a fireworks show. They had all seen fireworks before during some of Pinkie’s visits, but those, while impressive, had still been mechanical devices. Trixie’s, at least the ones she showed them that night, were pure magic. Sparkling clouds of blue and pink and white light burst apart in the heavens overhead, punctuated by loud explosion sounds that seemed to shake the very rocks beneath their hooves, and Limestone lay back sometimes watching the sky and sometimes watching her little sister, who herself sometimes watched the sky and sometimes watched Trixie. Marble looked very happy, and that was enough to give Limestone an easy sleep that night.
And as they eased Trixie out into field work and taught her the details of rock farming, everypony agreed that she did surprisingly well. Trixie did not know anything about how rocks were farmed, but her studies and travels had furnished her with a keen eye for details, and they—or mostly Marble—were able to help her see the details she needed to look for to know when a rock needed turning, or harvesting, or manual erosion, or anything else. They left her at the farm the first couple of weeks during market day, not wanting to make her pull the cart or walk the long road there and back, and on those days Ma or Pa taught her about the giant mill instead.
In the meantime, Marble did the farming work of three ponies while Limestone continued to develop her skills as a jewelry maker. The sales on their second trip to market were not quite as dramatic as the first day when they had brought back Trixie along with all their money, but they still managed to sell their entire stock, only not quite as quickly. The third trip went similarly to the second, except that Limestone saw some of the ponies at market wearing earrings or necklaces she had sold them in previous weeks, and tears of happiness came to her eyes.
Halfway through the next week, as Limestone hunched over her worktable, she was surprised to see the light surrounding her grow stronger. She looked up and found the candle had been encased in a shimmering white sphere that somehow enhanced the light burning from it. Trixie stood behind the candle, looking appropriately smug as a magic glow faded from around her horn.
“I thought you were out on the fields,” said Limestone.
“Needed a water break,” said Trixie, gesturing toward the kitchen. “And you were going to wear out your eyes staring at the table like that.”
“Heh. You sound like Ma… which is no way to court my little sister.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Trixie, and she withdrew to the kitchen for more water. When she returned, she tapped Limestone on one shoulder. “Anyway, Trixie made your light stronger, Limestone Pie. Thanks would be appropriate.”
Limestone shifted to the side, making room for Trixie to stand beside her at the table and look at her work. “I’m making us money. Ponies have been buying my jewelry so far, but I want to keep getting better. One thing is that sometimes somepony will see something I’ve already sold and will want a copy for themselves, but I’m not good enough yet to make reliable reproductions.”
Trixie looked over her work with a critical—but not, Limestone realized, malicious—eye. “Some of these look like magic charms,” she said eventually. “That diamond shape, for instance. And the one made like a crescent moon. Crescents are very powerful magic symbols.” She grinned and nudged Limestone with her wand-and-moon cutie mark.
Limestone glanced across the table again, wondering if she knew enough about unicorn magic to say whether Trixie was telling the truth. She almost certainly did not. “Magic comes in charms?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too curious.
“Sometimes. In fact, Trixie was searching for a very powerful charm, called the Alicorn Amulet, but I can’t raise enough money for that.” She grimaced. “But I wonder if I could enchant any of these.”
“You want to enchant my jewelry?”
“No, I want to offer to enchant your jewelry.” Trixie sniffed. “Enchanting without asking first would be very rude, and Trixie is always empathetic.”
“What would they do afterwards?”
“I’m not sure yet.” A completed necklace lifted up from Limestone’s worktable and hovered in the air before Trixie’s face, surrounded by her identifiable magic glow. “I don’t know what sorts of enchantments might work on charms worn by non-unicorns, and I don’t have much experience with enchantments anyway. But it would be an interesting challenge.”
Limestone watched her carefully. There was still nothing malicious in Trixie’s expression or anything she had said. She’d been living at the farm with them for over two weeks and had yet to do anything particularly worthy of suspicion, and now she even seemed to be looking for ways to help out using her own talents. Everypony else on the farm had been giving her a fair chance—Limestone supposed she should do the same. “I guess,” she said thoughtfully, “for that matter, I don’t have much experience with jewelry. But my family still let me try.”
“You will let Trixie try?”
“Sure. But stick to that one necklace until you figure this out, okay? I don’t want to lose my whole week’s stock if you make a mistake.”
But Trixie did not make any mistakes, and by the end of the week Limestone found herself equipped with a tray of fifteen charmed trinkets (as well as three totally unmagic horn rings) with such minor enchantments as increased hearing or warmth above natural wells. Limestone ended up keeping an earring enchanted to vibrate in the presence of counterfeit bits, both because it sounded useful and because they didn’t actually have any to try it on, and she wasn’t willing to sell a charm that she couldn’t test out beforehand. She did idly wonder why Trixie had experience with counterfeit money to begin with, but supposed she could have been on either side of transactions in her many travels.
Marble asked if Trixie wanted to accompany them to market that day, since she was a unicorn and would therefore make a more believable peddler of magical goods, but Trixie somehow turned down the chance to show off. She explained that too many ponies at the market might recognize the world-famous Great and Powerful Trixie and she would not want to inconvenience the sisters’ sales with her current pariah status. Marble was very touched by this, and even Limestone had to admit she had a good point. They left Pa in charge of Trixie and walked the long road to market, where they charged more for the charmed jewelry than normal pieces yet still found plenty of buyers before the day was over.
When they returned that evening, happy and wealthy, Trixie was lying in the living room and looked exhausted. “Your father,” she said in tortured tones, “made Trixie break apart a mountain of rocks. A mountain! With one tiny hammer!”
Pa leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, his usually stern expression betraying a faint smile. “Thou didst yet manage, and before sundown besides.”
“Yes, eventually! But my heeeeeeead hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrts.”
This, inevitably, was Marble’s cue to hurry to Trixie’s side and ask if there was anything she needed: water, blankets, rocks? And Trixie managed to grin resiliently and say that having Marble there to talk to her was good enough, and how did they do at market today? And Limestone rolled her eyes and brushed past Pa to see if Ma needed any help in the kitchen, not that she was much of a cook but it beat hanging around Marble in loving caretaker mode.
But Ma had no respite for her that day. She peered at Limestone over the soup pot while Limestone chopped carrots and said, “Thy sister is much besotted with yon vagabond unicorn, methinks.”
“Oh, she sure is.”
“And what thinkest thou?”
Limestone sighed and chopped one carrot too hard, sending its tip flying off the counter and underneath a rock. “I keep feeling like I shouldn’t trust her. But she never does anything to deserve it. Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“Mayhap,” said Ma. “But in the end, only the Pairing Stone hath the right to tell thy sister yea or nay. In the meantime… we can all extend her the comfort of our homestead with trusting hearts.”
“Yeah,” said Limestone. “Yeah. I know. I’ll try. But… I’m still going to ask that pegasus from market if she knows anything more about why the rest of the world thinks Trixie is so evil.”
The pegasus—who introduced herself as Sugar Grape—admitted she didn’t know much of the story, only that Trixie’s encounter with the monster had happened somewhere called Ponyville. “Ponyville!” repeated Limestone, startled. “One of my sisters lives there! I could write to her and ask if she knows anything!” There still was no reliable mail service at the rock farm, but Sugar Grape agreed that she could mail a letter if Limestone brought one for her, and they did that the next week, with Sugar Grape promising to give her Pinkie’s reply letter as soon as one arrived.
There was no rushing the mail, though, so Limestone simply stepped back from worrying about Marble’s love life and allowed herself to enjoy life as the rock farm changed around her. In future years she would always remember that season as one of the happiest she had ever known, with Trixie continuing to help out with everything—turning rocks with Marble, enchanting Limestone’s jewelry, and increasingly earning Ma and Pa’s trust in the more complex duties around the farm. She’d seen far more of Equestria than any of the Pies had or expected to, and although Limestone remained unsure if every one of her stories from distant lands and tales of ancient heroes was true, eventually she decided maybe that didn’t matter. Trixie was an entertainer, and if nothing else, her stories kept them entertained.
And none of them were more entertained than Marble, who, despite already being the gayest and most talkative remaining member of the family, gained a whole new spring in her step with Trixie around. She took to singing in the mornings as she went around waking everypony up, and after the first week of this treatment Limestone even gave up growling at her. She also started wearing her baby-blue dress at home, not just at market, and when Limestone noticed Trixie watching Marble as she walked by, she felt only pride, not suspicion. It was about time the world had sent somepony to make Marble happy.
Not that she knew the details. She didn’t feel right questioning Trixie, knowing it would just make her out to be the overprotective older sister, and asking Marble anything just seemed like it’d be embarrassing. For at least one party involved. Still, there was at least one question she wanted to know the answer to, so one day when they were both out breaking boulders and Trixie had gone inside to fetch lunch, Limestone very subtly sidled over to her sister and whispered a greeting.
Marble was less interested in subtlety. “Hi Limestone! Thanks for coming out with us today!”
“Anytime. Marble, can I ask you something?”
“Of course!”
“So… you and Trixie. I’m sure there’s stuff going on that I don’t see, and that’s fine, but… do you know if she likes you back?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, she told me weeks ago! We’re trying not to be too annoying about it, but she did give me a bouquet of rocks and everything! It was so sweet.”
“Great,” said Limestone, and she meant it. Marble falling in love was fine, but she would have hated for it to be one-sided. And if Trixie had figured out she should build her bouquet out of rocks, not to mention figured out how to do so, then that spoke volumes about how accustomed she’d gotten to life on the farm, and Limestone couldn’t ask for more than that.
They worked on in silence for several minutes before Limestone’s curiosity got the best of her. “So, uh… have you two… y’know?”
Marble blinked at her, smiling in a way that Limestone couldn’t quite convince herself was innocent rather than teasing. “What do you mean, sister?”
“Well, uh…” Limestone moved her front hooves vaguely around between them, suddenly acutely aware she was not at all clear what physical acts she was trying to illustrate. “Done… the thing. You know?”
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies!” Marble giggled and leant in to kiss Limestone on the cheek, but she seemed to think better of her answer as she withdrew, and leant back to whisper into Limestone’s ear. “But… no, we haven’t yet. I still want the Pairing Stone’s permission first. But you’re a dear for trying to take care of me.”
Limestone, somewhat relieved, smiled and nuzzled her. “I barely need to. I trust you. And I think I may trust Trixie too.”
That same possibility of trust, five days later, led Limestone to stand quietly in Granny Pie’s old room, which had been converted to Trixie’s shortly after her arrival. Trixie was sideways on the bed, snoring in a way not all befitting her usual aggrieved elegance, and the house was dark around them. Limestone had waited until she was sure everypony else was fast asleep before she made her move. Slowly, testing each floorboard for sudden creeks, she crept forwards and put a hoof across Trixie’s lips.
Trixie stirred and groaned. “Errrgh… Marble?”
“Should I be worried you’re expecting my sister in the middle of the night?” Limestone said the words quietly, but there was no anger behind them. She trusted her sister.
“Oh… Limestone? Hmmph, no, Trixie was only dreaming.” Trixie sat up in bed, yawning hugely, and Limestone politely looked away until she’d closed her mouth again. “What time is it? Is this some horrible rock ritual for the middle of the night?”
“Our rituals aren’t horrible!” To this Trixie only stuck her tongue out at her, and Limestone sighed, realizing she was being made fun of. “Sorry. No, I need your help.”
“My help? What, did one of my enchantments wear off?”
“No, it’s…” Limestone stood there awkwardly, realizing she was approaching the point of no return on her mad idea. “I’ve got a plan. For the farm. But I can’t do it myself, and Pa doesn’t want to put in the time and money to try… but you might be able to do it alone with your magic.”
“Trixie is very good at magic,” said Trixie, sounding almost automatic, but then she frowned. “Your father has been kind to me. You all have. I don’t want to break his trust, even to help you…”
“It’s not like that, or at least I don’t think it is. It’s just that he thinks it would be too much work. But look, I promise if we do get in any trouble for this, I’ll take all the blame. You’re just our poor unicorn guest who I coerced into doing my dirty work.”
Trixie narrowed her eyes. “You promise?”
“I swear on Holder’s Boulder. Will you help me?”
“Hmm. Trixie will… take a look, but cannot say more without more information.” She groaned again and climbed out of bed, shivering slightly in the night air. “I can enchant our hooves so we don’t make any sound, if you’d like.”
“Do I want to know why you learned that kind of spell?”
“Absolutely not.”
Carefully, surrounded by a sound-cancelling red bubble of magic that followed their every step, the two ponies made their way out of the house and into the night. Limestone grabbed and lit a candle from beside the front door as they left, and she used that to light their way down into the vast rock quarry a little way from the farmhouse, where she and Maud had once done their surveying for her school projects. There was nothing special-looking about the rocky quarry wall that greeted them, but Limestone had visited the spot every time she’d gotten particularly frustrated with her parents since then, so she knew they were in the right place.
“I don’t see anything,” said Trixie.
“Not yet, no. But behind this wall… there’s this huge cavern full of crystals. I’m sure of it. I just can’t get in.”
“Crystals…? Here?” Trixie’s eyebrows rose up high, and she walked toward the wall, letting the red bubble of silence fall away from them as she walked. A thin trail of purple magic grew out of her horn, snaking into the rocks before them and pouring through cracks far too small for pony hooves. Trixie stood quietly, face deep in concentration, for several long seconds before she turned away and faced Limestone with a small smile. “I think you’re right. You want to mine this place? For the farm?”
“Exactly. We’d need to expand the whole quarry to get in the normal way, but if you could blast open an entrance somehow… we’d be able to use them to light the house, instead of all those candles, and I’d bet we could sell them for a lot of money at market…”
“You most certainly could. Crystals have many uses to the discerning magician.” Trixie stared thoughtfully at the wall for a while. “Explosions are not as simple as you might think… otherwise, battles with unicorns would be very dangerous. You need to know a lot about your circumstances, your surroundings, and so on, especially for a precise job like this.”
“Oh.” Limestone hesitated, shoulders slumping a little. “So you’re saying…”
“Fortunately, these days Trixie knows quite a great deal about rocks. Move out of the way, Limestone Pie.”
Trixie spent several minutes longer staring at the wall from different angles, even after Limestone had walked halfway up the surrounding slopes of the quarry. Several times more she sent thin trails of purple magic into the wall, testing it for factors Limestone, as an earth pony, knew nothing about. Finally she saw Trixie nod in the light of the candle, step back, and enclose herself in a thick purple shield. Magic poured from her horn, surrounding the rock wall until it blazed almost white in the night air, and just when Limestone felt she had to look away, there was a loud noise and the rocks flew apart, bouncing off of Trixie’s shield and landing all over the quarry floor. It would take the family hours to catalogue all the debris, but Limestone didn’t care about any of that, because where there had been rocks there was now a wonderful pinkish glow emanating from the hole in the quarry’s wall. She ran down the circular path to join Trixie at the entrance, and together they made their way inside.
The cavern, as she and Maud had decided during their initial survey, was enormous. Limestone had no way to guess how far back it stretched under the ground, and neither she nor Trixie had any interest in finding out. The floor was gray and mottled, as was normal for the region, but there was no reason to look at the floor. Everywhere else were huge pink crystals, perfectly cut and eternally glowing, poking in every direction from the floor and walls and even the roof. Even Trixie had nothing to say for a long time, and instead the two ponies walked silently through the first area of the cave, running respectful hooves down the perfectly smooth crystal faces and marveling in the natural light.
It was Limestone who broke the silence. “We’re going to be rich.”
Trixie laughed out loud, and even after she had finished the echoes of her laughter still bounced off the innumerable crystal faces for a long time after. “Ha! Oh, eventually. I can show you how to cut these from the earth, but it’ll take practice. And the entrance is still unstable… you’ll want to pay for some wooden beams, at the very least, to make it safe. Have patience, Limestone.”
“Oh, I can be patient.” Limestone laughed too, and suddenly realized how odd the sounds felt in her throat. “Trixie…” She turned to face the unicorn, who looked at her curiously from behind a particularly stunning pink crystal. “I… not too long ago, I was miserable here. Really. All we ever did was try to sell boring rocks and nopony ever wanted them. But selling magical charms has been so much better, and now this amazing cavern, and all your stories, and the fireworks, and…” She stopped, trying to swallow down a sudden lump in her throat. “You’re making Marble so happy. And I’m happy too, like I don’t think I’ve ever been before. I actually want to stay on the farm now! I just… thank you, Trixie. For everything.”
When Trixie spoke, it was hesitant, lacking all the confidence Limestone had learned to expect from her. “Trixie has… never had a family before,” she said, staring into her reflection in the crystal. “Not like this. Trixie had—I had a dream once, a dream of revenge, but it was too expensive. Ridiculously so. And when you say that… and everypony has been so kind… maybe it’s worth giving up.”
“You shouldn’t have to give up your dreams! You just… get new ones, that’s all.” Limestone waved a hoof around them, suddenly determined that nopony would feel unhappy ever again. “You find what you want, and you go out and do it, and then, and you…”
“Limestone Pie, what hast thou done?!”
Limestone felt her body freeze up for a moment before she turned around to face the cavern’s entrance. There, illuminated in the light of the countless crystals, stood her family: her sister in the back, looking amazed; Ma next to her with an unreadable expression; and in the front, Pa, quivering with rage under his big black hat. In an instant, all the confidence and experience of Limestone’s years, as well as all the unexpected happiness of their time with Trixie, fled her body, and she was a little foal again, terrified of her father as he lectured her for breaking a vase or being late for dinner or miscategorizing a rock.
“Did I not make clear that this place, thou wert not to disturb? To tamper with these… crystals?”
Limestone looked to Marble for help, but her sister was silent, the amazement on her face replaced with fear as she too stared at their father. She was on her own. “Pa,” said Limestone weakly, “crystals… they’re still rocks…”
“It is not that they are rocks… it is that they are the wrong rocks.” Pa waved a single hoof in front of him, somehow managing in one gesture to encompass every crystal in the vast cavern and prove that they were all worthless. “They glow with magic. Ours is a humble, simple farmstead, Limestone, one thou disrespectest with this impurity.”
“You let me… let Trixie enchant my jewelry, and that’s…”
“Yet those are plain rocks, as we have farmed and ever shall farm. If another shall enchant the work of our hooves, so be it, but we do not raise our hooves above our humble station and tamper with such forces. We keep the great stone of our ancestor, Holder Cobblestone, and with it his traditions, and…”
“Your great stone,” said a furious voice from Limestone’s side, “is a dragon’s egg.”
Everypony turned to see Trixie standing there, sheathed in a pillar of white light with her eyes brimming with pure malice. “You!” she shouted, pointing at Pa, and Pa flinched away. “How dare you speak to your daughter that way? Do you know, Igneous Rock Pie, what your precious traditions brought to this farm? Misery! Misery and poverty! Of you all, only Limestone Pie had the sense to do something with her life and change the path she thought she was trapped on. You’d punish her for that?!
“Your amazing ancestor? I’ll have you know that Trixie has heard of him too on her travels. Holder Cobblestone was a hero, not a farmer. He ventured into the lands of the great dragons and he, a simple earth pony, carried away an entire nest of eggs. A nest! The dragons demanded their return, and Holder traded them back—all but one—for the secrets to the natural magics of the earth. Holder Cobblestone discovered crystals for all ponykind.
“Trixie did not believe this legend for a long time. Several of Trixie’s stories are, admittedly, fabricated.” Limestone admitted herself a small smile in the middle of the chaos. “But she has heard that Holder’s last quest was to find the greatest natural source of crystals in all Equestria, and in the search, he disappeared. Now Trixie knows where he went. He must have been so close when he died. And you and your whole idiotic Pie family, for all these years after him, kept running this farm and never even looked for the crystals. Until Limestone finally did, and you yelled at her.
“Trixie has… been alone. For a very long time. But two ponies gave her a chance, against every pony in the world warning them not to, and they gave Trixie confidence again. They gave her love. And if you, Igneous Rock Pie, want to tear Marble and Limestone down for their goodness, then know this: the Great and Powerful Trixie shall always be your enemy.”
Nopony dared speak, and slowly the pillar of light around Trixie faded away until there were only five ordinary ponies there, standing in a huge cave and watching each other. Finally Igneous Rock stepped forwards, removed his hat, and bowed.
“Limestone… I apologize. In mine age, I fear I have grown too confident in mine own poor wisdom. Thy friend—thy sister’s paramour—speaks well. Truly hast thou ever striven to build our farm, and I have but stood in thy way in thine endeavors. I beg thy forgiveness—and yea, pledge my support as thou carriest us forwards.” Slowly he stood again, replacing his hat and looking solemnly around the cavern. “Of you both—of all three of you—I am most proud.”
The Pie family came together in a hug, and after a moment, Marble and Limestone both reached out to pull Trixie in to join them. “Thank you,” Limestone whispered to Trixie as quietly as she could manage, “I’ve wanted to shout at him for years, but I didn’t think it would solve anything.”
“Sometimes,” said Trixie, just as quiet, “that is how you gain ponies’ respect.”
Dear Limey Wimey old Timey,
Oh my gosh!!! How did you guys run into Trixie all the way out there???? I guess she really is a wandering magician!
So what happened is Trixie came to Ponyville a while back, and Twilight—I’ve written to you about Twilight, right? She’s a unicorn! And she’s super fun!—thought she was pretty cool, because she could do magic and stuff, but Dashie and Applejack were all like ‘no way!’ and ‘we can do cool stuff too!!’ and Trixie was like ‘anything you can do I can do better!’ and they had a big argument and there was some magic and it was kind of cool but also kind of sad??
Okay but one of the things Trixie said she could do was she’d beaten this big old monster bear thing called the Ursa Major, okay? And then a couple of foals in Ponyville decided to bring the Ursa Major back again so she could beat it again (but HUGE SPOILERS--------it wasn’t the Ursa Major at all!! It was just a baby!!!!!!!) but she totally didn’t, even though she totally said she did! Instead Twilight had to put it to sleep and give it milk and stuff, and Trixie did some smoke or something and ran away!
Also I think we learned a friendship lesson about bragging?? I didn’t really do much but I think it was important
Also Rarity’s hair turned green!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREEN! Can you believe it?
Also also we get a lot of travelers in Ponyville, and sometimes they do talk about running into Trixie and how she’s been totally sad and stuff! But also mad??? Apparently she wants REVENGE and that’s all that’s keeping her going, and that’s really really sad, because if something’s keeping you going it should be something that makes you HAPPY??????
Okay I think something’s on fire so I have to go now! But big Pinkie love to everypony (??? maybe not to Trixie???? YOU TELL ME) and I promise I’ll write again soon! P.S. It’s really super cool that you’re making more money over there now, but if you do need some from me again, just let me know and I can totally send some over! Oh no oh gosh I figured out what’s on fire and I definitely need to go, byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
“Good news from home?”
“Huh?” Limestone looked up from the heart-covered letter and noticed she was smiling. That phenomenon had become alarmingly common in her life of late. “Oh, uh, just Pinkie being Pinkie. Thanks, Sugar Grape. No return letter today, I think.”
“Sure. Good luck with your rock farm.”
Sugar Grape returned to her post at the market entrance, and Limestone stared at the letter. It wasn’t like anything Trixie had told her was exactly wrong, assuming Pinkie could be trusted, which—minus some difficulty understanding exactly what her sister meant at times—Limestone took as a given. But Trixie had definitely never mentioned to the Pies that she’d claimed to have defeated the very monster that drove her from Ponyville. Had their positions been reversed in the hot spring on that first day, Limestone thought she might well have done the same and padded the truth a little so that the simple farmers would take her in. But Trixie had lived with them for a long time since then, and she’d never clarified that one point in her backstory.
Did she not trust them enough? Surely she should trust Marble at least. Maybe she had told Marble, and Marble hadn’t told Limestone about it? Ugh, there were too many questions to answer while she was still at market. She wouldn’t be back for another six, seven hours, which was probably time enough for her to completely lose her mind and suspect Trixie of every possible evil. This was not going to be a fun day.
“Hello, Limestone dear! Is it only you today?”
“Huh? Oh, good day Mrs. Plumsweet.” Limestone tucked the letter away and tried to look businessmarelike. “Marble’s at home tending to our hired help. We were setting up a mine cart last night, to make it easier to get our new crystals out of the cave, but the cart came loose and rolled over her. Now she’s in bed ranting about wheels while Marble rotates warm rocks against her back.” And tries not to laugh at her, Limestone thought, unless she’s too in love to see the humor in it. Oh well.
“Oh my, how dreadful!” The older pony shook her head sympathetically. “I wanted to get here early today, dear, before somepony bought your entire stock. I was hoping to get one more little crystal for the kitchen, so if I get hungry in the middle of the night I don’t bump into anything.”
Limestone smiled again. “Of course, Mrs. Plumsweet. Will this one do?”
“That looks perfect. They don’t come in any other colors, do they, dear? Or are all your crystals pink?”
“I don’t know… we’ve still only explored the very first areas of the cavern. I’ll let you know if we find anything interesting.”
Soon Mrs. Plumsweet had paid for her crystal and moved on, and Limestone returned to the letter. She supposed that Trixie had never made it much of a secret that some—most?—of her stories were made up. Maybe Trixie had assumed that the Pies would assume that she’d embellished her origins a little. Or maybe she’d never even thought about it. There were a variety of possibilities… but none, Limestone thought, that would make simply asking Trixie about it later a bad idea. Either she would get a good answer, and everything would be fine, or she’d get a bad answer, and then it would be good that she at least knew about it.
She was more worried about this “REVENGE” thing Pinkie had been so emphatic about. Trixie had mentioned wanting revenge before. Who would that be against? The two foals that had summoned some sort of bear monster to fight her? The Twilight girl that Pinkie wrote about sometimes? All three? Hmm. And she’d made other references to an abandoned plan too, ones that Limestone had never really made the effort to keep track of, other than noticing that they seemed to require a lot of money. Well, didn’t everything.
Limestone sighed and put down the letter again. She hadn’t wanted to receive this letter. Yes, of course it was always nice to hear from either of her far off sisters, and Marble and Ma and Pa would be happy to hear that Pinkie had sent love. But she didn’t want to distrust Trixie anymore. Everything was going so well at the rock farm. Market day stock now included glowing crystals, enchanted charms, regular jewelry (when Trixie didn’t have the time to work enchantments, such as last night after being run over by the mine cart), and even the occasional plain rock for variety. They had regular customers besides Mrs. Plumsweet, and Limestone’s attitude had improved enough that she was even starting to make some friends at the market. They were building the mine that Limestone had dreamed of for years. They were making enough money that Pinkie could live for herself a bit more. Her baby sister was giddy and in love. And all it had taken—besides the jewelry, which had been all her, though they’d needed it in order to have the money to afford another mouth at all—was a self-important blue unicorn with a long history and a willingness to experiment. Why did Pinkie’s letter have to come now?
But the answer to her troubles remained the same: talk to Trixie. She’ll tell you everything and you can all laugh together about how it wasn’t such a big deal. Just get through one market day, selling crystals and things, and everything will be fine.
Limestone desperately hoped that would be true.
Her last sale, an hour or so before the market closed, couldn’t come fast enough, and Limestone got the booth transformed into a cart again as quickly as possible and headed for home. She’d finally remembered a few weeks ago to ask Trixie about the cart, since that had been the original thing she’d offered to do for the Pies, and Trixie had implemented a quite ingenious automatic system for turning it to a booth and back again without all the manual hammering and awning hanging and so on. They’d even brought Pa and Ma out to look at the refurbished cart and be impressed.
When Limestone reached the farm, still early for dinnertime, she saw her parents working at the mill. She shrugged off the cart harness and went inside. She could sneak into Trixie’s room again that night if she really needed to, in order to talk to her alone, but she thought she might as well check if Trixie was free right then instead. Maybe Marble had gone off to do some actual farm work, or was taking a nap, or whatever. She climbed up the stairs and halted by the open door.
“Heeheehee! Ooooh, Trixie…”
“Mmmmmmmm…”
“Oh! Trixie, you big jerk…”
“Jerk? But I thought you liked it when I…”
“Mmmm! Okay, you may be right. Ooooh…”
A blush spread across Limestone’s face, and she very hurriedly peaked around the corner of the door to check what was going on. The two ponies were in bed together, a small set of hot stones for Trixie’s back lying discarded in one side of the room, but as far as Limestone could tell they were only kissing. And cuddling, of course, but nothing that Limestone would have had trouble identifying, which presumably meant they were just fine. Not that she especially cared what the two were or weren’t doing, but Marble had been firm about waiting for the Pairing Stone, and Limestone wouldn’t have wanted her to throw away her resolve.
“Ahhhh… oh, Marble…”
Limestone began her stealthy retreat away from the door. She would not have been entirely against Marble being present when she asked Trixie about Pinkie’s letter—her sister had every right to know too—but this felt like the absolute worst possible time to burst in on them. Trixie had been injured, admittedly in a pretty funny way, and if she and her marefriend wanted to have a bit of fun while she got better, Limestone wasn’t going to object. Anything else could wait until…
“Mmm… hey, Trixie, can I ask you something?”
Limestone stopped by the head of the stairs. Marble had sounded a little more serious than she’d expected. Perhaps just a little bit of spying would be okay, in case something bad was about to happen.
“Of course! Unless it is how Trixie maintains her amazing hairstyle, which is a secret you are not ready for yet.”
“You’re silly!”
“You laugh at Trixie’s jokes. Really that makes it your fault.”
“I don’t see why not. Okay, but… Trixie, you’ve lived here for a while now, right? Even if you only count after we started kissing and stuff?”
“Is this where Trixie says there would no point in counting the time before then?”
“Shhhhh. Do you… do you ever wonder about how much longer you want to keep on living here?”
There was a silence to which Limestone dared not contribute a sound, knowing she shouldn’t be listening to this but unable to back out now. When Trixie’s voice came, it was uncharacteristically small. “Are you trying to kick me out?”
“No! Oh, Celestia, no. Well, maybe sort of, but not like that, no!”
“Trixie is getting mixed messages. Marble, honey pie, what are you trying to ask here?”
“Right. Right. Um, so, do you… do you want to get married?”
“Ohhhh.”
“Yeah.”
“That… is not a question I ever thought anypony would ask me.”
“Awww, Trixie. So, um, does that mean you need more time, or…”
“More time?” Limestone could hear the covers shifting on the bed, and willed herself not to go back and look. She had gotten this far. “Marble Pie, you and your whole family—even your father—have been so wonderful to me. All of them. But you, you have given Trixie so much love, everything I could ever have asked for… Marble, if you’re sure about this”—Limestone heard her sister make a tiny mm-hmm noise—“I doubt I physically can do anything but marry you. Yes, yes, of course I will.”
“Oh, Trixie!” Marble screeched, and Limestone very carefully made her way down the stairs, knowing that soon enough she would need to be ready to act incredibly surprised.
Trixie did not make it down to dinner that night—Marble explained that her back was still too sore, although Limestone suspected they just wanted more time together—but the two of them announced their plans the next morning at breakfast, and the farm was thrown into a flurry of happy activity. Ma ventured into an obscure corner of the silo and came back with the Pairing Stone Book, which apparently contained all the traditional instructions for how to make a formal visit to the Pairing Stone to get its approval for the match. This work was divided into two main subjects: decorating the Pairing Stone Cart that they would take there, which Limestone agreed to help Pa with, and preparing a special Pairing Stone Dress for Marble to wear before the Stone, which Ma and Marble would work on together. Somehow this left Trixie, who didn’t need her own special costume because she was not from a rock family, in charge of the entire farm.
At dinner Marble put her hoof over Trixie’s and asked happily how the farm had been treating her, and Trixie, looking exhausted but still excited, shook her head. “I don’t know yet! I thought I understood how everything worked, but just because I know how to do things on the farm, doesn’t mean I know when to do them. I’m learning… there’s so much more to rocks than rocks.”
Limestone and Marble looked at each other across the table and laughed. Trixie tilted her head. “Are you making fun of Trixie?”
“Oh, no, no, never!” Marble caught herself and laughed again. “Well, sometimes. No, that was just something that Limestone and I used to say to each other before you came along.”
“It’s really not a big deal if some stuff doesn’t get done,” said Limestone. “The crystals are still our biggest sellers, and they’re probably the easiest rocks to get, so you can stick to that if you want. We can miss a week… or two, since it’ll take a while to get to the Pairing Stone and back again.”
“Oh,” said Marble, “do we have a timetable now?” Either she’d forgotten she was still holding Trixie’s hoof or she simply had no interest in letting it go. Limestone grinned.
“Pa and I think we’ll have the cart all ready to go by Saturday morning, maybe evening. Is that enough time for your dress?” Marble mm-hmmed happily. “Great. So we figure we’ll leave Sunday, a week from today, and that way we won’t miss market day Saturday and anything mined this week will still be fresh. Then we’ll probably miss the next one, depending on how long the trip takes, but we won’t have had any time at the farm anyway so that won’t matter. Sound good?”
“Yes!” Marble was simply radiant these days, Limestone noticed, with more than a hint of pride. They had come so far from the pair of dispirited sisters who couldn’t sell a single rock. “And then we’ll get married!”
“When the Pairing Stone chooseth the two of you,” said Ma, leaning across the table, “ye shall write proper invitations to Pinkie and Maud. Then we will wait for their arrival. Then shall ye two be wed.”
Trixie bowed her head to her. “Indeed, Cloudy Quartz Pie. I look forward to meeting them both… and to proving to them I am worthy to live on this farm with Marble.” She grinned, dropping her deferent act for a moment. “And to someday calling you just Ma, of course.”
“Hmmph!” But Limestone couldn’t help noticing that Ma looked pleased.
Later, as Ma and Pa dealt with the dishes, Limestone noticed Marble and Trixie talking near the fire. They weren’t making any particular effort to be silent, so she lingered in the doorway and listened.
“So Trixie… if everything goes right with the stone, and Pinkie and Maud show up and we get married and all that… do you want to keep living here afterwards?”
Trixie looked up from brushing Marble’s hair, apparently about as surprised by the question as Limestone was. “Do we have a choice? This farm needs ponies to work it, and besides, I have learned a lot about rocks.”
“Yes, but Limestone will still be here, and she or Pa could hire somepony else.” Marble rubbed one leg up against Trixie, who smiled. “It is traditional for daughters to marry away, after all. Pa grew up here, since it’s Holder’s old farm, but Ma came from Quartz Quarry some miles south of here. Or you might want to get back into magicianing.”
“It sounds like you want to leave.”
“I don’t know! I haven’t decided yet, and really it should be our decision. But I thought I should at least let you know it was an option, so you have something to think about this week while we’re making you do allllllllll the hard labor.” She turned her head around to steal a kiss from Trixie, who accepted this gracefully.
“I don’t have a farm to take you to, though. I suppose we could build one someday, but all the money has been going into Limestone’s jewelry supplies, and building the crystal mine, and food, and…”
“That’s… not quite true,” said Marble, and Limestone leaned forwards a bit, suddenly recalling a conversation from a long time ago. “Um, stay here for a moment.” Marble got up and walked toward the fire, and as Limestone and Trixie watched from their various vantage points, she reached for a specific stone in the fireplace and pulled it out. Inside, as they saw when she carried it out to Trixie, was a brown bag about the size of a small pony’s head, tied shut with a red cord but with an unmistakable glint of gold inside.
“Marble…”
“Mm-hmm.” Marble opened the bag in front of Trixie, revealing more money than Limestone had ever seen at one time. But not more than she’d ever seen in her life, because this had to be all the money they’d been earning at market, hadn’t it? Every last little bit that wasn’t spent on the things Trixie had listed, saved away in that brown bag hidden in the fireplace, and Marble had never taken it out until today. As Limestone marveled, Marble confirmed her suspicions, explaining that it had been saved up over the weeks and months and years of market visits for this very occasion.
“It’s my dowry,” she said, but her voice held none of the sorrow that it had when she’d introduced the concept to Limestone back near Shining Pass. “It’s all the money we’ve been saving for when I get married. Traditionally it’s supposed to be a gift for my partner’s family, but I wanted it to be for me… so I kept it hidden until I truly was sure I had found the pony I love.”
“This could buy…” Trixie trailed off, her voice awed. “Anything. Marble, you’re amazing.”
“Heehee! No no, not anything, of course. We’ll have to keep working for a long time, and if we choose to stay, we can put it all into the farm. But I wanted you to know that we do have other options, and we can think about those as long as we need to, okay?”
Trixie nodded slowly, still staring at the money. “Yes. Trixie is feeling very impressed right now. I… I do love you, Marble Pie.”
“Awww!” Marble pushed the bag of bits aside and flung open her hooves. “Come here!” And that was very much Limestone’s cue to leave.
The rest of the week was both very long and far too short. Limestone and Pa worked relentlessly on the cart, transforming it according to specifications from a tradition from long before either of them were born. It was Pa’s second time making such a cart, since he’d helped his father Feldspar Granite in the same tradition years ago, while Ma’s Quartz family had made her dress. Limestone learned more about her parents’ marriage in that week than she thought she had over all her days before then, though she had to admit she was also just more interested in the subject than she’d used to be, now that it was about Marble’s immediate future happiness and less about abstract concepts of romance.
Limestone had always felt she had a complicated relationship with rock farming traditions, but she found herself enjoying the cart work, even if the context was probably contributing to her happiness. Not much of the work they did made sense to her, but she was coming to understand that tradition didn’t always have to make sense to be worthwhile. They didn’t paint the cart wheels blue and white because it was necessary for getting them to the Pairing Stone safely, but because by doing so, they were welcoming Marble Pie to a long history of rock farmer wives and saying that they, her fellow tradition holders, accepted her in that line. She did ask Pa about the wheels in particular, but he only hunched his shoulders and said the tradition’s origin was sure to be in the book somewhere, but the two of them didn’t need to know what it was.
Ma and Marble got out dressmaking equipment that Limestone couldn’t remember seeing in a long time, if in some cases at all, and similarly spent the week in a long, careful, and ultimately idiosyncratic mixture of the practical and the traditional. Limestone didn’t witness many of the details of the dress work, both because she was busy and because by helping with the cart, she seemed to have recruited herself into a traditionally male role for the Pairing Stone preparations, and somehow that excluded her from interacting much with the dress. The first time she was denied entry to come and see how Marble was doing, it stung a little, but then she did have plenty of things to do on her end.
And the farm work, or at least a subset of it, continued under the watchful eye, hoof, and horn of Trixie. Like Limestone had suggested, she spent most of her time working at the crystal mine, both carrying out newly picked crystals to be processed and later sold at market (for this she used her magic, giving the mine cart a wide berth) and also strengthening the mine’s entrance and other supports that they’d placed inside the inner caverns. A couple of times she ventured deeper into the crystal mine but did not report finding either an end to the caverns or or a change in the crystals, since even she got nervous getting too far away from the wooden supports.
Trixie also spent a lot of time staring into the fire, looking worried, and Limestone always felt sorry for her when she had the time to walk past. Another thing the traditional work was for, she was realizing, was keeping the family busy. There was no time for anypony to suddenly realize that Marble Pie was going to be married and have everything catch up to them so quickly that they needed to lie down and page through old photo books for hours. Instead they were kept busy at all times between meals and bed, transforming the cart or creating Marble’s dress, and every subtask needing to be done to get them a little closer to the Pairing Stone was exactly that: a task. Every subtask they finished made Marble’s impending marriage a little bit more of a concrete fact in their lives to be accepted, not marveled at.
But Trixie had none of that, and the ancient traditional structure had not accounted for her, so there was no one to keep Trixie company and make sure she wasn’t overwhelmed by the enormity of what she’d agreed to. Marble and Limestone both took as many moments as they could to talk to her, but Marble needed to be inside her in-progress dress at most times, and Limestone wasn’t always sure what to say. She’d made the mistake of asking early on if Trixie had anypony who she wanted to invite to the wedding—the Pies all took it for granted that the Pairing Stone would approve the match—and Trixie had simply said, “No.” Limestone found it very difficult to pick up the conversation again after that.
Besides, there was Pinkie’s letter. Limestone had removed it from the cart before the Pairing Stone work had begun, so nopony else had seen it yet, but she’d managed to forget about it for a few days. Now, though, time was rapidly running out before Marble’s future would be all but set in stone, and though Limestone hated to disturb Trixie with unpleasant questions about her past when she already looked so worried, she also knew rationally that if anything was wrong, she would hate herself forever if she overlooked it now. But when, with everypony always so tired?
Saturday morning brought the realization that nopony had been selected to represent Igneous Rock and Daughters: Fresh Rocks at market that day, and moreover that the vehicle they usually used to bring their materials there had been all but completely transformed into a special Pairing Stone Cart. This seemed to spell disaster for market day until Trixie raised her hoof.
“I can do it,” she said. “I understand the route’s very simple, and I can levitate everything, so I won’t need a cart.”
Marble looked at Limestone; Limestone looked at Trixie. In the morning light she looked terrible, bags under her eyes and loose hairs in her curvy silvery mane, an effect of her relative isolation while everypony else had busied themselves around her. Some fresh hill air might very well be good for her. “I’ll go with you,” said Limestone, remembering Pinkie’s letter, and Trixie smiled at her gratefully.
Pa shook his head. “I need thee here, Limestone. We can finish the cart to-day, but only if we have time afore the sun setteth. Trixie may our clan represent by this market.”
Limestone protested a few more times, but she recognized it was futile, and they bid Trixie adieu to cross Shining Pass and sell that week’s crystals. Then it was back to work for the Pies, putting the final touches on all their preparations for the next day’s trip and making sure nothing had been forgotten. Marble welcomed Trixie back with a huge hug around sunset, but Limestone watched them carefully, and could not avoid thinking that Trixie looked scarred. She nodded to herself; they would need to talk tonight, once everypony had gone to bed, just like when she’d recruited Trixie to help her open the crystal mine however many long weeks ago.
The evening passed painfully slowly, and then it was nighttime and Limestone stood alone in her room for at least a quarter of an hour, not daring to lie down for even a minute in case she would fall asleep then and there. At last she decided her family must have fallen asleep, and made her now almost familiarly cautious way up the stairs to Trixie’s room. There were not many creaky boards in the farmhouse, but she avoided every one of them, and soon was standing outside Trixie’s door and listening for sounds. There were none.
That wasn’t good.
Trixie had snored like a herd of wild horses the last time Limestone had visited her at night, but now she was completely silent. Well, Limestone supposed she could understand if Trixie was having trouble falling asleep on this of all nights, with the trip to the Pairing Stone to decide her fate ahead of them in the morning. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Trixie was not there.
What was going on? Had they eloped in the night?! Forcing herself not to think of any worse possibilities, Limestone happened to glance out the closed window on the other end of the room. Outside, she could see a small red bubble—Trixie’s sound-canceling spell?—moving away from the farm in the direction of Shining Pass.
Cursing quietly, Limestone considered her options. She was in too much of a hurry to navigate the house without waking up her family. Instead she pulled open the window and leapt out, bounced a little off the awning below, and finally made an unceremonious landing in the cold outside dirt. Limestone took off after the red bubble at her fastest gait, now cursing freely as she navigated the dark landscape with much more familiarity than Trixie could possibly manage. She had lived at this farm her entire life, and there was no way Trixie was going to escape her now.
When she’d gotten within a few dozen hoof-lengths from the fleeing unicorn, Limestone was surprised to see the red bubble of silence expand around her too. Trixie stopped and turned to face her, and Limestone saw—not that she’d had any doubt left at that point—that Marble wasn’t with her. She was wearing her old traveling cloak from the day Limestone and Marble had first met her, and there was something else levitating in the air beside Trixie’s head, but it was too dark for Limestone to be sure she could identify it.
“Limestone… please go home.”
Limestone Pie had not been prepared for Trixie to sound exhausted or for her face to be streaked with tears. However, Limestone Pie did not especially care. “If I’m going home, you’re coming with me.”
“No.”
“You come with me or I make you come with me. I understand you’ve had a rough week, but you are not running out on my sister. Not like this. Talk to her if you must, but this… no.”
“You think you can make the Great and Powerful Trixie come with you? By force?”
“Your magic is illusions.”
“Not all of it. Do you really want to find out how much?”
“No, I want you to come back with me to the farm!” Limestone punched a nearby rock, and smiled thinly at the sight of Trixie flinching. The logical part of her brain knew that Trixie was right; it had taken her a while to make that explosion in the wall blocking off the crystal mine, but that had been because she’d been trying to do it very carefully. If she really wanted to stop Limestone, a non-careful explosion would certainly do the trick. And she still didn’t know if those chains from the hot spring had been fire or illusions, or any number of other things. Somehow, though, none of those otherwise alarming facts felt important in the face of Limestone’s need to protect her sister.
“You will always be Trixie’s friend, Limestone,” said Trixie, who seemed no longer capable of looking Limestone directly in the eye. Her voice was still exhausted and miserable, but there was no doubt in her words, no matter how closely Limestone listened for something to grab onto, something to use. “Every time I praised you, or your sister, or your whole family… I meant every word. Please believe that. But this was never Trixie’s destiny.”
“So take her with you, you idiot!” Limestone leapt forwards; Trixie leapt back. She restrained herself from trying again, knowing that physical confrontations were probably useless against such a unicorn. “Didn’t you two talk about this just the other night? You can move away! She loves you enough to go!”
But Trixie shook her head. “I would never take Marble where I’m going. Listen, Limestone. I believed I would be happy living with you, marrying Marble… I did. I was happy. But you said yourself that I shouldn’t give up my dreams. And the only dream I have left, after everything I’ve suffered through from Equestria, is for revenge, and even if I did marry Marble… I would never stop wanting that.”
“Because you said you had defeated the Ursa Major, and a couple of foals found you so amazing they wanted you to do it again.”
“Yes! One lie, Limestone. One! And for that—that!—I am shunned and jeered at by all the land?” There was anger in her voice now, but her face was still covered in tears, for all she did not yet dare look at Limestone again. “You weren’t at the market today. I was. Everypony who recognized me hated me. For nothing! For one little lie—practically nothing!”
Limestone tossed her hair behind her head, still looking for any opening, physical or emotional. “I don’t know about the rest of Equestria, but you told us a second lie when you left out that detail from your sob story. And if you leave Marble now, while she’s dreaming beautiful dreams about your future together… that’s what we will hate you for forever.”
“I do understand. From you, and you alone, Trixie has earned her hatred. But you will not stop Trixie from taking her revenge on the world, and I will not let Marble watch me as I do.”
“Okay.” Limestone paused for a moment and was sad to observe they were only arguing in circles. Trixie did love Marble—she had to believe that. But she had decided her old dream of hate meant more to her than her new dream of love, after a week of solitude and a horrible day at the market. If Limestone had ignored Pa and gone with Trixie that morning, would things have gone differently? Maybe. If they’d found a place for Trixie in the preparations for the Pairing Stone, would she have held on more firmly to her love? Maybe. But there was nothing that Limestone could do about any of that anymore.
“Trixie… tell me what that thing is that you’re levitating,” she said, and Trixie’s knees gave out from under her for a moment. Limestone almost pounced, but Trixie regained her footing just in time.
“Please,” said Trixie. “Please. Don’t make me say it.”
“I’m not letting you take any shortcuts. Not now.”
Trixie nodded wretchedly, and when she spoke her voice was only the faintest of whispers, but it carried like pure ice into Limestone’s blood, for it was the last conclusion she had desperately refused herself permission to reach: “It’s the money.”
“No, it’s my sister’s dowry. Her dowry, that we all saved for her—and for you—to live a happy life together.”
“It’s the money I need to buy the Alicorn Amulet.” Trixie’s voice was a croak now, but physically she was pulling herself upright, and the hairs along Limestone’s back went cold with fear. “I told you about that once. I know where it is. It will give me the power I need.”
There was no time left, no time. Limestone could see Trixie preparing to leave, and yet there was nothing else she could think of, nothing more she could say beyond one last desperate emotional appeal. “Trixie, please… taking her very dowry money, you can’t do this, you can’t run away and do this to the mare you love… you even told her you couldn’t live without marrying her…”
“Oh, my poor Limestone Pie. Didn’t Trixie tell you so many times?” From nowhere, there was an enormous puff of black smoke that blinded Limestone completely and filled her lungs with coughing. When she finally regained her vision, Trixie and her bubble of silence were nowhere to be seen, and all that remained were the last echoes of Trixie’s words as they echoed and reechoed off the hills surrounding the rock farm.
“Trixie can do anything.”
The group of ponies standing before the Pairing Stone was missing only one member from its original plan, four instead of five, but it felt far smaller. Ma and Pa spoke mainly to each other, occasionally withdrawing from conversation to touch Marble gently or to offer her some meaningless words of comfort or courage. Limestone simmered with a fury whose target had fled. And Marble had scarcely stopped sobbing over the last three days.
They had very nearly canceled the trip altogether, but Marble had been adamant that she still wanted to go. “I want to see if it has anything to tell me,” she’d said, and they were in no position to deny Marble anything. So they’d bundled up her dress and all the food for the trip, and climbed into the cart, and departed on the worst journey of Limestone’s life.
Limestone still hadn’t told any of her family the details of her conversation with Trixie at the foot of Shining Pass. Instead she’d forged a note in a faked hoofwriting style and left it in Trixie’s room for anypony to find. She should have realized it would be Marble who’d find the note first, or maybe she did realize and merely ignored it; either way, she thought it would be a long time before she could fall asleep again without remembering Marble’s scream that morning.
“So that’s it?” Marble asked, not that she or Limestone had any doubt. The stone was thick and tall as six ponies stacked one on top of another, but split in two at the top where, it was said, it had been ever so gently grazed by a bolt of lightning. Flowers littered the earth around it, not quite belonging in a place of rock and yet this was a rock of love and flowers and love were forever linked. From the angle they viewed it, the Pairing Stone blocked out the sun’s rays entirely, leaving them all standing in a gloomy darkness.
When her parents had agreed that it was, indeed, the Pairing Stone, Marble Pie walked slowly and purposefully toward the huge monument. Some ancient magic came to life at her approach, and reddish pink light blossomed from the stone, bathing it and her in an all too brief glow before fading away entirely.
“What was that?” asked Limestone as Marble made her slow return to the group, tears still falling indiscriminately from her eyes.
“That’s the stone’s magic,” said Ma. “It meaneth that there’s yet somepony out there for Marble, if only she can find her. Or him.”
“Huh,” said Limestone, and walked over to the stone herself. No light of any color surrounded either Limestone Pie or the Pairing Stone. She waited a few seconds more to make sure, then came back to her parents and sister, feeling oddly relieved in spite of everything. She wouldn’t have had the first idea how to handle something like that anyway.
For a while they stood awkwardly around Marble, nopony willing to suggest that maybe it was time to go home until she was ready. Then at last she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at them each in turn. “I’ve brought dishonor on our name,” said Marble Pie, speaking every bit as slowly and miserably as Trixie had on that horrible night. “Everything that has happened was because of me.
“It was my idea to bring Trixie home with us, when every pony in Equestria knew she was trouble. My idea to give her work, when my sister warned me we didn’t know her. My idea to ask her to marry me, when we were happy the way we already were. My idea to show her the dowry, when she didn’t know that we had the money her to follow her old dreams. Everything I said only made things worse.”
Marble turned her face up to the Pairing Stone and closed her eyes. “I vow that I will never speak a word again until our family honor is restored.”
There was another silence as Limestone wrestled with her thoughts, knowing her sister was wrong but not knowing if she should say so. Limestone was the eldest sister, and taking in Trixie had been her responsibility, not Marble’s. She had failed to talk with Trixie so many times, either to offer her comfort or to ask her about Pinkie’s letter, until finally it was much too late for either one. She’d even failed to keep Trixie from stealing her sister’s dowry despite being right there on the path with her and arguing with her for so long.
But… she couldn’t tell Marble any of that, not right away. Marble was miserable about Trixie and no longer trusted herself even to speak; she needed to trust Limestone if Limestone was going to be able to do anything for her in the months or years ahead. Maybe they’d even sleep in the same bed for a while in case she got nightmares. So some secret failings would have to go unsaid, at least for the time being, and her love for her sister would have to make her lie.
“Let’s go home,” said Pa, stirring the women of his family from their respective reveries. “Rocks are honest, and the simple life cureth all ills. We shall sow our rocks; grind our stone; sell our labor; and seal that mine.”
“Are you mad?!”
Words Trixie had told her once, that sometimes to gain ponies’ respect you needed to shout at them, flashed through Limestone Pie’s mind as she glared at her father. “Are you seriously suggesting that we get rid of everything—everything!—that Trixie so much as touched? Our profits have tripled or better since we opened my mine! There is no way I am going to sit back and let you or Ma destroy everything I’ve worked for to improve our lives just because Trixie happened to be involved in them at one point!”
She wasn’t angry at Pa; not really. No more than usual. But Trixie wasn’t there anymore, and she couldn’t shout out her frustrations at herself, and she needed to do something or she knew she would explode. “I’m done being depressed. I’m done watching other ponies make mistakes and not saying anything! I’m the only pony here who knows how to make our farm—my farm—work, get it? I can work with our traditions. I can think of new ones! I won’t let anypony else break into our lives and try to destroy our family again! And I am not going to rest, not ever, until I find a way for my baby sister to be happy again… do you all understand me?!”
Ma and Pa only stared at her. The Pairing Stone stood implacably overhead. And her wordless sister looked at her in her rage and, for the first time since Trixie had left her, smiled.
