It was an unusually warm morning when Inkie’s father died. While most of the time the weather on the family rock farm was cold—brisk on the best of occasions, even in the summer—that morning it was almost humid.
Inkie was seated at the kitchen table with her mother and her sister, Blinkie. Breakfast was in front of them: the same half-full bowl of lukewarm grey mush they had every morning. Inkie’s father’s bowl was at the head of the table, but his chair was empty.
“Inkie,” Inkie’s mother said, “go see where your father is. See if he’s still in bed.”
Inkie stood up from her chair silently, but her sister piped up with her eyes wide and a mouthful of mush.
“He’s not in bed,” Blinkie said, and then paused to swallow her mouthful. “I saw him get up.”
“Well, where did he go, dear?” Inkie’s mother sat down with her own bowl but left its contents untouched. Inkie’s father had to be at the table before she would eat.
Blinkie chewed another helping of mush as she shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Inkie, go see where your father is,” Inkie’s mother repeated. “Go check the shop.”
Inkie pushed her chair in before walking out of the kitchen. Her hair hung low over her eyes, covering them like a black shawl as she pushed open the door and made her way into the morning sunlight. Instead of the mist of her own breath, a gentle warmness greeted her. The sun was bright and orange-tinted as it rose over the faraway mountains.
Her father’s shop was where he would work in the evenings when the company of the family room was less appealing than tinkering with old, broken farm equipment. Lately, Inkie and her sister spent more time in their room than in front of the fireplace with their Ma and Pa, which meant Father Pie spent most nights out of sight behind the large wooden door of his workshop.
The door was already slightly ajar as Inkie went to push it open.
“Dad?”
She called to him, quieter than her sister would have. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.
A small wooden stool lay on its side several feet into the workshop. Inkie’s eyes landed on the stool, then moved up. Her father was there, but not in a pose she recognized. He was facing away from her, suspended by a thick, coiled rope wrapped around his throat.
For a moment, her brain tried to find an explanation for what she was seeing. Maybe her father was putting on a joke, or playing some game, planning to hang limply from the rope around his neck until his daughter stepped closer, and then he would spring up and startle her, and share a rich, full laugh when the shock wore off.
Inkie’s father’s hooves swung idly in the air as Inkie stepped closer to him.
“Dad?” She said the name even quieter. He might move to scare her. He might at any minute open his mouth and break into a smile, and Inkie would be forced to laugh at her own worrying.
But he didn’t speak, or smile. He hung there, swaying slowly.
His body felt colder than usual as Inkie pressed her hoof against his chest.
Inkie screamed.
Her mother had come first. There was more silence than crying, because by the time her mother came in, Inkie had given up shouting and let her voice well up inside her throat again. Her mother took over the screaming for a bit. She kept Blinkie outside. Go away. Go with your sister. Shoo. She was crying.
That had been it, really.
There was no one nearby to hold a funeral. They had eaten dinner that night like nothing had happened. There was one empty spot in the chair at the head of the table.
“Girls,” Inkie’s mother had said. Her voice was shaking.
Blinkie had looked up with tears in her eyes. Inkie’s fascination was with the table. It was the same brown wood it had always been, but it held her attention more than her mother did.
“I... I know how hard this must be for you.”
To say nothing of herself. Inkie scratched a hoof on the underside of the table, peeling away a tiny splinter.
“But you mustn’t... we must be strong. Your father...”
The words were going. What could she say? Inkie felt the splinter come off. She held it in her hooves, passing it back and forth between them, feeling the tiny flakes along the side where it was falling apart. Like the table. It was an old table.
“‘Why’ isn’t important. What is it important is that we’re a family, and we must stick together. The Pies have always stuck together.”
“What about Pinkie?” Inkie looked up from the table for the first time. She saw her mother’s face, contorted as her mouth held back the further shaking of her words, the wail she had let out in the morning. She could see her sister’s face to the side of the table, staring at her, sniffling almost silently into her dinner. Limp greens and potatoes that looked like mashed dirt.
“Pinkie is... she’s always been different. She wouldn’t have been happy here, dear. And... well, I wasn’t about to tell her ‘no,’ when she left. Besides, no matter what, I know she loves us. She writes every week.”
She wouldn’t have been happy here. Her and who else? Inkie looked down at her splinter. It was longer than she’d assumed from the touch of it.
“Since you bring it up,” Inkie’s mother said with a sniff, “we may as well address that too. I don’t want either of you telling Pinkie; understand?”
Blinkie nodded, her eyes still brimming, but Inkie looked up with the same dull expression she always wore. Now more than ever. There was no reason to smile. No smiling. Rocks.
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t need something like this on her plate,” Inkie’s mother said, picking up the fork from her own plate and stabbing one of the strands of asparagus towards the edge. “It’s hard enough on us, and I... I need you girls to help me be strong. Telling Pinkie would only make things harder.”
“Are you ever going to tell her?” Inkie could feel her sister’s stare now; that always came to shy her away. Her younger sister, her eyes thick with so much reproach. Inkie stared forward, unblinking.
Her mother drew in a long, deep breath.
“Yes, of course. Just... not now.”
“Come on, Inkie.” Blinkie kicked her sister under the table. Harder than usual. Inkie’s foreleg jostled from the blow, and her splinter fell to the floor.
“Sorry,” Inkie said. She returned to staring at the table. She poked at her own dinner with her left hoof, absentmindedly rearranging her dinner.
Like that, the family returned to silence.
Inkie’s father had died that morning, and they were eating asparagus.
What had happened to the—
No. She didn’t want to know.
It was two days before they turned the rocks again. Two days, because the rocks needed turning. There was only so long they could wait.
The fields were as dull and barren of life as they had ever been. Inkie awoke with her sister in the early morning, the same time they always awoke. She followed Blinkie silently to the field, squinting at the sun as it threatened to blind her from the nearby horizon. Inkie held a hoof over her eyes and looked towards it, straining to see past the diffuse glow washing over every part of the world but hers.
“Hey,” her sister said, tugging at Inkie’s sweater. “Come on.”
Inkie lowered her hoof and followed her sister. The east field needed to be moved. It had needed to be moved two days ago. Their father would have started it that night. The night they had asparagus.
Inkie had checked his workshop once, yesterday. It was empty and clean. She had walked past the door but stopped herself after a few seconds. The air was too quiet. She could hear herself breathing and left shortly thereafter.
With her sister leading, Inkie began to tumble one of the many, many rocks entrenched in the dirt, rolling it forward to its eventual destination on the other side of the farm, where it would receive less sunlight. Was that how equidistance worked? It was on the other side of the barn, past her father’s workshop. Past the house, with her bedroom window staring perpetually to the low, faraway hills in the distance. Green as she looked towards it, but grey when she woke and stepped outside.
The rock was heavy and cold. Inkie tucked one of her hooves into her sweater and spit on the ground. She pushed the rock until it reached the far field, then returned to the east field to begin anew with another one.
The Pie farmstead was far away from proper civilization. Too far away to even be called a ‘stone’s throw,’ which was unfortunate. Sometimes, when visitors came by, they would use the quip anyway and expect smiles. Nopony on the farm smiled.
There was one town nearby though: a tiny hamlet where monthly grocery shopping could be done, and goods could be traded and sold. Anypony could say what they would about the Pie Farm elsewise, but they had the best rocks in Equestria. There was more work bringing them up, now, but there would always be a stockpile for bartering. For milk, and wood for the fire, and breakfast mush, and wimpy asparagus.
As much as Mother Pie went into town for groceries, one pony came to the farm. A pony no one paid particular attention to, though Inkie’s mother would greet him every now and then, saying oh hello, and how do you do, and how’s work been treating you, and feel free to stop in if you’re in need of a good boulder, and he would nod and smile and say thank you, and deliver what he had came with and be on his way. He was the mailpony, and Inkie was the one who looked forward to his visits the most.
He came three days after with two letters. One was for the family. One was for Inkie.
The one for the family was labelled from miles away. The address on the front was printed in shiny pink glitter-pen, and the signature was so big it covered the whole face of the envelope. Even if it had been without an address, the mailpony would have known where to bring it, because nopony else in Equestria wrote letters like that, and no other family got them.
Inkie’s mother opened the letter at the kitchen table that day, over breakfast. Inkie could tell from the spots on her cheeks that she had cried that morning, but she smiled as she read Pinkie’s letter, holding it up like it was a script to recite to her family. To her daughters, in any case.
“Hey guys,” Inkie’s mother read, putting on the best cheerfulness she could muster. Inkie imagined she had omitted several exclamation marks. “It’s the first day of the week, and you know what that means: time for Pinkie’s fantastic super-happy-to-talk-to-you-guys letter home to her awesome family!”
Inkie wondered how it was possible to read a sentence like that with her mother’s drabness. Somehow, she managed. Inkie stared at the table as her sister chewed her mush.
“I don’t have anything exciting to talk about this week, but that’s not about to stop me from writing home to my favorite ponies in the whole wide world. Though, yesterday, I did get my head stuck in a cake-mixer for about an hour... when Mr. Cake couldn’t pull me out, he had to call the fire department! They got me out nice and safe, and my head has never felt more sugary.”
Inkie’s mother held a hoof to her chest and smiled. That Pinkie, Inkie could hear her mother say, sighing. She didn’t say it. Inkie jerked her hoof against the table’s underside. A sharp bit stuck into her coat, and she hissed under her breath.
“I hope you guys are doing good. I keep meaning to come visit, but it’s really hard to get time off work, and Ponyville gets so grouchy when I’m not around. Still, I’d love to see all you guys again sometime soon. Write back and tell me when I should come by, and I promise I’ll try to make it work!
“Speaking of work, I’d better get back to it... I’ve gotta help pay for the cake-mixer the fire department had to cut apart. It was a big one too... saving up should be a bit of a doozy!”
Inkie examined her hoof. No blood, no breakage. She brought the hoof to her mouth, but set it against her lap after a few seconds.
“Love, with all my heart forever and ever and sugar and candy and the best thoughts I can give, Pinkie Pie.”
Inkie didn’t need to see to know the giant signature was there. Probably stars and sequins too.
“So nice of your sister to write home every week,” Inkie’s mother said, tucking the letter in its place by the door. There was a whole folder of them. True to her word, Pinkie had written every week. And, every week, the post-pony delivered her letters, come rain or shine or something something, as the mailpony motto went. Inkie sighed.
Her father was dead. And of course, they weren’t to tell Pinkie.
That was the first letter. The second was Inkie’s.
She’d tried to beat her mother to the mailbox, but she had been waiting when the mailpony came. Hello, lovely day, isn’t it? She had been crying before. It wasn’t polite to share these things.
Inkie stared at the table.
“Oh, Inkie dear, you have a letter.”
Inkie’s head perked up. Her eyes went wide, though she quickly willed them small again.
“Is it from her coltfriend?” Blinkie asked, her sneer oozing into her voice. Inkie said nothing as she held out her hoof, letting her mother place the letter graciously. Inkie pulled it under the table and hid it in the front pocket of her sweater.
“It is, isn’t it?” Blinkie teased.
Inkie stared at the table.
Was it really just the other morning? Maybe it was too soon to be real.
It was like turning the rocks, in a way.
Inkie’s mother didn’t return to the table. When Inkie looked up to finish her mush, she found her mother standing at the living room window, staring off into the sun. Holding her hoof against the glass, staring.
Inkie watched for a minute before excusing herself from the table. Her hooves thumped on the floor as she walked quickly to her bedroom and shut the door.
The next day was a long afternoon into evening of turning rocks. Every time Inkie returned to the east field, there were more rocks waiting for her. More than she could ever turn, by herself, or with her sister, or with her mother, or with anypony who had ever been there, no matter how many days ago it was. There were too many rocks.
At the day's end, Inkie sank into her bed without speaking. She knew she should take off her hoodie and wash it after sweating underneath it all day, but it felt warm against her coat. Even her blankets were cold most of the time, but her hoodie made her feel warm. It was black.
It was a gift from Pinkie Pie. She had sent the whole family presents for Hearth’s Warming, apologizing over a giant letter that she couldn’t be there, that she knew her family missed her and she missed them too and she had gotten them extra-special presents that she knew they really wanted. Inkie’s mother had gotten a fancy loom, which she gushed over. Blinkie had gotten a book, a stuffed animal, and a makeup kit that was all greys and blacks. Inkie had gotten her a hoodie, which she had begged and pleaded to her mother for over months but been refused every time. There was no place for contemporary pony fashion on the Pie Farm. What would she do with it? Where would she wear it? And then Pinkie had given it to her, and her mother had frowned and said Pinkie should have asked first, and Inkie had been worried she couldn’t keep it, but then her mother had looked at her loom and smiled and said it was fine, and that she hoped Inkie enjoyed it. Inkie had worn it for five days straight.
Inkie lied back on her bed, resting her head against the stiff pillow as she pulled the letter out of her pocket. It had a name in neat print on the top right corner. She could have told who it was from the careful penmanship alone, and knew the mailpony could have too. She stared at it for a while before opening it.
The letter crinkled as she pulled it from the envelope. Her eyes went over the first word a few times. Her name, written in cursive. Fancy, scribbly ink.
It was from him. He wrote more often than Pinkie did.
Inkie let the letter settle on her stomach. She closed her eyes and pressed a hoof to her forehead. Her coat was still sweaty.
While the Pie Farm was far enough away from civilization to be it own landlocked island, there was one thing it was close to, besides rocks. Over the hill on the west side of the house, the only one that rose high enough to be called a real hill, there was another farm. A farm that had real things on it, like cows and pigs and chickens, and ponies too, though those weren’t part of the farm, really. They ran it, a couple and their farmhands and their son, who was Inkie’s age, which was old enough to be gone from home, though neither of them were.
He had visits from the mailpony too, and when the mailpony came, he had letters. They went to Inkie, every few days. She wrote back just as often. Every day she got one she would write, and send it back after she was sure it felt okay to send. Some letters she didn’t send.
The boy’s name was Thistle Patch.
Inkie liked his name. It sounded good when she said it to herself, which she did often. Quietly, mostly. Under her breath before she went to sleep.
She laid on the bed for a while longer, letting the words soak into her head. The sun was almost gone now, with only a tiny flicker of purple lingering on the skyline. It crept into Inkie’s eyes as she opened them and sat up. After a few seconds, she grabbed her pen, the paper she kept under her bed, and began to write.
Don’t tell Pinkie, her mother had said. Well, there was a very good reason for that, but it wasn’t one Inkie was sure was a ‘good’ reason. Pinkie was special, she said. That certainly was true.
There had been something different about Pinkie from the day she was born. Inkie noticed it when she was young—how could she not?—but her parents had never explained what it might mean. Why, in the stoic, self-contained landscape of grey and brown and black, was her older sister a bright, vibrant pink? It didn’t make any sense, and the more Inkie thought about it the more curious and upset it made her.
Pinkie lived in Ponyville now. She had gotten away.
That was only a few years ago. Inkie had wondered, when her birthday came and she reached the age Pinkie had been when she first left, if there would be any talk of her moving as well. But nopony had said anything. The day had passed, and Inkie had gone into the next year on the farm. Pinkie, two years older, had stayed in Ponyville. Blinkie never even broached the subject. She had a year to go before it was really a question anyway.
Inkie rolled onto her side and stared out the bedroom window. It was late now, dark, and Blinkie was asleep on her own nearby bed, snoring quietly with an almost cartoonish noise as she breathed out. Inkie’s letter was under her pillow, where it belonged until she moved it to the box in her drawer in the morning.
She could see the hills, far away. Over those hills was Ponyville. Equestria. Towns, cities, ponies, sounds, sights, lights, colour. Life.
That was what was different about Pinkie. She was allowed to live.
Inkie turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
When Pinkie had left, it seemed odd. Inkie had never thought about leaving. Certainly her parents had never thought about it, because even the mention of ‘somewhere else’ was met with frowns and a quick shushing. Pies were born on the quarry, raised on the quarry, worked on the quarry, and, ostensibly, died on the quarry.
A sick grin crept across Inkie’s face before she chided it away with internal guilt.
Her father hadn’t exactly died on the quarry.
It was awful, but she wanted to laugh.
Her mother still hadn’t said where...
Inkie closed her eyes.
Pinkie was special, alright. She had given the family their first party. Birthdays to that point had been a somber reminder of aging, and other holidays were right out. Inkie still felt odd celebrating Hearth’s Warming, but sure enough, the year she forgot it along with the rest of her family would be the year that Pinkie shipped herself as a present in a giant pink box, and scolded them all for not celebrating properly. Pinkie was a big fan of celebrations.
She’d never belonged, Inkie thought to herself. And that’s why she was gone. To live.
There was no living on the farm. In one particular sense, there was a singular absence of living. In every other sense, there was everything but life. Rocks, inanimate, stagnant, still, lifeless. Grey and black, unchanging colours, circling in perpetuity the same way the rocks did. No parties. No celebration. No happiness. No talking. No smiling. Only rocks.
Inkie sighed and sank into her pillow.
In some part of herself, Inkie wanted the morning to come so another day would be over. But, as she had told herself many times, the ending of a day didn’t mean anything more than the start of a new one.
At least the postal system went on. That was a small blessing.
Inkie felt next to the letter under her pillow for her own response and sighed softly when she found it. The momentary panic of knowing one’s lost something, despite being absolutely positive about where it is.
Sleep came shortly. Inkie dreamed of falling trees, breaking into splintered trunks and dead husks of great, majestic forest pillars. It was upsetting, but it was more exciting than dreaming about rocks.
The day after was more rocks. It was always rocks. Inkie left her sweater inside this time, even if it meant she was cold as the day started. The mornings were always cold, like the sky was raining the chill on them from every angle. Maybe town would be warmer. Inkie worked harder than usual to work up a sweat, but it didn’t do much to warm her up. The beads just seemed to condense against her coat like a freezing rain. She worked until the sun came down. There was no telling how many more rocks there were to move.
When the day was over, Inkie went to her room and pulled her letter from below the pillow, leaving Thistle’s in place. She looked over the words she had written with her black fountain pen, trying her hardest to mimic the script on the letter she had received and failing. Her writing was always splotchier.
She didn’t feel like the letter was done. With her tongue between her teeth, she picked up the pen on her bedside table.
She held it to the paper and tried to think of something to write.
There was a lot to say. Maybe there was nothing to say at all.
She and Thistle had never really met. They had met, once, sort of, last summer, enough that she could vaguely remember a smile and the colour of his coat, a light yellowy orange. She had horrible dreams sometimes that Thistle might remember Pinkie instead of her, because Pinkie was the only one worth remembering, and that all their months of letters had been a lie. She’d met him before Pinkie left, but she’d never met him. She wanted to meet him, some day.
Inkie moved the pen nervously across the line she had left off on the night before.
I’ve been thinking about my sister, she wrote.
It seems like I end up thinking about her a lot. She still writes home every week, saying how much she loves us and misses us and how when she has a chance she’ll come and visit. My mom reads her letters at the table during breakfast.
Inkie paused and chewed the tip of her pen in her mouth, getting black ink on her lips.
I don’t know if I want her to come back. She’s visited before, once or twice, but I don’t really remember it. The only difference is that we don’t have to spend the day moving rocks. That’s all we ever do, and all we ever wake up to do. It’s all I think about, besides her.
Inkie paused again.
And you, she wrote after a minute.
What do you think about at night? It feels like if I didn’t have your letters, I might go crazy. There’s nothing on this farm but grey and black and cold, miserable stones. I don’t even like to go into town anymore, because it just reminds me how bleak everything will look when I get back. And all this time, my sister has made a new life for herself in Ponyville. Somewhere that’s real. She’s out there living, and I’m counting the days inbetween counting the rocks every second that I’m awake.
I think you’re right. I really want to—
The letter disappeared from between Inkie’s hooves mid-sentence, causing her pen to jot a great line of black from the middle of the page all the way to the bottom. She spun her head around for a moment until the source of her letter’s movement showed itself in the form of her sister, grinning and holding the corner in her mouth. Blinkie smiled as she spit the letter out into one of her hooves.
“Whatcha writin’?” she asked.
Inkie shot up like a bolt from the sky and lunged for the letter, but Blinkie was faster, and in possession of the upper ground. She jumped backwards from her sister’s bedside table and landed on the ground with a thump, still holding the letter and grinning.
“Thistle,” she read from the letter’s first page. “I was so happy when your letter showed up today—”
“Give that back!” Inkie wasn’t prone to shouting, but her voice lit up along with her eyes, crackling like a storm was brewing behind them. She dove for her sister again but found only the ground.
Blinkie laughed from the doorway and stuck her tongue out.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” she said. “I’m not gonna make fun of you for having a coltfriend. I just wanna see what it is you’re writing to him about all the time.”
Inkie stood, glowering with a deeper glare then all the dead looks she’d worn over the past week, or even months gone by.
“Give—it—back,” she said, her voice low.
Blinkie shook her head.
The pounding of hooves was the loudest noise the house had heard in weeks, and it thumped down the hall with Blinkie leading and Inkie following in hot pursuit. The sound of the chase went from their bedroom to the living room, where Blinkie began to circle the table, her sister on her tail the whole while.
Blinkie laughed with every step she took, waving the letter gleefully like a flag to be reclaimed in a game of tag. Inkie had none of her sister’s mirth: she looked ready for murder every time she lunged but came up short.
After a minute or two of circling the table, luck landed on Inkie’s side; her sister tripped, thumping against the table with one of her forelegs and falling face-first to the floor. The letter threatened to catch the breeze of her fall and drift away, but she grabbed it from the air, holding it to her chest. Inkie was on her then, pinning her to the ground.
Blinkie was still laughing. She wrapped her forelegs around the letter as Inkie tried to pry it free.
“Give it back,” Inkie said again, her voice murderous. Blinkie shook her head.
“Come on, ‘sis, can’t you just let me—”
One of Inkie’s hooves shifted from a spot on her sister’s shoulder to just under her chin, still pressing down just as hard. Blinkie’s playful admonition was cut off with a sharp choking noise, and she kicked up with her hindlegs. One of her hooves connected with Inkie’s back, but Inkie stayed fast, holding her foreleg in place.
“Now,” she said.
Again, her sister shook her head. Her face gave away the struggle of her breathing under her sister’s hold, but she refused to let go of the letter even as her sister beared down harder.
Slowly, her grip began to loosen as her eyes started to close, fluttering as the seconds went on with Inkie’s hoof on her throat—
“Girls!”
Inkie’s mother’s voice came from the far side of the room by the kitchen. It was enough to startle both ponies into letting go, which meant Blinkie could wriggle out of her sister’s hold, gasping for breath, and Inkie could, after the shock wore off, retrieve her letter, which she tucked against her side.
“What on earth are you two doing?”
“We... I...” Inkie stammered, keeping the letter as much out of view as possible.
“Inkie didn’t want me reading what she was writing to her coltfriend,” Blinkie said. Despite the wheeze of her throat as she collected herself, her voice seemed surprisingly free of bitterness.
“I heard a crash. Are you both alright?”
Inkie looked up at her mother with wide eyes. She let them flit to her sister, who was standing on her mother’s other side. Her sister looked back at her in the same instant.
“We’re fine,” Blinkie said. “Inkie just likes to play rough.”
“Sorry,” Inkie said. She stood up, keeping the letter out of sight.
“Well, be more careful. I’m not up to building a new table if you two break that one.”
“Sorry,” Inkie repeated, her voice sullen.
“Sorry,” Blinkie echoed, already sounding back to her usual self.
Peppy was one thing. Cheerful was Pinkie’s word.
Inkie’s mother gave her a pat on the head as she walked back to her room, Blinkie following behind.
Inkie held the bedroom door open to let her sister walk by. They shared a glance as Blinkie went to her bed, but neither of them said anything.
Like that, the night was boring again. Inkie returned to her bed, wiping a hoof across her forehead, where she felt sweat. Apart from the black streak across the bottom half of the page, the letter was fine.
After a few minutes, Inkie glanced sideways at her sister’s bed. Blinkie was on her side, staring at the wall, though she was laying above her blankets. The soft noise she made when she was sleeping was absent.
Inkie found her pen on the floor where she’d dropped it in the fracas. She held it to her a mouth for a few seconds before returning it to the page.
Sorry about the mess, she wrote. I dropped my pen.
I think you’re right. I really want to meet.
How does two days from now sound?
It was as dark as it had ever been. Even the farm looked unfamiliar with the soft moonglow overhead casting silver shadows on the rocks, but the hills and grass and faraway forest were another story entirely. Over the lone, high-reaching hill, there were trees: the same ones Inkie had dreamed about from time to time. It was hard to tell, sometimes, what she remembered was a dream, and what was real.
The possibility that the letter she’d gotten a few days ago had been in her head. Two days wasn’t enough time for a response, so she sent hers and hoped for the best.
She’d been waiting for an hour now.
The trees were unfamiliar. Even the touch of them was strange, when she was used to rocks. Inkie tried to keep her hooves to herself as she leaned against one of them, settling her weight into the giant trunk. She knew that it should be an earthy-looking shade of brown, but it was black under the night’s sky. Black like everything was. Inkie tucked one of her hooves into her hoodie and breathed out. Her breath became a small fog in the air.
A twig snapped somewhere to her right. Inkie spun towards it. Her spine tingled. She wasn’t sure she even knew which way was back home; there were too many trees and she’d been counting on being able to see better and maybe that was him but what if it wasn’t nopony knew she was out here she’d never even seen the city before and now she was—
Her thoughts stopped as the form stepped towards her between the trees.
In the moonlight, she could see the lighter shade of his coat. Not black, but a soft, daylight yellow.
“Oh,” she said, partly to herself. She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Inkie?” the pony in front of her said. His voice was gentle, boyish, but calm and firm. He stepped closer as he spoke, holding a hoof up against one of the trees to find his way. It was dark, yes, but he was bright. Maybe he couldn’t see himself.
“Yeah,” Inkie said breathlessly. She removed her hoof from her sweater and set it on the ground, where she struggled for a second to balance herself. She stepped forward too, though with less certainty than the pony in front of her.
“It’s me,” the pony said. “Thistle Patch.”
“Hi,” Inkie said. She froze in place and rubbed a hoof against her shoulder, letting Thistle close the distance between them.
He smiled at her in the moonlight.
“I’m so glad you wanted to meet,” he said. “It’s been... well, writing you has been one thing, but it’s something else seeing you for real.”
“Yeah,” Inkie said. Her voice came out unusually loud, and a set of branches to her right rattled in resonance. Though she was sure Thistle couldn’t make it out, she could feel a soft flush creep over her cheeks.
“You look amazing,” Thistle said.
Inkie chewed her bottom lip. Her cheeks felt like they were directly under the sun; not the sun on the farm, but a real sun, that was warm and bright and could make her feel like she was alive inside.
Thistle reached up a hoof to her as he reached a few inches away. Shaking, Inkie raised a hoof of her own to meet it.
Their hooves touched.
In spite of herself, Inkie drew in a sharp breath through her nose. It was awful, she knew, to be so nervous. Thistle was just a pony, albeit one she had spent almost every day writing to for the past year. He was somepony who lived on a farm the same as she did, and while his coat was strong and bright and his life was most certainly more interesting than hers, there was no reason to find herself so tongue-tied and unable to move or speak or think and she should really same something or it would be even more awkward but his hoof felt so nice against hers warmer and more real than anything she had on the farm so much softer than any rock had ever been—
Inkie’s breath caught as she felt the shift against her foreleg. She felt it before she felt his lips on hers, pressing down softly, sweetly. Her mouth froze. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, and Thistle was smiling as he pulled away.
“Sorry,” he said as Inkie held her other hoof to her cheek. “Too soon?”
Inkie shook her head.
The two of them stood there, silent, save the sound of their breathing. Inkie could hear his now, louder than it had been before, but not as loud as hers. She could feel her heart beating in her chest. She could feel the moon as it filtered through the treebranches overhead, sparkling them in barely enough light to see. But she could see now, and she saw that Thistle was smiling.
As if she’d forgotten to, Inkie smiled too.
“I’m... thank you,” she said, and quickly thereafter, “for meeting me, I mean. Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Thistle said. He stepped closer to her, close enough that their chests were almost touching, and for the first time of the night Inkie could see his mane under the moon too, a bright, playful orange. He smiled at her. His smile was the biggest Inkie had ever seen, next to her sister’s. Next to Pinkie’s.
“Can you stay long?” he asked.
Inkie shook her head. Her breath remembered to catch up after a few seconds.
“No,” she said. “I mean, maybe, but I shouldn’t. I’m not sure I remember how to get home.”
“Do you want me to help you find the way back?” Thistle asked. “I mean, I’ve never been to your place before, but I don’t want you to get lost..."
Inkie shook her head again.
“No, it’s okay. You... you just came from that way, right?” Inkie gestured to the forest behind Thistle’s back.
Thistle nodded.
“Yeah. My place is just over the hill.”
“Then... mine must be back that way.” Inkie pointed behind her own back.
Thistle nodded again. “Well,” he said, “I can’t believe I finally got to meet you.”
“We’ve met before,” Inkie said, her voice unsteady.
Thistle shook his head. “Not really. We’ve met before, but we’ve never really... met, you know?”
“Yes,” Inkie breathed. Her heart fluttered in her chest.
The weight against her hoof shifted, and Inkie tensed, ready to close her eyes and purse her lips properly, but Thistle pulled away, still smiling.
“I’d better let you get home then. But we’ll be able to do this again, right?”
Inkie’s head bobbed up and down rapidly.
“Yes,” she said. “I mean... yes, of course. I just have to... I’ll get used to it, and we’ll... you’re not going to stop writing me, are you?”
Thistle laughed. His laugh sparkled off the trees like a playful beam of light in the summer.
“Of course not. You’d better not stop either.”
“I won’t,” Inkie said quietly.
A minute or two passed as the two of them stood, neither of them speaking.
“Well,” Thistle said finally. “I’ll start working on my reply when I get home. Be careful on your way back, okay?”
“Okay,” Inkie said, her voice even smaller.
As Thistle turned back to the forest he’d emerged from, still smiling, a snap of twigs behind drew his attention.
Inkie’s lips were on his awkwardly from the side, as though Inkie was holding her head out at a strange angle just to make her mouth meet his. He closed his eyes and stood as Inkie kissed him. After a few seconds, his lips parted a little bit, and Inkie’s too.
But that was it. Inkie pulled back, took one last look at him, and turned away. Her hooves trampled a few fallen branches underhoof as she darted back the way she had came, on her way to what she hoped was home.
She could have stayed in the forest all night. Stayed in it overnight, sleeping, dreaming, and waking up in bright sunlight against a coat warmer than anything waiting for her at home.
But there were rocks to turn.
She hoped the mailpony would come by soon.
The morning after, Inkie was tired, but she did her best not to let on. Her eyes dropped more than normal as she ate her breakfast mush... but surprisingly, despite the fatigue she knew must be there from her lack of sleep, she felt more awake than ever. The sun, as bleak as it was on the grey landscape that was waiting for it, seemed bright for the first time in her life.
It reminded her of pink glitter and smiles.
Inkie’s mother was paging through a book of sewing patterns as she ate her breakfast. Blinkie was silent, save for the loudness of her chewing. She always chewed the loudest, now that Pinkie was gone. Before she left, Pinkie had tilted her head back and downed her whole bowl in one gulp, then rubbed her stomach and said how delicious it was.
Inkie let a spoonful of glop dribble down back into her bowl with a wet, sloppy sound.
“When are we going to tell her?” she asked. The sound of her sister’s chewing went on for a second, then became silence.
Inkie’s mother closed the book of patterns and set it on the table, looking up at Inkie with a hard-to-read expression on her face.
“We’ll tell her in time, dear. You know what I said before... it won’t do any good to bother your sister with... with this, when she’s off and busy in Ponyville.”
“What about when we leave for Ponyville?” Inkie went on. She looked up from the table for the first day and weeks and let her eyes rest deadset on her mother. Her eyelids found no reprieve in their weariness as she forced them to stay open. “Will we have told her by then?”
“What do you mean, ‘when you leave for Ponyville?” Inkie’s mother let her hoof rest on her book of patterns, then quickly pulled it away. Blinkie, in the middle of the table, set her spoon slowly back in its bowl, and traded glances between her mother and sister.
“Well, were you planning on keeping both of us here forever?” Inkie asked. She stood up from the table, and her chair legs creaked angrily on the floor as she did so. “Pinkie gets to go off and make friends and have a real life, while we’re stuck here turning rocks?”
“So you were planning on leaving your mother here with the family business to keep together on her own, I suppose?” Inkie’s mother raised her voice, still seated, though a straightening of her posture hinted at a desire to get up. “Things are tough enough as it is with just the three of us, I can’t believe you would...”
“So why won’t you tell Pinkie? If she heard, she could come back, and help. You could hire somepony from town, even.”
Inkie’s mother stood and pounded her hoof against her sewing book with a loud snap as she did so.
“This is our farm,” she said simply, her voice biting. “Nopony else’s, and I’m not about to make things any worse for your sister. She was never happy working with rocks, it wouldn’t be fair to her to—”
“So why is it fair to us? Why do we have to wake up every day looking forward to another ten hours moving rocks from one stupid field to another? Why does she get to have a life, and we don’t?”
“Inkie,” Inkie’s mother said, her voice trembling. “I can’t believe you. It’s nothing to do with ‘fair’. I need you two here. I can’t run the farm by myself... and here you are, wanting your sister to go through what we did when your father... when he...”
Inkie’s mother began to shake as the tears came. Blinkie stood up, the last one to rise from the table, and ran to her mother’s side, grabbing her and nuzzling her face into her side.
Watching the tears trickle down her mother’s cheeks made Inkie feel like the balloon welling up inside her had been punctured. She unstiffened her posture and remembered, suddenly, how tired she was.
“I...” she stammered out the word, her voice returning to its usual quietness. Her mother and Blinkie stared at her from the other side of the table, both of them nursing tears.
“Sorry,” she said finally. “I... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... I didn’t mean it like that.”
Inkie’s mother sniffled for a few seconds more, then wiped a hoof across her face, clearing the few tears that remained. Her face was surprisingly soft as she waved Blinkie back to her seat.
“It’s fine, dear. I understand how things, with... it’s alright. Sometimes we all say things we don’t mean.”
That was it then, was it?
Inkie nodded.
“Go on then,” her mother said, gesturing towards the door. “Still lots to do on the east field.”
Of course there was. There always would be.
Without another word, Inkie walked to the door, her head low against her chest. Her eyes felt heavy, and there was a lot of work to be done.
There always was.
Blinkie spoke to her while they were turning that afternoon. Neither of them spoke during the rock turning, if only because they never had. There was no smiling or talking while working with the rocks. At first, Blinkie’s voice came as a low hiss, and Inkie had top stop and strained to make it out before the source came to her, behind her back. She turned and found Blinkie, glaring at her.
“Hey,” she said. Her voice matched the strength of her glare.
Inkie said nothing.
“What was the deal with giving Mom such a hard time?” Blinkie asked. She pushed her rock as she spoke, moving up until she was next to Inkie before stopping. She waited with one hoof resting on the stone, an eyebrow raised.
Inkie shrugged.
“I don’t know. Sorry.”
“You know how much she must be dealing with lately, with Dad...”
The low croon of a cool breeze wafting by took over instead of silence as Blinkie's sentence trailed off.
“She feels bad enough as it is. She doesn’t need you making her feel worse.”
Blinkie waited for a few seconds with her stare on her sister. Inkie looked up, then back at the ground. The ground was grey and covered in small stones, beneath the larger ones she had spent the last week rolling.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Try to be a little more understanding, okay? It’s just us working here. Mom needs our help.”
It was just them, wasn’t it? And when their mother passed, in a same or different way than their father had, the farm would be theirs. All the fields of rocks would belong to them, all the days of labour would be their own, and they would be in charge of making a new family to turn the rocks forever forward after that.
Inkie looked hard at the ground. It remained grey.
“Okay,” she said.
Blinkie nodded and resumed her position behind her rock. She pushed it with a silent dedication. As far back as Inkie could remember, that was the only time anyone had spoken on the rock field.
She waited until her sister had gone by, then took up her own spot and began to push. There were many more rocks to move. Her eyelids felt heavy.
After the first time, Inkie learned the way home.
The days passed, as they did. There were cold mornings, rocks, and letters back and forth. It was the same as it had always been, before her sister left and after. Things had changed for Pinkie, but they hadn’t changed for anypony else.
Except her father.
Inkie tried not to think about him. The questions she found herself asking were more mechanical than anything: where had he gone, what had the logistics been. Didn’t he deserve a funeral? Inkie tried to keep the thoughts out, but they crept in from time to time.
The only one that stayed away was ‘why?’ It was because she didn’t need to ask. In a way, she knew why.
That was what she told herself when the subtle whisper of it found her in the mornings. Before the rocks. Later, after the rocks. As she turned them. She would try to write letters in her head to pass the time, but of course the thought was there. Why.
She knew why.
After the first time, Inkie had gone back to the forest at night. It was a week until the first time. Her heart still lit up the same way when she saw him, in a way that it never had before, so strong she could feel it pounding, and even though she knew it wasn’t exactly ‘proper,’ she had run to him and kissed him and had what felt like her first real kiss, mouth open and sighing softly under the rustling branches of the trees overhead.
They had met many times over the next month or two. Inkie wasn’t sure, but she thought she loved him. It was hard to say though.
For one, she had never loved anyone else, so there was no comparison to be had. She certainly wanted to love him. She knew that love between a pony you wanted to be with and somepony who was your family was a very different thing, and when she thought about it, she wasn’t even sure if she knew what the latter meant. She loved her sister, and her other sister, Pinkie, and her mother, and she had loved her father too when he was around. She was pretty sure, anyway. But none of that felt like what she felt for Thistle. She wanted to see him. She wanted his letters. With her family, they were simply there, and she loved them because that was what ponies did. It was a very different feeling.
Inkie was quiet when she was with him. She thought about love when she was with him too, but never said anything about it.
The stars were particularly bright one night when they met. They greeted each other with a kiss more often than not, and then found a way to curl up together. That night, Inkie was laying across Thistle’s chest, and he was resting his back against a giant tree, propped up and staring off into the stars. Inkie cast glances at them occasionally, but mostly she just closed her eyes and nestled her head into Thistle’s shoulder, sighed softly, and thought. She spent a lot of her time thinking. For as much as she could write to him, she always found the words hard when she was there in person. Thistle never seemed to mind though. He was all smiles when they were together, and Inkie let him do most of the talking.
“What are you gonna do when you decide to pack up and move somewhere else?” he asked, adjusting slightly against the tree.
Inkie opened her eyes. She tilted her head towards and found him smiling, as he always was. She wasn’t sure she’d heard the question right.
“Huh?” she asked.
“You know,” Thistle said. “When you finally get tired of moving rocks all day and decided to leave for someplace else. Like you always talk about. Write about, anyway,” he corrected with a soft chuckle.
“I don’t know,” Inkie said. She sat up and tucked her hooves into her sweater. Thistle gestured with a foreleg to the ground next to him, and Inkie sat beside him, leaning up against the tree as he was.
“I was thinking I want to do something exciting. The royal guard, maybe. I’ve seen the uniforms they get to wear, and they look really cool.”
Inkie was silent. She looked to the stars for a moment, then back down at the ground, which was black and shielded by the bows of the trees overhead.
“I figure even if the job was just standing around for eight hours a day, it couldn’t be more boring than working on a farm... and at least something exciting might happen occasionally. Plus, I’d get to live in Canterlot, and see the princess, and spend all my free time in the royal city.” Thistle’s eyes lit up when he spoke, and he held his hoof opposite Inkie’s side up in the air as he spoke, as though he was painting a picture with his words. Inkie sat silently, but Thistle's other foreleg wrapped around her and drew her close. She could feel the chill of his coat through her hoodie. It only did so good a job at keeping her warm at night.
“What about you?” Thistle turned his head, smiling. Inkie looked at him for a moment, then looked away.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but not in the way it normally was at nights. At nights when she was here.
Thistle noticed it. HIs smile dulled, and his eyes grew deeper. He turned himself towards Inkie and placed one hoof on each shoulder, forcing Inkie to look up at him.
“Hey,” he said.
Inkie’s face was sullen. Like she was at the breakfast table with her family.
“What’s the matter?”
Inkie looked to the side.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Come on.” Thistle touched a hoof against Inkie’s chin and turned her head back. Her eyes shimmered as she met his stare reluctantly.
“What’s the matter?” he repeated.
“It’s just...”
Thistle leaned in closer, his brow furrowed.
“I don’t know that I can leave,” she said.
“What do you mean? Do you not want to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Thistle released his grip on Inkie’s shoulders, which let her tuck up further into her hooding, staring off at the distant stars.
“I don’t know what’s out there for me,” she said.
“There’s plenty. You tell me about your sister who left all the time, and she seems to love being out in the world.”
“Of course she does,” Inkie said. She removed her hooves from her pocket and stood up, turning towards the patch of forest she had come from to the night’s meeting. Thistle stood too, and placed a hoof softly on the small of her back, where he began moving it up and down slowly.
“She never fit in at the farm, even when she was a filly,” Inkie said. “So of course she’d be happy living somewhere else. Having a job, friends, a future to look forward to instead of rocks.”
“So why can’t you do all that? Surely your mom doesn’t expect you to stay on the farm forever—”
Inkie stepped forward and turned, tears in her eyes welling up as her voice did the same.
“But she does! She thinks Blinkie and I are just going to live on the farm forever, to have kids there and raise them the same way she raised us, waking up every day to rocks, going to bed to rocks, living and breathing rocks until we get old and die. Until we...” Inkie’s voice faltered.
She had never told him about her father.
Thistle stepped forward and put a hoof on Inkie’s shoulder, which he used to pull her closer. Inkie leaned into him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Thistle’s hoof found the back of Inkie’s mane, and he ran along it slowly.
“Can’t you talk to her about it?” he asked. “I’m sure if you explain... I mean, you’ve told me what you think about working on the farm. Telling her would be just as easy.”
“Not really,” Inkie said, mumbling into Thistle’s coat.
“Well...” he said.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Come with me,” he said.
Inkie pulled her head up and looked at him. A small smile had returned to his lips.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Sure you can. Come with me to Canterlot. We’ll find a nice studio place, something small while we look for work... I’ve got a bit saved up, and you can feel how great it is to live in the city—”
”I can’t—”
”I’ll apply for the guard, and you can do whatever you want, work or art or music, you always told me you wanted to see the orchestra one time—”
”Please—”
“And we’ll go visit your sister in Ponyville, and you’ll get a chance to see how great things are when you can decide what to do with your own life. Doesn’t that sound great?”
Thistle’s smile had broken into its full size now, and he beamed at Inkie as she sunk lower into her own chest.
“Mhm,” she said, her eyes misty.
“Hey.”
Thistle put a hoof under Inkie’s chin and lifted her head up. She met his eyes after a few seconds, and his smile wavered as he saw the sparkling hint of tears in the corners of Inkie’s eyes.
“I’m sorry. I just thought... this was something you always talked about wanting to do.”
Inkie pushed his hoof away and sank away from him, turning her head to the side.
“Wanting something is different than being able to have it.”
The soft swish of the night breeze through the treetops blew around them, twigs crunching almost silently against each other. Inkie rubbed a hoof against the sleeve of her sweater and stared off into the distance, past the forest, over the small hills leading down to town, and further than that, where other ponies lived and laughed and played and cried and had real lives. Where they lived each day as it came, and every second was something they could learn and experience and love.
Where there were no rocks.
Inkie wiped a tear away from her eye.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine. Hey, come here.” Thistle held out his forelegs, and Inkie walked to him after a moment, letting him wrap her in an embrace.
“Just forget it, okay? We’ll talk about it some other time.”
Inkie said nothing. She held her face to Thistle’s shoulder until he pulled away, and then back, planting a soft kiss on her forehead. She looked up at him, and he leaned in again. She met his kiss, lips closed.
After a few minutes of kissing, his forelegs let her go, and they settled down against the tree again. Inkie closed her eyes, the remnants of the stars’ sparkles behind them, and tried very hard not to think about anything.
Inkie sat in her bed with a letter against her headboard. She tapped her pen on the bottom of the page, dislodging several spots of ink, which she tried to wipe away with the sleeve of her hoodie. The dots left long, grey smudges where they had been.
Inkie looked again to the top of her letter.
Dear Pinkie, it started.
There are some things I need to tell you.
Several paragraphs followed. Inkie had mostly written the words to get them out, because she felt like they had been boiling inside her for a while. Writing a letter to her sister with any intention to send it was a sort of heresy, she knew. Letters to Pinkie were a family affair; as such, none had been sent since her father’s death. Her mother said they would get around to it soon, surely, but ‘soon’ had been weeks ago.
The largest facet of her family offense was sandwiched into the middle paragraph she had written, as though it was a completely nonchalant thought to pass along with no regard at all.
Dad died last month, it said. He hung himself.
Inkie stared at the sentence for a while, daring it to leap out at her. For it to read itself aloud and bring her mother running, furious and crying to snatch the paper off her bed and tear it apart, lest she poison the life of the only pony of brightness and hope to come from the farm.
What would Pinkie say when she read it? Would she cry the way Inkie hadn’t? Would she have more tears to shed than the ones that came with the shock of finding her father’s body hanging there, limp and lifeless? Would she ask the questions nopony had asked: why had he done it, was there a note, where was the body buried, why was there no funeral. Why wasn’t she told.
Inkie moved her pen to tap against the sentence. She stared at it hard. The rest of the letter surrounded it like a fanciful garnish furnishing the bitter, acidic main course waiting underneath the meal’s platter. Inkie’s cursive had been getting better. Thistle had given her some pointers.
Inkie stared at the sentence for a while.
She crumbled up the letter and threw it under her bed. She returned her pen to her bedside table and flicked off her lamp. As her eyes closed, she counted the seconds until she fell asleep, knowing there were only more rocks to wake up to.
The mailpony had a letter her for her two days later. It had the name on the top she recognized, written in the same fancy script she could have identified from miles away. She got to take in the mail that day, and she hid the letter in her hoodie as she walked back inside.
“Any letters today, dear?” her mother asked, preparing some vegetables for lunch over the sink.
Inkie shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Nothing today.”
Her mother sighed but said nothing. Inkie stood and listened to the sound of vegetable peelings falling against metal for a few seconds before she walked back to her room, slowly.
She closed the door and looked around to make sure she was alone before she took out the letter and opened it. Her sister was around less these days. Helping their mother. Doing who-knows-what. Inkie didn’t concern herself with it that much.
Dear Inkie, the letter started.
I’ve gotten a position with the royal guard in Canterlot.
Inkie almost dropped the letter. She lowered it from above her head to her stomach and realized then that there was a giant breath welling inside her. She let it out like a reverse gasp. Her chest felt tight. She kept her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, her hooves shaking on the letter. After a minute, she raised it up and began to read again.
I applied a while ago, but didn’t expect anything to come of it. An interviewer was down to the farm yesterday, and he told me after talking and doing a physical that I had the spot.
My training starts next week.
Inkie felt a swell of bile in the back of her throat, but she swallowed it and continued reading.
I want you to come with me.
I know when we talked before, you weren’t sure you could leave. I know what you mean—my family was pretty choked up when I told them about the job too. But in the end, after all the crying, they were happy for me, and I know yours would be too.
I don’t want to go there by myself. No matter what it is you want to do, or even if you don’t know, I think I know from all the letters you’ve written me that you don’t want to be here. There’s probably nowhere you’d rather not be.
I know this is a big thing to ask. I don’t know how you feel about me, or if I’m somepony you’d like to spend the rest of your life with, or even the next month with... but I think if you come with me to Canterlot, you’ll see there’s a lot more to life than rocks.
I want you to meet me in two days so we can leave. You can pack whatever you want—if you write me back and ask, I’ll come to your farm and help you get your things together. My family can meet your family, if you want. Anything, as long as you’ll come with me.
Our usual spot, in two days.
I really hope you’ll be there.
Inkie closed her eyes. A single, hot tear rolled out of her right eye, but there were more behind it.
Love, Thistle, the letter was signed. His name was a great cursive swirl. The word next to it was one Inkie had never seen written at the end of a letter before.
With the door closed, Inkie turned to her stomach, still holding the letter, and began to cry into her pillow.
The next day, at breakfast, Inkie didn’t take a single bite of her mush. Blinkie gobbled hers up with the same muted enthusiasm she always had, and her mother did the same, staring wistfully out the window on occasion between bites.
Inkie felt for the broken-off piece below the table but found only traces of scratchy wood. There were no more chunks to pull apart.
She looked out the window of the living room. As far as the eye could see, there were rocks.
Inkie’s mother cleared her throat and took another bite of her mush.
Blinkie finished her bowl and rose from the table silently, bringing her dishes to the sink and running a cold stream of water over them.
Inkie waited until her sister had left back to her room, then followed her motions, rising from the table with her breakfast bowl and bringing it to the sink. She stared down the drain for a moment, peering into the unknowable darkness beyond the thin layer of metal. After a few seconds, she spooned her mush into the sink and washed it away with some water, then washed her bowl and set it to dry. She left her mother at the table, still finishing her meal, and went back to her room. The east field was almost done, which meant it was almost time to begin moving them back again.
She wasn’t sure what to bring.
She’d made a bindle of sorts with her hoodie, because there were no suitcases on the farm. Nopony there had ever needed to go anywhere. Shipments were taken by cart when ponies ordered them. Trading was done in town, bringing what they could to market, which was rocks, along in a small sack, or a large sack if two ponies went. Inkie had her hoodie, and that was it.
Did she need to bring anything else?
Her eyes scanned over her bed and the possessions nearby. She had her stack of paper. Her pen. The letters from Thistle she had kept, which took up a lot of space. She had folded them neatly.
She had, next to her hoodie, the letter she had thrown under the bed. It was uncrumpled but still looked a bit of a mess.
Dear Pinkie, it said at the top.
Inkie looked over the rest of the room. Her sister was sleeping in her nearby bed, making that soft whistling sound she always did.
Inkie crumbled up the letter and tucked it into the assortment of things she had piled on her hoodie. After fumbling with the knot for a moment, she managed to tie the hooded sweater into a bundle which she ran a stick through, slinging it over her shoulder like she was a travelling vagrant. A pony with nothing to her name and no home to return to. No home worth returning to.
She stared at her bed and the rest of the room for a few minutes. The moon was halfway into the sky. It was later than usual. She had taken a while to put everything together, and then even longer to tie it.
Her hooves felt heavy as she opened the door to her room and stepped outside.
She left through the front door the way she was used to, letting it fall into place with a quiet click as she began her trek to the top of the hill.
She’d only taken a few steps over the forest floor before Thistle made himself apparent. He peeked out from between two trees on her right and immediately ran to her, holding out his hooves. Inkie shook her head and waved a hoof at him.
“You came,” he said. He smiled. He sounded surprised.
Inkie nodded.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m glad,” Thistle said. “I’m so glad. I wasn’t sure if you’d...” He let his sentence trail off, staring at Inkie with a huge smile on his face. He shook his head, clearing the words out of the air. “Nevermind. I’m just so happy you made it. Come on, I’ve got everything ready to go for tomorrow.”
Thistle reached out to Inkie’s free hoof and took it firmly, leading her forward through the forest.
After only a few steps, Inkie’s hooves felt heavier. The movement of her legs slowed. After a few more, she stopped completely, and Thistle with her, unable to drag her along.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. His eyes shimmered underneath the moonlight, coming in stronger as they neared the edge of the forest on the far side.
“I can’t,” Inkie said. Her voice trembled, though not so thickly as to be brimming with tears. But she pulled her hoof away from Thistle and held it to her chest. She set her bundle down on the forest floor, where twigs crackled as it settled. She sat down next to it.
“I can’t,” she said again, her voice raspier. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” Thistle kneeled next to her and brought his face close, so close Inkie could feel his nose against hers. She turned her head away and shook it, trying to will the tears to stay inside her eyes.
“No,” she said.
“Yes, you can. You came all the way out here because you want to come with me.” Thistle reached out a hoof, but Inkie swatted it away, then crossed both her forelegs across her chest, feeling the dull warmth of her hoodie against them.
Thistle stayed kneeling for a moment, then sat in front of Inkie. “Listen,” he said. “I know this is scary. I can understand why it would be... heck, I’m pretty scared too. I’m gonna be leaving everything I know to go somewhere I’ve never been to do a job I’m not even sure I’ll like.” Thistle leaned back a little on his hooves, and then forward again. “But you know what?”
Inkie shook her head, but didn’t speak. Tears welled in her eyes.
“It’s okay. Because it’ll be an adventure, and no matter what comes, I'll find a way to deal with it. I just... I was hoping you’d be there to share it with me.”
Thistle leaned close to Inkie again and brought her face to his. Inkie sniffed, holding her tears back only by an inch.
“Hey,” Thistle said. “Come on. I love you.”
He leaned in with his lips pursed.
Inkie turned her head away.
“I can’t,” she said, letting his lips land coldly on her cheek.
Thistle stayed sitting for a moment. His smile, in the darkness, narrowed into a stern line. “Why not?” he asked.
“Because... because...” Inkie stammered, stuttering over the simple word with the flow of her tears held behind it. “Because I don’t... I don’t belong out there. In the real world. No one in our family does.”
“Pinkie Pie did,” Thistle said.
“Pinkie Pie is different!” Inkie shouted as she stood, pulling herself up and shaking twigs off her forelegs as she did so. “She’s always been different. She never belonged on the farm, and that’s why she left. But me, and Blinkie, and my mom, we... I...”
“You’re being ridiculous. There’s no ‘belonging’ about it. Just come with me and you can have a real life, with friends and excitement and every day being different, just like you’ve always wanted—” Thistle reached out his hoof.
“I can’t!” Inkie swatted it away and wailed, finally letting the tears free. They poured down her cheeks like a river on either side, catching faint glimmers of the moonlight as they fell to the ground. Her whole body shook as she let them go, her face contorted as the dams behind her eyes burst. “You don’t get it. I can’t. I just can’t. There’s... I can’t.”
Slowly, with his lips still thin, Thistle lowered his hoof. It crunched softly against the forest floor. Inkie’s sobbing began to soften, but her tears still flowed freely.
“Don’t you love me?” Thistle asked, his voice the quietest Inkie had ever heard it.
Inkie shook her head and stared elsewhere. She couldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t.” She shook her head for a few more seconds, dislodging tears in their waterfall and sending them sprinkling to the ground in the moonlight.
Thistle stood, unspeaking.
After a minute had passed, Inkie looked up at him, her cheeks wet.
“What are you going to do with the rest of your life then?” he asked. His voice was dim. His coat looked like the dull fingers of sunlight in the morning, creeping over the horizon.
“I don’t know,” Inkie whispered.
“Maybe you should think about that,” Thistle said.
Inkie wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a sparkle in his eye as he turned his head.
Neither of them said anything. Thistle’s hooves crunched as he walked over the bed of twigs on the forest floor. Inkie watched him as he walked, past the trees that marked the edge of the forest, then out between the trunks on either side. She watched until he disappeared down the hill. It was too dark to see further, though she knew there were lower hills, and beyond that, the farm he had come from.
After a few minutes, Inkie picked up her things and turned around. She had never come this far into the forest before. Still, she knew the way home. It was a familiar path, worn into her the way it was worn into the ground, the way the path of the rocks was worn into the dirt.
The moonlight kept her tears bright as she walked down the hill.
It was that simple, wasn't it?
She’d spent her whole life waiting for that moment. She’d spent a year in letters pining for that moment.
She’d looked him in the eye and told him no.
And now where was she?
Inkie forced herself to be quiet as she stepped inside. It was late still. The sun was nowhere in the sky, and she couldn’t tell where it was meant to be. She stepped into the bedroom, careful not to wake her sister, and tucked her things back under the bed. With her hoodie free again, she pulled it over her head.
The air was too warm. Her sweater felt hot against her coat.
She pulled it off and threw it under the bed with the rest of the things she had meant to bring with her. That she had brought home after walking down that hill, away from the boy she had written to, who was moving away to a new future. Who was taking his first step into being real, while she was taking the biggest step backwards imaginable.
She had told him: ‘I can’t.’
Was that true?
Inkie held her face in her hooves, screaming inside but unwilling to let the sound out.
That morning. She had been the one who found him. She had been the one sent to fetch him and bring him to breakfast.
There was no note. No warning. The air was warm, and he was cold. That night, they had asparagus for dinner. Two days after, they returned to the rocks.
The rocks that were there, and would be there forever.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Pinkie was different. Everyone said it, knew it, Inkie and her sister and mother, and her father too before he had gone. Pinkie was special. Pinkie didn’t belong here.
But that was Pinkie. This was her.
Her father didn’t need to say anything. She knew what he would have said.
He was no different than she was. Than they all were.
If he had slept that night, he would have awoken to the same rocks that were outside the living room window. The same rocks that hid from Inkie’s view as the sun sulked slowly over the mountains, farther away than she would ever know, or was ever meant to know.
Her father would have woken up to the same thing. Pinkie was different, but for him everything was the same.
‘I can’t,’ she had said.
She was right. When she woke up, everything would be the same.
But now the letters would be gone. There would be only rocks.
Inkie shook as she held herself on the bed. She closed her eyes and tried hard to imagine Pinkie’s smile, vibrant and bright like nothing on the farm had ever been.
Only grey greeted her behind her eyes.
She wasn’t at all like Pinkie. The farm was where she belonged, and where the whole rest of her family belonged.
He didn’t need to say anything, Inkie thought to herself.
She held her face to her pillow, letting the tears from her eyes stain the pillowcase, but keeping silent aside from the soft shaking of her body against the bedding.
‘I can’t,’ she had said.
She was right.
In the morning, everything would be the same.
Still shaking, Inkie stood from her bed. She looked over bedroom, taking in the softened sight of her sister sleeping, snoring quietly. She looked over the bed she had slept in for years, since she had outgrown the one she used as a filly. She looked over the absence of things worth anything to her, the only ones that had ever mattered thrown under her bed so that nopony, not even her, could see them.
Inkie let her hair fall over her eyes as she opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hall. She shut it quietly, with barely a click.
It was an unusually warm morning as Inkie’s mother awoke. She stretched at length in the living room as the sun poured in, brighter than it had been for a while. She took the opportunity to look out over the fields, noting with some contentment that the whole of the east field had been moved. That meant there was a big shipment to pick up, and then they could start a new crop, along with moving the rocks back from the west field. Rock farming was simple, efficient, and reliable, which was one of the reasons she liked it. She couldn’t remember what the other ones were.
The sun greeted her as she stepped out the front door. She could see the mailpony in the distance already, walking toward the mailbox as she was. She stood at it, smiling, until the cheerful pony with the brown coat nodded to from a few feet away and extended his hoof, holding a single letter with bright pink glitter on the front.
“Morning, Mrs. Pie,” he said. “Nice weather we’re having out today, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Inkie’s mother said. She took the letter and tucked it against her side. “It’s warmer than it has been, isn’t it?”
“Yes, very nice. How’s yours doing? Girls keepin’ busy?”
“Yes, they’re doing well.”
“I swear, I bring a letter for that one every other day. Inkie, ‘s her name?”
Inkie’s mother nodded.
“She has a boy from over that way that she’s taken quite a liking to,” Inkie’s mother said. “I’m hoping I’ll get to meet him one of these days.” She smiled.
The mailpony smiled back.
“Ah, youth. I remember myself at that age... I suppose it’s a miracle she doesn’t stop talking about it.”
“She’s always been a bit quiet,” Inkie’s mother said. “Still... you’re right, she writes to him almost every day.”
“Anything to go out today?” the mailpony asked.
Inkie’s mother shook her head.
“No, nothing today. Thank you though. Hope the rest of your day goes well.”
“Certainly seems it will with the weather this way. You take care ‘til tomorrow.” The mailpony gave a wave as he made his way off to the other side of the farm. Inkie’s mother waved at him in a similar fashion as she watched him go. She walked back inside the house shortly thereafter.
A letter from Pinkie. It was always a treat. She’d wait till the girls were awake to read it, of course.
Speaking of which, it was about time for breakfast, and here neither of them were up.
Inkie’s mother set the letter on the kitchen table and looked around. No signs that anypony had been up. She settled into her chair and pulled out the letter opener from her nearby mail-drawer. Taking care not to spill too much glitter, she opened the envelope and pulled the stationary from inside, white with bright pink sparkles at the edges.
She let her eyes scan over the first few lines before she set it down on the table. A soft smile crept across her face, though a shimmer in her eye hinted that it was bittersweet.
Time to wake the girls.
She knocked on the door twice before pushing it open. Blinkie was already sitting up with a yawn as Inkie’s mother stepped inside, and she answered her daughter with a smile.
“Morning, dear,” she said. She waited until Blinkie smiled back at her, then turned to her other daughter’s bed.
The sheets were tucked in at the corners. There was no sign of anypony sleeping there.
Inkie's mother felt a stiffness in her chest.
“Blinkie,” she said. “Do you know where your sister is? Did she say anything about waking up early?”
Blinkie shook her head.
“I don’t think so. She was up late last night, but I fell asleep before she did. I don’t know where she is.”
Inkie’s mother’s eyes narrowed as she scanned over Inkie’s bed. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The bed was made well, as it was every morning, and nothing looked to be out of place. She stepped close to the bed and ran her hoof over it, but found no undo lumps or hidden things lurking under the covers.
“I’ll go see if I can find her. Let me know if she comes in, and tell her not to worry me like this while you’re at it.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Blinkie was getting up from bed as Inkie’s mother stepped out of the bedroom. She looked down either end of the hall, finding only the same house that had always been there.
Where had she gone?
Inkie’s mother walked through the kitchen to the front door again, passing by the table and Pinkie’s letter resting on top. She stared out the window at the rock field, taking in the sight of the empty dirt washed over by the sun.
After a few seconds, she opened the door and stepped outside. Her breath failed to mist in the air. The door shut behind her with a click.
*
Inside, Blinkie had gotten up properly and began to make her way to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes as she walked. Her hooves clopped quietly on the kitchen tile as she found her seat at the table. Her eyes lit up as she caught sight of the letter waiting there.
*
Inkie’s mother walked once around the house, scanning in every direction. There was no sign of her daughter on any part of the horizon, though the sun made it hard to see in some places. There was no sign of her on either of the fields, and she had even checked against the walls of the house, and underneath the windows, in case Inkie was playing a silly hiding game like she had done with her sisters so many years ago.
She was making her second round when she stopped and turned her head to the wooden structure that had gone unused on the farm for months.
The door was slightly ajar.
*
Blinkie couldn’t help herself after a few minutes. She knew Pinkie’s letters were a family treat, but surely there couldn’t be any harm in just reading it over once. A small bit of glitter fell off as she grabbed the letter and slid it across the table.
Hey guys, the letter began. It’s the first day of the week, and you know what that means: time for Pinkie’s fantastic super-happy-to-talk-to-you-guys letter home to her awesome family!
Blinkie smiled as she began to read.
*
Inkies mother stepped close to the door slowly. With arduous sluggishness, her hoof almost failing to move, she tapped against the wooden door of her late husbands workshop.
“Inkie? Are you in there?”
No response came but the sound of her own breathing. The door creaked as she pushed it open and peered inside.
*
I’m writing this week with some super-exciting news: I talked to my bosses, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, and they said I could finally have some time off to visit you guys! Isn’t that exciting?
*
Inkie’s mother’s hoof shook as the door fell open. Her eyes saw nothing from her first glance but the floor of old hay that had always coated the bottom of the workshop. Still shaking, she stepped inside.
Her eyes landed on the stool a few feet forward, fallen on its side.
*
I know I’ve been away for a long time, and I really have wanted to visit sooner... it’s just been really hard, what with work, and ponies around town, and those three or four times I had to save the world... but in the end, I realized nothing’s more important than family, which is why I’m leaving today to come see you guys. I should be there in a day or two, if my train doesn’t get lost!
Blinkie smiled as she read, her eyes lighting up with the familiar joy that only Pinkie’s face in her memory could bring.
*
Above the stool was where Inkie’s mother’s eyes went next. The scene that greeted her was a familiar one; hanging there, as limply as the first she had found, was a hoof, attached to a limb, dangling from the rope hanging from the bannister of the workshop.
Instead of her husband, the late Father Pie, her daughter’s body hung there. Inkie. Her eyes were closed, and her body swivelled as the rope turned.
A shout caught in her throat, and along with it the feeling of sickness in her stomach. She half-ran, half-stumbled forward, reaching out with her hooves long before she was close. When she finally touched, Inkie’s coat was cold against her hooves.
*
I remember how boring stuff was on the farm, Pinkie’s letter went on. I don’t mean that it was awful, though it sure wasn’t for me... but I wonder sometimes if you guys don’t all get a little down, working all day with nothing exciting to cheer you up. It’s great seeing you guys on holidays, but I feel like that’s not enough sometimes.
So I was wondering... we can talk about it more when I get there, but I think it would be super-totally-cool if Inkie or Blinkie wanted to come stay with me for a bit. I mean... if that’s okay with you, Mom.
*
The churning feeling in her stomach came full-force at last as Inkie’s mother pawed at Inkie as she hung, batting at her futilely in an attempt to hold her up. She turned her head to the right and was promptly sick into the hay, spraying up her morning coffee and asparagus from the night before. Her hooves shook as she reached for the stool, setting it on its legs after a few false starts and standing atop it, reaching for the knot at the top of the rope hanging overhead.
*
When I was on the farm, I didn’t want anything more than... well, than what wasn’t on the farm. That’s not to say I didn’t love you guys... but there’s a whole big world out here to explore, and Ponyville’s just a part of it! You can say no when I get there, but I got the feeling last time I visited that the whole ‘working all the time’ thing might be starting to bum you out.
I’ll be bringing lots of presents with me just in case you say no; at least that way, you’ll have some fun stuff to do while you’re on the farm. Heck, maybe you guys even like moving rocks more than I did.
*
Inkie’s mother fumbled with the knot at the top of the rope for a few seconds before giving up and jumping down from the stool. She stumbled to the nearby workbench and pulled out the red toolbox from below, throwing it open and searching for something sharp. After a few scattered compartments, a pair of large shearing scissors jumped out at her. Meant for trimming boulders. She hadn’t used them since her husband had died.
Clutching them in her teeth, Inkie’s mother jumped on top of the stool and worked the blades at the rope.
They went through it slower than she could bear, but eventually the rope reached its final thread. Inkie fell as it did, landing on the ground with a sick-sounding thump and dislodging the stool in the process, which brought her mother tumbling down with her.
*
Anyway, I’m almost out of paper, and I have a train to catch really soon, so I’ll stop here. I can’t wait to see you guys though—don’t do anything special for my showing up, either: you can leave all that stuff to me!
Love, with all my heart forever and ever and sugar and candy and the best thoughts I can give, Pinkie Pie.
Blinkie set the letter back down on the coffee table, grinning broadly.
*
Inside the workshop, Inkie’s mother scrambled to her daughter’s side. Her chest was cold as she pressed down on it, feeling for a heartbeat.
After a few seconds, she began to press harder in bursts. Her hooves faltered as she moved, then fell from Inkie’s chest to her sides, where they picked her up and began to shake. The tears that leaked in perpetuity through her motion came full-on, and finally her voice, echoing into the far reaches of the workshop’s interior.
But nothing came. No answer. No smile.
Outside the workshop, save the sounds of crying that came from within, the air was quiet. The sun stretched lazily out over the dirt fields—the fields, devoid of grass and seeds and trees and life, and at the moment even of ponies to walk across them. There were, as there had always been, and would be forevermore, rocks.
There were only rocks.
Author's Note
Based on the prompt:
"Where did you learn to do that?"
"My father taught me."
