The one and only chapter.
Oh, hi there! Hi!
It’s so nice to see you! I’m Tom! I don’t often get visitors, well, I don’t ever get visitors, but hey! You’re here! Haven’t talked to anyone for the longest time! Being a rock sort of does that to you. It’s the gems that get all the attention and adoration, but no one appreciates a bland looking slab. In the middle of a field. Somewhere. Well, I used to have this really nice spot in a maze. Plenty of greenery to look at, pretty gardeners to ogle, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. You know, I found love in that place. There I was, just... Being a rock, I guess. (The gardeners had the week off, I mean, there’s only so many times you can trim a hedge per month.)
Imagine my surprise when a mare begins pawing at me! Now, this was the nice kind of surprise. She didn’t have any of those sexy sharp edges that gems have, or the blistering good looks of a nice chunk of magma, but she. was. beautiful.
Now, Spending an eternity as a rock in a tourist trap makes you see all kinds of curvy mares and fillies. But nothing could prepare me for this amazing being. If Celestia is the goddess of the sun, and Luna the goddess of the moon, then this mare was the goddess of beauty. Maybe not all ponies could appreciate her like I could. She had the perfect coloration of cement (Bags of cement are to rocks what supermodels are to ponies. Oh yeah.) and the smile of a well-weathered cliff.
And she talked to me! Not many ponies talk to rocks. Well, Princess Luna talks to my cousin all the time, but don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to see that appear in Neigh! magazine. Not ever. That scandalous publication takes pebbles and breaks them for fun, I swear! And I guess you’re talking to me right now. But you’re insane and talking to a rock. So the joke’s on you.
Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Love. If I had a heart it would be beating faster than a Ponatti Mareon. But I don’t. So it isn’t. (I’m also quite philosophic.) That beautiful mare managed to excavate me out of the surrounding cliff-face, and finally I could see the world! While being part of a famous cliff lets you see a lot of interesting ponies, it doesn’t exactly let you see the world.
And what a wonder this world is! I didn’t know that the clouds had gotten so pink, and the ground quite so... textile. But that didn’t matter, for I was with the love of my life. I know we couldn’t talk much, but no talking was needed. All that mattered was that she and I were together.
She had a name, you know. Rarity. Doesn’t it just roll off your tongue? I think it does, but I don’t have one, so you tell me. She also gave me a name. Tom. I’m pretty sure that I could feel my eyepebbles begin to leak back then. They still do, sometimes.
But alas, such love can never last. And when she was reunited with her friends, she abandoned me. Just an hour ago she’d fight to the death for me. But now she had other priorities. I’d never wanted to scream so bad before. “I’m here! Don’t abandon me!” I wanted to say, but no. Rocks don’t talk. She used to call me “Her diamond”, but I’m no diamond. She was probably happier with her friends than she could ever be with me. I guess I should be happy for her, that she lived happily ever after with her friends. But an eternity left in sorrow and solitude does a rock no favors. Sometimes I wish I’d never met her, but another part of me thinks that those few hours were worth it. That I should cherish every memory I have of her. Some say that time heals all wounds. But time does not heal the wounds of the timeless, and I miss her. I miss her so much.
