It was another boring day on the rock farm as Maud Pie worked, a bright sun glaring down on her customary purple filly body along with her customary emotionless face. She simply raised the pickaxe and swung, collected the broken rock fragments in a large silk bag, and continued on to the next pile, just as she's done for the past year of being fit to work on her father's rock farm.
She had been working for the past hour on the eastern bedrock orchard with no breaks, wanting to get this done and over with so she could move on to the western bedrock orchard by the end of the day. She wouldn't be working so hard normally, but this would become her normal working schedule for the next 9 months* since her mother was now pregnant with twins and she would have to pick up the slack.
She didn't know how she felt about the twins arrival; they were new additions to the family, and she should be happy, but she wasn't. She also wasn't angry at them for the increased labor in her daily routine. She just simply felt... nothing. Just another event, another thing that would happen in the future. Nothing anymore special than having more work.
As she continued her assault on the bedrock, her mind wandered to different topics ranging from what would happen with living arrangements due to the twins to her schoolwork to wondering what time it is. As she finished one pile and moved to the next one, she felt an odd sensation from the rock pile. She just simply shrugged off the feeling and rose her pickaxe to strike, when a sudden command stopped her.
"Stop!" the voice yelled, seemingly coming from nowhere. Maud stopped and lowered the pickaxe, not questioning it. Though she was shocked, her face continued to show no emotion.
"Hello?" Maud called out to no one, not knowing where the voice came from. "Who's there?" She began to raise the pickaxe in a defensive manner in her mouth, meaning to strike out at any would-be attackers with either sharp end.
"It isn't necessary, young one. We mean no harm to you, though..." The voice trailed off, "You seem to mean harm to us." The voice continued in the same masculine voice, seeming vaguely familiar to Maud, though she couldn't quite place it.
"What do you mean 'I mean harm to you'?" Maud asked the voice, "I mean harm to no one. Who are you?" Even though she seemed like a cold, emotionless person, Maud Pie cared about others and was a lover before a fighter. She wouldn't hurt anyone without good reasoning.
"Raising that...," the voice stopped, seeming to find the correct word, " tool says otherwise, though it isn't quite your fault. It isn't as if you run into... something such as us everyday in this valley." The voice said, answering and not answering the pony's question at the same time. Maud simply stared at the rock pile as the realization hit her like her pickaxe on stone.
"You're... a rock pile? You're a talking rock pile?" Maud asked, though she already knew the answer, just wanting further confirmation.
"Well... yes and no, but it isn't important. I do think it is important that I introduce myself. While I have my own name in my own kind, I believe it would be hard for a young one like yourself to pronounce, so you may call me what you wish." The rock pile said, further interesting the filly.
"Well, I don't know. I've never been good at thinking up of names, so..." Maud pondered for a moment, but came up with nothing except one. She sighed, and went with it. "Rocky will have to do, I guess."
"Hmm... Rocky...." Rocky said, "Rather simplistic, but It will work." the voice concluded. Maud didn't understand the first part of what he said, but he said it would work, so she went with it and continued using it.
"Well Rocky, what are you? Why are you talking to me?" The filly questioned, her voice full of curiosity.
"I'm...." Rocky began, but quickly found himself at a loss for words. He himself hadn't actually thought of explaining himself. How could he explain what he was in a way a filly could understand? He couldn't think of anything however, and finally ended the awkward silence created. "I'll explain when you're older. You'll understand then."
Once again the young pony didn't understand what the bedrock said, but got that she would get an answer when she was older. Then, a thought crossed her mind that was created by the more imaginative side of her brain.
"Wait, are you some sort of spi-spir-spirit that wants me to stop breaking rocks? Because I can't. I have to." Maud had trouble saying the word she remembered her mom reading her in a bedtime story. The "spirit" however knew what she meant, and was actually impressed the foal knew a word like that.
"You understand what a spirit is?" Rocky asked the filly, who replied with a nod. "Well, I am a spirit. I didn't think you would know what that was, so I didn't try to tell you. And no, that isn't what I'm here for."
"Well, what are you here for then?" Maud continued questioning, Rocky getting somewhat irritated at the purple pony's curiosity, but didn't show.
"You'll also answer that when you're older, but I'm assuming that you want to get back to work." Rocky smoothly tried to worm his way out of that uncomfortable situation, which he did to his delight.
"Yes, I should. So, can I break you, or...?" Maud trailed off, waiting for Rocky to finish and answer.
"Yes, you can destroy this pile of rocks, but before you do, pick up the smallest broken rock at the bottom of this pile. I'm in it, so don't break it. If you keep me with you, we can continue to talk." Rocky ordered. Maud wasn't sure whether she should listen to this spirit or not, but she didn't want to make it angry, so she complied without much hesitation.
It was pretty easy finding the smallest rock considering overall most of the bedrock was still whole. When she picked it up to hold, it was as small as an apple and felt surprisingly warm, but a comfortable warm, like holding a candle plain-hoofed. Now done with the spirit's instructions, she was unsure what to do now.
"Well, I suppose you have to go back to work mining these bedrock boulders. Would you like to talk about something in particular to pass the time?" The rock-bound spirit said, trying to get a conversation going. Maud raised her pickaxe once again and brought it down hard on the sharpened point, cracking the bedrock along the middle with creating a cracking noise that filled the air, all the while thinking of something to talk about with a spirit.
"There is one thing," Maud began, "I'm gonna have two new sisters in..." Maud stopped, trying to remember how long her mother had told her it would be before the twins would 'arrive.' "In 9 months... I think." Maud finished.
"That's great. I bet you can't wait to have two baby sisters!" Rocky said, trying to sound as happy and positive as possible. However, he didn't detect her getting any less depressive.
"I guess. It just doesn't seem like a big deal right now." Maud replied rather flatly, confirming Rocky's suspicions.
"Why not, .... well, I'm so sorry, what's your name dear? I don't believe you ever told me." Rocky said, obviously embarrassed of not knowing the filly's name after all this time.
"My name is Maud." Maud answered, not continuing any further with the conversation, instead focusing on the rather large boulder in front of her. It was very large, one of the largest she had ever seen. She wondered if she could break it or if she would need her father to do it. She hated asking her father, though. He would get angry at her, and she didn't want to deal with that right now.
"Well Maud, why are two new family members not important? Family is everything, you know." Rocky reasoned. Maud simply huffed at this, and continued examining the boulder for any weak points. Not finding any in particular, she prepared herself and her axe in a stance her father had taught her, raising onto her back hooves and holding the ax in her mouth and front hooves. It would guarantee the strongest strike of the axe and the most power in the tip, allowing more penetration into a boulder.
"Well, they aren't here yet," Maud said after finding the words her filly brain looked for. "They don't really mean anything yet 'til they come out of my mom's belly." Rocky spent a moment to think about the statement. Well, she wasn't wrong. To her, they really didn't mean anything. Yet.
"Yes, but this is the most important time for them, even if they aren't here yet. While they're in your mother, they get influenced by your mother's feelings. If you make her cry or mad, that changes your sisters in her." Rocky attempted to reason with her as she began to raise her trusty pick, "You have to care about them now, or at least in front of your mother so they come out happy." Rocky explained, trying to help Maud care about her family. However, he got the near opposite reaction than expected.
"WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THEM?!!" Maud yelled in a sudden outburst, her emotionless face contorting into an intimidating look of rage while lowering the pickaxe. "WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT ANY OF THEM?! THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT ME!!" Maud finished, raising her pick again and slamming it down on the boulder in pure rage with the last word. The tool cracked through the boulder and forced its way about 2 feet deep into the rock. The boulder gave resistance and held tight however, catching the iron point inside and holding tight to the encased point.
In the moment, Maud did the one thing her father had taught her not to do. Instead of grasping onto the handle and pulling the pickaxe up and out from the strike point and ensuring safety like she should have done, she pulled the pickaxe with her angry might straight through the rock towards her direction and the metal point aimed at her chest. Luckily, in her anger she had over pulled and threw the pickaxe with her mouth straight past her right side and into the dirt with a thud.
Rocky remained silent, both in awe and amazement at the strength displayed by the foal, but also at the pure anger also displayed. For the first time in a long time, he was terrified to the point of no words. Even more amazing however was the purple pony's emotional recovery time. Moments ago she seemed ready to murder on a dime, but now she just seemed to limber right back towards the fallen pickax to retrieve it and resume her work with the same emotionless movements. After a few minutes of agonizing silence, Rocky finally tried to speak again.
"I didn't know you felt that way about your parents. I'm sorry Maud. If I had known, I wouldn't have brought it up." Rocky said, legitimately sorry. At hearing this Maud just sighed and said nothing. Rocky didn't know what else to say, and remained silent. After pulverizing yet another rock, Maud finally spoke, starting with another sigh.
"I'm sorry, too. I never get that angry. I shouldn't have yelled at you, and it's not your fault anyway. You had no way of knowing my family's ways." Maud apologized and stopped, obviously waiting for Rocky to respond.
Rocky didn't how to respond, though. Up to this point, Maud had seemed like a depressed young filly and had the same mannerisms as a filly, but that apology was anything but childlike. He knew most adults that didn't apologize that well. Rocky only knew one thing he wanted to say, but he didn't want to set her off again. After a few more moments of silence and waiting, Rocky couldn't think of anything else, and went for it.
"If I may ask, what makes you think you're family doesn't care about you?" Rocky questioned, wanting answers. He had his own family troubles and he knew what it was like to get in very heated arguments with them when he was younger, but he knew no matter what they always loved and cared for him. That was how all families were... right?
Maud didn't answer right away. She was examining another boulder to break, this one much smaller and average size than the last. After finding a weak spot on one side, she prepared to take advantage of it, getting in position to strike.
"They care more about their work..." Maud stopped talking as she grunted and brought down the pickax on the crack. She cut through a large portion of rock before forcing the rock to crumble into smaller pieces. "...Than me." She finished, before continuing to pummel on the remainder of the boulder with her trusty tool.
"In fact, I'm willing to bet my father cares more about the rock farm than himself." Maud added as she stuffed rock particles into the sack, which became full with the last piece of earth. Maud picked up the sack and hefted it onto her back with little effort, further intriguing the spirit. Just how strong was this foal? Or better yet, if she was this strong, how strong was her father? That thought made him slightly shudder to himself.
"Once again what makes you say that? How could any job come before your own flesh and blood?" Rocky said, questioning this foal's viewpoint greatly. Sure, your family has to give you some tough love from time to time again, but there's no way her family was that harsh and uncaring.
"My mother told us about her pregnancy all at one time at dinner. My father's first reaction was 'What? You mean we're gonna have two more little foals soon to help out on the farm? That's great!'" Maud said in disgust.
"Well..." Rocky tried to come up with a reason for that being fatherly, but he couldn't come up with anything. He didn't know how to defend something like that. He also didn't know what was happening with the pony's speech/vocabulary, which seemed to improve with every sentence. So instead, he decided to ask a question that mattered now that Maud appeared to be heading home, the sun starting to descend below the horizon.
"So Maud, would you like to take me home with you, or put me in the sack?" Rocky asked, obviously hoping for the former. He didn't want to know how it felt to be on the receiving end of that deadly tool he's been watching her use all afternoon.
"And just what would I do with a talking rock spirit?" Maud answered, her voice staying at the same bland tone. Rocky couldn't tell if she was being sarcastically joking or dead serious with the emotionless voice. Rocky didn't have to answer however as he was lifted and dropped into a pocket of Maud's frock.
Rocky didn't know how long he had been inside Maud's room. They had returned home and Maud had headed off to eat dinner with her family, leaving Rocky in her room, soon to be accompanied by the two new twins who had yet to be named. Rocky had spent the first couple of minutes taking the room in detail, but the fairly-plain room was nothing interesting to look at.
The room was organized very simply, reminding Rocky of a hotel room set-up. A bed with an adjacent nightstand was to the right as you walked in through the door, a wooden table at least 3-4 feet tall and 5-6 feet long piled with rocks along the left wall, straight from the entrance. A window on the opposite wall of the door overlooked the Pie's silo (filled with rocks or hay, Rocky wasn't sure) and a large hill seemingly leading into a forest.
The room itself was an "average" size room it seemed, though he wasn't sure what counted as average. He wasn't a carpenter, and he wasn't good at putting numbers or estimates on distances, but he would guess about 20 feet by... 15 feet? Being a rock and having everything scaled differently didn't help.
Maud had a basic queen-sized bed with plain-red bed sheets that was quite large for her now as a filly, but she would grow and need it as a mare. She had a basic nightstand painted her signature shade of purple with a long candle (noticeably no matches visible nearby) and a brown, wooden lock box. Why a filly had a lock box or what she would keep in it was beyond him, but he didn't worry about it.
Rocky was starting to run out of things to do and think about when Maud finally came back into the room from dinner, bearing the same poker face she always did. Maud instantly walked into the bed and got under the covers, seemingly forgetting that Rocky even existed. Rocky was slightly angered by this until he actually thought for a moment and remembered what she did as a job. If he smashed rocks for that long everyday, he would be tired too. Still, he wanted to talk at least a little before she dozed off.
"Have a nice dinner?" Rocky asked, hoping to start the conversation out with something simple. Maud flipped over to look at the small rock containing the talkative spirit.
"Yes, it was good. We had fresh rock soup with granite tea, and talked about possible names for the twins." Maud answered, then yawned loudly. Rocky couldn't help but admit to himself it was adorable when the filly yawned.
"Names? Do you even know if they are boys or girls yet?" Rocky said, with actual interest in the gender. He really didn't hope twins of opposite genders. That NEVER turned out well during adolescence.
"No, but they want names that go along with each other, like they rhyme or mean something as twins. Like...," Maud tried to think back to dinner and remember one that wasn't absolutely stupid sounding or unoriginal. Not doing so, she went with the first thing she thought of. "Like Luna and Celestia."
"Something that has meaning or rhymes...Hmm...," Rocky didn't know any really good or original ones. He couldn't come up with anything either, and that was before he realized to himself that it would also have to sound good with 'Pie' at the end. Yup. Boris and Aurora Pie. Wonderful, just slips right off the tongue. It finally came to the point where he decided to just go for broke and started saying words and replying to himself with the first rhyme that came to mind.
"Toy, Troy, coy, Roy; no, that doesn't work. Flame? Flame, crame, trame, stame? Uggghhh, no..." Rocky continued rambling while Maud listened and said nothing, hoping to hear something with a nice ring to it in Rocky's somewhat incoherent attempt at rhyming.
After a good 5 minutes of horrible rhyming that reminded Maud Pie of all those terrible Mr. Fruess books she had to read a couple weeks ago during "Read Across Equestria Week", she had had about enough and was about to finally tell the spirit to stop and call it a night when she heard something good among the slew of words.
"Wait, what was that?" Maud said, stopping the speeding train wreck coming out of Rocky's mouth.
"What was what? Rump, hump, dump?" Rocky said, repeating the last few words again.
No, not that! The other," Maud just stopped, sighed, and started again. "Just repeat the last things you've said in the last 30 seconds."
"Flannel, channel, mantle, candle, handle, Randall, random, hand 'em, handy, candy, sandy, Mandy," Rocky stopped and took a much-needed breath, and continued on, "landy, linky, inkie, kinky, stinky, blinkie, blankie..."
"Right there, at the 'key' words, say them again." Maud intervened, with... excitement in her voice? Rocky wasn't sure why she was showing so much emotion, especially when she should be sleepy and therefore grouchy, but he didn't care; he liked it.
"Linky, inkie, kinky, stinky, and blinkie." Rocky stopped, and actually pondered the words to himself. Linky and kinky went surprisingly well together, did Maud catch that too?
"Blinkie and Inkie. Inkie and Blinkie Pie. Blinkie Pie. Inkie Pie." Maud said, more to herself then Rocky. "Fits well. I might actually tell my parents about that." Maud reasoned with the names on her lips.
"Your welcome." Rocky said, glad to help.
"Good night, Rocky." The sleepy foal said before closing her eyes to sleep, a small grin on her face.
"Good night, Maud." Rocky returned the farewell, and closed his own "eyes" to rest.
Author's Note
Another sad fic since the last one did pretty well.
Please leave any comments or suggestions!
Edited by Silverlinings.
