An Eastern Equestrian Hearth's Warming

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Step by step Rivet Punch trudged through the thick snow, which lay on the road to the point where it almost touched his upper legs. It was good that he remembered where the path was, otherwise one most certainly would have lost it. Although it wouldn’t be very likely for Rivet himself to lose the path, for he had trodden it countless times, day after day, to his work. But Rivet Punch wasn’t going to work. In fact, he was going home; he was done for the day.

He took a deep breath, sniffing the sharp but refreshing winter night air, and smiled softly. There was nothing which could chase away the cloud of tiredness better than the pure Eastern Equestrian breezes. And there was nothing which could lift the spirits better than Luna’s full moon, which shone overhead, and tried its best to help Rivet see just a tiny bit more in the heavy darkness.

The cold outside was a stark contrast to the oppressing heat of the smelting ovens, and Rivet Punch silently wondered which one he preferred. He sighed. It had been a long day, as always, in the steel factory where he worked. He went there every single day, working from early in the morning to late in the evening, rarely taking any vacations. He had to, for he had a family to take care of.

Rivet Punch shook his head, as if trying to shake the workload off his shoulders. Luckily it was easy for him to forget about the day and look on ahead, as every working day was usually the same, and because Rivet knew that back home, his family would be waiting for him.

The snow-covered path turned to the left past a stretch of woodlands, full of dark pine trees. Suddenly, a hoot resounded through the darkness ahead. Rivet Punch looked up, and soon found the owl, sitting on a pine branch. The dark-red stallion stood still for a moment and gazed at the bird. He still couldn’t see much in the darkness, but the moonlight made the owl’s eyes glimmer like stars. The two animals gazed at each other, and Rivet’s eyes became lost in the two stars in the treetop, captivated by their spooky but infinite shine. An infinite, piercing gaze; pools of infinite wisdom.

“Hoot.”

The owl turned its head one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and cast a thoughtful glance at the nightly intruder below him. Then it turned its head back again and flapped its wings, flying into the fields in search of a late dinner.

“Beautiful,” Rivet Punch muttered to himself, as he watched the carefree bird. The owl would probably not spend a whole day trapped in a blazing-hot and ear-splitting loud smelting workshop. No, it would more likely roam the silent night, free to go wherever it wants, carried only by the wind and its wings instead of coal, steam, and heavy engines.

How unlike the two animals were: one trudging clumsily through the snow; the other flying gracefully through the night sky. One looking thoughtful; the other looking doubtful. The wise look of the owl made Rivet Punch instantly recall his doubts and worries which he had tried to whisk out of his head. He didn’t like to think much, and especially not about negative things, but the only thing that was on his mind right now, was something which could make him lose everything he cared for.

Rivet Punch frowned and grunted as the memories came back to him. In the afternoon he had accidentally overheard a conversation between the factory director and somepony else. He couldn’t really remember much of it, as the conversation had been sprinkled with economic and business jargon, but the bottom line was: the steel factory would soon be shut down—a few weeks before Hearth’s Warming, in fact. Of course, Rivet Punch could have seen that one coming, considering the steady decline of his salary every month, but he hadn’t thought of it; hadn’t thought of it at all.

Rivet shook his head; a few snowflakes fell on the path. Rivet would lose his job, and not only he himself, but also everypony else in the tiny little village where he lived. He remembered all the laughing stallions in the town bar: rough-looking workers, their conversations adorned with strong talk. All of them worked at the steel factory; all of them would lose their livelihood. The steel factory was practically the only source of work in the area. From what Rivet had heard from the oldest stallions, it had long ago been erected in the ore-rich valley, and had sprouted the cozy little village to house the workers and their families.

“How is everypony going to keep their families alive?” Rivet Punch said to himself, as he kicked away more snow. He didn’t know. He had no idea. Hearth’s Warming was only a few weeks away. Normally, Eastern Equestrian Hearth’s Warming was a time of happiness and coziness, when everypony would come together and celebrate the founding of Equestria with their families and friends. There would be games, talk, vodka, presents, food… Rivet Punch licked his lips as he thought of the traditional Eastern Equestrian Hearth’s Warming dish: eggs filled with the tastiest spices and mashed vegetables. A thin smile reappeared on Rivet’s face. Some ponies tried to make these filled eggs themselves, but Rivet knew, as well as anypony, that the best ones were sold by Fabergem, the town confectioner. Fabergem never painted the eggs, though. That task was given to the young fillies and colts in the village, who did it with delight. Another beautiful tradition, Rivet Punch thought.

But how was Hearth’s Warming going to look like now, with the source of income of everypony obliterated? One thing was certain: it would be a very scanty celebration—if anypony would celebrate Hearth’s Warming at all.

A sudden scuttling sound broke Rivet’s concentration. He stopped plowing and looked around, but he couldn’t see anything. Probably another nocturnal animal, he thought. Rivet put a hoof to his chin. “All this thinking is slowing me down,” he said to himself, “and this talking to myself too.” So Rivet Punch brought his attention back to his struggle through the snow, sweeping away bucket-loads at a time with heavy booted hooves. Despite the cold, beads of sweat started dripping down his bristly eyebrows, and clouds of deep breaths floated through his nostrils.

Going on like this for a while, Rivet tried his best to keep himself from thinking. He let his tired thoughts stray away, so as not to think about the long way he still had to walk. His thoughts soon proved to have a will of their own, however, and before he realized it, Rivet was raking through his memory in search of slivers from the conversation he’d overheard. What did the boss say again… Something about steel prices…

Rivet Punch’s village was actually not the only settlement which provided steel for the industrialized, resource-gulping economy of Canterlot and its surrounding towns. Farther south and east, across the Celestial Sea, laid Griffonstone, perching high on one of the peaks of the Hyperborean Mountains, which snaked away to the East. Griffonstone was home to many strong and proud griffins, and the Hyperborean Mountains turned out to be full of iron-ore and coal. It had taken a while, but since a few years griffins had started to produce steel as well, and sent it to Baltimare and Canterlot by ship. Unknown to Rivet Punch, this war for the cheapest steel prices in Equestria, otherwise known as the ‘steel strive’, had been going on for some years already. Slowly and steadily, however, the price of shipping overseas had dropped and the griffins were getting more and more productive, producing steel by the shipload. The griffins were bigger, stronger and fitter than the ponies, due to their build and intensive flying—even more importantly,—there were many more griffins in Griffonstone than there were ponies living in Rivet’s village. The Eastern-Equestrian Board of Industry and Trade had decided nonchalantly that the pony steel factory just wouldn’t do. Instead they wanted to shift the focal point of the ‘Equestrian steel exploits’ to Griffonstone, where there was more ore, and cheaper transport by boat compared to railways.

Rivet Punch sighed. That was exactly what the director had said behind the closed office door. The big stallion was unsure whether he should be glad he remembered all of it or not; now he knew his fate, but sadly not his future.

But then his spirits lifted a little, as he saw how far he’d come already, plowing through the powdery snow. It was only a mile or two more to the village, and Rivet could see a few lights like owl’s eyes glinting in the distance. To his right, the stretch of forest had almost ended in its southernmost limb, abruptly leaving miles and miles of primal woodlands behind itself. To the left there were fields, long abandoned and covered in a blanket of snow, as if the white sheet wanted to cover all traces of the former owners. A half-ruined barn still stood erect; a memento of the farmponies that migrated to warmer lands, and a shelter to winter critters, if they dared to enter the half-rotten shack. It reminded Rivet about his own farm back home; the one he had set up to give him and his family some support when his salary started to become too scrawny. He just hoped his farm wouldn’t end the way this one had ended; dead and deserted.

Rivet Punch stopped and looked down ahead into the lit-up valley. A warmth bubbled up inside of him, as he imagined himself home again with the warmth of his stove and the warmth of his family; although the children would probably be sleeping at this hour. It was strange how the thought of his family filled him with both delight and worry. Delighted at seeing them again after a long working day, but worried about how he had to tell them the bad news.

Suddenly, a cold cry shattered Rivet’s warm thoughts. It wasn’t the mysterious cry of an owl or the calls of foxes or moose, it was something else. Rivet jolted to a halt and strained his eyes in the gloom, looking left and right, but both the night and the gentle snowfall obstructed his view.

The cry echoed again, louder and sharper this time. Rivet’s right ear twitched and he turned his head. There, on the brim of the forest lands, faint shapes were moving between the tall pines on the tree line. Rivet jumped over a heap of snow and slogged closer to the mysterious shapes and sounds. The snow grew gradually less thick as he reached the first trees. Rivet could now see that one shape was high up in the air, zipping through the leaf-crowns of the trees, while the other was on the ground, frozen in fear. An eagle’s screech made Rivet winch, and he saw the bird circling above and then diving on its prey: a baby grizzly.

“Giant eagle?”

Rivet Punch knew that everything in Eastern Equestria was tough, big, and extreme. The land, the ponies, the animals. Rivet looked at both animals and shuffled on his hooves. He had never seen such a strange thing before: eagles attacking baby bears.

The eagle dropped down on the poor grizzly bear and clawed at it. The bear let out a terrified scream. Behind it, the eagle pulled up again, and left a trail of red on the white snow. Quickly the bird regained altitude, circled a few times above the treetops, and then dived in for a second attack. This time, however, the baby grizzly rolled to the side, his fall broken by the soft snow. The only thing the eagle ripped through was the blanket of white powder, and he flapped his wings in anger, priming himself for a third death-dive.

All the while Rivet Punch stood at a distance, unsure what to do. Should he let this happen? It was nature, after all, and nature was cruel sometimes. But then he shook his head and frowned. It is just a little baby!

Rivet sprang like a rabbit through the snow and covered the remaining distance quickly. The eagle hadn’t noticed him yet. Rummaging through his pack, Rivet brought out his big, steel hammer and scanned the sky. The shadow of the bird extinguished a trail of stars, and when its shape hung in front of the moon, Rivet Punch threw the hammer with all his might in the direction of the eagle.

But the beast was quicker than he thought, and dodged the heavy tool, which fell harmlessly to the ground. The bald eagle let out a furious squawk, and turned its cold eyes on the red stallion below. Rivet Punch looked to his right, and noticed that the baby grizzly had disappeared. Now Rivet was the one who was in trouble.

The bald eagle flew high up in the air, braced itself, and then launched upon the stallion, diving as fast as it could.

“Njet!” Rivet yelled, and rolled to the side, just as he’d seen the grizzly do. He heard the sickening, grating sound of the eagle’s claws on the frozen ground. Rivet turned his head, but there were only a few feathers; the eagle was in the air again.

Rivet threw his head around to scan the surroundings, looking for another projectile to throw. He spotted a few stones lying near a tree-trunk, but they were much too small to knock a giant eagle out of the sky. The moon became obscured for a second as the beast flew in front of it, and when the silvery light returned, Rivet saw something caught in its rays, glistening in the snow. Half stumbling half swimming, Rivet rushed to the shine, plunged his nose in the snow, and grabbed hold of the thing. It was an old farmer’s tool, probably left behind by somepony: a sickle.

A spine-cracking screech made Rivet jump. He turned around, gazing straight into the murderous eyes of the diving eagle. With only a split-second to react, Rivet spun around and let go of the sickle, throwing it at the monster like a disc. The tool spun and whizzed through the air, found its mark, and bit viciously in the right wing of the eagle. The sheer force of the throw pinned the eagle against a pine tree, and left it hanging by only a few crooked feathers in its wing. Both the stallion and the eagle froze for a moment in surprise. The shock of it all made the eagle lay an egg spontaneously, which plopped down in the snow. Rivet Punch shook his head and regained his wits, but the eagle was much quicker. It wriggled a bit, and with a loud rip, the bird broke free of its awkward pose. Disheveled and with a dented pride, the creature flew away unsteadily, hindered by its injured wing, and losing more than a few feathers in the flight.

Rivet Punch sighed, and watched the eagle go until it was just a wobbling speck against the moonlit night sky. “You won’t be hunting any baby bears tonight,” he said with a sour grin.

Sitting down on his haunches, Rivet took a moment to catch his breath. His legs felt like rubber as the adrenaline surge gradually left his body. After working all day, plowing himself a way through the snow, and fighting a big, bald eagle, Rivet Punch was exhausted. His big muscles quavered with every movement and he winched. “I’m going to feel that in the morning.”

After sitting quietly and resting like that for a while, Rivet felt goosebumps creep up his front legs. It was getting cold. He let out a couple more clouds of heavy breath and scrambled to his hooves. I should go home, he thought, and started gathering his strength and will to brave the elements once more. But first… he thought with a smile, as he headed to the tree where he’d pinned the eagle onto. The sickle still stuck out of the wood, and a few feathers lay scattered on the snow below. Rivet ducked, rummaged through the snow and the plumes, and let out a triumphant laugh. Ha! This could be nice for Heart’s Warming, he thought to himself, balancing a large eagle egg on his nose. A little reward for my good deed.

With some effort, Rivet put the egg into his pack and stepped back in the direction of the path, frowning and snorting; he wouldn’t get distracted anymore tonight. The moment he put his fore hoof to the ground, however, Rivet noticed something strange: the warm wisps of his breath. The vapors didn’t rise and disappear as they normally do when one breathes in cold weather, but instead hovered in front of his nose, floating in mid-air. “Huh?” Rivet said sullenly, and stuck out a big hoof to whisk them away. But the vapors didn’t go away; they merely reformed again after his hoof cut them in two; and what’s more: they started descending towards the ground. Rivet Punch followed the cloud with his gaze, unusually captivated by the strangeness of it all. Somehow, Rivet had the uneasy feeling he wasn’t able to continue his way before he’d solved this mystery. When he looked down, he saw that the ground was entirely covered in mist, in which his breath sank down and mingled. With another big hoof, Rivet started drawing circles in the mist, as if stirring a soup; a big, gray, cloudy soup. Rivet did not wish to become part of a soup. He crouched down and stuck out his tongue. Doesn’t taste like soup… then he inhaled deeply. Doesn’t smell like soup…

After another minute of gazing in the swirling vapors, Rivet drew his plain conclusion: It’s just mist. Slowly, careful enough not to over-stretch any sore muscles, Rivet stood up and gazed ahead, looking straight in the face of a gigantic grizzly bear, their noses almost touching each other.

The stallion gave out a yelp and stumbled backwards. He landed on his haunches in the snow and scuttled away as the grizzly moved towards him, almost floating in the vapors. The beast’s enormous paws left deep footprints in the mist and the snow, and it stepped closer. Its facial expression was unreadable, and its eyes glimmered like freshly sharpened axes. When the beast opened its mouth and revealed a couple of knife-like canines, Rivet was sure he knew what was going to happen.

“Thank you, comrade pony, for saving my little son.”

A baby grizzly bear shuffled from underneath its mother, looking at the stallion with big eyes.

“W-what?” Rivet stuttered, flabbergasted.

“You can hear me, don’t you?” the bear growled, and moved in even closer, as if she thought the stallion couldn’t hear what she said. “You speak common Equestrian, right? Or should I say ‘spasibo’ in your language?”

“Eh… Thank you is good.” Rivet had no idea what to say, what to do or what to think.

The bear frowned; her heavy, fur lined brows almost covering her predatory eyes. “What?” she bellowed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Eh… I-I-I—“

“Spit it out, pony!”

“I-it’s just… I’ve never seen a talking bear before,” Rivet managed to cram out of his mouth.

To that, the bear’s features softened a little. “Of course… you have never seen a talking bear before,” she repeated, more to herself than to the trembling stallion in front of her. “I should have realized that.”

“W-what?” Rivet dared to ask.

“I’m an unusual kind. Don’t ask anything more about it,” the bear said starkly; Rivet Punch shut his mouth.

“Now listen closely,” the bear continued, and let out a grumble which sounded like clearing her throat. “You have never seen a talking bear before, and I have never seen a pony care that much about nature and life before. If it weren’t for you, my little son would be dead.”

Rivet said nothing.

“As a token of my gratitude, I will share with you”—the bear looked left and right—“my greatest and most wonderful secret…”

To the words ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’ Rivet opened his eyes wide. He was totally not in the mood for any more ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’ things. He thought he’d had his fair share of ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’ things this evening. Rivet just wanted to go back home, but how was he going to tell that to this grumpy old grizzly without him getting eaten?

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” he began, trying to suppress the quavering in his voice. “It was nothing, I—“

“NOTHING?! NOTHING?!” the bear roared, rising up on her hind paws. “You have saved a cub’s life! MY cub’s life! It looks like you’re the most caring and most IMPOLITE pony I’ve ever seen! You SHOULD get a reward for your brave deed. You cannot refuse!” The bear looked down at Rivet Punch, who became dwarfed by the height of she herself. At the sight of the red stallion, cowering and covering his head with his hooves, the bear calmed down a bit and dropped to all fours again. “Come! You deserve this!” she growled with a heavy sigh. Then she turned around and began to walk deeper into the misty forest; her cub trotting off cheerfully in another direction.

Rivet Punch was unsure what to do. The dark, gloomy forest didn’t look that inviting at all, but he felt like the bear’s offer was one he couldn’t refuse. He swallowed, got on his hooves, and cantered towards the trees.

* *

The forest was dark; even darker than it had looked from the outside. Enormous pine trees reached far into the sky and seemed to absorb the moonlight in their needles. The trees groaned and creaked beneath their heavy, snowy burden, occasionally throwing some of it on the white ground below. Rivet Punch looked up, but couldn’t possibly see either the moon or the leaf-crowns of the trees; it was much too dark for that.

A strange feeling of uneasiness controlled him. He could hardly see a hoof before his eyes. In fact, he couldn’t even see his hooves on the path a few yards ahead. The mist hadn’t retreated yet and lingered in the forest as far as he could see, leaving Rivet and Silnyy walking on an ever-following island in the middle of a mysterious, misty ocean. The forest was eerily quiet; no sounds filled the air. Not the rustle of the wind through the branches, not the flapping of birds’ wings, not the skittering of critters. Nothing except for the occasional loud crunch of rocks, grinded by the bear’s heavy claws. Rivet’s uneasiness became accompanied with disorientation. There was no way he could pinpoint exactly where he was in the forest—and not only because he’d never been in it before. He couldn’t see the moon, and it was equally impossible to use landmarks to his advantage, for the land between the tree-trunks was either levelled out by a thick pack of snow, or obscured in the nightly mist. It looked as if the forest was frozen in time; undiscovered, or abandoned by everyone.

Rivet had a bad feeling about all this. What if the bear led him somewhere far away where nopony would hear his screams and where nopony would find his chewed up bones? And even if he’d escape, he’d be lost in the woods, unable to find his way back to safety and civilization… Rivet blinked hard and shivered at the thought, but then another thought struck him; he turned his head around with a jerk. To Rivet’s disappointment and shock, he didn’t leave any hoofprints behind him. Even the wide, dragging trail of the bear couldn’t be seen. Just an unspoiled, unbroken snowy blanket, topped by mist.

They continued like this for a while, the bear waltzing through the snow and Rivet Punch trotting behind in the trail. But finally Rivet couldn’t stand the eerie silence and the strangeness anymore. He dug through his mind for a polite way to ask the stark bear in front of him about his findings. After another minute, Rivet trotted next to the bear, who didn’t slow down.

“Eh… Comrade bear, can I ask you something?”

“Make it quick!” the bear growled without turning her head.

Rivet swallowed. “Th-the trail behind us is—”

“Gone. I know!” the bear interrupted.

“But how’s that poss—“

“Because I don’t want anyone to follow us. Don’t ask anything more about it!”

Rivet Punch didn’t dare to say anything else and fell behind the hulking bear again. Once more he looked over his shoulder, and once more he saw nothing but snow and trees. Strange…

After another half hour, the steady snowfall diminished, and so did Rivet’s fear. Visibility increased a little, as Rivet’s eyes adjusted to the darkness as best as they could—it calmed him down a bit. Still the eerie silence pressed on him like the heat of a thousand smelting ovens, so he gathered his wits and accelerated, determined to have at least another try at friendly conversation with the bear.

“Comrade bear.”

The bear let out a soft grunt, which Rivet took as a ‘yes.’ He rasped his throat.

“Well, now that we’re travelling together, I feel like I should tell you my name—out of politeness, you know?” Although Rivet wasn’t entirely sure if telling a big, dangerous grizzly his name was a good idea, he couldn’t really come up with anything better at the moment. “My name is—“

“Rivet Punch Macintoshky. I know,” the bear grumbled, “and you talk too much. There’s still a long way to go!”

Rivet let out a gasp and lost his speed. But he quickly galloped next to the bear again, who was accelerating suddenly. “H-how do you know my name?”

The bear growled and blinked her tiny round eyes as if in pain. “I just know. Don’t ask anything more about it.”

“But—“

“My name is Silnyy.” The bear roared, turning her head to the side of the stallion. “Now you know my name too, and now we’re even, ja?”

“O-o-ok,” Rivet stuttered, and didn’t dare to say anything more for a long time. He trotted behind again.

The surrounding trees seemed to grow less dense as Rivet and Silnyy progressed. Low bumps gradually grew into rolling, rocky hills. The trees grew less and less in number, as the soil grew harder and harder, until they were nothing but hard, barren, and infertile rocks.

They had been going on for at least an hour, Rivet estimated, although he couldn’t know for certain in this strange forest. What he did know, was that there were mountains further west of his village: the Yaket Range, forming the northernmost border of Equestria. Rivet sighed in relief, content that he had at least a vague idea in which direction he was going. How else could he explain the sudden change in terrain? The hills would have to become higher and higher, until they would be as big as mountains, forming the eastern slopes of the Yaket Range. But as the bear trudged onwards and he galloped behind, the hills didn’t grow at all. They stayed at exactly the same height, although they felt like they were becoming increasingly treacherous. Through a thinning layer of snow, Rivet spotted grey rocks, which crunched underneath his hooves. There were many gaps as well, and he had to be careful not to step into any of them and break his leg. When Rivet Punch looked ahead, he saw why: the bear had led him straight into the hilled part of the forest and they were almost to the top of one of the bald hills.

Suddenly Rivet stumbled and lost his balance; a snow-filled hole had caught his hoof. With great effort, the stallion regained his savvy and galloped on. “Alright! That’s it!” he said with a frown, and rushed on ahead until he was next to the bear again.

“Comrade Silnyy!”

“Not now!”

“Yes now!” Rivet said, determined to get some answers this time. “I want to know where you are taking me. I don’t know this land. I’m not going a step further until you tell me!”

Silnyy’s big brown lips curled up into a smile. “Good,” she said, without slowing down.

There was a tiny silence, only the panting of the animals and the sound of snow being shoved snow breaking it.

“So…? Tell me!” Rivet said.

“Njet.”

Planting his hooves firmly in the snow, Rivet Punch slid to a sudden halt. Silnyy turned around. “What are you doing?” she roared.

“Not going further until you tell me where we are going,” Rivet said back.

Silnyy stepped closer, flashing a tiny smile. “Ok. Then I am going on without you. Do you know the way back?”

Rivet looked over his shoulder: snow and mist. “Eh… I’ll figure it out.”

Silnyy let out a high growl which sounded like something between a laugh and a smirk. “No you won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No you won’t. Now follow me again.” The bear turned around and moved towards the hills. “This is not the time for being stupid, pony. Besides”—she turned her head and threw a piercing glance at Rivet—“we’re almost there.”

And so they continued again, Silnyy taking the lead, Rivet Punch following reluctantly. The light dimmed as clouds moved before the full moon. Rivet’s despair grew, but for once, the bear had been clear in her speech. After just one more small hill, she stopped.

“Are we there yet?” Rivet asked.

“Ja. This is it.”

Rivet looked around. The top of the hill turned out to be a small plateau of a much larger hill; almost a mountain. Before him, a steep wall of grim, uneven rocks climbed up towards the top of the mountain. The top couldn’t be seen, however, because the rock-wall tilted over him, as if a giant creature had taken a bite out of the mountain. To his right, Rivet noticed a black hole in the rock; a void which swallowed all the remaining moonlight.

Silnyy walked towards the cave, motioning for the pony to follow.

Rivet Punch peered into the blackness, but couldn’t see anything of interest; just a plain, old cave, perhaps the bear’s lair.

The bear’s lair! But that can only mean one thing!

Rivet Punch swallowed and looked back. The bear had bared its teeth in a predatory smile and walked slowly in his direction. There was nowhere to go. Rivet wobbled on his knees and took an unsteady step back. Then another. And then a third. He was inside the mountain now, looking back at the mouth of the cave and the mouth of the bear before it. The bear’s teeth shimmered in the fading moonlight, and its eyes gazed at him with delight.

“Why are you doing this?” Rivet’s voice croaked with fear. “I saved your son!”

But inside, Rivet knew why Silnyy had led him to her lair: it was winter. Bears eat themselves fat and then go into hibernation. Silnyy was hungry.

“You will see…” the bear said with a heavy growl. “Now shut up. I’m growing tired of you.”

She came closer and closer. Rivet could feel the sharp claws tearing at his hide, mauling, scratching, ripping him apart. He fell to his haunches, and covered his head with his hooves, as if that would somehow stop the beast.

Suddenly, a ray of moonlight broke through the clouds, and streamed into the cave entrance. The cave shimmered and pulsed around Rivet Punch; the light blinded him. Rivet couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything. He fell to the rocky floor on his back, covering his eyes with his hooves.

Rivet didn’t know how long he laid there. A minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes? An eerie silence filled the cave; not even the breath of the grizzly bear could be heard. Shaking heavily, Rivet slowly removed his hooves and gazed in front of him; Silnyy was gone. But then the cave claimed his attention, because despite the light having faded a little, its walls were still shimmering. He looked around, and couldn’t believe what he saw: gold!

The cave walls glittered with shiny yellow ribbons, flowing through the cave on either side. The silver moonlight and the stallion’s shadow made the gold veins dance in front of his eyes. “Unbelievable,” Rivet Punch whispered, as he gazed with an open mouth at the riches around him. Slowly he walked further into the cave, swinging his head to the left and the right, and even above. There was gold ore everywhere he looked, and Rivet began to think that there was more gold than rock inside the cave. There was probably even more value in gold than all the bits of all the villagers combined. The end of the cave was partially covered in darkness, but Rivet didn’t have to venture that far; it was a dead end. Out of curiosity, he laid his ear against the rock in front of him and tapped it gently with a hoof. I wonder how far these veins stretch, he thought.

Rivet turned around and walked back to the cave entrance again, all the while still looking around in amazement. A thousand options, opportunities and ideas streamed through his head as he thought about the things he could do with all the gold. Nothing. He couldn’t do anything with it, unless he was able to mine it out of the rock, and Rivet Punch was a metalworker, not a miner. But a smile quickly appeared on Rivet’s face, as he thought of a certain unicorn who would definitely be able to help him.

Then his smile faded, and a stabbing gust of wind brought him back to the present. But how am I going to get back? he thought, and remembered the odd lack of hoofsteps he saw during the forest trek. There was no way to backtrack through the forest, as he and the bear hadn’t left any tracks behind. Rivet walked to the edge of the plateau and looked down. Surely he could find out how to get down from there, but every tree and every hill in the forest itself looked the same to him. The soup-like mist had disappeared, but that made the peeking stallion even more worried, as he couldn’t see any hoof- or pawsteps on the rocks and snow below. Not even from the bear, who must surely have been climbing down the plateau. Rivet started pacing in circles as he ran through his mind for a solution. Should I just stay here and wait for Silnyy to return? A cold wind made him shiver. But how long will that take?

For a long while Rivet Punch stood there, on the ridge, pacing up and down in deep concentration. The wind began to blow harder, so Rivet thought harder too; until finally, the cold draft made him tremble in his horseshoes, and he made a forced decision. The big red stallion stepped off the ridge, as slow and careful as the slippery stones allowed, and cantered down the slope of the hill, drawing a small cloud of dust and pebbles behind him. “Whoa!” he yelled. He lost his footing, regained it, lost it again, found it once more. Rivet didn’t know how he did it, but in the end he made it down in one piece. He sighed a sigh laden with relief, and started to look around the clearing he’d just plunged himself into.

The forested hills surrounded him on all sides. Everywhere he looked, there was white, green, and the brown of the hills. Very gradually, sounds began to creep back into the forest: a hoot, a scuttle, the grating of falling rocks—the forest was alive again, unfrozen from a standstill in time. The ominous sound of rock against rock grew louder and finer, despite the small avalanche Rivet had created having ended minutes ago. Rivet turned his ears.

The sound grew thinner and sharper, almost like a foal playing with marbles on the street. Rivet scanned the tree-line. Out of the corner of his eyes, something flashed between the shadows. Two tiny yellow eyes lit up, and looked straight at the red stallion. A tiny paw emerged from the threshold of light and dark, and shook up and down. Then a rain of little red marbles scattered on the snow. A high yelp, a scuttle, and the eyes disappeared.

Rivet Punch took a few hesitant steps forward, his curiosity beating his nervousness. He eyed the stones strewn in front of him; the little red dots were very conspicuous against the white snow, glinting in the silvery moonlight. Then Rivet noticed a trail of them, leading forward and disappearing between the shadows of the pines. Although the forest swallowed all of the moonlight, the red stones still shimmered, and Rivet Punch could see them trailing off far away; as far as he could see.

I guess somepony must like me, he thought. With a lightened heart, Rivet stepped into the forest and started to follow the mysterious trail, all the while pondering about who his mysterious mare-do-well could be.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Knock, knock.

A clunky sound mixed with heavy thumps came from inside; then silence.

Knock, knock. “Oi! Anypony home?”

Some shuffling, a bonk and a curse.

Knock, kno—

“There’s nopony home, dammit! Go away!” said a grumpy voice from inside.

“Oh, ok.” Rivet Punch turned around and walked down the path to leave, a little disappointed; he would try again later.

“What? Wait a minute…” the voice behind the door said to himself.

The sound of many latches of many kinds made Rivet Punch turn around and look at the front of the house.

The door opened to a slit, and a single, green eye peered through it. “Rivsky? Is that you?”

“Carby!” Rivet Punch called out, and trotted back. “I thought you weren’t at home!”

Opening the door with a loud creak, a smiling unicorn appeared in the doorway. “Ha! I knew it was you, Rivsky. You’re the only pony I can fool like that!”

Rivet raised an eyebrow. “Fool like that?”

Sighing with a smile, Carbide Lamplight trotted towards his friend and swung a long, thin hoof over his neck. “You never change, Rivsky.”

“And you don’t too, Carby,” Rivet said, as he tapped the oversized mining helmet which balanced on Carbide’s head. “Did you have any luck with your mine yet?”

Suddenly Carbide Lamplight let go of Rivet with a shudder. He looked skittishly to the right, to the left, behind him, over his friend’s shoulder, and even up in the sky, blinking against the bright sun. “Let’s discuss that… inside, ok?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Carbide,” Rivet said, and looked at the ground. “I keep forgetting it’s your closest guarded secret which nopony may ever know.”

Carbide winched as if in pain at the second time Rivet mentioned the mine. “Come on,” he said, and practically shoved his friend to the doorway. “Let’s go inside and catch up a bit, shall we?”

But before Rivet could say ‘ok,’ he was already inside.

Rivet Punch and Carbide Lamplight had been friends for as long as Rivet could remember. They had met at work, in the steel factory. Carbide was one of the most experienced miners there, and Rivet usually saw him every time he emptied his cart of ore in the giant container from which Rivet shoveled the stuff in the ovens. After a few loose, shouted sentences, they’d come to like each other and adjusted their dropping and shoveling rhythm so that they would have exactly ten seconds per sequence to say a few words. It wasn’t much, but it had made the long, boring working day just a little bit more bearable—for the both of them. Soon enough, they were giving each other nicknames, drank heavily after work, and an ironclad friendship was forged.

“Come Rivsky, sit down please.” Carbide gestured towards a few rickety chairs and stumbled towards the kitchen.

Rivet Punch carefully took his seat on the chair on the furthest right; that was always the strongest one. As much of a miner Carbide Lamplight was, he wasn’t much else, and least of all a furniture maker. Sure, Carbide Lamplight could’ve bought himself the most beautiful chairs in the village with his salary, but he didn’t bother with that. Although Carbide didn’t earn anything more than the scrawny salary of Rivet Punch, he had only himself to maintain, while his big red friend lived with a family of four.

“Oh, Rivsky, you will love this!” the high-pitched voice of Carbide came from the kitchen. “I’ve got an excellent bottle of vodka; just for you and me.”

Those were the only things Carbide Lamplight really invested money in: mining and liquor. Rivet sighed and shook his head with a smile. Some things never change.

With the cheerful sound of clinking bottles in the background, Rivet eyed Carbide’s small living room. Even inside the house, nothing had changed. The floor was still littered with many different pieces of mining equipment: pickaxes, lamps, boots, dynamite, overalls, books on mining, and many, many rocks. The walls were still covered with the yellowed photos of generations past, each depicting one or a few ponies standing in front of a mine, gazing seriously into the lens. Despite their lifelong friendship, Rivet had never bothered to ask about them. He and Carbide usually got too drunk too quickly; way before they could touch on memories or other deep subjects like that. Rivet turned his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Not too much vodka, Carby; I have something important to ask you!” he shouted.

“What?” Came the muffled reply, as Carbide Lamplight dug deep into an enormous chest. “Rivet Punch and ‘not too much vodka?’ Now that’s something new.” He pulled his head out of the chest with a big, half-empty bottle floating before him in a gray magical haze. “I guess some things do change.”

With a triumphant smile, Carbide Lamplight marched into the living room and put the bottle of vodka on the table, which began tilting to one side. Then he conjured two shot-glasses, which he spit in and polished with his dusty tail before filling them with the cloudy liquid. “Important things can wait, comrade. First, we drink! Na storovje!”

“Zda-ró-vye,” Rivet returned, and gulped down his glass with a smile on his face.

When both their bellies were glowing with a familiar warmth, Carbide Lamplight took the chair opposite of Rivet; the chair creaked, but it held. “So Rivsky, what brings you to my humble home? Aren’t you normally working every day?” he said.

“Da, I took a day off.”

“A day off?” Carbide said with a frown. He knew about Rivet’s family, and had visited them a time or two. “How?”

Rivet smiled. “Let’s just say I can afford it.”

“I see,” Carbide said, although he was even more confused than before. He loved to ask how that could be, but considered it impolite to talk about each other’s income. Instead, he started filling up the glasses again. “That’s good.”

“It is.”

Carbide slid the glass over to his friend’s side of the table. “You never were much of a talker, Rivet,” he said with a grin. “Let’s fix that right now.”

Rivet chuckled, their glasses clinked, and their bottoms were up.

Now Rivet spoke: “Eh… Carby, I’ve got a secret—two, in fact, or three if you count the talking bear.”

“What?!” Carbide jumped up in surprise. “A talking bear? But you’ve only had two glasses yet!”

“It has nothing to do with glasses, Carby,” Rivet said, his tone serious, “It has something to do with… Well…”

“Come on, come on, don’t leave me so excited,” Carbide said with a laugh.

Rivet Punch put his hoof to his chin. “Well… let’s start with the first secret, ok?”

“Good, good. Blow me away.”

“It… it is not a funny secret, those will come later.” Rivet looked down at the ground. “The factory is going to close.”

Carbide’s eyes became twice as big and his body shuddered. “WHAT?!”

“The factory is going to close,” Rivet repeated.

“That’s terrible!” Carbide Lamplight jumped from his seat, which crashed down behind him. “Oh, the horror! The horror!” he yelled, as he staggered through the living room, tripping over the rocks and things on the floor. “How in Equestria am I going to finance my private mining enterprise? I am ruined! RUINED! They cannot do that! I’m their best miner! Their BEST!” Finally a piece of rope put an end to Carbide’s desperate rant, as his legs got tangled and he crashed to the floor.

Rivet got to his hooves and rushed over to his friend, lifting the thin pony up with just a single hoof. “Are you ok, Carby?”

“No! I’m not ok, and neither is my mine!”

Carbide Lamplight dragged himself towards another chair and slumped down. Immediately he grabbed the bottle of vodka and took another shot.

Rivet sat down opposite and put a hoof on his friend’s bony shoulder. “Don’t worry, Carbide, everything is going to be just fine.”

“No it’s not.” Carbide said.

“Yes it is. Just trust me. If you come with me and bring some mining equipment, I’ll show you something incredible.”

Through the glass of the vodka bottle, Carbide’s eyes looked up at Rivet. “Then I’ll have to take another day off. I cannot do that, Rivsky; the factory is my most important source of income—eh… after the mine, of course.” He looked up and then quickly continued, “If what you say is true, I have to pull as many bits out of that blasted factory as I can before it closes. Especially with the Hearth’s Warming bonus.” He wrinkled his nose. “If you can call ten Bits a ‘bonus.’”

Rivet Punch couldn’t help but chuckle; his friend would be in for a big surprise. “Trust me, Carby, if you go with me, I’ll promise you an even merrier Hearth’s Warming.”

Carbide scowled. “What can be merrier than a bonus?”

“You will see, Carby.” Rivet looked his friend in his eyes. “Hey, come on! What happened to the crazy pony I used to know?” Rivet grabbed his friend by the shoulder and shook him a little. “Like you said, important things can wait, comrade”—with his other hoof he reached for the bottle—“now, we drink!”

After another hour, the vodka diminished, but the ponies’ cheerfulness swelled. No matter what they said, no matter how silly or normal, they both had to laugh so hard that their stomachs hurt. The two friends talked about many things, constantly jumping from one subject to the other when a burst of laughter disrupted the conversation. Carbide Lamplight got off the worst (or the best, depending on your point of view), and was almost gone. He was the thinner and lighter of the two, and despite having honed his drinking skills from the moment he could hold a bottle, Rivet Punch always beat him. Carbide saw his house spinning and lagging behind his eyes. Nothing really mattered anymore; there was just the moment. Carbide coughed, reached for the bottle, but was unsure which of the three was the right one. He leaned forward and reached out. His hoof missed the bottle by five inches, and Carbide fell to the ground; his helmet rolling a long way further. “Oh… Let’s try again,” he said, but didn’t make an attempt to crawl back up.

Rivet chuckled, got up unsteadily, and hauled his friend up to plant him back in his chair. “I think you’ve had enough, comrade Lamplight,” he said.

“T-t-there is no such thing as enough, R-Rivsky. B-b-but if you can’t handle anymore, I’ll just… I’ll just… eh…”—Carbide threw his body on the table, which tilted dangerously far to his side—“I’ll just… get some more. Yes! Get some more.”

Rivet Punch felt a little woozy as well, but still had the presence of mind to know that that wouldn’t be such a good idea. Quickly he sliced another subject. “Say, Carby, how’s your mine doing? Did you get to bedrock yet?”

Carbide Lamplight sat up straight, moving like a ragdoll. He eyed the red stallion with a sudden seriousness. “Super-duper splendid, comrade!” He swayed his head. “And h-h-how is your family doing?”

“Also good. The fillies are both going to school, and Camomila Blossom is managing the farm when I’m away.” Rivet leaned in closer. “Sometimes she works the fields even better than me. If I wouldn’t know better, I’d say she knows more about plowing, sowing, and reaping than the oldest, hardiest stallion.”

Carbide laughed much too loud. He leaned back dangerously far, but to Rivet’s surprise, he held his balance. “I-I guess… I guess not everypony is suited for everything, right?”

“No.” Rivet looked at his flank, where his cutie mark danced before his eyes. “But then I still don’t know what the sickle means in my cutie mark.” Rivet started tilting a little bit to the side, but caught himself and looked in front of him again. “I mean, I get the hammer: I’m a good metalworker, right?”

“Good?!” Carbide leaned forward. “You. Are. The. BEST!”

“Ha! Thank you, Carby,” Rivet said, gently pushing him back on his chair. “If you ever need a half-decent farmpony, you know who to call!”

“I don’t have a telephone!”

“Me neither!”

A burst of laughter rolled like thunder through the house, making the photos on the wall shake in their frames. Carbide slapped his leg. “That was very bad.”

“I know!”

It didn’t matter that the joke didn’t make any sense, the two ponies laughed again, even harder this time. They were crying of laughter for a good five minutes, enjoying everything but the humor. When they both calmed down, gasping for air, Rivet’s face suddenly went grave. “Oh, no.”

“What is it?” Carbide said back, still grinning a bit.

“I haven’t even told Camomila about it.”

“Haven’t told her about what?”

“You know”—Rivet made a face—“it.”

“N-no I don’t. Explain, comrade Punch.”

Rivet stood up shakily, while pointing at his friend—which didn’t improve his balance. “The super-duper-very-secret-thing-with-which-you-will-help-me.”

“Oh, yes, of course. That thing,” Carby said, pretending to know exactly what he was talking about.

“That’s great!”

“Huh?” Carbide did his best to understand, but everything in his head was a cloudy haze.

“That means you will help me.”

“Did I say that?”

“I believe you did,” Rivet said with a sly smile.

“A-a-alright, Rivet. I’ll help you.” Carbide swayed his head again. “But not now. Tomorrow, ok?”

“That looks like a good idea to me.” Rivet grinned. “A very good idea.” He stood up, and walked towards the door as carefully as he could.

“Watch out for the rocks! They’re fragile!” Carbide called after him.

Rivet Punch burst out in laughter and lost his balance. He rolled out the door, and tumbled head-over-hoof on the gravel path outside. When he came to a halt he lifted his head, only to find his hard-hatted friend standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on the heck. “Are you alright, Rivsky!” he called out.

“Yes, I’m ok!” The big red stallion scrambled to his hooves and took a few steps further—only to find out he walked in the wrong direction and turned around.

“Are you sure?” He heard the voice of Carbide behind him.

“Da! See you tomorrow, Carby! Oh, and don’t forget to take some mining stuff with you!”

“Do zavtra!” Carbide said, and closed the door behind him. Grinning, he took a few deep breaths and looked around the room, wondering why it was so loud and movable. “He can be such a goofus when he’s drunk,” he muttered to himself. “Now where’s that other bottle again…” Carbide Lamplight made a step towards the kitchen, but started swaying, wobbling, and finally collapsed in a corner with an awkward smile painted on his lips.

* *

Knock, knock.

Rivet Punch knocked on the door, even though he did have a key; it was his own house, after all.

The door opened, and Camomila Blossom stared at her husband. “Rivet, you have the key, remember?”

“Uh-huh,” Rivet said with a bleak stare in his eyes.

Camomila sighed. “Have you been drinking again?”

“Eeyup.”

“At the bar?”

“Ee… nope.”

“Carbide Lamplight?”

“Eeyup.”

Camomila sighed again in her snow-white hoof. “Come in,” she said, and stepped aside.

Rivet Punch let go of the doorpost, but soon lost his footing, tripped, stumbled, and landed neatly on the couch, right in front of the fireplace. He pulled up his hind legs, closed his eyes, and sighed in relief as the heat of the cozy little fire began to spread from his legs to his whole body.

Camomila Blossom sat down in a rocking chair opposite of him, and looked at her husband with a gaze of anger, concern and worry. She didn’t know which one to express first.

“Don’t say a thing, I know,” Rivet Punch said, without opening his eyes.

“Do you?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry.”

Camomila said nothing.

Turning on his side, Rivet Punch now looked in Camomila’s eyes, but didn’t quite know which of the three was his wife; he just aimed his words in the general direction. “I came home so late, yesterday. And then I just crashed on the couch without telling you why.” He chuckled. “Kind of like I’m doing now.”

A thin smile formed on Camomila’s face; she couldn’t help it.

“Well, the truth is… it’s a secret!” Rivet said.

“A secret?”

“Yes!” Rivet Punch rolled on his chest, and looked Camomila straight in the eyes. “A secret.”

“You and your secrets! I never understood why you liked your secrets so much.” Camomila tucked a stray hair into her golden bun. “And we’re married for… how long?”

“A long time, Camo.”

Camomila frowned. “And… should I be happy or concerned that you can’t even remember?”

“Happy, of course,” Rivet said with a wide grin. “Time flies when you’re having fun, right?”

Then both ponies burst out in laughter, a strong, lovely laughter which bounced through the whole house, shaking the bricks in the walls. They both loved each other, they still did.

“You’re a terrible dad, Rivet Punch Macintosky,” Camomila finally said, although her tone betrayed the sarcasm; she decided to test her husband a little. “You keep secrets in the family, you go to your friend and drink yourself numb, and you are the worst farmer I’ve ever seen.”

Rivet put on a funny face. “Oh, really? Well, I think I’m a wonderful dad. I’m going to get you all a merry Hearth’s Warming; wait and see!” Suddenly he sat up straight on his haunches. “I’m not a bad dad, and I’m sure the children would agree.” He breathed in deep, but didn’t even have to call. The sound of little hooves echoed from the bedroom, and a moment later, two little fillies stood in the living room and charged towards their father, smiles on their faces. “Papa! Papa, you’re home!”

“I know,” Rivet said, still bearing his funny face, and embraced them in a bear-hug.

“Papa, are you free today?” the brown filly with an ashen, messy mane asked.

“I am, Resonance.”

“And are you going to help us bake something super-duper tasty?” the other filly asked. She had a cream-colored coat and a flowing, golden mane, much like her mother.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Bliny,” Rivet said.

“Why not?”

“Because… well…” Rivet looked over to his wife, but didn’t get any support; she just smiled a challenging smile.

“Well? why not?” Bliny said.

“Because… papa is sick. He cannot walk straight.”

Both fillies’ eyes went wide. “Oh no! Will you be better soon?” Bliny asked.

Rivet chuckled. “Yes, tomorrow I’ll be better. It’s probably just a cold.” He stroked his daughter’s’ manes one by one. “So, what did you do today, my little snowflakes?”

“I made twenty pancakes in an hour!” Bliny said, her eyes radiating with pride. “That’s a new personal record!”

Resonance turned towards her sister. “Did you?”

“Yes, I did!”

“How wonderful! Rivet said. “Did you leave some for me? I could use something to eat.”

“Of course,” Bliny answered, “I’ll go get them for you. I’ve left some pancakes for everypony. It’s a surprise, well… it was a surprise. Not anymore. Be right back!” Bliny jumped off Rivet’s lap and bolted towards the kitchen.

Rivet Punch looked at his wife. “You see? Surprises are fun!”

Camomila Blossom just rolled her eyes and sighed.

“And what did you do today, Resonance?” Rivet said to his other daughter.

“I did what I do every day, papa. You should know that right? I practiced my balalaika of course.”

“Oh really?” Rivet said, faking a terrible surprise. “So how is it coming along?”

“Awesome, of course! I’ll be a star in no time. Only a few more days and then I’ll be good enough for the Eastern Equestrian balalaika ensemble. I know it!”

Rivet laughed. “I believe you, little Resonance.”

“You should!” Resonance said. “You know, papa, I made a song today. I’ll sing it for you!”

And before Rivet realized it, Resonance zipped towards her bedroom and came galloping back with a triangular little guitar in her mouth: her balalaika.

She sat down on a wooden chair, the one closest to the fireplace, and put the balalaika on her lap. “I’ll show you something!” she called, then cleared her throat, and started plucking the strings with her hoof. At first a few slow, cheerful notes drifted into the living room, but then Resonance stroked faster and faster, until the tones flowing out of the instrument chained up into a constant whizz; the trademark sound of a balalaika, and of course, the traditional tones of Eastern-Equestria.

I Know a place un-der snow

Oh so cold, oh so bold

Every-day it shines with gold

It is my home there I live

With mom, dad and my sis

It is all I need and wish

To-morrow or once someday

I will live my long dream,

I’ll be on a stage and beam

Play-ing the roof off the hall

And get all the applause

From the crowd which I will rouse

I will be famous and rich

And will share all my Bits

With poor ponies out of wits

Then, under big golden sun,

A new star will shine bright

And I’ll fill the land with light!

An applause filled the living room. Not the applause of a thousand baffled ponies, but a heartfelt and loving applause nonetheless.

“That was amazing!” Rivet said. “What do you call that song?”

Resonance put her balalaika on the floor. “Thanks, papa. I knew it would be awesome. I don’t have a name yet, but I think I’ll name it after the three sides of a triangle. What about… Tetris?”

“That’s a wonderful name, little snowflake,” Rivet said. He grabbed the little balalaika virtuoso and gave her a kiss on the muzzle.

“Papa! Don’t be so cheesy!”

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The next day, Rivet Punch appeared early at the door of Carbide Lamplight’s house. Behind him, he dragged a giant cart filled with buckets, bags, crates and anything else that could be used to put gold nuggets in. He beamed with excitement, ready to whisk away all of his friend’s financial worries—and his own, of course.

Rivet knocked on the door again, and placed his ear against the wood. He could hear shuffling, the rumble of rocks and cursing. Yep, he’s definitely awake.

“Rivsky, is that you?” the voice came from behind the door.

“Yes.”

“Good. Give me a moment to collect some mining equipment, ok?”

“Ok,” Rivet answered, silently wondering how in Equestria Carbide Lamplight had been able to remember that after so much vodka. He had to assume it was just part of being an experienced drinker.

Carbide Lamplight didn’t open the front door, and Rivet couldn’t hear anymore sounds. He shrugged, and reckoned Carbide would come from the back. Rivet Punch unlaced his cart and walked to the side of the house, where a big, iron fence separated the front yard from the back—if you could call the gravel-strewn path that. From straight up front, it looked impenetrable; a solid, steel ribbon cutting through the gravel. But Rivet knew the secret: there was a notch with a small lever just some hoofsteps away, right above a little rust stain. He felt for the lever—almost getting his hoof stuck in the hole—and smiled when he heard the familiar click.

“Good day, comrade. Thank you for opening the gate!” Carbide said, hastily trotting over towards Rivet and the door, pulling a metal cart much too big and too heavy for him. “Let’s go.”

“You need any help with that?” Rivet asked, pointing at the monstrosity his friend was pulling with visible effort.

“No, no, no, I’m fine. Pojdjom!”

“Ok,” Rivet said, as Carbide shot past him and closed the heavy gate. It let out a high screech, and the two ponies both flinched, trying their best to hide their headaches. Spoils of a night well spent.

* *

The day was bright and fresh; the sun glittering above through thin wisps of cloud and the green roof. Rivet took a deep breath; the air smelled of pine-needles, resin and—at least to him—promise. Looking ahead he saw the red stones, shining bright and cheerful in front of his eyes like red rubies decorating a luxurious white tablecloth. Imagine if they were rubies…

Everything seemed normal and natural. There was no mist floating above the ground, and when Rivet had looked behind him a number of times, he had seen two wagon-trails and two pair of hoofsteps—as there should be.

“So where are we going again?” Carbide asked, interrupting his friend’s thoughts.

“I haven’t told you yet. It is a surprise, remember?”

Carbide put on a serious face. “Oh, then very soon you will have to pull both wagons…”

“Why?”

“Because I will have died from curiosity!”

Rivet grinned. If he’d been drunk, it would have been a roaring laugh; but for now, just a grin.

Around the two marching ponies, the forest beamed with life. There were squirrels skittering through the trees, trying their best to gather as many acorns as possible and hide them from rivals. There was the signature rattle of woodpeckers echoing through the leaves, accompanied by the cry of an eagle. Rivet’s head shot up, but he couldn’t pinpoint its source.

They toiled through the snow together for a long time; their loads growing increasingly heavy as they progressed. Carbide was panting hard. His wagon was made out of an old mine-cart: sturdy and heavy-duty, but weighing a ton. It rattled along noisily, loaded with pickaxes, helmets, ropes, chisels, spades, and much other mining equipment. Sweat ran down Carbide’s face and his legs trembled as they began to give up on the task. Trying to chase away the tiredness, Carbide decided to start another conversation; maybe he could even get some answers, he thought.

“Say, Rivsky,” Carbide began, and smiled at his friend, “I think I know what you have for me.”

Rivet’s head spun in the direction of Carbide, eyes wide. “W-w-what? Y-you do?!”

Carbide grinned. “Well… you asked for mining equipment, right? So I figure you found a—“

“Say, Carby, why are we never going into your mine again?” Rivet quickly cut in; he knew what his friend was going to say next, but surprises were sacred.

“Eh…” Carbide’s eyes darted into the sky. “Well…”

“Don’t you remember how much fun we used to have in your mine? I loved our long underground hikes through those dark shafts,” Rivet said, glad he had steered the conversation away from his surprise, but at the same time towards a mine as well.

A faint smile curled Carbide’s lips. “Yes, those were the days. I can’t remember how many questions you asked during our walks.”

“Well, you were the one who had to use so many words I didn’t know.”

“Like auxiliary operations?”

“Yes! Like that!”

“Want to know what it means?”

“Of course.”

“It’s stuff that supports mining operations, but which doesn’t have a direct connection with it. “

“Ah,” Rivet said, “like our underground hikes?”

Carbide grinned. “Something like that, yes.”

In the silence that followed, Rivet’s thoughts dipped underground to the tunnels he so loved to enter together with Carbide Lamplight, the enormous gravel pit, the endless mineshafts starting from it, the rusty elevator of which Rivet always wondered whether the thing would collapse in mid-ride—although Carbide had always claimed that it wouldn’t—,the tunnels, lit by a thousand carbide lamps, flashing in front of Rivet’s eyes, while the echoing voice of his friend filled his ears.

“Do you remember it as well?” Rivet said.

“Yes, of course,” Carbide answered.

“Do you recall the last time we went in there?”

“Eh…” Carbide frowned. “I don’t think so. Do you?”

“No,” Rivet said; he didn’t need to think. “But it was a nice playground, wasn’t it?”

“That it was, Rivsky.”

They spoke no more, not even about mines. Both Rivet and Carbide turned to themselves, sweating and concentrating on their loads and the way ahead, although it was marked clearly.

As they marched on, the terrain changed, the hills appeared, and Rivet Punch knew they were nearing their destination. The distance between the red stones grew bigger, and Rivet could hear a few magpies through the rattle of the carts. Growing from their left, the hills looked much less dark or intimidating; more like a friendly change of surroundings. Suddenly, Rivet spotted what he’d been looking for: the steep hill, the mountain, and the ridge.

Rivet stopped. “Here it is.”

Thank Celestia, Carbide thought, but then he looked around. “Here’s what?”

“Well, not exactly here, on that ridge over there!” Rivet pointed upward.

You have to be kidding me! Carbide looked at his friend, but the frown which had appeared on his face disappeared upon seeing Rivet’s expression: filled with a childish anticipation, as if somepony was about to give him a beautiful Hearth’s Warming present. Carbide sighed. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Struggling and cursing, Carbide made it to the top at last, looking ahead at his friend, whose expression hadn’t changed over the challenging climb. He stopped on the rim of the ridge and looked to his right, taking off his hardhat and wiping the sweat off his forehead. To his right, the forest stretched out far and wide. Surrounding the mountain was a small clearing, but beyond that, the forest continued and the trees seemed taller the farther he gazed. The green roof looked lighter now that he was closer to the sun—and the forest seemed to pulse with color. A sudden jolt startled him, and he looked up to see Rivet shaking him and jumping up and down in excitement. ”Come on, Carby! We’re almost there!”

Carbide couldn’t help but smile at his big red friend, giggling with joy. “Ok, ok, don’t push me off the ridge please,” he said while unlacing the straps of his harness. “Otherwise we would have made the journey for nothing.”

Calmly he followed towards the wall of the mountain and into its shadow. Suddenly he saw Rivet’s yellow tail disappear into it, and he quickened his pace to find him. At first he ran to the end of the ridge, looking down into an abyss and wondering if Rivet Punch had jumped on some sort of secret ledge. When he couldn’t spot any red amidst the black rock, Carbide returned and began inspecting the wall carefully. “Rivsky, where are you?” he called out.

“Here, stupid!” an echoing voice returned from within the mountain.

Carbide stepped further to the left, staring intently at the wall of rock right in front of his nose. Suddenly the wall opened inward, and he looked into the blackness. Only the entrance to the cave was lit by the sun, floating directly above; the rest was a void. A strange clinking sound came from inside, like the scuttling of bugs. “Rivsky, are you—“

But his words fell into oblivion when a warm glare burst in the middle of the cave and bounced from wall to wall a million times, reflected over and over again. The glittering gold looked even more impressive and valuable in the warm lamplight than it had done in the cold, silvery moonlight. It glittered and shimmered all around, reflecting even in Carbide Lamplight’s eyes.

“Surprise!” a laughing Rivet called out, holding an oil lamp between his hooves.

Carbide Lamplight stood in the cave entrance. He was unable to move, and his mouth hung open. He felt a shiver go through his entire body, like a dip in a cold river. But now it filled him with exciting warmth instead of biting cold. He grinned. The grin grew to a smile. Then a chuckle. Then a full-blown laugh growing louder and louder and echoing through the cave. He started shaking on his hooves and fell to his knees. Tears filled the corners of his eyes and he cried hard, his mining helmet falling to the ground.

Rivet quickly put the lamp down and rushed over to his friend. “Are you alright, Carby? You shouldn’t be sad. It’s really gold; I’m not trying to fool you. You know I never do that.”

Carbide Lamplight brushed Rivet’s hoof off his shoulders. “I’m not sad, Rivet,” he whispered, “I’m set… for life.”

Rivet Punch was just about to ask his friend what that meant, when Carbide jumped up like a spring. He zipped through the cave, moving and looking from wall to wall like all of them looked out on a beautiful theater play of which he didn’t want to miss anything. Carbide cackled, jumped up, and clung to a big nugget embedded in the rocky roof. “GOLD!” he yelled. “GOLD, GOLD, GOLD!” Every time he said that magical word, the crazed miner kissed the yellow mineral as if it were his long-forgotten special somepony.

“Eh… are you ok, Carby?” Rivet said again, trying his best to not be distracted by the glimmering riches around him.

But Carbide Lamplight didn’t hear him, and dropped down to the ground. “Gold! I cannot believe it! How much is there?” He ran off into the darkness left behind by the lamp, deeper into the cave.

Rivet heard his hoofsteps disappear into the gloom at full speed. “Carbide, be careful! The cave is not—“

A loud, crunchy clunk echoed back to him.

“—that deep.”

Carbide staggered back into the light, still bearing his smile, but a tooth less than before.

“Let’s set up some lamps, Carby, so we can see what we’re doing,” Rivet proposed.

“Yes,” was the only thing Carbide could answer, and walked outside towards his cart, hesitant to leave the gold-filled cave.

He came back with a dozen of carbide lampposts, hovering in a shaky, magical haze, shuddering with excitement. Within minutes the cave was illuminated by the cold light, and Carbide Lamplight feasted his eyes on all the gold he could see. “Part of me expected to see something like this,” he whispered, “but never like this!”

Rivet Punch moved next to him and followed his friend’s gaze over all the sparkles in the wall. “It is something, isn’t it?”

“Something?!” Carbide said with a sudden burst. “This is everything! We can do whatever we want now!”

“Yes,” Rivet said vaguely. An image started to form inside his head as he fantasized about everything the riches from the gold would permit him to do—and so did Carbide.

With a jerk, Carbide Lamplight turned to Rivet. “We can do whatever we want now!” he repeated, looking his friend straight in the eyes. “With my share, I can buy an enormous estate in Canterlot, and… and travel there first class! I could leave that stupid, frozen village and live amongst the elite.” He raised his head in the air and closed his eyes like he was a rich industrialist, content with his achievements. “We both can!”

“Why would you want that?” Rivet asked.

Carbide twitched and opened his eyes, then he grabbed his friend by the shoulders. “Why would I want that?!” he repeated, “because I can go somewhere better and live a happy rich life— that’s why!”

Still Rivet Punch looked at him with doubtful eyes. “But I am happy already. Here, in the village.”

Now Carbide was the one who looked confused. “What? How can you be happy with that?” The disgust in his last word was audible.

Rivet frowned in thought. “Because… I think I have everything I want here. I have a place to live; not too big, not too small. I have a family and friends.” His frown vanished. “I have you.”

“You can take everything and everypony with you!” Carbide said with a wide smile, shaking Rivet’s shoulders a little. “Well, not all of your town friends, but I mean Camomila Blossom and your children and all your stuff. Hay, I bet the moving company will even load your little house on the train cart, if you pay the carriers enough.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Wow.”

“And what about your family? You love them so much, right? You can share your happiness and your riches with them, of course.” Carbide dug in his mind for the names of Rivet’s children, but couldn’t remember them. “Your oldest daughter, she likes to bake, right?”

“Da.”

“You can send her to the best bakery in Canterlot to be taught by a master baker.” Carbide shook his head. “The best bakery in Equestria, I mean.”

“But she likes working with Fabergem really—“

“And what about your youngest?” Carbide continued, when he saw the objection coming, “she plays the balalaika, I remember. Well, you can get her to a great conservatory.” Carbide put up a theatrical thinking face. “I don’t know… what about… Octavia’s school for the musically gifted, founded by the famous balalaika player Octavia Melody herself?”

“Eh… wasn’t Octavia Melody a famous pianist?”

“That’s not the point,” Carbide said hastily. “And think about Camomila Blossom! She never has to work on any farms again. You and Camomila can do other things—fun things! Perhaps find a sport or make romantic journeys together.”

“You know,” Rivet said, “we already do that sometimes. I remember we went on this beautiful walk together. The sun was shining brightly and—“

“No! I don’t mean a walk, I mean a BIG journey! Like… like…” Carbide did his best to recall the farthest, most exotic destination he could think of. “Los Pegasus! Have you ever been to Los Pegasus before? I heard it’s beautiful and colorful and vibrant and… and… much more!“

Rivet put a hoof to his chin. “I don’t know, Carby. It all sounds a little… unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary?!” Carbide let go of the red stallion and stood on his hind legs. He let out a high-pitched snicker. “Don’t you want to have a taste of the GOOD life? The REAL life! The life I’ve only ever read about in magazines and catalogues: eating tasty food every day, wearing fine clothes, and never having to work again!” Carbide waved his hooves in the air. “Never having to work again! Can you imagine that?”

“Then I would be bored,” Rivet said.

“Bored?!” Carbide Lamplight looked almost insulted. “How can you get bored in the most beautiful city in all of Equestria?! Our eyes could feast on the beautiful architecture, the riches surrounding us; drowning in spare time and enjoying only the finest music, theatre and art.”

Rivet stood straight. “Well, I think the most beautiful thing is watching a bright orange sunrise above the roofs and smokestacks of the village—especially if we watch it together, lost in thoughts and dreams.”

“But now we can LIVE our thoughts and dreams!”

“Not my thoughts and dreams.”

“Argh!” Carbide Lamplight exclaimed, as he slumped down on the ground. Somehow, he just couldn’t grasp the mentality of his friend, although he had known him for so long. A little frustration crept up inside him and stung his brain. “Alright,” he said a little harshly, “then what would YOU do with the gold?”

Rivet didn’t have to think about that question, as the answer had immediately popped into his mind the moment he first saw the glittering riches. “Well… It is a lot of gold for just one pony…”

“That’s why we’re sharing it, right? Fifty-fifty.”

Rivet Punch didn’t immediately react to that. Splitting the gold like that was the first thing that came to his mind as well, but then he reckoned he would probably need all of it to execute his grand idea. “I was thinking of giving everypony a merry Hearth’s Warming.”

Carbide’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but quickly caught himself. He didn’t want to look like some greedy or nasty pony in front of his friend. He didn’t want to say how insanely stupid such an idea was. Recomposing, Carbide thought of another question, “But how are you going to do that?”

Rivet Punch frowned; he hadn’t even thought about that. “Eh…” was all he could bring out.

“Yes,” Carbide said in his squeaky voice; this was exactly what he thought. He flashed a thin smile; it seemed he knew the mentality of his friend well enough: ideas, but no plans. “You go ahead and tell everypony about this cave, Rivsky. You do that, and they’ll come running right at it, following the red stones with foam on their mouths. They’ll come here and mine every single gold-crumb away, all the while fighting and arguing amongst themselves.” Carbide flailed his hooves in the air. “Perhaps there will even be WAR! Would you like to be responsible for an all-out civil war?”

“Now stop right there, Carby,” Rivet said with a raised voice. “They aren’t savages! They’re honest ponies just like you and me.”

“Honest?! Honest?!” Carbide let out an irritated laugh. “They may be honest, but they’re stupid enough not to see any dishonesty themselves. They don’t see how the stallions are getting scammed by the steel factory. They don’t see how they do dangerous, back-breaking work, just so Canterlot can construct even higher buildings to house even richer industrialists—factory-owners for Celestia’s sake!” Carbide drew in a large breath; he wasn’t done yet. “And least of all do they see how they get paid only a fraction of all the money which revolves in that million-Bits steel business; barely enough to keep themselves alive.” Carbide was shouting now, and pointed to his friend. “YOU should know that, Rivsky! YOU have a large family to feed! And YOU are the honest finder of this miracle cave!”

Rivet looked in shock at Carbide’s face. There was not much sign left of the funny, venturous pony. Before him stood an angry, shouting stallion. It was like he was on strike for better working conditions; the only thing missing was a sign. Despite the yelling pony in front of him, Rivet kept his calm. He opened his mouth to say something, but then Carbide continued.

“I know you care about everypony, Rivet,” he said with a sigh. Then he looked at the ground. “I know you mean it well, but once you give everypony in the village a gold nugget, and they spend it on something nice, what happens after that?”

“Eh…”

“Things would go back to how they were. Every stallion jobless, and everypony unhappy once again.”

“Yes, but I can at least try…” Rivet said, although he realized his friend had a point. He too lowered his head in sadness.

Carbide Lamplight flashed a quick glance at his friend with an eye, smiled a split-second, and then closed his eyes as if in pain. “I’m so tired, Rivsky.” His voice wasn’t loud or angry, but creaking, as if a rain of tears would soon flood from the corners of his eyes. “I’m tired of being poor.”

“But, what about your mine?” Rivet asked.

“The mine’s a failure. I’ve dug up nothing but rocks and dirt ever since I put the first shovel in the ground.” Carbide’s ears drooped down. “I need the gold as much as you do.”

Rivet looked up at his friend, his eyes wavering with pity. “Oh, Carby, I never knew. But you always said it—“

“I say so many things!” Carbide suddenly sprung up, tired of this unnecessary conversation. A sudden ferociousness ignited his eyes. “I say so many things and I think so many thoughts. But YOU don’t say enough things; YOU don’t think enough thoughts. I am a thinker and YOU a dumb, simple doer. YOU choose to live in poverty. But I… I see opportunity!” He started walking closer to Rivet.

Rivet did a few steps backward, startled by the sudden change in temperament of his friend. “B-but I see opportunity too. Just… just a different one.”

“That won’t do,” Carbide growled, still advancing with an iron will. “You don’t know how to use riches like these. Leave that to the big thinkers; the ones who don’t ignore chances with their sleepy heads.”

Rivet didn’t know what to say. He felt the cold wall of the cave as he bumped against it. He saw his friend’s horn glimmer above two murderous eyes. He saw the shadows shift. He felt a pain like a lightning bolt in his head. And then he felt nothing anymore.

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Night fell, the stars started twinkling high above, and the moon did its best to shine through the forest canopy. It was already late in the evening, and the moon aimed its rays directly against the west-side of the tree trunks, making them glimmer ghostly in the darkness. A chilly wind rushed through the entire forest, and dark clouds hung above, foreboding a heavy snowfall. Sure enough, the first white flecks of frozen rain dwindled down, acting as if there wasn’t enough snow on the ground already. Here and there, a few stray animals skittered around, desperate to find a hideout in time before either the upcoming snowstorm or before the nightly predators would surprise them. There was a scratching squirrel, a roaming fox, and an eagle high above, letting out a savage screech to accompany the symphony of the storm with an extra melodic layer.

A tickling, a heavy breath, and Rivet opened his eyes. He gasped loudly like he was about to drown.

I’m alive!

He jerked his head up, but saw only the green roof. A pain like crackling fire raced through his head, and Rivet winched. Intending to rub his sore scalp to somehow ease the flames inside, Rivet tried to lift his hoof. What the hay?!

A rope ensnared him all around his body, and he realized he was tied to a massive pine. Slowly, his ability to think returned to his groggy mind. Rivet tried to look down, perhaps even wanting to bite through the rope surrounding him, but found that a second rope, wrapped around his neck, secured his head tightly to the tree. As Rivet shuffled a bit, he felt an agonizing scorch on his legs and neck, like a whip had struck him a dozen times. Despite the pain, he shuffled a bit more, but the only thing Rivet accomplished was noticing how stiff his back was against the solid wood. He gritted his teeth, almost regretting returning to the conscious world. How long have I been like this?

A shift of shadows made Rivet look up, ignoring the rope digging in his neck. Evening? Then he noticed the moon. No. Late at night.

Rivet turned his head in a less painful position, trying his best to think about what happened before he woke up. A small snowflake touched down on his nose, followed by a few more on his head, like they tried to put out the fire inside of it. Rivet shivered, but the cold had a calming effect on his brain. Suddenly his pupils grew small, as the slideshow of events unfolded before his eyes.

“Carbide!”

Rivet said it out loud, but not with any tone of anger or vengeance. He remembered everything: the journey, the gold, the argument. Slowly, Rivet let the events sink in a second time, thinking them over as carefully as his beaten-up head allowed.

He knocked me unconscious, or did he want to—Rivet swallowed, feeling the pressure of the rope against his Adam’s apple—did he want to kill me? No. He would never do that. Another gust of wind made Rivet shiver. But then why has he done this to me?

Rivet’s ears flattened and he felt his muscles weaken. I don’t understand. We were friends! Best friends! Despite the cold, his eyes started burning, and a small, warm teardrop dripped to the snow. How could this happen? But the momentthat question appeared in Rivet’s mind, it was accompanied by the answer. The gold. It is all about the gold. Rivet Punch wanted to flick the upcoming tears away, but couldn’t do so. How can gold make a pony do such a thing? His shoulders twitched with a sob, and a pain shot through his body—but Rivet didn’t care. How can gold make a pony betray his best friend? A few more sobs, and a few more tears. Then I don’t want it anymore. I rather have a good friend than all the riches in the rocks of Equestria.

Rivet let his head hang low; with this revelation came a sudden tiredness. He didn’t fight it anymore, and cried softly, occasionally whispering things through his sobs and tears with a weak voice. A cloud blocked all the light, and Rivet became enveloped in hopelessness and darkness. The wind began blowing harder, and the snowflakes patted against his face like icy sandpaper. Soon enough, a small snowy hill formed against the tree and the desperate stallion tied to it, slowly engulfing him in a cold tomb.

Rivet didn’t have enough energy to move, and soon he stopped trembling as well. Only shards of thoughts flowed through his mind as hypothermia kicked in. He saw the smiling faces of his friends at the town bar. He saw the thatched roofs of the village with the warm light through the windows. He saw the cave, glittering with gold; although that memory vanished quickly, as if the freezing stallion had any strength left to choose his own last thoughts. He saw Carbide Lamplight and his mine.

Finally, Rivet Punch saw the loving faces of his family: his wife and his two daughters.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he closed his eyes for the last time.

* *

Haze.

Whirling wisps.

White in darkness.

Smoke without a fire.

Floating blanket on the land.

Mist.

* *

Mist!

Rivet’s eyes shot open. The small snowy coffin crumbled as he shuddered. “Silnyy!”

The wind whooshed around the two animals, yet somehow unable to blow away the mist on the snowy ground. The bear stepped closer, raised one of her claws, and cut both ropes in one vicious rake. The tree shivered and Rivet fell forward, finding no strength or feeling in his frozen legs.

“Stand up, you fool!” the bear roared through the howling blizzard. But Rivet Punch either couldn’t hear her, or wasn’t able to stand up at all. Every part of him hurt, every movement he tried to make backfired on his entire body. With all the will of the world, he struggled, but it was in vain.

Silnyy sighed, stepped towards the stallion, and bit his yellow tail. With a mouthful of stiff, frozen horse hair, the bear dragged Rivet Punch away like he was a freshly caught prey. But Rivet Punch didn’t even notice that anymore, as he had lost consciousness once more.

* *

“I’m never doing this again,” Silnyy mumbled to herself, as she sat with her back to the stallion and the fire. Her massive body almost covered the whole entrance of the cave they were in, as she stared outside at the twinkling stars and the untamable snowstorm. Why is he taking so long? He should be warm by now! she thought, frowning with annoyance. Of course Rivet would survive; Silnyy wasn’t done yet.

The bear tried to relax and use the waiting time to think. She looked out over the frozen landscape but found it hard to get her thoughts in line. How can one think when one has a view of a beautiful land like this? she contemplated. And for the first time in weeks, a relaxed smile curled around her heavy brown lips.

Suddenly, a rock fell right off the wall and landed next to the bear, shattering her concentration. Silnyy’s head snapped around, and her heavy claw blew the rock to smithereens. She growled, “I’ve waited long enough, for forest’s sake! I’m waking that pony up!”

But when she turned around, Silnyy saw the stallion already standing on his legs, although a bit unsteadily.

“Silnyy,” Rivet said with a trembling voice. “Am I… dead?”

The bear shuffled on her paws. “No time for stupid questions. Don’t ask anything more about it.”

Rivet Punch did a few wobbly steps towards his savior. “But… how did I get here and—“

“Grabbed your tail, dragged you here and lit a fire,” Silnyy interrupted, frowning with annoyance again. This takes so long.

“How can bears light fires?” Rivet didn’t know why that random question popped up in his mind, but he was in the mood for some answers. Anything that would clarify the events of the past hours.

“I JUST DID!” Silnyy burst out in a growl. “Don’t ask anything more about it!”

The force of the growl made Rivet wobble and fall to his haunches on the rocky floor. He raised his head and looked around the cave, revealing vicious marks on his neck. “Where are we? Is this your own lair?”

“Finally a good question, pony!” Silnyy said with some relief. “And no. This is not my cave. It is yours.”

“Mine?”

The bear sighed, ending in a grunt. “The cave with the gold I gave you. The one your ‘friend’ took from you!”

“Carbide,” Rivet whispered.

“Yes. That scrawny little creature who robbed you of all your riches.”

“He didn’t do that!” Rivet said, his heart feeling as if the fire had warmed it too.

“Oh, yes he did. And he knocked you on the head as well—with one of those lampposts, if I saw it correctly.”

“I don’t believe you!” Rivet called out, his voice a little croaky of thirst.

“I have seen it with my own bear-eyes.”

“My friend would never do such a thing!”

“Oh, really?” The bear smirked. “Then how do you explain this!” She stepped aside and waved one of her massive paws around the cave.

It was indeed the gold cave, although the word ‘gold’ should have been omitted. There wasn’t a single crumb of the shiny metal left. Ordinary gray rocks in all shapes and sizes littered the cave floor, sometimes smashed into dust. The cave looked much bigger with all of the gold removed, and Rivet Punch could even spot the burnt-out carbide lamps, some of which had been knocked down. A few hoofsteps ahead lay a couple of pickaxes with blunted tips, lying there as if somepony had left in a hurry and had forgotten about them—or simply didn’t care about sharpening them again. Mingled with Silnyy’s pawprints were shallow hoofprints, arranged in a way which looked like somepony had performed a crazy dance, or had otherwise moved around with haste and ecstasy.

All signs pointed towards the obvious, and Rivet couldn’t deny this striking picture any longer. Slowly he lowered his head; his ears drooped down. Despite his dry pupils, a few tears soon shone on his cheeks.

“Argh! Don’t cry!” Silnyy roared, making Rivet jump. “You’re a grown-up stallion, for forest’s sake!”

Rivet turned around, ignoring the grumpy bear. “He betrayed me,” he whispered through shaking breaths.

But Silnyy was getting really tired of this. She shifted and roared, “But it wasn’t only Richskaya’s fault!”

Rivet snapped his head back. “How do you know Carby’s family n—“

“DON’T ASK ANYTHING MORE ABOUT IT!”

Stumbling backwards, Rivet found the end of the cave as he crashed into it. He grunted in pain and slumped down.

Slowly Silnyy advanced, her tiny eyes glittering like gold.

Somehow Rivet felt a surge of adrenaline flowing through his body. The roaring bear walking right at him, the primal feeling of being a cornered prey, or maybe just the desire to ask questions made Rivet frown instead of fear, and he opened his mouth. “So if you watched the whole thing with your own eyes, then why didn’t you do anything?”

Rivet expected a roar, a bite, or a claw to the face. But instead, Silnyy stopped right before him and smiled an odd smile. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Huh?”

“Alright.” Silnyy cleared her throat, as if she was going to lecture a class of baby bears. “Let me ask you another question: why did you save my little son?”

“Eh…” was all the stallion could bring out, as he was still trembling with a cocktail of fear and adrenaline.

“Why did you risk your life to save a baby grizzly bear which you’ve never seen before, which you have never known before, and which would never thank you in any way?”

Once again an ‘eh…’ escaped Rivet’s mouth, but that was it.

“Come on, pony! Think!” Silnyy’s smile disappeared and she took a step forward again—a rock cracked under her claws.

His courage left Rivet, and he cowered in fear.

Silnyy sighed. “Because, Rivet Punch Macintoshky, you care about life; about every living thing, no matter how big or small, how dangerous or innocent. My son told me how you mere pinned the eagle to a tree while you could have killed it with ease—I know how good you are at baskethoof.”

That little detail made Rivet feel like a sliver of courage seeped back into him. He felt the urge to ask how Silnyy knew that, but kept quiet, as he guessed she wasn’t done yet.

Rivet was right, and the bear continued. “You find life more important than riches. You find many things more important than riches: friends, family, work—which is good. Although friends, family and work are only little things, and life is the basis; the beginning of everything, of every bond you will forge.” Silnyy paused, and breathed a long, heavy breath. “Take the forest, for example. The life flows through it in the form of trees and animals, but if there would be no life, there would only be lifeless rocks. Gold, perhaps, but that too, is lifeless.”

Rivet nodded.

“Life must come. Seeds must be planted, eggs must hatch, animals must love. The forest is life, and life makes a forest.”

Rivet nodded again, pretending to understand.

The grizzly stared at him intently, and the stallion found himself unable to shift his gaze away. It was as if Silnyy’s golden eyes saw straight through him, browsing through his memories and through the very fragments of his soul, plucking them like balalaika strings. “But,” she said, “there are limits to life. There can not only be life; there must also be death.”

Rivet Punch swallowed, his throat grating.

“It is the cycle of predator versus prey. Some animals must be killed to feed others. They cannot help it; it is the way of nature. Nature is cruel, and a harsh teacher: killing off the weak to promote the strong.”

Silnyy blinked, Rivet did so simultaneously, unable to control his eyes.

“You are strong, pony,” Silnyy said in an easy, monotonous voice. “Strong of body, but not of mind. Sometimes you have to FIGHT in order to survive. Sometimes purely for yourself, sometimes for someone else, and sometimes to defend what is yours.”

Slowly Rivet’s mouth opened, working hard to form words in response. “But I—“

“Was surprised? Don’t care about the gold? Wanted to preserve my friendship?” Silnyy finished for him. “You have seen bar brawls break out a thousand times, knowing each time when to quietly shuffle to the door—you can feel those moments coming. You don’t care about the gold?”—the bear tilted her head—“maybe… But you care about the other villagers, right? You wanted to use the gold to help them.”

“H-how do—“

“Don’t ask anything more about it! You must realize that the gold is important, why would I give it to you otherwise?”

“I-I don’t—“

“And you wanted to preserve your friendship? Ha!” Silnyy’s voice went back to normal for a second. She spat on the ground, breaking eye contact and allowing Rivet to blink and shake his head. “That tunnel rat doesn’t deserve your friendship!”

Then a sudden burst of energy flowed through Rivet punch; he was free from the stare. “Hey! Carbide is my friend, you know, and—“

But Silnyy threw her head back up and pierced Rivet’s gaze again. “Friend? You don’t even know everything about him!”

“Do you?” Rivet said back, still feeling the energy build up.

“That’s not the point!” the grizzly growled. She stomped her paw like a sledgehammer on the floor. “If you knew Richskaya so well, then why did you not have the strength to do anything against him?”

It was like a new courage flowed through Rivet Punch’s body. Something he had rarely felt before; something he rarely needed. He blinked hard, although the grizzly didn’t allow him to. He saw the bear’s lip twitch in a moment of hesitation. “Why did you not do anything, if you really saw everything Carbide did?”

Silnyy’s lip twitched once more, and suddenly she let Rivet go, threw her head in the direction of the cave entrance, and turned her enormous body around. A primal roar exploded from the grizzly’s maw, refusing to echo as it pierced through the very rocks themselves. Rivet covered his ears and curled up in a ball as the sound waves threatened to crush his skull.

“BECAUSE THAT IS NOT MY PURPOSE!” Silnyy roared.

The stallion was just about to ask what she meant by that when Silnyy turned around and charged right at him. What have I done? Flashed through Rivet’s mind, but he stood firm, refusing to let this grumpy bear get the better of him. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Silnyy almost closed the gap between them, her eyes gleaming with rage. Then she ducked, and before Rivet punch realized what was going on, he flew in the air, bounced against the roof of the cave, and landed on the bear’s back with a grunt of pain. Silnyy dashed out of the cave, carrying the big stallion as if he weighed nothing. Rivet was still bedazzled and unsure what was happening, but when he saw Silnyy tilt over the edge of the ridge and looked down for a split-second at the steep drop, he bit into the hairy bear-pelt, holding on for dear life.

With an avalanche of rocks and dirt behind her, the grizzly bear slid off the ridge and the slope until she was almost down to level ground. She jumped, falling the last few meters, and landed on the forest floor, the snow catching her fall. Silnyy paid no heed to the vicious snowstorm, which was still going strong. The wind howled and screamed amongst the trees, which waved their branches madly. It looked like they tried to stop the bear from going any further, or perhaps they were encouraging her, or begging for assistance against the natural disaster which tortured them.

On her back, Rivet Punch closed his eyes against the sharp wind. He wished he was able to retract his ears, as the wind and the snow lashed at them mercilessly. Snowflakes smacked into his face, and he couldn’t see where they were going or what was happening. The only things Rivet noticed were the rough bouncing of the bear, and the scent of the pine trees—he reckoned they were in the forest again.

The stallion wrapped his forehooves around the massive body of his mount, feeling the enormous muscles contract; the engines which powered the steamboat. The cold, which had struck him like a slamming door when he exited the warm cave, cooled his body down and soon Rivet Punch found himself able to think a little.

Like a diesel-powered plowing machine, Silnyy broke through the snow and continued the mad dash through the forest. Occasionally a small piece of shrub or a larger hedge came in her way, but was quickly annihilated by a sweeping claw.

Rivet let go of the bear-hairs with his mouth. “What are you doing?!” He shouted through the roaring wind.

“Something I should have done much sooner. And you too!” Silnyy roared back, having no trouble communicating through the noise.

Rivet coughed; his throat was still hoarse. “What?”

“You talk too much. Just sit still!”

Rivet didn’t understand that sentence either, but he saw no way to say anything more—his throat was killing him and the howling became louder. Suddenly, Rivet realized it was not only the wind which howled—the howling of wolves joined in.

Silnyy’s body bounced up and down, and the forest rushed by before the stallion’s eyes. There was no way of knowing where they were going, or how long they had been going already. Together they waltzed through the snow, Silnyy’s heavy footfalls making quick work of everything beneath it. Rivet Punch pressed the side of his head against the warm bear fur, occasionally switching to cover both ears against the snow. The dark-blue and white blur of the forest whisked past them. Rivet Punch noticed a long trail of little red dots lighting up inside of it. He smiled through frost-bitten lips, realizing what they were and where Silnyy and he were going. The stones.

But then a blood-curdling howl made Rivet shiver and almost lose his grip. Grasping frantically, he steadied himself and looked left and right. Both sides of the forest had the red dots, and they were bouncing up and down. Now Rivet saw what they were: predatory eyes. “Wolves!” he yelled.

“Turn around!” Silnyy roared.

“What?”

“You have to help me with this one. We can’t lose any more time!”

One pair of red lights diverted and materialized out of the blur of the forest. A long shape jumped at Rivet Punch, going for the kill. The red stallion’s eyes were quicker. He felt a burst of adrenaline, turned around, and bucked with his hind legs. A high yelp resounded, and a rain of sticks and thorns rained down on Rivet. Tundra timber-wolves!

Two shadows approached from the sides, but didn’t realize horses have their eyes on the sides of their head. Rivet spread his legs and kicked those wolves into oblivion as well.

One timber wolf realized where the danger came from and jumped high, going for the legs. Rivet wasn’t quick enough, and the wolf clamped itself on his legs. Rivet screamed in pain as he felt the razor-sharp teeth dig into his flesh. Out of reflex, he swung his leg up. The wolf let go, flew through the air, and landed in the snow. Shaking its head, the beast was just about to consider itself lucky the snow cushioned his fall when Silnyy swept the wolf aside, breaking him in a thousand pieces.

Now the string of red eyes slowed down on either side. Rivet snapped his head to the left and the right, frantically trying to see what the hunters were going to do next. Slowly the two red ribbons converged right behind the bear.

“Hold them off!” the stallion heard behind him.

Then the clouds shifted, and the moonlight dared to peek through its covers, indubitably wanting to watch the finale of this wicked chase.

Through winter-cold eyes, Rivet saw the red eyes merge into the shape of a complete pack of tundra timber-wolves: a dozen, maybe more. They snarled, winched at the light, and gave a cruel grin. Bouncing up and down through the mist, the wolves ran their wooden lungs out of their bodies, occasionally turning their heads left and right, discussing how they were going to catch their prey—or preys. Take one, get another one for free.

In a flash of thought, Rivet realized just how much murderous rage streamed from those red eyes. The things Silnyy had said to him in the cave came to mind. The wolves had to be very hungry and desperate for food to go hunt a bear. But of course, they had the numbers.

Their thorn-covered snouts came in closer and closer. Rivet saw the powerful puffs of breath thickening the mist below, and the eyes shining, filled with bloodlust. They are going to jump. All at once!

Silnyy’s heavy breaths came shorter and shallower now. She was getting exhausted. The rhythm of the pawsteps grew slower.

The ribbon of wood and eyes advanced even faster. Rivet felt the bear slowing down. “What are you doing?!” He yelled, finally breaking through the noise of the storm.

But Silnyy didn’t answer. She cast a quick glance behind and saw what she expected—she knew the hunting practices of the forest animals well enough. Silnyy closed her eyes, and tried to think about everything she could do. Her pace slowed down even more as her concentration waned.

I’m sorry to bring you into this.

Breaking the rhythmic breathing, Silnyy gathered all the frosty air she could, and let out a mighty and desperate roar.

The timber wolves rattled from the force and lost some ground in the shock. But then they realized that barking dogs don’t bite—barking dogs are desperate. Roaring bears don’t bite—roaring bears are close to giving up. So they thought. Soon they caught up again. They were close enough that one of them looked up and gazed Rivet straight in the eyes.

The stallion looked back, not afraid. The roar hadn’t even scared him. Instead, Rivet felt like he got something back which he had lost; or something he had suppressed: A feeling of rage, battle-readiness, bloodlust even. Something primal awakened inside of him, just like the moment when Silnyy charged right at him. Rivet Punch steeled himself for whatever would come. A last stand. His hide wouldn’t sell cheap.

A shape shot overhead and scuttled through the line of wolves. A strange cry resounded. In a haze of brown shadow, the shape zig-zagged through the regiment of wolves, breaking the orderly line. It was small, but not long like the wolves, more rounded. Its shape betrayed its speed. Then the shadow reached the frontline hunters, and Rivet saw who it was: Silnyy’s cub.

“Zhizn!” Silnyy roared.

That was all she needed to say. The little bear knew what to do. He zigzagged back with an incredible speed. The wolves slowed down and then stopped altogether, confused about what was interrupting their hunt. Rivet Punch saw them running in circles, congregating, and then bolting after the cub. They found prey easier to catch: young and inexperienced. The wolves became smaller and smaller, and then vanished out of sight.

Rivet wasn’t sure what he’d just seen, but he knew Silnyy and he would be safe for a while.

“Will your son be ok?” Rivet asked through the wind.

Silnyy took a quick peek behind, then raised her voice. “Yes. He’ll be alright!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Don’t ask anything more about it!”

The grizzly picked up the pace again, noticing the trees around. They began to retreat, and the wind howled less. Silnyy let out a tired sigh. Almost there.

Then suddenly, there were no trees anymore. A wide, chilled landscape opened before her, a little too open. The bear looked left and right, and when she didn’t see any creature, she headed straight for the path. It wasn’t hard at all to find it; for it was marked by hoofsteps and a deep wagon trail.

Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

“Dammit!” Carbide hissed, as he stumbled over a hidden gap in the road. With a jolt, he felt the heavy metal cart bounce in the same hole. He shot a quick peek behind and growled. “I’d better not have dropped a nugget there.”

Although Carbide Lamplight knew there were no trains going at this hour of night, he was still heading towards the train station. Surely he would be able to bribe some nighttime maintenance engineer and make him call in for another train. After all, money can make a pony do magical things…

Sweat beaded off his forehead as he trudged on through the snow. Carbide tried to go as fast as he could, but the snow-covered path, the ripping wind, and the enormous load slowed him down. “Damn this weather. Damn this land,” he hissed through gritted teeth, but no curse could beat mother nature.

He was in a hurry. Carbide Lamplight wanted to live his dream; to live the life he always wanted, and the life he deserved. He had snuck out of the village as inconspicuously as possible; no lights, no sounds. His house was already at the edge of town, and after gathering a few personal belongings—mostly photo’s—he had been off into the night. But beside that, the miner also wanted to hurry because he wasn’t sure when Rivet would be rescued.

To distract himself from the stress and inclement conditions, he tried to ease his mind by going over all the calculations. What time was it? Swinging out a copper pocket watch, Carbide looked at the favorable direction of the clock hands. Good. It will be some time before the village will wake up and all the poor little stallions go to work. How far was he from the train station? That he didn’t know for sure. The lands surrounding him looked all the same in the cold darkness, but Carbide had the feeling he was close. How long would Rivet be out cold? A long time. It was a powerful whack he had given him, and the knots he had used were close to unbreakable; proven a thousand times over in the depths of his mine. But then Carbide frowned, as a stray thought popped up in his mind: what if Rivet Punch wouldn’t be found and rescued?

Of course he would, Carbide thought. His family would go and look for him. Although—he frowned—we were rather deep in the forest. They would probably not know where to look… Suddenly Carbide caught himself slowing down. He shook his head and snorted. Too bad, then. If you want something, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices. Just keep going, Richskaya!

But if he really whisked away the death of Rivet Punch as mere collateral damage, then why did his image continue to dominate his thoughts? Why did his eyes feel like they were white-hot? Why was every step he took more hesitant than the last?

“Dammit! Go away!” he yelled against the wind.

A few teardrops left his eyes. Carbide could blame the biting wind for it, but deep inside, he knew where those tears came from.

“GO AWAY! YOU’RE DEAD! YOU LEFT ME NO CHOICE, YOU IDIOT!”

He’s dead. He really is.

Nopony could survive such a violent blizzard; Carbide knew that. He hung his head, and sniffed a few times—but then raised it again with a jolt. He had to get going. He could always do something later. I… I… I’ll just send his family some gold. That thought eased his heart a little, and Carbide found a renewed strength inside himself. He plowed on through the weather, the moon hanging low above the western horizon, trapped by clouds.

To his right, the forest followed him on his journey. Although a couple dozen yards away, Carbide could still see the pointy leaf-crowns rock in the wind. The freshly fallen snow waved all around, whipped up by the drafts, and a mist lingered beneath the tree trunks. To his left, he was accompanied by a river, completely frozen solid. Carbide would feel more at ease once he’d left the tree line of the forest far behind—fortunately, he soon would. Although Carbide Lamplight hadn’t travelled a lot in these lands, he had a lot of maps of the region in his home, all of them covered in scribbled notes and circles: places he would have to prospect later. But now he didn’t need to go prospecting—never again.

With a shock, Carbide Lamplight came to a halt as he saw something familiar right beside the path, lying silently hidden in the darkness. The frozen stream, which had trustfully ran right beside him, had ended in a large lake. The lake was shaped like an oval, and with pointy ends, like an unblinking eye. It wasn’t completely frozen, as the middle of the lake, where the bottom was deepest, was still open. The unfrozen hole was completely round, and made the picture of the eye complete: a frozen eye with a liquid pupil, silently staring at the infinite night sky.

Carbide Lamplight knew this spot. In a haze of memory, he saw Rivet and himself walking through the short grass, circling around the lake, occasionally ducking to grab some samples off the ground. On a free afternoon one distant summer, he and Rivet had gone far out of town to go prospecting, as Carbide had thought that the river and the surrounding lands should yield some rubies to him. All day they had been there, walking, sifting the river, digging in the ground. Carbide could remember how many questions Rivet had asked, and how many answers he had given. Rivet Punch would probably have learned more about mining that day than on any other day. Carbide couldn’t suppress a smile. If he could have remembered any of it.

He cursed once more at thinking about his late friend again. The emotions ran through his body like a river, filled with tears. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I needed a rest anyway,” he muttered to himself, as he unlaced the straps of his harness, threw it to the ground, and slid down the path towards the river. An unseen rock thwarted his plan. Carbide tripped and fell nose-first into the snow.

“Dammit!”

Spitting out a mouthful of biting cold snow, Carbide decided to make some light; he was sick and tired of working in the dark, and reckoned he was far enough away from the village to safely illuminate his path. First he tried to concentrate, and a pale, cold grey light started shining through his horn. But then he frowned, and extinguished it. Carbide took off his mining helmet and turned it around in his hooves. There was a small carbide headlight attached to it; a heirloom of a miner’s family. He flicked the lever of the water reservoir and turned the flint. A bright, cold flame like a spearhead came to life, and Carbide put the helmet back on his bald head. “Now let’s get a last view of that stupid lake, you sentimental bastard,” he muttered as he raised his head. But then his eyes widened, when instead of the lake, helooked straight at the figure of Rivet Punch, fully illuminated in the ghostly white light.

Carbide’s mouth fell open. Both ponies stood still like snowponies. For a second, Carbide looked at the figure of Rivet: he was ruffled, battered, scratched. The whiplashes of the ropes were painfully visible, and a stain of caked blood covered his leg. To Carbide, it looked like the stallion had risen from the dead, and as far as he knew, he had.

Rivet took a step forward, Carbide took one back. Despite his injuries, the blood-red stallion still looked strong, rooted to the ground with an iron will; murderous, almost, and filled with vengeance. His eyes flashed yellow in the pale light, and Carbide found himself unable to look away from them.

Then Rivet looked to his right. “What now?” he whispered; but Carbide didn’t see anypony beside the stallion.

With the eye contact broken, Carbide saw a chance to break away. He twirled around, and rushed over to his mine cart wagon, the light on his head bouncing spastically up and down.

How’s this possible?! He is dead! I killed him!

Filled with adrenaline, he rummaged through the gold and took out a freshly sharpened pickaxe. One thing he didn’t doubt: Rivet was not going to get his gold. Never.

Carbide’s head flashed from the left to the right; the light beam jumped over the landscape. There was no need for that, though, because Rivet Punch appeared right in front of him, and slowly came closer. As he approached, Carbide saw his expression: eerie calmness, like they were sitting at the bar, having an easy conversation. Silence reigned. Carbide couldn’t even hear the rushing winds anymore. There was only this moment. This was it.

“Go away!” Carbide yelled, his voice laden with more fear than he wanted to show.

Rivet marched on, as calm as a winter landscape.

Carbide raised his pickaxe, but the light on his head trembled even more. “Stop! You’re not getting the gold! You are dead! DEAD!”

Only a few hoofsteps separated the two ponies. Rivet Punch stopped and drew in a deep breath.

Carbide said nothing, but didn’t look in the red stallion’s eyes.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rivet said in his deep, droning voice.

Carbide squeezed the handle of his pickaxe.

“The lake, I mean. It’s like we never left.”

Still the miner was silent, but held his fighting stance.

Seeing no reaction, Rivet took to the direct approach; the one he liked best anyway. “Why did you do all this, Carby? There was no need for violence.”

“You left me no choice!” Carbide answered.

Rivet shook his head in a fluent motion. “We only had a difference in opinion. There are a million other ways to solve those. We were friends. We still are.”

“NO!” Carbide yelled. “You wanted what I needed. I NEED this gold. You… you…”

“No, Carby,” Rivet said, and did a step forward. “You need something gold can’t buy. You need friendship.”

But that one step was too close for comfort. Carbide’s shaking horn flashed, and the pickaxe launched itself at Rivet.

Rivet started, and swung his head to the side. Too late. The razor-sharp axe cut a deep groove in the side of his head. The pain made Rivet kneel to the ground, but out of reflex, he rolled away, leaving a trail of blood. The warm liquid drooped over his right eye, and then he was lost in the dark.

Without thinking, Carbide squinted his eyes, and gathered enough concentration to prime a magical beam in his horn. A sharp glow emerged.

From a distance, Rivet saw the two light beams flash from side to side: the carbide lamp and the miner’s horn.

“GO AWAY RIVSKY! I’LL KILL YOU!”

With a mental shock, Rivet realized Carbide was serious. If he didn’t do anything, the miner would kill him. The words of Silnyy drifted into his mind. Carbide Lamplight was a predator now; willing to kill to stay alive. But his purpose wasn’t to stay alive—his purpose was to defend his riches. His stolen goods. A fire lit inside Rivet Punch, and with it came some of the spirit and rage he’d experienced during his fight with the wolves; a fight for survival. Slowly the dark realization dawned to him: he wasn’t going to win this fight with talking or with peaceful negotiation. He had to become a predator himself. He had to fight for what was his. He had to fight for his life. He had to kill.

Suddenly, the beams stood still, and caught the blood trail in their light. Carbide followed it. It went to the right, and further to the right. “THERE!”

Carbide released. The beam shot like a spear through the darkness. Rivet wasn’t faster than light; he felt a burning in his hoof, and screamed.

“I said GO! Don’t make me do this!” Carbide charged his horn once more.

Rivet Punch stood dead-still. He gazed right into the light, like a deer in front of a vehicle, just before it’s run over; as dead as can be. Rivet didn’t breath, he didn’t even shake. He just stared into the beam, trying to find Carbide’s eyes. “Please…”

Rivet couldn’t see how Carbide closed his eyes. He only saw the last magical beam flying towards him, aimed at his heart. Rivet had just enough time to yell, before it hit. “PLEASE!”

The arrow of light hit home. Although not the target it was supposed to hit. Halfway to Rivet Punch, the beam hit something brown and solid, and ricocheted off in the air, where it fanned out like a reversed lightning bolt.

Both Rivet Punch and Carbide Lamplight were dazed by the flash. Both ponies rubbed their eyes, hoping to be the first to regain sight of the other.

“NOW! GO!” a hard voice roared.

Rivet felt something heavy and soft touch his face, and then he opened his eyes. Opposite of him, Carbide Lamplight was rubbing his eyes like a madpony.

“Go, you idiot!” Silnyy called from his right.

Determined but hesitant at the same time, fueled by a primeval instinct, Rivet Punch charged at the miner.

Carbide lowered his hooves. He heard him coming. With great effort he tried to open his eyes, but saw only a watery haze. He charged a shot. “Where are you!”

Carbide heard hoofsteps to his right. He turned around, and fired.

Missed.

Another shot.

A heap of snow transformed into a watery puddle.

Third beam.

A large boulder exploded, not far from the charging red stallion.

Carbide gritted his teeth, took a listen, and fired off one more beam.

This time, he heard a yell, and a thud muffled by the snow. Not muffled enough.

Another white-hot ray flew in Rivet’s direction, but he quickly rolled to the side, and the magic only blackened his snowy imprint.

Carbide lowered his hooves and gazed directly at Rivet Punch, standing only a dozen hoofsteps away from him. “There you are!”

This time, however, Carbide didn’t hesitate, and primed the magic in his horn, ready to deliver the killing blow.

Mist formed unnaturally quickly. Unnaturally high. It started as a wispy blanket, but in a split-second, it was up to their heads. A split second later, it covered them both and then they were lost. Carbide’s shine waned.

“What?! HOW?!” Carbide yelled in frustration against the grey wall. The last thing he wanted to do now was to be a loose cannon again; he didn’t feel he had the energy for it. Instead, he primed his ears, turning them around in search for any noise—any scuttling of his prey.

The crunching of snow underneath big, clumsy hooves soon reached his ear. Carbide turned both his ears in the same direction. Sweat dripped down his face, as he concentrated on the direction of the sound.

Right… right… right again.

Suddenly, the light of his own lamp stung him in his eyes. He closed them with a scream. His hard-hat blew off his head. His skull almost exploded; the shock travelled through his whole body like a freight train. His eyes flew open. The last thing Carbide Lamplight saw through them was the glittering gold, shining yellow and red in the fallen headlight.

Behind the mine cart, Rivet lowered the giant gold chunk, covered in blood. It slipped from his grasp and fell down with a thud. Rivet’s mind was empty. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. His strength seeped out of him through the wound on his head, and dizziness controlled his limbs. Thinking was hard. Staying conscious was hard. Rivet staggered over to the fallen helmet and winched when he put it on his head. The beam landed on Silnyy, right opposite him, but Rivet was too worn to jolt.

Silnyy still gave off clouds of smoke from the shot she had taken, although she didn’t even limp. “Well done, predator!” Silnyy said, although no actual praise decorated her voice.

“Well done?!” Rivet cried out hoarsely. “Look what I’ve done!”

Carbide Lamplight lay motionless, his head bathing in a growing puddle of blood on an island in the mist. In his unseeing eyes, Rivet could only find fear, no evil.

Silnyy stepped closer and shoved Rivet Punch away. “He got what he deserved!” she roared. “Don’t ask anything more about it. No second guessing. Second guessing is what almost got you killed. You did what had to be done. That rat got what he deserved!”

“No he didn’t!” Rivet yelled back, getting on his hooves again. He crept over and kneeled down beside Carbide, a mixture of blood and tears raining down on the snow.

Silnyy stepped beside him, but received a heavy hoof to the head.

“Go away! You ruined everything!”

A massive claw struck the stallion against the ear. Rivet felt as if his ear was ripped right off, and he screamed in agony. Quickly he lowered his head in his hooves, ready to receive another blow.

“Don’t EVER hit me again!” Silnyy roared. “YOU are the one who is ruining everything now! You’re not done yet!”

Rivet Punch realized with a shock what the bear meant. His head was now so close to Carbide that he could hear a soft breath. Alive?!

“Finish him! Finish your kill!”

“Njet,” Rivet yelled back, his voice trembling with hope and concern.

Silnyy grunted, tempted to strike the stallion again. “You don’t understand! You HAVE to do it!”

“Why?”

“ARGH!” Silnyy turned around in frustration. “Stop asking questions!”

“I won’t kill my friend!”

The bear sighed, and realized that she had to tell Rivet something. “If you don’t kill him, he will betray you again,” she said. “He will wake up, return to the village, and tell everypony about how you tried to murder him when he was transporting his gold to the bank of Canterlot.”

Rivet turned to face the bear. “How do you know that?”

“I saw it. Don’t ask anything more about it,” came the vague but familiar reply.

“But he would never do that. Besides”—Rivet thought with a sudden sadness—“he doesn’t have any friends beside me. Nopony will believe him.”

Silnyy shook her head. “You have already seen what a snake tongue this treacherous pony has; he will do it.”

“But it isn’t his gold.”

“The other ponies don’t know that. He’ll claim that he finally got lucky with his mine, but that you became jealous. Think about it; what is more plausible? You finding a gold cave somewhere in the forest after a talking grizzly bear led you there of whom you saved her son, or an experienced miner who struck gold in his mine after working so hard and so long? Ha! The villagers will worship Richskaya as a hero!”

With his hazy mind, Rivet did his best to think about that.

“If you do nothing, he WILL betray you!” Silnyy urged.

She did have a point. The scenario was more than plausible, and Rivet broke down. He covered his bloody head with his hooves and sobbed quietly, resting his head against his friend’s warm belly; still warm with life.

Although Silnyy felt no sympathy for Carbide at all, she did feel the difficulty of Rivet’s task—one doesn’t simply kill a member of one’s own kind. The bear thought back to her first kill. A first kill is something sacred; even if you kill a hundred creatures after that one, the details of the first will forever be carved in your mind: the blood, the rage, the pain. For Silnyy however, it had been a matter of life or death; a matter of power or weakness; a matter of all or nothing.

Suddenly Rivet stopped crying. He realized what he had to do. It was inevitable. He turned his head to the right, but had to strain his neck, for he couldn’t see anything with his right eye anymore. “You do it,” his voice croaked.

“I can’t,” Silnyy said, surprisingly soft.

“Why?”

At once another question, Silnyy’s irritation returned. “Because, once again, that is not my purpose.”

“Would you stop speaking in riddles please?” Rivet wasn’t angry; his voice had lost all tone.

The bear frowned. “Ok. Here’s something loud and clear: tie a rock to that pony and throw him in the lake. That way you don’t have to kill him with your own hooves. And besides”—Silnyy grinned contently, although she didn’t feel joy—“no one will find his body and no one will miss him. As you said, he has no other friends besides you.”

A nauseous feeling grew inside Rivet’s stomach. Just the thought of drowning his friend in the very lake they’d visited together made him sick. But he had to do it—he had no choice. Slowly the stallion nodded, although he didn’t approve. He got up, muscles trembling, picked up the limp pony, and tossed him on his back.

“Good. It isn’t far,” the bear said from his right. “When you’re done, I can help you pull the gold back to town, if there’s nopony else on the road.”

But Rivet didn’t hear her with his severed ear. He turned around towards Carbide’s mine cart and stopped beside it. Carefully, he let the miner slip off his back and onto the pile of gold on the cart.

Silnyy raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to get rid of all the evidence? But you could still use that gold, you idiot!”

Ignoring the bear, Rivet Punch staggered to the horse harness and put it on. “I’m not going to get rid of anything,” he said, while he turned the cart around. “I’m taking him home.”

Slowly the cart started moving through the snow. Rivet gritted his teeth. Even if he would die here on the road, he would still try to do this. He didn’t turn around; didn’t want to see anything of the bear anymore. Rivet kept going. He knew Silnyy was still behind him, but he kept his eyes on the road.

“FOOL!” Silnyy called after him. “If you do nothing, he WILL betray you!”

Rivet swore he could hear the word ‘fool’ thrown after him in the darkness, but he paid no attention to it. It was the last he ever heard or saw from Silnyy the grizzly bear. Around him, the mist disappeared.

Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

“Director Macintoshky?”

Rivet Punch looked up from behind his desk, lowering a piece of paper. “Da?” He said through the intercom on his desk, not forgetting to push the button this time.

“There’s somepony for you, sir.”

Rivet Punch put the paper aside and clopped his hooves together. “Let him enter, please.”

“Yes, Director Macintoshky,” the high, metallic mare’s voice said. With a crackle the intercom went silent.

Sighing, Rivet Punch eased back in his chair and took a moment to mentally prepare himself for the next conversation. Finally, the chairpony of the Eastern-Equestrian Board of Industry and Trade has arrived, Rivet thought. What took him so long?

Rivet put his hind legs against the rim of his the desk and pushed off. The chair rolled to a halt at a large window, covered with a white curtain. Standing up, Rivet pulled away the curtain and revealed what was behind it: the smelting ovens. A dozen enormous tanks were lined up next to each other. Before each one of them were a few stallions busy shoveling gold ore into the fire, sweat beading on their foreheads. But Rivet Punch wasn’t looking at that. He looked at his own reflection and adjusted his tie, making sure it covered the scar on his neck; that would be a nasty sight for a chairpony of one of the most powerful organizations in all of Equestria.

The scars painfully reminded Rivet Punch of the events that had unfolded a month ago; the events involving his friend, a bear, and a whole lot of gold. He lowered his head as the memories stung him—so he tried to think about the most positive ones.

After leaving Silnyy behind, he had made it back to the village and had dropped his friend off in his house. Rivet had found just enough energy to light a fire in Carbide’s hearth to keep him from freezing. But after that, Rivet went home himself and collapsed on the couch, bloodied and hurt.

Rivet closed his eyes in concentration; he couldn’t remember how long he’d laid there. He could remember a doctor with loads of bandages, a saw, the faint smell of alcohol, and screaming—lots of screaming. Camomila was there too, and her expression: full of concern and pain, perhaps even more pain than Rivet had felt. Had Carbide felt such agony as well?

Rivet let out a sigh. He blamed himself for not having visited Carbide Lamplight, but he had simply been too busy with the takeover of the steel factory. He was director now, and with being director came a lot of paperwork.

Suddenly, a few of the ponies downstairs noticed their boss behind the glass. They paused for a second and gave Rivet a wave. Rivet waved back. With a smile he thought of all the reactions of the village folk when they heard the good news. The factory wouldn’t close; there would only be a reorganization, and of course, a change of management. Everypony had been so happy they wouldn’t lose their job; they were even happier when they heard how their salary would be tripled, and how they all got three days off to celebrate Hearth’s Warming together with their families and friends. Some of them already started to call Rivet Punch Macintoshky their hero, and Rivet had overheard rumors in the break-room about how they would make a statue of him in the center of town square.

“With both ears,” Shovelhead had said.

“Of course,” Rusty had said back, “he deserves it. He has saved us all.”

Suddenly Rivet’s smile waned as he thought of that conversation. He rushed over to the coat rack, pulled off his top hat, and placed it firmly on his head. Rivet knew it would be a little bit impolite to negotiate with a hat, especially indoors, but he reckoned that the sight of a pony with only one ear would be even more unsettling.

Naturally, right after Rivet had gotten control of the factory, he had a telegram sent to the chairpony of the EEBIT, asking for a meeting. The chairpony had replied, very interested in Rivet’s enterprise and future plans. Rivet smiled thinly; the future looked bright; as bright as gold.

Directly after the takeover, Rivet Punch had led some of the best prospectors and miners to the gold-cave. It had still been empty, of course, but the prospectors had practically jumped of enthusiasm at the surrounding hills, because each of them had shown much potential for gold. The first veins were discovered, and a steady supply of gold ore soon began streaming to the smelting ovens of the former steel factory.

Rivet chuckled at the memory. In fact, the first vein they’d discovered lay in the very same cave Rivet had received from Silnyy. They had to dig a little bit deeper, though, but soon the cave had revealed itself to be infinitely more deep than one could see on the surface—infinitely deep and infinitely promising.

It had taken Rivet Punch no trouble at all to convince the prospectors, miners and everypony else he had gathered to use the gold his way instead of dividing it on the spot. They’d trusted Rivet Punch completely; that’s what friends do.

Gradually, his thoughts went to the future. With the money from the first shipment, Rivet would build a small, steam-powered railroad into the forest and to the gold-rich hills. That way he could increase the factory’s productivity by three-hundred percent. Those were numbers which had sounded like music to the chairpony’s ears. High numbers and solid plans.

Tomorrow would be Hearth’s Warming. Rivet pulled out a golden pocket watch and observed the time: half past four. The day was almost over, and everypony would be enjoying the holidays in half an hour. Although Rivet knew everypony was eager to celebrate Hearth’s Warming with their families, he saw none of the stallions below slowing down or lagging behind. Rivet Punch didn’t need an iron fist to enforce discipline at all.

The doorknob rattled, and brought Rivet back to the present. He jolted, flattened his mane, and buttoned up his jacket, then he turned around.

“Good afternoon, Rivsky.”

Rivet’s heart froze. He jumped in the air and his hat fell down on the ground. Quickly he recomposed himself, straightened his tie, and stood erect in the representative, business-like posture he had practiced many times in the mirror. “Good afternoon, Carbide Lamplight,” was all he could bring out, his tone as neutral as he could make it.

The two ponies stood like that for a long moment, each observing the other, lost in their own thoughts. Carbide stood on the carpet, helmet in his hooves, a bandage wrapped around his head. He looked down, only daring a few short peeks at the red stallion opposite him. Just like Rivet Punch, he had no idea what was going to happen now.

“Director Macintoshky,” a mare’s voice said from the little box to his left. “There’s somepony else for you.”

Rivet shook his head as the silence was broken. “Let him wait,” he called back. “Tell him I’m busy.”

Director Macintoshky. Carbide Lamplight thought about these words and moved his lips, although no sound came from them. Those two words were enough for him to know what had happened. He had heard rumors, but now he saw him in full: Rivet Punch, his former friend, director of the steel factory.

Sighing, not knowing what to say, Rivet turned around and closed the white curtains—accidentally stepping on his hat on the ground. He searched for appropriate words, but then remembered some of the business etiquette he had taught himself. “Have a seat,” he said, pointing at a red chair opposite of the desk; at least it was something.

Slowly, Carbide sat down in the chair, looking like there were spikes on the cushions.

Rivet rolled his chair back to the desk and sat down too. He laid his fore hooves on the desk as if he was about to have an important business meeting. But Rivet knew this conversation was much more important to him than a meeting with Princess Celestia herself.

Silence fell upon them like heavy snow on them, covering the room in a white, muffled blanket. The only sound that penetrated it was the sound of sweeping shovels and melting ore beneath. Rivet and Carbide both wanted to talk, both wanted to talk about the same thing. But of course, they couldn’t. They tried to find a strategic way to bring it up, but failed miserably.

Carbide opened his mouth. “The factory… it looks good.”

“Thank you,” Rivet said back, infinitely grateful that the difficult conversation had finally taken off. “Much has changed.”

“You’re right.” Carbide turned his mining helmet around in his hooves. “So… you’re mining gold now?”

“Yup.”

“I could smell it a mile away.” Carbide didn’t know where he got the guts to start making jokes, and gave himself a mental slap in the face. Quickly he fired off another question; so far questions worked out alright. “How is it coming along?”

“Good. Very good. Beyond expectations,” Rivet said. That was the answer he’d rehearsed.

Carbide shuffled uneasily. “Good to… good to hear that. I reckon everypony is going to keep their jobs?”

Rivet Punch stood up. Carbide Lamplight jolted.

“I can show you, if you want?” Rivet said. “But not outside, there’s a tough challenge waiting for me there.”

Carbide wasn’t sure if he should laugh, but still followed his friend to the enormous window. Rivet pulled the curtain aside and the miner looked down at the ovens below.

The stallions were still busy with their work, and they didn’t notice Rivet and Carbide staring down on them. Not that it mattered; nopony would recognize Carbide anyway.

“It’s so busy,” Carbide said, as he watched the dozens of stallions hauling, sweating, yelling, hammering, shoveling, and anticipating.

“Yes,” Rivet said, looking down into the hall as well. “Many more villagers asked for a job once they realized that the factory would endure.” He smiled. “That’s beautiful. Saved me the work of organizing a giant hiring campaign.”

“Yes…”

For a while the two ponies stood there, looking through the window. Suddenly, a steam horn screamed through the hall, and the workers turned their heads at the giant clock at the wall. Both Carbide and Rivet jumped; despite having worked for many, many years in the factory, they’d never gotten used to the sudden sound. Below, the stallions wiped their brows, sighed and started wrapping up their tools and closing down the furnaces and workshops. They took a moment to talk and laugh with each other, full of jolly thoughts about the upcoming days. After a couple of minutes, the crowd started moving, heading towards the exit beneath the stairwell, ready to clock out and to collect their Hearth’s Warming bonuses. However, once they’d gathered and got up and moving, the workers stopped underneath the office of their Director. There they all lined up like a choir, looking at their boss and waving cheerfully. Rivet Punch saw their mouths moving, and although the glass was soundproof, he could hear them saying in a chorus of rough stallion voices: “Merry Hearth’s Warming, boss!”

Rivet waved back, but Carbide turned around, feeling something cold creep up in his mind. Silently he sat down in his chair again. The thought of leaving did flow through his head, but he had one more thing to say, although he had no idea how to say it.

Closing the curtains, Rivet took his own seat, feeling like the whole conversation started over again.

“It seems they love you, Rivsky,” Carbide said, not wanting to have another silence again. He reckoned keeping talking was the way.

“They do.” Rivet managed a smile again. “They are just happy they have a job and can celebrate Hearth’s Warming without worries. A merry Hearth’s Warming for everypony, that’s what I wanted.”

Carbide returned to his thoughts. So that’s what he meant!

As if he could read his friend’s thoughts, Rivet Punch’s smile dissipated, as he said, “Honestly I didn’t really think of that before you mentioned the lot of the villagers and how they were being scammed by the factory. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

No, no, this is all wrong, Carbide thought, and he winched at the gratitude. He didn’t deserve any gratitude at all. It was Rivet who had carried him home, stoked a fire, and even left a gold nugget behind to cover the medical costs. Carbide Lamplight should thank him; Carbide Lamplight should apologize, but he couldn’t—not yet.

“What are you thinking about?” Rivet said, his tone still neutral and serious.

Carbide hesitated. “Eh… It seems everypony is happy.” Of course that wasn’t what he was thinking about, but he thought it was the best thing to say.

But now, after all the phone-calls he’d made, Rivet Punch had become quite accustomed to finding the double meaning in business conversations and spot lies quickly—an invaluable skill in the business world. He put his hooves on the desk, stood up, and bent over, capturing Carbide in his gaze. “No,” Rivet said, “not everypony.”

Carbide felt like the back of his seat suddenly transformed into ice. He shivered at the sight of the cold hard businesspony: cold, yet energetic, and ready to take on the world—or a scrawny old miner pony.

“And I think you’ll have to make peace with your past before you’ll ever be happy again.”

Carbide’s mouth twitched, but he knew Rivet was right.

Without a warning, without a heads-up, Rivet fired off the question which had laid on his mind ever since he’d returned Carbide home: Silnyy’s warning. “So why didn’t you betray me?”

Carbide’s body jolted as if a white-hot rivet was punched right through him. “W-w-what?!”

“You heard me,” Rivet Punch said with an iron voice. He wasn’t angry, just strict, using the direct approach he’d always loved, and it turned out that attitude went very well with doing business—or, in this case, getting some answers.

“W-w-where did you hear that? I-I mean… who told you that?”

“Silnyy.” But then Rivet shook his head and corrected himself. “A bear, I mean.”

“A bear?!” Carbide’s eyes tripled in size and he lost his humble tone. “There was a bear as well? A grizzly bear?”

“Yes.”

“And you saved me from him?”

Rivet cleared his throat. “From her—and yes, something like that.”

A thousand questions popped up in Carbide’s mind, but he knew by his friend’s direct gaze that Rivet only wanted the answer to his question. “Why I didn’t betray you…?” Carbide repeated.

“Yes.”

The only way he could possibly answer that question, was by telling the whole story; all the way from the beginning. Carbide coughed, a black, ashy wisp escaped his mouth, and he began. “Well… when you left me, Rivsky, it took me a few days to pull myself together again. My head hurt, and I went to the doctor as soon as I was able to stand on my hooves without feeling dizzy.” Carbide Lamplight paused, but his friend motioned for him to continue. “I-in the beginning, I was angry—angry at my loss. And honestly, I did think of many ways to get the gold back or…” he swallowed “…or to do harm to you.”

Rivet nodded in silence.

“And it hurt—my head, I mean. It hurt a lot every time I thought about that; or anything, actually. But as the days passed, I thought less and less, and my headache went away. It was then that I noticed my anger was replaced by… shame.” Carbide Lamplight lowered his head, and his ears drooped down. “My memories returned one by one, like long-lost photo’s you finally find in a box, but only after digging all the way to the bottom. I reached the bottom, Rivsky. I realized where it all came from and I was ashamed that I did all this to you: stealing your gold, attempting to kill you, and even continuing to be angry after you got me home through that storm.” Carbide swallowed again, it felt like there was a lump of coal in his throat. “You saved my life, Rivsky—and you own doing it.” The miner couldn’t resist looking at Rivet’s head. “And I guess you got off much worse than I did.”

Rivet followed his friend’s gaze, and then realized that he had left his hat on the floor. Quickly he ducked, snatched it up, and put it on his desk—he would dust it off later. “This wasn’t your fault, Carbide,” he said, wiggling his one remaining ear. “The bear did this. Don’t worry.”

Carbide closed one eye and winched, almost as if he could feel the pain Rivet had felt. He couldn’t see any bite or claw marks on his friend’s head; Carbide knew what those looked like. Living in the outskirts of the village sometimes meant chasing bears off your property, and he had had a few brushes with those monsters already.

“She scratched me bad.” Rivet couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “I guess she was very angry; it had to be amputated.”

Carbide grinned as well, although he knew he was just stalling the conversation.

Once more, it looked like Rivet could read his mind. “I’m sorry, Carbide,” he said, “please continue.”

Swallowing his grin, Carbide took a deep breath that ended in a sigh. “So… after I managed to let go of my grudge I… well… I felt too ashamed to do anything. I didn’t even go to town to buy some food or drinks; I couldn’t stand looking anypony in the eye. Even going to the doctor was difficult for me, but back then I had motivation; I could recover and get revenge. I could find a way to get to you.” Carbide paused again. He couldn’t believe how cruel and unfair that sounded out of his own mouth. He saw his vision blurring, and the shame heaped up in his head like a pile of gravel. A small tear landed on the red carpet.

Rivet opened his mouth to say something, but his friend continued on his own.

“Accompanied by the shame, I… I didn’t have any motivation anymore. I felt… lost.” He sobbed a few times, staining the carpet with more grey tears. “For a long time I didn’t do anything—I didn’t even think anything. After only a short while, my belly started feeling like it was made of sandpaper and my mouth became bone-dry. Somehow I had to survive, if only to squash those terrible pains. I had to get food.”

Rivet found himself completely immersed into his friend’s story, and he sat on the edge of his seat. Things had definitely been better with him than they’d been with Carbide. “But how did you get food without going to town to buy anything?”

“I… scavenged, gathered, stole.”

“But it is winter. There’s nothing to gather.”

“Yes there was.” Carbide wiped his eyes with a dusty hoof. “I gathered many acorns and chestnuts, buried in the ground. I stole the winter-supply of many a squirrel. And herbs… some herbs and shrubs manage the winter cold a little—I gathered as many as I could. There was tree sap too, but”—Carbide shuddered and stuck out his tongue—“that tasted horrible.”

Rivet tried his best to hide his astonishment; he couldn’t help but feel pity. Looking closer, Rivet realized with a shock that Carbide did look much skinnier than he used to do—dirtier as well. “So you lived on nothing but acorns, plants and tree sap?”

Carbide nodded. “I guess it runs in the family.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Now Carbide was the one who looked shocked. He’d totally forgotten that Rivet Punch didn’t know about his family and kin. A touch of anger flared up, and he slapped a hoof against his head. “Argh!”

Rivet stood up. “Watch out, Carby. Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m ok,” Carbide said, but soon the bandage on his head became redder and redder. When he saw Rivet reach for the intercom, he jolted up and blocked his friend’s hoof from the button. “No! I mean… don’t worry about it. I’ll fix it later.”

Rivet looked him deep in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Don’t worry.”

Then both ponies slumped back in their chairs, not sure where to go from here.

“You… you don’t have to tell everything if you don’t want to, Carby. I guess I’ve got the answer to my question.” Rivet’s voice was no longer pertinent, but full of concern.

“No,” Carbide said. The strength of his own voice surprised him. “I’ve never told anypony about my lineage, nor has my father or his father. It’s a family thing—and for a reason. But my parents are gone, and you’re my best friend, so I owe this to you. You see, Rivsky... eh, no—let’s begin differently. Remember the photographs on the wall?”

“Yes.”

“They’re the many generations of a miners family. My family has always been full of great miners but… bad prospectors. And as you know, without any prospecting skills, you might as well dig a hole in the center of town. In fact, nopony has ever pulled more than gravel and dust out of any mine, and we’ve lived all over Equestria. The Lights have been everywhere: Vanhoover, the Crystal Empire, Appleloosa, Fillydelphia—some of them even settled in the Badlands. The thing is, everywhere there’s mountains, my family has been trying to find riches in them—but they’ve never been successful. Not papa Lanternlight, not grandpapa Candlelight, not great-grandpapa Torchlight, and not… well… I can’t remember anymore ancestors before Sulphur Torchlight—but I’ve got pictures of them, of course.”

Rivet nodded, enthralled by the tale.

Carbide hung his head down. “Failure runs in the family. Being poor runs in the family. That’s why my parents got so excited once they got their first and only son—their first and only unicorn son: me. Apparently, the unicorn magic skipped a generation.” Remembering the warm bonds of family, Carbide Lamplight raised his head. The memories flashed by before his eyes like a movie, almost visibly. “They were happy to finally have somepony magical in the family who could use his magic to find gems and precious metals, maybe even as good as the unicorn Rarity. Have you ever heard of her?”

Frowning, Rivet dug through all the history lessons he’d learned during his short school time, which weren’t many. “Rarity… Rarity…” he mumbled, “wasn’t she one of the keepers of the elements of harmony?”

“She was. Of generosity, to be exact,” Carbide said, pride radiating off him. “She was always my greatest role model, though mainly for her astounding talent to find gemstones hidden in the earth by using her magic.”

“Could she really do such a thing?” Rivet Punch couldn’t remember anything like that being told to him.

“Yes, really. I wanted to learn how to do that too—to make my family rich and make them happy, but…”

“But what?”

“I couldn’t do it. You see, magic requires study and practice. I had all the time in the world to practice, but nopony in the family had any Bits to send me to a magic school.” Carbide sighed heavily; his shoulders slumped down. “So after they passed away, I decided to travel to another spot; to a spot none of them had ever gone before, and try my own luck at finding riches in the earth. That’s how I ended up here, in North-Eastern Equestria, and in this village. The rest you know, Rivsky. I bought a piece of land, started digging, and failed, just like my ancestors did.”

Rivet looked at Carbide. He didn’t know if he should feel concern or pity. His gaze bore a mixture of both, and Carbide looked away. Never had Rivet seen this side of Carbide Lamplight before—it was as if he’d never known his friend up until now. Rivet couldn’t help but feel guilty; to feel like a torturer. He’d learned so much painful things about his friend in this single conversation, things he would remember forever. “You know, Carby. I think being rich is useless if you have nopony to share your riches with. As I said during…” but then he swallowed his words “…during our, eh, minor disagreement: what you need is friendship.”

Carbide hung his head, and Rivet saw another glistening in his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

And then there was a long silence, echoing through the office. Carbide Lamplight didn’t feel any strength left to talk, and Rivet Punch didn’t know what to say. Of course he didn’t; how in Equestria does one explain the infinitely complicated meaning of love and friendship to somepony who had experienced those things only a few times in his life? It had taken Twilight Sparkle many years to master the magic of friendship decades ago. It might as well be easier making a pony without ears understand what music is. What to do… What to say… Rivet felt like he was no longer a businesspony or a director or a friend, he felt like a psychologist. That was a step too much for Rivet. He was no psychologist—he was barely a businesspony. Clopping his hooves together, Rivet decided to ask one more question, if only to dispel the silence and to distract the poor, depressed pony in front of him. “So, eh… what are your plans for the future, Carby?”

“I-I w-well…” Carbide tried his best to raise his head, but couldn’t hide the tears. “I was actually planning on leaving the village. You know, leave everything behind and start over, since I obviously haven’t been doing so well here.”

Rivet nodded. “So where are you planning on going?”

“Probably to… to Griffonstone.” He sighed. “Maybe they need another miner there; they still have an operating steel industry. I just hope they’ll let a pony work in their all-Griffon business.” Carbide made an attempt to sit straighter. “Maybe they will… I mean, I’ve got a lot of experience. I can probably talk my way in there.” He swallowed hard. “But… but…” He wasn’t able to finish.

“What is it, Carby?”

“But I haven’t gone. Not yet. I wanted to see you one more time. Just to… to…”—Tears flooded his eyes—“just to say that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Rivet. For everything!” Suddenly he jumped up from his seat, and flailed his forelegs around. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I stole your gold; the gold you alone found and which was all yours! I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I tied you up and left you to die in that Celestia-forsaken forest! And I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I almost killed you and instead maimed you for life!”

Rivet was about to correct his friend on that last thing, but didn’t get a chance.

“But, you know what I am most sorry about?” Carbide held his head in his hooves, and his muscles tensed. His head was a raging, icy river of emotions of which a dam had been blown away, freeing its rushing waters. Then his arms pumped down, and his head flew up while he took a deep breath. “The thing I am most sorry about, Rivsky, is ruining our friendship!”

Now Rivet Punch himself felt sentiments bubble up and his eyes watered.

Carbide held his head in his hooves, sobbed a couple of times, and then looked one final time at his friend. “I-I guess I should go, Rivsky. You probably have more important things to do right now. Goodbye.” Carbide Lamplight turned around and headed to the door, hesitant but quickly at the same time.

In Rivet’s mind, a bomb exploded. Although Carbide had done him much harm, he was still Rivet’s friend—his best friend. The thought of him leaving hit him like a hammer on the head. No. That’s not going to happen. “Wait!” He yelled, almost jumping up from his seat.

And for the first time in many days, Rivet knew exactly what to say. It came to him, in a flash, fueled by hope and desperation. He took a deep breath, and then said, “Carby, please listen to me before you go.” Rivet wasn’t sure how to begin, and realized he couldn’t avoid a painful flashback. “In the cave, you said I was poor as well, right?”

“Yes,” Carbide said. He turned around, but didn’t look his friend in the eye.

“Well, I think you were right Carby—I didn’t have that much money. But you know how I could still wake up every day feeling like the richest pony in Equestria?” Rivet smiled. “Because of my family; my wife and my two beautiful children. I love them, and they love me too. You know, it doesn’t matter how hard a day was in the factory—and still is, actually—, at the end of the day, I always knew there would be somepony waiting for me who cares about me. Somepony with whom I can laugh and talk and make jokes, just like we do during our evenings of drinking, or our prospecting missions, or our hikes. It doesn’t matter if you’re the richest pony in the world if you can’t share it with anypony else. I guess having loads of friends around is another kind of being rich, right?”

Although his head hung almost to the floor, Carbide heard exactly what Rivet said. It was probably the longest speech his friend had ever given in his entire life. Carbide raised his head, but said nothing.

“You know, Carbide, why don’t you come and live next to us? Maybe you can sell your mine to somepony else?”—Rivet managed a chuckle—“I know you can, with that snake tongue of yours!”

Carbide didn’t laugh along.

“And then we can take down your house and use the materials to build a new one. I know many good carpenter ponies who would gladly help their new boss out. That way you can see us every day. Maybe you can help around the farm—Camomila Blossom can always use an extra hoof. ” Rivet grinned. “And I bet Resonance would love to have an audience to listen to her balalaika playing.”

“But it would be of no use. I would still have no job.”

“Then… then I’ll hire you. Yes! I am actually in need of a chief supervisor of the mining operations. The mining team could always need a little extra coordination, and of course, who could be more suitable than you? I’ve never seen anypony empty a whole cave full of gold nuggets as fast as you did.”

Somehow, Carbide couldn’t help but show a faint smile under the rim of his mining helmet. “Would… would you do that for me?”

“Of course!” Rivet said with that familiar, childish glee.

“Why?”

“Because you are my friend!”

Then Carbide laughed. Or perhaps he cried. Actually it was both. He grimaced and tears touched the corners of his smiling lips.

Rivet frowned. “Don’t cry, you softy! You’re a grown stallion,” he said playfully. “Go home now! I’ll see you tomorrow at my place, then we’ll celebrate Hearth’s Warming together. You wouldn’t believe the size of my Hearth’s Warming egg this year—Oh, and you’ll love the story behind it!”

Carbide looked his friend in the eyes, wiped away some tears, and then quickly retreated to the door. Although he was in a hurry, Carbide didn’t close it behind himself before saying, “Thank you, Rivsky.”

* *

When the thud of the door heralded a dead silence, Rivet returned to his chair and pressed the button of the intercom—he had one more thing to do before his day was done.

“Miss Moneywhinny, send the chairpony in, please?”

“Yes, Director.”

Rivet wiped his head with a handkerchief and donned his hat. Only seconds later, the door opened.

“Good afternoon, Mister chairpony. Please forgive me for the delay.”

“Good afternoon, Mister Macintoshky. How are you doing?”

“Good… very good. Thank you.”

The chairpony sat down in the chair Carbide had occupied moments ago, as straight as a plank. He planted a brown suitcase on the desk, opened it with a click, and revealed a stack of papers, which he straightened almost lovingly—then he cleared his throat. “I must say that both the EEBIT and I are quite impressed with the takeover of such a big enterprise. May I ask how you came by such a starting capital and such an extensive source of resources, perhaps?”

“You may,” Rivet said. “But I am afraid that is a company secret.”

The chairpony’s nose twitched. “Very well.” He flipped through the bundle of papers until he found the one he needed. “However it may be, I see many opportunities for the future, Mister Macintoshky.”

“Yes,” Rivet said with a gentle smile, “me too.”

THE END

Author's Note

Thank you very much for reading! See you in my next story!