Fault Lines

by helmet of salvation

Chapters

1. Exploding raspberry cake
2. Maud Pine
3. No joy in Maudville

1. Exploding raspberry cake

Mane.

Washed, dried and brushed for peak pouffiness.

Check.

Face.

Washed, dried and brushed for maximal engagement.

Check.

Eyes.

A long and blissful sleep to eliminate blear, all traces of rheum cleaned away, lashes aligned.

Check.

Teeth.

Brushed with minty-fresh whitening paste and flossed for a smile that can brighten the gloomiest day.

Check.

All set to spread good cheer to every corner of Ponyville. And every edge. And every ... um ... what do you call the area inside the lines of a shape? My geometrical terminology's a little rusty these days. Twilight would probably know. Ooh, I should ask her! She loves imparting academic knowledge. She always gets that cute, eager look on her face. It's such a joy to behold.

Humming cheerfully to herself, her head bopping from side to side, Pinkie Pie walked to the bathroom door and opened it to an explosion.

The pink pony rocketed with a scream backwards and up to the bathroom ceiling. She ricocheted down to the far wall and down to the oval mat on the centre of the tiled floor. Her momentum caused the mat to slip from under her hooves and she found herself somersaulting backwards in mid air. After half a dozen spins gravity took effect and she smacked belly-first onto the tiles. There she lay, stunned, as the bathroom mat flopped down onto her head, covering her face.

The sounds of laughter filled the air. Pinkie lifted the anterior-oriented curve of the mat from her eyes to take a look at the diabolical masterminds who had lain in wait to blow the double-barreled raspberry at her.

Pound Cake, a pegasus colt with a bone-coloured coat and brown mane, lay prone in the doorway, thumping his four hooves on the floor in a fit of hilarity. His twin sister, Pumpkin, was a yellow unicorn with a mane of gold tied in a blue bow. She rocked on her back with her legs gleefully kicking the air.

Pinkie gawped at her ambushers in speechless fury before a malevolent grin spread across her face. "Oh, I am so gonna get you two."

* * *

The sun had only just emerged over the horizon, the dawn light not doing justice to the outward appearance of Sugarcube Corner. The exterior of Ponyville's most popular patisserie was decorated with enticing likenesses of candle-topped cupcakes, icing-trimmed gingerbread, cookies and other examples of the panoply of confection offered within.

Not that even the tastiest baked treats posed any temptation for Maud Pie this morning, or even in general. A far more compelling need had drawn her here.

The light grey earth pony—a hornless, wingless race—walked towards the bakery at a speed marginally above her usual stately pace. As she expected, the door was locked and behind the glass hung a sign bearing the words "Sorry we are closed" and a drawing of a comically sad pony face. Nevertheless, she lifted her forehoof and knocked three times on the wooden door frame.

From within the dimly lit interior of the bakery emerged a plump, light blue earth pony mare of middle foal-bearing years. A mane resembling a swirl of pink icing sat atop a chubby face that was built for a warm, welcoming smile but currently bore the expression of one trying to conceal her annoyance.

It amazed Cup Cake that there were functioning, grown ponies around who were seemingly unable to read a sign clearly stating "Sorry we are closed" or listing an establishment's opening and closing times for every day of the week. Or who thought it perfectly reasonable to expect her and her husband, Carrot Cake, to throw open their doors at any hour should a customer have an imminent need for a chocolate chip muffin, because they're already, you know, inside the place.

Her curt demeanour instantly vanished at the sight who had come calling. "Maud?" Mrs Cake unbolted and opened the door, jingling the overhead bell.

"I'm sorry to bother you so early, Mrs Cake," intoned Maud in her characteristically flat-sounding voice.

"Not at all. Come in, come in." Cup hastened backwards to permit Maud's entry, then closed the door behind them. "Is Pinkie Pie expecting you?"

"I can never be certain what Pinkie Pie is expecting. I just really need to see her."

Cup glanced in the direction of Pinkie's bedroom. "Well, it's her morning off. I'm not sure if she's up yet."

"Oh, no you don't!" Pinkie's high-pitched voice rang out above the usual sounds of the twins giggling and scampering around.

* * *

The twins had galloped off in different directions so that at least one might evade their pink pursuer. Pinkie focused her chase on Pound Cake, knowing that once he escaped she would not be retrieving him anytime soon. Catching up in a few bounds, she stretched her neck towards his hindquarters, clasped her teeth around his brown tail and deftly yet gently drew the colt back towards her waiting forelegs.

Pound did not give up easily. His wings were still free; he buzzed them at hummingbird speed until he lifted his clinging captor from the floor.

Pinkie was wise to this move, however. "Oh, no you don't!" With a grunt of effort, she hoisted herself up until her face was level with the colt's flank. She pressed her pony lips to his side and blew an almighty raspberry.

The sensation sent Pound into a paroxysm. As he shrieked and convulsed, his wings reflexively snapped back to his sides and the two ponies dropped like stones back towards the floor.

Pinkie slipped her body directly under the foal's, cushioning his fall. With a smooth, practised movement, she rolled herself over the top of him and carefully wrapped her foreleg around the centre of Pound's barrel, pinioning the wings of the juvenile pegasus while he was still too wracked with laughter to resist.

* * *

Cup Cake smiled pleasantly if uneasily at the visitor. "Ah, it sounds like she's up."

"Unless she was talking in her sleep," Maud pointed out.

A squeak of alarm erupted from upstairs, followed by a soft thumping sound and a snippet of blooble-looble-loobling lip-music. "Missed me," Pinkie taunted in a gleeful, sing-song voice.

"Which seems less likely now," the grey mare continued.

"Pinkie Pie," called the baker to her live-in apprentice, "your sister Maud is here."

"Be-right-down," Pinkie replied stiffly, in time with the barrage of stuffed toys that she was swatting aside with her fluffy tail. Pumpkin Cake used her unicorn magic to fire the projectiles towards her brother's captor, who was quick-marching tripedally backwards towards her.

Cup turned back to Maud, who was steadily drawing her indifferent-looking gaze around the interior of the patisserie. Like the outside, it was decorated with sculptures of assorted sweetmeats: lollipops, candy canes, icing swirls and many more.

"She'll be right down," Mrs Cake said unnecessarily, for lack of much else to say. Amiable by nature, she found Maud's body language inscrutable and her voice toneless, and her attempts to engage the younger pony in conversation always felt highly awkward to her. "Can I get you anything?"

"No. Thank you." More gazing around.

To Cup's huge relief, Pinkie started descending the stairs moments later. Her front left foreleg still held Pound tight, while Pumpkin was bound up in the pink pony's tail. The twins' fight was gone; they dangled from their bonds, laughing their little pony heads off.

"What am I going to do with you two, hmm? Put you in the trash can?"

"No!" the twins screamed in unison.

"Put you in theeeeeeeeeee freezer?"

"No!"

"Put you in theeeeeeeeeee oven?"

"No!"

"Bake you up like two yummy-nummy-scrummy little cakes?"

"Nooo!!"

"Aww, how come you guys never let me have any fun, huh?" Pinkie pouted in mock disappointment. "It's so sad."

Then she froze.

Then she gaped.

Then she gasped. A long, deep gasp.

Pinkie had never seen Maud looking so thoroughly desolate. So forlorn. So empty.

"Maud!" she wailed, before turning anxiously to her pony cargo. "Go on, little foals, go to Mommy." She set the twins down as quickly as she dared before hastening up to her older sister.

"Wheeeee!" Pumpkin Cake, oblivious to the heartache surrounding her, generated a magical aura about her body and used it to float herself towards her mother's back. Pound Cake simply shot like an arrow up to his mother's side and clung fast, burying his muzzle into her hide.

Absorbing the blow with a grunt, Mrs Cake told the earth pony sisters, "I'll leave you to it," and headed back to the kitchen with her babbling children along for the ride. She tried not to feel too guilty about her utter failure to read Maud's mood.

Her eyes and lips quivering, Pinkie placed her foreleg across her sister's befrocked shoulders and led her towards the stairway. "Wha-what's happened? Why are you so upset?"

"Well, remember when you came to visit the other day?"

Author's Note

Two updates made per suggestions from hawthornbunny.

2. Maud Pine

The bounding bundle of bright pink was a rare splash of colour among the functional, grey buildings, cobblestone pathways and rock gardens—that is, gardens of rocks—that comprised the Equestrian Institute of Rockology's Manehattan campus.

Yet Maud Pie had no complaints about that. It was her sister, after all.

"Maud! Maud! Maud!" Pinkie Pie called gleefully in synchronisation with her leaps, which became greater in magnitude the closer she drew. Eventually, she peaked high enough above Maud to unleash a childlike "Wheeeee!" as she descended into a perfectly timed embrace. Her legs wrapped like tentacles around Maud's grey-coated, grey-frocked frame as she nuzzled her elder sister's cheek.

"Hey."

"Aww, it's great to see you too, big sis." Pinkie released her hold and her warm, affectionate mood snapped into irrepressible exuberance. "So, where we gonna go for lunch? Huh? Huh? Huh? Somewhere on campus, or are we sneaking off to Manehattan's fancy dining drag?"

"There's a stone grill by the student union. The decor there is reeeeeally cool." Maud's voice sounded almost trance-like to the untrained ear. "They use stone."

Pinkie beamed. "Wow! You love stone."

"Yes. That definitely contributes to my appreciation. They have stone walls, stone floors, a stone hearth, stone sculptures——"

"Great! Stone sculptures! What are they sculptures of? Ponies? Wagons? Vegetables? Ponies pulling wagons loaded with vegetables?"

Maud regarded her sister for a second. "Stones."

"Ohhhhhh."

"They also have stone tables, stone benches, stone crockery, menus chiseled on stone tablets."

"I don't suppose all the food is stone, too?"

A trace of a smile danced across Maud's lips, warming Pinkie's heart to the core. "Pinkie, you are soooooo random."

"Well that sounds super-duper-looper, and I am famished. Let's go." Pinkie readied herself to bound off, despite not knowing which direction to head.

"Wait." Maud's eyes flickered briefly to the ground. "I'm sorry, I got things a little mixed up. I arranged to meet a friend of mine to swap our petrology lecture notes. We'll go to lunch straight after that, I promise. I'm sorry."

"No-no-no-no-no. You don't have to apologise. Your course work is——" Pinkie gasped mightily. "You've made a ... friend?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised."

Pinkie hovered above the ground for two seconds, squealing in excitement, before shooting forward and wrapping Maud in another embrace. "It's not that kind of surprise. I'm just delighted that my super amazingly awesome older sister has found a friend. Somepony she can bond with, talk with, laugh with."

"We definitely enjoy laughing together," Maud intoned, her face deadpan.

"So don't you worry about a thing. Your studies are important and your friendships are extra important. And even though I'm super excited about our lunch today I don't mind ... waiting ... for ... you ......to........."

Pinkie's normally quick speech slowed to a halt, and her blue eyes grew even wider than usual, as she began to notice the stallion approaching the two sisters from behind Maud. He was an earth pony, tall, slim, muscular without being brawny. His coat was the colour of red sandstone. His black mane was cropped short, his tail glinted in the sun. His dark eyes darted in all directions from behind a round-rimmed pince-nez perched on the bridge of his chiseled, slightly elongated muzzle. A pair of black woven saddlebags hung over his back.

Seeing Pinkie's reaction, Maud turned around to exchange a lengthy, silent gaze with the newcomer.

"Hey," said the stallion at last.

"Hey," replied Maud. "This is my little sister, Pinkie Pie. Pinkie, meet Arkose Monolith." The grey pony inwardly braced herself for the greeting Pinkie invariably gave to ponies she met for the first time. Usually it involved a lengthy barrage of excited, rapid-fire talking, accompanied by exuberant pronking, leaning up close from a multitude of directions, and possibly streamers.

Yet that did not happen. Instead, Pinkie merely waved a forehoof, smiled and chirped, "Hi Arkose, it's great to meet a friend of my super amazingly awesome older sister," with a demeanour that was somewhat brighter than the average pony but nowhere near her usual level of Pinkitude. Indeed, far from punching holes in Arkose's personal space with her head, Pinkie actually took a step back, as if coy. Maud gazed in wonder at her sister's uncharacteristic display.

"Hi," the stallion replied, looking around Pinkie's eyes rather than directly into them. He turned back towards Maud. "Do you have the lecture notes?"

Arkose Monolith's question snapped Maud out of her brief, nonplussed reverie. She turned to a satchel by her hooves, pressed a button to release a clasp, then pulled out a bulging grey manila folder with her teeth. Maud passed the folder to Arkose, who took it from her, placed in one of his own saddlebags, and passed a red folder to his classmate.

The exchange complete, Arkose turned his not-quite-focused attention back to Maud. "Thanks Maud."

"Thank you," Maud insisted.

"See you later."

"'Bye."

Arkose turned to leave but paused, pivoting awkwardly, then turned hesitantly back, as if struck by an afterthought that he had trouble deciding whether to voice. "It's good to meet you, Pinkie Pie. Maud talks a lot about you."

Pinkie smiled appreciatively. "Thanks."

With that stilted moment out of the way, Arkose turned fully around, revealing the insignia adorning each of his buttocks, denoting his unique destiny. It was a towering, reddish-brown pillar of rock.

Maud watched his departure for several seconds before turning back to Pinkie Pie's broad smile. Not her usual winning, enthusiastic beam but a knowing, heavy-lidded smirk.

"Stop it."

"Maaaauuud?" Pinkie's voice rang with playful reproach.

Maud tried to maintain her stony gaze but her eyes flickered momentarily to the ground. "Leave me alone."

"So he's your friend, huh?" The connotations that Pinkie's emphasis bore were unmistakable.

"Yes," Maud replied mechanically. "Arkose Monolith is my friend. That's it. Nothing more."

Pinkie's characteristically keen, cheery demeanour and motor-mouthed speech returned in a flash. "Great! Then I guess you won't mind if I get to know him a little better. B.R.B, K?" She turned into a pink blur as she shot off with blinding speed towards the departing stallion.

* * *

For about a yard.

Somehow, Maud managed to step in front of her sister in time to block her exit. Pinkie smashed face-first into Maud's shoulder as if into the slope of a mesa, coming to a dead halt as Maud's body absorbed the impact without budging a micron. Pinkie's immense inertia propelled her hindquarters forwards so that her body compressed laterally like a concertina.

"N.O." Maud watched impassively as her sister's tortilla-thin body—a face on legs—peeled off Maud's hide and settled onto the ground.

Pinkie's dazed eyes glistened with tears of pain yet she wore a triumphant grin. "Called it," she gasped.

"I never could hide my feelings from you, Pinkie." Maud now understood why Pinkie had acted so subdued (for her) around Arkose. She had been trying to keep out of their way. The grey pony turned with something like wistfulness back to the direction Arkose had been heading. "I only wish Arkose weren't so good at hiding his feelings from me. I don't know whether he likes me or just," she paused briefly before her voice acquired a slightly morose overtone, "likes me."

"Well, wishing won't do any good, silly." Pinkie's body had restored to its usual shape and she seemed none the worse for wear. "If you're interested, you have to let him know."

"Mom says it isn't the done thing for mares to make the first move. Besides, if I'm too forward I might scare him off."

"Sheesh, Maud, I'm not telling you to sling him over your withers and carry him back to your love nest."

"Not much chance of that," murmured Maud. "He's so much stronger than me it's scary."

Scary is right, thought Pinkie. Maud could pulverise a granite boulder three times her own size, with her forehooves, in a matter of seconds. "I mean you gotta show the guy that you'd welcome him making a move on you. Sit a little closer to him when you're together. Gaze a little longer at him with those smouldering, vulpine eyes of yours." Pinkie briefly transformed her own eyes—wide, expressive, long-lashed—to look like Maud's—languid, half-closed, with lashes that were short yet so tightly packed that they resembled a thick, black stratum underlining each upper eyelid.

"Stop it," Maud repeated.

"I'm serious. You've got that whole steamy, black-and-white film noir mare-of-mystery look going for you. Work it, girlfriend."

"A stallion like Arkose needs more than just looks, Pinkie. He's smart, thoughtful, hard-working, funny ..."

"Don't forget tall, lean and handsome," grinned Pinkie.

"I didn't forget. I just assumed that went without saying." Maud took another longing look back in Arkose's direction, even though he was well out of sight by then. "You really think Arkose would consider making a mare like me his special somepony?"

"Maud, you're my super amazingly awesome older sister and you're gonna make a super amazingly awesome special somepony for some stallion. I think it's time you found out whether Arkose Monolith is said stallion. You've met him, you like him, you know each others' interests. What have you got to lose, huh?"

"Face, dignity, self-esteem, the only friend I've made here, the structural integrity of my heart."

"Ummm," Pinkie glanced around and shuffled her hooves in anxiety. "Did I mention I was famished? Which way is that stone grill?"

3. No joy in Maudville

"Hey Maud, come check out the granularity on this gabbro here."

The sunlight enhanced the rich colour of Arkose Monolith's coat and the shadow of a nearby Institute of Rockology flag—a flagstone, of course—seemed to point towards him. Maud suppressed her outward signs of nervousness without much difficulty yet her hoofbeats sounded even louder than usual in her ears as she walked along the cobblestone path to where the stallion sat.

As she drew next to Arkose, Maud lowered her haunch a little more deliberately than her wont, taking care that when she reached the ground, her thigh caressed his. It was a perfect touch: not a push, yet neither so delicate that Arkose would fail to notice. The touch sent a volcanic sensation flowing through Maud's body and she silently warned herself not to lose control then and there. It was now up to Arkose to respond.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Maud. Here, let me make some more room for you." Quietly annoyed at his own thoughtlessness, Arkose shuffled his hindquarters across the ground to create a comfortable space between the two ponies.

Alas, the stallion could scarcely have given Maud less comfort if he had kicked her. Yet Maud was new to this flirting business—so was Arkose, for all she knew—so she couldn't expect romance to erupt immediately. She needed patience. The way to Arkose's heart wasn't with a pickaxe but with steady, gentle erosion.

Arkose rolled the irregular lump of rock towards Maud. "Can you imagine how slowly the magma must have cooled to attain this degree of coarseness?"

"Nothing like a nice, slow cooldown." Maud made her voice slow and slightly breathy, hoping to give it a sensuous quality.

If Arkose noticed, he did nothing to indicate thus. "Beautiful contours on this specimen, don't you think?"

Maud wholeheartedly agreed but managed to draw her attention away from the rock, onto another specimen altogether. "It's not often one sees such magnificently defined contours." She had been practising her supposedly "sensuous, vulpine, mare-of-mystery" gaze in the mirror; she felt silly but if this was what stallions wanted...

Not even Arkose Monolith was too oblivious to notice Maud staring at him; even more strangely, she wasn't staring at the gabbro specimen directly in front of her. He glanced up and forced himself to look at her eyes, rather than around them. "Maud, is everything all right?"

"It certainly appears to be, from this vantage point."

"Oh, good." Reassured, Arkose rose to his hooves. "Well, I have to get to my lab now."

"I know. We have the same lab."

"Oh, yeah. Great. Let's go."

Steady erosion, Maud told herself. Steady erosion.

Days later, the only things Maud felt steadily eroding were her own patience and self-esteem. Fed up with her steamy gazes and subtle attempts at enticing language bouncing off Arkose like scree off a volcanic plug, she pushed aside her raging mental dissonance—as well as the rhyolite collection Arkose had laid in front of her—and made up her mind to take a direct approach.

"Arkose."

"Yes?" Already taken aback by Maud's active lack of interest in his amazing rocks, Arkose gave her his full attention.

"Um." Maud's eyes flickered downwards, her resolve slipping.

"What is it, Maud? You know you can tell me anything."

Firming her foundations, Maud forced herself to look him in the eyes. "Do you like me?"

Arkose blinked. "I'm not in the habit of showing my rhyolite collection to ponies whom I dislike."

Who would be, thought Maud, taking a deep, calming breath. "I mean, do you ... like me?"

* * *

The trio occupied Pinkie Pie's bed in silence. Maud sprawled prone, facing away from the bedhead, staring at nothing in particular. Before her lay Boulder, a small, roughly hemispheric chunk of magnesium-rich basalt. Pinkie herself sat up against Maud's side, one foreleg draped over her older sister's back.

Pinkie had hastily procured four helium-filled balloons from her supply. One was a round, sunny yellow; one a bright red love heart; one resembled a light purple flower; the fourth was long, thin and pink, curving in multiple directions. She had tied one to each of the four posts of her bed, arranging them by shape and colour for optimal generation of happiness.

Yet Maud paid the decorations no attention. She just sprawled and stared, absently rolling Boulder in a ragged, elliptical orbit on the bedspread in front of her.

Pinkie's mind raced for other options to draw Maud out of her funk. Cupcakes iced with smiley faces? An upbeat song with self-accompaniment on an accordion? No, heartbreak of this magnitude needed something stronger.

A party? Those took planning; this was no time to leave poor Maud's side and gallivant around rustling up funny hats and designing invitation layouts. Besides, she doubted Maud would want the whole town to know she had just struck out with the stud of her dreams.

Pinkie felt a creeping sense of helplessness. Maud had come to her in need of cheering up. She couldn't just sit here, doing nothing, saying nothing.

Maud's monotone finally broke the anguished silence. "What could have led me to imagine that a faultless specimen like Arkose Monolith would ever consider a pony like me as more than just a friend? I must have had rocks in my head."

Pinkie gently jostled her sister. "Hey, what kind of talk is that?"

"You're right." Maud's eyes lowered towards her pet rock. "Sorry, Boulder."

Boulder was not offended.

"I mean, you shouldn't put yourself down like that," said Pinkie.

"Then how should I put myself down?"

"You'll make a terrific special somepony."

"Arkose doesn't think so."

"Okay but plenty of other rocks in the quarry, right?"

"I don't want plenty of other rocks. I want Arkose. And he doesn't want me."

Pinkie closed her eyes and sighed, then looked back at Maud. "I know it's really hard to let go of something you've wanted, something you thought was right for you. But you can't go being mean to yourself. You will find that special somepony someday because you're so special and smart and strong and funny and——"

"Strong," Maud broke in. "Arkose was strong." She let out a sough. "Listen to me. I can't stop thinking about him. One stallion rejects me and I crumble like talc. You call that strong?"

"I call that being a pony, Maud. You're hurting badly now, just like we all do once in a while. It doesn't change how super amazingly awesome you are."

"So you keep saying."

Pinkie drew back. "Excuse me?"

For the first time in several minutes, Maud looked the pink pony in the eye. "You always see the best in everypony, Pinkie. What if those rose-tinted glasses of yours have blinded you to the possibility that your super amazingly awesome older sister isn't so super amazingly awesome after all?"

"All right missy, let's get a couple of things straight here. First of all, the only time I'd wear rose-tinted glasses is at an eye-catching eyewear party. And I've never even been to one of those. Because I just made it up. It does sound like super fun though. Remind me to jot it down later.

"Secondly, if you think I always see the best in everypony then you really do have rocks in your head, no offence Boulder. Just because I don't dwell on ponies' shortcomings doesn't mean I don't see them. Sometimes I even mention them if I think they can learn a valuable friendship lesson from it."

"In that case, tell me one of my faults."

Pinkie blinked. "You're kidding."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" replied Maud, who never looked like she was kidding.

Pinkie bit her lip and darted her eyes around. "Oh Maud, now's not the time to go into that."

"Now is exactly time to go into that. If you can't be honest about my weaknesses, how can I believe what you tell me are my positive facets?"

"Fine, you want to know one of your faults? I'll tell you one of your faults: you're silly. You can't see how much you mean to your loved ones so instead of trusting us when we support you, you ask us to pick on you. There, happy?"

"No. That was praise, thinly disguised as criticism."

"Okay, you uh, you're, uh, you—you focus too heavily on your studies."

"That sounds like something I'd say at a job interview."

"But I—you——" Pinkie grunted in frustration. "I can't believe you're making me say this." She exhaled. "You are obsessed with rocks."

Maud had grown so impatient that her eyes narrowed slightly. "Pinkie, I'm serious."

"So am I."

Now it was Maud's turn to blink. "What?"

"Whenever you're with my Ponyville friends it's always 'Look at the cute spider holding the pretty flower.' 'I was looking at the rock.' 'Don't these homewares look divine?' 'Not as divine as the cracks in the sidewalk.' Every time somepony tries to interest you in something, you have to make it about rocks, or ignore it to focus on the rocks."

Maud opened her mouth to protest but there was no stemming this verbal rockslide.

"Take Twilight Sparkle. She lives for magic and reading. How would you like it if you showed her a rock that you thought was really interesting and she was like 'Urgh, can't I just read about it in a book?' or 'Hey, wouldn't it be great if I changed it into a top hat?'

"Everypony has different things they love, Maud, and no pony's passion is better or worse than another's. But just because you don't share another pony's passion is no reason to discourage them from sharing theirs with you. They don't want you to like what they like. They want you to like them, they want to get to like you."

"I didn't know I was discouraging them. I thought I was just letting them know what I care about." Maud digested this sobering revelation for a moment. "I guess you really must think I'm pretty special."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Well, duh-h."

Maud returned to her sprawled position on the bed, tucking Boulder between her cheek and foreleg. "So why doesn't Arkose agree?"

"Heck if I know. Stallions, huh?" Pinkie lowered her head. "This is my fault. I pushed you into this."

"No, Pinkie, I couldn't go on pining for him forever. If we really aren't meant for each other then it's best I find out sooner rather than later." In that one last word Maud's voice acquired the tiniest hairline fissure.

With an involuntary moan, Pinkie Pie threw herself down beside Maud, coiled her foreleg around to the other side of her sister's barrel and squeezed. As the pair lay wordlessly together, a single droplet of salty fluid emanated from Maud's eye and made its way down the contours of the pony's face. A tress of pink hair snaked up and nestled against the droplet, absorbing the moisture into itself.

"I'm sorry," said Maud.

"For what?"

"For breaking down and blubbering uncontrollably like that. I promised myself I'd keep it together. I didn't want you putting up with my melodramatics."

Pinkie squeezed Maud again. "What are sisters for, silly?"

"You've done so much for me already today."

"Me? I haven't done much at all. Most of the time I've just sat here like a lump, not saying or doing anything."

"Which was exactly what I needed. I didn't come here for polkas or party favours. I came here for you, Pinkie Pie. I just needed you to be here for me, like a rock. And what could be more demanding for you than to sit still and be quiet?"

Pinkie thought with gratification of the last time she had to do such a thing for her friends. Sitting in a roomful of her clones, staring dumbly at a freshly painted wall for what seemed like forever, was indeed one of the toughest challenges she had ever faced. She smiled at the irony. Proving she was the one true Pinkie Pie by acting as unlike herself as possible.

"Just glad I could help my super amazingly awesome older sister."

Maud averted her eyes.

"Come on, who's my super amazingly awesome older sister?"

Maud mumbled something into an upfold of Pinkie's bedspread.

"Maud, look me in the eye and say it."

Maud soughed, mentally prepared for a few seconds, and turned to face Pinkie.

Then flinched away so suddenly she almost cricked her neck. Somehow, while Maud wasn't looking, Pinkie had managed to don some outsized spiral-lensed eyeglasses, a cute red clown nose, a drooping black moustache, two protruding incisors and a pair of foam moose antlers.

Pinkie couldn't see Maud's face, nor hear any sound from her, yet she recognised that bodily tremor anywhere. Had she tried such a joke a few minutes ago it would have come across as insensitive and hurt Maud even more. Now, she had nailed it. All in the timing.

So much joy flooded through Pinkie at the sight of Maud's laughter that she didn't notice her own tail twitching at first. In a rush, she glanced towards the ceiling, forgetting that the falling object her Pinkie Sense portended might instead be——

"WAAAGH-oomph."

From her unceremonious position on the bedroom floor, Pinkie looked up in time to see Maud's rear hoof draw back from over the edge of the bed. "Too subtle?" she asked innocently.

Maud's voice quaked with poorly suppressed mirth. "I will end you, Pinkamena Pie."

"Yeah, I always figured you'd be the end of me."

"Although I suppose I could spare you, as long as you Pinkie promise not to tell anypony about this whole Arkose thing, or that your super amazingly awesome older sister is a great big crybaby."

Pinkie whipped off her novelty headwear. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. Now, speaking of cupcakes, what say we head downstairs for a gigantuan helping of scrummlicious Sugarcube Corner comfort food?"

"Pinkie, you've already cheered me up. I don't need to numb my pain by guzzling down a quart of mineral water."

The pink pony gazed at Maud with imploring eyes and a quivering lower lip, a plaintive whimper duetting with a low rumble from her belly.

"You eat, I'll watch."

Pinkie flashed her brightest beam, emitting a squeak of excitement, and zipped out of the bedroom.

Maud gave Boulder one last adoring look before placing the rock in her pocket, then moseyed out, secretly hoping she could catch another glimpse of those heart-meltingly adorable twins to cheer her up even further.

THE END