The Rock Farm
by Aldrigold
“Are the wagons loaded?” The stern eyes of her father pinned her, his gaze somehow heavier than the traces that were hitched to her shoulders. Behind her the rocks were piled high in the string of three wagons, each rock and stone baked by the sun to gray perfection.
“Yes, father.” Inky tossed her pin-straight mane behind her head. “I am ready.”
“Then come. Your older sister, though her heart wasn’t in it, made this journey also. Everyone in your family has, and your younger sister will too. Whatever you may see, don’t be afraid.”
Inky took a step forward, the traces pulling hard against the yoke that ringed her neck. She could feel her father’s worried eyes on her, but she did not complain, pushing her hooves harder into the firm ground. She would not abandon her duty. Not like Pinkie had.
That was unkind. Her sister was happy. Not every pony could work a rock farm, no matter their heritage.
But Inky would do her duty. And this was her first test.
She had wanted to wave to Blinky and her mother, but that thought vanished as the sheer weight of the wagons fought her every step. There was no time for frivolity.
“Go on, my girl,” her father said, falling into slow step beside her. “You are a Pie. Now you will do your duty.”
Ever since she was a foal she had watched her father or mother take this path three times a year. Three carts of the best rocks were loaded up and pulled out, rolled along to the edges of the farm before they vanished into the distance. It was always on cloudy days like this one. Although, Inky thought, most days on the rock farm were cloudy.
A drop of rain splattered on her shoulders, and she welcomed it. The yoke was already beginning to irritate her skin.
The rain at least kept the dust from pluming under her hooves as she walked, her muscles beginning to burn as she passed the boundary. Her father stopped walking, and spoke before she could do the same.
“Keep going on. You will know where to go.”
Inky just nodded. She was used to her parents saying things that didn’t quite make sense.
As her steps took her from the smoothed rock of the farm onto muddy grass, the going became much harder. Her muscles strained with each step, the yoke scraping her shoulders, and she tilted her head forward, her breath coming in heavy gasps. The return journey would be easier, she knew. Her parents always returned with empty carts. She kept pushing forward.
She wondered what her duty would entail. The duty of the Pies, that every Pie knew without being taught. Even Pinkie had done it. In fact, Inky thought, Pinkie hadn’t developed her strange love of parties until afterward.
Parties. They were fun, of course. The day Pinkie had gotten her cutie mark had been a good one.
But parties were not for everyone. The rock on Inky’s flank proved that. She doubted that would change, no matter what greeted her as she completed her task.
She pressed forward, green fields on all sides. She already missed the gray rocks of her home. The colorful world outside the farm was not for her.
That was probably why she turned along the path she did, gray stones marking a trail barely visible to any but a trained rock farmer. They led down. The slope was gradual, but it eased her burden.
***
The grass began to turn colors.
Inky hadn’t noticed it at first, considering it environmental. Perhaps the area was just dry. But when the grass grew from a brittle brown to a bright purple, she could no longer ignore it.
The wagon seemed to have gotten lighter, but the land no longer sloped under her hooves. The yoke eased on her shoulders and neck, and she was even able to stop and look back.
There was nothing behind her. No darkness, no light, just nothingness, as though she had closed her eyes and the inside of her eyelid didn’t exist, only the random whirling patterns of her own consciousness anchoring her.
She had walked from emptiness.
Inky took a deep breath. She was a Pie. Strangeness didn’t scare her. Giggle at the ghosties. Inky was not a giggler, but the mantra kept her moving.
Something moved in the corner of her vision, a long-legged creature that darted away when she turned her head. The rocks were almost weightless now, and her gait had strengthened, her legs and shoulders no longer straining. Thunder rumbled in the distance across a clear blue sky.
Despite it all, Inky knew she was going the right way.
Patterns flickered into existence under feet, curving lines and jagged shapes that swirled and intersected, slicing through the purple grass. Her forehead itched, and as she passed a puddle of rainwater, the water itself slick and colored with iridescence, her reflection had a horn.
She stopped, looking closer. It was gone.
Giggle at the ghosties. Do your duty. She thought of her parents, of Pinkie, coming back with empty carts after their journeys. The Pies had done this three times a year for uncountable years, for generations. Nothing had ever happened.
Just a little strangeness, is all. A little randomness.
Inky walked forward, the carts floating behind her like balloons on a string. Next to them, something else floated, a dim pony shape that vanished with a trill as she looked closer.
The wagons floated above her head, and when she turned back she stopped.
Before her lay an enormous pit of inky blackness, the oily nothingness bubbling like water, stretching across a landscape as large as her farmhouse. No, twice as large. Voices called from the depths, washing through Inky’s ears. They didn’t say anything she could understand.
Shapes circled in the dark, colors of every hue she knew and others she didn’t. She blinked, and the pit was a castle, stretching to the heavens. A pennant fluttered at the top of the thorn-like structure, a snake-like pony of many colors decorating it.
Thunder rumbled again, dark green clouds circling the spire. Liquid hit her coat, landing on her outstretched hoof, and she sniffed it.
Chocolate.
She blinked, and the castle was a pit once again.
Giggle at the ghosties.
She unhooked her yoke, pushing the floating wagons closer to the pit. The wagons, full of perfect rocks baked by Celestia’s sun. She had worked very hard to make sure they were perfect.
With three kicks, she upended the wagons into the pit.
Then the world turned gray once again, the wagons slamming into the ground, the purple grass replaced with green. Thunder rumbled overhead once more, but this time the clouds overhead were a normal gray.
On her way back to the farm, her tail started to twitch. She made it back to the farmhouse before the rain started.
She had done her duty, and though she would never speak of it, she somehow knew the importance of what she had done, and what she would do for years to come. Chaos must be kept contained, for Equestria.
Pinkie may not be here to do her duty. But Inky would.
