“Hold up a sec now, Rare—where did ya say ya’ll went?” Applejack asked. Rarity sniffed at the interruption.

“We went to the valley near Smaug’s Loft—do pay attention, dear, I’ve said as much already.”

Applejack took a calming breath. As great as it was to see Rarity beginning to return to her old self, the farmpony could have done without her snooty attitude. “Ya only told me th’ name, sugarcube, not where this place is in relation t’ Ponyville.”

Rarity flattened her ears against her head, chastised. “I never did explain that did I? I’m sorry, Applejack, I—well, it’s been a trying day.”

Applejack understood. As long as she had known Rarity the two of them had grated on each other, but if they had learned one thing from Twilight’s studies, it was that friendship ran deeper than petty differences.

“You remember the dragon who almost took his hundred-year nap near Ponyville?” Applejack nodded. “That mountain is called Smaug’s Loft—Twilight once told me it’s named for an ancient, massive dragon that lived during the times of those silly human tales I read to Sweetie Belle.”

Applejack whistled at that. “That’s mighty fascinatin’ sugarcube, but why’d ya go there? Ah thought ya already had a place marked out.”

“I do. Unfortunately, pickings have been rather slim lately, and I suspect that the Diamond Dogs have returned to the area. I decided against going back until somepony could come with me—not that Spikey-Wikey wasn’t an immense help, but perhaps I could convince a hunky stallion or two to come along with me. Just as a precaution, of course.”

That sounded like something Rarity would try, all right. Applejack laughed to herself for a moment, but stopped when she saw a devious grin forming on the unicorn’s face.

“Why Applejack, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you giggle.”

Applejack jerked back, her grass-green eyes narrowing at Rarity as if she had just told her she had been shagging Big Macintosh. “Ah,” she said slowly, accentuating every word. “Did. Not. Giggle.” Her tone was one she usually reserved for shutting down Apple Bloom’s crazier Crusading ideas—one which cut off argument with the unspoken promise of severe consequences. Rarity was unphazed by her glare and smiled knowingly at the farmpony.

“Nnno no no, I know a giggle when I hear one, and you, Applejack Apple, most certainly giggled just now.”

Applejack glowered at the upstart unicorn, unwilling to break Rarity’s upbeat mood but unable to allow such a ridiculous, frou-frou word as “giggle” to ever be applied to her. Rarity smiled and batted her eyelashes at Applejack, daring her to try and deny what she had heard. They stared at one another in a clash of worlds and wills, the silent tension in the air thick enough to cut with a knife.

Silence.

Applejack’s eyes went wide as the realization hit her. Rarity inhaled sharply as she, too, caught on. Twilight had stopped crying. The only sound still coming through was the muted stretching of gauze and medical tape as Fluttershy worked, occasionally broken by the odd sniffle from Twilight. “Ah hope t’ Celestia that’s a good sign,” Applejack murmured. Rarity nodded in agreement.

“How much longer do you think your brother will be? Fluttershy is a wonderful veterinarian, but these injuries are well out of her depth.”

“He’ll get here with help soon, no mistake. Mac can haul plot when he needs to.”

Rarity smiled at that remark. “So I heard . . . oh, Fluttershy is going to be mortified when she remembers saying that.”

“Five bits says she’ll be apolgizin’ fer weeks fer layin’ hoof near mah brother’s flank,” Applejack agreed.

“That’s assuming she can find her voice at all.”

Applejack caught herself mid-giggle, trying (and failing) to repress the frilly sound. This did not slip past Rarity, who chuckled until a hiccough turned it into an un-ladylike snort. The two mares briefly stared at each other before bursting into laughter.

Their mirth was short-lived. Another muffled pop echoed from the back room, and Twilight began to cry again. Rarity rose to her hooves but was immediately forced back down on the couch.

“Hold up, sugarcube. Let Fluttershy do ‘er thing.”

“But—”

Applejack kept her hoof pressing down on the unicorn’s shoulder—not painfully so, but with enough force to tell her that she would not let her up. “Rarity, lissen t’ me: there’s nuthin’ we can do ‘till Mac gits back. Ah wanna be in there as bad as you do, but we’d just be gettin’ in Fluttershy’s way.”

Rarity looked away. She knew Applejack was right, but it did little to make her feel better. She reached down to pet Winona, who had taken refuge at the foot of the sofa. Winona rolled onto her back in response, splaying her legs in different directions as she waited for a belly rub. “That’s hardly a ladylike position, Winona,” Rarity chided, though she obliged the farmdog. Winona’s left forepaw wavered slightly under the weight of the cast, but she otherwise remained motionless as Rarity pet her. Bellyruuuubz . . .

Applejack chuckled at her dog (not giggled, consarnit) and gave Rarity’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Why doncha tell me what happened after ya left town?”

~/)(\~

Half an hour had passed since the two unicorns had left Ponyville. The sun was in the sky and starting to bear down on them, though it was still early enough that the sunlight felt pleasantly warm on their fur. Nevertheless, Twilight felt hot under her nonexistent collar; they had found little more than a cluster of flawed garnets so far, and Rarity was beginning to get impatient. Twilight lifted the saddlebags off of her back and set them down, taking a sip from her canteen. “Rarity, we’re not in the right rock formations. We aren’t going to find anything until we get closer to the mountain.”

A white hoof stamped the ground in frustration and was immediately stained by a small cloud of dust. Rarity used her canteen to pour water over the blemished appendage. “Why are we here, then?” she whined, drying her hoof with a towelette before allowing it to touch the ground once more. “This is much further out than I’ve gone before and my spell still hasn’t found so much as an emerald!”

Twilight squinted at the rocks in front of her, exuding a level of patience that would have made Cheerilee proud. “I’m trying to figure out where the boundaries are between the igneous and sedimentary formations. This area used to be one massive river, but when the Apple family came here and founded Ponyville, they re-routed the river miles upstream into smaller, more manageable creeks. One runs through Ponyville, but most were divided into the irrigation canals used by farms like Sweet Apple Acres.”

Rarity waited for a moment, but when Twilight turned away she realized that the bookish unicorn thought that her explanation would be sufficient. “Twilight, you do realize I don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t you?” That’s why I asked you to accompany me. The thought slipped from her mind before she could catch herself. Mercifully, she had not said it aloud.

Twilight picked up on Rarity’s unspoken barb and turned around. “Right, sorry: Smaug’s Loft is an extinct volcano. Eons before the Castle of the Pony Sisters was built, this entire area was covered by lava flows—which in turn hardened to become igneous rock. That’s why nearby farms and the Everfree Forest are so fertile, the soil is packed with volcanic nutrients.”

“And gemstones,” Rarity chimed, the light suddenly clicking on in her mind. Twilight beamed at her.

“Now you’re getting it! Eventually the volcano fell silent, and the feral, pre-pegasus weather began eroding the upper layers of rock into the topsoil we have today—sedimentary rock. When the river came through, the water broke the rocks down even faster, and any gemstones that weren’t worn down were washed away.”

“So anything that’s still in the area will be in volcanic rock?”

“Igneous rock, yes,” Twilight corrected. “The problem is, I can’t tell if these formations are shale or slate—neither one has the gems we’re looking for, but if it’s metamorphic rock it means we’re getting closer. Either way, we should be out of this schist before long.”

Rarity moaned in pain (as did geologists across Equestria, though they had no idea why). Twilight giggled to herself as she scratched her rock hammer against a boulder and examined it for nicks. “Would you mind grabbing a book from my saddlebags?”

“Is there any one in particular you need?”

“Whichever one: anything I’ve packed will do for something as basic as identifying rock strata.”

Rarity shook her head at the notion that ponies could spend enough time around rocks to categorize them with such minute detail. She admitted that she had little room to criticize, given how much time she devoted to organizing her fabrics by thread count in her armoires back at Carousel Boutique. She opened the saddlebags and grabbed one of the books. Her eyes went wide and then narrowed, and she arched an eyebrow at the title in front of her. “Any book in here, you say?”

“Any one, yup.”

“Aaaany one?”

“That is what I said.”

“You’re quite certain?” Rarity asked, emphasizing every word. The ploy worked: Twilight looked back to find Rarity levitating the book horizontally in front of her—just enough to hide the title on the cover. She wore a smile which spelled doom for a certain librarian.

“Absolutely. I think . . . I mean yes! Oh Celestia tell me I wasn’t tired enough to leave that out . . .”

“If you say so.” Twilight audibly gulped as Rarity turned the page. “I shall be most interested to hear how ‘Dragon Physiology for Beginners’ relates to geology.”

“OH that one!” Twilight half-screamed, nearly collapsing from relief. “No, I guess it doesn’t, does it?” She thought for a second. “I packed that? Really? Huh. I guess I forgot to put it away last night.”

“You must have,” Rarity said in an even tone. “Why? What did you think you packed?”

“Nothing!” Twilight said with a painfully wide smile. It didn’t take the Element of Honesty to see that she was hiding something.

“Mmm-hmm.” Rarity maintained a coy grin and challenged herself not to laugh as Twilight sweat profusely. After a few seconds, Rarity decided that she had teased her enough and offered a way out. “All joking aside, though, is this what you were reading last night?”

Twilight exhaled, glad to have a change of subject. “Spike’s been reading it, actually. Do you remember the time he was affected by greed-growth?”

“How could I forget?” Rarity suppressed a shudder. She still remembered her Spikey-Wikey shooting up out of control and turning into that . . . thing. To this day she still hadn’t found her good diamond-encrusted scissors. She suspected he may have eaten them.

Twilight nodded in agreement. “A few days after he—uh, grew, he did some reading to make sure there weren’t any other surprises like that. And after the Great Dragon Migration, hoo boy! Even after we brought him back to Ponyville, he still wanted to know everything he could about dragons! Princess Celestia sent us dozens of books on their history, culture, mythology—even biology! Heh, he wouldn’t touch eggs for three days after we read that chapter.”

Rarity giggled at that, but felt nauseous when she considered the implications. Perhaps it was best if she never thought about that again. A change in diet might not go amiss, either. “I was wondering what the two of you had been doing these past few weeks,” she said, quite eager to switch her train of thought. “I imagine Spikey-Wikey has been quite enthusiastic to learn about his species!”

“It’s been busy, that’s for sure. We’ve taken a bit of a break from reading, though.”

“Why?”

Twilight looked away, shifting uncomfortably on her hooves. Rarity immediately knew she was treading delicate territory; Twilight’s body language all but screamed that she didn’t want to answer. Normally she would have dropped the subject with all apologies, but Rarity didn’t need magic to sense that something was very wrong.

“Twilight?” Rarity said, hesitant to broach the subject but unwilling to let her friend face a serious problem alone. “What is it?”

“We got to draconic biology last Tuesday. Did you know that an average dragon lives for almost 5,000 years?”

“Fascinating, dear, but I’m not sure I follow.”

Twilight sighed. “Right after we read that, Spike asked me how long ponies live.”

Rarity covered her mouth with a hoof, gasping softly as everything fell into place. “. . . Twilight, I’m sorry, I am so sorry. If I had any idea that you and Spike had talked about . . . I would never have asked you to leave him alone. I must insist that we call this expedition off." She stopped in her tracks when Twilight shook her head, utterly shocked at her refusal.

“Like I said, that was last Tuesday. Believe me, if that had been last night I wouldn’t have set hoof outside the library.” Twilight packed the book into the saddlebag, which she then levitated onto her back. “But it’s been a week . . . a rough week, but he’s doing better. I told him I’d get him something nice while we were out here.”

Rarity could not believe what she was hearing. “Honestly, Twilight, even when I had to spell out Braeburn’s crush on you I didn't think you could be this emotionally stunted! That is not the sort of thing one recovers from in a week, regardless of how tough their exterior is.”

Twilight laid her ears back, blushing fiercely. “Th-this is nothing like the time with Braeburn! Spike promised me he was okay—he said he knew how important this outing was to us and said he would be fine.”

“He. Lied. To. You. Surely even you could understand that?”

“Spike wouldn’t lie to me,” Twilight snapped, incensed at the idea. “And don’t call me Shirley!”

Both unicorns sighed in frustration, but Rarity made one final push. “Just . . . promise me you’ll talk to him when we get back? Really talk to him, don’t just accept his words at face value.”

Twilight nodded. “All right, Rarity, you win. I promise I’ll talk to Spike.”

“Pinkie Promise me, Twilight.” she held up a hoof as Twilight opened her mouth to argue. “Now. Pinkie Promise that you’ll talk to Spike or I’m turning around post-haste.”

Twilight sighed again, but conceded defeat and went through the motions. “I will talk to Spike when I get back to Ponyville; cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my (close, then poke) eye.”

She exhaled, and looked to Rarity with a weak smile. “Better?” Rarity nodded and smiled back—or at least, she showed her teeth and forced the corners of her mouth upwards. Appearances or no, she didn’t feel like smiling right now.

Oh, Spikey-Wikey . . . to think about such a thing when you’re so young.

~/)(\~

Rarity and Applejack both jumped when somepony knocked on the front door. Winona growled and tried to stand up, but whimpered when her cast banged against the ground. “Stay,” Applejack said as she hurried to the front and opened the door. Four pegasi stood at the threshold, clad in white, form-fitting scrubs embroidered with a red heart and wings—the Equestria-wide symbol for Life Flight emergency crews. One of them, a tan mare, anxiously ruffled her feathers as she nodded to Applejack.

“I’m Clear Skies from the Ponyville Clinic. We’ve heard that somepony’s been hurt?”

“In the back.” Applejack motioned for the crew to follow her. Rarity nodded to the medical crew while keeping a wary hoof on Winona’s back. Winona for her part cocked her head at the newcomers. They were not Owner, but Owner was with them, so they must be okay.

“Fill me in on what happened,” Clear Skies said. “The stallion that came to us wasn’t very clear. He just said somepony had been injured out at this cottage and told us to follow him—damn if he didn’t keep pace with us, too.”

Heh, that sounds like Big Macintosh all right. “Ah’m still piecin’ that t’gether mahself,” Applejack explained. “And Ah ain’t no doctor, but  . . .” She opened the back door to allow the pegasi access. Clear Skies looked inside.

“Celestia and Luna in socks . . . okay team, set up—we gotta stabilize before we can evac. Ma’am, I need you and your friend out of here now!”

Applejack’s eyes glazed over in her second cognitive purge of the day. To the side, a muffled debate raged in the room as Fluttershy protested Clear Skies’ order with as much force as she could muster (after a brief but fierce exchange, Fluttershy’s voice trailed off to the point that Rarity had to strain to hear her from two meters away). Eventually, though, the yellow pegasus complied with her request. Applejack stared as she laid eyes on her friend, trading a horrible mental image for one that was all too real. Fluttershy’s entire body dripped with perspiration, her eyes were strained from hypertension, and her hooves and muzzle were stained to the skin with blood.

“ . . . I should go clean up . . .”

Applejack nodded. “Go ahead, sugarcube—Rare and Ah’ll be right out here.” She walked back to the living room and joined Rarity on the sofa. She heard water running in the kitchen and shot the unicorn a quizzical look.

“Big Macintosh,” Rarity explained. “He came in just a few seconds after the Life Flight crew. The poor dear looked exhausted—I believe he’s getting a drink.”

Applejack whistled. “Horsefeathers, bro, you really can haul plot.”

A subdued “Eep!” echoed from down the hallway, followed by the thump of somepony trying to sink into the floor. In spite of the circumstances, Applejack and Rarity smiled knowingly at one another. Winona wagged her tail, unsure why everypony was suddenly happy but glad to see Owner smiling again. Applejack scratched her behind the ears as Rarity continued her story.

~/)(\~

The two unicorns had reached the base of Smaug’s Loft shortly after their previous talk and had been hard at work in the hours since. True to Twilight’s predictions, the rock formations had changed favorably the closer they got to the mountain. To the side, Twilight was fanning herself with her pith helmet in a vain attempt to ward off the midday heat. “Rarity, would you mind if we took a break? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Not at all,” Rarity murmured, her attention largely elsewhere. In front of her floated a small cloud of rocks, which she was scrutinizing one at a time with a jeweler’s eyepiece. To her left was a sizable pile of rejects, mirrored on her right by half a dozen garnets. She was largely oblivious to the sound of Twilight laying out the contents her saddlebags.

“A spare hat? Yeah, that’s palatable.”

“One must always look one’s best, Twilight,” Rarity said, glancing away from the gem in front of her. The hat was but the tip of the iceberg of her Portable Fashion Emergency Kit (patent pending); she could see the rest of the contents carefully stacked next to her saddlebag. A comb, some magnificent scented soaps from Prance, a stack of hooftowels, and the case for Rarity’s eyepiece. “Do get those hooftowels out of the dirt, Twilight,”  she chided. “They’re made from Polyneighsian cotton.”

For reasons beyond fashionable comprehension, Twilight seemed unimpressed by this revelation. “Um, Rarity? Didn’t you pack lunch?”

Now Twilight had Rarity’s full attention. “No, I didn’t. You told me you would get it.”

The purple unicorn looked unnerved by something, and Rarity realized that her eyepiece was still in place. With one eye to several times its normal size, she imagined it looked like an uncanny perversion of Fluttershy’s Stare. Twilight shook her head.

“Horseapples,” she growled, provoking a rebuke from Rarity.

“Now Twilight, no need for that kind of language. A lady must never allow circumstances to get the better of her.”

“I did offer to bring lunch, didn’t I?” Twilight continued, oblivious to Rarity’s chastisement. “That’s my luck for the day: pack something useless and forget something important. I miss my checklist . . .”

“Then it’s lucky for you I’m here!”

The magically-suspended garnets spilled to the ground as Rarity leapt into the air, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. Having ponies sneak up on her like this could not be healthy! When her hooves returned to the ground, she was relieved to see that it was Spike marching down the path, hefting a blue backpack.

“Spike! What are you doing out here?”

“And hello to you, Twilight,” Spike grumbled. “I found a stack of sandwiches in the icebox next to the diamonds—figured you’d want them at some point.”

Twilight’s stomach grumbled appreciatively. “Is there a chance you know what happened to my checklist? I think I lost it when I went to bed.” Rarity struggled not to roll her eyes.

“Um, no you didn’t,” Spike said. “It was right in front of you.” He set down his backpack and retrieved a piece of parchment. On one side was the note Twilight had left for him earlier in the morning; on the other was . . .

“My checklist,” Twilight said with a pained moan usually reserved for those about to undergo medical procedures ending in -oscopy. How tired had she been to have overlooked it?

“It wasn’t hard to find,” he said. “The table was pretty bare this morning—especially since somepony walked off with the library’s only copy of ‘Dragon Physiology for Beginners.’”

Twilight offered an embarrassed laugh by way of apology. “Right. Sorry about that.” She levitated the book out of her saddlebags. “Trade you the book for lunch? You’re welcome to join us.”

“And we have gar-nets!” Rarity added in a singsong voice as she levitated the gems in front of her. Spike drooled and grabbed a stack of sandwiches from his backpack. Twilight and Rarity beamed as they split the food between themselves.

“Thank you EVER so much, darling!”

“I can always count on my Number One Assistant!”

“Ah, jeez . . .”

The meal passed uneventfully. Twilight devoured her sandwiches with gusto, Spike chomped away at the gemstones Rarity provided, and Rarity daintily ate her meal, occasionally pausing between bites to wipe her mouth with a napkin offered by Twilight.

There hadn’t been any napkins in her saddlebags, Rarity suddenly realized, not such a disposable texture! She hadn’t seen any when packing Twilight’s bags either, and Spike had only brought sandwiches and the note. Rarity wondered if either of them had been hanging around Pinkie Pie lately.

***

Back in Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie’s mane spasmed. Mr. Cake dove under a table in a (not unjustified) panic. “TWITCHY MAAAANE!”

Pinkie giggled at him, dutifully stirring the bowl in front of her. “Oh silly, it’s Twitchy Tail that means something’s falling! Twitchy Mane just means somepony is thinking about me.”

Her mane twitched again, this time accompanied by a spasm from her Cutie Mark. Pinkie dropped her whisk and whirled around, glaring daggers at the screen. “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF FOR THAT!” she bellowed.

“Although I will say, that’s a new pairing even for this fandom.”

Mr. Cake trembled under the safety of his table, trying to recall how his wife had talked him into hiring this madpony.

***

Rarity shook her head. Of course not. That would be silly. Her thoughts returned to Equestria as Twilight spoke to her Number One Assistant. “Hey—Spike?”

“Mmeh?” Spike said. He swallowed and tried again. “Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay? With me being out here, I mean? I thought that a week would be enough time, but if you want me to come back early . . .”

Spike fell silent, and not because his mouth was full. Rarity suddenly found herself very concerned for the state of her hooves; working with all of these rocks must have been simply dreadful to Aloe’s careful filing job. “It’s hard to think about, isn’t it?” Rarity didn’t hear Twilight ask. “That came as a surprise to me too, I—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now,” Spike interrupted. He crossed his arms over his chest, but leaned against Twilight when she nuzzled him. She put a hoof around Spike and pulled him close, and could feel the suppressed sobs which wracked his chest.

“Hey. It’s okay, Spike, it’s okay. Shh, shh. It’s okay. Do you want me to come back with you?” Spike shook his head, unwilling to trust his voice. “If you’re sure, then,” Twilight said. “We can talk more when I get back, okay?”

Spike whimpered, and Rarity’s determined focus elsewhere was the only thing that kept her heart intact. Her eyes remained firmly on her hooves until she heard Spike break away and pick up his book. “Ahem . . . um, Spike, if I may impose?”

Spike sniffed before turning around with a smile. Such a beautiful smile . . . Rarity focused on it, and not the redness that tinged his eyes. “Yes!” Spike cleared his throat, forcing his voice down a few octaves. “Yes, Rarity. How can I help you?”

“Well, Twilight and I have run into a bit of a conundrum. In spite of our combined efforts, we have had little luck finding any gem clusters in the immediate area. Do you have any ideas as to where we should look?” Spike put a claw to his chin.

“Not really,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Did you have Twilight try the spell? She has enough magic to find stuff that’s further away.”

From behind her facehoof, Twilight moaned something about more coffee.