Author's Notes:

Gore tag added, just in case.

What can I say about the rock farm? Well, whatever comes to my mind is rather obvious. It’s a rock farm. There are rocks here. Rocks, some more rocks, even more rocks and guess what? Rocks! There’s also an old, abandoned mine nearby. Few years ago there was a miners’ settlement here, but then something happened. According to Trixie, who was told that legend by a rock farmer’s daughter, a vengeful ghost came to them, killed a few and scared the shit out of the rest.

Hmm, if we weren’t being chased by mafia, maybe we’d investigate into that. I mean, we have a wagon, there’s a brainy chick – me – in the party, Vinyl’s a lanky stoner, Trixie is the sexy one... We only need a sexy blonde dude and a talking dog, and we can ride along all of Equestria, solving mysteries. At the end of the day there’s always a pony behind all of the ghost stories.

Well, maybe in different circumstances. But now, the abandoned mine is the best place to hide the money, as well as the briefcase with cocaine (Vinyl strongly opposed to my plan to simply dump it in the middle of the desert).

“We’ll come back here when everything calms down,” Vinyl says when we finish putting the bags in the darkest corner of the mine, next to the skeleton of some prehistoric monster. It looks weird: it has only two legs and hands like a minotaur. The remains of something resembling a gas mask are still on its skull; its fingers are clenched on a metal pipe (a barrel, maybe?), almost completely eaten by rust. When I touch it, it falls apart, revealing something on the creature’s finger.

A golden ring with a large ruby. In the middle of the gem, there’s a silver sickle, crossed with a hammer. What the hell is that? Some kind of a symbol?

Hmm, that calls for Daring Do. Or Lyra Heartstrings – a lunatic, even by Ponyville’s rather low standards. I take the ring with me – if I ever meet her again, I’m gonna show it to her.

We finish hiding our money (we took some bits with us, just enough to carry comfortably in our saddlebags) and go out of the cave to our wagon. We don’t use magic to propel it forward anymore. Instead, we pull it, switching places every few miles. Now it’s my turn, but since the wagon is a bit lighter now, it’s easier for me to pull.

“So, how’s the rock farm, Trixie?” I ask. “The owner won’t have anything against the fact that we’re being chased?”

“Trixie doesn’t think so,” she replies. “They barely hear any news. You know, there’s just the farmer, his wife and their three daughters there. One of them is weird.”

“Sounds like an ideal companion for us,” Vinyl says.

There’s more and more rocks around. I start to wonder why I didn’t work here yet. From what Trixie told us, it’s a quite well-paid job. Of course it’s hard, but unicorns are more than welcome here: they can use a pickaxe with their hooves first, and then, when they’re completely exhausted, they can work for some time with their magic.

I think it’s called ‘exploitation’.

Finally, we see a silhouette of a pony in the distance. When we come closer we see that it’s a grey mare with a violet mane. She’s staring at the ground, as if she was looking for something.

“Hello, Maud,” Trixie says. The grey mare raises her eyes on us. Her expression is dull, seemingly uninterested.

“Ah, it’s you. Welcome,” she says and goes back to her searching.

Now I understand what Trixie meant. Maud doesn’t look like somepony who’d tell Bacio della Morte about us. I wonder if she’d even notice him.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“I’m playing ‘camouflage’ with Boulder. I swear, he gets better at it every day.”

“Well, we played that game with Trixie recently, but it didn’t end well…” Vinyl says, smiling as Trixie gives her a nasty look.

“Cool,” Maud says and goes back to searching through the pile of pebbles.

I need to get to know her more. After spending just two days with Trixie and Vinyl, whose preferred method of communication is yelling at each other, her calm demeanor is something I’m desperately craving. Also, I caught a glimpse of hard muscles underneath her dress.

Did I mention that I still didn’t have an occasion to, umm… relieve stress? We slept in a wagon and Trixie is a very light sleeper. I’m not very noisy, you know – I used to live with my mother and our house has rather thin walls, so I grew up to become an orgasm-ninja – but still it’d be awkward if Trixie caught me.

“Oh, here he is,” Maud says. She picks a small pebble from the ground. “Boulder, say hello to Trixie and her friends…”

“Hello, Boulder!” Vinyl says, waving her hoof at the pebble. “I’m Vinyl. How are you feeling?”

“He doesn’t feel. He’s a rock,” Maud says. Vinyl looks at her, unsure if she’s joking.

“And I’m Minuette,” I say, trying to be as calm as Maud.

She looks into my eyes. It’s oddly chilling. I mean, over the last 48 hours I broke into a safe, beat the mobster with a briefcase full of coke, his friends tried to shoot me, I got drunk and spent a night on Trixie’s flank, but I can barely withhold that look.

“You’re looking for a job?” she asks.

“Sure,” I reply.

“Good. We can always use somepony with strong hooves.”

Vinyl smirks sheepishly. She probably forgot that as I’m pulling the wagon, I can easily buck her in the face.

“Just go to our home and talk to my father,” Maud says. She then walks to a nearby rock and kicks it. It immediately shatters into pieces. “I need to stay here for a while.”

Wait. Did she just pulverize the rock with her bare hooves? What do they eat here? Steroids? I stop thinking about it when Vinyl hits me with a whip. She has it going: when it’s her turn to pull the wagon, I’m gonna change her life into hell. Maybe she’ll even start calling me ‘Mistress’.

“So, that was the weird one?” Vinyl asks when we’re out of the earshot.

“Maud? No,” Trixie replies. “Maud is okay.”

Hmm, a pony who plays hide-and-seek with a rock and probably is able to crush a coconut with her buttocks is not weird? Well, how are her sisters like, then? We’re about to find out.

Or maybe not about – first we meet the parents. When we get to the house and knock on the door, we’re greeted by a grumpy light-brown stallion with grayish mane. He invites us in and ushers us to the kitchen.

“New workers, huh?” he asks. “Quartz, come here!”

“Yes, Igneous?” a grey mare asks, entering the room. She looks at us conspicuously. I’m actually not surprised. We’re sweaty, tired, and generally we look like a bunch of mares who ran away from prison. Except of Vinyl – with her sunglasses she looks like she ran away from the looney bin.

Quartz suddenly pokes Vinyl’s flank. Vinyl jumps back and looks at her unsurely.

“Skin and bones,” she says. “I don’t know if she’ll manage.”

“Granny, you should see me when I’m high…” Vinyl replies, cracking the wide, uncanny smile. Quartz is unfazed. Her expression kinda resembles her daughter.

I notice a pair of eyes in the dark corridor behind the door of the kitchen. A grey filly – or rather a young mare – is observing us carefully. I guess it’s another of Igneous’ daughters. I wonder if it’s the weird one? Igneous notices her.

“Come here, Inkie,” he says.

In comparison to Inkie, Maud can be considered colourful. Her coat is grey, her mane is of a bit different shade of the same colour. Her cutie mark is a rock, split in half. Maybe crushing boulders with bare hooves runs in the family.

A slap in the flank brings me back to reality. I turn around to see Quartz.

“Skinny, but muscular,” she says with a smile.

Well, fuck you too, old hag. Touch me one more time, granny, and you’ll wake up tied to a bed, with a shotgun shoved up your flank. I know it’s kinda overreaction, but there’s something each of my ex-coltfriends learned sooner or later.

I hate being touched. My personal space is probably twice as big as any other pony’s. When I initiate contact, it’s okay, but stand too close to me, and I may get nasty.

“What’s your name?” Quartz asks me.

“Minuette,” I reply automatically. I notice that Inkie is looking at me, interested.

“Okay, Minette, Beatrix and you will start gathering rocks from the North Field tomorrow, and this poor, blind girl will sort them…”

“Minuette. With ‘u’,” I correct her. I’m quite attached to the ‘u’ in my name. When I was younger, I didn’t mind being called ‘Minette’, but then I learned that it’s a Prench word for, as Vinyl would probably call it, carpet munching. I thank Celestia that kids in school preferred to call me “Colgate”.

Too bad, Quartz didn’t seem to listen to me. She looks at Trixie, considering checking her muscles, but then she remembers that she used to work for them.

“How can I sort rocks when I’m blind?” Vinyl asks suddenly.

“By touch,” Igneous says. “It’s easier than to rely on eyes.”

“Vinyl,” I whisper theatrically, “you’re not blind…”

“What? Oh, yeah…” Vinyl slams her hoof against her forehead. “I’m not blind, actually. I wear sunglasses because… because…”

“You’re an asshole,” I prompt her. She gives me a nasty look. Apparently, she’s not that dumb.

“So, you know what to do,” Igneous says, breaking the awkward silence. “Now, you can wash yourselves and join us to eat supper. Inkie, show our guests the bathroom and find Blinkie and Maud.”

Inkie nods and we walk out of the kitchen. Inkie leads us to another part of the farmhouse. In fact, it’s a basement drilled in the rock. Or maybe it’s a cave? Nevermind. There’s an underground creek there – the water in it is hot and smells a bit of sulfur. Geothermal energy or something, I guess. There’s something here that looks like a big bath or a small swimming pool. Water from the creek flows to it through the copper pipes.

Well, on the outside they look like an ordinary family of farmers, but inside they have a small spa. I’m starting to like this place. I turn to Inkie to tell her that, but before I do, she speaks first.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

Tricky question. I’d rather not tell her about everything. Bacio della Morte knows that Vinyl’s from Ponyville, and he’ll probably try to look for ponies from there. On the other hoof, Maud saw where we came from.

“We’re from Las Pegasus,” I say finally.

“Oh… Mom says that it’s the city of sin…”

Quartz, while I hate you with the intensity of a thousand Suns, I just can’t disagree with you.

“She says that ponies there never work, they only drink alcohol and do drugs…” Blinkie continues.

Still with Quartz on that one. Exhibit A, Vinyl Scratch, just jumped into the swimming pool, spraying water on Trixie.

“And she once said,” Inkie lowers her voice to a whisper, “that mares there have sex with other mares!”

Okay, another reason for me to hate Quartz. While I’m not a lesbian myself, I have nothing against them as long as they don’t fuck in front of me. Though I must admit that sometimes I like to take a look.

“I want to go there one day,” Inkie says innocently.

What? I look at her unsurely. “Don’t go there,” I say. “You wouldn’t survive a day there. That town will eat you, digest you and–” I’m not sure if I should continue that metaphor down the digestive tract. I curse too much, all my friends are pot-mouths, and Inkie is the only pony I talked to recently who prefers saying “have sex” over “fuck”. One look at her face convinces me that she wouldn’t get the message even if I continued.

“I don’t think it’d be that bad,” she says, blushing. “Okay, I have to find Maud and Blinkie. See you!”

She leaves the bathroom. I sigh heavily and join Trixie and Vinyl in the swimming pool.

“Before you ask,” Trixie says. “She’s the weird one.”

“I noticed. I think she just want to break free…” I reply.

With a loud splash, Vinyl emerges from underwater. I see that she actually took off her glasses before diving.

“I think she wants the D,” she says, flapping her mane.

“Vinyl, according to you, half of the world wants the D…” I reply.

“Trixie thinks the world would be a better place if they got one,” Trixie says. Et tu, Beatrix, contra me?

“I think she’s in the closet. Close to the door, but still…” I say.

“Just like you, except you’re so deep inside, that you can almost see Marenia,” Vinyl says.

I splash water at her. “I’m straight!” I shout.

“Trixie isn’t sure. From all the places to sleep in my wagon you chose Trixie’s flank.”

“I was drunk and tired, okay? Also, the only alternatives were bags with bits and Vinyl.” I sigh. “Can we change the topic? What do you think about the rest of the family? For me they’re like one of those families who live in remote areas and eat ponies...”

You know, I used to be a reporter for some Manehattan tabloid. I was writing cool articles about ponies eating their own foals, wives beating their husbands, assistants trying to kill their bosses with poisoned coffee… Such stuff. When you deal with such things every day, you get a bit paranoid.

Well, my paranoia actually saved my life. It told me to kick that weird, old stallion in the family jewels and run away before he and his friends had a chance to make a Currywurst of me. Such things change ponies. The next day I resigned from that job.

“They’re cool guys,” Vinyl says. “I bet the mommy was hot when she was younger… And the daughters…” She licks her lips and takes another dive.

“Trixie doesn’t think they eat ponies. Trixie would notice that last time she was here. Also, Quartz is really nice when you get to know her better…”

“Yeah…” I mutter. “She’s the only pony, except maybe your parents, who call you ‘Beatrix’. And I’m afraid I’m gonna be ‘Minette’ forever…”

“Trixie’s parents never called her ‘Beatrix’,” Trixie says. Suddenly I see that her face is wet, and it’s not the water. “For a while, Trixie thought her name was ‘worthless little shit’...”

As I said many times before, I’m not a lesbian, but now I can’t help but hug Trixie; let her face sink in my coat.

Too bad, it’s also a moment when Vinyl emerges from underwater.

“Wooohooo!” she cooes. “Straight, huh? Straight like my pubes, I’d say…”

“Vinyl,” I spit that name with disdain, still holding Trixie in my hooves. “Go and fuck yourself with the largest pickaxe you can find here. Bonus points if you manage to shove it up your cunt head first.”

“Kinky…” Vinyl says. I want to drown her and make it looked like an accident. Unfortunately, I already washed myself and from what I know about dying ponies, they have a nasty habit of soiling themselves.

Trixie is still sobbing when we dry ourselves with towels. Vinyl is totally oblivious to that, as well as the fact that I’m currently glaring daggers at her. We walk out of the basement and go to the dining room, where the rest of the family awaits us.

Maud just looks at us with her usual, indifferent expression. Unlike her, Inkie is eyeing us as if we were aliens. The third sister, Blinkie, is too busy talking to her mother to notice us. She’s a bit older than Inkie; her coat is violet, more or less like Maud’s mane. And guess what colour her hair is? Yes, you’re right. Grey. I think it’s a matter of evolution. In the place where everything is either grey, greyish, black, dust-coloured, colourful ponies were probably quickly eaten by enormous eagles or whatever haunts this part of Equestria. Grey ponies could camouflage better, so they survived, had foals, who later had foals and so on.

Now I wonder if those eagles are still here. My blue coat isn’t exactly stealthy, same with Trixie, but Vinyl definitely takes the cake. In such environment, her snow-white fur is distinctive like a baboon’s arse. If something here eats ponies, she’d be the first to die.

Awesome.

I wonder what’s for supper. We’re on the rock farm, so… Hmm, do they eat rocks? I hope not. I once ate a rock, when I was completely out of cash and I was too proud to ask my mother for help. It’s amazing what you can eat with mustard. Too bad, ten visits in the toilet later I learned that it’s really hard to digest a rock.

Inkie and Blinkie bring food from the kitchen. Good news: it’s not made of rocks, nor it is made of ponies. The daffodil casserole with cheese and button mushrooms looks normal. First bite convinces me that it’s also pretty tasty. It’s also the first proper meal I have since I went to Las Pegasus. I barely talk myself out of devouring it in one bite. Vinyl doesn’t have such problems – she eats her portion quickly and looks lustfully at Trixie’s plate.

Trixie eats slowly, still lost in her thoughts. I guess we’ll need to talk about that later, without Vinyl around. If she wants to talk, of course. Generally, I don’t like dealing with other ponies’ shit, but it was me who started talking about her parents, so I have to fix this. My mother would be proud of me.

“So, Minette, why did you decide to come here?” Quartz asks me. Apparently the family decided to ignore Vinyl and they already know Trixie, so I’m the only interesting pony to talk to.

Just. Fucking. Great.

“You know, I used to buck apples and I kinda got into farming. Then I heard about this place and decided to try something new…” I reply, smiling sheepishly. I guess she’ll think that I’m either sarcastic or retarded. A quick look at her face tells me that she chose the latter.

“So, you’re from Ponyville, right?” Blinkie asks. It’s the first time I hear her speak; it’s doesn’t sound like Inkie’s excited voice, but it’s far from Maud’s monotone too. “Pinkie told me that her friend owns an apple orchard there…”

You little, motherfucking, rock-farming Sherclop Holmes! I can see Inkie looking at me reproachfully. Also, what does Pinkie have to do with them?

“Actually, I wander from place to place, looking for a job,” I say. “I’m like that swagmare who camped by the billabong…”

You guessed right – my father was from Oatstralia.

“That explains many things,” Maud says. “I think I remember you from Ponyville…”

I look at her unsurely. Now, when I think about it, I remember that I saw her with Pinkie Pie once. Later, Lyra told me that they were sisters. I could hardly believe that. Now I feel that Vinyl was totally right. Quartz definitely was hot when she was younger, and judging by how different Pinkie looks from her sisters, she probably had a one-night stand with somepony. Maybe a Discord statue?

I’m trying to get rid of the mental image from my head. For a moment I fix my eyes on Inkie and I see that she’s looking at me, blushing slightly. She probably saw my confusion and tries to contain laughter.

“I’m tired,” I say. “I think I’m gonna go to sleep. You know, we have to get up early, right?” I poke Vinyl in the rib.

“Yes, right!” Vinyl says. “Rock sorting and stuff…”

We go upstairs. There are a few guest rooms there, probably mostly used by seasonal workers.

“Do we really have to work?” Vinyl asks when Inkie leaves us alone. “We have money…”

“Vinyl, you have the best job, so shut up,” I reply. “We need to lay low for a few weeks.”

“Trixie thinks it’d be good for you to work,” Trixie says. Her voice almost matches Maud’s.

“Yeah, you came from the city of sin where mares have sex with other mares.” I laugh. Vinyl shoots me a nasty glare and tells something about me having a romantic relationship with my mother.

“Yeah, I love you too, Vinyl,” I reply. “Goodnight.”

She leaves my room, telling nothing. I shrug and turn to Trixie.

“If you want to talk about, umm…” You see, I’m not the best in such talk. Actually, I’m not very extrovert, and I suck when it comes to cheering ponies up.

“Trixie is okay,” Trixie says, her voice cracking. “Trixie doesn’t need to talk about her parents. She overcame her issues and is now a happy pony…”

“Well, maybe Trixie’s happy.” I reply, sitting on the bed. “But I’m not sure about Beatrix…”

“I’m fine,” Trixie says. “Really. You don’t have to worry about that. Goodnight, Minuette.”

See? When I’m trying to help, no one wants it. But when I’m busy, everyone behaves as if I had ‘tell me about your problems’ written on the forehead. Well, I guess she’ll come to me when she’s ready.

“Goodnight.” I lie on the bed. It’s much more comfortable than the cold floor of Trixie’s wagon and soon I fall asleep.

I wake up from a quite pleasant dream. For a moment I look around, hoping in vain that the apple orchard and Big Macintosh weren’t only products of my subconsciousness. Too bad, I’m still in the house in the middle of nowhere, hundred of miles from Big Macintosh. Or any-good looking stallion in general.

The thought about that reminds of something I should have done long time ago in order to maintain the sorry remains of my sanity. Trying to focus on the image of Big Mac, I stretch my hooves and spread my hind legs. Too bad, I can’t see any hoof lotion or anything similar in sight. Well, not the first time I’ll have to go without it, and probably not the last. My hoof is about to go south for an adventure, when I notice something big and grey, sitting on my windowsill.

I give out a muffled scream, hiding under the blanket as if it could help me.

“Hello there,” the pony says in a nice-sounding, female voice.

“Inkie?” I ask. I’m trying not to yell at her, but it’s kinda hard. “What the f– flying feather are you doing here?”

“I like watching you sleep,” she states simply. Yeah… totally not creepy at all. I’m at the verge of freaking out. Not only because, according to my ex, when I eat too much before going to sleep, I tend to have a really bad gas. And not only because I just almost gave her a one-mare show.

“Why are you watching me sleep?” Just when I say that, I realize that it’s a dumb question. It’s like asking a clubhoofed, one-eyed pony wearing a black trench coat, who somehow can walk faster than you run, why he is waving a knife in that dark empty street. Too bad I have nowhere to run away. Before I went to sleep I locked the door to avoid Vinyl bursting in and waking me up to ask where the toilet is.

“I don’t know,” she replies. She jumps off the windowsill and sits on my bed. Hey, girl, not so close! “I just walked by and saw how peacefully you sleep…”

Walked by, my ass. My room is on the upper floor. She had to climb up a rachitic tree behind it to get here. Also, everyone would sleep peacefully if they had a dream about Big Macintosh shagging them senseless in the shadow of an apple tree.

“So… do you want anything in particular?” I ask. “You know, I have to get up early and...” I don’t know what to say. Sorry, honey, but you interrupted my date with my hooves?

“Don’t worry, I won’t take much time,” Inkie says. “I just… umm… I wanted to ask about…” She blushes heavily. “About you and Trixie…”

Oh, Luna have mercy on me! Is that some kind of revenge for making you watch me dream?

“Trixie and I are not dating or having intimate relationships,” I say. “We’re both into–”

“Oh, so you’re free?” She smiles and I feel her hoof on my shoulder. Oh fu– Or, actually, don’t fuck me. Life fucks me enough.

“I am, but sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not into mares…” I shake her hoof off.

“No?” She looks kinda cute when she looks at me like that. “But mom says that all the mares in Las Pegasus–”

“I know what she says,” I reply, shaking my head. “I guess she tells that they’ll all end up in Tartarus?”

Inkie nods. I sigh – really I should write ‘tell me about your problems’ on my forehead. It’d save me a lot of effort.

“I just have… you know… dreams,” Inkie says. “I’m not sure… I feel ashamed, but… I’d like to try it with a mare… And I thought...”

Well, what can I tell her? I have dreams too. And even though I’m straight, I sometimes dream about other mares. Hell, it got really disturbing when I was helping the Apple family. During time spent there, I had at least one rather suggestive dream starring each of the Apples. Including Apple Bloom and Granny Smith. Eww.

I tell her that (except that part about the Apples). I tell her that there’s nothing wrong in liking other mares. I wanted to tell her that, for example, Vinyl loves both mares and stallions equally, but I don’t think Vinyl’s a good role model. Hmm, actually I don’t think Vinyl limits herself to ponies… Nevermind. The more you know… and so on. I tell her that I’m not gonna have sex with her just because she wants to check something. Fucking fillies, especially sheltered fillies with issues isn’t my thing.

“How about Vinyl?” she asks. “Maybe she could…”

I gave her that kind of look that always makes other ponies shut up. Oh, poor, naive girl. Of course, Vinyl would have sex with you. Maybe she’d fall in love with you. She’d even let you pee in her mouth, if that’s what floats your boat. But then she’d get bored of you and leave you, just like she left my brother or Bacio della Morte. Well, maybe leaving you wouldn’t have so dire consequences for her and me, but it’d definitely leave you scarred for life.

“If your only motivation to have sex is to check something, then don’t do that,” I say. “It’s more about love, you know…”

Whom am I kidding? As if what happened between Caramel and I in the kitchen of the Sugarcube Corner had something to do with love. When I think about that, I realise that Inkie is actually the second Pie sister who wants to have sex with me. Way to go, Minuette, way to go. If it continue like that, soon you’ll screw the whole family, including momma Pie.

Of course, I don’t tell any of these things to Inkie. I have to promote the morally correct attitudes, right?

“Yes…” she says, nodding her head. She seems a bit embarrassed – like she’s afraid of her own audacity. “I think you’re right… I must go. Goodnight, Minuette.”

She leaves the room the same way she entered it – through the window. I close it behind her and lie down in bed.

I can’t fall asleep. Too many thoughts crowd in my head. Inkie, Trixie, Bacio della Morte… I get up and go to the toilet. Seriously, there’s no better place to think. All the greatest inventions in the history of ponykind were probably made when their authors were sacrificing to the porcelain god. Hell, I bet that when Celestia first thought “Hmm, I wonder if I can move the Sun with my magic” she was sitting on the other kind of throne…

Well, I’m not in the mood to make any great inventions. Just after I lock the door, the image of Big Macintosh appears in my mind.

Fifteen minutes later I walk out of the toilet much happier than before. Nothing fazes me; not even my sore hooves. I know that Trixie’s parents still were jerks to her when she was a foal, Inkie still has a problem with her sexuality and somewhere in Las Pegasus there’s still a motherfucker who wants us dead, but now I don’t care. Well, I do care, but less than before. You know, my mother always keeps telling me that I care too much about other ponies. You wouldn’t tell that about me, would you?

Yeah, deep inside that failure of a mare there’s a caring pony. But even deeper there’s a total jerkass.

Shit, I’m getting moody again. Maybe it’s time for a second round? I lock the door and check if Inkie’s around before jumping into the bed. What happens later doesn’t need any poetic metaphors, lengthy descriptions and such stuff – I simply clopped myself to sleep.

Remember when I told you about applebucking? Well, let’s say that working on the rock farm is nothing like it. No shadow, no gentle breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, no Big Macintosh, just rocks and Maud who checks on us from time to time.

Trixie looks much better than yesterday. She probably slept as well as me, because she got really talkative – which, actually, pisses me off to no end.

“And then Trixie told them ‘Trixie bets you can’t do that!’. Then Trixie started to conjure the spell… It’s quite hard, it requires lots of concentration but Trixie can really focus…”

“Can Trixie now focus on her pickaxe?” I ask innocently. “Minuette doesn’t want to have an additional hole in her body.”

“Sorry,” Trixie says and levitates the pickaxe a bit further from me. “Did Trixie tell you how she’d defeated Ursa Major?”

I sigh and roll my eyes, then I hit my pickaxe against the rock, imagining that it’s Trixie’s skull. “Listen, I saw how you deal with Ursas… I’m from Ponyville, remember?”

“Oh, right…” she droops her head. Not for long. “But Trixie also defeated a narcissistic vampire!”

“What vampire?” I almost hit my hoof with the pickaxe. “Do narcissistic vampires even exist? I know about vampire fruit bats, blood-sucking vampires, lesbian vampires and emotional vampires, but I’ve never heard of narcissistic ones...”

“Yeah, because Trixie defeated him,” she says proudly. At least she stopped waving her pickaxe in front of my face.

“And how did you do that?” I ask. I kinda prefer to listen to her crazy stories instead of picking rocks. After all, we’re doing it, as Vinyl put it, for camouflage.

“Trixie took a photo of him and gave it to him,” she replies. “When he was busy contemplating it, Trixie levitated the stake…”

“I’m sorry, but I can hardly imagine Trixie stabbing somepony in the back. Even a vampire…” I interrupt her. One of the rocks reminds me of my ex, so now I’m smashing it to pieces.

“Trixie was just before heat…” she says, blushing a bit. “She also had to travel ten miles by hoof just to get there, it was raining and there were no vacancies in the hotel…”

Note to self: never piss Trixie off. And pray to Celestia that this whole crazy adventure ends before our heats synchronize. That’d be the end of Equestria as we know it.

For a moment we work in silence, the only sound being ringing of our pickaxes against the rocks. After a while, Maud comes with a cart to gather our yield. I’m surprised how easy is for her to load the cart and pull it.

“How are you doing?” she asks.

“Not bad,” I reply. “It’s quite easy once you get started…”

“Good,” she replies. I’m sure that she’d say “good” even if we told her that we’re dying of exhaustion. Or if she found us dead, with pickaxe-shaped holes in our bodies.

“Is she always like that?” I ask Trixie when Maud leaves.

“Well, Trixie once saw her drunk. You know, there’s a small town nearby, we went to a pub on weekend…”

“I can hardly imagine that. Does she get more, umm… emotional?” I ask.

“No, she’s still like that, but she starts to recite her poetry and beat ponies who dare to not like it…” Trixie says. From the look of her face I can easily guess who was unreasonable enough to question Maud’s writing skills.

“So she gets emotional… In her own way,” I conclude.

“Yeah… It was first time Trixie managed to conjure a shield while drunk…” Trixie replies, pain in her voice. “By the way, did Trixie tell you how she defeated a dragon?”

“Yes. Twice.”

“Oh…” To cover embarrassment, Trixie starts to dig the rocks faster. “How about you? Did you defeat something?”

“Yes. Unemployment, hunger, and unbridled lust. Each of these victories was pyrrhic and temporary.”

“You aren’t a very happy pony, Minuette…”

Trixie, Trixie, Trixie… I kinda like you – or at least I hate you less than Vinyl. I can stare at your flank in a completely non-sexual way for hours, but say something like that one more time and you’ll find the joys of having a pickaxe in your frontal lobe.

“Yes, I am… So what?” I ask. “I have the right to be unhappy… Even when I have money, I have to pick rocks…” I kick a pebble and it hits Trixie’s leg. “I have no normal job, my landlord is a psychopath, and my mother just loves to remind me how much I disappoint her...”

“That’s still better than Trixie’s mother!” She yells at me. I know I just wandered into a dangerous territory, but I just can’t stop.

“Did your mother keep comparing you to your siblings?” I ask. We’re now close to each other; our noses are almost touching.

“Did your mother chained you to the wall for a month?” Her shout echoes through the farm. One look at her confirms my worst fear: I pushed her too far.

Oh Celestia, what the fuck have you done, Minuette? In a few seconds she’ll either burst into tears or smash my head with a rock. Worse: she’ll beat me with a rock till the sorry remains of my stupid brain will flow through my ears. And the worst of it all will be that she’ll be totally right.

I’m surprised that she didn’t start yet. Instead she stands in front of me, breathing heavily while I cower in fear.

“T-trixie…” I mutter.

“Fuck you!” she spits with disdain. Then she turns around and begins to hit her pickaxe against the rocks furiously. I’m sure I know whose face she imagines when she does that.

Great job, Minuette. Fucking great job. To call you a dumb mule would be an offence for mules. There was one pony in the world, except your mother and brother, who cared about you enough to ask you if you were okay when you were down. Who was about to honestly talk with you about the reasons why you are unhappy, when you basically took her care, threw it on the ground and shit on it. No wonder why everypony hates you.

The handle of the pickaxe breaks in Trixie’s hooves. She throws it on the ground, then she collapses next to it, panting. I walk to her. I want to help her up, but she turns back from me.

“Listen, Trixie… I really didn’t mean to…”

“Get out!” she yells.

“Trixie, I’m really sorry…” I say, my voice quivering and cracking. “I’m a complete and total ass who should shut up and think before saying anything...”

Trixie grumbles something as a reply. I’m not sure, but maybe she wants me to continue.

“Listen, I’m an anti-social imbecile, okay? But I’m trying to change, for fuck’s sake! Can we… just… forget about it? Move on?”

Who am I kidding? She’ll never forget. Even if she says she does, she’ll always hold a grudge. She’ll just wait for an occasion to shove it down my throat and watch me choke.

“Minuette,” Trixie says, getting up slowly. “Shut up. We can work together, we can travel together, but just shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

I only nod. On one hoof I’m still worried about the issues between us, but on the other, I can’t help but hope that our silence will be mutual.

We work like that for about half of an hour, when Maud comes again and tells us that the dinner is ready. We follow her to the small gazebo where Vinyl and Blinkie wait for us. Unlike Trixie and I, Vinyl isn’t sweaty or dirty. She eats vegetable stew and chats happily with the Pie sisters.

“Hello, girls!” she says, waving her hoof at us. “How are you? I’m so tired…”

Trixie gives me The Look. From what I know about such looks it says “Trixie still hopes that you’ll die of anal cancer, but at least you’re not Vinyl Scratch.”

“What’s up?” Vinyl asks, when we sit by the table in silence. “Why so serious, girls?”

“Eat your stew, Vinyl,” I say. “Didn’t your mom tell you that you should eat to grow bigger?”

“Lovers’ argument?” Blinkie gives out a contemptful chuckle. Even Maud looks at her with disdain – or at least I think it’s disdain, it’s hard to tell. No wonder why Inkie prefers to stay in the closet.

“Lovers? With her?” Trixie shakes her head. “How? Even changelings would starve in her company…”

“That does sound like a lovers’ argument,” Vinyl says and starts to laugh. “And I thought I’m the only gay pony here…”

I notice that Blinkie keeps a safe distance from her. I think I know which of the sisters is mom’s favourite. I think she has nothing to be afraid of. I have a theory that Vinyl has a calendar with words like “gay”, “straight”, “bi”, “only non-ponies” or “today I’m gonna fuck a cactus” written under each day. Basically, she loves everypony equally.

I decide not to say anything during the dinner. Trixie is also unusually quiet; we only listen to Vinyl who brags how hard rock sorting is. Blinkie and Maud exchange condescending looks. I guess they both do that for the whole life, so listening to the noobs amuses them.

We finish the dinner and go back to our workplace. Seriously, I can’t look at these rocks anymore. Where do those ponies sell them? There’s not enough towns in Equestria to use all of them.

Trixie probably feels the same. She looks around. There’s a large chunk of solid rock in front of us and there’s no way to move it, especially now, when Trixie destroyed her pickaxe. We look at the boulder – it’s a huge thing, almost like a small mountain. I look at Trixie, unsure whether I can tell something. She gives me a look usually reserved for a piece of dog’s shit in the middle of the very expensive carpet.

“Trixie has an idea. Be right back,” she says and trots away. I sit on the large stone, hiding my face in my hooves. I think all my dreams tonight will be about rocks. Not a big change in comparison to the last night when I dreamed about co–

Okay, nevermind, Trixie comes back, carrying a large bag and a clew of wire on her back. She then puts the bag on the ground and takes something that looks like plasticine from it. She looks at the big rock in front of us and mutters something under her breath. Some calculations maybe? She takes my pickaxe and starts to make holes in the base of the rock.

“Wait,” I say looking at the plasticine-like substance. “Is that–”

“C4, yes,” Trixie replies absent-mindedly. “Trixie uses it in her fireworks. It’s better than gunpowder.”

“How the hell did you get it?” I take a step back. If everything blows up it won’t help much but at least I try to save myself.

“Trixie has her secrets,” she replies. Secrets, my ass. The Royal Guards somewhere should have the hot oil poured on their balls for letting a mentally unstable mare who knows a camouflage spell steal a bag of C4 from their magazine.

I shiver. She has a bag full of fucking C4 in her wagon. Recently, della Morte’s guys were shooting at it. It’s a fucking miracle that it didn’t blow up to bloody little pieces. We’d be sprayed all over the street. The forensic guys would have a hard time trying to put us together and eventually I’d wake up in the afterlife with Trixie’s leg and Vinyl’s cunt. Ugh.

“Don’t worry, C4 doesn’t explode when shot,” Trixie says. Either she can read my mind or I make a really weird expression when I’m scared out of my mind. “Those two bags of gunpowder could, however, blow up.”

Shit. She has enough explosives to send a school full of foals straight to Tartarus. Celestia, give me strength… Meanwhile, Trixie puts C4 into the holes. She also connects them with a wire.

“You’d better hide with me,” she says. “It’d be hard to explain to the Pies if you suddenly disappeared.”

Yeah, thanks for caring. We hide behind a rock, as far from the one we want to blow up as possible. Trixie touches the wire with her horn and sends a spark of her magic through it. I cover my ears with my hooves.

It doesn’t help much. The explosion almost shatters my eardrums. What’s more, some piece of debris almost hits my head. I turn to look at it.

“What the fuck?” I ask nopony in particular.

Next to me lies a bit scorched sniper rifle. The sights are damaged, but it looks quite new. Shiny metal, wooden stock, ten rounds magazine… I want to take it to my workshop, clean it, replace the damaged parts and find it some new home where somepony would care about it just as much as I do.

Trixie looks around and suddenly she gasps. I follow her gaze and I see a zebra stallion lying on the ground about twenty feet from us.

“H-he was on that rock…” Trixie stammers. “T-trixie killed him…”

“I think he might be alive…” I say. “It only threw him, like, fifty feet into the air…”

Suddenly a large boulder, thrown into the air by the explosion, falls from the sky. With a loud thud and a wet splash it lands on the zebra. I can see Trixie’s face suddenly becoming very, very pale. Well, actually I’m about to faint or vomit too, but I’m trying my best to not do that. The dinner was too good to just let it go like that.

After making sure that there are no more flying rocks around I walk out from behind our cover and look at the effects of Trixie’s playing with fire. I can see striped hind legs protruding from under the rock. If it was a book, the yellow brick road would soon appear here, leading us to the city made of emeralds where Trixie would meet another guy referring to himself as “The Great and Powerful”. Hmm, maybe he would even give Vinyl a brain.

Too bad it’s not a book and all we have here is a zebra who just became a really flat character.

“W-what will we do now?” Trixie asks. We? It’s amazing how a dead zebra can bring two ponies together.

“Well, he had a sniper rifle, so I guess he was one of Vinyl’s friend…” I say. “I’ll go there and ask her if she knows him.”

“And what am I… is Trixie supposed to do?” She asks. Well, judging by her expression she’ll either pass out or throw up soon. Hopefully not both. One dead zebra is enough of a problem – I don’t want Trixie to make another corpse by choking on her own vomit.

“Stay here and check if he doesn’t come to life. I don’t want him to stalk us saying that he knows what we did last summer,” I reply. Then I walk to the storehouse where Vinyl sorts rocks.

When I enter, I’m greeted with Blinkie’s cold gaze. It basically says “what are you doing here? Go, crawl in some hole and die”. I wonder if she’s really homophobic, or she just hates everypony equally.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“I need to talk to Vinyl for a moment,” I reply. Inside the building I can hear rattling of the rocks and occasional swears.

“Hey, Blinks!” Vinyl yells. “Those green ones should go with the blue ones or did I screw something up again?”

Blinkie facehoofs. Okay, I guess half of her attitude comes from the fact that she has to foalsit Vinyl for the whole day.

“Light blue ones with the green ones, dark blue ones with the red ones!” Blinkie yells back. “Your friend wants to talk with you.”

“Which one?”

Blinkie looks at me carefully. “The less retarded one!” she shouts back. I guess I should be flattered.

Vinyl comes to us. She casually juggling a few pebbles with her magic.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“We need to talk alone,” I tell her.

She smiles at Blinkie creepily. “Cigarette break,” she says.

“Five minutes. The medical insurance for our workers doesn’t cover lung cancer,” Blinkie deadpans.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” Vinyl replies. Blinkie only sighs.

We walk outside and stand next to the pile of rocks.

“So, what’s going on?” Vinyl asks, lighting a cigarette with her magic.

“I wanted to ask a question about Bacio della Morte’s thugs…” I say. “Do you know if there were any zebras among them?”

“Zebras? Hoo, girl…” She blows the smoke into my face. “Three brothers-assassins. A sniper, an arsonist and a crazy guy with an axe.”

Just great. Just. Fucking. Great. Vinyl inhales the smoke and blows it into my face again. Shouldn’t she rather start to scream in horror? I kinda want to do that.

“Don’t worry,” Vinyl says. “The sniper never kills mares and he doesn’t let his brothers do that either. If Bacio sent them after us, it means that he wants to negotiate.”

The sniper? I remember the rifle that almost landed on my head. Shit.

“What if… hypothetically… something happened to that sniper?” I ask. “What would his brothers do?”

“Oh, they’d probably rape, burn and kill everyone and everything in ten mile radius. Not necessarily in that order…” Suddenly Vinyl looks at me carefully. “Why are you asking?”

“Umm…” My voice is unnaturally high-pitched. “Let’s say that the sniper had a little accident involving Trixie, C4 and ten tons of motherfucking rock…”

“Rocks have mothers?” Vinyl raises her eyebrows.

“I guess Maud would explain that to you, but that’s not important at the moment. The thing is, there are two zebras here who are going to kill, burn and rape us. Not necessarily in that order. What should we do about that?” I ask.

“Umm… panic?” Vinyl throws a cigarette on the ground and stomps on it. Then she lights up another one. I guess that’s how she expresses panic.

Suddenly we hear a high-pitched scream somewhere in the distance. Vinyl takes a step back, startled.

“Trixie!” I shout. “Stay with Blinkie, I’m gonna save her!”

Running to Trixie I think what will I do to those zebras. I know some cool moves, but they are probably armed. I stop for a moment and levitate a large stone lying next to the path. It’s better than nothing.

“Hello, Minuette,” I hear a familiar, deadpan voice. I turn to see Maud in front of me. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

“What happened?” I ask, feeling that my throat is dry like that skeleton we found in the mine. Maud’s voice is calm so it’s probably nothing important. Though, her voice would probably remain calm even if she announced that the balefire bombs were dropped on Canterlot and Manehattan and we have to evacuate to the stables.

“I was going to check on you and Trixie. Some zebra with an axe tried to attack me. I had to kick him in the testicles,” Maud replies.

“Is he alive?” I ask. Well, even if he is, he probably can now sing in the opera. As a falsetto.

“I think so. He ran away. When you’re done with the rocks, you’ll scrap the remains of that other zebra off of the boulder and dump them in the pit next to the Southern Field. The one where we bury the workers.”

“What?” I have an unpleasant feeling that we’ll also land in the pit soon.

“Accidents happen,” Maud says. “But don’t worry, there were only two in the last seven years.”

Yeah, that’s very reassuring.

“Also, if you want to demolish something, you just have to ask first,” Maud says and walks away, leaving me dumbfounded.

I walk to Trixie. She sits on some stone, rocking back and forth. It’s easy to see why – when Maud was there, she overturned the boulder we’re supposed to clean, exposing the zebra’s insides (which now are his outsides) to the world.

“What’s up?” I ask. She gives me a panicked look, but says nothing. “Vinyl told me a fairy tale about three brothers. One of them was okay and two others should have been thrown at the wall head-first just after being born. Guess which one is here…” I point at the boulder.

“S-so there’s two of them? With axes?” Trixie asks.

“No, not with axes,” I reply. “The other one could be your friend. He likes to play with safety matches.”

“Trixie’s not gonna sleep at night…” she says. Well, I’m not gonna sleep either. I take the zebra’s sniper rifle. Even with a broken scope it increases our firepower.

We spend the rest of the day scrapping the poor zebra’s body off of the boulder. In moments like that I’m really happy that I’m a unicorn. Imagine doing that with hooves… ugh. When we get home, Trixie decides to skip the supper and go upstairs. I want to do that to, but then I see Inkie’s face. Poor girl, spent half of the day cooking for us. Really, I may not look like it, but sometimes I really have a soft heart. I join Vinyl and the family at the table.

“So, how was your first day?” Igneous asks. Maud keeps her poker face, but Blinkie smirks behind her father’s back.

“Cool,” Vinyl replies, her mouth stuffed with food. Quite delicious food, I must admit. The whole family awaits for my answer.

“Yeah, it was okay,” I say. What else can I tell them? I’m tired, I pissed off Trixie and then we made zebra pancakes. “Okay” is kinda a good description. Luckily, they don’t ask me about anything more. We eat supper in silence, only Inkie is still looking at me.

When Vinyl and I walk upstairs, I lead her to my room. Trixie is already there, together with Vinyl’s shotgun and our newest loot – a sniper rifle (I told Trixie not to touch any of the guns. I don’t want her to accidentally shoot herself). I give Vinyl a shotgun and sit next to the window with the rifle.

I hope I’m overreacting. Like, they’re two zebras who just lost a brother. Of course, they’re batshit insane, but it’s night, they don’t know the terrain, and one of them got kicked in the bollocks by a mare who can buck you to the next Friday without even getting sweaty.

Somepony opens the door. Vinyl and I immediately aim our weapons at the incoming danger…

“Oh,” Inkie says. “I just wanted to ask if you want some tea…”

“That’d be great,” I reply, lowering the gun and prompting Vinyl to do the same. When it comes to gun safety Vinyl is only a little better than Trixie, and I don’t want to explain Igneous and Quartz why there’s a bunch of 12 gauge holes in their youngest daughter.

“What are you…?” she asks. Well, that’s a good question. Basically, we’re sitting in a room, armed to the teeth, waiting for two zebras to come and… Hmm, what can they do to us? Sneak into the house and murder the whole family? Burn down the house with us inside?

Just when I’m pondering that, the explosion shatters the glass in the windows. We get down on the floor. Dust and pieces of planks fall on us. Of course! They can also set Trixie’s wagon, full of gunpowder and other explosives, on fire. Is it bad that I hope that they got killed in process?

“Are you okay?” I ask Inkie. I realise that I’m holding her in my hooves and that she’s crying. I get up and grab my sniper rifle. It’s better for those guys if they’re dead…

Well, I’m not the only one who thinks that. Trixie is standing next to the window, completely not caring about the fact that our opponents can be armed. She’s looking at the burning remains of her wagon, her face frozen in an expression of pure hatred.

Remember that time when Tirek destroyed the library in Ponyville? Remember Twilight Sparkle’s reaction? Well, then you can probably understand what’s going on in Trixie’s head now. Her eyes glow white, her horn sends blue sparks around. I can see the silhouettes of zebras hiding somewhere, probably scared shitless by the explosion they accidentally set off.

With a loud snap, Trixie teleports out of the room. Wow. Never thought she could do that. I look out of the window and see her, advancing slowly towards the zebras. The air around her vibrates from the sheer magical energy she’s about to unleash.

One of the brothers decides that it’s enough. He pulls out the gun and shoots at Trixie twice. Holy crap. Have you ever seen a bullet melting in mid-air? Well, I just did. Inkie and Vinyl are hiding behind me, hugging each other closely.

Magic flashes, and for a moment the night is as bright as a day. Two zebras are sent flying into the air, but they don’t fall down. Instead, they hang upside-down in Trixie’s magic grasp.

“You two!” Trixie yells. Her voice is now deeper and echoes through the rock farm. Kinda like Royal Canterlot Voice, but not as deafening. “You had a choice. You could leave us alone and go home… But you just had to keep pestering us!” A lightning tears the sky, because why not? Trixie starts to laugh. “Soon, you will know The Wrath of The Great and Powerful Trixie! For your deeds you shall suffer the Unspeakable and Cruel Punishment! Thou shall be Eviscerated, Drawn, Hung and Quartered! But Trixie will keep thee alive, listening to thy screams, getting drunk with thy suffering! Thou will beg Trixie to let thee die! And then Trixie will look down upon thee and whisper…” She drags them closer to her, smiling at them like somepony who went bonkers and is now going on a murderous rampage. “Fuck. Thee. In. The. Ass.”

The Alicorn Amulet? Bullshit. Deep inside Trixie there’s a worse motherfucker than Tirek, Discord and Nightmare Moon together. Let’s hope she never flips, or we’re seriously fucked. In the ass. Without lube. By Tirek after stealing the princesses’ magic.

Hope? What hope? She already flipped. Bend over, Minuette, this is gonna suck. Since Vinyl and Inkie are shivering on the floor, I guess it’s time for me to save the day. Again. I stand up and run to the window.

“Trixie!” I shout. “Can you stop behaving like a six-year-old whom somepony nicked a candy? Leave them and stop trying to tear the fabric of reality for fuck’s sake!”

“Trixie Can Not!” she yells back at me. It’s getting dangerously close to the Royal Canterlot Voice. If she suddenly sprouts a pair of wings, I’m leaving. “They Dared To Challenge The Great And Powerful Trixie And Now They Must Die!”

“Trixie! Do you really want Twilight Sparkle and company to come here and blast you with that rainbow-whatever-thingy? Do you want to get us banished to the Moon?”

“I second that…” says Vinyl weakly, still holding Inkie in her hooves. “I don’t wanna go to the Moon…”

“SPARKLE SHALL BE NEXT!” Trixie replies. I can’t help but facehoof. “SPARKLE HAS A PALACE AND WINGS, WHILE TRIXIE– Ouch! Fuck!” Trixie’s magic falters, the zebras fall to the ground. They try to get up, but it goes rather slowly.

“Sorry, I had to do this again,” Maud says, looking at Trixie, who lies on the ground holding her stomach with both forelegs. “I hope I didn’t kick you too strong.”

“No…” Trixie whispers. The glow disappeared from her eyes. She looks quite miserable, but it’s not the effect of pain. She’s kinda… ashamed, I think.

“Okay, now you,” I turn to the zebras. Their weapons disappeared; they look at each other unsurely. “Get out of here and stop chasing us or I’ll tell Trixie to send you back to Bacio della Morte in a cardboard box. Really small cardboard box. Understood?”

“Understood,” says one of them. I look into his eyes. I can read in them like a book. Chapter 1: “In Which We Were Supposed to Kill Three Unarmed Mares, but Encountered a Wannabe Supervillain and a Sociopath With a Gun”.

A minute later they both run away from the farm. Vinyl and I walk downstairs. Vinyl still calms Inkie down, which involves lots of hugging and nuzzling. I help Trixie get up.

“What the hell was that?” I ask her.

“Trixie overreacted a bit.”

Overreacted a bit? Oh really? Nightmare Moon overreacted a bit a thousand years ago…

I can see Igneous and Quartz walking to us. They also look like they’re going to overreact a bit. I’m not surprised. The front wall of their house is a bit scorched, the windows are shattered and the powerful wave of arcane energy Trixie had created will probably cause their hens to lay square eggs for at least a month.

“Well, I guess you’re fired…” Maud deadpans.