There was no more snow to clear. Big MacIntosh and the team had shoveled every flake of snow off of the orchard, and when he had gone into town to see if anyone else needed help, he had found winter to be well and truly wrapped up. The organizational expertise of Twilight Sparkle never did cease to amaze. But, Big Mac mused as he put the shovel away in the barn, it did leave him without any way of stopping himself from thinking about Marble. As he wandered into the house and poured himself a mug of hot cider, his thoughts drifted away from the greens and browns of the dawning spring and towards the unchanging grey of the rock farm.

After about half of his cup had disappeared into his gullet, Big Mac noticed Granny Smith sitting down across the table from him. She smiled that wide, denture-filled smile of hers, and he smiled back.

"Y'all done a mighty fine job o' wrappin' up winter this year."

"Eeyup." Big Mac took another swig of his cider. The silence lasted maybe a minute before Granny spoke up again.

"Y'know, I been writing a lot of letters this past winter. Been readin' a lot of 'em, too. Iggy an' Big Mama Q might be different to us, but I sure been learnin' a lot from their way o' lookin' at things."

"Eeyup." It seemed as good a response as any.

"Mostly, I been learnin' myself about this old-fashioned thing called the Choosing Stone."

Big Mac did his best to conceal a shudder as he braced himself for yet another uncomfortable story about Granny's endless quest to rekindle the youthful flame of love.

"Ah, there's no need to get yerself in a tangle, Big Mac. This ain't another O'Seedy story." Apparently he wasn't as good at neutral expressions as he thought. "Anyway, the Pie family's been keepin' guard o' that stone for generations now. Ain't nopony knows its secrets better than the Pies." She leaned in close, and her grin grew even wider. "Now, what with Maud bein' off with her fancy rocktorate, Limey fixin' ta inherit the farm, and Pinkie, being, well, Pinkie..." Granny paused for breath, and Big Mac waited patiently for her to get back on track. "They been thinkin' about lettin' little Marble at the stone, see if it picks out a nice mate for her."

Something sank in Big Mac's heart. He took a deep swig of his cider. Part of him did its best to be happy for Marble. Igneous and Quartz seemed like a good match, so this Choosing Stone would probably decide on a perfect stallion for Marble. It wasn't as though she deserved any less.

"And seein' as the Pies know so much about this stone, Iggy reckons they know who the stone's gonna pick." Granny started waggling her eyebrows, something that always put Big Mac in mind of a caterpillar having a seizure. "They think a big, strong dependable farmer would be a great match for their little Marble. Somepony reliable, not always gallivantin' off to distant corners of Equestria to solve some big problem." At this point, the eyebrow waggling was so great it seemed to be threatening to fly off Granny's face. "Somepony with a seventy-odd chance of inheritin' one o' the biggest business empires in the whole kingdom."

Big Mac would have to be as dense as granite not to realize what Granny was saying. And despite his inward giddiness at having unintentionally made a rock comparison, Big Mac was not that thick. He downed the last of his cider, and was just about to race to his room to pack his bags when he tripped over them.

Big Mac sprang back to his feet and examined the saddlebags. They were packed with all of the essentials, as well as a bushel of apples and a bottle of applejack. He turned and offered his biggest smile to Granny, who more than matched it.

"Can't expect a poor old lady to do much to help out on Winter Wrap-Up, can ya? Best to leave her inside, with all them thoughts and worldly wisdom."

"Eeyup." And that was all Big Mac had time to say as he slung the saddlebags over his back and bolted out the door. He had a train to catch.

Marble Pie could feel the entire farm. Her fissures had spread, from this single point out to the very borders of their property. Every snowflake that had fallen on the Pies' rock farm was now tumbling deeper and deeper into the bosom of the earth, ready to shape the crops and ensure a soaring springtime profit. That was how it happened. That was what she did every year at spring. It didn't matter what else happened, Marble always buried the snow and made pebbles. And for the rest of the year? Farm rocks. Farm them whatever way they had to be farmed. Ignore new farming methods. Listen to instructions. Try with all her might to never dream, because dreams would only make her sad. That was the plan. That was the way of things. That was her life.

Somewhere amidst the fissures, Marble felt Maud. She was just standing there, and based on her position, staring off in the direction of... staring off in a random direction. Without once taking her concentration off the fissures, Marble tapped her other forehoof at the ground, sending pulsing messages across the farm towards Maud.

Are you okay?

The message came back almost instantly. I am waiting.

For what?

For something to happen.

Marble sighed, shrugged, and turned her full attention back to the fissures. They were trembling now, and a single drop of sweat beaded on her brow as she concentrated. The fissures were noticing each other, and they wanted to make friends. They wanted to invite each other over for dinner, and maybe sleepovers, and maybe they wanted to just permanently move in with all of their friends. In Equestria, every aspect of culture was oriented towards friendship. But on the rock farm, it was not something to be encouraged. When rocks made friends, they would turn each other to gravel. When fissures made friends, they would make ravines and canyons and so forth. And Marble wasn't supposed to let that happen.

As always, the temptation loomed to let go. Marble could feel everything being held together by the thread of her thoughts, and considered how easy it would be to stop. It would collapse the entire farm into the ground, true, and that was by no means a good thing, but it was also big. The looming possibility of affecting so much, of inducing such magnificent change, simply by doing nothing. It was almost irresistible, a truly intoxicating level of power.

Marble held herself there for a moment or two, feeling the weight of the easy choice. Her thoughts kept coming back around to Big Mac, and how he wasn't here. How he hadn't been here since Hearth's Warming. How she didn't know of any reason why he would come back. And anyway, Maud was still on the farm. She'd probably fix the whole thing before it even began to fall apart.

But then, the train would be coming soon. Then again, there would be a train in the area soon. Another drop of sweat beaded and fell. Marble felt, and weighed, and pulled on the threads. She ground her hoof against the earth, and felt the fissures draw back, felt them close. She had won again.

Marble decided to check in the east field. She didn't know what for yet. She would probably find an interesting rock to stare at.

The train pulled into the station, and Big Mac was almost thrown out of his seat as the cart lurched to a stop. He stumbled and caught himself, then took a moment to regain his footing. While the train whistled, he busied himself with double-checking his saddlebags. He hadn't dozed off for even a second since he stepped onto the train, and there hadn't been a single moment where anypony could have stolen anything, but in the absence of a tie to straighten, there was little else for a nervous stallion to do.

Once he was satisfied that the only reason he was missing three apples was because he had eaten them, Big Mac slung the bags over his back and stepped off the train. It was all he could do not to bolt for the door, settling instead for a brisk canter. Once he was outside and standing at the stone station, though, all of that nervous energy seemed to transmute itself into lead weights on his hooves.

Big Mac felt like it took him several hours to walk from the station to the Pies' rock farm. He did his best not to drag his hooves, but every hoofall felt like a nail, or the toll of a bell. With every step, Big Mac worried about the Choosing Stone. He worried about whether or not Marble would accept it. He worried about whether she even had a choice in the matter. Perhaps most of all, he worried about what would happen if the stone chose differently. Nopony was infallible, after all. Igneous might have guessed wrong. And what then? He had come all this way. What would they think of him? What would she think of him?

"Hello, Big Mac."

The voice came as a shock, and Big Mac rounded on it as though it were some vicious animal. But instead of some vicious predator or seasonal bandit, Big Mac found himself face to face with Maud Pie. He let out a sigh of relief, and nodded. "Afternoon, Miss Pie."

"Yes it is." There were no smiles, no hints of anything beyond the simplest meaning of her words. Big Mac found it very easy to talk to Maud. But he wasn't here to talk, and she seemed to realize that. Without another word, she turned and walked towards the farm.

After a moment's wait, Big Mac followed. The two of them walked for longer than Big Mac cared to notice, right past the farmhouse and into the northern fields. This was not a place for pebbles or little rocks. This was where the Pies tended to their boulders, and raised up monoliths the likes of which might form the pillars of magnificent temples. It was one of the rare moments in his life where Big Mac felt truly small.

"You want to see the Choosing Stone. You want to know the choice it will make." Maud turned and fixed Big Mac with a glare that seemed bored with the very fact that he still drew breath. "You want my sister."

Big Mac decided not to answer in the usual way. A simple 'eeyup' was not the sort of thing one said when discussing betrothal. Instead, he nodded slowly. Maud seemed to grow a little less astronomically distant.

"You talk better without words." She looked around the field and scuffed her hoof in the dirt. "How much do you want her?"

Big Mac went to tell her, but found he did not have the words. As he thought of Marble, of the long winter nights he had spent dreaming of her, of the few fleeting moments with her that he remembered so clearly, he could not think of how to put into words how great his love was for her. He looked around at the massive boulders that surrounded him, and he thought of something. He looked around for the biggest monolith, one that stretched from horizon to horizon and united earth with sky. His eyes zeroed in on the biggest of the lot, and he pointed to it. Maud followed his gaze, and her eyes widened by a tiny fraction.

"Nopony ever wants something that much." She turned and stared into Big Mac, and he felt as though she could see his entire life. "You love her, don't you?" Big Mac nodded as fast and as hard as he could.

Maud made a sound halfway between relief and sorrow, and reached into her pocket. She brought out a marble, purple and grey and perfectly smooth. She set it on the ground, then scuffed her hoof in the dirt. She turned to a rock that stood just as high and twice as wide as Big Mac, and scraped her hoof along its side. Tiny particles of dirt clung to the rock, and Maud traced out a shape. She scuffed her hoof, lifted it, and traced the shape again. The lines grew bolder, the shape grew clearer, and Big Mac could swear the air grew colder. He watched as the shape of his cutie mark was etched onto the rock.

"I also talk better without words." Maud walked around to the other side of the rock, and flipped it. Big Mac couldn't help but flinch as he heard the crunch, saw the marble be crushed beneath the massive boulder. Maud poked her head out from behind the boulder, and her eyes narrowed. She raised one hoof, and brought it crashing back down on top of the rock. Big Mac's jaw flapped loose as the rock exploded into a million pieces.

"Do we understand each other?" Maud took a few steps closer to Big Mac, crunching large shards of rock into so much gravel with every step.

"Eeyup." He made sure to pour as much respect into that word as possible. Maud nodded, and seemed appeased. She had finished turning the boulder into gravel, and motioned for Big Mac to stand in the middle of it. He raised an eyebrow, but did as he was told.

"It'll start soon." Before he could ask what she meant, it happened.

The gravel started to dance. Every speck of thrice-shattered rock leaped up from the ground and began to bounce around, as though it hadn't a care in the world. They criss-crossed and intersected, and led such complicated whirligigs that Big Mac would swear the pebbles seemed to dance in and out of reality. Soon enough, though, the dance revealed that there was method to its madness. The gravel spun around Big Mac, forming into eight circles, each one within the next, and him at the center.

"What-" Big Mac's question was cut short as the earth itself seemed to rise up at him. He felt his connection grow without even trying, felt the strata of the rock farm force itself into his awareness. He looked down, and saw that the earth was trying to eat his hooves.

"It's just getting a feel for you," Maud explained. "So it can tell who'd be a good match."

As if in response to her words, the circles suddenly exploded outward. Circles became a spiral, and the spiral became a tendril, bouncing and hurtling across the ground towards parts unknown.

"Now we wait."

Marble had not found an interesting rock to look at. She had found something far more unusual and fascinating. On the first day of spring, miles from any trees that put forth fruit, there was a green leaf sitting plastered against a rock. It was odd, and had been holding her attention for the past twenty minutes. Then she heard the skittering, and the leaf didn't matter any more.

She looked up, and saw the gravel charging across the field. She saw the pebbles tumbling and leaping and all but flying at her.

"No," she whispered to herself as the gravel drew near. Why today? Why any day? And why so suddenly? Why without warning? She was being given no chance, no preparation, nothing but a summons. At the speed the gravel was moving, she probably wouldn't even get a chance to run. A moment later, the ground was rising up around her hooves. She struggled for a moment or two, but it soon became clear that there would be no running. It was destiny, or some lie for children like that. The ground retreated back into itself, freeing her hooves, and Marble began to follow the trail of gravel back to its source.

The most jarring thing about this ordeal was how sudden it was. She would have expected that if a stallion appeared to court her, they would be formally introduced before pulling out the Choosing Stone. She had thought that this day would come with plenty of warning, and long talks from Mother and Father about propriety and faithfulness. And certainly not at the tail end of winter, of all times! What sort of time of year was that for courtship? And wasn't she too young? Surely it would have been Limestone first.

Every possible answer to a question only raised a thousand more. Marble asked all the questions she could think of to herself, and answered maybe half of them as she followed the gravel line. She didn't take notice of how the line had become a spiral around her, how there were now two gravel circles just barely keeping abreast of her. She hardly took notice of anything until she reached the northern field, and the line vanished.

She went to say hello, but stayed her tongue. What would be the point of it? They were quite clearly here. She only hoped they meant to surprise her with something special. If this was some kind of cruel joke, Marble would have words.

Marble's heart skipped a beat when she saw somepony stepping around the boulder, but she calmed down when she saw it was only Maud. Her sister stretched out a hoof, offering a hug. Marble practically lunged into the embrace.

"He wanted to use the Choosing Stone," Maud said into Marble's ear. The younger sister sighed, and made a little "mhm" noise before leaning further into the hug. "I think it's a good match. You'll be happy together."

Marble pulled out of the hug and stared at Maud. Then she heard the crunch of hooves on cold earth, and looked past Maud to...

Big Mac smiled wider than he could ever remember smiling. It had been such a gamble. Out of every mare in all of Equestria, what were the chances that the stone gave him the one he wanted?

Marble's eyes teared up, and she felt rooted to the spot. Big Mac? He had come all the way here? The day the snow fell, the first day of planting, and he was here at the Choosing Stone instead of his orchard?

Big Mac wanted so much to charge forward and sweep her up in his legs, but he had to stop himself. She had never seemed so fragile as she was in this very moment, in this place, with him. He would have to be slow. He would have to be careful. He would have to-

Marble barely even thought about it. One moment, she was standing there, shocked like lightning, the next she was throwing herself into Big Mac like a cannonball. She curled her legs as far as she could around his massive frame, and squeezed hard. She didn't want to let go. She hoped she couldn't.

Big Mac did his best not to gasp for breath, instead reaching out a hoof to caress Marble's face. He tilted her chin up, and gave her his warmest smile.

"I found a rock today," he whispered to her. Her eyes sparkled like sapphires at that.

"Mhm?"

"It made me think of you."

She smiled, and they kissed.