With an exuberant flick of her tail Rarity sets off, hooves echoing down the horn lit corridor. The soft light, the kind she can keep going for hours, doesn’t light very far, even when she levitates the pickaxe as a makeshift torch. Oppressive darkness threatens to close in at any moment, yet she cheerfully scampers along. Behind her stirs clouds of agitated dust and the desiccated droppings of who knows what else. Hopefully only bats.

Doug scrambles to keep up with the roving searchlight, adjusting the pack. His stooped posture makes it uncomfortable, and his legs don’t care for the uneven surface. At least there’s no danger of getting lost in the winding tunnel, just too far behind the bouncing curls of Rarity’s styled tail to see the hand in front of his face.

“Hey,” Doug calls as he focuses on the posh rump in front of him. His voice echoes back almost immediately, the sound of the rain some number of feet above completely nonexistent. The barest turn of Rarity’s head shows him she’s listening. “How do you get your tail to do that?”

“A mare never reveals her secrets,” Rarity quips back, barely slowing, “unlike those covers Stall runs. Why, they’d have you believe that Hoity Toity would lay bare his secrets for just ten bits! Except a remarkable number of them consist of a simple seven step process.”

“Step one, buy my product?” Doug sticks close to the mare as they continue ever deeper. It’s hard to tell if they’re going up or down, except that there wasn’t much space to go up to begin with.

“More like steps one through five.” Rarity turns her head so Doug can see her stick her tongue out. Her pace slows, and she doesn’t pick it back up, soon walking side by side as the tunnel widens. “Then they would conveniently forget to add step six, leaving you wondering how you ever get to luxuriate in endless bliss.”

“Looks like you figured out step six,” Doug says as he runs a hand along Rarity’s coat, starting near her withers and ending just before her dock. His touch is light, gliding over grit and sweat and wetness without slowing, barely leaving a depression in his wake.

“Oh, please,” Rarity says with a playful wave of her hoof. Her pulse quickens as her breath catches in her throat. She dreads him just being the playful flirt, not actually meaning the compliment and just saying it to torture her. “My coat is going to be worse than Tartarus without a proper blow dry, and with all this cave dust and guano I’m going to need a week at Aloe’s before I can brave the outside again.”

“That’s a shame.” Doug’s hand rests at the base of her tail, the barest increase of pressure teasing the mare. “I liked seeing those flanks.” His hand lightly slaps her, spurring her forward, as he sighs.

Rarity takes a few lurching steps before she slows to a halt, turning to face Doug. Her voice is quiet, though it easily carries in the still tunnel. “I know you did. And I’m sorry I made a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Doug echoes with more than a little disbelief, raising an eyebrow. “I think it was more than just a mistake.”

“Alright, a big mistake,” Rarity concedes, awkwardly shuffling on her hooves.

“It was a bigger doodoo than all the doodoo in this cave.” Doug folds his arms across his chest as he stands, his legs splayed to the side to avoid the channel in the middle where all the various droppings have accumulated.

“I… Yes, it was.” Rarity stares down, then shifts her hooves a bit further away from the gunk. “I was against the idea of a date, but my parents insisted.”

“And you couldn’t just tell them no?” Doug demands.

“I… it’s complicated. They’re my parents. They want what’s best for me, and in their mind that means some-unicorn.” Rarity huffs as she continues down the tunnel. “And after I met Shining Armor, well… You just got the feeling that he cares deeply, and I wanted to be the mare he cares deeply about. It’s foalish and silly and I can’t even blame it on my heat, except I still feel like my emotions are all over the place.”

“So why stay with me?” Doug says as he follows after her. “Go find another unicorn to herd up with if you want a foal, or stay single if you don’t.”

“Easier said than done, unfortunately,” Rarity says with a frown. “After you’ve dated the likes of Puppy Dog Tails, you find yourself a bit more discriminating about what sort of stallions you’ll entertain the notion of herding up with. And there is a tragic dearth of stallions like you or Shining Armor.”

“I’ve heard a saying about the common factor in all of one’s failed relationships,” Doug says bitingly.

“You will address me respectfully or not at all.” Rarity sticks her head in the air, her eyes half closing and barely keeping her from smacking into the walls.

Silence passes for about fifteen seconds before the walls spread open, only darkness visible beyond their entrance into what has to be a grand cavern. Rarity and Doug stop at the entrance, their feud forgotten, the ceiling an indeterminate distance up and broken ground ahead.

Rarity’s muzzle screws up in concentration as her horn brightens, illuminating rays of light spreading out a good twenty paces. The walls around them slowly curve, the first of what could be many pillars at the edge of perception, and a faint shimmer seems to come from every direction. Her muzzle slowly curls to a wide grin, her breath speeding up to the point where she is nearly hyperventilating from excitement. There could be thousands of gems hidden-

All of a sudden her horn winks out, plunging the pair into pitch black darkness.

“Ow!” Rarity cries, clenching her eyes shut in pain. “Ow, ow, ow!” Her horn feels overloaded, even though it’s only ever gotten to that point after long hours of repetitive tasks with no break. She groans; it must be from keeping the gem scanning spell going for so long. A searching hand slaps at her back, repeating several times, though they get softer with every hit.

“Rarity?” Doug says, worry staining his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be alright, I think.” Rarity moans as she rubs at the base of her short horn, wincing at the jolts of light teeming in front of her eyes. She knows they aren’t real, just false reports, but it’s unnerving not being able to see the foreleg in front of her face. She can tell by Doug’s voice and the way his hand is gripping into her withers that he’s a bit terrified himself. “We just need to remain calm. I will recover soon, I hope, and then we can find out what treasures this cavern holds.”

Doug grunts as he shifts, squatting down next to the mare. A long, grating sound echoes through the caverns, the rough scrape of metal on stone. Both of them tense; it sounded far too close for comfort.

“What was that?” Rarity asks in a low whisper, but even that seems like a shout in the newly silent cavern.

“That was me,” Doug whispers back, pulling the spade off his back. He rests it against the wall. “Sorry.”

Rarity grits her teeth but says nothing. The next few minutes pass slowly, neither daring to say a word or move a muscle. As their eyes slowly acclimate to the darkness several faint lights can be seen far off in the cavern, but it’s impossible to tell the distance. They aren’t moving, except when they focus on them for too long, and it’s only Rarity laying on the ground that lets them stay oriented.

“Ready?” Rarity asks after a time. Her horn feels better, and as long as she doesn’t go for full brightness again she thinks she will be fine. She’ll definitely need Doug to do the heavy digging, though. “I’m going to turn my light back on, and we’ll investigate those lights out there. Unless I am wrong, and I am rarely wrong, those are larger caches of hopefully more valuable gems.”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Doug says, hefting the pickaxe to his shoulder. He winces at even the dim illumination, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. He glances backwards at the tunnel they came from. Then, for good measure, he takes a solid swing into the cavern wall, gouging out a piece of stone. When Rarity looks at him curiously he shrugs. “To mark where we came from.”

She nods, then follows the left wall the dozen strides or so to the first location of the faint lights. Her horn winks out as her eyes glow the white of her gem scanning spell, no longer attempting to maintain both at the same time.

She prances in glee at the sight of four dozen hoof sized rubies, barely concealed behind a thin layer of stone. Doug shares in her excitement with a quick rub of her back, even as he wishes the lights were on, marking the corners of the cache with his pickaxe. Rarity swaps spells, taking a step back as Doug swings into the stone wall. It shatters quickly, the rubies spilling out, and it takes almost no time at all to load them into the backpack.

Rarity changes spells again, the two noticing something odd shining from Doug’s pack. He opens it, curiously pulling out one of the rubies. It shines like a candle; nowhere close to the intensity of Rarity’s horn, but enough to dimly light about five feet.

“Fire rubies,” Rarity says with a smile, taking the other glowing gem. She tucks it into the brim of her hat, though it doesn’t quite illuminate where her hooves are walking unless she tilts her head so far down her hat is liable to fall off. “Quite valuable, compared to the common rubies.”

“Common rubies,” Doug says with a smirk. “It’s like only finding a green ruby after cutting through the grass. Why bother?”

“Indeed.” Rarity continues along, now sticking solely to her gem scanning spell. The walls continue to be studded with fragments of gems, and she passes a few lesser troves in favor of finding the more valuable caches.

It doesn’t take long to find one, her squeal of delight echoing for several long seconds. “Chrysoberyls!” Rarity points a dimly lit hoof at the wall, though this one is buried a bit farther in.

“Coming right up,” Doug says, setting the fire ruby on the ground and marking the spots. The pickaxe bites into the stone, but it will be more than a few minutes of hard work before he can reach them.

Rarity watches for a few moments before she sighs. “I suppose the answer is that you aren’t like the other stallions I’ve dated.”

Doug turns his head with a bit of confusion, asking, “What?” before he goes back to mining.

“All the failed relationships I’ve been in have had me in common.” Rarity sighs. “I thought that by dating and herding up with somepony Applejack favored would make a difference.” Her head drops a little. “I know I made a mistake. A big mistake.”

“And you want to move past it?” Doug says, pausing his swinging to look Rarity in the eyes.

“I do.” She offers him a faint smile.

“And it’s not just the glittering jewels here that are causing those feelings?” Doug says, motioning to the gems still locked behind stone.

“Trust me,” Rarity says with a twinkle, “nothing shiny will come between us. No more hornbrained schemes.”

“Right after we finish this hornbrained scheme, you mean,” Doug says, looking at the dark cavern around them.

“Of course.” Rarity winks coyly. “I’m going to continue looking, if you are good here?”

“Stay within eyesight,” Doug says, turning back to the wall and chipping away another chunk of stone.

Rarity nods, trotting along. Her eyes gleam as her horn reveals an even larger cache than the ones before, a mix of nearly every kind of gem! And, unless her horn deceives her, another hoofful of fire rubies! A glance backwards shows the faint glow of Doug’s fire ruby, and she turns back to her prize concealed behind a layer of blue crystal.

She levitates her pickaxe, the first hit glancing off. She frowns, hitting it again with the same result. She stamps a hoof as she huffs in frustration, the third blow striking true! The crystal shatters, the cache of gems spilling forth. Emeralds, fire rubies, a large obsidian, sapphires, and more!

The obsidian leaps out at her, catching Rarity by surprise, the featureless black somehow whispering contempt. It rakes a jagged edge across her barrel; a line of red marrs her once pristine white coat as she staggers backwards.

Only for the gem to prepare another slicing blow, this time at her neck.

Next Chapter: Ch. 61 - Blackgleam Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 45 Minutes