Days blurred into a quiet rhythm on the Pie rock farm—dawn to dusk filled with the steady clink of hammers, the scrape of shovels, and the low rumble of carts hauling stone.

Diane fit into it seamlessly.

She rose early, made coffee strong enough to etch granite, and was out in the fields before most of the family finished breakfast. She never took the easiest jobs; she took the ones nopony else wanted—the stubborn boulders that fought the chisel, the jammed machinery that required patience more than strength, the repetitive sorting that made Pinkie fidget after ten minutes.

And she always, without fail, appeared beside Limestone when the work turned heaviest.

Marble noticed first.

Marble noticed everything, really—quiet observations from the edges, the way shadows shift or clouds gather. She spent her days closer to the house: tending the small herb plot, mending tools, helping Cloudy with meals. But her eyes often drifted to the fields.

She saw how Limestone’s scowl softened (just a fraction) when Diane wordlessly took the other end of a loaded sled.

She saw Limestone pause mid-yell to listen when Diane pointed out a hairline fracture in a quarry wall that could have caused a slide.

She saw her older sister sit a little straighter at supper, shoulders not quite so tight, barking orders a little less sharply.

One afternoon, Marble lingered by the water pump while Diane refilled canteens for the crew. Diane’s coat was dusted gray with rock flour, mane plastered flat with sweat, but her movements were still calm, deliberate.

Marble approached shyly, offering a clean rag from her apron pocket.

Diane took it with a quiet “Thanks,” wiping her face.

“You… you help Limestone a lot,” Marble murmured, barely audible over the distant hammer strikes.

Diane paused, considering. “She does a lot. Somepony should help.”

Marble’s ears flicked. “She never lets anypony.”

Diane glanced toward the quarry, where Limestone was directing Igneous and Maud around a new vein. “She lets me.”

Marble followed her gaze. Limestone caught them looking and gave a curt wave—almost friendly—before turning back to work.

Marble’s voice dropped even lower. “She’s… less angry. Since you came.”

Diane capped a canteen and handed it back to Marble. “Maybe she’s just less tired.”

Marble shook her head, a tiny motion. “It’s more than that. She smiles. Not big. But… I saw it yesterday when you two got that big slab split clean on the first try.”

Diane’s mouth curved—just a little. “Good slab.”

Marble hesitated, then reached into her apron again and pulled out a small, smooth river stone—pale gray with a single pink quartz vein running through it like a streak of mane.

“I found this,” she said softly. “It’s… like you. Strong. Quiet. A little bit Pinkie.”

Diane took the stone carefully, turning it over in her hoof. The quartz caught the sunlight, sparkling faintly.

“Thank you, Marble.”

Marble’s cheeks pinked under her coat. “You’re… you’re good for the farm. For her. For… all of us.”

Diane slipped the stone into her pocket, close to her heart.

“I’m just helping,” she said.

But Marble smiled—a real, if tiny, smile—and nodded like she understood exactly what kind of helping it really was.

Later that evening, as the family gathered for supper, Marble quietly set an extra place beside Limestone without being asked.

And when Diane sat down, Limestone didn’t grumble.

She just nudged the gem-bread basket a little closer.

===

The sun was high over the west quarry, turning the dust in the air into a faint golden haze. Diane and Maud were working side by side on a stubborn slab of granite that had a tricky fault line running through it. Limestone had assigned them the job because, as she’d grumbled, “You two are the only ones patient enough not to just smash it and waste half the yield.”

They’d been tapping wedges into the seam for twenty quiet minutes, speaking only when necessary.

Diane placed another wedge, gave it a precise tap with the hammer, then paused.

“This rock’s being dramatic,” she said in her usual flat tone. “All this resistance just to *split up*.”

Maud didn’t look up from her own wedge. She tapped once. Twice.

“It’s granite,” she replied, deadpan. “*Granite* takes everything for granted.”

Diane tapped again. “Must be exhausting.”

A long pause. Just the metallic ping of hammers and the distant clatter of the crusher.

Then Maud spoke again, voice exactly as monotone as ever.

“Basalt doesn’t have these issues. Basalt knows it’s a supporting role.”

Diane’s hammer paused mid-swing. The corner of her mouth twitched—the tiniest upward flicker.

“Basalt’s humble like that.”

Maud placed her hammer down and regarded the slab with her usual blank stare.

“Basalt never *ghosts* you after the first fracture either.”

Diane actually snorted—a short, surprised sound that echoed faintly off the quarry wall.

Maud picked up her hammer again and resumed tapping, as if she hadn’t just delivered a perfect deadpan punchline.

After another minute of silence, Diane said quietly, “You’re funnier than ponies think.”

Maud didn’t smile—her face rarely changed—but her ears angled slightly toward Diane in what any Pie would recognize as deep satisfaction.

“Rocks appreciate understatement,” she said. “They’ve had four billion years to practice timing.”

Diane gave the wedge a final tap. The slab split clean along the fault line with a sharp, satisfying crack—two perfect halves, no waste.

Diane glanced at Maud. “Good delivery.”

Maud nodded once. “Good setup.”

They loaded the pieces onto the cart together, working in perfect sync, the faint dust settling around them like quiet applause.

From across the quarry, Limestone watched with narrowed eyes, pretending not to notice that Maud’s steps were just a little lighter than usual.

She muttered under her breath, “Nerds.”

But she didn’t stop them from taking the rest of the afternoon to finish the vein—together.

===

The rock farm was quiet after supper, the kind of deep, satisfying quiet that comes after a long day of honest work. The dishes were done, the tools put away, and the family had scattered to their evening routines. Igneous Rock Pie and Cloudy Quartz sat together on the porch swing, a shared quilt over their laps, watching the last light fade over the fields.

For a long while, neither spoke. They had always been comfortable in silence; words were for scripture and necessity, not for filling empty air.

Eventually, Igneous cleared his throat, voice low and gravel-rough.

“She worketh as though she were born to the quarry.”

Cloudy nodded slowly, her bonnet casting a soft shadow over her face. “Yea, verily. Her hooves are steady, her spirit uncomplaining. She lifteth burdens without being asked.”

Igneous rocked the swing gently with one hind leg. “Limestone hath not scowled so fiercely these past days. Marble speaketh more. Even Maud… lingereth longer at table.”

Cloudy’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Marble gave her a stone today. A pink-veined one. Our shyest filly, offering a gift unprompted.”

They both knew what that meant. In the Pie family, stones were not given lightly.

Igneous gazed out at the darkened fields, where the faint outline of the west vein—cleared faster than any season in recent memory—stood as silent testimony.

“She came from strange soil,” he said carefully. “Born of water and mirror-magic, not of earth and blood. Yet the Lord of the Rocks hath set her path to cross ours.”

Cloudy rested her head lightly against his shoulder. “And in her quiet way, she hath smoothed some of our roughest edges. Limestone carrieth less alone. Pinkie laughth without frenzy. Maud… findeth another who understandeth her silences.”

Igneous huffed—a sound that might have been a chuckle in any other pony. “The child hath our daughter’s face, yet weareth it differently. Calmer. Like still water over deep stone.”

Cloudy smiled faintly. “Still water carrieth great strength. It weareth down mountains, given time.”

Another long pause. Crickets began their evening chorus in the distance.

“Think you,” Igneous said at last, “that the Mirror Pool intended only chaos… or did it, in its strange way, send us what we needed?”

Cloudy considered this, her hoof tracing an idle circle on the quilt.

“Mayhap both. Chaos to teach us humility. And Diane… to teach us that family is not only what we are born into, but what we choose to carry together.”

Igneous reached over and took his wife’s hoof in his own weathered one.

“Then we shall carry her as our own. Diane Pie. Fifth daughter of the rock.”

Cloudy squeezed his hoof gently. “Fifth daughter,” she echoed softly. “Welcome home.”

The swing creaked on, back and forth, as the stars came out one by one over the quiet fields.

And in the farmhouse, a new stone—pink-veined and carefully chosen—sat on the windowsill of the guest room, catching the moonlight.

The Pies had always been a family of hard lines and enduring stone.

Now, somehow, they were a little softer around the edges.

And none of them—not even Limestone—would have it any other way.