Maud Pie looked up, mining pick still in mouth, as she noticed that the light falling on the vein of crystal she’d been excavating had dimmed. Reflexively, she gazed toward the rift in the ceiling of her new cavern home. A moment later, she winced, set the pick down, and took Boulder from his place nestled close to her heart.

“Yes Boulder, I know I don’t have an effective way of measuring its luminosity. …Yes, I’m aware that these findings may be significant.” She paused, turning her ears down as she felt all the reasons to continue her work despite the latening hour wash over her. “I know. But it’s time. You promised.”

No reply came. Maud interpreted this as tacit agreement.

She continued to hold him and set off on three legs toward a side passage that ran closer to Ponyville proper. It grew oppressively dark and quiet as she traversed its length. An early bend in the passage cut it off from much of the ambient light and sounds of water from the central cavern. She moved in silence, save for her own hooffalls… and for Boulder’s admonitions.

“We’ve been over this,” Maud said, her voice echoing. “This passage was the most practical to connect to the power grid. …Yes, I know it wasn’t strictly a ‘need.’” She flinched, feeling beset by all the reasons not to spend her time on something frivolous. “Boulder, my first love is for rocks. But I…” She forced her hooves to keep moving, rather than trying to explain herself; Boulder didn’t seem to be in a listening mood.

Maud counted the hoofsteps in the back of her mind; a necessity in the near-total darkness. She stopped when it was time, and groped to her right, finally feeling something cold and solid: a metal switch.

She threw it upward. Warm radiance blossomed from a series of canister lights mounted on the ceiling, illuminating a shoulder-high black amplifier set next to a stand holding an X-shaped black guitar with inset green paneling.

Maud set Boulder down on the amp, took hold of the guitar, and began hoofing at dials. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, fighting down guilt. What she’d told Boulder had been true, strictly speaking; the light [i]had[/i] faded, even if was with late afternoon rather than early evening. And what she'd told her new friend Starlight when they discovered the cave had [i]also[/i] been true; her scholarly knowledge about rocks had nothing to do with her skills or enjoyment of playing guitar.

At length, she pushed through the condemnation about deceiving those closest to her, fretted a power chord and [i]strummed[/i]. An electric feeling surged in her as the chord echoed through the passage, loud enough even to block out the myriad reasons not to be playing. Maud worked her way through a progression of chords, fretting and strumming with increasing rapidity.

She turned a faint smile toward Boulder—

Another salvo of disapproval her. It brought with it the face of her advisor, admonishing her to eliminate unnecessary distractions on the path to her rocktorate; and of her parents, telling her to turn down the racket lest she disrupt the rock farm’s delicate soil and mineral balance; and of her sisters, cowering from the sound in Marble’s case, or railing against it in Limestone’s case.

Only Pinkie smiled at it.

Maud tried to focus on Pinkie as the others pressed down on her with judgment, but it was like clutching at a lone pink candle on a moonless night. Maud took a breath to try to steady herself, but then set the guitar back down on its stand and turned the whole setup off. She gazed at the silent but smugly triumphant Boulder.

“I’ll have to ask what kinds of music Starlight enjoys,” Maud said, picking Boulder up. Then she reared up on her hind legs, reaching toward the master power switch with her free hoof.

She pulled it, casting herself into darkness once again.