"What do you mean, deep rice?"

Twilight was reconsidering following Pinkie Pie down the Diamond Dogs' nest. Or what was left of it since they'd left. Spiders scurried along the webbed ceiling and stalactites, their chitin glistening in the mist filling the narrowing cavern. Each time Twilight glanced at yet another of the bulbous creatures, her trailing helmet torchlight cast the prior ones in shadows. Their prying little eyes glowed like white cloth under black light.

"Yeah, silly. Deep. Rice. Rice from the deep!"

Pinkie hunkered down into a small alcove dug into the narrow tunnel's left side and slid in, back hooves first. Weeeee.

"Oh, Pinkie." Twilight stared at the jagged toboggan with a sigh.

She adjusted her helmet strap, verified the two sets of spare batteries in her packs were properly fastened, sitting next to water bottles, ropes, rock axe, and all the speleomajig she'd sourced up in one of Rarity's books. She was the expert in diamond cave... caving? And surely not Twilight.

"What's deep rice!?" she inquired aloud down the hole with a giggle and a shake of her head. Pinkie. Pinkie. Pinkie.

With no answer, she sat her rump at the edge of the slippery hole and, tightening her wings by her side, felt herself sliding down. Ouch, ows and owie. Bing, bong, and Twomp! She'd somehow fallen face first into a puddle, snuffing out her head lamp

"Pinkie?" she called. "Pink-eh-ie...?"

"Over here!"

Feeling the wet wick of her lamp at the tip of her hoof, Twilight fired her horn with a pout. Like crayon strokes drawn onto thin air, dull blue lines jutted out of her horn and outwards in an arcanic webbing. Then a pop and the lines turned into bright, luminescent, and slowly-raining glitters. Blue, white, purple, and pink.

Twilight hadn't fallen in a puddle but a pool. An oval chamber larger than a hoofball field with a high ceiling drowned into darkness where the spell's light still hinted at stalactites like the teeth of a deep-sea monster.

Her shudder quickly faded as her attention drifted to Pinkie. She splish-splashed into waters filtered by a millennial drip through pristine clay, and basked into Twilight's magic light and its many reflections. Shinier than Rarity's current saison de mode diamonds and jewels -- don't you dare tell her that! -- Pinkie's cascading wet mane let her muzzle peak out. She was laughing.

She blasted through the water, diving into the deeper parts of the glacial pool without regard for the cold. Meanwhile, Twilight had quickly identified a large rock and scooted over to watch with a smile. A magic wisp from her horn ran down her face, body and legs, combing any hint of water and wetness off her princessly rump. She'll have to shower for the now-dry clay caking more than just her butt.

"What's deep rice?" She murmured.

Pinkie found her way to the rock at some point too. Twilight didn't wait for one of Pinkie's rare demure smiles to magically dry her off with a clap of alicorn power. There, they sat in silence as the magic glitter kept raining down at a glacial pace.

"You know," Pinkie said in a jolt. "I'm hungry!"

She pulled a rice cooker from her tail hair. Out of thin hair? And it was on and running! Twilight looked up at the ceiling, expecting a power cable or some sort.

"Oh, silly. It's battery powered!"

If Twilight was a door, her back would have creaked as she hinged to the side and stared at the cooker. Yeah, but nooo. She took a breath, smiled, chortled. Good old and lovely Pinkie logic.

It did smell good, though.

"Can you do orange and green?" Pinkie asked, pointing at the dimming glitter lights, and Twilight obliged.

The warm light exploded, and the antechamber took on the hues of Autumn and lights of Halloween. You could nearly smell the pumpkin spice.

"This was ol' Mousqueton's favorite place under Ponyville, you know," Pinkie said. "He loved, loved, loved it here. Sure it was damp. Sometimes it smelled, for sure. There were dogs from time to time to battle with. But! You get the axolotls and salamanders."

Twilight suddenly saw them. Myriads. Tiny little gray and white things swimming and bobbing and playing dead in the water, peaking through the slowly clearing clay that Pinkie had kicked up. Like Pegasi breaching clouds.

"And the stalactites and the stalagmites."

Sure there were, bathed in colors these rocks had probably never seen except for the fur of that old buck. Ol' Mousqueton. Rest in peace.

"You okay, Pinkie?" Twilight asked with dawning understanding.

"Oh, yeah, no- somewhat." She nudged the rice cooker, trying to coax its light from cooking red to ready orange. "Mousqueton was a cool uncle. A bit extravagant, you could say."

Twilight hushed a giggle. What was extravagant to Pinkie Pie? Any mental image Twilight could conjure probably didn't stand a chance.

"He sure liked this place. It was calm. And it sure wasn't rock farming. He called it rock 'exploration'," she said, waving her hooves mysteriously. "And he sure loved a nice, hot meal after all the trudging and the grungeling and the squizzeling to get down here."

The rice cooker clicked and opened and the white gold inside was ready to eat. Pinkie scooped two bowls Twilight had to look for where they could have come from. Add in some mysteriously appearing sauce -- a mix of olive oil, soy, and butter --, already roasted scallions and carrots, and even peas out of a steaming bag. Twilight's smile could tell alicorns still had tricks to learn.

Twilight took the bowl in her magic, and the spoon presented to her coming from Celestia knows where. Finally she dug it. It was simply-made but rich, the clarified butter rounding the rice flavor while the soy and olive enhanced the hint of pepper and paprika that had been generously sprinkled in while roasting the scallions and carrots. It only needed a-

"Root beer?"

Twilight nodded, looking up while sipping on a straw at her own fireworks. She fired more oranges and greens, and some whiter lights, even higher, like stars in the far reaches of the ceiling hiding between columns of rocks. Columns that will continue to endure, only to be enjoyed by the few daring enough to come here. Like Mousqueton.

"This deep rice is actually, very, very good!" Twilight munched with a sheepish smile. One or two grains of rice spat out and fell in the water. The wildlife rushed for the easy meal and quickly dispersed.

Pinkie chuckled.

"It's just a very good rice," she said, laying her head on Twilight's shoulder. Twilight laid her cheek on top of her head. "It's not that profound but it mattered to ol' Mousqueton."