Chapter two: Help the dead

We are all haunted. I don’t mean we have specters floating around us, wiggling their hooves and going “Oogly oogly oooh”, I mean that our deeds and memories stay with us long after the fact. They drift away, then come back unexpectedly.

My father, Ivory Mortis, a white earth pony with crossbones cutie marks, told me at a very young age what happened to my absent mother.

“You killed her, Equus,” he said, matter-of-factly.

When tears began to dribble down my cheeks, my dad held up a hoof. “I don’t mean that you meant to kill her. I’m simply saying that her heart gave out giving birth to you.”

“Why?” I hollered, my heart getting shoved into a bucket of nails. “Why did mama have to die!”

“Death is our life, my little Equus. That’s our family motto. Death follows everyone, but people like us welcome that.”

“I don’t understand,” I whimpered, wiping my nose.

“You will, in time. You will understand, as I now do, that life is full of inadequacies and prejudices. In death, everyone is an equal. Your mother, my dear, sweet Marrow, now walks with her ancestors, now sits at the right hoof of Nightmare Moon.”

Dad pulled a large leather book off a nearby shelf. When he opened it in his lap, the leather creaked. He showed me wood carvings of ponies in ancient ceremonial robes. “The Mortis family is very old, over a thousand years, in fact. We have always helped the living cope with the passing of loved ones with our skills as morticians. Over the centuries, we have branched out into similar fields. I help the local Manehatten police with my skills as a coroner, for example.”

My tears forgotten for the moment, I asked, “Really? You catch any bad guys?”

Father smiled at me, proud of my curiosity. “No, Equus. Not personally. Contrary to what certain pony-dreadful crime magazines will tell you, we do not personally seek those that kill others. We stay in the background and let the real soldiers do the fighting. We clean up the mess the world leaves behind, that’s all.”

Dad turned a page. There was another engraving of a pony that was spread-eagled and tied to a large table. There were wings in a nearby bowl. Dark blotches dribbled where the pony’s...no, the pegasus’s wings and cutie marks used to be. As crude as the picture was, as lop-sided as the perspective appeared to be, even I knew that those same robed ponies from the previous page were pulling this bound and tortured pegasus apart.

Pointing at the horrors, I asked, “Dad, why are those ponies doing that?”

He looked at the drawing. A sentimental smile came and went. I almost missed it. Dad seemed lost in the scene’s history. Looking at me, he thought for a moment. Even then, at a colt’s age, I could tell he was trying to put some kind of spin on the slaughter.

Closing the book, a bit suddenly, he said, “I’ll tell you later. But only if you hoof-swear to never tell anyone else what you saw.”

Father held up a hoof, waiting for me. I planted my right hoof in his and said, “I, Equus Mortis, do hoof-swear to never tell anypony about what I just saw.”

Good at his word, he told me everything that book contained later. Much later. A week before he killed himself.

A few days had passed since Dash’s murder. Somepony named Gabby Gums ran an article in the Foal Free Press naming me as the one who did the autopsy on her. Since it’s illegal for me to spill anything about the case to anyone save the police, I had to keep quiet about what I saw. Some Rainbow Dash fans even demanded that I tell them who killed her. A few nose-to-nose confrontations like that, and I started to buy my groceries at night, to avoid the crowds.

While this miserable business was going on, I had gone over the toxicology reports with Flashbulb. There was an enormous amount of adrenaline in her blood. Rainbow Dash was kept awake during her torture and murder. She was probably forced to watch as her guts were getting ripped out.

Something about that bugged me. I have heard Rainbow Dash yell in anger. If she was killed out in the open, the entire town would have heard her screaming and come running. She was killed somewhere with thick walls, maybe even in a cellar.

There was that one single pink pony hair that I found. Problem is, there are several pink ponies in this town. I had other work to do, so I couldn’t keep track of the investigation.

A city guard walked into the morgue as I was talking to Flashy. It was the same guard that woke me up the last time. For a brief moment, I thought that there was another murder.

“Come with me,” the guard said. “Princess Celestia requests an audience with you.”

A request from anypony else would have resulted in a brush-off-I’m-too-busy from me. But when the most powerful being in the known world wants a word with you, you comb your mane, pop a breath-mint, and get in Celestia’s sky-chariot.

I’m an earth pony. I’m not used to having my hooves leave the ground any longer than it takes for me to get out of bed. When the two pegasus castle guards pulled the chariot up and over Ponyville, I almost passed out. Dead bodies? Pah. Flying? Eeep.

I was hugging the floor and peeking over the edge. Being careful to not look down, I saw that I was almost at the castle. These guys must have been told to double-time getting me here.

Once they landed in the courtyard, another pair of pegasus guards hustled me into the princess’s throne-room. This was the first time I had ever been this close to royalty, but there was no time for sight-seeing.

I was escorted down the hallway to her throne. Massive stained glass windows filtered the light in a myriad of colors. The light that reflected off of Princess Celestia’s multi-colored mane and tail was just as beautiful. It was easy to see why most ponies worshiped her. She was the biggest equine in the country. Only her sister was as big, but she was exiled to the moon a thousand years ago. Nightmare Moon, according to my father, was a giant among her loyal followers.

Her white body seemed to radiate as she levitated what I recognized as my autopsy reports. Reading over them carefully, I suspect several times, she then passed them onto an assistant who then trotted off. Celestia then looked at me.

I could almost feel her gaze push over my skin, so I bowed. I had never had to that with anyone.

“Hello, Equus Mortis. I’m glad you came on such short notice.” Oh, my. Even her voice glowed.

“I...uh...I just wish that I could come here under more pleasant circumstances.” Recalling my training as a mortician, I added, “I am very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. You seem like a decent sort, in spite of what some ponies have told me. You mentioned in your report that Rainbow Dash was killed in a ritualistic fashion. What did you mean by that?”

My ears twitched. There was an edge in her voice, barely there. But still sharp.

“Well, cutting the cutie marks and wings off a pegasus reduces the identity of that pegasus, making the victim seem more like an object than a person.”

She blinked, leaning forward. “Go on.”

“Well, serial killers have certain select ways to kill their victims. Rituals, if you will.”

“Where do you suppose these monsters get these...rituals?”

She handed me that question as if it were a soap bubble that I didn’t dare pop.

“Well...history isn’t pretty. Maybe somebody sick in the head got some ideas by reading about...the war between you and Nightmare Moon?”

Princess Celestia regarded me for another moment before leaning back. I felt as if a hoof was lifted from my neck.

“Perhaps you are right,” she said. She looked down, her ears drooping. “I hope you are, for I need you to talk to someone who might have studied our ancient history.”

“Who’s that?”

“Rainbow Dash’s killer.”

If a tornado had blown through the courtroom, it might have knocked me over faster than this news, but I doubt it.

“What?”

She frowned. “Don’t you read the newspaper? The news hit the Ponyville express this morning.”

“I’ve been keeping a low profile. Ponies have been getting in my face about the autopsy.”

“Hmm. I doubt that’s an issue anymore. I’m sending you to Manehatten’s Kirkbridle Institute.
That’s where they’re keeping her.”

I thought of the pink hair I found. And the fact that only someone close could have gotten the drop on Dash. I was almost afraid to ask.

“It’s Pinkie Pie, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes. I’m afraid so. Take the next train to Manehatten. Talk to Pinkie. Get everything you can from her.”

“Er...I don’t want to seem obtuse or, you help me, disobedient, but why are you sending me? I deal with dead people, not the killers that make them.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You know more than you’re letting on.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She got up from her throne and walked towards me. It took everything scrap of willpower I had to keep from running out of the castle screaming like a filly. Those long white legs filled most of my vision. She stopped in front of me and loomed like a snowy mountain over me.

“When you requested a transfer from Manehatten to Ponyville, I was unconcerned. That is, until I was informed about your father. I am an avid student of history, Equus Mortis. I know about your family’s loyalty.”

I swallowed. Crud. So much for keeping secrets.

She smiled. Just a little, but it made my heart pound a little less harder. “I’m certain that you will find out everything I need to know. Your loyalty is to me, is it not?”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, your majesty.”

“Good. Guards?”

Two pegasus guards stepped up.

“Escort mister Mortis to the Ponyville train station. Send him on the next train to Mane- hatten.”

She turned back to her throne as I was led out of the courtroom. My mind was buzzing in a dozen different directions, so even the next sky-chariot’s travel to the train station didn’t faze me.

Pinkie Pie? Rainbow Dash’s murderer? The last time I dealt with anything that bizarre was when I visited my father. He was still staying at the same apartment I grew up in. When I unlocked the front door, I saw him in a huge pool of his own blood.

He had sliced his legs open and had cut off his cross-bones cutie marks. While Ivory was bleeding out, he had drawn an ancient symbol on the living room floor. It was a crescent shape with a crude unicorn head drawn into one side. A portrait of the living goddess of night my family once worshipped.

He had been dead for hours. It took hours for me to stop crying, even after the police arrived.

That’s why I fought to get transferred to Ponyville. I wanted to go somewhere quieter, to live in a town that would be kinder than Manehatten. Where ponies aren’t ripped apart. Where fathers don’t end themselves.

Death follows us all. But why (oh why) does death have to follow so close to me? I tried to shake off the self pity as I waited for the Manehatten train.

I bought a newspaper that screamed the headline “PINKIE PIE: KILLER OF RAINBOW DASH”. It would take hours to get to the city and I had plenty of time to read.

We are all haunted. My ghost is my father, who I still find myself yelling at in the darkest, loneliest moments of my solitary life.

And now I was going to visit someone who had a much larger ghost than I.

Author's Note

Here it is, delivered on Monday, just as promised. I'll be dropping off the third chapter today, too.
The soundtrack for this chapter is:
Aghast Manor---Waking Cthulhu
Aghast---Enter the hall of ice.
I hope you folks liked this one.