Chapter three: Lament the dead.

By the time the train I was on had reached Manehatten, I had read about Pinkie Pie’s murder of Rainbow Dash. What I found interesting was that Pinkie was found under a bridge ten miles away from Ponyville two days after Dash was killed. According to the police report, she apparently jumped off the bridge, but hit a boulder hidden in the river. Her back was probably broken.

Did she feel a sudden surge of remorse over what she did and tried to end it all? I’m no psychiatrist, but I was leaning towards that.

Manehatten had the same frantic hustle as always. Ponyville didn’t have to have ground and air-related police. Getting the pegasi to fly in a straight line like ground traffic was like herding ferrets. Every other street corner reminded me of another murder. A tree in the park made me recall the hanging suicide from a few years back. It’s possible to love a city if you don’t know it too well.

The Kirkbridle Institute is one of the oldest mental institutions in Equestria. It’s self-suffient, nearly escape-proof and armored like a gold depository. Guard towers on every corner, armed with crossbows, to guard against Pegasi escapees. A fifty-hoof high wall surrounded the place. The old-world architecture of spiked rooftops and long thin windows that almost seemed to wink at you made it appear that you were in another world. Appropriate, since the stark-eyed denizens of this place also lived in distant lands.

A grey pegasus with a sword cutie mark flew over to me as I approached the front gate.

“Equus Mortis?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“I’m Steel Jacket, chief of Kirkbridle security. I’ve been sent to escort you to your assign-ment.”

After I was signed in at the gate entrance, I noticed that several small groups of city police were patrolling the grounds.

“Is all this extra security because of Pinkie Pie?” I asked Steel Jacket.

“Yeah. She’s only been here a little while, but there’s already been dozens of death threats aimed at this place. That’s what happens when you kill a hero. Everyone hates you.”

I only nodded as he led me inside. Polished white tile floors, stained oak paneling. This place almost seemed like a hotel, albeit with shatter-proof glass, stallion guards and thick lock-bolts on all the doors.

“Stay close to me,” said Steel Jacket. “Don’t talk to the patients.”

When we turned a corner, I got my first glimpse of the mad. There were several white mares sitting in a circle, muttering to each other. Their manes were colored in blue and purple bloches (most likely fur-dye).

“I’m Princess Celestia.” one of them said.

“Not likely, as I am the one that raises the sun,” replied the second pony.

A third stamped her hooves impatiently. “You are both mad mares. I and only I am Celestia.”

I trotted past them, studying the pinewood ceiling with vested interest.

One purple pony sat in a corner, rubbing his head back and forth against a grimy wall. He was grumbling, “Add some salt, just a pinch, then you get....add some salt, just a pinch, then you get.....”

He stopped chanting, sensing my presence. The pony wheeled around to stare at me. His eyes were bloodshot, the forehead rubbed bald.

“Wanna help me bake?” he asked, licking his chapped lips. The tip of his tongue, I couldn’t help but notice, had been bitten off.

All things considered, I’d rather have been back at the morgue.

After passing a few more islands of the mentally departed, Steel Jacket led me past another checkpoint. A few more bolted doors later and I was in what a hallway sign designated “Black Area 1”.

“What’s a Black Area?” I asked.

“It’s where the most dangerous patients are placed.” Steel Jacket answered. “We’re almost there.”

“Has Pinkie said anything to anyone?”

“I just run security, buddy. My job’s to keep the nuts in the can, not to listen to them rattle.”

Charming fellow. But then, would I be any less callous? After all, as a mortician, I’ve had to clean up some murder victims that had their eyes and teeth gored out with hammers. Could the pony who did that be less than a few yards from me right now?

If one worked in a place like this for any respectable length of time, how would that influence your daily life after work? Would you be walking down a street, trying to see if any pony you see be as homicidal as the ones you look after? What would be considered tell-tale signs of mad-ness? A twitch in the tail? Not responding to having juice spit in your face? You never could be sure, could you? Not until you’re alone and someone’s hooves reach out to...

I shook my head. Why was this place getting to me? Was it that sobbing coming from one of the cells I was walking past?

“Mama...mama...I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to break you....Mama...”

Perhaps it was somepony explaining herself to the walls.

“I had to saw his hooves off. Can’t you understand that? How else could I keep my lover from running away?”

It’s easy to be cynical when all you get to see is the dark and twisted side of people. It didn’t get much darker than in here.

“Okay,” said Steel Jacket. “Here we are.”

He unlocked a door labeled “Interviews”. Inside was a table that was bolted to the floor. A window with bars on the inside was on the opposite wall. Dark green walls and a concrete floor made this room extra gloomy. Why was there only one chair?

“Wait here. I’ll bring her in a minute.”

I sat down and listened to the background drone of crying and growls, which was mercifully dulled by the brick walls. Several minutes passed.

The door clicked open and I looked up. I now understood why I had the only chair.

Pinkie Pie was hoof-cuffed to a wheelchair. Her bright pink poofy hair had gone flatter than week-old beer. A bandage was wrapped tight around her forehead. The pony’s overall pink color had darkened by several shades. She was slumped sideways in her chair, her chin touching her chest.

Bandages were wrapped around her ribs and gut. A wooden brace propped up her back.

At first I thought she was asleep until Steel Jacket, who was pushing the wheelchair, bumped a wheel against a table-leg. Pinkie jerked her head up, hissing through gritted teeth.

“Sorry,” he said, a smirk trembling across his lips.

Her head drooped down again, half-hidden in a curtain of hair. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, with a stone-dull voice.

Steel Jacket locked the wheelchair in place. “She’s all yours, Mortis. Knock on the door when you’re done.”

The pegasus left, slamming the door home.

I looked at her, but her eyes were closed.

“Uhm. Hello.” I wasn’t any good at this. How do I talk to a prisoner?

She opened her eyes. I recognized the bright blue colors from when I saw a much happier Pinkie Pie poinging around Ponyville. What sat before me looked like she was put in a bleach bath for too long.

Pinkie leaned over to one side, wincing in pain. She looked at my cutie mark, then leaned back and sighed. “I know you,” she said. “You moved to Ponyville about a month ago. I never did give you a welcome-to-our-town party, did I?”

“It wouldn’t have worked out. People look at my pony skull cutie mark and they get nervous around me.”

“That makes two of us, then. I heard one intern say that whenever he sees balloons, they’ll remind him of me. What a frickin’ honor.”

“What happened to your head?”

She rubbed her bandage, the cuff-chain rattling. “I happened to it. When I realized what I had done, I tried to bash my brains out on anything harder than my skull. That’s why I feel like a wet towel all the time. They doped me up and chained me so I don’t do that anymore. Because my life is soooo precious.” It was weird seeing this once-bright element of laughter sneer that last sentence.

“Well, that’s why I’m here. I’ve been sent by Princess Celestia to find out what happened.”

“What, don’t you read the paper? That same intern loves waving it under my nose. I killed my best friend. Case closed.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I’m sorry, I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, but I need to know everything you can tell me.”

She groaned a little. “Okay. I’ll try. Let’s see...A few nights ago, I was locking the door to Sugar Cube Corner. When I walked away, I looked up at the moon. It seemed a little different, you know?”

“Different how?”

“The Mare in the Moon always looks to her right. Has been ever since Celestia banned Nightmare Moon there a thousand years ago. This time, it seemed like she was looking at me.
And I mean me, specifically.”

I sat up, intrigued. “And then what happened?”

She looked confused at the memory. “And then...I took a nap. Next thing I know, I’m lying on some rocks under a bridge. It’s the middle of the day and somepony is screaming.”

“Do you remember what that pony said?”

“Something ahhh, she’s the one blah blah call the police. I didn’t even see who it was. I wasn’t paying much attention because my back started to hurt real bad. But I wasn’t too worried about that because I looked into the river and I didn’t see my reflection.”

“Who did you see, Pinkie?”

“I saw Rainbow Dash. The rainbow hair, the blue fur. I thought she was behind me or something, but when I sat up and looked around, I didn’t see her anywhere. That’s when I realized that my own head felt weird.”

“Go on.”

“I reached up...” She began to tense up, her shoulders lifting. “And felt like tape or some-thing was on my face. I pulled really hard and finally got the whole thing off. When it slipped out of my hooves, I knew what it really was.”

Pinkie was shivering now. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “It was Rainbow Dash’s face! The police and the doctors are telling me that I tied up my best buddy, cut off her cutie marks and wings and then gutted her!”

She tugged at her hoof-cuffs, trying to hug herself. She could only touch her chest as she sobbed. “And then I ripped off her face and wore it like a Nightmare Night mask! I keep telling them that I didn’t do it! Someone else grabbed my brain and made me kill my Dashie!”

I was tongue-tied. She wasn’t in the room anymore. Pinkie Pie was deep in her own memories now. “In the last two nights, I’ve had the same dream. I’m in the storage cellar of Sugar Cube Corner. Dashie is there. She’s tied up, crying and soaked in her own blood. I can hear her say ‘I want to go home.’”

Pinkie banged her hooves on the arm-rests. “Well, I want to go home, too! I want my Dashie back! I want to hold her in my arms! I want to feel her warmth, to hear her breathe! I...I wanna tell her that I love her and that I’d never do anything to hurt her!”

She slumped into her chair, spent. Worn out. “But I can’t have that. I can’t have anything anymore.”

Pinkie sniffed and wiped her nose. Her cheeks were glistening with tears. “Do you know what’s going to happen to me when I die in here? They’re gonna bury me in the back lot with all the other crazies. I don’t even get to have a tombstone. I’ll have a brick with a number on it. That’s all.”

She shook her head. “Everybody hates me now. When I die, all that will be left of me is something the yard crew trips over when they trim the weeds.”

Saying ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t going to help at all. What could I possibly say to any of this?

She stared at me with those bleak eyes. “Listen to me, Mortis.”

I stared right back her. Pinkie continued. “Noone should die like Dashie and noone should live like me. Whoever’s behind this is still out there. Who’s next? Twilight? Rarity? You? I don’t know what you can do, but this has got to stop.”

Her head began to droop down to her chest. She winced as she shifted in her back-brace. All I could think of saying was, “I’ll do my best to fix this.”

“I hope so. Whatever happens, keep in touch. I could use the company.”

I knocked on the door and Steel Jacket escorted me away. Past the murderers and rapists, sidestepping the now seven-strong group of white mares insisting they were the one ruler of Equestria, out into the world of the sane and level-headed.

“Did you find out anything?” asked the pegasus.

“More than I can tell you. Just...take good care of her, okay?”

His right brow shot up as he said, “Huh?”

“She’s more likely to kill herself than anyone else.”

“What, is that skull cutie mark a psychiatrist symbol? You don’t believe her little-miss-innocent routine, do you? Yeah, I was listening in a little this time.”

Sane. Level-headed. Arrogant.

After what Pinkie told me, I now knew, with an iron-ball drop in my gut, that she wasn’t crazy.

I looked at Steel jacket with the tombstone eyes that had given so many Ponyville residents the shivers. “If you recall, I was sent here by Princess Celestia herself. If I tell her that Pinkie Pie is getting abused, someone just might get sent to prison. Do you know what happens to authority figures in prison?”

His tire-sized eyes were locked onto mine. He peeped, “No.”

“I once had to prepare for burial an ex-policepony that died in a prison riot. A few unicorn prisoners surrounded him and horn-jabbed him with so many holes that it took me two days to stitch them closed. They call that death by uni-corn-holing. Awful pun. But appropriate.”

His wings were twitching. Steel wanted so badly to just fly away from the spooky death-pony. But I wouldn’t let him budge just yet. Sweet Alicorn of the sun, it felt good to scare the piss out of a jock. Did I mention I was bullied at school?

I continued. “Pinkie Pie is a very sad, self-destructive mare that needs all the care this facility can muster. She will eat what she wants, when she wants it. She will be allowed outside when she asks. There is an intern that teases her. Get rid of that creep immediately. Am I making myself absolutely, undeniably clear, Steel Jacket?”

“Yep. I mean, yes, sir. Mister Mortis.”

“Wonderful. I’ll be back here soon. I know you won’t disappoint me.”

I walked away from the gate. A few moments later, I heard a frantic pegasus yelping orders.

Sometimes, being a scary bastard can get great results. I had to remember to not make a habit of it, though.

I found myself running to the train-station. The next train to Ponyville was in an hour. Plenty of time to think about something my dad taught me soon before his death.

First the cutie marks are cut off. If it’s an earth pony that’s sacrificed to Nightmare Moon, then the pony’s tendons are severed. The pony cannot run, can only struggle in it’s bonds as all the blood is drained under a moonlit night.

Dad sliced himself up according to ancient instructions. I should know. I’m the one that did the autopsy.

“Blood is life, Equus.” He told me, that same small smile on his face, his eyes not quite focusing on me. “When blood is spilled in the name of love, the magic that comes from such a sacrifice can lend power to beings greater than ourselves. Nightmare Moon loves and rewards her followers, especially those willing to give up anything in her name. Even our friends.”

No wonder my family kept it’s history hidden from the world. My dad, in his own special way, gave Nightmare Moon the power to strike back against the Mane Six before she arrived in full force.

Pinkie asked me, who’s next? Twilight? Rarity? You?

How would Nightmare Moon deal with me? It was a long trip back home. I was bound to take a nap. I shivered in the summer heat as I recalled something else Pinkie told me.

Pinkie took a nap. Look what happened to her.

Author's Note

And here is the second shot of my double-dose this week.
The soundtrack for this chapter is:
Climax Golden Twins---A few simple up and down jerks. (Now stop that. It's a reference to the methods used in a prefrontal lobotomy.)
Climax Golden Twins---Hobbes theme.
Both of these tunes are from the Session 9 movie soundtrack. (Which also featured a deeply troubled lady.)
The Kirkbridle institute is, some may have noticed is a pony-play on the KirkBride plan, an insane asylum design that was supposed to give the maximum amount of comfort to the patients. This design was used in the Danvers state hospital that the Session 9 movie takes place at. This building was also the inspiration for the Arkham sanatorium from H.P. Lovecraft's "The thing on the doorstep". And now you know. See you all in a week. Stay sane(ish).