Author's Note

This segment contains moderate amounts of gore. Viewer discretion is advised.

Normality

Twilight walked through the door of her Canterlot home. It wasn’t a large place, but it served the purpose of Celestia’s personal student. Twilight did all the usual things one would do after a long day – she checked her mail, threw her saddlebags for the day on a sofa and promised herself she’d get to them later, read a chapter of the newest Daring Do book – nothing out of the ordinary for a mare her age.

Until the clock struck 5. As it did, Twilight snapped shut her book and placed it neatly on a nearby table, then stood up with renewed vigor. Her mind raced through what was going to happen in a few minutes, and it still gave her the glee it did years ago. The joy of discovery. Twilight walked over to a large bookcase and examined it. Many of the books were ones she actually read – some fiction, some not. But, there was a book that was used in a special way – it wasn’t a book at all. Twilight could pick it out easily, but she read the golden writing along the book’s spine to confirm her findings.

‘A Short Guide to the Equine Body’

The title was rather telling for its purpose. After all, Twilight had requested numerous times to receive a Griffon as a subject from Celestia, but all requests had been refused. Twilight reached out a hoof, and pulled the top of the book towards her. There was a small click, and the bookcase swung toward Twilight a little. She stepped back, grabbed the frame of the bookcase with her magic, and pulled it further. The bookcase swung round to reveal a small stone staircase leading down into unlit depths. Twilight stepped forward, and concentrated slightly on summoning and maintaining a small ball of light to walk alongside her. After entering into the passageway, her hooves colliding on the floor to create a rhythmic echo, Twilight used her magic once again to close the bookcase. There was another click, telling Twilight the entrance was sealed. With that, Twilight made her way down the flight of stairs, the only noise being that of the clacking of hooves on stone. The staircase spiraled a little, and Twilight followed it from muscle memory further down into the dark. It wasn’t damp, despite the almost cave-like nature of the area; Twilight would never allow such things in a place of study.

After walking a little further, the passage opened up into a small antechamber, this one lit by candle lining the walls. There was a single large stone slab in the center of the room, its surface smoothed by expert craftsmanship. “Only the best, eh Twilight?” Twilight asked aloud to herself upon seeing it. Around the table were small metal stands, similar to those used by surgeons in hospitals, and adorned with hospital grade equipment – along with a couple of instruments of Twilight’s own personal design. In addition to the usual scalpels, bone-cutters, forceps, and other such implements were a selection of differently sized needles with small tanks of various pharmaceuticals to accompany them. On the far side of the room was a small desk, with a quill and ink ready for Twilight to use. A simple wooden chair was tucked under the desk should Twilight require it, and strewn across the desktop were unfinished sketches and half-written essays and observations. Those that were complete were placed on the walls, reminding Twilight of how much she had accomplished doing what she did – and how much more she could achieve. Drawings of anatomically correct skulls, several internal organs with annotations and uses, even a large diagram of each section of the heart were what Twilight saw adorned on her walls. They were haphazardly strewn with no real order to them, but Twilight didn’t mind. Her usual orderly mind had made sense of where everything was, and there were relations between them known only to her. As the information Twilight gathered had been accumulated, she had placed things on the wall to suit her needs at the time. Never having moved them, Twilight knew exactly where everything she had made was, and rarely re-arranged them lest she lose a place. An organized chaos, she supposed.

However, these were not the main attraction of the room. For upon the slab of smooth stone used as a table lay a body, dead and naked, spread across in full length. Strange, Twilight thought, that no matter what they had done in life all dead looked so at peace while they were with her; as if some great weight had been lifted off their shoulders. Above the body was a small lamp, projecting a powerful but selective light over wherever Twilight decided to point it. It ran on its own batteries, but Twilight could get those easily enough. If all else failed, she could try charging it with magic. Twilight approached her latest subject, and looked over it closely.
“Subject is a male Earth pony,” Twilight began aloud, verbalizing her thoughts to better organize them. “Medium height, slightly better than average build.”

The coat, mane and tail had all been shaved off, so Twilight could see the skin underneath and didn’t have to deal with any stray hairs during her operations. However, this full shaving cost the subject a visible cutie mark. Twilight was often fine with this – she had no interest in what criminals had emblazoned on their flanks. “From my knowledge, subject is the ‘Caramel Killer’; serial murderer of only those with caramel coats…” Twilight paused for a moment to consider the specificity of a crime of this nature.
“Odd M.O…” she said aloud. “Body count sitting at around seven known.” She added, completing her mental log of the subject’s background.

Twilight walked around to the body’s side, and examined the torso. “Signs of malnourishment… I can see his ribs poking through a little.” Twilight noted, putting a forehoof on the torso to feel the ribs and test for any injuries. Moving first over the left ribcage, Twilight felt a few small dips mid-rib, and one that had been cracked recently. On the other side, the results were much the same, with a few tiny breakages and a couple of much larger, more recent ones. “State of ribcage suggests, minus the recent injuries sustained during capture, the subject has been through massive physical trauma…” Twilight commented, thinking a little about the size of the, what appeared to be, fractures. “Size of smaller fractures and breakages comparative to current ribcage would suggest previous abuse… foalhood maybe?” Twilight thought. “Daddy didn’t love you, did he?” Twilight muttered to herself, almost with concern, as she levitated a sharp scalpel over the body. Without another word, Twilight made a precise vertical incision along the centre of the ribcage, making sure to cut down to the bone. After, she cut a horizontal line either side of her incision to allow for the peeling of sinew, muscle and other such tissue to truly examine the contents of her subject. Putting the scalpel back down, Twilight now levitated a large surgical hook to pull the two flaps she had created to either side, allowing full access to see the subject’s ribs. As Twilight had imagined, the fractures she had felt were small nooks and scars left on the bone, with small fractions of some embedded in the bone at odd angles or else missing entirely. The larger breakages had come apart almost completely, piercing through the lungs and even severing the pulmonary artery to the heart. Blood still covered the ribs embedded in these organs, but the smaller shards had long since been cleared. “Signs of healing over the smaller fractures – nothing certain, but I’m assuming these were indeed foalhood injuries. Caused by immense force, but never treated for medical attention.” Twilight reported to herself, going over the bones once more to confirm that there hadn’t been any attention given to them by instruments.
“The larger snapping has caused significant blood loss, likely organ failure. Probably what killed him, and almost certainly the doing of Celestia or other such enforcement – these injuries couldn’t have been done a day or two ago.” Twilight finished. Running her eyes over the contents of her subject, Twilight concluded there was little more to be learned from this area; either anatomically or personally. Returning over to the desk to quickly scribble down a few memos of her discoveries, Twilight added an extra note – ‘Troubled’.

This was a part of the rating of mental state that Twilight had developed for her subjects. Spending so much time around those who performed such supposedly despicable acts as murder, Twilight had developed an interest in why they did such things. This field of ‘Criminal Psychology’ interested Twilight greatly. To be able to delve into a mind with such abnormalities as this intrigued her – what were the reasons, why certain types of victims, was there a correlation between criminals and class or race? All these questions would be much easier answered while her subjects were alive; but the dead told tales their living counterparts would be unable or unwilling to share.

“And they say a dead mare tells no tales,” Twilight scoffed, moving back over to her subject.
“Malnourishment could be an interesting angle, I’ll see what effects this has had on the –” Twilight was interrupted in her thoughts by the sound of her front door opening, the slight sound of the wind echoing down to her, and then the door closing once more. “Twilight?! I’m back!” came the unmistakable announcement of Twilight’s personal assistant, Spike.
“Did you remember the spare quills?!” Twilight bellowed back up to him.
“And the parchment!” came the reply.
“Thanks!” Twilight shouted back, and smiled a little to herself. The dragon was invaluable to her – both an incredible serviceman and, though Twilight would never describe him as such to herself, she considered him like a sibling. ‘Now if only he’d remember to put the damned vegetables IN the fridge!’

Twilight chuckled to herself ever so slightly at that remark, smiled at the efficiency with which Spike carried out tasks like shopping. But for now, she had work to do.
“Oh, and I got that book you were on about!” Spike added.
Twilight frowned. “A History of Equestria?!” She asked. It seemed implausible – that book wasn’t due for another fortnight, at least.
“If it’s the one with a golden pony head and a brown cover, yea!” Spike called back.

Twilight made a mental note to file for the body to be moved; she needn’t have her workplace smell of rot. The notes would keep, she’d write up a full report later. But for now, that book changed everything. “I’ll be up in a minute Spike!” Twilight shouted, already placing all instruments back in their respective places and putting the two dirty ones to one side to be washed in a while.
“Alright… what do you do down there anyway?” Spike asked.
“I’ll tell you one day. Be careful about asking too many questions Spike – curiosity can be a morbid thing…”