Heads and tails

Words were flowing quickly under the unicorn’s purple eyes. A ceaseless stream of graphics examined by her brain.

Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s librarian and mostly magic-talented unicorn, was reading. She loved reading, the new informations, the smell of paper, every book contained a new world to explore. At the moment she was learning about Pegasi’s old traditions, centuries before Equestria was founded.

And she would have continued reading, if she hadn’t heard knocking coming from the door.

“Aw, coming…” she said, more to herself than anybody else.

A purple glow enveloped the thick wooden door, and she opened it.

“I’m sorry, we are clos…” she started to say, but trailed off almost immediately. The sight before her was one of the most curious and creepy she had ever seen. The two Earth Ponies standing on her doorway were identical. Same coat, same eye color and even the same Cutie Mark. At first she thought they could be monozygotic twins, but she discarded that theory when she acknowledged one of them was a mare.

However the most disturbing feature about those two was their expressions. Their eyes revealed only boredom, yet their mouths were twisted in unnatural smiles. Like somepony carved them in those two faces. Twilight felt uncomfortable in their presence. Very uncomfortable. She was about to slam the door shut, when the mare spoke:

“Good morning, Miss Sparkle” her voice was monotonous, although it was obvious she was making a great effort to sound kind. “We are perfectly aware that the library is closed today. But we must insist. It’s fundamental we get a book today. We won’t steal more than few moments of your time.” She concluded her phrase with another fake smile.

Twilight was tempted to close the door without saying a thing, but decided against it. She couldn’t let her illogical impressions get the best of her. Maybe they really needed a book urgently. Actually, it wasn’t their fault if they looked and sounded creepy. Then why a voice in her head was telling her to not trust those strangers?

She suppressed the voice. “Mmmh, if it’s so urgent, I guess I could help you. Will it be quick, right?”

“We obtain what we are looking for, and then we leave” assured the mare.

“Ok, then. Come in.” She welcomed them inside, noting that they also walked in perfect synchrony. So perfect, in fact, that she could hear only a series of hooves steps and not two. Another entry in the Utterly Strange and Creepy Features List.

“What book are you looking for?”

“D. Hooves, Principles of Theoretical Time Travel and Alternate Universes” she recited with a hint of pride.

“I’ve never heard of this book. From the title I’d say it’s physics themed. Fascinating, most of ponies here only read narrative,” she was starting to get excited.They might be ponies worth knowing, after all. Maybe they are eccentric, most scientists are. “Are you physicists? Are you studying time travel? I personally have read something…”

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice one of her guests, the silent stallion, was no more beside his partner. She was still talking when two hooves, permeated by Earth Pony’s strenght, collided with the back of her head, making her collapse.

“Finally, we found out the correct way to do it. Her magic is really tricky. It took us five tries to work out a solution” he said, making sure Twilight had passed out.

“Yes: exploiting her love for literature,” she added “I almost feel bad for it.”

“Help me tie her up…”

**************

“A unicorn’s horn is an integral part of their central nervous system. Inside it courses a thick nervous fiber, which connects directly to the brainstem through the thalamus. Therefore a sufficiently strong and abrupt trauma (for example, breaking it in half)in this area leads, almost surely, to brain’s dysfunction. After which most patients die, by heart failure, or become comatose.”

The mare put down Pony Biology Vol. 2, to stare at the dead body of the former librarian. Her eyes were dim, and from a hollow hole in her forehead blood was spilling out profusely. Beside the corpse stood the stallion, a red stained, and likely very heavy, hammer in his grip.

“You should have been more delicate, brother. We agreed to remove her horn as a safety precaution. Killing her was not our purpose, if I remember well” she said.

His partner turned to her, annoyance could almost be seen in his emotionless eyes. “We agreed to never be angry to each other, too. Your sarcasm is not making it an easy task, if I can express my opinion. Next time I’ll make sure to dose my strenght properly. But now, we must decide what is to do. Should we wait until midnight? Or…”

“TWILIGHT!!!”

Two heads turned to the source of the inappropriate interruption, to see a baby dragon frozen near the door, eyes wide, a sack full of apples at his feet. The three of them kept staring to each other for some time, uncertain about what to do. Then the stallion cleared his throat:

“My apologies, Mr. Spike. I regret to admit we completely forgot about you. You shouldn’t have seen your maternal figure horribly murdered. It was very impolite from us. Perhaps next time we should get rid of you first, so you won’t be forced to witness this, what do you think?”

Spike was not totally sure, but seemed like the stallion with a blood stained hammer in his hooves was actually threatening to kill him. So he decided wisely to run away as fast as he could.

“He’s going to inform the authorities, isn’t he?” asked the mare calmly.

“Probably. Unless a meteor hits him or a fall breaks his neck. In this loop it might happen. The odd are not in our favor, though” he answered with the same calm.

“So we are spending the rest of the day in a cell. Or worse, interviewed by journalists?”

“There is no question.”

“I’m not in the mood for coming up with stories about my troubled infancy, in which my father molested us for the interview.”

“Me neither.”

“Then I’m going to look for a knife in the kitchen.”

“Sharp, please. My jugular itched a lot last time.”

***************

Twilight felt consciousness slowly creep into her, and opened her eyes. Two familiar faces welcomed her.

“Welcome back among the living,” said the mare “I hope you’ve slept well. You got hit quite hard.”

Twilight started to feel less dizzy and realized her legs were tidied. She was beginning to worry now. Who are these ponies? What do they want from her? What if..? No ,keep it together Twilight, you can always cast a spell, don’t you?

She tried to focus her magic energy in her horn, only to feel an acute pain shooting from her head. She groaned.

“We must warn you to not use magic. Because we saw your horn off, just for you to know. See?” The stallion showed her what was indoubtedly a purple unicorn’s former horn.

Twilight suppressed a scream. She couldn’t panik in front of them. “Why… why would you do that? Who are you? What do you want? Because you can have my money, just…”

She was silenced by a brown hoof blocking her mouth.

“Please one question at a time,” said politely the stallion “my name is Doctor D. Hooves, physicist,  and the mare here is Doctor D. Hooves, same profession. As for what we want: it’s quite simple, we want a single piece of information.”

“How can we kill Celestia, Princess of Equestria?”