Keep Out of the Everfree Forest

Emerald did not sleep peacefully that night. Her dreams were plagued by images of Mr. Cake’s dismembered limb. Visions of his horrible and painful death. Nightmares showing her own untimely demise. She woke with a start, falling out of bed. Her clock told her that she had slept through most of the morning. She left the apartment immediately to speak to the fire chief.
She quickly flew around to the fire station. When she arrived, the chief was giving a pep talk to all of the firefighters. They all stopped to look at her, firefighters whispering to each other as she walked past them.
“Emerald, you made it,” said the chief calmly.
“Sir, I’m going to assume you’ve heard the recent news about Mr. Cake,” Emerald sai.
“You assume correctly,” the chief replied.
“I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail, but I’d like some time to grieve with his family.”
“That would be best, considering some of the recent rumors,” the chief muttered.
“With respect, sir,” Emerald said. “What rumors?”
“Well,” the chief said, “there are rumors going around about Cake’s death. To put it simply, Emerald, half of Ponyville thinks you and your roommate killed him.”
Emerald’s jaw dropped. She took a deep breath and faced the chief. “If I may ask, sir, what do you think?”
“Well, young lady, I’ve got a town to keep safe, so I’m not picking sides. But I’d be careful around here if I were you.”
“Noted, sir. I’ll keep quiet until this whole thing blows over.”
“Your job will still be waiting when it does. Dismissed.”
Emerald thanked the chief and flew straight up towards the clouds. She looked around Ponyville scratching her head. There were a few things that needed to be done if she was going to crack this case.
First, she needed to figure out who she could trust around Ponyville. She didn’t know much about the town and without a general understanding of the residents, she could kiss the discovery of a motive goodbye.
She knew she could definitely trust Mrs. Cake and Pinkie Pie, so she headed for Sugarcube Corner.
She walked into the sweet shop finding Mrs. Cake and Sapphire sitting at one of the tables.
Sapphire stood up and gave Emerald a hug. “How did it go with the chief?”
Emerald sat down next to Mrs. Cake. “He told me to keep to myself until this whole thing is over. With all these rumors going around, ponies aren’t going to be friendly with us.”
“So you’ve heard the rumors,” said Sapphire, sighing.
“We can’t just stand around doing nothing, Sapphire,” said Emerald. “Nopony trusts us at the moment, and we don’t know who our friends are right now. Until someone finds a culprit, everypony in Ponyville is going to hate us. So we have to find the murderer, if not for us, for Mrs. Cake.”
“Okay then, where do we start?” Sapphire asked.
Emerald turned to Mrs. Cake, who was lost in her own little world. Emerald called out to her, waving a hoof in front of her face.
“Oh, sorry, dear,” said Mrs. Cake. “What do you want?”
“I know this isn’t the best time to be asking, but can you think of anypony who would want Mr. Cake dead?”
Mrs. Cake sniffed. “No, I can’t. Everypony loved him.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cake. Let me know if you think of anything,” said Emerald. “Sapphire, come with me.”
The two mares walked into the kitchen of the shop. Emerald shut the door behind them.
“Well, if Mrs. Cake can’t help us, we have no leads,” said Emerald sadly.
“Actually, there are a lot of myths and legends surrounding the Everfree Forest,” said Sapphire. “You may want to look into them.”
“This is a murder case, not a supernatural conspiracy!” snapped Emerald.
“Is it?” asked Sapphire quietly. “I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.”
“Fine,” said Emerald. “But I’m only doing this because we have nothing else to go on.