October 12th
“My husband was a happy stallion who lived life to the full.”
A middle aged unicorn walks across a busy Canterlot street, his short cut, graying mane matching the tones of his suit. He quickly scribbles a note before it catches into the silver-blue fire that matched the aura of his horn, sending it away.
-What do you mean, there’s no one to pick me up?-
Almost as soon as he sent it, a small note materialized in front of him, written in feminine, almost loving strokes of his secretary's hornwriting.
-The driver went to Trotterloo. I’m sorry. Get a cart.-
An annoyed expression crosses his pale green face as he replies.
-I never get carts.-
"He loved his family… and his work…"
A small smile replaces his annoyance at the secretary’s added note as he turns to call for a cart.
-I love you.-
Sometime later, he stands at one of many bridges connecting Canterlot’s towers several stories above the ground. He stares at the city… all of its beautiful spires, the homely shops, the mansions, the… happy little ponies, oblivious to the torment happening above them. The beginnings of lamplight reflect on his fearfully-but resignedly- tearing eyes.
"...and that he should his own life in this way is a mystery…"
A small bottle is enveloped by his aura. He opens the cap with an almost agonizing slowness, shaking it slightly, and a small marbled capsule falls into his hoof. With shaking breaths, he puts the capsule into his mouth.
"...and a shock…"
Almost immediately, his body starts to violently convulse, and his legs buckle underneath him, driving his dying body to the ground. His tears turn into pitiful choking gasps, still unconsciously writhing in agony under the rise of Luna’s night.
"...to all who knew him."
The unicorn mare finishes her brief words in the crowded conference room, quietly losing her professional mask, breaking down into sobs in front of the collected gathering. By some collective gesture, the ponies all bowed their heads in silence. Toward the side of the room, a much younger unicorn with a cheery yellow coat tries to show no feeling, but joins in on the distressed cries her lover’s wife.
November 26th
Two teenage colts, pegasus and earth pony, trot down the street, the cascading roar of pouring rain drowning their hoofsteps. The earth pony ambles along while clamping onto his umbrella with his teeth, struggling against the wind; the umbrella-less pegasus feebly attempts to shield his body with his wings. A cabbie trots by with his sign lit. The pegasus’ face lightens up a little.
“Yes! Cabbie! Over here!”
But the cabbie driver trots along, taking no note of the slowly soaking ponies. The pegasus colt lets out a slight huff. He starts to go back the way he came but turns around to his friend.
“I’ll be back in two minutes, mate!” His earth pony friend looks at him, confused.
“What for?”
“I’ll trot back home for my mum’s umbrella!” He picks up pace.
“Wait up! You can share mine!”, the earth pony calls out. The pegasus just shouts back his “two minutes” and leaves.
The earth pony glances at the clock tower.
The pegasus sits down at the edge of the stage, one of his front hooves dangling off the edge. His silent cries echo through the empty walls, the empty chairs, the empty stage.
His friend had been gone for almost twenty minutes.
He fearfully clutches the small bottle, hooves shaking. The capsule inside rattles.
The silent cries become a little less silent as the shaking bottle produces its tiny capsule onto his hoof. Quickly, he stuffs the thing into his mouth.
Too Long. Far too Long.
January 27th
An official looking stallion stands in a bar, a tired expression on his face while music thumped throughout the place. A light brown mare in a black and white dress joins him. The stallion’s dark blue eyes turned to her.
“Is she still dancing?”
“Yeah, if you can call it that.” The stallion gave a long suffering look, bringing a hoof forward and dragging it down his face. He looked around the dance hall for the celebrating mare, but suddenly frowned.
“Where is she?”
A blonde pegasus mare staggered out through the avenue. She flies a little bit, but her wings flail uselessly and she flops to the ground, dirt scuffling her dress. She walks on for a little bit, but all the houses look the same, and she can’t see straight...
She sobs hysterically now, the tears streaking down her face highlighted by the eyeshadow that it smears. The echoes of her frightened sobs reverberated through the unfinished house, only frightening her more. As she continues to cry, she reaches out a trembling hoof towards a small glass bottle which contains three large capsules.
On the conference table crowded by newsponies sat an uncomfortable earth pony stallion. His build was common of the Royal Guard ponies, but now he wore no uniform. His hair was streaked silver and white and his brown eyes stared out of his silver-tan coat. Seated to his left, another gaurdspony, with a cherry red mare with curly dark brown hair. Behind them were posters featuring a young pegasus colt, an older pegasus mare, and a unicorn stallion. The cherry mare began to speak.
“The body of Belle Trotenport, Junior Minister for Transport, was found late last night on a building site in Greater Canterlot. Preliminary investigations suggest that this was suicide. We can confirm that this apparent suicide closely resembles those of Sir Counting Rackerson and Jay Fillymore. In the light of this, these incidents are now being treated as linked. The investigation is ongoing but Detective Inspector Justice Stride will take questions now.”
The room was instantly permeated with the headache- inducing flashes of cameras and the clamoring shouts of newsponies. Stride brought his hooves together and nodded toward a long maned earth pony colt toward the front.
“Detective Inspector, how can suicides be linked?” Most of the clamors stopped. Justice Stride felt the weight of all their expectant gazes on him.
“Well,” Stride began, shuffling his front hooves, “they all took the same poison; um, they were all found in places they had no reason to be; none of them had shown any prior indication of-”
“But you can’t have serial suicides.”
“Well apparently you can.” I never called them ‘serial suicides’ you git.
A bearded colt spoke up. “These three ponies, there’s nothing that links them?”
“There’s no link we’ve found yet,” Stride said begrudgingly, “But we’re looking for it. There has to be one.”
All the sudden, a bunch of notes appear in various reporters’ hooves. Another one appears at the conference table.
-Wrong!-
The curly maned mare looks at it with annoyance. “If you’ve all got notes, please ignore them.”
“It just says ‘Wrong’.”
No shit, genius. “Yeah, well, just ignore that. Okay, if there are no more questions for Detective Inspector Stride,” she announced, her gaze sweeping across the room, “I’m going to bring this session to an end.”
The bearded reporter spoke up again. “But if they’re suicides,” he almost sneered, “what are you investigating?”
Justice Stride stared at him.“As I say, these … these suicides,” he gestured with his hooves, “are clearly linked. Um, it’s an ... it’s an unusual situation. We’ve got our best ponies investigating-”
More notes suddenly appear, one landing one Stride’s head.
-Wrong!-
He looks despairingly to the mare.
“Just says ‘wrong’ again.”
“One more question,” the mare broadcasted.
A unicorn mare with glasses piped up. “Is there any chance that these are murders, and if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?”
“I …” think you’re being ridiculous. “I know that you like writing about these, but these do appear to be suicides. We know the difference. The, um, the poison was clearly self-administered.” Hint, hint.
“Yes, but,” the bespectacled mare persisted, “ if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe?”
“Well,” Justice Stride snapped, “don’t commit suicide.”
The cherry mare shoots him a warning look, and he corrects himself.
“Obviously this is a frightening time for ponies, but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be.”
As though on cue, notes bearing ‘wrong’ appear, but a different note shows up at the table.
-You know where to find me. FH-
Author's Note
Let me just come out and say I did not expect to hit the thousand word mark on the first chapter. -celebratory yay-
On another note, sorry for no Majestic Forelock or Adorkable John Jam yet! That's for the next chapter. -secretly hate how much I said Pony!Lestrade's name.
Which I will write.
When I get over the fact that I composed, concepted and wrote this in under 4 hours.
On a Sunday.
