Moondrop

Detective Twilight Sparkle

The mare in question finished rubbing a cloth against the nameplate affixed to her brand-new office door. It gave her office a much more authoritative look, she thought, despite the fact that it was a storage room merely two days prior. Nevertheless, she had her own office now, and that was all that mattered. It wasn't the office itself that was important to Twilight, but the reason she had gotten the office- she had finally been promoted to full-blown detective of the PVPD, a goal which she had struggled and fought to earn for years.

It was an amazing feat, for a beat cop working the streets of a city like Ponyville. There were very few opportunities for a police officer in the crime-free city to prove themselves. Perhaps, in a larger city like Fillydelphia or Manehattan, Twilight might have been made a detective long ago, but she was not in either of those cities, and had to wait for her chance to impress her higher-ups.

And impress her higher-ups she did! Just a few days ago, a rare murder occurred in the city, and the victim was the secretary of the mayor, no less. She had dazzled the mayor with the quickness with which she solved the case, even after the actual detectives had been stumped, having rightfully realized that the secretary was murdered over a gambling debt she owed. Her superiors had taken the prime suspect's alibi at face value, yet only Twilight had had the motivation to continue following that lead. After she solved the case and helped apprehend the suspect (and not a shot fired!) the mayor had personally promoted her to the rank of detective, bypassing even the authority of the police captain.

Twilight stood in her office, surveying all that which was now hers. A small desk sat near the back, its cleared surface begging to be worked on, and a row of empty filing cabinets behind that. The walls of the room were grey- this didn't surprise her, it was a storage room prior, after all -and there wasn't a window in sight. A single fan hung down from the ceiling, turning lazily in the summer heat.

Well, it’s a start, she thought, making her way to the desk. She made to sit down, only to be surprised by the lack of a chair behind it. She sighed and sat down on the cold cement floor, glaring at the office around her. She had expected something a bit better, and was upset at what she had gotten. Her old desk in the station was preferable to this!

Twilight sighed as she made the sad realization that the less than ideal office should have been an expected occurrence. While she had been promoted by the mayor, and her captain had no means to dispute or overrule that, she still was the one in charge of assigning offices.

The captain had never liked Twilight, a fact she never bothered to hide when the two were made to interact. Twilight couldn’t fathom why- they had both served together in the Great War, in the same regiment, even. Most were inclined to believe the captain’s cold temperance towards Twilight was due solely to the speed at which Twilight was rising through the rank of the PVPD, despite having come back to Equestria at the same time, but Twilight knew better, as the captain had started displaying her distaste for the mare after only a few weeks into their service together. Twilight, being well-read but not long-lived and naive due to that, had decided long ago to simply avoid her captain as much as possible.

Twilight stood up from the cold floor, intent on getting coffee, and proceeded out her door, only to bump into another pony who was walking in. The pony muttered his apologies, rubbing his muzzle. “Sorry, terribly sorry, m’am...” he said, “nopony else is ever in this storage room, you see. I wasn’t expecting to bump into anypony.”

Twilight sighed internally. “Oh, it’s all right, sir,” she said to the custodian. “But... this isn’t a storage room any more. It’s been converted into an office.”

The custodian looked around, a look of surprise evident on his face. “Really?” he asked. Twilight nodded. “Well, where’s the storage room now?”

Twilight told him, said goodbye, and quickly left her office, fearing any more interruptions. Her enthusiasm at her promotion had already been soured by the lackluster office she had been given, and she desperately wanted coffee to help her see the bright side of her situation.

As she walked through the halls to the break room, where the coffee machine was kept, she walked past the door of the captain’s office, its door closed and the sound of muffled conversation emanating from inside. Twilight ignored it, not interested enough to listen as she continued on her way.

Fate, however, seemed to have other plans, as the door to the office creaked open after Twilight had passed and a voice boomed from inside. “Sparkle!” cried the familiar, feminine voice, stopping her in her tracks. “Get in here!”

Twilight obeyed, mentally berating herself for coming this way in the first place. She could easily have gone around the long way, as she usually did, had she thought of it in her mental state. She trotted into the captain’s office.

The office was as opulent as her own was bare. A mahogany desk covered in trinkets sat to the right, in front of a large window which one could use to survey the entirety of Ponyville square. The walls were covered in bookshelves filled with texts, both old and new, all dog-eared and well-read. Not a single photograph was to be seen in the room. And behind the desk, sitting with an impatient stare aimed at Twilight, was Captain Shimmer.

The captain’s fiery red and yellow mane contrasted greatly with the cold tone in her voice as she spoke. “Sparkle,” she started, no enthusiasm in her voice. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

Twilight looked down and kicked the floor. “Um, thank you,” he said, surprised at the praise, even if it wasn’t genuine. “You wanted to see me?”

Captain Shimmer nodded and pulled open a drawer in her desk with her unicorn magic, retrieving from it a manilla folder. “You are, of course, quite good at what you do, correct? The mayor herself promoted you to your current position, after all.” Twilight merely nodded in response, not liking the direction the conversation was heading. The captain never complimented her without reason. “The first murder in Ponyville in years, and you quickly manage to solve it, even after the detectives on the case had reached the end of their leads.”

Captain Shimmer opened up the envelope and levitated a few documents out. Attached to the papers by a paperclip was a photograph- Twilight managed to make out the colour blue before the sheets were shuffled around and the photograph hidden. “So tell me, Sparkle. How good are you, really, at what you do?”

Normally, Twilight would have humbly muttered out something along the lines of ‘just doing my job’, but the condescending tone the captain spoke to her in sparked anger in her mind. “I’m the best at what I do, captain! I can solve any case this city throws at me!”

The small smile that appeared on the captain’s face made Twilight’s heart drop. She had a feeling she had just said something the captain had wanted to hear, and if the captain was happy with something she had said, it didn’t mean good news for her.

“Perfect. We wouldn’t want our newest detective learning from anypony other than the best, now would we?” the captain replied. She placed the documents back into their folder and tossed it towards Twilight, who caught it in her magic. “Why don’t you get acquainted with your new partner while I go get some coffee, then?”

Captain Shimmer stood up, leaving Twilight at a loss for words, and left the room, closing the door shut behind her. Twilight sat in her chair for a few more moments, confused, before coming to her senses. Partner? she mentally asked herself. With a flourish born from anger and curiosity, she opened the folder to review the contents. She managed to read the name of her new partner before being interrupted by the feeling of breathing on the back of her neck.

“Do you like what you’re reading so far? Trixie knows she does!”

Twilight jumped up in shock and let out a not-so-professional yelp of surprise. With her heart beating violently in her chest she twirled in place to face her unexpected visitor.

The first thing Twilight noticed was the star-spangled purple hat and cape, of the sort one would expect to see on a stage magician but not a detective, rookie or otherwise. She had had an azure coat not unlike that of the sea, and a sky-blue mane, streaked with stripes of silver and fashioned in a way that must have been detrimental to police work. The pony’s purple eyes stared at Twilight with a confident glare. “I am the great and powerful Trixie! You must be the Twilight Sparkle that Captain Shimmer has told me about. It’s an honour to have the opportunity to work with you,” she announced.

Twilight continued to stare in shock at the strange pony before her, her mouth hanging open. “Where... did you come from?” she inquired of the pony. Trixie pointed to a chair, half-hidden between two bookshelves, near the back of the room.

“Trixie has been here all along,” she replied. “She heard your conversation with the captain. That mare really dislikes you.” Twilight just nodded.

The door creaked open and Captain Shimmer returned with a cup of hot coffee. “So, Sparkle, it’s your responsibility to teach miss Lulamoon here how to do your job. You are the best, after all.” Before Twilight could voice her displeasure, the captain made a waving motion with her hoof, indicating she wanted the two partners to leave. They did.

Now, there are a few words Twilight would never describe herself with, and “social” was at the top of the list. Friends were something for other, less-busy ponies to indulge in. Her youth was spent poring over books of all sorts, from fiction to biographies to technical manuals, and never spent playing outside with other foals her age. She simply didn’t feel like she needed the companionship other ponies so craved. So, having a partner wasn’t something Twilight was looking forward to.

The two walked in silence towards the break room, Twilight in discomfort and Trixie with her nose up high in the air. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, or at least, that was how Twilight perceived it.

“What did you do to make the captain dislike you so much?” Trixie asked out of the blue. Twilight merely glanced at her, ignoring the question. She had no answer. When she didn’t get an answer, Trixie just shrugged and trotted off to a box of pastries sitting out on a table.

Twilight walked over to the coffee machine, the only thing on her mind the thought of obtaining a long-overdue cup of coffee. She levitated a mug towards her and lifted the coffee pot out of the machine-

“Murder! Murder!”