Prologue

I took a hold around the whiskey bottle with my magic, slowly poured the liquid into the crystal glass in front of me. The pill lay besides the slowly filling glass, taunted me with its very existence. It was something… poetic with an ending like this, considering how I had lived. I heard the sound of Ms. Flower opening the front door, the creaking from the oak doors interrupted the morning silence outside. My eyes fell on the painting that hung over the fireplace, picturing myself from a time now lost.

Why had I had it made in the first place? To remember myself about who I was? To remember myself about who I had once been? It did not matter now.

The birds continued their singing outside my window, started where the creaking of the door had interrupted them. It was such a peaceful spring morning. I would nearly say that it was perfect in all its glory.

Celestia’s sun had barely touched the horizon when I heard the soft creak from the stairs to my study. I looked at the clock on the wall. Six and twenty-nine, the officer seemed to be on time, just as I had predicted. I chuckled softly to myself.

Who did I try to fool? It was a rarity that I predicted wrong.

I sighed as I took my place in the armchair that stood tall in the middle of the study. It was a comforting chair, my favorite. Barely had I taken my place in the chair before the expected knock was heard from the door, followed closely by the half seven chiming from the clock.

“Enter, Officer,” I said, shifting slightly in the chair. “I have been expecting you.”

A bluish glow spread around the door before it was dragged open, revealing Officer Creed. The officer was an older stallion, and although his once blue mane now was close to completely silver was his teal eye burning with the same intensity that they always had.

“Doctor Rigor Mortis,” he started, his voice carried with the strength of age as an authority. “You know why I’m here.”

“I do, Creed,” I stated as I lifted the glass of whiskey and the small pill. “Fancy a glass?” I asked, holding up the glass a little higher.

“You know I don’t drink when I’m on duty,” he answered bluntly before he took some steps into my study, softly closing the door behind himself.

I shrugged at this, floated the pill into my mouth and swallowed it down with the whiskey. “It is impolite not to ask your guest if they would fancy a glass when you take on yourself,” I said, smiling lightly as the alcohol spread through my body.

“Enough with the games, Mortis. You know why I’m here,” he said, his eyes boring into me.

“That I do. You are here to arrest me, for crimes unfathomed by most, crimes more horrible than death itself,” I stated without a care in the world. “I have waited for this day a long time, my old friend, to finally be able to tell you.”

“All these years you have been running from the truth, all these years you have been avoiding the law,” the unicorn said, taking a step forward. “You have even worked with me to find the guilty for the crimes you committed yourself. Never talked about it, holding it inside you for so long. How have you managed?”

My smile widened as I brought my glass up again, toasting the painting over the fireplace and taking a sip. “I haven’t dwelled in the past, Creed. Neither have I been running from the truth. Not even when I worked with you did I destroy the evidence that existed, and I have neither helped nor prevented anything to make you able to find the guilty. And now, after all these years, you have finally succeeded in finding me,” I said, my smile turning into a mocking one.

“Why?” The question was barely a whisper, nearly lost under the sound from the birds outside.

“You want to know why, Creed?” I asked, leaning forward lightly. “Then sit down, this will take a while,” I said, waving my hoof towards one of the chairs in the study. “And before you ask, you have my word that I will not hide anything from you. Everything spoken here will be the truth.”

Creed sighed as he sat down in the offered chair. “I’m too old for this, Mortis. This will be my last cause, a cause that has been ongoing for nearly twenty years, before I retire,” he looked at me, and I imagined seeing the flame in his teal eyes die out. “Is the offer for a glass still standing?” he asked me with a light smile of his own.

A smile I returned as I levitated over a glass, carefully pouring whiskey into it before he took it in his own grip. “Always for you, my friend,” I said as I put down the flask on the table again. “A fitting whiskey for a confession like this, would you not say?”

He carefully took a sip from the whiskey, and his eyes brightened up in recognition. “Is this an old bottle of ‘Red Law’ you have gotten your hooves on?” he asked.

“Red Law, aged for sixty-nine years. Only the best for a day like this,” I said with a genuine smile. “Your favorite brand if I’m not mistaken.”

“It has been ages since I last had a taste of this,” he said with a sigh as he shifted slightly for better comfort in the armchair.

“But enough small chatter, my friend,” I said as I leant back completely into the chair once again. “You wanted the truth, and I will as promised give the entire thing to you without hiding anything. I would appreciate should you not interrupt me during my confession, you know how much I hate interruptions,” I said as I looked out the window, looked at the outside world one last time.

Creed just nodded at me as he took a sip from the glass.

“It all began so many years ago, in the same city as it would all be concluded later. Canterlot, the prime city, the capital city of Equestria, where from the princess ruled, and still rule, their country,” I began, slowly opening up my mind to relieve he memories stored therein, falling into another world once again.