Chapters In which very little happens until the end.
Today, Cold Scent decided, was not a good day. He came to this conclusion after dealing with the second pony who had found themselves in the wrong division and refused to be convinced otherwise.
“Look, Mr., ah,” - he glanced down at his notes - “Turner, let me put it this way: I don’t know what happened to your blue… whatever you called it, and honestly, I don’t care. That’s petty crime and larceny. This,” he explained, gesturing to the disheveled office in which he worked, “is cold cases. Nothing that gets here is likely to be newer than a few months old.” He was getting increasingly frustrated, to the point of hearing the grinding of his teeth resonating up through his jaw. “I deal with cases where you’re out of leads. It is literally. In. My. Name.” to punctuate each word, he rapped his hoof on his worn triangular name plate, which explained in four short words what he had been trying to convince this earth pony of for the last half-hour.
***
In the end, it took Cold Scent another fifteen minutes to get the stallion out of his office. This was not, he considered, wasted time, since he rarely did anything anyways. Not to say Cold Scent was not good at his job - it simply came down to the fact that, in ponyville, there is not much crime. Out this far from places like Canterlot, everypony knows everypony. If , for example, somepony were to experience a mysterious increase their fortunes shortly after a robbery, a significant leap of the imagination is not required to deduce the culprit. This ,of course, meant the only criminals in ponyville were either very stupid or the very clever. Cold Scent was hired to deal with the second group.
That second group, however, was being stubbornly inactive. Cold Scent supposed this was a good thing, but he was not sure. He worried, slightly, that some might find his services redundant, and be inclined to fire him. He always supposed he could move to the cities. He was not sure if he wanted to. Frowning, he glanced at his case record. The fifty years of Ponyville Police Department casework fit into a rack of filing cabinets that were piteously small. Canterlot had bigger broom closets. To one side lay Cold Scent's own stack of files. The cases that had made it to him. it was very, very short. In over four years in his division, Cold Scent had dealt with three cases, two of which had ended with the culprits fleeing Ponyville Police Department jurisdiction, with the hunt still going. He knew they would likely never be found, but he held out hope. His record was otherwise spotless, considering it was only one case. That one... had been interesting. Cold Scent smiled slightly to think of it, glancing at the photo of himself and a chartreuse mare tacked up on one of his many cork boards. It was partially obscured by colored strings that spiderwebbed out from a "Map of Ponyville and its Environs," according to the careful lettering across the top. Cold Scent remembered having an organizational system for it at one time, but it had been forgotten, along with what he had been mapping out initially. Cold Scent, sighing, pulled a deck of cards from the top left drawer of his desk, and began to lay out a game of solitaire.
***
Cold Scent’s hooves clacked lightly against the desk as he quickly put the last few cards onto their respective piles. He then turned, making another mark in the “won games” column of the blackboard. The current tally revealed he had completed an alarming number of games. The rest of the board was reserved for random thoughts, drawings, and calculations, many going back years, more added by erasing portions of old notes and writing over them. He was interrupted in the middle of setting up a new game by the entrance of yet another lost pony, a mare this time.
“I’m sorry, but I’m right in the middle of something very import-” He stopped, the queen of hearts falling from his hoof when he saw who it was that had just walked in. “Well, you’re definitely in the wrong place.”
“No, I assure you, I know quite well where I am.” Replied Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Right. Well, what can I do for you? If you’re looking for a case, everything’s archived in the back.”
“No, though I would like to see those someday. Rather, I am looking for you.”
“Because… ?” Cold Scent replied, still unwilling to believe anypony really interesting - or, indeed, anything other than lost - was visiting for a good reason.
“I have found myself with a mystery on my hands, and I wish to address it. Who better than the local constabulary?”
Cold Scent wasn't certain about what a constabulary was, but decided this would be a question for another time. Twilight, meanwhile, continued to speak.
“I come to you because you deal with cases too old to be interesting, or even solvable, to others.”
“And why,” responded Cold Scent, slowly, “did you not contact the police sooner?”
“Because I only just learned about this particular enigma.”
“What?”
Twilight sighed, and proceeded to explain. “This case is one started thousands of years ago, forgotten except by those who read very obscure texts. A case of myths and legends. Heroes from fairytales."
Cold Scent wanted to look incredulous. He really did. But then he remembered that this was Princess Twilight bucking Sparkle , which ought to be good enough. And if it weren't, his memory supplied him with ample reasons to believe her: her fights with Nightmare Moon (a myth), and Discord (another myth), her tutelage under Princess Celestia (a legend) and her becoming a princess (an impossibility). Honestly, he realized, he shouldn't be so surprised.
"Right, so, why me? I'm not even a unicorn, for Celestia's sake."
"One need not wield magic to understand it. When I asked the desk if they had anyone who was good with cold cases, they directed me to you, inspector. And I think you will be quite interested indeed, because this is a very cold case.”
Author's Note
I have slunk through the shadows of this site for a while, watching. This story was doing the same thing, tucked away at the back of my hard drive. I figured us kindred spirits should change our ways together. So here it is, my beginning.
This story has not been run by any sort of editor other than myself, so if you catch anything, go ahead, eviscerate it.
Further Mysteries. Further Answers.
The place was enormous. Cold Scent had seen it from the outside, of course, but that never really prepared him for the scale on which the Palace of Friendship was built. Or grown. Honestly, he had no idea what had happened to bring the place into existence. It had just… appeared one day.
Twilight was already a few steps ahead of him by the time she noticed he had stopped. She walked back, leaned over, and gently closed Cold Scent’s gaping mouth. “It is quite impressive, isn’t it? I’m almost certain the inside is bigger than it ought to be, but I’ve never tried measuring it. Now that would be an interesting experiment, I’ll have to look into… but that’s not why we’re here, is it? Come, I’ll show you the case.”
Cold Scent managed to tear himself away from the sight the castle’s swooping arches and crystalline halls and followed the princess to a secluded reading area piled high with tomes that looked older than Celestia, and probably were.
“This is what I’ve been investigating for the last few months. Ever since I started to understand the mechanics behind making new magic, I got into some of these very early theory books. I always thought the magic of fairy stories had been dreamt up by amateurs or non-unicorns with only a vague understanding of the subject, but look at some of these!”
Giddy as a schoolfilly about to have her first sleepover, she levitated down at least a dozen books, each looking like archaic version of a common story. Cold Scent caught “Cynderella,” “Jak and the Beenstalk,” and a few other Early Modern Equestrian spellings of fairytales embossed on the covers, flakes of long-ago-worn-away gold leaf still clinging to some of the letters. Each story, he noticed, featured magic very prominently.
Twilight, meanwhile, had a smile the size of a dinner plate. “Starswirl mentioned something about living transmogrification in some of his notes, which is nearly impossible, but it seemed like he could do it… and that got me thinking about Cinderella. Then I realized - what if the magic in those stories were true? What then? And most importantly, where did that magic go?”
Cold Scent was barely managing to keep track of the thread of Twilight’s thinking. “So, what, you want me to track down missing spells?”
“No, no, I’ve tried to recreate the spells already. They’re not missing, the magic is. The stuff that made those spells possible - poof! Gone! I don’t even fully understand how, or why, but someone has actually stolen magic.”
“And you think I can help?”
“I tried to figure out what happened myself, but… Well. I’m not a detective. I can research well enough, but this? I don’t even know where to start. You’re trained to get answers out of old text and dead people’s testimonies.”
“Okay.” In that moment, Cold Scent realized something. “Just one more thing. Will this count as work hours?”
Twilight giggled. “I’m a princess. I think your superiors will be willing to be a bit accomodating.”
***
Cold Scent slumped back in his chair. He had been looking through pages of Twilight’s carefully ordered notes, attempting to approach this like a normal case. Petty crime and larceny indeed , he thought to himself, smiling slightly at the irony. But someone has stolen something, haven’t they? It’s just not something people normally steal.
He looked back to his desk. He had decided to begin with the facts. The closest thing to that, he found, were the fairytales Twilight had suggested he look into. It was surprisingly like what he normally did - whittling down a whole load of conflicting information to the few pieces he could be sure were right - and he had made some progress. His notes, a disorganized black scrawl next to Twilight’s perfect purple cursive, sat in front of him, his inkwell staining them slightly as it rested atop the parchment.
He frowned, staring adversarially at his scribblings. They were annoyingly vague. After a thousand or more years of history, information got terribly warped. He traced stories back to the earliest editions he could, thanks to the libraries at the Palace of Friendship, but even those were usually in other languages or mostly lost. And there had almost certainly been an enormous amount of corruption through oral propagation before that. It was maddening.
He sighed, shuffling around more papers, attempting to organize the desk, if not his mind. Despite his attempts, he still barely understood what was going on. The core of this case was in the magic, and Cold Scent still had only a basic understanding of what magic even was, let alone what it could do or how it worked.
Time for a crash course in magic, I suppose. And there’s only one good option for that.
***
“You’re kidding.” The mare said, looking at Cold Scent with incredulity.
“I assure you, m’am, I am not kidding.”
“Not in one of the classes, surely?”
“Whatever works.”
Cold scent had gotten a great deal of experience dealing with people who were clearly in the wrong place. This was, perhaps, the first time he had been on the other side of that altercation. The difference here being that he was in the right place, if only this secretary would listen.
He sighed, and looked up at the mare behind the desk. “Look, It’s for a case, so I can write it off as work expenses. Charge as many bits as you like. All I need is the basics, like you give to the foals that come here.”
“I’ll… see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
Cold Scent walked out of the little schoolhouse, passing a sign bearing the words Magic Kindergarten in a cheerful, technicolor sans-serif. It was only when he was looking back at the place when walking off that the concept that he had just enrolled there really dawned on him. It had, he only just realized, been a very odd day.
Author's Note
Two chapters of exposition in a row? I'm going to set some kind of record.
Considering that first one had been kicking around with no real story behind it for a while, I suppose it's understandable. But, through a long story involving Furious Seven and TvTropes, I have thought up an actual plot. Hooray.
Still no editor, so any input is appreciated.
Expect more... Eventually?
Light shone through the half-shuttered window of Cold Scent's bedroom. This was not, as is often the case, particularly welcome.
"Ngh." Cold Scent groaned, turning over in his bed. It was then, of course, that his alarm clock started ringing. Cold Scent let out an alarmed yelp, and nearly fell out of bed attempting to shut it off. Why the buck did I set this thing so goddessdamned early? he thought, then remembered the previous day. Oh. Right.
Dragging himself out of bed, Cold Scent trudged to the bathroom. It was only midway through brushing his teeth that he managed to open his eyes without being blinded by the light in his apartment. Pouring himself a bowl of oats, he was reminded of his school days when he was a colt. Things had not changed much, he observed.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Cold Scent walked out the door of his apartment, his saddlebags packed with parchment, quills, ink, and a lunch. It was time for his first day of school.
He giggled slightly at that thought.
***
Magic, Cold Scent quickly learned, was in no way an exact science. It was, in fact, the thing most divorced from science in existence, being, you know, magic. Teachers in Magic Kindergarden were more there to deal with whiny foals than to actually understand the forces that control the universe. For most unicorns, magic was as simple as, according to the teacher Cold Scent had been assigned, "doing what feels magical. Then magic happens."
"Could you be a little more vague? I still think I can understand you somewhat." Cold Scent replied, setting a personal record for snark.
"Look, I teach foals. They don't exactly have the capacity to understand what they're doing, and most ponies never really learn. We're mostly just here to get their random surges of spell casting under control so their parents can sleep at night." The teacher, who had introduced himself as Crash Course, was apologetic, but Cold Scent could tell that he was more confused and irritated than anything else.
"So what do you understand?"
"Well, most of modern magical theory comes from Starswirl the Bearded's research, but that's at the college level. I've forgotten most of it. In general, though, magic can do a ridiculous amount of stuff. Ponies began to classify spells in order to make things easier. There's Destructive, Constructive, Manipulative, ah... One or two more which we don't get into in our normal classes, and then "higher magic," which is sort of the junk drawer for all the stuff that's complicated and hard to cast.
"Magic requires focus. You can do all kinds of stuff if you just release a bunch of magic, some of it in the higher range, but without focus you can't guarantee what's going to happen. That's why dispelling is so important. A spell that you lose control of could end up doing anything, and unknowns are dangerous, especially in magic.
"All ponies, and indeed sentient races, have magic within themselves. In pegasi, this manifests as their power over the weather and ability to fly. In earth ponies, it imparts their connection to the earth and abnormal strength. Unicorns, however, have horns. This is not a manipulator of magic - that is a common misconception. It is more like a release valve. They can send out some of their power and give it form in the process - more commonly known as spell casting.
"There's not much else to it. Most of what we do is training, not teaching. You'd have to go to a university or the library for real information. I can go over our curriculum and recommend some books and the like, but that's really it."
Cold Scent took a moment to take all this in. As unhelpful as things seemed, this was more information than he had before, and right now he needed all the information he could get. At least now he might be able to follow what Twilight was saying half the time.
"Thank you, Mr. Course." He said, getting up from the too-small desk he had been taking notes at, and pushing his supplies into his saddlebags. "This has helped."
"I should be thanking you." Crash Course replied. "You got me out of a day of teaching, and let me explain this stuff to someone who will actually listen for more than six seconds. It's been a pleasure."
Cold Scent smiled and strode out of the room, trying not to feel ridiculous.
***
Maps and photographs had come down off another of Cold Scent's cork boards, freeing up space for more fragments of coherent notes. The bits and pieces from his class in Magic Kindergarden were scattered around, along with the little facts he had found about the fairytales. Cold Scent frowned, looking at the box of map pins and balls of string arrayed on the desk next to him. Nothing was joining up, and he was mystified. It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize it might also be prudent to put the actual questions he was trying to answer on the board as well.
Gazing at the scattered concepts, Cold Scent began to notice things. A purple thread soon connected "Starswirl research" and "Starswirl notes", while elsewhere he had intertwined "innate magic," "stored spells?", and "horns - release valve."
He added some more lines, in green this time, connecting some of the spells used in fairytales to things mentioning Starswirl, but these were tentative. He sighed, gazing at the threads. He had a theory, but no idea if it was even possible. He'd have to ask Twilight in the morning. Sighing, he got up, giving a last glance at his desk as he shut off the lights before leaving for home.
He would be glad to get some sleep tonight. He had a lot to consider.
***
Dreamcatcher was suspended just above the bed. It was perfectly made, undisturbed by his floating form. He was asleep, muttering as he tossed and turned occasionally while hovering. The room was large, though one could not tell exactly how big it was in the low light.
Dreamcatcher stirred, and turned his head, his horn glowing in the darkness.
"One searches. " he rasped, to, it seemed, no one at all.
In the dark, just outside the light cast by Dreamcatcher's horn the most observant of ponies might have been able to make out the movement of cloaked figures when Dreamcatcher spoke. One stepped closer, just enough to be visible, listening attentively, hoping for more from the sleeping pony. He was not disappointed.
"Follow the Cold Scent. "
Author's Note
Well. Things are starting to move, aren't they?
I just realized my chapters are rather short. I'm not sure if that's bad.
On a not that may be of more interest to anyone reading, updates may slow down slightly since my vacation has ended. I do have more planned, but details are always more difficult than general concepts.
More to come.