Hell Fire

I can’t believe that they still haven’t come up with a better design for these things yet. Whenever I flew in one of them the cold air of the night’s sky always froze my eyes.

“The princess should have known better than to call another mare in on this. We could have handled it on our own,” the white Pegasus pulling my chariot said with what almost sounded like hatred.

Not wanting to have the same argument again I decided to keep my mouth shut until we reached our destination. I was relieved to finally arrive at the log cabin in the outskirts of Baltimare where I found two ponies guarding the front door.

“Finally, I thought that we would have to spend all night waiting for you Detective,” the grey unicorn said not trying to hide his irritation. “We were through the house already and there’s nothing to find. The rooms are wrecked and the kid isn’t saying anything.”

“What kid?  Your report didn’t say anything about a kid,” I asked trying to keep my tone friendly.

“We didn’t exactly have time to write one, now did we?” The unicorn said increasing his irritation. “He’s the victims’ son, a unicorn called Rove.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Back there, Gridiron’s about to fly him to Canterlot.”

“Keep him here until I’m done with the house, I would like to speak with him,” not waiting for him to argue I moved towards the house and pushed open the door.

The place was a wreck. The usual furniture you would expect to find in one of these cabins was destroyed and scattered all over the living room. The table was splintered and the couch was ripped, but what stood out the most was the body of a pony lying in front of the kitchen door.  She was bright yellow with a short orange mane; the three seeds on her flank showing her talent for gardening were stained with red.

The body was quite a horrific sight distracting me from the rest of the room. I had to force myself to look away and examine the rest, there wasn’t anything worth stealing in these modest homes and everything worth a bit at a pawnshop was broken. Whoever decided to break in didn’t want to take anything, but there was something they left behind.

On the wall opposite to the entrance was a symbol unfamiliar to me. It looked like an eye with a unicorn horn over it burned into the wall. I made a sketch of it in my notebook deciding to find out more about it later.

The kitchen was where I found a sight that made even my spine chill. From the yellow corpse there were three sets of bloody hoof prints leading to a body so burned that I couldn’t make out any features except its lack of a horn and wings. The body looked like it was the only burned thing in the room, with the floor and the open counter door it rested against not even black.

After searching the rest of the house and realising that these were the only two rooms that were disturbed I decided to head outside in search of the young colt Rove but changed direction when I saw an old mare trembling next to a white unicorn guard. I recognised her from the description given to me in the report and I swear that she looked like she was born to be old. The only thing greyer than her coat was her mane; even her cutie mark was a scarf being knitted.

“Evening ma'am my name is Hawkeye, but ponies call me Detective, would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

“Y-yes dear that would be alright,” said the old earthpony trying to hold back a tear. “What would you like to know?”

“Can you start with your name and how you found them?”

The old mare’s eyes hardened with the memory before she began to speak. “Knitting Needle’s the name. Rove, that poor boy, came knocking on my door at about midnight. Of course I knew that something was wrong, the only news you get at that hour is bad news. The moment I saw him I knew that something terrible must have happened.”

“How did you know that?” I asked interrupting her.

“The child was as white as Celestia’s front hoof, and so quiet. He didn’t say a word just stood there at the door like he didn’t know where he was. I tried asking him what’s wrong but he just stared at me, so I decided to check in on Seedling and Woodworks. When I… found them I went and got the guards and now here you are.”

“Was there anything unusual that you noticed about the room, anything missing or out of place?”

“Nothing seemed to be stolen if that’s what you mean; the only drawer I think was open was the one Woodworks is lying against,” her sadness seemed to be replaced with both anger and fear. “Tell me Detective why would anypony do this here? We aren’t some fancy unicorn society rolling in the bits; we don’t have anything to rob and we don’t mean any harm to anypony, why would they come here?”

“I don’t know ma'am, but I’ll try my best to find out,” I said searching through my note book. “Do you recognise this symbol?”

Knitting needle stiffened as she saw the marking. “I saw it in there, but have no idea what it would mean, is it some kind of gang logo?”

“Maybe, but I can’t be sure yet. You mentioned something about not being a unicorn society, so I’ll take it most of the residences around here are eartponies?”

“All of us are dear,” The old mare said with pride. “The unicorns and pegasi tend to prefer living in Baltimare, while we hard working earthponies live in the forest working the lumber. Most of the families can trace their roots for generations and aren’t planning on leaving anytime soon.”

“Are Woodworks and Seedling Rove’s biological parents then, he being a unicorn?”

“No those two found him in a basket by their front door years ago, with a note asking them to look after him. They surely did their best, and as far as I can tell the family loved each other. It was difficult sometimes with Rove not being as strong as the others; he struggled to carry his own weight but he’s a hard worker and never a burden on anypony. But you know how it is with unicorns always relying on magic and taking the easy way out.”

I knew better than to stick around when a pony from one of these tight knit communities started talking politics. The way I see it we all have our own advantages, I may be stronger than a unicorn and a Pegasus may be faster, but they have magic and that would have been useful more times than I could count.

After making my excuses and saying goodbye I made my way to the only Pegasus chariot left. One thing should be said about the royal guard; no matter how much they disapprove they will always follow orders.

On my way to the chariot my mind swam with thoughts of what I’ve heard and seen. Three sets of hoof prints, a weird symbol and an open counter door were all I had to go off of. The open door. I didn’t know why I kept returning to that. I knew that there was something that I was missing but the dark realisation of truth didn’t hit me until I arrived at the golden chariot. That poor boy.

Gridiron was a white Pegasus with light blue eyes and even though his cutiemark was covered with his armour I knew that there was a football imprinted on his flank. The young unicorn next to him had a coat of dark blue and a mane as black as raven’s feathers. It appeared that he has not discovered his special talent yet but I think that he had other things on his mind that night.

“…you have to tell me what happened boy, how else do you expect us- Detective!” he shouted when he saw me “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here? Didn’t the others tell you that the boy isn’t talking; he just sits there staring at me I don’t know why you expect him to tell you anything.”

This was one of my problems with the guards, they aren’t trained to be sympathetic they ask straight questions and expect straight answers in return. “Maybe I’ll try to be a bit gentler with somepony who just watched his father get burned alive.” I said gesturing to the blue colt.

When he heard the truth aloud from somepony besides the voice in his own head, Rove let the floodgates open and went into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.