The Tombstone Tourist

Chapters

The Curious Discovery of the Charcoal Sticks
The Odd Circumstance of a Drunk Badger
The Sting Operation

The Curious Discovery of the Charcoal Sticks

When imagining the sorts of people one meets in a cemetery, one may be forgiven for imagining finding people there of a somewhat eccentric nature.

People at a cemetery on what can reasonably be called official business, we might pass off as ordinary: Casual mourners making the journey to the resting spots of their recently dead. Military veterans visiting to pay their respects to fallen comrades. Elderly individuals making regular pilgrimages to the graves of their deceased partners and friends.

If, on the other hand, one saw a rowdy group of teenagers kicking headstones, or people in eccentric clothes pacing around with unknown intent, most would probably agree that a call to the police was in order.

What is one to do, then, when the person one sees in a cemetery is none of these things? What is the appropriate response to a teenage girl of unassuming aspect and bearing kneeling at the outer edge of a graveyard surrounded by a cluster of animals? What does one do?

Fluttershy arranged the daises delicately on the small mounds, making sure to appoint the correct colour to each. She knew that Leopard had liked orange, Ruffles had been fond of purple, and Mrs. Nizbit pink.

“It’s okay, Mr. Nizbit,” she said sympathetically. “No one is judging you here.”

The badger beside her sniffed loudly, its beady black eyes glimmering with tears.

“That’s right, let it all out. We all know how much the two of you loved each other,” Fluttershy breathed, putting a gentle hand over Mr. Nizbit’s shoulders.

Several sparrows, a blue tit, and a sombre raven milling on a low hanging branch of the willow tree overhanging the scene all nodded in agreement, along with the rabbit parents and children standing at a respectful distance beside a female deer.

“Would someone like to say a few words?” Fluttershy asked quietly, looking around at the animals.

All of them looked around at each other rather awkwardly. Several mice edged behind the rabbit children as their parents made a show of trying to quieten their offspring, and the female deer tapped a hoof into the grass, avoiding Fluttershy’s gaze. After a somewhat awkward pause, a mallard waddled forward, his green head bowed low.

“Thank you, Professor Northumberland,” Fluttershy said gratefully, edging a little to the side to let him forward.

Professor Northumberland reached the edge of the earthen mound, and gave Mr. Nizbit a solemn look. Then in a strong, clear quack, began a sedate oration, making respectful gestures with his grey and purple wings, and finishing on a low note as he bowed himself back as unassumingly as a duck can.

Fluttershy wiped an eye as Mr. Nizbit burst into a fit of loud sobbing and threw himself on Professor Northumberland’s shoulders. The duck collapsed under the badger’s greater weight, but managed to flap a wing weakly onto Mr. Nizbit’s shoulder.

“Thank you very much, Professor,” Fluttershy sniffed, gathering Mr. Nizbit up and taking the brunt of the old badger’s outpouring of grief. “Thank you all for being here,” she said to the group at large. “I know it won’t be easy, Mr. Nizbit, but please remember that we’re all here for you should you need us.”

Mr. Nizbit took a moment or two to compose himself, and then sniffing loudly, gave his shaky thanks.

Surprising though it may be, Fluttershy had received very few complaints or threats of opposition to her activities in the graveyard. A policeman had once found her in the midst of burying one of the rabbit’s relatives there, but had been so caught off-guard by her quiet demeanour and his own uncertainty about the legality of what she was doing, that he departed without any fuss.

In fact, whatever it was about Fluttershy or her activities that had this effect, it seemed to permeate throughout the entire area. No one questioned her, no one interfered. Her friends knew of and understood it as a natural part of her, and some of them had even spared time to attend several of her ceremonies. Pinkie Pie had even twice planned after-services, and to Fluttershy’s delight, conducted them with appropriate levels of respect and deference to the bereaved. Although Rainbow Dash, who had also been in attendance, swore that she had nightmares about what she called Quiet Pinkie for several weeks.

She had been using the same spot for several years now, and Fluttershy’s personal little corner of the graveyard underneath the willow tree went undisturbed, and frequented whenever Fluttershy experienced a loss amongst her animal friends. That is, until one day in late summer, a week to the day after Mrs. Nizbit’s funeral, when Fluttershy came across something odd at school.

Lunch being the usual loud affair, Rainbow Dash frequently took advantage of it to indulge in her newfound bad habit with Aria, who appreciated and reciprocated it.

“Sup’, bitch?” Rainbow asked, shifting over to make room.

“Nothing much, you gay-pride looking fucknugget.”

As usual, Rarity’s expression tensed as the two friends bumped knuckles and grinned at each other.

“It’s still not clever, or funny,” she said to Rainbow Dash rather than Aria.

“Lighten up, Rarity,” Rainbow grunted, waving dismissively. “It’s just our thing.”

“Let ‘em be, Rarity,” Applejack said, taking a healthy bite of her frozen peaches. “They’ll grow out of it sooner or later. You’re just prolongin’ it by harpin on to ‘em.”

“Hey Adagio,” Sunset said, hailing her to the table whilst Rarity simmered next to her. “Isn’t Sonata with you two?”

“She’s not at school today,” Adagio said, sitting regally down before picking up her pizza and scrutinising it distastefully. Dabbing it with a napkin to get off the majority of the visible grease, she took a bite. “Don’t ask me how,” she continued when she noticed Sunset giving her a questioning look. “She came in from the garden with her hand bleeding and wouldn’t tell me how it happened.”

“Looked to me like an animal bit her,” Aria said.

Fluttershy looked up from her home-made salad. “An animal?” she asked.

“Did she go to the doctor?” Sunset asked, raising her eyebrows a little.

“She got a shot just in case,” Adagio said airily, then smirked. “Being a big baby about it,” she added, shaking her head.

“Um, I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Fluttershy said, leaning tentatively across the table. “I hope she’s okay. I don’t suppose you know what animal it was?”

Aria shrugged. “I don’t know, she wouldn’t show it to me.” She ate a fry. “We get lots of animals in the garden though. Deer, groundhogs, cats.”

“Remember that dog?” Adagio asked, grinning.

“Oh yeah,” Aria chuckled, smiling reminiscently. “Slipped underneath the fence,” she explained as everyone else at the table looked at her inquiringly. “Tore up the whole place. The gardener was in tears!”

Both Adagio and Aria burst out laughing.

“You had to be there I suppose,” Adagio said, shrugging and opening her drink.

“It was the right thing to get a shot just in case,” Fluttershy said, touching a finger to her chin. “Unfortunately, poor little creatures sometimes have terrible diseases that hurt them very badly, and sometimes people too if they’re not careful around them.”

“Mm,” Adagio said, taking another bite of her pizza as she lounged back in her chair.

“Well, could you tell Sonata that I hope that she gets well soon? I mean,” she added quickly. “If you think she’d like to hear that from me. You could maybe just tell her that I hope to see her again soon. At school.”

“What?” Adagio said, looking up suddenly from her berry-punch smoothie. “Oh, yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Fluttershy modestly congratulated herself for this small conversation. Quite apart from building up the gumption to speak to Adagio, who even after several months of being on speaking terms with her friends, was as haughty and self-important as ever, Fluttershy knew that she was one of those uncomfortable breeds of people whose sensibilities don’t quite conform to standards of normalcy.

It wasn’t a point of self-flattery disguised as a criticism, it was simply how she was. To deny it was simply churlish.

Although she did feel bad for Sonata being bitten, and genuinely worried for her health, Fluttershy’s immediate, slightly guilty thought, had been to wonder if the creature who’d attacked Sonata had been injured.

Fluttershy knew every single wild animal for three districts within the city, including the sewer rats, who were a surprisingly recondite bunch much given to hashing out existential philosophy, although Fluttershy could never think without shuddering the cannibalistic means by which most disagreements were inevitably settled. With this all-encompassing knowledge of the local animal population, she help worrying if any of them had been involved.

It was unlikely of course; Sonata and her sisters lived on the other side of town, quite a distance from where any of the animals she knew would even venture to.

But it couldn’t be helped. The more she thought about it, the more her nerves wound up to a higher pitch.

Fluttershy shuddered in the breeze as she reached the little creek in the city park. The creek ran off into the greater river a ways down beyond the park’s boundary, meaning that a decorative iron arch ran over the creek in the spot where the fence was interrupted. Passing under this, Fluttershy found herself at the small dam of the beaver family she knew there.

“She’s sort of thin, with blue hair usually in a ponytail,” she explained to the unimaginatively named but stoic Mr. Beaver. “You haven’t seen her?”

Mr. Beaver shook his head, his hands at his hips, one eye on the pile of sticks and twigs he’d been working on.

Fluttershy next tried the ferret who dwelt in the trees along the older urban district nearby. An escaped pet, her owner had long since moved away, and so eked out a lazy living scavenging rubbish bins and relaxing on tree branches. She listened good-naturedly to Fluttershy’s questioning, but shook her head at last, and went back to chewing on some half-finished peanut-brittle.

Next she tried the weasels who lived on the river’s edge, the various rabbit families whose burrows ran along the wild trees that had long since grown over a section of compulsory purchase land, and even tried to make inquiries with the small deer herd that dwelled in the area, despite their buck’s secretive demeanour.

But the results were all the same. None of them had, or at least could remember, seeing or interacting with, Sonata Dusk.

She was about to go home with her nerves a bit better than they had been, when she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t asked or seen Mr. Nizbitit, and so turned towards where she knew his burrow to lie. Upon finding it empty in the hills near of a small apartment square, she considered that it was probable that he was visiting his wife’s grave, being the one week anniversary of her funeral.

The graveyard lay within one city block from the eastern end of the city park, a circumstance that Fluttershy knew – thanks to Applejack’s unexpected foreknowledge on the subject – had been a subject of some concern to the inhabitants. There had been nothing for it however, given the proximity of the needed land by the creek to feed the artificial lake, and the already seventy plus year establishment of the cemetery. Fluttershy’s journey from Mr. Nizbit’s home to the graveyard was, therefore, a short journey, along which she hoped to find the badger in question.

If Fluttershy were honest with herself, she found Mr. Nizbit’s absence somewhat ominous.

Passing by the tall, white monument on the edge of the grave-markers closest to the animal graveyard, Fluttershy stepped off the rectangular-stone path, and onto the grass approaching the willow tree, and the cluster of small white stones. She could already see that Mr. Nizbit wasn’t there, but continued on as her mind picked up on a half-perceived peculiarity.

The daises that she’d placed there had been disturbed. They were not placed in the little pot in the same way that she had placed them a week ago.

This, on its own, wouldn’t have occasioned Fluttershy any concern normally. It’d been a week, so she was frankly surprised that they were still there. But then she noticed that the painted white stones along the newer graves had also been shifted. Not removed; they were still there. But someone, or something, had moved them. The indentations in the soil were more pronounced, and in some cases off to one side, like something had tried to push them down further into the ground.

Over one of the stones, Fluttershy noticed as she peered closer, was what looked like a black scratch, like a pencil mark. Rubbing at it a little, she felt grains and dust, and found that it left a dry smelling black residue on her finger.

“Charcoal?” she muttered, frowning. “How did...”

She looked quickly over her shoulder. She didn’t expect to find anything, but scoped the landscape around her. As was to be expected, she saw nothing but markers, tombstones, and memorials. And a tree or two. But nothing to explain the presence of charcoal on the grave stones.

Frowning with curiosity, she turned back to the graves before her. Clasping her hands briefly, she muttered a respectful prayer for Mrs. Nizbit before turning around and beginning to ponder where she might find Mr. Nizbit. She was really becoming quite concerned with his absence.

A crunching beneath her foot made her jump back and look down.

“Oh no!” Fluttershy gasped. “I hope I didn’t step on any adorable little beetle or snail.”

Instead of a deceased mollusc or inset, she instead found several small, black sticks, all crushed or snapped in several places. Charcoal.

Fluttershy blinked. “So... somebody came by with a stick of charcoal?” Fluttershy looked back at her small cluster of white-washed grave marker stones, secluded away from the main graveyard. It didn’t make any sense. They didn’t seem to have done anything except scuff one of the stones a little.

Fluttershy felt a twinge of concern. Were there vandals perhaps? People desecrating the graveyard?

But after a moment or two, she became sceptical of the idea. Vandals using charcoal sticks? The idea was ludicrous. But then why would someone come to a cemetery with charcoal sticks, and why would they come to Fluttershy’s unofficial little animal graveyard? None of it made the least bit of sense.

- To be Continued

The Odd Circumstance of a Drunk Badger

The Tombstone Tourist: Chapter 2

“Well that just ain’t right,” said Rainbow Dash in her usual tone of flat decisiveness. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Fluttershy blinked. She hadn’t expected things to take such a turn as this.

As with many of her common activities with Rainbow Dash, her weekly video-game night had come about from a misunderstanding. Upon hearing that Fluttershy had an Xbox360, Rainbow Dash had instantly decided that Fluttershy must enjoy gaming as she did, and invited herself over with a stack of her own games that included things like Halo 3, Dead Space 3, and Mass Effect 3. All of which alarmed Fluttershy greatly as hordes of aliens were mowed down in front of her in a hail of bullets and laser fire.

Her own games, Kinectanimals, Zoo Tycoon, and Viva Piñata, lay mostly forgotten.

When Rainbow Dash had thus arrived with her dusty old Xbox original, intending to show Fluttershy the delights of such classic games as Destroy All Humans!, and Mercenaries—

“Wait, why do I still have this?” Rainbow Dash mumbled, tossing the box over her shoulder into Fluttershy’s waste paper bin.

— Fluttershy had intended the information about the mystery in the cemetery to simply be a topic of conversation; idle gossip to distract Rainbow from showing her more graphic scenes of wanton annihilation of perhaps-not-so-innocent video-game characters. If she had to watch another mob of Grunts being slaughtered with an energy sword while Rainbow Dash shouted insults at their corpses, she honestly thought that she might just hide under the bed and start sobbing.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash had taken an entirely different idea.

“Come on!” she barked, standing up. “Let’s go.”

“G-Go?” Fluttershy asked, looking uncertainly at Rainbow Dash’s proffered hand.

“Let’s go stake out the cemetery. Find out who’s messing with your animal’s tombstones.”

Fluttershy gulped.

Despite having returned several times to the grave site, and finding fresh evidence of further disturbances to the area, she’d never had any idea of... well, doing anything about it. It wasn’t like whoever it was that was doing it was doing any harm. Or so it seemed to Fluttershy.

“Um... Rainbow Dash? Why, err... why would we do that?” Fluttershy asked. “I thought we were going to play your video games.”

“Oh come on, we both know that you hate my games,” Rainbow Dash said dismissively. Losing patience, she took Fluttershy’s hand and pulled her up. “Besides, this’ll be more fun.”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, I don’t hate—.“ She stopped herself. “Wait, if you know that I don’t like them, then why do you—“

“To the cemetery!”

And so it came to pass Fluttershy thought, dismally.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said nervously. “I don’t think we’re allowed here at night.”

“What makes you say that?” Rainbow asked offhandedly, staring hawkishly around at the lamp-lit landscape around them. “And couldn’t you have worn anything a little darker?”

“Oh, erm, well,” Fluttershy said, pulling nervously at her fingers. “Well, the locked gate kind of made me think we’re not allowed in.”

“Pfft,” Rainbow said with a roll of the eyes. “They lock up the park too and people still go there.”

“And the sign next to the gate, saying the cemetery is off-limits after nightfall,” Fluttershy continued.

“Fluttershy, are you going to help me keep a lookout, or what?”

Fluttershy scrunched her mouth up, peering tentatively around in case anyone was watching them back. They’d chosen a spot next to the largest monument, a greyed mausoleum bearing a classical look of pillars and pediment, with a small and impractical portico at its front. In the shadows to the side of it, outside of the glare of the yellow lamps hanging over the scene, stood Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy crouching behind her. From their vantage point, the little cluster of Fluttershy’s white markers shone in the starlight like teeth in the misshapen mouth of the willow tree’s shadow, perfectly visible between the tombstones all around them.

Rainbow Dash pulled up a set of dark goggles with olive-green lenses. Setting them carefully over her eyes, she stuck out her tongue as she tweaked a dial. A quiet clicking sounded from the goggles, sounding to Fluttershy in the near silence of the graveyard like the joints of some elderly witch making her slow way through the cemetery, kidnapping naughty children who weren’t supposed to be there to cook into non-vegan stew. Fluttershy gulped.

“Cool, huh?” Rainbow Dash whispered, grinning at Fluttershy and possibly misinterpreting the wide-eyed look on her face for awe. “Borrowed them off Pinkie Pie.” She held up a hand, forestalling a question. “Don’t ask. I don’t know why she has them. Want to try them out?”

After a little prompting, Fluttershy eventually did try them on. They were unexpectedly heavy, and made her head feel like she was going to fall face-forward whenever she moved. As her head swung around from the weight a third time, she caught sight of something, and promptly held the goggles with her hands to steady them. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward, trying to see what it was.

“Here,” Rainbow hissed helpfully, leaning over and adjusting the dial again. The green image of Fluttershy’s vision began to un-fog, stabilising into what was unmistakably the willow tree. And below the tree, a bright green blob came slowly into view. At first she couldn’t be sure what it was, but then it looked sideways.

“Mr. Nizbit!” Fluttershy cried, throwing off the goggles. Speeding from their hiding place whilst Rainbow Dash dived for the goggles, she tore across the grass and pulled the badger up into a hug.

“Oh, Mr. Nizbit! Where have you been?”

Most people would be wise to avoid running up to a badger in the middle of the night and pulling it into a hug if they have any wish to avoid having their face torn off, badgers not being well known for their mild tempers or understanding natures. Happily, by the time Rainbow Dash had stumped over with her torch, still wiping grass from her chin, she found Mr. Nizbit effectively restrained by Fluttershy’s enfolding arms, and quite incapable of mauling anyone.

“I was so worried!” Fluttershy went on. “Did something bad happen to you?”

Fluttershy listened to Mr. Nizbit grumble out an explanation.

“What’s he say?” Rainbow whispered.

Fluttershy didn’t answer immediately. For a moment she simply frowned at Mr. Nizbit as he expostulated something, until Fluttershy reached down, and wiped something off of his lip.

“Eww, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash gagged, as Fluttershy brought the finger close to her face. “Gross!”

Fluttershy ignored Rainbow, and sniffed the finger.

“Rotten,” she said.

“Wha?” Rainbow asked articulately.

“He’s been eating rotten apples. A lot of them, I think.”

“How do you know that?” Rainbow asked, scrutinising the badger closely as he continued to chatter on. For the first time, Rainbow seemed to notice that the badger had a glazed and bleary look to his eye.

“He’s drunk,” Fluttershy said quietly. “The apples were fermented.”

“Wow,” Rainbow replied, snickering a little. “You don’t think he got into AJ’s cider storage do you?” She chuckled, and then turned suddenly serious. “You didn’t get into the cider, did you?” she demanded of Mr. Nizbit, glaring at him an inch or so from her face. “I’m warning you, buddy—Eahh!”

She leapt back as Mr. Nizbit hissed and bared his teeth.

“Dash, you’re upsetting him,” Fluttershy chastised, holding Mr. Nizbit close and petting his head.

Rainbow Dash’s mouth gaped. “Me!?” she demanded, but Fluttershy ignored her.

Looking down at Mr. Nizbit, it became clear to her that she wasn’t going to get anything out of him just now. She looked around for where he could have come from that had rotten apples; she couldn’t remember there being an apple tree anywhere around here.

“We must have missed ‘em,” Rainbow said, putting her hands on her hips.

“Missed who?” Fluttershy asked.

“Whoever’s been messing up the graves. Or maybe it was him.” She glared at Mr. Nizbit.

Fluttershy frowned a little. That was possible of course, especially if Mr. Nizbit had been coming here inebriated. But several days in succession? And it didn’t explain the charcoal at all.

The following morning, Fluttershy had to marvel at Rainbow’s stamina. She herself was still yawning and felt a perpetual itch behind her eyes, whilst – despite not actually finding anything – Rainbow seemed positively ebullient about their night’s adventure.

“Gonna need to borrow these again for the next night,” she was saying to Pinkie, waving the night-vision goggles from the top of the school steps. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie giggled, waving an airy hand. “Don’t worry, I got like five of them.”

Sunset gave her an inquiring look. “Why?”

“So that we can all play Last Night Recon together one day,” Pinkie answered dreamily, clasping both hands together and sighing.

“Do I dare ask?” Sunset asked Applejack, who shrugged.

“Oh, it’s super easy!” Pinkie cried. “It’s a game Maud came up with when we were kids. Basically we go out at midnight into a deep, dark, spooky forest, armed with sharp rocks and wearing these goggles.”

“Sharp r-rocks?” Rarity asked accidentally shutting her pocket mirror on her finger.

“Ooh,” Applejack said, her eyes lighting up. “Ah remember that game at the Hearths Warming gatherin’.”

“What do you do with the sharp rocks?” Sunset asked, as though slightly frightened of what the answer might be.

Before Applejack could answer, the air was suddenly rent by the self-important tones of Adagio Dazzle. Adagio really didn’t need to greet them quite so loudly, or maybe that was just Fluttershy’s private opinion, given how her personally preferred greeting volume was closer to the Did someone hear that? level.

As though plucked from a Hollywood music video, Adagio and her sisters sauntered forward in a cool triangle-formation, rather like they were about to burst out singing. They didn’t, but did stride towards Fluttershy and her friends in what Fluttershy took to be an aggressive way, although this didn’t alarm her. She’d long settled it in her mind that this was just how the sirens walked anywhere at any time. The exception was Sonata, who as usual was airily distracted, rather like a child in a toy shop.

Fluttershy’s eyes zipped down, drawn to something white on Sonata’s hand.

“Are you feeling any better?” Fluttershy asked her. “Adagio said that you were bitten by an animal.”

“Oh yeah,” Sonata grinned, holding up the hand and blushing. “It was a total accident though, I think.”

“You think?” Rainbow asked, one eye narrowed suspiciously.”

Aria snorted, having just given Rainbow and Applejack high-fives. “Oh yeah, listen to this story,” she sneered, giving Sonata the Let’s hear it look.

Sonata shot back a scowl, her cheeks reddening. “I told you, I was just rummaging through the apples, and it bit me!”

“What did?” Applejack asked. “Ah done told you those apples was gettin’ old when you had ‘em off me, but ah didn’t except y’all to be getting physically hurt from ‘em.”

“You sold them rotten apples?” Rarity asked, a slightly distasteful tone to her voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aria explained. “We needed them that way. They’re better when they’ve fermented a little.”

“Oh,” Rarity said, brightening a little. “You’re making something with them?”

“A few things,” Adagio said blithely.

“Didn’t take you for the cooking type,” Rainbow Dash said bluntly.

Adagio shrugged. “When you’ve lived as long as we have, you either go insane, or you get a hobby. And believe me, insanity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“We’ve had a lot of hobbies,” Sonata added cheerfully.

“Gotta say though,” Aria said, looking sidelong at Sonata. “Getting bitten over applesauce and cider; what would Old Nanna Crumble have said about that?”

“I don’t know what did it,” Sonata said, folding her arms and pretending to ignore Aria. “It was dark. It had sharp teeth though. Like a short-legged dog.”

“They do reckon that dogs are omnivorous,” Applejack said fairly.

“Well, whatever the case, let’s pick up in history class,” Rainbow said, gesturing for the double doors. “The bell’s about to ring.”

Despite her unassuming personality, Fluttershy was not an unintelligent person. Although she almost never spoke up in any classes – with the odd exception in biology and yoga – Fluttershy was generally an A-student, with top marks in those classes she excelled in, and slightly above average in those she struggled in.

It had not escaped Fluttershy’s notice that a series of events seemed to be interconnected. Mr. Nizbit goes missing on the same day that Sonata is bitten by some unknown animal, allegedly whilst searching through a pile of rotten apples at her home. And then she finds Mr. Nizbit lagging drunk around the graveyard with rotten apple remains on his lips. It didn’t take Twilight or Rarity to put two-and-two together.

But there was one major problem with this connection.

The graveyard and the siren’s home, which Fluttershy and her friends had been invited to in the early stages of their armistice with the sirens when the latter had been intent on impressing their old foes, was on the far side of town in the posh district, where their centuries of accruing wealth had earned them a fairly comfortable residence.

There was no possible way that Fluttershy could think of that Mr. Nizbit could have travelled all the way across the city and back again. Not in a single day, and certainly not drunk. The idea was simply ludicrous. She concluded that it must have been some other animal that had attacked Sonata, which gave her some small measure of comfort to know that it hadn’t been any animal that she knew.

At the same time, Fluttershy was earnestly solicitous for Sonata’s health, given what she said had happened to her, and because Fluttershy found Sonata to be the most identifiable of the three sisters. Adagio was haughty and arrogant, and Aria often sour or rowdy, qualities that the others often found charming now that the three of them weren’t trying to conquer the world. Sonata on the other hand was more open, since she had a tendency to speak before thinking, and had a genuine curiosity about everything, which made her easy to engage in conversation. She didn’t intimidate Fluttershy as the other two sometimes did.

“You don’t have to,” Sonata said at the end of school as Fluttershy offered to re-bandage her arm. Sonata rubbed a little at the small red spot on the dirtied white fabric. “The doctor said it’d be fine.”

“Well if you’re okay,” Fluttershy said, pulling back her hand. “I wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I want to see something gross!” Pinkie interjected. Her grin slid slowly off her face as Fluttershy looked awkward, and Sonata blank. “I mean, if you don’t mind,” she added in a voice much closer to Fluttershy’s usual tone.

“Nah, forget that!” Rainbow said raucously, putting an arm around Fluttershy’s shoulders, making her jump. “Tell Sonata about what we did last night.”

“And that’s our cue to leave,” Adagio said quickly. “Come on, Aria.”

“I don’t know,” Aria said, looking between Rainbow and Fluttershy and smirking. “I think I want to hear this.”

“Come on,” Adagio said a little louder, tugging Aria’s collar. “Sonata, you get a ride back with someone else.”

“Okay!” Sonata called as Adagio and Aria walked away. She turned to Rarity, who didn’t immediately notice her whilst glued to her phone’s screen. Then she frowned.

“Look up. Love Pinkie.” Rarity read. Frowning, she looked up, and nearly had a heart attack as she found Sonata’s face inches from her own, her enormous magenta eyes sparkling with friendly merriment.

“Hey Rarity,” Sonata said in a slightly sing-song voice. “Could you give me a ride home?”

“Err...” Rarity said, clearing her throat.

“Fluttershy, tell her about the thing!” Rainbow said, evidently growing impatient. “About the our epic spy quest in the ♪ graaaveyaaaaard! ♪ ”

“Graveyard?” Sonata asked, retreating from Rarity’s personal bubble.

“Graveyard!?” Pinkie cried. “Oh! Did you—“

“What we did,” Rainbow cut across her, pinching Pinkie’s lips closed before she could begin a long tangential expostulation. “Is we went to the graveyard last night to find out some total creep whose been messing with Fluttershy’s animal cemetery.”

“Messing with your animal’s graves?” Sunset frowned.

“Well, that’s just indecent!” Rarity cried sympathetically.

“Why didn’t you tell us about it, Fluttershy?” Sunset asked.

“Oh, well, I didn’t want to cause any—“

“We had it covered,” Rainbow said confidently, patting Fluttershy’s shoulder bracingly. “We camped out there last night to try to catch the punk whose been doing it.”

“Mat sunds weely vun!” Pinkie commented casually, her lips still in Rainbow’s vice pinch.

“Someone’s been messing with your animal cemetery?” Sonata asked, her brow creasing a little. “Did they damage anything?”

“Oh, it was nothing really,” Fluttershy said quickly, seeing that Sonata looked a little perturbed. “Really, I only noticed someone was there because they left some charcoal behind.”

This partial truth somewhat rankled with Fluttershy’s internal sense of honesty. Whilst not as robust perhaps as Applejack, Fluttershy simply didn’t have the nerves to maintain a lie, and so frequently had to present them to herself as partial truths, or tiny misdirections. To help cover herself, she asked Sonata if she knew the graveyard they meant.

Sonata looked around at Adagio and Aria driving away in Adagio’s white Subaru. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever been to that one,” she said distractedly. “It’s kind of on the other side of town, you know?”

“That’s what I thought,” Fluttershy muttered, remembering her previous line of reasoning.

“Huh?” Sonata asked.

“O-Oh, nothing!” Fluttershy stammered, smiling a little as she slid unconsciously backwards a step.

“So we’re going back tonight, right?” Rainbow asked, pulling the goggles out of her bag and slipping them onto her face. “We’ll totally catch this dirt-bag tonight. He can’t hide forever! Not from ‘Hawk-Eye’ Dash.”

“Hawk-Eye?” Rarity asked narrowly.

“My new sobriquet,” Rainbow said in an extra-refined voice.

“Ya’lls word of the week?” Applejack asked, sniggering.

“Hey, I can use big words as good as the next guy,” Rainbow said robustly, although the effect of her tone was slightly marred by the distant honking of a horn from the road beyond the school statue. “Coming dad!” she called. “Hey Fluttershy, wear something dark when we meet up at the graveyard tonight, okay? Don’t want this guy seeing us before we nab him.”

“O-Oh! B-But, Rainbow Dash—“

“Later!”

Fluttershy tried to call after her, but all of the words she attempted to summon forth died on her lips.

I’m actually surprised, Fluttershy realised. After all of this time, after so many times of this happening, I’m still able to be surprised by her.

- To be Continued

The Sting Operation

The Tombstone Tourist: Chapter 3

Like many of Dash’s pursuits, it became apparent after a certain amount of time that she was becoming bored with the activity. Although initially pumped up with the idea of espionage and the excitement associated with it, several days of continual disappointment was beginning to show on Rainbow’s face.

Fluttershy fervently hoped that this would lead her to abandon what seemed to her to be a hopeless quest for a mystery... graveyard... person. But no such luck. Every morning at school, Rainbow Dash would tell Fluttershy to meet her back at the graveyard for another night’s scouting, because every night would show signs that someone was doing... whatever they were doing, all over the graveyard. They no longer seemed to keep themselves confined to Fluttershy’s animal graves either; used charcoal sticks were found lying everywhere, next to almost every tomb at seemingly random positions so that it was impossible to predict which one was next.

“Shouldn’t we just call the police, or something?” Fluttershy asked hopefully.

“I don’t see that conversation being too fruitful,” Rainbow said. “We tell them someone’s going into the graveyard at night and leaving charcoal sticks lying around?”

Fluttershy had to admit that she had a point there.

“Fluttershy, you don’t look well.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I... Fluttershy, that’s not something you have to apologise for.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Sunset repressed a sigh. In the lazy atmosphere of the cafe, she seemed to fight to gather her thoughts. “You just look kind of tired.”

“I haven’t been getting much sleep,” Fluttershy said, fighting a yawn. “Rainbow insists we go to the graveyard every night. The two of us only get any sleep whilst we’re there.

“I suppose it’s no surprise that Rainbow’s holding up better,” Sunset said, tilting her head to the side. “Her energy is indomitable.”

“I don’t think I can last much longer,” Fluttershy groaned, repressing another yawn.

“Perhaps you’re going about it the wrong way,” Sunset said.

“The wrong way?” Fluttershy asked, tentatively.

Sunset sat back in her seat, staring at the slice of lemon cake on her plate. Fluttershy had asked her to come privately to Sugarcube Corner to discuss the matter, but feared that her hesitancy was going to interfere with her search for advice. Fortunately, Sunset was a different sort from Rainbow Dash; she regarded Fluttershy appraisingly, her thumb rubbing one side of her chin.

“I get the feeling that Rainbow isn’t going to stop this until she’s found out who it is. From the sounds of it, she’s got it into her head that this is important to you, and it’s easy to see why since it’s about your animal friends.”

“Well, I suppose so,” Fluttershy mumbled over the rim of her coffee cup. “But I can tell that she’s getting bored of it.”

“I don’t think she wants to let you down. And lets face it, either you’re going to tell her that she doesn’t have to do this, or else she’s going to keep going until she catches someone.” Sunset gave her a knowing look. “No offense, Fluttershy, but I think the latter is the more probable outcome.”

Fluttershy blushed. “How do I stop it? Whoever is going to the graveyard, we can’t see them from the mausoleum, and Edgar insists that he can’t see anyone going around with charcoal sticks during the day.”

Edgar, the sombre raven who lived in the gnarled yew tree at the graveyard’s centre, had informed Fluttershy when she’d questioned him about it. A thoughtful bird, Edgar was nevertheless a rather morose individual – possibly a result of living in a graveyard – and so the questioning had taken some time. Given the fact that he spent near-enough all of his time staring around at the surrounding landscape like some grim premonition of desolation, Fluttershy at least found him to be a reliable source.

“Isn’t the mausoleum behind the hill just in front of the entrance?” Sunset asked.

“Yes,” Fluttershy answered. “It’s close enough to the willow tree to see if anyone went that way.”

“But you can’t see the entrance from there, right?” Sunset asked. “Or the southern side of the fence.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said uncertainly. “Well, I suppose not, no.”

“Well, since you can see the other three sections of gate, it stands to reason that whoever it is coming into the graveyard is either coming in from the main entrance, or—“ Sunset cut herself off, as though a thought were just occurring to her.

“Or?” Fluttershy prompted.

“Or, it’s someone already there.” Sunset gave Fluttershy a meaningful look.

Fluttershy stared back, nonplussed. And then it came to her.

“Y-Y-You mean me!?” Fluttershy stammered, feeling a hot, prickly sensation run over her scalp and over her face.

Sunset snorted. “I’m just teasing you, Fluttershy. You don’t have a motive, nor the disposition.”

“Well, if not me, then—“ Fluttershy paused as she realised what Sunset was implying. “You’re not talking about Rainbow Dash!”

Sunset hesitated, apparently considering what to say. “I don’t think she’d do anything to be mean about it. Definitely not to you. But Rainbow Dash is a prankster. I could see jerking someone around being funny to her.”

“I don’t think she would do something like desecrating grave stones,” Fluttershy said, a little stubbornly.

Sunset spread her arms a little. “Maybe. But by process of elimination, she’s the most likely suspect as far as I can see. Even if you don’t suspect her, you might just keep an eye on her.”

Fluttershy didn’t like that idea at all. She loved all of her friends near-enough equally, but Rainbow Dash was her oldest friend, whom she’d known since childhood. If she knew any of them intimately, it was Rainbow Dash.

Despite this, she knew that there were a few things that Sunset had said that were definitely true. Rainbow Dash was a prankster, and certainly could let her humour edge dangerously close to cruelty, usually without realising it. Was it possible that Rainbow was doing it as some sort of prolonged prank? Even though Fluttershy had called it ‘desecrating’, she knew full well that whatever was being done to the grave markers was little more than small signs and minor interferences, barely even noticeable to anyone not explicitly looking for them.

It all seemed – in Fluttershy’s mind at least – to be too convoluted, too subliminal to be a prank. It was leaving a lot to chance that Fluttershy would have even noticed the charcoal sticks and slight variants in the stone’s positioning, let alone the rest of the graveyard. Rainbow was certainly capable of elaborate tricks, but they were almost always showy.

But the idea was now firmly lodged in Fluttershy’s mind, and to her deep discomfort and personal sense of shame, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head that Rainbow Dash might be responsible. After all, Rainbow knew about the animal graves, whereas most people didn’t notice them. Rainbow Dash had the only (if not kind of weak) viable motive. Rainbow was present in the graveyard at night, the most likely time for the vandalism? to take place. Rainbow could easily get up whilst Fluttershy was sleeping against the mausoleum and perpetrate everything under the cover of dark.

Much as she disliked it, she thought it prudent to keep a better eye on her. As such, she suggested a difference in their plans.

“Aw, yeah,” Rainbow said, putting her feet on the dashboard. “This is way better than the sleeping bags. Great idea, Fluttershy.”

“O-Oh,” Fluttershy started guiltily. “Yes. It um... thanks.”

“Thanks for helping us out, dad,” Rainbow went on, grinning at the driver. “Hopefully tonight, we’ll get whoever it is.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, kiddo,” Rainbow Dash’s father said, giving Fluttershy a brief smile over his shoulder. “If I get a call on the radio though, I’m not leaving you here.”

“Oh, don’t worry dad,” Rainbow said easily. “Pinkie’s house is just up the street; I already told her we might be coming over.”

Rainbow’s father didn’t seem to be entirely sold on this plan, but he nodded and went back to his police laptop.

Fluttershy had never been in a cop car before, but found the backseat to be roomier than she’d imagined it would have been. The metal grate was a little disconcerting though. But then—

“So many things are,” she muttered.

“Huh?” Rainbow asked.

“Nothing.”

As an undercover police vehicle, the car they were in was generally indistinguishable from a regular car unless one got a look inside. The three silver nubs on the rear might give the game away, but in the dark, Fluttershy thought they were well camouflaged. They were lucky that Rainbow’s father agreed to alter his rounds a little to bring them to the cemetery.

A few times over the next hour, various persons moved briskly by the cemetery gate, huddled against the cold and not even glancing at the silent car. It wasn’t long before Rainbow Dash was snoring, and her father not far behind her. If it hadn’t been for her iPad, Fluttershy might have joined them, but staring at its dimmed screen, she pondered ever more on the likelihood of this all just being some elaborate hoax.

No matter how many times she went over it in her head, she couldn’t come to any solid conclusion. She didn’t have any actual cause to believe it was Rainbow, but on the other hand, she had no cause to believe it was anyone else either. Rainbow was simply the most likely suspect, because she was the only suspect. Fluttershy knew that that reasoning simply didn’t work. It proved nothing.

Staring out of the window, she was so caught up in her thoughts that she found herself simply watching anything that moved: A small cluster of leaves blowing about in the slight wind, like shadows moving across the road. The sign on the cemetery gate that had a bolt loose, and so had a tendency to wobble a little. The people walking by, all of them looking secretive and uneasy.

It took her a moment or two to realise, breaking from her train of thought, that the person currently walking by looked familiar. Blinking a few times, she scrutinised the figure walking by more closely.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow snuffled a little and turned in her seat.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy whispered more insistently, giving her shoulder a little shake.

“Don’t you worry, Firefly,” Rainbow slurred. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“Rainbow. Dash!” Fluttershy hissed.

“Uh!” she snorted, waking up and looking around at Fluttershy with an aggrieved eye. “What? What?”

“Have you seen that person before?” Fluttershy asked.

Rainbow rubbed her eyes and squinted out of the window. Just outside of the spotlight of a street lamp, the person stood, looking left and right a few times. Fluttershy just had time to take in the plum-coloured hoodie, the black backpack, and the pink converse shoes. With the hoodie pulled up and the bagginess of the clothes, it was hard to tell who it was.

“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “I can’t tell who it is.”

“No, I mean,” Fluttershy began, hesitating a little as she tried to remember. “I think I’ve seen them walk by before.”

“You think this is the—“ Rainbow stopped and let out a sound like a moan of pleasure mixed with a sound of disgust.

The person outside had taken one last look around, and then moved quickly to the fence. Moving stealthily towards the bars to the left of the locked gate, the figure put both hands to one of the vertical bars, and gave it a sharp push. The lower part of the bar turned, still bolted at the top, allowing a diagonal opening in the fence that the figure was able to slip through no problem.

“Did you know that was there?” Rainbow asked, her nose up against the window.

Fluttershy shook her head.

“Come on, this is our chance!” Rainbow hissed gleefully, reaching for the door handle.

“Um, shouldn’t we wake your father?” Fluttershy asked quickly, a sudden panic seizing her.

Rainbow smirked and made a dismissive noise. “He’s not going to fit through that gap. Come on!”

“But! But—“ Fluttershy hesitated, looking between Rainbow through the window, and her father sleeping in his chair. “But that’s not the point, Rainbow!”

Resigning herself to the worst, she opened the back door and, making sure to close it as quietly as she could, sped after Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, wait!” she called, pulling herself through the gap in the fence as Rainbow sped as quietly as she could forward. The hooded individual was walking along the shady side of the cemetery, evidently out of earshot.

“Shh!” Rainbow shot back over her shoulder. “Don’t let them hear us! We’ve got this dirt-bag, this time!”

But Rainbow was too fast and too eager; Fluttershy simply couldn’t keep up and be quiet at the same time, and with her natural deference to everything and everyone around her keeping her from speeding up, it didn’t take long for her to lose Rainbow in the dark.

The mystery person was long since gone, and Fluttershy was disconcerted after a few minutes of trying to find Rainbow that she didn’t recognise the part of the graveyard she was in.

“Oh,” she said fearfully. “It all looks so different at night.”

The mausoleum was nowhere to be seen in the silky blackness in between the watery orbs of yellow light being given off by the cemetery’s old-fashioned lamps. She couldn’t see Edgar’s tree, nor did any of the nearby gravestones bear names that she recognised. The surrounding houses were just solid black walls, and the tree-lines a fixed in place cardiogram read-out against the starry sky. She might as well have been trapped in purgatory.

“No, no,” she told herself, as she felt her diaphragm strain her lungs into the opening stages of hyperventilation. “No, I just have to move in a straight line, and I’ll find the edge. Then I’ll follow it to the exit. Simple. Easy. Not in the least bit terrifying or lonely.”

She took a few assertive steps forward, bypassing a tombstone as she went in what she hoped was a confident, swaggering sort of way, just in case the darkness was watching.

“No, ma’am,” she went on. “Nothing scary, or frightening about a graveyard at night. You just keep walking, and ignore those scratching sounds behind you—“

Fluttershy froze. In the near silence of the night, she heard very distinctly, a small, scratchy-scratchy sound, somewhere off in the darkness. Her heart pushed its way slowly upwards into her throat as the feeling began to disappear in her limbs. With a great effort of will, she managed to turn her head slowly around, and stare wide-eyed into the night. The seemingly floating orbs of yellow light casting their insubstantial light over the graveyard made Fluttershy think of an underwater kingdom, although she’d yet to see the sub-aquatic city that could fill her with as much terror as the coldness surrounding her.

The scratching sound kept going, neither getting near, nor further away.

“I-It’s just an a-animal,” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “J-Just a c-c-cute, ad-dorable little animal, c-cleaning out its—“

Fluttershy screamed.

The scratching noise halted. Then it industriously resumed.

Fluttershy sat on her aching behind, her hands over her head, waiting for whoever had touched her leg to get her. After a few moments, she became curious enough to open her eyes and see why she wasn’t gotten yet. Then she nearly screamed again.

“M... Mr. Nizbit...?” she breathed. “I-It was just you.”

Mr. Nizbit tilted his head to one side, as though disappointed.

“What are you doing here?” Fluttershy whispered. “Your home is over in the park.”

Mr. Nizbit gave a low series of growls, scratching his chest a little with several prodigious claws as he did so.

Fluttershy frowned. “A drop-off point? What are you—“ She broke off as Mr. Nizbit turned abruptly and scampered away. “Wait! Mr. Nizbit!” Fluttershy hissed after him.

Standing as fast as her aching backside would allow, Fluttershy tiptoed rapidly after him, trying to keep up with his little waddling form and pleading for him to come back. She hadn’t passed by three headstones, when she noticed that the little scratching sound was getting closer, and closer. And then a light snapped on in front of her.

With the natural instincts born of the fraidy-cat, Fluttershy shot downwards behind a sizeable tombstone, all of her senses on edge. The scratching sound had stopped, and looking up, Fluttershy saw a narrow beam of light moving sideways above her hiding spot.

After a few seconds, the beam turned away, and the scratching sounds continued.

Fluttershy’s sense of terror vied with her curiosity. Beyond the gravestone behind which she hid was undoubtedly the hooded figure she and Rainbow had followed in, doing their nefarious... whatever they were doing. This might be her only chance to see who they were and what compelled them to come back to the graveyard at night.

This might have put Fluttershy in a state of perpetual indecision for a long while, had it not been for Mr. Nizbit having trotted off in the direction of the light-beam’s source. Towards the mysterious individual.

Fluttershy gulped, trying to moisten her dry throat. As carefully, and quietly as she could, she turned around behind her cover, and placed her fingers on the smooth top of the tombstone. Slowly as she could, she raised her head, and peered outwards.

At first, she could make nothing substantial out. Everything was, dark, grey, and still. Then the light reappeared, and Fluttershy nearly dived back down. When it became apparent that the light wasn’t focused upon her, however, she squinted towards it.

The hooded figure was standing in front of a smallish obelisk monument, holding what looked like a large piece of beige paper in one hand, and a pencil-torch in the other. As Fluttershy watched, the figure put the pencil torch between their teeth, knelt down, and held the paper up to the obelisk’s face, using their free hand to grope for something on the ground. In the pitiful glow of the pencil torch, Fluttershy could just make out something long and thin in between the person’s fingers as they raised it to the paper. And then the scratching sound started again, as the raised hand moved rapidly up and down across the paper with the little dark stick.

Fluttershy was just puzzling over this curious circumstance, unsure of what it was that she was watching, when she noticed a short, stubby patch of darkness shuffling up to the hooded figure from behind. Fluttershy’s heart nose-dived into her gut, and she leapt up without conscious thought.

“Mr. Nizbit!” she screamed.

The figure leapt back from the obelisk, the pencil torch falling from their mouth into the grass. Evidently alarmed by Flutterhsy’s presence, they turned and began to run, only to be sent sprawling into the grass with a shriek of surprise.

Fluttershy sprinted over, kneeling down over Mr. Nizbit as he groaned and growled at having been tripped upon.

“A-Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, feeling for his stubby legs to check that they weren’t broken.

Mr. Nizbit snorted a few times, and then righted himself, and with all of the cantankerousness that his age afforded him, leapt forward onto the person still trying to pick themselves out of the grass.

“Hey! Ouch!” cried this person in a high, girlish voice. “Get off! They’re in the bag! The bag!”

Fluttershy stared, almost unaware of the backpack being flung away into the darkness, and Mr. Nizbit stumbling after it like an excitable hound. She knew that voice. But how could it be...

“Sonata?” she breathed.

The person on the ground stopped moving. After a few seconds, they gave a small cough.

“W-Who?” they asked, in an unconvincingly deep voice. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Sonata, I can see your blue hair,” Fluttershy said, somewhat apologetically.

“No you can’t!” said the figure, sitting up properly and shoving the long strands of bright blue hair, unmistakable in the torchlight, back under the hood. “I mean... I don’t have blue hair! I—“

“Your hand is bandaged,” Fluttershy pointed out, noting the white gauze on the hand trying to tuck the hair back into place. “Sonata’s hand is bandaged in the same place.”

Instantly the hand flew down and out of sight. “No, it’s... I...”

The person sighed, and still sitting in the grass, pulled down the hood.

Sonata blushed, biting her lip and apparently unable to meet Fluttershy’s eye. Her hair was out of its usual ponytail, instead tied up into a loose work bun at the back of her head; several strands of it had come loose.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” she said quietly.

Fluttershy didn’t quite know what to say to that. Tell anyone what?

“If you don’t mind,” Fluttershy began. “Um. What exactly are you doing?”

For an answer, Sonata reached over to the piece of yellowish paper she’d been holding up to the obelisk, and motioned for Fluttershy to take it.

The paper was thick, rougher than what Fluttershy was used to, but being an amateur artist, she could tell it was not low quality. It felt more like parchment. Picking up the pencil torch on the floor, she slid the beam across the image, but even with the aid of light it took her a few moments to really grasp what it was she was seeing.

As soon as she made it out, everything seemed to fall into place, everything suddenly made perfect sense.

The charcoal sticks. Mr. Nizbit’s mysterious disappearance and reappearance. The little shifts and near-indistinguishable marks all over the graveyard. Sonata’s absence from school.

“You make copies of... gravestones?” Fluttershy asked slowly.

“It’s a stone rubbing,” Sonata said, unhappily. Standing up, she stuck her hands in her pockets whilst Mr. Nizbit rummaged around in her bag a few feet away. “I’m... I’m a taphophile.”

Fluttershy stared at her. The term explained nothing to her. But the wheel of discovery was turning in her head as she looked down at Mr. Nizbit’s protruding, furry rump.

“You’ve been giving Mr. Nizbit rotten apples,” she surmised.

“Who? Oh, you mean Bitey the Badger over here?” Sonata asked, giving Mr. Nizbit a cold look. “Yes, I have. He ambushes me every time I come here, and won’t leave me alone until I give him something to eat. The first time I came, he bit my hand.”

Fluttershy nodded, an ideal picture forming in her head. “You were making one of these things on the graves under the willow tree,” Fluttershy guessed.

Sonata’s face lit up. “Yeah!” she said eagerly. “I tried to do those the first time I got here. I’d never seen things like them. But I only got through a few before that badger attacked me.”

“Mm,” Fluttershy pursed her lips. “I think you might have – accidentally I’m sure – offended Mr. Nizbit. You see, his wife recently died, and I think that you might have, perhaps, maybe touched Mrs. Nizbit’s headstone.”

Sonata blinked, and then looked guiltily around at Mr. Nizbit, who was just emerging from the bag, munching loudly on a great chunk of soft-looking apple.

“Oh,” Sonata said uncomfortably. “Sorry. I don’t mean to offend anyone or anything. It’s just, like, a hobby, you know?”

Both girls seemed unsure of what to say next. Both had reached a point of awkwardness that made it difficult to know what to do. Until both of them were startled out of their wits by someone shouting:

“Fluttershy!”

The next thing that the eponym of this alarming cry knew, Sonata had disappeared in a blur of motion. Fluttershy instinctively seized the pencil torch; searching around rapidly, the beam eventually cast itself upon a head of multi-coloured hair.

“You think you can hurt my friend and get away with it?” Rainbow Dash growled, holding the front of Sonata’s hoodie with one hand. “Guess again, dirt-for-brains!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy shrieked, in quite possibly the loudest her voice had ever gone.

Rainbow Dash turned her head, her fist raised.

“What?” she asked, evidently surprised by Fluttershy’s interruption.

For answer, Fluttershy shone the pencil torch into Sonata’s face. Rainbow stared for a full six seconds into Sonata’s pale, terrified expression, the latter obviously expecting the fist still to fall.

Rainbow Dash lowered her fist, and let go of Sonata’s hoodie, as though in a daze.

“Does, um... does somebody maybe wanna... explain?” Rainbow asked, the complexities of the situation apparently overwhelming her mind.

Before anyone could reply to this, they all heard the sound of a window being raised, a small square of light blossomed into being in the solid shadows of the line of houses lining the graveyard’s perimeter.

“Whoever’s in that there cemetery,” bellowed a deep and gravely voice. “I’ve called the police!”

Rainbow gave a little snort. “Don’t worry guys. My dad’s the nearest cop, and he already knows we’re here.”

“And if you’re still in that graveyard by the time I get down there—“ the voice continued.

“But all the same, maybe we should go,” Rainbow added quickly.

- To be Continued