Captain Silvermane wondered when he had lost control.

The ticking of the clock over the hearth of the last warm building in Little Hoofington thrummed in his ears. It was late morning, two days before Hearth’s Warming, but it sounded the gong of the eleventh hour, with midnight fast approaching. Silvermane had passed a sleepless night - indeed, he planned never to sleep again until he led the remaining charges under his care to safety, or died in the attempt.

It was a fifty/fifty shot at best.

The tension in the main room of Kitty’s Nip was sticky enough to make taffy with. Throughout the middling hours of the night somepony had made a weak attempt to lighten the mood by tapping on the piano, but it had been in vain. Only Miss Kitty herself had retired to bed for a few hours, grimly claiming that if she were going to die anyway, doing so in her sleep was a comfort. She had survived to the morning however, and thereafter had wordlessly gone about the business of breakfast that nopony ate, and coffee that everypony (including those who didn’t like coffee) drank.

Whatzit had nodded off sprawled upon a table for a short while, but was now sitting by herself, nervously flipping through her notes too fast to actually be reading them. Her mauve mane was mussed and her shoulders trembled under Chloe’s pink scarf. Silvermane wanted to comfort her, but he found himself with no kind words to spare. She was young, but not a child, and certainly no fool. Any suggestion that everything was going to be alright seemed laughably patronizing.

The remaining ponies were far too disciplined, or in Cadabra’s case simply too used to odd hours, to succumb to sleep. The estrangement between Cadabra and her bodyguard was completed by their separation into opposite corners of the room, and not the least reduction in the paranoid glances they gave everypony else whenever their eyes met. Caveat’s incessant fiddling with her broad knife and Cadabra’s habitual levitation of any small objects near her made the two seem like caged tigers, watching and waiting for a break in one another’s guard.

Constable Rose had discarded her parka, and was huddled upon a table in the center of the room. She was staring at the floor and hadn’t moved in what seemed like hours. To the untrained eye she might have looked like a daft old nag who had chosen a poor (or perhaps fortuitous) time to lapse into senility, but Silvermane could see the military precision behind each flick of her eyes and ears. With nothing better to do, Rose was carefully listening to everything she could bring into earshot from both within the building and without. Her position in the center of the room made her seem exposed, but with the ponies she mistrusted the most spread out to the corners, it was the best way to keep an eye on all of them at the same time.

Thoughts of soldiering brought up by Rose’s countenance stirred a thought in Silvermane’s mind, and it passed beyond his lips before he could stop it.

“...Beanie…”

Rose shook her head but did not look up.

“He’s a lieutenant in the royal guard,” Silvermane muttered hopefully over the unpleasant smell of dark roast from his sixth cup. “He may have gone for help.”

“You got any idea what it’s like to be the only royal guard in a little town where everything’s goin’ straight to Hell, Cap’n?” Rose didn’t wait for a reply. “Me neither, an’ I seen a lot in my day. Don’t put yer trust in that gelding. He ain’t got the stuff what makes a soldier to begin with. That’s prolly why they sent him here in the first place.”

Silvermane felt the burden of responsibility swell again in his breast. “We should go and get him. Bring him here with us.”

“Snow’s drifted so high you prolly wouldn’t even get through the main gates, Cap’n. Assumin’ you make it there alive all by yerself to begin with. If I was a killer, I wouldn’t even care about broad daylight nomore. Not when we’re this far gone.”

A chill that stoked the fire ran through the room. Silvermane cleared his throat.

“Who will come with me?”

Nopony spoke, and nopony made eye contact with Captain Silvermane. Incensed, Hector spared them all a shameful glance, stood, and put on his helmet. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

Silvermane was two paces from the door when a voice stopped him.

“That means you’re the killer, Captain.”

“What?”

Silvermane took note of Caveat, who was rocking on the rear legs of a chair purposefully set too far in the corner for anyone to approach her from behind. There was a certain sense of death in her eyes, as though she knew she hadn’t long to live, but was determined to make a fight of it.

“You said it yourself last night,” Caveat explained. “‘If anypony insists upon going out by themselves, I’ll take that as proof that they’re a changeling.’”

Hector blew a wisp of the silver mane that he was named for out of his eye and stood tall. “Then come with me,” he instructed. “All of you, come with me. Don’t you even care about another pony’s life?”

Even Whatzit wouldn’t look her captain in the eye. She shrunk, and her voice was small.

“You...you said the safest thing we could do was hide in here together...we...shouldn’t go out…”

Caveat spat. “If he’s not dead after all this then he has to be one of those things. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We are many, while he is few,” Cadabra added as she twiddled a shot glass in her magic. “The price is too great for the unlikelihood of reward.”

“Constable Rose?” Silvermane inquired hopefully.

Rose spoke volumes in a simple shake of her head. Her ears were plastered to her skull, and she refused still to raise her head past a back that seemed more bowed with age than ever Silvermane had seen it.

“Fine,” the captain seethed as he kicked the wall in frustration. He plopped down in a chair by the door so hard that he nearly broke it. “Then we’re just going to sit in this room until we die, or we pass out from exhaustion and get killed anyway. That’s our plan.”

“The snow can’t go on forever Captain,” Kitty piped up from behind the bar. “And there’s enough food in my larders to take us clear through to midsummer. Why don’t you just sit a spell and rela--”

“This was your idea Captain,” Caveat interrupted. “You’re the high and mighty, martial law, ear-of-the-princesses guard captain. I guess that gives you the right to decide if we live or die, huh? And you can’t even stick to a plan!”

Silvermane felt anger boil to the surface, but he suppressed the heat with a great intake of cool air. Mere nettling would never have gotten to him before he had come to this accursed town, and he was ashamed that he had let it at all.

“Alright, you’ve all made your point,” the captain acquiesced. “And I suppose staying put is the safest plan right now, it’s just...I don’t like the idea of leaving anypony out in--”

“Ah’ll go.”

All eyes turned to Constable Rose, who had found the wherewithal to stand. The hard look in her eye had returned, and she was puffed up proudly once more. She glanced about and sneered.

“What’re you all lookin’ at? Ah’m s’posed to be the law ‘round these parts. This here’s mah responsibility if it’s anypony’s, and ah said ah’ll go. Y’all hold up here where it’s safe.”

“But they might kill you…” Zit whimpered.

Rose favored the young mare with a soft smile. “Yeah, they might. But ah’ll go down swingin’ sure as there’s giddy still in mah up. Ain’t no damn critter kills me and lives.”

Hector made to rise as Rose trotted past him towards the door, but she stayed him with a hoof on his shoulder. Her eyes bore all the wisdom of an elder mare, and in that moment she was his senior by life experience alone.

“You git these here ponies to safety, young’un. This old fart has a job left to do.”

His breast swollen with honor, Silvermane said nothing. Rose was nearly at the door, her audience ready to pridefully send her off like the apex of a western film, until Caveat’s voice shattered the moment like glass fragments all over the floor.

“So it is you, then.”

Rose stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Say that again, nag?”

Caveat shoved back her chair loudly and stood. “I knew it. I knew it all along, and it makes perfect sense. Replace the lawponies first - the ones we’re all supposed to trust, to destroy our sense of order. You put on a fantastic show, but the very fact that you’re giving us all this sob story hero bull right now proves it. You just wanna get out of here, so you can tell your cronies everything about this place and make it easier for them to get at us.”

The crackle from the hearth set Rose’s silhouette ablaze. “Ah reckon ah’ve had just about all ah’m gonna take from you, bug.”

Caveat snorted. “Bug? Who are you calling a bug?”

“You,” Rose rumbled. “Ah been the law in this town fer years now, but what’re you, some wanderin’ sellhorn bitwhore? Awful convenient you show up just a couple’a weeks before this all went down. It’s somethin’ a scout would do. An’ you been awful calm through alla this. Y’ain’t had a damn useful thing to say or do this entire time, like you don’t care a lick for yer fellow ponies, even though the more of us what gets killed, the worse off are the ones what’re left.”

“I work for pay,” Caveat replied calmly. “It’s hardly a foreign concept in Equestria.”

“You ain’t as stupid as you look, much as ah hate to admit it,” Rose went on. “You know as well as the rest of us that Cadabra expected you to protect the both of ‘em. You think you can excuse Lora’s murder away with ‘You only paid me to protect you?’”

Caveat snerked. “Nice try, nag. If I was a changeling, my goal would have been to suck the love out of her body. Just murdering that mute bag of bones and leaving her in the street gains me nothing.”

Cadabra, her haughty countenance permanently damaged by the horrors she had borne witness to, stood. “H-how dare thee, speak not of our friend in such a way…”

“Y’know what?” Rose turned about the rest of the way and fixed Caveat with a look. “Yer absolutely right. That ain’t what a bug would do. But ah’m pretty sure a serial killer who has a goal like cuttin’ cutie marks offa ponies to make a sick-lookin’ cape would be fine if somepony else did her dirty work for her. Pinkamena’s a master of disguise, an’ yer awful handy with that there knife.”

Silvermane finally stood as well, his voice even. “That’s enough, all of you. Talk like this doesn’t get us anywhere.”

Caveat lit her horn, and her knife came to bear beside her head. “Then maybe it’s time we did more than talk.”

Rose’s horn sparked to life. “Ah reckon that there’s the best idea that’s come outta you since y’got here.”

“Stop this,” Silvermane repeated as he interposed himself between the combatants. “As a representative of the court, empowered to enforce the law in this town, I demand--”

“Spare me,” Caveat growled. “Just don’t even bother anymore, ‘captain’. There’s no law in this town anymore. There’s no order, and there’s no way any of us can cooperate because the numbers count a hundred percent chance that somepony in this room is out to kill us all. As soon as our backs are turned or our guard is down, we’re all gonna die, one by one, so I say it’s down to kill or be killed.”

“The numbers also say that somepony, or ponies in this room are innocent, Caveat. Are you just going to murder us all to find the killer? How is that any different from what they’re trying to do?” Silvermane replied.

“I don’t need to murder you all,” Caveat replied, “because I know who the bug is. Now step out of my way and I’ll take care of this once and for all.”

“Mah thoughts exactly,” Rose replied. “Just lemme wrap this up, an’ then we can be sure we’re safe in this here spot until we c’n get outta town alive.”

Silvermane turned to Rose. “Constable, stand down. That is an order.”

Rose’s jaw was working, and her eyes darted about the room. “...it’s too late fer that, Cap’n. It’s mah job t’protect these here ponies. Ah can’t let anypony get in the way of that. Not even you.”

“Your job is to obey your commanding officer!” Silvermane insisted.

“Good thing that’s not my job!” Caveat cried.

Hector barely had time to turn around before the full weight of the stout, armored unicorn mare barreled into him. Knocked prone, he crashed into a heap of chairs and found himself entangled in their many legs, wishing he had fewer of his own to deal with. He sought to free himself, a barstool hurled from somewhere fell upon his head, dazing him.

Whatzit was whimpering and hiding under a table. Kitty was shouting from behind the bar. Cadabra was damning both of the combatants in the finest ponish, whilst a blast from Rose’s horn knicked Caveat’s ear. The grizzled bodyguard checked the fresh blood flowing from the half-ear she had remaining and went into a frenzy of feral bloodlust, her cries more like that of a great cat. Rose fired twice more, burning holes into Kitty’s main room, but the younger, more dextrous copper unicorn dodged from side to side like a cheetah, and leapt forward to pounce upon her prey, her helmet flying off in the process. Rose smacked Caveat hard enough in the muzzle to draw blood from her lip, but Caveat’s knife struck home, and buried itself square in the middle of the old nag’s chest.

“NO!”

Hector’s cry of anguish was amplified by the number of times he had already uttered it since arriving in Little Hoofington. Every death that had occurred around him managed to happen precisely when he was helpless to stop it, and the infuriating irony of that was what stung most of all. He fought for his hooves, shattering the rabble of furniture with several bucks, but the combatants were already leaving the establishment.

With her hoof still driving the knife into Rose’s chest, Caveat used the leverage to back the stumbling constable clear out the door. Outside, Rose collapsed in a heap on her back, her life gushing out upon the snow as the bloodthirsty bodyguard lay atop her, shoving the blade deeper into her heart.

“Now they’ll all see the truth,” Caveat cackled maniacally, stress finally tearing down her facade of coolness. “Die, bug. Die and show us what you really are!”

Rose spat up dark blood with every breath. It threatened to choke her to death faster than she could bleed her way there, but her tenacity was that of an Earth pony, and the smug look on the face of her killer was enough to drive her into a rage that transcended even imminent death.

“R...right...b-back atcha, y’c-Celestia be d-damned monster…”

Rose poured everything she had left of herself into the inferno that her horn became, and didn’t hesitate to let fly.

Stringbean’s demise, at least, had been clean. The clumsily-aimed spell slammed at full force into Caveat’s face at an odd angle, shearing most of her head off just above her jaw line. Her cranium exploded in a mass of brain tissue and teeth, leaving but a single, pristine eye that landed face-up in the snow to stare forever at the hazy sky. Caveat soaked her prey in blood and gurgled before collapsing off to the side. Her tongue, exposed all the way back to her esophagus, was still making involuntary and hideous attempts to swallow through the bile that was gushing out from within.

Silvermane shoved the corpse out of the way and stuck his foreleg under Rose’s head to support her. He knew better than to yank the knife free of the wound, but did so anyway, knowing full well what Rose confirmed with a weak shake of her head.

“...a-ain’t no u-use...w-would take a miracle doc t’save me now...an’ w-we don’t even got a regular one…”

Silvermane cast his helmet aside and raised his brows helplessly, his discipline once again failing him. “Const--Rose...Rose I’m so sorry…”

Rose coughed up more blood and managed a weak grin. “...ain’t yer fault...th’bugs got me...tricked me real good...m-might as well b-be th’ dumb ol’ nag what passes on...s’the natural order...a-after all…”

Silvermane searched for something to say, but the pumping of the blood was too fast, and the life faded away from his charge with every passing second. He choked on his speech several times, until Rose spoke up instead.

“...y-you d-do somethin’ f-fer me...c-cap’n…”

“...name it...”

“B-b’fore they...h-haul you off t-jail...you dump that changeling queen’s head all over Princess Celestia’s pretty carpets, just l-like I was gonna...and Pinkamena’s too…”

“...I will,” Silvermane muttered. “It...it was a pleasure serving with you, Constable Rose.”

“...s-sorry...ah c-cain’t...be there…”

Constable Rose never spoke again.

Too numb even to feel anguish, Hector Silvermane sat in the snow between the two mutilated corpses. He was awash in blood from both of them, staining his perfect coat an ugly crimson, but he seemed not to care.

“...they don’t even need to kill us...we’re all just going to kill each other…”

There was a gasp, and Silvermane looked up to see Cadabra standing in the doorway, with Whatzit in tow and Kitty at a window. The night cultist was pointing to either side of Silvermane, and he followed her eye to see what was amiss.

Both bodies remained whole. Neither corpse reverted to the form of a changeling.

Terror on her face, Cadabra stumbled out into the street and tried to keep her eyes on all of the three living ponies at once. “...one of thee must be a monster...or even all of thee...it is the only explanation…”

The words threw a switch somewhere inside, and Silvermane’s detective skills were instantly on fire. His eyes lit up with it, and leaping to his hooves, he stared dumbly at his audience.

“...the waffle boy…” he said simply. “Where...where is Chocolate Waffle?”

Cadabra blinked. “We...we had forgotten about the child...where would he go?”

“The only place a child would feel comfortable,” Silvermane reasoned. “Back to his home. Sweet Celestia, we left him there. We left that poor boy alone in a house full of gore where his entire murdered family used to live!”

Cadabra ruminated on her own unwillingness to go after Beanie, but a glance at the bloody bodies in the street filled her with a desire to be anywhere but here. “We must go to him,” she concluded. “It may be too late, but the Night teaches us of the kindness we must show her denizens. We cannot leave him to his fate, though the case be grim.”

Silvermane turned to Whatzit, expecting the deputy to fall in, but she hadn’t moved from the door. She was purposefully not looking at the bodies, and though she swallowed through a lump in her throat, she could still speak.

“Captain, no. Don’t go. You said it yourself, it’s too dangerous.”

Kitty was at the door too. She massaged Zit’s shoulders soothingly, and added her concurrence. “I don’t like the idea of leaving the colt, but...he’s just a colt. He’s probably dead already, Captain. You all come back inside, this is the only safe place left.”

Silvermane stood. He retrieved his helmet, and, looking as though he had just single-handedly slain a hundred soldiers in a great battle, shook his head.

“No. I won’t leave the boy. I’m going, and I’d be grateful for whomever will come with me. Every minute we stay here is another minute that could end up making a difference between life and death.”

Everypony glanced at the bodies. They were all asking the same question with their eyes, but ceased when the answer became plain. These corpses too would be left exposed, for they had nowhere to be buried, and time was of the essence. Cadabra looked fearful, but she came up beside Silvermane anyway.

“Do not call us ‘deputy’,” she sniffed. “But...we will assist thee. We must go quickly.”

“Captain please,” Zit whimpered. “It’s not...we can’t…”

Silvermane’s stare was hard. “If I can save anypony at all Zit, I have to try. You can come with me, or you can bar the door and stay with Miss Kitty, though I’d just as soon she came too so we can all stick together.

Kitty Contessa adamantly shook her head. “This is my place Captain. It’s my life, and it’s the only place I feel safe anymore. I’ll take care of Zit, and I’ll…” she paused, “...deal with the bodies. You go on.”

“Fine.” Undesirous of an argument, Silvermane acquiesced and turned to his unexpected companion. “Let’s move.”

Silvermane and Cadabra hadn’t made it a dozen steps before they heard hooves crunching in the snow behind them. There stood little Whatzit - she was trembling from more than the cold, but her look was resolute.

“I’m a deputy, and this is my town. I’m going.”

Kitty sighed. “I’ll still do something about the bodies. It’s not right we just leave Constable Rose where she fell.”

Silvermane shook his head remorsefully. “Leave them, it’s not safe to be on the street alone. Bar the door and don’t open it again until we get back. When this is all over we’ll deal with them properly.

Kitty nodded and swallowed. “...I’ve said it before, but y’all come back now, y’hear?”

Silvermane glanced over his new team, and considered what they had just witnessed. “Are you both okay?”

“We are most certainly not okay,” Cadabra retorted. “But we do not desire to sit by and wait to be killed. Our horn is powerful and will serve thee well. Take us with you.”

Zit looked ill. “I...I…” she shut her eyes tightly, took a breath, and opened them again, her expression neutralizing. “...this is for my home. Let’s go.”

Silvermane let his team off at a gallop. It was the second time they had merely left bodies lying in the street, and the captain got the grisly image of hemorrhaging live ponies from their main body; as though the lot of them were a single injured pony leaving pieces of itself behind as it lurched to escape a warzone. They were a sorry group, unable to prevent infighting and death. Some of them lived on however, and so long as some still drew breath, they were going to keep on fighting.

Would that they knew what fate still had in store.

Author's Note

Constable Rose has died. Constable Rose was the Veteran.

Caveat has died. Caveat was the Bodyguard.

Captain Hector Silvermane
Constable Dusky Rose (Veteran)
Deputy Beat Trotter (Jailer)
Whatzit
Cadabra Smile
Lora Lore (Gumshoe)
Stringbean (Mule)
Kitty Contessa
Whim (Partypony)
Maple Waffle (Changeling Drone)
Buttermilk Waffle (Nurse)
Chocolate Waffle
Strawberry Waffle (Changeling Forger)
Scoops (Reporter)
Specs (Watchpony)
Caveat (Bodyguard)
Beanie