After keeping her past a secret for an entire year, a light red pegasus mare with a hot pink mane and tail walked into the Ponyville Guard Station, ready to tell somepony - that could help her - of that dreadful night exactly one year ago. The mare looked around nervously until her bright green eyes settled on the receptionists' desk. She slowly made her way over to the desk and looked back out the door with a small amount of fear in her eyes, expecting him to be watching her. There wasn't anypony there but the small number of ponies going to their jobs due to it being the early hours of the morning, possibly 8 in the morning at the moment. The mare turned back to the receptionist and tapped her hoof on the top of the desk, causing the light brown unicorn mare with a black mane and tail to look up from her work. The red mare smiled to her and began speaking, "I-I need to speak to somepony. Possibly a detective?"
The unicorn nodded her head and used her magic to contact Ponyville's best detective, he arrived less than a minute later and motioned for her to follow him into his office. The pegasus mare thanked the receptionist and followed after the detective quickly, going into his office to find him sitting calmly behind his desk. The mare looked around for a moment before sitting in the chair near the door. The detective started speaking to her in a smooth, but masculine voice, "Hello, miss...," The detective trailed off, not knowing the mares' name.
"It's Scarlet. Scarlet Harmony, but my friends just call me whatever they want.." The mare gave him her name, blushing a little as she looked him over. The detective was a dark gray stallion with a charcoal black mane and tail. He had caught her looking and smiled warmly.
"As you may have noticed by my color, I'm the twin to Ms. Octavia Philharmonica, our parents didn't want me to be known in the family due to me being their second earth pony. To make matters worse, they preferred a female earth pony more, so I was shunned by all but my sister. I was named Shadow Mane by her because my parents kept me in the shadows and my mane is black in color. Anyway, enough about me. What seems to be the problem Ms. Harmony?" The detective smiled to her once more and motioned with his hooves for her to begin speaking.
Scarlet took a deep breath and was visibly trying to calm herself down enough to start talking to him again. After a few minutes of her taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly, she looked to him with a nervous but serious look on her face. "I-I was raped a little over a year ago. I kept it a secret out of fear of being an outcast from society, until now of course..." She looked back up to him with a few small tears in her eyes, looking into his own while trying to read his expression. Shadow had a look of horror and sympathy on his face and seemed frozen at the thought of a mare as beautiful as Scarlet being treated that way. He shook his head and pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from his desk before looking to Scarlet and opening his mouth to say,
"Ma'am, that sounds horrible. I'm sure that a lot of ponies would have understood that it wasn't your fault, and that you didn't want it, let alone let it happen. If that's what you came to tell me, I'm gonna need the entire story. Would you be 'okay' with telling me your story so that I may write a report to be put in the files?" Shadow didn't press her for an answer, and instead waited patiently for her to stop crying. He couldn't hold her closely to comfort her like he wished he could, it wouldn't be professional without them being together in a relationship. Instead, he was required to sit there and watch her cry silently until she finally wiped her puffy red eyes, signaling that she'd stopped crying.
Scarlet looked up at him and sniffled quietly, wiping her muzzle with her left hoof. She nodded and sniffled once more, trying to clear her nose before she began speaking to Shadow to tell him her entire story, from the time she had woken up that morning, to the time she had decided to come tell her story. Scarlet moved around in her seat for a few moments, trying to get comfortable enough to be able to sit in the chair for as long as it took to finish her story. She finally found the perfect spot, and turned her head to face him. After a few more deep breaths and sniffles, she nodded to Shadow confidently.
"You might as well get comfortable too, this is going to be a loooooong story..." Scarlet said with a slight smile, hiding the knowledge of how much pain telling this was going to bring. Shadow got up from his seat and pulled it back a bit, almost to where it was touching the wall of his office. He sat down in the chair and slowly put his hind hooves on his desk, sitting how his friend Lyra had told him the humans did. He motioned for Scarlet to begin telling him her story. As he reached over to grab some paper to write his report on, Scarlet took a deep breath and looked to Shadow with a grim look on her face. She clearly didn't want to remember that night, but had to in order for Shadow to write the police report to help her.
Another deep breath. "It was a cool spring night and my store had just closed. I ran an adult toy shop at the time..." She trailed off for a moment as remembered every detail of that night. She looked to him and sighed quietly. "Would it be okay if you got a unicorn in here to show you my memories? I find it a little hard to talk about this now..." Scarlet looked down sadly, having tons of confidence only moments ago.
Shadow nodded and tapped a button on his desk to signal one of the stations unicorns to report to his office. They waited about 3 minutes before a snow colored unicorn mare with a dark red mane and tail appeared in the doorway. The mare stepped up to Shadow and asked what she was needed for, Shadow told her that she was to perform a memory casting spell on Scarlet. The unicorn nodded and wordlessly cast the spell, making Scarlet's memory play out on the empty wall in front of them. It seemed to act as a flashback, because Scarlet was zoned out as her memory was played.
+++ +++ BEGIN FLASHBACK +++ +++
Scarlet waved goodbye to her last customer of the day and stretched backward in her ponified lounge chair. Humans had some interesting furniture... The mare smiled and yawned quietly to herself. She started thinking about a few things about her life. She found it kind of funny that she, a virgin, was running the most popular adult toy shop in all of Equestria. Ponies came from places all over, she even had a few human customers every now and then.
Most ponies that came to her store were rather friendly and quite a few of them were shy. She was surprised to see the butter-yellow mare named Fluttershy come in last week. She was looking for some interesting items.. That mare ended up buying Scarlet's whole supply of bondage accessories for what she claimed was 'an innocent game with an unsuspecting friend.' Scarlet knew that something wasn't right there, but didn't question it too much. Two days later, a human named James was seen running towards the portal connecting their worlds, screaming something about a butter-yellow rapist that had tied him to his own bed. Fluttershy wasn't suspected by anypony other than Scarlet, but who would believe her over the Element of Kindness? Nopony. That's who.
Back to the present, Scarlet let out another yawn and slipped out of her chair. She landed on her hooves and began walking to the storage room, making sure it was free of ponies. She made a habit of checking because she had found a filly and a colt back there one day when she was locking up. They had apparently snuck in while she wasn't looking and were going to 'test out the merch', as they put it. She held them there while she used a phone she had bought from a human to contact their parents. The foals both got punished and Scarlet was given a few bits because she had saved their innocence. She reluctantly accepted the money and returned to her life.
Seeing the room was clear, Scarlet locked the door and checked the restrooms. Clear. She locked those rooms as well and headed for the front of the store. As she was turned around to lock the store doors, she felt a hand on her back. Heavy enough to be noticeable, but also light enough for it to feel creepy. She looked behind her, expecting to see some creepy, weird looking human, but she instead saw her best friend Adam. She smiled and pushed his hand away playfully. "Celestia! You almost gave me a heart attack! I thought about not even turning to look, but instead buck as hard as I could... I could have hurt you!" Scarlet looked to her friend with a sad expression and hugged him closely. She looked up and saw him with a smile on his face.
"Heh.. Did I succeed in at least scaring you this time?" Adam asked the mare that was currently hugging him. She looked up with a smile now on her face before shaking her head cutely.
"Nope! You did creep me out though... I thought you were going to be one of those creepy humans.. You know, the ones that always lurk in the shadows and stalk ponies?" Scarlet looked away, realizing that she might have insulted his species. When she felt a hand one her cheek, she turned back to him. Adam had a smile on his face and shook his head.
"Nah. You know me! I'm not that type of guy, although I do know a few people that wouldn't mind following you around at night.. I think it's probably best if we didn't stay here for too long. Lock up and I'll treat you to dinner." He smiled and motioned for Scarlet to lock the door. Once she had locked her store, she smiled and bound over to where Adam was standing. She trotted up beside him and looked at him with a smile.
"So, where are we going to eat?"
Adam grinned and shrugged. "Anywhere you want. I just got back from the casino in Appaloosa, I had been winning blackjack for the last few hours and I've got about seven million bits from my winnings, and a good gambler knows when it's time to quit. So, like I said earlier, choose anywhere you want to go eat. I can afford it." He had a smirk on his face when he saw the look of pure awe on hers. She was clearly impressed by his amount of bits, but tried not to let it show. Scarlet looked away with a smile on her face. It was beginning to hurt, smiling as much as she had. The mare looked around but didn't see any places that stood out to her. She looked to Adam and noticed he was deep in thought. She tugged on his sleeve and he jumped so high, you'd think he could touch the moon. Adam looked down at Scarlet and realized they were just standing in the street. He smiled. "Yeah? Did you pick where you wanted to eat?" She smiled and nodded her head a few times.
"Yeah! There's this really cool griffin place in Canterlot that I've been meaning to try out."
"Don't griffins usually eat meat? I thought ponies didn't, or couldn't eat meat." He looked to Scarlet with a curious stare, wondering why she'd want to eat at a place that served meat.
"Well, yeah. They eat meat. Pegasi eat meat too, just not other ponies. There's something about meat that helps our bodies in a way we can't describe. I also heard that humans eat meat too, so I thought, why not eat there?" Scarlet smiled once she was done talking and Adam just shrugged before they started walking towards the train station. Adam paid for two express tickets and they both got on, arriving two hours (and one nap from Scarlet) later. The two friends exited the train began walking to the place Scarlet was talking about. It had a name that she couldn't pronounce, and looked kind of like a renaissance-era bar.
Adam held the door open and Scarlet walked through. "Ooh... Such a gentlecolt! Those manners are hard to come by these days." Adam just smiled and looked around the restaurant, spotting an empty booth for them to sit in. A waiter soon came and looked at Scarlet curiously, probably wondering what a pony was doing at a place that served meat. He wasn't too surprised to see a human though, seeing as how most of his customers were humans now that the portal had been opened.
Author's Note
Sorry I haven't been working on this lately, I only just now realized that I hadn't written anything in a while. If you find any errors, please point them out so that I may fix them.
Also, I'll be making an edit to this chapter soon. So don't be too mad at me for leaving off. I wrote this at 5 in the morning and couldn't go on any longer.
Hope you all enjoy the story so far!
