The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde VS. MLP

Remarkable Incident Of Ms. Rarity:

Time ran on; thousands of bits were offered in reward, for the death of mailmare Ms. Hooves was resented as a public injury; but Ms. Diane had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though she had never existed. Much of her past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of the mare’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of her vile life, of her strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded her career; but of her present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time she had left Sugarcube Corner on the morning of the murder, she was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Ms. Sparkle began to recover from the hotness of her alarm, and to grow more at quiet with herself. The death of Ms. Hooves was, to her way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Ms. Diane. Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Ms. Pinkie. She came out of seclusion, renewed relations with her friends, became once more their familiar party-pony and entertainer; she was busy, she was much in the open air, she did good; her face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the baker was at peace.

On the 8th of January Ms. Sparkle had dined at the baker’s with a small party; Ms. Rarity had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, Pinkie Pie’s room was shut against the lawyer. “She’s been shut away in her room for days now,” Mr. Cake said, “she says she doesn’t want any visitors. Weird, right?” On the 15th, she tried again, and was again refused and having now been used for the last two months to see her friend almost daily, she found this return of solitude to weigh upon her spirits. The fifth night she had in Spike to dine with her; and the sixth she betook herself to Ms. Rarity’s.

There at least she was not denied admittance; but when she came in, she was shocked at the change which had taken place in the dressmaker’s appearance. She had her death-warrant written legibly upon her face. The lovely mare had grown paler in her mane; the flesh under her eyes had fallen dramatically, eye-shadow trailing down her face as a mare who had been weeping; she was visibly older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the librarian’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely that the dressmaker should fear death; and yet that was what Ms. Sparkle was tempted to suspect. And yet when Ms. Sparkle remarked on her ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness that Ms. Rarity declared herself a doomed mare.

“I have had a shock,” she said, “and I shall never recover. It is a question of days until I move away from here. Well, life here has been pleasant; I’ve very much enjoyed it. I sometimes think if we all knew the truth, we’d all want to get away.”

“Is what you’re talking about really that severe, Rarity?” Ms. Sparkle asked skeptically.
“Ohh Twilight! It is the… worst… possib-“

“Anyway, Pinkie is ill too,” observed Ms. Sparkle. “Have you seen her?”

But Ms. Rarity’s face changed, and she held up a trembling hoof. “I wish to see or hear no more of that mare,” she said in a loud, unsteady voice. “I am quite done with her; and I beg that you spare me any reference to one whom I regard as dead.”

“Really now?” said Ms. Sparkle: and then after a considerable pause, “Can’t I do anything?” she inquired. “We are three very great friends, Rarity. We’ve been through so much together. Are you sure you want to throw it all away so quickly?”

“Nothing can be done,” returned Ms. Rarity; “ask Pinkie herself. She knows.”

“She won’t see me; she’s all but locked herself away in her room,” said the librarian.

“I am not surprised by that,” was the reply. “Someday, Twilight, after I am gone, you may perhaps come to learn the truth. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other things, for Celestia’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic, then in Celestia’s name, go, for I cannot bear it.”

As soon as she got home, Ms. Sparkle sat down and wrote to Ms. Pinkie, complaining of her exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Rarity; and the next day brought her a long answer. The quarrel with Ms. Rarity was incurable. “I don’t blame our bestest friend,” Pinkie wrote, “but I agree with her that we can never meet. From now on I plan to lead a lonely life; but please don’t forget our friendship: if my door is even shut to you, know that something is majorly wrong. Please let me go on my dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. I am afraid I cannot giggle at the ghostie this time, Twilight. The one thing I ask of you to do for me, to ease my pain, is to respect the Element of Laughter’s silence.” Ms. Sparkle was amazed; the dark influence of Ms. Diane had been withdrawn, the baker had returned to her old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled and laughed with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of her life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Rarity’s manner and words, there must lie for it some deeper ground.

A week afterwards Ms. Rarity took to her chariot, and in something less than a fortnight she was gone. The night after the town found the empty boutique, at which she had been sadly affected, Ms. Sparkle locked the door of her business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before her an envelope addressed by the hoof and sealed with the seal of her dressmaking friend. “PRIVATE: for the hooves of T. Sparkle ALONE, and in case of her predecease to be destroyed unread,” so it was emphatically superspribed; and the librarian dreaded to behold the contents. “I have lost one friend today,” she thought: “what if this costs me another.” And then she condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked upon the cover as “not to be opened till the death or disappearance of Ms. Pinkie Pie.” Ms. Sparkle could not trust her eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will which she had long ago restored to its author, here again where the idea of a disappearance and the name of Pinkie Pie bracketed. But in the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion of the pony Ms. Diane; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible. Written by the hoof of Rarity, what should it mean? A great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but professional honour and faith to her friend were stringent obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of her private safe.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it; and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Ms. Sparkle desired the society of her remaining friend with the same eagerness. She thought of her kindly; but her thoughts were disquieted and fearful. She went to call indeed; but she was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in her heart, she preferred to speak with Mr. Cake in the main area and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that room of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse. Mr. Cake had, indeed, no pleasant news to communicate. The pink baker, it appeared, now more than ever confined herself to the room above the bakery; she was out of spirits, she had grown very silent, she did not laugh; it seemed as if she had something on her mind. Ms. Sparkle became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that she fell off little by little in the frequency of her visits.