Starlight patted the mound of fresh dirt with a shovel.
Trixie removed her wizard hat and held it to her chest. Maud and Mudbriar bowed their heads.
Trixie levitated out her pocket watch and checked the time. Starlight wondered how the shovel would feel, swung up against Trixie's plant-murdering skull.
"We commit this loyal companion, Phyllis, to the earth. Although her life was cut short—" Starlight glared at Trixie "—we will always remember her."
"Technically," Mudbriar said, "a philodendron isn't male or female and you should refer to Phyllis as 'they/them'."
Starlight walked through Ponyville farmer's market. Lily Valley waved at her and Starlight walked over.
"Miss Glimmer, how are you?"
"Honestly? Depressed."
"I'm... uh..."
"My philodendron got murdered, I need a new one."
"Murdered? The horror, the horror!"
"You have any?"
"No... no... hey, Rose!"
Roseluck emerged from the back of their stand. "Hmmm?"
"Miss Starlight needs a potted plant."
"All I've got is that thing Zecora left with us after Luna's solar eclipse."
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Zecora? Okay. How much?"
"Free," said Daisy, carrying a terra cotta pot under her foreleg as she, too, emerged from the back. The other two nodded.
The plant was little more than a green shoot, half the height of her horn, and looked like a venus flytrap. Starlight asked, "Why is it free?"
Phyllis II looked bad. Despite being near a window with plenty of sunlight, despite Starlight giving it plenty of water and fertilizer, despite Starlight calling in earth ponies for extended counseling sessions to get their magic near the plant, she still seemed to be withering and drying up.
Trixie barged into her office. "Trixie requires Starlight's first aid kit."
Looking up, Starlight saw that Trixie's nose was bleeding. "What happened to you?"
"Trixie caught a frisbee with her face while coaching gym class." Her magic yanked open a drawer and removed a first aid kit. She wiped and dabbed her nose with gauze for a minute, dropped the bloody rags onto Starlight's countertop, and then turned out the door. "Your plant is looking better."
Starlight looked down. Phyllis II was, indeed, looking perked up. That was strange.
Standing, she trotted across the office to the mess Trixie had left behind before levitating the mess of bloody gauze towards the trashcan.
A small mewl sounded.
Starlight looked around the office. Phyllis II trembled.
She levitated the rags far to the left. Phyllis II tilted that direction. She levitated the rags far to the right. Phyllis II followed them in that direction.
Starlight smiled.
"Starlight, no offense, but you look awful," Sunburst said as he sat down across her desk from her.
Starlight nodded and sipped coffee. She knew she had black bags under her eyes and her ribs showed through her fur, which was beginning to lose its sheen.
"You look like you donated too much blood," Nurse Redheart said, sitting down.
"Nope, not me," Starlight said. "Just been practicing some difficult spells."
"Really? What spells?" Sunburst asked.
"Nothing illegal! Ha! Ha!" Starlight said unconvincingly. "Certainly not reversing alicorns' and Discord's spells!"
Redheart raised an eyebrow and grunted before looking at her clipboard. "Anyway, thirty percent of your student body has the thunderclap. Have you considered providing condoms?"
"They just use them as water balloons," Sunburst said.
Trixie barged in. "Wow, Starlight, your new plant looks great."
Starlight smiled. Phyllis II was transplanted to a new, giant pot and filled an entire corner of her office. "Thanks. I figured out what fertilizer it needed."
"Oh? What does it need?" Sunburst asked.
"Just the right spell," Starlight said, waving a hoof nervously, "that's why I look so tired."
Rainbow barged in a second later. "Hey! The Cozy Glow statue looks like it got de-petrified. Anypony know where she went? We need a posse to start a fillyhunt."
Starlight patted Phyllis II with a hoof.
"Feed me!"
"Phyllis," Starlight said, "I can't! I already fed you Cozy, Tirek, and Chrysalis."
"Blech!"
"You look like a giant venus flytrap. I would have thought you'd like the bug-horse queen."
"Don't think, you'll hurt yourself."
Starlight paced around her office. "And Celestia has posted guards in the Canterlot sculpture gardens, so I can't steal any more political dissidents for you."
Trixie barged in "Good news! For Starlight's birthday, Trixie invited Starlight's dad!"
Starlight whirled around, staring at Trixie in shock. "You what?"
"His letter said he was excited to see his 'Pumpky-Wumpkin'."
"Hi, Dad," Starlight said, gesturing to one of the chairs in her office and sitting across from him.
"Wow, that's quite a plant!" said her dad. "It's so tall it almost touches the ceiling!"
"Yeah, it had a good meal recently."
"Am I going to meet your friend Trixie? Or is she your marefriend? Or do you have a coltfriend? I wish my Pumpky-Wumpkin would tell me more about what's going on in her life."
"Did... did you just call me 'Pumpky-Wumpkin' again?"
"Hi Zecora," Starlight said, gesturing for her to sit. "Nice to see you."
"I know you have found for dead bodies a hiding place, in that potted plant from outer space."
"I wouldn't! I couldn't!" Starlight looked at the truncheon hidden under her desk and prepared to light her horn and whack Zecora over the head.
"About this topic I have all your friends told, in case the thought of killing me should make you too bold."
"All of them?!"
"Although you may think my methods shoddy, I must also dispose of a body."
"What?"
"When a new pony brought to Ponyville competition, it began to affect my potion sales ambition."
"Oh."
"I left her corpse just outside your window, help me by levitating up the bimbo."
Phyllis II now filled half of Trixie's office.
"Dash," Starlight said, stripping the latex gimp suit off the body and trying to ignore the smells and bodily fluids, "why did you murder Spitfire?!"
"This wasn't murder," Dash said. "This was an accident!"
"An accident."
"Look," said Dash, removing the hood of her own gimp suit, "we had 'consensual' down, but we might have missed 'safe' and 'sane'."
"Derpy," Starlight said with a facehoof, "the Ponyville postmaster?"
Derpy dropped the body and shrugged her wings. "I have two kids to support. I need the promotion."
"Twilight!" Starlight shouted. "This is the third Flash Sentry today! Are you going to alternate universes just to keep murdering your ex?"
"Yes," Twilight said, removing Flash's eye patch and peg leg to protect the plant's digestion. "This one was from pirate universe."
"Tree Hugger?" Starlight asked, opening a window to get the smells of unwashed hippie, marejuana, and murder out of her office.
"She slept with my coltfriend," Fluttershy said.
"Who is...?"
Fluttershy looked at her hooves, blushed, and mumbled indistinctly.
For the next three hours, Phyllis II just stared at her leaves as they swayed in the window's breeze.
"Who're these two?" Starlight asked as Applejack unrolled the rug containing the two bodies. They appeared to be unicorn stallions, probably twins, dressed as carnival barkers.
"Nopony who will be missed."
"Rarity," Starlight said, "this is the fourth fashion critic this week."
Phyllis II burped.
"And next week is Manehattan fashion week, Darling."
"Dammit, Sweetie Belle," Starlight said. "He's a colt! Why'd you kill him?"
Sweetie Belle sobbed, hugging Rumble's body. "I loved him! But he didn't love me back!"
"So you murdered him?"
"No!" Sweetie sniffed. "I tried to woo him. Remember the old saying, 'The way to a colt's heart is through his stomach?'"
"Yeah..."
"I cooked him dinner."
Scootaloo dragged in the corpse of a young earth colt.
Starlight facehoofed. "What did he do?"
"Nothin'," Scotaloo said. "It's just, everypony was doing it, so I thought I would kill somepony, too."
Apple Bloom dragged in Scootaloo's corpse.
"Oh, for Celestia's sake!" Starlight said. "What did Scootaloo do?"
"That colt she killed?"
Starlight nodded.
"Tender Taps, he was m' beau."
A yellow pegasus filly dragged in a large earth mare's corpse.
"Who're you?" Starlight asked.
"Alula."
"What happened?"
"She's a stranger. She invited me inside to try some candy. Big sis said, 'never take candy from strangers'."
Starlight flipped the body over. "This is Bon-Bon! She runs the candy shop!"
Lyra dragged in a sack, turned it upside down, and Alula's body fell out.
Starlight just shrugged. "Yeah, saw that one coming."
"Back from Manehattan Fashion Week?" Starlight asked.
Rarity dumped the body in front of Phyllis II. "Yes, Darling."
"Who is this?"
"Never you mind, Darling."
"Is... is she wearing spoon clothes?"
"Never. You. Mind."
Pinkie dragged in Pinkie's corpse.
Twilight dragged in another Flash Sentry, this one dressed in a charcoal suit and power tie.
"Which universe is this one from?"
"Wall Street universe."
"Are you leaving any of them alive?"
"The one from Rule 63 universe. She and I have a date tonight."
Twilight dragged in Twilight's body.
But, Starlight noticed, the living Twilight didn't have wings, and wore thick, black-framed glasses.
"What did you do to Twilight?"
"Please," said the unicorn, looking at the alicorn's body, "Call me 'Princess'."
