Author's Note

I'll be working on art for this hopefully soon- Hope you enjoyed this chapter. sorry it took so long to write.

TW
Just a small warning, this chapter contains content related to domestic abuse. I recommend proceeding with caution or only reading until it gets to Canterlot.

The Next Step?

While what they say and how they would go about the news was up for debate for a while, Mayor mare, Twilight, and Princess Celestia had finally come up with a way to go about handling the unfortunate event. First, the Princess publicly addressed the situation, while of course leaving out a decent number of details thanks to the little ones who she noticed were brought along, and for those who have light stomachs. The panic and worry still came as she expected but she continued anyway.

Next, she spread the word to neighboring towns around Ponyville and Canterlot. Then, she set up a few new rules for each to follow for the next few weeks. A curfew was established, as well as royal guards being stationed in certain areas to try and protect ponies or at least try to catch who was doing this. After all of this, Celestia took some time to try and think about what should happen now. As much as she didn't like the idea of waiting during this time of crisis, it would take a while to figure out how this happened and who did it. Still... What was the next step?

Orchid awoke a couple hours after she started her mid-day rest. With a cat like stretch, she sat up and looked around the still empty room. Nothing had changed from before aside from lighting due to the passage of time. She sighed calmly and hopped off the couch before heading towards a set of double doors that led to the study. Once inside, she skipped towards the desk and sat down before she opened a drawer and took out a pencil and some paper. Pencil in her mouth, she began to draw. She kept quiet while doodling and only occasionally paused before continuing to draw. Once finished, she smiled brightly and looked behind her.

"Look! I drew us!" She looked back at the paper with a hopeful grin, like a child presenting a picture to their parent. After a minute of silence, her smile loosened, and she put the paper aside. "I thought you'd like it a little more but at least you didn't mock it!" With that, she began to draw something else. This time it was just some random doodles. Rainbows, food, and a few stars.

The picture she had just drawn was a pair of stick-ponies. It wasn't that good, but she was proud of it regardless. It was of her, and next to her was a darkened, pony-shaped figure. It was shaded in and even was smudged a little to give it that hazy effect. As the afternoon turned to the night, she finished her drawings and made her way to the kitchen. As she got out some ingredients, she glanced behind her and nodded.

"Yea, that would probably be a safer approach. You're a better cook anyway." She giggled and sat on the nearest chair before taking a deep breath. Her smile faded as her body suddenly went limp and almost fell out of the chair. When she opened her eyes again, she didn't smile or even speak. Instead, she got out of the chair and slowly made her way to the counter before using magic to get out the pots and pans she'd need. Once finished gathering everything, she began cutting some vegetables she had bought earlier that day while also preparing water for a soup.

A few days had passed, and detectives were still hard at work trying to figure out ANYTHING to explain this murder. They only deduced a few basic ideas about the culprit. They ruled out the possibility of poison as none that were currently made could do anything like this, and no poison was detected in the body when examined. The house didn't appear to have been broken into.

So, the culprit more than likely was let in or teleported inside; so basically, they suspected it must've been a unicorn. They also took a guess that this was just one pony. However, there was a chance it could be 2 at least. Surprisingly, they didn't find any fur or hair at the scene either, and they really did search. There also weren't any hoof prints on the scene or nearby. This crook was smart and knew how to hide or cover their tracks pretty well, that was certain.

However, this only made it harder to try and figure out a motive and method of killing this mysterious pony had used. Without much to go on, the detectives soon turned to asking around town, to see if anyone who knew him could've been responsible for this gruesome death. This guy could've traveled to so many places! Who knows how long it would take to call in everyone who knew him? At least regarding unicorns... Well, regardless of how "Impossible" It sounded, they began in Ponyville. One of the first few unicorns called in for questioning, was Lyra Heartstrings.

Lyra was sat on the cold chair in the interrogation room. Patiently, she waited for the detective to come inside. She glanced around the small room for anything that could distract her for a moment but found nothing. Thankfully though, she soon heard hoof-steps coming from down the hall. She perked up and watched the door as it opened. A tall pegasus stallion with a beige coat, dark brown or black mane, and a magnifying glass cutie mark, stepped into the room. He had files tucked under his right wing and had a rather serious but calm expression. With that, he closed the door and sat across the green unicorn and placed the files on the table.

"Good day Miss..." He waited for her to reply with her name.

"Lyra Heartstrings." He gave a small nod before opening one of the files and pushing it a bit closer. There was a picture of Golden Dash along with a few papers which were likely an autopsy report. He placed a hoof on the top of the picture as if pointing to it.

"Do you know this stallion?" He asked bluntly. Lyra shook her head.

"I've only seen him a couple of times around town, but I don't ever really talk to him."

"And why is that?" He raised a brow and she shrugged.

"I just didn't really want to talk with him, I guess. I'm not the most social pony, heh." She awkwardly cleared her throat after her little chuckle and looked back at the pegasus, she didn't get why, but he was pretty intimidating.

"Where exactly have you seen him? And who have you seen him with?" The detective continued after writing down what he heard.

Lyra admitted she had almost always either seen him alone, or on rare occasion, talking with some mare on the street. However, he never approached her, so she never felt a need to strike up conversation. And though the detective tried to push on hearing anything she picked up from his discussions with said mares, Lyra was unhelpful, to the detective's dissatisfaction. However, it was just a lack of knowledge as opposed to her not being compliant. Afterwards he began asking about where she was the night the whole incident took place. Lyra couldn't help but blush a little as she remembered the night out her and Bon-Bon, or Sweetie Drops, had shared that night. A little bit of confirmation later on from Bon-Bon and the waiter who served them that night, helped clear their names. And so, the detective moved on to the next.

It was getting close to the last hour of the day before curfew as Rarity made her way to the interrogation room. She was promised it would be quick so took time to make it to the station before it would be too late. All around her she saw a few other detectives in rooms with other unicorn suspects, plenty of them were familiar faces. No doubt it would look the same with the Canterlot station after the possibility of it being a unicorn was proposed. And it was no surprise that Rarity's attention to detail would have her go under suspicion for being able to clean up so well. Many of the unicorns had to cut the detectives a break on these, they didn't have much to go on. Even Twilight had been brought in under the suspicion of being behind the attack, but it was quickly cleared after an alibi from Spike.

Rarity sat at the table and waited patiently for the detective to enter the room. She adjusted her mane just a little as she looked around the kind of dark room. Once the pegasus from Lyra's interrogation entered, he began with the same line of questioning as he did with the green unicorn. However, there was one major difference between her and the Lyra's responses to one of the questions.

"Where have you seen him? And who have you seen him with?" He asked, tired already of asking this question and believing he would get no answer again.

"I haven't seen him with too many, but I've seen him with a couple mares before, he did talk to me once when he came to pick up an order but that was it. I believe I once saw him, talking to Junebug. And Roma, one of the shop keepers at the market. And... oh! Are you familiar with Cherilee?" She listed off the three mares easily. He seemed to almost smile with this new information. While it opened up new suspects, this would be important for the case.

Not long after this, with an alibi from her sister and parents being brought up to clear her own name, the pegasus let Rarity leave and quickly presented the new information to his team. They were only happy to have a new lead after so many dead ends that day. (No pun intended) Seems like they'd have a lot to look over now, they quickly began looking over similarities between the mares and making sure they'd be ready to bring them into the station for questioning the next day. With that, the detectives and other staff began to clean up and get ready to shut down for the night.

Meanwhile in Canterlot, the sun was about to set, most ponies were already at home and bracing for the night. Shops were closed by now and some places were even boarded up. Some ponies decided to ignore this or didn't even believe it, however, the guards ensured they still went home. It wasn't just in Canterlot, all around, the news of the first murder in centuries was met with 4 responses. General fear, denial, paranoia, and the skepticism.

Things had been tense around everyone regardless of how they viewed the situation, and though reluctantly for some, they still followed the rules. Nothing new had happened in the case aside from the information that was gathered from Rarity. And while Canterlot detectives were working on having a discussion with suspects, nothing new had happened or been discovered with their side of the investigation.

Sapphire Sorbet was removing her fake lashes and untying her mane and tail. The long day at work had not been too easy on her and she was so glad she was finally able to toss aside her "professional" look and just lay back. The exhausted mare groaned loudly before heading into the living room and collapsing on the couch. She yelled out for her husband once she had gotten fed up with the silence.

"Caramel Star!"

"Yes dear?" A timid looking unicorn with caramel brown fur, cream like mane, and dark brown eyes peaked into the room from the kitchen.

"Dinner ready yet?" She impatiently glared a little at him. He shuddered and shook his head.

"Almost done, Sapphire." He called out as he retreated behind the safety of the wall. He was indeed almost finished cooking, but Sapphire clearly didn't like that answer.

"You better hurry up... I'm hungry." She crossed her "arms" and looked at the ceiling.

"I understand honey. It'll be ready soon." He tried to reassure. Thankfully for Caramel, she didn't reply. Once he finished cooking, he called to Sapphire, and got a bowl of the soup he made ready for her.

"About time." She grumbled as she got off the couch and went over to the table, taking a seat and examining the soup she was handed. She raised a brow and lifted it with her magic to sniff it. It smelled fine and looked good enough. She tried a small spoonful and gave her husband a glare, which made him flinch. "Give me the salt." He nodded and quickly obliged to her demand, grabbing the small container from the cabinets before holding it out with his magic for his impatient wife. Sapphire took it and added some to the soup before mixing it a little and trying it.

She sighed contently and set both the bowl and salt container down. Caramel breathed a quiet sigh of relief at his wife's satisfaction.

"That's better." She smiled a little as she ate the next bite. Caramel smiled a little as well before getting his own bowl for his own serving. Afterwards, he joined her at the table and began eating it as well. Dinner was silent for the first few minutes until Sapphire loudly cleared her throat and glared once again at Caramel. He seemed confused for a second before perking up.

"O-Oh right- Uh... how was work today?" Though it was clear Sapphire was miserable, she wanted an excuse to rant about it and Caramel Star usually asked on his own but tonight he figured she didn't need to? But, with Sapphire, that wasn't the case.

"Miserable as always." And so began her near hour long rant about her shitty day at work.

A couple hours later, the two were settling down for bed. Unfortunately, Caramel Star was forced to sleep on the couch once again. He did his best to get comfortable as his wife was already dozing off with a sleeping mask over her eyes. Neither of them noticed the figure making its way towards the bedroom window. Caramel Star frowned to himself as he adjusted his pillow and position once again to no avail.

He glanced at the wall and stared at the photo of his wedding day with Sapphire. She looked so beautiful... and happy that day. What had changed? Oh, that's right, she lost her job and had to cut back her spending budget. Not that Caramel wasn't working as well, but with them now working smaller jobs, it meant they had to be more careful with their money. And unfortunately for him, Sapphire was NOT happy about this.

Quite a few years of displeasure with their financial situation, as well as the decreasing feeling of love between the two put further and further strain on them. By the second year, Sapphire had gotten rather aggressive about their situation... and often lashed out because of it. Verbally and eventually physically. Caramel never spoke up about it, suffering in silence for years all from the mare he once loved.

Despite his changed feelings towards her, he still jumped up to come to her aid when the sound of her screams arose from the bedroom upstairs. However, he had failed to make it in time, as he was greeted with the lifeless, stiff, and bloodless corpse of his wife. He stared in horror at her, then the open window, then back at her. With tears in his eyes, he backed out of the room a little before letting out a scream of pure fear.