Author's Note

This story will include elements of mystery and comedy, being written in a third-person perspective, with the main protagonist(s) being "Rarity" and "Original Character(s)"

Sty. No. 2: A noir detective

“Aww~ Sweetie, that’s great to hear! I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be there during your audition, I’d love to see how those ruffian interviewer jaw dropped from how sweet your singing is! Tell me more! Did any of them drop their pen after heari- oh dear, I’m so sorry but I’m getting a knock on the door. Can we continue this after your school is over? Alright, thank you Sweetie, and hear you then, tata!” Rarity waits for a few moments before she placed her phone down. She adjusts her mane slightly along with giving a tight tug on the neck collar.

She takes a deep breath, and turns around to face away from the table before shouting “You may come in!”

The sounds of the bell ringing make her ears perk up in excitement, quickly follows by recompose of herself. Her clients deserve the best after all, if she’s too excited that might just scare them away.

Pause for dramatic effect.

She then turns the chair back, with now an unreadable face and her chin slightly up before saying “Welcome to Rarity’s investigative agency, how may I help you?” Her head slowly lowers to match the stallion as he walks from the door, the stallion is not wearing anything right now, letting his orange-yellow mane flow free. His arctic lime coat appears to be rushed cleaned, probably having taken an afternoon leave, and doesn’t want to look TOO unkept. He stops a few inches away from the chair before Rarity quickly adds “And yes, you may sit on the chair.” Just as she intended, Rarity thought, one would hear a loud squee if they can read her mind right now.

The Pegasus quickly nods and sits down, before placing what looks like an envelope being used as a folder down on the table. “Umm.. hi, Miss Rarity, my name is Quick Call and I’m here to… ask for your help with searching for a missing pony,” he says before he quickly pulls out a picture from the folder, sliding it in front of the detective, “Her name is Luminant, and she works at the ‘Manehattan surgical center’ and has been missing for… 4 days now?”

Rarity taps her chin thoughtfully, looking at the picture. The mare in light lilac mane, tea green coat was wearing a doctor's coat with a matching name on the left side of the chest, it seems that the picture was a publicly taken picture though so he could have taken it from a library. She then asks “What’s your relationship with her, Mister Call?”

He quickly answers “I am one of the fellow doctors that work with her, although we are mainly just working colleagues, I do worry about her suddenly disappearing. some said she went off to stay with her family for a while but I want you to check it out, just in case.” He then pulls out another picture, a polaroid this time, showing him, standing almost a foot taller than Miss Luminant, putting his Spanish-yellow mane back in a bun while wearing the same doctor’s coat. With the exception being the hole for the wings, they're otherwise identical to hers. He's standing behind the missing mare, with the right half of his neck down obscuring the left half of the stallion. Although in this case, they’re standing in what looks like a bedroom in a house rather than the hospital corridor from the previous picture.

Rarity’s ear flicks once as she noticed something but decided to shelf it for now.

This case is already more interesting than she anticipated.

“So, how long have you two known each other?” She asks, her eyebrows quirking as she points her head to her left. He replies “We met 3 years ago, during an operation where I have to defibrillate the victim after his heart flatline during the tracheostomy.” Rarity’s ear flicks again as she follows up with “What kind of surgeon is she? I assumed she’s the one performing the tracheostomy, correct?”

He nods and continues, “Yes, she is an…. Ophthalmologist surgeon, she specializes in ENT.” He took a second to say her job but otherwise, his speech pattern doesn’t seem to be off. So, Rarity leans back onto her faux-leather chair and thinks for a moment. This is very interesting already and the real case hasn’t even started! She thought to herself, suppressing the urge, for now, professionalism is key.

She then notices that the folder is not empty and asks “And what are those, if I may ask?” seeing the client bringing this many documents isn’t that odd but it signifies that he might have something more to say than just ‘here’s the job, good luck’.

His ears perk up. “Oh! These? I found some of these in her hospital room and others are just pictures I have that I either took for her.” He pulls out a few pictures before I splay them out on the table.

The first one seems to be the picture of a group of ponies, one of the ‘fun group poses’ they did after taking the 'serious group poses'. Most of the ponies are around their late teenage year, except the homeroom teacher, who's well into her mid-adulthood. One of the teenage students, the one in the middle left looks like the younger version of Luminant, a few ponies near her seem to pose with her, forming a small heart in the stand. There seem to be four ponies that make up the heart: The young Luminant; a waterspout coat and pistachio mane Pegasus; a tall stallion with a chartreuse yellow coat and light blonde mane wearing thick glasses and an earth pony mare with a brace, light gray coat, and pale amaranth mane.

After looking at it for a moment, Rarity turns her attention to the rest of the picture pile, all of them seem to be that of older Luminant with various ponies, some are even in the group picture, obviously as their older selves. There’s a picture of Luminant taking a ride on a rollercoaster with 3 other mares, another of her posing as the Statue of Liberty with a unicorn stallion and his presumably marefriend (seeing that the two are making a heart next to the doctor), another is a polaroid picture of Quick Call himself, having spaghetti all over his blue mane and Luminant awkwardly tries to clean it with her towel at a restaurant at night, and last one is a smaller group picture, with Luminant smiling at the center, wearing a birthday hat along with two older ponies, her parent is Rarity's educated guess, along with various ponies of similar age comprise of 4 earth ponies, 3 pegasi and 7 unicorns. The only two stallions, besides the one who seems to be her father, are levitating the banner saying “Happy 27th birthday!” with their magic.

Rarity looks at all of them for a moment before saying “I see, so you’re here to ask me to help with finding out what happened to Miss Luminant?”

The stallion nods enthusiastically, “Yes, I would love to know where she is, that’s all.”

Rarity sighs and leans back into the chair, “I cannot guarantee the success but if I were to fail, I’m open to having the payment be 50% off if you choose to answer my next question honestly.” Her heart starts to race.

Quick Call tilts his head before saying “I don’t mind paying the full price even if you can’t solve it” There was a long pause that’s more uncomfortable than Rarity expects, but then “But if you insist, I’d not mind having the discount if you failed.”

Rarity takes a deep breath, leaning forward, and turns the chair to the left before saying proudly.

“Why are you lying to me?”

A moment of silence is interrupted by a loud "WHAT?" coming from the stallion.

Rarity lifts her hooves up instinctively, "Please calm down, Mister Call, I'm just saying what I'm seeing, a-" She is interrupted by an accusing hoof pointing at her, as the stallion exclaims, "I can't believe it, you're accusing me of lying? Why would I do that?"

Rarity clears her throat and replies "I know that family issue is a big problem, but I can assure you, as long as you're not the one taking her away, I won't tell her parent that you two have been secretly staying together behind their back."

The stallion stops as he stares blankly at the mare, slumping back down on the couch in a mixture of shock and odd fascination, he whimpers out "H...how did you know?"

Rarity takes a moment to close her eye and compose, as she answers without opening her eyes, "From the look of it, if they can, her parents only allows Miss Luminant to be with only unicorn stallions or other mares." She points at the birthday party picture. "There are only two stallions at the birthday besides her parent, I assumed you're not invited because of that." She then levitates the two Polaroid pictures off to make their own pile, "And these are the picture you've taken yourself, aren't they? That's why they've not printed pictures like the rest of the image."

He sighs in defeat before answering "Yeah... her parent doesn't want me, a pegasus to be with their precious daughter, even if we love each other so much... after that first hospital o-"

Rarity interrupted matter-of-factly, "You two met in high school, and you're not a doctor."

Quick Call pauses for a moment before he says another "What? How did y-" he stops himself as he tries to think what he said could have let her know that.

"It's simple, dear, she's performing a tracheotomy, a neck surgery, that's Otolaryngologist, NOT Ophthalmologist. You probably mistook your eye surgeon for her. Plus, you don't defibrillate a flatline patient, you perform CPR." She answers, sipping her tea while watching her 'client' lost his word.

"But I'm not in the picture, see?" He lifts the group picture up and points at it with his wing, causing Rarity to shake her head.

"What do you mean, Mister Call, you're right there!" She lights up her horn and moves his wingtip to the stallion that makes up the heart in the picture.

"But he looks nothing like me! He wear g-" Rarity quirks an eyebrow causing him to change his word, "Right... the eye doctor thing, but he has different mane color!"

"Mister Call, over the year I've seen so many ponies and how their mane color shift and change, and I have to say. Mane color doesn't turn darker with age." She points at the doctor duo picture and the stallion himself. "The one in the picture is clearly Yellow-Orange while yours is Spanish-Orange, if I were to make two identical dresses and have made such a coloration error between the two, I'd be on the first page with the title 'Rarity lies! The fashionista is losing her sense?!?' " She says dramatically, lifting her hooves up straight and spreading them apart as she said the title.

She turns back to look at Mister Call, "You don't have to hide anything from me, dear, I might not know how much you struggle to keep it secret but I am an investigator, finding the truth is my job and if you don't give me the whole picture then I won't be able to solve the case like you want me to." Rarity looks into the stallion's eyes, smiling gently and knowingly.

He then smiles back, before wiping his tear, "I-I'm sorry, Miss, I just... I don't want ponies to k-know that I, a lowly delivery stallion am asking for help to find one of the best Ophtham- the best ENT surgeon around. Especially with how her parents really dislike me because I'm such a massive failure after I finished high school."

Rarity gets up and walks around the table to give the stallion a hug, it's the best she can help right now, hopefully with a better mood, the investigation, later on, will be smoother.

"No one that doesn't need to know will have to know, I pinkie promise." Rarity says after slowly letting go of the pegasus before putting the document back in the envelope and slowly walking toward the exit door.

"Thank you, miss Rarity... where are you going, ma'am?" He says after wiping his tear.

"Why of course, I'm going to find your marefriend, want to come?" She answers enthusiastically, feeling the blood pumping in excitement.

He nods and runs after the mare, the bell rings one last time as the door closes.

Today is going to be more interesting than Rarity anticipated.