There was a crispness to the air that comes with the advent of the Running of the Leaves and seemed like deeper breaths were in order just to savour it all. Perched on the cliffs that overlooked Neighagara Falls, Sagittarius Lockstep, “Terry” to his friends, was not using those breaths to cheer the aerial display going on like the rest of the crowd, but to shout at his wife.
“I don’t care how much you think it’s worth, we’re not buying it! You already have one!”
“I’ve told you, you bought it the wrong colour; it matches nothing I have and I am buying a new one!” Hollyhock Dancer’s horn glowed and she raised her wine glass to her lips, wishing she could do something to stop him talking instead.
“It’s nearly a month’s salary!” he howled.
“Mine. My salary. Which is higher than yours,” she spat.
Thirty feet away, over the gorge, Sunny Racer was trying to concentrate on her routine. Cheers and swooning she could deal with. But the nonstop staccato of the bickering unicorns was drawing her attention away. She glanced back and realized the rest of the team had things covered, and though it was the height of unprofessionalism, she could stand it no more and with a mighty flap of her wings, she brought herself to the stone and mortar wall that separated the groundlings from the ground, so far below.
“Excuse me,” she sneered at the unicorns, who immediately broke from their spat to regard her with incredulity. “Some ponies are trying to watch the show.” Indeed they were. The “show” was now her. Even her teammates had stopped in confusion, ruining the act.
But rather than quiet down, the unicorns united in venting their anger at her. The three ponies exchanged ever-heightening expressions of offense, quickly becoming the entertainment for the crowd. Finally Sunny realized she was making fools of the team, and she was about to toss one last well-crafted insult and resume the act when she noticed the necklace broaches worn by the two dozen unicorns or so all gathered together before her: the cutie mark of the legendary Starminder... chosen symbol of the Trueblooded League.
“You!” she sputtered. “You’re that bunch of bigots!”
“Get back to work, clown,” Holly sneered.
“I wouldn’t pee on you from the clouds, much less perform for the likes of you!”
“Then buzz off, horsefly,” Terry shouted.
Sunny’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What did you call me?”
“Horsefly! Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
Sunny saw red. She flicked herself around and aimed a kick at Terry’s head. Terry winced and jerked his head away, horn glowing.
The whole crowd heard the sickening snap and witnessed the spray of blood and the jutting of bone from the humerus of Sunny’s right wing. Feathers exploded and she screamed in agony, her wings fluttering uselessly now. And Sunny Racer, pegasus, fell from the sky, down to the hungering rocks and spray below.
* * * * *
“Claims he’s innocent.”
“’Course he does. So would Discord, but who’d believe him either?”
Such was the bullpen banter as Northstar Trueguide plodded into the detectives’ squad room.
“Hey, North,” called Firefly Brightflash. “I see you changed your soup stains.”
“Yeah, just for you, Flash,” the Appaloosa stallion said. The jokes about his spots were older than he was. And that was saying something.
“Cap’s been asking for you,” Braverly advised.
“He said there was no hurry.”
“You should know by now, they never mean it.”
“Then they shouldn’t say it.” He was wandering past them when Flash slapped him on the flank.
“Equecide!” he whistled. “Not many of those in Equestria. Probably not one dick in ten gets that on his blotter, and here you go, not just with a case, but with it presented to you all tied up with bow like a present! You lucky hay-shagger.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Sunny Racer case. They’re giving it to you. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“Yeah? Why me?”
Braverly threw a look at Flash. “Because if they give it to anypony with a brainbone or pony feathers, there’s going to be hell to pay. Geez, pick up the Equestria Daily and read it once in a while.”
“I see. You don’t suppose it’s because I’m good at my job, or anything, do you?”
The unicorn and pegasus chuckled. “Yeah, North, whatever you say.”
The earth pony nodded, and completed his journey across the room and into the Captain’s office.
Captain Redfire looked up from his desk and glared. His horn glowed and he shook the magic pager that had been sitting on his desk at North. “I paged you almost an hour ago.”
“You said there was no hurry.”
“North, you’ve been a cop long enough to know it’s always a hurry.”
“All you have to do is say so.”
“Look, fine, we just want to get this summed up. You know the basics, I assume?”
North mulled over the details, practically chewing them in his mouth. “Well, from what I understand, and you’ll correct me if and where I’m wrong, now... one Sagittarius Lockstep, unicorn, 32, is being charged with the second degree murder of Sunny Racer, pegasus, 24, yesterday afternoon at approximately 4 p.m. at Neighagara Falls, in the performance of her act as one of The Sky Riders.”
“First rate talent of a third rate crew,” Redfire said. “Something of an up-and-coming, till she went down-and-out. Statements from her teammates suggest she was on the verge of a breakthrough... in negotiations with The Cloudbusters.”
“A second rate crew,” North said.
“Precisely. So, clash of egos, fight ensues, gets physical. Racer throws the first kick, Lockstep reaches out with his mind and snaps her wing, three hundred feet above the gorge. Open and shut.”
“But he says he’s innocent.”
“Yeah, he claims he didn’t do it. Imagine that.”
“What does he claim?”
“Some malarkey about just wanting to shield himself from her kicks.”
“You don’t buy it, Cap?”
“Does it sound like I do? I ain’t the only one. The Crown Attorney rejected his lawyer’s claim that it was justified self-defence.”
“Well, no, it wouldn’t be. Not if all he had to do was duck—”
“Which he did.”
“—In which case, breaking her wing in midair is an equecidal act.”
“Yes, which is why he’s being charged with second degree murder. Though the reality of it is it’ll probably be pleaded down to horseslaughter.” The Captain stared at a photo and sighed. “Nice looking girl,” he said, flipping the photo over to show North. A pretty, fiery-looking pegasus smiled out of the publicity still, surrounded by what North assumed were her family: a rugged, handsome-looking pegasus stallion and their two tiny foals. “Mother of two. Promising career. Thrown onto the rocks.”
North nodded.
“Worst of all, to have to die in that silly costume,” the Captain remarked.
North closed his eyes, biting something back.
Redfire closed the folder and shoved it across the desk at North. “Well, you know the drill. Take a few statements. Sign off. Have it on my desk by the end of shift.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Wrap it up. It should be simple, even for an old duffer like you.”
“Captain, this isn’t somepony stealing an apple cart or crapping teeth ‘cause he climbed on somepony else’s wife. This is a murder.”
“I know what it is. I assigned it to you, remember? But there were fifty witnesses or so and they all say the same thing, except for the killer. I’d call that pretty conclusive.”
“Well, you won’t mind if I just ask a few of them exactly what it is they remember, will you?”
The Captain looked like he had something unpleasant in his mouth that he had to decide whether to swallow or spit out. He chose to spit it out. “North... I didn’t really want you on this case, okay? This came from the Chief. He wanted you on the case. And do you know why?”
“Because for some reason, all the other detectives in the precinct are unicorns, or a few pegasi, and in this case, an earth pony is called for... and there just don’t seem to be all that many of us who aren’t trotting a beat. Could that be why?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, North.”
“Captain... either give me my reins, or give it to somepony else.”
Redfire glared at him. “Fine. Take your time. Have a nice paid vacation, North. I guess you’re due. But let me know when you’re done so you can get back to work, okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” North glanced at the apple on the edge of Redfire’s desk. “You gonna eat that?”
Redfire pointed to the door.
* * * * *
Terry Lockstep shivered in his cell. He was alone. Murderers were uncommon in Equestria and even hard cases didn’t like to be around them. “Please, let me out,” he begged North. “I won’t run. I won’t try to leave town. I just have to get out! Please!”
“Calm down,” North said. “You won’t be in here that long.” It was a lie, but a necessary one.
“How long?”
“Couple of days, till we get this sorted out.”
“Oh, Celestia... days? It feels like weeks already!”
“I’m Detective Sergeant Northstar Trueguide. I need to ask you about what happened.”
“I’ve already told it ten times!”
“Tell it to me. I’m the investigator assigned to the case. This one matters.”
“I didn’t kill that mare!”
“That pegasus?”
“Yes.”
“Horsefly...?”
Terry winced and his eyes were pleading. “I didn’t mean that. I was angry with her.”
“Angry with a pegasus... and you a member of the Truebloods. You are, aren’t you?”
“It’s good for business...”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. I have to tell you, Sagittarius, from where I sit, it looks like you’re standing neck-deep in a barrel of fertilizer here. If you can’t sell it to me, how are you going to sell it in court?”
“I’m telling the truth. You’ve got to believe me!”
“No, I don’t. And neither does the jury. Because all the evidence says you did it.”
“I wasn’t attacking her! I was trying to put a field between her and me, so if she kicked again, it wouldn’t hit me.”
“Then why did her wing break?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why did a young wife and mother fall three hundred feet to smash on the rocks?”
“I don’t know!!”
“Well, that’s it then. Get used to these bars. You might want to start picking out names for them, because they’re going to get very familiar over the next twenty to fifty years.”
Terry sobbed. “I didn’t kill her! I don’t know how to break a wing!”
North’s face darkened. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know how to break her wing! I don’t know how, I don’t know how...”
“Don’t know how? What does that mean?”
Lockstep’s face was buried in his hooves; he was lost in his despair. North left him to it. His mind was elsewhere, and his body needed to catch up with it.
* * * * *
Precious Creamcoat was the desk sergeant, and she was even older than North. She was a unicorn, but she didn’t play the game, so... Precious Creamcoat was the desk sergeant.
North peered around the corner. “Percy?”
She looked up. “North?”
“You alone?”
She smiled. “Can’t it wait till after shift?”
He smiled back. “It’s a date. But I have something else in mind.”
“Oh, well if it’s that new mare public defender, I can’t help you.”
“You can’t?”
“Won’t.”
“I want to ask you a question.”
“Okay.”
“A unicorn question.”
“Okay.”
“Is that okay?”
“North... I like you, but you’re about to take a kick that’ll postpone our date.”
“Can you break that cup?”
“What?”
“Can you use your magic to break that cup?”
“My coffee cup?”
“Yes.”
“My father gave me this when I made corporal.”
“Alright... how would you use your magic to break it?”
“I’m not going to break it.”
“Percy, dear, my kick probably wouldn’t be quite as effective, but—”
“Alright. And don’t call me ‘dear’ unless we’re in the broom closet.” She looked at the cup. She sighed, her horn glowed, and she raised it into the air. A little cold coffee slopped over the side. “I supposed I’d just wind it up, and throw it against the wall.”
“Why not just pull it apart?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, instead of throwing it, why not crush it, or break it apart?”
“I... well, I don’t know. It just doesn’t occur to me. But don’t ask me to try. I’m serious, North.”
North looked around. “The newspaper,” he said.
“Alright,” Percy said. She set the cup down and lifted the newspaper into the air.
“Now rip it up.”
She looked at him, then at the paper. She seemed confused. She concentrated. The paper shook, but nothing happened. “I, uh...” she started, “...I guess I can’t. I never really thought about it before.”
“You can’t do it?”
“Is this going someplace?”
“Why can’t you rip it up? Think hard.”
She looked at it. “It’s... I was holding it. How can I rip it if I’m holding it?”
“Do you think it’s like that for all unicorns?”
“I never thought about it. I guess so. When I want something, I think about it, and it just rises into the air. But it’s like holding it. Holding it in your hoof, say.”
“Just one hoof. Right?”
It was like the light came on. She beamed. “Yes! Exactly.”
“Ever seen a unicorn mother grab her foal? You can see the glow around the part she’s thinking of, but it’s the whole foal she gets, not the just the part.”
“Right, yes.”
“You don’t see her ripping off an ear, or pulling a leg out at the shoulder.”
“Oh, North, you—”
“Or a wing broken in two...?”
“Oh, I see.”
North smiled at her.
“So he really could be innocent?”
“Maybe. Or at least, he had a partner. Thanks, Percy.” He gave her a quick salute, and turned to go.
“Glad to be of service. Oh, and, North?”
“Yup?”
“Speaking of partners? I don’t want to do it here in the broom closet.”
“Then we’ll do it in the broom closet at your place.”
“Okay.”
* * * * *
It was not a pleasant chore, going to the morgue to view what had once been Sunny Racer. North considered himself calloused over, but seeing the broken body of the young mother, even with her head covered by a sheet, was affecting. In quick succession he was horrified, then deeply saddened, and then angered. It wasn’t as though she had simply made a mistake in flight, had a quick, sudden accident, and it was over. She had taken a long, terrifying drop, and it was because somepony had deliberately chosen that for her.
The coroner, displaying no more emotion than an old historian, guided North around the map of injuries that had once been the vibrant, soaring pegasus. His horn glowed as he levitated a pointer around her like retelling the events of a great battle on the sad, still relief map of her body. “Initial injury was here. Flexion break of the right aerial humerus. In itself, it wouldn’t have been fatal, but at the very least, it would have been a career-ending injury. Set properly, she would have flown again, but not professionally. That appears to have been her only injury until she struck the rocks in the gorge. She landed on her back on the right side, breaking her hip, fracturing her spine in several places, shattering her right femur, and pushing seven of her ribs into various organs. Even if it had ended there, that would have killed her. She’d have bled to death long before help could have reached her.”
North sighed, watching the pointer skate over the sad geography of murder.
“A split second later, her right shoulder struck the ground. Similar injuries. Broken collar bone, shattered humerus. Her neck broke during the whiplash event that followed. Some of the injuries are compounded... she bounced and hit the ground a second time... but they’re just adverbs modifying the big verbs of her first hit. As to that, what actually killed her, instantly, was when her head struck the rocks. I can lift the sheet if you require to see those injuries, but if you don’t—”
“I don’t. Thank you for your consideration.”
“It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”
“So her actual death was a pretty standard result of hitting the ground after a fall from a great height.”
The coroner nodded.
“But the injury that started it all?”
“That’s the mystery. I’ve seen injuries like that as a result of bad mid-air collisions between pegasi or with stationary objects, but not just spontaneously. Her bone was strong and healthy. It wasn’t diseased or previously injured.”
“The word is, it was unicorn magic.”
“Oh, really?”
“Supposedly.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that. But we don’t get many equecides.”
North stared sullenly at the ugly, shattered wing. “Are you saying it’s impossible?”
“Nothing’s impossible, North. Just varying degrees of unlikely. But this is an extremely unlikely injury, and if that’s the explanation, it’s better than anything I could come up with.”
“Could you make me a copy of your report?”
“No trouble. You’re finished, then?”
“I’ve seen more than I wanted to already.”
The coroner pushed the slab into the wall, returning Sunny Racer to the darkness.
* * * * *
Back in the squad room, the new shift was in. Copperside Grapevine didn’t look up from his desk when he said, “Somepony to see you, North. The husband. He just got in on the train a couple hours ago.”
“Where is he?”
“Deposition Room C. Precinct psyche’s with him.”
When North got to the deposition room, the stallion was alone. When he looked up at North, the pony had the air of somepony who’d had his soul ripped out and badly stitched back on. “Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Sergeant Northstar Trueguide. I’m the detective assigned to investigate your wife’s death.”
The pale grey was as striking as the photo had suggested. He was a strong, good-looking young stallion. The effects of the stress had him molting on the floor. Even as North watched, a small, downy feather slipped off and pirouetted down to join several others, as though decorating the boring precinct tiles.
“It was Cloud Featherbright. I’m sure of it. It wasn't a bonehead. Cloud killed Sunny.”
North knew the name. Cloud Featherbright was the leader of The Sky Riders and owner of the organization. He was Sunny’s boss, in other words. North shut the door and sat down with the pony. “Okay. Tell me about it. First, start with your name.”
“Oh... I’m sorry. Thought they told you, or something... I’m Ash Pinebreeze. Sunny’s... Sunny was my wife.” Ash lost his composure and began to cry when he mentioned her.
“I’m really, truly sorry for what happened to her.”
“They made me look at her,” Ash said. “To identify her. That was cruel. Cruel of them. Why did they do that? She was Sunny Racer. She was famous. They knew who she was. Why did they make me? Oh, Luna’s horn, why did they make me see her like that?”
“I’m sorry. They had to. It’s a standard legal procedure. It’s always hard, but the law requires we be sure.” He gave Ash a chance to gather himself and moved on. “Tell me why you suspect Cloud.”
“They were having an affair.”
“Cloud and Sunny?”
Ash nodded. “I found out four months ago. Sunny didn’t love him. Cloud... he demanded it of her. Her and any other mare who wants to stay in the act. He's a monster. That's why she was working so hard to get into The Cloudbusters. She was good enough, and she needed to get away from him. He couldn't handle it. And yesterday he saw his chance to strike back at her and he did.”
“How, exactly?”
“Somepony broke her wing. Right?”
North nodded.
“It wasn't that unicorn. That was just the distraction. I wouldn't put it past Cloud to have set that up. Then he used one of his signature moves. Windswept Thunder.”
“Can you explain what that is to me?”
“Cloud has a few signature moves he's honed for years. Windswept Thunder is a sharp sudden downbeat of his wings. He's learned to make it directional, and he can splinter a two-by-four with it.” Ash gritted his teeth and fought back his tears without much success. “And yesterday when they were looking at her and not at him, he used it to break her beautiful wing...”
North worked it over in his mind. It was a plausible explanation that nicely filled the gap left by the seeming impossibility that Sagittarius Lockstep had done it. Jealousy among performers and lovers? That certainly fit with the picture. But North eyed Ash coolly from behind the mask of concern and compassion. A jilted husband using the death of his wife to get back at her lover also fit the picture. In any case, Ash hadn’t been there, so he could only be guessing. But was it a good guess, or just spiteful wishful thinking? Well, finding that out was what they paid North to do.
“We have two little foals,” Ash said through the tears. “They think Mommy's at Grandma's house.” He looked at North. “What am I going to tell them, Sergeant? Oh, Celestia... what do I tell them?”
* * * * *
Half an hour later he had his snout in an ale. He needed one. Or three. Or four. The bartender told him he'd open the beer taps and run him a bath if that would help. North almost took him up on it.
“Excuse me. Are you Northstar Trueguide?”
North lifted his foamy muzzle out of the brew and looked up into the face of a well-groomed young unicorn mare about half his age. “I am.”
“I'm an associate of Ivory Snowdrift, Chairpony of the Trueblooded League,” the youngster said. North caught sight of the Starminder pin on the smart blue vest she wore. Ivory Snowdrift was a name North knew, vaguely; rich unicorn mare, skilled artisan and entrepreneur, social mavin. Her representative continued. “She was in attendance at yesterday's tragedy, and she has information she thinks will help your investigation, and she'd like to speak with you at your convenience. She can be contacted at either her shop or her home address,” the unicorn said, floating a business card to North. “She's at home today, so perhaps when you're... finished here,” the mare said, eyeing the beer with disdain, “feel free to call on her if she can provide you any assistance whatsoever.”
“Well, thank you,” North said. “I'll do that. Would three o'clock be okay?”
“I'll let Ivory Snowdrift know to expect you. Good day, officer.”
“Good day to you, too, uh...?” North said, waiting for the pony to give her name. She didn't.
North stewed over it as he drank. Why the urge to speak to a cop? The usual course of things was for him to have to track down witnesses and practically twist a leg behind their back in the form of subtle guilt-tripping to get anything out of them at all. But now somepony had a story to tell. Why? What was the angle? Maybe simply an upstanding citizen who wanted to do what she could to help out. Maybe. But he doubted it.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the corner. Shouting. Something sliding heavily across a table and crashing on the floor. By the time North was getting to his hooves it was already a fight. Blood. He recoiled like any equine from the sight and smell of it, but it was his job to brave it. “Break it up! Break it up!” He threw his weight between the combatants. Three unicorns. One was the one who’d just issued him the polite, if cold, summons. She had a small nick in her shoulder. Another was urging her away, eyeing North frostily. The third was a small young mare with a blue mane. She’d taken a kick in the face and her nose was bleeding.
“Who started it?”
“She did!” the blue-maned mare shouted.
“She deserved it,” the unicorn he’d been speaking to hissed. “She said something vile.”
“Do you want to press charges?” North asked the sky-mane.
“No! I just want her to go! Her and her crew.”
North turned to the other two. “Leave. Now.”
Nursing the horn-nick to her shoulder, the other turned away. Her horn glowed and she rained bits disdainfully down on the bar across the room. She and her confederate left.
“Are you going to be okay?” North asked the bleeding mare. Her own horn glowed as she held napkins to her snout. The bartender came with a clean towel and instructed her to tilt her head back.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “No teeth broken. She just sucker-kicked me.”
“It’s none of my business now that it’s over, but she was just talking to me. I’m curious what your argument was about.”
“Oh... they wanted my endorsement.”
“May I ask for what?”
“This twisted little bigot burg they have in mind to build. Mystic Acres. Heard of it?”
“I have. They’re connected with that?”
“They’re Truebloods. It’s their big idea of some unicorn paradise.”
“Ah. But not yours.”
“Ponyville, my hometown, is all the paradise I need.”
“So you said no.”
“I told them where they could go stick their horns.”
North fought unsuccessfully to keep the smile off his snout. “Good for you,” he said quietly.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You’re a cop,” she finally said.
He nodded.
Now it was her turn to be curious. “What did they want to see you about? You’re not a unicorn.”
“On the matter of a recent death.”
“Sunny?” she said, sitting up. “Was it about Sunny?”
“You know her? ...Knew her?”
“A little. I hung with her a few times. Every so often I coordinate the music for Sky Riders shows.”
“Wait... yeah, I recognize you now. Um... DJ Pon-3.”
“It’s just Vinyl Scratch when I’m offstage,” she smiled, and they tapped hooves in introduction.
“So they wanted you on board for Mystic Acres, is that right?”
“No, they couldn’t care less about me. All they want is the name. My stage name to stick on fliers and white papers and press releases. They’ve been giving me the eye the last couple of days. A bunch of them were there at the falls, when... when Sunny died.”
“I don’t suppose you know how to break things with your horn,” North said.
Scratch eyed him strangely. “Maybe poke holes in them,” she said.
He chuckled. Then he said, “Somepony broke Sunny’s right wing in midair. There wasn’t anypony near her, and she was healthy.”
“You think... it was... one of us...?”
He nodded softly.
“Murder?” she asked, pain and horror growing in her pretty eyes.
“It looks that way. I’m open to other possibilities, of course, but that’s kind of where things are pointing.”
“But why a unicorn? The ponies who knew her best are other pegasi. I don’t want to talk out of turn, but they’re probably the only ones there who’d have known her well enough to want to... to have that kind of a grudge. But I don’t know anypony who did, anyway. And for sure, not any unicorns.”
“There’s a problem with the unicorn theory anyway. None of the unicorns I’ve spoken to can break things with their telekinesis. Move things, yes. But not break them.”
Scratch looked puzzled for a moment. Her horn glowed, and a bloodied napkin rose into the air. She concentrated on it, and it flipped around, spun, and fluttered, but no matter what she did, it didn’t rip. “Well, what do you know,” she said. “I guess it just never even occurred to me to even try before.”
North nodded. “So that’s where I am right now. There was nothing wrong with her bones, no pegasus collided with her or was even near her when it happened, and unicorns don’t have the power to do it. As far as I can see, there’s no way she could have suffered a broken wing and fallen out of the sky. But the thing is, she did. I had to go look at her in the morgue. Somepony’s responsible for that.” He let that hang in the air.
“I wish I could help you,” she said, finally.
“You may have already.”
“What... really?”
“Possibly. Solving a crime’s a little like sculpting. Except you’re not always sure what’s sculpture and what’s going to end up a chip on the floor till you’re done.”
“Well, if I’ve been any help, I’m glad,” said Scratch. “I liked her. I want whoever did it to pay.”
“So do I,” North said. He rose to go. “Thanks for opening up.”
“No problem. Hey—what’s your name?”
“Northstar Trueguide.”
“Good luck, Northstar. Keep on rockin’ in the everfree world.”
North plunked some bits on the bar and swallowed his drink. He looked at the time. Lots of time for a few more drinks but he had a job to do and an appointment to keep. An important one. So he left the bar and wandered. The flurry of activity swarming around the poor dead mare was affecting him now. Her death was becoming increasingly personal to him, and finally, in his sadness and frustration, he found himself back at the morgue.
The coroner was surprised to see him. “North? You’re back?”
He swallowed the urge to make a smart reply and just said, “Can I see Sunny Racer again?”
“Yeah... sure... think you missed something?”
“I’m not sure.”
Their hooves clopped unaccompanied by any other sound, echoing mournfully. The coroner produced the body of Sunny Racer again, bringing her once more back into the light.
“She was beautiful,” North said. He could see that even through all the hideous injuries and distortions.
“Hey, North, are you okay?”
“No. I need to get angry. Then I’ll be okay.”
“Aren’t you guys supposed to keep emotion out of it? Think clearly?”
“The squad’s full of ponies who don’t give a fig and are thinking clearly, and they’re ready to lock up the first name on the list. I need some fuel for the fire,” North said. “I need to be just a little bit passionate about this. After all, she’s dead.”
The coroner nodded. “I noticed.”
“How long did she fall?” North said.
The coroner made a face. “Oh, geez... uh, about 300 feet, maybe a little more... that’s... four or five seconds. Mind you, she was a pegasus, not a stone, so she likely fought hard against it, so... another two or three seconds. Seven or eight.”
“Long time when you’re falling, I bet,” North said.
“The rest of your life,” the coroner said. North looked at him. There wasn’t a trace of humour or irony on the pony’s face.
“I wonder what she was thinking about. Just the panic? Or the ones she cared about she’d never see again? The things in her life she’d never put right?”
“Good-byes,” the coroner said. “Oh, you’re bad for me, North. Not supposed to get into moods like this in this job.”
North leaned in and took the edge of the sheet covering Sunny’s face in his teeth.
“North...” the coroner warned. North ignored him, and pulled it back just enough to bare Sunny’s snout. Her lips were bruised, and they were parted, like those of a little filly who doesn’t understand something she’s just seen. Maybe that was the last thing she was thinking about when she struck the ground. Why?
Why?
North blinked back the tears, and he put the cover back over that silent question. Mother. Lover. Dancer in the sky. He swallowed the sorrow he felt and squeezed it down into something else, something angry and powerful. Cunning. Unequine and predatory. He set his jaw and hardened his brow.
“Now I’m okay,” he said, and sauntered away, leaving the coroner to ease her back out of the world of the living and into the darkness one last time.
* * * * *
Ivory Snowdrift lived and worked in Spouts, which was a small, exclusive town about an hour’s commute by train out of the city, and there she lived well, that was clear. There was a gate around her home, gilt-edged, and dogs that barked on his approach. He informed the unicorn at the gate that he was expected, and the guard took his name down. With a flash, the note vanished. Within moments, another appeared in reply. “Please keep to the path,” the guard advised. “The dogs don’t like it when you don’t.”
“I understand,” North said. The dogs eyed him closely as he made his way to the front door. A butler, a roan unicorn mare, opened the door before he even needed to knock.
“If you’ll please just follow me, Detective,” she said. Their hooves clacked over marble as they trotted down a hall resplendent with paintings and statuary. Floral arrangements perfumed his every step. He wished he could stop and take it all in. “Through here, Detective,” the butler said.
A pure white unicorn, from her horn to her hooves, reclined on a sofa by the window. “Madame,” the butler said, “Detective Northstar Trueguide.”
“Welcome, Detective,” Snowdrift said, smiling but not bothering to rise. “Could I interest you in tea? Coffee?”
“Either would be fine, thank you,” he said, entering the parlor.
“Tea, I think, please, Polyphon,” Snowdrift said to the butler.
“Yes, Madame,” she replied, and left.
Snowdrift smiled. “Thank you for making the time.”
“It’s no problem. It’s part of my job.”
“Please, take a seat. Anywhere you like,” she said.
North eased onto a pale blue couch on Snowdrift’s left. It was wonderfully comfortable. He shifted a bit, waiting for her to say something. She smiled at him, lifting her chin a little. It was clearly an invitation to indulge her vanity, so he did. He let his eyes flow quickly over her, mapping the snow-covered hills and vales of her personal geography. She was trim and slight, long-limbed and elegant, almost regal. No doubt she could have proudly boasted of some relationship to the Palace if given an opportunity. His eyes flicked to hers, a blue so pale and pure as to shame the couch he was set upon, and then mounted to the gossamer tower of her horn, which bore her only unnatural adornment, a spiraling band of gold up and down its entire length, set with a sapphire at the base... a perfect match of the cutie mark on her flank, he noticed. Her ego stroked, she gave her tail a flick and shook her mane as she spoke. “I understand you’re the principal investigator for the tragedy yesterday.”
“I am, yes. I heard you had some help to offer.”
“I do. I think I do. But I’m wondering about Terry.”
“He’s still in jail at the moment, pending the outcome of the investigation. If I find cause to charge him, he’ll likely be there for a while yet.”
“You don’t think it could be seen as self-defence?”
“The Crown Attorney doesn’t.”
“But the Attorney General might,” she said. The implication was clear and as impressive as she'd intended it to be. He ignored it. He had to.
“Can I infer that you think Sagittarius is responsible for what happened at the falls?”
“I didn’t say that,” Snowdrift said. “Only that if he were, he was only protecting himself from an aerial attack and what happened was justified, if unfortunate.”
“So you don’t think he did it? Do you suspect somepony else?”
Snowdrift thought for a moment. “Detective, I’m the head of a, well, pro-unicorn organization. We stand up for the rights, and the special needs and requirements, of unicorn ponies across Equestria. There are ponies who don’t understand what we’re doing, and question our intentions, and our goals. There are ponies who would do anything... anything... to embarrass us.”
She looked at him. He took in the preamble and waited for the pitch. “Alright,” he said, “go on.”
“Have you heard of Mystic Acres?”
“Yes.”
She smiled faintly, narrowing her eyes in a deliberate display of shrewdness. “You’re an earth pony. Tell me your honest impressions of the project.”
“It’s not my place as an officer.”
“As a pony, then. Just an ordinary guy. We’re alone here.”
“Honestly? I think it’s separatist in its conception. It bothers me. Frankly, I find it a little insulting, and I imagine most earth ponies and pegasi would. It flies in the face of everything we’ve all worked for since the founding of Equestria.”
“You think it’s just for unicorns.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s for anypony who can do magic,” she said.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
She shook her head. “Anypony who can do magic, or anypony closely connected to them. Spouses, foals. No one has to be a unicorn. It’s about a community for those talented in magic.”
“Pardon me, ma’am, but I think you’re simply splitting hairs. The bottom line is, that means unicorns.”
“Generally, but not exclusively. Some earth ponies are known for their ability with potions, for example. We’re not bigots, Detective. We just want to live a certain way.”
“By living apart from the rest of us?”
“Have you ever been to Cloudsdale?”
“No. Of course not.”
“No, of course not. And neither have I. Of course not. And why is that?”
North considered it. It was an interesting point. “Cloudsdale wasn’t established to separate ponies. It’s simply the nature of pegasi that they can walk on clouds, and the rest of us can’t.”
“You think it’s okay for them to have a place that, by its very nature, means they never have to live with anypony like you and me, and yet you think it’s wrong to have a community based on magic that’s potentially home to anypony?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“But you do think that.”
“Alright, yes. One is about taking advantage of a natural ability to be someplace that others simply can’t. The other is about arbitrarily keeping others out of a place they could naturally be, just because you don’t want them there. It’s about the intention.”
“So you do understand what we’re up against, then,” she smiled slyly. “Misunderstandings and resentments like your own.”
He sighed. She’d done an excellent job manipulating him. She was wily.
Which, in itself, was interesting.
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” he lied. “You’ll have to walk me through it, I think.”
“Tensions are very high right now. There was a lot of discussion about it at our headquarters last night. The consensus is that somepony is out to embarrass our organization by making it appear that one of our members is a pegacidal monster. That could quite easily be used to cast our plans for Mystic Acres in a poor light and put pressure on us to slow or even abandon the project. Would you agree?”
“I suppose. But who would be so interested in doing that that it would be worth somepony’s life?”
“Well, surely,” she said, softly, “working that out is your job.”
The butler arrived, transporting a tray with tea and biscuits. Snowdrift thanked and dismissed her. “Shall I serve?” Snowdrift smiled, and the tea pot popped obediently into the air in a magic glow. Effortlessly the unicorn poured for the poor clumsy earth pony. “Milk, cream, sugar...?”
“A little milk, please, thank you,” North said. It too was easily added, and a spoon merrily jumped in to stir. She floated the cup and saucer over to him. He began to wonder if she’d offer to tie a bib on him and pour it into his mouth. She seemed to draw the line at humiliating him there.
“Honestly, now,” she said, fixing her own tea to her own tastes, “aren’t there times when you’d rather just be among earth ponies, doing earth pony things? Not all the time, but sometimes?”
“I really can’t think of anything especially ‘earth pony’,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Neither can I. It’s kind of hard to imagine, isn’t it? A society of just earth ponies.”
“Since we’re being honest,” he said, “I was wondering what brought you to the Falls yesterday. I would imagine you have a business, or at least interests, to look after.”
“I do,” she said. “I’m a goldsmith, and a particularly skilled one. No need to deny it. Look around you.”
He glanced around politely. “Business is good enough you could afford a day or two off.”
“Yes, indeed. And to answer your question, which I suspect you already know, my committee was there, in part, to enlist the support of a unicorn celebrity. DJ Pon-3, to be precise. Frankly, I don’t see the attraction, but she’s popular with the younger crowd, the ones starting families and buying homes, and her endorsement would have been valuable, I admit.”
“But you didn’t get it.”
She gave a little shrug. “As I said, there are kinds of wrong attitudes about our intentions. But we respect her right to decide for herself. That’s what freedom’s about, isn’t it? The right to choose?”
“I suppose so. Can I ask you something else? Not really related to the case.”
“Of course.”
“Do you charge much for basic work? I have something... belonged to my mother. And there’s somepony special I’ve been thinking of giving it to.”
Snowdrift sat up. “How sweet. What exactly do you need done?”
“Not much. It’s a hoof bracer for down near the ankle. It’s just my mother’s hoof was a little more slender than my friend’s is.”
“You'd better be careful,” she smiled. “A lot of friends just might take a gift like that as a proposal.” She seemed to like the idea, smiling down into her tea. “I'll tell you what. You bring it by the day after tomorrow,” she said, “with some idea of the diameter of her hoof, and I’ll take care of it on the spot. Free of charge. It’s the least I can do for somepony taking on such a difficult and unsavory case.”
“Well, I don’t know if I could accept it free. It’s a conflict of interest.”
“It’ll be our little secret,” she said.
* * * * *
North was woken in the middle of the night to the news that Sagittarius Lockstep’s home had been set on fire. From above. It had burned to the ground and while Hollyhock Dancer and their foals had escaped unharmed, it had been a near thing. It was sobering news and it shook him. Ivory Snowdrift had been right. The murder was affecting the dynamic of things.
“Stop screwing around,” Captain Redfire said. “Wrap it up. This isn’t a game of cops and robbers, North. Ponies are getting hurt, and scared. We need this guy charged, on trial, and put away before things get any worse.”
“I can’t prove that he did it,” North said.
“I’m not joking.”
“Neither am I,” North glowered. “I have another suspect I need to talk to. Somepony with a motive and opportunity, and possibly the means. If that comes up during disclosure and we didn’t run it down, you can forget about a conviction.”
Redfire glared at him. “How long.”
“I need another day. At least. But the real answer is, till I have something that will hold together in court.”
“Celestia’s muck,” Redfire swore. “A murder takes place in front of hundreds of witnesses and nobody knows who did it. And now it’s getting ugly. Those feathered idiots are...” His eyes flashed to North’s. “North, put it to bed. Find something, anything, believable and get the ball rolling. Because like it or not, the trial’s already going on out there on the streets and in the sky.”
North nodded and headed out. Into the trial.
* * * * *
Cloud Featherbright was a little bit drunk when North reached the cart that served Cloud as home on the road. He’d been crying. He looked wiped out, every bit as much as Sunny’s actual husband had.
Cloud knew North was a cop. No introductions. The first thing out of his mouth was, “I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t make it real. I keep waiting for her to come back.”
North closed the door and sat down. “I’m Detective Ser—”
“I know who you are,” Cloud said, pointedly. “I just don’t know why you’re here. You have the bastard.”
“I’m not sure we do, actually.”
“They we fighting, and he used his magic to break her wing. What’s not to understand? I could see if you were a unicorn and didn’t want to face it, but you’re not. You’re a hay-shag—earth pony.”
North’s anger rose and eroded his civility. “Well, here’s the thing, see. Unicorns can’t actually do that.”
“What?”
“Snap somepony’s wing. They can move whole objects, rotate whole objects, even throw objects. But they can’t bend or break them. But I’m told that you have a signature move that just might. Something that can splinter a beam of wood.”
“What? Windswept Thunder?”
“Yeah. See, Sunny’s husband told me the two of you were having an affair, and she ended it, and that she was about to make the jump to another crew.”
Cloud’s eyes dropped. His voice was small and pitiful. “All true.”
North sighed and tilted his head. “Well, Cloud, I have to tell you, that moves you to the front of my list. Terry Lockstep is accused of doing something he couldn’t do, in a moment of fear and anger. You’ve just admitted you a much bigger motive, and the means to do it.”
Cloud knocked his glass over. “And did Terry Lockstep love Sunny Racer? I did. With all my heart and soul.”
North was acid. “I’m told you like to make ‘the flying octopus’ with pretty much every mare on your team.”
Cloud was panting with anger and humiliation. It showed in his eyes. “I don’t deny that. The mares I pick are some of the most beautiful in the world. And I celebrate that. I indulge in it. I worship their beauty.”
North chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t tell which end of you this is coming out of.”
“And who said it, anyway? Ash? He’s a loser. A third-rate flier. He stumbled onto Sunny when she was young and just getting started. He never deserved her. He didn’t even know what he had in her. I did. At first, it was like you said. It was fun to have her. But she was different. I fell in love with her. I begged her to leave Ash, or at least marry me too, but she wouldn’t. The foals... she couldn’t take them from their father. Well, Ash is Skyfire’s father, but not Meadowglide’s. He’s my son, not Ash’s. Watch the way he folds his wings when he lands... exactly like... exactly like my mother. He’s mine...”
Cloud had to stop and collect himself.
North prompted, “So you loved her. And she rejected you. As a lover and as a boss. As an artist.”
Cloud’s head was hanging. “She broke my heart. I can’t lie about it. And it was hard working with her afterward. Seeing her. Watching her move like a goddess in the air. But like they say, the show must go on. And even with all of that, my heart still soared just looking at her. Even if I couldn’t have her anymore.” Cloud raised his head and he looked North in the eye. “I couldn’t kill her, Detective. Any more than I could stop my own heart beating.”
North mulled it over. I didn’t sound rehearsed. It sounded like it was just coming out, naturally. And he wasn’t happy about it, because while Cloud was by far the best suspect now, North was already beginning to doubt Cloud had anything to do with it.
“You wouldn’t hear this from me tomorrow when I’m sober. I’m not in the habit of self-deprecation. But that truth is, Sunny was... Sunny was too good to be just a Sky Rider. She claimed she had some griffin blood. Maybe she did, or maybe it was just a family legend, or maybe she just made it up. I don’t know. But there was something about her. Crowds loved her. You won’t understand what I mean, but just trust me when I say that pegasi know when one of us has ‘it’. Sunny had ‘it’. She would have arrived late, and done it the hard way, but there’s no doubt in my mind that sooner or later, she’d have made the Wonderbolts. I wanted to keep her with us, but I never could have. I would have been happy to share her with Ash, and if he weren’t so jealous everything would have been fine. I just wanted to be in her life. She was amazing. There’ll never be another like her.”
North realized with a sinking feeling that he believed him. Cloud might have been an egotistical lothario, but he wasn’t a killer. Still, he knew there might be other gold here if he just kept digging.
“Cloud, you’re still the likeliest suspect. All I have is your saying you didn’t do it, and that’s not much, is it?”
“If you want to arrest me and try to pin it on me, go ahead. I can’t stop you. But you’ll let the one who really killed her canter away in the sun.”
“Then give me a reason not to work up a case against you.”
Cloud said, “When it happened, Sunny pulled away from the troop. She went over to have words with a couple of unicorns who were disrupting the show. I’ve got some of the strongest wings in Equestria, but just how far do you think anypony can aim and focus a directed air punch?”
“I wouldn’t know. How far?”
“The best I’ve ever managed is about four yards. It’s a factor of your wingspan and the maximum angle of attack. A dragon could do better, but not a pony. You don’t have to take my word for it. It’s a scientific fact.”
“Okay. So if Sunny was more than about a dozen feet from you—”
“Sunny must have been four or five times that far from me when... when it happened.”
“One thing I have been wondering. Why didn’t you go after her? Save her? Any of you?”
“Have you ever knocked a glass off a table and had it break?”
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t you catch it?”
“You had a lot longer than that.”
“She was a hundred feet below us by the time any of us could even realize what was really happening, and picking up speed all the time. I dove; a few of us did... but we never even got close.” Cloud’s gaze unfocused and he was far away. He said, “If I could have changed places with her at that last split second... I think I would have.”
Maybe, North thought. “Alright. I’ll need to check a few things about the math in order to justify crossing you off the list. Until my investigation is complete, or you hear from me to the contrary, I’m going to have to ask you to advise me if you leave Neighagara Region, and where you can be reached. And I’m going to have to insist you don’t leave Equestria.”
Cloud nodded. “We’re booked in Las Pegasus at the end of the month. We had a few more shows here this week but they’re cancelled. Everyone else will probably drift home for a couple of weeks but I suppose I can stick around in the meantime.”
“I appreciate your cooperation. And I’m sorry for your loss.”
Cloud nodded, his eyes on the bottle on his table.”Thanks.”
There wasn’t much else to say. After an awkward moment, North left Cloud to his grieving. Well, Sunny, you were a complicated little mare, he thought into the silence that remained of her.
* * * * *
Some police forces were fortunate enough to have telescribes right on staff, and North’s station had one: Scribbles. Her actual name was Topaz; she was a unicorn who was a quarter dragon and she coordinated communications at the precinct. She could write quickly and neatly and breathe magic flame onto parchment to deliver it pretty much anywhere. Finding a similar scribe at the other end was the problem of the recipient.
She outranked him, technically, but they were on familiar enough terms. “Scribbles?” North called as he entered the com room.
“That you, North? What’s up?”
“I need to send a message to the University of Fillydelphia,” he said. “A matter of physics and some stats I need to work out a case.”
Her horn glowed and parchment unrolled beneath a floating quill. “Shoot, North.”
North laid out the basics and trusted Scribbles to spruce it up. “I suppose it goes without saying you need a reply ASAP?” she said.
“Oh, no, it’s just a murder investigation,” he said, jokingly. “Anytime this year will be fine.”
“Right. I’ll see what I can do about saying “bust your hump on this” politely.”
“I knew I could count on you,” he said.
* * * * *
It was going to be a surprise. A big surprise. He knew that.
Alone in his bedroom, North gazed at the hoof bracer that had once been his mother’s. Long before she’d died, she’d passed it along to him. “For the first of your harem,” she’d said. “The special mare.”
North didn’t have a single wife. Never had. The job never so much got in the way as simply consumed his life. Now he was starting to wonder.
But he finally knew what he wanted to do with it. When he saw her next, he’d spring it on it. She’d never suspect and it would be out there before she had a chance to compose herself, and he’d have what he wanted.
He hoped.
* * * * *
He came in late in the morning and was glad to find Percy on duty.
“North,” she said, “something came in for you in comms.”
“Is that so? Wow. That was quick. Say... there’s something you can help me with.”
“Can’t wait till our date?”
“I can’t decide if you have a one-track mind, or you think I do,” he said.
“Maybe it’s that time of the season,” she smiled. “What can I help you with?”
He went into his saddle bags and produced a small silver chain. “This used to be my mother’s,” he said, dangling it from his teeth. “My niece is going to be in Neighagara later this month and I wanted to give it to her. Something of her grandmother’s. She’s a mare about your stature, but my mother was a little slighter, so it’s going to have to be lengthened a bit. I was hoping you could provide me with a rough estimate.”
Percy eyed him with just a hint of suspicion, and he hoped he hadn’t blown the game. “Sure,” she said, and placed a hoof on the desk. He draped it over her wrist. Her horn glowed and held it to her leg. “Looks like a gap of about two inches,” she said.
North agreed. “Thanks, Percy. I know she’ll be delighted.”
“She should be. It’s very nice.”
He put it back in the bag. “I’d better get to comms,” he said. “See you later.” He trotted to the communications room where Scribbles was waiting.
“North, this came in for you,” she said, floating a scroll into the air.
“Is it from the university?”
“It is. They must have really taken our request seriously.”
“Have to send them an edible floral arrangement,” he said. “Let’s see what they had to say.” He broke the seal and spread the scroll out on Scribbles’s desk. “Well, well,” he said. “What do you know.”
“Could I see?”
He turned the scroll to face her. She read it. “Well, how about that. I didn’t know that.”
North smiled, rolling the scroll up and putting it in his bag. “Cloud Featherbright said to me that a focused wing punch was basically a mathematical relationship. Something scientific you could check out.”
“And that made you think of this?”
“Yeah.”
“Will this wrap up the case?”
“I think so. One more thing I need to take care of, and then I should know for sure.”
“Good. It’s getting scary out there. I don’t mind telling you, North, they’ve even got me sitting up at night, wondering about gated communities.”
North didn’t know what to say to that. It was on his mind the whole trip to Spouts.
Ivory Snowdrift’s shop wasn’t quite the showplace her home was, but it was an elegant enough little boutique. It was in keeping with the posh, small-town shops found up and down the main street. She was behind the counter, idly working on something, when he came in.
She looked up. “Detective,” she said. “You’ve taken me up on my offer? How nice.”
He looked around the showroom. It was as clean and white as her hide. She could have hidden in it and disappeared just by standing still, it seemed to him. There were stands with glass displays, and aside from a few portraits on the wall behind her, the only colour that disrupted the perfect white was, here and there, an elegant patch of gold, sometimes graced with gemstones. Necklaces, horn rings, bracers, even shoulder assemblies that must have cost a fortune. He admired it all as he came forward.
“I have,” he said, and turning, he reached into his bag and drew out the hoof bracer.
“Very nice,” she said, looking it over. “It’s not elegant, but it’s bold and, well, earthy. Strong and direct. Makes a statement. Strength. Permanence. Simplicity. Crafted by hills artisans, I’d say.”
“It was, yes. You really know your stuff.”
She smirked; gave him a ‘well, obviously’ kind of look. “And the measurement?”
“The new wearer’s leg is about two inches wider in circumference.”
“Hmm,” Snowdrift frowned. “That’s significant. But not impossible. You understand that the gold will be thinner, and there’ll be a slight elongation of the filigree...?”
“That’s fine,” he said. “I don’t expect she’ll be wearing it every day.”
Her horn glowed and she floated it over to a small brazier. “Then you’ve brought it to the right place. Most anypony else would try to talk you into spending more on extra gold, or telling you it would have to be recast. But they’re not artists. Not really.”
“Is it only gold you work with?” he asked, idly, as she began to gently warm the gold.
“No,” she said. “I’ll work with other precious metals, gems. But gold is my passion.” She watched the bracer as it rotated slowly in the glow of her magic. “Can you guess why?”
He looked at the portraits of famous and influential unicorns that graced the wall behind her. “Because of its purity?” he guessed.
She smiled at him, as though he were a student thinking beyond the teaching. “Because nothing of earth or air can taint it,” she said.
“Or water,” he said.
She ignored his needless extension of her allusion. “Gold is always pure and true to its own nature. It’s only when it’s forced by heat, the element of sun,” she said, casting a glance at the portrait of Princess Celestia in the centre of the portraits, “that it alloys itself.”
“But they do that to make it stronger, don’t they?” he said.
“At the loss of its essential nature,” she muttered, turning back to her work. “It isn’t really gold anymore. It’s something else.” But she was done with the lesson for the moment. She had artistic work to do now, however basic and bland. Raising the bracer, she judged it was sufficiently heated. Levitating it over to a leg cast approximating Percy’s, she slipped it on. She closed her eyes, and her horn began to glow fiercely. Her lips parted, and for a moment she looked ecstatic. North glanced at the bracer and watched its edges slowly, carefully spread apart and draw out opposite one another, and then curving ever closer, until they closed up the space in the gap between them. Snowdrift sighed, and levitating a spray bottle, she treated the gold to a series of cooling squirts of water. The gold hissed like a cat, steaming, but then settled down and almost seemed to purr contentedly.
North made an admiring sound. “You don’t need any tools to do the work, huh? That’s pretty special.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much money it saves me, not needing to buy and use expensive tools. I can pass the savings on to you, undercut my competition, and still make more per job than they do if I work the percentages right. It’s a real blessing. It’s too bad you’ll never know that kind of joy.” She smiled, floating the bracer over to him, and rotating it before him to let him admire her craftwork.
“There are other kinds of blessings, you know, besides active magic.”
“I suppose,” Snowdrift said, sounding like she hardly believed it. “What is yours, anyway?” she asked, a bit too plainly.
North turned slightly, showing the compass cutie mark that had graced his flank since adolescence. “Knowing the way,” he said.
Snowdrift set the bracer down on the counter, smiled coolly. “What’s it like being an earth pony, Northstar?”
North shrugged a shoulder. “Not all that different, really, I don’t imagine.”
“Oh, but I do. Not being able to move things, bring things, shape things at will. Not even with the consolation of darting here and there through the sky. Everything a chore. Everything an effort. Doing everything, but everything, the hard way. Doesn’t that ever seem outmoded to you? Obsolete, even?”
North considered it. “Well, I guess you might look at it that way. I’ve always thought it was sort of a blessing in disguise. When there are no shortcuts, you have to be a plodder. You have to plan every trip, work out every job, see clearly what has to be done, and when, and how. I mean, take the case I’m on. One of the unicorns in the squad room told me it was open and shut, and that Terry Lockstep was plainly guilty. Now she’s a lovely mare, but I think having a horn do half her work for her makes her a little, well, let’s just say less willing to put in an extra effort. I don’t have that luxury. So when they gave me the case, I started plodding.
“For example... I noticed that all the unicorns I asked could only move things around with their magic, but not actually break them. I wondered if that was the case for unicorns in general. So I sent a message to the psychopotency studies department of the University of Fillydelphia and asked them. I heard back from them this morning.” He turned, and reached into his saddle bag for the scroll, which he dropped onto the counter beside the bracer. “Do you know what they said? Turns out that I was right. Run-of-the-mill unicorn telekinetic force is what they call ‘locomotive and non-deformative’, and ‘torsional or flexional only in cases pertaining to the specific abilities of certain individuals’. In other words, the average unicorn can use magic to move things, but not to bend or break things, unless that forms a part of their special talent... like, a unicorn whose special talent is some kind of metal-working, say. And I think bending metal is what you’d call ‘flexional’. So is breaking somepony’s wing in mid-flap.”
Snowdrift was staring at him. “You’re trying to pin this all on me? It won’t stand up. It’s just speculation on your part.”
“Yes, it is. All it establishes is means. But when you combine it with the fact that you’re head of a supremacist organization, that you and your goals stand to benefit from the uproar around Sunny Racer’s death no matter who gets the blame, and that you were actually there twenty feet away from her when her wing was snapped, you get motive and opportunity, too. And that’s a pretty rare combination, and one that fits you a whole lot better than it fits Terry Lockstep. And I’m willing to bet it’s enough for the Crown Attorney to persuade a jury.”
She glared at him.
“So how about it, Snowdrift?” he said. “Getting a lot more nibbles about Mystic Acres lately? Young unicorn couples worried about their futures, thinking maybe they'd like the herd to be a little tighter, a little friendlier-looking?” He narrowed his eyes. “All because some silly little horsefly hit the rocks after a convenient public argument with a hot-headed unicorn...”
Ivory Snowdrift’s eyes flicked to the window, and North realized she was sizing up her chances. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the unicorn he had officers waiting outside and not to be a fool, but he didn’t get the chance.
North felt the sudden pressure on his neck. It was sharp, like a kick from both sides at the same time, yet persistent, like a vice. But North was a large, sturdy earth pony, and he instinctively braced himself against it. He felt the throbs of the magical kicks again and again. He shied away, wrestling against them, but there was no shaking off the grip of a unicorn’s mind. He could feel the bruises rising under his skin and even though it became clear to him Snowdrift wasn’t strong enough to break his neck, North could feel his trachea being pinched shut. He heard strange, alarming choking sounds coming from his own throat, and felt the rising panic of not being able to breathe. There was murderous rage in Snowdrift’s eyes and her horn was a blaze of fury. North’s vision was soapy with tears and beginning to tunnel off at the sides. He knew he had only a few moments to break the unicorn’s hold on him before he became just another name in the newspapers. His only hope was to count on Snowdrift’s underestimation of anypony who didn’t have a horn sticking out of his face. Earth ponies, to somepony like Snowdrift, were simply dumb, big... and strong. North needed to count on strong.
With the last of his strength, from the chipping edge of his ragged consciousness, North reared up and struck out with his hoof. They both heard the sickening snap and witnessed the spray of blood and the jutting of bone from Snowdrift’s forehead as North kicked her horn away, and it spiraled off into the corner of the shop.
Snowdrift instantly dropped, shrieking in pain. The last of her dying powers performed their instinctive, life-saving duty of sealing her cornical wound before they faded away forever.
North sprawled on the floor, gasping, feeling like his spots were about to slide right off his back. He tasted blood in his mouth, a lot of it, and he was frightened. He trembled uncontrollably and despised himself for it. He fought for control and by sheer force of pride commanded himself to his feet just as the two patrol ponies he’d left outside burst into the shop and covered Snowdrift, still howling in pain and horror. They hauled her up. The dapple stared at the splintered horn lying in the corner at the end of a spray of blood and appeared to have to reswallow her breakfast.
The patrol ponies hobbled Snowdrift. North struggled to speak clearly as he said to her, “Ivory Snowdrift, you are under arrest for the willful murder of Sunny Racer, an equine being. You have the right to retain legal counsel before making any further statement, but be advised that any statement you make or have made can be entered into evidence in proceedings against you.” He gave Snowdrift a shove at the officers; the unicorn staggered in her leg bracings. “And you can add attempted murder of a police officer to her rap sheet,” he told them. “Read her her rights again at the hospital once she stops screaming. We don’t want her saying she couldn’t understand the instructions because they came from a guy she just choked within an inch of his life.”
“Yes, sir,” said the roan.
“My horn! My horn!” Snowdrift wailed.
“The murder weapon,” North said. He stepped in front of Snowdrift and met her eye. “Well, Snowy,” he croaked, hoof at his aching throat, “how does it feel to be just the funniest-looking earth pony on her way to the big house?”
Snowdrift stared back, devastated.
“Don't worry. It'll be our little secret,” he told her. He flicked his mane and tossed a glance at the officers. “Get her out of here.”
The patrol ponies hustled Snowdrift out of the shop and into the gathering crowd.
North let himself sink to the floor.
* * * * *
He was amazed within hours to hear fillies in the street bounding into the air to the words of a new skipping song.
Sunny cried,
And fell and died,
To Ivory's wicked laughter.
But North's kick,
It did the trick,
No magic ever after...
His usual haunt was a little way from the precinct house, where he had every expectation of not being bothered by any other cop. So he had his nose in his fifth lager by the time he sensed Braverly at his side. “North!” she said. “What are you doing in here?”
“Finishing my reports,” he said, indicating the ring-stained paperwork.
“I mean, I thought you’d be in the hospital after what I hear you went through.”
He raised his head and shook it. “Stiff neck,” he said.
“So you’re okay? You’re sure?”
“I’m just a little hoarse.”
“Well, you’re luc—oh, I see what you did there,” she smiled at his lame little joke. “Listen, I wanted to say congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“No, North, I mean it. Really. I was wrong. If they’d given it to me, I would have signed off on it and let Sagittarius Lockstep rot. You didn’t.” She looked down. “I forgot something about what it is to be a cop. I want to thank you for reminding me.”
“Thanks, Braves. Cheers,” he said, and they clinked glasses.
“They can’t possibly deny you a lieutenancy now,” she said.
He gazed into the mirror behind the bar. “Oh, sure they can,” he said. “My superiors’ll make all the right recommendations, and it’ll go up the line, and somewhere in some quiet little room it’ll be, ‘oh yeah, he’s a good cop, but there’s just something about his face I don’t like’. Something about my forehead. As usual.”
She looked around at the other patrons, laughing, debating, drowsing, oblivious of the two detectives. “We’re not all like that, you know,” she told him.
“Well, I’ll look forward to the day you’re a commissioner, then, Braves. Maybe then I’ll finally make lieutenant. Like you.”
Sensing it was time to give him his space, she said, “Anyway, I wanted to say good work. No matter what they think, in my books, you’re best of the breed.”
North smiled into her eyes, and nodded.
“Sudsy?” she called, catching the bartender’s eye. “North’s on my tab tonight.”
“You’re gonna regret that, Braves,” North chuckled.
* * * * *
Precious Creamcoat looked up from her book at the sound of North’s hooves on the stairs, playing that same old tired, monotone melody she knew so well. She heard a hoof catch on a stair and its owner curse. She pretended to be buried in her book when he rose into sight and sauntered across the marble floor.
“You’re here kind of late,” she said, without looking up.
“Cap wants the report once it’s finished. It’s finished.”
She looked at his slovenly, badly-patched saddle bags. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. I heard you had a close call.”
“Somepony tried to wring my neck or break my spine, or something. Other than that, not so much.”
“Well, I’m glad they didn’t manage it. We don’t have anypony groomed to replace you as the beaten old hat of the precinct yet.”
“Well, when you do, let me know. Anytime you’re ready.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but she saw she had unintentionally struck a nerve. “You’ve been drinking.”
He wryly remarked, “And to think they made me the detective.”
“I mean really drinking. I’ve seen you with a glow on, but not like this. Northstar... are you okay? Really?”
“If you think I’m in bad shape, wait till Braves sees the bill.”
“What?”
He sighed, and sat on the cold marble floor. “Percy, I saw some things lately that really shook me up inside. Scared me. Made me wonder about the future of Equestria.”
“Bad things have always happened, North. And there have always been bad ponies. But that’s why we need beaten old hats. And we always will. They’ll see us through.”
His eyes were moist as he rose, though he tried not to show it. “Thanks, Perce. If I remember this in the morning, I’ll be sure to be embarrassed for us both. Right now, I think I’m just going to go put this on Redfire’s desk and then go find someplace to throw up.” He mulled it over. “Maybe Redfire’s desk.”
“Okay, you go do that.”
“Good night, Percy.”
“North? You done with unicorn tricks?”
“Well, the case is closed, and... no offence, but I think I’ve had my fill for a while.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I was thinking of inviting you over tomorrow evening, and after supper, showing you a few things a unicorn mare can do that I’ll bet you haven’t seen yet.”
His smile was like anything of quality that comes from the soil, slow-growing and wholesome when it ripens. “I’ve always said a good cop takes every opportunity to learn something new.”
“Then I’ll see you at seven.”
“Should I bring anything?” he said, reminding himself of the golden hoof bracer.
“Just a beaten old hat.”
He nodded, and trudged on down the hall.
