It was never truly quiet in the cells. When there were no words left, with ears straining for something which could fill the vacuum, sensory input demanding anything which might force away the memories -- that was when she started to hear everything else. Nowhere near enough to fully bring her back to the present, not when her future was set (and set to expire), but... there were things to hear.
Vents could whistle somewhat as they forced air down to the lower level. Little bits of debris jumped slightly, landed almost immediately because the force of the intermittent vibrations could only carry them so far: she still didn't know what was happening on the surface to produce that. Somewhere on the other side of the iron bars, the police chief was unsteadily breathing and as far as Fleur was concerned, that mare could stop at any time. And then you had the speaking tubes. The little eavesdropping channels cut into the stone had clearly intersected the plumbing somewhere. It was as if the entire world was very softly weeping, and she knew that was a lie. There had been no rain on the day when she'd murdered her sister. The world was a place which existed to inflict pain, and so it never mourned.
It wasn't truly quiet in the cells. But she had confessed, and... there didn't seem to be any more words. It let all of the other sounds take over. It was almost at the point where she would be able to hear her own heartbeat, and then she could finally resume the wait for the moment when it would stop.
There was, however, still an annoying mare on the other side of the bars.
"There's a theory about marks," Miranda finally said. "Well -- not exactly a theory. Something confirmed, but -- so rare that most ponies wouldn't believe it could happen at all. Because they don't know anypony who's been through it."
Fleur opened her eyes. As far as she was concerned, the police chief was nothing worth looking at, but... it helped to make the date palms go away.
(There had been so many date palms at the sides of the access road, because griffons would eat fruit to get quick sugars for flight. They would leave the ranch, head into the city, eventually turn back, and the scent of dates was the sign that they were coming home...)
"Is there?" Her voice felt toneless.
"There's a lot of theories," Miranda wearily added. The skin around the mare's eyes was starting to go dark beneath the fur. A sign that she'd been awake for far too long. Her body was doing a better job at hue-blending than its owner. "If you visit the library during the right hours, you might eventually hear Twilight making notes on all of them. In this case..."
The shadow of a mare, which still had its belly and barrel flat against the floor, shifted a little against the hallway stone. More tiny bits of debris jittered for a moment, stopped.
"...manifest is usually about a recognition of your true self. Or at least that's the idea. Not the whole of a pony, but... the dominant facet of their lives. But there's supposed to be exceptions. Most of them exist in history, because the world is more stable now. Safer."
Fleur softly, almost automatically snorted.
The dark unicorn ignored it. "The idea was that... for a child of the right age, who hadn't been through the True Surge yet, if they were in a dangerous situation with no other way out --"
It was cold, down there in the cells. It just wasn't cold enough to justify the officer shivering that much.
"-- there was a chance for the mark to manifest. As a protective effect. Your talent would become the thing you needed most to keep you alive..."
The former escort almost casually watched the blended fur vibrate against itself.
"Not a theory," Fleur agreed. "Something proven. I've never met anypony else who had it happen that way." Another, softer snort. "Live in Equestria long enough and you'll hear a lot of 'how I got my mark' stories. There's a lot of basis for comparison. It doesn't happen often, but... it happens."
The grey-green eyes were examining Fleur's face. No appreciation of beauty, for whatever might remain of it in the cell. Just -- looking.
And then the gaze flickered to Fleur's right hip.
"Your mark," Miranda said. "What is it?"
Instantly irritated, "If we've been talking about my talent this much and you still need me to start over --"
"-- the icon, Fleur," the officer clarified. "I've never seen that one before. I don't think anypony in town has. A unique talent, and a unique mark to go with it --"
"-- I'm not sure it's unique," Fleur interrupted. "Maybe here. But it could be on a few ponies in Protocera. It's vague enough to potentially represent multiple talents."
As long as it never indicates anything like mine.
"So what is it?" Because no officer could ever leave something alone.
"Aciēs." And realized her teeth had clacked, just as Miranda's mouth began to open again. "It's... hard to describe in Equestrian. The translation is something of a moving target. It's situational. But in this context -- it's insight. That's the base of it. There's also a connotation of piercing: something that can reach within, potentially wound. That's why the icon is a little sharp." The Protoceran casually shrugged. "If you could read Griffonant, you might come across it eventually. But you'd need to be looking at the classics. Modern writing is a little different."
"But in Equestria," Miranda softly recognized, "it's unique."
Fleur nodded. "Which makes it easy to lie about --"
Pale violet eyes briefly flickered closed.
"-- I met them when I was coming out of that path behind your house," Fleur quietly continued. "Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie. They'd never seen my icon before, they told me they were searching for their own marks, and... they wanted to know how they could get mine."
She heard the sharp inhalation on the other side of the bars, and it created a moment where she almost appreciated the mare's reaction. It had been the sound of horror.
"And I told them..." She forced her eyes open again, made herself look at the blended fur. "...that it wasn't a mark for fillies. That they didn't want it. A mark which came not from what they might be, but because something happened. That I didn't want to see my mark on anypony else, ever. Because it should never happen to them, and..."
She doesn't understand.
Sun has to be up by now. I talked for so long, I confessed and the only one who heard it all is somepony who can't understand...
"...if I heard they were trying to get my mark, I'd stop them. I meant that." Her right foreleg jerked, and the hoof impacted the bars. "But I should have said 'stop it'. Anything which would recreate my talent is something which has to be stopped. It isn't a mark for fillies, because..."
Her head was so heavy. The weight of the restraint, and something more.
She'd talked, and it hadn't done any good. It never would.
The only reason to keep talking was to keep away something which was only one step removed from silence. The heart of her nightscape. A place where only one sound existed, and the worst thing was hearing it stop.
"...as soon as you have it," Fleur softly concluded, "you can't be a filly any more. Innocence always dies, Miranda: always. You could argue that... it was created to die. No one's innocent forever. You can't be. But..."
The weight felt as if it was about to press her chin into the stone. More damage to her cosmetics, if there were even any left.
"...not like that. Not like me. If he'd assaulted her, when she didn't have her mark, and... it happened again..."
Were those her tears? How saturated was her fur, to let the moisture reach her skin?
Crying in front of Miranda Rights. Something which could only make Fleur look weak. She hated looking weak...
"...never again," Fleur whispered. "Not like that. Not like me. No one should ever be like me..."
And then there were twenty eternal seconds where it was just the water dripping in the speaking tubes again.
"From what you said," Miranda finally resumed, "he never managed the physical rape. But your talent --" and the mare was shaking now, something which was no part of the micropebbles which briefly danced along the floor, ears flattened against the skull and tail curled up as a useless barrier against the left flank "-- put him into your mind. He -- he raped your --"
"-- I had to stop it from happening to her," Fleur cut the mare off. "There was no other choice. There should never be anything like me again --"
"-- do you ever think about what you might have missed?"
The former escort blinked.
Another topic switch. Still trying to disorient me.
With that stupid, soft, almost sympathetic voice.
She's got everything she needs to kill me. She could stop any time.
But Miranda's dubious presence was the only thing keeping the nightmares away.
"What I missed," Fleur partially repeated. "I don't know what you mean."
"Your mark," the dark mare steadily clarified, ears slowly lifting again and rotating forward. "From what you said earlier, you were probably on track to become a veterinarian. Do you ever think about that?"
Yes.
Just... never for long. It hurt too much --
"There's no point," Fleur irritably stated. "You only get one manifest, and you can't take it back. One --" the next word was spat "-- miracle, and it turns out to be the wrong one. Something which comes with a price. This is what I am."
"What you are," Miranda softly twisted the words. "Anything like you. You don't like yourself very much, do you?"
"So they're offering psychology classes as part of what passes for police training now? You're the one who kept saying it," Fleur shot back. "Right from the start. That you knew what I was. Not who -- "
The dark ears were still lofted. But the other mare's head had dipped.
"-- I'm sorry."
It almost triggered a laugh: something which would have been a single sharp note, resounding against iron just long enough to create its own dance of dust. "You're a lousy liar."
The silence briefly closed in again.
"Did you ever find out what happened to the stallion who assaulted you? Or -- did you ever find him --"
"One murder," Fleur half-snarled. "One. I wouldn't normally describe it that way, but around here, you'd say true justice counted --"
"-- Fleur --"
The restraint was getting heavier.
"He was caught four days later."
Miranda blinked.
"He was --"
"-- the community was out looking for me," Fleur stated. "Looking for a murderer."
"We need to talk about that," Miranda broke in. "Before I go back up, we have to --"
She didn't care. The officer had enough for a court to convict: that was what mattered. The interruption, however, was annoying. "But I managed to get my account of his actions to the sheriff's house, remember? It's the sort of allegation which they have to investigate. I knew he'd taken the photographs with him and since I'd seen his puzzle, I knew what they were pictures of. I wasn't sure he could make himself dispose of them. They were his trophies. And he'd just become a lot easier to describe. He could change his fur color with the right dyes, maybe risk theatrical contacts -- for one eye. So they started looking for two ponies, and he's the one they found. I saw the articles."
The faint note of disbelief was even more annoying. "Articles --"
"-- we have newspapers," Fleur irritably declared. "Like a civilized country. I was scavenging every copy I could find, trying to find out what was going on. Also, unlike a certain nation I could name, we happen to have real libel laws --"
"-- how was he caught?"
Fleur sighed.
"The eye socket was starting to show signs of infection. He was afraid to look for a doctor, because any physician would have compared the wound to what I'd written about and sent for the police. So he tried to break into a pharmacy instead, and he didn't know how to neutralize the alarms. It was easy after that. And once they had him, they made him take them to where he'd hidden the pictures, and... that was enough to start it."
They found him before I did.
I should have thought --
She'd followed the case as closely as she could. Some of that had meant sneaking into libraries to look up portions of the vocabulary, followed by looking for a private place in which she could curl up --
Starkly, "Start his execution."
"Do you always try to make your blind guesses sound like facts? -- oh, wait: you're a police officer. It comes with the mark." Fleur didn't even bother looking at the officer's expression: in any case, it would have been too hard to make out through the ghosts of headlines. "It started the trial. And that took a while. He told me he'd traveled a lot. He had reasons to keep moving. They had to track down all of the children in the pictures, and that meant going into multiple nations. Eventually, in order to keep the jurisdictions from clashing, the whole thing went to international court. The Beastriality usually doesn't hear that kind of case, but with so many countries involved, it was just easier. But when it came to how the trial came out..."
Miranda's next sentence wasn't quite a statement. The vowels were being haunted by a hint of plea. "He was found guilty."
Fleur nodded.
"What was the sentence?"
"...that was the problem," the former escort quietly stated. "If he'd been tried in Protocera, on that many charges... it would have been death. But there were six nations involved. The judges had to find a compromise. And they decided to imprison him in the one where he'd done the most. His lawyer fought for that. That was Prance, and it put his fate under their standards. So he's still alive. And -- he was out of reach."
The plea overwhelmed the borders of hint, raced for the outskirts of demand. "But it's for life --"
"Thirty-eight years, seven moons, two days. That's when he's eligible for release," Fleur softly said. "Give me a clock and I'll tell you hours and minutes."
"And you just know that," Miranda carefully echoed.
"I'm good with time."
The mares breathed. Dust danced. Water droplets on the drinking fountain's nozzle were momentarily vibrated towards a wall.
"They caught him," the officer eventually resumed. "But not you. How?"
That was good for a snort. "Do you know anything about makeup? Oh, wait: I'm looking right at you. The question just answered itself --"
"-- I know you don't like me," Miranda cut her off. "And that's why you kept insulting me whenever you could, every time we saw each other before this: you didn't like me. Now it feels more like you've decided that I pity you and if you can just make me mad enough, I'll have to stop --"
"-- do the psychology courses offer a refund?" Which was when several tiny pieces of formerly-ceiling grit hit Fleur's head. "What's going on up there?"
"Pretend it's ponies bringing in new cabinets to accommodate all this testimony," Miranda irritably shot back.
"So you don't know --"
"-- it's just movement."
"There's a lot of it."
"Fleur --"
The former escort's head dipped again.
The heaviness had reached her eyelids. She couldn't sleep. She'd just been in the nightscape: she had to keep herself from going back...
"Makeup," Fleur repeated. "At first, that was staining myself with some of the local leaves. Carefully. After a while, I got to where I could find fur dye, and get my soap back. Doctor Groomer's. You probably haven't heard of it, but --"
"-- we use it to scrub down crime scenes after all of the evidence has been gathered."
A disrupted eyebrow went up. "I'm almost impressed." If you looked at the soap as that kind of cleanup tool, then there were so many more ways to use it! Of course, if it left behind any identifiable residue of its own, then the police would be looking for somepony with a supply of soap. Checking stores to ask about purchases of a product which had never had the sales it truly deserved...
I must be tired. I almost said that out loud.
"Fur dye normally stinks for a few hours after you apply it," the officer continued. "You were using the soap to cut the scent, so you didn't have to find a place to isolate yourself for that much time and didn't need to go out smelling like fur dye. Correct?"
Fleur nodded. "It was clumsy at first. But I could change my appearance enough to get by. Then I started to learn about makeup, and -- griffons don't always look at your whole face, because the expressions are almost entirely in the upper portion. I was trying to find out about Saddle Arabian caparison because some of us remember our international studies, and it would hide more of my features -- but that was when my growth spurt hit."
"You just winced."
The Protoceran sighed. "I was on the small side. And then I wasn't. You hardly ever see unicorns my size: a pony who can just about look Princess Cadance directly in the eye. And it happened fast, Miranda: too fast. Growing pains? They're real. It's a throbbing in all four legs, an ache in the spine and neck. All of my joints hurt for moons, so badly that it was hard to sleep. But they were looking for a filly, a little one. Then I didn't match that part of the description any more."
"Extra height and length," the officer almost passively observed. "Increasing skill in using cosmetics to alter your features..."
"And they didn't know what my mark was," Fleur finished. "The one thing which I couldn't change, that identified me to anyone. There was only one pony who might have gotten a look, and --" there was no point in not being openly satisfied "-- he was half-blind before he was half-blind. The light from the manifest. I don't think he was able to tell them what it looked like."
Miranda slowly nodded. "It still leaves a gap, Fleur. A huge one. Even the fastest growth spurt is going to take a couple of years to finish, especially as tall as you are."
With a faint smirk, "Has anypony ever asked Celestia about --"
"-- and you've told me enough about your home's culture to let me guess this," the officer forced on. "A child on her own for too long, who isn't seen running home all the time because she doesn't have one, is going to be noticed. It didn't sound like you were carrying any money when you left home, you couldn't go back to your community, and your birth city was out. You were alone. How did you survive?"
It wasn't that the questions were becoming too personal. She'd confessed, and... after that, the mere concept of 'too personal' had turned into its own joke. And talking meant staying awake, keeping herself away from the dreams for a while longer.
There wasn't much point in not answering the dark unicorn. It was just that the motivation for the question had been annoyingly obvious.
"You already have enough to convict," Fleur steadily pointed out. (The cell vibrated again: she irritably shifted her right foreleg and watched the latest bits of debris fall away from the circlet.) "And every crime I can potentially confess to here had the statute of limitations run out a long time ago --"
"-- you're not the only one who solves puzzles," Miranda placidly countered. "I want the rest of the pieces."
Fleur shrugged.
Casually, "I told you about the gangs."
And then the officer was staring at her again.
"I had to find the ones who were trying to be sincere about it," Fleur added. "The ones who were just posturing... if they thought I was going to a cubbyhole somewhere instead of home, they would have turned me in eventually. For my own good. And the ones who were really trying to find dominance on that path... they usually didn't last long. There were times when I was the last one out. Or the first, because it didn't take long to realize when a pride had pushed too far and the police were about to remind them of who was really in charge. And then it was time to find another. Which usually meant a different city..."
She knew dozens of tail twitch patterns. Ways to hitch a hock in mid-step. Signals to the world.
This is my territory.
Who wants to tell me it isn't?
She might be the last sapient on the planet who remembered them at all.
"But none of them ever used seeds," the tall mare quietly added. "Not as part of an induction. They had other ways. Some of them wanted to know what you could bring to the gang, and... it didn't take me long to realize that I needed a weapon. Something which wasn't basic field uses or my horn. So I thought about my trick, and what it might be able to really do if I just put more effort into it. I tested it..."
The calm had been audibly forced. "On who?"
Fleur's lips twitched.
"Milk can't press charges."
Miranda blinked.
"...milk." Which had emerged as something leaden, weighed down with stun.
"My milkshake," Fleur declared, "brings all the reeves to the hideout. I don't own a lot of devices or wonders, Miranda. I've never needed a blender. I practiced on milk bottles. Then I tried to see if I could break the glass. Eventually, I figured out where the limits were. So sometimes, I was just the unicorn in the corner who could make everyone's refreshments. If they looked at my mark, asked about my talent... it was insight. I just kept lying about what kind. But I didn't show many of them the full extent of what I could do. Not unless they attacked me. And even then..." Openly disgruntled, "...you pretty much saw. It's too slow." And it was almost impossible to manage more than one target at a time, plus the double corona made her vulnerable. "I never killed, not after... her. But I had to defend myself a few times. A couple of broken bones is normally enough to stop just about anyone."
Her eyes closed again.
"None of them were worth massages," her memory quietly continued. "But there were times when I was the gang's cook, at least at the start. It just wasn't always enough. And there were -- other unicorns, here and there. The ones who thought they were rebels. You needed something to do, when you weren't parading around your territory or trying to figure out what a soap label really meant, just for the laughs. So we talked about how they used their magic..."
"Breaking and entering," Miranda decided.
For starters.
Fleur's lips twitched again. "I was just talking about the statutes of limitations having run out. Also applies to all the times I was asked to serve as a distraction." And she almost smiled. "Griffons usually don't see it. There's some marriages between griffons and ponies in Protocera. Only a few in Equestria, from what I was told. When it isn't the same culture, there's -- a lot to get past. And that's before you figure for species. So most griffons didn't see it, not on more than an intellectual level. But for a lot of ponies, I was becoming very distracting. And I knew when I could distract someone. I always knew..."
She slowly shook her head. It seemed to take more effort than it should have.
"...always," Fleur finished. "There was this one gang, just before the end, when I was getting ready to leave Protocera... they thought they were the real thing. They'd even made a few connections. One was supposed to be international. Things I needed. And they weren't about to accept a few unicorn tricks, no matter how skilled I was. They wanted something big. So after everything else had failed, I... told them I knew how to brew a poison. Something which I knew wouldn't kill. But I wouldn't do it myself. I only showed one of them how. And for the induction test... their leader made me drink it."
The iron bars shook in their housings.
Far too softly, "What did it feel like?"
I killed my sister.
If you could think, you would live. And so that had been the thought. Over and over, until it had ended.
"There's things which hurt more."
Air shifted in the tubes. In and out, over and over.
"I didn't let that one pass," Fleur added. "Once I had the paperwork, I took them apart. Saved the police a raid. It's easy, when you know who's secretly lusting after whom, and -- you won't let it be a secret any more. But that was how it worked, Miranda. Gang after gang. Sleeping in abandoned buildings. Shifting locations, and trying to secure new ones. Sometimes, once I could pass for being older, it would be sleeping in the hideout. Some of them did that: extra rebellion, not going back home every night. I could always tell how well I was doing by how good my spot was. The quality of the nest. But it wasn't enough. No one can gallop with the gangs forever. And I was trying to learn. Get into libraries, make sure I finished my education on my own. I needed albums: audio models, so I could get rid of my accent. I'd learned about Equestria, everypony told me I was pretty even if I wasn't their type, I had to make a plan, and -- it all centered on getting that paperwork. The real criminals would have never let a kid in, and when you pass for an adult on first glance -- they check. They have standards, where the gangs only posture and pretend. I was just looking for the one which was on the border. Enough to have those connections. Trying to save time..."
"And you left Protocera," Miranda observed. "Which means you were after identity papers. Something which would let you cross the border. Pass for a native-born Equestrian. And you'd learned about escorts --"
-- she stopped. Stared at Fleur.
"...what?"
"How old are you?"
Defensively, "I'm an adult."
"It's not as if I can check your paperwork," Miranda noted with frustration. "Not yet --"
-- and stopped again.
"...it's not even your real name, is it?" the dark mare slowly said. "I should have realized that an hour ago. Any search would be for your birth name. I'm talking to a fiction made of ink and faked forms..."
The violet eyes closed again.
"Call me Fleur," the unicorn requested. "I'm used to it. I'll... write the other one down, for when you need to check with Protocera. The spelling is a little complicated. I'll be tried under it, when the time comes. But... just call me Fleur."
She'd wanted something exotic: an appellation which could mean nopony but her. And pony names had felt as if they could be anything. She'd just... messed up on the format.
Nopony had cared. She was beautiful.
"It's not your name --"
"-- it's a mare's name," Fleur stated. "There was a filly, and..."
I have to stop
"...she died. It's Fleur. Please."
She listened to the dark mare breathe.
"When did you cross?"
"Two days after Sun didn't come up. I didn't reach Canterlot for a while after that."
"And you'd already decided to become an escort."
You're not saying my name.
Insistently, "It was something I could do. I was beautiful. But it doesn't last. I only had so much time to work with and no matter how full my schedule was, I wasn't earning enough. It takes a lot of money to create true security. Once my looks were gone... that was it. I didn't have a normal mark, not where it's a skill you can use for a lifetime --"
"-- it sounds like you picked up all kinds of skills --"
"-- and I had to make sure everything was finished before my escort time ran out. Just being an escort was its own risk --"
The tones were too calm again. "Rape?"
"...I can stop a rapist," Fleur eventually said. "I think I proved that much. Just about every escort can, because that's part of the training. It was exposure. Just going to a party where there was a griffon in attendance. I got an apartment close to the Aviary because... it was the best way to hear what was going on. And it was a constant risk. The thought that even with all the years, all of my makeup... someone would figure it out. I ran that risk every day. But it was the best way to know. It was better than being ambushed. Just having the wrong person pass me on the street. Or wonder why I had classic Protoceran iconography for a mark. I had excuses prepared there. Grandparents from the old country..."
She heard the dark mare scoot forward slightly. Tiny, hooking movements of the forelegs, shifts of belly and barrel.
Softly, "What's it like, Fleur? Being scared all the time?"
I'm not --
The facade of her life had caught fire. The lies were burning down.
Fleur opened her eyes.
"Exhausting."
They looked at each other for a moment. Just... looked.
"You put yourself in a position where you had access to the highest levels of society," Miranda finally said. "Secrets at a glance, blackmail on the scroll which followed. Getting money all the faster. Dominating..."
The dark mare slowly shook her head. Looked at Fleur again. "I have a few more questions."
The former escort waited.
"When you were talking about your relationship with your sister," the officer began, "you kept using two terms. Guardian and charge. Explain that."
Why was that something which needed to be explained? Oh, right. Ponies. "She was stronger than I was. So I was her responsibility. It's... normal. Our parents were the link above ours, so they could override her at any time. But they usually didn't. She was my teacher." Fleur's eyes began to close. "My protector --"
"-- the monster," Miranda cut in again. "That fight. She couldn't lift you? No pressure carry?"
And wrenched open again, as the snarl began to twist her features. "I should have lifted myself," Fleur shot back. "I was too afraid. I couldn't concentrate enough to take off. A real griffon would have flown to safely. That's why the top of the firewall trench is always open --"
"-- I asked you a question, Fleur."
You're questioning her. What she did. Going after the dead.
Her lips were pulling back from her teeth. "She wouldn't have gotten all of her wingpower until she was older. She could manage herself. That was it. It's why children don't hunt. You can't always keep the prey off the ground --"
"-- you couldn't concentrate enough to lift yourself," Miranda interrupted. "But you managed a triple corona in less than a second when you were trying to defend her --"
"-- and it did nothing! Trying to do anything is the worst thing I can --"
"-- do you want me to bring Sweetie down here later, so you can tell her that yourself?" the officer calmly asked. "Or should I give her the speech and save you the trouble?"
Her knees were painfully flexing again, hooves scrabbling for support. "That's not fair --"
"You were her charge." The dark mare's volume was rising. "The one she had to protect. You said she loved you, and I know you loved her, Fleur. I'll take that much from everything you've told me: you were capable of love once. But she loved you. Did you ever consider that she was trying to buy you time? That she knew her magic might not be strong enough, but if she could just get a few seconds for you to run --"
"Prey runs! It shouldn't have been her! It should have been --"
"-- she gave her life for you! Your teacher, Fleur, and I'd say you paid attention because the last lesson was sacrifice!"
(They were both standing again. Fleur wasn't sure how it had happened. She was convinced she'd gotten up first.)
"Is that how you see Sweetie?" Not quite a shout from Miranda, not all that far off either. "Children? As your charges, that you'll trade your life for theirs? There's something about the way you deal with children, Fleur, and I'm not sure it all comes from being Protoceran. I talked to a lot of ponies last night. Zipporwhill's mother was wondering why you stopped. Why you didn't come any closer --"
Desperate, full desperation and she didn't understand why. "-- I know how easy it is to create a new piece, so many interactions can do it, Sweetie has a crush on me, I was worried about what could happen just from taking her home --"
Grey-green eyes went wide, and did so with enough force to stop Fleur's frantic words.
"-- you're terrified! Because your first pedophile was the first, the first puzzle to go into your mind! You try to avoid any close interactions unless it's a crisis, because you're terrified that he left something of himself in you --"
The metal of the restraint slammed into the bars. Nothing broke, and the vibrations were lost in the sudden, ignored trembling of the cell.
"SHUT UP! I've never -- I would never -- they're innocent --"
Just about all of the dark mare's decibels vanished at once.
"-- and you'll do anything to make sure they stay that way."
Breathing too hard, too fast. "They're the last link... if you can't protect..."
"And is that how you see Fluttershy? As your charge?"
She was reeling. Her weight kept shifting from leg to leg and none of them were willing to support her. There wasn't enough oxygen in her lungs, in the cell, in the world.
I
the acid
I'm afraid
I can't be afraid
she's a police officer, she's lying
"I'm trying to teach her! She's naive: she needs someone who'll help! But she's -- she's strong, she's stronger than anypony believes, she's stronger than me --"
"And you call yourself a murderer," Miranda broke in. "You're convinced you're a murderer, and that means you can commit any crime because you've already done the worst thing you could ever do --"
"-- it's about protecting the helpless! She... her mind was gone, Miranda, because of me! She couldn't understand anything, like an infant who could never grow up! What's weaker than that? There's no greater sin than hurting --"
The officer's snout was a featherwidth away from the bars.
"-- the door. The one which blocked off the monster pen, the one where the charge ran out."
"I disrupted --"
Hot breath blasted against dirty fur. "You studied magic, Fleur. You learned from some of the gang members, and independently. Followed by experimenting." Miranda's breaths were coming in great heaves, the dark rib cage almost seeming to shake as it moved in and out. "You're very creative. But do you charge devices? Something just about any unicorn can do? Have you ever risked that again?"
"SHUT --"
I can get my horn through the gap in the bars, the restraint doesn't matter, if I hit her in the throat she'll shut up
"I need to ask you a question. Did you ever, for one second, ask yourself if that door --"
-- and the entire cell jumped.
Fleur, who'd been trying to adjust and plant for the horn thrust, found herself caught with two hooves off the ground. It left her falling to the side, and her only consolation as her ribs slammed into stone was getting to see Miranda go into the bars headfirst.
"...what?" The officer recoiled from the iron, stared at the ceiling. "What just --"
That was when the sirens went off.
It was a wail. The sound filled the cells, tried to break the air in half, and all Fleur could do was flatten her ears against her skull as the noise went on and on, a din which seemed as if it had to encompass Ponyville before it reached all the way to Sun. Lying on her side, unable to reorient or get up or do anything to make it stop, and it gave her a perfectly distorted view of dark hooves pounding towards the exit.
She could barely hear the sounds of that movement. The more subtle noises from the speaking tubes had been lost, and the door slamming behind Miranda made itself known through sight alone. Her legs were kicking out, she couldn't make the sound end, and time blurred, flowed through her as grit dancing against her fur and the endless scream of memory --
-- the sirens stopped.
Just for a second. Then there were three high-pitched blasts, shorter bursts of decibels. Fifteen seconds, and the pattern repeated --
-- she heard the door open, moving with enough force to nearly rebound off the wall. Hooves pounded, and she looked up at a dark face and horn ablaze with green-grey, there was something small and hard trailing at the mare's side and the rest of the field was projecting at speed --
-- it hit the door. The lock clicked, and the next burst of vibration helped to get the cell open.
"Can you stand up?" Miranda demanded as she entered. And it was a demand, she was an officer and it couldn't be anything else, but there was something else there, another lie --
"I --"
"Can you?"
She struggled. Twisted, got her legs into position, pushed. It left her looking down at the dark mare.
"I'm right on top of you, Fleur," Miranda half-hissed. "I have a paperweight in my field, a metal one. I can get it to your horn in less than a second. Do you understand me?"
The nod had to fight its way into the world. There was a lot of confusion to get through. "I'm restrained. Why do you need to --"
-- this is an excuse, she's going to say I did something, she'll make it look like a backlash --
The words were darker than the fur. "Not any more."
Miranda's corona intensified. Energy touched the restraint, and the jigsaw provided the next click. Then another, and another...
The sirens blasted again. Three times, and the intervening silence was just enough to let Fleur hear the first distant screams.
"What's -- what's happening --"
She sounded uncertain. Shaky. She hated that. And the restraint was coming apart, Miranda Rights was freeing her horn --
"We're evacuating," the dark mare told the former escort. "The entire town. Including you. Now. The Bearers are going to stay and --" A sharp breath. "-- do whatever they can. But you're leaving."
"We're --" It was happening too fast, she didn't understand... "You're -- letting me --"
The dark mare reared up. Just enough to let her glare directly into Fleur's eyes, and then she dropped back down.
"Because I just saw what's outside," Miranda snapped. "And if I leave you in here with a restrained horn, that's murder. You clear the building, and you run. What's your assigned evacuation route? When was your last trial gallop --" and the blended fur rippled across the wince. "-- you came into town two days after the last one and the next is in two weeks. Just follow somepony, anypony. Try to reach the train station. Follow the tracks towards Canterlot, because that way, you're within the protections which guard the rail routes."
The first piece of metal fell away from Fleur's horn. Clattered to the floor, and vibrated towards the hallway.
"If that's even enough," Miranda muttered. "Sun and Moon, if we can just buy some time..."
"You..." Too much. Too fast. She just need a second, a single instant where she could reorient, a moment granted to a mare whose time had already run out... "You're -- letting me leave?"
The first part of the response came across as something close to a bark. It almost could have been a laugh.
"I'm trusting that we don't have any other pedophiles in town, or we'd already have a few corpses to deal with," Miranda declared, field working faster and faster. "I need every officer: nopony has time to foalsit you. You're not going to hurt a child. You won't gain any benefit from attacking adults, and you're too smart to do anything like taking a hostage because you know it won't work. But when it comes to leaving --"
The crucial piece came free, and the entire puzzle tumbled down. Two pieces bounced off Fleur's snout. One hit her right foreleg during the drop, and clanged to the side.
Miranda's field projected directly for that leg. Seized it, yanked it forward in a burst of aches and strain, left Fleur scrambling for balance as the rough movement pulled the limb into sight. Just enough to see the circlet.
"-- I'm just letting you run," the dark unicorn furiously snapped. "Because I can find you. And you will never get away."
She turned. Just enough so that she could get out of the cell, watching Fleur as the paperweight closed the gap, ready to induce backlash. And that was how she left the lower level, just about backing up all the way to the door, until she was on the ramp and the paperweight dropped, cut off from the flow of corona as hooves pounded again.
Other ponies might have hesitated. Become lost in questions and terror, until the last chance to act was gone.
Fleur, with a griffon's heart, used the first moment of officer-free peace for whatever degree of centering could be found, and raced for the exit.
She didn't really take stock of the police station on the way out. If you were in that kind of building and had a ready exit, the most important thing was to use it. Besides, there was no way that the police chief was going to keep a device for circlet removal within Fleur's reach, especially when the building seemed to have been abandoned. There were no other officers in sight, and Fleur's best guess was that they were all outside. Trying to respond to the screams --
-- the building shook, more powerfully this time. She didn't know if the strength of the vibration was going to keep increasing, and she had no intention of finding out indoors. The exit looked as if it was right over there --
-- and she was under Sun because the world was still just barely normal enough for that to have been raised, it was cold and crisp and very nearly winter, her breath snapped into sight as wisps of fog emitting from her nostrils, her disarrayed fur felt as if it had just crackled with frost and she lost all of that because she was under Sun.
She was also within the shadow.
She knew the monster had a name.
(So many of them had names, and Fleur would eventually recall most of them. Protocera didn't believe in censoring classic tales for grifflets, because most of the fear was negated through knowing that victory had come. And taking out the blood was just stupid.)
It was mostly black, except for where it was puce and where neither of those applied, that was where the concept of color tried to suicide. It was tall enough to blot out a good part of the sky, more than seven times the height of Ponyville's highest building, and Sun had cast its shadow across the police station and most of what lay beyond.
The monster was still quite some distance off. It moved slowly, because there was never a hurry. The tales said it didn't stop, and something which never rested didn't really have to worry about what it took to catch up. Nothing could flee forever. And it was slow because it had so much weight to shift, enough that every time one of the thick trunks coated in maggot-weeping armor plates of non-bark came down again, the world shook.
It was in no hurry. It didn't need to worry about reaching the ponies who screamed and fled and tried to reach the tracks, desperately seeking any degree of impossible safety. But it did need to keep moving, because it was just possible for Fleur to see behind it and if the monster stopped, the rest of the line coming in from the fringe stood a good chance to walk into it.
Or fly.
Or slime.
Rising fumes suggested that one of them was melting its way towards the town. Newly-fused glassy ground presumably provided a smooth trail.
There were at least seven monsters, with the possibility that more were still trying to catch up. But she had the clearest view of the one at the front. The grotesque trunks of the support limbs, and the twisted masses of the handling ones. There were eight of those: three on each side, one on the sternum, and another arced over the back.
Most of her attention was caught up by the limb group on the right. The entire trio had already united in a single effort. Something which took almost none of the monster's strength to manage, and far too much of its focus. It existed to destroy, and it went against its nature not to corrode and corrupt what it was carrying. So it concentrated, and kept the burden intact.
The monster possessed all the mercy of a lightning strike. And under normal circumstances, it was death and destruction and inescapable doom.
Except that there was another 'd' word which it apparently felt needed to apply.
The monster was the size of a hill, and it was carrying a bouquet.