//------------------------------//
// Lost Souls chapter 3-4 
// Story: Lost Souls 
// by Claystead 
//------------------------------//

Lost Souls - Part II

Chapter 3: Light Breeze

RE: POSSIBLE DISAPPEARANCES
CONTINUE INVESTIGATION STOP
CONTACT MPD IF VIOLENT ACTS ARE BELIEVED TO BE INVOLVED STOP
SUGGESTED THAT YOU VISIT MAYOR FOR ARCHIVE ACCESS STOP
GOOD LUCK [MESSAGE END]

“Bad news, sir?” The telegraph office clerk looked worried at the frowning Royal Guard in front of his desk.	
Second lieutenant Winter Dawn looked up. “Possibly. Thanks, anyway.” He threw a couple of bits at the counter.

Outside the bright May sun spread its radiant shine across the hills surrounding Ponyville. Dawn’s gaze fell on the two ponies chatting by a picket fence across the road. He went over to them.
“Seriously? You were involved the Discord incident last year? And the reappearance of the Crystal Empire? Next thing, you’re going to tell me you and your friends somehow had a hoof in the return of Princess Lu-“
Dawn smacked his tongue to catch the attention of the guard. Second lieutenant Dusk Quartz stopped mid-sentence and turned away from the purple unicorn he had been talking to.

“Oh, hey Dawn, Twilight here was just telling me ‘bout-“Quartz was distracted once more, this time by a few strands of his grey-white plume falling down in front of his eyes. Dawn went for the opening.
“That is no doubt very interesting Mini, but we’ve got to go see the mayor about those disappearances Drops told me about. I’m sorry, Ms. Sparkle, but I’ve got to borrow him for a few hours.”
Twilight nodded understandingly and bade them farewell.

The two stallions started trotting in the direction of the central plaza of the little town.
“What happened to Raff and Sailing? Where’d they go off to?” inquired Dawn. 
“I sent the privates to interview the guests from somepony named Pokey Pierce’s party. Apparently the last thing Bon Bo-, sorry, Drops, heard from Lyra Heartstrings was that she was going there one of the evening while Drops was away. And here’s where it gets interesting: the party was the same night our little filly went missing.”
“Hmm… interesting indeed…”

“What’d the telegram say?” The question was innocent enough, but Quartz’ inquiring tone had a ring of curiosity to it that contrasted it greatly from the slightly disinterested professional tone they had kept so far. Dawn looked at his partner for a second. His blue eyes had given an impression of naiveté when they first met on the train, but now he could see that they had a… twinkle, of sorts. These weren’t the eyes of an up-and coming more-brawns-than-brains hooflicker, but focused eyes that seemed to hint at a cold and calculating intelligence working behind them. Dawn blinked a couple of times and remembered what he was doing.

“That we were to continue our search. Captain Armor answered personally, it seems. He suggested that we go see the mayor to ask her about these disappearances. The town must keep some tabs on what ponies suddenly do not turn up to work or at home one day and remain as such for weeks.”

A few minutes later they arrived at the town hall, a somewhat imposing building compared to the low houses around, despite the dolled-up design.
Dawn raised an eyebrow as they entered the small foyer on the ground floor. “Mini, stay here. I’ll head up the mayor’s office. Try to find out where the archives are, would you?”
He started walking up the staircase on the other side of the room without looking back to see if Quartz nodded.

Dawn approached the female secretary sitting behind a small desk outside an important-looking office door on the second floor. “Excuse me, but is this the office of the Ponyville mayor? I would like to have a quick chat with her about some reported disappearances, if it is not too much hassle.”
The secretary gave him a smile. “Naturally, sir. I’ll ask if she has the time on her hooves.”

She opened the door next to her just enough to poke her head through. “Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s a gentlecolt from the Royal Guard who wishes to speak with you about some disappearances here. Do you- Yes, I see, naturally, Mrs. Mayor, of course.”
She turned towards Dawn with a fake smile. “I’m afraid the mayor is presently indisposed. She is busy… drawing up plans for… home development near the Everfree Forest. She’ll be busy with that and town council meetings for the next few weeks. Do you wish me to set you up for an appointment in June?”
“I’ll skip. Have a nice day.” he replied in a cold voice, before turning and going down the stairs again.

Quartz noticed the frown on his companion’s face as soon as it came into view. “No luck, Dawn?”
“Nope. Refuses to see me. Now how are we supposed to get into the archive?”
Quartz thought for a few seconds. “I have an idea. See that mare over there, by the side door? She’s gonna bring some accounting documents to the archive, or at least that’s what she told that clerk over there,” he pointed with a hoof to a light gray stallion fumbling with some drawer, “and he’s gonna find’er the keys. However, she’s been ogling me whenever she thinks I don’t look, which gives me an idea for a plan!”
“What is it, Mini?”

Quartz told him. He braced for the inevitable TOC! of having a hoof hitting him over the helmet, but strangely enough it never happened. He opened his eyes. Dawn looked pleased.
“Hmm, that just might work, Quartz, but we’ll need a small, quick and agile pony for the task. For example a minor.”
Quartz smiled for himself at the fact that he wasn’t called “Mini”, but answered the question out loud. “I might just know somepony we can use! Stay here.”

Luckily the orange filly appeared to not have broken any bones from her roof-jumping the day before. Quartz found her dragging a mattress in place under the edge of the same roof, indicating that she might have been planning to do the same thing again.
“Hey, kid!”
“Hmmm?” The orange filly hardly paid attention to him.
“What’s your name?” 
The filly stopped and looked at him, mattress corner still in mouth. “Scftfoo…”
She spat out the mattress. “Scotaloo, at your service!”
“Well, Scootaloo, are you fast?”
Scootaloo puffed her chest out. “Fastest in Ponyville! Well, except Rainbow Dash. And Applejack…” She looked down. “And I’m not a great flier…”
Quartz gave her a grin. “That doesn’t matter. Hey, Scootaloo, are you interested in earning fifty bits?”
Her widening pupils and raised eyebrows answered the question long before her mouth formed the words.

Golden Harvest placed the final documents in the folder. She sighed. Ponyville should really have hired someone to do this. Having to place her own land tax receipt in the archive… it would have been laughably easy to simply… She banished the thought from her mind. She was not that kind of pony. 
She went back out the door into the foyer. 
Now, what do we have here?
As she had been about to close the door somepony had leaned onto it. It was the young stallion in the Guard armor from earlier, now without his helmet. She loved unif-
“Excuse me, miss, but are you from around these parts?”
She was startled for a moment before she realized she had just been staring. She tried to suppress a blush. “I.. yeah, umm… yes?”

For Celestia’s sake, Golden, pull together!

She thought she heard a swish behind her, but a hoof on her shoulder kept her from turning around to look. 
The stallion pulled her closer and looked her directly in the eye. She felt like the blue eyes stared into her rather than on her.
“While I am sure a good-looking mare as you yourself is so busy, I would really like to ask you some questions…”
Golden Harvest felt a tingle of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Again she heard a swish, but this time she didn’t even try to turn. She brushed her mane away from her face and batted her eyelids in a way she hoped looked sensual.
“It would my pleasure, Mr…?”
“Quartz. Dusk Quartz.”

She opened her mouth to say something in response, but was interrupted right after presenting herself by a middle-aged… pegasus? He appeared to have had his wings cut clean off near the root.  He wore a similar uniform to Dusk, only with a blue plume and tail coloring instead of Dusk’s grey-white.
“Quartz. I need to see you right away. If it was okay with the miss, we’ll drop by later.” The beige stallion gave her a nod.
Dusk nodded understandingly. “Sorry, Ms. Dawn, we’ll come see you later today.”

Quartz left a confused- and hurt-looking Golden Harvest to close the door to the archive. He met up with Dawn and an eager Scootaloo in the opposite corner of the room. Dawn beamed towards him and handed him his helmet.
“Magnificent job, Quartz! You held her eye like a boa hypnotizing its prey!”
Quartz frowned. “Maybe so, but this boa feels horrible about it.”
“Chin up, Quartz, it was for the greater good. And Scootaloo here got what we were after.”
The orange filly grinned and extended a file marked “Disappearances”. “Right under D, as you said it would be, mister!”
Quartz took it and started flipping through the pages, looking for the right year.

Dawn gave Scootaloo a small bag of coins. “There you go. Don’t spend it all at once, or your parents will tell something is amiss!”
Scootaloo made a move which was probably meant to resemble a curtsy, and took off out the front door.
Dawn turned towards Quartz. Quartz was staring at a page in the file, silent. 
“Err… Quartz, you okay? You look sort of pale…”
Quartz handed him the file without a word. Dawn looked at the open page. “Oh, paint me white and call me Celestia…”

The door to the mayor’s office flew open with a bang as it hit the wall. The secretary slipped herself into the doorway in front of the two brutish guards. “Sirs, please, you cannot enter without an appointment!”
The older guard pushed her aside. “Under the criminal authority of the Royal Guard I suspend all her current appointments and demand an immediate audience. Now, with all due respect, miss, please return to your desk or we’ll be forced to apprehend you for obstruction of justice. Have I made myself clear?”
The secretary gave a weak nod and stepped aside.

The mayor winced behind her desk. She felt like sinking into her chair.
The younger of the two closed the door and leaned towards it, as if to block an escape route. The mayor swallowed audibly.
The oldest stallion slammed his front hooves onto her desk. He looked furious. She tried to ignore the all-to-familiar file folder under his right hoof and instead put on a brave show.
“Can- Can I help you, sirs?” Her nervous grin felt woefully inadequate when confronted with the anger of the stallion in front of her.

“Help us? HELP us? Well, as a start you can tell us what THE HAY IS GOING ON HERE?!”
“I- I’m afraid I don’t understand…”
“Oh, you do, I’m certain. We were dispatched here to help you look for some missing filly, but within HOURS of our arrival I am approached by a local mare who tells me her friend is missing and that there are rumors more are? And when I today try to pay you a visit to ask you about the matter I am rejected with some asinine excuse? And finally, when we at last do get archive access, we find that there have been no less than… How many, Quartz?” He looked towards the stallion leaning towards the door.

“Thirty-six. Thirty-eight if you count Applebloom Apple and Lyra Heartstrings.”
The older stallion turned back towards the mayor.
“…Thirty freaking eight disappearances over the last three years, from a town of only a thousand or so ponies? And at no time during this process did you or anypony in town management figure it might be wise to report this upwards? So, I ask you again: What. The. Hay. Is. Going. ON?” He punctuated each word by slamming his right front hoof onto her desk.
The mayor shook all over. She felt an incredible urge to roll into a little ball in a corner.

“S-sorry, b-but as ma-mayor I am not at liberty to discuss town issues with-without an of-official-URK!”
The stallion had hooked her collar with his hoof and pulled her so close to his face that only she could hear his irate whisper.
“Mayor Mare, if you do not immediately give us unrestricted access to all available information, I’ll personally see to it that you are removed from office on a misconduct charge, and that you never, ever, have any shot at rising to a public office above that of mayor of some unremarkable backwater town that nobody gives a flying feather about! Have I made myself clear?”
She nodded her head furiously.
“Excellent,” he exclaimed in a normal voice as he let her collar go. “Now, tell us everything”.

“Turns out they hired a private detective after the fourth disappearance, a Twist something. The detective found nothing, I’m afraid, so the town council decided to simply hush it down and pretend it didn’t happen in order to not frighten the populace.”
Twilight scratched the back of her mane and looked at Quartz. “Oh? Seems strange…”
Quartz took a deep sip of his iced tea. “Ah-hah. We’ll ask Canterlot to clamp down on ‘er just in case. Can’t have a mayor risking the lives of her townsponies to avoid bad publicity.”
Twilight nodded silently and made a melancholy glance at the café they were sitting outside. She was worried about what this meant for her friends and herself. The purple unicorn spun her glass of ice tea for each sip, as she used to do when distracted.

“Do you- do you think something criminal is going on, Dusk?”
Quartz opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by private Sailing, who had emerged from the café. “Lieutenant! Lieutenant, I think I might have something, but I need your help!”
Quartz rolled his eyes and stood up. “Yes, what is it now, Sailing?”
“The waiter, I think he might have seen that Heartstrings mare, but his accent… I have trouble understanding it.”
“Excuse me, Twilight, I’ll be back in a moment.” Quartz sighed.

Hors d’Oeuvre twitched his hooves nervously. The stone-faced armored stallion came back with another one in an almost similar suit and with a similar facial expression. He had seen armored stallions like them before at events involving the princesses. Had he offended somepony important? Were they going to deport him back to Prance? The first of the stallions looked at him.
“Okay, Mr… Duvr, please explain lieutenant Quartz here what you told me.”
Hors swallowed. “I… uh… messieurs, I… err… she… zees mare…”
The new stallion interrupted him. “Nous pouvons prendre cela en français, si vous préférez, monsieur…»
Hearing his own language made Hors feel like a wave of confidence swept over him.
“ Vous n'allez pas me déporter?]”
The stallion shook his head and smiled.
“Non, bien sûr que non. Dites-moi ce que vous avez vu.”

“I had no idea you spoke French, sir?” Sailing raised an eyebrow as the exited the café.
Quartz smiled. “An elective subject at the SGU. Luckily I was good at it.”
“What did he say? I hardly understood a word of that la-la nonsense…”
“He said he had seen the missing mare, Lyra Heartstrings, pass by here four nights ago, just as he was about to cl- Oh, hey, Dawn! We have a ‘last seen’ time on Lyra Heartstrings.”
Winter Dawn was standing over by Twilight’s table with private Raff and a yellow pegasus earing a blue shirt Quartz recognized as the Wonderbolts’ off-duty uniform. Sailing had apparently noticed too, because he whispered “Wonderbolts? ‘Pretentious-bolts’, more like. Self-righteous bastards all of ‘em…”

Dawn didn’t seem to pay heed to the two of them. He rather looked immersed in what Twilight was talking to the pegasus about.
“… so, no, I’m afraid I haven’t seen Rainbow for weeks, Spitfire.”
Dawn finally turned towards Quartz and Sailing with a worried look. 
“Quartz, Sailing, meet Spitfire, current lead of the Wonderbolts. We know each other from a couple years back. I met her now on my way back from retrieving Raff from Rarity’s shop. She… well, you can tell them yourself, Spit.”
The yellow pegasus looked at them. “One of our aspiring Bolts, Rainbow Dash, head of weather control in this town, never showed up to one of our sessions. Because I… owe her a favor, I came here myself to look for her. But, as you heard from Twilight Sparkle here, she’s not here either, apparently.”
Quartz’ expression reflected the worried look on Dawn’s face. They looked at each other.
“Thirty-nine?”
Dawn nodded with a grim expression. 
“Thirty-nine.”

Chapter 4: Breeze

“A quarter past ten, I am sure.”
“You are certain, Mr.  Pierce?”
“Yes, I looked at the clock minutes before she left.”
“Well, then we’ll be in contact with you if we need you any further.Thank you for your cooperation.” The white pegasus guard closed his notebook. He walked over to his three colleagues. 
“Pokey Pierce says Heartstrings left his party at quarter past ten. Matches with the time you provided, sir.”
Quartz was pleased that that private Raff was warming up. He had hardly said a word the day before. The fact that Sailing, the usually more talkative of the two privates, was currently in a sour mood, might have been part of the reason. The swollen blue eye he had gotten during the interview with Golden Harvest had sent him into a fit of moping.
“Excellent, job… What are your first names, anyway?”
“Riff.” said private Raff.
“Smooth…” murmured his comrade.
Dawn laughed out loud. “Smooth, eh? Well, you gotta work to live up that name, son, or you’ll keep getting ‘gifts’ to your face like you  did back there with that mare!”

Quartz held up a hoof to stop Smooth Sailing’s angry reply. “Focus, everypony. Listen, quick recap of what we have learned so far today: there is a large number of missing ponies, but at the present, the only cases fresh enough to be viable to pursue are those of Lyra Heartstrings, the missing filly Applebloom, and possibly a weather control pony by the name of Rainbow Dash. Guests at Poky Pierce’s party, as well as an eyewitness, Hors d’Oeuvre, confirm that Heartstrings most likely disappeared within the town center somewhere between 22.15 and 22.30. Sailing, I want that info to appear in the Ponyville Express tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will lure out more eyewitnesses. Don’t mention more than you must on the total number of appearances. Say we are looking into a ‘couple’ of related cases. Raff, did you say that Rarity pony knew nothing of the Heartstrings case?”

Private Raff nodded with a stern look on his face.
“Well, I want you back there to look into the Dash case. Twilight told us they were friends. Dawn and I’ll head up to another friend of hers, a certain ‘Fluttershy’. Understood, everypony?”
The two privates gave a unison “Yes sir!” , while Dawn nodded.
“Good. Raff, meet us at the Sweet Apple Acres farm at sixteen-hundred hours, and then at twenty-hundred hours we’ll all rendezvous here. Any questions?”

Sailing slowly raised a hoof. 
“Yeah, Sailing?”
“Sir, I would appreciate it if you did not piss off any more dames before I am to talk to them. I can’t make them… comfortable if you have angered them first, as my eye evidences…”
Quartz rolled his eyes. “At least that eye made you take those silly sunglasses off… But that is noted, private. Anything else, anypony? No? Good. Let’s get going, it is Sunday today, and I promised a sergeant to be back by Tuesday, so chop-chop!” He smacked his tongue twice to speed up the separation.
Dawn closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his forehead, before he and Quartz started walking towards the Everfree forest.

“What did you say the pony we’re seeing was called again?” Dawn asked Quartz as they trotted.
Quartz looked into a small notebook he had bought earlier the same day.
“Fluttershy… something, I didn’t write down the surname. Local animal shelter administrator, licensed but not practicing veterinarian…  Huh, probably a middle-aged hag. Why don’t you use your grizzled charm to-“ DONK! “Ouch! What the hay is this thing?”
While he was looking down he had trotted right into something that looked disturbingly like a giant jar.
“Looks like a giant jar.” Dawn ingeniously remarked.
“Whoa, that was a clever one, Sherclop… But why is there a giant jar here in the middle of the street?”
“It’s not a jar, it’s a tub!”
“Huh? Who said that?” Quartz scanned up and down the quiet street, to no avail.
“Me, you fool!”

He looked up. A head had appeared over the top of the… tub.
“It is a tub, not jar! A tub of jelly!” The grey stallion made a strange smile before descending back into the jelly.
Dawn scratched the back of his helmet. “What in Celestia’s name…?”
A flash of light shattered the side of the tub. A very confused-looking stallion covered in blue jelly came sailing out on top of a small wave of the same material.

The stallion sat up on his hindquarters and looked towards the smashed tub. “You… you monsters! My tub! How could you do such a-“
“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW! PLACE YOUR HOOVES ABOVE YOUR HEAD!” Quartz yelled, his horn glowing with a golden hue just a few hoofwidths from the stallion’s face.
The stallion complied, only to have his face pushed into the mud by Quartz’ hoof.
“You are under arrest! Where is the kid?! WHERE ARE THE BODIES?!”
A gasp suddenly made Quartz aware they were being watched. There were ponies standing on their porches and in their windows, observing the spectacle in the street.

“Err… I mean… Nothing to see here, everypony, please go back inside!”
He felt a hoof on his shoulder.
“Quartz, what Celestia’s good name are you doing?”
He turned towards Dawn. “Can’t you see this must be our stallion? He lives in a giant jar-“
“Mfubb” it came from under his hoof.
“Sorry, a giant tub of jelly. He is clearly crazy, and he loiters near the place where Heartstrings disappeared. Du-uh…”
Dawn facehoofed. “You have only insinuations, Quartz. You can’t just go about arresting ponies because they are different. Now leave that poor stallion alone!”
Quartz begrudgingly stepped off the stallion.

Dawn shooed him on, and turned his head towards the grey stallion as he followed.
“My apologies, sir. You can mail the Equestrian Royal Guard at Canterlot Gardens 3c for compensation for your… tub.”
The pair of guards quickly trotted away from the scene before the stallion could realize he was angry.

Fluttershy’s “house”, a cottage apparently built into a small mound, lay on the edge of a forest Twilight Sparkle had called “Everfree”. As the two stallions approached, they could hear a soft tune being sung from somewhere ahead.
“Now where can that be coming from?” Dawn wondered out loud.

Quartz thought it was coming from the garden next to the tree. He looked around the corner, and was treated to the sight of the most incredible mare he had ever seen.
Dawn followed his gaze. “Oh, hello there, miss. Are you Fluttershy? We would like to-“
“Eeep!” The yellow pegasus ducked into the bush she had been tending to.
Dawn raised an eyebrow. “Okaaay… Quartz, have a look around the property, would you? I think this will require tact, something you obviously lack…”

Quartz hesitated, but the TOC! of a hoof hitting him over the helmet helped him resist the urge to pull the pegasus out 
of the bush and give her a hug, instead sending him trotting towards Fluttershy’s shed.
Dawn looked back towards the bush and tried again. “Please, miss, I am not here to arrest you. I just want to ask you some questions about your friend Rainbow Dash so we can find her…”

The door of the shed creaked open. Quartz tried to adjust his eyesight to the low-light conditions by rubbing them with his hoof.
He stepped over the sill. Nothing. Just darkness. He fumbled around for a light switch, but…
“Ouch!” He had cut himself on something sharp.
He suddenly went silent when he heard a clicking noise from his right. The sound came with regular intervals, as if something was walking around in there with him. He reached with his hoof towards the source of the sound. It sunk into something soft and warm.
“What in Celestia’s name…”

He lit a small light on the tip of his horn and moved it towards the soft spot. His eyes shot open. “Would you look at that…”
The cat stretched and looked hazily towards the new light source. A dozen or so little heads popped out from under the belly he was touching.

Quartz scratched the cat behind its ear.
“That’s a good mom. Who’s a goo-“
“Fluttershy? Is that you?”
He instinctively placed his right hooves behind his left ones and made a rapid parade spin by pivoting around the right hooves.

In the doorway there was a pile of scrolls that hadn’t been there before. The pile appeared to hover a few hoofwidths above the ground. It took a few seconds before Quartz’ brain made the logical connections.
“Oh, hi Twilight! Spike’s still doing alright, I see. Was he asleep when we came last night?”
“Dusk? Yes, he was asleep, but how come you are h- Move Spike! Go back to the library. I’ll come look over the checklists later.”
The pile of scrolls murmured something and disappeared off to the left on a pair of purple dragon legs.

Quartz stepped back out in the daylight. A somewhat tired-looking Twilight met him. 
“Dusk, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, we’re just asking Fluttershy over there some questions about the disappearances, and I thought I’d check the shed for any clues…”
“Fluttershy is a suspected foalnapper?” Twilight laughed out loud. “Now that was something I’d never expected to hear…”
“Twilight, you know as well as we do that this might very likely be a criminal case we are dealing with here. If that is the case, we have to suspect everypony.”
“What? Even me, Fluttershy and Spike?”
“Well, Spike is a lethal destruction machine in spe, after all…”
They looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter simultaneously.

“Oooh… Haha… No, seriously, Dusk, I need your help.”
Twilight’s sudden change of tone to a sad one caused Quartz to stop laughing as well.
“Yeah, Twilight? What is it?”
“I… with all these disappearances… my friends… I just want to… I wanna… I feel terrible, but…”
She started crying. Quartz gave a soft sigh. He lifted her chin with a hoof and looked her in the eyes.
“Don’t cry, Twilight. I promise we will find your friend and the others. The sadness will not help. I myself have had ponies I care about in need…”

Twilight sniffled and met his gaze. “What happened to them?”
Suddenly images flashed over Quartz’ retina; charred bodies, mouths agape in silent pain, the sneers of the withdrawn lips and the empty stares…
“Err… An… accident. They, uh, got through alright. Living up in, eh, Vanhoover at the moment.”
Twilight pushed away his hoof, but she looked less forlorn now. 
“Thank you for sharing that.”
“It’s nothing. Chin up, girl, this will turn out okay!”
He hoped.

“So, what are you doing here, Twilight?”
The two of them were walking up to Fluttershy’s house, were the owner was standing in the doorway chatting with Dawn, finally.
“Oh, I just wanted to have some tea with Fluttershy and talk about all that’s going on. Hey, how’s my brother, anyway? I’ve been trying to remember to ask you.”
Quartz thought for a moment. “He seemed okay last I spoke with him, but that was over a month ago. I’m up for a promotion, so we don’t want to be seen together in case ponies start talking, you know...”
Twilight nodded. “I’m sure he is happy. Well, here we are!” They stopped a few steps nehind Dawn. Twilight kept speaking. “I might be late tonight, by the way don’t stay up for me. I have to make a quick trip over to the next town to buy a book on ancient amulets. I’ve mailed the one we looked at to the Princess. I’ll probably head up to Canterlot the day after tomorrow to look at with her, and I will need to do some research beforehand. I promise to be back home before midnight, though.”
“Good luck with that, Ms. Sparkle.”

Both of them turned startled towards the approaching Winter Dawn, who had spoken. He patted Quartz on the back signaling him to walk with him.
“We need to get to Sweet Apple Acres, Quartz. This Fluttershy knew little of interest, I’m afraid, soooo we’ll try the filly’s family. Any luck looking around?”
“Nope. Nothing pertaining to the case, at least.”
“Huh. Let’s hope talking to the family will be easy and enlightening, then.”

“Y’all want me to what?” 
Private Raff raised a hoof. “Please, miss, it is in order to ease our investigation. You are a little… intrusive at times, and-“
“Intrusive? Intrusive?! Ah’ll show ya how intrusive mah hoof feels when it is nudged up in yer-“
“Up his what, miss?”
Raff turned relieved to the familiar rumbling voice of second lieutenant Dawn. He was coming up the road they were standing on.
“A thousand pardons, sir. I’m just trying to tell Ms. Apple here that-“
Dusk Quartz came up to Dawn’s side. “Is there a problem here, private Raff?”
Raff clicked his hooves and saluted. Quartz noticed he had not done it for Dawn. 

Well, I guess that makes me an authority figure, at least. Am I really scarier than old No-Wings over there?

Raff started speaking, looking at the air about a hoofwidth over Quartz’ eyes.
“Sir, I was awaiting you here as per your instructions, sir, when Ms. Apple here started bugging me. She’s been all up in Smooth’s and mine faces ever since the search was called over. I just told her that she might want to go to some relatives elsewh-“
Quartz  pushed him aside and walked up to the orange-coated mare he had been talking with.

She looked him in straight in the eye, apparently furious. Quartz did not look away, neither, opting instead to wear the standard stone-faced expression of the Guard.
“Second lieutenant Dusk Quartz, Equestrian Royal Guard, Third Regiment, and temporary co-commander of this stallion here. Who are you and why are you harassing our privates?”
The mare still did not flinch.
“Y’all can call me Applejack, not that fancy-pansy miss thing y’all seem to have going on. It happens to be mah little sister that’s missin’, and from what Ah’ve been hearing, one of mah friends might be missin‘ as well. And Ah have had it up to here with yer guards sitting around on their rumps collecting their pay from our tax money while not doing a darn thing to help find mah little sis’!”

She looked like she would keep her tirade going, but a red stallion had jumped the fence around the apple tree orchard down the road, catching her attention. Quartz guessed he was related to her. 
“Dawn, handle this, would you? I’ll have a chat with that guy once he gets over here.”

“So you have not seen neither Lyra Heartstrings nor Rainbow Dash for several weeks?
The guard looked at Big McIntosh, who thoughtfully chewed on a straw.
“Ehm… Nope?”
“But what about your sister? Applebloom, was it?”
Big Mac could not suppress a pained look at the thought of his sister being alone and scared.
“Applebloom… She was playin’ with her friends after comin’ home from school that day. She seemed all normal that morning, Ah swear. She was supposed to buy some flour on her way home, but… Nnnope…”
The guard noted something down in a little book and looked up again.
“So you did enjoy those absolutely wonderful parties of the gracious Mrs. Orange, did you?”
The two stallions looked confused at each other before turning towards Applejack and the older guard. Her accent had been so different, having a strong upper-crust Manehattan accent with a clear sarcastic ring to it, that Big Mac had not realized it was his sister speaking, at first.

The older guard gave them a sheepish look. “I… uh… turns out I knew her aunt and uncle from my time in Manehattan. She’s apparently spent some time there too…”
The brown unicorn guard rolled his eyes and turned to Big Mac again.
“What was the names of these two friends of her?”
“Sweetie Belle and Scotaloo. They go to the Ponyville school, if y’all need to talk to ‘em.”
The guard raised an eyebrow at the mention of Scootaloo, but jotted the names down in his notebook.

“Thank you very much, mister. One last question, if I may; have you ever considered joining the Guard? A stallion of your build would have a breeze passing selection…”
“Uhm… Nnope?”
The guard, only slightly shorter than Big Mac, looked him in the eyes as if to say something more, but suddenly turned his head.
“Miss, don’t make me have private Raff restrain you!”
Big Mac sighed when he saw his sister shaking the older guard violently.

Dawn used his right front hoof to fend off the irate mare.
“Please, I just meant that we would have an easier time finding your sister if you let us do our job in peace- ouch!”
Applejack had slapped him with her hoof. She briefly switched to the Manehattan accent again.
“Oh, so the gentlecolts cannot handle a little lady, is that it? Ah’m gonna-“
Quartz skid in between them, horn glowing and pointed at Applejack.
“Last warning, Applejack, or I will be forced to restrain you!”
“Y’all dare threaten me? Why don’t you go and- *Urk* Big Maaac! What in Equestria are ya doing? Let me go!”
The brawny red stallion had simply picked her up with his teeth by the skin of her neck. Applejack’s hooves were flailing ineffectually.  Big McIntosh looked upset.
“Nnnope!”
“Let… me… go!”
“Nnnope!”

Quartz whinnied exasperatedly and turned towards Raff, who had been staying in the background for the last minutes.
“I agree with your initial assessment, Raff. Would you please escort Applejack here on a train to… err… mister, does your sister have any relatives that can be reached in under a day but who live too far away for her to walk home?”
Big Mac nodded, shaking his sister around.
“Eeyup! In Appleloosa!”
“Good. Take her to Appleloosa, would you, Raff? We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Raff saluted and trotted off with Big McIntosh towards the farmhouse on top of a nearby hill. The latter was still carrying a flailing Applejack.

Dawn turned impressed to Quartz. The younger second lieutenant had acted with all the bearing of an officer, decisive, swift and formal. The contrast to the impulsive arrest attempt earlier the same day was clear. Dawn wondered if it was the tense situation that had prompted the behavior change. 
Quartz looked at the setting sun and sighed. “I’m starving… Let’s call it a day and get us some grub and a good night’s sleep, eh?”

The young colt couldn’t sleep. His head was filled with memories… bad memories. If he closed his eyes the screams and the pain would come back. He just had to stay awake and then mommy and daddy would come tomorrow and all would be- 
A creaking sound drew his attention, shortly followed by the light from the hallway bathing his room in a yellow color. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, only leaving small strip between his eyelids, so that he could the blurry outlines of the ponies in the door. There was three of them, and spoke in a strange foreign language.
“And here we have one of the survivors. Poor foal can’t sleep, so we gave him his own room. Looks like it worked.”
The female voice came from the outline on the left. The one in the middle, the tallest of the three, and with some kind of brush on his head, answered.
“You sure do a great job taking care of these ponies, doctor.”
The left outline laughed shortly and without joy.
“None of them would have survived if it wasn’t for you and your platoon, second lieutenant.”
“Just doing my job, doctor.”
The middle outline disappeared. The right outline finally spoke.
“What is his name?”
The left outline lowered its head as if looking at something. The young colt became aware of some low wheezing coming from another side of the room, but ignored it.
“According to the label we found inside his sweater, Dusk. Dusk Kva- err…Kv-… I’m not even gonna try and pronounce that.”
“Does he have any family?”
“Doesn’t look that way. From what we hear tell from the other survivors, his father died out there, and the one we think was his mother died from her injuries a few hours ago. We are trying to find any family members, but we can’t even find out which country he is from…”
There was a brief respite. Then the outline on the right spoke again.
“If you can’t find any, do you think we would be able to adopt him?”
“Pardon?”
“You heard what I said. You know Heather and I can’t have children of our own, Dr. Spring.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Quartz.”
The door closed.
The young colt wondered why he had been able to understand what the outlines had been saying. He did not speak the language, but still he knew the words… As if… As if he had learned the language, and this was only a memory. Or a dream. Yes, of course this was a dream. He remembered now. He was Dusk Quartz, and not a young colt at all, but a fully-grown stallion who- Again with that wheezing! What was it?

Dusk Quartz opened his eyes. He was staring up at the roof of Twilight’s library, or at least the darkness where he assumed the roof would be. There was no moonlight shining in through any of the windows, leaving the room in almost total darkness. He closed his eyes again.
They shot open again at a gurgling sound followed by a wheezing.

The sound is not a dream! That was not Dawn! Meaning… there is somepony else here. Twilight? No… why would she make that sound?

Quartz made his decision and rolled sideways off the mattress he had been sleeping at, landing as silently as possible on his hooves. He sent a silent thanks to Celestia he had been sleeping without his heavy and noisy armor.
He slowly backed up until his rump hit a bookshelf. He started moving sideways along  the wall, his eyes fixed on the spot in the darkness the wheezing sound was coming from. He had to get behind whoever had entered, or casting a light- or paralyzing spell would light him up like a firework.

Almost now, almost, almoooo-

His rump hit something of a familiar shape. Quartz couldn’t help but smile a little at the plan forming in his head.
He closed his eyes and hit the light switch with his rump. He waited a second before opening his eyes slowly again, forming a knock-out spell in his mind.
As his eyes got used to the light in the room, he could, to his confusion, not see anything out of the ordinary, except an open front door. He sighed and let his spell die down. He looked over to Dawn, who was rubbing his eyes at the sudden light. Suddenly he stopped rubbing and looked terrified at a spot next to Quartz. 
Quartz forced himself to follow Dawn’s gaze. A scream of terror and pain filled the room.

Outside the library, a pony smiled to herself at the sound. She checked a mental checkbox in her mind, and trotted along into the night while whistling a gleeful tune.