Pinkamena

by Doood

The Next Morning...

Journal Entry #2

August 9, Xxxx

9:30a.m…

The night was insufferable, long, and filled with a silence that did not fit the peaceful nature of this glossed over town. It was a type of silence that was instilled through fear. I have never, in my days, seen this kind of fear set upon any species. You could see it in the eyes of everyone who lived here.

It was as if they knew. The entire town knew whose life would end, and which of the living could go on to see another day. As if it were a game of some sorts, trial and error, live or die, it was up to the main antagonists of this story.

Sunshine Pudding made sure she kept her gun loaded. Her dark auburn eyes were keen on silencing any onlookers for our lives. She slept in a separate bed across from me, and she was indeed, the first one to fall into a slumber. You would think that I’d be next. But I wouldn't be. Actively seeking such a refuge, thinking that at any moment, we could be silenced with a show of brute force, scared me.

Most of the night, I sat in bed, fur soaked with a cold sweat. Every noise brought me closer to insanity, and with the insanity, came the minds objective to conceal that which lurked in the darkness. Eventually I was graced with a warmth so inviting, I didn't try to squirm away from it.

My eyes closed for the first night, at the break of dawn.

-:-:-:-:-

Waking up felt odd. There was a heaviness in the air that I couldn't describe as the altitude. Throwing the blanket off, I made my way to the closed curtain. Casting them open, I saw that the sun had already risen, the flaming ball graced to us by our ruler shining brightly. Normally at this point, I would have smiled. But with all that is happening, I made sure to save the smiles when this was over.

I shut the blinds and turned. Everyone who was with me on this expedite was asleep still. Humming to myself thoughtfully, I decided to let them. I'd rather not try to wake any of them considering Sunshine still had her gun out.

So I grabbed my sword and armor, throwing the sword on first before stopping to gaze at the golden chestplate. I decided today would be one of the few that I would not try to look conspicuous. So instead of lugging myself around looking like a hefty target, I took the sword and walked out into the town square. I took to the church in a hurry. Didn't want to stop anywhere before I at least had a chat with the mayor.

The steps took me a moment to climb up, but before I knew it, I was already inside the chapel. Placing a hoof on the hilt of my sword, I spared a glance about the room, noticing that some of the town's residents were all here. Watching what seemed to be a ceremony of some sorts.

Through the pews and if you follow the red carpet, you'll find yourself staring at the last pony to perish in this town. The soul was covered in a white linen cloth. And from where I was, the body was either brutally mauled, or that was a filly who had met their fate.

The chapel wasn't that extensive, having only two rows of pews which were layered ten seats each. In the front stood the mayor who spoke in such a hushed tone, that it took me a moment to realize she was praying. With a startled grunt as I had made a bunch of noise coming in, I found myself at attention seconds later. Normally I'm not the type to believe in this kind of stuff. A higher deity. But for the sake of this town's respect, I would uphold their practitions.

Several townsfolk were in tears, others were stonefaced. A group up front were huddled together, a lone mare sobbing the most. I wondered if it were the mother… I suppose I wouldn't know until I asked. The mayor finished her prayer and looked up, the filly was taken away, most likely to be buried with the other victims. As the mayor's eyes met mine, I could clearly see she had indeed wept.

Who could blame her? Her job was just as, if not more so, important than mine. You wake up, smell the roses and guide ponies who are in need of your help. But in Rose’s Case, what happens if every pony in your sweep are in a situation like this?

Like everyone else, I could tell she wanted this to be over. The madness would have to end somehow, so judging by the way these ponies felt, they wanted it to be over as soon as possible. And that could be ended either ways.

I couldn't keep the mayor's gaze. There was too much pain. Days if not weeks without help, made me wonder how much these poor souls had to sacrifice just to stay alive. The congregation split apart and left just as quickly as I appeared. When it was only me and the mayor left, I found my voice,

“I'm sorry.” Was all that came out. It was as pitiful as it sounded. The mayor nodded, knowing full well I meant more than I could say. I lifted a hesitant hoof, but I frowned and set it back down.

The lack of sleep, and most likely the fear of doing anything healthy left Rose weak and hunger stricken. This meant she took less time to take care of herself. Her suit was unbuttoned and her tie was unclipped. The dark red hair that would've been neat, and curled, was now messy, and glossed with sweat. Her green eyes were locked at my sword, “Please tell me, you can fix this.”

Normally, I would make a light humored joke from this. Of course, it's just a couple of bugs. But I just witnessed a family bury their filly, and the murderer wasn't served their justice. A joke in this sense would be on me. Had we known about this sooner, maybe there would be ponies left alive…

I sighed through my nostrils, looking around the chapel as I did so,

“Petal, I'm going to tell you exactly what is going to happen. And you have to promise you'll be an anchor to your town.”

She sniffled, “Silvermane, I really don't have anything to lose at this point.”

Shaking my head, I relayed to her, “This is only the tip of the iceberg.”

After saying that, she handed me some folded papers and left.

O.o.O.o.O

Walking away from the church was like forgetting my son's birthday party. I felt numb, stricken with grief. That was the second time I had to tell someone that there is going to be no good news. But what was I to do? Tell her everything was going to be alright? Let her suck her hoof while she is at it? I would rather tell her what's up front now than later. Saves me or Sunshine the trouble of putting her through an ordeal, just to see her sunshine and rainbows sent down a river with no paddle.

Caught up in my thoughts, I about stumbled onto the hanging platform. At the time, I didn't realize where I was going. The documents the mayor had given me, reports from our sources, scattered on top of it. My gut wrenched to the side as I realized that I would have to climb onto the thing just to get them.

It was not easy.

I've never been keen on getting close to this bizarre way of death. I prefer a more viscous approach, which normally ends with either of duelers the winner. Having your life balanced on either your neck snapping from impact, or choking to death as your bile inches out of every pore - I'm just not a fan of the noose. Never have been, really and truly never will be.

Mainly I'm glad that they had gotten rid of the guillotine being as how the few times that Celestia and Luna had called ponies to their death by the trap - those said ponies and their heads never rolled. Instead, the blade stopped about mid-cut. End result was paralyzation from the neck down, if they were lucky.

Anxiety kicked in as I got near to the rope. It swung from side to side, the wind toying with it like a cat with yarn. Bending down to pick up the papers, I about screamed when a voice came from somewhere to my right. Looking in that direction, I saw it was the mother I had seen earlier in the chapel. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were swollen and red from the amount of sorrow that had been shown.

I bit my lip as the awkward tension grew. Picking up the last paper, I stepped down and sniffed, “I'm uh… sorry for your loss ma'am.” When she said nothing I continued, “I have children too-”

“Then you must know what it feels like to lose one then.” The words tore through me like a black powder bullet.

“I-I'm sorry?”

The mare gestured to the noose, “You know what kind of rope that is, Hero?”

I looked behind me.

“That was made by my husband. He used it for just about everything. And it's the strongest cord he had.”

I looked back, “Had?”

The mare smiled, but it wasn't happy... “He was hung from that rope. We lynched him because everyone thought he was a changeling. And you know what?”

She raised her brows, “We were right.” She described to me her husband's death,

“He hissed, and clawed, and fought his way up to that noose. My baby and I watched as the stallion we loved, died, a false image as his neck snapped.”

I twinged as she pronounced snap harshly. But I didn't interrupt her, “You better hope that you choose the right ponies carefully. Because Celestia help you if you don't. I'll ring your neck with that rope myself.”

It was then I realized that this mare hadn't been crying over the loss of her filly. The family she had was strong, capable of withstanding almost anything. It was what these mountain ponies are to do. No, she wasn't crying for her filly.

She had shed tears for the soul who killed her.

O.o.O.o.O

I wasn't sure whether I galloped, or trotted to our house. But when I finally saw straight, I was closing the door to our home with a rather brute force. Almost immediately everyone that was sleeping still, woke up with a loud cry. One of the recruits fell off the bed, while Pudding merely pointed her gun at me with a crazed look in her eye.

I said our very tasty sounding code and she backed down, thankfully. Tossing the papers on our kitchen table, I slumped into the chair and rubbed my aching head with a free hoof.

The others arose quickly, their training from grunt camp kicking in. Sunshine came over first, sitting across from me. Everyone else made themselves breakfast, since sleeping in makes the tummy awfully hungry.

Sunshine asked how I was doing. I looked up and told her the events of my rather odd morning. I left out the filly dying part, but told her about the funeral. I also let her know that I had my life threatened by that mare. She was waiting for me to say something about me finding any changelings. But I didn't have any news on that.

Once I was done, my veteran nodded, a grin plastered on her face. She said something on the lines of, “Sounds like the town woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

My reply to the small jest was short sighted.

She patted me on my shoulder and worked with our recruits in making us what would be a delicious meal. As they did so, I assembled the documents in order as the recruits came over. One of them was from our Reporter, another was the Gumshoe’s dictation, and I had the Watchpony keep an open eye on someone.

Our reporter sifted through a stallions trash, his name being; Butter Crunch. They found several love letters, a hate mail sent to a lost fiancé, and several bottles of cider. The reporter concluded the document by saying that they think that Butter is the Town's Drunk.

Funny how they say, think, when they are the one's who live here. How they don't know one another enough to recognize what their role is, is personally stupid. But I digress. Everyone is judging everything now. And it'll only get worse. I pulled out the Mayor's Sheet of names and went down the list until I found this stallion's name. Beside it, I wrote that he was the Town's Drinker.

The Gumshoe had a more lengthy report. They described that the pony they visited was really chatty, always in a good mood and kept them at their house all night. The Gumshoe said that they would rather not visit them again unless it was absolutely necessary. The end of the report was them detailing this pony as our party pal. In respect, I put a question mark next to their name, Diamond Melody.

There was nobody in particular I wanted the Watchpony to watch just yet, so I sent them to spy on the Mayor's abode. Not that I didn't trust her, it's just that I needed to be really sure that she wasn't anything overly dramatic. That night, they declared nobody had visited, nor had the mayor left the house. The watchpony signed at the bottom with a clever quote. It made me chuckle at least.

I stacked all the reports in a pile and begat to writing the first night's events and information inside this journal. I also wrote it separately on another source of filament and had a long and interesting talk with my cohorts, telling them not to shoot the town drunk.

If somebody came up to you stinking of gin, it's best to call it a night and move on with your life.

After all that was shot up straight, I tucked the papers into my mattress for safekeeping. Around that time, the sun was already high in the sky, so I believe my first thought was to ask around town for clues as to who was who.

But then my more smart side of brain told me that if I stuck my nose in other ponies businesses, then it would be very well lopped off and fed to Pinkamena for brunch. So instead, I found time in looking at the Town's residents again.

Going down the list, I tried finding irregularities. Like who were the newcomers and who have been here the longest? Either of those meant bad news. Newcomers could actually be ponies who had picked a bad vacation spot, or they could be the Changelings. Hell, even Pinkamena!

But as the short list ended, I couldn't find anything strange. Sure, the only thing weird about the list was that there were a total of seven new ponies here in town, but that was just us. The carriage jockeys, me, Sunshine, and the three recruits.

The thing I'm worried about, are the ponies who have been here the longest. Those ones, are a screw that can be turned loose really easily if we use a hammer instead of a drill. These kind of ponies have been here a while, and they will not give us what we need unless we apply the correct tools.

Admittedly, one of the tools that came to mind was our friendly shoot-em-up, Sunshine. But when I asked her how she felt about intimidation factors, she declined any advances from there.

Where we went from here, would define whether or not we slept better at night. The choices now rippled like a crackling flame, never staying still for too long. In the end of my questions, I put a nurse on our reporter, and sent one of my recruits as a bodyguard for the gumshoe. The watchpony had a free pick as to who they wished to spy on.My goal was to protect who was important.

I should be more careful on where I place my trust…

End of Entry

Author's Note:

Something Interesting is happening with the story.

Stay tuned!

Comments

[jmj]

Really enjoyed this. I was looking for slaughter horse stories and found this.