Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
Nosey closed her eyes, a pained look crossing her face in response to Lex’s command.
The sight was enough to motivate Sonata to try speaking up again. “Listen,” she started, giving Lex an earnest look, “maybe we should wait a little bit. Nosey’s obviously been through a lot and-”
“I want to hear her accounting of what happened now,” interrupted Lex, his tone one of finality.
The complete dismissal caught Sonata off-guard, and for a moment all she could do was blink, baffled at how he was acting. A bad mood was normal for Lex, but ever since Cloudbank had woken them up with the news that Block Party had kicked the bucket, he’d been seriously grumpy! It’s like he’s even more uptight than usual, she decided, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. She might have thought he was worried about Nosey, except that she was right here and by all indications was fine. So what was his problem? “Look-”
“It’s alright, Sonata.” This time the interruption came from Nosey, opening her eyes and giving the other mare a tired smile. “This is what I expected him to ask me.” She turned her eyes toward Lex, and her smile fell away as she did. “Can I at least sit down first?”
He didn’t bother to answer her verbally, instead glancing around for a moment before canting his head towards a row of chairs that were lined up against a nearby wall. Following the signal, Nosey made her way over to them, sinking into the nearest chair with a sigh. Lex followed, but only so that he was directly in front of her, remaining standing as he looked at her impassively. Sonata moved after him a moment later, a worried look on her face as her eyes flitted between Lex and Nosey.
Scrubby followed them last, biting his lip as he did so. “Um,” he started uncertainly as he glanced at Lex and Sonata, “I don’t want to jinx anything here, but you two do realize you’re sitting with your backs to the b-body, right?” When all he received were blank stares in reply, he continued. “I mean, that’s just asking for it to, like, get up and start moving when you’re not looking! Or maybe you turn around and suddenly it’s gone even though you didn’t hear anything. Or-”
“Go and fetch the doctors,” ordered Lex curtly.
“-we’ll look back and it’ll be in a different posi-…wait, what?”
“Go and fetch the doctors,” repeated Lex. “Let them know what’s happened here, and tell them that I want them to retrieve the body so that an autopsy can be performed. And make sure that they bring something to cover the body up with. I don’t want them parading the corpse through the camp.”
Scrubby nodded so fast the motion was almost a blur. “Right away! I’ll go and get them right now! On it!” The words had barely left his mouth when he turned and bolted for the door, already fiddling with the ring of keys in his mouth.
“And lock the door behind you!” yelled Lex as the other stallion left. A few moments later the sounds of the door opening, followed by its swift closure, reached their ears, with the click of the lock following a moment later.
Silence reigned for a moment following Scrubby’s departure, until Sonata tilted her head and put a hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “You know, he kinda had a good point about not leaving the body out of sight. In horror movies, that is always when something goes wrong.”
“It’s not out of sight,” answered Lex irritably, wishing they could move on from this inanity.
“Huh?” Sonata’s face screwed up in confusion as she tried to figure out what Lex meant. “Wait, are you using some sort of spell to grow eyes in the back of your head?!” She leaned over, examining Lex’s mane suspiciously, causing him to grit his teeth.
“He means me, Sonata,” answered Nosey quietly. When Sonata looked at her in confusion, Nosey gave her another small smile. “If you guys have your backs to…to the body, and I’m facing you, that means that I have line of sight to it. So if anything weird happens, I’ll see it.”
Sonata’s brow furrowed, and in the ensuing silence the gears turning were almost audible, until finally a look of comprehension spread across her face. “Ohhh! I get it now!” She smiled broadly, pleased with herself. More than that, though, she was pleased with what that meant. If Lex was willing to let Nosey be the one to watch out for Block Party’s body doing anything horror-ish, then he must have finally stopped being so suspicious of her!
“Now that we’ve resolved that nonsense, let’s move on to the matter at hoof,” growled Lex, giving Nosey a sharp look. “What happened?”
Pausing just long enough to give a sigh, Nosey answered immediately. “Last night, I came here so that I could interview Block Party.” A regretful look crossed her face as she spoke. “I mean, I interviewed you, way back when,” she gestured at Lex, “so I thought that I should do the same for him.”
“How did you get inside the building?” asked Lex, his voice having lost some of its edge.
Sonata gave him a confused look. “Um, did you forget what Scrubby said? She-”
“Be quiet, Sonata.” Lex gave her a sharp glare, trying to hold back his anger about her almost revealing what Scrubby had told them. Did she really not understand that keeping Nosey ignorant about what Scrubby had told them was necessary for comparing their stories?
Apparently not. “Fine!” Sonata threw her hooves in the air, finally having reached her limit with how Lex was acting. “I’ll just sit here and not say anything at all! Does that work for you, Mr. Lex Legis sir?”
“Eminently,” he replied flatly. When Sonata turned her face away from him with a loud snort, he looked back at Nosey. “Continue.”
Nosey frowned at him, but obeyed. “It wasn’t that hard. I waited a little bit and then came here, telling Scrubby that you’d sent me to fill in for him, and that he should come back in a few hours. He bought it hook, line, and sinker, turning the keys right over to me. After that, I just had to let myself in.”
Lex nodded, satisfied that her account matched Scrubby’s. “And then?”
“I…” She trailed off, looking down and folding her ears back. But a moment later she got over it, licking her lips. “I interviewed him about what had happened here. About why this place was so awful, and why he thought that he needed to keep Vanhoover guarded the way he did…all of it.” She shook her head, as though trying to push away the memory of what she’d been told. “He did terrible things!” she blurted suddenly, looking between Lex and Sonata. “He ran this place like a prison. Worse than a prison. He would give orders and beat up anyone who didn’t listen, sometimes until they could barely move! And he made everyone go out and patrol the city to keep ghouls or survivors from getting out, even if they were sick or hurt! And anyone who complained too much even after being hit was sent back into Vanhoover!”
Sonata gaped. “That’s awful!”
“That’s not even the worst of it.” Nosey’s eyes were growing watery as she spoke. “The ponies who did what he told them without complaining were eventually given special privileges. They got to eat first, and they didn’t have to go out on patrols. But they also had to give orders to other ponies on his behalf, and that meant that…that when someone else complained…” She blinked back tears, rubbing her cheek before she continued. “That those ponies had to beat them up on Block Party’s behalf, too.”
Sonata’s jaw fell open at that, her hooves going to cover her mouth as she looked at Lex, her earlier indignation forgotten. Lex’s only reaction was to narrow his eyes, his thoughts returning to that pony that had begged to come inside with them, Spit Polish. “And those ponies were fine with this?” he asked, his voice dark.
“He said they weren’t at first, but he convinced them that they had to do it, to protect Equestria,” answered Nosey miserably. “That keeping a barrier around the city was the only way to prevent the disease that turned ponies into ghouls from getting out. That’s why he didn’t want to let anyone know what was happening here. He thought that if the princesses heard, they’d come running, and that they might get sick too. He convinced them, and eventually they agreed…” She looked up, eyes on the ceiling as she sniffled.
“That’s awful!” Sonata turned around to glare at Block Party’s body, thinking back to last night and the sight of a crying Fiddlesticks holding her wailing baby brother. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d so kick his butt for that!” She turned back to Nosey, her ire still up. “That’s what happened, right? You got in his face about what he’d done, and he tried to start something, and you, um…you had to…defend yourself?” Her anger fizzled out as she spoke, realizing as the words were coming out of her mouth how ridiculous that sounded. There was no way that a fight would have ended with Block Party swinging from the end of a rope, unless Nosey had done something unspeakable…
Fortunately, the other mare didn’t seem to be offended at the implication, giving a snort of bitter laughter. “No, Sonata. That’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen?” prodded Lex.
“I was upset,” admitted Nosey. “I mean, I know a reporter’s just supposed to get the facts and not get involved in the stories she’s writing about, but...” She gestured with a hoof, as though trying to grab the words she was looking for out of the air. “It wasn’t just what he said. It was the way he said them! Like he didn’t care at all! He was just smirking the whole time, and I just got so angry! I couldn’t just let that go!” She turned to look at Lex then, her expression unreadable. “So I did what I thought you would do.”
His brow furrowed. “Me?”
“Wait, really?” Sonata’s voice was slightly incredulous. “So you, what…laid a curse on Block Party?”
“No.” Nosey shook her head. “I tried to explain to him why what he did was wrong.”
“Huh? That’s it?” Sonata was utterly nonplussed, looking at Nosey before glancing back at the dead pony behind them. If that was all she’d done, then she’d laid the world’s worst guilt trip on him by far!
“You explained to him why he was wrong?” Lex’s voice was also skeptical, not only because her action didn’t match the results they’d seen, but also because he couldn’t imagine Nosey making any sort of credible attempt at even basic moral philosophy.
“Yeah. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?” Nosey snorted self-deprecatingly. “I mean, I know I’m nowhere near as smart as you are, but I just said to myself ‘what would Lex say, if he were here?’ and the words just came to me.” She shook her head slightly, ears folding back again. “I really gave it to him, too. I didn’t hold back even a little from telling him how much of a monster I thought he was and how you’d made it pretty clear that the ghoul disease doesn’t spread like that and that all he’d done was make everyone here miserable for no reason.” She shook her head mournfully, giving another sniffle. “He tried to get a word or two in, but I didn’t want to hear it. I just kept yelling at him, and eventually he just sat there without talking and let me go on.”
She fell silent then, and after a few moments Lex spoke up. “And then?”
Sonata gave him a dirty look for his lack of compassion, but Nosey answered anyway. “After I was done, I realized I was crying, so I went into the ladies’ room to clean myself up. I swear, I wasn’t in there very long. I just needed a few minutes to get myself together and splash some water on my face, and that was all.” She let out another sigh, looking at the two of them with guilt and shame written all over her face.
“When I came out, he was hanging from the ceiling.” Her lower lip quivered. “I drove him to kill himself.”
Nosey recounts what happened between herself and Block Party.
Does she bear the blame for his death?
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It feels unlikely. I am looking forward to seeing what actually happened.
Thats some pretty high level mental manipulation to have on Nosy there? I mean, taking control is one thing, but making the person seem to be working under their own free will with coherent memories? I thought that was a good few levels higher?
Well, that, and Scrubby and the insistant person are under suspision as well. Nosey might not have even talked to Scrubby at all, her memories might have been written from that point so there is no change?
8488800 Thanks for saying so!
Of course, given the pace that this story proceeds at, it might take a little while to fully unravel the mystery. I just hope that it'll feel worthwhile when the answers are finally given!
8489120 Don't forget that Scrubby did say that Nosey relieved him of his post earlier, and Cloudbank confirmed that she was outside with him that morning before she ran back inside to be sick.
Well, that's pretty much what I expected though as Sonata realized, letting Nosey watch their backs shows that Lex at least still trusts her to a degree though his asking her to recount her side of the story shows he still holds some suspicions towards her.
Interesting to note that Spit Polish wasn't the only pony to have been conditioned into being loyal to Block. Though I wonder if all of them are as fanatical about Block as Spit is or if they were only doing it out of fear. I mean, if they're anything like Spit is, they'll likely demand that Nosey be punished for Block's death though that is all mere conjecture at this point.
Also, despite the seriousness of the situation, Scrubby's part here made me chuckle. Thanks for that.
8489391 Well, it's worth wondering if Sonata's conjecture about Lex leaving his back turned to Block Party's corpse necessarily indicating that he's trusting Nosey is correct. Did it really mean that? Or could he have been doing so simply because he wasn't concerned about the body getting up when it was out of his sight? Or was he testing Nosey again to see if she'd say something if the body did move? Or something else altogether?
I didn't go further into that partially because I didn't want to keep the focus there, but also because I'm not entirely sure when I should directly express something directly versus letting it be implied. That's an issue because implications - particularly where they're dependent on the readers picking up on what's not written, alongside what is - will depend on whether or not the readers see them, as opposed to being expressly spelled out.
That's sort of the case with Spit Polish as well, though in this case I think I did a bad job of it. There have been several instances where I've indicated groups of ponies, but only taken the time to flesh out a few, such as with C. Shells' crew, the doctors from Tall Tale, or Fencer's group. In each case, there are more ponies there than I've given names to; that's because there's no real reason to flesh out the others, as the ones that I have presented have (so far) done their jobs of speaking for how the overall group feels/is acting. The flipside to this, of course, is that I said there was a group in the first place...which I didn't quite do with Spit Polish. Looking back, it's entirely plausible that a reader would think that he was the only pony that had been seduced into following Block Party's twisted logic. I wanted to indicate here that wasn't the case.
And yeah, Scrubby was the comedy relief for this chapter as well. One can almost imagine Lex's inward sigh of relief at having sent him away.
Just one typo this time around. Unless you count Nosey's story. That is a giant typo.
as he looked?
8489782 Thanks for catching that! Fixed now!
well this is a interesting two chapters.
and i can say this is a vary good cliffhanger.
what really happened to Block Party?
i know it was the butler in the parlor with a candle stick.
8491692 Thanks for the kind words! Positive feedback is really what sustains my interest in telling this story.
As for the mystery behind Block Party's death; well, mysteries are meant to be solved, aren't they?
8491774
at some point it time.
i will admit i do like to solve them my self if i have all the right clues.