Reel and Wicker take two. · 3:37am Feb 22nd, 2013
I decided to just put it all in a blog post. Maybe if I get opinions I'll stop treating everything I do like it's not worthwhile.
“Hello?”
Ermm…
“Hey, Reel! Wakey wakey sleepy head!”
Ugh, what is that unbearable sound invading my ears…
I quirked my ears and shut my eyes tighter. The obtrusive intrusion seems to have stopped. Ah, silence…
Whomp!
I jerked my head from the wooden paneling that my head had been resting on for Celestia knows how long. My blurry vision was filled with stacks and stacks of scrolls and parchment, all thrown about in disarray on my desk. I groaned, my head swimming and beyond groggy from my short snooze. I rubbed my eyes with each of my hooves and looked once more at the workload before me, but instead found a solid white face staring up at me with a huge obnoxious grin. My feminine friend was lying on top of my desk, her hue-less horn nearly skewering my jaw.
“Y’know, you’ve been getting worse and worse about this whole thing; you used to get on my case all the time about my sleeping habits, and then I catch you passed out on your desk? Tsk tsk, Reel. And look at the problems you’ve caused yourself!” She retreated from her position on top of my work station and made a big display of pointing out the huge mess she had plopped onto my desk, waving her hooves around in front of her in a “why did you let it get this bad” sort of fashion. It was then that I gathered that the piles of paperwork were the source of my very rude awakening.
“And look who’s talking, little miss Never-Gets-Anything-Done-Ever. I might as well call you an intern, but I don’t even think you deserve that title, ‘cause you won’t even grab me coffee when I ask you to,” I said with a slight snicker. I began stacking up the mess into a neater stack on the edge of the surface. She took a seat on the cushion in front of me, the one that was usually reserved for clients, and began looking around my admittedly blank office with a characteristic, but slightly misplaced, fervor.
“You really need to open a window in here and let some light in. We spend too much time indoors, and I’m starting to think the lack of sun you are getting is a little unhealthy,” she says matter-of-factly before pulling back one of the blinds of my window with her magic. The light filled my vision, causing my sleepy head to spin slightly with the change. I groaned aloud and thumped my head against the desk once more.
“Wicker, I know you’re looking out for me and all, but I was having a really great dream until you showed up,” I said into the wooden surface. “And as for the work, I can get this done whenever, it’s not like we get many jobs anyways. I suppose that’s a good thing, but still... you know what I mean.”
“Well, you may want to get that stuff done soon.” I perked up my ears once more. “We received a letter a couple of hours ago from a family in Baltimare.” I looked up to see a completely new mare standing in front of me. Wicker’s face had gone from her usual expression of jocularity to that of almost mordant character. She closed the shades on the window shut, staring at me with a very hard gaze that I knew not to mess with.
“I’m listening.”
She paused for a good moment, staring at the floor off to the side. “I went ahead and scheduled a meeting with them tomorrow. Their train should be arriving in Canterlot around noon. They explained the whole situation in the letter, and it’s not a pretty one.”
I rose up a hoof to silence her. “I’ll wait for them to show up to hear the details. You know it’s easier for me to discern the situation from those directly involved.” Wicker nodded and gave a reassuring smile.
“I will tell you one thing: there was a foal involved. She wasn’t too young, but she was still considerably younger than you and I. We should plan accordingly.”
I applied pressure to my temples with the news and sighed. Wicker sat down once more and gazed at my still trashed writing table. She opened the window once more and smiled.
“I would say get some rest, but I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem,” she said with a small chuckle and a shuffle of her hooves. I remained silent and closed my eyes; I appreciated her effort, but this was the sort of news that I didn’t take very well. I unrolled the nearest scroll and began reading.
“Thanks Wick. I’ll be ready for the meeting tomorrow. It’s late; you should go home and get some sleep.” I said it with no sort of tone or any hint of jest. She turned to leave, shrouding my room in darkness once more with her horn. In an instant, all the candles in the room were lit by the same stark white envelope that closed my shades.
“I’ll be in my office if you need me.” She walked out, closing the heavy wooden door shut behind her.
I walked into our small office space on the edge of Canterlot the next morning, expecting for the place to be completely deserted when I arrived. When I approached the front door of our suite, I pulled out the keys to open the door, only to find that it was already unlocked. Huh. For once I think Wicker actually decided to take my advice.
I pushed my way inside to find that Wicker had already lit all the candles in our small waiting room. Nothing in the usually dusty wooden room seemed out of place, that is, until I looked in the middle of the waiting area. Strewn about on the dark green rug was an assortment of various toys and cards. There was a bowl of candies on the coffee table by the sofa that I swear wasn’t there before.
I walked further into the hallway where my and Wick’s office stood on opposite sides of each other. The white mare’s obtrusive white door was open just a crack, allowing a small ray of light to illuminate the wooden paneling just outside in radiant sunlight. Puzzled, I walked over to her office and rapped the door twice with my hoof.
“Hey, Wick?” I heard a loud crash from inside. I rushed in, swinging the door open in haste. The scene in front of me forced a hoof up to my muzzle. Papers were fluttering down, caught in midair at the moment of my arrival. Behind the small mahogany desk in the rightmost corner of the room were four white legs, hanging in the air by their paralyzed owner. I stifled a chuckle, trying my hardest not to break out into an outright laugh.
“I suppose I shoulda’ seen you coming,” Wicker said, bringing herself up to a seated position with the aid of her desk. She looked up to the chandelier just above her, still swaying lightly back and forth. She looked back at my smiling face, and I quirked a brow at her. She gave a swift sigh before folding her forelegs in front of her, a scowl displayed on her face. “Go ahead and laugh, shoot a mare while she’s down.”
I smirked and walked over to her desk. “This is looking to be the start of a fine day, isn’t it?” I sat down on her guest cushion, feeling a strange sensation of role reversal.
“I suppose it’s my fault for trying to actually do something productive at seven in the morning.” She picked up the candle from her desk, trying to levitate it up to the empty candlestick in her now still chandelier. It made it about halfway before falling to the floor, causing a groan of frustration from Wicker. I watched the scene with interest.
Seeing an obviously defeated expression take hold of her tired eyes, I decided to change the subject. “So, did the hypocritical Wicker actually get any sleep last night?” I said questioningly.
She gave me a blank stare and clasped her hooves together. “I may have gotten… some.” She said indignantly.
“Uh-huh. And when did you leave the office last night?”
“Oh, y’know,” she chuckled nervously. “Maybe about 2am.” She swirled her hooves against each other and broke eye contact.
I sighed. “I just hope you’ll be ready when we have to go to Baltimare.” My original question resurfaced in my mind. “What’s with the toys in the waiting area?”
“I went to the market this morning and picked them up. The family is bringing their youngest with them; something about her needing to stay with her parents after the incident.”
I groaned aloud. I wasn’t the sort of pony to take working with foals well. I just hope the toys that Wicker got would be enough to occupy her while I talked with her parents.
She picked up on my expression. “Don’t worry, Reel. You do your thing; I’ll make sure she doesn’t get in the way.”
I nodded curtly. I took the opportunity to gaze at the clock on her mantelpiece behind her desk. The family should be arriving at any moment now. A little more curious than usual, I decided to ask her a few questions to pass the time.
“What is the family’s primary race?”
“Earth.”
“Race of the Departed?”
“Earth as well.”
I paused. That’s good. Earth ponies are easier to work with. They all seem to have this sort of notion of kinship with their own kind, a feeling that I never felt in my younger years.
“Proposed cause of death?”
She pursed her lips. Just before she was about to speak, the bell on the front desk rang. I nodded at Wicker who quickly stood up from her cushion. We filed out of her office quickly to meet the two ponies standing in the middle of the waiting area. They looked upon our entrance with grave faces, their manes and eyes the perfect image of grief and travel.
“Welcome to our office, Mr. and Mrs. Pie,” Wicker said warmly.
The stallion, a slender auburn with bright orange hair and a travel worn face smiled back weakly. “Thank you so much for seeing us.”
The mare at his side rested a hoof on her spouse’s shoulder and gazed on him with concern. “We didn’t even think anypony knew what to do, let alone actually help us with this problem.”
I walked around the table in front of the hallway we had come from and reached out a hoof to greet Mr. Pie. “My name is Reel. My partner Wicker and I are specialists on the subject of spectral inhabitants in the world of the living.” Wicker gave a toothy grin and waved a hoof in greeting.
The stallion took my hoof reluctantly, the look on his face growing more confused throughout the course of my introduction. His relative stature made me feel slightly subconscious, as it reminded me of my age and put my size into a painful perspective.
“Nice, to meet you, Reel,” he said cautiously.
“M-mommy?” I looked down. There was a young foal at the mare’s hooves. Her long cream colored mane was braided into a short ponytail that was draped over the side of her light orange face. She was tugging at her mother’s hair lightly. There were sleeked streaks in the fur on her face, trailing all the way down to her chin. “Can we go home? I don’t like it here.”
Wicker sprang from behind the desk and cantered over to where the four of us were standing. She crouched down next to the filly and beamed at her. “Hi there! What’s your named little filly?”
The foal smiled sheepishly and sniffled a little. “I-I’m Honey.”
“Wow, such a pretty name for a pretty pony!” She sprang up from her position. “Hey! You wanna play some games with me? I’ve got jacks over here, but Reel’s too cranky to play with me.” She stuck out her tongue out at me, which prompted a loud laugh from Honey. She turned to me and made a likewise gesture.
“S-sure,” she said weakly. Wicker scooped up the filly onto her back and cantered over to the waiting area. Her parents watched her go reluctantly, but did nothing to object.
I returned my attention back to the couple. “Now, if you would like, I can direct you into my office where we can talk. It’s down the hall to the right. I’ll meet you shortly.” The nodded their heads and headed down the hallway.
I motioned Wicker over with my hoof. She, who had been balancing on top of her head until this moment, flipped over, handed Honey a unicorn doll, and trotted over to me.
“Can you try to get Honey talking about what happened? If it was her sister that is in trouble, she may be the one that knows the most about what kind of situation she was in when she passed.” I whispered.
Wicker gasped. “Are you serious?”
I pulled her closer to me and shot a quick glance in the filly’s direction. “Do you want to be prepared for this?”
“Do you really want to make her relive this? It happened two days ago, Reel.” She hissed.
I eyed her for a moment, choosing my next words carefully. “Somepony who is close to her is in danger, Wicker. I can discern most of what we need from her parents, but if there is even one bit of information that Honey can share with us that may be important in exorcising her, then we can’t risk the chance of not knowing.”
She looked away and groaned. “I’ll try, but no promises,” she said through her teeth.
“Good.” I turned to walk down the hallway.
“Hey, Honey! Bet you can’t beat me at Go Fish!”
“So, tell me a little bit about your daughter. The one that passed.” I was sitting behind my desk, taking notes on a roll of parchment.
Both faces were replaced with utter shock. The father clasped his companions hooves in his and closed his eyes shut. After a short moment of silence, the light lavender mare cleared her throat. “Well, Sugar seemed fine for the most part, in fact, she seemed in even better health than Honey. I can’t really think of a reason why she would have died, she seemed perfectly okay. Is that really what happened? Is our daughter… gone?”
I raised a brow. “What do you mean Honey was in worse health?”
“Well, when she and her sister came home from playing outside about a week before the incident, Honey had a terrible stomach ache. She was bed ridden for days, practically paralyzed. The doctor said she had eaten a berry while playing that had a powerful toxin in it. If she had eaten anymore, she may have been in serious trouble.” She scowled, “Why should this matter?”
I jotted down what she had just told me, and then placed the pencil down. “I just want to make sure I have the details from the last few weeks. Now, how well did Sugar interact with other ponies?”
Mr. Pie spoke up this time. “Her and Honey would play almost every day when they got home from school. She never really talked about anypony at school. Sugar had been going to a more advanced school than Honey, and Honey had only started education about a year ago. I can’t really recall any time that she brought home a friend.”
“Did she ever talk about being bullied or trouble talking to other ponies?” I asked as my pencil flew across the parchment.
“No, but some of her teachers have brought it up. She just seemed so happy playing with her sister that we never really worried about her.” Mrs. Pie eyed me closely.
Looking at what they had said, that seems likely. I brushed off the question. “What exactly happened when you noticed something was wrong?”
“Well, the first thing we noticed was that her door was locked, or rather, we weren’t able to open it, since she didn’t have a lock on her door.”
“And then I’m guessing you saw a green light flash under from beneath the door, and you were told to leave by a voice that didn’t sound like your daughter.” They looked from each other to me and nodded in unison.
“What’s happened to my baby?” Mrs. Pie’s voice said with a mixture of panic and anger as grief spread over her face.
I sighed and stared at the quill quiver on the edge of my desk. This is always the hardest part.
“Mr. and Mrs. Pie, your daughter has become what we call a ‘Departed.’” This prompted a gasp from both of them, a gesture that I received quite often with that exposition of that line. “To put it into the simplest terms I can, your daughter is trapped between this world and the next. It happens for a lot of reasons, but that’s what we’re here for.” I took a deep breath. “Your daughter is in pain right now. She is not gone from this world, but she can’t return to the living. My condolences go out to you both.”
The mother wept for some time. The father simply stared at me with a grave expression, holding his wife close. He had the look that always pained me the most: the look of blame that always made me feel like I had something to do with it. I couldn’t meet his eye.
I allowed them some moments to grieve, trying my best to keep my composure. When she sufficiently calmed down, I began to speak once more, in a much calmer and cautious tone.
“Wicker and I, it’s our job to find out why a pony doesn’t cross over like the rest of us when they die. Your daughter is in pain, but we need to find out why she died so we can help her rest. Now—
“Aw, that wasn’t fair! You got a head start!” Honey Pie came rushing into the room with Wicker close behind. Wicker was shaking her head at me and mouthing something that I couldn’t quite catch.
“Mommy Mommy!” The foal sprinted up to her mother and sat down in front of her, wide eyed. The father scooped up Honey and cradled her in his arms, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “Me and Wicker were having so much fun playing jacks and cards and house and dolls and…”
I smiled warmly at the family and took the opportunity to slide over to my cohort, who was standing, flustered, in the doorway.
“I take it you didn’t do what I asked,” I hissed at her, not unkindly, but expressing my disappointment nonetheless.
Her eyes darted to the carpet. “Of course I did! What gave you that idea?”
“Well, we seem to be minus one bawling filly.” I brought a hoof up to my forehead. “I know what you’re trying to do, Wick, I really do, but you know as well as I do that sometimes you can learn more from the Departed’s siblings than anypony else!”
“How could you think I could just rip her precious heart apart like that?” She glared at me, then sighed. “I couldn’t do it, alright? I just…”
The mother and father were looking at the two of us with looks of concern on their already worn faces. I turned back to Wicker. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“So, you can help us, can’t you?” The mother said.
I smirked and wrapped a hoof around Wicker. “Relapse and Wicker at your service, ma’am. We’ll be heading out on the soonest train straight to Baltimare.”
Not sure at all what this is (take two? Did I miss a story or something?), but I f'ing like it.
853958
I'm making another story based around the characters Reel and Wicker, set in the same universe as the first one, but later in time.
"The obtrusive intrusion" Lol sounds like it could be in a rap song. On another note, you have such a way with creating a perfect atmosphere and I'm not sure why you're so reluctant to write. I understand that musics your passion (I'm a musician too) but when you're so good at writing, you should at least work on it in your free time. I find that it goes hand in hand and when you have writers block in one thing, the other's always easier. So please keep writing
853977 Sounds good then, i'm willing to wait however much time you need, IT SHALL BE UPVOTED.