Tantabus, Chapter 6 (Sunset) · 6:08am Jan 8th, 2016
Tantabus
6 - Sunset
September 23rd, 3:30 pm
I didn’t kill him! That’s the one thing I want to make abundantly clear.
To tell you what happened, let me skip past several fruitless hours and at least three cellphone conversations with Snip and/or Snails that left me a near-gibbering wreck in response to all of their stupidity. After I finished writing my last diary entry, I decided to go up the Canterhorn, in hopes of modifying my detector into something I could use to survey the entire town. Instead, I stumbled on an actual facet of the Element’s gem at 2:45 pm, probably the only piece to remain intact while the rest of it had been converted into pure magic. It was in the possession of Pr. Rock Cycle, a geologist who was camping just off the main path to the summit. He was taking a siesta and was a very sound sleeper, which was how I was able to get a look at his driver’s license before I woke him.
The reason I woke him is because my tracker was telling me that nearly the entire magical energy of the Element of Magic was concentrated on his person. I had taken the facet, but the energy had not transferred to me like it should have. So I woke him up and posed as a park worker while I tried to pull the magic from him—nothing seemed to work when he was unconscious, so I thought I might as well make a second attempt when he was awake. I was disconcerted to realize that the magic I detected entirely disappeared the moment he woke up, leaving only the small residue that clung to the facet. After about fifteen full minutes of arguing, I finally allowed Pr. Cycle to present his permits to me, then apologized and left as fast as I could. I expected him to come after me after discovering that he had been robbed, but no such thing happened.
Instead, there was a small earthquake which struck at 3:02. I heard a rather horrific and distorted scream come from the location of the campsite, something I would normally attribute to a botched teleportation spell, if not for the fact that teleportation should be absolutely impossible in this world. After a few moments of making up my mind, I eventually decided to do the foolish thing of walking back to see if Rock Cycle was alright. I found a great cleft in the rock that had entirely swallowed up his tent. Of the professor I could find nothing except for his cell phone and a small rounded rock. The phone was unlocked and was in the midst of performing a fifth redial of a “Professor Redmane”. The strange thing was that it immediately went through to the man’s answering machine. I remained quiet as the machine recorded the sounds of the panicked animals around me. Going through the cell’s logs afterwards, I found that that the earlier call attempts to Pr. Redmane had failed due to lack of signal, yet this location probably had the best coverage in all of the Canterlot due to its elevation and proximity to a prominent cell tower. Another check of those logs confirmed that Pr. Cycle had not called the police. I put the phone down where I found it, confident that there was nothing there that would get me in trouble—after all, I don’t have fingerprints.
That’s when I felt it—I was being watched. I have an absolutely infallible ability to determine when someone is looking at me. I’m not sure if it’s a psychic ability, or some freaky side-effect of having eyes so much further apart than a human’s in my natural form. It was one person, watching from quite far away. Naturally, I pretended I didn’t notice. A single witness I could manipulate into thinking they saw whatever I wanted. More important to me was making sure there was nothing suspicious for anyone in the future to link me with what happened to Mr. Cycle.
I examined the rock that Mr. Cycle had collected. Since it’s been several years since I taught myself geology, it took a while to realize that it was a fossil...of an Equestrian pony hoof. There was no way that this object should have existed on this world. I thought about stealing it, but soon realized the idiocy of doing something like that, and left it alone. About this time the individual watching me finally stopped.
I did a careful search, and I don’t think I left any evidence behind. I didn’t find any stray hairs, and as the campsite was on a solid block of rock before the accident, there were no footprints apart from the trail, which I made sure to kick up a bit. I mean, I’m not a forensic expert, so maybe somebody other than the mystery witness could connect me to this, but why would anybody even think to look for a suspect? It was a freak accident, and who looks for a human cause of a freak accident?
It wasn’t until I had made my way down the mountain that I allowed myself to be affected by what had happened. A person I had just been talking to not a few moments earlier was dead. I was not responsible. But I had lied to him, and I had stolen something from him. It was mine, though. That facet was rightfully mine. If there was any easy way of conveying that fact, then I would have just asked for it outright instead of stealing it, I swear. And there’s no way that my actions caused him to stay there in the spot where he died. If I hadn’t come by, the accident still wouldn’t have happened.
I am not to blame. I am utterly blameless. I was trying to pull magic out of him, not life, and there’s no way that doing that would have caused the collapse. Besides, he was just a human, like all the rest of that race that I despise. A human in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just the kind of thing that happens on a daily basis to a random member of a species unprotected by an all-powerful benevolent princess, like I will be in a week or so.
So why do I feel like the fragment of the Element of Harmony sitting in my pocket is as radioactive as I told my goons, like it’s burning its way through my gut?
No...no. I will be calm. I must be calm. There is still the matter of the witness. To perform the postcognition, I must be calm. Precognition is pretty much worthless, because I cannot distinguish the nigh-impossible futures from the almost-certain ones. But postcognition is easy for me. So easy in fact that I don’t really need those cameras on campus for anything other than collecting the blackmail evidence that I already know they contain.
I am the mistress of all situations. I am the Fall Princess. Nothing in this world is beyond my power.
There, see? Calm. Now then...
Breathing exercises. Visualization. Me in the clearing, beside the remains of the tent and...not going to think about it...on the Canterhorn. In relation to CHS. In relation to Canterlot. In relation to the west-end high-rises. In relation to Pinto Apartments...third floor, fourth balcony from the right. A small Cassegrain telescope faintly glinting in the afternoon sun, it’s walls painted baby blue, the distinctive shade of its owner...
Trixie.
Well. It looks like this will be even easier than I thought. I’ve had to swat that fly once every year so far—it looks like her annual lesson came early.
Be patient, diary. In an hour or two, I’ll have a detailed description of precisely how I put the prima donna back in her place.
I tell ya, publish it! People will read it!
Sunset may be ambitious, but she's not a monster. Not yet, anwyway. Heck, she's better than she thinks she is.
Also, she doesn't have fingerprints? Very interesting, that. I suppose she doesn't have a navel, either.
3672205
Much this!
3672314 why wouldn't she have one? Horses also have umbilical cords no?
3672898
It depends on whether Sunset's human body is transformed or created. The lack of fingerprints suggests the latter. At least, it does to me.
3673108 Nah, if she was transformed from a diminutive pastel equine she wouldn't have any reference for the fingerprints since the ridges form during embryonic growth. But with an umbilical cord she would still have a navel as a unicorn.
3673124
Jeez, the things you guys decide to focus on...