Somepony might’ve been saying something. Mistral couldn’t hear them if they were. It was like all sound had been turned off, leaving nothing but white noise.
Thistledown’s body just… lay there. Mistral hadn’t realized before just how much movement breathing caused. Now that it was gone, the effect was disturbing. She’d never seen somepony be so still before. That wasn’t even getting into the eyes. Those eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life.
The worst part about it was Desmoda, just sitting at the bar, completely uncaring. Mistral knew that, in a perfect world, she would’ve done something to Desmoda by now. Knocked her out, tied her up, something. But even with her dirk (which was upstairs in her closet anyway), she doubted she’d have much of a chance against Desmoda. She was a former royal guard, after all, and she’d already shown she didn’t have much qualms against murder.
Desmoda looked around the room again and smiled. Some of her teeth were still bloodstained. “So. I take it from the lack of objections that you’re all cool with that, okay? Okay.”
Before Mistral could respond, her brain spat something out: the journal. Maybe it being here wasn’t just an unlucky traveller leaving something behind. Maybe- “Okay,” she blurted out, sounding far more confident than she felt. “I’m just, uh, just gonna…” She pointed at the staircase as her mind tried to put words together. “I’m just gonna head upstairs.” She turned and had another thought. Might as well include Griselda, too. She believed Thistledown. Heck, she believed Thistledown before me. “Come on, Griselda.”
Griselda was flexing her claws and wings in a way that Mistral thought looked very predatory, and when she swiveled her head to look at Mistral, her pupils were very small. “Mistral, wh-”
“Come on, Griselda,” Mistral said through gritted teeth. She started shuffling forward, herding Griselda towards the stairs. “Let’s get some space.”
Griselda was too shocked to react with much more than stare, so she started shuffling with Mistral, looking between her and Desmoda. When they reached the stairs, Mistral hop-skipped around her, stuck a hoof in her collar, and lightly tugged her up. They stumbled a little, but even so, Mistral counted herself lucky that Griselda wasn’t so shocked that she didn’t remember how to climb stairs entirely.
They were halfway up, just out of sight of the common room, when Griselda finally reacted, swatting away Mistral’s hooves. “Mistral, what- Just what are you doing?”
“Going upstairs, away from the murderer,” Mistral said in a low voice. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“But we’re-” Griselda gestured down the staircase. “We’re just gonna-?”
“Listen.” Mistral yanked Griselda up to the landing and lowered her voice even more. “It’s best to stay away from Desmoda anyway, but I think Thistledown was on to something with the whole coincidence thing. I-”
“Oh, now you think she had a point? When she brought it up, you-”
“That was then, this is now! Listen, I found a journal in the drawer of my nightstand, and-”
“A journal!” Griselda made a face and did jazz talons. “Ooo, dramatic. So convincing. I-”
Mistral smacked Griselda across the beak, perhaps a little harder than she intended. “For Celestia’s and Luna’s sakes, let me talk!” (As she rubbed her face, Griselda looked offended, but clamped her beak shut.) “I’ve only skimmed it, but the entry when the writer first came here said the innkeeper was a stallion.”
Griselda blinked, first in a complete lack of recognition, then in confusion, then in shock. “So… Clarity-”
“You think that’s bad? There’s more. Thistledown pointed out that Clarity’s a crystal pony. She said she’s worked here all her life. How could she be around here all her life when crystal ponies didn’t even exist in Equestria until a couple of years ago?”
Griselda’s eyes widened. “Ooooh boy…”
Mistral glanced down the staircase again. “Something’s up with her, I know it. Don’t know what, but…” She shook her head. “And maybe Desmoda’s involved, too. She was already here when we arrived, remember, and Clarity just happens to ignore her killing a mare in cold blood?”
“Did the journal mention any batponies?”
“Not in the bit I read,” Mistral admitted, “but it was just one entry. Dunno what the rest of it’ll be like.”
Mistral half-suspected the journal would be gone, but when she looked in the side table, it was still right where she’d left it. Lying down on the bed, she flipped to where she’d left-
“What’s up with the wallpaper?” asked Griselda. “This place has wallpaper?”
“Yeah, weird, I dunno either,” Mistral grunted. She found the entry where she’d left off and skimmed it to reacquaint herself with it. “Okay,” she said to Griselda, “the writer’s a pegasus, and the other customers at the inn are a griffon, a crystal pony, a unicorn, and an earth pony.”
Griselda, sitting on the floor, cocked her head and leaned in to take a closer look. “Crystal pony? Mare or stallion?”
“Doesn’t say yet.” Mistral pushed the journal to one side so it was between them. “And the writer uses ‘he’ to refer to the innkeeper right… there.” She poked at the relevant line. “But it doesn’t say what tribe of pony he is.”
“Keep going. Maybe it’ll say later.”
Mistral nodded and flipped to the next page and started reading for Griselda.
Storm bad. Only few hours gone but writing again to kill time.
Uni really hating earth for package. No w-
“Package?” interrupted Griselda. “What package?”
“The earth pony had a package. Um…” Mistral flipped back a page and jabbed. “That package. Long, thin, earth pony’s really vocal about it for wanting to keep it under wraps.”
“Ah. The old ‘I know something you don’t know’ syndrome.”
“Right.”
Griselda’s eyes flicked back and forth as she read the line over and over. “Sounds like a scepter or a short sword, maybe. Ooo, and the writer agrees with me.”
Mistral hadn’t given the package much thought, but supposed Griselda’s treasure-hunter instincts would be more drawn to it. Mysterious object, possibly of great value, unknown origin? Yeah, that’d be attractive to a tomb raider. “Do you really think it’d be something like that? Those’re unwieldy for most ponies.”
“Few problems with that assumption.” Griselda lifted one of her front feet and started raising her claws one by one. “A, we don’t know where it came from. It might be from, say, the ruins of Alto Reál, which would probably make it an old pegasus flight sword, which were made by the bucketload in that era. And that’s assuming it’s pony-related at all. It could’ve come from somewhere near Griffonstone or Tauros, making it more likely to originate from griffons or minotaurs, and that’s just to start. B, just because they’re unwieldy doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If they’re sitting in the ground, someone’s gonna find them eventually. And, C…” She shrugged, almost sheepishly. “I’m guessing anyway. I don’t know jack about it except for the basic shape. Could be anything. Might just be an old scroll.”
It didn’t take long for Mistral to see the logic in that. (Griselda, treasure hunter and archaeological detective. Who would’ve guessed?) And even if Griselda was completely off-base, she didn’t want to think about some stupid package for too long. She flipped forward again and continued reading.
Uni really hating earth for package. No words said yet but everypony can see it except earth. Glares keeps moving from her uses short sentences etc. Can sympathize — uni getting even more annoying. Louder more frequent almost literally rubbing it in my face. Don’t know why. Don’t care about package.
Everyone on edge b/c of that. Crystal pony jumpy griffon keeps picking at table w/ claws innkeeper more tense. Conversation hard — haven’t been able to talk w/ crystal pony much b/c earth keeps interrupting. Have all time I need to do it later but still annoying.
Inn staying warm at least. Thought it’d-
Mistral stopped talking and skimmed the rest of the entry. Not much interesting there; just the writer rambling on about how strong the inn felt. She (or at least, Mistral assumed the writer was a “she”) was pretty clearly writing just to fill up space on the page and keep eating up time.
“And that’s it for that bit, right?” asked Griselda. “You didn’t skip over-”
Mistral rolled her eyes. “Griselda, do you really think I’d leave something out that looked important while reading this to you?” (She re-skimmed the second half, just to be safe. Nothing important.)
“Maybe not on purpose,” Griselda said defensively, “but it can happen. I knew a gal who wrote great stories, but she kept leaving words out of her sentences for some weird reason. The mind can, y’know, edit stuff out like that and you’ll never know. Blind spots.”
“If I knew I was skipping over them, I’d try to not skip over them! You want to read or do you want me to?”
“I just-” Griselda sighed and rubbed the bridge of her beak. “You read. Get on with it.”
Cutting off several responses that were forming in her head, Mistral got on with it and flipped to the next page.
Facet wasn’t thinking much. Her brain just kept spitting out oh shit oh shit oh shit- She couldn’t think. Shock had set in. She was vaguely aware of Mistral and Griselda leaving, of Clarity vanishing into the kitchen, but couldn’t react.
Finally, she swallowed. “Y-you killed her,” she whispered.
Desmoda looked disdainfully at Facet. “Congratulations,” she said. “You can state the obvious.”
“You killed her.”
“Oh, great, and you can repeat yourself. Super. Any chance you can get rid of the body, too?”
Clarity came out from behind the bar, draped in a thick robe. “Don’t w-worry,” she said brightly. “I’ll take it out.” She bit down on Thistledown’s tail, opened up the door, and pulled the body out into the blizzard.
“You killed her.”
“We went over this!” groaned Desmoda. “Yes, she’s dead. So what? She was a paranoid botanist in the middle of nowhere. A botanist!” She laughed derisively. “Nopony’s gonna miss her! She just vanished in uncharted territory! We’re not gonna get in trouble, so why worry?” She vaulted over the bar and began looking at the beer selection.
Cassandra coughed and waved Facet over. Still staring at Desmoda, Facet cautiously shuffled over to her. “What?” she asked. She noticed her voice was high-pitched.
“Can you do the thing?” Cassandra whispered. “With the emotions? Calm her down?”
Facet’s mouth hung open as she stared at Cassandra. “What, now?”
“Yes now! I don’t want to be next on her list!”
“I told you, she’s too violent now! Nothing I do will have much of an effect. It might even backfire if she notices!”
Cassandra grunted. “Well, we’ve gotta do something. I don’t want to sit around down here-”
“Go upstairs, then! It’s what I’m going to do!”
Facet attempted to make for the stairs, but Cassandra stopped her. “That won’t do anything, we’re just sweeping the problem under the rug. We need to do something now.”
“Well, if you want me to be able to use magic on her, you better find a way to get her to quiet down a bit first! It’s- It’s the way things work!”
Cassandra blinked twice. “You know what? I’ll try that. Wait for my signal.”
“What signal?” asked Facet. But Cassandra was already gone, heading to the bar.
She took a seat next to Desmoda, who had found whatever liquor she was looking for and was quaffing it straight from the bottle. “So,” said Cassandra. “Good beer?”
Desmoda eyed Cassandra suspiciously. “It’s alright. No, you can’t have any. Get your own.”
“Alright,” said Cassandra. She looked at the bottles on the backbar, drumming her hoof as if she was thinking. “Bummer about Thistledown.”
“…Why are you talking about this?”
“Well, it’s, just, I,” stammered Cassandra, “I just, y’know, wanted to- be sure that- I wasn’t gonna be next.” She giggled nervously and coughed.
“Just stay out of my way,” said Desmoda. She sipped. “Thistledown was screaming her sunblasted head off and she didn’t like she was gonna stop anytime soon, so I quieted her down. Don’t do that, and you’ll be just fine.”
“Allllright,” Cassandra said, nodding vigorously. “Cool.” Once Desmoda’s attention had returned to her drink, Cassandra glanced at Facet and jerked her head towards Desmoda.
The signal, probably. Facet wanted to scream and bash her head in; that was nowhere near enough. It took time for someone to get out of a mood intense enough to kill somepony. She shook her head.
Cassandra frowned and nodded.
Facet fixed Cassandra with her best glare and shook her head.
Cassandra fixed Facet with her best glare (which was considerably better) and nodded.
Gritting her teeth, Facet slowly walked to Desmoda’s other side, trying to drag the moment out as long as possible, trying to figure out what she’d say. She couldn’t think of any good way to lead into what she wanted to say.
Her head was still empty when she sat down next to Desmoda. Desmoda looked briefly at her, although she didn’t do more than grunt in vague dissatisfaction. Facet thought and thought and thought, but couldn’t come up with anything. She couldn’t see Cassandra, but imagined she was biting her hooves off.
Finally, Facet came up with something. She cleared her throat. “So,” she said, “just… stay out of your way, right?” She layered her voice with a bit less calmness than she usually would; maybe, if she put it into Desmoda slowly, she wouldn’t notice. Maybe.
“Yesssssss,” Desmoda said to her. “You were listening, right?”
“I was, but you know, Mistral and Griselda-” Facet gestured up at the ceiling. “They couldn’t hear you.”
Desmoda looked up and shrugged. “So?”
“So they don’t know what they need to do. And Griselda, she’s got claws and a weapon.” She gestured at Griselda’s bow and arrows, still sitting by the fire. “She could react… badly.”
Desmoda shrugged again. “So?”
This was it. Facet added in more calmness. “So maybe, you could, I don’t know, try to be a little less violent? It might stop violence”
After a moment, Desmoda slowly, reluctantly, nodded. “I guess so,” she mumbled, rustling her wings, “bu-”
Her ears suddenly stood up straight and her pupils narrowed to slits as she glared at Facet. In the blink of an eye, Desmoda tackled Facet; they rolled across the floor and Desmoda slammed her against a wall, pinning her by her throat with a foreleg.
Facet tried to push Desmoda’s leg away, but Desmoda was the one with all the leverage. Her best hits to Desmoda’s face (which were still puny) did nothing. Her breaths came shallowly and forced. “It-” she gasped, “it was- just a- suggestion!”
“Oh, yes,” Desmoda said. She nodded innocently. “A suggestion. Laced with crystal pony magic to fuck with my head.” She got into Facet’s face, peeling her lips back from over her teeth. “I don’t like that much.”
As Mistral read the journal’s next entry, she found it feeling eerily familiar to what had already happened to her.
Screw that sunblasted earth pony. Why in Tartarus can’t she just SHUT UP? No, I don’t CARE about your stupid package, I don’t CARE that you’ve got a secret, and I don’t CARE about you at all. LEAVE ME ALONE, SUN BLAST IT!
Celestia.
This probably isn’t doing anything good for my psyche, but it feels GOOD to rant like this and get it out. Like otherwise, it’d just build up inside me until I’d burst. Or do something stupid. It definitely feels that way with the unicorn. Kind of that way with the griffon. The crystal pony, not so much. She just seems really serene, although in an artificial or faked kind of way. Maybe she’s really good at controlling her emotions. I think it’s getting to the innkeeper, too; he always JUST HAPPENS to remember something that needs to be done in the kitchen or the cellar when the earth pony starts up.
Need to get their names again. Why can’t I ever remember names, ever? Somepony introduces themselves, and I’m like, “okay”, and their name just slides right out of my memory until I hear it the fourth or-
Mistral skimmed the next bit. Nothing important there, just the pegasus talking about a lack of memory when it came to names. (Something Mistral really couldn’t relate to; when it came to mailmares, remembering names was kind of Important.)
“What’s wrong with that earth pony?” muttered Griselda. “You’d think she’d get the hint after a while. Nobody’s that stupid.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Mistral. “People can be really dense sometimes.”
“There’s dense and then there’s dense. How’d she even get something like that, anyway? Unless…” Griselda tapped the bed’s blankets. “That’s why she’s so excited. She’s never gotten anything like that before so she’s all giddy about it. And she keeps it under wraps, so it’s probably really valuable. Doesn’t want anyone stealing it.”
“Probably, yeah.” Mistral flipped to the next page.
The earth pony’s dead. The unicorn killed her.
Mistral’s eyes widened and she looked at Griselda. Griselda laughed nervously. “Well, uh, that escalated quickly.” She swallowed. “Ten bits says it’s gonna get worse?”
“Yeah,” Mistral said, nodding. “Way worse.”