The inn was warm. Mistral didn’t care. She couldn’t.
She didn’t look around when she entered, even though she figured all the other ponies were staring at her. She slowly loped towards the fireplace, her broken wing hanging at her side, twinging with every step. She still had her supplies. She could splint the wing. But, really, what was the point? It was only a matter of time before she died. Or worse. She still didn’t know what the hay was going on here.
One way or another, might as well focus on the now. Now, her wing hurt. Now, she could fix that. Now, she needed to splint her wing. Her legs gave out when she reached the hearth and she began digging out her first aid kit again. With the exception of that one bandage that had been caught in the wind, everything was still there, more-or-less in order, and dry. Good. She picked out the wooden splints and all the bandages she could find. This was not going to be-
“Hey.”
Mistral looked up. Facet was standing over her, looking nervous. Facet swallowed. “Do you, uh, want some help?”
“Sure,” grunted Mistral. Facet hadn’t seemed the helpful kind, but now wasn’t the time to complain. “You know anything about splinting broken bones?”
“N-not really, no.”
“That’s fine,” Mistral said with a sigh. “I’ll walk you through it.” She could feel her good wing tensing a little in anticipation. She nudged the splint and bandages over to Facet. “Okay, first…” She slowly opened her bad wing as best she could. Not biting her lip was an immense effort. “Grip this and slowly pull it out for a minute or so.”
“W-what? You-”
“Yes! Pull it out!” Mistral took a few deep breaths. “It’s traction. It’ll give enough space between the two broken halves of the bone for them to slide past each other and snap back into place. Yes, it’ll hurt like Tartarus. No, there really isn’t another way. Just do it. Slowly, remember.”
Facet opened her mouth, paused, then simply nodded and gripped Mistral’s wing between her hooves. “Sorry,” she said, and slowly began pulling.
The next minute was one of the most agonizing of Mistral’s life. She’d never — never — felt something like this. Burning, searing pain beyond description nearly eclipsed all other sensation, to the point that she could barely see, even with her eyes open. Reflex kept telling her to snap her wing shut and out of Facet’s grasp; it took all of Mistral’s effort to keep it as limp as possible so her muscles wouldn’t yank the bone together and make the fracture worse. She bit her lip until she drew blood, breathing loudly and deeply and constantly praying that it would soon be over.
After what felt like an eternity, Facet began to release the wing, slowly letting it slide back into place. As the pain receded, Mistral noticed that it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been before. Hopefully, Facet had gotten the bone back in place. “Does it look swollen?” she asked. “I mean really swollen, not just a little puffy.” She could’ve looked herself, but twisting like that might’ve unset the wing, and she did not want to go through setting it again.
Facet examined both of Mistral’s wings. “Uh… No. Kinda, but not very.”
“Okay,” Mistral said, mostly to herself. “Good. No internal bleeding. Now, see those stick things? Just put one on top of my wing, one on the bottom, and wrap it all up in the bandages. And make it tight; my wing needs to be immobilized, remember.”
“Um, okay.” Facet began following Mistral’s instructions. This part was simple, so Mistral didn’t say much besides the occasional “tighter” or “looser”. Facet worked quickly, and soon declared Mistral’s wing immobilized. Mistral tested the assertion; it wasn’t perfect, but she supposed it was good enough. Not like it’d matter long, anyway.
Unless…
The warmth of the room got Mistral’s brain whirring. If the inn was at the center of whatever was going on, then there was something here. There had to be. If she got back together with Griselda, the two of them could do some snooping around, find something out. Question Clarity, maybe? They were both capable, they could defend themselves. And if they stopped whatever bad shit was going down, then maybe… Just maybe…
Something for another time, though. Facet wasn’t the kind to do stuff like this out of the kindness of her heart. Letting her wing go limp in its splint, Mistral asked, “So. What do you want?”
Facet twitched. “I, I just-”
“You’ve been antisocial this whole time. Not that that’s a bad thing, but the only reason you’d volunteer to help me now is if you wanted something from me.” Mistral tilted her head and flicked an ear. “Right?”
“Well, it’s-” Facet swallowed. “Yeah.” She looked over her shoulder at Clarity behind the bar. She pulled Mistral close and whispered, “Griselda killed Desmoda and there’s a dead pony in the back room who we think Clarity killed.”
Um. Well. Okay.
Facet had twitched when the door to the inn first opened, fearful of some other crazy pony coming in, but to her surprise, it was just Mistral. Apparently, the weather had gotten to her and driven her back here. She looked much worse for wear; Facet didn’t know much about pegasi, but she was pretty sure wings weren’t supposed to dangle like that. That suspicion was confirmed when Mistral dug a first aid kit from her saddlebags.
At first, Facet was prepared to let Mistral deal with Mistral. But then she realized: she had someone else she could talk to in this sunblasted place who wasn’t involved in any other deaths. She might be able to get Mistral on her side and do something about whatever was going on. Step one meant doing something for Mistral, to try to gain a little bit of her trust. And Facet had a pretty good idea of what.
Facet didn’t know much about first aid, but luckily, Mistral knew enough to make up for that and was a good enough teacher that Facet was at least pretty sure she didn’t make anything worse in the process of splinting the wing, painful gasps from Mistral notwithstanding. At the very least, Mistral didn’t start screaming in agony, yelling at Facet to stop, or cursing.
But she figured out that Facet wanted something pretty quickly. Her reasoning was solid, and she got right to the point. Facet swallowed and whispered in Mistral’s ear, “Griselda killed Desmoda and there’s a dead pony in the back room who we think Clarity killed.”
Mistral blinked. Coughed. “Come again?”
“Look, after, after you left, things got heated and Griselda killed Desmoda. Me and Cassandra were going to stuff her body in the back of the kitchen — no way we were dragging her out — and there was a pony’s body in the freezer.” Facet gagged at the thought. “It was… Cassandra said it was-”
Cassandra stuck her head in, making Facet twitch. “It was carved up, like somepony was cutting chunks of meat from it. And it wasn’t just dead, it’d been skinned.”
Mistral blinked twice, then suddenly paled beneath her coat. She said something silently; Facet couldn’t make out what. She shook her head. “Um. Uh. Okay. And what’d Griselda say?”
Silence. Facet looked pointedly at Cassandra for moments. Finally, Cassandra mumbled, “We… We haven’t told her yet. I didn’t want-”
“Oh, and by the way,” said Facet, “Cassandra’s a bounty hunter who was tracking Desmoda. She knew how dangerous Desmoda was all along and decided not to tell us.”
“You what?” Mistral yelled quietly.
“Look,” protested Cassandra, “I didn’t want to cause a panic! If she-”
Mistral punched Cassandra in the jaw. Hard. Cassandra took a few steps back from the recoil, her hoof to the point of impact. “I’d’ve helped you restrain her,” hissed Mistral. “Do you really think this-” She held up a foreleg, where her dirk was strapped. “-is just for show? Short version, no, it isn’t.”
“I-”
“We’ll talk about this later. Why haven’t you told Griselda yet?”
“She already seemed unstable and I didn’t want to drive her over the edge.”
“Oh, that’s it? What happens if she finds out later and finds out you kept it from her?”
“I just-”
Mistral shoved her hoof in Cassandra’s face. “Shut it, okay? If that’s your best reason, I don’t want to hear it.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes and nodded. She said something, but it was muffled by Mistral’s hoof.
“Alright,” muttered Mistral. She glanced over at Clarity, polishing a glass behind the bar, but she didn’t seem to have noticed them. “Have you two noticed anything off about Clarity?”
“Yeah,” said Facet, “she, she didn’t really care when Desmoda was murdered. Or Thistledown, for that matter. I don’t think you saw it, but after Thistledown died, her only reaction was to drag the body outside so it wouldn’t stay here.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Mistral grimly. “She said she’s worked here her whole life… which is impossible for her, since she’s a crystal pony. And I found a journal hidden in my room, which…” She flicked her ears and ruffled her mane. “Long story short, the previous group here went nuts and killed each other off, and Clarity may have been a part of it.”
In spite of the warmth of the inn, a chill ran down Facet’s spine. She knew the answer to all this was close, so close she could almost touch it, and yet she was missing some critical piece of the puzzle.
“And I didn’t come back because the weather outside was bad,” Mistral continued. She paused. “Well, not just because of that. It’s… I tried leaving, but… no matter where I went, I always wound up back here somehow. It’s like something kept pulling me back.”
Facet was dumbstruck. All she could do was sit and listen.
With a stressed sigh, Mistral said, “There’s something going on here. Clarity’s involved, but I don’t know if she’s responsible or she’s just a victim. Maybe she physically can’t leave and she’s trying to keep up her meat supplies the only way she can. Maybe there’s something compelling her to kill ponies. Maybe she’s just batshit. I don’t know. But she’s involved. And there’s only one of her, but three of us — four if we can persuade Griselda.”
“So, what,” said Cassandra sarcastically, “you wanna beat Clarity bloody and throttle the information out of her?”
“Yeah.”
Cassandra blinked. “…What? No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Mistral rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m exaggerating a little. But I want to know what in Tartarus is going here, and I’m pretty sure Clarity knows.”
“You can’t just attack her!”
“Well, what do you want to do? I want to do something about all of this.”
“But you- you can’t-” Cassandra started staring at Facet. “What about you? You got a suggestion?”
Facet looked back and forth between the two. Sitting back and doing nothing versus brutalizing somepony. Such great choices. Hooray. She swallowed. “Well,” she muttered, sounding guilty to herself, “something’s better than nothing.”
“You want to-”
“No,” snapped Facet, “I don’t want to do it. But I’m with Mistral: if we don’t do something, we’re probably all gonna die.”
“Good enough,” said Mistral. She stood up and flattened her mane down. “You two just sit tight, okay? I’ll go upstairs and get Griselda, and then-”
Griselda poked her head down the staircase. “Get me for what?” She squinted at Mistral. “And I thought you were ditching us.”
Making a “stay here” motion to Facet and Cassandra, Mistral trotted over to the foot of the staircase. “It’s complicated. Listen, Grise-”
“No, really,” said Griselda flatly as she descended. “Why’re you back here?”
Mistral shot Facet and Cassandra a Look. “Does it matter?”
“Kinda.”
“Why does…? Never mind. Long story short, the storm drove me back here. Broke my wing in the process. Okay?”
The look Griselda gave to Mistral seemed off to Facet. Suspicious, almost. But Griselda just nodded, rustled her wings, and said, “Kay.”
“Fine.” Mistral immediately dropped her voice low enough that Facet could barely hear it. “Look, me and them-” She pointed at Facet and Cassandra. “-think Clarity knows something about everything that’s going on here, and we want to question her, and we need help.”
“What,” said Griselda, “you want me to hold her down while you beat her bloody?”
Cassandra fired a smirk at Facet. Facet just rolled her eyes.
“If that’s what it comes to, yes. I do-”
“Liar.”
Facet, Mistral, and Cassandra all stared at Griselda. All Facet could do was wonder where that had come from. Mistral and Griselda were the pair that were always together; what had changed Griselda’s mind?”
“Huh?” asked Mistral. “Griselda, wha-”
“I said you’re a liar,” whispered Griselda. She flared her wings just a little and, tail flicking, began advancing on Mistral. “You’re in league with her, aren’t you?”
“What?” Mistral took a step back. “G-Griselda, you, you’re not making sense.”
Facet’s hooves started twitching. She wasn’t sure if she should get between them and try to calm Griselda down or bolt to the opposite side of the room. On the one hoof, if Mistral and Griselda had a falling-out, it would get nasty, and she didn’t want any more ponies dying (or griffons, even if they were vandals). On the other, while Griselda didn’t have her bow with her — it must’ve been up in her room — she still had claws, which were a guaranteed mess. She looked pleadingly at Cassandra; could she do something with her earth
Griselda’s voice grew louder. “Not making any sense? Sure I am. You know damn well what I’m talking about, don’t you? Don’t you?”
“I-I don’t!”
“Liar!” screeched Griselda. “You-”
Across the room, Clarity cleared her throat. “P-please,” she said, sounding almost bored. “Whatever you’re talking about, d-don’t argue down here. F-fight upstairs. It’ll make things more comfortable for the peaceful ponies.”
“Hey, do you mind?” snapped Mistral, turning to Clarity. “We’re in the mi-”
Griselda flapped her wings, dove forward, and crashed into Mistral. Facet scrambled away as the two rolled past her, grappling and biting. And, as shock began to set in, as two former friends fought for their lives, she realized that her chances of ever seeing another day were growing smaller by the second.
Mistral didn’t have time to react before Griselda tackled her. They fell to the floor together; Mistral cursed as her bad wing was caught between her and the floor. They rolled over and over before Mistral thrust out with her good wing, catching enough air to stop the spin with her on top. She pressed down on Griselda’s throat, not hard enough to choke, but enough to keep her pinned. A correct twist of her hoof would deploy her fetlock dirk, but she kept it stowed. For now. After Clarity’s words, her anger had skyrocketed, and Griselda’s attack had just brought things to a head. She kept the dirk stowed, but she was so close to deploying it.
“What do you mean I’m with her?” Mistral yelled. She craned her neck to keep away from Griselda’s flailing claws. “And which her? I’ve never seen anypony here before!”
“Yeah fucking right!” screeched Griselda. She lashed out, but Mistral’s head was beyond the reach of her claws. “You just happen to find a journal written by a crazy pony in your nightstand? What kind of idiot do you take me for?”
“Think for a second, sun blast it! You’re not making any-”
Griselda changed tactics and sank her claws into one of Mistral’s legs. Mistral screamed and reared; she stumbled backwards as she shook her leg. By the time she realized she’d freed Griselda, the griffon had already sent her flying across the room with a powerful kick from her back legs.
Mistral hit the door to the cellar, hard, and barely had time to get her bearings before Griselda body-slammed her through it completely. Mistral blinked through the dust and splinters, trying to focus her eyes, failing. She saw Griselda swinging at her and instinctively twisted to one side to avoid it-
-only to lose her balance and slip down the stairs. She rolled, banging her head and her body against the steps. The world went crazy. She didn’t know which way was up, she couldn’t control her tumble, her wing was screaming in pain, her leg was burning-
She smashed against the wall at the bottom, hitting it with her spine and sending even more shocks through her body. She blinked; stars filled her vision. She blinked again and again, trying to fix her sight. Above her, she could dimly make out the moving shadow that was Griselda in the light from the common room. Mistral limped as fast as she could away from the stairs, into the darkness of the cellar.
There was a furnace down there, but it didn’t cast enough light to show much, and there were crates of coal and wood stacked around the basement. Mistral slumped behind them, panting, her heart slowing as she finally found a bright side: now, it was much easier for her to see Griselda coming than the other way around. She could hide.
She couldn’t see anything, but she definitely heard the thump, thump, thump as Griselda walked heavily down the staircase. When it stopped, Griselda said loudly, “There’s only one way out of here! You want out, you’re gonna have to go through me!” Her voice echoed around the room, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from through sound alone.
Mistral risked a peep over a crate. In the shaft of light from the floor above, she could see Griselda standing right at the foot of the stairs, kneading the ground with her claws and flicking her tail back and forth. She kept looking this way and that, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. More importantly, she wasn’t moving.
Maybe, Mistral thought, just maybe, this didn’t have to end badly. Maybe… “What were you talking about up there?” she asked. “About me working with her?” The same echoes her hid location from Griselda.
“Don’t play dumb with me! You’re in cahoots with Clarity!”
Okay, what? That made no sense. “Why would I even be with her? What do I get?”
“Oh, it’s an easy job!” Griselda yelled. “This is the only inn for miles! You create a storm, drive travellers in here, you and she kill them and take their shit! Easy!”
Shocked, Mistral didn’t answer. Griselda seriously believed that? The weather in the Frozen North was uncontrollable, everybody knew that. Maybe you could shape it if you had some serious unicorn magic, but a single pegasus couldn’t do anything. What would travellers out here have, anyway? Merchants took more well-trod paths. So did wimpy rich people. The only kinds of ponies who came out here were hardened travellers who packed light, with nothing to steal. Besides- “Why did I go out, then? I broke my wing!”
“To make it look convincing! You go outside, hang around the inn for a while, then splint your wing to make it look broken! You get sympathy and ponies start to believe you and do what you say!”
This place was getting to Griselda. That sounded more like a schizophrenic’s delusional justifications than any actual reasoning. Mistral didn’t need to think ten seconds to find dozens of holes in that.
“It started with the package, didn’t it?” continued Griselda. “What was it? A scepter? Some super-powerful sword? A mage’s staff? It’s gotta be something valuable, to make you start killing travellers for other stuff!”
The package. In the journal. Mistral had almost forgotten about it. The previous group had fallen apart over it. Now Griselda was screaming about it. There was something about it. What had it been like? Long and thin, yeah. Think, she told herself. What’s long and thin? What’s long and thin?
Her silence didn’t go unnoticed. “Answer me!” Griselda bellowed hoarsely. “You come out here, you tell me where it is! You don’t deserve it, you thieving bitch!”
Deserve? Mistral almost laughed bitterly. Neither of them “deserved” it. They didn’t even know what it was. Whatever crazed idea had taken hold of Griselda wasn’t going away. Not ever. She’d tear the place apart looking for it. She was a treasure hunter. Wrecking stuff in search of shinies was what she did, no matter what stood in her way.
“Don’t make me come back there!”
“Oh, Celestia,” said Mistral, “are you listening to yourself? You sound like my mom when my sisters and I started fighting in the carriage when we were fillies!” As she spoke, she started creeping towards the edge of the room, under cover of the crates. Maybe, if she could get at Griselda from the side, get out her fetlock dirk…
“You- Shut up!”
“You just have no idea what you sound like! You’re crazy, petty, and immature!”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Finally at the edge, Mistral peeked around the corner of the crate. Griselda was shaking and taking slow steps into the cellar. She was scanning the room erratically, sometimes looking at something for long moments, sometimes looking at something for barely an instant. Just a little more…
“Is that really the best you got?” yelled Mistral. She pawed the ground and folded her ears back. Anger dimmed the pain from her wing and her leg. “You’re pathetic!”
“I said SHUT UP!” screamed Griselda.
Mistral charged.
Whether it was the sound of her hooves or movement in the corner of Griselda’s eye, Mistral didn’t know, but Griselda turned. She saw Mistral in the gloom. She swiped; Mistral ducked under her claws and caught her in a headbutt in the chest. It was hard enough to nearly flip Griselda over. She reared, staggered on her back paws, fell onto her back.
Mistral seized her chance. A quick hoof-twist flipped her dirk from “sheathed” to “ready”. She jumped and dove at Griselda, bringing the dirk down at her throat-
At the last second, Griselda swung a paw out and grabbed the dirk’s blade, stopping it dead inches from her throat. Blood leaked out around her talons. The tip of the blade shook as the fighters pushed against each other. “You-” Griselda snarled, “-little-”
Mistral swept her wings back, ignoring the pain from her broken wing. The extra force was enough to overcome Griselda’s resistance. Griselda’s arms bent and the blade dipped an inch into her throat.
Griselda screeched. Adrenaline let her push harder. As Mistral refolded her wings, the tip of the blade exited Griselda’s flesh. But blood was dripping down her neck. Her breaths were wet rattles. Her struggles lessened.
Mistral swept her wings back again. The blade drove several inches into Griselda’s throat.
Griselda gurgled. She pushed. The tip of the blade didn’t leave her neck.
Mistral drew her free hoof back and slammed it down like a hammer. The dirk plunged so deeply the tip scraped the stone floor below. Griselda’s head rolled back and, as her breathing finally stopped, she went limp.
Her wings shaking, her breath coming in short bursts, Mistral held the position until she was sure Griselda wasn’t getting back up. As she wiped the dirk clean and the fire behind her flared, she hissed, “What did I say? Don’t fuck with postmares.”