Prologue
I had a supper with two friends who are quite kind and generous. Both mares and both with very attractive flanks, to be honest. Nothing stated about their marks because it’s simply a formality to know them these days.
It was just one more night of wealthy friends mingling together, however this time we were at White Snow’s cottage outside town by the lake. Not the only cottage, mind you, but certainly one that blends in like the others, especially at night. And this night was unlike any other I’d had my entire life and wouldn’t experience again, or so I hoped.
Chapter 1
Ouch!
“Would you care for s’more wine, Mousie?” Star asked me to which I nodded and held my glass to her with my magic. She poured me a glass that was more than enough to fill my belly and she just kept the salt coming! I was actually having a good time with the stiffs, if you can believe that.
“Thank you, Pond. Say Melody, why don’t you take a minute to join us? It’s supposed to be a time to relax and you’re still going on with your writing and budgets.”
“Mousie,” she whines, “I have to finish this or I’ll never get it done.”
“Just be a dear and hurry, I’m going to drink our friend here out of house and home at this rate and I’d prefer if you were to join us before I lapse into sleep,” I mused. The sound of her pencil clattering to the table and hooves on the carpet was pleasant to me. “Glad you could join us! Have a glass and tell me about your day.”
Pond poured a glass for Melody and we all took a seat around the fire to enjoy each other’s company. After a time of small talk we turned to business and, foolishly on my part, money. Being inebriated I divulged my current net worth and the place where I keep my money hidden at my home.
Barely able to control myself while we shared stories of vacations and lovers it happened to come out that I kept nearly twenty-thousand bits under my bed of all places, but that’s something I’ll come back to.
I was nearly ready to call it a night when Melody excused herself. I was sobering up quickly and had used the bathroom, preparing to leave when I felt the floor meet my chin quicker than I’d ever experienced before. My ear itched and I thought about how funny it was that I’d tripped over myself trying to get to it, until I felt a pain like no other at the back of my head and a ringing in my ears.
I felt my forelegs pulled and I could tell I was being dragged but I didn’t know where. At first I thought it was because I might’ve passed out or something and was in the throws of a blackout where I’d wake up in several hours in bed and a hangover to end drinking for a week at least.
“Melody, you were supposed to make it look like he tripped down the stairs! Why’d you hit him in the head, you dolt?!”
“Well excuse me for not having magic. If I knew he was gonna go this way I’d have led him that way to the stairs but he didn’t and now here we are.”
I had no idea what Pond was going on about but I did notice that I was dropped and bit my tongue pretty good and it hurt. I was worried I’d worry them when I got up or made noise but when I tried I noticed that not a sound left me.
“You killed him with a bust of Celestia, my favorite statue of Celestia?!”
That was when I started to worry.
“It was all I could grab at the time, you said to do it when he left the room!”
“I said wait until he was leaving the house! The flight of stairs was a perfect excuse, how’d you think the bathroom was a good place to hit him?!”
“I can’t read lips! I thought you said-”
They kept arguing over me and through my eyes I could still see. My ears could still hear. And boy could I still feel the trob on the back of my head and tip of my tongue. Surreal is a word that’d fit nicely.
“-otta move him to the stairs and see if a fall will still at least look like it worked. Carry him, I’ll get the area ready.”
“Why can’t you carry him? He’s all, dead.”
I could see Melody’s legs stop and her tail swish as she stood over me and the scent of her nature covered me. A moment I would’ve leapt at a few minutes ago under different circumstances.
“No spell he’s ‘all dead,’ maybe you should’ve tripped him down the stairs like I planned this wouldn’t be an issue! Now move your feathers and get him over here, now!”
I had to admit that Pond is certainly more assertive right now than I’d ever seen her before.
“Fine,” Melody grumbled then kept on at a lower volume with her displeasure with having to carry me. She picked me up and dropped me again on my side. “Ew! Gross, gross, gross! Pond! He’s… out!”
“He’s not out yet, you dolt, I’m not even to the door.”
“No, Pond, I mean it’s out! It’s gonna touch me if I pick him up,” she tapped away on her hoof tips and I heard Pond stomp over.
I saw her glaring at me and then look across my body when she broke into a grin. “You mean that little thing is what’s freaking you out? It’s not even half way out and he’s not gonna be using it anytime soon, so buck up and bring him,” Pond told her with a smile and then I saw her trot away, back to the back door.
I heard a lot of hesitant steps and whimpering, then a moment of silence after she walked away behind me. I was a bit worried about what she was gonna do until I felt something drape over my back half and after some motion it was wrapped around me. Then I was scooped up onto Melody’s back and her wings held me a bit at balance.
I heard a peal of laughter when Pond came into view. “You wrapped him in a towel?!”
“I didn’t want it touching me! It’s bad enough he’s not that attractive, but to have… it rubbing on my back-”
Pond fell over laughing and I saw her tail and hindlegs kicking. I don’t see what the big deal is, I’ve got a couple foals out there from estrus season and no complaints!
“Get up and let’s do this! I need those bits and so do you. Seventy-eighteen split, that’s what we agreed to and I need that eighteen percent.”
Pond recovered and mumbled, “And there’s the reason you’re broke.”
“Whatever! Let’s just throw him and I’ll get to his house and bits you call the guard and cover this up!” Melody shouted as she stomped to the door that opened with Pond’s magic. I saw the unicorn gesture and I was taken from the warm comfort of the cottage to the chilly outside air where I was unceremoniously throw from her back and down no less than twenty hardwood steps rolling over myself and I even managed to get stuck halfway where I got a swift kick to get me going again.
I heard Pond curse again, and it wasn’t until I was sore and really wishing I couldn’t feel anything right then when I heard Pond scolding Melody beside me and pointing to an apparent shoe print in my side.
I chuckled to myself at that, knowing their plan was as good as over now that all that had happened. They’d have to drop me someplace and I’d get a proper burial and hopefully I wouldn’t have to experience everything that went along with being in the ground.
If I knew that this is what death was like I really would’ve done more in my life…
I listened as they mumbled to each other and finally faced me and tried closing my eyes, much to my luck they weren’t closing and Pond’s magic wasn’t even that forceful, I guess touching a dead pony without touching was still a bit much for these two.
“Okay, fly him up to the clouds and drop him. It’ll totally work.”
“What?!” Melody yelped. “I’m not taking a dead horny stallion into the clouds,” she hissed, “and what’s the excuse when he splats?! Why was he up there, smarty-pants? Who’s he gonna look for?”
Pond frowned and looked at me again. “Burn him in his carriage, then.”
“The one we made a scene about taking here? That one?”
Pond turned and looked at Melody with a bit of rage. “What’s your idea then?! We can’t have a dead stallion with a shoe print that fits your hoof and a broken neck with an imprint of Celestia’s face it and I still can’t believe you used my bust!” she went from talking to shouting loud enough to echo across the lake.
Melody placed a hoof over Pond’s mouth and shushed her only to have her hoof yanked into the air with magic.
“Don’t shush me! This was supposed to be easy and you had to buck it all up with your… rashness!”
Melody used a wing to scoop me up and I rolled onto her back backwards with my belly and… Little Mouse Catcher up for the world to see. It was really uncomfortable bending that way and I respected ballerinas and acrobats all the more. “I’ll take him up and drop him in the lake. We’ll say he was walking home and that was the last we saw of him. How’s that?”
“Perfect, now go do this thing before we get caught.”
I was in the air and barely on the mare as she hovered. “Who’d catch us? We’re in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the-” she fell silent and landed, dropping me to the ground and bucking me under the stairs into the shadows. I felt and heard a crack that sent a flash of light into my vision and even though it was short lived, the pain was excruciating.
“What’d you do that for?!”
“Guard patrol,” Melody said in a hushed voice. “They’ll see anything not in the shadows and report it. We’ve gotta stay hidden until they pass.”
“Why now? Drat! Of all the crummy times for them to actually do their job it had to be tonight? What’re they doing, Melody?”
“Just, hovering there! No, nononono… they’ve got a cloud and are settling over the lake! I can’t fly with them there, Pond! What’re we gonna do?”
“First, we take him into the cottage and downstairs, then we figure this out the right way. We’re smart and you’ve got experience with this, right?”
There was a silence before Melody picked me up and dragged me onto her back and upstairs into the warmth again. It was nice until a door creaked open and I was again tossed down a flight of stairs into the dark, and I hit every stair on the way down, trust me. There was a point where I couldn’t feel below my right foreleg and was terrified and thankful of that, except that I couldn’t feel my leg!
“What the flipping spell is wrong with you?! Why’d you throw him down the stairs when he was already busted up?! Is he any more damaged? Get outta my way,” Pond shouted as she descended quickly. Melody started grumbling but it fell aside as I was rolled away from the base of the stairs. “Oh no! Buck me with a scroll this’ awful! Melody, you stupid ditz, you broke his legs!
“This just keeps getting worse and worse… I don’t believe this, we’re… we’re terrible ponies,” she said in resignation. “We might have asked him and he might have said yes to a loan…”
Melody landed hard opposite me and I could feel her presence and it wasn’t pleasant. “Pond Leaf, grow up and face the cheesecake. We’re broke. We’re in love-”
I took notice of that part and started connecting dots.
“-and now we’re murderers. We’ll be lucky to get hard labor in the gem mines if they find out! He’s plucked and no getting around it, we have to clean up the mess he’s making and get rid of his body, do you hear me?”
“Y-yeah. W-what’s the plan, then? You’ve done this before, so can you please tell me what you did last time,” there was a whimper and silence.
“Look, I never actually did the stuff I said. I didn’t think we’d get this far, okay?!”
Silence that seemed to last a minute was broken with a flash of magic, a yelp, a crash. “What the spell are you talking about?! You bucking told me you killed a pony before and covered it up!”
Melody wheezed. “I read it in a book by Silent Night and wanted to impress you, I didn’t really think-”
“Damn right you didn’t think! For Celestia’s sake we’re going to spend a decade in Tartarus for this before we get hard labor! All because you wanted to impress me?”
“Well it worked,” Melody whimpered.
“Damn right it did, right until you broke this poor stallion’s… everything. Wait, ugh!” she scampered into my view and looked at me. “His ribs are broken, too. Where you bucked him under the stairs! There’s two more shoe prints over the broken ribs… Melody, why’re you so rough to him?”
“I don’t mean to be, it’s just happening! Look, we’ve bucked up already, let’s just dig a hole down here and bury him. He went walking home and vanished, happens!”
“I am not having a dead pony haunting my cottage,” Pond said flatly.
“Like you care! You were okay with murder but not about his ghost? Oooo, I’m gonna haunt you. OoooOOo.”
“Stop that! You’re like a foal sometimes. Look, I have… and idea but it only works one way.”
“Oh? What’s your new idea?”
There was a moment where Pond looked away from Melody I saw hurt in her eyes. I didn’t know what she was planning at first but the gears were turning faster now that the pain in my limbs was gone.
“I’m sorry, Melody,” was what she said as her horn shone brightly enough to hurt my eternally open eyes, but I saw her grab Melody by the neck and the sight of what looked like a rope indention tight around her neck. “It’s the only way and you’re all over him. One of us needs the bits at least-”
A gust of wind tossed Pond out of my view and Melody fell to her belly, coughing, gasping for air. “You… me?” her eyes teared up. “But, our love?”
Another flash of light. “This is Canterlot! Money is all that matters, and if you don’t have it, you don’t have anything,” Pond stated as she held Melody in the air, her mouth and nostrils closed no matter how much she struggled. “I liked you, but you’re too stupid and poor to be with me. I’ll kill you and say you killed him and came after me and I had to suffocate you in self defense, they’ll believe it! Crazy preener attacks a mud pony over something stupid and the winner attacks the wealthy and helpless looking unicorn. I’ll write a book about it, too!”
She actually cackled. Like a mad mare after a cliche monologue she cackled. If I could have rolled my eyes I would have rolled them out of my head at that.
I did have a good view for when Melody freed a wing during the monologue and gripped an old lantern that was once used for camping, I guess, and flung it at Pond with enough force to break it into metal and glass pieces across her face and end the spell, again.
Melody, again, fell to the floor and gasped for air as her eyes and face returned to their natural color as Pond screamed and foolishly pawed at her face pushing the debris deeper and making her press more. Blood slowly dripped to the floor from the beautiful unicorn while the pegasus coughed and glared death at her one time lover.
With a flap and gust of wind dust swirled around the room almost blindingly and anything light enough was taken into her draft as she swung and struck a mighty blow worthy of any action movie to the stunned unicorn’s face and sending her to the floor with a noise that even I felt. It had to have broken a bone and a few molars! I’d have to pay to watch action like this!
Melody came down hard and just missed Pond’s head by a hoof because the unicorn used a spell that pushed her body a few hooves back and she rolled to her hooves. The dust and debris was awful and there were brown and black specks all over the mares, like dust bunnies sticking to a cloth.
“You aren’t gonna flap your way outta this.”
“Like heck I’m not, spiral head!”
If I could have gasped, I would have. Pond did that enough for the both of us. One of the most hurtful things to call a unicorn and she went there. This was gonna be a good fight, or so I thought.
They both took a combat stance and moved to attack each other, exchanging blows, a spell for a wing slap, and then they both yelped and staggered around.
They looked at each other with hate and just that look mares get when they’re done playing, then yelped again and again. They averted their gaze to their own bodies and began to freak out like a first timer using too much Special K mix.
I didn’t get it at first, what they were doing. Maybe they had some secret mare fighting technique or were psyching each other out… then I saw the spots on them moving. Certainly not dust, they were spiders! Venomous ones, too.
The mares fell to their knees and with magic out of the question and Melody’s wings lying limply on the ground, they both began to struggle over me and up the stairs. Melody was the first to slip and tumble onto me where she was bit a lot more, as told from her whinney.
Pond’s tumble down the stairs ended with a crack and I imagine she met the same fate as me, only with more spider bites.
For the record, also, I did receive a few bites and the areas are stinging like the dickens. So, I imagine the mares are possible stuck like I am, aware of their failure and living torture in their death.
So, there we have it. I’m having a three-way with two mares in the basement of a cottage, only it’s not the way I secretly hoped it’d be going when we set out earlier this evening, but I have to say that overall it’s ending with me satisfied at the end results.
Now, if only I could scratch my ear!