//------------------------------// // 4 - Getting Your Bearings // Story: Gloaming // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// I swung by the station house to slap a taped “out for the day” sign on my door and was off to the chapel. It was on the edge of town, not too far off the main road, and the closest building to my first destination out in the forests. I quickly settled into an easy trot along the road. With the precipitation down to a mere drizzle, and the weather plan saying it’d vanish completely before noon, I took the opportunity to really examine the forest for once as the buildings thinned. I’d never seen anyplace so alive and… green. I’d been in forests before, of course. I’d guess that a good seventy-five percent of my past work was in forests. But everything here was green. Moss covered the tree trunks and ferns poked out of nearly every bare patch of dirt. And yet, somehow, all that green wasn’t monotonous. Thanks to the rain, the forest sparkled like a thousand emeralds. All this greenery was rare this late in autumn, but distant towns didn’t always keep the strictest seasonal schedules. I was lucky the road I was following went straight to the chapel, or I might’ve missed it. The road was well-traveled, but the building itself was nestled out of easy sight from the main roads. The chapel was a bit larger than I’d expected, although it still had the same tight, compact feeling of small-town chapels everywhere, the same brown wooden sides, the same traditional arrangement of entrances, the same bell tower maintained out of habit, the same irregular layout of what started out a small, basic building but grew in a hodgepodge at the same rate as the town as its needs grew. It reminded me of Halterdale’s; I grinned as my sister’s wedding sprang to mind. Happiest day of her life. There was a carving of two alicorns above the entrance closest to me. Princesses Celestia and Luna, obviously; even though they’d tried to discourage attempts to deify them, to claim their place in the Harmony of Equestria, ponies kept putting them on a pedestal for some strange celestial-body-moving reason. But when I took a closer look, it wasn’t Princesses Celestia and Luna. It was Princesses Luna and Twilight. And suddenly, the carving took on a new meaning beyond the usual “the Princesses are so great!” truisms. Luna, formerly driven mad by anger and envy, accepted back into Harmony. Twilight, once a humble unicorn devoted to learning about friendship, changed because she reached some higher understanding of Harmony. Somepony in this town took Harmony far more seriously than I ever did. After a few moments of admiring the carving (the artistry was amazing), I turned to head off into the woods. I promptly turned right back around to enter the chapel. If there was any sexton inside, they ought to know just who the unfamiliar pony skulking around their chapel was and what she was doing. Just in case. The sanctuary was merely functional objectively, with the basic altar and simple pews, but felt well-worn and homey. I could see a slight dent on the wall where a door handle kept banging into it, trails on the floor where pews had been dragged aside, the exquisite polish on the windows, the well-arranged piles of wood near the altar. It was a place that’d been used fondly and often. The warm and fuzzy feeling was broken up by the infrequent dripping coming from a small hole in the roof and plopping into a bucket. A pegasus was hovering just under the hole, holding a board and trying to find the best way to use it to cover the hole. I thought she hadn’t noticed me — I wasn’t especially loud and she was very engrossed in her work — but as soon as I looked at her, she held up a hoof. “Juuuuuust a second,” she said. “Gotta check one last thing…” She tilted the board one way, then another, then gruffly snorted. “Yeah, no.” She dropped to the floor and leaned the board against a wall next to — I noticed them for the first time — a hammer and a set of nails. Before I could say anything, the mare was right up next to me. She had the same golden eyes as Homeguard; maybe they were related. “Hey!” she chirped. “You look new! Hearty Hail, but you can just call me Hailey. Everypony else does.” She laughed. “What kind of a weird name is Hailey? But I like it, so, y’know.” She shrugged. “So whatcha doin’ here?” I coughed to stall for time; Hailey talked fast and it took me a little while to adjust. “You, you know the animal deaths that have been happening around here?” “Ooo, yeah,” Hailey said in a slower, lower voice. She nodded solemnly. “It’s real sad, isn’t it?” Then the smile was back. “Which probably means you’re… Wait, wait, don’t tell me!” She waved a hoof in my face and banged herself in the forehead. “You’re… the… I know you’re the ranger, but darnit, I can’t remember your name!” She smiled apologetically. A smile seemed to be her default expression, with various modifiers added to show emotion. “Swan Dive. I-” “That was it!” Hailey said, stomping lightly on the ground. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember it! It’s a nice name. All trochaic, y’know? Swan Dive. Like Hai-ley. Or Home-guard. Prin-cess Lu-na. Trochees are fun.” “I was-” “You’re gonna investigate the spot where we found the bear, right? Total bummer when that happened. And right after the service, too. I mean, the abbot’s all like, ‘Harmony, Harmony, Harmony’, then you walk outside and find a big ol’ bear sitting dead on the path, which is a bit of a mixed message if there ever was one.” She took a breath, and I spoke as quickly as I could so she couldn’t get a word in and run off with the conversation again. “Right yes I just wanted to let you know what I was doing so you wouldn’t think a stranger was lurking around the chapel.” “Yeah, yeah, I getcha. Say, you want me to show you the exact spot where we found the body? Just in case, y’know.” “Aren’t you busy with…?” I pointed up at the roof. “Efh.” Hailey shrugged vaguely. “Showing you the place’ll only take like a sec and I probably need to get some more boards for the leak anyway. C’mon!” Before I could say anything, she was heading out the door in a weird gait that was half-walk, half-low-flight. I followed her down a narrow puddle-soaked path, hoping she wasn’t nearly as ditzy as she seemed. She wasn’t. I opened my mouth to ask Hailey if she remembered anything, and she was prattling off the answers before I’d said anything, like she’d read my mind. “So you probably want to know about who found it, right?” she asked. “Interrogating the witnesses. I’m telling you, the butler did it!” She giggled. “But for real. It was e-xac-tly nine weeks, four days-” She glanced up at the sky, even though the sun was hidden behind a bank of clouds. “-twenty-two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and twelve, thirteen, fourteen seconds ago, so just after eleven o’clock nine weeks ago Saturday if you wanna be easy about it. It was found by whassisface, Lodestone. He wasn’t feeling great and left just after the final meditation, and bam! Dead bear next to the path home, which didn’t do wonders for his health.” “Uh-huh,” I said. That was about what the report had said. No mention of Lodestone’s health, but I doubted that was an issue. “But you know the weird thing?” Hailey stage-whispered. “The bear couldn’t’ve been there before the service, ’cause he always takes that path to and from the chapel. But at the same time, we never heard anything, which we totally probably should’ve.” Ricking-racking reports that left out the important parts. Ricking-racking me that didn’t notice the gaps in the reports. Ricking-racking innocuousness. I’d never even considered that before, but now I was wondering if I’d subconsciously ignored it. Of course the bear had to have died during the service. The reports hadn’t mentioned Lodestone seeing anything on the way to the chapel, and a dead animal definitely should’ve attracted his attention. But the apparent silence with which the bear was killed was yet another mystery. The chapel wasn’t a place that was abandoned and infrequently visited. Ponies visited there en masse at least once a week. Whatever was killing the animals, it wasn’t skittish around untrained ponies, like a lot of animals are. “Riiiiight there!” said Hailey. She pointed at the crest of a hill. “Just below the summit. Is ‘summit’ the right word for the top of a hill? It’s not very mountain-y.” I shrugged. “Dunno. Thanks for showing me.” “Yep!” Hailey saluted. “And I’ll be at the chapel if you need me!” She fly-hopped back down the path. I rooted around the site, not feeling that optimistic. I often had a Bad Feeling if there was something off about a place, and absolutely nothing about this area was suspicious. The plants were moving as they should. The birds were twittering peacefully. The wind smelled fine. The ground didn’t have any strange prints. And when I still felt healthy half an hour later, I knew nothing was wrong with any ley lines that may or may not have been around. Standing on the top of the hill, I took in the land it overlooked. I couldn’t see anything off from up here, either. A perfectly normal patch of forest, with the usual lumps in the land. Not even anything as unusual as a stream. With a sigh, I began doing a circuit of the area. I’d bet my life that ill magic contaminating the land wasn’t the problem, but I’d never hear the end of it if it was and I’d overlooked it because I was lazy. I examined the area for I don’t know how long and didn’t find a blade of grass out of place. Which was a bit unusual. Bears were, naturally, big and fierce. Even if one got attacked and didn’t run, it’d put up a damn good fight. But I couldn’t find any evidence of either fight or flight, not even evidence that looked several months old. No big broken branches, no clawed furrows, no rocks with the moss on the wrong side. So the bear had been taken by surprise. That’d make sense, what with the congregation not hearing any bear attacks. The bear had to have been killed quickly, before it could fight back at all or make any noise. And the blunt force trauma, inflicted after the bear was dead, was pure sadism. Whatever was doing this, it was intelligent. It was like I was getting a buy-one get-one deal on cans of worms. Nothing about this made sense. The thing responsible was intelligent, yet deliberately went after the most aggressive, most dangerous animals in the area. It wasn’t afraid of ponies, yet seemed to be actively avoiding them. It kept attacking animals, yet not for any visible reason. It was heartless enough to brutalize bodies after its victims were dead, yet controlled enough to only do it once every one or two weeks. I needed a different perspective, something to force me out of my usual way of thinking. I could try talking to some of the animals in the area; there was always a chance — no, a strong likelihood — they’d seen something. Animal communication was the skill in my ranger toolset I was worst at, but I was half-decent at it. Unfortunately, I’d need to talk to predators, particularly — shudder — bears. Bears were mean. Brutish, nasty, ravenous, and suffering from poor self-control, bears were something I wanted to stay far, far away from. I’d heard the Element of Kindness, Shutterfly or whatever, could convince bears to sit down and enjoy tea parties. If that was true, she deserved to be princessed on the spot. Still, beggars and choosers. I stopped by the chapel to thank Hailey again (she was already well on her way to fixing the hole in the roof) and headed off into the forest for the next site. I followed the path I’d set in an autopilot sort of way, my conscious mind almost entirely detached from the movement of my hooves. I kept running over alternate plans, in case none of the other places yielded anything. “Talk to the animals” was the one that popped up the most. If I had another body, it’d be better, but- I spotted something ahead: a low black shape loping through a gap in the trees. A wolf, from the looks of it (and a regular gray one, not a timberwolf). I immediately turned and trotted after it; predators could be hard to find at the best of times, so I’d take whatever lucky breaks I got. The wolf wasn’t moving fast; I wondered if it was stalking something. As I drew closer to it, it didn’t seem that way. Maybe it was just walking from one hunting ground to the other. I kept my wits around me, since the pack was probably still close by. When I deemed I was a close enough distance to it, I yelled, “Hey!” The wolf twitched to look at me, and in a second it was charging- Stand your ground, my training instantly said. Wolves are faster than you. -barking, spit flying from its muzzle- Stay low, keep your legs bent. When it tries to pounce, jump to one side. -as its claws dug furrows into the ground- Watch out for the rest of the pack. They might flank you. -and less than twenty feet from me, it stopped, still barking itself hoarse. I flicked my gaze left for an instant, right for an instant. No wolves immediately visible. Maybe there was something wrong with this wolf and it’d gotten kicked out of the pack. Maybe that was why it was barking at me like I was the devil. I took a closer look at it. I could see the whites of its eyes all the way around and its ears were as flat as I’d ever seen. It was scared. It was an apex predator, and it was scared. “Easy, easy,” I said, raising a hoof in caution. “I’m not gonna hurt you, alright?” Not alright by the wolf. It feinted a lunge then pranced backwards, barking all the while. I didn’t make a move; best to let it lead this encounter, give it some feeling of control (unless I needed to make myself scarce). It stopped barking for a second, then redoubled its efforts. And I don’t care how much experience you have, wolves are scary in the right circumstances. I almost took a step back or ten. But I didn’t, so the wolf’s barking died out and it stared quizzically at me. “Yeah,” I said in a low voice. “Real scary. I am not going to hurt you.” The wolf took a step, two steps forwards. It was growling in the not-quite-aggressive “don’t get any ideas” way, its fangs not exactly bared. I motioned it closer and its ears went up a little. “See?” I said. “Easy. Do you know anything about what’s going on here?” The wolf cautiously padded up to me. I held still as it sniffed my hooves. It yiped in surprise and bolted into the forest. “H-hey!” I yelled, far too late for it to hear. “Wait! I just…” I groaned. Just what I needed. Whatever was around had all the animals on edge, too. Should’ve seen that coming. I’d probably need to talk to small animals, like squirrels, which… Well. I don’t know if it was my own semi-ineptitude with animal communication, but I’d always found those sorts of animals to be horrible witnesses. And that was assuming whatever the wolf had smelled on me didn’t drive them away, too. I glanced at my hoof and, after some hesitation, sniffed it. Nothing. But then, ponies weren’t as olfaction-focused as wolves. To my expected disappointment, the other locations turned up nothing. They weren’t even consistent with their terrain: the bottom of a gully that managed to stay out of the rain, a riverside, the middle of a meadow in a clearing. None of them turned up anything new and I didn’t get lucky again and run into another predator. As I walked back to the station through the slowly-increasing rainfall, I came up with a new plan: try to find the dens of animals, maybe. Hard, even for a ranger, but not impossible. It’d take the better part of the next few days without help. Maybe, if one was free, I’d rope a cop in to help me. Unskilled or not, another pair of eyes would be a huge help. I arrived the station shortly after six. Clearwater and Homeguard were outside the entrance, leaning against the wall. Clearwater was trying to wave a small, but still mostly full, bottle under Homeguard’s nose. “C’mon, try it!” she said. “For the one-hundred-and-seventy-sixth time, no thank you,” said Homeguard, looking in the opposite direction of Clearwater. “Y’know, Homeguard, I dunno if I’ve said this bef-” “You have, and-” “Alright,” I said before the conversation could get away from me, “what’s going on?” “Clearwater is relaxing at the end of her shift and drinking,” Homeguard said flatly. “Much to her chagrin, I am taking a break during my voluntary shift and not drinking.” “Homeguard here doesn’t drink!” Clearwater said happily. She nudged Homeguard. “Can you believe that? What kind of pony doesn’t drink?” “I cannot abide the taste of alcohol,” said Homeguard tightly. “I retch the moment it touches my tongue.” “I get you,” I said with a nod. “It does kinda-” “Whaaaa?” asked Clearwater, looking at me dramatically. Somepony couldn’t hold their liquor. “You don’t drink either?” “I never said that. I said I could understand him not liking the taste of alcohol. Let’s be honest: beer kinda tastes like shit.” Clearwater looked at her bottle. She nodded. “Yyyeeeaaah. Kinda.” She took another swig, then offered the bottle to me. “Want some?” “Sure,” I said, reaching forward, “I’ll give it a-” “No!” yelled Homeguard; Clearwater and I jumped. “Clearwater, you ought to tell her what she’s in for.” “Aw,” Clearwater said. “Anyways, this iktus?” She wiggled the bottle. “It’s super strong. No, stronger than that. Stronger than that, even. Guess the proof!” I leaned forward and sniffed at the bottle. To my surprise, I couldn’t smell anything. “I dunno. 160?” I’d had 140 proof once on a dare. Not about to do that again. “Nope!” Clearwater said with a grin. “190.” …Okay, no. There was no way that was correct. I wiggled a hoof in my ear. “Come again?” “Clearwater, at times,” said Homeguard, “will indulge in drinks that are 190 proof. 95% alcohol by volume.” He moved another inch away from her. “Why she wishes to risk impersonating a dragon when she is not fireproof, I cannot fathom.” He turned to her in response to her opening her mouth. “And claiming it prevents you from smoking does not count!” “I’m not touching that! Shouldn’t it taste like liquid pain?” I asked, backing away. “A ball of nails sliding slowly down your throat?” “Kinda does,” said Clearwater. She shrugged and took another drink. She was drinking 190 proof alcohol straight. “Tastes more like fire and bad decisions, though.” “Then why do you drink it?” “ ’Cause.” “Do not expect a more satisfying answer from her,” said Homeguard before I could ask the obvious. “I have known her for years and that is the best I have managed.” “Hmm. Uh, Clearwater, I was thinking… if you… feel up to it tomorrow… would you be okay with searching for predator dens with me? I might need to talk with some of them.” Whether due to the fact that she was having alcohol so strong you could probably get drunk from the fumes or simply having seen that before, Clearwater didn’t seem too surprised at me proposing to walk into a wolf den for a friendly conversation. “Sure, I can do that,” she said. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.” “Uh-huh. Really.” “Really really!” she protested. “She does have a way of avoiding hangovers,” conceded Homeguard. “I do not doubt that she will be as right as rain tomorrow.” “You’ll see,” said Clearwater. She wiggled a surprisingly steady hoof at me. “I’ll. Be. Fine.” She coughed and pushed away from the wall. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home before the bulk of that liquor hits my system and renders me comatose for half an hour.” I was ready to follow if she needed it, but her path was dead straight. I glanced at Homeguard and made a confused face. “I cannot comprehend why ponies drink alcohol in the first place,” said Homeguard. “Do not ask me why she insists on such poison.” “I know,” I said, “just…” I shrugged. “So why do you wish to converse with the local wildlife?” Homeguard asked. “Because by now, they’re the most likely witnesses. I’ve never been this… clueless before.” I briefly ran over what I knew, capping it off with, “…so by now, I’m either missing something really obvious or there’s something out there that nopony’s seen before.” “Hmm. And how likely do you think the latter is?” “Honestly? No clue. Ponies have been living in this area for centuries, but you’d be surprised at how well some animals can hide.” “I imagine I would.” “And discovering a new monster would be nice, but from the way it’s been acting…” I shuddered. “It’d probably send me to the hospital after I found it.” “…Well, I would hate to see that happen,” said Homeguard. “Yeah, well…” I shrugged. “It might. You can’t see the future.” Homeguard’s ears twitched. He coughed. “No. You cannot.” “Anyway, nice talking to you, but I gotta get going. Be seeing you.” “Take care,” said Homeguard. “I hope your search tomorrow proves fruitful.”