“So… you heard this from a wolf,” said Cascadia skeptically.
“Ma’am,” I protested, “as a ranger, I-”
“You don’t need to ‘ma’am’ me,” she said testily.
“Ma’am,” I enunciated. “I’m a ranger. I’m trained to communicate with wild animals if I need to.”
“And you believed it?”
“She took me to a cave where the killer dumped most of the bodies. Clearwater saw it, she’ll back me up.”
“And it said ponies were responsible?”
“Well, she- She- She thought it was something that looked like a pony. She didn’t pay attention to the colors because smell is more important to her, and wolves are colorblind anyway.”
“But it thought a pony was the killer?”
“And she said the smell it left behind wasn’t exactly a pony’s. It was something… wrong. So, yes, she thought a pony was the killer, but I think she’s wrong.”
“So what do you think it was?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled, slamming my hooves on Cascadia’s desk. “Nothing about this makes sense! Something out there’s killing predators — and only predators — and taking their blood, but I don’t know why. And yet it doesn’t take their blood without beating the shit out of them. Except for when it decides to hide the body in that cave. I. Don’t. Know. What’s going on. I’ve been at this for less than a week, so please cut me some sunblasted slack.”
“Slack?” whispered Cascadia. “I thought this was your job. The reason you’re here in the first place. You ought to be better than us at monster hunting. You’ve given us nothing we didn’t know already, a-”
“I’m not omniscient! I’m still a pony! There are- Forget it.” I stood up. “You’ll have my report on your desk before you leave tonight.” I was out the door before she could respond.
Clearwater was standing outside the door, nervously jumping from her left hooves to her right. She swallowed. “Well, ah… At least she wasn’t yelling.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Great.” I tried and failed to keep my steps from being stompy.
Sure. Like she knew. I know a bit more about animals than the average jack, and suddenly I’m supposed to know everything that could possibly be going on with animals in this distant corner of Equestria. And yet, when I get information from an animal, using the knowledge I’m supposed to have, suddenly that information is unreliable. What did she know?
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
“Do, uh, do you… need my help… with anything?” asked Clearwater. “ ’Cause you’re… kinda-”
“No, thanks.” I sighed. “I need to write a report about this, and I don’t think you can help me with that.”
“Ah. Alright. Well, I’m… open if you need somepony to talk to.” Clearwater hesitantly nodded and headed to her office.
I could’ve dealt with the murdered animals, maybe, if it was just them. But with Cascadia on my case about it too, I was dangerously close to punching holes in the walls. To think I was relieved she’d let me investigate freely just a few days ago when she didn’t know what in Tartarus she was talking about. Animals just didn’t behave like this. This was more like some big-city serial killer case, not nature going a little out of whack. Or a lot out of whack.
Glaring at the linoleum, I made my way office. The work day still had a few hours left in it, and I needed to write a detailed report on my findings for Cascadia.
Actually, no. I didn’t need to write a report just yet. I needed a sunblasted chocolate bar.
Four minutes and one vending machine visit later, I was in the cafeteria, wolfing down my second Horshey bar, intently studying the whorls in the surface of the table, trying to calm my nerves. It was… half-working. I was still angry, but it was less and less directed at Cascadia. In fact, I was beginning to understand that-
Suddenly, Homeguard sat down right in front of me. “You are not the source of her anger,” he said.
I grunted. Part of me already knew that, but part of me wanted to direct my anger at the investigation towards her. For the same reason she was directing her anger at the investigation towards me: the other was available.
“She is frustrated at the lack of progress,” continued Homeguard, “and she is-”
I swallowed the chocolate in my mouth. “Taking it out on me,” I muttered, “because yelling at an abstract concept just makes things worse.”
“…Ehm. Yes.”
“I know. I can tell how ponies are feeling, thank you.”
“Do I look like a mind reader?” he asked.
“It’s not that hard to guess that a pony’s angry if her ears are back and she’s constantly speaking in tense whispers.” I rubbed my head. “Look. I know that she’s not really angry at me. That she just thinks that-”
“Well, th-that makes you more mature than most ponies. You would be shocked at the amount of ponies who persist in holding grudges that were their fault to begin with and refuse to look at another’s perspective.”
I looked Homeguard in the eyes. They seemed a little bit darker than usual, but that was probably just me. I swallowed the bit of chocolate I was chewing on. “You can tell which ponies are holding grudges, yet you can’t tell when I’m not?”
Somehow, that little question (more a snipe than a question, if I was being honest with myself) flustered Homeguard like nothing else. “I- I do not know you well as of yet,” he said. “You have been living in Delta less than a week, far less than anypony else here. Everypony else, I am well acquainted with. You, I am not.”
I didn’t dwell on it too much. Homeguard’s social skills weren’t something I needed to concern myself with. “I guess.” I slid the unopened bar towards him. “Chocolate?”
“No thanks,” he said, pushing it back. “I am not fond of milk chocolate.”
I shrugged. “Your loss.” I opened the bar and took a large bite. Through a combination of chocolatey goodness and some actual conversation, the rate at which my temper was dying increased. I worried less about Cascadia and more about things that needed to be worried about. “So,” I mumbled to myself, “what kind of monster has a cyclical hunting pattern with a frequency of about two weeks?” Not much. The same kind of not much that was constantly getting thrown at me.
“What makes you so sure it is a monster? They are not the only things capable of this slaughter.”
…Huh. I couldn’t believe we’d never considered that angle before. I thought back to the letter I’d received first telling me that I was going to Delta. I recalled it well enough to know that the perpetrator being a monster was just sort of assumed, and I’d never questioned it. Because, well, why shouldn’t it be a monster? It was only against animals, always out in the woods. I’d worked on similar cases before that had always resulted in a monster being responsible. But why there was nothing saying it had to be a monster yet. “…I’ll keep that in mind. What made you think of that?”
Homeguard blinked twice. “It- I-”
A firepony stuck her head into the cafeteria. “Hey. Homeguard. We need to clean out the hoses on Engine 4, remember? Please don’t make me do it by myself.”
“Apologies,” Homeguard said as he stood up, “but I must be going.” And then I was alone in the cafeteria. Honestly, what was with him? I polished off my chocolate.
As I wrote the report, I slipped into the same double mind as I did when walking while bored. So there was a possibility that a pony was responsible. I’d discounted it earlier because of the strange arterial wound, but for now, I laid that aside. So, if a pony was doing it (and that was still a pretty big “if”), what would they want the blood for? I didn’t really want to know what kind of pony I was that my mind jumped pretty quickly to “blood magic”.
Blood magic is one of the more infamous areas of magic, mainly because of the whole “blood” part. Its reputation is very unfair — its effectiveness in fighting bloodborne diseases is unparalleled, just to begin — but not entirely undeserved; it can provide great power at the cost of great quantities of blood, which usually turns out to be somepony else’s. I didn’t know whether or not animal blood also worked, but if it did-
I dotted the last period on my report and looked it over. Seemed good. And now, the hard part: taking it to Cascadia. I didn’t want to spend any more time with her than I had to. I rolled the scroll up and grabbed it with my teeth. I opened my door. I walked down the hall. I knocked on Cascadia’s door. I waited for her to say, “Come in.” I entered. I was about to say something, but Cascadia telekinetically plucked the scroll from my mouth before I could. She was looking right at me, almost… wearily? “Take a seat, Swan,” she said. She sounded tired, somehow.
I sat down in front of her, trying to stay neutral. “You have my report, obviously.” I gestured at the scroll.
“Yeah.” Cascadia tapped her hoof on the desk a few times. “Swan Dive,” she said eventually, “I’m better than today. Delta’s my town, and I hate seeing it in trouble when I can’t do anything about it.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. “I’m sorry for expecting too much of you. This has been going on for so long and I… just hoped… If, if I ever go over the line like that again, please: don’t hesitate to call me out on it.”
There’s a little gremlin inside everybody, one that never wants to forgive anybody under any circumstances. They hurt us! it screams in a whiny yet strangely appealing voice. They don’t deserve forgiveness! And, I’ll admit, it was pretty loud right then, that soon after she’d yelled at- after we’d yelled at each other. I was still stewing, and who did she think she was, simply asking for an apology like that?
A better mare than me, probably. I was already frustrated after dealing with this for less than a week. She’d been dealing with it for months. She had far more of a right to be stressed out about this than I did. And yet we’d both blown up with the same intensity. But in spite of that, she was the one accepting responsibility. She’d decided to lower herself to make peace. She wasn’t even attaching any conditions to it: You have to admit, it was kinda your fault too, right?
Deep breath. I looked her in the eye and said, “Apology accepted. And- And I’m sorry for-”
Cascadia lifted a hoof for silence. “Apology accepted. I know how it is.” She grinned crookedly. “But let’s try to stay civil in the future, m’kay?”
After a second, I nodded. “M’kay.”
“Great. That’s all. Again, I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen anything like this before, and… yeah.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to say I hadn’t either. Let the laypony know the specialist was utterly clueless, or lie to give her hope? I skated around that patch of thin ice. “Speaking of which, Homeguard said something about me not being sure it’s a monster in the first place, so… I thought: what if it’s a pony using animals for blood magic? I’m not trying to wiggle out of this,” I added quickly, “I just want to be open to other options.”
Cascadia flattened her ears and looked up. She tapped her hoof on the desk. “It’s a long shot,” she said eventually. “But long shots are really all we have now. The wolves said the killer smelled bad. Can wolves smell magic?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Has anypony suspicious been hanging around Delta since the deaths started?”
“Not that I can remember. The last time somepony came to Delta and stuck around at all was Crooked River, and he was still months before we found the first body. He’s kinda misosophontic, though. Garnered a few harassment complaints the first few weeks, but then he settled for looking sullen on the sidelines.”
Crooked River. Somehow, that didn’t surprise me much. I briefly toyed with the idea of telling Cascadia about his recent harassment, but (in what was probably a stupid move) decided to just let it go; it’d only cloud her perception of him. Of course, the evidence for him draining animals’ blood was so incredibly circumstantial it barely qualified as evidence. “Hmm. Did Speckle show up about then, too?”
“Who?”
“Y-you know, Speckle. His, his girlfriend or partner or whatever?”
“I’ve never heard of anypony named Speckle and I’ve never seen River with anypony.”
“Oh.” Weird. “Well, um… really red eyes, wavy orange mane, pale green coat.”
Cascadia cocked her head and looked back at the ceiling. Again, she tapped her hoof a few times. “…Nope, never seen anypony like that. I’ll let you know if I see her, though.”
“Great,” I said, standing up. “Thanks.”
Outside Cascadia’s office, I glanced at the nearest clock. Still an hour before I was supposed to be done. Dangit. I was tempted to say “screw it, it’s been a tough week” and just go home, but I felt the need to work for that last hour, to do something. I managed to waste time reviewing the area’s wildlife, monstrous and natural alike. It was a decent refresher, but I already knew most of it. When quitting time finally came, I was packed almost immediately. I was almost running when I exited the police station and entered the drizzle that was the current wea-
“Hey! Hey, Swan!”
Clearwater came galloping out of the station and slid to a stop in front of me in a wave of mud. “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she panted, “and my husband and I were going to get together with some friends after the evening church service for a game night and drinks. Do you want to join?”
That was a bit sudden. Welcome, granted, but where was it coming from? “Maybe,” I said vaguely. “Why do you ask?”
“The murders are putting you under a lot of stress and you’re going to burn out,” said Clearwater. “I can see it already. Heck, I’ve done it at times myself. You’re so attached to this case that you’re not going to rest until you solved it, and you see where I’m going with this? You need a break.”
“But I’ve only been working on it for three days!”
“That doesn’t matter,” Clearwater said, waving a hoof dismissively. “You can still burn out quickly if you’re stressed enough. I mean, I haven’t seen you around town outside of work since you arrived here. Have you gotten out at all?”
“No,” I said. I rubbed the back of my neck self-consciously. “I’ve… had a lot to do…”
“So take a break,” said Clearwater. “Just for one night, okay? You don’t even need to come with us. Just relax. You need it.”
I mulled it over for a short moment. “What kind of games?”
“What do you want? Poker’s common. One night we had a Cloud Nine tournament. Charades. Bring your own ideas. Nothing’s really set.”
“…The drinks aren’t 190 proof, are they?”
“Oh, noooooo,” Clearwater said with a laugh. “I’m not masochistic when company’s around. …Well, I guess if you wanted a drink that strong, you could have it, but-”
“Sure, I’ll come,” I said. “After church?”
“After church. We’ll meet at my house; here’s my address.” Clearwater dug a scrap of paper from a pocket and handed it to me.
“Thanks. See you then.”
The windows were dark when I arrived home, and my coat started standing on end. Levanta was usually hanging around the house right now. I knew it might be nothing — maybe she’d found a friend today? — but my throat was dry as I unlocked the door. As I rattled the entryway fireflies into wakefulness, I listened for any sound of movement. Absolute silence. I decided to break it. “Levanta? I’m home!”
No answer.
“Levanta? …Levaaantaaa!”
Just my voice echoing back. My heart instinctively kicked up a notch before I forced it back down. She could just be at a new friend’s house, right? She knew to leave a note on the table. I checked there. The note I found was scribbled in the uniquely horrific penmareship of Levanta in a hurry.
At friend’s house. Back by 9. Have dinner there.
I frowned at myself. Maybe I should’ve set a curfew. 9:00 was a reasonable time; the note just jogged my memory. I decided I’d put it off for a while if Levanta actually got back by nine. Checking out like this without checking in with me was a mild no-no, but I was willing to let it slide a few times if Levanta wasn’t so down. If she kept it up, though…
Well, I’d get to that later. I collapsed on the sofa with a book I was working my way through.
It was 8:47 when the door banged open and Levanta yelled, “Hi, Mom!” from the front hall. “Did you see the note?”
I flipped my book closed. “Yeah!”
Still dripping wet from the rain, Levanta bounded into the living room with little half-flaps. She was grinning; good sign. “Today was great!” she said. “We were in biology and the teacher asked us where timberwolves came from and nopony else knew!” She giggled. “And then Babbling Brook started talking to me which was great because that meant I didn’t have to talk to her first and that was half the hardness right there and we met during lunch break and we talked and we have a lot in common and she invited me over to her house-” She took a deep breath. “-if I was willing to help her with clearing a drainage ditch and I was like ‘Sure!’ and it went real fast with the two of us so we had a lot of time for other stuff and I think I wanna be an artist and I’m thinking about go-”
“An artist?” I asked. “Pen-and-paper visual artist?” She’d never expressed any interest in that before, but maybe all she needed was some stimulation.
“Pencil-and-paper to start,” said Levanta, “but, Mom, Brook does sketches and her stuff’s really good, I mean whoa, and she said she was gonna help me with drawing if I said I wanted to, and I was all, ‘Sure!’, so she lent me some of her older stuff. Like-” She bounded out of the room and bounded back. “-this-” She held up something that looked like a anklet with a tiny ring attached to it. “-is something you put a pencil in and attach to your hooves for when you’re still learning the right ways to move a pencil while holding it in your teeth and need a little bit of extra dexterity that you don’t have just yet and-” Out, back. “-this neat gem is a color eraser, for when you just want to remove one color, and-”
“And her parents were okay with you staying for dinner?”
“-this is a color blender so you c- Oh, yeah. Sure, they’re real friendly and- Do you know a cop named Clearwater?”
I twitched. “Yeah. Why?”
“She’s Brook’s mom and says she works with you. Anyway, I’d helped dig the drainage ditch, so, yeah, they were really chill about me staying.”
Talk about a coincidence. Maybe to be expected in a town as small as this, but I was still surprised. I wondered if Brook had told Clearwater anything about Levanta.
“Oh, and random segue, but just so you know, the shed out back’s total shite.”
“Levanta! Language!”
Levanta rolled her eyes. “I borrowed a shovel to help Brook with the ditch, and part of the shed wall’s like rotting away. I mean, I could punch a hole right through it.”
Why hadn’t I taken the gardening implements out yet? Heck, I hadn’t even been out back at all. “I’ll get to it later. Do you have any more of those art tools?” I’d never been the artistic type, but just seeing the tools sounded interesting.
Levanta’s face lit up. It’d been too long since I’d seen her really smile. “Oh, yeah, they’re so weird, but so cool! Like, hang on-” And she was away and back again. This time, she was carrying a small bag. She rummaged around in it for a moment and pulled out something that looked like a wheel. “Like, this is called a spirograph, and they’re foals’ toys, but Mom, it just looks so dang cool. Here, lemme get a pencil so I can show you…”