//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Arrival in Springrun // Story: Never Lucky // by Ferris the 1st //------------------------------// The train ride was predictably awkward. Even sitting in general seating and trying my best to converse with some of the other ponies aboard, my intimidating shadow had a way of curbing talk. It had been over a month since my last contact with the non-guard world and this jerk was drawing a line between us and them. I might have been okay with it if trying to get him to talk wasn't like pulling teeth. Silent Stroke had swapped out of his dress uniform and might have looked casual if it wasn't for his attitude. I eventually had to make the excuse of going to the restroom just to go have a real conversation. For the first time in my life, I was eager to learn some news about what had been happening outside of the barracks. Apparently our freshest princess had decided to open a school. Good for her, I wished her nothing but the best. She'd been living in Ponyville long enough that she probably had become a normal country pony, aside from the occasional world ending disaster. The death-like state that Tirek had put everypony in wasn't the best experience. Aside from that, it seemed like the world had been given a bit of a breather from alicorn-related incidents. The ponies I talked to were all hoofball and fashion trend talk. The latter wasn't a surprise, considering the city we were stopping at before marching to Springrun. I returned to my seat before we started pulling into Manehatten Station. I'd never seen such a large city in my life and I tried to take it all in as Stroke took off at a healthy pace, forcing me to hurry after him. It baffled me how buildings so large and made of metal could be possible, but then again I wasn't a construction pony. Sure, some of the buildings in Canterlot rivaled them for sheer size, but Manehatten won the quantity contest hooves down. How did anypony find their way around this city!? Apparently Silent Stroke could as he weaved through a crowd that parted around him like water. They were less inclined to allow me passage and I earned several dirty looks and angry comments before catching up to him. Thankfully, seeing that I was with him discouraged some of the more violent looking individuals from giving me a “warm” welcome. All in all, it wasn't my kind of city. I was breathing a sigh of relief and checking my saddlebags to ensure my equipment and rations were still with me as we left the city proper. I wasn't going to put it past some of those ponies to swipe something off of me since I wasn't in uniform. It felt weird to see my natural fur color after so long of being just another alabaster stallion. To keep up appearances, Stroke decided we were hoofing it all the way to Springrun and camping out at night. It went well enough, with me chatting to myself or the various wildlife and silently cursing Sergeant Boomer for my inability to sleep past the raising of the sun. The way there felt normal and peaceful. For a few days, I got to feel like I wasn't a member of the guard and I enjoyed it. It all ended as we came to the final stretch leading to Springrun. Like somepony had flipped a switch, the life-filled woods gave way to a sense of foreboding. Silent Stroke felt it long before I did as he tensed and began to tilt his head to look around. Birdsong turned to silence and the very air began to feel heavy as we came upon Springrun. Calling it a town was being generous. A more accurate description would be a village; it only had a small amount of buildings and even at midday there were only a few ponies out and about. Entering Springrun earned us a couple wary glances, but nopony approached us. There was an overwhelming sensation of defeat in the very soil beneath our hooves. I know that it sound strange, but it's something that most earth ponies would know. Something about our connection with the world around us gave us a certain... ability to just know. It's the equivalent of a pegasus' ability to tell you how charged a storm cloud is by touching it or a unicorns ability to discern magic signatures from pony to pony. All I could feel here was that something had gone wrong. We made out way to the largest building in the town, though that wasn't saying much, it was just the only building with a second floor. This turned out to be the local inn and was about as lovely as the rest of the town. Being this far out, it didn't possess a lot of modern conveniences, so natural and candlelight were the name of the game. Stroke made a point of getting us rooms at the furthest end of the upstairs. With our stuff safely stowed away for the moment, with the exception of a small bag each, we hit the town. We took a long detour around the wood buildings in order to “get a feel” for it, as Stroke declared, before heading for the local enforcement office. Said office was a small building with a single room and a short hallway with three cells. A middle-aged pegasus with a handlebar mustache looked up as we entered, his gray eyes taking us in. The cream colored stallion stood and was about to say something when Stroke produced a hoofful of official looking papers. A moment of quiet passed as the pony, wearing the jacket and badge of a sheriff, read the papers, then nodded. “You're late,” he stated with a snort, his gruff voice making me tense as its abrasiveness, “two more ponies went missing yesterday.” He pushed over a pair of photos and I pulled my eyes from glaring a hole into his face to look at them. My ears shot up. The smiling faces of two foals, an orange furred earth pony colt, and a blue furred unicorn filly. “Tell us what you know.” Stroke commanded levelly. The sheriff gazed at him for a long moment, “Why should I tell you anything? How am I supposed to know that you aren't in league with whoever did this? You certainly look the part,” he leaned over the desk toward Stroke, “bat-pony.” I wasn't sure what possessed this stallion to be so blatantly racist, but if looks could kill, I would have to try and arrest Stroke for murder. As it was, I had to swallow the lump in my throat and catch Stroke's eyes with a pair of ear flicks. Guard Cant, a series of ear signs to communicate unheard in a crowd. Don't kill. Check perimeter. I'll talk. “I can see that I'm not wanted here. Good luck in your investigation, sheriff.” Stroke stated bluntly before getting up to leave. As the door slammed shut behind him, the sheriff let out a sigh of relief, “I'm sorry to see that you're paired up with one of them, colt,” the one-eighty from his previous attitude gave me whiplash as he held a hoof out to me, “Name's Lone Star. Sheriff around these parts.” Now, I was annoyed at the sheriff's attitude toward Stroke, but I couldn't afford to burn bridges right now. Putting on my best “service colt” smile, I shook hooves with him, “It's a pleasure, Lone Star,” it wasn't, “I'm Lucky Signs. We got word up in Canterlot that you think that... something fishy is going on around here.” A lot of ponies don't know how to test the waters with phrasing like that. I needed to see how open he was with saying it. He nodded, getting a tired look on his face, “Yeah, you could say that. It started about a month ago and me and the boys weren't sure what to make of it. A young mare was passing through on her way up to Manehatten and was staying at the inn. The owner heard a struggle and got in contact with us. All the mare's belongings were still in the room, but it was like she'd vanished of the face of the world.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed at the ceiling, “there was nothing to go on, so we had to suspend the investigation after a couple days. The trend continued for a while with only ponies from out of town going missing. Then when travel started to dry up, a couple of townsponies went missing. Same M.O. No trace of where they'd gone. That is until the day before we sent a message up to Canterlot.” Reaching into the desk, he pulled out a length of folded cloth, black in color, and pushed it over his desk to me, “Found this nearby. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but one of our older folks started spouting off about cults. Scared the ponies around here senseless until I managed to calm 'em down.” Carefully, I unfolded the cloth and felt my face fall into a deep frown. Plastered across the cloth was the image of a purple eye. It was almost identical to the Night Guard's emblem except for the color. It was easy to see how the locals thought a Nightmare cult was to blame, but something was just off about it. Looking up at him, I asked, “Do you mind if I hold onto this? It might assist the investigation.” When he nodded, I slipped the cloth into my bag, knowing that Stroke would want to see it. My eyes returned to the photos in front of me, “These foals. What can you tell me about them?” A sad look shot through his eyes as he nodded, “Buck Wild and Misty Trails. Twins, if you believe that. Their parents were devastated to hear that they'd gone missing, but nopony in town knows where they went,” he rubbed his neck, “Sunny Trails, their mother, wanted to blame ol' Digger. Nice old stallion who lives alone with his son at the edge of town.” he explained when I looked at him questioningly. “You don't agree?” I asked “Don't get me wrong, Digger and his colt have always been... peculiar, but they've never been the crazy kind. Digger don't talk much, but he does good work on the irrigation lines he's been working on for the local garden. The colt, Onyx Jumper, is liable to talk your ear off about whatever morbid curiosity he has, but they've both lived here for years and have been model citizens in that time. So, no, mister Signs, I don't believe they have anything to do with it.” I nodded, filing that information away. Mulling it over, I inquired, “Is it alright if we talk to ponies around town? See if anypony has seen or heard anything?” Waving his hoof dismissively, Star replied, “So long as y'all don't go stirring up a ruckus. If you can find something we overlooked and figure out what happened to these ponies, we'd much appreciate it.” “Of course. Could you also give me directions to Sunny Trails' and Digger's houses? It will probably turn out to be another dead end, but it doesn't hurt to get some more background information.” Lone Star wasn't shy about giving me directions and seemed like a fairly nice pony aside from the blatant prejudice against thestrals. Hopefully that wasn't going to be the general theme or this was going to be a long mission. Heading outside, I found Silent Stroke pacing back and forth with a grim look on his face. Thankfully his sunglasses were back in place (to protect his photosensitive eyes, as I found out) so his angry face wasn't accented by his predatory eyes. He fell in step beside me as I marched out. “Anything?” he asked tersely. “A couple of names to talk to and something that I want you to have a look at somewhere it won't start a panic. We've still got some daylight, so we might as well get some questions answered if we can... maybe I should do the talking, Stroke,” he ruffled his wings and I held up a hoof in placation, “look, I'm not condoning his reaction to you, but right now we're dealing with ponies that are afraid. They're not going to think rationally and small towns like this aren't going to get a lot of thestrals. Just stand there and look intimidating,” he stared at me, “yeah, like that. These are my kind of ponies, Stroke, they're more likely to talk to me anyways.” I could see the gears turning in his head as we walked until he let out a bitter hiss, “Fine. You do the talking. I'm better at interrogations anyways.” “Stroke,” I said lightheartedly, “I get the feeling that this is the start of a wonderful partnership.” That earned me a snort in response...