“You’re…?” Fluttershy begins, but never finishes, resuming her stare.
“Having trouble gathering information?”
“Yep,” she answers, in English- but only after verifying that her spell would hide it. Fluttershy shouldn’t suspect a thing.
“Ahh. I’m starting to figure out your language; there’s enough muttering around it’s fairly easy to gather enough samples. I am picking up one particular name in almost everypony’s speech- including what sounds like the current eulogy. Does the name ‘Lyra Heartstrings’ ring a bell?”
She’s quite proud of herself for not letting anything show on her face. She glances up at the current speaker, and back down to Fluttershy. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
The mare in front of her might be currently incapable of speech, but a nod gets through anyways.
She hangs her head slightly. “And this is my funeral?”
Another nod.
So, she sighs, looking up at the head of the line. Not a very long line- Fluttershy is only third.
But Twilight Sparkle is second.
Two hours later, it’s finally her turn. Why not? With a nod to the guard watching for trouble at the top, she proceeds to the raised podium, and the microphone, in front of everypony. Fluttershy had stepped out of the line, and nopony seemed to have noticed her presence in it.
Until now.
She clears her throat before she steps up to the mic; no need to assault everypony’s ears with a noise like that. “I’m sure, if she could see it, she would appreciate all the effort everypony has put forth here,” she begins. “However, I think she’d prefer everypony celebrate her life than mourn her death.” She pauses for a few seconds, and looks to the side- straight at Pinkie, who’s busy crying into Rainbow’s side. “Cue party cannon?” Pinkie doesn’t move. “No? Oh well. In case you haven’t noticed, it would seem that rumors of my death have been rather, uh, greatly exaggerated.”
PHzzzzt!
Confetti and streamers rain down everywhere.
“Ahh, there it goes. Let’s get this-” Pinkie joins her onstage- “party STARTED!”
“Congratulations are in order, I believe. With the possible exception of whoever it was you ran into on those back roads, it seems the entire town loves you.”
She chuckles to herself, her disguise completely down as she watches Pinkie dice the thirtieth enormous cake into appropriately-sized pieces. “Either that or ponies don’t normally return from the dead,” she answers him.
“If that were the case, the entire town wouldn’t have attended the funeral, only the party.”
“True… Though not everypony did attend the funeral.”
“I haven’t detected those six yet at the party either. Speaking of which, how long normally passes between a pony’s disappearing and their being declared dead?”
This stops her gentle smile cold. “Two months, by law… and the funeral is a week after that. I ought to tell-!”
He interrupts her. “Don’t. Grievous violation of procedure like that is evidence of something far less friendly than a pack of stonewolves: Politics.”
“Politics?” The word is unfamiliar to her.
“Yes… the act of getting one’s own way by any means possible, practiced by politicians. As for those, you might call them ‘nobles’. Usually either corrupt or found dead.”
Her eyes widen. “What’s this have to do with them?”
“I don’t know, but telling anypony- from law enforcement to this ‘Bonbon’ you’ve referred to as a master investigator- could alert them to your intention and drive them into hiding. As it is, your apparent resurrection will do that much; you may want to pick a day- a week or two in the future, probably- to go on a journey somewhere… But stay behind, in disguised form, long-term. If you can coax them into declaring you dead again, you may be able to trace it back to the source and determine why they want you removed. Beware that, for as long as you remain undisguised, there may be assassination attempts directed your way. I might recommend making a disguised return trip to my position, to pick up some additional equipment; given better sensors, I can be of more assistance. If ever you feel Ponyville is not safe, no politician can get inside my hull.”
She spends some time digesting this. “In the meantime, then, pretend life is normal?”
“Yes.”
She nods. “Can do.”
Pinkie makes her way over, in her normal zipping manner, to offer her a piece of cake. “Come on, Lyra- this is your Back from the Dead Party, why are you hiding over here?”
At this, she smiles, accepting the cake. “Hiding? I thought I was watching you cut the cake!”
The week passes slowly. Rather predictably, Bonbon spent much of the time worrying over her- but she managed, if only barely, to refuse the RIS security grid. Her ‘Bolo’ friend agreed with her refusal; such a grid could theoretically be used to spy on- or trap- her.
On his suggestion, though, she has started herself a secret identity. The disguise colors she’d chosen for her return journey are easy to maintain for an entire day or more, so that’s to be her face. She’d spent hours and hours trying to come up with a name for her disguise, but to no avail; while Time Turner fit well enough, she didn’t want the name to be too blatant. She plans on using her new secret identity as a private detective of sorts. When she had finally expressed her problem- throughout several wordy minutes- to her Bolo friend, he had solved everything with his customarily unsettling speed.
“How about Doctor Whooves?”
“Doctor what?”
“Back before my day, there was a show- entertainment, mostly- called Doctor Who. The main character, a time-traveling fixer-upper, called himself ‘The Doctor’. Such a title might be suspicious in Equestria, much as it was in the show; meanwhile, given the name distribution, somepony Hooves with an obsession with his Doctor title ought not to stand out too much. That way, you can even place a secret identity inside a secret identity, reducing the chance that you yourself will be detected: Have his ‘real’ name be Time Turner. I can help with planting the files to set that up; anypony that finds it will assume there’s no more to find, and stop looking.
“Nevermind that nopony will ever see Doctor Whooves and Lyra Heartstrings in the same room together. I rather suspect nopony will ever see Doctor Whooves and Princess Celestia in the same room together, either.”
She still doesn’t know exactly where he’d heard of Princess Celestia, but his argument hadn’t been any less valid for it- and she couldn’t come up with anything against it. So, Doctor Whooves it is.
She’s started calling him that too, much to his amusement.
But now, Doctor Whooves is moving in to town. He’s already purchased a small shop, which he’ll be moving into today; normally, there would be a Pinkie Party, but he seems to already be aware of Pinkie- and has requested not to have a welcome party, as those make him nervous. That way, she should be able to get out of meeting him herself… Which could be difficult, to say the least. She’s not sure if she could adequately disguise empty air for long enough.