//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Regarding Disposable Ponies 
// Story: Ichor 
// by Ice Star 
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Marigold had never been served by imagination. That never stopped her when she was on her trips; the tops of tall apartment buildings were as fair game as any in Manehattan. She would pull a rag from her saddlebag, spread it haphazardly and plop herself down. Her mind would dip between frustration and a dull haze. Her Alicorn Amulet would weigh coldly under her clothes and she would squint out at the inky slop of night that Princess Celestia brought forth every dusk.

She would see the thousand-plus lights of the island city below and the bay area so far away, utterly unknown to her. Sitting as tall as she could guess Canterlot would be far inland, Marigold would try and picture her world without light pollution. The numerous puffs of smoke from Manehattan’s numerous fires would mask her vision like a sooty veil and warm her face unpleasantly, causing sweat to bud under her stiff collar. The taste of ash lingered even as the sun went down, as Marigold’s years had taught her.  

Whimpering, Marigold coughed into a hoofkerchief, clutching it tightly and wheezing momentarily. Sniffling, she shoved it away again and wrinkled her muzzle, scowling with the small displeasure of a spoiled schoolfilly. The sky was still not dark enough and the sounds from the city below were her clock; they told her that the hour was still improper for her plans. 

A fussy sigh left her in a puff, and she passed what time she could by pulling a knife from where the hoofkerchief had disappeared. The kitchen would not miss it; her mother was a parlor-mare, not one who worked in the kitchen. The newspaper it was wrapped in crinkled, and Marigold felt the budding glee from knowing her debut made the front page. Utensils went unnoticed to her unless they were fine pearl-handled silverware or tea sets. No practical item Marigold was made to use in her labors matched such a worthy definition. 

There was a distant sneeze tickling somewhere in her throat, but she was not about to let it squeak out of her just yet. She was careful to balance the knife’s thick mouth grip idly on her foreleg first; the limb was carefully covered in shabby cloth booties too worn to leave a print and crusted with the remains of a fun night over in Balikun-Shetland and street-dust. The knife’s balance was becoming more practiced, but still showing the wrong motions could knock it over quite easily. 

Marigold nudged it with her other hoof, and the spinning began her wait. She was tired of pretending that one crumby apartment block could let her see the sky any more than slivers of a far bay and dark waters. 



…



The night was cloudy and the city’s air was heavier with smoke than usual. Still, Marigold was not so naive. She had no ability with the sky to know that she should get to work before the moon was high in the sky. Her earth pony superiority and the nights she was able to wriggle free from her mother’s attention played a role in that. Something more than milk went into that mare’s before-bed tea in the evenings when Marigold was deemed ‘too aggravating’ to handle. Whatever her mother saw fit to add in there was enough to make the old nag sleep like a stone. 

Her ears pricked to make sure that her shuffling had not been too great. Rusty metal offered a few plaintive groans. Wrinkling her muzzle, Marigold gave a small hissing breath and pawed at the old fire escape beneath her. A faint jingling from the overwrought, golden ensemble she had under her plain cloak was the only reply she got. 

“Hmph,” Marigold sniffed disdainfully. Under her cloak, her ears flopped down somewhat. 

She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, keeping them as tight as possible while alien pressure budded beneath the center of her skull and dazzling ruby light filtered from between her eyelashes. With nothing but twists of dark metal above her and shadowy walls of brick to barricade her, she would be too thoroughly concealed from any prying eyes. 

Rustling beneath her cloak was a papery sound. Upon opening her eyes, Marigold’s red-flooded gaze was greeted by the sight of a crumpled bit of newspaper. It had been dipped in vaguely tan paint and was cramped with sloppy mouthwriting. 

The shoddiness of it did not suggest the true nature of the card until Marigold squinted more carefully at the atrocious grammar and spelling so clumsily scrawled there. As far as she could tell, that was authentic. Her grades in spelling were poor and she still couldn’t manage the intentional awfulness these all appeared to have. Even the glow of the Alicorn Amulet’s magic made the fat squiggles look that much worse. 

Every single one of these slips had only the minimum level of legibility. Each hoof-made card was an illegal advertisement for equally forbidden actions. A false name, an address, general rates, and the vaguest implication of the exact nature of the sex crimes offered were scrawled down — usually by the offenders themselves. They were then distributed to accomplices who bribed with bits to pass the evidence into the hooves of the vile ponies who would share the perverse desire to be the second half of the crime.

Once again, Marigold’s age was of little concern when she finally found an alley-stallion with these under his jacket. He walked so ridiculously, with one hoof shoved under his coat in case he needed to get rid of the cards as quickly as possible, knowing that if caught with them the lightest punishment permissible that he would face would be years in prison and being registered alongside those who had hired him as an offender for the rest of his life. It was all so high-stakes to little Marigold.

She knew that most of the time the kinds of thugs that aided the self-exploitation practices would take a teenager like her and hoof her over to a prostitute eager to make her into an extra source of income — and perhaps somepony to vent onto — for as long they could keep her captive. Library records and newspapers she snuck spelled out the nature of these predators and the innocent Manehattan creatures they tormented from outside of their dreary, disgusting, and violent little worlds.    

Other accomplices to these dirty ponies would not be nearly as driven to abduct her. She was too young to be working for the Royal Guard and if Marigold was under the delusion of wanting to be violated — as the law would call her ‘affliction’ — by an older pony, then these forgotten types had no conscious to stop her. Especially if it meant their sunken eyes could see more ill-won bits eventually. 

The stallion who gave Marigold this particular card was not the second kind, but a third breed. She had no way of knowing if she had ever encountered the first, just that she might have pacified one such sort by offering bits for what was usually free. For ponies who willingly gave up all hope of financial security in order to fuel cycles of sex and violence, bits spoke a powerful language. 

Marigold was given a card to pocket as a result. Now she was slinking around a fire escape in the dark, prodding about the shadowy outline of a newspaper-stuffed window frame with her hooves. The floor listed was the eighth and she was careful to count her descent from the roof. She just needed to make sure she had the right window. Who else but a whore — and yes, she knew it was a whore-mare by the name chosen — would have such an ill-kept window? 

Eventually, her hooves patted down a gap in the newspaper and the glass panes rattled their protest. She felt a stale breeze pouring outward, bringing a rancid smell, and watched the reddish glow of her eyes’ reflection grow rounder upon the dirty glass at her success. The bad smell was the perfect sign that the resident was what she needed; it was too much to be explained by just another unfavorable tenet.

With her magic, she dropped a few stray bits through the hole, listening to them clatter down the other side of the glass. Seconds later, the window was rattling like something done by a boogeymare in a magazine horror tale and being clumsily yanked up from the other side.

Greeting Marigold were two bloodshot eyes in a sunken face. The thinness of her prey was so apparent that the mare’s teeth were forever bared, showing off how brown and mossy they were. Poking out from under her ragged shawl were frizzy bits of a thin mane that was mostly pulled away.

Marigold gave a forced smile and tried not to faint from the suddenness of this ugly face or the smell pouring out from her dank cave of an apartment. 

“Good evening,” she said thinly, offering a forced wave. Her drawn hood hid her lack of a horn, but her eyes still gleamed with the hidden magic of the Alicorn Amulet.

“Wha’ kinna unicorn be ya?” sputtered the mare, swiping in the air for more bits with one knobbly and twisted foreleg. 

Blinking, Marigold decided to resort to semi-practiced mouth breathing. Repulsion wouldn’t make these kinds drive anypony willing to pay away, but she at least had to keep up enough of a front to ease any nerve or second thoughts that could be lurking in this shriveled scrap of a mare. 

“One who can make magic glasses,” Marigold lied, using a swirl of telekinesis that produced a pattering sensation under her skull to twirl a lock of her mane and flash a stiff smile. 

Her heart ached desperately for her mane to be anything but the dull orangish dark blonde she had been allotted by fate. All the mane-dye bottles during her window shopping escapades proclaimed she had a shade between the ever-popular ‘Blueblood Blonde’ and ‘Antique Carrot’ — though that one was horribly unsold and unwanted. While she was never able to figure out what in Tartarus the latter was supposed to mean her mother would occasionally snidely remind her of the former. Oh, how she loathed that her mother had a fashionable, red bob while Marigold was left with her dreary mane-do. 

“Ya gon’ pay or si’ an’ gab?” spat the near-skeletal mare, what was left of any jowls flapping weakly as she fixed Marigold with a dullard’s squinty-eyed stare. Gorgeous, glittering eyeshadow was caked as thick as a layer of plaster over her eyelids, the whole application so grotesque in its unskilled quality.  

“Not at all,” giggled Marigold. She grinned and teasingly waggled one of her coin purses about with a pendulum sway of telekinesis. “I was only waiting until the lady of the house invited me in.”

The thin leftover of the mare’s upper lip curled upward even more, and the pained look of the gesture made Marigold shiver happily.

To dispel suspicions further, Marigold produced the cheap card with a flourish. It was already falling apart in the grip of Marigold’s magic and looked so unlike anything that could put a pony in prison for possessing it; the paint chipping around the edges did little to give it an intimidating edge or class. Marigold still pushed it forward like it was a golden Grand Galloping Gala ticket. 

Street-whispers she had eavesdropped on in preparation informed her that those who passed the forbidden card on were not always as quick to accept knock-and-enter buyers or those driven to them by word of mouth — and word that was often bought, too, for as mangy as Manehattan’s underbelly was, it was still small. Marigold knew she would not be turned away by the whore, that was for ponies with standards. She was in no mood to be met with any kind of hesitation, especially from somepony that she knew could never afford it.

For Marigold, hesitation meant she would have to force her way inside and start the struggle right on this fire escape. A location like this went against every shred of sense Marigold could claim; she would be facing a death sentence after only one dead mare to her name — that made the Alicorn Amulet under her cloak warm with her worry, as though they shared the emotion. 

For this whore, hesitating to accept any kind of coin — and the treatment that followed — would mean no rent, cosmetics, clothes, utilities, or distribution of her cards. If she was paying for groceries and anything else to be delivered to her by her goons, as many of her kind did, then they would have all the more reason to be angered over being money-starved…

...and Marigold had to suppress another delighted shiver at how they might ruin this whore in retaliation. That was what happened in their worlds, as Marigold could not think of any other term for the inner workings of self-exploitation.

She was oh-so-careful to pick only the choicest whispers on the streets of Manehattan as her ‘research’ into finding the best of the worst candidates to serve her.

She, the whore, was all too good at greedily swiping up the bits Marigold levitated over to her. As many purses as needed were floated over, and Marigold watched with wide, sparkling eyes as four hundred of her mother’s bits were surrendered to a mangy whore. Two hours for four hundred bits. That was a few bits too many to burden Marigold’s fine back, and this hag was going to pay for every single one. 

Oh, how her mother would be flailing her few good limbs in money-hunger if she knew the manner in which her bits were being wasted!

No matter how generous the sum the Crown sent to Marigold’s mother or the vast amount amassed within her room, Marigold’s mother was always prattling about how they never had enough. Not even the other monthly checks that Rhodium was commanded to send satisfied Petunia’s perverse petty lusts. Yet, she was the very same nag who had not yet noticed a sliver of funds taken here or there. Marigold had done her best to fill what she took from what she got from reselling her thrift hauls, replacing what she borrowed with even more bits, which her mother simply burned through. That was the only significant evidence beyond what she left of the prostitutes themselves when she was not able to snatch back every bit that she used as a prop in these blood games.     

“Twos hours,” slurred Marigold’s new whore, “no mores that.” 

Marigold smiled, cold and closed-lipped. This one would prove to be especially easy to brutalize. Her jerky leg movements and glazed eyes made everything about the whore clumsy and pathetic. When the whore went to put the coin purses she hugged within her forelegs inside, she simply dumped them all over her floor. 

For Marigold, the drum of all those bits was the song of the refund she would claim when her fun was done: teasing, bold, and beautiful. She pretended to pay them any mind and swung herself through the window after the foul mare the way she imagined elite Manehattan mares climbed into the sleekest carriages, their skirts lifted just so. 

Soon, all those bits would be hers once again, if only for a night. 


...



In her reading classes, Marigold had been forced to sit through a variety of boring stories, one of which had made her very angry. A minotaur king named Midas had gotten the best gift in the world from one of the gods and transformed everything and every-creature in his life to cold, gleaming gold. However, his cowardice made him beg for normal touch and the restoration of his worthless friends and family. Marigold despised that ending, knowing that if she had that power, she would never give it up. Tartarus knew that to transform any in such a way would excite her. Her beloved city would be much better with more gold and less greedy griffons dirtying the streets, for example.

She was struck so often by that story because when she was around such filthy ponies, it was impossible not to be reminded of how a so-called slut had the opposite influence Midas had, and they brought nothing but ruin, even if Marigold enjoyed the rot. It was that contrast that Marigold adored; she cared nothing for any kind of moral nonsense about supporting bounty-catching and community clean-up and chase-out efforts against the scummy prostitutes who shared her city. All she wanted were some disposable ponies whom she could delight in ruining. Was that not a simple dream for a simple young lady?


...


The next night she was able to slip out mirrored the first. The Mare in the Moon hung far above Manehattan Island, a pale-eyed sight that was one of the few magical things Marigold Blueblood had ever seen in her life. None of the dinginess of her mortal life or city had managed to touch the moon so high above, and no painting or print managed to wrangle even a fraction of its essence in the way the sun had been captured and caged by art so long ago. Everything was just a touch red, and she felt that she might burst from the familiar anticipation and magic thrumming against her skull. The usual sensation of her magic aside, her craving for violence was carving her out once again until Marigold could no longer subsist on reminders of what she was capable of that struck her in idle moments. Days would always pass, and Marigold would find that reliving everything in her recollections over household chores was never, ever enough — not when there were so many more ideas to swarm her mind, making her body agree.

Her skirt was less of a burden this time. The silky, shiny affair slunk with her as she crept along Manehattan streets, yet long enough to hide her hooves and flare out, a sheen golden mimicry of a nightgown. Marigold’s saddlebags were slung over the top of a formal blouse, the puffy sleeves stiffer than she had wanted them to be. Instead of the brooch favored by fillies her age trying to look like mares, Marigold had coils of scarves wound around her neck. They were neither too fashionable to keep her from standing out nor were they too shabby as much of Manehattan-style apparel was because she preferred to allow herself some taste.

The pounding of her heart was second to the pressure building at the center of her head. Every time the Alicorn Amulet was slipped on, Marigold noticed that the ache was growing more pronounced. Something about her skin had begun to feel different too, there was a variety of crawling, tingling sensations that never quite went away even when she took off the amulet.

None of these were bad, in fact, they even kept her more focused upon her dark desires. She figured that every unicorn felt these phantom sensations and that it was a part of their weakness she only had to learn to overcome. So, she let them weigh down upon her like the tart card in her front pocket, where it could be safe from the rain. 



…



The wooden stairs creaked each time she stepped on them, but Marigold still managed to slink her way up to the fourth floor. Never before had a prostitute been quite as careless as this one, who answered ponies right at her own door. She was no doubt an amateur, then, and how lucky she would be for Marigold to find her instead of the guard. They would have her name, her true name, branded on a sex offender list forever and she would never again be able to set hoof in any place deemed pure, public, or both. Marigold cared little about making sure ponies like her spent their time in prison; she would much rather immortalize them in her own special ways. 

Marigold rapped at the door eagerly after shoving the crumpled card under the door and trying not to breathe too heavily. Her vision swam with ruby light that made her have to close her eyes from the intensity.

Not now! She let her thoughts hiss in her head, directed at nopony. Immediately afterward, and much to her surprise, the magic dimmed. Marigold caught only the dim sizzle of something reddish deep in her gaze when she stared at her reflection in the doorknob.

That she could still see such beads of fire in a doorknob felt like a good omen. Today, Marigold wanted to play an earth pony instead of a disguised unicorn. She hated having to claim she was the enemy, even though it explained her new powers so much easier. Most of all, she knew that there would be such a look of betrayal if this mare shared her race. There was a dim paranoia that one always had around those terrible, tricksy unicorns, knowing that their magic gave them the potential for horrid things. Nopony ever felt that subtle brutalization around an earth pony, and anypony who did was a filthy rotten liar whose slander ought to be shamed. 

After some shuffling, a mare eventually opened the door. Marigold was immediately struck by the newness of the whore. Her skin was near civilian health, as long as one was willing to ignore the knotted, angry scarring as thick as snakes that wound across her. The way her dress fit unevenly around her back and the red stains that seeped through the fabric made Marigold’s heart beat faster with delight.

This mare was still so new to her abuse that she winced, and her eyes brightened with pain when she moved. There was no dead-eyed glaze that usually set in so quickly, and that had Marigold’s hooves just itching at the thought of all the things she could do to a mare so fresh and broken. 

“Mmm,” she hummed dully. “Yer a mare?” There was a pained exhale caught in all her words. “Nawt one of thems stallions that says he is?”

“Oh, I most certainly am a mare, you dull beast,” sniggered Marigold, smiling widely at the whore who hid behind long curls that looked like they were moldering from her lifestyle, though there was little to be called life in what she did. Goodness, the thought that she still had enough of a mane that could be used for real curls instead of resorting to wigs was just the cherry on top.

“I…” The whore paused, swaying a little and dabbing her sleeve at a bit of blood around her mouth. “I’ven’t a mare before.”

Marigold’s muzzle scrunched up, and not from the assorted telltale odors that this mare had. “Well, it’s not like you get much of a choice in the matter.”

The whore’s eyes fell, and she swayed again, her mane bobbing listlessly while her tail dragged lifelessly on the ground. 

“I have all the bits you could want,” sing-songed Marigold as her eyes roved the corset pulled too tight and carelessly over the mare’s visible ribs. Nopony in their right mind would wear such a thing in broad daylight, and the expensiveness of it was absolutely garish. “And you can never afford to choose.”

A heavy sigh came from the half-styled mess of curls and dreadlocks. Marigold’s heart soared at the look of utter resignation that came when her hoof fished out a bag of bits.  

“Now, how much must you have for three hours?” As Marigold looked at her, she was already calculating how much this one might be. She clearly subjected herself to absolute savagery and had enough rapid popularity to have her goons order expensive clothing from catalogs and run her advertisements through the city. 

The mare winced as she limped forward to look down at the coin purse in Marigold’s hoof. 

“One hun’red bits,” came the muffled reply. The prostitute managed to pin her ears down even further. The bruise as purple as plum kept one of her eyes swollen shut; the freshness of it was absolutely fetching to Marigold. She only wished that the popular fillies in her classes would one day have the popularity of ponies like this: as infamous slags.

Marigold could only smile wider; this one absolutely warmed her cockles. She wasn’t the epitome of decay that the average was, but she was getting to that point when she would need to trim herself with every jewel and poorly repurposed articles of clothing to make her a scrap basket advertisement for a mare that had long since rotted away and existed only for carnal purchases. 

Not all the stars in the sky could contain Marigold’s wish that there would always be more of these ponies for her to go through. 

With the proper bits hastily exchanged, the two retreated behind the door.


...






[Further excerpts from the original notes of coroner Ebony Henbane of the Morgue of the City of Manehattan and Fort Barnacle regarding the victims of the Manehattan Blood Mage. All remain unidentified even to this day.] 







The remains of one earth pony mare. Identity unknown, as expected in most self-exploitation cases. Her age was below twenty-five years old. Full remains were recovered approximately forty-eight hours after death when some passing zebra noticed a smell coming from an open window many stories up on an apartment building. Neighbors were brought in for questioning and held under suspicion of being compliant. One of them is under arrest for knowing of sexual offenses and failing to report them and compliance in the misuse of property. The mare is not in one piece and was recovered from the bathtub, where she'd been left in a half-filled tub of water, cleaning chemicals, and her own rot. All blood was drained from her dismembered body. 

Severing marks suggest the mare was gradually ripped apart by raw telekinetic force one piece at a time. Further marks desecrating the body were made with knives consistent with the case of Miss Bali-Shet. Once again, the knives were of improper use for cutting flesh and the wounds were inflicted in frenzied patterns even in a post-mortem state. 

A partially burned 'tart card' was recovered from the interior of the coal-stove at the scene. Only the sections with the prices remain and no further material was able to be located on the mare. 

She was highly malnourished and bore the expected blank flank. Examination of her bones shows that she had not endured this level of neglect in her whole life. Magical isotope scans place her as living in the Fillydelphia area for most of her life. Most of her mane was falling out. Too many teeth were missing to make any identification. The remaining teeth are rotten and neglected. Bulimia remains a possibility, however, the head was found submerged and this was too difficult to determine conclusively because of the recovery state. Reconstruction sketches should still be attempted. Eyes were removed and not located at the scene. The sockets bore signs of damage consistent with knife-usage. 

Her coat was undyed. Numerous wounds covered her body: scrapes, scabs, dry skin, etc. These predate the attack. Evidence of sexual assault was plentiful and the mare's torso appears to have not been submerged in order to display this fact. 

There are no signs of restraints being used. Neighbors are either completely compliant in denying that they heard anything or a gag was utilized. 

The residence where this mare was found betrays an unfortunate popularity and her age indicates she had been doing this for some time. Her region of origin means that she may have previously operated in Fillydelphia.

I am told that all bits that may have been present were taken from the scene, showing a familiar motive of robbery alongside probable sadism. Her landlord must be hunted down, to see if they have any information about her or if somepony more normal was pretending to be the tenant in her place. While I do not think that the landlord was the culprit here, it cannot be ruled out. The open window may suggest somepony using the fire escape, yet there were no further signs of a break-in. It is not understood why anypony but a pegasus would use the roof. My belief is that the window may have been open so that the crime was more likely to be found. Magic is obviously employed here. 

Several of the damned abnormal crystals were found around the drain when the tub was cleared. Nothing in the Arcane Registry Base matches them.








...



Marigold had never been good at math. She knew enough for shopping and paying bills. Oh, and she could split a mare in half while simultaneously stealing her breath. That had to count for something. None of her classmates got to do that. In fact, they were all squeamish at the very mention of high-level magi-biology where students were expected to be able to dissect a jackalope — or make a proper presentation about the process if they lacked the magic to do so themselves. 

Those pests weren’t even endangered. Marigold had heard from one of her schoolmates who heard it from her cousin that if you go just past Bucklyn village’s borders, a pony can find them everywhere, in places with rolling hills of abundant green that Manehattanites stopped seeing once they set away picture books. Marigold was mostly frustrated at the idea of how pitiful a jackalope was in comparison to a pony. 

There was just so much more to ponies once you pulled them apart. Nopony lost themselves in what they did with a jackalope in the same way that nopony was ever going to gorge themselves on a single pea. Jackalopes were a teaser, a measly reminder of everything she could do to a pony. Imagining a jackalope with everything spilling out and on display confused her terribly. Wasn’t that the way she was supposed to feel about ponies?

Marigold would sit over her school lunches, shoving apple slices and mashed potatoes around while her mind slipped off into the fog of elsewhere. That elsewhere was imagining last week. If her toy had been a jackalope instead of a whore-pony, she would have had little to distribute and examine. Her eye was not a critical one, but there wasn’t a doubt in Marigold’s mind that she had left quite the scene.

All the blood poured down the drain of a rarely-used bathtub…

...two dull eyes nailed to the wall above her mattress with spikes from her blood magic…

...an array of teeth scattered across the floor like jacks…

...and a garland of her innards strung from wall to wall.

In the end, she always got her bits back and she got to have her fun. Nothing else mattered. 

Marigold swallowed, her ears swiveling backward as soon as she heard the whispering. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Knight Watch tug at the hoof of another filly who had wandered in Marigold’s direction.

“Stay away from her,” Knight hissed, just loud enough for Marigold to hear. 

“Why?” whispered the unicorn filly innocently, clutching her tray tighter in her magic. “She sits all alone, every single day. Surely somepony ought to talk to her?”

“Blueblood is a creep,” insisted Knight. 

Marigold bit the inside of her cheek. All the other foals in school called her ‘Blueblood’, which not even the teachers said to Marigold’s face. Her mother fought in court to give her the name of a stallion whom Marigold had never met or acknowledged, and all her classmates refused to call her anything else. They refused her everything: sleepovers, mark mitzvahs, cute-ceañeras, and birthdays. 

She had told herself constantly that she never wanted to associate with these ponies anyway. Knight Watch was a hall monitor who got anypony trying to skip class in trouble. His father was in the guard, which made him a complacent horseshoe-kisser to the goddess-princess. In ten years, Marigold was sure he would still be oppressing ponies like her, she just knew it. After all, he was a traitorous pegasus to be willing to think that unicorns and the gods weren’t all awful. Everypony even knew he had a crush on the deer exchange student too, and nopony but Marigold seemed to take up their duty to speak out against species-mixing. 

“C’mon, Knight. Calling somepony such a thing is just uncouth. She probably just needs a friend.”

“No!” Knight insisted, his voice a little louder. He tugged again at the filly’s fetlock. “Blueblood is not noble or good like her name. She is nothing more than a bad seed who hates anypony who is not an earth pony or just as mean like her.”

“Oh,” murmured the filly, finally giving in to his tugging. “May I sit with you, then?”

“Of course,” Knight said, abandoning his whisper. “I always have room for more friends. What is your name?”

“Sea Salt!” chimed the unicorn filly. “My family just moved here from Ghastly-Upon-Copse so I can join the naval fort one day. Is it true that Coney Bay has the best magic shows?”

“Yep! My family goes there every summer…”

Marigold huffed and stuck her muzzle into her juice carton until it bulged out, letting her mane cascade around her face in order to shut out the cafeteria lights. 

She hated ponies with the kind of unacceptable attitude Knight Watch had. Otherwise, she would have gotten to skip the rest of the lunch period and ended up in the headmistress office for ‘bullying’ another student, as if anything there was anything wrong about reminding a horrid horn-head where they belonged. 

Marigold had made the last pony who dared sit with her flee the cafeteria in tears, and all because Marigold knew that no earth pony who married a unicorn deserved to be able to carry their foal to term, and that filly shouldn’t have told any school-mates she was ‘feeling down’ over what was no great loss, and certainly not the loss of a sibling. If that filly had realized it, she would reject her unicorn blood and disown the horned beast that sired her. Instead, Marigold got another suspension and none of her schoolmates even acknowledged her, even when she had to read the disciplinary essay ‘Why Miscarriages are Horrible for Everypony Involved’ to her homeroom class.

Marigold bit at the cardboard of her juice carton and tried to imagine if anypony would treat her the same if they knew all the pony she was when Princess Celestia lowered the sun.


...






[The following excerpts fare rom the original correspondence of coroner Ebony Henbane of the Morgue of the City of Manehattan and Fort Barnacle regarding the victims of the Manehattan Blood Mage. The recipient was none other than the Mayor-Stallion of Manehattan at the time, Fair Heart. The letters have found their way into the Archives as a matter of generous donation from the estate of Fair Heart. All victims remain unidentified even to this day.] 







Dear Lord Mayor-Stallion,

I was humbled to receive your letter this week. Times are indeed dire, however the gods have blessed me with the endurance I prayed for at my last visit to a temple. I've had so much work to do. The guard are constantly writing to me asking for my thoughts on all of these dead mares. I've just been aboard so many self-exploitation cases, and I'm so terribly sick of it all. The wickedness it brings out in ponies! There is nothing but rot under all the glamor they see themselves inheriting. Last week I finally got a much more normal case for ponies like these. A stud with a drinking problem got so bloody plastered he fell face-forward into a lit coal stove and got his head stuck. I can't tell you how many of these self-exploitation types perish that way. Now everypony thinks that nine outta ten of them are to die in murder cases where that simply is not the case. If I'm to remember correctly, the last time the crown released something, six out of ten will die in some degree of murder or mareslaughter. Ponies that sell themselves reap the results of that, and oh gods are they miserable ones. 

You wrote to me about the latest case in the Blood Mage murders. That I can tell you about. From my notes, I can say that it is indeed a strange one. A mare butchered in a flat in an impure neighborhood then tossed in the water somewhere. The guard found her under Bucklyn Bridge, but the point where she was tossed in is hard to say. By then, most of her parts had gotten spotted by a ship heading under the bridge. We're ever so lucky only one of the legs is missing. Tests are being done to see if magic was keeping the parts floating together and on the trash caught with 'em to see what it can tell us. To think that rubbage like that might be the key to knowing the steps of the killer!

What can I say about the mare? Oh, she was a scrawny thing, one no older than nineteen. Big scars all across her body, all of them very recent. Freckled face and these ringlet curls that would have been quite pretty some time ago. Normally the mares that do this get wigs after a while. Sometimes, the stallions do too. Even her tail was a whole bunch a curls that would have been gorgeous. The poor thing had too many damn needles in her stomach. Walking, trotting, and stretching about was probably going to start hurting soon if she'd lived any longer. I can't imagine she was without pain during the day. She had spots of chaffing from bad clothes, poor hygiene, and was too skinny for her own good. The poor thing was probably assaulted too, yet the body was too damaged to tell for sure. She had no teeth. They'd be knocked out and found at the apartment scene.

She'd died due to an utterly violent hemicorporectomy. I knew it as soon as I'd laid eyes on her and examinations confirmed it. One that was savagely done, if I do say so myself. 

Now, the little apartment she had was different. Bit too nice for a whore, so that's under investigation. Of all the things to be found at the scene, a sewing kit was one of them. You don't exactly get many whores with trinkets like that around. Gods hope it will be a good clue in getting her name. Somehow. See, the apartment scene was found a few days later. Good neighbors this time. A thorough investigation showed them to be quite clean. They had no idea their neighbor was a whore. The landlord will be under investigation to see how the place was being rented out and who was meeting to pay the bills. They ought to not be so remote about these things. Princess Celestia better have some damn laws to fix all of this coming soon.

They found the mattress where she'd been killed inside. That isn't the worst part though. Her eyes had been nailed to the wall where they'd always be able to see it. Real ugly stuff. I was told some of her organs might be missing because she was in the water for hours. No sir, some of them were still at the apartment, strung up like garlands. 

Sincerely,

Ebony Henbane, Head Coroner of Manehattan-Barnacle







Marigold Blueblood thinking of herself as an adult was inevitable. Or, at least her idea of adulthood, which was interwoven with concepts of drudgery, authority, and the oft-whispered-about forbidden. Her classmates may be a few years shy of graduating — and with it, adulthood — but Marigold had much more experience with the things in life she had always been told really mattered: blood and coin.

While fillies her age were still vying for hoof-holding and stolen kisses in courtship, Marigold had to hide just how much she wanted to boast of her deeds. To Tartarus with all the talk about commitment, communication, and romantic fidelity that ruled Equestrian culture. Everything was too tied up in meaningless concepts like consent or compassion that took place in some breezie tale land of ‘intimacy’ — whatever in Tartarus that was supposed to mean — that made Marigold sick to think about. Awkwardness and affection were better replaced with the things she liked, the things that lofty gods, stuffy academics, and know-it-all psycho-somethings would say made Marigold ‘objectively ill’ or whatever their latest tree-killing psycho-babble was about how ‘case studies’ and ‘sample groups’ like her were so ‘perverse’ and all the ways they were therapized or locked away.

Marigold Blueblood was undeniably an adult, after all, she had s-e-x! That’s right, the very thing that all her peers still took to whispering about the way that they used to chatter about cooties! She knew she was the first in her whole year to do so too! Goodness, it filled her with such a sense of accomplishment — one that all the dull adult-reading during her library trips said was a sign of ‘irresponsibility’ and ‘poor impulse control’ that would ‘require consistent counseling in order to instill healthy adolescent concepts of reality and empathy in relation to sexuality without harm’ or some other slop.

Wasn’t that just the dreariest thing? Who cares if whispers started up about somepony being the town carriage? To Marigold, a strumpet was better than a scholar any day, and she couldn’t imagine what in Tartarus’ name could truly be so bad that she could get sick from doing something that was such an indulgence. She was always in control of the little perverts she purchased anyway; nothing could get past that. What did it matter that her first time was with a dead mare? 

All that meant was that Marigold got to have her merry way and do everything she wanted, both before and afterward. It was convenient, and how could it be any different than how she was told to shelve groceries at work? Everything was about convenience, and Marigold couldn’t bear to have tonight be any more wrong. 

She skipped along, kicking up an arc of water from a puddle. The muddy filth barely gleamed at all during the night; such was the nature of Manehattan water. Marigold’s thick, dark boots were sturdily made by magic and their look was pulled straight from one of her mother’s designer magazines. Shiny buckles were barely dulled by Manehattan grime and the look was perfect imitation leather to mimic what ponies called ‘grotesque abominations’ but was legal in nations like the Shirdal Island, Colthuacan, the Dragonlands, and a slim amount of other nations. 

Marigold’s dress was not so extravagant this time, being a simple gold-colored affair suitable for a filly her age. She skipped along, humming in the night and keeping her plain cloak held fast. Her saddlebags were weighed down with bits and instruments of butchery she had /conned/ a griffon out of. 

Her song died in her throat when the scent of salt became too overpowering. Manehattan Island was a long and wide one. The shores were spacious enough that plenty of territories existed to build houses, and the particular address Marigold’s card led her to a stretch of row houses not far from some docks. The cramped cobbled streets were dusted with sand, and though they were no pinnacle of poverty like the whore-mares Marigold visited, it was obvious that nopony of great means lived so close to the sea.  

Marigold’s lips curled into a smile when she saw the windows; most were beyond dim in the night or had painted newspapers pasted against the inside instead of the luxury of curtains. For anypony familiar with self-exploitation, this was a mansion. 

Greasy food wrappers squelched with saltwater as Marigold wove her way past banisters and worn, rusty mailboxes. When she came to the right door, she seized the knocker in her hoof and slammed it down four times. Loudly. 


...






[The following excerpts are taken from the official notebooks that Head Coroner Ebony Henbane kept during her time employed at Manehattan-Barnacle. The following selection refers to one of the many unknown victims of of the Manehattan Blood Mage.]










The stallion is under twenty-five years old. Too scrawny.

Absolutely prodigious earnings for somepony in self-exploitation. Row houses are usually owned by dock-workers. Landlord and neighbors were cleared. Neighbors discovered the body the next morning when they noticed mail hadn't been collected. 

All his bits were stolen. Consistent with the Blood Mage attacks.

The Blood Mage has sexually assaulted a colt before, yet there were no signs of such activity with the stallion. Why is this?

No cutie mark. No tart card. False name used for renting led only to dead ends thus far. 

Good dental health. This clue needs to be followed.

The only thing the landlord is coming under fire for is failing to report a tenant who was considered needy in terms of utility payments. However, such an investigation could have saved the life of this stallion by seeing him in prison for exploiting resources for the needy and for self-exploitation. In fact, every one of the victims could have been saved by applying for poverty relief resources and then arrested upon the discovery of their crimes. Mayor-Stallion Fair Heart himself is writing to Princess Celestia about such reforms, or so my contacts at his office tell me. Yet, these whores are so averse to real life that they'd rather live like this and die for their crimes than get caught... why in the gods' names is this? 

The killer only partially skinned the stallion. Why did they stop? Were they interrupted? Neighbors reportedly only noticed something wrong by morning, upon careful investigation of each of them. The murder occurred overnight. Was the killer disturbed by noise? 

The cause of death is exsanguination from being gutted.

Like all the other victims, none of them have any sign of transsexuality that could narrow down their medical and psychological histories. 

Traces of goldish eyeshadow powder were found in the bathroom. No known matches to any known brands or blends have been found so far. It is entirely possible that the blend is of the Blood Mage's own making. Testing to see if it is magic-made is underway, however, this would eventually prove unhelpful, as there is no match to the Blood Mage's magic yet. 

No domestic match to the Blood Mage's magical signature could mean that they are a recent immigrant who has yet to comply with the period of mandatory registration. 

Must write to the Mayor-Stallion about this. He should tell Princess Celestia.

How does the Blood Mage keep going undetected? 

What undoubtedly makes this a Blood Mage murder is that various crystals were found pouring out of the corpse and trapped within were blood would normally be, the latter of which appeared to be utilized in part of the flaying tactic of the killer. 

One new clue of note was the way the dried blood on the floor by the bed loft was disturbed. The offender had to have killed the victim before this blood pooled. They would have no reason to lie down in filth if they could use magic in their attack unless they were tired and attempting to get bits that appear to have been stored under the bed. The patterns in the blood are not entirely consistent with that movement but are not inconsistent with lying still and using levitation. From this, we've been able to see that the Blood Mage was clothed during their attack and has a longer mane for a mare, or an extremely long one for a stallion (transsexual or not). 

The blood print makes the exact size of the Blood Mage unclear and does not narrow down whether they wore a layered cloak or a dress (possibly with a cloak). 

The age of the eyeshadow is uncertain to all tests at the moment. It may have been from another buyer, who still would be able to find clues. If it is tied to this case, it is too promising to release to the public. There is a chance that this is a signature color the killer wears and we may find it again.

Of the few tools recovered, it is clear they were from a griffin's butcher shop.







[The following pieces were printed in newspapers all across Manehattan and even included in papers across other settlements in Bucklynshire due to the desperation of the case. It represents everything that the EUP. could go public about at the time regarding the Blood Magic murders.]







HAVE YOU HEARD OF ME?



Manehattan Blood Mage


The suspect is a unicorn mare who is shy of, or unable to enact violent confrontation with most targets. She is responsible for over half a dozen murders within the city of Manehattan itself. The royal guard is open to all tips on the matter and Princess Celestia promises to reward those handsomely should their information lead to the capture of the mare in question. This mare is powerful and dangerous! Her magic suggests she utilizes talent-based powers to enact her heinous crimes. She is an amateur with griffin firearms, familiar with knives, and holds enough medical knowledge to be obtained by a hobbyist. She travels by night and is extremely familiar with the city and its waterways. Her career may be in map-making, delivery-making, window-washing, or another career that allows similar ease of travel. She may have a job that allows her to function with little sleep or is able to only work part-time. 

We highly suspect that this mare is single and unmarried to cover up her true nature and extensive night-time trips. The Blood Mage is a mare that is heavily biased toward selecting females as victims of sexual abuse and gratification. She is not above violating the young, and young males have fallen victim to her truly sadistic actions in the event that they are minors. Adult males are ignored for this purpose. This mare may have repressed feelings towards mares, live openly as a lesbian, or she may be none of those things and is instead drawn to them solely for purposes of mare-hating abuse. The current lifestyle of the suspect is undoubtedly one that hides her pouláriphilia. It is unclear whether the subject has acted on the latter perversion before, and if so, they are likely to have had a disturbed youth that may manifest in secrecy about the past, delinquency, few foalhood contacts, or an over-idealized and selective presentation about details. 

The magic of the Blood Mage does not currently match any data in all magical registries. She is likely foreign-born and living in Equestria as a student or on a working permit. There is something that has prevented the unicorn from being registered in all citizen databases. The suspect encounters little resistance when interacting with their victims involved in self-exploitation, which suggests that they appear highly naturalized, as those in self-exploitation are known to be highly hostile towards immigrants and harbor nativist attitudes not unlike those held by political dissidents. We stress that this mare is somepony who would put a lot of effort into looking normal and be less likely to have rumors about her due to this low resistance and lack of constricted mobility. 

The forensic psychologists at Fort Barnacle are adamant that this serial killer is a sexual sadist. There is evidence of premeditation in these attacks with tart cards and more being recovered from the scenes of multiple crimes. This killer is well-aware of her own hatred and shows no remorse towards the targets. Victims are those who can be sexually objectified or participate in sex crimes, save for Jane Doe, the infant colt victim, and the only identified victim, Charley Horse. Ponies with this level of deviance are rarely open about their behavior. They are more likely to frequent both crown-regulated shops selling sexual materials legally and more likely to attempt to find illegal equivalents. The suspect is more likely to have abnormal peer relationships.

Other habits of the suspect that have been noted are of high interest. The suspect wears layers frequently and travels by hoof or by teleportation. They have a fondness for unusual entry but are welcomed when using conventional methods to interact with targets. They possess a familiarity with griffin firearms and meat industries. They do not discriminate with the race of their victims. The suspect is someone who has become familiar with self-exploitation and yet, the unregistered magic means that this could not have come from a previous record. It also would place the offender up in age, as anypony caught for participating in self-exploitation from 16-24 would not be released from prison until they were in their 40s. The offender is believed to be much younger.

One last important note: due to the demonstrated pouláriphilia involved in the death of one of the victims, it is of great urgency that the Blood Mage be arrested right away due to the fact that they are likely not a registered offender, and have since become active. This is one of the most grave violations of Equestrian law and information regarding these conditions can be obtained at your local library or in the relevant chapter of the Equestrian Psychiatric Diagnostic Manuel