Whenever the headlines were grim and boasting of Marigold's gruesome secrets, she would have to watch her mother frown and tut over her morning tea. Petunia Petals would hiss about the unfairness of the world, the supposed prejudice of the newspapers, and the abhorrent violence against what she called the proletariat and working ponies. Marigold’s mother and her weird friends always called them 'working' mares and stallions, but what prostitutes could be working on... well, that was what stumped Marigold. None of them ever had any jobs or secret art projects lying around whenever she poked through their dingy flats. Nopony was gathering them into a group to help depose the princess. But she could not tell her mother that the ponies she deemed to work were those that did none.
At school, Marigold was taught that these kinds of ponies were a branch on the tree of something dark, unknown, and uncommon: the tree of sex offender types. That kind of offense was something her library books traditionally elaborated more on, and from the kind of perspective not aimed at a safety class for adolescents. This was back before Marigold took part in such things herself, when her school’s citizenship classes taught her about safety and what kind of ponies to avoid and the way they behaved. Most importantly, they were taught about how those things marked them apart from the herd, as antisocial and unethical. (Now there was a word Marigold Blueblood had little care for.)
The princess-goddess thought that by talking about these things when ponies were an appropriate age, they could prevent themselves from being victims of unusual and tragic crimes. Luring was one such crime, where Marigold’s innocent peers would be tricked into going to awful places where horrid things would happen to them by ponies who pretended to be as sweet as the sun goddess herself. There was a wicked irony to that, for telling foals not to be kind to strangers in a country that thrives on being blindly kind to strangers made trying to drown fish look effective. It all made Marigold think: was kindness no different than a snail asking a starved crow if she needed food?
Nopony had to guess what crows did to snails, or what kindness could do to ponies.
Marigold certainly never did.
...
Long before Petunia Petals ever caught her, Marigold used to pray to the very sun goddess her mother taught her to despise. She had yet to feel fully wrenched from the herd, and ponies everywhere knew that praying to their Sweet Celestia was normal. Marigold might have been normal then. She would rise early every morning and slip under the heavy, sequin-embroidered damask curtains her mother demanded to be cleaned with nearly rabid ferocity. Then, she would watch the sunrise after rubbing the thick layer of dust from the single pane window in her room.
Marigold imagined Canterlot as a city drenched with gold and other riches, upon which Princess Celestia danced and frolicked endlessly with the ponies that her mother called the downtrodden, the good earth ponies, the proletariat. She had yet to know what that last word meant, except that her mother sneered and spat it in the happiest way that one could spit Prancian words. It was one of the few words that made Petunia happy, and Marigold thought that made it good enough.
There were no pictures of Princess Celestia in Petunia's apartment, which was barren of all other representations of the goddess. That was more unusual than a hydra starring in a Bridleway play. Marigold already had picked up on that oddity, and thus she had no idea of what the goddess looked like aside from rain-drenched newspapers she liked to pick up off the street when her mother's eyes were not upon her.
Princess Celestia always had the face of Petunia Petals and the eyes of Marigold herself when she spoke her prayers.
Marigold would ask that there be no light brought to their enemies because she had yet to know all their names. Petunia had told Marigold that the unicorns were their enemy, the pegasus ponies were crooked, and many more names that were still nothing more than floods of syllables to the little one. She had yet to enter school, and her highest experience of language was her muttered prayers and attempting to pronounce the phrase 'bourgeois scum' that her mother hissed so often.
More often than not, Marigold would pray for food in their cupboards between calls for Princess Celestia to burn the eyes out of anypony whoever looked upon bits with glee. Her mother brought everything but food back to their humble abode, the one from before Tartarus' Kitchen where the mists of memory would allow Marigold to recall how Petunia cursed the name Rhodium. These curses were shouted each time Petunia came cantering unsteadily through the doorway with moth-eaten gowns and once-fine hats still sticky with rubbage over her back.
According to Petunia, those terrible rich ponies threw away the darndest things. Stiff, yellow lace petticoats nearly torn in two were as 'good as new' to Petunia, who had flaunted the finds around their cramped quarters in the days when she could still stand.
Marigold wasn't old enough to hate the garbage her mother dragged home, or wise enough to know it had no value at all. She would happily join her mother, skipping around the pitiful excuse for a living room and trying not to faint from lightheadedness that came from no food. She cursed the mysterious rich ponies too, knowing that if her mother said they were the cause of all woes, that it was so.
Her mother had no idea that she prayed to the same goddess that Petunia cursed, hailing images of Canterlot that would have made the mare of the house screech at her. Princess Celestia was a name meant for cursing, just like the Rhodium who was beyond Marigold's knowing. To Marigold, Rhodium was a thing said with the force of a breaking vase hurled against the wall by Petunia. All its sharper sounds were a shatter, everything edged with poison and anger. It was the same anger that drove Petunia to gallop to their mail slot every month, damn near foaming at the mouth as she ripped open the rumpled envelopes containing checks. Marigold learned later that these particular checks, the ones that came long before her mother’s eventful accident, also had Rhodium’s name upon them. Their arrival was the prime reason that Marigold’s mother kept her, for whoever had Marigold would receive those bits.
Those were the checks that Petunia used to bring home enough vases to fill every square inch of their flat. They were made for Marigold to clean, as the little filly soon learned, or to be subjected to Petunia's moods. The latter was so much more fragile than the ornaments. There were other things that Petunia brought home, little things like doilies and the unseen rent.
Rarely was it ever food.
One day, Marigold did not join her mother in this hop-and-skip ritual as soon as Petunia would have liked. Her head was dizzy from no dinner the night before, from having to smell the broth of the soup that Petunia had slurped down, and Marigold's prayer's had been oh-so-fervent that morning. They were the kind that Marigold had been sure that Princess Celestia just had to hear.
Instead, she found Petunia taking up the doorway, hulking over the child in the way a parent only could. Her face was as twisted as the lines of gold in the Neighponese kintsukuroi pottery that she always spoke of as 'inferior kirin trash' and held none of the light.
One time in a market, Marigold had been drawn to the shine of kintsukuroi pottery before she learned those dirty foreigners had made it. Petunia had given the shop-keeper a vile look for daring to show such things to a filly Marigold's age.
This look was worse than that. Petunia had certainly heard the name of Princess Celestia upon her daughter's tongue.
The intensity of the disgust and betrayal in Petunia's eyes was enough that Marigold didn't even have to be struck to know what was wrong. (Not that Petunia had ever hit Marigold; it was just something Petunia said should happen to unicorn foals.)
The shatter of a vase next to Marigold's head had been louder than any strike.
...
Marigold found the mare trying to let her bleeding muzzle spill into a puddle. She was some haggard, whimpering thing whose eye shadow was as heavy as bruises under and around each eye. That told Marigold she was either a whore or didn't have the sense to not look like one before she even got to see the rest of the mare. This mare's dress was like a sack slung over bones; that was the state of her. There was a sharp welt upon her cheek that looked like it had been sliced open by somepony, and its ugly contents were dripping onto the cobblestones.
They could be seen in the moonlight long before what little light was still left in her eyes. Marigold's heart was skipping, but she refused to let herself linger so suspiciously and admire the sight.
"Miss?" she called out, her voice a half-whisper oozing with faux concern that rivaled the real blood she saw.
The mare, the prey, froze and coughed, a few extra fat drops sliding into that stagnant street-puddle with her new agitated.
"Oh, Miss Street-Walker, do you need somepony to help you? Some coin to calm you?" Marigold cooed, knowing that mares like these responded to no ordinary citizens. She had done this enough.
When the night was through, she would have enough, at least until she found her next mare.
"Street-Walker, fear me not, I am only a mare who can pay more than all that blood is worth." Marigold's eyes struggled to contain their glow, and the metal under the winding layers of her scarf was growing hot enough to scald. It knew the same anger that came from concealment and containment that plagued its user.
The mare stopped and listened, her shivering easing as the feel of the cold slipped from her mind.
Just listen to me like you have a choice.
Marigold stepped under the dim light of the street-lamp, letting her conjured cloth-of-gold peasant's dress catch the oily sheen. "I can keep you from any guard that might want to see you behind bars. What trouble is one more welt?" Marigold snorted airly, tapping a forehoof to the net of pearls keeping the bun her mane was pulled into intact.
Marigold hummed a few breathy notes as she fished around into her sleek pair of magic-made saddlebags, and from their pearl-white depths, she fished out a coin-purse ready to burst with very real bits. Why, the gold sheen of the coins was nearly ready to shine through the thin, worn fabric.
The Alicorn Amulet wasn't needed to make the mare nod; she let Marigold approach her like a puppy permits anypony to give it a bone, unaware that not all ponies were offering pats and care.
All Marigold could do was offer her sweetest, most Celestial smile as the wavering street-light lit her up like the goddess she wasn't. Then, she took one step closer to the call of decadence that sent her gliding with every step. She focused on the pulse that hammered at the center of her skull, where she could feel the Alicorn Amulet's power flowing throughout her body and let it obey the pull of her desires. It was like magic, unicorn magic, so thick in the air. Everything buzzed with something neither Marigold nor anypony else could see or know that helped her hold that mare at the other side of the street, keeping her so completely and utterly enthralled...
...and it was because her prey wanted to be; bits just had that effect. It was not that Marigold needed to resort to such tricks this time, not if it were just a normal approach. She just didn't want to be normal this night, not when the glow of her eyes was not worth corking and she had one last bit of flair to add. Around her leg was a thin sheen of ruby light that fell away to show a gentlemare's evening glove crawling high up her leg, all pulled from nothing.
In order to touch that which was so below her, she could at least try and keep clean.
Marigold gripped the mare's frail forehoof in her own, clutching it with all the tightness her magic could let her. "This won't be so bad, will it?"
Her attempt at a coy whisper fell on deaf ears and glazed eyes as she pressed the coin-purse right into the other, near-limp forehoof of the mare. The mare smiled, and the gesture revealed teeth that would have been lucky to be yellow. Her eyes were lit with a soft, dim ruby to mirror Marigold's own rich light.
Now that they were so close, Marigold could see her prey's lank, greasy mane hanging in sloppily chopped chunks around her face. Her muzzle was indeed scraped and ugly, as ugly as the horn poking through the rat's nest of mane and standing out against the dull plastering of makeup. Eventually, one's eyes had to straw from the ugly sight, and Marigold's gaze turned to the equally dull apartment block behind them. It stood low and squat in the inky night, all the taller buildings casting their shadows upon the inferior building. This was a new place, for Marigold never went to the same place twice, but it barely looked different from the other places Marigold had haunted with her lovely, bloody works.
Perhaps I ought to do something new, Marigold thought, letting the unfinished hook tantalize her.
She gave each end of the streets a coy look, knowing they would be empty, and centered her stare back on the magic-dumbed mare's horn. Her own smiler, so much wider and whiter was not enough to brighten the night, but she let it grow anyway.
Yes, tonight would be a fun night.
...
The exact moment young Marigold Blueblood let the last word of her prayer leave her lips, Princess Celestia smiled brightly. The first warm touch of her morning tea met her lips and the fatty butter-soaked flavor of a fluffy breakfast roll followed. A stack of cushions propped up her prodigiously fat rump, and she basked cheerily in her own light, with her pale pretty mane as bright and pretty as the glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice that had been prepared for her. The balcony was alive with the beauty of all the flowers that she had cultivated that spring and in their fragrant scents brought flocks of butterflies to her divine presence.
Sitting next to her in a much more diminutive chair of elegantly curled metal was a far plainer stallion. The unicorn had yet to don his customary spectacles and ruff. Still, he was already scribbling away while the princess next to him twittered of all he half-listened to — and, oh, how he always nodded and did so — while she continued to indulge in her sumptuous breakfast. When she had finished, he pretended he had been aware of her every move, and had mastered a look and laugh to accompany these pre-coffee chats. After all, he would never get his hoof on the first few gallons. Such was the appetite of the princess goddess; everything was as big and portly as her figure would suggest. She was no morning pony, and thus all this chit-chat needed to be fueled by enough coffee to nearly overflow a drinking trough. His share would come later.
The exact tone of Princess Celestia suggested that she had finished recounting something she found funny, and the flutter of her forehooves told him he thought true. Inkwell Inquiry could only chuckle before tilting his muzzle upward to receive his lover's kiss, savoring the affection of the goddess who could have had any stallion in the castle to be her next mortal indulgence.
She chose him, and he continued to do all he could to please her, just as every stallion before him had.
In far-off Manehattan, a vase was hurled at a wall with enough force to force a filly into frozen fear far beyond tears.
Princess Celestia, the great and everlasting sun goddess, had heard nothing at all.
...
The foulest squelch did not leave the boundaries of the alley. Dawn was still hours away, and midnight had been laid to rest. Marigold Blueblood had left the dim halls of another dreary apartment building like her hoof steps were lifted by breezies. Now, she lugged around drenched saddlebags that were loaded with as much of a mare that she couldn't hold within her magic or under the dark fabric of her cloak. Eventually, the dark grip of the city spilled out and Marigold had to gasp for breath. The world was open, but the hour obscured that. Instead, the sudden chilly wind from the tar-black night struck Marigold's face, grabbing at her hood and rustling a few locks of her mane.
She let out a quiet hum; her hooves dug into the comparable softness of wood underhoof. Concrete was more common to trot on than anything else in Manehattan. The gritty texture of sand upon the wood was nearly numb to Marigold, for she had grown used to dead cobbles and blander things. Petunia insisted that true earth ponies didn't need to get horseshoes, and while it was somewhat true that the hooves of earth ponies were the most resilient, the distant aches gave her enough of a message. Marigold would be lucky to be walking right by the time her mane started to go gray, and jumping pole-fences in gym class hurt each time her hooves touched down.
But tonight she didn't have to worry anymore. There was so much more she could wash away.
There was a giddiness to Marigold's gait as she trotted down the boardwalk. She sighed in relief as she scrambled over the sagging, broken boards that marked off the edge, keeping the position of her cloak purposeful and careful. There were enough deserted beaches around the shores of Manehattan Island to make a pony's heart sing sometimes, and Marigold looked up at the sky, wondering what it would look like if she could see the stars. All the ponies in the storybooks she used to have could see them, but they were as real to Marigold as the thought of Princess Celestia coming over for tea.
No words came to Marigold's mind; she had no songs to sing because there were none to know. She loathed the Equestrian anthem and cheers in schools for holidays, history, and the birthdays of peers. Her mother only knew poorly translated Sibearian propaganda songs that had been butchered by too many earth pony separatists to be anything more than gibberish just coherent enough to end up on the Solar Index.
The dampness growing under Marigold's aching hooves was not the wetness of blood. The overpowering smell of salt was not needed to tell her that.
Sighing, Marigold let her magic well up again. Her eyes could flood with all the red she needed now that she was alone. Her off-key humming sprang to life again as she pulled a single leg from under her coat. The muscles attaching the skinny limb to the torso had been hacked away with purposeful recklessness that was inevitable from slicing things with blood crystals.
It was no surprise that she reached out to touch it, smoothing her hoof across the torn muscle and wet feel of flesh. Really, 'skin' was so tame a word without the macabre charge that came with flesh. The sensation sent pleased shivers down Marigold's spine, and her tired posture stiffened with enthrallment.
"Oh, you'll just be delighted with what we're going to do," she murmured. There were not even any seagulls to offer their replies, and this part of the islands was too lonely and cold for any lighthouses to be present.
Marigold was left to keep herself busy, and she finally let every gruesome stowaway leave the folds of her cloak. Out fell two more legs. Tumbling onto the sand were half-a-dozen hacked-up joints and other bits, all leaving their dark red touch upon the obscured parts of Marigold. It was what she wanted to happen after smuggling remains so close to her own skin so that she could be thrilled by the way she grew hotter in their presence. Or, more likely, the street-mare's body was just becoming so cold.
Her hooves were bloody when she threw the leg to the sand, and only then did Marigold dump out the contents of her saddlebags. The rest of the mare tumbled onto the beach roughly, the sand already red and damp from the intermingling of water and blood. The treatment of the parts themselves was deliberately barbaric, all done with a nastier spirit than a foal slamming blocks together.
Only one thing — because yes, the mare was now a thing — remained in those ruined saddlebags. Marigold let the light of her magic cloud her sight and gritted her teeth. The force needed to concentrate without the sense she relied upon most — her precious sight — made acts that those pompous, privileged unicorns took for granted that much harder.
In the end, she still managed to pull the head out from the cloth confines. It had not even been wrapped up in rags. All the teeth had been kicked out carelessly with a few bucks and the majority of blood in Marigold's saddlebags had come from the ugly sight. Tangled locks of mane had been cut off crookedly postmortem.
"Now, if only there were somewhere to keep you..." Marigold's words trailed off in a short, breathy gasp when she caught the solid, upward shadow of the broken fence she had crossed. That could only mean one thing.
Without any further attempt at care, Marigold forced her magic to be the strongest surge she could manage. The aura was irregular in how the strength of it pulsed with varying intensity. She forced the matted, severed head on a lone fencepost, twisting the nasty piece on with all the force she could manage until she knew it was stuck fast.
The rest she left scattered for the sea to claim.
...
When Princess Celestia brought morning to the world, it was a matter of simple routine for her. Magic unfathomable to mortals was made for art on a cosmic scale, but she kept things to motions as though they were merely routine. After the sun was high, she could turn away from the sky and head back into the castle from her balcony upon Mount Canterhorn. A smile graced her features, still a pale shade of her grace in a properly caffeinated state. She did not think of a filly who had once prayed to her because she had never known that this filly prayed to her, and the last time she had seen Marigold was when the filly was a babe in her mother's hooves.
It would be hours before the sun goddess would be informed that there was another murder in Manehattan and that the head of the latest victim was fast on a pike in a most ghastly display.
And the remnants of the face had been angled perfectly to view her dawn.