Danganronpa vP: Harmony of Despair

by witegrlninja


May the Best Pony Survive - Daily Life 3

Another morning, another breakfast. I made my way to the cafeteria as usual. To my surprise, a couple of ponies had beat me to the food. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were talking amongst themselves between bites, while Nurse Redheart was sipping coffee and keeping a careful eye on the entrance, nodding once at me.

A blend of emotions swirled in my gut. After Lightning Dust's furious outburst last night, I wondered if the three were here to keep watch and make sure nothing happened the morning after. I couldn't deny that I felt a little uneasy, as well. Shaking the thought from my mind, I got myself some breakfast and sat down by my best friends.

"I can understand why you'd be up so early, AJ, but Rainbow? You're not sleeping in?" I asked.

"Nah... I couldn't sleep much last night," said Rainbow. "I couldn't quit thinking about how mad Lightning was."

"We'd better keep an eye on her," said Applejack. "Ah know we all saw somethin' terrible in them videos, but she outright threatened our lives."

"Who knows? She could be plotting something right now!"

"True... I really hope not," I sighed. Hoofsteps echoed in the hallway outside the cafeteria, signaling the arrival of others. Like Redheart, I waited to see if Lightning would appear. First came Discord and Fluttershy, then Coloratura, then Bulk Biceps and Flam, then Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and then Fleur, who was often the last to arrive. But today it was a full hour into breakfast until Trixie walked into the cafeteria.

"Hey Trixie, you haven't seen Lightning around, have you?" asked Rainbow.

"The Great and Powerful Trrrixie! ...has not seen her, no," she shrugged. "Not that Trixie really wants to see her, anyway, not after her little fit last night."

"Usually I'm the one who is fashionably late," Fleur narrowed her eyes. "What took you so long?"

"Oh... Trixie just felt the need to sleep in a little," she sighed, staring at the floor. "That wretched video last night gave me nightmares."

"Me too," said Coloratura.

"I KEPT WAKING UP TO THE SOUND OF MY OWN SCREAMS," Bulk added sadly.

"Good thing the rooms are soundproof..." Fleur grumbled, shooting a glare at Bulk.

"Ya think she's still in her room?" Applejack asked as Trixie sauntered away to the kitchen.

"Maybe," said Rarity. "Or perhaps she's lurking about in the school somewhere." Fluttershy whimpered, and Coloratura scooted a little closer to Applejack.

"Well, if she does happen to find a way out or something, I hope she's at least polite enough to tell the rest of us about it," Discord said as he wrapped a clawed paw around Fluttershy. "...Without violence, of course."

~

With breakfast finished, I returned to my room, though there was little reason to. While the days spent in this sadistic prison were utterly boring, it was still far better than the alternative.

What should I do today...?

...Guess I'll go find somepony to talk to.

I left my room and began wandering. After some time, I eventually found myself admiring the vast gardens behind the school. While picking out some fresh vegetables to snack on, I saw Coloratura sitting beneath the fake Zap Apple tree, staring off into the distance.

She has been hanging around us quite a bit... she and Applejack were friends when they were fillies, right? Maybe I'll go talk to her.

"Hey, Coloratura," I greeted softly as I approached.

"Oh! Princess Twilight!" she jumped in her seat a little, but quickly relaxed.

"How are you doing?" I asked as I sat down next to her on the bench.

"Oh... as well as I can be, I guess," she sighed, gazing into the distance again. "...Ugh, I've missed four concerts, now."

"Huh? Oh, yea..." I quickly remembered that Coloratura, or rather "Countess Coloratura", was a popular, famous singer. But here, she seemed like just another ordinary pony.

What a strange twist of fate... the friend Applejack made so long ago became so famous... became such an entirely different pony than before...

"I hope my fans aren't too worried about me... I'm sure there's all kinds of rumors flying around about my disappearance," Coloratura droned. "I feel like I'm already starting to forget the lyrics to my most popular songs..."

"I can't even imagine," I leaned back, "I mean, sure, I'm a Princess, but to be on your level of fame and popularity..."

"Oh! But you're quite famous and popular, too!" she quipped as she sat up. "Don't ponies ask for your autograph and stuff?"

My mind flashed back to the time when my best friends and I had compiled our Friendship Journals into a published work, with unexpected and, frankly, dubious results. "Well..."

~~~

Coloratura and I had a conversation about fame and popularity, and the downfalls one might not take into account when trying to attain such things. Turns out being a Princess and a pop star aren't so different after all...

~~~

"So, you and Applejack have been keeping in touch since the Helping Hooves Music Festival?" I asked.

"Oh, yes!," she beamed. "I'm so glad, too. I always felt a little guilty about losing touch, but I guess we both just got so busy in our careers... it was about the time my first hit single came out; one second I had her letter in my hoof, and the next I lost it in a pile of fan mail and promotional offers... after that, I just never really had a moment to sit down and have a good, quiet evening to write."

"I see..."

"But now that I have a new manager who thankfully takes my interests into consideration? Funny how I never had the time before..." she side-eyed, clearly remembering her previous manager.

"That's great! Hm... maybe sometime, after we get out of here... would you ever consider visiting? I'm sure AJ would be thrilled, and my friends and I would love to get to know you outside your performances."

"Ah! You think so?" Coloratura's eyes lit up. "I'd love to see her farm someday! Her apples are famous all over Equestria! I always have a basket of them delivered to my green room before a concert! And... well... I've really missed her. It's been so long since I've seen her last... heh. She was a cute little filly, now look at her... gorgeous!"

I smiled at the thought of the two as fillies, playing together. "Well, you're always welcome to stay in my castle. Any friend of AJ's is a friend of mine!"

"Thank you, Twilight," Coloratura smiled. "Although, no offense, but I would hope I could stay with Jackie... maybe we could have a sleepover, just like old times! She always had the most comfortable bed, and her room smelled like oats and apple blossoms..." she closed her eyes in reminiscence, a faint blush on her cheeks.

"Of course not," I nodded.

"Yes... in fact," Coloratura suddenly stood up, "I think I'll ask her right now. As much as I hate it here, I am glad for the chance to talk to her again... to actually see her again. Thank you, Twilight."

"Oh..." I suddenly felt a little awkward at being so abruptly ditched. "No problem, Coloratura."

"Oh, Twilight... you can call me 'Rara'," she giggled before disappearing through a patch of apple trees. I sat and watched her leave, slightly put out by how quickly she left, but the feeling was largely overshadowed by kind empathy.

She must really have missed AJ... well, I'm glad at least a little good came from this terrible situation.

~

Again I began wandering the school aimlessly. But then I remembered that we now had access to a library, however macabre it might be. If nothing else, maybe I could reread one of the murder mystery novels.

But as I opened the library's door, I found Nurse Redheart sitting at a table with a small stack of Anatomy & Physiology books. She was in the middle of one such book as I walked over to quietly examine the titles.

"Ah, hello again, Twilight," she looked up from the text.

"Oh, uh, hello," I replied. "Sorry, I'm not interrupting your studies, am I?"

"Not at all. In fact, how good is your knowledge of pony anatomy?" she asked. I paused for a moment or two while I quickly ran over what I knew in my head.

"Ah... pretty good, I'd say."

"Great..." She directed me to sit across from her, then handed me the book. "Would you please quiz me on the subject? It would be nice to keep it fresh in my mind... any topic will do."

"Sure thing," I grinned. Finally, somepony who saw the merits of studying in their free time!

~~~

I spent the next hour or so quizzing Redheart on various body part locations; how magic was created and channeled through Unicorn horns, Pegasus wings and Earth Pony hooves; how to recognize ten different common types of poisonings; how to mix a few common potions for medical conditions... I was quite impressed by her knowledge on all things medical, really! ...Not that I'd consider myself a slouch in that regard.

~~~

"So... about earlier..." I began to ask tentatively.

"Let me guess... you want to hear all about some of the worst things I've ever seen?" Redheart raised an eyebrow.

"Er... well..."

I mean... it's kinda sorta related to my question, I guess...

"It's alright," she shrugged. "It's only natural that you're curious. Just let me know if you start feeling nauseous and want me to stop," she smiled slightly, a dangerous gleam in her eye.

"O-Okay..."

"Let's see... there's quite a few stories to tell, where shall I start...?" Redheart put a hoof to her chin. "...Yes. Weirdest, stupidest, and worst. Those are usually what ponies ask me for."

I remained silent, leaning forward in my seat.

"Weirdest would have to be the time a stallion came to the ER with a garden gnome stuck inside his rectum."

My eyes went wide. "...W-What...?"

"Oh, that's not even the half of it. He said he'd accidentally locked himself out of his house, so he tried to climb up into a second-story window and fell right on it. So we get it out, fishing rod and all, fix him up and send him to a room to rest. But then, three hours later, another stallion comes to the ER, with a slightly different garden gnome in his rectum - this one with a butterfly net - and the exact same story about how it got there. After cutting through the bullshit, we found out that these two stallions had been gnoming each other, realized they both needed medical help afterwards, and arranged to go to different hospitals with this flawless story... only for one to get mixed up and wind up at the same one as the other."

I was stunned silent. Part of me wanted to burst out laughing, but the other part couldn't stop imagining the circumstances it'd take for a garden gnome to wind up... there.

"And stupidest... hard to pick just one, as some ponies seem to invent different ways of trying to get themselves killed every day... there was an older stallion with a skin condition. His treatment consisted of having a cream applied all over his body. He was told this cream was highly flammable-"

"I... think I can see where this is going."

Redheart nodded. "Not two minutes after we finished warning him, he snuck outside for a cigarette. Lit up like a Hearth's Warming tree."

This time I let out a stifled giggle. While I did feel bad for the stallion, he was told exactly what would happen...

"And worst..." Redheart closed her eyes, a small sigh escaping her muzzle. "...Mossy Agate."

I quieted down as Redheart paused. "From what her son told me, Mossy had a rough life. Her mother died in her forelegs when she was still a filly. Then a few years later her baby sister was killed in an accident. The local priest walked with her to the church and... took advantage of the situation. She would never say anything more about it than 'it was bad'.

"Her family were poor rock farmers; while she believed that her father and brothers scrounged up the money for her to go to college, her son told me that it had been the local madam that had taken pity on her. So she went to school, and met a stallion. She became pregnant, in a time and region where that was just not done. So she got married, had a few more foals... and then her husband died of cancer, in her forelegs.

"She remarried, this time to a stallion whom she considered a dreamer... but was really a terrible, abusive pony. They moved far away from her family. But she loved him, despite his horrible treatment of her children, and she had another with him. Then one day, he died in a carriage accident. She remarried once more, to a stallion who already had three fillies of his own. Their lives were happy until their last child moved out of the house... then, as her son put it, she quite simply lost her mind.

"She claimed to see ponies in trees watching her through the windows, and paid private investigators to search for listening spells in her walls. Then she started walking. Walking to visit neighbors she hadn't seen nor spoken to in forty years. Walking to all the corners of Equestria out of sheer paranoia. Slept out in the open. At one point a mare from Silver Shoals sent the son a letter, telling him about how she'd randomly appeared at her door one day. Taught her how to make an excellent loaf of bread, but after the mare wheedled enough information out of her to write to the son, she disappeared. Another time, she walked into her own son's house for a conversation; she asked to use the restroom and took her time, when the son decided to check on her he found that she'd left without a word.

"Finally, one day he received a letter from his sister. Mossy's hooves were bleeding from where she'd been chewing the skin. She was brought to my hospital, kept on psychiatric hold throughout her stay. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, and there was little we could do for her... the only time in my career I ever had to mix a Brompton Cocktail. She died within the week, as her son held her in his forelegs."

My heart felt like it stopped beating. An empty, hollow feeling permeated my chest, flooding into my throat and eyes. "That... that's so awful. Poor Mossy," I mumbled.

"Yes... that was the day I learned that life simply isn't fair," Redheart closed her eyes. "For an innocent little filly to experience so much pain, in which none of it at all was her fault... and later her own mind betraying her like that. I've worked with ponies affected by paranoia disorders... even without medication, they do realize, deep down, that their delusions are not real. But then their own mind swallows them up, warps their lucid thoughts into a nightmare. Often to the point they outright refuse treatment, sometimes violently."

I stared at the floor, my mind racing.

...When I become... if I become the ruler of Equestria... I'll definitely dedicate funds and support for mental health treatment. It's the least I could do...

A sudden, bitter chuckle from Redheart knocked me from my thoughts. "This is why I laugh when ponies compare Princess Celestia and Luna to gods... they were paragons of goodness, wouldn't you say?"

"O-Of course..." I choked a little, remembering my mentor.

"Then if the gods were so good, why do mental disorders exist in the first place? Especially when a pony's own mind turns on them from the moment their brain formed in the womb... what good could possibly come from that?"

I frowned. I had known Celestia since I was a young filly - contrary to popular belief, she was no goddess... well, not in the sense that she had created life and everything as we knew it. I had never given theology much thought, I was a mare of science, through and through. But various beliefs and religions did exist in Equestria and among all the different races of the world. And if those gods did exist, then what was their explanation for mental disorders?

A strong argument for theological fatalism, I can see... I had no idea Nurse Redheart was so... philosophical.

"...Sorry, I didn't mean for you to have an existential crisis right here and now," Redheart spoke, noticing how deep in thought I was.

"Oh, no, no," I waved awkwardly with a dumb grin. "I've just never really thought about it before. But now that I have... well, it'll give me something to do while we're here, I guess."

"Oh? Usually, most ponies gasp and get all offended when I bring this sort of thing up." Redheart's head tilted.

"I mean, I can see why, yes... but if learning's involved, then I don't get offended easily. In fact, let me think more about it, and I'd be happy to talk about it with you more," I offered.

"Hmm..." Redheart smiled. "I would enjoy that. Thank you, Twilight." I smiled in return.

~

Redheart and I talked a while more until it was time for dinner. I returned to my room briefly to drop off some books, and then headed straight for the cafeteria. In the kitchen, Pinkie was cooking alongside Applejack, Coloratura and Flam, the latter two vying for Applejack's attention. The others were sitting at various tables, picking at appetizers of simple salads or vegetable platters, or sipping their drinks.

I sat with my best friends as we ate our meal. Again, I noticed that Lightning hadn't come to join us. I felt a knot grow tighter in my stomach as I wondered what she could possibly be doing. Nopony had seen her all day, but at the same time, nopony seemed to care all that much... she wasn't particularly well-liked, after all. But I was worried all the same.

Talking with my friends eased my worries, though. We spent the evening playing some board games found in the warehouse, holed up in Pinkie's room with snacks and refreshments, gossiping and laughing. I let out a contented sigh - with them, I could truly relax and let down my guard. Before I knew it, Nighttime had arrived, but we stayed and played two hours more until we finally all left for our own rooms. I had myself a nice, hot shower, nestled into bed with one of my library books and read until I fell asleep.

~

Morning came. Groggily I pulled myself out of bed, my back already turned to the abrupt sunrise as I left for the cafeteria. I quietly grabbed some food and sat down to eat, watching the others slowly trickle in.

Pinkie arrived almost as soon as I sat down, followed by the rest of my best friends. After that, I only paid half-attention to the others' arrivals. As we ate and talked, though, I couldn't help but feel like something was missing...

Lightning Dust hadn't come to breakfast again, although that was mostly expected. She had reacted pretty badly to that video, after all. But that wasn't quite it...

It took me a few minutes, but once I realized what it was, I slapped my hoof on my forehead. It wasn't something that was missing, but somepony.

Trixie was also absent from breakfast.

"Um... has anypony seen Trixie this morning?" I tentatively asked, hoping that somepony had. Everypony went silent in thought.

"Now that you mention it... she isn't here, is she?" Redheart narrowed her eyes.

"Usually I see her on the way here," said Flam, "...but it would seem I had missed her today."

"Who cares about that has-been?" Fleur grumbled, never looking up from her plate. "Maybe she's off keeping that belligerent butchy bitch company. Celestia knows she's probably in desperate need of a good little hussy..."

My heart froze at those words.

"...You do realize that Lightning's been in the middle of a murderous rage the past day or so... right?" Rarity spoke slowly, terror dawning on her face.

"You don't think-!" Coloratura gasped in shock.

"OH... THAT'S BAD..." Bulk shivered.

"Should... should we go look for h-her?" Fluttershy whimpered. "M-Make sure she's a-alright?"

"Absolutely!" Applejack leapt to her feet. "Hopefully nothin' bad's happened..."

"We should search in pairs, just to be safe," Redheart nodded. "It is easy to assume that Lightning might be willing to murder to get out of this place, but that doesn't mean we should rule out other possibilities..."

"Ugh... why did I have to say anything...?" Fleur muttered angrily, letting her fork clatter noisily on her plate. She eventually stood up and partnered with Bulk before leaving, citing that a "massive meathead like him would make a fine meat shield". I wound up partnering with Redheart, taking a final bite of omelet before trotting out of the cafeteria.

I have a really bad feeling about this... oh, I hope I'm wrong...

Applejack, Flam, Coloratura and Pinkie had the dormitories covered, so Redheart and I entered the school. I managed to catch a glimpse of Rainbow's tail as she left to search outside, Rarity running after her. Discord and Fluttershy took the first floor, leaving the second floor to us. We ran as fast as we could up the stairs, each of us taking a side as we threw open the doors to the Library, Media Room, bathrooms and spare classrooms, finding nothing inside.

But as I tried the door to the Art Studio, my heart sank as I realized it was locked. "Trixie? Lightning? Are either of you in here?! ...Redheart, over here!" I called out desperately, "this door's locked!"

"That's not good," she replied coolly as she hurried over. "We'll have to break it down."

"I... uh..." I trotted in place for a few seconds before halfheartedly trying to push the door down.

B-Break?! But that's so... unprincesslike!

Redheart rolled her eyes. "I thought Alicorns had access to Earth Pony strength..." she sighed as she gently pushed me aside. Then with a sudden twirl and a twist, she effortlessly kicked down the door with her hind hooves.

"Er... thanks..." I sheepishly grinned as she offered to let me in first.

But that grin was quickly wiped away.

In the far right corner of the room, I could see Lightning Dust sitting on the ground by the pottery kiln, caught in a tangle of ropes with a glazed, unfocused expression covering her face. But what she was looking at was truly horrifying.

Trixie Lulamoon, the Ultimate Illusionist, was hanging from a rope suspended from the ceiling. Her face was a slightly darker shade of blue than usual, her eyes were bloodshot and bugged out, and her tongue lolled out of her muzzle, swollen and distended. A pair of thin streams of blood dripped from her mouth. But worst of all was the noose biting deeply into her throat, her legs dangling about a meter off the floor. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't tear my eyes away from that sight.

No... not again... no!

Redheart swallowed. "...Shit."

*ding dong bong bing!*

The monitor in the Art Room flashed to life, with Monokuma taking an excited sip from his wine glass before speaking. "A body has been discovered! Everyone, please gather in the Art Room! Now then, after a certain amount of time has passed, the class trial will begin!" I could've sworn he was holding in his laughter as the monitor deactivated.

But I couldn't focus on that. It had happened again. Somepony was dead.

Trixie was dead.