//------------------------------//
// Chapter 22. 
// Story: Murder at the Rarity Boutique 
// by Coyote de La Mancha 
//------------------------------//

One moment was all it took.
His Grace was bleeding out too fast, his blood forming a rapidly-widening pool. Even as the policeponies disarmed and restrained the suspect, even as they moved to offer what aid they might give, it was plainly too late.
Then, music. A song more felt than heard.
In later reports, some of the police would describe it as an orchestra of armonicas. Others would describe it as what it might be like to hear the stars sing. But all of them agreed that with it came a vast, blinding light from where His Grace and the young mare with him lay.
And then, it was gone.
The pool of blood, while no less terrifying in its size, was no longer growing. And at its center, arms wrapped about one another, were a stallion and a mare. Each of them unconscious. Each of them seemingly formed from the purest, most flawless crystal.