Urban Wilds

by Rambling Writer


3 - Speed Bumps

Amanita took several long minutes to gawk at Canterlot’s main train station. She turned on the spot, staring up at the glass arches and iron trusses that made up the roof, at the walkways crossing the tracks, at the observation platforms for pegasi hanging from the ceiling. Bitterroot knew the feeling and she still snorted. “Haven’t you ever been to Canterlot before?”

“No. I grew up in Grassham and I’ve never been further east than Des Maines or further south than Thunder Basin.”

“Oh. Huh. …You, uh, wanna stay and look? I’m fine with that.”

Amanita’s tail twitched. “Um, no, we, we should probably get going.”

“Alright. Come on.”

Modern-day high-speed rail was something else, but it’d still been a long trip from the Crystal Empire and the sun was setting. Canterlot was in the last throes of rush hour: still a bit busier than usual, but not to the point of inducing madness anymore. As Bitterroot led them through the streets, Amanita kept lagging behind to stare at this or that. Even if “this” was just a donut shop. Canterlot’s architecture wasn’t like anything else in Equestria, true, but Bitterroot was used to it. Having somepony else boggle at one of the plainer fountains was weird. “You want to take a tour of the city tomorrow?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Amanita, tearing herself away from a set of cobblestones. “This place is amazing.”

“Eh.” Bitterroot shrugged. “You get used to it.”

They entered Bitterroot’s neighborhood, a not-particularly-special place that she still loved nonetheless. It wasn’t far to her house, especially since Amanita was stopping to stare less and less. When they reached their destination, Bitterroot pulled open her mailbox to retrieve her mail and newspaper. “It’s not much,” she said, tucking everything under a wing, “but it’s home. Come on.” She put a hoof on her walk.

A black shape suddenly fell from the sky and onto Bitterroot’s railing. “Bread?” squawked Lenore.

“I’m getting to it,” said Bitterroot. She reached out to try and pet her, but as usual, Lenore just hopped away and made angry unfed raven noises at her.

“This is Lenore,” Bitterroot said to Amanita. “She’s learned to ask ponies like me for food and hangs around looking judgmental when we don’t give it to her.”

“Oh. Um, hello, Lenore?” Amanita asked. She tentatively extended her hoof; Lenore gave a sort of throaty gurgle and hopped up to let Amanita rub her. “How come she can talk?”

Bitterroot gave Amanita a Look. “Didn’t you know? Ravens can imitate pony speech pretty well. She’s just learned that when she makes that sound, she’ll probably get bread.”

Amanita scratched Lenore’s head; the raven rumbled happily and ruffled her feathers. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Huh. Well, now you do.”

Inside, Bitterroot tossed her coat onto a hook. “You’re free to go anywhere,” she said. “My house is your house. Bathroom’s over there, and I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch.” She dropped the mail and newspaper on the dining room table and opened the fridge. What did they have to eat?

“Couch is fine. Just one bedroom?”

“Two, really, but only one bed. Other bedroom’s a storage-”

“Holy Celestia.”

At Amanita’s tone of voice, Bitterroot’s head shot up in surprise and she banged it against a shelf. Rubbing her head, she turned to Amanita, who was staring at the newspaper with big eyes. “There’s a… a serial killer in Canterlot?” she whispered.

Bitterroot didn’t need to look at the headline to know what she was talking about.

A pony had been found dead one morning in an upper-class neighborhood three weeks ago. At first, it’d just seemed like a murder. Those were rare enough in Canterlot, particularly that area, to get the Guard’s attention to begin with. Then, a mere three days later, another body turned up, killed in a similar way; for some reason, the papers saw fit to give them a neat sobriquet. Then another victim, three more days later. And again. And again. And again. Curfews had been implemented — nopony going outside from 11 PM to 5 AM — and Canterlot was quieting down, growing more still and anxious. It wasn’t anything a tourist would notice and there was nothing specific Bitterroot could point to, but everything was just a little bit more fearful. Tension was slowly ratcheting up and what little of Canterlot’s nightlife there still was was growing quieter and quieter. And there were barely any clues.

“Yeah,” Bitterroot said soberly. “The paper calls her the Mearhwolf of the Mountain. Seven ponies dead in three weeks.”

“Eight,” Amanita said quietly. “They… found another body.” She held up the paper to show the front page.

A knot formed in Bitterroot’s stomach. Right on time. “Well… eight, then. The Royal Guard doesn’t know anything and they’ve posted a bounty for whoever has information. Twenty-five thousand bits for a good lead. A hundred thousand if you can prove who it is. I’m… kind of after the hundred grand.”

“Bounty hunters gonna bounty hunt, right?” Amanita gave the paper one last look, shuddered, and dropped it on the table. She levitated the sports section out and buried her muzzle in it, upside-down. “Any luck?”

“No. Not even for the twenty-five thousand.” Bitterroot sighed and shook her head. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of worried. Not scared, but… what if the killings just stop one day and whoever this is just gets away with it? I think I’d feel… responsible, you know? It’s kind of my job to help catch runaway criminals, and now that I’m set on catching this one, if she escapes… I don’t know.”

“I’m sure they’ll find her. Or you will. One of those two,” Amanita said, convincing neither of them.

Bitterroot usually tried to stay optimistic — optimism and realism went hoof-in-hoof in Equestria — but it was hard to do that after seeing a killer strike casually like this for two weeks. Eventually, you were just lying to yourself and had to face facts. Speaking of facing facts, she pulled the paper over to her and forced herself to look at the headline for the first time. Eighth Pony Found Dead in-

Her mind changed gears so quickly she didn’t finish reading. Her head snapped up and she stared at Amanita. At the paper. At Amanita.

Holy crow, this was perfect. “Amanita,” she said slowly. “Amanita, I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

Bitterroot didn’t say anything, just held up the newspaper and grinned.

Amanita looked at the front page for a few moments. The second she got it, her eyes doubled in size and she backed up. “No,” she hissed, giving quick little shakes of the head. The tip of her horn swished through the air like a sword. “No no no no no no no no no.”

“Look,” said Bitterroot. “She’s a victim of a spree killer. You’re a necromancer.” She made a “duh” face and spread her legs and wings wide.

Amanita’s voice rose in pitch and her tail grew restless. “Ex-necromancer, and I’m a convicted felon. Because of necromancy! What, are we just going to walk into the Guard’s barracks and go, ‘hey, here’s a necromancer who wants to work for you’?”

“Worth a shot. No, seriously, it is. You know Princess Twilight’s deal, right? She wouldn’t just accept you, she’d probably take you in as an apprentice or something. And you’ve already served your time. If you get arrested again, I’ll find a way to get Shining Armor screaming at them. And that’d probably result in Twilight screaming at them, which… yeah.”

“I did some really terrible things as a necromancer. Want me to tell you?”

“No, because you won’t do it again, so it matters as much as what I had for breakfast a year ago.”

“I don’t-” Her ears back and her eyes glinting, Amanita glared at Bitterroot and growled, “Look, Bitterroot, for Celestia’s sake, I am not a necromancer anymore, okay? I just-” She looked away and mumbled, “Can we… not talk about this? Please?”

Bitterroot immediately winced inside as her mind caught up with her emotions. What had she been thinking? Hey, you know the thing you just got out of prison for doing? Let’s do it again! And that was the least offensive way of saying it. Sure, just go and rub your friend’s face in the thing she loathed remembering. Bitterroot wanted to say that if she was Amanita, she’d jump at the chance to save ponies like this, but if she was Amanita, she’d be saddled with trauma she didn’t notice now. It’d be like if somepony else reminded her of… She didn’t have anything remotely close to that. Nothing she regretted so badly that she was willing to be imprisoned over it. Yeesh.

“Right, sorry,” said Bitterroot. She self-consciously rustled her wings. “I…” Her stomach gave a tiny gurgle and she switched trains of thought so abruptly she risked derailing. “You want pizza for dinner? It’s probably been a while since you had pizza.”

Amanita’s ears went up and she turned back to Bitterroot. “Pizza sounds nice.”

Bitterroot had plenty of frozen pizzas to choose from. Truth be told, there was probably something wrong with how many she had at any one time. But if she worked late, she could just throw a pizza in the oven, set the timer, and not worry about anything else. It was quick and easy, and that made up for how bad it was to her body. Less than half an hour later, the two ponies were pigging out on slices of frozen four-cheese pizza (one of the better brands, luckily). Amanita seemed to have her mouth perpetually full.

When they talked, during dinner and after, Bitterroot did her best to steer clear of the Mearhwolf and anything relating to necromancy. She actually managed a stellar job, focusing mostly on what Canterlot was like. She’d never talked to somepony who knew this little about Canterlot before. After a while, she felt like she was rambling on about nothing, but Amanita hung off her every word.

It didn’t seem like long, but suddenly it was dark and Amanita said, “Hey, um, since I’m sleeping on the couch, do you have any blankets and pillows? It might-”

“Yeah, sure, hang on.” Bitterroot quickly retrieved a nice set of thick blankets and a spare pillow. Passing them over to Amanita, she asked, “Why? You’re tired already?”

“No, but I will be in ten minutes,” Amanita said as she laid out the blankets. “I had a schedule beaten into me.”

Bitterroot’s wings sprang open and her eyes went wide. “Wait, what-”

“Not literally!” Amanita yelped. “Not, not literally. I, I mean, I- Just schedules. Everything in prison ran on schedules and I’m… really used to… Yeah. Not literally. Nooooo.” Her grimace was probably supposed to be a smile. “Who’d risk beating a necromancer, anyway?” she muttered.

“Right. Got it.” Bitterroot swallowed. “Speaking of which, I, um, I’m sorry for… bringing up necromancy earlier tonight.”

Amanita immediately turned to the sofa, blinking and fluffing her pillow mechanically. Bitterroot shuffled from hoof to hoof and unclasped her wings, continuing, “With the Mearhwolf. I really should’ve known that you wouldn’t like talking about it. I mean, with… everything. I…” She rubbed one of her forelegs. “I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

Closing her eyes, Amanita took a deep breath through her nose. She gazed at the wall and said, “You know what? Thank you. Really.” There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “You’re probably the only pony in the world who could do that. Know I’m a necromancer and not care. And after I spent years hiding out because I was a necromancer, I-” With a swallow, she turned to Bitterroot. Her eyes glistened. “I shouldn’t’ve gone off on you like that-”

“No, I deserved it,” Bitterroot said quickly, “I wasn’t thinking-”

“I don’t care. You knew I was a necromancer and you took me in and- And a roof over my head and a friend is worth a few thoughtless remarks here and there.” Blink. “I, I mean I forgive you, no offense,” Amanita added quickly, turning slightly pink.

“None taken. It’s just karma.”

Amanita nodded, then rubbed the back of her neck. “Besides, you… have a point. I could bring that pony back. But I’m… not really ready to just… instantly jump in like that.”

“Want me to shut up about it until you are ready?”

“…Yeah.”

“Right. Shutting up.” Bitterroot mimed zipping her mouth shut. “Speaking of changing the subject, do you need more blankets?”

Amanita shook her head. “Don’t think so. Maybe?”

“There’s a linen closet right over there. Take whatever you need.”

True to her word, Amanita was out like a light in ten minutes. She lay sprawled across the sofa, breathing deeply, not snoring at all. Bitterroot occasionally glanced up from her book to look at her. If Amanita was having any nightmares, she definitely didn’t look it.

Bitterroot worked a crink out of her wings and walked over to the kitchen, where the newspaper was still sitting on the counter. She skimmed through the article on the latest Mearhwolf victim, one Cobalt Shine. It was the usual. What was it like, to have to repeatedly write articles about ponies dying to a spree killer?

And suddenly, Bitterroot felt tired. Burned out. Tired for herself, who’d been exhaustively digging through dead ends. Tired for the Guard, who were probably analyzing dirt in the hopes of finding something. Tired for the newspaper writers, who had to keep repeated murder interesting enough to sell without turning lurid or sensationalistic. Tired for everyone in Canterlot, who had no end in sight. And tired for Amanita, who’d had her traumatic past casually brought up by an unthinking absolute tool.

She wanted to go to bed. She wanted to go to bed and wake up and have everything be hunky-dory. Part of her said to give Twilight a year, she’d work it out. Unfortunately, she was tired now. Even then, before she went to bed, there was one last thing she needed to do.

Shaking her head, Bitterroot dug through her junk drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. She sat down at the table and began snipping out the headline as she fought a desire to dream the night away.


She didn’t have a clock, but Amanita knew it was 6:28 AM when she woke up. She pushed herself up and rolled off the left side of her cot, only to bump into the back of the sofa, because it wasn’t her cot and the left side of it wasn’t open.

The sofa was comfortable beneath her. If she wanted to, she could go back to sleep. She had the time. Did she have the ability, though? She hadn’t slept this soundly in years — psychologically or physically — and might’ve been too well-rested to get to sleep. Although… she didn’t need to sleep. She could just lie on the sofa until… whenever, really. The thought was terrifying and she loved it. So Amanita just lay there, eyes closed, thinking about nothing.

But eventually, she got restless. She kicked off her blankets and cautiously walked over to the window, feeling her way through the dim light. The clouds outside were orange on their bottoms, but the roofs of Canterlot were still dark. It wouldn’t be long before the sun cleared the horizon. When did Bitterroot usually get up? Amanita didn’t have much to do, but she didn’t want to wake her up, either. There was no quicker way of getting kicked out of a place than preventing your host from having a good night’s sleep. She settled for familiarizing herself with the house some more.

After prison, fluffy carpets that didn’t immediately chill your hooves were a blessing. Amanita dragged her hooves as she walked, letting the fabric trail across her frogs. Her eyes had adjusted to the near-dark by now, so she could at least see well enough to not bump into anything. She trod lightly through the house.

The first floor was nothing special, a small place for a small family. Living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, closed (but not locked) doors. The backyard had two trees, one of which looked like an apple tree, with a hammock strung between them, and a small patio with table and chairs for when it was warm enough to eat outside. Amanita almost went upstairs, but when the first step squeaked, she nixed that idea. Still didn’t want to wake Bitterroot up.

She tried some of the closed doors. One was just a closet for cold-weather clothes. The second one was too dark to see, even with the window, so Amanita lit her horn. A paper disaster area of a room confronted her, an organizer’s worst nightmare. Sheets with nigh-illegible scribbles were scattered across the floor and the short stacks on the one desk were uneven. There was a cork board along one wall that fared a little better, but not by much. A map of what was probably Canterlot hung on one wall, eight X’s clearly marked in red in two loose circles inside each other.

Amanita was about to look at one of the papers when she stopped. This was probably an office, someplace personal. She shouldn’t be here. Although… if Bitterroot didn’t want her in here, she’d’ve said something, right? She’d specifically said, You’re free to go anywhere without adding except this room right here. Plus, Bitterroot still wasn’t up yet and Amanita needed something to do. (She would later contend that she hadn’t woken up as fully as she’d thought.)

She pushed a little bit more light from her horn to get a better look at the board. It was crisscrossed with strings connecting little sheets of scrap paper. Once Amanita was able to decipher the chicken scratch, it said things like Drafton — enemies? EVERYONE loved him or Hole-in-the-Wall: patrons knew nothing or Guard gave me everything they had: nothing. It started out something vaguely resembling neat, with consistent lines and clean cuts, but some of the more recent “signs” had clearly been scribbled in anger, even punching through the paper entirely at one point, and the paper itself roughly cut.

In one corner of the board, separate from everything else, were yesterday’s headline and seven articles with pictures of ponies next to them. Some of them were flat and old, some of them were wrinkled and looked like they’d been pinned recently. Amanita read a few words from one and sucked in a breath.

They were all obituaries. And it wasn’t hard to guess why those ponies had died.

“Amanita?”

Amanita jumped at the voice and her light winked out as she spun around. Bitterroot was standing in the door, her head very beddy, her eyes glazed. “I, I’m sorry,” gasped Amanita. “I didn’t mean-”

“Y’re fine,” Bitterroot slurred. “Y’can be in ’ere. I’m jus’ s-s-s-” She yawned, arching her back and flexing her wings. “Just surprised,” she mumbled. “What’re you doing up?”

“Full night’s rest. Your sofa’s comfier than a prison cot.”

“Good, good.” Bitterroot nodded vaguely, like she hadn’t really heard what was said, but her eyes were sharp after she blinked a few times.

“What’s, uh…” Amanita gestured vaguely at the articles. “Why do you have these obituaries up?”

“Keeps me grounded.” Bitterroot rubbed her eyes. “Two years ago, I captured a lich. That’s the sorta thing that gets you… all puffed up, like a beach ball. Now I’m hunting a spree killer, the big classic crime drama thing. I don’t want to turn into some glory hound, hunting down big names solely because it’ll make me a big name. I want to stop stuff like this.” She pointed at one obituary. “This one? He was stabbed in the back twenty-six times. Twenty-six. What sort of- thing does that? I know I can’t bring him back, but I can stop it from happening to somepony else.”

Twenty-six times. Sweet Celestia. Somepony capable of doing that — repeatedly — was just running around Canterlot. Like Circe had done. Except this was apparently Just Because. Amanita was glad she’d gotten enough sleep, because she didn’t think she was going to be able to sleep tonight.

Maybe Bitterroot was right about what she’d said yesterday.

Bitterroot was still talking. “Sorry to lay that on you first thing.” She ran a hoof through her mane and yawned again. “You hungry? I’m hungry. You want eggs? I’m making eggs.” She unsteadily turned around and loped over to the kitchen.

“Uh…” Amanita heard herself saying. “Two. Fried. Sunny-side up.” It’d been a while since she’d had eggs.

“Two sunny-side ups, coming right up.”

Within seconds, the sound of a stove came through the doorway. Not long after, the sizzle of frying eggs. Amanita couldn’t pull herself away from the board. In fact, she leaned in closer, looking at the column Bitterroot had pointed at. It was a lanky, not-quite-middle aged pegasus stallion who somehow made sitting in a tree look debonair. Several twigs were artfully arranged in his mane and his coats, natural and artificial both, boasted a thin, patchy layer of dirt. She read the obituary.

Drafton died on Grain Moon 22, 1004. He was a fast friend to make, always making things easy for those around him. He taught these same values to his children. He loved spending time outdoors and was a summer camp counselor in White Tail Woods. Although he didn’t have the same connection to the land as earth ponies, he loved gardening…

Amanita swallowed and stopped reading. She almost left then, but she found herself going to the next article. A buckball mom of a unicorn, dumpy but friendly-looking, brightly colored, eyepatched. Her shirt looked like it’d been poorly tie-dyed by foals.

Dame Lilac Shade was taken to Elysium on Grain Moon 16, 1004. She is preceded in death by her husband, Musgrave, and their daughter, Juno. She first met Musgrave on a equitarian trip to the Badlands in 984. They stayed in touch when she left and, with her family’s assistance, he moved to Canterlot three years later. They married in 988. Juno was born to them…

Next one. A young earth pony, sharply dressed and impeccably groomed, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. His suit was pristine and a collegiate pin was stuck in his lapel, still glinting from a recent polish.

Caraway, 10/25/976 — 3/25/1004. His mission in life was to understand the supernatural world. He had recently earned a PhD in Theoretical Transformational Thaumatics from Canterlot Institute of Arcana and was due to leave for a job with the Hockheed Corporation in Los Ambeles in a week. He had advanced through school quickly and always enjoyed a mental challenge. In his AP classes…

The pictures and text were getting blurry; Amanita blinked to clear her eyes.

Next one. A slender, older unicorn with a well-weathered body and a loose stance, her dull, ashy coat contrasting dramatically with her bright eyes and sparkling smile. Her hat had the specific rattiness of a favorite hat worn for ages. She was holding up an oil painting of a mountain range at night, the aurora crystalis twisting through the skies above.

In loving memory of Silverbird. We miss you already.

Next-

“Amanita! Eggs’re ready!”

“Coming!” Amanita gave the board one last look before wiping her eyes down and ripping herself away.

Her eggs had the bland, pleasant familiarity of well-made, unadulterated eggs. Her orange juice had that little tangy punch of good orange juice (no pulp, too!). Both had been in short supply in prison, but she didn’t pay them much attention. Her thoughts wouldn’t let her.

I know I can’t bring him back. Bitterroot had still been too woozy to choose those words as a guilt-trip, but they gnawed at Amanita all the same. She probably couldn’t bring most of them back, not if their bodies were too far gone. After spending this much time in the afterlife, they might not want to come back to the trials of life, anyway. But anyone in the future? She could do that. As long as she was willing to dive headfirst into a life she’d sworn to leave behind.

Her history of necromancy clung to her like an oil stain. She wasn’t feeling any compulsion to use it, like other forms of dark magic, but Amanita knew enough of what it could be used for to find it repulsive. She’d seen horrible things, done horrible things herself completely by accident through wilful ignorance when she played with death. The mere thought of involving herself in that depravity again churned her stomach.

And yet.

Not all of necromancy was a crime against nature. Amanita had saved Bitterroot’s life with it. She’d almost saved a hapless ranger’s life with it, foiled only by outside circumstances. She would never, in a million years, make herself a lich or build an undead horde. She was just bringing murder victims back to life or giving them one last word with their families. It wasn’t harmful. Couldn’t be. And she’d never be tempted by anything more.

But she still remembered the thralls and enslavement of souls that had been Circe’s stock and trade. She couldn’t think about necromancy and not remember that. Her own involvement in that, however unknowing. Again, it made her skin crawl. Necromancers were feared for a reason, after all. Just because she was a necromancer didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of them. Including herself? Especially herself, because she knew exactly all the terrible things she could do. She’d been comfortable with puppeting the dead once; the last thing she wanted was for that to happen again. No, the memories couldn’t harm her. That didn’t mean rolling around in them was any less unpleasant.

Or would doing good exorcise those demons?

And if it didn’t, was she willing to hurt herself to save somepony else?

“You’re quiet,” Bitterroot said. She took a nibble of her eggs.

“So’re you,” Amanita said. She took a sip of her juice.

“Hmm.”

There wasn’t enough morning energy for much more. Silverware clinked against glazed ceramic. Eggs were eaten. Toast was buttered. Juice was drunk.

“Bitterroot?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s talk to the Guard.”