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// Chapter 2: The Studio 
// Story: Belles of Bridlewood Detectives: The Chain Pony 
// by Short-tale 
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We arrived at Silent’s studio without much difficulty. It was a long trek back. I thought about our experience and wondered why Silent had followed me to the body. Lyrica said that she was painting and suddenly left. Did the same feeling that drew me draw her?

“Well studio, sweet studio,” Lyrica said, hugging the building. The studio was a large windowed square made from planks of pine. Most of the unicorn town was similarly made. It felt old. That normally meant it had a lot of character. 

We entered and were immediately accosted by a descending staircase. I nearly tripped forward down it. But my normally calm demeanor saved me. I tend to walk into situations not expecting things so that when an unexpected thing happens I can react to it. If I hadn’t expected this staircase I would have found the concrete floor with my snout. 

The home was pretty open. There weren't that many walls but the next floor held an enclosed loft. I presumed the bedroom was up there. The rest of the home was visible from the entrance. Well except the bathroom and shower room. I guessed they were behind one of those doors in the back. 

The house was covered in paintings. The walls had been filled already and there were stacks of old, used canvases. In the middle of the home was a large paint-stained easel with a few blank canvases leaning on it.

I passed by the first painting I saw. It was black and twisted. The ponies on it were distorted and contorted... They didn’t look like they were in pain. Their expressions were blank as if this was normal to be. I wondered if that was the point. A bent world where ponies thought it was fine to be twisted like a corkscrew. It was highly relatable... 

I felt a tap on my shoulder and found Silent on the other end of the hoof. She glanced back and forth between the painting and me. Then raised her eyebrows. It was a silent question.

“I find them emotionally provocative,” I said flatly. 

Silent turned and looked at Lyrica. My thoughts were translated into a series of gestures. They were answered in a smug smirk. 

“That’s what she was going for,” the dancer explained from the soft cotton couch. She had sprawled herself on it and looked worn out from our investigation. “Would you like something Gloomy? Some water or soda or wine? Like a really tall glass. Like this one.”

Lyrica lifted her hoof and displayed a glass the size of a small punch bowl. It was filled with a dark red liquid I assumed was wine. 

I shook my head. Silent grabbed my hoof and started to usher me around her studio. I thought my forehoof was going to fall off from her tugs. The darkness in the paints reflected my thoughts on life. Life could get gritty, mean, and nasty. Especially if you’re different. I wondered if Silent had similar experiences to my own. 

Most ponies thought I was strange. I didn’t emote. I looked at things differently. I wasn’t scared of silly things like monsters or curses or even saying mayonnaise. I couldn’t relate to them. So they discarded me. They liked my poetry though. It was in a medium where ponies expected something different to exist and that’s where I could. It felt more like they were just placating me. They wanted me to feel like I was useful somehow. I had a hard time seeing it.

Art was similar. Silent had followed the same path and visually represented my conclusions. I could feel each painting as a reflection of my suffering in life. Well, at least the ones here. I glanced at the ones on the floor and noticed a much brighter cast. I wondered what inspired them.

Silent tapped her hoof on the floor to get my attention. I was not expecting a deaf pony to use sound for that. She pointed at a large painting still on the easel. I followed her over to it and felt my heart freeze. 

It was a rust-colored landscape with a valley very much like the one we found the body in. There was a shadow creeping in the middle. A soul-sucking shadow that felt like it could sense me through the painting. I shivered again.

Silent nodded and pointed to her painting. She looked over at Lyrica, the little mare had collapsed on the couch. The wine must have gotten to her. The mute pony scuffed her hoof on the floor. Her horn glowed a bright magenta as a notepad and brush whizzed by also glowing. She seemed to have better control than I.

The brush danced across the page. There was a look of annoyance on her face. She looked back up at me and floated the result in my view. 

“What do you think? Did you see this too?”

I shook my head. The brush sped back into action. 

“Then how did you know where to go? And what were you writing when I saw you?”

“It was the cold…” I stopped myself. Silent wouldn’t understand me. I reached for my notebook which flew out of my bag and struck me in the face. Silent looked at me with a smile but a confused expression.

I scrawled back. “The cold wind brought me there and this poem kind of wrote itself.”

“The painting was like that too. What was the poem?”

The pages flipped so rapidly that I felt the small breeze they produced. They stopped dead at that poem. Then the notebook turned and sped into Silent’s face. She winced and glared at me. Then she slowly turned her eyes back to the notebook.

The brush went wild again and the notepad popped up. 

“I think I know what did this. This poem sounds very much like him. But I’m not sure of everything yet.”

The notepad flew to my hooves again and the pen displayed the one thought I had. “Who?”

Silent looked over to her bookshelf and a volume slowly made its way towards us. I marveled at her control. How come I couldn’t get a hang of this magic? It opened itself in that magenta field and turned itself to an entry on legends of the road.

“One of the most feared and reviled creatures that haunt the fairways is the Chain Pony or Old Ironsteps. It is said that if you meet a dark shadowy figure at the crossroads at midnight it is probably the Chain Pony. He’s known to solicit travelers into deals. He gives what the ponies desire but only for a price. Mostly the price includes your magic, chained to him forever with the chains he wears around his legs.’

“A pony can avoid the fee of this deal by challenging Old Ironsteps to a bet. They bet normally with their cutie mark talent. The Chain Pony relishes defeating ponies at their own skill. If the pony wins they still get their desires filled at no cost to them. But if the pony loses Old Ironsteps pulls every last bit of magic from their mind, body, and soul. ‘

“Many claimed to have seen the chain pony wandering the crossroads around Bridlewood. After the magic left, tales of the Chain Pony all but ceased. Most believe he was never real to begin with. Others say he doesn’t have any magic to steal.”

“The Chain Pony...” I muttered in thought.

“The what?” asked a sleepy voice from the couch. Lyrica sat up and rubbed her eyes. I forgot she was in the room at all.

“Silent thinks the killer was the Chain Pony,” I reiterated, as she sat up on the couch. “Here read this.”

The book changed from pink to blue as my will took over. But the book dropped on the floor then skidded to Lyrica’s hooves. 

“Oook?” the sleepy unicorn drawled out as she looked down at it. “Is this, like, a joke or something? You could just have given it to me directly.”

I turned away, trying to disguise my reddened face. I glanced over at Silent who just stared with concern and curiosity. Magic was part of our lives. We were unicorns. But for some reason, I couldn’t connect to it as easily. Even to magic, I was different.

“And you both think this Chain Pony thing is killing ponies?” Lyrica wiggled her ears in time with her speech. It looked like something she was used to doing. Like a habit. I guess having a deaf friend would cause that. 

Silent nodded. I simply looked at the ground. If the Chain Pony was real perhaps it was back to take our magic. Maybe that’s what happened to it in the first place. Maybe it could take mine. 

“Well you would know better than me,” Lyrica sighed. “You’ve been into this stuff since you were a foal.”

“What stuff?” 

“Ghost, monsters, where our magic went,” Lyrica groggily swished her wine glass around. “Silent has been trying to prove this stuff is real for years. I thought it was kind of silly but now we have our magic back. So I guess anything is possible. Has she shown you her paintings yet?”

I nodded. “They are thought-provoking. I can relate to her twisted sense of society.”

“Oh. Those,” Lyrica scratched the back of her neck. “Of course she would show you those. But she did a totally different style before she was inspired. They’re in the back room. You should see.”

I turned to Silent who had a look of annoyance or embarrassment. I couldn’t figure out which. She beckoned me to the back while Lyrica slumped into the couch still reading the book.

The backroom felt too personal. It was small and only lit. The white walls felt grey in the sparse lighting. It felt like I entered somepony’s bedroom or maybe a secret kind of altar. 

The paintings in this room had none of the intensity or emotion behind them. They were dark but in a different manner. My jaw dropped as I beheld the high level of detail they bore. They were supernatural creatures, at least I think they were. I never studied that stuff. 

Silent was a master of hyperrealism. The slimy imp pulling itself out of a bog looked like it had me dead in its sights. I could almost feel the delicate ethereal strands of a ghost pony’s wedding veil. And the fierce glow of a flower fairy had me almost squinting.

“These are amazing.” I’m not sure if Silent read my lips but she looked down and crossed her forehooves. Then she pointed to a horrific-looking chain-covered stallion. It had red glowing eyes and was made entirely of wrought iron. 

“That’s what you think is behind this?” I stared at the horrendous-looking creature full of malice and hatred. Who would approach something like that? For any reason.

“Gloomy? Could you put this back?” The demanding pony asked from the other room. I walked out and found her levitating the book to me, watching me with keen interest. I was able to catch it with my magic. I took a deep breath. I knew where it went; it was just a matter of getting it there. Nicely. 

The bookshelf loomed in the distance as my blue encircled tome floated its merry way. It wasn’t too bad. A little wobble here and there. The slot was a few inches away and I changed the book’s orientation to vertical. Somehow that increased its speed and it jammed itself into the opening with enough force to empty the rest of the shelf.

“Oh dear, I will clean it up,” I said with no haste or variance. I slowly made my way over and Silent mirrored my intent.

I began to lift the volumes one by one but every time I reached my hooves out my magic grabbed it first. It was frustrating. It felt like some spirit was trying to mess with me. I knew it was just my will.

I tried to ignore Silent’s look of growing concern on her face. I focused on the books themselves. Most of them were art books with various painting techniques. A lot of them were folklore and mythology. There were a smattering of cookbooks. 

Then I noticed one I knew very well. A small brown volume wrapped in leather. It looked careworn and had bookmarks in some places. My magic grabbed it and brought it to me in the blink of an eye. “A study in Darkness, poetry, and prose by Gloomy Sonnet.” It was something I had been asked by many ponies to release. It did well for a book of poems. 

The book glowed a brilliant purple as a magenta flash and my blue one merged. The book vanished then reappeared securely on the shelf. Silent’s face was beet red. It emphasized the red tone in her coat. The fan’s ears flew into action to the point that Lyrica was clearly having trouble following. 

“Slow down,” the translator cried to the deaf pony. “Ok, she said she was really inspired by your works and that a lot of the pieces she has up are from specific poems. That’s why she switched styles. The one she showed you first was from ‘A sentence creeps like mist.’”

“That doesn’t make sense. My work is trivial at best. I don’t see why it would inspire her.” I didn’t know how to respond to resonating with somepony. It just didn’t feel real.

Silent was silent. Normally others' art or creative endeavors just feel me with sadness. They reflect a talent I could never achieve. They had a voice and purpose. They held meaning. I looked at the paintings my poems supposedly inspired. I could see the voice. I could see the grand message in the strokes. It made my poems flat and ineffectual by comparison.

“I think she captured the subject better than I ever could.” I waited to see a look of pride and understanding. Instead, Silent’s face looked shocked and horrified. Her ears twitched and began a slew of movements I could barely see.

“‘I don’t understand’” the translation came with a huskier voice. Maybe she was imitating Silent’s demeanor? “‘This is from you. How could I do it better? I don’t think you understand how great you are.’”

I stood still. Great? I was just a poet. One that couldn’t even write at this point. I was far from great. But the pony in front of me didn’t smirk or flinch. She was being sincere. I looked away. I didn’t know how to respond to that.

“So huh, even if it was this Chain Pony, what are we going to do about it?” Lyrica jumped in between us, whether to offset the awkwardness or make herself more prominent I was not sure.

Silent responded. 

“Catch it or chase it away?!” Lyrica gasped. Her blood left her face and her legs trembled a little. Or maybe it was just the way she moved in her leg warmers. “We don’t know how to do that. It could kill us too.”

“Not unless we make a deal with it.” I pointed out. Silent nodded in agreement. “It seems like it only kills or hurts those that make the deal or the bet. If we don’t it shouldn’t have any cause to hurt us.”

“Just because it doesn’t hurt others if they don’t make the deal doesn’t mean it won’t if we attack it.”

“I don’t know what our options are. Maybe we should look at the library or find somepony who knows this stuff. Like a holy pony.” I didn’t think running into battle with a deadly spirit was a good idea. I’m not a fighter. Well not physically. I fought the darkness by exposing it.

Silent’s ears dropped. Proving these things existed was really important to her. She threw her hooves in the air and rolled her eyes. 

“A holy pony huh? I don’t know where one is but I do know a very old unicorn.” Lyrica’s ears moved seamlessly with her speech. It has only been a few hours but I found myself getting used to it. 

Silent’s ears responded immediately. They swished through the air in quick succinct slashes. I wondered what was going on. 

“Yes. Him. Who else would I be talking about?” Lyrica waved a dismissive hoof. “He’s not that bad. And I don’t think he leers at you.”

The look on Silent’s face disagreed. She looked the most uncomfortable I had seen her yet and we found a dead body earlier. This old stallion must be pretty unbearable.

“Silent,” I ventured. “If you feel that uncomfortable you can stay here and we could go.”

The harsh face I received told me the response before Lyrica translated. “No way!”

“Then stick with me and I’ll make sure he’s decent.” I wasn’t sure how I could do that but I could try. Maybe the stallion would like a different pony to look at. I didn’t care about that much. 

Silent’s features softened a bit then returned to their defiant expression from before. Her ears started to swing again. Perhaps I should learn sign language.

“I can fight my own battles but thanks for trying to help. I can deal with Old Stallion Wispy.” Her translated speech corresponded to the look of determination she wore. 

“Well it’s the only lead we have,” the spunky pony added in her own words. “Ready?”

Silent and I nodded. This was not exactly how I expected to find a new poem.