//------------------------------// // 26. Afterlives // Story: Bug in a Blizzard // by Paracompact //------------------------------// “Pesco!” my partner wailed. “Do something!” The fog of the future dispersed, shrieking as it went; I snapped out of my dark dreaming and returned to the reality of the present day. Bon and my partner sat weeping over Scolus's body, which was not yet a corpse. All the color had drained from his locks, and his body was gray and feeble. It was as dire as ever—but it was not hopeless. I strode from the sadder part of the foyer to the angrier part, where Grid and Zorn together still struggled to restrain their squirming, vindictive former friend. Something of hers must have rubbed off on them, as their shouting was by now at least as loud and guttural as hers. There was no time to indulge. “Step aside,” I told them, swiping a hoof between them and Gloria. “Let me take care of her. You two go tend to the bug.” Their commotion stopped, and for a moment, all three of them glared at me with an eye of suspicion. Reluctantly, Grid and Zorn obliged, and left me to my lonesome with Gloria. She picked herself up off the ground and stared at me, her robe in disarray, her chest and shoulders heaving, out of breath from her wrestling. “So… then… Detective,” she puffed, “to what do I owe the pleasure?” If only she were as out of breath as her cousin. “You had better cut it out with this crab-bucket tantrum of yours, if you know what’s good for you.” “Aw, are you not having any fun? Personally, I see this all as some much, much needed catharsis for all of us,” she said. “Besides, I’m already busted. What do I have to lose?” I forced myself to say it: “Your freedom, for one.” She smiled like a scythe. “Oh? Do elaborate.” “If Scolus dies here, there is a zero percent chance you walk away from this. If Scolus survives, then your fate is a little more complicated.” She laughed herself to the point of wheezing. “Really now, is that what’s going to save me? Could it have been that simple all along? I overestimated you, Detective!” “Don’t make me change my mind.” “Just to be clear,” she added, “my fate will not be complicated—I will need to get away scot-free. If I am arrested for any reason, no matter when or by whom, they’re going to find out that I wasn’t the only one involved in my hijinks over the years. I couldn’t protect Scolus from that even if I wanted to, and I couldn’t protect you or your partner, either, now that you’re involved.” “Trust me, I’m not staking our lives on your good nature.” “I’m glad we understand each other, then.” She clasped her claws together. “Shall we discuss the finer details of my escape?” I glanced back over my shoulder at the emergency therapy session in progress. “No time. Right now, you need to be taking care of your bargaining chip.” “You mean, apologize to him? Encourage him? Tell him all the sweetest things?” “Yes, lie to him. I’m confident you’re up to the task.” She smoothed out the creases in her robe, and flattened her ruffled feathers with a claw. “Oh, I’ll try my best.” Gloria proceeded to walk over to the others, softening her features as she went. By the time she reached them, her changeling-like transformation into a sensitive, apologetic cousin was complete. The beginnings of her saccharine script soon followed. Scolus's support circle had more than doubled, now, from two to five—even Zorn was finding his words. It had even quintupled, if Gloria was counted as a negative asset before her conversion. The effect this had on Scolus's complexion was immediate as his former color rejuvenated his body and his golden locks. The faintest glow returned to his eyes. But the fight was not over. His breathing could still best be described as agonal, and it was anybody’s guess whether his body and brain could last for hours in this state, or whether his friends could keep up. It certainly was not my guess that the Royal Guard would help out in this sentimental ritual. No, I needed to recruit one more very important person to the circle, and I wasn’t talking about myself. I was talking about the cause of—and solution to—all of Scolus's tragedy these past two days. Gloria had earlier indicated that Blanche was sequestered in her room, busy with her writing despite Scolus's confession. I trusted my instincts that this was a lie, or at least an editing of the truth. Her bedroom was close enough to the foyer that she surely would have heard the commotion with the Ursa Minor and come searching, no matter her emotions. Instead, I found her far deeper within the villa. She sat in the sunroom, her back to the doorway, engrossed in the expansive vista of the surrounding mountains. It was perhaps the first time I had seen her without any quills or parchment at hoof’s reach. “Blanche,” I said, “there’s been a development. I need you to come along.” “If it’s about the changeling—that is, if it’s about Girard—I’m already well aware,” she replied. “Are you aware he’s knocking on death’s door as we speak?” She glanced back at me, but only for a moment before returning her attention back to the mountains. “How’s that?” “It’s a long story. The short of it is that he’s had a reaction to the magic suppressant, and he needs all the love he can get if he’s going to survive.” “Well… he has my condolences. Sincerely,” she said, straining. “But if he needs love, I will not be of any help to him.” “It doesn’t have to be steamy. Just be there for him, and tell him you don’t hate him.” She bowed her head. “What if I do hate him?” “Do you hate him?” “I hate his kind, Detective. I wasn’t lying when I said I see them as repulsive creatures, inside and out.” She shook her head, and afterward needed to adjust her glasses. “Recall, I wrote a book making fun of everyone who thinks otherwise.” “Do you hate him?” I repeated. She glanced back, this time holding my gaze. “I don’t hate him, but I don’t have the smallest, saddest scrap of love for him, either. I’ve never seen anything in him, and whatever Girard saw in me—as an author, as a friend, or whatever-the-hell—he was mistaken. I cannot give him what he wants; I literally do not have it.” “If you don’t hate him,” I said plainly, “you can come along and help him. If you want him to die, you can stay here.” She sighed. “If that’s how it is, then I don’t have a say in the matter, do I?” She stood up and joined me. “I don’t want his blood on my hooves.” We left the sunroom, and set out on our journey from the far end of the villa back to the foyer. We traveled a quarter of the way at a half-trot in the strictest silence. Blanche’s lips were pursed all the while. Silence, if it worked, worked best. “That letter I wrote him… You should know I only wrote the last half of it to be nice to him,” she eventually spoke up. “I can’t imagine, now or ever, that my feelings on the matter will change.” “Why did you feel the need to be nice to him?” I asked. “Why did you feel the need to write back to him at all?” “Tch. Hmph.” We half-trotted another quarter of the way without another word between us. This time, I was the one to break the silence: “For what it’s worth, Blanche, I think you have a right to feel the way you do about him. His circumstances don’t excuse him.” “Well, I’ll admit they go a long way, at least,” she said. “But thanks.” Another lull in the conversation, up until the last quarter. “There’s just one more thing that doesn’t fully add up,” I said. “Maybe you can help clarify.” “Yes?” “That changeling you were telling me and my partner about last night, the one who’s currently locked up in a Manehattan prison. What did you say his name was, again?” “I never said his name,” she replied, “but it’s Myrmex. And he was never imprisoned in Manehattan—he was held at a special facility in the Foal Mountains for nine years. Last year, he was transferred to a county jail in Baltimare on good behavior.” “You seem to be well acquainted with his story.” She shrugged. “I do my research.” “And this changeling, Myrmex, you said that his story was the one that inspired you to write your book in the first place?” I asked. “Your book that is, supposedly, making fun of everyone who would believe changelings aren’t universally repulsive?” She didn’t seem to have an answer for either of my questions. “You know, I spent a long time on this case trying to fit a simple answer to a complex question. I tried to convince myself it was the only answer,” I told her, “but I don’t think I ever would have succeeded. Even if I wrote a whole book about it.” Throughout the course of our partnership, Bluebird and I always had our different outlooks and predictions as to how a case would pan out. For his part, he believed in innocent misunderstandings, in fairy tale endings. For my part, I believed in cruelty and betrayal, and in crimes without justice. I didn’t keep a close count, but I would say there were about zero times that either of us were completely correct. This case was no different. As it drew to a close, it had both its high and low notes. For example: If Zorn’s serum had been the poison, then Blanche had been the antidote. Despite her misgivings, her performance (if it was one) in reassuring Scolus that she had meant what she wrote in her letter—not a word more or less, from either the mean or the nice parts—was all that he had needed to hear. The last of the glow returned to his eyes, and he could even lift his head to show her them up close. She instinctively cringed and looked away, as if viewing something indecent. “Y-you know…” he said to her. These were his first words since his crisis. “… my real name is Scolus. You know, just so, you know.” “Hmph.” She overcame her instinct, and met his eyes with the corner of one of her own. “Like the setae-covered spinose projection?” “Haha, is that what my name means?” Scolus was still unable to transform, and had to catch his breath after each utterance and movement he made. Nonetheless, he would survive, once the magic suppressant ran its course. This was the highest note of all. As for the lowest note of all: Gloria was going to walk away from this with no more punishment than her victim. There might have been enough mercy to go around in this world; the same couldn’t be said for justice. “Say, an idea just popped into my head,” Gloria mused, as she and I stood at the front door arranging her winter gear. “What if I don’t go alone? What if I insist on taking Scolus with me, and I say it’s either my way or the highway?” “Frankly, I would rather Scolus be in prison than remain in your clutches,” I told her. “You’re free to call my bluff and wait around for the Guard, though.” She chuckled in what I think was the closest thing to good nature for her. “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if even Scolus feels the same way by now.” For once, there may have been a certain truth to her words. When I had returned to the therapy circle with Blanche, Gloria had not been a participant. She had instead sat and sulked in the corner, mentioning something about “her usual” not working like it should have. In the end, the bug was revived without her assistance. “Oh well. I need a vacation from him, anyway.” Gloria slipped on one winter glove, and then the other. “Perhaps a vacation from the crooked and fraudulent, too, if I’m going to be lying low. You know what I mean? Try out this whole ‘law-abiding citizen’ shtick I’ve heard so much about.” I felt her use of air quotes was justified. “Law-abiding, you say?” “That’s right!” “You mean, apart from the fraudulent promissory notes you’re planning to redeem.” “Eh, right.” She finished putting on the remainder of her winter gear, and slung her bag of survival and getaway essentials over her shoulder. I opened the door for her to leave (chivalrous as I was) but she only stood there, staring wistfully at the horizon while the cold swirled around her like a cloak. “You should know, I’m actually a couple years older than I made myself out to be,” she said into the outside air. “How old are you?” “I don’t remember.” She fooled with a few zippers on her coat and bags, even though they were already exactly where they needed to be. “But if I’m caught, I’m sure I’ll be tried as an adult.” Now that’s tempting. “What is this with regards to?” “Oh, nothing, I suppose. I just felt like saying.” She turned to me. “I really had a good thing going here, didn’t I?” Just as quickly, she turned back. “Ciao.” And with a mighty beat of her wings, she took off into the sky and was gone. If, at the end, there were the high notes and the low notes, then there was also what could best be described as a deceptive cadence. It was a long one, and one that the orchestra had scarcely an hour to practice ahead of time. “You’re saying what?” Commander Brightdawn had barked upon hearing our testimony. “You let the changeling get away?” “I’m sorry, sir. There wasn’t much we could do,” Bluebird testified. “Negotiations broke down. The situation was volatile,” I corroborated. “She took Girard as a hostage!” Bon cried. “We let her get away with murder!” “It’s not murder. We haven’t found the body, if there even is one,” Zorn corrected. “At present, it’s a kidnapping.” “It’s not even a kidnapping,” Blanche contested. “Girard may not have been the changeling, but he was a co-conspirator. Honestly, I would be surprised if this wasn’t their escape plan all along.” “You think you know someone!” Grid bellowed. “Hold up, hold up,” Brightdawn said. “Lemme hear it from the detective: What happened, and where do we need to look?” I explained to them with sober regret how it had all gone down. Gloria had been the changeling, and she was in cahoots with Girard. The two of them had been living under fictional identities as Kralle-Karom royalty for years now, completely undetected. It had been hard to believe at first, I said, but I was confident that a closer examination of their paper trails would prove the extent of their lies. “Sir,” Brightdawn’s second-in-command interrupted. He was currently taking a call on the villa’s phone (for good measure, I had made sure to wipe off the green blood) while Brightdawn’s other subordinates crowded the hall. “Should we circulate posters of the perps?” “For the Girard kid, sure,” the commander replied. “For this Gloria girl, don’t bother. The bug will already have a new face, and we don’t want to split our resources. The best chance we have of nabbing this changeling is through its griffon accomplice—focus any search bulletins on him.” “Yes sir!” “What a fantastic mess,” the commander groaned, turning back to me. “Do you at least have any idea where they might have knocked off to, Detective?” “I found an itinerary that would have me believe they were planning to flee to Seaquestria. She took it back by force before she left,” I said. “As for their immediate line of escape…” I guided the commander to a window, and pointed out a large, distant peak that was 180 degrees in the opposite direction from where Gloria had set out. “… that is where they flew.” At risk of stretching this musical metaphor to its breaking point, there was one more key feature to Scolus's ending song: a series of unresolved chords. His future, in other words. Bluebird unlocked the boiler room. While standing at the threshold, he called out, “Did you hold up all right in there?” Scolus stumbled out from behind a piece of machinery, and smiled at me and my partner. “Yeah, I think so. A little dizzy, but I made it through!” he said. Just to be sure, Bluebird strode up and gave the changeling a warm, nourishing hug. Scolus's face was equal parts surprised and sublime. He wasn’t used to such a luxury. After the moment had passed, he asked, “Are they gone?” “Yes, the Guard has left,” I said. “For now, it looks like we’re getting away with it.” Scolus hummed a pleasant tune as we walked him back to the foyer. I wasn’t feeling very carefree, but I was surprised to see my partner wasn’t either, if his meandering eyes and stiff upper lip were any indication. He spoke up, “So, kid—actually, ahah, that’s not even remotely the correct term for you anymore, is it?” “Heh, I guess not. I’m not really sure what I am,” he said. “Whatever I want to be, in a way! … At least, once the magic suppressant wears off.” He wouldn’t be Girard, at any rate. No matter the Royal Guard’s best efforts, that face would never be seen again. “Well, I was just hoping you weren’t feeling too anxious about what happens from here on out,” Bluebird projected. “I know we might not be as experienced at it as Gloria, but me and Pesco will do our best to craft you a new identity and keep you in contact with your old friends. And hey, it’s no Villa Vivant, but crashing at my place won’t be so bad!” “Thanks, I’m looking forward to it!” he said. I had to admit, his positivity was contagious. “But no, I would say I’m feeling less anxious than I have in a long while. Dropping out of high school wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” “Ahah, is that what’s on your mind right now?” “Yeah, sort of! But part of that was because I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to my friends, or upset Gloria. For different reasons, I guess neither were very well-founded fears.” I thought to myself: That about summarizes it. Sometimes, we were a changeling in the throes of respiratory failure. Sometimes, we were a self-serious detective about to be mauled by an Ursa Minor. And sometimes (but hopefully never), we were a worthless abusive liar abusing and lying for all we’re worth in order to outrun the long leg of the law. But when we weren’t any of these things, then our fears in life tended to fall into one of two categories: those that had no basis in reality, and those that weren’t worth worrying about. The crisis was over, but Bluebird knew he and his mentor both had their work cut out for them as far as Scolus's living situation was concerned. He had volunteered to host the bug at his place, sure, because he felt it was the least he could do. The conclusion of an investigation was a mountain of paperwork as it was without adding an illegal alien to the mix. “Just in case the Guard returns, you stay here with Scolus and the kids,” Pesco told him. “Myself, I’m going down to the sheriff’s. I’ve got a police report to fabricate. Among other things.” And like that, he was off. Pesco wasn’t the only one who made himself scarce following the action. Soon afterward, when the conversation among the five friends was finally starting to sound like one—more laughs, and fewer tears—Bluebird realized that it was actually a conversation between four friends: the young reindeer doe, who had been standing right beside him, was no longer there. The cadet looked around briefly, but she was nowhere in the room. If she had wished her changeling friend goodbye and good luck before leaving, she had not said it very loudly. Perhaps not at all. Oh well. The conversation continued anyway, and Scolus was happy to be a part of it. “So… how do you feel?” Surprisingly, this had not been a question for Scolus, but from him. His three remaining friends—Bon, Grid, and Zorn—were puzzled. “What do you mean? Like, knowing that you’re a changeling?” Grid said. “Guess I feel kinda excited, really! There’s this whole other side of you we get to learn about now!” “And truly, at risk of sounding vain,” Bon said, “how many people can say that they’re friends with a changeling?” He tipped his head and crossed his chest. “I’m honored.” “Uh, aren’t we not going to say we’re friends with a changeling?” Grid asked. “Wasn’t that the plan?” “You’re right, Grid. Poor wording on my part. All I mean is, Scolus's secret is my privilege.” Scolus surfaced a smile, and covered half of it with a hoof. Please, no more, the gesture seemed to say. “I appreciate all that, really, I do. Though, what I really meant to ask is… I hope I didn’t take too much?” Zorn placed a hoof at the pulse of his neck, turning inward in thought. “I should think not.” In a charmed tone of voice, he asked the cadet and the others, “What about you? Feeling healthy?” The cadet wondered what sort of illness could possibly overshadow the relief he felt that all of this was finally over. He, Bon, and Grid said they felt fine. Zorn turned back to Scolus, and said, “If anything, I may have more than I did before.” “Heh, that’s good to hear. It’s a little bit weird sometimes, isn’t it?” Scolus replied. “Love, I mean. Even I don’t really understand it, how it’s made and how it’s consumed.” “Perhaps it’s not subject to a conservation law, unlike so much else in the world,” Zorn said. The cadet had to wonder what his batting average was for understanding Zorn’s oblique remarks. “You were worried, Scolus, that you might have induced this ‘love malaise’ in us?” Bon asked for confirmation. “I was under the impression that was a changeling-exclusive affliction.” “Yeah, it is, I was just, just wanting to make sure. After all, you gave so much, each and every one of you.” Scolus's gaze zigzagged in the empty spaces between his friends’ heads. “I don’t think I deserved it.” Nobody countered with “Why?” or even “How so?”—Bluebird felt it was understood. It would only cheapen something on Scolus's part, something which he spent a good deal of time trying to verbalize as he stared at some ripped up carpet. “It’s just, I was lying to you, all of this time. And it goes deeper than just being a changeling.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t my plan to go to Canterlot Country Day, and I wasn’t qualified to be there. It wasn’t my plan to befriend you guys, and I’m not qualified to be your friend. I put all of you through so much trouble, and why?” Bon rose to the challenge: “Scolus, the one who put us through so much trouble has already left the building.” The cadet was pretty sure he didn’t mean Pesco. Not one-hundred percent, though. Scolus didn’t buy it. “I didn’t have to go along with her plans. I could have stopped her at any point.” “It sounds like you tried to,” Bon countered. “And if being manipulated by Gloria is a sin, I’m afraid we’re all beyond salvation.” “Blanche doesn’t really forgive me. She was just being nice.” “Either way, it’s a first for her.” Scolus pointed at Bon’s splint. “Your leg. I broke it.” Bon chided Scolus; he was just reaching, now. Grid agreed; that was all his and Bon’s fault, and Scolus had nothing to do with it. Bon asked Grid if he had helped throw him off the roof. Grid was confused. Of course not, he had climbed up there himself! Bon told him that was exactly his point. Grid was even more confused. Bon hiccuped as he laughed. “We’re all hopeless, aren’t we?” At the end of it all, Scolus allowed himself to cheer up, as if to say he had no more arguments. It was a brittle kind of cheeriness—it was a signal for others, and not an emotion for himself. Zorn must have picked up on it, as he walked over and clapped a friendly hoof on Scolus's shoulder. (It was surprising how many things you didn’t realize someone never did, until they did it.) “Somebody wise once told me: You do not have to understand something to believe in it,” Zorn said. “Heh, who was that?” “Ancient zebra mystic,” Zorn said with a wink. (It was surprising how many things…) “What is ‘it’ in this context, exactly?” “Love. Friendship. Amitaminergic compounds and interactions, generally,” he said. “Any sample of it has its impurities. No system can reliably produce it. Let us be grateful it exists at all—not in abundance, but in sufficience.” None of us are the characters we want to be, or pretend to be. Our story never develops how we want it to, or expect it to. And yet, the narrative strings us along anyway, until the very end.