In a picturesque location atop a high mountain, a stallion knelt in front of Fluttershy. "You are the most beautiful mare in all Equestria," he said. "My heart yearns for you. I BURN with desire. If you won't be mine...I don't know what I'll do. I'll do something drastic, see if I don't!"
Fluttershy shook her head. "Dudgeon Flame. You can't MAKE somepony love you. That's not how it works."
"But I have no other choice!"
"You ALWAYS have a choice. You can stop being so selfish. What right do you have to demand that somepony do whatever you want?"
"But I love you!"
"You don't know what the word 'love' means. Or you'd care enough to go away and stop bothering me. If not for love of ME, for love of yourself. Or for simple self respect."
The stallion sprang to his feet. "You want me to go away? To leave you forever?"
"That would be nice."
"Fine!" The stallion ran to the edge of a nearby clifftop. He shouted, "If you won't love me, I'LL JUMP!"
Fluttershy shouted back, "GOOD IDEA!"
Next, the stallion took several steps AWAY from the edge.
For a moment, Fluttershy hoped he might have given up on his idiotic threat. Or was he coming back to her, to make another try at pleading and begging?
But instead, the stallion took a running jump off the edge of the cliff, falling out of Fluttershy's view.
Fluttershy walked over to the cliff edge, where she gazed down at the bottom.
"Huh," she said. "I guess a pegasus CAN be that stupid."
"Yes, Ah killed that pony. Ah bucked him in the chest so hard, he flew halfway across the pasture. An' after that, there weren't no wakin' him up, not ever. He was dead as a horseshoe nail."
Assemblypony Marigold Mare eyed Applejack nervously. "Well...if Applejack killed somepony...she IS very honest. Maybe she had a good reason?"
"Nope! No good reason aytall. A few minutes before Ah killed him, Ah'd been sittin' in mah bedroom with mah new record player, what Ah'd just bought with mah allowance money. Ah was listenin' to a song by Pony Cash, about how he killed some stallion with a single kick, just to watch the stallion die. An' Ah wondered, could AH do that?
"An' that was only mah FIRST killin'," Applejack added. "There were more. But anyhow, that's the story of how I killed mah first pony, when Ah was only six years old."
AJ took off her hat, and wiped her brow with one forehoof. "An' THAT'S why Ah support the proposed law to ban the sale of explicit records to underage foals. If a record's got lyrics about violence an' sex, that's just a terrible influence, an' it's only natural if young, impressionable foals who listen to songs like that might make a few mistakes."
Applejack shook her head. "What Ah'm sayin' is, don't let any MORE fillies get brainwashed by the siren spell of evil, no good country music. We gotta tell all the youngfolk: don't y'all do the things Ah've done."
Sitting in the rows and ranks of benches which nearly filled Canterlot Capitol District's House of Commons, ponies wearing suits and ties eyed Applejack with frissons of fear.
Applejack added, "Anypony dare to say neigh?"
The room was silent.
Assemblypony Mare coughed. She croaked out, "Aye! Motion is carried, with one vote."
"Oops," Rainbow Dash said, gazing down at the ground far below. A shattered piano's fragments lay in a heap, atop what the pegasus was pretty sure had just become Estee's corpse. "I guess Estee was right. Moving a piano IS harder than it looks."
Rainbow looked around nervously, checking for witnesses. "I wonder what cleanup service Derpy uses?"
Twilight Sparkle, student at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, was known for being anxious and high strung. Also, she sometimes lost track of what was going on around her, mazed in her own thoughts as she contemplated difficult puzzles of advanced magic.
It was only to be expected, I suppose, that one day she would accidentally wander into one of the seamier parts of Canterlot, where a mugger surprised her. Nor that the nervous young unicorn would overreact by instantly conjuring a fireball, which exploded the knife wielding pony into minuscule, flaming pieces.
Somewhat less predictable (to most) was her SECOND reaction: to devise and cast a second spell, a spell which swept his ashes together and reconstituted him back into a pony.
The mugger stood blinking, feeling disoriented and confused. What else should you expect of somepony who only a moment ago had experienced about thirty seconds of the afterlife, immediately followed by a return to the land of the living?
"Let this be a lesson to you!" Twilight said.
Slowly, the mugger's mind started to work, struggling with its own puzzles. His head swiveled as he marveled at the world around him, and looked down at his own body. Next, he studied his reflection in a puddle.
Finally, he reacted.
"What have you DONE to me? This is unfair! I used to be taller."
"Sorry, some of your ashes blew away before I could put you back together. So now you have to be smaller than you were before."
Before the mugger could berate Twilight more severely, the little purple unicorn countered, "You know what? You should be glad I didn't turn you into a worm instead."
"A worm?"
"Fisherponies pay good bits for worms. Imagine being impaled on a hook, dunked into a stream, and then a fish--"
He glanced down again at his new, shorter legs. "Never mind! Thank you for not doing something even worse to me, I guess!" He ran away.
Only an hour later did he wonder whether the magic student would have turned him into an ORDINARY worm, or a PONY sized worm? And also, if he WAS a worm...would his marefriend still love him?
***
"So you see?" Twilight cheerfully told her Advanced Magic teacher, who wasn't just ANY old pony, but Princess Celestia herself. "If you only kill a pony TEMPORARILY, it doesn't even count! And THAT'S why it's good that I study so many books about magic. They help me learn how to handle even unexpected problems, if they happen to come up."
Celestia stared at her 'most faithful student.' "I...see."
Celestia had PLANNED to tell Twilight she needed to get better at making friends. But now, the pale alicorn second guessed her own plan. Maybe it WAS good that Twilight studied so diligently day and night, if Twilight's 'book learning' had saved a pony's life?
Even if that pony's death had been caused by Twilight herself. But wasn't the mugging a contributing factor too?
Celestia took a deep breath. She sipped her tea.
Finally she said, "I suppose your progress this week has been satisfactory."
"Surprise!" In a bachelor donkey's kitchen, Pinkie Pie leaped out of a small canister of mixed nuts. "It's your birthday!"
In front of her, Cranky Doodle's brother in law collapsed to the floor.
Pinkie bent over him, rolling him onto his back to immediately apply CPR style chest compressions.
Three minutes later, as yet again she checked for the donkey's missing pulse, she blinked. "Wait! I did it wrong! Step ONE is clear the airway. Then, step TWO is...or is step THREE..." She shook her head. "Do I need to put a clothespin on his nostrils, before I blow air into his mouth? Do I tilt the head BEFORE or AFTER? Is the heart on the LEFT side or on the RIGHT side? I always get that confused. And does it matter whether somepony is right hoofed or left hoofed?"
A calendar hanging on the wall caught her eye.
"Oh. And also, his birthday isn't until NEXT week." She sighed. "No wonder Crinky Scribble was...a bit TOO surprised."
Pinkie pulled a full set of cleaning supplies out of her floofy mane, to remove all evidence she'd ever been there on the day Crinky Scribble died.
"You know what I need?" she muttered to herself. "A filing system! Cabinets holding binders full of important information about every pony, to help me remember who doesn't even LIKE to be terrified!"
"I have good news and bad news," Twilight Velvet said. "The GOOD news is, I guess we don't have to pay the foalsitter."
Night Light eyed a large pile of ash on the floor next to Spike's bassinet. "We REALLY need to find a foalsitter who's fireproof."
Standing beside Night Light, a blue maned unicorn teetering awkwardly on the verge of his teenage years ventured a suggestion, his voice cracking. "Would...(eep)..." he squeaked. "Would...IMMORTAL count as fireproof? Because there's a new student at my school, named Cadance. She's an alicorn, believe it or not! And she mentioned she's looking for an after school job."
Night Light perked up. "Tell me more."
Starlight's horn lit up, shooting an eye-burningly bright beam of magical energy at Discord, not only killing him but gouging another new canyon into the landscape.
"And STAY dead this time!" Starlight shouted. "Or next time I'll kill you SLOWER!"
"Darling," Rarity whispered. "You were cruel to me. You could have simply told me no. But instead, you chose to toy with me and torment my heart. You made a mockery of me, in front of the entire Galloping Grand Gala."
Blueblood laughed. "Don't call me 'darling.' You're nopony to me. You're merely another two bit mare. A parvenu with delusions of grandeur. And has anypony ever told you your accent is preposterously fake?"
Rarity gasped. "Don't you DARE cast aspersions on my manner of speech!"
"You've only ever done one thing that impresses me in the least. However did you get into my back garden, without anypony noticing and stopping you?"
Rarity smiled, looking mysterious as the Pony Lisa. "I'll never tell."
"I advise you to tell. Otherwise, I shall call for the police, and have you arrested."
The light blue glow of Rarity's magic wreathed Blueblood's muzzle.
The unicorn mare asked, "But how shall you call for the police, when you can't even open your mouth?"
Blueblood reached for his muzzle with both forehooves now, trying to somehow escape the magical bonds restraining his face.
"Before you arrived," Rarity said, "I was admiring your koi pond. Very beautiful. Far more beautiful than a stallion like you deserves."
As Rarity's magic spread out to surround Blueblood's limbs, he found himself force-walked towards the pond, and onto a picturesque little bridge.
"Imagine," Rarity said, "a noble stallion who goes for a stroll in his lovely private estate. He slips and falls into one of his garden's best features, a truly sublime decorative pool, where he strikes his head. The blow knocks him unconscious. He drowns, in water only three hooves deep."
Blueblood's muscles stood out across his body, but he couldn't get free of Rarity's magic.
"An arrogant stallion, killed by beauty which he possessed for a time, but never deserved. Ironic, isn't it?"
Blueblood's hooves slid off the bridge. He tumbled head over heels, raising a splash and disturbing some nearby fish.
Rarity said softly, "I shan't bother to attend the funeral."
Addendum
Of course, "The Writers' Group" provided the initial inspiration.
Spike's vignette owes something indirectly to a suggestion (for a different story, involving different characters, and we don't know yet who, if anyone, will be writing it) by GaPJaxie.
Rainbow Dash's crime might be ~accidental~blowback~from~ inspired by a story by Estee, the notorious 'piano murderer.'.