Sweetie Belle nervously tapped the armrest of the couch and glanced over at a small cup of water that had been placed next to her. Dr. Working Mind had been called out of the room for a few minutes just as their second appointment had been about to begin, leaving Sweetie Belle alone in the room. She sighed and used her magic to take a small drink from the cup before putting it back down.
She briefly flashed back to a short meeting with Featherweight right after her first session. He had been glad for her, glad that she was getting the help she needed. His words sounded suspiciously mechanical, almost as if he had practiced them a thousand times before talking to her about it. It was probably because he had rehearsed them so as to minimize the risk of making her angry. He meant well, of course, but then again, they all did.
It was always the same with her old friends: they always meant well whenever they talked to her. They often treated her like Rarity had died only yesterday. Of course, they didn't always treat her like that. She relished the days when they acted like Rarity hadn't been executed, like how life would have gone if it wasn't torn apart. Well, Rarity hadn't been executed yesterday. Rarity had been dead for over ten years now.
The door opened and Working Mind walked in carrying Sweetie Belle's file.
"So sorry, Sweetie Belle. An old patient of mine called and I had to go talk to him. Old stuff, very boring. How are you today?"
"Fine," said Sweetie Belle simply. Working Mind sat down behind his desk and opened up her folder.
"No new incidents? Nothing like a repeat of last week?"
"I quit my job at the restaurant I was working at," replied Sweetie Belle. Working Mind stopped flipping through the folder and he glanced up at her.
"Why is that?" he asked.
"I was about to get fired," said Sweetie Belle. "I just figured that I'd save us both the trouble."
"How do you know you were about to get fired?" asked Working Mind. "Had your boss expressed displeasure with your performance?"
"Are you kidding? He was very happy with my work. It's just that after the Nightmare Night incident, nopony who didn't support me was going to give him their business because I was working there. As much as he liked me, it was too much of a financial strain on his restaurant to keep me on. This way he doesn't have to pay me severance and he gets his customers back."
"What will you do for funds?" asked Working Mind. Sweetie Belle gave a small smirk.
"Rarity's special talent was finding gems," she said. "She was set up for life at the age of sixteen."
"And you inherited that money," finished Working Mind. Sweetie Belle nodded.
"I only work to keep myself busy. I don't want to sit around all day living off of Rarity's money; I want to earn my own."
"That makes sense," said Working Mind. "And I think it's a good idea. It's important to keep busy, especially during hard times."
"Well then I should keep busy for the rest of my life," replied Sweetie Belle dryly.
"Oh come now, this will pass."
"Will it? It's been ten years and already half of Ponyville still wants me dead for what my sister did, even those who didn't lose family or friends."
"But I believe that the scars are healing," retorted Working Mind. "Being honest, Sweetie Belle, the scars of murder run deepest, particularly for those who knew the murdered and even the murderer. Rarity was a prominent figure in the town, correct?"
"Yeah. Everypony knew who my sister and her friends were."
"Precisely. The fact that they knew her and they still did not see who she was, well, I imagine that some of them blame themselves. All of them feel betrayed because when it comes down to it, they didn't know the real Rarity. They saw only one side of her and they trusted that side. When the other side came out, they felt very betrayed."
Sweetie Belle looked down at the floor and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Do pardon me for asking this, Sweetie Belle, but didn't you feel betrayed when you found out?" said Working Mind. Sweetie Belle's ear twitched slightly and the first feelings of tears began creeping up.
"Yes," she whispered. "I mean, I was in shock at first, but... but once I really understood what she was doing, I felt like I didn't even know my own sister anymore." The first tears began falling from Sweetie Belle's eyes and Working Mind levitated a box of tissues over to her.
"If you don't mind me asking, when did you find out?" asked Working Mind. Sweetie Belle's ear twitched once more and she began taking deep breaths.
"I...I found out...I found out just shortly after we were arrested," said Sweetie Belle. "She told me in the police wagon."
The room was silent for a brief moment. Working Mind merely sat on his chair, contemplating Sweetie Belle's words. Sweetie Belle glanced up at him and saw that he stared at her, unblinking. She didn't know why, but his gaze unnerved her. It had previously been so kind, so welcoming. Now it was almost unforgiving, cold, calculating...
"Dr. Mind?" said Sweetie Belle nervously. "What--"
"You're lying."
Sweetie Belle flinched back and her eyes widened.
"What?" she whispered.
"You're lying," he repeated. "You knew what she was doing before then."
"N...No I--"
"Your hooves are shaking, your ears were flat, and you refused to make eye contact with me. Not only that but you were, and still are, clearly nervous. You. Were. Lying."
"I--"
"Sweetie Belle, when did you really find out?"
Sweetie Belle's bottom lip began to quiver and in a few seconds she had burst into tears. She couldn't tell him. He couldn't know what she had seen, what had happened with Rarity the day she met her fellow Crusaders. But he already knew something, didn't he?
"Sweetie Belle? Sweetie Belle I need you to look at me." With a great deal of effort, Sweetie Belle pulled her head up and used every ounce of her willpower to keep eye contact with this relative stranger who seemed to have figured out her darkest secret. To her utter surprise, she saw a hint of compassion in his eyes this time. "Sweetie Belle, you don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to. In the end, I can't force you to reveal anything."
"Okay," Sweetie Belle whispered.
"However," continued Working Mind. "I cannot help you if you are not honest with me. I can't help you through problems that are lies in the end. I also want you to know that what you say here is completely confidential. If you told me that you were the real mastermind behind what your sister did, it would be illegal for me to turn that information over to the police." Sweetie Belle nodded glumly and resumed staring at the ground. "So, with that in mind, do you want to tell me when you found out about what your sister was doing?"
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth and tried to form words. She wasn't sure why, but she wanted to tell him. The words kept trying to force their way out of her mouth and her mouth moved as if she was a fish gasping for air. The words were there, but they weren't coming.
"Sweetie Belle--"
"I was eight years old," murmured Sweetie Belle. She heard Working Mind take a deep breath. "I had always wondered if something was up with my sister. There would be a lot of times where I'd be in my room and I'd hear her playing a piano somewhere. But my sister didn't have a piano that I knew of so I didn't know where the music was coming from. Whenever I heard the music, I went downstairs to find her, but she was never there. Her house had a bell on the front door but I never heard that ring so I knew that she was still in the house, even if I couldn't find her."
"She was in the basement," said Working Mind. Sweetie Belle nodded glumly.
"I guessed that she had one and it wasn't too long before I found the storage closet and the piano. I knew the song, I'd heard it enough, but I didn't have the courage to open up the basement door. When my sister wanted to keep something from everypony, she didn't like it when ponies tried to find out what it was."
"A by-product of her activities I'd imagine," guessed Working Mind. The words caused a sob to escape from Sweetie Belle's throat and Working Mind shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Uh... I'm sorry, that was wrong of me to say."
"It's okay," whispered Sweetie Belle.
"What happened next?"
Sweetie Belle wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof and took a deep breath before continuing on.
"One day I had just come back from a party. I had met two friends that day, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. We became best friends almost immediately. We formed this group called the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders'."
"You were going to help each other earn your cutie marks?" A small smile crept up on Sweetie Belle's face.
"Yeah, we were. Almost every day we'd go out and crusade for our cutie marks. It was just us fillies being fillies."
"It sounds quite wonderful," said Working Mind. Sweetie Belle's smile widened and she nodded.
"It was. It really was. It was a few years before we got our cutie marks, but it was the best time of my life." Sweetie Belle sighed. "Well, there were problems, though. We had two bullies in our class, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara."
"Filthy Rich's daughter? The one that you beat up for saying those things about your sister?" Sweetie Belle nodded.
"She would tease us every day for not having our cutie marks," said Sweetie Belle. "It bothered me. It made me really angry."
"How angry?" asked Working Mind. The last traces of Sweetie Belle's smile faded away and were replaced once more by tears.
"I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her suffer. I wanted to bash her brains in with a rock while Silver Spoon watched before I moved on to her. I...I really wanted her dead."
Working Mind was silent as he contemplated her words. Sweetie Belle looked at him nervously, expecting him to express disgust at any moment. However, he merely shook his head and sighed.
"How does that connect with your sister?" he asked.
"Well, I was mumbling to myself that I wanted to hurt her. You know how you have to say some things aloud to get them straight in your mind? Well that's what I was doing. I guess I was louder than I intended and my sister heard me."
"And she talked to you about this?"
"Yeah. She wanted to make sure that I wasn't actually going to kill Diamond Tiara. She said that acting on angry feelings was a dark road that was hard to get away from. I asked her how she knew that and she froze. I don't know why, but she didn't even attempt a lie for a few seconds. Even then it was a pretty weak one."
"And you found out about what she was doing from that conversation," finished Working Mind.
"Not only that, but I gained the courage to open up her basement."
"What did you see?"
Sweetie Belle paused for a moment to regain her emotions as she flashed back to that horrible moment when she saw the horrors of her sister's basement for the first time.
"Everything," she whispered finally. "I saw everything."
"I assume you mean her victims?"
"Yep," confirmed Sweetie Belle. "I saw her trophies, I saw her table, I saw her knives, I saw everything that she had down there. I...I remember screaming. I screamed at what I saw down there."
Working Mind was silent as he processed what Sweetie Belle said. He jotted down a few notes before continuing.
"What happened then?" Sweetie Belle took another sip of water before continuing her story.
"She eventually let me audit a kill. She didn't let me do anything, but she let me watch. She brought down a mare and cut her ears off before stabbing her in the leg, severing her femoral artery and killing her almost instantly."
At this Working Mind frowned.
"That's it?" he said. "She just stabbed her in the leg and that was it?"
"That's all I remember," said Sweetie Belle. "To be honest, the memory is kind of fuzzy." Working Mind's frown deepened.
"Hmm. Do pardon me for saying this, but that seems... unusually quick."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if I understand your sister's methods, she liked to drag it out much more than that, correct? I don't understand why she'd make it so quick."
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth but closed it again and frowned.
"I...I don't know why. I guess it's because I was down there, maybe. Like I said, the whole memory is kind of fuzzy, although that might have been the memory spell." Working Mind's eyebrow rose at that.
"Memory spell?"
"Yeah. Rarity put a memory spell on me so that I'd forget what I had seen in the basement. Unfortunately, she cast it wrong and it ended up eating away at my memories. The doctors at the hospital had to fix me up and they were almost too late."
Working Mind frowned once more and he summoned a nearby book on his bookshelf over towards him. Sweetie Belle cocked her head.
"What?" she asked.
"It's odd," began Working Mind. "But I don't see how your memories would be fuzzy, particularly for an event that should be so clear. You watched your sister murder another pony, there should be no moments that wouldn't have returned once the memory spell was reversed, particularly if they were restoring memories like that." Sweetie Belle shrugged.
"Maybe they adjusted it so that I wouldn't remember it clearly." Working Mind shut his book and shook his head.
"No, I don't think so," he said. "Remember, the doctors knew nothing about this, correct? Why would they deliberately blur a memory that they didn't know you had?"
Sweetie Belle frowned and she shrugged again.
"Maybe they didn't do a good enough job." Working Mind shook his head again.
"Not likely," he said. "They're trained professionals and memory spells are incredibly simple. I myself could perform one with little difficulty and have it turn out perfectly. It isn't likely that the hospital staff would have messed up a memory spell like that, particularly not in that situation where your very identity was at stake."
"So...so are you saying--"
"I'm saying that your memories were tampered with further by somepony who knew what he or she was doing." Somepony knew what you saw down there and that somepony wanted you to forget something. Can you think of who that was?"
Sweetie Belle only had to think for a moment. The one pony that could cast a spell like that and knew the situation was...
"Twilight. Twilight Sparkle could have done it."
"Why would she have only altered your memories as opposed to completely erasing them?" asked Working Mind. Surely if she was going to tamper with those memories she would have erased them, yes?"
"I suppose so," said Sweetie Belle.
"I may be grasping at straws here, but I think you saw something else down there, something that she wanted you to forget."
Sweetie Belle silently contemplated his words for a few moments before Working Mind cleared his throat.
"Well I'm afraid that we're out of time for today, Sweetie Belle. Do me a favor and talk to Twilight. If I'm going to help you, I can't have altered memories. Trust me, they're no good in the long run."
"I understand," said Sweetie Belle as she stood up.
"Same time next week?" asked Working Mind. Sweetie Belle nodded and left the room.
As she walked out, she contemplated Working Mind's words. It did make sense that the hospital doctors wouldn't have messed up on the memory spell. That meant that Twilight was the only pony who could have and would have altered her memories of what was in that basement.
Sweetie Belle sighed. She really didn't want to aggravate these old scars.
So why was she walking in the direction of Twilight's library?