Parts 3 & 4
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The morning dawned slowly for all those in Ponyville. Some had heard of the murder of Sterling Wind, others had not, but it wouldn’t soon make much difference. The fact that such a famous person was involved meant that the rumor would spread like wildfire. Bass sat alone in the jail cell, looking out the window at the town hall.
It wasn’t supposed to have been like this. Ponyville was where he was going to start over, where he was going to be able to live a semi-normal life. His brother had talked about it often enough, and while most ponies would automatically assume that Bass wasn’t interested in that kind of life, they were wrong. Bass enjoyed the thrill seeking life he’d lived, but he was starting to get tired of it. In the past year, he had discovered that there was so much more to life than what he’d been living. So many of his friends were doing things differently, and there were people doing things that he’d never even thought of doing.
Sitting in that cold hard cell, Bass was thinking more than he ever had before in his life. He’d given cursory thoughts to whatever it was that he was doing at the time, but he hadn’t sat down and done some real deep thinking in a long time. He’d been so caught up in living the life of a celebrity that he hadn’t had a chance to stop and think. Maybe he had gone a little far in beating the crap out of Sterling, but the way that little filly cowered filled Bass with such a rage that it was hard for him to do anything but beat the crap out of him.
Bass watched as the sky’s hues brightened, changing from the dark of night into gradually lightening shades of purple red and yellow. It was an absolutely beautiful sight. Bass thought that perhaps it would be good day. He hoped that he hadn't made life too difficult for Rainbow Dash. He'd known her only a couple of days, but he found that he liked her. The worst part is that he was starting to realize that he liked her a little more than normal. He'd always been guarded about relationships, never taking more than a token amount of interest in the girl since he saw how devastating it was for his brother.
His brother. That brought a whole new worry straight to the forefront of Bass's mind. He'd known his brother to act irrationally on occasion, but what he'd done recently was a whole other game. This was beyond irrational, and bordered on the verge of insane. Of course Bass was proud that he had written an entire song in almost a single evening, and even prouder that the band had learned it in a day. But it was simply insane to write a love song for a girl that you had known only for a couple of days. Bass could not remember ever doing anything like that. He could barely imagine how his brother had done it.
Bass took a moment out from thinking, letting his mind go blissfully blank. He sat and watched the sun rise slowly over the town. The way that it rose out from the alley between City Hall and the nearby buildings was almost magical. Perhaps it was views like this that his brother had found so magical. There were a couple of trees that he could see from the small barred window of the cell. He had never before noticed just how amazing the colors of fall really were. Words from the song his brother had written ran through his head. The autumn leaves were just as amazing as the song.
Bass was starting to get a little sleepy now, he'd been awake the entire night. There was something about it all that just seemed wrong to him, but he couldn't figure it out. He was thinking now about the events of the previous night, and something in the details was nagging him. The more he thought about it the more puzzeled he became.
When he left the yard after beating Sterling, he was sure that Sterling had been breathing. Perhaps he'd confessed a little too easily to a killing. After all the police mare had only said that Sterling had been murdered, but she'd never said how. If she'd said that Sterling had been beaten to death, then it would clearly have been his fault. But there was another pony there too. Sterling's wife had been there. Perhaps he'd been beating her too. Sure she'd chimed in and egged him on for the abuse of thier daughter, but many things didn't seem to add up. She'd never intervened when Bass and Sterling were fighting, and she'd barely moved from the doorway of the house. If she'd been being beaten as well, she would have possibly had the chance to kill him after Bass left.
As it would turn out, Bass wouldn't have to wait long to find out the answer. The Policemare knocking against the bars of his cell broke him out of his reverie.
"Could you come with me please?"