Chapter 13: Down the Rabbit Hole
Twilight was furious. She expected the other girls to have her back.
Rainbow Dash just acted like it was simple as deciding between cookies or brownies. “Way I see it, nopony gets punished until after this is resolved, and when we do punish, it all goes on him.”
“Rainbow Dash! You make it sound like it’s no big deal!”
“Hey, you made the deal. Besides, not like I want to do anything to Lookout anyway.”
“But she stole from Princess Celestia!”
Dash just turned her head towards Twilight with a poker face. “She’s suffered through a lot. She trying to make a better life for herself. All of the Crew is. And all he asks is that their hard work not be ripped away from them. Maybe it’s the Loyalty in me talking, but he’s looking out for them.”
Rarity chimed as Cantrip and the Crew sat in the middle. “I have to agree. You agreed to the terms. While I do find the act distasteful, they have worked hard to become respected citizens of Ponyville. Even Cantrip has contributed. These Cantrip lines I’ve been hearing about have been quite the buzz in Canterlot. And you know how much time I spend on scholarly pursuits.” Which is to say, very little if at all.
“I agree.” Fluttershy rarely spoke up at meeting like this. “They’re not cruel ponies. All they wanted was a second chance.”
“She right! They’re all right!” Pinkie was getting a bit excited. “And look at this guy. He came here, he didn’t have any friends! And what is he doing? He’s trying to make so his friends don’t have the burden of guilt anymore. He’s really trying to do the right thing.”
Twilight looked at Applejack. She knew Applejack didn’t like Lookout. And as much as she praised Ivy, she still had a thorn in her side about the first day they met. Applejack looked dead at her and smiled.
“They’re right. I have my personal remarks, but fact of the matter is, they are trying to do alright by all of us. Heck, Cantrip coulda never come back and you’d never know about this mess.”
Twilight shook her head. “That’s not true, Applejack.” All the others, except Spike, looked at her, wanting to know.
Spike broke the silence. “When Lookout was in the hospital, she said something that struck Twilight as odd. She said you were all ‘old work buddies’ and Twilight knew that wasn’t true. Lookout’s rather young to have old anything, and your backgrounds are so diverse that it would be unlikely that all 6 of you would be employed in the same place. She had decided to start interrogating Ink Nose to find out what was really going on.”
Ink Nose was startled, to say the least. “Twilight! Is that true?”
She nodded, “Yes, it’s true. I knew something was wrong and I had to find out what. Of the five of you, you were most likely to withstand the questioning and give me straight answers.”
Ink Nose was clearly saddened. She knew that Princess Twilight had chosen her for her skills, but it still felt like a deception.
Twilight got out of her seat and walked towards Cantrip. “Given how carefully you chose your terms of surrender, I take you have a plan?”
“I do, Princess. Whatever it actually is, it’s not a constant. I can focus on it, but with Ink Nose’s book finding spell, I make be able to track where it is or what it’s a part of. The only other thing that I have to work with is the person who hired me. I didn’t get to see him, save for his horn. And that was rather… Well I guess unique would be the word I’d choose.”
“How unique?”
“It looked like a misshapen blue horn. Almost goat-like rather than unicorn.”
The Elements of Harmony (and one baby dragon) simultaneously facehooved.
Twilight just lifted her head and shouted, “DISCOOOOOOOOOOOOORD!”
From nowhere, a voice called, “You rang?” And now Cantrip could hear chocolate milk.
“No, I shouted!”
“Well I can hear that. What can I do for you? And why do you sound so mad?” The draconequus faded into view. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it, this time!”
“That’s my point, you couldn’t have done it!”
“Wait, you called me here to yell at me for something I didn’t do?”
Pinkie piped up, “Yeah, that doesn’t seem fair!”
“No, I mean the horn that Cantrip saw would clearly belong to Discord. But at the time, Discord was trapped in a stone statue. But that’s not the worst of it. Not only did they try to frame you, but they did it badly.”
Twilight explained the major flaw in the disguise. Discord would never have had somepony else do his dirty work, he would enjoy doing it himself. Using proxies was simply not his style.
“You’re right, Twilight! I could tell Pinkie Pie to jump in mud puddles all day, but then I wouldn’t get muddy. Where’s the fun in that?”
“Well I would get muddy! That’d be fun!”
“Well, yes, for you, but not for me. Unless Rarity had a new dress…”
Rarity scoffed. “Not funny in the least!”
Twilight knew she’d start losing control, but she was going to fight it. “Listen! We have one of three scenarios. First, Discord was behind it. Very unlikely. Second, Cantrip is lying.”
He spoke up, “I refer to the stipulation. It would be in the best interest for me to be forthright and honest.”
“Very well, I can find that line acceptable. Especially if you’re lying, you’re breaking the entire agreement. So the third scenario is more likely. Someone is trying to frame Discord.”
“Yeah, but why?” Applejack raised an excellent point. It was already known that Discord was stone, so why try impersonating someone who couldn’t possibly be there?
“I think we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, we’ll need to focus on starting our search.”
The theory was simple enough. A simple circle to start scrying for the location. Ink Nose cast her spell and passed it to Cantrip. He started looking for the shifting scroll that wasn’t actually a scroll. What he found was definitely not a scroll.
Despite her anger at him, Twilight found no joy in seeing Cantrip being flung against a far wall. She was especially worried at the crunch she heard. It further didn’t help matters that not only was the wall perfectly fine, but there was a large red spot on it.