Ripples

by BronyWriter


Sunny Day

Terrible happenings. Absolutely terrible, Sunny Day thought as she put the newspaper down. An Element of Harmony a convicted serial killer? Nopony should have to deal with that kind of thing. And the families of her poor victims. Her victims suffered, it was true, but they were in paradise now. Their families? They had to live every day with the knowledge that their loved one had been brutally murdered by a serial killer.

Sunny Day shook her head and pushed the newspaper away, just as the sounds of a set of hoofsteps came down the hallway. She put on her best smile and turned around in her chair to see her two daughters walking towards her, their own smiles on their faces. The younger of the two, Daisy Fields, perched on the back of her older sister, Sky Twirler. Sunny Day stood up and threw a foreleg around Sky Twirler's shoulders, nuzzling her as she did.

"Good morning, honey. How are you?"

"I'm good, Mom," Sky Twirler replied. She let out a single chuckle. "Hungry, though."

"Me too!" Daisy Fields said with the enthusiasm only a young filly could muster. "Can we have waffles for breakfast, Mommy?"

"Hmm..." Sunny Day tapped her jaw and ran through the ingredients for waffles. "Waffles. Yes, I think I can manage that." Her pensive look shifted into a smirk. "And I think we have some blueberries too. Think we can use those somewhere?"

"Yeah!" Daisy Fields squealed, clapping her hooves together as her sister carried her over to the kitchen table. "Blueberry waffles!"

"Coming right up."

Sky Twirler gently set Daisy Fields down at her spot before sitting at her own and reaching for the paper folded on the table. Sunny Day grimaced and ignited her horn, snatching the paper away from her daughter's outstretched hooves before she could peruse the contents.

"Nothing good today, kiddo," she said as she put the paper in the recycle bin under the sink. "It'd be a waste of your time. Boring stuff."

Sky Twirler grimaced and crossed her forelegs, her eyes locking onto the recycle bin. "The papers are talking about that mare in Ponyville, aren't they?"

"What mare in Ponyville?" Daisy Fields asked innocently, looking between her sister and her mother.

"Never you mind, sweetie," Sunny Day said with a fake smile. "Just focus on the waffles we're having, okay! They should be ready in about twenty minutes. Would you like a glass of milk while you're waiting?"

Daisy Fields grinned and nodded, prompting her mother to levitate two glasses out of the kitchen cupboard, and the carton of milk out of the fridge. After pouring the milk, she walked over to her daughters and placed one down in front of Daisy Fields. She walked behind Sky Twirler and set her glass down, but leaned in before she relinquished her magical hold on the glass.

"Don't talk about that mare in front of your sister, okay?" she whispered. "She doesn't need to be hearing about that kind of thing."

"Okay, okay," Sky Twirler grumbled. "I wasn't thinking, alright?"

"How did you even find out in the first place? It's not like I talk to you about it."

Sky Twirler scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding, Mom? It's all anypony at school has been talking about. In my Current Events class we've been discussing it for the past week. You would not believe some of the stuff they're saying about her!"

"Well you're right about that, and I don't really care to hear it." Sunny Day released the glass of milk and straightened up. "Just no talk of that kind around your sister. She doesn't need to hear it."

"She's probably gonna find out anyway," Sky Twirler muttered. "You think they're not talking about it on first grade playgrounds? She was an Element of Harmony, for Celestia's sake."

"Regardless, you're not to discuss it in this house."

"Fine, fine," Sky Twirler muttered, raising a placating hoof. "I won't say anything."

"Good."

Any further thoughts were cut off when Daisy Fields spoke again, having just finished off her glass of milk. "Hey Mommy, have you heard from Daddy yet? He hasn't written in a while."

Sky Twirler's ears perked up, and a small smile crossed her face. "Yeah, did Dad write? Did you talk to him?

Sunny Day grimaced and flattened her ears. "No, I'm afraid I haven't gotten a letter from him yet, but I know he's busy. I'm sure that he'll give us a nice long letter the moment he gets to a post office, okay?" Sunny Day gave her daughters a reassuring smile. "In fact, I'll bet he's working on getting that done right now."

The family moment was cut off when Sunny Day heard a loud trio of knocks on the door. She sighed and ran a hoof through her mane. "Sorry, girls, just give me a minute and I'll start making the waffles, alright?"

The two nodded, and Sunny Day walked out of the room and into the entryway of their home. She reached the door and looked through the peephole, and raised an eyebrow when she saw two royal guards standing stoically on the other side of the door. She shrugged and opened the door.

"Good morning, officers, what can I do for you?"

Good morning, Ma'am," said the guard on her left. "Are you Mrs. Sunny Day?"

Sunny Day frowned, but slowly nodded. "Y-yeah. That's me. Is something wrong?"

The guards exchanged a quick glance before slowly taking off their helmets. "Ma'am..." The guard on the left sighed. "I'm afraid there's no real easy way to tell you this..."

Sunny Day tilted her head. "Tell me what? What's going on?"

"Ma'am, I'm certain you've by now heard of the crimes of the Element of Generosity, and how she murdered as many as eighty ponies in her home in Ponyville."

"Yes."

"Well..." The guard quietly sighed. "Ma'am, you husband, Mr. Quick Talker... he was one of them. We found his remains in her basement."

Sunny Day stared evenly at the guards, not blinking, not moving, not even audibly breathing. She merely chewed over their words in her mind as they stood in front of her. It was the guard on the right who broke the silence.

"Ms. Day, if you would like to talk to somepony about this, we would be more than happy to--"

"You're wrong."

The blunt, but calm tone cut through the guard's words, and he began stuttering slightly. "Uh... w... I..." He blinked once. "Ma'am?"

"I said you're wrong. There is no way that my husband could have been taken from me by her. You see, my husband doesn't go anywhere near Ponyville. My husband works as an international aid worker in impoverished areas. He's never anywhere near Ponyville."

"Ms. Day, I understand this may be hard to accept--"

"There's nothing to accept." Sunny Day shrugged. "I accept that somehow you've made a mistake and mistaken the remains of some other stallion for that of my husband. It's as simple as that. I mean, he had a brown coat, and that's a fairly common coat color."

"The remains we found had a red and blue flying flag cutie mark. Was this not your husband's cutie mark?"

Sunny Day's calm demeanor slipped ever so slightly, and her ear flicked, but she took a deep breath and forced the even expression back on her face. "What, twenty million ponies in Equestria and not one of them has a cutie mark that might look similar to his? I say again: my husband works outside of the country. You're telling me that the Element of Generosity targeted my husband specifically, followed him out of the country, foalnapped him, snuck him back in the country to Ponyville into her basement where she killed him?" Sunny Day scoffed and shook her head. "Not that likely, if you ask me."

The guards exchanged another glace before the one on the left spoke again. "Ma'am, you said that your husband works out of the country. Does he ever go to cities in Equestria?"

Sunny Day nodded. "Yeah, sometimes. He gathers supplies for some trips, meets contacts, and so on. The organization he works for has offices all over Equestria."

"Where does he do things like that?"

She shrugged. "Oh, the usual places: Canterlot, Manehattan, Baltimare, Ponyv--" Sunny Day's ear twitched again, and she took a deep breath. "Okay, look, officers: just because my husband occasionally visits Ponyville on business, doesn't mean that this mare got him, alright? I mean, it's not like she killed every pony that set hoof inside the town, right? I m--" Sunny Day's voice cracked, and she cleared her throat before continuing. "I mean, it's a small town, but not that small. I don't even think he went to Ponyville this year."

"Ma'am, how long has it been since you've heard from your husband?"

"It's..." Sunny Day looked down at the floor and flattened her ears. "Over two years. I mean, I know that's a long time, but he's doing good. He doesn't exactly have a post office in impoverished Diamond Dog territory, yeah? I knew his mission would be a long one, and they don't have a lot of contact with Equestria out there."

"And that's why there was no suspicion." The guard on the left put his helmet back on. "We did research on this before making our call. From the looks of things, it seems like your husband came back to Equestria to do some checkup work in the Ponyville office before heading back out. Both sides thought the other had him, and with the poor communication, delicacy of the political climate and length of the missions..." He shook his head as the other guard put his helmet back on. "We'll be in touch, Ma'am. We'll have you come down to the local police station and identify the remains, at which point they'll be turned over to you for burial."

Sunny Day gave the guards a weak, wobbly smile and a pathetic attempt at a chuckle. "Y-yeah, I guess I can go look at the remains. But I'm telling you that you're wasting y-your time, you know? It's n-not him. It's some other stallion. M-my husband is fine. H-he'll come home soon, and th-then I'm going to find you two and I'm g-gonna introduce you to my husband and sh-show you how wrong you are! You have him confused with some other stallion, I p-promise."

The guard on the left gave Sunny Day a sympathetic look for a few moments before quietly sighing. "Ms. Day, nothing would make me happier than us being wrong."

"W-well you are wrong, simple as that." Sunny Day's jaw wobbled, but she took a deep breath and ran a hoof through her mane to steady herself. "Now I gotta go make my daughters breakfast. Bye."

Without another word, Sunny Day slammed the door in the faces of the guards. She locked the door the instant the door closed and turned away from it.

They were wrong; simple as that. Some other stallion that looked like him had been identified incorrectly, that was all.

Sunny Day slowly walked back towards the kitchen, her steps becoming weaker when she heard the laughter of her daughters. Her jaw wobbled, and a tear streaked down her face as she crossed the threshold into the dining room. Her daughters sat where she left them at the table, chatting animatedly with each other. They looked up with smiles when they heard her enter. The happy, innocent grins of her daughters was the final nail, and Sunny Day collapsed onto her haunches with a sob as the tears came faster.

"Mom?" Sunny Day heard Sky Twirler stand up from her seat. "Mom, what's wrong? Who was at the door?"

Sunny Day gathered all of her will and raised her head to look at her children, her heart shattering further upon seeing their looks of uncertainty. She didn't want to shatter their precious innocence, but she had to. She couldn't hide it.

"Daddy's not coming home."