“Why are we taking a train? Airship is faster… I hate inefficient transportation,” Lyra Heartstrings whined, protesting the long hours spent on the train. She slouched in her seat and sulked, thoroughly dissatisfied by the entirety of the situation.
Princess Luna, sitting opposite of Lyra Heartstrings, heaved an impatient sigh and then looked out the window. She scowled slightly, hating that Lyra was right, and her ears perked forwards. “We must restore faith in the transportation system. If the ponies see us taking the train, they will begin to travel again. It took so long to get the trains running again after everything that happened this summer,” Luna patiently explained, her nostrils flaring and revealing her frustration.
“I’m starting to feel off,” Lyra said, exhaling sharply and puffing her cheeks out.
Letting out a soft squawk, Freezerburn hopped down off of the back of the seat and perched on Lyra’s head, rubbing his face along her horn, which caused Lyra to go limp in her seat. The unicorn calmed, took a deep breath, and then looked at Luna.
“So… what are we doing exactly?” Lyra inquired in a low voice.
“I suppose a mission briefing is in order,” Luna responded, raising an eyebrow.
“Should we wake Bucky?” Lyra asked, looking over at the slumbering unicorn beside her and narrowing one eye.
“No… he knows already,” Luna replied, her gaze returning to look out the window.
“Oh,” Lyra grunted, her eyes lingering on Bucky with some concern. “He never sleeps enough and when he does go to sleep, it is at a time like now when we have to wake him up in an hour or two.”
Nodding in agreement with Lyra, Princess Luna cleared her throat. “The subject we are looking for is a foal, who, according to witnesses, performed an act of necromancy. Subject in question is an earth pony, which makes the case especially troubling, as for the life of me, I cannot think of a way for an earth pony to commit necromancy, but eyewitness reports are eyewitness reports, and the main report comes from one officer Milkweed. The foal apparently spoke details about the dead that were impossible to know and some of these details led the authorities to find a murderer,” Luna explained, reciting relevant details of the case.
“And I guess you and I will be questioning the witnesses while Bucky questions the foal?” Lyra questioned, her eyes looking upward to look at the corrupted phoenix still perched upon her head. “We’re not going to do anything bad to the foal are we?” she added.
“No Lyra, Bucky would never allow harm to come to what he loves so dearly. If necessary, we scrub the foal’s memories of any arcane knowledge of necromancy and place a mental block to prevent further outside intrusions from nefarious sources who desire to corrupt foals. Our mission is to discover what has happened and prevent it from happening again,” Luna responded in a soft voice, trying to assuage Lyra’s concerns.
“Twilight Sparkle seemed very upset about this case,” Lyra said, now trying to make conversation to pass the time, leaning over slightly to rest upon the unicorn beside her.
“The case is very troubling. An earth pony foal performing what appears to be necromancy. Seems to either be impossible, a con job, or something insidious is moving about unseen in our society, corrupting foals,” Luna replied, her teal eyes now locked on Lyra’s gold eyes.
“And I suppose you came along on this job personally because of the last option,” Lyra remarked, gazing into Luna’s eyes and seeing a fiery intensity.
“Correct,” Luna answered, leaning against the window and resting her against the glass, her eyes blinking slowly, one front hoof tapping upon the window sill. “Between Bucky and I, anything preying upon my subjects will rue the day it crawled out from under its rock.”
“This is also a public reveal mission, isn’t? I mean, we’re going to be seen and remembered as part of Twilight Sparkle’s new public image initiative?” Lyra questioned, her eyes narrowing as the tried to come up with the right words.
“We will do nothing to scrub away the evidence of our passing,” Luna confirmed. “The public will know we are there and will remember us. We want the public to know that magic is now being regulated and enforced.”
“I just hope everything goes smoothly,” Lyra murmured softly, now feeling drowsy herself as she leaned on Bucky, no doubt that Freezerburn the phoenix was the cause of her highly relaxed state.
The city of Tall Tale’s orphanarium was a stark looking building made of imposing grey stone, a relic of the reformation era, where government efficiency and austerity measures meant packing as many orphans into one space as possible. The building, tall, rectangular, had a government imposed minimum of narrow windows, and had seen some small amount of remodeling to make it somewhat friendlier to look upon. Flower beds could be seen in the front near the door. A small playground had been added in the front, where the public could see it, but no foals were outside playing on the bitterly cold autumn day.
A lone black cloaked and hooded figure moved slowly towards the door, all of his features concealed by the cloak, only a long black jagged horn visible, and he paused as he neared the front door, his cloak unmoving in the breeze.
Officer Milkweed was having a rough day. The pegasus cowered in the corner of his office, his eyes darting down to the photograph of his pegasus father and earth pony mother on his desk in front of him. In his office there were two cloaked figures and one blue phoenix that radiated cold, but that wasn’t why Milkweed was shivering.
“Look, Princess Luna, I don’t know what happened,” Milkweed said in a low frightened voice.
“I am not asking you what happened, I want you to tell me what you saw,” Princess Luna instructed in a commanding voice.
“A group of foals found some remains near the treeline where the forest begins on the outskirts of town. The bones of a foal. They reported it to the police… I went out there with officer Crackernacker. The foals showed us the bones. We started to secure the area and then this foal goes over to pick up a leg bone that was some distance away. His name is Larch… he reached out and picks up this leg bone, grabbing it in his fetlock, and when he does, he starts talking all weird, saying the dead foal’s name, where she lived, and he gave us a description of who killed her… a school teacher we suspected but had no evidence of. When we confronted him the second time with knowledge of how he killed her, and where, he lost his mind, flipped out, and started to attack the officers sent to question him… but Larch knew everything about what had happened somehow. He knew the details,” Milkweed explained as he squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, unable to look Princess Luna in the eye, rubbing his front hooves together nervously.
“Anything else?” Lyra asked in a gentle voice.
“Oh… the foal got his mark… a pony skull… after everything was said and done,” Milkweed replied, his eyes darting over to look at Lyra. “I’m not going to get a visit from the Lord of Winter am I? I’ve told you everything I know… I’ve cooperated!”
“You have done very well officer Milkweed. I am going to see that you get promoted for this and a bit of pay raise,” Princess Luna said in a soft subdued voice to soothe Milkweed’s fear. “You have nothing to worry about,” she added, taking note of Milkweed’s deep sigh of relief during her pause.
“We did everything by the book… we shipped the teacher off to Canterlot for processing… I don’t even want to know what is going to happen to him for what he did… raping and killing a little filly foal like that… he had a distinctive mottling pattern on his penis that looked like a key… Larch told us about it… the filly, Goldenmorn, she saw it up close and in detail… before he did… things… to… her… that made… her… bleed to death... Larch talked about how scared she was and how much it hurt… officer Crackernacker threw up everywhere when he heard Larch describe what took place,” Milkweed stammered in a pained voice. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever heard. I ain’t been able to sleep right since.”
“I assure you officer Milkweed, you will sleep better. You will sleep the untroubled sleep of an innocent foal,” Princess Luna promised in a concerned and loving whisper, her horn flashing with a faint blue light as she spoke.
Collapsing upon his desk, officer Milkweed began to sob, his withers hitching and his wings fluttering at his sides. He bawled loudly, unable to hold it in, clearly broken from his experience. He buried his face in his folded forelegs and tried to hide himself from the two black cloaked figures as he finally let out his grief and his rage, letting the poison out that had been bottled up inside of him since the day everything had taken place.
Settling in to a high backed chair, Bucky eased himself down into the cushion and looked at the frightened colt sitting before him on a ratty looking sofa covered up in an old blanket. The colt was a dark purple-grey with a spiky black mane and there was a pony skull cutie mark upon his hip. Thick faux-wood framed glasses sat upon the colt’s muzzle, making him look rather owlish, his eyes enlarged by the exceptionally thick soda bottle lenses.
“Can you tell me more about what happened?” Bucky inquired softly, his voice like two pieces of silk being drawn across one another. “Look Larch… it is Larch, isn’t it? I want to find out what happened if I can.”
“I don’t remember,” Larch said in a nervous voice. “I remember touching the bone. I picked it up, grabbing by pinching it in my fetlock and then I felt really funny. I don’t remember what happened next, honest. All I remember was sitting in a chair in the police station and a really nice mare was setting hot cocoa in front of me and telling me to take deep breaths,” the colt explained, pushing his glass up on his nasal ridge as he spoke. “I lost a couple of hours and I don’t know what happened,” he insisted.
Taking a deep breath, Bucky let it out slowly. “Larch, I can help you remember what happened, but only the nice things. I suspect you are repressing what took place because of how horrible it was… but I need to figure out what happened so I can find out if you are safe. I need to find out if something really spooky is doing something bad to you. If you give me permission, I can help you remember what I need to know, but I promise, you will not remember any of the bad memories that might hurt you.”
The colt twitched nervously, his glasses nearly sliding off of his muzzle. He looked up at Bucky, his eyes wide with fear. “You’re kinda spooky yourself,” Larch whispered to the hideously scarred unicorn.
“I’m sorry… life has been most unkind to me,” Bucky apologised.
“I don’t think life has been kind to anypony… you should hear some of the foals here talk. I lost my parents to bandits during the collapse,” Larch said in a strained voice. “They were killed for some cans of food.”
“It pains me to hear that,” Bucky softly responded. “I am working very hard to make Equestria a safe place again. The teacher that murdered that foal, Goldenmorn, I work with ponies who will make sure that he never hurts another pony ever again.”
“Are you the boogeypony?” Larch asked nervously, pushing his glass up once again.
“For ponies like that school teacher, I suppose I am. But for colts like you, brave little colts who want to do good, I’m what keeps the dark things away,” Bucky replied in a soothing voice, trying to calm the nervous colt.
“I want to help… you have my permission,” Larch said, looking fearful. “But I don’t want to remember.”
“You won’t,” Bucky promised in a reassuring voice as he leaned forward, his horn glowing with a blue-green light and flooding the room with a luminescent glow. “Now what happened?”
His eyes glowing with the same blue-green light as Bucky’s horn, Larch froze, now unmoving on the couch. “I touched the bone and it spoke to me… it spoke to me and told me things. It has the same voice as the earth,” the colt said in a strange voice.
“Yes, some earth ponies hear the earth… you say the bone spoke to you?” Bucky inquired, a curious expression spreading over the half of his face still capable of expression.
“Yes. It spoke to me. My mother could talk to rocks when she touched them. She could find out which ponies had passed by, she would know things, the rocks would tell her things. Like where ponies had dropped coins or where old treasures were hidden,” Larch said in a wavering voice.
“Hmm, this sort of makes sense. Bones are made of minerals. Was it the little filly’s voice?” Bucky inquired, his surviving eye narrowing as he spoke.
“No,” Larch answered. “Earthen voice. Like gravel being kicked around.”
“I see,” Bucky remarked as he held the foal spellbound. “So there are earth spirits in bones? This wasn’t the foal’s spirit… correct?”
“The earth was watered in the blood of the innocent. The bones had a story to tell and I was able to listen because I can talk to bones. The bones had touched the earth and they were sad,” Larch said his eyes glowing ever brighter. “The earth spoke to me through the bones, which are a part of the earth.”
“Larch?” Bucky asked, releasing his spell. “Do you remember anything we talked about?” he continued.
“We were talking?” Larch responded, blinking his eyes and looking around. “I feel dizzy and kinda light headed.”
“That will pass… so you don’t remember anything?” Bucky repeated.
“No sir,” Larch replied, looking at Bucky with a worried expression.
“Good… now Larch, we need to talk,” Bucky said in a soft voice, a gentle voice he reserved for foals and those too terrified to function. “You have an unusual gift.”
Craning his head around to look at his own cutie mark for a moment and then back up up again to look at Bucky, Larch nodded. “I kinda figured that out on my own.”
“I have a school that just opened. A special school for ponies just like you… how would you like to leave this place?” Bucky invited, looking the foal in the eye.
“Where would I live?” Larch asked in reply.
“The school has dormitories. I dare say that the dorms would be a nicer place than this one. Two foals to a room though. Sorry, no private rooms. And I’d like to think that the cafeteria serves better food. On Tuesdays, we serve bugs!” Bucky responded.
Laughing softly, Larch pushed his glasses up on his muzzle before they slipped off. “You’re funny. What do I have to do to go?”
“Just say the word and come with me. You’ll get a chance to meet Princess Luna… she is a very nice pony,” Bucky answered, trying to be mindful not to smile.
“This place is awful,” Larch said in a low conspiratorial whisper to Bucky.
“It is almost lunch time… how about you and I get out of here, I buy you lunch at the diner down the road, and I’ll even get you a sundae if you’d like. I’m supposed to meet up with my companions there,” Bucky offered in a cajoling voice.
Biting his lip thoughtfully, Larch studied Bucky for several long moments, trying to decide what to do. “Will I ever get adopted?” he asked in a pained voice.
“I don’t know,” Bucky answered honestly. “But you will be looked after by very kind caretakers. You will not be neglected or left to fend for yourself. I have an actual army of caretakers and staff at the school, because I don’t want anypony or anybirdy feeling neglected.”
“That sounds nice. There are over two hundred of us here and only six mares to look after us all,” Larch replied, looking hopeful.
“Oh my… that is not a good ratio,” Bucky grumbled, making a mental note about the situation to see if something could be done.
“I think I’m ready to go,” Larch announced. “I don’t own anything… so we can leave at any time,” he stated.
“You’ve made a good choice,” Bucky praised. “I’m going to help you learn how to channel your gift… you could change the world with a gift like yours. I have a daughter named Piña Colada, whom I love dearly, and she has strong magic. She is an earth pony just like you.”
“Will I remember what the bones I talk to say to me?” Larch asked as he slid off of the ratty couch, his eyes still on Bucky, who was getting out of his chair.
“I don’t know,” Bucky replied as he got to his hooves. “Maybe some day you might.”
“Will I be able to help other ponies?” Larch questioned.
“That is my hope,” Bucky responded, looking down at the foal. “Let’s go. This place is depressing.”
“Will you adopt me?” Larch inquired, following after Bucky as the stallion began to walk towards the door that led to the front hall.
“Oh I dunno Larch… I’m kinda in some seriously hot water right now… I’m not supposed to bring home any more strays … ever. My wives are kinda peeved at me, and rightfully so. I’d best not push my luck… but you can stay at the school. That’s different. That’s not bringing you home,” Bucky explained in reply.
“Haha… you’re clever!” Larch exclaimed.
“Oh… you have no idea,” Bucky chuckled as the pair made their way to the door.