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The whole town's population was shaken up as they all discovered, one by one and word by word, what had really happened. About that blood-boiling scream from earlier...
"Well, what are you all looking at? There's nothing to see here!
The mare who had charged her way through the thickly layered crowd — even still growing in its size — had dispersed the surrounding witnesses. She didn't like what she saw either.
"Feel free to get outta here whenever you want to. It's not like I don't have any right to consider you all suspects and take you in!"
With just those few words from the authority figure, the crowd dispersed back into the city's concentrated areas, such as Sugarcube Corner over to the west side, from the scene. Though, nopony was really in the right mood to eat anything, or even run the bakery for that whole day. And even the ones who went back into their homes to spend further solitude with their foals... They would hold them close and tell them in every way that they were loved and that everything would be okay. And they would, to their furthest extent, hide the truth from them and let absolutely nothing hint at the truth.
The truth was not dismissed easily, at all. It wasn't any minor anomaly.
It was devastating...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Persistence of Loss~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Correlations---
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Rarity, upon seeing, scanning, and recognizing the dead filly's body that loitered in its cold place, instinctively walked closer to it. Lyra stood close to her for the duration of the entire scene and dismemberment of the crowd, but she saw Rarity's face from a devious angle as she took her actions forward. She didn't say a word or move an inch.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to stay put!" Despite seeing the wondrous mare progressively break down, the bipedal character with a badge on her uniform stopped her. "You're no exception. Stay away. Go home or someth-"
"No..." she slurred, through disgust and disbelief. "How..?"
"Miss, I won't give you any more warnings. It's for your own good."
Rarity only glared at her with her surprisingly bloodshot eyes, adding onto the deathly stare she gave the other mare from underneath her furrowed, flaccid and false eyelashes. "Shut it!" She let loose the fury of her voice. It was both magnificent and intimidating. "That's my baby sister! Who the hell are you to tell me to back off?!!" Lyra had to fight her friend's attempts to lash out at the officer.
She knew she didn't mean to, and she knew it was a terrible choice on her part, but her emotions had led her to believe that — with the probable outcome of a deep investigation taking place later — the victim's body would be taken away. And that wouldn't give Rarity any time at all to mourn, because she just couldn't understand. She wasn't sure if she could ever see reason in this horrible act. It was a second later that Lyra reassured her with sympathy.
"Rarity," she slurred through her tears. She knew Rarity's younger sister only a little bit, but they have acquainted well enough that it brought literal tears to the teal unicorn's cheek. "I... I wish I knew the right thing to say here."
"You don't need to stress over it, dear." That was all she said. "Thank you for your help though, Lyra." The addendum she proposed didn't help any, either;
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Rarity strongly stood there, defeated, and that was all there was to it. Her gaze upon her younger, deceased sister's body stayed as adamant as when they first set eyes on her. No tears trailed her face, yet sadness overwhelmed her. No anger made its presence apparent, but she welled with it.
It all consumed her, in addition to the confusion she had to implement into any sort of reasoning anypony had for killing her sister. She felt numb to anything and everything, and now, she was convinced that she would remain that way forever.
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"Do you think they'll figure any of this out?"
"I'm not leaving anything to chance."
The redheaded mare pulled herself back from the thick curtains once more, her eyes being hesitantly pulled away from the scene outside. She was a cautious one; hiding in this house with boards set up everywhere to block all entrances to the inside. She took refuge in this house, disguised well within a street containing other abandoned homes like it, in an abandoned part of the town.
She was smart to bleach her hair the same auburn-toned color as the entire exterior of the house, and the curtains she hid behind, even if they were concealed behind thick wooden planks. She was conscious of all her surroundings; and everything she did prior to hiding in the first place would ensure that no one would notice her escape from this doomed town, let alone stop her.
Her name was Rose, and her good, impeccable heart was definitely crushed under the weight of many of the same, namely type of flower.
And there was no stopping her. She wasn't alone in this pursuit...
She had a friend.
"You can never be too careful, you know," a light female voice emanated from seemingly nowhere. It seemed and sounded as if it was reverberating off of an empty room; and such was the situation in the very room the mare cautiously stood in. But again, there was no source to be detected, and each word this character spoke left faint echoes to linger in its vicinity. It also left an air of ease floating around Rose, and it was managed just by being close to her.
Perhaps the speaker might not have even been real at all, in fact, and Rose could have been ridiculously ill in her mind. His supposed existence could have lied upon her health, for all she knew, truly.
"Yeah, you're right. But I could never leave anything to chance. Not now, anyway."
"You ever realize that it's kind of funny how you know more about me than we do? It kinda bugs me," she joked, before speaking again. "But hey, I know it's not your fault, though."
She felt it; every second of it. She loved her friend. She loved her best friend in the world.
The only one she had...
"I know, but hey," Rose started, staring at the wall for a few seconds, blank for an even longer series of them:
"It's not your fault either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The beautiful defanged Rose had an acquaintance since she was born, or shortly after, really. At the time she was physically conceived, there was an acutely-timed, incredibly heated nationwide debate about children born with anything close to a shade of purple in their hair. This was a very strict following that spoke of 'the demons of Equestria's past', and the movement only lasted a few years, but, those special children who were born during that short timeframe were immediately taken away from their parents and, they were either murdered by their captors, or the entire family was left to suffer the same fate as the child was constantly guaranteed to.
Roseluck was spared this certain fate, however, through the miracle of hope, or what was believed to be just mere hope. At that time, there was no hope for anyone. The beliefs got way too out of control and murders started occurring every few minutes, utterly convinced that the perpetrators were doing their God good, a favor:
'His bidding.'
Just after she was abducted from her parent's place of residence by members of that godforsaken group, she was placed in the care of a mare whose name she couldn't remember, but she sure remembered what she looked like. No, that was all too clear to ever forget:
She was a plain, perhaps personified version of a lifeless pony-quin, with no feelings or emotions whatsoever. She showed no compassion at all, in the entire period of time that she cared for the little wilted, malnourished Rose. Her coat was of a pale, weak color, similar to her mane and tail: both were worn down and unkempt: they seemed to have grossly radiated with the dark corrosive aura that was thusly dignified by the way she brought her new, unconditionally adopted filly up and into the world.
Her name was Pinkamena Diane Pie, and the only way she knew the world at that time was how she lived hers back then.
Rose spent her life locked away from the outside world because Pinkamena feared it. She feared that if she were to even breathe the outside air, she would turn against her and do the unthinkable; to betray all the trust she put into little Rose. She loved Rose with all her heart, despite how many times it had been shattered and how many times it had to be put back together by force. She felt like, if she cared for a child that wasn't hers, one that wasn't at all related to her through blood and attached to her through the same flesh, she could develop a sense of happiness and self-approval once again.
She treated Rose well, but she never let her outside. Rose never ever got a chance to experience the brighter side of all the misery that this left her with.
The pain that scarred her to this very day...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Let's go, little Bloom," Rose ordered as she started moving toward and into another room. Immediately, she jumped at another chance to watch the happenings outside, in the distance.
"I'm a big pony, I told you already," the girl recited. She would be told that very same thing for a while to come. "Can you please stop calling me that, cuz that bugs me more than anything else."
"Yeah, I will." Rose didn't sound like it, through her voice or the words she chose. "I'm just a little nervous, is all."
"A little? Ya think?"
"I'm so glad I'll be having you on this trip...Big Bloom." Behind Rose's serious, resolved face, she cracked a small bit of a smile; the best she could do to stop the giggles that wanted to escape her mouth.
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Rarity sat anxiously in a sort of interrogation room, with soundproof padding placed on the walls. She laid her head on the wide table between her occupied seat and two empty ones.
"I'll be with you in one second, miss."
The mare from before had brought her to the police station near the very outskirts of town. There was really no need for it, with how small the town was, but it was erected in its best interest. Especially now. She was prepping a few things before she would sit down to ask Rarity a few questions regarding the incident with the foal that was presumably her sister.
Rarity looked around the room to see the details that told her that the room was a normal office-like suite, complete with nothing more — and no less — than only the necessities required for normal operation of any enforcer of law. She scanned the room over, spotting a few small posters posted on one of the four mesh-covered constructs, in which the small space was comprised of. Their own space was mostly taken up by what looked like a few columns of ponies' mugshots, but she really couldn't tell. When she scooted the chair closer to the cluttered desk, to get a better look at the scraps on the wall.
But before she could register the images, the mare came entered the room once more.
"I'm sorry about the wait," she said. She finally lifted the dark shades from her eyes, and she gently set them on the table. She looked as if she hadn't had much time to wake herself up before she headed to that dreaded scene. Her eyes still seemed a little sensitive to the artificial light that shined from both a low-hanging ceiling lamp and a self-standing, manipulative rod that carries a few miniature high-powered lightbulbs. They were all dimmed down significantly, and while the setup still looked a bit intimidating, the officer reassured the Unicorn that she was not in any trouble.
As she pulled her body back into the comfort of the chair, Rarity also happened to spot a rather spacey, rectangular plaque, and it looked as if the front plate was embedded with the color of a certain, aged bronze. She also saw the name that read on its aforementioned faceplate, and read it out loud to the mare like a question:
Her name was Rainbow Dash, and her heart had perhaps grown insatiably soft over the years she had spent on her own. Perhaps even weak.
"You got me," she responded. "Now, uh, would you like a bottle of water or something? Pretzels or something?"
"No. No, I don't want anything, thank you."
"I hope you're not too traumatized," Rainbow Dash explained, doing her best to comfort her silent suspect. Being quiet wouldn't help Rarity at all, and she knew that. They both did. "We're going to need all the information you can possibly give us, or all that you know you can. This case is going to need it. The truth is going to need it."
"I know..." Rarity didn't do much after letting her eyes gaze all across the desk. Seeing how bare it was, she lifted her head to look Dash in her incredibly beautiful, unshielded eyes.
She was a witness, and she needed to share her story with this world. She just had to...
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Rose, one of the bravest sprouts of life that would ever walk this world, had gotten over the fear of failure that she had held deep inside her consciousness from the very second that was split when this trouble began to rise.
She had a mission; a mission of her very own.
But there was one question that even she had to ask herself. One that, despite how every step and every stride of her new life would have to subsist with--or outright avoid--she couldn't even bring herself to think about, clearly. Her thoughts were clustered in much more than just a few senses.
She even wondered...
"What could I have done back there?"
Her resolve to leave her old life behind and create a new one for herself... It was a mere work in progress from the first thought she conceived; when she settled on completely forgetting every little thing she had ever lived for in her lifetime.
Friends. Love. Surrogate family...
She couldn't take such baggage with her on her journey. She had to be alone.
"Did she die because of me..?"
"I can't answer either of those, sorry. But I'll do my best to help you out, big sis."