Whodunit

by Pracca

Just A Joke

The stairwell that led Princess Luna and her entourage up the Northeastern Tower was, in many ways, indistinguishable from all the other stairwells in Brindlehoof Manor. However, this space had one key quality that the others lacked: it was stiflingly small. The Princess herself was barely able to fit up these stairs, grumbling and grunting as her wings and horn clacked and bumped against the corners of the walls as she rotated.

“Oof—Well, it certainly—eek—seems that this tower was designed with our—OUCH!—our less vertically blessed subjects in mind.”

“What could somepony even keep up here?” asked Carrot Top, squinting as she glared around for any hint of a clue; any sign, really, that a pony had passed through here recently. So far, all she’d found was dust and cobwebs. “Seems like places this cramped would just be wasted bits.”

Fluttershy had a few thoughts of her own on the matter, but even she wasn’t too clear on them; they were hazy, and pushed to the back of her mind by the more prevalent dilemma of whatever in Equestria Angel Bunny was planning. The little bunny was resting on her shoulder, and every glance that she threw at him made the pegasus more and more nervous. Each time, he looked a little more devious, a little more mischievous, a little more out-and-out evil. Considering these looks were all being pulsed out in waves towards the flank of his arch-rival just a few feet ahead, she knew it couldn’t be anything good.

She tried to remain somewhat helpful in the investigation, though there wasn’t much she could really observe on the staircase. “Um… maybe it’s meant to be a waste?”

Carrot Top and Princess Luna both looked over their shoulders, tossing back baffled glances at Fluttershy. The yellow pony blushed deeply, and averted her eyes as she desperately tried to stammer out an explanation. “Well, I mean, er… Nicodemus liked pranks a-a lot like Pinkie Pie does… maybe he thinks this is funny? Pointless rooms to, uh, get lost in?”

Carrot Top chose to shrug and continue on like before, and after a moment Princess Luna did the same. It was an interesting observation, but did little to help in their situation. Fluttershy lowered her head closer to the ground and silently followed the others, feeling more dejected than she felt she ought to have.

The trio only walked up another dozen steps or so before they reached the top of the tower, nearly pitch-black, since they’d passed the last window built in the walls a little while ago. Luna’s mane, by luck, emitted a faint glow, and allowed the Princess to see more clearly as she turned open the knob to let them into the room.

They found a curiosity inside; if there was a point to the room they certainly didn’t know it. But that didn’t mean it was barren. Rather, it was quite ornately decorated. The most plush rug that Fluttershy thought she’d ever seen stretched from wall to wall of a large, circular room, probably about eight pony lengths in diameter. In the center of the room was a most peculiar desk. On the top it was quite clearly a sort of secondary office, with stacks of paper and a few emptied inkwells with stained quills still sitting within. Under that, however, was a full set of piano keys. Carrot Top walked over to it, looking extremely confused as she tapped a few keys and hearing real piano sounds playing. “Was he struck by musical inspiration while he worked? Or was he just that weird?”

“I would not know.” Princess Luna answered, currently examining the bookshelf propped on the far side of the room. A hundred different books of varieties ranging from fresh and crisp to ancient and tattered faced her. She scanned the titles, looking for anything interesting—maybe he even had a few volumes from before she was sent to the moon?

Alas, that seemed not to be the case, and she settled on a book of Fillypinto cooking recipes.

Fluttershy skirted around the edges of the room, keeping to the stone walls and trying to scan the various decorations placed upon them for evidence of tampering. Truth be told, she had very little idea what she was looking for. Hoofprints, perhaps? Or maybe someplace with less dust than normal?

She continued circling in this way until she came to a sight that drew her eye. A suit of royal guard plate armor; Celestia’s guard hadn’t used this armor in generations, but the sight of the full suit was still quite intimidating. Intimidating enough to scare Fluttershy into make a terrified squeal in surprise and turn her head away.

“Oh Celestia, what are you whining about?” asked Carrot Top, who looked over to see the armor, hefting a large axe over its shoulder. She sighed in frustration, and trotted over, looking the ornate decoration over. She knocked on it once with a hoof, and groaned. “Fluttershy, it’s armor. It’s not even alive!”

“I-I… I know…”

As she looked at it longer, something about the armor caught Carrot Top’s interest. She leaned in close to examine the metal more. “Huh, something’s off here… some of it looks smudged, the dust is gone in a couple spots. Like somepony was… climbing on it?”

crrreeak

The small squeak of old hinges went unnoticed by the orange-maned farmer, as well as the Princess. Only Fluttershy caught a hint of it in her ears, and looked up. A quick gasp of breath came by reflex as her eyes went wide. The axe on the arm slowly, very slowly, was beginning to move. As it swung, it began to pick up momentum as it went.

“Oh, no!”

“Huh?” Carrot Top grunted, looking up in confusion just as the axe began to fully swing down. She barely got half a shriek out before a midnight blue aura yanked her from the very spot she stood, and the axe cracked into the floorboards. They splintered and snapped, leaving a very disturbing hold that a dead pony just might have filled without intervention.

Princess Luna’s horn coursed with power as she stepped over from the bookshelf. Her eyes had a faint glow within them, hinting that a lot more power than a levitation spell was about to be unleashed. “WHO. DID. THAT.”

Stammering in bafflement and more than the usual terror, Fluttershy was snapped from her catatonia as she heard the faint breaths coming from laughter. She and the other mares turned their sights to the top of the armor, where Angel Bunny was clutching his sides and laughing his little bunny lungs out. A collective gasp from the mares caught his attention long enough to point at Carrot Top, still magically caught up in the air, and redouble his guffawing. The farmer was far less amused, an expression somewhere between horrified and furious dangling on her face. Her eyes narrowed, not towards Angel Bunny, but Fluttershy.

“You!” she hissed. “Your little RAT has been stealing my carrots for years, and now it tried to KILL ME!”

“No, no!” insisted Fluttershy, her mind racing as she tried to think of some way to save Angel from this one. “He would never actually try and hurt anypony! H-he was just playing a prank, he knew you wouldn’t be hurt!”

“Like I’m supposed to believe that!?” Carrot Top screamed, flailing about in the air helplessly—only furthering the problem of Angel Bunny’s silent laughter. “Isn’t it your job to control that little cretin?”

“W-well, yes, but…”

“But WHAT?!” screamed the hysterical earth pony. “But you’re INCOMPETENT? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You can’t even keep a bucking rabbit from trying to murder ponies!?”

Fluttershy began to cower, flinching away from Carrot Top’s words as tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes. “N-n-no…”

“ENOUGH!”

A hoof stamped into the floor, cracking the wood beneath as a shockwave of magic burst through the air; it passed by Fluttershy harmlessly, but struck the armor like it was scheduled for demolition. The metal pieces all fell together in shambles, taking the now startled Angel Bunny with it. As said rabbit sat in the armor rubble, dazed and confused, the aura holding up Carrot Top disappeared with a POP and sent the earth pony into the ground face-first. Above her stood Princess Luna, looking as terrifyingly regal as her title could suggest. Her mane beat fiercely in the air, as if gale force winds were whipping it around.

“WE SHALL HAVE NO MORE PETTY SQUABBLES WHEN THERE IS A MURDERER TO BE CAUGHT. BOTH OF YOU, OUTSIDE.”

Carrot Top and Fluttershy both trembled before the sight of an alicorn in her most righteous of anger, and humbly cantered out the door and into the stairwell, where they could speak without the bunny getting involved.

They both stepped outside the door, onto the small platform before the stairs proper began. Luna was the last one out, shutting the door behind her with a spell and glaring down at the two ponies. Her frown was intense, and almost parentally scolding. “Is there something that you might wish to share with me?”

Fluttershy was too terrified to even speak. Carrot Top was little better, and barely managed to stutter out an explanation. “F-Fluttershy is my neighbor. That rabbit… he comes and steals my carrots. Pretty much daily.”

“I see.” said Luna, silently musing. “Fluttershy, have you attempted to stop this rabbit?”

“Um, yes…” squeaked the timid pony. “…but Angel can be kind of, well, difficult sometimes.”

“Indeed.” replied the princess, eyes squinted as she continued to judge the situation. She turned back to Carrot Top and asked, “How many carrots does he steal? Is it more than you’d be giving Fluttershy if she actively requested them?”

The farmer sighed, feeling a pang of guilt as she needled her hoof into the floor. “I… guess not, Princess.”

“So then, if you’re not taking a financial blow, and Fluttershy has made her best efforts to put a stop to his behavior, then there is no reason to hold this grudge towards her, right?”

“…Right.” After a moment’s hesitation, Carrot Top looked over to Fluttershy with the most pathetic of expressions. “Fluttershy? I’m… I’m sorry, even if your rabbit did those things, I shouldn’t take out my anger on you.”

“Oh, no, I understand.” assured Fluttershy, giving a warm smile back at the farmer. “I really should try and control him better; I guess I need to be more… assertive.”

The princess gave a faint smile, nodding at her orange-maned subject, using a hoof to take her by the chin and lift her face up. With a reassuring expression, Princess Luna opened the door. “Please, dear Carrot Top, go inside and send out Angel Bunny. I wish to speak with him and Fluttershy personally.”

Carrot Top obeyed wordlessly, stepping inside as the door was shut behind her. Luna looked back at Fluttershy and briefly leaned down to nuzzle her subject’s face. “Fluttershy, do not be afraid to ask me for assistance when such things get out of hand. Such things can only end poorly when left to fester.”

“You’re right.” admitted Fluttershy with a humble nod. “A Princess would, um, know best about such things.”

Luna gave a coy smile. “Don’t be so sure, Fluttershy. The need for discussion and the direct addressing of problems, rather than letting your hatred linger, is a lesson that took me quite a long time to learn. A thousand years, in fact.”

Both mares shared a little giggle at the Princess’ attempt a humor. Fluttershy felt her muscles, tensed up since the moment she arrived at Brindlehoof, begin to loosen. This was an awful night, to be sure; but with the Princess around, at the very least she could feel safe.

CRASH

Every positive thought in Fluttershy’s mind vanished as both she and Luna heard the sound of a window pane shattering into a hundred pieces, coming from the Tower study. The door was practically ripped off of its hinges as Luna barged into the room, horn lowered and at the ready to blast.

The Princess’ jaw dropped as Fluttershy stepped into the room. She stumbled, as her mind tried to process the information she was receiving. Everything seemed hazed over with red as she saw Carrot Top standing by the window, a look of confused horror on her face. The yellow pegasus jittered and shook as she took steps towards the broken window. Everything seemed stiff, and robot, almost like she wasn’t the one moving her own legs.

She came to the window, and peered outside. The rain came down as heavily as it had since they arrived, drowning the soil at the bottom of the tower. A sea of brown mud, nearly blotting out a sole speck of white. Far below them, hardly visible in the weather and the muck, was the twitching body of a small rabbit.

Carrot Top backed away from the window, feeling a dread unlike any she had burrowing into her skin. The timid pony she had been resenting a few minutes prior turned away from the sight outside. Slowly, agonizingly slowly in the carrot farmer’s head, Fluttershy turned, and came to meet her eyes with her own—actually, not her own. Somepony else’s. These eyes held no warmth or love. Not even hatred or revulsion. These eyes were blank slates, with expressionless pupils passively taking in the world around them. Coldly, with utmost calculation, the pegasus spoke.

“What… did you do… to my rabbit?”

Comments

[Pracca]

I don't know what possessed me to start writing two pony fics at once, not to mention non-pony-related things, but I think I've settled into a good rotation on them for updates.

I'm feeling so conflicted about this one, because I personally enjoy writing it, but I keep getting madder at myself every time I re-read a chapter and finding the little mistakes I made. But so long as people enjoy it, I guess.

[Waluigi Pie]

oh shit... Fluttershy's angry all hell will be unleashed

[SuperPinkBrony12]

Oh no the murderer got Angel, even he didn't deserve that!

Also

Princess Luna: "Fluttershy you need to be more assertive."

Fluttershy: (Runs up to Carrot Top and starts poking at her) "Bebeep!"

Princess Luna: (Facehoof's) "No not INSERTIVE!"

(Spongebob reference FTW!)