Another Member of the Band

by Magic Step

Endless Stars

The criminal observatory was high in the mountains. Adorabelle took the trolley car and admired the beautiful forest as she soared overhead. She’d seen this several times before, but she liked looking at stuff to keep her mind off what she was about to do.

The trolley was large with several rows of vinyl seats. It was pretty full; besides two cops, one to drive and one to guard, and Adorabelle, there were several ponies in suits. Some had defense attorney badges, some police badges. There was also a handful of more normal looking ponies. One goth unicorn, about Adorabelle’s age, sat in the back, her black red-tipped mane hiding her eyes.

As they neared the observatory, the sun began setting, painting the forest in a blaze of orange. The criminal observatory looked black in the fading light; it was a tall metal tower with a glass dome on top. The trolley landed, and the small group disembarked, winding up the short dirt path to the high, chain-linked, barbed-wire-topped fence surrounding the observatory. A short policemare was waiting, her silver badge a perfect match for her cutie mark.

“Welcome to the criminal observatory.” She lowered her sunglasses briefly to get a good look at the arrivals. Adorabelle wondered if she took them off when it got dark. “The summoning will begin in one hour. We can check you all in during that time. Please remember that taking in or taking out unpermitted materials, objects, or ponies is subject to a penalty of minimum 3 years in the Canterlot dungeons. Often much, much more.” She waved her hoof at the crowd. “All right, no pushing, no shoving, we’ll all get there in time for the show. Line up all orderly like, and we’ll begin our search.”

Adorabelle slipped to last place in line, because she was sure she was going to cause problems this time.

The ponies ahead of her let themselves be checked by attendant unicorns and earth ponies who had scanners. They each passed through a magic-inhibiting gate and started up the outside stairs to the summoning room.

But when it was Adorabelle’s turn, she stopped at the gate and turned to the teal unicorn standing beside it.

“Um, like, I injured my leg and I’m on, like, magic draining medication. So, um… do I really have to go through?”

The unicorn looked mildly alarmed. “Aren’t you that filly who…”

A huge orange earth pony guard slid closer and pushed the mare aside. He turned to Adorabelle. “We have a nurse on staff in the observatory. I’ll be right back.”

The nurse appeared a moment later. She asked some questions, yelled at Adorabelle for not bringing her medical information, examined the injured leg, administered a few pills, and told Adorabelle to head through the gate and suck up to any pain that mightcome after, because Tartarus would freeze before a filly like her was allowed into the observatory with her horn undisabled.

Hence, Adorabelle was late joining the others on the observation deck.

From the nine circles of Tartarus to the panopticon of the dungeons to the spherical purification chambers above, roundness was a common theme to all the punishment methods in Equestria. The observatory was no exception. The top was a huge glass dome, the building itself a huge cylinder with a walkway for visitors running around the rim. The summoning chamber was so huge that Adorabelle could barely make out the features of the ponies standing on the opposite side, or beneath the walkway on the summoning floor. The stars were rising in the glass dome above, but the building was well lit by floodlights, pointed so as to not completely wash out the stars above with their brightness.

Some of the ponies who had ridden up with Adorabelle had wandered to another place on the walkway. One plainclothes detective, the goth girl, and an all-too-familiar attorney were still within talking distance. A tan guard with a shocking orange mane and freckles kept watch, as did several other guards posted at set places along the circle.

Adorabelle trotted up to the railing and hooked her forelegs around the top bar. She leaned over to get a good look at the summoning chamber floor. A pattern was laid out with golden strings; 19 circles with star shapes inside, arranged according to the current constellation, Taurus. Preparations for the sending ceremony were underway. Unicorns in the star-studded costumes of astrologers dashed about, adjusting the golden chains into place here and there and locking them into place with gem-studded pegs. Guards escorted the prisoners to their designated stars, while astrologers trailed behind with bags of sparkling dust. As each prisoner was, with varying degrees of force, pushed into place, the astrologer scattered a circle of powder along the edge of the golden circle, sealing them in place. Crossing that line would cause the crosser to be electrocuted, bringing extreme pain if not death. As a precaution, though, all the prisoners would be wearing horseshoes that were enchanted to be heavy to the wearer but not to the guards carrying them around. Not that Adorabelle could see them from so high up.

Taurus had previously been the sign for all minotaur murderers, but as of late it was considered ridiculous to reserve 19 perfectly good stars for the smallest minority in Equestria, especially with the star shortage and all. Now it just represented racial crimes: those who killed a member of another species. As a result, the current batch of criminals was far more diverse than normal.

Adorabelle looked around at her fellow watchers. The goth girl leaned over the rail also, quite a bit further down from Adorabelle. The detective had crouched down to lie on the floor and was flipping through some case files. The attorney was admiring his reflection in one of the metal pillars; Teflon Slick took great pride in his greasy, mousse-filled manestyle for some inexplicable reason.

Adorabelle felt her eyes glazing over as she waited for the preparations to be over. She glanced between the criminals on the floor, then perked up.

It wasn’t her main reason for being here, but morbid curiosity drove Adorabelle to pay closer attention to the criminals waiting for their banishment. She scanned the group for a griffon.

Yup, Terry was there. The small gray griffin wasn’t even trying to fight; as soon as he entered his circle, he collapsed, hiding his face in his metal sheathed claws. Adorabelle could almost hear him crying.

To take her mind off of her ex-schoolmate’s plight, she tried to see how many other criminals she could recognize. Before long, she perked up.

“I can name all of the murderers out there!” She grinned gleefully at the four ponies nearby. “Wanna hear me try?”

Goth girl and Teflon Slick ignored her. The detective looked up at her, confused.

“I don’t think so…” the freckled guard said, blinking. “Some of these have been here a while, you know…”

“Yes I can!” Adorabelle leaned over the rail and gestured downward. “Okay, like, I’ll start with that griffin, the pure white one. He’s Silver Feather, alias White Demon, and he, like, wanted genocide against ponies; he’s, like, stuck in ancient history, y’know? Wants a third griffin regime and all that. And he, like, killed an EIS operative, so, like, that’s why he’s here. That zebra is Octa… Octen… Octarian, I think; it’s, like, some weird name. His brother married a unicorn, and he was all racist and stuff and didn’t like mixed marriages, so he killed her and tried to tell his brother it was an accident and stuff. But it didn’t work. I mean, like, well duh it didn’t work, or he wouldn’t be here and stuff, but I mean it didn’t work to kill her, ‘cause magic and… magic love and stuff.” She squinted to try and make out the far side of the constellation. “And I think those two ponies at the end there are, like, co-collaborators who, like, killed this old rich griffin to steal his stuff. They, like, took this potion thingy to make them more courageous and stuff, but it made them too brave and so they, like, thought they could get away with murder, y’know-”

“Why in Equestria do you know all of this!?” the guard asked.

Teflon Slick burst out laughing.

“You really are clueless, aren’t you, little rookie?” He gestured with one finely polished gray hoof to Adorabelle. “That little brat is the spawn of Judge Fickle himself. Most of the unfortunate souls here are here because of him, and she has never missed a single one of her father’s court cases.”

“Never?” The guard’s eyes widened. “But, but, didn’t he become a judge a decade ago!? What were you, seven?”

“Well, something like that,” Adorabelle said. “I’m, like, totally bad with numbers. Anyway, that unicorn is Stone Panther, and he had, like, this young zebra girl he’d orphaned in a border skirmish, and he, like, claimed he was all responsible and stuff and would raise her, y’know? But she did something he didn’t like, so he beat her and she got sick from being beaten and died and stuff…”

“All right, all right, I get it.” The detective closed his folder and stood up, then walked over to where Adorabelle was. He hung his hooves over the rail next to her and scanned the crowd of prisoners. He pointed to a unicorn mare standing to one side; her dark purple mane curled delicately over her beautiful forehead. “That one. You can’t possibly know her…”

“Oh, like, that’s totally easy!” Adorabelle squealed. “That’s Mise En Scene, the famous play producer! I love, love, love her story! See, there was this griffin who wrote plays in his home country, and this director, like, saw his plays and loved them and wanted to import them and stuff, but griffins have, well, y’know, a different sense of humor than us… blood is funny to them and stuff. So to make it sell well, y’know, Mise En Scene kept changing parts of it, and the griffin got mad, I mean like, REALLY mad, and decided to kill her but she killed him first…”

“That was way, way before your dad’s time as judge,” the detective said scornfully. “In fact, I’m not even sure you were born yet. How do you know who she is then?”

“Oh, easy. My BFF’s dad was a defense attorney, and he helped catch her. It’s, like, only natural that I’d, like, be totally on top of everything my BFF’s dad did.”

“No. No, it isn’t,” the guard said.

“But it’s, like, my favorite story because the only creature who died there deserved it, and it was this really cool mess that nopony could untangle, but Violet Edge's dad is –was-- like, soooo smart and he had this friend who was, like, a living lie detector and stuff and he knew who the criminal was and from there… well, the moral of the story is, like, just because a costume is normally worn by a certain pony, doesn’t mean that if you see that costume again, it’s the same pony. Or even a pony at all, y’know?”

“Um… if you say so,” the guard said. “Look, maybe you could just-”

“-finish? Oh, yeah, totally! That zebra there is called Blaze though that’s, like, not his real name ‘cuz his real name’s in, like, zebra-speak but the newspapers called him that ‘cuz he set this fire and-”

Something heavy slammed into Adorabelle’s head, and she cried out. Turning to the goth girl, she saw a thick book about vampires lying on the floor. Presumably it was the goth girl’s.

“This isn’t a game, you know!” the goth girl shrieked in an un-goth-like voice. “Those victims had friends and family who are still mourning their deaths, and some of those criminals do too! How could you be so insensitive!? Do you just come here every month to brag about how many lives your dad has destroyed!? Well!? Do you!?”

Tears appeared in Adorabelle’s eyes. She swiped them away with her hoof.

“I’m, like, so sorry-”

“You’d better be!”

“-but, like, give it another year, and Jet’ll be fine. Trust me.”

The goth girl gave a start. Then her mascara started to run. “Wh-wh-what…?”

“Aw, come on, Three Cheers, I know it’s you. The goth getup doesn’t fool me; you’ve been at too many sports matches when GUA faced off against Canterlot University. Of course I know you. And Jet was the star athlete of, like, all the CU teams, so of course I knew him. And of course I know what happened. I’m the one who sent you the card with the butterfly on it; I didn’t want you to be depressed about it, but, well… yeah, a piece of paper can’t fix that, I guess.”

Adorabelle turned to the summoning floor and found the young orange unicorn with a bright blue mane who stood in one of the smaller stars.

“You’re, like, actually really lucky. Your brother only tried to murder all those creatures because, like, ponies who weren’t him stuffed all this black magic into his head that made him all crazy and stuff. In other words, y’know… not his fault. And, like, that’s what stars have been doing for centuries. They burn outside influences. The starfire’ll get inside him and clean him out, burning the bad stuff without harming the good. Then he’ll be fine and can come home, no worse for wear.” She sighed and turned back to Three Cheers. “The ones who might be here for, like, ever are the ones who weren’t enchanted. This new stuff, the starfire that burns all psychological diseases, isn’t well tested. And it doesn’t always, like, work. Some of these ponies were just born crazy, and there may be nothing we can do, y’know?” Her voice got softer. “Sometimes we don’t even know what went wrong. Sometimes we put them up in the sky to burn, and don’t really know what’s wrong with their heads. We don’t know when they’ll come back, if ever… or if they’ll ever be the same.”

Three Cheers squeezed her eyes shut. “I know. I know that! I know I’m lucky, I just, I just…” She pressed her hooves against her eyes and sobbed. “I want… him… h-home…”

Adorabelle wrapped her forehooves around the goth pony and squeezed her tight. “Sh-sh-sh. It’ll be okay. Just wait; in a few years, it’ll just be a bad memory. You’ll see.”

She held her for a few more minutes. Then the guard tapped her on the shoulder.

“The princesses are here,” he muttered.

“Both of them?” Adorabelle pulled back a bit to look Three Cheers in the eye. “Okay. Ready to say goodbye?”

Three Cheers nodded, and hiccupped softly.

The two young mares resumed leaning over the rails to watch. Stately and regally, Princess Celestia marched to her place in the constellation matrix. Beside her was a smaller, pink alicorn, neophyte Princess Cadance.

“This is her first star summoning,” Adorabelle muttered to nopony in particular. “Like, what’s up with that? I hope Celestia won’t need replacing soon or anything…”

Celestia nodded to Cadance, who took a deep breath and lowered her horn. The constellation pattern started to glow blue.

Some of the criminals glared or snarled at Cadance. Others looked scared. Mise En Scene, characteristically, just smiled. Jet squeezed his eyes shut.

“I can’t look!” Three Cheers whimpered, covering her eyes.

Adorabelle stroked her shoulder. “You’ll, like, totally regret it if he misses seeing you.”

The golden circles around the prisoners sparked violently. Celestia lowered her horn, and the magic turned slightly turquoise. Flames shot up around the edges, leaping towards the sky above.

“If he doesn’t recognize you because you’re all, like, goth-wannabe and stuff, you’ll hate yourself forever,” Adorabelle said. “Wave.”

“He’s not looking,” Three Cheers said, leaning over to get a better view.

“He will.”

Jet opened his eyes, then widened them when he saw the flames. Panicked, he twisted around, trying to slide his hooves. His eyes locked with his sister’s.

Three Cheers leaned so far over the edge, Adorabelle wondered if she’d fall. “Jeeeeeet!”

Jet said something, but he was too far to hear. The roar of the flames blocked the sound, too.

Then the circle of flames closed in, turning each prisoner into a white hot ghost. The flames blasted up through the dome, blinding everypony with their brilliance.

Then they were gone. The Taurus constellation shone brighter than ever.

Three Cheers collapsed to the floor.

“Hey, hey, hey, I said don’t worry,” Adorabelle said, stroking her mane. “You’ll be here to welcome him home next year, right?”

Three Cheers nodded, not looking at her.

“And, y’know, he’ll be happier to see him if you don’t look all, like, funeral-style, y’know? Pink is better for your cutie mark, that red dye doesn’t work with your eyes, and you pull off miniskirts super well. And he’s gonna feel guilty enough for something that’s totally not his fault; don’t make him feel like he, like, ruined your life or something since you stopped cheerleading for no good reason. So have a special cheer ready for him, m’kay?”

Three Cheers stood up. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes were crusted with long black streaks. “Somehow, I don’t feel up to making other ponies happy.”

“Well, might be therapeutic, y’know?”

“Thanks… for some of what you said.” Three Cheers turned to leave. “But you’re kind of a jerk…”

“Hey!”

Three Cheers looked over her shoulder, apparently surprised Adorabelle wasn’t following her. “Um, are you coming?”

“No, not yet.” Adorabelle gestured over her shoulder. “The stallion I wanna see is on Gemini.”

“Oh… wait, why are you here again?”

Adorabelle sighed and leaned over the rail again. “’Nother family member thing. Like yours.”

“Oh… oh! I-I didn’t know…”

“Yeah, you assumed I was here to brag about stuff my dad did. Like, totes rude.” Adorabelle didn’t look, but she heard Three Cheers walk away. She focused her attention on the astrologers below instead. The entire matrix had to be reconfigured for the new constellation; this would take a while. Meanwhile, Celestia and Cadance had retreated to one side and had their horns pointed at the sky. Slowly, very slowly, the Taurus constellation slid, often with the stars moving too close or far from each other, out of view. Just as slowly, the eight stars of Gemini crept up the side of the glass dome.

Adorabelle twiddled her hooves a little. She really should have brought a book.

After a moment, the detective shuffled over and coughed. “Um… your dad is Judge Fic- I mean Sterling Scales?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“I-I really admire him. I mean, him and his wife. I mean, all they’ve done to end slavery in Equestria. I mean, he doesn’t do that anymore, obviously I mean, but-”

“Destroying the livelihood of several upstanding citizens, threatening the economy of Equestria’s largest cities, breaking up families, making criminals out of-”

“Shut up, Teflon,” Adorabelle hissed without turning around.

“Oh, but I exaggerate. As I recall, True Beauty was the type of fanatical die hard who would spend years on end to move a single pony from one abusive environment to another, and your dad was her useless puppet.”

Adorabelle turned to glare at the gray unicorn. His permanent smirk seemed etched into his face. “Go back to Las Pegasus. Nopony likes you.”

Teflon Slick brushed imaginary dust off of his jacket. “Oh, what a biting retort! I have no idea how I can ever recover from a schoolfilly taunt like that! I suppose I am forced to admit my point was absolutely invalid, even though you didn’t address anything I said!”

Adorabelle’s cheeks burned.

“Leave us alone,” the detective said.

“Oh, hurrah!” Teflon Slick switched his Las Pegasus accent for an exaggerated peasant accent. “Oh, jolly good! The copper has arrived to save that helpless damsel in distress! I’m sure he’s the solution to all our problems! He just has to stand there flashing his shiny badge around, and the light will make all the evil evaporate!” He shook his head at them, grinning like a cat. “Watching the pathetic huddle into groups is… hmm, what’s a stronger word for pathetic?” He tapped a black leather shoe against his chin. “Hmm… powerless.”

“That must be, like, your worst nightmare,” Adorabelle said.

“What’s in the case file?” Teflon leaned toward the detective.

The law enforcer scrunched against the rail, pressing the folder protectively to his chest.

“I’ll warn you, you can’t get me to leave by promising me cherries,” Teflon smirked. “Careful, now; you don’t want to fall and get banished. Wouldn’t that just be karmic?”

“Go torment some poor client or something,” Adorabelle said.

“Oh, fine,” Teflon Slick said, turning to go. “I’ll just ask Shocking Snap for the pictures later. You really should be more careful where you bring that thing.”

He flicked his tail as he sauntered off.

“Stars, I hate that pony,” Adorabelle said.

“L-l-language,” the detective said.

“Um… like… which one? Hate?”

“No. The ‘s’ word. Not here. Not now.”

Adorabelle had never thought of the word ‘stars’ as a profanity. Mystic Faerie used it all the time.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Celestia approaching the summoning floor.

“Ooh, ooh, we’re almost done!” Adorabelle leaned over to look for Cadance. She seemed to be sitting this round out; star summoning needed a lot of power, fortunately, since otherwise anypony who wanted a pet criminal could get one. Unlike Tartarus, the stars weren’t exactly hard to find, or even hard to open. They were just hard to reach.

Celestia lowered her horn. The golden chains glowed brighter and brighter until bright flames leapt up from them. The stars of Gemini flared in response, blazing like miniature suns. Adorabelle squinted, then gave up and just closed her eyes and waited for the pain to go away. For all the fanfare that had met her ascendance, Cadance clearly wasn’t as powerful as the alicorn now working her magic. Then again, celestial bodies of all kinds were Celestia’s talent.

The roar of the flames started to sound more like screaming. Adorabelle blinked her eyes open, hoping to see something. The entire summoning floor was blazing white, but a few ghostly shapes flashed past, vaguely pony shaped, their eyes and mouths wide as they plummeted to the ground.

Then with a loud hiss, the white flames climbed up to the top of the glass dome and vanished in a shower of golden stardust. Celestia was panting heavily, and the eight criminals of Gemini stood in their places on their respective stars.

No… seven. One of the stars was empty. The pony from that star must've needed an extra long uninterrupted starfire session. That happened now and again, though it seemed exceedingly cruel.

A nearby loudspeaker screeched, then a mare’s voice came through, announcing that visitation hour was starting.

A knot formed in Adorabelle’s stomach. Now was the time. Maybe she should have listened to her dad…

***

The visitation hall was plain gray metal. Adorabelle had a swivel chair in front of a thin metal table. In front of that was a glass window, and behind that, the holding cell for the criminal. A guard stood to one side, this one with a coat the exact same shade as his uniform. Adorabelle wondered if that was by design.

Next to Adorabelle sat a young stallion, probably not much older than Adorabelle. He had a green coat and a weedy yellow mane, and he alternated between chewing strands of his hair and twisting it with one hooftip. He had a white lab coat and a large medical clipboard.

“Um… like, do you need to do your evaluation first?” Adorabelle asked him nervously. “I mean, like, before I can talk to him?”

“Oh, hey, no girl,” the psychiatrist said, laughing slightly. “Nah, I mean, it’s just better if I watch him, like, interacting with regular ponies and stuff. It’s waaaay more natural, dig my vibe?”

Adorabelle wished he was somewhere else.

Behind the glass, the door opened, and the prisoner was brought in by another guard. The two guards undid the prisoner’s enchanted horseshoes and pushed him forward; he collapsed soundlessly, shutting his eyes with… embarrassment? Sadness? Or what?

Adorabelle didn’t know whether or not to cry.

The stars had not been kind to Bronze Coin. His formerly chocolate brown coat was now almost completely desaturated to pale gray. His mane was a wispy, sandy remainder of the golden locks he used to have; it looked like it was growing back after being burned off, and ashes were sprinkled throughout. Only his eyes stayed as green as ever, but any sparkling they did now was with tears.

He looked up at his niece without lifting his head. A smile struggled to cross his face, and his breathing became more heavy.

“Beauty,” he whispered. “My Beauty.”

“C-call me Adorabelle,” Adorabelle said. “Can you get up? …Yourself?”

For a moment, her uncle’s smile flickered. “For you.” He slowly sat up, then plunked his hooves, one at a time, on the swivel chair. With a heroic effort, he managed to pull himself up onto the seat. He pushed off the wall to turn toward Adorabelle, but he spun too far, looking mildly distressed as he swung past.

Out of the corner of her eye, Adorabelle saw the psychiatrist writing “sees dead ponies” on his clipboard.

Adorabelle whacked the pen out of his telekinetic grip with her hoof.

“Hey, man!” the psychiatrist said, “What’s that all about?”

“My name actually IS Beauty,” Adorabelle said. “I’m just not… y’know… that… Beauty.”

Meanwhile, Bronze Coin had steadied himself facing forward. He had both hooves pressed against the glass, and he seemed to be focusing really hard.

“You… you’re here… Again. Alone. Again.” Her uncle looked around. “Where is…?”

“Not coming.” Adorabelle rushed to change the subject. “So… um… how are you feeling? Like, are you okay and stuff?”

Bronze Coin broke into a slow, too wide grin. “Much, much better. So much. Less… um… anger.” His smile vanished, and he rested the tip of his horn against the glass. “Is this the year I can come home? Don’t say no.”

The psychiatrist wrote, “Delusional. Seeks to deceive others. Makes unreasonable demands.”

Adorabelle pressed her hooves to the glass. “I’ll talk to my father as much as I can, I mean totally. But… um… like… don’t… y’know… get your… like… hopes… up…”

Bronze Coin suppressed a sob.

“Oh, please don’t take this badly-”

“What the hay does he want from me!?” Bronze Coin pushed away from the glass and slid back, startling the guard. “What does he need to see from me!? I’m sorry! I said I was sorry!”

“No, no, please!”

“I don’t know why I killed her, Celestia knows I don’t.” Bronze Coin pressed his hooves against his head. “I don’t know how, and I don’t want to do anything like that ever again. Why is he doing this to me!? Why, why, why!?”

As he shouted these things, Adorabelle pounded on the glass, begging him to listen and to stop. The psychiatrists’ quill scribbled furiously.

Finally Bronze Coin lowered his hooves and stared at Adorabelle with wet eyes. “I can’t. I can’t… refuse you anything. Beauty.” He smiled and swiped a tear from his cheek. “So like your mother. So, so much like her.”

“Just stop,” Adorabelle whispered. She realized there were tears on her face now. “I don’t want to think about her now.”

Her uncle used his back hoof to push the swivel chair back towards the glass. He rested his forehooves on the table and sighed. “I… I know. It’s all my fault. My fault. Sorry… I can’t ever be sorry enough. I… understand.”

Adorabelle leaned forward. “I… I’m not mad at you. Maybe I should be, I dunno.” She brushed a lock of mane away from her face. “It’s too weird. You, like, totally wouldn’t have done something that stupid before, and you sure don’t want to do it anymore, so…” she sighed. “I wish… I wish you could be home and we could talk with dad and things would be more normal and then, like, maybe I’d know what to feel.”

Her uncle blinked. “That’s… a really weird thing to wish for, if I really am a murderer. I’d probably strangle you because I’d take you for your mom. Again.”

“I’m going to, like, strangle that psychiatrist for writing down ‘makes death threats’ on his sheet.”

“Hey!” the psychiatrist looked up. “Turn your aura down, sister!”

“Your accent is, like, totes dopey.”

The psychiatrist rolled his eyes and went back to writing.

Adorabelle turned back to her uncle and pressed a hoof to the glass. “There, see? That’s, like, a smile.”

“I missed you,” he whispered, setting his hoof on hers. “I’ve missed… everything. But you…” he sighed. “So much like her…”

Nopony said anything for a moment. Adorabelle was shivering and wasn’t sure if it was excitement, fear, both, or neither.

“How is school?”

It was a bit late to pretend this was a normal conversation, but Adorabelle played along. “Oh, totes good. New summer semester. Violet Edge is taking his bar exam soon, and then I’ll, like… um, well, my dream job is to be his, uh… paralegal.”

“You don’t want to be a lawyer?” He blinked at her.

“I, like, thought about it… but, y’know, it doesn’t seem, like, likely.”

“Your dad…” Bronze Coin swallowed, as if he nearly choked on the words. “Your dad felt the same way… about… her.”

Adorabelle nodded glumly.

Bronze Coin started to rock back and forth. “Your dad would do anything for her. Their love was so… I can’t believe I couldn’t accept it. That I still wanted her badly enough that… that I’d get so angry I could… could…” Bronze Coin started shaking. He pressed his hooves to his eyes, and his breathing got heavier. “It won’t go away. I still see her. Those blue eyes. Wide eyes. They wouldn’t close, couldn’t close. I set her on the floor, in a puddle of their blood… my hooves were shaking… for one moment, I felt lucid again, I wanted to scream, but-”

“Felt lucid again?” Adorabelle leaned closer.

“I just mean less angry.” Her uncle looked her in the eyes and held his gaze. “As much as I wish I could say it was just a spell someone cast on me… I can’t. Your dad must have told you, they scanned me and couldn’t find any magic matrixes or demon slugs in my head. Those things tend to be really obvious. It must have just been… madness.” He slid back. “But I guess, somehow, the sight of their dead bodies…”

“Wait.” Adorabelle sat back. “There was a dead body in the room that… wasn’t my mom’s?”

Bronze Coin blinked. “Oh. Oh, I-I must have remembered that sometime since our last visit, while I was… away.” He smiled sadly. “Stars do wonders for memories. Yes, I remember… there was another pony. A stallion.”

“There was another victim?” Adorabelle gasped. “You committed, like, double homicide? How could I not know this!? That’s totes crazy! Who the hay was it?”

Bronze Coin shrugged. “I didn’t know him; I-I don’t even think I’d ever seen him before. I guess… he tried to save her… and I reacted badly.”

“Oh.” Adorabelle stared at the floor. “So just a random pony then. That’s… sad.”

“No, no, he wasn’t random. I… I think I heard later…” he stared at the ceiling and tapped a hoof under his chin. “Ugh… what was his name… he was there for some reason- oh! Right!” He looked down and nodded. “He was your mom’s client.”

Adorabelle’s mouth hung open. “Which client?”

“Her last one. The one she was helping when… well…” Bronze Coin curled his forehooves under his body.

“What case was that? Do you have the serial number? I need to read it!”

“No number.” Bronze Coin stared at the ceiling. “Just the name the public gave it. I think it was… um…”

“What!? Tell me!” Adorabelle pleaded.

“Right.” Her uncle looked back down. “They called it the Missing Children Incident.”

Author's Note:

Hooray, it only took me five huge chapters before I got around to hinting at what's supposed to be the main plot of the story. Kudos to all of you who read this far, and here's to more excitement in the chapters to come! ...Maybe.
Oh, the EIS organization was lovingly stolen from the hilarious and unparalleled Twilight Sparkle Gets a Free Salad by AestheticB.

Comments

[PonyJosiah13]

I think one of the problems you have with this story is that you're not very good at explaining things.

You do get around to explaining what the purpose of the criminal observatory is and that apparently, major criminals are sentenced to banishment to the stars as part of their rehabilitation, but it takes you a very long time to get to that explanation, and when you do get there, it's kind of obtuse. I'm not knocking it, but I am saying that it is something that might irritate some readers.