• Published 12th Nov 2016
  • 13,716 Views, 4,898 Comments

Grief is the Price We Pay - Scyphi



Spike thought he could get them to trust and befriend Thorax. But they didn't.

  • ...
87
 4,898
 13,716

PreviousChapters Next
Interrogation

Thorax was left waiting for some minutes longer with nothing to do but pace his cell anxiously. He heard no new developments on the matter and where he stood on it, which was both a blessing and curse, depending on how one spun it. Hearing nothing could be seen as meaning the police likely hadn’t uncovered anything yet that could incriminate Thorax in any way, but it could also mean that he very much wasn’t out of the clear yet. The time ticked by slowly in the meantime, which didn’t help, as it also meant Thorax became bored, with pretty much nothing else he could do but pace and worry about the worse-case scenarios.

It wasn’t until well into the late afternoon that something new transpired, and by then Thorax had begun to wonder what the holdup was. He knew that there just under two dozen participants in the fight including himself that the police intended to interview, but he didn’t think it’d take this long to get through them all. What could they possibly talk about for so long anyway? Just because he was apparently the very last in the list to be interviewed didn’t mean it was fair to keep him waiting. It couldn’t possibly be good on his nerves after all, especially when it all hinged on whether or not he’d be able to walk out of here both a free changeling and, more importantly, undiscovered as a changeling.

But finally a deputy or some kind of low ranking officer came and opened Thorax’s cell door. “C’mon bud, your turn,” he announced simply.

Thorax took a deep breath to brace himself, then trotted out into the hallway, being escorted for the room all the interrogations had been held. He was both dreading and looking forward to it, because no matter whether it ended well or badly, he knew it was likely going to be the turning point for him in this whole unsavory matter. Of course, it didn’t help that Thorax didn’t quite know how to prepare himself for this. Counter-interrogation training was given to a lot of changelings back in the hive of course, training that would be especially useful right about now, but Thorax had never gotten any as he was of such a low rank and wasn’t considered vital enough. The best advice he had ever gotten in the hive was simply: “don’t get caught.” So Thorax did feel a bit like he would be flying blind for this.

He decided he might as well try and probe for some clues though. “Anything I need know in advance?” he asked the deputy as they walked.

“Nope,” the deputy simply answered, and didn’t say a word more. So much for that hope.

Mercifully, the walk to the room was relatively short, so Thorax wasn’t given too much chance to get his nerves riled up any more than they already were, and there was no beating about with it either. Upon arriving at the plain wooden door, the deputy simply opened it and motioned Thorax on inside but did not follow, instead remaining the hallway, closing the door behind him. Thorax was expecting the setting in the interrogation room to be much like what he had read or heard about in books or radio dramas, with the room being small, very dark save for a single, blinding, lamp with a small table and hard seats with no promise of a comfortable time. He was also anticipating the good cop/bad cop routine he had heard so much about in those same sources and was expecting two interrogators at the very least.

Instead, he found only one, a friendly looking middle-aged unicorn stallion, bearing a small paunch around his middle. The room also proved to be reasonably spacious, not claustrophobic at all, and warmly lit. It had a large window allowing for even more light, although it was unsurprisingly barred. The table was also wide and made from a simple but decoratively carved wood—oak, if Thorax had to guess—and the seats were padded. The floor was even carpeted.

“Hello there,” the stallion, with fur a creamy yellow, greeted brightly, looking up from a series of folders and papers set before him on his side of the table. “Mr. Thornton, correct?”

Thorax, gazing about the room, almost didn’t hear. “Huh? Oh, yes sir,” he replied.

It was all so very different from what he had been expecting that Thorax found himself jarred and no longer sure how to proceed. Fortunately, the stallion took it in stride. “Have a seat Mr. Thornton and I’ll try to see if we can’t take up too much more of your time today,” he said, motioning to the empty seat on the other side of the table from him.

Thorax blinked then took the offered seat, gently lowering his rump into it. He was surprised at just how comfortable it all was. It didn’t feel like it should be used for this purpose at all and yet here it was.

The stallion took another moment to pull out all the relevant paperwork and set it out before him, among which Thorax saw was the basic identification record he had filled out when he first arrived at the police station, then set his forehooves on the tabletop between them and turned his full attention to Thorax. “My name is Officer Dandy,” he explained gently. “I’m just going to ask you some simple questions about what happened, okay?”

“Okay sir,” Thorax responded with a nod.

“According to the officers that arrived at the scene, you said you were just an innocent bystander that happened to be caught in the middle of things right as the fight was about to go down, correct?”

“Correct sir.”

“So you were not actually a part of either gang, then.”

“No sir.”

“Some of the gang members in here before you could call you by name, though.”

“Yes sir. I often cross paths with Ragg’s gang when passing through the area, and we’ve chatted.”

“They spoke of you being able to do some sort of parkour trick.”

“Yes sir. They often ask me to do it every time I pass by ever since we first met. It seems to amuse them and it’s never a bother, so I’m happy to do it, and then they let me on through without further problem. They’ve never caused trouble while I was around before today, and I’ve never given them any myself.”

“Peculiar relationship, then.”

“So I’ve been told, sir.”

“So if you aren’t part of either gang, then what were you even doing in the area?”

“Today, sir, I was heading to a bookstore to look for some books I was hoping to buy that is in that general area of town, and I generally pass through that area where they hang out when heading in that direction. When I went through on my way there, everything was fine and normal. It was on my way back that I arrived in time to find Ragg’s gang confronted by the other gang. The fight followed not long thereafter.”

“According to accounts, you were a participant in the fight.”

“Yes sir, but only in self-defense. I tried to only use a stunning spell I know as much as I could.”

“Yes, leading to some of these gang members accounts of the fight unfortunately stopping short at roughly about the same time because of that.” Dandy stopped to peruse his notes briefly again. “Tell me about the build up to the fight. What exactly happened? Who threw the first punch, if you will?”

“I suppose Ragg did sir, but only after getting cornered because it was the leader of the rival gang—I believed they called him Q-Tip—who was threatening everybody.”

“Including you?”

“Yes sir. My arrival may have accelerated things in fact, because that was when the threatening seemed to begin in earnest. Q-Tip didn’t trust me and seemed to believe I was part of some scheme of Ragg’s to catch his gang unaware, but because Ragg knew who I was and why I was there, he denied it. I think Ragg was trying to help ensure I didn’t get dragged into it.”

“Unsuccessfully, of course.”

“Yes sir, but shouldn’t the fact he tried still count for something?”

Dandy chuckled and wrote something down in his notes. “I suppose so,” he conceded as he did this.

Thorax permitted himself a small smile and was beginning to relax. This was all going smoother than he expected it would. Perhaps this wasn’t so bad after all.

“You commented that you tried to only use a stunning spell once the fight broke out,” Dandy continued, moving on. “Am I correct in assuming, then, that you had to resort to other tactics at some point?”

Thorax nodded. “Yes sir. Towards the end of the fight, I got blindsided by one of the rival gang members, so I had to briefly grapple with him physically.”

Dandy looked Thorax over. “But no worse for wear from it, I see.”

“No sir. I was able to use a couple of combative tricks I know.” Thorax dimly recalled that he did use a deflective guizhou fa move Fly Leaf had taught him during one of their morning practices at some point during the fight.

“Any of those tricks involve something venomous?”

Thorax blinked, confused. “Sir?”

“One of the members of the fight we found out cold from what the docs tell me is some kind of venomous bite to his shoulder right about here.” Dandy placed one hoof on his shoulder to demonstrate the location. “In fact, as I understand it, he’s still out cold because of it. Fortunately, he’s not in any danger from the venom and should pull out fine, but the docs can’t identify what sort of venom it is, and we don’t have any idea how he got the bite. It’s almost as if he had gotten bit by a snake, but it’d have to be a dang big snake to have made this kind of bite.”

Thorax suddenly realized Dandy was referring to the stallion he had been forced to bite with his fangs in order to subdue, having almost forgotten all about it. Subconsciously he ran the tip of his tongue over the spots inside his mouth where said fangs would be if they weren’t safely hidden behind his current disguise. “I…don’t know how he could have gotten this bite either, sir.”

“Some of the accounts we’ve gotten from the other fighters suggest you were the last fellow to grapple with this poor guy,” Dandy pointed out, leaning a bit closer.

It was then Thorax suddenly sensed a new emotion poking out from the continuous flow of cheeriness he had been getting off the officer up to now—a small one of suspicion…towards Thorax himself.

Uh-oh.

“I swear I don’t know anything about it sir,” Thorax persisted, forcing himself to stay calm and his voice level. “I really couldn’t tell you where the bite came from either.” When Dandy didn’t immediately respond, Thorax went on, shrugging. “It’s not as if I could have been the one who bit him after all, now could it? I don’t have fangs.” And to demonstrate it, he opened his jaw to show off the interior to the officer, revealing no fangs, as thanks to Thorax’s disguise, they were still neatly tucked away and out of sight from Dandy’s view.

Dandy nonetheless leaned closer to take a look and confirm this for himself, telling Thorax that he was taking this seriously. “Clearly not,” Dandy finally had to agree, settling back into his seat. “And you know nothing about where the venom could have come from? No critter or anything in the area?”

“The only living things I was aware of being present during the fight were the other ponies participating, sir.”

An uncomfortable moment of silence fell, and Thorax found he had to rescind his earlier thought about the interrogation going smoothly.

“All right then,” Dandy concluded, again jotting down something in his notes, but his tone didn’t sound convinced and Thorax couldn’t help but wonder what it was that he was writing. “Beyond that one detail then Mr. Thornton, everyone’s accounts seem to support your version of events, and the drug tests for you came back perfectly clean and without anomaly.” Thorax was inwardly relieved to hear that much and was glad he could at least shrug off worrying about the drug test further. “However, we’ve still got a few more participants in the fight that we’d like to interrogate still…I believe one of them is Mr. Asparagus Stem himself.”

Thorax frowned, unfamiliar with the name. “Asparagus Stem, sir?”

“I believe you called him Ragg earlier.”

Thorax blinked. That’s Ragg’s real name? Asparagus Stem?

“At any rate,” Dandy continued, “We’ll wait until we’ve got all of their stories before we put this to bed. Thank you for your time Mr. Thornton, we’ll keep you informed of any new developments, but just sit tight in the meantime. Deputy Sheepshank?”

The deputy that had escorted Thorax here entered the room, and without another word, Thorax was escorted back out of the interrogation room and back to his cell, where he was left to continue to wait. Thorax had hoped the interrogation would have been the turning point that would have at least told him where things were going to go next in the matter…but now he was left just as unsure if things were going to work out or end badly. By the sound of it, all the evidence was supporting that he was just an innocent bystander in the police’s eyes…but they wanted to know where the venomous bite had come from, and of course the evidence was pointing them in Thorax’s direction because it actually had come from him…but he couldn’t admit that.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he had dissuaded Dandy from suspecting him much, and that was potentially a problem. Thorax was now regretting having ever bitten that stallion who had attacked him at all, and couldn’t help but wonder what he had been thinking when he had done so. The answer to that was obvious though; he hadn’t been thinking, he had just acted instinctively from the threat, like any living thing would. He just also reacted like a changeling. Regrettably, that wasn’t doing him any favors right now. But worse still was the news that by the sound of it, the police had not yet interrogated Ragg for his side of the story, and he was the one pony present who knew Thorax was really a changeling. Would Ragg keep the secret, or would he tell all?

As usual, Thorax could only wait and find out. He was beginning to really hate waiting.


Meanwhile, Spike was starting to get worries of his own.

“Where the devil has Thornton gotten off to?” he wondered aloud for the umpteenth time, brow furrowed in a mixture of concern and frustration at his coworker’s unexpected absence in the shop. He glared at the shop’s front door while rapping his claws on the front desk, as if trying to will the missing changeling to abruptly step through it.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Fly Leaf agreed, also sounding concerned as she looked up from the shelf she had been restocking and up at the clock. “He should’ve been back from his lunchbreak hours ago…and he’s usually never late to get back from any of his breaks.”

Spike sighed and tore his gaze off the door to look over at the pumpkin orange earth pony. “What do you think happened to him?” he asked aloud.

“I’m hoping he’s just gotten unexpectedly delayed by something innocent, like a cart turnover somewhere or something,” Fly remarked. She then chuckled. “Maybe another water main burst and flooded a city street.”

Spike grinned faintly at the memory of when that last happened, and a quick glance about the store and its general lack of customers at the moment did fit with that instance. At the moment, Spike was only aware of two customers being present in the shop, and both of them were currently up on the second floor, leaving the first floor to Spike and Fly Leaf at the moment. But then again, this also wasn’t especially unusual given the late hour of the day. Business tended to slow way down as evening approached, and the sun had already settled low enough in the sky that the world outside had started to take on a faint golden hue, a shade that would only continue to empathize itself as the hours ticked by. Most Vanhoover ponies were simply beginning to head home for the day now, not running about on errands. And anyway, business was at fairly regular levels of busy earlier that afternoon, around the same time Thorax left on his break.

So Spike finally broached the subject he had been secretly trying to avoid, for fear of the complications it entailed. “What if it’s not?” he asked aloud.

Fly Leaf paused, gaze going vacant as she considered it, then glanced over at Spike for a moment. Finally, she put on a warm grin. “Tell you what Spark,” she said, standing up. “Since business is winding down for the day anyway, if you’re willing to take over restocking these shelves for me, I’ll run out and ask around real quick, see if I can figure out where he’s at.”

Spike grinned, approving of this plan. “All right,” he agreed, leaving the front desk and trotting over to the shelves in question.

“Right then,” Fly remarked in turn and headed for the door. “Hopefully I’ll be back soon with good news, if not with Thornton in tow.” She rolled her eyes in good humor. “You’ll see. He’s probably just gotten into reading a good book and lost track of time.”

She moved to open the door, but was beaten to the punch when a lanky young pegasus opened it first, moving to enter but coming to a halt when he found Fly Leaf inadvertently blocking his path.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he remarked apologetically, adjusting the saddlebags sitting on his uniformed back. “Are you the shop proprietor, Fly Leaf?”

“I am,” Fly responded matter-of-factly.

“Message for you ma’am,” he said, pulling out the message in question, sealed in a simple white envelope, and a clipboard and quill from his saddlebags. “If you could sign for it here, please.” Fly nodded and accepted the offered quill, beginning to jot down her trademark loopy signature. “Apologies for the delay in getting this to you,” the messenger continued as she did this. “I was regrettably held up at an earlier stop due to an addressing mix-up.”

Fly Leaf glanced up at the messenger in puzzlement as he handed the envelope over to her. “But I wasn’t expecting any messages today,” she noted aloud.

The messenger didn’t reply to this, and instead occupied himself with putting the clipboard away and turning to leave. “Best regards, ma’am,” he bid farewell, tipping his hat politely before slipping back outside onto the street.

Fly Leaf noticed as he left that while the pale blue uniform he wore was the typical uniform most messenger services wore in the area, his still bore the Vanhoover Police Department logo on the shoulder. Growing concerned, Fly immediately began to open the message to read.

“Who’s it from?” Spike asked as he worked at the task he had been given by clearing away some of the old stock into an empty box.

Fly’s brow furrowed as she skimmed the message, not immediately responding. “Thornton,” she finally replied solemnly as she realized what she was reading. “It’s his one message.”

“Huh?” Spike asked as he hefted up the now-full box and started to carry it across the room.

Fly glanced up at him. “Spike, he says he’s been detained by the police—I think he’s been arrested.”

The box immediately dropped out of Spike’s claws and crashed loudly to the floor. “HE’S BEEN WHAT?!

Author's Note:

There goes Spike's evening.

PreviousChapters Next