Bug in a Blizzard

by Paracompact

13. Draughts

As part of my early morning observations, I had passed Blanche’s room sometime just before eight o’clock. If the scratching sounds from inside her room were any indication, she had been busy with her “daybreak writing session” as per her routine. A doe with a disciplined lifestyle, to be sure. But now her room was quiet, and there was no response to my knocks.

I looked at a nearby wall clock. Quarter past nine. Blanche had mentioned this was when she normally took a break for breakfast. For lack of any better idea (I was halfway to wishing I could fit these kids with collars) I headed to the kitchen.

I met with early success. I found Blanche in the foyer, who along with Grid was spectating an elaborate board game in progress between Gloria and Bon. Both the spectators sat in the corner of the young buck, who looked to need all the help he could get—not only was he visibly hungover, but the sluggishness of his in-game moves as compared to Gloria’s told me he was in a losing position.

Putting two and two together, this was likely the game of Griffonstone draughts that Gloria so enjoyed. The imposing clutter on the board was reminiscent of the griffons’ mountainous homeland: The play area was a cramped, spiky crag of stone pieces in black and white confined to a hefty wooden octagon, on top of which was inscribed a dizzying variety of lines and symbols. If nothing else, I could understand how a griffon would take offense at confusing it with mere ponies’ checkers.

“Blanche,” I prompted after a few moments of my own in the spectator pool, “there’s something that’s come up in the case. I would like to have your testimony on it.”

Gloria’s eyes were on me even as she coolly played her next move and tapped her end of a game clock beside the board. With all but Zorn and Girard in attendance, it wasn’t a stretch to link my words to suspicion of her cousin.

“Very well. Ask away, Detective,” Blanche said. She took a bite of a fruit crisp off a plate in her lap before leaning over to her brother and rubbing her chin. “It’s so strange to see you on the back hoof in a game of skill, Brother…” She smiled at his opponent. “By all means, Gloria, please continue.”

“This maddening game. I haven’t played for almost a year now. I’m simply rusty,” Bon mumbled, his muzzle poking out underneath unkempt hair. He nursed a large glass of water beside him. “And this deranged board, none of the pieces are the size or shape they’re supposed to be. Absolutely nonregulation, and it’s throwing me off.”

“Excuses, excuses,” his sister sang.

“Oh go pull a sleigh…”

I pressed, “It’s about your latest work, Blanche. I figure you might like to discuss this in private.”

That much got her attention. The thin veneer of amusement on her face peeled away as she righted herself in her chair. “Oh. I, well, I see the urgency, then.”

A moment of awkward silence, and then the interruption:

“Why, what could your latest work have to do with the changeling, Blanche?”

Gloria’s question had embedded itself in the conversation like a tomahawk. Grid gave Blanche a prying look, and her brother did the same. Bon’s time ticked away on the game clock. (Despite his play, I noticed he actually had a surplus of time on the clock compared to Gloria.)

Blanche shifted in her seat. “It’s all right, Detective. We may as well just discuss the matter here. I’ve come to realize that it may simply be… pertinent info, for all of us involved.” Addressing the whole group, she continued, “Changeling Ringing. It’s the latest novel I’ve been working on. It just so happens to feature one of the wretched beasts. That’s the beginning and the end of it.”

“Evidently that is not what the detective thinks…” Gloria murmured. “Perhaps it would’ve been prudent to let us know of this book earlier?”

“Yeah!” Grid agreed. He pulled back when he realized the effect. “Well, I mean, I understand if you didn’t want to scare us. And I believe you if you say that’s all there is to it, but… what’s this book about?”

“It’s a parody—as vapid as it is long-winded—of those stories from the Romantic era that are sadly becoming oh-so-popular again. Now I could go into finer detail about the plot, but I would worry about my brother; they say not to mix alcohol with sleeping pills.”

Grid chuckled. Bon chuffed indignantly as he snapped his piece onto the board, and soon thereafter, slapped his end of the clock. Gloria responded just as quickly.

“Sorry, Bon,” Blanche said, “that joke was really at the book’s expense, not yours.”

“I’ll cut to the chase,” I said. “First question: Is Girard a beta reader for your stories?”

“Yes,” she responded, “albeit only in a limited sense.”

“Limited how?”

“Changeling Ringing is very much a work in progress, you understand, and I don’t typically seek Girard out for feedback during the writing and editing phase of a book. Most often, the final draft is already on its way to the publisher by the time he sees it.”

“Why is that, anyway? I’ve always wondered,” Grid said. “Don’t you think he’d love to help?”

“Well, I’ll grant that his support for me over the years has been motivating. I would venture that he’s probably more familiar with my body of work than anyone else, at this point. And on top of all that, he’s a keen reader.”

She made to cross her legs, before remembering the plate in her lap.

“However,” she continued, “I worry if his perception isn’t sometimes… colored by certain factors, such as our friendship. As the saying goes: Keep your friends close, but your editors closer.”

She took a bite to finish off her breakfast crisp, chewing and swallowing in good manners. She set the plate besides a sheaf of papers at her hooves and crossed her legs.

“Even if he could be objective, I think Girard is simply too innocent at heart to be a good critic—that is to say, a harsh one.”

The adjective “innocent” was unfortunate, given what I had to break to her. “Second question: Is there any possible way Girard could have learned about Changeling Ringing?”

Bewilderment as she processed the question; a flare of the nostrils as she came to the conclusion. “Oh bloody hell…”

“I take it that’s a yes?”

“Given your line of questions, Detective, I can only infer he must have read it behind my back,” she said with an annoyed puff. “And wouldn’t you know, I can tell you exactly when and where it must have occurred. It really justifies my paranoia with the thing, now doesn’t it? The one time I—”

“Think you forgot to hit your clock after your last move, Glory,” Grid interrupted.

“… Oh, thank you,” she replied, fixing her absentminded error. “How careless of me.”

“No outside interference!” Bon bleated. “And here I thought you were on my side…”

The interruption now resolved, I looked to Blanche to signal her to resume.

“Anyway,” she said, collecting herself somewhat, “we were out together at the Golden Pheasant a few weeks back. It’s this pretentious little hole-in-the-wall café I really wouldn’t recommend unless you’re looking to rub antlers with out-and-out hipsters. Girard was giving me feedback on my latest actually ready novel, while I was working on some of the first few pages for Changeling Ringing. At one point, I left to use the restroom, and… well… it’s my habit not to let an unproductive minute pass me by, so I took my work with me.”

“And you came back to realize that you’d forgotten some of it with Girard,” I completed.

“Hardly—I left a single bloody page behind my salad bowl!” she said. “Frankly, I should’ve pressed him then and there on if he had sneaked a peek. Shows what I get for trusting him.”

Gloria lifted her attention from the board. “Shortsighted and impulsive as my cousin may be,” she said cheerfully, “I would prefer you not speak so ill of him.”

“Oh, you’re right. I’m being a mite too harsh,” Blanche said. “I should be flattered by his interest, if nothing else. Better that Changeling Ringing be leaked to a goofball friend and fan than to a reporter, I suppose.”

But what if you leaked it to a changeling?

To be fair, Blanche’s account completely agreed with Girard’s. Ostensibly, this was enough to exonerate his slip-up of all suspicion… but in reality, any detective worth their salt could sense this was a piece of the puzzle.

“Um, Detective?”

It was Blanche, looking at me quite curiously all of a sudden.

“Yes?”

“Could I see that parchment again? The one that was left in my room?”

All eyes were on her as I complied with her request, producing the evidence bag from my trench coat. She withdrew the parchment from the bag with her telekinesis before delicately transferring it to her forehooves.

There was silence in the foyer but for the steady tick, tick, tick of Gloria’s clock as Blanche spent half a minute examining the paper, rubbing it gently between her hooves, at one point holding it close to her muzzle and taking a whiff. At last, she floated it back into the bag, and the bag back to me.

“Thank you. I just wanted to be sure of something.”

Before anyone could make heads or tails of the doe’s strange ritual, she picked up her papers from the floor and absconded from the scene.

The tap of a piece on the game board, and a click from the game clock. “Your move!”

“Merde, I was afraid of that one…”

My corroboration with Blanche was complete. Bluebird and Girard were waiting for me. Nonetheless, I would see to one more item on my agenda, while the young master of the household was still with me:

“Bon, where in this villa do you six keep your winter gear?” I asked. “Or more generally, any supplies were one of you to, say, take a long trek through these mountains?”

I had in mind, of course, to check if any hiking equipment just so happened to have gone missing recently. If not, I intended to get my hooves on it before any would-be changeling fugitive.

But Bon did not reply. He sat hunched over in his seat, propping his head up by his antlers as he languidly surveilled what appeared to be an increasingly desperate situation on the board.

“Bon,” I repeated.

“Uh, think I can field that one, chief,” Grid spoke up. “I’m the one that reaches for that stuff most often, given my skiing and all.”

That was right. Thanks to his name, I’d almost forgotten about his cutie mark in skiing. Not all ponies were so blessed with an alignment of name, cutie mark, and actual calling. Certainly Grid came closer than myself, with my cutie mark in baseball and a name betraying my parents’ misplaced hopes of continuing their pizzeria’s legacy.

“It’s kind of a hassle,” Grid continued. “It’s all split up between the coatroom, the storeroom, the workshop, and the shed. Want me to show you around?”

“Yes, that would be helpful,” I said, “but let’s go grab my partner first.”

Comments

[Scyphi]

“It’s so strange to see you on the back hoof in a game of skill, Brother…” She smiled at his opponent. “By all means, Gloria, please continue.”

Ha ha, you troll, Blanche.

A moment of awkward silence, and then the interruption:

“Why, what could your latest work have to do with the changeling, Blanche?”

Gloria’s question had embedded itself in the conversation like a tomahawk.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up--given the circumstances, I normally would just figure Gloria deduced it from the context, but the loaded way she phrases it here...

...good grief, I worry I'm starting to turn into Pesco, trying to find reason to suspect Gloria of every little thing.

“However,” she continued, “I worry if his perception isn’t sometimes… colored by certain factors, such as our friendship. As the saying goes: Keep your friends close, but your editors closer.”

Eh, as I writer myself, I can see her reasoning for it. Really, when it comes to editing, you want someone who's capable of being brutally honest and not show you any favoritism just because they like you or your past works, as ultimately that can do more harm than good for a writer in the long run by potentially letting a critical error slide that shouldn't have, just because you wanted to be nice or polite.

That said, it also gives Blanche the perception of deliberately keeping Girard at arm's length altogether, both as a beta reader and as a friend, and I think that's a disservice to them both too.

"At one point, I left to use the restroom, and… well… it’s my habit not to let an unproductive minute pass me by, so I took my work with me.”

Wait, is she saying she writes while she's...?

...well, I suppose there are worse things one could be doing during such times.

“I should be flattered by his interest, if nothing else. Better that Changeling Ringing be leaked to a goofball friend and fan than to a reporter, I suppose.”

True that.

But what if you leaked it to a changeling?

...so? As I see it, there'd really only be two outcomes from that. One is the changeling either dismisses it as what would seem as progressive nonsense to it, in which case the scenario's not changed in any meaningful way--or two, the changeling believes the text at face value and becomes motivated to some degree into thinking it could follow the pro-unity examples the story describes, which would likely make it easier to reason with it and find a peaceful solution to this mess, but that'd likely also mean the changeling in question has an inclination to be leaning in that direction already, so again probably wouldn't actually affect the end outcome all that much either.

Really, the only role Changeling Ringing plays in all of this is that it puts Blanche in the awkward situation of how coincidental it'd seem to her peers that she'd be writing it the same time they were potentially threatened by a real changeling...and we've all already largely decided this IS mere coincidence and Blanche is likely innocent, so...

There was silence in the foyer but for the steady tick, tick, tick of Gloria’s clock as Blanche spent half a minute examining the paper, rubbing it gently between her hooves, at one point holding it close to her muzzle and taking a whiff. At last, she floated it back into the bag, and the bag back to me.

“Thank you. I just wanted to be sure of something.”

Hmm, I wonder if Blanche may have figured out something towards solving all of this...if so, she may end up joining Zorn in the department of "knowing something potentially relevant to the case but choosing to unhelpfully keep it to themselves."

Which would be just like her.

“Yes, that would be helpful,” I said, “but let’s go grab my partner first.”

And so back to Bluebird, who I'm sure has kept talking with Girard in the meantime and has maybe uncovered something else of note from him.

Or at least helped to give the poor guy a much deserved pep talk, because I dare say he could use one--Girard's perhaps become the character I sympathize the most with, admittedly.

Beyond that, nothing really new to say here.

[Alondro]

11240532

Wait, is she saying she writes while she's...?

...well, I suppose there are worse things one could be doing during such times.

I suspect most Hollywood writers do this as well. It's why so many of their scripts stink these days.

[Comma Typer]

Posting here simply to say that I'm back on track for this fic after some time away, and lucky me, it's a small chapter that doesn't advance much. That Blanche comment about the foreign parchment, I'll have to remember, but that's pointed out heavily here anyway.

Other than that, no change of suspicion. At the very least, it's some nice quiet time between four of the suspects, like the cute nickname Gloria has of Glory.