Rumour Has It

by daOtterGuy

To My Most Faithful Student

---

My Most Faithful Student,

I would like to preface this letter by stating that I am not mad with your brother for sharing details of the Rumours incident with you. He is immensely saddened and frustrated by this event and it is reasonable for him to seek solace from someone he trusts. However, I am disappointed that you used your status as my personal student to retrieve important documents relating to this case from high-ranking individuals and launch a private investigation into the event without my permission or knowledge.

You will not do this again and I have seen to it that you will be unable to do so in the future.

That being said, I will answer your questions to the extent that I am able to. Firstly, yes, there are many prior instances of a town of ponies disappearing seemingly overnight and many of them remain unsolved to this day. They usually happen along the outskirts of our borders and the cause is frequently resolved on public record as the residents collectively lose themselves in the nearest wild zone. This is the best that we can come up with in these situations as there is only so much information we can glean before we hit an inevitable dead end. That is the nature of this particular beast and one I am continuously frustrated with.

In regards to your second question, no, I do not believe that Cross Stitch was the cause of the townsfolks’ disappearance. Nothing of the information known about Cross would suggest that he would be capable of the feat nor does any of the evidence found at Gulp Gulch suggest that a pony was the culprit. Unfortunately, and I am genuinely saddened to do this, the Rumours incident will most likely have to be resolved with the default “lost in the wilderness” despite knowing that this was not the case.

Finally, you asked what I think caused the event in the case of the prior theory being incorrect. Know that I am hesitant to give my opinion since I have seen much over hundreds of years and there is no guarantee that anything I might say is correct or match this incident.

However.

There was a time some several hundred years ago that an event similar to the ones described in Cross’s journal occurred. A pony had disappeared and then wild speculation had run rampant through the town on the cause of their disappearance. Rumours started to spread and over the course of several days, all of the residents disappeared leaving the town in disarray. That incident has been marked as unsolvable. But, there was a detail in both stories that I have since latched onto while reviewing this incident.

According to witness accounts, the strange happenings only occurred after the towns ponies started voicing their fears to each other. Every time the rumours escalated, the occurrence changed to reflect it. Both incidents appeared to feed off of the imagination of the ponies experiencing the incident in question. I cannot guarantee there is any connection, but it is difficult to ignore such a coincidence when no other avenues of inquiry have presented themselves.

Regardless, this is baseless conjecture with no grounding in the evidence acquired by field agents. This could be worth looking into or it could not. At a minimum, I ask that you cease your investigation into this matter for I would be devastated to hear of you disappearing like the other residents of Gulp Gulch.

Harsh as this may be to hear, if it was, in fact, rumours that ended up being their downfall, then they regrettably reaped what they sowed.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

---

Comments

[The Sleepless Beholder]

buckle up people, you're in for a ride!

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

11400383
I most certainly was!

I think I caught on to the "The monster becomes whatever the rumors say it is" twist around the halfway mark, but that didn't make it any less fascinating of a plot point, let alone the revelation that the whole thing stemmed from a "stupid prank" turned tragedy; that was a gut-wrenching blindsider in and of itself. I suppose I should've seen the "Dust and Lacey are probably just pulling another prank" line in the first journal entry for the foreshadowing that it was.

All in all, this was a remarkably entertaining take on the kind of "snowball effect" that the titular sort of discourse can incur. Kudos, OtterGuy!
:)

[Whisper Spirit]

Geez this is just as gut wrenching as A Fleeting Light in the Darkness!

[MayhemsLement]

I think this is really interesting. The downside to pony magic

[darkstone57]

Yikes. Well done

[Alondro]

Alondro merely waits for the monster.

Alondro has no fear.

Alondro is what monsters fear.

[Davenfjeld]

The goddess Rumour is as fickle as she is powerful, and this merely proves it.

[Moonbeam Thought Writes]

Could it have been Sombra? I’m thinking maybe a more malicious variant of the Smooze?

[overdue]

Celestia is so resigned about this

[Ice Star]

Honestly, the last letter is the most unsettling one, seeing how Celestia is unusually apathetic to a possibly recurrent issue that doesn't seem above something that Twilight or other characters could potentially solve.

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

11511707
Really late to this, but I can't help but imagine Twilight marching into the outlying forests and yelling "I've heard rumours that the 'shadow monster' is just a perfectly ordinary creature who'd love to have a pleasant chat about their feelings!"

Probably wouldn't excuse the centuries of murders, of course, but hey, maybe it'd be worth a shot? :P