Death Mark

by Hierolephant

Red String

Grave Beetle was unsure if he was supposed to act as though he were interacting with a civilian business or liaising with a different military detachment.

Certainly, he remembered the vigilantes-slash-relief-aid group, the Nurses Templar, that had been both pains and salves in the hooves of many.
The revelation that their organization had dissolved over the centuries into a tax-funded scribe's job had been...not a blow, exactly. Relief, but also a sense of loss. Nostalgia, maybe?

The appearance of this Foal Services Headquarters Offices had further thrown him off. Painted walls depicted bright cheery meadows under an equally bright sun. The exclusion of His Lady's Moon and Night almost made him wince, but. Day ponies. What could you expect? Nothing worse than what he'd already seen.

First impression of his own liaison, Nursery Garden, didn't exactly assuage his impressions of this whole affair's civilian nature. Fellow officers did not exactly offer you sweets, after all, nor take their aide's(?) or his own word on his rank and credentials.
Well, the last could not exactly be helped. This was a discretionary operation, needing discreet paperwork and intel-sharing, and the messenger may have been delayed in confusion at a civilian office receiving correspondence from a military one.

Still, politeness was good, so he took the sweets.

He was shown the corkboard of papers and red string, which was similar enough to the collation of operation intel for him to re-orient and cut through the self-conscious chatter.
"Ch- ah, Madam Garden?" He had to remember that it was Madam, not...a title she wouldn't understand. Remember that he was here to test her, to ease the paths of others. He was here with his own mission, for the sake of all his kind.
"I confess that I twisted the truth a little." Deep breath, steadying. "I'm here to close down the investigation."

The mare's jaw drops, eyes wide in their sunny-meadow green. "What? You...this...you can't!"

"I can. This is an internal affair and is already being dealt with internally."
Warning the Nocturne community, arranging for the involved parents and foals to be released...trying to arrange, at least. There were...barriers. Awkward questions being asked that they could neither answer, ignore or make excuse for.
Barriers that they need someone on the inside to clear for them.

Nursery Garden, in his split second of silence, has screwed up her face in puzzlement, staring at him. "You...you're trying to scare me!"

"Causing you fear is not my intention-" Half a lie. He wants submission, acquiescence. Not fear.

"Not like that! You're bluffing!" Accusatory now, angry exuberance. "If your ponies could close the investigation down, you wouldn't be here talking to me! I'd have just gotten some, I don't know, intimidatingly vague letter on my desk. No, you need me to talk to ponies for you so you can do what you want!"

Silence, heavy. He has to give it the compliment it deserves. "You are remarkably astute."

An irritable huff, a small impatient hoof-stomp. "I have a cutiemark for figuring out what foals want, and grown ponies aren't so different I can't see the similarities. Now," she raises and taps her hoof on his pauldron with a smirk. "How about you tell me what's really going on?"

"That's confidential information." The words slip out as easy as breathing and just as reflexive.

She sweeps her hoof round, gesturing to the office at large. "All of this is confidential, private, in one way or another. I can handle it, keep a lot of secrets. Lives are at stake, Beetle! Foals' lives!"

And how many lives, foals, would be in danger if the truth got out? "Some things are better not to know! The world is big enough to lose yourself in and the truth hurts! ...I'm asking you, please, to turn away and ignore this."

"No."

Just like her forerunners of the Nurses Templar, the mare refuses to let go of something she's got a jaw grip on.
Quieter words, though. All the more stubborn for it.
"I don't trust you." Green eyes glare at him, nostrils flared. Head lowered slightly, in an unconscious ready-charge stance. Then it folds, retreats, as she turns her back to him and faces her corkboard of red string. Dismissing him. "I'll just solve this case myself then."

No. If she does figure it out...it'll all be over anyway. Unacceptable. If she won't drop the case either...he has no choice. He'll have to contain it.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Madam Garden."

"Huh?" Turning back towards him, he nearly winced at the sudden apprehension in her gaze. She had expected him to capitulate to her own confidence. On the back hoof now, now that he was still here and voicing his own intentions.

"I will neither help nor hinder you...but I cannot allow you to report whatever you may find. Congratulations, Madam Garden, I am now your assigned minder for this case."

She blustered. "You can't do that! That's...that's stalking! Harassment! Illegal!"

"Not if the citizens of Equestria are endangered. If foals are endangered."

Scowling at him turning her words back against her, she lights her horn and levitates a piece of paper over to him. "Well then. I will get to the bottom of this, if only to prove to you that it's not worth the secrecy. Since you've appointed yourself my assistant, you're coming with me." He recognizes the address on the paper. "We're doing interviews."