Mind Games

by flutterdashforever

Part VI

Applejack stared, open mouthed, at Spike.

“What’s the problem?”

Applejack shook off the confusion. “Spike, Rarity’s been murdered.”

Spike just stood there, looking dumbfounded. “She’s-she’s what?”

“She’s been murdered,” said Applejack, more kindly this time. “I’m sorry.”

Spike stood there for a while longer. After some time a single tear formed in his eye, it slowly trickled down his cheek and landed on the floor with a wet and pathetic little ‘plop.’ More tears were forming but he managed to stay standing, although he was swaying a little. “Right.” His voice cracked and he tried again. “Right, right I, um. If you’ll excuse me.” The little dragon trotted up the stairs, but before the bedroom door closed, Applejack heard a tiny little sob, then nothing.

“Twilight, could you talk to him later? I need to ask him some questions.”

“You’re seriously telling me that you think Spike killed Rarity?”

“No, but I do think he was there ten minutes before she was killed, he might have seen something.” Applejack thumped her hoof against the table in frustration. “Just when I thought I had a good lead. Damn it to hell!” Applejack let loose a stream of curse words that made Twilight wince. At last she paused for breath. “I have one more idea but if this doesn’t pan out then we’re seriously fucked. I need to go talk to Pinkie Pie, there’s something she’s not telling me.”

“Ok, I’ll stay here and look at the knife, I’ll see if I can get any more info.”

Applejack paused and took a moment to slow her breathing and heart rate. “Thank you Twilight.” With that, she trotted out of the library and headed towards Sugarcube Corner.

---

“Oh, hey there Applejack, what brings you here?”

“Hey Pinkie, are you busy?”

“Not especially, the Cakes gave me time of work when they found out about Rarity.” Pinkie looked down at the floor and scuffed a hoof at the mention of Rarity.

Applejack sighed. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Once they were seated, Pinkie spoke. “What’s this all about? Have you found out who did it yet?”

“No, I just finished following a lead but it didn’t exactly pan out, I found the knife that killed Rarity at Rainbow’s house but,” She raised a hoof, cutting Pinkie off mid protest. “She isn’t the killer. So basically I’m back at square one, only one more thing I have to go on here so I’m just going to come out and ask: What aren’t you telling me Pinkie? When I first asked you about the fight you had with Rarity, you didn’t give me all the details.

Pinkie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I told you; it was a little flair up, I don’t even remember what it was about.”

Applejack sighed. “You know, Pinkie, I don’t know what’s happened to me, nor do I know what it has to do with this here gem on my chest but I would have thought that ponies around here would have gotten in to their thick sculls that you can’t lie to me anymore.”

“But I—”

“No. Look, I get it, I do, you were frightened, you thought that if I knew all the details that I might think you killed her. It’s perectly natural but I know you’re not the killer Pinkie, I know you didn’t kill Rarity but by not telling my all the facts you’re protecting whoever did. Please, Pinkie, for Rarity’s sake, tell me what I need to know.”
Pinkie fiddled with her hooves and looked at the ground. “I-I didn’t think you noticed that I wasn’t telling you the whole story.”
“You were upset, I knew you weren’t the killer so I decided not to push you any further than I had to.”

“I’m still upset.”

“So I’ll only push you as far as I have to.”

Pinkie sighed. “It was about Spike.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow and motioned for Pinkie to continue.

“Well, she was talking to me about how Spike had told her he had a crush on her. She just mentioned it in passing, as though it wasn’t that big of a deal. I asked what she had said to him and she told me she hadn’t said anything. I couldn’t believe that Rarity could be so heartless, I started telling her that she had to talk to him about it. She kept saying that it wasn’t important but of course I knew how huge hat must have been for him so I got angry. I was shouting at her, telling her that she had to at least tell him she wasn’t interested. I told her it was cruel to string him along like that.”

“And she stormed out?”

“Yea, I’m glad she did, it meant that I don’t also have to deal with the guilt of hitting her being my last memory of her. Still, I just didn’t think it was right that she never brought it up with him.

A slow conclusion was beginning to dawn on Applejack, her brain had flicked in to overdrive and it was as though she could see the whole thing, as one big chain of events. She stood up “Thank you Pinkie.”

“Wait, is that all you wanted?”

“Yes, I can figure the rest out for myself.” Applejack headed towards the exit but then stopped, she turned and said, quietly, “Thank you Pinkie Pie, I know how much it hurts to think about it.” A single tear was sliding down Pinkie’s cheek but Applejack never saw it, she had already departed at a swift trot.

---

Applejack was at a full gallop towards Twilight’s library, she was going so fast that she didn’t even notice the purple unicorn heading towards her at full speed.

The Two collided. Applejack and Twilight fell to the ground in a mass of flailing limbs.

Applejack was the first to her feat. “Twilight, what’s going on? What are you doing here? Actually never mind I—”

“I’ve found something huge,” said Twilight, cutting her off.

“Me to, I—”

Twilight cut in again as she regained her breath. “I was having a look at that knife and who- whatever did this isn’t a pony. I tried to do a simple spell to find out who were the last few ponies to touch it.”

“That’s great. Who touched it before me?”

“That’s the thing, though; it’s guarded by serious evil magic. I mean this stuff is like the magic equivalent of strong, strong poison. Anyway, the point is that the spell is designed specifically to stop any forensic magic. In effect, that means I can’t actually tell who the hell’s been holding it.”

Applejack was silent for a moment. “I don’t quite know how that fits in with what I found but I think I just found the last piece of the puzzle. I was talking to Pinkie Pie and I think I know how to solve this, but first I need to have a look in your library.”
“Ok, we can head there now.”

---

Twilight sat amid a pile of books, flicking through tome after tome. Applejack was on the other side of the library, similarly engrossed.

“Would you say the smell was like rotten eggs?” Twilight asked at length.

“No, it was more like singed herbs, like the kind Zecora sometimes uses.”

Twilight tossed the book aside. “Ugh, this should be enough; strange charred smell, letter D written in the blood of the victim and the most powerful evil magic I have ever seen.”

Applejack didn’t look up, only kept flicking.

After many hours of searching in silence, Twilight gasped. “I found it, this matches perfectly. It says it’s the work of…”

---

Applejack paced back and forth while Twilight lay dejectedly on a couch. They had been like this for a few hours. Once they knew what they were dealing with it was easy to put the pieces together. The only problem was how to proceed.

At last Applejack stopped her pacing and turned to face Twilight. “I know how to solve this but it isn’t going to be pretty.”
Twilight sighed. “Well given the circumstances I don’t think there would be any way to end this in a nice manner. What do you have in mind?”

“I need to send a letter to Princess Luna.”

“Why?”

“Because we are going to have a séance.”

The next morning there was a knock at the front door of the library, Princess Luna walked in, looking suitably sombre. She threw a brief, confused look at the front door of the library, as she was sure it had been a normal, two part horse door the last time she had been there, now it appeared to be a one piece door with a candle painted on it.

Twilight greeted her respectfully. “Good morning Princess, thank you for coming.”

“You’re quite welcome, I’m so sorry to hear of your friend’s death. I’m just glad there’s anything I can do to help.”

Twilight did a small mental double take but then was surprised at herself, why in the wide, wide world of Equestria should she have expected the Princess to still speak in an old fashioned manor and use the royal we? After all, she had been living in modern Equestria for, what, nearly a year now?

She cleared her throat. “We have until night time to run the plan by you so we get it right, then we’ll hold the séance at Rarity’s boutique.

“I understand.”

---

Night was beginning to fold its velvety darkness around Equestria as the three ponies set out to Rarity’s boutique.
They walked in solemn silence, none of them wanting to speak. They knew what they were doing and didn’t need to discuss it.

It was slightly eerie in the boutique at this late hour. In the main living aria, four candles were already burning, each held in hoof or claw. The flickering light illuminated the faces of Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Spike. As per the plan, Luna did not enter with Twilight and Applejack, she slipped around the back so nopony would see her, this was essential if the plan was to work.

Applejack motioned for them to form a circle around Rarity’s body. Twilight took two unlit candles and touched each of the wicks gently to her horn, igniting them. She passed one to Applejack and kept one for herself.

Applejack straightened herself up and the firelight glinted off the jewel still emblazoned on her chest. She was sure it was the element that had gotten her this far, that had given her the power she had used to piece things together, perhaps it was even responsible for her ability to handle the situation so calmly. Well, now it was time to really put her new powers to the test.
“You have all been gathered here this night for a grim and unhappy task.” Applejack began, her voice low and mournful. “A great evil has happened and thus far it has gone unavenged. So it is, with a heavy heart, that I have decided to disturb Rarity in her place of slumber to help us find her killer. If this were any other circumstance I would wish only to have the chance to say farewell to our friend but sadly her life was not lost… it was taken. Such a violent act should not go unpunished and so, where I would wish only to let you see Rarity one last time, I must use this last encounter to find her whoever was responsible for this unthinkable deed, and use that information to bring them go justice. I have brought you all here so that you, her closest friends in life, may guide her back for one last visit.”

Twilight reached in to a saddle bag and withdrew a thick, black book. She opened it to a bookmarked page and looked to Applejack once more.

“Twilight has found a spell that will allow us to speak to Rarity and she will cast it now.” She nodded at Twilight.

Twilight began to rattle off complex words that sounded as old as time. She spoke quickly, her voice becoming gravelly and heightening in tempo as a bright green light began to build on the tip of her horn. The chanting reached a crescendo and a bright green wisp formed above Rarity’s corps.

It wavered in the air for a few moments but then it spoke, and it was Rarity’s voice who said, “Where-where am I? What’s going on? I can’t see, is anypony there?”

Applejack took a deep breath. “Rarity, is that you?”

Rarity’s voice spoke again, stronger this time. “Applejack…?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she said, gently. Then her tone turned slightly urgent. “Rarity, you have very little time here with us and we need you to tell us; who brought upon you this untimely demise?”

“Killed I… dead I’m… my killer…” There was a long pause, the light seemed to flicker and dance in an unearthly breeze. All at once the light flashed from gentile green to vicious red. “They are in this room! The one who killed me…. How dare you come here? How dare you defile my remains? How dare you show your face in the place I once lived?”

Fluttershy squeaked under the vengeful tirade and hugged Rainbow close.

The voice lowered and took on a hurt, sad quality. “Spike… how could you?”

Spike froze. He stared open mouthed at the light.

“Spike, why did you do it? Tell me why. You loved me once, did those feelings turn so soon to hate?”

Spike just stared for a long while, looking like, well, like he’d seen a ghost. At last Spike whispered. “I still love you, Rarity, I never stopped loving you. I’m-I’m so sorry.”

The light flickered, and the last thing to whisper out of it were those awful words, “How could you…?”

---

Spike sat opposite from Applejack, she was looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“I’d like to hear the full story now please.”

“How much of it did you work out? How much do you know?”

“I know enough that I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself, I know enough to understand and maybe even enough to let you live.”

Spike took a deep breath and pushed a clawed hand to his face. “It all started about a week ago, maybe more, I don’t really know anymore. As pretty much everypony knows, I told Rarity I had a crush on her. At the time she didn’t say anything but I kind of kept expecting her to talk to me about it. Weeks went by, then months. It seemed like she’d forgotten or just decided not to think about it but then, out of the blue one day, there was a knock at the door. Twilight was busy and so I answered it. It was Derpy delivering what I thought was just some letter for Twilight, another assignment from the princess, I assumed. I looked it over just out of curiosity and it turned out it was for me. When I saw that it was from Rarity I was overjoyed. She asked me if I wanted to talk about my confessing I had a crush on her. I thought she might finally want to go out with me so I sent her a message saying that I’d love to and asking when was a good time for her. She answered the next day saying that whenever was fine which I thought was odd but it was also good, I was really nervous so I didn’t get back to her for a while. At last, I thought I was ready so I sent her that note.

“I turned up at six like I said I would so we wouldn’t be disturbed. We talked about nothing much for a while, she seemed all too willing to talk about the weather and the like. That went on for a while but, at last, I did what I had gone there to do: I asked her to go out with me. I didn’t really know what I’d do if she said no so I just hoped she wouldn’t. Imagine haw crushed I was when she told me she loved Fluttershy.”

In the pause, Applejack said, quietly, “I don’t have to imagine, I know.”

Spike took a deep breath. “I don’t really know what happened then but there was this strange feeling in my chest. It was uncomfortable at first but then, all of a sudden, it felt like my heart was being torn in two. There was an explosion or something and this really weird smell. Then I was just gone.

“I woke up later, covered in blood and with all these memories in my head, they hurt so much that I tried to ignore them. They plagued me, though. I tried to shut them out and to pretend it was just a dream. I didn’t know what happened or why. Tell me, please, tell me what happened? Why did I kill her? I loved her. Why would I do that? Why?”

Applejack breathed a deep sigh and pressed a hoof to her forehead. Of all the things she expected to feel, pity wasn’t one of them. The baby dragon just looked so helpless, though, he was upset, confused and devastated, she owed him an explanation. “I don’t know if this’ll help or not but here’re the facts. There’s a thing, a spirit or something like that. It comes to Ponies when their hearts are truly broken. I’m not talking about every day, dumped a partner kind of heartbreak, I’m talking about a true, gut wrenching, nothing left to live for kind of thing. This creature feeds of despair, guilt and sadness. When it finds a victim it takes them over and makes them kill whoever broke their heart. It found you and saw how much you loved her and… did what it’s best at.”

“How do you know about this thing?”

“The evil magic tipped us off. It used a special enchantment on this knife.” She passed the knife, now cleaned from the dried blood, over to Spike. “It made it impossible to tell who touched it last but the kind of magic it used was not the magic of any unicorn in Equestria. Then there was the D on the wall, it leaves its mark at the scene when it kills. D for demon, as in The Demon of Heart’s Break.”

Spike stared at the knife transfixed. “So this is the knife that killed Rarity?”

A cold chill seeped in to Applejack’s stomach, which she tried to ignore. It was now or never. “Yes.”

Spike nodded. “Only right, then, that-” In one swift movement, he plunged the knife directly in to his own heart. “-it kills me too.”

“Spike!” Applejack winced but made no move to stop him, she had thought he might do this, she, even told Twilight, but they had both agreed that it was his right. After all, if sompony’s life is destroyed beyond repair, then it should be that pony’s right to end it completely.

“You said my heart was broken, now that’s really true.” Blood began to flow freely around the handle of the knife. “I’m… sorry… Rarity…” He slumped backwards, never to stir again.

Applejack sat back on her chair and thought, bitterly, oh, how sweet victory tastes. Especially when victory tastes like blood.

---

Applejack walked out the door to see all four of her friends each with concerned looks on their faces.

“Is he alright?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, he’s just dandy apart from the knife in his heart.”

Twilight blanched at Applejack’s tone. “Is this a joke to you?” she demanded, angrily.

Applejack whirled round to face her till their muzzles were nearly touching. “Oh yea, I’m a barrel of laughs over here! In fact, I’m enjoying this so much that I think I’ll go and single hoofedly be responsible for the death of another of my friends. Doesn’t that just sound like a blast, Twilight? I know, let’s play cludo but in this version, you kill, oh I don’t know, kill Rainbow Dash in the bedroom with the fucking kitchen knife! Let’s play.” She growled out the last two words before storming off.

Pinkie made to follow after her but Twilight raised a hoof. “She needs time.”

---

Applejack lay in Rarity’s boutique, her gazed fixed on the corps, still lying there, as though asleep.

“No matter how long you stare at her, she’s still going to be dead.”

Applejack didn’t turn, only gave a bitter laugh. “Oh really, Princess? Wisdom doth stem from thy mouth.”

Luna landed lightly beside Applejack and sighed deeply. “You have glimpsed reality as few ponies have, and you have seen every detail the world has to offer.”

Applejack gave that same bitter laugh. “Reality’s a bitch.”

Luna nodded, considering. “When all the truth does is make your heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take.”

Applejack bristled at the quote and glared up at the princess. “Well maybe it is! Maybe I don’t want to see everything in all its blistering reality! Maybe I want to go back to deluding myself and seeing only what I want to see!”

“But you can’t, once you’ve seen something, you cannot un-see it.”

Luna was silent for a time, allowing her words to sink in. When she spoke again, her tone was gentle but firm. “You knew all along that it was spike who killed Rarity.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I did not!”

“You didn’t want to but, somewhere in you, you knew.”

"Applejack groaned a pain filled groan. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"I'm saying that denial will only cause you more pain. If you had truly accepted your ability then you would have caught Spike much sooner."

"Yea, because seeing spike make dragon heart shish kebab really made me feel a whole lot better."

Another long pause, this time broken by Applejack. Her voice was quite and pleading “Why did this happen?”

“Because it did. You’re clever, you’ve seen, you know by now that there is no reason things happen, they just happen and we have to deal with them.”

“That doesn’t help!” Applejack was nearly wailing by now. “Please, tell me it will stop. Get rid of this blasted gem and never let me see it again!”

“The gem is a part of you now, removing it would kill you just as surely as if I were to tear out your heart.”

“Then kill me.”

Luna was silent for a time. When she spoke, her tone was measured and careful. “Is that really what you want?”

“Yes.”

Luna shook her head but reached back with her magic and withdrew the same accursed knife that had killed Rarity and Spike from in her saddlebags. She held it in her gaze, turning it this way and that. “It’s strange isn’t it? This one object caused all this heartbreak. There's nothing special about this knife, nothing that makes it different from any other knife in Equestria.” She flipped it around in the air, as though testing its balance. “And yet, this knife has destroyed five lives and ended two.”

Applejack watched the knife spin through the air, transfixed.

“But you and I know the real truth. That’s the kicker isn’t it? The real truth is that, if you sold this knife to somepony who didn’t know its history, who didn’t know the awful things this knife had done, they would never know.

“Because awful things happen all the time and what makes your pain so painful is that you can see the tiny blip of injustice that this really is. The worst part is that you aren’t meant to. Some ponies are born as alicorns and live for thousands of years. They see the world for so long that they eventually see what you have been forced to see too soon. They see how bleak, how pitiless, and how unfair it is. They see that there is no fair because there is nopony to be fair or unfair. There is nothing.”

The knife blade was whirling faster now. Applejack was still staring at the silver steel, absorbing the princess’s words without comment.

“But you will live, Applejack, if that is what you want. You will live for thousands of years, just like an alicorn. And you will learn to see, in time. You will learn to see as we do. And it will no longer fill you with despair but with acceptance." The knife came to a juddering halt in its dizzying spirals and pointed directly at Applejack."But... A wise pony once said that if somepony feels that their life is broken beyond repair, that it should be that ponies right to end it completely.”

Applejack stood “You’re going to let me die?” Her voice was sickening in its reminiscence of a filly asking if they could be freed from time out.

“No.” The knife hovered closer until the tip was resting against Applejack’s heart. Luna reached down and lifted an orange hoof to rest against the handle. “I’m going to let you decide. It’s too easy to ask somepony to kill you. If you want your life to end then end it. I won’t stop you but nor will I do it for you.”

Applejack took a deep breath. She tensed and blood leaked from around where the very tip of the knife was penetrating her skin. She held that position for long minutes but at last she breathed out and moved her hoof away. “Great, now I’m a coward as well. I’m going to live for thousands of years, I’ll watch my friends grow old and die, always, I will see and yet I still can’t end it.”

Luna nodded, her calm face only betrayed by the single tear on her cheek. “Yes.”

“And you can’t stop it?”

“No, only you can do that.”

Applejack took the knife and tested its weight. she glanced down the puncture wound on her chest. “Maybe one day," she said, quietly, before she turned and walked out of Rarity’s boutique, beginning the long journey home.

---

Twilight, Pinkie, Flutterhy and Rainbow were all sitting in Twilight’s library. They had been sitting in silence for a long time now. On the table, two candles burned, one for Rarity and one for Spike. The mood was somber, nopony had wanted to speak. The clock ticked slowly, counting down the seconds and reminding all present of their mortality.

It was only once the candles had burned low and the gentle light of dawn was beginning to caress the landscape that Pinkie spoke up, her voice heavy with sadness. “If-if you really wanted to talk to him again, why don’t you cast that spell? We could all get to say goodbye properly.”

Twilight looked up sharply, but then slumped. “There’s no such spell, Pinkie, necromancy is just a myth.”

“But I saw—”

“You saw a bright light and you heard Rarity’s voice. It was just an illusion, that spell I cast was a piece of Czech poetry that I said really fast. The spell I cast was just a simple will-o-the-wisp spell.”

“And you made Rarity’s voice as well?”

“No. that part was Applejack’s idea, she remembered hearing Princess Luna’s voice and thinking it sounded a lot like Rarity’s so she sent a letter to Canterlot, asking the Princess to come and help. She sat outside and I cast a spell that made her voice sound like it was coming from the wisp.”

Pinkie nodded slowly. And silence descended once more. After all, where there is death, there is no victory.

---

“Every day I wake up crying,
Every day I get out of bed and open the cupboard,
Every day I take the knife in my hoof and wish I were stronger,
Every day I stare at the cold steel and wish for the courage to end it all,
Every day I press it against the same spot over my heart,
Every day I stand there for several minutes, heart racing and wishing to be still,
Every day I carefully put the knife back,
And every day I think, ‘Maybe tomorrow'."

The end.

Authors notes: Ok, so I should probably explain myself right about now. As a writer, I tend to get caught up in where I’m going with a story, wanting to get to the end before it’s actually time and, as you can imagine, this can give way to some fairly rubbishy writing. When I wrote the first draft for this chapter, it was so rushed that I didn’t actually know how to fix it so I just kind of put it to the back of my mind and tried to forget about it. In the end, I just had to face it and do my best seeing as I didn’t end up with a beta reader. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter despite how rushed it might have felt. I’m sorry this took me so long but it’s here now. As this is the end, I would like to say thank you to everyone who read and liked this story. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. And, yes, I was planning for it to end like this all along.

Comments

[Y1]

Well, that ending was pretty darn bleak. Not that I dislike bleak endings, just saying. I'm a little disappointed by the whole demon possession thing. It feels kinda like an excuse not to blame Spike. I suppose you did set it up with the D and all, but still. I'd kinda prefer it if Spike just did it. Applejack's going to live thousands of years? Tough break. This actually kinda feels like an origin story more than a completed story. Is there going to be a sequel to this or something?
In the end... that was an alright story with a pretty great ending. Despite the 'not your fault' thing with Spike being kinda lame, the extreme bleakness of the rest of it really pleased me.

[flutterdashforever]

1950218 Yea, it did occur to me that it was kinda lame to have it be a demon that possessed him but that was the original idea I had and I thought it worked better than Spike actually doing it because he does love her and I can't really see him killing Rarity of his own free will. I probably could have done more to set it up, though. I was happy with the rather bleak ending myself. I actually write quite a lot of bleak stuff but this is the first time I've written a bleak pony fic. It was kind of fun to apply my depressing mind to these characters to see how they would deal with it. I wasn't planning a sequel but hmmmm... that could be fun... maybe some day...

Upon further thought, I don't think I'll ever want to write a sequel. It'd be cool if someone else did though.