> Pinkamena:  The Game
>  by WishyWish
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 - Her Majesty's (Secret) Service
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were eleven days until Hearth's Warming.

Nowhere in Equestria did the ancient spirit of unity shine as brightly as Canterlot. The timeless star of pony civilization, her magnificent palisades and flying buttresses kissed the icy sky of winter with the warmth of holiday lights. In her streets, ponies sang carols both old and new, every muzzle alive with its own opus of good cheer. At the city’s heart stood one of her most well-known traditions - a massive tree, nearly half as tall as the spires of the royal palace itself, bedecked in decorations donated from every home and city throughout the land, such that its glow could likely be seen from orbit.

These are the times when ponies rejoice in who and what they are. Where rivalries are suspended, merriment is made, and fellowship is shared from hoof to hoof. Even those ponies who have dedicated their lives to the safety and security of their brethren relax somewhat, allowing the joy of the season to fill their hearts and bear them through a bitter cold that has no power within the walls of the homes they protect.

With the approach of a sudden, great shadow, all of Equestria found itself buried in goose feathers, followed by a massive earthquake that rocked the dreams of Hector Silvermane as his chin came in contact with the bedroom floor. Rumpled by the depths of sleep, the normally gleaming white stallion shot up from his new position on the floor by the side of his bed, lines of red sand still marring the whites of his eyes.

“Featherquake!!” He bellowed, “Featherquake!!”

His warning was met with a tufted tinkle of giggles that rang out through the room like a breeze through tiny wind chimes. Disoriented, he peered over the side of the bed to find a soft blue mare staring at him with a bemused grin. She shifted under the quilts of their marital bed - her every move, the sparkle of her sunshine eyes, and her silly insistence upon tying her luscious mane back every night for sleep, was like poetry to him. Her grin broadened. Resting under her hoof was the down-soft weapon she had assaulted him with.

“Some captain of the guard you are!” She chided. “Didn’t they teach you to be ever vigilant or something at guard school? What if I was a horde of changelings or something?”

Hector shook his head. His mane, shimmering with the silvery hue of his namesake in the morning light, waggled around his shoulders as he sought to banish the last vestiges of sleep. “A horde of changelings doesn’t usually wage war with feathers, Chloe.”

“Uh-huh,” Chloe smiled, resting her cheek on a hoof and her elbow on the mattress. “Like you’d know when you’re asleep a your post like that. You’re supposed to be setting an example!”

Hector let out a mighty yawn into his hoof, smacking his lips in the very un-captainlike fashion only his wife ever saw. “Alright, alright, you win. In guard school,” he dictated as if reading from a brochure, “a young pony’s mind and body are tempered with both the speed and power of a locomotive, and the guile and finesse of a Wonderbolt in flight. But they don’t teach you how to deal with death by pillows.” He huffed playfully, folding his forelegs and trying to look haughty from where he sat on the floor. “And I’m never asleep at my post. I don’t have anything on my schedule until an audience with the princesses this afternoon. You’d sleep like I do too, if you were in my line of work.”

Chloe’s grin only broadened. She patted the empty patch of mattress her husband once occupied and nodded to the softly falling snow just outside the window. “I’m talking about a different post, soldier. The most important post. I’m pretty sure it’s against the laws of chivalry to let your lady fair get cold. Are you going to come keep me warm, or am I going to have to pull rank on you?”

Hector held up his hooves in mock defeat. “I stand corrected. What’s the punishment for falling asleep at my post, oh princess of my house?”

The earth mare raised her foreleg above her head. “We demand cuddles. Further, thy muzzle shall receive a thousand lip-lashes!”

The moment Chloe’s hoof rose, Hector lit his horn, caught her pillow in the glow of his magic, and tossed it in his wife’s face, slipping back into bed and wrapping her in his forelegs before her lips even finished forming a yelping noise.

“I overthrow you!” He rumbled, nipping at the tip of her ear as she tossed the pillow aside.

“You can’t do that. I outrank you.”

Chloe put a hoof on her husband’s lips. For a time she just stared at him, admiring the way the morning sun framed the thick musculature of his neck and shoulders until her hoof slid automatically to his cheek. Her smile faltered.

“I was expecting to catch you by surprise, but the way you yelped and...fell entirely out of bed,” she mused, concerned, “...you seem so tense. Is everything okay?”

Silvermane’s smile bloomed. Brushing a wayward cappuccino lock out of his wife’s eye, he replied, “Everything’s fine, sweety. Everypony gets a little lax around this time of year.”

“That’s exactly what I’m concerned about,” Chloe frowned, stroking her husband’s jawline. “Everypony...except for you.” She turned up her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly, giving him that look she had long learned was beyond his ability to resist. “Tell me please?”

Hector wilted before the only foe he both couldn’t and wouldn’t ever prevail over - the crocodile eyes of his bride. His grip loosened and he laid back against his own stack of pillows. “Really, it’s nothing. Just...well I spend plenty of time at court as it is, but if everypony is busy around this time of year with the holiday, the princesses are doubly so. It’s...just a little odd to be called into an audience right now I guess?”

Chloe pushed herself up in bed and rubbed Hector’s chest with a hoof, her smile brightening the room like the hazy days of midsummer. “You’re such a worrywart. You’re the captain of the royal guard now. Of could they’re going to want to talk to you a lot. It’s not like you don’t have anything to do, right?”

Bolstered as always by her reassurances, Hector scratched his own cheek sheepishly and then reached out to hook a hoof around his bride’s shoulder. “Right...you’re right. You know if it weren’t for you reassuring me all the time, I probably wouldn’t be where I am now in the ranks. What would I do without you?”

Chloe allowed herself to be pulled in until she was muzzle to muzzle with the stallion of her dreams. Before losing herself in a delicious hour of private time, she offered him a nugget of wisdom.

“You’d be lonely and frustrated. Two things you’re never going to have to worry about, ever again.”


*   *   *   *   *
	

Shortly after lunch, Hector Silvermane found himself marching at the head of his personal entourage down the massive, red-carpeted hallway that lead to the throne room of Canterlot Palace. His chest swelled with pride; his ears catching the rhythmic drum of chinked armor plates clinging in unison as his troops kept a singular lock-step behind him. Each passing mural or stained-glass work of art that depicted pivotal moments in Equestrian history only served to further straighten his back and harden his resolve.

It was a history he would now be a part of, and he was eager to take his place in it.

With the familiar weight of his plumed dress-helmet on his crown, he paused for the massive doors to be pulled aside, and then led his retinue to the waiting dais where the rulers of his nation sat.

“Orders, hup!” He called, coming to a stop as close as decorum would allow him to approach the elevated royal platform. On his order, his troupe fanned out behind him and moved to the edges of the narrow red carpet, standing in two perfect rows of half a dozen soldiers on either side. They all came to sharp attention as one, eyes front; the third in each row held aloft a flagpole depicting the colors of his regiment, beneath the seal of the royal house and the flag of the Equestrian nation. Hector levitated his helmet off his head and bowed low.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” he began with great formality, “It is my honor to be called into your audience.”

“Rise, Captain Hector Silvermane,” a familiar voice replied. As ordered, he rose to his full height and focused his attention first upon the Princess of the Night, who addressed him with a raising of her hoof. “Thou art well met this day, and we appreciate thy presence, despite the impetus of the pending festivities.”

“Not at all, Your Majesty,” Hector replied, averting his eyes respectfully just below his sovereign’s own gaze. “It is my pleasure to serve in any capacity Your Highnesses see fit.”

Princess Celestia, her mane everflowing with the colors of a glorious sunrise, offered a less rigid smile. “At ease, Captain Silvermane. Your reputation for decorum sufficiently precedes you.”

Hector let his shoulders drop only enough to obey. It was a move he had practiced in front of the mirror before his last promotion, to maintain a commander’s countenance while also obeying the letter of his orders, if not the intentions behind them. He turned to Celestia and nodded as deeply as he could without genuflecting again. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” He then proceeded to wait for the princesses to explain what they had called him in for, rather than be so bold as to ask.

“Captain Silvermane,” Celestia began, her smile vanishing. “Are you familiar with a village by the name of Little Hoofington?”

Hector wracked his brain, sure he was being tested, and eventually sighed. “No, Your Highness. Forgive me but it doesn’t ring a bell.”

“We are not surprised,” Luna chimed in. “Little Hoofington is a small village to the northeast, near the point at which the Pony Express splits lines between Manehattan and Phillydelphia. It is nestled in the foothills beneath the mountains that are home to Neighara Falls, and is purported to have a population of a mere one-hundred sixty-six. With natural barriers on all sides in the form of cliffs and mountains, it is both well-protected, segregated, and easily missed.”

“It is an old mining town,” Celestia added. “Once upon a time it was a port of call for prospectors in the nearby highlands. That was nearly a century ago, and it has since become not much more than a footnote in our history. Because if its geographic isolation, the remaining population has been relatively constant, and so the town persisted.”

Hector nodded, absorbing as much of the historical information as he could on the first go-round. “Is there some trouble in this village?”

Luna nodded. “Verily, Captain Silvermane. We and our sister have received reports of possible changeling activity in the area surrounding Little Hoofington. There has been a gradual exodus of the local population, and while the citizens who have emigrated from the village are so few in number that it does not provoke concern...what they have had to say, does.”

Celestia tousled her flowing locks and elaborated. “What few ponies have trickled into Canterlot, Ponyville, Fillydelphia, and Manehattan claim that they left because they felt they could no longer trust their neighbors. Drastic changes in personality and attitude, to the point that those reporting them felt their closest friends had become different ponies overnight.”

Hector felt the coathairs on the back of his neck rising. “If what they say is true...”

Luna only nodded, completing the thought, “If what they say is true, there is a possibility, however remote, that anything from a small group of rogue changelings to an entire hive are attempting to infiltrate the area.”

Celestia furrowed her noble brow. “The events surrounding the marriage of Princess Cadance and your predecessor, Shining Armor, before the pair took up permanent residence in the Crystal Empire, is by now well known to the changeling nation. It is possible they would choose just such a tactic to regain a hoofhold on our lands. Target a small, outlying community that is relatively isolated and could potentially be repopulated by drones without our even knowing.”

Hector replaced his helmet and came back to attention, clicking his fetlocks and offering a staunch salute. “Your Highnesses, I understand the situation. I will mobilize a division at once.”

Luna held up a foreleg. “Stay your hoof, Captain Silvermane. Thou shalt do nothing of the kind.”

Hector was already nodding unspoken commands to his well-trained guards, but everypony not on the dais froze in response to this new command. Hector felt confusion settle over the plan he had already decided on -- to march on Little Hoofington and exterminate the threat.

“Your Highness, if it pleases you,” He chose his words carefully, “May I ask why? If there’s a threat, surely we should respond in force, to send a message to the enemy that we will not be terrorized.”

“We will respond,” Celestia said, forcing all attention to her, “But you must understand, Captain, we cannot be certain of changeling involvement. At this stage, no good will come of upsetting and frightening the ponies of Equestria by bearing down on one of our own villages with a deployment of troops. Especially not this close to Hearth's Warming.”

“It is imperative,” Luna added, “that this operation be conducted with the utmost discretion, to avoid spreading paranoia and fear among our subjects. This is why our sister and I have chosen thee, Captain Silvermane. Thou art readily available and thou hast our utmost trust. Thou shalt make preparations to depart for Little Hoofington on the morrow, where thou shalt conduct a systematic and thorough investigation to determine the validity of potential changeling activity. If thou findest the claims to be a false alarm, thou shalt return to Canterlot as discreetly as thou hast left, turn in thy report, and we shall speak no more of this.”

Hector narrowed his eyes in challenge to foes he could not yet see. “And if I do find evidence of changeling activity?”

Celestia frowned. It was that deep, worn-in frown Hector was used to associating with the crown princess only when she was making morally difficult decisions. “Then you have the authority of the royal house to eliminate the threat to Equestria, using whatever means you see fit...including deadly force. When you have completed your task, you will again return, make your report with as much discretion as possible, and we will confer and instruct you as necessary from that point on. Do you understand your duty?”

Hector bowed low. “Yes, Your Highness. I will make preparations at once. How many guards am I authorized to select for my task force?”

Celestia shook her head. “No guards. You may arm yourself, but you will go alone.”

Hector glanced between the royal sisters as if expecting one of them to shout ‘Hearth's Warming Fools’, and burst out laughing at his expense.

“Y-your Majesties,” He began to mentally weigh the distance between suggestion and insubordination, softening his tone in deference. “Forgive me, but...alone?”

“Discretion is of the utmost importance, Captain,” Celestia replied. “You will travel alone, and you are to consider the details of this assignment to be top secret, not to be discussed with anypony, until you arrive at your destination.”

“Fear not,” Luna chimed in. “Little Hoofington is equipped with both a local constabulary police force, and a guard station. Thou shalt have the support of the local authorities and representatives of the guard in which thee already command. Thou shalt, of course, be provided with a writ bearing our seal that places thee in imminent command of all local law enforcement, with the authority to declare martial law should thou believest the situation dire enough to warrant it. Thou shalt not be alone.”

Hector absorbed his orders with a stiff upper lip, but his mind was alive with concern for his orders. “Yes...I understand, Your Highnesses.”

Celestia nodded, her pleasant countenance finally returning. “Good. You go with the blessing of the sun and the moon, Captain. My sister and I would not have selected you for this assignment if we did not think you capable of completing it. I wouldn’t worry too much. Ever since Queen Chrysalis was discovered and banished from our lands, there have been new claims almost monthly of ‘changeling activity’ all over Equestria. To date, all of them have either been unfounded accusations, or hoaxes.” A smile finally touched her lips, “I have no doubt that you will be with us again in time to review the troops before the annual Hearth's Warming Eve parade.”

“That many reports?” Hector blurted out the question before he could stop himself. The crown princess dismissed the outburst and replied.

“Paranoia is the strongest weapon of an enemy that can look like your closest friend until it’s too late. That is why discretion is your priority. If word were to get out of this operation, we’re quite certain Hearth's Warming this year will consist of nothing other than dispatching troops all over the country to keep the peace and allay the fears of the citizenry, while investigating more wild, baseless accusations. But we can never be certain which accusations are baseless until we investigate, which is why this task must be completed quickly, quietly, and immediately.”

“Unless thou hast any additional inquiries,” Luna quipped, “thou art dismissed. Make thy preparations and prepare to depart on the morning train to Manehattan. There is a ramshackle, unpopulated station for Little Hoofington on the way - only one train a day, in this case the morning train, stops there.”

“Yes Your Highnesses,” Hector replied. “I am honored by your trust in me. You won’t be disappointed.”

The two sovereigns nodded their approval.

“Orders, hup!” Hector called. He spun on his heels, and with his retinue already in formation behind him, marched from the throne room.


*   *   *   *   *


“How long will you be gone?” Chloe pined, her cappuccino brown mane dancing freely about her shoulders as she stuffed another water bottle into her husband’s pack.

Hector knew his wife’s moods even better than he knew Celestia’s - what she wasn’t expressing this time was how worried she was for him. He smiled reassuringly, sat his tea down, trotted up close across the spotless kitchen, and wrapped his lover in his embrace from behind, nuzzling into her mane.

“Relax,” he said softly. “It’ll only be for a few days.”

Chloe sighed deeply, frowning into a nearby mirror as she leaned possessively back against her mate. “Can’t you even tell me where you’re going?”

“Just that it’ll be cold this time of year.”

“Everywhere north of Appleoosa is cold this time of year!” Chloe complained. “You’re the captain of the royal guard! Can’t you, I dunno...delegate?”

“The princesses called upon me specifically for this task,” He explained, treating himself to an unabashed whiff of her favorite shampoo. “They have faith in me.”

“...so do I.”

“Then believe me when I say I’ll be back in time for Hearth's Warming,” He smiled, running his hooves up and down her forelegs from shoulder to elbow.

Chloe shut her eyes. In that moment, she focused her attention entirely upon recording every moment of their time together. His scent. His touch. Their closeness. When she glanced back into the mirror again, she found herself blushing like mad.

“You dirty stallion,” She cooed. “I hate it when you mollify me like that. And I hate even more than it works every time, and that I don’t really hate what I’m hating.”

She spun around in his embrace and pressed her lips to his. She was a strong-willed mare, with authority in her own circles and a reputation as the captain’s wife, but in private, she could revel in appreciating the cadence of his heartbeat as she laid her ear against his chest and stared up at him.

“You’re taking warm clothes with you,” she commanded. “Where’s your scarf?”

“Lost it in the laundry two weeks ago,” He admitted sheepishly. “Haven’t seen it since and and I don’t have time to tear the closet apart.”

“Then you’re taking mine,” she insisted. “And if anypony tells you you’re out of uniform for wearing it, you have my authorization to hoof them in the face.”

Hector pulled one foreleg from his wife and touched a hoof to his forehead in salute. “Yes, princess of my house. Any further orders?”

Chloe’s smile vanished, and the depth of her concern radiated throughout the room such that Hector instantly felt guilty that he had to keep the details of his assignment secret, even from her.

“Come back to me. I can tell you’re probably going north. The weather up there is punishing this time of year. Come back to me and let me keep you warm again.”

Hector flattened his ears - a gesture nopony who obeyed his orders would ever be so privileged to see - and borrowed another sweet kiss for the road.

“...always.”

Hector Silvermane was under strict orders to board the eastbound morning train without fanfare, and while drawing as little attention to himself as possible. As the engine pulled out of the station, he tugged a flowery pink scarf around his neck and looked up at the tall overlook of the posh residential quarters reserved for senior officers and their families. Even from so far away, he could see a tiny speck of blue waving at him.

He returned the gesture.

“...see you soon.”
> 2 - Little Hoofington
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Hector Silvermane kicked the wet, cloying snow from his hooves for what felt like the thousandth time in half an hour.

He had been on the same trail since the train dropped him off at a station so dilapidated and forgotten that he nearly felt sorry for the very floorboards themselves; as if they had been cruelly abandoned at birth by abusive trees. The conductor asked him twice if he really wanted to get off there. The only thing keeping the nearest train station to Little Hoofington functioning it all was the occasional party of shabbily dressed locals, standing on the platform with bits sufficient to purchase one-way tickets.

“Some board,” The conductor had said, “But nopony disembarks.”

Captain Silvermane banished the prattling semantics from his mind. Morning had already progressed into afternoon, and in the interest of time he followed the first and only trail he could find into the foothills. He was rewarded when wayward plumes of smoke on the horizon gave way to the tops of chimneys, and finally a guard station with a gate in the distance.

From his vantage outside its boundaries, Little Hoofington looked as though it had been built right into the side of the mountain in stood at the foot of. A modest stone perimeter wall emerged from the wall of stone behind the village, ran the semicircle length of it, and then disappeared back into the earth. Within were the homes and businesses he had been charged to investigate and protect.

Wasting no time, Hector rapped sharply on the tiny, outhouse-sized guardhouse that kept watch over the open gate. There was no response. Indignant at the idea the guardhouse would be unmanned in the middle of the afternoon, Hector looped his hoof around the door handle and yanked it open.

The hinges creaked dryly, and the tiny room revealed the image of a ruddy-looking male earth pony. Rocked back against the wall on a chair, his hind legs were crossed over the room’s small desk. His uniform - that of a lieutenant - was rumpled, and he wore a non-regulation beanie, complete with a little propeller, on the crown of his head. He was snoring, and the room positively stank of low-quality, stale turnip rum.

Silvermane furrowed his brow and barked. “Ten HUT!”

The snoring interloper didn’t move in the least, other than to grin and mumble something about hoofball. Incensed, Hector grabbed a heavy field manual from the desk in the glow of his magic and tossed it right into the stallion’s lap.

“Soldier!” He barked again. “You’re being called to attention by a superior officer! Look alive!”

With a clatter and a crash, the chair, the book, and the snoozing pony all ended up in a jumble on the floor. Eyes finally open, the pony in the tattered uniform, now on his stomach on the floor, looked around as if he was quite used to waking up in such a position. He glanced up, blinked a few times, and grinned broadly.

“Well! Aintchoo a purdy admiral!” He declared in a saucy voice. He pushed himself up from the floor and saw to his priorities - the open flask of rum on the desk. Finding it still half-filled with amber-colored liquid, he picked it up with his mouth, turned his head up to swallow a few gulps, and then balanced it on the flat of his hoof, pausing to let out a dramatic breath. “Gee Admiral, shore is nice t’meetcha! Don’t get many soldierin’ types ‘round here!”

Hector did his best to hide how appalling this entire scene was. His voice was clear, stern, and to anypony who wasn’t inebriated, menacing.

“Are you not a soldier, Lieutenant? There’s supposed to be a guard house in this village. Or did you win that uniform in a poker game?”

The stallion let out a guffawing, spitting laugh that reeked worse than the entire room. “Aw shucks Admiral, dontcha worry. I won it back every time I lost it!” He replied to the rhetorical question before laughing again. “Yanno they say yer eyes are the windows to yer soul. Yanno what that means? All ya gotta do is look somepony in the eye and you’ll win every time!” He offered the bottle, “Care for a snort?”

Hector pushed the revolting substance away. “Name and serial number, Lieutenant. And don’t think I won’t be mentioning drunkenness on duty to your commanding officer. Do you realize who I am?” He leaned in with the last word, showing off the crest on his helmet that even a raw recruit would recognize as the emblem of the royal palace. The ‘lieutenant’ leaned in and squinted at the emblem.

“...kinda looks like a butt,” he said plainly. A second later he finally chortled. “Oh, oh, OH, I get it! I’m sorry - yer the rear admiral!” He stood up straight and saluted...then collapsed into idiot laughter again. “R-rear....aw didja hear that? Darn I sure am funny, ain’t I? Ain’t I?”

“Where is your commanding officer, lietenant?” Hector growled. “If you don’t identify yourself and respond to my questions this instant, so help me I’ll--”

“Don’t bother none, Cap’n.” A gruff voice spoke from somewhere behind Silvermane. His training kicking in, he whirled on the spot until his eyes fell on a unicorn nag. She was bent with age, but managed to maintain a regal posture and came to attention with a sharp salute.

“Dusky Rose, Cap’n!” She announced. “Sherriff of the Little Hoofington Constabulary, at yer service, sir!”

Appreciative of a proper greeting, Hector relented and waved a hoof at the stallion in the guard box, who had gone back to his drinking. “Constable Rose. Good to meet you. Who - or what, is this supposed to be?”

Rose and her sergeant’s striped cutie mark remained at full attention. “We calls him ‘Beanie’, Sir. Don’t mind him none, Cap’n. He’s harmless.”

“Is he actually a soldier?” Hector asked incredulously.

Rose nodded. “Sure as ah’m older than yer momma, Sir!” She hesitated, “Er, pardon mah Prance talk.”

Hector dismissed the comment, “Where is the commander of the guard station for this town?”

Constable Rose cleared her throat, hesitating. “Afraid yer lookin’ at him over in that little box there, sir.”

Hector was shocked. “This...lout is the commander of the local guard station?”

Rose shrugged. “By default, seein’ as how he’s the only guard we ever had in decades, Cap’n. This ain’t Canterlot or Manehattan. The guard only got so many ponies to watch all of Equestria.” She puffed her chest and proudly presented the tin star on the light vest she was wearing. “But don’t worry. Ah take care of the law ‘round here. Ah can throw him in the drunk tank if y’want, Sir, but...ah’d just as soon not.”

Hector tapped his hoof impatiently. “Explain.”

“Well sir, y’see,” Rose coughed lightly. “Folks around these parts, they need a lot of cheerin’ up as of late. Ol’ Beanie there, he’s a barrel of fun and friendliness. Keeps folks calm and happy like, fer the most part. They really appreciate him bein’ around, Sir.”

“Shore!” Beanie declared, rocking back in his chair again. “Ah got friends all over town! Ah’m mannin the outposts, Admiral! Mah friendship is magical!”

Hector sighed. “Is he armed?”

“No sir,” Rose replied smartly, “Ain’t that stupid.”

Giving Beanie one last cursory glance, Hector moved away from the guard box. “I’d like a status report, Constable.”

Rose nodded and began marching her olive drab coat towards the gate. “Yes Sir! Yer hooves cold, Sir?”

Hector considered the question as he fell in. “As a matter of fact, I am a little...chilly. It’s quite a hike here from the train station. Why do you ask?” The vista before Hector’s eyes gradually changed from wilderness to snowed over, cobblestone streets with tightly packed homes and businesses.

Rose picked a street, “First we’ll take ya to the clinic. It’s Standard guard procedure to check yerself out after a hike like that, ain’t it? Then we’ll have a looksee around.”

Silvermane considered the elderly mare beside him as he walked. She knew when to salute, had knowledge of a rather insignificant guard procedure, and recognized his rank. Clearly she had been a guard herself at some point in her life, and that thought made Hector feel a little better about the shabby state of military affairs in Little Hoofington. He turned his attention to the streets, and immediately noticed something strange.

“That will be fine, Constable. But tell me...where are the street cleaners?” Hector glanced at the position of the sun, “It will be dark soon. Where are the lamp-lighters? And why hasn’t the snow been cleared from any of these residences?”

Constable Rose remained silent for a long time. She fell out of step and returned her marching walk to a normal gait. Hector thought he could see the age on her shoulders and brow more prominently than before.

“We’ll...get around to it, Cap’n. Ain’t a lotta ponies around to do that kinda work, and ain’t no point cleanin’ off a roost with no chickens in it.”

Hector’s questioning was cut off by the presence of a larger building with a red cross emblazoned over the door. The words ‘Sunshine Waffle Community Health’ were etched into a panel just below the cross, and winter-blooming flowers had been set out in a box under one window. Hector appreciated the touch of color in an otherwise steel gray and white world, thinking fondly on it as something Chloe would have had the attentiveness to do. He allowed himself to be led into a series of disinfected hallways, colored with bright imagery intended to soothe foals who were in need of a check-up.

“Maple!” Rose bellowed. “Where’d you git to, ya big ol’ buffalo? Buttermilk! Sweety where ya at? Ah done got y’all a patient here!”

“Oh!” A voice that sounded to Hector remarkably like the singsong of his wife called, “In the examination room, Miss Rose! Please bring them in!”

Hector was escorted behind a glass reception desk to another room painted in the gleaming whites and yellows of a cheery summer’s day. There were two examination beds, ample supply cabinets, and a desk with a rolling stool, occupied by a smiling, periwinkle Pegasus mare with a curly auburn mane and a sunrise for a cutie mark. She seemed awed by Silvermane’s armor, and was on her hooves in a flash.

“Oh my, is this the patient? He looks like a royal guard right out of Canterlot!”

Hector suddenly felt a need to remove his helmet. He grasped it in his magic and set it aside, allowing his silvery locks to flow freely. “You have a good eye, ma’am. I’m Captain Hector Silvermane of Her Majesties’ Royal Guard. I’ve come from Canterlot to check up on all of y--” he corrected, “to check up on your village.”

The mare clapped her hooves together in delight. Her movements were as much poetry as Chloe’s were to Silvermane. When he noticed the golden marital hoop in her ear however, he averted his eyes politely.

“Well! How delightful, Captain Silvermane! Why, I feel better already having a royal guard come to check up on us! But what seems to be the trouble that brought you to our clinic today?”

Hector cleared his throat. “Just...standard procedure, ma’am. I walked here in the snow, and--”

“Oh!” She cut him off, “You could have frostbite on your poor hooves!” She ruffled her feathers and gestured insistently to a table. “Please sit, sit! My name is Buttermilk Waffle. My many-times great grandmare Sunshine established this clinic ages ago to see to the health of those poor ponies who were working the mines at the time. Please get comfortable! I’d be more than happy to see to your health!”

Rose leaned back against a wall and folded her forelegs, “Her husband took her name,” she commented bemusedly. “Not that that ain’t uncommon in Equestria when y’think about it, But the Waffles are good folk with a solid reputation. If you get a chance to be a Waffle, you oughtta take it.”

Buttermilk was back on her stool as Hector took a seat, and she was already readying some equipment when she blushed. “Oh Miss Rose, you flatter us all!” She turned to Hector, “Maple Waffle, my husband, is a wonderful soul who simply wanted to honor me in his own way. It was such a touching gesture, how could I refuse?”

“Touch his kin though,” Rose commented, “An’ he’ll smack ya down till whatever’s left could be poured into one of those beakers over there.”

Hector felt a sudden need to defend the fair mare that was being so kind as to examine his hooves. “Constable--”

“No no Captain,” Buttermilk smiled, caressing the hoof of one of Hector’s hind legs in a way that made the proper guardspony uncomfortable. “Miss Rose is quite right. My husband is...protective, and he can be stubborn at times. Nopony’s perfect, they say. But I’ve borne him two wonderful children and he cares for us all. I love him very much. Oh, but you should meet them all!” Buttermilk turned her attention to the door and called out before Hector could say anything to the contrary. “Maple, darling! Please come in and meet our visitor! He’s a royal guard from Canterlot! Isn’t that lovely? Oh and bring the foals!”

A large, bulky pegasus stallion, whose pineapple yellow coat nearly blended with the walls, suddenly filled the doorway. Hector yanked at his hoof, feeling suddenly self-conscious over having this new stallion’s wife touching him, but Maple only nodded a greeting.

“So you’re a guard, huh?” Come to check on us? About time.”

“Dear, please,” Buttermilk scolded. “This is Captain Silvermane. He’s here to help us, so please set a good example so we can show them all in Canterlot that even out in our humble village, we know all about the magic of friendship.” She looked up to Hector with crocodile-eyes the size of dinner plates. “You are here to help us, aren’t you Captain?”

“Y-yes well,” Hector stammered, forcing himself to look at Maple’s asclepius cutie mark instead of his wife. “Of course, yes. This is just a checkup, however. Constable Rose is going to take me around town to get my bearings, and after that we’ll see about putting things right.”

Maple Waffle snorted. “They haven’t told you much, have they, Captain.”

A teenage colt and filly entered the room with noticeably dissimilar gaits. Like both their parents they were pegasi, but the fruity-red filly with bouncing curls like her mother’s glided in on her wings with boisterous glee, while the chocolate brown colt with a coal-black mane over his eyes sauntered about with a look of hideous boredom. Buttermilk nodded at each of them each in turn as she worked.

“Our children, Captain Silvermane. Strawberry Waffle and Chocolate Waffle.”

Strawberry, who bore a cutie mark that matched her name, landed and stepped up to nuzzle her father’s chest, who in turn wrapped his foreleg around her and grinned. “Apples of our eyes, they are.”

Hector glanced at the colt, named both for his coat color and the image of cocoa beans emblazoned on his flank. The boy’s ears were swiveling, suggesting he was paying attention, but his downtrodden gaze was on the floor. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there, but then, he didn’t look like he wanted to be anywhere at all. Buttermilk noticed the glance and softened her voice to just above a whisper.

“P-please forgive my son, Captain. He, well...we’re all doing our best to keep our spirits high. He’s having some...difficulty coping.” Distress climbing into her voice, she continued, “Times have been trying for us all.”

“Choco, hey,” Strawberry nudged her brother’s chin with her muzzle, “Daddy will take care of us. Daddy would never let anything bad happen to us.” She turned sharply to Hector, her voice and mannerisms somewhat juvenile even for her age, “My daddy is the best, you have nothing to worry about with him around, um...Sir!”

Maple scratched the back of his neck, though he seemed to accept the praise, puffing out his chest. “She speaks the truth, Captain. We’re grateful for your assistance, but never fear. The clinic is well protected. We’re one family that isn’t going to be intimidated.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Hector offered politely. Buttermilk pulled back and sat up on her stool.

“Captain, you have a clean bill of health.”

“Ah, thank you,” he replied, “What do I owe--”

Buttermilk interrupted with a wave of her elegant, periwinkle hoof, “We wouldn’t dream of it. You came here all the way from Canterlot just to help us all, Captain. I simply will not accept payment for helping you in return.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Maple added, softly stroking his daughter’s mane as she leaned against him. Hector got to his hooves and picked up his helmet.

“Well, it was nice meeting you all.” He sought for something comforting to say. “It’s...going to be alright.”

On his way out, Silvermane glanced at Chocolate Waffle and smiled. “Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll get ‘em.”

Chocolate simply looked at him with eyes that were a million miles away.


*   *   *   *   *


“Fancy a snort, Cap’n?” Constable Rose broke the silent rhythm of their hooves crunching snow in the streets. Hector made note of the silence and took no small discomfort in it.

“I’m on duty, Constable,” He replied.

“Well, what ah meant is,” Rose amended, waving a foreleg down the street, “There’s just one watering hole left that’s still runnin’ in town. Kitty’s Nip. Lotta ponies tend to congregate there. Safety in numbers an’ all. Ah figured you’d wanna meet some more of the townsponies.” Rose stared idly at the sky, “Miss Kitty calls the place that on account of...well, yanno, her name bein’ Kitty, and catnip, and...well y’all get what ah mean.”

Hector was only paying half attention to the constable’s words. The rest of his thoughts were focused entirely on the nature of the path upon which they trotted. As the cobblestones meandered to the far edge of town, a great chasm opened up in the earth and ran parallel to the course of the two ponies for several hundred yards, before the path turned away and moved back into the town proper. Hector peered down the side of the cliff, but found that it ran so deep, he couldn’t determine where the bottom was.

“How is this here?” He asked, asking the question from the perspective of a pony who assumed all of Little Hoofington’s surroundings went up, not down.

Rose glanced back and shrugged. “Yer in an old mining town, Cap’n. Them’s the mines down there. See yonder?” She pointed at the sheer rock face on the other side of the chasm. “Mountains run all the way along the north side of town. This here’s a cut in the earth that got bigger the more miners came in to chip at it way back when. It’s so steep, y’all can’t even walk down there. Lookit them ropes and baskets on them pulleys over there.”

Sure enough, Hector could make out a series of baskets large enough to fit two or three ponies plus some equipment, anchored in various places to the town side of the chasm. Peering down, he noticed a rope guidance system on pulleys, and a number of small caves in the side of the cliff face.

“That’s how they done it,” Rose went on. “Up ‘n down the wall like spiders. Clever, but precarious as hell. Accidents’n such. Ain’t nopony uses ‘em nomore. Not much minin’ to be had.”

Hector took note of the bit of local history and turned his attention back to the street. He noticed another larger building. There were no words to identify it, but a hanging sign laden with snow bore the stylized image of a cat rolling around with a ball of yarn. Rose lit her horn and fired a bolt of magic energy sufficient to swing and clear off the sign without damaging it.

“Mosta them miners weren’t literate,” she explained. “Pictures spoke louder. C’mon, let’s check it out.”

This time, the odor of turnip rum that assailed Hector’s nostrils was buffeted by the scents of various finer alcohols and sweet chasers, with a hint of lavender perfume in the air. The sounds hit him next - on the far wall of the large common room of Kitty’s Nip stood an old player piano, upon which a deep blue earth pony stallion with a rainbow-hued umbrella cutie mark was beating out a loud, spirited tune. To the right was a crackling hearth, above which rested a number of mining artifacts and a mural of what Hector suspected was Little Hoofington in its heyday - populated, sprawling, and by all rights nearly a century out of date.

Several round tables were spread out before the fire, two of which were occupied. Three ponies sat at one - two biscuit-white pegasi mares with similarly-styled manes were chatting with a lanky, rough, washed out earth stallion in a peasant hood who looked to Hector like a drifter. At the other table sat a bulky unicorn mare with aged armor plates. Her back was to the wall, and she returned Hector’s gaze with an appraising look of her own as the levitated and polished a well-loved machete.

“Well, look at what marched through the door!” A voice declared from off to the left. Hector turned towards the bar; behind its lacquered surface stood a made up, middle-aged, pale earth mare with too much eyeshadow and the look of a bridleway showmare about her. Her fire-brigade red mane fell in an intentionally ‘random’ series of curls around her face, spouting from a comb atop her head with an image of a rock and a miner’s pick on it. An emerald corset ran along her curves, just far enough to kiss the top of the ball of yarn protruding from a beer stein that served as her cutie mark. Her smile was broad, and she waved at the piano player without taking her eyes off of Hector.

“Hey Whim!” She called, “Look what we have here! Why, I declare this stallion has so much big brass on him, Celestia herself might trot through that door next!”

The piano player turned, looking completely away from the keys without ceasing his recitation, and grinned a cheery grin. “Ya’don’t say? Hi there General! Why not have a spell of dancing? Maybe we can get the whole room into it!”

Hector removed his helmet out of politeness again, but waved the invitation off as he approached the bar with the feel of eyes on his back from the direction of the tables. “Thank you, no.” He sat the helmet on the bar, got a look at his own regal countenance in the mirror behind it, and announced to the room: “I’m Hector Silvermane, A Captain in Her Majesties’ royal guard at Canterlot. As citizens of Equestria, I’ve been dispatched here to...” He chose his words carefully, “See to the continued safety and security of your community.”

“Oh?” A voice rose from the tables, and Hector took note of the lone, armored unicorn mare whose coat was as much a dusky, beaten copper as her armor. A cutie mark consisting of three golden bits surrounded a helmet on her exposed flank. “That’s a high office, Captain,” She observed. “Where’s the rest of the division you should be marching at the head of?”

Silvermane didn’t particularly want to inform any of these ponies that his lack of entourage was an attempt not to instill paranoid fear in the rest of Equestria. “I’m here as an...observer for the time being,” He then added: “You have a good eye for protocol. Like a guard might.”

“Ex-guard,” The mare offered, spinning the machete in little circles in the air before driving it point down into the table before her. “It’s a nice life, but I found I could make more bits doing it privately.” She nodded at Rose, “Constable there was a guard too, as I recall.”

Dusky Rose cackled like the old biddy she was. “By Celestia, Caveat! Y’all know ah retired half a coon’s age ago!” She proudly pushed out her chest, presenting the tin star on her beige vest. “Got peacekeepin’ in mah blood though. Ah’m gonna be pushin’ up daisies with a star in mah fluff someday, so help me.”

The armored mare called Caveat pulled the knife free and pointed it in Rose’s direction from across the room. “Just watch your tail, Tin Star,” she threatened. “I’m an honest pony, but if you’re one of those...things, I’ll do what I have to do.”

Rose’s horn lit up, her wrinkled brow furrowing. “Y’all try it. Ah got corns on mah hooves older’n you. More experience, too.”

“Ahem!” Hector spoke up, interposing himself between the two mares as the music stopped. “Constable Rose. Miss Caveat--”

“I ain’t no ‘Miss’,” Caveat insisted.

“Caveat,” Hector appended. “On the authority of the royal house, I’ve assumed overall command of law enforcement duties in Little Hoofington until further notice. I won’t have brawling.”

Caveat’s knife vanished into a leather scabbard on her belt. Slowly. “Understood, Captain.”

Rose doused her horn. “Reckon ah weren’t plannin’ to start anything, Cap’n. Only finish it if needs be.”

“Well!” The mare behind the bar clapped her hooves together once. “Constable, Captain, please. Have a seat at the bar.” Her smile showed only the slightest signs of age-wilting. “Captain, I’m Kitty Contessa, and this is my place, Kitty’s Nip. On behalf of all of Little Hoofington, may I welcome you to town with a ‘nip’ of whatever your pleasure is. On the house, of course. I for one feel better already with the presence of a royal guard in our midst.”

Whim began playing again. With the situation diffused, Hector found a stool at the bar but held up his hoof. “You’re very kind ma’am, but I’m on duty.”

Kitty didn’t skip a beat. “Coffee then. You’re not a pegasus, dear, so you must have hiked all the way through those awful hills, and in this snow! You need something warm-” She batted her curled lashes, “Yes?”

“I...” Hector cleared his throat and looked away. “Thank you ma’am, but--”

“Not coffee?” Kitty stated plainly, slapping a steaming cup of something else down on the counter. “Tea then! You look like a stallion that might approve of a hint of fine bergamot rather than a robust dark roast.”

Hector lifted the delicate cup in his magic and took a long breath of it, allowing the aroma to seep into his chilled core. “I do, ma’am. You’re very perceptive, thank you.”

Kitty sang out a laugh and stepped back to fill a wooden bowl with beer nuts. “I have to be perceptive in my line of work, dear Captain. I used to be the proprietress of a drinking hole in a dried up mining town. Now I’m the proprietress of the only drinking hole in a dried up mining town.” Her expression faltered. “Keeping ponies merry is more of a responsibility than it sounds like.”

Hector absorbed the bitterness of the information on the cusp of his soothing drink. He wanted to question Constable Rose further - find out what was really going on in Little Hoofington. But his better judgement told him to wait. If the townsponies were as in need of good cheer as Kitty suggested, it was the wrong time to broach such a topic. Instead, he kept to his observations.

“Hiya General!” A voice greeted him, and Hector turned his attention to the royal blue stallion in a ridiculously garish necktie called Whim. He slipped behind the bar as if it were natural to do so and rested his forelegs on it, looking as though he were settling in for a campfire story. “So you’re from all the way in Canterlot, huh? We don’t get many visitors ‘cept for the twins over there. How about some cool soldiering stories?”

Hector’s eye moved to the two similar-looking mares conversing with the rough stallion at a table. “Stories...?”

“Oh,” Whim grinned like he had peanut butter on his gums, “That’s what I do, General! I’m a storyteller!”

“Yer a clockmaker,” Rose interjected.

“Oh psh!” Whim scoffed. “Nopony needs clocks right now! General--” he turned his attention back to Hector, his smile evening out. “What ponies need right now is some comfort. Something to take their minds off their troubles. Now I happen to have a talent for tales short and tall. My brother’s kids used to love it. I’m also none too bad with an upright and a set of pearly keys, so I said to myself, ‘You know, Whim? You should do you part to give a hoof to your fellow townsponies!’ I don’t know much about guarding and healing and all that, but you’d be surprised how many ponies appreciate something as simple as a nice web spun around a warm hearth, with some musical accompaniment!”

“Just check reality at the door,” Kitty laughed. “Yesterday Whim was telling us about the time he flew with the Wonderbolts.”

Whim, clearly an earth pony, held up his hooves in a gesture of submission and smiled. “They drummed me out for making them look bad with my moves! Oh, it doesn’t matter how tall the tale is, so long as somepony gets good cheer out of it. Wouldn’t you say, General?”

Despite his sense of decorum, Hector found his lip turning up in a small smile. Warmth in his tummy, a good drink, and some simple camaraderie. He nodded his approval.

“Can’t say you’re wrong, Mister Whim. It’s admirable of you to take up the charge.”

“Mister!?” Whim made an obviously pretend show of offense and took to twirling his loud tie. “Please, General! Just Whim will do. Or on more formal occasions, ‘The Reverend, His Royal Highness, Your Honor Whim, Esquire’.”

“He has no idea what ‘esquire’ means,” Kitty giggled.

“It’s true! I don’t!”

Kitty began mixing a drink without taking any orders for one. “Captain, Whim and I are...doing our best to make Kitty’s Nip a welcome respite for our neighbors. If there’s anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Hector nodded and glanced again at the tables. “I’d like to know more about your patrons if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Kitty. Do they come here often?”

Kitty slid something that looked like a mint julep over to Whim and began organizing ingredients for another concoction. “Caveat came here a few years ago. She claims she quit the guard, but...well, our town isn’t exactly the sort of place ponies go to pursue other opportunities. I can’t tell you much about her dear, other than she pays her bills, never runs up a tab, and she made a better living when there were more ponies around here in need of her services. You’d think ponies would want a personal guard around even more than usual, except--”

Rose, who had been silent just long enough for Hector to forget her presence, cut in, “Exceptin’ she might be one o’ those dirty critters scurryin’ about at night.”

“Constable, you don’t know that,” Kitty admonished gently. “And forgive me, but in all honesty, any of us could be something other than we seem. Even you.”

“Me!?” Rose sputtered in offense, “Spoken like a true conspirator what wants the heat off ‘em! Lansakes, I’ll tell you what - I see ponies goin’ out in the dark, and I’ll warn y’all right now not to be knockin’ on mah door at night!” Her horn flashed, “Ah don’t ask intruders questions first!”

“Constable please,” Hector warned. This time he put his hoof on Rose’s shoulder. The old mare’s magic winked out, and Silvermane saw once again the weakness of age in her eyes.

“...beg pardon, Cap’n. It’s just...well ah’m a duly appointed servant of the law, and...well it’s just frustratin’ around these parts as of late.”

“It’s all right dear,” Kitty cooed, pushing something alcoholic towards Rose that the old nag took up in her magic without pause. “We’re all on edge. Have a drink and relax--” She turned to Silvermane, “With your approval of course, Captain.”

Hector merely nodded again. He didn’t approve of the town Sherriff drinking on duty, but begrudged that Rose’s hackles had gone up too many times already. Just one might do well to calm her down. Kitty continued to answer his question.

“Those two pretty fillies at that table over there claim they’re twins. With the way they look so similar, I believe it. Not from around here though. They’ve only been in town a week, from Manehattan.”

Hector raised a brow and glanced at the mares. The only difference between them physically was the glasses the more excited of the two wore. The other smiled periodically, but her expressions varied and she didn’t speak as often. The idea that anypony would come here willingly fanned Hector’s curiosity.

“Did they say why?” He asked absently as the piano music began again.

“The one with the glasses said something about ‘hexes’,” Kitty replied. “The other one doesn’t seem quite as interested. That stallion with them is Stringbean, a local. Miner in a dried up town. Kind of a hard luck case, but I don’t think he has anywhere else do go. Stubborn as a mule though. Still goes down in the mines looking for his treasure.”

Hector got up, finished his tea, and approached the table on his own. He wasn’t hard to notice in his finery of his armor, and the three ponies abruptly ceased their conversation to address him. The bespectacled young mare bearing a sheet of folded notebook paper for a cutie mark spoke first.

“Oh, hello! You’re really from the royal palace?” Hector nodded, and her grin broadened all the more. “Are you here for Cadabra?”

Hector raised a brow. “I’m sorry, but...Cadabra?”

Seeing the lack of recognition in his eyes, the mare lowered her voice and began looking around as though she were expecting eavesdroppers. She pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. I’m Scoops.” She waved at the other mare, “This is my sister, Specs.”

“Elder sister,” Specs amended.

“By two minutes!” Scoops complained. “A-anyway, ponies get us confused a lot on account of how we look so similar, and my sister’s name.”

Specs piped up, “And because I’m not the one with the glasses. I got my name because I have good eyes, not bad ones. I watch things.”

“My eyes aren’t that bad!” Scoops insisted, turning back to Hector to continue her explanation as she sipped on a beverage so sweet, he could smell the molasses. “My sister just came with me because she likes to stick her muzzle in what I do.”

“I’m looking out for you,” Specs insisted. “You’ll get yourself in trouble otherwise.”

Hector waited for them to squabble again, but Scoops only smiled softly. “Yeah...I know. Thanks sis. Anyway, we’re from Manehattan. I run a column in one of the smaller newspapers, the Mane Examiner?” She paused, hopeful for recognition on Hector’s face. When she didn’t receive any, she moved on with an expression as though she expected as much. “It’s all about the occult and the supernatural. I’m always looking for a good story.” She puffed up with pride, “I investigated The Weeping Windigo of Vanhoover, The Appaloosa Strangler, and even the Thirteen Bumps in the Whinnyapolis Night!”

Hector had no idea what the young pegasus was talking about, but he made an effort to be polite. “And you and your sister came here because of something called...’Cadabra’?”

“Not something,” Scoops corrected, “Somepony. Cadabra Smile, the evil wizard that runs the local Cult of the Night!”

Specs rolled her eyes, “She’s not an evil wizard, Scoops. She’s just a Night worshipper.” She looked at Hector, “You must have heard about that if you’re from Canterlot, right? The ponies who consider Princess Luna to be their patron saint? It’s common among fireponies, and ponies who believe ‘The Night’ should be respected, for fear that to disrespect it might mean the return of Nightmare Moon.”

“They stay up a lot at night,” Scoops took over, “They do weird rituals too. It’s totally a cult. Like they believe if they don’t do all kinds of weird things, Princess Luna will think nopony cares about her night again, and she’ll, you know--” She touched her hoof to her temple and spun it in a circle, “Go all nutty again. Like there’s some other force out there controlling whether that happens. They call it ‘The Nightmare’, or just ‘The Night’”.

Hector found his attention captured further than he intended by the sisters’ story. “Are you two aware of the situation in this village currently?”

“Oh yes!” Scoops replied quickly. “That’s why we came here! Y’see, I ran into a pony from Little Hoofington back in Manehattan who told me about weird stuff going on up here, and about this pony in this tiny village that was running a Cult of the Night. Nopony even knows about it! Can you believe the story this is gonna turn into? Occult groups all over Equestria are gonna want to know all about this!”

Hector tried not to cringe. “Listen, both of you. I appreciate your...enthusiasm, but you really shouldn’t stay in this village. At least, not for the time being. There is an investigation being conducted by the royal house, and until that business has been concluded, I cannot vouch for your continued safety. I’d like the both of you on the morning train back to Manehatten.”

Specs seemed relieved. Scoops looked crushed.

“Whaaat? C-captain Silvermane, please! This could be the occult discovery of a lifetime, with all the things that have been happening in this village. I-I can help you with your investigation!” Scoops sputtered, “Whatever’s going on here, you can bet Cadabra Smile is behind it! If she’s running a Cult of the Night, she’s sure to be out when everypony else is asleep! Just let me go out tonight and check her out--”

“No.” Hector insisted, enough firmness in his tone to shut the young mare down. “I am truly sorry to inconvenience the both of you, but unlike the other residents of Little Hoofington, you have someplace to go. I’m afraid I would have to consider anything you do to be potentially impeding the official investigation, so...I’m very sorry. You’re welcome to come back when this has all blown over. But you need to go home in the morning.”

“B-but that’ll be too late...”

Specs laid a hoof on her sister’s shoulder, the latter looking utterly crestfallen. “Sis, it’s for the best. You heard the captain. The royal guard are only trying to protect everypony, and that’s a big job. We should stay out of their way.”

“But...” Scoops blubbered, “But...oh...f-fine!” Abruptly she shoved her chair back, the legs screeching across the hardwood floor. “Fine, I...I understand. But I’m telling you, if you’re an investigator? It’s Cadabra you should be investigating. You’d be a complete idiot not to suspect her. They say that Night Cult extremists aren’t above...” she lowered her voice, “...pony sacrifice.”

With that, Scoops stormed towards the stairs. Specs rose, flexed her wings, tousled the ruddy brown curls she and her sister shared, and addressed Hector in passing.

“Don’t worry about her. I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. Miss Kitty is letting us stay in a room upstairs, so we’ll be safe there. And, um,” she hesitated, and a gentle blush touched her light, young cheeks. “...thanks. I worry about my sister when she goes to extremes. This is just the excuse I needed to keep her safe.”

Hector found himself alone at the table with the unfortunate earth pony miner called Stringbean. Silent all this time, he finally took a swig from his mug of ale and flicked an ear along its socket in his hood.

“They’re nice girls,” he said, his voice gruff and monotone. “I told ‘em some stuff they wanted to know. The older one’s right though. They shouldn’t be here. Nopony should be here.”

Hector tilted his head slightly. “If you believe that, what are you doing here?”

Stringbean’s expression was so bland, Hector could barely distinguish it from that of Chocolate Waffle. “Don’t got noplace else to go. But something bad’s going down in this village, Cap’n. I don’t give a damn about it. I don’t give a damn about anything but crunching the last little bit of ore out of these rocks. Ain’t been no gold for a long time, but I can put enough raw materials together to at least buy my way into some other city and make a new start. Soon as I got enough, I’m outta here.”

Hector considered the stallion’s claims. Unlike the two young pegasi he wanted out of town as quickly as possible, he found himself preferring this one to stay for a while. At least until the investigation was concluded.

“I see.”

Stringbean rose as well, downing the last of his drink and wiping the froth from his lips. The earthen cloak he wore obscured his cutie mark and gave him an overall look as though he had been rolling in dust. “Those girls are nice,” he repeated. “Real nice. Be a damn shame if something happened to ‘em.”

Hector watched as Stringbean disappeared into the waning light of late afternoon. Caveat’s table was empty; Hector saw no sign of the armored mare. Collecting Constable Rose and bidding Kitty Contessa a good evening, Hector left Kitty’s Nip to the sound of a slow showtune being tapped out on the piano.


*   *   *   *   *


The pair of law enforcers trotted silently until a humble building bearing the star of justice came into view. The Constabulary looked more to Hector like a home in its own right, with an ample porch and rocking chairs that made the building resemble an Appaloosan jailhouse. The stairs creaked with age, and a plaque outside the front door depicted a year of establishment that far predated any living pony who wasn’t a princess. Hector had been silently observing thus far, but his tongue would no longer be held.

“Constable Rose,” He addressed his guide while glancing at the sky of early evening, “The night is still young. I’d like to meet some other members of the local population.”

Rose snerked as she held the door open for Silvermane to pass through first. “Yer about to do that. Ain’t much else to see out yonder.”

Hector considered the strange statement and the modest accommodations inside the constabulary. The inside looked as much like a home as the outside - if it weren’t for a number of desks stacked with paper, extra chairs, a few bulletin boards crowded with notes, and three empty jail cells lining the rear wall, the crackling hearth and comfortable rug might have made him believe he was being shown to a room for the night. The smell of stale coffee was in the air, and Hector immediately noticed two ponies in the room - an orange earth stallion in a ten-gallon hat with a keyring and a vest like Rose’s; and a lime green unicorn mare with glasses, a short, scruffy mauve mane, and an image of a magnifying glass on her flank, who was levitating a pad of paper.

“Trotter!” Rose scowled. “Git up offa that couch ‘n show some respect! This here’s Heckter Silvermane. He’s a Cap’n in the royal guard an’ he’s come here to help us out!”

The stallion rose too slowly and casually for Hector’s taste, but he did offer a proper salute. “Sir. Nice to see we’re getting’ some attention here, finally.”

“This here’s Beat Trotter,” Rose explained. “He’s the Deputy. An’ before you ask, Cap’n, Ah’m the sherriff and he’s the deputy. That’s all we got.”

Beat Trotter looked solemn. “...ain’t nopony else wants to stick their neck out nomore.”

Hector nodded a greeting and glanced at the small mare with a pencil behind her ear. “We have official business to discuss. Is she...?”

Rose waved the concern off. “Aw, she’s alright. She ain’t been deputized but she might as well have been by now. Tell him yer name, Whatzit.”

“Whatzit...?” Hector repeated, scrunching his muzzle at the odd word. The mare stood and smiled, extending her hoof.

“Autumn Dew Drop Jelly Passion Rainbow,” She recited. “My father was a poet, and my mother was...kinda ‘New Age’,” She offered by way of explanation. “Whatzit is easier to say, but you can use any of those words you want. ‘Zit’ is probably the simplest thing that I’m used to responding to. And don’t worry, I realize you’re not calling me a pimple.”

Hector bumped the offered hoof and took a moment to absorb the curious explanation. “Ah...nice to meet you then...Zit.”

“Mmhm!” Zit replied, “You too Captain! We sure could use somepony like you around here right now!”

Rose injected herself into the conversation. “Whatzit here used to work at the baker’s, but that closed up. Then she moved to th’florist…but then that closed up. Then--”

Whatzit interrupted, “I’ve also been a barista, a waitress, a bookkeeper, and a clerk at an asparagus stand.” She smiled wanly, “My parents died in the mines years ago and the village kind of…took me in. Everypony here is…kinda like family to me.”

Beat Trotter closed in and added his low voice to the conversation, his keys jangling as he moved. “Whatzit here has a real good eye for detail. There ain’t no place left for her to work, so she’s been doin’ private dick work for us.”

“Y’all can say whatever y’need to say around her, Cap’n,” Rose assured.

Hector examined the perky young mare called ‘Whatzit’. Her posture and the gleam in her eye suggested she was eager to be put to work. She was probably around the age of the twins, but she didn’t come off quite as naive as Scoops. Finally, Hector nodded his acceptance.

“Alright. First thing’s first.” He walked into the room proper and glanced about. “Constable, the night is still young but you didn’t take me to meet any other pony in town. And now you’re all telling me that Zit here has nowhere else to work. Little Hoofington has a reported population of one-hundred sixty-six. Why have I not made the acquaintance of any of the other one hundred and fifty-two ponies in town?

The other three ponies in the room exchanged muted glances, each of them appearing to be encouraging the others to speak first. Rose spoke, and for the first time Hector saw the grizzled constable flatten her ears under her snowy mane.

“...ain’t nuthin’ else to look at.”

Hector wasn’t in the mood for additional detective work. “What does that mean, constable?”

Whatzit spoke up. “Wh-what she means, Captain, is that...well...” She trailed off, Beat Trotter finally picking up her slack.

“About two dozen of ‘em left in the past couple months. Mostly folks with little colts and fillies.”

Hector was tapping his hoof. “And what about the other one hundred and twenty-eight?”

There was more hesitation. Rose and Trotter began tumbling snippets of conversation over one another:

“...ol’ Granny Corncob died from the fever last year...”

“...Slate Quarry got caught by a cave-in six months ago. Poor guy...”

“...Double Dare choked on a chicken bone. Damnest thing I ever saw, a pony tryin’ to eat a chicken bone…never could turn down a bit, that one...”

Hector stopped listening. He bore his gaze into the only pony who was looking him in the eye, and Whatzit withered under it.

“...they’re dead, Captain Silvermane.” Whatzit swallowed. “But the population numbers are slightly off.” She raised her pad of paper and examined it, “In the past year, five ponies have died of various causes in this village. Accounting for the twenty-four who left in the last few weeks, that leaves...one-hundred thirty-seven. Counting Specs and Scoops,” She added with a hasty bow of her head, “...just for completeness’ sake.

“I have met exactly fourteen ponies since my arrival, Zit,” Hector announced, running the numbers in his head.

“He ain’t met Cadabra or Lora yet,” Rose interrupted.

“Sixteen ponies,” Hector corrected, staring the older mare into silence. “What is the current population of Little Hoofington?”

Whatzit glanced at her notepad but thought the better of answering slowly. “There are currently...six pegasi, five earth ponies, and five unicorns in Little Hoofington...well, six unicorns including you now, Sir.”

Hector’s square jaw dropped.

“Are you three trying to tell me that there have been one-hundred and twenty-one unexplained deaths in Little Hoofington in a matter of weeks!?”

“They ain’t unexplained,” Rose offered, her cowed tone now that of a crusty old nag. “We know what happened to ‘em. An’ who did it.”

“Who 'did' it? You mean they were all murdered!?” Silvermane was shouting now, “And you know who the killer is, but they remain at large!? Constable, I’ve heard of incompetent policework before, but this sort of negligence borders on a crime in its own right! Why in the name of the Sun and the Moon have you not arres--”

“She can’t, Captain!” In an unexpected show of defiance, little Whatzit interposed herself between the guard captain and the two mortified local peacekeepers. She took a breath and began again. “She can’t, Captain. The killers are changelings. They can...” her eyes darted around the room. “...they can be any one of us, at any time.

Rose covered her star with a hoof as though she were ashamed of it. “At first, some folks said they caught other folks actin’ funny. Like old friends that didn’t seem familiar no more. But by the time we all caught on...it was too late. Those critters wised up. Had time to watch the targets they were standin’ in for. We...can’t tell who’s who no more.”

“We can’t just arrest the whole town,” Beat Trotter added. “An’ we can’t call for help, because...well...”

“Because why, deputy?” Hector demanded.

Rose shut her eyes, feeling disgusted with herself, and replied. “...we’re skeered, Cap’n. Everypony in town, even th’ ones that are puttin’ on a show of it, are skeered. We dunno who to trust. So far anypony what’s had a notion to leave and bring back help always turns up dead.”

“What about those who simply left town?” Hector pointed out. “Why haven’t any of them brought back help?”

“Well sir,” Whatzit stepped out from her companions and up to one of the bulletin boards, which held a series of timeline events. “At first we thought there was simply a disease going around. But even then, the death toll wasn’t very high. The ponies who fled, well I can’t speak for them directly, but the general consensus was that they didn’t want to be around sick ponies for fear of catching whatever they had. They weren’t aware that a string of murders had been occurring. And, well...” she adjusted her glasses, “...Little Hoofington isn’t a lavish place to live. Some of them might have simply wanted an excuse to uproot and leave.”

Hector, who didn’t much care for the idea of stale black coffee, poured himself a cup anyway and downed it like a shot. “So what you’re telling me is, a changeling killer is masquerading as somepony among you, and has committed over one hundred murders, and you have nothing to do but wait around until he or she kills you all?”

“Prolly ain’t just one,” Rose dodged the question and puttered around the room as she spoke. “Ah learned a few things about changeling huntin’ packs way back in the guard. You ever been up against one, Cap’n?”

Silvermane felt some of his bravado escape him. “...no. I was stationed in Baltimare when Queen Chrysalis attempted to conquer Canterlot.”

“Well, ah kin tell you,” Rose continued, “That a changeling that don’t wanna be found bad enough? Can’t just be up an’ found by any old pony. They know that we know each other better than just what we all look like. You give em time, and they learn. And they ain’t stupid. If ever y’see one actin’ all by itself, it’s either by accident, or it’s rabid or insane or somethin’. The smallest changeling hunting packs are never smaller than four, and they all got roles.”

Rose’s wanderings took her to a chalkboard. She levitated a piece of chalk in her magic and began to draw a crude flowchart.

“At the top, you got yer ‘Queen’. Course she ain’t the queen of all the changeling nation, but some folks think Chrysalis is the only female changeling there is, and the whole shebang is all like honeybees or somethin’. That ain’t right. Sure there ain’t many females, but they do exist, and they pretty much always end up with a group of males servin’ ‘em, makin’ their own little broods under the main one. Next, you got the ‘Drone’. He’s big and he’s bad, and he does the killin’. Course that don’t mean the Queen ain’t doin’ no killin’, but he’s usually the one that goes out and brings in pony love for the rest of ‘em to feed on. After that, it depends how big the brood is. With more than four, you can bet there will be more of every role, up until you got yerself an army, but with the smallest broods? There’s prolly one or two runts buzzin’ around somewheres. They ain’t much use for killin’, but they’re smart. They can play roles even better than the drone can, and they can make you think the changelings are yer best friend, while y’go out there and lynch your buddies for ‘em.”

“If that’s the case, Constable,” Hector asked, “Haven’t you been able to draw any conclusions from the behavior you already know a small changeling brood to have?”

Rose stared at the board, refusing to turn around. “...ah got mah suspicions. But ah can’t just go around arrestin’ folks without no proof.”

Finally she turned, “But you can, Cap’n.”

“Yanno,” Trotter spoke up, “To be fair, Captain...any one of us in this room could be a changeling, right this very minute. Even you. None of us ever seen you around before and nopony knew you were comin’, after all.”

Silence ensued. It grew thicker, until Whatzit felt an instinctive need to slice into it with her words.

“We can’t just succumb to paranoia. We have to put our trust in somepony, otherwise we’d have nothing but anarchy. But Captain Silvermane...” She paused, “...there’s something else you need to know. There’s…another spoke in the wheel that turns the entire theory we have so far on its head.” She turned to Rose, “Um, Miss Rose...”

Hector waited. Rose seemed to pale despite her coloring, and stiffly nodded at Trotter. “Show ‘em, Beat.”

Beat Trotter waved Hector into a small room that was empty except for a lamp, and two rectangular tables...each with a covered bundle laying atop it. Whatzit took a deep breath, pushed past the crowd, and approached one of the tables.

“This...is what we thought was a...disease.”

Shutting her eyes, she nabbed the sheet in her magic and yanked it hard off of the bundle.

On the table lay an object that looked to Hector like a grotesque sculpture of a pony. It was vaguely pink - its limbs stiff and twisted, its forelegs bent like a praying mantis. Its tail and mane were nothing but a few scant hairs sticking up from its coat, and its wings were plucked like a chicken - the feathers having fallen out in death to leave nothing but stumps. Hector dared to reach out. There was no softness or warmth in the body. Just a hard, leathery, desiccated lump of flesh and muscle with a mangy coat stretched atop it. The corpse’s eyes had dried and shrunken in its sockets like raisins, and there was a misshapen blotch on its flank that Hector assumed was once a cutie mark.

“Changeling attack,” Rose was suddenly at Hector’s side. “Poor Miss Bead used to be a jeweler. Folks would bring her whatever shiny stones they found around the mines, and she’d fashion ‘em into some pretty trinket. Dang critters sucked all the love right outta her. Ain’t nopony deserves to die like that.” Rose lowered her voice out of respect for the dead. “The love in our hearts is what makes us ponies. I hear havin’ it all taken away from you, well...there almost ain’t no more painful, horrible way to die.”

“‘Almost’?” Hector drew his hoof back. He stared hard at the corpse, as if distracting his brain with inspecting it would keep him from being disgusted by it. “...so what’s the extra spoke in the wheel?”

Whatzit nodded at the other bundle. “Over there, Sir.”

This time, nopony moved to displace the sheet. Hector approached the bundle and took the sheet in his own magic. He steeled himself against whatever might lay beneath it...

...but choked anyway at what his eyes fell upon.

The lump of flesh under the sheet was nothing like the dried remains of the pony that lay beside it. Hector ventured that he was looking at a unicorn, but only because its head had the jagged remnants of a stump protruding from it. The corpse was missing chunks of its coat, but unlike the other body where much of it appeared to have fallen away, this one looked as though it had been violently torn out. The same held true for its mane and tail, which were nothing but an incongruent pattern of stringy stalks and tufts. Its hind legs were slightly parted, but there was so much puncture damage Hector couldn’t make out the pony’s gender. One eye was simply gone, while the other, bloodshot and glazed over, stared up at him, its mouth open, as if pleading for release from an eternity of damnation. The body was twisted at an impossible angle for a spine to assume, and its hind legs were flopped over one another in such a way that the bones inside must have been crushed to powder. The cadaver had bled copiously from every opening in its body. One leg looked as though it had been gnawed off by a wild animal at the elbow, and there were so many ‘smiley face’ gashes in its neck that bone spurs were pressing against its throat from the position of the lolling head.

Hector stepped back and held a hoof to his mouth. Rose gave him a moment.

“Look there, Cap’n.”

Hector opened his eyes and noticed the pony’s flank. Where its cutie mark should have been, there was nothing but a pattern of slice marks in the shape of an X.

“There’s only one pony what does that,” Trotter spoke up. “Kills so...awful like that, and then takes yer cutie mark away. Ever our little village has heard of her.”

Hector called up his memory files and sifted through them. When he came upon the correct folder, it was as though the room was spinning at an opposite axis to the rest of his world.

“...Pinkamena.”

Whatzit was by the door now, levitating a handkerchief over her muzzle. Everypony nodded in unison.

“But...Pinkamena...” Hector stammered, “...isn’t she dead?”

Whatzit spoke up. “Actually Captain, that’s a common misconception. I...well I like to read, and...I heard that she was tried and imprisoned three times in the Canterlot dungeons. But she escaped every time.”

Hector nodded, remembering the story that predated his tenure as a guard captain. “They said that she could do the impossible. Fly with her tail. Bend her body in ways no pony can. Before she...snapped, he had been such a good friend to Princess Twilight and had helped save Equestria so many times that they didn’t want to hang her. Every time they felt they could get through and rehabilitate her.” And every time, she got away. Killed again.”

Hector replaced the sheets and left the room, the other ponies in tow. “The fourth time they resolved to finally have her executed, but she vanished into the hills, and somehow managed to elude the best trackers in the country. That was two years ago. Eventually it was assumed she died somewhere in the wilderness of exposure, but…they never found her body.”

Whatzit poured herself a cup of stale coffee. She let it seep through her body before taking up the tale. “They say she has an obsession with cutie marks, and she believes that she will be the most beautiful pony ever if she fashions a cloak from the cutie marks of other ponies. She’s clever, too. She’s a master of disguise and can hide among other ponies almost as well as a changeling, but she goes crazy at the sight of blood and does...horrible, horrible things.”

Hector’s annoyance over the perceived incompetence of these ponies turned to sympathy. A small town, isolated and unprepared, set upon by changeling hunters, while at the same time Pinkamena just happens to wander out of obscurity and chance upon them.

“Have you seen her?” He asked of nopony in particular.

“Naw,” Rose replied. “But it’s her. Ain’t no other pony would ever do what y’saw in that room.” She nodded at the antechamber with the corpses and digressed, “Ground’s too hard this time of year to dig graves. Those two were just found yesterday. We...we just been stackin’ em up in a warehouse near the cliffs. The cold’ll keep them from stinkin’, and nopony, yanno...” she looked down, “...nopony hasta see ‘em. We ain’t seen Pinkamena, but then, we ain’t seen none of the changelings, neither. Prolly just as much under our muzzles as they are. Could be yer best bud and you’d never know it. Could even be somepony you hate, just to trick you into thinkin’ it can’t possibly be the obvious answer.”

“We can’t trust anything anymore, Captain,” Whatzit said. “All of the monsters in our town are professionals at this. We...some of us are hoping Pinkamena will kill the changelings for us, and...maybe there will be so few of us left that...we’ll be able to...figure out who she is.”

Beat Trotter leaned against a wall, folded his forelegs, and tipped his hat down. “We’re all just waitin’ to die.”

The situation was far more dire than Hector ever expected it to be. He thought of home and his wife, and tucked the frilly shawl still around his neck in closer, a shiver running through him.

“We need to get help,” He concluded.

Rose shook her head and pointed at the window. “No good Cap’n.”

Outside, the snow had kicked up into a frenzy, and the winds were licking at the edges of the building, making it creak slightly. Rose went on.

“I been in this town long enough to know how th’weather works. A squall like that? Sun won’t be able to clear away what that dumps on us for at least a week. Ain’t nopony gonna come check on us, neither. Never have before. Ain’t no reason to now. You just try gettin’ out to Cloudsdale to tell them weather ponies to turn it off.”

Whatzit brought another steaming cup of coffee over to Hector, passing it from magic to magic with a nervous smile. “Captain Silvermane, you’re the highest authority in town, now. What happens next is...your decision.”

His mind reeling with names, faces, and grim facts, Hector Silvermane plopped down on the couch in front of the fire and watched the storm rage.
> 3 - Half a Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hector Silvermane could not remember exactly when he stumbled up the rickety stairs of Little Hoofington’s homely constabulary in search of a soft place to sleep. Having given no credit to his exhaustion, his memories of the previous few hours were tangled in the tendrils of dreams, resulting in impossible scenarios like his dear wife showing up to comfort him, or a blazing sword in his possession that he could strike down his enemies with. He grinned ridiculously, making cooing noises with his cheek smashed against a squeaky mattress in a loft room, until a harsh rapping at a thin door jolted him awake.

“Captain Silvermane!” A muffled voice cried, “Captain Silvermane! Come quickly!!”

Roused and armored in less than a minute, Hector was in the hallway with a bluster that nearly knocked the unsound door off its hinges. He glanced at a window, noting the reflection of late morning light off of the fresh coating of snow. Before him stood Whatzit, her familiar green coat trembling with the throbbing of her heart.

“...did I really sleep so long...?” He wondered aloud, ashamed at his failure to be up with the sun. Whatzit was already halfway down the stairs.

“Captain, we need you in the street! Please hurry!”

Silvermane fell in with his new guide. When he stepped into the frigid morning, he found himself more grateful than ever for the token of his wife’s affection wrapped cozily about his neck. A fresh coating of snow had taken over the town, reflecting the sunlight back at him so brightly that he couldn’t examine the larger, pristine mounds of it for long. The street remained somewhat clear just from the previous efforts of the locals. He could still feel the cobblestones beneath his hooves as he galloped along, even if he couldn’t see them in anything more than mottled patches.

Hector would have investigated every nook of every alley that he passed by at speed, if it weren’t for the piercing scream that greeted him from three blocks away. The depth of grief in the cry chilled his core deeper than the weather.

Approaching at a hard gallop with Whatzit, he took immediate stock of the situation. Constable Rose was there, alongside Beat Trotter - the latter tipping his hat in a polite show of averting his eyes. Hector also took note of surly Caveat, standing solemnly in the street, and nearly the entire cast of ponies he had already met, holding to the entrance ways of nearby shops.

Kneeling in the street was a pony Hector recognized instantly, and was able to discern from her sister by the distinct lack of glasses hooked around the side of her face. Specs’s short, ruddy curls were sagging to either side of her sharply bowed head, and her creamy shoulders were quivering. Behind her, Buttermilk Waffle reached out without touching her, as if she were afraid the distressed pony would burst into flame if she made contact.

“Oh dear, oh you dear child...” Buttermilk was mumbling. “...Celestia preserve us...”

Caveat’s eyes bored into the captain, but neither Constable Rose nor Beat Trotter would look straight at him. Incensed, he shoved his way into the small crowd to get a better look at what he now fully expected to see.

Sprawled in the street was the twisted corpse of Specs’s younger twin sister by a few minutes - the pony called Scoops. Hector didn’t need to check her pulse. Her body resembled a dried prune draped in cured leather; the moisture of her love now so absent that even her bloodshot, shrunken eyes looked as though they would crumble to dust at the slightest touch. The notebook paper image of her cutie mark now resembled dried papyrus, and several of her primary feathers had already withered away and fallen out. Snow had collected in the scraggly strands of her mane and tail, kissing her to sleep in death. Beside Scoops, in the street, were her glasses, mangled and shattered nearly beyond recognition as though they had been roughly trod upon. Her head was resting in her sister’s lap, and the latter was rocking her in place, making cooing noises as tears dribbled from one biscuit yellow face to the other. Hector averted his eyes repectfully.

“How,” Hector let the single word hang in the air.

Nopony spoke. Only the bewildered cries of Specs and the soft hushing of Buttermilk Waffle could be heard.

“HOW!?” Hector demanded, back on his hooves in a flash. “Constable! Deputy! I asked you both a question!”

Beat Trotter was chewing on something. He hid under the brim of his cap - the best deflection he could manage without visibly shying away. Rose took in a terse breath and replied.

“Y’all saw it before, Cap’n. Changeling’s got her. There ain’t much of a trail to follow, neither. On a account’a them having wings an’ all.”

Hector was not in the mood, “I can gather that much with a few seconds worth of observation, Constable. I want details. These two were staying in a room above Kitty’s Nip last night.” His eyes flashed accusingly at the entrance to the drinking establishment, where Kitty Contessa and Whim were looking on. “Unless I am to assume that Kitty’s Nip is not the bastion of safety in numbers I’ve been led to believe it is?”

“It...it ain’t that,” Rose began. She was cut off by a wavering voice, thick with tears and sharp inhalations. Hector turned to look down at Specs, trying at the same time to keep his eyes off her sister.

“I t-told her...I said...” Specs whimpered, nose running and ears flat against her skull. “I said d-don’t be stupid...j-just go to bed a-and and...w-we’ll go home...come back another time...i-it’s just...” she bent her head again and lifted her sister’s desiccated remains, holding them tightly, “It’s just a stupid magazine! It’s not worth this!! Sh-she left me a note...w-went out last night...said she was going to ‘blow the case wide open’...wh-why did she have to go and do that!?”

Hector looked around. Caveat was still standing boldy in the middle of the street, looking at him. He matched her glare and waved his foreleg at the ruined sisters.

“Do you know anything about this?” He challenged the armored, coppery mare.

“I’m not the one you should be asking, Captain,” Caveat narrowed her eyes and looked straight at Rose. “As I recall, the sheriff of any given small town in Equestria is usually given the means to unlock any door in their jurisdiction, be it by skeleton key or magic.” She added sarcastically: “Only to be used in emergency situations, of course.”

Rose marched up to Caveat and stared slightly up at her, close enough for their muzzles and hot breath to brush one another. Her voice crackled out like bellows fanning a flame; her accent thickening with her intense focus.

“Now you lissen t’me, you totterin’ tin can,” Rose growled, “Mebbe yer used to backtalk. Mebbe y’all got kicked outta the guard on yer butt ‘cause of that, fer all ah know. But ah ain’t just gonna stand here and let you accuse me of murderin’ these here ponies that ah’m swored to protect!” Rose’s flanks shivered with emotion. Her horn lit up. “So help me, you keep flappin’ yer gums an’ it’ll just be the same thing as deflectin’ blame. An’ if you done it? Ah’m gonna burn you down.”

Caveat’s horn brightened in response, as if struck by flint and steel. “Are you making an accusation, Constable?”

Hector noticed the flap at Caveat’s belt that contained her machete was glowing with the light of her magic. Instantly he intervened.

“Enough! Both of you!” He boomed, projecting his voice to the nearby buildings. “I’ve told you both I will not have this!” Now his horn was alight as well. He fixed Caveat in particular with his best withering stare - the one he reserved for dressing down his subordinates. “Snap that pouch, Caveat. Or I won’t hesitate to execute my duty.”

A tense moment passed. Finally, Hector’s ears caught the satisfying snap of the weapon’s sheath, as Caveat doused her horn and stepped back. She sketched him a sharp nod.

“Captain.”

“Dern right,” Rose added. Hector whirled on her.

“Constable, your temper in the presence of a victim disappoints me. You will have the body brought in for examination, and begin a proper investigation of the crime scene, including questioning of everypony currently bearing witness.” He eyed Caveat, “And you will cooperate.”

“...aye Cap’n,” Rose muttered. Caveat merely nodded again, and the two belligerent mares parted. Hector shook a few flecks of newfallen snow from his muzzle and turned back to the grisly scene before him. Specs was lost in soft sobbing, though no new tears fell. He wondered if perhaps she had cried them all out. Buttermilk Waffle looked helplessly on. The rest of the Waffles were keeping their distance. Strawberry was wrapped closely around her father’s foreleg, while Chocolate was standing off to one side, favoring the proceedings with only sideways glances. Hector pitied the colt for his self-isolation at a time like this - it can’t have made the atrocities the two teenagers endured any better.

“Miss Waffle,” Hector completed the sentence with his eyes, shifting them to Specs when the family mare looked up at him. Buttermilk nodded.

“We’ll see her to the morning train, Captain,” Buttermilk said sadly. “It will have gone by now, but tomorrow is another day. She will be safe in the clinic until then. I promise you that.”

“Beggin’ your pardon Captain,” Beat Trotter approached, his hat still low on his brow. “And yours, Missus Waffle, but we don’t know that anywhere is safe right now.”

Maple Waffle could remain silent no longer. The lumbering, pineapple-yellow pegasus stallion crossed the street with his children in tow and stood protectively beside his wife.

“The clinic is safe,” He declared, the tone of his voice a veiled threat all by itself. “I make the clinic safe. There’s a reason the waffles are the only family left in this town. We will not be terrorized.”

“Now just what is that supposed to mean?” Trotter looked up at Waffle patriarch, who was more than half a head taller. “Are you sayin’ we can’t take care of you all no more? Are you calling the law incompetent?”

“If the horseshoe fits,” Maple replied, his gaze never wavering. Hector’s foreleg was over Trotter’s chest before he could rise to meet the insult.

“Assist the constable with the investigation, Deputy,” Hector warned.

Beat Trotter adjusted the brim of his cap, spit in the snow, and walked away. Hector, somewhat tired now of having to throw his weight around, merely gazed up at Maple and turned back to his wife. He didn’t get a chance to address her again.

“The train!?” Specs interrupted with a look in her eye was bordering on delerium. Her sister’s mangled head was still laying in her lap. “You think I’m just going to up and leave after some bastard murdered my twin sister!? That’s one hell of a thing for you to say to me, Captain Silvermane!”

Hector removed the edge from his tone. “Specs, I’m sorry for what happened here. I truly am. But like I said yesterday, you have a place to go where you can truly be safe. You need to go there. The royal guard is involved in this now. We will bring the pony, or creature, responsible for this tragedy to justice. I promise you that.”

“You ‘promise’?” Specs was on her hooves now, her eyes still wet with her sorrow. She jabbed a hoof at Hector, and he didn’t try to stop her. “That’s it? Your promise is what I’m supposed to take back to Manehattan for my mother and father, and all our friends?” She drew the hoof back and pointed at her own eyes. “I have a talent too, Captain! I’m a very good observer. I see things. You can use somepony like me. I’m going to find out who did this to my sister! I’m going to find them, even if I have to keep an eye on every single pony in this town who isn’t dead in a storeroom for the winter!”

“Specs,” Hector kept his voice even, “I can’t authorize--”

“You don’t have a choice, Captain!” Specs declared. “Unless you plan to throw me out of town or lock me up, I’m not going anywhere you tell me to go!”

“She’s right, Captain,” A monotone voice added. “You can’t just go around telling ponies how to live.”

Stringbean, the hooded, washed-out miner, was by Specs’s side. Around his neck were all manner of talismans and charms to ward off evil, from zebra holistics to gypsy snake-oil gadgets. He had a certain shimmer to his eye that was uncharacteristic of the first time Hector met him. He put his foreleg around Specs, and she buried her muzzle into his side with familiarity.

The grizzled miner actually looked like he gave a damn.

“You can’t just make her leave, Captain,” Stringbean repeated. “She’s got a right to see this through just as much as the rest of us, if that’s what she wants to do.”

Hector raised a brow, “Is there any particular reason you’d like ponies to remain in Little Hoofington, Stringbean?”

Stringbean didn’t take the bait. He kept his expression even and merely replied, “Is there any reason you want her gone so bad, Captain? Her sister was here investigating Cadabra Smile. Shouldn’t you be barking up her tree right now? Or do you have some reason not to?”

“She’s in danger here,” Hector replied sharply, aghast at the very idea of being implicated. “Don’t you get it? You’re all in danger here. Anypony that has a safe place to go should go there!” He turned away in disgust, crunching through trampled show and resting his aching head in a hoof. In all the actions he had been involved in during his career, a civilian in his care had never lost their lives. Now, with less than a day of military command in Little Hoofington, already he had lost somepony.

“Captain Silvermane.”

Hector looked up. Kitty Contessa’s fiery locks were blustering in the breeze. To her side was Whim, who was playing with his colorful tie nervously.

“We’ll talk to that poor filly. Try to take her mind off things.”

“Leave it to us!” Whim managed to add a little extra mirth to his smile. “There’s nothing like a hot toddy and a cool tune to soothe the mind.”

“I’m just...worried she’s going to do something foolish like her sister did,” Hector found himself admitting aloud. Kitty smiled.

“It’s alright, Captain. How about you come inside by the fire and take a powder too, hm? Y’all look tired.”

Hector waved the concern off. “Thank you Miss Kitty, but the day is young and I have duties to perform.” The thought that he would be asked to take a rest after he had done nothing but sleep and view a crime scene went against his sensibilities, but he considered that Kitty was only trying to help. He began to trot away, but kitty placed a hoof on his shoulder. Her smile was inviting.

“Captain, you’re a fine soldier I’m sure, or else you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in. Clearly you’ve got a heart of gold, too, but you won’t do anypony any good if you work yourself too hard.” She raised her brows, “Come and have one drink.”

Hector detached himself from the proprietress as tactfully as he knew how. “I’m sorry. Not now.”

With that, he returned to the street proper and called both Beat Trotter and Whatzit to his side. “Constable Rose has work to do. You two are with me.”

“Where are we going?” Whatzit asked.

“To the church,” Hector replied. “It’s time I met Cadabra Smile.”


*   *   *   *   *


Hector was surprised by the building referred to as the ‘church’. He was expecting something more open and inviting, given it had to originally have been constructed during the time that only Princess Celestia ruled. What he found at the end of a narrow street was something that looked like a small gothic mansion, complete with wrought-iron pickets and pointy spires. There were thick, masking drapes over all the windows, and the condition of the stone suggested the building was among the oldest he’d yet encountered in town -- and was suffering from the same disrepair, as a result of the diminished population.

Hector crunched through the heavier layer of snow in the tiny courtyard, his subordinates in tow, and rapped hard on the thick wooden door. When there was no answer he repeated the gesture and announced:

“My name is Captain Hector Silvermane, of Her Magesties’ Royal Guard at Canterlot!” He paused, letting the title sink in. “I must speak with you. Open this door.”

The lack of response played on his already fraying nerves, and he began to bend the facts to his own benefit. “I have the authority to declare martial law in this village, and if so, I will not require a warrant or probable cause to search these premises. I would prefer to speak with you cordially. I say again - open this door!”

The door finally began to creak ajar, and Hector found himself looking down at a short, ghostly gray pony. His or her body (Hector decided on ‘her’ merely for the general bone structure) was almost entirely masked under a weighty wool cloak of midnight blue, such that even her tail and mane could not be seen. Only her hooves and her face, from muzzle down were readily apparent; for the hood was draped down to cast a shadow over her eyes. The pony tilted her head, but said nothing.

“Lora,” Beat Trotter stepped up. “We need t’see Miss Cadabra. There’s been another killing.”

Lora simply nodded and began to turn away. Hector spoke up, his mind hungry for any facts it could absorb.

“Excuse me, but I need to know where you were last night. And what you were doing.”

Lora paused and simply looked at Hector. Her head tilted to the opposite side. Whatzit was there, and she spoke up quickly.

“She doesn’t speak, Captain,” Whatzit offered. “Lora Lore is a...faithful of the church. From what I’ve learned on my own, some of the more deeply faithful Night Cultists choose to either keep to a vow of silence, or...silence themselves...” she cleared her throat, “So as not to disturb the Night. Which they believe should be quiet.” She added, “I-I don’t know if Lora’s silence is a vow...or...well.”

Lora nodded at Whatzit. Ignoring Hector’s questions, she turned and marched into the establishment. The visitors were obliged to follow.

For a few moments, Hector could see nothing at all but pinpricks of candle light running parallel to their course. When his eyes began to adjust, other images came vaguely into view. Pews. A dais of some sort. A large object that resembled an altar. Beyond the altar was a stained glass window that commanded the room. It was as ornate as any in the royal palace, and it told the story of Nightmare Moon and her transition to and from Princess Luna - depicted in such a way as to make the process look cyclical. There was a light source behind the window - as light passed through it, the area around the altar was bathed in a glow consistent with Luna’s coat color. Lora paused before the dais and altar. She bowed her head, and simply stopped moving long enough for Hector to reach out for her.

“Excuse me, Miss...Lore,” he began, “But I need to speak with--”

“Won’t do no good,” Beat Trotter cut in. He was already past the tiny mare and wandering around as if casing the place, his eyes opened wide to let in as much light as possible. “She won’t come outta that...state fer awhile. I been here a couple times. But she won’t mind if we have a look around.”

Hector found that he was indeed unable to rouse Lora from her vigil. He frowned. A pony that could not speak would be difficult to question, and he was even more uncomfortable with the idea that she may simply be choosing not to. His inability to look her in the eye was also unnerving. He pushed past her and merely stepped up the stairs of the dais to the altar itself.

“Captain,” Whatzit offered, “Just walking right up there...could be construed as disrespectful.”

Silvermane furrowed his brow. “Zit, I appreciate that, but we have an epidemic string of murders on our hooves that are a clear and immediate threat to the entire population of this town. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to...accomodate every social situation.” He considered Whatzit’s pool of knowledge. “Do you know where we can find Cadabra?”

Whatzit looked sheepish, her hooves clicking on the stone floor as she shifted her weight. “She’s probably asleep. Night cultists usually adopt a nocturnal lifestyle.”

Hector’s frown deepened. “Has there ever been a murder in Little Hoofington during the day, as far as you know?”

Whatzit pushed up her glasses and ran a hoof through her scruffy mauve mane. “...not that I can recall, sir.”

Hector gritted his teeth and rapped his hoof on the altar. It was hard to make out any details in the low light, but he recalled Scoops’s comment about the potential for pony sacrifice among the most fanatical of Night Cultists. “Then I don’t care if she’s ‘sleeping’,” he declared, and then raised his voice. “Cadabra Smile! I am an officer of the royal guard on official business and I need to speak with you NOW!”

A sudden flash of disorienting light from a teleportation spell blinked into existence. When it faded, in its wake stood an impeccably groomed mare with a sangria coat, a flowing lilac mane, and a cobalt blue cape that fluttered momentarily with the flow of the dissipating magic. Both the cape and the pony’s mane were adorned with silvery glitter that resembled a sea of stars, twitching and bobbing with her every movement. Upon her flank was the image of a full moon with a thin cloud floating before it.

“We are in repose!” The mare growled, apparently not at all intimidated by Hector’s armored countenance. “Why hast thou interrupted our rest!?”

“Captain Silvermane,” Whatzit climbed a single step of the dais and waved a foreleg. “Meet Cadabra Smile.”

With a disdainful lack of recognition for his bluster, Cadabra looked Hector over. “We of the Order of the Night do not approve of the celebration known as ‘Nightmare Night’. Why dost though dress for it in this place?”

Hector choked back anger over his uniform being referred to as a costume. He introduced himself yet again. “I am Captain Hector Silvermane of Her Magesties’ Royal Guard. I have been sent here to investigate this village. There was a murder last night. I need to speak with you.”

Cadabra raised a brow and stared at Hector for a long moment. With a bustle of her cape, she pranced around the altar and ran her hoof across it as though it were a satin pillow. “Speak.”

Hector ignored the insolence and went on. “A young mare who was very much alive when she retired to her room yesterday was found dead in the street this morning. She was drained of her love.”

“We see,” Cadabra shrugged her adorned shoulders. “We know nothing of this.”

Hector continued, “She came to this town with her sister because she was interested in learning about your...” He waved his foreleg about the room, “...organization.”

Cadabra thrust her lower lip out, raising her chin disdainfully and refusing eye contact. “And?”

“And,” Hector persisted, “I need to know what you were doing last night.”

“We were in prayer,” Cadabra replied. “We must remain ever vigilant at the appropriate hour in order to appease The Night.”

Cadabra stood before the mural of the alicorn Hector had been speaking to only two days prior. She held her forelegs akimbo and raised her face to the ceiling. As she moved, the candlelight rose on its own, until Hector could make out the finer details of the room. The walls held a number of murals depicting ponies in various stages of worship. All at night.

Hector had little interest in deciphering what he felt were the ramblings of a zealot. “Did you leave this building last night?”

“We did. We cannot experience the fullness of The Night from indoors.”

“And can anypony corroborate your...‘worship’, activities?”

Cadabra looked bored. “If thou art referring to our adjutant, we left her here. She has mundane duties to perform.”

Beat Trotter, who had vanished into the backroom to investigate, appeared in the doorway and inserted himself into the conversation. “There’s tracks out back, Captain. The snow made ‘em hard to follow out into the street, but there’s definitely one set, leadin’ out of the rear courtyard.”

“You went out,” Hector confirmed, his eyes still on Cadabra. “And Lora didn’t.”

“Correct,” Cadabra replied.

“And you were alone the entire time.”

“Also correct,” Cadabra rolled her eyes and batted her luxurious lashes. “We tire of this. The Church of the Night is open to all, Captain, but we do not operate during Celestia’s hours. Come back later if you wish to partake in our services.”

Hector narrowed his eyes. “Deputy Trotter! Take Miss Smile into custody.”

For a moment, nopony moved. Hector bored his eyes into Cadabra and stood fast.

“Deputy Trotter. I gave you an order.”

Beat Trotter came up behind Cadabra. Dangling from his foreleg was a pair of hoofcuffs. “Miss Smile, I’m gonna have to ask you to come with me.”

Cadabra’s startled glance passed quickly between the two law enforcement officers in her abode. “Th-this is outrageous! Thou hast no evidence nor reason to arrest us! It is not against the law to leave our home at night!”

Hector looked at Trotter. “Deputy. Unicorn suppressor.”

Trotter nodded. As he slapped the cuffs onto the exasperated mare, he removed a small ring from a pouch at his waist and threaded her horn through it.

“Thou canst not arrest us without provocation!” Cadabra snarled. “We have rights! Thou canst not incarcerate us without cause!”

Hector said nothing. As Trotter was escorting Cadabra from the room, the captain noticed that Lora Lore had not moved a muscle. Whatzit was averting her eyes and looking as though she wanted to be anywhere but in the Church of the Night.

“This is brutality!” Cadabra’s voice enchoed through the Church of the Night. “Thou believest thou canst waltz into our lives and throw thy weight around to achieve thy goals! Thou art a poor excuse for service and protection!”

Her complaints continued straight out the door. Hector stepped off the dais and paused before Lora Lore, who raised her head, once again tilting it slightly to the side. Her hood shifted with the perking of a trapped ear. Hector opened his mouth, but found he had nothing else to say. He brushed past her again, this time marching out the door. Whatzit fell in hastily beside him. She didn’t speak until their hooves were crunching the snow again.

“Can you just...arrest her like that?” Whatzit meeped. “I mean, one set of hoofprints is kinda circumstantial...”

Hector kept his eyes forward and his back straight. “The relationship between the victim and Cadabra is a factor.”

Whatzit adjusted her glasses with a quick slip of her magic. “That’s...circumstantial too.”

“I know.”

“Then why--”

Hector held up his hoof, let out a sigh, and explained his plan. “Cadabra Smile is an adult mare who is aloof from the rest of the population. Pinkamena is just about as much a master of disguise as a changeling, and both would want to keep a low profile right now. If nopony dies tonight...we’ll know.”

Whatzit said nothing. For a time, they walked together down a quiet street in silence. The afternoon sun did little to warm their shoulders or their hearts.

“Zit,” Hector finally spoke, “I have something for you to do.”

Whatzit replied only with her eyes. Hector went on.

“What you’re probably thinking right now is correct. Just locking ponies up and taking a roulette chance that another one of us won’t be found dead every morning isn’t enough.” He finally looked at her, stopping in the middle of the street. “Zit, you have an excellent eye for detail. I’m going to ask you do to something dangerous...because you’re the best pony we have for the job. I need you to investigate some of the ponies in this town. The killers are among us, and we need information. They’re more used to you being around them, and thus you’ll be less conspicuous than me. But you may end up having to be out at strange hours, and you may have to get close to certain ponies in this town.” He smiled with as much reassurance as he knew how. “But...I need you. For the sake of Little Hoofington. Can I count on you?”

Whatzit swallowed. She then stood up straight and saluted clumsily. “Yes Captain. This town...” she faltered, “...this town and these ponies have always been my family. I can’t just sit and do nothing.”

“Raise your right hoof.”

Whatzit complied.

“Do you swear to execute the office of Deputy of the Constabulary of Little Hoofington, and uphold the measure of the law, to the best of your ability?”

“I...I do.”

Hector reached out his hoof until Whatzit got the idea and touched it with her own.

“Then congratulations, Deputy. This afternoon I’m going to teach you a spell you can use for self-defense. But if you ever believe yourself to be in immediate danger for your life, I want you to remove yourself from the situation and come to me. Immediately. At any hour. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes sir,” Whatzit’s mousey bangs tousled in a gentle breeze, a few flecks of displaced snow glittering her mane. She smiled through her nerves. “...thank you Captain. I...want to help.”

“Keep a sharp eye.” Hector winked, “I know you’ll do a fine job.”

Enamored with the praise, Whatzit nodded and went on ahead. Hector paused to stare at the gloomy sky and tugged his wife’s scarf tighter about his neck. He organized his thoughts while speaking to her.

“Chloe...I just deputized a child and locked a mare up with no evidence. I have no idea who I can trust, so I’m...cutting corners and abusing my power. If I drag my hooves even for a moment, this entire town is going to be empty. And if that happens, changelings will have a hoofhold in our lands, not to mention one of the most dangerous criminals of our time will gallop free.”

“What in Equestria am I supposed to do here?”

He waited quietly. Only the wind offered a solemn, empty reply.
> 4 - No Fly Zone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a creak of complaint, the gates to one of Little Hoofington’s three prison cells rolled open.

Cadabra Smile’s sanguine grin was as disdainful as the swishing gesture she made with her hips just to billow her cobalt cape in Beat Trotter’s direction. The deputy sheriff of Little Hoofington scowled from under the brim of his Stetson, but stood idly by as the cultist in his custody went free. Cadabra’s prideful countenance made the entire constabulary seem to wilt with inferiority as she stamped her hoof and smiled.

“Art thou satisfied now, Captain Silvermane?” She declared to the decorated white stallion that stood before her while gesturing to the back room. “Or dost thou plan to incarcerate us for this terrible crime as well, when we were only practicing our right to our faith? Thine subordinate kept his rum-soaked countenance at our neck for the entire evening. We neither called upon our magic nor attempted to escape.” She glanced at Beat Trotter, somehow making the simple acknowledgement of his presence look sloppy and insulting, “Corroborate us!”

Beat Trotter looked as though he was being asked to testify in defense of Tirek himself. He sighed deeply, leaned against the wall, and chewed on the end of a pencil.

“…she’s right,” He confirmed. “I was here all night. She just sat there, starin’ at the moon outside the cell window and saying all sorts of fancy things.”

“Those fancy things,” Cadabra added insult to injury by mocking Trotter’s tone as well as his words, “were the Litanies of The Night. They are part of our Gospel, to be recited in times of duress.” She whirled back on Silvermane, piercing him with her gaze. “Duress such as unjust imprisonment by a constabulary that judges those who are different from them without cause.”

Silvermane’s expression was unreadable. He held in his embarrassment, refusing to allow the falsely accused an inch upon which to gloat. He stood aside.

“You’re free to go.”

Cadabra shook her head just to swish the starry sparkles in her lilac mane in the reflective glow of sunlight on snow.

“Where is our apology?”

Silvermane bristled. Behind him he could still hear Whatzit’s vain attempts to calm the nerves of Buttermilk Waffle. The new corpse that now rested in the back room had been brought in at dawn on the back of Buttermilk’s husband. They had disturbed the crime scene by bringing the body all the way to the constabulary, but Hector took one look at Buttermilk’s expression of utter despair and found he couldn’t bring himself to fault them for trying to do the right thing.

On the other hoof, Hector was just about finished with the disrespectfully prideful smirks from Cadabra Smile at a time like this. He chose to give her what she asked for and send her on her way quickly, before his urge to tell her where to go became too much to deny.

“We apologize for our error,” He said dispassionately.

Cadabra flicked her sangria ears, as if tasting the words that entered them. Finally she shrugged.

“As well thou shouldst be. Goodday.”

With a flourish, Cadabra lit her horn and simply disappeared in a puff of teleportation magic. The sound of retreating hoofsteps crunching through the snow told Silvermane her range at least had limits.

Silvermane heard the sound of floorboards creaking. He turned to meet the grave stare of Constable Rose, as the olive drab unicorn emerged from the back room.

“Well?” Hector inquired. Rose averted her eyes out of politeness to the dead.

“Everything was just like Buttermilk said,” Rose replied. “Poor mare was barely anythin’ more than a filly, but y’could hardly tell that now unless ya knew what yer lookin’ fer.” Despite her rough edge, Rose took a breath and softened her tone. “She’s missing both her wings, three legs, her cutie mark, an eye…them gashes look like a wild animal made ‘em…”

Hector heard Buttermilk Waffle gasp. He turned to find her where he had left her – on the couch before the fire, with a steaming, untouched cup of black coffee on the table in front of her. Whatzit was sitting next to her looking utterly helpless.

“I’m sorry, Missus Waffle,” Hector offered. “I know you’re trained in healthcare, but considering the circumstances I had to have somepony from the constable’s office confirm your report of the injuries that killed Specs.” He sighed. “Further, I…have to ask you again what you know about this.”

A lumbering, pineapple presence filled the doorway, accompanied by a baritone so deep, it seemed unreal coming from a pegasus.

“Captain,” Maple Waffle said sternly, “We both already told you all we know. You’re upsetting my wife.”

Hector held his ground. “Be that as it may, Mister Waffle, Specs was entrusted to your clinic for the evening. And you said you saw no evidence that anypony went out last night.”

Maple opened his mouth to protest rather than answer, but Buttermilk held up a periwinkle hoof to silence him. Her cheeks were marred with dried tear tracks and her shoulders were still slightly quivering, but her voice was strong.

“It’s all right, honey. Captain Silvermane is just doing his job, and he’s correct – Specs went home with us last night, and now she’s dead.”

“B-but we didn’t—”

Buttermilk silenced her husband again. “You know that, and I know that. The Captain justifiably needs to be convinced.” She steeled herself, took a deep breath, and reiterated her story.

“We found her in the lobby, Captain, just before sunrise. I suppose the reason we didn’t hear her scream is because her throat had been torn out, and I guess…a clever and particularly savage killer would probably think to do something like that first. We rushed her into the examination room anyway, because healthcare is our duty, but…we’re just a clinic. Nevertheless, we had to try.”

“You tried to save her life then,” Silvermane concluded. Buttermilk glanced down at her twiddling hooves.

“For all the good it would do, yes we did. It all happened so fast, we didn’t even realize her vitals were nonexistent until we were already trying to resuscitate. We’re going to have to…shut down the examination room at the clinic for a few days. It…needs to be cleaned.” She appended, “A-and in response to your comment earlier…we’re very sorry but we didn’t consider that we were tampering with a crime scene. Our first concern was for the patient.”

Hector got himself a cup of coffee, purely to make the entire interrogation look more passive, and found a stool to perch on. “That’s understandable. But you realize how this looks, don’t you? If the clinic was locked up tightly—”

“But it wasn’t, Captain,” Maple spoke up. “That’s just it. Our clinic operates twenty-four hours a day. We still keep normal sleeping hours, and the doors leading to our private rooms are locked at night, but we leave the entrance to the lobby unlocked. Anypony who needs medical attention can get in and pull the emergency cord hanging from our ceiling. It’s attached to a loud bell in our bedroom.”

“It’s a tradition handed down by my many-times-great grandmare, Sunshine Waffle,” Buttermilk added wistfully, “The Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic is always there for you when you need it.”

“Then what we really should be asking is why Specs was in the lobby in the middle of the night,” Hector replied.

“An’ did anypony else come callin’,” Rose added as she scratched at a hairy mole on her chin.

“Of course somepony came calling,” Maple said. “What other explanation is there?”

Hector noticed the uptight stare Maple Waffle was giving to Constable Rose. He voiced what he knew was on the mind of the entire law enforcement staff.

“If I were to go to the clinic right now, Mister Waffle, what would I find your children doing?”

Maple seemed confused by the question. “At this time of day…? Arithmetic. Why?”

Buttermilk clarified, “I won’t let any of what’s happening here interfere with our children’s education, Captain Silvermane. I’m homeschooling them and my husband is right – they would be at their studies, in our private living area above the clinic.”

“I rigged the doors to our home to lock automatically,” Maple explained. “Anypony can get out, but you need a key to get back in.”

“So your children are…” Hector waved his hoof in the air, “…safe?”

Maple’s cheeks filled with the redness of anger. “I beg your pardon, Captain! Of course my children are safe!”

Buttermilk had resignation in her eyes. She rose from the couch and walked over to stroke her husband’s withers soothingly, knowing she was about to say something that would upset him even more.

“Darling…the Captain is insinuating that either you or I might be one of the killers. And thus he’s asking us if he would find our foals unharmed if he were to go and check on them right now.” She glanced at Silvermane sorrowfully. “That is what you are insinuating, isn’t it Captain?”

Feeling suddenly ashamed of himself, Silvermane nodded stoically.

“O-of all the-!”

Maple’s muscles tensed, but Buttermilk grabbed his foreleg and rushed to interpose herself between her towering husband and the quartet of tense law-enforcers.

“Darling stop!” She insisted, her auburn curls bouncing with the sudden gyrations of her body. “It’s a valid concern! We’re all on edge here and you have a family to look out for. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later!”

Maple’s gaze was bordering on murderous. He let out a visible snort from his flaring nostrils, but ultimately he let himself relax.

“Captain Silvermane,” Maple said evenly, “Do you have any foals?”

“No,” Hector replied simply.

“Then you can’t possibly understand the connection I have with my family,” Maple explained. “Nor my sincerity when I say that I would never harm them. If you were to go to our clinic right now, you would see them in perfect health, just as I’ve claimed. In fact--“ He gestured semi-mockingly to the door, “Why don’t we go and prove it right now.”

“Sweety…” Buttermilk said softly. She turned a concerned eye to Silvermane, but any words she chose were drowned out by a sudden, guttural shouting from outside.

“Maple Waffle!” A passionate voice cried. “I know you’re in there! Come out!”

Before Hector could do anything to control the situation, Maple pushed the door open a crack, glanced out, furrowed his brow, and marched from the constabulary. By the time the denizens of the building were all collected around the doors and windows, Maple was looming over the bland, lanky, peasant-hooded form of Stringbean, who wore a mask of barbarity Silvermane never expected to see from him.

“You did this!” Stringbean raged. “It’s all your fault!”

Maple didn’t move, save for raising a brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking abo—”

“Liar! She was entrusted to you last night! You murdered her!”

Constable Rose, suddenly at Hector’s side, whistled. “So that’s what this is about. Now ah done gone an’ seen everything.”

Hector inquired, and Rose nodded at the altercation. “Ain’t never seen ol’ Stringbean care about nothin’ before. It’s like somepony dumped cold water on him the day he was born, an’ it never dried off. I guess he found his passion finally. Took him long enough.”

Silvermane considered the situation. “…Specs.”

Rose nodded. Whatzit appeared at Hector’s other side and adjusted her glasses with a quick glow of her magic. “If you want my professional opinion as an investigator, Captain, I heard about how Stringbean was talking to the sisters for a long time the night you arrived, and I saw how he reacted in the street when we found Scoops’s body. I wouldn’t be surprised if…” she blushed, “…he had a crush on one, or even both of them.”

“Moves fast, doesn’t he,” Silvermane commented.

Rose shrugged. “If’n it was me, and ah went through mah whole life just making motions and saying words, without no fire in mah belly, and some sweet filly came along and suddenly started lighting me up? Tch. Ah’d move fast too. Ah bet a lonely soul like him was head over hooves already two days ago.”

Buttermilk, who was standing on the porch, approached the stairs hesitantly and held her hoof out towards the altercation. “My husband didn’t do this…you have to understand, he would never—”

“You stay out of this!” Stringbean barked the mare into silence and went about trying to burn a hole clean through Maple’s head with his eyes. “I heard about what happened! You can’t keep secrets in a town this small! I heard her body was found in the lobby. It’s really convenient that she just happened to be in the lobby long enough to get killed last night!”

Silvermane had broken up enough bar fights in his day to recognize Maple’s body language. The huge Pegasus had already made up his mind to pounce. Gleaming in his armor, Hector galloped down the stairs and came up beside the arguing pair.

“What are you insinuating, Stringbean?” Silvermane asked. He knew the answer already, but asked the question in the hopes that it would calm the washed-out stallion’s verbal assault, thus allaying the imminent physical one from his winged adversary.

“It ain’t that hard to understand!” Stringbean pointed an accusatory hoof at Maple. “Specs didn’t wanna have to go and tell her family what happened, but she had no reason to be here anymore. The Waffles could have kept her from the train in the morning, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Look at the sky!”

Everypony except Maple and Stringbean looked up. The latter continued.

“It cleared up last night. They knew it would be clear today, and clear skies means Specs could have just flown out of here! And that’s the last thing a changeling would want – somepony that could bring back help! It’s obvious who your killer is, Captain!”

Silvermane considered the miner’s deductive reasoning, and found it to be valid enough to hear more.

Stringbean continued to lay out his accusation, “Don’t you think it’s just a little strange that the Waffles, the only pegasi left in town, haven’t offered to go for help on a day like today? Or ever, for that matter?”

“My family is all that matters to me,” Maple replied, his pitch lowering into a threatening range. “I can’t just leave them behind.”

“Then why didn’t you all just leave town when you had the chance!?”

Buttermilk fielded the question from a distance. “The Waffles have been seeing to the care of the citizens of Little Hoofington for generations of my family. Leaving you all to fend for yourselves…would have been wrong.”

Hector weighed the consequences of revealing sensitive evidence about a crime to a laypony, but quickly made up his mind. In this situation, secrets would only work against him. “The condition of the body doesn’t match either, Stringbean. What happened to Specs is not what changelings do to corpses.”

“Of course it’s not!” Stringbean raged on. “The Waffles couldn’t risk being seen out and about somewhere at night, so they killed Specs themselves, left her in the lobby that everypony knows is unlocked at night, and did all those horrible things to her j-just to…” he began to choke on his own tears, “…j-just to take suspicion off themselves! They…they murdered her just for that! Not even to feed their disgusting lust for love!”

Silvermane found himself unable to refute Stringbean’s line of reasoning. “Listen, let’s just calm down and we can take this inside—”

“I know a few things about changelings,” Stringbean simmered. “You hear a lot in taverns when miners are coming and going from all over Equestria. I know the smallest broods are never less than four. And there are four Waffles.”

Hector could hear Buttermilk sobbing softly behind him. Maple somehow managed to rise above his full height. He stepped closer to the waifish miner, dwarfing him in both height and bulk.

“Are you accusing my foals of being changelings, you son of a nag?” Maple seethed. 

Stringbean held up two hooves. “Two strong changelings, and two weak ones. And you’re all holed up together, to make it easy to cook up your horrible plots at night. It’s the only explanation.”

Maple felt the thin rope that was holding his wild, bucking reasoning in check snap. He lunged.

Silvermane was on Maple in half a second, struggling to hold the big stallion back as Stringbean continued to fuel the fire.

“You see!? You’re nothing but a dirty changeling! You’re trying to kill me right now!!”

“Constable Rose!” Hector shouted, “Deputy Trotter!”

Hector heard a commotion from the constabulary before Maple simply flung him into a snowbank like a ragdoll. When he righted himself, he came up to find the two belligerents frozen in place. Between them, a hole had been drilled clean through the snow, a scorch mark marring the cobblestones there.

Constable Rose stood on the porch, her horn still glowing. “Unless y’all want a night in the slammer fer brawlin’, ya better break it up right now.” She grinned, “Ah been itchin’ to shoot a changeling fer days now, y’all push me and ah might…draw mahself some conclusions.”

Hector took note of the instantly melted snow that was filling in the deep gashes in the stone where Rose had fired. Clearly her ability with projectile magic was beyond that of a normal unicorn. The combatants must have been aware of that as well, for they each took a step away from one another.

“That’s better, young’uns,” Rose frowned at Stringbean. “You git outta here. This here’s police business.”

Stringbean, glanced at Maple Waffle, made a buzzing sound with his lips, and galloped off. Beat Trotter was at Silvermane’s side, but the guard captain waved him off and stood on his own, brushing invisible snow out of his pure white coat.

“What’cha wanna do, Cap’n?” Rose asked.

“We’re going to the clinic, to check on the crime scene,” Hector ordered, “…and on the foals.”


*   *   *   *   *


Hector wasn’t surprised by what he found in the lobby of the Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic. The amount of blood on the floor and the walls was consistent with a savage murder, with a trail leading into the examination room. One of the room’s beds was covered in still more life fluids of a pony, such that Silvermane marveled at the sheer amount of it that one young pegasus had pumping through her veins.

Hector’s second reason for being there was satisfied when the Waffles presented their children for inspection. Strawberry, the fruity red teenaged filly, clung as always to her father, while Chocolate, her cocoa-coated brother, averted his eyes and never uttered a word. Hector turned to Buttermilk as the group stood in a hallway far from the grisly scene.

“Is he always like that?”

Buttermilk placed a hoof to her heart and sighed deeply. “He used to smile. At first I thought he was just becoming a rebellious youth, and that might have been the end of it, if not for…all of this. Maybe…maybe we should have taken the children away from here…”

“No,” Said Maple. With his daughter on his back, her forelegs hooked behind his neck, he walked over and soothed his mate with a pat to the withers. “This has been your family’s home and duty for generations. I gave up my own heritage to be a part of it, and I won’t allow all that you’ve worked for here to be washed away by some intimidation.”

Buttermilk smiled somberly. “I…I know darling. And I love you for that. But…maybe we really should leave…”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Silvermane stated.

The eyes of every law-enforcer and every Waffle turned to him. Even Chocolate Waffle glanced up from the protection of his scraggly bangs.

“…Captain…?” Buttermilk inquired.

Whatzit looked just as confused, but Constable Rose and Beat Trotter exchanged glances charged with experience. They both looked sorry, but they both knew what was coming. Trotter had a sack flung over his shoulder, and he began to fiddle with it.

“Mister and Missus Waffle,” Silvermane announced. “I’m very sorry, but despite his bluster, Stringbean made some good points. Points that we haven’t yet had time to work through.”

Maple stood instinctively before his family, pushing his wife behind him such that she nearly lost her balance. “You can’t arrest us,” He challenged. “We told you what we know. Anypony had the means to commit that crime.”

Buttermilk spoke softly, “We tried to save her, Captain…please don’t lock up my children…I worry for their safety…”

Silvermane shook his head. He felt bad enough about incarcerating Cadabra Smile on only circumstantial evidence, and he had been wrong about her. He chose his words carefully.

“None of you are under arrest. And while it is indeed possible that anypony could have come into the clinic lobby to commit murder last night, the fact remains that we don’t know why Specs was even in that part of your building. If you truly intended to protect her, of course you would have warned her about the lack of security in that area.” He appended before Maple could yell at him again, “And I’m not saying you did that on purpose, or that you did anything wrong. But you can’t deny the implications, either. I’m afraid that until this investigation concludes, I cannot allow anypony to leave this village.”

Maple narrowed his eyes. “If we were the killers, Captain, our leaving town would tell you that. Because the murders would stop.”

Silvermane shook his head again. “And then you would be loose somewhere in Equestria, able to mimic anypony you want. You could start this all over again. Whatever is happening in Little Hoofington, it has to end HERE.” He spoke to his subordinates without turning to meet them, “Constable, when we are finished here, you will go immediately to Beanie’s station and instruct him to close the gate. As of now, Little Hoofington is under martial law. Nopony, either entering or leaving, shall be allowed to pass without my personal authorization.”

“…yes Cap’n.”

Maple bristled and flexed his wings tauntingly. “That won’t stop us.”

“No. No it won’t.” Hector replied. “But this will.”

Beat Trotter began to produce a number of objects that clanked on the floor, dragged down by the weight of the single padlock affixed to each. They were adjustable straps used to hold precarious cargo on wagons, but everypony was aware of their secondary application in law-enforcement.

Pegasus nullifiers.

“I will not wear that!” Maple growled. “You can’t just strap restrains on my wife and children!”

“Martial law says that I can, Mister Waffle,” Silvermane reiterated his edict from the Princesses. “You and your family will still be free to move about town and see to your own security. These straps are designed to secure your wings to your sides. Nothing more.”

“I will not…” Maple sputtered, “…subject my family to…”

“The alternative,” Hector spoke over the hulking stallion, “Is to have your primary feathers removed.”

“That’s mutilation!” Maple exploded. Hector kept his cool.

“Primary feathers grow back. It’s drastic, but it won’t actually hurt you. Nevertheless, I don’t want to go that far. Don’t force my hoof.”

“Honey…” Buttermilk placed a hoof on her husband’s side and favored her daughter with a reassuring glance. “We were going to stay here anyway. If this is what it takes to prove our innocence, I think we should cooperate. None of us will be hurt.”

“You have my word on that,” Hector assured.

Rose and Trotter moved to flank and block the hallway, just in case. Whatzit flattened her ears and took up a position directly behind and out of the way of her commander.

Maple felt a small hoof stroking at his neck. “Daddy,” Strawberry Waffle cut the tension with her small voice. “Please don’t get hurt.”

Maple shut his eyes and shook his head in frustration. “Fine. Strap your damn cuffs on. I’ll still protect my family.”

Hector supervised as his subordinates went about the task. Whatzit looked mortified as she approached Buttermilk with one of the straps floating beside her, but the elder mare just smiled reassuringly and stood still. The young unicorn slipped the restraint around Buttermilk’s torso, tightened it with care, twisted the lock, and removed the key. Rose took care of Maple, who encouraged his daughter to flutter to the ground and stand still for Deputy Trotter.

Hector was aware of a presence at his side. He hadn’t even noticed the colt’s approach, but Chocolate Waffle was there, staring at Hector’s neck from under his ruddy bangs. It was as much eye-contact as the captain had ever gotten from the boy. Lighting his horn, Hector levitated the final restraint to his side.

“This is for your own protection,” he justified. “It won’t hurt.”

Chocolate said nothing. He merely let out a breath and blew on his bangs while Hector secured the restraint about his torso.

Back in the street, Rose broke off from the group to deliver her report to the main gate. Hector sent Beat Trotter to Kitty’s Nip to inform the rest of the town about the state of martial law. He waited until it was only himself and Whatzit walking together on the empty stones before speaking again.

“Zit,” Hector directed, “I want you to keep an eye on the Waffles.”

“Do you really think they did it?” Whatzit was watching her hooves move. “I mean, Missus Waffle and her foals…it’s hard to believe. And Mister Waffle is gruff, I know, but he’s hardworking and he means well. It’s hard to believe any of them could…do something like this.”

“Is there any pony in this town you believe could have done these things?”

Whatzit thought long and hard about the question. “…maybe Cadabra. But I know that’s probably just because I don’t understand her faith. It’s not a fair accusation to make purely on that basis.” She yawned into her hoof and shivered. Hector thought about what he was asking the young unicorn to put up with. The strange hours and the sudden thrust into dangerous situations. He levitated the pink scarf off of his shoulders and tied it loosely around her neck with his magic.

“Wh-what’s this?” Zit stared at the comfortable, warm wool.

“My wife made it,” Hector replied. “It’s for luck. I’ve asked so much of you, and I’m sorry.”

“Your wife?” Whatzit balked, “I-I can’t accept this, Captain, I—”

Hector held up his hoof. “You’re not accepting anything. It gets cold here at night. Call it a loan. When this is all over you can give it back to me.”

“I…uh…” Whatzit felt herself blushing. “…th-thank you sir. I’ll take good care of it for you.”

Hector smiled. “Go and get some rest. I need that perceptive mind of yours sharp when it counts the most.”

“Yes sir.”

Whatzit trotted away, leaving Hector alone with his thoughts. Every morning since he arrived, another pony turned up dead.

His leads were painfully few, and time was running out.
> 5 - On Edge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A fresh powder had found its way onto the streets of Little Hoofington, undoing the diligent work of her few remaining inhabitants and the reprieve provided by the temporary clearing of yesterday’s skies. Most streets were no longer passable and wouldn’t be again until the breaking of spring in several months, for there simply weren’t enough ponies left to see to them all. Those avenues that could be traversed were gradually narrowing, as the vital arteries that connected the key establishments still in use began to thicken with a fatty layer of white cholesterol around the edges.

Into the pale epoch rose Captain Hector Silvermane, who stood before the mirror in his Spartan accommodations above the constabulary. He placed time into tasks such as the feathering of his helmet plumage and straightening of his armor plates. These tasks seemed trivial to the point of ridiculous, but his station demanded no less.

From the moment he arrived in Little Hoofington, the old mining borough had become his responsibility. In that time, two pegasi had been murdered, four more had been stripped of their nature, one unicorn had been falsely imprisoned, and every remaining citizen was marking time until the end.

Under martial law, Little Hoofington was a police state, and he its dictator. That technically made the town his first independent command, and to call it a disaster would have been an understatement. Sleep did not come easily, but as a trained soldier, he knew no good would come of starving himself of it. Nor could he command respect without the proper look.

Silvermane’s thoughts drifted to home. The cot laid out for him was stiff, cold, and without the companionship of his darling wife. Once upon a time she had told him that even if he were a simple trashpony, she would still love him. Just take a shower before coming back to bed.

Now, he was beginning to wonder if he would come back at all.

Hector’s reverie was broken by an unexpected sight at his door. Though the jamb remained stiff, the gleaming light of the snowy morning reflected upon a thick tome that somehow had been shoehorned under the door, presumably at some early hour of the night. Hector approached the volume at a wary canter, head tilted and one ear flicking like a facial tick, as though he expected the sudden package to explode.

A quick scan of the interloping book with a spell he had picked up in bomb squad training revealed no known traps. Reassured, Silvermane ensorcelled the book and levitated it to the room’s rickety desk, flipping its cover open and fanning the pages for a quick overview. Therein lay a multitude of records concerning the more recently deceased denizens of Little Hoofington, complete with birth records, photographs, hoof print identifications, and in all cases, dates of death. Every death date Hector’s eye fell upon was fairly recent. Far too many of them were clustered around the same fixed block of time, and he shuddered when the birth and death dates were particularly close to one another.

Intrigued, Hector levitated the book before him and began emerged from his quarters. By the time he was on the stairs, he had taken note of the strange dichotomy between proper recordkeeping and less so – practically all the information for each entry that occurred close to the subject’s death, including the date of passing, was in scrawled, somewhat sloppy hoof-script, as opposed to the more efficient mechanical typeface that graced the earlier data.

The book had many pages – far too many to set his attention upon in only one review unless he planned to waste most of the morning on it. Satisfied as to what the book was and its usefulness as a source of public record, he snapped it shut just in time to enter the lobby and move into the company of familiar faces.

“What’cha got there Cap’n?” Constable Rose nodded at the book from the other side of the coffee counter. “Looks like you could learn to raise the sun with that there thick rag.”

“Vital records,” Silvermane responded dryly, as the tar that passed for dark roast came automatically to his lips. He winced at the natural bitterness of coffee that had always given offense to his delicate palette, but suffered through it for want of a boost. “Which could come in handy, thank you Zit.”

Whatzit, who was lounging on the couch looking bleary-eyed, glanced up in confusion. “Huh?”

Hector waggled the book in midair. “Research. Thanks for getting it to me. It did come from you, correct?”

“Oh…?” Zit adjusted her glasses and collected herself. “Oh, yes! I thought…thought you might find it useful…Sir.” She eyed the book. “May I?”

With a dismissive nod Hector passed the book to his newest deputy and turned his attention to the town constable. “Where’s Deputy Trotter?”

Rose scratched her chin hesitantly. “Oh he, uh…he went to dump the bodies. Y’remember what I told ya. Too cold to bury ‘em and the sight, well…it gets folks on edge. Grisly work, but s’gotta be done.”

The very mention of the deceased young twins and the terrifying memories of their mangled corpses sent an instant pang of guilt through Hector Silvermane’s mind. They had died horribly, possibly slowly, and here he was, sipping on coffee and perusing records as though it was a normal day at a city precinct. He sat his cup aside and banished his remaining personal thoughts in favor of business.

“The warehouse you told me about before?”

Dusky Rose nodded. “Ain’t no secret what’s in there, but it’s outta sight and outta mind fer folks. You…don’t wanna go there, do ya?”

The idea had crossed Hector’s mind, but no crimes had been reported in that area and the perusal of those who had already fallen victim seemed of little immediate value. “I think it might be better we make rounds. There’s still an investigation to conduct here, and I intend to do so.”

A tearing noise drew the attention of the conversationalists. They turned in unison to find a single page of the records book rent from it and in the glow of Zit’s magic. Caught red-hoofed as she balled the paper up, she offered an explanation.

“My record is in here for some reason, Captain. Did you see it?”

Hector looked puzzled. “No. What would that be doing in a compilation of the deceased?”

“I…don’t know,” Whatzit said softly as she tossed the paper into the wastebasket with myriad other wadded up bits of offal. “A-and I’m sorry, but my personnel file is in the cabinets with all the others if you want to see it..”

Hector understood. The copied record could have been placed there by accident. Or it could have been somepony’s idea of a sick joke. Or even a warning.

Warm refreshment no longer held any appeal. “Is there any residence in town that’s still inhabited that I haven’t seen, Constable?”

Rose shook her olive-drab, leathery head. “Nope. We alls got our own homes and all that, but…nopony really wants to go to ‘em and be all alone. Those what ain’t stayin’ here or at the clinic are holed up at Kitty’s. Safety in numbers an’ all.”

“Shouldn’t we search the uninhabited areas?” Whatzit perked. “They’re the perfect spot for changelings to hide, if you ask me.”

Rose looked grim. “The changelings in our town don’t got no reason to hide nomore, sweetie. Ain’t none of ‘em turned up dead, so there’s at least four out there, an’, well…that’s almost a third of the entire population of the town, now.”

The comment sucked away all attempts to break through it with nervous laughter. Whatzit was the first to speak, her voice solemn.

“It…really could be any one of us, couldn’t it.”

Rose sighed. “Only thing you can bank on is that however many of those bugs are lurkin’ out there, it don’t add up to more than half the ponies what’s left. Otherwise they’d be so confident they’d just bust down the doors and finish us. Ain’t no reason to hide your cards when you got the winning hand for sure.”

“W-well we can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Whatzit protested, a hoof tousling her mousey bangs. “If we don’t do anything—“

Silvermane wouldn’t let her finish the fatal thought. “You look tired, Zit. What were you up to last night?”

Whatzit let the subject be changed. “I kept an eye on the Waffles Sir, as you requested.”

“And?”

“Nothing to say,” Zit replied dutifully. Nopony came out of the building, nopony went in…no lights in the windows at a strange time of night. At least not until…uh…”

Silvermane waited with as much patience as he could muster. Zit blushed.

“…at least not until I couldn’t stay awake any longer. I’m sorry Sir, I…I don’t think anypony in town is sleeping well anymore and it’s hard to fight off an attack from the sandpony sometimes.”

Zit futzed with her hooves and pulled Chloe’s scarf tighter about her neck, as if the room had just gone cold. Hector wasn’t planning to dress her down, but Rose placed a staying hoof on his shoulder anyway.

“Can’t be helped, Cap’n. We ain’t got the ponypower anymore for a stakeout.” When Hector didn’t reply, Rose balked. “You want me t’call in Beanie?”

“Is he ever sober enough to be of any use?” Hector asked incredulously.

“He was good at his job once,” Rose offered in the previous station commander’s defense. “It’s just…well you know what’s goin’ on here, an’ he’s young. Some ponies just ain’t got the will, an’ this here’s a lot even for those what does have it to accept. Some things, well…they happened, he fell into the sauce an’…well he ain’t right nomore, bottle or no. Best let him lie.”

The taste of any fellow guard falling so far from grace was bitter in Silvermane’s throat, but he nodded his begrudging assent without words. The captain of the royal guard had a way with his men, but he wasn’t a military psychologist, nor could he afford to take risks with those who had so little of his trust. It might have been just as much of a mistake to put his trust in anypony at all in Little Hoofington, but his officers were all he had. Diligence was mandatory, but an unwillingness to extend any sort of hoof to anypony at all was a recipe for chaos, and an assured victory for the changeling menace…not to mention the psychotic killer who was also on the loose. Duty brought him back to the present.

“Zit, get some rest. Constable Rose and I are going to Kitty’s Nip to check on the populace. Deputy Trotter can catch up with us when he gets back.”

Zit rose to her weary hooves. “I-if it’s all the same Sir, I’d just as soon come with you. It’s the least I can do to make up for last night, and, well…I…don’t want to sleep here alone.”

Silvermane considered this request for a moment, and finally acquiesced. He left a note for his senior deputy, and on the way out the door, spoke to his subordinates about a secret knock. The doors of the constabulary were otherwise to be locked at all times.


*****


Kitty’s Nip was a bustle of activity, if any building in Little Hoofington could still be thought of that way. A hearty fire crackled in the hearth, but Whim’s piano music had taken a back seat to the bite of static from a weatherbeaten radio that sat upon the bar. The device was chugging along and doing its best, but it was clear that beyond a few musical notes and ambiguous snippets of conversation, the weather was in control of the airwaves.

Whim, the deep blue clockmaker with the rainbow umbrella on his flank, occasionally cranked the device while just as often smacking it with annoyance. Behind the bar and near him stood the fiery curls and emerald bustle of Kitty Contessa, who had a thoughtful look about her as she refreshed Whim’s drink without being asked. One of the tables before the hearth was home to Caveat, the armed and armored self-styled mercenary, who was nursing something in a tankard while pensively watching the pair. All eyes turned to the newcomers, but a lack of perceived threat seemed to set them all at ease.

“General!” Whim called to the door, waving the trio over with one foreleg. “You’re just in time. I’m handy with quartz movement and the occasional cuckoo, but I’ve got to say, contraptions like this are beyond me. Got any training with one of these?”

Silvermane approached the bar, his subordinates in tow, and waved dismissively behind him. It was a signal he was used to giving to his men to let them know they could be at ease and mingle, but he offered it automatically, without considering his audience. He eyed the radio.

“Manual crank. This is an emergency device?”

“Right as the mail,” Whim replied as he sat back on his stool to offer space. “Though…I suppose that expression doesn’t have much use around here anymore.”

Kitty cut in, her voice as sultry and hypnotic as always. “Whim’s right, you do have uncanny timing, Captain Hector. Maybe you’d be so kind as to offer us some of that military expertise? You capital city guards can probably handle anything, after all.”

Silvermane flushed slightly at the excessiveness of the compliment, but kept his attention on the radio. He had no more skill with electronics than a laypony, and though his instinct was to help, he could do little other than repeat the attentions – and frustrations – that Whim had lavished upon the little box.

“Won’t do no good,” Rose finally piped up. “Beggin’ yer pardon for trying Cap’n, but with the squalls we get around here, it’d take Starswirl the Bearded and half a dozen wizards to raise a clear radio signal.”

Kitty sighed. “I suppose she does have a point. Still,” she grinned, “I have often depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Hector hadn’t sat down, but he found a warm mug of tea that smelled slightly of spearmint suddenly at his hoof on the bar. “Ah, thank you Miss Contessa, but—“

“Kitty, Captain Hector,” Kitty smiled. “Or ‘Miss Kitty’, if you absolutely must. And before you refuse my hospitality because you think it’s the proper thing to do, I’m well aware that you won’t accept alcohol on duty, and I’m not giving you any special favors. Drinks are on the house for…everypony, right now.”

Nopony chimed in with the obvious – that there were so few patrons left, turning a profit was a comical notion. It was better Kitty just dole out free drinks to keep nerves at bay. Hector appreciated that line of logic from the proprietress, and allowed the soothing concoction to wipe away the sharpness of coffee beans.

“I trust you won’t allow anypony to take advantage of your kindness, Miss Kitty?”

Kitty seemed confused by the comment, but Zit, who had quietly arranged herself on a stool, elaborated whilst adjusting her glasses.

“He’s asking if you’ll keep everypony from getting drunk.”

Kitty’s saccharine smile returned almost immediately. “Rest assured Captain Hector, I’m not planning to turn the neighborhood into a lagoon of debauchery. But I daresay that in times like these, I can hardly blame anypony for whatever opportunity they can make use of to forget their troubles.”

“Miss Kitty,” Hector sighed. “Please.”

“Oh all right, all right,” Kitty finally acquiesced. “You have my word, I’ll rein folks in. Though I’m not their mother of course, and I can’t necessarily know where everypony’s limit is.”

Hector considered closing the bar. It was well within his rights to do so – martial law meant nearly anything was within his rights to do. But crippling the last remaining public establishment in the entire town would make it harder for him to keep tabs on where the remaining citizens were spending their time. Further, drying up a town in such dire circumstances might cause more trouble than it stood to prevent.

Rose was leaning on the bar, her eyes on Caveat. “Ain’t got nothin’ to worry about with some folks. That one over yonder prolly ain’t been drunk a day in her life. Wouldn’t dare let her guard down. Unless mebbe she did get drunk once, and it got ugly. Vowed to never do it again.”

“I can hear you, Tin Star,” Caveat replied. She was toying with her knife again, like a great cat toying with a pony’s femur just to look intimidating. “Just keep being so blatant about deflecting attention to me. It only makes you look more guilty.”

“Consarnit!” Rose spat, “you little--! Why I oughtta--!”

“Constable,” Hector simmered. “You are not exempt from my feelings on brawling, as I believe I’ve already mentioned.”

“Now, now, the Captain has a point,” Whim quipped. “How about we all just have a drink and calm down, huh?” He cracked his fetlocks. “I’ll whip us up a nice spirited tune and we’ll all be dancing the afternoon away in no t—“

A communal growl from the pair of grizzled mares in the room made Whim stick to his stool as though the floor had suddenly given way to lava. “Or…or not, then.”

“Changelings aren’t likely to start a brawl while they’re in hiding anyway, Captain,” Caveat called from across the room. “It’s more likely they’ll try to spread as much paranoia as possible, like purposefully trying to draw attention to innocents and frame them. Defending oneself is a different story, however.

Rose gritted her teeth but choked back whatever cantankerous thought cranked to the forefront of her mind. Instead, of all things, she also cracked her fetlocks, and stepped to the upright in the back of the room in lieu of Whim.

“I got this,” she insisted. “Y’all never heard Camptown Races till y’heard it from the hooves of a maestro. If my callin’ weren’t soldierin’, I’da been sellin’ ‘em out at the Meyerhoof for sure.”

Rose’s skill with the ivories was exceptional, but she was no progeny, and that plus her insistence upon show tunes did little to cement her claims. With the music livening up the room, Hector turned his attention back to the proprietress and her regular.

“I’d like to ask the two of you a personal question,” Hector ventured. “One that might offend you on the surface, I admit.”

Kitty and Whim exchanged glances, but did nothing to discourage the Captain from proceeding.

“I know that these are times when a little levity goes a long way and I appreciate that, but neither of you are strangers to this town. Certainly each of you have lost somepony, or perhaps several here, and I do believe the outside world would see this situation as horrifying. How are you able to remain so chipper?”

Zit understood the true purpose behind the question immediately. She cleared her throat and took to her drink, pretending not to pay attention. Kitty’s expression hardened.

“I’ve said this before Captain Hector, but this is the last place in Little Hoofington where anypony can go to expect some peace and good cheer. If you’re insinuating that I look aloof, and might be a changeling because of that, ask yourself what else I could be doing with my time right now? I’m no detective, and I’m no good with clues and accusations. All I can do is my best to make my friends happy, and hope that the law, you, will stop this before it gets any worse.”

Whim nodded through the explanation thoughtfully until it was his turn to speak. He swiveled around partially on his stool and nodded down at the colorful, open umbrella on his flank. “I’m a clockmaker by trade General, but only because I followed in my daddy’s hoof prints. My true passion is making other ponies happy. It’s like Kitty said – I’m no sleuth.” He produced an umbrella from somewhere beside him and popped it open, twirling the rainbow colors in a slow, soothing manner. “This is all I can do.”

In a quick turn of the subject, Kitty spoke up. “Captain Hector, how are the Waffles? We heard about what happened to that poor filly, but…you don’t really think that they could have…”

“I’m not entirely convinced of that yet, no,” Silvermane assured. “But I’m not convinced they didn’t do it, either.”

“They didn’t do it, Captain Hector,” Kitty insisted. “I’d stake my reputation on it. They were framed.”

Intrigued, Silvermane decided to let the conversation take its course. “Oh? And why do you think that? Beyond their reputation, that is?”

Kitty faltered, but Whim picked up the slack. “We may not be sleuths, General, but we’ve seen death by changeling enough times around here to know what it’s like. Changelings don’t kill ponies like that.”

Silvermane searched for something to allay the fears of the tavern ponies, but Kitty made it all gruesomely unnecessary.

“Captain Hector, it’s not like the radio never works, and it’s hard to keep secrets among a group this small. We heard about Pinkamena being on the loose, and we heard about her being sighted in the area around Neighagra Falls.”

“There’s no evidence to confirm—“

“There doesn’t have to be, Sir,” This time it was Zit who spoke up, though she downed a sip of a surprisingly strong drink to steel herself first. “Specs was not the first victim to die that way, and her remains aren’t consistent with being drained of their love. It would be a waste for a changeling to kill that way. There weren’t many such deaths before, but lately they’ve been…increasing in number.”

Kitty shuddered and placed a hoof over her heart. “It has to be her. She’s been wandering around here, got wind of what’s happening in our poor little village, and she’s probably trying to use it as a cover for her horrible work.”

Silvermane wasn’t comfortable discussing the details of a case so frankly, but he had already breached protocol several times to allow for unique circumstances. Still, the idea that his enemy was most likely right before his eyes and taunting him made the decision over what to say a daunting task in and of itself.

“I-if you want my two bits,” Zit spoke haltingly, uncertain if she should give them, “I think it was Pinkamena too.”

“Or the changelings might want us to think that, Whatzit,” Silvermane admonished. “The loss of an opportunity to drain the love of just a few victims might be worth that to them, especially if they’re part of a larger force and intend to establish a hoofhold on Equestria here.”

Whim had placed a hoof over Kitty’s on the bar in an attempt to calm her. “All I know is, if I were a changeling, I’d be just as afraid of Pinkamena as I would getting blasted by the Elements of Harmony. They say she has abilities that ought to be impossible for a normal pony.”

Kitty fanned herself with a hoof and took in a sharp breath. “Well! All this talk is enough to make anypony hungry, and I suspect even you two can’t subsist off of that tar you law-types call coffee at the jailhouse. Let me make you all something, please. I won’t take no for an answer.”

Silvermane had thought little of food since he had arrived in town, and his stomach gave him away at the very mention of sustenance. Lack of food would be of no more use to him than lack of sleep, and so he waited patiently, engaging in softer conversation, until a sunflower sandwich found its way to the bar before him. He made short work of it, and was about to gather his team to patrol the rest of the village, when a piercing crash broke up the scene, and a showering of splinters from a rent in the front door assailed him.

A bundle hurtled through the door and landed in the middle of the room. Silvermane was on his hooves as fast as Rose and Caveat, their horns alive and the latter brandishing her long knife, but the bundle was quickly recognizable as anything but a changeling or a psychotic, cotton candy mare. A cobalt blue cape, adorned with silvery stars, thrashed as the sangria-colored mare within flailed to regain her hooves.

“Heathen!” Cadabra Smile cried. “Scoundrel! Villain! Thou accosts us without cause, and in the broadness of Celestia’s hour to boot! Thy madness bespeaks of guilt!”

Eyes rolled to the door, where stood the washed-out and appalling countenance of Stringbean, the miner who had only recently found himself with cause. His hackles were up for a fight, and the look in his eye was borderline murderous. He pulled out the many charms he kept at his neck from beneath his cloak and jangled them.

“Think y’could do me, huh witch!?” Stringbean snarled.

Cadabra finally made it to her hooves. She touched her hoof roughly to her lip and came back with a spatter of blood, which brought a combination of shock and anger to her features. “No assistance from us is required in that, knave! Itinerant miner in an village that can no longer support thee, thou art better served in the embrace of the shafts which thou still rummage aimlessly through!”

Silvermane instantly imposed himself between the combatants. “What’s this about!?”

“She tried to kill me!” Stringbean made a poofing gesture in the air, “With one of her mumbo-jumbo hexes!”

“We did nothing of the sort!” Cadabra leapt to her own defense. “We were performing the nightly repose, it is part of the litanies of the night, and is offered at sunrise each morning to see the darkness to its rest. This buffoon just happened to be cantering by, and in his ignorance took offense!”

Silvermane was trying to keep his attention on both belligerents at the same time. “We can talk about this--!”

“NO!” Stringbean challenged. “I’m through with talking! You let that murderer that stole Maple Waffle’s body get off, and now you’re protecting the queen of them all! You’re also the only one, Silvermane, that none of us have seen before, and it’s awfully convenient that you just happened to show up to take control of everything! You let those two poor fillies die, and you’re gonna let it happen to all of us! You’re probably one of those things!”

The lanky miner sprang, and Silvermane had no alternative but to defend himself. Thankfully the unskilled attacker was clumsy, his blows wracked by emotion, and the guard captain was able to knock him prone and leap upon him, pinning him to the floor without causing any significant injury.

“—offa me! Get offa me!” Stringbean wailed. “You’re all gonna pay if you listen to this one!”

There was a sound as galloping, and the familiar Stetson of Beat Trotter appeared at a run in the entranceway.

“Constable! Deputy Trotter!”

The two officials didn’t need to be given specific orders. They fell upon their commander and assisted him in wrestling Stringbean into submission, until Trotter managed to slap a pair of hoof restraints on the miner.

“Get him out of here,” Silvermane ordered.

“You can’t lock me up!!” Stringbean pleaded with the other tavern ponies. “Don’t let him lock me up! I’ll be next! At least let me defend myself!!”

“You’re under arrest!” Silvermane shouted, his patience cracking. “For inciting unrest yesterday, and aggravated assault of a civilian and an officer of the court today! I’m willing to let tempers flare under the circumstances, but I will not be tested. Take him away!”

Such was Stringbean’s thrashing that it took both constable and deputy to escort him from the tavern. Silence lingered, and so piercing was it that Silvermane turned to investigate, only to find all eyes on him.

“I’m…sorry you all had to see that,” he muttered, referring more to his outburst than the brawl. Cadabra, who had collected herself and smoothed out her cape, was checking herself over for bruises.

“Well! We are most certainly appreciative to see the persistence of order in this community, that ruffians are appropriately taken from the streets!”

Caveat was back in her seat, where she had resumed her unnerving habit of picking her teeth with the point of her blade. “Is locking anypony up even going to make a difference at this point, Captain?” She challenged.

“I will have order,” Silvermane replied, his tone threatening. “This is still a criminal investigation, and there will be no tolerance for fighting in the streets.”

“So I guess if he dies in custody…we know who did it,” Caveat shrugged as she sat back. “Either that, or all the rest of us die, and he starves to death all shut in there by himself. Unless you’re planning to hang him without trial.”

Silvermane ignored the provoking comments and turned his attention back to the bar, where the three ponies he had lunched with were trying to avoid eye contact with one another.

“I’m sorry that had to happen in your establishment Miss Kitty,” Silvermane repeated. “However, Stringbean has proven himself dangerous on more than one occasion.”

Kitty tilted her head. “And what about the Night Mistress over there, Captain Hector?”

Silvermane glanced across the room. Cadabra had a small bruise near her temple, but as far as what there was to see of her body under her starry cape and mane, that was the only noticeable injury beyond the cut at her lip. She was standing beside Caveat’s table, and the guard captain focused on their conversation.

“—this is our final offer.”

Caveat glanced at a bag of bits that had found its way to the table. “You wanna hire a bodyguard? Can’t you just hex ponies to death?”

“Your candor is not amusing to us,” Cadabra sighed. Something about seeing her in a disheveled state lent itself to picturing her in a softer light, as far as Silvermane was concerned. “We are no ‘witch’, but we are well aware that most ponies do not take our faith seriously, and dismiss us as some manner of Nightmare Moon-worshipping cult. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are watchers, who believe that the power that turned Princess Luna towards evil is a tangible, sapient force in and of itself. It is The Night personified, and we are the chosen who seek always to placate The Night and it’s time, to see that it does not anger again and consequently rend our nation once more asunder.”

Caveat seemed unimpressed. The bag was in the glow of her magic, and she had taken to testing it for weight and the satisfying jingle of coin. “Whatever you say. I don’t care if you worship parasprites, so long as I get paid.”

“You believe in our innocence regarding these matters then?” Cadabra said, somewhat hopefully. “And that we have decided that because of them, we require additional protection?”

Caveat chewed on one of the bits as a final test, stuffed it back in the bag, and the back in one of her pouches near her scabbard. “Don’t care about that either. You pay me to protect you, I protect you. You turn out to be the killer? You better catch me off guard, because I won’t have any moral issues about killing you first and keeping your money anyway. I bet there’s plenty of trinkets in that church that would be worth a pretty penny for my trouble, too. And I only protect one pony at a time, so don’t ask about your little assistant.”

Cadabra made a face. “Indeed, well…so it shall be. It is daylight, and we wish to see to our rest.”

Caveat got the picture and stood, kicking her chair in with a great scrape upon the floor. “Lead the way.”

Silvermane watched the pair trot by, and couldn’t help himself.

“Caveat, if Cadabra did have anything to do with this—“

“I’m a law-abiding citizen, Captain,” Caveat replied in passing. “If you abide by the law, so will I.”

The pair departed, leaving the remaining tavern ponies in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zit questioned. “You are the law here, Sir.”

Silvermane sighed. “She means that if I feel arresting Cadabra is warranted again, she’ll let it stand, assuming she feels I have a good reason for doing it. But if we end up having to bust down the church door with horns blazing, she’ll fight us.”

“B-but she can’t just—“

Silvermane held up a silencing hoof. “That doesn’t matter to a pony who lives by coin, the way she does. At this moment in time I have no further grounds to take any action against Cadabra Smile, and she knows that.”

Zit frowned. “…personally I think you do Sir, but…it’s your decision.”

Kitty echoed the sentiment, though she put a softer spin on it. Hector didn’t challenge either of them. The morning was already almost gone, and he had planned to familiarize himself with the rest of the town in order to consider possible hiding places for his enemies to confer. It was going to be a long afternoon, filled with intense investigation.

“Zit, we have work to do. Go back to the constabulary and tell Deputy Trotter that I want to speak with him near the mine cliffs right away. I’ll have further orders by then.”

“Yes Sir,” Whatzit announced, whereupon she rose to her hooves and left.

“Uh, General,” Whim piped up. He still had the umbrella out, and though he was twirling it slower, Silvermane thought that the gently swirling colors did have a sort of calming effect. “Is it okay if I go and see the Waffles later? I’m sure it’s difficult for a Pegasus to not spread their—I mean, I’m sure things have been difficult for them lately, and the entire town owes a lot to their clinic. I’d like to drop by and cheer them up a bit, if you catch my drift.”

Silvermane flicked an ear. “You’re aware that the clinic lobby is a crime scene, yes?”

Whim nodded. “I won’t disturb anything General, honest! It’ll be like that time I tip-hoofed through the forest of undeniable peril with Daring Do! Not a single saw-toothed saberlion was disturbed that day, let me tell you!”

Kitty rolled her eyes and chuckled dryly. Silvermane didn’t.

“Just don’t go out at night, Whim. If you’re going to be there late, stay there. And…be certain you find yourself a locked room.”

Whim clicked his heels and saluted! “Once more into the breach!” With that he too was gone, leaving a mere two ponies in the common room alone.

Kitty quietly cleaned a glass, waiting to speak until Silvermane’s shoulders slumped a bit.

“Sit a spell, Captain. You really could use it.”

Silvermane shook his head without looking at the bar. “I can’t. There’s too much at stake.”

“I know what you want to talk to Trotter about.”

This made the captain peek in Kitty’s direction. “Oh?”

Kitty looked sly. “You’re not the first one to try it. You saw the old gallows near the mine pit, didn’t you. A century ago they were used to mete out swift justice around here, and then they’d just toss the bodies into the deepest part of the ravine, down below where the mines are and nopony goes. They’re antiques now, but we all still know they’re there.”

Silvermane took in the history lesson but said nothing. Kitty grinned.

“That’s what I would be doing in your position, Captain Hector. Even if I didn’t plan to actually use them, prepping a hangpony’s noose sends a message. There’s even a chance it might just scare away whatever dirty thug killed that second filly. You know a changeling didn’t do that as well as I do, but with a pack of them on the loose…it would be better to just not have to deal with yet another killer.”

Silvermane hesitated. He made for the door, and paused as it swung open on one blasted hinge.

“Don’t worry about that, Captain Hector,” Kitty sang. “I get the feeling doors aren’t going to be much protection for us anymore, but I’m good with a toolkit and I’ll deal with it later.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Kitty.”

“Mmhmm. Y’all come back now, ya hear?”
> 6 - Revelation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

From as far back as he could remember, Hector Silvermane had been a trusting soul. He was no fool and he hadn’t landed a job as Shining Armor’s replacement by accident, but he believed in the ideal that ponies were generally good-natured creatures, who aside from a few exceptions, could be trusted to lead good lives under the Equestrian banner. It was a habit of his to want to believe things he was told, but experience had taught him better.

Old habits, however, are hard to break.

Uttering a guttural curse that none within earshot could miss, Silvermane smacked the already open lobby door to the Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic so hard it made a banging noise that echoed down the hall. He had allowed the Waffles to clean up their examination room for medical purposes despite potential evidence, and he had even gone so far as to allow them to tidy up the lobby, so that the few in residence at Little Hoofington would not feel too unnerved to seek medical care. Some of the blood had indeed been scrubbed up, but removing bodily stains was no small task, and not enough time had gone by to clear it all away. Thus, a few of the old bloodstains were still there…left to mingle, in a morbid dance, with the new ones that graced every corner of the room.

A blue bundle that had once been a pony lay at rest in the center of the lobby, its limbs stretched out at grotesque angles that no living pony could reproduce. Both of its eyes were gone – blunted tear marks around the sockets suggested the grisly removal was accomplished with a dull gouging tool. A splatter of offal on the floor in the colors of blood and sclera lent itself to the idea that the killer simply squashed one (or perhaps both) of the victim’s extracted eyes with a hoof. Teeth lay strewn about with bloody roots, but each would have had to have been extracted one at a time from the jaw to reproduce the state of the victim’s gums. The corpse surprisingly had all its limbs, but the mane and tail had been torn out by the root and scattered in piles of hair all throughout the room, as though whomever removed them had danced about whilst gleefully spreading them all over the place.

There were two gashes in the victim’s neck. One of them cut from the throat nearly all the way to the spine, but the other, the more shallow of the two, appeared to have been inflicted sooner. This cut by itself was enough for the victim to bleed to death, but it didn’t go deep enough to sever the larynx. Through the hole, it could be plainly seen that the victim’s vocal chords had been violently sliced out.

Captain Silvermane shuddered. Upon the corpse’s limbs were heavy straps, usually used in medical applications to secure a delirious patient to a stretcher for safe transportation. It was very likely this pony was incapacitated from behind without being knocked unconscious, bound, quickly rendered unable to cry for help, and then forced to bear witness to the horrors taken out on them before finally being blinded, and for all intents and purposes, beheaded. The corpse’s cutie mark was gone, but his identity was obvious. As obvious as the rainbow-colored umbrella that had been jammed in an orifice that ruined his dignity, even in death.

Beat Trotter, who was kneeling over the body, shook his head. “It’s Whim, that’s fer sure. I ain’t no expert in forensics Captain, but I’ve learned a thing or two. Body’s still a little bit warm. This had to have happened only a couple hours ago.”

Deputy Trotter paused abruptly to swallow hard. He didn’t recover quickly, and though he was loathe to ask, Silvermane understood. He nodded at the deputy, who promptly scampered through the double doors to vomit into the street.

A crime scene, Silvermane thought. I let him go to a crime scene…why did I let Whim come here last night?”

But Hector knew why. Because he had chosen to trust. Because he wanted to take pity on these poor, terrified ponies, and allow them their planned moment of respite. He had let trust get in the way, and a third death on his watch had been the result.

“—accident!” Maple Waffle was shouting at Constable Rose, who had assumed a threatening stance before the wing-tied Pegasus. Maple held up a hoof, which, like its mates, was covered in blood. “I told you it was an accident! I didn’t know any of this was here! I walked out into the lobby this morning and nearly slipped on it all!”

“An’ you didn’t even figger on washin’ it off, didja?” Rose accused.

“No, no I didn’t! Wouldn’t I be even more likely to be the killer if I had done that first!?”

Behind the Waffle patriarch, stuffed into the hall, was the diminutive figure of his wife, Buttermilk Waffle. She was visibly shaken and was concentrating to still her breathing, but like a true medical professional, she was keeping it together even in the face of such horrifying gore. The Waffle children were behaving as any curious youths – trying to get a look past their mother, while she made every attempt to block them.

“This is the second time somepony has tried to frame my family!” Maple roared. He stood protectively before his kin and cut a rather menacing figure, even with his wings bound tightly at his sides. “What are you all going to do about it!? It’s obvious that somepony wants our clinic to be shut down so there’ll be no medical help when it’s needed!”

”When it’s needed?” Constable Rose had her head partially bowed, displaying her horn. “You know somethin’ we don’t, mebbe?”

“Y-you know what I mean!” Maple sputtered. He turned his attention to Silvermane. “Captain! You can’t possibly believe we’re responsible for this, can you?”

Captain Silvermane remembered Stringbean’s words. Four changelings. Four Waffles. The Waffles had voluntarily taken Specs in to care for her, and she was dead by morning, in their own lobby. Whim had gone to the Waffle clinic to spread good cheer, but he too had been killed in the same place, his body desecrated in the a manner so undignified, it seemed as though the killer was taunting them.

Captain Silvermane’s trust had been to blame. Weakness in the eye of the picturesque nuclear family, as a bastion of normalcy in the untenable madness that was Little Hoofington.

Hector’s eyes narrowed.

“What do you want me to believe, Mister Waffle?” The captain replied, his voice calm and even. “It’s one thing for your lobby to be accessible at all hours of the day, but a heinous murder occurs here, and yet you continue that practice? Two-thirds of the deaths that have occurred in this town since I arrived have been in this same room!”

“I am not changeling!” Maple bellowed. “We all know by now that changelings don’t kill this way!”

“Maybe not,” Hector simmered. “But Pinkamena does.”

Maple was aghast. He chuckled condescendingly. “You can’t be serious. Pinkamena is a famous serial killer, we all know what she looks like. She’s an average-built mare,” he rose to his full, imposing height, “I’m a large stallion. How could I possibly be Pinkamena?”

“Pinkamena is capable of feats most ponies would consider impossible,” Silvermane replied. “She’s also a master of disguise. Look how many times she fooled her own best friends, and the princesses of Equestria, into giving her another chance, despite what she had done.”

Maple gritted his teeth. “What are you trying to say?”

Silvermane didn’t hesitate. “I’m trying to say that I wouldn’t put it past Pinkamena to fool anypony into believing she’s anything from a sea monster to Ahuizotl.”

“You’re insane,” Maple accused. “Check between my legs, you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

Hector, who had managed to temporarily pack his emotions into the cool casing of military discipline, flicked an ear. “You know what? You might be right. Maybe you’re not Pinkamena because you’re too tall and a stallion. Maybe that is a bit of a stretch, even for her.”

Hector’s eyes slid to Buttermilk. Maple’s jaw dropped, and in half a second he had imposed himself between the guard captain and the mare in the room.

“Don’t you look at my wife that way,” Maple growled.

“H-honey, please,” Buttermilk spoke up, her voice small behind her husband. “You can’t blame the captain for thinking that way. The evidence points to us.”

“Did you murder these ponies?” Maple asked without turning around.

“…o-of course not, you know I vowed to do no harm the day I got my license…”

“Then I don’t give a damn what Silvermane thinks,” Maple concluded. He glanced towards Constable Rose. She was stoic and solid in her stance, but still looked comically diminutive compared to the Pegasus stallion she held in check. “Captain Silvermane has made our constabulary, our own police force we trust to protect us, into his personal gang of cronies. ‘Oh look, a guard arrived! Let’s just drop everything and obey!’”

“My authorization to assume overall command of the guard post in this town was signed and sealed by the princesses themselves,” Silvermane explained. “The authority of the national guard also supersedes that of local authorities in times of emergency.”

“Ah seen that writ with mah own eyes,” Rose agreed. “An’ ah also seen whut’s been goin’ on in this here lobby for the past couple’a days.”

Maple spat. “A sealed writ? A seal can be forged!”

“Nopony would dare create a copy of the royal seal,” Silvermane defended himself. “To do so is considered a high crime, and to use or even be caught in possession of one would be tantamount to treason against the crown.”

“There’s no way to commit treason against Equestria when you’re a member of the changeling nation!” Maple accused.

Silvermane had reached his limit, and had no intention of further turning the conversation into a personal character assassination. He drew in a breath and finalized his intentions.

“Maple Waffle, you’re under arrest. For the murder of Specs, and now Whim. You can either come quietly, or we can do this in a way we’ll both regret.”

Maple stood his ground. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Buttermilk, who had been quiet, fought through the sharp stench of death in the room that was cloying about her like a second skin. “Captain Silvermane, unless you’ve decided whether these murders were committed by a changeling or Pinkamena, to the point that one or the other is not present in Little Hoofington, arresting only my husband may not stop the killing.”

Silvermane sighed. “I know. And that’s why you’re under arrest too, Missus Waffle. On the same charges.”

Buttermilk’s periwinkle coat practically turned white. “…y-you…C-Captain Silvermane, my children…” she placed a hoof protectively on the first head she could find whilst blindly groping, which happened to be Chocolate’s. “…w-who will look after my children…please, you can’t take both of us away from them…”

Chocolate Waffle had a nearly catatonic look about him. He had gotten out from behind his distracted mother, and his eyes were on the carnage in the lobby. The poor colt’s expression was one of shock that ran so deep he couldn’t even express it, but his sister was conversely a ball of youthful terror. Strawberry Waffle shot out from behind her mother and latched onto her father’s leg, her fruity curls bouncing around her face.

“Please don’t take my daddy away!!” Strawberry shouted, her tone and words more juvenile than her years. “Daddy might get hurt if he doesn’t stay here where it’s safe with us!!”

Strawberry Waffle was impressively pious for a youth, as she seemed to have no qualms about herself – her words revolved totally around her father’s safety. Silvermane had no children of his own, but he and Chloe planned to start trying next spring. He was not entirely unfamiliar with foals, for many of his associates in the guard had their own. He had felt as a second father to a few of the young ones, and thus felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do.

Duty rang out in the captain’s mind like the tolling of bells. There was a rustling noise, and Deputy Trotter appeared again in the doorway. With numbers bolstered, Silvermane repeated his orders.

“Mister and Missus Waffle, I insist you come with us. You have my word that no harm will come to either of you in our custody, and you will be set free if the evidence proves inconclusive, or points to your innocence.”

“B-but what about the children…” Buttermilk blubbered.

“The children…” Silvermane thought fast, for he knew they could not be left at the clinic to fend for themselves. “They can stay with us too. We have several rooms available and all of us will be nearby to protect them.”

“Unacceptable!” Maple shouted, stamping one hoof upon the floor until it bore a fresh coat of blood. “How do we know the jailhouse is really safe? We’re safe here, and we know it!”

Buttermilk was talking with her hooves. “What about the clinic, Captain? How will we continue our practice?”

“If anypony requires medical assistance, we’ll bring them to you,” Silvermane assured, and then nodded towards Trotter, “Deputy Trotter can obtain any equipment you require.”

“What about the equipment that can’t be moved?” Maple managed to ask through his own rage.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Maple planted his hooves. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going anywhere, ‘Captain’. Assuming ‘Hector Silvermane’ is even a real pony in the first place.”

Silvermane’s eyes narrowed and his hackles went up, but he kept his expression straight. “Resisting arrest is a crime, Mister Waffle. It may also be the first crime in days to actually have witnesses,” he added sarcastically.

Maple gritted his teeth so hard that they ought to have shattered. He bristled, waiting to see which officer would pounce at him first. Constable Rose’s horn was alight, and it sizzled with hot power.

“Darling, stop this,” Buttermilk let go of her son and stepped to the forefront. She looked forlorn, as if she had resigned herself to being whisked away to a concentration camp by an invading army. “Nothing good will come of this other than somepony else being hurt. I can’t let that one be a member of our family.”

“Neither can I dear,” Maple seethed, his eyes still on his attackers. “That’s why I’m not going anywhere.”

Buttermilk’s soft countenance grew suddenly sharp. “Now see here, Maple Waffle! You’re being stubborn! You know we didn’t do this, and I know we didn’t do this. You will not start a fight in our ancestors’ place of healing, no matter what else has transpired here recently, and I won’t let you bring our children to potential harm.” Her expression softened, and she reached out a hoof to place it gently on his chest. “Please, darling…please. Captain Silvermane is a just stallion trying to help our town. I just know he is. We’ll clear this up once and for all, and then, i-if you really want to…we’ll leave this town forever, never to look back. We’ll go and build a new life for our family, and practice the healing arts in another community. One where we can still make a difference.”

There was a clack of hooves in the sudden silence. Chocolate Waffle was out in the lobby proper, and was staring down at the corpse, smashed eyeballs and all. Buttermilk knew she was too late to protect him from the sight, so she approached gently, and placed that same hoof upon his withers.

“Would you like that, sweetie? Would you like to go and live in a new town? You could make new friends there, someplace safe in the heart of Equestria, where nothing like this will ever happen again. You…_we_ can be happy there…”

Chocolate let out a small breath. He said nothing, and made eye contact with nopony. His expression was like a portal to limbo, and it left even Captain Silvermane wondering if the colt had any love left for a changeling to steal. His cutie mark was flat and drab – not even much of a target for the technicolor madness of Pinkamena. Silvermane felt pity for the boy – his frown lines were not worn in, suggesting that perhaps, before all of this started, he once knew how to smile.

Maybe it wasn’t too late for him. Or for any of them.

Captain Silvermane stepped up beside Constable Rose and placed a staying hoof upon her shoulder. The itchy-hoofed nag seemed almost eager to open fire, but she let out a sharp breath of her own and steeled herself at her commander’s unspoken orders.

Buttermilk’s eyes scanned the room. The three officers were trying to be cordial, but she could find no hesitation in any of their eyes. Her daughter was clinging to her husband like glue and trying to will the law away with her eyes, while Maple seemed ready to run all three of his adversaries through with his eyes alone. There was a slight shift in the pineapple stallion’s demeanor, and finally he spoke.

“…fine, Captain,” Maple had no choice but to acquiesce. “But if anything happens to my family under your care, you’d better kill me too, because so help me, I’ll make sure you lose more than just your badge.”

Silvermane allowed his officers to advance carefully on the Waffle family. “You have my word, Mister Waffle. The moment the two of you are absolved of this crime, you’ll be set free.”

Silvermane had no idea how that was going to come to pass.


****


“—put me in here with him!!” Stringbean wailed. “You can’t put me in here with him!! He’s a monster! That’s the same thing as murder!!”

Silvermane said nothing. He stood in the entrance between the constabulary’s lobby and the cell room, thinking about how the building was ill-equipped to serve as anything more than a temporary drunk tank. His body was still, but his mind was racing. If the Waffles were innocent, he had no means by which to prove it, and his trust had already been violated too deeply to simply let them go otherwise. But could he really keep them locked up indefinitely, as the town’s only healers?

Was there no way to prove their innocence beyond keeping them incarcerated long enough to see if any more murders occurred?

The constabulary had three small cells, but the leftmost cell had a damaged hinge and was of little use but to hold Deputy Trotter’s cot. The rightmost cell, farthest from the main entrance, housed the quiet form of Buttermilk Waffle. She was sitting on the cell’s single cot and staring down at her hooves, as though she was expecting to be led into the noose at any moment.

The center cell was already home to Stringbean, but Deputy Trotter was in the process of introducing Maple Waffle to it. The itinerant miner was pitching a fit about the accommodations, but Silvermane couldn’t risk leaving the Maple spouses in the same cell, for fear of what changelings might be able to accomplish in force – not that he had any guarantee that Stringbean himself wasn’t one of the insectal monsters.

Maple didn’t look too pleased about the situation either. He said little, but the look on his face was enough to send a chill down even the guard captain’s spine. Silvermane turned and left the shouting behind, returning to the lobby to collect himself.

“Captain,” Whatzit spoke up as she lingered by the coffee brewer, “where’s Constable Rose?”

“Seeing to the completion of the task I set Deputy Trotter to yesterday,” Hector explained. “On account of a claim by the both of them that she’s better with complex knots.”

Zit touched her neck and glanced at the far wall. She could not see through it, but on the she knew what was visible from the cells. The restored gallows were nearly complete.

“…you…you won’t really…”

“Zit,” Silvermane admonished. “Hush.”

Whatzit shrank. On the couch were the Waffle children, who were well within earshot of everything. Strawberry was up against her brother with a foreleg around him, but her wide eyes were fixated on the cell room entrance. Her terror had put her in a catatonic stupor much like his, as though Silvermane had already ordered the death of her parents by hanging. Chocolate hung his head, and was staring at one of his sister’s candy-colored hooves. Silvermane wondered, as always, what was on the boy’s mind. What he saw now, and what he had seen that had ruined him so.

“There’s to be a guard posted here at all times from now on,” Silvermane ordered without looking at Whatzit. “And nobody comes in without the code knock, not even if they sound like one of us.”

Whatzit had a cup of coffee but she hadn’t touched it. She looked nervous. “…yes, Sir.”

Silvermane noticed his young deputy’s agitation. That, plus the pink scarf around her neck that belonged to his wife, softened his demeanor somewhat. “Zit, everything’s quiet now. We have a few moments to collect ourselves, and then we’re going to find proper accommodations for the foal—“

Silvermane never finished his sentence. The scream that rent the air was otherworldly, and like nothing he had ever experienced before.

Captain Silvermane dashed back towards the cell room, and was nearly bowled over by Stringbean, who was traveling at the same feverish pace in the opposite direction. Silvermane attempted to restrain him with shouts and grabs, but the washed-out miner was beyond recognition of his words. Stringbean merely dodged, a haunted terror in his eyes, and loped clumsily towards the front door, crashing through it unnecessarily with his full bulk.

“Stop!!” Silvermane shouted. “Stop in the name of the law! Deputy Trotter, the prisoner is esc—“

It was all happening too fast. Screams – male, female, and bestial filled the cell room, their combined disharmony tearing apart the tomb-like silence of the entire building, perhaps even the entire town. In the furthest cell, Buttermilk Waffle was beating on the bars like a mare possessed, her words barely understandable through her frantic bawling and the din of the room.

“—husband!? Captain, CAPTAIN!! What’s happening to my husband!?”

But Maple Waffle wasn’t there. The Pegasus wing-chain that had held him was snapped upon he floor, and in his place stood a hulking specimen of a deep black changeling. The creature was uncommonly large for its kind – the very size of the pony it had been posing as – and the power behind its perforated legs was evident as it went about its ghoulish task.

With one hoof, the ichor-stained monstrosity had Beat Trotter planted up against the wall. The deputy constable’s body was wracked with convulsions – somehow, the pitiable pony was still able to wail as his body was desiccated alive; his limbs and face warped into gnarled, sunken features that resembled a corpse preserved for a thousand years in the deserts of the south. A colorful vapor was emanating from his entire body – the great maw of the beast who was destroying him sucked the colors up like a vacuum cleaner on high.

“NO!”

With a cry that was like a cannonball at his enemy, Captain Silvermane tore through the open cell gate and launched himself at the great black hole that had dared to mar the sanctity of his jailhouse. His bulk was enough to topple it, but he had little experience doing direct battle with changelings, and the creature threw him off with a series of well-placed bites from its powerful jaws. It was incredibly nimble on two pairs of insectal wings, and it made use of these to dodge and feint, trying to make it past the guard captain to the freedom of the unlocked cell gate.

Silvermane burned with anger over being duped by these creatures into playing their game – mistrusting everypony, false incarceration, and losing innocents he was sworn to protect. He had been frustrated by a number of well-placed attacks, but his training kicked in, and he channeled the passionate hatred for the beast he faced into a calm, even core deep within his mind and heart. He batted and kicked at the monster, holding it at bay as he scanned the patterns of its movements for an opening. He found it when the hissing changeling kicked off its hind legs and made an attempt to soar straight over him. Silvermane lit his horn and opened fire the moment the creature was directly above, catching it full in the stomach with a low-level blast of law-enforcement magic intended to incapacitate even the most stoic Earth pony.

The changeling howled, its stomach smoking, and was flung back against the far cell wall. It crumpled against a bunk, but to Silvermane’s shock, the beast quickly righted itself and dipped into another stance, its opaque eyes locked on fresh prey in a royal guard helmet.

Silvermane’s head was reeling, but he aimed his horn menacingly at the monster and amped up the glow of the stored magic. “Halt!” He commanded. “Or the next one takes off your head!!”

The creature seemed to weigh this threat for a moment, as if trying to decide if it had anything to lose by disobeying, for the gallows were in full view through the barred cell window. Deciding to take its chances, it let out a cobra’s hiss and leapt into Silvermane with such speed that the captain’s shot went wild.

To the hysterical screams of the mare who could not see them, stallion and changeling mixed it, rolling into a battered ball throughout the cell. When the changeling found itself both on top and near the door it made a break for the exit, but Silvermane fired off a shot that sent the barred gate slamming shut. It clicked, automatically locking, and the beast cast a baleful stare at the pony who had locked them both in. Silvermane grinned perversely.

“You’re never getting out of here you bastard,” Silvermane winced from the floor, his very breath tender in his lungs. He pointed to his helmet. “Got another set of keys in here. But you’re only getting them over my dead body.”

The robust changeling let out a piercing scream of challenge, as colorful love-ichor that had once belonged to a deputy constable spattered from its jaws in all directions. Silvermane was winded, covered in bites and small gouges; his foe a head again his own height and nearly twice the bulk. He wasn’t about to give up, but unless he could muster up the energy for another powerful bolt of magic that actually hit its mark, he knew the inevitable outcome of the battle. Weariness was hampering his mind however, and the needed energy was no longer his to command.

The creature pounced again. Silvermane braced for impact.

All at once, the ebon demon howled with pain as another blast of power sent it crashing yet again into the far wall. It grimaced and choked, gripping at a plume of smoke trailing from its side, but did not get up again.

In the center of the cell room stood Constable Rose, another plume of white smoke emanating from the tip of her horn as from the barrel of a shotgun. She patted her horn and smiled. “Y’all git to mah age, Cap’n. See if yer horn don’t do the same. Ol’ Spiral here’s been itchin’ to bag a changeling half a forever. ‘bout time.”

Silvermane made eye contact with the changeling. It stared back, wild hatred in its eyes, but was too stunned to take further action. The guard captain used the opportunity to nab the prone form of Deputy Trotter by two forelegs and drag him from the cell.

Constable Rose had been chewing on a toothpick, but it fell from her maw when she laid eyes on the deputy. “…sweet merciful mother Celestia…” the old nag choked. “…not him too…”

Silvermane spread Trotter out on the floor and attempted CPR – it was a strange gesture and a futile one, but it was all the beleaguered commander could think to do. Beat Trotter’s face was twisted in throes of a terrifying death, the shrunken raisins of his eyes never to take in another sight. He looked far older than Constable Rose, and his mane and tail had gone stark white. There was no pulse, no heartbeat, and he had already gone a bit cool to the touch.

Buttermilk Waffle screamed at the sight. Constable Rose was shaking, and her eyes snapped up to meet the changeling.

“Y-you…y’dirty sonnova…that boy was a good egg…he’d’a made somethin’ of himself someday as a lawpony, I’m sure of it…n’ you…you…” she sputtered, “…y’hadda go an’ take that all away so’s you could have a Celestia-be-damned snack!”

Constable Rose was stronger with bolt magic than any guard Silvermane had ever met, and her horn came to life with white fire that sent a shiver even into the heart of the guard captain. Silvermane was on his hooves, and he interposed himself between the constable and the cell door.

“Git!!” Rose shouted. “Go on ‘n git, Cap’n! I’ll burn that monster down fer what it done!”

“You’re a lawpony!” Silvermane protested.

“You lemme burn him an’ it’ll all be over!” Rose shot back. “Ain’t nopony gonna know in this here dead town!”

“That’s murder, Constable!”

“Whut, you wanna stretch that thing’s neck instead? There ain’t no difference!”

“There is a difference,” Silvermane shot back. “One is justice, the other is just cold-blooded revenge!”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “You ever kill a pony, Cap’n?”

“What?” Silvermane blinked. “…no.”

Rose doused her horn, but her stance remained firm. “Ah have. An’ let me tell you something…it’s a hell of a thing, takin’ a life. Ain’t nothin’ like movies and books an’ all that romantic garbage.” She turned away. “…y’all remember that when you think about mah offer to end all this right now, and you sit there watchin’ that thing swing from a rope at yer command.”

Buttermilk Waffle’s sobs were without end. She hadn’t for a moment ceased inquiring about the safety of her husband, but before either lawpony could finally reply, another shrill scream rent the air. Everypony turned, to find Strawberry Waffle in the doorway with her brother and Zit. The daughter of the Waffles had her eyes not on the corpse, but the center cell.

“Daddy!! Daddy!!” Strawberry wailed. “Don’t hurt my daddy, please!!”

Silvermane glanced at the cell. On the floor, a wound upon his side, lay Maple Waffle, in the exact same position the changeling had been in.

“Stop it!” Silvermane snarled at the changeling as he approached the bars. “Can’t you see they’ve been through enough!? The ruse is over! Stop doing this to them!!”

The creature, in Maple Waffle’s voice, rattled out a dry chuckle. “…won’t matter soon…soon you’ll all be dead…we’re everywhere…you can’t trust anypony…”

Silvermane glowered. “You’re through, monster. Tomorrow you’ll die by the gallows.”

“NO!!” Strawberry cried. She tried to scamper into the room, but Zit held her fast.

“Get them out of here!” Silvermane shouted. Startled by the barked order, Zit began to force the children from the room.

Maple laughed. “…heh, you think my death is going to stop us? My queen has you all figured out, lawpony. You’re all already corpses like your friend over there. You just don’t know you’re dead yet.”

Silvermane shook his head in defiance. “No. You haven’t won yet. If you had, you’d be slaughtering us wholesale in the street. But you’re still hiding. Still playing the game.” He drew up to his full height and stared down the prone changeling, his head pounding with exertion and pain from a dozen tiny wounds. “Which means victory isn’t certain for you. We can still destroy you.”

Maple cackled again. “Kill me, dirty little pony. Kill me and see what little difference it really makes. I would die in the service of my hive anyway.”

Buttermilk was curled up into a ball on the floor of her cell. “…m-my husband…m-my family…d-don’t hurt them…”

Maple called out to her lovingly in the voice of the pony she once knew. Then he turned back to Silvermane. “We’ve had time to learn to be you. That’s the kiss of death – time. Now we can cry, laugh, wail for loved ones, or chastise you about trust…and you’ll never know the difference.”

Silvermane’s eyes went back and forth between the two incarcerated Waffles. Their emotional states suddenly unnerved him, and he had an overwhelming desire to remove himself from their presence. He was exhausted, injured, and thoroughly disgusted. He turned from the cells, intent upon leaving the room, until he almost tripped over the corpse of Beat Trotter. Constable Rose had her head down and her attention on the former deputy. She was quaking, but with sorrow, fear, anguish, or just plain fury, he could not tell.

“…we…need to move him,” Silvermane said gently, “and Whim, too. Let’s focus on our tasks. The changeling dies first thing in the morning. I’ll put Zit on guard.”

Rose shook her head defiantly. “Ah’ll watch that thing. It’s the least ah can do fer ol’ Trotter.”

Silvermane raised a brow, but Rose cut him off with a dismissive hoof. “I ain’t gonna burn him down b’fore his date with death. Y’got my word. Y’all take the kid and do what you gotta.”

Silvermane nodded dully and went about assisting the constable in the grim task. Between them, they collected the body and removed themselves from the chamber, the cries of Buttermilk Waffle chasing them all the way.
> 7 - Termination
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dawn in Little Hoofington.

A gray dawn, pale, like the mythical tall stallions of the apocalypse. It presided over the skeletal town below with hooves outstretched in the form of thick, masking clouds. They ruled the area of their own accord, for the local branch of the Pegasus weather service had long departed. Hardly a ‘town’ at all, the place was a gathering of less than twenty residents, who huddled under rickety shacks wondering if their stubborn desire to stick to their homes had been a mistake.

Soon, there would be one less.

Captain Silvermane’s heart was fluttering with pity, guilt, and regret, but he would not show it. Anger lived there as well – a fire that evaporated the heavy white all around him, borne of betrayal and terror. Homes had been broken, lives ended, and all for wont of love put to bad use.

Silvermane’s hate burned hot. Without his wife or his closest friends to confide in, only his martial discipline kept it from boiling over.

Upon the gallows platform stood Constable Dusky Rose, her military-striped cutie mark resplendent against the olive drab of her coat. She was wearing a black leg band, and her demenor was noticably subdued from the usual piss and vinegar Silvermane had come to expect. The loss of her deputy had harmed the constable more deeply than she wanted to let on, but she kept a steady marching cadence on the single snare drum levitated before her. Captain Silvermane had insisted the execution be carried out with military precision - as much to send a message as for respect of tradition.

Nearly the entire town, or what was left of it, had turned out for the show. They were milling about in the street before the gallows and the mining pit beyond, looking pensive yet wary. Missing only were the enigmatic Lora Lore, the escaped convict Stringbean, and the drunkard Beanie, who seemed to understand little apart from his own posting. This reduced the pool of spectators who were not present either as law enforcement officials, prisoners, or the condemned to a mere three ponies.

Against Silvermane’s better judgement, the Waffle children were also present. They were under the watchful eye of the scraggly sage green unicorn known as Whatzit, who had lapsed into a stern melancholy in the face of the proceedings. Silvermane wanted to order them away, but their mother, who stood beside them, demanded her entire family be present. Who was he to refuse? If anything, it might put their minds at ease – a dead changeling always reverts to its original form, and they would see their ‘father’ for what he really was soon enough.

Silvermane sneered at the prisoner whom he led on the green mile. The creature was back in the guise of Maple Waffle; not once had it allowed the Waffle family to see it in its true form. Surely the creature knew it was about to die – what was it expecting? That the Waffle family would leap in at the last moment to save it? Or was it just that vindictive of a beast, determined to torture those whom it had already robbed from until the last?

Silvermane could hear sounds behind him; Whatzit’s shushed attempts to give comfort to the family in the knowledge that their father’s killer was about to be brought to justice. But truth is often hard to divorce from perception, and the soft wails of the widow Waffle, coupled with those of her daughter, were plain to hear. Chocolate Waffle’s voice was not in the chorus, but Silvermane could feel the colt’s eyes on his back, lancing him like the lump of icy coal the boy resembled.

Silvermane glanced at the spectators. Caveat looked stoic and pensive, as if she had turned out in her battered armor plates for a routine cadet review. Cadabra Smile had an uncharacteristically shaken look, her head tilted to dip the brim of her brow over one eye. Kitty Contessa was the furthest away, and seemed oddly thoughtful. None of them bore reactions Silvermane came to expect from a spectacle as gruesome as a public execution, be they reactions of revulsion or perverse interest.

Silvermane floated the condemned to the scaffold. Maple Waffle’s grin was infuriating, but it lived behind a transparent purple bubble of magic that not only kept the fiend at bay, but suppressed his ability to take any form other than those that were easiest – those of other ponies. It was a complex spell, and one that neither Constable Rose nor Captain Silvermane could maintain for long. Placing a convict changeling in a cell with normal bars was inviting escape, so the princesses of sun and moon had thought to send along with their investigator a number of pre-prepared talismens that could reproduce the spell at will. It could be maintained for approximately eight hours, but after that not only would the spell fail, but the trinket it was attached to would crumble to dust.

There were only three such talismens remaining.

“You think you’re ridding the world of me,” the creature hissed under its breath. “You don’t understand anything. Everything I do is for the good of the hive. I’ve been prepared to die from the day I was hatched, and I’d do it in a minute if it meant that we get any closer to draining the sweet love out of another one of you prismatic bags of bones.”

Silvermane’s analytical mind was on the scene before him. Three ponies not present. Were they changelings, who had chosen to forsake their companion in order to maintain the act? Ten ponies who were present. Did any of them plan to effect a daring rescue of their ‘comerade’ at any moment?

Silvermane glanced at Cadabra, who had been incarcerated for a whole night in the jailhouse. Several of the townsponies seemed convinced that the arrogant Night cultist was the changeling queen herself, but if that were the case, could she not have altered her form to escape the prison at any moment? Had Beat Trotter’s watchful eye made that impossible, or had she merely chosen not to escape on purpose, to take suspicion off herself?

The drum beat ceased. Silvermane floated the magical sphere over to Rose, who began to fit the captured changeling within with a hood and noose. The spell only prevented the captured changeling from leaving, and thus she could still reach in. Rose had also thought todesign her knots tighten if the creature’s neck suddenly shrunk in size.

Silvermane felt compelled to address the crowd.

“…citizens of Little Hoofington,” he offered by way of stalling until he could think of something to say. “We have confirmed the identity of this creature, and in accordance with the power vested in me by the Princess of the Sun and the Princess of the Moon, I have ordered it to hang by the neck until dead.”

Buttermilk Waffle stifled a cry. She was blubbering into a hankerchief, and Whatzit was making a vain attempt to console her.

“He wants to kill me!” the hooded and noosed Maple shouted with a grin. “What do you all think of that?”

“Quiet you!” Rose snarled, her horn alight. “Y’damn monster, playin’ with their sympathies up till the very moment ya stretch!” She thrust her hoof at the Waffle family. “Y’killed their daddy, y’killed a good deputy, and y’prolly killed dozens more! Yer lucky this might go quick!”

Silvermane held up a hoof, demanding silence. He turned back to the crowd. “You have my solemn word as an officer of the royal court in the execution of my duty that this being is, in fact, a changeling. Several witnesses can corroborate this.” His voice remained even, his convictions firm. “I intend to carry out my duty, but if anypony wishes to speak, now is the time.”

Cadabra looked to Caveat, who puffed up next to her employer. Neither spoke, but the latter gave off a threatening air. Kitty Contessa turned away, a look of sudden disgust on her face. Silvermane couldn’t be certain if any of the spectators believed him. Perhaps they were simply eager for any result that promised to rid them of a foe they were otherwise powerless against.

“DADDY!!”

Strawberry Waffle was in hysterics, and Silvermane instantly regretted buckling under her mother’s insistence that they all be present. The filly was struggling against the combined grip of her mother and Whatzit, battling to get to the image of her father with all her juvenile might. Tears were streaming down her face, their flow matched only by those of her mother, who had her eyes shut tightly and was focusing only upon the firmness of her grip.

“Daddy, no! You can’t hurt my daddy!”

Silvermane could barely lay eyes on the spectacle. “This…this isn’t your father…” he muttered, his voice not carrying over the din. He cursed, stamping the scaffold with a hoof, and glared at the condemned, who stood tall despite the hood and noose it could not transform sufficiently to shrug off.

“You damn…thing!” he barked. “Spare her this! For the love of Celestia, die with some shread of decency! Die as the creature you really are!”

“Kill me,” Maple Waffle sneered. “Do it, Captain. Hang me, right in front of that family. Show the whole town that you mean business.”

Rose stood by the lever that would drop the floor out from under the condemned, magical sphere and all. She looked on, waiting for orders.

Silvermane hesitated.

Maple cackled. “Four Waffles, Captain! Four changelings!”

“What--?”

A number of screams rent the air, and Captain Silvermane suddenly found himself hurtling to the snowy ground below the scaffolding. Something had hit him in the back, and its weight was like an entire cart of apples being tossed at him by the winds of a tornado. He cursed and fought, kicking at the writhing form atop him, and finally managed to roll away from it. Narrowly avoiding the mining chasm, he came up on his haunches and took in the scene.

Strawberry Waffle was gone. In her place stood a timberwolf, three times the size of any specimen he had ever laid eyes on, it’s ghastly green eyes focused on him. It spoke, it’s voice a distorted mockery of the Waffle family daughter.

“Didn’t I say to leave my daddy alone!?” The beast snarled. “Now you’re going to pay, pony!”

A blast of Rose’s white fire exploded instantly upon the wolf’s shoulder, singing the wood of it’s body and eliciting a howl of pain. Silvermane took the opening and leapt forward to tackle the monster, surprised with the ease it took to send it sprawling. This one was in a menacing form, but it apparently wasn’t as physically adept as the one that stood ready to hang.

Shouts and hoof beats echoed about the area, but Silvermane had no time to see who had joined the fray or on what side. He found the creature’s throat, seized it, and began to squeeze; hesitating only when the monster converted its face to the guise of Strawberry Waffle, once again tearfully calling out for ‘daddy’.

An innocent filly. She might have lived a happy life, but instead she had ended up a mere snack for a monster – dessicated slowly and painfully, her body most likely never to be found.

Hector Silvermane felt something snap inside him. Stretched to its limit, his discipline snapped like a rotted rubber band, allowing a red torrent of blind fury to gush forth and envelop his vision. The changeling beneath him kicked. Caught off guard Silvermane was thrown back, but his last vestige of tolerance was gone. The creature became a jaguar and threw itself at him, fangs and claws to bear, but Silvermane didn’t so much as flinch. He was beyond fear. Beyond remorse.

With a powerful cry, Captain Silvermane bowed his head and impaled the creature with his horn directly into it’s maw. At the same moment, a stiff blade that could only be Caveat’s embedded itself into the changeling’s fuzzy back. Silvermane felt a disgusting slippery sensation as his horn smashed into the beast’s skull and went beyond, leaving the creature unable even to cry in anguish. Pierced to the grey matter and with its spinal cord severed, the changeling reverted to it’s true form – a rather scrawny specimen – and went slack, held aloft only by the head of he who had vanquished it.

Beyond rational thought, Silvermane shook his head violently from side to side, thrashing like a dog with a squirrel in its mouth until the black lump fell free. His helmet flew off, but he paid it no mind. Ponies were rushing about all over the place in various states of duress. There was no law, no order. Somehow the bubble around Maple Waffle had dissipated, and the large Pegasus, with a feral grimace, was atop constable rose on the scaffold dais, attempting to rip her horn right out of her head with a changeling’s fangs. Silvermane moved at a gallop, crashing into Maple sufficiently to knock him clear into the mining pit, from which he took wing and quickly recovered.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance Captain!” Maple cackled. “You should have killed us all!” Once I’m out of here, I’m going to go right back to ending each of you, one-by-one, and you’ll never, never find me aga—“

Maple choked. Glancing down, he found a large, smoldering hole straight through his chest, that was not part of a changeling’s usual look. Whatever organs he had there had been pulverized into green slime.

“And that’s fer Trotter, y’damned bug!!” Rose called, her horn smoking. “I’ll find y’all, and I’ll burn the lotta ya! So help me!”

Unable to retain his shape, Maple reverted to his original changeling form. Green ichor began to pour from his lips. His wingbeats slowed, turning into little more than convulsions, and he began to sink into the pit.

“…nghh…f-four ch-changelings…” Maple sputtered out his life’s breath. “…f-four Waffles…d-doom…t-too late…”

“NO!” A voice cried. Upon the dais was Buttermilk Waffle, her auburn curls flowing haphazardly around her. “No! No you won’t do this! My family!!”

Frenzied, Buttermilk leapt at Silvermane in an incomprehensible fury and began to batter him with her hooves. Unperturbed against the fruitless assault, Silvermane grabbed the smaller mare and shoved her into a post on the gallows, knocking the wind from her.

“You did this!” Silvermane accused. “You four are responsible for all of this! Posing as a family – with children – to earn our trust! Murdering in different ways just to throw us off! How dare you think you can waltz into Equestria and destroy our families, our loved ones, for a goddamn meal!?”

Buttermilk’s pupils shrank. “Wh-what are you…I would never—“

Silvermane slammed the mare against the post again, robbing her of speech. “Don’t LIE to me, monster!” He nabbed the noose in his magic and threaded her head through it as he held her. “You don’t want to show us who you really are!? You want to make us suffer as we watch our loved ones die right in front of us? I’ll make you change back!”

Buttermilk struggled, but the noose, well knotted by Rose, tightened with every thrash. The clinic pony began to choke, her hooves at her throat, wild panic in her eyes. “…n-…no…y-you’re….w-wrong…pl-pl-pleeea—“

Silvermane gave the lever a wicked kick, and the floor dropped out from under Buttermilk Waffle. There was a wicked cracking noise, and a moment later she was dangling from a rope, her only remaining movements a few involuntary twitches.

“Now you have to escape!” Silvermane shouted. “Show us! Show us what you really are!”

Buttermilk Waffle…swung.

Silvermane paused.

“…ch-change…” the captain muttered. “…show us, show us…what you are…f-four changelings, four Waffles…”

Nothing happened. A blast of magic took out the rope, but Silvermane’s own magic caught the body before it could tumble through the chute and out into the chasm. He held it close, his eyes meeting the bulging ones of the strangled mare.

“Change…dammit change!” Silvermane bellowed. He began to shake the corpse. “Show them! Show them what you really are!!”

But Buttermilk Waffle gave no reply. Like a marionette she hung in the glow of his magic, her tear tracks already beginning to dry.

“…no…” Constable Rose whispered. “…c-cain’t be…they…they turn back when they’re kill’t…”

Silvermane’s jaw was quivering. His haunted eyes glanced over Buttermilk’s shoulder. Zit stood, still near the jailhouse, with wide eyes. She made a protective symbol of the sun over herself and muttered something impercievable, while Chocolate Waffle just stood there, as blank and unreadable as ever.

“…I…y-your mother, I…” Silvermane tried to explain himself to the distant boy. “…I didn’t…didn’t mean, I…I thought she was…th-the evidence…she…”

Buttermilk’s body twitched, and the last of her breath involuntarily escaped her lungs. Silvermane hurled her to the floor of the dais and frantically went about the act of recusitation, but the perverse angle of her neck showed that she was beyond all help. Silvermane pounded upon her chest, forcing air into her lungs until Rose yanked the corpse out from under him with her magic and tossed it into the chasm.

“NO! What are you doing!? We can save her!”

“She’s done, Cap’n!” Rose shouted back. “Done ‘n gone already, let her rest!”

Silvermane tried to push his way past the grizzled old constable, but found her stance as solid as any stone. He watched, helpless and too hysterical for magic, as the corpse dropped into the patient dark. The air resistance caused Buttermilk’s wings to unfurl, and for an instant, she looked like a healthy Pegasus, casually drifting beneath the clouds to a safe landing.

Silvermane gave his all to summon up his nerves, but he had nothing left to give. Sobs wracked him, and he collapsed into the embrace of the old warrior who held him fast.

“…n-no…what have I…what have I…”

Rose shushed him, and then muttered: “…s’gonna be us all soon, Cap’n. At least it was quick fer her.”

Silvermane watched the body vanish from sight.
> 8 - All for One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A gray pall hung over the tiny town of Little Hoofington. Her skies were dressed all in white - an apocalyptic bride, newly minted to wreak havoc over what few huddled lives remained in her grasp. Hers was a rapidly tightening grip, as street after unmaintained street was reclaimed by nature and cast into terrifying relief against the paltry light of those few fires that remained. Two days prior one more hearth had gone cold, as the Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic joined the dirge of empty banshee wails from deserted windows.

Only three chimneys still sent wafts of smoke into the sky, and these choked it forth in bursts, like a nervous dependance on nicotine. They were the Church of the Night, Kitty’s Nip, and the Little Hoofington Constabulary. Of these, only Kitty’s Nip sent stubbornly pleasant blasts of hazelnut and bergamot into the bleak afternoon, and therein lay the center of activity for the entire town. Not that there was much left to see.

Kitty Contessa brushed a ruby curl out of her eyes and pushed another hot cup of Earl Gray across the bar of her establishment with the tip of her hoof. Her makeup spoke of the finery of a Los Pegasus showmare, but the bags of exhaustion under her eyes had finally begun to shine through. She sighed, touching a hoof to her forehead to relieve the discomfort of an apparent headache. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” she mused with a small, mirthless chuckle. “I’m used to ponies drowning their sorrows in booze, but if this keeps up, I’ll be fresh out of hot tea.”

Constable Rose, now sporting a khaki parka over her olive drab coat, glanced down at the concoction. She sniffed at it and made a face. “Don’t figgur how anypony can drink this here stuff.”

Kitty laughed softly. “You’re a hard mare, Dusky Rose. Not all of us cope with stress in the same way, and our resident Captain Silvermane is probably used to the high society of an officer. There are those who take great comfort in tea.”

Rose shifted her rump on the stool and glanced automatically at an empty chair by the piano. She had expected a quip from Whim the clockmaker, but just as quickly turned away in disgust. For all the time she had known him, as with so many of the others, she was having difficulty bringing his image to mind. All she could see of the departed were their faces at the final moment, when death had come on screaming wings to carry their souls thrashing into the night. Every memory had been poisoned by the inability to bury her friends in the frozen earth, and for her there was no closure. Had she her way, Rose might have torn down every image of friends, family, and history that still lined the walls of Kitty’s Nip.

“Why y’still do that, anyway?”

Kitty blinked without comprehension. “Do what, dear?”

Rose pointed at Kitty’s face. “Make yerself up like that every mornin’.”

Kitty shrugged. “Is it so wrong, to want to feel pretty and young again?”

Rose shook her head once. “Y’know, it’s part of my job t’keep folks calm, but it’s too late fer all that now, so I’ll tell ya plain. There’s at least two changelings left in this here town, and that psychopathic nutball Pinkamena, goin’ ‘round slashin’ and thrashin’ everypony up. I ain’t gonna stop doin’ my duty till my soul’s in Tartarus makin’ up for my sins, but there ain’t enough law to protect everypony no more. There’s a real good chance you ain’t gonna live to see the weekend, much less yer next birthday. Prolly ain’t much good tryin’ to hook a stallion now.”

Kitty snorted. “It’s more than that, Constable Rose. My face is my routine. It’s a comfort to me to go through my motions every morning, and I suspect that after that grisly showing two days ago at the gallows, routine is possibly the only thing some of us have left.”

Rose had no counter-argument. She noted Kitty’s elegantly feminine, yet slightly sagged and pudgy with age flank. “Fergit yer corset today?”

Kitty closed her eyes and let out a breath. “No, but I find myself just as much on edge as everypony else lately, and the pinching finally made me too uncomfortable.” She raised her foreleg and swept it across the room. “I am the only one here now after all, now that Caveat has gone to stay with her employer at the church. I suppose there’s something to be said for not bothering with certain appearances after all.”

Rose only nodded. She caught the teacup in the glow of her magic and trudged across the room to place it upon the only occupied table, where half a dozen empty cups waited for a busboy who would never come. Rose was a hardened grunt, but the very image of her commander instilled in her a desire not to have a seat.

Hector Silvermane looked ten years older than the time he first showed his face in Little Hoofington. He was gaunt and malnourished, with a haunted look about him as if one could expect evil spirits to rise from behind his back at any moment. He was wearing the helmet he had refused to remove when his party entered the establishment, and his eyes never moved from the teacups as Rose moved one away to place the new one beneath him. Opposite the captain sat Whatzit, who though she was as much the worse for wear as any of them, had fared better in terms of energy. Her work was apparently her comfort, and she was seldom seen now without her notebook and charts regarding the state of the village and its players.

“--can only be her,” Whatzit went on with whatever she had been saying. “Captain, it’s simple process of elimination now. If we accept that the three of us are not changelings, that only leaves Stringbean, wherever he is, Caveat, and the two churchponies--”

“Don’t forget me sweetie,” Kitty called from the bar. “I’m not quite ready to push up daisies yet.”

“--and Miss Kitty,” Zit appended, “and whomever else, but none of that matters. The only pony left in town who could possibly be the changeling queen is Cadabra Smile. She’s the only one with magic powerful enough to be her. Otherwise they would have killed her off a long time ago, because her power makes her too dangerous.”

Hector Silvermane sat, searching for demons somewhere in his cup of tea. He said nothing. Whatzit moved to capture his attention again, but Rose caught the younger mare’s hoof in a gentle magic barrier, releasing it when Zit relented. Finally Rose sat down beside the recent-deputy.

“You ever kill a pony, Zit?”

Whatzit balked at the strange question. “I...n-no ma’am?” She puffed up her chest. “B-but I’m ready to do my duty against the changelings.”

“Bugs ain’t what ah’m talkin’ about,” Rose corrected. “Killin’ bugs is easy, if you got the killer instinct inside you in the first place. They’re all fangs ‘n hissin’, walking around with them scary monster looks about ‘em. They ain’t got no eyeballs to stare into, and they don’t look like you - at least, not once they’re dead.”

“I...I don’t understand--”

Rose didn’t mince words. “Ah’m askin’ you if you ever murdered a pony before. In a fight, or a brawl, or somethin’ like that. Even if you ain’t killed nopony, have you ever felt the rage in your heart, when you lift up your foreleg or light your horn and think nothin’ but ‘Ah’m gonna git you. Ah’m gonna take yer life away.’”

Whatzit cleared her throat and sat back, tugging gently on the pink scarf Silvermane had given her like a protective talisman. “...no ma’am.”

“The cap’n committed a murder two days ago,” Rose said simply. “He took that poor momma, that clinic pony with that pure heart, and he wrapped a noose ‘round her neck till it broke.”

Whatzit glanced wearily at Silvermane, who had not moved. “...Constable, please…”

Rose shook her head. “Ain’t no two ways about it. He killed that mare, and t’be frank? If he hadn’t done it, I mighta. Because fer that one moment, that one brief instant, I was thinkin’ the same thing he was. It made perfect sense that Buttermilk Waffle would be one of ‘em. Mah gut started tellin’ me that, just like his was. This here ain’t no sane place no more, and we ain’t no law. All we’re tryin’ to do is save our own skin, and the lives of as many ponies as we can drag outta here when the weather lifts.”

“I...but…”

“Beat Trotter was a good deputy,” Rose went on. “And he was mah friend. All I c’n do to remember him is lay some fake flowers over the spot where he died while playin’ Taps on some old drum. Ah can’t even put him in the ground. Hadda haul his body off with all the others, and dump him in a storage shed full up with dozens ‘n dozens of other dead folk. Some of ‘em been in there for weeks, all froze up by the cold. Looks like some damn nightmare full of pony bodyparts waitin’ for a meat grinder.”

Whatzit looked ill. She zoned out, blinking back to reality only when Rose touched her on the shoulder.

“That’s what’s goin’ through the captain’s head right now. This was our job before. It’s personal now. He can’t fergive himself fer what he did, even if I c’n look past it because I know any of us might have done the same. Them damn bugs bloodied us with their fangs, and then made us bloody each other with our own hooves. I’d wager if the sky cleared up right this here minute that Cap’n Silvermane wouldn’t wanna leave ‘till the job’s done, and neither do I. It’s kill or be killed now, and our best plan is to find ‘em and take ‘em out before they do the same to us. Only difference is that we got morals, else we’d hang everypony what’s left here and burn the whole place to the ground.”

Whatzit had stopped listening. She placed her hoof gently on Silvermane’s and cooed at him like a lover.

“Captain, sir...I know you didn’t kill Buttermilk Waffle on purpose. We...we still need you. Please, you can’t give up on us now.”

There was nothing for a solid minute, until Hector Silvermane finally blinked. His eyes rose from the teacup to his covered hoof, and he spoke with a rasp from his unused vocal chords.

“...don’t call me that anymore. I can’t do what I did and still call myself a soldier. If ever we get out of here alive, I’m going to turn myself in for the murder I committed.”

“We ain’t outta here yet,” Rose observed. “We still gotta git this done. But ah promise y’one thing,” the old nag grinned, “ah’ll be right there with ya, Cap’n, when we bring that queen’s head in an’ drop it all over Princess Celestia’s good carpets, heh.”

“A-and Pinkamena too,” Whatzit added. “Do...what Rose said. With her. Captain please, we have to do something, and if you won’t...I...I will.”

Rose patted Whatzit’s withers. “Rein it in, girl. I share the notion, we all do. But we needa game plan, and that’s where our cap’n comes in. Y’don’t wanna get as bloodthirsty as that queen herself.”

“Now that will certainly be the day.” Kitty added her voice to the conversation. She was at the table herself now, and offered Whatzit a reassuring smile as she began to lay out meals for the three law enforcement officers. “Of all the ponies in all this town I think you can be safe around, it’s our dear little Autumn Dew Drop Jelly Passion Rainbow.” Kitty reached over to muss Whatzit’s mane. “She’s the whole town’s little filly, and now she’s trying to save it along with the rest of you. I think that’s worth more than a little praise.”

“Dern right,” Rose agreed. Her stomach growled involuntarily at the scent of a hot meal, but she balked at the plates. “We ain’t got the bits fer this…”

“Psh,” Kitty waved a hoof dismissively. “You said it yourself, Constable. We may all be dead in the morning. If keeping your tummies full has any chance at all of saving our lives, then I believe I’m the one who owes you. I won’t hear of bits. Not now and not anymore.”

“...thank you, Miss Kitty,” Silvermane said somberly. Eyes turned to the captain. He seemed hesitant to eat his food, as if any joy he took in it was a slap in the face of the life he had taken. He chewed with purpose, as though upon cud, and finally spoke again.

“We need to find Stringbean. And we need to get everypony together. Bring them all to one central place. We’re weaker when we’re divided.”

Whatzit stiffened. “And if the killers are among them, Captain?”

“The changelings won’t attack us outright until they know they have us for certain. With two of their number dead there can only be so many of them still about, and we can be assured there aren’t a hundred of them posing as streetlights and rocks, or they would have overwhelmed us by now. They want a hoofhold on our territory, so they can’t take any chance of failing. Moreover, they’re trapped here too, at least for now. They’ll be even less likely to make a move when we’re all together. Either that, or they’ll lose their cool, try to finish us anyway, and...we’ll have them then.”

Nopony spoke. The plan was an omelette that involved the breaking of eggs, but none had any better strategy to offer.

“...what about Pinkamena?” Zit asked.

“She’s out there somewhere,” Silvermane replied. “Again, if we’re all together, we’re safer from her.”

“This here’s the best place to hold up,” Kitty offered. “I have better food than your jailhouse and lots of it. Plus I have more room for everypony. I...suppose we can even have a little Hearth’s Warming party, in three more days.”

Hector fell silent. Images of his beloved wife flashed before his eyes, for he had forgotten the holiday entirely. In nine days his life had come to this, and it would be a small miracle if he spent the holidays with his wife. He resolved that even if he was in chains for his crimes, he would be there with her, and neither changeling nor serial killer would keep him from his family.

“Good,” Silvermane confirmed, rising from his chair. “Then we have work to do.”

“We need to get to the church!” Whatzit cried, rising in turn at twice the speed of her superior. “Once we have Cadabra and Lora, we can rest easy!”

“Now,” Rose admonished. “Yer still jumpin’ to conclusions missy. Y’don’t know fer sure that--”

“Yes I do,” Zit practically growled. “We get her here, and we’ll prove it. You’ll see. Plus we have no idea where Stringbean is, but I’ll bet you if he’s anywhere? He’s hanging out near the church. He claimed that Cadabra tried to murder him, and he’s the type to want revenge. We go there, and we’ll get everypony we need to wrap this up.”

Hector raised a brow in the young detective’s direction. He appreciated Zit’s passion even in the face of adversity, and it reminded him of the enduring spirit of his wife. The scarf around Zit’s neck helped to complete the mental image, and it fueled him with the energy he needed to put his deeds aside and see his duty to the end.

“The chruch,” Silvermane agreed. “The two of you had better prepare some offensive spells. Miss Kitty--”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Kitty spoke up, her hips swaying as she sauntered back towards the bar. “I get the notion I’m gonna be just fine sitting tight here for now. I’ll keep the light on for you heroes. Come back soon, hear?”

With that, the trio began their preparations for a visit to, and perhaps assault on, the local Church of the Night.
> 9 - The Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do we really have to go there now?”

Constable Rose, the hood of her khaki parka pulled up so that her horn peeked through like the barrel of the weapon it was, regarded Deputy Whatzit with a snerk. “An hour ago y’had an itch fer this place so far up yer rear end it’d take a unicorn proctologist goin’ to the hilt to git it out. Now you don’t wanna go?”

Whatzit wrinkled her snout at the unpalatable analogy and pushed her glasses up on her muzzle with her hoof, for her magic was busy lighting the way in overcast skies. “But why go to the Church of the Night at night? Cadabra and Lora are night cultists. They sleep most of the day. We could deal with them easily then.”

Captain Silvermane, who was measuring his crunchy steps in the heavy snow along the unmaintained streets, shook his head. “There’s no way we can approach the church from any direction in all this snow without making noise, so the element of surprise will be lost no matter what we do. Caveat will likely be watching the church during the day, and I don’t think we’re going to have much luck reasoning with her alone.”

Rose scoffed. “Why dont’cha tell her the real reasons, Cap’n? That changelings sleep whenever they wanna, an’ we might as well go as soon as we stopped off at the jailhouse for supplies, ‘cause somepony else is prolly gonna end up dead in the mornin’ if we don’t?”

Silvermane’s eyes narrowed, but he digressed. “Cadabra listened to reason and came quietly once. She might do so again. And this isn’t an arrest, anyway. It’s for their own protection.”

Zit looked unconvinced, but she kept her mouth shut. Between the trio floated unspoken questions, such as who was to say that the denizens of the church were any better off where they were, and whether or not any of them were changelings, which by mere population statistics, seemed likely.

Hector’s ears swiveled. “Are you ready, Constable?”

Rose cleared her throat and checked to see that one of the three remaining talismans that could bring about the spell that trapped Maple Waffle just before his execution was still safely in her pocket. The other two were the possessions of her companions, one each. Beyond that, her ‘equipment’ consisted of a few pairs of huff cuffs hastily stuffed into her parka, and a menagerie of spells she had learned in the service - all of which amounted to bolt-type blasts of various intensity.

“Mmhm,” the constable replied. “Ah been goin’ around this town fer weeks now expectin’ to meet mah maker at any moment, Cap’n. One time’s as good as the next.”

Silvermane nodded, but inside his world was standing on its head and sticking out its tongue at him. In a smattering of days he had gone from an upstanding citizen to a shell-shocked soldier so obsessed with the performance of his duties such that he was no longer certain if he could stay his hoof from another heinous act against the innocent. He led his entourage through the streets with a grim look, suspecting as little for his remaining mortality as did his ‘troops’. The once proud line of lockstep soldiers in polished armor he was used to reviewing every day now numbered only two; these consisted of an over-the-hill nag with a sour eye and an itchy horn, and a wet behind the ears young mare who had been armed hastily with a few novice spells and was far better suited on the forensics team that showed up after the action.

Hector Silvermane was afraid. But moreso of the threats that lived inside his own head.

At length, the pointy spires and venerable iron pickets of the local Church of the Night came into view. Its windows were as always covered by heavy drapes, and the device of Princess Luna hung upon the door like a plea for the Destroyer to pass the building by. The place was quiet, and Silvermane found himself wishing for any sound that might suggest the occupants had not already been slaughtered en masse. He halted his retinue at the decrepit gate and dispensed with covert operations.

“Cadabra Smile!” Hector announced. “Come out! We need to talk!”

There was no response beyond the dance of smoke oozing from the church’s single, narrow chimney.

“Come out, or we’re coming in!”

Again, there was nothing. Silvermane nodded at his troops.

“Fan out. I want all the exits covered. Call out if you find anypony. Remember that we’re here to help them, but if they refuse to stand down...be prepared to defend yourself.”

Silvermane kicked in the already rickety gate with ease and waited for Rose and Zit to be on the move before he strode defiantly towards the main entrance. Mere paces from the stoop, he paused as the heavy wooden door creaked open and spilled forth a single pony, who stood blocking his way with stubbornness equalling his own.

Caveat, in her beaten copper armor and helmet, stared down the guard captain with an unreadable expression.

“Captain.”

Silvermane inclined his head but dared not bow it with a nod. “ Caveat. Are Cadabra and Lora in there with you?”

“Maybe,” Caveat said simply, the snap of her leather scabbard already undone. “Is there something we can do for you?”

Silvermane didn’t so much as twitch an ear. “I want you all to come with us back to Kitty’s.”

Caveat snorted derisively. “My employer prefers to stay here.”

“There’s safety in numbers,” Silvermane reasoned. “There aren’t many of us left, and at this point the only way we have a chance of making it out of Little Hoofington alive is if we hold up together until the storm passes. It’s the most well-provisioned and defensible spot left in town.”

Caveat was chewing on something. Whatever it was, she spat it into the snow before replying. “Is that a fact. And suppose you or one of your cronies is a changeling or a Celestia-be-damned psychopath? What’s your safety worth then?”

“The changelings would have killed us all by now if they felt safe enough to do so,” Silvermane explained. “They’ll be that much more hesitant to make a move if we’re all crowded together. The same goes for a serial killer, especially one with a goal like Pinkamena’s that doesn’t involve suicide.”

“Assuming you aren’t all changelings,” Caveat replied, “just waiting for us to trot into your web before you bleed us dry.”

Silvermane gritted his teeth. “I could say the same about all of you, if you refuse to come with us.”

Caveat shrugged and stood firm. “We can stand here accusing each other of being changelings from now till Hearth’s Warming Captain, if that’s what puts the magic in your friendship. I’ve got nothing but time.”

It was Silvermane’s turn to snerk. “You were a guard once. You know this is a sound tactic. What is she promising you to make you so thick-headed? Bits? Money won’t do you any good when you’re dead.”

“That a threat, Captain?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Silvermane shouted, his cool somewhere at the bottom of the mining pit with the broken body of Buttermilk Waffle. “Just come with us, before it’s too--”

A shriek that tore up the still air finished Captain Silvermane’s sentence for him. At once he was at a gallop, heedless of the mercenary at the door as he barreled through the snow around to the side of the building. A side entrance of the church lay wide open, and a few paces from it was a dark bundle lying in the snow. Jutting out from the bundle was the foreleg of a pony, but the night was too dark to make out the color, nor check for the presence of a changeling’s telltale holes from a distance. Standing over the bundle with a look of wide-eyed madness on his face was the drab countenance of Stringbean. Whatzit cringed in a crouch by the perimeter fence, her hooves covering her head.

“MURDERERS!!” Stringbean screamed. “All of you! You’re all bloody-damned changelings! You thought you could find me - could kill me! But you’re too busy killing each other!!”

Silvermane caught a glimpse of Caveat out of the corner of his eye but chose to ignore it. He dropped into a crouch, his hackles up and his horn sparking, as he circled the miner and closed in on poor, terrified Whatzit.

Stringbean wore the same colorless cloak as before, but he was pale as death, and his charms were on full display. Strapped firmly to his foreleg was a wicked pickaxe; with his background as a miner, Silvermane had no doubt he knew how to use his chosen weapon. The miner made no move to attack, but he thrust the improvised armament in the direction of the guard captain.

“You’re in on it too, Silvermane!” Stringbean shouted. “Or else you wouldn’t be so keen as to get near one of the killers!”

Silvermane never took his eyes from Stringbean as he moved to within earshot of his deputy. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no…” Zit whimpered. “I...I’m sorry I...I got scared, I couldn’t stop him from--”

There was another cry of anguish, and Silvermane’s eyes snapped to the open door. In the doorway stood Cadabra Smile, her lilac mane and cobalt cape flitting over her sangria coat in the chill breeze. Her eyes were wide, and she galloped out to the bundle in the snow, heedless of the danger.

“Wh-what hast thou done to our faithful!?”

“Don’t look at me to do the killing!” Stringbean snarled. “You’ve already done enough, and it’s about time you paid for it!”

Cadabra fell in the snow over the fallen body and raised it in her forelegs to cradle it. “Lora...Lora, no...you are our parish, all we have left...we were sworn to protect you…”

Stringbean raised his pick like an executioner’s blade, for his quarry was already prone on her knees in the snow before him. He made to strike, but a blast of magic impacted with his weapon strongly enough to rip it from its bonds and send it flying. Staggered by the blow and subsequent rope burn to his foreleg, he was tackled easily by a form in a khaki parka who dove at him without fear.

“Ah got ‘im!” Constable Rose shouted as she brandished a pair of hoofcuffs in her magic. “Ah got th’bastard!”

Silvermane hurried to the constable’s aid. Caveat closed with her employer and knelt beside her, knife still floating beside her head by glow of her own unicorn aura. She said nothing when she noted the amount of hot blood steaming in a growing pool all around the body in the snow and Cadabra’s lap. There was far too much of it - no pony could possibly have survived such a loss.

Cadabra had taken to hysterical wailing as she stroked the bundle, some of which became discernable words. “Lora...we are so sorry...so devout were thee, a paragon that any lover of The Night would be shamed beside...and such a kind soul to boot...how can this be…”

Silvermane and Rose hauled a restrained Stringbean to his hooves. Without remorse for her condition, the captain barked an order at Whatzit. “Report!”

Zit rose on unsteady hooves and hesitated towards the group, as though fearful the miner might still somehow attack. “She...she must have heard me walking around in the snow...she barely had the door open, I was about to tell her who I was...th-then he came running out of nowhere and...and…”

“Liar!” Stringbean spat, the blood vessels in his eyes so pronounced as to bring further question to his sanity. “YOU did it! You’re in on it with them! I saw it myself!” His gaze moved to Cadabra. “Let me go so I can take out the queen before it’s too late!!!”

Silvermane passed control of Stringbean entirely to Rose. “Get him out of here. Make sure he doesn’t escape this time.” Rose began to force Stringbean away, but his tirade never ceased.

“You think it was me!? Check her - check her body! She’s more full of holes than a damn changeling! Only unicorns can make holes like that! She’s a worthless pile of Swiss cheese just like when she was alive, but I didn’t kill her!”

“Useless--h-how...how dare thee.”

Silvermane could as much as see the last straw being incinerated behind Cadabra’s fiery eyes. She rose slowly, her hooves set in the snow, and as her horn came to life, Caveat moved to hold her back.

“Release us! We have had ENOUGH of this worm!!”

“Calm down,” Caveat replied as she interposed herself between Cadabra and her target. “Do you wanna be a murderer too?”

“Where were thee when our beloved parishioner was being destroyed!?”

Caveat gritted her teeth. “...you paid me to protect you…”

“Then you have failed me! BEGONE!!”

With that, Cadabra brought forth a flash of magic that knocked Caveat off her hooves and sent her sprawling several yards away. Silvermane was close enough to the event horizon to be pushed back too, though he managed to keep his stance. When his eyes came back into focus, he saw the night cultist’s horn alive with power sufficient to light up the church courtyard like mid-afternoon. Her cape and mane blew as if in a strong wind; even her stoic bodyguard couldn’t approach her.

“Filth!” Cadabra raged at Stringbean. “Your life ends here.”

“Cadabra NO--!!”

Silvermane’s entreat fell on deaf ears. Tears streaming down the cultist’s face bespoke of a pony who was past her breaking point, and even Constable Rose could not stand up to her unbridled rage. With nothing left to do but hit the deck, the constable dove for cover as an electric blast not only separated Stringbean’s head from his shoulders, but obliterated it like a watermelon before a sledgehammer. The heat alone was enough to fuse Stringbean’s charms into an amorphous mass of metal, and what gray matter he had that was not instantly incinerated splattered against the church wall to sizzle away the ice and snow.

Stringbean’s corpse convulsed and rocked, standing for a moment like a place setting undisturbed by the sudden removal of the tablecloth...and then collapsed into the snow, steaming blood still pumping from the stub of his neck.

Whatzit screamed. Rose retched. Caveat choked. Silvermane let out a litany of curses and moved to catch the night cultist, for she had expended so much power that her consciousness faded out almost instantly.

“Some kinda law you got around here,” Caveat muttered, though her lack of eye contact gave away that even she was shaken. “Every damn pony just murdering everypony els--”

“SHUT UP, Caveat!” Silvermane barked. The intensity of the words and the look in his eyes was enough to actually make the bodyguard obey. “Do you think I don’t know that!? Do you want me to say I failed - does that make you happy, you son of a nag?? Fine - I failed! We all failed! This town has become Tartarus itself! There’s nothing left for us to do but pull the wagons into a circle and try to stay alive!!”

Everypony waited until Captain Silvermane had no more venom to spit. His heaving breaths refused to slow, and so Rose spoke to him with the greatest care.

“...Cap’n...what...what do we do now…?”

Silvermane’s heart was racing, and in his eyes was something nopony, not even Caveat, wanted to have anything to do with. He glanced at the delicate, unconscious mare in his grasp. Despite her tirade she seemed to be peacefully asleep, and the image stirred up inside Silvermane thoughts of his dear wife on that final morning before his departure that quelled him.

“...we’re going to Kitty’s Nip,” Hector shot a glare at Caveat, “we’re all going there. Now.”

“The bodies…” Zit whimpered, “...we should at least take them off the street to the warehouse…”

“Leave them,” Silvermane ordered. “It’s no longer safe to go anywhere in this town alone, not for any of us. And if anypony insists upon doing so anyway, I’ll take that as proof that they’re a changeling.” The captain hoisted Cadabra onto his back and made for the street without another word, while the constable cast final glances at the two bodies left to freeze, and the two ponies who remained on their hooves.

“Y’all heard the cap’n. Let’s git.”

The trio formed up behind their leader, but none walked together, and all kept a watchful eye on the rest.
> 10 - Riposte
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Silvermane wondered when he had lost control.

The ticking of the clock over the hearth of the last warm building in Little Hoofington thrummed in his ears. It was late morning, two days before Hearth’s Warming, but it sounded the gong of the eleventh hour, with midnight fast approaching. Silvermane had passed a sleepless night - indeed, he planned never to sleep again until he led the remaining charges under his care to safety, or died in the attempt.

It was a fifty/fifty shot at best.

The tension in the main room of Kitty’s Nip was sticky enough to make taffy with. Throughout the middling hours of the night somepony had made a weak attempt to lighten the mood by tapping on the piano, but it had been in vain. Only Miss Kitty herself had retired to bed for a few hours, grimly claiming that if she were going to die anyway, doing so in her sleep was a comfort. She had survived to the morning however, and thereafter had wordlessly gone about the business of breakfast that nopony ate, and coffee that everypony (including those who didn’t like coffee) drank.

Whatzit had nodded off sprawled upon a table for a short while, but was now sitting by herself, nervously flipping through her notes too fast to actually be reading them. Her mauve mane was mussed and her shoulders trembled under Chloe’s pink scarf. Silvermane wanted to comfort her, but he found himself with no kind words to spare. She was young, but not a child, and certainly no fool. Any suggestion that everything was going to be alright seemed laughably patronizing.

The remaining ponies were far too disciplined, or in Cadabra’s case simply too used to odd hours, to succumb to sleep. The estrangement between Cadabra and her bodyguard was completed by their separation into opposite corners of the room, and not the least reduction in the paranoid glances they gave everypony else whenever their eyes met. Caveat’s incessant fiddling with her broad knife and Cadabra’s habitual levitation of any small objects near her made the two seem like caged tigers, watching and waiting for a break in one another’s guard.

Constable Rose had discarded her parka, and was huddled upon a table in the center of the room. She was staring at the floor and hadn’t moved in what seemed like hours. To the untrained eye she might have looked like a daft old nag who had chosen a poor (or perhaps fortuitous) time to lapse into senility, but Silvermane could see the military precision behind each flick of her eyes and ears. With nothing better to do, Rose was carefully listening to everything she could bring into earshot from both within the building and without. Her position in the center of the room made her seem exposed, but with the ponies she mistrusted the most spread out to the corners, it was the best way to keep an eye on all of them at the same time.

Thoughts of soldiering brought up by Rose’s countenance stirred a thought in Silvermane’s mind, and it passed beyond his lips before he could stop it.

“...Beanie…”

Rose shook her head but did not look up.

“He’s a lieutenant in the royal guard,” Silvermane muttered hopefully over the unpleasant smell of dark roast from his sixth cup. “He may have gone for help.”

“You got any idea what it’s like to be the only royal guard in a little town where everything’s goin’ straight to Hell, Cap’n?” Rose didn’t wait for a reply. “Me neither, an’ I seen a lot in my day. Don’t put yer trust in that gelding. He ain’t got the stuff what makes a soldier to begin with. That’s prolly why they sent him here in the first place.”

Silvermane felt the burden of responsibility swell again in his breast. “We should go and get him. Bring him here with us.”

“Snow’s drifted so high you prolly wouldn’t even get through the main gates, Cap’n. Assumin’ you make it there alive all by yerself to begin with. If I was a killer, I wouldn’t even care about broad daylight nomore. Not when we’re this far gone.”

A chill that stoked the fire ran through the room. Silvermane cleared his throat.

“Who will come with me?”

Nopony spoke, and nopony made eye contact with Captain Silvermane. Incensed, Hector spared them all a shameful glance, stood, and put on his helmet. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

Silvermane was two paces from the door when a voice stopped him.

“That means you’re the killer, Captain.”

“What?”

Silvermane took note of Caveat, who was rocking on the rear legs of a chair purposefully set too far in the corner for anyone to approach her from behind. There was a certain sense of death in her eyes, as though she knew she hadn’t long to live, but was determined to make a fight of it.

“You said it yourself last night,” Caveat explained. “‘If anypony insists upon going out by themselves, I’ll take that as proof that they’re a changeling.’”

Hector blew a wisp of the silver mane that he was named for out of his eye and stood tall. “Then come with me,” he instructed. “All of you, come with me. Don’t you even care about another pony’s life?”

Even Whatzit wouldn’t look her captain in the eye. She shrunk, and her voice was small.

“You...you said the safest thing we could do was hide in here together...we...shouldn’t go out…”

Caveat spat. “If he’s not dead after all this then he has to be one of those things. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We are many, while he is few,” Cadabra added as she twiddled a shot glass in her magic. “The price is too great for the unlikelihood of reward.”

“Constable Rose?” Silvermane inquired hopefully.

Rose spoke volumes in a simple shake of her head. Her ears were plastered to her skull, and she refused still to raise her head past a back that seemed more bowed with age than ever Silvermane had seen it.

“Fine,” the captain seethed as he kicked the wall in frustration. He plopped down in a chair by the door so hard that he nearly broke it. “Then we’re just going to sit in this room until we die, or we pass out from exhaustion and get killed anyway. That’s our plan.”

“The snow can’t go on forever Captain,” Kitty piped up from behind the bar. “And there’s enough food in my larders to take us clear through to midsummer. Why don’t you just sit a spell and rela--”

“This was your idea Captain,” Caveat interrupted. “You’re the high and mighty, martial law, ear-of-the-princesses guard captain. I guess that gives you the right to decide if we live or die, huh? And you can’t even stick to a plan!”

Silvermane felt anger boil to the surface, but he suppressed the heat with a great intake of cool air. Mere nettling would never have gotten to him before he had come to this accursed town, and he was ashamed that he had let it at all.

“Alright, you’ve all made your point,” the captain acquiesced. “And I suppose staying put is the safest plan right now, it’s just...I don’t like the idea of leaving anypony out in--”

“Ah’ll go.”

All eyes turned to Constable Rose, who had found the wherewithal to stand. The hard look in her eye had returned, and she was puffed up proudly once more. She glanced about and sneered.

“What’re you all lookin’ at? Ah’m s’posed to be the law ‘round these parts. This here’s mah responsibility if it’s anypony’s, and ah said ah’ll go. Y’all hold up here where it’s safe.”

“But they might kill you…” Zit whimpered.

Rose favored the young mare with a soft smile. “Yeah, they might. But ah’ll go down swingin’ sure as there’s giddy still in mah up. Ain’t no damn critter kills me and lives.”

Hector made to rise as Rose trotted past him towards the door, but she stayed him with a hoof on his shoulder. Her eyes bore all the wisdom of an elder mare, and in that moment she was his senior by life experience alone.

“You git these here ponies to safety, young’un. This old fart has a job left to do.”

His breast swollen with honor, Silvermane said nothing. Rose was nearly at the door, her audience ready to pridefully send her off like the apex of a western film, until Caveat’s voice shattered the moment like glass fragments all over the floor.

“So it is you, then.”

Rose stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Say that again, nag?”

Caveat shoved back her chair loudly and stood. “I knew it. I knew it all along, and it makes perfect sense. Replace the lawponies first - the ones we’re all supposed to trust, to destroy our sense of order. You put on a fantastic show, but the very fact that you’re giving us all this sob story hero bull right now proves it. You just wanna get out of here, so you can tell your cronies everything about this place and make it easier for them to get at us.”

The crackle from the hearth set Rose’s silhouette ablaze. “Ah reckon ah’ve had just about all ah’m gonna take from you, bug.”

Caveat snorted. “Bug? Who are you calling a bug?”

“You,” Rose rumbled. “Ah been the law in this town fer years now, but what’re you, some wanderin’ sellhorn bitwhore? Awful convenient you show up just a couple’a weeks before this all went down. It’s somethin’ a scout would do. An’ you been awful calm through alla this. Y’ain’t had a damn useful thing to say or do this entire time, like you don’t care a lick for yer fellow ponies, even though the more of us what gets killed, the worse off are the ones what’re left.”

“I work for pay,” Caveat replied calmly. “It’s hardly a foreign concept in Equestria.”

“You ain’t as stupid as you look, much as ah hate to admit it,” Rose went on. “You know as well as the rest of us that Cadabra expected you to protect the both of ‘em. You think you can excuse Lora’s murder away with ‘You only paid me to protect you?’”

Caveat snerked. “Nice try, nag. If I was a changeling, my goal would have been to suck the love out of her body. Just murdering that mute bag of bones and leaving her in the street gains me nothing.”

Cadabra, her haughty countenance permanently damaged by the horrors she had borne witness to, stood. “H-how dare thee, speak not of our friend in such a way…”

“Y’know what?” Rose turned about the rest of the way and fixed Caveat with a look. “Yer absolutely right. That ain’t what a bug would do. But ah’m pretty sure a serial killer who has a goal like cuttin’ cutie marks offa ponies to make a sick-lookin’ cape would be fine if somepony else did her dirty work for her. Pinkamena’s a master of disguise, an’ yer awful handy with that there knife.”

Silvermane finally stood as well, his voice even. “That’s enough, all of you. Talk like this doesn’t get us anywhere.”

Caveat lit her horn, and her knife came to bear beside her head. “Then maybe it’s time we did more than talk.”

Rose’s horn sparked to life. “Ah reckon that there’s the best idea that’s come outta you since y’got here.”

“Stop this,” Silvermane repeated as he interposed himself between the combatants. “As a representative of the court, empowered to enforce the law in this town, I demand--”

“Spare me,” Caveat growled. “Just don’t even bother anymore, ‘captain’. There’s no law in this town anymore. There’s no order, and there’s no way any of us can cooperate because the numbers count a hundred percent chance that somepony in this room is out to kill us all. As soon as our backs are turned or our guard is down, we’re all gonna die, one by one, so I say it’s down to kill or be killed.”

“The numbers also say that somepony, or ponies in this room are innocent, Caveat. Are you just going to murder us all to find the killer? How is that any different from what they’re trying to do?” Silvermane replied.

“I don’t need to murder you all,” Caveat replied, “because I know who the bug is. Now step out of my way and I’ll take care of this once and for all.”

“Mah thoughts exactly,” Rose replied. “Just lemme wrap this up, an’ then we can be sure we’re safe in this here spot until we c’n get outta town alive.”

Silvermane turned to Rose. “Constable, stand down. That is an order.”

Rose’s jaw was working, and her eyes darted about the room. “...it’s too late fer that, Cap’n. It’s mah job t’protect these here ponies. Ah can’t let anypony get in the way of that. Not even you.”

“Your job is to obey your commanding officer!” Silvermane insisted.

“Good thing that’s not my job!” Caveat cried.

Hector barely had time to turn around before the full weight of the stout, armored unicorn mare barreled into him. Knocked prone, he crashed into a heap of chairs and found himself entangled in their many legs, wishing he had fewer of his own to deal with. He sought to free himself, a barstool hurled from somewhere fell upon his head, dazing him.

Whatzit was whimpering and hiding under a table. Kitty was shouting from behind the bar. Cadabra was damning both of the combatants in the finest ponish, whilst a blast from Rose’s horn knicked Caveat’s ear. The grizzled bodyguard checked the fresh blood flowing from the half-ear she had remaining and went into a frenzy of feral bloodlust, her cries more like that of a great cat. Rose fired twice more, burning holes into Kitty’s main room, but the younger, more dextrous copper unicorn dodged from side to side like a cheetah, and leapt forward to pounce upon her prey, her helmet flying off in the process. Rose smacked Caveat hard enough in the muzzle to draw blood from her lip, but Caveat’s knife struck home, and buried itself square in the middle of the old nag’s chest.

“NO!”

Hector’s cry of anguish was amplified by the number of times he had already uttered it since arriving in Little Hoofington. Every death that had occurred around him managed to happen precisely when he was helpless to stop it, and the infuriating irony of that was what stung most of all. He fought for his hooves, shattering the rabble of furniture with several bucks, but the combatants were already leaving the establishment.

With her hoof still driving the knife into Rose’s chest, Caveat used the leverage to back the stumbling constable clear out the door. Outside, Rose collapsed in a heap on her back, her life gushing out upon the snow as the bloodthirsty bodyguard lay atop her, shoving the blade deeper into her heart.

“Now they’ll all see the truth,” Caveat cackled maniacally, stress finally tearing down her facade of coolness. “Die, bug. Die and show us what you really are!”

Rose spat up dark blood with every breath. It threatened to choke her to death faster than she could bleed her way there, but her tenacity was that of an Earth pony, and the smug look on the face of her killer was enough to drive her into a rage that transcended even imminent death.

“R...right...b-back atcha, y’c-Celestia be d-damned monster…”

Rose poured everything she had left of herself into the inferno that her horn became, and didn’t hesitate to let fly.

Stringbean’s demise, at least, had been clean. The clumsily-aimed spell slammed at full force into Caveat’s face at an odd angle, shearing most of her head off just above her jaw line. Her cranium exploded in a mass of brain tissue and teeth, leaving but a single, pristine eye that landed face-up in the snow to stare forever at the hazy sky. Caveat soaked her prey in blood and gurgled before collapsing off to the side. Her tongue, exposed all the way back to her esophagus, was still making involuntary and hideous attempts to swallow through the bile that was gushing out from within.

Silvermane shoved the corpse out of the way and stuck his foreleg under Rose’s head to support her. He knew better than to yank the knife free of the wound, but did so anyway, knowing full well what Rose confirmed with a weak shake of her head.

“...a-ain’t no u-use...w-would take a miracle doc t’save me now...an’ w-we don’t even got a regular one…”

Silvermane cast his helmet aside and raised his brows helplessly, his discipline once again failing him. “Const--Rose...Rose I’m so sorry…”

Rose coughed up more blood and managed a weak grin. “...ain’t yer fault...th’bugs got me...tricked me real good...m-might as well b-be th’ dumb ol’ nag what passes on...s’the natural order...a-after all…”

Silvermane searched for something to say, but the pumping of the blood was too fast, and the life faded away from his charge with every passing second. He choked on his speech several times, until Rose spoke up instead.

“...y-you d-do somethin’ f-fer me...c-cap’n…”

“...name it...”

“B-b’fore they...h-haul you off t-jail...you dump that changeling queen’s head all over Princess Celestia’s pretty carpets, just l-like I was gonna...and Pinkamena’s too…”

“...I will,” Silvermane muttered. “It...it was a pleasure serving with you, Constable Rose.”

“...s-sorry...ah c-cain’t...be there…”

Constable Rose never spoke again.

Too numb even to feel anguish, Hector Silvermane sat in the snow between the two mutilated corpses. He was awash in blood from both of them, staining his perfect coat an ugly crimson, but he seemed not to care.

“...they don’t even need to kill us...we’re all just going to kill each other…”

There was a gasp, and Silvermane looked up to see Cadabra standing in the doorway, with Whatzit in tow and Kitty at a window. The night cultist was pointing to either side of Silvermane, and he followed her eye to see what was amiss.

Both bodies remained whole. Neither corpse reverted to the form of a changeling.

Terror on her face, Cadabra stumbled out into the street and tried to keep her eyes on all of the three living ponies at once. “...one of thee must be a monster...or even all of thee...it is the only explanation…”

The words threw a switch somewhere inside, and Silvermane’s detective skills were instantly on fire. His eyes lit up with it, and leaping to his hooves, he stared dumbly at his audience.

“...the waffle boy…” he said simply. “Where...where is Chocolate Waffle?”

Cadabra blinked. “We...we had forgotten about the child...where would he go?”

“The only place a child would feel comfortable,” Silvermane reasoned. “Back to his home. Sweet Celestia, we left him there. We left that poor boy alone in a house full of gore where his entire murdered family used to live!”

Cadabra ruminated on her own unwillingness to go after Beanie, but a glance at the bloody bodies in the street filled her with a desire to be anywhere but here. “We must go to him,” she concluded. “It may be too late, but the Night teaches us of the kindness we must show her denizens. We cannot leave him to his fate, though the case be grim.”

Silvermane turned to Whatzit, expecting the deputy to fall in, but she hadn’t moved from the door. She was purposefully not looking at the bodies, and though she swallowed through a lump in her throat, she could still speak.

“Captain, no. Don’t go. You said it yourself, it’s too dangerous.”

Kitty was at the door too. She massaged Zit’s shoulders soothingly, and added her concurrence. “I don’t like the idea of leaving the colt, but...he’s just a colt. He’s probably dead already, Captain. You all come back inside, this is the only safe place left.”

Silvermane stood. He retrieved his helmet, and, looking as though he had just single-handedly slain a hundred soldiers in a great battle, shook his head.

“No. I won’t leave the boy. I’m going, and I’d be grateful for whomever will come with me. Every minute we stay here is another minute that could end up making a difference between life and death.”

Everypony glanced at the bodies. They were all asking the same question with their eyes, but ceased when the answer became plain. These corpses too would be left exposed, for they had nowhere to be buried, and time was of the essence. Cadabra looked fearful, but she came up beside Silvermane anyway.

“Do not call us ‘deputy’,” she sniffed. “But...we will assist thee. We must go quickly.”

“Captain please,” Zit whimpered. “It’s not...we can’t…”

Silvermane’s stare was hard. “If I can save anypony at all Zit, I have to try. You can come with me, or you can bar the door and stay with Miss Kitty, though I’d just as soon she came too so we can all stick together.

Kitty Contessa adamantly shook her head. “This is my place Captain. It’s my life, and it’s the only place I feel safe anymore. I’ll take care of Zit, and I’ll…” she paused, “...deal with the bodies. You go on.”

“Fine.” Undesirous of an argument, Silvermane acquiesced and turned to his unexpected companion. “Let’s move.”

Silvermane and Cadabra hadn’t made it a dozen steps before they heard hooves crunching in the snow behind them. There stood little Whatzit - she was trembling from more than the cold, but her look was resolute.

“I’m a deputy, and this is my town. I’m going.”

Kitty sighed. “I’ll still do something about the bodies. It’s not right we just leave Constable Rose where she fell.”

Silvermane shook his head remorsefully. “Leave them, it’s not safe to be on the street alone. Bar the door and don’t open it again until we get back. When this is all over we’ll deal with them properly.

Kitty nodded and swallowed. “...I’ve said it before, but y’all come back now, y’hear?”

Silvermane glanced over his new team, and considered what they had just witnessed. “Are you both okay?”

“We are most certainly not okay,” Cadabra retorted. “But we do not desire to sit by and wait to be killed. Our horn is powerful and will serve thee well. Take us with you.”

Zit looked ill. “I...I…” she shut her eyes tightly, took a breath, and opened them again, her expression neutralizing. “...this is for my home. Let’s go.”

Silvermane let his team off at a gallop. It was the second time they had merely left bodies lying in the street, and the captain got the grisly image of hemorrhaging live ponies from their main body; as though the lot of them were a single injured pony leaving pieces of itself behind as it lurched to escape a warzone. They were a sorry group, unable to prevent infighting and death. Some of them lived on however, and so long as some still drew breath, they were going to keep on fighting.

Would that they knew what fate still had in store.
> 11 - His Eyes Uncovered
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hector Silvermane sped through the empty streets of Little Hoofington, four pairs of hoofbeats drumming in his wake. His life in the guard had instilled in him the altruistic concept that even one life saved was worth the risk, and though he obeyed that tenant now, it offered little comfort in the face of all the murders he had been unable to stop.

Not least of which the one he committed himself.

The flowerbox under the front window of the Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic still bore a colorful array of winter-blooming flowers. The lack of a green hoof to tend them had begun to show, for a few had already begun to close up and wilt. The red cross over the door ought to have been a comfort, But Hector could see in it nothing but the shimmer of pony blood, with visions of the entrails and offal that still inhabited his memories of the clinic lobby. Without breaking stride he spun on his heels and snapped his hind legs, battering the door with a violent kick that nearly cracked it straight off its hinges. Only when the entrance lay open did he hold up his hoof to signal a halt. Zit beat him to words.

“It’s...it’s so dark in there…”

“The colt cannot be present,” Cadabra reasoned. “He is nearly an adult in his own right, not a mere helpless yearling. Furthermore he is no bat pony and lacks the trained night-eye of a follower of our faith, so it is preposterous to assume he would not at least put out candles.”

“...unless he’s already dead…” Zit whimpered.

Silvermane shushed them both to silence and carefully plunged into the main room, the glow of his horn lighting his way. His unicorn troops fell in, taking comfort in their own personal nightlights, for the overcast sky did little to brighten the building through its windows. They made a point of moving quickly towards the back hallways, as none among them desired to witness the haunting glow their magic cast upon two old crime scenes in the same lobby.

They moved on, and in the antiseptic halls of the clinic their hooves produced an echoing cadence Silvermane could have done without. Levitation was among the first tasks an infantile unicorn learned to perform, but holding something as large as a pony in the air and moving it about for a significant time was a trick that posed trouble even for masters of the magical arts. Knowing they had already ruined any hope at element of surprise, he called out.

“Chocolate Waffle! Are you here?”

The only response was the ticking of a clock in one of the examination rooms, and the ominous, rhythmic drip of water from icicles that had formed over an open window. The building was cold, and Hector noted that not one of the boilers placed generously throughout the place to ensure maximum patient comfort had been stirred for some time.

“There is nopony here,” Cadabra repeated. “Or at least, no creature that we ought to run afoul of.”

Zit’s eyes were everywhere but straight ahead, and she bumped into Silvermane’s rump every time he paused. “I don’t like this...we should get out of here…”

Cadabra’s expression was hard, but her posture remained rigid with fear. “I concur. This is fruitless, we must be off.”

Silvermane had already begun to creak his way up the stairs to the second floor, into the private living area of the Waffle family. “We need to check everywhere. If he’s not here, we’ll abandon the search and go back to Kitty’s to regroup.”

The two mares accepted the compromise with a mutual nod. The trio moved single-file like a covert unit despite the betraying creaks of the clinic around them, Cadabra bringing up the rear. When they hit the landing, Silvermane employed his magic to close another window that the wind sang eerily through.

“Why would he leave that open?” Zit whispered. “And even if he doesn’t know how to light a stove, he must have seen his parents do it a thousand times. Why didn’t he try?”

“Were we a terrified foal all alone amid such horrors, we would not have kept as cool of a head,” Cadabra admitted. “We would be dead from exposure by now in the snowdrifts of the countryside following a desperate bid for freedom. Perhaps that was his fate as well.”

Silvermane dismissed Cadabra’s grim musings and moved down the narrow hall, past doors that lay open. A closet told no tales, nor did the master bedroom, which was as well-kept as Silvermane expected from such a proper mare as Buttermilk Waffle. The next door identified the room beyond as Strawberry’s, and upon it was scrawled a crude crayon image of the Waffle family, standing happily before their clinic on a warm summer’s day. The image was taped to the door and was yellowed with time, suggesting the filly had drawn it a more tender age. Within was the unremarkable dwelling of a teenage filly, with pop culture references that were expectedly out of date given the town’s geographic isolation.

Only one door remained. This one was closed, but it could only belong to the colt of the family. Silvermane coughed, for his snout picked up an odor of offal from beyond the door that lent itself to what he expected to see.

Zit caught the grotesque stench too and stepped back. “I...I don’t want to see this. I’ve seen enough of this, I can’t...do this again…”

Silvermane took a breath. “Stay here. I’m going in.”

Silvermane put his hoof on the unlocked door and pushed his way in. The single window was shut tight and masked by a thick blanket in lieu of drapes, that let in no light at all. It was by far the darkest room in the entire clinic, and even with his horn lit, the guard captain could only see a few paces in any direction. His hoof came down on something soft and yielding, and he started when a string of papers hanging across the room on a laundry line brushed his face in passing.

Whatever Hector had stepped in was moving with him and making a metal clanking noise, but there was no pain. Tired from days of puzzles and guesswork, he ensorcelled the blanket on the window and yanked it hard until it fell free and drifted to the floor.

The scene within was enough to elicit cries from all three investigators, for it tore through the iron of their nerves like so much wet spaghetti.

The walls of the room were papered by endless images of the killer Pinkamena. The images consisted primarily of newspaper clippings, but some were drawings or other artwork of her both before and after she had gone the way of her own broken mind. Every image had been carefully arrayed so that none overlapped, but so numerous were they that every inch of wall and ceiling space was covered. In lieu of additional space, the owner of the room had laced additional images on clotheslines, tracing them back and forth between the walls. Those images that did not depict Pinkamena directly showed the aftermath of her villainy - photographs of the bodies she had destroyed, and the heinous detail of her horrifying hoofwork.

The object stuck to Captain Silvermane’s hoof was a bucket, filled with gradually freezing pony innards. Disgusted beyond discipline, he rid himself of the morbid accessory by launching it across the room, where it landed with a wet thump atop another corpse that lay stretched out on a table. This one was still relatively whole, but the coat color was unfamiliar and the body bore no cutie mark. The remains had been preserved by the temperature, and the sickening dismemberment bore the M.O. of the killer whose face graced the room from every angle.

Silvermane stumbled backwards, tripped over another bucket of filth, and collided with a dresser. He landed on his rump, his eyes wide with shock as the answer struck him.

“...copycat...sweet merciful Celestia, a copycat…”

Zit had buried her face in Cadabra’s cape. The latter was not unaffected by the carnage, but she forced the bile down for the sake of the younger mare who sought refuge in her. “...what art thou saying…?”

Silvermane scrambled to his hooves, gore splashing over the life’s blood of Caveat and Dusky Rose that still marked him. His tone bordered on hysterics.

“Don’t you see!? Pinkamena never came to this tiny town - she was never here at all!” Silvermane’s chest heaved with his words. “That colt is a copycat killer!! We had him - we could have stopped him at any time! But he’s been trotting free!!”

Cadabra went pale. “...s-surely not--”

Silvermane tore several papers from the wall with his magic and scattered them in the face of the night cultist. “It’s the only answer! Look!!” He pointed, and Cadabra turned to take note of a large pile of fragrant flowers and store-bought deodorizers, all of which were unattended and had lost their potency.

“Whomever the changelings didn’t kill, all those deaths...they were all on him. He took whatever corpses he could make away with before they were discovered and ripped them apart, right here in this room, hiding it all behind pretty scents and teenage privacy! Right here in the Celestia-be-damned medical clinic!”

Cadabra faltered. “It...it is not conceivable to hide all of this for so long…”

“Pinkamena did,” Silvermane replied sharply. “From all her friends and her entire hometown, even the ponies she lived with. If that boy has learned how to defy logic like Pinkamena can...Celestia help us all…”

Zit was weeping, and the cultist covered the young mare’s head with a hoof. “What...what can we do?”

“We have to get back to Kitty’s and follow the original plan. We’ll barricade the door and all the windows, hold up in there, and pray the changelings take care of our new problem while we wait out the snow drifts. There’s some more equipment at the constabulary we can use, and plenty of spare wood and nails from the porch repairs they were doing before I arrived in town. We stop there first, then hold up at Kitty’s for good. Understood?”

“And if any of us are changelings ourselves?” Cadabra challenged.

“We’re going to have to take that risk. If this boy is even half what the original Pinkamena was, wandering blind around town trying to challenge him is a death sentence.”

Cadabra nodded and turned to go, but Zit finally spoke up.

“We’re not safe anywhere...I don’t want to go to the constabulary...they could be waiting for us there…”

Silvermane set a hoof upon Whatzit and helped Cadabra to ease her out into the hall. He replaced the door the same way he had found it, returning the grizzly scene to the bounds of imagination. He regretted his brashness, for he may have inadvertently scarred his young deputy’s nightmares.

“We’re going to stick together, Zit,” Silvermane assured. “We’ll get what we need and get back to safety fast. And we won’t venture out again until the storm lifts. Promise.”

“B-but…” Zit blubbered.

“We failed our dearest companion once,” Cadabra added. “We will not do so again. We cannot rest until The Night is serene again.” She looked away, “...especially given what we have already done to help make it that way.”

Zit swallowed. “...alright. If you’re all going with me.”

Silvermane wasted no time leading his party from the quiet clinic. It was another door in Little Hoofington he would never open again.


*   *   *   *   *


Everything in the Little Hoofington Constabulary was just as Silvermane had left it. The building had been his home for a short span of days, but bereft of Dusky Rose and Beat Trotter it felt little different from the dark windows of each lonely home he’d passed on the way to get there. There was even some ice-cold coffee still in the carafe. Everything was very much as it was supposed to be, but that only served to unnerve the guard captain even further.

With no mind to dally and no expectation of ever coming back, Silvermane set his party to hustling through the place at speed. Records and reports were thus thoroughly scattered, as the trio dug about for whatever tools they might have a use for and the packs to carry them. Zit complained thricely that they ought to depart, until Silvermane lost a measure of his patience and ordered the young mare onto the porch to inspect the wood for sturdy pieces.

Cadabra was stuffing a bag with canisters of nails and a pair of hammers. “She is young,” the cultist reprimanded. “Thou should’st not treat her after such a fashion. The unknown begets fear, but fear is a boon that helps keep us safe. This is why our kind are so misunderstood. We know that there is nothing to fear in the night but the inability to see as far as in the day.”

Silvermane was by the couch, rooting through a stack of paperwork for something to write with. He was still an investigator, and he still had a report to make to the princesses, whether or not he survived to turn it in. “I know,” he sighed. “I’ll apologize later, I’m just frustrated. I came here expecting to do my job and be home by Hearth’s Warming. Instead I’ve failed everypony, and I even...even killed a mare...”

Cadabra shook her head. “There is no time for that now. Fear is alive in us all right now, and thus none of us can trust our own judgement. We must finish our task and steal into the night towards our goal. We can meet with our personal demons and beg forgiveness of them when time allows.” She paused, her proud ears flattening. “...blood exists on our hooves, as well.”

Silvermane’s hoof impacted with a solid object, and he began to unearth it with his magic. Stuffed under the couch lay a book he had forgotten about. It was the volume that had been curiously shoved under his door one morning in the upstairs of this very building. The last time he had inspected it, he had come across a plethora of vital statistics concerning the citizens of Little Hoofington. Fanning it open now he found the same data, complete with the same birth and death dates, hoofprints, photographs, and so forth. As before, he puzzled over the fact that most of the recent data had been added with a scrawl of hoof writing, as opposed to a proper typeface.

Cadabra approached. “What hast thou discovered?”

“Nothing, just...this is a book that Zit gave me a few days ago. Records of the victims. Probably for the investigation. Except…”

“Except?”

As with many Equestrians, Silvermane was used to referring to ‘hoofwriting’ as anything produced manually by use of a quill pen or pencil, be it in the mouth of an Earth pony or by the magic of a unicorn. He couldn’t have realized it before, but by now he was familiar with Whatzit’s particular style. The writing before him did not match it.

“This...this isn’t Zit’s hoofwriting,” Silvermane explained. “She said she gave it to me, and with the way she keeps records I assumed she’d written it…”

Cadabra said nothing. The silence hung in the air long enough to give Silvermane pause, and when he looked up, he noted the shock on his companion’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

He followed Cadabra’s eyes to a particular page. There lay a particular record, and he read the name aloud.

“...Autumn Dew Drop Jelly Passion Rainbow,” Silvermane read. Beside the name were records and photos that made the identity unmistakable. “This...this date of death...it was almost a month ago…”

Cadabra responded with a screech. Her body flew directly overtop of Silvermane’s, to come crashing down in a heap against the far wall. Silvermane whirled, his horn alight, but a blast of magic that was faster than he superheated his helmet nearly to its boiling point. He screamed and fought to remove it, hurling the accessory aside to the sound of smug laughter.

There in the doorway stood Whatzit - or at least, the thing they all had thought was she. In form she was as her usual self - a diminutive mare, lime green in coat, with a scruffy mauve mane and a cutie mark depicting a magnifying glass. Her glasses were gone however, and the sclera of her eyes glowed a putrid green. Upon her neck was the pink scarf that an unwitting guard captain had given her in trust.

“Ah, I’m so forgetful,” Zit chortled. “I had planned to burn that thing before you saw it again. You were stupid enough to just hoof it over though, and apparently not thorough enough to bother reading it. Tsk tsk, Captain. Some investigator you turned out to be.”

Silvermane dropped into a crouch intending to pounce, but another sizzle of baleful green energy singed his mane and set the couch on fire.

“Ah ah ah,” Zit chuckled. She revealed her true horn - a twisted, black, ichorous affair atop her head. “Do you know what I had to go through to get that mute little bitch out into the open?”

Silvermane glanced at the book. “...Lora wrote this?”

“Mmhmm, and I’ll give her credit. Somehow she was able to stuff it under your door without my noticing, and I didn’t even know that book existed before you brought it down and gave it to me. Meticulous, wasn’t she? Who knows what information she would have fed to you next had she gotten the chance. Good thing that whole vow of hers kept her from speaking to you directly. Or maybe she really did cut out her own tongue. I guess we’ll never know. You really should have listened to Stringbean, though.”

Cadabra was upside down against the wall. She righted herself and came up with eyes wide. “...then...that miscreant we destroyed was--”

“Completely innocent, yes,” Zit confirmed. “He was out of his tiny little gourd by then though, of course. You ponies break so easily. I slaughtered Lora right before his eyes, and just as I predicted, not a soul among you took his word over mine. He was even right about my poor dead drone. The most perceptive one among you, and you killed him for it. How does it feel for both of you to have innocent blood on your hooves?”

Hector’s attention was firmly on the changeling queen, though he could find no opportunity to summon an offensive spell before her already glowing horn could burn him down. He resolved to keep her talking as he looked for an opening.

“This can’t have gone off without a hitch for you. We killed off most of your horde already.”

The queen laughed. “Oh Captain, trying to bait me into revealing how many of us there are via correcting you? Clever, but I don’t think so. I will admit that not every part of this has gone the way I had hoped. I miss my departed broodmates, but what’s worse, you damn ponies keep murdering one another before we can harvest your love. Once we’re done here we’ll have to lie low for awhile and conserve the strength we were hoping to have, but my queen will be here before your princess knows what’s happened, and we’ll be firmly entrenched on your territory by then. The mines around here are a fantastic defensive point.”

It was Silvermane’s turn to grin. “You’d be done by now...if not for Pinkamena.”

Zit scoffed. “Finding out that he is not even the famous pony psychopath that would give even our kind pause is embarrassing. I wouldn’t have lost half my brood if I had known to get him out of the clinic before he framed my drone.”

“Then the colt is more efficient than any of us can imagine,” quipped Cadabra, “for two of thy brood were stationed there, and yet he continued on right under their muzzles.”

“Half, huh?” Silvermane spat. “So you’re a minor queen after all, just like Rose thought.”

“Not so ‘minor’ for you Captain, and every other worthless pony in this poor little village. I have succeeded, and you put the last piece of the puzzle in place for me by identifying the killer among you - not that you aren’t all killers, now. The colt may be tricky, but one cannot hide from a changeling forever. We will find him, and when we’ve sucked him dry of whatever perverse love still sticks to the gooey walls of his corpse, I shall wait out this storm, send for my sovereign, and be well rewarded for my good service.”

Silvermane’s mind was furiously locking puzzle pieces together. “Kitty’s been trying to get me to relax every time I’m near her. And she made a point of taking attention off of you. You wanted to go to the church so you could get rid of Lora, you tried to divert suspicion to Cadabra, and the both of you wanted us to stay at Kitty’s not an hour ago.”

“Very good Captain, and that was one fortuitous decision on your part. Had you gone back into the building, we would have ended the both of you then and there. You’re right about one thing - we changelings don’t attack until we’re certain of success. But then the only two actual warriors among you killed each other, and the time became right. After all, I already I had your trust.” Zit flaunted the scarf Silvermane had given her. “You would both have died in seconds, but instead I had to continue playing your game. Then you found that damned book and forced my hoof.”

“The ‘only warriors’? ‘Died in seconds’?” Cadabra huffed. “We are not chopped oats! Thinkest thou that because we are not duly appointed law enforcement that we cannot be dangerous!?”

Cadabra lit her horn, but another blast from the queen sent her hurtling back into the wall. Blood dripped from a gash in her shoulder, mixing with her sangria coloring as she rolled upon the ground in pain. Silvermane moved, but the queen leveled her horn upon him again with unmatchable speed.

“You’re a killer in your heart, Captain,” the queen accused. “Not to mention unfaithful. You’d have jumped in bed with me in an instant had I given you the chance. Sleeping with the enemy--” for a moment the queen’s voice became Zit’s “--and barely legal, to boot. Does it bother you that the pretty little filly you’ve been using to make yourself look like a cool, hardboiled detective all over town never even met you? She was dead weeks before you even got here. I don’t know what sort of maker you ponies answer to in the afterlife, but you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do, in about ten seconds.”

The fire of the queen’s horn reached a crescendo. Behind Silvermane, the fire spread from the couch to the walls via stacks of dry reports.

“Goodbye, Hector Silvermane. It’s a shame I’ll never know what your love tastes like, though I’m sure you were eager to taste mine.”

The queen opened fire, and Silvermane dove for the coffee counter. The bolt tore along his flank and sent spirals of pain through his mind, while the counter came crashing down, dumping the pot of old tar all over his head. Adrenaline carried the stallion to his goal, and he hurled the glass pot with all his might straight at the queen’s muzzle. Unprotected by Zit’s glasses, the pot shattered and sent her into spasms of pain as broken glass embedded itself into her face.

Hampered by his injury and mindful of his only remaining friend, Silvermane loped past the spreading fire towards the back wall, where he unceremoneously yanked Cadabra to her hooves. The mare howled with pain, but the guard ignored it as he draped her injured foreleg over his knee and edged towards the rear hall, firing bolts of energy at the ceiling as he went. Cadabra thought him mad as the building supports began to quake, but when she realized what he was up to, she bowed her head and let out a chain of blasts to grow the blaze into an inferno. Together they used their magic to shove the burning couch in the direction of the changeling queen.

Cadabra fought through the pain and glanced desperately around the room. “Tell us thou hast a rear exit, for if the monster does not destroy us, the razing shall!”

Silvermane yanked Cadabra through the hall to the back of the constabulary. Behind them they heard the crashing of furniture and a raging sound from some great beast the queen had turned herself into. With no time to spare for the back door, Silvermane blasted it off its hinges and dove through the portal with his charge, both of them crying out with pain from their aggravated injuries as the conflagration that was once the Little Hoofington constabulary caved in upon itself.

In the snow, the two ponies wasted no time on rest, for the sounds of the whatever raging beast the queen had become didn’t dissipate. From the desolation emerged a pair of ghastly green eyes, followed by the humming wings of a tall changeling queen in all her blackened glory.

“Go…” Silvermane shouted, “GO!”

Hector wrenched a panting Cadabra up again and thrust her towards the streets, praying that her faith blessed her with a high threshold for pain. They galloped like mad into town, fighting through the pain as bolt after bolt of changeling energy destroyed parts of Little Hoofington in their wake. Were it not for the smoke and the screen of snow Silvermane was purposefully kicking up with every bound, he felt for certain they’d both be writhing in agony on the ground already - waiting for the changeling queen to turn them both into loveless husks in the dirt.

“You’re only prolonging the inevitable!” The queen cried. “The only way you can thwart me now is to kill yourselves before I do it for you!!”

Cadabra’s brow was drenched in sweat, and her gait was uncertain. Through ragged breaths she managed words.

“...i-it is hopeless...we are lame and cannot escape...we must make peace with The Night, for we go to her embrace this day…”

Silvermane kept pace with her, encouraging her to get lost amid the winding side streets. “Is that all you night cultists are worth!?” He encouraged. “I thought you were made of stronger stuff!”

Cadabra shook her head and winced. “...th-thou art trying to encourage us through defamation...we are grateful but w-we cannot endure…”

“She murdered Lora!” Silvermane shouted, “and then tricked you into killing an innocent stallion for it! Are you going to let her get away with that!?”

Cadabra said nothing, but her brow darkened satisfactorily and her pace decayed no further. Silvermane pointed out a sturdy oaken door, and the two of them hurled their bodies into it at speed, breaking it open and diving inside just to put any barrier between themselves and their pursuer.

The structure was little more than a market stand - open air on all sides save for a low stonewall perimeter and some supports. Ducking behind the wall, they came up with horns blazing, ready to battle to the last.

“W-we can go no farther,” Cadabra insisted.

“Me either,” Silvermane hissed, his flank alive with pain.

“We...we shall make our stand here.”

Silvermane nodded with pride. “I’ll never think ill of a Church of the Night parishioner again, if ever I live that long.”

“...s-see that thou dost not, nngh…”

Silvermane considered his companion. Cadabra was still bleeding freely from a gash in her shoulder. She was bruised from the escape and wincing against pain in her back from being hurled twice into the wall of the obliterated jailhouse. Silvermane himself was coated in blood from untold amounts of ponies, with coffee stains and a jagged bald streak along his flank where a bolt of magic had singed away his coat. His head was pounding, and he thought that if he was nearing the end of the stamina set aside to cast spells, Cadabra couldn’t be far behind.

“...are you ready for this…?”

Cadabra nearly swooned, but she bit her lip on purpose until she drew blood, the new pain keeping her on her hooves. “...nngh...w-we...we damn this monster to Tartarus...a-and we will sent it there, so help us!!”

So great was the queen’s magical aura that Silvermane could feel it drawing near. He braced himself, but when no fireball enveloped them, he ventured to peek over the stone barricade.

In the street, a headless changeling stood. The power around it rapidly dissipated, as from its neck it began to spurt green bile all over the snow around it. It fell over, still stiffened by shock, never to rise again. Standing behind it was a dark pony in a cloak of patchwork flesh, each section bearing the cutie mark of another hapless citizen of Little Hoofington. The sections were stretched together crudely, but they had been dried and tanned like leather, so the horrifying garment could be worn and preserved. His face was covered by a mask that looked like something a foal could have cut out from a coloring book - it was the face of Pinkie Pie, in the time before she had become the killer Pinkamena. She was grinning merrily, the product of a promotional book somewhere depicting the keepers of the Elements of Harmony. Her eyes had been cut out, and behind them were the bloodshot orbs of the killer that had eluded both law and changeling for so long.

Anger took the captain, and he scrambled atop the stonewall to hurl abuse at the upstart boy. He barely got two words out before a flat object sailed through the air faster than a bolt of magic. It would have taken his head off, had Cadabra not dragged him back.

“Art thou daft!?” The cultist complained. “Look there--”

The pair watched as the object spun in the air like a boomerang and came perfectly back to ‘Pinkamena’, who caught in on his hoof to reveal its true nature. It resembled a propeller, with each blade serrated on one side and sharpened to a keen edge on the other. It was honed down and sanded, flat and deadly; perfectly balanced for whatever skill the Waffle boy had in his fetlocks for throwing it.

For a moment there was silence, in stark contrast to the destructive noises and magical blasts perpetuated by the felled changeling queen. The remaining ponies huddled behind their barricade, eye to eye with the scribbled visage of Pinkie Pie and the broken eyes behind her face. They braced for attack, but Chocolate Waffle surprised them both by turning instead to the latest corpse he had created. He produced a second propeller-blade from his cloak, and with this one went about the task of hacking limbs off of the still-convulsing body, rending pointless gashes and mutilation into it after the fact.

Cadabra turned away and instantly wretched in the snow. Silvermane summoned his magic, but the pain and exhaustion were too much, and he found he could do nothing beyond a tiny spark like flint upon steel. He thought to leap over the barricade and tackle the boy, but he was injured, and there was too much open ground separating them. Pinkamena’s greatest danger was in her ability to break all the rules, and the Waffle boy was whipping around those heavy, awkward blades with impossible ease. Silvermane’s heart sank, as he considered the possibility that whatever genetic mutation caused those abilities in Pinkie Pie, might just be present in Chocolate Waffle as well.

Hector grabbed at Cadabra, who was still coughing up some remnant of stomach acid.

“Can you cast?”

Cadabra shook her head raggedly.

“Then we need to get out of here and find a place to hide. Look-”

He pointed up. It was night, but the sky was finally showing signs of clearing. A pegasus might have been able to quit the town entirely, but the prospect of sunshine on the morrow, or two days worth, might just be enough for anypony with a desperate enough need.

“We can still make it out of this,” Silvermane said hopefully.

Cadabra shook her head again and croaked out words. “...thou art without thy sanity...we are both lame...we cannot play hide and seek with a killer for the time it would take to melt the drifts…”

“It’s either that, or he kills us here. Now.”

Cadabra wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof and glanced at the offered hoof of her companion. Disheveled and weak, she blew her lilac curls out of her face and placed her hoof in his.

“We...choose to die on our hooves.”

Together, supported by each other, the single stallion and mare fled at a handicapped pace. It was indeed a game of hide and seek, and the seconds were counting down until their pursuer came after them.
> 12 - Cat and Mouse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hector Silvermane felt the hand of death upon his shoulder.

As a soldier and a commander, it was part of his job to prepare for death on any given day. But reality was a different matter, and never before had Silvermane felt the grim specter loom so close as to brush its bony hoof upon his cheek. It sent shivers along every synapse in his brain, and threatened to paralyze his young muscles with rheumatoid fear.

With his back against a picket fence, he gasped for whatever air a moment’s respite could provide. He was a rat in a maze, constantly on the move for fear that the cat would find him before the cheese. His pursuer was but a youth, but exhausted and injured as he was, the chance of standing up to anypony who could bend the rules like the great killer Pinkamena was that of a tiny matchstick flame in the quiet frozen nightmare that lay all around.

Beside Silvermane was the strangest of bedfellows. Days prior he might have dismissed Cadabra Smile as another pompous zealot in a foppish cape, but the head of Little Hoofington’s local Church of the Night had proven that the purity of her faith. In the snow she sat, her mane disheveled, her cape torn; her body bruised and bloody. Fear rocked her delicate features, but she kept working to squeeze out whatever magical energy she had left in her body. Her horn crackled thricely, and she slumped in frustration against the white pickets to her back.

“...we are prolonging the inevitable,” she stated woefully. “We are nothing but sport for him now. When he tires of Pinkamena’s game, we will have naught but to pray that death comes before dismemberment.”

Silvermane croaked through pants. “...we can’t stop for long. We have to keep moving. Keep him guessing.”

“He may not even be out there,” Cadabra scoffed. “He knows we are his. We saw plainly how he ignored us to mutilate his latest kill. He can come for us at his leisure.”

Silvermane stared at the slowly clearing sky, wincing under the pain from the rent in his side. “Do you have any magic?”

“No,” Cadabra said simply. “And we cannot fight him on his own terms.”

“Then there’s only one choice,” Silvermane reasoned. He nodded down a wide street, flanked on either side by cold, quiet cottages. “Out in the open we’re sitting ducks, and in any of these buildings, without our magic, we’re just gift wrapping ourselves for him. We have to get out of here.”

“Out of town?” Cadabra replied incredulously. “The drifts will not have subsided yet. Without our magic, it would take hours to punch through.”

“Then we’ll do it by hoof,” Silvermane concluded. “I’d rather take our chances digging our way to freedom and die trying, than just wait here to have my cutie mark harvested by that monster.”

Cadabra glanced down at her hooves. They were the hooves of a poet, not a laborer, and she had already suffered more than one crack to her keratin. “...we do not think we will be of much use in that.”

“Then you keep watch while I dig. It’s the only chance we’ve got.”

A silent moment passed, until Cadabra’s stomach finally broke it up with a high-pitched growl. Silvermane’s responded in baritone, and the doomed pair allowed themselves a moment’s levity.

“It is as if we have not eaten in days,” Cadabra explained. “Be grateful that it did not come out as compliments to the chef!”

Hector managed a halting laugh. “My wife kicks me so hard whenever I deal one in bed that I nearly fall out. I think she’s training me through osmosis. Hoof to the rump.”

“Lora once passed an embarrassing moment in the middle of services,” Cadabra reminisced. “It is the most she ever said to me.”

The joke on the deceased mute was in poor taste, but the pair devoured ravenously what little energy the ghoulish humor could provide.

“We...shall never see her again,” Cadabra said softly. “She was...our only friend. Most ponies see us as enigmatic, or merely insufferable.”

“You might see her sooner than you think,” Silvermane said grimly.

Silence repeated itself. Cadabra felt its chill caress her, and was possessed by the need to break it up.

“Is your spouse a good pony?”

Silvermane considered the unexpected question. “The stars don’t make them any better. She’s been by my side since the day we met, and I’m lucky to have her. I don’t think I’d ever have made it out of the trenches without her support.” He sighed. “...maybe things would have turned out differently if I had her here with me now, but I guess I’m never going to see her again.”

“We had a romantic encounter once.”

“Yeah?”

“Indeed,” Cadabra confirmed. “We were too young, and he was a historian who gave talks on the life and times of the royal house. He instilled in us a love of the sun and the moon, and was the signpost for our road to this life.”

“That’s sweet,” Silvermane encouraged. “What happened?”

Cadabra shook her head, meekly allowing a portion of her matted mane to cover half her face. “...he rejected me. He was a devotee before I was, and when I didn’t take to the church fast enough, he decided I wasn’t devoted enough to him, either.”

Silvermane didn’t realize he was staring until Cadabra cleared her throat. “I...I’m sorry but, I’m not used to hearing you talk that way…”

“You mean like Princess Luna before her banishment?” Cadabra quipped. She huddled into herself, wrapping as much of her body in her cape as she could drape over it. “It’s a part of the faith. It’s not required of parishioners, but those with any rank are expected to sound like her.”

“R-right, of course, just--”

Cadabra nodded at the image of the full moon with a cloud floating before it on her flank. “My real name is Lorem Ipsum. I got my cutie mark just from sleeping under the stars one night as a filly. It’s not a common thing to do in Manehattan, but it’s not a hobby or even a notable act, so I graduated from school having no idea who or what I was. When I met him, he...gave me purpose. I accepted the church and excelled, but nothing I ever did was enough for him. I played his fool - absorbing myself with the desire to please him until I realized he was merely using the faith as a front to obtain personal adoration and status. I hadn’t received much in the way of affection growing up, and thus I never questioned his ‘greater knowledge’ as a historian.”

Silvermane knew it wasn’t the time for confessions, but his body ached, and he wasn’t convinced there was any escape even with the new plan. He indulged her.

“But you devoted yourself to the church anyway.”

“At first the very idea of remaining in the faith disgusted me, but yes, I did it anyway. I would not have admitted it at the time, but despite his behavior I wanted him back - or another stallion like him, to step into his place. Surely you know the routine. The way we ponies sometimes cannot rid ourselves of the same relationships over and over.”

“...yeah.”

“But that did not happen. I absorbed myself with my role in the faith, and gained parishioners whom I felt genuine affection for. Eventually I found that I genuinely wanted to devote myself to gaining acceptance for the Church of the Night in society, for so many ponies still believe we are some sort of Nightmare Moon obsessed cult bent on promoting her return. Also I was...good at it. My special talent, I suppose. In a few years’ time I handed the parish over to another and left that place. Officially my departure was a mission to spread the faith to another community, but...really I just wanted to bury old memories.”

Silvermane didn’t know what to say. “Lorem is a nice name. Has a good ring to it.”

Cadabra smiled somberly but shook her head. “Lorem Ipsum is gone now. I have lived the life of Cadabra Smile, and that is who I’d rather finish the race as. But...thank you.”

Silvermane glanced awkwardly at the sky again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save anypony. And I’m sorry for the innocent mare I killed, though there’s no amount of apology that can make up for that.”

“What will you do, if we survive?”

“Turn myself in,” Silvermane said resolutely. “I’m not sure I can even go about my regular duties like nothing happened here. I need to slow down. Either suspension or jail might be good for that.”

“...we have killed as well,” Cadabra said, sinking back into her vocal routine. “We will stand with you. If any are to judge us, it is a comfort to know Princess Luna will likely be among them.”

Silvermane shook his head, rattling his senses about in his brain, and rose to his hooves. Helmetless and with his armor soaked in ichor, he was less a hero and more a killer in his own right.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s nopony left here to save besides ourselves. If we don’t get word of this back to Canterlot, this entire region will become a headquarters for the changeling hive in our own lands. We can’t lay down and die now, even if we want to.”

Cadabra pushed the saccharine moment aside and rose up on her own, ignoring the pain from the gash in her shoulder that she had bound up with a scrap of her own cape. She refused Silvermane’s offered hoof and fell in with him. Together they took the main street to the entrance of Little Hoofington.


*   *   *   *   *


Little Hoofington’s perimeter wall was the only structure in town that seemed none the worse for wear in the absence of upkeep. It was tall, thick, and sturdy enough to be the pride of the mining community. From the day of its completion, nopony could have known the deathtrap it would become.

The drifts at the main gates were beyond even Silvermane’s fears. The snow was a dental filling across the gap to freedom, and just as solid to the touch. Cadabra threw sharp glances in every direction, grateful for her trained eye in the approaching dark.

“...what are we to do now?”

Had the pair been fresh Silvermane might have suggested they try floating themselves over the walls, but in their weakened state he doubted either of them could manage such a complex spell. He set his horn aglow and aimed at the snow bank, but thought the better of it and instead began to dig with his hooves.

“We may need every spell to defend ourselves. All we can do now is dig.”

Cadabra shifted uncomfortably. He knew she wouldn’t admit to any sort of weakness, and he smiled wanly.

“I’ve got it. Watch my back.”

With that, Hector went about the tedious task of digging his way to freedom. The work went like a watched pot that never boils, but adrenaline was still coursing through his veins and he kept at it.

“What will we do when we get out?” Cadabra mused. “We suspect the snow shall be just as bad without, and there is nowhere to go but the train station. It would be fortuitous indeed if we just happen to catch a train, assuming they are running at all in this weather.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Silvermane replied through grunts. “When we had a base of operations it might have been different, but now we either take a chance with the snow or end up six feet under it. Assuming there’s anything left to bury.”

Cadabra couldn’t argue. She puffed her chest and stood at attention, her eye on the street that plunged into a darkened village. Even she could only see so far into its depths, and it was the first time since she had found her faith that she could remember being afraid of the dark. Nerves soon took her.

“Wh-why has he not come for us yet? Why does he not finish his work? Did he chose to finish off the changeling menace first?”

“I doubt that,” Silvermane replied. “If he’s obsessed with being Pinkamena, then he kills primarily to obtain cutie marks for his cloak. They have none to give him, and if there’s only one left, he’s probably not all that concerned about her.”

“Perhaps we ought to have gone back to Kitty’s establishment...perhaps we could have forged some manner of alliance? At the very least, her ample provisions would be available to us…”

“Do you really think she was telling the truth about that?”

Cadbra fell silent. Silvermane went about his work for ten more excruciating minutes, until the cultist caught a flicker of movement from further in the darkness than any normal pony could have seen. She squinted, her hackles rising, and the image of a wisp of a pony in a heavy cloak standing by a lonely building came to her.

“...L-Lora…?”

The specter had blood running down her legs and appeared listless from its loss. It swayed on its hooves, and Cadabra thought she saw a glimpse of tears upon its shadowed cheeks. The pony stumbled into the open and stood perfectly still for an ageless moment. It then collapsed in the street; a large, propeller like blade protruding from the back of its cloak.

“Lora!!” Cadabra shouted.

“What?” Silvermane poked his head out from the small crevice he had created in the snow, only to find his companion kicking up her heels in the direction of the collapsed pony. “Cadabra! No! It’s a trap!”

“Do not be ridiculous!” Cadabra shouted as she galloped away. “She is wounded by the blade of our assailant! We must go to her!”

Silvermane cursed and fought to free himself from his work. He hit the pavement stones running, expecting the fallen bundle in the street to rise up and attack them at any moment. It never moved, and Cadabra was soon standing over it. The unicorn’s worn emotions had turned her into a shadow of her once haughty self, and she could but blubber out shaky words.

“Lora...we thought you deceased…”

Silvermane slowed to a trot, approaching warily. “Cadabra get away from her...Lora’s dead...that can’t be her…”

“Didst thou confirm that when she fell at the church?” Cadabra reasoned, her eyes fixated on the bundle. “Did any of us?”

Silvermane thought back. “...no…”

“And see here,” Cadabra pointed at the protuberance, “she has been attacked by the colt himself. This is our Lora, we are certain of--”

With impossible speed, the cloaked pony whirled to its hooves, yanked the blade out from a false pocket in its back and spun it in a deadly arc. Before Cadabra could finish her sentence, her left foreleg lay severed upon a patch of virgin snow.

“...nngggggaAAAHHHHHhhhhhhh!!”

‘Lora’ sprang forward to finish the job, but Silvermane tackled the damaged body of his friend, hurling her out of her attacker’s path. He thrust his hind leg into the assailant’s stomach and monkey-flipped her in an arc over his head.

‘Lora’ flexed his wings and came down with catlike grace on all four hooves. He cast the outer cloak aside to reveal the patchwork flesh of Pinkamena’s signature garment, and from beneath the discarded hood emerged the coloring-book mask of Pinkie Pie. Chocolate Waffle’s maniacal yet patient eyes showed through. He curled the huge, heavy blades in his hooves; crossing them before his body like plastic toys.

Silvermane felt fear, for the monster was now between the surviving ponies and the main gates.

“Cadabra!” Silvermane called without daring to take his eyes off of the colt. “Are you still with me?”

Cadabra was choking on her own tears. Out of the corner of his eye Silvermane caught a glimpse of her rolling around in a pool of her own blood, her shoulder spurting up more with every passing moment. “...ah...ah...i-it h-hurts...m-make i-it...sss-sstop...nnnghghhhh…!”

Silvermane wanted to go to her, but the iron presence of Little Hoofington’s slayer promised the move to be fatal. The colt hadn’t budged a step, but he was poised to strike, and the guard captain was already privy to his preternatural speed. Regretfully pushing his friend’s cries from his mind, Silvermane examined his attacker for any opening in the boy’s guard.

The eyes that stared back at the captain were clouded by madness but sharp as stakes. Chocolate Waffle was at the tail end of adolescence, essentially an adult in body. His wiry sinews were lithe and dextrous, and he was fresh. Silvermane could tell that the Waffle boy had used the time after destroying the changeling queen to rest and refresh himself, rather than finish off the final bug creature that infested the town. Hector and his charge had thus exhausted themselves fleeing from terrors borne only of their own minds.

“Your reputation does most of your work for you,” Silvermane challenged. “What do you think you’re going to gain from all of this? What happens when we’re all dead, and you’re alone in this icy Tartarus?”

For the first time, Chocolate Waffle spoke. His voice was raspy, as though he hadn’t used it in a long time, but his pitch was purposefully high, as though trying to mimic that of a mare.

“...I will be pretty...I will be beautiful…”

Madness. In the words and the eyes, Silvermane found nothing but the depths of criminal insanity. He wondered when the boy’s mind had broken, and how he had managed to keep it from his fellow citizens and family for so long. But whatever unique personality the boy was born with was gone now, and Silvermane knew reasoning would get him nowhere.

It was indeed kill or be killed.
> 13 (End) - Broken
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hector Silvermane barreled through the darkened streets of Little Hoofington, dependent upon the sparse moonlight to guide his way. He had discarded the last of his armor somewhere in the street simply to gain speed, and he was thus without badge of office. Passing by a store window he caught a glance of himself: a ghostly white stallion, covered in so many patches of mingling blood that he resembled a phantom from the cruelest Nightmare Night stories.

Silvermane had neither destination nor plan in mind - his thoughts were only upon his beloved spouse, and the former life he would never live again.

The captain had tried to defend his fallen companion, but even with all his training, his attempts were in vain. Earthbound, worn, and in an open street he stood no chance at all. The boy was simply too agile and too skilled with his blades - the benefits of obsession taken to the level of mental illness. The best Silvermane could manage was a series of throws and blocks to delay the inevitable. For his trouble he had received fresh wounds all about his neck and flanks. After nearly losing his head when a blade shored away much of his mane, Hector resolved to lead the boy away, in the hopes of distracting him away from Cadabra Smile. It was a gamble, for the last time the boy had been presented with a choice, he had opted to dismember a corpse rather than press the attack.

This time, the feint paid off. Silvermane wasn’t entirely certain where the last Waffle was, but he could feel the presence of two bloodshot eyes in the dark, burning holes in his flank from somewhere astern. ‘Pinkamena’ wasn’t bothering to conceal his steps anymore either, and thus a rhythmic crunching of snow rang in Silvermane’s ears. The boy was definitely on his quarry’s trail, but he had given Silvermane no option but to flee deeper into Little Hoofington. The town was no less built into the side of a mountain than ever it had been, and with no time to conceal himself, every building promised to be a deathtrap. There was but a single direction left to go in.

The Little Hoofington Constabulary had been completely destroyed by fire. Nothing remained but burnt timbers and twisted wooden limbs, but there were no other structures close enough for the flames to spread to, and no wind to fan them. The blaze had died in the snow, and the scaffold that Silvermane had ordered built several days prior still stood tall. Beyond it was the abyss - the cloudy precipice that gave way to the empty miner’s pit the scaffold had been built close to on purpose, to easily dispose of the hanged. Below was a miasma of darkness and fog that no miner of the past would ever have been foolish enough to descend into without proper gear, and no pegasus could ever have navigated without crashing headfirst into jagged, sharp rock walls.

Hector Silvermane, a simple unicorn, peered into the pit. It was to be his grave, but with any luck, it would be his adversary’s too. 

In that moment, Hector made peace with himself. A murderer, a disgrace as a guard, and witness to horrors his sensibilities might never recover from, he knew his life could never be the same. The dealings at Little Hoofington had been too much for him, and the only recourse was to ensure that no creature of evil made it out of the little mining community alive. He had already resolved to destroy Kitty Contessa with his own hooves as soon as his business with the boy was concluded, and he hoped that somehow the lame Lorem Ipsum, called Cadabra Smile, might survive to tell the princesses of this place and its horrors.

Silvermane swallowed as he stepped upon the rickety wooden platform. The image of his beloved Chloe, always shiny and bright in his thoughts, had tarnished with age in only a few meager days. He could barely see her anymore, and as he touched his naked neck, he wished only that he had never given up her token of affection.

Silvermane hadn’t long to muse over his circumstances, for from the shadows melted the dark colt who made sport of him. Chocolate Waffle’s shoulders heaved with the effort of galloping through the thick snow, but the wear seemed to have no effect. He stalked blatantly into the open, high on his grisly task, and stood poised to strike. His expression was forever locked in neutral, but the mask he wore coated his prey in the sickening sweetness of Pinkie Pie’s crayon smile.

Silvermane stared down at his opponent from the hangpony’s scaffold. He set his hooves and blew a bit of silvery bangs from his eye, bringing to bear whatever raw strength he had left in lieu of weapons or armor.

“I can’t let you kill me,” he said simply. “I won’t allow it. Equestria is depending on me. The only way you’re killing me is over my dead body.”

As if intrigued, ‘Pinkamena’ tilted his head. Pinkie Pie’s face went kilter, and the killer behind it sheathed one of his blades upon his back to free up a hoof. With this, he stroked a place on his neck, drawing Silvermane’s eye to the spot.

“...beautiful…” the boy croaked, “...finally beautiful…”

About Chocolate Waffle’s neck was a new ornament. An attractive, if by now slightly threadbare, pink scarf. Silvermane nearly choked when he bore witness to the trophy, but the colt didn’t offer him much time to look upon it. Chocolate Waffle did a perfect pirouette, spinning his cloak about him to show the recently added patchwork. The cutie marks of the recently deceased hadn’t had time to cure into leather, so he had used the cold as sufficient stiffness and sewn them on raw - flaps of meat in the breeze.

Silvermane snapped. It was no longer about saving Equestria. It was about revenge.

“...you dirty son of a nag…” the once-proud guard captain choked, “...I’ll tear you apart with my own four hooves…”

With speed that broke all the rules, Chocolate waffle drew his other propeller-blade and leapt upon the dais to the attack. His first blow was strength beyond strength - Silvermane dodged, but the hammer-strike splintered one of the scaffold’s supports, casting one of the nooses and the spire that supported it into the pit. Thinking his opponent overextended Silvermane responded with a kick to the midsection - it connected and sent the colt back, but with catlike grace he once again came down firmly on every hoof. He had cast his blades into the air just before contact, and these he caught, one by one, with cartoonish precision.

Frustrated, Silvermane let out a bellow and charged his opponent, hurling his mustang strength into the smaller colt’s body. The Waffle boy spun like a dancer, and as Silvermane passed he lanced out with one blade, intent upon separating one of the captain’s hind legs from his body. The amputation failed, but the blade managed to slice across one of the tendons in the target leg, spattering Pinkie Pie’s paper face in fresh blood.

Silvermane screamed, and narrowly avoided flying into the pit himself by hurling his body hard to the platform. The impact hurt, but not so much as the searing fire from behind. His right hind leg still bent for him, but the movements were lame, and as he fought for purchase he found that the hoof would hold no weight. He took entirely too long to right himself and spin around, surprised that his head was still attached after the opening he had given his opponent.

Chocolate Waffle was drawing his blade under the thin mask, licking at the blood he had just drawn. His dire stare suggested he preferred to take the captain piece by piece, and given his history with dismemberment, Hector believed every sentiment in the wordless stare.

Hector’s sweat went cold, coating him in a chill to match his terror. The colt now stood between him and the rest of Little Hoofington, with nothing at his back but the chasm that had claimed the broken body of Chocolate Waffle’s mother days before. Silvermane considered the perverse justice of it all - he had murdered the boy’s mother after all, and in the presence of so many witnesses that his act could hardly be refuted. Nearly all of the assemblage had passed into the void in their own right and taken their accounts with them, but Silvermane had no intention of concealing his crime, for he knew his conscience would not allow it to go unpunished for long. Maybe the boy had a right to kill him. Maybe destroying ‘Pinkamena’ was only a question of allowing the lesser of two evils to survive.

Shifting weight from his useless hind leg, Silvermane tripped and smacked into one of the remaining supports. The noose that hung from it, tangled from a previous day’s breeze, unfurled and dangled before him. Through it he saw the image of his attacker, wreathed in a frame of hempen rope.

An idea lit like a match in Silvermane’s mind. He turned his flank to the boy, waggling it like a Los Pegasus showmare.

“You want my cutie mark, right?” He panted, taking another step back towards the precipice. “If I jump, you’ll never get it.”

Chocolate Waffle tilted his head thoughtfully again. Silvermane saw hesitation in the gaze.

“That’s right...you can’t deal with that, can you…” Silvermane huffed. “...the stallion who killed your mother...that’s one cutie mark you can’t live without. But it’s got nothing to do with preserving her memory, does it...you wanted to kill her yourself, and add her beauty to your own. You wanted the moment to be right, but I took that away from you, and the changelings took away all the chances to kill the rest of your family...that’s why you killed the queen when she didn’t have anything pretty to offer. You’ll never get your mother’s cutie mark now. Not ever.”

At long last, Silvermane saw an emotion flash into the light of the dark colt’s eyes. It was anger, and the boy’s limbs grew stiff with it. He pounced upon his nearly helpless prey with all his strength, but Silvermane could see that the emotion had ruined the calculating perfection that was ‘Pinkamena’.

Silvermane threw himself to the floor and used a resuscitated remnant of his magic to pull the noose wide. The head of the copycat Pinkamena sailed straight into it, and the momentum from his body rent another crack into the scaffold’s supports. Silvermane hurled himself off the platform and opened fire for all he was worth with the last of his horn, until pain that rivaled the spiralling morass in his leg exploded in his head as well. His target was the crack, and it exploded in a mass of splinters, sending the entire scaffold crashing down onto its side.

The heavy scaffold found purchase in the snow and did not chance into the pit. At the tip of the last spire, dangling out over the pit itself, was the twitching form of Chocolate Waffle. His neck thoroughly broken by the noose, he twitched for a full minute before going slack. There he swung, gravity toying with his body like a cat toy, until finally coming to rest.

Chocolate Waffle’s empty eyes, pressed up against the mask by squeezing, became Pinkie Pie’s. They gazed directly at Captain Hector Silvermane, damning him from some place beyond pony understanding.


  *   *   *   *


Hearth’s Warming Eve had come and gone. For Hector Silvermane, Hearth’s Warming Day was a morbid affair.

The captain had nopony to speak to, and likewise nothing to say. Numb through the empty halls of his mind, he put his body to automatic tasks, beginning with a bath in frigid water to wash off the blood. He turned an entire tub in some hapless home red with the effort, and left without drying himself nor cleaning up.

In the ashes of the constabulary he found the twisted slag that was once his helmet. In the street were plates of his armor - hidden in one secret compartment was a changeling capture orb, still powered with a spell and ready to use. He tossed the useless helmet into the mining pit, donned what armor sections he could find, and went to Kitty’s Nip with the magic orb ready. There was no feeling inside him anymore, and he went to his goal with every intention of destroying the proprietor of the establishment without a second thought.

In the street lay two bodies - those of Constable Rose and Caveat. Enough blood to seemingly account for twice as many ponies pooled in frozen puddles about them. They were both devoid of their cutie marks, and their hideous wounds lay bare for all to see. Silvermane kicked the door in without trying it and found the hearth cold. As he expected the larders were just about empty, and the stools lay still where they had fallen. A chill not from the outside crept over him, and before he retreated, he found a small note on the counter-

“Y’all come back now, y’hear? See you next time, Captain Silvermane.”

Silvermane lit the taunting note on fire with a spark from his horn and casually dropped it in an archaic spitoon on his way out.

In the wide street that led to the main gates, Silvermane found a severed leg and a trail of blood leading towards the church. With every step came the expectation of encountering the corpse of Cadabra Smile, but the trail led all the way to the cold and quiet Church of the Night. He ignored the frozen corpses of Lora Lore and Stringbean, and passing through the entrance found himself amid pews intended for an absent congregation.

Upon the altar, bathed in colorful light from the stained-glass image of Princess Luna, lay a body. The trail of blood flowed straight up to it, and the wisp of liliac mane jutting out from under the cape told him it was his erstwhile companion. He approached, and though the body neither stirred nor breathed, he was shocked to find it still warm to the touch. He nearly started CPR, until he realized what was going on and instead nodded in understanding, a newfound respect on his face.

Cadabra was in a state of suspended animation. It was a complicated spell that no average unicorn could pull off, and very much considered to be a last resort for any who would use it on themselves. She was pale from blood loss and ought to be dead - if not for the incantation, Silvermane was certain she would be. Even Silvermane wasn’t capable of such sorcery, but he knew something about it, and was certain that it could neither be set in duration nor controlled by the enchanted after the fact. Cadabra had chosen to entomb herself in her own body the moment before her death, in the hopes that someday, somepony would chance by with the means to save her life. It was a gamble, for if Silvermane had not prevailed in his struggle, surely the cultist would have been found and eviscerated alive by now.

“...heh,” Silvermane muttered. “Bigger balls than any stallion I ever met.”

He touched the three-legged, hibernating body in passing and went out, adding the construction of a litter to the tasks he had set for himself.

Hector Silvermane spent the rest of the day collecting corpses and dragging them through the streets to the storage shed, where the dead had been accumulating since before he arrived. The building had yet to stink before the preserving cold, but he closed his eyes whenever he tossed another corpse into it, for fear that the sight might cost him the last vestige of his sanity. Even the changeling queen’s hacked up meat was collected, until Silvermane could find no more bodies anywhere in town. He made a final trip to Kitty’s to collect furniture, and this he shoved, pushed, or dragged through the streets as well, only to smash each item apart and ring the building with the pieces like so much kindling. 

Captain Silvermane discarded his armor and left it too inside the shed. He wasn’t certain he had the right to wear it anymore - his life as a guard captain had died with these ponies, and as such it seemed fitting to part with the symbols here. Being not a spiritual pony, he muttered some canned language and then opened fire on the smashed furniture with his magic, burning it until the entire structure was ablaze. He stood sentinel until the roof collapsed and then walked somberly away; ashes flitting about his mane and the stench of meat clogging his nostrils.

The only body Silvermane did not place upon the pyre was the one that still swayed in the chill breeze from the capsized scaffold. From his he retrieved the pink scarf his wife had given him, tied it about his neck, and then simply fired upon the rope, severing it. The copycat Pinkamena and his ‘beautiful’ cloak dropped quietly through the fog and out of sight. Silvermane didn’t know how deep the chasm went, but he never heard the corpse come to rest.

Alone with the specters of the fallen, Hector Silvermane found a tree stump to sit upon and make his report. Upon the official letterhead he wrote:

“With regards to the incident at the mining village of Little Hoofington: It is the opinion of this report that the village is a total loss, and is no longer suited for habitation by ponykind. This report therefore recommends that Little Hoofington be condemned indefinitely, off-limits to unauthorized personnel until such time as it can be razed entirely, brick by brick, to ensure it cannot be used as a base of operations for changeling activity.”

Silvermane sat in silence and wrote out as many details as he could think of, speaking on matters of changelings and serial murder. When his report was complete he set about two additional writing projects - his resignation letter, and a formal written plea of guilty that he intended to present at his trial for the voluntary ponyslaughter of Buttermilk Waffle.

He had but one additional document: the book of statistics that Lora Lore had tried to share with him. It was singed but had somehow escaped immolation. Perhaps it was providence that the book would survive, for it was the only remaining record of the deceased of Little Hoofington, who could no longer tell their own tale. He scribbled in it, recording details of the most recent deaths - those ponies he might have called ‘friend’ under other circumstances. He tucked it away in a small satchel for safe keeping.

His duties as complete as he intended to make them, Silvermane slept under the stars. Nowhere was he safe from the tormented souls of Little Hoofington that lived in his mind, but at the very least he found no walls nor dark shadows to give them life. In the morning he fashioned a litter from a vegetable cart, loaded Cadabra Smile’s body into it, hitched up, and made his way to the receding snow drift that blanketed the main gates. It took two hours, but he battered his way through by the power of magic and his bare hooves, until the path to the train station stood before him.

The only other structure between Silvermane and his goal was the tiny guard station that had been his first encounter in this place over a week ago. He unhitched himself and approached the shack. Within he very much expected to find either a dessicated corpse or a dismembered one. What was actually there sent a chill through his spine that rivaled any stare by the villainous Chocolate Waffle.

“Well well!” A familiar voice crooned. “If’n it ain’t the purdy Admiral agin! How’s atcha Admiral?”

Silvermane backpeddled until he nearly fell over. “...B...Beanie…?”

Kicked back in the little room with his hind legs on the tiny desk was the ruddy Earth stallion in the propeller cap that bore his name. Amid the odor of stale turnip rum Beanie cackled.

“Best name I ever did have, don’tcha go takin’ it away!” He offered a bottle. “Care fer a snort?”

Silvermane saw no provisions in the tiny hut beyond several empty bottles of rum, and just as many that were still full. “...h-how...how can you be…”

Beanie frowned and pulled the bottle back. He sniffed it and made a face, tossing it over his shoulder where it shattered against the wall. “Yer right, thahtz gone ‘n spoiled.”

“...why...why didn’t you go for help…”

Beanie was rooting through his stash of liquor bottles. “Shore I got a better one around here...only the best fer a rear admiral come visit…”

“Why didn’t you...how could you just…” Silvermane sputtered. He felt cracks form anew in his bandaged psyche, and he forced his way into the little hut that was not large enough for two. In a rage, he slammed Beanie against the far wall with his forelegs.

“Y-you damned lush!!” Silvermane shouted. “Why didn’t you go for help!? We were all being murdered in there! You were out here! Why didn’t you act!? Why didn’t you do anything!?”

Beanie, eye to eye with his superior officer, hiccuped and tilted his head. “...cain’t abandon muh post, Admiral. I got friends t’look out fer.”

“Your friends are dead! Everypony is dead!”

“Aw shucks Admiral, it ain’t like that,” Beanie snerked. “We got magical friendship all up an’ down Little Hoofington! Are ya just stoppin’ by or have y’been here before? Y’should stay a spell! We’re gonna have a big ol' Hearth's Warming party tonight! Everypony’s turnin’ out!”

Beanie began to list names of deceased townsponies. Silvermane swore in rage, but eventually let go of the lieutenant, allowing him to slip back into his seat.

“You’re insane…” Silvermane concluded. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you…”

“--oh, an’ y-gotta meet lil’ Miss Kitty, she makes the biggest humdinger of a sunflower salad you ever saw! I’m sure she’ll be bringin’ some roasted chestnuts tonight. Miss Rose don’t like those on accounta them gettin’ stuck in her teeth - she’s an old biddy but don’t tell her I said that. And Whim, oh you gotta meet Whim, he--”

Silvermane saw in Beanie what he may have become himself, had he been exposed to Little Hoofington’s cataclysm from the start. He couldn’t say how the lieutenant had survived in the tiny guard shack alone, but the fact that neither the changelings nor Pinkamena had claimed him made this encounter unnerving. Something about the entire situation felt wrong, and the hairs on the back of Silvermane’s neck were standing on end.

“--an’ Miss Buttermilk, she’s the sweetest sweetheart y’ever met with the luckiest hubby in th’ whole town, you gotta meet their kids--”

“Come with me, Beanie,” Silvermane said halfheartedly. “You...shouldn’t stay in this place.”

“Cain’t do that!” Beanie chorused. “Got a post to man, soldierin’ to do! Y’know how that is!”

“Beanie, the town is--”

“-an’ the churchponies, they’re kinda, yanno, a couple drops of rum short of a cupcake - I like those hard cupcakes they make at the bakery. Gotta make sure you don’t buy those for the fillies by mistake! An--”

“...goodbye, Beanie.”

Hector Silvermane replaced the shack door on the rambling visage of Beanie. Little Hoofington was a black sinkhole - a place with no feeling, where he had played a game of souls and paid with his heart. There was nothing left inside him, and as he hitched himself back up and plodded away, he thought on the psychology of the criminally insane. It often started one a single act of evil, that made subsequent acts that much easier to perform. He was already past the first hurdle, and he wondered what it felt like to approach the second.

One soul slept in the back of a rickety wagon, waiting for a brighter day.