Mystery Ahoof

Daisy coughs. "I think you're thinking of Lavender, not me. And no, we haven't yet. It's almost as if she turned invisible during her missing time."

River wakes up suddenly, having had a long dream/memory of being strapped to a metal table, bloody and cut up, with tubes and wires going under her skin, glowing liquids being forced down her throat by a blurry figure.

---

"My son is in critical condition at the hospital because I left the stove on this morning." This is even more creepy, if only because of the content combined with the (lack of) tone of voice.

"Uh, actually..." Cobalt pops her head back in the door, fidgeting a bit. "Hi again, uh, would it be alright if I used your bathroom?"

---

Stalling...

"AAAAUUUGH*gasp*

River's scream carried down the hallway as she woke up terrified, diving off of and under the bed, shaking violently.

"Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop..."

Cobalt jumps when she hears the scream. She doesn't wait for an answer to her last question, stepping inside and pointing out very helpfully, "I think she might be awake."

"Quite." Wanderlust mutters as he dashes back into River's room. He stops in the doorway for a moment, perplexed by the lack of an immediately visible bed-ridden River, then hears the stream of sound coming from under the bed. "River? Can you hear me, River? It's me, Wanderlust." He says, lying down on the floor next the bed and peering under it.

River lifted a hoof off of her face to look at Wanderlust. "*sniff* I-I-I'm o-okay," she stuttered out through the remaining shakes as she started to wake up fully. "W-what happened?" she asked, as she started clambering out from under the bed. "I-I think I was chasing somepony, and then I was on the... On the..." At that she broke down again as her nightmemory made it's way back to the forefront.

Wanderlust hesitates for a long moment, unsure of how to deal with the breakdown, then reaches over River, grabs the blanket off her bed, and wraps it around her. "You're okay." He whispers quietly in her ear, still hugging her. "I'm pretty sure you died, but you're okay now."

River shivered slightly in surprise at Wanderlust's touch. "O-okay," she said hesitantly, letting Wanderlust hold her for a few minutes...

((Why do I want to make this face?))

As she started to calm down her mind went back to the mysterious figure. "Did we at least manage to get him?" she asked quietly.

Wanderlust pulls back so that he can study River's face. "Get who?"

Copper Rose wrote:The mare stands up, holding her leg slightly off the ground, and slowly, hobblingly, makes her way over to the stallion. She looks at Silver. "What's wrong?"

"Err, it's nothing Rosy," answers Silver. "But this isn't the pony you're looking for. How are you, by the way?"

"Uh, when you say... "died", you mean like... what do you mean?" Cobalt stands at the door, looking increasingly more concerned.

"Oh. You never saw him, did you... At the laundromat I saw a pony - at least, I think it was a pony - hiding inside the clothespin basket. And he had left a note," she explained, showing Wanderlust the note listing her allergies. "And then he was running away, and I was chasing him, and he went under a bridge and I jumped off thinking I would get in front of him and... oh..."

"And that," Wanderlust says, looking up at Cobalt "Is exactly what I meant. See what I mean about the fascinating thing? Also, River, meet Cobalt."

"She jumped off the bridge and..." Cobalt's pupils narrowed, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. "..she...died? But she's not... she's alive, she looks fine! What are you even..." She deliberately doesn't look at River yet.

"What's going through your head is about the same as what's been going through mine. I've just been a little more quiet about it." Wanderlust says brusquely, turning back to River. "In any case, how are you feeling? Tired? Energized?"

"Uummm..." Having calmed down a little, River began sifting her emotions. "Disappointed... Embarrased... Confused... Scared!"

Paper Shadow wrote:"Err, it's nothing Rosy," answers Silver. "But this isn't the pony you're looking for. How are you, by the way?"

"Shin splints suck. Not our guy? He can go, if you trust your magic that much. Now, if you could do that for every pony here..."

---

Daisy pokes her head into the room. "Nightmare? I have just the trick." She disappears for a moment, then returns with a small bag of candies. "Just pop one in your mouth whenever you get anxious, and it should help you calm down. Works great for me, so probably should for you too." ((fixed voice color, sorta))

Cobalt snatches one of the candies from Daisy and munches on it. "Doda kossa ambwap.... I think I'm gonna sit down." Cobalt plops down against the wall, just waiting.

River looked up at the bag of candies. "Thank you," she said, as one of them floated out of the bag and into her mouth.

Meta:

Yuna grumpily jumps off the pony as she cuts off the magic early. "Nope can't do that old magic stuff is finicky it doesn't like to be used too much. And we really should let this one go... "

As the magic releases him, the pony stands up with a gasp, emotion returning to his face. He then wordlessly starts going around the edges of the force field, trying to find a way out. "Well, we can probably rule out the foals, which would reduce our number of suspects by about half, but I doubt there are many parents here who are willing to let their foals go home without them. Other than that, there probably isn't much."

---

For some reason, Daisy seems more upset by Cobalt taking a candy than she does the earth pony using telekinesis, but she blinks and facehooves, probably silently berating herself for worrying.

Cobalt finds the candies sour and bitter and extremely hot and spicy, while also tasting like her least favorite food ever. It's so disgusting she can't help but spit it out.

River finds the candies pleasant and mildly sweet, with the most prevalent flavor being a fruit she wants to call a mango, though she has no direct memory of such a fruit. Instead of calming her down directly, like Daisy implied it would, it instead acts as a window between her and her memory, letting her continue to recall perfectly what happened but taking away the fear and pain of it.

There are no other ponies within 30 feet, unless you want to include the foals running and playing across Daisy's yard.

"Well, I'm gonna go check this body then. You don't stop being beautiful while I do so." With a smirk, Silver starts to move into the crowd to get a look at the corpse...

"Blegh. Candy's not great." Cobalt looks back at the other three as they discussed... something she was clearly misunderstanding. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna be right back." She stands and trots off to the bathroom, hoping when she gets back things will be a little less insane.

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I've never RPd going to the bathroom before, this is a new experience for me.

I hope I don't have to roll anything.

"HAY! TEACH LET THIS ONE THROUGH!" Yuna shouts toward Beams.