Epilogue: Case Closed
Retirement Blues
By Alaborn
Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc. I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein.
Epilogue: Case Closed
Gold Watch nuzzled his wife. She met him with a kiss. “I know that look,” she said. “You’re planning something.”
“You know, we didn’t really talk about a honeymoon,” Gold Watch said. “I found a nice little resort in San Caballo. Warm air, whirlpools, a full spa, gourmet restaurants....”
“You know I don’t need anything like that,” Green Tea said. “The only thing that matters is that I’m with you.”
Gold Watch pulled her close. “And I’m with you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Gold Watch smiled. Green Tea understood, just like Blue Opal had. He could face the worst scum of Equestria during the day, as long as he had somepony to love at night. A simple embrace washed away all the negative feelings.
“Yes. But it didn’t get any easier.”
Two days prior, Gold Watch had joined several guards and police officers in the dungeon under Canterlot Castle. They stood in an observation chamber, where an enchanted mirror showed the image of a windowless cell, illuminated by magical light.
A single mare resided in the cell, looking different from when she had been captured. The dye was scrubbed out of her coat, returning it to its natural white color. Without the disguise, her cutie mark was revealed to be seven cloudberries.
Her eyes were back to normal as well. Gold Watch had suggested checking her for curse magic, knowing what Poison Joke had done to Sharp Eye. Sure enough, the condition of her eyes was not natural.
“Where is she being held, Chief?” Gold Watch asked.
“You don’t need to call me Chief anymore, Chief,” he replied.
“Sorry, you’ll always be Chief to me. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know the answer. All I know is that nopony enters that part of the dungeon unless Princess Celestia is magically observing it.”
“It’s rare to have her take a personal interest in a case.”
“This mare hurt her little ponies. Not even she could hide the fury in her eyes,” the chief said.
“No wonder she authorized mind reading.” In Gold Watch’s career, he could think of fewer than ten cases where Princess Celestia allowed the normally forbidden magic of mind reading to be used on a suspect.
“That poor stallion, though. Her mind was a mess. Worst he had ever seen.”
Gold Watch nodded; he had read the report. The spell only captured what the subject believed, and the mare’s mind was a confused jumble of two lives. It was as if she tried to convince herself that she was Ditzy Doo, and that she had a daughter named Dinky Doo, while trying to erase her past as Berry Sky of Cirrusburg. “That just means we cops need to do our work.”
Around the room, the police officers nodded in agreement.
“So what have we learned from our investigations?” Gold Watch asked. “Cirrusburg?”
“We’ve interviewed the major figures in Berry Sky’s life, confirming the details in her memory,” said the police chief from the cloud city near Fillydelphia. “She was born to Summer Sky and Berry Heart. Her mother grew cloudberries, and she found her special talent in the same field. At the age of eighteen, she married Equinox, a stallion from a prominent family.
“By all accounts, their marriage was a happy one, but after trying to have a foal, Berry Sky learned she was barren. Equinox wanted an heir by blood, so he divorced her. And that broke Berry Sky’s heart.”
“Broke her mind, too,” Gold Watch said.
“In all likelihood. Shortly after the divorce, Berry Sky disappeared. Nopony knew where she went. Her parents even filed a missing ponies report, but without evidence of foul play, there was nothing we could do.”
Gold Watch turned to a plum mare. “What did you learn in San Caballo?”
“Not much. A mare matching her description worked on the weather team for about two years, but she called herself Clear Sky. The ponies who worked with her didn’t know her well, but they do recall seeing her with Ditzy Doo. That mare was working at a soda shop.”
“Cloudsdale?”
“Ditzy Doo’s mother died when she was a toddler, so she was raised by her father for most of her life. He worked in maintenance at the weather factory. By all accounts, he loved his daughter, but he couldn’t afford things like flight tutoring or treatment for her eyes. He died in an accident when she was fourteen, and she spent the rest of her foalhood in an orphanage. As soon as she could leave, she did, ending up in San Caballo. The rest we saw in Berry Sky’s memories.”
“Berry Sky befriended Ditzy Doo, a mare with no family and few friends, learning enough about her to fool ponies who had met her in the past,” Gold Watch said. “It’s not clear how she learned about Morning Sun and Shining Star, but she fixated on their newborn foal. And so she planned her crimes. Three murders and one foalnapping.”
“But why Ponyville, Gold Watch?” his old chief asked.
“Ponyville is an earth pony town by founding, but it’s known as a town that embraces all kinds of ponies. A pegasus mare with a unicorn daughter wouldn’t be seen as unusual. Plus, it’s known as the town where nothing happens.”
“How’s that been working out for you, Gold Watch?”
“About as good as the coffee at the Canterlot police station.”
A subdued laughter filled the room.
“So you’re going to San Caballo to investigate the murder of Ditzy Doo?” Green Tea said.
Gold Watch nodded. “We know from her memories that she took her on a picnic by the river. But that’s a lot of terrain to cover.”
“Do you think Princess Celestia will show her mercy? Because of her mental state?”
He shook his head. “Her lawyer will plead for mercy, but I don’t think she will escape being banished to the sun.”
Green Tea held her husband tightly. “Thank you for letting me help you bear this burden, Gold Watch.”
“And thank you for understanding.”
Four days. For four days, Gold Watch trudged through marshy terrain near the San Caballo river. All they had to go by was a vague memory, of a picnic, followed by Berry Sky luring Ditzy Doo into the thick marsh grasses. His only company was a group of San Caballo’s finest, and one unpleasant unicorn, who did nothing but complain about his special talent. His ability to find minerals couldn’t be used to find gems, but it could find other things.
Like the minerals in bones.
“Emeralds are known to be found in this area. Sure would be nice if I could find them. Would make a lot of ponies happy,” the unicorn complained.
“Please just check this bog,” Gold Watch said. They started with what seemed like the most logical picnic sites, and used the impressions picked up by the spell to find terrain that looked right. But who knew if the grasses were the same as nine years prior?
“I’m sensing something.” The unicorn concentrated. “It’s the right minerals, and the right size.”
“Okay. Send up the flare.”
Soon, dozens of officers were attacking the crime scene with shovels. Ponies combined their magic to pull the water out of the soil, enabling the digging.
It took until well past dusk, but when the remains were recovered, the evidence was clear. This was a pegasus mare, whose skull showed signs of the same blunt force trauma as Berry Sky remembered inflicting.
That night, Gold Watch held Green Tea tight, until sleep finally claimed him.
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...dark ending is dark. Well done. What are the chances of a sequel?
I liked this ending. Though the solving idc the case did feel rushed to me, it was a clever way to end it. Would have loved seeing how the trial would have went. Anyway, good story.
OK, what the fuck. This is horrible.
6147545 Never say never, but right now, I don't have an idea for a sequel. Colgate and Sharp Eye will marry, but this was Gold Watch's story.
6147556 I started to write Gold Watch's reaction to the guilty verdict, but realized what that would entail. He would only be one witness at a trial stretching over several months, and there would also be the changeling invasion and his daughter's enslavement by Queen Chrysalis to discuss. It wouldn't add much to the resolution of Gold Watch's unsolved case.
I think back to the following familiar quotation:
This was Gold Watch's story.
6147620 Sorry you didn't like it, but the fact there was a horrible killer on the loose was revealed in the second chapter.
6147658 I was referring to you running the story into the ground in a sudden twist, not to there being a killer. There being a killer by itself was small potatoes.
6148418
See, that's the problem I have with it.
For the Reader to solve the mystery we have to be shown either directly or indirectly three things:
Motive, Means, and Oppertunity
Means is there, you tell us that the killer that took the foal had to be a pegasus based on the nature of the murder. That's fine.
Oppertunity how ever, we only find in the last chapter. The fact that we had no reason to suspect Derpy up until Watch makes the connection with Colegate between the Accidents and Derpy's penchant for leaving down is told very late. When you asked me if I knew who it was I couldn't, because as the reader I had no idea that was a thing. Especially with the connection of Rainbow's fountain and some other small tidbits. Nor is it clear the reader prior to that point that Derpy always leaves town after an accident. As far as those of us watching/reading know she's in the background somewhere up until Episode 100 where we see her in the post office.
And lastly motive. We have no reason to assign any malicious intent to the character Derpy because she is always seen as clumsy and accident prone. She always apologizes and tries to help fix the problem, often causing bigger issues. And that's great from a plot twist standpoint. The seemingly slow character is actually a hidden murdering con artist. But from the reader's perspective it seems pulled out of no where. Never in the story are we given any hints that Derpy is anything other than an awkward mailmare. There was no instance that ever made us suspect her from the get go. And the fact that Goldwatch and Colegate figure out the accidents run on a timeline are indicative to THEM only because their special talents are time management based. To poor boring old humans we don't have that ability. If you stated in the story with dates when certain accidents transpired so we could compare to a callander other than rough episode/seasonal timelines we might have been able to pick up on that detail. But we can't. We never had a shot of figuring out who did it, and that's the problem I have with the ending.
Well, I really enjoyed this story. But I would say that the ending seemed rather rushed. Might have been nice to see it more integrated with the rest of the story.
I could have sworn Sharp Eye was going to turn out to be a villain, and I have no idea why I thought that.
6149393
It's the glasses. They make his eyes appear HUGE!
6149370 (Note: I will try to avoid spoilers in this comment.)
Since I write alone, I dont discuss my stories with anyone, so I'd be interested in hearing what people think about the subjects you raise.
This story wasn't primarily about the mystery. One thing I did not reveal is any details about the missing foal (sex, type, colors). Gold Watch knows these details, and he can't help but wonder if any foal he sees is this missing foal. But from his perspective, the foal could be anywhere in the world.
Were those details mentioned in the story, the reader would add in the assumption that the foal lived in Ponyville, and is somepony seen in the cartoon, and at that point, it's not much of a mystery.
From Gold Watch's perspective, he's retired. Furthermore, while he lent his talents to the original investigation, the crime ultimately wasn't in his jurisdiction. There are no leads. All he can do is talk with his fellow police officers, and ask if there's any news about this cold case. With these restrictions, is there a better way to bring in hints as to the nature of the crime and its perpetrator?
The perpetrator did what she did because of something basic to pony nature. Gold Watch sees different reactions to the same issue from Cup Cake, Golden Harvest, and Green Tea. But I'm not sure that appeared to be relevant as I wrote it.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to downvote this fic. If you want to give me a mystery, that's fine. If you wanna give me a slice-of-life, that's fine. With this sloppy rushed ending, you've given me neither. I honestly didn't even remember anything about a murder, because pretty much every single chapter made no reference to it. If I'm supposed to keep this in the back of my mind as I'm reading, you have to actually dedicate part of almost every chapter to the advancement of not only whatever slice-of-life scene you have going on, but also the mystery one.
For that matter, why should I care at all about either of the different storylines at this point? The mystery was somewhat introduced early on and then left entirely untouched until suddenly at the very end while the slice-of-life was advanced throughout the story but then left unsatisfying. We get no real details of Gold Watch/Green Tea's wedding, no real ending for how Sharp Eye/Colgate are doing, just this ridiculous ending.
Why is Derpy the criminal? You've made her a villain/unsympathetic character solely through 'telling', not 'showing'. As far as it appears to me, it seems like you picked a random character at the very end, said, "Hey, I can totally make her a murderer and foalnapper! Whoa, that'll totally go well with my fairly calm slice-of-life story about a retired detective wherein there are literally chapters dedicated to talking about coffee and tea!"
Honestly, these two plots really should be two entirely seperate fics, not one. I see in one of your responses you say that it's unreasonable to bring in hints about the investigation because Gold Watch is retired... well then he fucking shouldn't have made the connection or assisted in the arrest. Give me a fucking parallel story to this one with a dark tag all about the hunt for the murderer and eventually closing in on her and getting help from Gold Watch, but don't ruin a perfectly good story with this ridiculous shoehorning in of a more dramatic plot.
I totally agree with ThanatosBrony and FoolRegnant (even if woulnt use that tone). the ending is horrible. you left several plotlines hanging. also ending clashes with overall tone of the story (I would expect in this story something like Ditzy fabrikated her own murder and eloped or something, not actual murder with grim details). overall it killed the mood and it feels like you picked random nice pony and shouted that she is killer.
This didn't work for me, there's so little involving the case in the earlier parts of the story that I half expected it to be forgotten/left unsolved.
As it is it just comes out of the blue and strangely out of tune with the rest of the story's more slice of life nature.
I wouldn't have any problem if clues had turned up bit by bit throughout the rest of the story with it all being put together at the end.
I enjoyed the rest of the story though, and seeing the episodes plot through the eyes of an outsider was cool.
6147658
Not really, no. The fact that Golden Watch had an unsolved case hanging over his head was revealed in the second chapter. It was presented as a bit of characterization/backstory for Golden, not as an active plot point.
Yeah, I gotta agree with the others. The ending really left a lot to be desired, especially when compared to the quality of the rest of the story leading up to it. Having Ditzy be the culprit was completely out of left field, and even if you had the evidence to fit it show up right there at the end, it just came off feeling rushed.
If you were planning that curve ball the whole time, you really should have had Ditzy be a more prominent character in the story. Everyone was expecting Sharp Eye, despite the lack of evidence, simply because of his place in the story as a semi-critical side character. And on top of that it really was rushed. The whole investigation took a day, none of the resolution was ever shown to give the reader a sense of closure on the whole thing, and everything with Sharp Eye and Colgate just sort of...fell off (honestly, what was he even there for? Did he even have a purpose at all?).
I really liked everything up to these last two chapters, but these last two are not up to the standards that you set for yourself leading up to them.
6157893 Sharp Eye is the love interest for Colgate. It was one of the focuses of the story. We see different perspectives on love and romance from Gold Watch and Colgate, with glances at the relationships of the Cakes and the Goldens.
6157947
He was her love interest, but he didn't actually do anything. There wasn't even any real resolution or development for them. The story was about Gold Watch and Colgate was a side character at best that gave depth to his development. Sharp Eye didn't really do anything. I can't say that I got any kind of perspective on love or romance from those two because Sharp Eye might as well have been a cardboard cutout.
If you were to ask me to describe Sharp Eye without talking about his looks or his job, I wouldn't be able to do it. Honestly, I can't think of a single character trait he actually had besides....I dunno....being neat? That's just a guess, by the way, because I can't think of anything else about him besides the fact that he was dating Colgate.
I didn't think it was an issue for the whole story because I was utterly convinced that eventually the other shoe was going to drop and it was going to come out that he was playing innocent to hide the fact that he was a serial killer or something tied to Gold Watch's unsolved case. But now that he's nothing but an ordinary, legitimate character...he has no depth, no personality, no nothing. He has no purpose in the story because you could take him out and it would change literally nothing beyond cutting down the word count a bit.
I was really surprised at the ending, that Ditzy Doo really was the bad pony. I was convinced that something more like this was going to happen once they confronted her:
"I suppose I'm under arrest for the abduction of Morning Glory and her parents' murder? Put me into detention or whatever, but make sure in your investigation that you look in the upper right hand corner of the top drawer in my bedroom chest. Or if you want to save time, just contact the Baltimare PD."
Gold Watch looked at her oddly. "Oh," Ditzy added, "probably put on wing bindings," she folded her wings inward. "Hoofcuffs possibly too, if that would make you feel better."
He looked even more perplexed. "Why are you suggesting this to me, Miss Doo?"
She sighed audibly. "Let's think about this, Chief. Every three months I head to Baltimare, and you figured out I get something to change the appearance of little Miss Glory's coat. I seem extra clumsy when I get back to some remote hick town that a criminal is unlikely to find randomly, but it's close enough to Canterlot that if something really bad happens police backup could be called in."
The Chief facehoofed, and Ditzy nodded. "If you asked Baltimare, or you look in a secret compartment in my bedroom, you'll find my ID." Her voice suddenly lowers a bit and a bit of a coastal twang gets added to her speech. "My name is Special Agent Muffins of the Baltimare branch of the Royal Guard. The city police put special drops in my eyes to 'derp' them so I appear to be a harmless ditz. I needed the dye..."
He chuckled to himself, finishing her statement, "... so anypony could see your coats match, so nopony asks inconvenient questions about you being her mother."
She nods to you sadly. "Now I'm probably going to need to move elsewhere. A local police force was a reason I might have to leave anyway, but now half the town is going to know who she was -- and who I really am."
6159475 I do like the idea of a story about Special Agent Muffins.
Another idea: Why is Ponyville content to have a mailmare who's bad at her job? It's not her special talent, after all. The reason: she's in the Witness Protection Program.
6159468 Sharp Eye is shy and hesitant. He knows he likes Colgate, but he's afraid of what might happen if he tries to move beyond being professional colleagues. He's conditioned to look for that inevitable sign of rejection.
Colgate says she's happy being alone. She doesn't need a life like her parents had. She has a good job, a fine home, and a nice life in Ponyville. She isn't looking for love, she says.
On the other hoof, Green Tea and Gold Watch are much better at acting on their feelings.
6159566 Since you explicitly mentioned he didn't contact Baltimare (because It Was a Good Idea At the Time), it sounded like the classic cops-from-different-jurisdictions trope. But thank you for liking the idea! I thought it was also clear that the reason she would have been extra clumsy was that the drops were added again (her Mark represents the shape of eyedrops she takes?) so she was still getting accustomed to them after almost wearing off. It was just Twilight Sparkle's miserable bad luck that she was the one in the way of the falling items from the delivery truck on the one day every three months she'd be that clumsy.
...aaaand you broke it. I liked this story. I really did. That is, until you resurrected a side note as a plot line. You can't rush these things -- it's like whiskey. You tried to make a 20 year Kentucky, but all I taste is Everclear.
Yeah, I agree with the general sentiment. What you have here is a general slice of life story. And to be honest, a bit of a bland one at that. It was interesting enough to keep me reading until the end, but it could do with a bit more fleshing out. Trying to explain what I mean, you have several things happening that the characters react to. But you show very little besides what happens and what the characters' reaction is. You see very little of the thoughts and emotions that motivate the characters to do what they do. That makes it a bit hard to get emotionally invested as the reader.
Secondly, you mention a murder case in the beginning of the story, ignore it, and then suddenly dedicate the ending to it.
The slice of life story, if it builds up to anything, builds up to Gold Watch's retirement and wedding. And to a lesser extent, the budding relationship between Colgate and Sharp Eye.
The ending brings back the murder case out of nowhere. It doesn't build up to anything other then the reveal. It does not build up to the motives of the perpetrator, his or her road in life to end up the way she did and the emotional journey his or her undertook. On top of that, is rather dark and completely out of tone with the rest of the story.
Nothing that the slice of life story builds up to gets resolved. We don't see the wedding, we don't see Gold Watch dealing with retirement and we don't see him with his new wife (could be he feels guilty towards his old wife. Maybe he has to get used to married life again after so long. Maybe they decide to adopt an older foal. Maybe none of the above, maybe they just life happily together. Point is, we get nothing.) We don't hear anything about Colgate and Sharp Eye in the epilogue. Maybe they broke up. Maybe he died. Maybe he suddenly decided he was gay. Maybe they are still dating. The last one is by far the most probable, but we don't know.
Instead, we get the solving of the murder case. But since there is no build up there, there is no time or reason for the reader to become invested. We have no feelings towards the perpetrator. We don't feel towards him or her, neither do we feel anger. We just feel frustration because a popular character is suddenly evil, without rhyme or reason. It is tried clumsily to give that rhyme or reason in the epilogue, which is completely the wrong place for that. That should be dedicated to a glimpse of the life of the main characters after the wedding inn the case of the slice of life part of the story.
The murder case really is a different story that gets shoehorned in art the end, as others have said. What the epilogue should have focused on there, is what happens to Dinky. Her separation from Carrot Top is by far the most emotional part of the story. Yet we learn nothing about her fate, we don't see her deal with the aftermath. So there too the story builds up to things that don't get resolved.
What we are left with Is a somewhat bland slice of life story which at the end, instead of resolving the things it leads up to, instead shoe horns in a second story that completely falls out of tone with the rest of it. This second story destroys the life of two popular characters without rhyme or reason, and gives no time or effort for readers to get invested in it. The epilogue that should be used to maybe tie up some loose ends and give a look in the life of the main characters after the story, instead tries to give some of the reason for the motivation of the apparently evil character from the second story. That really doesn't work and only emphasizes how flawed the ending is.
The reader is left with two stories that don't fit in style and tone at all, neither of which get resolved. This means the reader is left unsatisfied, confused and without any kind of closure. Which for most readers also probably means annoyed.
This seems to be the general tone, so I hope you understand what we mean, and where we are coming from.
Ok, finished up the story. Despite the comments from others, I for one loved that Ditzy was the serial killer. It was genuinely surprising! I suspected it was going to be Red Tape, since he comes off as the least likable pony in town. Nice misdirection.
I honestly thought I had accidentally clicked on a different story until I double checked the names. I'd swear you were writing for school or something, and the teacher changed the assignment to a mystery last minute. Unfortunate, I liked the way the story looked to be ending before this; unexiting, but satisfying.
I liked the rest of the story though, a good slice of life/alternate perspective fic. I just can't get behind that other story you Ctrl-V'd onto the end.