"Everypony stay back!" Phillip ordered, pushing the gathering crowd away from the dead body. "Leave it alone, let the City Guard take care of it."

At his word, the surrounding ponies moved back, keeping a wary but curious distance from the victim. Somepony hurried off to a nearby callbox to call a City Guard carriage. Satisfied that nopony was going to interfere with the crime scene, Phillip approached the body. Daring was already bending over the thing that had once been Doctor Dry Bones. The etched middle-aged face stared unseeing up at the sky, the jaw hanging open in death. For a moment, he felt an uneasy twisting in his stomach at the realization that he felt nothing upon looking upon the body; no shock, no grief, no pity. This had been a pony with their own life, their own hopes and dreams and thoughts, who had laughed and cried and loved. Now he was meat on the sidewalk, another piece of evidence to be examined and documented; no better than a hoofprint.

"Hey, I think I found something," Daring whispered, bending closer to the body's collar. "Give me your tweezers."

Reaching into the appropriate pocket of his vest, Phillip pulled out his tweezers and handed them to Daring. Being careful not to step in the blood pool or to mess up anything else, Daring leaned over the body and plucked at the rumpled suit collar. "Looks like hair," she said, holding it up for Phillip to see. There were indeed a couple strands of gray-brown hair attached to the tweezers. They looked nothing like the short strands of muddy brown hair in Dr. Bones' mane.

"Good catch," he whispered, taking a plastic baggie out of his vest and opening it up for Daring to drop the evidence into. Just then, there was the sound of an approaching siren. A City Guard carriage, drawn by an armored pegasus and equipped with a siren and spinning red light to announce its presence, bustled up to the crime scene, sending the crowd scattering. A trio of City Guards leapt out of the carriage to take control of the situation while the pegasus unhitched himself. One of the Guards, a steely-eyed unicorn, glared at Daring and Phillip.

"What are you two doing here?" Corporal Shield growled.

"We came to see Dr. Bones," Phillip said, gesturing at the body on the sidewalk. "Somepony else might have seen him first, though."

"He fell just as we got here," Daring elaborated in response to the suspicious look on Corporal Shield's face. "We didn't have anything to do with it, in case you were wondering."

"If you didn't have anything to do with this, then you can get out of here, and stop wasting my time," the Corporal replied gruffly, turning away from them and redirecting his attention to the dead body of Dr. Dry Bones. Phillip and Daring looked at each other behind his back, then quietly walked off.

"Maybe I should have told him about the hairs," Phillip muttered thoughtfully.

"If that putz can't find them himself, too bad for him," Daring growled back. "Let's get back to the hotel and take a look at those."

Very gently, Phillip lowered the small gray hairs onto a plastic slide, dropped a plastic protector on top of them so that his breath would not disturb them, and placed them beneath the microscope that he'd purchased from the nearby crafts store, along with a collection of other chemicals. Turning on the battery-powered light, he pressed his eye to the scope, adjusting the focus knob until the strands were displayed in perfect microscopic detail. "Wish I could do this back in my lab," he muttered to himself, reaching for his notepad and pencil on the table next to him.

"You need any help?" Daring asked, sitting on the bed nearby, her back up against the wall.

"No," Phillip replied, starting to take notes. Daring settled back against the pillow to wait. It had struck her long ago, during the time that they had initially worked together, that the disciplines of archaeology and criminal investigation are very similar; both involved the careful examination of evidence, building theories with logical inductions and deductions, and reconstructing past events. And she knew that patience was a key virtue of both. So she waited in silence while Phillip worked, examining the hairs closely beneath the scope and running a gamut of chemical tests. The hours passed in silence, save for the scratching of Phillip's pencil against his notepad and an occasional noise of confusion or frustration.

Soon after the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Phillip finally raised his eyes from the scope and rubbed his face. "I have no idea what those hairs are, or where they came from," he admitted as though hesitant to admit defeat. "They're not from a pony; too wide, too short. I want to say they're from a dog, but the cuticle pattern is unfamiliar."

"Dr. Bones doesn't own a dog, last I knew of," Daring said, sitting up and cracking her back. "He could have gotten them from another dog that he met in the park or something."

"Yeah..." Phillip said, his tone indicating that he was not wholly convinced by this theory. He leaned back in his chair, pondering in silence for a few moments longer, then spoke again.

"You don't believe that the Taverneigh Blue is actually cursed, do you?" There was no trace of doubt or fear in his voice; he was merely asking as if out of curiosity.

"I know it didn't put cyanide capsules in the punch, and it didn't push Dr. Bones off his apartment balcony, and it probably didn't get out of its box and walk away," Daring replied. Phillip nodded.

"But still," Daring continued, "A mass poisoning on the grand opening, then one of the museum's heads dies in an apparent accident the same day that the diamond disappears from the vault. That's not a coincidence."

"Was it a coincidence that it happened the night we were both in town?" Phillip asked quietly.

Daring sighed. "Probably not," she admitted. She looked up with a rueful smile. "Why can't we just have a quiet time together?"

"I think we both gave up that right when we chose our careers," Phillip muttered. The two fell into silence, as if the heaviness of their situation had stifled all conversation.

"Well," Phillip finally said, speaking slowly and carefully as if walking on eggshells. "If we're going to be caught up in the middle of a murder investigation...I'm glad that...it's with you." He slowly looked up to see Daring turn and stare blankly at him. He cringed beneath her gaze. "I, I mean, uh..."

To his surprise, Daring snorted and started laughing quietly, her shoulders shaking up and down with amusement. "What? What'd I do?

"Nothing, it's just..." Daring shook her head, still chuckling. "That was kind of cheesy."

A nervous chuckle forced its way out of Phillip's throat, and his hoof reached up on his own and began to rub the back of his head, as if trying to cover the awkward moment. "Yeah, it was, wasn't it?"

Daring took a deep breath, regaining control of herself. "You don't normally talk like that."

"I know, I just..." Phillip lifted himself up off the chair and walked over to the bed, sitting down next to Daring. The mattress creaked beneath their combined weight. "I'm honestly really glad that you're here with me."

Daring reached over and placed her hoof over his, squeezing gently. "Me too." She leaned in and pecked him gently on the cheek, causing his face to glow in the dim light of the room. At that moment, both of their stomachs grumbled, reminding them that they had eaten little that day. Both of them laughed, as if instinctively seizing the opportunity to do so, dispelling the dark clouds filling the room.

"You know what?" Daring said, getting up and shutting off the microscope light. "Let's take a break, forget about this for a while. Somepony still owes me Ponytailian, after all."

"I'm still buying, aren't I?" Phillip said with a small half-smile.

"Oh, yeah," Daring smirked in reply, holding the door open for him. "Come on. Spinach lasagna sounds great right about now."

The two exited onto the streets of Trottingham, taking to the chill evening air that blew beneath the awakening stars. They walked side by side, matching each other's pace. For a few moments, they weren't two detectives in the midst of a murder investigation; they were just two ponies going out to dinner, content to allow the rest of the world to care for itself.

But as they passed a four-way, there came a siren from ahead. Pausing, they saw a fire carriage, its lights and sirens blaring, racing up towards them. Two firefighters, clad in turnout gear, were pulling the carriage while the rest of the company clung tightly onto the outside. The carriage turned sharply and raced around the corner, speeding down the other street.

"That road leads to Dr. Script's house," Phillip whispered. Like a starting gun had gone off, he began to sprint, chasing after the firefighters. Before he had taken three steps, Daring grabbed him underneath the forelegs and lifted him up off the ground, flying after their prey. The chill wind brought a horrible scent to their noses: thick, choking smoke.

Up ahead, the lone cottage lying in the sea of dead grass was aflame, the flames reaching up towards the sky as if trying to burn the sky itself, sending a thick column of black smoke up to the stars. The fire carriage had stopped in front of the house and the firefighters were busily trying to douse the fire with the attached hoses; neighbors and other pedestrians were gathered around the spectacle.

Phillip suddenly became dead weight in Daring's hooves, dragging her back down. As soon as his hooves touched the ground, he gripped the cobblestones as hard as he could, his chest heaving with panicked breath.

"I have to get in there, find Dr. Scribe!" Daring shouted, flying towards the building.

"Daring, no!" Phillip cried, trying to grab her, to pull her back to safety, but she disappeared into the inferno, ahead of the firefighters. He stared in horror, unable to move, not noticing the heat of the fire for the chill in his bones.

A blast of hot, choking air greeted Daring as she entered the burning cottage. Sprinting to the study, she shouldered the door open. "Scribe!" she called out. The only answer was the roaring crackle of the flames as Dr. Scribe's collection of mystic memorabilia was sacrificed to the flames. Turning, she ran back out of the room, ignoring the stinging, choking smoke assaulting her face. From room to room she hurried, continuing to call out and getting no reply in return. The flames raced after her as if trying to beat her to the prize.

Suddenly there came a creaking from up above. She reacted too late: a section of the ceiling gave way under its own weight and a beam fell, pinning her to the floor. She cried out in pain, the crackle of flames answering as through in triumph. With a growl, she tried to push the beam off her, but the heat burned her hooves, forcing her to let go.

Oh, buck, she thought, coughing on the smoke. Her vision began to blur and she felt a lightness rushing to her head. Closing her mouth to hold her breath, she set herself and tried to push against the beam pinning her down, trying to ignore the heat burning her hooves. Despite her every effort, the heavy wood refused to budge, as if determined to kill her.

Then, all of a sudden, the weight shifted off her. A unicorn firefighter, his face obscured by an oxygen mask, was lifting the beam off her with his magic. Grabbing her hoof, he lifted her up and began to bustle her out, hurrying down the back stairs and out the back doors. Coughing and choking and aching from the burns, Daring gratefully allowed the other firefighters to pull her away from the flames and led back to the fire carriage. The next moment, something flew at her and grabbed her in a tight embrace.

"You stubborn, stupid idiot! You scared the hell out of me!" Phillip's voice trembled with relief, like his body. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Daring said, hugging him back. "Just got burned a little. I'll be okay."

A medic bustled up. Reluctantly, Phillip released Daring and stepped back, surrendering her to medical attention. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned against the carriage for support. Behind him, the flames continued their assault upon the building, standing as though in defiance of every attempt to douse it.

The curse had claimed another victim. And almost taken another.

Author's Notes:

This took a while: I actually had to restart it a couple of times to get the tone that I wanted.

Our detectives may have found a new clue...but the death count keeps piling up. Who's behind this? More soon...