Applejack is living happily with her siblings, parents, and grandmother in Ponyville. She has good friends, Rarity and Pinkie. But tragedy eventually comes for everypony. A previously unknown monster destroys the delicate peace in Applejack's life, leaving her broken and scarred. But, surely, there isn't anything else to be done.
Written for The Whodunnit? Youdunnit! Contest, hosted by the wonderful RB_, which ends the night of October 24th (EST). Write a story yourself! Speedwrite if you have to! (Or don't; goodness knows I couldn't.) Check out the other submissions as they are posted! Also, be sure to check out RB_'s Detective Rarity series if you haven't, which is a wonderful series of fun whodunnits. I had a lot of fun reading them as they came out. (Well, the latest one, I wasn't here for the first few.)
Content warning: Death, depictions of grief, brief depictions of characters worried about early-onset Schizophrenia in Chapter 1.
Hello there! Lovely work so far. My guess going into the final chapter is Spear Point. I figure it has to be someone in the government for them to have arranged it so there were no rain clouds on the day of the fire, and the fact that the Apples would have gotten a rebate for the apples eaten by the bats if not for those specific trees being burned seems like a motive, and for that to work the perp would need to know about the rebate, and since none of the farmers knew it would have to be someone in the government. Spear Point is the only pony we've met so far that comes close to fitting that bill, so assuming you have set this up in such a way that we've met the culprit already, I think he's our man. I don't think the killing of AJ's parents is intentional; he has no motive for that. I don't know what the motive would be for wanting the Apples to not have their rebate, though, so I may be wrong.
That's my current thinking. Looking forward to seeing what the final chapter brings!
Well, this was the first entry I've reviewed, and I've gotta say: I'm impressed! You did a really good job here. It's a darned shame it didn't get more attention. You did a good job including the prompt, and I liked that you managed to fit an exploration of Applejack's grief into a whodunnit! I was also a big fan of how you wrote Pinkie in this fic, though I wish she could have done a bit more.
My main points of criticism are these:
I feel this is very unpolished. This is probably a result of you being somewhat inexperienced of a writer, so this is to be expected! Try to work more on your prose and on setting scenes. Read published books and pay close attention to how they are written. You can also improve this by asking for prereaders!
The argument between AJ and Big Mac at the end of chapter three felt a bit forced and a bit rushed. Also, the middle of the fic dragged a bit. I found the chapter with Strawberry Sunrise to be a bit painful to get through.
Finally, I found the final chapter a bit lacking. The reveal of who done it lacked a bit of the drama that is normally expected of this genre, and I felt there should have been more definitive evidence linking the culprit to the pyrewolf. But good on you for slipping the squeaks right under my nose! You really got me with that one.
All in all, this was a good fic! Keep at it and I think you have a bright future ahead of you as a fanfic writer.