A knight and a bug, and discussion on alicorn immortality

Another quick little story in the Atramentverse, Memory Fade's is basically an introduction for Fade, who will likely be playing a semi-important role in an upcoming story.

I've noticed that most of the Atramentverse is accumulating Dark tags. I feel they are accurate, because it isn't a happy sunshine world, but at the same time these stories aren't stepping too far beyond the season premieres/finales, imo. My intent isn't to create some super grimdark world full of tyranny and sadness and dead ponies everywhere.

While on the topic of the dark aspects of my stories though, I'll take a moment to talk about something mentioned in Alicorn Support Group: Celestia and Luna dying. It's an idea that came to me after considering three scenes: Nightmare Moon's defeat by Twilight, Twilight completing Star Swirl's spell, and Celestia being downed by Nightmare Moon in the flashback.

Out of all the villains, Nightmare Moon (or, in the Atramentverse, only the Luna half of Nightmare Moon) fared the best out of getting hit by the Elements of Harmony. Still, this doesn't really mean anything on its own.

Twilight completing Star Swirl's spell, though, is a bit different. She appears to be disintegrated entirely, and appears in some sort of mental/spirit/astral plane. Perhaps one could say she was teleported there. However, for the Atramentverse, I am taking the position that she was actually killed here, and then reborn as an alicorn. I'll get back to the implications in a bit.

Celestia's fight with Nightmare Moon: She is squarely hit by a blast of energy from a murderous demigod, and falls several stories to hard ground. She doesn't move for several tense seconds. Twilight and many in the audience feared she had actually died before she moved again. I'm going to go ahead and say that maybe she actually did die. Being an immortal (or pseudo-immortal) demigod might make her more resilient to death than normal ponies, though.

So, the basis of the idea is that to become an alicorn, one has to die. Twilight died from the spell. Celestia and Luna died long ago, being reborn as well. Cadance also died at some point while very young, and acquired her horn. One question is whether any or all of them are aware that they had died. Celestia and Luna are at least aware of their deaths related to Nightmare Moon. They are now immortal and unable to die again. Or, rather, they are unable to permanently die. If you've already died and come back as a demigod, what's to stop any future deaths from just following the same path and leading to your resurrection once more?

This is an important plot point in the Atramentverse, though that isn't to say they aren't in danger. As explained in Alicorn Support Group, Nightmare was originally an alicorn as well, but she was damaged enough to strip her of her powers and immortality.

Of course, this isn't the only way to interpret those scenes and alicorn immortality. I'm unsure if I'm even going to keep this as my head-canon outside of the Atramentverse. If I've missed some evidence for or against this concept, please feel free to bring it up in the comments.