//------------------------------// // Digging // Story: White Sun // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// Twilight threw dirt out of her way, grunting when she moved the shovel wrong and covered her face with some errant soil. She could only just barely make anything out with her magic spell outlining everything in white and giving everything a vaguely orange glint. The moon was completely engulfed by thick layers of clouds overhead, giving the unicorn the perfect opportunity to perform her nefarious-but-necessary deeds. She paused a moment, pulled a handkerchief out of her black false-leather coat, and wiped her face with it. The mare cursed to herself when she put the stained, blue-gray cloth into the wrong front pocket and it fell out. She really needed to sow that hole back up, but string was hard to come by for somepony like her, especially when she didn't want to go back to regular pony society now. She grunted and started digging again but was immediately stopped by a loud 'thump'. Excitedly, the mare wiped the wet dirt away with her hooves, unveiling a brown, wooden coffin. She used the shovel to pry the lid off with some effort and lit up with joy. This was a recent addition to the graveyard. "What luck!" Twilight cheered quietly in her head. "They're always decomposing or nothing but bones. This is just what I needed!" Carefully, the unicorn lifted the pony's body out of the grave and set it atop a rickety, two-wheeled wagon waiting for her. Twilight hopped onto the ledge leading out of the hole and paddled her hind legs as she attempted to pull herself out, only to fail and fall back in. She took a deep breath and, with considerably more determination, managed to finally get out of the grave and pack all the dirt she had dug out back in. The night smelled particularly wretched, but it was at least generous in being cold. The bodies wouldn't stink as bad as they could have. Dried plants cracked and crumbled underneath, and the various pests scattered at her approach. The cobblestone paths of the graveyard had been all-but-devoured by the errant vegetation, and even though it was regularly frequented, no pony had bothered trying to restore anything. The unicorn thought it ironic that they condemned her actions but preferred to let their fallen kin be lost to time. However, time was running short. She could see a lantern held aloft on a pole illuminating the distance and slowly approaching her location. The one inconvenience with winter times was the lack of foliage on the trees, meaning Twilight had to be extra careful of her activities since she couldn't just cover up her work and hide away. She covered her wagon with a thick tarp she magically secured into place using the metal hooks underneath, put on the harness, and started hurrying through a little hole behind a few small mausoleums leading down a steep incline no pony would follow her. As soon as the old wheels started bouncing on the damaged trail, the lantern shook. "Hello?!" the patroller called out. "Anypony there?" Twilight clenched her teeth and started pushing her body harder than she usually did, burning her muscles and causing her skin to itch all over from the temperature differences. "Hey! You there! Stop!" The patroller's shouting woke up the other security ponies of the graveyard, and a loud brouhaha started growing in what should have been a place of rest for the dead. Several more lanterns came into view in the distance while Twilight hurried to her 'safe zone'. "Shoot shoot shoot!" Twilight hissed. She looked behind her and noticed at least five ponies partially illuminated under the light of a swaying lantern approaching her. "Oooh...I don't want to...bah!" The unicorn's horn started glowing a bright purple. She then lowered her head and let her horn skid along the ground, producing purple sparks that didn't dissolve when they hit the ground. Instead, once the pursuers got close enough, the sparks popped into large clouds of thick, purple gas that filled Twilight's path. The ponies quickly gave up their pursuit as the noxious fumes attacked their eyes, throats, and lungs. The lavender unicorn hoof-pumped in her head and reached the gap. Her wagon smacked against the corner of a mausoleum and scraped against the walls in the mare's hurry, but it didn't collapse on her. The stone wall gave way to Twilight's safety, and she enveloped her and the wagon in a cushioning spell that would keep them protected once they hit the bottom of the hill far, far below. "Ha!" Twilight laughed. A few hours later, the exhausted pony found herself back home in the ruins of some long-lost civilization deep underneath a mountain. In the past, this discovery would have elicited joy so grandiose that the mare would have never been able to contain herself. Now, however... Twilight parked the wagon in a small alcove dug out by water erosion from the dripping ceiling and looked at her residence, noting everything still being in place. Her wickerlit candles sparked with purple flames, dousing the area in dim light and revealing all the errant magic that floated in the air, creating a night sky underground. The rotted cupboards and shelves the mare still used sat uncomfortably slouched on the sides of the room, straining under the weight of thick books and multiple vials of various sizes holding organs, body parts, gems, crystals, and unknown anatomical segments. Her bed, a simple wooden box filled with straw and covered with several thick sheets the mare pilfered from dumps across Equestria, had been placed next to an old fireplace still sporting the blackened burns of its past users from an age long past. Above it, Twilight had placed a poster of Celestia and Luna wrapping themselves around a half-moon and half-sun. She had enchanted it to be resistant to nearly all forms of damage and decay, but it was a spell from her youth. Well, her further youth. She would have to refresh it soon. The poster's place reminded Twilight that, although the ponies of bygone ages were no longer around, their influences could still be seen and felt by the future descendants even if they couldn't be recognized. The unicorn sighed and rested her face in her hooves, lamenting what the world had become. What she had become. She wasn't exactly hungry, at least not yet, but her reserves were almost empty, and she would need to go back into the back-alleys of some nearby city. She hated it. She hated what ponies had turned her into. Of course, Twilight had the choice to just stick around but lose her position in Canterlot due to her affiliation with Celestia...she grit her teeth. Because any and all association with the crown was considered a heinous thing, even though Twilight was relatively young at the time, no pony would have bothered to listen or employ her. She would have been forced to move to a nearby country, or somewhere very far away. The Zebrican continent might have been the better alternative, but then what? That wasn't her home, and she never knew what life outside of her precious library was like. Twilight walked over to an old metal stove, opened a hatch at the bottom and placed a few small bits of wood she had stashed between it and the fireplace. With a little magic, she managed to ignite the contents and let them burn up before closing the hatch. She thought deeply as she placed a dented, metal pot filled with water on the stove, sat down, and waited. "I hate them all," she growled. Twilight watched the air turn hazy under the pot. "They had no reason to dethrone the princess...She didn't do anything. They just wanted more power because they were afraid of Nightmare Moon, or Celestia stopped them from doing whatever nasty thing they wanted." Nightmare Moon. There was a name that Twilight hadn't thought about in a while. As the water in the pot began to simmer, the mare started to recall some information, if only to distract her mind from the interminable waiting. The Elements of Harmony had put a stop to her return three or four years ago...or was it ten? Time was hard to track when you stayed in a cave all day, doing research and reading books...The mare chuckled. That hadn't changed all too much from her time as Celestia's protégé. She sniffed and wiped her nose, doing her best to keep the tears from flowing. Tales that the 'less-than-admirable' ponies shared suggested that Nightmare Moon had been 'purified' of whatever dark magic had engrossed her, but that she had either been banished from Equestria or beheaded like her sister. No pony could make a consensus on what had happened, but the fact that the current council kept it all under wraps was a clear sign they did something they weren't supposed to. The water in the pot finally started boiling, letting Twilight remove it from the stove, smother the fire underneath it, and place the pot on a cool section instead. The mare sat at a three-legged table, pulled a cup from a hanging cabinet above the oven, filled it with a few shreddings of a plant in a nearby straw basket, then poured the water in. She took in the odor as she mixed it all up. She still hadn't perfected making tea, but she knew it was going to be the first thing that Celestia would want to drink when she was brought back. Twilight shivered. The tea still wasn't right, but it at least warmed her up and slightly filled her belly. She looked down at the leaves floating in the cup, wishing she had a giant apple pie to dig her hooves into. The mare knew that one of the bearers of the Elements was an apple farmer. It was always possible to sneak into her orchard and take some apples for herself. They were always in short supply where Twilight was. Apple trees didn't want to grow in rocky, mountainous terrain. The mare got up from her table after drinking the last of her tea and started chewing the leaf pieces. She kicked the wagon with her back legs, flipping it over and making the bodies all fall down a dirty chute into a place far below. Twilight was quick to follow through a door next to the oven and hurried down a flight of spiral steps five floors down into what she was certain used to be a massive pantry. She opened the room and lit the wickerlight candles all over what was now her laboratory. A swarm of flies was buzzing around it, annoying and disgusting the mare. She had forgotten to purge the bodies of fly eggs again. With a brief flash of light, the black, buzzing cloud turned into a silent, black cloud of ash that slowly fell down toward the ground, but Twilight was quicker than that. She grabbed a glass container sitting next to the entrance and used her magic to vacuum all the dust into it. She placed the cork back in and let the vase that was taller than her fall back. It was already one-sixth full. She would have to figure out a use for it or throw the dust out eventually. With a clap of her hooves and a massive smile, Twilight reached into a box to the left of the entrance and pulled out a face-mask and some protective covers for her hooves. Her lab was filled with open shelves of toxic and dangerous products in front of vast tables, mountains of notes on old and flaking parchments sitting in a corner, bodies in various states of decomposition sitting in cells so Twilight could observe how it all worked and what product delayed the inevitable, and on her tables long enough to seat twenty-four ponies each: A veritable treasure trove of equipment she long-term borrowed from various academies. Florence and Erlenmeyer flasks. Ring clamps and pipettes. Mortar, pestle, and wire gauze. Funnel supports, beakers, and tongs! Graduated cylinders and test tube racks! Twilight could stay in here forever! Alas, her work required her to...leave into the world. She wretched at the idea. She didn't like the feel of grass anymore. The smell of cut grass reminded her too much of-- "Alright. Let's see what the fresh newcomer has to show me," Twilight said to break her train of thought. She rushed over to a pile of bodies and organized them into three containers enchanted with ice spells. Advanced decay, basic decay, and fresh. The first two were vaguely full, but the 'fresh' was still empty and relatively clean relative to the rest of her home. It filled Twilight with a feeling of pride that she hadn't delved down that route. Princess Celestia wouldn't approve. The unicorn danced around with the body floating in the air. "I can't wait for you to tell me all about you! You'll be the best friend yet!" she mused. Twilight placed the body on a wooden dissection table and angled it to make it easier for the short pony to better reach it. She pulled out some forceps, pliers, and a scalpel and clicked the forceps together. "Tell me how I can bring Celestia back to life, my new best friend!" Twilight giggled to herself.