Do Not Go Gentle

by ShinigamiDad

Death Deferred

Twilight was sipping mint tea, poring over a pile of ancient texts when Reaper re-solidified and sat up.

Twilight started slightly, rattling her cup in its saucer.

“Ha!” she said triumphantly, “didn’t even spill when you popped back in this time!”

Reaper grinned: “I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that you’re getting more used to death’s Agent sitting ten feet from you!”

“A good thing, I’d say,” Twilight responded, rising from her cushions and walking to the side table to pour more tea, “since we’re sure to spend more time with each other before this is all over.”

Reaper nodded: “Most likely, though Luna and I caught a bit of a break--maybe this won’t take too long, after all.”

Twilight’s ears pricked up: “A break? What happened?”

Reaper stood and stretched: “We encountered Grey Thorn. He got away, but we were able to see him interact with that Void, and save a pony in the process.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide: “You saved somepony?!”

“Well, strictly speaking,” Reaper replied, “Luna saved her--a pony named Caramel Gloss. I had come across Grey Thorn and that Void, about to do, well, whatever it is they do, and, let’s just say it’s good Luna dropped in when she did!”

Twilight furrowed her brow: “He was about to absorb or erase or…”

“Or whatever,” Reaper interjected. “Right.”

He turned to the low tables now flanking Twilight’s pillows, and looked at all the scrolls and books.

“A little light reading?” he said.

Twilight returned with a refilled cup and a scone, and settled back among her cushions, rearranging some of the reading materials as she did.

“It’s amazing what you can get your hooves on when Celestia tells the Archivist to give you anything!” she said.

Reaper nodded slightly: “I’m sure! So, what have you discovered?”

“Well, Twilight said, turning to one especially scarred and battered volume, “not much yet that we didn’t already largely know. Mostly stuff about the Highbrier family: their lineage, some of their ancestral lands north of the Crystal Empire. That sort of thing.”

She took another sip of tea: “The interesting thing is, I can’t find a trace of any stallion who would have fit Grey Thorn’s description back in Starswirl’s day.”

“Well,” Reaper mused, “we’ve never gotten a particularly good look at him; maybe she’s a mare?”

Twilight swallowed and shook her head: “I already checked that, too. It was largely stallions who had the “Thorn” or “Burl” names. Mares tended to have “Vine” or “Rose” in their names. And no mare really fit the bill in that period either. Except…”

“Who?” Reaper asked, leaning forward.

“Hold on,” Twilight said, flipping some pages, opening a scroll. “A mare named “Pale Rose.” She lived some time before Starswirl really got powerful, but their dates must overlap a bit. I wasn’t able to find much about her, except she ran off, or was driven out...”

“And died giving birth,” Reaper interjected, closing his eyes and tipping his head back.

Twilight frowned and flipped more pages: “It doesn’t really say. How do you know...oh.”

Reaper grinned, but kept his eyes closed, as he recalled the scene: “Kind of my job, Princess!”

He slowly opened his eyes and took a deep breath: “Scoot over here, and I’ll share the vision in question.”

Twilight hesitated, but sighed and moved next to Reaper: “Is this a bad one? I just ate a bit and I’m not sure my stomach can take anything really awful right now!”

“More sad than bad,” Reaper replied as he locked his gaze onto Twilight’s eyes, “but it may answer a question.”

A dimly-lit scene came into view as Twilight’s eyes adjusted.

She was looking at a skinny, cream-colored unicorn, lying in a secluded glen, exhausted and clearly in distress.

Twilight gasped when she saw a form struggling free from behind the mare’s blood-streaked hindquarters. A pale, wet, bloody foal, still wrapped in membrane, was feebly trying to kick free from its mother’s birth canal.

The mare gave a great shudder and cried out in pain and fear, pushing with the last of her energy, tears streaming from her dimming eyes.

Twilight felt tears well in her own eyes as she saw Reaper enter the scene.

He leaned down and spoke gently to the sobbing, dying mare, as her now-still foal slid free from her body in a final gush of fluid and far too much blood.

“M-my baby…” she gasped, “is it...will it…?”

Reaper glanced behind her spasming flanks and twitching legs: “I think he’ll be joining you soon, Pale Rose. Time to go.”

Tears flowed freely down Twilight’s cheeks as Reaper leaned down to touch the distraught mare with his horn. Her eyes closed as a faint aura shimmered above her body for a moment.

Reaper walked back to her hind end and inspected the foal, then shook his head slightly, and faded away.

Twilight blinked hard twice and rubbed her muzzle, sniffling, and leaned back as Reaper’s gaze fell away.

She looked at him, tears still welling in her eyes: “How awful, to die alone like that, believing your foal was dying, too!”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Reaper asked, magically lifting a napkin from his side table and hovering it in front of Twilight.

She took the napkin and blew her nose: “Yes--a grey unicorn. Why didn’t you take him, too?”

“I usually do in many cases of death during foaling. But not all,” he answered. “I assumed I’d be back shortly; there didn’t really seem to be a rush.”

“Apparently you didn’t go back for him after all,” Twilight observed dryly.

Reaper nodded: “Obviously not. So I think we’ve found our Grey Thorn. Now the question is, how did he grow up? Who cared for him? How did he encounter Starswirl?”

Twilight furrowed her brow and shuffled some scrolls and smaller books: “I may have some ideas about that.”

“The Highbriers were like a lot of those old unicorn families: secluded, clannish, close-knit, but severe. Pale Rose’s foal was probably a bastard, maybe from a stallion from another clan--a rival, maybe, like the Greenswards.”

“Hmm,” Reaper mused, “That line died out not long after the last Baronet of the Highbriers.”

“Right,” Twilight concurred, “and where were we just now?”

Reaper pondered for a moment: “Along the banks of the Silver Silt River.”

Twilight nodded, pulling a map toward her: “Right between Highbrier and Greensward lands. I don’t find any record of Pale Rose being buried. I doubt she was ever found.”

“That would make sense,” Reaper said, leafing through an old grimoire, “But clearly the foal was found. But by whom?”

Twilight shrugged: “At least we have roughly the right time frame now, and two sets of family records to investigate.”

“Speaking of investigate,” Reaper said, thumping the grimoire with his hoof, “have you found any of this book’s sister volumes?”

Twilight shook her head: “No, and the Archivist got kind of defensive when I asked her about this book and any others like it. Walked off muttering something about “forbidden knowledge.””

Reaper raised an eyebrow: “Well, no great surprise there! It sounds like you have more digging to do on several fronts.”

Twilight agreed: “Yes. And what are you going to do?”

Reaper took a deep breath and stood up: “I’m heading back to Fillydelphia to see if I can help Luna pick up Grey Thorn’s trail.”

He walked over to Luna’s sleeping form as sat down next to her, leaning close in order to touch his horn to hers.

“Good luck!” Twilight said, turning back to her tea and books.

Reaper touched Luna’s horn as he faded: “You too…”