Do Not Go Gentle

by ShinigamiDad

Plans

“I do not think I like the sound of this, Reaper.”

Reaper smiled thinly and replied, “Oh, I don’t blame you--I’m not really looking forward to it, either, but you and I each have pieces of this puzzle, buried deep in our pasts, and we need to uncover them.”

Luna circled Reaper warily, her hoof-falls ringing faintly through the empty chamber.

“What do you propose?”

Reaper tipped his head back and took a deep breath.

“We need to enter each other's’ dreams and memories in order to sort this out. We have to compare all the times I recall a “phantom” pony, against your memory of their final dream.”

Luna furrowed her brow and opened her mouth as if to speak, but shut it again suddenly as panic began to show on her face. Reaper cast his eyes downward sympathetically, and waited silently.

At last she spoke: “I cannot! That would mean unlocking the vault of all that I was as Nightmare Moon! It is hard enough for me to maintain the barriers to my past as it is, without willingly journeying there! Are you unaware that I nearly unleashed my Tantabus on the world not long ago? What you propose would dwarf that!”

She began pacing and sweating, eyes darting about her chamber as though looking for an escape.

Reaper nodded and stepped back a pace, giving Luna the space she needed to work out her anxiety.

He replied slowly and gently: “I understand, Princess. But you will not face this alone. I will be with you. It’s what you’ve always dreaded, isn’t it? Having to face yourself and your past alone for fear of involving innocent bystanders. It’s why you keep it bottled-up and shield everypony else from it, even at the cost of near-disaster. You’d rather be consumed by your past than risk anypony else.”

Tears leaked from Luna’s closed eyes and fell glittering on the marble floor.

“Nopony can go there! Even the act of encountering the Tantabus nearly destroyed scores of ponies! Even now, I do not think they know how close they came to ruin!”

She sat down dejectedly on the floor, head hung low. “I am not the pony I once was, it is true, but I was that pony once, and the power she still holds over me is terrible!”

Reaper sat down next to Luna.

“But I am immune to the horrors of your past,” he said, “and Nightmare Moon has no power over me--never did. I can walk through your shadows and take account without stirring up the past. My shade will pass unnoticed through all the ghoulish, dreadful night terrors Nightmare Moon conjured, as though I had always been part of them...because I assume I often was part of them.”

Luna gazed at Reaper’s face for a moment, then was racked with a sudden, gulping sob.

“Of course you were! You were the worst thing I could throw into a pony’s dream when I tired of toying with them! You were the final, all-consuming character I called forth in the awful scenes I created!”

She sank to the floor and wept inconsolably.

Suddenly, Celestia appeared a few feet away, wreathed in a blinding flash.

“Sister!” she cried in alarm, eyes fixed on Luna’s slumped form. “I heard you crying, and I…”

She stopped short and reared back when she caught sight of Reaper out of the corner of her eye. Her front hooves slashed at the air as she hopped backwards.

“Why are you here, Deathbringer? What have you done to my sister?!” Celestia’s ears were pinned back flat, her mane glowed a brilliant blue-white, like a newborn star, and her eyes blazed dangerously as she crouched into an aggressive posture, prepared to defend Luna.

“Whoa! Take it easy, your Highness!” Reaper blurted out, lifting a hoof to shield his eyes from Celestia’s withering radiance. He stepped away from Luna.

“I didn’t do anything to her, other than reopen some admittedly painful, not-so-old wounds!”

Luna lifted her tear-streaked face from the floor and, choking back her sobs, spoke to Celestia: “He speaks the truth. He has done me no harm, but his words have stirred my pain and terror anew!”

She rose unsteadily from the floor and stood shaking, between her sister and Reaper. Heat shimmers still rose from Celestia’s coat, and Reaper took another step back, bumping into a potted plant.

“What are you doing here?” Celestia again demanded.

“I’ve discovered a dangerous situation that requires your sister’s help. Somepony, or creature or monster--still not sure, really--has been slaying ponies for years without my being aware of it.” He skirted around the gilded planter, and positioned the small tree it contained between himself and the glowing Sun Princess.

“So?” snapped Celestia. “That sounds like a “you” problem--why try to bring my sister into it? She had nothing to do with it, I’m sure! Her dark days are behind her, and even at her darkest she never took a life! Why drag her into this?”

Luna stumbled back to her cushions while Reaper addressed Celestia: “No, I’m not saying she bears any responsibility, but she has knowledge of all the dreams that have ever been, even as Nightmare Moon. I have to work my way through that history in order to find the killer--or at least clues to the killer.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but the intense glow from her coat dimmed, and her mane took on a more pastel hue.

“If the killer’s been doing their work without you knowing it, then how will going back through Luna’s old memories help? You still won’t know who you’re looking for!”

Luna raised her head and answered haltingly, the words catching in her throat: “He has memories of his own--taken at, at the last mo- moments of a pony’s life. Images and echoes of their final...final…”

She began to weep again. “Poor Dew Drop! We have to stop who or whatever is do, do, doing...oh, Sister help me!”

Celestia turned away from Reaper and rushed to Luna’s side, helping her back down to the cushions.

“Dew Drop?” she asked Reaper.

“The latest victim. The killer’s not just taking the old, infirm, enfeebled, or terminal anymore.”

Reaper stepped out from behind the smoldering plant and adjusted his cloak.

“The killer struck at a young earth pony on the west coast, south of Vanhoofer, just last night. And by “struck” I mean blotted out. Destroyed. There was no essence for me to take beyond the world. I caught an echo of her last moment, but even then it took hours to track it down. We don’t have that kind of time when the killer strikes next.”

“But what has Luna to do with this?” Celestia asked, looking down at Luna, gently stroking her flowing, faintly-glittering blue mane.

Luna looked up into her sister’s violet eyes, tears still dripping from her cheeks. “The victims are slain from within their dreams. This last time the killer must have been able to ever-so-briefly obscure themself as he struck. But in the past--Reaper, you are quite right--I hardly would have noticed one more murderous apparition terrorizing a pony.”

Celestia furrowed her brow in thought. “But you would have noticed, even if just hardly--you don’t miss a thing in the dreamscape.” She turned away from Luna absently, and began to pace.

“So how would you discover what you need?” Celestia asked.

Reaper sucked air in through his teeth. “Well, you see, that’s the source of Luna’s anguish. We’re going to have to enter her memories, and mine, and compare those last images I recall with her record of who and what passed through ponies’ dreams.”

Luna raised her head and nodded. “We should be able to cross-check each other’s images, like holding two overlapped drawings up to the light, until we make a match.”

“Or matches,” Reaper interjected absently, peering up into the vaulted ceiling at a pair of little, shiny black eyes. “I’m afraid we’re going to find scores. And that raises yet another problem.”

“What?” asked Celestia.

Reaper stared up at the eyes.

“Hmm? What what?” he responded.

“What problem?” Celestia replied impatiently.

“Oh, right--I’m not sure we’re really going to be in a note-taking mood while we’re in each other’s memories. I’m wondering how we can keep track of the better part of a thousand years of information. I’m sure we’ll know the matching memories when we see them, but we have to be able to gather up the fragments.”

The glittering eyes disappeared, accompanied by a faint scrabbling sound.

Celestia pondered for a moment, then spoke: “I know a pony who has a mind for lists and data and cross-referencing and whatever else you might need.”

Luna’s ears pricked up. “Sister! You cannot mean Twilight?”

“Can you think of anypony better suited to note-taking?” Celestia replied.

Reaper tipped his head slightly. “Twilight? Oh, right: the most-recent princess. Kinda young for this sort of thing, isn’t she?”

Celestia’s tail flicked. “I would trust--have trusted--Twilight with any task! My concern is not that she can’t do the job, but that she shouldn’t!”

“Well, Princess,” retorted Reaper “that might just leave you, then. I’m not sure anypony else can stand to be in my presence for the time this operation’s going to take. To be honest, I doubt Twilight will!”

Celestia wrinkled her nose and blinked twice. “I can’t...I just can’t be near you that long. The darkness that hovers just outside my senses, you absorbing my power just by standing there--it makes me so...uncomfortable! It’s all I can do to stay in this room now...” She shuddered slightly, and narrowed her eyes at Reaper. “And, well, never mind.”

Luna stood and summoned a piece of parchment and quill from a nearby end table. She wrote a brief note, and levitated it front of her sister.

Celestia glanced at the note, sighed, and nodded. Her horn glowed for a moment, and the parchment disappeared.

“So how long will it take before she gets here?” queried Reaper, as he refocused his attention on the shadowy ceiling again. “She’s in Ponyville, yes? It’ll be hours if she takes the train! Is she a strong flyer?”

Celestia glared at Reaper, closed her eyes and dipped her horn toward the floor, conjuring a sudden white flash.