TRIXIE: A Hearth's Warming Eve Carol

by SupaSupaBadTrulyMadMoves

Darkness

Trixie found herself in the middle of a street in the dead of night. She didn't recognize the city, but it seemed to be made entirely out of crystal, from its silver-blue streets to its towering residences. It was still and empty.

"Where am I?" she muttered, looking around at the crystal streets. She wandered around a bit, examining the scenery, and spotted a clock. "It's only one o'clock?" she exclaimed. "But Gilda came to me at midnight… surely it's not one o'clock on the same night. Yes, surely a day or more has passed…"

She continued walking, exploring every street, examining everything that caught her eye, hoping for some clue. At one point, she saw a tiny wisp of black smoke flutter by, but dismissed it as a trick of her fear and the darkness. Hours passed.

"What is this place?" she said in frustration. "And why is it completely empty?"

Fearful, she kept exploring. At the center of the city, there was a platinum-white, spire-topped crystal castle, and she started moving toward it—but in a roundabout manner, continuing to explore every alley and thoroughfare, only making general progress to the city's center. Once again, she spotted the wisp of smoke, dancing overhead.

When she reached the castle, she was drawn to an odd whirring sound, and sought out its source. At the foot of the castle, a huge blue crystalline heart spun rapidly between two glowing pillars.

She stared at it, finding it to have a mildly hypnotic effect. For the third time, the black smoke raced by; she barely spotted it, focused as she was on the oddly-familiar crystal heart.

"Am I to just wander here forever?" Trixie said softly. "Gilda said the spirits would come whenever they pleased. Has the third decided not to come at all?"

She lifted her legs and stretched her muscles; her aging joints were starting to feel pain from her hours of walking, and she shivered a bit in her night dress.

She turned around, and came face-to-face with a wall of darkness, many stories tall, swirling ethereally. She flinched, but barely—the city had ignited memories which made this dark figure almost completely unsurprising.

"Are you the spirit who is to show me Hearth's Warming Eves of the future?" she asked.

The shapeless, smoky thing diminished in size until it wasn't much larger than her. "I aaaaammmmmm," it said in a deep, rumbling voice.

"May I have your name?" she asked with an attempt at a polite smile.

"Sssssssommmmmbrrrraaaaa," the thing replied.

"Sombra," Trixie repeated. "Very well. I confess… the notion that you promise me images of the future… I am deathly afraid of what I may see. But I understand that it will all be for my own good, so… so lead on, Sombra. I am prepared."

Trixie was startled and jumped back when eyes appeared on the cloud of smoke—huge, furious eyes of a poisonous green, with red irises and deeper red pupils, with purple smoke seeping from their corners.

Sombra wrapped around her many times over, swirling rapidly and laughing.

When Trixie could see again, she was once again in the snowy streets of Canterlot, Sombra floating beside her, staring at her intently.

"Lead the way," she said timidly. "I shall watch and listen well, and… and learn, if I can."

His head tilted in curiosity.

"I… I will learn," she said with more confidence.

Sombra nodded and gazed off in a certain direction. Trixie followed his eyes, and saw three ponies standing on the snow-covered steps of City Hall. Trixie recognized the trio from around town, very important and influential members of Canterlot's high society.

"So, the old bird's finally passed on, has she?" Fancy Pants was saying casually.

"It's about bloody time, if you ask me," Hoity Toity snipped.

"Does anypony know how it finally happened?" said Fancy Pants. "What did her in?"

"Celestia only knows, for she's Celestia's problem now," Photo Finish said dismissively in her husky accent.

"Well, not just Celestia's problem," Hoity Toity said with a devious smile. "What's happened to all that money of hers?"

Fancy Pants shrugged. "Ah, let the courts figure that one out. Unless she's left it to me, I don't particularly care." They all shared a cruel laugh at that. "So, is there going to be a service?"

"Not that I know of," said Hoity Toity. "I can't imagine anypony who'd want to arrange that, any more than I can envision anypony who'd want to go to the damned thing."

"Well, maybe we ought to throw something together," Fancy Pants said flippantly. "You know, provide a lunch, make a party of it."

"I… might stop by if it looks like you get enough ponies on board," Photo Finish mused. "Ve'll see." She tossed her head, turned, and walked away.

"Very well," said Fancy Pants, undeterred. He turned to Hoity Toity. "How about you, old friend? Think we could work on that?"

"I do like the idea of a nice lunch," he admitted.

They laughed together again, and parted ways. Trixie quizzically turned to Sombra for an explanation. He silently guided her gaze toward an antique shop, manned by a very tall, sleepy-eyed mare with a pale yellow coat and a puffy sapphire-blue mane.

"Yo!" the shopkeeper called out. "Jet Set and Upper Crust, c'mere!"

A unicorn couple who were passing by, who Trixie recognized from her visions of the present, smiled at the mare and approached. "Hrmmm, Madam Sapphire, how do you do?" Jet Set said smoothly.

"Oh, just fine and dandy," said Sapphire. "So, didja hear? Sounds to me like death's embraced one of its kindred spirits. First embrace she ever knew, am I right? Ha!"

Jet Set smirked. "Indeed."

"Indeed she did…" Upper Crust said darkly. The couple returned to walking down the street.

"That's it?" Trixie said blankly. "That's their whole conversation? A bit cryptic, isn't it?" She looked desperately at Sombra, and he merely stared back at her.

"Where am I in this future?" she demanded softly. "What has this to do with me?"

Sombra's only response was a resonant chuckle.

"I… trust that the answer will come in time," Trixie mumbled.

He led her through the streets, guiding her through seas of ponies. She optimistically scanned for familiar faces, but couldn't find any.

"I do look forward to seeing myself," she said brightly. "How I may have… changed."

Sombra glanced at her in disbelief.

Before Trixie even noticed the transition, he was leading her through a seedy part of town, the houses shabby and boarded up, the streets coated in grime.

Sombra's tendrils of smoke wrapped around Trixie, and he pulled her under the street, traveling through solid stone for a moment before finding themselves in a shop located in a basement, where a hulking blue minotaur, wrapped in a thin cloak and shivering in the cold, poked at his charcoal stove.

The three diamond dogs were in the shop, laden with gaudy jewelry, crowns, and tacky imitations of fancy clothes. They were laughing hysterically and pointing out various other ridiculous trinkets lining the shop's shelves.

"Bring Iron Will more stuff to trade for it," the minotaur drawled, "and you get the run of the shop, boys. That's how it works."

The dogs giggled. "I like the sound of that idea," Rover rasped. "We can do that."

Trixie's face brightened. "Well! Those three seem to be doing much better for themselves. They trade with this fellow? Where did they get items to trade? Oh, I suppose it doesn't matter. As long as they're doing better, I'm happy for them. Perhaps I'm the reason they're doing better, could that be it?"

Sombra gave another rumbling chuckle.

The bell on the door rang, and Zecora breezed in, wearing a nice red dress and a matching hat with a veil. "Oh, Mr. Iron Wi-ill," she sang.

"Ah, Zecora, my dear!" Iron Will said delightedly. "Iron Will's new favorite client. Come on in. What have you got for old Iron Will this time?"

"Something you'll enjoy, of that I am certain," Zecora said slyly. "Behold my exciting new… bed curtains!" She plopped the elaborate curtains into Iron Will's arms.

"Ooooooh!" the dogs chorused.

"Bed curtains," said Iron Will with a smirk, fingering the fabric. "Nice, very nice. How did you get them?"

"The only way I know how, with style and flair," Zecora said gleefully. "Just nicked them from the bed while she was lying there."

"Wait," Trixie said in surprise. "Those are my bed curtains…"

Iron Will dropped the curtains and recoiled, which the diamond dogs found hysterically funny.

"Oh my dear Iron Will, is that unattractive to you?" Zecora teased. "To make a decent living, I do what I've gotta do."

"Zecora," Iron Will growled, raising a suspicious eyebrow, "you're not trying to sell Iron Will diseased bed curtains, are you?"

"Oh, pish-posh," Zecora said dismissively. "This is business, and I'm no traitor." She gestured to the dogs. "They can vouch for that—and you'll thank me later."

With dawning horror, Trixie realized that the back of Iron Will's shop was loaded with her own household belongings—clothing, broaches, pens and stationary, nearly everything she possessed was tucked away in the back of this seedy pawn shop.

"They're all making a living stealing from me!" she exclaimed. "That's unbelievable! I would have thought my future self had started being nicer to them. Hmph! I guess some folks can't appreciate a good change of heart."

"All right," Iron Will was saying, "Iron Will's going to appraise these and see what they're worth." He chuckled. "You're all going to be Iron Will's undoing! You bleed me dry, but you keep bringing such fine things, Iron Will JUST CAN'T HELP IT!"

Zecora and the dogs laughed. "Now don't go thanking me all at once," said Zecora, "but take a look at my pièce de résistance…" She whipped out a dress, one unfamiliar to Trixie. It was deep blue and elaborately embroidered, trimmed with white lace. "I think you'll find it to your taste," said Zecora. "They were planning on burying her in it! What a waste…"

They all laughed and laughed and laughed until the scene faded into the next one. Trixie had no awareness of where she had been taken, for she was reflecting inward, devastated.

"I wondered how these images were connected," she said quietly, her ears drooping. "My employees who are stealing from me are also taking an interest in this… this death that the public seems so unmoved by."

She realized that she and Sombra were standing in a dreary, gray room, where an elderly donkey wearing a rather obvious hairpiece was draping a shroud over a body on a table. He tightened the black cloth gently, and as it went taught, Trixie could see the shape of a pony's face, distinctly feminine, visible in profile.

"Well," the old donkey growled, "there you have it, apprentice."

A small pony, a dainty white pegasus colt with terribly skinny legs, approached the mortician, his head tilted in confusion.

"It happens like this sometimes," the donkey said darkly. "You've learned a lot about my trade, haven't you, boy? Sometimes ponies want their loved ones presented beautifully before they say goodbye, in their finest clothes and finest makeup. But sometimes… like now… nopony cares enough. The deceased doesn't have any loved ones, and those in charge of their affairs just want us to stick 'em in the ground already." He sighed deeply, exhausted. "Doesn't really make a difference to me. I get paid either way. And where they're going, it won't matter what they look like now… they'll all look the same eventually."

The mortician and his apprentice left the room, the door slamming shut with a cold note of finality. Sombra loomed over the bed, and from his smoky body a face emerged, with a fanged mouth, a curved red horn, and a mane made up of the same swirly smoke as the rest of his form. "Hmmmmmm…" he said thoughtfully. "Whaaat issss thissss…?"

Trixie held her breath as a tiny tendril of smoke reached for the shroud. She was silent because she was sure there was no way the spirit could manipulate objects in these visions, but to her horror he could. He began to lift the black cloth off of the pony's veiled face.

"STOP!" Trixie shouted.

He did, not lifting the cloth any further, turning to grin at Trixie.

"I… I don't wish to see who is under that blanket," Trixie said frantically. "Your point is well taken. I don't know who you have under here, but… the circumstances surrounding her death, and their aftermath, may very well be my own." She stared at the body as Sombra gently covered it again, pondering, fearing the worst. "Sombra?"

"Ahhh?"

"If there are any in Canterlot who feel true emotion over this pony's death…" Trixie said, slowly and carefully choosing her words, "may I see them?"

"Mmmmmm…"

Sombra's smoky figure expanded out into a big rectangular window, and within that window a scene played: a tiny room in a dark, decaying, and drafty apartment block.

A pleasantly portly middle-aged mare waited anxiously. There was nothing else in the room but a dining table, a stove, and a shoddy bed, everything that these living quarters possessed.

Shortly, a stallion returned, lanky and freckled in contrast to his wife.

"Darling!" the mare exclaimed, racing to him. "Darling, what news?"

He sat down at the table, seeming almost catatonic.

"Darling?" said the mare. "Oh… oh, is it… is it bad?"

He blinked several times before answering. "Ah, no. No, actually, it's… it's quite good. Shockingly good."

"What?" she gasped. "You mean… she relented?"

"She, uh… she died."

The wife blinked rapidly, processing the news in silence for a long and heavy moment. "Sh-she died?"

He nodded silently. Then, they both broke out in joyous laughter, embracing and dancing in a circle.

"So what happens now?" the wife breathed. "Who will take her place?"

"I don't know, but while they're figuring that out, we'll have time to make our payment! And surely"—he paused to laugh uncontrollably—"surely whoever replaces her won't be nearly so merciless. Oh, darling, we've got it made!"

They continued to laugh. She leaned on him, relieved, and he nuzzled her as the scene disappeared.

Trixie scowled at Sombra. "That's not exactly what I was going for when I asked for emotion."

He chuckled. "I know."

"Sadness! Tenderness! Mourning!" Trixie snapped. "Regret at the death that has visited! Is there any instance of that in all of Canterlot that you can show me on this day?"

"Yyyeesssssss…"

Back in the streets, Trixie attempted to become accustomed to Sombra's oversized floating head. The streets were populated but not crowded, and as she loyally stuck close to Sombra's side, she began to realize that they were tailing one pony in particular, a mare wearing a worn-out blanket as a cloak.

"Twilight!" a voice called. "Twilight Sparkle!"

The cloaked figure turned her head slowly, as Cadance swooped down from the sky and set down in the snow. The other pony was indeed Twilight, her eyes bleary and red from crying. She looked at Cadance with detachment and not a trace of recognition.

"Twilight, it's me, Cadance," Cadance said worriedly. "Miss Trixie's niece?"

"Oh," Twilight muttered. "Yes. How are you?"

"I'm… well enough," said Cadance. "And you?"

Twilight started to answer, but Cadance cut her off. "What a thing to ask," she said. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry about your loss."

"Thank you," Twilight said monotonously. "And I for yours."

"Oh… mine?" said Cadance with a sad smile. "Mine was no loss at all. I think perhaps things are better this way. But you… I am so, so sorry. Your entire family must be devastated."

Trixie inhaled sharply. "What loss? Surely not…"

"I know there's nothing I can do to ease the sting of what's happened to you," Cadance was saying. "All the same, we must think of your family's survival. I've recently come into a rather substantial amount of money due to… well, you know."

"Yes," Twilight mumbled.

"I want to give some of that back, so… my husband and I are going to try to start a business. If you need a job, or any of your daughters are looking for an apprenticeship… you need only ask."

"That's…" Twilight said with emotion rising in her throat. "Thank you, Miss Cadance. That's such a generous offer, it's… you would not believe the weight you've just lifted off of me, off of us all. Thank you so much."

"Shh, it's all right," Cadance said soothingly. "Think nothing of it. It's my pleasure to help an old friend in need. Here…" She held Twilight's hoof in her own, and gently placed a card atop it. "My card. Come to my house anytime, no need to wait for an invitation, and we'll discuss the details."

"Thank you," Twilight whispered.

Sombra brought Trixie to Twilight's house then, one scene steadily dissolving into the next. They were in the empty kitchen, and without even being aware of her legs moving, Trixie drifted into the back room to see the family gathered around the fireplace.

The flurry of activity from the last time Trixie had been there was completely gone. Everyone was silent, their expressions numb, none of them seeming to notice that the fire was dying.

Fearfully, Trixie found herself counting them, and the pit of her stomach began to sink.

"Where is your mother?" Flash finally said in a weary voice. "It never used to take her this long to get home from church."

"She walked a lot faster when she had Dinky on her back," Babs said solemnly.

"Heh… yeah," Flash sighed. "Dinky… little pip weighed nothing."

The front door swung upon. "Flash?" Twilight called.

"Oh, sweetie," Flash sighed in relief. A few seconds later, Twilight entered the back room. "You certainly took your time," Flash said sympathetically. "I was worried. It's so cold out there. Is everything okay?"

"It is cold," Twilight agreed. "It's so very, very cold. But I promised Dinky I'd see her every Sunday, and… it's worthwhile. I feel she's there, a calming presence. You really should come by sometime, Flash. It's such a nice place, even in winter."

"I couldn't possibly," said Flash, getting choked up. "I just couldn't bear it."

And finally, Trixie spotted the crutch leaning against the wall, covered in dust, unused for quite some time. "No," she gasped, tears filling her eyes. "Oh, no, not Dinky, not Dinky!"

Twilight's eyes were starting to well up as well. "It seems we've received a blessing," she said. "You wouldn't believe it, but I happened to run into Miss Trixie's niece on the way back. Do you remember, I told you about her? It might not be so hard to find a new job after all. And Babs, you could get that apprenticeship you've been searching for."

"She just offered that to you, sight unseen?" Flash said in surprise.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Twilight said, gazing out the window. "She was always coming by Trixie's office, trying to bond with her old aunt. We spoke then. I feel that we became friends. And I feel… that maybe this is the path that Celestia meant for me to take. This… this whole thing." She hung her head and fell silent.

Nearly a minute later, she raised her eyes again. "She's a good soul. Cadance, I mean. The niece. You'd have to see her to believe it, but there's no purer pony in Canterlot. Working with her wouldn't just be a blessing, it would be an honor."

The three little ones had a rapid-fire, whispered exchange with each other, which resulted in Aria and Sonata forcefully shoving Adagio out into the center of the room. She glared at them, then turned to Twilight. "Mom? We were thinking about pulling our weight around here too. Can we get our own jobs?" As an afterthought, she smiled.

"That's sweet of you three," said Twilight, "but the best thing you can do right now is keep on going to school. Learn. That's the best gift you can give to me, far better than any financial contribution you could make for the family." She kissed the tops of their heads one by one, adjusted the fire with her magic, and walked over to the window.

"The church in all its details…" she mused. "I tried to imagine what Dinky would say on that visit. All her questions, all her observations, I hear them in my mind as clearly as if she was at my side… but I'll never hear such things again." She turned to face her family. "Life is full of journeys, but the journey doesn't end when a life does. When we die, all those around us remain, all those whom we have touched continue their journeys, and so on. So you see, life, it never ends. Stories never end. It's a beautiful thing.

"So let us give thanks, for our good health, and that we were able to see Dinky Doo along on her journey… and that she shall be in our hearts always as we continue with ours. Our sadness lingers, but we can remember the happiness that Dinky brought us when she was still with us, and that happiness shall never leave us. Happiness that stays in your heart forever is called joy, and I think I… am joyful."

One by one, she hugged the members of her family—all of her daughters, first the three little ones, then Babs, and finally Sunset, who looked deeply into her mother's eyes and nodded with understanding. Twilight proceeded to embrace Spike and Applejack, giving them whispered thanks, and finally, squeezing Flash tightly as if her life depended on it.

"If you'll excuse me… I think I need to get some rest," she said softly. "Be strong, family. I love you all."

She left the room without another word, and Trixie followed her frantically, through the kitchen and up the stairs.

"Twilight!" Trixie called. "Twilight, please, wait for me. Oh, Twilight…"

She had lost all reason and grip, forgotten that Twilight could not see or hear her, forgotten that she wasn't truly present. Twilight had trudged into her room, and Trixie was desperate to get there before the door was closed. Soon, it was limned by Twilight's magic aura, and Trixie leaped to close the distance, slipping in silently.

Twilight had turned around to face the door, so Trixie found herself looking directly into her clerk's eyes. "Twilight…" she whispered.

Twilight looked through her, unaware of her presence, her lip quivering, her eyes glinting with moisture.

"Twilight?" Trixie asked.

As if triggered by Trixie speaking, Twilight bawled, her entire body heaving with her great, loud sobs. Twilight threw herself onto her bed and addressed the sky. "Why?" she demanded through her anguished tears. "Oh, why?"

As the sobbing went on, Trixie felt a cold shiver up her spine, and knew that it signified Sombra creeping up behind her.

"Sombra… you don't say much," she noted. "I don't know how, but I get the feeling that you want me to know that our time together will soon be at its end."

He swirled around and around her again, this time bringing her to an old, crumbling church. Nearly blinded by the bright sun on the fresh snowfall, Trixie squinted and saw that Sombra was pointing her in the direction of the church's graveyard.

She flinched. "I have no interest in seeing Dinky Doo's grave."

Sombra shook his head slowly, smirking, and pushed her forward with a bizarrely solid smoky tendril. She stumbled at his unexpected shove. "All right, all right," she grumbled, walking toward the graveyard willingly.

Two nearly-identical yellow unicorn stallions with candy-striped manes were levitating shovels in their vibrantly green magic auras, using them to pat down the dirt on a grave they had just refilled.

"Ha! Well, that was altogether a waste of time," one of them was saying. "What's the point of a proper Celestial burial for a pony we all know is damned anyway?"

"It certainly is pathetic, brother," said the other, who had a slightly deeper voice and a mustache. "Died all alone, along with her name, and not a single soul showed up for her funeral service."

"Yes," the first one pondered. "The only question is why we needed to dig the grave. Shouldn't it have been the pastor who's always darning socks?"

His brother paused, looking confused for a second, then gasped as he understood. "Oh! Like in the Beatles song!"

"Yes, yes, that's it exactly!"

The two of them sauntered off, their annoying laughter echoing in Trixie's ears as they disappeared.

Trixie stayed far away from the grave, and time sped up around her, afternoon becoming night with great speed. Street lamps came up, and wind and snow began swirling, first at a high speed, and then normal again as time resumed its normal flow.

She turned; Sombra was floating at her eye level now. "Go," he said. "Look at it."

Trixie swallowed. "I… I am no fool, Sombra. I know all too well what I'm going to see when I look upon that gravestone," she lied. "You've been showing me all these things for the purpose of teaching me a lesson, well, consider it taught. I see the error of my ways, so we can end this now, and you can take me home and we'll all go off on our way, there's really no need to go over there and—"

"LOOK! AT! IT!" Sombra bellowed, his body swirling like a tempest.

"…Yes," she squeaked. "Y-yes, very well."

She stepped up to the grave, squinting nervously in the darkness and bracing herself against the cold gusts of wind that were going by. It was too dark to see the stone.

Sombra expanded into a bigger cloud of blackness, which produced a lightning crackle, an immense and deafening flash which made the gravestone visible: it was an elaborate carving of Trixie's stern, bitter face. She gasped and dropped to her knees.

"Me," she whispered. "It was me all along."

Sombra laughed, and in a rush of swirling smoke manifested a solid body. He was huge, and covered in steely armored plates and a red cape. His eyes and mane were still flowing with power, and he continued to fill the air with deep, powerful, wicked laughter.

"Sombra!" Trixie cried out, her mane whipping in the wind. "Sombra, tell me. These visions you've shown me, this future—does this future need to happen? Or is it what may happen? If I return home and change the path my life is taking, can I change this future?"

Sombra only kept laughing. Crystal walls, like those in the empty city where Trixie and Sombra had met, rose up around them, boxing them in an area of only a few dozen square feet.

Trixie's grave opened under her hooves, and she fell in and landed heavily on top of the casket. Dazed, she stared in confusion at the wood up against her face, then gasped when she realized what had just happened, and scrambled back to her hooves, casting a desperate gaze up at Sombra.

"Dear Sombra, no!" she cried. "I have changed! I am not the pony I was! These visits from yourself and the other spirits, this was meant to change me and it has! It has! So am I still to be the forgotten wretch who dies alone in this future, even if my heart has changed? This cannot be!"

She clawed at the grave's walls as portions of it grew deeper and deeper.

"Sombra!" she pleaded, tears streaking down her face. "My soul is the soul of Hearth's Warming Eve! I shall remember its tenets every day as long as I shall live, and give them to the world around me! I will live in the past and the present and the future and keep their spirits alive within me! You know I will!"

He just kept laughing, and the storm grew more and more powerful, snow swirling and thunder crashing. In one particularly tiny hole in the grave, an orange blaze began to increase in intensity.

"Why?" Trixie wailed. "Why show me all of this only to end me now?"

He grinned. "Why indeed?"

Sombra cackled as the grave crumbled completely.

"No!" Trixie screamed. "NOOOOOO!"

She lost her grip and tumbled down, down, down toward the lake of fire below… and landed, firmly, in her own bed.

Author's Note:

As you might expect, I considered having Sombra just be a silent character, given the whole Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come thing, but decided it would be almost as scary for him to just talk the way Sombra talks.

Twilight's speech has two inspirations. The first half, about being able to imagine what Dinky would say, reflects my own experience after my grandmother died. Whenever we watched a movie or a show, she had a lot of questions, and whenever I watched anything without her, I could almost hear the questions she would ask, which didn't end after she died.

The second half, about how a journey doesn't end when a life does, that's a philosophical counterpoint to views expressed by a former friend of mine who I met when he reviewed my big MLP fic, Romance and the Fate of Equestria. We clashed on a lot of things, and one of them was the fact that RFE was (and still is) a long-runner with no end in sight. He wasn't fond of that sort of story; he said that typically he only reads or watches series which are already over, and that he always looks toward the ending because "life is a journey ended by death". Me, that's not my style. I like stories with no ending in sight because... that's life. Life in a story doesn't end when the credits roll or you stop reading, and the story of your life doesn't end when you die, because you've left people behind who have their own stories to continue.

In a way, that's... kind of what fanfiction is all about. It's about not letting stories die.

Comments

[SupaSupaBadTrulyMadMoves]

6752913 I thank you for your time, and for the assurance that I'll continue to get your time. I should say that it's not as faithful to the original text as you seem to think. This chapter in particular is guilty of hitting nearly every conversational beat that the first scene in the book did, but the actual content of the writing is vastly different. Vastly. It really is just me out there. So, thank you.

And you're quite right that the ghosts are the fun part. You won't be disappointed. And honestly, use of Tartarus never occurred to me. The MLP Tartarus was always depicted as a prison, not a hell, and even if it was, telling someone to go to Tartarus just doesn't have any punch.