White Sun

by The Psychopath

Flight

Shining sat on an outcrop outside, tapping his hooves against the solid crystal pensively. The people didn't take too kindly to him telling them who Twilight was, although others were understanding. It was a strange mish-mash of opinions and thoughts that appeared before him. While he tried to figure out what to do with his sister, Cadance had plans of her own. She had returned to her room and brought hygienic supplies for Twilight, surprising the guards. The alicorn had also brought several books on magical history and one on the history of the Crystal Empire that she was going to read herself while she waited for the unicorn to awaken. She saw the lights outside the windows start to dim when Twilight stirred in her unwanted slumber.

"Twilight," Cadance said with a warm smile. The mare squished herself under the covers, trying to hide as much of herself from Cadance as she could manage. "No need to panic again, Twilight."

"B-but Spike Spike, he he--"

Twilight found herself suddenly unable to move, trapped in the magic of Cadance. She was forcefully lifted up and then laid down on the bed. The weight of the alicorn's magic applied to the unicorn's body made her gradually feel strangely calmer and more relaxed as time passed.

"Twilight. You've gone through a lot. Spike will be fine where he is. We'll think about that later. Now let me take a look at your mane," Cadance said as she pulled up combs, brushes, and scissors.

As Cadance worked on Twilight's mane, she found that her work was extremely difficult. There were so many knots and split ends that she couldn't figure out how to disentangle everything. It was so bad that the only solution would have been to shave Twilight's head completely, but the alicorn of love wouldn't take such a defeat lying down. She would fight her way through it all even if it took her several days of hard labor.

"Have you not been taking care of yourself, Twilight?" Cadance asked.

Twilight shivered. "I have..."

"Uh huh," Cadance responded with bemusement. "That's why you smell like an open casket left in the sun for too long and why you're more knot than pony?"

"Hey..." the unicorn grumbled.

There was a long moment of silence while Cadance worked her magic, and her alicorn magic as well. She was meticulously pulling at the knots and used the scissors to snip through the tighter spots so she could pull the strands apart without having to sacrifice huge clumps of Twilight's mane. It was a very uncomfortable time for the two of them, but Cadance was getting a sort of satisfaction from it. Any bits or strands that were damaged beyond repair were either clipped just above the destroyed areas or outright pulled out of the unicorn's scalp, prompting a pained yelp every time.

Twilight felt herself reminiscing about when Cadance babysat her and did this exact same thing. They would talk about what Twilight wanted to do in the future, whatever new passions Twilight had discovered, and what Cadance and Shining were doing. Of course, at the time they hadn't yet gotten together, but it was still evident even to the socially awkward filly the feelings the two shared for each other.

"You've been running away for too long, Twilight. You can't keep doing this," Cadance said.

"Easy for you to say. You were just banished from Equestria and then you managed to become an empress," Twilight muttered.

"That isn't fair, Twilight," Cadance rebutted. "I wasn't just 'banished'. I was stripped of my chance to see my home again, and my aunt was killed as well, leaving me with no family." She sighed and stopped digging through Twilight's mane. "If your brother wasn't there, I..." She cleared her throat and continued her work. "I'd rather not talk about it." The alicorn looked at Twilight with a strange smile. "You could have looked for us, you know. We would have gladly taken you in."

Twilight stared at Cadance, her expression that of disbelief and fatigue. "I was on the run from ponies actively hunting me. I didn't exactly have the luxury to be able to look for you and Shining Armor," Twilight explained aggressively. "Plus, I can tell that you wouldn't have approved of me trying to bring Princess Celestia back!" Her eyes widened in realization. "If I-when I finish it," Twilight corrected herself. "I'll be able to bring back those two guards that Spike k..." She frozen in her attempt to say the word. "Um, well, I'll be able to bring them back is all I'm trying to say," she ended with a nervous smile.

Cadance sighed. "Twilight, you can't bring ponies back from the dead. When they die, that's it. They're no longer of this world."

"That's what they always say!" Twilight said aggressively. "But I've proven with my magic that it's still possible!"

The alicorn snorted and accidentally tugged on a knot, hurting Twilight. "I don't think them being rotting corpses or rousing their souls from their slumber is 'bringing them back to life'. If anything, you're pulling them out of the next life and forcing them to stay in a world they can no longer interact with." She leaned around and looked at Twilight from the side of her eyes. "Now does that sound like something anypony should do?"

"No, but they still tell me what to do and help guide me along," Twilight protested. She shifted in place, trying to free herself from Cadance's grasp. "I never leave them there as test subjects to watch and torment in order to learn more. I learn what I need when they awake, I take notes, then I let them live their lives."

Cadance froze. "You let them out into the world?!"

The unicorn shrugged. "I mean, the underground world is still technically a world. Like that they don't hurt themselves or anypony else," Twilight explained with a smile.

The alicorn couldn't fully understand what Twilight was talking about, but she had the inkling that the mare might have accidentally let out information about herself that she didn't otherwise intend to.

"Twilight, if you were able to start over, what would you choose to do?" Cadance asked.

Twilight frowned. "I would still be trying to bring Celestia back."

"Okay, consider this hypothetical that you didn't have the ability to do so," Cadance spurted impatiently. "Tell me what you would do."

There was a long pause that the unicorn couldn't break no matter how much she thought about it. All the theories and moments she thought about when she was going to fall asleep in her bed. The one moment of comfort and solace she felt during the day.

"I...I don't know," Twilight said. "I guess I just always saw myself following Princess Celestia and trying to work to gain her approval and have her be proud of me."

The alicorn smirked softly. "You really looked up to her, huh?"

"Of course," Twilight said quietly. "I just never thought that she would be assassinated by the ponies she took care of for so long."

Cadance started working on Twilight's tail before she could give another response. "Famine and politics can render anything unstable."

"But that's just the thing!" Twilight said. "Princess Celestia had a mount of reserves for just such an issue, but all the food ran out in a few years? And what even caused all the food in Equestria to go bad in the first place?" She started thinking more deeply. "I don't understand."

"Twilight, it was happening long before that. Ponies aren't strangers to famines. It's just that many ponies were starting to become dissatisfied with the crown, and I think that Princess Celestia was starting to become lax when the prison she put her sister in was starting to dissipate. Maybe the ponies felt she was putting Luna before them?" Cadance shrugged. "They know familial ties but can't understand why one would care for a member of their family even if they've fallen far." The mare's face became somber. "Ponies can do wild things in life when it comes to their family."

The lavender unicorn thought long and hard about what Cadance just said and felt like something in the back of her mind had somehow figured out what happened, although it had yet to be transferred to the front for her to 'see'.

The alicorn spoke again, breaking Twilight out of her thoughts. "Well, that's all I'll do for the time being," she said. "I've gotten some shampoo and soap ready for you in the bathroom. Go clean yourself up and then I'll fix you up a little more, alright?" She smiled and stepped off the bed.

"Could you at least undo the spell around me?" Twilight asked.

"I had already undone it a while ago," Cadance said with a wink.

Twilight's cheeks puffed up from annoyance when she moved and realized that her sister-in-law was speaking the truth.

Spike, however, was not having as 'fun' a time. The instructions given to it were pushing the magic coursing within the undead past its intended limit, which, in turn, pushed the unicorns trying to hold it down. The undead dragon found itself in a cylindrical pen of white crystal meant to keep it contained if the unicorns all fell from exhaustion. It was a small, cramped, decagon-shaped room where two doorways with no doors led into the chamber where the dragon was imprisoned. It saw ten obstacles focusing on restraining it, and every so often one or two would collapse, be taken away, then others would be brought in their place. These obstacles were draped in white robes covering their whole bodies and even hiding their horns.

The dragon knew only that it had to rejoin its master, as it was instructed. Unfortunately, it was only imbued with the ability to do as it was told and employ the memories its body possessed when confronted with a threat. This was one such threat. When the unicorns would collapse, the grip on it weakened significantly, especially when it was two of them. The instinct it had been imbued with told it to start struggling harder and harder to make the unicorns get weaker faster and overwhelm them, but there were always more waiting around. It couldn't free itself before so why would now be any different? What had changed was the frequency with which the unicorns were being swapped around, although Spike could not hear them nor understand them even if it could, it could at least interpret fatigue coming from even the newcomers.

It was now that it started struggling harder than before, making the magic animating it glow in response to the circulation it was doing throughout the undead's body and the ambient magic it was taking in the air to fuel its own animation. The ponies started screaming from pain as their horns fizzed out and they collapsed one by one. Loud ringing noises somehow penetrated the glassy cylinder Spike was in when an armored guard came upon the scene and fled the room. The bindings had all-but-vanished now, allowing the undead dragon to headbutt the container multiple times until it shattered and it was able to push through the fragments with its body.

It felt that Twilight was far above it and did its best to reach her as quickly as possible. It avoided as many guards as it could when running through the wide, sterile corridors where several ponies wearing simple white or black coats wandered the halls. Soldiers burst out from several rooms along the way Spike took and attempted to stop the undead, but it found that leaping over them was a more valuable effort than wasting time fighting them. It continued to speed through the floor it was on, following traces of Twilight's magic until it came upon a set of stairs and braced its arms above its head, blowing through the armored hatches meant to hide the floor. It ended up inside a large room where a lot of furniture, such as couches, tables, and desks were located. Most of them were occupied for a short period when Spike appeared. Said occupants ran away screaming while Spike continued on, sending tables, heavy couches, and plant-filled pots careening through the air and against the walls or elsewhere on the floors. More guards appeared as it followed the fleeing ponies, unable to understand what was happening with them.

The dragon jumped up, piercing the crystal ceiling with its fingers and using said ceiling to move forward quickly above the guards, stunning everyone. It continued like this for many, many floors until it started approaching higher ones where the throne room rested.

"What is that noise?" Shining shouted angrily as he came back from the balcony. His face paled into a gray when he saw the undead dragon headbutt its way through the doors, pulling multiple guards with it and sending them sliding across the floor like hockey pucks along with pieces of wood. "Not this again. How did you even escape?!" Spike locked eyes with him, but while Shining readied himself for a fight, the undead turned its head and ran off in the opposite direction, throwing the stallion off. "Get back here!" he ordered it as he gave chase.

Comments

[DarkSnowGaming]

They really need to learn, what they should of done was keep spike and Twilight together, I thought they learned that already.

[The Psychopath]

11838965
They don't know what will happen if Spike rejoined Twilight, and they wanted to study it to better understand how to undo necromantic spells.

[DarkSnowGaming]

11838971
I'm gonna guess the only way to do that is if the caster willingly undid the spell or if they die, either that or someone who knows just as much necromancy would have to do it but I'm gonna guess there's a high risk that they become corrupted and become power hungry as time goes on, I don't know why Twilight is different but it could either be because she is intelligent, or is good with magic, or probably the most intelligent necromancer at the moment, or she just simply can't become corrupted.

Don't know why I'm telling you this since this is your story and you can just outright prove my theories wrong in upcoming chapters.

[Lost_Data]

11838977
There is also the possibility that her goal prevents corruption, quite literally her stubbornness to complete the goal is preventing corruption. Though that says nothing should she complete the goal...

[The Psychopath]

11838977
I enjoy seeing you theorize and contemplate. It's the funnest part of writing stories.

[DarkSnowGaming]

11839378
Maybe she could figure out a new goal afterwards, would it be cheating if her goal was not to get corrupted? Seems a little to easy but it is worth a try.