//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Onryō: A Cursed Haunting In Equestria // by Razalon The Lizardman //------------------------------// “Well, that’s that,” Moon Dancer said as she levitated the last shovelful of dirt into the makeshift grave, before patting it flat. Lemon Hearts rubbed her fore hooves together, doing her best to keep warm in spite of the cool nighttime air. “You think we should say a few words, or something?” she asked, looking mournfully down at Snowy’s grave. Moon Dancer shrugged. “We didn’t know him. Besides, he wanted this.” She gestured with her head back toward the mansion. “C’mon, let’s get back to the others.” The two of them first brought their shovels back to the garden shed by the side of the mansion, before making their way to the front door. “As soon as we get back to the lodge, we’re gonna send for a messenger chariot,” Moon Dancer said along the way. “The princesses need to know about what’s happened here as soon as possible.” Her eyes took on a dark glint, piercing through the nighttime air. “Necromancy has been outlawed for the past five hundred years, and they’re gonna want to search the mansion for any corresponding spellbooks so they can destroy them.” Lemon Hearts nodded her agreement with a smile. “It’s a good thing I have a connection with Canterlot Castle, then.” “Mhmm.” They opened the newly unlocked front door and slipped inside. Immediately, they were surprised to see that all the lights were out, once again bathing the mansion in darkness. “What the...?” Moon Dancer looked into the living room. Twinkleshine and Minuette were nowhere to be found. “Moon Dancer, look at this.” Moon Dancer followed Lemon Hearts’ voice, noticing her friend pointing to something on the floor. She followed her hoof to find a spread of glass scattered across the hallway. Looking up, she confirmed it belonged to the wall light. That explained why the hallway was dark again. “What do you think did this?” Lemon Hearts asked. Moon Dancer shook her head. “I don’t know.” She turned around and stuck her head into the living room again. “Minuette!? Twinkleshine!? Is everything alright!?” Silence. “C’mon girls, no jokes please!” she called. “What happened to the lights!?” Nothing. Moon Dancer trotted into the room, casting a light spell. Back and forth she swept her horn, looking for any sign of her friends, but found nothing. Perhaps they’d left to explore the mansion out of boredom? That theory was quickly pushed aside, as surely Twinkleshine would’ve stayed behind if Minuette wanted to go explore more. Moon Dancer felt a chill run along her spine as genuine panic began to settle in. She came further into the room, searching every square inch of the floor for any sign of a scuffle, or hoof prints, or anything that would help her understand what happened to her friends. She heard Lemon Hearts follow along behind her, and a quick glance back revealed her friend looked to be every bit as concerned for their friends as she was feeling. She made her way toward the far corner of the room. Suddenly, she felt a gooey substance cling to her hooves. Confused, her shined her light downward, and only grew more confused at the purple gunk smeared across the floor. “What is this?” she heard Lemon Hearts say behind her. Moon Dancer was about to reply when a flash of blue and white appeared within her horn’s light. “Minuette!” She took a few steps forward. “What’re you do–” It was like somepony had stabbed her brain with a cold stake. Moon Dancer’s breath caught in her throat while her entire body went rock still. Her mind failed to comprehend what she was seeing in front of her. Minuette’s severed lower body sat still and lifeless in a pool of pasty guts, like a rock in a puddle of mud. Through the darkness, the faint outline of another shape caught Moon Dancer’s attention. Shining her light over it almost made her gag at the sight of Minuette’s crushed skull. An eyeball hung loosely from its socket, dangling just above the floor in front of her friend’s bloody, smashed face. Lemon Hearts’ reaction was a shrill shriek of horror which could’ve reached all the way to the top floors, breaking the calm tranquility of the mansion with her ear-piercing wail. Moon Dancer stared dumbly, her mind an unorganized mess of possible reactions and emotions. Too shocked was she to react or make a coherent response at first, her mind working to comprehend the horror she was witnessing. “Twinkleshine!?” she managed to finally say. “Where are you–!?” That’s when she saw it. Her horn light passed over another figure resting on the floor, a little ways ahead of Minuette’s front half. Moon Dancer settled her light on the figure, and this time actually did gag at what she saw. Twinkleshine’s corpse lay on the floor nearby the corner. The large battle axe Minuette had brought earlier was embedded in her skull, just next to her horn. Small trails of blood trickled down her friend’s lifeless face onto the floor, her eyes glazed over and mouth open in a permanent state of shock. Moon Dancer fell to her haunches. Once again, her mind all but shut down while trying to make sense of what was happening. Everything had been just fine when she and Lemon Hearts left not a mere half hour ago, and yet, somehow in that short stretch of time, both of her friends had been brutally slain. And that’s when it finally hit her. Her friends were dead. Moon Dancer’s eyes turned misty and her breaths became choked sobs. She buried her face in her hooves, letting the tears mat her hair and fall through to the floor, mixing in with the blood around their hooves. Lemon Hearts was quick to join, and the two cried together in the dark for some time. The how of their friends’ deaths didn’t matter, only that they were gone from this world. Memories of their friends rose to the surface of their minds. Happy memories of the four of them playing hoofball in the park, or strolling through Canterlot’s market district on the lookout for interesting knick-knacks, or even that very vacation, and all the sightseeing they’d done before winding up in the mansion. It was enough to eventually help them calm down enough to get back up and start thinking coherently. “We need to get back to the lodge,” Lemon Hearts said, panic gripping her voice as she cast her eyes about the room. “Whatever did this might still be in this mansion.” “It’s still too dark outside,” Moon Dancer argued. “And too cold too. We’ll freeze before we can figure out where we’re going.” “Our friends are dead for Celestia’s sake!” Lemon Hearts cried, grabbing Moon Dancer’s withers and shaking them. “We need to get out of here! Now!” “Get your hooves off me!” Moon Dancer cried back. She shoved Lemon Hearts off of her and straightened her sweater. “I know, Lemon. I’m trying to remain logical so we don’t end up joining them.” She fought to suppress another choking sob as she said that. “Well then what do we do?” Moon Dancer was about to respond when the sound of a hoofstep from above caught her attention. She turned her head up toward the ceiling, her attention squarely on the floor above. Whatever, or whoever, was up there might’ve killed their friends; the thought of blasting the ceiling apart as an act of revenge briefly crossed her mind. The ceiling above creaked and groaned as a series of hoofsteps strode across, more plaster falling with each step. Moon Dancer tracked the path with her horn over their heads, all the way across the ceiling before stopping next to a newly formed hole at the spot where she remembered plaster was falling earlier. Then all was silent. Moon Dancer and Lemon Hearts waited for something to happen. Anything. Moon Dancer could feel Lemon Hearts shaking behind her. She didn’t blame her friend. Moon Dancer was feeling more afraid now than she’d ever been in her life. She wanted to bolt from the mansion, but her logical side combined with her scientific desire for answers was winning out. When nothing happened for a good minute, Moon Dancer shined her horn's light over the hole. Nothing but empty darkness greeted her. “C-Can we p-p-please go now?” Lemon Hearts stuttered. Moon Dancer sighed, and turned to her friend with a comforting smile. “Okay. I’ll grab a blanket or something and then we’ll spend the rest of the night outside. Can you wait another minute?” Lemon Hearts sighed. “Okay. I can do tha–” Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes bulged. Her mouth opened and closed with mumbled gibberish as she pointed a shaky hoof toward the ceiling. Moon Dancer swiveled her head around up to where she was pointing, and repeated her friends’ actions. Soulless black eyes, attached to a faded, white pony head, stared back down at them. Fury, more palpable and intense than anything either mare had ever experienced, or indeed, thought was possible, shot through their very beings, paralyzing their senses. Every trace of sorrow they previously felt for their friends was eradicated, replaced by sheer horror. The three locked gazes for a few seconds before the white pony retracted from view. Instantly, Moon Dancer and Lemon Hearts felt their senses return to normal. Before they could begin to process what had happened, however, a flicker of movement in the hole caught Moon Dancer’s eyes. She looked, and in the space of light her spell created, was shocked to see a mass of shadows pouring out of the hole. Down the wall it crawled, moving in undulating waves, like something out of a nightmare. As soon as the shadow mass reached the floor, it came straight towards her and Lemon Hearts. She was barely aware of her own actions. Her hooves practically moved of their own accord, fueled by little more than pure, raw survival instinct. Everything was a blur as Moon Dancer pounded the floorboards, bolting from the living room to the foyer and the front door. She had it open in an instant, and was outside in another. She was about to slam the door closed, but a flash of yellow halted her action for just long enough, before she did actually slam the door. The two friends spent the next several moments catching their breath, while their minds tried and failed several times to process what had just happened. Moon Dancer, especially, found herself at quite the loss for an explanation. Or, at least, one that she wanted to agree with. Ghosts? Total rubbish. That’s what her academic self had always known, while her scared, little filly self that had long since passed away believed in. Now that scared little filly Moon Dancer was resurrected, while her academic self was getting beaten up for its inability to rationally explain everything that she’d just seen. “What in Equestria was that?” Lemon Hearts practically cried. Moon Dancer sighed. “You’re asking the wrong mare.” She turned back to the front door. “What we just saw…” She shook her head, and turned back to Lemon Hearts. “I don’t know. I was too shocked to really make sense of anything.” “It might’ve been a trick of the light or something, but…” Lemon Hearts paused for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts. “... Did that, uh… ‘ghost’ have a mustache?” Moon Dancer blinked. “Did it what?” Lemon Hearts shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, it looked like it did, at least to me.” Moon Dancer wracked her memory of the terrifying encounter, trying to recall such a detail of the ‘ghost’, as it apparently had to be called. But nothing came up; she’d been too distracted by its sheer presence to make out specific details of its appearance. “I’ll take your word for it,” she replied, and gave Lemon Hearts an inquisitive glance. “Why should that matter?” “Well, that family portrait in the hallway featured a pony with a mustache,” Lemon Hearts explained. “I-I think he’s Winter Vista, from that journal entry.” “So you’re saying that was his ghost–” Moon Dancer cringed speaking that word out loud, “–back there?” as “I guess he didn’t want to say goodbye to his family, even after death.” A tear fell down Lemon Hearts’ face as she looked downcast. “It’s so sad…” Moon Dancer could only sit on her haunches and rub her temples. Through all the insanity she’d experienced, she was still determined to use logic to solve the presented problem. They were stuck outside in the freezing cold night, with the vengeful ghost of some old baron or whatever preventing them from going back inside for warmth. They would need to placate Winter Vista’s ghost in order to make it through the night. To that end, Moon Dancer wracked her brain for any and all information regarding ghosts she’d managed to accidently come across in her lifetime. The most widely accepted trait of ghosts, she remembered, was that they remain bound to the mortal realm because of unfinished business or extreme despair from their time alive. They had to help Winter Vista overcome whatever problem was keeping him from moving on, and Moon Dancer had a good idea as to what that was based on everything that was in the journal. Winter’s ghost didn’t appear until after she’d ended the spell keeping Snowy’s corpse alive. It made sense that would’ve sparked his rage, living or dead, to see his son taken away from him by four total strangers, trespassing on his property no less. Swan Song’s journal entry indicated she was going to commit suicide, and if she did so before she became aware of her husband’s spirit haunting the mansion, it would make sense he’d also be upset to lose her so soon after losing his son. With all this information, Moon Dancer formed what she hoped would be the right plan to placate Winter’s ghost. Whether vengeful spirits were want to listen to reason, she didn’t know, but she could certainly hope and pray this one would. All they needed were both Snowy Pine and Swan Song’s corpses. They knew exactly where Snowy was, and Moon Dancer had a hunch she knew where Swan Song was as well. “Okay, I have a plan,” she finally said, drawing Lemon Hearts’ attention. “I don’t know how much merit it actually has, but I get the feeling it just might work.” Lemon Hearts blinked. “... Okay,” she said, warily. “This is what we’re gonna do,” Moon Dancer began explaining. “We’re gonna present Winter’s family to him to show him he needs to move on. If he’s stuck as a ghost because he’s upset his family is gone, then maybe we can convince him to move on by making him realize that his family is waiting for him on the… other side.” Lemon Hearts’ expression turned to concern as she appeared to process Moon Dancer’s explanation. “I… guess that makes sense, but…" Her expression turned nervous. "... Do we really need to go back inside?” “Yes,” Moon Dancer said, neutrally. Lemon Hearts sighed. “Okay. But we don’t know where Swan Song is at, do we?” “I think I know.” Moon Dancer turned and began crossing the front lawn toward the treeline. “Go dig up Snowy’s body!” she called back. “I’ll be back with Swan Song really soon!” Moon Dancer was well past the treeline before she could hear Lemon Hearts’ reply.