//------------------------------//
// All That Is Beyond 
// Story: Dearest Beloved 
// by BlackRoseRaven 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Thirteen: All That Is Beyond
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call limped slowly along behind the spectre of his wife: she glowed in the darkness, driving away the shadows that sought to close in on them from all sides, keeping the monsters that lurked just out of sight at bay with her warmth. She kept her pace slow and gentle for him, always stopping when he needed to rest, giving him small, reassuring smiles every so often.
She had always been there for him. Even now, here she was, guiding him. Leading him on. Helping him to move forward.
“But I don't want to move on. I don't want to... leave you behind.” he whispered, and the mare looked back over her shoulder at him, with kindness, with love.
“I know.” she said, before she turned forward and gently pushed open a set of doors, leading Last Call into another octagonal room: he wondered only briefly how she could still affect things, touch things, but at this point he had given up caring about... almost everything. If she wasn't here...
“Don't think that. I don't want to lose you.” his mare said quietly, and he felt awful for even having the thought again as they stopped in front of a stone table: an altar, like the one Happenstance had been on. But this one had a body.
Her corpse wasn't beautiful: it was rotten and stank and dressed in funeral garments that had been feasted on by the worms and the other necrophages. But as he stared at her, remembering her, and as her spirit, or simulacra, or whatever it is stood beside him with her warm and tender glow, that rotten corpse transformed into the beautiful mare he had loved and lost, rolling onto her side and curling her limbs in as if asleep.
The spirit touched the body, and it glowed for a moment before the mare looked up, blinking a few times before she smiled softly, raising her head slightly towards him as she whispered: “Hey, you.”
“Hi, you.” he murmured back, and he swallowed thickly as she reached up and touched him, reaching his own hoof up to gently stroke along her foreleg before he closed his eyes.
And when he opened them, he was unsurprised to look to the side and see Silent Wish standing there, gazing at him silently. He smiled at her faintly, and then he said the only thing he could think of: “I found my wife.”
“Yes. She's... here, now, though, Last Call. She, like me... can only take short breaths.” Silent Wish said almost apologetically, and then she smiled faintly as she added: “She's very strong though. This world... she hasn't allowed it to change her at all.”
“I had my husband to think of.”  The mare studied the stallion for a moment, and then she turned back towards Silent Wish, giving her a small smile. “You helped my husband, didn't you? Thank you. I don't think this would have been possible without you.”
Silent Wish only shifted a little, smiling awkwardly as she lowered her head a bit before she murmured: “I just wish that I could have done more. I'm sorry you're trapped here. I'm sorry that... you were both right.”
Last Call laughed faintly, and then he shook his head slowly before he asked, even as he refused to remove his eyes from his beautiful, his loving, his everlost wife: “I wish it was different. I wish that I could have... I don't even... I can't fathom it. I can't imagine living without you. All the years, the days, the minutes I took for granted... I've been trapped in them, still, trying to find a way to make it up to you, trying to accept that...”
He stopped, then closed his eyes and murmured: “No. Never trying to accept. I never wanted to accept it. I still can't. You're here. You're here, and I came to rescue you...”
The mare smiled at him silently, and Last Call looked down before he whispered: “For the first time, I was ready to save you instead of myself. But I guess I was too late. I was... I was too late.”
There was silence for a few moments, before the mare said quietly: “You can still save yourself, though.”
Silent Wish hesitated, but then she nodded slowly as she said: “The Alignment is so strong in some places that there's little difference between reality and the Beyond. If it's strong enough for the Kiz to pass from their home to yours, then it's strong enough for you to go to your own world... but you could also end up in the home of the Kiz. And you don't want that. That's... that's how I died. That's why...”
Silent Wish studied herself for a moment, and then she bit her lip as she looked up and said: “The Alignment won't last forever, though. When the stars move again, the Kiz will either go home, remain here in the place just between reality and death, or they'll enter your world. The Malice will slumber or move on, while the Residue fade and the Ichor perish: they need the Malice to exist, as much as they need... us, in a sense.”
Last Call frowned slightly, but only for a moment as he returned his eyes to his wife, studying her before he said quietly: “They need us to give them form. To... to give the ideas, that fill in the holes. Lectern knew that in a way, didn't he?”
“In a sense. The Doctor knew about sacrifice, too: but he knew that it wasn't just the bodies or the risks that were the sacrifice. When the spirits were brought here, they were trapped here. Those ghosts are all the sacrificed, and without the presence of someone to make them real, to make them solid... with nothing to anchor them more than their now long-gone remains...”
Last Call closed his eyes, before his wife slid forward and silently wrapped her forelegs around him in an embrace, and he hugged her tightly back, clinging to her, trembling against her as he whispered: “I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to understand. I just want to take my wife and go home. Please, Silent Wish...”
He knew the answer already. They knew he knew the answer, but part of him refused to stop believing, refused to process anything that was going on, just selfishly, childishly continued to hope that there was some loophole, that it was all nothing but an error, an illusion, a mistake, that even if what had happened, happened, she had come back now, she was here, and why couldn't they just leave?
He knew why, but he refused to accept it.
She kissed his forehead, and he bit back a sob as he buried his face into her neck.
Last Call breathed shakily in and out, before he whispered: “I'm sorry. I love you so much. I wish... I wish it had been me.”
She only smiled faintly, soothingly stroking through his mane, filling him with warmth. Even now, she made him feel better: the pain was nothing but a dull ache in his body, less than a distraction, his tears and fears were unimportant, the feeling of loss was that much less. She was here with him, wasn't she?
Maybe that was the deadliest trap of all, here in this twisted reality.
He knew they had little time. He wanted to savour every moment of it together. He wanted to hug her, embrace her, love her, but most of all...
“No. I am. I'm so sorry.” he said quietly, trembling as he straightened and reached up to grasp her shoulders silently, looking into her eyes as he swallowed a little. He gazed at her, and she looked back with love, and compassion, and empathy he could never match. She had always been so warm, so giving, so utterly perfect, and he... he had dragged her down.
The least he could do was put aside his own feelings this one time, as he looked down for a moment, before he looked up and met her eyes. And here, in this twisted reality, he didn't need the words to speak, or to remember. He hugged her close as he rose his head, and he stared off into the distance as he lived through it again, as he watched drowned memories blossom in front of his eyes as much as in his mind.
He remembered that they had argued, but that was only the prelude. She had gotten so upset and he had shouted and barked. He hated himself for it: he was like a stupid dog, and he couldn't apologize enough for the fact he still wasn't able to learn to just talk rationally... that his first defence when he was scared or upset was getting mad, because it was easier to get upset or get drunk than it was to deal with things like a grown stallion.
He was so sorry for it. But what he was truly sorry was afterwards.
Last Call saw it all, remembered it all, lived through it again: there he was, alone in the house, with nothing to do. Miserable. Hating himself. Why had they fought over something so stupid?
He knew why. Because she wanted to help, but he didn't really want help, did he? Easier to be miserable. Easier to sulk and drink away his pain. So what, it was eight in the morning, who cared? He didn't have anyone to impress. She was the happy one. She was pretty, ponies flirted and joked with her, and even if he was there they just ignored him and she always treated him like a goddamn colt...
He sulked in the past, and in the present, or the future, or the whenever of this broken reality, Last Call whispered: “I'm sorry.”
His wife touched his face gently, and Last Call closed his eyes for a moment, hearing the reassurance, feeling her love, even now, for him. There he had been, stumbling around, drunk and stupid and angry for no reason, but she soothed him and said it was okay that he had been sad. Apologized, even, but that brought tears to his eyes, as he whispered: “Don't ever apologize. No, not for that. Not for... treating me better than I deserve. Not for trying to push me to be a stallion instead of a... a stupid dog.”
They watched again, as the Last Call of the past finished off his third bottle of beer. He tossed it into the sink... or rather, at the sink. It bounced off the countertop and hit the floor instead, shattering: he had always been a lightweight.
He wondered vaguely how many more bits they'd have saved if they had put that money away instead of into alcohol.
A lot, he reflected.
Last Call ignored the broken glass as he stormed over to the alcohol cupboard. He grabbed one of the bottles of whisky, and knocked it back straight from the neck. He was already in an angry fuzz: now he was quickly descending into stupid drunkenness.
Sure, he hadn't wanted to remember this day at all, wanted to just pretend it had never happened. But he thought the alcohol had likely helped him block all of this out. He drank a lot, but he rarely drank like this, and so early in the morning.
Unkempt, unwashed, naked, and half-drunk, Last Call got the brilliant idea that he was going to go out and tell that mare a thing or two. But no sooner was he out the door than he realized he was hungry, forgot where he had been going, and instead went wandering.
The other ponies he passed were blurs and shapes, that was all. There were few discernible landmarks through the haze of alcohol clouding his vision. He snorted, then snuffled, then spat to the side before he wheeled awkwardly around, likely not even realizing he was heading in a different direction now.
He ended up wandering down the highway towards Canterlot, not paying attention to where he was going. Everyone tried to avoid him, as much as possible: not that he was making it easy, with his twisting and his stumbling and his swerving.
And then it happened: he stumbled into the path of a wagon. The wagon tried to twist to the side, and instead ended up sideswiping him as the driver shouted at him angrily. It hit Last Call hard across the face and knocked him off the road, rolling down into the underbrush with a rattle and thud.
Did he hit his head? Or had he just been that drunk? Either way, he passed out. And when he woke up, it was dark, and he was lost and confused as he crawled out of the forest.
Back home, the mare was worried, afraid. And for the first time he realized how much it had hurt her. How scared she had been, finding the broken bottle, the ajar door leading out, the mess he'd left the house in: had someone attacked him? Had he hurt himself? Had he left in anger?
It hurt him so badly that she had been the most afraid of the last. He couldn't believe she'd be afraid of that, of all things. 
It hurt so badly, to see her tears in these shared memories. But it was a pain he deserved, he knew. And before she could apologize, he hugged her, so tight that he was afraid she would break, as he whispered: “No. I'm sorry. You've never had to be sorry. You've never been the one who... screwed it all up. I'm sorry.”
He remembered how it had been late, and he had been hungover and sick and confused, and he had picked a direction and just started walking. He had realized a few hours too late he was stumbling towards Canterlot, but he just kept going. He still had a few bridges he hadn't entirely burned there.
He managed to find a place to stay, friends to take him in. They forced him to shower and clean himself up. He laughed a little over it with them.
His mare was crying, at home, afraid, miserable in the too-big, empty bed.
He hated himself. 
She heard in the morning where he was. She said she was coming to get him. 
He could have walked back home at any time, but he was lazy. Enjoying leeching off their hospitality, having fun. Convincing his 'friends' to have a drink with them. They did so, if just to shut him up, and because he promised to play an old tune for them.
He did better than that. They went down to the bar, where the morning drunks were all gathered, and he sang and he played the guitar and people laughed and tipped him money. 
He was playing music while his mare walked from the little village to Canterlot to get him.
He was playing music, singing songs, getting drunk off shots, while his mare got caught up in the busy traffic heading into Canterlot in the early morning: the supply wagons, the food caravans, the workers all trying to get to their day jobs in the city.
And then it had happened: the tethers of one of the overloaded wagons had snapped, and it had come rolling, tumbling backwards. There had been a panic, ponies wildly shoving at each other to try and get out of the way.
He hadn't known what had happened. But now he saw, saw how the tired mare had reacted too slowly, been pushed, shoved, herded to the edge, and then she had slipped and tumbled over the guardrail, down the mountainside.
It mixed sickening with his memories of the bar: it was like he was seeing both at once, how, as he had been at the piano, badly hammering out a tune that they had all been singing along too, she had crashed down the rocks. Every chord he hammered on the piano seemed to mirror her body as she struck jagged stone and bounced limply down the mountainside, until she hit the ground as ponies roared and Last Call simply slammed his hooves against the piano.
He remembered there had been a sense of emptiness. A brief thought, about his wife.
And then it had turned to 'where is she?'
And then someone shouted for another, and he shouted back: “Another drink!”
He got drunk again. They all did. They laughed as they dispersed. This time, he wasn't so drunk he couldn't find his way out of Canterlot.
He walked right past the accident. He saw now, remembered now, how he glanced at the marked guardrail and the investigators, and he had thought: What kind of idiot falls down a cliff?
“Must have been drunk.” Last Call whispered, and then he laughed brokenly, clenching his eyes shut as he hugged her so fiercely, trembling in pain, only now seeing the error in his words. Only now fully understanding... “Oh g-god...”
She embraced him back, gave him the strength to witness, remember the rest. How he had gone home. How he had crawled into bed, figuring she had just gone to work. How he had been vaguely irritated that she hadn't been there for him. Work had always been more important to her, though. Pah, why couldn't she take a day off for him?
“I should have died instead of you.” Last Call whispered, and then he shook his head slowly as he grasped into her, looking up at her as tears fell from his eyes. Because now he knew the truth: he knew how much he had mattered to her. He knew how pathetic, how miserable, how utterly worthless he was. He knew... how much she had suffered, before she had... died. “I'm so sorry.”
She only stroked his face silently. How many times had they gone through that dance? How many times had they argued, because of something stupid he'd done, and how many times had she gone the extra mile to try and make sure he was okay, to try and help him, heal him? How deep and infinite was her love?
How fickle and stupid was he, to be unable to see that? To be upset by the tiniest things? To have always thought so little of her, when she had been his entire universe?
He hated himself.
And he had been unable to cope, unable to live with the thought of her gone. The sheriff had told him, and he'd cried like a baby. He had never attended her funeral. Too hard, too hard, he had whined and whimpered, and he'd gotten drunk instead.
He had holed himself up inside the house. Never leaving his office, never touching all the things that had been theirs. Any room they had shared, he passed through like a ghost, trying to keep perfect, so that he would never be without her.
Until he'd convinced himself she wasn't really gone. That hadn't been hard, though: it had started with just talking to the air, confessions, pointless apologies. Then it had moved into talking to her, and then having whole conversations with her that had graduated from mental to him, wandering around the house, like she was really there.
He spent a lot of time drunk, and a lot of time forgetting things. Well, that door was open, and he remembered closing it, so therefore there was someone else in the house; all those little things had started to add up in his broken, miserable mind, until one day, he'd forgotten the past, and there he was. Every day, he woke up to the same dream: the mare was in the house, taking care of him, doing all her chores perfectly, as she'd always done, before going to work.
No one had minded. No one had understood at first, he thought. He said things like “my wife is keeping me out of trouble,” and they thought he was talking about the memory of her. And if it helped him not wander around the town, drunk, then no one saw the point in trying to fix him.
The kind ones probably hoped it gave him peace, he thought.
The rest of them probably knew he deserved to suffer a little. More than a little.
He looked up at her, trembling, and she silently took his face in her hooves before she kissed his forehead and said softly: “I love you. I want you to know that. No matter what, I love you, and I have always loved you. I wouldn't be able to be here if I didn't love you. And you wouldn't have been able to be here, if you didn't love me. Last Call, I-”
“He's coming.” Silent Wish interrupted suddenly, and Last Call shifted, blinking rapidly as if awakening from a dream, before the filly blurted out: “He's coming!”
“Run away, Last Call. Leave. I'll stop him. I... understand them a little.” his wife said fearlessly, and Last Call stared at her. But she only smiled at him, tender, loving, before she looked into the darkness as the octagonal room seemed to stretch, as the walls distorted and warped around them, as black ichor began to spill down from the cracks and crevices in the stone.
Last Call looked at her as she carefully pushed him backwards, before he looked back towards a set of doors that had appeared in the now-distant wall, trembling violently, like they were struggling to keep themselves sealed. A way out: a way away from the dark hole forming in the walls ahead of them, that his wife bravely faced, stepping forward as if-
“You don't have to face this alone. I won't... I'm here. I'm not leaving you. I'm never going to abandon you again, and...” Last Call trembled, then he looked from her to Silent Wish, breathing a little harder before he almost ordered: “Get out of here! I know that he can hurt you both, whatever the hell he is. I'll... I'll distract him, figure out a way to lose him, but you get the hell out of here!”
“Last Call-” she began, but he shook his head firmly, looked at her desperately, and she met his eyes before swallowing thickly and nodding, turning to stumble away.
Silent Wish smiled at him faintly, then she turned to quickly follow after the mare as Last Call turned around-
It was right in front of him: the Vorpal, the dark and infinite thing that should not be from before. Last Call flinched at the sight of it, trembling and stepping back for a moment before he steeled himself as he forced himself to look up at this spectacular and unknowable beast.
The Vorpal seemed to gaze back at him, and oh, how it hurt to look at, how it hurt to experience, but at the same time, he saw... were those memories, or flashes of recognition, or just feelings, squirming their way into his brain like whispers from the Vorpal? He couldn't tell. But he felt his wife turn behind him, felt her own recognition, and it gave the stallion strength and courage enough to look up and whisper weakly: “Help us.”
The Vorpal was... it was not surprise, but similar. And it was intrigued. But Last Call knew it would take more than that alone, and he trembled before he continued: “I'll do anything to save my wife. Anything at all. P-Please... even if you're only just curious about us, interested in us... even if you just want to be entertained, then give me a chance to stop Happenstance. Just give me a chance. Wouldn't... wouldn't that be interesting? Maybe that's something you've never seen before. Please, let me... I want to save my wife! I love her!”
“Please, love is not 'interesting.'” said a derisive voice, and Last Call flinched before he gritted his teeth: the Vorpal was gone, and Happenstance was strolling towards him, looking around with boredom before he remarked: “Love? I've seen countless loves. The first one or two you see, maybe they could count as 'interesting.' But then after that? It's all the same. Boring. Simple psychology. And in the end, the cowards always run.”
Happenstance halted in front of Last Call, then he smiled before he clapped his hooves together, saying conversationally: “Lectern didn't survive this time. Of course, I can't take all the credit, as much as I might like to! You idiots craft your own nightmares, your own demises... even the mediums. But it doesn't matter anymore. I've had my fun and I'm getting very bored of this persona, but before I consume you, Last Call, I wanted to know what it's like to be an entertainer. Can you teach me to play guitar? I promise I'm a fast learner.”
Happenstance smiled at him, eyes glittering, daring him to resist and ordering him to submit, and Last Call looked at him for a few moments before he whispered: “I love my wife and I'm not going to let you hurt her. I'm not going to run away.”
Happenstance looked at him critically, and then he simply glanced past him, and the mare screamed in misery, stumbling backwards as the glow around her flickered, as beauty became cadaver for a moment before the mare caught her breath in a whoop and steadied herself, trembling as Silent Wish shouted: “Stop it!”
Happenstance clucked his tongue, then he scolded: “Children should be seen and not heard. That's a rule from the past I've become very fond of even now, you... oh! Oh, wait, I recognize you now, yes! You're the Doctor's little girl, aren't you?”
Silent Wish's eyes widened, the filly trembling violently as she looked up at Happenstance, who smiled smugly before he asked mockingly: “Do you want to see him again? I can arrange for that to happen, you know. Of course, we'll have to go to a multitude of places... but I'm curious, do you think if we gathered up every single piece of him scattered across all the dimensions, do you think we could paste him back together?”
Silent Wish bared her fangs, but her eyes filled with tears as she hissed at him like a cat. Happenstance only laughed, however, before he suddenly stepped forward and slapped Last Call out of the way like a toy, and the stallion hit the ground with a scream as all the pain of his broken body came flooding back.
Happenstance simply glared at Silent Wish, and she was flung back against the doors with enough force to splinter them before his eyes flicked to the mare, who trembled violently. But a moment later, Happenstance halted, and instead his gaze shifted behind her with a snarl of disgust. “Oh, what do you want?”
Behind her, the Vorpal floated, and Last Call trembled as he looked up, feeling the ominousness radiating from it. Happenstance seemed unimpressed, however, cocking his head at it before he laughed shortly. “Yours? No, the mare is part of a set of toys, all of which belong to me. Do not forget your place, little one. I am-”
There was a twisting, a surging-forward, and then Happenstance stumbled backwards with an unearthly scream as his face and part of his body was slashed through. His pony body tore like rubber, a blast of black smoke and ichor erupting from the wound as his hooves staggered wildly back and forth, tentacles and acid vomiting out of his jaws as his eyes became black pits that devoured the light around him-
And then, with a disgusting slurp, Happenstance's jaws worked as he swallowed the alien tendrils, sticky drool flying from his jaws as his mouth snapped closed before he shoved a hoof against the size of his muzzle, hacking and snorting with a disgusting, sludgy sound like he was sucking back snot. He smacked his lips a few times, then stretched idly to the side; he scowled, but the expression was forced and plastic, his bloated pony body seeming to hang off a twisted and mutant shape that was too large for it to contain, the wound in his chest a deep, horrific black pulsing and edged with white, the not-flesh of the pony suit he wore twitching and writhing around it.
He gurgled something in a language that hurt Last Call's ears at the Vorpal. And the Vorpal replied in a flood of images and thoughts that tore through the minds of all present, making them tremble in pain as Happenstance only scowled. But at the same time, Last Call felt the strangest feeling flood through his mind as much as pain. He saw strange and childlike images that seemed to be for him, and for him alone, crayon drawings and sunrises and a memory of his wedding day. He felt, as much as saw, a promise that things were going to be okay.
The pain was gone. Last Call breathed quietly as he climbed to his hooves, but Happenstance was oblivious to him as he snarled: “Ignorance! Perhaps you're the one who is too much like them! Their 'best' or their 'worst' qualities, it does not matter... they are less than the gn'rtra to us, why should I care what...”
Happenstance's eyes flicked to the side, and then he spun towards Last Call, who faced him resolutely even though that wound seemed to have a hideous pull of its own, and the eyes of the not-pony were dark and endless pits filled only with malice, as Happenstance asked in a growl: “What do you want?”
“Why are you here?” Last Call asked: he had no idea why he was asking, why it mattered, and Happenstance snorted in derision before he looked irritably in the direction where the Vorpal had been. But it was gone again; or rather, it was gone from sight, its presence still very much lurking around them, and Last Call felt like Happenstance was tracing after it, keeping an eye on it even as the not-pony faced the stallion.
“I told you. My desires are my own. I do as I please, as I like. If it pleased me to, I would leave you all behind... but as it is, I am irritated, and you are a source of that irritation, Last Call.” Happenstance growled, before he frowned when Last Call smiled wryly.
“Those all sound like very pony emotions.” he said, before he gasped in pain when Happenstance flung him across the room with only a glare, crashing into the stone wall opposite with a grunt.
“I am no 'pony!'” Happenstance roared in frustration, before he reached up and tore the wound in his body wider, revealing more of that putrid blackness inside of him: it writhed and twisted, full of evil shapes and twisting darkness, full of hate and pain and suffering. It wasn't like the Vorpal: this thing was cruel, and monstrous, and terrible. And, Last Call realized with a strange sense of satisfaction, it wasn't beyond their understanding. It wasn't like the Vorpal, infinite and limitless and confusing and everything at once. It was... simple. Disgusting, horrifying, and terribly, vilely simple.
“You're a monster. That's all you are. Whatever you were once, you've spent so long here, so long playing these games... is that what the Kiz are? Insubstantial, shapeless, until they find the thing they want to become? Do they come from beyond the stars just to study us, or are they looking to become more? Do you bend our reality because you exist... or because you want to exist?” Last Call asked, before he winced when Happenstance appeared in front of him, slamming him back against the bleeding cement and pinning him there, as waterfalls of black ichor slowly, stickily flowed down past the stallion and over his body.
“I do not care for your rambling.” Happenstance said contemptibly, before he frowned and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowing at the sight of the mare glaring at him. “Are you that eager to-”
“Let go of my husband, please.” the mare said quietly, and Happenstance smiled in contempt.
“Or what?” he asked with disgust, pushing harder into Last Call, sliding him further up the wall as he rasped in pain and looked back and forth. And yet as much as it hurt, it was something physical, something to cling to, something anchored in this reality.
But this reality was bending: the ceiling was growing higher above them, the walls were shivering as they bled, the altar was trembling. The Vorpal was bending reality, and other monsters were moving at the edges of Last Call's vision: things in the shadows, lured by the hate and the anger. Ghosts, whispering back and forth among themselves, staring at the not-pony. Shadows and shapes that Happenstance seemed as oblivious to as Toadsfall had been to the monsters he had chased away; to the monster that had dragged him off to a fate worse than death.
“Because there's countless pony spirits trapped here, and while the Malice bend reality, they don't create the Residue. You can control the Residue and the Ichor, you can create bending in reality to manipulate us, to make our fears come after us, to make our hate turn on us... but we aren't scared of the dark, or hating ourselves, or blindly angry. There's a hole here; what will you do when reality fills it in?” asked the mare. “What do you think will happen if it fills in with hatred?”
“You aren't making sense. Has your poor mind broken already?” taunted the creature as it flung Last Call to the ground, and he coughed and spluttered before he looked grimly up.
“That's a very mortal thing to say.” Last Call whispered, and when Happenstance glared down at him, he asked before the monster could kick him: “Who did you kill first?”
“Personally? Many. But I was responsible for many more.” bragged Happenstance, as he rose his head, before he scowled when he sensed a presence behind him, snorting in disgust before he turned around-
Something stared down at him. Something with a thousand heads and a thousand eyes and a thousand bitter souls. It was monumental, so great and enormous it should not have been able to fit in the room, standing upon legs made from the melted-together limbs of ten thousand corpses. Happenstance stared at it, then he stumbled backwards, and his plastic face twisted into an expression of shock before he snorted and said contemptibly: “Oh, is this supposed to-”
The thousand-beast opened a hundred mouths that formed one immense jaw, screaming at him, and Happenstance staggered backwards with a look of disbelief before he leaned forward and snarled: “You are still nothing more than worthless mortals, no matter how many of you-”
A thousand jaws snapped down and seized into Happenstance, and he screamed in shock and disbelief as he was tossed into the air before the goliath swallowed him whole, then leapt down into the ground, passing harmlessly through it. Yet even as it left, Last Call could hear Happenstance screaming, shrieking in denial and disbelief: even as his pony disguise was shredded and his true form was revealed, he was devoured, torn into, ripped and wrenched apart, punished by the countless souls he had tormented.
Happenstance, after all, had stopped being something unfathomable: a being of beyond or not, he had become something they could all understand, that they could literally see the darkness, the malice, within him.
And as Last Call had learned from Toadsfall, monsters could prey upon other monsters.
The stallion shook his head slowly, and then he looked up: the room had returned to normal, and the mare was standing beside the altar, silently rubbing across it. Silent Wish was sitting near the doorway, her head lowered, looking strangely... sad, he thought. Their audience, of beasts and ghosts, had vanished, but the presence of the Vorpal lingered.
It had bent reality for them. Did that mean that maybe-
“No. That's not how it works. The Vorpal helped us stop Happenstance because you were right. Happenstance lost himself. Became something... else. Something wicked. Something tainted by the evils of this world. I think... I think he's going to leave now. Go back to his home, beyond the stars. This world is too dangerous for them, as strange as that may sound. They only hurt the people they want to study. Or worse, these people... hurt them.” 
The mare quieted, and then she looked over at Last Call as she said quietly: “The Alignment is going to end soon. But we have one last place to go, Last Call. One last thing to do, before you can leave. One last thing to face together. Are you ready?”
Last Call looked at the mare for a few moments, and then he smiled faintly before he lowered his head, saying quietly: “The Vorpal is curious. Happenstance was a test. It just wanted to see what I would do. Things were never out of its control. Now it wants to see...”
He quieted, then he looked across at the mare, the two gazing at one another for the longest time before Last Call asked: “Are you really my wife? Or are you that... Vorpal, that other-being? Are you her spirit, or my memories of her, or a creation to... what, test love? To see-”
“The Vorpals study every emotion. Want to know everything about us. Some consume us. Some become us. Some even befriend us. But all of it is to learn about us. I don't ultimately know why: I think their reasons are ultimately beyond us.” 
The mare looked down, chewing on her lip before she said quietly: “I wanted to save you. I love you, with all my heart and my soul. I wish you weren't here and yet... I'm... I'm so happy that you are. Does that make sense? I don't know. 
“I only know that, even if the Vorpal helped us, at the same time, we... I know it doesn't care deeply enough to help us for no reason. That's why it's allowed... other people to help you, but rarely stepped in itself.” She glanced over at Silent Wish, who smiled faintly as her gaze shifted down, rubbing slowly at her eyes. “I miss you, Last Call. I love you. But I want you to be safe and free. I know when this is all done, I'll be free, too. But I'll... move on. And you'll... you have to stay here. You have a long life ahead of you still. I'll... I'll be waiting for you, wherever I go-”
“I'll never get there.” Last Call smiled faintly, whispering: “If there is something else beyond, I think that I'm going to... a worse place than you are.”
“I wouldn't be happy without you. I've never been.” she said honestly, and it hurt. It hurt so badly, and yet... it made him smile, so widely, even as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I know. I'm sorry. I... I love you, Faith.” he said quietly, and the mare smiled at him radiantly.
She laughed, then lowered her head and whispered: “Thought you'd forgotten my name.”
“I never did. I just was too scared to say it. I've never felt that I've deserved Faithful Heart.” he murmured, and the mare smiled at him again before she stepped forward, then bit her lip and nodded, hesitating as she cocked her head as if listening to an unheard voice.
She turned towards the doors, looking at them for a few long moments before she nodded once more and murmured: “We have to go, Last Call. It's time.”
“It's time.” Last Call echoed, and he took a slow breath before he straightened. He followed her around the altar to the doors, and Silent Wish pushed them open, but didn't follow: this was something Last Call had to do alone. This was the final, the last thing he could do for his wife, as they walked down a long corridor together, first into the darkness, and then, into light.