His office was warm, regardless of how cold it might be for those who worked for him at his lumberyard. He had a stove with a cheery fire in it. Derpy, the mail pony, had just left to the jangling of the door chime.
Sawnax snorted as he read the red bordered letter that Derpy had just delivered.
“Dratted Creditors! How are they gonna try to collect, anyway!?”
He wadded the paper like material of the letter and tossed it into his office stove. The fire went a ghastly greenish blue, flaring a long tongue of that flame back to his desk!
There, on the blotter, lay the red bordered letter. There was not a crease or scorch mark on it!
The big brown earth pony, with the angry red scar on his left shoulder, ripped the offending letter into small fragments and took them out to the muddy lumberyard where his employee, Leroy, was loading a cart with timbers for someone’s job.
He sourly saw that the cart could not even be shorted a few timbers. Constable Crager and the pony picking up the load were there and taking no nonsense.
He just dropped the fragments of the letter into the mud and trod them into mush!
He was hardly surprised when he found the unblemished letter of collection on his desk, waiting for him.
He tried to just cover the letter with ink. The ink rolled off, leaving the letter unmarred.
He glowered at it and read it again, for the last time. It said:
Dear Sawnax:
When you were nine years of age, your soul and body were possessed by the Underworld being, CLAFICUS.
At that time, through the intervention of the leader of the Assembly of Celestia and Luna, Reverend Smallflower, CLAFICUS relinquished his possession of you, on the condition that you would lead a good life thereafter.
As you have made no effort to be or do any good thing since then, in spite of the many opportunities given you, CLAFICUS has petitioned for and been granted your soul to be his for all time to come.
This notice is a courtesy of the Underworld, to allow you two hours to set your affairs in order before CLAFICUS sunders your soul from your body, which will result in your immediate death as mortals understand such things.
Sincerely, THE COUNCIL OF THE THREE
His office door chimes jangled as the door opened. There was nopony there! A shadow fell across his desk with no pony to cast it! He felt a ghastly rending in his chest!
Leroy found the lifeless body of Sawnax in his office a little later.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Sawnax awoke slowly and painfully on a hard slab. Looking about him with eyes still blurry, he saw a few other ponies laying on similar slabs. He nearly fell, trying to get off of the slab. Every movement felt like his muscles and joints were on fire!
He finally did get off the mortuary slab and onto his hooves. There was a letter sitting on the slab where he had been. His vision getting better by the moment, Sawnax made an agonizing reach and got the letter in hoof. Opened, it said:
QUITCLAIM
I, CLAFICUS, hereby renounce all claim to the soul of the pony Sawnax. What I received was a thing withered, misshapen and of no value at all. I have hereby returned it to its vessel to prevent it from tarnishing and reducing the value of other souls in my possession.
CLAFICUS