Bone's small army of skeletons marched through the forest like an approaching storm as branches snapped and leaves were kicked aside from the steady advance of skeletal hooves. The young necromancer had wanted to lead from the front, but once he entered the forest he remembered that mere days before he had pulled a crossbow bolt from the chest and decided that it would be better if he directed his skeletons from the center of their formation. No sense in dying a fourth time for something so small as wanting to be first.
His search through the forest was uneventful for the most part. For some reason he had been expecting to simply walk into the forest and run straight into the bandit camp like it would be a simple thing to find. The bandits, he eventually relented, were probably far better at sneaking around and remaining hidden than he was. It would be impossible for them to make a camp if everypony knew where to find them, especially with the Royal Guard filtering back out into the backwater towns compared to the capitol now that the situation had cooled.
Bright Idea was scheduled to gain four additional guards to assist in his duties at the town of Galloping Glades, leading him to warn Bone Marrow of the heightened security he would face with the posters being set up for their fake holiday. The guards would know that the posters weren't a promotional piece for the event and would be alert to his presence if anypony decided to mention him in passing conversation.
Looking around at his army he was surprised to see a few skeletons not gazing directly forward, but instead scanning the horizon with their heads literally spinning on their spine in a circle. Looking in every direction without turning their bodies around had its benefits, he supposed, but it wouldn't be practical if he was going to keep any of these skeletons after his confrontation with the bandits. Bone Marrow could only imagine the screams and shouting that a pony's spinning head would bring along with the unneeded attention that would be directed to him.
Then again, Bone thought, I could tell the skeletons to not do that when they're in town.
Several hours later and accompanied by the the rising sun through the treeline, Bone was finally rewarded in his search with the noises of shouting and generally upset ponies. Looking around and hiding behind a tree as his skeletons stood obliviously in the open he noticed that none of the shouting was directed towards him, but rather somepony else. Peeking from around the trunk of his cover, he spotted a wooden palisade covered in leaves and bushes with a singular watch tower further behind it.
"Well," Bone murmured to himself, "this must be the bandit camp."
All I have to do is send in my skeletons, have them capture or run every pony away in a fright and sit around in case they come back. Bone stood from his hiding place and willed his skeletons to advance towards the camp. With the young necromancer behind them it was difficult to see where exactly the army was advancing, but he guessed that since they had yet to collide with anything it was probably going well.
"You call that payment in advance!?" A very offended voice called out, snooty yet rich with texture. "I'll have you know that the dent you would place in my armor with that club of yours is worth more than this entire camp!"
Bone Marrow was confused. Was this a captured pony that was shouting? At least he had armor, right?
The shouting continued as the skeletons filled the edges of the camp and blocked all exits at Bone's command. None would escape now that they had been distracted by this mystery pony, though it remained to be seen who exactly that pony was.
"You there, small pony with the group of visually disturbing goons, come closer!" The mystery voice shouted.
Bone was loathe to expose himself to the possibility of death and remained hidden within the crowd of skeletons. "Not gonna happen!" He shouted back.
"Very well then, cowardly one!" The voice replied. Bone could now peek through one of his skeleton's hooves at the pony and was taken aback by what he saw.
Covered head to hoof in golden plate armor that was scrawled with glowing runes or other kinds of strange markings, this pony stood far taller than the others that surrounded him. With the rising sun it was difficult to even look at him, considering the reflections that blazed from his armor like a flame. A long colored tail came from the top of his helmet that wrapped regally around his shoulder, decorated with silver and golden threads woven amongst the blonde hairs. Bone could just barely make out the eyes of the pony, as gold as his armor and hidden behind a small slit of plate that allowed him to see.
"I'll ask you again, ruffians and hooligans of the Everfree," The golden stallion continued, "Begone from this place, or I will see you all cut down in the name of profit!"
Bone could swear he wasn't hearing this pony right. Profit, or prophet?
One of the larger bandits growled and moved to swing their club at the loud pony before being halted mid-swing by his golden glowing armor.
"Ah ah," The pony scolded with a waving hoof of even more gold, "I told you that you must pay for the right to strike me. This armor is expensive, and I'll not allow it to be damaged by the likes of peasants with self control issues!"
The bandit attempted to wrench his club from the grasp of the other pony's magical armor to no success before it was set alight by the armor itself and melted into ash.
"Now then," The golden pony continued with an almost vile smugness, "Pay me money to strike me, or begone from this place before I retaliate."
The young necromancer could only stand nearby with his army in complete confusion as the bandits packed their things and attempted to leave, stopping at the skeletons that barred their path.
"What's with this?" A bandit asked, looking amongst the hooded group for a leader. "Which one'a you's the boss?"
Bone called out from his hiding place amongst the skeletons. "That'd be me, and you're not going anywhere!"
The bandit scoffed, "Fat chance, that."
The skeletons readied themselves, moving into a lower stance to pounce on the bandits as soon as Bone willed it. The fact that they had a habit of doing everything in a perfect unison only added to the fearful effect it had on the few bandits. Bone could count a total of eight, being somewhat thankful that he had brought enough undead to be overkill.
"Do you assist me, young foal with the startling escort?" The golden pony called out. "What amount do I owe you?"
"W-wait, you're with him?" The lead bandit stuttered, backing away from what he assumed to be a legion of guards from a noble house he had yet to hear of. "What do you want?"
"You're all under arrest for..." Bone began before realizing he didn't know the proper term for being a bandit, "Banditry!"
Looking to their clubs and crossbows and then considering the likelihood of survival they would have against the army in front of them, most threw down their weapons and sat on the grass.
"Great job, Boss. Got us all captured in one spot you did." A bandit grumbled.
The golden pony called out to Bone Marrow once again, seeing as he was still concealed. "Come out, pony! It is safe here, thanks to you."
Never trust strangers.
"I'm staying right where I am." Bone replied while moving from where he stood to another location amongst his army just in case this was an elaborate trap. He could only imagine what kind of things these bandits had looted from passing nobles or ponies and it wasn't too far of a stretch to picture the golden pony as being their actual leader.
"Why do you hide yourself? There is nopony left that would challenge you!" The golden pony called out to a section of skeletons that Bone no longer hid behind.
The unicorn colt decided to not reply in order to stay hidden, moving around to check the trees or other places a pegasus bandit might be hiding. Meanwhile, the skeletal army slowly advanced towards the center of the camp, corralling the bandits and the golden pony alike with their threatening march.
"Y-you know if you're going to attack me, you'll have to pay for each strike!" The golden pony stammered, now standing in the center of the bandits as the skeletal circle closed. "I'm not kidding, this is going to be very expensive for you!"
Bone was delighted to find a coil of rope amongst the bandit's camp, though he supposed it made sense with bandits needing to tie ponies up for ransom or to secure chests full of loot that he imagined they would have stashed around. He gave a magical toss of rope to the center of the circle.
"Tie yourselves up!" Bone called out. There was scarce breathing room now between the disguised skeletons and the bandits. The criminals quickly set to work with tying themselves, begging for their lives in the process.
The golden pony, however, scoffed loudly. "You think me a criminal?!"
"I have no idea who you are, gold pony. I'm not taking a risk." Bone called out once again. "We'll have a talk back in town when you're locked behind a jail cell."
The helmeted pony's head reared back with disgust. "Jail!?"
"What town are we goin' to?" A bandit asked while his hooves were being tied.
"Galloping Glades." Bone replied, "I have friends there that wanted you to be run off, but I think capturing you might be better than that."
A few bandits muttered curses under their breath at that. "Double crossin', no good, rotten lying--"
"I'll have you know that I am no bandit. I am the one and only Obscenely Rich! How dare you associate me with these flea-bitten criminals!" The golden pony shouted through his helmet's grille.
"I know you're rich," Bone sighed, "Your armor looks like solid gold and it has fancy magical markings on it."
"No, you idiot!" The pony scolded, "My name is Obscenely Rich! I am the richest pony in all of Equestria, and if you take me to jail this day, you make an enemy of me! Who are you to decide the fate of others? What is your name?"
Bone grinned, still hidden and not wanting to risk his own death with so many lives under threat, even if they were pretentious. "My name is Bone Marrow."
The group ceased arguing and grumbling, becoming nearly as quiet as the skeletons that surrounded them as cold understanding dawned on them.
"T-then..." a bandit stammered, "These ain't guards, are they?"
"Nope!" Bone cheerfully replied, "They're an army of skeletons I raised a few days ago."
"S-sk-skeletons!?" The golden pony, Obscenely Rich, stuttered with fear. "Skeletons!?"
"Take whatever you want, colt, just let us live!" The bandit leader pleaded pitifully. "I got a wife and kids!"
Bone looked around the camp, finding hide nor hair of the supposed family he mentioned.
"I mean, not here, but they really exist!" The bandit continued.
Bone took a deep breath and sighed, ordering his skeletons to carry the bandits and Obscenely Rich along with them. "We'll get this all sorted out later. For now, you're all coming with me."
As Bone Marrow weaved his way through the legs of his uniformly marching skeletal army he thought about just how he would get these bandits and the golden maybe bandit into the town at all. Last night had been a fluke that he couldn't rely on, as every pony in town had been told that the skeletons were actually members of a garrison from places unspecified paying a visit on their way through. If he returned with the very same 'guards' the next morning, ponies would start asking questions. More worryingly, they might ask the skeletons questions they had no ability to answer.
Bone shook his head. There wasn't any ideas popping out at him for how he would go about dealing with this problem. He could have the army wait in the forest with the bandits, but then without his supervision they would have a higher chance of escape. Marching them into town was out of the question, and he couldn't get close enough to Scenic Sights to have her ask the guard captain since her house was right next to the town square.
"Gah." Bone voiced aloud. "Everything has to be so complicated."
"Hey," A bandit replied, "You know what's not complicated?"
"What?" Bone asked to humor the captive.
"Lettin' us go ain't complicated. Ya just untie us and let us run off, yeah?"
"Shut up ya idiot!" Another bandit interjected, "You're gonna get us eaten by zombies!"
Bone decided to clairify for a bit of morbid entertainment. "You know, the skeletons don't eat anypony. I do."
"He eats ponies! I told ya to shut up; now you've gone and made him hungry!" A bandit panicked, wriggling on the back of a skeleton. "Let me go! I'll give ya everything I got!"
"You don't have a coin amongst you." Obscenely Rich scoffed. "If anything, you should be paying the necromancer to end your pitiful, bit-less lives right here. Better than rotting in a jail cell to only have the Necromancer come by to use your bones for his own nefarious purposes."
"Hey," Bone protested, "I'm not like that!"
"How do we know you're taking us to a bastion of civilization then, and not your own evil lair in the middle of the forest? I saw that mark of death your presence placed here, I know your plans of world domination!" Obscenely Rich was ranting now, growing in fervor with every word. "You're going to claim the lives of everypony in that town just to grow your horrible army, then you'll move to the next town, and the next, until the only ponies left alive is Celestia herself and you!"
Bone had to stop his army with that comment, climbing atop one of his skeletons to get a better look at Rich. "I'm nothing like that, and you know nothing about me."
Golden eyes peered through the small slit in Rich's armor to Bone Marrow, his own glowing eyes staring coldly back. The nearby bandits witnessed the small hooded unicorn's standoff with their previous captive and held their breath.
"I want to help ponies, not kill them. If I wanted to kill everypony, then why are you all still alive?" Bone continued, upset with the implications of being a monster that Rich was posing to him. "I may use the dead for what I do, but I can't help that. I'm a born necromancer, and it's my special talent."
Rich attempted to pull himself further away from Bone Marrow at that last revelation. "B-born necromancer?"
"By the princesses, this is even worse than I thought." The boss bandit sighed, resigned to his fate as he rested his head against the back of a skeleton. "Even if we ambush him, we're all dead anyway."
The subordinate bandits were confused. "What do you mean, boss? He's just a foal with a bunch of bones following him. You sayin' the plan ain't gonna work?"
"What plan?" Both Bone Marrow and Obscenely Rich asked in unison.
"Well, see'in as how we're all gonna die anyway, might as well spill the beans." The boss conceded, raising his head to better tell his story. "We was gonna take this fancy gold pony here hostage when he found our camp, but he's got some fancy magic on him that makes it so we can't hit him without payin' for the damage our weapons'd to. So, we was gonna go to the town with the rest of the stallions in the camp to raid the town and steal all the gold there so we could kill that loudmouthed noble and take his armor off his corpse. Then I could run around in fancy armor without anypony bein' able to hurt me, and we could take all the bits we want."
Rich now leaned his body closer to the Necromancer rather than the bandits at that, not having expected that they would go to such lengths after his days of heckling them for profit.
"Where are the rest of your friends?" Bone asked seriously. "When are they attacking?"
"Well," The leader hummed, "S'pose they should already be there, idn't that right fellas?"
The others nodded quickly, "Yeah! Already there, burnin' everything in sight! Rape, pillage, torture and stabbin!"
"You must be bluffing," Rich scoffed, "There's no possible way you would've known about the Necromancer before I did."
"Yer right." The bandit replied, "We didn't. Prolly wouldn't have done it if we did, but its already done."
Bone looked up past the captive ponies to the horizon before he noticed it. Pillars of smoke in the distance.
"He's not lying..." Bone whispered in disbelief. "Scenic!"
The necromancer leaped from the back of the skeleton he was riding to charge towards the town, the only thought on his mind being the rescue of his one and only friend. His army followed suit, the urgency of their master pressing them onward as they dropped the bandits and Obscenely Rich to the floor to gain speed.
"Ya won't get there in time, colt!" The bandit leader cackled, "They're already dead!"
As the young unicorn and his army of skeletons sped off into the distance, a bandit remarked, "Hey, how are we gonna untie ourselves?"
The rising pillars of smoke grew as Bone tirelessly sprinted to Galloping Glades. Skeletons near him dropped and crumbled in order to sustain their master, falling into a pile of ash as the magic they had been given was returned.
Scenic, Scenic, Scenic, kept running through Bone's mind as he moved with an unnatural speed to the town. He didn't care about being a hero anymore, nor did he care about saving the day or getting into a storybook or being praised by the Princesses for his deeds. His only care in all of Equestria was saving his friend. Please don't be dead, please don't be dead!
By the time he arrived to the burning town, orange with the glow of fires and hot with cinders and screams of terror, his army of skeletons had withered away to the mere ten that wore armor.
"Find the bandits and kill them!" Bone shouted to his skeletons, "I'm going to find Scenic!"
He realized what he had ordered was something he promised Bright Idea that he wouldn't do, but all bets were off now. They had threatened the lives of those he cared about, and there was no bringing them back as the pony they were. One life and they were done, and Bone didn't want to come around a corner to find his friend forever dead. Killing the bandits would mean one less chance of Scenic's death with every one of theirs, and it was well worth the price to Bone Marrow's conscience.
"Scenic, where are you?" Bone shouted into the roar of the fires around him. Crackling wood and splintering pillars fell all around him as the town went up in flames. Ponies ran from the inferno around them or helped others that were trapped beneath smoldering debris, lifting fallen support beams with the combined effort of their magics. Banners of Nightmare Night were strewn across the ground, scorched and barely identifiable from the night previous in their current environment.
Bone could hardly see in the thick smoke that blanketed the town, staying lower to the floor than other ponies from his small frame. If he died from inhaling smoke, then there would be absolutely zero chance that Scenic survived.
Where could she be hiding? He quickly ran through a mental checklist of the places he imagined. The lake, her house, the town square... One of them has to be where she is!
Seeing as the town square and Scenic's house were close together, he made his way there first. Slinking through debris and hiding from scared town-ponies, Bone was eventually covered in blackened ash and he could smell the horrible stench of cooked flesh coming from the doorways he passed. His mind was running a loop of wishing that Scenic hadn't died, that she was alright and simply waiting for him to return. If anypony had hurt her, he didn't know what lengths he would go to or what kind of pony he would become. She had been his one true friend in the short time he had known her. She gave him reason to look at life in a gentler light, to enjoy the wind blowing and the sound of birds singing. Scenic made him realize how reclusive and withdrawn he had become after his many deaths, and caused him to open up a bit more to her as they organised their fake festival.
Eventually Bone Marrow came to the town square and found it empty save for the burning gallows and decapitated target dummies that had fallen away from their ropes. No dead ponies, thankfully, but no Scenic either. Bags of food were dashed across the cobblestone streets along with personal belongings and the odd stuffed animal that belonged to some unknown pony. Shaking his head with frustration and forcing himself to focus, Bone moved for Scenic's house. She would be there, or by the lake, he was certain of it.
He found the door open with flame eating the doorway with a ravenous and all consuming hunger for fuel. He could barely hear anything over the cracking of wood and the distant screaming of ponies that were either being cut down by bandits or those very criminals being slaughtered by his skeletons.
Bone decided he didn't have the time to second guess himself, and braced for the coming pain he would endure to be certain that Scenic wasn't home. He leaped directly through the flames into the home's kitchen, his cloak singed along with his mane, tail and body licked with ash from being burned. He couldn't feel the pain just yet, only the intense heat of the fire.
"Scenic! Are you there!?" He shouted into the inferno as it grew around him. He checked room after room, enduring singe after scorch as his body burned and withered from the heat and the brute force of the flame around him. "Please don't be here!" He called again, realizing that if she was here, there was no way she would have survived.
With a final glance over his shoulder, Bone jumped over a collapsed support beam and painfully squeezed himself free of the archway, burning his backside and neck. Taking shaky steps down from the home, he collapsed onto the street beneath the smoke.
"Lookie here!" He heard a menacing voice growl. "Foal couldn't get out of the fire in time, could he?"
Bone looked up to see the sneering face of a bandit pointing a sword at him, and grinned from beneath his hood.
"Ey, what're you grinnin' for? I ain't a guard here to save ya!"
"I know."
Consume.
The field of blue magic pierced through the smoke as the bandit let loose a blood chilling screech that was cut short all too quickly as his body buckled. Fur melted to skin and skin melted to muscle, then to bone. Organs ruptured and gushed blood, only to vanish in the cloud of magic that wrapped around the bandit's body as he fell to the ground. His bones snapped, his body withered and before long he was indistinguishable from the ash around him.
Bone Marrow stood from the ground, sickened with what he had done but without a trace of guilt. He had to find Scenic, and were it not for these bandits he wouldn't be doing any of this right now. It was their fault the town was on fire, not his. He didn't have the time nor inclination to see a bandit go to trial when they had possibly murdered Scenic, and the only thought on his mind was finding her. The fact that he had to kill a bandit in order to find her gave him little pause now. He would do it again and again if it meant finding her safe.
Bone sprinted to the lake, leaping over flaming storefronts that had collapsed into the streets as he followed the path that he and Scenic had taken so many times to get there. Maybe she was swimming in the water, hiding beneath it to get away from the flames and coming up for air? Bone thought, She has to be alive!
He ran past screaming ponies that begged for help, past stores and homes and one of his own skeletons that was in the middle of crushing a bandit's skull beneath their skeletal hoof, all in the pursuit of Scenic. None of it would matter if she was dead. He feared he would lose himself if he lost her. He had already murdered another pony just moments ago, ordered his skeletons to murder as well, and he felt nothing. Nothing but fear of loss, fear of losing Scenic, his only friend. Fear of losing himself to the tales that every necromancer was evil, was vile and destroyed entire towns wherever they went all in the hope of annihilating life itself.
Was he going to turn out the same way without Scenic? Is that what his life would come to? Bone shook his head to clear his mind from these thoughts, refocusing on finding his friend.
"Scenic, where are you?" He shouted while sprinting through the streets. "Come out!"
There had been no reply as he ran, and eventually he found himself sliding to a halt as ash collected along his hooves. No pony was here. No pony that was alive, at least. Bodies floated in the lake, some with gashes across them from a blade and others with bolts in their bodies. Bone scanned each of them, frantically searching for Scenic and hoping against hope that he wouldn't find her here. He'd rather he never found her than see her dead like this, just like his own town, dead in a ditch where nopony would find them or even know they existed.
Tears ran from his eyes that made smudged lines across his face. "Please, please don't be here, please Scenic don't be dead!"
Body after body, pony after pony, he could not find Scenic. His friend was missing. The town square, her house, the lake... what was he missing? She had to be somewhere, didn't she?
Bone's eyes went wide with hope, "The graveyard! At the Crypt!" Bandits wouldn't search the graveyard for survivors, would they? Why would they? At most they would search the graves for more to steal, but... "Oh no..."
He realized that Scenic, if she was still alive, was most likely in danger still. He looked out to the dead bodies that surrounded him and knew that if he was going to reach her in time... he would have to gain enough magic to do it.
Sniffling from his teary eyes Bone whispered, "I'm sorry."
Consume.
The bodies crumpled and shattered, bolts withered and turned to sludge and the sickening sounds of fleshy compression lasted a few moments before a new layer of ash floated atop the water of the lake like a thin froth of death. Bone gave one final look at what he had done and convinced himself it would all be worth it in the end, and turned for the graveyard.
Using that many bodies at once gave Bone Marrow an adrenaline rush like he had never felt before in his life. The ground beneath him seemed to glide past his hooves in a messy blur as he moved like a ghost through the town. Past screaming ponies, past bandits and crashing through debris that dared to block his path, he could only hope that Scenic was alright.
He ground his teeth with worry, imagining the horror that he might find himself arriving at if he found her there, only to be too late despite everything he had done to prevent it. Turning proved difficult as he slid to a stop around corners in order to begin his hellish sprint in another direction, heading straight for the graveyard.
The gate was knocked from its hinges, broken and bent on the ground. Bone Marrow grew even more worried and made a mad dash for the crypt to find that its gate had been destroyed from the previous rust. He could hear voices coming from inside and his smile grew.
"She's alive!" He whispered with excitement, quickly running down the steps as his hooves echoed into the darkness that was lit only by his intensely glowing eyes. He didn't notice that there was so much magic running through him from all those he had consumed that it was practically daylight in the crypt, his eyes searching for any hint of Scenic and other ponies that might have survived.
"You hear that?" A gruff voice questioned in the distance. Bone's mouth shut into a growl. They sounded like bandits.
"Is that your friend, Bright Idea?" Another rough voice asked, "Your little colt friend here to save you?"
"Hey, is it getting brighter in here?" yet another inquired, his voice becoming audibly worried.
Blue rounded the corner and witnessed Bright Idea, Scenic and her mother all backed into a corner, Bright Idea holding a sword in his magic to keep the bandits at bay.
"Get away from them!" Bone shouted in his shrill colt voice. "This is your only chance!"
"Hey look, the glow was a foal." One of the bandits chuckled, pointing at the necromancer with an oblivious grin. "Think we could use his head as a torch?"
"Shut your face and look at his eyes, you idiot!" The leader of the group fearfully blurted. "His eyes have skulls in them, and they're glowing!"
The bandits took a second look at the colt in front of them with the black hood, looking none too pleased.
"So what? He's just a colt. Let's kill the guard and these two idiot ponies and finish lootin' the place." A subordinate bandit stated with a shrug.
Bone's eye twitched at that threat, and he had no intentions of letting them move another inch from this crypt. A burning anger welled up in his chest, begging to be let free and to erase these vile ponies from existence, to snuff out the flame inside that kept their hearts beating and to ensure they would never harm another pony ever again.
The young necromancer looked at the fear filled eyes of the ponies he knew. Of Scenic, her mother and Bright Idea. They seemed to wait with baited breath as to what he would do next. He looked to the indecisive bandits and thought back to the horror they had brought on the town he considered to be paradise, turning it into a nightmare that would haunt his dreams. Of the ponies they had murdered without a second thought in pursuit not of saving others, not of looking out for their fellow pony, no. They only wanted coin so they could kill a noble for his armor.
Bone Marrow snarled as the flame inside of him burned even brighter at the thought of letting these bandits leave without punishment, and he knew just what he could do to ensure that none of them escaped the crypt alive.
"All of you," Bone menacingly voiced, his speech chilling the very air around the bandits and himself as misted breath could be seen. "Die!"
The bandits eyes went wide before they each clutched their chests, collapsing to the floor. Grunts of pain and gasps for air soon followed before blood gushed from their mouths, their eyes soon rolling back into their sockets as their bodies twitched on the floor in a growing pool of blood. Bone Marrow had felt their hearts rupture from his magic, their lungs collapse and their intestines shred. Soon enough they no longer moved. Dead in an instant.
He took a deep, shaking breath as the temperature in the crypt returned to normal. His friends were just as terrified as the bandits had been, but they remained safe.
"Are you alright?" Bone asked. "Scenic?"
Her eyes were wide with what she had just witnessed. Bright Idea was speechless, as was Scenic's mother. As Bone Marrow approached, the adults backed away in fear from him. Only Scenic refused to move, looking up from the dead bandits into the blue glowing skulls that came from the darkness, looking directly into her soul.
She burst into tears, a smile filled with grief across her face as she was filled with too many emotions to consider. Bone caught her in his hooves and sat in the pool of blood, embracing her in a hug.
"I was afraid you were dead..." Bone whispered, his body shaking.
Scenic held her necromancer friend closer and let tears of stress and relief flow freely as the group of ponies rested in the graveyard of Galloping Glades, finally at peace amongst their unimaginable circumstances.