"Your room will be right here," Buttoned Up pointed out, opening a mahogany door leading into the largest room Scenic had ever seen.
The filly gasped, her jaw dropping. "By Celestia! Do you see the size of that-" She froze mid speech, realizing what she had said. "Um... I mean..."
Bone stood in the hallway looking in the general direction that Scenic's voice had come from. "It's alright, Scenic. What's the room like?"
She hesitated for a moment as the butler excused himself. Pulling her necromancer friend into the room she described everything to the best of her ability. "There's curtains of deep red and silver next to the windows with cool little hook things made of brass to keep the fabric from blocking the sun and there's this gigantic bed that I'm pretty sure is larger than my old bedroom on its own with these posts going up to the ceiling. There's also a bunch of neat looking dressers with silver buttons on them for grabbing; Oh, it's so fancy!"
Bone Marrow's thoughts were distracted by a bit of information he had learned recently as Scenic spoke, Red Tape mentioned that I had the ability to look through another pony's eyes... right?
"Hey Scenic, remember when Red Tape was talking about the eye thing?" Bone asked while looking behind himself to check on the door only, to remember that he didn't have eyes with which to see the door. He sighed, "Scenic, is the door shut?"
The sound of hooves trotting on hardwood and a click later Scenic declared the room to be secure.
"What do you mean?" She asked while moving closer to Bone. "You want to try it?"
Bone was hesitant now as other ideas came to mind. "Do you think it'd hurt?"
"Well," Scenic shrugged, "only one way to find out, right?"
Bone shook his head, "I don't even know how to do it, though. Do I just think your name or do I have to make some fancy rhyme?"
"How have you done your magic stuff so far?" Scenic inquired.
It was now Bone's turn to shrug. "I just kinda... thought it really hard?"
"Well, mister unicorn magic, why not try doing that?"
The young necromancer paused for a moment, "I don't have eyes to see through; won't it not work?"
Scenic placed a hoof on Bone's muzzle and startled him, "Try your fancy magic or I'll smack your snoot."
Bone laughed at that, "That's a fate worse than three deaths! Of course; right away your highness!"
The filly removed her hoof and waited patiently, staring at Bone Marrow as well as the door to ensure nopony was going to walk in on them.
The necromancer took a deep breath to focus his mind and thought with all of his might: Scenic Sight
His eyes opened, though he was now looking at himself. Fresh white bandages wrapped around his head with two blots of blood where his eyes would be. A red mane that could only be described as spicy and a duller coat of brown following from it. He couldn't move 'his' head, but he knew he was looking through Scenic's eyes. He saw Scenic's eyes look from side to side and pieced together that his cutie mark was of a storm cloud with lightning arcing in the center of it.
"Whoa," Scenic replied, her vision growing wider as she looked at her own hoof. "It got really cold all of a sudden. Is it working?"
Bone watched himself slowly nod. "It's strange," He saw himself state, "I can see myself through your eyes, but I'm still hearing from my own body."
"Wait, what? How does that even work?" Scenic asked, moving closer to Bone Marrow.
"It's like..." Bone attempted to explain, witnessing his own hoof move to his chin, "So, you know what an echo sounds like, right?"
He saw Scenic's eyes close when she nodded in understanding, "Yeah, it's all ghostly and strange."
"Is there a mirror in here?" Bone asked changing subjects suddenly, "I want to check something, just to be sure."
"So long as it's quick, Bone. I'm getting really cold from this."
He could see cold breath coming from Scenic's mouth as she helped him move towards a very large and tall mirror. He saw himself smile as well. "I can imagine that mirror is big enough for a princess."
'His' vision flicked over to the mirror and he saw Scenic smile. He also saw something that caught his attention with a great deal of worry.
"Uh, Scenic? Look closer into the mirror, would you?" Bone asked, concern laced in his voice.
Her head turned and she walked over to stand in the mirror. "Whoa!" Her hooves moved to her own eyelids, pulling them down to get a better look at her eye. "There's skulls in them! Big blue skulls, just like yours!"
Bone was very alarmed now, his eyes hurting from looking around in his own body in a reflexive gesture of confusion. "How do I stop looking through your eyes?"
He saw Scenic turn to him. "I dunno, try thinking your own name? If it's all about the name, then it should work for you too, right?"
The bandaged colt nodded, "Guess it might work."
Bone Marrow
His vision faded away from Scenic's into a world of black once again. No light, no color, only blindness.
"I don't think I've ever been happy to be blind before," Bone breathed with a sigh of relief. "Can you check your eyes?"
There was a pause for a moment before Scenic replied, "Yep, skulls are gone. Still kind of cold though." Bone heard his friend walk closer to sit down next to him in front of the mirror. "Are you always that cold?"
The colt paused for a moment. "I don't know, actually. I guess because I'm a necromancer I don't really notice it?"
He felt a warm body press against his side and a muzzle rest on his head. "I dunno, you seem warm and cozy to me."
Bone smiled and felt a hoof tap him on his snoot.
The two young ponies had shared the rest of the day together exploring the mansion of Obscenely Rich. A few survivors noticed that Bone was walking around with Scenic leading the way and gave their whispered thanks for what he had gone through in order to get everypony to safety. A few even brought gifts of vegetable soup and bread, which Scenic accepted for her sightless friend.
The Knights had been busy, however. They moved from pony to pony with a checklist asking questions of all kinds in a kind of interrogation throughout the day and the two had done their best to avoid a confrontation with them. Scenic's mother was spotted conversing with Bright Idea in the dining room and the two stopped by to pay them a visit. Bright Idea gave his thanks to Bone Marrow and Scenic's mother offered an oatmeal cookie she had saved just for the occasion.
Bone was thankful for the praise, but he found something inside of himself still remaining empty from it all. Somehow, their thanks felt hollow. He was worried that the burning of Galloping Glades had changed him for the worse, but Scenic attributed his worries to not having his eyes and being in the constant pain that he suffered through because of it.
Their talk calmed the young necromancer down, and they remained safely out of sight of the Knights for the rest of the evening as well, soon retiring to their shared room on the insistence of Obscenely Rich's pleading. The noble had spent most of his time conversing with a Knight Captain that refused to name himself and Bone Marrow was happy enough to not bother him for a name in the first place.
The two foals sat on their massive bed together, Scenic jumping on the mattress and enjoying herself when the door was knocked on by a very heavy hoof.
"Open this door," the muffled voice behind the door demanded. "The Knights of the Sun require your compliance."
Bone froze and Scenic looked at the door as if it were a looming monster. "Bone, what do we do?" She whispered in his ear.
This is it. Either my disguise holds against this or I'm going to have to fight my way out of this mansion...
The door was knocked on again, louder and more forcefully than before. "Open this door!"
The disguised necromancer sighed. "Let them in. We'll see how badly this goes."
Scenic leaped from the bed causing Bone to shift slightly as the mattress adjusted to the loss of weight on its springs. A few hoof steps clacked against the wood floor later and the door opened slowly.
"Hello?" Scenic asked.
The door was shoved open with armored hooves following loudly afterward. Bone stared directly forward, uncertain of where the ponies were exactly and not wanting to accidentally injure himself again by looking around.
"The room is secure." A knight announced officially. The door soon closed and Bone could hear plate armor clanking against itself nearby. He guessed the door was barred by a Knight standing in front of it.
"You two are very difficult to track down," The Knight began, "You are the only two ponies we've yet to interrogate about the necromancer."
There was a pause of silence before Scenic replied, "How can we help?"
A wet cough of throat clearing sounded near the bed as the mattress dipped again from weight. Bone hoped it was Scenic that was sitting next to him.
"By decree of Princess Celestia since the first encounter of Necromancy in Equestria, we, the Knights of the Sun, have been charged with the safekeeping and protection of the land." The Knight seemed to be bored with his own presentation as if reading from a scroll that had been recited countless times. "In these troubled times of violence and suffering, the presence of a Necromancer only makes things far worse for everypony else. It is your royal duty to report any sightings of ponies with the following traits: skulls in the center of their eyes; glowing eyes; an affinity for graveyards, the dead, skeletons and funerals; a deep need for an empty void to be filled within them; a hunger for odd foods such as meat, bones, animals and the flesh of other ponies; sudden cases of blindness, deafness, organ failure, piles of ash, melting flesh and," The Knight took a deep breath before continuing, "The sudden snapping of bone; hood wearing ponies; ponies who don't talk to anypony else for weeks at a time; ponies who don't eat regularly; ponies who don't sleep; ponies who never seem to get tired or fatigued from long marches and finally, ponies who raise armies of the dead in their spare time."
There was a pause of tension in the room before the Knight continued. "With this in mind and the very considerable threat a Necromancer poses to the safety of yourself and others, do you or anypony you know show signs of these symptoms, abilities or habits?"
Bone paused, realizing that the list had practically nailed everything he had done so far down to a science and bit his lip.
"Nope!" Scenic replied, happy to fill the growing silent tension. "Not since he took Storm's eyes out at least. He kinda sounds like that though. Was wearing a hood and everything!"
"And you; Storm, was it?" The knight inquired suspiciously, "Have you something to say?"
The injured and disguised necromancer was careful to slowly shake his head. "Uh, no. Unless you think he might be standing somewhere in the room, I haven't been able to see much of anything since he took my eyes..."
He could hear a low hissing of breath from the Knight at the door. "Oof, He's got you there, sergeant."
There was another tense pause and the mattress shifted once more. "Has anypony actually lifted these bandages to check if this colt's eyes are missing, or has it simply been assumed they are?"
There was a shifting of plate armor in the room followed by silence.
"I thought not." The knight replied. Bone felt a very cold and metallic hoof on the side of his face next to the bandages wrapped around his head. "Let's take these off and have a look."
Scenic was quick to voice protest, "Don't, his eyes will start bleeding again!"
The Knight cared little for the filly's concern, tearing off Bone's bandages roughly with a sharp part of his hoof's armoring. Bone winced with pain as the pressure was lifted from his eyes and the open air was exposed to his shredded eyelids. He tried to hold them with his hooves, but they were held down by another Knight's magic.
"Odd." The knight announced. "I've never known a necromancer to use a knife when they wanted a body part removed."
Cold fear lanced through Bone Marrow. He practically froze up, thinking quickly about what he would say that would prevent him from being found out.
"A-ah..." He stammered, "I-it wasn't the necromancer!"
There was a pause. "Explain." The Knight demanded with detached authority.
"M-my parents did it! I caught them doing things they weren't supposed to be doing, j-just like you said!" Bone felt sick from what he was saying, but in his own mind's defense of itself he was disguised as a pony that didn't really exist in the first place. Who was to say what a non-existant pony's parents did to their false child?
Never the less, Bone felt the need to mentally apologize to his actual parents, where ever they may have gone after being turned to ash.
Bone's hooves were freed from their magical grip and they went immediately to his eyes, applying pressure and attempting to shield them from any further pain and injury from the Knights that his welling tears weren't already causing.
"Sergeant..." A Knight calmly pleaded, "I don't think the poor colt's a Necromancer. Do you?"
Scenic was quick to apply more bandages that were stored in a dresser drawer nearby, as Bone sometimes needed the bandages changed anyways when he accidentally moved his eyes and the bleeding started again during their walk through the Manor.
"Scan them both, just to be sure." The Sergeant ordered. "Focus on their eyes."
"But Sergeant, he doesn't have eyes!"
"Would you rather follow orders and capture the Necromancer, or possibly spare him and have countless thousands die because you were too afraid of injuring somepony suspected of necromancy!?" The sergeant loudly shouted, the sounds of armored hooves stepping backwards soon following the outburst. "He may be a foal, but the very necromancer we're hunting is a foal! There's a time and place for emotions to get in the way of thinking, but not when you're defending the lives of everypony in Equestria. Not when the safety of the nation is at risk!"
"Y-yes, Sergeant." The Knights replied one after the other. Bone tried to move himself away from the knights but their scanning had already begun.
His hooves shook, his bones rattled and vibrated inside of his own body and he could feel his organs protesting against this new scan. Bone could only hope that the disguise was holding up to what was happening or his lies and pain would be for nothing. Past his ribs the magic moved, up to his neck as he felt his throat tighten from the strain. His jaw moved and his teeth rattled, fearing the coming agony for when it came just a little bit further.
Then, it struck. The bottom of his eyelids came first and he gritted his teeth with pained hissing, curling into a ball as if it would provide some protection instead of just causing his body to vibrate and shake itself further. Then the eyes in full had been in the Knight's magical scrutiny, what remained shaking around as if he had decided to look in every direction at once a hundred times a second, the pain forcing a scream of horror from his lips and many pleas for the Knights to stop hurting him.
After what felt like an eternity, the scan passed his upper eyelids. Their butchered remains peeling apart from the force of the magic and causing blood to dribble onto the mattress, Bone's hooves now coated from attempting to spare his eyes from the scan. He could barely do more than shake as his body went limp, breathing hard has the pain died down and the magic moved towards his horn. Unsteady breaths interrupted by grunts of pain and his body's reactionary jolts away from Scenic's attempted comforts were all he could manage by the end of it.
"Well, Sergeant." The subordinate Knight seethed, "Are you happy now? Can you rest well at night with the knowledge that Equestria has been saved once again because you wanted this poor colt tortured? I know I'll never sleep again after this, and I'll be reporting this to Captain Pure Intent as soon as we leave."
The room was filled only with Bone Marrow's pained sobbing as the clanking of armor of Knights quickly stormed off and slammed the door behind them.
"I..." The sergeant began.
"Just leave!" Scenic shouted while trying to calm Bone Marrow down, "Leave us alone!"
The sergeant attempted one last time to apologize but his hoof was knocked aside by Scenic. He then chose to quietly exit the room and leave the two foals in peace, the door closing behind him as he was the last to leave.
Bone's shaking breath was interrupted by his attempts at speech. "Sce-Scenic..."
Scenic shushed her friend, her hooves already moving to apply another fresh bandage to Bone's eyes after carefully removing the soaked ones from the Knight's interrogation. "It's okay, Bone; they're gone now."
The bloodied colt slowly gave a pained smile. "I got a name..."