I was there the day we learned nothing had really changed.
It was a lovely morning. Or at least, what passed for morning now. The sun and moon didn’t move around the way they were supposed to. I should probably fix that someday. I mean, it was technically my job now. Not that it mattered. If the sun and moon both wanted to hang motionless in the sky while I went about doing my business, who cared? I didn’t care, and nobody else did either. They were too busy being dead.
Manehattan looked nice. The sun and moonlight both reflected off the frozen waves of the time-locked Dead Sea and glinted off buildings that had weathered the time storms a lot better than their occupants. Equestrians built things to last.
There was something eerily beautiful about seeing the entire ocean frozen in a single perfect moment of time. I’d actually walked to Freeport to check on it. Walking across an entire ocean had been weird, and I’d probably gotten lost a couple times. It had all been a waste; Freeport was just as wrecked as the rest of the world.
Oh well. At least I still had my health.
I sang a cheery little song as I gathered up the corpses. “The last mare left alive ... yes I’m the last mare left alive. Everyone else is dead, so I’m the last mare left alive...”
I nudged one of the many desiccated cadavers. “I wonder if there are any stallions? Gah, Celestia’s nudging about grandfoals just got a new sense of urgency.” I turned one of them over and gave it a quick inspections. “Can’t really tell the difference. For all I know, these could be zebras.” I frowned and shook my head. “Stupid. Why would there be zebras in Manehattan? Oh, because it’s a major city and trade port. Probably a bit of everything here. Not as much as Freeport, but ... I should go back there and sort all the bodies by species. Gotta be organized.”
I cleared my throat and tried to look a bit more dignified, running a chipped hoof through my tangled mess of a mane. “Now that I’m the princess of Equestria, I have to consider how best to repopulate the entire realm. There’s a lot of work to be done if I want to rebuild an entire civilization. Mom would have wanted that.”
I snorted contemptuously and shook my head. How could somepony so smart be so dumb? “She wouldn’t want you doing necromancy, stupid!
I let out a weak snort of laughter. “And here I am looking for stallions. There’s a deadwood joke in this somewhere ... oh Celestia, I actually made that joke.” I thought it over for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess I had to beat Kukri to it. You hear that Kukri? I beat you to that one.”
I lined up the dead bodies so I could be methodical about this. “She wouldn’t want you to die alone either, would she?! She must have saved you for some purpose. She wouldn’t have wanted you to live in this hell all alone with no hope. There had to be a purpose, there was always a purpose to everything she did. Besides, it’s not necromancy. It’s trying to restore rotting decayed corpses to some semblance of life. Totally different. You really are so stupid sometimes. Don’t you know anything?”
I took a seat and grandly gestured, encompassing the entire city. “Besides, I’m princess now. I’ll just change the law! No wait, even better, I’ll pardon myself and then I’ll change the law. I, Princess Sunset Shimmer, do hereby formally pardon I, Princess Sunset Shimmer, for all crimes against Equestria, Freeport, and the world.”
I frowned and shook my head. “‘I pardon I’? Talk about repetitive, not to mention spectacularly bungling your pronouns. This is why you need to hire a speechwriter for this kind of thing. Good thing this is just the rough draft. Imagine if you flubbed it that bad in front of an audience.”
I chuckled and snorted. “What audience? That’s the best thing about all this: there’s nopony to tell me I’m wrong. How can anything you do be wrong when you're both the princess and the last pony on earth? I can do whatever I want!”
I groaned and buried my face in my hooves. “Focus, moron! You’re supposed to be fixing Equestria! Now that everyone's dead, part of fixing it is bringing them back to life. Don’t you remember what you're here for?!”
I scoffed and shook my head. “It's not like I could forget, stupid.”
I fell into the familiar spellcasting patterns, sending a slow, steady pulse of energy into the bodies. Magic took over the role normally held by a beating heart, breathing life into the lifeless flesh. It had taken me a long time to get the hang of it—or at least, I think it had. It was kinda hard to tell how long things took when the world was ruined and time still went a little crazy from … well, from time to time. The temporal storms seemed to be calming down. Maybe because there was nothing left to destroy, or ... who knows. I don’t. Do you?
Slowly, the bodies rose. For a moment, I dared to hope. “Oh sweet Celestia, did it work?!” I ran up to one of the zombies, waving a hoof in front of its face. “Hey, hey! Talk to me. Talk to me. Talk to me! I just want to have somepony to talk to that isn’t myself! You have no idea how stupid and annoying she can be sometimes.”
The zombies stood there, silent and unmoving.
“Of course it didn't work, stupid. They’re zombies.” I slammed a hoof into the side of my head. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why are you dumb?! I thought you were supposed to be smart, but you keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Isn’t that supposed to be the definition of insanity?!”
I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, and talking to yourself all the time is a sign of good mental health.”
I looked back at the shambling corpses and sighed. “Gotta start somewhere. Sorry, I’m a little new to full-on resurrection.”
The zombies just stood there, silent and unmoving. Empty husks and lifeless shells. What was the point? I screamed and set them on fire. “No! You stupid, stupid zombies! Why are you so stupid! I’m not stupid, you’re the ones that are stupid! You’re so stupid you don’t even care that I set you on fire!”
The zombies slowly crumbled to the dusty ground as the flames consumed them. For the record, burning zombie is one of the worst smells in the world. “Behold the latest in my level-headed responses to failure.”
I doused the flames before they could spread or do too much damage. After all, I might want to try again at some point. I took a deep breath and smiled, a bit of cheer entering my voice. “Well, practice makes perfect! That's what Mom always told me whenever I messed up a spell. I think I told Kukri the same thing.”
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “But dammit if it didn’t feel good to set something on fire. I’m good at that.” I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Yeah ... I needed that. Also, note to self: don’t ignite anything that looks like a Free Mind. Carapace should make it easy to tell. Kukri would never let me hear the end of it if I had to restore her from dust and smoke—it’d just be an endless litany of being a pain in the ash.”
I scoffed at the wishful thinking. “Stupid, Kukri’s dead. They’re all dead. She and Mom were at ground zero, there’s not enough left of them to even try to bring back.”
Enough talk, it was time to try again. “See, I can make this work. Even if I fail and only make zombies I can always set them on fire to make me feel better after the crushing, crushing failures I keep suffering.”
The next round of zombies were just as lifeless as the first. I sighed and shook my head. “Shouldn’t have gone after the anomaly like that. We put all our eggs in one basket, and we wound up cracking all our best eggheads. Now I can’t raise the best and brightest eggs to help me raise the rest.”
I scowled and waved her remarks away. “If I can restore somepony from death, I can figure out a way to restore somepony from nothing. Kukri, Mom... I can fix it. I promise I’ll fix it all. You just need to give me a bit longer.”
“All I need is one success, just one success.” I poked at the zombies a bit more, not getting a reaction out of any of them. “No! Dammit! Raise, then set the failures on fire. Raise, fire. Necromancy, pyromancy, it’s so simple a foal could grasp the concept. And you’ve done this a million times. But that’s the problem isn’t it? You’ve done it a million times, and now it’s all blurring together. Do you even remember what day it is? What year?”
I scoffed and shook my head. “Days, years ... do those even mean anything anymore? Days are just a social construct created by the passage of the sun and moon through the sky, and now that they don’t move any more ... it’s not applicable.”
I smiled and tried to focus on the positive. “Sure, I’ve failed a million times, but you know what they say: the million-and-first time’s the charm!” I tried the next couple ponies in my pile of corpses. There was something vaguely familiar about the two of them, though I couldn’t put my hoof on exactly what. Maybe I’d seen them back before ... before.
The two bodies jerked back to life, groaning. I was used to that—a lot of zombies made some noises when you first brought them back. Something about air leaving their lungs as the body reanimated. This time, however, it sounded a bit more like an actual groan.
“Oh ... wow.” I started looking the two over. “I think these two are a bit different. Maybe you finally did something right.”
The flesh over the unicorn’s eye sockets twitched and narrowed, following me as I started inspecting her. Her coat looked like it might have been white before most of it had rotted away, and the remnants of a purple mane rested atop her head. After a couple seconds, a very cracked and dust voice asked, “Wha-what?”
I could scarcely believe my own ears. I hadn’t heard another pony’s voice in ... I don’t even know how long it had been. “It can talk! Did you finally get it right?!”
The other zombie, a rainbow-maned pegasus with a prosthetic wing and dressed in what looked like the tattered remnants of a uniform, spoke up. “Uh, duh I can talk.” She groaned and rubbed at her empty eye sockets. “Hey, where’s my unit? Pinkie? Maud? Report in, sergeants!”
The unicorn groaned and rubbed around her horn. “I was ... what was I doing? There was ... something?”
The pegasus looked over at the unicorn, then yelped and jumped back and stepped between me and her counterpart. “ZOMBIE! Sombra’s must’ve sent necromancers or something! Get back miss, I gotcha!”
The undead unicorn looked over at her pegasus companion, then let out an ear-piercing shriek. “Zombie! Run! Somepony call the Guard!”
“I am the Guard, you dolt!”
“Wow...” I sat back and observed the two of them. “Clear evidence of cognitive process, they show an awareness of their own surroundings, and the pegasus even seems to remember part of its own identity. It’s not perfect, but you’ve made some real progress.”
The two undead were still a bit too wrapped up in their own situation to take any notice of me. The unicorn had scrambled halfway across the plaza and was about to take cover in an abandoned storefront when she caught a glimpse of herself in a broken window. What she saw made her scream even louder than she had when she spotted her counterpart. “Oh no! What happened to me?! I’m hideous! I’m a monster!” She started running around in circles, wailing at the top of her lungs. “I’m a monster! I’m a monster! Nooooooo!”
The one-winged pegasus scoffed and shook her head. “Uh, yeah. you’re a big ugly monster. ‘Cause you’re a zombie!” She dropped down into a combat stance, spreading her wings and getting ready to charge. Then she glanced back at her wings and saw that her metal one was pitted with rust, while the other was nothing but dessicated flesh on bare bones. “Huh. What the hay is up with this horseapples?!”
Things were starting to spiral out of control. “Stupid, you need to take charge of the situation. Don't you remember anything about how to be a leader?!” I frowned and tried to pull up some of those old distant memories. “But how do I ... um ...” I decided to try out the good old Royal Canterlot Voice. “MINIONS! ATTEND ME!”
That at least succeeded in getting their attention. The pegasus was the first to speak. “Are you talking to me?” Despite the lack of eyes, she somehow managed to shoot me a flat look. “Are you seriously talking to me with that stupid line?!”
The unicorn was much more direct, stomping up to me. “You did this to me, didn't you?! You’re the reason I’m so horrifying now! This is all your fault!”
I decided to focus on the easier issues first. “Technically, your body was damaged by the passage of time—I just reanimated it in its current state. It’s been ... um...” I tried counting out the days on my chipped, dirty hooves, but gave up pretty quickly. “It’s been a long time. Sorry, nobody’s moving the sun and moon anymore, so it’s hard to tell.”
The pegasus’ mouth opened and closed several times as she slowly sank down onto her haunches. “Huh?”
The unicorn’s head whipped back and forth as she took in the devastation and all the dead bodies. “I don’t ... Where are we? What happened? It looks like ... I don’t know.”
I took a deep breath. “Everyone's dead.”
The pegasus looked grimly at the pile of corpses. “Yeah, I guess Sombra must have hit us really hard. We’ll get to Canterlot and—”
“Everyone’s dead,” I repeated.
The unicorn frowned uncertainly. “Perhaps if we went to—”
“Everyone!” I told them one last time.
Both of them slumped to the ground, probably trying to wrap their heads around what I’d just told them. It had taken me a long time to accept it too. I’d walked all the way to Freeport to see if anyone had survived. I hadn’t checked every last little corner of the world, but if anything significant was still alive, I would’ve seen some sign of it.
The pegasus’s hollow eye sockets narrowed at me. “You’re not.”
The other one caught up pretty quickly. “And if you’re the only one still alive, then ... did ... did you turn us into some sort of undead monsters? Why?”
“What did you do?!” the pegasus snarled at me. She probably would’ve attacked if not for the fact that I still had some necromantic control over her. I’d kept the binding pretty loose, but even after going half-crazy from isolation I wasn’t going to neglect the basic spells to keep my own creations from turning on me.
I did my best to explain it all. “Sombra did some sort of spell or something that blew up the world. It got him too as far as I can tell, so at least there’s that. For the rest of it ... you’re not monsters. Maybe you would’ve been before, but now you’re more alive than ... well, everyone but me. Even Celestia’s dead. I should know, she died saving me.”
She shouldn’t have done that. It should’ve been the other way around. Or maybe we both should’ve saved Kukri. Or ... I don’t know. Anything else.
My explanation seemed to at least calm them down a bit. The unicorn winced and rubbed her head, staring at me. “You’re...” Her empty eyes squinted at me, as if trying to make something out. “I remember you. Archon Sunset Shimmer?”
I nodded. There were times when it could be hard to remember, but I hadn’t completely forgotten my own name.
“Who?” the pegasus asked.
“Don't you remember?” the unicorn shot back. “She was ... Archon of that island. The one that broke the siege. What was it called? Port of Freedom? Nonono, that’s not it.” She groaned and clutched her head. “Why is it so hard to think?”
I frowned and opened up my bags, checking through some of the books I’d taken from the high security section of Celestia’s personal library. “Reinforce the spell matrix in order to ... right, I didn’t cast it at full power because I was just checking to see if ... okay, I can work on this. Give me just a second.”
I closed my eyes and sent a lot more energy to both of them, trying to rebuild as much as I could. I wasn’t sure how much good I was doing, but I kept it up until I could barely stand. A tiny part of me was tempted to keep pushing it, until I was drawing on my own life force to power the spell. If that was the price to restore both of them to life ... would it really be all that bad?
I fell back onto my haunches as soon as I cut off the spell, gasping for breath and sweating from the effort. When I opened my eyes, I saw what my efforts had gained. They didn’t exactly look alive, but it was a lot better than what I’d seen before. They actually had eyes now, and their manes and coats looked a lot closer to what they’d been like when they were alive. There were still plenty of obvious patches of missing skin and some exposed bone, but there was enough of a semblance of life there to at least feel like I was actually talking to real ponies again.
I decided to open up with a simple question. “Do you know your name?”
“Yeah, of course!” The pegasus paused, frowning and screwing up her eyes in concentration. “I think. Yeah, I’m Colonel Rainbeam Dash of the ... the...” She rapped her head a couple times with a hoof. “C’mon brain, work...”
The unicorn delicately cleared her throat. “I am Rarity, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Archon. I believe I was a ... I ... made things. Clothes. For the soldiers.”
“Rainbow Dash!” the pegasus shouted at the top of her lungs. “That was my name! Colonel Rainbow Dash of the Wonderbolts!”
“Sunset Shimmer.” I offered them my hoof, which they hesitantly shook. “Nice to meet both of you, even if the circumstances are terrible.”
“Likewise.” Rarity daintily shook my hoof. “So...” Her eyes flicked across the ruined city, and the desolate wasteland beyond it. “Everypony?”
I nodded glumly. “Everypony. At least, as far as I can tell. Maybe there’s someone left hiding out in a cave or something, but as far as something resembling civilization...” I shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t seen anything.”
“Oh no...” She gasped softly and put a hoof over her mouth. “Sweetie Belle, my parents, Applejack, Coco ... everypony. All of them?”
Rainbow stared off into the distance, muttering names under her breath. “I’m ... I dunno how this works, but will I fall apart and crumble if I go to Cloudsdale? There’s some ... I gotta see for myself, okay?”
“I think you’ll be okay.” I didn’t have any real experience, but going off my books self-aware undead were usually close to self-sustaining when it came to magic. Rarity and Rainbow would need me to repair wear and tear or any actual damage, but they wouldn’t be anchored to me or in danger of instantly falling apart without a steady influx of magic.
Rainbow nodded gratefully, then sighed. “Okay, so ... what, then? What’re we doing here? Why’d you bring us back?”
“I’m ... trying to fix it.”
“Fix it?” Rarity repeated incredulously. “How? Everypony’s dead and the world’s been completely destroyed. How could you possibly fix that?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Yeah, there’s nothing left to fix.” Her eyes flicked across the ruins. “I ... I think I’d like to go back to being ... I dunno. How I was before you woke me up.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Rarity murmured. “I admit the circumstances are far from ideal, but we are alive, after a fashion. And if Sunset can bring us back, surely there’s a chance for others as well.”
“I guess that’s true.” Rainbow looked herself over and grimaces. “I mean, I’m uglier than the north end of a southbound yak, but I’m back. I’m not alive, but I’m at least close enough to be pissed about being undead. It’s ... I guess it’s better than nothing.”
I nodded along. “Exactly. Now I just have to do ... whatever I did with you a couple million more times. Plus get better at it.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow grimaced. “Um, think you could work on bringing everypony back as more than just…?” She waved a hoof over her own chest demonstratively.
“I’m working on it,” I grumbled. “You two are the first time I’ve managed to even get something capable of reasoning and speech.”
“Of course, we understand entirely,” Rarity assured me with a soothing smile. “Do you know what you did? You must have done something different, right?”
“I took notes.” I pulled out my notebook and looked it over. “Oh.”
Rarity grimaced. “That doesn’t sound like a good ‘oh.’”
I sighed and turned the book around, letting them all see what was written within.
Entry ?: Gah, I haven't thought about Mom in forever. Not Mom, Mom. And Dad, too. I'm sure they're around somewhere ... I think I did something with them after I killed Heritor Azurite? Did I make a shrine? Did I make plans for a shrine? Must double back to Canterlot some time to check.
Entry ?: I've heard that being alone for a long time affects a pony's mental state. So far I think I'm okay—I only argue with myself about the important stuff.
Entry ?: My shadow's still too damn fast. I know I can catch it if I turn my head fast enough, but so far all I've gotten is whiplash.
Entry ?: The sun and the moon really need to find a way to move on their own. I swear, they're like two creepy eyes watching me all the time, no matter where I go. The shadows whisper through the twisted corners, waiting silently for hours, watching every move and shiver with eyes that glitter. It’s weird.
Entry ?: Concerning the last entry, I think I need to sleep inside more. And get curtains. A little privacy goes a long way.
Entry ?: I miss Mom. And Kukri. I wish they'd stop screaming, though—it’s bad enough I have to hear it when I’m dreaming, I’d like a little silence now and again when I'm awake.
Both ponies looked up from the journal. “Ah.” Rarity tried to smile politely. “I do not wish to be prudish, but your penmareship could... use a bit of work.”
Rainbow was much less tactful. “Dang, you’re kookier than a vintage clock’”
“Yup.” I sighed and ran a hoof down my face. “Don’t worry. I did it once, I can do it again. How hard could it be?”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Rarity sniffed, then grimaced. “Although ... I hope you won’t take offense, Sunset, but perhaps we should look into finding some hygenic facilities?”
“Why?”
Rainbow groaned. “Because we’re both half-rotted zombies, and you’re still the stinkiest one here! How long has it been since you took a bath?”
I hesitated. “I ... um ... well it hasn’t really rained much ever since the oceans got temporally locked, so...”
“Well, that won’t do at all,” Rarity announced primly. “Come along now, I’m sure we can find the ruins of a spa somewhere.”
Relocating to Canterlot had been the logical move. It was a central location, and it had the largest and best preserved magical library in the world, thought I hadn’t been shy about supplementing Celestia’s collection. Books were among the most important things we’d tried to find whenever we left the city on a scouting expedition—right behind food, at least until Rarity had gotten her farms running. Even now that we had most of what we needed, Rainbow still liked to go on scouting trips. I think she just got a little stir-crazy, what with me constantly studying and experimenting while Rarity kept herself busy with dozens of little projects.
I groaned and rolled over in Celestia’s bed. Even after all these years of sleeping in the room, it still didn’t feel like mine. Probably because I’d tried to preserve as many of Celestia’s things as I could. It was like as long as I could hold onto that old writing desk of hers or her favorite comfortable chair, she wasn’t completely gone. Or at least, it gave me something to remember her by. Those memories felt more and more important as time went by. I certainly preferred remembering the good times to ... this.
Rarity trotted into the bedroom, humming a cheerful tune as she threw open the curtains to fill the room with the mixture of sunlight and moonlight I’d somehow gotten used to over the years. She sounded irritatingly cheerful. “Good morniiing! Up and at’em, Princess. I hope you slept well, and you’re ready for another lovely day!”
I groaned and buried my head deeper into the pillows, hoping she would leave me in peace. Ever since she’d found out I was technically royalty, she’d insisted on maintaining appearances. I probably shouldn’t have kept that adoption document so prominently displayed, but ... well, it was one of the best things I had to remember Celestia by. When it came to my royal status, I agreed with Rainbow—when I was the only living pony left in the world and one of only three sapient beings on the planet, it didn’t matter.
Rarity took a different perspective. It seemed silly to me, but Rainbow had been on the receiving end of a very long and furious rant the one time she made the mistake of pointing it out. After that, we both agreed to let Rarity have her coping mechanisms. If calling me a princess and keeping the palace looking clean was what she needed to keep it together, that was a small price to pay.
Still, I could’ve done without the cheerful morning rituals. I groaned and slowly started rolling out of bed, running a hoof through my mane. As happened far too often these days, my hoof came away with several grey and white hairs attached. “What’s so good about it?” I grumbled as I slowly shifted to the edge of the bed.
Rarity trotted over to help me, frowning and looking me over. “Is your arthritis bothering you again?” She pulled out a few pills and set them down next to a glass of water. “I’ve done a bit more reading, and hopefully these will help with that.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed the new pills and added them to the usual selection of vitamins and supplements. It still amazed me how many pills I could down alongside a glass of water, especially when some of them were so huge, but practice made perfect.
Rarity beamed. “There we go.” She levitated over one of my nicer robes and a manebrush. “Now then, let’s get you into your robe, freshened up, and ready to face the day. I have the staff working on breakfast, and I think you’ll quite like it. We’re going to be trying out a new recipe in that cookbook Rainbow found on her last trip out, so we should get something a bit new this morning.”
I started getting dressed with Rarity’s help, grunting and groaning as fresh little pains shot through my body whenever I moved the wrong way. You’d think I would’ve learned by now which things hurt and which didn’t. “Oh yeah? What'd you make?”
Rarity did her best to help me through the process—she had plenty of experience with it by now . She didn’t let any of the work dampen her mood. “We’ll be having omelets with cheese, peppers, onion, mushrooms, and slices of haybacon.”
That got my attention. “Where did you get eggs and cheese from?”
She beamed proudly. “It took some doing, and my first few experiments were complete disasters if I must be honest, but I think I’ve managed to arrange something that tastes about right.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Or at least, I hope so. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten eggs I’ve almost forgotten what they taste like.”
Oh. “Do I even want to know what they’re made of?”
Rarity delicately cleared her throat and didn’t answer, which probably answered it well enough. “I assure you, they’re completely safe to eat. I wouldn’t risk giving you anything that might distress your digestive system.” She frowned and rather pointedly added. “We do need to watch your health, after all. You’re not getting any younger, Your Highness.”
I grunted and slowly hauled myself completely off the bed. It was a little hard to say exactly how much time had gone by since the world went to Tartarus, but between that and the less-than-ideal living conditions, I wasn’t as spry as I’d been in the good old days. At least, I never remembered it hurting this much just to walk across the room. “I’m fine. Let’s eat.”
Rarity shadowed me all the way to the table, just in case. “There you go, nice and slow. Was there anything special you wanted? I’m afraid your blood pressure is still a bit too high for coffee, but we do have juice.”
I was tempted to say that if I was really a bucking princess, she could just get me some damn coffee no matter what my blood pressure was. However, if I did that I’d get my coffee served with a huge helping of passive-aggressive grumpiness and redoubled efforts to compensate for my health on every other front. It probably wasn’t worth it. Especially when I could try to get some when she wasn’t paying attention.
Rarity frowned when she saw me taking my time. “Do you need any help with your seat, Your Highness?” She pulled out the chair to make it a bit easier for me.
“I’m alright.” I fell into the seat, groaning happily as I took the pressure off my hooves.
She opened up the doors, and two members of her staff came in carrying covered trays. Seeing skeletons dressed up in the very best Canterlot finery would never stop looking weird, but ... coping mechanisms. Rarity beamed happily as her servitors set the trays down in front of us. “And there we go. Please do enjoy, Your Highness.”
I wasted no time doing exactly that. Credit where it was due, she actually had done a pretty good job with the meal. Much like Rarity, I had no idea how close the flavor was to the real thing, but it was at least close enough to remind me of better times. It also helped that the omelet was soft enough to be easy on my teeth. “It’s real good. Thanks, Rarity. You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”
She smiled proudly at the praise. “Thank you very much, Your Highness. I’m just happy that everything went according to plan. It’s always a bit of a risk to try something new, and I was terribly worried the chefs would make a mess of it. Training them for new dishes can always be a bit ... problematic.”
I wisely refrained from pointing out that altering command spells for a skeleton in a chef’s hat didn’t really qualify as ‘training.’ “It was delicious. I hope there’s enough left for more tomorrow morning.” I took a deep breath. “So ... what’s on the agenda for today?”
Rarity pulled out a clipboard. “After breakfast, it’s back to the lab as long as you’re feeling up to it. I believe you were working on that theory on soul reintegration and redivision? I have a lovely lunch planned once you’re ready for a break , with some nice fruit and daisy sandwiches. After that we need to work on maintenance for some of the spell matrices, and I wanted you to check over a few new subroutines I was thinking of adding. Once that’s taken care of, I was hoping we could play some cards for the afternoon.”
“Sounds good.” I finished off the last of my meal. “Did you need me to raise any ... arrange for any new members for your staff?”
“Hmm...” Rarity idly passed our dirty dishes to another one of her beautifully dressed undead servitors, who promptly started carrying them down to the kitchen. “Not precisely. However, I did want to pass along the idea of making another intelligence cortex so that we can expand our resource collection efforts. I’ve done all I can with what I’ve got, but I know you wanted quite a few rather exotic materials for that experiment you were planning next week. I know a new cortex might take a while, but if we can double our staff numbers it would make my job so much easier. I hope you don’t mind...”
I grunted and nodded. “Sure thing. I can roll those experiments back until we get the new cortex taken care of and your staff numbers built up.”
Rarity frowned uncertainly at me. “Are you sure? We've already delayed that line of experiments twice, and I could manage for a bit longer if you—”
“Keeping your infrastructure up and running is more important,” I assured her. Especially since those experiments would end the same way as the rest. Necromancers had been trying to crack the problem of bringing the dead back to life for as long as necromancy had existed, and most of them were working in much better conditions. I felt obligated to keep trying, but after all the years of failure...
I hadn’t even managed to replicate what I’d done with Rarity and Rainbow. For a long time I’d assumed there was some secret to the spell, and I could repeat it if I could just remember what I’d done while I was half-crazy from isolation. Lately, I’d started thinking that it was something else entirely—that there was something special about Rarity and Rainbow.
If that was the case, I had no idea what it was. I’d tried studying the spells animating them to see what made them different, but there was only so much I could tell from passive observation. I’d need to pick the spells apart to really see how they worked, and that would mean...
No. I couldn’t risk losing one of them.
The only option that left me was more experiments. Hoping that this time I’d somehow finally stumble my way into cracking a puzzle that I was increasingly convinced had no solution.
Rarity sighed. “I was also hoping we could fit in another few lessons after we finish up with cards. I’m still having a bit of trouble with aetheric transfer.”
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.” The training sessions with Rarity were usually an exercise in frustration, but we had to at least try. If she could figure out enough necromancy to manage without me, everything would run a lot more smoothly. The only problem was that in life she’d been profoundly average in terms of magical skill and education, and being undead had only added to her problems. Most of our lessons involved me spending hours trying to explain a concept I’d grasped intuitively. She had a firm grasp of the basics, but so far more advanced material had eluded her.
I took a deep breath and tried to stay focused on the positive. “At least a new intelligence matrix will let you keep things running on your own for years to come. Probably longer than I’ll...” I grimaced and cut myself off a bit too late.
Rarity sighed again and shifted her chair next to me. She took a deep breath, then slowly placed one of her hooves on top of mine. “Princess—Sunset, we really need to talk about this. I don’t think we can put it off anymore.
I knew what was coming, but it was one of those conversations I really didn’t want to have. “Talk about what?”
She worried at her lower lip for a moment before answering. “The fact that you’re running out of time. I know it’s not pleasant to think about, but as things stand right now you’re going to die, darling. I’ve studied a few medical texts to help as much as I can, but I’m nothing close to a doctor or even a nurse. However, I’d have to be blind not to notice the less-than-ideal state of your health.”
I snorted and shook my head. “I’m the one living with it. Trust me, I noticed a long time before you did.”
“Then it’s past time we faced the truth,” Rarity continued, undaunted by my uncooperative attitude. “In all likelihood, you will die at some point in the next few years, and perhaps much sooner than that. Have you made any plans or given any thought to what happens when you pass away? You’re the last living pony in the world. What’s more, you’re absolutely irreplaceable in every meaning of the word. What are we to do when you're gone?”
For one moment, I was tempted to tell her the truth—that I didn’t give a flying feather what happened after I died. Hay, maybe I was even looking forward to it. I’d spent Celestia only knows how long beating my head against a brick wall trying to unlock the secret to bringing back the dead. As long as I was alive I owed it to everyone to keep trying, but I was ... I didn’t hate the idea of finally being done with it. Besides, maybe I’d get to see Kukri and Celestia again. That didn’t sound so bad at all.
However, that almost certainly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I tried to reassure her as much as I could. “I’ve left all my books for you. I’m sure you’ll manage.”
That was a pretty hollow comfort, and Rarity knew it. “Yes, for a while. Maybe with all I’ve learned I can keep the staff going, keep Rainbow and myself fixed up as long as we don’t suffer any major damage, and keep right on going, piddling away in the palace. But to what end? You humor me with your lessons, but I can tell that I’m a rank amateur compared to you. We both know that it’s completely unrealistic to think that I’ll be able to continue your work or accomplish anything meaningful by myself.”
She was right, but I didn’t want to tell her. I couldn’t lie to her either, though. At least, not a lie that was remotely plausible enough to be believed. All I could give her by way of answer was a grunt and frown.
Rarity sighed and shook her head. “We simply can’t restore Equestria without you, and there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. If you die with your work unfinished ... then I might as well throw myself off the mountain, because without you I don’t have a purpose. Helping you is all well and good, but I can’t just exist for existence’s sake. I need a mission, a goal, something to drive me. I can’t just sit around making sure the curtains match the drapes forever.”
A little bit of the frustration I’d tried to keep hidden from her spilled out. “Rarity. I’ve been at this for ... I don’t even know how long, but my mane was still its original color when I started. Does it look like I’ve gotten any closer to pulling it off in all the time you’ve known me?”
Rarity sighed and shook her head. “I know you’ve hit a bit of a snag, but we just need a breakthrough. I know it’s been a long and difficult road, but this hardly needs to be the end of it. I don’t understand all the details, but I’ve read enough in your books to know that you are choosing to die. Celestia named you as her heir, so don’t try to tell me she didn’t include everything you’d need to know to become an alicorn and immortal. Even without that ... Rainbow and I don’t age, and since you haven’t even died yet you have many more options for—”
“No.” How the hay could I pretend to be Celestia? Sure, she’d left me enough information that I could take over her mantle and become an alicorn, but what was the point? To keep the sun moving properly over a dead, empty world? Besides, what had I done to deserve it? All I’d done was survive because better ponies decided to kill themselves to save me. That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for why I deserved to be an alicorn, let alone Celestia’s successor.
As for the alternatives ... I wasn’t going to turn myself into a lich or something so I could spend the rest of time fruitlessly trying to crack open the secrets of the universe. Being stuck in a dead end for my entire normal life had been bad enough. Doing it for an immortal eternity ... death would be a mercy compared to that.
“Sunset...” Rarity squeezed my hoof, and I was pretty sure she would be crying if her body were capable of it. “We’ve lost everything else. Don’t make us lose you too.” She bit her lip. “Don’t ... do you realize how much we—how much I care about you? Do you have any idea how much it hurts to see this happening to you when I know you could stop it whenever you wanted?”
A distant flash of color and sonic boom gave me the perfect excuse to end the conversation. “Sounds like Rainbow’s coming back.” I hadn’t expected to see her for another week, but Rainbow’s scouting trips had never followed a fixed schedule. She left when she wanted to, and came back when she felt like it.
Rarity might have been glad to see our only other companion returning, but she wasn’t fooled. “Sunset, don’t think you can use that as an excuse to change the subject. I know I’m perhaps being a bit blunter than I should be considering your station, but I think we can set aside some of the usual rules of decorum when we are discussing a matter of life and death that involves the world’s last hope of survival.”
Rainbow landed on the balcony and urgently rapped on the door. I jumped on the opportunity. “Come on in, Rainbow. Rarity’s here with me.”
Rarity huffed indignantly and glowered at me, but she didn’t say anything else. Apparently she wasn’t quite ready to keep the fight going in front of Rainbow Dash. It was a temporary reprieve, but I’d take it. I could always hope I died in my sleep before she brought it up again.
Rainbow trotted in, giving us both a tired grin. “Hey. So how long have I been gone?”
“Two weeks.” She’d gotten in the habit of asking that, back from when time had still been unstable enough that she could be gone for a day from our perspective but eight months from hers. She’d returned barely holding together after all the wear and tear she’d suffered. After that, I’d forbidden any more solo expeditions until the time storms died out completely.
Rainbow nodded to herself. “Good, it matches up. I’ll compare our clocks later.” She took a deep breath. “If they’re in sync, that’d make it a dozen trips without time going screwy. Maybe it’s really over.”
Yay, no temporal anomalies. And it had all happened just in time for the last living pony on the planet to die.
Rarity delicately cleared her throat, getting up to give Rainbow a quick hug. “It’s certainly nice to have you back. I’m always so worried when you leave.”
Rainbow patted her back, grumbling under her breath. “Sheesh, it’s not like I’m gonna forget how to get back or anything.”
“Of course not.” Rarity shot a rather pointed look at me while adding, “It’s just the thought of what things would be like if we lost one of our number...”
I did my best to ignore the passive-aggressive needling, something I’d be getting lots of time to practice doing now that I’d crossed Rarity. My best hope for a bit of peace would be to get Rainbow talking about her favorite subject. “So, how was your trip?”
“I made it back in one piece.” She grimaced and shook her head. “Problem is, that’s where the good news ends. I decided to swing by the Crystal Empire and see if there were any good books left, and ... Sombra’s still alive.”
I could scarcely believe my ears. “What?”
Rarity was just as shocked. “Excuse me?”
Rainbow shrugged helplessly. “I dunno how or why. Maybe he was hiding out in some sort of super-secret hiding place until time stopped going crazy. Doesn’t really matter how he pulled it off—the big thing is that he was there, walking around messing with all his crystals. Probably planning something really feathered up and evil.”
I snarled and slammed a hoof down on the table, ignoring the jolt of pain it sent up my leg. “I should’ve known! Of course he had a plan to survive the apocalypse he unleashed! We probably could’ve found his hiding place if we’d checked the palace more carefully.”
Rarity settled back into her seat, completely forgetting she was supposed to be mad at me. “My heavens, whatever will we do? If he comes to Canterlot...” She shot a worried look my way.
I scowled and shook my head. “To hay with worrying about him coming to us, that bastard blew up the world. I’m not letting him get away with that. I say we go to him, and we make him pay for that.”
Rainbow nodded sharply. “Now you’re talkin’ my language. He’s way overdue for butt-kicking. So what’s the plan?”
Rarity gasped and grabbed one of my hooves. “Your Highness, you can’t possibly be thinking to go and fight him. You’re much too ... Sombra was strong enough to match Celestia, and you’re ... well...” Her ears wilted. “We can’t even take you out in a carriage to ride around town. The last time we tried, you were so sore and tired you couldn’t get out of bed for days.”
Much as I hated to admit it, she was right. “To hay with beating him a fight, just trying to get up to the Crystal Empire would probably kill me.”
“You're not that bad,” Rainbow insisted. “Hay, you still look better than I do, aaaaand … damn, did I just burn myself.” She awkwardly rubbed the back of her patchy mane.
Rarity shot a faint frown Rainbow’s way. “You do know I could do quite a bit to help with those aesthetic issues, don’t you? I’m sure I’ve offered more than once.”
Rainbow shrugged. “As long as I can fight and fly, I’m good. Maybe you care about having all your guts so you can pretend you’re still alive, but I’m faster without the extra weight.” She turned back to me. “So ... whaddaya wanna do? Unless Sombra’s gotten way weaker, he’s got enough going for him that I can’t just swoop in and beat him to death with his walker.” She frowned, then amended, “Or whatever it is he uses. Good news is, it looks like it’s just him right now. I didn’t see anything like me or Rarity around him before I high-tailed it back here. Odds are he’ll want some sort of minions, though.”
Rarity bit her lip again. “And he’ll almost certainly come to Canterlot at some point. What are we going to do? Leave the palace and hide? Sunset has needs, she can’t go roughing it like she did in the old days. That would...” She trailed off with a grimace.
“It would kill me,” I finished for her.
Rarity wrapped one of her forelegs around me. Despite her best efforts, she still hadn’t worked out how to mimic natural body heat, which made it obvious I was being held by a corpse instead of a real living pony. Still ... it was nice.
“That still doesn't answer the question,” Rainbow growled. “I don’t wanna run and hide from the big ugly jerk, I wanna kick his butt. How do we do that?”
“Rainbow!” Rarity snapped. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?! We can’t fight him.” Her eyes flicked back to me, a pondering frown on her lips. “Not as things stand.”
“So change it up,” Rainbow shot back. “We can change it, right?” She joined Rarity in staring at me. “Like, I get that you’re older than a holiday fruitcake, but you made me and Rarity. You’ve gotta have some tricks up your sleeve for yourself too.”
“I ... have options.” Options that would’ve been unthinkable ten minutes ago, but now ... Sombra being alive changed everything.
Rarity cleared her throat. “There are several things I’ve read about in the forbidden archives. I’m sure you know even more than I do. We would have to be very careful with what we chose, of course, but...”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Rainbow demanded.
“Most of the things we'd try would kill me if I got them wrong.” I scoffed and shook my head. “Not that it would make much difference.”
Rarity shivered. “There are quite a few things in those books where death seemed like the preferable alternative.”
Rainbow shrugged. “What, so she turns into some kinda monster? What’s she gonna do, kill everyone? Long as we get Sombra, I don’t even care what happens next.” She scoffed softly. “You wanna know why I go off flying so much? I think I was kinda hoping I’d find some sort of crazy monster or something that could do me in. I mean, what was the point of what we were doing? But now ... I don’t care if I die, as long as I take that shadowy crystal-loving bastard with me. Maybe this is why we survived in the first place. To make sure he goes down.”
Rarity took a deep breath, then nodded grimly. “After everything he’s done ... there’s too much blood on that monster’s hooves. He’s irredeemable. Even if the spell goes wrong and turns Sunset into akin to Nightmare Moon, it’s worth it so long as Sombra dies.” She took my hoof and squeezed it. “I think Rainbow’s right, darling. This is why we’re here—what we’ve been waiting all this time for. The chance to bring the one who murdered our world to justice.”
I took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. I felt like I’d woken up from the world’s longest nap. For the first time in years, I really felt alive. “You’re right. Sombra doesn’t get away with this. I don’t care what it takes, we bring him to justice. I’ll need a bit to look over my options and decide which one I’ll go with, but ... it’s like Rainbow said. I can’t beat him the way I am, so that has to change.”
I shifted my attention to Rarity, feeling the beginnings of a plan. “You had some of our undead on mining duty, right?”
She nodded. “That’s half of our servitors right there. Finding the right sort of gems for all your experiments was no small task, which was why I wanted the extra intelligence cortex to speed up the production rate.”
“We’re reassigning them,” I ordered. “Keep some of them on gem work, but our main goal now is iron. Lots of iron. We’ll need to get a foundry up and running too, and I’ll also want to work on some modifications for the current mining spell matrices.”
Rainbow grinned. “Lemme guess, you wanna teach the skellies how to ‘mine’ Sombra and whatever creepies he gets working for him?”
Rarity’s smile took on a distinctly predatory edge. “I’m sure we could come up with something like that. With that new cortex, we should be able to put about two thousand soldiers in the field. Once I have them assigned to their new duties, I’ll look into some proper armor designs. It’s been some time since I tried my hoof at that, but I’m feeling positively inspired.”
Rainbow turned to me. “I want in on that. Maybe not iron, but if the freaking servants are getting a bunch of badass combat upgrades, I’m getting them too.”
“We’ll set something up,” I agreed, turning back to Rarity. “Have the miners keep an eye out for anything better than iron. Steel’s just fine for the basic troops, but I want you two to have the best of the best. And myself, I guess.” I grinned at them. “So, it looks like we’ve finally got a new neighbor. I say we go pay him a visit, with a couple thousand heavily armed and armored friends at our backs.”
Rainbow grinned and snapped off a perfect military salute, while Rarity beamed at me. “Why Princess, I think that’s positively the best idea you’ve come up with in years!”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “I thought the war was over when the world broke, but it looks like I was wrong. Equestria and the Crystal Empire are still at war, and there’s one more battle left to fight. We might not have been able to stop Sombra from destroying Equestria and killing everyone we loved, but we’ll at least bring the sick bastard to justice. He’ll pay for every single innocent life he’s taken.”
I turned to face Rainbow. “You wanted to know what my plan is? My plan is to take every single weapon I have at my disposal and wage war against a monstrous tyrant, one whose foul acts have surpassed all the darkest crimes recorded of the world. And once we destroy his ability to resist, we break him.”