“I still don’t know how you convinced her to do this,” Sunset said, nuzzling her marefriend’s cheek, not that it would actually be felt. Ghost rules, man. “You must be the stupidest mare I’ve ever met.”
“More like bravest mare. Come on, do you know how many times the Styx almost fried my feathers? And most times I barely got a word out before she bucked me back to the realm of the living,” Rainbow Dash snorted.
“Well, Luna has had quite a lot on her hooves these days because of the war. Lots of soldiers plus lots of deadly weapons equals a very tired goddess of death.”
“Yeah, you would know. And guess whose fault that is?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sunset rolled her eyes, not that Rainbow could actually see it. Number one because Sunset was behind her and number two because ghost rules.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s all my fault and definitely not the fault of whatever ice archer King Sombra had on mage-killing duty.”
“Exactly. I told you to go right and which way did you go?”
“Left.” They both said in unison.
“Ah, gods, I knew you’d say that. I was just waiting all those six months for that ‘I told ya so.’ Celestia, you are a stubborn mare,” Sunset moaned.
“And that’s why you love me,” Rainbow said, smirking smugly.
Even though Sunset had no physical form, Rainbow could’ve sworn she heard a facehoof. She slowed down and spread her wing over where she assumed her marefriend was walking, and they continued on for a few minutes, just as they had often done in the realm of the living.
Sunset let this go on for a while, amused at her marefriend’s attempt at romance. It would’ve worked too, if Sunset had actually been walking next to Rainbow instead of floating a few feet behind her.
“You do realize, Rainbow Dash, that I’m a ghost, right?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s kinda why I’m down here in Tartarus.”
“And you do realize that ghosts don’t need to walk, right? And for this deal to work, I have to be following behind you.”
“Oh.”
“You did read the terms of agreement, right?”
“Uh, sure! Yeah, let’s go with that.”
“Those were important, Rainbow Dash! Didn’t Luna tell you what would happen if you broke the rules?”
“Well yeah, I listened to that part and all the other ones. I just didn’t have time to memorize them all. It’s not like I had time to coordinate some Tartarus-wide flying path to learn all the guidelines. All I know is that I can’t turn around and if I do, you have to go back for good.”
“Okay, as long as you don’t eat anything down here, we should be fine,” Sunset sighed in relief.
“Wai wha?” Rainbow said as best she could. Her mouth was wide open and she was about to bite into a large apple.
“Rainbow! Put that down!” Sunset shouted. She really wanted to smack it out of Rainbow’s hoof but she couldn’t because ghost rules and such.
“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!” Rainbow yelped as she threw the apple away.
“It’s fine, just never do that again.”
“I swear I won’t try to eat anything in Tartarus ever again, scout’s honor,” Rainbow declared. She even did the little motion with her primary feathers, despite being a scout for approximately zero days.
Sunset chuckled and teasingly replied, “That’s good, but I was referring to buying golden delicious apples. Those are literally the worst apple.”
“Oh I know, but Applejack told me that apples are good luck or something and shoved a bunch of them into my saddlebags. I think she was just pawning them off on me because none of the soldiers wanted to eat them.”
“Ha! I wouldn’t eat them either if they were the last apple on Equus.”
They walked - and in Sunset’s case, floated - in silent contentment for a while, smiling their goofy smiles. After a few minutes of this, Sunset’s ears pricked up, not that they could actually channel sound any better because again, ghost rules.
“Hey, Dash.”
“Yeah?”
“You hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounds like water. I think the river’s up ahead. We’re almost out of here!”
“Really? Awesome! Come on, try to keep up with your floaty ghost magic,” Rainbow called out as she spread her wings and took off.
“Hey wait up! I can’t actually float that fast aaand she’s gone,” Sunset grumbled. She flailed her hooves in the air in a feeble attempt to move slightly faster than a steady trot.
When Sunset finally caught up to her marefriend, Rainbow had already hopped onto a waiting boat.
“Hello? Are you here yet? I can’t turn around so say something like ‘Rainbow Dash is the most awesome marefriend ever because she’s literally resurrecting me.’ ” Rainbow called out to whoever was listening (this happened to be Sunset and about a bajillion souls wandering around the nearby Plain of Something - Rainbow couldn’t quite remember the name but it probably wasn’t important).
“Yeah, I finally made it,” Sunset said with surprising ease. Normally, this much effort would have warranted some huffing and puffing so this was rather unusua- No wait, ghost rules still apply.
“All right, slowpoke!”
“I was going at a normal speed, ya know. You’re just a crazy speed demon.”
Rainbow ignored that comment and kept talking over Sunset. “As soon as we get you across the River Styx, you’ll be not a ghost anymore and we can make out like crazy.”
“Pfft, yeah let’s do it. I haven’t been getting any of my evening cuddles or goodnight kisses, so we’ll have to do something crazy romantic when we cross this river.”
“Come on then, let’s go already!”
“On it,” Sunset said, swooping down towards the boat. She tried to land on it, but her hoof phased through the wooden planks. You can probably guess why, but I’ll say it anyway. Ghost rules. So Sunset just hovered over the boat while Rainbow pushed off from shore with her hind leg.
The boat cut through the milky white water with ease, and soon the two ponies were halfway across the river.
“I can’t believe I’m finally going to be alive again,” Sunset said. She eagerly bounced in midair and did little loop de loops above the boat.
“I know! I’ve missed you so so much, Sunset. I can’t wait to reach the shore, but I can’t help but feel like I’m forgetting something.” Rainbow scratched her head with a hoof, but couldn’t think of what else was left to remember and shrugged. “Whelp, I guess it wasn’t important. We’re here anyway.”
“Yeah, I felt like there was something I was supposed to remember too, but I can’t think of it. Huh.”
The boat bumped the far shore of the river and Rainbow leapt off the boat.
“Oh wait! I remember now. Where’s Charon the ferryman? Isn’t he supposed to be taking us across the Styx?”
“Who cares? Luna probably told him we’d be here making out on this side of the river and he left.” Rainbow waved a flippant hoof at Sunset’s concern. What was there to be worried about? They made it to the realm of the living, hadn’t they?
“I guess.” Sunset still sounded uneasy, but Rainbow was probably right. She just needed to float off the side of the boat and she’d become solid and real and alive and not a ghost anymore.
“So you ready yet? Just tell me when I should turn around,” Rainbow said. Her rainbow tail swished back and forth in anticipation.
Sunset took a deep breath, even though she couldn’t actually feel the oxygen filling up her lungs because more ghost rules. Though soon she wouldn’t have to listen to ghost rules and she could live by the normal laws of gravity and needing to eat to survive and being able to get injured and all that fun stuff.
“All right, I’m almost ready. On my command, you turn,” Sunset declared. She floated to the very edge of the boat and pushed herself right over the edge as she shouted, “Turn!”
Rainbow whipped around eagerly and saw…
Absolutely nothing.
“Uh, Sunset? Did you run behind me when I turned? Are you using an invisibility spell or something? Is this a prank? It’s not very funny.”
Rainbow turned around five more times before it sunk in; Sunset wasn’t there.
The confounded pegasus flew along the banks of the river looking for some sign of where Sunset had gone. They’d followed Luna’s instructions, hadn’t they? They crossed the River Styx, exiting Tartarus and entering the land of the living. She hadn’t looked back until they were both across. None of it lined up.
Then she found the sign she was looking for.
Plain of Lethe ← →
River of Lethe →
“Ohhh that’s why Charon wasn’t there. This is the wrong river! We weren’t even halfway out of Tartarus yet. I was wondering why the journey felt significantly shorter, but I guess I just thought Sunset made it more fun,” Rainbow mused to herself. “Well crap. Luna’s definitely not giving me another shot. I guess I’ll just have to find some way to get her back. What could go wrong?”
-----
“Dammit! I knew I was forgetting something important!” Sunset cried out, slamming her hoof into one of the many large rock outcrops around her. Her hoof passed right through it, ghost rules refusing her any sort of rage relief. “Argh! Now I’m stuck here with you?!”
“Hey, it’s not so bad here,” Tirek called out from one of the other large spires.
“Yeah, the meals are actually pretty decent! Better than airplane food anyway,” Discord shouted from another spire.
“What’re you even doing here, Discord? You aren’t even dead!” Sunset yelled back.
Discord just shrugged. “Well I wouldn’t be here unless it was an emergency.”
“Did something happen in the war? Did I die before my time? Have you come to bring me back to life?!”
“What? No! That would be absurd. No, I’m just here because Tartarus has the best scratching rocks. I would use my own backscratcher but it appears I dropped mine sometime ago. I don’t remember exactly when or where, otherwise I’d go back in time to retrieve it, but alas I have no idea where it could be. Say, Sunset, you wouldn’t have happened to see an ice arrow oh… about six months ago?”