Days ago, on Eerie Lantern’s front lawn…
Mister Double tried to remember.
Yet the only things he could recall before his unlife was rain... salty rain... and a sense of understanding.
An understanding of what his cutie mark truly stood for.
But the answer that brought this understanding had been lost in death, like water down a dark grimy drain. Sometimes, like that day, he'd hide from the others and try to remember. He'd try so hard the edges of his spirit would fuzz out and he thought he almost felt real pain.
What did his cutie mark mean? What was his talent?
Apparently, he’d been musing aloud, for Dew Dream appeared over him and said with languid annoyance, "Double trouble.”
She then leaned in, her dark eyes narrowing as she let out a breathy and contemptuous, “Duh."
In death, she appeared as a slim disaffected teen pegasus with leg warmers, an abundance of ear piercings, and heavy eye makeup. Her voluminous alternative mane faded from light gray at the roots to spiky dark ends, like she were a Vanhoover glam rocker.
Mister wilted before her, his big sad eyes following Dew in her ascent back to her weathervane that sat upon the squat house.
Was that it? Had he been a bad colt in life?
"Dew, be nice!" Scarlet scolded sharply. Her curly head poked out of the window, her eyes turned toward the roof, but Dew was already out of sight, hidden within her haunt.
Scarlet tutted and floated through the wall toward Mister, who glumly watched her approach.
“Don’t you pay her any mind, Mister D,” Scarlet said soothingly. Her features were warm and kind. “Dew Dream is quite trapped in the most temperamental age a ghost can hope to be stuck in. Her words may be careless, but she doesn’t wish ill on you. Not really.”
Mister sniffled and glumly swiped a foreleg across his nostrils, even though no real snot or tears were present.
The other ‘grown-up’ ghosts had explained to him that sometimes their spirits remembered what it was like to be in a living body, and so went ‘through the motions’ of looking and sounding as such, but it wasn’t real.
But he felt like his tears were real. They were his pain. His sadness.
“If she doesn’t mean it, then why is Dew always saying mean things to me?” he asked Scarlet with downturned eyes and limp ears.
Scarlet sighed, her forehooves laying atop each other as her gaze scanned the surrounding forest. One of the colt’s ears perked as he quietly admired his elder in death.
Mister always thought Scarlet looked really pretty, but his least favorite look for the southern belle was her ‘worried mama’ face. He felt bad whenever her phantom features pulled tight in this way. It was almost like he’d limped into the house after bullies beat him, or came home with a bad report from school…
He frowned down at the ground.
Wait. Had he done those things before?
“She’s… angry, hon.” Scarlet eventually said, looking at him with soft eyes. “Angry that she was so close to knowing what it was to be a grown-up, and she never got to be one. She never got to realize any of her many dreams.”
Mister scowled. “Shucks! Well, neither did I!”
The older ghost smiled sadly at him. “You’re quite right, Mister… You’re quite right.”
Scarlet made a gentle motion with a hoof for him to follow her. “Come on, hon. Eerie and I are going to organize her closet today. There are bound to be some old haunts in there with interesting stories to tell!”
Mister let Scarlet guide him into the house with a half-hearted smile. He usually loved hearing Eerie and Scarlet’s stories about ghosts they’d set free and all the strange and interesting places those ghosts had come from. They were fanciful and hopeful, despite their tragic starts.
But he wasn’t much in the mood for hearing about creatures moving on when he himself wasn’t ready to.
After all, how could he reach the afterlife if he didn’t even know who he was and what he was even leaving behind?
The present.
Sunshine Smiles was like warmth and candy. Mister Double hadn’t been able to resist her aura. Hadn’t been able to stay away from the pull of her vibrant spirit energy. Just being close to her had felt like being alive again.
He’d never possessed anyone before, but to say that he’d consciously taken over Sunshine’s body wasn’t exactly true.
It was more that she’d been a whirlpool that he’d been swept up by.
Once inside the swirling currents, the sheer force of who Sunshine was seemed to engulf him, and he was lost in a din of somepony else’s existence. It was sensation and emotion, but also memory and personality that assailed him, threatening to override his own. Faintly, through the chaos, Mister finally understood why Scarlet had always warned him against possession until his powers as a ghost had improved.
“The risk goes both ways,” she had explained to him with a grave expression. “When spirits meld together, it’s less like gently mixing ingredients to bake a sweet, sweet cake, and more like hammering and welding two things together that have no business being one!”
“Then why do you and the other grown-ups like possession so much?” he’d asked, pouting. As far as he could see, the real reason he and Dew weren’t allowed to possess was that the big ghosts were being stingy.
“Well,” Scarlet said with a nervous brush of her dress. “Because when you’ve the spiritual power to keep your essence and the host’s essence separate, it… ah… feels good.”
She looked at him with a chagrined smile. “I won’t try to deny it, Mister. It feels really good! Done properly, possession is an exquisite ride!”
The seriousness returned to her pretty features. “But therein lies the danger!” She wagged a hoof. “Even a strong spirit can succumb to melding if they lose concentration! You and Dew simply lack the discipline. Eerie and I are just trying to keep you both safe!”
At the time, hearing those words had greatly annoyed the ghost colt.
Safe? Safe?! He was dead! What harm was there in him trying it for a little bit? He knew for a fact that Eerie Lantern was good at ejecting spirits from her body. Surely if he lost control, she’d be able to set things right and keep them both from harm?
But now, tumbling in the depths of Sunshine Smiles being, he realized that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t the point at all!
It was scary being in here.
And perhaps the scariest part of all was that he kind of liked the taste of his own oblivion.
Mister Double felt like he had all the control and none of it at the same time, so even though he could feel every inch of Sunshine’s body and could do anything he wanted with it, those first few precious moments were spent cowering and screaming.
He saw so many glimpses of a life that wasn’t his: Birthday parties numbering well beyond his own years; experiences with a spooky sister he never knew; sexual encounters that baffled and titillated him; painful losses that felt insurmountable and yet familiar—
He wasn’t even aware that Thelk had awoken from his hibernation and was causing a scene. No, Mister was screaming from his own tumultuous realization that possession was overwhelming and terrifying and he absolutely wasn’t ready for this—
So when Moonlight Raven said, “Come on!” and pulled him along, trapped in Sunshine’s body, toward the door, Mister didn’t fight.
He just followed her out of the house mindlessly before being showered in warmth as the sun’s light rained down on him.
The sun… The sun! How many years had it been since he’d last felt it?
And those smells!
The grass! The trees! The flowers!
Tears welled in Sunshine’s eyes, clouding Mister D’s sight as he ran after Moonlight in a daze through the woods. Even the sensation of the mare’s hooves hitting the dirt road felt visceral and amazing.
“I... I feel alive!” Mister whispered in Sunshine’s voice. His head whipped around to take in the emerald brilliance of the passing nature.
“I feel alive!” he said louder as if announcing it to the world. He laughed and sobbed.
If he was going to be soul melded, at least his last memories were of something beautiful.
It feels terrific, doesn’t it? Sunshine said to him through the maelstrom of sights, sounds, and stray memories.
Startled, Mister’s gallop came to a skidding halt just at the outer edge of the pumpkin field as he gazed wide-eyed into the blue horizon.
“Huh?” he gasped, “Y-You—?”
It’s okay, the mare inside whispered soothingly. The currents that swirled around Mister calmed. The mental noise of a life not his own gradually quieted.
You surprised me a little, Sunshine went on. But you’re totes safe. M’kay? Nobody is going to be melding with anybody today.
“Keep going!” Moonlight hissed as she passed, the curl that she so carefully styled around her horn now trailing through the air in disarray. “We have to—”
The goth pony’s eyes went wide as they fell back on her sister. She slowed to a stop and trotted back, her horn lighting up.
“Who are you?” she asked flatly. Her level voice somehow managed to hold a hidden current of menace.
Sunshine’s mouth opened, but this time, Mister wasn’t the one who spoke. “Moonlight, wait! I’m fine. This one’s never done this before.”
Moonlight’s eyes narrowed as she sat by her sister. “And? Newbie ghosts are, like, waaay nightmarish. I don’t want to take the risk.” Her horn burned brighter and she leaned in.
Sunshine’s face frowned, just as her inner self drew Mister’s spirit in deeper. He felt an aura of protectiveness surround him. “He’s just a colt, Ravey,” the mare whispered.
This made the goth go still. Her eyes searched her sister’s face before the magic finally faded from her horn.
Sunshine smiled her gratitude before closing her eyes. Even before she said anything, the colt knew her intent. They were going to ‘talk’—but it wasn’t going to take half as long as when he talked out in the world. It was going to be at the speed of thought—more a sense of intent than verbalized words.
And so, in this manner, Sunshine asked him, Your name is Mister Double, right?
Mister shivered within the folds of Sunshine’s spiritual embrace. Here the space hummed and it was almost swelteringly hot. Though the chaos of swimming unchecked through another pony was gone, somehow this was just as, if not more intense, than before.
The ghost felt frightfully connected, and whereas previously he had been partaking of everything Sunshine was, now he felt her doing the same to him.
Her consciousness sieved out details and ideas. Like his name. His time as a ghost. And more than he even knew was there.
Oooh… Yeah, I can see why Scarlet and Eerie told you to wait, little guy. You have, like, ZERO defenses! Sunshine said with a tut.
The humming around him lessened and he felt her retract a little.
Sorry, she told him. I’ll be gentler. I don’t normally get kids in my head, y’know?
Mister felt like crying again, so Sunshine’s eyes began to burn.
N-No! I’m the one who's sorry… he mumbled. You were really bright and warm, and before I knew it—!
Hey, no biggie! She assured him with a giggle. I should have been more careful. My sis is always telling me to be on my guard more, but I’m kind of an airhead, so I forget.
I don’t think you’re an airhead, Mister replied with a proverbial frown. You just see stuff differently! That dumb ol’ stallion should have given you the money! You want to help creatures and your idea was good!
He felt Sunshine falter around him.
The stallion…? she started uncertainly, before she perked with rigid embarrassment. Oh, you mean my business pitch to Filthy Rich last week!
The heat around Mister grew as Sunshine continued bashfully, Aw, I dunno, Mister. Filthy might have been right. It’s hard to see how helpful a ‘spirit coach’ would be if nopony even believed!
She gave a mental shrug. Besides, I help plenty of ponies as a nurse at the Canterlot Hospital!
Mister pouted. But it isn’t what you want to do!
He felt her smile. Nevermind what I wanna do, little guy. What matters is what YOU wanna do. And that’s remembering your life and your talent, am I right?
His spirit sat up straighter. You can help me remember?
Sure! Sunshine answered brightly. But this might feel a little crazy, kay? Just try to stay relaxed so that I can see.
Mister nodded his head eagerly.
He felt something move over him, like a hoof stroking over his mane and fur.
Let’s see here—
Then the cold sprang forth, straight from the center of his spirit. It was like a giant icicle, cold and frigid… and for the first time in a long time, he remembered his final thoughts.
Some ghosts remembered them after being liberated. Some ghosts didn’t. Mister was the latter.
Fact was, remembered or not, every ghost had them. When they were trapped in their haunts, they repeated them, over and over, like a record skipping. That said, not all were willing to share theirs.
Stix and Dew Dream, for instance, refused to say, no matter how much Mister wheedled. Scarlet’s final thoughts had been spent wondering about a strange taste. Thelk’s had been spent predictably relishing in what he called a ‘glorious death’.
But Mister’s…
Mister’s was—
“Oh, Sweet Celestia…!” Sunshine whispered with a drawn face and haunted gaze. The color seemed to go out of her coat.
Moonlight’s withers tightened as she placed a gentle hoof on her sister’s face.
As a walker of the shadows, she knew the depths of darkness ran deep. Somehow, despite her sister’s irresistible life force, Sunshine had been fortunate enough to stay above the void. Moonlight had tried to warn her. To encourage her to close her soul off forever, if only to shield what radiance she could.
Sunshine wouldn’t hear of it.
“Ravey, doing that would dim my joy of life,” she often replied. “Instead of doing that, why not share it? These poor ghosts are so sad. I can help them!”
Moonlight didn’t get it. Why risk all of your happiness for the sake of spirits that may not even deserve it? She knew that poltergeists existed. Her private research at Celestia’s School of Magic had taught her that evil souls could also linger, plaguing the living in a fit of malice and jealousy.
Could it be that this spirit was a poltergeist?
Moonlight’s lips thinned and her horn began to light up again. “Sunny, speak to me.”
Tears welled in Sunshine’s eyes. She didn’t move her head, but her gaze flickered to her sister’s blank face.
“This colt, he was—!”
Eerie Lantern’s voice cut in like a ragged roar, “Give him back!”
Moonlight’s head snapped to the side to see the lavender unicorn galloping towards them, huffing loudly. Her overgrown coat glistened with fresh sweat, and her eyes were wide with panic and outrage.
At her side she levitated a basket, the very same from when they’d first met. In it was the same teapot, but under it was a blanket.
Eerie slowed as she neared them, like she was wary to get too close, and her face screwed up with strain as her horn burned brighter beneath the wild fringe of her mane, but her expression was set. Determined.
“You better fucking give back my friend!” She snarled. Her ears pinned back, and she scraped her hoof harshly in the ground.
“Mister is safe,” Sunshine assured her quietly. Her brow knotted, making her forehead wrinkle some under her horn. “But Eerie, he…” Emotions swallowed her words, and she hung her head.
Moonlight frowned.
Sunshine becoming sad after a ghost encounter was not new, but her sister was more than just being sentimental. She was... disturbed.
“Shut up!” Eerie snapped, stomping a hoof. “Don’t you realize what you could have done? By separating him from his haunt you could have destroyed him!”
“Uh… S’cuse me? Your friend possessed my sister without asking,” Moonlight pointed out. “We wouldn’t have left at all if things hadn’t gone all crazy.”
“If you know so much about ghosts, then maybe you would have recognized some harmless prestidigitation when you saw it!”
Moonlight’s eyebrow arched up, and if possible, her voice turned flatter. “A massive book flying toward my face is, like, the opposite of harmless.”
Eerie let out a hysterical laugh. “Puh-lease! As if having two unwanted strangers in my house was a cakewalk!”
Now the goth pony’s eyes narrowed. “Woah…”
So that’s how it was? She thought she’d seen a kindred spirit buried beneath all that awkward paranoia. Had this all been a mistake?
“Girls,” Sunshine squeaked.
“If you didn’t want us there, you could have just said so,” Moonlight said witheringly.
Eerie’s lip curled. “Duh! I tried! But either you were too stupid to hear me, or this was your plan all along!”
Moonlight scoffed. “Getting my sister traumatized? Trust me, I def have easier ways of doing that.”
“You’re exorcists,” Eerie hissed. “I’ve met your kind before. ‘Holy’ ponies who think they have a right to condemn all souls!”
The goth looked down at herself, then dryly at Eerie. “I’m about as holy as a demon’s fuckstick. Even my sister is just a shiny airhead. Are you blind?”
Sunshine sank down to the ground. “Girls…?” Her voice sounded fainter.
“You’re a liar!” Eerie yelled. Her stance widened and her head lowered like she was about to charge. “Give me back my friend, or I’ll—!”
Moonlight mirrored the stance, her eyes darting up briefly to see the collection of spirit energy over Eerie’s head. It was the same earth pony spirit from the other day… But it didn’t radiate menace. Only worry and fear.
Frustration finally started to eke into Moonlight’s voice as she bit out through bared teeth. “I swear by the stars, we didn’t mean to—”
“SAVE HIM!!” Sunshine screamed, her head rearing back as she pointed desperately at nothing.
Moonlight’s head whipped toward her sister, her gaze stretching wide as she took in the unchecked horror drawing Sunshine’s pretty features into a ghastly mask of terror.
“The other colt is still in the shack! SAVE him before the monster—!!”
The blanket from the basket flew into sight and covered Sunshine’s head. Eerie appeared at the blonde’s side, her face pinched with stress.
“Shhhhh… It’s okay, Mister. It’s over. It’s over now,” she murmured.
Within moments Sunshine’s hysteria quieted.
Gently, Eerie pulled the blanket off with her teeth, revealing that Sunshine had collapsed.
Not paying the mare any attention, she carefully, lovingly, folded the blanket and returned it to the basket.
The fabric smoked with ghostly energy and became intensely cold, like it had been sitting in an ice box for hours, before it returned to normal temperature. In his panic, Mister had been drawn to the security of his haunt.
The tightness in Eerie’s countenance morphed to one of weary sadness. “You’re okay. The other colt’s okay. You did good. Rest now. Shhhh…”
Scarlet Orange hovered just over her shoulder, her face long. She opened her mouth to say something, but then she turned her face down and sighed.
They’d feared this day would come. But why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t she have protected Mister Double better?
Tears clung to Eerie’s eyelashes.
I failed him.
Sunshine lay on her side, panting, her eyes lidded. Moonlight went to her sister and nuzzled her cheek.
“Sunny?” She breathed. “You okay?”
When no reply came, she asked next. “What did you see?”
Rather than answer, Sunshine lifted her head and gazed at Eerie, tears welling in her eyes. “I… I offered to help him remember. I thought it would help…” Her voice frayed. “Mister, I’m sorry!”
“Shut your mouth,” Eerie hissed, her ears pinning as she glared at the meddlesome unicorn. “Shut your fucking mouth! He was just a foal when he died! Did you think he’d remember something happy? You idiot!”
Scarlet tutted. “Eerie, that’s enough.”
“No, it’s not enough!” Eerie yelled, turning her venomous eye on Scarlet next. “Not by half! Thanks to her, Mister D will tap into a whole new kind of suffering!”
Moonlight stepped between Sunshine and Eerie, her ears pinned flat. “My sister just wanted to help. She said she’s sorry, and she means it. Lay off.”
Eerie rounded on the goth, her eyes narrowing to slits. “And you. Why couldn’t you take a hint? I don’t want friends! I hate the living! All you breathers do is bring pain!”
Moonlight’s lips thinned. “Wow. Last I checked you were breathing like the rest of us.”
This made Eerie look away with disgust. “Yeah…” Her lip curled as she eyed Moonlight sideways. “And it’s days like these that make me wish otherwise.”
Scarlet gasped, one hoof finding her chest. “Oh, pumpkin! You take that back!”
Instead, Eerie turned her back on the other mares. “Stay away from me.”
Then she lowered her head, grabbed the basket handle with her teeth, and trotted away.
Scarlet glided alongside her, and Eerie could feel her friend’s gaze. She refused to meet it.
“Eerie,” the southern belle started tentatively. “It seems to me those mares really didn’t mean to get caught up in all of this…”
Eerie’s teeth bit deeper into the handle, but she still didn’t turn her head.
“Didn’t they also say they had some experience with ghosts?” Scarlet continued. “I think that Sunshine Smiles truly wanted the best for Mister. She couldn’t have known that—”
“I was murdered,” Mister Double squeaked.
Eerie stopped short, just at the edge of the woods that harbored her house. Her ears were perked tall, and her eyes became massive.
Scarlet’s hooves covered her mouth as Mister slowly emerged from his blanket. His expression was blank, though his ghostly gaze pierced deep into Eerie’s.
“Eerie… Sunshine helped me see… but not all of it.” His voice was waif-like, but something about it seemed unrelenting. His ears slowly turned out and his withers visibly tightened. “Tell me the rest of it. I’m a big colt, promise. Just… J-Just tell me everything.”
Eerie put the basket down slowly. She looked at Mister with profound sorrow. “Mister… It’s good that you don’t remember it all. What use will it do for you now to recall something so painful?”
Mister frowned and looked down at the ground.
Scarlet gave a start and looked behind them just as Eerie heard the sound of hooves over the dirt path.
“I wasn’t trying to show him his end,” Sunshine breathed as she neared. “I was trying to show him his life. He was trying to remember… Trying to remember what his—“
“What my talent was,” Mister said gravely.
Eerie’s eyes squeezed shut.
That weight... that awful weight! Eerie could hear it in the colt’s voice. She knew it so well. After all, she’d held the same gravity in her words as a filly. It was just another way the psychic scars of trauma made their awful presence known.
“I can’t remember my talent,” Mister murmured. “It was part of who I was. How can I move on if I don’t know who I was?”
Eerie’s chin quivered. “But your talent was why you died…” Her voice sounded small.
I don’t want to do this...
She felt a chilly caress on her cheek and opened her eyes to see Mister looking pleadingly at her. “Eerie, if you know, please tell me… What happened? Why was I murdered?”
Eerie Lantern took a deep breath in the hopes that it would steady her. It didn’t work, so she took another one. And another one. Very soon, she was fighting to breathe at all.
“I can’t. Mister, I can’t!” She half-sobbed, half-gasped.
Tears clouded her vision.
Why? Why was this happening now?
She and Scarlet had discovered the truth years ago. When all of the awful details had been made clear to them, they had decided it was better to leave such things in the past. After all, most ghosts could move on without discovering the trauma of their death.
Some, like Stix, did learn of their fate, and they were no more able to find peace than if they had become a poltergeist and terrorized the living.
“He wants to know, doesn’t he?” Moonlight whispered.
Eerie turned and yelled over her shoulder, “It’s none of your business!”
“It’s okay,” Mister said firmly.
Eerie looked at him, taken aback. “Mister, it’s their fault that—!”
“It’s okay for them to hear. I want them to,” he pressed with a frown. “Sunshine felt everything I did. What if she needs to hear it now? She was nice to me. I possessed her, but she was nice to me anyway. So she and her sister stay.”
Eerie’s jaw clenched. She glared at Moonlight, then at Sunshine.
“What is it?” Moonlight asked.
“He wants you to stay,” Eerie said through tight lips. “He wants you to hear his story.”
The sisters exchanged surprised looks.
Eerie scowled down at her own hooves. When it came to delving into the past, it was hard to deny a ghost’s wishes. It was such a sensitive subject, and one could never tell what thing would truly bring closure. Ultimately, most spirit desires could be boiled down to one thing—
“Every ghost just wants to be remembered, pumpkin,” Scarlet murmured. “If he wants more witnesses, then it’s his right.”
Eerie looked at her wearily. She wiped her tears with a rough pass of her forearm, the fur on her cheeks matted and wet.
“All right,” she started with a rough sigh. “Listen up.”
Eerie Lantern drew herself up and fixed the unicorn sisters with a hard stare. “This is the story of how Mister Double died for his talent.” She looked at Mister and forced a somber smile, “And why it made him a gods-damned hero.”