//------------------------------//
// Not the face! 
// Story: Murder, Murder, Also Murder 
// by dawnbreez 
//------------------------------//

"Trixie," Twilight said, "we need a body."

Trixie sat up, glancing over the top of her copy of Equestria Daily. She glanced at Twilight. She glanced at Starlight, who was standing next to Twi with a nervous grin. Trixie rolled her eyes.

"Trixie does not know why you think Trixie has bodies to spare. Trixie's saw-and-box routine works perfectly every time."

"Well, even if it didn't--" Twi squeaked as Trixie glared at her. "Which it never does! But even if your saw-and-box trick did fail sometimes, we can't use a body that old."

"Why not?" Trixie said, flicking the top of her magazine and returning to her favorite article, the one about Trixie.

"Because we have to cast the spell within an hour of death," Starlight said.

Trixie's eyebrow rose approximately half an inch. "Does this have anything to do with Taurtaros?"

"No! No. Goodness, no," Starlight said. "Well, assuming you don't believe pony souls go to Taurtaros."

"Which we might prove--or disprove!" Twilight added.

Trixie once again studied their faces, frowning slightly. "What exactly do you need a body for, again?"

"We've devised a spell," Twilight began.

"One that will revolutionize magic!" Starlight continued.

"It'll redefine what we know about mortality!" Twilight added.

"It'll expand our knowledge of magic and our knowledge of the soul!" Starlight exclaimed!

"That is, if you come back." Twilight grinned sheepishly. "See, I'm not completely sure that it can resurrect ponies yet."

Trixie blinked. "Resurrect."

"Yes," Twi said.

"Ponies."

"We tried it on a mouse that Twi found in her cupboard," Starlight explained. "He's in perfect health, according to Fluttershy. Who doesn't know that we killed him."

Trixie frowned a little more. "Trixie still doesn't understand why you need Trixie's help. As great and powerful as Trixie is, conjuring a dead body out of thin air is beyond her powers."

"Oh, no, we don't need you to find a body," Twi said with a laugh. "We need to make a body. With you."

"Trixie is flattered, but she's definitely not ready to have children, and she still doesn't understand--"

"We need you to die, Trix," Starlight said suddenly.

Trixie's mouth flapped noiselessly for a few seconds.

"Sorry," Starlight offered, along with her trademark nervous grin.





"Mmf!" Trixie shouted. "MMMMF!" she added. It was kind of hard to hear her through the gag that Twilight had fashioned out of an old scarf.

"Sorry! Sorry. Sorry," Starlight said, as she carried Trixie down the stairs with a series of loud THUMPs.

"MMPHM!" Trixie objected.

"Look, I explained on the ride here."

"MM-MMF!"

"What do you mean, you still don't understand?"

"MM-MFF-MM-MMM-MMFFMM!"

"Look, it's very simple. Twilight doesn't want to wait for a cadaver from the morgue, because it's hard to tell how a stranger will react to being resurrected--"

"MM-MMMM!"

"And besides, getting the body through the coroner and out to the castle would take way more than an hour."

"MM! MM!"

"More importantly," Starlight said as she ran a whetstone over the knife of choice, "we might have to wait weeks or months between opportunities, because there's actually not a lot of deaths around here."

Trixie settled for wiggling indignantly as she tried to catch her breath.

"So I pointed out, you know, maybe we need to make a dead body. For research purposes. We'll be putting it right back, right? No harm, no foul."

"MM-MM-MM-MMM!"

"Hey, it was a really tough decision! Twilight didn't wanna kill any of her friends--well, we brought up Rainbow, Rainbow'd probably beg for a chance to go see how cool the afterlife is, but we're pretty sure Spitfire would lose her mind if she found out we almost killed her star recruit."

"MMMMMMMMM!"

"It was hard to settle on anypony we could really, actually kill without feeling bad about it, even if the spell brings them right back. But, we both agreed that there was one pony who--as much as I love you for it, Trixie--you're just kind of...stabbable. You just have a stabbable face."

"MMM-MM-MMMM!"

"I know, the usual word is 'punchable', but--look, our original plan was to have you go annoy the hell out of a Royal Guard until he decided to stab you. You're lucky it's personal."

Starlight sighed. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it'd work, all right? Just hold still--there we go..."





"Circle's complete, aaaaand--"

Twilight charged her horn, and Starlight joined her, both unicorns pumping as much magical power into the runic circle as they could. Slowly, but steadily, Trixie's body began to float.

"It's working!" Twilight shouted. "IT'S WORKING!"

Trixie convulsed once, twice, three times; the hole in her neck sealed itself; and slowly, her eyes fluttered open, glowing with incredible magical potential. Dragging a soul back into its body was an incredibly difficult process, on par with a year's worth of sun-raising, and it was only through the clever use of various magical forms of leverage that two unicorns could even attempt it.

Trixie's body settled to the floor as the ritual wound down. Her eyes closed, then opened again, the glow of power no longer present--but the spark of life was.

"...Twilight?"

"Yes, Trixie?"

"Trixie would kill you, but now Trixie knows it won't stick."

"SUCCESS!" Twi squealed, clapping her forehooves. "What was it like? What's it like? Tell me tell me tell me!"

"...Trixie saw nothing worth mentioning. The afterlife bored her."

Starlight cocked her head to the side. "You can't be serious."

"Trixie sees no reason to celebrate. The afterlife had Trixie in it for a brief moment, and then it stopped having Trixie in it, so now there is no reason to go there."

Twi's jaw quietly dropped. Starlight reached over and closed her mouth for her.

"Trix?" Starlight said. "This is why everypony wants to murder you."

"Trixie sees no reason for any of you to complain when Trixie is right."





Somewhere in the infinite planes of the multiverse, two eternal beings held a quiet conversation.

The first said to the second, what was that thing which was sitting here for a blink of an eye? For an hour to us is but mere moments, as our time is measured in centuries and millennia.

The second said to the first, I know not what it was; it was blue, and quadrupedal, and gave off an aura of superiority that none could fathom.

The first said to the second, pray tell, did mine eyes deceive me, or was it a tiny blue-colored unicorn?

The second said to the first, yea, verily it was.

The first said to the second, it was rather cute, wasn't it? And it added some Variety.

They both nodded, for they both knew that Variety was the spice of Life, and they had seen so much Life that there was little spice left to go around.

The first said softly, perhaps it shall come back?

The second said yes, I'd hope so, I rather liked her.