Ditch, despite everything happening lately, could still honestly say that he loved his job.
That much was as clear as day, even if the days were cloudy, rainy and appropriate for the regular occasions around the cemetery. But even during such gloomy moments he couldn’t help but feel satisfaction about yet another perfectly presentable hole in the ground, elegant placement of it, the proper care given to make sure a funeral was as smooth as possible. Especially considering all the emotions of the dearly beloved gathered around and the like.
And, at the same time, Ditch wouldn’t say that he was the most elegant and appropriate pony for a funeral proper. Which was, actually, absolutely fine. It was padre Last Rite’s time to shine, with his elegant robes and his theatrical voice and with his speeches and invocations and all that Harmony hoodoo. Ditch was content to stay at the right distance, on the sidelines... which in the case of the cemetery’s layout were literal side lines.
Yes, he preferred to observe things that way, supported on and by his trusty, tried tool. And only swoop in with all force when all the relatives were gone, usually. To close the grave, set the wreaths, have a sip and welcome the new resident.
Before tending to the other residents, of course, cause he really wasn’t one for favoring the blow-ins... or buried-ins.
That particular day Ditch had to wait quite a while to resume his duties, since whoever that old mare was, sweet bourbon, did she had a lot of agnates, cognates and other nates... uhm, mates.
For a brief moment he was actually worried that the lineup to say the last goodbyes to “Lucky Streak”, he believed the name was, would take far too long.
Especially when the matter of inheritance was suddenly brought up among the gathered and Ditch was almost called to, due to a little scuffle, pull a living pony out of the grave for once, rather than put a dead in.
But the falling night would bring with itself other topics of heated discussion, he could imagine. A wake was a part of tradition in Equestria, sometimes happening before, sometimes after the dear departed was down under, but the question of why was there a ghost “awake” was not really a part of it.
And Ditch would really, really want it to stay that way!
Thankfully, after the matter of provision pugilism had been concluded... alongside the established consensus that if the grandam hadn’t been so keen on stallions her whole life things would have been far easier... Ditch could say goodbye to padre and get to work.
Receiving a judging look over his state, unmistakably, but the judgment was postponed due to him being only marginally tipsy at that point, which was easy enough to hide with proper, Boozeist experience.
Ditch finished his tasks right with the setting sun, actually, planting the trusty shovel down by the grave as the last rays of day were disappearing behind the cemetery wall.
He sighed, enjoying the shades falling upon the tombstones. Ah, magic hour in the magical place of rest always cheered him up...
His work was a little temporary that time around as the mare was going to have a whole, nice, private mausoleum erected for her in the upcoming weeks... but for the moment, she was going to have a snug rest with the rest of the locals.
Helped acclimatize ponies, that.
Ditch moved aside his sweaty fringe. Another completed task and another satisfied customer. He took the hip flask out... making sure to check whether the good padre wasn’t lurking about, praying and preying, and was going to raise the toast high to the good health of Lucky Streak.
Well... he had to be less enthusiastic after all. When, instead of the quite fleshy bother of a priest, the incorporeal bother of a poet manifested himself from between the graves, floating in his direction.
Sigh. Praise the jewel in the bottle in any case and always...
Free Verse stopped by him, mid-air as was his perversion, and nodded when he managed to find the mare’s name among the true barrow of flowers and wreaths and expressions of profound, devastating sadness... some clearly disguising much joy over the incoming inheritance.
And the poet could confirm said fortune’s size.
“The Luckies... I remember them, they have a huge manor not far from the Royal Castle, actually,” he commented, reading some of the inscriptions on the sashes. “Had a busy day, Ditch?”
“Hey, not bad for small talk from a wraith, you know,” Ditch replied back, licking his lips of the last droplets of fire water, which had started to course through his veins nicely. Nothing like a bit of prior physical work to get the blood pumping and let the blessed percentage float about. “Old lady seems to have been the family’s head honcho, you know. You missed the snooty survivors almost adding a second funeral to today’s schedule...”
Free Verse shrugged with a little grimace. “I imagine bits had something to do with it, Luckies always had more of them than sense... but still less than their good fortune.” He looked away for a moment, in the direction of the city proper. “I feel like there was a little less greed in Cloudsdale, you know? Before I moved here I had no idea the capital is stained with it so much.”
“If you’re about the start the whole ‘money bein’ the root of all evil’ and the like shtick, I have two things to tell you. One – yeah, I already kinda agree, so I don’t need to hear it. Two - you’re about to sound like the good padre and this cemetery has reached the absolute maximum priest per square stiff amount when he got here...”
Ditch took another glance away at that point. Just on the off chance that Last Rites would, indeed, get here and manifest out of nowhere to check on him and his spirit addiction.
Bols, would he be in for a surprise, Ditch shuddered to think.
But not as enormously as when a voice sounded from behind him and the ghost.
“Well, well! Had I known I’ll meet shuch fine shtuds after my demishe I would have been looking forward to it much more!”
Ditch pretty much jumped right on the very top of his shovel’s handle, with feline grace he had no idea about, whilst Free Verse let out a small, but undeniably panicked wail, especially for an apparition.
Right over the mound of wreaths and saddened words floated the image of a more-than-venerable mare with a wide, toothless smile and noticeable flickers of interest even in her eyeless gaze. Which was both quite the achievement as well as a clear warning, truth be told. She was wearing a proper noblemare’s outfit, from the finest of fashion boutiques in the city, combined with a feather boa that, despite its transparent nature, was showing traces of a red and black checker pattern.
Ditch’s perch was, naturally, only temporal, as he quickly found himself back on the ground, though hiding a little behind his shovel’s trusty handle. Hoping for its warmth to grant him strength, for he desperately had to search for his hip flask in the grass, where it had been sent in his sheer panic.
Sacrilege!
“Mrs.... Mrs. Lucky Streak?” he somehow managed to ask, fumbling to find and then get the flask open again.
Which was a new one for him. Issues getting to the drink? That was exactly what he got for having disrespected his trusted flask and all it represented! He’d have to repent with more vigorous worship later on.
And, lamentably, for one more reason. As it appeared!
The said “appear”, in the meantime, only grinned wider, displaying a quite incredible lack of any teeth, in which stead a set of gums presented itself. Who knew one could get old enough for even them to get so wrinkly?
“I would shay Mrsh. Lucky Shtreak in the flesh, but that’sh not entirely accurate now, ish it, beefcake?”
Free Verse also managed to compose himself, with the grace of composing one of his poems no doubt. But even for a ghost he still looked quite spooked.
“What... why are you here?”
The mare chuckled, floating down from above the grave with the speed of a crone on crutches. Despite her new state that surely could speed things up a little bit.
“Well, shonny, if you mean – why am I dead, you should know never to ashk a mare about her age, which would, unfortunately, be the main reashon...” she replied, giving a poet a stare that had very, very little to do with her elderly state of former living. “Though if you are ashking why am I, ash it appearsh, a ghosht of shortsh, I shimply don’t shee the bashish for thish.”
Ditch wasn’t even that close and yet he felt the need to wipe the ectoplasmic spit off his muzzle, even if there was nothing really there.
Afterwards... well, he took a big swig, hid the flask and then decided to... well... do the one reasonable thing, perhaps?
“Could you wait just a moment, ma’am? I need to do something absolutely necessary,” he requested.
“Shure, shweetie, no problem.”
How nice of her.
Ditch grabbed the shovel... almost apologetically, as she was still warm from all the work and he hated to abuse her kindness and generosity. Still, what was necessary was necessary by the virtue of necessity. With one, simple and trained motion, he then made a really nice hole right next to himself in the worked ground. Not too big, not too small, just right.
Taking a deep, almost forlorn breath, Ditch shook his head and then plunged said overburdened noggin right into the opening, to the point where he almost tasted soil in his mouth. And then screamed aloud, hoping this shallow grave for his nerves would serve well enough as a muffler...
Six feet under nopony could hear one scream... which was why some ponies in olden times had installed little bells connected to their coffins through the earth, just on the terrible off chance. So maybe this, shallow hole was deep enough already. Ditch wouldn’t know. He never experimented with burrowing screaming ponies at differing depths...
Urgh, those thoughts could go right down under themselves.
At least the ghosts, one politely and one with surprise, had let him have his little moment of weakness and waited until he covered the scream with fresh dirt before speaking again.
Starting with Lucky Streak.
“Oh my, it hash been a while,” she fanned herself a little, not that it disturbed the air around. “I’m unushed to shtallionsh having a panic attack at my shight anymore, you charmer, you...”
Ditch just looked at her, quite hopeless and decidedly not interested in giving a cold, transparent mare the hots. Still, having cleansed his frustration, he had to deal with the present, as a self-respecting gravedigger.
“It is... uh... quite nice to meet you, Mrs. Lucky Streak, and I would like to welcome you to the Canterlot Cemetery. And, ah, I would really not want to be rude, because all are welcome here, it’s kinda the very theme and a nice thing to remember among the philosophies of life... and yet... and I am asking with the greatest of respects and all... don’t you have, I don’t know, other places to be? Afterlives to explore and the like?”
Before the mare could reply to this extreme example of politeness, Free Verse appeared in Ditch’s field of vision, looking a little irritated. Which wasn’t anything new, really.
“Just one moment, Ditch... You didn’t give me such a welcoming,” he remarked and it was not hard to get upset over how shallow it was.
Maybe Ditch should have buried him deeper after all... Surely ten feet under nopony could hear one complain!
“Read between the lines, schmuck. You’re the poet, you should be good at that,” he replied in theatrical more-than-whisper and a roll of his eyes worthy of the grandest of Neighponese performances. “Shouting and trying to shoo you obviously didn’t work, so I’m tryin’ to be polite this time.”
“Oh, so thaaaaaaah!”
The poet let out a quite strange and quite non-stallion yelp... and reaching a notably high pitch, which put him more in the basket of opera ponies, rather than theater enthusiasts. He then quickly turned around towards Lucky Streak, with protest firmly and clearly present in his voice.
“Did you just... grab my bottom?!”
“I’m a weak mare,” the elderly phantom admitted with a sheepish and definitely-not-innocent expression.
“Wow, wow, right! Everypony slow down!” Ditch protested, waving his hooves about. “No screaming like a sissy...”
“Hey!”
“... and no copping a feel in my graveyard!” he ordered, leaning against the shovel and crossing his forelegs, trying to look at least a little commanding and menacing, even next to a pair of supernatural apparitions. “It’s rather interesting that ghosts can do just that, but I’m not going to allow a study in specters getting touchy-feely around the place.”
Lucky Streak huffed in some indignation, tossing her feathered boa in a fashion that could kill lesser nobility during alfresco parties. Thankfully for Ditch, he was immune to that thanks to being a rough ruffian... but that didn’t stop the mare from letting him know that she didn’t appreciate a killjoy.
“Oh, he’sh not fun, ish he?”
Ditch wasn’t sure if she actually wanted Free Verse to confirm that, but the ghostly stallion was much more occupied with other matters of prudery, like hiding his tush behind the translucent strands of his tail... and showing it, in the other sense of the word.
Great. Way to be a cemetery crowd, Ditch thought.
“Fun, no fun, I’m the host of this haunting and I really just want to know what’s going on,” he reminded the wraiths. “Right, step by step. This is Free Verse, he was here first, he’s a poet, he arrived on a hearse...” he exclaimed... then spit the words out cause, ugh, rhyming. “What I am tryin’ to say, is that this is supposed to be a completely normal, calm and definitely ghost-free graveyard, Mrs. Lucky Streak! But now there’s you! And him!”
The spectral mare, despite her discontent over his previous comment, did focus on him. “I have absholutely nothing againsht that, shonny, I undershtand. And I wash, too, hoping for shome short of an afterlife, inshtead of thish... To whom should I lodge a complaint?”
... rut no!
“Whoa, ma’am, this is not my fault! We know as little about this as you do!” Ditch protested so fast his time would get him into the Wonderbolts, probably. Even if his wings were to only be pieces of cardboard glued to his back. “We’re figuring it our ourselves!”
And Free Verse, thankfully, got over his embarrassment and backed him up. “That’s correct, Mrs. Lucky Streak... I too don’t know what caused me to appear at my grave... Suffice to say we are trying to find a reason for this state. And that it might have something to do with, well, unfinished business. Though...” he admitted and quite wistfully, “I seem to have trouble remembering it. I’m not sure if it is the same way with you, ma’am.”
“Pleashe, shugar, you can call me Shstreak.”
Both Ditch and Free Verse shuddered for some reason.
In the meantime, the elderly mare squinted. Then rolled her eyeless holes about. Then inhaled... harrumphed... coughed...
Nothing of which helped. “Well... sheemsh to me like mosht thingsh I have dealt with prior to my death. It’sh not like I washn’t preparing for it.”
She could say that again.
“Yes, it’sh not like I washn’t preparing for it,” she did so. “Shtill... shucksh, there hash to be shomething wrong...”
Free Verse decided to take the shot in the dark. “Maybe about... who would get your inheritance? Ditch here did mention there being a little scuffle about it just your funeral.”
The mare bit her lip... which looked a little more disturbing considering her total lack of teeth. “Nah, didn’t really care, who could keep count of the shtuds I've enjoyed...” she revealed, proving definitely that living ponies could be much more scary than the dead and not-so-dead. Still she paused, grimacing in a way that added ten years’ worth of lines to her face. “I think I’ve... I’ve left a lasht requesht in the cashe of demishe, but I’m not shure what it wash...”
“Well, we have something now!” Ditch announced with just that little bit of happiness. At least things weren’t completely hopeless. “I suppose that it would only be the matter of... uhm... huh...” He paused, as the gears locked in place in his brain. “I mean, I’m a stallion and a half—”
“Yesh, you are,” the mare commented with a wide smile.
“... that’s very kind of you,” Ditch somehow managed to reply, fighting utter terror. “But... it might not be enough to just go to your relatives and ask for information on that sort of thing, right? Not to mention plain weird.”
“Darling, they would shic the Royal Guard on you,” Lucky Streak confirmed, with a knowledgeable nod. “I hope you don’t mind me shaying, but I would shic the Royal Guard on you right now. You look like a hunk and then shome, but you have sheen better daysh.”
Free Verse chose a strange look of worry to invade his muzzle, but, well... the mare wasn’t wrong.
“No offence taken,” Ditch told Lucky Streak in all honesty. “I’d be surprised about bein’ invited to a fancy residence. Hard to dig through the marble tiles, even with her.” He grasped his shovel a little firmer. “And any nobles doin’ grave work in a garden usually don’t want many ponies knowing about it.”
Lucky Streak shrugged. “You’re not wrong there, shonny.”
Well, that was reassuring.
Free Verse lifted his hoof to interject. “Yes, aside from the skeletons in the closet—”
“Garden,” Ditch corrected him.
“... garden, fine—”
“Actually, shometimesh it’sh both.”
“Really?” Ditch asked with genuine curiosity, but Free Verse groaned loudly and rudely.
“Skeletons wherever you want them!” He paused and waited for another interruption. Only when none happened did he continue. “I want to speak about us, instead. I mean, ghosts, not skeletons.” He looked about the place, as if looking for something. “My funeral was two days ago, right? Was there one the next day?”
Ditch scratched his head before reaching for the hip flask again. “N... nah, we actually had a day without newcomers.”
“Right. And now...” Free Verse pointed in Lucky Streak’s direction, earning a sultry look that he was doing his best to ignore. “That was today.”
“Yes,” Ditch confirmed and the poet bit his lip before speaking again, giving a chance for the wonderful liquid to be tasted.
“So... will this keep happening from now on?”
Speaking of things that should not have ever happened, Ditch actually choked. Choked hard. His eyes bulged and his throat clenched... but his lips were sealed even harder. He would not let even a droplet of the blessed spirit to escape, even if it meant snorting it back up his nose. as it sought a detour.
Only after a minute of both saving his Boozeist face and altogether making it turn blue from the effort, did Ditch declare with a strained voice.
“... I think... I need to do something... absolutely necessary again, one moment.”
He quickly turned, making sure he swallowed the alcohol properly. The he found the place he had just buried the last shriek in. After exhuming it and, to his surprise, finding it had already decomposed and was gone entirely, decided to reuse the small hole again.
Hoping it could act as a mass grave that time.