//------------------------------//
// Face to Face 
// Story: The Sparkle of Unlife 
// by Semivivus 
//------------------------------//

Celestia's private office was a surprisingly modest room. That wasn't to say it was small, any location designed for her had to be of substantial size, but it was rather rustic in its décor. A simple walnut stained desk topped with the requisite inbox and outbox, a well-used and comfortable office chair, its brown faux-leather cracked with use, and a pair of matching chairs across the desk for the few visitors she accepted in this personal space.

Celestia was (for once) not in her usual chair, but rather seated next to her sister in the guest chairs facing the desk. Placed a top the desk was not the usual plateau of unfinished paperwork, but rather a disembodied pony's head, and the head did not look very amused.

While Celestia was able to keep a straight face, her sister was struggling to contain her fit of giggles. She had spent the last 15 minutes listing off every 'head' related pun that came to her mind, much to the chagrin of the other two occupants of the room.

"Lulu, can we please begin now? Its really not a laughing matter." Celestia pleaded, placing her hoof on her sister's still mirth-shaking shoulders.

"Aye, tis true. We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves." The normally-stalwart defender of the night spoke, before breaking into another set of laughs.

Twilight just let out a long, tired sigh in response. She wasn't entirely sure how she was capable of sighing as her lungs were currently still in an unconnected body a good ten feet away, but sigh she did nonetheless.

"Alright, 'twas the last one, we swear. Now, how did thee manage to resurrect thyself?" Luna asked, lightly poking Twilight's forehead.

"You've got as good of an idea as me. Actually, better I'd imagine, considering your personal experience." The somewhat annoyed head replied. "First thing I remember is waking up in a coffin and pulling myself up through the dirt, which is not something I'd recommend trying. I've still got grave soil in my mane." Luna nodded and poked Twilight's head again. "Stop that." The living-impaired mare grumbled in annoyance, only for Luna to shrug her shoulders.

"We are testing thy flesh. Tis not rotting, so thee are no zombie or ghoul. Thee are still solid, so not a banshee, poltergeist, or any other spectral creature. There is also no smell of mildew that we can detect, so any kind of hag is unlikely. What is the last thing thee remember before thy untimely demise?" Luna spoke, poking Twilight's forehead again.

Twilight's eye twitched as she struggled to remain calm. "I was doing my daily inventory of every book in the castle. A new book arrived on the doorstep, so I tried to give it a read. Only the cover and first page were in Equish, but the book was filled with thaumatic matrices. After making sure the castle's usual wards were in place, I gave the first spell listed a test cast... and that's the last thing I remember."

Luna's face broke into a grin. "Truly? Well, that makes things easy then. You're a lich, Twilight!"

"I'm a what?" Twilight asked in confusion. Any information at all on the undead was almost impossible to find, but she had never heard of such a thing.

Celestia shook her head. "She can't be. Every lich we've ever fought has been skeletal with only bits of flesh stuck to them, apart from that one that was just a floating skull." She shuddered. "He had terrifying power."

Luna picked up Twilight's head and held it aloft, grinning wildly. "Aye, a normal lich is unable to keep their body pristine from the effects of death, and a demi-lich's mortal shell is burned away by their immense power, but thy student has defied all expectations once more! Thought only to be a myth, she had become a True Lich. A High Lich."

Twilight blinked down from between Luna's hooves. "Could somepony please explain to me what a lich is?"

Luna sighed and placed the head back on the desk. "A lich, a traditional one at least, is the result of one of the greatest and most forbidden kinds of necromantic magic. Honestly, we are surprised thee were able to perform such a spell on thy first attempt. The process of becoming a lich can be mostly summed up as a two-step process. First, the lich-to-be moves their soul, the very culmination of their magical and spiritual being, into a container of some sort. Called the 'Phylactery', this object becomes the permanent vessel for their soul."

Twilight blinked in confusion. "But I'm still here! I'm not in a container!"

Celestia gently put her hoof against her student's mouth. "Let her finish, Twilight."

Luna nodded at her sister and turned back to her decapitated victim. "The body is then remotely possessed by the spirit residing in the vessel, like an extremely complicated puppet or golem made out of flesh. Even the body's senses are linked to the soul's, allowing it to pilot the corpse as if it was still inside it."

Twilight frowned. "How is that useful? You're still just controlling your own body!"

Celestia stepped in. "Twilight, the main limits to a pony's magic is their intellect, energy, and passion. A lich has no physical body to tire, which can allow them to more than double the capabilities of their magic."

"Aye, and a True Lich is supposed to be one step even further beyond that. 'Twas a thing thought to exist only in the theories of the most insane necromancers. The idea is simple, perfectly and evenly envelop every cell of their corpse with their own arcana, preserving the body and converting the flesh to a higher state of matter, capable of channeling magic with no resistance. Any fool insane enough to try it would find the process nigh-impossible in practice. A single mistake with the concentration of mana around a single cell in thy body would cause an explosion of burning mana, chain-reacting and destroying both the vessel and spirit in a blaze of soulfire. 'Twas a dream of only madmares... until now."

Twilight looked down at corpse slumped in the corner. "So, I accidentally performed what could have ended in a thermoarcano blast capable of destroying half of Ponyville? That's... terrifying."

Luna nodded with a big smile. "Aye! But thou succeeded, and became the first necromancer in history to do so!"

Twilight bit her lip. "Well, at least I accomplished something amazing. So... when am I going to be destroyed?"

"Pardon?" Celestia asked in confusion.

"I performed an extreme act of dark magic! That breaks so many laws!"

Celestia nodded. "Yes, that's correct."

"So, I must be at least banished, but with the severity of my crimes, I should be executed!" Twilight shouted.

"Yes, 'twould be the normal thing to do." Luna replied with a smile.

"So when am I being destroyed?" She asked.

"Don't be silly, Twilight. You can't press legal action against a corpse. You were already absolved of all crimes the moment you died." The Diarch of the Day replied while sipping her tea.

"But you killed all the other liches and undead! Leaving me alive is nepotism!" Twilight cried out.

"Yes, yes it is." Celestia replied, lowering her teacup to reveal a huge shit-eating grin.

"Ah! We forgot to make any 'getting head' jokes! 'Tis a whole category of head humor we missed!" Luna cried out. 

Twilight's head fell off the desk with a thud.