So, I was in trouble, frankly. If Nightmare Moon pulled another stunt like she did earlier, I wasn’t going to be able to fend off every blade she threw at me. But then, I didn’t think she was going to do that. If she could have kept that up for very long, I think she would have done that before and just finished us all off. This was going to be a much longer battle.
And unfortunately, she wasn’t going to waste any time starting. The first thing she did was create a long, double edged sword. She took a practice swing, just driving me back a little bit. I figured that I the best way to fight a sword was with a sword, so I made one of my own and made a quick thrust at her to try and push her back. She had the benefit of knowing what she was doing, though, and she knocked my sword to the side with a quick flick of her own sword. Ok, I don’t know how to use a sword. I seemed to be doing better with the hammer.
So I brought the hammer back. Nightmare Moon didn’t expect that, I guess, because she lowered her sword for a second. I took the chance and swung wide at her, but she regained composure just in time to block most of the blow, but I caught her with a decent hit to the side, and I thought I heard her wing crack, which was odd, her being made of magic too.
I must have done some kind of damage, though, because she cried in pain and swung her blade in a great arc, covering the whole battlefield, forcing me to leap into the air and hover ten feet off the ground. Not the best battle position for someone still unused to flying. She took advantage of that and began to shoot bolts of magic from her glowing horn, each violently ricocheting off the edge of the purple barrier and coming back at me. She shot maybe five bolts, but in reality I had to dodge ten. I wasn’t doing well.
I needed to end this soon or I’d make a mistake and she would win. I gathered as much magic as I could in five seconds in my horn and let it all out in a concussive blast, bursting from me in a silver wave. The burning light cut through the night with incredible force, and Nightmare Moon seemed to be blown away. As the magic began to diffuse, though, a deep purple aura could be seen growing on the far side of the field. Suddenly, a blast came flying at me faster than lightning. Before I knew what had happened, the bolt and another following it struck me square in the chest, and in a flash of light, I fell.
...
So, yeah, she killed me. And I couldn’t even put up much of a fight. Not quite the ending I had hoped for. Probably not what you hoped for, right? Well, that’s ok, because it’s not the end yet. It can’t end at that, right? Riiiight.
Obviously, the next thing I remember is being dead, and being honest, the underworld isn’t a bad place. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for heaven and hell, but for whatever reason I wasn’t in either. And it wasn’t purgatory or anything else like that. I came to a crossroads, oddly enough. It was a clean move from Equestrian life to the crossroads. There was no overview of my life so I could show remorse or lack thereof of my misdeeds. It was just an explosion on my chest, and then the next world. I wasn’t a pony anymore either. I was my normal human self, and it really felt kind of good to be on two feet again.
It wasn’t a bright place, but it wasn’t really dark. There were fancy street lights lining the worn dirt roads, at least the road I could see. It just went straight for a little bit, and it came to a clearing. That clearing split into three roads, four if you count the one I was standing on. All along the sides of the road the ditches gave off an eerie orange glow, leading me to the clearing. After that, there was no kind of glow from the ditch, and no street lights past the trailheads of the paths. A lone figure sat on a bench in the middle of the clearing, doing something with his hands. As I got closer, I could see it was the typical figure of death: a skeleton draped in a long, flowing black robe. He didn’t look up as I got closer, just kept working.
As I approached I could see what he was working on. It was a little bone carving of a sword and a crescent moon. The way he was holding it, the moon stood behind the sword, and the edge of the moon met up with the tip of the pommel. The blade extended just a little bit past the edge of the moon, giving it the appearance that it was protecting the moon from some unknown foe. The amount of detail on it was incredible, down to grip lines on the hilt to help the wielder maintain his hold on the blade.
When I got close, Death didn’t move except to keep carving, but he spoke. “So you finally made it down to me, huh?” He spoke in a low, semi-gravelly voice, but not quite as sinister as we seem to think it would be. If anything, he sounded tired, like he had just finished a long backpacking trip. Not the old man tired, but like the wise younger man.
I sat down on the bench and made myself comfortable. “Yeah, I guess, but what do you mean ‘finally’? Was I supposed to die before now?”
“Well, I thought you would have made it here sooner, yeah. To be honest, I thought the pain of half changing and changing back would have done it for you. You never did have the highest threshold for pain, you know.” He still wasn’t looking at me, but focusing on his carving.
“Yeah, either that or taking the hit from that Elements of Harmony blast,” I admitted. “I really didn’t think I was going to survive that.”
That seemed to pique Deaths interest. He looked at me curiously. “Really? You thought that going in?” I nodded once, slowly. “And you still took the fall so that Twilight and the others could safely hit all of them at once?” I just nodded again. “Why did you do it? I mean, that’s different from a soldier or a guard taking a hit for a buddy. They know each other. You took a hit for people you had only known for five minutes, so that they could have a chance at saving a world you didn’t belong to.”
I leaned back in my seat and looked sideways at him. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a different situation, but it’s still the same concept. It was the right thing. I’d do it again now if I had to. And just to let you know, I’m not planning on sitting here long.”
He turned back to his carving, but kept his head tilted towards me, like he needed to finish but was really listening to everything I said. “Really? And why is that? It’s not like it’s your problem now.”
I turned my head and looked up into the blackness. There was no ceiling, just dark. It extended up for what seemed like forever, and it may very well have. “Except it is my problem. Those are my friends, and even if I won’t ever belong to that world, I can’t just leave it to be destroyed. There are ponies up there that have lives to live, and there are so many possibilities for all of them and their children. Everyone needs someone fighting for them.”
Death blew on his carving, how I don’t know, and ran his skeletal fingers over it. “Who said that it has to be you? You did your part. You gave other heroes the chance to fight, and you earned a good rest. You can just be dead and happy now, you know?”
I shook my head again, kind of just rolling it along the back of the wooden bench. “No, see, that’s where you’re wrong. I can’t just lie down and die now. If there’s the chance I can get back up there and take another blow for them, then I need to take that chance. It’s like that old dead guy from Earth said, I think during the Revolutionary War. ‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.’ Well, there’s more than a country at stake, and if I can grab a second life, I’ll give that one up for it too.”
We both just sat there for a moment, thinking about those words. After a second, Death put his knife down beside him and turned the piece over in his hands, like he was admiring it. “What were you studying to be on Earth? What was your dream job?”
I rubbed the bottom of my chin like I had a beard. I wish I did. “Believe it or not, I was going to be a male nurse. A pediatric murse.”
He let out an almost sarcastic laugh. “Ha! Seriously? You were going to be a murse? Why? Especially with the obvious scorn that comes with that title?”
I laughed a little bit too. “Yeah, the title is made fun of, but it’s whatever. I never really cared. I wanted to work in the nursery and help with the births. Not everyone gets it, in fact hardly anyone does, but it’s a good job. Besides, if I could help babies come into life happy and healthy, then they could go on to help other people be happy and healthy, right?”
“You do realize that you have an unrealistically optimistic view of humanity, don’t you? And a really weird profession for a warrior to choose.”
I gave a little grunt. “I’m not a warrior. Nightmare Moon took me out without hardly trying. I’m a guy trying to help others. And, yeah, I guess it‘s optimistic. Well, others seem to think so. I think everyone has good and has potential to do great, good things. I’ve never stopped believing that. Don’t think I ever will, either.”
“And why not?”
“Because there’s always hope. Always.”
Death put his carving down next to the knife. “You know, I really try not to do this, but what if I were to give you the chance at life again in just one world? I mean, you would be stuck in that world forever, and no amount of magic could change that?”
I thought for a moment. “What would happen to the other world? I mean, would it just go on with me being considered dead or what?”
Death rubbed the back of his head with one hand and sighed. “Well, see, it’s not that simple. You’ve affected both worlds, so the one you didn’t choose would just be gone. It would be removed from the multiverse. And on top of it, if you were to be brought back to life you would undoubtedly undergo come sort of weird disfigurement.”
I didn’t have to hardly think about my answer. “I don’t care about the disfigurement, bit if those are my options I’ll stay dead. Either choice I make will wipe people out of existence, and they don’t deserve to suffer that because I wanted to be with my parents or with Princess Luna again for a little bit.”
“Huh…” Death mused. “Never got that answer before. Usually people chose one they really liked.”
“Really? So you’ve destroyed universes before?”
“No, I’ve actually just told them that it was a hypothetical and sent them on their way,” he said with a chuckle. “And for the exact reason you just explained. They were willing to throw away lives so they could be happy for a few more years. But no one has ever seen it the way I do. Believe it or not, I don’t like taking lives that aren’t ready. It’s just the job. Hey, check your pockets for me real quick.”
I did, and in my back pocket I found a tiny shred of fabric. It glowed softly with a gentle white light, and reminded me of the fabrics of the universe that Luna and I had pulled apart almost eight days ago. “What is this?” I asked, showing it to him.
“Well, I’ll be,” he muttered, almost in a whisper. “You really are some kind of special, aren’t you?”
“You know, everyone keeps saying that, but I really don’t think that it’s true.” I really was getting tired of hearing that.
“Yeah, but that’s probably part of why you have that.”
“Speaking of which, can you tell me what it even is?” I asked, feeling kind of impatient. Luna, Twilight and the others probably needed me, and I wanted to figure out how to get up there without killing the Earth.
“That, my friend,” Death said, sounding the slightest bit excited for the first time during my visit, “is a shred of your life. You had an intention to live so pure that you were able to hold onto it. You have such a humble opinion of yourself, such a good outlook and love of every person who ever lived, and a good enough soul that you really have been given another chance to go back to your worlds.”
“Wait,” I stopped him. “You just said ‘worlds’, as in plural. You mean I can go back and just be like I was? Without killing everyone I did and didn’t know in one world or the other?”
“Yeah, exactly.” He actually sounded happy. “I really didn’t think I would ever see this. It could be why you were an alicorn too. You were always pure enough to be a hero in Equestria. Except there weren’t any more Elements, in the traditional sense. This is really more like, you created life in its Elemental form like you‘d think of it. No one else has held onto it with this much justice. Well, you can actually use that right there to travel from world to world without damaging the fabric of the universe, and time to some extent.”
“Seriously? Why is this one so much more powerful and versatile than the others?”
“Well, one theory is that because it’s a paradox in itself, I mean finding true life in death, that it breaks all the rules, even those of magic, so it’s allowed to do more. Or it could be that since it stands alone and doesn’t have to have the other elements to work, it can do other certain things. We really don’t have the time to hash out all the details. It’s easy to use, and impossible to loose. Think of which world you want to go to, throw it into the air in front of you, and it will open a portal to the lace you need or want to go. Once you go through, it just goes back to your pocket. If you leave it somewhere, like in another pair of pants, it does the same thing. You’ll always have it if you need it.”
“You know, come to think of it, how do you know so much about it if you didn’t think it existed?”
He gave me what I guessed was a sheepish look for death. “Well, kid, I wasn’t always dead. I was your predecessor in this case. I just didn’t think it was ever going to happen again. Not that it never did. But maybe I’ll tell you that some other time. Just know you can go to Earth, Equestria, or here at the Crossroads whenever you need to. And please come here. No one ever sits and talks like this anymore.”
I laughed a little at that. “I’ll be back, don’t worry. I may even be able to take a shift and let you have some time off when I die.”
“Haha, yeah, I’d love a nap. Time moves faster than you’d think down here, though. Don’t worry,” he quickly added as I began to look worried. “This is the easiest place to time travel from. Just think of when you’d be needed when you weren’t there. Think of maybe an hour after you died. Trust me. That’s when you want to go to.” I nodded, held my breath, and focused. I was about to throw the scrap into the air when suddenly Death cried out again.
“Oh! Wait, hold on, I meant to give you these.” He quickly picked up the knife and carving he had been working on. It was a beautiful knife, and the piece was stunning. The one thing I noticed was that it had a chain on it now, making it suitable for a necklace or amulet of some kind. “Just stick the knife into your belt; it makes its own sheath since it’s enchanted. I’ve got a couple of them. And keep the pendant. It’s gonna mean something soon, believe me.”
I put the knife away and the pendant on, and then threw the scrap into the air. Unfortunately, I threw it more up than out, and the portal formed where I was going to have to climb through. “Crap. I already goofed it up,” I said under my breath. I climbed up onto the bench to get closer to it, but before I went through I had a thought. Turning to Death one last time, I asked, “By the way, you know me and most everything about me, but I want to know something. What’s your name, and what disfigurement did you undergo?”
Death just looked at me funny. “Well, I ended up with a messed up limb, which is probably what will happen to you. Don’t worry, it won’t happen when you just visit. And I’m Death. Duh.”
“No, no, your real name. What you were before you were Death?”
Death gave a start, like he hadn’t ever thought he had a name before Death. “Ben. I was Ben.”
I smiled at him. “All right then. Ben. Good name. See you later, buddy.” With that, I climbed up into the portal…
And fell on my head into Luna’s bedroom.