Pinkie continued comforting her cloaked double, as the wracking sobs became simple crying, and slowly faded to mere sniffing. Eventually, Death wiped her nose on the back of her hoof and dried her eyes, looking up at Pinkie.
I needed that. she said, avoiding Pinkie’s eye.
Pinkie smiled sadly and got up, trotting slowly over to Aminata. She had an inner glow about her that contrasted sharply with the dull, black-cloaked pony slumped on the floor, though the two had, moments earlier, been one and the same. All onlookers could tell that this was a figure of deity, a manifestation of life and joy in the form of a little pink pony.
Belief is a powerful force on the Disc. It is said that a man with faith as a grain of mustard seed can move mountains. It is also said that a man with a fleet of intergalactic trucks can make a mountain invisible overnight, but that’s a slightly different allegory.
It is commonly thought that the gods shape belief, but this view is incorrect. In truth, it is belief that shapes the gods. Even the great Blind Io would be nothing more than a voice on the wind without his followers.
So then, when Grand Hostess Aminata Odham created a new religion and shaped a new belief in a new Death, that belief needed somewhere to go. At around the same time, Pinkie Pie was ‘inheriting’ more and more of Death’s own ‘personality’, and it quickly became apparent that there was an incompatibility. After all, Pinkie Pie represents the Element of Laughter, and by extension, all the joys of Life itself.
The conflict was playing on her mind, as the ever-present burden of the Duty struggled with her natural fun-loving tendencies. It all came to a head at this moment, when the vast and growing congregation of the Pink Pony of Death finally saw what they had been believing in for some time.
The equilibrium, precarious as it was, shattered. Like a violent chemical reaction, Life and Death split, having now the ability to manifest as separate entities:
Pinkie Pie, the Goddess of Joy, and Pinkie Pie, the Pink Pony of Death.
It has been said that seeing is believing. In the case of a new goddess, seeing was creating.
The unfamiliar feeling of raw ability coursed through Pinkie’s veins. She instinctively understood her new position as a goddess, but did not yet understand how to use it. However, she fully understood that she had made a mistake, and it was up to her to rectify it.
“Aminata?” she said, quietly. The woman merely nodded, unable to form a reply.
“You should go.” No room for argument.
The Grand Hostess stammered, but bowed her head in deference, removing her party mitre and turning to walk away. The gathered congregation let out a collective breath they didn’t realise they’d been holding.
It would have been nice to say that was the end of it, but life and death are never truly that simple.
A faint crunch.
A gasp.
A stumble.
The late-late Aminata Odham tumbled over the railing to the floor below.
Pinkie turned, horrified, back to Death. She was standing, quite calm, next to the broken remains of what had once been a life timer. Shards of wood and glass were scattered about as sand filled the cracks between the stones.
“W-what have you done?” Pinkie asked, although she was afraid she already knew the answer.
My Duty, came the reply. Death moved slowly towards Pinkie, each step resounding with the sound of breaking glass as the final shards were ground under hoof. After all, that's all I have left.
“What do you mean?” Pinkie replied, backing away, but Death kept coming.
Everything is clear now. The Auditors were right. To have a personality is to die. But I don't have one any more, do I? You're my personality.
Pinkie backed into a column, trapped.
And you know this as well as I. Death sneered, a grim shadow of her former self, merely a skeleton of bone under that cloak of night. Even the gods must die.
The scythe screamed as it cut through the very fabric of existence, but did not find its target. Pinkie was gone, and only a pair of burning hoof-prints showed she had ever been there.
Mrs. Cake, Bill Door and Fluttershy were pulled inside by Twilight’s magic, a disconcerting experience similar to having one’s body wrapped in a tight blanket and ejected from a catapult. The librarian slammed the door behind them, peeking nervously out at the main street to ensure they were ‘alone’.
“... So what exactly do you think has happened to Pinkie, dearie?” Mrs. Cake asked, at length, long-suffering evident in her tone of voice.
Twilight took one final final glance out of the window, before consenting that they weren’t being spied on, and drawing them near.
“I think...” she paused, for a final, final, final check. “I think Pinkie’s trying to learn forbidden magic!”
Mrs. Cake looked unimpressed. Bill Door remained completely impassive. Fluttershy let out a squeak and dashed under the front desk.
“... And you believe this why?” Mrs. Cake replied.
“Well, last week she came by the library and took out an unusual selection of books, including one I didn’t... even... know...” Twilight trailed off as she finally noticed the ominous tome balancing on Mrs. Cake’s back. She backed away like a skittish cat faced with a spray bottle.
“Th-that! That one! It’s evil!” she shrieked, covering her eyes and pointing at the Black Book.
Mrs. Cake looked at it, then Twilight, askance. Bill Door merely blinked. Fluttershy suddenly found herself sharing her hiding spot with the somewhat perturbed purple unicorn.
“‘Evil’?” the baker replied, with a hint of cynicism.
Twilight’s ears drooped as it became readily apparent that the book was not about to summon unspeakable horrors beyond even the greatest nightmares the Everfree Forest could spawn. She sagged a little as she looked back up at Mrs. Cake and tried to clamber out from under the table.
“Well... Alright, perhaps I was - oh, sorry Fluttershy, that was your wing - overreacting just a little, but - ow mind your hoof mind your hoof - I’m sure there’s still good reason to - I’m not standing on your hair! - be concerned. Ow.”
Twilight quickly realised she’d missed something. It wasn’t so much a conscious realisation as an instinctive one, but she quickly turned to address the matter.
The matter, in this case, being Bill Door.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met, Mister...?” she proffered, putting the crisis to one side for a second for the sake of good manners.
“Door. Bill Door,” he replied, and was about to add more, before the scathing glare of Mrs. Cake made him think better of it.
“A pleasure, Mister Door,” Twilight replied, to which Mrs. Cake snorted derisively, before returning her attention, and the conversation, to the matter at hand.
“So, Pinkie Pie...?”
Twilight’s eyes lit up with a conspiratory gleam, but thankfully she dispensed with the greater theatrics.
“Well, I thought the books she’d taken out were a little... strange, to say the least, and when I cross-referenced them all I found they were all related to... Well, the mysterious and the macabre. She said she wanted to plan her party for Nightmare Night, but I had my suspicions...” Twilight explained by way of exposition as she trotted around the shelves of the library, imitating the actions of her favourite literary detective ponies.
“... So I sent a message to the Royal Archives in Canterlot to see if they had another copy of... that one.” She shot the Black Book a suspicious glance as it continued to sit, quite innocently, on the floor. “They told me that the only known copy of the book was burnt over three centuries ago by one of the previous librarians, and likely enough the one in the library here was the last in Equestria.”
“So, you’re saying it came from the library, here?” Mrs. Cake replied. Twilight nodded. “Ah. ... Then I suppose I may have misjudged you, Mister Door.”
Bill Door looked up in surprise at hearing his name mentioned at a decibel level below yelling. “Your... apology is accepted?” he hazarded.
Although Twilight could occasionally be somewhat socially oblivious, the undercurrent of the conversation was like an open book. She tilted her head a little, peering at the two in turn, and then at Fluttershy, who blushed as she caught her eye.
“Have I missed something?”
Fluttershy was the first to break the heavy silence that followed, and replied in a quiet, small voice;
“Well, uhm, you see... Rarity was... Uh. We were having, uhm, dinner, and... Uh... He was ill, but Nurse Redheart said it was just that he hadn’t eaten, so, uhm, we ate, but then I got burnt and... Uh, Rarity helped, but then we came back in and, uhm, I offered him mine because, uhm, he was still hungry, but... Then...” the narrative trailed off as she blushed furiously and hid back behind her long locks of hair.
Bill Door was about to continue for her, but Twilight cut him off.
“Fluttershy! I’m so happy for you! You could have just told me you had a coltfriend!”
One would be forgiven for thinking that Death’s Abode was quiet. It would be expected, really. After all, silence is reverent to the dead, and besides, isn’t noise a sign of life?
But such a supposition is incorrect. The careful listener could make out many tiny, almost imperceptible sounds in Death’s great house that betrayed a living spirit deep within the soulless husk. Aside from the obvious ticking, ticking of the clocks, or the noisome rush of the sands of time in their eternal free fall, there were the subtle sounds, the background detail that put the mind at ease.
Most of these sounds could be found in Death’s kitchen, a room set apart from the rest of the house as the domain of one eternally prolonged manservant.
The creak of the chair as he leant back on two legs. The gentle grunt of protest from the table as he rested his feet on it. The rustle of paper as he turned, for the thousandth time, to the sports page of the Ankh-Morpork Inquirer (dated 32nd Spune, Year of the Incontinent Toad). The comforting sizzle of the grease of ages flowing molten in a pan that had long since ceased to be steel and was now closer to a metal-lipid alloy.
It was probably about lunch. As far as Albert was concerned, it was usually about lunch. He made a good lunch. He made an even better breakfast, but was rarely able to fully appreciate the cacophony of flavour that was his fried porridge. Several centuries of constant abuse will do that to taste buds.
Part of him was worried. The Master... or well, Mistress, seemed very upset when she left. Perhaps ‘furious’ would be a better description. Most of his faculties reminded him, in a patient tone, that the Mas- Mistress was quite capable of taking care of him- herself. The rest calmly replied that he bally well can’t take care of herself no matter what hir gender. Or species.
This train of thought didn’t tend to get much further before being distracted by something else, and today was no disappointment. A little hooded figure scuttled through the door and across the carpet, jumping onto the waiting wicker chair with deft and practised movement. It eyed Albert critically.
Squeak.
“Well, what in all the hells am I supposed to do about it, hrm?” he snapped back, angrily turning the page of his newspaper (Ankh-Morpork Curry Gardens Celebrate Record Season: Only Five Fatalities*).
Squeak?
“I can’t run off saving him, her every time they take it into their skulls to do something crazy.”
Squeak.
“I don’t see you helping.”
Squeak!
“No, I don’t mind saying it!”
Squeak. Squeak squeak squeakity.
“What? Just walk up to her and tell her she’s been over-exerting herself and needs a break? Oh, yes, I’m sure that’ll work.”
Squeak.
“Well, when she-”
Albert was cut off by a slam that resounded throughout the entire structure of the house. All six dimensions of it. He wasn’t even aware the front door could slam. It was followed by a series of thundering hoof steps accompanied by the sound of cracking tiles, and then another, slightly quieter slam as the Pink Pony of Death swept angrily into her study.
“... I suppose she’ll be wanting her tea,” Albert said, once he was quite sure the structure wasn’t about to collapse about his ears in sympathy with its Mistress.
Squeak.**.
* "Over five hundred hospitalized. Curry Gardens secures sponsorship deal with Ankh-Morpork Guild of Barbers and Physicians. Talks continue over possible partnership with Guild of Quacks.”
** Oh bugger.