“Twilight? You awake yet?”
Spike knocked at the door a third time, his brow furrowing at the distinct lack of Twilight-getting-up sounds. It was already a bright, happy day in town, Celestia’s sun nearing its peak, and the tightly-scheduled control freak that was Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville was still shut up in her room, lights off and blinds drawn. Spike had already performed every chore that he needed to without her supervision, and had waited upon several library-goers in the meantime.
Enough was enough, especially if she might blame him for her own late start.
“Come on, Twilight, daytime’s burning, your schedules are all on the kitchen table, lonely and waiting for somepony to check them off!” Still silence. Spike sighed again, reaching up and sliding one finger-claw into the lock. A little twisting and turning, and the door happily unlatched. The young dragon reached further, his hand gripping the knob and twisting it, pushing the door inwards.
In front of him hung Twilight Sparkle.
Her corpse swung in midair, her wings extended but lowered as gravity pulled them down and no nerve impulse came to push them back up. Her hair was disheveled, mussed up from the sudden jerk that the rope around her neck provided to break her fall from whatever height she had chosen. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot; her entire face, in fact, was several shades darker than the rest of her body, and her swollen tongue stuck out grotesquely from her gaping mouth. All four of her legs hung limply towards the ground, swaying slightly as an unknown force spun her body a small degree.
Spike’s eyes widened as he took in the scene before him. Then they closed as he sighed and pinched the area between them.
“Faust dammit…”
As it turns out, getting the body down from the rope wasn’t the hard part – Spike only had to grab a small stepladder to put the hanging cord within range of a tight stream of fire. He aimed high to avoid burning Twilight’s mane, but some hot ash inevitably fell into the varying shades of purple, causing just enough damage to put an acrid smell into the air and make Spike’s day even more irritating. As the corpse fell to the floor with a dull whump, Spike turned to Twilight’s desk, pulling himself onto the chair and inking a quill. He placed it onto the parchment she had so thoughtfully left out, scribbling a quick note.
Dear Princess Celestia.
She offed herself. Hanging. I’ll take care of it.
Spike.
Said notification written and sent on a quick breath of magical fire (as opposed to the kind that had cut the mentioned corpse down), Spike turned back to the body. He walked up to it, poking her a few times to make sure she wasn’t faking.
After the fifth jab to the eye, Spike snorted, turning around and walking out into the main room of the library. He quickly moved to the front door and flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, but not before a familiar pony trotted up to the library.
“Howdy, Spike.” Applejack greeted the purple-and-green dragon. At his exasperated look, she took a step back. “Whoa, now. What’s got yer apples all rotten there?”
“Twilight killed herself.” Spike responded blankly. The farmpony’s eyes widened before narrowing again, and she brought a hoof up to her head.
“Dangit, she said she was gonna warn us about doin’ this.” Applejack spat on the ground, snorting.
“Yeah, she was supposed to. Probably hanging there for a few hours before I actually checked on her.” Spike shook his head. Applejack cocked her head to the side.
“Hangin’? Dangit. Way she was talkin’ t’me, she said it was gonna be poisonin’ herself somehow.”
Spike shrugged. “Probably couldn’t get exactly the right kind of nightshade or something.” Applejack gave a short laugh.
“Yeah, Twi’s rather ornery about that kinda thing. Don’t gotta tell you that, do Ah?”
“Nope.” Spike turned his head, looking back through the front door to inside. “Listen, AJ, I really need to drag her over to Fluttershy’s before she gets any stiffer. Go grab everypony from town, will you?”
“Sure. Y’want any help gettin’ her down?”
“Already done. Thanks.” Spike and Applejack nodded at each other; the farmmare turned and started trotting towards Sugarcube Corner, the dragon turned and walked back into the library, shutting the door with perhaps slightly more force than was required. Sighing again, Spike walked over to the large library desk, dragging out the cart from behind it via conveniently-attached rope. A somewhat dirty and stained sheet was folded up on top of the cart, which Spike placed on the desk for later use.
Getting the cart up the stairs was more difficult than getting Twilight down from midair, but it wasn’t the hard part either; Spike just flipped it upside-down and dragged it to the top before putting the wheels down again. He rolled the device to the open door, sticking his head inside to ascertain that Twilight’s corpse hadn’t woken up and decided to jump out the window or anything. Satisfied that the body on the floor hadn’t moved, he pulled the cart to right beside her before letting go of the dragging rope. The young dragon walked around to the other side, rubbing his chin at the conundrum that Twilight’s wings posed to rolling her corpse onto the cart.
This wasn’t the hard part. While the wings were extended, one was luckily still flexible enough to simply fold in. The other had apparently had more blood in it when the mare had stopped kicking, and required a bit more force to press down, necessitating Spike using the body as leverage. He shuddered as he pressed a foot into her coat – she was cold, and already beginning to stiffen. Hastening himself, he got back around her and grabbed her lower legs, taking in a breath before lifting her.
“By Celestia, Twilight, you need to start jogging again…” Spike instructed the corpse through clenched teeth. He huffed a few times before lifting her more than an inch off of the floor, taking tiny steps to rotate her backside onto the cart. Pausing to catch his breath, Spike put his gaze on Twilight’s face. Her tongue had flopped to the lower side of her mouth, dripping some liquid that Spike fervently hoped was saliva onto the floor.
He walked to the bathroom, grabbing an old, ratty towel and wiping up the small puddle. This put his arm unnervingly close to the corpse’s tongue, a situation that Spike had a feeling he’d have a nightmare about that night. Shuddering, he quickly wrapped Twilight’s head in the towel, tucking it in on itself in an attempt to keep it from simply falling off. After that, he was able to lift her upper body onto the cart, cursing as her head lolled off of the flat wooden device.
“Dangit, Twilight, you couldn’t have done this downstairs, could you?” He muttered, grabbing the corpse’s horn and swinging the head up with a dull thud. Despite his irritation, a small worry set into his mind; Spike spent the next minute prodding at her in almost every location, making sure both that a) none of her bones were broken and b) she was definitely dead. He quickly grabbed the rope again and began pulling it; only after several tugs did he realize that he’d grabbed Twilight’s noose. He dropped it onto the cart with a sigh, picking up the correct rope and carting the cart out to the stairway. Looking down the steps, he glanced at the height of the cart (two inches off of the floor, a fact that was convenient for putting heavy things onto it but absolutely frustrating when dragging it along uneven ground) and compared it to the height of each individual step.
This was the hard part. A small piece of Spike’s mind pointed out that this was probably what Applejack had meant by ‘getting her down’, but that part swiftly had its legs broken and was set on fire by the parts of his brain actually working to fix the problem.
After several minutes’ deliberation, Spike grabbed the edge of the cart and pushed it very carefully to the edge. He gingerly removed his claw, gently picking up the rope before slowly reaching his foot out and giving the cart a small nudge. This was enough to roll two of the wheels over the edge, but Spike’s tight grip on the rope (as well as several new claw-grooves in the floor) prevented the entire thing from bowling over. He carefully gave the rope some more length, allowing the cart to slide on its belly until its hanging wheels touched the first step down. Spike began to let out a relieved breath before he noticed the flaw in his plan.
The cart had stopped. Twilight’s corpse, per momentum, the angle, and the cart not having raised edges, did not.
Spike barely had time to mutter the first syllable of a major swear before the body fully slid off of the cart, a series of dull thuds marking its path as it made its way down the stairs without assistance.
Well, that’s one way to get her down. Spike thought. Then he turned and headbutted the wall, finishing the aforementioned swear at the top of his voice.
The fortunate part was that Twilight’s body was still in essentially the same shape it had been before its trek down the stairs.
The unfortunate part was that one of her legs had been knocked into a jutting position, and somehow had stiffened enough that he couldn’t push it back down. Due to the leg’s position, it was impossible for the sheet to fully cover the body; he could either leave the leg out and cover everything else or cover the leg and leave a somewhat large portion of the corpse exposed on all sides.
Spike was thus left dragging the cart into the street with its load more obvious than he’d hoped; normally, it could be assumed he was carrying garbage or some books that had to be covered to prevent environmental damage, but a purple pony leg jutting out into the air made his burden markedly more suspicious.
Between a slightly longer and harder trip and the possibility of causing a mass-panic, Spike picked the option less likely to lead to Celestia banishing him; He hurriedly pulled the cart off of the main streets, moving to one of the packed-dirt roads that ran around the edge of town. For a few minutes the road was empty, leaving Spike alone to struggle with every loose-packed area of dirt.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS-“
OH COME ON!
“-STREET U- oof!”
A scooter barreled into the back of the cart with enough speed to send the front end sharply into Spike’s back; he bit his tongue on several curses he’d seen in older Equestrian books, rubbing his spine (and spines) as he turned around to make sure that Twilight’s body was still secure. His eyebrows raised as he noticed that the impact had somehow gotten the exposed leg covered without revealing any other part of the corpse.
Scootaloo was slowly getting up, shaking herself off as her scooter’s front wheel spun helplessly. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom lay in a pile under their wagon. Apple Bloom groaned.
“Dangit, Scoots, d’y’think y’could maybe watch where yer goin’?” She pulled herself out from under the wheeled bin, flipping it off of Sweetie. Scootaloo snorted.
“I was watching! Just not in front of me.”
“You probably had your eyes closed to do that chant of yours.” Spike offered, a small lance of pain shooting up his back as he bent to grab the cart rope. Scootaloo tilted her head at him as Sweetie Belle stood up.
“What’re you doing out here, Spike? This road’s usually deserted this time of day.”
That’s precisely WHY “I’m, er, on an errand. For Twilight.” Spike gave a grin as his brain continued its tirade; the three fillies looked decidedly unconvinced. Apple Bloom poked at the sheet.
“What the hay’s under here, anyhow? Feels squishy.”
Spike quickly tugged the cart a small distance, pulling it away from the filly’s hoof. “That is, er, the thing I’m taking to… somewhere completely unimportant that you shouldn’t follow me to. Go on, now, do what you were doing before you ran into me.”
Scootaloo somehow came up from behind him, reaching a hoof around to poke at the sheet. “AB’s right, there’s something weird under here. You wanna check, Sweetie?”
“Now hold on-“
“Ew, it’s all rubbery…” the unicorn had stayed at the back, prodding very close to Twilight’s cutie mark with her horn. Spike’s eye twitched.
“Hey, you can’t-“
“D’ya think it’s somethin’ t’do with Twilight bein’ a Princess?”
“Nah, it’s probably just some kinda spell that went screwy.”
“I dunno, this kind of feels like Rarity’s mud masks when she falls asleep wearing one.”
“I’m trying t-“
“Hey, I feel a feather under here!”
“This part’s all bony…”
“D’ya think Twilight killed somepony?”
“Might be why she’s been missing so much…”
“HEY!” Spike roared, sending out a gush of fire with the yell. The three fillies all gave small screams and ran back to the scooter and wagon, turning to face the angered young dragon.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He growled. The fillies looked at one another.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders Sheet Investigators, duh.” Scootaloo answered. “So what’s under there, huh? Did Twilight do a spell wrong and conjure up some horrific creature from Tartarus?”
“Did she turn into a vampony when she became a Princess?”
“Are all the Princesses vamponies?”
Spike growled just before the trio could build up again. When they’d quieted, he answered.
“No, no, and of course not, everypony knows vamponies can’t go into the daylight so obviously Princess Celestia can’t be one, and if you call Princess Luna one she’ll have you arrested.”
“So she can feed on our precious life-fluids?” Sweetie asked, a small note of fear in her voice. Spike pinched the area between his eyes.
“No, Sweetie. Princess Luna’s a herbivore, same as everypony else.”
“But vamponies drink blood, and you eat rocks!”
“First off, I eat gems, there’s a big difference, and- hey!” Spike turned to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tugging on the sheet covering Twilight’s corpse, getting very close to rolling the body off of the cart and onto themselves. He ran around and swatted them away, both giving him sullen glares. “Didn’t you ever get taught not to poke at other ponies’ things?”
“Well, yeah, but how else’re we gonna learn what’s under there? Curiosity killed the cat, y’know!” Apple Bloom huffed. Spike’s mouth thinned, and he flexed his claws.
“I really need to get going, okay? I’m sure if you ask your sisters, they’d tell you if they thought it was okay for you to know.” He blinked. “You could probably ask Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo.”
The three looked at each other, then back at Spike. They sighed in unison.
“Fine…” Scootaloo mumbled. Spike grinned as she leaned down to pick up her scooter, then he froze as he saw the sheet corner snagged on it. Before he could recover, Scootaloo pulled the scooter upright, yanking the sheet with it, out from under the body. The motion sent the cart’s burden tumbling over the opposite side, the large cloth unravelling as Twilight’s body lopsidedly rolled into the ditch.
Spike’s eyes shot to the three fillies, all of whom were staring at the now-empty cart. Scootaloo was the only one who was in the position to actually see into the ditch, and Spike could only watch as her head and eyes turned, seemingly in slow-motion, towards Twilight’s body.
“Hey, what’s up, everypony?” A voice called from above, Everyone’s heads whipped up just as Rainbow Dash dropped down to land on the cart.
“Rainbow!” Scootaloo’s eyes brightened at the presence of her idol, and she quickly lost all interest in the thing in the ditch. The other two didn’t, however, and Spike quickly grabbed the sheet and leapt down into the ditch. He spread the sheet out and covered Twilight with it, just as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle got around the cart.
“Oh, come on! Why can’t we see it?!” Sweetie cried. Rainbow turned around, giving Spike a glance.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah, I’d’ve gotten down there already if these three hadn’t crashed into me.” He gestured to the CMC, who all gave sheepish looks at the older mare. She sighed, pulling all of them into a huddle.
“Listen up, guys. I know that what’s under that sheet is probably all weird and mysterious and interesting, right?”
“Yeah!” Sweetie said. Scootaloo nodded vigorously, Apple Bloom less so. Rainbow grinned.
“And I’m sure that Spike’s done an absolutely terrible job of stopping you from wanting to look under there, right?”
“Yeah!”
“Hey!”
“Well, I’m not gonna stop you from looking, I just want you to know that Princess Celestia said that anypony who sees it except me or Spike or one of our Element of Harmony friends is going to be banished to the sun.” Her grin widened as the three gained looks of terror, and she hugged them tighter to her as they started trying to squirm away. “Now, if you wait until tomorrow, I’m sure that your sisters will be happy to tell you everything you need to know. I’ll handle you, Scoots, but tomorrow, alright?”
The three fillies all nodded and cried agreements, so Rainbow let them loose. Sweetie and Apple Bloom leapt into the wagon, and Scootaloo soon had the trio careening up the way they came. Spike gave Rainbow a glare.
“I was trying to avoid traumatizing them…”
“Bah, they’ll get over it. I’ll tell them I was joking, take them to a Wonderbolts show if AJ or Rarity get ticked.” At Spike’s eye roll, her brows furrowed. “Anyways, AJ said you needed help with her?”
“Yeah.” Spike pulled the sheet off, exposing Twilight to the air. Rainbow whistled.
“Dang, I lost the pot. I had twenty bits on her teleporting a book into her head or something.”
“Teleporting a book—wait, you were betting on how she’d kill herself?!” Spike gave Rainbow an incredulous look. She shrugged.
“I’d’ve cut you in, but Rarity said that you would have too easy a time with it seeing as how you live with her and all.”
Spike gave a growl under his breath as he spread the sheet out. “I didn’t see this coming… who got the pot, anyways?”
Rainbow grabbed the body and lifted it onto the sheet. “Fluttershy had ‘Asphyxiation’, and that’s the one that means not-breathing, right?”
“Yep.” Spike nodded as he finished tying the sheet’s corners; Twilight was now contained in a wrapped sack ala a foalish runaway or a migrating hobo, no part of her visible. He blinked as Rainbow grabbed the body and tugged it onto her back. “You’re-“
“I can carry her faster than you can. Come on, everypony’s waiting.” She jerked her head down the road and started trotting, her wings slightly up to keep the body from rolling off. Spike stared at her for a few seconds before kicking the cart into the ditch and running to catch up.
The rest of the trek to Fluttershy’s cottage was thankfully uneventful; Rainbow dropped the corpse on the ground right in front of Fluttershy’s door, rolling her shoulders and stretching her back.
“Dangit, that mare’s heavy. Should’a prodded her into flying more…”
“Well, she’s also just bigger than us.” Spike mentioned. “She grew some when she got alicornized.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Rainbow stretched her wings, grimacing as the joints cracked. She knocked on the door, stepping back as Fluttershy opened it.
“Oh, hello Rainbow. Hello Spike, hello Twilight.”
“She’s a corpse, Flutters, can’t exactly hear you…” Rainbow muttered. Fluttershy blushed.
“I know that, I was just trying to be polite… could you bring her out back? That’s where the grave is.”
“Sure.” Rainbow nodded, grabbing the sheet by the knot and starting to drag it. The two walked around the side of the tree-cottage, to a patch of loose ground. A pile of dirt and a somewhat deep hole surrounded by black decorations marked the burial spot. Rainbow tugged the corpse to the lip of the hole, looking around.
“Wow, Pinkie wasn’t kidding when she said her cannon had a ‘funeral’ setting.” She turned as Fluttershy came out of the cottage’s back door. “Where’s everypony else, anyway?”
“Oh, Rarity got an idea for the headstone, and Applejack and Pinkie went with her because she said that it was in the Everfree Forest.”
The three waited in a somewhat awkward silence for a few minutes before loud crashing sounds began echoing out of the Everfree. Spike’s eyes widened as the missing three came out of the Forest, a gigantic boulder floating behind them. Rarity gave a strained smile as she reached the edge of the decorated area, dropping the boulder with a heavy whump and a huff of breath.
“H… hello, Rainbow… Spike dear…”
“Yeesh.” Rainbow nudged Twilight. “You’d better appreciate the effort we’re putting into this.”
“Oh, I’m sure she does. Right, Spike?” Fluttershy said. Spike shrugged.
“Probably, but I don’t think she’d want the others risking themselves for her sake.”
“Oh… nonsense, darling…” Rarity pulled in a few more breaths. “I just couldn’t let Twilight get buried with… without a grave marker befitting her status.” She sat down heavily, rubbing her horn. “I’m sure everypony remembers Tom? Good.”
“I thought we were ‘never supposed to mention him again’.” Spike said. Rarity grimaced.
“Yes, well, desperate times call for desperate measures. We can go back to not mentioning him afterwards.”
“Um, Pinkie, these decorations are very nice, but do they need to be cleaned up afterward? I don’t want some poor critter getting tangled up…”
“Oh, don’t worry, Fluttershy! They’re biodegradable, they’ll disappear overnight!”
“…that’s not necessarily what biodegradable means…” Fluttershy mumbled. Applejack coughed.
“Welp, let’s get this over with. Ah got work t’do on the farm, promised Big Mac Ah’d be home right quick.” She stepped up to the body, glancing down at the shape inside the white sheet before turning to the others. “Anypony got anythin’ they wanna say?” Nopony moved. Applejack blinked. “Right, then…”
She turned around, giving a very light buck into the corpse. It rolled, sheet and all, into the hole; Spike hopped up onto the pile of dirt, throwing it back and quickly filling the hole again. Rarity then gave another burst of magic, toppling Tom onto the grave. As the dust settled, everypony looked at everypony else.
“Ah already said what Ah need t’do…”
“Gotta go clear some clouds, we’re having a fresh storm this evening...”
“Mr. and Mrs. Cake are waiting at the bakery…”
“I have a rather urgent order I must be getting to…”
“I need to check on one of the otters at the lake…”
Slowly, the ponies made their excuses and left. Spike stood at the grave, not speaking, until he was alone. Then he reached a claw forward and carved several words into the boulder covering Twilight’s resting place.
We need to talk.
Some hours later, Spike was nibbling on a sapphire and idly flipping through Twilight’s diary. He heard a low thunder, though no lightning had preceded it, and wondered what the odds were that the door would slam open right before a bolt of lightning struck almost on the exact spot of the library, thus punctuating the door’s opening with dramatic sound and lighting to begin the confrontation said door opening would lead to.
Given that he heard the door opening rather normally several seconds later, with no thunder or lightning behind it, Spike figured that the odds were probably rather low. He shut the rather engaging book and locked it again, sliding it into the ‘secret’ compartment in the desk. He jumped off of the chair, grabbing the towel he’d left by the door before stepping out of the bedroom in order to get a look at the visitor.
The dirtied, wet, tangle-maned, purple alicorn visitor.
“Hey. How was it this time?” Spike asked, throwing the towel at the now-living Princess Twilight Sparkle. She caught it with magic, quickly bringing it down and scrubbing at her hair.
“You let them put TOM on me?!” Twilight asked in an irritated tone. “Do you even know how long it took to dig myself out? I died again three times before I finally got that thing off, and I already had a migraine from going so long the first time!”
Spike set his teeth, unable to keep anger out of his voice. “Well, I was hoping that the dig out might give you some time to think.”
Twilight blinked as she saw Spike’s scowl, her irritation slipping away. “Oh, Spike, what’s wrong?”
“You are! Ever since you got this idea to test how ‘immortal’ alicorns really are, you’ve been killing yourself non-stop! This is the twelfth time this month, Celestia’s even asked you to stop doing it! Ponies are starting to notice, and it’s not like we can just bury you in the front yard!”
“Spike, come here.” Twilight quickly crossed the distance between them, throwing her forelegs around the young dragon and hugging him tight. “I didn’t know that you were getting so worked up over this…”
When Spike continued, his voice was wet. “Nopony cares anymore, Twilight! Fluttershy didn’t even cry this time! I’m getting worried that we’re getting used to you doing this, and then if you actually do die, we might not be able to get sad about it because of this! I don’t want to lose you, but if I do I want to feel something when you go!”
“Spike, Spike, Spike…” Twilight nuzzled into his cheek. “If you don’t want me to do this, I’ll stop.”
Spike sniffled, wiping a tear away before it fell from his cheek. “Do you promise?”
“Of course, you silly little dragon. You’re worth far more than some stupid data point on whether I can come back from choking on a corn kernel.”
Spike gave a grin, probably the first genuine one he’d held all day. He wrapped his arms around Twilight, reciprocating her embrace.
“Thanks, Twi.”
The two sat in silence for a few moments.
“You know, I never tried just using my own magic… ow! I was joking!”