Dead/Light

by Lord Destrustor


Live/Death

I slowly stand out of the black liquid, letting it drip gently down from my body.

I guess it was time to let go. Even the best flesh preservation spells can only do so much against two years of wear and tear.

I shake a bit to get rid of most of the remaining droplets and carefully step out of the caustic bath in which I spent the past three hours scrubbing the dead flesh from my bones. The scraping tools float gently on the surface of the black, foaming liquid, and I can even spot the hook I had to use to get my brain out. Apparently the explosion that killed me did so by discharging massive bolts of electricity in the room, one of which decided to pass right through my skull. I can now tell from experience that a two-year old cooked brain pickled in preservation magic is annoyingly difficult to work with.

I ponder for a moment what to do with this rotting corpse stew. The smell must be gut-wrenching for anyone with a nose.

After a while, I decide that the easiest solution is to simply teleport the whole mess into the nearest volcano. No water pollution or ruined ground, and the smell won’t bother anyone for more than a few seconds. It's far from a proper burial, but I'm far from properly dead anyway, am I?

Goodbye, organs. I enjoyed our time together.

I then turn the brand-new faucet on, just to rinse myself. Can’t be too careful about the risk of eroding my bones with too long an exposure to acid. They’re not ready yet.



Fluttershy isn’t ready either. She still hasn’t been able to work up the courage to see me in person again. We just exchange letters for now. It’s… okay.

My thoughts drift to the rest of my friends while I slosh around in the water to make sure I’m rinsed properly.

Most of them take some time out of their week to visit me in the newly-renovated Everfree castle. Princess Celestia formally gave it to me, saying it was to give me time and space to adjust to my new… existence. I know it’s mostly to keep me away from the normal populace so they don’t freak out as much, but it’s okay. I can’t blame them. Someone recently told me I was starting to smell really bad.

Besides, with the riots caused by the announcement of my… condition, I agree that it’s best to keep me far from civilization. The only ponies I ever see nowadays are the really brave ones who know what they’re getting into by walking into the Everfree. Most of my friends included.

Rarity always brings something to liven up the place, or to work a bit on the existing decorations. Even the older sections of the castle look better with each passing month. I don’t really see the point, but if it gives her a motive to visit me every so often, I’m not against it.

Rainbow either spends our times together in my personal, greatly-improved library; or up above the castle, trying to wrestle the wild weather of the forest. Or just bringing me along on casual flights. We sometimes go to fly all the way over Ponyville. ...I honestly prefer to stay here.

I need to remember to check if I can still fly with just these puny little bones I have for wings now.

Pinkie… just doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t eat anymore. She keeps bringing cakes and candy. She says maybe if I considered hiring guards and staff I could give it to them. I feel it’s not entirely necessary; the wildlife tends to steer clear of the castle for some reason. Besides, I don’t think we need to worry about any attempts on my life.

I sometimes get the feeling Applejack doesn’t visit as often as she could. But she’s probably just really busy.

Standing up again, I let the water drain and begin drying myself with a towel. My checklist is still where I left it, near the door. Up next is… the few hours in the kiln to make sure my bones are as desiccated as possible. Fair enough. It’ll give me some more time to think, even more than usual.

I move to the hallway, my bones making a new, clattering sound on the stone floor. I never knew how much muffled hooves were compared to bare bones. You learn something new every day, I suppose. Even in death.

The dark corridors are silent as I make my way downstairs to the ancient blacksmith’s workshop. No one lives here. Literally. Visits from my friends and Spike are the most activity this castle sees, although Spike says he wants to move in with me again. While it would certainly give the castle some more life, I’m not sure this is a good place for him.

A mass of old furniture grabs my attention as I walk by, a single object among the others in particular. I pause, then levitate the tall object out and away from the pile.

Under an old, mold-stained blanket rests a mirror. I haven’t looked at my reflection since that night I woke up, two years ago.

I shake my head at the sudden rush of memories. Of course, leave it to me to invent a new, never-before-seen form of necromancy while I’m too dead to remember how I did it. Despite my best efforts, I’m still far from figuring out a way to undo this. Turns out what I remember of the time I spent fully dead has absolutely nothing to do with what I actually did to lock myself away from the afterlife.

Knowing that would certainly be useful.

I pull the cloth away from the mirror. In front of me now stands the horrific sight of an alicorn’s skeleton, scrubbed clean of its flesh. Two dots of purple, necromantic light shine in the black, empty eye sockets.

I’m not as terrified as I expected. It merely reminds me of the old anatomy models in school.

I open and close my jaw a few times, my teeth clacking together rhythmically. That is a slightly more unnerving sight, but it quickly starts looking like some theater prop in action.

“Alas, poor Twilight! I knew her well!”

My chuckle echoes down the halls, strangely amplified and distorted by the ventriloquism spell I had to invent just to be able to speak when my vocal cords snapped from too much use and the incapacity to heal. That had been a ‘fun’, mute week.

I concentrate a little, creating a small orb of light with my magic. Moving it somewhere between the mirror and my face, I notice that the light seems incapable of piercing the shroud of pitch-black darkness inside my eye sockets. That’s strange and somewhat creepy, but mostly disappointing; I would have liked to observe the back of my eyeholes. I draw a leg closer, noticing for the first time the minuscule tendrils of magic flowing within the joints. Huh. Is that how my bones are bound together? Is that how I can still move?

No matter, those are questions for another day. I turn away from the mirror, making a mental note to move it somewhere I frequent more often some time later. For now, it’s time to go lounge in an oven for twelve to twenty hours. After that will be the three-day soak in the special resin formula I concocted with help from Zecora, and then a few more days in the kiln to make sure the resin can set and harden properly.

And then my bones will be nearly indestructible. Just because I don’t enjoy my undeath doesn’t mean I should be careless with it; who knows how long I’ll be stuck like this, and I’d rather spend that time in a still-somewhat-functioning shell. No sense in vaporizing what I have left when I have no clue whether or not it ends me or just traps me in an even worse existence. I'm not ready to risk that just yet.

Still, days upon days of just sitting in place… it’s going to be a long, long week.


Oh well. I do have all the time in the world now, don’t I?