Chapter 3: Ghostly Encounters
For once, Memphis was dumbfounded by this newest arrival, especially by the means he arrived. Grease geyser, that was a new one, and the pony himself who landed seemed perfect for the trip considering his weight and the fact that he promptly ate the thing that killed him in the first place.
Lewdy’s response though was to roll on the ground in a massive fit of laughter, while still clutching his crotch for protection and comfort. “Death by sausage! I love it! Oh we have a complete set now! Oh I got one! Memphis, throw a pokeball at him, I’ve always wanted to capture a Snorlax!” Lewdy’s laugh reached a crescendo over his own joke and promptly he rolled under one of the benches to hold his aching stomach.
Memphis shook his head both at the scene and Lewdy’s antics. Looking to Lucky Money he said in his usual quiet and gruff manner, “Ya mind gettin’ this one up to speed? Ah’ve had enough of these shenanigans for one day.”
Lucky looked up from his sitting spot to Memphis. “Aye laddy, I’ll give it a whirl.”
Lucky began to set himself up into a standing position, still as hard as ever for the newly formed pony. After making sure everything was properly placed and his weight was evenly distributed Lucky turned to the new arrival... he guessed it to be a pony, even though it resembled play-dough much better. He made sure his trademark smile was fit on his face and his monocle was snug in front of his eye before he sprang into a greeting.
“Welcome, lad, to this little spot that we like to call ‘Limbo’. Now as you already discerned, you are dead. No need to fret though, it seems that ye moment to pass on will come. Although it may take you awhile to arrive in either paradise or damnation, ye can still spend your time with us who also arrived like you... although that may be more of a curse than a pleasantry. A fair couple of warnings to ya though; one thing is that nopony that is alive can hear you unless they address you first, and second is that apparently if ya wander too far from the site you’ll just end up re-appearing here. No one is stopping you from moving about, but at the moment I suggest you just hang around and ask me if you need anything.”
Lucky stood still and looked to the pony in case he had questions, he may be dead but manners still were vital if he was to keep his image. Although he may have killed the chance to look civilized among the ponies he first met, these new ones looked like the type he could associate with. He readjusted his monocle one more time before letting it rest in his eye socket, funny thing that it still fit even after he had been transformed.
Lucky had come to terms with his death, he practically threw out all the bad emotions when he snapped and practically tore up the site. Now it felt more like a fact that he could deal with and move on. He did wonder what would become of his company though, worst case scenario was the stock would crash and the company would practically dissolve. All assets going to the higher end ‘bigwigs’ and all the grunts getting the butt end of the stick. Thankfully his lawyer had warned him of premature death and made him come up with a will; most everything he owned went to family and business partners... yet a surprising chunk went to the lawyer; he still wanted to slap him. He made sure to leave his driver nothing, practically one of the best choices he ever made in his life.
If anything though, Lucky planned to get somepony’s attention and get to the nearest city. Once there he planned he would start up a business... ponies need potatoes right?
Abigail regarded the new arrival uneasily as Lucky spoke. The pony was overweight and covered in grease. He had coughed up a sausage and proceeded to eat it. It was possibly the most disgusting thing she’d seen in her life. “And now, I have to go find a nice secluded place to meet my lunch for the second time in two hours,” she said under her breath as she gagged a little. The blue mare shook her head at the sight and unsteadily started on her way towards what looked like the town center.
Seeing the mare start to walk away caused Memphis to turn his attention to her, “Well I understand but just so you know we’re basically ghosts here. Nopony can hear us but they can sort of see us, they’ll have to talk to your first before you talk to them and you’ll start to fade away if you’re away from this crossroads for too long, you’ll basically end up back here. One of the rules I guess, we can’t officially leave until the living come to see us.”
“So, if I start walking away from here I’ll eventually fade out from wherever and take my next step back into this waiting area? Well, I guess a brief respite is better than nothing...” Abigail began to slowly make her way towards what looked to be the town center. Well, she headed towards where there were more other ponies, anyway. Perhaps one would bespeak her and she could wander longer. She certainly would have liked to talk to the natives, but that wasn’t on her mind as she set out.
After watching the blue pony walk away (she reminded him of a big walking Slurpee), Chubs rolled himself upright the rest of the way and settled into a sitting position. Refocusing on the remaining ponies, a flash of recognition crossed his face. “Hey, you guys look like those toys from the Happy Meals.”
Slowly, Lewdy recovered from his laughter thanks to the bodily reflex of needing oxygen in his lungs and the cramp in his side that felt like a not-insignificant gunshot wound. Wiping tears from his eyes he slowly tried to speak, “alright... okay I’m alright... oh mate that was a good laugh. Don’t say anything now, please I’m begging you I can’t take anymore laughter. Okay now I’m calm. Let me just say that you should probably take a good look at yourself before you go calling us Happy Meal toys just yet. Oh god here I go again, Happy Meals! First thing he says too!” The raunchy pony couldn’t talk anymore and fell back into a fit of hysterical laughter.
Looking away from the cackling pony, Chubs took a quick survey of his own body. Underneath the traces of remaining grease, he appeared to be covered with a short coat of fuzz, in a bland grayish color. “Huh. That’s new.” Lifting one of his legs off the ground, he gave it a deep sniff, followed by a lick. “I still taste like bacon, though.” Continuing his inspection, he noted that his hair was a buttery yellow color, accompanied by a tail of the same color. A picture of a jelly donut decorated both of his flanks, and his stomach sagged nearly to the ground he sat on. “Still fat too.”
Looking back to the laughing pony, he spoke mostly to himself, “Something about being dead, huh? Figures. Mom always said I was gonna eat myself to death one day. Never could stand to disappoint her.” He shrugged as best he could with his new body, and resumed licking the grease off himself.
Lucky Money looked over the fat pony... he was sucking his hoof. “Oooohkaaay laddy, I can see ye are pretty content where ye are so I’m just gonna... go over... there.” Lucky dashed off in no real direction, but certainly in one that went distinctly away from the obese pony.
For Ponyville it was another average day. Ponies went about their business oblivious to the new arrivals to the carriage crossing stop. To them it was just another crowd of strange ponies idling about. Something about their appearance just made them blend into the surroundings, as if the ponies were barely there.
Nopony seemed to notice when one of them broke away, a blue mare with a look of sadness about her. As she walked away from the crossroads, it seemed to the average pony that she wasn’t entirely there. She was solid and apparent but something about her presence seemed shadowy at best. No merchant or citizen paid her any heed.
Save for one.
Abigail slowly fell into the rhythm that her new body walked with; it seemed hard-wired into her body. So, she was dead now. It still didn’t seem real, but it had to be. She could remember every second of the disaster in orbit and knew there was no way she could have survived. Even now, Abigail had a hard time remembering the fear, as though something (maybe her mind, or maybe something to do with this limbo place) dulled such emotions. Her parents would be sad, of course, but she couldn’t help that, and they knew she died fulfilling a lifelong dream. She did have a boyfriend on Earth, but they had just started seeing each other, so he’d probably get over it. Basically, she didn’t feel many regrets about her time on Earth, and the fact that there was some sort of afterlife was actually quite exciting.
As Abigail walked through town, she was still morose, even with her current, positive chain of thought. Because her head was held low, she noticed her reflection in a puddle. She hadn’t thought about her appearance, except that she had weird new limbs and a horn. The first things Abigail noticed were her eyes. They were enormous, taking up half of her face, at least. They also were a striking shade of red, which seemed designed to contrast well with her, well, coat, she supposed, which was deep blue (though somehow still what anyone would safely call a pastel). Her hair, no, mane, was black, though this wasn’t so much of a change from her old body. One new addition she’d not even noticed until she began to look herself over was the tail she now sported. It was black, to match her mane. As she looked with a bemused expression at the appendage, she saw that her hip - flank - was colored differently. It was a picture, clearly one of the corona of a star peeking out from behind a planet.
Seeing the picture reminded her of the show. It was her cutesy mark, or something like that, and represented her special talent. Well, it seemed that her special talent was dying in space; she gave herself a sarcastic chuckle over that, which helped to lift her spirits a bit. It was more likely that her ‘talent’ had to do with space, or specifically, helping to build spacecraft. It was a pretty image, anyway, and the stylized version of the diamond ring effect blended well with her coat.
Thinking of the show had reminded her that unicorns, such as herself apparently, were magic users. How in the blazes was she supposed to cast magic? Abigail mused over the new distraction of a problem as she continued to wander through the town of Ponyville.
Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, trotted down the road that led back to her tree library, on her way back from Sweet Apple Acres. Her saddlebags were laden with apple pastries and she had a skip to her step. The day was bright and sunny, happy faces greeted her at each turn, and she couldn’t help but hum a song to herself. Everything seemed perfect. No impending disaster to be seen and everything peaceful. It seemed nothing could put a damper on her mood.
With her eyes closed she didn’t see that she was about to bump into a distraught and fading pony. Just before she collided with the mare she managed to jump back, “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh I’m sorry I wasn’t...” her voice trailed off as she took a better look at the mare before her. She didn’t react to being nearly run over by the lavender unicorn. Frowning she reached a hoof out to the pony before her.
The change was instant. The pony’s coat became vibrant again as she perked up. Twilight spoke again, “Excuse me but are you alright?”
Abigail’s ears perked up at the other mare’s question. Literally, they physically perked up. As in they lifted up into the air. Being a pony was really weird. Abigail brushed away her momentary confusion over the state of her ears to look at the mare. She could somehow tell that this mare was a fully living being. Her question brought Abigail to life, invigorating her entire being.
“Oh, um... I’m not entirely sure if I am or not,” responded Abigail. The other pony looked at her with a mix of confusion and concern, so Abigail continued. “What I mean is, and please don’t think me crazy when I say this, I just suddenly appeared here. Not at this very spot, but in this world. More than that, I’d died floating a few hundred kilometers above my planet. I wasn’t even a pony before I came here.” Abigail was on the verge of ranting. It felt good to tell someone about her predicament, even if they’d never even met before. On the other hand, Memphis had said that a chance to actually speak to a member of the living was rare, and this particular one had grown somewhat perturbed by the tale. Abigail would need to calm herself down and seem more reasoned to get through to the mare, so she took a deep breath and continued in a more controlled manner.
“Ok, look, when you saw me, did I look different from the other ponies?” The purple mare, a unicorn it appeared, nodded.
“You were sort of muted. Not like my friends and I were when Discord affected us, it was more like you were barely there.” The purple mare stopped for a moment and then continued, “But you did get more vivid when I talked to you!” She was at least willing to hear Abigail out, which was great news for the ponified dead girl.
“See, so there clearly is something to my story. I don’t want to be a bother, but you seem willing to help us, and intelligent enough to do so. If you wouldn’t mind, would you come with me to the old carriage station? I’ll explain everything I know on the way there.”
Twilight hesitated; Abigail (such a strange name for a pony, sort of like Pinkie’s full name, yet somehow stranger still) was clearly troubled, and she seemed to be telling the truth, or at least believed that she was. Still, Twilight was scheduled to reorganize her lab today after a thirty minute lunch break with Spike. She knew she had to help if the mare really was in trouble, but what if she was just a crazy pony? Twilight’s whole month would be thrown off, besides, no one had ever seen a ghost from another dimension in anything Twilight had read before. How could something like that go unnoticed throughout all of pony history?
Abigail noticed Twilight’s conflicted expression, these ponies were terrible at hiding emotions, it seemed. Abigail knew that she had to convince Twilight now. Who knew, if Twilight left and let Abigail fade away again, she might even forget that she’d ever met Abigail. For her part, Abigail knew that eternity was a long time to spend in the small, long forgotten pitstop with a bunch of crazy ex-humans.
“Please,” Abigail asked, her voice heading quickly towards quivering, “I was lucky that you noticed me at all. You yourself said it was almost like I wasn’t there, what if next time I head out wandering no one at all notices me? What if all of us at the station are stuck there forever? Look, if you find that I’m wrong or lying or anything else, I will help you do whatever you need done. Chores, work, whatever. Please...”
Twilight realized that she was being silly. Abigail was in trouble, and even if no one knew about whatever it was that was going on, Twilight had learned that strange things happen that neither science nor magic could explain, so what was one more gap in the knowledge of ponykind? (at this thought, Twilight’s right eye and ear twitched a little)
The pair headed off towards the station as Abigail filled Twilight in on what she knew about what had happened to her. About three minutes into the conversation, Twilight was already cutting Abigail off every three words with baker’s dozens of questions. ‘Yes,’ thought Abigail, ‘I found the right pony to help us if any can in all of, oh what was it, Equestria! Yes, in all of Equestria.’