//------------------------------// // 288. Danse Macabre (2) by Fuzzyfurvert // Story: The Sun and the Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab // by Fuzzyfurvert //------------------------------// by Fuzzyfurvert *** Celestia walked slowly, counting her steps silently as she weaved between the headstones and mausoleums and crypts that dotted the upper tier of the Canterlot Eternal Gardens Cemetery. The marble and granite stone gleamed under the moonlight as her hooves stepped as lightly as the ghosts that were rumored to wander in search of the living. No pony attended her. No guard stood by while the Princess made a personal visit to the gravesite. Not even a gravedigger intruded on this sacred place while the immortal Princess Celestia danced amid the honored dead. Dance she did, her body swaying between crumbling monuments to those long passed. She danced to the song she sung, her voice low and throaty as she laid her heart bare with her words. The melody was slow and sad and spoke of lost, but it had a hopefulness to it. She was just reciting the final stanza when she reached the clearing where six very special gravemarkers stood. “I’m crazy for tryin’ and I’m crazy for cryin’ and I’m crazy for lovin’ you…” She let the last note hang in the air for a long moment and then hung her head low to smell the lavender that grew over one of the old graves. The scent was sweet and herby and made her mind swim with memories. Years of memories, decades of memories, a full century of memories of the pony that lay below her hooves. “You’re... late.” Celestia blinked and looked back up and behind herself. At the edge of the ring of graves, covered in the shadows of the overhanging trees and tall mausoleums, stood a thin alicorn. The mare stepped forward into the light to reveal a badly faded purple coat that clung to her bones like a moth eaten burlap sack. The bones poked through in a few places but at a distance, she could pass for alive. Celestia looked back at the grave and then back at the creature. “Twilight, we discussed this. I come for a visit and when the song is over, you are supposed to come up from your grave and proclaim how our love will never die.” “And...last time...you complained...about the land...scaping...cost...of reburying me.” Twilight’s eyes were tiny, bright points of light in her skull, but Celestia could feel the implied eye roll she was getting. “I...made a connection...to the...drainage pipes. Less mess...that way.” “Oh it’s not that bad.” “How...long?” “Excuse me?” Celestia raised an eyebrow and stepped up to Twilight, her horn glowing with raw magic. The glow around her horn began to flow like a thin mist from her to Twilight’s horn as she got closer. Twilight’s limp coat and few remaining strands of hair started to regain their former luster and the gaps and holes began to fill back in. “How long has...it been since...your last visit?” Twilight tapped her hoof irritably as she body began to fill back out and her feathers started to come back. “If inflation has been...constant, then I can tell you…exactly how much it would...cost you.” “Six months.” “Assuming a similar rate of service progression...then it would cost you about 80 additional bits. If...you are using the same contractors as before.” Twilight started to smirk as animation returned her face and the bright sparks of her undead eyes were replaced with the eyes of flesh an ichor she’d possessed long ago. “Yes, yes.” Celestia chuckled and draped her wings around Twilight. “Now are you done trying to impress me or do we have to keep going until the others wake up too?” “No.” Twilight giggled as her voice started to return to it’s normal speed and pitch. “I think we can move straight to the part where you catch me up on things and then we have dinner, maybe a little wine as we stargaze. Or, if you’re feeling frisky, we can just skip to the part where I remind you why you haven’t remarried in the last 200 years.” Celestia blushed and nuzzled her wife. “We can do that part twice this time, right? Once before dinner and once afterwards?” Twilight smiled and spread her now fully restored wings over Celestia. “Still insatiable I see!” Twilight pulled Celestia closer with one hoof as they cuddled in the ring of six graves, laying on their backs and watching the heavens twinkle and dance. Celestia nuzzled into her shoulder harder and left a little trail of kisses up to her neck. The picnic lunch Celestia had brought sat untouched on Applejack’s tombstone. The bottle of wine was...somewhere. She’d lost track of it in the tossle and it wasn’t really important right now. “Maybe next time you won’t need to bring the picnic? We didn’t even eat...well, didn’t eat food.” Celestia looked up and planted a kiss on Twilight’s cheek. “It still came in handy though, especially the bottle of wine. That was a very pleasing suggestion.” “Wasn’t mine.” Twilight gestured at a tombstone covered in gems that sparkled in the moonlight. “It was Rarity’s.” Celestia propped herself up and spoke up. “Thank you, Rarity!” There came a muffled “You’re... welcome, your... Highness!” from the grave. “If we can locate the bottle, we can go again.” Celestia grinned lasciviously at Twilight. “There is still time before dawn.” Twilight chuckled again and wrapped her hooves around the white alicorn. “I love how I can’t escape your libdo, even in death. Who needs a wine bottle when you got a horn and boundless stamina?”