The Canterlot Towers had been in spastic chaos and disarray of preparations for the past four hours.
It had been approximately four and a half since Princess Luna rushed into Princess Celestia’s bedroom and the bigger part of the capital city shook under the impact of her voice.
“What is the transporter status?”
“ETA is eight hours, we—”
“We need it faster.”
The nocturnal alicorn was visibly livid and highly distraught. She had been overseeing the early-morning evacuation efforts, lending her assistance wherever she could. Despite looking like all life had been sucked out of her and occasionally collapsing into violent coughing fits, Luna was rather pleasantly surprised by the situation.
When she stormed into her sister’s bedroom and told her of what she had seen, the first thing proposed was a cup of tea and a shared bed.
Once Celestia had recovered from the hoof-slap on her face, the second thing was a concentrated evacuation effort on the town of Ponyville.
Having read perhaps too many novels where it all went downhill from the first time, Luna was brought into vigor by how her sister had the common sense to trust her, and not assume that it was a practical joke of some sort.
Unfortunately, that was the only good thing in all that was going on.
“Has Twilight responded yet?”
“No, ma’am. We’ve been sending all kinds of emergency notifications for the past four hours, but there has been no response,” responded a communications officer whose name Luna could not hold in her memory at that particular moment.
“Anything from the Mayor?”
“Same results, ma’am.”
“It’s been long enough. Send out a courier. We need Ponyville back and in communication with us if we want to save the town,” Luna ordered, barely sustaining her speech as the sickening feeling in her throat and head resurged at an inopportune time.
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll pass it to the Guard.”
She stood with her hooves resting on the balcony overlooking the construction of a mass-teleport beam in the cleared-out part of the city. Since three in the morning, the Towers staff had been hard at work making sure of the preparations. They had done an admirable job clearing out space and making sure nothing would go wrong once the plan worked. It was going to be enough to fit the entire population of Ponyville - just barely, but it would.
Her sister would issue a concern of how it would be unwise to think that the plaza was to fit several hundred ponies being transported all at once.
So did Luna. And Celestia knew well enough which exact part of that statement was the source of concern. The vomit-inducing images flashed through her head again, reminding her of that source.
She feared they would not be meeting several hundred ponies at all.
“Stand back,” the Princess ordered to whoever may have been behind her, knowing that in the ruckus of the hasty operation the workers would be running to and fro.
A blinding blue light, quickly fading into a purplish-black one, emitted from her horn as the alicorn herself issued a pained groan. The matter was absorbed into the growing orb of the teleport construct, and so it grew just a little bit. It was slowly starting to draw the very consciousness out of her, but she kept supporting it, adding her own magic to that of several dozens of specially trained staff on the floors below.
A disgusting slug of purple ichor left her through the mouth as she had to turn and spit again.
If only the severe lack of rest and overall distress were her only problems. If only.
She could still hear his voice, and she could still feel his presence. It had enfeebled her greatly. It was still there, not on the same plane of existence, but watching and waiting. The sickness and the feeling of paranoia were his methods of toying around with her, she could feel. It was not pleased that she did not introduce her sister to him from the very start - something it definitely planned upon.
Luna had no time to. Celestia was smart enough to figure out that something was terribly wrong with her on her own. There was little doubt that they would meet almost immediately after the preparations were done, and by then she would be very well aware of what was going on.
For the time, however, both of them had enough common sense to lay off that issue and focus on the task of importance. The construction of a portal large enough to transport all of Ponyville’s denizens and their belongings to the capital city.
The Dirge was coming. She could almost hear it.
“Are there any reports on the supposed threat?” the Princess asked a communications officer that she knew would have been close enough to hear her ask - they were always shifting round, changing posts in the chaos that had erupted.
“Negatory. We are consulting scouts near Everfree, but there aren’t many. Still waiting on any word from them.”
“Keep trying.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And she feared that her little ponies could hear it too, all too well.
Twilight would never have been out of touch for so long.
The abnormal forest round him gave off vile scents, snarling at each step his growing army made. It lashed its poisonous vines and jagged traps at the recently deceased flesh of the manticores that strode in front, acting as shields for the more vulnerable and less maneuverable string of corpses which followed. The resistance had little point to it. Whatever died, joined. Whatever lived, succumbed.
Whatever persisted was not corporeal, and merely floated in the air, roaring in anger as its ancient sleep was disturbed. Murderous, insane spirits, locked forever by the haunted forest. Familiar hauntings - the Undying had left myriads of them there where he came from. Spirits that never found peace, souls that never were fulfilled. This forest was choking on them, so much of its poison owed to their influence.
Their souls were sour and unfulfilling, nearly cherishing their release. That slight inkling of brightness was barely worth wasting the time. They would remain in the now nearly fully undead forest - perhaps, a supply of power for later.
“Dead ahead.” The lumbering figure stretched out a finger, having found fitting ground for expansion.
He already knew, though, that they were having a visitor. His undead have felt it too, but did not act on it, as he wished to examine it more clearly. It was an effect of the Tombstones that he had suspected for some time now, watching the small creatures that rummaged under the leafy, viny covers die all by themselves, crawling onwards to the monuments even in death.
Sure enough, a small equine shape stepped rigidly towards where the last Tombstone was fashioned out of a large tree.
That one was different. Its physique differed only slightly, but its eyes and coat were not the same. Slightly smaller eyes, striped coat. Those eyes had gone blank and rolled to the back of its head, and it trotted unevenly, its mouth hanging open.
It seemed that the “ponies” heard the music too. Noone in his realm did but the dead. Back there… only the biggest Tombstones sounded the melodies. Here, each and every helped conduct. They spread the Dead God’s notes to the unknowing world, and emitted energies the Undying had long forgotten by then.
He walked up to the equine, his leg towering so high above it. It did not seem to notice. The black and white creature rammed into it a few times, adamant in its desire to reach the source of the song.
“Uuurghhh…”
Her mind was so much more delicate and full than the other one’s. The soul was filled brisk, exquisite energy. It felt unusual on the tongue. It channeled knowledge enough for him to be given a large advantage, coupling that of what the “pegasus” told him and the army of various creatures he had assembled…
...but it was put to secondary processing when he saw the place his newest singer came out of.
It looked like a hut. Wooden structure, stern frame, surrounded by artifacts similar to those of shamans and witch doctors of nations he had converted so many years ago. A small pool near it.
The energies that emanated from it left him no choice but to aim his arms forward and burst the ever willing Tombstone high into the air, the underground rock formations encompassing the hut and lifting it to the peak. Enchanted stone covered it in runes, and the magnificent sounds of his Dead God’s magic had begun to twist and bend all that surrounded it.
Not all structures were fit for Tombstones. Some could be converted quickly - nearly all could - and, at times, even mere soil and rock sufficed, but for truly fitting ones… The process was special. It was a vignette of demise that he composed on the fly.
This building was right. The heart of life in a forest full of death, it had such a significance, such a… specific fragrance to it. Its owner was nothing special for his army, but the place, the structure, they were right for his army. They deserved a song all for them. A triumphant dirge to sound upon the unsuspecting world yet more of his still gathering power.
As the green, decaying beams left his hands, eyes and mouth in an artistic trance, his followers had begun to join in. Skeletons rattled in place, twitching and twisting to the rhythm, recently decayed manticore creatures had begun to roar with their rotting chords, and the two equine minors had begun to moan and raise their extremities to the skies.
Their blank eyes shot up forward, meeting the point he had been aiming at - the rapidly increasing bulk of the hut on top of the craggy, growing stone. It covered the moon and cast a shadow over his army of multiple dozen decaying, rotting, recently deceased predators and more than a hundred equine corpses of differing age.
The ghostly figures, wailing in anguish, joined as well, and aided his choir with their mourning soprano. With time, it had begun to feel as if the forest itself convulsed to the spastic, rapid rhythm that sung of the death of the world. The Undying had no time to watch over the trees - he was conducting.
His arms swung violently, with little rhyme or reason to any mortal onlooker. They all but tore themselves off at the joints, breaking over multiple times as his body contorted in flashes of green energy, the Tombstone rising ever further. His throat roared out gurgles of concentrated effort, and all of his death-ridden mind was consumed by one thing - the music. He ordered the mana flow, he pointed the instruments, he helped the melody escape its unfulfillment. Each note had soul to it. So many souls.
So many more once it was over.
When they were done, the director of the Dirge slumped on the ground and bit off a recently deceased equine corpse that dug its way out of the shallow soil. He felt such hunger, but the ecstasy was more. What he had made… it was better than some of his earlier masterpieces.
In fact, it was so great that the Tombstone, this time built and fit properly, immediately realized its potential that the Undying saw in it. Surely a full Tombstone would do much more than the emergency ones did - and the emergency ones had become infinitely more powerful than he remembered them being.
The very first thing he saw was a poisonous, ghastly, pallid mist that oozed out of what used to be the windows. His piece had brought the energies within the house to mix with that which the Dead God made be. Toxins and poisons that the creature stored mixed into essence, and slipped out, unrestrained, and aiming exactly where they were wanted. A biological weapon already. He stretched out an arm and felt the wispy substance, seeking to check its magic.
“Coffin… cannot contain,” he commented once he had realized what exactly it was.
So many ages ago, the Dead God instilled him with strength. It was not the same back then. The Undying had undergone changes, so many changes over the millennia that he had existed for. Little pieces would lie strewn round his mana body, but the source of their power would ultimately be lost - something he would lose in fights with certain entities, and something would merely be deemed unworthy.
This was one of the things he had lost over the years. The air that made mortal hearts falter. Too slow and unfitting for the rapid assaults that had become so much more effective with time, it was discarded, left to drift in the air of his old world.
It had returned. And it was merely the first Tombstone that he had found a proper spot for.
“Guuuaahhhhh…” a tiny shape crawled up to him and nudged his rotten flesh with its nuzzle. The grey “pegasus”, its head half-decayed and its hind legs dragging behind aimlessly.
“Against the living,” he answered, looking at the invigorated, trudging corpse.
His army felt as dedicated as he was. Twilight Sparkle was within reach, and her mind combined with that of the learned striped equine would tell him all he needed. Perhaps to spoil the occasion, vile magic emanated out of an obscure source somewhere far in the distance, some spell being prepared.
Only natural to assume that whatever allowed the equines to conquer the plane would have been informed of him by that point. It mattered little. He had power, he had knowledge, and he would have more once the striped one’s soul was done being digested.
The orchestra was going on tour.
“Get up. Get up, Twilight—”
A throat-rending series of coughs hurt her ears as her mind looped into consistency. These were not her own.
“Come on! Get up!”
“Twilight, please… I know you know something’s wrong, just get up, get up, get up!”
“Damn… Her heart is barely beating in there. She really isn’t well at all.”
“I don’t think any of us are, Applejack.”
Her vision was a blurry haze, and her thoughts refused to form together. She felt as if her head was repedeately bashed against a stone wall. All that there was to the world was a swirl of blurs, a string of voices, and a dreadful odor.
“Twilight! Focus! Pinkie keeps saying that you know what’s going on, so could you please get up and explain?”
Her limbs felt as if they were made of wool. Damp, old, rotten wool.
“Twilight!”
“Please… stop shouting so much… It— it really hurts when you’re so loud…”
“Dammit, I’m… I’m sorry. I can’t help it, it’s… It’s all so messed up.”
“Well, the only other thing is Twilight, and she is barely breathing! And the whole town is covered by this stupid fog, and I can hear my heartbeat - which is barely there, by the way! - and something tells me it’s not just some wind current from Everfree with poison joke pollen again! Sorry if I’m worrying too much, but it’s GETTING too much! I can’t even fly or think straight!”
Then she remembered what she saw, and the cackling, screeching voice sounded through her head once more. Twilight groaned in pain, moving slightly on the bed her friends had made for her.
“Girls… Girls! I— I think she’s conscious. Twilight?”
“Twilight? Twi? Can you hear us? Just nod if you can.”
A loose bit of stomach acid left her through the mouth when she did nod. It was all so very rotten.
She was starting to hear things.
“Okay! Okay, okay, she can. Twilight…”
A moment of silence, and a disappointed, frustrated sigh.
“Darn it, she won’t be able to do anything like this. We can’t just MAKE her talk.”
“That’s it, I’m going to the hospital.”
“Rainbow Dash, you aren’t going out into the fog. Plain and simple.”
“Or what then, we just sit there and wait for whatever Pinkie says is about to happen to ACTUALLY HAPPEN? I’m not gonna sit in place if we’ve got something that is causing THIS—” Twilight could tell that the pegasus pointed at her as she ranted. “—Is about to enter town! This is all bull—”
“Please… stop shouting…”
“Okay, girls… Dash has a point. Twilight can’t help us,” She really could not. “And we can’t just sit in the library and wait. We’ve been doing that for the past four hours, and what changed?”
“Fluttershy got sick, Spike disappeared and Twilight woke up.”
Spike. He was there before. She recalled him sitting there, talking… coughing. It was evening back then.
Her senses barely worked, but she could hear the sounds of the dreary night outside. If anything, it was the makings of the early morning.
“Well, that’s just not going to end well if we stay here. We need to get her a doctor, it’s all we can do. We’re barely holding by the threads as we are.”
“Actually… Maybe I could go to Everfree, get Zecora, and—”
“Are you suicidal, by any chance? You have watched Time Turner walk into the fog, and I don’t recall him ever coming back. He just walked out of his house in the middle of the night, left the lights on, and walked right towards Everfree. That is NOT a good sign. We have to do something, yes, but that “something” doesn’t have to be effective suicide.”
“We don’t know what happened to him, Rarity, maybe he just—”
“He just what? Went to the grocery store? No, I doubt that’s what happened. If anything… if anything, we should try to contact the outside world. I can feel that there is some magic trying to manifest within the library, it’s just being withheld. Spike couldn’t make anything power through it…” The dip of sadness in her voice was obvious enough even to Twilight, who felt much the same anxiety. “...but maybe I can try. It can’t be too difficult, it’s just—”
The suggestion of her unicorn friend sounded almost completely sound, and the ailing Twilight was about to rest just a little bit easier for it… but the gasp, shriek and cough that interfered made it much more somber.
“Rarity, you ain’t at the top of health either. You could barely lift a quill up just an hour ago, and I doubt it got any better. Now, me and Rainbow, we’re the most fit by far, so I say we go out for a quick scout.”
“Yeah! We’ll see what’s outside, you’ll keep track of us through the windows, it’ll all be fine, and then we’ll—”
“He’s here,” her last friend, having sat in silence for so long, finally spoke up.
She could tell by the tone of her voice that nothing had improved about her condition in the hours that passed. Even though the layer of confusion, panic and delirium, Twilight could clearly hear how distraught Pinkie was.
“Who’s here?” A set of hooves stomped on the lower floor, accompanied by a gust of wind. “Who the hell’s in here? Come out!”
“I see him.”
“Where? Who are you talking about? I don’t see anyone,” AJ spoke, closer to Twilight - evidently, Pinkie was left on the lower floor while the rest had gathered next to her bed.
“He’s there… out the window…”
“Who— oh. Oh, what the hell is that, what the hell is THA—”
Her mind collapsed into darkness yet again, and the last thought that made her near scream with terror was that it was not at all the end.
Something was wrong. Her heart skipped another beat.
It did not come for them.
It came to them.
The little town was drowned in sickening fog, its heart beating slower and slower. They wanted to get out, they did… Panicking, rushing to gather their belongings, only to find out that none who leave the houses ever come back. Sitting grouped up, in fear, left however they were when it had entered. Some left alone, some merely separated from friends or family. Scared. Confused. Locked off.
The Almighty Dirge was coming, its ranks rising by the minute. The lumbering corpses marched on to their first destination, wishing to rip, tear and devour. The first city out of so many to fall. Sealed away from all and any help attempts - surely they would have been informed of their situation if their Princesses could help. But they could not. And so they sat, dripping with fear and going slowly insane.
Finally, it was just enough of a sip, and he was full for the day.
He drifted towards the window and looked at the delicious pink treat that lasted him two whole days while he was so confused. Such a good friend.
He only had one business to settle with the six exquisite dishes, and then he would let all the letters come through. He had disposed of all the distractions, walking and not.
It was fun, but they did not all need to die. The dead had such terrible screams, they were almost not worth pulling.