Diary of the Dead

by AppleTank


Prologue: Days of Past’s Future (V2.2)

I trotted through the sunny, yet lightly snowing streets of Sunny Pines. Every few steps, I shook myself, shaking accumulated snow off my dark wide brimmed hat and cloak. They used to look rather eye-catching back when I first bought it. The hat used to be a dark green piece that matched my mane, with golden trim. The cloak used to be light enough to be packed easily, yet still thick enough to, along its tiny bit of heat warding, keep the chill at bay. Used to. Unfortunately, that was over a thousand years ago. Now, it just looked like a tenth hoof ratty piece that should’ve met the trash bin centuries ago, and looked just as not-useful as it was.

I didn’t really care. Yes, there was snow, and the light wind didn’t help matters, but I hadn’t bothered with temperature for centuries. The cloak and hat kept ice crystals from getting onto my back, and that was enough.

I took a moment to peer out from underneath my hat’s brim. The late afternoon sun cast large shadows across the street, but I still couldn’t help but admire the amount of activity it had nowadays. In just merely nine hundred years, this place went from a ghost town and a solitary tree to a national park and famous vacation spot.

Before I rebuilt the place, more than 80% of the buildings were had been utterly destroyed by the crushing weight of the ice age before the ponies finally got their heads together and stopped trying to strangle each other. The rest were waterlogged wrecks that needed to be near completely rebuilt.

I unearthed my hometown a century before the melt could do too much damage. It took me longer still before I could stand to walk its empty streets without suffering a memory overload and a nervous breakdown long enough to interfere with my construction efforts. It took another century after that for the rumors about Sunny Pines to fade away, and become just another piece of fertile land.

It wasn’t too difficult to attract new residents once I was prepared. And with that, Sunny Pines was reborn.

Every time I took the time to watch the bustling streets, it made my chest swell in pride---!

Small.

Young.

Happy.

I looked up into the smiling face of a small, orange coated mare with a bright, green mane. On her back there rested two bulging saddlebags full of food from the market. Around me, long dead ponies walked through the streets, all walking to some unknown destination.

The trees that Sunny Pines was named for towered in the back, the bright noonday sun colorfully lighting up the streets of my beloved home. Birds chirped happily in the spring-time breeze.

I smiled back, as I loved Mommy. Though she always seemed sad whenever somepony asked about Daddy, she always did her best to raise me. I don’t like it when Mommy is sad. I stretched my neck forward to nuzzle--

I wrenched myself back into this century, shuddering. My vision landed onto the mare in front of me. A small, orange mare with a bright sun bleached green mane, staring blankly back at me. She had a empty smile made by someone who has long forgotten what a smile feels like, and gave a short nod, before trotting away back towards “The Hearth,” my rebuilt home/motel. I watched her distinctive tail sway into the crowd, until I couldn’t see the walking corpse anymore.

Huh. I wasn’t tasting snow and dirt. I looked to my side, and blinked at the wing tightly gripping my barrel and holding me up. I looked over to my right, and into the worried visage of my friend, his face partially shaded from his white hooded jacket. He clacked his beak worriedly, calming slightly when he saw me twitching slightly at the sound.

“Are you over it now?” he asked.

I tested my hooves, and found that they could hold my weight. I gave him a short, grateful nod. “Thanks, Sven.”

He slowly lifted his wing off my sides and re-folded them. “What was it this time?” he asked.

“Just remembering the times when my mother was still alive,” I told the griffon. “I’m fine now,” I added, stretching reflexively.

“....Ok.” A grin split his beak. “Come on, the train is going to be entering the station soon. We don’t want our little detective to catch us now, do we?” he said as he hefted a thick, worn tome from his bags and shook it. It was a long term project of ours, where we collected everything we managed to learn about the ... darker side of magic. Carefully preened of any specifics so that anyone who wanted to actually learn instead of just knowing would have to come and visit me. Considering how off the beaten path Sunny Pines was, it served as a very good filter.

It was also the culmination of one thousand years of planning for my revenge, though perhaps it was more bitterness turned sour. I remembered giddiness, no matter how brief it was. It was really the only overt move I have made, and I was eager to find out her reaction. I have paid a heavy price for this immortality, but when the every other option foretold a quick, lonely death, well, defying destiny doesn’t seem so bad in comparison anymore.

A tiny grin split my lips. “Let’s see how far we can make that jaw drop.” As one, we turned for the bookstore we stopped in front of and trotted through the aisles. We silently weaved between the few browsing customers and towards the back of the establishment.

My friend pulled out a near completely rusted through pocketwatch (powered by sheer stubbornness) as I fished the tome out of his bags. “We got five more minutes until the train pulls into the station,” he reported.

“Just in time.” I slipped the tome between the books on the last bookshelf. “Let’s go, in case our little detective decided to fly from the station.”

We went back to the front of the bookstore, pulling a few newly published novels from the shelves along the way. Always nice to settle down with some fun fantasies without actually having to go do it yourself, fewer maimed limbs.

We reached the front desk, and I pulled out a few bits and started counting. My griffon friend sat behind me, his head stuck in a book to hide how his eyes weren’t actually open. I admired the book covers as I put them into my take out bags, and thanked the clerk for his time. I watched my friend’s feathers as they ruffled in a certain beat. It was the code for when he sensed the same magic running towards the bookstore that we felt several times over as we left books across Equestria.

I pretended to be shaking the books into place as I watched the form of a blurred purple mare rush through the front door from the reflection of the polished wood of the desk. We casually left the store and back into the snow as she screeched to a halt in the back of the room, frantically flipping through the shelves. I had to stifle a small chuckle at the gasp of discovery coming from the door, but I managed to hold back my mirth until we hid into the alleyway beside the bookstore.

“Tree?” my friend asked.

“Well, considering that she was willing to make four separate trips all across the continent in order to track down these elusive books of knowledge, she is likely going to be willing to follow the hints in the book to my tree. And I have feeling she is going to be very curious indeed.” I looked up at the roof.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded as magical flames swirled around us, the glowing embers melting the snow in a small circle around us. We joined claw to hoof as my friend began glowing. “Ready? GO!”


Hello Celestia.

Do you remember that scrawny, bony little colt about 1060 years ago? The one who helped you take down Sombra? The one who held him off until you were able to regroup with your forces?

The one you almost killed in the crossfire?

I’m still here. I did not die quietly in some far flung land. I died once already, paragon, and that was plenty enough for me.

I still remember, goddess, that horrified look on your face you gave. To your ally.

When you found out I was still standing.

I don’t forget, Celestia. I remember nearly everything, and even made copies of those memories, ensuring that neither my family nor I will ever forget your actions.

You have made a dangerous enemy, pony. I am not something that bows at what “destiny” has set out for me. In fact, I managed to find out what I was supposed to become several decades later.

I was supposed to be a corpse.

My destiny was to die over a hundred years before we even met, and to be another statistic as the plague crept across the country. A tiny, insignificant death in the crisis that would’ve united ponykind under one banner.

What plague, you may ask? Unfortunately, I rather live, so I got help in causing the extinction of the parasite that almost ended me. In the long run, I think ponykind managed to do pretty well, don’t you think? Equestria is quite a magnificent accomplishment to look at.

Don’t think me as an enemy of Equestria when you read this. In fact, I am the opposite. I want our country, no, everyone to thrive. To reach their full potential, then surpass it. Go into the world and conquer existence. Who knows what we can accomplish with that kind of cooperation? We might even reach the stars.

My anger is only directed at you, avatar of the sun. I have a code of honor as a Lich, due to the alienness of the magic, some of which is to keep out of everyone else’s business, and to never subvert anyone’s freedom of choice. But ... I decided it was worth making an exception just for you. I had to be very careful, you see. I didn’t want to let you know I was still alive while I was mucking about in your Harmony until I have made irreversible changes into your little ponies.

By the time you have read this, Celestia, I will have already won.

Look up the history of Sunny Pines, Celestia. I believe you will find some very interesting things there.

Do you remember me, Celestia? Do you remember Cycle Garand Springfield?

I’m still here, and you’re never going to be able to get rid of me.

P.S. This is the second printing. Your move.


I hung from a massive, leafless tree in front of an out-of-the-way motel. It was probably one of the oldest trees in the area, and definitely one of the oldest in this stretch of land.

I know this because I used to sleep under it while I was a foal, and still alive.

A dirty-gold colored rope wrapped itself around my hoof and torso, and the other end terminated in a large claw clinging to the middle of the tree trunk. I was about fifty hooves above the ground, though I was stepping gently on one of the branches. I wasn’t exactly sure it would hold my weight, thus the claw hook. In my other hoof, I was flipping through one of the new books I’d bought. The rest were hanging in a bag at my elbow. While I waited, I sent a ping to some of my “family”. They will be en route shortly. Better to have and not need, than need and not have.

I felt her unique magical signature far before I saw her. I sent a few tendrils of sickly looking magic from the hoof supporting my book and flipped a page.

I decided to remain silent, and instead used my magical senses to watch her mill uncertainly at the gate to my humble appearing motel. She looked back and forth between a card floating in her magic and the address number, befuddled at the juxtaposition her imagination had created and what reality turned out to be.

I was pretty proud of that; those thoughts had guided my construction plans. It served as the perfect cover, and any outsider would be unable to discern anything strange about it. Heck, there were even vacationers entering and leaving the front door, completely oblivious to its second purpose. Made a nice income from it, too.

She hesitantly stepped into the courtyard, walking down the front, currently snow covered, lawn. I watched her enter the lobby, oblivious to my silent form watching her from up above. I waited some more.

A moment later, the receptionist sent the purple alicorn back towards to tree. She looked at the tree, and seeing nothing, chose a root with the least snow on it to sit on. It seemed that even after gaining wings, she was still rather unused to thinking in three dimensions.

She floated out the old tome I left for her and looked around, unable to decide whether she should be on the lookout for mysterious persons or check out the tome. A small group of earth ponies filed in through the front gate and milled around in the courtyard, walking with purpose but with no actual destination.

I took the moment to examine the alicorn with my eyes instead, quietly putting my book into my bag. She wasn’t carrying much, just a pair of saddlebags bulging with warm clothing and foodstuffs. Some of them were wrapped around her body, neck, and head. If I had ever gone through puberty, I might have found her cute. In the end, she decided to open the book with her magic and started reading it.

I let her get through the introduction before interrupting her. “Who are you waiting for, Miss?”

“I was told that a pony named Cycle would meet me here.” It was a testament to how distracted she was when she simply replied to the air.

Heh. “At your service,” I called down.

She gasped, finally looking up at the smirking pony hanging above her head. The grappling hook glowed and spiraled up my back, forming a pair of large griffon wings. I floated down quickly, bouncing between the empty branches and hitting the ground with enough speed to kick up a small cloud of dirty snow. I paid no mind to her glowing horn, taking off my big hat and giving her a short bow. The crowd of aimlessly wandering ponies were suddenly in a circle around us. I gave her a toothy grin, my glowing eye sockets smouldering. “Hello, Princess. Cycle Garand Springfield, in the flesh,” I said, putting my hat back on. “I believe you haven’t met my secretary yet. Say hello, Sven.”

I threw my hoof to the side as the wings turned into glowing energy. They snaked around my arm and leapt off, coagulating into a solid mass. The energy then dispelled, leaving a smirking griffon leaning against the tree. He raised a claw in a mock salute. “Sven Fairday. I keep our mutual acquaintance from going cuckoo.”

My grin got even wider. “And those lovely ladies behind you-” I said, gesturing behind the alicorn as her face slowly grew horrified. “- are my... ‘extended family’. They merely want to make sure you don’t do anything rash, like ... try to arrest me, hmm?” I pointed at her still glowing horn.

Realizing she was outnumbered, she slowly dimmed it, though her eyes hadn’t stopped darting between those who surrounded her.

“Thank you,” I said, donning my hat. “Now, Miss Twilight-- ”

She gasped. “How did you-- ?”

I sighed. “National hero, ascended unicorn, magical prodigy. News gets out no matter how much your Princess suppresses it. You’ve even met some of my friends on your travels” I added as an afterthought. “And no, they were not spying on you, any more than any other person going about their day would. Three of them had actually moved to Ponyville a few years before you did.”

She choked slightly as her retort was cut off, wincing slightly at the thought of paparazzi chomping at the bit trying to follow her.

“As I was saying,” I began, pointing at the tome that had fallen to the grass, “I assume that you were ... intrigued enough at what little I mentioned that you put all that effort into tracking me down, hmm?”

She carefully nodded.

I felt a rush through my form. Centuries of patience, and finally, someone with more curiosity than blind loyalty ... or is it? Besides me, the ancient tree began to pulse with power. Veins of green light glowed from between the bumps of bark, pulsing in tandem with the glowing dots in my eye sockets. Tiny sparks of magic jumped between the hairs on my coat as my internal reserves became agitated, excited. My lips pulled back wide, giving my audience a grin that showed the bones in my jaw. I had no need for gums for a very long time. “One last chance to back out. This is a door you can’t ever close again, no matter what. Do you think you are-- !”

“Down, boy. Restriction: Civilian.” Sven drawled, runes on the back of his talon glowing.

I froze, then fell down as my legs gave out, all of my strength seeming to have vanished like smoke. As I shook dirt off my face, I was finally able to notice that Twilight was starting to cower. Her ears were pressed tightly to her head. Her eyes were glowing slightly, and she was most definitely not liking what she was seeing.

I pushed off weakly, rolling onto the roots of the weakly glowing tree. Sven flicked his eyes down at me for a moment, but didn’t move.

She slowly released her magic from her eyes, her mouth gaping at us. “Who ... who are you?”

I was still mildly incoherent as I was trying to stabilize from the shock of losing most of my mana. This was, unfortunately, a recurring problem. It would take me a few minutes to recover my mental processes, so Sven decided to speak up.

He said, “We’ve been called many things. Monsters, Unnatural, Walking Corpses, Defilers. I prefer ‘Alive.’”

“Roaming ... over a thousand years,” I rasped. “Sorry for -wheeze- the display, but living this long ... well, paranoia.”

I groaned, slowly settling back into a natural sitting position. “Sometimes, we forget that there are times where trust must be offered before it is received."

With a wave of my hoof (mostly for familiarity sake), my m--family split up and went back to whatever they were doing before I called them. I pushed myself up and nodded at Twilight to follow. “Come come, ‘The Hearth’ is much more comfortable for such talks,” I said, gesturing at my home/motel. Sven padded over to my side, leading the alicorn into building and to a secluded corner with a table. I only served breakfast here. Seeing how it was a couple of hours past noon, it was devoid of life, perfect for a private talk.

I called for some refreshments, and turned off the phonograph while we waited. Sven asked for wine. I had a glass of glowing, greenish goo. Twilight decided that she was better off not knowing what that was and simply got a cup of warm water.

I took a sip, relaxing at the comforting flames dancing across my metaphorical spine. Literal flames could be seen at the back of my throat, bubbling and smoking. I put the glass down and clapped my hooves together, a small smile adorning my lips. “Alright, enough about my own self-made issues. Trust me when I say that there is nothing you can do at the moment, and I have others helping me already. I know that you’ve been dying to know more than what I’ve hinted in those tomes.” Hook, line...

I reveled slightly at how Twilight visibly perked up at the dark sparks dancing around my hooves. A scroll and quill popped into the air, floating in front of her. Sven flexed his claws underneath the table, then took another sip of his drink.

“So, let’s talk about magic. Let’s talk about the days of future’s past.”

... and sinker.