//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Elegy // Story: A Song Of Death // by JLB //------------------------------// “Twilight Sparkle.” It had been very long since they called to her. Persistent at first, eager to meander through her limp subconscious, they became less and less frequent with time. Passing her sleeping thoughts by and avoiding contact there where before they all but lead her breaths to escape the confines of the throat. The few moments she could spare, the diseased unicorn spent trying to decode their mystery. They… They had a reason for being, she figured. Not just figments of madness as her mind and body fought whatever she had been injected with. If only because insanity would not normally be so easily recognized. It was all too simple. But the simple questions of who they were, w hy they appeared, and why they would now leave her were all in obscurity. Even in this pitiable state, Twilight Sparkle realized that the answer to the first question was, although double in nature, readily available. Perhaps, it wanted to be answered, that question. Such a coincidence in thought and matter would not surprise her fever-ridden mind. Only convenient that they came back the moment it occurred to her that it was for too long that she only knew pain and constant swiveling as her limp body was carried along. Even among the general pain that troubled her these long hours and days, the sight of who came to visit her made Twilight wince. “Why… are you…” “Why am I what?” Rainbow Dash shrugged, floating up in the air, easily phasing through the back of the tent with her wings. Twilight could not finish her question, as another dose of inky purple matter had gathered in her lungs. Painfully, she coughed and coughed, cleaning her insides out. As per usual, solid chunks got stuck, clogging the throat up, causing the unicorn to start wheezing in pain. “Like you don’t know,” Dash waved left and right nonchalantly, rolling her eyes at Twilight’s pain, rolling them until they went wide and blank, “You’re the smart one here, not me. Oh, come on, what’s the problem? Got something stuck? Fine, fine, whatever, I’ll help.” The cyan pegasus emerged in front of Twilight as she lay wheezing on the makeshift bed that had been established for her, and punched her in the chest with a forehoof. A deeply unpleasant, spastic, wet feeling spread all over Twilight’s body, sending her to shake even further. She jerked, but not from the impact. Her breath struggled to come out still, blots of purple pouring out of her mouth and vaporizing before hitting the sheets. “Stuff’s weird. Hard to get used to it. You know… being left to die and all. That’s what you did, isn’t it? I thought I could trust you. You, Rarity, AJ - I thought you were okay. Not gonna blame Pinkie or Fluttershy, it’s not like you’d let them stop you. But you? Yeah, not very nice.” They would never touch her before. “You know— Actually, nevermind. I’ll be going. You won’t be alone for long, don’t worry yourself, ” Dash mouthed, the movements of her lips barely matching up with the words, “I’d have stayed, just… got things to do, ya know? You’ll see soon enough. It’s a surprise. I’m gonna try to sort my issues out. Don’t want to be mad at you. We have better things to focus on.” It felt all the more horrible now that she took one last look at Rainbow Dash, standing on back-bent legs, her oversized torso and gaping, asymmetrical maw swinging in the air as the terrible fleshy contraption backpedaled through the tent. The very moment it went away, more shapes flooded her tent. Could it even hold so many? Her friends barely set it up, she recalled. All they could find… wasted to protect her. Painful as it was to remember details, Twilight failed to ignore the fact that they put themselves under the elements, the materials only enough to cover her afflicted body. If only she could stand up, tell them to stop it… leave her behind, in the best of scenarios. “Oh, dear heavens, she’s choking!” “Get the civilians out of the way. “Just hurry the hell up, or let me—” An immoderate degree of noise sent Twilight’s train of thought careening into inky oblivion, her throat still struggling to clear itself. More shouting ensued, and large dark shapes all but tore the tent to pieces, the two figures that her eyes could recognize pushed out in frantic hurry. They came in different forms, Twilight figured. Only the noise and quantity were special about this one. Just another visitation. Nothing out of the ordinary. “Scheisse.” Immense pain that came at a mercilessly crushing hit to her stomach disagreed radically. It felt as if a fist of bone struck her, piercing the weak, sweat-covered skin with sharp talons on the way back. A panicked cry of pain emerged from her ichor-ridden throat, spastic breaths following in short order. At least she breathed. “We take her. You check at the quarantine station.” “But we have more wounded! We all—” “Orders are only for her.” “Are you serious?! You can’t just leave us like this, we’ve come all the way from Ponyville form here! Officer, we are barely alive, this is not—” It never hurt when they touched here, Twilight realized. Their touches were wriggling, wet, and slick. These filled her body with agony, them moving her off the sheets and bringing her to the light, burning the reddened, tearful eyes. These brought her severe nausea as they put her on something much more solid. These did not speak Equestrian, either. Twilight only managed to open her eyes once, and never got to draw a conclusion from the sight of many visibly non-equine, large, winged figures obscuring a mountainback set of spires and towers. Her consciousness left her again, and the confusing picture was washed over with the eyeless, distorted, grinning, purple maw of the one who allowed her visitors. He stretched out his four arms, and welcomed her in gladly, smiling a crooked smile with his uneven teeth. And all around them was the room that Twilight had all but forgotten after the years spent with her friends. “They’re all dead. Let’s make sure you won’t be, hmm?” The Canterlot Towers, clandestine and calm a mere few days prior, were teeming with desperately shuffling ponies. Military and communications, publicity and news, service and diplomacy - equines of all kinds and trades, lost without guidance. A pair of Northern Patrol troopers were yelling down a guard who desperately tried to explain that the Princesses simply were nowhere to be found. How easily things fell apart when the twin alicorns failed to be around to move their subjects around. A mere few orders left them before both were nowhere to be found, for an excess of four hours, if not more. That alone was concerning for the pony population of Equestria’s political brain and heart, but the nature of the orders was even worse. Or better, depending on one’s allegiances. “State your business,” a burly armor-clad stallion commanded, crossing a spear with his near-identical counterpart. “None of yours,” a griffon officer of medium build scoffed in response, pulling out a badge and issuing out an obedient dissociation. She brushed her wings on both their flanks as she went regardless, flicking one of them with her tail. A more than fair amount of her comrades in talons were seeping into the halls with every hour. Armed and armored, they quickly occupied more than a few sections of the administrative center, detained there for the time being, their official documents awaiting confirmation. Ponies complained, of course, but it was not for them to decide. Just a matter of time. The first order, in terms of importance, was that the Griffon Empire was allowed control over an immense part of the Equestrian capital city. Canterlot, under Griffon jurisdiction. More than a few dozen guards and military officials all but found themselves floor-jawed when the order came through, but that was the reality of it. “Hey, you two!” the officer, having passed a few corridors and reached a stairway to one of the outlook towers, screeched out to the guards on duty, “Out of here, now. We’re in control of this sector.” Before they could even reply, a badge was flashed in front of their faces. With befuddled looks ridding their faces, they left their posts, a number of griffons filling the empty spots. It was safe to assume that the guards the officer passed through received similar treatment from them. With numbers greatly outweighing those of the old guards, and weaponry of more than suspicious nature, they made the watch tower feel like home in little time. Slowly, bit by bit, Canterlot Towers gave up ground, and the pressure present in the pony population was palpable. It was about time, but Equestria accepted its inferiority in dealing with crises. Took them a half-mythical threat somewhere south - the officer, in all frankness, struggled to care less - but they finally did it. Gave the work up to those who knew what to do with it. They aimed to outdo themselves. “Alright! Freakin’ fabelhaft. Get this thing set up, the commanders are gonna wanna check.” All in all, the situation over at Canterlot was a delight for Griffon Empire Special Service officer Guildenstern to witness. It was way about time that these pony pricks got what was coming to them, and if their Princess was so easy to lure into allowing them control over even part of her golden city… then it really was a joke that Equestria was ever considered a military threat. For Celestia to simply call the Queen over and effectively hand her the capital was hilarious to think of. There was very little to be upset about, in frankness. One thing, perhaps, not much more. The second order turned the Griffon-controlled city quarters into quarantines and refugee centers. Messy work. Assuming the threat existed (Guildenstern herself doubted that), it would be a touch unsavory, but nothing the Griffons would fail to handle. Maybe the higher ranking officers could curl their beaks at it, but even then, despite being high birds, their commanders were far from the delicate paper-pushers the stereotype painted them to be. Nothing to worry about, not for the new avian overwatch. Especially not for Guildenstern. The scouting party had returned just an hour ago. She was getting guests, sooner rather than later. And just the thought of revisiting some old grudges made her talons scrape against the tiled floors. Not even the floaty patches of inky matter seemingly floating by, somewhere by the royal tower, made for much of a distraction. Ponies and their stupid magic. Stupid princesses, too. All of them. Stupid and soft. Decayed winds soared past the towering, ponderous corpse. All around, errie mists remained, having dealt their damage to the location’s previous inhabitants, and nestled into the rubble and mold-covered streets. Stray undead shambled here and there, their Undying master’s mind moved far enough away from them to leave them objects of little animation. They waddled and crawled towards the towers of rune and bone, created out of landmarks they lavished in life, so that they would reasonably persist. Their Dead God’s Herold was busy. For hours and hours, he stood static, only a rampant wind or a deathly shake causing parts to contort. His maw wide open, his posture limp, he was considering the options. So much to do. So much to consider, explore, decide. New decisions, things never before done, not for any of the lands conquered prior… Perhaps, it was for the better that the most ambitious part of his plan he undertook before entering pause. It was difficult to stray from the strategies of old. A whole new draft of options, it was tempting to attempt what has been done before, but that would be so highly suboptimal. Not too detrimental, of course. This realm, Equestria, as it was called, had a few months left in its repertoire at best. It was the impact on his own state of affairs that the Undying was truly considerate of. “Blight will spread,” the towering General’s rotten mouth moved on its own accord, gurgling out a statement of relative relevance, “More will join.” The dilemmas that he faced were copious. The spreading of blight, as his barely controlled speech noted, was inevitable, but the structural presence of the heart of that blight was a different matter entirely. This rarely was a problem, as most lands lacked power enough to truly burrow deep into their own thick, and eliminate the primary production centers. More often than not, he employed a moving camp of sorts, relocating the conduction monuments and soul rip winds as he went, a traveling orchestra of sorts. Not here. Too risky. It remained unknown what it was that the equines possessed - not even after hours of knowledge absorbtion did it become apparent what their world dominance secret truly was. In this case, a much safer procedure would be to center production in a fit position. Even with that choice made, another dilemma arose - the lands his army had crossed offered not one, but two fit camps. “Crumble,” he heard a word escape his own throat - a faint distraction. True enough, the crumbling of the main structures would have been an issue. An invasion needed its headquarters, even if it was one of the undead, who rose from the ground wherever the Almighty Dirge extended. A center of conductor structures, supreme Tombstones, that would allow for manipulation of matter and magic to hasten the creation of smaller ones, to improve on the corpses of the once-living if they were never encountered before. An improvization center of sorts, a center of creativity - something to protect dearly, just as well. Through few mistakes, albeit costly ones, the Undying did learn that the destruction of his chosen structures meant an immense weakening of the horde. Rarely a factor in the quick skirmish war that he normally waged, but this was not one of them. Emergency Tombstones to raise weak undead would not do. Not a war he would get to engage in directly, not this time. Too costly a mistake if he falters, however unlikely that was. Ideally, he needed a proper stronghold, a place hard to reach and dangerous to persist within. The Dead God’s will would have it that he knew a place with those exact qualities - the dead city he awoke within, surrounded by haunted forests, and now deadly plague, as well as numerous undead inhabitants. Everfree was the name of the forest, and each soul consumed knew to fear it - especially those found roaming within. No small diversion would persist through the undead, haunted, poisoned groves, only a stark assault. A safe haven. There was, however, a polar choice. “Grrrmhhh!” the upper half of a grey pegasus crawled out from behind a corner, gurgling as if to attract attention. None was given. The preservation of the main structures was a concern, yes, but so was their productivity. It rarely factored in, their melodies more than enough to lull the living into a Dead God’s lullaby sleep, but sometimes… some places would be special. Places bursting with inspiration, raw magic, that which could enhance it all so much. New ideas, and never a hint of composer’s drought - they added flavor, they made an invasion memorable, they made it efficient. It would not be unwise to assume that this world would contain one of those, but it was truly a play of fortune that such a place was all around him. Ponyville, the town was called. Despite its seemingly insignificant name and nature, it was one of the strongest bastions of sheer inspiration that the Undying had ever encountered. Even the weaker structures produced new, exciting things - even in comparison to those outside the town, those that already showed new abilities, they did. To establish main structures within this town… There would be no definitive end to what he could create with those raw energies. It was this choice that kept the undead general standing in trance for hours on end. Hundreds of wandering corpses populated the town, sure to prevent any major distraction. The first tactic to consider, a proper step on the path to reunion with his deity. The possibility of defeat, the sheer disappointment his Dead God would feel should he fail in this faraway land… They created things within the Undying’s mind that even its rotten, deeply deceased frame wished it could unthink. Such a failure he would be. Unique, in all regards, he was the first Undying, and he could not risk being the last. At the same time… his Dead God had left him, for the time being. Or rather, the Undying left his Dead God. The benevolent overseer no longer watched. He was on his own, and however horrifying it was, subconsciously, the general had begun to realize that more and more of his creativity was becoming active. Dormant before, likely due to lack of necessity, it sprung up now, clearly aiming to help him persist. Ideas that he knew for a fact would have seemed sacrilegious before, so possible now. It would be foolish to deny - he had already done a number of things in ways his old self never would have thought of. Was there truly a need to stop? Was the risk of defeat not worth an endless stream of opportunities and creativity? Was there a point in stopping, now that he had definitely composed something which no other undead ever heard or thought of? “Grrmmhhm?” the same torso had continued to crawl towards him, straight forward. The Undying stood at the far edge of a large, gaping pit, once the town’s library, a pit that sung the Almighty Dirge in many an octave, and it was him that it wished to reach. Whichever reason drove the barely animated body, it was suboptimal for it to crawl any further, as the pit was what separated them. With the Undying too occupied to notice, it did just that, and fell right in. “Rruh!” the hulking thinker roared abstractly, contorting in spasms, and swung his hands far into the air, one of them snapping at the shoulder. In a frantic movement, green winds lifted the torso out of the pit moments before impact. Tossing the inconsiderate thing back against a building, the Undying tried to return to his train of thought. He no longer could. Too important a thing not to think of, what he had done, and even its near spoilage by one of his soldiers failed to convince him against the controversial idea. No, no, no, there was no option not to admit his intentions. Especially since they affected the decision he had been trying to make, and heavily. The general bent forward, gazing into the deep pit. Deep, deep below, deeper than living eyes would see, a once simple body lay. The blue winged mare whose soul tasted so different. It was different, he knew. It was… special. Not the only one of the ones he had taken, but the most sparking one. A dash of inspiration, truly. The choice was in the making for long enough, but, at long last, he no longer could draw the suspense. In a puffing grumble, he clapped at his stomach, and bent even further forward, his mouth open to where the cheek flesh tore even further apart. Green bile streamed from his mouth, but, more importantly, so did a decisive bright spark. Regurgitated into the world, it flushed down the pit, caught by the winds, and impacted directly the body below. A soul ripped apart, a soul returned, fixed in proper. He failed to tell how long it took, but soon enough, the process was over. One soul less, now returned to the flesh carrier it favored the years before. A soul he needed. A pit that sung. “My stomach… rumbles,” his mouth moved, just barely, as he drew the grey torso into his hands, and lifted it off the ground. It looked at him with wide, perfectly lifeless eyes, for a moment - the Undying then used it to wipe the bile off himself, and threw it back against the same building. The choice was made now. They remained in Ponyville. His legacy was to be secured, and his inspiration was merely rising up. The first ethical block out of the way, he had more ideas to realize. This invasion was to be the most creative to date. However limp and broken his body was, his rotten soul sparked at the thought. Patches of inky essence and mild flashes of lights had been emerging all over the Canterlot Towers vicinity for hours. Unnerving the denizens a fair bit, they were yet another thing to worry about, now that everything seemed to have gone insane. Ponies who went to sleep in relative peace the night before awoke to find little as it was. Confusion reigned in the political heart of Equestria. Princess Celestia, slumping over a window in her secret chambers, felt so drained and exhausted that it simply was not an option to reveal herself after this sudden absence. She left her ponies unattended at the worst time imaginable. She ordered a nation that she knew had little in ways of diplomatic agreement with them to all but take over the crown jewel of Canterlot. She issued orders to parts of her own realm that made her heart sink, and those sent to execute bring themselves ever closer to committing to their promises of separation. She effectively put an end to all and any hopes she had for the pony that was her light at the end of the night in the direst of times. She presumed, at the beginning of it all, that her sister was deluded, if only for a moment. She just had one of her most loyal subjects die, and bring with her death the effective disuse of the Elements of Harmony. And yet, it was not any of that which plagued her drained body and mind. Not the terrible injustice that she herself put into action, not the strain she put the whole country under. It was not even the bleeding wounds covering her legs and chest, and not the terrible pain and exhaustion she could barely block out. It was the fact that all of this was just the beginning. When she pulled that abomination away into a distant space, infuriated by that which it had done, not even her foresight could allow to consider what would transpire. None of these thoughts were very welcome in her mind, normally serene and with a will of stern iron. “Celestia…” she spoke to herself, looking into a mirror, standing weakly on the massive sterling white legs that seemed before so firm, “...how could you let this happen?” The Princess lowered her head, and took a step forward, looking herself in the eyes. “When did you go so wrong? How could you let it live? What were you thinking?” she asked herself the questions that the only other beings informed of those actions would be too courteous to approach her with. Her blood-shot, endlessly tired, leaking eyes stared back, and it was not a contest she could feasibly win. “What makes you think this is for the better?” she tried to provoke her mind to give a proper answer, to little avail. The starry, fittingly celestial mane, tainted with patches of sticky purple, came over her snout, obscuring visible tear tracks. Celestia could not even be bothered to shake it out of the way. “This will only end in blood. This is not an alliance. And you know there’s another way.” With her head twitching and her ears flicking sporadically, the Princess of the Sun struggled to breathe, her eyes fixated on a blood-covered blade that fell on the floor next to her when she, her sister, and that demented thing came to a conclusion. They talked, they did talk. If only she knew how it would end when she dragged it to a place where it seemed that no victory would ensue but her own. “You know this isn’t what a true leader should do. You’re taking the easy way out. For you, Celestia. For…” Her own voice, hoarse, and whispering to itself, could no longer keep up the maddened babbling, and stopped for a gulp. “For you.” The blade went up in the air, carried by the flickering yellow aura spread by Celestia’s unstable magic. It inched ever closer to her chest, hungry to add to the deep, although barely damaging cuts that covered it. For almost a minute, she simply shook in place, her eyes bulging, and her breath strained, gazing hypnotized at the blade that had never before drawn blood, not once for the thousand years she had owned it. Her mind nearly crumbled, the sheer images of the pain her actions would inflict, and already were inflicting, displaying themselves vividly to her. Oh, how dear was the price for a safe recovery from something they never could even conceive. “And this is not the first time. You’re talking to yourself again. It’s been over a thousand years. What makes you think you can decide for yourself?” Finally, Celestia simply screamed, and threw the blade across the wall, knocking out chunks of solid stone and leaving a dent on the decorative handle. She could no longer hold it in. For the third time, the Towers shook under the scream of a royal, this time scaring many an intruding griffon, throwing them off their triumphant routine. And not even with that sign of sorrow was there anyone who could hope to calm her fears. The only one who truly knew what she felt was occupied, and would be, for a prolonged period of time. It was a wretched alliance they brought upon themselves. Deep inside, Celestia almost wished that that… Bane would simply turn against them already. But no. Her sister was busy working with that which Celestia herself could only describe as pure evil, that which played tricks on them for its own benefit. And noone else could hope to comfort her.