Cold. Biting, unforgiving cold.
At least, Starlight Glimmer thought it was cold. She could no longer tell. It’s what she remembered, certainly, but she didn’t truly know anymore.
The corpse she stared at beneath her may have known, but it would be downright silly to ask. It was cold. And maybe Starlight just didn’t care anymore.
“You have succeeded, Starlight Glimmer,” a voice echoed.
Starlight recognized that voice. She used to hate that voice. At least, she was sure she hated that voice. Maybe the pony below her remem… Right.
“Your will is as strong as I’d hoped. You will do quite nicely.” he continued. “How are you feeling?”
Starlight finally tore her eyes from the bloodied, discolored corpse below, and onto a formless mist she had surely seen before.
“I feel…” She stopped, blinking slowly. “I don’t know.”
A familiar chuckle rang in her ears. His chuckle. “It’ll sink in. Dying takes a minute to get used to.”
Dying?
Starlight looked down at the lifeless mare below. “I… died?” she asked.
“Slowly and miserably,” he answered.
Starlight felt a headache coming on. No, not a headache. Something like a headache. Maybe. She wiggled her left hind-leg, and she didn’t even know why.
“You,” she whispered. “You killed me.”
The mist whispered back, “You were dead the moment we met. You just didn’t know it yet.”
Starlight lifted her hoof. It was dull and she saw things through it. Even the corpse below.
“Do you remember me? Do you remember who I am?” he asked.
Starlight felt something quivering inside her. Perhaps her heart? Maybe. No. She raised her translucent hoof to her chest, but felt nothing. Not her heartbeat, not her coat. Nothing.
That quiver inside worsened. “Death…”
“Yes.”
Starlight’s eyes lowered back to the corpse. She recognized it. Lilac coat bloodied and scuffed. Hind leg twisted and snapped. Eyes open and faded. The sharply curved star on her flank. For every second she looked, the quivering grew stronger still.
Her shoulders bounced as she began to sob. Death remained silent as the sobbing grew louder, heaving.
Starlight remembered. She remembered everything. How she lived, why she lived.
“There’s…” Starlight began, choking on her cries. “There’s so much left to do.”
Death said nothing.
Starlight looked up, and saw a jagged cave ceiling she had come to know. “This can’t be it…”
“You’re right, Starlight.” The unicorn turned back to Death. “On both accounts.”
I am the new beginning, and every last chance…
She wiped her face, and realized there were no tears. “Why?” she asked. “Why here? Why now?”
“Well, as I recall, you ran into this cave, broke your leg, and bled out,” Death said. “Hard to forget.”
Starlight suddenly remembered she hated her acquaintance. “That’s not what I meant…” she said, wiping the last of her nonexistent tears. “I mean, why did you choose me? What did you choose me for?”
Death said nothing. He rose toward the cave ceiling, and Starlight’s trembling blue eyes followed him.
“Where are you going?” Starlight asked. He vanished into the ceiling. “Come back!”
She worked her legs to follow, but didn’t move, as though she were treading water. She tried again, but it was useless. All she knew was she had to follow. She couldn’t be alone. Not now. And just like that, she began drifting.
She gasped at the feeling, suddenly short of breath.
She concentrated, and began drifting again.
“I… I can do this.”
Starlight closed her eyes and her ethereal mane lifted. She began soaring, fighting to quell her startled shouts. Jerky and unfocused, the unicorn followed Death, and finally left the cave through its ceiling.
She emerged with tightly shut eyes. She opened them and squealed in fright. Last she checked, only pegasi were meant to be so high up. Her legs flailed as she yelped again and again, but soon calmed down. She was weightless, and quickly realized she’d never fall unless she allowed it.
A smile tugged at her lips as she floated there, letting it all sink in.
“Feeling better?”
Starlight yelped again, her hooves bunching to her chest. She spun around and saw Death in all his fogginess.
He chuckled softly. “Ponies. So easily frightened, indeed.”
Starlight just glared.
“I must say, Starlight, you’re adapting quite well. Most souls remain jibbering wrecks for days,” Death said. “I knew you were cut out for the job.”
“What job do you keep talking about?” Starlight asked with a gesturing hoof.
Again, Death said nothing and drifted away.
“Stop ignoring me!” Starlight tried to run after him, then closed her eyes at her own stupidity. She focused and followed the mist, drifting alongside him. She glared at him until she was too tired to keep it up.
Her eyes roamed the land through which they soared. The mountains, especially. She knew this place but it was… different.
“Where are we?” Starlight asked.
“A few weeks in that cave and you can’t recognize your own world?”
Gray skies. Black clouds. White shadows. Violet landscape. She looked up at a black sun, smoking like a freshly snuffed candle.
“This is Equestria?”
“Yes. In the eyes of Death.”
I am the shadow cast by a withered sun.
Her brows knitted; for a moment she actually forgot she was dead.
“Why me?” she asked again. As expected, there was only silence. “Come on! I gave my life to answer your stupid riddle. You should at least return the favor!”
“We’re here…”
Starlight raised a brow and looked ahead. Her eyes widened. Then her brows fell. “W-what is this?” she asked.
Death stopped soaring, and so did she. “This is your town, Starlight. This is where your vision took root.”
He was wrong. He had to be. Yes, there were the same parallel buildings, same desert ground, but this couldn’t have been her town. It was so… full.
“They stayed? Even after I…”
“Yes. And there was plenty of talk about this place,” Death said.
The ponies―the same ponies that followed her―roamed the town. And they brought friends. Many friends. Something else was wrong, though. There were no smiles, no activity for a growing town. There was only sorrow and tears.
“What is this?” Starlight asked again.
“This is your town.”
“I know that!” Starlight yelled, glad for her new immunity to headaches. “I mean, why did they stay?”
Yet again, Death gave her only silence and drifted down to the town. Starlight hesitated to follow.
“W-wait! Where are you going?”
Death stopped. “To visit them, of course. I’m long overdue.” He drifted forward again.
“But I… I can’t go with you!” Starlight panicked. “I can’t go back there!”
Death stopped again, and that time, it seemed like he actually turned slowly to her. “Starlight,” he began steadily, “you’re dead. You can go wherever you want.”
“But… But―!”
Death drifted away without another word. Starlight bit her lip and flew after him.
Together they drifted through the town, and Starlight’s hooves couldn’t stop scraping together, her worried eyes couldn’t stop shifting side to side, from face to face. They didn’t seem to notice her.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Starlight whispered.
“They cannot hear nor see you,” Death said. “Go if you must, but I’m needed here.”
Starlight gave Death a small frown, but said nothing. She caught a peculiar sight, and that’s when the specter stopped.
Ponies. Droves of them gathering at a house, one of them assaulting the door with knocks, shouting something Starlight couldn’t hear. She had only more questions, but tucked them away. She silently followed Death as he drifted past the droves, and into the house.
“I know this place,” Starlight whispered absently. “Sugar Belle lives here. With her dad.”
Death said nothing. He rose to the ceiling and Starlight followed. Her brows lifted when she saw Sugar Belle. The violet unicorn sat on her haunches, her already-wild mane riddled with more frays and curls, her violet hooves cradling a single, larger hoof. The owner of that hoof lay in bed, wheezing.
Starlight covered her lips. “No… That can’t be.”
Garden Belle, Sugar Belle’s father―a strong, healthy, middle-aged stallion―was wasting away, blood reddening a hastily wrapped bandage around his chest.
Sugar Belle’s shoulders shook, and Starlight knew she was crying.
“W… what happened?” Starlight asked in disbelief.
“Stabbed.”
“What?! In my town?!”
Starlight’s eyes hit the wood floor when she said that. This wasn’t her town anymore. Never again. She looked back up at Death only to see a black pony shape―the same one who greeted her in that freezing tomb. He skulked up to the unicorn pair.
“Death… Don’t,” Starlight pleaded quietly. “It’s her dad.”
“No hope left… No breath left… No time left…”
He skulked on. When he arrived, Sugar Belle didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even notice. But Garden Belle? He looked right up at Death, his eyes wide with shock. Then, calm with… acceptance? Starlight couldn’t tell.
Death held out his hoof, and Garden Belle’s own hoof rose to take it, wresting gently from his daughter’s grip. Sugar Belle nuzzled her father’s bearded face, completely oblivious to the exchange.
Starlight couldn’t look away.
The hooves met, and Garden’s fell limp to the bedside. In its place, Death held an ethereal blue limb. He floated upward, and a solemn blue spirit followed.
“Have mercy, Reaper.”
Starlight’s ears flicked at the tired, sad voice. A voice she came to know. Garden Belle’s.
Death said nothing.
“Please,” Garden continued. “Please give me more time with my little girl?”
Again, Death said nothing.
“Without me, she would… Please. She needs me.”
Starlight felt something roll down her face. She wiped it with a hoof, and gaped at the swirling, shining tear―the first she had shed since her death. It fell to the floor and evaporated into soft white mist.
She looked back up and saw Death holding a small lantern housing a tiny black flame.
“Be judged, kind soul,” Death began quietly, “and see your life as you truly lived. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”
Without another word, Garden Bell was sucked into the lantern like water down a drain. Starlight’s eyes fell back to Sugar Belle. She couldn’t hear it, but she knew the other unicorn was screaming, tears spilling on her father’s beard. She trembled and held her father’s hoof so tight.
Before Starlight knew, several of her own tears fell from her chin, clouding the floor with a thin white mist.
She darted out of the house.
She darted past the crowd outside, darted through the town, and finally to a little house she knew all too well. Her own. It was dark and untouched; exactly the way she left it, albeit with a little dust.
She looked up at the wall and saw her old, framed self-portrait. Hoof on her chest, proud smile, her ‘equality’ insignia stamped in the background.
She stared for so long, sitting there on her dusty floor, weeping. Her old home became hazy with mist.
She didn’t even see Death appear before her, his pony form maintained, his lantern in hoof. Her cries stopped and she looked up at him.
“Garden Belle was noble, a natural leader,” Death said.
“What happened?” Starlight mumbled, not even sure if she wanted to know.
“The town embraced their differences, and he rose among them as a leader. He organized them, gave them jobs, spoke proudly of construction and expansion. Growth.”
Starlight began to shake.
“But some feared the path on which he led them, feared a repeated past. Feared a forced dictatorship. Feared inequality.
Starlight shook even harder. Garden Belle was just like her. And he paid for it.
“Is this why you chose me? Why we’ve come here?” Starlight asked. “To see this? To torment me?”
When Death said nothing again, the unicorn prepared to storm out. Then a loud clank stopped her. She looked down at Death’s lantern set neatly before her.
“I merely showed you how it’s done,” Death finally replied.
She stared for a time. Then looked up at Death’s unseen gaze. Then back at the lantern. Then at Death again.
“No…” she whispered, rising to her hooves with a stumble. “Never. I don’t want it, you hear me? I don’t want your job!”
“You said it yourself, Starlight: differences bring only heartache and misery. ‘Tis what you preached. And as the reaper, you can prove it.”
“Horse apples! Is this what you meant by ‘giving me a chance’?! To take your place?! To watch everypony I’ve ever known die?!” Starlight’s voice wavered. “To see their faces when I take them? To hear them beg for more time?”
Before she could stop it, Starlight began crying again.
“This is your destiny, Starlight Glimmer. It has always been. It was decided at birth,” he lifted his black hoof and pointed, “defined by your mark, by what it represents.”
Starlight swished her tail over her flank. “Screw you! I never wanted this!”
“Your power―your very reason for living―was to take the differences away, to unite your entire species in equality. In Harmony.”
“Shut up!”
“You have failed in life, Starlight, your ambitions crushed by those who don’t understand. But you understand. I know you do.”
Death began walking toward Starlight. She reared back, teeth bared, ready to lash out.
“Stay back!” she growled. Death walked on, his hoof reaching for her. “I-I’m warning you!”
Death touched her trembling chin, lifting it to meet their gazes.
“I know you understand, Starlight, that all are equal in death.”
Starlight’s eyes softened, her jaw relaxing, her poise uncoiling.
The door behind them burst open.
Starlight gasped and whipped her head to it. Death slowly looked up. It was Sugar Belle, seething, her chest puffing and deflating. Her scorching eyes riveted in their direction.
“S-Sugar Belle…” Starlight whispered, her voice shaky.
The violet unicorn stormed inside, trotting straight ahead. Death calmly stepped aside, but Starlight remained frozen. Helpless. The angry mare stepped inches closer.
“Sugar Belle, please wait! I…” Starlight squeezed her eyes shut, her ears folding back.
Nothing came. No pain, no strikes, no shouts or insults. Starlight opened her eyes and saw nothing. She turned around and saw Sugar Belle with her back turned, glaring hatefully at the portrait above.
The baker’s horn glowed. Starlight’s old dresser-drawer lifted from the corner and flew at the portrait. They collided, and the crash echoed. Both hit the floor, the dresser in splinters, the portrait bent and cracked.
Sugar Belle leaped at the pile of splinters, and whirled back to Starlight’s portrait with a sharp piece in hoof. She plunged it into that framed, smiling face.
She pulled it out and jabbed the portrait again. And again. And again, and again, and again. Faster. Harder. Screaming and crying until her throat was raw .
A pegasus mare burst into the house―Night Glider, Starlight recalled. She yelled something Starlight couldn’t even hear. Apparently, Sugar Belle didn’t hear either.
The pegasus darted forward and snatched Sugar Belle’s arm from behind. Starlight could hear nothing, but she knew Sugar Belle was still screaming, still cursing. Night Glider forced the unicorn’s arms down, and bound them with a powerful embrace.
Sugar Belle writhed, trying to free herself, but her struggles died. She dropped her weapon, slumping to the ground with shaky shoulders. Night Glider slumped down too, her grip never loosening, her own tears staining her face.
They collapsed in a trembling heap, and Starlight could only watch while biting her hoof, her eyes wide.
Night Glider released her weeping friend, straddling her back, speaking things Starlight still couldn’t hear.
Starlight’s eyes dropped to the distraught baker. She was speaking too. Starlight narrowed her eyes at Sugar Belle’s lips. She was repeating herself again and again.
Finally, Starlight knew what she was saying, and it tore her apart.
“She was right, Glider. She was right.”
As Death reached for his lantern, Starlight flew away. She flew away and didn’t look back, leaving Death by himself. The silent specter lingered a moment longer, just staring at the grieving mares.
He followed Starlight Glimmer without a word.