//------------------------------//
// Interlude 1 - A Thorn for Hire & A Message for Death 
// Story: Split Second: An Eternity Divided 
// by wille179 
//------------------------------//

	There was a ripple in space and time, and things changed. It wasn't the kind of thing a normal observer could detect, as they rippled along with everything else. And as for the changes, they went completely unnoticed by all; everyone's memories changed along with the world.
Weren't there fewer of them before? Did more join us? The thought seemed to stick in Thorn's head until he eventually decided to take a headcount. His eyes scanned across the merchant caravan, taking in the sight of the centaurs and gargoyles as they readied the wagons for the day's March. Forty five. Same as yesterday, I guess... He couldn't shake the odd feeling, but since everyone was accounted for and no one new had joined, he set the thought aside.
“Hey, Thorn, are you ready to head out?” A muscular centaur called out to the dracolich. As he trotted over to the dragon, Trav, the leader of the group, said, “Everybody else is about ready to go.”
Thorn’s claw moved up to his neck, feeling the adorning pendants there. One was the very reason he was here - Scorpan’s Amulet - and the other was his Mother’s old severed horn. “Yeah,” Thorn affirmed the merchant.
“Good,” Trav replied. “The stretch of the canyon we’re entering today is the most dangerous on this route. Bandits gather here.”
“Hey, if bandits gather here, why don’t we go around?” Thorn asked.
“It costs less to hire a dragon than the profits we’d lose trying to go around, and that’s saying something. Time is money, and we just don’t have the time.”
“I see,” Thorn replied. 
He and his boss quickly ran over the details of their route. Once satisfied, Trav hitched up to his own wagon and signaled the group to start moving. As he had done on the days before, Thorn took to the skies to scout out the route ahead.
Behind him, the village they had spent the night in - a luxury compared to sleeping out in the cold desert night - receded away. Thorn loved flying, and he was growing to love entertaining as well. Knowing that the caravan below was watching, he did a few quick twirls and dives, fast enough that a normal dragon would have likely strained their wings in the process. He looked back, and sure enough, Thorn saw many in the group looking up at him.
Smiling, he dove, rapidly picking up speed. At the last second, he leveled out just above the ground and raced along just above the road at a breakneck pace. His left wingtip felt the edge of a thermal updraft; banking to the side to enter, he was able to ride it up without sacrificing much of his ground speed.
At his one o’clock position, Thorn spotted the Stone River Canyon, which he knew that the caravan would have to cross. Adjusting his course slightly, he glided to the edge and then down into the stone crevice. 
The scent of cooked meat in the distance tickled Thorn’s nose. Since this canyon was technically uninhabited and presently devoid of other civilization-related smells, Thorn knew that there had to be someone upwind of him, and that someone was definitely not the caravan. A twitch of his wings adjusted his course.
He touched down on the canyon floor and folded his smokey wings behind his back. From where he was standing, it appeared as if there was nobody with him in the gorge, if he ignored the smell and the soul light shining from the brush.
"Hello!" Thorn loudly called out. He raised his claws in the air. "I was a bit hungry and smelled something nice, so I thought I'd drop in. Could you spare a bite for a poor drake?"
In reply to his question, an arrow whizzed by his face, just barely missing his eye. Thorn's smile widened maniacally. "Thanks! I haven't had a good meal in ages."
Two seconds later, and the archer who had loosed the arrow regretted not getting in Thorn's eye.
A second after that, he was regretting having fired it at all,
And a second after that, as his soul was forcefully ripped from his body, the bandit archer regretted ever being born.



As the first wagons rounded the corner, they came across the sight of Thorn cooking over a campfire, which was burning green. "Thorn!" Trav called out.
"Hey, Trav! The path's safe now. There was a small bandit camp here, but I dealt with them. Now, I'm just helping myself to the spoils that they left."
"Fair enough," the leader acknowledged. He glanced down at his shadow and, estimating that it was about midday, called for the caravan to rest and set up for lunch. Most of the group pulled out dried meats, dried fruits, and dried bread to snack on while they were resting, leaving Thorn as the sole user of a fire to cook his meal.
Tippan, a young gargoyle woman, sat down next to Thorn and gazed at the green fire. Meanwhile, Thorn reached into the fire and pulled out the meat that had been cooking within. The woman watched as he tore into it as she nibbled at her own meal. "Where'd you get fresh meat?" she asked.
"The bandits," Thorn replied simply. His teeth removed it from the large bone as easily as if it had been smoked for many hours thanks to the magic of his flame.
"No, I figured that was the case," Tippan replied.
Thorn raised an eyebrow.
She continued, "No, I actually wanted to know what animal it was from. There's nothing that large around here that I know of."
Thorn finished picking the meat off the bone and went for the next one. He set the clean bone down next to him and raised the meaty one to his mouth. "The bandits," Thorn said again as he bit into the flesh.
Tippan's eyes gazed down at the bone next to her, and the words registered.
Thorn chuckled as he watched her scream and fly away as fast as her little wings could carry her. Maybe that was a bit mean spirited of him. He stood and followed her to her "hiding spot," if you could even call ducking behind a centaur hiding. Unlike his mother, he had far fewer issues with using mind magic to convince people of things, and so set out to convince her that it was just a joke. The severed horn around his neck darkened, resonating with the magic that Thorn shared with his mother, spilling forth numerous illusions.



Smoking wings gracefully deposited Thorn on the path, along side the caravan. They were hours out from the Cengoyle capital city of Crolis, and Thorn had spotted it in the distance. It wasn’t the only thing he’d seen. Despite the desert conditions, he could have sworn he saw a small, isolated patch of forest of indeterminate size to the west of them. He asked the leader about it.
“That’s Death’s Oasis,” the centaur replied.
Thorn raised an eyebrow. Death’s Oasis was a magical upwelling zone, one of several where wild magic erupted from the planet in a continuous stream and raw soul dust gathered and formed into weak demons. Each upwelling zone also had certain properties; Death’s oasis caused the plants and animals inside it to become hyper poisonous. But, legend had it that there was a connection to the magic of Death there.
“I could have sworn that was in a different desert,” Thorn muttered. He shrugged it off, chalking it up to misremembering it. Still, while he was here, it was worth taking a detour to see. Because of his undead nature, he’d probably be the only one able to enter without serious protection.
Eventually, the caravan reached the towering walls that surrounded the city. Above the walls, he could see the faint shimmer of a semi-permeable defensive magic dome. “Are the bandits really that bad here?” Thorn inquired.
“Oh yeah,” Trav replied as they walked up to the guards at the gate. “Well, not in the city itself, but in the canyon and along the river, there are several bandit camps.”
The centaur reached around and fished for something in the wagon he was pulling. He withdrew a small sack and a stack of papers. “For you,” he said as he tossed the sack to Thorn. He held up the papers. “...and for me.”
Thorn opened the bag up and inspected its contents; a couple hundred silvery, hexagonal coins sparkled in the light, not at all tarnished like real silver would have gotten. Since Cengoyle’s money wasn’t made of silver, that was how it should have been. He banished the coins to the pocket dimension. “Thanks. A pleasure doing business with you.”
“No problem,” Trav replied. “Hey, if you’re done with whatever you’re doing in three days, meet me at the south gate an hour after sunrise if you feel like working the return trip.”
“We’ll see,” Thorn replied noncommittally.
As Thorn entered the gate, a scroll-and-quill-bearing guard stopped him, as he had every other entrant into the city. “State your name, occupation, residence, and purpose for being here.”
 “Thornecrovitar, uh... mage’s familiar, Equestria - though I don’t really live there, and delivery drake,” the lich supplied cheerfully.
“What do you mean, you ‘don’t really live there?’” The guard asked with a skeptical look.
“Just a little personal joke. Equestria is my permanent residence though.”
“I see.” The guard’s mouth was still open, as if he had paused before saying something else. The centaur’s eyes were on the golden pendant dangling around Thorn’s neck. “Why are you wearing the old medallion of the royal family? No commoner, especially not a dragon should be wearing it.”
Thorn just smiled. “That’s what I’m delivering. It got misplaced and I’m trying to get it back to its original owner.”
“Come with me, then. I’ll take you to the palace; I hope for your sake you do intend to give it back, and have a very good reason for how it came to be in your possession.” Swiftly, the gatekeeper took him to the palace. After a few words to his superiors and a few minutes of waiting, the gatekeeper finally led Thorn into the throne room.
“Your majesties, this drake, by the name of Thornecrovitar, has in his possession a medallion of the royal family,”
The queen, a gargoyle in an ornate, white dress, floated over to Thorn. “May I see it?”
Thorn nodded and pulled the amulet off his neck. Handing it to her, he said, “I promised that I’d give it back to its original owner, or bring it back to his grave if he no longer lived. It belonged to-”
“Grand Uncle Scorpan,” she interrupted. “But that makes no sense! How could you come across this? Scorpan gave this to his late brother shortly before Tirek’s death in Equestria.”
“Queen...?”
“I am Queen Alybaon, the Third, and this is my husband, King Vorak, the Second,” she said, indicating the centaur that had walked up next to her.
“Right, Queen Alybaon, King Vorak, that’s a lie. Tirek was locked in Tartarus for a thousand years, but he was certainly alive enough to escape and attack my mom for her magic,” Thorn answered.
“Because, when my mom defeated him, she took his memories to see if there was anything useful. I only knew to come here in search of Scorpan because of those memories,” Thorn replied.
King Vorak scowled. “Guards, fetch me the grand sorcerer. As for you, drake, it would be in your best interest to explain from the beginning.”
“Right.” Thorn launched into a lightly censored account of what they had discovered about Tirek in the past, what Tirek’s memories held, and Sparkle’s encounter with Tirek himself. Just as he was finishing up, a very strong magical presence caught Thorn's attention. He turned his head just in time to see an ancient-looking gargoyle appear out of thin air with a loud crack.
The elderly gargoyle mage blinked once, rubbed his eyes, and then stared at Thorn as if he were dissecting the dragon with his eyes. "Spike? Is that you, my friend?"
"No, I'm Thorn, but I do actually know the dragon you're talking about. Spike's in Equestria, and he's waiting for you, Scorpan." For reasons he couldn't quite explain, the fragments of Tirek that he and his mother had absorbed were acting up. The hatred that colored all of the late centaur's memories was fading fast and a feeling of brotherly affection was taking its place.
It made Thorn feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He decided that he didn't like it.
Scorpan smiled. “Then I thank you, Thorn. But, I sense that is not the only reason you are here.”
“It isn’t.” Thorn snatched the amulet from Queen Alybaon’s grasp, uncaring of the faux pas he’d just committed, and handed it to Scorpan. “I brought you this. Tirek had it with him when he escaped Tartarus.”
“But that-”
“Makes no sense?” Thorn finished, echoing the queen’s reaction earlier. “It is very strange that Equestria would say Tirek was dead when instead he was just imprisoned.”
Scorpan drifted to the ground, eyes glazed over and distant. “He was in there the whole time? Brother, I am so sorry. If I had only known...”
Suddenly, the gargoyle mage looked up at Thorn, a spark of hope in his eyes. “If he is no longer in Tartarus, then do you know where he is now?”
Thorn looked away nervously. “Well...” 
Switching to the link, he asked Sparkle, “Mom, do you mind if I give back Tirek’s body to his family?”
“No, go ahead,” Sparkle replied.
“My mom killed him when he attacked her. I already told the king and queen that. What I didn’t say was that we preserved the body as well.” Thorn waved a claw, and the body of Tirek appeared before them, still in stasis and just as it had been when Sparkle killed it over a year ago.
Scorpan walked - as in, he actually used his legs instead of his wings - over to Tirek’s supine corpse. His boney fingers brushed the black fur on Tirek’s head. “Brother...”
The gargoyle mage stood straight and turned to face Thorn. “Wake him up.”
“Hmm?”
“I know the power you and your maker wield, lich,” Scorpan said matter-of-factly. “I may be half-blind and half-deaf, but my magic is as keen as ever. I felt the touch of her magic in Tirek’s body. I know it isn’t him, but I know you can interrogate the dead. Please, give me back my brother, even if it is only a shade of him.”
Thorn nodded and snapped his fingers, cutting the power of the stasis spell. The specter Sparkle had kept in Tirek’s corpse commanded it to inhale as it resumed the body’s cellular functions. Soulless eyes fluttered open and the body lifted itself off the stone floor. “Scorpan.”
“Tirek... I’m so sorry! I should have never told the ponies. I never meant for you to be imprisoned!”
“Scorpan, the real Tirek despised you, or at least he thought he did. I think he needed to hear that as much as you needed to say it,” the zombie centaur answered.
Thorn meanwhile took a few steps back from the two brothers, which put him next to King Vorak. Addressing the King, Thorn said, “I think that’s my cue to leave. I’ll be in the city for the night before I leave tomorrow.”
And with that, Thorn vanished in a cloud of black smoke, much to the surprise of everyone but Scorpan.



The place was not terribly far away, but it was in decades away in a future that soon would be overwritten. Something materialized next to the sole individual in a particular room. Death whirled around upon sensing the arrival. He scowled when he saw it.
There was a distortion in the air in the vague shape of a minotaur, though the soul contained within it looked like nothing Death had ever seen before. “Give me one good reason not to kill you where you stand, Outsider. I won’t hesitate to end you if you are a threat to this world.” 
The creature raised its arms defensively. In a surprisingly normal voice, it said, "I'm no threat; I'm a friend. Today, I'm also a messenger."
"If you're a friend, you won't mind introducing yourself."
"You know me as Mod, remember?"
At the word remember, memories of time spent in a strange room with that creature appeared in Death's mind. The memories had been previously sealed away, but not forgotten. Death's six eyes lightened, and a genuine smile spread across his face. "You never come here," Death commented. "What's the occasion?"
"Oh, I just thought that I'd remind you of something you'd asked me the other day. Now, normally, you'd forget it the moment I left, but there's some pencils and paper right there on your desk…"
The dark god whipped around, grabbed the aforementioned objects, and hastily wrote a note to himself. As soon as he'd finished it, he turned around to thank… thank…
Why was he thanking somepony? He was alone in here and he'd been alone here the whole time. He shrugged and sat back down at his desk.
There was a note there.
He had no idea why there was a note there. It was in his hoofwriting, but he didn't remember writing it. He read it quickly.


Time travel can fix that hard problem you've been struggling with for a long time.


He half-smiled thoughtfully. He knew himself, and judging by that letter's tone, Death figured that he had been aware that he was going to forget the letter even as he wrote it. Leaving vague, thought provoking letters to oneself was how he had taught his apprentices to make themselves trust their own forgotten messages.
As to the message itself, a hard problem that he'd been struggling with for a long time? He knew exactly what that was. A few seconds later, he'd penned another letter; this was to his past self instead of an amnesiac future self.
The reaper levitated the letter with his magic. If he remembered correctly…. Yes, that was the right moment in the past. Doing it then would be best, as almost everything had been in place at that point in time. Still, he hesitated. If he messed this up, something could drastically change. Actually, as he continued to ponder his decision, he realized that it would be a drastic change. It was so far in his past that he'd likely cease to exist and a new Death would take his place.
He shrugged.
Figuring that if he was going to commit suicide by temporal expungement, he might as well make an alternate version of himself happy and give a big old Buck You to Time. Lord Death’s horn darkened with powerful black magic, drilling a path through time and space. A hole in space-time opened before him. The moment it was stable and he confirmed that it was going to the right place and time, he tossed the letter through.
Letting the magic dissipate from her horn, Lady Death sat back down at her desk. She couldn't believe she'd put off sending that letter to her past self for so long. Maker forbid she forget to send it and end up trapped in a stallion's body for all eternity.
"Mom?" a young colt's voice called out from the hallway. Death blinked, suddenly overcome by the strange sensation of both recognizing the voice and not, all at the same time. How could she forget her own son's voice? "The kids at school were teasing me about my legs again…"
The dark goddess teleported out of her office and scooped up her similarly six-legged son. Using her normal voice instead of her signature voice-of-the-reaper, Death said, "Stygian Blue, you listen to me. Ignore them. Ignore everything they say about you and your cute little legs." She brushed a strand of his seemingly impossibly dark blue mane out from his eyes. "We'll go talk to your teacher in the morning to see about getting them to stop. I'm sure she'd love to help, and if not, I can always go talk to those foals myself."
Stygian smiled, showing off his mouth full of teeth that were as sharp as his mom's. Growing up with the aspects of Death as his parents, he knew exactly what such a talk would entail. "Thanks, Mom!"