//------------------------------// // Back to Basics // Story: Death Be Not Proud // by ShinigamiDad //------------------------------// “Are you sure we need to do this now?” Twilight protested, as she and Luna and Reaper settled into resting positions, preparing to see if they could enter Reaper’s “waiting room” via the dreamscape. Reaper cocked an eyebrow: “Do you know where the “waiting room” is? Can you feel its presence? Can you point to it in the ethereal plane?” Twilight shook her head glumly. Reaper closed his eyes as he nodded: “Right--so we have to find a 'backdoor' and hope that maybe once you have your bearings, you can return.” “I know,” Twilight replied, “but the texts need to be studied, and nopony knows those books as well as I do!” Reaper cut her off as Luna began to send out tendrils of dream energy: “Nice try kid, but you know as well as I do that you just got those books, so you don’t really have a leg up on anypony. Luna can start digging into them once you and I are situated.” Twilight started to respond, but a pulse of light splashed across her forehead as a tendril touched it, and she fell into a fitful sleep. Moments later the three ponies found themselves once again in the ruined great hall of Castle of the Two Sisters. “So far, so good,” Reaper remarked, walking toward Luna, who was at the far end of the room, looking up at the moon through the shattered roof. “Yes,” she said, beckoning Twilight to join them. “Now let us see if we can make the next jump.” Twilight stepped up beside Luna with a puzzled expression: “But how? You don’t go from here to the “waiting room”--only Reaper has done that.” Reaper nodded, looking up at the banner they had used to enter old dreams: “True, but you two were there just a few days ago. If we can access Luna’s death vision as though it were a dream, it may open a pathway through this portal that you can use as Death’s Harbinger.” He looked at Luna: “Are you ready?” She sighed heavily: “No, but we must do it anyway…” Luna’s horn glowed a pale blue and shot out a beam into the portal banner. The banner twitched, then glowed, then resolved into a image of the floor of Grey Thorn’s capacious creation chamber. The three ponies stepped up into the banner, and found themselves in the midst of the maelstrom that had slain the Princesses: the Void rising to the ceiling, sweeping in debris, and dust and air and light. The scene suddenly irised-in on Luna, lifting and twisting as the Void sucked hungrily at her body, trying to pull her anchored horn free from the floor. Tears welled in Luna’s eyes, and Twilight looked away as Luna’s legs and wings flailed desperately one last time before going limp at the moment her spine was severed with a ‘crunch.’ All three ponies felt the sharp sting of that snapped neck, then it was done, and the scene paused as past-Reaper shouted his power word, then leaned down to retrieve Luna’s essence. Luna brushed away her tears and spoke in an unsteady voice: “Now what? I assume my next memory took place in your 'waiting room.' Why have we not gone thither?” Reaper furrowed his brow, studying the image of his past self, looking for clues: “I’m not sure. I see where I touched your spirit, sending it out of the physical plane, but I can’t detect the pathway. I'm probably incapable of perceiving it now.” He stamped his hoof in frustration, and stepped in closer, obsessing over every detail of his past self’s actions. Twilight turned away from the scene, and looked to the left, trying to penetrate the wall of darkness that separated Luna’s specific death from all others. “But this isn’t the whole scene,” she said quietly, “I died here at this time, too. Maybe we’re connected in this vision…” She unsheathed the sword and pointed it at the place on the floor where she knew she must have lain. Reaper’s reverie broke at the sound of the blade being unsheathed, and he whipped around, wide-eyed: “No--don’t!” The scene resumed, this time on a larger stage, which incorporated Twilight’s past self as well. She looked on, frozen in horror as she watched her wings being shorn away, and her front legs ripped free from her torso in a red spray of wind-whipped blood. All three ponies collapsed and writhed in agony as the scene played out, until it ended in the hopeless choking sensation of drowning in their own blood. Slowly, Twilight’s eyes opened and tried to focus on the endless gray plain and flat-lit sky that surrounded her. A yard or two away on either side lay Reaper and Luna, struggling to recover from their shared experience. Reaper opened one eye and tried to sit up. He retched across his forelegs and collapsed. Luna rolled onto her side and sobbed softly. “I--I drowned in my own blood! I was torn to pieces!” Twilight sputtered. “Nopony told me! All Celestia said was that you had staked me through the leg with your sword, and that my body had been broken. Broken! You know, like Luna’s! Not ripped to pieces while I choked to death! I’ll never be able to forget that!” “I know,” Reaper moaned, rolling over to face Twilight, “and I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to set you up for a cleaner death, though I correctly assumed you’d pass out from having the sword driven through your leg. I didn’t even consider that you’d ever experience your own death vision!” Luna finally sat up unsteadily, wiping the back of her hoof across her nose: “However gruesome that experience was, it does appear to have had its intended effect. We are in your “waiting room,” are we not?” Reaper dragged himself into a reclining posture and looked around: “Sure looks like it. Unless this is just a dream simulation.” Luna shook her head: “I can confirm that this is no dream.” Twilight stood, unsheathed her sword, and pointed into the distance: “And I can tell it’s real, too. That’s the point where departing spirits are sent.” Reaper smiled weakly: “Correct. Where do they go if bound for Tartarus?” Twilight furrowed her brow and looked left and right for a moment, before pointing to the far right, and slightly down: “There.” Reaper wobbled to his feet, and glared at the vomit streaking his legs: “Another first for this body. Do you think you can clean this off, Twilight?” She tipped her head sideways and concentrated for a moment. Reapers legs were suddenly clean. Then a low, padded bench appeared behind him. “There,” Twilight said, triumphantly, “all clean! And somewhere to sit, to boot!” Luna stumbled to the bench and flopped down heavily on it: “It would appear you have adapted to this place.” Twilight nodded: “I know where everything is, how to create things here, how to guide spirits here.” Reaper cleared his throat and spat out the bile that remained: “Do you know how to get us back to the lands of the living?” Twilight looked up and down. Her face took on a far-away expression for a few moments: “Let’s go.” The three ponies awoke in Luna’s chambers, woozy and briefly disoriented. All three lay still for a minute, trying to clear their heads and get their bearings. Twilight recovered first, and set up, summoning a cup of cider from Luna’s side table: “Well, I guess that worked!” Reaper rolled onto his belly and tucked his legs beneath himself: “It looks like it, yes. Now the question is, can you go to the “waiting room” on your own?” Twilight blinked slowly, then closed her eyes. Her body faded slightly, not as dramatically as Reaper’s used to, but enough to tell that her consciousness had left her body behind. Luna looked on with mild concern after a couple of minutes had passed: “I trust she will be able to return again.” “Yes,” Twilight replied, fading back in as though on cue, “I can get back just fine, too.” Reaper turned to her and nodded: “Good. Then let’s get you some training on the task-at-hoof, so I can get back on-task: extracting my power out of you two, so I can go back to being the Harbinger. That way you can go back to being the Princess of Friendship, since I’m really sure nopony wants me trying my hoof at that job!”