"Twilight."
.........
"Twilight."
.........
"TWILIGHT!"
The violet mare wrenched her head up from the desk, her mane a mess from the all-nighter she had pulled the previous day. Her bloodshot eyes darted around, searching for the cause of her disturbance. She eventually stared into the scarlet red eyes of her teacher, who's skull was plastered with a look of 'Really?'.
"Twilight, if you are not well, we don't have to continue today..." Kel'Thuzad explained, floating back up to his full stature. Twilight's eyes widened even further at the thought of cutting her lesson early, and she used a burst of magic to slap herself lightly, the drowsiness leaving her body for a few moments.
"No! I'm fine!" She exclaimed, a tired smile adorning her face. The lich looked down at his apprentice curiously, before chuckling lightly, and floating back to the front of the room, his icy form leaving a small trail of frost behind him. Kel'Thuzad turned to the mare once more, a smug grin decorating his skull.
"Really!" Twilight urged, her eyes already falling.
"If you say so, Twilight." Kel'Thuzad said. He turned back to his makeshift desk, sifting through the papers that were gathered on top of the frosted wooden surface. The lich glanced back up to his apprentice, only to see her head gently fall to the desk once more, disrupting the small pile of notebooks and papers atop it. Kel'Thuzad grinned.
"Twilight, what did you stay up reading this time?" he inquired in a snarky tone, his arms crossing in front of his ribcage.
.........
"Twilight?"
.........
"Mmmmm... five more minutes, Spike..." Twilight groaned, her forehoof coming up to her closed eyes to shield them from that little extra bit of light. With a half-irritated, half-amused groan, the lich slowly floated to the unicorn's side, a single pointed finger igniting with cold fire. Chuckling evilly, the archlich poked her left flank slightly, the unicorn almost squealing in surprise and mock-pain, the intense cold of the cryomancer's magic jolting her awake.
"Got your attention now, Miss Sparkle?" the lich mocked. The violet mare nodded quickly, her eyes wide from the jolt of frost magic. "Good. Now, if you will be so kind as to tell me why you are falling asleep during class?"
"I... I was reading up on Equestrian necromancy. Anything I could find. There are records here and there of how the process of reanimation is performed, but I spent hours trying to figure out how to..." the lich stopped her with a raised hand.
"Twilight, I won't lie. Compared to Azeroth, Equus' magic is... lacking. Quite poorly, in fact." Kel'Thuzad proclaimed, the mare already looking saddened beyond words from the insult. "In terms of complexity, the magical schools of Equus' teachings and spellbooks are choppy, and simple. If you are to learn necromancy, I will need you to forget nearly everything about Equestrian magic. Save using your horn, of course." the lich smirked.
"But... I... I've learned everything from Equestrian spellbooks! How am I going to forget EVERYTHING?!" Twilight groaned, her head slamming dramatically to the desk, making her teacher's red pupils roll in their sockets.
"Twilight, you misunderstand. I'm going to teach you to dig far deeper than you could before. Teach you how control forces you couldn't even comprehend existed. Teach you to control life and death!" Kel'Thuzad proclaimed, his claws rising further to the ceiling for dramatic emphasis. Twilight's eyes widened in fascination at the lich's promises.
"Ok... I'll try!" she happily exclaimed, her teacher smiling down at her in silent praise.
"That is all I can ask, Twilight." Kel'Thuzad said. "Now, tell me. What do you know of necromancy, from what you've read?"
Twilight's hoof raised to her chin, her head propped atop it.
"Well... I've learned that necromancy is a quite intermediate school of magic. Arguably the most difficult to learn, it requires an extensive knowledge and degree of control over arcane energies beforehand." the lich nodded at her, beckoning her to continue silently. "It is a combination of restorative magics and conjuration, blended perfectly together into a sort of hybrid magic. It is versatile, volatile, and extremely dangerous if used incorrectly."
"Good. GO on, please." Kel'Thuzad nodded, scribbling a few notes down on his own notepad.
"While I originally thought of necromancy as a vile and disgusting perversion of magical law, the fact is quite the opposite. Necromancy is a careful intersection, a sort of bridge from one school to the other."
"Well spoken, continue." Kel'Thuzad praised once again, his quill scribbling away on it's own, suspended by a cloud of frosted air.
"Necromancy, as far as Equestrian records go, is primarily a summoning school. It is used to rejuvenate and restore vitality to dead flesh, creating a sort of pseudo-life, known as undeath. As far as the reanimation process is concerned, I have little to no knowledge." the mare finished, leaning back into her chair. She sipped a bit at the coffee that Kel'Thuzad slipped unto her desk while she spoke, nodding to her teacher as she drank the concoction.
"Well, Twilight. I expected nothing less from a studious young unicorn such as yourself, but I want to make one thing VERY clear..." Kel'Thuzad waved his hand, moving his notes to the side. "I am not teaching your Equestrian necromancy. You will learn as I did, one way or another... minus the torture..." he chuckled. The mare giggled nervously, but listened on.
"You will be taught Azerothian necromancy, a volatile and caustic practice. I will not lie when I tell you necromancy in any case is messy. It will test your limits, and expose them." Kel'Thuzad spoke, the mare nodding once more in understanding. "You will be taught how control the vitality and energy of living and dead things. To bend the ebb and flow of the battlefield to your whims and wants. To raise the dead and cull the living."
"Is the violence really necessary?" Twilight nervously asked, her teacher turning to her.
"Twilight, as much as you may deny it, necromancy is a violent school. Primarily used for warfare and combat. While it has it's benefits off the battlefield, as you've seen before, it was created and engineered for violence." Kel'Thuzad looked to the trembling mare, his heart sinking slightly as he did. He quickly shook it off.
The sooner he got this out of the way, the better.
"You will be controlling life..."
"And death..."
"You already know how to use life, in part. You are amongst the living. To become a necromancer, you have to learn to bridge the gap between the two. To become a conduit for forces of both sides." Twilight nodded. "You have to learn to control the death as you do life..."
"H-How?" Twilight shivered, the room suddenly feeling a lot colder than before. Kel'Thuzad hesitated once, but stood firm.
"Twilight, when I taught necromancy back on Azeroth, I demanded only one thing. Proof of conviction. Proof that you wanted to learn the secrets of a magic, regardless of it's use and properties." Kel'Thuzad snapped his fingers, a single leather-wrapped case popping into existence before him.
"You know how to control life..."
The case popped open, and an item floated over to the desk Twilight sat at. A metallic thud echoed through the room as the object impacted an empty part of the small table.
"You must now learn to control both life..."
Twilight grasped the tool, the sickening sound of metal on leather filling her ears.
"And death..."
Twilight gasped for air, the small, curved form of a dagger impacting the desk once more.
"What... what do you want me to do?!" Twilight whimpered, quite obviously confused and afraid. Kel'Thuzad spoke one word in return.
"Kill."
"Nothing big, mind you. Or sentient, for that matter. But kill. Once you have killed, bring the corpse back to me."
"This is the first and arguably the most difficult hurdle to jump, Twilight. I will think no less of you if you do not come back with it. There are always other schools..."
In an act that surprised even the lich, she spoke.
"NO! I...I'll do it. I'll kill something..." she choked, tears flowing freely down her face. She gently gripped the knife, sliding it back into it's rugged sheathe, shaking horribly.
"Very well. This lesson is through, then."
"Good luck, Twilight Sparkle."