//------------------------------//
// Final Dashination 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	"Lyra?  Honestly, darling..."  Bon Bon quivered in mid-step.  "...can we talk about something else?"

"Nah, I think it's really, truly relevant!"  Lyra smiled as she trotted briskly down the sidewalk.  The Strip of Lower Las Pegasus glittered around them now that the sun had gone down.  Casino lights flickered, cycling through gold and reds and blues.  Brightly-lit fountains shot up and down as they passed a particularly large establishment with a grand artificial lake.  "We're going to a gothic underground dance party, aren't we?  So... let's get into the spirit of things!  How do each of you think you're going to kick the bucket someday?"

"Mrmmffff..."  Bon Bon rolled her eyes.  "Listening to you wax dark and poetic."

"Cute.  Caramel?"

The stallion shrugged softly.  "Uhm... I always thought that I'd meet my end in a dark alley."

"We're talking death scenarios, not fantasies."

"Heh..."  Caramel bore a wry smirk.  "Well, I... uh... suppose if one of the surgeons' horns slips and shoots an enchanted beam of magic into the wrong nerve, it could render me a vegetable."

"Sweet Celestia!"  Bon Bon looked back at him, gasping.  "Can that actually happen?!"

"Erm... the paperwork says there's a zero point zero zero two percent chance.  But that's still zero point zero zero two percent more than I'm comfortable with."

"I knew life being a mare was tough," Lyra said.  "But becoming one sounds even tougher."

"Eh..."  Caramel shrugged.  "I'm a thousand times more likely to die from a random hydra bursting through my bedroom window and chomping on me when I'm asleep.  And we live in Ponyville."  He giggled.  "So you never know."

"I plan to die randomly from a brain aneuryism," Lyra said.

"Ew.  Why?"  Bon Bon squinted.

"When I was a little filly, I loved to wrestle."

"Go figure."

"No shit.  I'd climb atop the coffee table and jump off, elbow-dropping my cousin."  Lyra yawned as they crossed a street.  "He was a fat foal, so he could handle it.  Well, one day... he rolled his round body out of the way.  I slammed my head pretty hard.  I've had a crick in my neck ever since."

"Bet you gave up 'wrestling.'"

"Nope!  I got right back on the table and jumped again!"  Lyra flexed her forelimbs.  "The Lyranator!"

Caramel giggled.

"And because of that..." Rainbow Dash squinted from where she hovered at the rear of the group.  "...you expect to have a brain aneuyrsm?"

"Cuz that's how it works, isn't it?"  Lyra hummed.  "You slam your head really hard.  Then, years later, without you even knowing it... boom... your skull's all flooded with blood.  Like nature's ticking time bomb of cruelty.  Death incarnate, you know?"

"Actually," Caramel breathed.  "A brain aneurysm is simply a matter of a weak membrane leading to a dilation of a cerebral artery, usually caused by excessive alcohol consumption or obesity—"

"Nature's time bomb sounds cooler.  Makes me think I'm important enough to be assassinated," Lyra said with a wink.

Bon Bon chuckled, rolling her eyes.  "Oh Lyra."

"How about you, Rainbow?" Lyra asked.  "Ever thought of how you're going to croak?"

Rainbow took a deep breath.

Lyra added:  "Or are you just too daring and courageous to ever have to worry about that?"

"Funny you should say that," Rainbow droned.  "'Cuz I've done so many crazy things and encountered so many crazy dangers that I find living to be an awful lot harder than dying."  She cleared her throat.  "Whatever happens to me... whenever it happens to me... I guess it'll be fine, so long as... you know..."  She cleared her throat, staring at the lights glittering around them.  "...I'm in a place and with a pony I can be proud of."

Silence.

"A brown recluse."  Bon Bon gulped.  "I'm... dreadfully terrified of being bitten by a brown recluse."

"Oh, is that the one that makes stallions super frisky right before they die?" Lyra remarked.

"No," Caramel corrected.  "That's some Brazyillian species."

"Yeesh.  Poor Brayzil.  They've got spiders and mosquitoes working to screw both sexes."

"Hey, uh..."  Rainbow Dash craned her neck.  "Isn't this the Mortuana Hotel and Casino coming right up?"

"Should be," Bon Bon said with a nod.  "We've trotted a perfect loop."

"I... don't remember it being this crowded."

They stumbled across a thick line of young mares and stallions dressed in all black.  A sea of lycra, fishnets, and spiked legbands filled the courtyard as everyone congregated around the entrance to the dance hall.

"Oh wow..." Caramel blinked.

"Hot damn!"  Lyra wheezed.  "Vinyl Scratch has summoned the dead!"

"Is this really everypony for the dance session?!"  Bon Bon's jaw dropped, watching as even more ponies arrived in stagecoaches and stallion-drawn taxis.  "How are we even going to get in?"

"Mmmmmm..."  Lyra smiled.  "Crematorium?"

"Lyra..."

"But they subscribe to being dead already!  Come on, Bon Bon!"

Caramel giggled again.  "I feel like I'm drowning in my high school years all of the sudden."

"Now that I would kill to see photos of!" Lyra said.

"Me t-too!" Bon Bon grinned stupidly.

"Mmmmmm..."  Caramel blushed.  "Forget I said anything."

"Heh... hold on, gals."  Rainbow Dash cracked her limbs and flapped her wings harder.  "I'll find us a way around this..."