The Marked Ones

by Final Draft

Epilogue: Inheritance

A service was held in memory of Flash Sentry: the young rookie who lost his life trying to protect the mare he loved. Hundreds attended. The pegasus' body lay in an open casket for all to see as they paid their last respects. His body showed no signs of the torture he'd endured, and he in fact looked peaceful, almost as if he were asleep. It was all thanks to the skills of a single mortician who had been called in from Manehatten.

While the Royal Guard gave a last salute to their fallen comrade, the mortician was tending to a second corpse; one that would not be receiving any final goodbyes. He used his magic to poke around inside the dead unicorn, shaking his head every now and then. It wasn't the worst he'd worked on, but it was close.

"I never thought I'd see my son again," the mortician sighed, removing the unicorn's ruptured spleen and placing it into a metal dish. "You knew him. Tell me about him."

An alicorn princess stepped out of the shadows to look at the corpse. She cleared her throat and dried her eyes before speaking. "He was sweet," she said with a small smile. "If he'd only had guidance when he was younger, he could have done so much good with his talents."

The mortician nodded in acknowledgement, and continued removing damaged organs. "How did he get his cutie mark—the one beneath this scar." He pointed to the unicorn's flanks.

"Birds," the alicorn replied. "He was good at, well, taking them apart. He was curious as to how they worked."

"And that got him marked?" the mortician asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, it was…" the alicorn trailed off and shifted uncomfortably. "He killed a filly and his foster parents," she finally said. "I didn't know about his foster parents until recently; he'd said he never saw them again."

"How did you find that out?"

"It was the same way I found you," she answered, taking a blood stained folder out from beneath her wing. "Flash had this on him when Macabre…" She trailed off again, holding back tears. "Why did you leave him with such terrible ponies?"

There was a long silence, and only the sound of entrails being coiled into a bucket could be heard. "His mother and I didn't have a choice in the matter," the mortician said when he'd reached the end of the entrails. "She died giving birth to him, and I knew I wasn't capable of raising him alone, so I left him on the first door step I came across."

"You should have put him in an orphanage."

"Had I known what an orphanage was or where to find one, I would have." The mortician turned to face the alicorn and stared at her. He was the spitting image of the unicorn currently laying cut open on the metal table behind him. "I always stayed close by to watch him, but there wasn't anything I could do to help him. Do you know how hard that is, Princess Twilight?"

The alicorn shook her head and kept quiet. Once the mortician turned to go back to work, she walked up next to him. "I'm sorry for your loss." She put her hoof on his shoulder and he tensed up for a moment before letting his muscles relax. "I'm also sorry for asking you to come out here to do this. When I found your name in his file—"

"No, it's okay," the mortician interrupted. His horn began to glow and the corpse's chest closed back up. "I should be the one to do this. It is, after all, all my fault."

Twilight wanted to object, especially after blaming herself for the events that had transpired from her attempted rehabilitation of Macabre. Had she just left him in his cell and taught like she'd been instructed, everything would have been avoided. But was living in sorrow really a better fate?

The mortician draped a sheet over the dead unicorn's body and began levitating his instruments into his bag. The last thing to go into the bag was the bloody lab coat he was wearing. It rolled up over his head and he slid his hooves out of the sleeves. "He loved you, did he not?" the mortician asked, using his magic to remove the individual blood molecules from his coat.

"He did," Twilight replied sadly, staring at the floor in front of her. "And…and I loved him too." It was a confession to herself of something she'd long been denying. Her heart ached for him far more than it did for Flash Sentry. She was expected to go to the fallen guard's service, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, knowing his death was his own fault.

The clasp on the morticians bag clicked shut and he turned to look at Twilight. He smiled and the bag floated up next to him. "Looks like he inherited my skills and my charm," he laughed quietly. He stared for a moment, hoping to get a look into Twilight's eyes. "You remind me of his mother," he said softly.

Twilight looked up and a weak smile made its way across her face. As she looked at Macabre's father, she felt a little peace settle over her mind. "Thank you," she said.

"Be careful, Princess Twilight," Macabre's father said, stepping past her to leave the morgue. He casually made his way toward the exit, but he could still sense Twilight looking at him. Just as he reached the door, he turned his head and waited.

"Um, Mr. Muerte?" Twilight was still standing where she'd been, pointing her hoof at him. Her head was tilted inquisitively and her voice quivered slightly as she asked, "How did you get those scars?"

The unicorn looked to his flanks at the X's of scar tissue covering either side. They'd been there for most of his life, and he would never forget how he got them, or what they covered. He looked back at Twilight after a moment and chuckled.

"It's a long story."

Author's Note:

Nature vs. Nurture was a favorite debate of mine in psychology. Was he nurtured to be a bad pony; being raised in horrible conditions with abusive parents. Or was it simply in his nature to do what he did, based on what his father had done before him?

Anyway, there will be a prequel that follows his father and the first "teacher" of the Marked Ones: Macabre's mother. (whom I don't have a name for yet.)

Comments

[Kaitlynn Genevieve]

Hmmm....I am slightly less angry at you now.

[Azure Blackstone]

I am infinitely glad that you didn't turn this into an utter gorefest and while I wish Macabre survived this somehow, I think this is a good ending as well. It might be quite sad reading the prequel though considering we know Macabre ends up dead at the end of it all.

[Lag Incarnate]

Oh, I am LOVING that name. It just forces an accent.

[Mad Maudlin]

Prequel, good. A sequel that touches on what happens next with the entire Marked Ones deal would also be grand.

I admit, I like this fic. The epilogue however, feels very lacking and empty. Like deep fried tofu served as the desert for a wonderful meal. As above, some hint of what the future would hold for the rest of the Marked Ones would have been satisfying. And it'd be nice for the Cake Demon to at least show something. Either positive(remorse) or negative(smug self righteousness). Either could be a set up for awesomeness.

Twas nice that Twilight realized she did care for him, though.

[ThatBatJess]

Damn good sir.

[pinklover12]

Best. Story. Ever.

I have no more words.

[EbonHaste]

i was on the edge of my seat while reading this. this is not my preferred genre but good work in making such an exciting story.

[Final Draft]

4950419
Thank you very much, and always a pleasure.

[Rainbow QuillBlackheart]

4951074 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJXKVOxqkWM&index=3&list=LL2Hn4mEZxhAbgbSfSfYZlLA but why did he have to die!!!!

[balletdivagirl]

I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd like this but I did. The dark and the gore were there, but it was not an endless bloodbath nor was Macabre dark for no reason at all. Excellent Work!

[Final Draft]

5028423
Thank you very much!

[Eskerata]

Well, well, well. Looks like I'm not the only one who writes about mortician ponies. Awesome.
This was a really cool story. Macabre was damaged goods, but I will maintain to my last breath that Celestia has got to have a dark side to her own personality if she thinks putting an emotionally damaged child in jail helps anyone.
I look forward to more of your work.

[Doomed Soul]

This story reminds me of perfect insanity by disturbed

[Winter_Solstice]

This is only one of very few tales I've read that has gore in it, that I would recommend. Well done, and I welcome this story into Tag-A-Long's Book Club

i.imgur.com/BF6x9JM.png

[thisistheusernameichose]

Hm..... interesting. I do kind of wish it could've been longer, but not bad. Not bad at all.

[Captain Ford]

This story had more elements to it than I was anticipating. Very good work making a sympathetic sociopath.

I didn't correctly predict the ending, but I like where it ended up. I found Twilight having feelings for Macabre was less of a surprise than I expected. He was very sympathetic and intelligent, and he cared deeply for Twilight, but unfortunately his long isolation meant he didn't have any idea of what was or wasn't appropriate.

Macabre could have lived a relatively normal life if things had been different. But he didn't have a loving family and he killed a filly. Tragic, but neither Celestia nor the guards did anything wrong.

Flash Sentry's fight with Macabre felt painfully cliched. But it is believable that Flash would behave that way in the given situation. Vilifying Flash was also a clever (if slightly underhanded) way to drum up even more sympathy for your protagonist. I find it a little surprising that Flash would simultaneously consider Macabre to be dangerous while also considering him to be not dangerous enough to confront on his own. While Flash is a decent pony normally, I could see him following through on his threat to kill Macabre, but not so long as Macabre wasn't fighting back.

Wait, wait wait. Hold on. Actually, based on Flash's behavior, there's a few more things I can extrapolate. First, he didn't actually have anything against Macabre, or he would have tried to have Macabre arrested instead. Second of all, he assumed that Macabre was rational and intelligent enough to know that killing Flash would be a mistake (which was his single biggest error). So Flash was actually just posturing. If he actually thought Macabre was dangerous, he wouldn't have been okay with running him out of town and making him someone else's problem. He never actually thought Macabre would try to kill him, because he didn't realize that Macabre didn't know enough to correctly anticipate the consequences of his actions.

Upon reflection, then, Flash's actions make complete sense.

I particularly like how this is a story about a series of tragedies, and that no one had anything but the best of intentions. (except for the abusive father/husband, he can go to Tartarus)

[Z0MG H4X]

Very interesting story. Was hoping for a slightly different ending but it was worthwile nonetheless.

[Vicente Morales]

He was a killer and a Psychopath and a criminal, and you tried to make him look like some kind of hero, that's very wrong

If that filly would have been your daughter and someone will treat the killer like a hero, I'm pretty sure you will explode in rage

He was a disgusting criminal, be deserved to be rotting in jail and be ostricize from society. I don't understand what point where you trying to send

That 2 lives, sentry's and the filly's, are less worth that the life of a murderer?? It just doesn't make sense, If anything the whole story proves that Celestia was right from the beginning and Twilight was wrong and there was no way you could rehabilate people like this monster

What kind of lesson is that that condons murder and belittles innocent people.

Shit story

[TreeNacho]

The first chapters of this story built up so much potential, but everything past that felt incredibly rushed, his rehab, getting his horn back, getting a job, and the vet just takes his word for it when he says all the animals in the shop were euthanised? And this is mostly just a personal dislike but the big reveal of his father at the end just seemed like it was thrown in there for the sake of having a big reveal. It seems really weird to pace the first chapters out only to race to the end with the last two.

[Pharaoh]

"He did," Twilight replied sadly, staring at the floor in front of her. "And…and I loved him too." It was a confession to herself of something she'd long been denying. Her heart ached for him far more than it did for Flash Sentry. She was expected to go to the fallen guard's service, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, knowing his death was his own fault.

Wtf twilight