Chapter 18: Disposing of the Remains
So, I was dead.
I am not sure when life in fact left my mortal body. That second hard blow knocked me unconscious -- in truth, 'tis a testament to the hard heads of my family that I was still awake after the first one. That was the last time I opened my eyes alive upon the world: if I was not slain by that second blow, at some point between it and the disposal of my remains I must have perished. I suppose the exact moment of my death would be of interest only to healers and historians.
I have asked Three Leaf. She said that after that second hoof-blow I was already dying; she thinks that there was nothing her healing arts could have done to save my life then. The question troubles her: I know she never desired my death, save for that short time during which she feared I might betray her son, and the whole reason she had that conversation with me was to give me the chance to convince her that I would do no such thing.
It is possible that I was still, by a formal definition, alive when they put me in the oven. If so, it did not matter. Certainly, I was not aware of it when the hot flames rose and charred away my mortal flesh. Surely, it does not matter any more.
I was already somewhere else.
I was in darkness -- black, bleak and endless. Then there was light -- a golden glow from mine own self and a brighter Light, a pure white radiance, above and ahead of me. I was rushing through some tunnel whose nature I did not understand, toward the light which was my clear destination.
There was no more pain, no more fear left in me. All there was in me was wonder, and curiosity at what would come next. The Light was beyond my comprehension, yet I did not fear it, for I knew that the Light loved me.
I wanted to unite with Its love. I began to make the motions -- I cannot describe them, for I am too much of this world right now -- which would merge me with the Light forever. I knew that in doing so I would lose mine own self, yet in a greater sense keep it and gain even more -- I am sorry if I make no sense, I cannot fully ken it now.
Then a thought came to me. My kin. My family. My mother, my father. What would happen to them now? For I knew that my death would bring down upon them consequences.
Who would save them now? Who could save them?
Out of the light there formed a figure -- I was not and am not sure that I can properly describe it, for even in this my Wraith form I am more anchored to this mortal world than I was in that moment of pure spirit -- but it seemed to be a mare, a young mare perhaps a few years older than me. Her coat was a soft pink, her mane golden, her eyes blue as the sky. On her flanks she bore stars. She was full fair lovely, and had a presence about her that told me she was no mortal Pony, and had not been for a very long time.
"Come with me," she said. Her voice was sweet but grave. "Thou hast lingered long enough above the River. Thou must complete thy crossing, and fulfil thy destiny."
I felt a gentle compulsion in that voice, yet I resisted. "I died untimely. My family needs me. My father needs me. He has put himself, and others we do love, in grave peril by his rash deed."
"Many die untimely," was the strange mare's reply. "Many die who were needed. Many die who might have done much good in the mortal world. 'Tis but the way of that world, as of any world which has not yet Transcended mortal flesh. Thou must accept thy fate, and move on, to the wonder and glory that await thee."
I have told ye I am no saint, though my mother fondly calls me such. And one of my least saintly traits is that I am very stubborn. And that is how I at times get into trouble, though My Lady told me more than once that she loved me for it.
And so I did bargain with that awesome psychopomp, who I only much later learned had once been but a mortal mare like myself, at the end of the Age of Wonders, some three thousand years before my death. I do not feel 'twould be right for me to reveal the details of our conversation, for it was about the mysteries of the world beyond Life. It took much effort of will not to merely obey and follow her, both from fear and from love, for she was both terrible and beautiful.
Her name is known to legend, and so I may speak it: she is Starlight the Greeter, and 'twas not the last time I was to hold converse with her. And though this may seem overbold, I think she has some special liking for me, and thus I name her mine own friend. Beyond that, she is friend to Ponykind, for she is one who leads them from the end of their lives to the beginning of what lies beyond mortality.
But my will and my reasons were both strong; and in the end, she agreed to send me back, though not of course living, for my mortal body was ruined and my mortal life over. She sent me back to be what ye do see now -- a ghost. Yet, for causes that I will soon relate, I -- and mine own kin -- are much more mighty than are most ghosts, which has both made my condition better and worse than it might have been.
This I may tell ye. If one persists in the mortal world through undeath, one's doom in the world beyond is still unwritten, for one may still do deeds, fair or foul, within the realm of Life. And for that reason, an undead spirit who was not damned at the moment of her death may be damned by that which she does after -- and, conversely, those who were damned may still be saved. Do ye ken?
Nay? Well, it matters not much. Suffice it to say that there are many motives for cause of which I do not want mine own kin to slay ye. I strugggle to save them as well, and in your salvation may also be accomplished theirs. So ye need not ever fear I shall betray ye to them, for the cause that to do so would be to betray them as well. Now do ye ken?
Good enow.
Meanwhile, back in Sunney Towne ...
Understand, what I describe from now until mine own return I learned at second hand, for I was not there alive and awake to witness it the first time it happened, though I have seen much of it replayed every night thereafter, and had the rest reported to me by those who were there the first time. So I may be wrong on some of the details. Mine own main source was Three Leaf, for Mitta was too distraught during much of this to be a good witness.
My mother broke through the Ponies surrounding me as I sank into my final mortal sleep, and sank wailing upon my dying form. "Murtherer!" she cried, turning tear-stricken face up to her husband, who stood over me bloody-hooved, the nature of his deed most obvious. "Thou hast slain thine own daughter!"
"'Twas ... needful," Grey Hoof said, reaching out toward her. "She had the Mark-Pox," he explained. "She would have died in any case, and in much greater pain."
"The Pox?" Mitta asked, looking at my corpse. "She shows a Mark, to be true. But only one. Where are the others?"
Three Leaf moved forward and examined my remains carefully. "'Tis ... true," she said slowly. "The Mark-Pox is marked in its middle stages by multiple pseudo-Marks, and the uncontrollable performance of their attendant skills. Never did she manifest any such symptoms -- did she?" She looked about questioningly at the others.
"She ... glowed ... at one point when we were looking for the ruby," Roneo said. "First on her flank, when her Mark appeared, and then when she closed her eyes just before galloping off to find it, her eyes were glowing under her eyelids."
"Did she seem frantic?" asked Three Leaf, her voice coolly professional. "Was she unable to stop finding things?"
"Nay ..." said Roneo. "Well ... first she found my purse ... then the ruby that was within it ... but the ruby was what we were looking for, so that makes sense, right?"
"That was a Talent-Kenning," Three Leaf pronounced. "What we all have, even we Blanks, when we fully grasp our Talents. The only difference is that a Mark appeared, which means she was never really an adult Blank Flank. That is uncommmon but not so rare -- the condition does not always breed true. Two of the three adult children of Grey Hoof have manifested Marks, and one has not.
"Logically," she continued, "it is most likely that Grey Hoof has the atavistic tendency toward Marks, gien that he is the common factor between Gladstone and Ruby. Though I may have it as well --" her face tightened, "given that I know nothing about mine own sire, and the chances are that he was Marked.
"I must conclude that the chances are that Ruby did not have the Pox, and that her death was a ... misfortunate mistake." She looked down at me sadly, and I know now that she was wondering whether 'twould be more or less merciful if they knew that I still lived, but that I was so close to death that the chances were against my lasting out the next hour.
"But ... she might have the Pox?" Gladstone asked. He sounded almost hopeful.
Three Leaf looked at him, her expression still carefully neutral. "Yes," she said slowly. "I cannot rule it out, with anything I have here."
"Then we must burn her!" Gladstone urged. "Else we may spread the contagion to the others!"
"Yes," said Grey Hoof, his stance firming. "We must safely dispose of the body. For the good and health of all!"
Mitta glared at Grey Hoof, and I am told her gaze was right scornful. "And what of me?" she asked my father. "I have been touching, even kissing, what you left of mine own poor daughter. Shalst thou strike me down, as well? Shalst thou burn my body, lest I catch the Pox and spread it to all Sunney Towne?"
It would be wrong to say that my mother was bluffing. She is sweeter than me, but her anger can be fiery when roused. And, at that point, as she has told me, she truly cared not whether she died in the next moment, for there was no joy left in her world.
Grey Hoof looked stricken. "Nay, of course not!" he cried. "I would never do such to mine own beloved wife!" He reached out a hoof beseeching toward her, forgetting for the moment that it was encarmined with mine own blood.
"Yet thou wouldst do such to our own child. And have done so." She slapped his hoof away. "I make it easier for you, then. From this day forth, I shall be no wife to thee. The formal declaration can wait a while, but in mine own heart, I now do divorce thee." Tears ran down her face. "So slay me! I do not want to live in a world where the love of my life has slain our daughter!"
Grey Hoof tried to remonstrate with her, and even to embrace her, but she shoved him away angrily. And they might have kept on in bitter argument, had not Gladstone stepped up and said "We must burn the body!"
Mitta looked at him as if he were a worm that had just demonstrated the power of speech, and through narrowed eyes, ears back, asked "And where wilst thou burn my poor daughter's body, O skilled funeral-master? Shalst though do this in one of our party bonfires? Truly, 'twould be a meet decoration for this gladsome party my former husband has arranged!"
Gladstone in truth did glance toward the main central bonfire, as if about to convert it into a funeral pyre. The funny thing about this -- and believe me, I have well learned to see the funny side of the whole thing, as I have had a thousand five years to think on it -- was that if they had done that, their immediate fate might have been better, in which case I would have had merely to get Grey Hoof and Gladstone to confess their sinful deeds while living, and that would have been easy, a simple haunting, compared to what I have had to do, and am still doing right now. But that gets ahead of my tale.
Grey Hoof spoke up. "Nay," he said, "'twould spoil the feast."
At which everypony stared at him in disbelief. They had quite forgot that there was going to be a feast, in the horror of what had just befallen.
Everypony save, of course, for Gladstone.
"A great idea, Father," quoth Gladstone, "from the greatest celebration planner of all time! Let us burn the body elsewhere, lest it spoil the feast!"
"Feast?" asked Mitta. "We are still to feast? Well, why not simply toss my poor dead daughter in the oven, and we can then feast on her, as if we were savage Griffons?"
My mother of course spoke in most bitter jest, but that reminded Three Leaf of her lore. Three Leaf was thinking much on her lore at this moment, to avoid losing control of her own mind.
"The bakery," she said. "Their oven is large and hot enough to destroy all her flesh, and any risk of contagion."
"Bake her to ashes!" suggested Gladstone.
"No," replied Three Leaf, in a professional tone. "Not possible. 'Tis far too cool a fire for that. To reduce an equine corpse to ash does need a fire five to ten times as hot, like unto a great forge or Dragonsbreath. Even then, the teeth may survive. But a few hours in a large oven -- 'twill char away all the flesh, and heat the bones to the point that the animalcules of disease will perish. We should well-scour it after that, before we bake any bread within."
"Thou'rt truly wise, Mother," agreed Gladstone.
"Were I truly wise, we would not have reached this pass," Three Leaf said, low and strained, and only Gladstone, Grey Hoof and Mitta heard her.
"I agree with thy plan," Grey Hoof said to Three Leaf. Then, turning to the multitude. "Come! Let us bear away ... the corpse." Since slaying me, he had not once spoken my name. "To the bakehouse!" he cried.
"To the bakehouse!" replied the Ponies who had been my family and friends and neighbors, almost happy to have something they could all do together. Why this was, I have thought on since, and I think 'twas for the cause that they could at least do something about this dreadful event, even if 'twas but to dispose of my remains. And, as I have said, my father was a leader born.
"Let me wrap the corpse," said Three Leaf. "I need a winding-sheet -- but of thick cloth."
Some Ponies hastened to fetch it.
"I shall help thee," said Mitta. "I should help to dress my filly for her last journey."
Three Leaf nodded. "We are both equal exposed to plague, in any case."
"There is no plague," said Mitta, "and we both know it."
Almost imperceptibly, Three Leaf nodded.
So was I dressed, and so was mine own body borne on the last journey it would ever make. My true body, I mean, not these poppet-Aspects I form from mine own fancy and change at will. The body that had been made of the love of Grey Hoof and Mitta Gift, grown to fifteen, and now spoiled forever for any good usage; rubbish to be burned in a fire.
What purpose had it had? For what had I lived, and died? I have thought on this o'er a thousand years now, and still I cannot say. Yet I do think I shall have some greater wyrd to work, before I do Pass On. I know not why I think this, but I do.
The bakehouse was behind Sunney Towne, set far apart from the rest of the village, for fear of fire. It was the home of Mouse Baker, a kindly old stallion who made most of our bread, and sweetened our lives with his pastries. He was a meek and gentle soul, yet one who would dare danger if needs be to aid his friends. He had been one of the trio who had saved my mother and own self from molestation by the bandits, years ago. Busy at his oven, baking for the celebration, he and his family had no idea what had befallen in the main square.
He and his wife, Lily Melon, were within the house, hard at work. Their ward Melon Baker, a young mare about a year older than me who they had raised as their own daughter since foalhood, was outside fetching water from the well, and she gaped in astonishment at the procession of Ponies, some sobbing in grief, who bore my poor sackcloth-garbed form, so wound about that Melon did not at first even know it to be a corpse, but imagined it a delivery of some ingredient for their cooking.
"Call forth thy father, Melon," said Grey Hoof. "We shall have need of his oven now."
"Is ... is that somepony dead?" gasped Melon. "Who? How?"
"Cease thy prattle!" snapped Gladstone. He had at one time wished to court Melon, but she sensed something cold in him she did not like, and had declined him. I think he revelled in the authority given him by the crisis. "Fetch thy father!"
Melon saw, from the miens of Grey Hoof and Gladstone, and the throng there massed, that this was serious business, and she ran in to get her father.
Mouse Baker came out, blinking in surprise at the strange assemblage, and asked "Whyfore have ye called on me? I have more baking to do for the festival ..."
"Thou must put a grimmer load in thine oven, Mouse," said my father, his ears drooping and voice glum. "For Ruby my daughter is dead of the Mark-Pox, and we must burn her corpse lest we all catch ill of it."
Which was not entire true, but Grey Hoof did not want to tell him yet that he himself had slain me, ye ken.
"In my oven?" cried Mouse. "But, Grey, that will ruin it for proper baking! And there's more to --"
"Silence!" barked Gladstone. He was coming to like giving orders, I ween. "The body must be burned, and thine oven is the hottest fire in all Sunney Towne. Be of use or stand clear!"
Three Leaf cleared her throat. "First, we must get all the baked goods and ingredients out of the bakehouse, an we ever mean to eat of them. Burning ... the remains ... will make the oven and all the bakehouse unclean for food, until we have full well scrubbed it all top to bottom." Her voice almost failed her when she mentioned me. Three Leaf was working as a healer, but as a mare her mind was close to breaking.
Grey Hoof nodded to his lemare. "A good point. He turned to Roneo. "Fetch some carts that we may load and carry away the goods."
Roneo nodded, glad of something to do to take his mind off what was happening, and calling on a couple of other lads, they soon rounded up three carts. Working with a will, they swiftly piled them with bread and pastries, flour and sugar and other baking necessaries.
The way was clear for the disposal of mine own remains.
While all these preparations were under way, Mouse Baker stood off to one side watching them, his eyes widened and pupils pinpointed in horror. This was his bakehouse, the center of his life, from which he had for decades baked bread for the sustenance and sweeter treats for the delight of his fellow Ponies of Sunney-Towne.
To turn this center of his material world into a literal charnel house, to make of his beloved oven a macabre parody of a funeral pyre, on which was to be disposed the corpse of somepony he had seen grow from foal to filly to young mare, untimely done to death by her own father and half-brother, and then to be forced to this by his own best friends, one of them the culprit in the Pony-slaying ... something broke in Mouse Baker, something that was never wholly healed either in the mortal world, or in the halfworld in which I now do dwell. He was a good Pony, a gentle Pony, whom all in Sunny Towne did cherish, and 'twas his own goodness and gentleness that were the rock upon which his own mind dashed and burst asunder. I pray that there was healing for him in the world beyond, and if there is mayhaps he is once more sane, for I did help him and his family to Pass On, decades later.
But that is another tale.
So at last the bakehouse was cleared of its normal stores, and turned to a graver usage. As if in dark parody of the final stages of some noblemare's funeral, my body was bourne into the bakehouse, as if it had been the mausoleum of some great House, up in the dark hills which lower over the City Foreverfree from the west, the quarter of the Setting. Such a great funeral would have been well-attended, and so was mine: almost all of Sunney Towne was there.
Yet, this was no funeral, nor was this a mausoleum. 'Twas a disposal of my supposed plague-ridden corpse, and this was the bakehouse, the same at which we younger Ponies were wont to stop and buy or beg sweet treats from kindly old Mouse Baker, and his equally-sweet wife Lily. There we would linger; talking with them or playing with Melon Baker their adopted daughter, and all would there be joy and sweetness.
All there was not joy and sweetness now For I was dead, slain by mine own father. And the throng there assembled were numb with sorrow and shock. Only one Pony, perhaps, was glad of my death -- and he was not the one who had slain me.
I have been told that my father looked on stone-faced, as I was slid into the oven. Yet well do I know my father -- better, perhaps, than I might have known him had I lived a normal life. And I tell ye that in Grey Hoof, such a mien shows that he is torn by emotions too great for any chance of rational expression. He must, by then, have suspected the dreadful error he had made -- but to admit it, even to himself, would be to fall headlong into a chasm of remorse. So he stuck by the choice that was, by now, beyond all revocation -- and what doubt or guilt he felt, he kept within him, where it tore at his mind from the inside.
Mitta my mother wept open and unashamed; Roneo and Starlet clung to each other, their tears shed into one another's manes. Three Leaf was pale, and her voice again and again faltered as she tried to do her duty as healer, to prevent the spread of the plague which she only too well knew dwelt but in the imaginations of her lover and her son. She had to believe in the possibility of that plague: else the two she counted dearest in all the world had murthered -- and were kin-slayers, to boot. The other Ponies were shaken, and solemn in the presence of Death.
One Pony -- and one alone -- was neither subdued nor mournful. This was of course mine half-brother Gladstone, whose mood whipped wild from smug triumph to mad hilarity to a sort of brooding fear, as if he alone amongst all of Sunney Towne sensed the doom which approached inexorable.
Why Gladstone, of all the Ponies, saw even dim the peril, I cannot whole fathom. 'Twas, I think, for the cause that he had long plotted my downfall, and so he alone had counted in terms of consequences should he strike -- though, given a golden chance to compass my ruin, such reckoning had not deterred him from striking.
I do not know for sure, for I have never full kenned the mind of Gladstone. Nor am I sure that I do desire such complete kenning.
That which had been my body was placed within the oven. Steam began to rise from my shroud as I began to baking.
Then the attending Ponies pied on the firewood, that which had been felled by Three Leaf and gathered by Roneo, with the consequence that he dropped his ruby in the forest; now Sunney Towne was to drop their Ruby on the wood in the oven's firebox. The heat climbed. Flames flared in the oven. Gray smoke rose from the sackcloth shrouding me. Little tongues of flame lit from the cooking oil with which the cloth had been wetted. Soon the shroud was flame entire, burning off my body. Steam boiled from mine every orifice, as the water was drven from my body by the intense heat. At last, a greasy smoke started to rise, as the fat in mine own flesh caught fire. And a sickening stench arose.
O no, dear Snails, at the time I was aware of none of this. I may have still been living when they put me in the oven, by mine only reason for so thinking is that 'tis in the oven I am each eve reborn. If I was, I would have been swift smothered in the heat and smokes. I did not suffer the agnoies of being burned alive and awake, nor must I go through such again and again. I am but clouted twice to mine head, then all goes black, and I do emerge from the oven, feeling but a warm breeze from the flames.
I am told 'tis a full-frightful Death Aspect! Sure it is that Apple Bloom was right terrified!
And ... prithee pardon, dear friends. I did not mean to upset ye.
What I know of mine own burning I did not witness, but instead pieced together from question that I did ask others, and books I have read. But I do know, at least, the rough outline of what happened.
And I know that when I began to burn in earnest, a most nauseous stench of seared flesh arose from my corpse, a stench all more horrid to the Ponies there because they knew fell well just what they smelled. This was for the cause that they had all smelled burning Pony before. When the plagues had truly come, we tumbled the dead into pits atop oil-soaked wood, and cast in burning brands. I had seen this -- I was but a child at the time, and my parents would have spared me the sight, but I must look -- and, of course, I had smelled it, 'twas impossible to avoid.
I had nightmares about the fire-pits for months thereafter. I did dream, sometimes, that my dead fellows would come lurching out of them, all flaming blackened bones; to enfold me in their hellish burning embrace. But these were not the worst dreams. In the worst ones, I was the burning skeletal horror.
Yes, Snips. I am well aware of the irony. I have had o'er a thousand years to think on it.
And I think that, in part, the reason why my mind makes me a burning skeleton in mine own Death Aspect is for the cause that I feared it. 'Tis how I in all likelihood died, yes, but why do I not become mine own self with a bashed-in pate? Or, as I was at the moment when mine heart stopped beating, a corpse baking in her own burning shroud? Yet ne'er do I become these things.
I think that, when I wish to frighten others, my mind chooses that which frightens mine own self. Though, in truth, after I did die that way, I feared it less. So perhaps 'tis that mine own mind chooses from among the things that killed me the image it deems worst?
I am not sure. Even after being dead so long, there is much about it I still do not wholly ken.
Now, all the town smelled my stench. And they knew it meant that either the Mark-Pox had returned, and many of them might die of it, or that Grey Hoof had gone mad and slain his own daughter, in which case yet another sort of plague stalked among them. Both possibilities froze them in fear.
So, growing ever more afraid, the crowd milled about the bakehouse, and fell back in revulsion from the fell odor which did vomit from its chimney. They murmured fearfully on the strange and terrible events of this day. And some started to eye the way to the front gate, and talked of going to Riverbridge, where the feast might yet be merrier. And others hearkened to them, so it seemed that much of the company might leave Sunney Towne, at least for the duration of the Summer Sun Celebration.
'Twas Rock Tatters, a half-vagaband crony of Gladstone's, who made his living by prying and scavenging about, who overheard these mutters, and came trotting to his patron to warn him how the tide of popular opinion did turn. But at first, Tatters' errand seemed bootless, for Gladstone was in such a mad mood, capering and giggling as he fed my funeral pyre, that he heeded not the tale of his minion. As for Grey Hoof, he brooded on what had passed, paying Tatters no mind; while Mitta was in too deep a grief to care what other Ponies did.
Three Leaf, though, was by a great effort making herself stay somewhat sane. And she heard what Tatters said, and she saw the significance. So she spoke to Grey Hoof, saying:
"Beloved, the villagers are restless, and fain would quit Sunney Towne for the festival at Riverbridge."
And at this Grey Hoof paid attention, and for a moment his eyes flashed with something of his old spirit. But the next moment, he sighed, and simply said:
"My daughter lies dead, mine own wife hates me. What care I if the villagers revel here or at Riverbridge?"
So Grey Hoof rebuffed Three Leaf, and had the matter been of less import and urgency, she might have let it lie for a later try. Yet it was, and so she spoke a second time, saying:
"Goodcolt Hoof, they will come to Riverbridge right after witnessing the death of thy daughter; their minds will be troubled; they will drink. Their tongues will be loosened, and even those who might at another time keep faith will speak far too freely. Consider what they might say."
At these cogent reasons, expressed so logically, Grey Hoof stirred again, this time bunching his muscles up to rise, his eyes lightning with awareness of the danger, and a sense of his duty as headpony. But, before he could fully rise, he gave a deep groan, and replied:
"Mayhap 'twere better did I take punishment for all. I have failed, again and again: as headpony, as friend, as lover, as husband, as ..." he sighed, "... as father. By shouldering the blame -- all the blame -- I may yet ward all I love from the fruits of mine own folly, and thus in some small measure atone for it."
And he sank back down again in despair.
But Gladstone had at last noticed the conversation, and grasped its gist.
"Father, let me avert this doom," he urged. "I shall make sure none run to Riverbridge with bad tales of our doings here!" And he cast his gaze about, looking for a spear, but finding none in the peaceful baker's work-kitchen.
"Nay!" cried Three Leaf in alarm, a picture of Gladstone spearing Sunney Towne villagers most vivid in her mind. "There has been already too much killing! There must be no more, or we shall of a certain ourselves all perish!"
In which prophesy she was to be proven quite right, though it was now almost too late for Sunney Towne.
Opposed by both his parents, Gladstone gave way, grumbling.
Three Leaf thought a moment on the problem, and made one last try.
"Grey Hoof," she said, slowly and clearly, "if the Ponies desert Sunny Towne's Summer Sun Celebration for that of Riverbridge, thy feast shall fail!"
At that, Grey Hoof sprung to his hooves direct.
"What?!!" he cried. "One of my feasts fail? Never!"
He leaped out the door, and confronted the massed Ponies of Sunney Towne.
Standing stock-still and clearing his throat, he instantly had their attention.
"My fellow-villagers," he began, in his rich mellifluous voice, "my friends." And he had them all, as ever Grey Hoof did when he spoke unto a multitude. Dear Snails, thou hast heard him speak, felt his power. But I tell thee true that, even before he was the Master-Wraith, such was my father's Talent that, when he spoke, Ponies listened.
The afternoon was wearing on toward evening, and as it did, a mist was rising up from the Forest Foreverfree, hazing distant vistas. Higher up the winds were contrary; dark clouds were scudded from the north.
"The Summer Sun Celebration is above all a time when Ponies gather together and rejoice in the coming of a new dawn, the promise of a bright future beyond whatever darkness may afflict us. We revel through the night in merry good company, but at dawn we all together do greet the new day's Sun, for after night comes day and after pallid Moon the glorious Sun, and the darkness of night is always relieved by the light of day. That night and dawn do we all stand together, conquering the night together, as does the Unconquered Sun Herself. All of us, one village, united in Harmony and Love."
Grey Hoof paused, looked down, and let a single tear drop to the ground. The crowd sighed in sympathy.
Above, the clouds were definitely gathering.
"This has, as know ye all, been a hard Summer Sun Celebration for me and mine own," he continued, letting some of his very real sorrow into his voice. "Mine own dear-beloved youngest daughter, on the very day of her fifteenth birthday, the full flowring of her young marehood, was stricken with the Mark-Pox, and I was forced to put her out of her misery, with this mine own hoof!" He held up his left hoof to the crowd, and they gasped loudly at this heart-wrung confession -- even though many of them had directly seen him do it, just an hour ago.
The wind began to blow from the north at ground level. Three Leaf, who noticed omens, shivered slightly. There was a sickly-sweet odor on the wind, which could not yet have been from my pyre. Though invoking me was almost necessary in rhetoric, Three Leaf began to worry about its wisdom. She remembered certain things she had learned about ancient Earth Pony magical rituals.
"Ruby Gift gave her life for this village," Grey Hoof stated. "I gave her the mercy of a quick rather than lingering death; and by making her death quick and by quickly disposing of her infected remains, I gave ye all the best chance I could for ye to avoid the Mark-Pox your own selves."
The wind increased in intensity. The sickly-sweet smell was stronger now. There was also a scent of ozone, as if before a storm, but no thunderstorm was scheduled nor expected. Three Leaf had the strange notion that something was watching them expectantly.
"So ye should cherish her sacrifice, which was made for all of us, and honor her memory. And how can ye best honor her memory? By sadness and lamnetation?" he asked, being rhetorical. "Nay! For Ruby was herself gladsome and merry, and she would no doubt want ye all to make merry together, as a village, as one great family, for we of Sunney Towne are in large part kin by blood, and if not by blood, then by heart. Make merry here at this our Summer Sun Celebration. For thine own selves -- and for dear Ruby!"
The village cheered. Such a statement is often hyperbole, so let me qualify it. Every Pony in earshot cheered, with five exceptions. Those exceptions were Mitta Gift, Mouse Baker, Lily Melon, Melon Baker ...
... and Gladstone. Lily noticed that exception, and remembered it, which is how I know it now.
But most cheered, and cheered lustily. Their hearts were captive to my father's charisma: they let themselves be convinced that all had gone aright, or at least as right as they could have gone given that I had died at his hooves. And they let themselves be so convinced, I am sure, because they wanted to be convinced of this -- because the alternative was to admit that Grey Hoof had gone mad and done a dire evil, and that they were all being led about by an evil madman.
So they chose to believe, and make merry.
And Three Leaf shivered, for at the moment when Grey Hoof had directly called my death a 'sacrifice,' the wind had whipped up wildly, and there had come from the thing she sensed a flare of savage triumph. And all around her, now, there seemed to be forming the webwork of a trap.
She badly wanted a drink.
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Well, now it's inescapable. Geez, Gladstone is one messed up pony. Seriously I know Grey has snapped, but I kinda pity him, but to kill your own sister is very, very messed up.
However is it possible to use sacrifice style magic, for good. Not pony sacrifice but something else?
1) - "I___have" (Needs space)
2) - "I___feared" (Needs space)
3) - "moment" (the "e" and the second "m" got all twisted around and now they're in each other's dancing spots.)
4) - "Revulsion" ("l" and "u" got all twisted so that now L is U, 2017)
5?) - "murmured" (one "r" too many, but this may be an English to American thing)
6) - "Merrier" (definitely one "r" too many here)
7) - "at" (the festival at Riverbridge)
8) - "I" (need to capitalize any standalone "I")
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Something in its dreaming stirs, something in its slumber shifts, we're all shit out of luck, and jolly well fucked, so let's get tanked"
This was a powerful chapter, and I'll admit to liking the idea that Ghosts, Wraiths, and other Undead still have the chance at Redemption/Damnation, but at the same time I can't really reconcile it against my own headcanon where a Ghost of any shade (hah), isn't a soul, but rather a collection of memories and willpower. The soul is already far gone into the afterlife, a ghost is just a very complicated echo.
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I'm glad you liked it, and I as always appreciate the editing suggestions.
Well, there are ghosts and then there are Ghosts. Some ghosts are just psychic echoes of past events; but some are the actual souls of the dead. Ruby and her kin are the latter kind, and unusually-powerful ones at that.
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Gladstone basically used Grey Hoof as a weapon with which to murder Ruby. He used his father, Grey Hoof, to murder Grey Hoof's own daughter and Gladstone's half-sister, Ruby, mostly because he was envious of her. In the process, even if what is about to happen hadn't happened, he wrecked Grey Hoof's sanity and Grey Hoof and Mitta's love; he also ensured that Three Leaf could not feel entirely happy any more about winning Grey Hoof's acknowledged love. He caused a lot of damage.
Yes. There are ways to use sacrifices for good ends.
This, however, isn't one of the ways.
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Like having dragons (Spike, Garble, Ember), and then Dragons (the Chinese God Spirit Beings which hold the Universe together)?
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Sort of like that, though I capitalize the word "Dragon" referring to Spike's race. The equivalent of the god/spirit creatures in the SWSV are the Cosmic Concepts, and most likely their Avatars (since the actual Concepts are very alien beings beyond the comprehension of mortals, and even of their own immortal Avatars). Examples of Avatars would be Celestia, Luna and Discord, of the Concepts of Fusion, Gravity and Dissonance respectively.
Ruby may not think of herself as a saint, but she certainly has the patience of one.
Even when dealing with the worst party pony in history, certain buttons can still be pushed.
And boy was her the worst party pony in history. Nothing livens up a party like an equine sacrifice, right? As if Luna weren't enough...
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The joke on Ruby is that, after her actual Passing On (with her kin, keeping the Night Shadows from retaking the Moon), she is beatified by the Lunar settlements. She becomes known to history as St. Ruby. And nopony asked her whether or not she wanted the honor!
Being beatified is of course different among the Equestrian Ponies than it is in modern Catholicism. It's more a matter of mass acclamation as one's legend of doing good deeds spreads. In this, it's more like medieval Catholicism, where there are "saints" acknowledged as such often by very local populations, and of dubious authenticity; only the Ponies aren't quite as obsessed with sanctifying every plausible local notable. One generally has to accomplish something of wide merit to be treated as a saint .
For instance, St. Sweetheart kept medical practice alive in an important area after the Cataclysm and may have directly prevented an even worse population crash in her day. St. Landscape Carrot saved the lives of many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Changelings during the Great Changeling War by negotiating the surrender of Hives which might have otherwise fought to their own genocide. And so on.
Ruby probably deserves it as much as the others. She played a key role in the Shadow Wars, and saved many lives. By restraining the predations of the other Wraiths before that, she also saved many lives directly. Plus, she's not normally arrogant (the one time she was, she blames herself for the consequences). Which of course is one reason why she is uncomfortable with being seen as a saint.
The sad irony of Three Leaf's action in rousing Grey Hoof to rally Sunney Towne around the Summer Sun Festival is that, by doing so, she massively increased the ultimate death toll -- of Ponies she had grown up with, knew personally, liked and even loved. This was very much the opposite of her intentions.
Or his, of course.
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Envy and jealousy, hm?
That makes what Luna will do to them even more ironic. Well, not like she doesn't have experience unleashing unspeakable horrors upon the world... And yet she always gets forgiven. Unlike the townsponies here, who are literally damned forever.
I bet that gnaws at Luna too.
Though, thinking about it some more, perhaps it's a matter of nopony even knowing about Sunnytown. Because if more ponies did, the chance of at least some of them not forgiving Luna would rise dramatically.
*Hugs* This brought about tears. Well done. Thanks Jordan. I eagerly await the conclusion.