Ruby led Glittershell back behind the waterfall.
The space back there was dark, lit only by what moonlight filtered through the falling water. Glittershell's horn, and Ruby's own spectral radiance, provided adequate illumination for Glittershell to see where to place her hooves. The ledge was slick with the spray that filled the cave with a fine cool mist, and Glittershell stepped carefully placing each hoof down firmly and testing her footing before shifting her weight forward. Moonshine muzzed her mind, but Glittershell knew the danger of her situation, and that Snips was also depending on her, so she focused on the task at hand. Slow and steady, like a snail crawling on her foot, Glittershell advanced deeper into the cave.
When they had gotten past the waterfall, the ledge broadened and became drier, and Glittershell stepped more easily. Only then could she afford to look around, and really appreciate what a wondrous place they had entered. The water crashed down outside, concealing and sheltering them from the frightful forest without. The light they emitted reflected off the uneven and shifting surface of the water, dancing back into the cavern and making the walls sparkle as if they were lined with gems.
The cave behind the waterfall was ovoid, with the long axis stretching back from the fall. The cave flared at its mouth, narrowing rapidly as it went back into the hill. Right before the mouth there was a pool, fed both by backscatter from the fall and by a flow of water from deeper inside. The water in the pool ultimately tumbled over the edge and joined the fall.
Ruby poked a hoof over this tiny rivulet, and giggled as its form flickered.
"In this wise I do accustom myself to running water," she explained, "by mastering first little streams and then greater ones. It hath its limits. I cannot cross the Avalon, even by the bridge, save as a wisp of vapor -- and not by daylight, for naked sunlight also doth weaken us. Mere streams, though -- those I may pass, though at some pain if there be no bridge. Thus I am far less bound to Sunney Towne than are most of mine own kin. Also -- Zecora's charms are in part crafted against evil, and I am in some ways the least evil of us, for I have never directly slain any mortals." She looked away, perhaps at something in memory, then directly at Glittershell. "I try to be good, though it is sometimes difficult to oppose my own nature."
"You've been good to me," said Glittershell. "And my friend Snips. Though he's slept through most of it. Thank you."
"I try to keep wayfarers safe from my kin," Ruby said, leading Glittershell deeper into the cave, "when I remember. 'Tis sometimes hard to remember. Undeath -- 'tis like a waking dream, or nightmare unending. An I fail to strive, I simply slip into the pattern of the curse -- I live my last day of life again and again and again, ending with my death and arousing anew each time after I perish. Weeks ... months ... years can simply pass like that, without my knowing, until something breaks the pattern, wakes me again to consciousness. I know that in truth it has been a thousand and five years since I drew breath, but at times it feels as if 'twere but yesterday." She gave Glittershell a troubled look. "Thou didst already know, didst thou not? That I am dead -- long dead?"
Glittershell nodded. "I thought you might be a ghost, the way you just showed up out of the fog. And then when you scared Snips -- it's okay, he needed that, to make him understand. You can look really scary when you want to." He paused. "But I think you're a nice ghost. A friendly ghost."
"I try to be." Ruby laughed, but there seemed almost to be a sob in it somewhere. "When I can remember. When I can ... remember."
They went along a little further, the cave narrowing into a passage, through which they walked single-file. The little rivulet trickled down one side, and sometimes Ruby fuzzed as part of her projected over it. Then the path bent, and widened out again They padded along the floor of a high-ceilinged chamber, which turned left and climbed as they went in.
They were side by side now, and Ruby gazed at Glittershell. "Snails?" she asked.
"Yes?" responded Glittershell.
"Why dost thy Aspect keep changing betwixt mare and stallion?"
"You can see that?" Glittershell asked, her jaw dropping.
"Well," explained Ruby, "'tis in truth more easy for me to see spirits than bodies. I can perceive thine soul always, while I must form and remember to use eyes to see your carnal form. And when I observe that soul, sometimes it seems to be that of a mare, and sometimes stallion. When first I beheld thee, drinking with thine friend, thou wert stallion. Then later, when thou didst kiss him, thou became mare. When thou didst meet me, thy soul became stallion. When thou didst see mine father, thou became mare again, and thou'rt mare now. Yet thy carnal form is always stallion. I have never beheld the like before, in more than a thousand years." Ruby examined her companion searchingly. "What art thou, Snails?"
"Glittershell," the orange Unicorn replied. "I'm a filly -- well, mare, now -- on the inside. But on the outside, I'm a stallion named Snails. And I've always felt this way, though only in the last few years, since I was around thirteen, have I had any idea what I was feeling. And I -- I like stallions, which is normal for a mare but I have the body of a stallion, and I've never even really been kissed, and I don't know if I ever will be kissed. Well, I kissed Snips a bit earlier, but he was asleep and he didn't kiss back, so I don't know if that counted. Did it count?"
"Um -- doth the kiss count?" asked Ruby, looking a little confused by his reply.
"Yeah," said Glittershell. "The kiss. Was it my for-real first kiss?"
"Uh -- perhaps?" speculated Ruby. "It might be?"
"Oh," said Glittershell, disappointed. "I thought you'd know more."
"About kissing?" asked Ruby.
"Well, yeah."
"Snails -- Gllittershell," Ruby corrected. "I died the day I turned fifteen. I had little opportunity to meet stallions when I was alive. I died still maiden, and mine existence after that hath not been much like a presentation at Court."
"No party, eh?" Glittershell commented.
Ruby winced. "Actually, it hath been one long party," she said. "Planned by mine own father Grey Hoof, mine own self the guest of honor -- and it endeth always with mine own murder."
"I'm so sorry, Miss Ruby!" apologized Glittershell, ashamed of what she had said. "I didn't know -- it must be awful!"
Ruby closed her eyes for a moment. "'Twas horrible, at the first. For about a month, I begged and screamed and sobbed most disgracefully. But once I kenned that it mattered not what I did, I only did enough to duplicate my death, to appease the curse. After more than a millennium of dying every night ... well, it has become very, very dull. Chore, more than torment."
Glittershell goggled at the concept. "Wow, I can't imagine dying becoming boring!"
"I have died, by my rough reckoning, some three million, six hundred and sixty five thousand times now," Ruby pointed out. "An thou doest any thing that many times, it loseth all its novelty." Ruby smiled wanly. "I cannot remember well what I once expected of death, before I died," she admitted. "Eternal rest, mayhap, or a more or less pleasant afterlife. I did not imagine I would go to Hell -- I was not perfect, but I was at least not a very bad Pony."
"Really," Ruby admitted, "at fourteen I did not dwell on it much at all. I knew I was young and strong and healthy; I thought I had a long life ahead. I suppose, like most really young mares, I fantasied that I would just go on and on forever." Her smile grew sardonic. "And I was in a sense right, was I not? For a thousand and five years hath flown since I died, and yet I just go on and on and on and on." The last 'on' was almost a sob. "I so wish I might truly die, but I cannot. I must not. 'Twould be to quit my post, and betray all those whom I love most."
"I do not understand," said Glittershell. "Why you were killed, why you have to stay a ghost -- any of it. It doesn't make sense."
Ruby sighed, and said nothing.
"I am very sorry, Miss Ruby, if I have offended you," Glittershell apologized. "I am only curious."
Ruby merely gave her a small smile and said: "Dost thou mind that I said 'twas a long and weary tale?"
Glittershell's ears perked up.
"Well, 'tis true. And I shall tell it to thee," Ruby said. "Thou'rt now trapped within the webs of the Curse -- the Curse that Nightmare Moon didst so long ago place upon our town. Thou deservest to know its truth. So I shall tell the tale ..."
Glittershell leaned toward her eagerly. She wanted very much to find out the secret behind Sunney Towne -- both because it sounded as if it were really interesting, and because both her own life and that of her best friend might depend on it.
"... But not here," Ruby continued. "We are not yet wholly safe. I first shall bring thee and thine friend, to mine inner sanctum, where ye may both rest, secure from your pursuers."
Glittershell nodded. The weight of Snips was becoming wearying upon her back; she wanted very much to finally reach a place of safety, where she might finally lay her friend down, until Snips might again walk under his own power.
Of course, she felt some fear at Ruby's invitation. Glittershell knew full well that -- though she seemed friendlier -- her companion was as much an inhabitant of the spectral world between life and death as Grey Hoof or Three Leaf. And this ghost was leading her and Snips into her secret subterranean sanctuary, her crypt. Glittershell trembled at the thought of what dread and ancient horrors might be therein contained, and wondered if she and her friend Snips -- from whom she had stolen her first kiss -- would ever emerge from this realm of eternal nighted horror -- alive.
Glittershell really did think in these terms, not because she was a budding writer of weird tales -- she could in point of fact barely manage the simplest of school writing assignments -- nor because she normally read a lot of horror stories. However, once when in company with Sweetie Belle, they had visited Spike at the Castle of Friendship. And there, while Spike taught Sweetie some Canterlot court dances, Glittershell had in fascination devoured Spike's entire run of Tales From The Tomb.
Right now, Glittershell was torn between regret that she had ever done so, because she could now see every way that her already-terrifying adventure could get even worse; and gratitude that she had, so to speak, received advanced warnings of what she might expect. On the one hoof, she feared to come to some gory end; on the other, now that the initial shock had worn off, she felt that she fully-appreciated into what an incredibly cool situation she had fallen.
Rather like Ruby Gift on her fifteenth birthday, Glittershell on her sixteenth imagined herself to be immortal.
They were, obviously, both wrong. The question was only this: would Glittershell discover her error in as final and fatal a fashion as had poor Ruby, over a thousand years before her?
***
The tunnel led up into a labyrinth of water-eroded passages. They soon left the rivulet, and with it the most obvious guide to their location. Glittershell grasped why Ruby judged her sanctum safe: Glittershell herself was already quite uncertain as to the way back to the waterfall. Without a guide, a Pony could wander these passages for a very long time, until she died of hunger or thirst. None of her pursuers, she therefore assumed, could here follow.
Thankfully, it did not occur to Glittershell that, of the Ponies likely to enter this labyrinth any time soon, only she and Snips were at all vulnerable to such vicissitudes. The regular denizens of Sunney Towne were over a thousand years beyond having anything to fear from lack of any such sustenance. They, therefore, might choose to employ search strategies too hazardous for living Ponies. The realization would have rightly frightened Glittershell, without suggesting to her any solution.
Ruby pointed to some crystalline outcroppings in the tunnel walls. "Quartz," she explained. "Through it doth flow the Earth-current. 'Tis difficult for those like me to pass through."
"The tunnel?" asked Glittershell. "But you seem to be --"
"No," corrected Ruby. "Not the tunnel. The walls. I cannot walk through these walls, and neither can mine kin."
"You can walk through walls?!!" asked Glittershell, astonished. Then she realized she'd been stupid. The comic books had hinted to her that ghosts might possess such powers.
"An they be not too dense, nor too full with energies, yes," replied Ruby. "'Tis far faster to tread normal paths. We can also airwalk, though this be slower than walking the ground, and cannot compare for swiftness with Pegasus flight. Thou shouldst mind this, should mine kin be in close pursuit -- they can pass with ease what thou might think would bar them. We Wraiths can do thus," she clarified, "the Guards never."
"That is seriously cool," commented Glittershell. "Those are like superpowers."
"I never actually thought of it that way," said Ruby. "I suppose, yes, 'tis one consolation of my condition."
"You need to meet my friend Spike someday," Glittershell said, almost entirely forgetting her fear in her enthusiasm. "He loves superhero comics. And you're pratically like a super-hero."
"Hmm," said Ruby, smiling. "That thought does cheer me." Her light brightened.
Glittershell almost added that Spike liked horror comics as well, and that this was also relevant to Ruby's situation -- but realized at the last moment that this information might not be received as well by the spectral mare.
The tunnel down which they walked turned and then came to an end a few Pony-lengths ahead.
Ruby stopped and smiled at Glittershell. A big, smug smile.
Glittershell was confused. Was this little dead end Ruby's sanctum? It looked insufficiently impressive, restful or safe to match Ruby's obvious enthusiasm. Glittershell did not want to offend the ghost, but she did not want to lie to her either. So all she could do was to keep looking around in confusion.
"Um ... is this all of it?" Glittershell finally asked. She could not keep the disappointment out of her voice.
Ruby laughed. "So, thou dost miss it entire?" she asked.
Glittershell looked around, failing to see anything special. She stared at Ruby in puzzlement.
Ruby clapped her forehooves together and crowed; "Thou dost! 'Tis as well-concealed to the senses of mortal Pony as to those of a Wraith!" She grinned impishly. "Behold!" She reached out with one hoof and twitched the gray-brown stone-colored, quartz-glittering tarpaulin to one side.
A plain oaken door stood revealed.
"Be not ashamed," said Ruby with a smile. "Mine own mother and mine self would have difficulty finding this door, had we not built it ourselves, and did we not have especial Talents that make it simple to find things. Mine mother can find the right gift for anypony, while I --" she grinned in pride, "-- I can find anything for which I seek."
"That's a really neat Talent," said Glittershell, and meant it.
"Yes," agreed Ruby. "It is." She suddenly frowned. "I might have become one of the most valuable officers of the Night Guard, even in time become the right-hoof mare of Princess Luna herself. I might have done great deeds for Equestria. There would have been no limits to how high I might have risen in the service of the Sisters, if --" She sighed. "Only if. So many ifs that went awry. Now, t'is all so useless." She met Glttershell's eyes. "Prithee pardon, friend. Sometimes, within this dream that is now my existence, I remember what might have been, had I only remained wakeful longer."
Glittershell could sympathize. It seemed terribly tragic to herself as well that Ruby had been born with such a terribly useful talent and had her life cut short before she could do much with it.
Then it occurred to Glittershell that she herself was hiding in a cave in a haunted zone near a cursed ghost town, surrounded by the very cursed ghosts that haunted this zone, and with her only hope being the friendship of one of the nicer ghosts. That, therefore, Glittershell's own life might well be cut short before she fulfilled her promise -- whatever that happened to be, as Glittershell greatly feared that she in fact had no useful Talents whatsoever.
The thought both frightened Glittershell, and made her sympathize with Ruby all the more.
Ruby reached for and released a hidden catch with her mane. The door swung open, out into the tunnel.
And Ruby's Sanctum was revealed.
As they stepped within, lighting the room with spectral glow and unicorn horn respectively, Glittershell could plainly see the chamber. And Glittershell thought:
This isn't what I expected.
In truth, Glittershell had not been entirely sure what to expect, when she stepped through that door. Confused images had danced through her brain -- a gloomy crypt, with cobweb-draped coffins, some open to reveal skeletal occupants? Perhaps a torture-chamber, with the remains of unfortunate Ponies shackled to the instruments of their demise? Or simply a vast heap of bones?
What she had not expected was this:
A roomy cavern, but one on a Pony scale, comprising a large bedroom, complete with two Pony beds, each large enough to sleep one or two Ponies, sitting side by side at one end. In the middle was a moderate-sized table with a few chairs. Along the walls stood bookshelves, dressers and closets, interspersed with wall-hangings. These wall-hangings ranged from half-rotted old tapestries which would not have looked out of place in the Equestria of many centuries ago, to modern printed posters, including -- Glittershell realized to her bemusement -- ones of Countess Coloratura and Windswept Goldenmane, the former in her full concert costume including dress and veils; the latter half-clad in an outfit obviously meant to show off his athletic, stallionly lines, smiling self-confidently as the wind blew back his trademarked golden mane.
The floor was a clutter of piles of books and clothing, some in crates, boxes and sacks; others in untidy heaps. From one or two chests jewelry glittered; here and there were stuffed plush animals and what looked suspiciously like dolls, which really should have been a bit below Ruby's developmental age. (Glittershell, who had a hidden box of fashion dolls she still played with, and slept with a plushie of The Great And Powerful Trixie that Rarity had made for her, was in no position of moral superiority on this issue).
All these things -- furniture, books, hangings and clothing -- seemed to come from a wide variety of eras and were in very different states of repair. It was as if somepony or someponies -- someponies with no talents as interior decorators -- had been using their Talents for finding things to discover, and then hoard, random treasures for many decades and centuries.
In the midst of this mess, a mare who seemed to be middle-aged, but still pretty, was carefully picking up pieces of clothing, folding them, and placing them in sacks. She smiled at Ruby and Glittershell.
The mare's coat was the same light gray as was Ruby's. Her mane, worn long and in a braid, was a deep maroon red; her eyes a lighter red. She was built gracefully, with long slim legs and fine features, rather than the muscular solidity of Ruby. Aside from that, she bore a very great resemblance to Glittershell's ghost friend. Like Grey Hoof, her flank was bare of Cutie Mark, despite her apparent age.
Thinking of her own Carrot kin, Glittershell came to the obvious conclusion.
"Are you Ruby's sister?" she blurted out.
This was rude of Glittershell, something she realized as soon as she uttered the words.
The red-headed mare merely blushed and giggled. "Oh, no!" she said. "But thankee for the kind words!" Her smile widened. "I am not dear Ruby's sister.
"I am her mother. Mitta Gift."
To be fair, an Equestrian version of Tales From the Crypt would probably have greater occult accuracy, especially if Twilight lets Spike read the book. (Or maybe she secretly enjoys complaining about the book's inaccuracies. Entirely possible.)
I can only imagine life through Ruby's eyes. Obviously, I don't want to experience her cursed existence personally, but seeing souls more easily than bodies does sound fascinating. Just imagine how she mighty perceive a changeling cycling through different identities.
I do love how Rarity has apparently made personalized pony plushies a side business.
In all, I'd say Glittershell's odds of survival are as good as they could be in this situation. I just hope Mitta is as good as her daughter when it comes to resisting her wraithly nature...
Wow the Caves around Sunny Town sound like they would be very pretty to hike though, if one had a map. I wonder if one of the earth currents that formed the caves under Canterlot is responsible for the quartz.
I would like to note, at certain points when Ruby is thinking about her regrets, she kinda starts to drift into ghost wailing, underscoring the fact she isn't alive or 100% percent mentally stable. In fact as Snails sometimes and dimly noticed she a nice ghost, but still a wrath and therefor not the most safe to be around.
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It's one of the many things for which Luna loathes herself. And worse ... Nightmare Moon locked it with the power of the Night Shadows. Luna cannot reverse the curse. Or, at least, she doesn't yet know how to do so.
And still worse ... Nightmare Moon slaughtered the Sunney Towners cast the curse to avenge the murder of Ruby Gift, who was Luna's friend. Not only did she succeed in also killing Mitta -- whom Ruby dearly loved and who didn't actually participate in the murder -- but she also killed everypony else in town, for all of whom Ruby also cared. And the most guilty Pony of all, Grey Hoof, was also somepony Ruby greatly loved.
And still worse ... Ruby, because she loves her kin, is staying with them to try to redeem them from damnation. Which means that Ruby repeats her murder every night. Though, as she points out in Chapter # 7, it's not as if that part of it does more than bore her any more -- it's become a chore, like a briefly-painful version of fetching water from the well. Remember, she was already dead when they burned her corpse -- she doesn't have to feel that.
(They didn't hate her, they were under the delusion that she had contracted a fatal and contagious disease and they had to burn the corpse to avoid letting it spread).
Snips is more extroverted and has considerable charm on stage. He's a natural comedian, while Snails is more the dramatic/tragic type. Also remember that in a point design RPG, Glittershell/Snails' transgendered status (true transgender with dysphoria between brain-hormone system and body) would get him a lot of points: she spent some of them on Savoir-Faire. Because note: every positive response Glittershell has gotten from everypony save Ermie (and it's why Ermie stayed interested in him past the first "Wow! A stallion built kind of like me!" reaction, has been due to the training he got from Cheerilee and Rarity in how to be polite, and his willingness to employ it toward increasingly scary Ponies (first the CMC, then the Lightnings, and now Ruby Gift).
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Snips is pretty immature. There's no filly who is seriously-attracted to him; the acrobatic carnival filly is simply playing with him. He's friendly with a number of fillies, including all three of the CMC (who think he's okay), Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon (who find him amusing and funny company) but he's never fallen in love with anypony. He imagines himself as a player, but he's really just very naive. More so in some ways than Glittershell.
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That's a good point. When there are real ghosts and monsters, then it might be possible to do more serious research for accuracy.
Tales From the Crypt -- especially the original run in the 1950's -- was very much inspired by Weird Tales and other pulp-horror text fiction magazines of the 1920's through 1940's. Those stories, in turn, were in some cases written by fairly erudite authors who knew the underlying mythology -- H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Henry Kuttner were no intellectual lightweights. This is part of why the TFtC stories were so effective.
Of course, Tales From the Crypt in turn inspired later horror comics, such as DC's House of Secrets and House of Mysteries. As you may have guessed, I was a fan of these anthology series.
I'm glad you like the way that I present Ruby's perceptions. I like the character a lot.
Well, Rarity gave Glittershell the Trixie plushie as a gift, but yes, she also makes them for sale. She of course, in the SWSV, gave Spike the plushie of herself as a love-gift.
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Those are both extremely insightful points. I am trying to strike a balance between Ruby's fundamental niceness and the alien eerieness of what she has become, and I'm glad you noticed. Yes, her state of mind isn't exactly what living Ponies would call "sanity," though it's fairly sane by the standards of Wraiths. (She and Mitta keep each other relatively sane).
And yes. She and Mitta are dangerous.
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Snails is a min-maxed diplomancer. It all makes sense now.
7120471 Of course, Tales From the Crypt in turn inspired later horror comics, such as DC's House of Secrets and House of Mysteries. As you may have guessed, I was a fan of these anthology series.
You too? I used to love the DC horror/ghost comics. Them and their war comics. Haunted Tank was a special fave.
I enjoyed how you handled poor Ruby's rather unusual perception of time. It works given that one of the usual definitions of ghosts I've read is that they seem 'stuck' in one often horrible moment, unable to get past it.