Chapter 10
“So then pony, impart to me thine secrets if thou will…” Seath coolly requested. Beside him Pinkie Pie held up a hoof as she finished wiping a few bits of food off Pumpkin Cake’s mouth.
“One second…ahhh there we go! All nice and clean!” She giggled while nuzzling the tiny foal. Pumpkin gurgled happily from the affection. Seath growled with unease.
“Well as Ponyville’s number one party planner, I have to be up to date on what ponies like to do to have fun. When I heard about the rising fad of ‘tabletop role playing games’ I naturally started looking into how they worked and what made them so enjoyable.” The pink mare explained.
“Yet back at the residence of Twilight, thou dids’t not speak of such as a mere distraction. Yay from thine tone, I did decree thou hast experienced these ‘games’ as life, not fantasy…”
Positioning herself behind the foal stroller again, Pinkie Pie began pushing it down the park walkway.
“Well, as you can see, a lot of what they involve is similar to what we have here around Equestria. Dragons, chimera, manticores, ancient magical relics, they all have some real life counterpart. Just as they do in your world no?”
She looked up to see Seath was glowering at her.
“Yet thou didst speak of two phrases all too familiar to me. ‘YOU DEFEATED’ and ‘VICTORY ACHIEVED’. Such are words I hath oft heard before.” He intoned much to Pinkie’s excitement.
“Oh yeah! When I started playing an actual campaign with a few friends I noticed those kept appearing whenever we won a battle against monsters.”
Seath nodded. “Chanted them as a cry of triumph didst thou?”
“No, they just appeared in the air in front of me for a second. The other players said they couldn’t see them so I just assumed it was just aspect of my special talent.” She replied. Her eyes promptly bugged out when she saw the look of recognition on Seath’s face. “You mean, you can see things like that too?”
Seath grimaced as he stared at some indistinct point ahead of them. “T’was the time of the war that established the Age of Fire and the rule of the gods. Witnessed I did a heavy number of battles, and for when great numbers did fall, or a soul of grand significance was slain, there they were. Letters as bright as the Lord Souls burning against a back drop of darkest night, hanging like leaves upon the breeze but for an instance. As with thou, none but I would attest to their presence. In time the denial of such t’was one of the many things that lead the masses to denounce me as insane, and myself to believe they spoke truth.”
Pinkie’s features fell. “Awww, that’s too bad. Ponies thought the same of me at first. Now they just believe I’m a bit kooky.”
She promptly brightened up again.
“But that’s awesome to know that you have the same sort of sense I do! Did you also experience that neat sensation of being as the character you were playing? With some greater power looking down on you from behind and controlling your actions?”
Seath cocked an eyeridge.
“More oft than t’was healthy.” He replied, watching in blank bewilderment as Pinkie jumped and clicked her back hooves together in glee. “Thou seems most pleased with thine…talent.”
“Well why not? It never fails to make my friends laugh, and it lets me do cool things like this!”
She reached into her mane and pulled out a plush octopus toy and a teething ring that she gave to the foals in the stroller. They both cheered and squealed in glee. Unable to help himself, Seath grabbed for the mare’s mess of pink hair and ran his fingers through it.
“Most fascinating. Thou demonstrates all the assets that maketh a bottomless carrying chest, yet I detect no signs of enchantment upon thee.” He said as his hands encountered naught but perfectly normal locks.
“Nah it’s nothing special like that. Just…well, as you said, it’s a gift!” She smiled. Again Seath beheld her less as a living being and more as something that, by rights, should not exist due to violating numerous laws of magic and physics.
Kind of like himself, not that he cared to admit it.
“Thou art an anomaly indeed, yet rather than a pariah thou is accepted merely as a quirk of nature…” He observed.
“Well of course! I bring happiness to everyone! I make them feel welcome and give them reasons to smile. Who’d want to turn away something like that?”
Several very worthy answers leapt to Seath’s mind, but he shelved them in favor of the overarching tone of Pinkie’s question. In Lordran those that didn’t fit into the social caste system, set up by Lord Gwyn and his fellow gods, could only hope for one of two options: either they were singled out as an affront to the order of the land and dealt with severely, or they were quietly hidden away where they could be ignored. Tolerance of exemptions to the rule was only instigated if the alternative was to risk the wrath of a greater and more dangerous power, such as had been the case with himself. To think of a place that would gladly celebrate diversity…well, the evidence of such was all around him, and little could he find that showed it to be wrong.
“Who indeed….” Seath pondered as he turned to a different line of thought. “So, thou art aware there is more to thine world than would meet the common eye, yet thou holds no desire to try and discover the truth behind it?”
Pinkie paused and thought for a moment, before finally shrugging.
“Maybe, I figure the answers will come along in due course. Till then I might as well have fun with it!” She grinned. Seath’s body grew heavy with defeat. He’d hoped to divine some confirmation that his own stranger perception of the world around him was not just another sign of his mental instability as he’d been told by numerous folk before. Now he wondered if Pinkie’s lighthearted approach to her unusual condition just meant she was crazier than he was.
“Truly, thou finds contentment in ignorance?” He asked.
Upon finding a nice quiet stretch of grass area, Pinkie pulled out a blanket and spread it across the ground.
“It’s hardly ignorance. I just don’t see the need to work myself into a frenzy trying to make sense of stuff that seems like it isn’t supposed to make sense. Twilight’s better at that sort of thing anyway.”
To Seath that sounded like Pinkie was wasting her potential, however, a thought held him back from voicing his disdain. He mused over his past efforts to uncover everything about Lordran, and his status as a seeming anomaly in it. The years he’d spent researching ways to regain his immortality and his god like abilities, the efforts expended trying to decipher why the world appeared different for him than it did everyone else, the sacrifices upon sacrifices that he’d made in his obsession to understand why he was as he was, why he had been what he’d had been, and so on. He’d invested centuries of his life putting his skills to the utmost use because to do less seemed counterproductive. Yet here was another being who’d been granted a similar gift by the fates, and she seemed to get more satisfaction out of squandering it than he ever did working with it.
Seath lay down on the grass and rested his head on his arms, studying how Pinkie lifted each of the Cake twins out of their stroller and set them on the blanket with such lightness to her moves. She whipped two hoof puppets out of her mane and began conversing with them like they were two additional characters come to join the fun. The talk started out harmless enough, but soon turned heated when the puppets disagreed with their operator on something concerning which fruit made the best strudel, culminating in a fierce argument, and then a fight between Pinkie and her made-up friends. Finally she tossed both puppets under her flank and made a grand show of sitting on them until they learned how to behave themselves. Pumpkin and Pound found this little show hilarious and giggled with delight. Seath just found it disturbing.
What world is this that would as quickly reward sloth as it would brilliance? The dragon pondered as one of the twins, the pegasus one, levitated himself up into the air. Pinkie tutted and gestured for the foal to come back down, then when he refused she leapt at him with gusto. The tiny pony promptly increased his altitude by a few inches and giggled as Pinkie went sailing through the air underneath to an embarrassing crash into the dirt. She promptly extracted herself, grinned menacingly at the jovial infant and jumped higher. The foal promptly descended so she ended up missing again, much to the glee of his sibling. Seath facepalmed as Pinkie made a third attempt, and was met with a third crash landing due to Pound Cake’s surprising nimbleness in the air. If he’d been the father of such impudent babies he’d have been quick to make them aware of how much their antics displeased him.
Woulds’t thou? Truly art not even those who hath yet the chance to sin still unworthy in thine eyes?
Seath grimaced as Pound turned at the sound of his sister applauding his feat. Seeing her target was now distracted Pinkie immediately pounced on this opportunity as she pounced the foal, tackling him back to the blanket and blowing into his tummy so hard the tiny tot would be too worn out from laughing to even think of flying away again. The white drake tried to tell himself this was cute, that he should find such innocent fun endearing. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth, trying to summon up some microscopic measure of empathy. He opened his eyes again and…nothing. The scene was still the same, and all he saw were souls, brimming with fresh potential yet being wasted by the bodies harboring them. If anything he felt more of an urge to just slaughter both Pinkie and the foals where they sat so he could use their essences as nature had intended for them.
And to think, there was such a time, however brief, when thou stood in the same position as they…
Seath buried his head in his hands, silently uttering curse after curse. Some were for the powers that be, some were for the ponies that tempted him with new gain if he would but agree to one more evil act..
…some were for himself. For trying and failing repeatedly to get what he desired, for his lot as one seemingly forced to endlessly suffer and be punished, and for the fact that, as was being demonstrated yet again, that suffering and punishment were well deserved.
“Pa-Pah…ol”
Seath looked up to notice that Pumpkin was pointing in his direction.
“Pah-Pah-ol…” The tiny foal knitted her brow as she tried to work her mouth around the word.
“Yes, Pumpkin, that’s Seath, and yes he is very pale isn’t he!” Pinkie picked up the unicorn and plopping her on top of Seath’s nose. “You never thought drakes came in such a pristine shade of white did you?”
Pumpkin cooed as she stared into Seath’s ruby eyes. Seath stared back, feeling the agony in him grow worse.
“Dwah…Dwake?” The baby asked.
“That’s right. He’s a very Pale Drake.” Pinkie Pie lauded with a giggle. “Sorry, they just started talking a few weeks ago so I’m trying to teach them some simple words.”
Seath glowered at the filly on his nose, half admiring her bravery since she didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by his size, half loathing every second she spent mocking him with her little, innocent, carefree smile. How dare she obtain joy from that which he could never have? How dare she shame him with her disrespectful snickering?
“Pah-ol….Dwake….Pahle Dwake!” Pumpkin giggled.
The slightest pressure of his thumb and forefinger, and her could pop the filly’s little body like an overripe grape, rip out her soul and do something actually useful with it.
“Yes, he’s a Pale Drake, and his name is Seath. Can you say ‘See-ath’, Pumpkin?” Pinkie Pie encouraged.
His hand was posed, the urge was strong…what was the cost of a little more blood on his hands with all he’d spilled already?
“See…Seeeeee…AAAHHHHHH…th?” Both babies valiantly worked to say the name. “Pahl…Dwake….See-AH-th!”
Seath groaned and tilted his head forward so Pumpkin slid off and back onto the blanket. The atrocities he’d committed before had already cost him the life of one child, and however dire his situation was now, not to mention how irritating these infants were being, he was not about to add to that number!
Instead he dwelt on the other application that had originally drawn him to the wonders that were reproduction and the generation of new life. He contemplated that the two foals before him had been conceived out of love and born to parents who no doubt cherished them. Well, even if not the parents then their current caretaker for sure. Being everlasting, the dragons of Lordran never knew such things. They had no concept of birth, or parents, or family, they existed just because time and fate deemed that they should.
It was yet another reason that he believed he’d ultimately done them a favor by helping to wipe them out.
“Thine whelp is a most courageous soul to laugh in the face of a monster.” He commented. Pinkie gave him a strange look.
“Oh hardly that. If I’m okay being around you, then they know you’re my friend. Also they know what dragons tend to look like so you’re probably more funny looking than you are scary looking.”
The usual rage that would accompany such a taunt about his physical appearance failed to ignite. Instead Seath just sighed and rose as he noticed the ground around him was starting to glow.
The usual rage that would accompany such a taunt about his physical appearance failed to ignite.
The earth pony smiled. "Besides, if you had been serious about collecting their souls, I would have gotten a warning from my PINKIE SENSE!"
The dragon turned quickly and re-evaluated the pink mare for yet another time.
She cocked her head sideways a bit. "That's what you do, isn't it? To get more power?"
Seath considered asking what she would have done in that case, but decided it was a question he did not want answered. The dragon only then realized he had been holding his breath. Slowly, he exhaled. "Truly, thy greatest asset is getting others to underestimate you. Had you chosen the warrior's path and honed your skills, I believe you could have become a fiercer opponent than even one of your princesses."
Pinkie beamed. "Awwwwww! That's so sweet of you to say!"
“Pray thou dost not place such trust too lightly. There exist many who are merely monsters cloaked in good intentions.” He muttered as his body began to turn transparent. “Now it seems my student doth request my presence again.”
“Alright, well feel free to drop by Sugar Cube Corner if you ever have time. I’ll have a cupcake and coffee waiting so we can talk more!” Pinkie Pie picked up both the twins. “Say good-bye to Seath you two!”
“BYE PAHLE DWAKE!” The Cake twins cheered as Seath vanished from the park and materialized again by the bonfire outside Twilight’s castle. The alicorn in question stood mesmerized as her teacher cracked his neck and looked down at her patiently.
“Well, that was a bit different than I was expecting. I thought that those inscriptions you carve on the ground acted like Spike’s fire breath when he uses it to send messages. But that was more like my own ability to teleport….just applied differently…”
Seath nodded softly as he picked up the orange and white soapstones.
“Thine words are more accurate than thou may expect my student. Soapstones serve many a purpose, each determined by its color. If thou knowests similar techniques then that merely indicates the natural evolution of sorcery has occurred as it should.” He handed them to Twilight who grabbed them with her magic and analyzed them carefully. “To chart how such evolution came to pass though, I cannot deny my curiosity.”
“Nor I my desire to see how these work and compare…” Twilight furrowed her brow. “Well, I did want to let you know that my catalyst has apparently sensed I’m ready to resume practice, but I do have a fully equipped lab that I could use to study these and answer both our questions so…”
She bit her lip and looked to Seath with a freshly burning desire to pursue another exciting course of academic interest. Seath felt his Lord Soul fragment burn as well with a strange new edge to its flames; not like that of any old fire, but with something akin to a roaring hearth in a cozy study; a comforting, enticing warmth.
“Provided thou dost not neglect thine spell practice before the day is abridged with night, a brief travel down a different path of knowledge is permissible.” He said. His body felt warmer still as Twilight grinned like a maniac and ran for the doors to her castle.
“Follow me then! Oooooh this is going to be so great!” She cried as she flew down a stairway into a crystalline chamber loaded with various types of scientific apparatus. Seath snorted softly as he was reminded of his own lab back in the Duke Archives. Granted Twilight’s was a bit more ordered, and clearly had not been intended to serve triple duty as a dungeon and torture room as well as a research area but the similarities were still present. Seath couldn’t decide if that was good or bad though.
“Oh, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important between you and Pinkie Pie though…” Twilight jarred Seath from his thoughts as she remembered why he’d left in the first place.
“Nay Twilight, t’was a wasted effort…though I find myself unable to dash what was discussed from mine thoughts.” The white drake mused. “Thine friend is unique to a most woeful degree.”
He expected Twilight to get mad, but instead the lavender alicorn just shrugged.
“Well she’s just being Pinkie. It’s easier if you don’t sweat how she does what she does and instead focus on what a good soul she is.” Twilight smiled as Seath cocked an eyebrow. Whether she comprehended the double entendre in her words remained unanswered as the alicorn quickly dove back into her study of the soapstones.
***
Several hours of intense research, deep discussion, occasional breaks to practice spells, and even more note taking, Seath and Twilight lay sprawled across the lab floor. The hour was late, Spike had returned from his day out with some of the foals around town (the ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ or something as Seath had heard them called) and whipped up a quick meal for the two, and now they were facing an all too familiar nemesis: fatigue. As an alicorn and a dragon respectively their stamina levels were above the normal standard, but even super beings had their limits and now the two were reluctantly acknowledging they may have reached theirs.
“Twi, seriously, you’ve been up for almost two days straight now, can’t this wait till tomorrow?” Spike asked despite knowing how rhetorical the question was.
“Just one *yawn* one more, Spike. Please?” The alicorn pleaded with tired but heartfelt tones. Sighing his defeat, Spike closed his eyes and tried to imagine the lab as it might appear in a few hours while he wrote out another short message on the floor with the orange soapstone. Twilight noted what time the message was supposed to reappear at as the blazing letters slowly faded away into nothingness.
“Okay, so if our hypothesis is right, one of these should appear every half hour from 9 AM – 12 PM tomorrow. If that does happen then it proves both Spike’s fire breath and the soapstone’s enchantment are concocted from the same basic foundations and from there we can test if we can possibly come up with some manner of combining the two to make messages appear in different areas from where they were written. That’d be a big help if Spike isn’t around to send letters the traditional way.”
From somewhere above the lab an owl hooted. Spike tried to not think of it as an omen of things about to repeat themselves.
“Though I wonder *yawn* wonder if we’ve got a big enough sample pool…” Twilight rubbed her eyes and checked her notes. “Mmmm…Seath what do you think?”
From where he was lost in a tome of chemical formulas he’d found on one of the shelves, the white drake shrugged.
“The more one tests, the greater the accuracy of the results doth grow. T’is my standard to never stop with the experiments, but then I do remind that this one is thine own…” He murmured while trying to shake himself back to wakefulness. Groaning, Twilight rested her head against one of her front hooves and blearily stared at her scroll.
“Maybe one or two more then…*yawn*….Spike if you could just…”
“Twi, please…”
“One more message….well, two more, just so we can get to 1 PM…”
Giving a frustrated grunt, Spike grabbed for the soapstone.
“Fine, you want a message? Here’s one for you.”
He aggressively etched two words on the floor. It took Twilight a full minute of logging the entry then staring at the burning letters before her weary mind actually comprehended what they said.
“Need sleep?” She asked.
“Yes, and you do. Both of you.” Spike said. Deftly he grabbed Twilight’s scroll and rolled it up. “Seriously, at this rate you’re not going to be functional enough for when any of these messages start reappearing. Just go to bed and I’ll come get you when it’s time.”
Twilight rose a hoof to complain, then realized her error when her head began sinking to the floor due to having no support to hold it up.
“Fine…just…just let me double check my initial theory and then I’ll go…go….sleep and…”
POOMPF! The alicorn’s head finally hit bottom. Mercifully instead of a hard impact on the crystal floor it instead found itself cushioned by a pillow Spike had expertly grabbed and slid into place. Seath snorted in tired amusement.
“A novice to this thou art not.” He mused as Spike gently combed Twilight’s mane away from her mouth so she didn’t it all soggy with drool.
“Yeah this is far from the first time she’s fallen asleep in the middle of her studies. I’m well versed in recognizing the symptoms and preparing accordingly.” Spike demonstrated by snagging Seath’s book and replacing it with a larger pillow in one swift movement, just as the dragon tipped over onto it. “I’d kindly ask if you could try carrying her up to her room since I can’t. High time I caught some Z’s of my own.”
Seath nodded as he reluctantly pulled himself from the soft feathery comfort.
“On the morrow shalt we reconvene then.” He muttered as Spike bid them goodnight and headed out of the lab. Carefully scooping the alicorn up in his hand, Seath summoned a ball of light and forded his way up through the dark castle interiors, alternately crossing hallways and flying up staircases till he reached the pristine crystal doors emblazoned with Twilight’s cutie mark. Pushing them open as quietly as possible he entered the alicorn’s vast bed chamber, thanking whomever was the architect of this domain for making each room big enough that he could stand up straight and not worry about hitting his head on the ceilings. Why each room had to be of such a grand size was another matter, but honestly Seath was just glad right now that they were.
Laying the alicorn in her bed, he drew the covers over Twilight. With that done he let himself sink to the floor. A room had been prepared for him but he saw no point in using it for the moment. The everlasting dragons mostly just slept wherever was most convenient over the course of their travels, and even if he’d been living among civilized society for thousands of years it seemed some habits just refused to die. Not to mention even in his sleep deprived state some part of his mind was still working away at the issue before him.
Such promise…such ambition…such talent...she shall be ready sooner than any could expect…
Seath let his head flop onto the mattress next to Twilight. Tenderly he reached over and smoothed out part of her mane, which had become askew again.
A second chance…a new beginning…yet the aim remains as before.
A ray of moonlight stretched from the balcony windows to drape across the alicorn’s face. She looked so peaceful, so content….
To be given a soul as perfect as before t’was a rarity, to be presented with a second one…
Seath’s hand drew back, the fingers curling inward as if suddenly wracked by a painful cramp.
One cannot ignore a boon to correct past mistakes…but art thou truly correcting them…or just making new ones?
Growling maliciously, the massive white dragon grabbed a handful of spare pillows and threw them on the floor, letting himself crash heavily atop them.
To what end dost thou seek more? Thine legacy? Or thine immortality? T’is better to live to see tomorrow, or simply be remembered by the souls of tomorrow?
Seath weakily pulled off his glasses and set them on the nightstand. In the darkness his surroundings looked the same without or without the aid to his vision. He pondered if maybe there was some deeper meaning to be taken from that. Let the flames fade, let the world die, let everything finally be rendered equal by the dark.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
Exhaling softly, Seath slowly gave himself over to sleep. There’d be time later to fret over whether there was any worth in still trying to regain his former status as an immortal god. Another day he could contemplate whether life had truly been better back when he’d ruled over Verdite, or whether it’d be better if he just accepted his fate and went the way of all other relics of the past.
All our yesterdays have lighted fools and the way to dusty death. Who mourns for them when all is gone? Out, out, brief candle.
Closing his eyes, Seath let himself be swept away into dreams. They were troubled as always, but by now that no longer mattered to him. He’d been tortured for centuries by the visions and ceased to care how they strove to warp his mind.
Just as well really, for those visions made for a most interesting find as a certain black alicorn silently stepped into his dreamscape and went to work uncovering Seath’s deepest and darkest secrets….
***
Pain exploded across her head, another searing hot blade of agony burying itself in her mind and bringing her back from the void.
Slowly opening her eyes, the Chosen Undead winced as bright sunlight shot through her retinas to further torture her battered senses. She became aware of a hard, damp surface against her back, and a mild breeze brushing over her front. Rubbing her eyes, the husk watched the vista of a blue sky, framed by tall stone walls slowly come into focus. She was outside…somewhere…out and exposed to the elements in the worst way possible.
Gingerly she raised an arm, ignoring the crack of her bones being forced to work again, and patted her chest. To her horror she felt nothing but a strip of leather wrapped around her bosom, covering only enough to maintain her modesty…what little there was left of it.
Frantically the Chosen Undead forced herself to sit up, uttering a weary cry as she felt a weight pining her other arm to the ground. Looking over she beheld the shield she’d taken from Paladin Leeroy still tightly clutched by her death grip. Okay, that was a somewhat welcome sight. Sadly it was about the only one to be found as a quick search of herself revealed the rest of her armor and weapons were gone.
“Ahhh. Welcome to wakefulness, my dear. Oh, and welcome to the Oolacile Coliseum as well. Believe you’re the first tourist it’s had in…oooh, a few centuries. Mwah ha ha ha ha!”
Grimacing at the sound of a voice all too familiar to her, the Chosen Undead struggled to her feet and took in her surroundings. She was indeed in a coliseum of some sort, but from the looks of things the comment about it not having many visitors was questionable. The floor was stained with some manner of black liquid that looked like it had been recently spilled (explaining why it still felt wet to the touch) and before her there was a bonfire burning brightly in the center. The place looked fairly well maintained, well more so than any of the other ruins in Lordran, so it couldn’t have possibly been that long since it was last graced by a living presence.
“I’m sure you have many questions right now but I really have neither the time nor the care to answer them all so I’ll just give you the short version: you’re in a place about 300 years before where you were snatched from, and just in time to see the fruits of what your labor could possibly wreck. What an honor eh?”
A scraping sound was heard from the far end of the coliseum. Gripping her shield, the Chosen Undead backed away as a shadow loomed from the darkness.
“Yes what you see here is the result of Oolacile having brought the Abyss upon itself. Fooled by that toothy serpent, they upturned the grave of primeval man, and incited his ornery wrath. “
The shape took form, revealing itself to be a monstrosity she’d never seen before. It was vaguely humanoid in form, with oversized arms and webbed hands that dragged along the ground. Atop its torso a repulsively mutated, bloated head constantly twitched with frightful giggles. Its skin was ash grey and it bore the same emaciated state as herself.
“What could they have been thinking you ask? Well, what does it matter? The ends are as you see, and will be again thanks to what you believe you’re accomplishing in your quest.”
The Chosen Undead steeled herself as the new enemy limped into the coliseum. Though she was exposed and unarmed she was feeling surprisingly good. Her brief check had revealed most of her wounds had healed up, and despite the beating she’d taken she sensed she could probably handle a one on one confrontation.
“Truly it doesn’t matter at all because your quest ends here. I’d have preferred not to still be around by this point, but your damn sorcerer friends unfortunately put a snag in my attempt to leave this place. Ah well, I suppose I should appreciate small favors as it means I get to see what your reaction will be. Hah hah hah hah.”
The Chosen Undead scanned the area for the one speaking, but aside from her and the bloatheaded monster the coliseum appeared to be empty.
‘Appeared’ being the operative word.
As she searched along the tops of the walls a streak of movement caught her eye. Facing its direction the Chosen Undead staggered back as a new challenger landed on top of her opponent, ending its life and her hopes of getting out of this place in one fell swoop.
Dressed in sliver armor with tattered blue cloth draped over it, the warrior presented a visage as distinctive as it was terrifying. Any hints of facial features were hidden under a crested helmet shaped like that of a wolf, with a trailing black plume on top and an azure hood underneath. With one arm it drove the blade of a giant great sword into the body of the bloathead, while the other flopped limply around as if broken. Forcing its sword even deeper just to make sure its target was truly finished, the armored warrior turned to the Chosen Undead, giving her fresh cause to gasp and cower behind her shield.
“You still remember Knight Artorias yes? The legendary Abysswalker, from the old tales? One of Gwyn’s fabled Great Knights?” The voice’s tone turned darker with each sentence. “Someone I’m told you were quite close to in a past lifetime?”
The Chosen Undead was too gripped with fear to respond. Around her the black ichor staining the ground began to emit a likewise thick and sinister mist around Artorias. He glanced at it briefly as it enveloped his body then turned back to the female husk. She shook her head, blinked to clear her vision, did everything she could think of to dispel the hallucination before her. But the image remained as it was, and she felt herself beset by a chill in her core that not even death could hope to match.
“I know what you’re thinking, ‘But I’m not dressed properly for such a reunion!’ Well think of it this way, considering the state your armor was in after our little chat, this is actually a step up! Mwa ha hah hah hah! Well save for that shield, of course. We tried to hold onto it for you. but there’s a reason prying something from a person’s cold, dead hands is considered an achievement eh?”
Artorias roared like a rabid animal as the black mist infused into him. Thrashing to and fro he ripped his sword and the body still impaled upon it out of the ground and shouldered the weight. With another demented roar he charged at the Chosen Undead.
“Well I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted then. I should mention, though, that I’ve got a considerable wager on him killing you at least 20 times before you go hollow so do put a spring in your step my dear! Mwah hah hah hah hah!”
The voice laughed hideously as Artorias swung his blade at the female warrior, dislodging the body from it. She feebly deflected it with her shield then took off running to the other side of the coliseum as Artorias gave chase. To her horror she saw a fog gate now blocked every possible exit, and with the bonfire burning in the center it seemed someone had obviously been taking notes from Seath’s approach of keeping undead corralled. She had no choice but to face the one soul whom she'd both hoped and swore to never have to face again, with no weapons, no armor, and no hope.
As one soul dreamed of nightmares, another was now living them…
I'm sure some might argue the inclusion of the Cake Babies in this chapter is a bit superfluous but I make no apologies. They're two of my all time favorite background ponies and I shall strive to include them in as many of my works as I can! 
Also my thanks to everyone who responded to my last blog. If you check back on Chapters 3 and 6 of this series you'll see I've re-edited them to make the Chosen Undead's actions slightly less asshole-ish but hopefully still keep her moral ambiguity. Let me know if this casts her in any better of a light, more so with this new revelation that she has a past history with Lordran's most revered souls.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Well now that chosen undead is in for a nasty beat down, having no weapon or anything and just a shield pretty much gonna leave her with very very little chance to win. Sure she could punch him and if she avoids harm enough to not get killed and be healed back up by the shield she got, she can very very slowly by war of attrition win via a `death of a thousand cuts` situation.
Also Luna...girl you better shield your mind, since considering the things found in the Duke's Archives. Well lets just say there is a high chance it going to get full on twisted horror show in Seath's dreams.
Will Seath ever lighten up? He seems so "heavy" and weighed down by his past mistakes; that and still somewhat evil in that he wanted to kill Pinkie and the Foals just so he might get their souls. I am sure this will only end in tragedy, once Luna finds out what he's done.
6007065 I think a more important question is does Seath WANT to lighten up? He's currently caught in a struggle between his old psychopathic tendencies, a latent depression at all that's gone wrong in his life, a developing sense of self-loathing at some of what he's done previously, and possibly some suicidal motivation brought on by the sense that the best course of action now would be to just remove himself from the picture. He needs a bit more than just to 'lighten up' if he wants to find peace from all of that.
Fortunately I do plan to throw him a bit more of a bone later so it won't be all doom and gloom. Just most of it.
hard knock life.
Aren't the numerous modern dragons the mortal descendants of the Everlasting Dragons?
I really dislike the muah ha ha laugh is annoying. I prefer the normal but evil laugh
Well the events of Seath's and Pinkies outing was about what you would expect of it, especially Seath's reaction to everything, though i wonder how things will go once Luna see's Seath's mind, and it looks like things just went from bad to worse for the Chosen Undead
, as for your rewrite's i will say that you did a good job on chapter 3 attempt, but not so much on chapter 6 attempt to make her less like a ass 
I personally enjoyed the edition of the cakes twins.
I have not play Darksouls at all so am kinda going into this blind and I have no idea what to expect. 
I just hope it gets a happy ending or a least relativity happy. 
I realize I'm way too late to comment on this chapter....but seriously....fighting Artorias without armor, weapons or items is impossible.....he's the 3rd toughest boss in Dark Souls 1!
7639380 Ah but keep reading. You'll find this Chosen Undead is no mere hollowed human.
7639873 (reading in order) Ciaran?
"Pinkamena Diane Pie is a benevolent eldritch being from Between Places, who exists and assists because it amuses her."
- Me
Just reading through the story now. Loving it so far!
Still, couldn't help but imagine Seath's interrogation of Pinkie Pie going a bit differently.
------
“Thine whelp is a most courageous soul to laugh in the face of a monster.” He commented. Pinkie gave him a strange look.
“Oh, hardly that. If I’m okay being around you, then they know you’re my friend. Also they know what dragons tend to look like so you’re probably more funny looking than you are scary looking.”
The usual rage that would accompany such a taunt about his physical appearance failed to ignite.
The earth pony smiled. "Besides, if you had been serious about collecting their souls, I would have gotten a warning from my PINKIE SENSE!"
The dragon turned quickly and re-evaluated the pink mare for yet another time.
She cocked her head sideways a bit. "That's what you do, isn't it? To get more power?"
Seath considered asking what she would have done in that case, but decided it was a question he did not want answered. The dragon only then realized he had been holding his breath. Slowly, he exhaled. "Truly, thy greatest asset is getting others to underestimate you. Had you chosen the warrior's path and honed your skills, I believe you could have become a fiercer opponent than even one of your princesses."
Pinkie beamed. "Awwwwww! That's so sweet of you to say!"
8116245 Dang it, now you're making me want to go back and add that in. That's brilliant!
You just reference macbeth didnt you
Wait... is he implying what I think he is. Is she... is she Ciaran?