My Little Pony: The Seal of Death

by Azrael the alicorn

11: Dream And Discovery

The Mane Six and Azrael had finally the time to rest and recover from all the stress they had been through. Floral Heart took good care of them, giving food, a bath and a soft bed of leaves. After one big feast the Mane Six went to sleep, tired. Despite that, Azrael was reluctant to lay down, fearing that something bad would happen once he dropped his guard. But nothing happened and slowly the calmness all around him, combined with his wariness, had the better of him and he fell into the kingdom of dreams.

---

Five years had passed since the Soul Eater’s defeat. In that time the Alicorn Kingdom had managed to grow back to power, fixing all the damages done by the monster. But little could the alicorns do to bring the dead back from the grave, and many foals remained without a parent at best.

So they built an orphanage to give shelter to the orphans a ceiling on their head and a bed to rest until someone would not take them under their wing. The orphans didn’t have to wait that much. Since the making of the orphanage, many families who had suffered the loss of a son or just wanted to give the little ones a new home took many of the orphans in. Once the adoptions were open it didn’t take long for most, if not all, of them to find a new family.

All except one.

He looked a little bit different. Where all the others foals of alicorn had gaudy colors he had gloomy white and grey which gave him the appearance of a ghost. And if that wasn’t enough, his powers would have been enough to scare away people: he could control the spirits of the dead. Once that power would have made of him an alicorn of fame and rewards—but after the events of the Soul Eater, the Alicorn community was left with nothing but fear, distrust and hate towards the power over the dead. And the fact that nobody knew from where he had come from made the alicorns even more suspicious towards him. In a short time that one alicorn remained the alone, with the only company of the keeper, Lady Merryweather.

His name was Azrael … and he didn’t felt that great of a difference to be alone or be surrounded by people who despised him.

Azrael, now five years old, watched the crowded streets, filled by alicorns who were walking or flying to work or just enjoying the calm of the day, alone or with their families. Azrael knew far too well how much that view made his heart curl in pain, but he couldn’t help but watch the happiness of those alicorns, wondering if he would ever know the feeling to be appreciated by someone, thinking how good it could feel be surrounded by people who would love him, having a place which he could call home.

Sighing, he brought his attention back to his book. Reading was one of the few things that helped him to pass time. That and writing something for himself about science and magic or even writing poetry. Sometimes he would ask MerryWeather to go to take some new books and she would be nice enough to accept. She was kind to Azrael, but maybe because her fear towards him was greater than many others, for some reason.

“Azrael, are you there?” asked MerryWeather entering in the bedroom, watching around the large room with nervous eyes.

“I’m here, Lady MerryWeather” said Azrael, walking to her. He couldn’t help but notice that she was a lot more panicky than usual, “Something’s wrong?” he asked with kindness and puzzlement.

“Oh, no! Nothing at all!” answered the grown up alicorn, trying to not look tense and failing miserably in doing so. “Come with me in the main hall. There is someone who wants to meet you”. Azrael was taken aback by what the woman had said, but he nodded and followed her.

In the main hall? Does that mean that I’m about to get adopted? But who would ever want me as a son? thought the alicorn foal while following the keeper. The more they got closer to the hall the more Azrael felt something in the air. Cold yet warm but most of all powerful aura that was getting nearer. Once turned the last corner Azrael finally saw it who was the one who with all probability wanted to adopt him. It was an alicorn, but something in his aspect showed right off the bat that he was more than that.

He was tall. Taller than any of the alicorn that Azrael had sawed pass before the Orphanage window … and he saw many of them. His coat was grayish and his mane and tail were less ethereal than any other alicorn. They were as black as the feather of a raven and long enough to cover his shoulders. His build was thin but at the same time strong enough to not leave any doubts about his strength.

His wings were quite different, too. Instead of feathered, they were skeleton like, united together by a weird membrane. He wore some kind of dark-purple tissue that looked like the remnants of a cape around the neck. In the back he had what looked like a dark-colored armor, which had many signs resembling skulls.

As if all the above was not enough to make him look different, there was the fact that there was a mask covering his face. The mask was quite simple, without any holes for the mouth and nose, and it was of a shining white. Anyone who would watch the mask would have acknowledged how much it resembled a skull.

The only holes it had it were the two for the eyes. They were unnatural, feral-like with a slitted pupil and if anyone would have taken a closer look that someone could have said that there, in the border of the pupil, there were some weird lights moving.

All those things alone would have scared everyone. Everyone but Azrael, who watched the alicorn with curiosity.

“Greetings, Azrael,” said the big alicorn, lowering his head to make eye to eye contact, probably trying to look less threatening. His voice was grave, resonant—and yet kind.

“Who are you?” asked Azrael, almost awed by the majesty of the being before him.

“I am Death,” the larger alicorn answered.

Azrael was astounded, but then he felt something wrong with that situation, like this was a déjà vu. He turned around, seeing Princess Luna standing in the door, watching the scene speechless and with a shocked expression. Azrael realized that he was in a dream and he started to wake up.

“Wait, Azrael!” begged the princess of the night, trying to use her power over the dreams to get time and answers. But the angel of death, probably caught unprepared, was on his way to snap out.

Suddenly things got weirder. Their combined power caused a backlash to Luna so that while Azrael woke up she fell inside her own dream. Or maybe a memory?

She saw herself, younger, using her powers to enter Azrael’s dreams. She saw how he was having a nightmare, of how his fears took advantage of the younger Luna’s experience with her powers and tried to hurt her. Of how Azrael blasted the nightmares away and then, right before the dream collapsed, tried to remove that memory out of her mind.

Apparently he had only partly succeeded.

Luna woke up, shocked by what she had just discovered. Indeed, Azrael was an alicorn with many secrets. “Why?” she asked to the wind, “Why did you do that? What are you trying to hide, Azrael? And what can I do to help you?” If she had the chance she would have waited for the arrival of the Mane Six and Azrael, so she could finally confront the angel of death, to understand what else he was keeping as a secret. But she didn’t have that time, she had to go to the Griffin Kingdom soon. She got up and prepared to leave.

---

Azrael woke up hastily, conscious of what Luna discovered about him. He couldn’t believe that he had left his guard down. Sighing in defeat, the angel of death got up from his bed of leaves, looking to clear his mind and think about the consequences of his inattention could do.

He went to the lake and stared at his reflection as if he was hoping for it to talk and help him to solve an enigma that not even he was aware of. Suddenly Floral Heart moved right next to him, watching him with thoughtful eyes. He felt her presence.

“I’m sorry,” said the angel of death.

“I guess that you’re referring to what happened at the end of the ritual of the seal, right?” she asked with calmness. She then added, “You don’t have to feel bad for it, Azrael. I don’t blame you for what happened. I know that you did not wanted to cause all that death.”

Her sweet words didn’t have any effect on the angel of death, who kept watching his reflection with pure revulsion and regret. “You must make peace with yourself. You can’t continue to blame yourself for the rest of your existence,” insisted the tree alicorn.

“I have tried!” he answered, turning to watch her. “But I can’t. And it is no longer about what happened in the past, but what is going on now. For thousands of years I have cursed my foolish choices which have brought more than pain and suffering to all those I’ve tried to help. Years after years of sleepless nights, to not dream of the past and throw more salt on my wounds. And just when I was this close to get over it, the past came back—and once again there are the innocents suffering for my idiocy.”

Floral Heart didn’t know how to comfort her friend about that argument, but she had to try. “Azrael what is going on is not your fault,” she said, but then she noticed his face full of skepticism and added, “Well, not completely. This situation is our fault too. We alicorns, or at least most of us, had become way too arrogant about our powers. We couldn’t accept that there was something above us and that is what led us to our ruin.” She turned her eyes to the sky and said to herself, “Sometime I think we just got what we deserved.”

“You’re being excessively hard on yourself,” argued Azrael.

“No more than you do to yourself,” answered back Floral Heart. The angel of death fell silent, meditating on what she said.

For one long minute the two remained quiet, then Floral Heart asked something.

“Do the Elements of Harmony know of your past?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of how they would react?”

“I am afraid of how EVERYPONY would react to the truth about my past. They would despise me and fear me like those ponies do.”

“I don’t think that they fear you, Azrael. You should give them a chance, they might understand you.”

“Too dangerous. It could undermine this alliance and that is the last thing I want to do. My secret shall remain such … or perhaps it should have been this way,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” Floral Heart asked, confused.

“One of the reason why I hadn't slept in all this time is not only to avoid dreaming my past, but to not let Princess Luna enter in my subconscious. Sadly tonight I couldn’t help but fall asleep. And she saw enough to understand part of my past and the one secret I wanted to keep the most hidden,” explained Azrael. “And this time I couldn’t do anything to prevent it,” he added bitterly.

“This time?” she questioned.

“Last time it happened she saw many of my nightmares, but right before the dream ended I was able to delete that part of her memory; at least enough to make her doubt if what she had seen was real or not. Not that that stopped her to try to enter in my dreams again.”

“Quite the stubborn type. But for what reason was she trying to do so?” she asked, confused.

“I don’t know really, but she told me she was a great fan of mine,” he said, but then noticed the amused expression of the tree alicorn. “What’s so funny?” he asked, a little annoyed.

“Oh, nothing, I just remember a young alicorn who seemed to have crush on the night and the stars, writing several poems on the beauty of it at every turn,” she joked a little, and then got more serious. “Maybe between you two there is a bond stronger than you can imagine.”

Azrael was about to reply back when he felt the presence of someone else. It was Twilight Sparkle.

“What are you doing up, Twilight?” asked the angel of death, wondering how much the purple alicorn had heard.

“I … had a bad dream” she said, trying to find a good cover, then asked “You?”

“The same,” Azrael answered, “Go back to sleep. I’m coming.”

Twilight nodded and then left and Azrael did the same, under the watch of a pensive Floral Heart.

Author's Note:

I want to post here my thoughts on Oc's in general and why Azrael is not a Gary Stu:

and yes, the thing about OC being paired with prominent character is something that even I am not very fond of. But if such OC is written in a good way and is more than a Gary Stu/Marie Sue made to be the love interest then is not that big of a problem. Azrael is more than just a love interest for Luna, he's a character with strenght and flaws. SOD is very much focused on him as Im sure you have noticed, but it also serve to show how much strong characters are the Mane 6 and everyone around him and how much he will learn by them. He's kind of like an anti-Flash Sentry.

Comments

[Revan]

Whoa...

That was unexpected.

[Azrael the alicorn]

6185486 Trust me, there is a lot more in store for the next chapters...

[Revan]

6186271 Your Authorial Commenting style appears to be just like mine. I thought that I was the only one.

But I am not alone!!