• Published 24th Jul 2015
  • 10,194 Views, 1,496 Comments

Split Second: An Eternity Divided - wille179



Sparkle is no stranger to death. At least when you're a necromancer, death is avoidable. Or is it? With a new body and new goals, Sparkle is ready to take on the world. Sequel to Split Second.

  • ...
43
 1,496
 10,194

The Proper Procedure to Procure a Pretty Pony Princess's Power

Twilight stared at Sparkle.

Sparkle stared back at Twilight.

Thorn stared at them both.

Cobalt looked at the three of them curiously, wondering why they were staring at each other.

“I’m guessing it’s not just Thorn and me, then?” Sparkle asked.

Twilight’s stomach rumbled angrily, a passionate echo of Sparkle’s and Thorn’s own stomachs. “Definitely not.”

A general rule of thumb was that ponies, especially those that used unicorn style magic, ate food in amounts proportional to their magical power. And, while not strictly necessary for them, even alicorns like Celestia and Luna generally fit that pattern.

Sparkle and Twilight had just spent years in a place where dreams were just as real as physical matter, a place where their every material wish could come true. Unintentionally, this included keeping their stomachs comfortably full at all times, such that they rarely felt hunger.

But, seeing as nothing conjured in the afterlife’s pocket dimension could ever cross to the real world, their stomachs were forcefully emptied of everything save for a few half-digested cookies. From their perspective, it had been years since their last substantial meal, and all that hunger was coming back to them all at once. And since the plunder vines had been dealt with and Scootaloo had been returned to the orphanage, there was nothing left to immediately distract them.

“Hayburgers?” Twilight suggested.

“Nah, let’s get something a bit more meaty,” Thorn suggested.

Sparkle nodded in agreement. “Sure. I know a good place in Canterlot; I’ll pay.”

“Wait, shouldn't I pay?” Twilight asked. “I mean, besides Cobalt, I’m the only one with a paying job at the moment.”

“Twi, we’re in my timeline right now. Do you even have any bits on you?” Sparkle countered. “No? Then shut up and let your sister treat you. You can pay me back later, if you want. Besides, Cobalt pays me for tutoring him. You didn't think I was teaching him for free, did you?” Sparkle held out one of her hooves. “Come on.”

Twilight grabbed Sparkle’s hoof. “Sure.”

Sparkle looked back with one set of eyes. “Cobalt, you coming, or are you going to go your own way for now?”

“I think I’m going to head off on my own once we get to Canterlot. I’ve got a few contacts that I need to speak with. Do you mind me announcing that I’m your Sleeper to certain trustworthy circles? I won’t mention your real identity, though.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Sparkle replied. “And watch out for the death touch; I don't know if it's transferred to you as well.”

“I’ll be careful,” he replied. He stuck out a hoof and twirled one of Sparkle’s tail vines around his fetlock. “Ready.”

Sparkle nodded. Her body rapidly dissolved into black smoke, and the transformation spread to Twilight and Cobalt at their respective points of contact. Over to the side, Thorn mimicked the transformation. Now no more solid than a stormcloud, the four of them rapidly sank into the shadows.

They rematerialized in a secluded alleyway. Even before her body had finished emerging from the darkness, and well before it had finished solidifying, the portion of the cloud that was vaguely Sparkle’s horn crackled with dark energy. Had anypony been watching, they would have seen two giant unicorns, an earth pony, and a centaur appear, rather than the deities of Life and Death; such was the power of Sparkle’s illusions.

“Whoa... that was weird,” Twilight remarked. “Is that what it feels like to teleport for you?”

“You don’t actually feel the teleportation,” Sparkle replied. “That was the formlessness you were feeling. It takes some getting used to. Now come on! I’m hungry!”

Twilight merely motioned with her hoof.

Sparkle looked over at Cobalt, who nodded in thanks and trotted off to do his own thing. Then, turning in the opposite direction, Sparkle started trotting while her son and sister followed behind.


“So I have to ask, before we commit to this place that I’m thinking of,” Sparkle began, “but are you opposed to extremely traditional Griffin Empire food?”

“I’ve never even had regular griffin food,” Twilight answered as she trotted behind her sister. “But right now, I’m hungry enough to devour just about anything.”

“Heh. Well, at least this place has some more normal food if you’re not into - and pardon me while I butcher this word - skrȅroa.” She pronounced the word skree-row-ah; She knew the moment she choked out the unfamiliar griffin term that she had utterly failed to pronounce it correctly. “And no, there’s no common tongue translation.”

“What’s it like?”

“Delicious.” Sparkle turned a corner and kept trotting. This alley was even narrower than the one they had just left. “But also utterly unpalatable if you’re not fully determined to ignore its appearance take the first bite. And if you don’t eat it when you ask for it, they get really pissed off. You choke it down, or you leave with less blood than you came in with.” Twilight tried to say something, but Sparkle cut her off. “No, I’m deadly serious.”

“Meh, I could finish her portion if she doesn’t want it. They wouldn’t care then,” Thorn remarked.

Sparkle shrugged in agreement; since she was walking, the action involved a higher than usual step with her first pair of forelegs. That wouldn’t have been a problem if she only had four legs, but she had six, resulting in her unceremoniously face planting on the cobblestone street. Hoisting herself up, she muttered a few swears under her breath. “Ignore that. Anyway, you want to try this place?”

“Sure, I guess...” Twilight replied. In truth, she wasn’t sure, but her stomach was protesting too loudly for her to refuse the offer.

Sparkle’s eyes lit up, and Thorn mirrored the action to a lesser degree. “Great,” they said as one.

They turned another corner. This new path was less of a street and more of a gap between buildings. Thorn’s claws and wingtips brushed against the opposite walls even as he pulled the latter in tight; very soon, he’d be too big to come anymore.

When Sparkle stopped at a seemingly ordinary patch of wall, Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Why-”

“This place isn’t strictly above board, if you catch my drift,” Sparkle said. “But, it’s worth it. A griffin introduced me to this place when he wanted my services. It was one of the few times I said yes.” She bent down and examined a few of the bricks. Apparently finding what she was seeking, she tapped one of them thrice.

Another brick, this one about eye level, slid into the wall and moved aside. “What?”

“Password,” Sparkle muttered; from the extremely faint darkness enshrouding her horn, Twilight assumed that Sparkle was making the gruff voice’s owner hear something very different.

“How can I help you?” The voice inquired. Despite being just as gravely as before, it was noticeably calmer sounding.

“Three to see the lineup, three to dine. We might require an assistant - still undecided.”

There was a scuffle-scratch and a click. The wall soundlessly slid back, revealing its true nature as a door. “Down and to the left,” the voice said, its owner having moved out of sight as the door opened.

They walked inside, ducking so as to not hit their horns or spines on the doorframe. The moment they were inside, the door shut with the same non-sound, though the latch did click softly to announce its security. The griffin that had been standing behind the door, the owner of the voice, said, “Illusions down; I know you’re wearing them. Disguises too, if you are changelings.”

“Very well,” Sparkle acquiesced. Like shattered glass, her illusions fell away.

In that instance, Sparkle swore there was an explosion. The griffin in front of her puffed up so fast that it was practically audible. A pathetic little chirp squeezed its way out of the puff ball’s beak.

Thorn’s baritone laugh punctured the silence, and allowed the puffin to deflate back down to a griffin. Composing himself, the griffin motioned to a staircase with his mocha wing.

They descended several stories. Twilight wondered how deep they were going, for at this depth, they were likely within the mountain itself by now.

Sparkle broke the silence. “Twilight.”

“Yes?”

“Whatever you do, don’t make any more of a scene than we’re going to make already.”

And with those words settling into Twilight as if she’d swallowed a brick, they came upon a simple, black-painted wooden door. The dark goddess pushed it open with her magic.

Conversation graced their ears, though it faded fast. It seemed that they had brought silence with them, as all eyes turned to face them and all voices ceased abruptly. Sparkle walked in as if that were perfectly normal.

Of all the things Twilight expected to see, a bunch of cows milling around, being watched by several armed griffins, was not it. Cows were a rare sight in cities, and it was almost always a solitary cow, rather than the numbers here now. Even though they were as intelligent as ponies and fully capable of speech, cows as a whole had never been very particular to living in anything more than wild herds or as farm animals comparable to simple pigs. And yet here they were, underground in the heart of Canterlot.

In the time it took Twilight to process that, conversation was already starting to pick back up. She blinked, realizing suddenly that her sister and nephew were walking towards the group, looking around as if they were searching for someone in particular. Further, their eyes kept darting to each other, a sign that they were telepathically communicating.

Finally, they stopped in front of what had to be the largest cow in the room. “She’ll do,” Thorn said.

The cow seemed pleasantly surprised at this. “Me?” She mooed with joy. “Ya hear that, girls? It’s my turn!”

There was a small amount of applauding hoof-stomping, though Twilight couldn’t fathom why. Her stomach ached too much to care.

The cow led them into another room; this one was composed of many smaller rooms, each one divided with a sliding door. Leading them to an unoccupied room, furnished only with a wide table and a low, wide grill, the cow led them inside. Sparkle and Thorn sat down on the floor, and Twilight mimicked them a beat later.

“Oh, I’m so glad you picked me,” the cow said cheerfully. “Now, what can I get you?”

“Water for me,” Sparkle said.

Once the other two had given their drink order, the cow asked, “And to eat?”

“Everything you’ve got,” Sparkle said.

The cow quivered. “Everything? That is a lot of food...”

“Don’t worry; I promise we’ll eat it all. But, if you could...” Sparkle leaned in close and whispered into the cow’s ear, careful not to actually touch her.

“Of course! That is not a problem, ma’am.” The cow bowed her head. “I hope I am delicious for you!”

And with that, she hurried out of the room and shut the sliding door.

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked.

Sparkle smirked. “Why, she’s the main course.”

“She seemed really eager to be eaten,” Thorn remarked.

“I know. And did you see those flanks on her? She’s going to be so juicy.”

“Seriously, WHAT THE BUCK?” Twilight screamed.

“This is a skrȅroa restaurant. It’s for griffins who want to kill their own pray. We just delegated the killing part to the house butcher. Skrȅroa cows were engineered by the griffins over thousands of years to instinctively want to be eaten, and want to die. It’s an inborn madness they afflicted on the cows. If you don’t eat them, they eventually commit suicide. At least this way, they can die happy. And that’s why you have to eat everything they serve you; to not eat something would dishonor the cow.”

Deep in the dark goddess’s mind, where she could feel the souls of those who were dying, one soul in particular suddenly sang out to her: their cow’s. With a thought, she plucked the soul from its dying body and brought it to herself.

“That’s horrible!” Twilight yelled! “That is completely messed up!”

“If trees could talk, they’d tell you to eat their fruit. These are cows that can only breed if they volunteer to be eaten. It’s the same deal for both; a loss of themselves in order to sire progeny. It’s farming.” Sparkle paused. “Also, I am fully aware that this is highly illegal in Equestria and morally reprehensible. But honestly, I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.”


Oh, how he wished that were what had happened. As he bit into his eighth chicken sandwich with far more force than strictly necessary, Thorn imagined it as juicy, bloody cowflesh from a freshly murdered bovine, imagined that his mother was enjoying it too, and imagined his aunt’s horrified expression at the thought of eating another sapient being.

But that’s all he did.

As much as he wanted to dine like the barely restrained, civilized monster he was just below the surface, Thorn found himself sitting in a fancier-than-normal-but-still-relatively-cheap diner that catered to omnivores as well. The only thing monstrous about this particular setting was the number of sandwiches the three of them - he, his mom, and his aunt, - had devoured. Well, that and the fact that Sparkle had done an unusually shoddy job of hiding them under an illusion, leading many of the other patrons of the restaurant to jump in fright every time they saw the true forms of the three of them out of the corners of their eyes.

Besides, sitting in a diner full of jumpy ponies while doing nothing but eating wouldn't have made for a very interesting story.

After each of them devoured another three sandwiches, they finally decided to call it quits. As they got up, Sparkle hugged her sister. “I suppose you're heading home now?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied. “I really should have gotten this to go; my friends are probably worried about me and I’m just sitting here, pigging out in an alternate timeline.” The faintest hint of laughter trickled out from her supple lips. “But now that we have the afterlife to bridge the gap, I expect you to visit all me the time.”

“And you, me,” Sparkle added.

“Of course.” With a twist of her magic, something almost but not exactly a spell, but rather an exercise of raw magic, Twilight formed the portal to the afterlife. “Later, sis.”

“See you!”

The portal closed, taking Twilight with it.

A beat passed.

“Really?!” Sparkle shouted as she whirled around to her son. “Why would you ever think I’d do that to Twi? Eating cows!”

“But you aren't denying that you’d want to eat cows,” Thron quipped.

A roar of exasperation ripped its way out of Sparkle’s throat. “Of course not. You know as well as I do how much I want to get my hooves bloody at this very moment. You know that we want nothing more than to rip into the ponies of this city, drink their blood, devour their flesh, and feel their souls cross over. But we’re not going to do that, and we're not even going to imagine doing that when Twilight is anywhere near us. Got it?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Her tone and her expression softened. “Look, I know that abstract death changed us, likely for the worse, and I know that we both need to vent this hunger for destruction. You did a wonderful job of hiding it from Twilight; now we just need to hide it long enough to get Luna to teach us how to shapeshift back into our real selves without bucking everything up.”

“We wouldn't want that,” Thorn agreed. And with that, the two of them set off for the castle.


Rather than the moments it normally took to craft an illusion, Sparkle took a full two minutes to refine it. She knew that it would likely fool everyone but the princesses, but she didn't need to fool them, so that didn't matter too much. But, with the illusion in place, she and Thorn walked up to the castle’s front gate.

They strolled in without issue. None of the guards or castle staff gave the pair more than a second glance. Sparkle turned down a familiar corridor that she knew would lead to the throne room. Even if Luna wasn't in there, somepony who might know where she was would be there.

The two entered the ornate chamber, though Luna was unfortunately absent. Sparkle trotted up to a nearby guard. “Do you know where Princess Luna is?”

The guard gave her an incredulous look. “What rock have you been under? The Princesses were kidnapped by the plunder vines, and have only just escaped and returned to us. They’re running around like madmares, trying to get everything back in order. Unless the integrity of Equestria depends on you speaking to them in the next few hours, I suggest you go home and not come back for a few days.”

Sparkle glanced out the window to the now normal sky. She had forgotten that the sky had also been messed up, for by the time she and Twilight had started fighting the vines for real, the sky had already been in the process of returning to normal. Sheepishly, Sparkle realized that she hadn't even stopped to consider why the sky had been like that.

Sparkle nodded. With a quick word of thanks, she trotted off. The illusion around her then convinced the guard to pay her no more attention and move along.

Thorn walked up along side her. “Now what?”

“We wait for her,” Sparkle replied. Something caught her eye, and a devilishly playful grin bloomed on her face. Beneath the illusion, her skeletal wings shifted in anticipation. “Hey, now that I’m technically an alicorn, shouldn't I be allowed to sit on the throne?”

The devilish grin cloned itself onto Thorn’s face. “Of course, my princess.”

With childlike glee, Sparkle hopped up the short ramp, stumbled over her extra legs, regained her balance, finished climbing the ramp, and plopped down into the ruby-colored cushion of the golden throne. “Ohh... this is remarkably comfy.”

Thorn took a moment to vicariously observe the texture of the cushion through his mother’s ass, and then took the immediately succeeding moment to ponder how odd that preceding moment was in retrospect.

“You know,” Sparkle relaxedly observed, “I’m pretty sure I just set off a half dozen security spells just by sitting in this thing. Whoops.”

“Celestia must not like ponies sitting her spot,” Thorn casually remarked, dismissively waving a claw in the air.

“Yeah, and while I’d laugh at that, I’m currently finding it funnier that I’m sitting on her throne and nopony in here cares,” Sparkle countered, gazing out upon her “subjects.” Obviously, she knew that the effect was magically induced, but seeing ponies just ignore the dark goddess on the Sun’s throne did strike said goddess as humorously odd.

The throne room door opened, announcing the arrival of an irate, disheveled Princess Luna. The scowl on her face deepened when she noticed Sparkle on the throne and Thorn by her side. Sparkle wondered exactly what Luna, possibly the strongest psychic in the world, was seeing her as.

It didn’t matter, though. Sparkle tore off the illusion and hopped off the throne. She and Thorn flared their wings wide, inciting panic from the mortal ponies in the room.. “Hello, Princess Luna. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

“Death,” Luna growled with such malice that it honestly startled both of the bearers of that title. “Begone. Thou are not wanted here.”

Sparkle looked at Thorn, and he returned the glance. She asked, “Wait, did I do something to offend you? Is this about me sitting on the throne? That was just a joke...”

“Cease thy prattle, fiend. You know what you did to us!”

Sparkle realized what was going on. “Damn, I hate time travel. Princess Luna, this is the first time we’ve met from my perspective.” Technically the first time Death had met her, but that was not so for Sparkle. “Whatever I had done to you, I have yet to do to from my perspective. I just returned from the afterlife... what... an hour and a half ago? This is literally my first day on the job.”

The anger faded slightly from her eyes, but even that dying flame still possessed burning heat.

“Even possessing innocence now does not absolve thee of thy future self’s sins in our past. Thou are obligated to construct the past, lest thee damage the fabric of reality and invoke Time’s wrath. Thou will still reap our friends.”

“Ouch,” Sparkle said, wincing. “And here I was hoping that I could get some help from you. Now I see that I’m wasting my time.” She moved to leave. Silently, she thought to Thorn, “Come on. Let’s go... I don’t know where. Fuck, I can’t go back to the orphanage. You probably can’t go back to where you were staying in Cengoyle either. And since there’s no way I’m ever going to willingly go back to the Crystal Empire while the heart’s there, staying with Shiny’s out. Are we really-”

“Homeless in the real world?” Thorn finished. “Yes. So long, normal lives.”

“Then it’s the afterlife, then,” Sparkle reluctantly thought. After having been in the afterlife so long, the real world seemed so solid. Everything was real, and every sensation was crisp and clear. Even the minor aches and pains were more real. The solidity felt great. That it and the “Rhodium” identity she’d worked hard to craft were starting to crumble around her, Sparkle realized that her last chances for ever having a normal life were quickly fading away.

The whole exchange between mother and son took less time than it took for them to walk five steps. “Goodbye, Luna. We’ll show ourselves out,” they said, contralto and baritone speaking in a distorted harmony.

Luna almost let them go. Her jaw clenched as they passed her, trying to restrain her tongue, but a deep unease forced her to turn and speak. “Your first day?”

Both goddess and demigod paused. “Yes.”

“And you did not appear in the astral plane?”

“Should we have?”

Luna did not answer. Instead, she asked, “Your future self had a third body: the Sleeper. Does that individual exist yet?” As she spoke, her horn flickered with magic.

“He is elsewhere,” they answered, the alien quality to their voice fading. “But alive and part of us.”


Elsewhere in the castle, Celestia’s head perked up slightly. “Pardon me, ambassadors. Something urgent has come up. I am needed by my sister in the throne room. We will resume as soon as possible.”

The griffin and minotaur ambassadors, both here in this meeting to deal with the international ramifications of the sky’s strange behavior, nodded in understanding. A leader of a recovering nation had the right to deal with her own nation’s problems first.

As Celestia finished speaking and teleported away, the griffin remarked to the minotaur, “You know, she never said to wait here. If there is a problem, I would like to be there to offer support to our ally.”

The minotaur, a peculiarly quiet member of his race, shrugged and followed the griffin out of the meeting room.


A bedraggled Celestia appeared within the throne room with very little idea as to what she would find. Her sister’s message had been “death” and a set of teleportation coordinates that she recognized as the throne room’s. An accidental death, a medical emergency, an assassination attempt gone awry - all of those passed through her head.

She did not expect Death, the personification.

“Lady and Lord Death, to what do we owe the unexpected visit?”

“A fool’s errand,” Sparkle answered. Her voice was tight and her tail vines were whipping around irritably behind her, a fact that Celestia immediately picked up on. “We came for help - admittedly at a very inconvenient time, it seems - and we realized that Luna is unwilling to help us. As it is unlikely that she’d ever be willing to help us, we’ll see ourselves out.”

Celestia remembered something. “Hold on, just a moment, Death. Which version of you am I speaking with? I’ve spoken with different versions of you over the years.”

Sparkle blinked, and then filed away the fact that Celestia knew she was a time traveler for later. “The first.”

“Is that so?” Celestia remarked. “Humor me with this, but would you describe yourself as ‘desperate’ right now?”

“A bit, yes,” Sparkle replied.

“Luna, it’s time to pay up,” Celestia said, turning her attention to her sister. “Please, do whatever she’s asking for.”

Luna took a step back. “What? No!”

“Luna, she could have let Canterlot be destroyed; instead, she saved it. Whatever it is they want, we owe them that. If we don’t repay our debts, then what do you think she’ll do?”

“She is right here,” Sparkle muttered under her breath. Celestia didn’t seem to notice. Still, the princess was saying a lot of useful information, so Sparkle took the effort to try and memorize the conversation.

“Fine,” Luna relented.

Celestia turned back to Sparkle and Thorn. “I apologize for my sister. She is exhausted from our ordeal earlier today, and we’re both a little short tempered. Anyway, what is it you request?”

“Luna knows a true transformation spell, one apparently strong enough to overpower our tendency to return to our original, uninjured forms. I need it. Also, I need to know when and how I saved Canterlot if I am ever going to go back and save Canterlot.”

Both princesses looked surprised, as if they were expecting her to ask for more. “Truly?” Luna asked. “That is all? To be honest, I expected more than you to ask for my personal spell.”

“Temporary transformation is so utterly outside my skill range that I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Sparkle admitted. “And I’m the one with the magic talent in my trio.”

“Then it is good that this spell is so elegantly simple,” Luna remarked. Her horn lit up, and the light that poured out drew a simple chain of unicornian glyphs.

Sparkle read it once, then twice, and then said, “Excuse me.” She teleported over to a wall and promptly smashed her head against it. Repeatedly. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Trotting back over, Sparkle groaned. “That was really all there was to it? Maker, I’m an idiot. Thank you, Princess Luna. And thank you, Princess Celestia.”

“You are welcome,” Celestia replied.

“And you are even now,” Luna added.

“Not from my perspective; I owe you two,” Sparkle countered. “So, when and how did I save Canterlot?”

“Two years ago, during the battle of Canterlot, you appeared before me in the form of an ordinary unicorn mare, which I now realize must be the form you take from Luna’s spell. You offered me the use of the afterlife to protect the city from my regeneration when I was shot with this.” Celestia’s horn flashed with sunlight gold magic. A broken longbow materialized in her magical grip, one Sparkle immediately recognized.

“They tried to kill you with the Conquest Longbow?” Sparkle asked, taking the bow her master crafted from Celestia with her magic.

“Not tried; did. The arrow struck me through the open portal, but you closed it before I could burn. Solar fire tends to leave craters the size of cities, as the land that became Horseshoe Bay can attest.”

“Wow...” Sparkle gaped, trying and failing to imagine an explosion that big. “So that’s the real favor.”

“What do you mean?” Luna asked.

“I was there, in Canterlot, that day. I met my future self, but I didn’t know that that’s what she was doing there. I also didn’t know that she was future me at the time, but that’s besides the point. I saved my own mortal life.” She shook her head. “I really need to start charting out everything I did in the past. And then figure out how to get there.”

“You don’t yet know how to time travel? But-”

“Tia,” Luna interrupted. “She ascended today.”

“Oh dear. That complicates things. But... that makes no sense. That’s not... but Apollo said...” She blinked, and her eyes refocused on Sparkle. “Who are you?”

“A dead mare. A dead drake. A stallion who’d lived in death. A centaur’s shattered remains. The daughter of a tyrant. The son of a soul eater. A parent killer thrice over. Take your pick.”

“Your name,” Celestia clarified.

“Obsidian Knife.”

Celestia frowned. “That still makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Sparkle countered. “You’re just missing some of the pieces of the puzzle. Anyway, I’m sure you two are busy mares. I have what I need - thank you - so my Keeper and I will be off. I’m sure we’ll meet again, someday.”

She turned on a dime and walked out the throne room door, Thorn trailing behind her. They passed by a griffin and a minotaur, who watched them pass in stunned silence.

“I think that went well,” Sparkle said. She noted with some satisfaction that she was still levitating the one of the few cursed bows Black Hammer had ever made. Celestia hadn’t managed to ask for it back before they left. She quickly tucked the broken bow into her pocket dimension.

With a synchronous flair of their collective magic, Sparkle and Thorn activated Luna’s transformation spell, which surged inwards into their own bodies before the magic ever became visible. They started shrinking immediately. When the spell finished, an ordinary, black unicorn mare - Rhodium’s adult form - and an ordinary preteen dracolich stood where the divine pair had been. Looking over themselves through each other’s eyes, Sparkle and Thorn enjoyed the feeling of being ordinary again, even if it was only temporary.

Sparkle hopped around on her four hooves. “Alright! That’s done. Let’s see, what’s next?”

Author's Note:

Pre-read by Dream Seeker.