"Shining, when did you acquire wings?"
"Just last night, actually." Shining said, rather matter-of-factly, a prideful smirk adorning his muzzle. Celestia's eyes went wide.
"Auntie, are you okay?" Cadence asked, her face showing concern for her foster mother. She stepped forwards, helping guide a still shocked Celestia to her chair once more, before rejoining her husband, the stallion draping one of his massive wings over the mare, comforting her.
"You... I... okay." Celestia sighed, leaning back. "Are you still... you know..."
"Dead?" Shining asked, his face matching that of his beloved, concerned.
"Yes. Dead." Celestia confirmed. Now that she looked at the stallion... he was FAR different than when she had last seen him. As an alicorn, she was always tall, and was incredibly strong and nimble, betraying the sensual form that her genes bestowed upon her...
Shining's form was... less hide, more show. He was easily taller than her, by a good foot at least. His mane, while still blue and teal, was beginning to dull, a few strands of bone-white hair already showing amongst them, one of the tell-tale signs of necromancy. The stallion's form rippled with muscle, his ascent into alicornhood definitely... improving his physique. Not that he was ever chubby or stocky, he was just more... built. Defined. The wings that adorned his back, however, was what scared her the most.
He had dragon wings, rather than the traditional feather-clad wings her and her sister were blessed with. While intimidating, the real fear behind them was their size. Their wingspan could easily envelop Luna, Cadence, and her, and still have room to stretch, if her quick calculations were correct. Even as he draped his right wing over Cadence, the appendage was still less than half open, Cadence covered comfortably by pale, lightly-furred flesh.
"Undead is a more proper term, my lady." Celestia turned to her right, snapped out of her daze. She saw nothing but the blue lower robes of the lich. She looked up, to be met with the mage's rather... sinister smirk. The lich looked down upon the solar alicorn, mentally preparing a silencing spell... just in case.
She may have my loyalty, being my master's superior... but I am bound to the Lich King... he comes first.
No matter the cost...
"Yes... Cadence did tell me you were... a... necromancer." Celestia said, her gaze traveling to the Lal'theron, who sat motionless at the table across from her, the revenant electing to watch the conversation from afar. The archlich chuckled.
"Yes, I am. If you wish me to explain myself, I can." he grimly replied, a serious look replacing the smirk that recently adorned his nearly expressionless skull. Celestia thought for a moment, pondering what to say. Necromancy wasn't OUTLAWED, but using it to extend life...
"Please, Kel'Thuzad." she smiled politely, her hoof raising to motion to the seat beside her. The lich bowed, before slowly, and rather humorously, lowering his ribcage into the chair.
"Now princess, what would you like to know?" he asked, a scholarly look adorning his face as his eyes dimmed somewhat. Celestia opened her mouth...
Then closed it slowly...
What did she want to know?
"How did you... come to be in the service of my nephew and niece?" Celestia asked, the question catching the archlich, admittedly, off-guard. He recovered quickly, to his credit, and spoke.
"I was... summoned by you nephew, as he had contacted and received his power from..." the lich turned his eyes subtly to his lord, who nodded lightly in agreement, the couple having retaken their seats at the table.
"Death."
"Oh, how is my brother?" Celestia's smile blossomed, happy that her brother had finally chosen to... pass on.
Several jaws dropped, only one of them not doing so.
Kel'Thuzad grinned, his calculations and theories playing out perfectly before him.
I had a feeling they may have been... related. Alicorns all have a driving force, an aspect of nature that they are connected to. His must have been death...
"Y-Y-Your b-brother is D-Death?" Cadence whimpered, the mare scrunching in beside her husband. Celestia chuckled.
"Not by direct blood, I meant brother as a metaphor. All alicorns are related at some point along the chain. Me and Luna are direct sisters. Thanatarius is my cousin by blood." Celestia explained, the shell-shocked alicorns across the table struggling to process the information.
"H-How did he... die?" Shining asked, his breath rushing back into his lungs. Celestia simply laughed.
"Thanatarius never died, he just... moved on. We never fully die." Celestia beamed.
"I... you... what?" Shining sputtered, the scrambled information the solar princess forking his way confusing him greatly.
"Oh... forgive me. I forget we do not teach this in modern schools. Thanatarius is old. VERY old. At least several thousand years my senior." she explained. "It would seem that he is ready to move on!" she squealed, her happiness alien to the beings that cannot understand kinship that spans millennia, and the joy that comes from hearing such news.
"Move... on? But you just said..."
"Not die, Cadence. Just... move on. To the next world. The next life..." she silently prayed for Thanatarius, wherever he was, wishing him a safe journey...
"But wait... if he's moving on..." Shining wondered aloud, finally putting the pieces together.
"He has chosen an alicorn to pass his power down to. You, Shining Armor." Celestia beamed, her heart overjoyed to have another PERMENANT addition to the Royal Family.
"I-I'm the Alicorn of Death?!" Shining exclaimed, raising his hooves to his muzzle, looking down at the lifeless appendages in shock. Celestia giggled, and continued.
"Judgment and Death, Shining. Thanatarius was... the final say. The last pony a questionable soul goes to when they die. The say between the Elysian Fields or Tartarus." Celestia beamed, the morbid task another fact of life to her, but a horrifying reality to Shining.
"B-But I don't want to be Death! I just wanted to stay with Cadence!" he panicked, his heart raising inside his dormant chest. Celestia just laughed once again.
"Oh, Shining, you'll never lose Cadence. Cadence is the Alicorn of Love. She and you have bonded many times before, according to history." she explained, her muzzle adorned with a gentle smile. "Now that you're both immortal, however, you truly never will lose her..."
"Ever."
Cadence beamed, squealing with joy as she hugged her smaller body against the stallion's barrel. Shining chuckled, embracing the mare, his wings wrapping protectively around her.
Kel'Thuzad sat back, all the while thinking. He had never been an overly religious man, but he did believe in some sort of afterlife. Learning that reincarnation is a fact in this... plane of existence, was not surprising. What surprised him were the implications.
If Celestia had known he was to ascend... why would... I must converse with Shining later this evening...
For now, the lich joined the celebration, thinking all the while...
Ah, um, okay.
6670548 Good okay or bad okay?
Was kinda iffy on including this bit, but it ties SOOOO much into the story that it kind of HAS to be there...
So... yeah...
Well then, shining is the god of death, ok I can go with that also the god of death and the goddess of love are together, a match that goes hand in hand lol
6670582 I can go with that it fits in the story line, I just can't really put anything into words except that
I liked that. It is so very, very goth.
6670637 A little darkness behind an otherwise innocent, loving phrase...
Glad someone caught it...
6670638
Yeah, that made me giggle a little. This story is about to put on black eyeliner and start playing the My Chemical Romance.
6670612 Together forever...
6670646
6670656 Yep, definitely Cadence.
6670663
One of my favourite myths. Ishtar goes into the underworld to tell Ereshkigal (Death, naturally) to release her lover, or else. It all matches up amusingly well with this story.
6670668 Well... except for the fact that Death is boning (hah, I'm so hilarious) Love.
6670669
Well, he wasn't before she bugged Old Death into that, though, so it kind of still works.
6670672 lol
i love how this story comes out daily with short chapters rather than longer more time consuming ones. it's like the webcomics i read. each day there is a new one but you don't sit reading for the next hour.
6670881 That's how I like doing it. Keeps my creative juices flowing.
well... Shinning, you're boned
shinning done goofed by putting on that helmet. look what he's gotten himself into because of it!
"Cadence! I can't believe you've been cheating on me! With ME of all people! "
Okay, at this point, I don't think I can bother trying to point out every time you should have used a comma instead of a period at the end of a quote. That's pretty much your one consistent mistake.
your