• Published 30th Aug 2015
  • 1,405 Views, 59 Comments

Do Not Go Gentle - ShinigamiDad



Death's Harbinger needs Luna and Twilight's help to solve a centuries-old mystery

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Why?

Dawn was breaking through the windows of Luna’s chambers as she and Reaper reappeared, startling the Night Guard. The uniformed sentries flared their wings in alarm and fell back from the cloaked form.

“Princess!” the Watch Commander shouted in alarm. “Who is this?! I...I…”

He stumbled back, wide-eyed and panting.

Reaper sighed: “Like I said--‘freak-out’…”

Luna stepped between her subordinate and her guest, and addressed the sweating, trembling guard ponies: “Leave us. I shall be fine, and your presence here would only cause you discomfort.”

They nodded gratefully, and hastily retreated through the chamber entrance.

Luna considered Reaper for a moment.

“I, too, have known ponies’ fear and terror. Does it not bother you?”

Reaper shrugged. “It comes with the job. I understand their fear: all things that live recoil from death--it takes a mighty effort to overcome that base instinct. It’s nothing personal.” He smiled wanly.

Luna took a seat among her cushions, and gestured for Reaper to do likewise.

“I still do not entirely understand. You believe the killer has evaded you all these years by striking the very old or deathly ill at the last moments of their lives, entering through their dreams.”

Reaper nodded.

“And since I was not there, in their dreams, to shield the victims or--failing that--take note of the attacks, the murderer passed through unnoticed, and struck without you being aware, ‘blotting out’ the poor ponies’ very essences.”

Reaper chewed his lower lip. “That’s about the size of it.”

Luna tapped her chin distractedly, staring at the ceiling.

“But I have been back for some time. How has the killer evaded me?” she queried.

“I think he, she, whatever has not killed since your return. Not until last night, at any rate. I think the killer took a chance. It appears they have a spell or artifact that allows them to obscure their presence for the brief time it takes them to slay their victim.”

“Dew Drop,” Luna said quietly. “But why?”

Reaper’s eyebrows arched. “Why what? Why kill? Why now? Why Dew Drop?”

“Yes--yes to it all!” She stamped the floor in anger. The metallic ringing echoed sharply through the sun-washed chamber.

“I was cruel and monstrous as Nightmare Moon, but I never killed! What is the reason for not merely killing, but ‘blotting out,’ as you put it? It is not to spread fear, as I would have done, since nopony has ever known of it until now.”

Reaper turned toward the window and squinted in the shaft of sunlight that was bathing him. He cast no shadow, and the light seemed to simply cease as it touched his cloak.

“Why Dew Drop? is the better question.”

“How can that be the better question?” she demanded impatiently.

“Because she was not at the end of her life through illness or infirmity!” he shouted.

“She was young and wholly unprepared to die--you remarked on the vitality of her dreams yourself. You saw how she had crawled away from the bed, then pissed herself in her final terror! Why take the risk of ripping away the essence from one who will fight enough to leave an echo?”

He pointed at the Princess. “Why take the chance you might spot them, spell or no spell? What’s changed for the killer?”

Luna looked away and took a deep, ragged breath.

She spoke slowly: “I have seen many dark dreams in my time, and have been responsible for many more. Yet I cannot recall anypony harboring a fantasy as bottomless and hopelessly dark as this.”

“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure you’ve witnessed the results, Princess, fleeting though they may have been. However, I suspect at the time they simply passed as more mere night terrors, hardly worth your notice.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.

“You mean when I was Nightmare Moon.”

“Exactly: what was one more awful, brief dream about death to you then? Why, many of the dreams may not have even been all that awful, coming as they did to the enfeebled, comatose, and mortally ill.”

“Fine,” Luna spat out, coldly, “let us say that it is so. Why would the killer persist, now that I patrol ponies’ dreams once again?”

“They trust their artifact or spell, and their need is great enough to not only risk a brief incursion through the dreamscape, but great enough to risk my catching wind of it. I keep sticking on that point: why kill the young and vital? Why Dew Drop?”

Luna faced Reaper squarely. “You focus too much on the end, and not enough on the long path the killer took to get to it. Surely they must have left clues during that long journey. Clearly they did, for you have harbored uneasy suspicions for some time, yes?”

He stood up: “Yes, but there was no way to follow-up on those suspicions--until now.”

“What do you mean? How do you propose to unravel centuries of obscured threads?”

“I have memories of all those half-remembered “phantom” ponies who left their echos at the moment of their owners’ deaths. You have memories of all the death dreams of those who died during your thousand years of exile. Somewhere the two must overlap--likely many times!” He took a step forward toward Luna.

She stood uncertainly, and took a tentative step back as Reaper continued to advance.

“What do you intend to do?” she asked hesitantly.

“Princess, you and I need to take a little field trip down Memory Lane…”