The Lullaby of the Lich

by Gearhorn

And then, STUFF!

After my little “meal”, I sat there at the bottom of that hole and just relaxed. I had my forelegs crossed behind my head using my hoofs as a rather hard pillow. Honestly, the dirt would have been softer, but the familiarity of the pose brought a comfort of its own. While I was down there I let my mind wander. I thought about the family that I had left behind. They would be better off without me and I without them. They wouldn’t have to keep up their paper thin ruse of being the good parents around other adults and I had finally found a place that was interesting. I mean magic; just think about it. With it, the world was still the place of limitless possibilities that earth was but better. I mean, all the things that could be done through science, magic could probably do better. Heck, it may even be faster as well. No, it would very likely be faster.

The thought of magic brought me back to the pile of dragon bones in front of me. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t just bones I had left its eyes, brain, and a lot of the ligaments in the joints in tact. I am not one to waste, but my store of magical energy was full from eating the rest of the dragon, and I didn’t need what was left for myself. I had a flesh and blood body though it wasn’t really living. I mean it had a heart, muscle tissue, skin, and blood but it wasn’t living. It was only an imitation. A body made designed to let me blend in.

All that aside, I had the dead dragon in front of me, or, perhaps, below me, seeing as I was laying down. Now, I knew a spell in order to animate it, but that would only last for a few days. I needed something more though. Killing a creature capable of carrying a pony every few days is a little more than impractical. So I did the only reasonable thing anyone does when searching for answers. I opened the book that had been downloaded into my head and started reading. “The Necronomicon” as it was called was a rather dull book. It had only the necessary amount of pictures, very very few jokes(at least I think that one was a joke), and was mostly condensed information written in small text in such a way as to completely bore its reader. In short it was exactly like a high school textbook for a undead lich. If such a book were still in production.

It took hours and hours of reading before I finally found what it was that I was looking for, but then I read on some more and found something even better than what I was looking for. Apparently it was possible to inscribe magical runes. In order to do that I would have to use a blade made of my own blood and systematically carve several hundred runes into the dragon's bones. Not only would it be a tedious process with the whole trying to use my blood tendril to carve small runes on the bones, but it would also mean that I wouldn’t be able to access all of my magic unless I undid the spell on the dragon. Seeing as how the dragon would constantly draw magic from part of my own magic creating two separate pools of magic for itself. One of the magic pools being passive magic. This would be used by the dragon to heal, use its five senses (remember dead things don’t feel a lot), and slowly grow more like it’s living self was. This includes but is not limited to skin, blood, organs, life(requires original soul), sentience(requires original soul), being able to grow, and a limited amount of free will. Can’t have the dragon trying to kill me...again. The active magic pool would be used for things like physical activities, flying, thinking (when it had evolved enough for that) and last but not least, FIRE!

After my little study session was over, it was time to start getting to work; but first I needed to test out my blood tendrils. Picking up a shattered bone from one of the fallen skelly ponies, in my mouth I turned around and cut myself along my back, putting the cut a few inches below and parallel to my spine. I then turned around and made a similar cut on the other side. With the cuts complete I tried to summon forth the blood tendrils from both of the cuts in my back. They came out like strange blobs that couldn’t hold a definite shape and were barely able to hold together seeing that I pulled the blob on my right side back into its cut and used a bit of magic to heal the wound shut, which turned out to be remarkably easy to do with undead flesh.

With the second wound healed, the remaining blade easily took form. I then started to carve on some of the broken pony bones with the blade seeing just how easy it was to make the necessary runes with it - not easy. That’s not to say it was impossible by any stretch. It just took complete and utter focus and time - lots of time.

Turning back to the dragon bones I released the magic to most of the skeletons leaving only a handful to scout the area and another handful to watch out for predators that could attack me from different hidden position. Remember kids apex predators are attracted to blood and though I drank most of the blood there was still a lot of it...everywhere. After sorting out the perimeter security I set about carving the runes into the dragon bones. Fifteen minutes later I was done with one bone and perhaps a dozen runes. Yeah finger joints are pretty fast. Only every other bone left. “Fuck this is going to take forever!” and it did. I was carving on those bones for two days to etch all the bones and another one spent checking and rechecking to make sure that all the runes were done correctly. If I did this wrong at best the dragon would become useless to me. At worst I could not have proper control over it and get killed by it. Not to mention the possibility of it exploding and sending bone shrapnel at me.

Finally, satisfied with my work, I started to channel power into the dragon. As I started casting the spell, something I didn’t have to do with the other basic undeads. The air around me started to stir, I could feel the energy leave me, and flow into the bone dragon, in doing so my fur started to change color shifting from light pink to crimson, with eerie light emitting from me. Slowly the spell drew on my magic reservoir; sapping me of energy. As the spell hit approached its apex; I started to shake. My entire body weakening, from the shear amount of energy leaving my body. The wind around me picked up into a small tornado throwing around pony bones occasionally sending some careening into me. The light emitting from my skin had reached a near blinding level and as the spell hit its I collapsed, to my knees, not letting the spell go. I was not about to waste all that effort and energy. I would see this through, even if it killed me. Something it came very near to doing, as the spell ended, and before me stood a bone dragon. Seeing this, I allowed myself a smile, and then darkness swallowed my vision.

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When I awoke sometime later, I was somehow out of the hole laying on my back with the bone dragon nuzzling me trying to get me to wake up. “Oh. Hi little guy.” I said weakly. Rolling over, and trying to go back to sleep. *nudge**nudge**nudge* “What is it?” I said quickly switching over to see through his senses for a second. Sitting on a stump was Deseray spinning a really large bone around absentmindedly, she looked really bored. Seeing me wake up, her face instantly brightened, and she started to spin the bone faster while raising it above her haid. This, apparently gave her enough lift, that she came off the stump and gently flew over to me, before sitting down beside me.Upon reaching me she spun the bone even faster, and threw it at a tree cleaving the poor thing in two. “Hi” I said lamely still laying down. Only turning my head enough to see her out of the corner of my eye.

“Hi...” she said creating a really awkward silence. With me looking up at her (which was starting to cause a crick in my neck) and her looking down at me. “...” Ah more silence. “So I see you managed to pull off the spell ‘Binding Bones’” she said awkwardly

“Yup.....OH! Hey Dess why am is my fur pink, and my hair like Pinkie Pies, but with Twilight's colors? And why is the stuff so dang fluffy?” I asked.

“Hmmmm” she said thoughtfully suddenly reaching down and pulling me into a hug. Standing back up with me still in her embrace. “You really are fluffy!” she exclaimed.

“Thanks.” I deadpanned.

“You’re welcome!” she said putting way too much happiness into her words, and wearing a really wide smile. I tried to facehoof at this point but I could hardly even wiggle in her bear hug.

“Would you mind sitting me down, so that I can inflict bodily harm onto myself, in the form of a facehoof?” I asked calmly

“Silly, I’m not going to set you down.” Still way too happy.

“Why not?” It was getting a little awkward being held near face to face while carrying on a conversation.

“Because you’re a fluffy filly!”

“Oh. That’s understandable I guess.....WAIT WHAT!?!”

“You’re fluffy?” she asked quizzically.

“No! The other thing!”

“Hey! No need to yell my ears are right here.” she said turning her head so that her ear was inches from my face.

“Fine but why did you call me a filly?” I think part of me knew the answer, but refused to accept it.

“Ohhhhhhh! You're a filly silly.” At this my brain shut down, and my right eye started to twitch. I noticed tears starting to form in the corner of my eyes. I felt my lip quivering. Oh god I was going to cry; I could feel it. Why was this happening? I hadn’t cried since my sister’s funeral. Why was I crying now, over what would amount to a awkward time with bathrooms, or perhaps going through puberty again? WAIT! Puberty as a girl....I needed to cry now. “I guess, you are a little emotionally unstable right now. With you being in a new body, a filly, and the lich thing probably doesn’t help. They are known for being a tad bit crazy. Are you going crazy?” I just stare at her. “Right. Ok. Don’t ask someone if they are crazy sincerely, never ends well. So have you tried out the new body much” I had stopped crying a bit by now.

“No.”

“Oh, I didn’t even notice you’re draconic eyes. Gues you got them from him.” She said pointing at the dragon. “They look pretty nice on ya thou.”

“Thanks.” I said trying to hide behind my hair, while blushing madly. Sadly my hair seemed to be preoccupied being a fluffy cotton candy ball. “So why a filly?” I managed to ask.

“Well that’s simple, when you are this adorable” She said hugging me. “No one expects you to be a creature of darkness, and I wanted to see how you would react. Totally was not expecting mental breakdown. I guess I owe The Doctor. Seeing as how he won and all.”

“Wait you know, THE DOCTOR?!?!” I said ignoring the fact she placed bets on me.

“Yeah, and no you can’t meet him.”

“Why not?” I was pouting after hearing this but come on it’s ‘The Doctor’.

“Gods don’t like having to mess with mortals all the time. They say something about you being tiring, a waste of energy, and annoying. And they have a point, takes quite a bit of energy to interfere directly with mortals. Especially back on earth.” She said as if it didn't really concern her.

“So why did you spend so much time on earth? I mean you interfered with mortals all the time then.”

“I got bored.” This was actually her reasoning for a LOT of things. Usually dangerous things.

“Ok.”

“Anyway I’m gonna have to show up around ya less. Some of the other gods are getting all snippity about me spending too much time on the game board.”

“What?”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure one of the humans brought here could fill you in. Anyway I got to go. Ta-Ta!” With that she disappeared in a flash of light. Dropping me on my flank. Yes she had been hugging me the whole time.

With her gone I was alone in the big creepy forest. With only a bone dragon, necromancy, a book in my head, my wits, and a sudden want to hug someone or pony.

New Objective Found

Find a village and hug soft looking strangers.

Hey don’t look at me like that, I’m a filly now. I can hug random strangers....right?

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Author Note:

Wanted to apologize for taking so long, Sorry. Also this is a bit of a slow chapter, things should speed up a bit after this.

Disclaimer:

I do not own MLP. YET!

P.S. Forgot to give credit to RichHap and PashaPup. They helped me a lot with the first half of this chapter, with grammatical errors. Then taking that and repressed high school memories as a example I tried to improve what I had for the second half.

Comments

[TheEnemyCube]

Hug soft strangers!