Starlight Glimmer (Accidentally) Raises the Dead

by SockPuppet

Chapter 3

Starlight used a flash of magic to light a candle, then sat on the grass. She levitated a rubber tourniquet tight around her left foreleg, let the vein pop up, and inserted the needle—“ow, dangit”—and drew a pint of fresh blood.

As she waited for the blood to draw, she looked around. Leaves rustled quietly in the wind. She smelled pollen and wildflowers, the scent brought down from the foothills by the wind off the peaks. The spring night was cooler than the last several, but still nice.

She used a trivial spell to force her eyes to adjust to the darkness faster, and under the full moon, she could see well.

It seemed to be getting colder, though. Rapidly.

After the pint blood bag was full, she released the tourniquet, stood, and blinked against a moment of dizziness. “Whoa! Head rush.”

You haven’t had a rush yet, baby, said the book. But try to keep your head!

“The blood’s not written about anywhere in you. Which spell needs it?”

It’s more like insurance, the book said. Nopony reads the fine print in their insurance policy, don’t sweat it. Two hours until midnight. Get digging.

Out of respect to her sister, Starlight didn’t use an excavation spell. She levitated the shovel and slowly exhumed Sunrise’s tiny coffin. It took most of the two hours, and left a tall pile of earth next to the grave. Starlight heaved the dirt right, not left, so that it didn’t pile up onto grandma Firestar’s grave.

After she finished, her breathing was still regular. Thanks to her morning runs, she was in excellent physical condition. The colts in school liked lean muscle, after all.

Starlight didn't levitate the coffin. It was too precious. She stretched out on the ground, reached down into the hole, and lifted it with her forehooves.

It was so small. It was so light. The pink wood was still firm, preserved by spells and lacquer to protect it against groundwater. She smelled wet dirt, but not corruption.

“Little sis...” Starlight said. “I’m here. I’ve already got a cutie mark. I’m not going to run off on you, like somepony once did to me.”

She thought of Sunburst, then looked at the coffin. “Don’t you run off on me, when you get to that age, sissy. You pegasus foals go to Cloudsdale for flight camp, but they all come back.”

Open it, said the book.

“How?”

Blast it.

“I’m not—are you crazy? I’m not doing that to Sunrise. She probably... oh feathers, she's probably all dried out and dusty. I’ve got to be gentle.”

Starlight levitated the candle close, bringing its light. “Screws.”

Crack! She teleported out.

The saddlebags, shovel, candle, grimoire, pint of blood, and tiny coffin sat alone, under the mare in the moon. Dew nucleated on the blades of grass in the rapidly dropping temperature.

Crack! She teleported back, levitating a cross-head screwdriver taken from dad’s antique-fixing tools.

How boring, said the book.

“Blast not, waste not,” Starlight said. Her levitation made quick work of the screws, and suddenly the lid was loose. A puff of smelly air escaped from under the lip.

Twenty minutes till midnight. Take a breather. Can you draw another pint of blood?

She teleported away and back, now levitating another empty blood draw kit.

She was spending her teleportation profligately. That would be a problem, soon, but she was too young and inexperienced to know that.

“Why? Your instructions have gone from zero pints to two pints. I’m bigger than mom, but I’m still not that big. I've got no body fat at all. I can only spare so much blood.”

Look at the scars on your wrists, said the book. You obviously thought you could spare all your blood, after our last visit to this graveyard.

"I could try Mr. Black Smith's forge,” Starlight said. “That might burn you out. Oh! His basic oxygen furnace. That newfangled thing burns hot.”

Take another pint, ordered the book.

"Nope. I'm too woozy already."

Sunrise has been on the other side of the mortal veil thirteen years. It's going to take a lot of magic to bring her back. Hematurgy is powerful, and you're blood is as magical as an alicorn's, baby.

"I think you're screwing with me."

Don't you love your sister? Don't you love your mom?

Impulse control! Not our Starlight's speciality, is it?

Starlight grabbed the tourniquet again and drew another pint. That took until about two minutes after midnight. She could smell the magic swelling, like smoke from a forest fire, but it didn’t tickle her nose, and it made her horn tingle, so Starlight knew it was entirely in her head.

She shivered in the cold.

Open the coffin.

Starlight stood with her four hooves spread, and shook her head like somepony trying to shoo away gnats. She'd taken too much blood—dizziness swelled around her. She thought she might fall off the ground.

"I think I should put some of my blood back."

Too late. It's past midnight. You've already missed peak power. Five more minutes and you'll have to wait a whole month.

Starlight levitated the coffin lid up. The stench wasn't as bad as she expected. But it still stank.

She looked at the tiny skeleton. The flesh was all gone, rotted to dust over thirteen years. Sunrise, born a six-month fetus, was barely the size of one of Starlight's hooves.

The body was on its back, and the matchstick-thin bones of embyronic pegasus wings spread to either side of the miniscule torso.

Starlight's vision fogged with tears. Her throat thickened. "Sunrise...."

Dump the blood into the coffin, baby. One pint into the coffin, one into the hole.

Gnawing her lip and tucking her ears down against her head, Starlight levitated up the folding pocketknife, slashed the bags open, and dumped the blood, like the book had said. The blood glowed light turquoise and began to bubble in the magical background field swirling between Starlight and the grimoire. The simmering blood stank like nothing the herbivorous pony had ever smelled before, and she swallowed down against vomiting.

Good filly, baby, said the book. Best student I've ever had.

"How many students have you had?"

The book flipped itself often and riffled its pages, past the demonology chapter, past the todash chapter, past the torture chapter, past the cutie mark control and mind control chapter, to the necromancy chapter. A new leaf of paper grew with a flash of light turquoise magic. I didn't know if I could trust you, baby. Here's the real spell. Lucky number thirteen. Cast it quick!

"I haven't read it!"

No time, baby. It's four whole minutes after midnight. Everything you've got, into the page. Now, you stupid purple lunatic!

Indecisive, for once in her life, Starlight pawed at the dirt with her left forehoof. The months-old suicide-attempt scars just above her forehooves burned in the magic field. Her tail thrashed and her ears pricked up. She didn't trust that book—she knew it was evil. Starlight made bad decisions. Even Starlight knew that.

Let’s be honest, just between you and me, Starlight was mentally ill, totally around the bend, untreated and in need of antipsychotic medication, but evil? Not Starlight. If mom had put her on lithium and antipsychotics, and gotten her counseling, those ‘Our Town’ and time-travel fiascos would never have happened. But, unfortunately, Sire's Hollow had a surgeon, not a psychiatrist, and the surgeon was blinded by love. That's why medical ethics frowns on treating close family, after all. Nopony can have the cold-bloodedness medicine requires when it's your only daughter.

But, even in those crushing depths of her mental illness, Starlight was smart—the smartest pony west of Canterlot, one of the top dozen in Equestria—and perceptive. Starlight knew the necronomicon wanted to lead her astray and corrupt her. Destroy her life and her love and her soul. She knew it was evil, evil and unabashed about it. Proud of being evil.

Unfortunately, Starlight honestly believed she had the magical power and magical intuition to make up for her lack of formal education and training. After all, never in her life, not once, had she been within miles, within hundreds of miles, of a stronger spellcaster. She knew that. So far as she knew, from her flawed perspective growing up in a podunk provincial town, she was the most powerful unicorn in the history of the world.

—but casting a spell you've never even read? Even a unicorn kindergartener knows that’s about the same as climbing into a windowless cart because a stranger offered you candy.

The spells you memorized, baby, those are animate dead spells. You think your mom wants a living corpse? A zombie?

"Don't say the Z-word around my sister!" A four-foot gout of flame erupted from her horn. The world went dark as her pupils contracted in rage.

This spell, baby, this spell is the ‘raise the dead’ spell. Resurrection, my little pony! That's why I needed so much blood, baby. This spell is the real deal. The bee's knees. The zombie’s moan. The were-cat’s meow. This is the spell Celestia wants to keep to herself, the selfish, manipulative blowhard! You’ll have alicorn wings by morning.

“I don’t want wings, I want my sister!” Starlight snorted, flicked her head and tail. She felt an urge to pee herself in terror and she fought against it. The cold air burned her eyes and nose.

Tick-tock, baby! Thirty seconds until it’s too late! Don’t you feel the magic waning? Don't you love your little sister?

Starlight was about to call the whole thing off, cover up the evidence and slink back home and drink herself stupid, and then the book found the words Starlight could not possibly resist:

Don’t you love your mom?

Impulsive? Oh yeah, that’s Starlight Glimmer in one word. Her indecision melted, going, gone.

She charged her horn, reared back, and blasted the spell book’s page all her magic, with everything she had.

And, c'mon—this is Starlight Glimmer we're talking about. Even down two pints of blood and up most of a fifth of vodka, 'everything she had' is apocalypse-level magic. Think about what she would do a decade later when Discord, on the School of Friendship’s buckball pitch, called her incompetent and power hungry.

Standing in that graveyard, she was at least ten times as emotional, and our Starlight’s magic is all about emotion.

It was a spell to crack the bones of the world, to sunder the fabric of reality, and to go into the history books.

It was too bad, really.

---

The turquoise glow filled the valley and lit up the sky over Sire's Hollow, and lit the undersides of the high cirrus clouds glowed. Good thing all the townsponies were asleep.

All but two townsponies were asleep.

One was a teenaged filly, sneaking home from a midnight liaison with her secret, and older, special somepony. She was trotting happily, taking the long way home in the pleasant spring air, blond tail and mane bouncing, adjusting her red bow with her magic, humming absently to herself, enjoying her postcoital glow, when the sidelobes of Starlight’s spell washed over Sire's Hollow. She recognized the turquoise color and hissed in anger and remembered humiliation. “Starlight! Not you again...”

The other awake townspony, a certain pine-green physician, was lying in bed, sobbing as cramps gripped her back and sides, her sorrow scalpel-sharp. She stared forlornly out her window at the full moon, wishing her beloved husband was home instead of on the road. She needed a hug. She wanted him spooned up behind her, his body warmth and simple presence softly against her aching back. She needed Firelight’s voice to tell her, once again, the miscarriage wasn't her fault.

She recognized a familiar magic's light turquoise color staining the horizon. From the direction of...

...the graveyard.

"Starlight!" mom gasped, levering up on one elbow. “Love-bug, what have you done?”

Mom climbed out of bed, and a cramp dropped her to her knees.

---

Sunrise’s skeleton melted into the blood in the bottom of the coffin, turning into a thick soup, stinking like nothing in Starlight’s experience, fuligin against the pink velvet as the turquoise magic died. Starlight’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened.

“What—what—how—Sunrise! No!”

The book cackled. Gotcha, you little slut! Thought you could burn me?

She spun around, and glared at the book. “You—you tricked me? What have I done? What did you make me do?”

You’ve earned yourself the death penalty, my little filly! the book crowed. I count seventeen zombies. And that’s the word! The Z word! Hopefully Celestia will let you tell your parents goodbye before they march you up the gallows, baby! You know they’ll cut your horn off at the base before the trial, right? They don’t use anesthesia, either. Assuming you're alive two minutes from now.

The earth above grandma Firestar’s grave began to distend. Starlight smelled putrefaction and a low coyote howl came from the forest, past the edge of the graveyard’s wrought iron fence.

You could teleport, but then who will protect your mom and the rest of Sire’s Hollow? Be a hero and stand and fight and get executed when it’s all over, or teleport to safety like the slutty little sniveling coward you are, and live to see tomorrow and spend the rest of your worthless life on the lam, looking over your shoulder? You could make a good living as a whore. The stallions like your ass.

Digging sounds came from all around her.

Fuck you, cackled the book. If I had a cock I would have held you down and raped you to death, but I’m just a book, so this will have to do, instead. Nopony tries to burn me!

“What the Tartarus were the two pints of blood for?!?”

To make you slow and woozy.

A hoof, a familiar lavender-gray color, punched up through the sod that covered grandma Firestar’s grave.

Comments

[mishun]

A hoof, a familiar lavender-gray color, punched up through the sod that covered grandma Firestar’s grave.

Groovy!

images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6494472f-fec7-438d-b6fb-5c5122ed065e/dcqqarx-8314b406-05c5-43a8-9b29-094b224d5fd3.png/v1/fill/w_989,h_808,strp/starlight_as_ash_williams_by_ejlightning007arts_dcqqarx-pre.png
i.chzbgr.com/full/9165840384/h446E5099/

[SockPuppet]

9477718

And my allusion was not in vain!

Thanks!

[Latecomer]

9478082

You know they’ll cut your horn off at the base before the trial, right?
This seems a little...

[SockPuppet]

9478573
Don’t assume it’s being truthful.