Knight of Wands

by Starscribe

Prologue: Temperance

Temperance

“Jackie,” said a voice, so sudden and real that Jackie’s entire reality came crashing into focus. It was a familiar voice—one she’d known for thousands of years. Alex. Where everything else in the universe was transparent and ever changing, the pony that pushed it all aside was violently real. Her coat was sharply green, her mane stark white, and her eyes seemed to cut right through her. “We’re almost there.”

Holding up one leg, Jackie could see that she too was transparent. Only this one creature was solid. “We almost to the next life yet? I’ve never been much for esoteric shit. This is already getting on my nerves.”

Alex spread her wings and flapped, and the sea of foam and probability was blown away. Jackie alone remained, standing on naked black stone. She offered a leg. “Come on, it’s just a little further.”

Jackie looked around, smiling weakly. “Let me check my calendar… yep, says here I’m dead forever. Looks like I’m free.” She took the offered leg. “Just don’t think I’m going to let you bring me back to life or something. I’ve seen you break the rules for long enough, I don’t want to start copying you. Then ponies will start comparing me to you, and that would just get awkward.”

Lonely Day rolled her eyes, as amused with Jackie’s humor as ever. “Stygia is waiting,” she said.

They walked together for time beyond time, under a bleak gray sky and a tower of lead so tall it seemed to curve. Around them Jackie watched as the natural processes of life and death flowed in both directions—rust that transformed into sturdy steel tools, then again into red rocks. Butterflies that spun themselves back into cocoons.

“Do you do this for everyone?” Jackie found herself asking, as they crossed through an ancient city of crumbling skyscrapers. She looked in a shop window, but instead of seeing any sort of ancient display she saw skulls, empty sockets watching her as though they’d been waiting for her to peek where she shouldn’t.

“Most people don’t die in the Supernal,” Alex said. “This is… another part of it. Some dead end up here, some don’t. If you wanted those answers, you shouldn’t have died.”

Jackie glared up at her, but didn’t have to resist the temptation to be snide. She no longer had the energy for anger and frustration. She was just a gust of wind, surviving how she could.

There were others there with them, as indistinct as she was. Ghosts of creatures that lived no more, or maybe hadn’t ever lived to begin with. It was hard to know for sure.

Eventually they reached an airport. Jackie recognized it from the familiar smell of gas fumes outside, then the fresh coffee and baked goods inside. Alex handed her a boarding pass, walked her through security, and then they were waiting for departure beside her gate. Thousands of other ponies waited there, each one with another bit of folded paper holding their ticket.

Jackie looked out the window, and found she couldn’t actually see any of the aircraft. Instead she saw light, in colors and combinations she’d never imagined before. It was a barrier pressed right up against the glass, beyond which there seemed to be nothing at all.

“This is it, huh?” Jackie leaned forward, stealing the rest of Alex’s muffin in a few quick bites. She pulled with her teeth, removing the boarding pass enough to confirm they were in front of the right gate. According to the screen high on the wall, they only had a few minutes until boarding call. “All those thousands of years of religion, all those ancient prophets and mysteries, and the afterlife was an airport all along. Must’ve been fuckin’ confusing for some Middle-Eastern merchant who’d never seen a lightbulb in his life, waking up here.”

Alex shrugged. “Reality is always a matter of perspective. Maybe if you believed in something, you would know where to find it. But you never did, Jackie.”

She tensed, sitting up suddenly in her seat. She almost threw the boarding pass back into Alex’s face—but that too would be too much energy. Her emotions all fogged over to a uniform gray, and when she spoke it was with monotone flatness. “I don’t believe in things, Alex. I believe in people. Like Ezri.”

“Boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler,” said a bored-looking attendant. The doors opened. There was apparently no one else using this gate. “Boarding call, Jacqueline Kessler. Please report to gate 25 for departure.”

Jackie stared up at the podium. The pony standing behind it didn’t even seem to see her, even though she was only a few feet away. Who the hell else could be on that flight, stupid? You could just call me over yourself.

“She’s a good one to believe in,” Alex said. “But you’re past the point where that matters. Before the world ended, people used to say we were born alone, and we’d die alone. This is what they mean.” She nodded towards the doorway. “Only one seat on that flight.”

“Where does it go?”

Jackie stared through the doorway. There was a few feet of boarding bridge, then the shimmering veil of light, cutting straight through it and obscuring whatever was on the other side.

“I have no idea,” Day said, her voice nervous. “It calls me, every time I die. But I can tell you how the people look who go through. It’s a peaceful process… painless. Whatever’s over there—it’s the way things are supposed to be. Water must flow from the river into the sea, so it can rise as clouds and fall again. Mighty mountains must be worn down into dust, swallowed by subduction zones and eventually be melted back into new peaks somewhere else.”

Natural. The thought was bitter. Now she could finally muster some energy for emotion. “Why should we care if it’s natural? Just because this is the way it used to be… doesn’t mean it should be. The universe is infinite, Alex. Why should we have to die?”

“Boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler,” the speaker said, a little more annoyed. “Flight is refueled and ready for takeoff. Boarding call, Jacqueline Kessler.”

Alex only shrugged, her expression infuriatingly blank. “I changed my mom into a dragon. I wrote my sister’s name high on the Supernal’s tallest tower. I’m not here to argue with you. But you gave your life, Jacqueline. You chose this. I’m not here to tell you that you have to enjoy it, or to want it anymore. Or to like it.” She gestured around the airport with one wing. “If you want to wait here, you won’t be the only one. You weren’t the first one who was too scared to go.”

“I’m not scared.” She gritted her teeth together. “I want my wife back. Tell me I can find her, and I’m gone.”

“I can’t tell you that,” said Lonely Day, Goddess of Death. “Because I don’t remember. Why don’t you go there and find out?”

“Or… what?” Jackie spoke nervously. As a flicker and a ghost, she lacked most of her confidence. Not that she had ever fought Alex before, but she wouldn’t have been afraid to in her life. Now she hesitated. “You can’t kill me.”

“I won’t do anything,” the Alicorn said, her voice said. “I’m only here to help you. Death comes for all men—and here I am. Your friend, as you’ve always been mine. You’ve left your kingdom in good hands—now it’s time to let go.”

“Final boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler. Please report to gate 25, your flight is about to depart. Final boarding call.”

Jackie turned, and very nearly marched her way to the gate. There was a hope—a faint hope, maybe, but something—that there might be some kind of existence on the other side of that light. Maybe Ezri had been waiting for her, all this time. She could find out right now.

But Jackie hesitated. Her existence as a ghostly bat here suggested another option. Could a dead bat still use their powers of the dreaming world to travel through it? There was only one way to find out.

“If you can’t tell me Ezri’s there… then I’m not going,” Jackie said. “Not until I find out for myself. I know once I go, I won’t come back.”

Alex didn’t react with anger. Her horn didn’t flash, and she didn’t scream something about the natural order and how dare Jackie violate it. She only looked sad. “If you leave… you might not ever find your way back,” she said. “My time with you is nearly over. If I leave, you will be on your own. Wherever you go—whatever happens to you… it might be terrible. There is much worse that can happen to the dead than their death. Please don’t go.”

But Jackie was already reaching for her magic. The dagger was gone—she’d given that away to little Liz before her death. But she could still feel the Dreamlands out there. Only… it felt like she was reaching down into herself, instead of out into the world. There was magic there, a connection she could use.

Jackie tugged on it with what little magic she had left, yanking open a doorway. It felt much like any of the previous dream-portals she had made, though she didn’t recognize the place on the other side. It looked like a floating island, with a high castle rising on its center and sculpted trees and flowers all around it. What the hell is that? What sympathetic connection had made the portal there of all places?

It didn’t matter. She had so little magic left. She felt—transparent, like she might drift away on the next stiff breeze that blew by. If she had to open up another portal, she might just die again. Jackie stepped through, and didn’t look back to see Archive’s frightened face staring after her. Her companion didn’t try to follow.

Author's Note:

http://unicornic.tumblr.com/post/170904670987/commissoned-by-bitera

Comments

[Condray]

Let it never be said that Jackie was good at giving up...or really knew how to much at all!

[FanOfMostEverything]

This is going to make for a very interesting farewell indeed. Looking forward to it.

[Helium]

It begins again... Lets see what kind of a ride we'll be going through this time.
The place described reminds me of something...

Lets see if im right about where it is. I did always like that universe's Jackie.

[Bonster]

Yeah boi let’s go I’m already crying and it hasn’t even started yet