• Published 7th Feb 2022
  • 7,815 Views, 546 Comments

The Sparkle of Unlife - Semivivus



Twilight never does anything wrong. Until she accidentally becomes undead overnight.

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Family Matters

“Hey Twilight?” Spike asked, poking his head through the door to her study.

“The answer is still no, Spike.” Replied the pony inside who was rapidly jotting down something with a quill onto parchment.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask this time!” He called back with a huff, stomping into the room.

“I’m not turning you into a giant undead skeletal dragon.” She replied in monotone without even glancing up from her writing. The dragon raised a finger to interrupt, only for Twilight to continue. “I’m also not summoning you any undead minions to command.” Spike pouted and kicked a nearby stool, crossing his arms. After the moment of teenage angst, he let out a sigh and walked over to her desk, attempting to glance over her shoulder only to remember that he was about a meter shorter than her when she was sitting on a stool.

“What are you even writing?” He asked, pulling a nearby chair over and hoisting himself up onto it. She appeared to have four different copies of the exact same document. “Letters?”

“I realized I hadn’t let my parents or Shiny know I was quasi-alive again. I thought it would probably be a good idea to let them know sooner rather than later.” She mumbled as she tucked each letter into a carefully folded envelope. Handing the papers to Spike, he grumbled and sent them off to their recipients with a burst of emerald green dragon fire.

“Didn’t you come back from the dead like, more than a week ago?” He noted once the letters had already travelled off in separate trails of smoke, quirking his head to the side. “I think you probably should have let them know a bit sooner.”

“Considering that the first few days of my unlife consisted of me crashing my own wake, consoling my friends over my own death, and having my head forcibly removed with an axe, I’ve had a lot to deal with.” Twilight grumbled in response.

“Wait, somepony cut your head off?” He inquired, poking at Twilight’s neck with his claws until she slapped his hand away with her hoof.

“Luna is not a morning person. I got better though.”

“That’s so cool! If you lose your head again, can you show me what the inside of your neck looks like?” He inquired, perking up as his young teenage mind took hold.

“Maybe for your birthday.” Twilight replied, before pulling out a stack of paperwork and returning to her duties.


Twilight withered slightly underneath the stare of the stallion looking down at her. Normally she wouldn’t be particularly worried about facing up against any pony, even if they were a former member of law enforcement. She had enough raw thaumic power, and fine enough control, to rearrange the very neurons in a pony’s brain and send them straight into a catatonic state. Unfortunately, the stallion she was facing off with wasn’t just any pony.

“Twily. Really.” Her brother sighed, rubbing his temples as if to relieve the ever-growing migraine pounding through his skull.

“Look, I already told you this whole thing was an accident! I didn’t mean to do this to myself.” She grumbled back at him, before shrinking at his deadpan glare.

“As worried as I am about the whole ‘not-actually-dead’ thing, that’s not why I’m upset. You rose from the dead over a week ago, and you never thought to let your family know that you had come back until today? I’m hurt.”

“Wait, didn’t you forget to tell me that you were marrying Cadence for over a year, and only let me know a few days before the wedding?” Twilight shot back, slamming her hooves on the table.

Cadence suppressed a laugh by daintily clearing her throat. “She’s got a point, Shiny.”

“N-no! No she doesn’t. This is different. I just forgot to tell her, I was under a lot of pressure with the wedding and the invasion and everything!” He argued back, avoiding eye contact with either mare.

“I was under pressure too. About six feet of it.” Twilight ‘Snarkle’ snarked back. “And it only took me a week to send you a message despite having just died. Much less than the year it took you.”

“Yeah? Well I… uh… Still! You’re not getting off the hook that easily!” He stammered, trying to regain control of the situation.

Cadence suppressed another laugh before giving Twilight a wide smile. “He’s lying. That’s not why he’s upset.”

Twilight only blinked in response before glancing over at Shining Armor. For some reason, his entire face had gone pale white, which was impressive considering his already ivory coat. “H-hey now Cady. Let’s not get off topic here. She’s the one in trouble, so let’s focus on her. My motives have nothing to do with-”

Cadence’s smile widened into a smirk. “He’s actually just jealous. He’s been reading this foal’s book series-“

“Young adult series! Not foals! It was written for young adults!” He shot back, his cheeks beginning to turn pink from embarrassment.

“As I said, foal’s book series. It has this villain he really likes who’s this necromancer, and he’s been working on his costume-“

“Cosplay!”

“-on his cosplay for weeks now. And you just went and became an actual undead. He was fuming the entire train ride here. Constantly complaining about how unfair it was.” She spoke with a wide grin, before breaking into guffaws.

“Oh really?” Twilight asked, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “So this whole lecture you’ve been giving me is because you’re jealous?”

“Uh… well…” He stammered in response, looking at his wife out of desperation. She refused to meet his eye and was whistling nonchalantly while staring out the window.

“Shiny!” Twilight growled, stomping the ground.

“Okay, but Edgeblood von Deathscythe is a really cool character with a deep and interesting backstory!” Shining Armor yelled back before stomping out of the room.

Cadence fell off her stool laughing as Twilight leapt down from her seat to chase after him.

Author's Note:

Happy Valentine’s day. I’m going to go eat a bunch of fresh baked cookies and fall into a sugar coma.