Twilight awkwardly sat at the table in silence, with the still sniffling colt seated across from her. She had finally managed to get him up off the ground, and to stop crying. He was currently wiping his eyes on his now-damp cloak, while slowly taking small sips from the glass of juice she had given him. "So..." She attempted to start, scratching the back of her head. "You're Death."
"Yeah..." The colt responded awkwardly. He clearly was embarrassed from crying in front of a stranger like that, but she wasn't going to bully him for it. "I'm Death. Aspect of Death, if you want to use my full name. I'm in charge of making sure souls go to where they're supposed to go when ponies die."
"Shouldn't you have come like... days ago? I died like, on Tuesday." She asked, attempting to sip from the glass of water in front of her, only for the fluid to pour back out the open wounds on her back, leaving water stains on the chair behind her. Oh well, Spike could mop that up later when he woke up.
"I'm supposed to wait at least two days for the soul to pass on on its own. If it doesn't, I'm supposed to come down and take it There myself." He mumbled, taking another sip of his juice.
"There?" She inquired. "Where?"
"There." He replied.
"There." She parroted incredulously.
"You know... There. There. The place where souls go when people die. There!" He said, tilting his head to the side like an adorable puppy. "There."
"Oh! There!" Twilight nodded, while silently taking notes on a piece of paper under the table. At last, proof of an afterlife! She would write a paper on this and get so many research grants! Maybe she could go to There. And back again!
"That's my job... or at least, that's supposed to be my job. I'm still new, so I'm on probation for three centuries." The colt mumbled nervously. "I've only been doing this for a couple hundred years, I started back when the old Death finally retired. I can't believe I messed up during my probationary period. I'm so getting fired for this..." The colt was beginning to sound more and more like a nervous part-time new hire at Hayburger rather than the embodiment of a philosophical concept.
Twilight gently patted his head. "It's alright, it's not your fault. I did die, but I got better. I'm an undead now. A lich."
The colt scrunched his nose. "Undead? Lich?" He mumbled, flipping open a small binder that he pulled out from underneath his cloak. Squinting his eyes as he tried to read the words, he tilted his head back and forth. "Oh. That makes sense. Your soul isn't in your body right now. It's in your... uh... fill... feel.... filli..."
"Phylactery?" Twilight offered.
"Yeah." He said, nodding his head adorably. "Which means this is outside my job description. Which means I might not be fired!"
Twilight gave the young colt an encouraging smile. "Well there you go. That's good news, right?"
The colt grinned and took a big celebratory swig of his juice. "Yeah! If I messed up like that in my first three centuries, my big brother and sister would tease me forever! They said I was too young and immature for this job, but that's wrong!"
Twilight chose not to remind him of the fact that he had just cried a tantrum on the floor of his client. "Yeah! You did a good job!" She said, ruffling his mane. "So you have siblings?"
He nodded. "Yeah, big brother Pain, and big sister Disease. They're twins. They pick on me a lot." Twilight's eye twitched.
"I'm guessing they are also... aspects, I think you called yourself?" She inquired, leaning in slightly. "How many of you are there?"
"Oh, I don't know. A whole bunch. We only have a family get together once every decade or so. Last time it happened, uncle Discord spiked the punch, so I didn't get to drink anything but water."
Twilight's eye twitching intensified. "Excuse me? 'Uncle' Discord?"
Death perked up. "Yeah! You know him?"
"We're acquainted. He didn't mention he had family." She muttered with an uneasy smile, mentally categorizing all the things she would interrogate that draconequus about later.
"Huh. Weird." The foal said with a shrug, finishing off his cup. "This is really good juice. Where did you say you got it?"
"Sweet Apple Acres. My friend's family owns it." Twilight offered. How to be a Normal Functioning Member of Society always said you should support your friends occupation when you get a chance. "Do you want another cup?"
"Yes please!"
Twilight handed the colt a paper bag of sandwiches and a SAA branded juicebox and waved him off as he walked out of her castle. He turned back and smiled, calling out to her as he waved back. "Thanks, Ms. Sparkle! You're the best!"
"No problem!" She called back. "Walk home safely!"
"I will!" He shouted, taking a sip from his juice box.
Moments later, a massive fiery hole opened up underneath him. Pained, agonized screams called out around him as he sank down into the ground, leaving a perfect circle of charred grass where he had just been standing. Luckily, it was on some other pony's lawn, so she didn't have to deal with the landscaping required to clean that up. Or rather, Spike didn't have to deal with it.
Speaking of which, Spike had just began walking down the stairs as the colt disappeared, rubbed his eyes as he walked into the kitchen. "Who was that you were talking to this early in the morning?" He mumbled, noticing the large water stain beside Twilight's chair and walking off to get a mop. "It didn't sound like anypony in town I know."
"Oh, that was Death." Twilight replied, walking back into the castle with a smile as she sat herself down and went back to attempting to decipher the book.
The sound of a mop dropping to the floor and a drake's confused shout rang through Ponyville early that morning.
Magic
What a nice lad
Spike doesn't get paid enough for this.
In fact I don't think spike gets paid at all!
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I prefer the term indefinite internship.
Weird choice of words. 3 centuries are 300 years, but he says he does this job already for a couple hundred years, what makes it sound as if it is close to a thousand. And for immortal beings to meet once a decade, also every 10 years, sounds like basically every day.
Love the idea of adding aspect deities. I would imagine princess celestia and Luna likely know about them if not being related to them somehow.
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He may also need counseling after all this.
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He doesn't get paid period.
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure:
"A Couple" is usually around 2.
"A few" is usually around 3.
Several is usually around 4 or more.
"A couple" and "a few" are both no less than 2 but rarely above 1 more than the numbers stated above.
And "several" is no less than 3 but rarely above 7.
All three terms are approximations for a small number.
But therefore, "a couple of hundred years" could be anywhere from 150 to 300, yes?
As one often does...
Now I'm going to throw a couple of local memes that not everyone will understand, but personally they seemed funny to me.
He sits down next to her, he takes her by the shoulders and his speech sparkles with a bizarre pattern.
"Listen, There is land far, far away.
There's a New Year, you won't believe it, There's New Year doesn't exist. Here.
There is fire, There is so much fire that if I hadn't been There myself, I wouldn't have believed that There is so much fire that you can't see the sky behind it..."
Although, I'm not a reaper yet, I'm still just learning
Discord is SATAN himself.
Mort's such a good kid
This raises so many questions about the afterlife!
great chapter
D'aww. Well, Discord's gonna have a lot to explain!
Hmmm, we haven't seen him throughout this fic. I wonder how he'll take Twi's... transformation?
Nice
Death doesn't handle the undead. I wonder if Discord knows someone who handles necromancers, liches and undead.
Discord! You tricky piece of draconequus! How dare you never told me you have a family?
Oh, perhaps... did you meet Death?
Fluttershy?! You knew? How? And why didn't you tell me?
I thought so... he did appear during our tea meeting once in a while. And you never ask.
2 chapters in 2 days? I thought christmas was over like 2 months ago!
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As far as I know is "a couple" and "a few" used to describe a small but unsure amount. Like "I will be away for a couple/few days." could mean everything bitween 2-5 days, depending on unknown circumstances.
As he rounded it to the hundreds the only options would be one or two houndred years, so it would make more sense if he says: "I've only been doing this for about one/two hundred years,..."
Just another day in Ponyville
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"A couple" explicitly means two. Anyone using it differently is using the word wrong.
It functions the same as "pair" in a sentence.
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Cambridge Dictionary: couple
"two or a few things that are similar or the same, or two or a few people who are in some way connected"
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You are correct, it CAN be more than two or even 3. But let's take that look again.
There are 3 of theses words in order of least to greatest.
Couple < few < several
- Webster dictionary.
The dictionary makes it more complicated than it is generally used in reality.
If couple is usually 2, few is more than that, and several is more than that...
Then a couple has its limits to "more that 2"
So couple is USUALLY 2 or 3, few is usually 2 to 4, and several is 3 or more. They DO overlap a bit, yes?
Some of you could take an example from Twilight and read "How to be a normal functioning member of society", heh.
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HEY!
I'll have you know I already read it twice and I still suck.
so how was that? Did I do it right that time?
I need to borrow her copy of How to Be a Functioning Member of Society. I may have used mine as a doorstop to keep people out of my house.
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He gets paid in exposure, of course.
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I have strong Heroes of Magic deja vue
Wait, another chapter? So soon?
He can't do that. Someone shoot him.. or something.
Imagine if this is how death was like in Puss and boots 2.
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I mean, Deaths definitely vary, as any Discworld-loving reader will tell you. In form, capacity, and personality.
I honestly expected the Death of Ponies to be a fairly innocent member of the Harvesters given the species.
This got a good laugh out of me
Is that a clever little LoTR/Hobbit Reference?
Wait twilight wanting to go to the afterlife why does that sound familiar
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/388353/best-hell-ever