The Stereotypical Necromancer

by JinxTJL

Chapter 61 - Waxing Crescent

A mist of water sprayed from the showerhead, sloughing down his body in hurried streams and pooling around his hooves laying mostly flat on the sloped surface of the ceramic. From the tip of his nose all the way down to his sodden tail laid across his back leg, all manner of grime was washed away in a mass drowning of filth.

In the shaded shallows of his darkened bathroom, Light Flow sat stoically in the bathtub with his eyes closed and his head tilted up into the running showerhead. The water freely ran off his pressed-back ears, cascading in heavy rivulets off his apathy-leaden shoulders.

As still as a statue.

He'd jumped into the shower... by instinct, really. After he'd... well, he'd woken up on the cold cellar floor, so he was assuming that sometime between then and when he'd curled up on it to cry, he'd gone and passed out.

It was all kind of a blur, though; he'd not really been putting all that much thought into what he was doing. He remembered the bleary indecision of wondering what in Tartarus he should do as he stumbled up the cellar's stairs, but he didn't remember getting into the shower. He couldn't recall how long he'd been in the shower, either.

It seemed... it really seemed as though he'd gone straight from the cellar to the shower, and that'd been it.

For... awhile now.

Light's mouth drifted open and filled with a coppery splash of liquid, thoroughly choking him as he tried to let out a sigh. As he sputtered and shook his head away from the water, he thought to himself of the symbolism of the mistake.

Even when he was deserved, and even when he thought he had, he never really got what he wanted.

Eventually, the shower's spray slowed to a halt, and he was left to drip in the bracing air of his bathroom without really knowing how it had come to be that way. He was sure he must've turned the water off, because of course that made sense.

He blinked dripping water out of his eyes to cast a glance up to the showerhead. Still seeping with drops.

He didn't remember turning it off.

In another blink, he stood in front of the mirror hanging over the sink. Immediately, this seemed a little strange to him, because he was sure he'd just been in the bathtub.

His hoof rose into his eyeline, and he happened to catch it in a wayward glance, turning it this way and that to inspect it. His fur was a little moist, but he was otherwise dry. His back felt dry, too. He was dry all over.

His mouth fell slightly open, perhaps to ask his timeline a question, but his interest was stolen away by a flash of movement at the top of his vision. Diverting his attention that way, he found... somepony staring back.

A colt with thin brown fur and a soggy, two-tone red and brown mane that didn't quite cover his forehead, holding his hoof up in front of him. His red eyes stood out like sparkling lights in the darkened room, staring back at him with confusion in their depths.

So alike to him, but so different. Like an uncanny double of the picture he held in his head.

Slowly, as he watched in transfixed silence, the colt's hoof crept away, inching carefully towards his own chest. His hoof pressed against damp, brown fur, and his eyebrows furrowed in dissatisfaction. At the edge of his awareness, the colt's lips parted and mouthed a word.

"Empty..." Light echoed quietly, holding his hoof to the center of his chest. He couldn't see anything in the colt's.

Inside of Light's, it was only cold.

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The setting summer sun cast dark, creeping shadows across the verdant fields of apple trees in the valley, seeding the air with the ripe scent of life and pleasure. The air was growing colder as the night encroached, but it didn't worry him.

Not when he had the warmth of another pressed close to his pelt.

Aside Light, her head pressed into the cleft of his neck from where she was slumped against him, Applejack let out a soft, murmuring sigh. He felt his own breath leave him to mingle with hers, and he squeezed her hoof tighter. With their backs to an apple tree on the highest hill in the orchard, they had a scenic view of farmland for miles. Rural countryside as far as the eye could see.

He wondered what his special somepony was thinking, staring out over all of those trees. A sense of responsibility? Pride? Whatever it was, he wanted to share it with her. For the warmth she suffused into him, and for the tight sense of safeness he kept in his heart as they held each other, he knew he would gladly share anything he had with her.

He shifted, drawing a lilting, teasing chuckle from his marefriend as he angled his head to catch her face, already opening his mouth to tell the mare he loved of all that he felt for her.

The empty, eyeless sockets of a gray maned corpse stared back at him. The presence at his side was cold.

Light sucked in a breath, the air suddenly heavy with the cloying scent of deathly frost and sickly decay. Every nerve in his body fired at once as he tried to jerk away, but he was stopped with a painful tug in the socket of his arm, and when he chanced a look, he found his hoof held fast in a jagged chunk of ice stuck to a reddened, raw hunk of bone. His skin was already starting to blister and peel, blackening with entropy at the ice's edge.

Every breath he took was faster; every breath smelled more and more of cloying iron and sickness. Panting for visible puffs of breath in the rapidly chilling air, Light tried again to jerk his hoof back from the ice it was stuck in, though he only succeeded in squirming enough to fall onto his back.

He hit the grass—but the grass was gone. Instead, he fell onto what felt like a hard bed of ice, shocking his system in such a terrible moment of antipathy that all the air in his chest was forced out of him at once. All he could do as he laid against the frozen block was gasp for breath that wasn't there as he tried in vain to see around him.

The valley had gone. The trees had gone. All he could see were two towering walls of dull metal rising up around him. His head was stuck; he couldn't move his hindlegs. The cold was gnawing away at his bones.

Something moved at the edge of his peripheral. Something was creeping in over the side of the box.

He couldn't breathe. The shape was inching over. He was choking on ice.

Two empty sockets met his, and the decayed smile of Zecora's corpse looming over him parted with a huff of frosted, billowing air. The ice-riddled stumps of her hooves crept over the sides of the fridge, stooping and curling around his numbed body as the gaping void of her rib-toothed chest opened wide to envelop him.

Her eyeless head crept closer. As the blackened stubs that held her grinning teeth parted for a kiss, Light coughed out flecks of bloody ice to choke out a scream-

-a scream that rang off the walls of his bedroom as Light Flow jerked to a sitting position in his bed.

He took a breath—no, two—no, three—as his hoof flew to check the frantic pulse of his heart in his chest, then up to the sweaty, matted fur of his forehead. He flicked a glance one way, then the other, finding his window at the side of his bed as soon as he remembered it was there.

A bright, albeit beleaguered, filtered light shone through the window panes at startling contrast to his dresser. He didn't need to open the window to discern the scent in the air. It was the dewy, fresh scent of morning.

Had... had he slept through the rest of the day? And the night?!

Light muttered some conciliatory nonsense to himself that even he didn't care to pay attention to as he threw his covers to the side and sidled out of bed. From the bedside to the floor to his door; Light threw the closed portal open and placed a hoof to its frame, taking a cautious peek out into his sitting room.

Dark. Empty. Quiet. More importantly, at the far end of the room, there was a door. That shouldn't have been as surprising to him as it was, but it was, because that meant the work on his door had been finished already.

Still trying to catch his breath from the very vivid nightmare that wasn't fading from memory fast enough, Light stumbled away from his bedroom and managed a canter across the room. He stopped short at the newly furbished door, blinking a few extra times as he did to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was.

A door. Nothing fancy; it was a plain, wooden door with a plain, metal latch from which hung a small, shapely key. Stuck to the door by a small patch of yellow tape was a small note, presumably for him.

As he lit his horn to detach it and float it closer—the feeling of mana in his veins was helping to wake him up—he cast another glance up at the door, then down to the hovering note. He had to cross his eyes a little to make sense of the rough scrawling, but it was mostly legible.

Mister Nutjob,

We got the door installed. Bill's going to your marefriend.

Key's on the latch.

Look us up for all your residential or professional construction needs. We're located on the west side. 060 Autumn Run Way, Ponyville, Equestria, bucking Equus. It's a building in a field, just find it, freak.

Hammer 'n Nail 'n Associates

One end of the paper pulled down as the opposite corner pulled up, and Light blew out a sigh of frustration as he tore the note in half. The rip was satisfying, and he appreciated that mare's candor, but he would not stand idly by and let anypony call Bon Bon his marefriend.

Staring at the two halves of the note hanging in his telekinetic field of mana, he had half a mind to toss them in a garbage can and vomit on them. It just made him so sick. The thought was anathema.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a garbage can. He did once, but he'd not been able to find it since he'd been home. If he had to make a wild, out of nowhere guess, Nightmare Moon had probably thrown it into the woods or something.

Whatever. He turned around, making a useless note to himself that he'd buy a new one as he made his way to his desk. On his way, he-

His eye caught something, and his head jittered to a stop, jerking oddly with his next step as though he were connected to a taut string.

There was a knife in the wall. In the corner of the room, on the same wall as his desk and bathroom door, there was a knife bent in half and stuck into the wall.

He—no, wait, of course there was. That was right; Bon Bon had knocked it out of his- Nightmare Moon's grasp when they'd had their... confrontation. Of course he remembered that; it hadn't been too long after he'd had his own control of his body.

He remembered... it'd been hard to feel anything at the time, but he distinctly remembered an overpowering sense of fear and vindication. Of course, the fear had been pretty all consuming at the time, but the vindication was a nice little light in the ever-present darkness of those days.

Of... a week ago. Huh. It really felt as though it'd been longer.

Light considered the out-of-place implement for a moment, hemming to himself on a circuitous back-and-forth between action and neglect. It would be logically sensible to take the knife out. It didn't make much sense there, and he was really just lucky it was near enough to the corner that nopony had noticed it.

Or—he reasoned with a thoughtful hum—he could leave it, because it was the physical proof of Nightmare Moon's failure to manage Her schemes. It stood as a proof of concept for the fallibility of Goddesses. The exact culmination of mortal endeavors to overcome that which should've been unconquerable.

Also, it was cool. Kind of like an art piece, actually.

That more or less settled the matter, and Light didn't give the eccentricity a second thought as he approached his desk. He kicked his dust pan out of the way and lifted the leaning broom off the desk's corner to clatter onto the floor, pulling out his chair and finding a seat as he dropped the two halves of the carpenter's note off to the side.

He murmured in discontent as he looked over the desk's clutter for a moment, keeping his horn lit to lift the Arcanic Crystagram holding its gems in its carcass and place it on the floor amidst the stacks of books next to his desk. He gathered his tattered cloak in a hoof and threw it off to join the broken machine, scanning the books on his desk's top for what he needed.

Ah, there it was, and conveniently on the top of the pile! It was almost as if he'd taken his needs into account as he was cleaning his books up!

He almost managed a laugh for his pitiable sense of humor as he brought the notebook over, placing a hoof on its black cover as it settled and he cast his attention to the desk again. A pencil—the sole pencil he owned, apparently, came into his grasp as easily as the book had.

As he held it aloft, taking note of its weight in his mind and the barest texture of wood, he took a moment to think. Because before he embarked on the journey he was about to, he needed to think about some things.

Yesterday was a blur—no, it was an illegible smear in his memory. He'd been so grief-stricken that he'd readily chosen to shirk all his responsibilities and slept the day away, not that anytime before then had been all that memorable. He genuinely couldn't remember any of it, though he was fairly sure he'd just taken a shower, stared at himself in the mirror, and then leapt into bed.

Then came the nightmare.

Light shivered, leaning back on his hocks and holding a hoof to his head as he tried to blink the fading sight of Zecora's widening smile out of his sight.

It was only a nightmare. Predicated on some very real problems, but the events themselves weren't real.

What was real, though... that was really upsetting...

The pencil set itself down, and Light leaned forward. He set his hooves across the surface of his desk and laid his head over them, muffling a tired groan into the unfeeling wood.

He just... yesterday, it'd come as such a shock that he'd literally lost all sense, and now, when he could actually think about it, he just...

...he didn't know. He just didn't know what to do.

His soul was gone. What... was he supposed to do in this situation? What would anypony do? What was this situation most analogous to? A disease? Was this terminal?

The thought was enough to make him feel his blood chill in his veins. No. It couldn't be. Not now.

He couldn't lose everything after he'd... after all that he'd gained.

But what was the alternative? He was assuming that... he'd lost his soul when he died, so what did that mean? Did he revive because he had another soul to take its place? Wouldn't that have made him... Zecora? Shouldn't he have been her, now?

Or... a crow, maybe? No- just- his point was that he shouldn't have been him, anymore!

So why was he? Why was he still Light Flow? What did losing his soul mean for him?

He wanted to know. He wanted to find out.

There was no point in curling into a pathetic little ball and sobbing until he couldn't feel his eyes. He... didn't want to. The need to let it all fade away just wasn't there. He didn't feel nothing. He wanted to... to...

His head shifted up, and slowly—ever so slowly, his gaze came to rest on the bright shock of yellow in the dim shade. The pencil he'd laid on the notebook's head.

There was a lot to record. A lot of half-blurred memories to sift through that he... just couldn't tackle all at once. The night at the castle; the years of dreams; the scattered threads of passing conversations.

What he knew.

What he was going to use.

It was a big jump to make. Yesterday, solutions hadn't even been a word to him. From total despair to figuring out how Necromancy worked? Consolidating into a notebook all that he knew of Alicorns and Black magic? Who had taken Light Flow while he slept and replaced him with a changeling double?

Light sniffed back a humorless chortle, lighting his horn and grabbing his pencil as he mentally prepared himself to endure the feeling of channeling for a few hours while he wrote. It was a nice feeling, but anything became grating after long enough, and he knew writing for a long period of time brought that sense of aggravation out.

He'd persist. As Light flipped the black front cover of the notebook over, and as he looked down at the blank, white sheet with a profound sense of impending achievement beating in his chest, he'd already decided on the course he was going to take. It was the very same course he'd had in mind yesterday morning, and his discovery hadn't discouraged that.

At first, he'd been inconsolable. Now that his emotions had sanded off and his acuity had been restored, he felt very differently.

He was intrigued. He wanted to know more. He wanted to discern the basics of Necromancy, his bounds as a Necromancer, and the breadth of the abilities afforded to him. What use was there in lamenting something arbitrary when he'd already been afforded a second chance at life? The fact of the matter was that he was alive—and that sheer fact standing in direct defiance of the facts he thought he knew provided a tantalizing mystery.

He'd spent years wallowing in pity for himself. Waiting for the day when he'd receive his call to action and he'd magically become able. Well, that day had come, but it was his responsibility to make his dreams manifest. They wouldn't just occur if he didn't... try.

He had to try. He didn't want to mope, or sob, or collapse. He was well in control of his faculties and his destiny, and he was ready to move forward.

He wanted to know how to bring Zecora back, and by the force of the most intrinsic desire that burned in the core being of every living creature that still drew breath, he was not going to compromise on his own life to make it happen.

But he was going to make it happen.

He took a breath—he held it, counting to three in his head as the pencil hovered over the first line of the first page. It was the countdown to action. The impending promise of a future. The sheer fact of concentrated intent wholly consolidated, in its basest, powerful intention, in the fine point of his pencil!

Light huffed out a powerful breath of effort as he forced his mana forward, jabbing his pencil forward to-

This is the time.

-let the point carry too far and tear a shallow line into the page's fabric as a very noticeable sensation of discontent pressed on the outside of his mind, and Light gasped. He hurriedly lifted the errant implement from the page, but the damage had already been done to the untimely parchment, and as Light scrabbled in his chair to cast panicked glances over one shoulder then the other, he found no face to ascribe the very applicable voice he'd heard.

What was that?! He'd heard... there'd been- this was familiar!

We have spoken before; you have never truly heard us.

A full body shiver trailed down his spine, and he audibly nickered as he shook his head in an attempt to chase the... feeling away. He'd felt it before, but every time before, it'd been barely apparent. Now, the sensation of a thread poking into his skull was more like a straw getting jabbed into it.

Not to mention the reverberation in his own mind of... a thousand other voices. It was as though he were standing in a very large hall full of chattering ponies, but they were all speaking at once, and directly into his brain. Was that apropos? He felt like it may have been redundant.

Light swallowed, checking over his shoulder again to appease a paranoid urge before he sunk back into his chair, focusing on the uncomfortable feeling rising in his rear and squeezing his pencil in a relative death grip of mana.

There was a voice in his head. He'd established that already, and it had once been verified by a secret intelligence agency, but this was different! A different voice, one that spoke to him externally rather than from a place within his mind. This was some... thing somewhere else that was talking to him.

You have untempered insight; one day, you will learn to truly ply it.

Light bit his lip. That was... an odd thing to say. Barely applicable as a turn of phrase, but given his prior incidents involving ostensible prescience, he was inclined to look on the fantastical side. Plus, he was talking to a voice in his head without putting up much, if any, fuss. Forgive him for asking, but was the voice prophetic? Prescient? Whatever?

Prophets are provided knowledge; the prescient interpret the future; we are they who write the future.

Whoa... whoa. That was sure to make him shiver up and down... if it didn't take the time to graciously lend a dubious quirk to his eyebrow first. As Light followed the cue of the situation and placed his mostly unused pencil back onto his notebook, he took to directing his expression towards the ceiling, because it felt apt.

Just because he'd once toddled off after the first Goddess to barge into his head and say nice things didn't mean he was loose with the space. What credence could the voice lend to its authenticity? What was to stop Light from dismissing the current unbelievable scenario as little more than his own mind doing what it once did best? What if he was just lapsing back into insanity?

It is for this reason that this discourse was made to take place; it is for this moment that we have revealed ourselves.

There will be a knock at your door.

It was almost jarring how on cue the knock was, even though at this point in his life, he'd almost expected it.

Knock knock knock.

A short series of three knocks—quick, prompt, and to the point. Not quite hurried, but not languid, either. They were even-tempered.

As Light stared over his shoulder at his recently installed door, he could only wonder who it could be.

Surely it wasn't his marefriend come to visit as she said she would. Applejack would announce herself, and she didn't knock like that anyway. Applejack banged on doors, which was liable to backfire on her one day when she ended up breaking one.

...One that wasn't his, anyway.

It... probably wasn't Bon Bon, since he had no doubt she'd be duly impatient to yell at him so she could get as far away from him as she could as soon as she could. It wasn't... Rarity—not refined enough—and from the brief encounter he'd had with them, he didn't think it was either of the construction ponies, either.

He supposed... the only way to know would be to go look. It just kind of unnerved him to open the door without knowing anything about who might've been on the other side. Maybe he should jump out his back window, sneak around the side, and try to get a sneaky peek at whoever it was?

You will open the door, and you will find shock. All the same, you will open the door.

Light cast a sneer up towards the ceiling. Hey, just because the voice had been right about the knock didn't mean he would do everything it said—and there was no way he was going to act surprised just because it had said so! And how did he know it hadn't been the real identity of the voice who had knocked to fool him into thinking it had prescience?

You will open the door. That is not a command; it is written that you will open the door, you will disregard what you find, and you will disregard us as well. We are not averse to this outcome.

We are patient, and we will speak to you again.

With that, as Light balked at the voice's harsh, yet oddly apathetic rhetoric, the line in his head snapped. The latent connection he'd been able to feel quieted, and his headspace was left somewhat... lonely. Interesting. He'd kind of... enjoyed the company in the short time it had been there.

He supposed... he'd go open the door, then.

He cast a glance to the other side of the room for a moment before he slid out of the chair, trotting over to the overbearing presence that very well could've been hiding on the other side of his otherwise benign door. Standing at its threshold, he paused to press an ear to its surface. He didn't hear anything on the other side—nothing besides nature, anyway. Unless the Everfree manifest had come knocking to get him back for littering, it was either a prank or the pony on the other side was just really quiet.

Or... there was another distinct possibility.

And the sudden occurrence of that thought made his heart skip a beat on its way to racing.

Light grasped the handle, rattling the key with metal dissonance as he threw the door wide open on its brand new hinges, revealing in all its glory the magnificence of his recently installed front entrance and the view it enjoyed.

Nopony. Nothing but the dead tree in the distance.

And a box on the stoop. A plain cardboard box.

He'd had... a lot of thoughts about the boxes since the other night. During the night, even, especially when their authenticity had been called into question. That had begged a lot of questions, and since then, he'd been pleading with himself for an ultimatum.

He'd decided a while ago what he'd do with the next box he received.

But this was not a new box.

This box was open, and by the dark stain of vomit on its side, it was plainly recognizable as the last box he'd received a week ago.

The one that Nightmare Moon had retrieved. The one that he'd left in the castle when he'd killed himself.

There was something sparkling in the sunlight inside the scant opening of its flaps.

To say that Light swept the box into his home was an understatement. He did not stop to see if anypony was around; he did not stoop to examine the box in greater detail; he did not even collapse and weep upon it.

As soon as he realized what he was looking at, Light inhaled sharply enough to choke, lit his horn, hefted the surprisingly heavy box, and jerked himself backwards. The door shut in his wake, leaving the outside world to stare in confusion as Light panted for breath on the floor next to the box he'd mostly had to drag inside.

He didn't stop to catch his erstwhile air. His muscles strained and screamed from exertion as he hastily scrabbled onto two hooves and towards the box beside him. The cardboard bent in half as he plunged a clumsy hoof into it, drawing a grunt of breathy frustration from him as he shakily retracted his hoof and frantically worked its edge back into the side of the flap.

He'd pulled himself up onto his hinds by the time he was able to flip both flaps open, and as he did, he could swear he felt his pupils shrink.

Maybe because his focus had zeroed in so hard.

The box's contents were not as he'd last seen them. The books that it had come with were still there at the relatively deep bottom, but atop the enticingly-scented tomes were... pieces of armor. Silver pieces of finely shaped armor which gleamed by their own wicked light.

His eyes averted by their own volition—he had to close them and count to three before he was ready to look back, and he was only able to do so with a very evident blur.

They were just as he'd last seen them. The oddly shaped helmet. The hoofcups with their abnormally lengthy straps. The flexile chestplate that rose up the neck. It was all the same. Just as they'd been when She'd worn them. And he could so clearly see Her draconic cyan eyes in his peripheral.

But there was more, and he had to force himself to stare past the bits of apparel which absolutely reeked of foul corruption. Laid over the helmet was a clean envelope sealed with a discouragingly blue stamp, and beside one of the hoofcups sat... what seemed to be a stamp laying atop a smallish brown sack.

He disregarded that for the moment—forcing himself to ignore the armor, maybe forever—and hesitantly called for his mana. The haze of red worked itself over the envelope after a moment, however shakily, and lifted the imposing article of mail out for his slightly teary-eyed inspection.

He was already having trouble breathing—he swore he could smell Her septic scent—but his difficulty only became more so as he peered towards the seal which marked the envelope, and his breath froze in his throat.

The subtle seal of a half crescent moon.

She'd sent him mail.

She'd sent him... mail?

What should he do? How dare She? Did he open it? She couldn't just trot back into his life. What would he gain? He would lose everything. What if it was important? Her words were vile lies. What if it was an apology? He hoped She choked on the words before they touched Her forked tongue. Did he even want to hear from Her? He hated Her more than anything else in life. Would it be cathartic? She would only ever hurt him.

By the time he stood in front of the hearth, he wasn't even sure he was thinking straight anymore.

Though he'd never used the fixture, a long faded memory told him there was a box of matches in the empty kindling chest aside it. A box which seemed in good condition for its apparent age, and that unsurprisingly only had a few matches left inside when he opened it to check. That was fine. He only needed one.

Scratch. Scratch. Snap. Hiss.

The letter fluttered to the ashen stone in the back of the fireplace, waiting in anticipatory fear for only a moment before the lit match landed atop it, scattering cinders into the air as the fire wasted no time in greedily leaping onto the unopened paper.

Light only watched from the hearth's edge, keeping the sight of the burning letter in the center of his gaze for what felt like an eternity. He watched, and as it burned, he did not think of it.

He only knew that he would burn the next that came, and the next, and if She ever dared to send him any more, he would see them all burn amidst Her ashes.

It didn't matter if it was an empty threat. He wouldn't forgive what had been done to him.

She'd driven him to suicide.

The fire was still burning by the time Light turned away, blinking tears away to hurry them down his cheeks like all the rest as he approached his desk. As he passed the box, a corner of the cardboard lit with red and it began to drag along after him, stopping at the side of the broken Arcanic Crystagram as he settled back into his chair. He cleared his throat as he scooted forward in his seat, setting his hooves on the desk's top on either side of his notebook.

He took a moment to shake his head, affirming to himself that he was fine. He was still crying, but that was fine, too. Just so long as he didn't cry on his research notes.

He'd keep the rest of what She'd given him. He'd put the box back down in the cellar with the other one, and—actually, he'd go ahead and keep both sets of books in the first box. That way, he could keep Nightmare Moon's armor in the second box, and he could keep the second box in the corner where it belonged.

Out of sight, out of mind—the last remnants of the insane lunar tyrant left to rot in the depths of an obscure cellar in a backwater town that nopony cared about. Her memory would fade in time, and all that would be left would be frightening mythos that the ignorant celebrated when the weather turned cold.

Just as She deserved.

No more thinking of Her. Not of that voice, and not of the package he'd received. None of it mattered—and he would disregard the stupid voice in his head. It'd been mocking him, surely. It'd known, and he just didn't have energy to waste on another far-seeing megalomaniac.

His thought was better spent on what mattered.

Author's Note:

That will be... a long road to hoe. Light won't be ready to forgive Luna anytime soon.

So, to the about... eight or nine of you that have the experience, there's a facet of this chapter that, along with a few others from chapters prior, might seem a little familiar. To those people, I will only say to keep your hat on. The parallels will keep compounding. that was sufficiently vague to construct a mystery, yeah?

To the vast majority of you that have only ever read this story of mine, I'm sure this was still pretty interesting! We've got some disassociation, some valiant proclamations, a box that... Light wasn't expecting, and a lead into the next chapter! Not much else besides that nightmare, and so this chapter was relatively short! It would've even been out a few days ago, but I had some mental health issues!

Speaking of those mental health issues, I feel as though I tried too hard to keep the pace of this chapter brisk, but whatever! It is what it is! Pretend Light's just got some get up and go for once!

Expect some exposition and deep thoughts in the next chapter, and after that we'll probably have some interpersonal encounters. We've got a bit of groundwork to lay for the coming narrative, so get your safety gear on and stay a safe twenty feet away!

Mmmm, that's it! I've gotta hit the road! The next chapter's already in progress, so expect it before too long! Seeya!

Comments

[Witchery]

The inside of Light's head must be very comfy with all that extra space between his thoughts. Must be why he keeps getting roommates.

[OCSWolf]

So will zecora get a body, or will she be on lights head forever?

[JinxTJL]

11737530
Light's head is either an overfull hotel lobby with a couple dozen ponies squished together and loudly clamoring all at once for somebody to find their missing bags, or it's a small, white room the size of a cubicle in which two ponies sit and stare at each other until one of them blinks. As of yet, Light has yet to win.

Thanks for consistently commenting, Witchery! I always like seeing your name!

[JinxTJL]

11737659
Aw, you know I can't just tell you! What kinda joint d'you think I'm running here?

If it's any consolation, Light seems to want to get Zecora back to her former state. In fact, he's sitting down right now to puzzle out a way in which he might do that. Whether he'll have any marked success will be... a matter of waiting and seeing.

Thanks for commenting, and for reading!

[XaneTheStrange]

I honestly wouldn't blame light if he never forgives Luna, but I don't think he has any other options when it comes to finding someone who has knowledge on necromancy.

[Witchery]

11737666
Aw, that's sweet of you.

And you forgot about the crow that is perpetually on the receptionist's desk.

[Otio]

I feel your writing has noticeably improved over this story's duration, the sentences meld together in a smoother way. Your prose has become very pleasant to read.

[Screw]

This seems exactly the same thing he went through the first time he ventured into the Everfree. He died.

It is possible he has lost his soul then, but that doesn't rule out thay he even lost it. He just can't see it.

But, this new entity, or old based off my vague memory, brought that previous Everfree encounter in another light. Light was given a glimpse of another time/vision he died by the enetity.

Or he was dragged back to life by the entity. The time skip happened in the showers, and I suspect the same time skip happened when he first "died" in the Everfree Forest.

This seems definitely out of the scope I can glean from show canon and logical conclusions. The only closest approximate that could write the future is Starswirl or Discord. Maybe even Cosmos.

But... that's what the entity could want Light to eventually believe. It is either the Element tree or someone who can read visions and telepath it to Light.

If such an entity could do this future reading for a longer period, I would be inclined to believe it omniscient.

Either case, I wonder how well could Light bring Zecora back? His own revival could be a unique case, but that doesn't translate to his skill with giving his victims patients a fully functioning body. I am half expecting Zecora to turn into a high-function zombie, just like what a sterotypical necromancer make.

P.S. I like your em dashes.

[Direct Access]

Curiosier and curiosier.

Okay. Some thoughts:
First of all, loved the tempo of this chapter. It was just right.

Second. I kinda dread social interactions of him. But if they have to happen, i hope, now that he woke up, he can actually, you know, get a job. Since he has been living off other people shamelessly. At least he finally took shower. It's also would be interesting to see him struggle to find any application for his miserable skilset.

Third. I didn't expect him to have voices in his head. Is that souls of past necromancers, avatar style, or some specific entity? It's also plural. And it's freely reads his mind and can observe around him. I bet on intangible entity(s). It seems it's your new way to guide the direction of Light's actions.

Fourth. His reaction to the letter is fully understandable. But I am curious about what she wrote in that letter. And whether she will know he didn't read it. It sure would be ironic if she was warning him she is planning to visit him, wouldn't it?

Fifth. Now that Zecora is out of commission, but main story started, she is not going to play her role... Well, I actually hope the story deviates further and further from canon events. Some characters are already quite different.

Sixth. I wonder if meeting Applejack would give him PTSD about that dream. That would be logical way to prevent him from getting comfortable, if voices already weren't there to guide him.

Seventh! I was right. He indeed paid with a soul for resurrection. His own soul. Now question stands: can he survive without any? According to Celestia, necromancers always killed those around them on revive, so they seem to need a soul to live. Which means, supposedly, no. So, it's whether he is special boy, but it's a risk to find out, or he isn't, and there is a dilemma. I assume animal soul wouldn't work well. Maybe it will work very badly and not for long? But I don't think anyone would donate him their own. Well, well.

[Vibrant lies]

Never trust suspicious boxes… that is all