• Published 8th Oct 2012
  • 49,266 Views, 7,011 Comments

Rebirth of the Damned - Borsuq



Months after his death, Arthas Menethil, long known as the Lich King, is given another chance. In a world populated by talking ponies, of all places.

  • ...
198
 7,011
 49,266

PreviousChapters Next
8. Detrimentum a do sola ditas

Matthias could only stare wide-eyed at the crowd of ponies and jumping Pinkie Pie among them.

"So, do you like it? Were you surprised? Were you? Were you?" she asked, suddenly appearing next to him.

"'Surprise' is an understatement." he muttered to himself, and to Pinkie said: "What is all of this?"

"Duh, your surprise 'Welcome to Ponyville' party!" she shouted with excitement.

"Oh, you didn't have to do that, I..."

"Of course I had to it, silly, I throw them for anypony new in town! So, do you like it?" she asked again.

"Why, yes, of course." answered Matthias immediately, and then he realized something: "Hey, wait a second! Half an hour ago I went to the kitchen to get something to drink. How did you prepare all of this in such short time, without making any noise at that?!"

"With my party cannon." she said innocently, while pulling a big cannon from somewhere behind her and shooting a bunch of balloons and pieces of paper from it.

"That still doesn't explain the lack of noise..."

"Oh, just let it go." interrupted him Twilight, coming closer. "Trying to make sense out of weird things happening around Pinkie Pie is a waste of time."

"What do you mean?" asked Matthias, confused.

"Trust me, you don't want to know." answered Twilight, smiling.

Matthias chuckled, hearing her use his own words against him.

"I guess that’s fair."

"All right!" shouted Pinkie. "It's time to party!"

She ran up to a unicorn pony sitting near some weird contraption and said a few words to her. The pony, who was wearing purple tinted sunglasses for some reason, nodded and used her magic on her machine. Out of nowhere, a music could be heard.

"This world is really weird." Matthias thought, rolling his eyes.

"Did you know about this?" he asked Twilight.

"No, I was just as surprised as you are. Pinkie could have at least asked me before she threw a party here." she answered, but didn't appear to be angry. "Oh well, no sense standing here. Go and enjoy yourself." Twilight said as she trotted away to talk to Spike and Rarity.

Matthias looked resigned around, and made his way to the table with snack on it. Few ponies that walked past him said "Hello.", or something along those lines, but other than that, they were talking between themselves, for which he was grateful.

"Hi mister." said a familiar voice.

Matthias turned his head left and smiled.

"Hello to you, too. I hope the three of you didn't get into much of trouble while I wasn't around to save you." he said to the three fillies with a grin.

"No, we kinda all got grounded after that timberwolves thing." answered the little unicorn, Sweetie Belle, if he remembered correctly, with anunhappy voice. "We were only allowed to come here to again thank you for rescuing as."

"Serves you right." he thought.

"Your families just want to make sure you won't do something like this again." Matthias said, trying to cheer them up.

"Yeah, we'now, but its still unfair." said the earth pony, Apple Bloom.

"But that’s not what we came to talk to you about." said the pegasus, Scootaloo; Matthias was thankful that he asked Spike this morning about her name, among few other things.

"Oh right, we wanted to ask you if you would liked to join our club."

"Your club?"

"Yes, we are the Cutie Mark Crusaders." said Scootaloo with pride in her voice.

Matthias barely stopped himself from bursting into laughter. He couldn't help but wonder how would the Argent Crusade, or even better, the Scarlet Crusade, react to those three fillies and their club.

"And what is it that you do?" he asked, keeping amusement out of his voice.

"We're on a mission..."

"... a quest..."

"... to find our special talents and earn our cutie marks!"

"And we figured, that since ya don't have yar's, and you saved us at the Everfree Forest, you could join us and discover you special talent as well!"

Matthias was touched that these three girls wanted him to join their special club (and once again, he was amazed how trustful denizens of Equestria were), however, he knew he couldn't accept their invitation.

"I'm honored that you would let me join the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but unfortunately, I will have to respectfully decline."

"What? Why?!" said the three fillies, crestfallen.

"Because I'm afraid how would my cutie mark looked like."

"I'm not sure if you heard already, but I'm from a land that ponies don't have cutie marks." he said, and the fillies nodded. "While coming here might have changed that thing for me, I still don't know if I can have a cutie mark. If I can't, I would be wasting your and my time by trying to discover what my special talent is. You could spend that time better on discovering your talents, while I on figuring out why am I here."

"What'ya mean, 'why am I here'? asked Apple Bloom.

Matthias cursed at himself. While trying to cheer them up, he said to much.

"Everything happens for a reason." he said, hoping he won't have to go into much details. "I don't know how come I am here, but there must be a reason for that... as well as I am sure there is a reason ponies have to earn their cutie marks, instead of simply being born with them."

"I suppose you're right." said Sweetie Belle, still a bit sad.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you will discover your special talents soon. You don't need an old colt like me to slow you down." Matthias said, winking.

That finally made the girls laugh. Saying their farewells, they went over to the group of ponies near their age.

"Ya handled them pretty well." said Applejack from behind him.

"I'm assuming that's not easy." he replied, turning around.

"Yah, well, they can be handful, alright." Applejack said, looking at him closely.

"Finally, somepony who doesn't trust me." he thought, almost happy.

"You don't trust me, don't you?" Matthias said, pouring himself a drink.

"Ah just think ya're dangerous." she answered, not even trying to deny it. Matthias couldn't help but to admire her courage, as well as her common sense. "Don't get me wrong, Ah'm happy ya saved mah sister and the others, but that doesn't change the fact that ya are stranger. No offense."

"None taken. In fact, I'm impressed."

"Pardon?" she asked puzzled.

"You're right, I am dangerous. So are you, if what Spike told me about your applebucking skills is true. However, you're the first pony who remembers that, beside Spike, who is a dragon, so he is bound to look at some things different than ponies. Hell, Twilight even invited me to sleep in her house without taking any safety measures, unless she put some sort of magical wards on me or something."

"So... ya're sain' that..." said Applejack, confused.

"What I'm saing, Miss Applejack, is that you have the same reasons to be cautious of me, as I have of you."

Applejack stared at him for a moment, and finally said:

"Ya're weird."

"Duly noted." he replied, amused.

"Well , hope you have fun at the party." she said, leaving.

Matthias looked at his drink, which, despite not having any fingers, he somehow managed to hold.

"Fun, huh?" he thought, wondering if somepony like him deserved to have fun, and taking a sip of what turned out to be an apple juice.

"Hey Spike." Matthias said, noticing the dragon.

"Hey." Spike answered, pouring himself a drink. "How do like the party?"

"It's fun." he said. "Hey, what were you going to do at Rarity's place? You said she is a fashion designer, right?"

"Yes. I figured she may need some help with something." dragon answered, slightly blushing.

"You... like her, don't you?" Matthias asked, surprised.

Spike jumped.

"Hey, not so loud!" he said in a hushed tone, looking around. Nopony was paying any attention to them at the moment, though. "Yea, I kinda have a crush on her." he confessed.

"A dragon has a crush on a pony. I officially cannot be amazed by anything anymore."

"Mind if I ask you a question, Matt?" asked the dragon.

"Shoot." Matthias said, taking another sip.

"We're you ever... dating somepony?"

Matt's mind whirled at the memory of Jaina, but nonetheless, he nodded.

"Mind giving me some tips about asking girl out?" Spike said, both hopefully and embarrassed.

"And now dragon is asking me for tips about dating." Matthias thought, confident that Bolvar and Ner'zhul must be laughing right now.

"Looking how my relationship ended, I don't thing it's a good idea for you to listen to me." he said, hoping the dragon would take a hint and dropped the subject.

"What do you mean?" asked Spike, oblivious to Matthias discomfort.

"That the last time I've seen the woman I love, I tried to kill her."

"Who does what mean?" asked Rainbow Dash, who flew up to them.

"Matt has been telling me about his girlfriend and how things didn't end well." blurted out Spike.

Matthias looked at the dragon, who just now realized that he may have wanted to avoid this subject in front of others.

"Wait, a loser without a cutie mark had a girlfriend? I find that hard to believe." said Rainbow Dash with a smirk on her face.

"Are you jealous or something?" asked Matthias, trying to change the subject.

"Huh, you wish!" answered Rainbow Dash, clearly offended. "I don't deal with losers, let alone date them!"

Matt privately wondered if the tomboyish pegasus would ever date anypony.

"So..." said Spike, unsure if he should continue. "How did your relationship ended?"

"Basically, I told her I wasn't ready for a serious relationship, and we broke up." Matthias said, bitterly remembering that Winter Veil. "We tried again few years later, but things... didn't work out so well again."

"'Things didn't worked out so well'." he snorted in his thoughts. "I asked her to help me slaughter thousands of innocent people. Of course she would leave me! Pity she or Uther didn't simply kill me then."

His pain must have been visible on his face, because Rainbow Dash said sympathetically:

"Wow, I almost feel bad for you."

"Don't." he answered, thinking: "Better feel bad for all those who might have lived have I been husband and father."

"I said almost." Rainbow replied with a grin.

Matthias sighted.

"If the two of you would excuse me, I'm going to get some fresh air. It's a bit stuffy here." he said, bowing his head to them, and left the library.


Twilight heard the doors open and notice with a surprise that Matt has left. Last she seen him, he was talking to Spike and Rainbow Dash, so she went over to them, the other following her.

"Hey, what happened? Why did Matt left?"

"Well, he might have felt bad about what we were talking about." said Spike uncomfortably.

"What were you talking about?"

"He was telling us about his girlfriend that he broke up because he wasn't ready for a serious relationship, and later when they got together again they broke up." answered Rainbow Dash.

While Twilight was thinking this through, realising this was most likely this friend he mentioned to her yesterday, and started to better understand Matt, she heard Applejack say:

"Man, Ah almost feel bad for him."

"That’s what I said!"

Twilight shook her head.

"We better go after him." she said.

"Why?" asked Rainbow.

"Duh, because the party is still on!" said Pinkie happily.

"I don't think it's just about this." Twilight replied, as if Pinkie hadn't said anything. "Like Fluttershy said, he's... empty inside. Whatever happened to him that caused it, it must have been something horrible. Now, while you got him thinking about his girlfriend, it might be easier to get him to talk."

"Couldn't you just use some spell to read his mind?" asked Rainbow Dash, clearly not interested.

"No, because it's an invasion of a pony's privacy." replied Twilight, not mentioning that she didn't know a spell to read minds.

"Come on, ya'll, lets just go and find him." said Applejack.

"Spike, you stay here and keep the party under control."

"Got it!" Spike said, saluting, as Twilight and the other five left.

They looked around the library, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Okay, think." Twilight said, poking her head with hoof. "Where would you go, if were in an alien land and were feeling depressed?"

"Umm... to the river to look at the water?" shouted Rainbow Dash, looking from high above the ground.

Twilight looked at the direction her friend was pointing, nodded at the rest, and galloped over there. After few moments, they spotted Matthias.


Spike looked at the door few minutes after his friend left. He felt guilty; if he didn't keep pestering Matt about relationships, he wouldn't have left, feeling sad. He should apologize to him.

And with that in mind, he left the library as well.


Matthias looked at his reflection in the river, thinking about Jaina, as well as his father, Uther, Muradin, Antonidas, and everyone he ever hurt, which meant pretty much everyone. Even Invincible. He winced as he recalled how he caused his friend's accident, and was forced to end his suffering. He remembered, how the first thing he did after murdering his father was raising his beloved steed from his grave, so he could serve him once again.

He looked at he sky. "Had Invincible hated me?" He never thought about this before; he always assumed that stallion trusted him in everything, but now... he wasn't sure of anything anymore.

And it was with this thoughts in mind that he opened his mouth and did something he hadn't done in years: he started singing.

Comilito equinus

Orbitas lacuna

G'Odhun A'l Korok Boda Uh'm

Boda Uh'm Ron'Kashal

Detrimentum a do sola ditas.

An Karanir Thanagor

Mor Ok Angalor

Mor Ok Gorum...

Pala Ah'm Ravali Ah'm.

Comilito equinus

Orbitas lacuna

G'Odhun A'l Korokh Boda Uh'm

Boda Uh'm Ron'Kashal

Detrimentum a do sola ditas.

An Karanir Thanagor

Mor Ok Angalor

Mor Ok Gorum...

Pala Ah'm Ravali Ah'm.

The girls listened, mesmerized. None of them could understand any word of this song, but the sadness of it could pierce anypony's heart. And none of them expected Matthias to have such beautiful singing voice, either.

When he finished his song, they looked at each other, unsure what to do now. Finally, Twilight stepped forward and said:

"Matt?"


He whirled around, surprised. It said something about how lost in thoughts he was that he hadn't noticed them earlier.

"Oh, hey. Sorry I left the party, but I needed to think about something."

"Yes, we guessed." said Twilight carefully. "That was a beautiful song, by the way."

"I don't know what came over me." Matthias replied, looking away. "I usually don't sing."

"Pity." said Rarity, trying, without a doubt, like Twilight to make him more open. "You have a very beautiful singing voice."

"Thanks."

"Do you mind telling us what this song means?" asked Twilight. "We couldn't understand its words."

"Very well, but I warn you: it's not a happy song." Matthias answered, thinking how to best translate this song into Common. He decided to use the translation he was most familiar with, changing only the word 'steed' into 'friend'.

'O friend, stalwart companion

I mourn your loss

Even in death, first in battle,

Last to retreat, even so in death

Alas, I have lost a part of myself.

Long live the king

May his reign last forever

May his strength...

Fail him never.

'O friend, stalwart companion

I mourn your loss

Even in death, first in battle,

Last to retreat, even so in death

Alas, I have lost a part of myself.

Long live the king

May his reign last forever

May his strength...

Fail him never.

As he expected, all of them, including rough Rainbow Dash and always happy Pinkie Pie, were looking at him with sad eyes.

"Matt..." started Twilight, but never finished.

She was interrupted by a loud laughter and terrified scream.

"That sounded like Spike!" said Rainbow Dash, and everypony looked at each other, before they galloped toward the source of the scream.

PreviousChapters Next