Is There an After-Party, and Will There Be Cake?
Death would always come for one soul. And Death would always leave with one soul.
That was why the figure in the dark riding hood and the billowing cloak loomed over Shining Armor, who was getting a pretty raw deal as he choked to death on a bit of broccoli.
Knights in shining armour prefer to die in glorious battle, or better yet on a deathbed surrounded by treasures and grieving subjects and families, including grandchildren and great-grandchildren if they can swing it. The really smart ones prefer not to die at all. But no, Shining was getting broccoli.
Knocking her own throne over, Cadence grabbed him and performed the Hindleg Maneuver. This should’ve been tricky for a quadruped to do, but she pulled it off with the practised ease of a princess who has had a lot of state dinners while still retaining her fine figure. Death paid the resultant spluttering no heed.
A black-handled, silver-bladed scythe slid out of the folds of the cloak and slipped into place around two black-clad hooves. This too should’ve been tricky for a quadruped. The Grim Reaper didn’t care. Realism was a passing fancy compared with the attentions of Death.
Now Shining Armor had fallen out of his wife’s grip and hit his head on the table trying to arch his back in pain. This was the moment. Too much was happening to the victim’s body. This was when It was destined to fall.
With a billion lives’ worth of practised ease, Death raised the scythe until the serrated edge caught against the light of the chandelier. Higher. Higher. Ready.
She swung it down –
“WAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!”
The scythe paused. Inches from Shining Armor’s neck.
Death looked up irritably. She wasn’t used to distractions.
The third pony – a crystal pony, though by the look of her she’d narrowly avoided reincarnation as a lacy piñata – flicked through a clipboard full of papers. All around the dining room, a hundred confused, alarmed, frightened, and bewildered eyes met the radiance of Death’s own equivalent of surprise. Death wasn’t used to a crowd all at once, except in special and short-lived circumstances.
The third pony waved the clipboard at her accusingly. “You’re not on the guest list. Are you a plus-one?”
Death struggled to come to grips with this. Parties did not feature heavily in her life.
Then she straightened up, ignoring the squawks and retches of Shining Armor as he was given a choking rematch with the Hindleg Maneuver.
Plus-one? I only deal in subtraction.
That voice echoed through the catacombs of ancient kings, moaned like the wind over countless graveyards, haunted the quiet rooms where the families grieved…
Had no effect on the crystal pony. “Then let me show you the door. It’s a big, crystally thing with hinges and handles and this novelty doorbell that goes jingalingalinga-ling-a-liiiing. I installed it myself. Well, come on! Come see my door!”
Eventually, Death shrugged. Your door does not interest me. I guard the gateway to the ultimate fate.
“Yeah, but I bet it doesn’t have a novelty doorbell like mine.”
A word filtered through Death’s undead unconsciousness. I see. You must be crazy.
“Yep! That’s me! Crazy Lace Agate, at your service!” The smile evaporated. “Now beat it!”
One of the other crystal ponies rushed forward. Unlike Crazy Lace Agate, this one seemed to have taken lessons on decorum and passed her exams with full marks. She even wore her mane in a tight bun and wore the perfect glasses to peer over the top of, though right now the former was coming undone, and the latter tilted worryingly towards the askew.
“Crazy,” murmured the elderly crystal pony urgently. “This isn’t a normal guest.” Aloud, she warbled, “Don’t mind her, Miss Death, ma’am. She’s just a little overexcited, that one. I’m sure she can be excused while you go about your regrettably necessary business, sorry, sorry, don’t mind us!”
“Lemme at her, lemme at her!” Crazy Lace Agate flailed her hooves like fists, which would be intimidating if she hadn’t apparently learned her fighting from a windmill. “Mrs Maresbury, hand back your cake privileges!”
“She’s just doing her job. You don’t want to upset Death, do you?” Throwing smiles like someone throwing friends to the wolves, Mrs Maresbury added apologetically, “These partygoing types are always so highly strung, are they not, Miss Death?”
Death raised herself to the full extent of her height. It seemed to go on forever and forever. It was still going on long after Crazy Lace Agate stopped struggling. Both she and Mrs Maresbury stared like children stumbling across a lion’s den in the middle of dinner.
Finally, Death turned back to the choking Shining Armor, who was now rolling on the floor. She raised her scythe, then lowered it and let her shoulders do the nonverbal equivalent of sighing.
Yet another pony had stepped in, throwing Cadence aside to try the Hindleg Maneuver. Shining Armor kept slipping out of her grip through sheer pain; her technique was less “compress the diaphragm” and more “crack a rib or two, you’ve got spares”.
This pony was neither alicorn nor crystal pony, but a unicorn. She also looked like she’d tried curling her mane in a token attempt to be pretty, and then had done something extremely unpretty to the rest of herself, probably involving sloshing bottles and sleepable dumpsters. Thankfully, Death had no sense of smell.
“Keep!” the unicorn shouted between squeezes. “Still! Your! High! Ness! For! Pete’s! Sake! You’re! Throw! Ing! Me! Off! My! Rhyth! Em! Oh, shoot! Now look what you’ve done, you stupid lump!”
“Excuse me,” interjected Cadence. “That’s no way to talk to him.”
“All right! Now look what you’ve done, you stupid lump, Your Highness.”
“Lemon, just get out of the way.” Cadence snatched up her husband and tried again. “Your technique! Is way too! Sloppy!”
“Hey, I’ve saved more lives with this move than you’ve had high state dinners, Miss Your Highness Miss Ma’am Princessiness, Ma’am! And I should know!”
Despite the urgency of every thrust of her husband’s stomach, Cadence couldn’t resist adding, “Just call me Cadence, please.”
“How about Cad for short?”
“No.”
“You’re doing it wrong! What is that, a life-saving move or aggressive foreplay? Let me try again.”
“Lemon Hearts! With the greatest respect! I’ve had proper lessons! Let me! Get on with this!”
Death rose up, scythe rising, and the gleam caught in Cadence’s eye.
“NO!”
Yes. Even you cannot stand in the way of destiny.
The scythe shot down.
And paused.
Sparkling blue with magic.
Cadence’s horn was alight, also sparkling blue. Her spell enveloped the blade and left Death shaking with the effort of holding it there. Cadence shook too. Yet neither progressed.
All around the dining hall, the crystal ponies who hadn’t fled gaped in shock. Crazy Lace Agate and Mrs Maresbury stopped fighting in order to see the two figures better round the thrones. Even Lemon Hearts took a wary step backwards, as someone who’d drunk too many bottles to feel confident about her own liver’s chances.
Not just Cadence’s horn, but Cadence’s cutie mark was aglow. One crystal heart, surrounded by ribbons. The Mark of the Crystal Princess.
Death broke first. She backed off, scythe whirling until the handle hit the ground like an adamant staff.
Cadence glared back, horn lowered, wings unfurled in the traditional fighting stance.
It was ruined by Shining Armor blundering into her.
“Can someone,” he rasped through the broccoli, “please help me!?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” demanded Cadence whilst one of her wings hit him repeatedly on the back. “I’m a princess. I shape destiny.”
“Choking to death here. Real painful.”
Death tutted. Of course. Which means you know the rules. I come for one soul. I leave with one soul. No princess can deny me that.
“Any time would be great,” rasped Shining Armor.
“I can set the terms.” Princess Cadence stared down a face which managed to stare back with no real eyes, for she knew Death did not need them to see; it was the principle of the thing. “Mrs Maresbury, if you’d be so kind?”
“Oh, right.” Flustered, Mrs Maresbury hurried forward, dropping Crazy Lace Agate on the way.
Without looking away from the scythe-wielding darkness, Cadence asked, “Mrs Maresbury, you know the old legends about Death from your library books.”
Shining Armor tried to give himself the Hindleg Maneuver. “Seriously!? Right now!?”
“Please tell us what a princess can do.”
Humming awkwardly between the rock of a princess and the hard place of death, Mrs Maresbury took refuge in immediate and comforting knowledge. “Um, certainly. The, uh, legends are clear on this point. If Death is challenged by a shaper of destiny – such as a princess – then in those special circumstances the shaper of destiny can bargain for the life of the condemned, on the condition that they win the challenge against Death.”
Whereas, if they lose… declared Death… I leave with more than one soul. That is the price of bargaining with me.
Several crystal ponies coughed. Others gulped. A Crystal Empire without Shining Armor was one thing, but both him and the Crystal Princess at once? Lemon Hearts reached for a reassuring bottle. Mrs Maresbury backed off, grimacing. Even Crazy Lace Agate pulled at her own face, making booooiiiiing noises each time she let go.
Only Cadence was unmoved. “Deal.”
Then Death raised the scythe.
“Deal,” Cadence insisted. “This is my husband’s life. You can’t break your own rules.”
Death’s scythe held steady. Even the tiniest particles need to vibrate at zero-point energy. Death didn’t.
Suddenly, the scythe retracted into the folds of the cloak like a cat’s claw. A flash of a rose could briefly be seen, and Cadence’s eyes darted towards it before the folds hid it from view. Then she watched the black-clad hoof reach out.
Deal.
She didn’t hesitate. She shook hooves. The world darkened, and a glimpse of the eternal twilight loomed over her and under her and all around her. Then reality crept back in once it was gone.
“Brrrooooooocccccccccoooooooollllllllliiiiiiiiii!” spluttered Shining Armor.
With a lazy wave, Death put the world on pause.
Punctuality is the politeness of princesses, but a mere passing fancy next to Death’s dutifulness. Time slowed. The sunset outside the arched windows froze halfway across the horizon. The air currents froze like glass displays. So too did the blizzards of the Frozen North beyond their pocket paradise, which became stars twinkling in the dark, cloudy patches of local night.
Shining’s death stretched on in the unreality of timelessness.
Which meant he was now stuck with a bit of broccoli in his throat. “Thanks for that,” he rasped angrily.
Helpless, Cadence shrugged at him.
Meanwhile, Lemon Hearts downed another bottle. “Hey, my evening just got better!”
Crazy Lace Agate rushed between Princess and Death to splutter, “Just you rememembember I’ve got my eye and my eye and my nose and my ear and my ear and my tongue and my appropriate-ception –”
“Proprioception,” whispered Cadence, ever the babysitter.
“And that and all the other senses and sensors and sensitivi-bili-lessnesses – on you.”
Death looked down coldly at the hoof prodding her in the chest. Frost started to cling to the hoof with the radiating chill of a morgue. Crazy Lace Agate had to be grabbed and thrown aside by a much-less-suicidally-inclined Mrs Maresbury.
“Your Highness,” whispered the librarian. “I think I know how to beat Death. Tradition is very clear on this point.”
For want of any better ideas, Cadence listened.
And Death looked around at the silent crowd. For the first time, she radiated… puzzlement.
What is this thing that you do?
“National. Spring. Holiday. Noble. Proud. Crystal. Tradition.” Shining Armor gagged and spluttered before feeling less choky enough to answer properly, “It’s called Tiny Ewing Time.”
There were indeed some tiny ewes dotting the crowd, as well as their newborn lambs. Most of them had retreated to the corners.
I see. A time of birth and new life.
“Uh, yeah?” rasped Shining Armor, trying to sound nonchalant and failing.
Interesting. Name your challenge.
“Chess,” said Mrs Maresbury proudly.
Ah. Then you will have to remind me how the little horsey ones move.
“Do I seriously have to have this broccoli in my throat the whole time?” Shining Armor rasped irritably.
“I could give you CPR if you like,” suggested Lemon Hearts, puckering her lips.
Frowning, Crazy Lace Agate thumped her on the shoulder.
“What? What did I say?”
“You know that only works in Applewood Movies, right?” snorted Crazy Lace Agate. “That doesn’t happen in real life.”
“Worth a shot.”
“Hard pass,” rasped Shining Armor.
Lemon Hearts grinned. “That’s the idea, handsome.”
They turned back to the game. All the crystal ponies, tiny ewes, even tinier lambs, and assorted guests had followed Cadence, Mrs Maresbury, and Death – at a distance – into one of the many leisure chambers of the Crystal Castle. Never had a chess game been the focus of so much dread.
“What are they doing now?” Lemon Hearts whispered.
“Chessing,” suggested Crazy Lace Agate.
“I got that. Who’s winning?”
“Er… the one who’s got the most pieces?”
As the tallest one there, Shining Armor squinted over the heads of the crowd, wincing and massaging the broccoli-shaped lump in his throat.
“It’s not going well,” he rasped. “Should’ve used the Brainiac Bluff instead of the King’s Buffalo Attack. That’s no good against a Giggling Defense.”
“You sound funny,” said Crazy Lace Agate, looking puzzled.
“They’re famous chess moves.”
“No, I mean you sound like you’ve got something in your throat.”
A thought struck Shining Armor. “You’re not related to anypony called Pie, right?”
“Er… not that I know of? Why?”
“Just asking.” Shining Armor thought it best to focus on the game. “Geez, this isn’t going well at all.”
Cadence was coming to the same conclusion. Sugar, she thought, I should have used the Brainiac Bluff.
“Look at her knight on F6,” whispered Mrs Maresbury. “It’s clearly in a perfect defensive position.”
No backseat chessing, declared Death.
“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Hey,” said Cadence suspiciously, “I thought you needed reminding over how the ‘little horsey ones’ move?”
I did, declared Death. I was reminded how devastating they could be.
Death was good. Outright perfect.
It was the way she moved that threw Cadence off the most. She herself needed a few minutes to study the board, having been trained and trained hard by long evenings with her old babysitting favourite Twilight Sparkle – who could’ve been a Grandmaster at the age of twelve if she’d taken much interest in non-study hobbies – and with Shining Armor – who’d been a Grandmaster because strategic thinking appealed to his soldierly side, numbers appealed to his mathematical side, and geeking out appealed to everything else.
Cadence had managed to beat him after about three hundred games. She’d learned cut-and-thrust tactics the hard way, and thus had emerged a fire-forged warrior who even Shining Armor treated as a formidable foe.
Whereas Death…
As soon as Cadence made her move and hit the timer – PING! PING! – Death had not only already moved but hit the timer exactly after Cadence herself had done so. It gave the princess whiplash just figuring out what had changed on the board in the fraction-of-a-blink.
Long minutes, then PING! PING! Long minutes, then PING! PING!
Of course, Death worked in an instant.
She was also terrifyingly logical. Until now, Cadence hadn’t even known it was possible to break a Blackmage-Redeemer Gambit by using only one pawn in one square at one particular time.
Eventually, she had to ask, “How do you do it?”
I move the pieces across the board.
Cadence waited patiently for anything else, then politely tried again. “I meant: how do you work out the right moves so well? I’m impressed.”
It is as it should be.
“Well… do you work out all the possibilities in your head and select the right one?”
I only need one possibility. It’s the one that works.
“Erm… very, uh, logical.”
Long minutes, then PING! PING!
Check.
“Who taught you those moves? If you don’t mind my asking?” Cadence was going to be polite if it killed her.
No one.
Long minutes, then PING! PING!
Checkmate.
The crowd groaned in sympathy.
Mrs Maresbury found herself the centre of a very unimpressed set of faces clearly remembering who’d suggested the chess plan. “It seemed like such a good idea at the time! Chess with Death. The stories go back centuries. And the mortal always wins, don’t you see?”
Mere propaganda.
“You don’t mean books would tell a lie!?” cried Mrs Maresbury, who as a librarian naturally treated fiction and nonfiction the same way a chaperone treated a mare and a stallion in the same room.
I mean books won’t tell you about the losses.
“Oh.” Mrs Maresbury looked crestfallen. “Oh…”
Quickly wiping her face with one hoof, Cadence extended the other. “Good game. Um. Best out of two hundred and twenty-five?”
No. This is getting boring.
Death’s scythe slid out.
I always win.
“Shoot,” rasped Shining Armor from within the crowd. “Hold on a second –”
“Wait!” Cadence knocked the table over in her haste, ignoring Mrs Maresbury’s cry of distress at the scattered pieces. “We’re not finished! There must be something we can do!”
“Mrs Maresbury!?”
Having bent down to pick up the black pieces – Death had insisted, every time – Mrs Maresbury looked especially small next to the gloomy crowd.
“Ah,” she said, tugging at her glasses. “Let me think… Let me think…”
As Death slunk towards Shining Armor, Cadence hoped and wished under her breath. Mrs Maresbury hadn’t let her down before. Learning princessing from the likes of Celestia meant Cadence had – early in her reign – immediately seen the value of recruiting someone who knew myths and legends of yore, in case yore ended up at the door. In the offing, in this case.
The librarian hit her temples to dislodge something from her brain. “Challenges, challenges. There was something in How to Mourn Friends and Distance Yourself from Ponies, or was it The Once-and-That-Was-It King?”
“She Kindly Stopped For Me?” suggested Crazy Lace Agate, ushering Shining Armor away. “Please?”
“No,” cried Lemon Hearts, backseat advisor, “it was definitely Plot Twistations, Chapter Six, Verses Seven and Eight.”
The others stared at her.
“What?” She shrugged weakly. “I read the classics sometimes.”
Death loomed over them, guests draining away from the hem of the cloak like a moonless tide. The hum of mortality seeped into the bones of those who gazed upon the relentless advance, the pitiless hole of the dark sun, the agonizing ends of the blade’s serrated teeth –
“Four challenges!”
Death swung the scythe round, blunt-end first, to poke at the chest of a suddenly very unhappy Mrs Maresbury.
“It’s in the rules! Four challenges! One for life, one for death, one for the start, and one for the end! The Four Deaths! The whole caboodle! Ancient tradition! Four is Death! From Qilinland! And Tianma! Eastern tradition! Very popular! Four challenges allowed! One, then two, then three, then –”
You’re babbling.
Mrs Maresbury had to be led away by kind ponies and Lemon Hearts.
Nonetheless, Cadence rose, grinning. “Four challenges. We’ve done the first one, and yes, we lost, but we get three more attempts.”
Death regarded her coldly.
“Come on. That’s the rule. At least one way to beat you. That’s all it takes, right? One win?”
Massaging his throat, Shining Armor glanced from one to the other. Around them, several drooping ears rose up with new hope. Cadence was good at that.
But you’ve had, like, a hundred and twelve chess games.
“One challenge, in lots of instalments. It counts.” Cadence could have out-smugged the Great and Powerful Trixie.
Finally, Death snorted. Fine. What do you propose for your second challenge?
“Can we just get this over with!?” rasped Shining Armor, tears in his eyes. “This broccoli is like sandpaper.”
Someone coughed. All eyes turned to Crazy Lace Agate, who had put a towering birthday cake on her head for a hat and was wobbling to keep it there.
“May I?” she asked, dripping icing and candle wax.
This. Is. Stupid.
“Um,” mumbled Cadence, who was coming to the same conclusion. “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
To get run over by a cart and die. Next question.
The crowd winced. Someone’s baby started bawling.
“No, uh…” Cadence sighed. “Never mind. Now you try one on me.”
“BE FUNNIER!” shouted Crazy Lace Agate from the back of the crowd. Lemon Hearts and Mrs Maresbury – in a rare show of camaraderie – rose up and dragged her down again.
Death pressed a black-clad hoof into what would on a normal pony be her cheek and rested her elbow on the podium. All right. Let’s see you do better. Why did the specimen of Gallus gallus domesticus venture across the specially designed stretch of ground for the congress of pony-centric vehicles? Remember you are under oath.
Even the audience went deathly silent. Cadence was loved for many reasons, barring comedy.
No, no, no, moaned Cadence inside her own head. Quick! Something funny! Didn’t Shining’s dad tell me this one once?
“To…” Her lips worked around possible punchlines whilst Shining Armor frantically signalled for attention. “To…”
She gulped, trusting to the quick-thinking that had saved her so many times on babysitting duty. She thought about all the parents she’d met. She wished one of them had been a professional comedian. She wished the ones who weren’t hadn’t insisted on telling jokes anyway.
Her insides curled up and tried to make her flee to her room for the “tubs of ice cream” style of grief counselling.
“To… To…” She gave up. “To meet the nice hen on the other side?”
Crickets wouldn’t have survived in the Frozen North. One chirped anyway.
“It was love at first peck?”
A tumbleweed defied the local climate and tumbled by.
“Clucky love?”
Away from Cadence’s podium, Shining Armor found a quiet corner and wept.
Death stepped down from her own podium. For everypony’s sakes, this doesn’t count. And never happened.
“Intermission?” asked Cadence desperately. It got the first cheer of her entire routine.
The Crystal Castle emptied of ponies and guests, most of whom wanted a breath of fresh air and the lovely sense that Death wasn’t closing in around them. Many crowded the plaza beneath the castle, admiring the gentle spin and pulsing glow of the Crystal Heart.
Blue rises and falls. Soothing. Peaceful.
Further along the radiating roads of the citadel, the crystal natives mingled with the guests or returned home to recuperate. Some went to find loved ones who’d fled early on. A few attended to the flocks of tiny sheep. Their paddocks had been carved from crystal stalactites harvested from the nearby Caves of Miracles. If there was one thing the crystal ponies prided themselves on, it was their carving skills.
A small fair of sorts had set up stalls along the avenues. It would be a long time before the true Crystal Fair came to town, but any excuse for festivities.
Around them, many of the partygoers were finding weird side effects of the time stop. Plenty admired the frozen sunset, of course, but some poured drinks that moved like molasses, others got strange indigestion as their stomach acids demanded proper time for breaking down food, and the occult equivalent of jet lag had sent some back to their beds.
Mrs Maresbury hurried back to her library in case it had gotten untidy in her absence. The fact that it was locked and no one else was allowed inside was quite beside the point.
Lemon Hearts ran out of drink and went off to sulk in an alleyway somewhere. The black pit of despair that clung to her insides like tar was making itself felt again. She passed the time by idly admiring the couples who came close to the alleyway’s entrance, and then shouting “BOO!” if they tried to seek private time there.
Crazy Lace Agate entertained the frightened children by balancing on a giant bouncy ball whilst juggling flugelhorns and blowing them. She nearly lost three teeth. This cheered the kids up immensely.
And in a public garden, Cadence and Shining Armor sat down and watched the frozen breeze, caught in the act of ruffling the frozen petals of the frozen flowers. Roses had always been Shining Armor’s favourite, but they savoured all the rainbow hues. Proud, wild city of the earth.
A small pond reflected other lovers seated around the garden. Shining Armor wondered what they were talking about. Him, probably, but what specifically, he could only guess. He himself was trying to ignore the politics of it all. His own death didn’t worry him nearly as much as the kind of death he was getting.
“Broccoli,” he muttered through the rasp. “Who’s ever heard of a prince dying of broccoli? If this doesn’t end well, I’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Poor Twilight,” said Cadence, stirring the leaves of a lily on the pond with one hoof. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse she’s not here today.”
“Broccoli! Even asparagus would’ve been better.”
“Carrot?”
Shining Armor screwed up his face. “Worse.”
“But it doesn’t matter anyway. Because this is going to end well.”
Miserably, Shining Armor folded his forelimbs and leaned back. “How can you be sure?”
“I’ll make it sure.”
“Cadence…”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
Giving a token smile, Shining Armor glanced at her. Who was it who had said, “Love conquers all”? Either they’d met Cadence, or they were Cadence.
“I don’t think Death’s into all that ‘friendship forever’ stuff. You know how the vow goes. Till death do us part. She’s giving it a good try.”
“You need to stop talking,” said Cadence gently.
“It needs saying!”
“No, I mean you keep hurting yourself around that broccoli.”
He shrugged, massaging the lump in his throat. “My neck hurts when I don’t talk anyway.”
“History’s full of couples who took on Death,” insisted Cadence.
“Yeah. They’re history. I love you, Cadence. I always will. But death’s death, and that! Was! Death!”
At which point, Cadence fell silent. Shining too remembered all the old stories about couples uniting in the face of a cruel world, all the star-crossed lovers and tragic romances which – in the hooves of the Great Bard of Equestria – had become household names. They’d died all the same.
“Of course I want to keep fighting!” he added before she’d finished opening her mouth. “To the bitter end, if I have to! But we can’t JUST rely on friendship-forever kinds of thinking. We need to be smarter. We need to figure this out.”
Cadence’s mouth opened and shut a few times, then she said, somewhat amusedly, “Actually, I was going to ask if you had any ideas for another challenge.”
“What?”
“I’m not doing that comedy stuff again.”
Shining Armor chortled. “Yeah, you’re worse than my dad.”
“Hey, that’s not fair! At least I never did any math puns.”
“Wow, yeah. Dad loves his math puns. They multiply like crazy when he’s around.” When he caught her eye, he added, “What? What did I say?”
“Oh, nothing.” Cadence rolled her eyes. “Subtract it from your mind.”
“Wait, what?”
She giggled, then suddenly went quiet and patted his shoulder to point something out.
By the flowerbed, from which many couples were making a hasty retreat, crouched Death.
Both of them stiffened like deer who had wandered into a volcanic vent and could now hear ominous roarings and a suspicious light at the end of the tunnel.
Then they unfroze.
Death took no notice of anyone.
Getting up, Cadence and Shining Armor exchanged puzzled glances. Together, they stepped over as stealthily as they could. Death seemed to be occupied with something, yet as the two of them drew closer, the figure didn’t seem to be moving. If anything, she seemed… transfixed.
Nothing unusual there. Just lots of colourful flowers.
Neither of them disturbed Death until the figure straightened up.
You have a challenge ready?
Both of them gave a start, but Shining Armor recovered faster and said, “Do you like those flowers?”
Life can be interesting.
“Sure can.” This didn’t feel right. There was Death, all business. And there was another Death, fascinated by flowers. And in a way that was making his eyes water and his brain crack, they were occupying the same space whilst still being one figure who was also being two completely different figures at once. Bits of his mind somehow made total sense of this and rejected it – painfully – as utter nonsense.
What is this… Tiny Ewing Time?
“It’s what the crystal ponies call lambing season,” explained Shining Armor. “The whole empire celebrates. Apparently.”
“We found out about it in the library,” piped up Cadence, whose tone was noncommittal. “As Crystal Prince and Princess, we had to join in. The ruler always held the festival to keep the spirits of the crystal ponies lifted. Any excuse for festivities, right?”
It is for love of all living things?
“We… uh… In a way, I guess? Lambs, definitely.”
Somehow, the answer seemed to annoy Death. There was no expression discernible in that cipher of a face, but under the hood Shining Armor sensed a mood radiating out from the figure like a sun changing colour.
“Um,” rasped Shining Armor, casting about in that desperate moment when a conversation falls off a cliff. “Are you a gardener, much?”
Cadence rolled her eyes at him, but to both of their surprises, Death seemed to perk up at the question.
Not especially. My role goes no further than pushing up daisies. I do appreciate the craft involved.
“I never really figured you for a gardener.”
“Graveyards get flowers,” pointed out Cadence. “It makes a kind of sense.”
Nothing to do with me. I am Death. Burial is what comes after I have finished my work. Unless the victim is especially unlucky, that is.
Yet again, Shining Armor’s brain tried to tell him something – two things at once – and simply failed to get through.
He did manage to stumble across an idea, though, and it cheered him up no end. “All right. Would you like to learn about my hobbies too?”
Is this better or worse than the comedy routines?
At the head of the round table – somehow, anywhere on the table became the head when he sat there – Shining Armor beamed proudly. “Ogres and Oubliettes!” he proclaimed.
I repeat my question with greater emphasis.
“Ogres and Oubliettes!” squealed Crazy Lace Agate.
“Ogres and Oubliettes?” asked Mrs Maresbury.
“Ogres! And BLOOMIN’! Oubliettes!” cursed Lemon Hearts.
Cadence smiled slightly. “Yep, Ogres and Oubliettes,” she sighed, but as an indulgence.
Thank you all for that comprehensive explanation. I now declare myself less puzzled than I was before.
“It’s better than chess!” cried Shining Armor, whereupon Cadence and Lemon Hearts giggled into their hooves. “You’ll like this one. It’s the Equestrian Historic Edition from the Year of the Fluffy Lamb Pillows.”
He broke off to cough, as the broccoli refused to be forgotten in favour of mere fantasies.
Having sat down in a chair as incongruously as a manticore trying to fit into a dog kennel, Death looked around the plaza.
Plenty of crystal ponies had signed up for games beyond chess. It was all Shining Armor’s idea. Traditional crystal pony games involved jousting and tossing rings onto bottles, but since Lemon Hearts had stolen anything bottle-shaped, they’d had to get creative this year. Besides, Shining Armor was a lot like Cadence in wanting to share the joy. He’d started the Crystal Pony Mathematics Club and kept attending meetings despite no one else signing up (except for Cadence, who would put up with exponential amounts of boredom to keep him happy on average).
All around, other tables had boards and pieces and rulebooks and dice laid out – now abandoned, since no game could possibly be as spectacular as Gamemaster Shining Armor versus any newcomer he’d managed to hustle into playing against him. Especially a newcomer like Death, who was something of a celebrity in the Ogres and Oubliettes world, or at least those bits of it set in the Ravenattic campaign.
The audience waited for blood to be spilled.
It wasn’t that Shining Armor cheated. Far from it: he’d be horrified at the idea of breaking the rules. Nevertheless: within those rules, he was to the game world what the Celestial Bureaucracy was to anyone trying to get a tax rebate, and his gaming had been outlawed in fifteen nations under the Selena Convention for gross and repeated fun violations.
The other players were less than thrilled by Shining Armor standards.
“Who will your character be?” asked Cadence weakly. “I’m, uh…” She blushed.
“Conquersall the Master Thrower!” announced Shining Armor with reckless joy.
“Sometimes,” she added. “Only once, in fact. In a practise session.”
Insofar as any expression could be sensed on the occult face, Death gave the princess’s sizzling blush a puzzled look.
Lemon Hearts chuckled. “Master Thrower.”
“Ahem,” coughed Cadence.
“Oh yeah, I bet they were spouse-throwing champions at the Equestria Games. Toss or be tossed, eh?” whispered Lemon Hearts, who caught Cadence’s eye and promptly stuffed her own muzzle into a distracting bottle (despite it being an empty one).
Cadence hastily tossed the baton of conversation to a better runner. “And Crazy Lace Agate comes up with all kinds of characters. It’s one of her hobbies, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Crazy Lace Agate scowled at Death, taking a bite out of a crystal apple very slowly to make the point. “I’m more a creator than a no-good, party-crashing, joy-killing anti-creator gal.”
“Crazy…” hissed Cadence, keeping a stiff upper smile.
“Right, right.” Still scowling, Crazy Lace Agate swallowed. “Shouldn’t talk with my mouth full. Got it.”
Oblivious to the tension weighing the air down, Shining Armor danced the pieces across the board. “All right, let’s play the Equestrian Historic Edition: Alicorn Campaign –”
“Oh, Compost Mental, you are,” muttered Lemon Hearts, sticking a candy cane in the corner of her mouth.
Cadence gave a warning hum.
Slowly and offensively, Lemon Hearts took out the candy cane and cast it over the heads of the crowd. It stuck in a colt’s stick of candyfloss.
Death looked between Cadence and Lemon Hearts. Are you two lifelong mortal archnemeses, by any chance?
They gaped at Death.
“No,” said Lemon Hearts. “We’re –”
“Friends,” finished Cadence, in spite of the evidence.
Death radiated disappointment.
“We’re in the same line of work,” explained Lemon Hearts, leaning back and putting her hooves on the table till Cadence coughed at her. “Matchmakers. And I organize state dinners sometimes.”
“Canterlot state dinners,” corrected Cadence.
“Any state dinners.” Lemon Hearts corrected the correction. “I organize the drinking.”
You mean you organize the drinks?
“No. The drinking.”
Death was right to be puzzled. Anyone who saw Cadence and Lemon Hearts in the same room together assumed they got on like a by-the-books principal faced with a class clown gone rogue. Yet there was always that sense of old, unbroken history in the way they belligerently stared at each other –
You’re not lovers, are you?
This time, they glared at Death.
The fighting, the bitter abuse, the mutual hatred: sometimes, it is really love, or so I have been led to believe by reliable sources.
Their glares, as it were, became cockatrician.
Death broke first. I’ll take that as a firm no.
“Good!” they shouted in unison.
Meanwhile, Mrs Maresbury went through the rulebooks with Shining Armor like a mother being fully and inevitably introduced to her son’s obsessions. “My goodness, that’s a lot of statistics, isn’t it?”
“That’s just the character sheets. Look, here are the notes I made for the outcomes of past campaigns. You see the 21% increase in success when you choose to rush in shouting your name? Not many ponies know that’s a viable dungeon-crawling strategy, but it’s a good antidote to Overfloggin the Noggin.”
“What fanciful names, to be sure. Wait, I recognize some of these runes. Did you draw these in?”
“Ancient Hydroxylapatese – the Language in the Bone.”
“The oldest known crystal pony tongue! Oh, how clever! I think a keen stallion like you might enjoy this, then: I could lend you some books on the subject of all the ancient crystal pony languages and their family relationships.”
“Thanks! I already got ’em. Invented fifteen languages based on them too.”
“Nerd,” muttered Lemon Hearts.
“Nerd,” agreed Cadence dreamily. She’d helped invent five of them.
What is a nerd? I’ve never heard of such an ethnic tribal identity before.
At which point, Crazy Lace Agate slammed a hoof on the table, making the two ten-sided dice near her leap straight to snake eyes. “Killjoy!”
The table went quiet. She’d shouted this as though it were the same as “murderer”.
Death seemed more taken aback than huffy, for someone who didn’t need to breathe at all. Excuse me?
“Why? Don’t you do what you do anyway, and hang everyone else?”
Now Death became huffy. Hanging others is not usually my style.
“No, your style is a stile over other ponies’ lives! You’re a fence-hopper! You’re a line-crosser! You’re… you’re… you’re a killjoy! Killjoy, killjoy, killjoy!”
“Crazy,” said Shining Armor warningly. “You can’t talk to a guest like that. And stop knocking over the pieces!”
More pieces went flying as Crazy Lace Agate threw herself into wild gestures. “A guest doesn’t go around taking ponies’ pets, or taking ponies’ ponies, or taking ponies! What happened to Mister Crumble, Killjoy!? Mister! Crumble!”
Cadence ran a hoof over her own ear. “Mister Crumble?”
“The pet cake I got for my sixth birthday!”
Shining Armor rushed to put pieces back. “Pet cake?”
“Yeah! A lovely little slice of strawberry velvet with chocolate filling! My mommy cut him from her mommy, and that was when we baked for ourselves a tasty, perfectly crisp week-long friendship. We fell in love on sight! We did everything together! We had food fights! We shared macaroons! We collected bugs! And then it was one lovely summer’s day before that no-good sucky sorcerer Sombra came to power, and we were playing Queens and Empresses outside, and then it just happened, it just – Poor Mister Crumble fell out of my hooves onto the hard crystal road, and-and this cart came along, and all these armies, and… and…” Crazy Lace Agate gasped, shuddering, and rubbed tears out of furious eyes. “There was icing everywhere. There were bits of chocolate in the road. There was Mister Crumble everywhere. And a cake-slice-shaped hole in my heart where there should have been sweet, delicious, never-expiring, best-before-and-ever-after love…”
Embarrassed coughs and grunts met the embarrassing sobs.
Eventually, it was broken by Death asking, So how exactly do you hang a cake?
“YOU SELFISH MONSTER!”
Cadence led her away from the table so she could cry her eyes out in private.
“Look, let’s not think too much about this,” pleaded Shining Armor through the unshiftable broccoli. “If it’s going to be my last game, then let’s make it a good one, OK? Death, you need to choose a character.”
I choose Death. I have no choice.
“No, no,” piped up Mrs Maresbury, who was determined to get into the swing of things. “He means you need to invent a persona, select a class, state your stat preferences…”
“Er…” rasped Shining Armor.
“Something like ‘Bookgrinder the Astute’ as a charm-dominant seductress, for example,” continued Mrs Maresbury without a hint of shame.
I don’t do charm.
“OK then, how about…?” suggested Shining Armor, consulting his notes. “How about you play as one of the pre-Ascended Alicorns? There’s always at least one in this campaign, and since you’re the guest, it’s a good way to learn the mechanics as you go.”
Death took the cards from him. Eerily so. There was no sign of unicorn magic, yet the cards floated before her face anyway.
Ever eager, Shining Armor peered over her shoulder. “See, that’s a good one. Princess Martia is a jenny-of-all-trades type, ideal for the beginner, whereas Princess Mercuria –” He broke off for a coughing fit.
I know these ponies.
Emerging from his fit, Shining Armor spluttered, “Wh-what?”
I’ve met them.
“Oh. Oh, of course, yeah. In your line of work. Wait, really met them!?” Fanboying instincts leaped at the chance. “You’ve met –?”
From the alpha Celestia to the omega Makemakea, yes, I have encountered each and every alicorn.
“WOW!”
Mrs Maresbury frowned. “But Celestia is still alive.”
Let’s just say she’s had plenty of near-death experiences.
Shining Armor was too enthralled to be bothered by the idea of his former Captain-in-Chief’s mortality. “You’ve met them all!? That’s incredible! Did you ever meet the miserable Saturnalia?”
Yes.
“And, and the devastating earthquaker Neptunia?”
Yes.
“And the eccentric Eridia who was the first to master chaos magic!?”
Yes! And the annoying Urania who asked too many questions.
The hint rolled off Shining Armor like a plea for sanity against the average shipping fan. “And the deadliest of all, Princess Plutonia!?”
Death was drawn up short. Her expression was unreadable, even by occult standards. Then, cautiously, almost fearfully, Death selected a card and examined the small artist’s impression. There was a lot of black.
Plutonia. Yes, I knew her.
“They say she was the best killer of all time! Mastered every weapon and slaughtered every kind of enemy! She taught the world so much about combat skill!”
Just as cautiously, almost as fearfully, Death put the card back. So many long futures. So many lives cut short.
Only then did the awkward silence drill through Shining Armor’s enthusiasm. The other ponies and guests eyed each other warily, each waiting for the others to break whatever concentration had Death in its grip.
Shining Armor took the cards back. “I guess not?”
It is always strange to re-encounter lives after you take them. Legacy means nothing to me.
As if on cue, Cadence came back with a puffy-eyed Crazy Lace Agate, who had burbled down to a mere mutinous muttering. “…and she kills memories… and she kills joy… and she doesn’t belong to parties… and she kills balloons after barely any time at all.”
Both Cadence and Shining Armor exchanged sympathetic looks.
“You’re sure you’re not related to anypony called Pie?” asked Lemon Hearts, looking unnerved.
“Why do ponies keep asking me that?” whined Crazy Lace Agate, blowing her nose on an uninflated balloon.
“Um… no idea,” said Lemon Hearts spinelessly.
“All right!” With forced cheer, Shining Armor rubbed his hooves together. “Let’s get this campaign started! This is gonna be fun!”
Four hours of setup and thirty minutes of actual gaming later, Death whistled along the fair stalls, idly examining the merchandise and – as much as Death can at all muster anything resembling a mood more positive than “I’m positive you are going to die now” – cheerfully ignoring the cries of despair far behind her, back at the plaza.
“She killed the whole party!”
“I know, Shiny, I know.”
“How in Celestia’s name did she roll perfectly every time!? It’s impossible!”
“Well, maybe Death doesn’t care about luck?”
“No one can beat the Faustian Bargain Basement! No one! It’s scientifically not possible!”
“Come on, Shiny, there’s a good knighty knight.”
“And she didn’t even have maxed-out stats! She was a rookie Monk class! MONK! CLASS!”
“There, there…”
Death selected a crystal apple from a shaking stall-owner’s cart and vanished it somewhere in the region of her face. Nevertheless, there was a satisfied crunch.
I like this imagination business. Now I can create more things to destroy. Life is an endlessly educational experience.
After Cadence had put Shining Armor to bed for a sleepy sulk – so far, his best record for the fastest Ogres and Oubliettes campaign had been one-hour-fifty – she went out to find Death.
No one made her husband cry. No one.
On the other hoof, the challenges were starting to worry her. When she’d made four of them and only had one down, anything had seemed possible. Now she’d reached the halfway point, suddenly the future seemed much more dangerous. The deadline crawled so agonizingly towards her that she half-wondered if it was leaving a poisonous slime trail all over her life.
There would be a Cadence without her Shining Armor beside her. Pity and terror clawed their way into her heart.
To her annoyance, she found someone keeping pace alongside.
“I don’t have time for your jokes now, Lemon!”
“Look.” Lemon Hearts huffed and puffed as her non-alicornian limbs pumped to keep up with Cadence’s long stride. “You need an actual plan.”
“I’ve got one.”
“What, make friends with Death? Hope friendship will just magic away all your problems?”
Cadence concentrated on cantering.
“You! Need! A real! Plan!”
“I know!” snapped Cadence. How did Lemon Hearts get under her skin like this? No one else got this reaction out of her. Except monsters like Sombra and Chrysalis.
“So what is it?” insisted Lemon Hearts.
“Good grief, will you just have a little faith in me and Shining Armor?”
“I do. You’ve got the right stuff. Love. And that’s my matchmaker side saying that.”
They came to a sliding halt halfway down the royal corridor. All around them, crystal facets vibrated with the distant hum of chatter. Crisis or not, crystal ponies were still ponies: partying, chatting, and having fun. It rolled right over death no matter how much death sought to loom over them instead.
“But…” gasped Lemon Hearts, clutching a stitch in her chest. “But it’s not enough.”
“Your Highness,” demanded Cadence.
Even winded and staggering, Lemon Hearts found enough of Lemon Hearts to make a grin. “I thought you didn’t like ponies being too formal?”
“Yeah, but the way you do informal…”
Cadence swallowed her temper. She’d been getting better for years. As a babysitter, and then as ruler of an entire empire, she had to. Yet Lemon Hearts was an old anomaly from before then. A remnant from a different, more uncertain life.
Perhaps that was why Cadence tolerated her. Or perhaps it was because Lemon Hearts had the unerring ability to say what Cadence no longer dared to think.
“OK,” said Lemon Hearts with faux reasonableness. “You can’t beat Death. You can’t reason with it, bargain with it, persuade it or put it off its lunch. There’s nothing you can do to Death that she hasn’t seen and probably done a million times over. I don’t think you’re going to outsmart Death, either. Something about that face makes me think a lot of ponies have tried being smart. Where are they now?”
“Well, then,” said Cadence with real passion, “I might as well befriend Death, then.”
“What? How do you figure that?”
“If nothing’s going to work anyway, then friendship’s as good as anything else, right? And I’d rather Death be my friend than my enemy. So if I’m more prepared to make friends in the first place –”
For the first time, Lemon Hearts looked scandalized. This was quite a feat for a mare who’d once climbed to the top of the Crystal Castle to waggle her tail at the ambassadors.
“With a killer!?”
Cadence winced, though her mouth kept going regardless. “I know, but she’s just… just a hippomorphic ponification of an abstract concept.”
Blame Twilight for that one.
“A whatification what’s-it, what?” Lemon Hearts had that distinctive “too many drinks, not enough thinks” expression.
“Meaning it’s not her fault. When you’re put into a pony shape, you don’t just stay the same. You start… thinking pony. Or being a pony in your own right. It’s like when you turn into an alicorn and you think you’re just you with a horn now, and it turns out no, you’re not, you’ve got other things that go with it. Other duties. You know?”
“No.” When Lemon Hearts next spoke, her voice gained a distinctive “talking to a slow idiot” tone. “She. Wants. To. Kill. Your. Husband.”
Cadence paused for several wrong-footed seconds. The distant laughter of guests became an unreal, alien sound.
“It’s… just the way it is,” she said uncertainly, as though the words were someone else’s.
“You don’t seriously want him dead?”
“N-no, of course not. It’s just…” Cadence opened her mouth for words that were too skittish to come when she called. She wasn’t sure what she’d wanted. Death had come for her husband, and that was enough for a butt-kicking at the very least as far as Cadence was concerned. But having actually met Death, she just seemed… familiar?
Cadence slumped. She didn’t know. Anyway, it sounded crazy, and not in the amusing Crazy Lace Agate way.
“No, you’re not giving up that easy!” Lemon Hearts scolded. “If there’s any chance of saving your husband –”
That was enough; Cadence stood firm. “Who says I’m giving up? You just watch me.”
Prepared to give up yet? Death surveyed the display of crystal sun hats, crystal bonnets, and crystal clown costumes on the more outlandish stalls. A shame. I would like to see what this Crystal Berry Cookoff consisted of.
Cadence needed a moment to cool herself before she played the gracious host. “It’s a cookery competition. Crazy Lace Agate’s favorite to win.”
“Not if my sabotage kit can help it,” chuckled Lemon Hearts under her breath before Cadence’s eye shut her up.
“You’ve never cooked before?” asked Cadence.
Death picked up a muffin from a particularly woebegone tray and sniffed it. I have been involved in several housefires that impacted the nature of the associated kitchen larders. Perhaps that would be considered close enough?
Horrifying, screaming visions had to be put out in Cadence’s mind. “No. Nowhere near, in fact. No, not at all. No.”
I apologize. Domestic chores such as cooking and not setting fire to my enemies were never special talents of mine.
Cadence’s ear flicked. Had Death just said the words “I apologize”?
What is apple bobbing?
“It’s a kind of game,” explained Cadence on autopilot. “You grab the apples out of the water with your mouth.”
And then destroy them with vigorous champing? Crush them under your hooves into fertilizer?
“Not really.”
Can you set fire to them?
“No!” Cadence wrinkled her muzzle. At times, Death became weirdly solid, even lively.
Then Death died again. Never mind. But it is a game played in the name of fun?
Perhaps it was time to take a leaf out of Twilight’s book. “You’ve never had fun before?”
Death fell quiet, partway through examining a balloon stall.
“Any friends?”
Death pretended to see herself in the reflection of a red balloon. Cadence could tell from the shuffling of hooves under the cloak and the unnatural headshake of the riding hood; Death did what all horses did when slightly irritated.
“There must be someone special in your life, right?”
I have no life.
“You’ll fit right in at the Ogres and Oubliettes Club, then,” chortled Lemon Hearts.
I am not a club kind of pony. I am an ace of spades. In a manner of speaking.
Cadence threw caution to the winds. “Look, you can’t take Shining Armor away just like that. He means so much to me, to the crystal ponies, to Twilight, family and friends –”
That is not your decision to make. The Empire loves its prince. Till Death do us part. That was the agreement.
“You know what’s uninterestingly interesting?” Lemon Hearts babbled on. “Mrs Maresbury once bored me silly by pointing out that it used to be ‘Till Death us depart’, see, because ‘depart’ meant ‘to part, like, really part’. So ponies got the words confused. So it ended up as ‘Till death us do part’ and then ‘Till death do us part’. See? That kind of shoot is what some of the living think ‘fun’ is. You’ll fit right in with a bar that low.”
“Lemon Hearts! That’s not helping!”
“I thought it was helping.”
Enough. Death turned to Cadence so fast the riding hood whipped through the air. Have you a third challenge, or shall I claim what is due?
Cadence tried to meet the eye of Death. She might as well have stared down the sun. From Mercury.
It was futile. History was going to end them both. And the worst part was trying to see the pony in Death – that hippomorphic ponification – and seeing nothing but the worst kind of killer. The soul of a soulless murder machine, the thief of all lives, a black hole where there should have been a star…
Hopelessly, Cadence clung on to hope.
“Let me persuade you,” she pleaded.
Persuade me? If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn that Death sounded amused.
“Yes, that’s how we rule. We don’t force or talk over other ponies. Friends treat friends as equals, with respect.”
We are not equals. Love is no match for Death. Nothing is.
“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
Lemon Hearts sidled away while they were both thinking, either to round up a crowd or to get something that hadn’t been drunk yet.
Eventually, Death nodded, intoning with definite amusement this time. As you wish. We will persuade your subjects. See whether Love has more power than Death. And then I will watch this cookoff. Perhaps burning food will be fun.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Cadence wasn’t defiant. If anything, she felt deflated.
Get what?
“Follow me and see.”
The crystal ponies gathered round eagerly. This time, for once, they shone with hope. Their coats gleamed and their facets cut clean through the air. Nearby, within the plaza, the Crystal Heart spun faster and pulsed more brightly. The Light Within was growing.
Like a world-class teacher among her beloved pupils, Cadence stood by a family of three – a mother, a father, and their son – to show them off. “And Painite here plays little league biteball. He’s working hard to make his class proud, and I think he could go all the way to Nationals if he wanted.”
“I just swings it,” said little Painite bashfully.
“Yeah,” whispered his dad. “But when you’re pitchin’, you’re s’posed to throw it.”
“He’s getting better, though,” said Cadence encouragingly.
Little Painite jumped up and down. “Thank you kindly, Your Highness! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“That’s right!” said Mrs Maresbury behind her. “And I have quite a lot of books on the history of softball and softball derivatives in the Crystal Library. Always worth looking at the Crystal Library.”
Death followed wordlessly as Cadence led her over to the spa ponies next. Cadence’s impeccable memory for names would have put the average grandmother to shame.
“And Lapis Lazuli here spends a lot of time perfecting the fragrances in the Crystal Spa.”
Does everything have to have “crystal” slapped onto its name?
“Is right,” said Lapis Lazuli, blushing but swelling with embarrassed pride. “Rose quartz crystals infused with rose blossom petal scent make pony very self-love. Like sunstone and sweet orange make pony confidence.”
She looked like she could do with some, the way Death shadowed her till she paled and shrank.
“Spa short stories at the Crystal Library!” shouted Mrs Maresbury.
“And let’s not forget Flash Sentry here,” continued Cadence, pulling in a pegasus guard who dropped his helmet in surprise. “He’s been a close friend of Shining Armor’s ever since the academy.”
Flash Sentry waved weakly. “Er, hi.”
And what mind-numbing habit has ensnared your dwindling time like a cordyceps fungus ensnaring insect prey?
“Erm… I play guitar?”
Riveting.
Cadence – Princess Cadence of the Crystal Empire, protégé of Princess Celestia, sister-in-law to Twilight Sparkle, and wife of Prince Shining Armor and the former Captain of the Royal Guard – climbed onto the podium so that she could see all the faces she knew and loved so much.
“I didn’t become the Crystal Princess to boss other ponies around. The truth is that this Empire existed long before me, and it’ll exist long after me too. The Empire isn’t fancy castles and expensive foods and distant royals. It’s the passion of its chefs, it’s the devotion of its artists, it’s the love of its families and neighbors looking out for each other every day. Every time the cleaners pay attention to detail, they make a better Empire all on their own. Every time the treasurers check every cent is where it belongs, they tell the Empire what it can be. Every time someone walks the children to school or adopts a lonely foal, they’re everything the Empire should be. The Empire doesn’t shine. We shine. You all shine. It’s the love of a thousand ponies that makes the Crystal Heart so powerful. The Empire catches that shine and shows it back to us. We make it all on our own.”
Several ponies had to wipe their eyes, pausing only to glower when Mrs Maresbury raised her hoof to speak and then lowered her hoof to shut up.
Cadence smiled and stood up straighter. “I became the Crystal Princess because you wanted me to. I cannot tell you how thankful I am to all of you. Every day. Every way.”
Face shining, breathing deeply with pride, Crazy Lace Agate rose onto her hindlegs and shouted, “I! Am! Mi Amore Cadenza!”
“Shush,” hissed Lemon Hearts next to her. “She doesn’t like being called –”
Another pony stood up. “I am Mi Amore Cadenza!”
“I’m Mi Amore Cadenza!”
“I’m Mi Amore Cadenza!”
“Bababorrademba.” That one was a baby.
Soon, the whole crowd was rearing up and cheering Cadence’s name. Except for Lemon Hearts, who was shocked to be the only one not using the name that annoyed Cadence.
Upstairs, wrapped in several layers of shock and sheets, Prince Shining Armor climbed out of his slow death long enough to hear the name he knew so well…
Cadence cried on the inside, and then the whole crowd fell silent.
Death had stood up.
Crazy Lace Agate rose up and shouted, “Boo! Get off the stage!” And was quickly silenced and dragged down by Mrs Maresbury and Lemon Hearts.
All eyes were on Death.
Who said nothing.
But showed them – with a billow of her cloak and the expanding horizon of her rustling riding hood – the truth.
The infinite space.
An infinite darkness where even the echoes of the past went to die. An infinite expanse of matter – life that could have been, that never was, that remained forever locked in the prison of pointless potential.
An infinite desert of stars, each one so mighty that a mere speck of a pony on a mere speck of a planet would fall and weep just to approach its incomprehensible, annihilating aura of extremes – and yet each one a mere grain of sand on the relentless dunes of reality. An infinite killzone where life could not even start, let alone survive.
An infinitely small speck of a planet, a crumb of soil, a drop of water, a puff of wind. Home.
An endless stretch of prehistory that churned and killed generation after generation. A tiny, disease-like factory of endless grinding lives, no sooner manufactured by the forces of Nature than ground up and recycled for random fads and cosmic whims.
A lifetime, thin as a hair in the infinite vacuum of unlife. A series of blemishes blown about by the desert winds, rarely seeing water, stopping only briefly at oases before the eddies and sandblasts of existence cast it off again. Too much water and it drowned; too little and it disintegrated. Fragile as a flower on a battlefield.
And the pony soul, fussing over pleasure and pain like ants slaving away for a hive they didn’t understand. Easily crushed, easily tossed aside, left to die while the callous hive used them and abused them for false promises that every day could be a pleasure day. Too blemished and bruised to fully bloom.
And your soul, said Death’s vision. To you, the single most important thing in existence. To me, just another crumb to consume in bulk. A final heartbeat waiting to happen.
After that.
Endlessness. Nothingness.
Oblivion.
By the time Death had finished, the crowd were on their knees. Several had tears running down their cheeks. Lemon Hearts had paled as though deathly ill. Mrs Maresbury trembled. Even Crazy Lace Agate was having Mister Crumble flashbacks in a private Tartarus of her own.
Cadence growled as Death gave the congregation a satisfied nod. Persuaded. Point goes to me, I believe. One more challenge left? Or are we done?
No more plans. No more bright ideas. No more patience left. The pain of a thousand souls struck through Cadence and sent her striding forwards –
Just before Shining Armor got in the way.
“Yeah, I got a challenge,” he rasped loudly. Then he choked and coughed and spluttered.
The crowd watched him in despair, getting their last looks in while they could.
Ruefully, Lemon Hearts patted him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna miss you, Shining Armor. No one could down a bottle like you could.”
“We won’t forget you, Your Highness,” warbled Mrs Maresbury in tears. “You were a good customer. Always brought your books back on time.”
“You made even the most unfun games the best fun we ever had!” wailed Crazy Lace Agate before dissolving into dribbles and drizzles.
Shining Armor hissed, “I’m not dead yet!”
Overlooking them all, Death groaned impatiently. What is it this time? A game of Pega-Battle-ship? Monkey in the Middle? Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Baker’s Mare?
“MISTER CRUUUH-HUUUH-HUUUMBLE!” Crazy Lace Agate fell to the floor and beat her hooves against it.
“Cheese and ice, Crazy, it was just a slice of cake!” Lemon’s comforting words only made things worse. And wetter. And noisier.
“IT WAS MY CAAH-HAAAH-HAAAKE!”
“All right,” growled Shining Armor, “we’ve tried playing chess with death, laughing in the face of death, dicing with death, and talking death to death.”
“Shining Armor?” Cadence marvelled at that tone. When the Crystal Prince spoke with that tone…
And now? asked Death.
“Now?” Laughing – squeakily, through the painful broccoli – Shining Armor sparked the magic in his horn, summoning a magical shield around himself. “Now we fight to the death.”
And Death radiated joy for the first time.
The scythe slid out, catching the rays of the locked sunset. Mild interest flared into intense excitement, focusing like a death ray on Shining Armor’s face.
Now you’re talking my language. Very well. We shall fight to the death.
The crystal ponies worked fast. They’d cleared the plaza and kept the rest of the crowd at bay, a circle of expectant chatter punctuated by the four legs of the Crystal Castle. Overhead, the weight of history added to the specific gravitas of the moment.
A beautiful sunset became, through the air of static fear, the bleeding, dying light of a mortal day.
Among the crowd, some voices were raised louder than others. Crazy Lace Agate was trying to get a chant going to raise Shining Armor’s spirits. This would have worked better if she didn’t keep changing the chant, the tune, and whether or not she or the crowd were doing the chanting.
Lemon Hearts, meanwhile, had set up a table with charts and was shouting things like, “Two hundred to one on Shining Armor dying in the first round! Five hundred to one on Death striking the first blow in the first ten seconds!”
“What on earth are you doing?” demanded Mrs Maresbury.
“Encouraging ponies,” said Lemon Hearts.
“Gambling is a vice!”
“Unless you’re playing as the house. The house always wins, remember?”
“You, Miss Hearts, are an incorrigible opportunist!”
“And since I am that, I might as well make the most of it, right?”
In the centre of the plaza, the Crystal Heart spun on, no longer pulsing as brightly as it had during Cadence’s speech. Ponies were uncertain. The nerves sparked from soul to soul, and the fear epidemic weakened the spirit as well as the body.
Mrs Maresbury gave up on lecturing Lemon Hearts over the concepts of right, wrong, and straight-up crass, and instead scampered over to Shining Armor’s side in as ladylike a manner as she could.
Just in time to hear Cadence scold him. “Shining Armor, this is insane. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“It’s better than being choked to death on a broccoli.” Shining Armor patted the lump on his throat as though hoping to smooth it down. “Of all the things to kill me, why did it have to be that?”
Cadence relented, but barely, and mostly around the tense shoulders. “I really thought I’d had her. I thought I could make her understand.”
“You were great, Cadence. You always have been great. To me, to Twilight, to everyone. I guess this gig was just doomed from the start.”
“Did I waste a challenge for you?” Cadence choked, and it had nothing to do with broccoli.
“You were just being you. That’s the best challenge there is.” Shaking himself down, Shining Armor accepted the twin shields Flash Sentry offered him, and they saluted each other before he continued, “I feel like this one is a waste of time. It’s so… defeatist.”
“What? You’re fighting back! I thought you’d want to die a warrior’s death.”
“I wanted to die alongside you. Probably in bed: I haven’t thought it through yet. I had this dream once where I was a hundred years old and you were still young and beautiful, and you’d started pulping my food for me because I couldn’t chew it, and I ended up choking on it anyway and dying.”
Cadence wiped her eyes.
Whereas Shining Armor brightened up. “Hey, at least that’s one nightmare I’ll be skipping.”
“You know,” Cadence breathed into his ear, “I’d never stay young and beautiful like that. I’d probably lose a leg wrestling a yeti.”
“Yeah, last week in the north was fun.”
She kissed him, once, on the lips. He hung on tight, making a few seconds last an alicorn’s lifetime.
The sunset frozen in the here and now made them feel they could embrace each other forever, then the dream vanished like a senile memory. Age, and hurt youth, met for the first and last time.
“I’m your shield, Cadence,” whispered Shining Armor.
Cadence’s lips were moving as he went to the centre of the plaza.
To his surprise, Mrs Maresbury caught up with him. “We’re not just fighting like wild animals, Your Highness. This is the time to establish some ground rules.”
“Well, there’s always Queen Berry’s Rules.”
Around them, the chanting settled upon one name. “SHINING! SHINING! SHINING!”
“With respect, Your Highness, Queen Berry’s Rules weren’t built with someone like Death in mind. We need to discuss –”
Death approached from the opposite side of the plaza. No one alive or dead had radiated so much pleasure. Excitement. Ecstatic anticipation. Shining Armor had felt emotions like that once or twice before, in the heat of some of the more violent campaigns when he’d felt what every soldier felt when he found out what he could do for Princess and Equestria. Death made him feel like the whole crowd would charge him at any second, weapons drawn.
I feel “alive!” again! For a second, the voice sounded wrong. No longer like legions of grieving memories, but like a single soul shrieking against the void.
“Rules,” said Shining Armor. “If we’re going to fight, then we need rules.”
“Gladly!” Death hissed, circling the prince like a black mamba. “Rule one: you have two minutes. If you can last two minutes against me without dying, I will honor our agreement and let you go. In exchange, I shall take another soul with me in your place.”
Frowning, Shining Armor interrupted, “Wait, what do you mean take another soul?”
Death surveyed the surrounding crowd.
Then it hit Shining Armor. “No! No way!”
“Death is death. I never go back empty-hooved.”
“No, just no! You are not taking someone else’s soul! I’d rather forfeit right here!”
The pleasure dimmed. Death shrugged. “Oh!” Well. If that is the way it has to be…
“What’s going on?” Cadence hurried up to them, glancing from one combatant to the other. Not just her: the chant in the crowd was dying down as the argument sunk their spirits.
“She wants to take a life no matter what I do!”
I told you before. I come for one soul. I leave with one soul. Even you cannot change the ultimate –
“Then mine,” said Cadence without thinking.
“Cadence, don’t! I’d rather go and –”
“You think I wouldn’t do the same!?”
“What!? No! Of course not! But, but what’s the point of both of us –?”
“Half each,” said Cadence, yet again outleaping her own mouth. “That makes one soul. You take half of my soul, Shining Armor gives you half of his, you leave with one whole soul. Sound fair?”
By way of answer, Death drew out the scythe from the folds of her cloak, briefly revealing the rose Cadence had spotted earlier. Shining Armor spotted it, and wondered about gardens.
Death twirled the scythe idly, staring at Cadence.
Then she said, An interesting arrangement. And one I’ve heard before. Still, it is a noble sacrifice. Half each –
“A third each!”
They turned around. Lemon Hearts had stepped forward and into the plaza, sidestepping around ponies still trying to place bets.
“Lemon?” said Cadence.
“If Shining Armor wins, you can take a third from each of us. I’d rather they have as long and as happy a marriage as possible. That’s all there is to it.” Then she turned to the crowd. “Anyone else want to make it a fourth? Please? Before I change my mind? Any takers?”
Crazy Lace Agate fanfared her way to the front, outright a one-pony band now. Instruments poured off her like a rummage sale compressing into a singularity. A very singular singularity.
“A fourth!” she cried. “For happiness, and for all ponies everywhere!”
“Erm,” said Mrs Maresbury, raising a hoof as though in class, “I’m afraid I don’t have much soul left, but if it’ll help, I’ll donate a fifth. If that’s all right with you.”
“A sixth!” shouted another crystal pony from the crowd.
“A seventh!” shouted Little Painite, swinging his baseball bat in his mouth.
“Eight!” shouted Lapis Lazuli.
“Ninth and tenth and eleventh and twelfth!” shouted Flash Sentry. “It’s an honor to lay down my life for you, sir!”
Soon, the entire crowd were shouting numbers, and no matter where Death looked, she struggled to find a dissenting face. Cadence and Shining Armor goggled at the display.
Yet instead of despair and bewilderment, Death began to laugh.
The shouting – briefly chanting – crowd suddenly went quiet. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh. It was a laugh for cackling over victims. It was a laugh for humiliating enemies. It was a laugh that would gladly conquer the world not for vision or glory, but because the bloody journey to the top would be so, so, soooooooooooo much FUN.
Lemon Hearts and Mrs Maresbury backed off into the crowd, dragging the slower-on-the-uptake Crazy Lace Agate with them. Then Mrs Maresbury hopped back to scoop up the dropped instruments and flee again.
Death’s laughter cracked and distorted the air until Death spun with dizzying delight round and round, whipping their faces with the maelstrom of her infinite cloak, her untouchable riding hood, her sheer malevolent glee.
Then she tore them off.
Cadence and Shining Armor gasped.
With the eldritch vestments, Death had been a figure of unutterable mystery, save for the vague impression of ponydom. Without them, she was just… a pony.
An alicorn.
Gangrenous green wings unfolded. White robes flowed like the shine of moonlight on a patch of mould. Dark green curtains of dank forest engulfed everything below the head like a localized night, and yet the rest of the impossibly vast mane was topped with a bun so tight and dark that it was in danger of collapsing into a black hole. Uncontrolled wild, married to impenetrable order.
The long horn was an icicle infected with black decay.
Only the eyes were wrong. Shining Armor stared into them and saw…
…couldn’t see anything. It was like trying to catch what was in his own eye’s natural blind spot. Every time he tried to focus on the roundish things above Death’s muzzle, they vanished, as though nothing but skin connected nose to forehead.
And then he recognized her.
He beamed and squealed, clutching Cadence by her stunned shoulders. “Cadence, look! She’s Princess Plutonia! The real Princess Plutonia!”
“Was Princess Plutonia,” declared Death, advancing forwards, scythe scraping the ground for sparks. “All but two of the true alicorns died long ago, at my hoof. Venusia, Neptunia, Saturnalia, Martia – one by one, they fell to me. Princess Plutonia was but a shadow of the true Death to be.”
The crowd cowered as she struck the ground, scattering sparks over their heads. They trembled as she passed.
Shining Armor shook Cadence through sheer fanboying. “It’s Plutonia! Plutonia’s talking to me! Oh my gosh, the game doesn’t do her justice! She was the most prolific killer of all time, she was the mercenary to end all mercenaries, she was the ultimate soldier, she mastered every form of combat, she… she’s really good… at…”
Then he realized.
“Oh… Oh, crud… Oh, I am so… sooooooo doomed.”
Death – Plutonia – shot forwards. She stopped an inch away from Shining Armor’s face. Her teeth were specially sharpened.
“I’ve killed billions. So many grey, boring deaths. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a proper battle. Yes, there is no better way to die than with the taste of blood in your mouth!”
“You’re disgusting.” Cadence stormed off.
“Ha! That’s what destiny thought too. I was so good at killing, destiny made me the Death of Ponydom. I am no longer a mere princess. I am all-Death. And I will show you how good I am at my role.”
Shining Armor stood his ground.
“Rule Two,” he reminded her, pretending he wasn’t going weak at the knees.
Plutonia’s grin went past manic; it would have made sharks flee in panic. “Rule Two: you may select one weapon to fight with. One only.”
Looking her square in her non-eyes, Shining Armor raised his shields.
She snorted. “A shield is not a weapon.”
“That’s right. Ancient pegasus rules. One offense, one defense.”
“Then choose your weapon! Now!”
Across the terrified faces of the crowd, Shining Armor sought Cadence’s eye. She nodded, grimly. He winked back. She opened her wings. He shook his head.
They gritted their teeth together, across the uncrossable distance.
Then Shining Armor’s horn flared. A brief bubble shield surrounded him… then went out.
“I’ve chosen.”
Plutonia’s grin was a star threatening to go supernova. With her scythe, she waved into the air a floating hourglass. Blue all over. A small bit of enchanted sand shone in the top half, waiting to fall.
Two minutes. He just had to survive for two minutes.
“Thank you for this opportunity! Now make it a good fight!”
Both watched the timer like warhawks.
Cadence breathed heavily in the silence of the crowd. Only Lemon could be heard whispering, “Oh blasted suns of Celestia, I set the wrong odds…”
The sands didn’t move.
Refused to move.
Stayed as immobile as a corpse faking the dead.
The first grain fell.
Plutonia leaped straight up, scythe moving so fast that it became a silver ring around her with a black blur between them. She spun, slashed the ground, swept up her own sparks, stopped, drew back, and crossed the distance faster than the cart that no jaywalker ever saw.
Shining Armor barely had time to raise his shields before the scythe became a whirling ring of barrages against them. His horn sizzled, creating a more magical shield around himself. The scythe sliced clean through the top – Shining Armor barely had time to duck.
Strands of his mane fell away, flashing before his eyes.
Plutonia leaped back. She moved like a heart attack. Her scythe spun, became a whirl of black edged with silver, morphed – became a flail with a spiked ball.
Death had mastered every weapon. At once.
Shining Armor leaped aside as the flail struck like a meteor, redefining the geography of the plaza and making ponies stagger. Yet he’d barely raised his shields when the flail shot out like the last arrow in the crossbow, crumpling one metal shield to so much scrap iron.
He threw it off – it was no better than a wad of shiny paper now – then Plutonia was on his other side, spinning her flail until it became a black-and-silver blur, which morphed to become a shield of her own.
She bashed it against his. Bashed, bashed, bashed, over and over and over, more like a cannonball at lightning speed. Shining Armor’s leg felt like putty.
“Come on, Shining Armor!” shouted Crazy Lace Agate from the crowd before a rain of metal scattered itself over her.
Shining Armor’s second shield crumpled more slowly, but he gave his arm whiplash keeping it on the move. Plutonia struck at random, sometimes from completely the opposite direction, and he had barely an instinct’s twitch to figure out where.
She moved like a stroke.
She struck like a fall off a cliff.
She hurt harder than water in drowning lungs.
And she was as relentless as a secret cancer. Shining Armor’s strength ebbed away by the second as her onslaught taxed him to the limit. It was a shock to realize that she was toying with him…
For she drew back, and at impossible speeds she was on the other side of the plaza as though she were one of the spectators.
Then he blinked, and she was in his face.
Twirling black-and-silver, stopping with a magic staff.
“Oh, come –” he began to swear.
Her zapped spell struck him across the face. Right through his magical shield. His only shield left as the shrapnel of the last one fell down from his leg.
Along his horn, black crystals sprouted like cactus spikes. A magic-suppression spell.
No metal shields, no magic, barely any breath left, and barely any strength left to stay standing. He rocked where he stood.
There were still lots of sand grains in the top half of the hourglass.
Hardly any seconds. Over already.
Plutonia landed feet away, black-and-silver spinning her scythe back into shape. “Not bad. A very good defense. But…”
She looked up, and this time Shining Armor could finally see her eyes. Her real eyes. The dark emptiness, the pitiless indifference, the loss of delight for anything except depriving the delight of others and destroying everything good in the world, everything mocking and wrong…
…but normal eyes. Dark green. The green was still there.
Shining Armor’s last thought was of gardens, and greenery, and beauty, in a world of dead rocks and endless space.
“…you should have chosen a weapon,” said Death, for once in a mortal voice.
Plutonia spun the scythe a few times and then struck –
And paused.
Sparkling blue with magic.
Between Shining Armor’s stare and the tip of the scythe that had cut down all the lives that had been led, Princess Cadence stood her ground. Her horn sparkled with the effort of the spell. Both she and Plutonia trembled, neither giving in.
“He did,” gasped Cadence.
All around, the crystal ponies chattered excitedly.
“Is that legal?” whispered Mrs Maresbury.
“Well…” said Lemon Hearts. “No rule says a weapon can’t be a pony, right?”
“I’m sure that can’t be legal.”
“Yeah!” whooped Crazy Lace Agate with glee. “Suck it to ya, Dead Girl! WOO!”
All around, the crystal ponies cheered exuberantly.
Plutonia snarled, trying to free her scythe. “You!? What are you doing!?”
“He’s my shield,” announced Cadence loudly and clearly, staring down the rage and the fury with Celestial patience. “I’m his sword.”
The black spikes glowed blue along Shining Armor’s horn. Then shattered.
And the force of Shining Armor’s countering shield blew the scythe back and sent Plutonia somersaulting yards to land on all fours. She looked up wildly, growling, screaming for blood, and as if nothing had happened charged forwards.
Then stopped. Then spun the scythe.
Each time she leaped forward, Shining Armor’s shield repelled her. Every time she made to strike, Cadence’s spells zapped back, knocking her blows aside. Fury rising into a roar of vicious frustration, Plutonia spun so fast that she cut through the shield and deflected the zaps into the four legs of the Crystal Castle, smashing the walls and scattering powder over the crowd.
All around, the crystal ponies cried with the light within.
And the Light Within spun the Crystal Heart faster and faster, glowing brighter and brighter, whirring until it became a blue sphere of its own that slowly started to grow.
Cadence and Shining Armor’s spells alone were batted aside. Their joint spell – side by side – blasted into Plutonia so hard that she had to stop to hold the scythe steady. All sides locked into position.
Then the Light Within exploded.
Cadence’s serene joy, Shining Armor’s overflowing pride, Mrs Maresbury’s devotion and Lemon Hearts’s loyalty and Crazy Lace Agate’s laughter and the celebration of the crowd turned the whole world white. Plutonia noticed, leaped into the air, and barely began spinning her scythe before she became a forgettable note against the rush of nation-crossing love that engulfed the plaza, the castle, the spire, the snowflake streets from overhead, the houses, the edge of the Crystal Empire, the Frozen North, and finally the skies of all of Equestria.
The northern lights reached ponies well beyond the action. They shone down on the tired farm of Sweet Apple Acres. They dignified the style of Canterlot City. They impressed Ponyville enough to make a full family night out of it. They reached the sleepy desert towns of San Palomino, generously donated to the night lights of Manehattan, and lent their support to the endless rainbow falls of Winsome.
Love. Not grief.
Across Equestria, a lot of ponies would not live to see another day. That was how it always had been. But they saw something beautiful before they left, and death found contented, grateful souls.
The lights died. The Frozen North returned. The Crystal Empire was just a bunch of houses yet again. The beacon of the world became just another gaudy castle. The heart became a plaza with ponies in it.
Shining Armor and Princess Cadence hadn’t been able to resist. Their lips parted, only regretting that they couldn’t have another moment like that one.
They rested horn against horn, tired and weak and ever so mortal, but never happier.
“We did it,” rasped Shining Armor.
“We did it,” whispered Cadence.
Then Lemon Hearts shouted, “NO SNOGGIN’ WAY!”
They followed her gaze.
Opposite, Plutonia landed on her hooves. Smoking in pink patches. Staggering where she stood. But still intact.
Everypony in the crowd backed off at once.
The spinning scythe blade paused, then spun back into attack position.
“Nice try,” Plutonia hissed. “But even love and friendship are nothing to Death!”
The scream carried her across the gap and the scythe became a silver blur. Neither Cadence nor Shining Armor had the strength to repel it. It cut clean through the feeble remains of their magic and came whirling down towards Cadence’s –
“Look!” shrieked Mrs Maresbury.
The scythe froze. Voluntarily, this time.
Wild-eyed, wide-haired, confused and bursting with bloodlust, Plutonia followed the librarian’s pointing hoof.
All the sand was at the bottom of the hourglass.
Time’s up.
Shining Armor stood tall and proud. And very much alive.
“Ha ha!” cackled Crazy Lace Agate. “We won! Shining Armor and Cadence won! In your face, Killjoy! Ha ha haaaaaaaaa!”
At first, Plutonia didn’t move, completely unable to take it. Then the twitches came. The muscles threatened to detonate. The body shook with an unkillable rage.
And that was it.
Plutonia faded, the cloak and riding hood slid in like the shadows of flocks, and when she stood up, what stood up was Death.
She strode slowly over to the sagging couple, neither of whom were certain what to expect. They flinched when she held out a black-clad hoof.
Congratulations.
They took a minute to understand why the hoof was there. Then they glanced at each other for answers. And then they both reached out.
“Erm,” rasped Shining Armor. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” gasped Cadence, shaken.
They shook once. Each.
Businesslike again, Death stepped back and waved a hoof. Shining Armor gagged, spat, dribbled, and arched his back before coughing something up that landed damply at his hooves.
It was a piece of broccoli.
“Sorry,” said Cadence, who’d cooked it.
“Ah,” cried Shining Armor. “Gosh! Ah! My throat still hurts!”
“It’s OK. We can do something about that.”
Suddenly, Death stepped back. They jolted in fear.
Death threw her bitter scythe, spinning, over her head. A black-and-silver blur overshadowed them all.
As per the agreement, I leave with one soul. One soul, made of all the portions of the Crystal Empire. You may deny me now, but I will come sooner for all of you. That is the price you must pay for entwining your lives with his.
The black-and-silver blur stopped. Became a thousand tiny needles.
That pierced the hearts of everyone there. Ponies fell and cried out. Cadence went down without a sound. Shining Armor felt the sting in his neck, stumbled backwards, moaned, “Not again…” and fell to his knees.
It took a few minutes for the assembled to get back up, and when they did, Death was gone.
Shining Armor helped Cadence up and looked around, ignoring Lemon Hearts’ moans of, “Oh crud, I don’t have the money to pay all these off.”
They both hurried indoors, up the tower, and towards the nearest window. They saw the edge of the empire, and beyond that the empty wastes of the Frozen North.
Spotted her.
Raced each other back down the stairs and past the confused subjects to the unforgiving world beyond the plaza.
Death hadn’t gone far. She’d found a patch free of snow.
Across the Frozen North, the message for life was clear: stay here at your peril. We don’t want you. We won’t welcome you. If you don’t listen, we will kill you. It had held firm for thousands of years, right back to the time of the Creators.
Yet Death had found a flower.
A lonely red one: too small for the blizzards and too warm for the snow. Even so, it was out of season, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Already it had a withered, papery frailty.
Death watched it as though it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Or the most terrible. Or the most important gift in her entire existence.
That was how Cadence and Shining Armor found her. She wasn’t surprised.
“You’re leaving?” wheezed Cadence, out of breath. “Just like that?”
“Cadence,” whispered Shining Armor warningly.
Silently, Death reached down and scooped the soil in her black-clad hooves. Bits of soil rolled off, but the flower remained safe in Death’s grip.
Life… So amazing… So, so weak…
Cadence figured it out first. “Was she a gardener, then?”
Death didn’t answer.
“The mare you fell in love with?”
Death still didn’t answer. She stared at the flower as though her life depended on it. One hoof caressed the petals. She overflowed with life. Generous. Giving.
Shining Armor looked from one to the other, then realization hit him. “She wasn’t Gaea Everfree or something, was she?”
Gaea!? Ew, no! That self-absorbed parasite!? Whereas… the real creative genius… the one who truly loved all life itself…
“So what happened?” asked Cadence gently.
Death touched the tip of the flower. Within seconds, it had blackened, crumpled, and withered away in the wind. She let the soil fall away like dust.
I happened.
Shining Armor wiped his eyes.
Where you find love, find life, you must find death. And grief. That was the duty I took on. That was how destiny punished me.
“She gave you the rose you wear on your cloak, didn’t she?” Cadence asked kindly.
She gave me purpose. A mere killer. An incorrigible monster.
“It must’ve hurt,” murmured Shining Armor, drawing closer to Cadence.
Worse. I no longer feel pain. But I always think about it. Death inspected them both, her eyes briefly mortal. “I see her handiwork. Everywhere.”
As Death strode away, Shining Armor and Cadence made to block her path.
“You can always visit anytime,” said Shining Armor.
“You don’t have to be alone,” said Cadence.
Till Death us depart. And so I shall.
She didn’t react to their collective hug, or to Shining Armor quietly asking for an autograph. Death simply turned and vanished, gradually, into the mists.
Cadence and Shining Armor didn’t move for a long time, despite the cold.
“What a punishment.”
“We’ll meet again,” said Cadence.
“And we’ll have some great stories to tell her? Together?”
Cadence shrugged. “I don’t think it matters, so long as we really live them first.”
“Like Crazy Lace Agate? Seriously, is she related to the Pies?”
“I think partying goes above blood ties.”
“That something Mrs Marebury told you?”
“Honestly, I forget half of what Mrs Maresbury tells me. I’m, uh, more into the social memory stuff than the trivia.”
“Well,” sighed Shining Armor, wishing his throat didn’t hurt like heck, “let’s go back before Lemon Hearts ends up in debtor’s prison or something.”
“Again.” Cadence rolled her eyes at the sky.
On their way through the oblivious blizzard, Shining Armor suddenly asked, “Hey, by the way…?”
“Hm?”
“How come everypony kept talking about dad jokes at dinner? You know, before the whole broccoli thing? They kept looking at me for some reason.”
Cadence’s rump playfully bumped his. “Well, Shining Armor, don’t eat anything when I tell you and the Crystal Empire the wonderful news…”
The snow engulfed them, knowing nothing of the joys of the coming spring, nor of the promises of new life ahead.
