Ghosts

by Blue Blaze {COMET}

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Romance, Original Character
Length: 4446

In the world of Equestria, there is the living, and there is the unliving. The two are constantly at war with each other. But when a young couple find themselves inbetween, all's fair in love and war.

In the world of Equestria, there is the living, and there is the unliving.

"Ghosts" have been wandering the outskirts of major Equestrian cities for a long, long time, and for a long long time the Royal Equestrian Guard have been fighting off raids against the Ghosts from them taking small towns like Whinnypeg to huge metropolises like Ponyville. The war never ends, and the Guard is always recruiting.

But when a young injured stallion falls into captivity of the Ghosts, he will need to fight his way back out of their lair and back to his home with tooth and hoof.

Or maybe it won't be as hard as it all seems.

Not too much is known about Ghosts.

Maybe he will be the leader in undead relations.

One thing's for certain: He will never see the world, or Ghosts, the same ever again.

The cover image does not accurately portray the characters in this story.

Published 2014-09-11 13:50:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-09-11 13:50:05 UTC

In Darkness Under the Moon

The calming sound of fresh, hot tea pouring into my teacup filled my ears.

The figure opposite of me was pouring the drink as if she had done it a thousand times before, one hoof around the handle and the other beneath the bottom of the pot, tilting it slightly as a brownish clear liquid fell from the spout. The room was completely made of stone, so no sound got in, nor out. Gray walls filled my vision, but the only reason I could see them was because of the dull orange glow that the candlestick on the cabinet made. The rest of the light was from Luna's moon, filling inward from a skylight that was open in the ceiling. I could see the faint particles of dust fall between the two of us, fine, tiny things that parted under my breath.

I could feel my heart beating in my chest. It wasn’t frantic, but instead strongly pulsed to its own beat. Everything considered, it was pretty amazing that my lifeline wasn’t going over a hundred beats a minute. There was a Ghost, right in front of me. A real life, glowing, shining Ghost. The aquamarine pools that were supposed to be her eyes were focused on her task of taking care of her guest’s tea. A few moments passed and her gaze rose up to meet mine. I quickly shied away my vision to focus on the room around me. I didn’t even notice that my teacup was already full of the substance, steaming from the rim and smelling softly of tealeaves.

I never expected a Ghost’s room to look like this. Then again, I never really considered what living conditions as a Ghost would be like in the first place. It was a tiny room for sure, much alike a small apartment in an average pony city. There was a bed in the corner, the sheets fairly neat and clean but the single periwinkle blanket all in a mess from when I slept under it. A single flat pillow sat on the head side of the mattress. On the opposite side of the room, there was a kitchen-like setup, with cupboards lined along the wall with faded green paint that was peeling off the mahogany. The surfaces were clean and tidy with no clutter leaning back against the wall like I was used to from my kitchen at home. The stove was something else, however. It was all made of metal painted black, with a large cylinder at the base and a pipe that extended from the spine of the stove all the way up to the ceiling. There was a cage that kept the cylinder closed and I could see only darkness inside. There were no windows in the room. The front door was beside the bed, right behind a wall that kept the door and bed apart from each other. A wooden bucket sat beside a table to my right, and to my left was the cabinet with the candlestick which appeared like it was at least a hundred years old.

“Your tea’s ready,” she said to me, her voice soft yet quiet and nice. I looked back into her soft stare, just to remember that I had purposely avoided that gaze a moment earlier. Did she notice? Was it that noticeable? I hope I didn’t come off rude.

“I saw,” I said as I powered up my magic to cast telekinesis. Almost instantly, a sharp stabbing pain cut into my forehead, cracking my skull in two. I held my hoof up to the base of my horn, wincing and hunching over my drink.

“Be careful!” she warned, her expression creased with concern.

“Yeah, I know. I forgot,” I replied, massaging the skin around my horn. It was only yesterday that I had cracked my magic bone. It was hard to believe. Keeping track of time after you’ve been knocked out for a day and a half was difficult.

I lifted my right foreleg up, but put it back down on the cushion I was sitting on, remembering that it was wrapped up in gauss for a reason. Instead I took the tiny teacup in my left hoof and blew on it gently a few times, observing the mist that rose from the cup fly off into the shower of dust above the coffee table. I took a sip. The taste was tart and refreshing, the warm liquid washing down my throat and filling my stomach with a sleepy heat.

She watched me drink my tea, her left eye hiding behind her long night sky mane that drooped down to the roof of her muzzle. She was more slender than most mares I’ve seen, but had a longer barrel and she didn’t look a day over 16. But then again, she was dead and I have no idea how long she’s been dead for. She could have died as a 16-year-old a century ago and I just wouldn’t know it. Never the less, her youthful looks came by in the form of her tiny muzzle and bright eyes, shining from the light in the room directly into mine. Her mane was the same ultramarine as the rest of her coat, but all Ghosts were the same colour. I briefly wondered how they could tell each other apart, and how they would have to solely know one from another by body and voice alone. It was an interesting prospect, for certain. She didn’t have a cutie mark, which struck me as a bit odd. Her hair was long and straight like strings of yarn hanging down from a single point on top of her head. The threads appeared to run far down the back of her neck and part in two at the top of her back into a simple droop over the edges of her body. I knew a lot of mares who would fuss over that kind of simplicity. I doubted that Ghosts had to ever cut their manes. The ominous blue glow that her body constantly gave off was both alluring and creepy at the same time. All Ghosts had that glow, for sure, but I have never seen a Ghost so up close before.

It was almost a surreal experience, she was so beautiful.

She must have been paying too much attention to my reaction, because as she rose up her cup to her lips a little bit of the liquid fell from the rim and fell down to her spot behind the table. She squeaked in pain as her cup was hastily put down.

“Are you alright?” I asked, concerned and peering over the table.

She looked up and me and forced a smile. “I’m ok. I just got a little on my leg. It’s still a bit hot.”

She got up from her seat and trotted over to the kitchen area. Sliding open one of the shelves, she grabbed a cloth and started dabbing it on the burned area of her back leg, hissing as she lightly applied pressure. I thought that she would go and get some ice or put a glass of cold water on it or something, but she didn’t have a refrigerator in here, nor a sink. Where did she get the water for the tea then?

But then I had another thought. I narrowed my eyes, trying to reason my way out of the dilemma presented to me. She must have noticed my expression, because her eyebrows rose and she turned the rest of her body to face me.

“I’m sorry, I got a little careless,” she tried to explain. As she sat back down, she winced, shuffling around on the cushion to get in a position where she wouldn’t be sitting on the burn. That made me think all the more. The tea was hot. Steaming hot, and the only reason I was able to take a sip was because I had blown on mine a bit before drinking, and even after that it was still hot to take down. She, on the other hoof, did no such thing, and still took the heated water to her leg like it was hot water from the tap, not a scolding liquid from a pot that was put under a fire. But she was a Ghost, wasn’t she? She wouldn’t have to worry about pain, because she was already dead.

“…How did you get hurt?” I dared to ask, turning my head to one side while looking at her.

“Ah,” she started, giving me a solemn smile. A little sapphire glow rose from her cheeks. Was she blushing? “I guess it would be a little weird for a Unicorn to see a Ghost get hurt.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if bracing herself for something. “I have a, uh, little condition.”

I rotated my head to one side, my eyebrow up and my muzzle tilted forward, a hint for her to continue.

She couldn’t hold her smile as her lips parted. “I-I’m only half Ghost.”

My eyes grew to dinner plates. “What?”

She nodded, her face appearing more and more as if they had two big blueberries on them. “I am, only half Ghost. I-I mean, I have the appearance of a Ghost and much of the magicks that come with being a Ghost, but I-I can do something that they really can’t. I can feel pain. I can feel pain and emotions like happiness and panic and anger and sadness, and it all comes down to one body that is me.”

I felt awkward hearing all of this from a Ghost. I’ve been always taught to beware of Ghosts, because they couldn’t feel anything. No emotion would reach somepony who was soulless and already dead. No cheeriness would touch them, no exuberance. They could not feel sensation under their hooftips. Most Ghost stories I’ve heard the Ghosts would fake their emotions to their victims and act as if they had a heart deep inside. But here I was, listening to a confession from a young mare that she could feel something, whether it be pain or something else that she thought as pain. It felt a little bit like a lie. Like she was lying to me or to herself, because hearing the truth of death from her own lips would be a worse fate. Maybe she didn’t want to believe that she was dead, and instead simulate the feelings she remembered that she experienced from life. But in a way she was confessing something. I felt like she was confessing not because she had to, but because she needed to get something off her chest, something that she felt was holding herself back.

“It’s a little bit weird for me, because all the other Ghosts can’t relate. And when I get hurt, when I feel pain or get injured, I’m really the only one that can help myself,” she explained, her voice turning into no more than a quiet mutter as she got closer to the end of her sentence. Her vision finally settled on mine. “That’s why I could help you with your leg and horn.”

“You’re the one that saved me from the pit?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat. I mean, I somewhat knew from the start that she had something to do with my rescue, but I didn’t know that she was the one to do it. I woke up in her bed in her home, after all. I just thought that she was simply my caretaker.

She nodded. “I found you after you fell down on the floor of the hole. You were already knocked out and bleeding, a-and I couldn’t just leave you there for death. Some of the other Ghosts saw you and wanted you to die, because maybe your soul would turn into a Ghost afterward, and then we would have another ally to help us.”

A pit of anger rose up from inside me. I remembered. I was on a school field trip that was sponsored by the Royal Equestrian Guard to a site outside of Ponyville that showed the results of a recent battle against Ghosts. It was a part of their campaign to amp us up for our eventual period in the military that we would have to take up. Starting right after high school, 2 years was mandatory, after all. But as we walked through the dusty ruin of dirt, mud and rocks, another Ghost attack occurred. It was a big one, too. You know, not that I had ever been in one, but from what I could tell from the newspapers and reports I would see on TV, Ghosts usually would attack in small squads no larger than 6 or so if they weren’t assaulting a city. There were dozens upon dozens of those blue glowing demons that ransacked the site. My class all tried to flee into the safe zone inside a nearby military building, but I was caught up in the chaos and a metal platform that was attached to the side of a cliff gave way under magical damage. And that’s when I…

I was appalled and disgusted, but she wasn’t finished. “I really fought to convince the others to keep you alive and to not leave you for dead,” There was a bit of a shimmer coming from her irises. Energy was forming in her tone as it picked up volume. “You didn’t deserve to die! It wasn’t your fault that you fell down there! You got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and fate had you fall almost to your doom! It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t your fault!”

She bit her lip and tilted her head down so I couldn’t see her eyes anymore. Sparkling droplets fell from her face. Tears? Ghosts could cry? “It was our fault. We were the ones that attacked you and the group that you were with. We were the ones that killed all those guards that were trying to defend your lives. We were the ones in the wrong.”

No, Ghosts can’t cry. But this one could.

She looked back up at me, her eyes moist. “Could you ever forgive us?”

I sat in silence, my tea still steaming as I mulled over my answer. I was aware of the dangerous scowl on my face. “Were you apart of the killing?”

“No!” she cried out. “I wasn’t! I was simply recon! I–” She stopped herself, screwing her mouth into a frown before continuing in a stressed whisper. “I didn’t even want to be there! I hate that they kill so many innocent ponies! They forced me to be a part of their force, o-otherwise they would have ran me out of my own home!”

I took a deep breath and leaned back, folding my front hooves one over the other without hurting myself. So this is how it was going to be. It was too much, already, to be broken enough for my mobility to be limited, but this? The Ghosts really were killers, weren’t they? All the murder tales I heard about them were true? Some part of me deep down inside hoped to Celestia that they were wrong, but I was simply acting foolish. This filly in front of me would never hurt a soul because she can feel guilt and empathy, because she is half-Ghost and half-mortal. But the other Ghosts would never feel such sensations in a million years. I suddenly wanted to run away, run away and escape from all the madness. I didn’t want to be here, at all, in this tiny house waiting for my demise. I wondered how in the world she convinced the other Ghosts to spare my life at all, considering that Ghosts can only look at the cold, hard facts. She somehow made an impossible situation, possible.

I realized that I hadn’t even been outside yet. I hadn’t seen my surrounding past this little stone hut and observed the world beyond. I was in a Ghost town. How populated was it? It came to me that I hadn’t even seen another Ghost besides this one. No doubt they all hate me simply because I had the luxury of living while they had to exist against their will. They probably hate this Ghost mare too, because she saved my life. She was the one to give me an option against destiny and chose to give me life instead of a cruel fate guided by chance. I was to survive, and they were to die.

I swallowed. The question was, with all this hatred around, would I have to fight my way back out?

“Hey, listen, I–” I began before noticing something strange happening before me.

Her form was faded a bit. The outline of her body was thin and transparent and her gaze was clouded yet empty. She peered into a space behind me, but at the same time it was if she wasn’t looking at all. The fogginess emanating from her body grew larger and thicker, like a bucket of Poison Joke powder was poured all over her. Her coat wasn’t as solid anymore and she started floating a few inches up from her seat. I watched, my mind boggled at the phenomena before me. I knew something was wrong.

“Are you ok?” I asked her. “Hey, are you ok? Answer me!” I demanded, getting up from the cushion and waving a hoof in front of her. No reaction. She disappeared more and more. Her mouth was partially open in an unintelligent expression. Panic was swelling up in my throat.

“I – Are you listening to me?” I asked, maneuvering around the table with three of my legs. She didn’t turn to face me. It was getting hard to make out the shape of her neck and barrel, as well as the outline that the top of her mane made. “Can you hear me? Hey!”

Damn it, if only I knew her name.

“WAKE UP!” I shouted, grabbing a hold of what I thought was her hoof with my own uninjured one.

Her body almost instantly snapped back into reality and she gave out a gasp. Her pupils shrunk and the line around her body solidified into its deep midnight blue once again. The mist around her dissipated considerably, and I could hear her soft breathing again, air moving to and fro from the tip of her muzzle. It was just us in the room, us and the unbarring silence that hung over our shoulders like a scratchy blanket. Uncomfortable, but not unwelcome.

Seconds passed. Then, she looked at me.

“Oh!” she cried out, pulling her hoof from mine. That was the first time I’ve ever touched a Ghost. Previously I had never considered that you could even come into contact with them. I always thought that if you were to try and touch them your hoof would just fall right through into a thick murky haze with a similar consistency to heavy, humid steam. But now, I got a different perspective of them. Now, I feel much more comfortable around one. This one.

She looked around for a second, getting her bearings before turning to face me.

“You were going all weird on me,” I explained. “You stopped responding and started to fade away.”

It was a bit scary, definitely.

She gave an apologetic smile. “Sorry, that happens sometimes. It’s a little bit of a curse Ghosts have.”

“Curse?” I asked cautiously, backing up a step. “You’re cursed?”

She tilted her head down and her bangs drooped. “Well, not in the magical sense. Every Ghost has it. Sometimes we seem to fade in and out of reality and our consciousness takes a back seat without our control. You can kinda feel it when it starts to happen, but you can’t stop it by yourself, and it could take a week before you have another infliction, or sometimes just an hour. And no, you didn’t curse yourself from touching me, silly.”

I stared in disbelief. She giggled at my expression and I felt my heart flutter at the sweet smile she gave me. It was petite, lightly curved upward into a rim of joy. I didn’t even know Ghosts could giggle. I tried to smile back, but I think it only ended up as a bad poker face.

“Thank you, by the way,” she began, nodding once in recognition. “For pulling me out of limbo.”

“You’re welcome.” I answer. “But why?”

Her face became downcast and she bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m… I’m not too fond of the curse. It’s like this blanket falls over your eyes and puts you to sleep into a dream where you can’t feel anything at all. This numbness overcomes your body a-and you suddenly can’t feel any emotions, like a part of your brain is blocked out. It really feels like you’re in a dream–no, nightmare, a nightmare that lasts for a really long time.”

She got up and turned away from me, taking a look at the old stove that sat in the corner of the room. I noticed her legs were touching the floor again, affected by gravity. “It’s kinda hard to explain. The only reason I can really tell you all I know about this is because every time you step into a relapse you remember all the details right after. It’s easy to remember, how you felt, how it felt being trapped in a room with no sensations and nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to.”

I waited. I didn’t know what to say. She faced me in one fast motion, her mane swinging clockwise sharply, cutting through the air.

“It’s a terrible feeling.”

And then, I understood. At that moment, I could see her pain and suffering, her trials and the methods she tries to bypass them. She was half Ghost. She was different from all of her fellow Ghost brethren. I can’t imagine how much they berate and shun her from their society. She wasn’t Ghost enough, but she wasn’t mortal enough either. She was stuck right in the middle. Her unique ethnicity probably made the Ghost curse even worse to her, because she can experience sensation, she can feel. When she disappears into the background like that, she experiences a certain kind of death, like she was turned into a full Ghost, over and over again. That also begged the question, what kinds of things could she experience as a Ghost that other Ghosts could not? I’ve never heard of a Ghost eat anything before, much less drink tea, so how different is her world compared to ours?

I think I understand. She saved my life, because…

“Listen,” I began, grabbing a hold of her hoof once again. Her surprise and lack of comfort showed as she struggled with my grip for half a second. I held on, not forcefully, but not enough to let go easily. She needed to know this. “I’m not sure how long I can stay here, or how long the other Ghosts will let me stay here. But you…”

I leaned forward. She moved her head back, a little bit of her fright getting through to me.

“You saved my life.”

Shock filled her eyes.

“And I won’t forget that. I won’t forget, so whatever you need me to do, whatever you need me for, I’ll be there. Ok? I’m in no rush to leave. I’m in no need to leave. Now that I’m here, in this town, in this house, I’m going to make myself useful. I’m going to be here. And besides,” I mentioned, motioning over to my sprained ankle. “I’m pretty sure that I’m not going anywhere within the next few days.”

I gave her the nicest smile I could muster. She smiled back.

“Thank you.”

We stayed like that for a few seconds, my hoof in hers. The fact that she wasn’t shying away from my contact anymore was a relief. The moonlight poured in from the sky, lighting up her eyes like a deep pool of silver. A nice southern breeze swept into the room, filling the smell of a young summer seasons air. There was a certain tightness in my chest that I wasn’t familiar with as I listened to my own heartbeat through my temples. It was a special moment, after all.

I let go. Her hooves returned beneath her and I sat down.

“You know, I never got to know your name,” I recalled, remembering the freak-out I had when I first woke up. I was too distressed for her name to be on a need-to-know basis.

“My name is Soul Dew,” she responded, pointing to herself with a grin. “What’s yours?”

“My name is…”

Author's Note

This story is based off of a dream that I had.

I dreamt that I lived in a city that was a little bit more run down that what I was used to. The lighting was dark but don't know if the sun was in the sky or not. In this city, I had a girlfriend, and she was a cute as all hell, but she was half dead. Not like zombie half dead, but half ghost and half human. Her hue was tainted blue and her figure was a bit translucent. She had trouble living with who she was because sometimes she wasn't there at all. She would get herself lost and stare into the distance even though I was standing right beside her. When I would look at her and she looked at me back, sometimes it felt as if she wasn't looking at me at all. But every time she got in trouble, every time she started losing herself, I would be there for her. Every time she wandered off into the city, I would go searching for her and find her. I would pull her back into reality, reassure her that I would never leave her vulnerable and that she could trust me.

I would be there for her.

And that dream was magical. A dream with a half dead girlfriend.

So then I turned my dream into a story, obviously, and ponified everything.

Here's the afterword of Ghosts, if you want to take a look.

EDIT: Well, as I stated in the afterword, now that I have reached over 21 likes, I will make a sequel to Ghosts. But not for a while. I'm working on another project at the moment. Give me some time. Your patience is appreciated.