Prologue
I took a hold around the whiskey bottle with my magic, slowly poured the liquid into the crystal glass in front of me. The pill lay besides the slowly filling glass, taunted me with its very existence. It was something… poetic with an ending like this, considering how I had lived. I heard the sound of Ms. Flower opening the front door, the creaking from the oak doors interrupted the morning silence outside. My eyes fell on the painting that hung over the fireplace, picturing myself from a time now lost.
Why had I had it made in the first place? To remember myself about who I was? To remember myself about who I had once been? It did not matter now.
The birds continued their singing outside my window, started where the creaking of the door had interrupted them. It was such a peaceful spring morning. I would nearly say that it was perfect in all its glory.
Celestia’s sun had barely touched the horizon when I heard the soft creak from the stairs to my study. I looked at the clock on the wall. Six and twenty-nine, the officer seemed to be on time, just as I had predicted. I chuckled softly to myself.
Who did I try to fool? It was a rarity that I predicted wrong.
I sighed as I took my place in the armchair that stood tall in the middle of the study. It was a comforting chair, my favorite. Barely had I taken my place in the chair before the expected knock was heard from the door, followed closely by the half seven chiming from the clock.
“Enter, Officer,” I said, shifting slightly in the chair. “I have been expecting you.”
A bluish glow spread around the door before it was dragged open, revealing Officer Creed. The officer was an older stallion, and although his once blue mane now was close to completely silver was his teal eye burning with the same intensity that they always had.
“Doctor Rigor Mortis,” he started, his voice carried with the strength of age as an authority. “You know why I’m here.”
“I do, Creed,” I stated as I lifted the glass of whiskey and the small pill. “Fancy a glass?” I asked, holding up the glass a little higher.
“You know I don’t drink when I’m on duty,” he answered bluntly before he took some steps into my study, softly closing the door behind himself.
I shrugged at this, floated the pill into my mouth and swallowed it down with the whiskey. “It is impolite not to ask your guest if they would fancy a glass when you take on yourself,” I said, smiling lightly as the alcohol spread through my body.
“Enough with the games, Mortis. You know why I’m here,” he said, his eyes boring into me.
“That I do. You are here to arrest me, for crimes unfathomed by most, crimes more horrible than death itself,” I stated without a care in the world. “I have waited for this day a long time, my old friend, to finally be able to tell you.”
“All these years you have been running from the truth, all these years you have been avoiding the law,” the unicorn said, taking a step forward. “You have even worked with me to find the guilty for the crimes you committed yourself. Never talked about it, holding it inside you for so long. How have you managed?”
My smile widened as I brought my glass up again, toasting the painting over the fireplace and taking a sip. “I haven’t dwelled in the past, Creed. Neither have I been running from the truth. Not even when I worked with you did I destroy the evidence that existed, and I have neither helped nor prevented anything to make you able to find the guilty. And now, after all these years, you have finally succeeded in finding me,” I said, my smile turning into a mocking one.
“Why?” The question was barely a whisper, nearly lost under the sound from the birds outside.
“You want to know why, Creed?” I asked, leaning forward lightly. “Then sit down, this will take a while,” I said, waving my hoof towards one of the chairs in the study. “And before you ask, you have my word that I will not hide anything from you. Everything spoken here will be the truth.”
Creed sighed as he sat down in the offered chair. “I’m too old for this, Mortis. This will be my last cause, a cause that has been ongoing for nearly twenty years, before I retire,” he looked at me, and I imagined seeing the flame in his teal eyes die out. “Is the offer for a glass still standing?” he asked me with a light smile of his own.
A smile I returned as I levitated over a glass, carefully pouring whiskey into it before he took it in his own grip. “Always for you, my friend,” I said as I put down the flask on the table again. “A fitting whiskey for a confession like this, would you not say?”
He carefully took a sip from the whiskey, and his eyes brightened up in recognition. “Is this an old bottle of ‘Red Law’ you have gotten your hooves on?” he asked.
“Red Law, aged for sixty-nine years. Only the best for a day like this,” I said with a genuine smile. “Your favorite brand if I’m not mistaken.”
“It has been ages since I last had a taste of this,” he said with a sigh as he shifted slightly for better comfort in the armchair.
“But enough small chatter, my friend,” I said as I leant back completely into the chair once again. “You wanted the truth, and I will as promised give the entire thing to you without hiding anything. I would appreciate should you not interrupt me during my confession, you know how much I hate interruptions,” I said as I looked out the window, looked at the outside world one last time.
Creed just nodded at me as he took a sip from the glass.
“It all began so many years ago, in the same city as it would all be concluded later. Canterlot, the prime city, the capital city of Equestria, where from the princess ruled, and still rule, their country,” I began, slowly opening up my mind to relieve he memories stored therein, falling into another world once again.
I was born in Canterlot just between winter and spring. The birthing procedure was long and difficult for my mother, but she was a strong mare. It took several hours before I was born, and the doctor directly took me into another room. He could not tell my mother that she had had a stillbirth, not after such a hard birthing. And I had been dead for a while. My body was already in a state of rigor mortis. The doctor believed that I had suffocated at some point during the birthing. My father was called into the room to see my body. The doctor reasoned that he could tell my mother the horrible news. What he did not think about was that my father was a headstrong person, and instead of breaking down he had noticed what nopony else had noticed.
My chest heaved up and down. Slowly, yes, barely noticeable, yes, but nonetheless moving. It was this, that he saw my tiny breathing, and his action thereafter, that saved my life. His action that granted me the greatest gift there is. The gift of life.
It took months, months that my mother, Candle, and father, Psalm, stayed by my side at the hospital, slowly watching me recover. The doctors that followed the procedure were speechless. I should not be alive, not after being in a state of rigor mortis. They believed me touched by the sun goddess, believed me granted life by the eternal ruler herself. Celestia visited my father once, and I can fleetly remember seeing her looking down at me, a curious and concerned frown over her muzzle.
But in the end I was allowed to leave, I was deemed as healthy as any foal my age. Barely a month later, my father named me during the summer sun ceremony in Canterlot temple, the naming performed by Celestia herself. Rigor Mortis. That was the name I was given at that ceremony, a name with the origin of the state which I was born in.
My family lived in a house slighter larger than the other houses in the neighborhood, only a brief walk from the Canterlot Temple where my father worked as high priest and my mother as assistant. I did not learn to walk before the age of two, could not, or did not, talk before the age of eight. The doctors said that it was natural, that after such a birthing it was only to expect that it might take years for me to evolve properly. I had, after all, cheated death at birth. My body might think that it was dead, seeing that I was of small growth as well.
Every night, when my father lifted me into bed, he stayed by my side, his low praying voice rocking me to sleep as my mother sat in his embrace, softly humming on a song. He prayed to Celestia that I should grow into a strong stallion, prayed that I should bring glory to our family.
I took my first steps during one of the ceremonies in the temple. My mother, who always took care of me as my father lead the ceremony, sat perplexed as I walked over to my father, smiling all the way. As I reached my father, and started to tug on his robe, wanting to be carried by him, he went silent, abruptly stopping talking in the middle of a sentence. He looked down at me and I sat down on my haunches, stretching my hooves out to be carried by him. His muzzle shone up in a smile, tears started to form in his eyes, as he started to praise Celestia, gently lifting me up and showing me for everypony in the church. He thanked Celestia, the eternal goddess and ruler, that his son had walked. As he hugged me I returned the hug, giggling with glee. I had gotten my will through, being picked up by my father, and nothing could destroy that happiness that I felt. The rest of the ceremony I sat on my father’s back, rocked to sleep by his voice, as he continued the ceremony, tears still running down his cheeks.
At the age of three my father started to teach me about the Solstice, Celestia’s holy book. It was with this book I learned to read, and it went quickly. Barely a month after my father had opened the book to learn me read had I devoured it. This reading opened a new door to me, and I quickly devoured every book I could find. From sunrise to sunset I sat in my father’s study, reading through every book he had. After years of reading I said my first words.
“Daddy, who is Luna?” I asked my father who sat in an armchair in front of the fireplace in the study, slowly reading a book. The night had fallen outside, the moon shone through the window, and I had just been placing the book I had read back where I had gotten it when the question I had had in my mind during reading the strange book, named Eclipse. My father had frozen in place, his eyes wide open in shock. He was either shocked by the question or the fact that I spoke at all, I believe the believed me as mute.
I could hear the sound of his glass shattering as it hit the floor, and he slowly turned around to stare at me. “Luna, Mortis?” he asked me unsteadily after a little while.
I nodded. “It stood something about her in this book, that she is the goddess. But you have said that Celestia is the goddess, and the Solstice never mentions another goddess.”
He sighed slowly as he walked over to me. “Forget that you ever read that name, my son. Luna is long since gone, and our great leader doesn’t like when you mention her aloud,” he said as he kneeled down to hug me.
“But she was mentioned in this book,” I said, pointing at the place where I had placed the book. My eyes went wide as I realized that the book was not there.
“What book?” my father asked me, crocking an eyebrow.
I looked around the study, my eyes going wider as I realized I could not find it. “It… It was here only a second ago!” I shouted out.
“Now son, you know that you should not lie,” my father scolded me. “A book is not just disappearing.”
“Yes father,” I said, slumping slightly. “No father.”
He nuzzled me lightly. “I think it is way past your bed time anyway son, tomorrow is a big day,” he said, his eyes widening. “You… Talked?” he asked, realization finally hitting home.
“Some sentences,” I said, smiling lightly at him.
“Oh, son,” he said as he hugged me once more. “I’m so happy to hear you talk. And with such a good timing as well, seeing that your first day of school is tomorrow.” His smile widened.
I could not help but smile with him at this. He had spoken so warmly about this “school”, a place full of learning. And tomorrow would be my first day there.
