Ego Sum Aequalitasby CraineChaptersFriends in Dark Places.What Comes AfterMercyEpilogue: Full CircleFriends in Dark Places.Ego Sum Aequalitas By Craine Cold. Biting, unforgiving cold. That’s all Starlight Glimmer felt when she dashed into that jagged dark cave, and all she’d felt for several weeks thereafter. In hindsight, hiding in a cave on snow-capped mountains was foolish, if justified. After all, who knew what kind of unspeakable punishment awaited her if her pursuers caught her? That thought kept her going longer than she would admit, kept her magic just strong enough to subdue the cold, kept her stomach just strong enough to keep the moss, insects, and bats from spilling back up. Then, of course, there was revenge. Oh, the sweet, horrific, life-shattering revenge she’d plotted against that prissy princess, Twilight Sparkle, and her moronic friends. If it wasn’t her safety and freedom that kept her heart beating, it was the very thought of storming all of Equestria, finding those meddlesome mares, stealing their cutie marks again, bottling them up, and throwing them into a volcano. She’d often smiled at those fantasies, and found a bitter warmth in them. That warmth kept her walking when she long should’ve stopped, kept her eating things ponies were certainly not supposed to eat, kept her magic steady and lasting. And kept her from fainting at the snapped bone now protruding from her hind leg. At first she nearly laughed. And why wouldn’t she? She had tripped over a pointy rock, tumbled down the cave onto more pointy rocks, and landed on that leg the completely wrong way. Stupid. Foolish. Perhaps she deserved to sit there, gaping at her wound, shuddering in a growing red pool. But she didn’t laugh, no. She screamed. For longer and louder than she thought her lungs capable, Starlight screamed. It echoed through her chest, through her head, the cave, the sky she would surely never see again, through everything. Starlight’s forehoof struck the wet cave floor, and she cursed with pain and rage. Then a whisper invaded her ears like bloody centipedes, creeping through her head, clutching her breath still. “No hope left…” Starlight’s breath remained still, a different kind of cold stabbing at her bloody wound, skulking up her leg. “No breath left…” The whisper came louder, echoes circling her like starving buzzards. “No time left…” She gritted her teeth, feeling pins and needles prick at her limbs as she tried to lift herself from the ground. She collapsed back on her side with a wet thud and a shrill yelp. Inky black fog seeped from the cave’s cracks, dancing around the stalagmites. Her ears jerked at a keening buzz, quiet and smooth like a distant call. Then she heard hoofsteps, moving at a steady, focused pace. She couldn’t tell how close they were, how far they were, or if they were even clapping toward her at all. She lifted her head, her wide eyes peering into a clump of twisting black clouds. A pony emerged, cloaked in those very clouds. He stepped closer with that same pace, and Starlight’s hair stood on end, her teeth bared, horn dimly glowing. “Hello,” his voice was smooth and welcoming, “friend…” Her horn glowed brighter. “Do I know you, stranger?” The shadowed pony paused for a beat. “Yes. Since the day you heard my name.” A splitting headache. It’d only been twenty seconds, and Starlight already had a splitting headache thanks to this pony. Or maybe that was due to blood loss. Starlight lacked the remaining mental faculties to know. “Riddles aren’t really my thing,” Starlight said with a bedraggled smile. The strange pony laughed—a harrowing, reverberating laugh that rattled Starlight’s ribs, though she did well to hide it. “Oh, then you are going to hate me,” he said. Starlight’s horn glowed brighter still. “I see,” she said, trying—and failing—to keep the shudders from her voice. “Do we have a problem, stranger?” He lowered his head, his neck giving a loud crack. “Well, I certainly don’t. Lovely day for stroll, in fact. Which, in your case is, uh…” Starlight Glimmer did not like this pony. “Are you mocking me?” The shady stallion sat down before her, but no sound came, as if he sat on a literal cloud instead of the cave floor. “If I say ‘yes’, will you stop pointing that thing at me?” he asked, gesturing to Starlight’s now piercingly bright horn. “Not likely.” “Then, no.” Like an overheated bulb, her horn flickered out, and she groaned as her chin hit the cold, wet ground, staring straight, staring at nothing. “If it’s money you want, stranger, than I’m a disappointing catch,” she said tiredly. No answer came. Starlight lifted her eyes and they widened. A different blackened form took the annoying pony’s place; it was taller and two-legged, looking down at her. Or rather, her mangled leg. “Money? Nay, Starlight,” the stranger assured. “I want only the same thing you do: a chance.” The unicorn coughed out a laugh, the cold now creeping into her diaphragm. “A chance. Right. Sounds to me like… like…” Her eyes remained locked on him. “… How?” He tilted his shaded head and asked, “How what?” Starlight could hear the smile in his voice. “How do you know my name?” He laughed again. The keening buzz in the mare’s ears intensified. “Remember when I said you’re going to hate me?” Starlight grit her teeth. “Warmth leaves you. Cold enters you. And if you wish to see the end of this day, I can aid you… if you can answer my riddle.” Her dislike for this… thing was quickly dissolving into something more venomous. “Go away,” Starlight growled, wincing at the constant pain. “I-I’m fine.” The stranger didn’t go away. He crawled forward like a predator ready to feast, his black, ethereal limbs making no sound. He fell before her and burst into a cloud of thicker mist. That mist coiled around the unicorn’s body, numbness spreading wherever it touched. Starlight shuddered and whimpered at the black serpent now draped over her, gazing into her trembling eyes. “Ponies… so easily frightened. And so very foolish,” he whispered. “Here I am, offering you salvation, and you turn me away?” “I… I-I don’t need y-your help.” A forked tongue flicked across her nose, and she tried in vain to turn away. “Hm. Perhaps weeks ago, that would’ve been true. You had hundreds of ponies at your beck and call―all of them willing to die for you, I’m certain.” Starlight’s breath hitched. “How the mighty have fallen…” “How did you…” She paused. “You… You’ve been spying on me. Back in the town. Haven’t you?” He raised his head, hovering over Starlight, and the unicorn’s eyes couldn’t help but follow. “Does it matter?” he asked. “With your luck, terrible as it is?” Starlight’s breath hitched again. She couldn’t feel her wound anymore. There was only numbness. She tore her eyes away from him and glanced at the snake-like mist cradling her broken leg. She looked away and said nothing. “Think about it, friend,” he began. “Can you really afford to deny my help? You lie alone here, bleeding out, rage and regret your only fuel. If the blood loss doesn’t finish you, the cold will.” Starlight scowled but, again, said nothing. The black serpent collapsed into mist again. The numbness left and pain snapped at the unicorn’s leg like a starving lion. “Don’t go!” she yelped. At first, only the cave’s deep, distant howls answered her. Then that familiar laugh. “You’re an indecisive one, aren’t you?” he jeered. Starlight glanced left and nearly jumped out of her skin. Standing there was a much larger form of mist, winged and great. Dragon-like. “I ask you, Starlight,” he began, lying down behind her, “do you wish to see the end of this day?” Finally—after holding them back for weeks—Starlight’s tears rolled freely down her face. “What do you want from me?” she whimpered. The shaded creature sighed. “Have you no ears, unicorn? I want the same thing you want: a choice. A chance.” Starlight trembled harder still. “I don’t—” She gulped. “I don’t understand.” The draconian mist craned its head over Starlight, staring at her upside down. “Then will you solve my riddle?” Starlight felt something strange right then, something terrible. Something she actually wasn’t used to. It made her limbs stiffer than frozen lamp posts. It made her chest tighten and ache. It made her throat nearly foam with bile. And right then, Starlight Glimmer knew she hated this thing. Why? She couldn’t quite place it. Maybe because he was a mystery she couldn’t solve. Maybe because he taunted her and her increasingly grave situation. Maybe because he was playing her like a broken flute and she knew it. Or perhaps she just really disliked riddles. “What’s your angle?” Starlight asked. “Why are you really helping me? What are you gaining?” He stared at her for a time, and whispered, “It’s not about my gain, Starlight. It’s about yours.” Starlight realized she was glaring at the misty creature, and simply lowered her head in defeat. “Fine,” she muttered. “Excellent.” Starlight sucked in a sharp breath, her arms shuffling futilely on the bloodied cave floor. Everything in front of her warped and swirled into itself. She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing a longer, sharper breath as vertigo struck her, everything still swirling, still warping. Seconds later, she felt… warmth? Yes, warmth, but not from the blood growing cold beneath her. No, this was warmth she hadn’t felt in weeks, not since she first ran into this freezing tomb. She opened her eyes and saw sunlight. The cave’s exit was right in front of her, only a few feet away. The biting cold swished with warmth. She began crawling forward, a smile growing wider and wider. She screamed in pain and jolted back. Her eyes whipped down to her forehoof, gasping repeatedly as flesh peeled and melted from it, the bone showing very proudly. She looked up and saw a tunnel of complete blackness between her and salvation, and a sizzling tuft of flesh where her hoof had been. She looked back down at her hoof, and it was totally fine. “What is this?!” “Insurance,” he answered. “That you may uphold your word.” Starlight curled up into a ball, her mangled leg still lain flat, bleeding. “Bastard,” she muttered, “you didn’t mention any rules!” Another swath of mist spun before her, this time, with a hulking centaurian shape. “Well, I was going to, until you leaped at the prize before it was earned.” Starlight couldn’t argue with that. “Just… just get on with it,” she said. “Very well,” the enigma conceded. “As you can see, freedom is in your sight, in your very reach, and you must solve my riddle to obtain it.” Starlight stifled a sigh. “And that riddle is?” He turned to her. “What am I?” Starlight raised a brow. “And just how am I supposed to guess that? You’ve turned into everything in the universe in, like, five minutes.” That got a chuckle out of him. “The rules are simple. I will throw a series of questions your way. Give the correct answer…” he turned to the exit guarded by the flesh-eating blackness, opened his palm, and cleared a path, “and you may yet leave this cave.” Starlight only half-heard him when the path cleared. Better judgement and agonizing experience told her to stay her hoof. “Answer wrongly, however—” he closed his palm into a fist, and the blackness returned, the exit further away than ever before—“and we can spend more… quality time getting to know each other.” Starlight gulped, and felt a now-painful bite of cold all over her body. She glanced back at her wound and heaved. Her leg most certainly wasn’t blue before. She shivered harder. “Is that all?” she asked. “Indeed. Just answer the riddle before the time limit, and taste freedom.” Starlight frowned. “Time limit? You never said—” Another powerful fit of shivers struck her. “How much time do I have?” That got another chuckle out of him. “Well… that depends solely on you, Starlight Glimmer. Shall we begin?” “Well. I’ve got nothing else to lose.” The centaur laughed, and the cave laughed right back. “Nothing else to lose,” he said. “Indeed…” Starlight said nothing as she stared up at her would-be savior. She waited for his riddle. Her body felt like it was shaking to pieces. The centaurian fog twisted and warped into a simple, hawk-like shape. He began his riddle. “I am the mystery none have solved, and genesis unwound. I am the greatest truth, shunned, but always found. What am I?” Starlight almost felt her brain hemorrhage. With a shrill growl and hooves swirling in her mane, the unicorn shot a furious glare at the misty stranger. “How about Celestia’s flank-hole?! I don’t know!” she shouted. The exit shifted further away, an eternity of corroding blackness shrouding the path. Starlight’s ears sunk, and her eyes nearly bulged out. “But…” she whispered. “But―” “You agreed to participate, Starlight,” the hawk said, landing on her back. “And I agreed to uphold the conditions. I trust you’ll take this more seriously now?” Starlight already cried before this despicable creature, but not again. With practiced, shuddering breaths and closed eyes, she centered herself. But the blood pooling on the ground… She could smell it. She could taste it. She narrowed her eyes. “Give me another.” The hawk dissolved into a head-sized scorpion and crawled along her back. Her eyes remained closed as he skittered up her neck. The numbness that followed made it hard to breathe. “Not so fast. Remember the rules? You answered incorrectly, thus have granted me quality time with you.” Starlight grimaced. “There’s nothing remarkable about me,” she said, her eyes still closed. Black pincers snipped close to the mare’s jawline, and she jerked away. “Come now, Starlight, we’ve only just met and you’re lying?” the scorpion asked. Starlight opened her eyes, now scowling into darkness. “You don’t know the first thing about me.” “I know that you’re different, and I know most ponies didn’t understand that. They still don’t.” Starlight gave a short, humorless laugh. “‘Different’. I’m just a normal pony. Of course others didn’t understand. They were too busy pretending to be bette―” she blinked, then huffed. “Mind your own business.” The scorpion skittered higher, his black mandibles centimeters from her ear. Starlight’s eyes narrowed and sweat dotted her face. “I’m different too, you know. I often wonder why so many squabble for useless things like riches, fame, power…” He brought his voice to a whisper. “Absolute control.” Starlight tensed. “Did it excite you, Starlight? To look down on the rabble that clung to you? Talentless? No drive nor desire? Equal?” His mandibles came closer to her ear. “Dead?” “Get off me!” Starlight shouted. She swatted the menace away and her arm fell asleep. A clump of mist hit the ground before her, twisting into a toad-like form. “Fine! So, you know about that!” Starlight continued. “Yeah, I took their talents and gave them jobs―what of it?! It’s not like they were thriving before they came to me! The toad lifted a budded hand. “Calm yourself, child. I do not blame nor chastise you. Truth is, you and I aren’t so different. You’d take to my job like a fish to water.” Starlight flexed her tingling muscles to regain feeling in her arm. “And what is your job?” “Ah-ah-ah. The answer is in the riddle, Starlight. Just know that it ensures balance and equality for all,” he said, ignoring the unicorn’s glare. “Nice try, though.” “I hate you,” Starlight said, quite embarrassed at the sudden rasp in her voice. The black toad hopped upon a pony-sized rock. “I am known by all, but seen by none. I am the shadow cast by a withered sun. What am I?” Starlight scowled. “How is this even remotely related to the last one?” He chuckled again. “Rest assured, they may be different, but my riddles are all solved the same.” Great. Even his hints were riddles. This time, Starlight gave some actual thought to this, sifting through similarities between this riddle and the last. She smiled. “Of course. You are… the shadows.” When the stranger paused, Starlight was certain she nailed it. “A profound answer, my dear.” The ground jumped beneath her. The cave’s exit sunk even further away, more inky blackness guarding it. She lost her footing and yelped, grasping at a slippery slope. Her hooves slid and scraped futilely against wet granite, and she felt nothing but air beneath her one good hind-hoof. As another whimper escaped her lips, clawed paws reached out and pressed down on her joints. Instead of pain, there was only numbness. She looked up, trembling at a black lion’s toothy grin. “It was incorrect, by the way.” “But you said the answer was in the riddle!” Starlight cried, scrabbling back onto crumbling rock. “I knew I couldn’t trust you!” “Now, why would you say such a thing?” Starlight slipped further and yelped. “Equality is an interest we both share, unicorn. ‘Tis a path least traveled. And yet, most beaten. You can trust me.” She slipped again. “Then pull me up! Please!” “I am the new beginning, and every last chance. I am the light in the dark with which all must dance. What am I?” Starlight slipped even further, those misty claws snagging along her flesh. She glanced down at her bleeding wound. “I’m begging you! If I take another fall, I’ll die! I’ll die!” “Answer the riddle. What am I?” “I… I don’t know! I don’t know what you are!” The lion’s grin vanished. “Again, it doesn’t bode well for you.” “W-what?” The blackness swallowed what little she could see of the lion and everything else, creeping closer to her. She panicked and fell. Her flesh crunched against stone, limbs whipping and flailing. She tumbled down over the sharp rocks—to the cave’s lower level. With a raspy groan, she came to. With hazy vision, she gathered her thoughts. With bated breath she sat up and craned herself up with her elbows. She looked at herself, and her vision snapped clear. Her leg was twisted the opposite direction. Torn muscle hung from the now-gaping gash. More bone protruded. Blood no longer seeped out, but spurted out. She took a deep, chest-bursting breath, her head lifting to the cave ceiling. She screamed. She screamed so loud, the stalactites rattled, and the echoes that followed rang mercilessly, like a choir on disjointed laughter. Starlight fell to her back, still screaming, her hooves digging into her forehead. She rolled back and forth and wished the pain away. It only worsened. “You’re beginning to dissapoint me,” that insufferable voice said. “I HATE YOU!” “Perhaps I was wrong about you, Starlight.” The desecrated mare’s cries lowered to desperate whines. She lifted herself up higher, only to see that same blackness covering the very rocks on which she fell. She frantically dragged herself back, smearing blood in her wake. The blackness followed, swallowing everything she saw until she was cornered against a rocky wall. There it stayed, and only a few feet remained between her and flesh-eating oblivion. A black squirrel hopped onto her chest. And he spoke, “Your will is strong, stronger than most to which I’ve given this chance. That is why I chose you, Starlight, yet you waste my expectations wallowing in filth?” Starlight’s arms crossed over her face, tears wetting them both. “Please…” she begged, her voice growing weaker, quiet. “Leave me alone.” The squirrel hopped further up her chest. “You chose this path, Starlight, and the consequences that follow. The riddle remains unsolved and your time drains.” Starlight’s arms fell limply to the damp ground, her shivers weakening, her breath slowing. “But it’s… so cold,” she groaned. The squirrel leaped off of her. And a black grizzly bear’s face looked down on hers. “I am the broker for all, never deceived or cheated. I am resisted, tooth and nail, but I cannot be defeated. What am I?” Starlight’s foggy breath wheezed from her lungs. “No more,” she cried. “I just… I wanna go home.” “Answer the riddle, Starlight,” he whispered back. “What am I?” Starlight weakly lifted her eyes to the bear, no longer caring about her tears. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you so cruel?” He was silent for a time, as if pondering her words. Then the bear crouched toward her, his nose much, much too close. “You speak of cruelty, when I’ve given you chance after chance to save yourself?” “How can you say that? You taunt me with fake salvation. You drive me further into this tomb. You—” Her sobs escaped her again. “I know nothing about you, and I’m supposed to know what you are?” “Wrong, Starlight,” the bear corrected. “I’ve been telling you about myself this whole time. You just haven’t been listening.” Starlight’s head fell back against the cave floor. She groaned in defeat. “What am I?” The blackness stirred again, creeping closer to her ever-so slowly. She wanted to leave this place. She wanted to see the end of this day. She wanted to soak the sunlight and breathe without pain. She wanted to bite into ripe, crisp apples again. She wanted to read and study and learn the magics she once thought impossible. She wanted to see ponies again. She wanted to visit her father’s grave one more time. She wanted to return to the town she’d wronged—the ponies she’d wronged—and ask their forgiveness. She wanted to be remembered as a good pony, not a monster. She wanted absolution. She wanted to live. “I don’t—” She stopped herself, realizing the wrong answer would end her. “What are you…?” she asked to herself more than anything else. This creature—whatever it was—stood amidst the blackness, matching it. Corrosion never dissolved him, never swallowed him. None of it made sense. Until it did, that is. Starlight’s eyes widened as she recalled bits of the riddles. I am the greatest truth, shunned, but always found. I am known by all, but seen by none. I am the new beginning, and every last chance. I am the broker for all, never deceived or cheated. She stared back up at him. He stared back down at her, just as she had to so many ponies. She fancied herself a hero to them, a force of reckoning, even. But this? This was reckoning. A kin to the blackness ready to swallow her. The truths she had shunned were stripped and bared before him. He claimed she knew him all her life. He offered her freedom, or oblivion. And she knew exactly what he was. He was the shadow that loomed over creatures large and small. He was the messenger of a truth feared by all. He was the ferryman that tolled the bells. The wailing host of the home to which all were welcome. The end of all things And he came for her. “Starlight Glimmer.” She blinked back into focus, but saw naught but black. She looked down at her legs and saw naught but rotted, broken bone. “What am I?” he asked for the final time. And finally, with her last, whispering breath, she answered. “Death.” Then there was naught but darkness. Author's Note Hang tight, you bloodthirsty savages. Death is only the beginning. What Comes AfterCold. Biting, unforgiving cold. At least, Starlight Glimmer thought it was cold. She could no longer tell. It’s what she remembered, certainly, but she didn’t truly know anymore. The corpse she stared at beneath her may have known, but it would be downright silly to ask. It was cold. And maybe Starlight just didn’t care anymore. “You have succeeded, Starlight Glimmer,” a voice echoed. Starlight recognized that voice. She used to hate that voice. At least, she was sure she hated that voice. Maybe the pony below her remem… Right. “Your will is as strong as I’d hoped. You will do quite nicely.” he continued. “How are you feeling?” Starlight finally tore her eyes from the bloodied, discolored corpse below, and onto a formless mist she had surely seen before. “I feel…” She stopped, blinking slowly. “I don’t know.” A familiar chuckle rang in her ears. His chuckle. “It’ll sink in. Dying takes a minute to get used to.” Dying? Starlight looked down at the lifeless mare below. “I… died?” she asked. “Slowly and miserably,” he answered. Starlight felt a headache coming on. No, not a headache. Something like a headache. Maybe. She wiggled her left hind-leg, and she didn’t even know why. “You,” she whispered. “You killed me.” The mist whispered back, “You were dead the moment we met. You just didn’t know it yet.” Starlight lifted her hoof. It was dull and she saw things through it. Even the corpse below. “Do you remember me? Do you remember who I am?” he asked. Starlight felt something quivering inside her. Perhaps her heart? Maybe. No. She raised her translucent hoof to her chest, but felt nothing. Not her heartbeat, not her coat. Nothing. That quiver inside worsened. “Death…” “Yes.” Starlight’s eyes lowered back to the corpse. She recognized it. Lilac coat bloodied and scuffed. Hind leg twisted and snapped. Eyes open and faded. The sharply curved star on her flank. For every second she looked, the quivering grew stronger still. Her shoulders bounced as she began to sob. Death remained silent as the sobbing grew louder, heaving. Starlight remembered. She remembered everything. How she lived, why she lived. “There’s…” Starlight began, choking on her cries. “There’s so much left to do.” Death said nothing. Starlight looked up, and saw a jagged cave ceiling she had come to know. “This can’t be it…” “You’re right, Starlight.” The unicorn turned back to Death. “On both accounts.” I am the new beginning, and every last chance… She wiped her face, and realized there were no tears. “Why?” she asked. “Why here? Why now?” “Well, as I recall, you ran into this cave, broke your leg, and bled out,” Death said. “Hard to forget.” Starlight suddenly remembered she hated her acquaintance. “That’s not what I meant…” she said, wiping the last of her nonexistent tears. “I mean, why did you choose me? What did you choose me for?” Death said nothing. He rose toward the cave ceiling, and Starlight’s trembling blue eyes followed him. “Where are you going?” Starlight asked. He vanished into the ceiling. “Come back!” She worked her legs to follow, but didn’t move, as though she were treading water. She tried again, but it was useless. All she knew was she had to follow. She couldn’t be alone. Not now. And just like that, she began drifting. She gasped at the feeling, suddenly short of breath. She concentrated, and began drifting again. “I… I can do this.” Starlight closed her eyes and her ethereal mane lifted. She began soaring, fighting to quell her startled shouts. Jerky and unfocused, the unicorn followed Death, and finally left the cave through its ceiling. She emerged with tightly shut eyes. She opened them and squealed in fright. Last she checked, only pegasi were meant to be so high up. Her legs flailed as she yelped again and again, but soon calmed down. She was weightless, and quickly realized she’d never fall unless she allowed it. A smile tugged at her lips as she floated there, letting it all sink in. “Feeling better?” Starlight yelped again, her hooves bunching to her chest. She spun around and saw Death in all his fogginess. He chuckled softly. “Ponies. So easily frightened, indeed.” Starlight just glared. “I must say, Starlight, you’re adapting quite well. Most souls remain jibbering wrecks for days,” Death said. “I knew you were cut out for the job.” “What job do you keep talking about?” Starlight asked with a gesturing hoof. Again, Death said nothing and drifted away. “Stop ignoring me!” Starlight tried to run after him, then closed her eyes at her own stupidity. She focused and followed the mist, drifting alongside him. She glared at him until she was too tired to keep it up. Her eyes roamed the land through which they soared. The mountains, especially. She knew this place but it was… different. “Where are we?” Starlight asked. “A few weeks in that cave and you can’t recognize your own world?” Gray skies. Black clouds. White shadows. Violet landscape. She looked up at a black sun, smoking like a freshly snuffed candle. “This is Equestria?” “Yes. In the eyes of Death.” I am the shadow cast by a withered sun. Her brows knitted; for a moment she actually forgot she was dead. “Why me?” she asked again. As expected, there was only silence. “Come on! I gave my life to answer your stupid riddle. You should at least return the favor!” “We’re here…” Starlight raised a brow and looked ahead. Her eyes widened. Then her brows fell. “W-what is this?” she asked. Death stopped soaring, and so did she. “This is your town, Starlight. This is where your vision took root.” He was wrong. He had to be. Yes, there were the same parallel buildings, same desert ground, but this couldn’t have been her town. It was so… full. “They stayed? Even after I…” “Yes. And there was plenty of talk about this place,” Death said. The ponies―the same ponies that followed her―roamed the town. And they brought friends. Many friends. Something else was wrong, though. There were no smiles, no activity for a growing town. There was only sorrow and tears. “What is this?” Starlight asked again. “This is your town.” “I know that!” Starlight yelled, glad for her new immunity to headaches. “I mean, why did they stay?” Yet again, Death gave her only silence and drifted down to the town. Starlight hesitated to follow. “W-wait! Where are you going?” Death stopped. “To visit them, of course. I’m long overdue.” He drifted forward again. “But I… I can’t go with you!” Starlight panicked. “I can’t go back there!” Death stopped again, and that time, it seemed like he actually turned slowly to her. “Starlight,” he began steadily, “you’re dead. You can go wherever you want.” “But… But―!” Death drifted away without another word. Starlight bit her lip and flew after him. Together they drifted through the town, and Starlight’s hooves couldn’t stop scraping together, her worried eyes couldn’t stop shifting side to side, from face to face. They didn’t seem to notice her. “We shouldn’t be here,” Starlight whispered. “They cannot hear nor see you,” Death said. “Go if you must, but I’m needed here.” Starlight gave Death a small frown, but said nothing. She caught a peculiar sight, and that’s when the specter stopped. Ponies. Droves of them gathering at a house, one of them assaulting the door with knocks, shouting something Starlight couldn’t hear. She had only more questions, but tucked them away. She silently followed Death as he drifted past the droves, and into the house. “I know this place,” Starlight whispered absently. “Sugar Belle lives here. With her dad.” Death said nothing. He rose to the ceiling and Starlight followed. Her brows lifted when she saw Sugar Belle. The violet unicorn sat on her haunches, her already-wild mane riddled with more frays and curls, her violet hooves cradling a single, larger hoof. The owner of that hoof lay in bed, wheezing. Starlight covered her lips. “No… That can’t be.” Garden Belle, Sugar Belle’s father―a strong, healthy, middle-aged stallion―was wasting away, blood reddening a hastily wrapped bandage around his chest. Sugar Belle’s shoulders shook, and Starlight knew she was crying. “W… what happened?” Starlight asked in disbelief. “Stabbed.” “What?! In my town?!” Starlight’s eyes hit the wood floor when she said that. This wasn’t her town anymore. Never again. She looked back up at Death only to see a black pony shape―the same one who greeted her in that freezing tomb. He skulked up to the unicorn pair. “Death… Don’t,” Starlight pleaded quietly. “It’s her dad.” “No hope left… No breath left… No time left…” He skulked on. When he arrived, Sugar Belle didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even notice. But Garden Belle? He looked right up at Death, his eyes wide with shock. Then, calm with… acceptance? Starlight couldn’t tell. Death held out his hoof, and Garden Belle’s own hoof rose to take it, wresting gently from his daughter’s grip. Sugar Belle nuzzled her father’s bearded face, completely oblivious to the exchange. Starlight couldn’t look away. The hooves met, and Garden’s fell limp to the bedside. In its place, Death held an ethereal blue limb. He floated upward, and a solemn blue spirit followed. “Have mercy, Reaper.” Starlight’s ears flicked at the tired, sad voice. A voice she came to know. Garden Belle’s. Death said nothing. “Please,” Garden continued. “Please give me more time with my little girl?” Again, Death said nothing. “Without me, she would… Please. She needs me.” Starlight felt something roll down her face. She wiped it with a hoof, and gaped at the swirling, shining tear―the first she had shed since her death. It fell to the floor and evaporated into soft white mist. She looked back up and saw Death holding a small lantern housing a tiny black flame. “Be judged, kind soul,” Death began quietly, “and see your life as you truly lived. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Without another word, Garden Bell was sucked into the lantern like water down a drain. Starlight’s eyes fell back to Sugar Belle. She couldn’t hear it, but she knew the other unicorn was screaming, tears spilling on her father’s beard. She trembled and held her father’s hoof so tight. Before Starlight knew, several of her own tears fell from her chin, clouding the floor with a thin white mist. She darted out of the house. She darted past the crowd outside, darted through the town, and finally to a little house she knew all too well. Her own. It was dark and untouched; exactly the way she left it, albeit with a little dust. She looked up at the wall and saw her old, framed self-portrait. Hoof on her chest, proud smile, her ‘equality’ insignia stamped in the background. She stared for so long, sitting there on her dusty floor, weeping. Her old home became hazy with mist. She didn’t even see Death appear before her, his pony form maintained, his lantern in hoof. Her cries stopped and she looked up at him. “Garden Belle was noble, a natural leader,” Death said. “What happened?” Starlight mumbled, not even sure if she wanted to know. “The town embraced their differences, and he rose among them as a leader. He organized them, gave them jobs, spoke proudly of construction and expansion. Growth.” Starlight began to shake. “But some feared the path on which he led them, feared a repeated past. Feared a forced dictatorship. Feared inequality. Starlight shook even harder. Garden Belle was just like her. And he paid for it. “Is this why you chose me? Why we’ve come here?” Starlight asked. “To see this? To torment me?” When Death said nothing again, the unicorn prepared to storm out. Then a loud clank stopped her. She looked down at Death’s lantern set neatly before her. “I merely showed you how it’s done,” Death finally replied. She stared for a time. Then looked up at Death’s unseen gaze. Then back at the lantern. Then at Death again. “No…” she whispered, rising to her hooves with a stumble. “Never. I don’t want it, you hear me? I don’t want your job!” “You said it yourself, Starlight: differences bring only heartache and misery. ‘Tis what you preached. And as the reaper, you can prove it.” “Horse apples! Is this what you meant by ‘giving me a chance’?! To take your place?! To watch everypony I’ve ever known die?!” Starlight’s voice wavered. “To see their faces when I take them? To hear them beg for more time?” Before she could stop it, Starlight began crying again. “This is your destiny, Starlight Glimmer. It has always been. It was decided at birth,” he lifted his black hoof and pointed, “defined by your mark, by what it represents.” Starlight swished her tail over her flank. “Screw you! I never wanted this!” “Your power―your very reason for living―was to take the differences away, to unite your entire species in equality. In Harmony.” “Shut up!” “You have failed in life, Starlight, your ambitions crushed by those who don’t understand. But you understand. I know you do.” Death began walking toward Starlight. She reared back, teeth bared, ready to lash out. “Stay back!” she growled. Death walked on, his hoof reaching for her. “I-I’m warning you!” Death touched her trembling chin, lifting it to meet their gazes. “I know you understand, Starlight, that all are equal in death.” Starlight’s eyes softened, her jaw relaxing, her poise uncoiling. The door behind them burst open. Starlight gasped and whipped her head to it. Death slowly looked up. It was Sugar Belle, seething, her chest puffing and deflating. Her scorching eyes riveted in their direction. “S-Sugar Belle…” Starlight whispered, her voice shaky. The violet unicorn stormed inside, trotting straight ahead. Death calmly stepped aside, but Starlight remained frozen. Helpless. The angry mare stepped inches closer. “Sugar Belle, please wait! I…” Starlight squeezed her eyes shut, her ears folding back. Nothing came. No pain, no strikes, no shouts or insults. Starlight opened her eyes and saw nothing. She turned around and saw Sugar Belle with her back turned, glaring hatefully at the portrait above. The baker’s horn glowed. Starlight’s old dresser-drawer lifted from the corner and flew at the portrait. They collided, and the crash echoed. Both hit the floor, the dresser in splinters, the portrait bent and cracked. Sugar Belle leaped at the pile of splinters, and whirled back to Starlight’s portrait with a sharp piece in hoof. She plunged it into that framed, smiling face. She pulled it out and jabbed the portrait again. And again. And again, and again, and again. Faster. Harder. Screaming and crying until her throat was raw . A pegasus mare burst into the house―Night Glider, Starlight recalled. She yelled something Starlight couldn’t even hear. Apparently, Sugar Belle didn’t hear either. The pegasus darted forward and snatched Sugar Belle’s arm from behind. Starlight could hear nothing, but she knew Sugar Belle was still screaming, still cursing. Night Glider forced the unicorn’s arms down, and bound them with a powerful embrace. Sugar Belle writhed, trying to free herself, but her struggles died. She dropped her weapon, slumping to the ground with shaky shoulders. Night Glider slumped down too, her grip never loosening, her own tears staining her face. They collapsed in a trembling heap, and Starlight could only watch while biting her hoof, her eyes wide. Night Glider released her weeping friend, straddling her back, speaking things Starlight still couldn’t hear. Starlight’s eyes dropped to the distraught baker. She was speaking too. Starlight narrowed her eyes at Sugar Belle’s lips. She was repeating herself again and again. Finally, Starlight knew what she was saying, and it tore her apart. “She was right, Glider. She was right.” As Death reached for his lantern, Starlight flew away. She flew away and didn’t look back, leaving Death by himself. The silent specter lingered a moment longer, just staring at the grieving mares. He followed Starlight Glimmer without a word. Author's Note Well, well, well. What will our protagonist choose? MercyMinutes. Hours. Days. Really Starlight hadn’t a clue how long she sat on that snowy mountain peak. How long she stared down at her old home. As if time even mattered anymore. Going back there had been a mistake, she knew it was a mistake, but she did it anyway. And for what? To see ponies die? To see them broken and miserable? To have the very philosophy she created thrown back in her face? No. She went back for none of those things. A familiar clank made her ear twitch. She turned right and saw exactly what she expected to see: the lantern and the spectre who owned it. Starlight turned back to the town below. “I don’t want your job…” she whispered. “That can’t be helped,” Death replied, equally quiet. “This is your destiny. Lest you would have failed my riddle, and died in that cave without purpose.” “Find somepony else,” Starlight whispered again. “There is nopony else. You solved my riddle before death. You possessed the strongest will.” Starlight slowly turned to Death again. “Many have tried, and many have failed. Brave Scorpan, The Mighty Boreas, Bahamut, Starswirl the Bearded. But you…” Starlight turned back to the town, expressionless. “Even if any of them did solve my riddle, they could’ve never understood the forces at work. Not even Starswirl.” Starlight said nothing. Death joined her in silence, reverting back to pony-form, sitting on the mountain peek. There the two spectres sat, wind blowing, but never felt. The lantern sat between them, holding its black flame. “You resist so adamantly, Starlight,” Death said. “Why? After feverish efforts to establish equality―to create harmony―you deny your destiny?” Again, Starlight said nothing. She hoped against hope that it annoyed the spirit every bit as much as it annoyed her. “You’ve seen it as a filly. You’ve seen it growing up. You’ve even seen it in death. Differences lead to pain and heartache. Where there are differences, there is conflict. With conflict, comes hate. Hate begets naught but war. Such is the cycle of life.” Nevermind his silence. His voice was starting to drive her mad. “But in death, Starlight, there is only peace. Equality. Harmony.” Starlight gasped and her hoof jerked back. It had wandered close to the lantern, far too close. She was weak for just those few seconds, and she almost grabbed it. “Your words are venom…” Starlight hissed, her eyes curtained by her mane. “Such is truth, unicorn,” Death countered. “Like when you told all those ponies they’d be miserable without you.” “That was different!” Starlight barked. “We both know that isn’t true. The moment they saw your mark―saw how different you were―they turned on you. Didn’t they?” She said nothing. “Such. Is. Truth.” Starlight jerked her wandering hoof from the lantern yet again. And Death didn’t say another word. He didn't need to, Starlight knew. As little as she wanted to admit it, it was true. She sighed an echoing sigh. “I know,” Starlight whispered. Death said nothing, but turned his faceless head to her. “I just… I just don’t like that I know.” “Why?” “I saw ponies―hardworking ponies―break their backs everyday to please bosses with half their ability. I saw ponies set goals for their future―for their family―and be driven to poverty by ‘important ponies’ who thought so little of them.” Death remained silent. “All I thought when I got my cutie mark was, ‘I can stop this’. And I did, until… until they came.” “Thus, the rat race continued,” Death added. Starlight paused, then nodded. “Yeah…” She looked back down over her old town. “When ponies die, I… I know there is equality. It’s a path everypony walks, no matter how high the pedestal. There’s only one certainty that everypony knows, no matter how much smarter they believe themselves to be.” She gave Death a long, sad stare. He said nothing. “I don’t want this, Death. I don’t want to spend the rest of forever watching everything I tried to stop in life. I don’t want to see ponies suffer any more.” She turned back to the town, having grown used to the void of silence that reminded her she was dead. A black hoof found her shoulder. She turned and saw Death on her other side, sandwiching her between him and the lantern. “Wouldn’t it be kinder, Starlight? Merciful? To take them to peace? To guide them toward the tunnel’s end?” Starlight looked back up at him, shocked by his gentler tone. “An end to pain, misery, regret.” Death’s hoof left her shoulder. “All will be free. When all's said and done, when legacies are forged and broken, when the rat race finally ends… all are equal.” She looked up and saw Death float over the cliff before her, holding the lantern. Offering it. “Such is death.” Starlight stared at it. She stared tiredly at the lantern. The souls it must’ve taken, pain it must’ve ended, the peace it must’ve brought. Such a little thing. Starlight would suffer. She knew that. She feared that. All the faces she’d see―faces she had come to know over the years―would plead. And she would have to deny them. All the ponies who thought she was a monster, all those she’d wronged… She’d have to face them. She would suffer. But she would get used it. She had to. The lantern was the key. It would reunite Sugar Belle with her father. It would bring peace to her town. It would show Twilight Sparkle the error of her ways. It would finally show all of Equestria, the world―no, the cosmos―what she tried to accomplish all along. She took a deep breath. The key to equality. At long last. Starlight took the lantern from Death. Ego Sum Aeuqalitas Author's Note Yes, yes, I know; you just sat through yet ANOTHER dark Starlight Glimmer fic. My only hope was that it stood out among its ilk. Drop me a line friends. Until our next adventure. Craine... Epilogue: Full CircleA room. A dusty, cobwebbed, opulent room. Dark. Still. Quiet. Empty, save for the jeweled ornaments decorating the walls and ceiling, the tapestries of fallen heroes and friends hanging with them. And in the center of it all, wheezing dryly on a bed much too big, lay a withered old pony. She had forgotten how long ago she had locked herself in that room, how long she had twisted and turned in those disgustingly smooth ivory sheets, how often she had thrown them off, only to rewrap her shivering, malnourished body. She forgot how long she waited for death. The tapestries gave her comfort most days. The monuments of friends long-dead, immortalized by their elements. Yes, most days, she could look up and smile at their faces, feel pride for the memories they created―the prosperous age they maintained. Other days, those tapestries mocked her. A constant reminder of her failure, a nightmare from which she could never awaken. Yet, they just kept smiling. So proud, so bold. Beautiful. “Gone…” she whispered to herself. She’d forgotten how many times she said that word since she confined herself to that oversized coffin. Gone. Every time she said it―every time she thought it―she’d die just a little more inside. The thought brought a smile to her face, brought her that much closer to peace. “Gone…” she whispered again, her heart giving an pained lurch. “Gone…” She rolled side to side amid the ivory sheets, chanting the word again and again like a desperate prayer, clutching her now-quibbling heart, feeling it break into smaller pieces than it was already in. “Earth to earth…” The chanting stopped at that inexorable whisper. She rolled to her stomach, her head and ears lifted high. “Ashes to ashes...” It was everywhere. A monotone, feminine whisper that struck a chord of bells in her ears. She willed her shaky, brittle limbs to lift her. “Dust to dust…” Her wings bristled at a sudden cold, a numbing cold, and she realized, perhaps for the first time in hundreds of years, that she had to move. So she did. And she fell off the bed, flat on her withered face. Shaking even harder, she lifted herself a few inches. Her arms buckled beneath her. She didn’t bother to rise again. Instead, with labored breaths, she lied on her side, watching slithering streams of darkness creep up from the carved diamond floor. Her tired, lidded eyes caught a pony’s lilac hooves just inches away, and they slowly rolled up to see who owned them. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes slowly widened. “Hello,” Starlight Glimmer whispered with a frown, “friend.” Author's Note An extra snippet, because why the f**k not? Craine...
Friends in Dark Places.Ego Sum Aequalitas By Craine Cold. Biting, unforgiving cold. That’s all Starlight Glimmer felt when she dashed into that jagged dark cave, and all she’d felt for several weeks thereafter. In hindsight, hiding in a cave on snow-capped mountains was foolish, if justified. After all, who knew what kind of unspeakable punishment awaited her if her pursuers caught her? That thought kept her going longer than she would admit, kept her magic just strong enough to subdue the cold, kept her stomach just strong enough to keep the moss, insects, and bats from spilling back up. Then, of course, there was revenge. Oh, the sweet, horrific, life-shattering revenge she’d plotted against that prissy princess, Twilight Sparkle, and her moronic friends. If it wasn’t her safety and freedom that kept her heart beating, it was the very thought of storming all of Equestria, finding those meddlesome mares, stealing their cutie marks again, bottling them up, and throwing them into a volcano. She’d often smiled at those fantasies, and found a bitter warmth in them. That warmth kept her walking when she long should’ve stopped, kept her eating things ponies were certainly not supposed to eat, kept her magic steady and lasting. And kept her from fainting at the snapped bone now protruding from her hind leg. At first she nearly laughed. And why wouldn’t she? She had tripped over a pointy rock, tumbled down the cave onto more pointy rocks, and landed on that leg the completely wrong way. Stupid. Foolish. Perhaps she deserved to sit there, gaping at her wound, shuddering in a growing red pool. But she didn’t laugh, no. She screamed. For longer and louder than she thought her lungs capable, Starlight screamed. It echoed through her chest, through her head, the cave, the sky she would surely never see again, through everything. Starlight’s forehoof struck the wet cave floor, and she cursed with pain and rage. Then a whisper invaded her ears like bloody centipedes, creeping through her head, clutching her breath still. “No hope left…” Starlight’s breath remained still, a different kind of cold stabbing at her bloody wound, skulking up her leg. “No breath left…” The whisper came louder, echoes circling her like starving buzzards. “No time left…” She gritted her teeth, feeling pins and needles prick at her limbs as she tried to lift herself from the ground. She collapsed back on her side with a wet thud and a shrill yelp. Inky black fog seeped from the cave’s cracks, dancing around the stalagmites. Her ears jerked at a keening buzz, quiet and smooth like a distant call. Then she heard hoofsteps, moving at a steady, focused pace. She couldn’t tell how close they were, how far they were, or if they were even clapping toward her at all. She lifted her head, her wide eyes peering into a clump of twisting black clouds. A pony emerged, cloaked in those very clouds. He stepped closer with that same pace, and Starlight’s hair stood on end, her teeth bared, horn dimly glowing. “Hello,” his voice was smooth and welcoming, “friend…” Her horn glowed brighter. “Do I know you, stranger?” The shadowed pony paused for a beat. “Yes. Since the day you heard my name.” A splitting headache. It’d only been twenty seconds, and Starlight already had a splitting headache thanks to this pony. Or maybe that was due to blood loss. Starlight lacked the remaining mental faculties to know. “Riddles aren’t really my thing,” Starlight said with a bedraggled smile. The strange pony laughed—a harrowing, reverberating laugh that rattled Starlight’s ribs, though she did well to hide it. “Oh, then you are going to hate me,” he said. Starlight’s horn glowed brighter still. “I see,” she said, trying—and failing—to keep the shudders from her voice. “Do we have a problem, stranger?” He lowered his head, his neck giving a loud crack. “Well, I certainly don’t. Lovely day for stroll, in fact. Which, in your case is, uh…” Starlight Glimmer did not like this pony. “Are you mocking me?” The shady stallion sat down before her, but no sound came, as if he sat on a literal cloud instead of the cave floor. “If I say ‘yes’, will you stop pointing that thing at me?” he asked, gesturing to Starlight’s now piercingly bright horn. “Not likely.” “Then, no.” Like an overheated bulb, her horn flickered out, and she groaned as her chin hit the cold, wet ground, staring straight, staring at nothing. “If it’s money you want, stranger, than I’m a disappointing catch,” she said tiredly. No answer came. Starlight lifted her eyes and they widened. A different blackened form took the annoying pony’s place; it was taller and two-legged, looking down at her. Or rather, her mangled leg. “Money? Nay, Starlight,” the stranger assured. “I want only the same thing you do: a chance.” The unicorn coughed out a laugh, the cold now creeping into her diaphragm. “A chance. Right. Sounds to me like… like…” Her eyes remained locked on him. “… How?” He tilted his shaded head and asked, “How what?” Starlight could hear the smile in his voice. “How do you know my name?” He laughed again. The keening buzz in the mare’s ears intensified. “Remember when I said you’re going to hate me?” Starlight grit her teeth. “Warmth leaves you. Cold enters you. And if you wish to see the end of this day, I can aid you… if you can answer my riddle.” Her dislike for this… thing was quickly dissolving into something more venomous. “Go away,” Starlight growled, wincing at the constant pain. “I-I’m fine.” The stranger didn’t go away. He crawled forward like a predator ready to feast, his black, ethereal limbs making no sound. He fell before her and burst into a cloud of thicker mist. That mist coiled around the unicorn’s body, numbness spreading wherever it touched. Starlight shuddered and whimpered at the black serpent now draped over her, gazing into her trembling eyes. “Ponies… so easily frightened. And so very foolish,” he whispered. “Here I am, offering you salvation, and you turn me away?” “I… I-I don’t need y-your help.” A forked tongue flicked across her nose, and she tried in vain to turn away. “Hm. Perhaps weeks ago, that would’ve been true. You had hundreds of ponies at your beck and call―all of them willing to die for you, I’m certain.” Starlight’s breath hitched. “How the mighty have fallen…” “How did you…” She paused. “You… You’ve been spying on me. Back in the town. Haven’t you?” He raised his head, hovering over Starlight, and the unicorn’s eyes couldn’t help but follow. “Does it matter?” he asked. “With your luck, terrible as it is?” Starlight’s breath hitched again. She couldn’t feel her wound anymore. There was only numbness. She tore her eyes away from him and glanced at the snake-like mist cradling her broken leg. She looked away and said nothing. “Think about it, friend,” he began. “Can you really afford to deny my help? You lie alone here, bleeding out, rage and regret your only fuel. If the blood loss doesn’t finish you, the cold will.” Starlight scowled but, again, said nothing. The black serpent collapsed into mist again. The numbness left and pain snapped at the unicorn’s leg like a starving lion. “Don’t go!” she yelped. At first, only the cave’s deep, distant howls answered her. Then that familiar laugh. “You’re an indecisive one, aren’t you?” he jeered. Starlight glanced left and nearly jumped out of her skin. Standing there was a much larger form of mist, winged and great. Dragon-like. “I ask you, Starlight,” he began, lying down behind her, “do you wish to see the end of this day?” Finally—after holding them back for weeks—Starlight’s tears rolled freely down her face. “What do you want from me?” she whimpered. The shaded creature sighed. “Have you no ears, unicorn? I want the same thing you want: a choice. A chance.” Starlight trembled harder still. “I don’t—” She gulped. “I don’t understand.” The draconian mist craned its head over Starlight, staring at her upside down. “Then will you solve my riddle?” Starlight felt something strange right then, something terrible. Something she actually wasn’t used to. It made her limbs stiffer than frozen lamp posts. It made her chest tighten and ache. It made her throat nearly foam with bile. And right then, Starlight Glimmer knew she hated this thing. Why? She couldn’t quite place it. Maybe because he was a mystery she couldn’t solve. Maybe because he taunted her and her increasingly grave situation. Maybe because he was playing her like a broken flute and she knew it. Or perhaps she just really disliked riddles. “What’s your angle?” Starlight asked. “Why are you really helping me? What are you gaining?” He stared at her for a time, and whispered, “It’s not about my gain, Starlight. It’s about yours.” Starlight realized she was glaring at the misty creature, and simply lowered her head in defeat. “Fine,” she muttered. “Excellent.” Starlight sucked in a sharp breath, her arms shuffling futilely on the bloodied cave floor. Everything in front of her warped and swirled into itself. She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing a longer, sharper breath as vertigo struck her, everything still swirling, still warping. Seconds later, she felt… warmth? Yes, warmth, but not from the blood growing cold beneath her. No, this was warmth she hadn’t felt in weeks, not since she first ran into this freezing tomb. She opened her eyes and saw sunlight. The cave’s exit was right in front of her, only a few feet away. The biting cold swished with warmth. She began crawling forward, a smile growing wider and wider. She screamed in pain and jolted back. Her eyes whipped down to her forehoof, gasping repeatedly as flesh peeled and melted from it, the bone showing very proudly. She looked up and saw a tunnel of complete blackness between her and salvation, and a sizzling tuft of flesh where her hoof had been. She looked back down at her hoof, and it was totally fine. “What is this?!” “Insurance,” he answered. “That you may uphold your word.” Starlight curled up into a ball, her mangled leg still lain flat, bleeding. “Bastard,” she muttered, “you didn’t mention any rules!” Another swath of mist spun before her, this time, with a hulking centaurian shape. “Well, I was going to, until you leaped at the prize before it was earned.” Starlight couldn’t argue with that. “Just… just get on with it,” she said. “Very well,” the enigma conceded. “As you can see, freedom is in your sight, in your very reach, and you must solve my riddle to obtain it.” Starlight stifled a sigh. “And that riddle is?” He turned to her. “What am I?” Starlight raised a brow. “And just how am I supposed to guess that? You’ve turned into everything in the universe in, like, five minutes.” That got a chuckle out of him. “The rules are simple. I will throw a series of questions your way. Give the correct answer…” he turned to the exit guarded by the flesh-eating blackness, opened his palm, and cleared a path, “and you may yet leave this cave.” Starlight only half-heard him when the path cleared. Better judgement and agonizing experience told her to stay her hoof. “Answer wrongly, however—” he closed his palm into a fist, and the blackness returned, the exit further away than ever before—“and we can spend more… quality time getting to know each other.” Starlight gulped, and felt a now-painful bite of cold all over her body. She glanced back at her wound and heaved. Her leg most certainly wasn’t blue before. She shivered harder. “Is that all?” she asked. “Indeed. Just answer the riddle before the time limit, and taste freedom.” Starlight frowned. “Time limit? You never said—” Another powerful fit of shivers struck her. “How much time do I have?” That got another chuckle out of him. “Well… that depends solely on you, Starlight Glimmer. Shall we begin?” “Well. I’ve got nothing else to lose.” The centaur laughed, and the cave laughed right back. “Nothing else to lose,” he said. “Indeed…” Starlight said nothing as she stared up at her would-be savior. She waited for his riddle. Her body felt like it was shaking to pieces. The centaurian fog twisted and warped into a simple, hawk-like shape. He began his riddle. “I am the mystery none have solved, and genesis unwound. I am the greatest truth, shunned, but always found. What am I?” Starlight almost felt her brain hemorrhage. With a shrill growl and hooves swirling in her mane, the unicorn shot a furious glare at the misty stranger. “How about Celestia’s flank-hole?! I don’t know!” she shouted. The exit shifted further away, an eternity of corroding blackness shrouding the path. Starlight’s ears sunk, and her eyes nearly bulged out. “But…” she whispered. “But―” “You agreed to participate, Starlight,” the hawk said, landing on her back. “And I agreed to uphold the conditions. I trust you’ll take this more seriously now?” Starlight already cried before this despicable creature, but not again. With practiced, shuddering breaths and closed eyes, she centered herself. But the blood pooling on the ground… She could smell it. She could taste it. She narrowed her eyes. “Give me another.” The hawk dissolved into a head-sized scorpion and crawled along her back. Her eyes remained closed as he skittered up her neck. The numbness that followed made it hard to breathe. “Not so fast. Remember the rules? You answered incorrectly, thus have granted me quality time with you.” Starlight grimaced. “There’s nothing remarkable about me,” she said, her eyes still closed. Black pincers snipped close to the mare’s jawline, and she jerked away. “Come now, Starlight, we’ve only just met and you’re lying?” the scorpion asked. Starlight opened her eyes, now scowling into darkness. “You don’t know the first thing about me.” “I know that you’re different, and I know most ponies didn’t understand that. They still don’t.” Starlight gave a short, humorless laugh. “‘Different’. I’m just a normal pony. Of course others didn’t understand. They were too busy pretending to be bette―” she blinked, then huffed. “Mind your own business.” The scorpion skittered higher, his black mandibles centimeters from her ear. Starlight’s eyes narrowed and sweat dotted her face. “I’m different too, you know. I often wonder why so many squabble for useless things like riches, fame, power…” He brought his voice to a whisper. “Absolute control.” Starlight tensed. “Did it excite you, Starlight? To look down on the rabble that clung to you? Talentless? No drive nor desire? Equal?” His mandibles came closer to her ear. “Dead?” “Get off me!” Starlight shouted. She swatted the menace away and her arm fell asleep. A clump of mist hit the ground before her, twisting into a toad-like form. “Fine! So, you know about that!” Starlight continued. “Yeah, I took their talents and gave them jobs―what of it?! It’s not like they were thriving before they came to me! The toad lifted a budded hand. “Calm yourself, child. I do not blame nor chastise you. Truth is, you and I aren’t so different. You’d take to my job like a fish to water.” Starlight flexed her tingling muscles to regain feeling in her arm. “And what is your job?” “Ah-ah-ah. The answer is in the riddle, Starlight. Just know that it ensures balance and equality for all,” he said, ignoring the unicorn’s glare. “Nice try, though.” “I hate you,” Starlight said, quite embarrassed at the sudden rasp in her voice. The black toad hopped upon a pony-sized rock. “I am known by all, but seen by none. I am the shadow cast by a withered sun. What am I?” Starlight scowled. “How is this even remotely related to the last one?” He chuckled again. “Rest assured, they may be different, but my riddles are all solved the same.” Great. Even his hints were riddles. This time, Starlight gave some actual thought to this, sifting through similarities between this riddle and the last. She smiled. “Of course. You are… the shadows.” When the stranger paused, Starlight was certain she nailed it. “A profound answer, my dear.” The ground jumped beneath her. The cave’s exit sunk even further away, more inky blackness guarding it. She lost her footing and yelped, grasping at a slippery slope. Her hooves slid and scraped futilely against wet granite, and she felt nothing but air beneath her one good hind-hoof. As another whimper escaped her lips, clawed paws reached out and pressed down on her joints. Instead of pain, there was only numbness. She looked up, trembling at a black lion’s toothy grin. “It was incorrect, by the way.” “But you said the answer was in the riddle!” Starlight cried, scrabbling back onto crumbling rock. “I knew I couldn’t trust you!” “Now, why would you say such a thing?” Starlight slipped further and yelped. “Equality is an interest we both share, unicorn. ‘Tis a path least traveled. And yet, most beaten. You can trust me.” She slipped again. “Then pull me up! Please!” “I am the new beginning, and every last chance. I am the light in the dark with which all must dance. What am I?” Starlight slipped even further, those misty claws snagging along her flesh. She glanced down at her bleeding wound. “I’m begging you! If I take another fall, I’ll die! I’ll die!” “Answer the riddle. What am I?” “I… I don’t know! I don’t know what you are!” The lion’s grin vanished. “Again, it doesn’t bode well for you.” “W-what?” The blackness swallowed what little she could see of the lion and everything else, creeping closer to her. She panicked and fell. Her flesh crunched against stone, limbs whipping and flailing. She tumbled down over the sharp rocks—to the cave’s lower level. With a raspy groan, she came to. With hazy vision, she gathered her thoughts. With bated breath she sat up and craned herself up with her elbows. She looked at herself, and her vision snapped clear. Her leg was twisted the opposite direction. Torn muscle hung from the now-gaping gash. More bone protruded. Blood no longer seeped out, but spurted out. She took a deep, chest-bursting breath, her head lifting to the cave ceiling. She screamed. She screamed so loud, the stalactites rattled, and the echoes that followed rang mercilessly, like a choir on disjointed laughter. Starlight fell to her back, still screaming, her hooves digging into her forehead. She rolled back and forth and wished the pain away. It only worsened. “You’re beginning to dissapoint me,” that insufferable voice said. “I HATE YOU!” “Perhaps I was wrong about you, Starlight.” The desecrated mare’s cries lowered to desperate whines. She lifted herself up higher, only to see that same blackness covering the very rocks on which she fell. She frantically dragged herself back, smearing blood in her wake. The blackness followed, swallowing everything she saw until she was cornered against a rocky wall. There it stayed, and only a few feet remained between her and flesh-eating oblivion. A black squirrel hopped onto her chest. And he spoke, “Your will is strong, stronger than most to which I’ve given this chance. That is why I chose you, Starlight, yet you waste my expectations wallowing in filth?” Starlight’s arms crossed over her face, tears wetting them both. “Please…” she begged, her voice growing weaker, quiet. “Leave me alone.” The squirrel hopped further up her chest. “You chose this path, Starlight, and the consequences that follow. The riddle remains unsolved and your time drains.” Starlight’s arms fell limply to the damp ground, her shivers weakening, her breath slowing. “But it’s… so cold,” she groaned. The squirrel leaped off of her. And a black grizzly bear’s face looked down on hers. “I am the broker for all, never deceived or cheated. I am resisted, tooth and nail, but I cannot be defeated. What am I?” Starlight’s foggy breath wheezed from her lungs. “No more,” she cried. “I just… I wanna go home.” “Answer the riddle, Starlight,” he whispered back. “What am I?” Starlight weakly lifted her eyes to the bear, no longer caring about her tears. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you so cruel?” He was silent for a time, as if pondering her words. Then the bear crouched toward her, his nose much, much too close. “You speak of cruelty, when I’ve given you chance after chance to save yourself?” “How can you say that? You taunt me with fake salvation. You drive me further into this tomb. You—” Her sobs escaped her again. “I know nothing about you, and I’m supposed to know what you are?” “Wrong, Starlight,” the bear corrected. “I’ve been telling you about myself this whole time. You just haven’t been listening.” Starlight’s head fell back against the cave floor. She groaned in defeat. “What am I?” The blackness stirred again, creeping closer to her ever-so slowly. She wanted to leave this place. She wanted to see the end of this day. She wanted to soak the sunlight and breathe without pain. She wanted to bite into ripe, crisp apples again. She wanted to read and study and learn the magics she once thought impossible. She wanted to see ponies again. She wanted to visit her father’s grave one more time. She wanted to return to the town she’d wronged—the ponies she’d wronged—and ask their forgiveness. She wanted to be remembered as a good pony, not a monster. She wanted absolution. She wanted to live. “I don’t—” She stopped herself, realizing the wrong answer would end her. “What are you…?” she asked to herself more than anything else. This creature—whatever it was—stood amidst the blackness, matching it. Corrosion never dissolved him, never swallowed him. None of it made sense. Until it did, that is. Starlight’s eyes widened as she recalled bits of the riddles. I am the greatest truth, shunned, but always found. I am known by all, but seen by none. I am the new beginning, and every last chance. I am the broker for all, never deceived or cheated. She stared back up at him. He stared back down at her, just as she had to so many ponies. She fancied herself a hero to them, a force of reckoning, even. But this? This was reckoning. A kin to the blackness ready to swallow her. The truths she had shunned were stripped and bared before him. He claimed she knew him all her life. He offered her freedom, or oblivion. And she knew exactly what he was. He was the shadow that loomed over creatures large and small. He was the messenger of a truth feared by all. He was the ferryman that tolled the bells. The wailing host of the home to which all were welcome. The end of all things And he came for her. “Starlight Glimmer.” She blinked back into focus, but saw naught but black. She looked down at her legs and saw naught but rotted, broken bone. “What am I?” he asked for the final time. And finally, with her last, whispering breath, she answered. “Death.” Then there was naught but darkness. Author's Note Hang tight, you bloodthirsty savages. Death is only the beginning.
What Comes AfterCold. Biting, unforgiving cold. At least, Starlight Glimmer thought it was cold. She could no longer tell. It’s what she remembered, certainly, but she didn’t truly know anymore. The corpse she stared at beneath her may have known, but it would be downright silly to ask. It was cold. And maybe Starlight just didn’t care anymore. “You have succeeded, Starlight Glimmer,” a voice echoed. Starlight recognized that voice. She used to hate that voice. At least, she was sure she hated that voice. Maybe the pony below her remem… Right. “Your will is as strong as I’d hoped. You will do quite nicely.” he continued. “How are you feeling?” Starlight finally tore her eyes from the bloodied, discolored corpse below, and onto a formless mist she had surely seen before. “I feel…” She stopped, blinking slowly. “I don’t know.” A familiar chuckle rang in her ears. His chuckle. “It’ll sink in. Dying takes a minute to get used to.” Dying? Starlight looked down at the lifeless mare below. “I… died?” she asked. “Slowly and miserably,” he answered. Starlight felt a headache coming on. No, not a headache. Something like a headache. Maybe. She wiggled her left hind-leg, and she didn’t even know why. “You,” she whispered. “You killed me.” The mist whispered back, “You were dead the moment we met. You just didn’t know it yet.” Starlight lifted her hoof. It was dull and she saw things through it. Even the corpse below. “Do you remember me? Do you remember who I am?” he asked. Starlight felt something quivering inside her. Perhaps her heart? Maybe. No. She raised her translucent hoof to her chest, but felt nothing. Not her heartbeat, not her coat. Nothing. That quiver inside worsened. “Death…” “Yes.” Starlight’s eyes lowered back to the corpse. She recognized it. Lilac coat bloodied and scuffed. Hind leg twisted and snapped. Eyes open and faded. The sharply curved star on her flank. For every second she looked, the quivering grew stronger still. Her shoulders bounced as she began to sob. Death remained silent as the sobbing grew louder, heaving. Starlight remembered. She remembered everything. How she lived, why she lived. “There’s…” Starlight began, choking on her cries. “There’s so much left to do.” Death said nothing. Starlight looked up, and saw a jagged cave ceiling she had come to know. “This can’t be it…” “You’re right, Starlight.” The unicorn turned back to Death. “On both accounts.” I am the new beginning, and every last chance… She wiped her face, and realized there were no tears. “Why?” she asked. “Why here? Why now?” “Well, as I recall, you ran into this cave, broke your leg, and bled out,” Death said. “Hard to forget.” Starlight suddenly remembered she hated her acquaintance. “That’s not what I meant…” she said, wiping the last of her nonexistent tears. “I mean, why did you choose me? What did you choose me for?” Death said nothing. He rose toward the cave ceiling, and Starlight’s trembling blue eyes followed him. “Where are you going?” Starlight asked. He vanished into the ceiling. “Come back!” She worked her legs to follow, but didn’t move, as though she were treading water. She tried again, but it was useless. All she knew was she had to follow. She couldn’t be alone. Not now. And just like that, she began drifting. She gasped at the feeling, suddenly short of breath. She concentrated, and began drifting again. “I… I can do this.” Starlight closed her eyes and her ethereal mane lifted. She began soaring, fighting to quell her startled shouts. Jerky and unfocused, the unicorn followed Death, and finally left the cave through its ceiling. She emerged with tightly shut eyes. She opened them and squealed in fright. Last she checked, only pegasi were meant to be so high up. Her legs flailed as she yelped again and again, but soon calmed down. She was weightless, and quickly realized she’d never fall unless she allowed it. A smile tugged at her lips as she floated there, letting it all sink in. “Feeling better?” Starlight yelped again, her hooves bunching to her chest. She spun around and saw Death in all his fogginess. He chuckled softly. “Ponies. So easily frightened, indeed.” Starlight just glared. “I must say, Starlight, you’re adapting quite well. Most souls remain jibbering wrecks for days,” Death said. “I knew you were cut out for the job.” “What job do you keep talking about?” Starlight asked with a gesturing hoof. Again, Death said nothing and drifted away. “Stop ignoring me!” Starlight tried to run after him, then closed her eyes at her own stupidity. She focused and followed the mist, drifting alongside him. She glared at him until she was too tired to keep it up. Her eyes roamed the land through which they soared. The mountains, especially. She knew this place but it was… different. “Where are we?” Starlight asked. “A few weeks in that cave and you can’t recognize your own world?” Gray skies. Black clouds. White shadows. Violet landscape. She looked up at a black sun, smoking like a freshly snuffed candle. “This is Equestria?” “Yes. In the eyes of Death.” I am the shadow cast by a withered sun. Her brows knitted; for a moment she actually forgot she was dead. “Why me?” she asked again. As expected, there was only silence. “Come on! I gave my life to answer your stupid riddle. You should at least return the favor!” “We’re here…” Starlight raised a brow and looked ahead. Her eyes widened. Then her brows fell. “W-what is this?” she asked. Death stopped soaring, and so did she. “This is your town, Starlight. This is where your vision took root.” He was wrong. He had to be. Yes, there were the same parallel buildings, same desert ground, but this couldn’t have been her town. It was so… full. “They stayed? Even after I…” “Yes. And there was plenty of talk about this place,” Death said. The ponies―the same ponies that followed her―roamed the town. And they brought friends. Many friends. Something else was wrong, though. There were no smiles, no activity for a growing town. There was only sorrow and tears. “What is this?” Starlight asked again. “This is your town.” “I know that!” Starlight yelled, glad for her new immunity to headaches. “I mean, why did they stay?” Yet again, Death gave her only silence and drifted down to the town. Starlight hesitated to follow. “W-wait! Where are you going?” Death stopped. “To visit them, of course. I’m long overdue.” He drifted forward again. “But I… I can’t go with you!” Starlight panicked. “I can’t go back there!” Death stopped again, and that time, it seemed like he actually turned slowly to her. “Starlight,” he began steadily, “you’re dead. You can go wherever you want.” “But… But―!” Death drifted away without another word. Starlight bit her lip and flew after him. Together they drifted through the town, and Starlight’s hooves couldn’t stop scraping together, her worried eyes couldn’t stop shifting side to side, from face to face. They didn’t seem to notice her. “We shouldn’t be here,” Starlight whispered. “They cannot hear nor see you,” Death said. “Go if you must, but I’m needed here.” Starlight gave Death a small frown, but said nothing. She caught a peculiar sight, and that’s when the specter stopped. Ponies. Droves of them gathering at a house, one of them assaulting the door with knocks, shouting something Starlight couldn’t hear. She had only more questions, but tucked them away. She silently followed Death as he drifted past the droves, and into the house. “I know this place,” Starlight whispered absently. “Sugar Belle lives here. With her dad.” Death said nothing. He rose to the ceiling and Starlight followed. Her brows lifted when she saw Sugar Belle. The violet unicorn sat on her haunches, her already-wild mane riddled with more frays and curls, her violet hooves cradling a single, larger hoof. The owner of that hoof lay in bed, wheezing. Starlight covered her lips. “No… That can’t be.” Garden Belle, Sugar Belle’s father―a strong, healthy, middle-aged stallion―was wasting away, blood reddening a hastily wrapped bandage around his chest. Sugar Belle’s shoulders shook, and Starlight knew she was crying. “W… what happened?” Starlight asked in disbelief. “Stabbed.” “What?! In my town?!” Starlight’s eyes hit the wood floor when she said that. This wasn’t her town anymore. Never again. She looked back up at Death only to see a black pony shape―the same one who greeted her in that freezing tomb. He skulked up to the unicorn pair. “Death… Don’t,” Starlight pleaded quietly. “It’s her dad.” “No hope left… No breath left… No time left…” He skulked on. When he arrived, Sugar Belle didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even notice. But Garden Belle? He looked right up at Death, his eyes wide with shock. Then, calm with… acceptance? Starlight couldn’t tell. Death held out his hoof, and Garden Belle’s own hoof rose to take it, wresting gently from his daughter’s grip. Sugar Belle nuzzled her father’s bearded face, completely oblivious to the exchange. Starlight couldn’t look away. The hooves met, and Garden’s fell limp to the bedside. In its place, Death held an ethereal blue limb. He floated upward, and a solemn blue spirit followed. “Have mercy, Reaper.” Starlight’s ears flicked at the tired, sad voice. A voice she came to know. Garden Belle’s. Death said nothing. “Please,” Garden continued. “Please give me more time with my little girl?” Again, Death said nothing. “Without me, she would… Please. She needs me.” Starlight felt something roll down her face. She wiped it with a hoof, and gaped at the swirling, shining tear―the first she had shed since her death. It fell to the floor and evaporated into soft white mist. She looked back up and saw Death holding a small lantern housing a tiny black flame. “Be judged, kind soul,” Death began quietly, “and see your life as you truly lived. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Without another word, Garden Bell was sucked into the lantern like water down a drain. Starlight’s eyes fell back to Sugar Belle. She couldn’t hear it, but she knew the other unicorn was screaming, tears spilling on her father’s beard. She trembled and held her father’s hoof so tight. Before Starlight knew, several of her own tears fell from her chin, clouding the floor with a thin white mist. She darted out of the house. She darted past the crowd outside, darted through the town, and finally to a little house she knew all too well. Her own. It was dark and untouched; exactly the way she left it, albeit with a little dust. She looked up at the wall and saw her old, framed self-portrait. Hoof on her chest, proud smile, her ‘equality’ insignia stamped in the background. She stared for so long, sitting there on her dusty floor, weeping. Her old home became hazy with mist. She didn’t even see Death appear before her, his pony form maintained, his lantern in hoof. Her cries stopped and she looked up at him. “Garden Belle was noble, a natural leader,” Death said. “What happened?” Starlight mumbled, not even sure if she wanted to know. “The town embraced their differences, and he rose among them as a leader. He organized them, gave them jobs, spoke proudly of construction and expansion. Growth.” Starlight began to shake. “But some feared the path on which he led them, feared a repeated past. Feared a forced dictatorship. Feared inequality. Starlight shook even harder. Garden Belle was just like her. And he paid for it. “Is this why you chose me? Why we’ve come here?” Starlight asked. “To see this? To torment me?” When Death said nothing again, the unicorn prepared to storm out. Then a loud clank stopped her. She looked down at Death’s lantern set neatly before her. “I merely showed you how it’s done,” Death finally replied. She stared for a time. Then looked up at Death’s unseen gaze. Then back at the lantern. Then at Death again. “No…” she whispered, rising to her hooves with a stumble. “Never. I don’t want it, you hear me? I don’t want your job!” “You said it yourself, Starlight: differences bring only heartache and misery. ‘Tis what you preached. And as the reaper, you can prove it.” “Horse apples! Is this what you meant by ‘giving me a chance’?! To take your place?! To watch everypony I’ve ever known die?!” Starlight’s voice wavered. “To see their faces when I take them? To hear them beg for more time?” Before she could stop it, Starlight began crying again. “This is your destiny, Starlight Glimmer. It has always been. It was decided at birth,” he lifted his black hoof and pointed, “defined by your mark, by what it represents.” Starlight swished her tail over her flank. “Screw you! I never wanted this!” “Your power―your very reason for living―was to take the differences away, to unite your entire species in equality. In Harmony.” “Shut up!” “You have failed in life, Starlight, your ambitions crushed by those who don’t understand. But you understand. I know you do.” Death began walking toward Starlight. She reared back, teeth bared, ready to lash out. “Stay back!” she growled. Death walked on, his hoof reaching for her. “I-I’m warning you!” Death touched her trembling chin, lifting it to meet their gazes. “I know you understand, Starlight, that all are equal in death.” Starlight’s eyes softened, her jaw relaxing, her poise uncoiling. The door behind them burst open. Starlight gasped and whipped her head to it. Death slowly looked up. It was Sugar Belle, seething, her chest puffing and deflating. Her scorching eyes riveted in their direction. “S-Sugar Belle…” Starlight whispered, her voice shaky. The violet unicorn stormed inside, trotting straight ahead. Death calmly stepped aside, but Starlight remained frozen. Helpless. The angry mare stepped inches closer. “Sugar Belle, please wait! I…” Starlight squeezed her eyes shut, her ears folding back. Nothing came. No pain, no strikes, no shouts or insults. Starlight opened her eyes and saw nothing. She turned around and saw Sugar Belle with her back turned, glaring hatefully at the portrait above. The baker’s horn glowed. Starlight’s old dresser-drawer lifted from the corner and flew at the portrait. They collided, and the crash echoed. Both hit the floor, the dresser in splinters, the portrait bent and cracked. Sugar Belle leaped at the pile of splinters, and whirled back to Starlight’s portrait with a sharp piece in hoof. She plunged it into that framed, smiling face. She pulled it out and jabbed the portrait again. And again. And again, and again, and again. Faster. Harder. Screaming and crying until her throat was raw . A pegasus mare burst into the house―Night Glider, Starlight recalled. She yelled something Starlight couldn’t even hear. Apparently, Sugar Belle didn’t hear either. The pegasus darted forward and snatched Sugar Belle’s arm from behind. Starlight could hear nothing, but she knew Sugar Belle was still screaming, still cursing. Night Glider forced the unicorn’s arms down, and bound them with a powerful embrace. Sugar Belle writhed, trying to free herself, but her struggles died. She dropped her weapon, slumping to the ground with shaky shoulders. Night Glider slumped down too, her grip never loosening, her own tears staining her face. They collapsed in a trembling heap, and Starlight could only watch while biting her hoof, her eyes wide. Night Glider released her weeping friend, straddling her back, speaking things Starlight still couldn’t hear. Starlight’s eyes dropped to the distraught baker. She was speaking too. Starlight narrowed her eyes at Sugar Belle’s lips. She was repeating herself again and again. Finally, Starlight knew what she was saying, and it tore her apart. “She was right, Glider. She was right.” As Death reached for his lantern, Starlight flew away. She flew away and didn’t look back, leaving Death by himself. The silent specter lingered a moment longer, just staring at the grieving mares. He followed Starlight Glimmer without a word. Author's Note Well, well, well. What will our protagonist choose?
MercyMinutes. Hours. Days. Really Starlight hadn’t a clue how long she sat on that snowy mountain peak. How long she stared down at her old home. As if time even mattered anymore. Going back there had been a mistake, she knew it was a mistake, but she did it anyway. And for what? To see ponies die? To see them broken and miserable? To have the very philosophy she created thrown back in her face? No. She went back for none of those things. A familiar clank made her ear twitch. She turned right and saw exactly what she expected to see: the lantern and the spectre who owned it. Starlight turned back to the town below. “I don’t want your job…” she whispered. “That can’t be helped,” Death replied, equally quiet. “This is your destiny. Lest you would have failed my riddle, and died in that cave without purpose.” “Find somepony else,” Starlight whispered again. “There is nopony else. You solved my riddle before death. You possessed the strongest will.” Starlight slowly turned to Death again. “Many have tried, and many have failed. Brave Scorpan, The Mighty Boreas, Bahamut, Starswirl the Bearded. But you…” Starlight turned back to the town, expressionless. “Even if any of them did solve my riddle, they could’ve never understood the forces at work. Not even Starswirl.” Starlight said nothing. Death joined her in silence, reverting back to pony-form, sitting on the mountain peek. There the two spectres sat, wind blowing, but never felt. The lantern sat between them, holding its black flame. “You resist so adamantly, Starlight,” Death said. “Why? After feverish efforts to establish equality―to create harmony―you deny your destiny?” Again, Starlight said nothing. She hoped against hope that it annoyed the spirit every bit as much as it annoyed her. “You’ve seen it as a filly. You’ve seen it growing up. You’ve even seen it in death. Differences lead to pain and heartache. Where there are differences, there is conflict. With conflict, comes hate. Hate begets naught but war. Such is the cycle of life.” Nevermind his silence. His voice was starting to drive her mad. “But in death, Starlight, there is only peace. Equality. Harmony.” Starlight gasped and her hoof jerked back. It had wandered close to the lantern, far too close. She was weak for just those few seconds, and she almost grabbed it. “Your words are venom…” Starlight hissed, her eyes curtained by her mane. “Such is truth, unicorn,” Death countered. “Like when you told all those ponies they’d be miserable without you.” “That was different!” Starlight barked. “We both know that isn’t true. The moment they saw your mark―saw how different you were―they turned on you. Didn’t they?” She said nothing. “Such. Is. Truth.” Starlight jerked her wandering hoof from the lantern yet again. And Death didn’t say another word. He didn't need to, Starlight knew. As little as she wanted to admit it, it was true. She sighed an echoing sigh. “I know,” Starlight whispered. Death said nothing, but turned his faceless head to her. “I just… I just don’t like that I know.” “Why?” “I saw ponies―hardworking ponies―break their backs everyday to please bosses with half their ability. I saw ponies set goals for their future―for their family―and be driven to poverty by ‘important ponies’ who thought so little of them.” Death remained silent. “All I thought when I got my cutie mark was, ‘I can stop this’. And I did, until… until they came.” “Thus, the rat race continued,” Death added. Starlight paused, then nodded. “Yeah…” She looked back down over her old town. “When ponies die, I… I know there is equality. It’s a path everypony walks, no matter how high the pedestal. There’s only one certainty that everypony knows, no matter how much smarter they believe themselves to be.” She gave Death a long, sad stare. He said nothing. “I don’t want this, Death. I don’t want to spend the rest of forever watching everything I tried to stop in life. I don’t want to see ponies suffer any more.” She turned back to the town, having grown used to the void of silence that reminded her she was dead. A black hoof found her shoulder. She turned and saw Death on her other side, sandwiching her between him and the lantern. “Wouldn’t it be kinder, Starlight? Merciful? To take them to peace? To guide them toward the tunnel’s end?” Starlight looked back up at him, shocked by his gentler tone. “An end to pain, misery, regret.” Death’s hoof left her shoulder. “All will be free. When all's said and done, when legacies are forged and broken, when the rat race finally ends… all are equal.” She looked up and saw Death float over the cliff before her, holding the lantern. Offering it. “Such is death.” Starlight stared at it. She stared tiredly at the lantern. The souls it must’ve taken, pain it must’ve ended, the peace it must’ve brought. Such a little thing. Starlight would suffer. She knew that. She feared that. All the faces she’d see―faces she had come to know over the years―would plead. And she would have to deny them. All the ponies who thought she was a monster, all those she’d wronged… She’d have to face them. She would suffer. But she would get used it. She had to. The lantern was the key. It would reunite Sugar Belle with her father. It would bring peace to her town. It would show Twilight Sparkle the error of her ways. It would finally show all of Equestria, the world―no, the cosmos―what she tried to accomplish all along. She took a deep breath. The key to equality. At long last. Starlight took the lantern from Death. Ego Sum Aeuqalitas Author's Note Yes, yes, I know; you just sat through yet ANOTHER dark Starlight Glimmer fic. My only hope was that it stood out among its ilk. Drop me a line friends. Until our next adventure. Craine...
Epilogue: Full CircleA room. A dusty, cobwebbed, opulent room. Dark. Still. Quiet. Empty, save for the jeweled ornaments decorating the walls and ceiling, the tapestries of fallen heroes and friends hanging with them. And in the center of it all, wheezing dryly on a bed much too big, lay a withered old pony. She had forgotten how long ago she had locked herself in that room, how long she had twisted and turned in those disgustingly smooth ivory sheets, how often she had thrown them off, only to rewrap her shivering, malnourished body. She forgot how long she waited for death. The tapestries gave her comfort most days. The monuments of friends long-dead, immortalized by their elements. Yes, most days, she could look up and smile at their faces, feel pride for the memories they created―the prosperous age they maintained. Other days, those tapestries mocked her. A constant reminder of her failure, a nightmare from which she could never awaken. Yet, they just kept smiling. So proud, so bold. Beautiful. “Gone…” she whispered to herself. She’d forgotten how many times she said that word since she confined herself to that oversized coffin. Gone. Every time she said it―every time she thought it―she’d die just a little more inside. The thought brought a smile to her face, brought her that much closer to peace. “Gone…” she whispered again, her heart giving an pained lurch. “Gone…” She rolled side to side amid the ivory sheets, chanting the word again and again like a desperate prayer, clutching her now-quibbling heart, feeling it break into smaller pieces than it was already in. “Earth to earth…” The chanting stopped at that inexorable whisper. She rolled to her stomach, her head and ears lifted high. “Ashes to ashes...” It was everywhere. A monotone, feminine whisper that struck a chord of bells in her ears. She willed her shaky, brittle limbs to lift her. “Dust to dust…” Her wings bristled at a sudden cold, a numbing cold, and she realized, perhaps for the first time in hundreds of years, that she had to move. So she did. And she fell off the bed, flat on her withered face. Shaking even harder, she lifted herself a few inches. Her arms buckled beneath her. She didn’t bother to rise again. Instead, with labored breaths, she lied on her side, watching slithering streams of darkness creep up from the carved diamond floor. Her tired, lidded eyes caught a pony’s lilac hooves just inches away, and they slowly rolled up to see who owned them. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes slowly widened. “Hello,” Starlight Glimmer whispered with a frown, “friend.” Author's Note An extra snippet, because why the f**k not? Craine...
