King of the Dead

With my armor in my room, I knock on Luna’s door before her gentle voice beckons me in. She lays on her side, with her back facing me. Her face is a mix of vacant and sad. After sitting at the edge of her bed, I stroke her side with my hand. She scoots towards me but otherwise keeps laying down. I reach up and rub the side of her neck, doing my best to massage it. “Are you okay, sweetness?”

After a few minutes of her silence, I swallow nervously. She sighs and rolls onto her back, looking up at me with a stare that could penetrate to the moon. “I just forgot exactly how much I’ve lost. Daruk was my oldest friend and he died being Zaran’s...plaything.” Tears well up in her eyes and she turns back to the window. “He was a very noble dragon. While abrasive to strangers, he was a very honest and caring friend...in his own way. Only a few of us got the chance to really know him. He never told anypony how lonely he was but I could see it in his eyes.”

She wipes away a few tears with her hoof. “Whenever it was time for me to leave, he’d always act like he didn’t care. There were a few times where I hid nearby to watch him after I left. He’d always stay in his cave for a few days. One time I mentioned how much I loved oranges. When I came back to visit, he claims he had coincidentally found three carts of them.” She lets out a light combination of giggling and crying.

“See what happens when I get close to having friends? They all leave. Zaran used him to try and turn me back into Nightmare Moon. Every time I think I’ve finally got my own little friend circle, things always blow up in my face. Then what do I do? Desperately just...throw myself at any creature who can relate! I’m such a loser!” She shuts her eyes and starts smacking her pillow with a hoof.

I lay down next to her and wrap my arm around her midsection. “You’re not a loser. It’s hard finding people to relate to the more of a complex history you have. You know the Taraskans are always happy when you come around and no one thinks you’re a loser. you’re the awesome princess who turned out to be a fantastic warrior.”

She rolls onto her back and looks up at me with a small smile. “If you don’t mind Raiden...I have something to show you. I need you to keep an open mind though okay?” She puts a hoof on my jaw then gives me a nervous smile as her ears go back.

I give her a completely blank stare. “Every time I hear that, it’s always something bad.”

She giggled to herself before rolling over to all fours. Before she gets up, she looks up at me. Her purple mane covers one eye and the light against the wall behind me, lights up her face. Those gorgeous eyes burn away anything outside this room. A strange, warm thought swims around in my mind. Maybe I didn’t win this war for my people. Maybe it wasn’t about bringing an unstoppable evil to its knees. Maybe I won it all just for her, just to see that smile.

I place my hand gently under her jaw and stroke it with the side of my thumb. She bites her lip with a small smile, narrows her eyes and her ears flatten themselves back as her rear leg kicks impulsively. She keeps stretching her head towards me until she’s too top heavy and falls face first into my lap where she lays quietly. I close my eyes and keep stroking her jaw. She leans her head back and rolls over so her horn is resting against my forearm while looking up at me. “I keep forgetting to mention it but you don’t seem to have that many of your....memory moments anymore. You know, where you get caught up in the past? I like seeing you happy. Just wish you’d smile more.”

I open my mouth to speak but she holds up a hoof. “I know I know, you think you’re smiling but it doesn’t feel like it. I’m just giving you a hard time.” She gets on all fours and stretches. “Common, I’m in a walking mood! I wanna show you that thingy you’re gonna keep an open mind about!”

She enthusiastically skips as she leads me through the hallways of Canterlot palace. As if her entire country was magically restored, she keeps a big, beaming smile as her mane bounces around her. The moment we get outside, she envelops us in a purple sphere of magic and carries me off to a forest that wasn’t completely annihilated. The moment we land, a small breeze makes my trenchcoat flutter behind me gently.

She turns around and gives me an uncomfortable smile. “I want to introduce you to some...friends I made but I need you to keep calm.”

I cross my arms and shift my weight to my right leg. “The more you say that, the less calm I’ll be.”

She clears her throat and gently knocks on a tree with her hooves. Five Og Nag poke their head around a rock and look at her. I reach for my weapon that isn’t there this time as my blood starts jetting through my veins. Luna gets in front of me and sits on her haunches as the little freaks close in. “Hold on hold on, sweety! They’re my friends! They’re not aggressive!”

They walk up behind her without opening their mouths or hissing. Two of them wear leather straps that once held metal plates of armor. My hands clench automatically and my eyes search for a branch to use. Luna puts her hooves on my chest. “Raiden, Raiden! Look just watch alright?!” She gets a big smile and whirls around, brushing me with her tail.

She runs behind the first Og Nag who was a foot shorter than me with frail arms. Luna stands on her hind legs and droops her hooves over its shoulders. “This one’s name is Mr.Nibbles! He likes to chew on sticks!” She runs over to the second Og Nag who barely comes up to my knees. “This is Ms.Stabbykins. Sometimes she picks up a stick and just jabs the air with it! We have this fun game where she chases me with a stick and tries to poke me and I run from her! It’s so much fun!”

The third Og Nag is a few inches taller than me with massive muscles on its arms. “And this is Articus! He likes to climb trees! Then he...jumps on me! It’s funny! He hisses while he does it too! It’s so cute! I think the hissing means they like you!”

My mouth hangs in horror. “Luna, the hissing is when they’re about to bite you! That one climbs trees and jumps down because that’s what Og Nag do sometimes! That’s why we never fight them in a forest unless we have to! You’re lucky they haven’t bit you yet!”

Luna’s ears go back and she slaps on a humorous pouty face. “But they’re not hostile anymore! Ever since you-know-who got the royal treatment in hell, they’re actually really docile!”

I stomp a foot on the ground. “They’re stabbing you with sticks because they still retain violent instincts!”

She gently pushes Articus towards me. “Come on, will you at least try to be friends!?”

My eyes bulge and I take a step back. “Luna you keep that thing the hell away from me!”

She keeps pushing it until he’s a foot away. My skin turns to ice and all I can feel is the unyielding rage within. He looks me up and down with a blank expression, having no idea just how many of his kind I’ve killed. He reaches forward and the moment his first claw touches my chest, I lose it.

I step back and grab his hand, yanking him forward and down so he bends over. I knee him in the face which makes him howl in pain. I wrench his hand over, forcing him to spin around in a wrist-lock. The moment his back is to me, I let go of his wrist. With one arm between his legs and the other hand on the back of his neck, I lift him into the air with all my strength. Without hesitation, I bend a knee and slam his spine onto it. The air fills with the sound of a sick pop as his arms flail helpless as he howls. I let go of him and scramble to find a rock.

A blue glow surrounds my hand and Luna’s voice snaps me out of my trance. “Raiden, stop!” She screams angrily. The other Og Nag stare at him mindlessly as he rolls around on the ground. My chest still pounds and I inhale the dirt cloud drifting up without noticing. Luna stares in horror at Articus with a hoof on her mouth. I turn around and stomp off. Over my shoulder, I see Luna using her magic to fix his back before she runs after me.

She comes skidding to a halt in my path, her eyes wide with fury. “Why did you do that?! He wasn’t going to hurt you!”

I ball my hands and scream. “They’re Og Nag! That’s all they do is hurt things! They kill, they eat, they stab, they invade! It’s what they do, it’s what they’re meant for! I don’t care what they do, I care about what they are and all it will take is one moment where those instincts come back and boom, your throat is ripped out and you’ll bleed to death before you can even teleport back to the palace for medical aid! I...I can’t lose you! Not after everything! You...you don’t understand! I know they’re docile right now but...we don’t know the first thing about them! You don’t understand how dangerous they are!”

She slowly lowers her head and starts sobbing quietly. I get down on one knee and pull her in so she can lean against my chest. “I...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out like that! You don’t know what I’ve...seen.”

She sniffles and nods her head. “I know I’m sorry, I forget sometimes I guess. It’s just...sometimes I feel a little out of place even with you Taraskans and other ponies. My people know my past, you’re all humans and I just...these Og Nag are so...they’re misfits like me.”

I massage the back of her neck while nuzzling the top of her head. “Luna...there’s nothing wrong with you. There never will be anything wrong with you. I know you don’t feel like you quite fit in with us, but you do. We don’t care what species you are, we just care you’ve had our backs at every turn. You gotta stop looking at species as a way of validating yourself.”

She pulls her head back and groans. “I know but it’s so hard when everyone else in my species doesn’t have a problem fitting in!”

I wipe her tears away with my thumbs and stare into those gorgeous eyes. “I think we need to have a sit down with my people so you can hear it for yourself.”

A palace guard lands next to us and gives a quick salute. “Princess Celestia has asked to see you and your people in the throne room.” Luna glances at me uneasily as her ears go back.

The throne room has been converted into a colossal meeting hall. The once empty room, save for the throne, has one massive table that can seat almost thirty individuals. Emeris and Lucretia look around puzzled, as Celestia and Luna sit at the far end. To Celestia’s right, are Shining and Cadence. Next to them are several ponies I don’t recognize who awkwardly avoid making eye contact. Unlike the other socialites, these ponies wear robes and six of them have glasses. Luna looks up at me and smiles with her fluffy tail wagging a bit when I sit down next to her.

Celestia’s face looks like she’s holding back a deep sob. “Raiden...these are members of our national counsel. They all have different areas of our society that they observe and report in on.” Celestia gets out of her chair and slowly walks the length of the table behind her counsel.

“I don’t want to waste time. We have a crisis and no way to deal with it. Everypony in this room has observed the tragedy that is outside. We can’t even currently build makeshift shelters for our citizens. Ms. Gallant Star, would you please elaborate?”

A mare with silver fur and a dark purple mane that’s tied up in a ponytail, clears her throat.

“Currently, there are massive piles of...bodies that have to be dealt with. We were all reluctant at first but after several days the smell became...overwhelming.” She blinks rapidly every time she mentions the rotting corpses.

“We are unable to get any work done as each pony wants a funeral for their loved ones but they can only dig graves so fast. So we’re caught between the few ponies that are emotionally able to do any labor, are using said labor to dig graves and not building houses. So far, only about one percent of each city is capable of any physical activity since the overwhelming nature of...the task is not something anypony else is willing to undertake.”

Celestia nods, still keeping her mix of grim and depression.

“Counselor Summer Ember. Our head of construction. He’ll explain a bit more.”

He gets out of his chair and nods at us with a weird smile. His fur is white with a gray mane.

“Um, hello Taraskan representatives. I oversee all construction and mass transportation. We had the idea of prebuilding homes and shipping them all over but most of our roads are unpassable to the large wagons we need to transplant homes. We can’t import the supplies we need to build homes as anypony at the location is currently in turmoil. It would also be disturbingly insufficient to keep having my building crew go to every single town and city and rebuild on site. That’s assuming there even is a proper place to build without debris, bodies or...the smell of decay.”

He swallows painfully as if he’s trying to keep his lunch down. I get the same feeling, but Emeris speaks up instead. He keeps his arms crossed and cocks his head and right eyebrow, while watching Celestia pace with just his eyes.

“Princess...there’s something you’re not telling us. What’s going on?”

Celestia glances at him then forcefully tears her eyes away.

“Counselor Brim Stone. She’s in charge of economic oversight.”

Brim Stone has a gray mane with pink fur. She can’t look at us when she starts talking.

“We considered just paying another country to help with relief efforts since charity yielded no offers of assistance, but we’re essentially broke. We’re not producing any goods, nopony is working and all of our labor is being used up with funeral services. Even if we had something to import, as Counselor Ember stated, our roads are in disrepair, not to mention we don’t have anyone but a few dozen citizens who are even willing to move products. Our entire nation is at a standstill, the same goes for our closest allies.”

Shining gets up and does everything in his power to lock eyes with me.

“We didn’t know it at the time, but every other country for hundreds of miles was brutally ransacked by Og Nag right after Ponyville was first attacked.”

He shuffles some papers in front of him.

“You mentioned in your reports that when you first arrived, there was, and I quote, “A sea of Og Nag covering every building in Taraska, waiting to kill us.” Then you woke up and they were all gone. We think these Og Nag jumped into the river which leads out to the Celestial Sea in the east. The only way they could have gotten by without being detected is if Og Nag don’t require oxygen. Somehow, they crossed the entire sea and ended up in Griffonstone.”

Shining pulls out some papers that have a golden tag on the topright corner.

“I want to read the testimony of some of the surviving Griffon guards. “It started off as a sickness. The warriors that engaged the few measly Og Nag, bragged about how the Og Nag would stand there and let themselves be murdered, often times sitting on the ground. We fought many battles without a single injury. After a few days, the griffons who had engaged in combat, caught a nasty fever. The moment this fever hit, it took only a few hours for the griffon to die. Then came the monsters. The deceased would rise from their respective graves, with four reflective eyes and one more above its beak, they had turned into monsters. They sprayed a liquid that burns like fire and turns you into one of them in a day. It wasn’t long before we were pushed from the Celestia Sea, deep into the mountains. Our biggest threat was not the Abominations or the Og Nag but a griffon’s unwillingness to ask for help until it was too late.”

Lucretia turns to me.

“So when Cy went to Grffonstone to look for help, that’s what he found. I have no idea how he got back and forth across the sea but the fact he survived long enough to tell you anything is insane.” Her eyes go wide with bewilderment.

Shining looks at us confused. I take in a deep breath and close my eyes.

“Cy met up with me just before the Abominations and Yaks showed up. He told me he tried to go to our neighbors for help...I thought he had just ran away.”

Shining nods and goes back to his papers.

“The other accounts are basically the same; all our neighboring countries got ransacked at the same time but their Og Nag spread this...disease where ours didn’t.”

Emeris uncrosses his arms and sits upright.

“Zombie Og Nag?! Are you kidding me?! That doesn’t make any sense! When we fought them, no one turned into an Og Nag! So that’s where all the Og Nag from when we teleported here went! Are you telling me we had it easy over the other countries?!”

Shining scratches the back of his head.

“I...only have a few theories but since Zaran destroyed almost all his labs and didn’t take notes, we have no way of knowing. My main theory is that the initial Og Nag that came with you, had this disease but you were immune to them. Zaran had them slip silently by because if they encountered anypony, they would have eventually turned. The Og Nag we fought, must have been new. I think Zaran had his infectious Og Nag attack our neighbors because they’d spread like a plague without him having to give them instructions. It’s also possible he couldn’t mind control them as easily or as accurately.”

Lucretia taps the table with her fingertips.

“It could also be they weren’t infectious till they got here. Maybe something about Equestrian magic changed them? Also if you think about it, he had the Og Nag attack at the borders, so it would stop messages from getting across since the messenger would have to cross a wave of Og Nag.”

Celestia stands quietly, looking out one of the mural windows.

“Counselor Rock Guard overlooks our magical economy.”

The counselor wears a red robe and slicked back blue hair with tan fur. He holds his snout a little too high.

“Every magical solution we’ve come up with, save for one, has been met with crippling drawbacks. There are spells that allow citizens to put their emotions into bottles but we’re hilariously unable to fill that order. All our other methods of...emotional manipulation come with the side effects that the magic required to get a single pony to shrug off their dead relatives, destroyed town and entire cornfields of dead bodies, would be ongoing and impossibly expensive as we’d be constantly battling external stimuli that would contradict the magic. We did however come up with… a one-time solution but it would require some heavy coordination.”

Lucretia narrows one eye and widens the other.

“Why do I get the feeling we’re getting screwed?”

Counselor Rock Guard looks over a paper in front of him.

“When Luna first came back from her banishment to the moon, she was belligerent with isolation and rage. Our best magic couldn’t compete with a thousand years of being alone and having Misera messing with her head. Celestia chose the highest ranking magical officials to do an extensive memory wipe on Luna.”

Emeris slouches in his chair and lets his arms hang at his sides.

“You’re kidding me...you’re not actually suggesting-”

“A massive memory wipe of the last year. There’s a lot of details we have to go over though.”

The three of us sit there in shock. After everything we did, only the Taraskans would know about it. We gave literally everything for their country and we get to live in silence.

Counselor Rock Guard tries to pretend he can’t see our looks of seething rage as he goes over his list.

“If we did completely wipe our citizen’s memories of the last year, we need a cover story for the dead relatives. I’m thinking we first tell them there was a nasty disease that swept through the land and that they’re being quarantined. While under quarantine, we have them build houses as temporary shelter. These shelters will be sent across the land once we also get the roads rebuilt. The issue with the memory wipe is certain kinds of stimulation can force the memories back to the surface if they’re exposed too soon so we have to keep them away from anything that might trigger memories until the spell has had adequate time to do its work. So building the shelters has a dual purpose.

Then comes the next hard part: we place a vision shroud spell over the pile of bodies to make them look like stones. We get our citizens to dig holes and place the “stones” in the ground. The Og Nag will look like wood so we’ll have them be gathered up and put into the river to be washed down to a central disposal center. With the dead and the bodies of everything else disposed of, our citizens can begin rebuilding.

We’ll have to also go through our logs of where each battle took place and make sure to collect any Taraskan armor and weapons.”

I blink several times and try to gather my thoughts.

“So after everything we did...we get to not exist. No credit, no record of our sacrifices, no one will ever know we even existed.”

Lucretia raises her hand sarcastically.

“So um question: when it comes to stimuli and other things, where are the Taraskans going to be? Do we get to live in some distant forest, hunting wildlife and spending our golden years trying to bean squirrels with rocks so we can live another day?”

Emeris pretends to enthusiastically nod with her.

“Great idea Lucy! And when ponies come too close, I’ll toss on my suit made of leaves and scare them away! Thanks for fighting by our sides during the war!”

The counselor swallows and stares at the table like it was a log in the middle of an ocean and he was drowning.

“I’m afraid not, there was more than one parallel to Princess Luna’s banishment I wish to draw from. You being anywhere presents too big of a risk. There would be no way to explain your species since you’re not in any of our books. There's no way we could pass you off as a new species and any cover story for your existence will inevitably create curiosity. Word of it will spread and that big of an emotional stimuli could break down the spell in somepony, causing a chain reaction as they start to recall other memories that might trigger the same reaction in others.”

We stare at him silently before the other shoe drops.

“The only way this spell will work to fix our nation, is...for you all to be transported to the moon.”

Lucretia’s eyes bulge and she stands up while slamming her hands on the table.

“What?! How dare you!”

He starts shaking but keeps reading.

“From what we know of Luna’s banishment, there is oxygen there as well as food. We weren’t able to deduce much else due to the memory wipe. And there you would have to stay and spend the rest of your natural lives.”

Luna gets out of her chair, eyes wide with horror and disgust.

“You...after everything they did for us, you would seriously put them through that?! Sister, we aren’t seriously considering-”

As Luna turns to her sister, Celestia is still stone cold and looking out her window, with the red glass casting an eerie glow on her face.

“Yes, sister, this is what we’re considering and I don’t see an alternative.”

Cadence clears her throat.

“I apologize but the magic required for all of this is...well beyond anything we can all put together. I mean we’re talking a memory wipe for a few hundred-thousand of our citizens, illusion spells, there’s probably magic needed to import food for the “quarantine”...”

Shining nods agreeably.

“Also there’s other details, like what about ponies who have Taraskan lovers like Cy’s wife? Is she just going to forget she’s a widow?”

He puts his arm around his wife and smiles.

“Also what about the other countries? They’re not going to keep silent.”

Celestia sighs angrily and closes her eyes.

“Yes, Stormchaser will forget she is a widow. As for other countries, we will close our borders under the pretense that the disease might come back. We will keep them closed until the ponies who had their memories wiped, die of old age.”

She quietly steps away from the mural and walks behind me.

“Raiden...I need to speak with you privately.”

There’s nothing I can even think of saying right now. I get up with my armor scraping the back of my chair and follow Celestia down a hallway. She stops in front of a very ordinary bookcase. Her horn glows and several of the books on the shelf vibrate in place. She steps through it as if the bookshelf was just an illusion. I follow her and enter a room where a singular light hangs above her head. She’s already waiting for me when I finish entering. There’s objects as far as the eye can see but the light isn’t enough to fully reveal them. Celestia’s face is still completely vacant.

“Raiden...There’s something I need to know from you but only one way to find out. I need to have a “conversation” of sorts with you. It’s more accurate to call it a plausible scenario. In a minute, I’m going to summon a spell. You will see everything in this room. You must do your best not to scream. Then I will put you into a trance, similar to the one Zaran used on his members of Z7. While in this trance, I can manipulate what you see, hear and touch without risking actual harm to you. Afterwards, I’ll have to wipe your memory of it all. This is both to protect me and your mind. Allowing you to keep memories of a completely different life and series of events, is damaging to your sense of reality. Are you ready?”

I stare at her in shock. “Okay...I have some questions.”

She closes her eyes and sighs. “Raiden, you won’t remember this at all so there’s no logic in me answering them. Please...can we get this over with? Keep in mind if it helps that while a lifetime may pass, only a mere moment will in the real world.”

I give her a huge shrug with a disappointed frown.

“We’re getting sent to the moon so some magical experiment feels pretty insignificant in comparison.” She narrows her eyes cautiously and the light in the middle of the room brightens. I look at all the objects and my brain starts making connections I don’t like. My face is a gaping disaster as I look at Celestia. Before I can say anything, her eyes glow yellow and everything goes black.

I open my eyes and we’re back out in the hallway. The stone walls dip up and down as I try to stand. Celestia is in front of me with a nasty black eye and a grumpy expression. “Raiden, what’s the last thing you remember?”

My hand shakes as I place it on the side of my face. My knuckles are a light red. “I...did we go through a bookcase?”

She tilts her head back flighty but keeps her eyes on me. “Is that the last thing you remember?”

I give her a small nod as I try to stand still. She turns around and starts walking.

“Thank you Raiden, that was all I needed to know. Please gather your people, I need you ready to leave as soon as possible.” She doesn’t even turn around as she talks.