Umbral Abyss

Umbral Abyss

Worse than Death

“Thanks for letting me stay here while the Library's termite problem is dealt with Rainbow Dash!” Twilight Sparkle called out.

The purple unicorn was sat in the cloud house of her pegasus friend.  A rather sudden termite problem had erupted in the hollowed out tree she called a home, forcing her to seek alternate accommodations while the situations was handled. The multicolored pegasus was quick to offer her quarters to a friend in need. A quick cloud walking spell later and there they were.

“Hey, what are friends for?” Rainbow Dashed called back from another room.

Celestia's student idly looked around the room as she waited for her friend to return. This was her first time having been invited to the sky blue mare's residence. It was impractical as a gathering place for her and her friends because of its lack of proximity to the ground. Even Fluttershy, the only other pegasus of the group, rarely visited. It seemed Rainbow Dash herself was almost never here as well, preferring to nap on stray clouds around Ponyville rather than in her house.

Twilight noted that despite almost never being home, the aspiring Wonderbolt still managed to accumulate quite a mess. Clothes she had never seen the pegasus wear were strewn about the bedroom, dresser drawers were open. A stack of dirty dishes were piled on a stack of Daring Do novels next to her unmade bed. The lavender mare wondered if they were library copies and how she could rescue them.

A reflective surface on the nightstand caught the unicorns gaze. Among the clutter was a simple 8x6 picture frame. In idle curiousness Twilight levitated the frame closer. Did Rainbow keep a picture of a Wonderbolt next to her bed? Her parents perhaps? Twilight had never seen them before and her friend never talked about them.

“What the-!?” The purple mare almost dropped the frame as she stared at the picture. Her face a beat red. It was neither a Wonderbolt or her parents. Before Twilight's eyes was what appeared to be a griffon sprawled out on a bed of clouds in a pin-up style pose. This wouldn’t have surprised the stunned unicorn except that over the griffons head was a piece of another photo taped in place.  The face of the griffon was covered up with one of a pony. This wasn’t just any pony's face, this was her!

“What'cha doing Twi?” Rainbow Dash had entered the room.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!” The unicorn panicked and slammed the photo she was holding in her magic back down onto the nightstand. When the pegasus had entered the room her back was turned towards her, she hoped from that angle she wasn’t caught looking at the picture. With her best nonchalant smile, she turned to face the rainbow mare when suddenly a thought entered her mind.

“So, Rainbow, I just remembered I never asked about sleeping arrangements.”

“Oh! Well I've got a pretty big bed, I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if we shared it.” Rainbow Dash smiled innocently and flopped onto the bed. “You haven’t known  comfort until you’ve tried sleeping on a cloud mattress.”

Twilight's face shifted into varying magnitudes of discomfort as she struggled to think of an excuse to flee the room.

“ I.. err.. something.... just remembered that I.... promised Rarity I'd stay with her instead! Yes! That's it.” The purple unicorn did not wait for a reaction from her friend and immediately teleported herself to ground level and galloped off in the opposite direction of the cloud house she had just vacated.

Rainbow Dash burst out into laughter as she rolled over in the bed onto her back, her legs kicking in the air. “ I can't believe that worked! You can come out now Pinkie, awesome prank idea by the way!”

The prismatic pegasus was joined by a pink earth pony climbing in through a window. A bundle of helium balloons tied around her waist to keep her aloft.

“I saw the whole thing through the window Dashie! You should have seen her face when she picked up the picture, it was priceless!”

“I don’t know how how we're going to top that one Pinks.”

“Say Dashie, where did you get that spicy picture of Gilda anyway?”

“Umm...”

“Is this seriously what you do with your afterlife?! You spy on Twilight and her friends!?”

A cream colored hoof brushed across the surface of the scrying pool and the scene vanished in a puff of mist. A very annoyed looking blue pegasus glared at the earth pony responsible.

“It was, until you showed up.”

“Why them anyway?” Scarlet Script was curious about everything. Since she had been freed from being a shadow by Winter Eclipse's magic she had struggled to grasp the situation she had found herself in. The red maned earth pony, once she had worked up enough courage to speak to the intimidating pegasus, had assaulted her with a barrage of questions. All of which were ignored. Nil had just sat in front of the pool of swirling mists and tried her very hardest to pretend she was alone. A task that became increasingly difficult as time went on.

“The scrying pool only tunes into the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Now leave me alone and go read a book or something.” Nil waved a hoof dismissively.

“These books are all blank!” To illustrate her point, the earth pony trotted over to one of the many bookshelves that lined the tower interior and pulled a book off the shelf. The cream mare dropped the tome on the stone floor, on impact the book jarred itself open to reveal that, indeed, all the pages were bare. “This place is weird! Didn't that unicorn say something about teaching me about this place?”

Nil felt her eye twitch. Resting in peace seemed impossible at this point. She wasn’t sure when Winter Eclipse would return. In a world with no sun or moon it was nearly impossible to keep time in the first place. She did know, however, that if the lantern wielding unicorn returned and she hadn’t explained a single thing to the newcomer that Winter would not be pleased.  She wanted that kind of attention even less than any kind of attention that Scarlet had to give. With a heavy sigh she resigned herself to her fate of playing teacher for this newbie.

“Fine. Do you still have that book that Eclipse made from your shadow?” Nil huffed. She reluctantly removed herself from her seat in front of the pool to retrieve her bottled cloud from the coat hanger. Turning around she saw Scarlet smiling and nodding hastily, holding up her book. She had found a piece of cloth lying around and threaded it through the space between the cover and the book's binding and tied the ends together in a makeshift carrying strap. “Good, we're going for a walk.”

The pegasus made no rush as she slowly made her way to the tower balcony, her cream colored companion not far behind. When they reached the balcony's rails Nil hopped onto the edge and spread her wings.

“Hey wait! I can't fly! How am I supposed to get down? There's no door at the bottom of the stairs. That unicorn lady teleported us into the stair well when I first got here.” Scarlet had joined Nil on the balcony rails to confront her face to face.

The blue flyer just smiled back at Scarlet. Scarlet had never seen Nil smile before. Something about it unnerved her. However, she did not have more than a moment to contemplate it before the pegasus turned around, and bucked her off the balcony. Once again her vision was filled with the slowly shrinking visage of a smiling pegasus, this time peering over the balcony at a plummeting earth pony. It took half a second for Scarlet to realize what had just happened. She started to flail her limbs about and scream as the ground rose up to meet her.

“Well that was satisfying.” Nil said to herself. The sound of a pony impacting on the hard ground below soon reached her ears. The pegasus considered leaving her and returning to watch the scrying pool. No, if Winter Eclipse returned to find and earth pony imbedded in the ground at the foot of the tower it wouldn’t end well for her.

Nil leaped from the balcony and slowly glided down. She landed softly next to the sprawled out figure of the pony she had just put there. She remained motionless and several of her limps appeared to be bent the wrong way. “Hey! Stop being so dramatic.” Nil poked the lifeless pony with a hoof. A groan from Scarlet was her only response. Nil poked harder.

“You are the meanest pony I have ever met.” Scarlet's words came out muffled through a face full of grass and dirt. She began to stir from her position. Joints began to pop back into place. Limbs had corrected their position. The earth pony slowly began to rise from the ground, only dazed from the fall. She looked herself over.“Why didn’t that hurt?”

“You're already dead. Whats a fall from a tower going to do?” The pegasus stated the obvious.

Together the two ponies walked to the edge of one of the roads branching off from the tower. There were several ponies on the road walking towards the horizon. If they noticed the ponies watching them from the sidelines they made no indication of it. Nil broke the silence. “Alright, listen up because I'm only going to explain this once.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“No.”

“What does your cutie mark mean?” Scarlet gestured to the zero on the blue pegasus's flank.

“Oh! Well you see I was a Wonderbolt and the zero is how many races I've lost!” Nil Suddenly appeared proud and chipper.

“Wow! REALLY?!”

“No.” Sour, unamused Nil returned.

“What then?”

“I was a captain in the pegasus army during the era of disharmony. The zero is how many survivors I left on the battlefield!” Nil grinned evilly.

“Stop making stuff up!” Scarlet whined.

Pleased that this line of questioning would no longer continue, Nil continued with her explanation. “As I was trying to say before, I'm only going to say this once!” The pegasus slammed a hoof into the ground to capture the earth pony's attention that had wandered in the seconds before she spoke. “Ponies who have died appear at the foot of the tower on one of the four roads leading out.”

“Where do the roads go?”

“I'm getting to that, stop interrupting.” Nil scolded. “At the end of the road is a door-”

“Whats behind the door?” Scarlet shrunk back. As soon as the words left her lips the pegasus shot her an angry look.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. The next world presumably. It isn’t a place we can go anymore. We left the road and so the door won't open for us. All things considered, we are pretty lucky.  I'm sure the memory of being a shadow is still fresh in your mind. That is what happens to all ponies who leave the road. After a while you lose yourself. Your thoughts and memories vanish and you wander the endless plains a mindless shadow. After that...”

“Then what!?” Scarlet was on the edge of her seat. Nil was no longer in danger of losing the earth pony's attention now.

“There are worse things than death. I'll show you a couple.” Nil reached back and untied her bottled cloud from the rope securing it around her barrel. She shook it vigorously, agitating the tiny storm cloud within. Satisfied, she placed it on the ground in front of her and positioned a hoof on the cork. “I don’t usually like to do this because it's a waste of energy, but you were going to have to see this eventually anyway.”

With that, Nil removed the cork from the bottle. A violent flash of light blinded them. When their eyes had adjusted they caught sight of a streak of lightning that had flown from the bottle towards the sky. It impacted with the thick layer of clouds that perpetually filled the skies setting off a chain reaction of lightning that spread across the dark skies. A spectacular sight to behold, but it left the earth pony wondering what that had been all about.

“So, what was the point of that?”

“It attracts them.”

“Them who?” Scarlet was beginning to get nervous.

“Them.”

Nil pointed a hoof towards the sky. The earth pony craned her head to follow. There was a break in the clouds. A dark form had penetrated the thick cover of cumulus and was rapidly descending towards the ground. The closer the shadow got to the ground the more Scarlet had begun to understand the creature's scale. The cream mare's jaw hit the ground almost the same time as the creature did. The ground shook at its landing, it must have been as tall as twenty ponies!

The monster resembled the shadow Scarlet had become when she stepped off the road. Its entire body a semi transparent black with white eyes void of any pupil or iris. This massive shadow was not shaped like any pony though. It resembled something like a griffon, though twisted and misshapen some how. Griffons had claws, Scarlet knew that, but the talons this abomination sported were gnarled and gruesome looking. Its beak was jagged and serrated.

The monster regarded the tiny ponies below it momentarily. The beast reared its head back and roared at the sky. A horrible earsplitting noise filled the world. Scarlet was paralyzed with fear, visibly shaking. Nil remained calm, even when the monster raised a talon and took a swipe at them. Being a slow and brutish monster, Nil was able to push Scarlet and herself out of the path of destruction. The claws left gouges in the earth a hoof full of ponies could fit in.

“Unlike the fall from the tower, these things can destroy you.” Nil explained while the creature was busy inspecting its talon to see if it had caught the two ponies it was aiming for. “Now comes the important part of today's lesson. Take your book, and hold it open before that thing!”

“Are you crazy!?” Scarlet wanted nothing but to flee, and would have if Nil hadn't pushed her back in front of the monster.

The shadow griffon caught the movement on the ground and raised its talon again to take another shot at the stunned earth pony. In a panic Scarlet held her tome out and hid behind it. Before she screwed her eyes shut in fear she saw only a massive black paw flying threw the air directly at her. Scarlet waited for the impact she knew was coming. It never came.

The monster screeched in pain. The cream mare opened her eyes to see that she hadn’t been struck at all. Peering from behind her book she observed the shadow beast in a a desperate attempt to back away. It looked like he was being pulled closer to her by some invisible force. On closer inspection she could see that the talon that was sure to cause her imminent doom was nothing more than a thin line of shadow coming from the beast into the pages of her book. It was only a few moments before the rest of the griffon was pulled into the pages and trapped. Where once a menacing beast stood, now was only empty space. Scarlet turned the tome around. Written across both pages, only one word was written in bold letters. Griffon.

“Nice work. You may want to try cowering less next time though.” The blue pegasus congratulated as she walked over to look at the pages of the tome as well.

“Wha- what just happened?”

“That is what happens to the dead who stay out on the grass too long. They become monsters. They'll attack the tower if they aren’t taken care of eventually. Eclipse has me patrol every now and then to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

“What IS this thing anyway?” Scarlet closed the book and held it up to Nil. The blue pagasus took it from her hooves and opened it to the first page. On it, like it had been with the griffon, written in bold lettering across the page 'Scarlet Script' was written.

“It's a vessel for something you don’t have anymore. A Soul. You lost it when you stepped off the road. Eclipse used her shadow magic to give you a new one in the form of this book. Just like my bottle, and her lantern.”

“That doesn’t explain why it sucked in that monster! Wait... I don’t have a soul?!”

“Nothing outside the roads here does. We're just shadows of the dead. Your book absorbs other shadows because the cost of being here the way we are is high. We don’t physically exist anymore. We're basically just energy in the form of ponies. It isn’t self sustaining though. Moving, talking, thinking, it all takes energy and there’s only one place to get it, other shadows of the dead. Even the grass we're walking on is made of shadows. If a shadow doesn’t consume other shadows they kind of fall apart and disperse into the ground, becoming the grass.”

Scarlet felt dizzy. The weight of what the words Nil spoke implied was too much for her. She sputtered, trying to form a reply to what she had just heard but couldn’t find the words. Instead, she fainted.

“Yeah you're right. I guess that's enough for today. Least it will be quiet for a while until she wakes up.” Nil spoke as she learned off the unconscious heap of earth pony on the grass. She retied her bottle, picked up the sleeping Scarlet and flew back to to the tower balcony.

Winter Eclipse had traveled quite a ways from the tower. The only landmark in this world not even visible to her anymore. Well, not quite the only landmark. In her wandering the unicorn had spotted a puzzling sight on the horizon and was marching towards it. What she had spied was a tree. The only one she had ever seen in her time being dead.

As she approached she saw it was an elderly oak tree barren of leaves. Its trunk twisted and its branches contorted in strange ways. Her eye for magic quickly unraveled the mystery, picking up a familiar aura from the plant.

“It's nice to see you again Starswirl.” Winter Smiled. The tree did not respond. “I know it's you Starswirl.” Winter ceased to smile and kicked  the trunk of the oak.

“OW! Oh, it's you. You're looking well Winter Eclipse.” A disembodied voice came from the tree. The unicorn wondered how a tree had managed to tell how she looked.

“You're looking... arboreal... Starswirl. Why a tree?” Winter spoke, cocking an eyebrow at the tree. She raised her lantern to get a better look at it.

“This is the closest it gets to resting in peace around here. Curse my natural curiosity for wondering what was out here in the first place. What brings you all the way out here anyway? You didn’t come just to visit an old friend have you?”

“I'm looking for another old friend actually. Have you seen her?” The white unicorn was pacing around the trunk of the tree that had once been Starswirl the Bearded.

“She's not dead.”

“Part of her is at least. When I find her we can finally finish what we began in life here in this world. Celestia can't interfere here.” Winter Eclipse grinned with pride.

“You saw what the tower was built on didn’t you? Mess around with this world too much and the Umbral Abyss will consume it.”

“I know she was here Starswirl. I can feel her magic on you.” Winter's light hearted mood was beginning to fade. “Tell me where she is hiding.”

“...”

“Very well, Starswirl.” The lantern bearer turned to leave but stopped suddenly, turning on a hoof to face the oak once more. “OH! I almost forgot, you mentioned that this was the closest to resting in peace as you could get here. You were wrong.”

The shadow manipulator levitated her lantern to shine on her old friend. In a flash the intensity of the light changed from a bright silver glow to a dark purple. The branches cracked and creaked, roots were pulled from the ground as the former pony, now tree, was pulled towards the lantern. The closer it got to the source of the light the more bark and wood melted into a shadow that was sucked into the lanterns center until nothing remained.

“There is no greater peace than oblivion.”