The Forever Burning Embers of Love

Luna's eyes slowly opened as she awoke from her very pleasant dream. As well as being content, Luna also felt more well rested than she had in a long time. As she remembered what she was planning to do today, she grinned widely and her heart was beating faster in lust. Luna decided that she'd now begin learning how to raise her dead lover.

Luna opened the bottom shelf of her drawer, where she had hid "An Alicorn's Guide to Necromancy" the night before, and opened to the first page. It appeared to be an acknowledgement to the reader. It read:

To The Alicorn Wishing To Learn Necromancy

Necromancy is an ancient form of magic, only usable by Alicorns, such as yourself, due to the extreme amount of magic they possess. Following the procedures in this book exactly, without doing one thing otherwise, is strongly recommended, due to the substantial amount of danger in the process. I personally thank you for taking an interest in my work; I have also written books on how to perform other types of Alicorn-specific magic. Enjoy, and please be careful.
-Silver Dagger

After reading the now faded acknowledgement with mild interest, Luna eagerly turned to the next page, which seemed to be the table of contents. She then turned to the page with the first part, which read Part I: Strengthening The Skeleton

Depending on how long the pony has been deceased, their skeleton will be in various conditions, and therefore requires different amounts of strengthening.

Below this, there was a carefully drawn chart, with Amount of Years Deceased on the left, with values such as 10-50, 50-100, 100-250, 250-500, and 500 or more. On the right, it showed how long to perform the strengthening spell for each value. The illustration depicted a glistening skeleton of a pony, with absolutely no cracks or damage whatsoever.

Then, after studying the chart and whispering to herself the amount of time she'd have to perform the spell, she turned to the next page. This time, it was a much more detailed description, under the heading Part II: Regenerating the Internal Organs reading:

In order for the subject to function as they did once before, all of their organs will have to be regenerated, such as the brain, heart, lungs, intestines, and kidneys. Below is a step-by-step procedure on how to regenerate these organs. The drawing on the next page showed an alicorn lifting organs into a half empty skeleton of another pony, which definitely wasn't the most pretty thing Luna had seen.

Luna then saw a somewhat complicated spell she had never seen before, and, unlike the strengthening spell on the previous page that was familiar to her, this was entirely new. There was a variation of it for each organ she'd have to regenerate. When she saw this, Luna knew that this was going to take more than one day to learn, contradicting her previous belief. However, to Luna, this didn't matter. She was going to take as much time as necessary to bring Blaze back.

Right as she was about to turn to the next page, there was a quiet knock on her door, followed by a soft voice.

"Luna? It's Celestia, may I come in?"

Luna hesitantly said, "Of course, the door is unlocked."

As her sister walked in, Luna turned the book on it's back and placed it on her drawer, deciding not to try to hide it because that would only raise her sister's suspicion.

"Sister, I was thinking about last night, and how pushy I was getting, I apologize, I should have waited for you to calm down. Talking to you when you were sad like that, I shouldn't have done it. I realize that all I did was make things seem worse, I am truly sorry Luna. If there is any way I could make it up to you, please tell me." she said sincerely.

Still having her mind on the book, Luna had only half payed attention to what her sister just said, but she still understood what she meant in general.

"It's okay sister, I forgive you, though I am busy at the moment, I'd love to talk with you later though." Luna said quickly, hoping she didn't sound rude.

"I understand." Celestia said simply. She then turned to embrace Luna.

Luna accepted her into her hooves, and rested her chin on her sister's shoulder, feeling the warmth and comfort of her close body.

Celestia then stood up, and spoke, "I'll let you get back to what you're doing, please take care." And with that, she departed, feeling slightly better, now that she could at least talk to her sister while she wasn't bawling.

Luna then reached over for the book she had just been reading, and turned to the next page, headed Part III: Reforming The Entire Body, followed by a moderate description:

This is by far the most complicated process in performing Necromancy, as you cannot lose your focus for even a second, or the whole thing will be ruined completely. After this description, there are several pages going into great detail on how to perform every part, such as reforming the muscles, veins, arteries, and capillaries, as well as attaching them to the strengthened skeleton properly. The picture on the right was partly gruesome, showing a pony with it's muscles slowly wrapping themselves around the skeleton.

Luna's eyes widened when she saw how many different spells she had to cast, one after another, without losing her focus. And the several pages mentioned were actually most of the book itself. Promising to herself that she'd practice those spells later, she turned to the final part: Part IV: Providing Life. Luna had been wondering how she could give life to Blaze, since she knew any creature, even the powerful Alicorns, could not create self-sustaining life without reproducing. She then read the description below with great interest.

After completing all of the previous three steps without error, we come to the final step of the process of Necromancy; giving life to the subject. As you probably know, there is no possible way to create self-sustaining life, therefore, you must use your magic to keep the subject alive. Be warned, it- the rest was too badly faded to read. She got a little frightened for a moment, not knowing what the author had wanted to warn her about, but she decided there was nothing she could do about it. She also found it strange how that was the only badly faded part, even though the spell and illustration of a previously dead pony standing, were still very visible.

Now she would memorize these spells to the best of her ability, and, since she didn't have anything to practice on for the moment, prayed that she'd be successful.