The Many Deaths of Twilight Sparkle
Suicide is Sometimes the Answer
"...Immortal?" Twilight questioned, tears in her eyes. "But what about my friends? I'm just gonna have to watch them fade away while I’m stuck here without them?"
"Well of course you can always visit them after they die." Luna rolled her eyes. "And it's not like you can't die. You just don't stay that way."
"I... what?"
"Surely you've died since you ascended, have you not?" Luna stared at Twilight quizzically.
"Sister, I don't believe she has died at all yet." Celestia laughed. "Maybe she doesn't know."
"What... are you two talking about? Ponies can't just come back from the dead." Twilight blanched.
"I think she may need to learn first hoof." Celestia grinned mischievously. "Twilight, do you trust my sister and me?"
Twilight nodded fearfully.
Celestia turned and bowed to her sister, who merely rolled her eyes. Lifting one of the nearby guard's spears with her magic, Luna twirled it around idly, before plunging it into the neck of her still bowing sister. Celestia fell to the ground with a resounding thud.
Twilight's blood ran cold at the sight of her beloved mentor lying lifelessly on the ground.
But Celestia said it was all fine. I had to trust her. This has to be some awful, terrible joke. She couldn't just be gone like that...
Fighting back tears, Twilight turned to face the unperturbed Luna, desperately seeking answers. Her sorrow was interrupted by a sudden pop as Celestia teleported to her sister's side. Twilight's gaze flickered between the corpse of her mentor, and the other, still living body of her mentor. She rushed into Celestia's waiting embrace.
"You see, my little pony," Celestia crooned. "It was as I said. Princesses are immortal. You can die, hang out in the afterlife for as long as you'd like, then re-materialize wherever. Definitely cuts down on travel time." Celestia rolled her eyes. "Of course, Princess Luna always refers to it as 'respawning'."
Luna laughed. "I remember one time Celestia and I were arguing if you could live on the moon. I thought since I'd been sealed there for one thousand years, I could survive on the face of the moon. So I teleported there and immediately started suffocating. I spent the rest of the day sulking in the afterlife before I returned to admit Celestia had won the argument."
Twilight felt herself go lightheaded and stumbled around for a moment, before falling to the ground with a quiet -whump-. Luna sighed in mock annoyance. "Oh come on! Now we have two bodies to clean up!"
The two sisters giggled.
"Well..." Luna continued. "I hope you're ready for whatever freak out Twilight Sparkle has planned for when she wakes up."
Celestia just laughed. "Or for that matter, when she returns to Ponyville."
"Should we kill her?"
"Nah, let's let this sink in first. We can kill her later."
Several hours and several calming cups of tea later, Twilight had gotten over the original shock, and was starting to get excited over all the potential uses this skill could hold. Why, she could examine the magical system of an alicorn and compare it to a regular unicorn! Maybe understand why the increased magical potential led to such a large size change from other fully grown ponies! Or she could use corpses to make donations of marrow and blood! She could just imagine showing up to a blood drive with several gallons of blood, oh they'd be so happy!
Then again, Celestia and Luna had made it clear that the corpses didn't disappear magically. They evidently still decomposed and smelled awful if not taken care of. That'd have to be something tackled soon into this project for furthering science. She'd probably have to do something unique with them to avoid overpopulating the local graveyard with just herself.
Maybe Starlight could think of some other way to magically get rid of them? There’s probably a spell that could dissolve them, or something...
Wait, Starlight! Oh she has to know about this! Together we can advance pony science by hundreds of years!
"I see you're caught up in the classic immortality rush." Celestia said from behind, giving her student a smile as she turned around. "What do you suppose you're going to do next?"
"Celestia! Well first, I'm gonna tell all my friends, and then I think I'm gonna set up my lab to do some tests, and I can- Ooh, do you think alicorns decompose slower? Maybe the amount of magic in one's body can affect that! Oh I need to get down to Ponyville now! I'm bursting with ideas!"
"Well there is a much faster way to get there than the train." Celestia tittered.
Celestia's implications felt like a slap in the face. Sure, it was easy and fun to talk about, but in reality? What if it didn't work for her? What if-
"You'll be fine Twilight." Celestia soothed, "I won't make you if you don't want to. Are you willing?"
Twilight nodded slowly.
"Are you ready?"
Twilight nodded again.
With a proud smile, Celestia snapped her dear pupil's neck.
POP
Twilight appeared in her bedroom in her castle.
"IT WORKED!"
I have to find Starlight... I have to... do something! At a time like this, she's probably studying in the library. Perfect!
Twilight took off down the crystal halls, running at a full gallop toward the double doors leading to the library.
"Starlight!" Twilight shouted, barging into the castle's library.
"Oh, hey Twilight. I was checking out some of Clover the Clever's works, but this document doesn't show the latest part of his spell. Do you think he ever finished it?" Starlight asked idly, levitating a scroll over to Twilight.
Twilight paused for a moment, reading over the scroll. Then as a sudden idea popped into her head she let out an excited gasp. "I'll just ask him!"
"Uhh..." Starlight stared at Twilight strangely. "Clover the Clever's been dead for hundreds of years. How are you gonna ask him?"
"I'm gonna kill myself!" announced Twilight proudly.
"Wait, what?"
"Be back in five!" Twilight called out, galloping through one of the library's windows and falling all the way to the ground, instantly snapping her neck.
Starlight let out a gasp and ran toward the window. She gave off an involuntary shudder and her ears flattened to her skull, her stomach muscles clamping down in a losing fight to prevent the bile and daisy sandwich she had for lunch from escaping.
Twilight had a smile on her face, but her neck was twisted in an unnatural way
Oh, Celestia no. How could this happen so out of nowhere?! She just… jumped out the window! Why didn’t I stop her?!
Oh Celestia… I’ll have to tell our friends, and her family, and… Celestia.
Starlight was distracted by a sudden pop as Twilight appeared next to her.
"So I asked and he did finish it. Let me grab one of my scrolls and I'll show you the completed result. It's actually really cool!" Twilight beamed.
Facing Twilight, Starlight's jaw dropped and she pulled Twilight into a tight hug.
"Twilight, I just saw you die! What happened? Is... was it an illusion?" Starlight stammered out.
"Don't be silly Starlight, that's my body, and I did die!" Twilight responded cheerfully. "I'm immortal, it's gonna take more than a little bit of dying to get me down."
"Wha-"
"Oh, I could get a good look at the muscular system of a pony who swapped species! Or the skeletal system! I just need to skin myself! Oh, this is great! I can learn so much from this!" Twilight squeed.
Teleporting out of Starlight's grip, Twilight mused over her own thoughts for a moment. "I'm gonna need a big knife and a tub to catch all the blood. But this is gonna be so exciting! Oh, but first I need to write down that spell for you before I forget."
Starlight fainted.
Starlight woke up several hours later in her bed. She groaned and rolled onto her hooves.
What a weird dream...
She ambled out into the hallway, considering telling Twilight about her dream when she ended up walking right into the mare in question.
Twilight was dressed in a bloody lab coat, with protective goggles resting on her forehead. Her mane had a few strands sticking straight out at odd angles, and had a manic smile on her face. She was busy scribbling notes onto a clipboard she was holding with her magic and was so distracted by them, she ended up walking straight into Starlight.
"Oh, Starlight!" Twilight looked up with a smile. "You'll never guess what I discovered. An alicorn's arcanic tissue is 13.6% larger than a normal unicorn's! Or well, at least mine is. Isn't that fascinating?"
I don't think that was a dream after all...
"Twilight," Starlight started slowly. "What's going on?" She already felt the fatigue and anxiousness onsetting again. Something had changed in the short time that Twilight had been gone. Something major.
"Well the craziest thing happened. I was in Canterlot visiting the princesses, and Luna let it slip that alicorns literally can't die." Twilight explained. "She actually killed Celestia right in front of me without batting an eye, and a moment later Celestia teleported back into the throne room. So then Celestia killed me, I showed up here, and I've been killing myself for the last hour and a half! It's great how much we can learn and advance science! I can even teleport all over Equestria with ease by doing this!"
Starlight felt herself go light-headed as she struggled to understand what Twilight was saying.
"But... you said you met Clover the Clever, how does all that work?” Starlight stammered.
"Well... from what I understand from what Celestia said, when we die we enter a plane of existence called Purgatory. It's kind of dark blue and ethereal looking, and if you focus on a certain pony, you can kind of... speak to them. It's really more like talking to a spirit through telepathy. I'm not exactly sure how it works though, because I haven't been able to find Starswirl during the last few attempts."
"Last... few attempts?" Starlight asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
Twilight nodded, and without any further ado, teleported the two mares to the back of the castle. Sitting there was a pile of corpses at least fifteen feet high. Starlight widened her stance as her vision started to swim.
"Twilight! There's gonna be a massive panic if anypony else sees this!" Starlight gasped.
Twilight tapped her hoof against her chin thoughtfully. "I admit I've been a little too caught up in the moment to consider that. That's a good point. Oh! But first I should show our friends!"
Starlight tried to stop her. "Wait, before you go they might need a bit of-" Twilight teleported away before Starlight could finish her sentence. "...context."
Moments later there was a familiar pop as six ponies appeared by Starlight, all looking varying degrees of dazed.
“Twilight!” Applejack yelled. “You can’t just grab me from my farm… and…” her gaze drifted over to the pile of corpses. A moment later she was running for the nearest bush to empty her stomach.
Fluttershy, as expected, fainted on the spot. Rainbow Dash seemingly forgot how to fly for a moment and plopped to the ground. Rarity just stared at the pile of corpses, unblinking.
“Hey, I like what you’ve done with the place.” Pinkie chirped.
“Twilight, what in the actual buck is this?!” Rainbow gasped.
“I killed myself lots of times!” Twilight responded proudly, gesturing at the pile of corpses like a filly might gesture to her macaroni art.
Rarity, who had been trying to rouse Fluttershy, looked up. “Yes but… how?” She stared at her other friends. Rainbow was transfixed on the bodies, Applejack was still puking into the bush, Starlight had her hoof firmly planted in her face, and Pinkie just had a neutral expression.
“Muffin button?” Pinkie offered.
“Alicorn powers.” Twilight corrected.
Fluttershy, finally awake again, stared at Twilight with some concern. “What are you doing with them?”
“Oh you know…” Twilight scoffed. “Blood drives, anatomy studies, the usual. Only problem is that after I’m done I don’t know what to do with the cadavers. That might actually be a big problem...”
“Oh that’s quite alright, Twilight.” Fluttershy smiled. “I know what to do with bodies.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed enthusiastically. “Now, where do you keep your shovels?”
Starlight Glimmer grinned, "I'll get the shovels!"
"And I'll get the muffin trays!" Pinkie called out in a singsong voice.
"Pinkie, no."
Author's Note
This has been sitting in unfinished story hell for the last two months. The empty slot where the story should have been was the bane of my muse. Hope it didn't dissapoint!
