The next day was quite lonely for a newly single mare in self-imposed isolation. Totality ate breakfast alone in her room. She sat in her history of magic class far away from Comet and near, but not within speaking distance, of Gamma.

They got their topic of Kirin magic approved by Moondancer and made plans at the library again.

Gamma was held up in his last class and was a few minutes late meeting with Totality for the project.

"Sorry I'm a little late," said Gamma with an exasperated sigh as he let his saddle bag plop on the table haphazardly. It turned over and a few books slid out. "I had to wait in line after class to ask the professor if she was a beverage, what beverage would she be?"

"Of course you did," muttered Totality. She eyed his flank briefly to see a strange yellow device with a white dial imprinted on him before she dove back into her Kirin book. "What did she say?”

"Rotgut whiskey."

"Which professor said that?" she laughed, looking up again.

"Ultraviolet."

"Sounds about right."

Gamma proactively grabbed a book from Totality's selection. "I talk to her a lot because we're both radiations."

"You really need to learn how to apararate," posed Totality, slumping back in her chair.

"It's on my bucket list," he replied absently.

How was it that at a school for adult unicorns to learn advanced magic that she knew so many ponies that couldn't teleport? Totality thought she'd learned late, but apparently she was about average.

“Is that a geiger counter?” she muttered abruptly.

Gamma looked up. “Huh?”

“Your cutie mark.”

Something sparked in his eye. “Oh, yeah!” he smiled. “Good job. No pony ever knows what it is,” he laughed. “They always think it’s a radio or a microphone or some kind of sound equipment.”

“Well, your name is a good clue, even though it kind of implies measuring cosmic entities with a hoofheld device.”

Gamma shrugged, “Yeah, it’s in the realm of unfortunate coincidence or intentional miss.”

Totality wanted to say she liked it for its uniqueness, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“Uh, so, should we have one of us do research and one do writing, or should we both do both?" asked Gamma, getting out his notes and quill.

"Let's both do both," answered Totality. "We can cover different Kirin points while writing and then I'll put them together uniformly.

"Sounds good."

Totality’s eyes went to Gamma’s saddle bag. It had several weird looking buttons pinned to it, two of which read ‘Appleoosa Mystery Spot’ and 'Cryptid Conservation Society.' The books spilling out of the bag were mostly textbooks but on top was a pulpy horror fiction book with a title that she recognized instantly: Necrosphere.

“Hey, you like the Red Umbra series?” she asked, pointing at the book.

Gamma followed her hoof to the pile of books. “Oh yeah. I have all of them,” he declared proudly.

“Even the limited edition two-parter?”

“Yep.”

“Me too,” Totality tried to cull the excitement in her voice. “Uh, which one is your favorite?”

“This one.” He floated the same book from his saddle bag up in front of him. “I’m reading it again. This is like the tenth time.”

“That’s my favorite too! The ancient occult ones are always the best.” Necrosphere was the only fictional piece on necromancy she’d ever read where the author actually sounded like they knew what they were writing about, and even suggested a possible duality to the practice, pitting a ‘good’ necromancer against a bad one.

Gamma sighed. “I just got to the chase through the woods and I somehow always forget that Cloudy Night gets left behind and dies offscreen.”

“Yeah, that part really sucks,” she groaned. “But I like that the main character is actually weak and always has to think outside the box to eke out a win."

"Oh yeah, like when he had to put the blood seal nexus on a ley line to compensate for his low magical abilities. Or-or when he had to do vox channeling and the only thing he had to imprint on was the guy’s leg so they end up interrogating a severed leg."

Totality laughed. “Yeah that was-” Her face fell suddenly. “Wait, they never called it that in the book. How do you know what it’s called?”

Gamma screwed up his face. “W-what did I call it?”

“Vox channeling,” repeated Totality. “How do you know what that is?” It wasn’t a term somepony got from a horror book or anywhere else but a necromantic grimoire. It was deep, restricted knowledge.

“Well, how do… you know what that is?” He pointed a hoof at her, accusingly.

“Let me see your horn,” she countered, leaning toward him.

“No,” he blurted, sliding backward in his chair and holding a hoof over his horn.

His reaction all but confirmed her suspicions. Her eyes widened. “You're a user, aren't you?” she gasped quietly. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

Gamma shook his head. “N-no I'm not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked around the library nervously.

“Are you white hat or black hat?” she whispered.

He gritted his teeth in fear. What was he supposed to do? It was like she already knew somehow. “Eh… White... hat.” he shrugged.

Totality’s eyes narrowed. “Everypony who gets caught is going to say ‘white hat.’ How do I know it's true?"

Gamma shot paranoid glances over his shoulders to see if anyone was eavesdropping. Then he presented his foreleg on the table. He slowly rolled it over to reveal an ugly lateral scar near the joint from repeated blood collecting.

Totality's heart skipped a beat. It wasn't definitive proof, but theoretically if he was using his own blood that much then he was probably not a black hat necromancer. They tended to just take what they needed from their victims.

Totality placed her foreleg on the table just beside his and showed him her matching cut mark where her fur no longer grew. His eyes went down to the scar and his jaw fell open.

"No way," he gasped.

The two stared into each other's eyes, gobsmacked.

“I-I have so many things to ask you,” said Totality, vibrating with excitement. "When did you start?"

"Middle school," he whispered.

“Grade school,” blurted Totality. She quickly covered her mouth with her hooves, her eyes shifting back and forth. “What- what’s the biggest thing you ever raised?”

“A tiny lizard. I sacrificed a big tree… and then felt bad about it.”

“Aww,” she laughed. “How old were you?”

“Thirteen. Does anyone else know you… uh...”

"No." She shook her head. "Oh wait, there is one." She bit her lip in manic glee. "Twilight Sparkle," she whispered.

Gamma gasped and recoiled, almost falling out of his chair. "Nuh-uh, that is not true," he blathered with eyes as big as saucers.

"It is, and she even wrote me a letter of recommendation," she tittered.

"Woah…" He braced the sides of his reeling brain with his hooves.

"And that's not even the most insane part of the story but I'll tell you later. Where'd you get your knowledge?"

Gamma readjusted his crooked chair. "Found a book in my dead grandma's attic. I had a lot of questions but decided it would be best not to ask any. How do you hide the horn thing?"

"Horn polish. But actually it's grown off now so I don't do anything."

"Horn polish," he muttered.

"Yeah. What do you do?"

"I sanded mine off, but I don't like how it smooths out the ridges on my horn."

"I didn't even know you could sand it off."

"Do you still-"

"No. Not really. I sort of… quit. And I don't have any reading material anymore. Do you?"

Gamma scratched his head. "Eh… Well, I haven't done anything in a while, but I do still have my book."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I can show you if you want. My house is actually in Canterlot."

"I'd love that."

"This is so weird," he breathed. "I never thought in a million moons that I would actually have this conversation with somepony."

"Me either."

“It’s so great to finally meet another necrophile.” He grimaced in embarrassment when he realized what he’d just said. “Nec- necro… enthusiast is what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” she laughed. “We can just call it ‘Red Umbra fan.’”

The two whiled away their research time talking about their experiences experimenting with necromancy and got almost nothing done.

Totality voluntarily waited in line with and sat across from Gamma in the cafeteria. Gamma had the same thing she’d seen him eat before, carrots and ketchup.

“Do you always eat that?” she asked with a disgusted sneer.

“Only when I eat in the cafeteria. I usually eat the food in my room," he replied, biting two floating carrots at the same time.

“Because all the food here is haunted?” she posed.

“You noticed,” he winked.

Totality sniggered at his response. What the hell was that, she thought. Is he messing with me? “Would you eat more cafeteria food if I exorcised it for you first?” she asked with a twisted smirk.

His eye twinkled. “You know how to do exorcisms?”

She adjusted her glasses. “Only on food.”

“Wow, you’d do that for me? Thanks.”

“Well, well.” came a malevolent yet ditzy sounding voice. “Somepony’s moved on quickly.”

Hazy appeared at Gamma’s side and slapped her tray down on the table. "Hey, Gamma,” she began with artificial joviality. “We never talk. What was your major again?"

Totality glared at her but Hazy was intentionally ignoring her presence.

"Books with an emphasis on spooky," replied Gamma, cryptically before licking a dollop of ketchup off of his foreleg.

Hazy laughed and brushed back a loose mane curl from her face.

"What's your major?" he asked.

"Pain in the ass with an emphasis on ass," interrupted Totality.

"Hey, that was uncalled for,” pouted Hazy. “We were just having a nice conversation. And is that any way to talk to a fellow alumnus?"

His eyes pingponged between them. "You two graduated together?"

"Oh, yeah," replied Hazy. "We go waaaay back. A lot of shared history. You should ask her what she did at my fourteenth birthday." Her eyes flicked down the table to see her tray of food slowly migrating away under the influence of Totality’s magic. “Oh dear,” she giggled. “My food seems to be crawling away.” Hazy got up from her seat. “See you later sometime Gamma, maybe without the drag on the conversation.” Her eyes landed on Totality ominously before departing with swaying hips to reacquire her food.

“See?” he whispered with a knowing look. “She got the haunted food.”

Totality laughed weakly.

Gamma floated his plate in front of his face and began to lick it. “So… what did you do?”

Totality sighed. "She wants me to tell you about the time I poisoned her birthday cake."

Gamma raised an eyebrow. "Uh… wow."

"Not with lethal poison,” she clarified flippantly. “It was just a GI irritant. And it wasn't the whole cake, just her piece. I'm not proud of it, but the prequel to that story is that she stole my work, presented it as her own, and won an award with it. That’s where it started and we still haven’t finished it.

Totality folded her glasses and carefully levitated them to her desk. Then she flopped on her back and yawned. She was alone tonight, apparently. Blue Moon came and went on an erratic schedule, especially at night. Sometimes she disappeared in the evening and didn’t show up until morning the next day.

Totality hadn’t thought about Comet since seeing him in history of magic that day. Weirdly, she couldn't stop thinking about Gamma Burst.

It was difficult to put into words the feeling of finding a kindred spirit who shared the same experience and ideas as her after years of longing in seclusion, like an entire part of her was locked away in a windowless cell. To her, at this moment, he was the most interesting thing in existence.

Her mind reeled with the possibilities of what they might discuss tomorrow, maybe something deeper, more intellectual, but she was also worried that she'd now be unable to focus on their project. Somepony needed to be the task master and it probably wasn’t going to be Gamma. Why couldn't this have happened to her much earlier instead of just before finals? What if they started talking about ethics in necromancy? That could take days… She was already drooling at the thought.

Her eyes shot open at the sound of deranged giggling swelling from the hallway. The door crashed open, banging violently against the wall. Blue Moon staggered in and collapsed in the middle of the room with a grunt before mumbling something unintelligible. The door latched itself shut as Blue turned on her side to get comfortable.

“Oh, there you are,” muttered Totality. “Goodnight, Blue.”

Author's Note

That last paragraph is literally just something that happened to me when I was trying to sleep one night in college.