Reaper of Eventide

by Shadowed Rainbow

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Horror, Violence, Death, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6
Length: 5989

I never gave much thought to how I would die, until the Pull of Tartarus drew me in. There is a way I can return to the world of the living—but I will have to become Death to do so. (1st-person Twilight-centric)

From our teachings, we knew of the afterlife on several levels—the heaven of Elysium, the cleansing purgatory some called Katharismóu, and the hell known as Tartarus. Of these, only Tartarus can be reached by the living. And those who wander close enough, even the best of ponies, can easily be dragged in if the Pull is too great.

I was one of the curious ones. And now, for my transgressions, I remain trapped here.

I've discovered that as a living one dragged in, there is a way that I can leave, but it might as well lead to my death—for I would have to become Death in order to free myself.

(1st-person Twilight-centric)

Published 2015-10-12 22:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-03-16 20:39:03 UTC

A Magic Call For Help

Please work, please work...

Hello? Any... th--there? Is anypony listening?

Okay, okay, it seems to be working... the transmission spell's in place now. I don't know how much time I have before the connection is lost.

This might be my only chance to get a message to the outside world. The only chance that anypony will ever know where I am or what it's like. I have no scroll, no parchment, no quill, only the raw power of my magic and focus of thought to mentally dictate just where I am and what I'm experiencing. An iridescent water-like barrier prevents my physical escape to the upper tunnels I cannot reach—I am unsure how long it will stay. Maybe forever.

I never gave much thought to how I would die. For pony's sake, the question on whether I'm actually dead or not has an unclear answer.

There is only one question I feel I can ask myself in this moment: Why didn't I listen? Why did I let my body and mind become so weak, so susceptible to coercion from outside forces? It was done with my friends, with my enemies... now this.

I don't have anypony I can truly ask 'Why?' now. At least, not anypony who would respectfully answer me. Snarl at me with jagged teeth, perhaps. Maybe fail to hear me over their screams echoing through the caverns. Possibly try to tear me apart down to the marrow of my bones. Nothing that would offer me any comfort. I doubt that if any being here owns a dictionary, the word "comfort" would be in their personal lexicon, or at least it would be defined as something worthless.

Then again, what can I expect? After all... I'm not exactly in Ponyville anymore. Or anywhere that's considered by the common pony to be in Equestria, for that matter. Heck, I'm not anywhere in the world that any living pony should be able to go. Most don't even know where it is—and believe me, that's for the best.

I'm trapped in the lower pits of Hell. Or, as we call it formally, Tartarus.

W-Wait! Don't dismiss my message just yet as being the work of a demonic pony who was awful in life—please, hear me out, please! If you can recieve this, I hope you at least know my name—Twilight Sparkle. Maybe that's familiar to you? I hope so, it might give me some chance, I don't know how much time has passed out there...

Ever had one of those moments where you feel that time has become a blur? A period in which the hours, minutes, and seconds appear to be out of whack, sometimes agonizingly slow and others passing in a single moment? That uncertainty has become my reality.

How long have I been here? It feels like forever. I can't be certain, however—in all my time here thus far, I haven't been able to catch a glimpse of the outside world, nor has anyone given me a hint as to how time passes in this place. I can only make a conjecture based on my perceptions of the normal passage of time. In that regard, I suppose it's not so much a question of how much time has passed for me, but rather how much has passed for everypony else. For the world I was forced to leave behind.

Please, anypony I knew... Are you even alive out there? How long have I been trapped in this prison?

The darkness is tightening its hold around me. The burning ice, that surrounds the place, impossibly freezing and scorching at the same time, chills my coat and singes my hooves.

I've kept far enough away from the monsters imprisoned here, the demons—at least I think they're demons—attempting to invade my mind and break my spirit, and the specters of those of the past who've tried to tempt my actions and thoughts into their evil ways. They can't reach me here.

But the physical shadows and opposing extremes of ice and fire are ever-present and relentless, sniffing my presence out like bloodhounds and tightening their coils around my body. They fill my mind with terrible sensations, visions of those I used to know suffering, screaming, breaking apart. I have to convince myself it's not real, none of it is real... but for all I know, it could be.

The apparitions of my family, friends, and rivals are as broken physically as I'm starting to become mentally. My thoughts circle around and around in my head, locked in a taunting, eternal dance of guilt and misery. If you aren't already broken when you enter here, the pits of Tartarus tear you, body and soul, until your fragile psyche eventually cracks into a fragmented shell of what it once was until any attempt at escape seems futile.

I gaze down at my reflection in the pool of water, at this moment smooth on the surface but boiling to the touch. I hesitantly lean down and take a few sips of the liquid, which I quickly learn at that moment to be scorching hot—it burns my throat and fills my mouth with the sensation of hot coals, before shifting to a subzero chill that threatens to freeze up my organs. My body is wracked with spasms from the pain, yet I force myself to swallow the water that appears to be of the opposing temperature extremes. Unlike the others I've seen here, I still feel alive. I need to drink, at least I think I do. The living need water, after all, and I still feel alive. If I die here, there's next to no way I'll ever get back to the normal parts of Equestria. Awaiting rescue isn't an option, even if you can hear me and know the Gate's location; I have to try to escape on my own power. If I just wait, you might come down here and be as trapped as I am.

But it's been difficult. I've tried, attempted to find a way to rush out and scream for help, or teleport up through the tunnels from whence I came. But my cries only mingle with those of the other souls trapped here and the monsters contained within. What I believe to be the exit, or at least the way to the Upper Tier, is still cut off for me; my lone chance of escape closed away. Even if I could reach the main holding cells in the Upper Tier, I'd still likely have obstacles to get through. If any guards come down here on behalf of Cerberus to check for any accidental living stragglers, none have come around to tell me so.

As I think of more escape attempts, all I have left now is my thoughts, the mental musings that are constantly brought about by the workings of neural synapses in my mind, occasionally appearing to manifest as creatures outside of myself. They could be just taunting me though. Inwardly laughing at my plight. Sensing my mental processes, making sure that every negative thought rises to the top of my brain. The thoughts of regret and shame for coming here.

I shouldn't of stepped too close to the Gates.

It's one of the many stories told to ponies from the time they are foals. Always a warning for those who misbehaved, especially for those with a mean streak. I didn't need to hear the others in Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns talk about it, since my own parents told me and Shining Armor the stories, the warnings. Always the same thing, when they suspected we were inclined to disobey them in a way that might spiral out of control later.

"Bad things only escalate," the saying goes, almost always accompanied by an adult's disapproving expression, "and if you let them pile up and increase, and if the severity is too great with no remorse, you shall be sent to Tartarus after you die. Crime in life calls for punishment in death."

Regardless of the tales and sayings that were so often spread, I always tried to be a good little filly, threats of imprisonment in the afterlife aside. I was diligent in my studies, polite to my parents, and never got into a fight with my brother. Surely those were the kind of ponies who went to the Heaven of Elysium after they died?

What did I do to deserve this? Why was I forever sealed in this place of torment and fire and chilling darkness? Why?

My mind seems to scream the word over and over to me, but in my heart I know why. I know what happened that led me to this fate. It wasn't through the fault of an extensive series of misdemeanors and intentional disobedience, or of a deranged slip into insanity where I hurt other ponies to the point of their deaths for the sake of personal gain. Nor was it a mass genocide in death camps which terrible ponies of the past had performed and gained infamy throughout the world for their crimes against life itself.

Those are the kinds of ponies and creatures that would be considered by many to deserve being in Tartarus. Not me, never me—Celestia knows I would never perform such cruel acts as long as I had my normal, sane mind... right? Regardless, I promise I didn't get here through awful actions in my life outside this place.

Unlike Elysium, only able to be reached when a pony dies, the living can find their way into Tartarus if they know where to look, or they wander there through accident. But with me, neither was the case. I went to the Gates twice. The first time I went to this place's entrance was to perform a certain errand, a retrieval mission. The second, the trek that caused me to venture too close, it was the Pull that drew me back.

What is "the Pull"? It's hard to describe, but being of an inquiring mind, I will attempt to do so to the best of my ability. A living pony may stumble upon the Gates for any number of reasons, and briefly look at what is in view. Cerberus, guarding the cavernous passage that marks the entryway. The Gates themselves—their physical structure, that is—appear to be made of stone, yet if one looks closely they're surrounded by an unusual spectrum of magical energy. Glowing faintly as if they were an illusion, a long-forgotten mirage. Maybe I just imagined their appearance, and they were nothing more than spires of stone after all.

But inside there is a darkness, a deep, penetrating darkness that seeps into a pony's mind and attempts to forcibly draw them in. Sometimes a shadow-like figure—a demon, presumably—will briefly appear to manifest, but it's a sort of "blink and you miss it" scenario. A vision that blurs the line between real and imaginary.

Those effects of the Pull lured me, but it started on that day several months ago... what I think was several months ago. The day when I had to return Cerberus back to the Gates. I pray this thought spell can transfer memory images too, as one of Trixie Lulamoon's spells had done at one point...

"I'll be back as soon as I return him to the Gates of Tartarus. Once he's back at home, there'll be no disaster!"

With that quick farewell, I charged in the direction of Ponyville's outskirts, levitating the large rubber ball up into the air for Cerberus to follow.

How is Fluttershy able to tame a creature like this so easily? I wondered to myself, keeping the ball at a steady distance from Cerberus so that all three heads would be focused on it.

I knew that, of course, I couldn't run forever—my body wasn't necessarily the most athletic of ponies, and my teleportation was limited. In all likelihood, I wouldn't be able to reach Ponyville again until the next morning. It was quite a long way from here to the gates of Tartarus. But when I really looked into it, I'd almost prefer if I wouldn't have had to travel there at all, if the Gates didn't exist on our mortal plane. At least then nopony could wander in by accident.

I wonder why such a place even exists in the mortal world? I questioned. Only evil monsters and the malevolent deceased are meant to enter it. Not normal ponies like us. Perhaps it's from the energy there that the power we call "dark magic" comes from. It certainly wasn't a hypothesis I wanted to test, however. Not only was I uncertain of how to conduct such a test in the first place, I wasn't about to dive into Tartarus itself and invite parts of my magic to be overtaken by the evil forces that reside there.

Time passed. The soft grass under my hooves eventually gave way to scorching sand and ragged rocks, the sun sinking low in the sky. Only a few stars were visible in the vast heavens, though with the distortion of perception that I could feel coming over me, I was unsure if it was a result of cloud cover, viewpoint, or a created illusion. Some ethereal presence was causing my mind to become hazy.

As I cantered through the foreboding landscape I knew would eventually lead me to my destination, with Cerberus pursuing the still-levitating ball, I began to mentally bring up everything I had heard and read about Tartarus.

I never had put that much thought into the afterlife. With all the dangers that I had faced throughout my lifetime—the threat of eternal night, a spirit of chaos, a shadowy king who enslaved other ponies—my mind was always so caught up in the heat of the moment that the consideration was replaced by a desire to meet the challenge that was set in front of me, for I knew that if I let myself succumb to a fear of death, I might never be able to go on. It hadn't occurred to me much during my leisure, either, after the lessons; nothing happened that authentically inclined me to consider the potential afterlife cycle of a pony.

It certainly wasn't something I'd think about on a normal day. And yet here I was, approaching the domain of the worst part of a pony afterlife.

The rocks around us grew into large monoliths, concealing gorges and spires, winding like an impossible maze as I noticed the ground caked with a mixture of mud and soot. Perhaps the soot was from the very edges of the Gates? Now that I was there, it was unnerving to think about.

The area grew darker the farther I went, though part of me wasn't sure if it was the sun setting or the very nature of the place. I hurried past spire after spire, descending down the long pathway, keeping the ball a few feet ahead as I went. I tried not to let any fear creep into my senses, just in case there were any sinister creatures around that could prey on it, much like a Windogo does on hate.

Finally, after trekking through darkness, soot, and who-knows-what-else, I saw that the darkness seemed to be deeper somehow, a circular hole, extending into cave-like depths. Twin spires towered on either side.

I knew I had to be looking at the Gates of Tartarus.

I tried to focus my gaze away as I realized I could hear voices. It wasn't entirely sure how long my gaze had met the entrance, or if I had wandered too close. I shoved the voices out of my mind, they had to be just my imagination.

I levitated the ball so that in rest in front of the cavern, causing Cerberus to leap in front of the Gate and chew the ball happily, each head taking a turn.

"Well, I see that's taken care of," I said, glancing once more at the cavern. I knew there was something there, something just beyond the reach of my hoofsteps. Part of me wanted to investigate, to know... but the other part of me wanted to flee as quick as I could.

I picked the latter option, hoping that the whispers that tickled at the back of my mind wouldn't follow me.

I know now that I shouldn't have dismissed the whispers. I shouldn't have just tried to return to my life of normalcy, pretending that nothing was wrong.

But the dreams manifested and kept their hold on me. The Pull calling me back. And that one fatal night, it kept me under its spell long enough to make me unable to escape...

The Grimme

For several nights after returning Cerberus to Tartarus, my days and nights were restful. Nothing was too out of the ordinary. Everything was fine.

Until the third night occurred.

My sleep was interrupted by a pounding I felt in the back of my head, like somepony had slammed a hoog on my head to jolt me awake. But nopony was present, and Spike was still sleeping peacefully.

"Twilight..."

I sat up more, frowning at the voice that sounded almost like it was coming from inside my head. And it wasn't my voice, or anyone I had ever heard. It was soft, almost like a gentle whisper. But the underlying tone of it was't quite as comforting.

I was about to turn to Spike and ask if he had heard that, but hearing the voice in my head once more killed the words in my mouth before they could escape.

"Come out," I heard it say.

It tugged me forward almost unwillingly as I rose to my hooves, silently trotting down the stairs and heading into the cold night air. Luna's moon shone in the sky like a search light, though clouds were beginning to pass over to blot out its light.

The voice's whisper turned my gaze forward again. Something was calling me, and I was drawn to listen.

My trek took me away from Ponyville, managing to turn my gaze back only occasionally. I wanted to run, to get out of whatever this pull was, but I couldn't even teleport. My limbs were moving of their own accord.

The grassy environment of my home city was left behind, fading into the rocky landscape that held Tartarus's gates. What vegetation there was, nothing more than shriveled branches, stretched their feeble limbs in my direction. Whether it was just my imagination of they wanted to be freed of this place as well, I didn't know.

I took step after step closer to the forbidden entrance point, the force pulling my hooves along the ground uncontrollably as if by invisible chains. Running, or even looking away, proved to be physically impossible for me. It was as if every limb, bone, and muscle in my body possessed a mind of their own in that moment. Whatever will I had maintained back in Ponyville had left me. The Pull wasn't letting me go that time.

I shut my eyes tightly, briefly giving myself to the darkness and praying that this was a dream. That I would wake up in my bed at the library at any moment.

But it wasn't a dream. Not even my eyes could be fully under my control. No sooner had I closed them that an unseen force pried them open, preventing me from escaping into my own mind where I could momentarily hold onto the illusion of safety.

As my hoofsteps echoed along the stone tunnel, I began to hear voices. Screams and snarls and wails, faint at first, then louder. The caterwaul of noise seemed to echo down from the pathway ahead, then creep into my own mind and brush my thoughts away as if they were scattered fragments of dust.

I dimly heard the curious panting of Cerberus's three heads from behind me, as if he—they?—were questioning what I was doing. After all, he was the one who guarded Tartarus itself, making sure that no being, whether monster, demon, or malevolent pony who had done great harm in their lifetime, got out.

Never had I heard it implied, however, that he ever stopped anypony from going in.

And as my hooves propelled me forward against my will, I realized that I had no choice. I did the one thing that I could do at the time. The one thing that I had been warned since my filly days to never do. The action that, with no will of my own, I was being forced to do.

My eyes were fully opened by force. My dark violet gaze met the deadly, all-consuming abyss. And I looked.

Not just a glance that caused the Pull to steadily creep into my head like before. I really looked. Just as I had been warned against doing. Feeling as if the presence of the darkest of souls were creeping into my body. The sensations from them appeared to attack the very organs that were keeping me alive. My lungs seemed to be restricted in their efforts to expand and contract, a weight compressing my chest. The blood flow to my heart appeared to cease. The very neurons of my brain caused evil thoughts to surface—thoughts of fear and pain and murder, my own voice joined by others.

The acids of my stomach churned in a turmoil that cased me to feel like I was about to vomit. I was unable to regain the control I desperately yearned for.

A few short moments after my gaze directly met the darkness, the faint noises of screams and snarls became deafening in my mind, so close that it seemed they could have been coming from me. To my horror, some of the caterwauls distorted themselves into my voice.

Destroy... maim... murder...

I attempted to cover my ears, to block out my own voice whispering those horrible commands in my mind. I tried to break into a full gallop, or scream, anything, but only a strangled gasp was permitted to escape me just as the demonic thoughts in my brain became invasive and encase what perception remained. Their thoughts were becoming my thoughts.

I attempted to put my hooves on my ears and block the shrieks, or cry out for help, or run without looking back. Something, anything to jolt me out of this state and free myself. But no relief came, nothing happened to release me. If I was screaming, my cries went unheard by anypony. Even Cerberus paid me no heed. I could feel the gaze of three pairs of eyes, staring, watching my forced movements but doing nothing to stop them.

Before I could react, an invisible grip, cold as ice, latched firmly onto my chest and pulled me toward the cavernous hole, sending me propelling forward, screaming, into the darkness. And thus my last view of the mortal world that day vanished into a rush of shadow.

The complete blackness of my surroundings, combined with the paralyzing fear I was experiencing, caused me to feel faint and disoriented as my perception spun. I attempted to focus, to teleport my way out, or at least stop the unseen force tightly gripping my chest. But just as at the entrance, the only occurrence was a weak spark of magic from my horn. And even that only provided a dim light on my skin, revealing nothing of my surroundings.

Velocity propelled me forward before a sharp decline caused another scream to erupt from my throat, the echo of my own terrified voice signifying that I was being forced through some sort of labyrinth of tunnels, the void unyielding to any form of illumination. As much as I hated to admit it, I was completely helpless, at the mercy—or, rather, lack thereof—of the presence whose freezing touch began to seep into my insides and claw its way into my heart, which seemed to pound ever harder in a desperate attempt to keep me alive and give me the adrenaline I'd need to escape. The evil presences that had invaded my insides had been simply holding my heart's blood flow in place before this thing could have its way with it.

A furnace-like heat surrounded me, an invisible fire so close that I felt as if flames would lick my coat at any moment, my imagination conjuring mental images of flames of varying colors and degrees engulfing me in their agonizing embrace.

Much to my relief, no flames shot out in jet streams from the heated walls as I had expected. But that wasn't enough to calm my psyche. I was only aware of the ever-encompassing blackness, the dark aura itself threatening to suffocate me as a burning sensation arose in my lungs to contrast my freezing heart, the stifling carbon-dioxide of an internal smoke smothering the oxygen from my deprived respiratory system.

Suddenly, I was thrown into complete darkness, the constant blows disorienting me still further. My muddled brain was in a whirl of panic, attempting to get some bearing on where I was now and where I was going. I knew that I was heading straight to Tartarus's pits - where else could I be going? - but I was unsure what would be there when I finally did arrive at the destination to which I was being pulled along.

Finally, the darkness lifted it's veil from my eyes as I landed with a hard thump on the ground below - well, what seemed to pass for ground. It was a broken, dusty-looking landing spot, with faint cracks filled with a magma-like substance.

Dazed, I forced myself to look up at my surroundings, intrigued despite my fear. Some said that Tartarus is a place of fire and brimstone. Some say it's a place of cold and ice. Still others say it is a void of loneliness.

Now that I am here, I can confirm that, while it appears that the "fire-and-brimstone" interpretation is the most correct of the Lower Tier, it contains elements of all three. All of which are terrible to see, let alone endure.

I've managed to avoid most of the torments—maybe it's because I came here alive with a clean conscience? Am I even alive anymore?

Through a few words I've picked up from some others here, be they monster, demon, or pony, I've learned that the lake which I now lay beside is known as the Lake of Extremes. It defies just about every law of science to me, appearing to alternate between boiling point and absolute zero. The worst part is that sometimes the lake doesn't explicitly show which state it happens to be in at the time. In those times, no bubbles rise to the surface as it boils, not is the surface frozen over as the temperature reaches absolute zero. If you dare to drink from it, you have to hope that you make the attempt in one of those rare moments where the pool of water is at a temperature that's safe to drink without the drinker being injured.

I'm curled up on the ground now, away from the heated terrain underhoof and the Lake of Extremes, no longer wishing to feel the alternating hot and cold sensations that seep into my body and cloud my head. My hooves curl tightly around my body, as I'm trying to get comfortable, only for my hooves to instinctively come over my ears as a loud scream resounds through the Sector where I've found myself. A moment later, it's silenced.

I lay down beside the linked chain in close proximity to the pool of liquid, seeing as it was currenty unoccupied by any prisoner subjected to the Lake's ever-changing inconsistency. I find the chain a comfort, as it is one of the few things in this place that has a smooth and cool feel to it, a lone medium in this terrible land. Some sense of normalcy. I cling to it like a frightened foal grasps their blanket to comfort them from a nightmare. Except for me, I'm living the nightmare.

My hooves close tightly around the metal coil as I shut my eyes, attempting to block out the screams and snarls and flickering flames. To recall memories of my former life. Ponyville, my friends, the Princesses... All beginning to fade, all steadily vanishing from the forefront of my mind as the fires creep into my mind and consume them. What parts of my mind aren't focused on the thought spell I'm using are intent on keeping the memories that remain. Even so, they're starting to slip...

I've learned that that's what this place does to you. No matter how hard you try to hold on to your former life, those you cared about... it all slips away like sand in an hourglass. That's why am using all that is left of my magic power to carry out this message, to attempt to reach anypony outside who might wonder where I am. To detail what it is that they'd face if they come here. To hope that someday, somehow, I'll learn of a way to escape and return to the Equestria that I know. Even so, I'm losing hope...

I'm struggling to hold on to my memories. Hold onto them and find a way out of this place. Even if it takes me a lifetime, a hundred lifetimes, I'll find some way out. Or maybe somepony will find me in here first and—

Twilight...

I'm lifting my head at the sound of my name. The source doesn't carry the tone or inflection of one of the demons or murderous ponies from before, nor is it anypony I know. It doesn't seem to be directly along the energy lines of this spell, so it's not another unicorn picking this up... It's ethereal, distant, and unfamiliar, but the low voice doesn't sound like it's threatening me. More curious than anything else. Maybe I— no, I have to keep sending this message through my magic, just in case.

Twiiiiiiliiiiigggghhhhtttt.....

I'm perking my ears up to focus on the direction of the voice, attempting to focus on the source of the distant call.

Come here, Twilight...

The voice said similar words to what I had heard from The Pull, yet the voice is not the same.

My other senses are becoming dulled to me, only the voice remaining. It's taking every ounce of willpower I have to continue to send this to the outside world. I'm standing and beginning to walk, hoofstep by trembling hoofstep, across the ground of fissures and fire. My eyes are staring at the sight straight ahead of me, at what appears to be a rusty-red mountain encircled by a ring of fire near the apex. I'm passing thin gray spires on either side of me, similar to those near the Gates where I came in—

Aaggghhhh! Agh, no—co—me o-n, work, work!

Okay, okay, good. Sorry... I accidentally broke the connection for a moment and thought I lost you—whoever's receiving this, if anyone. I was caught off guard by the thing that rose out of the ground in front of me. It appears to be a wraith-like shadow-being in the shape of a pony, but one even taller than Celestia and with no features save for its piercing yellow eyes. The bright eyes look almost like those of a owl, the pupils nothing more than a small hole in the center that almost appear to draw in energy to them, as if it's draining me of my strength.

It's getting harder for me to keep up my spell. I'm comfortable around owls for the most part, having one as a pet, but it's unnerving to me to see another being with the eyes of one - especially on a pony body. To make it worse, something in its gaze appears to be preventing me from running... at least my magic isn't neutralized and I can still send this...

"You are alive," I hear him whisper now, still in that low ethereal tone. "You were not meant to come here."

"It was the P-Pull," I stammer. "The Pull dragged me in—"

The being draws his face close to me, his owl-eyes burrowing into my gaze. "The living always blame the Pull. Did you try to escape? Did you use every ounce of power you could to get away?"

"Y-Yes, I did!" I glare sternly at him. "You're saying I wouldn't try to get away?"

"I'm saying that perhaps an inner part of your mind dragged you here."

I recall the Pull whispering in my mind, but there's no way I'll tell him that. He doesn't need to know anything. Unless he can read my mind... I have to ignore that thought. "Who are you?"

"Of course," the equine spectre is moving around me now in a circle, smoky wisps trailing behind each step, "that is often a question that sapient creatures such as ourselves ask one another, isn't it? As if a name makes them salient, more prominent compared to others. Not to mention, a name is merely given by a pony's parents at their birth, with no consent as to what the foal would choose because they cannot comprehend such things. So though you ask who I am, I could ask you the same thing."

I'm stepping back slightly, and yet I'm intrigued by his words. For his terrifying appearance, the creature seems a lot more conversational than openly hostile. "You already seem to know who I am."

"On several levels," the spectre affirms. "I know that your name is Twilight Sparkle. I understand that you harbor the essence of the Element of Magic. That you are the protege of Princess Celestia. Your greatest fear is of failure and disappointment... One might think you fear more for your own well-being in that case, caring more for satisfaction than the lives of your friends-"

"That's not true!" I demand, stomping my hoof and breaking out of my trance that his eyes seemed to envelop me in.

"Did I ever say it was? I said that's what one might assume, not what is true."

This creature is beginning to irritate me—I need to find a way out, not be tricked into mind-game riddles. "You're avoiding my question! Who are you?"

The pupils of his yellow eyes are widening, and his wispy right hoof seems to be gesturing to the whole of Tartarus around us. But somehow, I feel as a presence in my head, even at the very thought-path my magic is sending this along to the outside world, that he is in fact gesturing not just to Tartarus, but the entire world. "If we're talking on the subject of names, fine—you may refer to me as Grimme."

Grimme? But—no, connection, don't break! Ugh, this is getting harder, I need to maintain control of this spell. But that resolve is becoming difficult to hold onto, especially because I think I realize what the being is. "You mean you're the Grim Reaper?"

Grimme's laughing now, a chuckle that isn't so much cruel but more amused. He's standing in front of me. "That is what I am known as by many in your world. But I suppose you could say it's a matter of opinion. I am neither a reaper nor a demon. Merely a guide"

I remember that interpretation from the stories I've read about him. There were so many different interpretations of who and what he was that I had given up believing he even existed long ago. And yet, here's here now...

"You know," Grimme says thoughtfully. "I could potentially free you from here... on one condition.

I don't like the sound of that, but I don't see any other choice I have. "What?"

"... You must abandon your old life, and become a Grimme like me."