To Be Fair, He Probably Deserved It
In the quiet foyer of the Castle of Friendship, a corpse rests at the bottom of a staircase. Said corpse is of an unknown creature. It’s tall, it lacks a fur coat, and it wears simple clothing on its unassuming and somewhat pathetic-looking body.
The cause of death is obvious just by looking at it. Its limbs are contorted and the body is covered in minor wounds, but the fact that the neck is twisted in a direction that it shouldn’t be is clearly the cause of this creature’s untimely demise. Its position at the bottom of a flight of stairs means that one can reasonably assume what happened here.
The body has been here for some time, at least long enough to have gone cold. The silence in the grand-yet-quiet room is interrupted by the gentle buzzing of a fly, which comfortably lands on the corpse.
Suddenly, the doors to the Castle of Friendship are thrown open with a loud “bang.” A frantic-looking Trixie Lulamoon scuttles across the foyer, her totally-not-gaudy hat nearly falling off of her head all the while.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I can’t believe I forgot about girls night! I’m like, exactly-the-amount-of-time-it-takes-for-a-dead-body-to-go-cold levels of late! Ooooooh, Starlight’s gonna be so mad! And Maud is gonna get that twitch in her eye that really freaks me out!”
Trixie suddenly stops as she reaches the staircase, apparently having only just noticed the corpse at her hooves.
“...Ew.”
Trixie carefully steps over the corpse and begins ascending the staircase, but she only makes it a few steps up before stopping herself. After a brief, contemplative look, she decides to turn around once more. She looks down on the body for a few long, quiet moments.
She then gives it a hearty kick, causing it to flop onto its side.
“...Yeah, ew.”
Without even considering giving the body a third look, Trixie heads upstairs and trots further into the castle, completely unbothered by the presence of the corpse.
Morning comes, causing sunlight to pour through the Castle of Friendship’s many windows. The vibrant colors caused by the crystalline structure of the castle give the now fly-covered corpse some wonderful ambient lighting.
The buzzing of the flies that have gathered near the corpse is finally interrupted. From the direction that Trixie went the previous evening, three sets of hooves make their way into the foyer.
“I really didn’t expect us to sleep in for that long,” Trixie says with a yawn.
“We would have gotten to bed earlier if somepony hadn’t gotten here late!”
Two mares walk alongside Trixie, one being the tired-looking Starlight Glimmer and the other being the completely stoic Maud Pie.
“Look, it’s not my fault that the Great and Powerful Trixie has hundreds of adoring fans pelting her with questions every time she leaves her wagon.”
“By ‘hundreds of adoring fans,’ are you referring to Snips and Snails?”
“Of course not! They’re not my fans anymore, anyway. I’m talking about my actual fans!”
“The voices in your head don’t count as ‘actual fans,’ Trixie.”
“...Th-that’s beside the point.”
“There’s a body.”
Maud’s calm, flat voice interrupts the bickering mares as they reach the top of the stairs. All three look down at the mangled corpse with differing reactions. Trixie scoffs at the sight, Starlight looks extremely confused, and Maud’s right eyelid closes a quarter of a centimeter. And obviously we all know what that means.
“What the heck is that?” Starlight asks with a twinge of disgust.
“A body,” Maud replies.
“Well, yes, I can see that. But what is it?”
“I dunno,” Trixie says dismissively as she begins descending the stairs. “It was there last night, too.”
“And you didn’t do anything about it?”
“I kicked it.”
“Why?”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? The Great and Powerful Trixie isn’t a colonel.”
“I think you mean ‘coroner,’ Trixie.” Starlight hesitantly begins following her down the steps with Maud right by her side. “And you didn’t even bother to mention it to us?”
“I figured you knew and just didn’t care.”
“Why would I leave a corpse just sitting in the foyer?”
“It adds a lot to the atmosphere,” Maud says flatly. Her tail swishes slightly to the left while she does so. Oh, the horror.
“We should definitely get rid of it though, right?”
“You have fun with that, Starlight. I’m not touching it. Look at how… ugly it is. Er, was.”
“We still don’t even know what it was.”
“If you’re that curious, just show it to Fluttershy or something.”
Starlight stops just shy of the body while Trixie and Maud step over it. She scans it up and down. The fact that it’s clothed indicates that it’s a creature of higher intelligence, but as much as she hates to admit it, Trixie has a point.
That thing has to be the ugliest creature she’s ever laid eyes on.
“You know, I think we’d be doing her a favor by keeping this to ourselves.”
“Well, have fun digging that thing’s grave,” Trixie says with a dismissive wave of her hoof as she saunters towards the entrance of the castle. “Trixie is gonna go use the Pony Internet™ that we’ve definitely always had to pirate some movies.”
“Uhh… bye?”
Trixie exits the castle, leaving Starlight and Maud alone with the mysterious corpse. Starlight steps over it and stands next to Maud, who sniffs the air once. Goodness gracious.
“Maud, you wouldn’t mind helping me carry this thing out back, would you?”
“No,” she says calmly.
“Thanks.”
Starlight turns around to head for the entrance, but she suddenly stops. Having a change of heart, she turns back around and gives the body a solid kick before continuing on her way.
Within the next ten minutes, the pair would place the body in a shallow, unmarked grave where nopony would ever have to see it again and promptly forgot about it.
“WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME, LORD?!”
Anon, a human wearing clothes identical to that of the corpse, cries out with hot tears running down his cheeks. He sits in an office cubicle as he receives dozens of stares from his concerned coworkers.
“I was finally there! I was finally there!”
Anon is well aware of Equestria. He had always dreamed of going there, and after getting hit by a truck on the way to his soul-sucking nine-to-five office job, he miraculously woke up in a castle he was all too familiar with thanks to his favorite show. With a smile on his face and an optimism unknown to him, he took his first step on the way to his new, pony-filled life.
Only for that step to send him tumbling down a flight of stairs, where he promptly snapped his neck and died yet again.
When he awoke, he was back in his old world safe and sound, dressed and ready to go to work again.
Truly, a fate worse than death.
Author's Note
A modern Odyssey.
