The God of Death

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8 (updated)

Chapter 1

Alric, the Chosen Undead, had struck down the Lord of Cinder. He stood over the desiccated hollow corpse of the once great Lord Gwyn, holding Gwyn’s Lord Soul in his hand. The gold hemmed black robes — which he wore solely for their lightness and resistance against fire — flowed around him as he knelt before the broken body of the one almighty god he had just slain and prayed. He prayed to the only Goddess left in existence that was still alive and worthy of such veneration. Velka, the Goddess of Sin. He prayed to her that with his death, the Lord of Cinder’s sins may finally be forgiven. For now his sins would be forever undone and the world would be returned to its natural balance. The dark finally unbound by the curse, and the cycle of light and dark allowed to continue unabated as it was always intended.

After his death and subsequently being branded with the Dark Sign, Alric had spent what could have been and very likely was eons studying every facet of the curse in search of a cure. He studied how it functioned, its effects on the soul, its effects on humanity… its history… He learned it was the Gods, and specifically Lord Gwyn, that placed the curse on mankind as he Linked the Fire in a misguided attempt to unnaturally extend the Age of Fire and the reign of the Gods. Ironically dooming the Gods to extinction and damning humanity to eternal torment and suffering. It was the first and greatest sin ever committed and it was committed out of a desperation to cling to power, a misguided fear of the dark, and pure unadulterated pride and hubris on the part of Gwyn.

He had studied every possible avenue of undoing Gwyn’s machinations. Sorcery, pyromancy, miracles. He had read each and every last book within the Duke’s archives and learned all of the teachings Seath the Scaleless had to offer. He had traveled the world and found the Ringed City where he learned the secrets of hexes or abyssal sorcery from the Pygmy Lords themselves, including the time magic Manus had used to pull him back in time. After finding a way off the mountain top that was Priscilla’s home to further explore the painted world in search of secrets, he had accidentally found Velka living within and had learned miracles from the Goddess of Sin herself. Finally, he had even managed to convince Quelana of Izalith to teach him the secrets of the lost flame sorceries of Izalith by finding a method with which to truly cure the affliction her sister Quelaan was dying from.

Unfortunately he was unable to find a means of reversing the effects the chaos flame had on her that rendered Quelaan half demonic, but that was of little consequence. He would focus on curing the victims of the Witch of Izalith’s sin after he undid Gwyn’s curse.

He had tested and experimented developing his own spells and miracles based on all he had learned. While doing so, he had determined he was going to need all four of the Lord Souls to fully break the curse. Despite having only been made with a single Lord Soul, Gwyn’s Light Soul, it had grown in power since its inception and thus the power of all four of them would be required to undo it.

So he had spent centuries studying the door to the Kiln of the First Flame to find a way to open it without sacrificing the Lord Souls to the Lord Vessel. Eventually after nearly driving himself hollow trying to find a way to break that thrice damned lock, he found a method to simply trick the lock into thinking the vessel was filled with Lord Souls. However it cost countless trillions of more common souls. He had to make heavy use of time’s broken state and spend a truly hellish amount of time doing nothing but slaughtering entire armies of hollows and other beings to accumulate all the souls he needed.

However, just as important as having all four Lord Souls he would need the lord souls to be whole. He had already restored Nito’s Death soul to its former glory by merging it with countless other souls. He had also split the Dark Soul and merged it with its split pieces until it was on par with the other Lord Souls once more. Now the fragments of Gwyn’s soul held by the Four Kings and Seath the Scaleless would need to be merged with Gwyn’s soul once more.

To that end, once he finished his prayer for Velka to forgive Gwyn, he retrieved the fragments that were previously held by Seath and the Four Kings and began the process of merging them back with Gwyn’s soul. This took only a scant few moments. Less than nothing compared to the millennia he had spent working to get to this point.

When he was finished, he stood up and approached the First Fire. He placed the Dark Soul and the souls of Gwyn, Nito, and the Bed of Chaos around the fire then drew his Tin Crystallization Catalyst and Velka’s Talisman and set to work using the power of the Lord Souls along with his own soul and humanity not to relight the fire but to undo the Linking of the Fire and finally break Gwyn’s curse.

The three souls of fire began to glow brighter as he worked while the Dark Soul seemed to grow darker and darker until it seemed to be pulling in the light from around it.

By the time Alric noticed something was wrong, it was already too late.

His eyes widened in surprise as his spell became unstable as he accidentally triggered a trap cleverly hidden within the miracle Gwyn used to Link the Fire and cast his curse.

Acting fast he began shifting the spell and miracle in a desperate attempt to restabilize it and stop the trap he had triggered. However, it was completely futile. The trap was using his own magic, miracles, and the Lord Souls against him, feeding on their energy to fuel itself. He tried to mitigate the damage this trap would cause by stopping his sorcery and miracles, and had he had time to study and prepare, perhaps he may have been able to. However he had never in all his millenia encountered such a thing as this. The trap did not let him stop his casting. It forced him to continue against his will.

A moment later there was a blinding flash of light. He was being teleported somewhere. He barely had time to react in order to pull the Lord Souls to him so as to not leave them behind in the Kiln. He would not risk losing them. As long as he had them, he could try again. He would not lose so much as a single one!

The light faded and suddenly he found himself in the middle of an icy frozen wasteland somewhere. The sun was high in the sky, but he wasn’t anywhere he was familiar with.

He heard flapping, looked, and saw an unfamiliar fur covered pig-like creature running away from him. Presumably startled by his sudden appearance.

Looking down he saw that in his arms were all four Lord Souls. He had successfully managed to take them back before he could be teleported away. That was an immense relief to him. As long as he had the Lord Souls, he could always find his way back to the Kiln of the First Flame and continue where he left off.

The trap was rather pathetic, all things considered. Impotent even. Merely teleporting him away? Gwyn really should have had the trap destroy him entirely. It was a little worrying, honestly. After all, why would the King of the Gods resort to such a paltry trick to protect the First Flame? It didn’t make sense. It implied that there was something he wasn’t accounting for. Something more insidious. However, he lacked any information to work with. He had not had a chance to truly study the divine energies involved in his sudden relocation to determine how the miracle worked, after all.

So, he knelt in prayer and cast the homeward miracle, to bring himself back to the Fire Link Shrine. The divine light that was supposed to gather around him as he performed his miracle simply didn’t appear as the miracle completely failed.

He reeled in surprise. Frowning, he put away Velka’s Talisman and reached into his bottomless box. He retrieved a homeward bone and crushed it in his hand. Still nothing. Cursing he reached towards his chest where his dark sign was branded upon him. He didn’t want to do this. Using his Dark Sign was always unpleasant. However, he saw little choice.

His chest blazed with agony as he used his dark sign. He could feel his flesh rotting and his body desiccating as his humanity was consumed by the curse. However, this was all that happened. When it was over he was still within the icy wasteland.

With a ragged raspy sigh Alric withdrew a humanity sprite from his bottomless box and immediately restored his humanity. Through his research, he had long since learned how to do so without the aid of a bonfire.

Alric assumed this was part of Gwyn’s trap. The god had somehow found a way to prevent him from returning to the last bonfire he had rested at. It was much like the situation he had found himself in after the first time he was slain by Seath the Scaleless within the Duke’s Archives.

Frustrating but otherwise of little consequence. He just had to find out where he was and find his way back. If it was a situation like the Painted World of Ariamis, he just needed to find the exit. He would not, no… He could not allow this to stop him for long. All undead had a purpose that kept them from going Hollow. His purpose was ending Gwyn’s curse. So he would stop at nothing to fulfill his purpose.

Determined to overcome this newest challenge Alric set off in a random direction.

He walked for several hours before eventually noticing something. The sun was going down. When Gwyn linked the fire, cast his curse, and broke time the cycle of day and night had completely ceased to be. Instead, time differed from area to area. The sun could be blazing in the sky in one place then you could walk a few feet in another direction and it could be the dead of night. The best example of this he could think of was the short walk from the Firelink Shrine to the Darkroot Garden.

So the gradual shift in the light he had noticed should not have been a possibility. So he just stopped and stood there, staring up at the sky. He wanted to test to see if he was just coincidentally walking along a specific path that led along a particular stream of time that made it seem like the sun was moving or if it really was moving.

Time passed by and sure enough the sun went down fully and the moon began to rise.

“That’s concerning…” He muttered as he stared at the moon. If the sun and moon were operating in a normal cycle then that meant time wasn’t broken. If time wasn’t broken then that suggested something incredibly insidious of Gwyn’s trap. Either this was an illusion he would have to break out of, he was sent back in time to a point when time wasn’t broken, or… he was in another reality all together. He had long theorized other realities existed. An infinite number of them.

If it was true and this truly was an alternate reality getting back was going to be near impossible. That thought completely terrified him. He needed to get back. His entire purpose was ending Gwyn’s curse. If his purpose had become impossible to fulfill, going hollow was inevitable.

He shook his head. No… No, no, no. He wasn’t going to think like that. He could not think like that. If he did, it was over. Nothing was impossible, it just took time. And time was something he had plenty of. This was just a setback on his road to ending the curse, that was all.

He had to keep going. He needed to find a settlement and find out where he was.

Drawing his catalyst he cast a spell and created an orb of light above his head to illuminate his path before continuing on his way.

He heard a sound like something between the whinny of horses and the unholy shrieks of the lost souls within the depths of the catacombs or the ghosts of New Londo. It sounded like it came from directly above him.

Looking up he saw a stampede of spectral horses running through the sky in defiance of gravity. They almost resembled ghosts, which explained why they were able to fly as such.

Their souls felt only moderately powerful, so he was more than confident in his ability to slaughter them all if necessary. He prepared to grab a transient curse from his bottomless box, just in case they couldn’t be harmed physically. However they passed him by with seemingly no issue.

He raised an eyebrow at that. Did they simply not want to fight? Now that was a novel concept. In his experience unknown horrors from far off lands were always far too eager to attack whatever they laid their eyes upon, either unknowing or uncaring of the strength of their opponent compared to themselves.

He did notice the already arctic temperatures had dropped considerably as they passed him by.

As an undead cold could not kill him as it would the living, unless of course he was frozen solid and shattered, but it was quite uncomfortable. So he summoned his pyromancy flame and with a simple spell he warmed his ancient undead bones. He sighed in relief as the warmth spread through him. He had always preferred the heat of fire to the cold of ice, though the irony of that fact was not lost on him considering his ultimate goal.

He watched the equine specters gallop off through the air. With a shrug he decided to follow them. Why not? It wasn’t as though he knew where he was going anyway. If he was just going to keep walking aimlessly until he found something of note, that direction was as good as any.

He walked and walked, quickly losing sight of the creatures entirely as they were running and he was merely walking. He just kept walking in the direction he’d seen them heading.

Eventually he saw something other than endless fields and mountains of ice and snow. He saw a village. The spectral horses circled overhead and the buildings were covered in a layer of ice.

He sensed a few loose souls. It seemed everyone was dead. He momentarily considered consuming them but ultimately decided not to bother. He had consumed souls in the trillions, leveraging the broken time to consume certain souls repeatedly to gain as much power as possible. He had consumed enough that he was as powerful as any of the Lords at the very peak of their power. The souls of a single village of mortals meant less than nothing to him. It was like an arch dragon looking upon a few dozen ants and weighing whether or not to consume them. It just wasn’t worth it.

He could collect them to have some spare souls to purchase supplies with, as he had wasted all of those he had saved up when he tried to use his dark sign to return to the Lord Vessel outside the Kiln of the First Flame, but he wasn’t sure they accepted souls as currency in this world let alone this land. Besides, he still had plenty of souls stored in his bottomless box. He preferred to carry most of his currency that way since he had grown tired of losing his accumulated souls whenever he died more than once early on in his unlife.

So he just took out Nito’s Death Soul and cast them into whatever came next. He didn’t sense the curse of undeath upon them. It seemed they either weren’t human or Gwyn’s curse didn’t extend to the people of this world. Maybe both. So it was entirely possible they may have found their way to the afterlife or cycle of reincarnation or whatever was supposed to come after death on their own eventually. He had just sped up the process a bit.

Putting the Lord Soul away he realized he could still taste some souls within the village. Two. There were two that still clung desperately to life.

Curious, he approached the village, speeding up a bit. So many people he tried to help went hollow or worse. But he always tried regardless… Even if it always ended in tragedy, he always held onto some small hope that maybe this time he could make a difference. Maybe this time they wouldn’t be damned.

He’d only succeeded once. Maybe twice. Quelaan. Curing her was his ultimate achievement thus far. She was the only one he’d saved who hadn’t suffered some terrible fate. She’d even been reunited with her only uncorrupted sister.

One success out of hundreds of failures he could remember…

He half expected the souls to give out and die before he could reach them. It would certainly be just his luck if they did.

But somehow, miraculously, they survived until he managed to find them.

Interestingly there were no corpses outside as he had expected. It seemed everyone had rushed inside to await death. Perhaps these cold specteres were known to these people and they’d done everything they could to save themselves, but ended up succumbing regardless of their best efforts.

Alric reached the house where he sensed the two souls. He opened the door, walked inside, and quickly closed it behind him.

He looked around. Inside he saw the frozen corpses of two equine creatures with odd proportions and colors embracing each other desperately. They were next to a fireplace that had only a few struggling embers left on half charred wood. As if the cold itself had overwhelmed the heat of the fire and had somehow managed to snuff out the flames. Next to the corpses was a huge bundle of blankets. It was like they had gathered every blanket and scrap of fabric in the whole house and had bundled it around whatever was underneath the pile.

Alric suspected what he would find when he lifted the blankets away.

He summoned his pyromancy flame to his hand and lowered his hood, revealing his face. He had short messy black hair, almost ghostly pale skin, blue eyes, and a clean shaven face. Not a single scar or blemish marred his features. Despite appearing no older than his mid twenties, if one were to look in his eyes they would see the look of someone who had lived far too long and had seen far too much. Otherwise his features were quite unremarkable.

He started to approach the bundle.

“W-w-what’s th-that?” A muffle voice asked from under the pile. It sounded like a little girl, shivering in the unnatural cold.

“Shh! I-I-I d-don’t kn-know.” Another muffled voice whispered back urgently. It sounded like another little girl.

Alric paused, not wanting to make them panic. “I’m a friend. I’ve come to help. I have warmth. May I approach?”

There was silence for a moment.

“M-m-mommy? D-d-daddy?” One of the voices asked.

Alric sighed. “They’re gone, child. It’s only you and your sister here.”

“Wh-Wh-What d-do you m-mean? Wh-wh-where did they g-g-go?” The ever so slightly younger of the two voices asked.

“Ehem… To a better place, shall we say. Regardless, only you two are here so only you can answer me. May I approach? I would like to help you. I have magic that can warm you both.” Alric requested.

“P-pl-please… It’s… It’s so c-c-cold…” The slightly older voice pleaded.

“Very well… Just so you’re aware, I may not be the same species as you so don’t panic upon seeing me.” Alric told them as he finished approaching the bundle. He positioned himself so that the children wouldn’t be able to see the corpses of what he assumed were their parents as he lifted the bundle of blankets and held out his pyromancy flame. He had it radiate warmth enough to drive back the frost and cold, but did not allow it to set the blankets alight.

Just as he suspected, underneath the pile of fabric were two young fillies. They were both clinging to each other, shivering in the relentless supernatural cold. They looked at him in a mix of fear and desperate hope. One was ever so slightly larger than the other. She had pure white fur and a light rainbow mane and tail. The other was slightly smaller and had dark blue fur. Her mane and tail were lighter blue than her fur. Both had horns on their heads, like the unicorns in the myths of Catarina.

He tried to give them a warm comforting smile.

“A-are y-y-you a c-centaur?” The younger of the two asked.

“Centaur? No, child. I am a human. A sorcerer, to be specific. One who studies the arcane.” He told them, forgoing mentioning his curse. He didn’t want to scare them. Regardless, so Centaurs existed in this land as well? A myth of Carim. He’d seen first hand beings very much like centaurs. Quelaan and Quelaag both had the upper bodies of goddesses and the lower bodies of monstrous spider demons. Then there were other beings he’d met with the torsos of men and the lower bodies of scorpions. But he had never met a true centaur. A man with the lower body of a horse. Even in his journeys through time he had never once encountered one. They simply didn’t exist outside of fairy tales. Nor did unicorns for that matter. The fact they apparently existed here was telling.

Gwyn had sent him to a world of myths.

“H-h-how are y-you n-not c-cold?” The older of the two asked.

“The same way I am warming the two of you. Through pyromancy. Speaking of, I would like to cast a spell to warm you two more directly. It would merely speed along this process a bit. May I?” Alric requested.

The older of the two nodded shakily.

Two lines of flame emerged from his pyromancy flame and touched the two fillies. Very quickly relief spread across their faces and their shivering began to ease.

“There we are. Is that better?” He asked.

“Mhm! This is amazing!” The younger of the two nodded happily.

“It’s like when mommy puts us in a nice warm bath after we run around outside in the winter!” The older one stated.

Alric tilted his head up a bit and glanced at the two corpses for a moment before looking back at the foals, trying to decide how to handle this situation. “My name is Alric. As I said, I’m a human sorcerer from a land very far away. I sensed you two when I came across this village and I, of course, had to try and help you. What are your names?” He asked

“I’m Celestia. This is my sister Luna.” The older of the two informed him.

“Sissy’s six years old. I’m only four.” Luna stated.

“Ah… Well, I’ve been alive for a very long time and time doesn’t quite work the same where I’m from as some very mean people broke it for very selfish reasons. So I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest clue how old I am. I am, at the very least, tens of thousands of years old. Likely much older. I’m actually quite envious that you two know your ages!” He said, trying to be friendly.

The older of the two looked at him in confusion. “Broke time? How did they do that? And you don’t look all that old. Your mane isn’t white and you aren’t all wrinkly like old ponies.”

Alric sighed. “It's a long story… Regardless, I’m quite happy with my appearance. Imagine just how gray and shriveled I would be if I actually looked my age. Why, I’d put even the oldest driest raisins to shame!” He said with a smile.

The two giggled.

Then the older one looked at him in worry. “You said mommy and daddy are gone? Where are they? We didn’t hear them leave… Did they go get help?”

Alric winced. “Er… Not quite… I’ll explain in a bit… For now, can you tell me what happened here? What are those specters above the village? Why is it so cold?”

“Uh… Daddy said something about some earth ponies coming by with food, but there wasn’t as much as last year. So a lot of ponies started getting mad… Then we heard the windigos coming. Mommy and daddy said they were attracted by the hate between everypony else and those Earth Ponies. They said they should go away soon. But it’s been so long and they’re still outside…” Celestia explained.

“Ah… And I take it they’re the ones making it so cold?” He inquired.

“Mhm… Mommy and daddy say they bring cold and blizzards. They’re why everything is always so cold and snowy. The noises they make are really scary too…” Luna stated.

“I see… If I had known…” Alric muttered to himself. If he had known, he would have simply killed the beasts when he first saw them rather than letting them come here and destroy this village. But he couldn’t just say that to a couple of children who had just lost their parents. “Well… Do you have any family you can stay with in any other towns or villages? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents?”

Celestia shook her head. “Mm-mm…”

Alric sighed. “Of course… Very well. Then, I suppose I have no choice but to let you stay with me. At least until we can find someone of your own kind to take care of you.”

“But… Where are mommy and daddy?” Luna asked, not understanding.

Celestia looked worried, and tears started welling in her eyes. Alric assumed she was starting to suspect the truth.

“We’ll discuss it once we’re somewhere safer… I’m going to get you both out of here. However, the uh… windigos, was it? They’re very scary and I don’t want the water in your eyes freezing once you’re out from under these blankets. So I’m going to need you to shut your eyes until I tell you it's safe. Can you two do that for me?”

“But…” Luna objected, only to be cut off by a hug from Celestia.

“It’s okay, Luna… He’s been really nice and made us warm, right? He’s a nice human… So let’s… Let’s just listen to him…” Celestia told her little sister.

“Okay…” The younger of the two muttered.

Both of them closed their eyes and Alric wrapped them in a smaller bundle of blankets he could easily carry and picked them up. As he stood up, he noticed Celestia open her eyes and look at her parents' corpses. She stiffened and stifled a gasp.

Alric leaned his head down and whispered into Celestia’s ear quietly enough that Luna couldn’t make out what he was saying, “Shh… Please just close your eyes, little one… You shouldn’t have to see this…”

Tears started running down Celestia’s face and she stifled a sob as she closed her eyes.

Alric gave her a gentle squeeze in an attempt to comfort her as he started walking out of the frozen house carrying the two orphaned fillies in his arms. The flame in his hand flickered in the wind of the blizzard as he used pyromancy to keep them and himself warm.

He trudged out into the ice and snow of the frozen tundra and kept walking away from the village. Leaving the bodies of the dead behind.

He saw a cloth covered cart outside the village and looked inside. Huddled together were the corpses of the “Earth Ponies” who had brought the food to this village. There were still a few crates and barrels inside. Possibly their supplies originally meant for their journey back to their own village, or possibly supplies meant for other villages.

Being undead, Alric had no need to eat or drink to survive. He did sometimes but unless whatever he was consuming was magical in some form, he got nothing from it. So he didn’t have anything in the way of food to feed these children. Save for some moss, green blossoms, and elizabeth mushrooms. And horses were herbivores so he couldn’t just go out and hunt for them unless it was an emergency and they’d starve to death otherwise.

“I’ve found something. It’s not anyone of your own kind, but we’ll be needing it for later. I’m going to set you down for a moment. The Windigos are still here, so keep your eyes closed. My pyromancy will last for a few minutes even without me holding you both so you’ll be alright. Just call out to me if you start getting cold again before I’m done.” He told them, setting them down at the side of the cart where they couldn’t see the corpses if they disobeyed him and they did open their eyes.

“O-okay… Uh… Is… Is it…?” Celestia asked nervously, still holding back her tears.

“Never you mind, Celestia. Just keep your eyes closed and stay here with your sister for a few moments while I work.” Alric told the filly.

“What did you find?” Luna asked curiously.

“It’s a few crates of supplies. I don’t have food to keep all of us fed so I’ll need to collect what I can. I’ll only be a moment.” Alric told the younger sister.

Luna gasped in shock and horror. “Are you gonna steal? But stealing’s bad! You’ll get in trouble!”

“No, no, it was abandoned. Trust me. If I thought it belonged to anyone, I’d just buy it. I have currency and plenty to trade. But none of this has an owner so there’s no one I can pay and no one to be stolen from. So taking it isn’t stealing.” Alric told the filly as he climbed into the cart and started shoving the crates and barrels into his bottomless box.

“Oh… Okay.”

It only took a few moments for Alric to clear out the cart. He considered tossing out the bodies and taking the cart too, but he didn’t want to have to pull the damn thing himself. He could also make shelter with the crystal sorceries he learned in the Duke’s Archives so he didn’t need it for that. So ultimately it just wasn’t worth it. Just carrying the children would be far less work than pulling the cart.

When he was done he came back to see Celestia and Luna leaning against each other, still bundled in their blankets. Both of them still had their eyes closed like he asked them.

He smiled. Despite the tragedy of their situation, he was glad they could find comfort in each other. An opportunity many never had.

“I’m done. I’ve collected all I can.” He told them, picking them back up.

“Alright… Uh… Alric…? Where are we going…?” Celestia asked, unable to fully keep the sadness from her voice.

“Away from here, for starters. Then I’ll make a shelter for us to stay in. After that, I’ll start searching for a place that can take you in.”

He walked for hours with the fillies in his arms. Eventually they both fell asleep. He wasn’t surprised. It was night in a world where time hadn’t broken and the cycle of day and night was still consistent. It was far past the time they should have been in bed.

He almost envied them. As an undead, he did not sleep. He could not. The realm of dreams was far beyond him. The closest he could get was the time between whenever he died and when he was resurrected at whatever bonfire he last rested at. Those fleeting few seconds of peace before he awoke again and had to throw himself back into the meat grinder to overcome whatever challenge he was facing.

He hadn’t even had that in the more recent centuries. Once he’d reached the strength of a Lord, nothing but other lords could challenge him. Even then Manus had been insane, Nito had sacrificed most of his power to death, and neither Seath nor the Four Kings had a full Lord Soul, just mere fragments bequeathed to them by Gwyn. Even Gwyn himself had been little more than a husk of the once great deity he used to be, the curse he cast turning him hollow just as surely as it did all of humanity.

The Bed of Chaos had been the only one with the strength to defeat him, and she had incinerated him hundreds of times. Thousands even, before he had figured out her weakness. He had been on the verge of going hollow before he managed to see a glimpse of the bug in her roots. Only then did he realize how to truly slay her. It had been hell… He never wanted to experience those fleeting moments of peace ever again. They weren’t worth the pain of death…

These children could enjoy their dreams all they wished. He would content himself with the waking world.

Author's Note

I originally used this premise for a Pokemon Legends Arceus crossover but I ended up not going through with it. I just never played Pokemon Legends myself, I'd only seen videos on Youtube, so it got hard to figure out how to handle things. I thought I might be able to do a bit better in this setting.

Anyway, hopefully you guys like it!

Not sure how to handle Princess Amore. I originally wanted Alric to have been the one to make the Crystal Empire, and for the Umbrum to be his creation too for reasons I won't spoil right now. But then how would Celestia and Luna get their respective god souls? So I decided to go this route instead.

Maybe he can still make the Crystal Empire and Amore just so happens to end up being his best student in crystal sorcery or something. We'll have to see.

Chapter 2

Eventually the sun started to rise and Alric decided he had walked far enough. He’d been walking all night. They had to be miles from the dead village by now. This was as good a place as any to make a residence for himself while he was stuck in this world.

He would have liked to get permission from whatever king or lord owned the land before making his home so there wouldn’t be any disputes over land or some such nonsense but so be it. If there was a problem, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it

“Little ones, it is time to wake.” He said, shaking the fillies in his arms gently.

They both groaned and grumbled.

“Come now. I understand you didn’t get as much sleep as you should have during the night, but the sun has risen. It is time to awaken.” Alric told them.

Luna grumbled and stubbornly kept her eyes closed. It wasn’t long before she started snoring again.

Celestia yawned and groggily opened her eyes. She looked up at him in confusion then surprise then sadness. “O-oh… It… It wasn’t a bad dream…?” She asked, distraught.

Alric shook his head. “Sadly not… It was all quite real. And with your sister still struggling to awaken, let me just say, I am most impressed. You kept your composure well despite the tragic circumstance. You are quite strong for one so young.”

Celestia sniffled and tears started rolling down her face. Alric could tell she was barely managing to stop herself from crying and waking her sister up.

“Shh… It’ll be alright, child. The times may indeed be dark, however you still have your sister. And whilst you are within my care, I guarantee nothing shall happen to either of you. You shan’t lose anyone else, I swear it…” He tightened his arm around her a bit.

She nuzzled her face into his chest, still trying not to cry too loudly.

“I shall inform your sister in as gentle terms as possible what happened to your parents after you both have breakfast. So you needn’t hold back your tears much longer. However, I need to make a temporary shelter so that I might fix your breakfast for you. It shouldn’t be long.” Alric told her. He then knelt down and set her on the ground.

“Luna, wake up. I realize it's early, but I need to set you down.” Alric said a bit louder this time, shaking her a little more to make her wake up.

She whined and reluctantly opened her eyes. “Huh…? Where are we…?” She yawned.

“Quite a long ways away from your village. Since the sun has risen, I have decided to stop here and make a shelter so that I might fix breakfast for you and your sister.”

“Sleepy…” Luna muttered.

Alric smiled at her. “You’ll have a chance to nap after I have finished. I simply need you to stay awake for a few minutes so that I may work.”

“Okay…” She sighed groggily.

Alric set her down next to Celestia who was still managing to stay strong for her younger sister. He then stood up and drew his tin crystallization catalyst. He preferred the power and precision this catalyst offered him over normal catalysts, even if it drained him more to use it. At least when it came to general use and crystal sorceries. He had other catalysts that were better with other forms of sorcery.

Holding the catalyst in one hand he summoned his pyromancy flame with the other. With a massive stream of fire that made the fillies squeak in surprise and fear, he melted a large patch of snow revealing the ground underneath.

He looked back at them and dispelled his pyromancy flame. He gave them an apologetic smile. “My sincerest apologies, little ones. I did not intend to startle you. I should have warned you I was going to cast such a spell. I simply needed to clear out a space to lay a proper foundation and that was the quickest and simplest way to do so. Just so you are not caught off guard again, next I am going to create a thick floor of crystal as well as walls and a roof. Nothing to be afraid of, I assure you.”

He then looked at the clear patch of ground and raised his catalyst. Using the same magic as Seath used to create the crystal caverns behind the archives, Alric covered the ground in a solid slab of opaque blue crystal creating the foundation. He then stepped up onto the foundation and started constructing what he decided was going to be a guest house rather than his permanent residence. The girls watched from outside with their blankets still wrapped around them to keep them warm as he worked.

He started with the outside walls, making them a foot thick so they could be good insulation in their own right without needing anything else done to them. Though he did have ideas for enchantments to make the building immune to the cold of the Windigos. He didn’t want his charges dying simply because a visitor got angry for whatever reason and attracted those spectral death beasts.

Those abominations would have been hunted to utter extinction back in his world. Either by the Gods during or after the war with the dragons, or by kings who grew tired of their villages and cities being frozen. All because the tax man came to collect and there just so happened to be a bad harvest that year so the peasants got angry and their anger and hatred attracted the beasts. The Windigos were simply antithetical to how men and gods functioned and they would have died for it. A few might have been kept as pets by eccentric gods or kings, or as exhibits and test subjects within the halls of the College of Vinheim. However, those would be the very last of their kind. Not nearly enough to repopulate, let alone cause serious destruction on any scale.

Regardless, that was all hypothetical and of no real consequence as they didn’t exist in his world. The thick outer walls would help retain heat in these arctic temperatures as long as the Windigos didn’t come. He would make extra preparations later for that potential threat, but it wasn’t something he needed to worry about right this second.

In some of the walls he made thick panes of invisible crystal, much like the invisible pillars of crystal he had to walk across in the caverns. This provided an excellent view of the outside, and since the panes were almost as thick as the opaque parts of the walls, heat would not escape through them.

He moved on to making the inner walls, creating rooms and doors. The doors were thick and heavy being made of crystal but they were the best he could do on short notice without taking time to make them from wood.

He made a large sitting room with a fireplace, then a kitchen, a pantry, a storage room, and a study on the opposite side of the fireplace so that it would be heated by the thick crystal being warmed by the fire on the other side. Then he made stairs and worked on the upper floors. He made a couple bedrooms around the chimney so they too would be heated. The bedrooms were large enough to have multiple beds and hold several people at once since this was supposed to be a guest house. He also made a second smaller chimney for the crystal oven in the kitchen but he didn’t bother doing anything special with it since it wouldn’t be quite as useful for heating. Finally he made the roof.

Shards of Crystal were sheared off as the slabs of the walls and roof rubbed against each other leaving broken pieces and crystal dust all over the place. He was going to have to clean that up so the fillies wouldn’t cut themselves on sharp bits of crystal but he could do that later.

He went back downstairs and found the girls already inside and looking around a mix of awe and curiosity in their eyes.

He walked over to the fireplace and started putting wooden clubs he had taken from corpses inside, which he subsequently lit on fire with a simple pyromancy. The clubs were the best firewood he had and he did have hundreds of them due to the bad habit of hoarding he developed early in his unlife due to paranoia he had developed after losing his weapons in battle on several occasions. He’d long since gotten over that particular issue but hadn’t bothered to clear out most of the useless junk from his bottomless box.

“I take it you have not witnessed crystal sorceries like this before?” He asked them as he started the fire, already knowing the answer. Of course they hadn’t. Sorcery wasn’t something most common folk ever saw. Crystal sorcery even less so.

Sorcery was something only the rich and highly educated learned, or those fortunate enough to be born into a family within the Dragon School of Vinheim as he had been. And crystal sorcery in particular was something Seath the Scaleless had invented. And Alric had stolen everything Seath had ever written after Big Hat Logan went mad after fulfilling his purpose and Alric had finally slain the great albino dragon. So the only ones who knew Seath’s crystal sorcery were himself and the handful of people he had taught.

Celestia shook her head. “Uh-uh. Daddy was really good at magic but even he couldn’t make a house out of nothing.”

“I wanna make pretty crystals! Can you teach me, please?” Luna requested excitedly.

“Perhaps, little one. Crystal sorcery is quite advanced but I may consider it, should you have the talent and patience for it… Your father was able to use magic? He was a sorcerer?” Alric asked, surprised. A sorcerer living as a commoner? That was practically unheard of. The skills of a sorcerer were incredibly valuable so they would almost always end up in the military or in the courts of kings and nobility.

Celestia shook her head. “Daddy wasn’t a wizard like you. He was really strong though! He had the strongest magic in our village! He even got an invitation from the city to join the group that control the sun and moon! We were supposed to go there next month…”

“So knowledge of magic was common in your village?” He asked.

“All unicorns can do magic. Mommy and daddy even taught us some! Watch!” Luna said. She closed her eyes and her horn started glowing with dark blue energy. A similar energy enveloped a particularly large chunk of crystal that was on the ground and suddenly it started levitating up. Luna had a look of intense concentration on her face as if lifting that chunk of crystal was incredibly difficult. She then opened her eyes, the aura around her horn vanished, and the crystal clattered to the ground. She panted tiredly for a moment then smiled at him proudly as if what she’d just done was impressive.

Alric smiled at her and nodded. “Ah, I see. Very impressive, little one. Very impressive indeed for one so young… So those horns on your head serve an actual purpose. They act sort of like a sorcerer’s catalyst. How fascinating. To be born with a part that allows you to cast magic naturally… I shall admit, I’m almost envious. However, I do have one more question. What did you mean when you said your father was invited to join the group that raises the sun? Is there not a god or gods who control the cycle of day and night?” Alric asked, curious. In his world Gwyn raised the sun. And after Gwyndolin was born, he controlled the moon. Gwynevere was supposed to take over managing the sun after Gwyn left to link the fire, but time was shattered and the cycle of day and night was forever destroyed.

Celestia shook her head. “Nuh-uh… A bunch of unicorns in the city work together to raise and lower the sun and moon every day, just like pegasi control the weather, and Earth Ponies grow food. The unicorns who control the sun and moon work for King Bullion and Princess Platinum, and only the strongest unicorns get invited! Daddy was so happy when he got the letter…”

He raised a hand to his chin. “Hm… So, this place has no equivalent deity to Gwyn or Gwyndolin. Fascinating… Regardless, it's time I start fixing your breakfast. Be careful with the shards of crystal on the ground, they’re quite sharp. I shall have to clean them up but I shall get around to that in a bit.”

With that he turned and headed to the pantry where he started unloading the crates and barrels from his bottomless box.

“Wow… How does all of that fit in that tiny box?” Luna asked, amazed.

Alric glanced behind him and saw the fillies had followed him to the pantry. “This is my bottomless box. It is capable of storing nigh limitless quantities of just about anything. Even things quite a bit larger than the box itself can fit inside, within certain limits. Such boxes are said to be the ultimate symbols of avarice by certain individuals. However, I find it quite convenient for carrying all of my possessions with me.” He explained as he searched through the supplies.

One of the crates was full of hay, another had potatoes, and others had other vegetables. A couple even had fruits. The last few had salt, flour, barley, and malt.

“I am unfamiliar with any dishes involving hay. Humans can’t digest it as your kind can. So I’m afraid I must make something else. And do forgive me if I am not the best cook. I know the fundamentals but I haven’t needed to cook in a very very long time.” He told them as he started gathering some ingredients to make a simple dish.

He set up in the kitchen. Having no cooking utensils as he had no need of them before now he had to make everything from the pot to the bowls and utensils with his crystal sorcery. Except the knife. He had plenty of knives and daggers. It was better than nothing.

He had to clean the oven of crystal shards and dust but that was done quickly. Not wanting to clean the ashes that would be left over if he used more wooden clubs he then summoned his pyromancy flame and made a simple fire in the burner for the stove top. Using some snow from outside for water, he decided to make a potato stew. It was simple enough and it would fill them up so it would work.

As he cooked, he noticed Celestia had laid out the blankets she and Luna had been bundled in and Luna laid down on them for a nap. While her little sister slept, Celestia started picking up the shards of crystal littering the ground with her magic and carrying them outside. She could only hold so many at once so she had to make multiple trips per-spot, but she was trying.

Already doing chores without even needing to be asked? That was far more than he had expected from a six year old child. She was surprisingly diligent. Her parents must have raised her well. Or… Perhaps she had too much responsibility thrust upon her from a young age? Either would make sense. He would have to tread carefully in case it was the latter rather than the former.

“Celestia, you needn’t carry the rubble all the way out. Simply gather it into a pile. As I lack cleaning implements to offer you, that should be a tad less effort on your part. I shall take care of the rest later.” Alric told her.

“Alright.” She called back.

If only he had a broom or a feather duster, he could just give her that and let her sweep instead. But he didn’t. He hadn’t had a proper home in tens of thousands of years if not longer, so why would he? Since he was going to have to research a way to return to his reality, he was going to be staying in one place for some time. So he would have to acquire cleaning implements or make them himself. He did have feathers he had collected to make fletchings for arrows, so he could use those to make a duster. One thing at a time, however.

As he continued to cook he thought to himself. He would also have to study their horns and learn how they functioned. If he could replicate that effect in himself, perhaps turning his arms or hands into catalysts. That would be incredibly convenient. He could just cast sorceries with a flick of his wrist as he could with pyromancies. All he would need then would be to find a way to accomplish the same with talismans and he would have access to all three magics at a whim. Four, technically, if one counted abyssal magics as their own separate category.

Of course he could just consume the Lord Souls to cast miracles without a talisman just as the Gods could. Even just one of the souls would work. But no. He needed to keep them separate from himself. If he ended up going hollow, he didn’t want to have assimilated one or more of the Lord Souls before his fall. Because if he did, he would become nigh unstoppable. He was already as powerful as a Lord. So if he had even one of the Lord Souls and went hollow it would be a disaster of apocalyptic proportions. The power of two or more lords in a singular being. He would be the most powerful creature to have ever existed and he would be an utter nightmare of a hollow. It was not something he was willing to risk. That was the exact reason why he hadn’t done so up until this point. He had merely borrowed their power while keeping them separate from himself.

When he was finished cooking the stew he made a slab of crystal supported by four smaller pillars of crystal for something like a table the girls could sit at so they wouldn’t have to eat off the floor. He couldn’t make it too large as he didn’t know how chairs would work for them so all three of them would have to settle for sitting on the ground for now.

The three of them sat down and had breakfast. Though he didn’t need to eat, Alric joined them to make them more comfortable as it would seem quite odd if he was the only one not eating. It was quite interesting watching the two fillies use telekinesis to use their spoons. Telekinesis was a fairly simple spell but most sorcerers favored their hands, not wanting to waste the mental resources on maintaining the spell. But for a species without hands it made sense that they would rely quite heavily on it. And as a result it seemed their kind had refined the magic to be significantly more efficient than the telekinetic spells he knew. It was almost as efficient for them as using hands was for a human.

“I’ve never heard of humans before. Where are you from?” Luna asked.

“You wish to hear of my homeland?” Alric inquired, as he took a bite of the potato stew. It was a little over cooked but it wasn’t bad for his first time attempting to cook in centuries.

“Mhm… It used to be warmer here before the Windigos showed up. What’s it like where you’re from?”

“Hm… Well, to be honest I’ve been away from my homeland for so long I can’t remember much about it. As I told you both last night I am old. Very old. Far, far older than I look. It has been so very long that I can’t even remember the names or faces of my parents or my siblings… I spent most of my life traveling, searching for a cure for a curse cast upon my people. I can tell you all about so many different places. Lordran, Anor Londo, New Londo, the Ringed City, Thorolund, Astora, Carim, Lost Izalith, even ancient Oolacile. But my home… Vinheim…” He sighed and shook his head, the memories of his time in Vinheim far beyond his grasp.

Realizing he was about to go off and drag them down speaking of his own issues when they were already suffering from their own, he stopped himself. Instead he gave them a big smile. “So how about I tell you some stories of my travels instead? Perhaps the story of how I met my blood-sisters?”

“Blood sisters? What’s that?” Luna asked, curiously.

“Didn’t you just say you didn’t remember your family?” Celestia inquired, confused.

“Well, their parents are not mine. I was not raised with them. I saved Quelaan from a terrible affliction and reunited her with her real sister Quelana. We each cut our palms and held each other's hands to mix our blood. Ceremonially declaring ourselves siblings through right of blood oath.” Alric explained, mimicking the cutting of his hand with his finger and then clasping his hands together to try and show them what he meant.

They both seemed somewhat scared and disgusted by that. He smiled at them. “Hahaha! It’s not that bad, little ones. We had healing magics at our disposal and it was a symbol of our bond. You could say we were such close friends Quelana and Quelaan both agreed to accept me as their brother! But that explains very little. So please allow me to start from the beginning… Ah, but you need context for who Quelana and Quelaan are… So allow me to start with this.”

He cleared his throat. “In the Age of Ancients, the world was unformed. Shrouded by fog… A land of Gray Crags, Arch Trees, and Everlasting Dragons… But then there was fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course light and dark… Then from the dark they came and found the souls of Lords within the flame. Nito, the First of the Dead and God of Death. The Witch of Izalith and her daughters of Chaos, the Goddess of Life. Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight and his faithful Knights, the God of Light. And the Furtive Pygmy, Manus the God of the Dark, so easily forgotten.”

The girls were listening intently. He had their attention.

Smiling he continued, “With the strength of Lords they challenged the dragons. Gwyn’s mighty bolts of lightning peeled apart their stone scales. The Witches weaved great fire storms. Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease. And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own. And the dragons were no more.”

“But… Mommy and Daddy told us the dragons live somewhere in the east in a volcano?” Luna asked, confused.

“I believe I may be from a different world. I was sent to this world through arcane means, but that is another story. In my world, the dragons have been all but eradicated. Save a few that were strong, clever, or lucky enough to survive the war. Regardless, they aren’t quite relevant. My blood sisters are part of this story. They are two of the daughters of the Witch of Izalith. Quelana and Quelaan. Ancient goddesses who waged war against the evil everlasting dragons alongside their mother and other sisters.” He told them.

“Your sisters are goddesses?” Celestia asked curiously.

“Indeed. Daughters of the Witch of Izalith. Their flame sorceries are truly astonishing. Far different than any traditional sorcery as derived from the arcane works of Seath. Ah, but I digress. I was telling you the story of how I met them. Well, it all started when I was exploring a building in a land called Lordran, where I met a man by the name Laurentius. A bunch of cannibals had captured him and stuck him in a barrel! I slew the cannibals and freed him, of course. We became fast friends. He taught me the art of pyromancy.”

Alric proceeded to explain how he eventually surpassed Laurentius, met Quelana, and became her apprentice. He of course left out how the Pyromancer went hollow. Then he explained the fall of Izalith and how the inhabitants were all turned into demons except for Quelana while Quelaag and Quelaan escaped only half corrupted. He skipped over how he slew Quelaag, simply saying she met an unfortunate end. He then explained how he met Quelaan and how she sacrificed her own wellbeing to help others who were suffering, so boundless was her kindness and generosity. Finally he explained how he joined her covenant and did everything within his power to ease her pain and prolong her life before he eventually cured her

“It was then, after her sickness ailed her no more that she finally recognized that I was not her sister Quelaag. She was distraught when I informed her of the ill fate that befell Quelaag… But I managed to calm her by informing her that one of her sisters persisted, uncorrupted by the fires of chaos and with her sanity intact. It took quite a bit of persuasion on my part as Quelana was most reluctant but I managed to convince her to speak with Quelaan. And thus the two sisters separated by tragedy were once again reunited and their bond rekindled.” Alric finished his tale.

“Yay!” Luna cheered happily.

Even Celestia was smiling.

Alric was glad. That was, of course, his goal. To cheer them up. “Though I acted altruistically without any intent or desire for a reward, I did indeed receive one. Perhaps the best I could have been given. A family. Though none of us held any romantic interest in each other and thus marriage was not even to be considered, we made a blood oath and solidified our bond as siblings. They accepted me as their brother as if I too had been born of the Witch of Izalith.”

His smile grew and he leaned in a bit. “So, little ones, heed this well. Even in times where all seems lost, never give up hope. For just as with Quelaan’s sickness, there is always a solution. Quelaan inspired me with her kindness and generosity, and thus I strove to emulate her and cure her illness by any means necessary with no thought of a reward anywhere within my mind. I merely knew I could not allow such a virtuous being to suffer so. And so too should you strive to be like her. For with those two key virtues, kindness and generosity, you shall always be able to find friends and those who shall love and cherish you forevermore. Just as Eingyi and Kirk the Knight of Thorns love and cherish Quelaan.”

“Um… Could you tell us another story? I really want to hear more about Quelaan.” Celestia requested shyly.

“Of course! I’d be more than happy to! But you two have hardly touched your stew since I started telling my story. It’s gotten cold. Worry not, I can warm it for you quite easily, but I wouldn’t want it getting cold again. So let’s make a deal, shall we? I shall tell you more tales of Quelaan and you shall finish your breakfast. What say you?” Alric offered,

Both Celestia and Luna nodded enthusiastically.

“Delightful! Oh, but what story to tell… Perhaps something a bit more humorous? Ah! I know. How about I tell you the story of the time I accidentally walked in on Quelaan and Kirk having a romantic moment and ended up being chased halfway across the swamp? Oh she was quite cross with me. Ended up hanging me in a web for what must have been three days! Hahaha!”

They continued to talk until after the fillies had finished their breakfast. Then Alric prepared himself, knowing it was time. He waited until after he finished the next story he was telling them

“So… Little ones, now that you have warmth, shelter, and food in your bellies I believe it’s time. Celestia, you saw the truth last night as you looked when I had asked you to shut your eyes.”

Celestia slumped a bit and her eyes started welling with tears. Luna noticed this and looked at her older sister in confusion. “Sissy? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Alric paused for a moment and took a deep breath before continuing. “Luna, you were a very good child and kept your eyes closed so you did not have to see it. So I will tell you now, my reason for asking you to close your eyes was a deception, and I sincerely apologize for my lie. However, know that my reason for lying was ultimately to protect you. Now that you are safe, I will be honest with you. Last night when I came to your village, everyone else in your village had already frozen to death. You two were the only survivors. I told you to keep your eyes closed so that you would not have to see the frozen corpses.”

Luna’s eyes started to widen. She looked at Alric then at Celestia who had started crying. “Wh-what…? B-but… Mommy… Daddy… Where are mommy and daddy…?”

“They were by your side when I found you. Both were already dead. There was nothing I could do. I was able to save you two only because the blankets piled upon you had kept you alive long enough for me to arrive. It is practically a miracle you two survived.” He explained.

Luna shook her head, tears streaming from her eyes. “N-no! You… You’re lying! You big meanie! You said mommy and daddy left! Where are they?!” The filly demanded.

“No. I only told you that they were gone, child. That they were in a better place. Celestia asked me if they went to get help, and I said no. I lied about why I wanted you to close your eyes as I didn’t want you to have to see the corpses, but I never lied about them being alive.”

“No! Give them back! Give Mommy and Daddy back!” Luna shouted, throwing her now empty bowl at him.

He let it hit him. He barely felt it.

He reached across the table and grabbed the crying filly. She thrashed in his grip and screamed and cried.

Then he pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. “I’m sorry, little one. But they are gone. I’m so sorry…”

Luna continued to thrash and yell in his grip, not wanting to believe him.

Holding Luna in a hug with one arm, Alric looked over at Celestia and held open his other arm for her offering her a hug as well.

Celestia, knowing the truth, walked around the table of her own volition and accepted the embrace, crying into Alric’s robe.

The chosen undead held the two distressed fillies for a long while. Whispering to them and trying to comfort them. Eventually Luna’s anger and denial started to calm down and she just started crying.

He continued to hold them until Luna had cried herself to sleep and Celestia eventually started to calm down and regain her composure.

At that point Alric laid Luna’s sleeping form down on the blankets she had been napping on and started cleaning while Celestia laid down cuddled up with her little sister.

Author's Note

Alric's trying his best but these are two children who just lost their parents and had their entire village wiped out. Everything they knew and loved is gone. So tears are inevitable.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter! If you have any questions or criticism feel free to let me know! I'm absolutely willing to go back and rewrite this or any other chapter, past or future, if I need to.

Edit: I changed the chapter so Alric doesn't talk about his own life problems and rather tells the girls stories he thinks will cheer them up and lighten the mood. You can find the original version here.

Chapter 3

While the fillies napped, Alric cleaned the house and made a pair of bed frames for them. He didn’t have straw and he didn’t want to waste the hay in their supplies since that was food they could eat, if necessary. So he had to pile up layers of fabric and old clothes he had to make comfortable spots for them to lay at night. He liked to carry fabrics as that was something he could actually trade with the living before he had to move on. The same reason he carried common weapons and armor he had stripped from corpses since a good sword or suit of armor could be worth something to a mortal even if they were so weak as to be useless to him. It was a useful habit now as he couldn’t force them to continue sleeping on the floor as they were now.

He had thousands of feathers taken from birds he had hunted to make fletchings for arrows. Such was the nature of gathering resources over thousands of years, sometimes from the same bird repeatedly, without even really thinking about it as he went along his daily business. But making a feather bed would take time and effort. He hoped they wouldn’t stay long enough for him to need to make feather beds for them. They belonged with their own kind. And he knew they would probably detest staying around a monster like him if they knew what he really was. And why wouldn’t they? He was a cursed soul consuming walking corpse who may one day go mad after all.

The Undead were persecuted by the living and for good reason.

When the beds were done, Alric went outside and made an outhouse. The living required such things. Hopefully it would suffice in lieu of a proper sewage system.

When that was done, he started working on what would be his permanent home whilst he researched a way to return to his own world. He started building a castle out of crystal.

It would be a two or three day project since he was going to have to stop and take care of the fillies every so often until he was finished. However, he was going to need a proper lab to conduct his experiments and a grand library on par with, if not far surpassing, the Duke’s Archives. Perhaps a greenhouse to grow various medicinal mosses, Green Blossoms and Elizabeth Mushrooms so he would have products to trade with the ponies once he got in contact with them, so that he might purchase parchment and empty books from them for all the notes he would have to take. His little guest house was not going to suffice for that.

Perhaps he should also build a chapel where he could keep the Lord Souls separate from himself whenever he didn’t need them. Keeping the souls in his bottomless box where he had easy access to them was a risk he had no choice but to take in his world. In this world, why would he do such a thing? He needed to keep them safe, no doubt. Both from others and from himself in the event he started to go hollow. The biggest issue would be security to keep the souls safe but he had ideas for that. Nito’s miasma of death and disease could lay low even the other Lords at the height of his power and with Nito’s death soul restored to its former strength, Alric could use it to set up the Miasma as a trap for those foolish enough to try.

As he was working on the entrance hall he sensed the souls of Celestia and Luna moving once more. They had woken up from their nap. He kept track of them but continued working. He wanted to give them some time to themselves to grieve. And for Celestia to convince Luna of the truth assuming the filly believed he was still at fault for their deaths or “disappearance”.

He just started working on the library connected to the main entrance hall when he sensed their souls getting closer.

Putting his catalyst away, he turned and headed back to meet them in the entrance.

He saw them looking up at the two massive open doors in awe. They must have never seen a building so large before. The doors by themselves were taller than an average two story building after all. That also meant they would be almost impossible for anyone else to open due to their incredible weight as they were made of crystal, but he could make a simple golem for that.

“Hello, little ones… How are you two feeling?” He asked in a gentle tone.

“Sad… We miss mommy and daddy…” Celestia said glumly. Both of them looked as though they had just been crying.

Alric nodded. “I know it must be hard, especially for ones so young. You have my deepest sympathies. If there is anything I can do to ease thy burden, simply inform me and I shall endeavor to do all I can to support you.”

“I’m sorry…” Luna sniffled.

“Whatever for?” Alric asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I yelled at you… I threw things at you and hit you… I was bad… I’m sorry…” Luna explained, looking at the ground.

Alric walked over to her, knelt down, and lifted her into a hug. “You had just learned of your parents’ fate and were understandably distraught. I would advise against lashing out like that in the future as violence is the wrong way to cope with grief, but I understand your pain and of course I forgive you.”

He set the filly back down and stood back up. “Is there anything either of you need? I’ve made an outhouse if you need to relieve yourselves, and I do have a tea set if you’re thirsty. I like to make tea out of a plant called a Green Blossom. It’s quite good and Green Blossom has arcane properties that will restore stamina. I oft consume it raw which is… unpleasant… but the tea is quite good in my opinion. Or perhaps you require something to entertain yourselves? I have a wonderful chess set that has been tragically underused in recent centuries. Perhaps I could teach you how to play. I would offer books to read, if your parents taught you to read, except I doubt I have any tomes written in languages you might be familiar with.”

“Um… Tea might be nice… But, what is this? This place is huge! What about the house you already built?” Celestia asked.

“This shall be my permanent residence. I require a significant amount of space for my research. A sizable library to store my books, a lab for research and experimentation, a study for reading through my books and penning hypotheses and theories, a garden to grow medicinal plants I might sell, among other amenities for you two and any other guests I might have in the future. So I am constructing a castle to meet all of my needs. It should be complete in two, maybe four days. The smaller house I made was a temporary measure so we would have shelter whilst I construct the castle and later it shall serve as a guest house for travelers and the like.” Alric explained.”

“That seems like a lot to clean…” Celestia muttered.

Alric waved his hand dismissively. “You needn’t concern yourself with that. I shall simply make some simple golems to clean and maintain the castle. You two are my wards, not my maids and I shan’t put you to work as such. I am not so cruel as to force children to clean a castle of the size I shall build.”

If Seath could make Crystal golems to kidnap maidens for his unethical experimentation and to fight intruders or those who would save the maidens they kidnapped, Alric could make golems to do something so simple as cleaning. Searching out candidates with the qualities Seath sought and being capable of fighting required a great deal more complexity than simply cleaning, dusting, and patching chips or cracks.

“What’s a golem?” Luna asked.

“A magical construct of sorts. I shall show you once I have made one. For now, let’s return and I shall set the tea to boil over the fire.” He led the fillies back to the house and started making some green blossom tea.

In the coming days, Alric would teach the fillies how to play chess, would tell them stories of his past that he thought had a pleasant ending, were humorous, or had a good lesson they could learn from. Celestia seemed to really enjoy stories of Quelaan and Big Hat Logan, and seemed to have an affinity for Gwyn, Gwynevere, and Gwyn’s first born. At least with the more positive tales he told of the deities, leaving out their various misdeeds. Luna on the other hand linked his more humorous stories and enjoyed the legends of Artorias and the Four Knights of Gwyn. As opposed to her sister, Luna seemed to have an affinity with Gwyndolin.

Alric actually began to wonder if their names had something to do with it. Celestia held an affinity for the deities with a connection to the sun whilst Luna had affinities with the god of the moon. He eventually dismissed it as pure coincidence but it was an interesting coincidence at the very least.

Eventually his castle was completed and Alric had made the golems to open and close the doors and clean the castle.

The front doors had heavy knockers and a pulley system to ring a bell that was enchanted to be heard throughout the entire castle. The entrance halls had enchanted braziers for both lighting and warmth. The flames would easily burn for hundreds of years before they needed to be reignited and as with most magical flames they produced no smoke.

His library was practically a castle in its own right, easily double the size of the Duke’s Archives and thus capable of storing countless books. His study was connected to the second floor of the library and was actually about the size of a typical study. His lab was larger than most houses and had five floors each connected by two spiral staircases.

What would become his garden was a massive domed building supported by thick arches. The roof of the dome was semi-opaque. The plants Alric wanted to grow preferred darker places but the dome would let in just a bit of natural sunlight in case he decided to grow more than just his mosses, green blossoms, and elizabeth mushrooms which he very well might. The whole building was about five hundred feet in diameter and had crystals enchanted to maintain a specific temperature so it couldn’t get cold enough to kill the plants. He could even make a small artificial lake within the garden to maintain the humidity and keep the plants watered if he so chose.

His chapel was in the very back of his castle and was larger than his garden, supported by thick pillars of crystal and lit by braziers like the one in the entrance hall. Along the walls were four massive statues the size of the Iron Golem of Sen’s Fortress. They were designed to resemble the four Lords. There were dozens of smaller crystal statues that resembled knights. Each of the statues would eventually be golems, but it would take time to enchant them all.

When they were finally animated, the four larger statues would each have a tiny fraction of the power of the souls that originally belonged to the Lords they represented, and thus they would each individually be as powerful as Seath or the Four Kings and could thus challenge gods and win. Whereas the smaller golems would be strong enough to match Gwyn’s Black Knights. Alric was taking the security of the Lord souls very seriously.

At the back of the chapel were four pedestals for the Lord Souls. He was debating if they needed much more protection than this considering this was a different world and presumably no one else would even know they existed let alone how powerful they were.

He would put some cursory enchantments around the pedestals to make him aware of anyone getting too close to them, casting spells on them, or even merely using magic to observe them remotely. If he noticed any interest in them from anything in this world, he would put in place defenses that would make Lord Gwyn himself pale at the thought of trying to break in to Alric’s Chapel. Entire armies wouldn’t be able to siege it and gods as powerful as Gwyn’s First Born or Velka would wither and die long before they could get anywhere near the souls.

But that was only if it proved necessary.

Alric also made a kitchen, a pantry, guest rooms, a sitting room, a ball room, and an infirmary just in case he ever had visitors and the guest house proved insufficient.

It was the day after Alric had finished his castle and he was trudging through the icy wasteland again. Celestia and Luna were back at his castle, safe and warm, likely playing chess as they had both taken to the game after they had both learned how the pieces moved. He, on the other hand, was looking for this ‘city’ the girls kept mentioning. As much as he enjoyed the company, he wanted to get them back amongst their own people as soon as possible.

Having changed out of his gold hemmed black robes, Alric was currently wearing the uniform of the Pardoners of Velka, minus the helmet. It was the most regular attire he owned and it was considerably more comfortable to wear than armor. On his hand were several rings. The Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, Lingering Dragon Crest Ring, the Ring of The Sun’s First Born, and his Old Witch’s ring. They were the rings he always wore for everyday use. And he had learned the Old Witch’s ring was the only reason he could understand Celestia and Luna in the first place. He was going to make an effort to learn their language eventually, just as he had learned the language of Izalith, but for now he needed the ring to translate for him. Especially once he found this ‘city’.

He tried asking Celestia for directions but she only knew general cardinal directions from her village, not an exact distance or location. So she wasn’t very helpful in that regard. Still he went in the cardinal direction she said the city was in.

To speed things along and cover more ground, Alric would cast a spell to teleport ahead several miles. And to make sure he wasn’t passing anything by he would teleport ten miles to the left and right of his primary path.

It didn’t take him terribly long to spot a village.

He teleported relatively close to the village, put his catalyst back in his bottomless box, and made the rest of the way on foot.

The village had a bunch of what appeared to be fruit trees around it but the leaves were sparse and they only had a few struggling buds. There were also a couple of fields with a few struggling crops. The fact the trees had any leaves or flowers and that the crops were growing at all shocked him, considering how cold it was. It had to have been the work of some kind of magic. Something like pyromancy perhaps, considering Pyromancy worked through a connection with nature. He had no idea how that would work as he’d never heard of nor seen such a spell, but he may have been able to do something vaguely similar as a miracle with the Life Soul. He wasn’t fully certain as he’d never done something like that before but maybe?

He reached the edge of the village and saw it was full of ponies going about their daily business, bundled in layers of clothes to resist the cold. Some seemed to tough it out and walk around with nothing but their own fur.

They were all Earth Ponies, he realized. None of them had horns like Celestia or Luna and none of them had wings like the pegasi who the fillies claimed controlled the weather.

The ponies noticed him and bolted, running back into their houses. Slamming their doors and shutting their curtains.

The village cleared as he passed through it until everyone was hiding inside.

He sighed. It was just like passing through a village with his hollowed form exposed. He was a pariah here just as much as he was back in his own world. Oh well. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. At least these ponies were less likely to chase him with torches, pitchforks, scythes, and whatever else, or call the Undead Hunters of the Church to try and capture him and drag him back to the Undead Asylum.

He knocked on a door. “Excuse me, I do not mean to intrude, I simply need directions elsewhere. If you could be so kind as to help me, I shall be off immediately.”

He heard muttering inside. “Buck off! We ain’t got no directions for no freak like you!” A voice called back.

Alric pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and took a deep breath. “Very well, I shall try another house… Perhaps someone in this village shall be a bit more reasonable.” He muttered under his breath.

And so he did. He tried another house, then another, and another. Eventually he realized no one here was going to help him.

He decided to try his luck amongst the orchard and fields. Perhaps he could find someone who was working and ask them directions. Otherwise, he had an experiment he could try.

He saw a deep red almost purple-ish earth pony with what appeared to be a tattoo of an apple on its haunches. It was bucking an apple tree. Only a meager few apples fell out of the tree and into baskets set up to catch them.

“Excuse me. Might I have but a moment of your time?” Alric asked, approaching the pony.

It looked at him and upon seeing him it immediately glowered at him. “I ain’t got nuthin’ to say to a varmint like you! Ya better get on outta here before I make ya!” It sounded male. Looking at it Alric could make out signs of sexual dimorphism based on what he had seen of the ponies so far. This one was a male, so the males were slightly taller and bulkier than the females and their facial structures were slightly different too.

“I would love nothing more than to leave. I simply need directions. Please, would you be so kind as to tell me which direction I might go to reach a city? I know not its name but I believe it’s the capital.” Alric requested.

The pony’s glare intensified. “No! Just told ya I ain’t got nuthin’ to say ta ya. Now get, ya varmint! This is the last time I’m gonna tell ya!”

Alric sighed and turned. “Very well… However, before I go…” With his bottomless box on the opposite side of his body from the pony, he reached in and grabbed the Life Soul. With the golems not currently enchanted he didn’t want to risk leaving the souls completely unguarded. So they were all still in his bottomless box.

With the Life Soul he began channeling its power and cast a spell. The soul glowed brighter and what looked like tendrils of fire began to spread out from it in all directions like roots.

The pony looked at him in confusion as it noticed the soul in his hand and the tendrils of fire. “What in blue blazes are ya doin’ dagnabbit?!” He exclaimed in shock and some amount of fear.

“Helping.” Alric said simply.

The light got brighter to the point the pony had to protect his eyes with its forelimb and more tendrils emerged from the soul spreading significantly faster.

Around them the orchard practically sprang to life. Leaves grew in an instant, flowers bloomed and became fruit, the fruit expanded and grew. The ice and snow on the ground melted giving way to soil which sprouted grass. The effect wasn’t limited to the orchard either. It spread to the fields where crops started to grow in seconds and grow to significant size at that. When the light finally began to fade along with the tendrils of flame, it looked very much as though the orchard and crops had been blessed by a god.

“That’s it! I don’t know what the buck ya just did with yer fancy magic but I’ma kick... your… f-flank?” The pony started to say furiously but trailed off as he saw the state of the orchard.

While the pony was distracted Alric quickly stowed the life soul back in his box. He would prefer if the pony thought he had done this with pyromancy rather than letting him realize the existence of the life soul. “As I said, I was helping. I cannot imagine your crops were doing well in this cold so I thought I might assist as best I could. Please enjoy the bounty of this harvest. Take it as my apology for the disturbance I caused. I never meant to upset anyone with my presence. Now I shall take my leave and darken this land with my presence no longer.” Alric bowed politely and started to walk off.

“Now hold on there partner!” The pony ran over to him and blocked his path. He gave Alric an apologetic look. “Look, uh… I’m sorry about how I treated ya. It’s just…”

Alric smiled at the pony. “I’m a foreign creature who you are not familiar with and don’t know if you can trust. I completely understand and I do not hold it against you. Especially in times such as these with the windigos about. As I said, this is my own apology. I intended no discomfort yet I have caused much and the discomfort I caused risked bringing those horrid beasts upon this village. I was careless and it shames me.”

“Nah, it ain’t no big thing… I treated ya unfairly and I’m guessin’ the folks in the village did too… Tell ya what! We got a big harvest ahead of us thanks to you and a long day’s work ahead of us. I’m gonna go round up some ponies to help harvest all this and we’ll have a big celebration to make it up to ya!” The pony told him with a big smile on his face.

“Oh no that really isn’t necessary. All I need are direct—”

Alric was cut off by the pony who started pushing him back towards the village. “Nope! We gotta do somethin’ to thank ya for all this. We’ll give ya whatever directions ya need later but before that we’re gonna show ya some good ol’ earth pony hospitality!”

Alric was somewhat caught off guard by this. He thought there was a small chance they might be willing to give him directions if he helped them like this but he had truly been planning on leaving after using the life soul to make their crops grow. He hadn’t been counting on any sort of reward, even his directions, he had simply wanted to help despite how they treated him. He most certainly hadn’t been expecting a celebration or feast in his honor.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. “Very well. I shall oblige. However, you must allow me to go collect my wards.”

“Wards? Ya mean like some fancy schmancy protective magic like the unicorns use? Whaddya need that for?” The Earth pony asked confused.

“No, no. Wards as in children… er, foals who I recently rescued from a rather tragic situation. Sisters. I’m currently caring for them until I can find a proper home for them.” Alric explained.

“Ooooh… Sorry, with that whole light show and the plants growin’ I really thought you were talkin’ about magic… Sure! You go get them fillies and come right on back, ya hear?” The pony told him.

“They’re unicorns. I rescued them from a village that was frozen by windigos. Will their race be an issue?” Alric asked.

“Unicorns? Hm… Well, so long as they’re well behaved it should be fine. First, come on. We gotta go tell everypony this is yer doin’.” The Earth pony started pushing Alric back towards the village again.

Alric chuckled and started walking back. “Haha! Very well. Just so you are aware, my name is Alric. What’s yours, good sir?”

“I’m Crimson Crisp! Nice to meet ya, Alric!” The pony introduced himself.

Crimson Crisp led Alric out of the orchard and back towards the village. Once they reached the edge of the orchard they saw a small crowd of ponies gathered looking at the fields and orchard.

As they exited the orchard Crimson Crisp ran ahead and explained the situation to everyone. As he talked, the ponies' demeanor towards Alric started to change. They started smiling at him and were much more open. When Crimson Crisp finished talking several ponies came up and apologized to him while others headed to the orchard or fields to start working immediately.

It was a massive change of pace for him. He was used to being hated and ostracized due to his status as an undead. This was a nice change of pace for him. Even if the only reason these ponies liked him at all was because he had made their crops grow and they might want him to do it more.

He eventually managed to get past the ponies to set up a marker to make it just a bit easier to teleport back to this village for a few days. When that was done he drew Velka’s talisman and cast the homeward miracle. He ended up back in the entrance hall of his castle.

Smelling the souls of Celestia and Luna, he made his way towards them.

He found them in the midst of a game of chess.

“Check mate, I win!” Luna cheered happily.

Celestia smiled and knocked over her own king. “Good job, Luna! I didn’t notice your knight until it was too late.”

“Still playing chess? Ha! I’m glad you two have taken such a liking to the game. I quite enjoy it myself.” Alric said as he entered the sitting room where they were playing.

“Alric! Did you find the City already?” Celestia asked him. She almost seemed somewhat nervous as she asked him that.

He shook his head. “No, but I did find a village of Earth Ponies. They agreed to give me directions, but first I assisted them in growing their crops and thus there is going to be a feast. I couldn’t simply leave you two here whilst I attend by myself. So I’m here to collect you.”

“Earth Ponies…?” Luna asked uncertainly.

It was then Alric remembered the Windigos only came to their village after the Earth Ponies came with less food than usual. He winced at his oversight. “Ah… Right… They assured me there would be no trouble despite the fact you two are unicorns. However, you needn’t attend if you believe the situation will be too uncomfortable for you.”

Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a moment.

“Sissy?” Luna asked, looking to her sister for a decision.

Celestia bit her lower lip before looking back at Alric. “Are you sure it’ll be okay…?”

“You have my word. And even if there were to be an incident, I would keep you and everyone else safe. No ill shall befall you or those around you whilst you remain within my care.”

Celestia thought to herself in silence for a moment. Eventually she nodded. “Okay… We’ll come…”

“Are you certain? Please, you needn’t feel pressured. If you don’t wish to attend I can fix your lunch and dinner for you before returning on my own.” Alric asked, worried for them.

“Mhm. I’m sure… You said it’ll be okay. We trust you, Alric.” Celestia stated.

Alric gave her a gentle smile. “Very well. If you’re certain, then come. Let’s not keep them waiting.” He drew his catalyst, knelt down, and held out his hand to the fillies.

They came over to him and he teleported all three of them to the Earth Pony village.

Author's Note

Forgive the Earth Pony accent and word choice. I decided to portray it like it is in the main show for the sake of simplicity, but in actuality it would be more like a precursor to the southern/texan accent Applejack has in the show.

Anyway, I thought it made since for the life soul to be able to speed up the growth of crops. Especially considering what Alric used it for in the original version of the story which he's going to use it for in this one too, eventually.

As I said in the previous chapter if you have any criticisms please feel free to let me know. I would prefer to know what I did wrong so I can fix it rather than being left in the dark and never realizing I made a mistake.

Chapter 4

Alric arrived at the village with Celestia and Luna. He cast a pyromancy on them to keep them warm for several hours without heavy clothing, and they entered the village. Celestia and Luna hid behind him nervously as they made their way through the village.

After a bit Alric spotted Crimson Crisp speaking to a mare with green fur. She had a leaf on her haunches. Most ponies had some sort of picture on their haunches, he had noticed. Except Celestia, Luna, and other foals. He had no idea what that was about. Perhaps he could ask.

Crimson Crisp noticed him and smiled at him. “Well, I’ll be. You sure got back quick. I take it these two adorable little things are the fillies you were talkin’ ‘bout?” The stallion asked, looking at Luna and Celestia who hid shyly behind Alric’s legs.

“Indeed. These two are Celestia and Luna. Celestia is the older of the two and Luna the younger. Celestia, Luna, this is Sir Crimson Crisp.” Alric introduced them.

“Nice to meet ya, little ladies.” Crimson Crisp greeted them.

“Hello…”

“Hi…”

The girls responded quietly.

“My apologies. They’re just a bit nervous meeting new people. Give them a bit of time and I’m quite sure they’ll start to relax.” Alric stated.

“It’s fine. Anyway, this here’s my wife Maple. I was just tellin’ her about y’all.” Crimson Crisp motioned to the mare next to him.

“Howdy! So you’re the one who made our orchard grow outta nowhere?” Maple asked.

Alric bowed in greeting. “Indeed I am. My name is Alric and I am a human. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Lady Maple.”

“Well aren’t you polite! I ain’t no noble lady and Crimson Crisp ain't no lord so no need to call us ‘sir’ or ‘lady’. Just call me Maple and call him Crimson Crisp.” Maple told him.

“Just Crimson or Crisp works too.” Crimson Crisp nodded in agreement.

Alric smiled at them. “As you wish. I take it everyone is preparing for the harvest?”

“Oh yeah! The whole village is gettin’ ready to help out! We haven’t had a harvest this big in…” Crimson raised a hoof to his chin in thought. “Actually… Come to think of it, I don’t think we’ve ever had a harvest quite this big.” He then smiled widely. “It’s sure as sugar better than any harvest we had since the Windigos came at least!”

“The whole village? It must be quite a momentous occasion then! I’m afraid I haven’t done terribly much farm work, being a scholar and a sorcerer. However, I am quite strong even amongst the most physically powerful of my kind. So I am more than willing to help out however I can. Be it carrying crates or harvesting crops. You need only tell me what you need of me and I shall gladly do it.” Alric offered.

“Ya already grew the crops. Ya don’t gotta help with the harvesting too. You don’t need to go and ruin those fancy clothes of yours.” Maple stated.

“No, I would feel as though I am taking advantage if I were to sit about whilst everyone else works. So please allow me to assist however I can.” Alric requested. “As for my clothes, they can be cleaned. If they’re torn I have many ways to mend them in an instant with repair powder or magic. Plus I have put them through far worse, I assure you.”

“Well if you're sure… Ya say you're strong? How strong?” Crimson Crisp asked.

“Incredibly strong. There are several figures of legend known for their immense strength. Black Iron Tarkus, Smough, Paladin Leeroy, and of course Havel the Rock. I surpass all of them. So whatever you could have me lift will be a simple matter.” Alric stated.

“I don’t know who any of that is… Eh, I’ll take your word for it. But don’t come cryin’ to me if the work’s too much for ya.”

“Uh… W-what about us…?” Celestia asked.

“You two? Maple can watch ya while Alric’s out helpin’ with the harvest.” Crimson stated.

“I wanna help.” Luna stated.

“Hm… You two are both a bit young for any hard physical labor and I can’t imagine either of you are used to such work… Crimson, might there be any relatively easy work for these two to do?” Alric inquired.

“Sure. Unicorns ain’t strong like us Earth ponies but there’s plenty of work little fillies like them can help out with. Don’t worry, we’ll find somethin’ easy for you two to do. Hm… How ‘bout you two help Maple with the cookin’? There’s gonna be a big celebration later for this harvest and that means lots o’ cookin’! Not too physically demanding, perfect for a pair of little unicorns like y'all.” Crimson stated with a friendly smile.

Celestia and Luna smiled and nodded.

“Alrighty then, you two. Follow me. If you do a good job, I may even give ya a nice treat. Crisp’s granny makes the best apple pies you’ll ever taste!” Maple said, looking at Celestia and Luna.

“Be good, you two.” Alric called out as the fillies followed Maple.

“We will!” Celestia called back.

Alric looked back at Crimson and cracked his fingers. “So. What would you have me do?”

“Come on and I’ll show ya.” Crimson said, turning and walking away.

Alric followed him. Crimson set him to do a few basic but physically demanding tasks. As more ponies gathered and the work started getting underway in earnest, the ponies started singing. Several even started playing instruments. Oddly the music seemed to carry throughout both the orchard, the fields, and the village itself and everyone seemed to be singing in perfect unison as if they had been practicing the performance for months. Yet the song seemed spontaneous, the lyrics tailored to this specific situation.

Even Alric found himself caught up in it. Somehow he just knew the right words. He had never considered himself a good singer before this either. In fact he barely knew anything about it, yet here he found himself singing with skill and grace he should not have had.

So, he assumed it had to be some kind of magic at work.

It was a bit odd but he just smiled and went along with it, enjoying himself. He could have tried to fight it or resist it but he saw no real reason to. It was enjoyable and it actually seemed to make the work go a bit faster somehow. He wasn’t quite certain if that was just perception due to having fun or if it was a real effect of whatever magic was carrying the song.

The song carried throughout the harvest and into the preparations for the feast.

As the song came to an end, Alric found a long set of tables set up in the middle of the village for the feast. There were odd almost fully encased torches between the tables to provide warmth for the food and those eating. Based on the smell as he passed them, Alric assumed they burned charcoal. Something that had to be quite expensive as he sincerely doubted they had the trees to spare. They were built like oversized lanterns made entirely of copper with no glass, likely to maximize heat production, and only enough holes to let air in to keep the coals going. All of them appeared quite new and there seemed to be a bit of variation between them as if the ponies were actively experimenting to find the best iteration to provide heat. Some older iterations seemed to have been modified with some of the elements of the newer ones.

Celestia and Luna were sitting in the middle of the row of tables with Maple.

“Ah, there you are. La— Ehem… Maple, how were my charges whilst they were within your care? Did they behave?” Alric asked as he approached

“Oh they were just the sweetest little things! Nothin’ like those stuck up, snooty, buckin’— Er… Nothin’ like the folks in the city.” Maple started and corrected herself. She continued. “Luna’s still a bit clumsy with her magic and spilled some flour, but she and Celestia cleaned it right up. I tried to dust her off, but she might still have some flour on her.”

He smiled. “I see. I’ll be sure to draw them a bath once we return to my castle.” He sat down between the two fillies who had left a gap at the table for him. “What of you two? Did you enjoy yourselves?”

“Mhm! Maple is really nice! And she and her granny are super good cooks! While we were helping set up the tables, they let us try slices of apple pie and it was super yummy!” Luna said excitedly.

Celestia nodded in agreement. “It was nice.”

“It gladdens me to hear it, little ones.” Alric said, then he had a thought. Before he could voice it, however, Crimson Crisp came rushing over.

“Don’t get started without me!” Crimson exclaimed.

“We aren’t, don’t you worry. Alric and I were just talkin’ about how good these little fillies were while helpin’ out me and granny. They’re just the sweetest little things!” Maple told him.

Crimson seemed somewhat surprised to hear it at first but he quickly masked his surprise with a smile. “Glad to hear they didn’t give ya any trouble. I’ll tell ya, Alric wasn’t foaling around when he said he’s strong.”

Alric sat down with the ponies and had a friendly chat with them over the course of the feast. Their family quickly joined and Alric was introduced to every member of Crimson Crisp and Maple’s sides of their family. Along with quite a few other townsfolk.

The feast was currently in full swing. There were people with instruments playing cheerful music, there were ponies dancing, and of course quite a few were eating and drinking. Celestia and Luna were playing with some of the local foals.

“So you don’t use these charcoal heaters regularly?” Alric asked, looking at the copper thing next to him. It was putting off a significant amount of heat for its design.

“Nah. Don’t have enough food for big ol’ feasts like this usually. Our local smith made these things. Usually they’re just for families celebratin’ weddings or birthdays and the like outside and not wanting to freeze to death, have cold food, or have open fires that can burn a house down. So they’re useful, but we don’t have enough charcoal to use ‘em a whole lot.” Crimson Crisp informed him.

“I see… Still, it is a fascinating innovation. I can see the use given the, ah… weather…” Alric stated.

Crimson Crisp sighed and took a swig from his ale. “Yeah… The buckin’ weather… Darn Windigos… Darn Pegasi… Buck ‘em both! I tell ya, Alric, those feather brained good fer nuthin’ buckin’ Pegasi could fix all of this if they wanted. They control the buckin’ weather! That’s all they do! But they don’t… They’re the ones who brought those Windigos here, I know it! Probably want us to all freeze to death.”

“Celestia and Luna told me they’re attracted to hatred.” Alric stated, before sipping his own ale. He couldn’t get drunk and his sense of taste was heavily muted, but he liked to give the impression that he was still alive. So sharing an ale with a new acquaintance was fine by him.

“Bah, that’s just some nonsense some prissy unicorn in the city made up. Rover or somethin’. Or was it that Starswill idjit? I don’t remember. Bah… Either way, it’s all a load a manure if ya ask me. Nah, somepony brought ‘em here. Has to be. Unicorns, Earth Ponies, and,” He spat off into the snow. “The buckin’ pegasi, never got along. We hated each other for generations and these things never showed up! So what changed? The buckin’ pegasi with their weather magic brought ‘em here that’s what! It's the only explanation that makes a lick of sense! They want us to starve to death, if we don’t freeze first!”

“Hm… I suppose I shall have to study the phenomenon myself, if I can spare the time. Perhaps I can find the cause. And if I can, then perhaps I might be able to find a solution.” Alric stated.

“Hah! Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice! I know you can make crops grow, Alric, but I think getting rid of the Windigos just ain’t possible now. The unicorns’ve been tryin’ but even their best wizards can’t get rid of ‘em. I think this is well beyond any one pony… or human.” Crimson Crisp said before taking another drink of ale.

“We’ll see. I’ve done the impossible before… My apologies for the abrupt change in topic, however, it is getting rather late and I shall need to return to my castle and put my wards to bed soon. Would I perhaps be able to leave Celestia and Luna in the care of someone in this village? They seem to get along quite well with the foals here.” Alric asked.

“Hm… Sorry, Alric. That ain’t a good idea.” Crimson Crisp shook his head.

“Ah, yes. I suppose it may be hard for them considering they’re unicorns in a village of Earth ponies. It was foolish of me to ask. I apologize.” Alric stated. The people of this village had been quite nice once they knew they could trust him. And they seemed to be just fine with Celestia and Luna. So he had held out hope that, perhaps, someone here might be willing to adopt them.

“Nah, that’s part of it sure. But as long as they’re not prissy, stuck up, high and mighty jack wagons like most unicorns they could be fine. Problem is, we ain’t stayin’ here. The whole village is goin’ to the Earth Pony city. Chancellor Puddinghead is leadin’ all of us outa here to find a new land to settle. Somewhere that ain’t frozen. Gonna be a long hard journey. We’ll barely have enough food to feed ourselves. This harvest is gonna help us out a lot, but nopony can afford anymore mouths to feed.”

“Ah. If it’s a matter of food…” Alric started only to be cut off by Crimson Crisp.

“Nope. You’ve already given us enough. We aren’t gonna abuse that generosity. Besides, how hard do ya plan on workin’ us? We’re gonna have to harvest it if ya make it. A few days of this’ll wear everypony out too much for us to make it to the capital to join the others. Anyway, we’re leaving because of the windigos as much as we are because of the famine. Can’t risk the things comin’ and freezin’ us all to death. So many ponies travelin’ in one big group is hard. It’ll be worse for the folks with foals. Neither of us want anything happening to those little fillies. So your best bet is what you were originally thinkin’. Take ‘em to the Unicorn City. It’s about a four day walk straight east of here. If you're gonna find somepony to take ‘em in, it’ll be there.” Crimson Crisp told him.

“Very well. Thank you for the directions. It is greatly appreciated as is the hospitality you’ve shown me and my Wards.” Alric thanked him.

“‘Course! It’s the least we could do, after ya gave us this harvest and helped with the actual harvesting.”

“So you Earth Ponies are hoarding all the food!” A voice declared, shouting over the sounds of the festivities.

Everything suddenly screeched to a halt. The music, the dancing, the feasting, talking and laughter. Everyone looked up and saw about ten pegasi in armor hovering above the village, all but one holding small clouds.

The one without a cloud was wearing more ornate armor than the rest. The leader, Alric presumed. A stallion with dark gray fur, a yellow mane and tail, and a scar over half his face. Oddly, the scar seemed to be from severe frostbite from a cursory diagnosis. Fighting with the Windigos, perhaps? But that didn’t line up with Crimson’s story of the Pegasi being the ones to bring the Windigos. Though, that made sense. While Crimson was a rather pleasant individual he was a commoner from a village. Biases and assumptions were to be expected.

“Well? Do you have nothing to say for yourselves, you food hoarding dirt rats?!” The lead Pegasus demanded angrily.

Crimson stiffened at the insult and nearly got up. But Alric put a hand on his back, keeping him seated. “Please, allow me.”

Alric stood up and approached the armored pegasus. Once he was within range for a conversation, he bowed respectfully. “Excuse me, good sir. I am Alric. A human and a sorcerer of Vinheim. To whom am I speaking, might I ask?”

The stallion snorted and glared at Alric. “I am Captain Thundermane. What is your association with this village?”

“A friendly acquaintance. I just arrived today in fact. I am the one who grew their crops with an advanced spell and allowed them the freedom to have such a feast which they held simply to thank me for granting them this boon. So I’m afraid your accusations of hoarding food are completely unfounded, Captain.” Alric told him.

“I do not take kindly to lies, ape! Earth Pony magic allows them to grow plants, it’s common knowledge. Thus we have long suspected such treachery from them! Hoarding food and starving the rest of us! Now I have evidence! An Earth Pony village feasting and making merry in the midst of a famine? Preposterous, unless they lie and have more food than they say! Do you think me stupid?! Your attempts to thrust yourself upon the pyre to cover for their crimes is ill conceived and frankly pathetic! Now get out of my way. My business is with these dirt rats, not some lanky hairless beast!”

Alric frowned. “I am not lying nor am I covering for anyone. I can demonstrate—”

Alric was cut off as the Captain made a motion with his wings and suddenly he was struck by a bolt of lightning.

He flinched, suprised by the sudden attack.

“Alric!” Luna cried, breaking away from Celestia and running over to him.

“Luna, wait!” Celestia shouted, running after her.

Alric thrust out a hand. “Stay back! Both of you!”

Luna skidded to a halt and Celestia caught up to her.

Maple rushed over to the two of them and began herding the two of them back into the rest of the crowd.

Alric lowered his hand and rolled his shoulders. It had been some time since he was last struck by lightning. Who was it…? Gwyn’s First Born? Yes. He believed it was Gwyn’s First Born who last struck him with lightning. This bolt was significantly weaker than the bolts of a god. Something a novice cleric might conjure forth. But still quite lethal to a normal individual. No wonder all of the Earth Ponies were simply standing there. None of them wanted to be shot full of lightning by opponents they can’t even reach to fight back against.

“Lightning. It’s been quite awhile… Four maybe five millennia, perhaps…? Captain, let me just say, you do not want this battle. And, quite frankly, neither do I. You cannot possibly fathom how unbelievably tiring violence gets after several millennia. I’d much prefer to resolve this peacefully.” Alric said in a calm and collected tone.

It was a famine and this pegasus was a soldier likely doing what he thought was best for his starving family and friends, fully believing his own delusions of the Earth Ponies hoarding food for themselves. Alric didn’t want to kill him or the other pegasi. He had to make them see reason. He wanted to help them.

The Captain scowled. “I know not how you survived that, ape, however you shall not survive the next volley. I guarantee it! Surrender or get out of our way! That is an order!”

Alric almost laughed at the absurdity of the threat. It was like a gnat threatening an everlasting dragon. Yet he restrained himself. It would be inappropriate and insulting to laugh right now.

“I will not. If you would only listen, I am trying to offer my assist—”

The captain flared his wings and all of the pegasi still in the air fired bolts of lightning at him. All of these bolts were quite a bit stronger than the first. About as strong as naturally occurring lightning. Albeit the full brunt of the lightning hitting him rather than merely the end that strikes the ground. Alric felt his clothes char and the very surface of his flesh singe from the assault.

Everyone had to cover their eyes from how bright the lightning was. The sound rattled buildings and was near deafening.

Alric sighed. Had he known he was going to be dealing with lightning, he would have worn his thunder stone plate ring.

Instead he summoned his pyromancy flame. He always had options. “That stung a bit. But that is where this fight ends.”

“How…? How did you survive that…? Nothing short of a dragon should be able to shrug off so much lightning!” Captain Thundermane demanded.

“I’m significantly stronger than a dragon. Now, let us discuss things on more friendly terms, shall we?” Alric held out his pyromancy flame and cast a version of Rapport he designed to work on the living rather than just the undead. With a flash of pinkish light, the Captain and the other Pegasi fell under the influence of his spell. Their eyes glowing with a pinkish light.

“Now, Captain, would you be willing to have an actual conversation with me rather than resorting to violence?” Alric asked.

“I suppose…” The Captain muttered somewhat begrudgingly.

“Then please, call off your soldiers. No blood need be shed this day. Thus their lightning is not needed.” Alric requested.

“How can you ask such a thing of me? The Earth Ponies are hoarding food! Us pegasi are starving! I cannot call off my soldiers nor will I.” The Captain stated firmly.

“They are not. As I said before I am the one who bestowed this harvest upon them. I can prove it to you, alas you did not give me the opportunity to do so. So call off your soldiers, Captain Thundermane. I am more than willing to help your people to the best of my abilities just as I have helped this village. You need only allow me a single chance to prove myself. You clearly can’t actually kill me. So this is your best chance at getting the food you need as I will not allow you to harm this village over a misunderstanding brought about by my actions.” Alric stated.

Captain Thundermane grit his teeth.

“Please, Captain. I only wish to solve this diplomatically. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Least of all men fighting to simply feed their families. I am doing everything in my power to avoid that outcome but ultimately it is your decision. One act of trust to allow me to prove myself. That is all I ask of you. What say you?” Alric asked.

The Captain shut his eyes tight, took a deep breath, and slowly released it. “Fine… Stand down.”

The Pegasi released their clouds and landed one by one.

Alric smiled. “Wonderful. Thank you. You will not regret this, I assure you.”

“That remains to be seen…” Captain Thundermane grumbled.

“Alric, what the hay is goin’ on here? What’d ya do to ‘em? Ain’t no way a pegasus would just stop like this!” Crimson Crisp demanded.

“I cast a spell that removed their hostility towards me.” Alric stated.

“You did what to us?!” The Captain demanded.

“Temporarily eased your aggression. That’s all I did to you. As you can clearly tell by the fact I still had to convince you and the fact you are upset over the revelation of this spell. You still have your free will, Captain, you are merely being kept calm. You were attacking me. I did not wish you harm. This was the best way I could think of to resolve this without violence. Criticize me later, if you must, but no blood was shed. I consider that a victory.” Alric stated.

“So, uh… You didn’t use that on me… right?” Crimson asked.

“No. You didn’t attempt to kill me on the spot. So I had no reason to. All I did was grow your village’s crops. If you were under such an influence it would’ve been found out immediately by the other villagers as your eyes would have been glowing as theirs currently are. Now, I do believe I have a demonstration to perform.” He said before turning and walking over to Celestia and Luna. He knelt down and picked the both of them up.

“You really needn’t be so concerned over my well being. Never go rushing into danger on my account ever again. Do I make myself clear?” He said sternly.

“B-but there was lightning! A bright flash and a boom! They were trying to hurt you!” Luna objected.

“Believe me, no matter how bad something may look, I have been through worse. I defeated the Bed of Chaos, the mother of demons, in single combat. The flames she cast were hot enough to melt and even boil steel that I enchanted to stay cold. So, unless I am facing something on a similar level, you needn’t fear for me. And at that point, I would be more concerned for you two.” Alric told them.

Author's Note

Been awhile. Hopefully this chapter's good. I thought about including a whole thing with Windigos coming to the village after the Pegasi show up, but I thought it was a bit too much. So I settled for this. Alric trying to resolve things peacefully without violence.

I'm open to all questions, comments, and criticisms.

Chapter 5

Alric ended up having to use some sleight of hand to take out the Life Soul and make it look like he had summoned it like his normal pyromancy flame. Keeping in mind what Crimson told him before about overwork exhausting everyone before their journey, he then used it to grow only a few of the trees for the sake of demonstration rather than growing all of their crops a second time.

With that the Pegasi were able to be convinced to back down and Alric brought them back to his castle to work out a way to help them without hurting the Earth Ponies, after putting the fillies to bed. The Captain was still upset about the fact Alric had used Rapport on him, but begrudgingly put that aside due to the prospect of gaining a new source of food for his people.

Alric would use his garden to grow enough food to at least relieve the burden on the pegasi. For a workforce to tend and harvest the crops he grew, he created Treants like the ones that tended the Royal Woods in the time of Oolacile. They were only slightly more intelligent than a golem but they were effective enough to harvest and store crops for the pegasi.

Obviously he couldn’t produce all the food they needed without a considerable amount of time. But he was confident in his ability to produce enough to at least offer them some relief, though it would take some time.

The next day while the treants were plowing and digging to prepare his garden, Alric carried the fillies as he went to the Unicorn Capital City. It was pretty average for a city, all things considered. Higher walls than normal and the buildings more ornate likely due to the fact their entire workforce could use magic and thus construction was easier for them.

“Well, little ones, there it is. Let us hope we can find a suitable place for you to stay.” Alric stated looking out at the city with the fillies in his arms.

Neither of the fillies seemed particularly happy. Luna seemed sad and Celestia seemed worried. “Can’t we just stay with you? We can be quiet and not bother you…” Celestia asked.

Alric shook his head. “Celestia, this is not about you two being quiet or bothering me. That is the furthest thing from my mind. It would simply be better for you to grow amongst your own kind. I can care for you and give you an education, but there’s much I cannot do for you. My castle is in the middle of nowhere. Far from civilization. There are no other foals your age to befriend and play with. There are no ponies around me for you to interact with at all, in fact. And thus I would be effectively your only source of interaction besides each other. I fear that would negatively impact your social development and would inevitably lead to you both being overly sheltered. among other such issues. Thus I truly do believe that this is what is best for you.”

They deserved better than what he could give them. They deserved to have normal, happy, healthy lives. To have friends and to eventually have families of their own. To grow old and die amongst their loved ones. He could keep them alive and healthy and train them to be two of the greatest sorcerers who have ever lived. But that’s all. If they stayed with him, they would miss out on so much else.

Celestia looked back at the city in the distance. She was afraid, he could tell. He held her a bit tighter, trying to comfort her.

“I don’t wanna…” Luna muttered.

“It’ll be quite alright, Luna. If it makes you feel any better, depending on where you end up, mayhaps I shall be able to visit every so often. Now there is no point in dallying any further. Let us be off.” Alric stated before setting off towards the city. He could have just teleported there, but they were already close enough he decided to walk. It gave him a few more minutes to spend with the fillies.

Admittedly, he was actually somewhat reluctant to part with them, but ultimately it was for the best. He had to put their wellbeing above his own loneliness.

He would simply appreciate the short time he had spent with them while it lasted. Just as he did with all the friends he had made along his journey. It was bitter sweet, but he was already used to it.

He approached the city and was stopped by some guards at the gate. “Halt, creature! State your name and your business in the Platinum City. As well what you’re doing with those two foals!”

Alric bowed politely. “I am Alric of Vinheim. I am a human. My business is to find an orphanage or perhaps a willing family to take in these two unicorn fillies I rescued from a village that was frozen by the Windigos. Celestia, Luna, say hello to the nice guardsmen.”

“Hello…” Celestia greeted them.

“Mm…” Luna grumbled.

The guards looked at each other before looking back at him. “I shall speak with my commanding officer. Remain here until I return.” One of the guards ordered before turning and trotting off leaving Alric and the fillies with the other guard.

“I am new to these lands. Ever since I arrived it seems all corners have been harshly impacted by the arrival of the windigos and the famine they bring. How has the city fared, might I ask?” Alric asked the guard, trying to make conversation.

“Not well. The Windigos come and destroy villages, killing everypony. It is rare that there are ever survivors like these two. Our wizards can drive them away from the city, fortunately. However, the famine they bring is devastating us… It cannot go on like this… Fortunately Princess Platinum has a plan in the works that shall be our salvation. Or so she says.” The guard told him.

Alric nodded grimly. “I suppose I should have expected nothing less… For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The famine… That was right, the Earth Ponies could barely grow enough food to feed everyone. It was why they planned to move to find more fertile lands. That could be a problem…

He wanted to help the Unicorns too but he only had so much room in his garden and his Treants could only work so fast. He would try to offer some relief, at least, but he would have to dedicate a significant amount of time and effort if he wanted to actually end the famine by himself. Time and energy he could ill afford to spend on this. He needed to start conducting research to return to his own universe so he could end the curse. He couldn’t let compassion blind him to the looming danger that was the prospect of going hollow if he couldn’t fulfill his purpose.

“Would slaying the Windigos be sufficient to end this famine?” Alric asked. Killing was something he had plenty of experience with. It was, sadly, his go to solution for most problems he faced as it tended to be the easiest and most expedient option available to him. If he could kill all the Windigos, perhaps the famine could end naturally and he could focus on his work. He would have to commit another genocide and exterminate the entire species. He didn’t want to resort to that, but…

“A lovely thought, but it’s not possible. If Star Swirl the Bearded can’t find a way to drive them off, nopony can.” The guard said dismissively.

“Humor me. If they could be slain, would killing them all end this famine?” Alric asked.

The guard sighed. “Perhaps. It would end the cold which would let the crops grow. It would still take time to recover, however. More would die in the time it took. Getting rid of the Windigos would be a decent start but it would not be the end of our troubles for some time.”

Alric scowled to himself in thought as he wracked his brain trying to think of a solution to save as many lives as possible while still leaving him with the time he needed to conduct his research.

He continued to stand there thinking to himself in silence until the second guard eventually returned. “Our commanding officer has decided you may enter. However, know that any crimes committed will be dealt with harshly. You’re no pony, let alone a unicorn, even if there are two in your care. We have little tolerance for outsiders who make trouble within our city.”

Still holding Celestia and Luna, Alric gave the guards another polite bow. “Understood. I shall be on my best behavior whilst I am here, I assure you. And I shall leave as soon as I know to whom I might entrust the care of my Wards… Where might I find the nearest orphanage?”

“The largest and most well funded orphanage in the city is near the residential district. They should be willing to take in two more foals” One of the guards informed him before giving him directions to said church.

With that Alric walked past them and entered the city.

As he did, he saw unicorns bundled in warm clothes. Almost all of them looked hungry and they all looked utterly miserable. Alric pitied them. He knew not the pain of hunger. He knew not hunger at all for undead required no sustenance and he had forgotten most of his mortal life. But he knew suffering. And he recognized it on all of their faces.

He weaved through the sparse crowds, ignoring the glares and stairs he received as he trudged through the city. He was unbothered by such things. At least they weren’t chasing him with torches and pitchforks.

Eventually he found the orphanage. He walked inside and saw a mare dusting some simple paintings on the walls.

“Good day.” Alric greeted her.

She set down her feather duster and turned to face him with a smile. She then flinched and her smile fell as she got a proper look at him. “Oh… Good day…”

“Indeed. Some guards at the city entrance directed me here. This is the orphanage, correct?” Alric asked.

“It is… Am I to assume you wish to drop off those two foals?” The woman asked.

“I am. Though I would like to examine your facility first, if at all possible.” Alric requested. “I simply wish to know the conditions in which they will be living before I entrust them to your care. It would put my mind at ease.”

“I suppose that can be arranged… Ehem… What is your relation to these two, exactly?” The mare asked.

“I rescued them from a village frozen by the Windigos. They were the only survivors, thus I have taken them into my care until I could find a new home for them amongst their own kind. I simply wish to be sure they will live a better life here than they would if they remained in my care.” Alric explained.

“I see… Please follow me. I suppose I can give you a brief tour.” The Mare stated, turning and walking off.

The two fillies in his arms looked around curiously as the mare led Alric through the orphanage.

The mare opened a door and walked inside. Alric followed her.

“This is one of the dorms where the foals sleep.” The mare informed him.

Alric looked around. The room was full of simple cots, each with a single blanket. He frowned. Given the temperature now, in the middle of the day, he couldn’t imagine a single blanket would keep any of the foals warm enough at night. But while perhaps not pleasant he supposed it was livable. He had seen individuals survive in worse conditions.

“Hm… Very well.”

The mare led him elsewhere. This time, to the dining room. “This is where the foals eat. We try to give them two meals a day. Though recently we’ve only been able to give them one.”

Alric’s frown deepened and Celestia grew visibly more worried.

The mare led them to a dayroom where all the foals were currently located, along with several other staff members.

“And this is where the younger foals stay during the day. The older foals are put to work in apprenticeships, doing chores, or helping us care for the young. We try to make sure all the little ones in our care gain the skills they need to get jobs or start and care for families of their own when they come of age.” The mare explained.

Alric looked at all the foals in the room. Some were playing, or at least were trying to, but they all appeared lethargic and malnourished to varying degrees. Sunken cheeks, shallow stomachs, visible ribs.

His heart ached for them. He had seen famines before, but it was never easy to see the young victims.

He had been worried that something like this might be the case. Seeing the Earth Pony village he had hoped it wouldn’t be quite so bad. But it seemed the fact they could make their crops grow kept them barely afloat amidst this perpetual winter.

He sighed. “This is what I was afraid of… I’m sorry, madam, but I cannot in good conscience leave my charges in your care.”

The mare looked at him in confusion.

“The famine. I had hoped that, being funded by the church or state, an orphanage might be able to keep their children fed. But looking at these poor souls, it seems my hopes have been dashed… I assume the other orphanages are in a similar state?” Alric asked.

The mare nodded. “We’re actually better off than most, I’m afraid.”

Alric nodded grimly. “And I take it you don’t know of any families who can afford to take on two new children?”

She shook her head. “No. Else these poor dears would already have homes of their own.”

“Hm… Ah, wait a moment. Celestia, Luna, you informed me your father was invited here to join the group who raise and lower the sun and moon. And said group works directly for the Royal Family. Is that correct?” Alric inquired.

“Mhm. Daddy got a letter inviting him. He was so happy… We were gonna leave soon, before the Windigos showed up and…” Her eyes started to water and she pressed her head against Alric’s chest.

Luna sniffled and her eyes started watering as well. “I miss Mommy and Daddy…” She muttered.

He gently squeezed the two of them. “I know, little ones… It’ll be alright…” He looked back at the mare. “I’m not quite familiar with how this works, I’m afraid. Does that make them nobility or at the very least change anything? Might someone within that group be willing to accept them? I can go back to their village and find the letter of invitation in their old home if necessary.”

The mare shook her head. “It doesn’t… Um… I’m not sure I should say this in front of them. Might you be willing to leave them here for a moment so that I might tell you this in private?”

Alric shook his head. “I do not believe in overly sheltering children. This has to do with their family, thus they have every right to hear it. If it is bad, I will comfort them but I will not shield them with ignorance.”

The Mare sighed. “Very well then… I’m afraid the ‘honor’ of joining the group who raise and lower the sun and moon is something of a deception ponies tell their foals to comfort them. In reality the process is so straining that it eventually burns out their magic entirely. Their father would have been just another unicorn to be used up so that a few more days could pass. He would have been well compensated for his service, yes, and may have been granted a lesser noble title if he was lucky. However after a few days, maybe a week or two if he was particularly powerful, he would never again be able to use magic. But he likely deemed it worth the sacrifice to feed his family for a bit longer. However, since he never arrived to fulfill his duty, no title will have been granted nor any compensation given. Thus, sadly, it changes their situation not.”

Celestia stiffened in Alric’s grip. Luna looked confused. “Lose his magic? Does that mean Daddy’s horn would have fallen off?” Luna asked.

“Mercifully no. The unicorns who sacrifice their magic to raise the sun and moon keep their horns. But their magic gets all used up. They just don’t have any more so they can’t use what they don’t have.” The mare explained.

Alric sighed. Of course. Nothing is ever so simple is it? It made sense. Without a god to do it, raising and lowering the sun and moon would be a truly herculean task, thus it stood to reason it required sacrifices. If anything, it was lucky they didn’t lose their lives rather than just their ability to use magic.

Though, the fact they could lose their magic did come as something of a surprise to him. It had to have something to do with their horns, otherwise that just should not have been a possibility. One did not simply ‘use up’ their magic. Perhaps their catalyst, or in this case their horns, could be damaged but if they could get a new one they would be able to cast spells just fine. The problem was, the ponies likely had no idea about Catalysts or how to make them as they had horns and thus had never had a need for Catalysts. He would have to try to rectify that, if possible.

“I suppose I shall need to continue caring for them myself then… A pity. It would be better for them to be raised by other unicorns, but so be it…” Alric stated.

Celestia’s expression went from sad and worried to hopeful. “So… We get to stay with you, Alric?” She asked.

“I suppose so. I can at least keep you both well fed… I’ll have to find some other means of solving the issues presented by you remaining with me… Madam, I am unfamiliar with the laws of this land. Is there a process I need to go through to adopt these two? Paperwork I need to sign and the like?” Alric asked.

The mare shook her head. “They aren’t nobility, nor are you. So, no.”

Alric nodded. “Very well. Then I thank you for your time and your courtesy. We shall be taking our leave now.”

He turned and left the orphanage, thinking about how to solve the problems this presented. Though in a way he was somewhat relieved.

He had only known them for a short time, but he had come to like them both quite a bit. Spending what time with them he was able made him realize how much he longed for children of his own. Or apprentices, at the very least.

He had spent millennia fighting, traveling, and studying, in his efforts to find a way to end the curse. It was a long solitary journey full of loneliness. He had never had the time to take on an apprentice. Plus the situations he got himself into were oft far too dangerous for the living, while every undead he had ever known had an unfortunate tendency to go hollow in the pursuit of their own purposes. And their purposes oft led them in vastly different directions to his own purpose regardless.

Thus he simply never took any true apprentices. And undead were, of course, sterile. So he had never had children of his own. Nor had he ever had time for romance even if undead were not sterile.

He looked down at the sisters who now seemed considerably happier than they were just a short while ago. “I’m sorry, little ones. I suppose this trip turned out to be a waste of time. I held out hope that an orphanage might be able to provide at least the bare minimum for you, but that seems not to be the case.”

“It's okay. Neither of us want to leave anyway. You’re really nice!” Celestia told him.

“Yeah! And if we stay you can teach us to make pretty crystals like you do!” Luna agreed.

Alric chuckled a bit. “It’ll be quite some time before either of you are anywhere near ready to cast crystal sorceries. But I suppose you're technically correct. That is something I can teach you, eventually… Thank you, little ones. I do appreciate the sentiment. But I shall still have to find some way to circumvent the issues with you staying with me. Visits to the city several times a week, perhaps? A live-in nanny? Hm… I shall think on it.”

“Okay… Um, Alric? How did Gwyn and Gwynevere raise and lower the sun by themselves without losing their magic? If a whole bunch of unicorns working together lose their magic, then how can they do it by themselves?” Celestia asked.

“Because they are gods, of course. Beings with power far beyond the reckoning of mere mortals. It would take an entire army of unicorns to match Gwynevere, let alone Gwyn himself.” Alric explained. Then he tilted his head as some pieces clicked together in his head. “Wait a moment… You just made me realize something…”

He had both Gwynevere and Gwyndolin’s souls from his rampage against the gods in his youth. Along with the souls of many other gods. He kept the majority of the souls of any gods he killed, as it seemed wasteful to consume them or turn them into weapons. He primarily used them as tools to cast certain kinds of magics having to do with the specific god’s domain.

Regardless, perhaps he could bequeath them upon someone to create gods of the sun and moon to take over for the unicorns? Plus Gwynevere was a goddess of fertility as much as she was the goddess of the Sun.

He would have to find suitable candidates. Individuals he could trust with such power and responsibility. Once he found a suitable candidate for Gwynevere’s soul, he could delegate the task of blessing crops to them, helping ease the famine whilst freeing up his time so that he might be able to conduct his research as necessary. The unicorns and Pegasi would likely need such anyways as the Earth Ponies, whose magic enhanced the growth of plants, would soon be leaving to find new more fertile lands. Plus this new deity could take over raising and lowering the Sun while whomever he bequeathed Gwyndolin’s soul onto could raise and lower the moon thus sparing further unicorns from burning out their magic.

The problem then became finding suitable candidates.

He looked down at the fillies in his arms. They were a bit young, but perhaps that was for the better? He could raise them to be good deities, avoiding the many mistakes and atrocities committed by the gods of his world.

Perhaps this trip wasn’t quite the waste of time he thought it was after all. He would have never thought of this had he not come here.

Then he hesitated as he thought of the implications this would have upon their lives.

If he did this, they wouldn’t have the chance to live normal lives. They could, perhaps, start families of their own when they were older, but they would outlive their mortal husbands. Their children would likely be immortal like themselves, however. So it wasn’t as though they would necessarily outlive everyone around them. But would that be something they wanted? Was this truly what was best for them? Or was he being too hasty now that he had a potentially viable solution to solve so many different issues?

Did he have a choice? If it could help so many others and save lives or stop ponies from crippling themselves to maintain the cycle of day and night, would it be right to not follow through on this? Merely for the potential cost to two little orphan girls? The math didn’t line up. Two was far outweighed by millions. And many would suggest he was granting them the largest blessing imaginable by turning them into deities.

He wasn’t quite sure he agreed.

Morally speaking, he was uncertain if this was the right call. This was an immense responsibility and burden to put on two children. But were morals what mattered here? Why did it have to be them? He could find two adult ponies he could trust with such power, he was sure.

But how long would it take? How many would suffer and die in that time?

He was conflicted. On the one hand they would be able to help so many others. On the other hand, he could be damning them to a life of endless responsibility with very little happiness.

He wished Velka, Quelana, or Quelaan was here so that he might discuss the matter with them before coming to a conclusion. Sadly, they were not. Thus the weight of this decision rested entirely upon his shoulders.

That didn’t necessarily mean he had to make this decision alone. He would speak with the girls. Let them know all of the pros and potential cons of becoming goddesses. Then he would let them decide whether they believed it was worth the potential costs or not. Most of the decision would rest upon Celestia as she was the eldest and thus the most likely to truly understand when he explained all that this could cost them. He would have preferred if she were older, at least in her teens, but this was not something that could wait a decade or so for them to both grow up more.

“Girls, there is something very important I need to discuss with you. Let us return to the castle immediately.” Alric told them in a very serious tone.

Setting them both down, he drew his catalyst and teleported the three of them back to the castle.

Author's Note

I'm a bit worried I might be jumping the gun a bit on turning Celestia and Luna into alicorns, but my plan was always for Alric to make them goddesses. Still, am I doing this too early? I don't want to fuck up the pacing.

Then again I kinda want him to create Alarice, like I had him do in the Pokemon version of this story, who will also be a goddess. So... I don't know.

Chapter 6

Alric was in his sitting room with Celestia and Luna. He had made some nice green blossom tea and had given the girls a bit of time to relax after their trip to the city. But it was time he got to the point.

He took a final sip of his tea before setting it on a small table next to his crystalline rocking chair. “Well little ones, now that we’ve all had some time to unwind after our trip to the city and I have had some time to think this through a bit more, I must pose a question. Would you two like to become goddesses?”

The two of them looked at him curiously.

“Goddesses? Like Gwynevere?” Celestia asked.

Alric smiled and nodded. “Exactly like her. You see, I believe I have a way to turn you both into goddesses, to raise and lower the sun and moon, just like your father would have been doing. Only, you won’t ever lose your magic. In fact your magic will be stronger than you can imagine. But I am hesitant. You likely do not understand why, after all one might assume that becoming a deity is purely a good thing, yes? After all, how could it not be? Immortality, vast power, eternal youth and beauty… But there are some serious detriments to consider. Issues that may well make becoming goddesses not worth the price.”

“Like what?” Luna inquired.

“Well, you won’t be able to live normal lives. You will be goddesses. Thus you will be immortal. And believe me, immortality is not always pleasant. I should know… In your case, you will outlive everyone around you, save for each other. You might take husbands and attempt to start families but you will have to watch your husbands slowly wither away. Growing old and dying without you while you two go on to live until the end of time. You might have children. Foals of your own. They may inherit a fraction of your power and be immortal themselves so there is the possibility you will have some family besides each other to weather through eternity.”

“What about you? You just said you’re immortal.” Celestia asked him.

Alric sighed. “That goes into some topics I’d rather not speak of… Tell me. Can you two keep a secret? This is very important. So you must promise me you will not speak of this with anyone besides myself.”

“Mhm! We won’t tell anypony! Promise!” Luna nodded.

“Yeah. We’re good at keeping secrets!” Celestia agreed.

“I’m trusting you. No one else can know what I am about to tell you… Celestia, Luna, Lord Gwyn is not the hero he is made out to be in the stories I have told you. He is selfish, manipulative, and power hungry. He is truly evil. Or at least he was before I slew him and took his Lord Soul…” Alric trailed off, thinking back to his battle with Gwyn.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he continued, “He cast a curse upon my people. The curse of Undeath. I am afflicted by that very curse. I am an undead. A being cursed to die over and over again, until I eventually go mad and become a mindless husk of my former self. This process is called hollowing… Hollowing can be staved off so long as an undead has a purpose. Something to cling to to keep them going through all the pain and horror. A reason to keep their humanity. My purpose is to end the curse. In fact that’s how I arrived here. When I defeated Lord Gwyn, I attempted to undo the curse. But in doing so I fell into a trap he laid upon the First Fire and the curse which sent me here, to this world…”

“You’re from another world? And you beat Lord Gwyn? But how? He’s a god, right? Does this mean you’re a god too?” Celestia inquired.

Alric nodded. “Indeed I am from another world. As for whether or not I am a god,... Eh... Yes and no. I suppose that entirely depends on your definition of a god. I’m certainly powerful enough to qualify, under Big Hat Logan’s definition that power is all that separates a god from a mortal. However the Gods are beings of the First Fire, descended from the Lords. Whereas I am human, a scion of the Furtive Pygmy born of the Dark Soul and the Abyss rather than the First Fire. So what I am is somewhat of a philosophical matter, I suppose. But I digress.”

He picked up his tea and took another sip. “Now that I’m here, to fulfill my purpose I must find a way to return to my world so I can finally end the curse. In which case I will be free of the curse. What happens from there I know not. Perhaps the power of my soul or humanity will keep me alive and I shall live forever. Or… I might die. My soul may finally be allowed to pass on and I will finally be granted the eternal rest I have worked so very hard for… If I fail, however, I will go hollow. I will slowly lose all of my memories piece by piece until I can no longer remember who I am. Then I will become a mindless monster, who is a danger to all who are around me. A hollow. In which case I shall need to be imprisoned so that I do not hurt anyone whilst I’m not in my right mind.”

He chuckled humorlessly as he realized the irony in that. He began his journey imprisoned in the Undead Asylum, and there was a very real possibility his journey would end with him being imprisoned again. This time in a prison of his own making. All of his hard work, all of the countless millennia he spent researching a way to end the curse, all the blood, all the death, and all the suffering he had endured going completely to waste and ultimately amounting to nothing as he went hollow. His crowning achievement. His crowning failure…

He shook his head. He couldn’t let himself think that way. If he did, hollowing was a certainty. It wasn’t over yet. Not even close. There was still a chance. He just needed to find a way back to his world. He would find that path back even if it took another ten millennia. He would not give up hope no matter what.

He finished off his tea in a single large gulp, feeling the effects of the green blossom restoring his energy. Setting the now empty cup down he leaned forwards in his chair “In either case, it is quite likely that, unless the best case scenario comes to pass, I will not be here forever. So yes. I am theoretically immortal. But in reality… It’s questionable. So I do not count myself among those you will be able to have by your side forever should you become goddesses. That said, I will gladly stay by your sides for as long as my curse and fortune permits. And should this last forever, I will happily stay with you until the end of time.”

“I don’t want you to die…” Luna whimpered, tears in her eyes.

Alric gave her a warm smile. He leaned further forward, picked the two of them up, and set them both in his lap. He embraced them as he began slowly rocking his chair. “I appreciate that… I do not wish to leave you either. But the chances are we shall be separated one way or another. Either you shall both remain mortal, eventually growing old and passing away peacefully amongst your future loved ones whilst I continue on, researching a way to return to my world. Eventually succeeding or failing long after you have already departed. Or you will become goddesses and may potentially outlast me. It’s unfortunate, but I’m afraid it’s the truth. I wish I could say otherwise, but I shall never lie to you. Not about something like this.”

They leaned into his embrace, neither of them particularly happy.

Alric held them like that, gently rocking in his chair for a bit, trying to comfort them. Eventually he said, “Well, that’s a matter we shall not have to worry about for a very long time. Anywhere from decades to centuries or longer. So you needn’t let my fate weigh too heavily upon you. I shall be with you for as long as I can.”

“If we become goddesses, we can spend more time with you, right?” Celestia asked.

“Please do not consider me as a factor in this decision. That is technically true, we may spend centuries together instead of mere decades, but it is still temporary. Rather consider your future. What might you lose from immortality? What might you experience? You will outlive any friends or lovers you ever meet. Societies and civilizations will rise and fall in your wake. You will have to witness countless wars and plagues. History repeating itself as individuals make the same mistakes as their predecessors over and over again. That is the curse that comes with immortality. It will be difficult, tiring, and tedious. You should only accept it if you can bear that burden. Do you think you can handle such a thing?” Alric inquired.

“Mm… It sounds scary…” Luna muttered.

“It is, in a way. The prospect of eternity is indeed quite daunting in its own right. But it’s not something that will harm you. Not directly, at least. Quite the opposite, in fact, by its very nature. It’s merely a matter of finding the strength and courage to keep pressing forwards despite whatever hardships you may face. To weather the storm, as it were. Something everyone must do in their lives, just over a much longer period of time.”

“It's scary… But you did it. I think Luna and I can too.” Celestia stated.

Alric nodded. “There is more still to consider beyond just immortality. For example, as goddesses you would have immense responsibility. Raising and lowering the sun and moon every single night and day without fail, blessing crops, and being competent leaders. You will bear the weight of the world upon your shoulders. Your actions and decisions will impact countless lives across the entire world. If you make a mistake, become lazy, fail in your duties, or Velka forbid you act in true malice then countless individuals may suffer for it. And you will be to blame for their suffering. Can you bear the burden such responsibility will place upon you? Or would you break upon it? Please be honest. There is no shame in admitting it may be too much for you.”

They both remained silent for a long moment before Luna nodded. “Yeah… We can be the bestest nicest goddesses ever.”

Alric patted her head. “I’m sure you could be… What is your answer, Celestia? Would such responsibility be too much for you?”

“I… I’m not sure… Can you teach us how?” She asked.

Alric raised an eyebrow at that. “Teach you how to do what?”

“Not make mistakes… I don’t wanna hurt anypony…” She stated.

Alric put a hand under her chin and gently directed her head to look at him. “Celestia, allow me to clarify something for you. It is impossible to be perfect. Even gods fail and make mistakes. Velka knows I have made countless in my existence. So, no. I cannot teach you to be perfect, for I myself am not perfect. The harsh reality is this. You will falter. You will fail. You will make mistakes. There will be things you regret in your life. But that will be true regardless. What matters is how you handle those mistakes. A responsible goddess will recognize that she has made a mistake and do everything in her power to fix that mistake if she can. If she cannot, then she will bear the consequences of her actions, hard though it may be, and try her best to lead others into a brighter future regardless of the past… What I can teach you is to be responsible. To take accountability for your actions. The question is if you are strong enough to do that on this scale.”

Celestia thought for a long moment before nodding. “I think so…? Maybe…”

Alric nodded. “Very well. Let’s see, what have we covered so far…? The price of immortality, the weight of responsibility… What else is there… The temptation of power? It technically goes with the weight of responsibility, but yes. I believe it’s worth elaborating upon in its own right.”

He looked at the foals sitting on his lap. “There is an old saying. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you accept this and become goddesses, you will gain vast power in every sense of the word. Magically, physically, socially, and politically. People may start praying to you and there may be religions dedicated to you. You will be worshiped. It will feel good. Very good. But therein lies the most dangerous trap you can fall into. It is the trap Lord Gwyn fell into that led to him casting the curse of undeath upon humanity. Greed, addiction to power, a lust for more, and a fear of losing the power you hold. You must have the restraint to not allow yourselves to be corrupted by the power you wield. It is the ultimate challenge of all who wield such power.”

Alric looked into the fireplace, staring into the flames he recalled scenes from his past. All the atrocities he committed in his youth. “It is a lesson I had to learn the hard way…”

“Alric?” Luna asked, looking up at him.

He was drawn out of his recollections. “Hm? Ah, yes… My apologies, I became lost in my memories for a moment… That temptation can wear away at even the strongest of wills until one succumbs. Some can bear it. Others cannot. In your case, I suppose you two are both too young for me to take you at your word that you could resist it on your own. Thus it’s something with which I must simply take a leap of faith and hope I can guide you both in the proper direction. But now, considering everything I have told you, do you wish to become goddesses? Keep in mind, I have only told you all the negatives so that you might be fully aware of the dangers and potential costs. There are many blessings that come with being goddesses as well.”

Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a moment before looking up at him. “It's scary, but… I wanna be a goddess.” Luna stated.

Celestia hesitated a bit longer but eventually nodded. “I want to be a goddess too.”

Alric nodded. “Very well then. I’ve never done something like this before. So I would like to perform something of an examination first to make certain it’s safe. Come. Let us head to my laboratory.”

The fillies hopped off his lap onto the floor and followed him through the castle to the lab.

He picked them both up and set them on a table. He then reached into his bottomless box and took out the souls.

“These fires are what will allow me to make you into goddesses. Celestia, I assume you wish to become the goddess of the sun, and Luna, I assume you wish to become the goddess of the moon, correct?” Alric asked them.

“Mhm. I like the moon. It’s pretty.” Luna nodded.

“I like the sun a lot. I really like how warm and bright it is.” Celestia agreed.

“I thought as much.” Alric said before setting the souls in front of the fillies. He then drew Velka’s talisman. “I’m going to start my examination to make sure this is safe. Please hold on a moment.”

He raised his talisman and a light enveloped them and the souls as he began casting a miracle.

“Huh?” Celestia grunted looking at herself.

“This feels funny…” Luna commented.

“That is to be expected. I am studying your souls and seeing how they interact with the souls of the gods. If it starts to hurt, let me know and I shall immediately stop what I am doing and fix it.” Alric stated.

The process continued for a few more minutes.

Eventually both of the fillies began shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t feel so good…” Luna muttered.

“I don’t either. I feel sick…” Celestia stated.

Alric sighed. “Mmm… Indeed… Seeing what’s happening to your souls I’m not surprised. It seems neither of you can withstand having the soul of a god implanted into you at the moment. Well, I’m not surprised. This is why I decided to perform this examination rather than implanting the souls immediately. It is always better to be safe than sorry. I’m reversing what I’ve done as we speak. It will be a simple matter so you needn’t fret.”

After a few minutes the fillies stopped squirming and began to relax, then the light faded and Alric set his talisman down on the table. Then he took the souls and put them away.

“It would appear neither of you are quite prepared to accept the souls of gods. You lack… well… a few things really. First, you simply aren’t prepared to handle this much raw power. And seeing what was occurring, I sincerely doubt an adult unicorn would be able to either. Thus we shall need to build up your tolerance for power by starting with weaker souls and allowing you to acclimate to them over time.” Alric explained, taking out two fading souls.

Fortunately he didn’t have to worry about transferring the curse to them through the souls. The souls of man were embers of the first fire placed within mankind when Gwyn linked the fire in order to suppress their humanity, the fragments of the Dark Soul within them. Since the sisters weren’t human and had no humanity to speak of, they could not contract the curse. Thus they could safely gain power from human and undead souls without fear of becoming undead themselves. The problem was they couldn’t consume souls as undead could. Thus it had to be done artificially. Tedious, but it could be done.

If he was to be honest with himself, while the delay was rather frustrating as it meant it would take longer before they could start helping others on any scale, it was probably good that he couldn’t simply grant them divinity right away. This would give him the chance to teach them to be humble and responsible before they ever became gods. They would not have the temptations of power thrust upon them all at once and let it go to their heads. They would have a chance to learn and grow over time.

He set the two fading souls down in front of the girls. He then picked up his talisman again. “These souls should be more suitable for you. Enough to push your current limits without harming you at all.” He then began the process of feeding the fading souls into theirs.

A faint white light flowed from the fading souls into the girls. It lasted for about three seconds before the souls vanished and the light disappeared.

“I feel weird again.” Celestia stated.

Luna nodded in agreement.

“Worry not, the souls are already fully assimilated with yours. Thus that strange feeling will be the extent of it, you should get used to it soon. It shall be some time before your bodies and souls fully acclimate to this increased power and shall be able to withstand more, however.” Alric explained putting his talisman away.

“Now. There’s another issue. Your souls aren’t quite attuned enough to the gods whose souls you shall be receiving. That is an issue as it could potentially lead to instability in your divine powers. This can be remedied, quite easily given that this will take time regardless. Thus I will be adding theology and miracles relating to the sun and moon to your education.” Alric informed them.

He reached into his bottomless box and took out several tomes. The holy texts of Gwyn, Gwynevere, and Gwyndolin. “These will be the books I will be having you study. I’ll need to teach you to read, of course. Until then I shall have to read them to you myself, which I’m more than happy to do whenever I have the time to spare. Now I have a question for you both. You are going to be learning sorcery and miracles. Sorcery as you are able to use it naturally with your horns and miracles because as deities you will use them as well. However, those are only two forms of magic. There are two others I can teach you. Pyromancy and Hexes. However, I would like to know if learning them is of any interest to you. I will not force you to pursue them if you have no desire to do so.”

“I don’t know… What are they?” Luna asked.

Alric smiled. “For that I suppose a quick lecture on the different magics is in order.”

He summoned his pyromancy flame to his hand. “By far the least complex and easiest to learn of all magic is pyromancy. Producing a flame and holding it in one’s hand, or perhaps paws or mouth in your case, then channeling it. My first teacher was a pyromancer named Laurentius and he told me that a pyromancer must be in tune with nature herself. I agree with his assessment. Unlike miracles that rely on faith, sorceries that manifest the power of one’s soul to bend arcane cosmic forces to one’s will, or hexes which channel the Abyss, the power of fire for pyromancy comes from the world around you. The plants, the animals, the rivers and seas, the sky above, the air we breathe, and even the very earth we walk on. Fire is the very essence of life itself, and it can be used to achieve a great many truly wondrous or truly terrible things. It all depends upon how its used.”

He closed his hand and extinguished the flame.

“That sounds nice. I kinda wanna learn that.” Celestia stated.

Alric nodded. “Very well. I am more than willing to teach you. What of you, Luna?”

“Mm-mm… Sounds boring.” Luna shook her head.

Alric laughed. “Hahahaha! Ah… Yes, many a sorcerer would agree with you, dear. Some do look down upon it for its simplicity. Personally I disagree, but I suppose it’s not for everyone. So I will teach you, Celestia, but I suppose you shall have separate lessons, Luna.”

He then placed a hand on the holy texts on the table. “You will both be learning this, as I said, but allow me to explain what miracles are and how they work. Miracles are the use of prayers and faith channeled through talismans to manipulate divine energies from specific deities to achieve what would otherwise be impossible. They can be used to heal yourself or others, to teleport yourself vast distances in an instant, to generate spears of lightning manifested from sunlight, to call down karmic retribution upon those who would harm you, to silence all magic within an area, to coat a blade in the power of moonlight, and more depending on the source of veneration.”

“The only requirement for this is faith, or a source of power to draw from as was the case for the gods. The Lords drew upon the power of the First Fire itself through the Lord Souls. Not fire in the same sense of nature and life as with Pyromancy, but the First Fire as in the ancient flames deep beneath the ground from which they found the Lord Souls. Even Nito, the First of the Dead, the God of Death drew from this same source so it is not anathema to death. That, however, is a very complex topic for later. Regardless, in your cases, the source you shall draw from until your ascension are the souls of Gwynevere and Gwyndolin. Thus the sun and the moon.”

He took out the four lord souls and set each of them on the table in a row so the girls could see them. “In fact, if I fail in my purpose and go hollow you will inherit the Lord Souls from me. The Light Soul of Gwyn, the Life Soul of the Witch, the Death Soul of Nito, and of course the Dark Soul of Manus.” Alric hovered his hand above each of the Lord Souls in turn. “And should that come to pass you will not be simple goddesses but Lords. In which case it will be beyond crucial for you to take my lessons to heart so as to not end up as tyrants.”

He already had an idea of how to divide at least two of the Lord Souls between the Sisters. Light to Celestia, Dark to Luna. If he could give the Dark Soul to Luna without risking her contracting the Curse of Undeath. He would have to conduct some experiments to see how Gwyndolin’s soul interacted with the Dark Soul before he could be certain if it was safe or not. If it functioned how human souls interacted with their humanity, then he would not be able to give her the Dark Soul as he refused to damn her with the curse of Undeath.

Then there was another problem. The Death Soul. Death was often viewed as a burden while Life was often viewed as a blessing. To give Life to one sister and Death to the other… he wasn’t quite happy with that. It could be viewed as favoritism, which he was wholeheartedly against.

But someone would need to inherit the Dark and Death souls if he went hollow. They couldn’t simply be abandoned and they certainly couldn’t be left with him.

He frowned at the two Lord Souls sitting next to each other. They were a bit of an issue for him. One he was going to have to solve soon.

Luna walked across the table and reached out to try and touch the Dark Soul with her hoof.

Alric quickly grabbed her and pulled her away before she could. “Ah, ah, ah! Please do not touch the Lord Souls and especially not the Dark Soul in particular. We just finished the process of enhancing your souls. I do not know what might happen to you and I have no desire to find out.”

“But… It’s so pretty.” Luna said, looking at the Dark Soul.

“Luna, please listen to me. I do not wish to risk you being harmed if you have a negative reaction with the Dark Soul. Besides which, I still need all four Lord Souls. They are my key to ending the curse. I cannot allow anything to happen to them unless I start going hollow. So you may look at them, you may pray to them, but you may not touch them.” Alric told her in a serious tone.

She seemed sad and disappointed. “I’m sorry…”

Alric stroked her head. “It’s alright. You are not in any trouble, little one. It’s my fault for placing them where you might try to touch them. I should have been more cautious. But keep this in mind for the future. The Lord Souls are not playthings and are not to be touched.”

“You were holding one of those at the village, when you showed the pegasi you could grow crops.” Celestia stated.

“Indeed I was. The one I was holding was this. The Life Soul.” Alric said, walking back over and picking up the Life Soul. “Plants are a form of life. And thus I can channel the energies of the Life Soul to make them grow. Gwynevere was a goddess of fertility as much as the sun. Thus you shall be able to do something very similar when you inherit her soul. That’s one of the miracles of hers that I plan to teach you, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m gonna be able to make food like you did?” Celestia asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. “Indeed… Moving on, there are two final types of magic. Sorcery and Hexes. Sorcery is the manipulation of arcane cosmic forces by leveraging the power of one’s soul. It is arguably the most versatile magic of all considering all it can be used to accomplish. However, it is by far the most intellectually challenging. It is to be part of your education regardless as you both are unicorns and thus have a natural inclination towards it.”

He drew his Tin Crystallization Catalyst and examined it. “You can master miracles with some petty memorization and lessons in theology. Then later, after you become a goddess you would already be a master of miracles through your prior experience as mortals. You can master pyromancy with simple practice and meditation. You could master hexes through a combination of theology, practice, and mental and spiritual discipline. Sorcery, however, requires in-depth knowledge of science and mathematics. I do not expect you to become researchers as I am, if you do not wish to. But I promise you, you shall both become highly proficient sorcerers under my tutelage. Perhaps some of the best this world has ever known.”

“Lastly, hexes. It can also be called dark or abyssal magic. It calls forth the power of humanity or the abyss. And no, I’m not talking about humanity as in humans like myself, though it is related in a sense.” He picked up the inky black Dark Soul and held it up for them to see. “When the other Lords found their souls within the flames of the First Fire, this was found by the Furtive Pygmy, Manus. The progenitor of mankind. It is the Dark Soul… Well, not the true Dark Soul. You see, the Dark Soul is unique among the Lord Souls in that it can be split infinitely. So the Furtive Pygmy took shards of the Dark Soul and distributed it among all of his children, Humanity, keeping only the core to himself. These fragments are called ‘Humanity’ after us, his children. This is the core of the Dark Soul which he had kept for himself, though I have gone to painstaking effort to restore it to the former power it held when it was found within the flames of creation.”

He shook his head. “I’m getting off topic, forgive me. My point is that humanity as in the shards of the dark soul, and humanity as in humans are not the same thing. So you needn’t think you are incapable of using hexes because you aren’t human. There is much more to it, such as the Abyss. A realm of pure darkness connected to the Dark Soul. However, what is important is what hexes can do. Earlier when I said sorcery was arguably the most versatile magic, hexes are the reason it’s arguable. This is because hexes can be used in the form of any of the other three magics. It can be used as pyromancy, sorcery, or miracles.”

He conjured his pyromancy flame once more. However this time the flames seemed to be made of pure darkness.

Luna examined the pitch black flames curiously. Celestia seemed less than impressed.

“Or it can be used as its own completely separate form of magic. As is the case with the Art of Lifedrain.” He banished his pyromancy flame and summoned the Dark Hand. “So you can learn it as an extension of learning miracles and sorcery or I can teach it to you as its own separate subject or I can do both. If either of you have any desire to learn it, that is.”

“I wanna learn hexes!” Luna exclaimed.

“Somehow, I am not surprised.” Alric smiled. He then banished the dark hand and started putting the Lord Souls back in his bottomless box. “And so you shall… So you shall learn pyromancy, and you shall learn hexes. Wonderful! I shall have to plan your lessons accordingly. For today, however, let’s begin with the basics of reading and writing. Then I shall cook lunch for you both.”

Author's Note

I have a question but it's a bit of a spoiler for the Lord Souls so continue at your own risk.

My idea is to have Alric make like two or three other beings to inherit the Lord Souls if he goes hollow. My question is, should Luna inherit the Dark Soul or should she and Celestia split Gwyn's Light Soul and share it? Or should neither of them inherit a Lord Soul if something happens to Alric?

Chapter 7

Three weeks went by, with Alric teaching the girls how to read and write and teaching them theology and mathematics. Luna had a bit of difficulty staying awake while he read to her and Celestia had trouble with getting bored and not paying attention. They were both very young, so he didn’t hold it against them. But he had no idea how to make the lessons more interesting for them.

At night or whenever the girls were playing he spent his time in his lab, library, or study trying to research a way to return to his world. He was sent here, so going back should be possible. No path was truly one way.

He took a few minutes every day to grow the crops in the garden and his treants spent the day harvesting and packing them. He put a few spells on the crates and barrels to keep the crops inside frozen in time until they’re removed, thus preserving them essentially indefinitely. Or until the barrel breaks or the enchantments fade. It was to help lessen waste and hopefully ease the burden of the famine just that little bit more.

The Pegasi would be arriving again soon to take the crops he’d harvested for them, thus he had crystal golems walking through his castle carrying the crates and barrels outside on pallets so the Pegasi could take them.

They had already come to collect once since he had made his cursory agreement with them. This would be the second time. After which Alric wanted to send the next couple of harvests to the unicorns. He knew the pegasi would take some issue with that, so he was going to have to speak with the unicorns, get an ambassador. Then he would need to arrange a meeting between himself, the Pegasi, and the Unicorns on a schedule for delivering crops to each of them.

He was also going to have to find out if the Earth Ponies had already left or not then travel to a few villages and maybe their capital city, and see about growing more of their crops for them so they wouldn’t have to starve on their journey. The only reason he hadn’t done so already was because his schedule was already very full.

Between growing his own garden, teaching the girls, cooking meals for the girls, conducting his own research, finishing his castle and the defenses in the cathedral at the back, making sure the crops he had already grown were stored and organized properly by the Treants, and attempting to fill and organize his library with all the books in his bottomless box, he was quite busy. And trying to find the time for anything outside of his castle was actually rather difficult. Especially as he wasn’t quite used to having to abide by a strict schedule as he wasn’t used to time flowing linearly as it did in this world. Thus he was still learning how to manage his time properly.

At the moment it was the middle of the night and the girls were sleeping so he was in his lab tinkering with some portal magic. He needed whatever he created to be two ways so he could check what was on the other side, see if he had succeeded, and return if he hadn’t.

So far he had only managed to make portals to different areas in the world he was currently trapped in. Even using Gwyn’s Light Soul, which he had to have used to set the trap that sent him here, he was met with no success. But that was to be expected, of course. He had only just started. It wouldn’t be a very good trap were he able to find a way to return immediately. He suspected it might take him a couple centuries. Maybe a thousand years or so if Gwyn had figured out something particularly clever or devious.

But that was fine by him. He had spent far longer researching a way to end the curse and traveling the world and abusing the broken time of the world to restore three of the four Lord Souls to their former glory. Speaking of which, he hadn’t had a chance to fully restore the Light Soul but it was still stronger than the Death Soul had been when Alric killed Nito. This was especially true after he had fused it back together with the fragments Gwyn had gifted to Seath and the Four Kings.

Unfortunately time wasn’t broken in this universe, so he couldn’t abuse that to restore the Light Soul. He had magic that could let him travel through time, the same magic that let Manus pull him back to the time of Oolacile. But using it to try and fully restore the Light Soul would mean creating paradoxes. Paradoxes that could potentially shatter time in this universe, which was something he would prefer to avoid.

Regardless, the Light Soul still had plenty enough power to be usable for his purposes. Even if it was now currently the weakest of the Lord Souls. Ironic considering it was once the most powerful of them.

After yet another failed attempt to make a portal back to his world, he decided to take a break.

And by a break he, of course, meant working on another project for a bit.

In a room hidden behind a false wall and powerful sound dampening enchantments, he had a Windigo in an airtight crystal box, with translucent sides. The cage was also enchanted to prevent its cold from leaking out into his castle and the room was perpetually burning with Chaos Flames as a precaution in case something went wrong and it managed to crack the cage enough to slip out. If the enchantments failed or if the thing somehow managed to escape its cage the room itself would mitigate how much its power could affect his castle.

Though if it escaped, the flames would kill it. He had originally thought these things were like ghosts, and thus transient curses would be enough to let him catch them, but no. He hadn’t been able to touch them even with transient curses or cursed weapons. Rather it seemed they were made of air, frost, and magic. That fact made it an incredible pain to get the thing into the box and back to his castle. Though it also meant the thing was vulnerable to fire, as the fire would burn up the air and melt its frost leaving nothing for the magic to hold together. Thus it would die.

He had captured it about a week ago and had been studying and experimenting on it ever since. He disliked experimenting on live creatures, but he needed a test subject. He just didn’t know enough about the Windigos to find a solution to get rid of them without total extermination. This was the only way he was going to get the data he needed.

One of his more remarkable discoveries was that Windigos did not have souls. At all. In any capacity. He had thought only the dragons had no souls, being from the Age of Ancients long before the First Fire sprang into existence. Yet here it was. Another being devoid of a soul. Just a mass of air and frost animated by magic.

“Good evening…” Alric greeted the Windigo, which just stared back at him in silence. “I am still not quite certain if you are sapient or not. So I do not know if you can understand me. Regardless, I do sincerely apologize for this. Please believe me when I say this is nothing personal. You must understand, I am simply doing what I must to assist the ponies. Your kind have thrust the land into perpetual winter, are the cause of a mass famine, and kill entire villages by freezing them. The suffering you cause cannot be allowed to go on as it has. And you shall be my key to learning about your kind and thus finding a way to end this without having to hunt your species to extinction.”

Alric waited, hoping the creature would respond to him. It didn’t. He sighed. “Perhaps that is of no consolation to you. After all, you are here, trapped in this cage in a room consumed by fire, and you must endure my experimentation… Well, regardless, through your sacrifice the rest of your kind shall continue to persist. Again, I apologize for the pain you have endured until now. But fret not. My next few tests and experiments should be painless.” Alric told it.

He proceeded to run some tests and experiments upon it for several hours. Stopping only to teleport out and jot down some notes.

In the end he went over the notes he collected and scowled. He wasn’t satisfied with the data he had gathered. Most of it was useful, yes, but it wasn’t what he needed. He wanted to find some way to repel them. What he’d gathered was a lot of very interesting little facts, none of which told him what might repulse them. Kill them, yes. Drive them off, no.

He would kill them if he had to. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t wait a century to find what he needed in order to drive them off.

The unicorns were all sorcerers. He heard the mention of “Wizards” several times. These Wizards had to be what they called their master sorcerers. Though it had to have some slightly different meaning or cultural context otherwise his Old Witch’s Ring would make him hear ‘Sorcerer’ instead of ‘Wizard’. Perhaps it was a distinction because all unicorns were born sorcerers. Thus a Wizard may be like a scholar of magic, distinct from the rest of the population. But this was all speculation, he didn’t really know for certain. Regardless, the ponies had been dealing with the Windigos for some time now, so he would be shocked if their wizards hadn’t tried studying them. Whether they’d successfully captured one like he had was a different story. Even he had trouble with that.

He was going to have to go to their city and try to get an audience with one of these wizards so he could discuss what they had learned of the Windigos.

He decided he would take the time out of his day to do so and perhaps get some other things he needed to take care of done as well. The girls had been working very hard so they deserved a break for a day or two anyway.

Before they woke up, he made their breakfast for them and prepared their lunch and dinner in advance. Then when they finally did wake up, he then informed them he would be going to the city on business for the day and they were free to take the day to run and play however they saw fit. He trusted Celestia to not let Luna get hurt.

Thus whilst they were still eating their breakfast he had a couple of crystal golems grab the Windigo’s container and he teleported all of them to just outside the city.

Walking up to the entrance, leaving his golems and Windigo far enough away to be out of sight, he waved at the guards. “Hail, good sirs. I would like to request an audience with whichever of your scholars or wizards knows the most about the Windigos. I have captured a windigo for study, and would like to collaborate on conducting some research upon it, if at all possible.”

The guards stared at him as if he’d grown a second head.

“You’ve captured a Windigo? Do you think we’re stupid, creature? Nopony can catch a Windigo anymore than they can capture the wind itself!” One of the guards declared, giving him an annoyed glare.

“I have it with me right now. I left it a ways away so as to not cause a panic by bringing it too close to the city without permission. I could bring it here or one of you could follow and I could show you. But I have captured a Windigo and can prove it quite easily.” Alric stated patiently, crossing his arms behind his back.

“Bah! We have no time for these games, beast! If you have no real reason to be here, then leave and cease wasting our time!” The guard growled.

“Then I will take that as permission to bring the Windigo here so that you might see it and know I speak the truth. I shall be back in a moment.” Alric said before turning and walking back the way he came.

He returned a couple moments later with the golems and trapped Windigo in tow. He had his golems set the Windigo down beside him. He then motioned to the caged Windigo who was staring at the now completely horrified guards in silence.

“As you can see, I spoke the truth. I am a magic user myself. Thus it took some effort, but with the right spells I have indeed managed to capture this Windigo for study. Now, I would like to request an audience with a Wizard or Scholar familiar with these beasts. Will you grant my request?” Alric inquired.

“I… I…” One of the guards stuttered before swallowing hard. “I shall go retrieve our commanding officer!” He then turned and sprinted back inside the city walls leaving Alric with the second guard who looked utterly terrified.

“You needn’t be afraid. The container is sealed such that not even air can escape. The only way in or out is through teleportation. I have made certain of it.” Alric attempted to reassure the guard.

Unfortunately the guard didn’t respond, continuing to stand there trembling, clutching his spear in terror.

A few minutes later about two dozen guards came out, led by a unicorn in golden armor. Alric raised an eyebrow at that. No, it couldn’t have actually been gold. It had to have been brass instead. Or steel with a thin coating of gold. Gold was too soft and heavy to be worn as armor.

All of the guards seemed to freeze in place as they saw him, his golems, and the caged windigo.

The leader recovered the fastest, shaking his head to snap himself out of it. He marched forwards, glaring at Alric. The Chosen Undead simply crossed his arms behind his back again as the officer approached him.

“I am Viscount Bright Shield, what are your intentions here?! Why have you brought that beast to our city?!” The unicorn demanded.

“Greetings. I am Alric of Vinheim. A human. I am a scholar and a master sorcerer. My intentions here are simple. Collaborative research. I have captured this creature for study so that I might find a way to drive them away and end this perpetual winter and ease the famine. However, I suppose I’m rather impatient for results I can actually use. Thus I have elected to request aid from you unicorns in my research. I also have a means of growing food via magic. I have been supplying some to the pegasi for the past month and I would like to work out an agreement to provide you unicorns with food as well. I cannot produce enough to stop the famine, but I hope to provide at least a bit of relief. However, this needs to be negotiated between myself, the pegasi, and an ambassador of your people to ensure a fair division of the food I can produce.”

Viscount Bright Shield stared at him in disbelief for a moment, before glancing at the Windigo. He turned towards the other soldiers. Pointing at four of them in turn he ordered, “You and you, go retrieve Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever. Tell them to meet me at the Royal Castle. You and you, go inform Princess Platinum and King Bullion that there is a… human with magic to grow crops who would like an audience with them to discuss providing relief for the famine. Inform them I sent you.”

The unicorns saluted and ran off to carry out their orders.

He then turned back to Alric. “Human… No, I suppose I should use your name. If what you say is true, I owe that much courtesy at least… Alric of Vinheim. You will follow me. Have your living statues bring the Windigo. But be careful not to let that glass case break, or the beast escaping shall be on your head.”

“It’s crystal, not glass. Though I suppose it doesn’t matter. Very well.” Alric made a quick motion with his hand and the golems picked up the container once more. Carrying it on steel poles running through three thick crystal rings on both sides of the container, which Alric had added only recently specifically for ease of carrying.

The viscount started leading Alric through the city. The remaining guards, save for the two who had to stay and guard the gate, surrounded Alric, the golems, and the Windigo on all sides. Likely ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

Ponies stared at the procession curiously, but that curiosity rapidly turned to fear whenever they got a look at the Windigo in the crystalline container.

Eventually they arrived at the front of the Royal Castle where two cloaked unicorns were waiting for them.

One was gray with a white mane and beard. His cloak was blue with embroidered stars and moons. He had a large pointed hat that vaguely reminded Alric of Big Hat Logan’s hat, albeit with a much more reasonably sized brim. The other was green with a darker green mane and tail with single yellow streaks through both. He wore a brown cloak held onto him by a length of rope.

“So is this the ‘Human’ who supposedly captured a Windigo?” Star Swirl asked, looking at Alric and the caged Windigo behind him.

“I shall let the human explain for himself.” The Viscount stated, stepping aside.

Alric raised an eyebrow at that but stepped forwards regardless. He bowed politely. “Greetings. I assume you are Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever. I am Alric of Vinheim. Indeed I am the human in question. In terms of my profession, I am a scholar and a sorcerer. A sorcerer being similar to a ‘Wizard’ of your kind, I would assume.”

“Hm… You can cast magic then? How? You do not appear to have a horn.” Star Swirl asked, examining him curiously.

Alric drew his tin crystallization catalyst and held it up for them to look at. “You are correct. I do not have a horn. I cast sorceries through a catalyst such as this. It functions in a similar manner to your horns but it is not a part of me. I would demonstrate, but I do not wish to intimidate the guards by casting spells unprompted. Instead you can see my work just behind me. I used crystal sorcery to create the box I trapped the Windigo within. It’s also how I created the golems and animated them.” He put his catalyst away.

“I see… What spell did you use to stop the Windigo from freezing everything outside of its container? And how is the box not shattering from the winds it can conjure?” Clover asked, looking at the Windigo.

Alric put a hand on his chest as he explained. “An enchantment of my own design. I haven’t bothered coming up with a name for it considering its rather niche use.” He lowered his hand and looked back at the cage. “And the walls of the box are about a foot thick of solid crystal with rounded insides instead of sharp angled corners to more evenly distribute any force across it. It can withstand immense pressures. At the cost of making it immensely heavy, I suppose. Thus why I have four golems carrying it. It’s completely sealed such that even air cannot escape. And as I have discovered Windigos are made of air and frost animated by magic, it cannot escape either.”

“I see. Quite the secure prison. Though, how do you access the beast? I was informed you captured it for study. I would imagine the crystal gets in the way.” Star Swirl asked.

Alric shrugged. “I simply teleport inside as needed. I wouldn’t recommend you do so without some preparations as it will freeze you alive. But I have spells and equipment that do allow me to be all but immune to such chill temperatures. Ah, but speaking of study, I would like to ask if either of you would like to collaborate with me on researching the Windigos. I am making progress but it's slower than I would like. I cannot wait a century to find a way to end this winter. Thus I believe working with other sorcerers, or wizards I suppose, and having others with whom to compare notes might speed things along a bit. Especially as I cannot devote as much of my time and attention to this as I would like as, unfortunately, I am quite busy.”

“I would love to. I’ve studied the Windigos as much as I can but I’ve never managed to get so close to one before. Let alone safely. I would be elated to look over your notes some time.” Clover stated.

Star Swirl raised a hoof to his chin in thought. “I suppose I might be willing to work with you on this as well. We do need to find a way to drive off the Windigos and this is, perhaps, the best opportunity to find it that we have been afforded.”

Alric bowed politely once more. “I am most honored. Once I am done speaking with the royal family, I shall take you both back to my laboratory in my castle and show you around. I may be busy today, thus we may not be able to begin our study immediately, depending on how this day goes. However you shall at least know where my place of work is and may become acquainted with my facilities.”

“The royal family? What business have you with them? I am Princess Platinum’s Royal advisor.” Clover inquired.

“Relief for the famine, hopefully. I have… Well, I shall be explaining it to the royal family soon. As you are her Royal Advisor, perhaps it would be best for you to follow. That way I needn’t explain this twice.”

“Very well. Then let us not keep her majesty waiting.” Star Swirl stated before turning and heading to the castle. Clover followed.

Alric looked at the Viscount. “Should I simply leave this out here?” He motioned to the Windigo.

“Indeed. My soldiers shall keep it under guard until you return for it.” The Viscount stated.

Alric nodded and turned to follow Star Swirl and Clover. The Viscount followed as well.

The four of them walked through the castle. They lead him to the throne room. The Viscount remained outside while Alric, Star Swirl, and Clover headed inside where a unicorn was sitting on a throne waiting for them. There were, of course, armed guards all throughout the throne room, as one would expect.

The Princess had white fur, a light purple almost pink-ish mane, a large platinum crown and a regal purple cloak with a collar with a platinum trim. She sat with perfect poise and posture, portraying herself as regal as possible.

As the three of them approached, Star Swirl and Clover bowed to her. Alric followed suit, bowing politely.

“So this is the so-called ‘Human’ who claims to be able to end the famine?” Princess Platinum inquired.

“I am. My name is Alric, a sorcerer of Vinheim. Though to clarify, I can not end the famine, only provide relief. I have magics that can grow food in a matter of moments. I am already providing some relief to the pegasi and I have helped a single Earth Pony village, thus I would like to provide aid to you unicorns as well. However, considering my agreement with the Pegasi I am going to have to set up a meeting between myself and ambassadors from both the unicorns and the pegasi so we might work out a fair distribution of the food I can produce. My garden is quite large but it does not have enough space to feed two entire kingdoms at once even with my magic to grow the crops. Nor can I spend all of my time traveling the land growing the crops in the fields of every single village or city. Thus, as you might expect, all I can provide is relief, not an end.”

“Then why not teach us to cast this magic? You wish to keep it for yourself to hold it over our heads, I presume?” Princess Platinum asked disapprovingly.

Alric frowned. “Do not insult me, Princess. I am not some avaricious lout and I do not appreciate the insinuation. Besides, quite frankly, there is nothing you could possibly offer me that would be of any interest to me. No, if I could teach others I most certainly would, but I cannot. That said, I do have a solution I am working on. For several of the problems your kind is facing.”

“Oh? And what is that?” The Princess asked.

“I will be making two goddesses. A Goddess of the Sun and Fertility and a Goddess of the Moon. I have two foals I rescued from a village that was destroyed by the Windigos. I will be granting them divinity, once they are strong enough to withstand it. Celestia will be able to bless your crops and control the Sun whilst Luna shall control the moon. Thus your issues with food shall be solved, and no more unicorns shall have to sacrifice their magic to continue the cycle of night and day.” Alric stated bluntly. He was not in the mood to dance around the truth or play political games with lies and deception.

Everyone stared at him as if he had gone crazy. Which was about the reaction he had expected.

“Goddesses? How quaint… Star Swirl, Clover, remove this imbecile from my presence. I have no time for delusional fools.” Princess Platinum stated, waving a hoof as if to shoo him away.

“You do not believe me. I suppose I’m not surprised. However, it’s quite true, I’m afraid. Here. Allow me to give you a demonstration. We needn’t even leave this room. This window over here has an excellent view of the sky.” Alric said walking over to a large window on the side of the throne room, with a clear view of the sun.

“You cannot truly expect me to take this seriously. And I am in no mood for jokes, creature.” Princess Platinum stated.

“Why are you unicorns all so stubborn? Just come here. I have something to show you. If it turns out to be a waste of your time you could banish me from the city.” Alric stated

“Or I could simply banish you now and save myself the trouble.” The Princess stated.

“You could.” Alric nodded, calmly. “However it would be unwise considering you would then lose out on the food I have to offer. And thus your people shall be the only ones not receiving any relief from the famine. A tragedy that your people would suffer for your hubris.” He wasn’t being serious. He wouldn’t help them officially, but he would still find a way to get food to the unicorns without having to deal with the royal family directly.

“He has captured a Windigo. Star Swirl and I saw it with our own eyes. So perhaps he is speaking the truth again. You lose nothing to humor him just this once, your majesty. As your advisor I would recommend at least witnessing whatever demonstration he has in mind before making a decision.” Clover advised.

Princess Platinum sighed in annoyance and rolled her eyes. “Oh very well…” Getting up from her throne she strode over to the window.

Star Swirl and Clover joined them.

“What is this ‘demonstration’? Some petty parlor trick, I imagine?” Princess Platinum asked.

“Hardly.” Alric said, drawing his catalyst. Pointing it at the sun through the window, the head of the catalyst began to glow brightly as vast arcane forces were channeled through it. Immediately the sun fell, casting the sky in pure darkness. Then the moon rose and the stars appeared. The moon fell and the sun rose. The cycle repeated a few times before suddenly gaining speed. The sun and moon whirled across the sky fast enough that they appeared to form solid lines in the rapidly flashing sky.

He didn’t have Gwyn’s Light Soul with him and he was not using the soul of Gwynevere, Gwyn’s First Born, nor any other deity. He was as powerful as Gwyn during the height of the age of fire. This was purely a display of his own raw personal power. It was taking a lot out of him, admittedly, but he was trying to prove a point.

He made the sun and moon come to a sudden dead stop with the moon fully eclipsing the sun. A blazing ring of fire burned in the sky. Vaguely reminiscent of the Dark Sign.

He then lowered his catalyst and looked back at the ponies, who were now staring at the eclipsed sun in shock and awe.

“I am no petty peddler of snake oil. I am no con man seeking to enrich myself at the expense of your family or kingdom. I am not even some merchant trying to sell you my wears. Hear me now, Princess Platinum. When I speak I do not lie. Only weak men lie, and I am not a weak man. I speak only the truth or I do not speak at all. Only honesty leaves my lips. So when I speak of providing food for your people to ease the burden of the famine, I am being sincere. When I say there is nothing you can offer me, I mean it. When I tell you I will make two goddesses to control the sun and moon, I am being very serious. I may laugh and joke at times, but I will never truly lie. And right now I am not laughing. Are we clear?” Alric asked in a deadpan tone.

This entire display was incredibly childish and petty of him. He knew it was and it embarrassed him. But this was the first thing that came to mind to prove he was being honest so the Princess would actually hear him out. Perhaps there was another solution. A better way he could have handled this. However, if there was, he simply hadn't thought of it in the moment. Regardless, it was too late to take it back now. Thus he simply had to proceed.

The Princess looked at him, now very clearly terrified, and nodded. “I… I apologize… If… If I caused any offense…”

Alric sighed. “No, your highness. It is I who must apologize. I am sorry. Truly. It was never my intent to intimidate or frighten you. Seeing you or anyone else frightened of me… It is far from pleasant… I apologize. Rest assured I have no intention of harming you or anyone else. I was merely trying to prove that I was indeed being honest with what I told you. I do wish to help your people as much as I can. Would you be willing to have a polite discussion? I have an herb known as Green Blossom. It is magical and has properties of restoring one’s stamina. I find it makes delightful tea.”

He tried to put on a reassuring smile.

She started calming down. “It’s not quite tea time, but a cup of tea does sound quite lovely. Very well… Though, and please do forgive me this one insolence, would you be ever so kind as to set the sun and moon back the way they were?”

“Of course.” Alric nodded, raised his catalyst and returned the sun and moon back to their proper paths and positions in the sky before putting his catalyst away once more.

Princess Platinum led him, Star Swirl, and Clover to a sitting room. Alic gave a servant the green blossom and they set out a pot of water to boil.

“Ehem… Whilst the tea is being prepared… This is terribly embarrassing but I can’t seem to recall your name.” Princess Platinum stated, looking at Alric.

“I am Alric. A sorcerer of Vinheim. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, your highness.” Alric told her once again.

“Oh the pleasure is all mine I assure you, Lord Alric… You call yourself a sorcerer, yet you say you can make goddesses… Forgive my ignorance but would that not mean you yourself are a god? Your display earlier would certainly suggest as much. If all the unicorns in the land worked together I do not believe we could come close to matching the power it would require to do what you did with the sun and moon.” Princess Platinum inquired.

“That is actually a matter of intense philosophical debate in my homeland. I ask you, what is a god, really? Big Hat Logan, one of the most famous sorcerers of Vinheim, would say it is any being who meets a certain criteria of raw power. Others would suggest intrinsic divine power is what determines if one is a god. Divinity in their very soul. I am certainly powerful enough to qualify under Logan’s definition. But also, no in that my soul is not that of a god. I have no ‘divine spark’, as it were. I cannot hear prayers, nor can miracles be derived from me.”

“So what is it you want? Followers? A religion in your honor?” Star Swirl asked, looking at him with a cautious guarded expression.

He shook his head. “No, no. Certainly not. What I want is to help. That’s all. No payment, no debts, no religion, nothing of the sort. I want to help simply because I feel it is the right thing to do. No strings attached.”

“Then, if I may be so bold, why tell us you are making goddesses? You could have simply said you were training apprentices or some such.” Princess Platinum asked.

“To be perfectly transparent, there is quite literally nothing you or anyone else can do to me or my wards that I do not approve of. I am more than confident in my ability to defend them and myself with ease. Kidnapping, assassination, a siege on my castle. All of it would only end in death for any who tried. And no amount of political maneuvering can force me to do anything I do not wish to, such as setting up arranged marriages for them or some such barbaric nonsense. So there is no harm in being honest with you, now is there?” Alric stated bluntly.

He then shrugged. “I suppose it could prove a bit tedious for me as you may try to play some petty political games now that you are aware, but I am already going to be dealing with politics, am I not? I will inevitably be caught between your kingdom and the pegasi as I try to provide what aid I can to both of you. So really, what changes if you know? Very little… Besides, this will inevitably be directly affecting the lives of all of your people. Thus, as one of their leaders, I do believe you have a right to know the truth in this regard. I feel it would be somewhat unfair to do something like this in the shadows when it will be directly affecting so many lives. I am attempting to do what I believe is fair and responsible for one with the power I wield.”

“You said you are going to make your wards goddesses. Under which of the definitions you suggested will they become goddesses?” Clover asked.

“Both, of course. I have slain many gods, and I have taken their souls. Thus I will use those souls to make them goddesses.” Alric stated.

That caused all three of the unicorns sitting with him to stiffen in surprise and horror.

He looked around at the horrified unicorns. “What? Does the fact I have slain gods offend? It was in my youth. I had taken issue with the gods over something I had learned and foolishly decided they were all evil. So I slew them… It was a rash decision made in the throes of rage and hatred. I have long since come to realize how pointless it all was… I do regret it, but there is no changing what is done.”

“No. The fact you have slain gods is not what’s concerning, though that you are so willing to kill does reflect poorly upon you. What is concerning is the fact you took their souls.” Star Swirl stated, glairing at him.

Alric gave him a confused look. “What?”

“You just said you took their souls after killing them.” Clover stated.

“Yes. Of course I did. Who in their right mind wouldn’t?” Alric nodded, still not understanding.

“Ehem… Lord Alric… Please forgive my impertinence but is taking souls… common in your homeland?” Princess Platinum asked.

“Yes…? Is that not the case here?” He asked uncertainly.

“No, it most certainly is not. What dark magics must you use to perform such a heinous act?” Star Swirl demanded.

“I see… How strange… I don’t understand… How could such a thing even…?” He muttered to himself with a hand raised to his chin in thought, completely perplexed. Particularly powerful souls tended to linger over the body after death. Even normal living humans could take them at that point. Only undead could consume weaker more transient souls, but the souls of gods could be held even by the lowest of peasants should they somehow manage to grab it before someone else did. They might not be able to do much with it but they could certainly take it. Even without gods, there had to be at least a few beings whose souls were powerful enough to linger after death. At which point the living would inevitably discover them. It made no sense to him that they wouldn’t know of this.

He then shook his head and refocused. “Well, regardless. Rest assured I used no profane magic to take their souls. But if this is not a matter of common knowledge in this land, perhaps it would be best to keep it as such. Some knowledge is best kept to oneself lest it be abused.”

He was no fool. He knew that some might try to kill Celestia and Luna for their souls if they knew how easy it was to take them. Fools overestimating their own abilities and coveting the power of gods, not understanding that trying to claim such power unprepared would destroy them. So keeping that knowledge to himself was an added layer of protection for them once he returned to his world. Not that they would need it considering they would be vastly more powerful than any mortal, but still.

“Quite right. I do not want ponies going about stealing souls in my kingdom.” Princess Platinum nodded in agreement.

“Indeed. Regardless, my plan is to implant the souls of two of these gods within them. I’m afraid they are too weak to survive the process at the moment. So we are working up to it. Unfortunately that could take a very long time. Perhaps years.” Alric explained.

“Then perhaps using foals is not the most optimal choice. I know of several very powerful unicorns who might be better suited to receiving these souls.” Princess Platinum stated. Obviously coveting this power. Thus proving he was indeed correct to keep such information to himself.

He shook his head. “No. Even the most powerful of your wizards wouldn’t be able to survive the process either. It would take just as long for an adult to acclimate to such power as well. Age does not matter in this regard nor does one’s knowledge of the arcane. I found these children and saved them from the Windigos. They are orphans with nowhere else to go. I can care for them, give them a decent life, raise them to use their power wisely and responsibly, and hopefully trust them not to abuse that power once they reach adulthood. I cannot say the same for strangers I do not know.”

“Why not do all of this yourself? You are very clearly more than powerful enough to handle raising the sun and moon, and you can grow crops yourself. So why go to all the trouble of making two goddesses?” Star Swirl asked, very clearly still trying to gauge him. It was quite obvious the bearded unicorn didn’t trust him.

“Two reasons. First, I am quite busy. I must find a way to return to my homeland as soon as I possibly can. It is vitally important. I have my reasons. And when I leave I will very likely never come back. So even if I did take over all those roles, you cannot rely upon me forever. Yet I do not wish to simply help now only to abandon you later. Second, I am not omnipresent thus I cannot be everywhere at once doing everything. I am powerful indeed, however I am but one man. There’s only so much I can do, especially as I need to properly manage my time. So delegating where I can is wise. Would you not agree?”

“I suppose I would…” Star Swirl stated.

Then a servant came forward with the tea. They started setting out the cups and filling them.

“Ah, it would seem the tea is ready. As much as I’m enjoying this conversation, perhaps it's time we move on to more pressing matters. Specifically the food I am producing.” Alric stated.

Author's Note

I already know Alric revealing that he was going to be making gods is going to be somewhat contentious, but like he said there's nothing the ponies can do to hurt him or the sisters. He's not some new undead freshly escaped from the Asylum, barely stronger than a common knight. He's as powerful as Gwyn used to be. He has magic and items to heal wounds, neutralize poison, cure disease, and even completely nullify magic (Great Magic Barrier and Vow of Silence). The ponies are not a threat to him or those he cares for any more than they are to Discord himself, if Discord actually took things seriously and didn't let his chaotic nature get in his way.

He is not a secretive man. He likes being honest. And he gave his own explanation in character.

This isn't some isekai where the main character tries to hide how powerful they are for whatever reason. That trope has always annoyed the hell out of me. So I'm not going to be dancing around it.

I have ideas for what might challenge or threaten him soonish, other than the Windigos and the curse. But it requires some build up first. So just bear with me, please.

Chapter 8 (updated)

It was two weeks after his visit with Princess Platinum.

Apparently his display with the sun and moon caused more of a ruckus than he intended. At one point Star Swirl came by his castle to drag him back to the Unicorn Capital. Then he had to explain to Commander Hurricane of the Pegasi and Chancellor Puddinghead of the Earth Ponies exactly what happened with the sun and moon.

He also took that as an opportunity to inform them of his plans and set up a meeting to discuss the distribution of the food he could produce. That meeting was going to be happening soon.

In the meantime, he continued as he had been. Only now Star Swirl and Clover often came to assist him in studying the captured Windigo. Thus progress on that front was going far faster.

Once again, he was in his lab at night. At the moment he was experimenting on Gwyndolin’s soul and the Dark Soul. Trying to see how they would react with each other.

And as it would turn out, Gwyndolin’s soul and the Dark Soul did indeed react very poorly with each other.

With a crystal dip pen he wrote in a notebook,

Subject “Abyss” Journal #9658 Log #10

The reaction between Gwyndolin’s soul and the Dark Soul was far worse than I had feared. Upon introducing Gwyndolin’s soul to the Dark Soul, it immediately proceeded to start attempting to suppress it as human souls suppress our humanity. Thus simulating the curse of undeath.

However, it would appear that the Dark Soul is alive, for lack of a better term. It possesses a will all its own. I will count this as a confirmation of hypotheses from previous experiments. Or at least strong evidence to support said hypotheses.

Upon being suppressed, it began going wild and lashing out. Like an animal struggling against its chains. Powerful waves of abyssal power emanated from it, that were difficult for even myself to stand against. It nearly killed me.

Present theory: It has a will of its own but no intellect. It operates purely on primal animal instinct. The way it reacted seemed to reflect this. Lashing out to defend itself like a wild animal feeling threatened with no real thought or skill. Just raw power. Perhaps it is some remaining fragment of Manus’ shattered will or consciousness within the core of the Dark Soul. The Father of the Abyss was quite animalistic in his mannerisms when I was forced to slay him in Oolacile. Unfortunately I have no way to safely test this. Thus it remains pure speculation for now.

Regardless, I had to separate the souls quickly to stop the Dark Soul from destroying Gwyndolin’s soul and quite possibly my entire castle. Then I had to lull the Dark Soul back into a calm state with various hexes and offerings of humanity. As I was doing so it almost seemed on the verge of shattering. As if it wanted to break into four separate pieces. I managed to stop that from occurring, but it was quite a curious phenomenon.

However, had I not acted as quickly as I did, I fear my castle would have become the epicenter of another disaster on the scale of Oolacile. I’m not sure I could have kept my adopted daughters alive through it. Or untainted, if nothing else. I went to check on them immediately after calming the Dark Soul. They are both unharmed and miraculously are both still fast asleep. It seems that I was able to keep the power contained mostly to the bottom floor of my lab.

Still it is far too dangerous to conduct any further experiments upon the Dark Soul within my castle where Celestia and Luna could be injured or worse should another such disaster happen. I shall have to postpone any further potentially dangerous experimentation upon it until I can find a separate location to make another laboratory.

Unfortunately this leaves me with a very serious issue. In the — hopefully unlikely — event that I lose myself and go hollow, I cannot leave any of the Lord Souls unaccounted for or without a guardian. Yet I cannot let either of my adoptive daughters inherit the Dark Soul. I shan’t risk them becoming undead or some twisted abyssal monstrosity like what became of Manus and the inhabitants of Oolacile.

Thus I am left with no recourse. I need another potential heir. One devoid of a soul of fire that could interact poorly with the Dark Soul. I require a being with a soul of pure darkness. Pure humanity devoid of even so much as a single minute spark of the First Fire. Else the Dark Soul shall have to remain with me, should I go hollow. An obviously unacceptable outcome. Not even a single Lord Soul can be allowed to remain in the hands of a hollow.

This leads to a second issue. An imbalance in the division of the Lord Souls. Three heirs but four souls. That leaves one spare. I don’t wish to allow one more power than the others. So I shall need to create a fourth potential heir.

As this is simply a precaution in the event I go hollow to begin with, the fourth shall be the bane to stop me in my rampant state should the others fail to do so for whatever reason. The most dangerous being I can possibly create, the ultimate weapon against myself. So that even should I kill one or two of my children in my insanity and subsequently consume their Lord Souls — something I shudder to even consider for my love of my children and the dread of what I may do with such power as a hollow — there will still be a chance to stop me. To slay me and force me into a prison of my own design where I shan’t be able to harm anyone else, before the curse inevitably forces me back into my thrice damned unlife.

I already have an excellent idea of how to make just such a being. Admittedly, I’m loath to part with the materials I shall need but I suppose it’s for the best.

I shall have to tread cautiously, however. Such a being cannot be allowed to become selfish, arrogant, or otherwise evil in any capacity. Lest the world suffer for it. I shall have to do everything within my power to instill discipline and virtue into this being. More so than even in my other children.

Furtive Pygmy, thou who art the Father of Humanity and Creator of the Abyss, though I may have slain thy maddened form and have the core of thy Soul of Darkness, I pray to thee now. I pray that I may be the father I must be. That I might guide all of my children to become truly virtuous beings. That I may teach them the virtues they must know.

And above all, I pray that all of my efforts go to waste at the end of all things. That all my preparations and precautions matter not as I return to our world and put an end to the curse placed upon us, thy beloved sons and daughters, by thy great enemy Gwyn, Bearer of the Soul of Light. To never hurt my beloved children by forcing them to witness my slow descent into madness and thus force them to do what must be done to ensure I cause no harm as a hollow.

Bestow upon me the strength and wisdom I shall need to carry out these tasks oh great Progenitor of Man. Be with me in the darkness and offer me thy guidance until it is finally time to welcome me forever more into the embrace of the Abyss for my far too long delayed eternal rest.

Non timeo noctem. Ego enim sum filius Manus, patris noctis.

Thus concludes this log.

Alric set his dip pen back in the inkwell and waited for the ink on the page to dry before shutting the book. He took a deep breath and slowly released it. It wasn’t often he prayed to the Furtive Pygmy. Yet who else could he pray to when his goal was to end Gwyn’s curse and allow the Age of Fire to come to its natural end?

He looked over at the Dark Soul. “I hope you heard my prayer, Father of Man…”

Perhaps it was a trick of his eyes or his imagination, but the Dark Soul almost seemed to pulse in response. As if it were answering him. He considered it for a moment and gave it a smile. Perhaps it was his imagination or perhaps not. Regardless, he felt some amount of comfort from it whether it was real or imagined.

Stretching a bit, he stood up.

Which child would he make first? The child of the dark? Or the weapon who would be his personal Sword of Damocles, ready to fall upon him should he ever falter?

He considered it for a moment. Then he decided to start with the one born of the dark. Why not? Walking over to the Dark Soul, he took out several humanity sprites and set them on the table. Just enough that he could mold them together to make a soul as powerful as Celestia and Luna’s were currently. He would have all of his children progress to godhood together as evenly as he could.

Then he took out Manus’ Catalyst, which he also took from the Father of the Abyss’ corpse. It was ridiculously large when he acquired it, but he managed to figure out a method to shrink it down for his own personal use. It was about as powerful as his Tin Crystallization Catalyst but it could cast both Abyssal Sorceries and Abyssal Miracles and further boosted their power. Holding the catalyst in one hand, he grabbed the Dark Soul with the other. He would be using it to help in this process.

He was about to start but paused as a thought came to him. When he left this place, would he be leaving this child here in this world or would he bring it with him back to his own? This wasn’t like Celestia or Luna who originated here and would be needed in this world. Alric had no idea what domains a god derived of the Abyss might encompass as only one had ever existed. The Furtive Pygmy. So he knew not how this child would benefit the world.

If the child were to remain here, perhaps it would be best to give it the form of a pony so that it might better fit in with the inhabitants of this world. But if it were to come with him, perhaps it would be best to give it a human form. He would like it if his child resembled him.

“Manus, what would you do in my position? What form would you let this child take? Would you make it human or a being resembling the inhabitants of this land?” Alric asked the Dark Soul. He then sighed and shook his head. “I know you cannot respond, even could you hear me… I suppose it may be unfair to take only two of my children with me when I leave this place, and leave the other two. Thus I suppose I shall simply give it the form of a pony so it might fit better within this world.”

Raising his catalyst and the Dark Soul he began.

The humanity sprites began merging together into a single clump of humanity. As they did, Alric began purging them of Fire entirely. He refused to leave so much as a single spark of the First Fire or Gwyn’s light within them. This soul he was creating would be humanity in its absolute purest form, completely untainted by anything else.

The white aura that typically surrounded humanity began to waver. Growing dimmer and dimmer before fading entirely, leaving only a solid black mass. Pure distilled darkness. It looked like a flat hole in the world, emitting and reflecting no light whatsoever thus making it impossible to distinguish any features. It was the deepest darkest black imaginable.

When it was complete, Alric began trying to form a body for it. Then something peculiar started to happen. The Dark Soul itself began influencing the process. It wasn’t taking control, rather it was guiding him. Like a master potter helping guide the hands of an apprentice molding the clay on a pottery wheel for their first creation. Like a father or grandfather trying to teach a son his craft.

He was caught off guard at first. He hadn’t expected this. But it was more confirmation that the Dark Soul did indeed have a will of its own.

This wasn’t a good time or place to experiment with the Dark Soul, considering what happened when he had introduced it to Gwyndolin’s soul. However, this didn’t seem quite as dangerous. It wasn’t as if the Dark Soul was lashing out like before. It just seemed to be trying to help him. To teach him. So, he decided to simply go along with it and see what would come of this. If it didn’t turn out well, he could simply terminate the resulting creature and start again.

As it went on, he realized the Dark Soul was having him instill the creature with knowledge. Alric hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. As he was still fully in control of the process, simply accepting guidance, he limited how much knowledge the creature would gain. He wanted to be cautious, not knowing how this would turn out. He limited it to having the intellect of a child, about the same age as Celestia and Luna.

Then the mass of darkness began to expand slowly taking the shape of one of the humanity phantoms Alric had encountered in the Abyss of Oolacile. But its form seemed incredibly malleable. Through the Dark Soul’s guidance, he realized he could design it to be capable of changing its shape. He could limit it to only a few shapes or give it full control over its own form. He decided to give it one form. That of a pony.

He designed its pony form to have a horn and wings so it would have the features of both the unicorns and pegasi. Perhaps it was naive of him, but he hoped that would let it fit in better with both. However, he quickly realized he couldn’t solidify the humanity enough to give it a truly physical body. He could solidify it enough that it would be able to touch and interact with things but it was technically a mass of darkness rather than flesh and bone. Alric should have realized this was a possibility and prepared a body of flesh for the soul he made to inhabit rather than trying to sculpt raw humanity into a body. It was incredibly foolish of him.

Unfortunately the mistake was impossible or at least highly impractical to fix at this point so he had to just make do. He made areas of less dense darkness, almost resembling smoke, to give the solidified mass of darkness definition rather than simply being a flat featureless black mass. Its mane, tail, and eyes were all different shades of gray and black.

His form was still somewhat malleable as he was technically made entirely of solidified humanity so as he got older perhaps he could learn to shape shift, but for now Alric wanted him to get used to looking like a pony. He was currently roughly the same size and shape as a male foal roughly the same age of Celestia. He would grow just like a normal foal or child.

When he was finished, he lowered his catalyst and put the Dark Soul back in his bottomless box until he could return it to its altar in his chapel.

The boy stared at him curiously.

“Hello.” Alric greeted him with a warm smile.

“Hello… Who are you?” It asked.

“I am Alric. Your creator, your father. And I have just finished creating you. Happy birthday, my son.”

“Who am I? What am I?” The being asked.

“What are you? Hm… Such a simple question with a rather complicated answer. You are a creature of the Abyss. Humanity distilled. Darkness given form. A descendant of the Furtive Pygmy. You may not understand what any of that means currently, but I shall teach you in time. For now, know that you are my son and that’s all that truly matters. Though if you require a species to call yourself… Well, quite frankly you’re the first of your kind. So we would have to come up with a name for what you are. Something that we can explore a bit later, perhaps.” Alric explained. “As for who you are… I suppose I should give you a name. Or would you rather name yourself?”

The boy was silent for a moment, just floating there. Eventually he responded. “I don’t know…”

Alric looked at him curiously. “You don’t know… Very well. Then I suppose I shall give you a name. If you like it, you may keep it. If you do not, I shall try another. If you don’t like that one, I shall make a list of possible names for you to choose from and you may choose which you like the best. Is that alright?”

“Yes.” The boy said simply.

“Very well… How do you like the name Aldrich? It’s similar to my name, I know. That’s intentional. It’s something of a tradition amongst the Lords to name their children after themselves. Gwyn named his children after himself. The Witch of Izalith named her daughters after herself. Manus named the first Pygmies after himself. Nito… well… Nito never had children to begin with otherwise I imagine he would have done the same. I am the Chosen Undead, the bearer of all four Lord Souls. I may as well be a Lord myself. So I thought it may be fitting to follow this tradition. But what is your opinion?” Alric suggested.

“I don’t like it. Too far away. Not born yet, but old…? Like me but… not? Too deep… It feels… hungry…”

Alric raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand… Are you referring to the name itself or someone else named Aldrich?” It had to be the name itself. He was just born. He didn’t know anyone besides Alric. And Alric certainly didn’t know anyone named Aldrich. At least no one that was particularly notable.

“I don’t know… But it’s scary. I don’t like it.” The boy stated.

Alric took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Very well… I shall have to investigate this matter some other time. If you dislike the name, that’s quite alright. Let us move on… What of Umbra? It means shadow or darkness. I think it’s quite fitting.”

“Umbra… dark… safe… It’s nice.” The boy stated.

“Excellent. In that case, happy birthday Umbra, my son. I pray you shall like it here.” Alric said with a smile, wrapping the humanity phantom in an embrace. After a moment he released the shadowy colt. “I’m going to have to introduce you to your sisters in the morning. For now, I shall make another sibling. The process I’m going to be using will be very different from the process through which I created you. Still, you are more than welcome to watch. However, I will have to ask you to do exactly as I say, in case something goes wrong. It is to keep you safe. Can you do that?”

The boy nodded.

“Good! Then I shall begin immediately.” Alric said before heading over to an empty section of the table. He couldn’t be certain as he’d never done this before but he imagined this process would be vastly more difficult. He was going to need every ounce of strength he could muster for this.

He took off his Lingering Dragon Crest Ring and put on his Dusk Crown Ring. He immediately felt his vitality cut in half but felt his reserves of focus double.

“Ugh… I despise this damnable ring, wearing it always feels utterly horrid… But I cannot deny its efficacy.” He muttered to himself, glaring at the ring begrudgingly.

“What does it do?” Umbra asked, looking at it.

“Oh. It allows me to cast more magic than I would otherwise be able to, but it comes at the cost of weakening me physically, cutting my life force in half. It is not a pleasant sensation. But as I said, it’s highly effective in its purpose regardless of its unfortunate drawbacks.” Alric explained.

Then he proceeded to reach into his bottomless box, withdrew the Crown of The Dark Sun, and put it on. “This crown increases the raw potency of my magic. Unlike this ring, there are no drawbacks.”

He was going to be using a lot of power for this. Every ring he wore, and the crown, would further boost his magic and would thus hopefully create an even stronger and more perfect end result.

He then took out Havel’s Dragon Tooth, and used a powerful lightning infused chisel to break a piece off the top where it would have little impact on the weapon. After casting a repair spell on the Dragon Tooth, he put both it and the chisel away. Setting the shard he broke off the weapon on the table, he took out the calamitous orange eye, the obsidian scales, a vial of blood, and a large bone shard of the arch dragon who had been terrorizing Oolacile.

He was going to be making a chimeric crossbreed, much like Priscilla. However, instead of Seath the Scaleless, it would be a hybrid of one of the last and the most terrifying and powerful of the Arch Dragons. Kalameet. Who even the Gods feared.

Alric wished he had some materials from Priscilla. Her power of Life Hunt would be perfect to infuse this being with considering it was meant to be a weapon against himself. Alas, he would have to settle for just Kalameet’s power. Though that was no small thing. Kalameet was the last and most feared of the ancient dragons for good reason.

Moving on, he took out a vial of Quelana’s blood. Similarly he took out a lock of Quelaan’s hair. Separating the strands he only took about half before tying the rest back up and putting them away. They had given these to him willingly for study and experimentation after he had cured Quelaan’s affliction. Though the lock of hair was as much a keepsake from Quelaan as it was material for him to study. Thus why he didn’t use all of it.

Then he took out the soul of Quelaag. He had tried to give it back to Quelana and Quelaan after reuniting them, but they told him to keep it. They, apparently, weren’t so sentimental as Ciaran. Or perhaps they were, but were unable to perform the same rites and rituals as whatever Ciaran had done with Artorias’ soul. After all, the Gods had fled Anor Londo and they would never willingly perform a funeral service for a demon. Even a half demon like Quelaag. The bastards… Just another reason to loath the Gods of Anor Londo, he supposed.

He could never find a use for it before curing Quelana, and he could never bring himself to do anything with it afterwards. This could, perhaps, be a second chance for Quelaag. A sort of “reincarnation” similar to what some in the far eastern lands believed in. She would have no memories of her past life and would thus be in essence an entirely new person, but it was still technically her in a way.

If only Quelana and Quelaan could be here to see it and give their input on how he should remake her. Would they be opposed to the form he would be giving her? He desperately wished he had some way to contact them so he could be sure he wasn’t making a grave mistake… In fact, he wished he could talk to Priscilla since she would have a better perspective on the issues with being a crossbreed. Other than being ostracized and banished to a painting, he supposed.

Next he took out an empty glass vial and a normal dagger. Cutting his palm, he filled the vial with the thick red ichor streaming from the wound before healing himself and putting the dagger away. It was just enough that his child would be related to him. It would have his blood running through its veins. However it very explicitly wouldn’t be human. He wouldn’t allow it to be. It would have no humanity. He didn’t want any of his children to suffer as he had. Thus why he was making these two in the first place.

Then he took out a branch from the Bed of Chaos. After defeating her, he had studied the Bed of Chaos, wondering how the Witch of Izalith could have turned into such a diminutive creature. What he learned was astounding. That creature wasn’t the Witch herself. Not entirely anyway. It was just a part of her. Specifically it was her heart. When she had lost control of the Flames of Chaos her body had become the massive tree-like demon he had fought, which was why it looked vaguely humanoid, while her heart turned into the insect and fell out of her chest as she was transforming. It was still linked to her body through her soul, thus why she died when it did. If he was going to create a demon-hybrid in hopes of making a more potent weapon, it seemed only fitting to include the mother and greatest of all demons in the process.

He took out a couple small vials of blood he had taken from Celestia and Luna for study. He had cast miracles on them to make it completely painless. He wanted the creature to be able to fit in with ponies. So he had to use materials from ponies to give it the form of a pony. Or at least as close to it as possible. Plus it had the added benefit of ensuring it would be related to Celestia and Luna by blood, making it truly their sibling.

Finally he took out the Life Soul. He was going to create a new life, not using any of the methods Seath devised, so he was going to need the power of the Life Soul. He just had to be extremely careful to avoid this going wrong.

“A tooth fragment of an Everlasting Dragon. The eye, scales, and a shard of bone of Kalameet. The blood of Quelana and the hair of Quelaan. A branch from the Bed of Chaos. Blood from Celestia and Luna, And most importantly of all, the power of the Life Soul to make the process I’m going to use actually possible… Am I missing anything? Hm… I have nothing of Priscilla so no, I suppose that’s everything.” He muttered to himself.

He then proceeded to take out both a catalyst and a talisman, holding one in each hand. Though there was a bit of a difference this time. Instead of the Tin Crystallization Catalyst he normally used, he took out the Witch of Izalith’s Catalyst. While the Tin Crystallization Catalyst was better for general sorcery and especially crystal sorcery, the Witch’s Catalyst was immensely superior for flame sorcery which he was going to have to make use of. Though he still took out Velka’s talisman, as usual, and held it in his off hand. He always did his best work when using multiple forms of magic in tandem.

He took a deep breath as he mentally prepared himself. Then he began.

The Life Soul blazed furiously and the materials all raised up off the table. Quelaag’s soul floated in the center, surrounded in a ring by all of the other materials save for the Lord Soul. Blood flowed out of all of the vials and mixed together enveloping Quelaag’s soul and merging into an amorphous sphere. The raw power Life Souls caused the crimson sphere of blood to seemingly catch fire and burn with divine power. The flames started flickering red as Alric carefully brought forth the power of the Chaos flame. It started slow at first but it didn’t take long for the chaos flames to practically explode forth. Alric grit his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, every muscle in his body was tense from the sheer effort it took to restrain the Chaos Flames and prevent them from overwhelming the flames of the First Fire.

“RAAAAAH!” He yelled from the struggle. Every muscle in his body was fully taught. Tense from the herculean effort that was keeping the Chaos Flames under control.

Umbra seemed startled and took a hesitant step towards him.

“STAY BACK…! I’m… s-sorry… Don’t m-mean… to… sh… shout… P-please… I… n-need to… f… focus… Don’t… dis… distract me…” Alric growled, struggling with all he had.

Umbra stepped back, but seemed to be having trouble sitting still. He could tell something was wrong and was visibly nervous. Alric didn’t see this, however. He just had to trust Umbra was doing as he was told.

He opened his mouth and summoned his pyromancy flame within his jaws, a technique he developed taking inspiration from the dragons. Fire began spewing from his mouth with every ragged strained breath he took. He couldn’t do this with just miracles and flame sorcery alone. He needed pyromancy as well. This divided his attention even more which put significantly more mental strain on him, but ultimately it made it a bit easier to keep the chaos flames contained so it was worth it.

The Dusk Crown Ring was his only saving grace at the moment, providing him barely enough focus and mental fortitude to cope with the strain. His Bellowing Dragon Crest ring, the Ring of the Sun’s First Born, and the Crown of the Dark Sun working together were the only reason he had enough power to hold back the Chaos Flames of the Life Soul on his own. Even then he was considering taking out all three of the other Lord Souls to reign in the raw untamed power of the Life Soul and Chaos Flames.

It was no wonder why the Witch had lost control of the Chaos Flame, considering the difference in the sheer magnitude of what she was trying to accomplish. Alric could tell he would surely fail under those circumstances. Fortunately, what he was trying to do was nothing near so lofty as trying to replace the First Fire itself. He was just trying to create a single being. One singular new life. Something much smaller in scale which should be within his bounds.

As the ritual continued the bone fragment plunged into the burning sphere of blood. After that it began to morph and take shape as the bone began to grow, stretch, break, expand, and form its skeleton. First the torso, the neck, the fore-legs, the hind legs, the tail, the head, and the hooves. Much to Alric’s surprise, four dragon-like wings sprouted from the child’s back. Two were larger and higher up while two were smaller and slightly lower on the back. Their sizes and positioning would have almost made them look like the wings of an insect, almost like a butterfly or moth if they weren’t obviously the wings of a dragon.

Priscilla didn’t have wings, so he hadn’t expected this child to have wings either so this came as a shock to him. The influence of the Chaos Flame and its demonic side perhaps? Or perhaps he added a bit more dragon into the mix than he intended? He couldn’t afford to waste effort thinking about it now.

The tooth fragment shot into the jaws before splitting and forming the teeth. Kalameet’s eye was absorbed into the mass as well, forming a singular eye in the center of the forehead. Four other eyes formed closer to where eyes would normally be, bloody red and lacking the same inner glow as the single orange eye. Instead they burned with the flames of chaos. Eyelids formed shortly after its eyes.

Alric modified the spell and ensured the oddly vertical eyelids around the eye of Kalameet were sealed similarly to the eyes of a newborn kitten. This way he would have some time to teach the child to be careful with it and to not use it recklessly. It was a power even the gods feared at the height of their power. Gwyn himself refused to hunt down Kalameet for fear of bringing his wrath down upon the gods because of this power. So leaving it in the hands of an untrained child was flirting with disaster. Especially if things went wrong and the demonic nature of the child made it go berserk. He’d faced that eye in battle once and it had been the single hardest fight of his existence. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it again.

He also attempted to limit the power the child would be able to draw from its soul at first. Quelaag was not particularly powerful, despite technically being a goddess as a direct daughter of the Witch of Izalith. At least, relative to other gods and goddesses. He had been able to slay Quelaag quite early in his journey, after all. But he still wanted it to gain power at a similar rate to its siblings.

Then the blood began to transmute, forming organs, veins, arteries, muscles, flesh, and more. Kalameet’s scales were pulled into the child, splitting and morphing to cover parts of the child’s body. It ran down the child's back, up over parts of the top of its head, in patches down the sides of its legs. The underside of the child’s body had patches of scales but it lacked the same coverage as the limbs and back. The child was very visibly a male at this point. There was a small smattering of scales on his cheeks, aside from the primary scales on the top of his head. Otherwise his face looked remarkably pony-like, save for the color of his eyes, his reptilian pupils, the number of eyes he had, and the sharp draconic teeth in his mouth.

Quelaan's hair planted itself in the boy's head and rapidly spread across it before growing to form a thick, almost lion-like mane. However, the hair continued to spread, forming fur like that of a pony. The fur rapidly changed to charcoal black, regaining all the color Quelaan's hair had lost due to her illness, while the mane remained ash gray. A stark contrast to the charcoal fur, obsidian scales, and the crimson chaos flames. Lastly it formed a tuft of hair at the end of the child's tail, resembling his mane. Chaos flames flickered in its mane and the tuft of its tail.

A horn sprouted from the boy's head just above the eye of Kalameet. It split off into several small branches. Instead of bone, the horn appeared to be made of wood or something akin to the root of a tree. It had to be the influence of the Bed of Chaos.

Despite his odd mix of draconic, demonic, and equine features he possessed an other worldly almost ethereal beauty similar to that all of the gods possessed. However, like with Priscilla it was diluted somewhat as he was a crossbreed. However, diluted as it was, it was further accentuated by the lethal grace of the dragons and enhanced by the Flames of Chaos that permeated his very being. The crimson fire blazed across his horn and flickered within its mane. It even burned beneath his obsidian scales, the red light glittering off their glossy black surface.

All in all, he was about the size of Umbra or Celestia. Though Alric could tell he was going to grow very large. As a crossbreed and a demon, he was destined to be large. How large exactly was in question, but bigger than a normal pony for certain. And having been made with the power of the life soul, he might grow faster than normal as well.

Alric continued for a bit, doing some finishing touches with the Life Soul to ensure the absolute perfection of his second born son, making sure there were no defects and that he would be as healthy as possible. He also took what he learned from creating Umbra and attempted to instill some base knowledge into the boy’s mind. Just enough to match the relative age of his body.

When he was done, he ended the spells, nearly collapsing now that his exertion was over. However he forced himself to keep standing and wrapped his arms around his new son, catching him as he was floating back down to the table. Fortunately despite the flames he proved to be safe to touch, though he was incredibly warm. His body temperature was much higher than most living creatures.

His eyes snapped open almost immediately as he landed in Alric’s arms. His smiling face was the first thing he saw. He bared his teeth and snarled at him, struggling in his grasp. He kicked and bit at Alric. He bit Alric in the face, leaving deep ragged gouges in his flesh. The child’s body temperature started climbing rapidly until Alric’s flesh began to char and burn.

Umbra made a terrified noise.

“Stay where you are!” Alric ordered even as he was starting to burn alive as his body was being bludgeoned by hooves and shredded by teeth.

He looked into the boy’s eyes and saw his rage, indignation, and above all else his fear. But noticeably there wasn’t even a hint of malice within him. He was merely lashing out like a scared trapped animal. That was enough for Alric

Thus, instead of ripping the child’s soul from his body with the Dark Hand as he planned to do if he thought the boy was beyond help, he used a modified form of Rapport and stilled these tumultuous emotions within him. Subduing his fear, his anger, and indignation. Reducing them to little more than a barely noticeable undercurrent within his subconscious.

He slowly stopped kicking and struggling and his temperature began to reduce to safe levels again.

As he stopped struggling, Alric wrapped him in a tight embrace, stroking the back of his head. “Shh, shh… It’s alright. You don’t need to fight. I’m not going to hurt you, my son. I made you. I’m your father. So just calm down.”

“Daddy…?” The child asked, still uncertain.

“Yes, dear boy. I am your father. I would never harm you nor would I allow anyone else to harm you either. You are completely safe within my care. So just calm yourself. Everything will be alright.” Alric told him. He could feel the remaining tension draining out of the child in his arms.

He then collapsed to his knees as his mental fatigue and injuries were starting to catch up with him. Umbra jumped off the table and rushed over to him. “Daddy!”

The demonic crossbreed looked at the shadowy pony but Alric’s modified Rapport spell was still in effect so he didn’t immediately jump to lashing out violently again. Instead he seemed more curious than anything.

“You needn’t worry, Umbra. I’m quite alright. Or at least I will be… It’s not the first time I’ve been burned or torn apart. Hahaha!” Alric winced in pain. “Ow… Gah… Laughing hurts… Damn…”

Setting his second born son down in front of him he reached behind his back and pulled out his estus flask. Uncorking it, he took a swig of the liquified fire within and his injuries began healing. Putting the cork back in and putting the flask back in its holster on his back he sighed in relief.

“Ah… That’s much better… You needn’t be so concerned for me, Umbra. Though I do appreciate it. I’ve survived worse…” He then looked down at the burnt blood and gore covering himself and his second born. “Tsk, tsk… Look at what you’ve done. You’re all covered in my rotten old blood, and burnt blood and meat. Now we’ll have to bathe you to get it all off… Ha! I’m going to need a bath as well since I’m covered in it too. You’re going to be quite the handful, I can already tell. Before that, though, I suppose you need a name. Hm… How about, Izael. A male name derived from Izalith. The city once ruled by the Witch of Izalith.”

His son looked at him not seeming to understand.

“Your name? What we shall call you from now on? Do you not have an opinion, little one?” Alric asked.

“Mm…” He hummed uncertainly.

“What of Alarich? Would you like that name better?” Alric suggested.

“Don’t know…” He muttered.

Alric sighed. “Very well. We needn’t decide upon your name right away. For now, I do believe a bath is still in order.” He picked up both of them. Umbra technically hadn’t needed a bath until Alric touched him and got some blood and viscera on him. But he couldn’t let the child wander about the castle unattended just yet. So taking him as well was the best option he had.

“After our bath it should be about morning, thus I shall have to introduce you both to your sisters. I’m certain you four will get along quite well!” Alric stated confidently.

Author's Note

The Crossbreed looking like this and being a girl is a remnant of the original version that I'm undecided on.

Should I make the crossbreed a male to balance out the male to female ratio of Alric's kids? And should I give it a more equine form? Something like a more demonic/dragon-like Kirin maybe?

I've updated the chapter with the new description.

If you're reading this for the first time and you're curious about what Izael used to look like, you can find the original version of the chapter Here

Edit: Oh, also before I forget, the kids being born with knowledge built into them is kind of based on the Daughters of Manus. They were created by Manus' soul splitting into four, which was referenced in this chapter, and already knowing everything they needed to. Alric just limited the knowledge Umbra and Iza had rather than letting them have fully developed adult minds from the get go.