Death Valley

Using the Binder was gratingly familiar to enthrallment. Amanita recognized the imposition of will, the oddly split focus, the feeling of expanding. But there was no overwhelming of anything involved, no force. She just flowed, taking up space in an empty building, flexing like a leg just out of a cast after a year. As her sensation of herself shrank, she could feel faint traces of will, of the Ash wanting to secure itself and its roots as it drank from the river and the ley line, but none of the thoughts and urges that came with enthrallment. Odd sensations rippled through her thoughts, but she ignored them for the moment. She dumped one idea, as much as she could, into the remains of the Ash.

Capture the zombies.

She could almost feel the roots stirring and creaking in the dirt beneath her, tendrils that hadn’t moved in decades. They were long and heavy and moved with a speed Amanita hadn’t imagined they possessed. Maybe there was magic involved. Maybe it was the hidden side of a night tree.

Dirt parted like water around the roots as they thrust upwards. With an almost unreal flexibility, they coiled around the corpses moving on Amanita. There were lots of zombies, but there were more roots. As she almost unwillingly slipped back into the mindset of enthrallment, Amanita could direct them with more sophistication, corralling zombies to do more with less. It only took seconds for the situation to come under control.

Amanita never took her eyes from Midwinter.

For the first time since Amanita had met her, Midwinter was terrified. She was nearly rooted to the spot as she looked around in disbelief, watching her army be rapidly restrained. Amanita sent a coil of roots her way, but that jolted her out of her fugue and she zipped upwards and out of range of the roots faster than any pegasus should have been able to.

Around them, more and more roots were tearing free of the dirt and ripping the ground to shreds. There were only so many zombies and she soon had them secured, struggling weakly against thick wooden bindings. Although she was airborne, Midwinter didn’t leave. She hovered overhead, staring down, agape with shock.

Amanita and Midwinter locked eyes. Amanita grinned.

Midwinter didn’t last three seconds before bolting away, leaving her tattered horde behind.

Bitterroot fell to her knees, breathing raspily. She was going numb, all over, and couldn’t shake the feeling of absolute, utter wrongness. The Deormont had merely been alien; now she felt like she was losing ineffable parts of herself.

“As far as immortality goes, we’ve got a pretty sweet gig compared to regular lichdom, gorgeous,” cooed Arc. “Just a bit of blood to maintain it. Ha! No elaborate, multi-day rituals. So, you know, other ponies are going to want it.”

Her vision began warping. She could see colors shifting, the detail before her twisting. In the space of seconds, it flitted from impossibly sharp to rendering her legally blind and back again. Her hearing was similarly jagged, letting her hear a fly’s heartbeat but not her own breathing. Was she still breathing? It was hard to feel.

“Now, the little beauty running through your veins, that expedites the process. Let me tell you, precious, it’s a complicated little soup that handles everything so we don’t have to, right down to the alterations of the soul. Ha! Probably my best work. But it’s got some kinks we still need to examine.”

Arc gave Bitterroot a shove so she rolled onto her back and fixed his gaze on her. “So either you’re going to be one of us, or you’re gonna die, sweetums,” he growled cheerfully.

As she felt her heart stop, it was like a switch flipped in Bitterroot’s head.

The stallion before her was responsible for roughly ninety percent of the stress she’d felt in the past week, one way or another. He’d been exploiting Tratonmane for over half a century, him and the other vampires. He seemed to have no empathy beyond his family and she couldn’t see him reforming anytime soon, even with help. He wasn’t even doing this for any grand ideology, just his own kicks.

He needed to be ended.

So if she was going to die anyway, possibly beyond Amanita’s ability to rescue her, she might as well go all in with attacking him.

Somehow, Bitterroot found it in herself to grin. “Fixed the sunlight issue yet?”

“I wish,” Arc groaned. “But it’s so hard to study and I don’t have any real data on it-”

Bitterroot lunged with unfamiliar speed, grabbing Arc in a chokehold. Flaring her wings, she growled, “Then maybe you should see it up close.”

And she started climbing.

“No, no!” Arc started fighting against her grip, flailing with a lack of leverage. His horn glowed; Bitterroot slapped to disrupt it before he could teleport away. “Let me go let me go!”

Bitterroot didn’t listen; she just kept ascending, the numbness suppressing the pain in her bad wing. She knew the wind was streaking by her, but she could barely feel it. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have felt like she was moving at all. She could barely even feel Arc in her grip. If, by some miracle, the potion didn’t kill her and this was how she’d live the rest of her unlife, she’d rather die.

Maybe she would. But if Arc died as well, fair trade.

“You can’t do this to me!” begged Arc. “Please! I’ll do anything!”

Bitterroot didn’t look at him. “Dying would be nice,” she said.

They crested the ridge and were in the sunlight.

Immediately, the numbness was replaced by searing pain that stabbed its way into every fiber of Bitterroot’s body, exploding out at the same time the fire did. She only knew which way was up because that was the way she’d been going. She kept climbing, started screaming in a primal reaction to her agony. But she didn’t sound like that, right? Within her grasp, Arc was afire as well, twisting and pushing and howling. She kept a grip on him and kept climbing. She didn’t have a plan for stopping.

At some point, she released him. She didn’t watch him fall. It was a struggle to keep beating her wings to stay aloft as the inferno ate away at her. She gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes such in the exertion to fight off the fire consuming her, the flames boiling her blood, the-

They were gone.

Somehow, the fire was out and the pain was gone. Somehow, Bitterroot was still hovering. She panted heavily as phantom sensations danced across her coat. Her wings kept beating, almost of their own accord, and she bobbed up and down, up and down on the wind. Even her bad wing felt fine. The flames had burned away most of her furs and only sheer adrenaline and pegasus magic kept her from feeling the worst of the air’s chill.

But she felt enough.

Enough to feel alive.

Enough to feel a brand on her neck.

As Arc’s screams dwindled, she risked looking down. His body never reached the valley floor. She watched as it burned to cinders and was carried away on the wind before it hit. Good riddance.

But she also saw someone else: Midwinter, heading southward. Bitterroot recognized the pace of those wingbeats; that was panic. From Midwinter? Hmm.

Tartarus. She’d already gotten one vampire. Maybe she could go for two. Bitterroot took off after Midwinter.

Varnish had literal murder in his eyes. Code was unimpressed — she’d seen it plenty of times before — but she was stuck inside a shield with nowhere to run. And even as she thought that, the shield contracted a foot.

“I’ll make you watch as I eat your heart,” Varnish leered. “Or maybe I’ll feed it to you. See how smart you are then.”

Code’s gaze flitted around. The shield was impressively large, she had to admit, with some buildings inside it. (Another contraction.) But in terms of usable things? Not much. Houses, a farrier’s, a chicken run… Code glared at the carpenter’s just outside the shield. If ever there’d been a place to get a wooden stake-

Chicken run. With active chickens. Maybe… Code started slinking around the edge of the shield, eyeing Varnish. He mirrored her movements on the opposite side. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said. (Another contraction.) “It’s always been that way. You could fight for a thousand hours, and I’d get you on the thousand and first. You can’t stop me.” (Another contraction.) “I am-”

She was close enough. Code dove at the run, smashing through the walls of the coop. Dust and feathers flew as shocked chickens squawked and flapped around her. Nest boxes? There. Code reached inside and was elated to find-

She was pulled back out by her tail in a haze of magic and sprawled across the run’s hard-packed ground. Varnish was standing over her, sneering. “Looking through chickens, now?” he said. “What do you hope to find?”

“Egg!” yelled Code, slinging said egg at him.

Varnish didn’t dodge. Why would he? It was just an egg. It wasn’t something that could attack him on a metaphysical level, right?

The egg hit him, splattering concentrated symbolism of life all across his face. And immediately the spell keeping his metaphysical framework together began unraveling.

Varnish stumbled back, roaring in pain. Smoke rose from the edges of the yolk and albumen like they were acids burning through him. His horn glowed and he scrabbled at his face in a panic, only to flinch as his hooves started smoldering. “You-!” he spluttered. The words came out like he was choking on them. “You stupid little-!”

“Egg! Egg!” The coop had eggs aplenty; Code had snatched up two more as Varnish reacted. More egg, denser, hit him in the face, and Varnish collapsed, screaming and writhing. Flames spread across his face and slithered down his body.

Code grabbed several more eggs and skirted around the edge of the head. Most of the fire was concentrated in Varnish’s front half. Time to change that. She aimed for his hindquarters- “Egg! Egg! Egg!”

And he was fully engulfed. Heat pushed Code away like a river and she instinctively raised a leg to shield her face. As the fire ate his furs, the shield fell, Varnish’s screams grew louder and louder, his thrashing wilder and wilder-

He was gone, his ashen shape falling apart. All around them was singed grass and melted snow. Code panted, letting the frigid air in her lungs slow her racing heart, still nearly unwilling to believe it.

But as the silence stretched on, she grinned.

“Evil beware!” Code roared to the world. “For I! Have! EEEEEEEEEEGGS!”

Midwinter was fast. Faster than most pegasi Bitterroot had seen before. But there always came a time when someone fast slowed down, so Bitterroot kept on her.

Midwinter was moving south, maybe looking for any vampires left. Arc was dead, but maybe Carnelian or Varnish were still alive. Bitterroot stayed overhead, ready to dive. She just needed the right moment-

A flame suddenly sprang up near the shelf, bright and piercing in the dark, and she heard someone shriek. Varnish, definitely. Bitterroot and Midwinter both pulled up to a stop. Below, Code was yelling and hurling something at a burning equine shape, the flames engulfing it growing higher and higher.

Bitterroot smirked while Midwinter cursed. Midwinter changed her flapping to spin around, change direction. It was too fast for Bitterroot to react and Midwinter was soon looking right at her.

Screw it, might as well. Bitterroot folded her wings and dove. Midwinter saw her coming and easily juked to the right.

Exactly as Bitterroot had expected.

She was a pegasus. She flew. She was a bounty hunter. She chased ponies. Sometimes, that involved chasing ponies while flying, often with the other ponies flying. And ponies who flew tried to dodge her in flight. Bitterroot didn’t know all the tricks, but she could spot the most common ones, like the sideways jump.

Midwinter was faster than Bitterroot had expected, but the strategy was the same. The second Bitterroot saw Midwinter’s wings curl for the change in motion that would propel her sideways, Bitterroot changed her own flapping. Not to shift her course, but to rotate her body. She went zipping past Midwinter, but still reached out enough to snatch a wing with her hooves. She grabbed tightly-

The two went spinning, Midwinter’s wing clamped securely between Bitterroot’s front legs. Wing strength meant nothing without leverage, and Bitterroot had all the leverage. She flapped vigorously, pulled up. She needed to get Midwinter into the sun.

Then Midwinter changed tactics. One of her flaps pulled her closer to Bitterroot and she immediately swung a hoof at Bitterroot’s face. Bitterroot twitched her head to one side to avoid it, but her grip on the wing slipped a little. And Midwinter had far more strength to capitalize on that than most. She yanked; the wing slipped a little more.

Bitterroot hastily pulled the wing closer, but that meant Midwinter’s hooves were also closer. Bitterroot stopped flapping for a moment and, with Midwinter’s wing still trying to scoop the air, the pair dropped and spun. Centrifugal force flung Midwinter’s legs out, keeping her from attacking for a moment.

Then she lunged at Bitterroot’s face, snapping her jaws.

Bitterroot yelped and sacrificed some of her grip to swing a hoof up. Her leg caught Midwinter on the neck, right under the chin. Still snapping, Midwinter tried to push forward, but Bitterroot had just enough strength to hold her off.

With a mighty flap of her other wing, Midwinter yanked free from Bitterroot’s grasp. Bitterroot desperately dove to try to catch her again, but a few flaps took Midwinter out of her reach. She flared her wings and turned; Bitterroot could see her muscles tense as she prepared to scream off.

“Ai! Midwinter!”

Both Bitterroot and Midwinter looked down on reflex. Fuligin was standing at the entrance to Midwinter’s house in an awkward stance that could only mean he was going to throw something. His leg blurred as he whipped it around with an impossible speed; Bitterroot swore she heard a whipcrack as a rock zipped past. It zoomed right through one of Midwinter’s wings with impeccable aim, shattering one of its fingers and tearing a massive hole.

Bitterroot seized the opportunity and latched back onto Midwinter’s good wing. Midwinter tried flapping again to get free, but with a hole through her other wing keeping her from pushing too much air, she didn’t have a chance, even with her strength. Fighting off Midwinter’s blows, Bitterroot managed to pull her up over the rim of Midwich, into the sun.

Where nothing happened.

Midwinter was brightly illuminated in the sunlight, but she was not catching fire or affected in any way. Her attacks seemed muffled and weaker, suddenly, but that was just closer to an average pony, not dying. Was something supposed to be happening?

Well, at least she was captured. And if the sunlight made her weaker, Bitterroot could work with that. Still swinging herself against Midwinter’s struggles, she dragged them both towards the western clifftop.

With the Ash writhing around her and ponies trickling in to see what in Tartarus was happening, Amanita watched Midwinter’s silhouette rush southward. That was where the other vampires were, right? But she was away. Gone. Probably uncatchable. Amanita sat and rubbed what remained of her leg and grit her teeth. If only they could’ve-

A scream ripped through the air. Male. Too high up for Varnish. Arc? Amanita raised her head again and saw a fireball plummeting from the sky, piercing in the gloom, bright enough to throw flickering orange light across the cliffs. Somehow, Amanita could tell that an equine shape was inside, flailing and disintegrating even as she watched. Then the scream stopped and the fire puffed out. Gone.

Amanita’s gaze flicked up. A pegasus, feathered, was hovering above where Arc had fallen. Possibly Bitterroot; maybe her wing was better. Midwinter was below her, flying towards… something. Then Bitterroot plunged onto Midwinter in a tackle and the two were soon engaged in an airborne brawl. Amanita bit her lip as she watched the tug-of-war, the two pulling each other around through the air in all three dimensions. Somehow, Bitterroot came up on top and pulled Midwinter to the western cliffs.

She needed to get up there and help Bitterroot, somehow. Was there a path she could take? Could she make it with a missing leg? How long would it take? Was Bitterroot-

…Why the hay had she raised a zombie tree if she was never going to use it? What kind of necromancer was she?

Normally, taproots kept trees secured to the ground. But when Amanita directed the Ash to pull its taproot up, the entire tree came free easily. Roots creaked and groaned as Amanita used them to pull the Ash across the ground like some sort of dirt-covered tentacles, still with the zombies in the grip; progress was slow, but steady. Ponies, live ones, were trailing after her, agape. She’d explain later.

The cliffside was more jagged than it looked. With a bit of work, Amanita was able to hook the roots around crags and worm them into clefts and get the Ash to pull itself up, even as it turned ninety degrees to climb. Up and up and up they went, getting faster with each anchor point. It took less than four minutes to reach the top and get into the sun.

Bitterroot was pinning Midwinter to the ground without much difficulty; Midwinter didn’t seem to be struggling. They both looked up when they heard Amanita arrive; Bitterroot’s jaw dropped and Midwinter’s eyes went huge. “Holy crow,” breathed Bitterroot. “How… How…”

Amanita tapped her chest. “Necromancer.” She tapped the Ash. “Dead thing.”

Bitterroot gave a high-pitched giggle of shock. Her eyes moved to Amanita’s knee and widened, although she cut herself off before she could ask. She swallowed and nudged Midwinter. A very-in-the-sunlight, very-much-not-burning Midwinter. “I, uh… caught her.”

Midwinter didn’t run when Bitterroot got off her. She just sat up and stared at the Ash. “All that power and creativity,” she said to Amanita, “and you’re wasting it, working with the Guard.” Her voice was hovering somewhere between frightened and nervous, almost both at once.

“Mmhmm.” Amanita climbed down from the Ash and hobbled towards Midwinter. “And you’re still here. In the sunlight. That project you mentioned? The fluke?”

“It was not a fluke,” Midwinter snapped.

“And yet you’re the only vampire who can go out in the sunlight,” said Amanita.

“She’s weaker in the sunlight, for what that’s worth,” Bitterroot said.

“Hmm.” Amanita briefly glanced at Bitterroot and flicked her tail. “Well, if you’re pushing the effects of the sunlight off… That probably involves suppressing some of the other changes you’ve made to yourself, including strength and speed.”

Midwinter’s eyes briefly widened and her ears twitched; Amanita knew she’d guessed right. Then she sneered. “But it’s no matter. As soon as I leave the sunlight, my powers return. The night will always be my home.”

She looked to the sunset, smirking. “And it approaches. Do you think you can hold me when it comes?”

Amanita glanced westward. The sun was low on the horizon, with maybe half an hour left before it was gone. It painted the sky in oranges and reds and mountain silhouettes. It would’ve been beautiful under any other circumstance. Now, it just meant they were slipping towards darkness.

“The moment darkness returns, I shall kill you both,” Midwinter said breathlessly. “Violently. Messily. Deliciously.” Her tail twitched. “Perhaps the Deormont can protect against me, now that it has been asked. But it can afford you no protection out here. The others, your team, Tratonmane… Well. I’ve learned to not hold a grudge. They shall be forgotten. Your deaths shall be your infamy.”

Bitterroot was looking back and forth between Midwinter and the sunset as well, pawing at the ground, ears back. “Amanita?” she asked. “Should- Should I go get- Code or someone? Maybe-”

But Amanita wasn’t listening to her. She was staring at Midwinter. Her body was whole. She was moving and speaking. She could eat. If her body and soul were one again, her heart would probably start beating on its own.

And if the spell was so delicate that sunlight could break it…

“Amanita?”

Amanita’s mind whirred. She knew the resurrection ritual. She knew the structure it ought to make as a spell, a maddeningly complex thing she couldn’t cast if she had more control and power by another order of magnitude. But she didn’t need the whole thing, not for the person right before her, moving and talking and smirking. She stripped away the irrelevant parts, bit by bit. Ninety-five percent of the difficulty was gone immediately because she didn’t need to do any planeswalking and bring the soul back from the afterlife.

“You seem preoccupied,” said Midwinter. “Heh. I applaud your tenacity, but one must face the truth: sometimes, you just lose. Perhaps today you can lose less badly than you otherwise would have.”

There. Binding the soul to the body. That was all she needed. It was simple. Almost laughably so, like a ball falling into a rut. Right? Amanita looked it over one last time. Right. Amanita drew her magic in and, for the first time, Amanita set about resurrecting someone without a ritual.

There was no liminality, no katabasic dive. She didn’t need it, not when the soul was so clearly present. If anything, it felt closer to healing magic, only with the soul rather than the body. Amanita pulled at coils and pushed at knots, nudging the universe to undoing them. It seemed splitting the soul from the body like this was against the laws of nature; once she got started, it was like reality pushed her along to keep going.

The air purred as sparks flitted around beneath Midwinter’s skin. Bitterroot nervously kneaded the ground beneath her. Midwinter wasn’t moving, just looking at Amanita with a content smugness. Amanita kept pushing, moving the magic in the right way, tugging, pulling, weaving. Finally, the framework Midwinter had built up crumbled under natural forces re-exerting themselves. Amid a blinding glow, showers of cold sparks radiated and twirled out from her body with an elusive scent that made Amanita think of summer.

When the light faded, Midwinter was seemingly unchanged.

Moments slipped by. Nothing more happened. Bitterroot shifted her weight and bit her lip as she looked at Amanita.

Midwinter smirked. “Whatever you were hoping that spell did, it didn’t- didn’t…” She blinked and wrapped her legs and wings around herself. “I’m… c-cold,” she said quietly, her breath misting the air.

“You’re alive,” said Amanita.

Bitterroot’s jaw dropped and she flapped her wings once. Midwinter’s head snapped up. “You… What d-did you do?” she asked, horrified beyond belief. Her entire body was quavering.

“I resurrected you,” Amanita said with a shrug. “It’s kinda my thing.”

In the chill of the North, Midwinter pulled more and more into herself. She was hard to tell whether her shakes were from fear or cold. Probably both. “Ch-change me b-back. You c-can’t leave me l-like-”

“I can’t change you back, and I wouldn’t if I could,” said Amanita. “One must face the truth: sometimes, you just lose.”

Midwinter tried glaring at Amanita, but she was shivering too much for that to have any weight.

Bitterroot snorted, then gestured back into Midwich. “Should I tell them what’s going on?”

“Yeah,” Amanita said. “I got this.” Bitterroot nodded and dove back down.

Midwinter’s wings hadn’t even twitched since her resurrection. Escape seemed the last thing on her mind. She kept rocking back and forth and putting a hoof to her neck to check her heartbeat. Amanita tried imagining what she was going through: over half a century of work, destroyed in a single afternoon. It’d be enough to give anyone an existential crisis. But imagining that required Amanita to imagine treating a village as her plaything for over half a century, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t. It was better that way. All Amanita found, watching Midwinter like that, was a sort of heavy satisfaction.

“It’s cold,” Amanita said offhoofedly.

No reply. Maybe Midwinter was shaking too much to reply.

“You offered me your coat when I arrived. Here’s mine.” Amanita took off her coat and tossed it at Midwinter’s hooves. “You seem to need it more than I do.” The air was biting, especially against the nub of her leg. She didn’t care.

Midwinter glared up at Amanita, her eyes full of hate at her state of affairs. Amanita looked back. Slowly, Midwinter pulled her lips back. She bared her teeth at Amanita, making sure to show each one of them, every single inch of her fangs. She slowly ran her tongue across her teeth, clicked her jaw a few times.

Then she pulled the coat on.

For a tree, the Ash was surprisingly dextrous. Amanita curled one of its roots around Midwinter tightly enough to restrain her, not so tight that anything was broken, and directed the whole assembly back down the cliff.

Somehow, Bitterroot already knew that sunblasted zombie TREES were something she wouldn’t properly understand for at least a week. After the previous week, after the previous few hours, she just wasn’t going to try to register anything for a while. Too much.

Her heart rate spiked as a dark shape shot up from the ground, but it came to a stop a good distance away from her. “Did ye get ’er?” asked Fuligin. “Midwinter.”

“Ehm… sort of?” Bitterroot said. “She’s still alive-”

“Pit’s waters,” Fuligin muttered. “I’s hopin’-”

“Wait, let me rephrase that,” Bitterroot said, waving her hooves. “She’s alive again. Mortal, not undead. Amanita dispelled the enchantments on her.”

Fuligin blinked. “…Ah.” He looked up at the ridgeline, searching for something to say, finding nothing.

“Amanita can explain when she comes back down. In the meantime, I need to perform damage control.”

Ponies were filing into Tratonmane’s main square, confused conversations getting thrown back and forth as ponies tried to make sense of why there was suddenly a gaping hole where the Ash used to be. The few unicorns were throwing more light around so ponies could get a better look. And Bitterroot found herself in a holding pattern to avoid having to talk. What was she supposed to say? Even in Canterlot, starting with “vampires” would get her strange looks, let alone a Northern town that didn’t even know what a vampire was. And that wasn’t even-

“Oi! Bitterroot!”

The sound of Code’s voice led Bitterroot to the inn, where Code was coming out in a fresh set of furs. The runes she’d carved into her face were scabbing over, but if they still hurt, she didn’t give any indication. When Bitterroot landed next to her, Code asked, “Anything wrong with Amanita?”

“No. She rode the tree up to-”

“Rode the tree.” Code’s ear twitched as she looked at the hole, then nodded. “It was dead. Carry on.”

Bitterroot scowled and rustled her wings. “She used the tree to carry herself up to the ridge, where she resurrected Midwinter.”

“Resurrected? She’s no longer undead?”

“Yeah.”

“Heh.” Code grinned. “For Midwinter and her ilk, living’s the only thing worse than dying. Because she’s still going to die. Now, she just doesn’t know when.”

“Speaking of which, Arc’s dead. Tried to…” Bitterroot rubbed her neck. There wasn’t any soreness. “…do something to me, I think infect me with vampirism, so I pulled him into the sunlight. Do you know what happened to the other vampires?”

“I staked Carnelian and egged Varnish.”

Bitterroot blinked. “You egged him? And that worked?”

“Quite well. Eggs have potent power against death magic.”

Blink, wing-rustle. “Huh. I thought garlic was a terrible weakness for vampires, but eggs… I guess vampires are total wimps if they come from Equestria.”

“To be fair,” Code said, “Equestria’s beaten down dark gods, nigh-omnipotent demons, and more with lasers made from friendship. We should’ve seen this coming.”

“Maybe. Look, can you help me…” Bitterroot sort of wove her hooves around each other. “…explain all this? I… don’t really know-”

Code held up a hoof. “Say no more. I’m used to this sort of thing, though I might need your help to fill in the gaps.” She pushed her way through the crowd towards the hole, with Bitterroot hovering over her. Once she was at the rim, Code stamped a hoof and roared, “QUIET!”

Silence fell like an anvil and everybody turned to look at Code.

“Today’s been a very strange day,” Code said loudly. “And given the events in question, I feel it’s in our best interest that all of Tratonmane know what happened.”

And so Code explained what had happened, with far more confidence than Bitterroot would’ve managed. Every single new thing Code had to describe was wilder than the last, even if the actual events themselves could be summed up quickly. Code occasionally had to ask Bitterroot for clarification on this or that bit of information, but she never sounded anything less than assured.

“…and so, here we are,” Code said. “The necromancers have been dealt with and we’ll need to handle the fallout. Any questions so far?”

Silence. Somepony coughed. Crosscut stuck a hoof up and yelled, “What?!”

The ground began rumbling and several someones screamed. The Great Ash, still with corpses wrapped in its roots, crawled out of the darkness towards the crowd; ponies scattered, either to give it room or in fear. Amanita was sitting in one of the crooks of its branches, shivering, her furs gone. The Ash slid into something resembling its original position and stopped moving. Amanita wordlessly climbed down and began stumbling towards the Watering Cave.

Bitterroot was immediately at her side, giving her a shoulder to lean on. Amanita mumbled something that might’ve been thanks; it was hard to tell from her shakes. At least they had a clear path, given the way ponies pulled back from them.

Then someone started talking. Two someones, five- Before it got any worse, Code bellowed, “Direct your questions to me!” Sound shifted as everyone turned towards her.

When they were just outside the door, Bitterroot couldn’t wait any longer. “What happened to your leg?”

“L-lost it in a t-train crash,” Amanita said. “C-can we get my c-clothes f-first?”

“Why’d you take off your furs anyway? What happened?”

“I t-t-tried to do a b-badass one-liner. Ins-stead, I g-got hypothermia.”

“…How can you be such a powerful necromancer while still being such a… goober?”

Amanita grinned lopsidedly. “Effortl-lessly.”

Amanita had magic, but habit made her fumble physically as she pulled her furs on. Her front left sleeve trailed limply where it wasn’t stretched tight by actual bandages and dressings. She waved her stump around, wondering if she’d need to tie off the sleeve to keep it from catching.

She turned to head back outside, but Bitterroot, standing in the doorway, put up a hoof to stop her. “Whoa, wait,” she said, flaring her wings. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find any bodies,” Amanita said. “Charcoal’s, at least.”

“You need to take a rest, you lost a sunblasted leg.”

“And they lost their lives, so I think they got the worse end of the deal.”

“They can wait a day, they’re not getting any deader.”

“There’s a three-day limit on resurrections, so yeah, they are.”

“You’ve done enough today. It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Look, I’d rather just get it done now so I don’t need to worry about it when I wake up.”

The two looked at each other. Bitterroot opened her mouth and said nothing. Flexing her wings, she slowly lowered her hoof. “Just- be careful, alright?” she said, stepping aside. “I don’t want you to fry your brain or anything.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want me to fry my brain, either. But thanks for thinking of me.”

When she exited the inn, Fuligin was pacing in front of it. She wasn’t making much noise, but his head snapped up immediately. “Ye’re a- a necromancer,” he said quietly. “Midwinter said ye- That ye’ve brought ponies back frae the dead.”

“And I’m getting to work on everyone who’s died in the past day,” Amanita said, heading off the obvious question. “The ones I can, anyway.”

“…Aye. Th-thankee.” Pause. His voice dropped even more. “One of ’em’s my daughter.”

“I’m sorry. Do you know where the bodies are?”

Under Fuligin’s direction, Code and some other ponies retrieved the bodies — Charcoal, Whippletree, Arrastra — and laid them out as a crowd gathered around her. Part of Amanita wondered if interaction with the vampires would affect anything, but the rest of her didn’t like wondering that, so she stopped. Charcoal’s throat had been ripped open and Whippletree’s most everything had been ripped open, so Amanita started with them. Eenie-meenie-miney-mo… Charcoal.

The ritual went as expected, and suddenly Charcoal was whole again and yelping her way back to life. She yanked herself into a ball, only to be surprised that she could do so. Hesitantly, she looked up at Amanita, around at Tratonmane. She blinked. “Hi. Did we win?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Neat.” Charcoal rubbed her neck. “Um. The last time I was- up, Midwinter was brinking- drinking my blood, like, right from my neck, so, uh, I feel… really weird.”

“Take a moment. We’re still working everything out.”

Charcoal nodded and sat up like her head was spinning. She looked at the Ash and cocked her head. “Why’s the Ash in a different place?”

Amanita was already drawing the circle for the next ritual. “Long story, tell you later.”

“…Okay!”

Whippletree and Arrastra both came back as easily. (Arrastra was still missing her eye; what did that say about the ritual?) Once they reoriented themselves, Whippletree immediately asked where he could help and was directed to the train wreckage, but Arrastra nudged Amanita aside to find Fuligin.

Now that she knew what she was looking at, Amanita could see the familial resemblance as they faced each other. They might’ve been mother and son, except… Arrastra broke the ice. She swallowed and said, her voice technically not shaky, “Hidy, Pa.”

“ ’Tis been decades,” Fuligin replied. “How dae ye recognize me?”

“I nair fergot ye, Pa. Nair.”

The wind blew.

“…I’ve missed ye.”

Fuligin nodded and wiped his eyes. “Aye. Same.”

“Can I take ye home? I’d like tae talk.”

“Aye.”

As the two walked away, the crowd rippled and sound twisted with various conversations. Many of the ponies began pressing in on Amanita with questions, but Code was quickly next to Amanita and screaming at them to get back. “She needs her space! She just resurrected three ponies!”

“Hey!” protested Charcoal.

“Two ponies and a kirin!” amended Code. “I forgot that and I’m an earth pony! She has it worse!” That seemed to do the trick, and although the Tratonmanians kept shooting furtive glances her way, they gave Amanita all the space she needed.

Code grunted. “Amanita, get some rest. You’re missing a leg.”

“No. I need to-”

“Amanita.”

But Amanita dropped onto her haunches so she could point at the Ash. Zombies were still twitching in its roots and Midwinter still hung there in shock. “I need to dispel whatever’s animating those zombies,” she said. “Because the way everything’s going, if I don’t, one of them’s going to break free, bite somepony, and we’re going to have a zombie apocalypse on our hooves before the week is up.”

“I think Bitterroot’s rubbing off on you.”

“Not really. My excuses are much better.”

A dull ache was descending on Amanita, but she ignored it. She went through the zombies one by one, working her deanimation spell. Thankfully, the zombies were weaker than when they’d first been raised, so it required less effort, and the extensive praxis was welcome. Amanita found herself tweaking the spell as she worked, even refining the theory behind it. Maybe she could increase the area if she-

“Guessin’ it’s over?”

Amanita flinched. Between her soreness and tunnel vision, she hadn’t heard Tallbush come up behind her. He was looking up at Midwinter with weariness in his eyes and tension in his limbs. “We think so, yeah,” Amanita said. “Other necromancers are dead, I made Midwinter mortal again.”

“Ah. Good.” Tallbush’s voice was the “sure, whatever” one of a very overwhelmed pony. He kicked absently at the ground. “Beg yer pardon. I… didnae help you’uns on the train, an’-”

“Eh.” Amanita shrugged. “It turned out alright, don’t worry about it.”

“Thankee. Ye ken where Code is?”

“Right there.” Amanita pointed around the Ash, where Code was sketching diagrams in the dirt.

Code’s ears twitched at the sound of her name and she looked up. “You need something?”

Tallbush sighed and slouched forward, his ears drooping. “Dinnae ken,” he muttered. He seemed ready to start swaying from stress and burnout. “Where’re we headed frae here?”

“Step one, I send a message to Princess Twilight. She’ll want to know about…” Code gestured around. “…all this.”

“An’ mebbe get back tae us’uns in a moon, tell us we’re makin’ a fuss over naethin’,” muttered Tallbush.

“Actually, I know a ritual to send it directly to the Most Honorable Spike,” Code said. “Depending on how busy she is, she might be here tomorrow.”

“If’n ye say sae.” Tallbush gave Midwinter one last look and trudged off towards the train wreck.

Amanita and Code looked at each other. “You really think she’ll show up?” Amanita asked.

“Probably. Our beloved princess is familiar with the… bizarre.”

Amanita snorted and went back to dispelling. “Bizarre” was underselling it.