Daughter of Death

In the following days, Twilight and Goldie continued to advance, Twilight having to transport Felix because it entered the rigor mortis stage. The ghost managed to find a fox den which, thankfully, was empty of pups, so he guided the filly to it. Goldie then verified that the fox wasn’t there before she entered it.

Inside, as they hoped, they found the remains of various small animals. Impossible however to identify what these animals were because the bones were scattered everywhere. Twilight was able to identify at least one bird thanks to a bird skull she managed to spot in the mess. There was no doubt that several of these bones also belonged to various rodents, and maybe some rabbits.

They came here for a bird but… having a few more animals could be useful. So she lit her horn and did her thing. Thankfully, she didn’t have to reconstitute the skeletons. After a test, she found out that touching just one bone with her spell caused all the bones belonging to the same skeleton to assemble and reform it.

By the time she was done, she left the den followed by two birds, five rodents, three rabbits, and even a frog. And yes, the birds could somehow fly. She couldn’t tell however what kind of birds and rodents they were. She didn’t have enough knowledge about animal skeletons to identify them.

“It would be nice if you could get your hooves on a big animal, like a bear,” Goldie said.

“I would need to be in a forest for that.”

After that, they continued on their way. A few hours later, Twilight and her undead had to hide in a bush as pegasi were flying above, pushing clouds. She had to wait for hours as they did their job and covered the sky. Eventually, they were done, and the pegasi went away as it started to rain.

While the pegasi worked, having nothing to do, Twilight couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her parents, and suddenly, she had to hug Goldie who did his best to reconfort her.

Twilight welcomed the rain. It made the flies go away. It was a bit late however as she could tell that there were maggots now inside her. Thinking about that disgusted her, but there was nothing she could do about it.

A few hours later, when the rain stopped, she had to hide again as the pegasi returned to get rid of the clouds.

On her seventh day since her death, after passing a couple more villages and a town, they entered a forest. Felix could move again, so it joined her skeleton escort. Wanting to find big animals for Twilight, Goldie explored around. Finding dead animals was harder than it sounded however.

One day after entering the forest however, in the middle of the night, Twilight stopped and sat down. Goldie looked at her questioningly.

“Why did you stop?”

“It’s getting hard to see where I am going. One minute…”

The lich lit her horn, then pulled her eyes out of their sockets, making Goldie step back in disgust.

“Eww. You could have warned.”

“Sorry.”

At least, it worked. She could see again. Even better, as she looked around at the forest, she discovered that she now had night vision. She looked back at her eyes, frowned in disgust, and tossed them into a bush with a “Goodbye, eyes.”

She then looked at Goldie. “What do I look like, now?”

“Scary and disturbing. Also, you have little purple flames inside your eye sockets.”

“Uh. Ok.”

“You don’t seem perturbed that you are now eyeless.”

“I have accepted that I will be nothing more than a skeleton. I was prepared to lose my eyes, especially with my vision disappearing.”

“That’s still sad, you really had nice eyes.”

“Uuh… Thank you.”

It wasn’t long after that, as the sun rose, that Goldie found what he searched: the remains of a wolf.

“This is not a bear, but a wolf is still cool.”

“It should be able to defend me if I’m attacked,” Twilight said before she reanimated the skeleton.

Once the wolf was up, she jumped on its spine and sat on it, her back legs dangling between its ribs.

“Go on, Woofy!”

Goldie snorted. “Woofy? Really?”

Twilight pouted. “Hey, come on, it’s a good name.”

Goldie laughed. “Alright, I admit, it’s cute.”

With the wolf now in the team, the group advanced through the forest. By afternoon, they reached the end of it, finding a city not far ahead. They could also see the ocean beyond it.

“Oh, I guess I chose the wrong direction.”

“There are not many good directions. East and West are mostly oceans, North is frozen, and South is a desert. And considering that we went to the opposite side from Canterlot, we had more chances of reaching the Celestial Sea.”

“Which city do you think it is?”

“Let me give it a look.”

Goldie then floated away. A few minutes, he returned with the answer: “It’s Baltimare.”

“Baltimare?” Twilight repeated before she tried to remember the map of Equestria.

“There are swamps south of here, if you want to go through such a place. It would allow us to go around the desert and the Badlands, and go to whatever there is beyond.”

It would mean getting outside of Equestria, as Twilight wished, but she had to admit that she was scared of the unknown. She never saw a map of what was outside of Equestria. She knew the name of some countries, but not where they were.

But remaining in Equestria meant that Princess Celestia could find her.

So Twilight nodded. “Yes, we will go through the swamps. But first,” She looked toward Baltimare. “I need a cloak. Let’s see if I can find one in Baltimare.” She looked at her group of undead. “Explore this city and find me a cloak. Try not to be seen. Prince, you remain here, you won’t be very useful searching a city. Woofy too, you are too big to not be seen.”

At that, all of the animals except the frog and the wolf moved toward Baltimare. And now, it was just a matter of waiting.

“You know, it would have been easier if you had told them to bring material to make one yourself. I have no idea where they could find one. Especially one sized for a filly,” Goldie pointed out, making Twilight facehoof. “Try to see if you can give an order from a distance. Like, through the link you have with them, or some kind of telepathy.”

“Ok.”

Twilight closed her ‘eyes’ and focused into her mind. She could see her magic, like all unicorns, and from it, she could see little purple strings disappearing into the darkness. She guessed that they were her links to her undead, so she focused on them, then on a random one particularly. As soon as she ‘touched’ it, she could tell that this one led to one of her rodents. She then followed it.

Suddenly, she could see through eyes that weren’t her own. She could see that the rondent they belonged to was moving toward the outskirts of Baltimare.

Do you hear me? Nod if you can.

The animal nodded.

Alright, change of plan. Bring me material to make a cloak. So, soft fabric, a button, scissors, knitting needles, and thread. Repeat what I said to the others.

Immediately, the rodent approached Felix, and while Twilight questioned if the cat would be able to understand squeaks, the rodent talked, to her surprise, perfectly imitating her voice and repeating what she said.

Uh. Well, the skeletons didn’t have vocal cords anymore, so she guessed that their voice was now magical, meaning that they weren’t limited anymore to whatever sounds they made when they were alive. And so, they could talk, which was great, and a bit freaky, especially when it imitated her voice so well.

Wait, did it mean that once she loses her vocal cords, she will be able to imitate the voices of others? It could be useful.

Obviously, the rodent couldn’t repeat what she said to the birds which had already reached the city and were now hiding in the clouds from the pegasi, so she ‘moved’ from the rodent to one of the birds and repeated what she said, and the bird repeated what she said to the other.

She then ‘moved’ from undead to undead to see what they were doing, but they all encountered the same problem: they couldn’t search the city correctly because there were too many ponies to move without being seen.

Now that she thought about it, she should have waited the night.

So, no choice but to wait.

Meanwhile, she focused on Woofy, wanting to test something. ‘Entering’ its body, she discovered that, with some more focus on her link to it, she could take control of its body as if it was her own. She jumped, she growled, she walked around, and there was no problem. However, as she looked at her own body through the eyes of the wolf, she could see that it was totally immobile, defenseless, with no idea of what was going on around it.

Note to self: enter her minions’ bodies only when she was sure that it was safe.

Thankfully, Goldie was here to guard her body, and she doubted that any predator would want a piece of her in her state by now.

She resumed looking through the eyes of the animals sent to Baltimare, but nothing changed. They moved a bit from one place to another when they had the occasion, but they were still pretty much stuck.

So she waited for night to fall. During the wait, she tested to see if she could be in more than one body at once, but it failed.

As she hoped, there were less ponies in the streets once the sun set, so her animals were able to move with more freedom, even if they had to remain careful. Eventually, they found a seamstress shop, and Felix was able to jump to the handle to open the door, allowing the animals to enter.

Then, she thought of something and talked to them one by one. Can you try to make the cloak by yourselves with the material here? It would be nice not having to take anything.

It turned out, the undead could. They searched around and found what was needed, a roll of fabric, scissors, needles, and so on. And then, they began to work, Twilight guiding them just in case.

The birds unrolled the fabric until Twilight estimated that it was enough, and a rodent used its own teeth to cut it. They then cut some more fabric for the hood, Twilight not sure how much was needed for it.

They sewed, they made the closure with a button, they cut, and in less than an hour, a hooded cloak was made. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to do its job, and as long as nothing happened, it should be able to last a while.

The birds took the cloak in their claws, ready to fly out of the store with it, when suddenly, there was light, and somepony said, “Who’s here?”

The animals all looked in the same direction: toward one of the exits of the room where a mare was now present, holding a candle, and shaking. Then, she saw the animals, and she screamed.

Run! Twilight ordered. Drop everything except the cloak, and run!

The rabbit she was talking to immediately obeyed her. The others followed its example, and they all ran or flew out of the store. They then escaped the city, being seen by a few more ponies who all screamed and ran away. A guard saw them and ran after them, so Twilight told them to scatter. The guard ended up chasing one of the rodents which escaped him by climbing on the rooftops.

Eventually, one by one, the animals reached Twilight. The birds were the first to arrive with the cloak.

“Thank you,” she said as she took the cloak and inspected it. It was black, as she had wanted.

“You know it’s useless to thank them, right? They are mindless minions who just follow what you order,” Goldie said.

“Right…”

She put on the cloak. It went all the way to the ground, hiding even her hooves. Good. She then put on the hood.

“How do I look?”

“Not bad. Once you turn into a skeleton, you will look like the Reaper.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of that.

When all the animals were present, she immediately returned on Woofy’s back and made him move south, not wanting to remain here in case the guards searched around Baltimare for the undead animals and their origin. No doubt they will report that to Princess Celestia, and she will immediately come to investigate.

“You know, I advise you to leave an animal behind to keep an eye on what is going on in Equestria.”

That wasn’t a bad idea, so she ordered one of her rodents, that she named Mickey, to go to Canterlot.

She will have to find a way to give more independence to it, to see if it could alert her if something interesting happened, and so it could decide by itself where to go and what to do.

With that done, she moved toward the swamp.