The River and The Ocean

Death crouched by the edge of a lake. Like all creatures driven to introspection, he’d found the placid surface shining with the light of the moon more by instinct than actual motivation. The waters reflected his impassive visage, the face that regarded all creatures with equal contempt, back to him.

He looked away from his reflection to regard his body. His ancient ribs glistened with dust almost like liquid, and over them his wings, skeletal with only the barest scraps of flesh stretching between them. His legs, long and languid in their pace, steady with the assurance that no matter how slow his pursuit victory was inevitable, and at their bottoms four hooves, chipped and cracked with time but unyielding to any living force. Even his tail, spiderweb strands that thinned out as they proceeded from him until they didn't so much end as vanish into the air, was the same as it had always been.

Yes, he still seemed to have it all, but there was something missing. Or something added. Something wrong. In frustration, he woke the ancient powers that coursed through his horn. The feeble light of the moon was sucked out of the air around his curving, scythe-like appendage as magic pulled the maggots from above his eye sockets and hurled them to the ground.

They lay their squirming in the dirt. Years ago, he’d had the impulse to attach the pathetic creatures above his eye sockets so he could imitate those expressions that the living considered so important, but what good had they done him? With a single hoof, he crushed the worms out of existence, sliding their little souls into the hereafter.

Staring at the strange yellow smears he'd made upon the ground, he felt that added thing pulling at him once again. Guilt? Empathy? They were just words, invented expressions as artificial and temporary as any expression of the passing flesh.

Death’s meditations were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Her. The pink abomination against all things unholy and wretched bounced into view. Her pink hair, a foul affront to the isolation of the night, bobbed freely as she squealed, “Hiya, Death, how’s it going?”

The Final Shroud turned to the eternally ecstatic equine. Pinkie Pie giggled like a feeble idiot, heedless of the crushing weight that hovered above her head upon the thinnest of strings.

“You don’t fear me, do you?” Death asked.

“Hm? I don’t know,” Pinkie Pie rested a hoof against her chin, “I guess the first time you were a little scary, but we’ve played so many fun games-”

“Those weren’t fun games,” Death bellowed, the skies swirling in ominous geometry behind him, darkening and twisting like the wrathful writhings of wretched wraiths, “those were clashes of the finite against the infinite. A moment of light desperately flickering in the presence of eternal blackness! We were playing for your soul, the souls of your friends, and even the continued course of mortal life throughout this pitiful world.”

“Whatever you say, silly,” giggled the pink pony, “I’ve always got time to play Gin Rummy with a good friend!”

“I’m not your- I’m- I-” Death stuttered for several moments and then collapsed. His bones rasped as he consigned himself to a pitiful jumble upon the ground. “I’m not intimidating to you at all, am I?”

“No, why would I be scared?”

“Because I’m Death. I’m the End! Entropy! Extinction! Extermination! The Big E!” Death lay on his back, his skeletal wings fanning out to either side as he gnashed his steely fangs like a petulant child with steely fangs and skeletal wings. There’s probably been one of those, at least once.

“And I’m Pinkie Pie,” said the pony as she offered a hoof in greeting, “but we’ve already been introduced.”

“I know, and you should live every waking moment since that time in quaking dread that we might see one another again. Every shadow should be a passing reminder of what I represent, of what almost happened. Instead, you come out to cheer me up,” Death pouted staring at his useless hooves, “no one respects me.”

“I respect you,” smiled the pink mare, “just because Damocles’ big old sword isn’t falling yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. All good pranksters recognize that.”

“What about Rainbow Dash?” Death whined, recalling not only the large number of times he had spared the blue pegasus, but also the number of times that same pegasus had humiliated him afterward.

“I said, ‘good pranksters.’” Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes, before continuing, “Rainbow Dash is ... well, she’s Rainbow Dash ... Interesting.”

“Well, it will be changing one way or another pretty soon,” Death moaned letting his voice bear the weight of a thousand opened graves, “after my last performance review I'm as good as fired."

"I didn't mean to get you in trouble," the pink pony said, offering the immense collection of bones a hoof in encouragement, "is there anything I can do?"

The skeletal alicorn rose to its feet, "well, I was told I can avoid being fired if I collect this one soul, but she's not being very cooperative."

“I don't like the idea of you killing somepony, but if you really want to keep your job, shouldn't you fight for it?"

"Well, maybe, but everyone hates me doing my job."

"Somepony has to do it. Do you want some new meanie in charge?"

"No!" Death fanned out his wings, feeling them push the air aside as if he were moving a hoof through the water.

"Are you just gonna give up?"

"No!"

"So what are you gonna do?"

“I’m gonna kill Applejack,” shouted Death as he took off into the sky again.

“That’s the spirit,” screamed Pinkie Pie, crouching down to avoid the spreading winds.

After the black form had vanished into the darkened skies, Pinkie Pie paused.

“Um, wait a second. Did he just say Applejack?”