Chapters I Am a River in the Ocean
Death sat uncomfortably in his chair. The Final Passage of the Soul was uncomfortable both because the chair was designed with bipeds in mind rather than the alicorn form he inhabited, and also because he hated performance reviews.
On a wall behind him, a blue pegasus was depicted smashing head first into a wall. Her wings were spread at the moment of impact, desperately fighting to regain control of a dive that had passed the point of recovery.
“Rainbow Dash, crashed at over 200 mph,” read the voice of the indistinct figure that controlled his fate, “her entire spine was impacted into her skull and she was legally brain dead for four hours during surgery. Was scheduled to die at 0627 on Tuesday. Status? Alive.” The figure spat the last word out as if he were the vilest swear word it could imagine.
With a slight clicking sound, the film rolled over to depict another image. A purple Unicorn was just barely visible under the pile of books that had buried her. Blood pooled around the prone form, soaking into the pages as the librarian blotted numerous ledgers simultaneous to her own.
“Twilight Sparkle, accident while reorganizing her library. Was supposed to suffer multiple fractures and a concussion that would result in a coma and eventual death by 1300 on Thursday. Status? Alive.”
Another click, and the image shifted to display a purple dragon laying in the snow. He had pulled a limp rag around him for protection. A single tear had frozen at the corner of his wasted face.
“Spike “the Dragon” von Spikesburg, would have been left homeless without his owner and surrogate mother. So distressed that he forgot he literally can eat rocks, he would have starved to death on the street. Status? Alive and not homeless,” the figure looked back down at its notes with vacant eye sockets, “and adorably ... pudgy? Who the fuck wrote that?”
With a long, slow sigh of disgust he clicked over to the next image, displaying a yellow pegasus with an orange cord clutched between her fore hooves.
“Fluttershy, chewed on an extension cord. Was scheduled to die at 0858 on Monday. Status?” the humanoid shadow shifted slightly in it’s chair, allowing its long, black locks to drift across bony shoulders as it dragged out the non-existent suspense, “Alive.”
The next image displayed the blue pegasus again, her body partially lodged through a tree. Her hind legs were stretched out in an agony and her face and rainbow-hued mane resembled a plate of mashed potatoes covered in strawberry sauce.
“Rainbow Dash,” there was a moment of consternation as skeletal fingers sorted through the binder in front of them, “I thought we already did this one?”
“She crashed twice this week,” Death said and attempted a feeble wheezing laugh that did nothing to lighten the oppressive atmosphere.
“Well, no need to go over that again.”
The next image displayed a white unicorn with most of the skin on the left half of her face missing. Her eye dangled out of its socket, and a particularly clever and pornographic photographer has caught the slightest sliver of her dislodged brains with his film.
“Rarity, accidentally sewed her head to the curtains, then rashly tore off her face trying to escape. Was supposed to bleed to death by 1400 on Thursday. Status? Alive and in possession of a complete face.”
The next image, more peculiar, depicted a wizened form slouching in its loose hide. All pigment had been lost from the creature’s fur, allowing her skin, which had turned a gangrenous green, to show through.
“Granny Smith, currently 139 years old. Her heart stopped for one hour during her nap last week. Was scheduled to die just about everyday for the past 40 years. Status? Alive.”
The next image, perhaps the most horrific any being had ever seen, depicted a white coated filly with a frizzy red mane and enormous, purple granny glasses.
“Twist is worst pony. Scheduled to die from the entirely justified hatred directed at her from all corners. Status? Alive and a horrible abomination against man, pony and god alike.”
Another click, and the blue pegasus was on screen again, this time spreadeagled on a window in a manner that would have been almost pornographic had her body not been outlined by shed blood.
“Rainbow- Dammit. Again?” the figure turned its hollow eyes to the bare face of finality.
“Windex leaves a very dangerous streak free shine,” Death said with confidence, “I’ve got some cases of it-”
“Just how many times was this pegasus scheduled to die this week?” interrupted the Eternal Overseer.
“Five.”
“Well, I think the court can understand the point I am making here,” the biped stood to his feet, limp white skin flapping against his bony jowls as he gestured to the seats behind him. To mortal eyes, these chairs would seem empty, but Death could sense the forces resting their, and he could sense their agitation.
“You, Death, have been severely delinquent in the sacred responsibility you accepted by completing your four week correspondence course," Death's supervisor rested a ragged claw on the front lapel of his leather jacket as he spoke, "and the consequences are evident.”
“Ponies who are happy because they’re alive?”
“No!" The creature lost all semblance of propriety in a moment, slamming his claws on the table before him. "The behavior of this Rainbow Dash demonstrates the very worst excesses of recklessness. These mortals behave in a flippant and calloused manner because they no longer fear death, and why should they? When is the last time any of them encountered it?”
“I’m still collecting,” Death protested.
“Oh, how could I forget. Let me see your acquisitions for this week?” the skeletal figure picked up a manila folder and flipped it open, turning through the audit, “one house cat, two goldfish, and seven hundred ninety-four pigeons. When was the last time you collected a pony’s soul?”
“Well, you see, what happened was ...”
“According to your records, it was almost a decade ago,” the biped continued, running over the prepared spiel with the indifference of a car crushing a squirrel, “seven years since the last collection of a changeling, five years since the last collection of a cow. Five years in which not a single speaking creature has expired.”
“That’s not true! Last year I harvested a parrot.”
“If we counted parrots, then we would have done something about the return of Furby to the human world. I am interested in the curtailing of sentient beings."
“But, as Death, I’m allowed to use my own discretion, according to Paragraph F, Clause 87 of the Rights and Responsibilities Pertaining to the Final Office," Death flapped his wings as he spoke, rising into the air on a tide of excuses. "Many of these individuals are national heroes, and their expiration could have a catastrophic ripple effect. The pegasi Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both supposed to expire in a catastrophic flying accident that would have removed them from the timeline as fillies, resulting in-”
“Very well. Very well,” it waved a skeletal claw through the air, dismissing the complaint, “very, very well. I will concede the point on this Rainbow Dash. Her file certainly is ... interesting."
"Thank you."
"Fortunately," Death's supervisor would have smiled if the ragged scraps of his skin reached low enough on his face. He picked up the black-bound day planner in which Death's appointments were listed, flipping it open, "there is one remaining name on your list for this week. I will give you a second chance, provided you harvest this one soul by sunrise tomorrow. You must take the soul of ... Applejack.”
Author's Note
The chapter titles are taken from the chorus to "The River and the Ocean" by Mia Doi Todd.
Particles Spread Far and Thin
Death passed through the frigid night air, his wings creaking like the mast of a great ship. He was never certain why he needed to move his wings to fly, seeing as the feeble scraps of flesh which stretched between his bare bones lacked the surface area necessary to generate any sort of lift. He couldn't explain how the pegasi native to this land were able to fly, either, it was just the way things were done.
He swooped downward, feeling the cold air twist inside the exposed chasm of his rib cage as he dived toward the humble wooden forms of the Apple family plantation. Beneath him, trees bare of leaves stretched up their twisting forms. A reminder of his grim task.
He paused before the door, smoothing out the nearly translucent spider web mane that hung over his face. At times like this, the embodiment of life's futility wished he possessed lungs so he could take a deep breath to steel himself. With a hoof, chipped and cracked as dying stone, he rapped on the wooden door.
After a moment, the door opened slightly, revealing a tan face covered with freckles.
Applejack smiled at her infrequent visitor. “Howdy, Death. If y’all are here to warn me about the black widow’s nest in the woodpile, me and Big Macintosh already sorted that out.
“That’s not why I’m here, Applejack; I need you to step outside.”
“Well, that’s what I was gonna do,” replied the tan earth pony, as she reached for her stetson hat where it hung by the door. In mid-action, she paused, realizing the potential significance of her skeletal visitor and added, “is there something dangerous in the house? I’ll go get Applebloom.”
“No,” interrupted Death hastily, then added, “you need to come outside alone.”
Applejack narrowed her eyes, at the sudden statement. “Wait a second, what are y’all playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything, Apple-honey-sweetness-old-thing, I just need you to come outside. And take a walk by the creek, just like you were planning to.” The skeletal specter scraped his hooves against the rough wood beneath him, cursing the vague nature of his day planner.
“Nah,” replied Applejack, checking to make sure that the door chain was secured, “I’m actually feeling mighty tired now. Best go get some shuteye before.”
“Applejack, your time has come,” barked the shadow that chases all who live, stomping his hooves on the ground. The ground itself wailed beneath his blow, but the door only closed in his face.
Inside her home, the earth pony threw the dead bolt across before shouting, “Nah, I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check on that.”
“What do you mean, rain check? Your mortal coil has run its course and it is time to walk forth into the night, both metaphorically and literally.” Death pressed himself against the wood of the door as he spoke, trying to will his words through the barrier.
“I cain’t die, Death; Big Macintosh and Applebloom would be lost without me.”
"It'll be painless, I promise. Quickest and easiest thing you've ever done."
Applejack paused in her efforts to barricade the door with the chairs from the kitchen. "Y'all promise?"
"Um ..." Death flipped back through his tome. "Well, no, actually you'll be crushed under a tree and it will be quite agonizing. One of your eyeballs is gonna pop like a grape and your lungs will fill with blood, causing you to drown as you cough out your own life. Then there's the paperwork we have to fill out after you're expired."
"Not interested."
Death tossed his spiderweb mane in frustration. His hooves left deep imprints of foul decay as he paced back and forth on the porch, trying to remember the words of reassurance for the fallen. "Don’t you want to see your parents again?”
“My parents retired to Las Pegasus; I see them every Hearth’s Warming.”
"What about your ... your other ancestors?”
“Y’all ain’t collected nopony I’ve known the entire time I’ve been alive.”
Losing all sense of his dignity, Death begged, “please? I’ve got to take someone.”
“Twist, then, I hear her parents have been encouraging her to play in traffic,” replied Applejack as she scooted a chair in front of the door.
“That would mean walking down the long corridor of gray with her and ...” Death shuddered, rattling his very bones because that is what he was made of. “No, it has to be you. Now are you going to come out, or am I going to have to come in and get you.”
“Y’all come in here and yer gettin' a frying pan across the back of y’alls skull.”
“I am the eternal shadow cast by the light of existence, you can’t expect a frying pan to hurt me.”
“It worked on the Simpsons.”
“That was a bowling ball,” the spectre sighed a death rattle of exasperation.
“Well, Applebloom has one of those too,” Applejack’s voice was muffled as if she were gripping something in her mouth, “Now, y’all get off my porch and don’t come back until yer feeling more neighborly.”
“I’m not ... I’m ... I’ve got to ...” Death kicked the ground around him, sending tendrils of rot through the air itself as his frustration bled out in a blasphemous shroud. This was impossible. How could you sell the concept of death to creatures whose only conscious awareness was of life? It wasn't fair. To him. With a huff, Death kicked off and flew into the sky.
But I Can Still Remember What I Was Then
The Apple Family mares were all so stubborn about not dying. That was where it had started, the stumble at the top of a flight of stairs that eventually landed him, sprawled and silly, at this final landing. His wings flicked the cool air as Death's memory drifted back to his first job ...
He’d polished the yellow-grey of his bones until they sported a strange sheen of age and waste, and he'd spent so long in front of the mirror combing the ghostly strands of his mane, he’d almost missed his appointment.
Thinking he was about to be late to his first impression as the last sight a living creature would see, he’d hurried through the darkened skies in a blur of desperation. It was only then he realized the crude nature of his day planner. Instead of landing beside a half-eaten corpse, he discovered the green filly running across the fallow fields of her father in a panic.
Granny Smith, named in anticipation of the age she would never reach, crashed to a halt at the long, bony legs of the end of all things. She stared at this fresh horror, momentarily distracted from the timber wolves coming fast pursuit.
“Well, um, I guess you haven’t been devoured, yet?” Death asked, attempting to clear his hollow throat as he spoke. This was just great, his fresh start already fouled before it could begin.
“Please, mister, I just wanted to help my family,” the green filly threw a panicked look over her shoulder, watching the monsters close in. Their fibrous limbs stretched and their jagged claws tore the ground beneath them. Saliva glinted off the wooden jaws that would soon rend her flesh. “I don’t want to die!”
Death nodded politely, and looked back down at the binder he had been given after finishing his orientation. Several notes were scribbled across the pages, denoting the name and nature of his appointments. “Well, you don’t have to worry, because it seems I’ll be visiting the rest of your family pretty soon. Starvation, disease, there’s even a suicide-”
The filly collapsed at his words, sobbing in despair. She clasped her frail body around the hooves that thundered the drum beat of the final march. She'd always been so proud of her strength and independence, but it seemed useless now. Her entire body shuddered with a realization to large for her mortal mind. The inevitability of it, and the questions of what might have stopped it. Maybe if her father had never taken this stupid patch of land as their own. Why couldn't they have just kept moving on from place to place? What had her family done to deserve this? She had held back her tears through months of hunger, and now they poured down into the cracks of Death's hooves.
Death stuttered, dropping the black-bound book from his magical grasp. “No ... please don’t ... do ... that ...”
“I don't want to die,” the filly wailed, repeating her desperate plea. "At least spare my mother. She never did nothing wrong to anyone. Please."
"I ... I'm not supposed to ..." Death looked desperately around him, at the approaching wolves and the barren ground. There had to be something to save him. "It isn't so bad, you just have to be eaten by the wolves, and then we'll go fill out some forms, a demographic survey, a satisfaction report, and a few other-"
At the mention of paperwork, the child redoubled her hysterics.
"No, it isn't that bad, come on. Don't do this to me," Death pleaded desperately, attempting to pull his fore hooves from the shivering ball of misery. He could feel her ribs through her starvation wasted little body. "I only just got this job."
"I only just got born," screamed the filly in response.
The wolves howled in jubilation as they closed in on the filly. They couldn't see the figure of finality standing above her, their keen eyes only picking up the child laying curled on the ground.
“Look, um, kid, look! I’m not supposed to do this, but those pots over there, you see them?” Death pulled one of his cracked hooves from the grasp of the filly and pointed at several metal vessels that had been left out to dry. The moonlight twinkled off them where they hung from a line, only slightly less empty than they'd been when they contained the previous evening's dinner.
Granny Smith nodded her tear streaked face, dislodging a strand of mucus from her left nostril.
“Bang those together. Really hard."
The fearful filly was frozen. Was this a trick? What purpose could the pots possibly serve now.
"Do it, now, or your family name will vanish into the houses of dust and charnel."
She ran to the pots, her herbivore mind already anticipating the teeth that would tear her open. Death stalked after her, metaphorically and literally. The skeletal alicorn took a place between the filly and the coming carnivores. As soon as he heard the metal clashing and felt the vibrations traveling through him, Death snapped his wings. He hovered, his forelimbs outstretched to either side and his hind legs dangled inches above the earth.
The air before the wolves rippled as the face of death came into view. Their animal brains struggled to take in the impossibility of its flight and the lethality of it's size. The leaders of the pack attempted to stop before touching it, and those following crashed into them. The entire pack ended jumbled before death's shadowless form.
The End of All Things lowered his jaw, releasing a screech like steel towers crumpling in Tartarus' fires, "Creatures of night and shadow, feeble tools of the greater cycle, this child is mine."
In their howls, Death heard the wolves protest. The filly had despoiled the secrets of their forest and plundered their sacred trees. Her flesh was rightfully theirs, they insisted.
Death cut off their protests with a flap of his wings, sending hurricane winds to the side. Behind him, Granny Smith curled on the ground, but she still possessed the presence of mind to keep slamming her pots together as Death growled, "this filly, this family, and all that live belong to me and no other. Return to your grove, and count it lucky I leave a scrap of shadow for you mortal worms to lurk under."
The air was filled with the scent of Pine-Sol as the wolves released their strange bladders in terror. In their flight, they fell over one another, tripping and staggering in a panicked retreat to the familiar darkness.
Death dropped back to his hooves as the sounds faded. The wolves were gone, and he was once more alone with the green filly. He felt the sudden impact of her weight pushing against him and nearly fell.
Death looked down to see the filly hugging, not in fear but in gratitude, her eyes shone brightly as she squealed, “thank you, Mr. Death.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about, nor can I see or hear you. My business is with the dead and dying."
As Granny Smith turned and ran back to her house with her precious payload, Death added, "you have made a powerful enemy in the Everfree Forest. The timber wolves will not forget the insult you paid them tonight, but whenever they return bang those pots together. The noise will summon me, and I will keep them at bay."
The door slammed behind Granny Smith, and soon the house was filled with the noises of her grateful and surprised family.
Author's Note
This chapter seems a little Mary-Sue-ish, I think, but I wanted to give Death at least one moment of glory to offset his nebbishness throughout the rest of the story.
Now I Am Something Greater
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?”
