II. A Mistake of My Design, Not Yours
It had been half an hour since they had left the Boutique, and the silence was now only punctured by the beats of hooves and the bottom of a scythe gainst the dirt roads. The light brown, soft surface was firm, but yielded powdery dust with every step. Sweetie Belle had walked alongside Death without speaking a word, and without lifting her head once, concentrating on the ground. The moment they had left the Boutique, Sweetie Belle had almost fainted at the sight of the fallen bodies, strewn around like confetti after one of Pinkie’s massive bashes. It was not an experience she wanted to repeat, so she focused on the ground.
They had left town at this point, meandering down a meandering road, fenced off from the nearby apple trees. The trees continued on for miles, threading over hills and valleys, dotting the horizon with miniscule dots of red, the summer sun overhead bringing out the green in the leaves. The smell of apples was high in the air, sweet and syrupy, gently assaulting their nostrils. Death didn’t stop, but Sweetie Belle heard when he took a deep breath, and let out a sigh.
“Ahhh, the scent of apple trees. Brings a tear to me old eye. How ‘bout you?”
“Huh?” Sweetie had been focusing on a loose piece of dirt that refused to break up as she kicked it forward, memorizing it’s shape, it’s texture, the sounds it made softly as it pattered against the ground, anything to avoid thinking about what she was doing and with whom she was doing it with. Death’s inquiry had brought her out of her contemplative state.
“Apples. I’ve never tasted one, or if I did, it most certainly was eons ago. How are they to you?”
Apples. Applejack. Dead. Big Macintosh. Dead. Granny Smith. Overdue. Applebloom… She sighed.
“Apples are fine.”
Death’s head tilted. “You seem troubled.”
“Oh,” Sweetie Belle nipped back, “Did you just pick up on that?”
Death shook his head. “I’ve noticed ever since we left. You’ve not raised your head once. What’s the matter? Are you frightened of the dead?” He giggled childishly, and Sweetie Belle scowled in response. “Don’t worry,” he continued. “It’s not like they’re going to jump up and bite you, ya know. Me scythe is a pretty effective killing agent.”
“But… I mean.. It’s just… I can’t bear to look at them.”
“Why not? We all die eventually, Miss Belle. It’s just a matter of time. I happen to be very rigid when it comes to scheduling. When ponies die unexpectedly or in unexpected ways, it’s more than frustrating to me. It’s downright maddening, really. I could be in a hospital relieving some elders, and suddenly, a train crashes. If people paid more attention, my job’d be a lot easier, and this world would be filled with less heartbreak. Are you listening?”
“Hmm?” Sweetie Belle’s eyes had drifted, her thoughts filled with images of Applebloom, limp like a ragdoll, draped in her bedsheets, perhaps, or maybe in the midst of doing chores. Stone cold. Her eyes refused to tear up, but her voice was strained to avoid crying out in anguish. In guilt. I wish you would die.
“You don’t seem to be listening,” Death repeated, and Sweetie Belle let out another sigh.
“I knew the family that runs this orchard. Like, really well. The youngest one, name of Applebloom… She was a really good friend of mine. I can’t… I can’t look at the apple trees, because I’m thinking of her and her family, stone dead.”
“You’re mourning?”
“I… I guess…”
Death smiled. “Please. Save it for when they die at their time, and even then, why mourn long? Death is, after all, simply the last page of the book of life. You have to savor those last few pages. Those are the best ones, where the artist that is the writer summarizes the emotions of an end in a few sparse paragraphs.”
“But don’t you think about the end of a book long after it’s gone? Don’t you feel sad at the end of a tragedy, or joy at the end of a comedy?” Sweetie Belle was now looking up at Death, her head tilted. “It isn’t bad to feel affected by a story. It’s more worrysome if you don’t feel a thing.”
“True,” Death muttered. “But the feelings are stronger when you’re in the midst of the story. When you’re reading it. Think this. When you’re with others, do you enjoy being with them?”
Sweetie Belle closed her eyes. There was no doubt to her answer.
“Me and my friends started a club, since we don’t have our cutie marks yet. The Cutie Mark Crusaders! And when I’m with them, I don’t think about the teasing I take, or the way my sister can be an irritating wannabe tyrant, or anything really. I just…”
“You live in the moment.” Death’s statement was punctually matter-of-fact, and the smile on his face made it quite evident that he thought he had won. Won? Won what?
“Why do you look so smug?” Sweetie Belle inquired, her voice darkened by slight annoyance. Death giggled in response.
“I’ve won me a philosophical debate! Oooh, what fun, I haven’t been in one of those in a while.”
Sweetie Belle’s head tilted, an eyebrow cocked, as Death’s step took a decidedly more dancelike swagger. “A what?”
“A philosophical debate. The great battle of ideals! Where both sides present their case, and only one can emerge as the correct philosophy, as told by the proven fact of example!”
He chuckled, and shook his head. “Honestly, though. You made some good points, but my position is more strongly supported.”
“I didn’t even know we were arguing!”
“Debating,” Death corrected. “The point is not to prove the other side wrong, it’s to point out the weaknesses of their position against the strengths of your own.”
Weaknesses. Sweetie Belle felt a weakness, and she lost her footing, landing flat on her face, as if Death were to help her up, that would only make their current predicament worse. Or would it?...
Before she could dwell on it any longer, Death clucked his tongue. “Minor starvation. It’s a good thing we’re so close to all of these apple trees.” He left the path, standing a few feet away from a low-hung tree. Getting up on his rear hooves, Death held his scythe at the very low end with his forhooves, and gave a mighty swing. It cut down a branch of the tree, said branch shrivelinging up and collapsing into itself on impact, falling to the ground with a thud. He gestured to Sweetie Belle to come over, but she shook her head.
“No! We can’t! Those are Apple Family apples! They’ll never forgive me if they… Whoa.”
As she protested, the rest of the apple tree had slowly died, shriveling up, the fruits falling from decayed stems, Death having to use his scythe as an impromptu umbrella underneath the fruit assault. He laughed heartily, which sounded strange, a scratchy laugh as if he were an old man. Although, Sweetie Belle noted, he was Death. Perhaps many eons older than he actually was.
“Y… You killed it!”
Death shrugged. “Trees, I’m more than willing to kill. It’s not like they’re in position to protest.”
“If Applejack finds out-“
“Applejack and her family,” Death said, his tone quite serious, “Are quite deceased. Through a mistake of my design, not yours. And if you don’t get your flank over here and eat an apple or two, we’re going to have plenty of trouble undoing this mistake, are we?”
The words hit Sweetie Belle like a kick to the gut. They were dead, weren’t they? It wasn’t like they were going to mind a dead apple tree. They weren’t going to mind anything. But this wasn’t a relief to Sweetie Belle as much as it weighed on her mind. Applebloom. Applebloom shouldn’t be dead. Applebloom was so full of life, of ingenuity, one of Sweetie Belle’s greatest friends, although to be fair she only had three, so the accolade was a bit lost in purpose. But regardless, the thought of Applebloom being dead just refused to sit on Sweetie Belle very well. And Death’s harsh reminder that she was, in fact, on a quest to undo this wrong only served to cut the wound further.
She started to cry. Death groaned, and Sweetie Belle was certain that he was mentally kicking himself.
“Sweetie Belle, there is time for sadness later. I can’t bring these to you, they’ll shrivel up.”
But she could not will herself to move until the tears had finished, sitting back on her haunches, and letting a puddle of grief and agony settle at her hooves.
+-+
She still had a pit in her stomach, but the food relieved it slightly. Sweetie Belle had wolfed down apple after apple after apple, sitting with Death, her back to the tree, trying not to think of Applebloom, of her corpse, the corpse that could have been in the fields at that moment, the corpse that would surely bring her to suicidal levels of grief. Death wasn’t very good at keeping ponies sane, apparently. At the most, he had cut her down the comfort apples. She had lost count of how many she’d wolf down in three bites. Or how many she’d eaten in general. The sorrow had brought her insurmountable levels of hunger, unsatiable even with an entire tree’s worth of apples.
“Sweetie Belle, you can’t eat all of those feckin’ apples.”
“Forget you,” Sweetie Belle replied, through a hefty mouthful of partially chewed apple. “I can eat all these apples.”
Death sighed. “If it makes you feel better about your predicament, I suppose it’s best if I not interrupt. Although, I do recommend you slow down a bit there, lass.”
As if his words carried some sort of karmic power, Sweetie Belle jammed her next apple down her throat, and her gag reflex kicked in. She began to cough, splutter, bits of apple going everywhere. Some of the smaller bits made their way up into her nose, stopping her ability to breath out of it, and she desperately tried to suck in breathes between the strangling coughs. Her hoof bashed against her chest, her eyes wide with realization.
Death gripped his scythe a little bit tighter.
He breathed out, seemingly in relief, as Sweetie Belle retched, spitting out bits of apple, turning over on her back, breathing heavily.
“I told you to slow down,” he said, with a slight grin, a chuckle forming at the first few words. “For a moment there, I was worried me services would be necessary.”
“If you still could-“
“Nay.” His reply was immediate, empathy and coldness blending in his voice in the oddest way. “I don’t do mercy kills. Personal policy. Besides, if I don’t have you alive, there is no way I can bring everypony else back. I don’t have any of that magic horn stuff. All of this anguish is temporary. I’d prefer it to be as quick as possible.”
Sweetie Belle grunted in reply, turning over again. “I can’t help it. Everything that me and Applebloom ever did together… It’s just stuck in my head like a song.”
“Then rather than mourning the fact that she is dead, perhaps then you should celebrate the good times that you had. Sadness is fine, grief is understandable, complete and total anguish is inexcusable this far into the day, especially considering how I’ve given you an option besides mourning.”
Sweetie Belle sniffled. “Applebloom was… Applebloom w-was just such an incredibly…”
“If I might recommend,” Death said, tilting towards her with an expression of concern on his face, “You not refer to her in the past tense? Because if we keep going at this point, we could get to Canterlot by this time tomorrow. But only if you’re willing to move on.”
Sweetie Belle pushed herself up, shakily, anguish attacking her limbs and her energy, assaulting her mind with images of the dead Apples. Applejack prostate in front of an unbuckled tree, Macintosh lying not far away, Granny Smith slumped in her chair, Applebloom half hanging out of a window.
But she fought back, with equally vicious force, reminding herself of housevisits, of Cutie Mark Crusader meetings, of simply being together with her and Scootaloo at dusk and watching the transition from day to night, and wondering when, if ever, they would get their cutie marks, and whether or not it ever mattered. As long as they had each other, cutie marks were peripheral.
And if she persevered, if she could make it to Canterlot, then their adventures would not end then and there, in a cruel mistake made by a simpleton of a demigod.
“Yes, yes, there ya go, m’dear. Fight the sorrow. It’s no place when there’s hope to be had.”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle grunted, now on all four hooves.
“Okay. Okay. I’m ready.” She stood on her hooves, her head held up high, the tearstained face and running eyes filled with an opposite emotion, her face straight as possible.
Her voice was breathy, unready, yet to be caught. Death tilted his head.
“You’re absolutely sure? I really don’t want to use this.”
“One hundred and twenty-pecent more,” Sweetie Belle replied, still wavering. “We have to go, right? You have to get back to work. I have… to get my friends… My friends back.”
Death shrugged. “I suppose.”
+-+
A few hours passed. Death passed the time by singing, Sweetie Belle occasionally singing along. At that point, though, Sweetie Belle was silent, not knowing the song.
“We've got a feeling of the day
Last time wasn't what we made but we make away
Love is our only true escape
Fear is nothing washed away awake away awake-“
Sweetie Belle cleared her thoat, interrupting Death’s singing. He trailed off, disappointment tinging the notes and bringing a frown to his face. “I think I get it now,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Get what?”
“Get mourning. Before, nopony in my family was really dead taht effected my directly. I mean, I still have a great-grandmother. And when I go places with my parents, and Applebloom and Scootaloo are along, they always have this look in their faces. I know what they’re thinking about.”
“They have no parents?”
Sweetie Belle retorted with another question. “You don’t remember taking them away?”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, lass, I’ll have you know that I only exact death. I don’t kill willy-nilly, only when it is one’s time. Moreover, do you realize how many ponies die in a day?”
Sweetie Belle was silent. Death continued talking.
“Hundreds. How am I to remember four ponies when four-thousand might have died in a Griffon air-raid that same day? God, War really leaves a terrible mess. When Conquest tells him of the promise of battle, he just… Goes nuts. We know what Conquest is like, after all. He can’t get enough of it.”
“What a dick,” Sweetie Belle said, with a smile.
Death’s sunken face crinkled into a massive grin, a long giggle escaping his lips, before developing into a full-on laugh.
“Yes. Yes indeed. Conquest is such an incredible dick. Now, let’s not mention it much more, I feel that the phrase is wearing thin on you.”
Sweetie Belle sighed. “I need all the laughs I can get.”
Death shook his head, returning back on topic. “Yes, mourning is fine in small, controlled doses. It is when it devolves into pity that one goes wrong. You cannot put your life on hold because someone elses has evaporated. You must enjoy your friends and family whilst they live.”
“But you have to honor their memory when they die,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Point taken. But I think that the debate is fairly well settled. You cannot spend too long. You have your own life, Miss Belle, you and your other friends. The realm of the living is temporary and fleeting.”
Sweetie Belle nodded, noting that the road was getting steeper. “So we have to cherish it.”
“Yes. Because it ends. And that is beautiful, Sweetie Belle. It makes life a valuable commodity. Something you shouldn’t waste.”
Sweetie Belle looked behind them. Sweet Apple Acres was still in view, far off in the distance. Row after row of emerald-colored trees bearing sweet red rubies, held by wooden prisons, broken free by a strong kick, or a gust of wind. It was a serene image. But Sweetie Belle now found it somewhat exciting as well. She got to experience it. Got to see the beauty of the acres before the trees became overgrown, the fences crumbled, the farmhouse abandoned, or the farm was paved over for skyscrapers, or angry zebras poisoned everything with pink gas. That was beautiful.
Because eventually it would end.
+-+
She turned her face to Death, and smiled. He was beaming, his few pearl-white teeth beautiful in the summer sunlight.
And so they continued forth.
Author's Note
Death was singing Awake by Electric Guest this time. Because I've been playing Forza Horizon. Jazz hands!
“How dare you track filth all over my pristine carpets!”
“I didn’t meeeeaan it!”
“Do you even KNOW how much time I spent with Twilight? That dusting spell nearly knocked the poor thing out!”
“I didn’t-“
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, all of that work, ruined! Because you couldn’t use the mud mat, right?! Ugh! You can be such an awful, filthy degenerate sometimes, Sweetie Belle! These things cost me a small fortune!”
“I-“
“Argh! And you ruined them with those little, dirty feet! Ugh! Mud! Hideous mud, everywhere! By Celestia’s mane, Sweetie Belle, however am I going to-“
“I… I… Shut up! Would you shut up! Just shut up!”
“…I’m sorry?”
“It’s like this every single time I go into the house! ‘Oooooh, Sweetie Belle, you’re a filthy degenerate dumpsack, look at the mess you made!’ There’s this girl in my class just like her. All she ever does is give me and my friends grief. I’ve gotten enough of THAT today, I REALLY don’t need a reminder of my uselessness, and I so DESPERATELY want that twit Diamond Tiara to die!”
“Sweetie Belle!”
“What?! It’s true! She’s vile! She’s awful! She deserves nothing more than to die! Alone! Friendless! Without that laughing crowd of sheep that follows her! And you know what?! I wish she would die! I wish everypony that has ever made my life the living hell that I try to eke an existence from would just curl up, sad and alone, and die! I wish you would die!”
“Sweetie Belle! Wait! You get back here! That’s a horribl-“
+-+
But at that point, she had retreated into her room, a sobbing wreck. And all Sweetie Belle did that night was cry. Tears streamed down her face, sobs shocked through her body, even in her sleep, which was scattered, uneven, restless. She cried, for once she had crossed into the bastion of the Boutique, she had felt safe enough to do so. Away from public sight, away from where further teasing could escalate.
+-+
And yet when she awoke, Sweetie Belle felt refreshed. Her eyes felt raw, scratchy, but oddly, she enjoyed the sensation, similar to how one would enjoy the swollen feeling of stretched joints. She felt satisfaction that her feelings had finally been allowed to pour out, rainclouds of tears that had now kept her pillow damp, smelling of tearful agony. In a strange way, it was therapeutic.
It didn’t help that it was simply so silent. The usual morning in Carousel Boutique was fairly noisy. Rarity either worked herself the entire night through, her eyes sunken from lack of sleep and her pupils dilated by the sheer amounts of caffeine she needed to simply stay conscious. Failing that, she was generally fixing breakfast for both herself and Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle felt a twinge of guilt. Her words the night before had been more than a bit strong. Begrudgingly, Rarity was right- It was an awful thing to wish death upon anypony.
It was so silent.
Why was it so silent? The outside was equally absent of sound. Not a bird or a squirrel gave chirps, squeaks or sing-songs. Not a buzzing bug to be heard. The hustle and bustle of Ponyville’s center was, at least as far as the auditory went, completely barren. The laughter, the bartering, the happy chaos of Ponyville’s marketplace was gone. That was truly unusual, especially with Ponyville being more “modern” with its recent influx of a zebra population.
Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
Sweetie Belle slowly willed herself out of bed. She was shaking. What was going on? What could possibly have silenced all of Ponyville? Had she gone deaf? Oh please, she mused to herself, I better not be deaf. Something inclined her to whisper.
“Rarity?”
She could hear the sound of her own voice. Good. So she wasn’t deaf. But bad. It made the fact that it was so silent even more punctual. She began to shiver. It was ninety-eight degrees outside.
“Rarity? Sis?...”
Slowly, she trotted to the door. Pushing against it, however, Sweetie Belle found that it refused to budge. Frowning, she pushed against it again. And again. It refused to move more than an inch, and Sweetie Belle could hear the swish of a form moving across it.
“Big sister? Rarity?...”
She gave the door a big push, and Rarity’s limp form flopped in front of the door.
I wish you would die…
Sweetie Belle screamed.
+-+
She screamed at the top of her lungs, her vocal chords seeming to rip from inside her throat. She let out all of her breath and didn’t stop, her lungs seeming to crush themselves inside her chest, squeezing for all it was worth. Her scream rang out, and echoed across the empty streets. Rarity didn’t move. Her form stayed where it was. And Sweetie Belle was mere feet away, looking upon it, dumbfounded.
I didn’t meeeeaan it…
She had to make sure. Maybe the workload had finally gotten to poor old Rarity. Sweetie Belle began muttering under her breath. “I didn’t mean it, oh my Gosh I didn’t mean it, I swear on Celestia’s mane oh please Rarity don’t be dead…”
She jammed her head up against Rarity’s cold breast. Her ear was not greeted with the steady beat of a heart, instead treated to cold silence.
Rarity had done as she was bidden. Sweetie Belle sat back on her hauches, stunned, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Oooooh Celestia, Rarity, I really, really, really, really didn’t mean it, and this isn’t funny and just stop, stop, please, please don’t be… Don’t…”
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Sweetie Belle began to cry. Except this time, she was cut short, as the bell of the Boutique’s door rang. The filly froze, her muttering continued. “Ooooh no, oh no oh no oh no…” If someone was to find her up here with a dead Rarity, she would go to Rider’s Island for a very long time, wouldn’t she? Where all of the terrible ponies went, all of the truly terrible people, and she did not want that fate. She grabbed ahold of one of Rarity’s forehooves as the mystery customer seemed to...
“It's different now I think
I wasn't older yet
I wasn't wise, I guess…”
He was singing. He didn’t sound much older than a schoolyard colt, and yet he voice seemed… Tired. Overworked. Sweetie Belle thought of Applejack in the evening. She seemed to do so much work for a pony that was hiring so much labor. Sweetie’s thoughts wavered back to the voice. It was a soothing voice, a voice with a whispery quality despite the volume it was being projected with. The colt had a subtle vibrato that brought his entire voice together, gave it a wavering quality that was lovely, vulnerable almost. Yet the rough, gravely undertones of the voice gave it a more masculine twinge. It reminded Sweetie Belle of several colts she knew on the playground. But none of them sang. Certainly none of them sang so beautifully.
She seemed to calm down for a moment, until she realized that he was coming up the stairs, still singing. Sweetie Belle’s eyes went wide, and she grabbed Rarity’s forehoof again, pulling feverishly.
“To you, don't get it wrong, don't get excited
I wanted so much to be at rest
Now that I'm older
So be it so of love…”
Sweetie Belle had yet to see the colt to whom the amazing, fantastic voice belonged to. That could wait. For now, she had to hide her deceased sister. Her head tilted slightly. She had never thought that she’d be doing this. Ever. She was vaguely aware of the fact that Rarity, being the elder sibling, would most likely be the first to go. She never thought that she’d be pulling the corpse.
The voice simply kept getting closer, Sweetie Belle now even able to hear the hoofsteps. Every third step, there was a slight pause, and then a wooden clunk upon the floors. Good. If he was disabled or something, Sweetie Belle had some more time. She willed herself to work faster despite the hypnotic voice filling her ears. It was almost romantic in its tone, really, a slight jovial tinge, but mostly, the soulful melancholy of the song really shone through. Sweetie Belle was impressed. Maybe he sang choir. Hopefully he looked more like Rumble and less like Snips. She shook her head. Focus, for Celestia’s sake, I can’t be found with this, oh Celestia I can’t…
“You I thought I was so in love
Some say it wasn't true
Now that I'm older
Now, now that I'm older…”
She was too late.
He was right there, singing the last part of his song, muffled behind a most peculiar mask, a pale white thing with a bird’s beak seemingly stretching his face to almost comical lengths. He had a small black hat on, which went over the comically oversized black cloak he wore, which was draped a gray-furred frame that seemed almost skeletal, malnourished. But the most striking part about him was the massive scythe, several times his size, that was slung over his shoulder, held in one hoof. He seemed to be quite capable of lifting it, although movement was a bit slower as a result. Sweetie Belle froze, having dropped the forehoof of her sister, her mouth agape.
“There's so much travel
And now that I'm older
Someone else, can see it for myself
So much travel, yeah
Now that I'm older…”
He sighed, pulling the mask down. His face was sunken in, gaunt, also malnourished seeming, but his eyes twinkled in a peculiar way. He looked like a delivery pony on his first day, or a certain delivery pony on every day of her life. They were dark blue, the color of the sea and the night sky, and seemed to pierce into one’s soul rather easily. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with a slight accent, which slathered over his words like frosting on a cinnamon bun.
“Aaah, Hoofjan Saddlens. I do try to stay contemporary with my musicians, despite the almost nil free time of my duties. Och, dear, look what we have here.”
“I didn’t mean it-“ Sweetie Belle began, but was cut short by the colt speaking.
“Oh, you did nothing, me’dear. This is entirely me fault.”
“But you just came in he-“
“Oh, why yes, I did,” the colt said, “but the work I have done-“ Here he gestured to the prostate and unbreathing form of Rarity- “Was here long before I. Such a real shame. I should have kept a closer eye on me scythe. This is just the sort of stunt that Conquest would pull if he got his hooves on it. Conquest is a dick.”
Sweetie Belle gasped at the vulgarity, and took a few steps back. “You can’t be serious. Somepony has been murdered, and you’re not even… You’re not scared?!”
The colt tilted his head. “In my business, I see a lot of this sort of thing. Oh! Oh my,” he said, shaking his head. “Do forgive me manners! Here I was, barging into your home, singing underrated, underexposed alternative folk music, and I never introduced myself! Well…”
He gestured to his scythe and gave his cloak a slight flip, causing it to shimmer a bit about his gaunt form.
“I think that you can probably garner from the attire who exactly I am. Also I was complaining about Conquest. Kind of a big hint.”
Sweetie Belle’s face was the epitome of confusion, frustration, and fear combined into a single expression. The colt sighed.
“Well… I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. Normally this would be the part where one would extend a hoof, but I’m afraid that anything that touches me dies. And you being the last living thing in Equestria, I say I would not throw away my life for such formalities.”
“Wha… Wha… What?”
Death repeated his previous statement. “I am Death. Do not shake hooves with me, you will die, and I do not want you to die, because you’re the last thing that’s alive in this entire country, perhaps even the world.”
“Wha… H-how… So all of my…”
Death nodded slowly. “Yes, I am quite afraid that everpony you know is quite deceased. Fortunately, so are the flies, the grubs, the worms, and the birds of prey, so their corpses should be pretty fine."
“H… Why did you…”
“Oh,” Death said, giving a dismissive lip twill, “I certainly didn’t mean to do it. It was a clerical error. Conquest, my eldest brother, told me that the apocalypse was at hand, and I went down to exact the souls that our brothers War and Famine would have left behind. Well no such luck, because Conquest is a dick, and the apocalypse was not, in fact, this morning. He had taken my scythe, which I was sure I wouldn’t need, and used it as a staff for my powers.”
“A-a-and he killed everypony.”
“Except for you. Because Conquest didn’t know what he was doing. Because Conquest isn’t just a dick. He’s the worst kind of dick. A stupid dick.”
Sweetie Belle sat on her haunches. She was talking to Death. Death being an admittedly cute, but frightening colt. Who she couldn’t get too near to lest she wished to surrender her life. Her head tilted. “So… So you’re here to… Kill me too?”
“Oh! Heavens no! Why would I kill the last living thing in Equestria?! My, what do you think I am?!”
“Well, you’re kinda the pony that everyone… Well… Meets. Before they die.”
Death sighed. “Well, I suppose I am, am I? Though really, I’m not even the worst of the bunch. War is a violent sociopath, Famine is an annoying asshat, and Conquest… Oooooh, Conquest, I must tell you, he is Major Dickface McDicklover MacGee. I hate that guy. And I’m told ‘oh, he’s your brother, you must love him’ to which I reply, no, for, and you can finish this for me…”
Sweetie Belle was morbidly entranced in the colt that seemed so full of life despite how much he took. It got her thinking, and she had to stop for a moment, waking herself up. “Erm… Conquest is a…”
“A monumental, incredible, absolute and total dick. I really hope that we don’t have to meet him. He is not nice.”
“S-s-s-so why did you… Why did you come to me?”
Death smiled widely. He was missing several teeth, although those that were left were all pristinely white. “You screamed. I came to see who was going to be my traveling partner.”
“Travel… Where?”
“Canterlot. Now, don’t you ever go thinking that we immortal, timeless demigods go about our business without a backup plan unless Conquest decides to be… Well, you know...”
“O-of course,” Sweetie Belle replied, shakily. “Why me?”
“Well, my dear, a living thing is rather integral in a life spell. I cannot cast it, as I am not a unicorn, but you… You have the horn for it. And the life. We will travel to Canterlot, revive the Princess, and then activate the life spell upon a larger scale, reviving all of your friends and-“ Here he gestured to Rarity- “Well-loved family. To them it will feel like they’re waking up from a nap, and they will be none the wiser to our celestial clerical error! You will have much pride in yourself for having saved Equestria, and you will go down in history as the legend who walked alongside Death as they went to Canterlot.”
He gave a small grin. "And besides, the loneliness, isolation and poorly-placed guilt gets to some ponies, and they go completely insane within hours. I am here to ensure that does not happen."
Sweetie Belle sighed. Normally, she would have turned down the offer. But if everypony was truly dead…
“Ooooooh Celestia above…”
She thought of the limp, lifeless forms of Applebloom and Scootaloo. Of their families (in Scoot’s case, her adoptive family and honorary sister). Of everypony in town she admired. She had no choice. She had to do this for them. It was unfair that their lives had been taken from them because Death, despite having a brilliant singing voice and good looks for being so unhealthily thin, also happened to be a bit of a gullible idiot. Which was a bit cute in Sweetie Belle’s book, but that barely registered, considering the magnitude of what she was going to be asked to do.
This wasn’t for the personal glory of a cutie mark. This was for her friends. Her first real adventure. She wondered how Rarity would react.
“That Death character is sooooo ghastly! And that beak is several hundred years out of fashion! Ooooh, the horror!”
Well, if it would have shut Rarity up, better to take the chance. Sweetie Belle sighed again, looking up at Death, tears in her eyes.
“W-we can really-“
“Oh, no, please don’t cry, Miss?...”
“Muh-muh-muh-my name’s… Sweetie Belle…” She burst into tears, the words “everypony is dead” sinking in at full significance, like daggers into her heart, mind, body and soul. Death recoiled. He could not comfort her physically, as that would kill her, so he settled for the next best thing.
“There, now, let it all out, Ms. Belle. We shall leave when you are ready, but erstwhile, I shall leave you alone. Meet me in the kitchen. I’ll make sure you don’t bump into me on accident. For that would be… Well, fatal, y'know...”
He nodded to her, turning around, leaving Sweetie Belle to contemplate on the floor.
+-+
Three hours later, the tears stopped. The thinking had not.
Sweetie Belle got to her feet. This was going to be a trip for her friends. For Rarity, to apologize for the words that had condemned everyone else. For the personal responsibility she most likely had. For Death, in order to help him clean up a serious mistake. For Equestria, because she couldn’t help but appreciate her nation’s history of saving the day.
Now was the time to go. Everypony was dead. But not her.
And now she only had one purpose as the last living thing. To bring life back, kicking and screaming, to those who deserved it.
It was time to go.
Author's Note
The song is called "Now That I'm Older" by Sufjan Stevens. Death is a hipster.
