Chapter 30: Something something magic, I guess?

“Because of you, Snowfall Frost. Now the future is a cold Nightmare…”

So, to recap, I was dead, and I was now taking my lesbian “pseudo-girlfriend” out for burgers and shakes at a joint located in the afterlife. At this stage of my life—unlife, if you will—I couldn’t even be surprised anymore by this sudden turn of events. Just another day in the unlife of Frosty Winds.

“Uh. I don’t have any money,” I whispered to my aggressively gay fruit. “Can you cover for me?”

Aforementioned fruit-themed pony glanced at me and quipped, “Oh, you don’t need it. Just get what you want. This place is here for fulfillment, whatever that means.”

Holy mother of all things deep-fried and delicious. I could order anything.

Anything. Without consequence. I didn’t have to worry about my health—I was already dead!

If I could physically drool, I would have been coating my hooves already. Freeeee foooood.

“Uh oh.” Repeated hoof-jabs into my side went unanswered. “Oh no. I really shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like that look. Frosty, can you hear me? Hello?”

I reached over the counter, failed to snare the unfortunate employee due to my unfamiliar lack of talons, then transitioned into an awkward prodding motion. “You listen to me and you listen to me good pal, cuz I haven’t had a good burger in literally forever. I want what I want. Got it?” The absolutely unfazed cashier glanced downward and wordlessly pressed a button. “I want a cheeseburger with two patties, extra haycon, and all the toppings you’ve got—no skimping!” I temporarily paused to let the poor worker do his job and maybe consider how much more monstrous I wanted this thing to get.

The grey, impossibly unremarkable cashier pony casually pressed a different button. “Any sauces?” He lazily eyeballed me with one of his grey eyes.

Out of all the choices on the nonexistent blank menu, I really didn’t know what to choose from. Maybe it was best to go with the staples. “Mayo. Mustard. Hot sauce.” An idea came to mind. One that could probably murder a living pony. Living, being the key word. That meant I was fair game. “While we’re at it, I want you to switch the buns for grilled cheese.” For the first time since I’d gotten in here, a giant stupid grin appeared on my face.

The ghost-pony taking my order scoffed. “Calm down, miss. Toast for buns isn’t the strangest thing we’ve served.” He—well, maybe it, I wasn’t going to start judging—pressed another series of buttons on the register.

I leaned forward, putting myself snout-to-snout to the cashier. Once again I grinned. “No. I want a grilled cheese sandwich for each bun. Oh, and wedge some fries in there too. Waffle fries, yeah.” This was definitely an obscene amount of food for one pony, but if there was anypony stupid enough to eat all of this it was me.

Cashier-ghost rolled its eyes. “Sure, whatever. Anything else?” Still nonplussed, it pressed another button.

I thought about what I’d already done and admitted it may have been a tad overkill. “No, that’s as evil as I want a burger to be.” Before it finished tapping in my order, I remembered that Tangie wanted a shake. “You guys make hoof-spun shakes?” I asked.

Ghosty-boy bobbled his head. “I guess.”

Eying up Tangie, I decided on the spot that she should try something new. “My amorous companion would like a vanilla shake, mix in double the amount of cherries and add a bit of chocolate syrup. And that’s it.”

“No I don’t.” Tangie objected. Too late. A little paper receipt whizzed out of the machine and floated into my waiting hoof. Order completed, we stepped aside to wait. “I wanted something different,” muttered the disappointed little pony.

I didn’t want to make my little fruit ghost sad. I reassuringly rubbed her head and said, “You’ll love it, trust me. If it’s anything like the Malt Bar’s shakes, of course.” From what my incredibly spotty memory could tell me, I’d liked the shakes at that place.

“I get ignored so much I might as well be named Terms and Conditions.”

What was this, ‘guilt-trip Frosty’ day? “At least you’ll get accepted no matter what.” I reassured her. The receipt in my hoof suddenly chirped and winked out of existence. “What in the even—” Before I could finish that outburst, a tray laden with the king of all burgers and its royal entourage burst into existence. I barely managed to catch the excessive amount of food I’d ordered with the combined effort of my wings and hooves. “And if you think you can trick me into another make-out session, think again,” I teased her.

At least Tangie actually chuckled at that instead of slipping into yet more self-loathing. “Thanks for trying.”

Then I noticed our surroundings again. It wasn’t the atmosphere that was bothering me—it was the fact that everypony around me was black (or very, very dark grey). Like, they were walking, chattering silhouettes going about their own business. They’d periodically phase through each other as well. I even tried to get one’s attention with a tactical prod, only for my hoof to pass through it. Huh. Looking back at Tangie, I opened my mouth to ask her about it. I wasn’t exactly sure what to ask and I hesitated.

Damn, Tangie was good at the guilt game. Her eyes had a disappointed look in them that I dared not add to. She snapped out of it, probably catching sight of the dead fish look I was giving her. “Are you okay?” she asked, tilting her head at me. “Your mouth is still open.” Hearing this, I immediately closed it.

I decided against bothering her for now. “Nah. Never mind. I don’t care enough.” I carefully re-balanced our tray of food on my back.

Over the whining, complaining, other ponies, and atmosphere, I caught sight of a terrifying no-nonsense manecut that unconsciously reminded me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Thoughts of terror followed the ingrained reminder of unspoken decorum to steer clear of high-ranked officers as to not attract attention.

Tangie noticed he hesitate. “What’s wrong?”

It must have looked like I was having a panic attack, because I was losing my goddesses-damned mind. I found myself blurting the first thing that came to mind. “I just remembered I, uh, left the oven on.”

Tangie traced my bird-in-headlights look to the mint chocolate chip pegasus. “What, you know her?”

I grabbed Tangie by the shoulders, fixed her with a determined stare, and firmly stated, “I should go.” At least I still had some semblance of self-control left in me or else I would have shaken the poor mare as well. Doing that would have sent lunch out of existence.

Tangie brushed me off and laughed. “Cool. I’ve never met a pegasus with a brain before. Introduce me, would you? She’s cute.”

I opened my mouth in preparation to squelch that unpleasant idea altogether, but before I could I found myself experiencing a familiar, light-headed feeling.

Jeez, I was dead and I was still falling into flashbacks. Was it ever going to end?

<~~~>

The advanced testing course for scout and recon teams was a make-or-break point in an airpony’s career. This season’s variation, “Under Fire”, included an array of lasers and non-lethal fire in the middle of the maneuverability course, segments clouded in dense smoke, mines in the smoke, and (in case all of that was too simple) we were expected to carry Busted the de-winged Sandpony—plus gear—through the whole thing.

Just reading the map made me nervous. On one hoof, this was a solo run to measure individual competence apart from the rest of the squad. That also meant that any mistakes I made would inevitably end my run. The scoreboard that I’d seen on the way in put the average completion time at just over three minutes. I’d never had to complete a course carrying all of my gear, plus another pony heavier than I was, plus his gear as well.

Easy peasy.

Easy, easy, easy. I tried not to hyperventilate. I really did. It really didn’t help that I was going first and the rest of my squad was going to be watching. “WIIIIIINDS!” I jumped, nearly throwing my incomplete rifle into the ceiling. “ONE MINUTE!” The drill sergeant on duty had taken an immediate disliking to me for some odd reason, and apparently relished every opportunity to rattle my cage.

I scrambled to get my weapon back together. “Y-yes, yes sir!” I squeaked in response. In the scant time I had left, I scrambled to shove things into my scout barding’s pockets. Two magazines for my rifle, ammo for my sidearm, knife, a flash grenade, a paint bomb (a “grenade”, for practical purposes), and literally all my other useless junk went into pockets or into my small pack. After scanning the table for anything I’d missed, I decided I was as ready as I was going to get. “To the killing fields with me,” I sighed.

I pushed through the double doors of the locker room and emerged into the arena-like testing area. A force field circled around the outer boundary of the whole course which kept me sealed inside and kept everyone observing safe outside. At the moment, sections of the field had been darkened so that I couldn’t see anypony on the other side but they would be able to watch me fail spectacularly. A platform cloud floated above me near the roof where the drill sergeant and was currently glaring at me from.

The knowledge that I was being observed only added to the immense stress I was already under. On the topic of stress, the drill sergeant coarsely shouted down to me, “In the event you are ready, feel free to start at any time.” In that case, I seriously considered taking a seat and crying on the spot instead of running the course. At least everypony watching were the ponies that already had zero respect for me or ponies that had no idea who I was.

“Officer present!” On reflex, I rose to my full seated height and saluted at nothing.

A charcoal-grey mare in officer’s uniform swooped down and alighted just in front of me. I recognized her. Colonel Astral. She had mint-green hair cut short in a no-nonsense yet stylish swept forward manecut. “At ease. Airpony, I need a moment with the sergeant. Take five.” Those silvery-grey eyes seemed to bore into my very soul, almost daring me to make a misstep.

Oh boy. I dropped my saluting hoof and continued to respectfully stare off into nothing while playing failure scenarios through my mind. Being the auditorily-blessed nosey pony I was, I couldn’t help but listen to the interchange happening just above me.

"Sergeant, I hope you realize how fortunate you are to have earned a chunk of my time," Astral said. "I've got quite a bit of work piling up, not the least of which is the tiresome responsibility of dealing with my stupid brother's disciplinary action. A whole squadron of troops hospitalized! Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved when someone spikes the mess's coffeepot with powerful psychedelic drugs? Because I sure didn't. My mouth was already cramping up by the time you came to whisk me away from my office for—" Astral balked. "...Why is it we're here, exactly?"

The drill sergeant neutrally grunted an affirmative. “Sounds like some strong-ass coffee, ma’am.”

"It's all rather 'groovy,' I'm told," Astral said, using her wingtips to form air quotes. "I believe at one point my own bodyguard told me he could taste purple. You'd think my big brother would be a little more concerned about flushing his career down the toilet but he's always so remarkably nonchalant about these things. He keeps telling me it's so boring above the clouds that we should make our own fun. I'm not laughing though, Sergeant, and neither are the rest of the high brass. One of these days he's going to push too far." A distant look washed over Astral's features. "I worry about that day. About him."

“If it would make you feel any better, ma’am, I can make Winds run the course with live rounds. There’s nothing funnier than watching rookies catch fire on the course.”

The color drained out of my face. Knowing the sergeant’s background and hatred for all things living, he’d do it too. All the lasers on the course were by default set to “almost kill” but everypony was sure that the sergeant was just looking for an excuse to cut down rosters for his own twisted amusement. According to the long-lost training documents that he kept citing, laser burns were supposed to build character. I did not want to catch fire. Or die. Especially not in front of brass.

“I’m sure she would appreciate not spending her weekend recovering from third degree burns. Thank you for the option, however.” Thank the goddesses. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I wouldn’t be on fire today. “Winds? My office. We have some sensitive matters to discuss regarding allegations of espionage.”

Oh, joy.

~~~~~

The ranking officer in the room sat down behind her desk, whereas I comfortably stood just in front of it frozen at attention. “Winds.” She curtly nodded at me. “At ease.”

“Ma’am.” Now that I had permission, I plopped myself onto my butt and quietly waited for whatever came next. Either I’d get an aneurysm first or she’d throw a promotion my way for exemplary performance. Worse, there wasn’t even anything in this goddamn office to distract myself with. I’d already found the filing cabinet boring and the overwatered plastic plant in the corner looked like it was begging to be put out of its misery.

Silence filled the room while Astral shuffled through folders on her desk. “I’ve only just gotten my hooves on the debriefs for Operation: Overcast. According to the reports, my oft-insufferable oaf of a brother botched the assassination of a pony whom we believe to be a high value target.” When I looked up, a mountain of folders and assorted paperwork had appeared in front of me. A select few files, one with Vortex’s smug face on it landed right at my hooves. “This has been widely regarded as a mistake. Of the career-ending variety.”

According to standard subordinate self-preservation protocol, I simply smiled and nodded. “I’d agree, ma’am.”

Astral reached into the pile in front of us, seemingly at random, and threw a trio of extremely blurry photos into my face. “Oh? Well according to him, Cyclonus PD, and innumerable eyewitness testimonies, you were also present at the time.” I collected them back up and stared at the first one. The picture was greyscale, probably taken from somepony’s security feed. It showed two vaguely pegasus-shaped blobs going quite fast, one ahead of the other.

My eyes darted back and forth—basically everywhere that wasn’t Astral. “No I wasn’t, ma’am.” Technically, they could be anyone. I heard the other mare slide out of her seat and begin to pace around her office.

“Yes. Yes you were,” she affirmed from somewhere behind me.

I coughed. After quickly consulting my hooves, I suggested, “You don’t know that. Ma’am.”

“I do.” The sound of quiet pacing stopped. Suddenly, firm yet tiny hooves spun me around and forced me face-to-face with Astral again. “And I’d like you to tell me what happened.”

Considering the excessively clandestine operation I was embroiled in, saying nothing was probably the best move I could do. I didn’t want to be that pony in those spy shows that got murdered in the bathtub with an egg beater. “I don’t think I’m allowed to disclose that information, ma’am,” I smartly responded.

There was a frustrated sigh from the ranking pegasus. Astral circled all the way back around, swishing her wings in annoyance, then returned to sitting behind her desk. “Winds.” She did that thing that every parent did when their foal does something dumb—hooves into face, frustrated groan, then back to angry glaring. “You’re a smart mare. You know what this little phoenix badge on my lapel represents?”

I stared at the badge of importance with immense scrutiny. Even though I already knew the answer, I hesitated to respond on the off chance that this was a trick question. “Your rank?”

“Very good. Could you tell me exactly what rank it represents?”

“...Colonel, ma’am?” Not a question! Not a question! “Ma’am.”

Colonel Astral leaned forward “And surely you understand the concept of the chain of command. So why can’t you tell me?”

“I am ninety percent sure that my superior’s superior’s superior would not want me to disclose the reasons of my presence on the operation.” This was the point where my prior allegiance to Mister ‘my lights don’t work’ McShady made the idea of betraying his trust a more terrifying prospect than a court-martial for insubordination. “To be honest, ma’am—I am ranked lower than the worms in the dirt. I’m not allowed to make my own decisions.” I didn’t let myself waver, especially when Astral’s charcoal grey began to glow a burning coal. As such, I quickly revised my previous statement and blurted, “Uh… I’ll go contact my superior.”

Suddenly, Astral snapped to her full unimposing height and bellowed at me, “As long as you're stationed here I have a right to that information! This is MY base. MY command. I had to fight tooth and hoof to get to be where I am today, and I didn't work my tail off so I could be stymied by an insubordinate little—" With each spat word, I’d been shrinking into the floor. Seeing this, the colonel cut herself short and leaned back into her chair. She took several deep long breaths while rubbing her temples, then more calmly grumbled, "Fine. That's fine. If you won't tell me what I want to know, I'll just go over your head. You're dismissed, Winds. Get out of my sight before I make you regret ever setting hoof in here.”

<~~~>

While I had been making the sounds of a frightened teapot on boil, Tangerine had taken the initiative to slowly steer us toward ex-Major Astral. As we drew nearer around other booths, the absolutely gargantuan pile of daisies and hay fries piled up in front of the fearsome officer came into view. It was then when I realized that I didn’t have much to fear.

She looked like an emotional wreck, to put it lightly. Between fits of sobbing and uncontrollable hiccupping, she’d shovel a hoofful of fries or daisies into her face and repeat the whole cycle over again. I had to remind myself that it was highly unlikely that everypony reacted to being dead like I did and this was her way of coping. An errant thought floated by and helpfully jogged my rusty hamster wheel—didn’t she have a brother? Maybe that’s what she was torn up about.

A more threatening thought floated in right after, brandishing deadly intent. I’d met her father once. General Silverbolt, scourge of the Enclave. I didn’t actually know what that word meant, but it was a cool-sounding word that made my jimmies scream. I’d met him once, and I think I passed out from fright that time.

Tangie threw me into the seat opposite of the mint chocolate pegasus without even waiting or politely asking if we were even allowed to sit there. Just to be annoying, she scooted in right after, blocking me into the booth. I was still slightly terrified and on the verge of having a breakdown. Right beside me, Tangie was nearly vibrating in place. The prospect of yet another pegasus was more of a fixation for her, it appeared. I threw her a mocking snarl since she wasn’t looking at me anyway.

Giddily smiling, Tangie did a gentle little wave with the hoof not currently holding a milkshake. “Hi there!” The other pegasus paused in her hysterics, glanced at the two of us, then opted to instead block her by shifting the tray of daisies. Understandably, the giddy look Tangie had faltered slightly. “Er… My name’s Tangerine, and my friend here—”

All of a sudden, the water works on the other side of all the junk halted. A grey eye peered scooted into view and glared in my direction. It regarded me for a tense moment. “Winds,” its voice muttered. “I know you.”

I gulped. “Frosty Winds, ma’am.”

“I’m uh… going to get another drink. One that isn’t just sugar in a cup. You two should catch up.” Tangie quickly made herself scarce. The other pegasus immediately broke down into a sobbing mess again.

“Ma’am? Colonel Astral?” There wasn’t an obvious reply from her. “Are… are you—” Well, clearly she was the farthest from the most remote definition of ‘okay’, but it was socially expected of me to ask. She did outrank me by a landslide, after all. Any points I could get with her would help. “—okay?” I lamely ended up asking.

The once-imposing Enclave officer I remembered was nothing like this wreck of a mare drowning in food. Poor thing. Slightly protruding from the mountain of daisies and potato was a bent, slightly creased photograph of a stallion. No wonder she hadn't moved on past limbo. Whoever this guy is, he seems to have seriously wronged her in life. I angled my head to get a better look at the—

Wait. The pony in the picture didn’t even have wings. As far as I could tell, it was a plain-looking off-white earth pony. There wasn’t much about him that stood out, either. His brown mane was done up like one big fluffy tuft similar to what Rumcake’s had been like. He had a confused sort of idiotic look on his face as well, his hazel eyes looking at something out of frame. Who was this guy?

I decided to press a little harder. “Cap for your thoughts, ma’am?”

Astral took a hiccuping breath and gave me a passing glance. "Why doesn't daddy love meeeee?!" she bawled, already halfway through a clump of mint leaves.

Oh. Well. "Uh, that's an earth pony. How is that even possible?" I asked, pointing out the obvious.

Still in hysterics, Astral continued to sputter, “He got rid of me! He replaced me! And now I don’t exi—hic—iiiist.” And her face went right back into the pity platter.

“Um. Deep breaths, ma’am.” I threw caution to the wind and reached across the table to very gently pat her on whatever I could reach.

Now back under the hyperventilation threshold, Astral cryptically mumbled, “I guess I wasn’t good enough so he put some black and white bimbo in my place.”

Over the next several minutes I kept trying to get her attention for more answers. With each response I asked fewer and fewer of the answers I desired. “How did you get here?” became “Who’s the stallion in the picture?”. Even that turned into “What do you mean?”, which eventually came down to simply “What.” A token phrase came to mind for this situation—”this character is busy right now”. It seemed like she was a lost cause at this point. At least she’d stopped wailing and had resigned to a glum silence.

Tangie returned with a juice box. As she sat down, I glanced at the side of the box. “Orange juice? Isn’t that like, fratricide?” I observed in mid-gorge.

Like the adorable little fruit she was, she stared at the box, back to me, then back to it again. “I’m a tangerine. This is orange juice. If you really want to be that way, this is really more barbaric than anything.” She popped the straw off the box and gave the carton a gentle shake. The massive capital letters on the side of the carton, overlaying its slightly creepy laughing bowl of fruit, read “MAXIMUM PULP”.

For several seconds, I had to stop and think about exactly what quantity of pulp warranted the label “maximum pulp”. That, and watching Tangerine perform what could only be described as aggressive sexual actions on the open carton was something that left me speechless. Cue slow motion, exaggerated lighting, and cheesy music.

The juice box of sensuality finally met its demise when Tangie, frustrated by whatever it was, slammed it against the table and viciously tore into the box. She stared at the contents inside. “This juice box is full of orange slices.”

I peered into the box. “It did say that it’s full of pulp. That’s literally as much pulp as you can get out of orange juice.”

Tangie stared into the box. “I wanted juice.” After a lengthy pause, she quietly admitted, “But I really do like pulp.” Without another word, she planted her muzzle into the open carton and began to quietly munch on the oranges.

The afterlife was a weird place. Couldn’t complain about the burgers though.

A remark from Astral startled me just enough that a pickle escaped the confines of my burger and out of existence. “What kind of monster wants solids in their juice? That’s just not right.” Just as abruptly, she returned to wallowing. I still shot her an indignant glare.

I raised my burger a little and declared, “I’m a monster, therefore I also really love pulp.” Then I glanced at Tangie, who wasn’t even attempting to make any conversation with Astral. We could totally be sitting somewhere else. Somewhere not populated by muffled hysterics.

I felt Tangie squeeze in closer to me. Turning, I was about to ask her what was up— maybe she wanted a cuddle or something—then I caught a glimpse of a shimmering black hood just past her beside our table. Pushing Tangie’s face out of the way and into the mountain of fries, I demanded, “What do you want—” and hesitated. Whatever I was looking at, it appeared to be yet another Death. It was a hooded sack of disembodied bones that couldn’t have been taller than my barrel. What kind of skeleton was I talking to? “What even are you?”

The little bone bag seemed offended, it's little green eye lights darkening. “That is no way to speak to—”

Being the rude and incredibly disinterested pony I was, I interrupted it. “I seriously could care less. Couldn’t care less. Whatever.” With my burger hoof, I grandly gestured into its face—splattering sauce all over its robe—and spat, “There’s a lot less caring where that came from.”

With a complete look of disgust, the skeleton held out an official-looking envelope, complete with wax seal and string. “Mail for you.”

The least amount of effort I could apply to this conversation was an eye-roll. “What is it?”

“It’s a sealed envelope that usually contains words, but that’s not important right now.”

I glared at it. It, as in the creature. Nobody else was allowed to make stupid jokes unless that somepony was me. “You know what I asked.” Just to annoy it a bit more, I simply stared at it while chewing for a good ten seconds before I grudgingly took the letter.

Very quietly, I overheard Tangie gasp, “Oh my gosh. It’s a raccoon skeleton. You’re a trash panda.” She began to quietly squeal and squeal and squeal in all directions, periodically pointing and generally losing her goddesses-damned mind about it. I paid no mind—I had a burger to finish demolishing.

I opened the stamped envelope, carelessly shearing away the wax seal and liberally spreading sauce and grease all over the crisp paper. There were words, big words, and some complicated words I didn’t really understand, all in a flowing stylized font I could barely make out my own name in. Like I always did with things I didn’t quite comprehend, I pretended to anyway. “I have no frame of reference about how severe this is.” Nodding and frowning, feigning competence, I sighed and passed it back to the bag of animal bones.

“From what I heard, you’re getting ten thousand years of eternal torment.”

Upon hearing this news, I pulled my letter-laden hoof back and quickly scanned the whole greasy document again for any mention of ten thousand in word or number form. No results found. In fact, the whole subpoena was written in a language I didn’t even understand. “No. Stop it. That’s a weirdly round number and I don’t believe you.” That, or my brain had crawled out the back of my head at some point. It would explain why I couldn’t read.

We had a staredown—I in abject disbelief, and it in distaste. A tense moment passed, only punctuated by periodic munching by either me or Astral. “Okay, it’s more like nine thousand five hundred seventy something, but ten thousand is so much more ominous sounding.”

It did have a point. Ten thousand or any large multiples of ten always sounded cooler, especially when a statistic was being made up on the spot. “I still want to see the numbers.”

“We are not allowed to disclose that information, nor are we given statistics.”

Eyeballing a fry on my tray, I glanced at the Death and made an impulse decision. By only taking a quick second to judge distance and weight, I masterfully pitched a fry right down one of racoon death’s eye-holes. “I think it’s because you’re stupid,” I pointed out with a smirk.

At this point, the motes of light in the Death’s skull had turned to an alarming shade of crimson. “I hate you,” It growled.

Meh. The last fry went into my gullet. “I get that a lot.” My moment of victory wavered slightly as I looked around for a victory beverage. “Oh, hey—can you get me a soda? Large cherry Dr. Spice, no ice.”

~~~~~

Whether or not the food existed, I had a sense of fulfillment in my soul. I felt well and truly happy. Content, even. After all the drama and incomprehensible nonsense I’d been through already—including being alive, by the way—I’d hoped that I could finally stop and relax.

And then bucking Mort had to come and ruin it.

“Heya, girls.”

Before Death himself made an even larger fool of himself, I stopped him right there. Facehoofing, I groaned, “Don’t. Don’t even say that. Coming from you, that’s not okay.” I continued, “You definitely aren’t Valley Mares material, so please just… no.”

If skulls could look hurt, Mort’s definitely did. “Oh, come on.”

“No, I agree. It doesn’t suit you.” Good, at least Tangie was taking my side.

“Thank you.” I flourished an exaggerated bow at my loyal fruity companion, who returned it with a stifled chuckle. Then I switched gears and whirled on Mort with a snap, “Now what in the name of here do you want?”

“Frosty. I was informed that you have been summoned to the court once again.”

“Yeah.” I showed him the greasy bit of parchment. “I can’t read it.”

“It’s probably in Angelic.” Mort began mumbling incoherent words under his breath. I made out something along the lines of inferiority complex in there. “Traditions be damned.”

“Any idea what it says?”

The motes of light in Mort’s skull darted back and forth across the parchment. “Oh, I can read it. I just don’t like it. Your court date was moved up.”

I half-raised my hooves in the air and waved them like I somewhat didn’t care. “...Yay?”

“There is to be a special session regarding our current predicament.” After giving it one last once-over, Mort passed the subpoena back to me. I just sort of stared at it like it was a live explosive. “This document is proof of your sins, so do not lose it. Once the session concludes, your—and my—situation will be resolved in some form or another. You will not be returning to Limbo."

Just as I took the letter back, carefully tucking it into the crook of my wing, Tangie wistfully sighed at me. “So… is that it, then? It is, isn’t it? Will I ever see you again?” She gave me this look—wistful and sort of angry. Sad, yet mad. Smad…yes. “If you are, promise me you’ll do good. Not for you, but for me. Please.”

“Duh, Tangie.” Whew, crisis averted.

“Duh, Tangie?” In an instant, my adorable little Tangie became a seething pomegranate of concentrated antioxidant rage. Like, her face turned red and everything. Scary. She stood, advancing on me with purposeful fury. “Come on, the least you can do is pretend to care. This was supposed to be a heartfelt parting of lovers separated by fate!” she shouted, causing me to shrink and pin my ears back. “I’ve always wanted to be in this moment.” Then she seemed to lose steam, gradually deflating into a sad little fruit.

Now that she mentioned it, she did deserve better than that. Perhaps I wasn’t the pony that could give it to her, but she did deserve more than me. With the universe being as petty as it was being to me—and by extension, Tangie—I would have to do. “Wait, how many romance novels do you read?” I was about to bring up something about this not being some sort of trashy love opera, but morals won out and I decided to not be more of an asshole about it. Not having another me to tell me what I was doing wrong was seriously gimping my conversational skills. “Sorry, I’m just… gosh, I’m just really upset that there’s still somehow more garbage the universe thinks I need to do.”

The rage of the Tangerine truly came to an end once she realized I was sincerely apologetic. She lowered herself back onto her haunches and tapped her hooves together. After a moment, she remarked, “It could be worse?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I could be alive.”

Tangie was silent for a beat, then responded, “Wow. Is this what it feels like to be an asshole?”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“No. Goddesses, no! Why would you ever say that?”

I frowned to myself. “I don’t know. Seemed funny in the moment.”

“I think I deserve an apology.” The next thing I knew, Tangie’s face was right up in mine. I took a half-step back in surprise, leaning back slightly. She continued to violate my personal space by moving in closer, nuzzling my neck with hers. “One last kiss?”

Nerves struck. I backed myself right out of romance-ville in an instant. Why wouldn’t Tangie just get the hint already? Not every self-centered Wasteland heroine like myself had a compulsive need to bang every creature that moved. “You know I’m not comfortable with this,” I reminded her.

Of course now was the moment Tangie broke out the big sad fruit eyes. “Please? Just one more time?” Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. I pointedly made an effort to look somewhere other than Tangie. Don’t look at her.

While staring at the ground and still not making eye contact with Tangie, I sternly pointed out to her yet again, “I respect your choice to mack with all the hot single pegasus mares. Please respect my choice to gargle humongous dicks.”

“Oh.” She sounded crestfallen, not that I really blamed her. “Well now you put it that way—”

I couldn’t live with myself if the last thing I did to Tangie was shrug her off like all the other ponies that I’d met along my travels. She deserved more. “At the very least, we can be best friends forever because we’re too lazy to make new friends.” The best I could do was wrap her up in the loviest, doviest, huggiest—insert other words that rhyme—bear hug a miserable excuse for a pony like me could give. “But you’re my asshole, and I’m—nevermind this is a dumb sentence,” I lamely groaned. “Forget it. I tried.”

~~~~~

Mort saved me from the embarrassment of having to come up with a different one-liner. He’d brought me along on a long drawn-out journey that I’d found so utterly boring that I got to the point of contemplating what happened if I somehow managed to die here. Eventually I was taken into yet another inexplicable portal, which led into a dark cave. Said cave—which looked like it had been carved into a nonexistent mountain, by the way—wound down into yet another suspiciously arena-shaped cavern. Right in the center, occupying a good ninety percent of the cavern was a pit that seemed to have no bottom. “So what am I looking at here? Did the instance not load in?” I asked.

My question echoed back across to me from the other side of the cave half a second later and I heard how dumb I sounded. Is that what it’s like for everyone else who has to listen to me?

Of course, Mort seemed unamused and unsurprised by my attempts at clever wit. One day I’d have to find somepony who understood all my jokes. With all of eternity to work with, I’d eventually find some unfortunate victim. That could wait until later—I was getting sidetracked. The two of us paused at the edge of the bottomless hole to nowhere. “We are here for guidance,” Mort cryptically explained. “From one old friend to another.”

In the event that gravity still applied in this universe, I made sure to stay safely behind the oddly-conveniently-just-enough-space-for-a-whole-pony ledge and instead craned my head to peer into the depths of the void. “You’re friends with a hole?” A hole that, to my observations, didn’t have a bottom from this angle either. I backed away a step and then noticed the huddled cloaked shapes on the opposite side of the pit. More Deaths? From here, I could make out the head honcho—the Death of Griffons.

Mort continued, lost in what sounded like some fond reminiscing. “His name is Chip. I’ve known him ever since I got here.”

Snarky commentary was about to pour out of my face—something about holes, probably—then a huge rush of flowing black fabric emerging from the hole took the words out of my mouth. My gaze kept creeping higher, and higher, and higher, all the way up to the smouldering pale orbs of purest light that illuminated the largest skull I’d ever laid eyes on. A massive set of curved talons bigger than my entire not-body emerged over the edge and came to a rest just short of us. In a voice befitting such a large beast, a deep baritone that reverberated around the circular pit emerged from that gaping maw.

“Eeeeey. Wha’z good, man?” boomed Dragon Death.

No words came to mind. No wit, no snark, just—this was not the voice I had been expecting from a huge undead dragon. Where was the theatrical rumble? The voice made of raw gravel? The speech, for crying out loud! He sounded more like an easygoing grill jockey on a Friday night than the lord of terror. “...Hi?” I squeaked.

The colossal skull swiveled to stare down into my soul. I took note of the purple-ish motes of flame the size of my entire body hovering in its eye holes and decided to not do anything to piss this thing off. “Wassup, Frostizzle? I hope my crew’ve been treatin’ you nice.”

I sort of gaped, dumbfounded. That—that was decidedly not the voice or speech pattern I expected to come out of a dragon. “I’m… good?” My mind. Please.

It nodded, bobbing its skull in various directions. “Coo, coo.”

Still dumbstruck, I reflexively blurted the first thing to pop into my mind. “Hello, I’m Chip and and my voice doesn’t match my face.” Only after I’d said it did I internally scream in fear at exactly who and what I’d given a free pass to the burn ward. I still mentally hoofbumped myself anyway.

The entire room rumbled. Dragon skeleton clapped its pony-sized claw bones together, throwing its skull around the room until it came to face Mort. “Dang! Tweety’s got claws. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

“The Grand Council calls for your final judgement on this soul’s fate.” Mort waved a bony hoof at me. “Frosty, you’ve already insulted Chip. Chip, Frosty. Or, as she likes to call herself: Frosty, Winds Frosty.”

The grin on Mort’s face was apparent, even if he physically couldn’t. Giving the skelepony a shove, I whined, “It’s not my fault that catchphrase is confusing!” Sounding cool and being cool were two obviously different things, and it actually did pain me a bit that I never got to properly introduce myself like that while I had been alive. Peering around the dragon’s cloak, I eyeballed the so-called collection of other robed skeletons patiently waiting across the way. Good to note—no giant teeth. For the most part, many of them appeared to be quadrupedal like me. I tried not to look at the one that was an empty, floating, pony-sized robe.

The massive flaming eye-motes of the dragon’s skull shifted to a dull red. “Yo, can’t we get a ‘hey wassup’ in here ‘fore we begin?” Voicey McVoiceface caused the room to shake, even making Mort cower in fright for a moment.

“Apologies.” Mort took a deep breath and bellowed, “Wasaaaap!”

Satisfied, the dragon’s eyes faded back to their neutral purple color. “W’sup, foo.”

Not one to be left out, I raised my right hoof in greeting and chirped, “Sup!”

The frat lord of terror happily nodded to himself. “Coolio. Now’s we know each other, what’s on today?” Those pony-sized claws swung over us and clapped together, causing the room to gently rock.

“Emergency court session. Frosty’s Fate is in peril.”

“Dang.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“When’s it happening?”

“Now.”

“Say whaat?” Chip swiveled around in his hole and acknowledged the collection of eight other Deaths with a flourished nod. “Gentlemen. Lady. Amorphous being.”

Mort sighed. “Do you never read the scrolls they send you?”

“Hang on, hang on. Gotta get in the zone.” We waited in silence as we watched the pile of draconic bone shift and glow an eerie pale green. Not quite evil green, but a sort of off-shade lime pie green. When the dragon’s eyes returned, they illuminated the entire room to match:

“Frosty Winds, your destiny follows a murky path with an unexpected destination. Many dead ends await you, but there shall always be a way forward should you be willing to search for it. The answers to everything lie within your memories.”

The complete shift of tone actually got my attention more than the news he was giving me. Apparently, with great wisdom came a recognizable speech pattern. “Uh, well duh. I knew that already. My missing memories are the whole reason I’m in this stupid situation in the first place. That and Mort.” Although it had really been my fault that I’d squandered my second-and-a-half chance by running away from my problems.

A nudge from Mort got my attention. “All of your memories, Frosty, not just your missing ones.”

An emotion similar to dread crept into my soul. How was I supposed to recall everything that I’d ever seen and done on demand? I could barely remember how I got into this whole mess to begin with. “You would not believe how bad my memory is.”

The colossal dragon’s skull slowly tilted to the side. Mort raised a hoof and helpfully backed me up by saying, “I’ve seen it in action. You wouldn’t.”

I was incredibly offended by that. Crossing my forelegs, I turned up my head and scoffed, “My memory is fine, thank you very much. At least the parts that I still have, that is.”

Out of nowhere, Mort questioned, “What’s the name of the slave mare you saved from the Rad Lads?”

My head whipped around so fast I should have given myself whiplash. “Wat,” I croaked.

“Answer the question.”

“You can’t expect me to remember that! What even is a ‘Rad Lad’?”

“I’ll give you ten seconds.”

“I’d like to ask the audience.”

“No.” When I failed to come up with an answer, Mort snorted. “Case. In. Point.”

“Dang! Yo’ ass just got de-stroooyed.”

“Why would I need to remember a dumb name?” I whined. Rad Lads. Rad Lads. Was that the name of the slaver group that attacked the town I started in? “I knew them for less than ten days, tops. At the time, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing. The only reason I hung around the place was because I hadn’t been told to arbitrarily go murder a guy at the time, I think. Heck, this whole adventure of mine basically happened for absolutely no damn reason.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” Mort said, staring into the distance. “Sometimes that reason is because you’re stupid and make bad choices.”

“Gettin’ her back out is gon’ be hard, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Chip rumbled quietly. “Her vessel’s got a Shard of Night crashin’ on the sofa and jackin’ the place up. There ain’t no place to go, tweety.”

Those were definitely words, but not ones I understood. I leaned over to Mort and whispered, “I didn’t understand any of that.” Then aloud, I realized, “Wait, Can’t you at least pardon me out of the contract? I mean, it’s nice here and all but I’d really enjoy not being damned for all of eternity.”

Chip stared at me blankly. Well, as blank as fireballs got. “The contract?”

“You know, the one that goes blah blah kill this guy blah blah,” I replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Dragon Bones cocked his bones. “The void one?”

“What,” I squawked at this sudden change of events. I—I didn’t understand. I’d done everything asked of me. Unless it was the second bit that I’d completely ignored because I had been an angsty child about it. Panic set in and I briefly considered trying to murder the dragon for his unique loot and make my escape. Briefly.

The return of Griffon Death’s booming voice almost came as a relief. Finally, the peanut gallery in the back became relevant. “Yes, we would like to discuss that topic next. Mort, Death of Ponies, you have wronged this soul and as such will be punished for violating the Accords.”

Chip brought his skull all the way down to our level, his eyes becoming tiny pinpricks of searing light. “Have you been stringing her along this whole time?”

Hang on. Stringing me along?

The lights in Mort’s skull shrank. He uneasily chuckled, maneuvering himself so that he wasn’t near any of us. “Well uh, funny story,” he told the cavern wall.

“Funny, is it? Violating the Accords is funny now?” The dragon was visibly fuming at this point, smoke beginning to curl from his empty eye sockets.

“Uh.” Mort glanced at me, caught the betrayed look I was giving him, then back to Chip. “It is more of how I got to that point, to be honest.”

Chip’s eyes flared up and became a pair of miniature red suns. His talons scraped across the rocky floor, leaving behind gouged trails in their wake. Softly, he told Mort, “Ey. I'll give you a hint. It ain’t funny.” Suddenly, one of Chip’s claws slammed into the wall above us and he bellowed at Mort, “TELL HER.”

“But it falls within the grey area!” the boney-pony continued to whine.

“Enough!” the griffon squawked. He took several steps forward which put his just at the the edge. “You contracted Frosty to hunt down this Harbinger character in anticipation of ending conflict in her realm?”

As I looked on with confusion, Mort fiddled with his hooves. He glanced at me again, then to the claw embedded in the wall, then to the dragon it was attached to. “Well, yes.” The wall crumbled a bit more, causing him to flinch.

With a terrifying rumble, those colossal talons pulled from the wall and returned to gripping the edge of Chip’s pit. “And you conveniently neglected to mention that he got blown up before Frosty could get to him?” he growled, shaking the rest of the cavern as well.

In that one uttered remark, everything came together. The megaspell detonation. Where I’d been in the moment—firing down on some scavengers, when the message from the radio came.

—

My earbloom beeped, then it continued with Soundwave’s broadcast, but it was a different voice altogether. “Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a single daring terrorist act. Earlier today at approximately oh-eight hundred hours, High Councilor Harbinger and his protective detail were taken from us with a balefire bomb—one of the very devices that forced the creation of the haven we have made for ourselves.”

—

The pony I had been meant to kill was Harbinger. But Harbinger had died in that moment. Mort, lord and all-knowing of all the edgy bullshit in the universe had coerced me into killing somepony that was going to get blown up anyway. And then I died because I had “failed to kill him”.

This wasn’t a fair deal. There hadn’t been a fair deal from the start. I had been expected to fail from the very beginning. Righteous fury boiled in my veins. Or something. I don’t know—I was pissed. He’d given me the illusion of choice just so that I’d shut the hell up and do what I was told like the good little soldier pony I was. All my struggles to this point had all been part of a masterfully executed plan, up until the point I’d given up on myself and hadn’t bothered to chase after the “extensions” he had offered. Doing that had caused this current chain of events, where Mort was facing the flames for a plan that had fallen apart at the seams. Needless to say I was justifiably enraged.

Mort didn’t seem to care as much. “Again, it falls within the grey area,” he insisted.

Chip brought his skull right down to our level, actually pushing Mort back with it. “Dude, you can’t keep doing this!”

Even under all this scrutiny, Mort didn’t even flinch. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he casually pointed out while scooting his way around Chip’s skull. “We have to deal with the new problem.”

The suave, deep-voiced inner narrator in me began to roll into a proper dramatic spiel. ‘In a world plagued by oddly convenient problems that revolve around one mare…’ However, my outer narrator attached to my face interjected to the point, “You mean the problem you created?”

“Not completely my fault,” Mort hastily pointed out. “Evil has returned, and we’re the only ones who can stop it.”

“Nah. You just want to save your own cloak.”

“Irrelevant.” Mort clopped his bony hooves together with a resounding clap. He even had the gall to ignore the death glares coming from both me and Chip.

Out of frustration, I exploded, “Buck me with the mare in the moon, does your ass get jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?” As I listened to my voice reverberate around the room, I heard gasps of shock ripple through the gathered skeletal crowd. Too bad that venting my frustrations didn’t actually make me feel any better or help my situation at all. “And now you’ve made me waste a perfectly good one-liner for someone who actually has an ass. Doesn’t that make you feel special.”

I didn’t even give him a moment to interject. “You’ve been doing this shit to me only because you’ve been in it for yourself this whole time.” By this point, Mort futilely tried to interject with something about friendship or some bullshit but I raised my voice over his. “I’m not a very smart cookie, but I finally know just enough about this little plan of yours. I wasn’t ever going to kill Harbinger, no matter what I tried. By the time I would have gotten anywhere close to him, either I die or he blows up. You knew this!”

Stammering, Mort attempted to recover his position. “To be fair, I—”

I faced Mort down with a steely-eyed glare. After all I’d been through and all he’d put me through, the fact that he had the nerve to continue demanding things from me only enraged me further. “You got me in this mess. I didn’t ask to be conscripted into your ad hoc death squad. I never wanted all your shady deals, your transparent lies, your…” I sputtered, failing to come up with any more bullshit off the top of my head. “Dumb stuff!”

Mort’s eyes extinguished to pinpricks of light. “My stuff is dumb? Really?” Crossing his forelegs, he sarcastically drawled, “Really.”

“Shaddap!” I screeched, not losing a beat. Even after all the shit he’d put me through, he still thought he could just throw me around like a puppet? “None of this was supposed to happen to me! I was supposed to live a peaceful life at home above the clouds. You killed me once because of your stupid mistakes, and then you brought me back to life and made me agree to some contract bullshit so that you could kill me again to try and cover up your original mistake! I should not be dead right now! Thanks to you I will never find out the limit to how much living I can live with my life! This should never have happened!”

“Silence!” Magnified several times by magic, Griffon Death’s voice caused the cavern to reverberate. I shut up immediately. Once the residual echoes died down, the pinpricks of light in his skull focused on me. “This council has seen fit to grant the wayward Soul of Frosty Winds a single boon as reparations for such selfish conduct of one of our own.”

“You can’t do that!” Mort screamed.

A stunned silence hung in the air. Chip broke it, only after his eyes flickered back to purple. “Dey jus’ did.” The dragon gazed at me, almost intending to smile. He didn’t, of course. Bones didn’t do that. Or were already doing it. Whatever.

Not to be one left out of the loop, I leaned forward and whispered to the room, “What’s a boon?”

Literally every single Death in the room rolled their eyes. Eye-flames. Griffon Death widely gestured with his claws and said, “Make a wish, Miss Winds. Don’t waste it.”

The first thing that popped into mind was whether or not these guys had terms and conditions I could ignore. “Can I—”

Sensing my intentions, one of the larger skeletons—some kind of dog-thing— stated, “No wishing for more wishes, pony.” My ears drooped. Aw. Back to the drawing board then.

I wasn’t especially surprised when Mort let out a short bark of a laugh. “That’s rich. What do you want? Immortality?” As I lounged on my haunches in thought, Mort suddenly grabbed me around the shoulders and laughed, “What grand boon does a mare of Frosty Winds’s caliber ask for?”

Dangerous words for sure, especially aimed at a petty mare with zero common sense and nothing left to lose. I shrugged off the clingy skeleton and impulsively blurted at Chip, “Can I wish for him to choke on a billion dicks?” There was this dumb happy look on my face I couldn’t stop while I pointed at Mort.

Mort crossed his bony legs at me. “Rude.” Chip, on the other hoof, sort of gaped at me. Whether it was shock or complete offense was anypony’s guess. I was already too busy bouncing in place to care.

I jabbed my pointing hoof into Mort’s robe. “Shut it, dick-mouth. That's my line.”

An amorphous robed blob wiggled one of its garment’s arms and interjected from the peanut gallery, “We would suggest putting some more thought into this opportunity.”

Ugh. They were right, of course—which meant I’d need to put more than ten seconds of thought into my choice. What did I even want? Most of the things I was doing nowadays tended to be things everypony else wanted me to do out of laziness and/or convenience. No matter what excuses I crafted, the universe would always find a way to mess with me. Bearing the burden of being the savior of the world now would inevitably save me a lot of grief later. Taking charge of my own fate now would presumably throw off whatever surprises the universe had in store for me as well, if wishful thinking could influence how anything worked.

“I want to go back,” I decided. “I’ll settle this on my own terms.”

Deathly silence engulfed the entire cavern. It was only after an even more uncomfortable silence that Griffon Death said, "Unfortunately, that's impossible."

I had half a mind to fly right over there and rip those wish-ruining butts another butt. "WHAT?! But you just said I could have any wish I wanted,” I bellowed.

Yet another Death piped up, but I seriously was past caring what kind of creature they were. "Any wish within our powers. Usually we'd be able to do this, but your vessel is currently being occupied by a Shard of Night and we aren't able to put you in one while it's in use.”

What did that even mean? “Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell is a ‘Shard of Night’?”

An excitable Platypus Death near the back of the group eagerly pounced on the opportunity to be helpful. “Ah, ah, ah! They’re the last remaining remnants of the ancient Windigos, which were dangerous creatures that gained power by feeding on conflict and negative energy. A few thousand years ago they tried and failed to freeze over the planet. Then they made another attempt by corrupting Princess Luna and encouraging her to never again raise the sun—which would eventually freeze Equestria—but once more they were defeated and shattered into fragments by the Elements of Harmony. A few remaining shards still exist; the one that now occupies your vessel calls itself ‘Ice Storm’.”

Thanks, little platypus. My brain was totally ready for a history lesson right now. Though, all of the information that had been helpfully dumped all over me did explain a few things. Things like Ice Storm’s unnecessary habit of using the word ‘Nightmare’, for instance. “Great, so I’ve been helping the ultimate ye olde evil this entire time. Just great.” Then it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what these guys meant by ‘vessel’ either. “What constitutes a vessel, anyway?”

“Your body. The thing that contains your soul. It has to be something your soul recognizes as your self-image, that incorporates your own living material, and that has a magical bond with your soul due to your own or others’ empathetic connections. It’s gotta be you in body and spirit, material or immaterial. It’s possible to force a soul into a vessel that doesn’t meet those requirements, but that shatters the soul and creates what your world calls soul jars—semi-sentient containers that house a living soul.”

Believe it or not, I actually paid attention to that whole spiel. I mulled over those details and factored them into the plan I was formulating. This was an incredibly specific set of circumstances that needed to be fulfilled, after all. “So… whatever you’re going to funnel my sparkly bits into needs to be made of me,” I slowly stated in summary.

“Yes. Unless you conveniently happen to have a spare clone lying around, the original body is the only container that fulfills those requirements,” Griffon Death confirmed for me. “Our deepest apologies. We are merely a reasonable level of overpowered, not ridiculously so. If you have another request that you would like us to grant, I’m sure it could be arranged.”

Face met hooves once more, but this time I also rolled myself onto the floor as well. Going over what I now knew as well, I thought out loud, “So we need a weirdly specific combination of bits of me combined with something that is—what, pony shaped?” After receiving approving nods from enough of the gathered skulls, I continued, “And then what—something something magic, I guess?”

A member of the council of supreme edginess spoke up. “That is an gross understatement of what needs to be done, but yes. Yes, that is just about it.”

Something was nagging me at the base of my skull. I was forgetting something. I knew I was forgetting something. Like the barest ember of a flame that needed careful blowing to catch fire to the kindling, I could feel the barest spark of a memory trying to catch my attention but being smothered by all the rest of the shit that weighed down my brain.

This was a dead end. This was exactly the type of dead end Chip prophesied about like five minutes ago. ”Many dead ends await you, but there shall always be a way forward should you be willing to search for it.” There were no other options. I was literally dead. There was nothing else I could do but push forward, and this right here was my only chance.

”The answers to everything lie within your memories.”

Come on, brain! I admit we haven’t had a good relationship—we’ve had our arguments and we’ve said some nasty things to each other—but if you’re ever going to come through for me now’s the time!

Slowly, painfully, the small ember of a memory clawed its way through the mud and jelly in my skull, sparking neuron after neuron as it passed, forcing upon me half-visions of unrelated recollections as it built and built until it had caught hold and transformed into a roaring fire that towered over any other thought…

—

Mentioning that made Tangerine grimace. “Uh, well… it’s weird.”

“I’m weird,” I flatly replied. “Whatever it’s for can’t be weirder than me.”

Begrudgingly, Tangerine launched into an explanation. “Sparkle makes little figurines of ponies she knows. They fit in your hoof and they’re stupidly detailed.” I opened my mouth. “Yes, she made one of you.” I closed my mouth and politely continued to listen. “It’s her little hobby when she’s not making noise. Oh, that also explains why there’s a little corner on your tail that’s a lot shorter than the rest.”

I resisted the urge to spin around and check, only because I couldn’t actually see it anyway. “What.”

Tangerine nodded. “Same goes with the weird short bit on the back of your mane. She tends to make her figures as, uh, authentic as possible.”

—

And I suddenly knew the answer.

Sitting up, I jabbed my hoof into the air. “Wait. Sparkle has little figures. They’ve got real hair for their manes and tails like any creepy haunted doll does, but would they work? She made one of me a long time ago. As far as I know, she still has it. I guess it fills the requirements pretty okay.” In hindsight, that seemed really, really weirdly convenient. Maybe the universe was finally throwing me a bone. Maybe all the crap I’d been put through all this time led up to this one incredible chance for redemption.

After a pregnant pause, Chip drawled, “Dat’s creepy.”

I sat bolt upright and threw both hooves in Chip’s direction. “Right? Thank you.” With that amazing realization, I demanded at the other Deaths, “Put me back in that thing! It is literally everything I need to live in.” Sparkly bits, check. Frosty-shaped? Check. “Empathetic connection”? Well, Sparkle made it with love. That’s gonna have to be close enough.

Griffin Death was the first to speak. “That sounds like a very bad idea.”

“Can you do it?” I snapped, only realizing afterward how aggressively impolite it sounded.

The incompetence committee turned away from me and began to converse with each other. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it seemed to be a heated exchange. Sides were taken, profane gestures were made, something’s bone fell off during the confusion, but eventually they came to a conclusion. “Well, I… suppose. It’s rather unorthodox.” Griffin Death exchanged glances with the other Death sitting beside him.

Whatever it was—I guessed bear—continued to explain, “Erm, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything. From what it sounds like, it’s a static object. Are you sure this is what you want?” Another one of the Deaths interrupted, whispering something to the speaker. Hushed exchanges were had and a miniature debate broke out amongst them again. After several bewildering moments, the speaker addressed me again. “It seems there is something that we can do after all. We will attach your soul to this doll that you describe with a tether, so that you retain a limited amount of freedom to interact with your world. However, that doll will be the only thing that keeps your soul in that world. Do you understand?”

I’d lost interest a few paragraphs ago, but I understood the gist of it. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t break the toy and I’ll be fine. Easy.”

Griffin Death slammed his gavel—wait, where the buck did he get that from? Before I could contemplate where his entire podium had appeared from, he intoned, “Then we have agreed upon the terms. The Soul of Frosty Winds is to be banished from this realm for the foreseeable future, or until she decides to return of her own volition. Deathlord Chip, read her last rites.”

On cue, Dragon Death rose to his full height. His eye-flames glowed an ominous green once again. “Frostivus Kay Winds. By the power granted to me by my station, I hereby take charge of your ultimate fate. An eternity of punishment beyond the High Gates is far too lenient given the nature of your existence. A sentence to eternal rest would be too kind. No, Frostivus. You shall be cast to a realm where you shall suffer loss, pain, joy, rage—a tortuous path with no end for your undying soul.” The environment began to glow a sickly shade of lime—pie, not evil—and it seemed to be emanating from the dragon’s bones themselves. Light coming from Chip’s eye-lights shifted into a deep orange, slowly becoming red. “I, Lord Chip—” The sound of that made me snigger, thus instantly ruining the atmosphere. “—sentence you to Life. You will live, and you shall not return until your debts have been paid in full.”

There was a pull on my wings, a tug on my tail. I was close to demanding for Mort to stop being frisky. When I turned to snap at him, I noticed that I was floating off of the floor and up into a pillar of gradually building light. It glowed. It was a nice, warm glow. Oh goddesses, was this dying? Reverse death? Living? By this point, I was so far up that even Chip looked pony-sized to me. He was even waving at me. This was also probably what being abducted by space aliens was like, I belatedly realized.

As I floated away to the land of the living, I heard Griffin Death call out, “Memories don’t always do you a whole lot of good. Remembering things, though. That’s what’s important.”

Putting a pause on my floaty flailing, I admitted, “I have no idea what you're getting at but I'll keep that in mind.” Rotating myself around to face the blinding holy light, I extended my limbs to their fullest and declared at it, “Tell the world I’m coming home!”

Very faintly, I heard a very confused, very Chip-like, “What?”

And here I was, thinking that my life was still a movie. “I’ve, uh, always wanted to shout that.” The staring from pairs of eyes felt like they were burning into me, which only embarrassed me further. “Abort! Cut to black, cut to black!”

X~~~X

Strongbox wasn’t a terrible place to live, in all honesty. The community wasn’t completely composed of murderous savages and the steady flow of merchants kept the stock of goods available interesting. I’d even picked up a new pair of fancy sporty-looking sunglasses from them so I could go outside more often without having to squint all the time. In the wake of Frosty’s disappearance and the subsequent disaster that followed, we’d done some good around here to make it that much more bearable. The community had even welcomed us to take up residence, what with our technical know-how and skill set.

Looking back on it, I counted myself lucky for being picked to travel with Rumcake. Only recently did I find out that we’d somehow missed a whole goddesses-damned war for the Wasteland. That, combined with Frosty’s inherent nature to wander and be easily distracted had unintentionally kept all of us safe somehow. From the horror stories that merchants and other adventurers were telling, we’d dodged some serious bullets. Especially the one with the guy that had to gnaw off his own leg. Eugh. On the bright side, I got this really cute sundress that I’d taken to wearing every now and then.

But that was enough of that. I hauled out my dented extra-large storage lunchbox from under my bed—oh yeah, we had actual beds now—and dragged out its partner toolbox as well. These two cases always went everywhere with me. Nearly everypony I got to know well had their own miniature model of themselves custom-made by me. It was a weird hobby to some ponies, but it’s what kept me sane all this time. Every now and then I liked to take them all out and touch them up. It gave me time to think.

Once everypony was lined up on my brand-new scavenged work table, I retrieved a teensy tiny manebrush and a repurposed dental pick from the toolbox. Thus begun the brushie, brushie, brushies. First in line was Instant Noodles—she needed a good dusting. With a sigh, I also realized how much I missed her. There was something about how she doted on all of us that made the base homey. Damn, I missed being home. My gaze ended up wandering to Tangie’s figure, and I almost lost it.

It saddened me that not everypony could enjoy this with us. Tangie was… in a better place and Violet had wandered off somewhere and we hadn’t seen her for a few days. That left me with Rumcake and Frosty. He’d given up in entirety, what with our original mission all but a failure. He gave up his mantle and imposed exile upon himself because he had apparently dishonored the Rangers and his station. I wondered to myself why I hadn’t gone back by myself. At this point the excuse I kept telling myself that I couldn’t return without the Paladin Commander that I had departed with.

I shook those depressing thoughts out of my head. This was time for brushies, and I wasn’t about to start crying in front of my best friends. I took a deep and relaxing sigh, leaning back onto my haunches to stretch out my back as well. That was when I noticed a shadow being cast onto the ceiling by my solitary work lamp. I jumped, spun, and shrieked. “Gah! How-how-how long have you been sitting there?” At some point, Frosty had come into my room and simply waited instead of getting my attention like a regular pony. Damned pegasi and their lack of movement noise!

Frosty snorted at my reaction. Rolling her eyes, she responded, “Not long enough to see you playing with your dolls. And relax. I’m not here to hurt you.” She paused and thought about something for several seconds. “I could, but that’s not why I’m here.”

Still bristling and slightly upset, I countered, “They’re statuettes, thank you very much. I worked very hard on them and I like to maintain them every now and then.” I reached back to my workbench and tilted the Frosty one back upright. “They love getting their brushies. Wait. What do you want?”

“Yes, of course. Where are the traveling supplies?”

Suspicion colored my voice as I asked, “...Why?”

“I’m going on a trip,” Frosty vaguely elaborated in that irritating way she liked to recently.

“Does Rumcake know?”

“He’s about to.”

Something about the way she asked bothered me. Maybe it was how strangely normal—as in, not-Frosty normal but normal normal she had become as of late. It seemed like I was the only one that cared anymore. Sometimes I found myself wishing for the ponies that I’d traveled with. Riverbed, Violet even—anypony that wasn’t Rumcake at this point.

More information wouldn’t hurt. Off the top of my head we didn’t have adequate supplies for a long distance trip, but a short field trip could probably be arranged with a little creative budgeting. “But where are you going?” I also remembered I hadn’t oiled up my armor for several days now, since I wasn’t using it as often anymore.

“To finish what I started. To follow my destiny.” Frosty then did that thing that I’d seen in a minotaur-themed holovid once—dramatic point, turn claw over, make fist then flex. Weird.

“If you’d like help, I’m sure I can convince Rumcake to come with.” Well, that was an incredible stretch of the imagination. “Now that he’s being—well, you know—”

“I have to do this on my own.”

Okay, there was definitely something up with Frosty. This was outside the bounds of ‘normal’ and ‘creepy’, especially by the Frosty definitions of either word. “What are you, Edgelord Protagonist? Don’t be like that. Besides, even that broody huge-haired kid from the old Foalish Fantasy games had backup. There’s uh… that one girl and the idiot comedy relief.” It was hard to remember their actual names, seeing as my cartridge had been so shoddily translated that I could barely make sense of their poor excuse for a story anyway. “I think that makes me what, popstar Celestia? That means Rumcake gets to be hoofball-for-brains.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. Sheesh!” Frosty threw her hooves in the air, and in doing so knocked a half-emptied can of forgotten soup off the table. The tomatoey sludge began to crawl toward the room’s exposed power coil. Dammit! I knew I should have cleaned up last week.

I quickly returned my attention to my workbench, searching for a rag to mop up the spill. Where was—aha! The all-purpose stained towel I always used was still tucked underneath the last night’s dinner cans. I yanked it out, scattering the cans everywhere, and only stopped to push Frosty’s model back toward the center of the workbench with the rest of them. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to travel on your own?” I asked, giving a sidelong glance.

“Yeeees,” Frosty frustratedly groaned.

Doubts were beginning to collect in my mind—first, Frosty’s strange behavior and now her insistence on absolutely going out into the Wasteland on her own. Things hadn’t calmed down after the cloud cover had vanished either, so I wasn’t entirely sure if she legitimately thought she’d be safe out there. “Are you sure?” I asked,

“YES. What are you, my mother?” she snapped back, voice thick with sarcasm.

I sighed and admitted defeat. Maybe I was just overthinking it. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” Maybe this new, slightly broody Frosty was the Frosty we deserved after all. As the angsty mare considered leaving my room, I called out to her. “Hey. If you ever find yourself in over your head, we’re here for you.” I hesitated, reconsidering. “Okay, I’m here for you. Can’t promise that Rumcake will.”

Frosty disinterestedly nodded from the doorway. “Good to know.” She turned tail and seemed to amble out of my room.

“Yep,” I sighed after her. For a minute, I found myself aimlessly staring at the open doorway in thought. Why did I still have this weird feeling something was wrong? Meh. Chalking my conflicting feelings up to something I’d eaten today, I shrugged and pushed them aside. I scooted myself back over to my workbench and picked up the tiny brush again, intent on returning to the task at hoof. I nudged the mini-scale Frosty back into line again and picked up mini Instant Noodles for her daily brushing. Brushie, brushie, brushie.

Out of nowhere, Frosty rudely demanded, “So… how about those supplies?”

I almost threw my brush into the ceiling. I thought she left already! “Oh! Yeah.” I stammered. “I’ve got them in this big green trunk in the living room. Help yourself.” As I gestured to out and to the left a bit, I added, “Within reason. I know what you’re like.”

“You have no idea.” A low giggle emerged from the edges of my hearing, which built into a mad cackle. I glanced at the source of the maniacal cawing and saw her clutching at nothing with her claw-hoof and glaring at the ceiling. And it could have been just me, but I could have sworn my work lamp dimmed at the same time.

“Please don’t do that again,” I firmly stated.

This time, looking me in the eye, Frosty did that creepy evil laugh again because I didn’t ask politely enough. I slapped her.

Frosty’s face froze in mid-cackle. Slowly, her expression turned to a scowl. “You’ll regret that,” she snarled, holding her rapidly reddening cheek.

Through this entire interchange, all I wanted to do was to get back to my routine. With an impatient groan, I told her, “I really don’t care, Frosty. I regret every hour of every day wasted because of everything you’ve caused. I just want some peace and quiet for ninety minutes a day.” I gestured at the open door. “Just take what you need and get out of here.”

The angst-fueled pegasus reared up on her hind legs and pointed at the ceiling with her not-robot-leg. She used the actual robot leg to point at me, declaring in a weirdly echoey way, “I shall return!” With a heavy flap of her wings that caused everything in the room to shake, she lowered herself back onto all fours.

Too bad I’d already returned to my workbench. “You’d better,” I mumbled. I absentmindedly prodded my figures, noting that Frosty’s had fallen over again. What was with her newfound need for drama? At least once she’d taken the supplies she needed then I’d have some proper peace and quiet. I settled myself down and propped up the mini of Frosty in front of me, teensy brush in my other hoof. Oh, Frosty. What were you up to now?

I seriously contemplated taking out my frustrations on her by throwing her vinyl-cast replica across the room. The little figurine shook in alarm, perhaps sensing my thoughts.

Wait.

WAIT.

“What?!” I leapt back from the workbench like it was possessed—like the goddamn self-aware bouncing figurine. “Woah.” That hadn’t been my imagination. It had moved on its own. Or! Or, or, or I’d moved it with my mind. “Wooooah.” I turned my thoughts back to excessive violence toward the mini-Frosty, wherein it feebly bounced again. “Holy crap I can move things with my mind.” One more time, just to be sure.

The Frosty figure rocked on her base, then fell over onto her face.

“Siiiiiiick.”

END OF ACT THREE