"Are you sure you're up for this?" asked Twilight, jamming a shovel through the loops of her saddle bag. "I mean, it's not like you knew him or he's your responsibility to be bothered with."
"I'd dig up bodies for fun," replied Totality. "As long as you don't think this is some kind of desecration of your friend's remains, it's fine. Besides, it'll go a lot faster with two ponies digging."
"Or one pony digging and one lookout," smiled Twilight.
Totality pushed up her glasses. "Or that..."
The two unicorns set off after dark for the Ponyville Cemetery. As they approached the locked wrought iron gates, Twilight simply apparated the both of them inside the grounds with a flick of her horn.
A chilling breeze sliced through them, bringing an ensemble of dead leaves to rattle across the dirt path. An owl hooted loudly from up in one of the old gnarled oak trees which populated the cemetery. The waxing gibbous moon watched silently as it hung over the distant mountains.
"Ah," sighed Totality. "It's everything I could have hoped for."
"Would you say this is your ideal date venue?" smirked Twilight.
"Uhh… No comment."
They passed through the shadow of a mausoleum before leaving the beaten path to plod between a pair of grassy hills. There appeared to be no other presence on the property and conveniently there was nearly enough moonlight to read by.
Twilight paused, momentarily unsure of where they were, "Wait," she whispered, looking about. "No, this is right," she assured herself. She brought Totality to a new but modest sized headstone. It somehow felt so fitting for Spike. She bent down close to the inscription just to confirm. "Eeyup," she breathed.
Totality gave her a moment as she seemed to be quietly lost in thought at seeing his grave again or maybe it was more like a sobering slap in the face.
"Aright, let's do it," commanded Twilight, backing away from the headstone.
The two levitated their shovels above the grave and began breaking earth.
"Wow," mused Twilight, staring up at the moon. "I just realized how insane this all is. What the hell am I doing, exhuming a body under cover of night for use in a necromantic ritual?"
"Yeah, perhaps we could have hashed all those issues out at some earlier time," droned Totality.
"It's fine," muttered Twilight dismissively.
The soil was looser than that of the older graves which made it easier to dig. Several chilly minutes later, there came a 'thunk' from the hole. The two paused to look in and saw the exposed lid of a simple wooden coffin. They both took another cautious scan of the cemetery for any signs of danger and then quickly scraped the rest of the dirt off of the little oblong box.
Twilight floated just the loose lid from the coffin and sighed in wonder at the miniature dragon bones within. They were still curated nicely in correct anatomical position. She stared into the skull's two empty sockets and smiled weakly. "Nice to see you again, Spike."
"You were right," agreed Totality, scratching her chin. "That is a really nice skeleton."
Twilight cut the heartwarming reunion short, jumbled up the bones quickly and floated them all with ease into a canvas bag. "Wow," she laughed. "And I thought he was portable before."
Totality began to sing to herself as she levitated the lid back on the box. "Spooky scary skeletons fit right inside your sack."
They hastily threw heaping globs of dirt back into the hole with their magic and fled the cemetery, riding an amazing high of irreverent delinquency.
"That went well," declared Twilight, kicking the door shut behind her. "And it's not even that late," she added, looking at the clock. "We should set him up in the tub tonight."
"The tub?" moaned Totality.
"Yeah, he needs to soak while the spores grow, right?"
"Yes, but in the tub? What if I want to take a shower?"
"Oh, he won't be in there for that long," argued Twilight. "We'll stick him in the water, sprinkle him with moss spores and tomorrow morning I'll hit him with a growth spell or something and the process will be done."
"Fine," she sighed.
The two unicorns convened in the upstairs bathroom. Twilight stopped up the drain and let in just enough water to cover the bottom of the basin.
Totality arranged the bones nicely, almost as if they were ancient artifacts on display in a glass case in a museum. Most of them were only partially submerged, which was the ideal environment for growing cloud moss on something.
Twilight spread the spores directly on top of the bones from a little paper packet she got at the store. The spores were practically microscopic. It was like sprinkling sand. Totality misted them with a spray bottle and stood back.
"Is that it?" asked Twilight.
"That's it."
"I have to say, this is not what I picture when I think 'necromancy.' I think the most surprising thing about this so far is how little division there seems to be between plants and animals."
"It matters sometimes," replied Totality. "But yeah, a lot of the time life is just life I guess."
"Have you ever thought of trying chlorophyll seals instead of blood ones?" asked Twilight, eyes large with epiphany.
"I did. It didn't work." She put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder and looked straight into her in a rare show of sincere excitement. "Wouldn't that be amazing though? You could potentially have a completely vegan ritual!"
The two of them laughed before splitting for bed.
Totality laid on her stomach on the couch, reading the book by the light of her horn until she heard the sound of tiny wooden creaks.
Twilight appeared at the top of the stairs, floating her pillow and comforter in the air. "Hey, I've got an idea," she grinned. "Since we probably won't be sleeping much anyway from all the excitement, why don't I sleep down here on the floor and we can have a slumber party… to a semi responsible degree?"
"This is mostly about not wanting to sleep near that skeleton, isn't it?" asked Totality bluntly.
"Eeyup," nodded Twilight, creeping down the stairs.
"It's your house. You can sleep wherever you want."
"I know but can't you be excited about having a slumber party, please?"
Totality pumped her hoof halfheartedly. "Woooo," she droned. "Slumber party for two."
"Thank you," muttered Twilight dryly. Then much quieter, "What a teenager response." She tossed her blanket on the floor opposite Totality, on the other side of the coffee table and sprawled out on top of it.
Totality folded her glasses and floated them to the coffee table with the book, her eyes too tired to read anymore.
"I'd call that a really productive day," sighed Twilight, melting into her comforter.
"We got most of the hard stuff done," concurred Totality. If you get that moss growing tomorrow like you said, your magic's going to cut our schedule down to a third of what I was expecting. I bet we can wrap this up, day after tomorrow. Then you have to teach me that crystal thing when we finish."
"Sure. This is so exciting." After seeing Totality's test ritual, it had suddenly all become real to her, not just a hypothesis or a dream. She could feel every cell in her body vibrating with anticipation. "Have you thought at all about your thesis?"
"Absolutely not," laughed Totality. "This is way too distracting."
"That's good to hear." What a turnaround from just two days ago, Twilight thought. Everything was just surreal, like some sort of fever dream. She glanced over the top of the coffee table to see Totality without her glasses, staring off into space. Before she could even think to stop, the words were already leaving her mouth. "Why'd you try to kill yourself?"
Totality squinted at the ceiling. "What?"
Twilight looked away, nervous now. "Back at the hospital, you made it sound like you tried to overdose too."
"Oh yeah... Well, I did, but I wasn't trying to kill myself, at least not permanently. I was trying to share my life force with a dead pet. He hadn't been dead long, so I thought it would be easier to bring him back like that. I had something planned for bringing myself back afterward."
"Wait, I thought if you had toxins in your body or an overdose it would impede a resurrection."
Totality's eyes flicked to the side. "It will. I was so little, I hadn't pieced that logic together yet. I was desperate and everything about my plan was really stupid. I'm lucky my parents found me or I wouldn't be here. When I came back, everypony needed to know why I quote unquote attempted suicide. I was terrified of telling them what was actually doing so instead of setting the record straight, I decided to make up some reasons for why I supposedly wanted to die and that of course landed me in therapy for many years.
Twilight burst into laughter. "I'm sorry. It's not funny."
"No, it is funny," she laughed weakly. "It's the funniest joke I can't tell anypony. Here I am ten years later, still living with the ramifications of a lie I told in grade school… And I didn't even get my cat back."
"Is that whole debacle why you quit necromancy?"
"No… Well… it was a lot of things. The double life. The constant fear of being found out and living as an outcast forever. It was really disheartening making discoveries that I thought were amazing and never being able to tell anypony. You know that life spark spell is the first spell I ever learned? Even before I could really levitate anything. I was so incredibly proud of myself. Guess how many ponies know I can do that? One. It's you."
Twilight remembered the scale Totality had shown her and immediately felt sick that she'd probably never get recognition for it. "That's really sad. Do you ever miss it?"
"All the time. If things were just different, I'd still be doing it, but they're not and I just can't live trapped like that forever. I got a respectable cutie mark, not some weird occult shit like I was afraid I'd get, and that seemed like a sign it was a good time to let go. It's a lot of fun but it's not the only thing out there. It's not the end of everything… even though it kind of feels like it at first."
Twilight rolled on her other side and stared at the ellipse of moonlight the window cast upon the floor, Totality's words weighed on her mind for a moment before she called to her.
"So what happened between you and Celestia?"
Twilight groaned. "Fine… I guess I owe you that. I already told you it had to do with Spike's death, but the rest of the story is that Princess Celestia was actually right here when it happened. When we found him, she demanded to know what I had him working on in the lab. I was at a complete loss for words. I couldn't even comprehend what had happened, let alone why. We were both shocked and highly emotional at that moment. She insinuated that I'd been negligent or done something wrong that led to his death, and everything after that was just an angry exchange in an airing of grievances. Then she expelled me. I guess she won that fight. We haven't spoken since. I tried to send her two letters but I'm pretty sure they went straight in the trash."
"Wow," breathed Totality. "I don't know what you said to her, but getting expelled seems like a rash reprisal."
"I know," sighed Twilight. "So many dedicated years and a great track record just tossed in the fire like it was nothing. I don't understand why it needed to be like this. As if losing Spike wasn't devastating enough? I had to lose my career too and then… everything else?" She shook her head. "But anyway, it wasn't until later when I had to mop him up alone that I realized that he'd been working on two different things at the same time and he got them mixed up. His mistake, by my reasoning, would have created a seriously caustic gas cloud with a short potency. That's what killed him; it wasn't anything I did."
"Well, at least you know that much."
"Yeah," scoffed Twilight. "If I thought that there was even a possibility that I'd killed him, I probably would have offed myself within a week. I can't imagine being able to live with that."
Just then, there came a tapping at the window. Twilight sat up with a start and looked to see a feathered face peering in at them.
"Owlowiscious!" gasped Twilight, opening the window with her magic. "You came back! "I'm so glad."
The owl fluttered in, alighting on Twilight's lap. She hugged him.
"Whoo," he said, flapping over to perch on the arm of the couch. He picked a loose strand of Totality's mane up in his beak and began tugging on it."
"Ow," she said dryly.
"Uh, Owlowiscious? What are you-"
"Does he not do this to you?" asked Totality.
Twilight shook her head. "No. I guess he just likes harassing assistants."