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Not dead yet...

Hopefully going to get Requiem back on track.  Mech has the next set of frames so hopefully we can get going again.

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Hey Moonshadow, you're quite a cutie and with a bit of a mischievous streak too. I'll bet you're a fun pony to date. Care to give us any juicy details?

Juicy details?  What, do I look like some sort of gossip hungry harpy happy to heap stories, conjecture, and innuendo upon others?  Cause you bet I am!

Cutie?  Well, I'm a scientist, so 'cute' is kind of a perk over a feature.  Glad you think so though!  Mischievous?  Mmmm... maaaaybe?  I mean, have you ever been stuck at three at night waiting for pegasi to clear the skies so you can finally take some good conjunction measurements between Eqqus and the other planets?  You start thinking of pranks to pull simply because there's nothing else to do.

Also, my grad professor was such a stick in the mud that it's a real thrill making him think a firefly in the telescope is an alien flying around!

Fun to date?  Well maybe if I met a night batpony.  Fact is most astronomers are pretty nocturnal and that makes any kind of a romantic life really tricky.  Sure, you can have snuggle times after the sun goes down, but by midnight the other pony is looking to get to bed while I'm looking to go get lunch!  But sure, I suppose I might be.  Just depends on the other person.

If you want more details, you'll probably have to give me more specific questions though!

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Why haven't Celestia or Luna died? Are they more immortal than other princesses, or just more cowardly?

I don't think so.  Please bear in mind that alicorn lore is very... spotty.  Also, I'm not an expert.  I just read a lot of books Night has lent me.  Really, you'd be better off asking Princess Twilight.  She probably knows more than me.

There's indications that Celestia wasn't the first, nor is she the oldest.  The oldest one on record is called the Creator.  She has a number of nicknames, but is credited for creating the pony races.  She then disappeared, leaving them on their own.  The Pegasi, Unicorns, and Earth ponies all have myths of primordial alicorns, but there's no evidence beyond stories.  If they did exist, or do, they faded from all but myth.  The unicorns have a myth of a star pony grading them magic, and the pegasi have the four sisters, who became the four winds.  One of those four, Zephyr, created the Pegasi.  The other three made dragons, griffons, and windegos.  Earth ponies have Gaia, the earth mother, and a male alicorn known as the King Below.  One's responsible for plants, the other for rocks. They had earth pony babies.  Pretty mundane, actually.

When you get into proven alicorns, the oldest is Lemura.  She was an alicorn associated with the sea and the ancient ponies of Appleantis.  While there's no proof she died, there is endless speculation that she created Seaponies of the Appleantians.  Princess Umbra is next.  She's was an earth pony who guarded the dead.  And then there's Mune.  She's an odd one, associated with teaching unicorns about writing and the fundamentals of magic.  Starswirl the bearded was her student... and other things... but she was immortal and he wasn't... and the strain broke both their hearts when he failed to become an alicorn too.  Mune pops up from time to time, under various aliases, as a scholar or teacher.  I wonder if she'll ever visit Princess Twilight.

Then you get to Celestia and Luna.  Now there's a lot of questions about them.  Some claim they had alicorn parents who are utterly unnamed.  Others claim they're the children of the Princess Platinum and Commander Hurricane, born in defiance of their parent's intolerance.  Others say that Celestia was born a unicorn and her sister a pegasus, and despite their differences, maintained their love and devotion in facing Discord.  You'd have to ask them.

But as for why Celestia's lasted as long as she has... well... she has a healthy life.  She interacts with ponies and keeps engaged.  She loves her country and cares about individuals inspite of their mortality.  She faces death again and again.  And when she has children, she accepts they'll grow old while she won't.  I wonder how long it will last.  Cadance is another example.  How long will Shining Armor last?  Will she still love him when she's young and he's old?  Honestly, being an alicorn is far more difficult than many think.  I wouldn't want to do it...

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Why didn't you tell the police chief that Princess Umbra can't predict Murder? He may try and ask you some awkward questions in the future if there are any other disappearances.

I've tried explaining it before.  Above all, he wants to find Bramble, and I think that... well... as a police officer... he doesn't want a crime committed in Ponyville.  The police are sworn to uphold the law in a community, unlike the royal guard who swear to uphold the law of Equestria.  If Bramble is going to die, he wants to make sure that the death is natural.

It doesn't help that the Princess doesn't keep a higher profile.  Princess Celestia will confirm her existance so we don't sound like madponies... but it's still hard for many to understand.  It's because when ponies think 'princess' they usually think Celestia.  After all, for generations she was the only princess in Equestria.  Now Luna is back, and Cadance is in the public eye, and even Twilight.  In a few years, the number of princesses in the public view has tripled.  But there have been princesses in the past.  Ponies who transcended normal ponydom to become exceptional... yet none of them lasted longer than a generation or two.  Princess Valor died seven hundred years ago personally defending Equestria from a dragon attack.  Princess Hearthwarden was a kindly, motherly figure who helped Equestria during a horrific plague five hundred years back.  She disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  Princess Skyla was a legendary sky artist, and perished preventing a storm giant from enslaving ponykind three hundred years ago.

But because ponies don't live centuries, Celestia is always the rule.  The standard.  That's changing, especially now that we're at four public princesses.  Who knows if there are more, hiding like Umbra?

Anyway, I expect he will ask me if he needs to know anything new.  It's his responsibility to Ponyville after all.

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Not dead! Really! Truly!

Sorry.  Real life hasn't been helpful in getting the next bit of story out.  I promise we'll get going... I hope.

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So besides the undertakers, who else knows about Princess Umbra?

It's extremely uncommon knowledge, but not secret.  Undertakers know her best as we serve her directly.  A few officers in the royal guard also know her simply because they consult with us if there's a murder or not.  I know that Night Whisper worked with Shining Armor a few times; apparently she still blushes whenever she hears his name.  A few arcanists and occultists too.

But in general most ponies don't know about about Umbra because she's taken a very strict, hooves off policy regarding Equestria.  She doesn't rule at all.  Refuses.  When Discord returned, Chrysalis attacked, and Tirek rampaged, she still remained neutral.  She didn't raise a hoof against any of them.  Her duties guarding the door are that vital.

Oh, and by the by, she was very unhappy when Tirek somehow managed to get free of the Labyrinth.  That took... well... some doing.  Somepony set Cerberus loose, and smuggled him out of there, and damaged extremely powerful spells in the process.  Princess Umbra was so occupied with keeping the door sealed that she couldn't even free Celestia, Luna, and Cadance from their cage.  I've never seen her so... frowny.  I think she might actually have been miffed...

It's so hard to tell with her...

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The Everfree went feral? If the Everfree as it is now is time, dare I ask what it was like when it was wild?

You misunderstand.  The Everfree forest we know and fear today didn’t exist a thousand years ago.  The land was… well… as I’ve been told… much like Equestria today.  It was a lush green land dotted with dozens upon dozens of settlements all more or less coexisting.  There were numerous small woods and forest. There was some trust.  Some rules.  There was an accord between the various pony tribes that hadn’t existed in the old homeland.

Then Discord showed up.  As you know, he’s not a normal adversary.  If he wanted to, I think he could snap his claws and make our heads explode, but that’s not his nature.  There’s lots of stories about how things happened in the ancient days.  Some people say Discord was a powerful unicorn who used forbidden magic.  Others say he was summoned here from a plane of chaos.  A few say he was a normal spirit until he fell in love with a pony, but when his love was not returned, he became jealous, spiteful, and cruel. 

Regardless, Discord came and sewed the seeds of the old realm’s demise.  He didn’t act openly for years, turning settlement against settlement and family against family.  It was almost as bad as the bad times in the homelands.  It was a daily struggle to not just withstand Discord, but the strife he engendered.  Eventually, of course, Luna and Celestia found the Tree of Harmony and used the elements against him.  But the damage had been done.

That lush and verdant grassland dotted with small woods and forests was forever tainted.  Oh, Luna and Celestia managed to keep it orderly for years… but then Princess Luna was banished and… well… things got bad.  Celestia kept the pony people together, but she could do that and counteract the effects of Discord on the land.  The wildness spread, and Celestia had endless struggles keeping it at bay.  Eventually, the old realm was abandoned and the pony tribes relocated to Equestria today, a much shorter move than that from the Homelands.  The Everfree became the forest known today.

But believe it or not, there’s apparently a lot of argument about it according to Night Whisper.  Some ponies believe the wildness is because of Discord; either something he did intentionally or just his presence.  Discord either doesn’t remember or isn’t telling.  Others think the forest was a kind of defense mechanism, protecting the tree of harmony by driving away ponies whose arguments about its power might cause new struggles.  There are some that think Celestia caused the Everfree to grow wild, as a way of stifling dissent and uniting the tribes with a new hardship.  Personally, I don’t know which is true.

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If a war ever happens and Equestria is involved in it, how would that effect your duty? Would you still receive those black scrolls for ponies away at the front? How would Umbra know, given the random nature of death on the battlefield. How would you even inform them? Would you tell the family first or the pony who is to die? Would you stay in Ponyville or move closer to the conflict? This is all hypothetical of-course, but even so what did the undertakers do in the wars of ancient times?

I wouldn't even want to imagine that!  Nothing in modern times has come close.  Even Tirek and Discord's return didn't cause death on a massive scale.

But it has happened before.

The first two centuries of Equestria under Princess Celestia's rule is often called the Dark Times.  Discord was gone, but so was Princess Luna, and Princess Celestia's land was beset on all sides by dangerous creatures and dire enemies.  The ever free went feral.  The old capital was slowly encroached upon by all sides.  And yes, there were many, many battles.

Princess Umbra can't see deaths from combat.  It was, perhaps, the most heartbreaking and maddening thing she ever dealt with.  Death from battles.  Death from soldiers running amok.  Death from the diseases that ran rampant; even those stymied her vision.  Celestia couldn't even employ the Elements of Harmony to defend her land.  Truly dark times.

Undertakers in war have a solemn duty.  Collect the dead, return them to their loved ones if possible, and get them if the ground with the resting place marked if not.  It doesn't take long for corpses to become breeding grounds for vermin and the disease that accompanies them, let alone the smell.  So disease prevention is primary over all.  Family concerns comes a close second.

In cases of war, the royal guard usually takes care of notifying the family of a slain soldier.  They take such things very seriously, and I don't resent them at all for performing such a hard duty.

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(playing a wee bit with the shading style and panel shots -Mech)

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I thought Cerberus was the gatekeeper of Tartarus.

Of course he is.  But he has an owner.  Princess Umbra was quite glad that Princess Celestia was willing to help get him back, though I think that she expected more than simply lost dog fliers.  Twilight returned him to the entrance he guards, at the head of the labyrinth.  I wasn't there, myself.  I got the scroll to keep an eye out for him, but the cemetery is so far from Ponyville that  I didn't even hear about it till after Princess Twilight returned him.  Quite embarrassing.

There's also commonly a bit of confusion about things like what exactly is the 'Gate' of Tartarus.  There's many.  Any opening that leads to the underworld is technically a gate, and many are watched by spirits or guarded by spells.  Deeper inside, you reach the Styx, and the ferrypony is another guardian.  He usually won't take over dangerous people, but he can be tricked or, rarely, bribed.  Cerberus guards the gates of the Labyrinth, a land route in.  It's part trap and part prison.  There are things hiding from Princess Umbra, and things are are held here and unable to leave.  Tirek, in his weakened state, was imprisoned here.  I understand he now has a much stronger jail even further in.

The other gates lead to the city of the underworld.  Land of ghosts and spirits that can't, or won't, pass on but desire companionship.  There are gates leading to even worse places that I don't know about, and quite frankly, I don't want to.

Then there's the door.  The big door.  I don't know what's behind it.  I don't want to know.  I don't know if the Princess knows.  You'd have to ask her... but... um... I really wouldn't.  She gets very... cross... when asked about the door of Eternity and Oblivion.

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For all your talk about how disruptive Trixie's brief reign over Ponyville was to your job, I don't think we've heard anything yet about what happened to you and the graveyard on the afternoon that Discord took over. Did he do anything particularly notable?

Surprisingly... no.  I don't think that Discord really understands death all that much.  Maybe even he's afraid of it a little.  He's immortal, so he never faces the prospect of growing old, and with his magic he can evade most mundane sources of harm.  The closest he's ever come to dying was being petrified, and even then he was aware.  No, I think that either Discord doesn't understand death, or the concept utterly terrifies him.  Maybe a little of both...

There are many ponies who argue if Discord is evil or misunderstood.  I think it's too easy to dismiss Discord as evil when his state of being is so... different to us.  Can he really appreciate what it means to die?  Did he ever have a family growing up?  Does he understand loss beyond the most immediate and personal examples?  I think, thanks to his friendship with Fluttershy, he's starting to realize and understand it.

So yes, when Discord... um... enchanted Ponyville... nothing happened out here.  Maybe the cemetery is far enough away that it wasn't affected.  Or maybe Discord just doesn't find death all that funny.  I suppose we'd have to ask Discord...

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In your profession, it's not good if you're not at peace with yourself. You don't seem as chipper as most caretakers I've met. Might I ask why that is?

I am comfortable with my career and destiny.  Believe me, while I might not be the most popular pony in Ponyville, I do a valued and needed job.  My other problems... my gender... my family... they're just things I have to deal with.  But that's okay.  Everyone has their own troubles and tribulations to face and overcome.  I'm no different.  And if I can't overcome them, then at least I can keep myself together.

Undertakers... we cope.  I know it may not seem that way, but we do.  I get lost in my work.  Dark Rider has his 'adventure'.  Whisper has her books of literature and philosophy.  Its just how we cope with doing something that others, by and large, don't want to deal with.  And while some might take issue with how we cope, we still have to.  Otherwise this job is too much.  I've buried foals, colts, and fillies.  I've entombed grandmothers and grandfathers.  I've seen to mothers and fathers.  It's something that just has to be done, because the alternative is either forcing those families to deal with it themselves, many of which could not, or forcing somepony else to do my job, which would be immensely cruel and desensitizing to them.

Death happens.  When it does, I make it as neat and clean as I can.  I can't make it painless, but I can try to make it bearable.  Otherwise what else am I here for?

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I miss the text answers. They added depth to both the world and characters.

(Unfortunately, I was getting spoilerish, and there are certain things I wanted to reveal in the context of the comic rather than just telling here.  I couldn't answer about the Princess without spoilering that it was somepony other than Celestia or Luna giving the scrolls.)