Luna yawned.

Luna’s anticipation was becoming an almost physical thing. It gnawed at her constantly, keeping her from sleep, distracting her from her duties, and made her squirm like a filly. Her behaviour was driving her sister Celestia to distraction.

“These announcements… are making me crazy!” exclaimed Celestia.

Luna was too busy staring at the seamstress making adjustments for her rounded belly to pay attention to her sister. She was humming to herself, her eyes half closed, and her ears drooped from her drowsy state.

“I am not even sure how to announce Rookwood’s peerage,” huffed Celestia. “Down there most of the time the word ‘Lord’ means one bound to service or a slave. Even the Reaper of Ponies is a slave to Thanatos, who in turn is in turn a slave to the draconequus known as Hades. It is so confusing! I just cannot figure out the right wording. Soon to be Lord of Nightmares? What do I do? I cannot stand nobility at times. I cannot figure out where Rookwood sits on the food chain!”

“Rookwood is a Reaper now. I’d say he was the final link on the food chain,” Luna muttered, half awake, almost chuckling from her sister’s words. “Sovereign of Shadow. He hasn’t earned the title Lord of Nightmares yet, but he will. Death’s Left Hoof.”

Luna’s seamstress shuddered visibly and all of the pins she held in her lips fell to the ground. “Begging your pardon, but this sounds like gruesome business,” the old unicorn said, shuddering once again, this time causing the measuring tape around her neck to slip off.

“Rookwood is in the gruesome business,” Luna commented.

“Sovereign of Shadow, Death’s Left Hoof, Little Luna’s Love Lagomorph?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, hey, the last one is catchy, let us go with that one sister. I want it centered and bolded upon the announcements,” Luna replied. “Should be a ‘lusty’ somewhere in the last title.”

Celestia flung her pile of notes into the air with her magic in exasperation as the seamstress was trying to pick up her fallen pins and measuring tape.

The seamstress tittered, causing Celestia to raise an eyebrow.

“Maybe I should just elope to Las Pegasus,” muttered Luna.

“You would not dare…” said Celestia with an angry glare. “You would break Violet’s heart.”

Celestia’s words seized Luna’s attention, causing her to lift her head and open her eyes wider. Her tail swished, the ethereal mass waving strangely.

“You never play fair sister,” Luna complained.

“I play to win,” Celestia said smugly.

“Cadance?”

Cadance suffered a terrible feeling of disorientation. She wasn’t Cadance at the moment. She was something… else. Small. Pink. Fluffy.

Cadance realised she was a rabbit.

“Cadance, you said I could talk to you any time, I need to talk to you know if I could,” Rookwood pleaded.

“Why am I a bunny?” asked Cadance.

“This is a dream. It is the only way I could reach you,” Rookwood replied.

“Oh, well then, how are you Rookwood?” asked Cadance.

“Dead,” said Rookwood dryly. “Would you feel more comfortable with Shining Armor here? I could bring him in for you.”

A purple raven cawed riotously and bounced to and fro on a tree branch overhead.

“That might be nice. I’d like to see Shiny as a bunny,” Cadance replied.

A few seconds later, a white rabbit popped into existence, looking very surprised.

“Hi Shining!” squealed Cadance.

“This has to be a dream,” Shining Armor said, studying his rabbit form. “I seem to be a bunny. A bunny. I am a bunny.”

“It is,” replied Rookwood. “You are.”

“Rookwood?” asked Shining Armor.

“Yes honey, it is Rookwood,” Cadance explained.

“How have you been Rookwood? Celestia and Twilight have told me a little,” Shining asked.

“Dead,” Rookwood said again. “Look, Cadance, I really need to talk to you if that is alright. I don’t have long. I have to go help the Reaper of Dragons and the Reaper of Zebras later. We have a big job, and I cannot afford to be distracted and have my will split in several places at once.”

Cadance nodded. “While I really want to ask questions about everything you just said, we can talk later,” Cadance said. “What is troubling you?”

“I cannot leave it be, I have to know why the Reaper of Dragons and the Reaper of Zebras would be working together and why they would need you?” asked Shining Armor.

“There is a dragon scheduled to kill a whole bunch of zebras later. He is going to be greedy and try to swallow several zebras at once. He is going to choke to death,” explained Rookwood.

“Oh, that’s horrible!” exclaimed Cadance.

“I see stuff like this every day now,” replied Rookwood as he shrugged, seemingly unbothered. “Cadance, I am scared. I am so in love. It is eating at my insides. Well, I don’t have insides any more, but you get the point. I’m so afraid of letting Luna down. I’m not solid. I’m having trouble appearing in the world of the living. She’s suffered so much. I want her wedding to be happy.”

“If Luna wasn’t happy she wouldn’t continue with this course of action,” Cadance said. “Luna is strong willed and stubborn. She’s had a very rough life and experienced a great deal of hardship. She would not endure this if it wasn’t something she wanted.”

“I just want her to be happy. And safe. Free from her curse,” Rookwood said in a soft low voice. “I’ve already proven that I will do anything towards that end. Even if it means not marrying her.”

“Have you lost your mind?” asked Shining angrily. “What are you saying? What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking she needs somepony to make her happy. Somepony living perhaps.” Rookwood explained.

“You, you shut up right now. She’s suffered enough. All of this would be for naught if you backed out now. It is just cold hooves. Well, in your case, dead hooves maybe, or you may not even have hooves, but that isn’t the point. Luna would be crushed if she lost you a second time,” snapped Shining Armor. He stomped his large hind bunny paw in annoyance.

“Shining is right,” Cadance urged gently. “It is just cold hooves. You feel diminished and powerless due to circumstances. But that will change, I am sure of it. You are still a fit mate for Luna. You're dead and, well, she’s spooky and that is the worst that I will say about my aunt.”

“Luna is morbid. I’ve seen her book collection,” Shining said, nodding. “She’s got this whole queen of the damned thing going on already.”

“If she marries me, one day she may very well be,” Rookwood whispered, his bunny nose twitching nervously.

“Luna would only see that as an advantage, a source of pride,” said Cadance.

Rookwood took a deep shuddering breath, his little bunny sides expanding.

“This is really nightmarish,” Shining complimented. “The pastoral setting is bone chilling.”

The purple raven overhead cackled madly at this, cawing incessantly and dancing around on its branch, wings flapping.

“I could show you the pits where my soul was flayed open and laid bare by tormentors,” Rookwood said cheerfully. “But it would cost you several years of your life. And they would be years you would miss. I don’t subtract from the end like other Reapers. I go right from the middle. Hades says I am a right bastard.”

“And this is why you were made for Luna,” Cadance squeaked, shuddering.

“When you finally have Nightmare Moon, the consequences will be dire… I cannot imagine what is going to be done for her. I don’t understand though. Why don’t the Lords of Tartarus just come and collect her for her crimes?” asked Shining.

“Because the nightmares must continue,” Rookwood replied, his voice suddenly oddly authoritative. “And until a replacement is found, she must continue her work. To replace her, I must tear her mantle away from her. In time, I will. But the nightmares must not be interrupted.”

For a moment, as Rookwood spoke, his form shifted and shimmered, becoming a skeletal rabbit shrouded in a black cloak, his buck teeth looking wickedly sharp. And then, as quickly as he shifted, he was normal again, his usual avocado green bunny self.

The change had not gone unnoticed by Shining Armor or Cadance.

“Sister, I must ask, how is your wound? I know you keep it bandaged and hidden under your regalia,” Luna inquired, her voice velvety with concern.

“It isn’t healing with magic, it is going to have to heal in time. It burned inward to the bone. I will recover. I’ve had worse done to the outside,” said Celestia. “But the inside is a different story. When he had his hoof pressed into my chest, I had to relive every awful thing I’ve ever done or allowed to happen. And so much of it was about you.”

Luna nodded, unable to reply.

“I saw some of the things you had to endure. Things I forced you into. Things I know are forgiven between us, but Death made me relive them anyway. And the wounds inside are raw,” Celestia added. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

“We both have,” replied Luna.

“I’ve done things I knew were horribly wrong but I did them anyway because I believed I was doing them for the right reasons and that somehow, I would be exempted from them because of what I was and that I had to be right,” Celestia confessed.

“I’ve done much the same,” Luna admitted.

“The regrets of immortals,” Celestia sighed.

“This castle is becoming crowded,” Luna added.

“I want this castle crowded. I miss Cadance so much. But she had things to do. And Twilight left. She’s gone on to greater things.”

“And now you have Violet,” Luna said in consoling tones. “And there is Rookwood, who will be here time and situation permitting.”

“We’ll be a family,” Celestia said, nodding.

“Canterlot is becoming its own place of the pantheon,” said Luna.

“Hardly the place of nightmares Luna, you’ll need a big black fortress of some sort,” Celestia replied, smiling faintly.

“Oh, I don’t know, this place is nightmarish. Pastels everywhere, soft white colours, pinks, golds, all of it quite garish and horrific,” Luna teased.

Celestia raised her eyebrow and glared at her sister balefully.

“I am impressed by you Rookwood, I must confess.”

Rookwood bowed his head slightly and looked at Hades, the Master of the Dead. The draconequus was over a hundred feet long and made of mismatched bones.

“I have done this job longer than most of the current immortals alive today have been alive. I have been here since the beginning,” Hades said in an oddly soft voice. “I was not always Master of the Dead though.”

Rookwood bowed slightly, lowering his head once again.

“Stop that!” grunted Hades. “Can’t I just have one conversation without all this bowing and scraping! Buggery of the damned!”

“If you desire to bugger the damned, it is certainly your place to do so, sir,” Rookwood said in a shaky voice. “I prefer the living, but as they say down in the black depths where the necrophiliacs are tormented, there is no harm in cracking open a cold one.”

Hades moved with supernatural speed and snatched Rookwood up in his skeletal claws. He stood, bipedal, glaring down at the tiny pony in his fist. Two blue flames burned in his eye sockets.

“A COMEDIAN!” Hades boomed. “They always come here and discover being a bonepile isn’t very funny. And the punishers and the tormentors have no sense of humour.”

Hades held Rookwood up to his skeletal snoot, studying him.

“I bet you think you’re clever,” Hades said in a low whisper.

Rookwood gulped. “I was so clever that my life was a joke, my death was my punchline, and then I wound up here…” Rookwood confessed, his voice trailing off.

Hades continued to study the little green pony clenched in his fist. His bones began to shake. And then, a horrible sound filled Tartarus, booming through the vast depths, scaring every damned soul in the realm, frightening the punishers, even scaring the tormentors, making them cower in the black depths where they dwelled amongst the most reviled of the damned.

Hades was laughing!

The massive dead draconequus shook violently, his bones rattling and clattering. He clutched Rookwood in one fist, and pounded the ground with the other. The sound was truly terrible, indescribable, and made Rookwood thankful he was dead, because surely, he would have gone mad from the sound had he still been living.

Rookwood managed a weak laugh.

“Oh pantheon damnit, you are a funny clever little pony. I’m keeping you,” Hades said. “I haven’t laughed like that for about six or seven thousand years.”

“I am already yours you rotten old coot, or have you already forgotten?” Rookwood replied.

Hades howled.

It was even more terrifying than his laughter.

Hades fell over on his back, his bones rattling and making a cacophony of sound, sounds so indescribably horrific that a new torment was created to commemorate the occasion, which was to play the sound on a loop in Tartarus’ waiting rooms. Still he clutched Rookwood in his fist, eyeing the little pony, hopeful, waiting for Rookwood to say something else.

Tartarus had just become a little bit worse, and Rookwood was responsible.

Author's Notes:

Nothing like getting to know your boss...

Bondage in the workplace is important.

Er, bonding. Bonding. Definitely bondage.