The light of a thousand prisms flew around me, swirling the multicolored hem of my skirt about softly.

"Hello?!" I yelled as a chaotic wind threw me around and about this vast and yawning nowhere. My hooves touched no ground and could find no path in this strange void.

Yet everywhere... was light. Weren’t the voids of tales meant to frighten foals thought to be naught but darkness? How could this be? If the tales of the most learned of our kind were false, then what can be true?

"Am I not deceased?!"

That, at least should be true, if anything is anymore.

The vortex paused almost as if it were trying to get a rise out of me. As the bright pastel lights continued, I ran a hoof through my mane hoping to snag one of its short tangles to toy with in my uncertainty. To my horror, the bobbed cut which I had died with was regenerated, grown out, and swept to one side in an even more matted mess bound only by a small brown tie.

The mane of my youth, my dread, and my fear.

I swept around finding myself no longer grounded by the ailments of age only to see my lovely dress and apron had been shifted into a familiar rough cape with its itchy hood settled about my neck waiting to hide my gray eyes once more. I hated this old thing, and hated see it now. This is all wrong! I wanted nothing, nothing at all, and instead I get... whatever it is that this is!

"No! Stop it! I'm a bloody atheist, this shouldn't be happening!"

Will nothing listen anymore? At least the sound of my own voice is a comfort. Who could bear silence in a formless place like this?
I screwed my eyes shut and stomped my hoof until the gusty tugs of this unearthly wind quieted into a nipping spring breeze which better suited my tastes. I may not be a pegasus but it was nice to see I could still do something even though I was still angry. Did I die for nothing?

"I don't believe in a freaking afterlife! This shouldn't be happening, all this light and rainbow bursting! Make it stop!"

With an almost sorrowful silence the wind lessened even further, down to an autumn whistle. I felt my hooves settle on solid ground somehow, even if I could see that I really was standing on nothing at all.

"Mayhap you should start believing in us, Dear Little Miss Clever-was-I, for us gods and immortals, as sure as the misery of a thousand souls, do exist, whether you like it or not. Nothing you believe has any prayer of changing that," growled a rough masculine voice, almost brimming with unspoken malice.

"Of course I knew god-immortals existed! I merely chose to ignore them, since they never meddled in the lives of anypony, or appeared at all. That was how I thought, until news was delivered otherwise. The other tribesponies, of course were sincere atheists, believing absolutely nothing I am seeing now, gods and others of the sort. Most important of all: Why do I need to meet anymore?"

I received no comment from the speaker and I opened my eyes faster than this stunned being could come up with a reply.

A gasp escaped my lips for I was no longer in the plain, flourish-deprived city of Canterlot but rather a magnificent pavilion with architectural styles even I did not know. Pillars with ivy patterns carved out of stone with the smooth likeness of silk! A pond with water the color of starbursts, if it was water at all! And lo, the pavilion I was in was floating above a place half bathed in a moon's shine and a sun's rays for both hung in the unearthly lavender sky, bound in what looked like an eternal twilight.

Two smooth and clear crystal thrones sat at the far end, an hourglass betwixt them, sands flying about within like a demon-mad pony instead of falling into place.

On this hourglass was a thick and mangled gray talon, connected to a garish red-feathered limb which was in turn attached to a vicious looking griffon...

But not just any griffon, for it was a hideous being with the same garish red feathers all about its body with primary feathers composed entirely out of what appeared to be actual flame. The same was true of the tail's tip and the goat-beard adorning his crooked black maw of a beak, as well as the deep black lines underscoring his eyes that made the bags under my own eyes appear faint in comparison to his, for he was a creature that looked as if they had never known the notion of sleep. These orange eyes were framed by thick inferno eyebrows. Large red wings were spread wide, a behavior I knew from pegasi that meant he was ready to take flight.

Atop his head was a tarnished silver crown shaped like it was constructed out of bones with blood rubies wedged on top. A large blue onyx was pinned to a blue cape that was torn and bloodied with pale blue fur trim did nothing to conceal the fact that just like a pony... he had a marking...?

The skull of an indeterminable species coupled with a sprig of black holly berries was present on his hindquarters as if he were a pony. Or one of them, after all, those two could change their shape well.

"You? Know gods?" he bellowed. "What lie are you going to spout next, Fountain? That they walk amongst you on Midgard? Do you perhaps have tea with them? Cream or sugar, dearie?"

He laughed loudly before he wiped a phony tear away from his eye.

"Liars go to Tartarus, you know. Now let me see here... how have you sinned, Mistress Clove Verre 'Clover' Felicia Magnus Laurelsdaughter-Tanglemane? That name is quite a mouthful for a peasant such as yourself."

He fluttered up onto the headrest of one of the splendid twin thrones on either side of the hourglass. He summoned the skeletons of seven pegasi with eyes like leaden coffins washed to a gray nothingness. Each appeared bearing an amount of fiery orbs depicting something in my life. They began to juggle. The griffin laughed heartily and snapped his digits, causing a ghostly guise of flesh to encircle them. All were identical, implying that these were mere conjurations rather than damned souls.

"Oh what have we here?" cackled this strange fellow. "Assisting the wicked? Turning a blind eye to the plight of others? Sinful, sinful, Mistress Clover. Tartarus could be your future. Now would like to be broiled or scorched by the flames there?"

He stopped snickering all of a sudden and focused on a orb depicting an event from my so-called apprenticeship.

Instantaneously, all but that orb vanished as his eyes caught fire and with a flash, his griffon form grew and melted, sculpting itself into a matching guise of the 'Alicorn' variety, a long red horn producing the very aura that held my memory.

I looked around quickly out of the corner of my eyes for a path of egress but all possibilities led to the unexplored edge. The only advantage I have would be in how quick I could move. Alas, I had not been well versed in physical combat in life and despite the facts that the ailments of age no longer plagued my body, I still had the gritty pacifist soul of myself and not the violent attitudes of the god-immortal.

Trying for subtle movements, I inched closer to the strange pond for perhaps it could be a vortex. This movement was noted and quickly and I was pinned to one of the columns by this being.

"Who are they?!" he bellowed once again, bringing the lighted sphere to my face as if I needed to nit-pick my own knowledge. "Where are these goddesses? How much do you know?!"

I gulped and struggled harder against his telekinetic grip, for all I knew this stallion had the intent of harm and after all that happened I could die again. Anything could happen at this point.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignite some kind of flare only to wrench them closed even further as another powerful light presence made itself known and a authoritative female voice bellowed:

"STOLAS, END YOUR TORMENT OF THIS SOUL AND RETURN TO YOUR REALM OF TARTARUS TO CONTINUE PUNISHING THE DAMNED AND EVIL!"

Author's Notes:

Thanks to Cynewulf for helping me come up with a proper name for the King of Tartarus! If you're interested in the source just click the picture of the cute owl demon.