The old, gleaming bones lay in a pile. Tarnish had stored them in his saddlebags for safe keeping, but now, they sat in the warmth of the sun. He intended to bury them, but wanted to find a nice spot. If he was a pony that longed for a little eternal rest, he figured he would want to be buried beneath a tree, in a nice sometimes shady, sometimes sunny, grassy spot.

He felt a soft touch so he turned to face the pony poking him, which he guessed to be Vinyl. He found her peering at him, she wasn’t wearing her glasses, and her eyes were filled with concern. He wasn’t sure what to make of her expression.

A long length of bright orange cord floated in front of him, and as he watched, it looped and twisted into a series of letters, forming a long line of cursive print. As it turned out, Vinyl had all sorts of methods of communicating.

We need to talk, you and I.

Tarnish looked around. There was no sign of Maud or Octavia. He wondered where they went. Turning his head, he focused on Vinyl, giving her his attention. He gave her a nod, and then watched as the string twisted and looped into a new sentence for him to read.

That spectre looked inside of your head to see what sort of pony you are. There were more loops and movement, and somehow, Vinyl did it without causing any knots in the string. I guess he had to see if you were who you say you are. Once more, Vinyl manipulated the bright orange twine. Thing is, I got to see inside of your head as well, Tarnish.

Reading these words, Tarnish’s eyes narrowed as the string moved yet again.

You struggle with your self esteem and feelings of inadequacy. Vinyl waited for a moment, watching Tarnish’s reaction, then continued, Tell me, do you equate being a powerful unicorn with your sense of self worth?

Shocked, Tarnished jerked his head back. His eyes narrowed, and he almost let slip an angry retort. She had no business poking around inside of his head. He swallowed and forced himself to calm down, reminding himself that Vinyl was his friend.

Your expression tells me an awful lot. Ears drooping, Vinyl reached out one foreleg, and with a gentle touch, she placed her hoof on Tarnish’s chest scruffle. She smoothed out the whorls of wild hairs that could be found there, and stared into Tarnish’s eyes. The string formed a new message. Let me help you.

Something inside of Tarnish broke. It was like a floodgate on a dam. He was overwhelmed with emotion, too many different feelings to try and experience all at once, and he had no hopes of making sense of all of them.

Hey, let me help you.

“Okay,” Tarnish replied, his ears drooping.

Stop moping.

Tarnish’s eyes went from the string to Vinyl’s eyes. It took some effort, but he made his ears stand up again. For a moment, he was mesmerised by Vinyl’s eyes. He saw something in them, something powerful, something wonderful—he saw compassion, a vast, endless ocean of it.

It made him feel better.

The string wound itself up into a small orange ball, then vanished with a poof. Vinyl’s head bobbed up and down as she studied Tarnish, as if she was listening to some beat that only she could hear. A determined grin appeared upon her muzzle and then she mouthed the word, “Tomorrow.”

It took him a moment, but Tarnish was able to make out what she had said.

Four ponies stood around a grave. The grave had been dug at the base of a large white oak, and much care had been taken to avoid damaging the gnarled roots. Maud and Octavia were still somewhat damp from their bath in the river.

One by one, Tarnish dropped the strange, gleaming bones into the grave. The bones were almost metallic, had a curious weight, and they glimmered in the sun. The ancient guardian had been a pegasus, a pony bound by loyalty, a soldier who had kept his oath. To remain true to his word, he had become what Vinyl had called a ‘revenant.’

The task was interrupted by Vinyl, who froze in place. Once more, a strange otherworldly glow overcame her body, an eerie eldritch light. Flickers of aetherfire danced along her spine. One of the tiny wingbones was lifted from the grave, and Vinyl removed the necklace from Tarnish’s neck, the one that held his warning amulet in place.

The bone burned with ghastly green flames that popped, spit, and sizzled, like butter in a too hot cast iron skillet. Tarnish, Maud, and Octavia all stood watching, waiting, wondering what might happen next. The bone was transmuted into something that was almost, but not quite, silvery. It looked like a bead—a curious bead that was shaped like a pegasus wing bone. Vinyl slipped the trinket onto the necklace, slipped the necklace back around Tarnish’s neck, and then the eldritch fires blazed bright.

“Thank you,” a raspy voice said through Vinyl’s lips. “I give you this final gift in parting… fare thee well.”

And then, as suddenly as they had come, the eldritch fires were gone. Vinyl stood blinking, covered in frost once more, She shivered, shook, and then once again, she shimmied, trying to rid herself of her frosty coating. This time, she had not cast the spell that would allow her to speak to spirits, it seemed that the revenant had somehow used his lingering connection to communicate for one last time, so that one final boon might be offered.

The bones in the grave rattled, it was as if the ancient remains had shuddered for one last time, and then they went still. Octavia, looking solemn, bowed her head, drew in a deep breath, and using a very soft, but well cultured voice, she spoke:

“Long ago, we sought to respect our dead. We did not wish to leave their corpses for beasts of the field to feast upon. Through trial and error, through time and effort, we learned how to give them peace. We made cairns and buried them under piles of rocks. We returned them to the earth, so that their death would give rise to new life. Over time, we built crypts and mausoleums, cities dedicated to the dead, so that we might honour their memory. We exist because of those who came before us, and we owe them our gratitude for providing us our history, which is made richer with their stories.”

Maud too, bowed her head.

“Onward then, to Elysium,” Octavia added, encouraging the bound spirit to depart.

A strange gust of wind blew and all four ponies’ ears perked as an unearthly sigh could be heard, followed by a weary sounding groan. The old bones grew dim, losing their shimmering gleam. They turned dull, became pitted looking, and then, as the herd of ponies watched, they began crumbling into a fine grey dust.

Saying nothing else, the four companions began to fill the grave with earth, mindful not to disturb the old bones, which were now dust. When the grave was filled, with chunks of dirt returned to the nooks and crannies of the old, gnarled roots, both Maud and Octavia performed a solemn looking and reserved dance on top of the grave, to pack down the soil and settle the earth.

It was an earth pony tradition, planting the dead, and then dancing upon the grave. It mirrored their springtime traditions, to plant seeds and then to go dancing up and down the furrowed rows, packing the earth, and nurturing the ground with their hooves. So important was this tradition that there were unions of grave dancers, earth ponies whose jobs it was to secure the dead in their final rest.

Tarnish watched, his eyes on Maud’s hooves, wondering if this was a special magic all its own…

The sun, falling towards the horizon, cast long shadows all around the camp. Octavia sat writing music, she had been inspired by the events of the day, and was now writing a funerary dirge. Notes flowed onto paper, Octavia scrawled them out in a near fevered frenzy, her eyes narrowed, and a look of fierce determination upon her face.

Maud was writing in her journal, putting the events of the day into words, writing everything down so it could and would be remembered. She moved with a glacial slowness, her strokes were absolutely beautiful perfection, each letter a work of art.

Sitting together, both Tarnish and Vinyl were examining the horn ring, a curious trinket that some pegasus had spent a small eternity watching over. The orange gemstone glittered in the light of the setting sun. The silver was immaculate and untouched by age.

When set upon the flesh, the object was warm, a comforting, pleasant warmth. There were tiny glyphs carved into the surface of the ring, the strange spidery language of magic. The orange gem sometimes pulsated and gave off a faint glow. It was a beautiful thing, a relic of a bygone age, and its exquisite levels of detail spoke well of the skills of the ponies who had come long before them.

“Do you know what it is?” Tarnish asked. “Can you read the little weird letters?”

There was no reply from Vinyl. The albino unicorn squinted one eye and continued her examination of the horn ring. She looked at the glyphs on the inside and the outside of the band, turning it, giving it a slow and cautious examination.

“It works by tapping into unicorn magic, right?” Tarnish paused. “I mean, you slide it on the horn and it draws upon a unicorn’s natural magics… I learned about this in my book about charms.”

Without looking away from the ring, Vinyl nodded.

“So this is some sort of fantastic weapon… some ancient artifact, some wondrous weapon of war… I wonder if we should tell Twilight about it…” Tarnish didn’t finish the rest of his words, which were, Or if we should keep this to ourselves…

Tarnish’s thoughts were interrupted by Vinyl, who now shook with silent laughter. She had her eyes squeezed shut, and her left foreleg was hooked around her belly as she wheezed. Her mane bobbed and her ears twitched.

“What’s so funny?” Tarnish asked.

Vinyl tried to answer, but her barrel hitched and she collapsed into mute giggles. Octavia looked up from her work with an almost annoyed looking expression. She clucked her tongue, scowled, and then hunched back over her sheet music.

Holding the horn ring aloft, Vinyl slid it over her horn. A faint orange glow surrounded her body. She shoved Tarnish aside, still shaking with silent laughter, and went over to where the fire was. She tossed a log down and the flames flared up. The coals glowed with fiery intensity.

Tarnish let out a worried mewl of terror when Vinyl stepped into the fire, which turned into a shocked gasp. She was unharmed. She stood in the flames, now on fire herself, her whole body consumed in flame, but the flames caused no injury. Her skin did not blister, crack, or peel away. It didn’t melt like wax. Vinyl was unscathed by the flames.

Octavia set down her pen and Maud looked up from her journal. Both mares stared.

“Well, that… that’s certainly interesting,” Tarnish said in a choked whisper.

Grinning, Vinyl stepped out of the fire and the flames surrounding her body vanished. She flicked her tail a few times, shedding a few glowing embers as she did so, then stepped away from the flames. There was a faint pop as her slate appeared next to her head, and then another pop as her chalk appeared.

This is a ring of elemental authority. After giving her companions a chance to read her words, she wiped them away and wrote more. A powerful ring of elemental authority. Never seen one quite like it. A mischievous twinkle flashed in Vinyl’s eyes as she pulled the ring from her horn and after clearing her slate, she wrote down even more words. Its power is proportional to the unicorn using it.

The words stung Tarnish and he felt a deep, bitter sense of resentment welling up inside of him. For a unicorn such as him, the ring wouldn’t be very powerful at all. He had very little knowledge of spellcraft, and knew almost nothing about fire spells. His talents were more water oriented. He shrugged off the funk threatening to consume him, and he knew what he had to do.

It would be difficult.

It would be hard.

Already, he could feel his insides clenching, even as he thought about it.

“Vinyl…”

The albino mare looked up at Tarnish, a crazed grin on her muzzle.

Tarnish realised that her happiness was more important to him than his own. It was this realisation that silenced all of the competing emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. His own gnawing sense of greed was crammed down deep inside, and ignored.

“Vinyl, keep it.” Tarnish paused, then continued, “Keep it safe. I am trusting you as its protector. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hooves.” As he spoke, the bone bead that hung from his neck glimmered with a faint light.

Something inside of Tarnish ached from saying the words. Already, he felt a sense of regret and something deep inside of him, some part of himself that he didn’t like, a little part of him was quite unhappy with what he had done.

Delighted, Vinyl bounced around, pronking, then lept over to where Tarnish was. She had her forelegs around his neck and before he even knew what had hit him, she kissed him on the cheek with a wet sounding smack. She then bounded away before he could respond and gamboled around the camp like an excited foal.

Stunned, Tarnish realised that the love and appreciation of his friends was more important than the nagging desire for power…

Author's Notes: