It all began on a muggy fall morning, with me doing what I always did back then: working on the harvest. I woke up with the rest of the workers, did my usual morning routine, then headed out to see where we’d be assigned by the day manager, old Green Lake, to bring the crops-

“Wait, you were with normal ponies?” Twilight interrupted.

Fall Harvest let out a sort of barking laugh. “This was the kingdom of the alicorns, remember? It’s not like Equestria today; there were no pegasi, earth ponies or unicorns in that area, just alicorns. The other tribes all lived off in their own kingdoms apart from us for reasons I can’t remember now, but it probably seemed like a good idea to all sides at the time. I was just a normal alicorn citizen and back then, that meant I had to find work even if I was sick.”

“Hold on partner, you were sick and they let y’all work?” Applejack asked incredulously.

“They needed ponies to work the field and they were not all that choosy who came around that time,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Back then, I was still mortal like most alicorns were and we still needed to eat and stuff.”

“You mean, alicorns weren’t always immortal?” one of the others asked.

“Nope. We were longer-lived, sure, but we could die like any other pony. Your princesses have all become immortal in the no dying of old age sense because of special circumstances, but that was not always the case for alicorns as a whole.”

“What kind of special circumstance?” Starlight asked, already having her own notebook out.

“Well, you see, there are-”

“You are stalling again,” Helheim interrupted him before casting her gaze to the others. “If it were not for his harvesting abilities, I would say diverging unwanted conversations was his true special talent.” She then flashed her attention to the mortals in the room. “He will get to the topic of what separates the average alicorn from Celestia, Luna, Cadence and you Twilight soon enough. For now, continue.”

Yes my Lady.

As I was saying, we stood in a line in front of the day manager to see where we would be assigned in the farm. We all hoped for areas close to the worker’s lodge as we could get to the mess hall quicker and have some of the better grub before it was all gone. If you were midway out, then you would have to deal with the somewhat okay stuff. And if you were all the way out, you best hope that you could scavenge something to eat.

So I was standing there, a head shorter and scrawnier than the rest. I was younger than most of them, I haven’t been eating more than enough to keep me going, and I’ve been sick for a while. But I was a good worker so…

“Redbird; zone one, Blackwing; zone one,” Green Lake said with more of the ponies leaving as he continued to call out names with zones getting further and further away. I was getting worried as I hadn’t heard my name called yet and I was doing my best to hold back my coughs at the time.

Finally, he had called the last other pony present and sent them to one of the furthest places on the entire farm, just leaving me alone in front of the stallion.

Green Lake was staring at me with an uncomfortable look on his face, shuffling on the spot. He finally spoke to me, saying.

“Fall, son,” he said to me while shaking his head. “I can't use you.”

“Sir,” I begged coughing, with my sides burning. “I need this job. Please, give me something, sir. You know I am good at this; this is my special talent.” I would have added more if I had not tried to cough out my lung just then.

Green Lake shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t have you out there with as sick as you are. You could infect the rest of the workforce, and then where would I be? How would I explain that to my superiors?”

“Sir, if that was the case, everypony would have been sick long ago,” I pleaded, biting my lip as I held back a cough, feeling woozy. “And who is to say that being out there is not what I need? What good am I getting underhoof here, lying about when I could be doing what I signed up for and fight off this seasonal illness at the same time; do you really want me to be getting in trouble with the cooks again or the packers or the-”

“Alright, alright,” he held out a hoof, sighing. Placing a wing over his clipboard to prevent me being officially registered, he said, “Fall Harvest; zone four.”

“Thank you sir,” I said with a smile on my face. “Thank you very much.”

Green Lake waved me off, but he was also smiling. “Go on, kid.”

I threw him a friendly wave, then went off to the zone which was on the further end of the entire farm. I grabbed a scythe as well as a wheelbarrow and got to work.

I should have realized that I was being a complete idiot back then, taken the chance to rest and get well but again, I was a complete nobody with no education and owned nothing but my name and the fur on my back. I had been from place to place, dong whatever I could for a job and I wasn't about to let a cough stop me..

Word of advice, don’t be a stubborn idiot and think you can handle something on your own, especially when you are sick.

To my credit, I managed to haul myself all the way there and started to bring in the harvest without too much effort. I was midway through my work when I was overcome by a coughing fit. I was hunched over with the pain getting worse and worse and then suddenly I felt fine.

I was confused by this but I wasn’t going to question a sudden recovery, so I went to pick up my scythe so I could get back to work when I heard somepony chuckling.

“Well now, that’s dedication,” a stallion said behind me, causing me to spin around to see an older looking stallion with a dark blue coat and a graying salt-and-pepper mane; I could see a few traces of brown still in it. “That will be good for you.”

“Who are you,” I asked him, taking a step backwards.

“I’m Light Peanut, Fall Harvest,” he said, walking towards me. “Look down.”

“Stay back,” I said, holding my scythe up to defend myself.

“Relax Fall, and you need to look down.” Light Peanut said, his tone soothing.

“No, tell me what you want and why you are here,” I shouted back, fear creeping into my voice.

“I want you to look down,” he repeated calmly and patiently. “When you do, you’ll see why I am here.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and I looked down, keeping one eye on him.

That’s when I saw the familiar body on the ground below me.

My own body.

“Ho-how?” I stammered, trying to comprehend what I saw.

“My best guess is that cough of yours,” Light Peanut said with a dry chuckle, shaking his head. “They usually tell mortals that they’re sick and need rest at the least, and medical attention at the most. Yours, in this case, was ignored long enough that whatever caused it proved fatal. Then again, you were not in the peak of health either, so that probably played a factor too.”

“I-I-I can’t be dead; I’m too young! I’ve barely done anything yet; you must have-” I began to stammer when he stopped me with his eyes.

“Son, I, and soon you, will have to take souls of infants so donot complain about being too young to die or suggest I made a mistake or you didn’t do anything wrong and don’t deserve it.” His eyes then softened as he placed a hoof on my shoulders. “Sad to be the one to tell you but the universe isn’t run by fate or destiny; all our actions, great and small, our own and others, affect each other. Sadder to say that sometimes, even the smallest of things, things that are impossible to see or change can bring this about.” He breathed heavily here, shaking his head. “It’s a hard lesson but one that gets easier to carry the sooner you learn about it.”

I was left speechless at this, my mind still trying to make sense of all this when all of a sudden my body began to vanish. “Hey,” I shouted, shaking his hoof off of me. “What’s going on?”

“Ah,” he said, turning around and slapping me on the back. “Your body is being moved to Tartarus for safe keeping.”

“Wha?”

“A bit of a see-”

Fall paused, looking at Helheim for permission. She turned to face the mortals in the room, and began to extrude her presence to impress how serious this moment was.

“If any of you speak of this without my direct approval, I will come for you personally then and there,” she threatened with the mortals trembling in fear.

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Pinkie Pie said, with the others quickly copying her which seemed to mollify Helheim.

“Continue, Fall Harvest.”

“A bit of a secret is that bones have special powers over the dead and Reapers are no different,” Light Peanut said. “The last thing Helheim wants to happen is for one of her Reapers to be under someone else’s control.”

“Who?” I asked in confusion.

“My boss, and soon to be your boss.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yes, son,” he tapped my shoulder again, a scythe appearing by his side. “I’ve done my time and I’m retiring. Her Lady has chosen you to take up my Role."

"What role?" I asked numbly.

“Not a role, a Role,” he said, and somehow I could feel the capital letter this time. “It’s my position in the universe, so to speak, and now yours.” He passed the scythe to me, with me somehow catching it, although at the time I didn't know it was already bonded to me. “You are now the Reaper of all ponies’ souls.”

“But I thought you said you were the Reaper of Alicorns, not ponies,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, shooting a look at him.

Fall flinched, looking off to the side. “Back then, I was the Reaper of all ponies… I,” he paused, biting his lip.

“When he finishes his story, you will understand why the alicorns stand apart from the other pony tribes in my purview,” Helheim said which seemed to calm Fall down.

“What‽” I asked, dumbfounded. “Are you saying I have to go around and kill-”

“Not kill,” Light Peanut interrupted me. “Reapers are charged with collecting the souls of those who die and help them move on, but we never take them before their time. That’s one of the biggest rules governing our Role; breaking it will result in serious punishment.”

“So by ‘move on’, you mean we send them to Tartarus or the Elysium Fields?”

“Not exactly,” Light Peanut said. “We help them go to meet with the Judge; that is who decides on a soul’s final destination. But,” he told me with a smile on his face. “For those like us, that chose or are chosen to do what we do or become Powers, as long as we keep true to our Purpose, we are promised paradise when our time is up, no matter what our Purposes are.”

I bit my lip and asked him.” What is it like, the Fields?”

“Don’t know; never been there myself, but it is a paradise suited for you,” Light Peanut told me with a happy sigh. “I, for one, am looking forwards to a very long rest on a beach, sleeping for a few hundred years before I find something else to keep me happy.”

“He is happy, by the way,” Helheim said, causing Fall to snap his head around. “And for the most part, he is proud of you.”

“Th-thank you, my lady,” Fall said, with tears forming in his eyes.

I was still trying to take all this in when he reached out and took my hoof, and together, we vanished from the field where I had died.

We rematerialized in… someplace. I don’t know quite how to describe it; it’s been so long, and I’ve completely remodeled the place in the years since then. Light Peanut explained to me that this was his personal dominion, his ‘office’ in the afterlife. And now it was mine.

“But first,” he said, “I need to take you to my boss - our boss.”

We dematerialized again and reappeared in yet a different part of the afterlife, and the first thing I saw was a tall, strange-looking figure standing in front of a second figure on a throne, talking to them about something. Both looked up as we appeared, and the one standing had an… well, I don’t know how they managed it, having no flesh and all, but somehow I could tell they looked intrigued by me.

“So this is the new guy?” they asked. “Looks kind of scrawny, if you ask me.”

Something about the way this being talked gave me my first hint that it was a female.

Light Peanut gave her a look, and then bowed to the being on the throne. “Lady Helheim,” he said. “I have returned.”

“And this is the one?” she asked, indicating me.

“He is, my Lady.”

While I couldn’t make out a face on them, I had the impression that the Lady was smiling. “You have done well, Light Peanut,” she said. “I will miss your help here, but I will not force you to stay beyond your time. Go, be at peace.”

Light Peanut bowed to her one more time, then turned to me and smiled. “Take care of yourself, son. See you on the other side.”

With that, he began to disappear.

“Sir-”

His voice came out of thin air. “So long, Fall. Have a nice afterlife.”

For a while, nobody said anything. Then, I turned to the two figures in front of me, and bowed to the one on the throne. “My Lady.”

The figure who was still standing threw up her hands. “Oh for crying out loud; don’t tell me you picked up his habits already!”

“Causality,” the figure on the throne spoke. “Be respectful. Light Peanut has been one of my best Reapers for years; while I do understand the need to enjoy yourself, his behavior was exemplary, and you would do well to take a few cues from it.”

Causality snorted. “Right.”

“At any rate, if you will excuse us for now.” She spoke firmly.

Causality nodded, summed her own scythe, tapped it on the ground twice and disappeared.

“Um, if you don’t mind…” Fluttershy let out a squeak as Fall turned to gaze at her. “This… Causality… is she the one you said… gets a little impatient?”

Fall nodded. “Causality, like me, is an Adjunct for Death - whereas I am the Reaper for Alicorns, she is the Reaper for Draconequui, and someday she will come for your friend Discord. Mind, I have no idea when as I am not in charge of his kind’s souls nor do we have an actual set time of death for souls in the first place, but I can hazard a guess that it won’t be for a very, very long time. Especially with his status as a Power himself, the Lord of Disharmony and champion of Chaos.”

“Yeah; being the rough sum of six sub-Powers at once makes one have a very long lifespan,” a new voice chimed in from above, causing everyone to snap their heads up to see a draconequus hovering above them. “Don’t mind me, go on, I love a trip down memory lane.”

Fall Harvest facehoofed. “Hello, Causality,” he said with a sigh. “Kindly behave yourself while you’re here; your boss is watching.”

Causality snickered. “Who do you think called me in?”

Fall Harvest looked over at Helheim and could feel the amusement pouring off of her. “Of course,” he said. “Now, getting back to things…”

When the thing that was called Causality had left, I turned back to-

“Hey, thing‽” Causality looked incredulously at Fall.

“What do you want; you were the first Draconequus I had ever seen, and I didn’t know what your species was called then.” Fall gave her a look of irritation over being interrupted.

She snorted, landing next to Fluttershy, materialized a pair of eyes and rolled them across the floor, causing several squeals of fear and disgust from at least some of the mortals, Rarity most prominently among them. “What a jerk, am I right ladies?”

“Hey, wait a second, these are fakes!” Rainbow Dash said while poking one of the eyeballs.

“Well, yeah,” Causality shrugged her bony shoulders. “Do you know how unhygienic and wasteful it would be to use actual eyes? Besides, I would never put those in my skull after they’ve been on the floor, no matter how clean you keep it!” She shuddered, making some noise as her bones clattered together. “I don’t know how some of those other guys back in Tartarus can stand to do that sort of thing.”

“Demons have weird hobbies,” Fall replied dryly. “But while we can spend days speaking about their oddness, I am sure that our Lady would wish I got back to my story.”

“Be my guest,” Causality replied, making a set of movements that seemed vaguely familiar as she did so, but Fall let it slide.

Ahem. I turned back to Lady Helheim, and she gestured. “Walk with me.”

I did so, wondering what was going to happen now.

Lady Helheim led me some distance, through halls that seemed to go on for miles and at the same time took only an instant to end, and others where I could have sworn we’d only gone a few steps and yet it felt as if eons had passed as we went on. I would later be told that all new Reapers felt that sort of sensation in this realm at first, but we’d get used to it quickly enough; after a few real-time years of experience, I stopped noticing it altogether.

When she felt we had gone far enough, she stopped, and gazed at me. I still couldn’t make out a solid form for her, but she had a distinct presence about her, and I felt it with every fiber of my being.

“You have been chosen for a very important purpose, Fall Harvest,” she said. “I know that Light Peanut has already given you the basic information regarding your Role. But there is still much more you need to learn.”

I stayed quiet, listening intently to her.

“Even I do not know how long it has been since I took up the Role of Death,” she said. “I have the faintest memories of being mortal; then, one day, I was chosen to succeed the original Death of this dimension, a being made directly by the Creators to oversee the passage of souls from one state of being to another. I have carried out my Purpose and Duties in the Role of Death ever since. But as time has passed, as the number of souls in this dimension has grown, I have found that one being could no longer fulfil these Duties alone. I needed special assistants, souls who would put off moving on to serve me as my Adjuncts, collecting the souls of the newly dead in my place and bringing them to the Judge for their final transition, either into the Elysium Fields if they were good, or into Tartarus if they had committed acts of great wickedness. Light Peanut has served me as an Adjunct for years, helping deliver the souls of ponies like yourself. But he knew he would eventually pass on, and has kept an eye out for one whose Role was to be the next Reaper in his place. He found you.”

I swallowed nervously, but otherwise did not interrupt.

“I am far from the only Power, of course,” she said. “There are dozens more. The ruler of your former homeland, for instance, is the Lord of Day; his Purpose is to raise and lower the sun at its appointed time. Normally he would then make way for his Opposite, a Lord or Lady of Night, to carry out their Duties of raising and lowering their moon, but for now he actually holds both Powers of Night and Day and so tends both bodies. The Judge of the dead is also a Power; Light Peanut has already told you of he and his Purpose.”

She gazed at me. “You will learn about others of my fellow Powers in time, Fall Harvest. And, of course, you will receive advice and lessons about your Duties and other, related things from your fellow Reapers. I have many Adjuncts; among them, there is one who collects the Draconequui, and one each for the dragons, the minotaurs, the centaurs, the harpies, the griffons, the diamond dogs and any other sapient species you can imagine. There are also a few who are specifically tasked with collecting the souls of the non-sapients of this dimension. But as… unusual as she is, and as different as she and Light Peanut were, I believe Causality will be a good teacher for you.”

I nodded. “As you command, my Lady.”

“Your respect is appreciated, but you don’t have to be so stiff all the time,” she said.

“I can’t help being stiff; I’m dead!” I threw out my hooves. Then I realized what I’d said and looked aghast.

Somehow, a smile emanated out of that form. “There is a time and place for such remarks, Fall Harvest. That was exactly the right thing to say then. It shows that you are accepting your new status with more ease than most do.”

“Uh… good?”

“Very good,” she said. “Now, come along. I will show you to Causality’s personal dominion; she knows we’re coming.”

I nodded, and we vanished again.

“Wow,” Twilight breathed as she finished scribbling. “That was…”

“That was the beginning of my new life,” Fall said. “So to speak. I learned a lot from Causality… though I suspect some of the temperment I got from her is part of the reason why a lot of my fellow Adjuncts aren’t too happy with me most of the time.”

“Only part?” Starlight raised an eyebrow.

“The other part ties in with why I’m just Reaper of Alicorns now and not Reaper for all ponies,” Fall said. “I’ll get to that eventually.”

Seeing the eight mortals looking at him rather intently, he leaned back, and continued.