DINKY DOO, the mailmare's daughter—blank-flanked, magicless, maladjusted and adrift. This benighted child was recently administered a test of magical potential by Princess Luna. The results surprised even the ancient princess, who told Dinky that while further testing is needed, her special gifts may end up lying in the field of...necromancy.

(C.C)

ART OF THE DEAD

(To "Art of the Dress" by Daniel Ingram, in S1E14, "Suited for Success." After "Putting it Together" by Stephen Sondheim in Sunday in the Park with George.)

Some troubled weeks later, Dinky dreams that she's in her very own workshop--a cluttered, muculent, split-level affair adjoining the Ponyville graveyard....

D: <sings>

Piece by piece, stitching it together.

Second chance! Got to find a stiffer upper lip.

Hoping you don't mind your brother's femur;

It's the perfect ball joint for your hip!

Using my own custom nomenclature,

Following a pattern wrought by nature—

I'm making your new body!

Yard by yard, digging up the goodies.

Jaw, neckline; Don't you know a stitch in time saves nine?

Making something perfect to entice

You out of eternal paradise.

Or if not you, somepony else

Eager to escape their private hells!

I'm stitching you together!

Necromancy's easy

When you let your mores go!

Let 'em all call me sleazy.

I'm doing a job that makes most ponies queasy!

Custom job... my own pet project.

Griffon's arm—way beyond the pale of "Do no harm."

Waking up the work of putrid cells--

Little more than magic-powered shells,

Still you must admit the feeling lingers:

Wouldn't this be easier with fingers?

I'm doing what's forbidden!

Chunk by chunk, thread by thread!

Pelvis, loin, barrel, head

Splice by splice, shred by shred

Go where most fear to tread--

And that's the art of the dead!!

As the music continues, Princess Luna, Monarch of Equestria, Keeper of the Clocks, Tamer of the Titans, Musa Suprema Scientifica and Living Embodiment of the Night, reveals herself from the shadows, having witnessed the whole display.

D: Oh. You're here.

L: Knowest thou, Dinky? In many ways, this bizarre and staggeringly perilous path upon which thee find thyself reminds us of our own unceasing trials.

D: You have trials?

L: Protecting our ponies from themselves, in short. To rule a country heavily is exhausting and, for large enough populations, impossible. Yet to rule lightly—that is what takes real finesse. The latter comes naturally to my sister.

D: But I guess it's not up your alley?

L: Oh, it is, if for no reason other than that it must be. But what for Celestia is merely natural is for myself an art.

D: An art. I can see that. But what has it got to do with necromancy?

L: The parallel lies clear to my mind. By thy art, Dinky Doo, thou approach the ideal of immortality—an ideal which, incidentally, would curry utter disaster were it ever reached. My sister and I, contrariwise, possess immortality, and in all our actions seek to harness its dangerous implications. By cultivating pony civilization, we tie ourselves down to the eddies of time, thus taming our immortal natures and preserving sanity for ourselves and our ponies. Thou reach from the mortal life toward the immortal one, while we do the opposite; in this way, beloved Dinky, we together fashion bridges.

<sings>

Year by year, stitching it together...

Dangers loom, even if the risk is fairly slight.

War is never far from the horizon;

Neither are catastrophe or blight.

Even gentle ponies bear a madness

Mirrored in their royal rulers' might.

We're keeping it together.

D: So every pony's life is a constant struggle against madness? Like, a bleeding core inside of all of us?

L: That bleeding core is thy heart, Dinky Doo. Blood is necessary for passion.

D: Great. No way out.

L: <sings>

Age by age

Change on change!

My sister and I watch the

World grow strange.

A republic puts us in a bind;

Despotism atrophies the mind!

Keeping veto power seems unkind

But we just can't leave you all behind!

Autocracy's easy,

But only if you're depraved.

Rulership takes precision:

To stave off doom while retaining one's vision.

D: So why bother? Why not just go do your own thing and let us ponies go to hell in a haybasket?

L: Because you -are- our thing, Dinky Doo. Controlling the patterns of the heavens, shaping the processes of land and light and fire and water, stretching the boundaries of form and matter—over sufficient centuries, even these things grow tiring. The only lasting source of edification for immortal beings is the mortal sphere, however much some may deny it. Civilization is a tapestry of minds, and minds are a tapestry of truths and falsehoods, and it is in such moving tapestries that intricacy lies.

D: But isn't a screwed up civilization just as interesting as a happy one? Doesn't the tapestry move more when it's at war with its neighbors, or with itself?

L: One might think so, but nay. We have seen far too much chaos of that stripe, and must confess the differences grow trivial.

D: So you're stuck ruling over a bunch of us idiot ponies too stupid to keep from destroying each other?

L: That is the perpetual quandary of royalty, yes. But Dinky, do not underestimate the force of intellect or will required to attain and keep stability. Over the course of generations, while hampered by limited and local perspectives, it hardly takes idiocy to let things slip a bit. Ponies are actually remarkably clever.

D: So even the smartest creatures are yoked to death?

L: As this very workshop proves. As a people, we love life, yet are drawn indirectly to death time and time again. This is an inevitable consequence of an unfortunate truth: Deep down, very few of us truly know what we desire.

As the ceiling turns to a sparkling dusk sky, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony descend into the workshop on a swirling silver ribbon. They trot to and fro, singing:

PP: All we ever want is independence!

RD: All we really like is what we know.

TS: Gotta balance clemency with power...

A: Or the whole kaboodle may go sour!

R: Ruling out a written constutitution,

F: Will there ever be a sound solution?

L: Working to preserve a pony nation;

Remember, it's all administration!

D&L: Life and death, war and peace.

D: You will not find release.

L: Would that blood were not shed.

D: I use quinine instead!

D&L: And that's the art of the dead!!

The two figures rise to their hindlegs and exalt the sky, now a glittering sea of starry sprinkles against a hazy black. Dinky sees herself from above; as she rises, the scene swirls, and the last notes are played, and then, abruptly—

—She wakes in a dirt cheap hostel in Canterlot, surrounded by vagrants and wrapped in an old blanket. With a sudden sickness in her stomach, she remembers her fears about her friend Solar Eclipse and others, currently searching for the missing Luna in Tartarus.

Dinky rolls over, closes her eyes tightly, and wonders what the hell is wrong with her subconscious.