The immortal Sonata Dusk once believed she would never run out of time. But a strange encounter on a quiet back road will show her how precious life's moments truly are.
For on this night, Sonata meets Death himself.
* * *
An homage to Lordi's song-story "The Riff."
Thanks to Reia Hope for proofreading.
"The Ballad of Nasty Joe" is owned by the author, though he can't imagine why anyone would steal it.
Japanese Translation, by Haru.
Reviews:
Seattle's Angels
The Last Roundup
Titanium Dragon
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Chapters (1)
I don't know if you intended it but I'm going to pretend this is the Family Guy version of Death.
Fascinating. Death's nature intrigues me. What is he? How did he know her age? What is the driver, and how was he(?) created?
But even better is the passing mention of lost immortality. The sirens lived in the human world since the days of Star Swirl; their magic almost certainly had something to do with that. After getting disempowered by the Giant Friendship Energy Horse, are they now mortal? How do they deal with the knowledge that they have only decades left? Do they even realize it yet? Has Sonata just come to a horrible revelation that the others have yet to realize?
Well, come what may, she's making the most of however much time she has left. For realzies. Thank you for an excellent story.
5210007
It's probably for the best, given what can easily be interpreted by the ending.
Dat Fridge Horror. They weren't kidding, Voice -- you don't screw around, do you? I got my happy ending, but I had to pay for it.
Pretty good stuff, and double good on you for not having the taco meme run away with itself.
Hot damn you're good.
5210023
I know, right? I'm surprised no one else has tackled this angle yet.
5210026
When I saw you had read one of my stories, I immediately checked outside for airborne pigs.
I confess I was wondering if EqG content would get ol' Bookish D. to take a chance on a story by, well, me. You've chosen well, since this is the only story of mine so far with an unambiguously happy ending. I mean, if the ending hadn't been happy... yikes.
5210102
Aw shucks.
This was an impressive little story. Well done.
I had the feeling it was going to end up being something like that. Then, I've spent too much time reading things like American Gods.
Death by guitar solo and lack of seat belts. A fitting end.
I liked it, though; monsters preying on monsters is pretty good, and pretending to be Death is a great gig.
5210026
Man, this story's fridge horror is nothing compared to his other works.
You really should read The Writing On The Wall. It is one of if not the the best short horror story I've ever read.
"Death" was going to do terrible things to her to siphon her life energy, like make her his waifu and other ungodly things. She only escaped through luck and his inability to pick good friends (I mean who lets a headless man drive anyways?).
I enjoyed this have a thumbs up.
Holy crap, that plot twist! Didn't see that coming from miles away.
Not terribly eloquent tonight after a few days of being run ragged by work, but good stuff. Happy Halloween.
I have no idea what just happened, but I guess I liked it.
Unusually cheery for a Horse Voice story, at least in my opinion. It was awesome!
Wow. I love how, with your mastery over Sonata's character, what little of it there truly is, we really have no way of knowing what just happened. I love it.
Sooooo... Was that really Death?
Or something pretending to be him? 
Actually, I rather liked this. Good job?
5210793
5215794
Telling would spoil the mystery, would it not?
5215980
Good work.
Eh, fair enough.
That was really good.
It's also occurred to me that is the first story of yours that I've read. I feel like that was a problem I should have fixed much earlier.
5217894
I've seen you around for some time, and wondered when I might hear from you. Thanks for following!
Hmm. Living for millennia and not being brain-dead retarded would mean Adiago would have oodles and oodles of wealth invested somewhere, right? If she truly realizes she's almost out of time, what would she do? Start using mudane, mortal methods to capture the sources of Equestrian magic she knows about, or just try and burn her prison to the ground in an immortal's fit of rage?
The results for the contest are in!
http://www.fimfiction.net/group/204577/weekly-contests/thread/133034/contest-8-rainbow-rocks
All this time Sonata Dusk was too stupid to think about all of those whom she injured. Now, she had to think about it because she was nearly the victim. After over 3,000 years, she has had character development.
This started out in left field, and then went to, like, SPACE left field or something. What a ride.
It's a very deep and interesting story, for such a short one-shot. I did notice a few odd word choices, and indeed some mistakes in the writing (I.e."When Sonata had come to,) But overall, I could imagine her thoughts. Her ways of speaking seemed a bit contrasted to her thoughts, but the story was nicely executed, with some nice details and personally touching things... I find myself closer to the Equestria Girls and Rainbow Rocks, by writing my own comfort stories, slowly becoming more attached to the villains and their dark backstories, and I especially love it.
Also;
Open the gates and seize the day
Don't be afraid, and don't delay
Nothing can break us, no one can make us
give our rights away...
Arise and seize the day!
5242060
5242070
Actually, "come to" (past tense: "came to") is an expression meaning "regained consciousness".
Glad you liked it!
Oh, alright. I didn't understand it in the context. Thanks for clearing that up~
5215794
An impostor. Everyone knows the real Death ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
That was dark, yet strangely heartwarming. This story teaches a good moral, one I will now try to follow. Great work
5249882
How appropriate!
Hm. Quite interesting. This gives me an idea. Do you mind if I write an alternative version of this story?
5366237
Sure, as long as you credit me and include a link back to this story.
5366264
Any complaints?
This is on Equesrtia Daily, right?
5397759
Haha, yes.
Fuck me...
You're pretty good, Horse. You're pretty good.
5430699
Aw shucks.
5430804
It wasn't some pointless compliment. You're the best grimdark author on the site. It's just a fact.
5430822
Crazy good story, man. A character like Sonata realizing the inevitable futility of life and her own weakness as a mortal was a great idea for a story and really well written. Hope you do more stuff like this!
Well that was... Different.
.....COOL!
That didn't go the way I expected, especially since we appear to have an unreliable narrator. (But it's Sonata... can you really fault her for that?
)
The mental image I had as she said that made me crack up a bit.
Another good dark story from ya, albeit one with a bit of a moral and some laughs too. You've failed to disappoint me yet again! For shame!
5547407
And thank goodness for that! I sometimes wonder whether I'll run out of good ideas and lose the ability to surprise people, since my repertoire of themes and moods is actually rather limited. Guess it hasn't happened yet.
As always, thx for the feedback.
5902364
WHO THE HELL DOWNVOTED THIS.
Oh hey, I've read Long Live Sonata Dusk now! :D
Simply amazing you got to write more storysmwith the reaper in them man , not this reaper but death itself, you got some real talent
6097997
Perhaps, perhaps, but I'll never write a better Mr. Death story than Old Friends, which dampens my enthusiasm a bit.
Thx for reading!
I wrote a review of this story!
It can be found here.
5210307 Personally I'm more curious about how they managed to feed themselves over the ages, how much of a role would they have had in shaping or influencing various human conflicts? World War II would have been an absolute smorgasbord for them...
Wow, imagine if all of the sirens had an encounter with a Death-like thing and realize just how important (insert thing here) really means to them.
The eyes of the mighty are upon you, and they have spoken. Have a review, courtesy of The Best Authors.
You may read it here: (link)