//------------------------------// // Hide from the Vamponies // Story: Crazy, Clever and Cunning // by Fresnor //------------------------------// “It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a thestral around, you here for a while or just passing through?” She stops in surprise at my words, something in them not being what she expected. “Huh, didn’t expect no fancy unicorn to know what I was, not many know of us as anything but bat ponies or, my personal favorite, vamponies. Oh and to your question I’m just looking for a place to sleep before continuing on tonight.” I once again facehoof as she mentions being labeled as a vampony. “Ugh, that second one is probably why the town is hiding I’m guessing. Also seeing as I’m pretty much the resident undead expert nopony thought to stop me and let me know what was going on.” I think back to how Twilight’s friends stopped her from going to talk to Zecora when she first found out about her. “I can get you a place to sleep at my house if you want, as well as drag a couple ponies out to at least talk to you and stop this silliness. My name is Flarenza by the way, and if you are traveling on I’m assuming this is about the return of Princess Luna.” I chuckle as I actually get a jaw drop out of her this time at my knowledge of her kind. “Right, you are definitely no ordinary unicorn if you know that about my kind, the name is Umbra Rose and you are right, I’m heading towards Canterlot to join her majesties Night Guard. I’ll also take you up on your offer of that room as well, later though since I want to see how you plan on getting these other ponies out here.” I catch a mischievous glint in her eye, and I ponder the wisdom of introducing her to Rainbow Dash as I can see her personality is similar. I also note how her name fits well with her cutie mark, that of a rose being embraced by what looks like shadows. “Well the easy way would be to get what would probably be the only other pony in town to drag them all out here as this is the second time they’ve done this; first time was with a zebra.” She nods at this though frowns slightly. “The fun way on the other hoof,” she starts grinning at this as I raise my voice, “WOULD BE TO IMPLY THAT A CERTAIN RAINBOW MANED PEGASUS SHOULD REALLY GIVE UP ON THE WONDERBOLTS IF SHE CAN’T EVEN FACE A SINGLE PONY.” This gets an instant reaction from a nearby building, which happens to be Sugarcube Corner, so I didn’t really need to yell. “What!” The cyan pegasus bursts out the front door of the building and is up in my face in less than ten seconds. “Rainbow Dash isn’t scared of anypony, how dare you say that I am!” I just look over her shoulder to Umbra Rose and raise an eyebrow at her. She smirks and taps Rainbow Dash on the shoulder who turns around to come face-to-face with the fanged face. “Boo.” Rainbow Dash lets out one of the girliest shrieks I’ve ever heard from her before as she tries to flee back into the building. Unfortunately for her Applejack, hearing the shriek, was charging out at the same time causing the two to crash and collapse on the doorstep. Umbra Rose is laughing at the two while I just shake my head at how easily they were frightened, granted they haven’t seen some of the things that I had, but still. I notice Applebloom sneak out while her sister is tangled up and she moves to the side of Umbra Rose to get a closer look at her. It figures that the filly would be the brave one yet again. I turn to the thestral to introduce the two. “Well if these two can ever get themselves together, the pegasus is Rainbow Dash while the other one is Applejack. Normally they are two of the braver ponies in town, yet throw something pony-shaped at them they don’t recognize and the bravest one in town turns out to be little Applebloom there.” I point her out to the thestral who seems surprised to see her so close. “If things are like they were last time, there should at least be two or three more hiding in there. One definitely won’t come out unless she happens to be alone in the dark in there, but the other two are a bit easier.” She looks at me and cocks her head to the side. “Oh? And are they as entertaining as these two?” I just grin at her as I pull out one of the pies I had from my packs. “Well it depends on what you mean by entertaining, though one is just as likely to give you a headache as be entertaining. The question with her is how long it takes her appetite for pie to get over her fear off-“ I stop there as I feel something wet slide over a large portion of my hoof holding the pie causing me to sigh. Umbra Rose’s jaw drops, so I assume that the pink terror did her usual appear out of the impossible place trick. “Well as I was saying, the pink thing attached to my hoof would be Pinkie Pie, and will probably be your worst nightmare whenever she ends up at the palace.” Umbra Rose just nods at this, not taking her eyes off the pink pony. Pinkie Pie tries to say something in return, but her mouth is still filled with my hoof. I was about to continue, but I finally hear a voice I had been waiting a while for. “What in Equestria is going on out here? Why is everypony hiding inside their homes and why are-“ She stops for some reason and I turn to see that her eyes have locked onto Umbra Rose. I recognize the glint in her eyes as she recognizes what she is looking at so I try to forestall her going into her research mode. “Ahh Twilight, I was wondering when you would show up. This is Umbra Rose who is the reason why everypony is in hiding again, and yes she is a thestral. Umbra Rose, this is Twilight Sparkle, town librarian and student of Princess Celestia and probably the only other pony in town who knows anything about your kind.” The two nod to each other and Twilight is about to say something before she does a double take towards me. “Wait, what do you mean the reason why everypony is in hiding again?” She glares at her three friends who are currently visible as I explain. “Well I don’t know the full story, but I’m guessing it’s just like what happened with Zecora.” She groans at this before copying my earlier facehoofs. Pinkie Pie finally releases my hoof, which I shake the drool off of, and finally speaks. “What’s a thestral? Isn’t she a vampony?” She points at Umbra Rose before realizing where she is and hides behind Twilight. “Pinkie, there are no such things as vamponies,” she glares at me as I’m about to speak up causing me to just stick my tongue out at her, “make that there ‘might’ not be such a thing as vamponies. Even if she was one she wouldn’t be walking around outside in the sun! She is a thestral, one of the ponies descended from Princess Luna’s original Night Guard before she was banished.” As Twilight continues her explanation I look towards Umbra Rose who had started answering questions that Applebloom had been asking her. The two look to be getting along, though the thestral was occasionally glancing towards the others and grinning so she is obviously enjoying the chaos she is causing. Yeah, definitely like Rainbow Dash in that regard. I decide to interrupt everyone before things start to go all over the place. “Right, as nice a day as it is, I think we should move things to somewhere a bit more comfortable.” The rest nod at this and we all head inside Sugarcube Corner, me bringing up the rear with the still dazed ponies floating ahead of me. Inside we find Rarity and Fluttershy, as well as the remaining two Crusaders who are introduced to Umbra Rose by Twilight. Rarity seems a bit wary at first, though soon forgets herself as her designer side comes to the fore. Fluttershy on the other hand is still just as scared so I get close enough to whisper to her. “Remember what you said about Nightmare Moon, but with the thestrals everypony fear and hates them just from how they look and what they were.” I catch her eyes widen at my words and I see her nod slightly to me before she actually relaxes a bit. Seeing as Twilight is starting to monopolize the conversation I set a couple of my pies between everypony and pull Pinkie Pie to the side. “So Pinkie, what did you think about that pie you inhaled earlier?” I can partially guess as she whimpers as I pull her away from the ones one the table. Her expression goes back to normal when she turns towards me to answer. “Oh it’s pretty tasty yet I can’t tell what you used to make it. You have to give me the recipe for it sometime so I can share it with the whole town.” She grins at me as she bounces up in down in excitement. I just shake my head at how she can just switch gears like that. “Well would you believe that I didn’t use any fruit in making that?” I must have said that louder than I thought, as Pinkie Pie wasn’t the only one to react. “What!” bursts from the mouth of several of the gathered ponies at this admission. I just laugh as I pull out a stalk of rhubarb and levitate it onto the table near Twilight and Applejack who both look it over. On getting a good look at it Twilight quickly turns towards me. “I really hope you know what you are doing with this since parts of it are poisonous.” The rest stop eating their pie at her words and they start looking at each other with wide eyes. “Pff, of course, only the leaf of it contains the poison, unless they happen to get affected by frost. That does bring me to the reason I was going to search for you later, I wanted you to check out something I was testing to see if it worked correctly.” The others go back to eating warily as I levitate the vial I filled to Twilight. “This is something I made with the leaves. I’m hoping I made it correctly, it has been a while since I heard about how, because if I did then I can use it to keep many pests away from my garden.” Twilight takes the vial and examines it before putting it away to check later, Applejack on the other hand reacts differently to what I said. “You mean if that stuff works like ya want it can keep things away from yer crops?” She gets a thoughtful look on her face. “Huh, I may hafta get some of that from ya if it works. We’ve been having some problems with things damaging mah trees on the farm.” It’s a bit earlier than I planned, but I was planning to go to her about this eventually. “I’d be happy to make some for you if it does work. You’ll need to be careful with it though, it probably isn’t a good idea to actually get it on anything that you plan to have eaten.” She nods at this while I turn towards Applebloom. “Which reminds me, I was wondering if I could get some help from you sometime, Applebloom.” She jerks her hoof away from grabbing another slice of pie at my words before she turns to look at me. “You need mah help? What could I do that you’d need help with?” I carefully think about how to phrase this without giving away too much on the reason. “Well I’ve heard how you fixed up that old club house that your sister gave you, and since you were criticizing all the work I did on the things I made I was wondering if you could help fix up the things that were broken at my house.” She looks at me as she considers my request, and I catch a glimpse of Applejack smirking at me, probably knowing why I’m asking her sister. Eventually Applebloom responds, “Well I guess I could help you out with that, but you’ll have to do something for me as well.” I look at her, guessing where this is going. “Oh? And what would that be?” She just gives me a big grin before replying, “Get me some more of that pie!” All of the adults that were paying attention give out a chuckle at this as I levitate the last pie I had from my packs over to her and her friends. Conversations continue on from there until Umbra Rose starts yawning and she excuses herself to go sleep. I lead her back to my place outside of town and, after some comments from her about the size, show her to one of the spare rooms. Having nothing else planned for the day I head up to the attic for a few experiments. Having learned that the rubies only worked for blocking things of a physical nature I had been trying to reproduce a similar effect with magical based attacks. I had a hunch that I could get is to work with sapphires, both from information in my books as well as the color relation with rubies, and I was planning to get at least one finished today as proof. It took a while but I was eventually able to get the spell to lock in correctly and I added the gem to my bags, having started a habit of keeping at least one of each ready gem in case I needed to show them off to prospective buyers. From then until nightfall I proceeded to check up on the rest of my house and made sure to Crusader-proof things as much as possible, seeing as I doubt Applebloom will show up alone with pie being a possible reward. I eventually hear my visitor awaken from her sleep a bit after sunset. Seeing as it had been a while since I’ve met another thestral I cooked up something appropriate for her, which I afterwards remembered would be served by them before dawn and not after sunset. Shrugging I still bring the meal to the side room and invite her down when she is ready. She cocks her head at me oddly as she notices what I had made for her. “Yes I know this would be a normal dinner for you, I just forgot that I should have been serving you a breakfast now instead.” She lets out a laugh at this before taking a seat, “Well the fact that you even know this much about thestrals is surprising enough, where did you learn about us anyways?” I think back to when I met one for the first time. “Well ironically enough, I first met a thestral not long after escaping from some vamponies; in fact he was hunting them down so me drawing them out like that helped him a lot.” She looks at me as if asking if I’m joking before she bursts out laughing. “Dear Luna, that has to be one of the most hilarious ways to see the difference between us and those bloodsuckers. What were you doing in an area infested with them anyways?” I just shake my head before answering. “Just pure dumb luck. It was during the time when I traveled a lot and I just happened to choose a barn that was hiding their nest for the night. Of course setting the place on fire when they tried to attack me was probably a bad thing to do if I wanted them to leave me alone.” She just laughs at me some more for that which gives me time to ask my own questions. “Well how about you though, I know that your main reason for traveling is to join the Night Guard, but is there any reason other than that?” It takes her a moment to calm down from her laughing to answer. “Well that’s actually rather easy to answer as it’s directly connected to what you already seem to know. Now that Princess Luna is back many thestrals are starting to head back into the country. I was sent ahead by my village to pave the way for the rest as well as to find out how ponies will react to us.” I consider this as I think back on how she acted. “Well I don’t think you actually playing up the vampony rumors will help things much, you were lucky that there were ponies in town that knew better.” She focuses on her food as I say this before looking up with a grin. “Well if ponies are going to act like that anyways I might as well have a bit of fun with it, right?” I just shake my head at her cocky grin and wonder how the ponies in Canterlot are going to react to her and her kind. Eventually she prepares to head out but I stop her as I get an idea. “Before you leave, I have a couple things to give you that might help you out with getting into the Night Guard.” I levitate out a ruby and the newly made sapphire and give them to her. She looks at them oddly as if wondering why they would help her before voicing the question. “Uh thanks, but how are a couple of fancy rocks going to help me out with that?” In answer I just smirk before I fire a blast of force at her, catching her by surprise. After calming her down from her surprise I explain. “That would be how they will help, the blue one can block a small amount of magic until it needs to recharge for about an hour, while the red one can stop physical attacks of a certain force level before it needs the same recharge time.” “Well couldn’t you have just told me instead of giving me a heart attack!? Where did you get something like this anyways and why give them to me as they are obviously worth a lot?” I chuckle as I lead her outside, “Well just explaining it wouldn’t have been as fun which I thought you liked and as for where I got them from, well I make these myself with the sapphire being my newest creation.” I give her my one of my biggest grins possible before continuing. “As for why I’m giving them to you for free? Well if they catch enough attention from the other guards or even Princess Luna then I’ll have somepony at my door begging me for more, so consider yourself my walking advertisement for them.” I start laughing as she shakes her head with a grin at me before bidding me farewell and taking off towards Canterlot.