“Hey Diggs, what do you know about a group of kind of insect looking ponies?”
Deep Digger blinked. The question had come right out of nowhere as she and Sun stood together in an elevator in the hotel where Twilight Sparkle’s friends were waiting. She knew about the changelings of course. Nopony could deny their existence since the Canterlot wedding fiasco. The fact that Sun had encountered them though…
“Well, they’re called changelings,” she answered after a moment. “They’re a race of shapeshifting creatures that feed off of love energy to sustain themselves. For a while they were shrouded in myth and rumor until they and their queen tried to take over Canterlot.”
A wry smile played across Sun’s muzzle. “Cripes. Even your vampires are candy coated. Do you have any idea how easier my existence would be if I could feed off of something esoteric like love?”
“Maybe...I’m curious where you encountered them though.”
“Basement of the hospital I took you too.”
Digger raised an eyebrow. “What were you doing in the basement of the hospital?”
“...Picking up some food to go.”
That took a moment to register. “...You were stealing blood?” Digger hissed after she made the connection.
Sun fixed her with a deadpan stare. “How is that any worse than taking blood from living ponies? This way there’s a lesser chance of someone getting hurt.”
“But what if somepony needs a transfusion?”
“And what if I drink too deep and put somepony into the hospital in the first place? Like I actually did!” Sun snapped.
Digger’s ears drooped one hoof reaching to the spot on her neck where she had felt Sun’s fangs pierce her flesh. It was easy to forget that despite her unassuming appearance, that the mare standing next to her carried a curse that made her very dangerous. All of a sudden riding up a building in a small metal box with her felt much more foolish than it had been a minute ago.
Sun picked up on her nervousness and sighed, reaching over to drape a leathery wing across Digger’s withers. “Look Diggs, I’m sorry. But my unlife is a running mass of little compromises to survive another night. That’s...that’s why I’m counting on you and that lavender nerd of yours.”
“No pressure then,” Digger said as the elevator doors dinged open. “So, what were the changelings doing down there anyway?”
“Trying to replace a doctor,” Sun said as she stepped into the hallway. “The love comment gave me the missing piece of the puzzle. You can probably soak up a whole lot of the stuff being the doctor that everyone likes.”
“What did you do to them.”
“Drove em off.”
Digger opted to not walk further down that line of questioning and headed down the hallway instead. It wasn’t long before she came to the Twilight’s room.
“Here we are.”
Sun eyed the door like it was a raging manticore for a moment before sighing and knocking. “Here goes nothing.”
- - - -
Sun really wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the friends of a princess. The white coated unicorn that answered the door somehow managed to still catch her on the back foot though. Perhaps it was the long eyelashes that Sun was pretty sure were fake. Perhaps it was the level to which her mane and coat were perfectly maintained, far beyond anything Sun thought was possible for a species lacking fingers. Or maybe it was the way she answered the door with the kind of perfectly cheerful voice that reminded Sun of every drama club member she knew in high school. Then again, perhaps it was the way she smelled of freshly poured champagne, bubbly and effervescent.
“Oh! Welcome back darling,” she said to Deep Digger before turning her attention to Sun. There was a slight shift in her smile. It was subtle and hard to pick up, an easy thing to miss unless one had spent a lot of time dealing with duplicitous vampire elders. “And you must be Sun. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Sun glanced at Digger with a raised eyebrow. Digger shrugged back.
“I had to tell her.”
“And people wonder why I have trust issues,” Sun muttered.
“Do come in, dear. Let’s talk.”
Sun slunk into the hotel room behind the prissy white pony. Her tail twitched with aggravation at the fact Digger spilled her secret to more than the one pony she had given her permission to, but there wasn’t much to do about it at this point.
I need allies. Calm down Sun.
Yet, another surprise was waiting for her inside the room. A familiar yellow pegasus sitting on one of the beds.
“Fluttershy?”
She smiled back from behind her pink curtains of hair. “Hello Sunny. Or Sun, I suppose.”
“You’re friends with Twilight then?” Sun asked, helping herself to a seat on the other bed.
Fluttershy nodded. “For a few years now. We met-”
Sun frowned. “Saving the world, or so I’ve been told. I still find the whole idea of doing that with friendship a little suspect.”
“I suppose that if one wanted to be technical, our bonds of friendship allowed us to claim ancient artifacts that let us save the world,” Rarity said. She took one of the sitting chairs in the room, while Deep Digger took the other. “Now, Miss Digger has told us some of your curse. But I would like to know a bit more about yourself. It’s not everyday that one meets somepony from ancient times.”
There was a certain logic to Rarity’s statement. If friendship and the magic thereof was the goal, then starting with small talk was the logical beginning.
“Well...I was born in a human city by the name of San Francisco…”
- - - -
It had been a long time since Twilight had been so engrossed in a book.
It felt like with every page she turned, she was stepping deeper into a hidden world, and that with every word she read she was descending further into some Tartarian abyss of monsters and magic the likes of which she had never dreamed of before. In fact, if she hadn’t just spoken to one of those creatures her first response would have been to dismiss most of this book’s contents out of hoof. As she turned another page, the paper crackling slightly under the grip of her magic, she stopped upon a leering picture of King Sombra. King Sombra and his wicked looking fangs. It seemed that Sombra might have been even more ancient than she first realized.
The magic scribbles in the book were probably the most confusing set of arcane formula she had read since Starswirl’s incomplete spell. They were rambling in their nature, wandering down possible explanations for the vampire curse only to abandon them once it was clear that they weren’t going anywhere. There were some repeating themes though. Always the schools of life, time and entropy magic. Life. Time. Entropy. Entropy. Time. Life.
From what she had sussed out from both the book and Deep Digger’s own efforts in breaking the spell, the nature of the curse kept Sun Shang locked in a naturally state of entropy. Her life force was suppressed and she was locked in the state she was in at the time of her “death”.
“At least until Deep Digger tried her spell,” she muttered to herself, beginning to pace the length of the room. “It was enough to bypass the curse at least long enough to make her a pony. ...But not a unicorn.”
That pointed to the curse having enough of an active presence to twist the nature of Digger’s efforts.
“Just overriding it won’t be enough. ...Transference maybe?”
The thought had popped into her head out of the blue, but the more she considered it, the more it seemed like a possible angle to take. Fluttershy. She had been cursed her own way through the transference of the essence of a vampire fruit bat into her.
“Maybe with the Stare and my magic? We could try and transfer the curse into a harmless item that could be easily disposed of...”
It was possible. Maybe. She’d have to do some calculations.
A heavy pounding echoed through the building, making Twilight jump. Looking towards the bedroom door, she blinked. No. It wasn’t coming from that door. Somepony was knocking on the front door of the building, as hard as they possibly could.
Trotting to the window, she pulled the curtains aside and peered out. The angle of the building made it hard to make out the front door, but she could just make out the hind ends of a pair of ponies.
As another round of knocking hammered against the front door, Twilight frowned and resolutely trotted downstairs. Fluttering Posey was at the door, peering through the peephole and nervously biting her lip.
“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked.
“It’s Sugar Shine,” Fluttering answered. “And a pony that looks like a lawyer.”
Twilight’s ears twitched at the sound of a soft gasp coming from behind her. Turning, she saw Seabreeze quavering in the doorway to the dining room. Her foals were hiding behind her legs, peering at the front door like Cerberus himself was on the other side.
“Open up in there!” A muffled stallion’s voice shouted. “I demand to talk to my wife!”
Sunny Days looked back down the hall and waved a hoof at Seabreeze. She nodded and stepped backwards into the dining room, closing its door behind her. Seabreeze then opened the door, just a crack.
“I’m sorry sir but this is a refuge. If your wife doesn’t want to talk to you, she doesn’t have to.”
“Horse apples! You can’t keep her from me!”
“Sugar, let me handle this,” a second stallion’s voice cut in. “Miss Fluttering Posey? My client is prepared to bring this issue to court if you do not allow him entry to speak with his wife.”
Twilight glowered. She knew a blatant attempt at intimidation when she heard it. She trotted to the door, gently placing a wing on Fluttering’s back. “Fluttering, can I help?”
Fluttering bit her lip again, nervousness etched in every line of her face. But she nodded and took a step back, falling into place beside her orthros. For his part, Fang resolutely stared at the door and growled, low and rumbling. It was with a little more force than was strictly necessary that Twilight undid the chain and threw the door open.
Sugar Shine was every inch the picture of a rich pony. As white coated as the sugar cubes he sold (such to the point where it was hard to make out his sugar cube cutie-mark), his pale blonde mane was swept back into a flamboyant pompadour. A pale pink suit that unquestionably cost a great many bits perfectly framed a slightly pudgy figure that spoke to sampling his own products a little too much. He would have struck a kindly, gentlestallion-ish figure if not for the anger that burned in his deep blue eyes. Though it was an anger that fled when he realized who he was looking at.
“...Princess Sparkle?”
Twilight nodded, glancing over at mister Shine’s legal council. The dark brown stallion was far more scruffy looking than his client. His suit was patched in a few places and his coal black mane was stricken with a distinct case of bedhead. If anything, he seemed more the fly by night type of laywer.
Funny, Twilight thought. I’d expect a CEO to have a better class of lawyer on his side.
“Might I ask what the Princess of Friendship is doing slumming it in a place like this?” Sugar Shine asked.
“Last time I checked this is a shelter, not a tenement building,” Twilight answered, keeping her tone even. “And that is private business of my own. But I have to agree with Fluttering. Seabreeze doesn’t have to talk to you if she doesn’t want to.”
Sugar Shine snorted. “My wife is something of a drama queen. I will not have her hiding here, slandering me to everypony she can twist the ear of!”
“Funny, she hasn’t tried to twist my ear yet.”
“With all due respect Princess, you are the princess of friendship,” Sugar Shine almost spat. “You are disproportionately inclined to believe any sob story that comes your way so that you can fix whatever petty little problems have crept into their lives. Our personal domestic issues are far beyond your skills and you certainly aren’t an expert when it comes to the law. I want to speak to my wife. Now.”
Twilight’s ears pulled flat against her skull as a familiar flood of aggravation welled up in her chest. Sugar Shine’s dismissal burned her to her core. She may have been Equestria’s newest princess, but that didn’t mean she was a foal to be dismissed and shoved aside! Equestria’s well being and the well being of its ponies was just as much her responsibility as it was Celestia’s!
She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. When she exhaled, she put on her brightest, most princessy smile she could, even while fixing Sugar Shine with a smouldering glare of anger.
“I am sorry that you find my domain so worthy of dismissal Mister Shine!” she said, imitating the sweet tone of her mentor. “However, I couldn’t help but notice that your lawyer just tried to intimidate Fluttering with a false court claim!”
“False?” Sugar sputtered. “I’ll have you know-”
“I’ll have you know that Fluttering’s rights to run this shelter are protected by law. I know this because Princess Celestia told me about them during one of our lessons together. Unless you have some manner of proof that your wife was coerced into coming here, your lawyer is blowing a lot of hot air!”
She and Celestia discussed many things during their student/teacher relationship and now Twilight felt her mind drifting back to a story Celestia had once told her about a tricky round of negotiations with the griffin kingdoms.
“Now, while I could simple write the princess, informing her of your underhooved behavior, thusly dragging you and maybe your company into a legal quagmire that could last for years, that wouldn’t be very friendly, now would it? Instead, I’m willing to write all this off as a mistake made by a passionate pony and let you go back home to sleep your sudden stunning lack of judgement off!”
Princess Celestia had described the dual roles that a princess played in terms of a metaphor. That the nicest ruler had to have a core of strength to not back down in the face of bullies. To be a block of steel wrapped in the trappings of a silken cover.
Silk hiding steel. And right now, Twilight was feeling very steel like.
Sugar Shine opened his mouth to argue again when his lawyer shoved a hoof against his lips. “Our apologies princess,” he said, dipping his head slightly in a bow. “Perhaps we were a little hasty. My client just cares about Seabreeze very much. Please let her know that whenever she wants to talk, Sugar Shine’s door is open.”
Twilight nodded curtly. “I’ll pass on the message.”
The lawyer smiled back. “That’s all we ask. Hopefully, we won’t meet under these circumstances again...princess.”
With that, the pair turned and trotted off, Sugar Shine peering back at Twilight a few times with a fresh round of furious glares. Twilight didn’t leave her position in the doorway until they were both completely out of sight.
Why do I have a really bad feeling about them?
- - - -
“...that’s when I woke up, passed out in my friend’s bed with a golf club and Susan’s bra. And that’s how I learned to never drink absinthe again.”
Rarity blinked a few times. Fluttershy and Digger just stared at her. Sun shrugged back.
“Hey, it was my first concert at a club. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I didn’t find out it was illegal until after I woke up from my little hallucination trip. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
They all kept staring. Sun forced a sigh through her lungs. “Okay, it was stupid. But in my defense, I was still a freshman.”
It was Rarity who broke the silence with a little cough. “Well, I suppose one can be forgiven for a few youthful indiscretions. Though it was probably a good lesson to learn before you actually went into the field as a journalist.”
Sun allowed herself a small smile. “Heh...yeah. Though I suppose it all wound up pointless in the end. Becoming a vampire certainly pbut the breaks on that career path.”
Rarity tisked. “Please darling. There is no reason that career path has to have ended! Equestria has colleges and scholarships. We have newspapers. Stop thinking about your current condition as an endpoint and more of an...interruption. Once the curse is broken, I would insist that you pick up that path again!”
Despite the anger simmering under the skin that was the bane of her clan, Sun couldn't help but allow herself a chuckle. Rarity was a pure melodramatic queen of ham, who wouldn’t have been out of place in amongst the self- proclaimed artistes and posers of Clan Toreador. But there was a certain infectious charm in her positive attitude.
“I’ll admit, I’ve been so focused on just the idea of being human again that what I’d do after I pulled it off rarely entered my mind.”
She glanced down at her hooves with a slight frown. “Especially now. Unless we find some more humans hiding under a rock, I’ll be the last of my kind in this world. ...Fitting in should prove interesting.”
“You could stay that way I suppose,” Digger mused. “It’d make finding the right sized housing easier at least.”
Sun stuck out her tongue. “No offense Diggs, but I don’t really intend to stay this way. I’ve only been a quadruped for a few days now and I already am getting tired of not having hands...or fingers.”
Deep Digger chuckled back. “Then I have two words for you Sun. Little Minos. Hope you like pitas and gyros!”
“Ha! So long as it's not blood, I’ll be happy to eat anything!”
“Speaking of food, it is getting around dinner time. Perhaps we could continue this conversation over a bite?” Rarity asked.
A bite. Sun licked her lips, suddenly very aware of how good the three ponies in the room smelled to her. Fangs instinctively tried to push their way into being before she managed to tamp the desire to feed upon her allies back down.
“Sorry Rarity. I literally can’t eat food. And I think that hanging around a restaurant would only remind me of what I lost and probably make me hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.”
Rarity nervously licked her lips for a moment before sighing. “That’s...unfortunate. As is your nocturnal nature. It makes finding things to do as friends slightly difficult.”
“Well...just because you can’t eat doesn’t mean you can’t go to dinner,” Fluttershy said. “Sometimes, just spending time with other ponies is worth it. I don’t always like everything my friends do, but I try to spend time with them anyway.”
“Hey! I have an idea,” Digger said. “What about the show at the museum tomorrow night? I can pick up some more of my magic books while I’m there to help out Twilight and it’ll be a decent night of seeing a bit of pony history as well as an entertainer or two. I seem to remember that we booked a magician.”
Sun considered the idea. “That...doesn’t sound too bad actually. I’ll admit that I am legitimately curious about the history of your world. And I’m doubly curious about what a stage magician is like in a world with actual magic.”
“It is formal attire though,” Rarity mused as she rubbed her chin in thought. There was a new sparkle in her eyes now. One followed by a growing smile. A growing smile that made Sun feel like she was under a magnifying glass all of a sudden. “I do believe this calls for a makeover!”
“...What.”
“A makeover darling! I’ll make you a dress for the occasion, do your mane, help you do your makeup!” She squealed with joy, clapping her forehooves together. “I’ve never made a dress for a bat pony before! This will be a whole new challenge!”
Sun glanced over at Fluttershy. “Is she always like this?”
Fluttershy giggled back. “Sometimes, but it is her special talent. She’ll make you something really special.”
Sun could only watch as Rarity began to pull fabric, tape measure, needles and thread from the depths of her suitcase. They floated towards her, somehow in their own way just as dread inspiring as a rival vampire.
Ugh. I hate this Elysium shit, she thought, as Rarity went to work.
- - - -
“And the catering is ready? And the entertainment?”
Far Sight went over the details for tomorrow’s event for the third time that day, one of the junior registrars nodding with each tick marked off on the sheet. It seemed that despite the disruptions caused by the presence of a literal monster from the depths of Equestria’s past, the exhibit would go up on time.
Providing nothing else went wrong of course.
And just like that, I’ve probably jinxed it.
Almost as if he had summoned Discord himself with that thought, an angry chorus of knocks echoed against the the rear door. Which he heard all the way up in the main gallery.
“What fresh bout of chaos is this?” he groaned.
“T-think it could be the monster?” the registrar stammered.
“I don’t think that knocking is really the style of blood sucking monsters,” Far Sight sighed, shoving the list at her. “I’ll go see what it is.”
The knocking continued all the way down to the service entrance, growing louder and more insistent along the way. The service door was practically shaking when he finally arrived. So he threw it open with a frustrated shout.
“WHAT?”
He found himself almost muzzle to muzzle with Princess Luna. He froze, his brain completely locking up over the fact he had just shouted at one of Equestria’s co rulers. For her part, Princess Luna seemed unconcerned with his breach in etiquette simply peering down at him with a neutral expression.
“Greetings. I’m looking up for a pony named Far Sight. He requested help with an ancient beast of sorts?”
“Ahh...I..,” Far Sight stammered out a few times, before his mind managed to catch up to the reality of the situation. Princess Luna had actually read his letter! “Of course! Come in! I’m Far Sight.”
“Hmmm. Give me a moment if you please.”
Magic shimmered around her horn as a shimmering sphere of light appeared in the air next to him. Luna watched it and his reaction to it for a moment before dismissing the spell with a thought.
“Congratulations Far Sight. You have survived an encounter with a Kindred without being infected by their taint.”
“...A Kindred.”
“What I am about to tell you is a matter of highest secrecy. The monster that attacked you is hopefully the last of an ancient line. They can pass on their curses. You are lucky enough to have avoided that dark fate.”
Far Sight nervously licked his lips. “...It attacked one of my co-workers too. Could she-”
“I will have to check,” Luna curtly responded. “But for now, I wish to see the vessel this being was trapped in.”
“Of course Princess! Right this way!”
The sarcophagus remained in the examination room he and Digger had first dragged it to, now harmless and empty with its contents now stalking the streets of Manehattan. Princess Luna trotted neatly over to it, circling the mass of stone and looking over every inch of its construction and that of the iron chains still bolted to its frame. She casually, almost delicately, picked up one of the rune marked weights, giving it a dismissive glare before dropping it back to the floor with a loud clang.
“Ming Xiao, what have you done…”
“Who?”
“An old acquaintance of mine. …Have you had any visitors as of late? Of the non-blood sucking variety?”
“Well...we are having a visiting show tomorrow. A display of far eastern artifacts.”
“And who was your contact in arranging this show?”
“A kirin by the name of Radiant Dawn.”
Luna smiled and it was one of the most terrifying things Far Sight had seen in his life. A thin, vicious thing that carried a promise of violence with it.
“Very well. I will be paying this show a visit tomorrow. You will not speak a word of this to anypony, understood?”
“O-of course your highness. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with the crown’s business. But...you’re not going to cause trouble...are you?”
Luna’s smile grew wider. “On the contrary. I intend to solve a problem.”
- - - -
“Are you almost done?” Sun deadpanned.
Rarity hummed softly to herself as she measured the dress’ hem for what felt like a tenth time.
“Not quite. But we can take a break if you’re getting tired.”
Sun sighed. “Nah. I don’t really get tired anymore.”
“Well then, I suppose this cur-”
“Don’t you dare finish that fucking sentence,” Sun snarled, her anger spiking.
Rarity jerked back, her eyes wide. Sun sighed, squeezing her own shut as she shoved the building vampiric anger back into its box.
“I’m sorry. Just...I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because you don’t know, but as far as I’m concerned, this curse ruined my life. The things I’ve had to do since becoming a vampire…”
She trailed off, her eyes focusing on Fluttershy, if for no other reason than to look at something rather than Rarity. Fluttershy smiled back softly, placing a hoof on her side.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she almost whispered.
She couldn’t talk about it. She shouldn’t talk about it. Not when she was trying to get these ponies to trust her.
“...I’ve killed,” she muttered, unable to stop herself. “More than once.”
“I...see,” Rarity said. “Was it...an accident?”
“One was,” Digger answered. “The first feed. You told me about that.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t the only one Diggs. When you get dragged into vampire politics, bodies tend to pile up. Some were in self defense...others were poor bastards that wound up lower on the undead totem pole than me. A fair number were members of a rival vampire sect that hated mine. And a few more...well, those were personal.”
The room was deathly quiet for a few long minutes.
“Just how many have you killed?” Deep Digger eventually asked.
“Too many, Diggs. Too many. At a certain point, lashing out at the monsters around me became the only way I could see forward. And in the end, all it got me was a trip into a stone box and a one way passage to a world that barely makes any sense to me anymore. Right now...right now I’m just looking for a way out.”
She laughed, pressing a hoof to her forehead. “Shit. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this! Maybe I’ve been so used to secrets and lies that some honest to God kindness is making me sloppy!”
Any further rambling was cut off by Fluttershy who pulled her into warm embrace. Sun’s wings flared instinctively, the smell of her delicious blood filling her nostrils. The beast wanted to feed and it wanted to feed now!
“You poor thing,” Fluttershy said. Her voice was soft and motherly and her embrace was surprisingly strong for her soft appearance. “I...well...I kind of know what it's like to hurt those you care about. It’s not the same, I admit. But the important thing to know is that you’re not alone.”
As much as she wanted to bury her fangs into Fluttershy’s neck, Sun instead focused on her voice. That soft, sweet voice that was telling her that everything was going to be okay. The voice that sounded like it truly belived that the light was at the end of the tunnel. And inch by inch she shoved the vampire back into its box and just focused on the pony embracing her.
“...I’ve been alone for a very long time. It..would be nice to not be alone anymore.”
“Well then! Tomorrow night we shall all have an enjoyable night together,” Rarity declared. “And don’t worry Sun. There will be a way out of this.”
Sun allowed herself a small smile back at Rarity. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”