//------------------------------//
// Let Me Go 
// Story: Haunting 
// by Ravenpuff 
//------------------------------//

“Thanks for the excellent meal.”

The young master nodded to his staff, as his empty plate was removed. The untouched plate removed from the side next to him. 

He got up, swiftly pulling back the chair as the young lady got up on her hooves. Her eyes briefly catching the eyes of the servant clearing the table, whom quickly looked away from those pleading wells that felt like they wanted to drown him in misery. Nopony looked her in the eyes in this house, except the young master. 

“Come now, dear!” His hoof on her cheek he turned her head to look at him. Smiling, staring deeply into her eyes with that look of his. Love. Want. Possession. 

“I see you are tired, we should retire for tonight.” Stated loud enough for the staff to know it as well, a few maids rushing ahead to ensure the master bedroom had been properly cleaned and prepared already. 

Resting against his form, he supported the young mare as they made the slow walk up the stairs. A walk taken so many times, he was prepared every time she would stumble, ready to keep her from falling and never slowed their walk further. 

Despite their unease, the staff still felt pity for the weak creature. No longer dancing carefree to the music playing, no longer chatting eagerly about any subject coming to mind. Her grace and energy sipped out of her in matter of months.

But nopony said or did anything. 

What do you say to a ghost not allowed to go? What can you do for a pony who had left this world and was never meant to be come back? 

The young master was more alive than ever, despite the unease hanging heavily through the mansion. So happy, always grinning at his beloved, seemingly only eye for her beauty and presence rather than the state she was in.

He had what he wanted.

Alone in their bedroom, the music still playing in the hallway although changed to something soft and more fitting the preparations of the quiet hours to come. 

“Please…”

He had closed the doors, his back to her, as the pleading began. Just like the night before. 

“You promised…”

Her voice so different. The musical notes he always saw in his head, like her voice was song itself captured in her every word, now gone. Raspy, a bit more high pitched despite its weakened state. 

“I do believe I didn’t let you change,” he said. For a moment his voice as cold as the eyes staring at the door. Turning around, his eyes thawed as he smirked at the creature before him.

“Let me go…”

“No,” was the simple answer.

“I can’t keep this form. Please…” she begged again. “I’m not her, just a memory.”

“Oh, but you are so much better than she ever was!” he cheered gleefully, the joy in his eyes sickening to the creature. “You. You are everything I tell you to be. Because you have to!”

Swallowing dryly black lips parted to continue the weak plea.

“I have to feed…”

“And do so!” he cheered. “That was the deal, was it not? I get my beloved mare back from the grave and you, you can feed all you want!”

The changeling shrunk back, the expensive dress hanging from its black form as it no longer fitted its figure. Starved and weakened, its eyes looking even bigger in its thinning face than when he first laid eyes on it. 

It looked so scared of him, yet this never made his grin fade. After all, she had looked at him that way too, back then. Before she found a way to escape him for good, slipping out of his hooves to where he could never reach her again. 

The creature trembled. It had thought he had simply been cautious. Protecting himself from being drained, to keep this charade going without losing his position as the one in control. It had been promised to freely feed, as long it played the role. Prepared with details on how this dead mare had looked and acted until he was satisfied with the performance to let it loose into the mansion, to replace this supposedly love of his life with no details on how he had lost her.

Now it stared at him, starved and weak with a haunting look in its blue eyes. 

Seeing the same cold void with no love in its heart, since its first arrival at the mansion.