I paced back and forth in the family room, glancing at the clock again. 5:36. Still almost half an hour too early. I groaned again.
“Mom, can’t you go there and wait?” asked Levanta from her reading chair. She’d said she didn’t want to go to the meeting, since I’d tell her everything anyway. Stupid adolescence.
“Well- I- I guess,” I mumbed. I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t there already. Maybe I thought waiting there would just make things worse.
“Then can you please leave?” Levanta’s wings twitched as she turned a page. “Your pacing is getting on my nerves.”
Ordinarily, I’d have said she was getting mouthy, but that was pretty accurate. “Fine. Leaving,” I said. “You sure you don’t want to come?”
Levanta’s wings twitched again. “Pretty sure.”
“Alright. See you in… two hours, I think.”
Even though I was early, and in spite of its size, the town square was packed. Ponies milled about, talking with each other, eating some snack, trying to get out of the crowd to get some space. “Small” towns could still hold a lot of ponies. I was a bit disappointed with myself that I still barely recognized anypony. Once this was all over, I needed to take a break and get out. Time passed, and as six o’clock approached, I craned my head, looking for-
“Hey! Swan!” And then Cascadia popped out of the crowd in front of me. “Homeguard and Hailey are also here, in case you can’t see them.” She looked around at the crowd and grinned. “Told you ponies would listen to me, didn’t I?”
In spite of the situation, I couldn’t deny that all these ponies being here raised my spirits quite a bit. Maybe we’d be able to convince the town, after all. “Yeah. Good. You need my help at all?”
“No thanks,” Cascadia said, “I know what I’m going to say and I got this. They’re more likely to listen to me than to you, anyway.”
“Just let me know if you need clarification on anything.”
Cascadia nodded, pushed her way through the crowd, and climbed onto the wall of the fountain in the center of the square. Her horn flashed and she cleared her throat, magic amplifying her voice well beyond its usual levels. All the conversation died down almost immediately and the crowd quickly turned to face her. At least she had presence.
“Delta,” she said, “I’ve gathered you all here today to warn you of a great danger. Now, this is going to sound crazy, but you need to trust me on this. Okay?” The crowd rumbled in varying degrees of assent. “Some time ago, the monster that plagued our town for moons was discovered and killed. It was a vampire.”
For a second, silence. Then the crowd broke out in a hubbub. I heard ponies shouting in panic, laughing derisively, whispering in shock, every reaction you could imagine. Cascadia gave them about ten seconds to get it out of their systems, then loosed off a magical bang. “Quiet down!” she yelled. Bang bang.
The crowd quieted down, but they weren’t quite silent. Ponies were still muttering to each other. “I promise you,” said Cascadia, “I am not kidding. The monster really was a vampire. Think about it: the animals were all completely drained of blood and killing ponies in a town like this would’ve attracted too much attention. Honestly, what else could it be?” Some of the ponies rumbled in skeptical affirmation. “But that’s not all. We’ve also got two vampires in Delta right now. Upstanding citizens who’ve sworn off pony blood and use animal blood to replace it. Ponies who, even though I know they’re vampires, I would trust with my life. Homeguard?”
I’d always known Homeguard could move quickly, but aside from the night River was killed, I’d never seen it. When Homeguard climbed onto the fountain, it was so fast it was like he simply blurred into existence. I twitched, and I wasn’t the only one. A lot of the crowd flinched as well. I suspected that I was the only one who noticed how nervous Homeguard looked, or how much his legs were twitching.
“As you all know, this is Homeguard,” said Cascadia. Homeguard grinned halfheartedly and waved. “As you all don’t know, he’s a vampire. He’s been a vampire since long before he came here, and he’s never — never — drunk a pony’s blood. I don’t think he ever will. The same can be said of Hailey: vampire for a long time, never drunk pony blood. They’re still the same ponies you’ve known for years, just vampires as well. Now, just in case you’re not convinced on the existence of vampires…” Cascadia scooped up a battered spear from the rim of the fountain and said to Homeguard, “Ready?”
Homeguard pursed his lips for half a second before replying. “Ready.”
Cascadia immediately ran Homeguard through.
Screams, yells from the crowd. Several of the closer ones moved toward the fountain, only to draw back when Homeguard didn’t fall down or even react. He just stood there with the spear in his chest, looking like he was standing in the sun on a lazy Sunday.
“You feel alright?” Cascadia asked, stepping back.
Homeguard shrugged. “Eh. I am somewhat bored, I suppose.” He turned in a circle, the spear swishing through the air. “I am not in any sort of pain.”
“See?” Cascadia said to the crowd. “Vampire. And still a vital citizen.” She wrenched the spear out. There wasn’t any blood, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. “Unfortunately, while he and Hailey chose to stay moral, others didn’t. Yes, others,” she said loudly over the mutters that had just broken out again. “Neither Homeguard nor Hailey was the monster that was killing our animals. When the monster decided he’d had enough and went to snack on a pony here, Homeguard and Hailey killed him to prevent that. Unfortunately, there are other vampires who don’t like that. And they’re petty bastards, so…”
Cascadia took a deep breath. “In about five days, twenty-five vampires and their pet chimera are going to descend on Delta and kill everyone here. Just because they can.”
Silence fell over the horrorstruck crowd.
“But!” Cascadia said. “We can prepare. Vampires have weaknesses. The classic stake, for example. These particular vampires also view ponies as beneath them, so they won’t be expecting us to fight back so hard. And Homeguard and Hailey both have abilities that can help us. This is their home, too. Now, I’m hardly an expert, so I’m open to suggestions, but here’s what I think we can do…”
Cascadia laid out a basic plan for securing the town. Not being combat-minded, I soon had trouble following it. The biggest buildings would be reinforced to shelter those who wouldn’t fight and keep vampires from breaking in. Every scrap of wood more than six inches long and less than three inches wide would be sharpened into a stake. Those who could use repeating crossbows would spend the coming days training on them as hard they could. Traps, spells, weaknesses, funneling, sandbags, pitfalls, chokepoints, it all dissolved into a blur for me. But it seemed to convince the ponies of Delta; a few still looked skeptical, but they were far outnumbered by the ones who were nodding along with Cascadia.
The sky was turning orange by the time Cascadia was done. She finished up by saying, “And that’s all the plans I have for tonight. We’ll all start work in earnest tomorrow, sunup.” She said it in the casual way of somepony who expects something to happen because that something not happening was patently ludicrous. “However, if you want to begin tonight, be back here in an hour. I’ll have some better plans drawn up by then.” She stomped twice on the wall of the fountain. “Dismissed.”
Gradually, the crowd began to disperse. Clusters coalesced as ponies gathered together, talking anxiously with one another. I didn’t hear much skepticism, thankfully. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw some bits change hooves two or three times. Had ponies been betting on what the monster would be? And who the heck had guessed ‘vampires’? Somepony who thought outside the box, I guess.
I didn’t stick around long. I wondered if Homeguard or Cascadia would want to talk to me, but although they noticed me, they didn’t try to get to me. Of course, this was all out of my hooves; I had nothing helpful to add to Cascadia’s plan yet. Maybe the chimera, but I still needed to know the general shape of how Cascadia was preparing the town. After spending several lonely minutes in the square, I headed for home. Maybe Levanta wanted to help. Maybe she was involved in something else.
I opened the front door and jumped. Levanta was right on the other side, hovering so her eye level was a foot above mine, ears folded back, and glaring daggers at me. I’d never, never seen her so pissed. In all honesty, she looked ready to punch me. Before I could say anything, Levanta screamed, “What the fudge, Mom?!”
I jumped again. What the heck was she talking about? “I, I’m sorry, I don’t-”
“I found and talked to Bay-”
My heart nearly stopped. “You what?!” But she had to. I’d never mentioned Bay’s name to her. And was it that surprising, anyway? “You could’ve-”
“-and do you have any frigging idea of what you’re putting her through?!”
“Levanta, calm down and stop yelling.” I wiped my face off.
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you!” Levanta forcefully jabbed me in the nose. “You’re not-”
“Levanta.”
When she heard my Mom Voice, a tiny meep escaped Levanta. She immediately folded her wings and dropped to the floor, but she kept glaring fiercely at me. She took several deep breaths and said, “Okay. I went out and found Bay during the meeting. Yeah, yeah, ground me later. But, Mom, she’s- This is the second worst thing that’s happened to her in the past week. Have you seen her? She-”
“It’s for her own good. She needs to-”
“F- For her own good? How? She’s locked up! I-”
“Levanta, Homeguard says-”
“Mom, she’s fourteen, she can’t go back to her old life, she’s surrounded by strangers in a strange town, she’s in constant pain if vampirization is anything like I think it is, she barely knows what’s happening to her, and the parts she does know terrify her. She needs a friend, but everyone’s treating her like a fucking time bomb! She’s in a sunblasted cage for Celestia’s sake!”
Levanta’s words tore at me; I didn’t want to leave Bay alone, I didn’t want to treat her like an animal. But, as Homeguard said, her instincts were uncontrol-
Homeguard said a lot of things that I thought were unsubstantiated. Why should this be any different? I’d already smashed one of his rules to pieces without experiencing the fallout he was so sure would happen; why not try another one? “Alright,” I said. “I’ll talk to him about it.” I thought for an instant. Did I have anything to do? Not yet, no. “Right now, even.” Might as well push my luck while he was stressed. I turned for the door, then fired a glance at Levanta. “I’d say ‘stay here, I’ll be back’, but you’re just going to bolt the moment I’m out of sight, right?”
Levanta coughed and looked away, rubbing a hoof against her leg. “W-well, uh…”
“Just stay safe, okay? Remember that it might seem cruel, but at the same time, Homeguard might have a point. He’s not mean, he’s pragmatic.”
Back and forth between my house and Homeguard’s. Back and forth and back and forth and over and over and over. How often had I done that in the past week? I did my usual thing while walking and thought, trying to compose a solid argument in favor of letting Levanta sit and talk with Bay. At first, it was just, “She’s scared and needs a friend.” But as I kept thinking, I picked at smaller facts and pragmatism began losing its grip. The more I thought, the less of a reason I saw to keep Bay locked up at all. When you looked at the facts, a lot of Homeguard’s arguments fell a tad flat, at least in relation to Bay.
When I reached the cottage, I took a quick look at the cage. Bay was curled up in the center, trying to sleep. Yes, that confirmed my train of thought. Levanta was nowhere to be seen, but she was probably in the trees, waiting for me to go inside. I didn’t worry about that too much.
Inside the cottage, Hailey was nowhere to be seen, Cascadia was sketching something out on the coffee table and muttering to herself, and Homeguard was silently doing a circuit of the room. I wondered if he remembered Bay existed at all or if he’d just gotten so caught up in everything that she’d slipped his mind. It was hard to blame him for the second; I probably wouldn’t have remembered. He glanced up and nodded at me when I entered the room.
I motioned for him to come over. When he was at my side, I cleared my throat. “Levanta thinks the cage is too much for Bay to take alone and wants to try to talk with her, and I think that she can be let out comple-”
I was expecting it to come to the extent that I was wondering if I was beginning to read his mind. “No,” he said. “You may have been correct about revealing the truth about myself and Hailey, but you shall not-”
“Can you ple-”
“The very idea is utterly irrespon-”
“I’ve thought it through and I rea-”
“You cannot imagine the pain your daughter’s scent woul-”
“But she’s barely moved and she has dr-”
“In the early days, the thirst is uncontrollable! A fledgling will attempt to set upon the nearest ponies and drain them dry! This is not mere fearmongering, I have experienced it firsthoof! When I was-”
“Didn’t you go for days with no blood when you were first turned?”
Homeguard’s protests stopped dead. He looked off into the distance, his mouth slightly open.
“And you still kept your mind together enough to run off when you were free. But Bay? She has a source of food now. Maybe she has less control, but she’s still been sitting in the center of that cage without trying to escape. Give her a chance. Let her get used to the smell. She needs a friend.”
Maybe the smashing of his assumptions on how ponies would react to vampires had done something to him, finally getting through his thick skull. Homeguard only hesitated for a second before saying, “Very well. So long as Hailey or myself is around, we can allow Bay and Levanta to converse.” He clicked his tongue and looked up. “As a matter of fact, if Bay feels she can control herself, we may be able to let Bay out in Levanta’s presence.”
“Alright. I’ll tell Levanta, but she’s probably already ignoring me.”
Homeguard glanced at the door and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes,” he muttered. “She is.”
Indeed, when we went back outside, Levanta was sitting next to the cage, already deep in conversation with Bay. Homeguard’s allegations of uncontrollability to the contrary, Bay was still sitting in the center, with her cap back. Levanta said, “So what do you like to do? Or- did you like to do? Sorry.”
“N-no, you’re- ’S fine.” Bay turned away from Levanta, took a deep breath, and turned back. “I- I whittled. I liked to carve cats.” She turned her flank towards us; her cutie mark was of a knife cutting a thin slice of wood from a larger piece.
“Really?” asked Levanta. “Cool. How did-”
“You don’t need to pretend it’s cool,” mumbled Bay.
“No, really!” said Levanta. She put her face up to the bars. “That’s neat! I could never do it. I just got into drawing and I think that’s hard. Whittling is really cool.”
Homeguard cleared his throat. “Levanta?”
“So does, like, the kind of wood matter?” asked Levanta, not even twitching at the sound of her name. “Are some-”
“The ‘stupid effing cage’ is what I would like to talk about,” said Homeguard.
That got a reaction. Levanta squeaked, jumped, and turned in midair to face Homeguard when she landed. Bay scurried to the edge of the cage and whispered in Levanta’s ear, “Yeah. He does that a lot.”
“I… I admit, we may have been overreacting,” said Homeguard. “Hailey and I were undergoing a great deal of stress and did not fully consider the situation.”
I cupped a hoof around my mouth and stage-whispered to Levanta, “He does that a lot, too.”
Homeguard snorted. “So while containing Bay in a cage might be necessary, it also might be a bit much.” He turned to Bay. “Tell me. Do you think you could control yourself if I were to let you out? While I shall be around to prevent events from getting out of hoof, I would prefer it to not be necessary. And in spite of my… skills, I do not know how complete your control is. I can only hear the truth from you.”
Bay blinked, bit her lip, and looked away. “I… I think I can. I, I’m not thirsty anymore, so she… doesn’t… smell like…” She turned back, her eyes wide and hopeful. “Please? I… I promise I won’t-”
“No, I do not think you will,” said Homeguard. He walked to the door, pulled the pole up, and motioned Bay out of the cage.
Bay took one step towards the door. Two steps. Three. She stuck her head out of the cage and sniffed. She shivered, but said, “Yeah. I can handle this.” She walked in front of Levanta and grinned awkwardly. “Um. H-hi.”
“Hey. You feel fine?”
“I- I think so.” Bay swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was more resolute. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Y’know…” Levanta grinned and opened her wings. “We can-”
“Please restrain yourself from flying unless Hailey is the one watching you,” Homeguard said quickly. “Unless you have the utmost confidence in your capacity to control yourself, Bay.”
“I…” Bay looked up, rustled her wings. “We… Let’s stay on the ground for now, o-okay?”
“Aw.” But Levanta closed her wings without further argument. “So can you show me some whittling?”
“I- I’d need a knife. And, and it needs to be the right kind of-”
“Goldurn it!” Hailey dropped from the sky, grinning like a loon. “For some straaaaange reason, I just haaaaappened to stop by the arts and crafts store on the way home and just haaaaappened to buy this knife! And doing that made me so frustrated that I just haaaaappened to also pick up some blocks of wood! And now I just don’t know what to do with them!” She flicked a bag at Bay and winked not-at-all discreetly at me.
Bay promptly dug through the bag. For the first time since I’d seen her, she smiled. “Y-yeah! This’ll be great. I can show you everything. Come on!” She and Levanta ran inside the cottage.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them,” whispered Hailey, and followed them inside.
“At least somepony’s happy,” I said.
“Your family certainly has a way of upsetting the status quo,” said Homeguard. “I would never have considered that option had you not been here.”
“I’m just looking out for ponies, and anyway, Levanta put me on that particular path to begin with.” I nodded back towards town. “Come on. We’ve got a city to fortify.”