//------------------------------//
// 7. Mother 
// Story: Vampiolence 
// by ObabScribbler 
//------------------------------//





7. Mother





The basement door opened on a scene that made Vinyl’s breath catch. Octavia sat on the work table. Many times before Vinyl had entered this room to find her sat at that table, head bent over some new composition, or fixing her bow. Now she sat on it in a way she never would of her own volition. Voron sat next to her, hind legs idly swinging like a colt on a playground. He had one foreleg thrown around Octavia’s shoulders in a grotesque parody of an embrace, though it was equally clear he was helping her stay upright.

“Ah, girls!” he beamed. “So glad you’re back. Octavia and I were just getting to know each other a little better. It was so boring while you were gone. We had a nice little chat, didn’t we Octy?”

You don’t get to shorten her name, Vinyl thought reflexively. You don’t have that right.

Octavia didn’t reply. Her eyes were fixed on Vinyl in an expression that made her stomach lurch. Vinyl strove to find the right word to describe it but the weight of her marefriend’s stare made all rational thought vanish. What in Celestia’s name had Voron done to her while they’d been gone? What else could he put her through?

No, that was a bad avenue of thought to wander down; the kind filled with broken glass, muggers and blood on the floor.

“You didn’t tell me before that her last name is Philharmonica, Vanelda,” Voron crooned. “I saw it on one of those sheets of paper over there.” He gestured to the torn shreds of Octavia’s compositions. “It certainly does add a new dimension to this whole situation. You were always one for being governed by your emotions, my dear. Indeed, I think I understand now why you left us. Guilt does make so much more sense than ‘falling in love with a mortal’.” He rolled his eyes.

Oh no …

Suddenly the word for Octavia’s expression landed in her mind like a corpse falling off a cliff: betrayal. 

“We knew a Lady Philharmonica once, did we not, my dear?” Voron went on with false obliviousness. Every word cut into Vinyl like a knife. “Melodia, her name was. Such a pretty name. I told her as much. It made her giggle. She had a beautiful voice. Well, opera singers do, don’t they? It was a shame, what happened to her. I quite liked her. And as it turns out, if our courtship had turned out differently, Octavia would have been my step-daughter.” He smiled, showing off his fangs. “In a technical sense, at least.”

Colours splashed across Vinyl’s mind; lurid snatches of the past. Red spray on the wall. A broken body in a green dress. The pale orange of a cat’s fur. A brown wooden door opening because she had forgotten to lock it. The wide, wide purple of a mare’s eyes and the silvery sound of her abruptly ended scream –

“Shut up!” Vinyl growled. 

“You never told her what happened to her mother, did you, Vanelda?” 

Octavia’s unwavering stare was not the glassy one Lady Philharmonica had worn as Vinyl drank from her still-warm body, but it was just as baleful. 

“Shut up!” 

Voron laughed. “You never told her how you were responsible for her dea-”

“I wasn’t! You killed her, not me!”

“But if you had been a good girl and done as Daddy told you, then she wouldn’t have had to die. It is your fault, my dear – and you know it, or you would have told her and you would not be shouting at me so uncouthly now. And besides.” Fangs. Always fangs and a sharp, handsome smile. “You drank her blood, not I. In all our courtship, I never supped from her. I kissed her, danced with her, laughed with her and made love to her, but only you drank her blood.”

Vinyl’s hooves trembled so much that she fumbled her grip on the oilskin-wrapped spellbook. It hit the floor with a dull thud. She left it there, pinned by Octavia’s stare like a butterfly on a corkboard.

I’m sorry, she wanted to say. I wanted to tell you the truth but I couldn’t. 

She remembered holding Octavia in bed after she had woken from nightmares of her mother. The murder had been a big news story when it happened. Authorities had found Melodia Philharmonica in a lake, bloated and half-eaten by fish by the time she was finally located. Suicide, the inquest decided. Grief over her husband, coupled with a dwindling bank account as her concerts dried up, had motivated a final, fatal plunge off the Canterlot waterfall. 

For months afterwards, Octavia had been hounded by press who wanted an inside scoop on how her fortunes had turned from riches to rags. A father who had jumped from his study window when his investments went bad, a mother who had leaped off a cliff – what would she jump from, the media wondered? The voracious way they talked of her private grief made Vinyl sick to her stomach.

Octavia had been pulled out of her expensive boarding school and sent to stay with poorer, untitled relatives who raised her on a diet of music and love until she was old enough to play her way into a scholarship at Trottingham University. Her life had not been ecstatically happy, but she had at least overcome her heartache and given herself purpose and fulfilment again.

Yet now that old grief was written large across her face. Vinyl ached to hold her and caress away her pain like she had after those nightmares. Her forelegs twitched but stayed where they were.

“Please …” Octavia rasped. “He’s a monster. I know, but … tell me he’s lying, Vinyl. Tell me it’s not true … that you didn’t know anything about … a-about …”

Vinyl wanted to vomit. Acid clung to the back of her throat. “I … I …”

“Now, now, now, my dear, we are not to lie. Good girls do not lie,” Voron chirped. “Dear Melodia was quite honest with me. She liked the idea of me being your new father figure. She thought I was … what word did she use? Ah, yes: solid. She thought I would be a good influence and bring some stability back into your life.” He smiled. “She really did only want what was best for you. Too bad your lover took it all away. Don’t you hate her for that? I love her because she’s my dear, dear daughter, but I could understand you hating her for murdering your mother.”

“Please, Vinyl. I understand you keeping … what you are … what you were from me. It’s all too incredible to be believed. I would have laughed … thought it was all some big joke of yours … until tonight. But this … Vinyl, please tell me he’s lying. Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with my mother’s death.”

Vinyl swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No …” Tears slid down Octavia’s cheeks. “This is all … you … you lied to me … about everything … it was all … please … no…” She closed her eyes, who whole chest convulsing around a sob. “Mummy …”

“Tavi, please – I didn’t kill her, I swear! He’s lying about that!”

“And what about the rest? Did you drink her … sweet Celestia, her blood?”

“Tavi, you saw what I was like when we first met. Don’t you remember? I couldn’t disobey him when he gave me a direct order. I couldn’t.”

“I remember. I thought … I thought we had … a connection. That you could confide in me about what you’d been through. I thought you’d told me all your secrets about … about the things your family did to you. I thought I knew you better than anypony else in the world.” Octavia shut her eyes. “But it turns out I don’t know you at all.”

Voron threw back his head and laughed. “Trouble in paradise, my dear? Mayhap you are reconsidering your choice to give up your powers for a life with this mare? A mare who now hates you for what you did?” He was clearly savouring every word. “You have made many mistakes, Vanelda.” His voice dropped to a tender croon. “My Vanelda. My own dear, sweet daughter. But I am not a monster. I am willing to forgive you and bring you back into the fold. All you have to do is undo your curse and you can come home. You cannot stay here anymore.” He stroked Octavia’s mane, pulling a lock of silky black hair up to sniff. “Not with her. Not after this.”

“Leave her alone.” Vinyl unwrapped the oilskin with swift movements. “She’s been through enough.” I’ve put her through enough.

“She has been through rather a lot, yes,” Voron said pensively. “Poor thing. So sad. So broken. She did not believe me when I informed her about her mother. She had faith in you. Ah, if only you were a good girl, my dear, none of this would have happened.”

Your fault. All your fault, said an old voice in the back of Vinyl’s mind. It was her own voice, muffled by her own hooves as her memory self curled into a bloody ball on the floor next to Lady Philharmonica’s body and tried not to bring back up all the blood she had drunk. Everything is your fault, you stupid, stupid –
 
The book seemed to vibrate when her bare hoof touched it. Dark magics crackled along its edges, or so it seemed to Vinyl. It was as ugly now as it had been the day she took it from an antiquities dealer in the Canterlot back-streets a decade ago. 

“First you let Tavi go. Then I try to undo the curse.” 

“Try to?” Voron didn’t sound happy at her wording.

“I told you, this isn’t a simple spell; it’s latticed curses.” At his expression she explained, “I’ve cast the same curse lots of times with slightly different wording. Each casting laid over the top of the last to form … well, it’s like a magical net to hold back my … powers. Curses alone are rare and difficult to cast. Some ponies don’t think they even exist because they’re so complicated that unicorns all but completely stopped using them centuries ago. It may take a long time for me to be able to undo it all and Tavi needs medical attention now.”

Voron tilted his head to one side as if considering her request. “No, I don’t think so. First you undo the curse, then I release her. You need to hold up your end of this before I fulfil my part, Vanelda.”

Vinyl ground her molars together. She knew the likelihood of him releasing Octavia after he got what he wanted. “Let her go first.”

“No, and if you speak to me like that again, I will pluck out Miss Philharmonica’s eyes. Now do as you are told, Vanelda.” He ran a fang down the side of Octavia’s face, drawing a thin line of red a hairsbreadth from the corner of her eye. “Or I shall not use my hooves.”

“If you take her eyes, can I have them?” Vellum asked. “I like the way they pop when you tuck them into your cheek and then bite down.”

Vinyl swallowed and opened the book. 





Professor Orchid’s office was a hodgepodge place filled with knickknacks, wall-hangings and bookshelves. These were not enough to contain all the books she kept, however, and it was normal to have to step over great piles of them to get from the door to her desk. A wind-chime hanging from the curtain rail had been taped to the glass, which made a bulge against the perpetually drawn curtains.
 
“Gift from one of my philosophy students who was very into ‘natural energies’,” Professor Orchid explained the first time she saw Vanelda looking at it. “Lovely girl. Had a thing about trees and singin’ like a clogged drainpipe. It’d be rude to throw it out, but darn it if’n that chimin’ don’t drive me batty.”
 
“You teach philosophy too?” Vanelda had asked.
 
“I ain’t no one trick pony. I reckon nopony is, no matter their cutie marks. Half of ‘em just need to realise that. Now, less gabbin’, more studyin’.”
 
The tutorials were more than Vanelda could have hoped for. It turned out that she had a natural propensity for magic. Professor Orchid refused to call it a talent. Whatever it was called, she helped Vanelda take the fragments of magic she knew and build on those, strengthening her baseline knowledge until she was just as adept as any unicorn who had attended magic school their whole lives.
 
“I ain’t never seen anypony as quick a study as you, Vee,” Professor Orchid said at the end of their fourth lesson.
 
“Um, thank you?” Vanelda almost reverently placed her notes into her saddlebag.
 
“You’re welcome. You’ve absorbed so much in the past month, I swear it’s like you’re a pony-shaped sponge – if’n a sponge could recall Ponythagorus’s Theorum of Energy Dependence to twelve decimal places off the top of her head. You must do nuthin’ but read an’ practise your magic at home.” 
 
Vanelda hesitated before replying, “Uh, something like that. I try to study as much as I can.” 
 
Mostly in trees on warm nights, or in whatever store was open all night if it was raining. Her hunts had become perfunctory and quick, the better to allow her nights filled with learning. Voron was romancing one mare after another, which gave Vellum and Vanelda ample time to themselves and his distraction meant he was no delving too deeply into what his daughters were up to as long as they were not breaking his rules and brought him the blood he needed. 
 
The nights spent hunting with her sister were hardest. The extra freedom had allowed Vellum’s cruel streak free reign, and since she had decided to hunt alone more often than not, Vanelda had not been there to stop it growing. She was shocked the first time Vellum took her to Shady Meadows, a retirement home so large it was almost another village within Trottingham. She had expected Vellum to slip in, bite one or two old ponies while they were sleeping, and slip out again. Instead, Vellum pinned down an ancient mare in her bed, revelling in her frightened, weak struggles before drinking from her.
 
“Because of where I bite them, the staff just think it’s another case of anaemia,” she explained as they dashed away through the night. “Sometimes I listen at the window when the old farts are trying to explain about the ghost filly in their room. It’s hilarious! Nopony believes them, of course. It’s best when they start crying. I have to stop myself from laughing in case I fall off the roof!”
 
“Why would you do that?”
 
“Duh – because I can’t keep my grip when I’m holding my stomach.”
 
“No, why torture them? Why not just get them while they’re asleep?”
 
“Because that’s boring! Don’t worry – I don’t do this every night. I make sure there’s no pattern so nopony can figure out the ‘ghost filly’ is real. I won’t jeopardise our stay in Trottingham. I like it here. Don’t you?”
 
“Yes,” Vanelda agreed. “I do.”
 
“I’ve never seen Daddy so satisfied. The mares here are practically falling over each other to court him! I hope we get to stay here for months and months and months!”
 
“Me too.”
 
Months would mean more tutorials and more evening classes. It was fragile, but Vanelda felt actual happiness budding inside her at the prospect.
 
Her thoughts were cut short by Professor Orchid’s question.
 
“Vee, you’ve been comin’ here for a month now. You know that I’m a pony who notices things. An’ … I’ve been noticin’ certain things about you. Certain … tells.” She spoke slowly, almost hesitantly, and in a tone Vanelda had never heard from her before.
 
“Tells?” Cold washed through Vanelda. Had she let something slip? Come to a tutorial with blood on her lips perhaps? She always cleaned herself so thoroughly after feeding! Something else then? Had Professor Orchid guessed her true nature? Inadvertently, she took a step backwards, towards the door.
 
“Don’t you go boltin’ on me now.” Professor Orchid leaned forward in her swivel chair. It creaked with age. “Vee, level with me please. I’ve been very accomodatin’, I think you’ll agree.”
 
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Vanelda nodded.
 
“You mentioned your father a few times. Is he ..?” She seemed to choose her words carefully. “Does he … hurt you?”
 
“Wh-what?”
 
“You’re scared of him.” She didn’t say it like a question, but as a fact. “An’ it’s clear he has a rather large say in how you live your life. That much was obvious from the first time I talked to you. But since then, it has become clearer an’ clearer to this ol’ mare that there’s more to it than just an overprotective daddy.”
 
Vanelda’s breathing quickened. 
 
“I’m concerned about you, Vee. Is your mother –?”
 
“My mother’s dead,” she blurted.
 
Professor Orchid blinked. “Oh.” She blinked several more times before asking, “Do you … have any other family?”
 
“No. Yes. No. I …” She should run. She should run and never come back. But Professor Orchid was watching her with such concern, and she had already been so kind … “I have a younger sister.”
 
“Does your father hurt her?”
 
Slowly, Vanelda shook her head. “He … doesn’t need to. She does as she’s told.” She closed her eyes. “She’s a lot like him. M-more than me.”
 
“I see.”
 
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t possibly see. 
 
“I-I need to go now –”
 
“Vee, wait.” Professor Orchid did not reach out to stop her. She didn’t even raise her voice. Yet something in her tone made Vanelda stay. “Please. I’m not here to judge you. I want to help, if I can.”
 
“Nopony can help me.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right. You’ve helped me. All this. Learning magic … it … it helps. My father … he isn’t a unicorn. Neither is my sister. I never learned. I … never went to school. We move a lot. I can’t tell him I’m learning from you or … or he might make us move again. Sooner than we would otherwise. A-and I love magic. I love …” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “You’re going to tell me to run away from him, but I can’t.”
 
“Not in those words. I’d advise you that there are a number of agencies who could help you leave him, if you’d be willing to –”
 
“No!”
 
“Okay, okay, no need to shout,” Professor Orchid said gently. 
 
“You don’t understand! You think it’s simple, but it’s not! I can’t just leave him! He’d find me in a heartbeat!”
 
“That’s not –”
 
“It is true! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Vanelda snapped. She realised she was panting like she had been galloping for hours. “He’ll never let me leave. I’m his daughter. I belong to him.”
 
“No, you don’t.” Professor Orchid was firm. “You belong to yourself.”
 
“That’s easy for you to say! You don’t know what my life is like!”
 
“I might do.” The older mare leaned back, pressing her forehooves together beneath her chin. “I grew up on a farm in what could affectionately be called the middle o’ nowhere. Things were tough, but my Pappy was a stallion who didn’t give up once he’d set his mind to sumthin’. That’s how he caught my Momma’s eye, even though she was a unicorn an’ he was an earth pony with little enough coin to his name. She was loyal to her husband – went against her family’s wishes in marryin’ him an’ stayed out there even when things turned sour for the farm. Each bad harvest, though, she asked to move someplace else, where they didn’t have to whittle a livin’ from earth that hadn’t seen a pegasus fly over in decades. When me an’ my brothers arrived, she asked even more, but he was a stubborn ol’ coot. Time came when things were so tough that we could either move out or settle to dyin’ where we lived. He got the love o’ the bottle. Mooma got the love o’ his backhoof. When she died, he needed new targets. I was the eldest. Wouldn’t let him touch my brothers. Eventually my Momma’s brother came to visit. Soon as he realised what we goin’ on, he offered to get me outta there. I’ll admit, I was scared Pappy’d come after me too. Seemed like the only way to get out from under his hoof was to die like Momma did. Uncle Wheatfield had to convince me that wouldn’t happen. I took my brothers an’ I ain’t never looked back. Got me a job, went to night school, tried to make sumthin’ of my life. Took a long, long time, but I did it.” She fixed soft eyes on Vanelda. “It can be done, Vee. I requires help, but it can be done. You don’t gotta live in fear your whole entire life.”
 
Vanelda’s eyes felt hot and prickly. She was rooted to the spot. 
 
“So I guess maybe I do know what you’re feelin’ right now, at least a lil’ bit,” Professor Orchid went on. 
 
Vanelda opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. 
 
“Vee?”
 
She shook her head. “I … I have to go.”
 
Professor Orchid looked sad. “All right. Will you be back?”
 
“I … I …” 
 
“Like I said, I just want to help, but if’n you’re not ready yet, I can wait. I’ll see you at class this week?”
 
Vanelda nodded, turned tail and ran.
 
Saturday nights on campus were quieter than one might expect. Most students were still recovering from the hangovers from Friday night and so spent Saturdays nursing headaches and drinking nothing but water. As such, the campus was not densely populated even in early evening. Vanelda galloped away from the Starswirl building, instinctively pressing herself into shadows, even though there was almost nopony around to see her. 
 
Her mind whirled. She couldn’t even think of leaving Daddy. It was ludicrous. Professor orchid meant well, but all she had done was jumble Vanelda all up inside. She wanted to scream with frustration that her own situation couldn’t be resolved by some kindly uncle who would whisk her away and make all her dreams come true.
 
She heard the voices before she smelled the curious mix of cheap cologne and antiseptic. The combination wrenched her from her own thoughts. The voices were both aggressive but had not devolved into full-blown yelling, which lent their conversation a hissing, snakelike quality. 
 
“Leave me alone, you creep!”
 
Vanelda slowed. She knew that voice. 
 
“I will if you say it.”
 
“Not on your life! You can threaten all you want, Bass Note: I’m not quitting the orchestra just so you can have your place back.”
 
Bass Note? Vanelda recognised the name. 
 
“It’s my rightful place and you know it! Now my cast is off there’s no reason I can’t have it back!”
 
“Other than I earned it fair and square and you were banned for the rest of the year. You’ll have to wait until next year and audition for it like everypony else.”
 
“Next year? Next year!?” Bass Note’s voice cracked and his pitch sky-rocketed. “Of all the bloody cheek from a guttersnipe like you!”
 
“Bog off, you revolting windbag.”
 
“You shouldn’t even be at this university! You’re only here because the admissions committee felt sorry for you and Dean Blackthorn knew your mum!”
 
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother! I earned my scholarship fair and square. I didn’t have to ask anyone to pay for my education like some ponies who have more money than sense – or talent.”
 
Vanelda drew closer to the alleyway between two buildings that housed the argument. Her hoof-falls were light as snow. She remembered the grey pony with the dark braids who played cello in the orchestra. She always played with her eyes closed – something the conductor often reprimanded her for, though he could not fault her performances. Right now she sounded furious as a wet cat. 
 
“You know your problem, Octavia?” Bass Note harangued. “You don’t know your place. Maybe once upon a time you could have put on airs and graces and pretended like you were better than me, but not anymore. You’re the last Philharmonica and you’re a nothing and a no-one, and that’s all you’ll ever be until the day you jump off a high place like your parents.”
 
The female voice sucked in air in a ragged gasp. Vanelda did too. The name chimed in her memory like a knell.
 
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
 
“Aw, did I make you cry? Life’s tough. Your surname doesn’t mean squat anymore and neither do you, you talentless hack.”
 
“You … absolute … arghh!” The mare vented her frustration in a yell.
 
“Hey, shhhh!” Bass Note cautioned. “Don’t be so loud.”
 
“Loud? Loud!? You say things like that to me and then you tell me to be quiet?”
 
“Shut up!”
 
“No! I’m tired of putting up with your guff, Bass Note. This ends now.”
 
“Huh?”
 
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that you broke your leg, I’m sorry that you couldn’t keep playing cello and they replaced you with me, I’m sorry I’m such a challenge to your identity by just bloody well existing and I’m sorry that you’re such a vicious, small-minded, misogynistic bully that you can’t just accept change gracefully and count your blessings like the rest of us do instead of constantly, constantly lashing out at everyone else and using their own personal nightmares and pain to punish them for your own diminished feelings of self-worth!” 
 
The shocked silence that followed was punctuated by panting from her outburst.
 
“Are we done now? Because I have to get to rehearsal.” 
 
Footsteps. A noise that could have been a growl from somepony unused to growling. Hoof on flesh. A whooshing exhalation. 
 
“You bitch! Nopony speaks to me like that! Do you hear me? Certainly nopony like you!”
 
Vanelda was moving before she had time to stop herself. She flowed from the shadows. To the untrained observer, it might have seemed like a headlong rush, but another hunter would have admired the economy of movement. Bass Note didn’t know what had hit him. He met the ground with a meaty thump.
 
Only then did she come back to herself and turn around. She knew who she would see. 
 
The pretty grey cellist sat slumped against the wall, unconscious. Blood ran down the side of her head. A patch of red on the wall signalled what had happened. The smell of blood swirled in the air, powerful and heady. Vanelda felt the pressure of her fangs lengthening and the familiar pulsing sensation behind her eyes. It would be so easy to bent and drink from both of them. They were both out cold. They would never know. 
 
She shook the thought away and tamped down on her bloodlust. Ignoring Bass Note, she scooped the grey mare onto her back and took off at a gallop back the way she had come. 
 
Professor Orchid opened her office door. She had saddlebags on her back and a key in a bubble of telekinesis beside her, clearly just about to leave. “Vee? What’s – sweet Celestia.”
 
“Please, help,” Vanelda begged. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
 
“What happened?”
 
“Some stallion called Bass Note kicked her into a brick wall.”
 
Professor Orchid’s expression grew hard. “You shouldn’t have moved her, but it’s a little late for that. Lay her on the couch. I’ll fetch a doctor.” She ran down the hallway before Vanelda could protest.
 
The couch wasn’t really built for comfort. There were no cushions, so instead Vanelda bundled up a shawl she found on the back of a chair and put it under the grey mare’s head. 
 
No. She wasn’t called ‘the grey mare’. Bass Note had called her Octavia. Now that she knew, Vanelda could see the resemblance to Lady Philharmonica clearly in the fine bone structure and grey coat. The stain of blood on her fur looked obscenely familiar too. Vanelda reached out to wipe it away but only succeeded in smearing it further.
 
“Damn it.”
 
She paused. Was that her voice? It sounded so odd; like she was about to cry. Come to think of it, her eyes felt tingly. She had assumed it was from her bloodlust but given that Professor Orchid hadn’t run screaming, she knew she hadn’t gone full red. 
 
A bulb of water plopped off her nose.
 
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Vanelda wiped hastily at her face, making a pinkish mess as the blood on her hoof mixed with the tears on her cheeks. “Damn … it …”
 
“Mrrf. Whu…?”
 
She stiffened.
 
“Huh?” Large purple eyes fluttered open to stare groggily around. “Where ‘m I..?”
 
Vanelda sniffed and cleared her throat to clear the thickness. “Don’t get up. You had … an accident,” she settled on. “You hit your head. You’re in Professor Orchid’s office.”
 
“I’m where?” Despite the instruction, Octavia tried to lever herself upright. She fell back with a groan. “My head … it feels like it’s going to explode. How did I get here?”
 
“I brought you. I was passing by when you got hurt.”
 
Octavia’s eyes snapped open from their pained scrunch. “Bass Note!”
 
“He’s not important right now.”
 
“He kicked me! He kicked me when I wasn’t looking! I – ow!” She clutched her side. “I think … maybe he broke a rib … sweet Celestia, this hurts.”
 
“Lay still.”
 
“You … I know you. You’re that mare who always stays behind after Professor Orchid’s evening class.”
 
“Yes.”
 
“I don’t’ … know your name … nggg, oh Celestia, this hurts so much ...”
 
“My name isn’t important. Just lay still until the doctor gets here.”
 
As if on cue, the door opened and Professor Orchid ushered in a blue stallion carrying a medical bag. Vanelda stepped aside, allowing him access. Professor Orchid departed once more to give campus security Bass Note’s description. Though she knew she was expected to stay, Vanelda slipped out after her while both Octavia and the doctor were occupied.
 
She blended into the shadows like she was part of them, flowing along rooftops and clinging impossibly to buildings until she reached the spot where she had left Bass Note. He was gone, but evidence of his departure lingered. She took a moment to separate the freshest scents, discarding her own and Octavia’s. 
 
Tracking him was foal’s play. He was limping along a pathway towards the halls of residence, making slow progress and favouring one hind leg. The sight of him made something flare inside her. It burned hot, spiralling outwards through her veins. She let the change take her. Fangs indented her lower lip. Her eyes prickled as the whites darkened and an iridescent white glow blossomed around her pupils. Strength flowed into her muscles beyond even what she already possessed. Her mane began to drift upwards as if caught in the draught from an invisible air vent. She had caught sight of herself before in glass, mirrors and the surfaces of water. She knew how eerie she looked when she went full red. 
 
Bass Note did not scream when she darted past so fast she was barely a blur. The intent was to make him think he had tripped and head-butted the wall he was running beside. She dragged his limp form up a tree. She did not drink him dry, but sucked enough blood that he would be even more woozy and confused when he woke. Then she draped him over a branch, chose the foreleg that had so recently been in a cast and positioned it across a fork in the tree’s limbs. 
 
In slumber, he looked a lot younger. It was a funny thing she had often noticed about ponies at rest. Even Vellum’s face took on a more innocent quality when she slept. Vanelda had never seen Voron sleep. She wondered whether he looked young and innocent too.
 
She brought her hoof down hard on Bass Note’s foreleg. It snapped, bone bursting through flesh, snapping sinew and muscle. Where her hoof carried on its arc became a red mess. A chunk of meat flopped free completely, slopping to the ground below. Bass Note stirred, pain bringing him half out of unconsciousness. It would hurt far, far more when he came around properly, but for now he would have only vague recollections and impressions of what was going on.  
 
His wordless noises became a wail as Vanelda pushed him out of the tree. She didn’t care if he broke more bones when he struck the floor. The fall would not kill him. His leg was ruined. He would never play cello again.
 
She vanished into the growing night.