//------------------------------// // A Strange Haunt // Story: Good Boy // by Tums Festival //------------------------------// Octavia found herself in a twisting maze. One whose walls had the texture of the night sky, tiny pinpricks of glowing stars illuminating them. She wasn't sure why she was here, or exactly how she got here, but she just knew that seeking the way out was important. She shivered. The air was cold, and since she was now back in her regular pony form, she had no thick fur to protect her. It wasn't too bad, however, as a gentle hum caressed her ears, distracting her.  ‘The hum of infinity,’ she thought, not exactly knowing why. Suddenly, something interrupted it. A crackle behind her. She'd heard it before, but where? All she really could say was finding her way forward was now much more pressing. So, she did just that, navigating the twisting paths. Whenever she came upon a fork, crackles always seemed to come from one of her options, so naturally, she took the other. She never ran into a dead end via this strategy. Finally, she saw a new light ahead. It was grayer in hue than the light the stars were providing, but much more potent. Eagerly, she galloped towards it, though her vigor was quickly smashed when she reached it. It turned out to be a window. One which showed a vast, ruined cityscape from a lofty height, as if she herself was within a tall skyscraper. Most of the city was rubble, with the pieces of collapsed buildings littering the streets. They shared space with the twisted metal husks of vehicles she didn't recognize. There were a few other skyscrapers left standing - ones much taller than she had ever seen - but they were in decay, their windows long since shattered. ‘What… what is this? Where is this?’ She wanted to look around further, a morbid fascination coming to her, but before she could, a bright light suddenly appeared on the horizon, blinding her.  -- When it finally subsided, she found herself sitting up in her bed, sweat dripping from her forehead. She glanced at her hooves - yes, hooves now - illuminated by a gentle morning's light. 'What a weird dream,' she thought.  Honestly, it was the type that Princess Luna would usually make an appearance in. That was if she was still bothering with ponies of her condition. Though to be fair, she wasn't sure if the night princess wouldn't enter her dreams anymore or couldn't. Equally strange was that she could have sworn she had fallen asleep on her massage chair. Though then again, Vinyl might have had something to do with that.  And speaking of her... Before Octavia could ponder further, Vinyl's voice echoed through their house in an odd mix of sweetness and purposeful obnoxiousness. "Hey, wake up, princess!" she called. "We're having pancakes today!" A slight burning smell confirmed this, and Octavia cringed. Vinyl didn't usually cook breakfast, partially because normal food wouldn’t do much for her. Only when there was something to celebrate would she make the effort.  And she had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't like what it was about. -- “Gonna find that Horse Snake, Put em’ in a zoo. And when we get that business done? They’ll see our hearts are true!”  To say Vinyl was in a chipper mood would be an understatement. She was practically dancing around the kitchen, singing freestyle, as she served up two stacks of pancakes. Ones that were decorated with a look alike of their respective faces; smiling and in their monster forms, naturally. Well, not that Vinyl ever went out of her monster form. Unlike Octavia, she didn’t have the luxury of transforming at will (or against her will if she wasn’t drinking her potions during a full moon). So, it was simply a matter of hiding her more vampiric features, just like she was doing at the moment. It was a good thing that, as far as Octavia knew, she had always worn purple shades, even before being turned. Unfortunately, Octavia couldn’t match her mood. Not only because of the harrowing events that transpired last night, but because of the odd nightmare she had just woken from.  “Vinyl…” Octavia sighed. “Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself here a bit?” “What?” she said, grinning. “Naaaaaw, son! Don’t you see what kind of jackpot we just hit here?! Long Snake’s a gift from Faust, I tell ya’. One for us poor, unfortunate souls to take advantage of!”  “First off, I’m really not sure about the term ‘Long Snake’,” Octavia said, cocking an eyebrow. “Second off, since when were you a believer?” Vinyl put on a look of mock offense. “Hey, Faust has always been my homegirl, for one thing, and for the other… well, yeah it’s kind of just a placeholder. But I can’t think of anything better.” “How about just Long Horse?” Octavia suggested, beginning to carve into her pancakes. Vinyl tapped her chin, thinking about it for a second, before shrugging. “Simple and sweet. Me likey! And speaking of sweet...”   To Octavia’s amusement, she stuck her two vampiric fangs into the pancake… and sucked them dry of syrup. This included the syrup that had soaked within them. This led to them actually compressing themselves slightly.  After she was finished, she licked her lips, smacking them a bit. “Really?” Octavia chuckled. “Hey, tree blood still counts as blood,” Vinyl shrugged.  Octavia held a skeptical smirk. “Alright, alright, it doesn’t actually do anything for me,” Vinyl said. “But it still tastes good!”  “So, what exactly is your plan to capture our mysterious cryptid?” Octavia asked, changing the subject. “I’m assuming that’s what you want to do now, since you mentioned a 'zoo’. Do we bait it with apples?”  “Veeeery funny,” Vinyl said. “But nope. I don’t have a plan yet.” “Then why are we celebrating like this?” Octavia asked, shoveling a fork’s worth of actually good-tasting pancake into her mouth. “Mmm, not that I mind.” Vinyl grinned proudly in response. “Because just cus I don’t have a plan yet doesn’t mean I - and by I, I mean we - won’t come up with one! Just gotta put the ole’ noggins together.” Octavia took a deep breath. She didn’t want to dampen her friend’s enthusiasm (beyond a bit of playful jesting, of course), but somepony had to be the voice of reason here.  “Look, I know you’re excited to have an opportunity to finally deal with a monster…” “Damn right I am!”  “... But are you sure we even want to confront this thing?” “Why wouldn’t we?” Vinyl hummed.  “We know absolutely nothing about it, that’s why!” Octavia said. “We have no idea what sort of capabilities it has, what its motivations are, where it came from, anything!”  “Pffft, I’m not an idiot, Tavi,” Vinyl laughed. “Like I said, we gotsta make a plan. And to do that we’re gonna need to do that thing where you look at words.”  “Read?” Octavia said blankly, only half-sure Vinyl was just messing with her. “Yeah, that! There’s gotta be info out there somewhere about this thing. Monsters with necks the length of a Hoofball stadium ain’t just shrugged at.” “Fair enough, but why not simply ask somepony who may already know for help?” Octavia suggested. “Who, Zecora?” Vinyl asked. “No. Someone with a bit more… experience fighting monsters.” “Oh, yeah, that’ll go over well,” Vinyl chuckled. “‘Dear Princess Twilight. So last night me and my friend were out doing vampire and werewolf stuff when we saw this crazy cryptid creepin’ on your former students. Do you happen to know anything about anything about skeleton horses with thousand foot long necks?’ P.S. I know other vampires and werewolves act like chuds, but we’re good ones, promise. Please don’t send us to Tartarus. Friendship is Magic, yo, -Vinyl and Octavia.” “Very, eloquent,” Octavia snarked back. “But you’re forgetting something: we could always ask anonymously. If she does know anything about the creature, she might take it seriously.” “And then what?”  “Then…” Octavia said, thinking for a second. “Then we wait for her to arrive to deal with it. And… when she does we… jump in to help?” Vinyl folded her arms. “Looootta stuff that could go wrong with that plan, Tavi.”  “And a looooottta stuff can go wrong if we do this on our own.” “Alright, fine, you know what?” Vinyl huffed. “Compromise protocols activated. We’ll make a deal.” “I’m listening,” Octavia said curiously. “We try to do some research ourselves,” Vinyl said. “And if we don’t find anything, we write to Princess Twilight or the Pillars or whatever. Okay?” Octavia thought for a moment, before finally nodding. You wouldn’t think something like Long Horse would be that obscure of a legend if there was knowledge about it freely available. And since it was apparently obscure, it was very likely said knowledge was either lost or locked away. It seemed pretty likely they weren’t going to find anything.  “Very well. Deal!” Octavia grinned. “So, where do we start?”  “The Castle of Friendship,” Vinyl said. “It’s got a pretty huge library still, ya’ know, even though Princess Twilight jacked half of it when she went back to Canterlot.” “Since when do you visit libraries?” Octavia asked skeptically. Vinyl blushed slightly. “Well… I wanted to check out some… books on learning sheet music.” Octavia’s heart practically skipped a beat. Vinyl had actually been taking the time to learn music theory?! On her own?! “R-Really?” Octavia blinked, a sudden surge of affection for the vampiric mare coming to her. “Well, you kept saying how important it was for my musical career,” Vinyl said, scratching her neck. “So… I started learning.” “I love you sometimes,” Octavia said, keeping it under her breath. “What?”  “I mean--!” she coughed. “Uh, you’re, um, lovely sometimes. Personality wise. Yes.” It wasn’t exactly a secret she had feelings for Vinyl - feelings that were reciprocated - but she didn’t want to take things too far, too quickly. Not until their new lives as creatures of the night were a bit more… stable.  “Daw, thanks Tavi,” Vinyl smirked. And just as Octavia finished up with her pancakes, she declared: “Team Spooky, to the library!”  “We are not calling ourselves that!” Octavia called, waving an angry hoof.  Vinyl, however, likely didn’t see or hear anything, for as soon as she finished talking, she dashed out the front door, giggling madly as she did.  “Oh, you little scamp,” Octavia said, narrowing her eyes.  -- “Hmmm, here we go…” Vinyl said, dusting off an ancient book and setting it at a nearby reading table at the Castle of Friendship’s library. “Creepy Critters: Obscure Cryptids and Other Monsters of Equestria. Maybe this will have it?”  Octavia sighed, closing yet another book that had nothing in it and stacking it on a pile of five more. “Seventh time’s the charm.” “Lovin’ the enthusiasm!” Vinyl said chipperly, opening it to its table of contents. “Let’s see here…”  She began dragging a hoof down the page. “Remember, ‘Long Horse’ is just the name we came up for it,” Octavia said. “It might not be--” “Yeah, I know, Tavi, yeesh,” Vinyl said, rolling her eyes, before looking back at the book. “Hm, few things I haven’t heard of: Cartoon Cat, The Rake - what, like a garden tool? - Lil Nuggets, Slendermane... Eh, nothing about anything like a ‘Long Horse’.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Hey, wait a minute... Bonesworth?!” She began laughing wildly, drawing the attention of a few ponies nearby. “Vinyl, keep it down!” Octavia hissed, not at all wanting eyes on them. “We’re in a library here! A daywalker library!”  “Sorry, sorry,” Vinyl chuckled. “It’s just… I’m pretty sure Crypty dated him at one time. Apparently, he’s a real goofball. Bit clingy, but I wouldn’t call him ‘creepy’. This book is biased, I tell ya’.” “Well, what did you expect?” Octavia said.  “True…” Vinyl said, apparently only half paying attention. “Hm… you know what? That gives me an idea. I think we’re going about this all wrong.” “And how would we go about it all right?” Octavia asked.  “We’re using regular pony books to try to research an irregular creature,” Vinyl said.  “So?” Octavia shrugged. “Well, why use a regular source when we have irregular sources?”  Octavia gave her a concerned look. “I really don’t like where you’re going with this.” “Come on!” Vinyl beamed, standing up from the table and making her way to the door. “If we hurry, we can catch the Ponyville Express to Canterlot. Maybe we can visit Crypty before opening hours.”  “B-But!” Octavia called, exasperated. She didn’t even want to think about how bad of an idea this was. “Wait! Aren’t we going to put these books away?”  … “Vinyl?”  … “Ugh,” she moaned, hurriedly grabbing half a stack of them and clumsily placing them on a random shelf, gaining a few odd looks as she did. “Ehe. Light research for a… night school project. Fun fun!” And repressing just how impolite she was being, she dashed after Vinyl, leaving the other half sitting on the table. She whimpered slightly. “Faust, forgive me for my sins.”