“So you’re saying that’s what happened?” Sweetie Belle asked incredulously.
“Well, that’s the account given by the… employees” Applebloom stated.
“I… somehow doubt that neither of the culprits were at fault, but each was manipulated by the other into doing something that couldn’t be undone.”
Applebloom sighed. “Me too, Sweetie, me too. But until we get a proper interview with the fillies affected, that’s all we’ve got to go off.”
The two of them sat in silence, deep in thought. Outside, childish laughter and high-pitched shrieks sounded, a reminder of simpler times. When all that really mattered in the world was gaining a cutie mark. Discovering a special talent. Back when the world was just a bit bigger, when Celestia was an immortal goddess-like figure who could always be counted on. When the biggest problem in the whole of Equestria was a bad harvest.
Simpler times.
How Applebloom missed those simpler times.
Foggy Bramble slowly cracked open her eyes, dragging herself out of sleep. The sun was shining, birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and large gashes were carved roughly into the tree she was slumped against.
Her head was ringing, and the light of the sun streaming down into the clearing she was in was far too bright.
The sun was up, Foggy had barely any memory of the previous night, and a there were spots of dried blood all across her. She groaned, trying to move her limbs, and failing. Everything hurt with a dull ache, and she was certain she knew why she was in the clearing. Foggy had shifted last night. That she was sure of. Everything after reaching a dark spot in the heart of the forest was a distant blur.
But where had the blood come from? Nothing really hurt in the way that a bleeding wound would, and it didn’t look like she was hurt. So, not hers. Maybe there was a bloody animal carcass somewhere, a tragic victim of Foggy’s darker side. Better that than somepony’s body, brutally slaughtered and unceremoniously left to rot.
Her joints hurt less than when she woke up, so Foggy grit her teeth, and pushed herself up off the tree. A quick inspection of the gashes slashed haphazardly into the trunk revealed four distinct claw marks, and small bloodstains. Nope. Still not her blood. But it was her claws that had marked the tree in such a way.
Walking out of the clearing, and into the forest, she still felt bone-tired. It was due to this that she almost missed the flash of light grey through the trees. But after rubbing her eyes and peering back at the place, it definitely wasn’t her mind playing tricks. A stray ray of sunlight had hit something light grey, with something lilac visible through the trees as well.
Well, it might be worth checking out, she rationalised to herself, before making off in the direction of the colours.
And there, lying sprawled out on her back, was a filly. She was a light grey pegasus, with a fluffy, vibrant lilac mane, and no cutie mark. And she had a massive wound obscuring her right shoulder, blood beginning to clot and hints of bone poking through. It looked pretty damn nasty. Foggy blanched at the sight, a few events returning to her memory as she saw her.
Chasing that same filly, minus the shoulder wound, through the forest.
That same young pony tripping over a tree root. And not getting back up.
But on the plus side, there wasn’t the stench of rot clogging the air around the area. Maybe, hopefully, she was alive? It was too much to hope for, but if there was even a chance…
Foggy quickly checked the young one’s vitals, silently listening for breathing, before feeling for a pulse at her neck. No way. No bucking way. Hope flared in Foggy.
She had a pulse. A slow, halting pulse, but one nonetheless. A slight, ragged breath escaped from her lips every few minutes. The young filly was alive.
Foggy breathed a sigh of relief. At least she didn’t have another death weighing down on her conscience. But what to do about the poor filly? Foggy didn’t think she could carry the poor thing back to Sage Mercy, and just leaving her was out of the question. She’d have to go get Sage, bring her back to the spot (preferably along with a stretcher), and transport the filly to the Nurse’s Cabin. Foggy shrugged to herself. It’d work. But how would she remember the spot? With a sigh, she grabbed a large stick, and started dragging it through the fresh snow. She started walking away from the area, still dragging the stick, and marking a path back to the area. If all else failed, they’d have to get Bright Stream or Gybh to do a fly-over and find the spot again.
And so Foggy Bramble walked on, dragging a large stick, in the general direction of the camp. She hoped it wouldn’t be a long trek.
Sauvignon Glamour wasn’t exactly the type of pony to sit around doing nothing. But what else could she do? Even though the glow had faded, her hoof still stung; a reminder of how she could never feel the warmth of the sun’s rays upon her ever again. Sage Mercy made good conversation, but she usually didn’t stick around for long, always having something else to do. Vig had books, stationery, paper, toys and various other things to focus her attention on, but most of them she’d already grown bored of. She missed Moonbeam. But they hadn’t been seen since last night, from what she could hear. They’d disappeared overnight. Eavesdropping almost never delivered good news, but Vig did it anyway.
That was, until early in the morning, one day and two nights after she’d been bitten, Foggy Bramble and Sage Mercy came in, out of breath and carrying a stretcher between them. The poor soul who’d been in the stretcher was currently resting in the room next to Vig’s, and that wasn’t even the most interesting part. It was Moonbeam Thought. She had a proper chunk torn out of her shoulder, was unconscious, and was the cause of Sage’s anxious pacing and muttering, but it was them.
Supposedly attacked by a timberwolf, a story Vig found a little… off. Maybe it was the tone of voice Group Leader Foggy Bramble had used when explaining the predicament, or maybe it was the parallels to Vig’s own story that she concocted to tell Sage, but Vig didn’t buy it.
And so she watched from the doorway of her room, watched Sage as she paced and fretted, watched Moonbeam as she lay lifeless on the bed, watched as Foggy came and went in between camp activities.
Watched as Moonbeam screamed silently, seeming to no longer be unconscious, but asleep. Watched as Sage tried to calm her down, failing to notice the miniature fangs where her normal equine canines should be. Vig’s stomach had dropped when she noticed, but since they didn’t seem to have lost any pigmentation, or have any total loss of blood, she doubted that her friend, too, had become a Vampony.
It was around lunch, as Vig picked gingerly at the plate Sage had brought in from the lunch hall. It was a bit cold, but otherwise fine. And that was when the machines over at Moonbeam’s bed, big, clunky, beeping and whirring nonstop, went crazy. The sudden explosion of sound quickly drew Vig’s attention and she snapped her head around, eyes wide to see what was happening. The heart monitor indicated that her heart was going at an unnatural speed, and the machine watching her blood pressure issued a warning siren. Meanwhile the filly in question opened her mouth in another silent, wordless scream. Vig was a heartbeat away from rushing in to help her, do something, anything. Sage was eating at the lunch hall with everypony else, and Vig was the only one in the Nurse’s Cabin. But she couldn’t rush in, help them, anything. The sun’s light prevented her, least it’s rays burn once more at her flesh.
And so Vig watched in horror as her friend twisted and contorted, eyes fluttering, screaming inaudibly. The machines and contraptions shrieked and blared their warnings. But that wasn’t even the most memorable part. The bandages, gauze and plaster covering Moonbeam’s injured shoulder loosened and fell off, revealing the horror of the gash beneath. Clotting lumps of blood and dark red tissue clumped onto a pearly white sliver of bone. Vig’s stomach heaved at the sight, and despite her newfound appetite for blood, she quickly clutched her midsection with one hoof, nausea rising in her. But as she stared uncomfortably at the wound, unable to tear her gaze away, something strange happened. Pinkish flesh knit itself back together, obscuring the bone. Clotting and scabbing bits of blood fell away, tendons connecting back together, and muscles rebuilding themselves. All the while Moonbeam writhed and turned over, still screaming, though no noise escaped her mouth.
It was disgusting, nauseating. It was horrifyingly unnatural. It was one of the worst things Vig had ever borne witness to. When the laceration finally seemed to calm down and stop supernaturally healing itself, there was only a bare patch of flesh, tender and pinkish, save for the set of indentations reminiscent of teeth. Not the sharp triangular marks of fangs either, more like ordinary, rounded pony teeth. With the exception of the canines, which had left sharper, deeper indents. As the weird knitting-together-of-flesh-and-blood stopped, the frenzied beeping and wailing of the machines died down. One of the monitors indicated their heart rate had dropped suddenly, before evening out to a more natural speed. Yet another said that their blood pressure had returned to normal. Blood sugar, oxygen levels, temperature and everything else under the sun was once more at a normal speed, rate, or level. Moonbeam had stopped writhing and contorting, too, and no longer had her mouth wrenched open in a soundless scream. The simple fact of what had happened was still horrifying, though.
Sauvignon Glamour subsequently threw up, heaving a large splatter of dark red fluids and greenish gunk onto the floor. She really wished Sage Mercy had been there right then.
Crimson Thorn. Cartographer. Orienteering mastermind. Vampony. Also sworn enemy of Foggy Bramble. And currently pissed at said Foggy Bramble.
Crimson didn’t need to be an expert at seeing through lies, or connecting dots to see that Foggy was clearly the culprit of the camps’s most recent tradgedy; a young filly attacked by timberwolves. Where had that mare been on the night of the incident? How had she found the filly so early in the morning? What was that mare up to now?
Well, as it turned out, eating a daisy sandwich and chatting with Gybh. That was, until, Sage Mercy came storming in to the lunch hall, like a vengeful hurricane, and strode over to Foggy. Only twenty or so minutes before, had Sage left to go check on her patient. After a hushed conversation that Crimson wasn’t particularly interested in, a shaky-looking Foggy left with a still furious-looking Sage.
Crimson turned to Bright Stream. “You have any idea what that was about?”
He finished chewing, before answering. “Nope. I got nothing. Maybe that was about… you know.”
Crimson shrugged; nonchalant. As long as it wasn’t fault, and whatever the problem was, it didn’t lead back to Crimson, then she really didn’t care. Unless it got Foggy in trouble. Then she absolutely cared. And was totally going to be ready for the fallout with a bucket of popcorn in hoof.
Granted, it was probably not going to be popcorn, but one of the blood packs she’d stolen from Sage Mercy’s supply. Still good for snacking on when Foggy finally got her dues.
“I don- I ju- I just don’t understand, Miss Bramble.”
“Yeah… this wasn’t what I expected either.”
“The wound. It’s… it’s healed. She’s still not awake, though. How? This is impossible! I’ve never seen- never even heard whispers of something like this. What if it’s contagious? How…”
Foggy Bramble sighed. If she’d had her suspicions that morning, then there certainly wasn’t a doubt in her mind now. The supernatural healing? The unconscious state? This was all her fault. Sage Mercy had no idea what she was dealing with.
Lycanthropy. Some said it was a blessing, others a curse. Ever since the fateful night in her teens, Foggy had seen it as neither, but a tool. One that was more irritating than useful, but it’d had it’s uses over the years. The condition was only transmittable by bite. If somepony with the condition were to bite another whist in their transformed state, then be it blessing or curse, the bitten would be afflicted.
And last Foggy checked, she’d bitten the poor filly who lay on the bed in the middle of the room she stood in. The healing, just in time for the full moon in two nights, was not coincidental. The other filly, in the next room over, had been unlucky enough to witness it. And from what Foggy heard, it had been positively stomach-churning.
But visual aspects of the healing aside, there was still a roaring manticore in the room that needed to be addressed.
The filly; Moonbeam Thought, according to Sage; would now face the same difficulties as Foggy. Transforming under the light of the full moon. Losing equinity for one night every month. Having to go through the idiots working at the RFSB.
And it was all Foggy Bramble’s Twilight-damned fault.