Hemorrhage panted hard as he stood still, letting Ailade silently tend to his wounds. There were literally hundreds of different cuts, burns, and stab wounds of varying degrees of severity, leaving him bloody and pained. Lucky there was the Oppotimare River itself which formed the valley, allowing Ailade to clean his wounds with cold water. His mind was dulled by pain, but even at this moment he recognized how precarious of a position he was in. He had pushed his body hard, and now was the decisive time when they would learn whether it was to the brink or past it.
Still, business had to be attended to.
“How many did you kill,” he asked, cringing at how raspy and soft his voice was.
“Forty, I think,” Ailade muttered, too focused on his wounds. He had to remain in his hulking, monstrous mordigan form in order to survive, let alone remain conscious. “From the looks of it, every single soldier in that army got a lick at you. Why didn’t you stop?”
“Argon, how many,” Hemorrhage gruffly questioned, not even having the courtesy to pretend he was avoiding the mare’s question.
“Some seventy, I think,” he replied tightly as Leper finished stitching up a large gash in his shoulder. “I was able to also light a fire before I left which is probably causing havoc.”
“And you, Leper,” the mordigan pressed fervently. The lycan was almost completely unscathed compared to Argon and Hemorrhage, looking distant. It may have been a mistake pressing the young lycan into such an extremely dangerous and mentally taxing role. Killing was not just a terrible act to recover from mentally, but distinguishing killing from feasting also required much from nocturnals. It was why they had attempted to avoid conflict for so many hundreds of years.
“One hundred… twenty… and seven,” the young lycan finally muttered, glancing distantly in the direction of the camp, the night sky lit up by the fires that still burned there. Argon let out a low whistle in surprise while Ailade paused on her ministrations, gasping. Even Hemorrhage raised his eyebrows in surprise at the number the youngest member of their troupe had killed, impressive especially when taking his minimal wounds into account. Leper, however, seemed uncomfortable as he looked away from them, still attempting to fix up some of Argon’s wounds.
“And what about you, Hemorrhage,” Ailade softly questioned.
Frowning, the mordigan sighed as he muttered, “Perhaps as many as three hundred. It was hard to tell thanks to the fire…”
“Three… hundred,” the mare repeated in shock, her hooves dropping from his wounded back. There was a brief moment of deathly silence, and the old mordigan knew that Ailade was equally horrified and confused on how many victims he had claimed.
“So the four of us killed over five hundred soldiers in a matter of under an hour,” Argon summarized, rubbing his chin with a claw. “By Luna’s moon, no wonder you always warned us against partaking in the wars previously. If one of us had lost control-”
“One of us did,” Hemorrhage muttered darkly. Glancing at Leper, he asked, “What’s the last thing you remember before you went savage?”
“I…” the young nocturnal began, before giving up hopelessly. Then, with an angry growl, he spat, “Is it so bad that I feasted on those traitors? We all saw what they did to Grandshire, the hundreds of innocent lives they took and the ponies they betrayed. We buried their ashes all day. Why should we restrain ourselves at night when they were far more bloodthirsty and savage than any of us?”
“I don’t like your logic there, child,” Hemorrhage warned darkly. “Should we subject ourselves to the same viciousness as our foes when we ourselves are so much more terrifying and unholy? You forget that our powers are an evil testament to the darkness that created our kind, our survival hinging on the death of something else. Somepony else.”
“It’s been sixty years since I last tasted pony blood, Hemorrhage,” the lycan growled in return. “This wasn’t an action of hunger or bloodlust, but justice. You may be an idealistic moralist, but I do not restrict myself with the principles of mortals. These ponies committed wrong to such a severe degree that they have given up their rights as mortal creatures. The same treatment they gave their victims I will give them and them exclusively. I’m old enough to know the dangers of feasting and know how to use it as the weapon it is. I know you feasted on at least one of your victims as well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive right now, or at least conscious.”
“I did feast, however, I remember the mutilation I gave the pony,” Hemorrhage rebuked. “I didn’t lose myself to the monster within in order to achieve my goals. I used my fortitude and my lethal skill in tandem to wreak devastation instead of relying on the brute force of my monstrous self, endangering more than just my enemies.”
Leper flinched at the mordigan’s intensity, his eyes darting to the side momentarily as shame doused his pride. Bowing his head, he mumbled, “I’m sorry, Hemorrhage. I… It won’t happen again, I assure you. I’ll be more careful.”
“You were angry, so I can forgive you,” Hemorrhage told him, softening his expression. “You may have many more years in you than you should have, but you are still a child in the eyes of the night. Ailade can tell you, my instructions are harsh and strict, but out of want for your betterment and the protection of those around us. You’ll learn. It will just take some time.”
“I understand, master,” the young nocturnal nodded gratefully.
Rolling his eyes, Hemorrhage grumbled, “If you start with that as well, I may not be so forgiving. It’s bad enough that Ailade won’t stop calling me that, but I will not stand for you joining her in this madness.”
“It’s because you teach us everything we know about ourselves, my friend,” Argon defended his friends’ words. “Without you, none of us would have the lives we do. Some of us wouldn’t even be alive. Myself and Nightseer both only lived through our transformations because of you, and I’m certain that Ailade and Leper will agree with me when I say that we owe our happiness to you as well. Not to mention, you also saved the lives of Khan, Joint, and her child all in the last couple of days. The only way to show our respect and gratitude to you would be to call you master, as you are indeed the master that teaches and cares for us.”
“Still,” Hemorrhage protested tightly, “I am only superior in my knowledge, and that is a fleeting superiority. Ailade’s already practically caught up on everything I know, and you aren’t far behind her, Argon. I may be wiser than you now, but we are all equal. Calling me master demeans your worth and inflates mine. I’m just an old stallion who only has a few more decades in him. You are all the future of our kind and the protection of ponies against nocturnals.”
“I would say that you have an entirely different value than that of an old stallion,” a familiar, beautiful voice countered from behind him, causing his heart to stop. Disregarding Ailade still attempting to dress his wounds, he whipped around to find Joint standing just a few paces away, smiling softly, Amethyst in her hooves. His jaw dropped at the sight of her alongside his heart, equally awestruck by her appearance and horrified by it. Ignoring several of his wounds reopening as he moved to her reaching out a claw, it trembled as it hovered just inches from her face.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he hoarsely whispered, before noticing Khan standing to the side and Nightseer holding Ebony, smirking at him. “None of you should be here. What are you doing?”
“Coming to your rescue,” Joint replied, leaning forward so his claw cupped her cheek. She flinched away as cold blood wet her cheek, frowning as she reached up a hoof and wiped some of it away. It was only when she noticed the blood that Hemorrhage realized what he looked like right now.
“No, no, you shouldn’t be here at all,” he exclaimed, turning over his shoulder and rushing to the river, desperately dipping himself into the water. Joint couldn’t see him like this! He was a bloody, horrendous monster that loomed over her, three times her size and covered in gore. Gore he himself had produced, killing hundreds of ponies like her, feasting on one of them. He couldn’t face her after what he’d just done, and he couldn’t let her face the monster she had surely just seen. In fact, now that she had seen him- the real him, in mordigan form- covered in the remains of his victims and beastly, would she even be there when he turned around?
She shouldn’t be here, neither her nor Amethyst, putting themselves before this evil monstrosity so willingly after he had devoured their kin. He would surely die if he left this form and Equestria still needed him, so he couldn’t change before her. He needed to get her out of here, to have Argon or Ailade take them and the others back to the castle. That way, she wouldn’t have to face him anymore. He wouldn’t have to look her in the eye after she had seen that he was telling the truth the whole time. He was a monster, a cannibal, undeserving of love.
“Hemorrhage,” Joint suddenly called meekly, her soft, questioning voice carrying over the sound of splashing water. He jumped as her hoof tapped his back, carefully looking over his shoulder as he spit out the water in his mouth. Her eyes were deep with concern, though they had dropped to a deep gash in his backside instead of trying to meet his. “What happened?”
“We had to fight the army before they could escape, and Hemorrhage was hurt in the fight,” Argon answered for the mordigan, knowing his friend wouldn’t admit to injury.
“You guys fought,” Nightseer questioned, glancing at her husband as she took his paw. “How’re you faring?”
“We’re fine,” Hemorrhage curtly responded with a glare. “But none of you should be here. I expressly told you why you shouldn’t come and why I wouldn’t let you come. And you brought Amethyst and Ebony? What were you thinking?”
“We were all in agreement on this, Hemorrhage,” Leper muttered, daring to look into the mordigan’s sharp, narrowed eyes. “They actually took longer than anticipated to get here.”
“Wait… you all agreed,” Hemorrhage asked, stunned. His eyes darted around the group, the whole coven assembled before him with ashamed determination. He blinked in shock, his jaw slightly agape, before chuckling dryly to himself. “I did teach you not to blindly follow me. Still, this isn’t wise. Nightseer, Joint, you two should return to the castle immediately. You’re young mothers with young children that need to be tended to and protected, not brought into a warzone. We’ll keep Khan. We could use his-”
“No,” Joint deadpanned stiffly. “We won’t be brushed aside again, Hemorrhage. I won’t let you push me away again.”
“Joint, it's not like that,” Hemorrhage insisted, stepping out of the river. “From every logical standpoint, it isn’t advantageous or safe-”
“To Tartarus with logic,” the mare exclaimed suddenly, storming out of the water after him. “Logic dictates that your kind doesn’t exist. Logic says that I should have killed Sombra when I put an arrow in his heart. Logic makes you a monster. But in these last few days, logic has changed, over and over and over again at a confusing, breakneck pace. So while it figures itself out, I’m going to grab on to the one thing that has given me joy in the past three years. I’m going to protect the ones I love and make sure that I can never lose them. I know you think you’re a monster, an old stallion not worth anypony’s time, protecting me by shoving me away. But dammit, you must be the epitome of intelligent idiocy if you think I see you that way, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me from becoming yours and making you mine.”
Hemorrhage opened his mouth in an attempt to respond to the mare’s wild outburst, to try and wrangle their emotions, when Joint suddenly reached up and pulled him into a deep kiss. His eyes shot open wide in surprise with his mouth caught open and his defenses unprepared. A red hot blush crept across his face, keenly aware of Ailade snickering at the couple as Joint passionately began making out with him. However, in spite of the suddenness, he couldn’t resist the tuggings of his heart and soul, giving in to the beautiful mare and kissing her back. He felt her tongue swiftly flick across his mouth, delicately rubbing one of his teeth and then-
And then the scorching taste of blood, sweet as honey and intoxicating as wine. Her blood.
Hemorrhage pulled away instantly, horrified as he stared at Joint, mouth dropped agape, throat too tight to speak. He wanted to gag, to spit out the droplets of her blood in his mouth, but they stuck to his tongue like leeches. Finally, he managed to sputter, “What have you done?”
“I made you mine and me yours,” she answered proudly, though after a few seconds she blinked, stumbling backwards a step. Reaching up to her head, she blinked as she mumbled, “Whoa, that’s real quick…”
Ailade was the first to realize what had just occurred, watching a small trickle of blood escape Joint’s mouth as the mare stared with a determined smile at Hemorrhage. Her jaw dropped as she rushed to grab Amethyst from her mother’s hooves, the poor baby beginning to fuss at the sudden commotion. Staring at the young mare, she muttered in disbelief, “You poor, stupid, lovestruck mare. You weren’t supposed to do that now!”
“Yeah, I should have… thought this one through better,” Joint admitted, sounding groggy as she fell into a sitting position. Groaning slightly, she muttered, “My blood burns…”
“Leper, take Khan, Amethyst, and Ebony away from here,” Argon instructed, his mind racing as he attempted to take control of the situation. “Ailade, Seer, Hemorrhage, we need to get her to someplace enclosed, and quickly. I don’t know anything about mordigan transitions. Hemorrhage, what do we do? Hemorrhage?”
Snapping out of his shock slightly, he moved swiftly to catch Joint as she slumped to the ground. Carefully picking her up, he told Argon, “Khan’s cave isn’t too far from here. I can make it there in maybe ten minutes of flight. That should be enough time. Mordigans begin transformation instantly, but it takes several hours before the savage stage to take effect. Luna knows that the time before then is just… agony.”
“Eh, what’s a little more pain,” Joint practically giggled in his claws as he spread his wings wide, preparing to take off.
“But why,” Hemorrhage demanded, staring down at his love. “Why would you do this? Make yourself into… what I am.”
Smiling through the burgeoning pain, she kissed his snout softly and whispered, “Because I love you.”