//------------------------------//
// Witch in Sheep's Clothing 
// Story: He's a Vampire 
// by Gormless Wheaton 
//------------------------------//

Even though nothing was publicly official yet, Powder, the barkeep, was pleased to accommodate my request, granting Quilt and me a private booth in the back of his bar, and Quilt a tall mug full of some local brew she took to like a fish to water. All on a tab I told him to slip the Mayor's way.

I glanced around the room to be sure no one could hear us. Luckily, the few other patrons were all engrossed in their own private talks.

Halfway into her mug, she sighed and leered angrily at me.

"Alright, shoot," she muttered. I drummed the table as I thought up which point to hit first.

"What did you mean by 'used your bell to call me up'?" I asked. She grumbled and took another quick swig.

"Grandpa taught me how summoning rituals worked, and I was desperate," she said, resting her head on the table. "You can summon unholy things with magic items like the bell Grandpa left me. If you're careful you can contract them to do a job for you."

"Like saving the village?" I proposed. She confirmed with a nod.

"When Cozy and the others showed up in the cave, I'd finished most of the prep work, so I played it all off that I was hiding. Wasn't that hard to finish the rest from there," she stretched and glared at me. "But now I dunno if I even did it right." I shrugged.

"I've been wondering how I got here myself, let alone the vampire business," I sighed, drumming the table again. "Is there anything you can do to know for sure?" She returned my shrug.

"Maybe. I'd need some hard-to-come-by reagents to work with."

"Prince of Woollachia, remember?"

"True!" She beamed for the first time in the last thirty minutes, and I saw a plan forming in her head. "Okie dokie, I'll make a list and get back to you." She happily sipped from her mug as I studied her.

"So, your granddad taught you all this?" She smiled and nodded. "And you've been keeping all this witchcraft from your friends, huh?" Her expression shifted.

"Don't say it like that," she hissed, staring into her drink. "I love Cozy and the others, and I only did the ritual because of that. I'm not some skulking witch or Longhorn wannabe. They just.. wouldn't understand any of it. Nowooly does anymore."

Seeing her expression fall and hearing the sad tone of her voice hurt worse than when Boss had split my skull. Then she snickered.

"You really aren't a demon, huh?" She looked up at me with a grin. "Feeling guilty just for making a ewe sad is about as far from demonic as it gets." I blinked at her assessment.

"You're going to need to explain that too," I demanded. "The telepathy and shit."

"Mhm, like I said, I bound myself to you when you drank my blood," she wore a defeated look as she spoke. "That's the only part of the ritual I'm certain worked right." She groaned and slid back in her seat.

"And that means we can hear each other's thoughts?" I grimaced. She hummed in response.

"You can hear me when I call," she stuck her tongue at me. "I can hear you because you don't know how not to call." I groaned.

"Anyway to reverse all of it?"

"One of us has to kill the other," she leered at me. "Or you can turn me into a vampire."

"Neither sounds very appealing, but!" I whipped out my journal. "How exactly does turning work?" She raised an eyebrow and grinned.

"You drain my blood again and let me drink yours," she explained. "The transfer to the victim is important. If they die from the feeding, they turn into a ghoul."

"Hard to turn someone by accident then. Good," I sighed in relief. Then I glanced up. "Ghoul?" Quilt nodded, finishing her drink.

"Drain a body completely, and they'll rise from the dead the night after as a ghoul. Like a nosferatu, but weaker and completely wild."

"Neat. Good to know," I added that to the book. Quilt tapped her mug absently, and I flagged down the waiter. We sat in quiet while he fetched her a fresh drink.

..

"Oh shit," I said in realization.

"Oh scruff," she said at the same time.









"Me name Boss! Me big dumb idiot who got eated to death!" Latch mocked with an exaggerated dance in the torchlight to the delight of his co-conspirators. He and his brothers, Mulch and Gravel, had been waiting months for something like this. Now that the sun had set, they had free time to dance on the old boss' grave.

"Oh! I Boss! I kill packmates, 'cause I no get laid!" Mulch japed, puffing his chest out.

"Only laid in ground when dead!" Gravel howled. The three of them fell atop each other with laughter.

At Graggle's orders, they'd dumped Boss in a shallow pit off the side of the road. Anyone passing by wouldn't even notice a burial had taken place, just as ordered. Graggle said the fool didn't deserve anything better. The three brothers agreed.

Boss had killed plenty of Diamond Dogs either by his own paws or by giving authority to idiots like Maw. Before coming to Woollachia, they'd gotten into dozens of skirmishes with the pony guards on ill-advised raids, which led to Latch's cousin getting run through.

Ever since, he and his brothers had sworn they'd have a get-together to celebrate the callous bastard's death, quite literally dancing on the spot they'd dumped him.

Then, a low creaking growl filled the air, and their capering ceased.

Turning to the noise from where they lay, they watched the roughly packed earth split apart and saw the empty sockets of Boss' eyes leering up at them as the dead dog clawed his way out of the ground.

"It Mulch's idea," Latch said with a confirming nod from Gravel.









"How do we kill him?" I asked Quilt, who I held firmly under my arm as I raced for town hall.

"Stab him with ashwood, then cut his head off and burn the rest," she said with a groan, trying desperately not to hurl as she bounced in my grip.

"What do I cut his head off with?"

"Ashwood brings the dead to earth, neutralizing their immortality. Anything will do if you've got him pinned with a spike of the stuff," she looked up at me. "Or you can feed him your blood and make him your slave."

"Noted, but not happening!" I declared as I leaped over Briefs and the other delegates as they were leaving.

"Peter? What in the world-" he called out.

"Explain later!" I yelled back, sprinting towards Graggle's door, which I crashed through with my shoulder.

"Hyeek! Who-" Graggle shrieked, tumbling from his bed. I yanked him up with my free hand.

"Where'd you bury Boss?" I said, shaking him when he gave me a dazed look.

"West road, near the path we came in on. Unpaw me, you lunatic!" I let him drop back in his bed and tore out of the hall. There was now a small gathering outside of dogs and sheep, first to hear what the Mayor had to say, but now to question why I was sprinting back and forth.

As I plowed through the crowd, I snatched an axe from one of the dogs.

"Hey! That mine!" He wailed. "New boss a thief!"

"I'll bring it back!"

"Don't forget the ash wood," Quilt muttered.

"He's got Quilt again!"

"Scruff," she muttered again. I looked over my shoulder to see Cozy galloping after us.

"Let her go!" Cozy screamed.

"I'll bring her back too!"

"Cozy! Help! He's got me!" Quilt screamed, thrashing in my grip.

"TRAITOR," I hissed.

"Scruff yourself. I've got a reputation to worry about," she mentally chided.

"Help! He got Latch!"

"NO, I DON'T!" I screamed, looking ahead to see a pair of Diamond Dogs sprinting towards me. In the moonlight beyond, I saw a third struggling on the ground with the ghoulified Boss.

"Sick, I've never seen one in real life!" Quilt thought between cries for help. I dropped her, eliciting a satisfying squawk as she hit the ground, and charged at the ghoul.

As if sensing my approach, he snapped his attention up at me, his fangs inches from the face of his victim. His empty eye sockets lit up with a red glow, and he bounded towards me.

"Good luck. Ghouls remember how they died," Quilt informed me while hugging it out and crying with Cozy.

"Fucking-" was all I could say before we crashed into each other. A vicious struggle erupted as, despite my greater strength, Ghoul Boss' feral rage made holding him off a challenge.

I had his jaws pinned with my axe, but his arms and legs flailed and battered me hard and frequent enough to unbalance me, and he quickly threw me aside before leaping onto me and trying to gnaw my throat out.

That was, of course, part of the challenge we shared. Despite both being undead monsters, his teeth and claws couldn't cut my flesh, and my fist beating on his head couldn't hurt him. The only progress we found came from our raw strength being able to toss each other around.

Fixing my feet against his torso, I flexed and kicked him into the air. As he fell with a gurgling hiss, I swept the axe across his chest with a roll, which sent him tumbling long enough for me to snap to my feet.

"Ashwood, genius," Quilt reminded me, watching in faux horror with Cozy in a tight hug. The crowd was also observing in terror, hiding behind the spear line of the Diamond Dogs.

"GRAGGLE!" I screamed as Ghoul Boss tackled me back to the ground and started throttling me and slamming my head into the ground.

"Master, what in the world?!" Graggle called, slipping forward from the crowd.

"Ash- Ash- Ashwood! Now!" I finally barked out between having my face slammed into the dirt, managing to wrestle Ghoul Boss off of me, and throwing him to the ground, getting kicked in the teeth for my troubles.

"Ashwood? Oh!" Graggle reached into his vest pocket and pulled the same piece he'd collected the night before. "Master! Catch!"

He sent it sliding down the street to us, and I flung myself forward to grab it. Right as I had a grip, Ghoul Boss hurled me through the air by the ankles and jumped after me once I'd hit the dirt.

Rolling onto my back, I stabbed the wood shard forward and caught him in the stomach, earning a baleful shriek as he collapsed atop me. I kicked him up again, but this time as I swept my axe into him, his head went rolling.

Clamoring to my feet, I watched with my axe held high as his body spasmed and then went still. I released a breath I didn't know I was holding and looked at the shocked faces of the crowd.

"Burn the leftovers, or he'll get back up once that stake's out," Quilt again reminded me.

"Graggle, build a fire. We have to cremate him."

"You're welcome," Quilt called.

"Scruff yourself," I called back.








The fire of Boss' pyre cast the field outside Ruffleton into a warm glow, which did nothing to offset the horrendous smell that filled the air. Once it was clear the corpse wouldn't spring up, Latch, his brothers, and I returned to the town, where Briefs and the other leaders were giving some speech to calm the populace.

"And for the second time since arriving, he has placed our safety ahead of his wellbeing, hurling himself headlong into danger for our sakes!" Briefs declared.

Okay, or he could be hyping me up to the Sheep. That worked, too.

"It's soothing anyhow," Quilt called out.

"Brilliant."

"And so, as I told you all this morning, we will be taking measures to better enable our new guardian to protect us! We will be unifying the four villages again for the first time in decades, coalescing Woollachia into a proper state once again!" He swept his foreleg towards me. "A proper state, under Prince Peter Harlow!"

The crowd murmured, and a few began stamping their hooves.

"That's a good thing," Quilt informed me. I spied her hugging Cozy, who saw me and leveled an angry glare my way.  But as she did, something Quilt said made her scrunch her snout up and look away.

Briefs beckoned me to the front of the crowd.

"Let's hear a few words from the ram himself!" He and his fellows stepped to the side, placing me front and center. Turning, I was met with the expectant faces of the crowd. I took a breath and gathered my thoughts.

"Briefs and the others have faith in me, and I like to think I haven't let them down," I started, speaking and standing in a way I thought exuded confidence. "And I intend to make that my standard. While this wasn't my intention when I first came here, I promise to do my damnedest to meet and even exceed your expectations of me."

"Wasn't that Diamond Dog the one you killed already?" Someone near the front called out. Uh oh.

"Lingering bad magic from the forest. It's under control now."

"A result of lingering magic from the forest gone sour, nothing more," I repeated with a mighty sweep of my arm. "It's under control now that we've burned him." The Sheep seemed satisfied with that answer.

"Thank you, oh my god." I mentally called to Quilt.

"We've experienced many such tribulations these past few days, but Peter has shown his dedication to seeking out and eradicating threats to our way of life," the Mayor of Threadbare spoke up. "Have faith in us when we tell you all will be well!"

"As always, if anywooly has any concerns, you may come find me in my office! My door is always open!" Briefs announced and carried into a few closing statements. I felt a snag at my leg and saw Threadbare reaching up at me.

"Select a few dogs to guard my caravan, and then get ready to move," she said when I leaned to her. "We want you in Castle Ramstead. It will grant us equal access to you, and will solidify your appearance as sovereign." I nodded.

"Aww, lookit you, moving up in the world," Quilt called as I slipped away to where Graggle was sitting. "Don't leave yet, though!"

"Graggle, I need a few guards sent with the Mayor of Threadbare. They'll be safeguarding a caravan for her."

"Of course, Master. Quite the show you put on, may I say!" He said with a bow.

"Once you've picked our boys, get your things ready. We're heading to the castle," I said as I made my way to town hall.

"Finally! Justice! A post befitting one of my-" Graggle triumphantly hollered before collecting himself with a cough. "Of course, Master."

"I can stall for a bit, so find me at town hall," I called to Quilt.









The Mayor of Threadbare was arguing with Graggle in the conference room about his choice of guards thirty minutes later, which gave Quilt plenty of time to find me sitting in the janitor's closet brooding within my temporary lair.

"How's Cozy?" I asked, rising to my feet as she approached.

"Don't worry, I told her you were trying to apologize for trying to eat me, and you sensed the ghoul pop up, and one thing led to another," Quilt said with a sweet smile. "So, for the most part, she thinks it was just a misunderstanding."

"How'd you convince her of any of that?" I gawped. Her smile vanished.

"I've had to learn a lot of tricks to keep what Grandpa taught me a secret," she said sadly, kicking the ground. "Getting Sheep to believe lies is like second nature to me now."

"She still hates me though, right?" I said to steer the conversation away.

"With a passion," Quilt snorted. "I heard her muttering about ashwood when I left her house."

"Wonderful," I said, leaning against the wall. "So, what did you want?"

"I wanted to have you send somewooly to pick up my things tomorrow," she smiled. "I'm coming with you after all."

"You are?"

"I am," she took a sinister step towards me. "We still have work to do, and I think you could use some tutoring on your own body."

"Kinky. What about Cozy or your other friends?"

"That's why I said tomorrow, silly," she stuck her tongue out at me. "I'll come up with something by then." Seeing my incredulous stare and perhaps sensing my reluctance, she grinned maliciously.

"I could just tell them you threatened to lamb-nap me if I didn't do what you said," she snickered. "If you're gonna make a big deal out of it anyhow." This bitch.

"Fine!" I grumbled. "I'll send for you tomorrow, just don't-"

"No worries!" She gently kicked my leg. "I'll stay up all night thinking up a real doozy of a story. Just for you."

"What are you two talking about?" Quilt squealed and hid beside me, looking out at Briefs. "Ms. Quilt, did I hear right? Are you requesting to join the Prince at Ramstead?"

"Yes!" She replied urgently. "I-"

"She volunteered to join the castle maid staff," I clarified, nodding sagely. "Something about the place needing a cleaning." I leaned to whisper in his ear loud enough for her to hear.

"But, I think she just feels safer around me and is all bashful about it."

"You mother scruffing-" She screeched via our mental link.

"Hoh hoh! I'm pleased to hear our villagers are eager to help you get settled," he chuckled. "And also a wonderful suggestion! I suppose the old place has been left empty for some time! I'll see about sending anywooly else up to assist in the effort." With a tip of his hat, Briefs walked off, and we waved him farewell.

I smiled as my vocabulary of quirky Sheep swears and insults grew three sizes and shades.









 -Two days later,- 


Braygo Pass, Trotsylvania









The cold spring wind bit deep, as it had built speed coming down from the mountains framing the road. Despite this, Duster waited politely for the Equestrian who'd stopped him on his way from Threadbare to Trotsylvania to finish sizing him up.

"I am here to investigate rumors of the Woollachian forest losing its curse," the Equestrian noble-stallion announced snidely. Duster looked from him to the squadron of guards following him.

"Well, I think I'm allowed to say that's true," the trader looked back at the others who'd surrounded his wagon and had his guards at spearpoint. "But I don't understand what that has to do with us. We're just going to trade at Trotsoviste like usual."

"Why do you have these dogs with you?" The noble demanded.

"Oh! The Prince of Woollachia sent them," Duster said with a smile. "Since the forest isn't magic anymore, we need the protection."

"Prince of Woollachia?" The Equestrian spat, and Duster's ears snapped back. "Woollachia has no prince. Woollachia belongs to Equestria."

Duster shuffled anxiously while his guards adjusted their weapons in their paws.

"You silly little grazers don't have the right to promote or endorse anypony claiming rule over your little valley," he huffed and looked to his guards. "Carry on with your trip, little Sheep. We must pay our foalish vassals a visit to remind them of their place in the grand scheme of things."

"As you wish, Prince Blueblood."







END OF ACT 1