The Prince of the Night

by keaton-furman-prower


Vampires and Shadows (Edited 3/7/16)

On most nights, the town square of Ponyville was empty, except for a few ponies who were tasked with keeping the peace at night. On Nightmare Night, however, ponies of all ages stayed up for several hours longer than usual to take part in the festivities of Nightmare Night. The young ponies would usually go around town knocking on doors and asking for treats, while those who were older would take part in games, dancing, and other activities. Regardless of what everypony did, they all enjoyed hearing the stories of how Nightmare Moon would go around devouring innocent ponies unless they gave her something sweet.

This year, however, nopony would recognize Nightmare Moon, even though the former mare in the moon was quite active in the streets of Ponyville. Lucian was walking through town with his group, wearing a smile as ponies admired his costume. Spike was also beaming, eager to let everypony get a good look. Owlowiscious, on the other hoof, seemed slightly indignant, and Twilight was fidgeting uncomfortably. Lucian honestly didn't see why; he was captivated by her dark eyeliner, red-tinted eyes, black lipstick, and even her fake fangs. In spite of the malevolence implied by their presence, they helped accentuate the purple unicorn’s natural beauty. In addition, the elegant black dress, as well as her black and red cape, helped to complete the gothic look of Twilight’s costume. All in all, Lucian thought she looked incredibly cute.

He mentally slapped himself in shock.

What am I thinking?! I'm not even technically a stallion! I'm a mare! Yeah, I'm stuck in the body of a stallion, but I'm Princess Luna! I shouldn't be thinking about Twilight like this! I mean, there isn't anything wrong with that kind of... preferences, but I never had them when I was a mare! And now I'm just thinking about her in that way!

What's happening to me?

“Howdy guys! How are y'all doing tonight?”

Lucian's thought were interrupted by the voice. He turned to see Applejack, who had her hair done into curled pigtails and was dressed in a blue and white dress and silver slippers. She was being closely trailed by a scarecrow, a lion, and what looked like some kind of robot.

“Oh, hi Applejack,” he said. “And Apple Bloom too,” he added, recognizing the little filly in the scarecrow costume. He turned towards the other two fillies, a white unicorn and an orange pegasus. He had seen them hanging out with Apple Bloom before, but didn't properly know them. “And you two would be...?”

“I'm Scootaloo,” said the filly in the lion disguise.

“And I'm Sweetie Belle,” said the robot-filly.

“And together,” said Apple Bloom, “we are-”

“THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!!!”

Lucian blinked. Even at such a young age, the combined might of the three fillies yelling in unison could rival the Royal Canterlot voice. Owlowiscious, who seemed to be particularly annoyed, flew off indignantly, taking just enough time to shake off as much of his disguise as he could.

“I guess he didn't like his disguise after all,” said Spike.

“Yeah.” Twilight sighed as she turned towards Applejack. “I see you chose The Alicorn of Oz as your theme.”

“The what?” asked Lucian.

“You haven't read it?” said Twilight. “It's one of the best books of all time!”

“Oh. What's it about?”

“Long story short,” said Spike, “an earth pony filly gets sent to a faraway land. Oh, and her little dog too. Anyway, in order to get back home, she has to team up with a scarecrow, a tin pony, and a lion, and sets off towards the city of Oz, in the hopes that the 'Great and Powerful' Alicorn who lives there will return her home.”

Lucian blinked. While he had never heard of the story before today, the story was interesting enough. Perhaps he ought to read it later. Before he could say anything else, he heard a loud bark.

“Oh! Winona! There ya are, little rascal!”

Applejack's faithful dog ran in between two of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and up to the orange farm pony herself. She chuckled as Winona licked her cheeks, then sat down, as if waiting for her to finish whatever she was doing and go back out in search of more candy.

“Sorry, Twi, Lucian. We'd like to stay with y'all, but we ought to get going. Like Pinkie would say, time is candy.”

“Yeah, no problem,” said Twilight. “We're going to go off and meet Derpy and her family, anyway.”

“Okay, sure, no problem,” said Applejack. “And by the way, I like your costume, Twilight. I guess it was only a matter of time before you dressed up as a vampire, what with your name and all.”

Everypony else laughed while Twilight blushed intensely. Applejack then trotted away with the crusaders and Winona. Lucian and the others waved at them, and then turned around, searching for a certain gray pegasus. While they couldn't see her yet, they did see a couple of familiar ponies. Rainbow Dash, who was wearing a Daring Do costume, and the other a Pinkie Pie in a strange costume which consisted of a purple jumpsuit, a dark blue cape, dark blue boots, a purple fedora, and a stylized “M” symbol. Upon closer inspection, part of the cape was actually a mask, as if she was some sort of superhero.

“Hey! Lucian! Here! Over here! Hi there!”

Lucian groaned. He still hadn't quite gotten used to Pinkie Pie, although he at least had come to accept her as an acquaintance. Not quite as good as a friend, but 'acquaintance' was at least a start.

“Hello Pinkie. Hello Rainbow,” he said.

“Hi girls!” said Twilight and Spike.

“Hey guys!” said Rainbow Dash.

“So, what are you guys gonna do?” Pinkie Pie asked as she jumped up and down. To everypony's surprise, a variety of candies fell from her fedora, which she seemed to be using to store her candy.

“We're looking for Derpy and the Doctor,” said Spike. “Pinkie, why is your-”

“Simple,” said Pinkie. “I decided to go out for Nightmare Night candy this year, like always, but since I couldn't find any bags to carry my candy, I was feeling really sad, which is really bad, since nopony should have to be sad when they're going out to have fun on Nightmare Night, but then I realized that I was wearing a ten-gallon hat, so I realized I could use that for carrying candy! It's kind of hard though, since I have to wear it, but otherwise, it's a really great idea! I wonder why nopony else has ever thought of it!”

Everyone looked at her incredulously, trying to put together the complex mental puzzle she had just created. After a while, Rainbow spoke.

“Well, that's nice.”

“Thank you, Dashie!”

“But I think you may have confused 'ten gallon hat' with something completely different. And furthermore, how does the candy not fall from your hat?”

“Oh Rainbow! If it fell out of my hat, how could I carry it?”

Once again, everyone went silent, realizing that Pinkie's logic might be too insane to be disproved. Before they could even try, though, Pinkie engaged in another burst of randomness.

“Hey, Twilight, I really like your costume! Is it like a vampire? Or maybe a goth pony? No, it's a vampire, goths don't have fangs! Or do they?”

“Yeah, it's a vampire,” said Twilight with a sigh. “The boys insisted.”

“Good choice! It looks cool! I mean, unless... did you dress up like that because of the books?” she asked, the enthusiasm suddenly gone from her voice.

“What books?” asked Rainbow Dash with a hint of curiosity in her voice.

“Oh, that?” Twilight said with a nervous chuckle. “Oh, that's nothing, really! Nothing at all!”

“The Twilight Series,” said Pinkie, her usual energetic voice taking a deadpan tone, “is a bunch of books about a mare who's way too perfect to be believable falling in love with a vampire who's way too perfect to be believable. And he sparkles in the sunlight.”

For a moment, there was silence. Twilight's hoof was pressed against her forehead as if she wished she could simply sink into the ground and not come out for weeks. Meanwhile, Lucian was looking at her sympathetically, whereas Spike and Rainbow seemed to be about to fall over laughing.

“So the vampires in Twilight... Sparkle?!”

Rainbow Dash could no longer contain herself. She toppled over and began rolling over in hysterical laughter. Spike did the same, while Pinkie, oblivious to Rainbow's pun, stared at them in disbelief and mild annoyance.

“What's so funny?!” she asked, unaware that her annoyance only served to make the rainbow-maned mare and the purple dragon laugh even harder. “Vampires that become all sparkly when they go out in the sun is, like, the most ridiculous thing ever! Next thing you know, they'll be saying that there's such a thing as crystal ponies or something!”

As inconspicuously as he could, Lucian chuckled to himself.

“Yeah,” said Twilight, eager to change the subject. “So, I see you made good use of that Mare-Do-Well costume, Pinkie Pie.”

“Of course! I might even go back into the hero business!” Pinkie Pie proclaimed proudly.

“Please tell me you're joking,” said Rainbow Dash.

“I don't know, Dashie! Its lots of fun to be a hero every once in a while! But not all the time, though. It's tough! You know how much time I'd have to dedicate to heroics if I went full-time? I want to have time to bake cupcakes and play with the cake twins and stuff!”

“Well, you girls are all already heroes,” said Spike.

“He's right,” said Lucian, who had managed to calm down somewhat. “You've saved Equestria twice! Three times, if you count Cerberus. Four if you include the parasprites.”

“I'd count Cerberus, maybe, but not the parasprites,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Are you kidding me?!” asked Lucian. “If those bugs hadn't been sent into the Everfree forest, they would have spread out all over Equestria, consuming everything in their path! And even worse, from what I heard, those particular parasprites seemed to be a unique breed which could consume many forms of inedible matter!”

At this point, the other ponies shot a look at Twilight, who merely gave an awkward smile. Lucian didn't notice this, however, and continued to talk.

“The point is, you girls don't have to resort to wearing some silly costume to be heroes! You carry the elements of harmony! I mean, I wish I could have friends who were as close to me as you girls are to Twilight!”

Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie stared at him in awe. While only the violet unicorn knew his true identity, they all recognized that he was pretty good at speaking. And so did somepony else.

“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!”

The four ponies and one dragon turned in the direction of a certain brown earth pony and his pegasus companion, who was wearing a couple of paper bags as her “costume,” and their daughter, who was wearing a cute yet elegant little princess dress.

“Hi guys!” giggled Dinky. “How are you?”

“We're doing great!' said Pinkie. “But we'd better hurry! Time is candy!

“I guess so,” Lucian said eagerly “And by the way, I love your Daring Do costume, Rainbow Dash.”

“I know! Daring Do is the best explorer ever! I wish I had a big group of friends who could dress up like different characters from the books, kind of like how Applejack did with her and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, or like you and Twilight and Spike- wait, what are you supposed to be, Spike, some kind of monster hunter?”

“Can Helsing!” said Spike. “The greatest Diamond Dog monster hunter of all time!”

“Oh! Why of course!” said the Doctor. “He defended the world from all sorts of dangerous creatures!”

“Which means he's going to hunt Lucian and Twilight down!”

Everyone laughed at Derpy's commentary, who simply rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Mommy? Daddy? Can we go look for candy?”

The two parents looked towards their daughter, who had an excited look on her face. The lavender vampire and dark blue wolf-pony looked towards Spike, who seemed equally excited about the prospect of getting candy.

“Yeah, we definitely should,” said Twilight.

“Like I say, time is candy, so let's get moving!” Pinkie practically commanded. “Oh wait! If time is candy, they could I make a time machine using candy?”

The Doctor and Lucian giggled at the hyperactive pink pony's commentary, but she didn't hang around long enough to notice, as she had gone running off to collect candy, dragging a shocked blue pegasus along with her. A grunt from a gray unicorn filly and a purple baby dragon pulled them back to their senses, and they proceeded to lead the way through the night.


Lucian had always preferred the night over the day, but tonight he felt even happier than most nights. All around ponies were playing, dancing, collecting candy, and generally having fun. It was quite amusing, in a bitterly ironic way, that his downfall had resulted in the creation of one of most fun holidays of the year. And, of course, it made him happy when ponies spoke of how Princess Luna had come to Ponyville the previous year.

“That was the best Nightmare Night ever!”

“It was scary at first having her here, but she's not so bad after all!”

“I hope she's gotten more friends since then!”

“Do you think she'll come again this year?”

This last commentary made the two monster ponies and their monster-hunting assistant giggle, which none of their companions could understand.

Spike and Dinky had both managed to obtain a sizable quantity of candy in their bags, and so they decided to go to check out what was going on at the town square.

“Just one more house!” Spike insisted.

“But I want to go see the cool stuff!” complained Dinky.

“Now, Dinky, I doubt anything is going to run away from town square,” said her father. “And even if it does, I know we could stop it!”

The little unicorn looked towards her father, as if to receive some more reassurance, and so he smiled and patted her on the head. She in turn smiled and walked up to the nearest door with Spike. Lucian walked up to the Doctor, patting him on the back.

“You're a great father, you know that?”

“Oh, I'm certain there are plenty of fathers better than me,” the brown earth pony said. “I'll bet even you could be a great father if you needed to.”

Lucian nearly tripped over his own hooves at this comment. He managed to catch himself just in time, and did his best to cover up his slip.

“Eh, I wouldn’t know.”

As quietly as he could, Lucian sighed in relief. He then turned back towards the filly and dragon, who were now knocking on the door. However, no one inside was answering.

“Is it empty?” asked Dinky.

Spike lifted his arm and knocked again. This time, an annoyed, wrinkled, balding stallion opened the door.

“Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!”

“NIGHTMARE NIGHT?!”

Spike and Dinky very quickly took several steps back towards Twilight and the Doctor, respectively.

“I can't believe anypony still likes doing that sort of stupid stuff. You kids ought to go to sleep! And instead, you go off looking for candy! No wonder today's kids are so fat! And loud! Go away!”

The old stallion closed the door, leaving several bemused ponies and one dragon outside.

“Well, that was rude,” said Spike.

“I guess some ponies don't like Nightmare Night, even if it is one of the most popular holidays of the year,” said Twilight.

“Well, he needs to liven up,” said Lucian, his voice full of annoyance. “Which reminds me of something I read once about Nightmare Night.”

“What's that?” asked Twilight, her curiosity piqued.

Lucian looked up towards the roof, then down towards the rest of the house. After a few seconds of thought, he began to concentrate energy in his horn, which quickly began to spread above the house. Then, a large number of rolls of toilet paper began to materialize, then expand, and roll over the house.

Lucian allowed the magic to dissipate, satisfied with his work. The children began to laugh almost immediately, as did Derpy. The Doctor and Twilight seemed shocked at first, but they soon began to giggle as well.

“And that's why you give candy to kids on Nightmare Night,” said Lucian. “Because you don't, then Nightmare Moon shall come and T.P. your home.”


Fillies and colts walked through town, stopping at various houses to ask for candy, occasionally wandering through the shadows to burst out and freak out somepony else. Such was the night of a certain filly in a lion costume, who was hiding from her friends as they walked through a particularly dark area. The shadows concealed her actions as she approached the tin-pony and scarecrow. They were busy looking into their bags to see what they had received so far, and whether or not they needed any more.

Finally, Scootaloo pounced. With the agility of a real lion, she jumped out of the shadows and roared at the unsuspecting fillies, causing them to jump in surprise and drop some of their candy. They then looked around in shock, trying to find their attacker, before shifting their gaze onto a little orange filly who was rolling on the floor while laughing.

“Scootaloo!” said Sweetie Belle with a squeak. “You scared us!”

“Lighten up, Sweetie Belle! This is the best night of the year for pranks!”

Having recovered from the shock, Apple Bloom began to laugh, while Sweetie Belle glared at Scootaloo. However, after a while, she too giggled a bit.

“Okay, crusaders!” said Apple Bloom. “I reckon we've collected enough candy for now, so we should head on to the center of town to find out what kinds of cool stuff they have for us!”

“Are you sure we have enough candy?” asked Scootaloo. “Maybe we should collect some more!”

“I'm pretty sure we can get a lot more at the games they're gonna have,” said Sweetie Belle. “We should definitely get there before, well, I dunno, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon arrive.”

The very thought that the two bullies might get to play the various games around town before them was unacceptable to the crusaders, and Apple Bloom immediately began to run towards the center of town. Scootaloo nodded at Sweetie Belle, indicating that she agreed with her, and so the white unicorn filly went off to follow her friend.

The orange pegasus filly looked back into the shadows, giggling at her friends’ scarediness. There was no way that she could ever be scared of something that was lurking in the shadows.

But those shadows still look a bit scary.

The lion filly shook her head. There was nothing wrong with the shadows. They were just something that happened when the light got blocked. They couldn't harm her. And they certainly couldn't come out and move towards her.

Yet the shadow was moving towards her.

The young filly jumped backwards. She rubbed her eyes. It couldn't be possible. Shadows were supposed to be immobile, unless the light source creating them was moving. And shadows most certainly couldn't attack.

She took another look. Not only was the shadow moving, it was expanding, growing taller and wider. And it was getting even closer.

Scootaloo screamed and ran as fast as her hooves could carry her.

The shadow began to move away, back into the darkness it had come from. As it shrunk back to its previous size, it seemed to observe the little filly as she ran towards the safety of her friends.


A large number of ponies were playing various games, including spider tossing and apple bobbing. Lucian recognized both, as they were the very first games he had played during the previous year's Nightmare Night celebration. As he watched the young fillies and colts in their various disguises competing to see how much candy they could win, Spike and Dinky ran off towards the pumpkin catapults.

“I'm gonna hit those targets right over there!” announced Spike as he loaded a pumpkin into one of the open catapults. He then aimed at one of the untouched targets with as much precision as he could, and launched the pumpkin. It landed just below the bull’s-eye, leaving the bottom of the target covered in an orange pulp and beige seeds.

Dinky giggled. “I think you were a bit off.”

“I guess,” said Spike. “You think you can beat me?”

“I don't know,” said the Doctor, “but if you don't try, you'll never know.”

“You can do it, little muffin!”

The little unicorn filly still seemed nervous, but hearing her mother seemed to fill her with determination. She walked up to the pile of pumpkins, rolling one up towards the same catapult Spike had used, then loading the large orange fruit into the catapult. Then, she aimed the pumpkin at the same target as Spike.

“Okay. Now I think that if I adjust it just a bit more, I'm gonna-”

“AAAAAAAAGHHH!!!”

Before Dinky could finish, she was bumped by a screaming filly in a lion costume. The force caused the little princess filly to bump into the catapult, accidentally launching the pumpkin far up into the air. The other ponies, as well as Spike, watched in horror as the pumpkin flew up towards the sky, and subsequently landed right on the very center of the bull’s-eye.

Shock and horror gave way to surprise, then awe, and finally, cheers.

“Well done! I knew you could do it!” the Doctor said happily.

“My little muffin did it!” said Derpy as she hugged her daughter.

“That was really awesome!” said Twilight.

“Beginner’s luck,” muttered Spike.

“Hello?! Is no one listening?! I was chased by a shadow!”

Although the ponies were busy celebrating Dinky's victory, they quickly stopped and turned to see the orange pegasus filly, who was waving her hooves frantically, trying to get everypony's attention.

“Hey, calm down, Scoots,” Spike said. “What's wrong?”

“I told you, I was chased all the way here by a shadow!”

“You were chased by a shadow?” asked Twilight. “Are you sure it wasn't just some filly or colt in a ninja costume? That could be what happened.”

“I don't know,” said Scootaloo, “but it sure looked like a real shadow to me!”

“It might also be that some particularly pranky unicorn used an illusion spell to freak you out,” said Lucian. “Did you happen to see any unicorns who might have done something like that?”

“Scootaloo!”

The lion-filly turned around to see a tin-pony and a scarecrow approaching her. They were panting heavily, as if they had been running to catch up to their orange friend.

“Scootaloo! You went of runnin' faster than a rabbit bein' chased by a timberwolf!” said Apple Bloom as she gasped for breath.

“Why were you running so fast?” asked Sweetie Belle exhaustedly.

“Oh, that? Uh, yeah, it was nothing! I just really wanted to get here before Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon had a chance to get here, that's all!”

“She was afraid of a shadow,” said Spike.

Scootaloo facehoofed as her friends stared at her in shock, and then burst out laughing.

“You were scared of a shadow?!” said Sweetie Belle.

“Looks like we made the right choice in givin' ya the cowardly lion costume!” said Apple Bloom.

“It's not like that!” squeaked Scootaloo, her cheeks turning a bright red. “It was alive! And it was chasing me, and it was big and-”

“Girls?” Lucian interrupted. “I don’t know what Scootaloo saw, but it was probably somepony playing a prank on her. Whatever it was, it’s probably not worth getting worked up over. There's a lot of fun stuff to do tonight, and you can't go out to do anything if you're going to spend all your time arguing about what spooked Scootaloo .”

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “Don't you want to toss some spiders and bob for some apples?”

The three fillies stared at each other, then rolled their eyes and said “fine” in unison. They then went off towards the spider-tossing, but not before letting out a series of audible giggles.

“Well, it's good to see them getting along,” said Twilight. “Shall we go accompany them?”

“Sure, why not?” said Derpy. “Maybe they’ll have nightmare muffins!”

She laughed at her own joke as she and her family went off to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Spike and Twilight began to follow them, but the lunar prince lingered for a moment. What the little orange filly had said had struck him in a way he didn't think it would.

“Chased by a shadow?”


The shadow moved through the darkness. While the large amount of illumination made it hard to move unnoticed, it did instill a sense of safety into other ponies, which meant that, unlike most nights, the shadow was able to observe ponies as they conversed with one another and had... fun.

Fun. It was almost, but not quite, a completely alien emotion to the shadow. It had felt a brief rush of excitement, then satisfaction, when it had attacked the cowardly little orange filly. Was that the sort of thing that these ponies considered to be 'fun'?

It couldn't be sure. It had only just arrived in Ponyville a few nights ago, and thus, hadn't really gotten to observe ponies in their everyday lives. The day was too bright for it to do much, as the intense light would have made a living shadow incredibly obvious, while the night was the part of the day during which ponies slept. Now, however, there was a unique opportunity to figure out as much as it could about these happy little ponies.

It looked around. The ponies were dressed in a variety of costumes, which, as far as it could tell, was not normal behavior for a pony. Then again, ponies didn't usually go out during the night. In addition, they seemed to enjoy sugar-rich bite-sized pieces of 'candy,' and they greatly enjoyed this 'fun' they spoke of so excitedly.

The shadow's gaze then rested on two particular ponies; a pair of unicorns, one a violet mare wearing a black dress and cape, as well as fake fangs, and the other a tall dark blue stallion dressed as some sort of canid monster. At first glance they seemed to be completely irrelevant. Two unicorns, probably siblings or special someponies, having 'fun' together on Nightmare Night. Of all the places it could have decided to stop to observe ponies, it just had to be some little backwater town, instead of, say, Canterlot, where there were all sorts of important ponies to spy on.

However, as the shadow began to turn away to stalk some other ponies, it sensed something. It was just for a minute, but it had been undeniably familiar.

The shadow turned towards the two unicorns. There was something about them that was familiar. The shadow couldn't tell what it was, but there was almost no doubt that these two ponies were far more than just some unicorn couple going out for a stroll on Nightmare Night.

The shadow almost felt as if it knew them.

Any thought the shadow had about seeking out other ponies vanished instantly. The only thing that mattered was finding out what importance these two ponies held.