Seven years have passed since the death of my family. Seven years undergoing intense training, under the watch of Princess Luna. Seven years learning about, adapting to, and coming to truly understand the night. And seven years bearing a new burden in my heart. The burden that Luna had placed there that first night.
I had asked her about what she had done, but at the young age of nine, I didn’t really understand what she meant. Now, seven years later, a somewhat older, somewhat wiser, and mostly definitely stronger me decided to take the initiative and ask her again. I wasn’t prepared for what would come next.
As I walked into her room - actually, I should say our room. She had a second bed moved in not long after I arrived - I found her sitting on the plush rug in the center of the room, staring at the ceiling. Her horn was ignited, and I could tell from the look of intense concentration that she was working on a new constellation. I had seen her do it before, and it was always a joy to watch, but this night, there were other things on my mind. Things more important.
“Princess,” I began, coming to a halt near her. She turned to look at me, then shook her head. I understood what she meant, so I sat down next to her, watching her work. It was amazing, watching the stars move around under the control of the princess. It was a power few could ever harness, and I knew that I was not to be one of them. My natural magic abilities were rather limited, and as such, my magic lessons with Luna were always a challenge for me. That made me all the more impressed as a new constellation finally took shape. Luna smiled and nodded at her work, then turned to look at me.
“We know what thou are about to ask. Thou seeks to know what we meant all those years ago. Thou seeks to know what it was that we did. We explained it after we had done it, but it was clear you did not understand.” Her eyes took on that expression she she had worn on the night in question. It was clear to me that it still pained her, and it was difficult for me to not try and console her. During the time I had spent with her, she had become as close to me as I had been to my sister. I truly cared for her, and seeing her in pain made me unhappy. But she surprised me with her next statement. “We put a part of our spirit into thy own.”
I blinked, not quite understanding. “Um... what?” Luna chuckled and shook her head.
“Thy knowledge of the spirit and soul are still rather limited, so we shall try our best to explain. Inside of everypony, we all have a spirit that defines who we are, and who we are to be. It is this spirit, when it comes fully awake, that reveals our cutie mark. At birth, a pony’s spirit is fragile, and susceptible to the world around it. Our parents, our friends, they all have an influence in shaping who we really are. But once a pony’s cutie mark appears, their spirit is set in stone. It cannot be changed... which is what makes what we did to you all the more terrible.
“You see, by tearing away part of your spirit, we ripped away part of who you are. You are not the same pony thou wast those seven years ago. And, in the place of the spirit we took from you, we put there a piece of our own. This is the exact reason why we felt so awful about doing it. Because your spirit now has a part of our own, we are more connected to you than most married ponies are to their spouses. We know of all thy fears, thy dreams, thy aspirations, even thy strengths and weaknesses, and this is how we knew your question before you spoke.” She paused, giving me a look I’d never seen her wear before. She smirked deviously. “Tell us, have you noticed anything different about yourself in these past few years? Perhaps some small flame burning at the back of thy thoughts?”
As she asked the question, I felt something in the back of my mind, almost at the back of my consciousness. I knew, by some odd reason, that it had been there since that day seven years ago, but I was still taken aback by how much she knew. And, looking back, she knew that I had found it. She was smiling, amused by my reaction.
“You see? We are a part of you now.” She sighed, her smiling fading along with her jovial mood. “And this is why we feel so... so wrong. Don’t you understand? We’ve done something so despicable, so vile, that the spell has been hidden away from the eyes of normal ponies for over two centuries. There are scarce few alive who remember the spell exists.”
“Why was it hidden away?” I couldn’t help but ask. She had piqued my curiosity, and, as ashamed as I was to admit it, I was scared. The princess of the night had put a part of her own essence into me, and the thought of another pony sharing my mind, sharing my thoughts, emotions and memories... it terrified me. “And who else knows?”
“As to thy second question, the only three still alive that know of the spell are Celestia, the Arch-Mage Slipstream, and... myself.” Luna paused, closing her eyes and frowning as she spoke the last word. I had never heard her refer to herself in anything other than a plural. The fact that she hated the sound of the word so much she almost choked on it was confusing, if not worrying. It seemed that there were things I would never know about her, no matter how long I served as her champion. She finally regained herself and continued.
“And the first... well, there were ponies long ago, dark mages, who used the spell for darker means, twisting and corrupting it with dark magic.They used it not as we did, but to control the minds of ponies almost completely. There was one pony in particular, a vile and wicked being known as Blood Reign, who violated the spell so perfectly that the ponies whose minds he stole... well, he stole them completely. Normally, when we broke the spell, the ponies recovered themselves after some time. The ponies under Blood Reign’s influence, after we broke the spell... they all perished the moment the connection was severed. Four hundred lives lost, in the blink of an eye.”
I noticed a tear in the corner of Luna’s eye, and knew instantly that I had to do something to try and console her. But there was something that stopped me dead in my tracks as I rose to comfort her. I felt it. Her sorrows. Her pain. Her memory of the event in question. All of it coursed through me. And I collapsed. I had no idea how her emotions and memories had entered my consciousness, but it was overwhelmingly powerful. I lay there on the rug, unable to do anything but sob into it as her sorrow filled me up completely.
It wasn’t until I felt a pair of hooves scoop me into a gentle hug that I finally started to regain control of my emotions. I just sat there, listening to Luna’s heartbeat as her emotions finally faded away. I couldn’t believe what I had just experienced. But that was just the beginning. After a minute, she let me go. I could tell by the redness in her eyes that she, too, had been crying, but she smiled nevertheless.
“We apologize for that,” she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “We forgot to mention where we put the part of your spirit when we removed it.” I stared at her blankly for a moment before the words registered. But when they did, I nearly choked as my body decided to breath and swallow in the same motion.
“You- you’re telling me tha- that part of my spirit... is in YOU?” Luna gritted her teeth and looked at the wall to her left. She was so visibly embarrassed that I wouldn’t have needed the connection to tell me that.
“We had hoped that thou would not react like this... but yes,” Luna answered, still avoiding my gaze. “The connection requires that both parties involved have a part of each others spirit in themselves. In order to make this work, we had to take what we removed from you and put it in our own spirit. Please understand, we had our reasons.” I nodded without hesitation. Sure, I was a little mad about the invasion of privacy, but what could I do against her? She was the princess. And besides the point, she had practically raised me since my parents were killed. I trusted her to a fault, and now was no exception.
“I understand... but how does this benefit us, exactly? I can’t see a way this will help me fight the vamponies.” Luna, who had finally turned to meet my gaze again in relief, smiled deviously again.
“Well... this state of being allows for a few things that will aid you. One, it is the best form of telepathic communication. Allow us to demonstrate.” She closed her mouth, still smiling at me. A short while later, I felt the small flame at the back of my mind suddenly flare up. To me, it felt like the presence from my foal hood dreams had come to me in the waking hours. As if to reaffirm this hypothesis, I hear Luna speak from inside me. ‘You see what we mean?’ I grinned.
“You have no idea how strange that is,” I finally answered. “I mean, I can hear you... but you’re not doing anything... how is this even possible?” Luna shook her head.
‘Ah ah ah, no. That will not do. We wish to hear you speak with thy mind as well. Come now, use thy mind and speak with us.’ I frowned and put my head on my hoof, pondering.
‘But I have no idea how to speak to her with my mind.’
‘Thou just did.’ I started at her voice. Looking back at her, I could see a proud smile on her face. So I continued to muse over this new turn of events.
‘So all I have to do is think, and you can hear me?’ She nodded, and I felt the presence in my mind fade away to the small flame once again.
“As we said, a part of our spirit now lives inside you,” Luna explained audibly, waving a hoof absently. “By putting ours in it’s place, now thou shalt gain some of our knowledge and power. And, when thou calls for us, we shall be able to aid you by lending you our full power. In addition, it makes it much easier to keep track of where you are and what you are doing.” Her expression turned very stern, and I sensed that this was not the end of what she had to say.
“What is it? I know you, and you’re rarely this somber.” Luna nodded, closing her eyes.
“We’ve found him. The vampony that killed thy family. We know where he shall be in two night’s time. And we feel that thou art ready to finally have thy first real vampony kill.”
__________
The two days passed, and I found myself crouched in the underbrush, deep in the heart of the Everfree Forest. Why the vampony was there was beyond me - that forest still gives me chills - but for whatever unknown reason, he was there, not twenty feet away from my hiding place. The only thing keeping me from being detected was my training, my natural talent, and Luna’s magic. Since the discovery of the spirit bond between us, my prowess with the branches of Shadow and Regenerative magics had increased to almost unheard of levels for a unicorn like me. As it stood, I should not have been able to cast the spell I was now hiding behind - a shadow cloak that made the caster invisible in the dark - and yet, there I was.
The vampony, completely oblivious to my presence, was not in the form I had seen him those years ago. He was in his beast form, the form that vamponies use when killing prey. His true and terrible form.
No matter the race they were before, all vamponies, when transformed, have skeletal, membranous wings, much like a bat pony. They also have no fur on their entire body, and even their manes are faded and stringy. Their skin is a sickly grey in color, and hangs from them like old rags. Their hooves elongate, and the hard points split in three, forming lethal, sinister claws. Their teeth, once made for the consumption of plant material, sharpen into razer like blades, each of them a small killing machine. And their pupils take the color of the streak that they possessed in their pony form. As it stood, the blood red eyes of my prey had just come to rest on me. He made no sign of recognition, though. Thank Luna the spell worked.
‘Dost thou see him?’ Luna asked. Even though she had been using it more and more, the telepathy was still unnerving, and I had to be careful not to speak out loud.
‘Yes, he’s here. He’s watching me right now, so I can’t make a move just yet.’ Luna seemed pleased with my judgment, but her presence did not fade from me. She was watching, waiting to see what I would do.
As it happened, luck was with me. The vampony had begun to turn away as I answered her. Swiftly I drew my weapon and aimed at the back of his head, where the skull met the spine.
Back in those days, we had stories about vampony hunters. There was Mane Helsing, Hoofy the Vampony Slayer, and many others. But for some reason, all the stories involved the hunter using a close quarters weapon. Even Mane, who early on used what I now held, discarded the ranged weapons for a silver stake. It made for a better story, but was clearly unrealistic.
I took a deep breath and steadied the crossbow in my magical grip, waiting for the right moment to let the bolt fly. The crossbow was plain and simple, and the single bolt was made of purest silver, but it was the best weapon I had ever used. Sure, it had a clunky and abominably long reload time, but it was silent, lethal, and accurate. And that was what I wanted.
The moment I pulled the release, I knew that it would not be an instant kill. There was a fluctuation in the night around me, and the bolt deviated course, striking the vampony just to the side of my intended target. It knocked the vampony off its hooves, but the yelp of pain told me that the kill had, indeed, not been clean.
I emerged from my hiding spot and walked slowly over to the dying form on the ground. It had landed face up, and I felt its eyes on me again, glaring at me with the utmost loathing and hatred. I drew near, staying just out of reach, and watched him. It was strange. I knew that I had just killed something, and yet I felt no remorse, no pain, no guilt about doing so. Instead, I felt a kind of fulfilment. The blood of my family was no longer crying out. They were about to be avenged.
“I remember you.”
I shook myself from my thoughts as the vampony coughed, blood coming from his mouth. I knew he wouldn’t last much longer, so I decided to see what I could get out of him.
“Yes. You killed my family.”
“I know,” He rasped, his voice weakening with every word. “You were the one I was sent to kill. I can’t believe you managed to-” He coughed again, hacking as his unlife began to slip away. “Managed to get away. He was none too happy about it.” His words caught me off guard.
“Sent? He? Who sent you? Why did he want me killed?” The vampony chuckled weakly, his laugh chilling me to the bone.
“Why? Because of that cutie mark. And who?” The vampony chuckled again, then fell silent. His eyes glazed over, and his head fell to the side as his spirit left him, heading down into the nether realm of Tartarus. I knew that it was finally done. My family was avenged. And yet, something bothered me at that moment.
‘Somepony wanted me dead, because of my cutie mark. Why?’
‘Return at once. We shall discuss this matter when you arrive. It is apparent to us that thy safety has been compromised.’ I nodded at Luna’s words, and quickly called upon my magic. In the blink of an eye, I vanished. The forest was at peace, as if nothing had happened. The only sign that anypony had been there was the body of the vampony lying in the dirt. In the morning, that, too would be gone.
Nopony knew of what happened. At least, I thought nopony knew.
But there was another.