It has been said that the greatest of tragedies begin with a beautiful mare. It stands to reason, then, that the worst of tragedies begin with the lack thereof.

***

If you were to ask his peers, they would tell you that Victor R. Cane was a very strange pony with whom you’d better not associate.

They would spit venom through their teeth as they called him any assortment of things: a freak, a maniac, a nut case, a witch doctor, an insult to the earth pony tribe. They would say he was a unicorn whose horn had fallen off inside the unlucky mare who had bore him.

They would tell you of his eldritch mind. They would tell you how he would ramble on for hours about things like spells and potions and vile experimentation. They would tell you his fantastic tales of a world beyond sight and of a harmony-filled future. They would tell you of his frantic yellow eyes and his stark white mane. They would tell you that being near him too long would send you galloping into insanity’s warm embrace.

And, most certainly, they would tell you that he moved to the mansion on Watcher’s Hill to distance himself from the society which hates him so.

If you were to ask Victor himself, though, he would tell you a very different story.

His skull-splitting smile would gleam as he told you his many titles: a leader, a pioneer, a genius among peasants, a visionary, the sole unifying force between the three pony tribes. He would call himself the only sane earth pony there was.

He would say that everyone else was jealous of his brilliant mind. He would ramble on for hours about his many advances in the scientific and magical fields. He would tell you gripping stories of an arcane world he alone could see and of his vision for the future. His eyes would bulge and his mane would spark with the excitement surging in his veins. He would call you wise for wanting to join him in his view of the world, and praise you thus.

And, most certainly, he would tell you that he moved to the mansion on Watcher’s Hill because that’s where lightning strikes best.

***

Victor lifted a tube of alabaster dust in his bandaged hoof and dumped it into the concoction. It stood out well in the shadowy basement, but the gurgling black liquid swallowed it before long. Bubbles oozed to life across the liquid’s surface. As they popped, the thick scents of copper and burning rubber mingled with that of charcoal, suffocating the senses. One particularly large bubble spat as it popped, sending a trickle of simmering something to the grimy cobblestone floor.

Lightning flashed through the barred windows, and Victor’s smile caught it. He limped over to the back end of the room. His bug-like eyes panned the shelves of unlabelled liquids, dusts, and assorted objects. Without warning, he pulled a midnight blue cross free from the cobwebs. The ends of the cross were golden, and a bone-white crescent moon marked the top. It sparkled as the lightning flashed again.

Without hesitation, Victor threw the artifact into the cauldron. The tar-like substance grabbed it and pulled it under. Before long, a cloud of shimmering blue smoke erupted into the air and dissipated as though it had never existed.

“And now…” he muttered, slowly craning his head to the table’s centerpiece.

Lightning struck again, and the corpse of a bat sitting atop scattered papers became detailed for a frame of a memory.

Victor lifted the limp creature in his teeth. A mildewy odor instantly smothered him, and he bit the bat so hard that a tangy, metallic liquid dripped across his tongue. He didn’t so much as flinch, his smile wider than ever.

He dropped the bat into the writhing concoction, red liquid dripping from his teeth to join it. As the body landed, a brain-melting squeal threw the room into a sudden tailspin. Even Victor had to flatten his ears and recoil from the screaming cauldron. It took several seconds for the gooey depths to consume the wet corpse, and the shrieking only grew angrier. Eventually the last tip of the bat’s wing fell out of sight, and the room was sealed into silence by one final hiss.

Victor beamed down at the liquid’s glossy black surface. Without missing a beat, he ran over to the other side of the pot as fast as his gimp would allow. He heaved a large iron bar up from the floor and slid it into the cauldron. The sound of metal slamming metal bounced around the room. Next he grabbed a large iron clamp from the lab table. Attached to it was one end of a thick wire, the other end anchored to something in the shadows high above. He violently snapped the clamp onto the metal bar and hobbled away a few steps. Then, he watched.

For a while nothing happened. Rain pitter-pattered outside. Liquid bubbled and boiled in the cauldron. All was still.

Harsh white electricity screamed down the cable and into the iron bar. The cauldron rattled in place, some of its oily contents sloshing to the floor. As the shaking picked up force, a fluorescent green light bathed the room. The thunder struck at the same time. It roared through the air and shook some flasks and vials from their shelves, outright collapsing one of them.

Most of the liquid seemed to be pooling on the floor, mixing with the dust and grime to flood the room with pungeance. The green light intensified further, as did the rattling of the pot. Victor retreated a few steps as the scalding liquid splashed against his hooves, yet still he smiled.

An orb of white light hovered out of the cauldron. It hung in the air like a second sun, pushing away the damp cool of the room in favour of a dry, hot atmosphere. It sapped the moisture from Victor’s skin, making his coat feel like a sandy costume one size too small, yet still he smiled.

The liquid on the floor started moving back towards the cauldron again. It lifted from the floor and towards the light, coagulating into a black sphere around the white core. A high-pitched ringing noise grew louder and louder in time with the light’s intensity and the orb’s size. Victor flattened his ears against the cry, yet still he smiled.

The sound abruptly stopped. For a few moments, the congealed black ball just hung there—it was nearly the size of the cauldron itself.

It pulsed once. The walls absorbed the dull boom on impact. It pulsed again, booming louder. It pulsed one final time and fell into the cauldron with a deep metallic thud. The sound rang out through the basement, and then all was still.

Victor stood in the quiet for a moment, his smile having given way to a gape. The air was back to its cloying humidity, the traditional smells of mold and mildew took hold again, and the tapping of rain against glass became the soundtrack to nothing. A minute or so passed like this, Victor frozen in the breath of time.

A single hoof lifted from the cauldron, grabbing the rim with a tiny clink. Lightning struck, and the hoof flashed grey.

Victor charged forward and looked into the cauldron. The same lightning flash caught his shaky eyes.

A full-grown pony sat crumpled in the cauldron—a mare. Her coat—matted with a thin slimy layer—was just lighter than the cauldron’s grey-black, and her mane was a starless night sky blue. She panted heavily, eyes clenched shut—deep red coated one of her hind legs as it stuck out at a strange angle.

Victor noticed none of this first, though. None of it brought the child-like smile of wonderment back to his face. What struck him were the little tufts of grey fur behind her ears, the small fangs hidden amid her teeth, and the leathery wings hanging limply at her sides.

He reached out a single, shaky hoof and began stroking her mane. She tilted her head up slowly and opened her eyes halfway. They were a striking yellow—and slitted like a reptile’s.

Victor met her eyes. “Welcome to the world,” he said on a ghost of breath, “my little apprentice.”

***

It had been a simple naming process, really. In elementary school, he had grown fond of a particular filly in his class: Rose Black. Through some careful observation of Rose and her friends, he had learned that her favourite subject was French and that she hoped to write books in the language someday. As such, he had chosen the name Noire—French for black. It seemed to fit his creation perfectly.

Of course, he had no romantic inclinations towards the creature. Being that she was his proudest achievement, though, he reserved a certain affection for her. Like a daughter, perhaps. And she needed to be brought up as such.

She was a fast learner. Only one week after her creation and she could speak basic sentences. Most communication was still nonverbal, but she was rather adept at that, too. It hadn’t taken Victor long to learn that the food she preferred above all else was fruit, and she was capable of eating without any assistance. Most of her motor skills had seemed perfect right away. Strange, Victor thought, especially considering her broken leg. She could walk—or limp, at least—without stumbling too much. Flight still remained out of the question, though.

“Book is missing me.” She pointed a hoof at the book splayed out in front of her.

Victor stood and walked over to her. He peered at the page over his glasses. Illustrations of the three pony races sat on the page with a little blurb beneath each of them.

Noire nodded and pointed to the pegasus illustration. “Am I that? Wings are not same.”

“Noire, these are the natural pony races. You are my unnatural creation—one of a kind.”

Victor chuckled inside his throat. “Not in the traditional sense. Come, I’ll show you.” He beckoned her towards the study door.

His own limp had since healed, but he had to walk slowly to keep pace with Noire. They rounded the corner on their immediate left and came face to face with a large metal door. Victor pulled three keys from his lab coat pocket and slid them into their respective holes. The door moaned at them as it swung open and exhaled a cloud of dust from within. Together they descended the crooked stone steps, the air growing icy as they left the upstairs light.

The basement was much clearer in the daylight. Dust specks hung in the air, and most everything remained unchanged from the night of Victor’s experiment. All that had changed were the shelves which had been cleaned and reorganized.

“Look here,” Victor said as they stepped up to the cauldron-side table. Scattered papers completely obscured the wooden tabletop. Most of them were littered with scientific and magical jargon, but Victor pointed to the few crude illustrations. Noire blinked at them.

“This is an earth pony,” Victor said. He pointed to a set of three lines and a circle arranged to resemble a pony. “That is your first half. And this—” he motioned to a second, slightly more intricate illustration “—is a bat. That is your second half. Together, you are a pony-bat, or bat-pony.” He pointed to a final drawing of an earth pony with long, spike bat-like wings.

Noire looked it over with blank eyes. She blinked a few times and turned to Victor. “Why?”

“Because it is necessary,” Victor said, smiling wide. “You will become my apprentice one day, Noire. You will know everything I know, and you will continue my research well into the future. Most importantly, though, you will do what I could not. You will force the world to see my vision. You will convince them to understand my brilliance! You will be the one to reshape the world in my eyes!”

Victor deflated and sighed. “Not yet, Noire, but you will. I have a vision for a world of complete harmony. Where nothing stands between the three types of ponies—or between ponies and other species, for that matter. Such a world will be a utopia, where no one can look down on an earth pony for studying magic or for attempting to fly! Everyone will be equal, and they will thank me!”

One of his eyes twitched and he forcefully grabbed Noire by the shoulders. She kept staring into his eyes blankly. “You are a living representation of harmony, Noire! You are the example to prove that my vision is right! They all laugh at me and mock me for my experiments and my ideas, but they will not—cannot—ignore you! They would defy your very existence by arguing with my brilliance! They will have no choice but to accept the truth, and ponies everywhere will worship me! It will be perfect!”

His mane had gone stark straight, and the blood vessels in his eyes were clear as crystal. His smile cut across his head and touched his ears. The rest of his body trembled.

Victor pulled his hooves back as his breathing slowed. “Yes, there will be plenty of time to learn, Noire. For now, how would you like some lunch? I bought peaches.”

Noire’s eyes lit up and she curled her mouth into a tiny smile. She bounced up and down, nodding rapidly. They turned for the stairs together. Noire paused for a moment by the cauldron, looking at the dried red liquid in the bottom of the pot. Her nostrils flared once before she turned to follow Victor up to the kitchen.

***

“Why not? It has been one month since you created me, and I haven’t left this house once.”

Noire stood. “I thought you wanted ponies to see me. An example of your brilliant vision?”

Victor sighed and closed his book. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a hoof. “Why do you want to go outside?”

Noire turned to the open window. The curtains danced and rippled in the breeze. “I like the air.”

Victor stepped out of his chair, allowing his white coat to fall off of him in a heap. He walked over to her and grabbed her shoulder. “You are not ready to go into town yet, but perhaps we could have lunch outside. Would you like that?”

Noire smiled up at him and nodded enthusiastically. He led her to the back door of the mansion and they stepped outside together.

A timid zephyr blew across them, carrying a flowery scent up from the valley below. The grass wetted their hooves with cold rainwater from the night before. Warm sunlight struck them from directly above. No trees blocked the panorama which stretched to the mountains on the horizon. Together they settled in a little cluster of clovers.

“I’ll be back with some food,” Victor said, standing and smiling at her. She smiled back at him and nodded. He trotted back towards the mansion.

Noire perked her ears up to catch the breeze. The tufts of grey fur behind her ears shook a bit, and she smiled out at the distant mountains—two little fangs biting over her lip. She turned up to look at the clear sky. After staring for a minute or so, her wings twitched. She blinked, stood slowly, and spread her wings out.

***

Victor stepped back outside and instantly dropped the fruit platter from his mouth.

“Papa, look! I’m flying!” She hovered a few feet in the air, beaming over at him. She tried to move in his direction, but her path went sideways almost instantly and she tumbled to the ground. “Oof!”

She shook her head free of the fuzziness before smiling wide at him again. “Papa! Did you see?! I—”

“What were you thinking?!” he shouted, baring all his teeth. “You could’ve seriously hurt yourself, especially with that leg! You could have died, Noire! Then what?! All of my dreams for you—all of the effort spent creating you—it all would have been lost! How could you be so reckless?!”

“Shut up! We’re going back inside! Come.” He wrapped his hoof around her leg and yanked her to standing. He held her as he rushed off towards the mansion.

Noire flapped her wings at a steady pace to help soften her steps, but she still winced with each stride. Together they stormed past the splattered fruit and into the house, the door’s slam booming across the landscape.

***

As the sun kissed the western mountaintops, Noire limped into the study with a tea tray in her mouth. She set it carefully on the table and said, “Papa?”

Noire nodded. “I will, Papa, but I wanted first to apologize for trying to fly today. I do not know why I did. I’m sorry.” She bowed her head and turned to leave.

Victor flipped his book closed and sighed. “You have wings, and you were in an open area. It is only natural for you to want to fly. But, Noire, you must remember something.”

He stepped over to her and settled one hoof on her withers. He smiled warmly as she met his eyes.

“You are not natural, Noire. You were created for a unique purpose, and I cannot afford to lose you. You must learn to resist these natural urges. To control them. Especially when they put you in danger.”

Noire regarded her wings for a moment. She blinked at them and turned back to Victor. “I won’t ever be allowed to fly?”

Victor chuckled. “Of course you will, Noire! Why else would I have given you wings? Flight will one day be one of the integral examples of what you were created to prove. But all in good time, child. You cannot be impulsive. Do you understand me?”

He patted her shoulder. “I’m sure you will. Now, go off to bed. You still have much to study, and we can’t have you waking up late.”

“Of course, Papa.” She smiled a small smile and left the study without another word.

***

She lifted her head to look out the window, but instantly slammed it back to the pillow. She moved her forehooves to her temples and began rubbing, moaning and groaning all the while. Finally she unclenched her eyes enough to look out the bedroom window.

A full moon stared back at her from the eastern horizon like the eye of the universe.

Instantly she recoiled, rolling across her bed and shrieking sharply. She pressed her hooves harder against her skull, but her groans only grew more pained. The moonlight bathed her in an ethereal grey light.

She shrieked again and collapsed to the floor. The window cracked in response to her shrill cry. In the shadow of her bed, her foreleg began bleeding through a long scrape. It dripped to the floor in scattered dots as she writhed across the floorboards. Her body caught some of the droplets and left long red streaks along the wood, appearing as dark gashes in the shadows.

She threw her head up, flared her wings, and shrieked again. The window shattered from its frame, and hundreds of tiny glass pieces showered over her as her body finally fell limp. A cool breeze wafted into the room, gently pushing through her mane.

After several still moments, her nostrils widened as they caught the metallic scent on the wind. Her eyes shot open to reveal slitted red pupils. She pushed herself to standing and stumbled on her broken leg with a grunt. She slanted her eyebrows and bared her fangs as she balanced herself.

Her eyes flicked down to the red stains on the floor. She licked her lips and instantly dipped down to gather the blood on her tongue. After one taste, though, she recoiled and looked down at the liquid with fire behind her eyes. She raised one hoof and stomped the stained floorboard. A hole appeared with a violent crack.

Her nostrils flared again and her attention snapped to the bedroom door. A wry smile grew across her face, and she slowly limped to the oaken entryway. She lifted her forehooves and shoved against the wood.

The door flew from its hinges and thudded against the corridor wall. Noire crept out of her room, dragging her broken leg across the floor like a heavy, blunt weapon. She locked her eyes on the double doors at the far end of the corridor. A shine went across her pupils as she pushed her way forward.

Each of her hoofsteps echoed through the dark hallways, and more than once she moved her tongue across her fangs and lips. She never blinked or moved her eyes from the double doors. She passed a single window and the full moon cast her in a silver spotlight.

She stopped just before the door and eyed its golden keyhole and gilded frame. Her smile never faltered as she lifted her hooves again.

Victor startled awake at as an explosion shook the room. The first thing he noticed were his thick double doors—each snapped in half—lying at the side of the room. He turned to splintered door frame and met the burning red eyes which sat there.

“Noire!” he bellowed. “What are you… what is…” His words tumbled back down his throat as she locked her slanted eyes on him and limped forward. The air suddenly felt much colder, and he shivered as he stumbled backwards off the opposite side of his bed from her. He knocked the iron lantern from his bedside table down with him.

He scrambled to his hooves and looked back at Noire as she dragged herself towards him. “N-Noire…” he whispered, “what happened to you?”

About a metre away from him, she stopped. They stared at each other for a few moments, Victor shaking in place, Noire licking her smile.

Her mouth snapped open and an air-shattering shriek split the room, blowing every window to pieces. Victor screamed as he clenched his eyes shut and flattened his ears. Noire took the moment to pounce at him, pinning him to the ground by his shoulders. A pointed snap sounded out, and Victor cried out again.

His ears still ringing with sustained whines, Victor forced his eyes open. The blurry image of Noire smiling under sanguine eyes filled his vision for but a moment before she descended on him. His neck burned as her fangs made contact. He roared and flailed his limbs about—all but his left foreleg.

One of his hind legs struck her bandaged knee, and Noire stumbled back with a shriek. She collided with the bed and collapsed sideways.

Victor reached over and grabbed the fallen lantern from a pool of oil and glass. Noire pushed herself up with a growl and glared at him, but he struck her head with the lantern and she fell to the floor limply. Victor clambered to his hooves—putting the lantern’s handle between his teeth—and scrambled towards the entryway. The harsh chime in his ears muffled his own footsteps.

Another shriek tore through the house as Victor crossed the threshold. He pinned his ears down and stumbled sideways into the banister. Allowing himself a few heavy breaths, he became all too aware of three things: the blunt soreness in his left shoulder, the fire in his neck, and a warmth trickling down the side of his head. He lifted a hoof up to his ear and it came down stained red.

He chanced a look over his shoulder. Noire’s shadow loomed large on the wall behind him, and it slowly inched forward. He resumed his clumsy canter down the corridor.

He wasted no time at the top of the stairwell. Nearly falling across the steps, he landed on the ground floor with a heavy thud. He panned his manic eyes quickly across the surroundings. Settling on the direction of his study, he started to the right.

An explosion above forced him to look up. Noire stared down at him from the second floor, the banister’s remains lying splintered on the ground beneath. Her straight mouth peeled into a thirsty smile, and her wings shot open.

Victor continued down the hall as fast as his limb allowed. He allowed the lantern to fall from his mouth as he rushed into the study. A crumpled white lab coat sat in his reading chair across the room. He limped over and ran his muzzle through the tangled mess.

Something thudded behind him, but he continued pushing his way through the lab coat until his mouth settled on a metal ring. He clenched it in his teeth but remained still with the coat wrapped around his head.

Muffled booms met his ears, growing louder with each passing second. He looked through the corner of his eye at the ground behind him. A shadow crept towards him in the moonlight, approaching at a steady pace. Just as he saw it, though, it stopped, silencing the dull booms with it.

Victor whipped his head around with a grunt. The key ring held firm in his mouth, but the lab coat flew backwards towards the shadow. It landed squarely on Noire’s head, and she recoiled backwards. Victor bolted around her and out into the corridor, quickly rounding the left corner. He stumbled over to the basement door and fumbled with the set of keys in his mouth.

The second key turned in its lock, and the floorboards rumbled beneath his hooves.

Noire’s shadow opened its mouth and leapt at him with another piercing shriek. At the same moment, Victor wrapped his hoof around the door’s handle and threw his body to the left. The door groaned open, and a figure of blue, black, and red sailed into the darkness beyond. Several loud bangs echoed from within the door’s throat.

Victor cried out as he pushed his weight back against the door. It blew a puff of moldy air at him as it landed back in its frame. He slammed each key into its respective lock, collapsed to the floor, and panted hoarsely.

He sat like that for a few minutes, the moonlight throwing his shadow up the wall behind him. His breathing slowed, and he grabbed his left shoulder with his hoof.

The door boomed beside him, and he pulled himself a safe distance away. Metal crashes echoed through the moonlit corridors, and several dampened shrieks came through the walls. Victor frowned at the door for a time. The banging and scratching from within the basement never slowed or ceased.

Eventually Victor dragged himself to the kitchen. He pulled open a cupboard and spent the rest of the night on the floor with an assortment of bandages and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

***

Victor approached the basement door slowly. The sun was well high in the mid-morning sky, and the banging of metal had stopped several hours earlier. He clunked the keys through their motions and swung the door slowly open.

Her eyes blinked halfway open. She looked up at him through her yellow-slitted irises, a frown underlining her features. After a moment, she groaned and pushed herself up to a standing position. She clutched her head with a hoof.

Victor stared at her like a statue. His left shoulder was heavily bandaged, a wet cloth was draped across his neck, and his ears were stuffed with two pieces of cotton.

“Come,” he said. He limped around the corner and into the study. Noire followed closely behind, her own limp outpacing his.

Together they crossed the study, and Victor settled into his reading chair. The windows around the room had disappeared, and glass shards were littered beneath the frames. Noire stopped in front of him, her head hung.

“Not right now,” he said. “And look at me when we’re speaking.” Noire flicked her eyes up to meet his.

He stared into her for a long few minutes. The fresh morning air played around them, throwing the curtains about. It smelled of spring.

“I…” Noire sighed. “I’m not too sure, Papa. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the moon. I don’t know why, but I felt a lot of pain, and it made me very angry. My mind told me that only one thing in the world could stop the pain.” She glanced at the cloth around Victor’s neck. “I couldn’t control myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Victor said, pulling the cotton from his ears. “Repeat the last part.”

“I couldn’t control myself, Papa,” Noire said, somewhat louder. “I had to stop the pain. My mind told me so.”

Victor lifted his right hoof and struck her in the side of the head. She tumbled to the ground and slid into a nearby table. She looked up to see him with gritted teeth under slanted eyes.

“Look at me, Noire!” He pointed to his neck and shoulder. “Look at the house!” He gestured to the room at large. “It was you who did all of this, and all you have to say is that it was an urge you couldn’t control?! Do you even remember the talk we had yesterday?!”

Noire pushed herself into the floorboards and averted her eyes. She blinked rapidly and said, “I know, Papa, but… but the pain… it was so powerful…”

“I don’t care, Noire! You nearly killed me last night! What then of my brilliant visions?! Who would live on in my legacy?! You’re still too stupid to continue my work, and now you have a natural tendency to turn into a bloodsucking monster just because you couldn’t handle a little pain! What is wrong with you?!”

“Shut up!” Victor stood above her and struck her again. The table behind her fell over sideways.

“I have given you so much, Noire! Food, shelter, education, love, life! You wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me! I’ve entrusted you to bring my brilliant vision to the world! I’ve raised you like you were my own child! And you would dare to try and kill me because you ‘could not control it’ and think that saying ‘sorry’ is anywhere near enough to make up for that?!”

“Listen, you ungrateful creature! From now on, you will spend every night locked in the basement, and you will not even ask to come out until I let you out. You will clean and repair all of the damage you did to this house last night. You will never question what I say ever again. And you will learn to control yourself. Do you understand?!”

“Good.” He turned on the spot and started towards the door. “I must spend the next few days in bed to allow all of my wounds to mend. Get to work on the house, and do not disturb me unless I specifically call for you. Don’t forget to move your bed to the basement.” He turned into the corridor and kicked the door shut behind him, shaking the room.

Noire made to rise, sniffling all the while, but fell back on her broken leg. In a heap on the floor, Noire curled up and sobbed in the mid-morning breeze.

***

Noire had settled into the basement, only coming up to eat, study, and meet Victor’s demands. Her leg still hadn’t fully healed, being that she was constantly going on and off of it between rest and work—her limp had become rather subdued, though. She had begun to learn the basic concepts of Victor’s work, even going so far as to help him with some experimentation. She still hadn’t left the house once since her flying incident.

On nights when the moon was fullest, Noire would still turn to her monstrous state. Her shrieks had long ago shattered the basement’s tiny lone window, and every so often one of the glass phials or flasks would be found cracked or crumbled in the morning. Metal booms would rocket through the house for hours on end, and Victor would see the basement door pulse outwards if he was still awake when the transformation happened. The mornings after were often long and silent.

It was on one of these mornings—when Noire was in the study with half-lidded eyes—that Victor approached her.

“Come, Noire,” he said, throwing a scarf around his neck. “We are going outside.”

Noire’s eyes instantly widened. They caught the morning light alongside her wide smile. “Truly, Papa?”

He nodded. “You are going to learn to fly today. Find that book on aerodynamics.”

Noire sprung from her chair towards the bookcase. Without missing a beat, she pulled a thick green book from the shelf and passed it to Victor. Together they left the study, bound for the back door.

They turned a corner and walked towards the glass door at the corridor’s end. “I’ve been doing some research,” Victor said, “and I believe that I’ve learned something. You see, you have a natural desire to fly just as you have a natural desire to seek out blood under a full moon. My hypothesis is that teaching you to fly will help you learn to control yourself. If you fly regularly, it may appease your mind to the point that you will be able to prevent yourself from becoming a monster during a full moon.”

Noire’s eyes sparkled. “You mean I’ll be able to control my urge for blood and not have to sleep in the basement anymore?!”

Victor chuckled and pushed the back door open. “We shall see, Noire. Let us practice.” They stepped into the snow-carpeted field together, the white sheet crunching loudly beneath their hooves. An icy breeze blew across them, and Noire’s wings fluttered.

***

The fiery orange sun watched from behind the western mountains as a silhouetted pony soared across the sky. The figure performed a wide vertical loop and descended towards a nearby mansion, crying jubilantly through the air.

Noire reared up as she approached Victor, a huge smile stapled to her face. She gently slowed to a hover before landing with a tiny crunch in the snow. “Papa! That was so amazing!”

Victor smiled warmly at her. “I’m sure it was, Noire. As always, you are a very quick learner. How did it feel?”

“It felt unreal, Papa! It was so satisfying, so liberating. To be honest, Papa, I felt more alive than I ever have before.”

Victor nodded curtly. “Very good! Then from now on you will fly for at least one hour every day. Perhaps then you’ll overcome your natural tendencies, and you’ll be ready to become my perfect apprentice. You could serve my needs yet, Noire.”

Noire beamed. “Thank you so much, Papa! I will not fail you!” She ran forward and threw her hooves around him. He didn’t return the embrace, but he allowed it.

Victor craned his head to the horizon. “It’s getting late, Noire. Go make us something to eat, and then be off to the basement.”

Still grinning, Noire nodded. “Of course, Papa.” Together they walked back into the house, the sliver of a waning moon watching them go.

***

A ghastly grey claw of light stretched across the wall behind her. She clutched her forehooves to her head and shrieked, shattering a flask of purple liquid nearby. Before long, she fell silent and opened her slitted red eyes to the shadowy basement.

Her nostrils pulled in the cold, crisp air, and her attention whipped to the tiny barred hole where a window used to be. Some snow sat on the sill, and her expression blinked into a wry smile. She turned to regard the black staircase leading upwards and rolled her eyes at it. She faced the hole in the wall again and flared her wings open.

A pocket of earth at the base of Cane’s Mansion exploded in a cloud of dirt, grass, stone, and mortar. Noire rocketed into the starlit sky as the thunderous sound soared into the distance. She screeched to a halt midair and panned her hungry eyes across the landscape. A small ways to the east—just under the looming gaze of a full moon—was a village of thatched-roof houses. Some of the town’s lights still flickered against the night.

In the span of one heartbeat, Noire shot towards the village. Her thin wings sliced the air like a knife through flesh, and the tufts behind her ears shivered in the frigid gale. She opened her mouth wide—her fangs sparkling—as the houses came into detail. Her shriek cut through the village like a shrill thunderclap.

Her landing erupted a puff of soil from the well-trodden dirt road. More lanterns came alight in the houses around her, and she licked her lips at the sounds of doors creaking open and hooves against wood.

“What on earth was that?” called a mare’s voice from somewhere behind her. Noire shot a look out the corner of her eye.

“Hey,” came a stallion’s voice, “is that a pegasus over there? We don’t take kindly to feather-brains like you, y’hear?!”

A tiny pink filly strolled out of a house in front of Noire, yawning and dragging a blanket behind her. The two of them locked eyes. The filly screamed and fumbled with her hooves as she turned back to her house.

With a single pump of her wings, Noire screamed forward and pressed the filly to the ground. She lowered her fangs to the tiny neck.

Something struck her, and Noire tumbled sideways off the filly. She looked up at a hulking stallion scowling down at her, a sprig of wheat clenched in his teeth. “Stay away from my daughter, you brute!”

Noire growled and forced an air-rippling shriek from her lungs. The filly screamed again and scrambled back into her house. The stallion’s legs buckled and he flattened his ears to his skull. Noire shot forward and struck him in the chest, sending him flying back through his doorway. His body slammed into the filly, kept going, and turned a table to splinters.

Noire looked around at the growing mob of earth ponies. Another low growl passed between her teeth, and the shriek that followed made several ponies drop their lanterns. As the mob stumbled from the shock wave, Noire bolted into the house nearby, pulling the door shut behind her.

The doorframe ruptured, but Noire paid it no mind. She focused her thirsty red eyes on the unconscious stallion lying amid splintered wood. She slowly paced closer, her fangs growing slick with saliva.

Noire snapped her eyes to the left. A beige mare with a brown mane stared at her, quivering on the spot. Her eyes were wide, dilated, and reflected the moonlight. Her mouth hung open, her jaw shaking ceaselessly as she looked between the fallen stallion, the filly lying crumpled against the wall, and the bat-winged creature staring her down.

The mare blinked, and Noire was on top of her. She managed a few tiny, airless whimpers before Noire lowered her fangs to the mare’s neck. The mare felt fire pulse through her veins for a few eternal moments before she passed out.

***

Noire’s eyes fluttered open—slitted and yellow—and she instantly recoiled.

A hollow, bone-white face stared back at her. Its eyes were sunken black holes, and its mouth hung open limply. Noire looked steadily down the pony’s body. Its skin was thin and pale. She could see the outline of the mare’s ribcage pushing against it, ready to jut out of her body at the smallest jostle.

Her eyes shaking, Noire forced herself to look at the mare’s neck. Four little holes sat in the skin: tiny, black, and no bigger than freckles.

“No…” Noire whispered beneath her breath. She peeled her eyes away and looked across the surrounding room.

A large stallion lay sprawled in a small pool of blood and wood, but his chest still moved steadily up and down. Beyond him lay a tiny filly, pressed against the wall with all of her legs going the wrong way. A little blue blanket sat in two pieces around her. Noire took several hollow steps closer to her, just enough to see that the filly’s chest was heaving. Only just, but the pony was breathing.

Noire blinked rapidly as her eyes misted over. She barely heard the door fall off of its hinges behind her. Her eyes moved to the far window. The full moon loomed over her from just above the horizon.

“Get away from them!” cried a deep, booming voice. Noire turned in time to see a stallion pelting towards her with a torch held in his hoof. He lobbed it at her, but she took off through the window before it struck.

She soared high into the sky and came to a hovering halt. Ponies hollered at her from below, but she failed to register it as the straw roof of the house she’d just left burst into fire. Her eyes just caught one stallion dragging another out of the house’s front door before collapsing into the road. Noire caught the firelight in her pupils, hanging in the sky for a still moment before streaking down and punching a hole through the blazing roof.

She pumped her wings through the smoke, zooming towards the filly against the wall. Noire scooped the broken pony into one foreleg, and the filly’s eyes opened a sliver as she did.

“P-please don’t hurt me,” wheezed the filly. Noire frowned. She beat her wings and stormed through an open window. She wheeled around to the front of the house and gently lowered herself to the collapsed pair of stallions. She nestled the filly on the ground next to them, the little pony coughing hoarsely.

Noire looked up to dozens of incensed eyes bearing down on her. She shot into the cool sky, a contrail of sparkling tears following her back to the distant mansion. The angry cries died in her ears, and soon only her own sobbing filled the quiet night.

***

Noire streamed through an open window at the top of the mansion. “Papa! Papa!” she called out in a shrill tone.

Victor bolted up in his bed. “Noire?” He rubbed his eye with one hoof and flicked his bedside lantern on with the other. “How did you get out of the basement?”

She collapsed to the floor, heaving as her eyes clenched shut. “I killed a pony, Papa! The window in the basement! I flew and got out and… and there was the town… and… it was so painful, Papa! I couldn’t control myself! I didn’t—”

“Noire!” Her frantic voice descended back into racked sobs. “Are you telling me you escaped the basement and flew into town?”

“Yes, Papa! All of that!” She sniffled and shivered on the floor. “They called me a monster—and I was a monster! I—I don’t—”

Noire whimpered and flattened her ears as she met Victor’s stony eyes. The winter air billowed in through the window, making the room cool and damp.

Eventually, Victor sighed and closed his eyes. “This is not your fault, Noire. It is mine.”

“I should never have taught you to fly. I should never have expected you to be able to control your natural tendencies. They clearly have control over you, and I cannot blame anyone but myself for that.” He opened his eyes and stared at her over his frown. “I created you, after all.”

“No, Papa, no!” Noire clambered over to his bedside and grabbed his hoof between hers. “It is my fault! B-but I can do better, Papa! I promise! I’ll learn to control myself somehow! I can do it, Papa! Don’t blame yourself! Your brilliant mind is perfect! You taught me so!”

Victor chuckled once and smiled sadly. “Not as perfect as I thought.” He faced her. “Go to bed, Noire. We must be up early… for our studies…”

Noire sniffled again as she stood. She wiped her tears on one foreleg. “O-okay, Papa.” She took several shaky steps towards the door, but came to a halt just before the threshold. She smiled over her shoulder at Victor. “I will make you proud, Papa. I can control this. I promise.”

“I’m sure you will, Noire. Good night.” He flicked the lantern off and fell back into his pillow. Noire strode silently out of the bedroom.

Noire’s hoofsteps echoed in the silence of the house. As she stepped past windows and through the moonlight, her mind flashed with visions of fire, flight, bones, and blood. Each step she took was slower than the last, and her breaths were quaking as she arrived back in the basement. She climbed into her bed and watched the moon climb across the sky through the exploded hole in the wall. She turned to face the other wall and cried the night away, not sleeping for a moment.

***

Noire had taken it upon herself to repair the hole in the basement wall, and Victor hadn’t objected. None of the villagers had ever come looking for her, but she had decided to quit her daily flight regimen and stayed inside for most days instead. Essentially every day went by the same way: Noire would spend her time in the study reading and doing mental exercises she had developed herself. Victor would pass most of his time in the basement, often missing dinner. The days typically went by without either of them saying a word to one another.

On nights when the moon was full, metallic booms no longer shook the house for the entire night. Noire would spend the first half of the night writhing on the floor with her head between her hooves, letting off warbled shrieks every so often. This would go on for hours before she finally went still and opened her slitted red eyes. Then the pounding against the door would begin and persist for the rest of the night. Victor, for his part, had never asked her about it since that dark winter’s night.

It was on one of these similar cold nights, when the moon was nearing its zenith, that Noire found herself writhing and screaming on the basement floor once again.

A cacophony of wooden thuds, metallic clangs, and high-pitched shrieks tore through the utter blackness of the chamber. Noire had her eyes clamped tightly shut and her forehooves pressed harshly against the sides of her skull. She slammed into a wall, and the sound of shattering glass rang out from somewhere above.

Without warning, her shrieks picked up frequency. They warbled between shrill and dull tones, echoing off the walls in a painful symphony. Noire reared her head high into the air and screamed for all her lungs were worth. It began as an air-cutting shriek, but it fell back in tone, volume, and ferocity until it was no more than a pained scream. It fell from the air abruptly, and Noire fell limply to the floor.

Her eyes went wide, and she scrambled to her hooves. She stood in the damp silence for a moment, waiting for reality to strike her like lightning. When nothing happened, a wide grin split her features. She settled back into her bed without another sound, and she was asleep within the hour.

***

A pair of yellow slits appeared across her face. She looked up to see Victor’s distant eyes looming over her. “I came to let you out this morning,” he said, “but you were not at the door. Was last night not a full moon?”

Noire broke into a smile which split her skull. She leapt up and threw her forehooves around Victor, pushing him back a few steps with her embrace. “Papa! I did it! I really did! I controlled it!”

Victor forced her away with one hoof. His eyes were wide and his voice was quiet as he said, “You… you successfully prevented yourself from turning into a monster? You controlled the fatal flaw in your design?!”

“Yes, Papa! It was very painful, but I know I can do it now!” Noire’s eyes shimmered in the dim light of the basement.

Victor’s mane went stark straight, and his eyes bulged out over his smile. “This is amazing! Do you realize what this could mean, Noire?! All of the time that I’ve invested into your upbringing, all of the faith I’ve put in you, it might not all be wasted! You could still succeed in bringing my research to the world yet! I might not have to replace you after all!”

“Yes, Papa, I—” Noire’s eyes stayed wide but her smile fell limp as her mind caught up with her mouth. “Wait… replace me?”

Victor blinked, and when he looked back at her it appeared as though he were noticing her for the first time. “Oh, did I never tell you about that?” He rubbed his chin and looked at the ground. “I suppose I have been rather silent about it, haven’t I?”

He looked back to Noire with a smile. “Not that it matters now, but yes, I’ve been working on a replacement for you ever since you told me about killing that mare in town. It became apparent to me then how fatal the flaw in your design was, and so I tried to rework my original experiment to remove the flaw. I was actually quite close to finishing too, so I suppose it’s lucky that you managed to do this now of all times!”

Noire moved one step back. Her eyes flicked to the table near the cauldron—one littered with papers that Victor had brought down for his experimentation. She brushed past Victor to the table and looked across the notes. The topmost paper was titled Earth Pony/Bat Hybrid Mk. II.

Victor stepped up next to her and sighed down at the research notes. “I’ll keep these safe anyway, just in case this turns out to be a fluke.” He looked at the far wall, his eyes bulging again. “It’s so promising, though!”

“Problem: Bat-pony hybrid mk. I—codename: Noire—unsuccessful. Fatal flaw in formula turns it to bloodsucking monster in full moon. Must identify and correct fault.”“It could still be troublesome to convince ponies that you’re not a monster on sight,” Victor mused, pacing around behind her, “especially after that fiasco in the village two years ago. But I’m sure it can be done! After all, my genius knows no limits! I created a self-correcting experiment, for pony’s sake!”

Noire lifted her hoof and sifted through the papers, her mouth agape slightly. Her eyes fell on three illustrations which tickled her memory: an earth pony, a bat, and a merging of the two. She blinked again and scanned her eyes across the paragraphs and charts. A few words became embossed in her memory as she saw them.

“Actually, designing a second hybrid has been quite the ordeal, and I would hate for all that time to have gone to waste even if this does turn out to be a permanent fix. I’m so close to perfecting the experiment that I may just create a second one anyway! What harm could there be in having two perfect examples of my genius carry on into the future? They could even breed!”

“The blood, the vampire bat, the lunar sigil… any one of these could be responsible for ‘The Noire Problem,’ or any combination of them, for that matter. They are all integral to the final hybridization, though…”

“...essence of love. Removing that would only affect her capacity to form bonds with other creatures. Nothing lost there. Those relations might be more harm than good, anyway…”

“We can worry about all of that later today, though. For now, I think I deserve a very large breakfast! Would you get on that, Noire?” When silence met him, he turned to look at the back of her head. “...Noire?”

Noire pulled up the most recent page of notes. Her fangs gritted together as she read.

“...may achieve stability within the hybrid. Should this work, I will have no need for mk. I any longer. I can dispose of it, possibly use the body for dissection to further improve mk. II. Not too sure why I’ve kept her around so long, anyway.”

“Noire.” Victor reached for her shoulder. “That’s my research. Stop looking through—”

Noire whirled on him, striking the side of his head with a hoof. He slid across the grimy cobblestones and slammed into a wall. He looked up to the dimly lit image of a red-eyed monster staring at him from across the room.

Her shriek broke the air. Most every flask around the room shattered, pouring technicolor fumes across the room as the spilt liquids and dusts mixed. She shrieked again, pouncing forward as the sound rippled the chemical pools. Within a fraction of a second, the hybrid was on top of its creator, bearing over him with glimmering fangs. Her head descended.

***

Noire stood over Victor’s pale, lifeless, hollow corpse. She panted heavily, and her fangs dripped with dark saliva. Her eyes had fallen to their natural yellow, but they remained slanted above her scowl.

Eventually she collapsed sideways. With every breath she gulped in more of the tangy, acidic cocktail which hung in the air around her. Her eyes began to water, and a sudden wave of sobs racked her body. She grabbed Victor’s body and wept into his bony shoulder.

Curled up against him, she sniffled and allowed her tears to pool on the floor. After a few minutes in the ambience of chemical hissing around her, Noire coughed a spatter of dark red dots which clung to the wall in front of her. She stared at it.

“You were right, Papa,” she whispered, blinking. “Everyone was right. I’m a monster.”

Noire looked one last time over her shoulder at the table and cauldron in the room’s centre. With one flap of her wings, a gust shot across the chamber and the notes on the table scattered into the air. Most of them landed safely on the floor or back on the table, but an unlucky few touched the colourful pools lining the shelves. They popped and sizzled as the chemicals consumed them.

Noire coughed again, and she clutched Victor closer to her. She closed her eyes and allowed sleep to claim her.

The Monster of Cane's Hill

by ArgonMatrix

What Came First