//------------------------------// // Chapter 22, Explanations // Story: Darkness Rising // by SkyHighFlyer //------------------------------// “Now do you get it?” Twilight asked for what felt like the hundredth time. “Yeah, magical creatures, drink blood, everypony hates us, I got it,” Dash replied, irking Twilight further. They had been going at this for nearly a day, with long breaks when Rainbow fell into unconsciousness again, though she was gaining strength and staying awake for longer periods of time. Twilight was making an effort to get Rainbow acquainted quickly enough to avoid making her disappearance more suspicious than it already was, and thus when Rainbow wasn't getting the point of the whole discussion she grew more frustrated. “That's not what I'm trying to tell you Rainbow, I'm trying to explain to you that ponies try to kill us. They don't just hate us, they hunt and kill us, and they won't give up unless Princess Celestia kills us first!” “Yeah,” Rainbow said arrogantly, “like I said, everypony hates us, I told you Twilight, I get it.” Twilight was reluctant to take her answer like this, but she couldn't delay any longer. Rainbow wasn't great, but she had to move on with their lessons at some point. “Would you like to see Fluttershy? She's missed you a lot, and maybe you'll listen to her better than you listen to me,” Twilight asked. She had planned to bring Fluttershy to see Rainbow the whole time, hoping that seeing her oldest friend as a vampire might help her to adapt to it better, knowing that at least one other pony that she trusted and loved since her foalhood was just like she was now. Rainbow Dash wasn't really having a problem adapting though. She took in the information pretty easily, though Twilight's concern was that she wasn't really getting the significance of it, and once she did she didn't have any objections to any of it, simply lazing around her bedroom in various positions as Twilight tried to reinforce the concepts in her mind. Without knowing what a vampire was before she was turned might have had something to do with it, as she hadn't heard the legends of monsters that abducted ponies and left only death in their wake, though she did try to get it into Rainbow's head that that was how other ponies would look at her now. “Sure, why not, I could use somepony more interesting anyway.” That made Twilight absolutely infuriated, though she contained her anger. After all, Rainbow wasn't strong enough to heal grievous injuries yet, as much as Twilight felt the urge to give them to her. Taking a deep, calming breath, Twilight said, “Alright, how about I go and get Fluttershy while you stay here.” “Yeah, fine, whatever,” Rainbow replied with seeming disinterest, bringing Twilight even more unnecessary anger. “I'm serious Rainbow,” Twilight replied, “the last thing we need is for you to be wandering around like this right now, assuming you could even make it tho the ground without getting hurt first. Rainbow just climbed up onto her fluffy cloud bed. “Relax Twi, I'm not going anywhere, just go do what you need to do.” “Alright,” Twilight said, and decided to leave without saying anything else. What she didn't know was that Rainbow was actually trying to make her angry. She acted okay with it, but the strongest emotion she felt was hate, hate towards Twilight for turning her into this, and a lesser hate for lying to them and decieving them about her true nature. She would get over it eventually, but for the time being she was doing her best to give Twilight as much trouble as she could. ----- Fluttershy was initially unwilling to come along, nervous about Rainbow seeing her as she truly was, and terrified of actually seeing Rainbow now that she had changed. She tried to be strong, but she really didn’t want to go. Despite her fears and apprehension however, she felt that she had a duty to her friend to be there and to help her in a difficult time. Twilight brought her up to Rainbow’s cloud house, at almost three in the morning. It was virtually impossible to get to and from the ground during the day, as in order to fly one’s wings would need to be out from any kind of protective covering, regardless of what type of wing it was. In theory it would be possible to land alright by jumping off, as vampires could survive the impact with little to no injury, but the problem of keeping sunlight away was still the primary difficulty, and even once the ground was reached the same problem persists for returning up. Teleportation could mitigate the problem, although the amount of energy it used bothered Twilight, especially when bringing somepony else along. Use of unicorn magic, especially frequently and in great intensities, would drain energy from the vampire using it. Where a normal pony would need time to recover after long term or strenuous use of magic, vampires, like with sleep, were exempt from this, drawing the power to cast spells directly from the stored energy they get from blood. The problem with this was that using magic would drain from their energy every time they used magic, scaling more with the power of the spell, which meant that magic users like Twilight would need to feed more often to keep up with their abilities. That wasn’t easy, as she had yet to work out an effective system for feeding, having twice since turning Fluttershy gone out and fed on somepony from Ponyville while they were sleeping. She wasn’t a fan of doing this, but she used numbing, sleep, and healing spells so that they would never even notice that they had been drained of blood, and the worst they suffered was minor discomfort or lethargy the next morning. That was one of the reasons she decided to bring Fluttershy up at this time. She wasn’t sure how long it would take and she didn’t want the responsibility of ferrying her back to the ground via teleport if it took too long, and if she was ready to bring Fluttershy in later in the day it would be an even worse drain. Rune magic could be used for teleportation between locations instead, but that was an incredibly complex rune that she didn’t know how to craft yet. When they arrived at Rainbow’s home Fluttershy almost didn’t want to step through the door, with some more prompting from Twilight and some words of encouragement however she finally came around. Rainbow either didn’t see them, or didn’t want to acknowledge them, until Fluttershy said, “Hello Rainbow.” She said it nervously, once again regressing in self-confidence to how she was before being turned. Twilight felt a pang of guilt as Fluttershy said those words with near terror, but tried to bury it for the time. Rainbow was slow to rise from her relaxed position, still showing signs of weakness, but looked at Fluttershy with friendly eyes. At least for a moment she did. After she saw Fluttershy as she truly appeared her expression turned somber. Twilight had explained that Fluttershy was also a vampire, though she conveniently left out the details on how it happened, but actually seeing Fluttershy had a much stronger impact on Rainbow than simply hearing it from somepony else. Seeing the pony she had known and trusted like a sister from the earliest days of her youth standing before her, as the same monster she had now become, filled her with emotion. Most of that emotion was rage directed at Twilight, for being the beginning of the whole thing, but also for corrupting the one thing in the world that she saw as completely pure and innocent. The rest of it was a mixture of grief, sadness, and sympathy. “Hi Fluttershy,” Rainbow said, though it was clearly forced. For the time being the only thing holding her back from attacking Twilight with everything she had was her weakness. “I’ll... I’ll just leave you alone,” said Twilight as she quietly backed out, looking to get a few moments to herself as well as give them some time together. With Twilight out of the picture, Rainbow grew calmer as Fluttershy made her way over and pulled Rainbow into a warm embrace, one that she gladly returned without hesitation. “I’ve missed you so much Rainbow, you have no idea,” she said gladly. Letting Rainbow go and looking her in the eyes she said, “I’m so sorry for lying to you, it just wasn’t a good idea...” “Yeah, Twilight already gave that speech,” Rainbow interrupted. She laid back, fighting the urge to sleep successfully, but not being able to keep herself upright any longer. “How are you feeling?” Fluttershy asked. Though it wasn’t easy, she was growing more comfortable with talking to Rainbow as they went on. “I hate this Fluttershy, I hate this so much, and Twilight, and... I can’t stand being like this!” “Shh, it’ll be alright, you’ll get used to it,” Fluttershy said in the most soothing voice she could, putting a hoof on Rainbow’s foreleg in a comforting fashion. Staring at the ceiling, Rainbow asked, “How can you do it Fluttershy, how can you stand being like this?” “Oh, um... I don’t actually have a problem with it, Rainbow. In fact, I actually love it.” Not even her own physical weakness could prevent her from shooting up, staring at Fluttershy with wide, fearful eyes when she heard those words. “How,” she asked with a mixture of fear and sadness, and even a little pity mixed into her voice as she expressed her shock, “how can you actually like this... being this?” Pulling back because she saw that Rainbow was growing uncomfortable, Fluttershy’s comfort dropped immediately and she began having second thoughts about even being here. Rainbow didn’t even acknowledge Fluttershy’s change in expression, she simply laid back down and said, “Just go away Fluttershy, just... go away.” Fluttershy left sorrowfully without any other words, leaving Rainbow alone to think about how something of such purity could fall so far as she drifted off to sleep. ----- When Rainbow woke a few hours later, Twilight and Fluttershy were nowhere to be found, nor was Shadowfall. Somepony different was there instead, somepony she had never met before, but looked vaguely familiar. “Good Morning,” she said. Unlike Twilight and Fluttershy, she at least appeared normal. Her eyes were a rich shade of blue, and none of the other characteristics that Twilight and Fluttershy had displayed were present. Her wings were long, the tips of her feathers partially obscuring her cutie mark, which revealed that she had to be a pure blooded descendent of imperial pegasi, an almost extinct bloodline, one almost never seen in this day and age. She wasn’t fooled however, she had seen Twilight turn from a vampire to the appearance of a normal pony before, and even told her that it was one of the first and most important skills to learn. It was unusually comforting though, seeing somepony that didn’t look like a monster sitting beside her bed. “Who are you?” she asked, not getting up yet. The mare by her bedside smiled, “My name is Silver Wing, Twilight asked me to come in and watch you for a while. She got called away on business. It’s completely normal for vampires to request help with something, in fact I’m surprised that it hasn’t happened to Twilight sooner.” “Are you a vampire too?” Rainbow asked, finally putting forth the effort to rise. Silver nodded. “Yes, but unlike the other three I have a lot more experience dealing with normal ponies than any of them, so I know hat it’s more comforting to see something a little more familiar.” Although still apprehensive, Rainbow had to admit that she like this mare so much better already. She was considerate, but still honest about her nature and intentions. “Do you like chess?” she asked. It wasn’t awkward or meant as a means to ease the mood, but rather as a legitimate question about her interest. “Never learned how to play,” Rainbow replied. Silver gave her a light smile, and a very reassuring one. It was hard for Rainbow to be afraid or angry in her presence. “Would you like to?” “Why not,” Rainbow replied. She had better idea of what to do, and Twilight said she wanted to start teaching her soon, but there was no telling how long it would take for her to get back. They spent nearly half an hour going over the rules of the game. She had brought a chess board along with her, not knowing what she was going to do with Rainbow for however long Twilight would be away for, which would most likely be at least the whole day. “I can’t stand her,” Rainbow finally said partway through their first game, where despite how slow and passive the game was, she was having fun. The reason she had never learned how to play was because she couldn’t sit still long enough, and the game involved no physical activity. “Who can’t you stand,” Silver Wing asked, taking another pawn, pushing Rainbow closer and closer to loosing. “Twilight, it just makes me so angry that she did this to me, without even trying to get me to listen another way first.” Silver Wing gave her a knowing smile, “I know, she can be a bit of trouble at times, I would know best, I was the one that watched over her when she was younger. Anyway, you really can’t blame her for being overprotective...” “Why shouldn’t I?” Rainbow said violently, growing a little angry. Silver Wing’s smile disappeared, but she remained calm and collected. “It isn’t her fault really, she cares too much about to let you die. If she didn’t she would have killed you on the spot. She’s never been good with ponies, even though she’s always lived with them and understood them she’s never quite trusted them. In some ways she’s worse than Shadowfall about that.” Rainbow made a move, placing a knight in a strategic position. “Why doesn’t she trust ponies?” “She did at first, when she was young, but once she learned everything about what she actually was she just kind of fell apart. Her friendships with other ponies came apart and she became socially unreachable,” Silver explained. “Why, what happened to make her so defensive that she just kills anypony who knows her secret?” Silver Wing’s expression took on a darker hint as she said, “Once she learned everything she wasn’t willing to give her trust away so easily. She found out what happens to vampires that are discovered, and she found out how her parents died, and she started looking at normal ponies as threats.” “I thought her parents were still alive,” Rainbow said questioningly. “You’ve met her adoptive parents, her real parents have been dead for a while. Her father was killed before he even knew he was going to have a daughter, and her mother... well, that’s a different story.” Rainbow’s curiosity perked, she asked, “What happened to her mother?” “The day Twilight was born was supposed to be a day of celebration. There were over fifty vampires in one place, which was all but a tiny amount of our population at the time. Our leader, or ruler if you prefer the term, nopony ever really bothered with the specifics, was giving birth to a foal. I was there, and so was nearly everypony I knew,” she explained. “That ended up being one of the worst days in our entire history. “A few hours after she was born Celestia and what had to be a small army of paladins, or soldiers specifically train to wage war against vampires, attacked us. We weren’t expecting it, we had no defenses prepared, and we still don’t know how they discovered where we were. The whole thing was a massacre from the beginning. When the fighting started, I took Twilight and hid, and then I snuck her out while all the fighting was going on elsewhere. I was only eight then. “After that, well, from that point things couldn’t get any worse. I made my way to the one vampire I knew that wasn’t dead and all surviving vampires regrouped. By tradition, Twilight would succeed her mother as our leader, but nopony could take care of her, they were all either too young or burdened with something else, and even if they weren’t it was concluded that leaving her with other vampires was too dangerous, so everypony worked together for over a month to craft magic that would protect her from everything, suppressing her vampiric abilities and shielding her from sunlight, and preventing her from doing anything that would reveal her. She looked like a pony, acted like a pony, and even felt like a pony. It was exceptionally complex to craft, no detail was overlooked, and it fooled even her. “After that, we left her with a couple who wanted a daughter but were having trouble conceiving. I brought her to Canterlot and left her on their doorstep in the morning with a letter, rang the doorbell and got out of sight. They took her in, and raised her as their own daughter, and with the excess amounts of bits we had left I was able to move into the house across the street to keep an eye on her.” After she finished the story, Rainbow still hadn’t forgiven Twilight, but she did see her friend in a whole new light. After the moment of silence that indicated that the story was over Rainbow asked, “Why was it so important that she be the next ruler, why not anypony else?” “It wasn’t as simple as that,” Silver Wing explained, “Our leaders have been determined by purity of bloodline for over five thousand years. Rank was a hierarchy, which was first and foremost determined by those descended from vampires directly over many generations. The ponies who could trace their descendance back to a time when even vampires had no surviving record of history were called, in our ancient language, ralanis verolar alin nocinil, which roughly translates to ‘born of the first moonlight’, so obviously not a perfect translation, but then again it is an almost infinitely more complex language. When speaking in Equestrian, the term ‘firstborn’ was more commonly used, but ever since the days when the number of firstborn dropped significantly, no particular title has been associated with them. They were always known for being more powerful as a result of having pure vampire ancestry over such a long period of time. “To put it into perspective, you wouldn’t just replace Princess Celestia with somepony off the streets, it would be a lot more complicated than that.” “Makes sense, I guess,” Rainbow said, sounding confused. When Twilight explained it, it was like talking about them as just another race, like unicorns or pegasi. Rainbow never considered the possibility of such an advanced culture and society, or how harshly they were hunted. When Silver said she had more experience talking to normal ponies, she wasn’t lying, even if it technically didn’t apply to Rainbow any longer. She put things in perspective much better. “I don’t understand why Twilight has trust problems though,” Rainbow added. Silver Wing took a deep breath. “Twilight was a very social pony when she was little. I became her foalsitter after she was seven, and for the first few years she had a lot of friends. I explained to her what she was when she was nine. I told her all about what she was and how she was different, and about what happened to her real parents, and made an extra point of warning her to protect her secret with her life if she had to. “Afterwards, she just drifted away from her friends. Every time she looked at somepony she trusted before she felt like they were a danger, that they wouldn’t trust her and that they would fear her, and she became closer to me and her adoptive brother. She and I formed a kind of sister relationship, something that I felt for her since the day I saved her life, even as everypony I knew was slaughtered “When she was ten she became Celestia’s personal protégé and was privileged enough to get Cadence as she foalsitter, but she and I still kept that sister relationship, and I provided for her study materials on dark and forgotten magic, and when she started needing it, at an unusually young age because of her magical talents, I started obtaining and providing fresh blood for her, until recently when she became capable of getting it for herself.” After another short pause and another deep breath, Silver Wing said, “I got a bit off topic, what I’m trying to say is that Twilight’s never trusted ponies because once she learned what happened to her parents, and what was done to vampires in general, she stopped trusting all but vampires and a few ponies she loved like family, like Shining Armor, because she knew they wouldn’t understand her. Even if they might have, she just didn’t believe it could happen. I was actually surprised when she made friends out here in Ponyville, I didn’t think she would trust anypony enough, nor did I think she would give up her future plans to settle down in Ponyville.” “So, she didn’t trust us because she was afraid we wouldn’t trust her?” Rainbow asked. “That, and she was probably also afraid of abandonment,” Silver said. “I know for a fact that she never meant for this to happen. Fluttershy was an accident, and one that she regrets deeply. Because of that she had more to deal with, and you started to notice the changes in her behavior, and that distrust drove you further apart until this happened.” “I... I didn’t know, she made it seem so much simpler than this,” Rainbow said, starting to regret being so angry towards Twilight, just a little. “I know she isn’t very easy to get along with, but she really does care about you, and she deserves your forgiveness,” Silver Wing said. “Oh, and by the way –” She made a move on the chess board “– checkmate.”