Recently, I got to live the Equestrian Dream: I got to throw my crazy ex-husband off a cliff.
No, I don't make a habit of killing ponies. Accidents happen around me sometimes. Maybe a lot of sometimes. Really unfortunate accidents, but nopony has died yet. My ex doesn’t count; he wasn't even a pony anymore. My ex-husband had become a monster.
No, I’m serious. He was way faster than he had any right to be, and his teeth were sharp like— You know what? Let’s back this up a bit. It'd be easier to just start from the beginning.
\|/-Canterlot-\|/
I hadn't been looking forward to that day, but I was looking forward to getting it over with. He'd written me two weeks ago saying that he wanted to meet with me to discuss “our little Dinky's” future and to “make things right.” While I wasn't interested in getting back together with him, and I definitely had no intention of letting that stallion anywhere near my foal anytime soon, I figured I could maybe convince him to lend some more financial support to care for his offspring. Raising a unicorn isn't cheap, especially for a pegasus like me, so I wasn't too proud to take what I could get. Besides, the restraining order had worn off around that time, thanks to a sworn affidavit from his psychologist that my ex no longer harbored any extreme ill will towards me and no longer posed a threat to either me or my daughter.
Somepony really should check that mare for bite marks, by the way.
Anyhow, we'd decided to meet at his office at the edge of Canterlot after the graveyard shift started. It was when he was supposed to be working, but he assured me that his workers weren't hard to control. As I walked past several jittery-yet-glassy-eyed ponies doing various office tasks on the way to his corner office, I found it hard to disagree. I walked past the huge bookshelf full of books with fancy titles and into his office proper, ready to discuss my daughter's future.
“Greetings, Ms. Hooves. You're looking well.”
As I looked at him in front of a window with a commanding view of the Mane River Falls from above, I couldn't quite say the same. It wasn't that he looked sick or weak. In fact, he looked far more toned than the last time I'd seen him. He'd lost a lot of weight, too. He hadn't exactly been a tub of shortening when I knew him, but now he'd look emaciated if it weren't for all the lean muscle. His horn was as sharp as ever, as well.
And then there was his coat. What had once been a rich ruby red was now a dull, ashen pink. I wasn't sure at the time if it looked like he'd gotten too much sun, or not enough.
What really looked unhealthy, though, what looked wrong about him, were his eyes. They looked hungry. Not hungry like a pony who's jealously eying a tasty salad being brought to the restaurant table next to them. More hungry like a cat locked in a kennel without food by a forgetful shop owner, eying the plump canary in the next cage over. These weren't the eyes of the insecure bully I'd married; these were the eyes of a predator.
I gulped, ruffling my wings a little.
“Hello, Railroad Spike,” I replied. “How's knife? Er, life.”
“Ah, I did always find your little slips of the tongue endearing.” My face reddened. “As for life, life flows on. It seems to flow a lot more smoothly, now that I've learned to let go of a few things. How have things been for our little Dinky? I haven't gotten to hear much about her since she was a yearling.”
“My little Dinky is doing well. Her magic is starting to come in, which is great, but I've been all ovah the place looking for ways to help her out. The only tragic I know is moving clouds or flying around,” and maybe a little bit about making lightning, “but I don't see how any of that will be much use.”
“It sounds like you're having some trouble.”
“Oh, it's nothing I can't handle, even on a mailmare's budget,” I say as I roll one of my eyes, “but I'll accept help if you're offering.”
“Tell me… do you have a stallion in your life right now?”
I didn't.
“I don't see what that has ta do with this meeting,” I respond, flatly. “I'm pretty sure we're here to talk about how you can help me raise Dinky, preferably from a great distance.”
“Derpy, my old-time wall-eyed flower, that's why I called you here: to help you. You look scared. You look like you've had a lot to be scared of recently. Tell me,” he said, eyes fixed on (one of) mine as he began to step around his desk towards me, “how would you like to never be afraid again?”
“I... I don't follow. Railroad, you're starting ta shake me nervous.”
“If you let me back into her life,” he said, smoothly closing the distance between us, “Into your life… you won't fear anything ever again.”
He finally broke eye contact to whisper into my ear.
“You'll be too busy causing it.”
And then he wrapped his hooves around me and pressed his lips hungrily to my neck.
'No. This is not ok! Nopenopenopenopenope!'
I slammed my head into his and slipped out of his grip.
“What in the hay do ya think you're doin'?!” I shout as I back away from him, both of my eyes finally agreeing to focus on him despite some sudden dizziness. “I appreciate attracting a stallion's detention as much as the next mare, but I've already made it plenty clear the only attention I want from you is an alipony check. If ya think that just because I agreed to meet with ya and try to be civil—”
And then his muzzle turned back up and I noticed the blood dripping from his fangs.
'What.'
*Drip*
I looked down at the source of the noise to see a little red puddle. My neck felt a little warm.
'Blood. Fangs. Neck.
'My blood. His Fangs. From my neck.
'He's licking my blood from his fangs.
'This is not a good thing.'
“Mmm. Blueberry,” he said as he licked my blood from his fangs and started circling me like some kind of cat. “Still as much of a muffin fiend as ever, I see.”
I met his eyes again, those hungry, predator's eyes, and I couldn't look away. Suddenly, I was too afraid to even think of doing that.
“Now that I've really got your attention, dear, why don't you just sit down.”
And I sat down and started to tremble.
“There we go! When a stallion talks, a mare should listen. Just like that! He shouldn't have to resort to violence to get his way. I think this could be the basis for a new relationship. I know you don't like the sound of 'husband and wife,' but how does 'master and slave' sound?”
I shuddered a bit harder.
“Then again, maybe it would be better to properly turn you. Then we could be a family again. After all, Dinky would be so much happier if she had a mother, too, and a mind-numbed thrall wouldn't...”
I stopped listening and closed my eyes, but he didn't seem to notice, and I was finally able to have a thought.
'Dinky. I have to get home to her.'
I opened my eyes again, keeping one on his muzzle and letting the other wander around the room a little. At some point, he'd gotten between me and the doorway, which seemed bad.
He was also still talking, which was useful. Railroad Spike always did like to hear himself talk.
I was still terrified out of most of my wits, but now I had a focus so I could think a little. The adrenaline was flowing, and I took advantage of his self-absorption to tense up.
I sprang forward and flapped my wings, taking a flying leap over Railroad Spike's head and out through the doorway, blessing the name of the pony whose idea it was to put high ceilings in this place.
“Oof!”
Or at least that's what would have happened if I hadn't misjudged my jump and clipped his head with a rear hoof. Instead, I tripped on his face and tumbled, slamming into the side of the bookshelf by the doorway on my way out. I came to a rolling stop in the hallway outside, and then I heard a loud crash as the oversized bookshelf toppled on its side to block the doorway.
For once, it seemed, being clumsy had payed off! Heehee.
“That tears it,” I heard him shout from his office. “GET HER, YOU USELESS THRALLS!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!” screamed the thralls.
And that's when the fight started.
Remember those ponies who looked like they'd had too much coffee and not enough sunlight? I mean the half-vacant ones I saw on my way to Railroad Spike's office, not your average Seaddleite. Well, they'd all stopped working on office tasks. As I was picking myself up from my tumble, they started lurching out of their cubicles towards me with jittery, screaming terror in their glassy eyes.
I bolted past the cubicles and down the hall as they jolted forward. I came around the corner and into the entry hall. The entry hall had more thralls.
“Oh, ponyfeathers.”
The thralls were ready and leaped into action as soon as they saw me. I wasn't ready for them, though, and so I found myself at the bottom of my own personal pile of unicorns.
'Everypony here but me is a unicorn. Why didn't any of them use magic to catch me?'
'Because, believe it or not, they're even more terrified than you are. If they're scared out of their minds, there isn't much mind left to cast a spell, is there?'
Beneath the pile of now-idle unicorns, I had an idea. These so-called thralls didn’t seem to contain high amounts of initiative, but they were pretty intent on a goal once they had one.
“Well isn't this just typical of you Celestia-forsaken horse-apples?” I shouted as I began flailing at the ponies piled on top of me. “Lying down on the job instead of doing what we pay you cider-sodden muffin bins to do. You pinheads are all a buncha moon-banished disgraces!”
I'd, uh, racked up a bit of a vocabulary over years of accidents following me around like a stray dog trailing a snack cart.
“Do ya need a lantern and a shoo-be-doo map to find your cutie marks? Stick around and I'll help ya find em! With flying kicks to your...”
Some things had been shouted at me…
“…cross-eyed nincompoops who can't even tell a sunscorched banana from a face-bucking…”
…And some I'd come up with myself when the ones I'd heard just weren't enough.
“…pear-addled sacks of peas ya call your skulls. When I tell your boss how bad you sons of mules pinfeathered this up to Tartarus...”
Needless to say, I leave this part out whenever I tell this story to Dinky.
“…with a cartwheeling hippopotamus!”
'Yes, that's right. Use their fear.'
I wasn't proud of it, but it worked well enough. By the time I'd finished flailing about and, heh, blessing them out in my best impression of an irate manager, the jittery ponies that had piled onto me leaped off and bolted for their workstations. Conveniently, this also had the effect of clearing my path to the building's exit. Just in time, too. I could hear the sound of a splintering bookshelf, which most likely meant I'd be meeting up with Railroad Spike again very soon if I were to stick around.
'You know, running away and never looking back is sounding like a good idea right now. I don't like our chances against a vampire.'
I ran out that exit, spread my wings, and leaped into the safety of the open air.
With the clear sky above me, I really wanted to just fly away and leave my troubles behind. That's what a sensible pony would have done. I like to think of myself as a sensible pony most of the time.
But being a sensible pony wouldn't have helped Dinky.
That thing that used to be my husband knew where I lived. If I didn't take care of this that night, he wouldn't have stopped until he'd killed me and converted Dinky. And then there were all the other ponies he'd have hurt along the way that would have been on my conscience.
I was tired of living in fear.
So instead of flying back to Ponyville as fast as my wings would take me, I flew back to the building and hovered above the doorway. I didn't have to wait long.
About half a minute later, I heard him as he was approaching the door.
“Where is she?!” I heard Railroad Spike bellow. “You had one job. You thralls really are useless!”
The door opened and I heard piteous wails as he stepped outside, saying “Well, if you want something done right—”
As soon as I could see him, I dove at him forehooves-first with all the force I could muster. As General Blown Apart used to say, “The best defense is a good offense.”
Of course, Blown Apart's advice applied better when your target wasn't absurdly fast and alert. Over the course of a blink, he'd left the doorway behind by at least ten feet and was smirking up at me.
I crashed into the ground at the highest speed I could manage and rolled until I slammed into the building’s white stone wall with a bone-rattling thud.
“Ah. Hello, my dear. How nice of you to drop in. You're going to have to move faster than that, though, if you want to get the drop on—”
And then a chunk of masonry fell on his head.
Slowly and groaningly, I pushed myself up off the ground, got my footing, and took a quick self-inventory. The coat on my neck was sticky with fresh blood. Either my earlier wound had reopened in the crash, or it had never stopped flowing in the first place. I was still feeling dizzy, maybe a little dizzier than earlier, and I was pretty anxious as well. My legs were aching from the impact, too, but at least nothing seemed broken.
The piece of beautiful, white masonry that had fallen on Railroad Spike interrupted my inventory by shakily swinging past my face, wrapped in said unicorn's aura, before clinking to the ground.
“Ugh! How do you live like this?” he said, and I looked and saw that his eyes were pointing in different directions. It really was too much to hope that the falling stone had knocked him out, I guess. That hit had looked like a bleeder, too, but now his head was clean. Still, I took what I could get.
I turned around and clumsily bucked him square in the side of his barrel. It wasn't strong enough to crack bones or anything, but it was enough to make him fly a few feet further away from me and the building.
He stood back up, his back to the mountain city's edge, and cracked his neck like he'd had a long nap instead of a buck to the barrel. It just wasn't fair. Then he said, “Derpy, my sweet, I'm disappointed! Here I am, trying to do what's best for our little Dinky, and you've done nothing but attack me for it. If you're this keen on rough-horsing around like this near Dinky, I might just have to remove you from her life entirely. Something about being a bad influence on children...”
My eyes drifted apart again as I lost even more of my cool.
“A bad influence?!”
I snorted in rage and disgust, coiled up, and then I sprang into a headlong charge, hoping to bowl him over and maybe knock him over the edge of the mountainside.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAA— eeurk.”
When I'd screw something up and do something really bone-headed as a little filly, my dad would often tell me what I'd done was about as smart as headbutting a unicorn. I could practically hear his hoof impacting his skull.
At this point, Railroad Spike had cleverly positioned himself so I'd impale my left shoulder on his horn.
Most unicorns kept their horns dull, rounded, and generally undangerous on the end, but not Railroad Spike. It was something I kinda liked about how he looked, way back when. I'd like to take the time now to say, though, that getting gored by it made me wish he'd preferred one of the nubbier styles.
He yanked his head back, drawing his horn out of the wound, and then went on to lap at the blood that oozed out before I staggered backward in shock and let out a whimper.
He stalked up to me like an oversized cat playing with its food, then cupped his hoof to my chin and said “Look at me.”
I did as I was told and looked back up from the ground. I saw Railroad Spike, a monster in the general shape of a unicorn I used to love. His bearing had a sort of catlike grace to it. His ashen pink coat was now complemented by deep red stains around his mouth and horn. Behind him by a few feet was the cliff's edge and a commanding view of the world below. I would have gladly kept staring at that, but one eye and then the other found their way to his predator's eyes and stuck there, transfixed. I couldn't look away from that terrible sight. I couldn't really even think through the terror.
His eyes had uncrossed by this point, in case you were wondering.
“That's better,” he said with a sigh. “I had kinda wanted to keep you around in some fashion, for old times' sake, but I think it's safe to say that you're not going to cooperate for any reasonable amount of time. It's also clear that you wouldn't choose to accept my gift.”
'You very well could, you know. Being a vampire may “suck,” as it were, but it's hardly the worst fate you could ask for.'
“So it looks like I'm just going to have to drink you now,” he said, pulling me into a tight embrace as he brought his mouth back to my neck. “I can only hope that our little Dinky didn't inherit your ungrateful attitude when I offer a new life to her.”
My mind snapped out of the terror-ridden fog it was stuck in as he reminded me who I was fighting for.
“Ya won't get the chance to find out, you son of a horse.”
In a fit of righteous fury, I surged forward into his embrace and wrapped my hooves around him in turn, knocking us both off the face of the Canterhorn.
As we plummeted together, I buffeted Railroad Spike with wing and noggin as I shared some choice words with him.
“Nopony. But nopony. Threatens. My. DAUGHTER!”
With one last bash of my forehead to his fanged snout to properly punctuate my sentence, I released him from my grip and pushed off into flight. My wings strained as they caught the wind, pulling me out of my death dive and away from Railroad Spike's rapidly receding form. By the time I circled back around to see where he'd fallen, all that was left of him was a scattered pile of bones in a puddle of black ooze.
“Well, that's the end of that bat relationship. Finally.”
I wasn't ready to calm down yet, though. I had to be sure my filly was safe. I had to get home and see Dinky.
The adrenaline kept me in the air long enough to close in on my house, the Ponyville post office. It wasn't enough to help me make an accurate landing, though, or to let me notice that Dinky's bedroom window had been left closed that night.
*KRISH*
“Eugh… Ow...” I groaned as the last dregs of adrenaline left me. At least I'd made it into Dinky's room.
“Mom? Is that you?” I heard her groggy voice ask. “Do I need to grab the first-aid kit again?”
“That might be mice, Muffin,” I said, weakly. I was feeling pretty dizzy and lightheaded about that time, and I couldn't get my eyes to focus on anything, but at least she sounded all right.
“Ok, just let me turn on the light...”
The magilight flicked on, bathing the room in a happy, yellow glow.
A couple seconds later, she managed to stammer out “Mom! You're… You're bleeding. A lot.”
At the time, I was a lot less concerned about my blood loss than I was about maybe having scarred Dinky for life by showing up a blood-soaked mess. Well, that and wishing my stomach and head would stop hurting so feathering much.
As black was closing in around my field of vision, all I could think to say was “Don't worry about me, Dinky. We're safe now, and Mommy is going to be all right.”
“Auntie Carrot! Doc! Rose! Somepony help! Mommy!”
And then I finally relaxed, and darkness filled my view.