//------------------------------// // The Masquerade // Story: Blood and Ponies // by GreyGuardPony //------------------------------// Vampires didn’t sleep. They had a state that might seem like sleep to someone. At least until they touched said vampire and felt the cold, clammy flesh and registered the lack of breathing or heartbeat. It was the presence of the sun that enforced this return to the true dead nature of a vampire. As such, vampires didn’t really wake up the way a living creature did. There was no slow return to the waking world. No grogginess or lingering exhaustion. Just a sudden return to consciousness like a light switch being flipped on or off. So, as one sun vanished over the horizon, the other sat up in Digger’s closet without preamble. Sun grumbled as she crawled out of her improvised bedroom. The robotic nature of her “morning” routine was just another thing on her list of things that pissed her off about being a vampire. Standing up, she stretched her arms above her head- more out of habit than anything else- and headed for the living room to see if her equine roommate was back from work. She paused for a moment, realizing just how silly that sentence sounded in her head. “And to think, I was afraid that my existence would become too dreary after becoming a vampire,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.   Stepping into the living room, she could hear sounds coming from the kitchen. The clack of hooves on tile and the clank of pans and pots. Sun wandered into the kitchen to see Deep Digger stirring a large pot on the stove. “Hey there roomie! What’s for dinner?” Digger raised an eyebrow, jabbing her spoon at Sun. “I thought you could only drink blood?” Sun gave her a deadpan stare. “Ah,” Digger blinked. “That was a joke.” “Yup,” Sun nodded before sniffing the air. “Smells good though.” “So, you can’t eat the food, but you can smell it? That seems needlessly cruel.” “That’s what makes it a curse I suppose,” Sun shrugged, before looking back towards the living room. She’d have to go out and hunt soon. “So, how’d things go today?” “Far Sight recovered from your attack. We ended up spending most of the day searching the museum to make sure you weren’t hiding in there still.” “Hey, now there’s a good option,” Sun smirked. “The phantom of the history museum. I could even wander the halls at night, rattling chains!” Digger chuckled and shook her head. “Sarcasm. It’s kind of amazing how pony-like you are.” “Funny, I keep thinking about how human you are.” Digger returned to stirring the contents of her pot. “So, can I ask you a few more questions? I would like to know more about your culture and this curse you have.” “Fair enough,” Sun said. She took a seat at the table again, sitting cross legged on the floor as she did before. “Ask away.” “What did you do before you were cursed? Did you have a career?” “Student. I was at college for a journalism degree. I was close to graduating when I got...gotten.” Digger didn’t respond right away. For a moment there was only the sound of Digger’s spoon lightly scraping against the bottom of the pot. “...How did that happen?” she eventually asked. Sun frowned. “It’s not a happy story Digger. You sure you want to flip this rock?”   “If I’m going to help you, I have to know everything I can about you and your curse.” Digger lightly tapped her spoon against the lip of the pot, flicking a few drops of soup off it. Letting her meal simmer, she turned and took her seat across from Sun. “Tell me the story.” “Right,” Sun frowned. She rubbed the back of her head, wracking her brain for the best way to begin the tale. “So, the first thing you need to know is that the existence of vampires was secret in my world. That becomes very important as the events progress.”     Digger nodded, her horn glowing as she pulled a pen and notepad from a kitchen drawer.   “So, when I went to school, we had plenty of general classes in addition to the ones focused on my major. You little horses do that?” “We do,” Digger said. “Truthfully, I always found them to be a little tedious when I was in university.” “They were a little more of a mixed bag for me,” Sun shrugged. “But I had this one night class. The Ancient World: Rome and Her Contemporaries. Taught by one Baric Marcus. A really goofy looking bastard for someone who turned out to be a blood sucker.” She chuckled, miming a particularly fluffy hairstyle. “I can still remember his hair. It always frizzy as hell, like he never bothered to run a comb through it. Every class, he’d walk in with his tote bag and this cheesy grin. And the way he talked,” she drifted off for a moment, before shaking her head. “Well, he came across as someone who had studied the era so much he could have been there.” “And...he actually was?” Digger asked, glancing up from her pad.   “Oh, absolutely! Though I didn’t find that out at first. It took a totally unrelated event to land me in his sights. See, back in college it was something of a rabble rouser. Young, angry. Completely convinced that I was going to change the world if I just poked into the right corners and asked the right questions! And he encouraged that in his lectures! Always going on about how only the brave and bold could effect the world!” She pounded the table for emphasis, making it rock slightly with her enhanced strength. Digger frowned. “Please stop doing that.” “...Sorry,” Sun shrugged. “These are just...intense memories. Hard to look back on them without being angry.” “Take your time if you need. But stay focused. The more details you can give me, the better.” “Right. ...So, the actual instance that got me vamped began with one of my college causes. At the time my father and I...well, our relationship was very strained. I’ll leave it at that. But the more relevant fact is that he worked for a pharmaceutical company named Magadon Incorporated.” “Pharmaceutical?” Sun raised an eyebrow at Digger’s blank stare. “You know...drugs? Medicine. You do have that, right?” “Ah. Herbal remedies. Truthfully, between healing based spells and potions, there’s little use for more direct application of such materials.” “Well, those things were big business back in my day,” Sun frowned, leaning forward over the table. “While Magadon had a good public reputation, there were always these rumors that the company was up to more underhanded tricks. Illegal testing- on both animals and humans- and price gouging were some of the more mundane things I heard. The more out there rumors included killing people that investigated them too deeply.” “And so...you decided to investigate them?” Digger asked. “That seems remarkably foolish.” “Young. Angry. Remember that?” Sun forced a sigh through her dead lungs. “There...was a bit of disbelief on the ‘killing people’ rumors. I mean, they were a company, not a totalitarian regime. Why get your hands dirty when you can just buy your way out of trouble?”   “Go on then.” “Since dear old dad worked for them, I swiped one of his key cards-” “What?” “Key cards. They’re keys for very fancy technology based locks. I grabbed one, rounded up a bunch of my fellow angry college students and crashed the nearby facility. Security had to focus on the near riot at their front gates, so I slipped in the back.” “Did you find something?” “A pair of gray wolves. Dunno if you still have them or not, but they were an endangered species at the time. A species on the verge of extinction and Magadon was using them to test new pills. So I got as much photo evidence as I could.”   “I’m still not exactly seeing how this got you cursed….” “Well, security found me and I ended up running for it,” Sun smirked at the memory. “Went out the front door and pitched my camera to my friends so they could get the pictures out of there. Good thing too, because that’s about when security caught me and proceeded to beat me senseless. Thankfully, since they had an angry crowd on their hands, even if those darker rumors were true they couldn’t do anything worse to me at that moment.” “So, they did what? Took you to jail?” “Pretty much. I had broken the law. Completely justifiably in my mind, but...well, there it is.” Sun shrugged. “I sat in jail, waiting for either my family to come bail me out or the police to process me. But it turned out to be neither.”   “...Your teacher,” Digger frowned, looking down and quickly writing. “Yup, apparently my friends had gone to him. That night he showed up with his tweed tote bag and patchy brown trench coat, smiling at me like he was the proudest damn man in the world. Paid my bail and offered to take me back to my dorm. He just had to swing by his office on the way.” Sun squeezed her eyes shut, beginning to speak faster as she rushed through the events. “I followed him, not expecting anything. We reached his office and he began to rummage around in his desk. He kept talking about how pleased he was with my activism. How I was a true idealist and…,” she hesitated for just a moment, “worthy. And that’s when he smiled and I saw the fangs.” “Did you try to run? Fight?” Sun gave a sardonic smile. The memory was a particularly bitter one in her mind. “I fucking laughed! Remember, in my reality, vampires weren’t real. They existed in the realm of old stories and cheesy novels cranked out to appeal to people with an attraction to the macabre. We called them goths.”   She rubbed at the side of her neck, wincing at the thought of an old wound. “Of course, then he crossed the room in a heartbeat and buried his fangs into my neck.”   Digger’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “Is that how the curse is spread? Will Far Sight-”     “No. Becoming a vampire is more...involved. From the way my creator explained it to me, a vampire has to drain their target of blood and then dump some of their own down their throat. That’s what raises a body into a vampire.” “Wait…,” Digger frowned, idly tapping her pen against her pad. “The curse makes you effectively dead. Would you even have blood? How is this supposed to work?” “I don’t quite understand the mechanics behind it,” Sun shrugged. “But something happens to blood we drink. It’s made all...mystical or something. It’s what fuels our existence and animates someone who’s dead into a vampire.”   “So…,” Digger licked her lips. “You really did….” “Die? To my understanding...yes.” Digger’s pad hit the table with a soft, almost resigned thwack. “This...is going to be more difficult than I thought.” “You’re not thinking of backing out, are you?” Sun almost hissed. If this little horse was going to dangle hope in front of her, she’d better not yank it away again without even trying! “No...but if the only thing animating you is the curse, we’re effectively looking for a way to bring you back to life.” “Oh, is that all we’re doing? Glad that we’re facing down reasonable goals here.” “What happened after he turned you?” Digger asked, pointedly ignoring Sun’s sarcasm. Sun looked past Digger, focusing instead on some random spot on the wall. “...Baric only gave me enough blood to effect the change. So, when I awoke I was ravenous. There...was this girl.” She could see the growing anxiety in Digger as the pony’s magic fueled scribblings became a little shakier. “So-” Sun glared right into the unicorn’s eyes. Her point had to be clear. “Couldn’t have been older than seventeen. He had grabbed her from...some low income neighborhood. He had to have been planning something like this for a while. She was bound and gagged. She was crying. And I. Didn’t. Care. I was in a berserk frenzy and she was full blood.” Digger recoiled from her, but Sun plowed on ahead. “I pounced on her gorged myself. I drank until I was sucking on a dry, dead vien. It was only after the poor thing was dead that my rage faded enough for me to understand what monstrous thing I had just done. But Baric? He didn’t give a shit. The girl was nothing but food in his mind. Because that’s how feeding on people for a thousand years warps your morality.” “If vampires have been around for that long, how were they just fictional to you?” Sun wrenched her eyes back to Digger. “Well, after I was turned, I was introduced into vampire society. The main political group- the Camarilla -had spent the previous five hundred years using influence, bribery and intimidation to make the world believe that they didn’t actually exist. They called it ‘The Masquerade’ and it was the law, above all the others for them. They believed in it so strongly, that a great deal of time and resources were spent covering up the actions of those vampires who weren’t part of the Camarilla and who didn’t believe that hiding from mortals was needed. ” Deep Digger hummed to herself and underlined something in her notes. “Two more questions then. First, did the Camarilla ever give you an explanation for the origin of the curse?” “I was given the standard primer on the legend of how vampires came to be,” Sun shrugged. She frowned, thinking back to her days just after the embrace. “My sire sounded pretty skeptical when he told me it, but since we were a pair of walking corpses, I’m not exactly sure where the line on reality is anymore.” “Tell me, what he told you.” “Right. Well, to give the paraphrased version….” Sun spread her arms wide over the table and when she spoke again, she threw her voice deeper. “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. Then he made the first two humans, Adam and Eve. After they screwed up and got banished from his garden paradise, they had two kids, Caine and Able. Caine grew jealous of his brother and slew him, causing the first act of murder. God,” she paused then shrugged, dropping back to her normal voice. “Well, he was pissed off and cursed Caine with the vampire condition. From there he made three and those three made thirteen. From there the vampire curse spreads into a bunch of different branches- called clans- and sub branches - called bloodlines- in the world’s most screwed up family tree.” “And what branch did you land on?” Digger asked. “Clan Brujah. The angry rabble rousers of vampire society. Baric was impressed with my raid and my dedication in the face of getting stomped on by jack booted thugs.” Digger nodded. “Last question then. Did you ever find any hints towards a cure back then?” Sun shook her head. “Nothing that I didn’t trip my bullshit meter. One time I was told that a full blood transfusion would cure you. Someone else said unicorn blood could cure vampirism. Though whether one was supposed to drink the blood or use it as part of the aforementioned transfusion were left vague.” A smile managed to creep onto her face. “I think that my personal favorite was the ‘kill the head vampire’ story where in the head vampire was the ruler of my country.” “Pardon me, but I find it hard to believe that no other vampires looked for some way to break the curse.”   “Who knows. Maybe they did at some point,” Sun shrugged. “But my experience with the Camarilla leadership was that they didn’t like ‘fledgelings’ like myself asking those kinds of questions. Tools aren’t all that useful when they aren’t doing what you want.” Digger sighed and rubbed her forehead. “So, we’re dealing with a curse that might have divine origins, is somewhat mutable in its nature and effectively animates the dead.” Glaring at Sun over her glasses, she snorted at the absurdity of the situation. “And you don’t want me to tell anypony else about you? Should we chain my hooves together while we’re at it?” “Hey!” Sun snapped back, holding her hands up. “I just want to be careful here! I might not have agreed with a lot of what the Camarilla did but The Masquerade is just common sense. I burn in the sunlight and pass out during the day. The wrong person...pony, knows about me and I’m ash!” “That would be murder!” Digger shouted, slamming her hooves on the table. “I don’t know how things were in your society, but Equestria doesn’t summarily execute creatures because they’re different!” “You’re going to tell me that no one in this land of yours has ever reacted out of fear? Made a stupid decision and hurt someone because of it?” Digger grit her teeth. “I only have so many resources at my disposal Sun. Can I at least tell one pony?” “...Who's this pony?”   “Her name is Twilight Sparkle. She was a student of mine at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She was also taught by Princess Celestia, who has lived for over a thousand years and became the embodiment of magic and friendship itself. If any pony can help break the curse, she’d be it.” “...You taught her? Just how old are you anyway?” “I’m forty three and that’s besides the point!” Sun bit her lip. “You trust her?” “I do.” “Fine. One pony. Now...I have some questions about your world.” - - - - The rest of the conversation with Deep Digger had been enlightening for Sun, but very surreal at the same time. If not for the modern-ish technology that she had seen since waking up, Sun would have sworn that she was living in some kind of fairy tale world now. Friendship magic. Dragons, unicorns and pegasi, oh my. The sun rising at a set time every day, because that’s when the immortal princess decided to do it. The lack of wars and other major conflicts, made the world seem almost as soft as cotton candy. At the same time though, the situation gave Sun more hope that she’d had in a long time. Magic and the supernatural were a normal part of this age. It was defined, catalogued and apparently studied. That already put her way ahead of dealing with stuffy vampire elders that hoarded all secrets and knowledge for themselves. With a little patience, she just might be able to buck this curse and then…. What would she do? If there were no vampires to worry about she could go back to just living a normal life. At least as normal as it could be, being a human in a land of equines. Still if the talk of minotaurs and other beings was true, she’d probably slide into the menagerie easily enough. Maybe she could even finish getting her journalism degree? Well, she’d figure the next step whenever she hit that point. In the short term though, she still had to worry about survival. And survival meant getting her hands on blood...and a few other things. So, while Digger washed up after finishing her dinner, Sun sat cross legged in the living room with a thick business directory in her lap and pad of paper at her side. Here, she had gotten a little lucky. Apparently telephones weren’t much of a thing in this strange new world. But ponies had worked out the benefit of having an equivalent to the yellow pages on their own.   “B...B...ba...be...bl,” Sun muttered, dragging a finger down the page. Blood banks and hospitals made a decent starting point. A stockpile would lessen the need to hunt and  the chance of a feeding going disastrously wrong.   She jotted down address after address to check against a map later, before moving onto animal shelters and pet stores. The blood of animals might taste like shit, but at least it was a more ethical way of getting it. ...Relatively speaking at least. “Hey, Digger?” she called to the kitchen. “Would I be out of line asking you to pick me up a few things tomorrow?”   Digger’s voice rose over the sound of dishes clanking in the sink. “That depends. What do you want?” “A map of the city.The more detailed, the better. And some kind of watch or clock that I can use to keep track of the time.” The clink of dishes stopped and Digger emerged from the kitchen a moment later, glaring down her snout. “You’re planning to go out? After all the grief you gave me about not telling other ponies about you?” “I need to feed.” Digger bit her lip. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you stalking around Manehatten, attacking ponies.” Sun shrugged. “I’ll need to go outside, even if I get my blood from non-pony sources. I just can’t sit around here all the time.” She frowned, jabbing a thumb at the window. “Besides, I’ve been asleep for thousands of years. I’m a little bit stir crazy.” “Fine!” Digger exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll get you those things! Any other whims of yours I should tend to?” “Hmm.” Sun hummed to herself, eyes roaming over Digger’s sleek green coat. The hunger for blood never did go away and she hadn’t exactly been full up when Ming Xiao locked her in that stone box. Even from this distance, there was a sweet smell that clung to pony. “Well…I could use a little bit of a drink.” Deep Digger flinched, a hoof instinctively rubbing at her neck. “I...drink…,” she shook her head. “I’m sorry Sun that’s just a line I’m not comfortable crossing.” “Well, then getting me those things is even more important then, isn’t it?” Digger stared for a moment, then rolled her eyes and made for her bedroom. “I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow night.” After Digger vanished into her room for the night, Sun dropped the book back on its stand and wandered over to one of her host’s many bookshelves.   The question of language and how a race of ponies had contrived themselves one that sounded exactly like English would have to be looked into at some point. It was a mystery that gnawed at the back of Sun’s mind, over the practical matters of survival. Maybe the ancient equine ancestors of this society discovered the remains of the New York Public Library while they worked out how to use tools without hands. But whatever the answer was, at least she’d have something to read. With a forest's worth of history books to poke through, Sun decided that doing a deeper dive on some of what Digger had told her was in order. She traced a finger along their spines. Perhaps she could deduce some hint on what happened to human civilization? Human civilization. Her hand paused on one of the tomes. She really was separated from it this time. There wasn’t even the fig-leaf of being able to partake in it, even through the lense of a predator. It was an unpleasant realization to say the least. But, perhaps more uncomfortable was that she knew she should feel something other than anger towards those who put her in this situation. Anger had become harder to control since she was dragged into Clan Brujah. That was their bloodline’s extra curse and she hated it as much as anything else about being a vampire. “Gotta keep it under control,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “There’s no way any of these ponies will help me if I flip out.” She glanced down at the book she had stopped on. Royal Hooves: A History of Equestria’s Princesses.     “Good enough place to start as any.” Taking the book, she sat on the couch and began to read. - - - - The next morning, Digger found Sun sprawled out on the couch, a half dozen books scattered around her in a disorganized scatter. Though the vampire had clearly taken the time to make sure the heavy curtains were drawn tightly closed.       She sighed at the scene. “...This will look really strange to anypony peeking in.” It would take a few days before Twilight Sparkle would show up, assuming she wanted to come at all. In the meantime, she’d have to look into fixing a curse, wrangling a blood sucker and keeping up with her usual museum duties. Grabbing another blanket from her room, she threw it over her “sleeping” guest before checking her work schedule. There was an exhibit switch going on in gallery nine today. Classic Cathiyan fashions. “Perfect.” She had been dreading this particular exhibit. The offer had come from The National Museum of Cathay. They’d exchange that exhibit for the Historical Society’s one on the early (and short lived) Manehattan whaling industry for a few months. While museums made such exchanges all the time, if it had been up to Digger, they would have gone with the kirin pottery exhibit. Fashion- no matter how old it was- didn’t seem the thing to be in a history museum. Still, today was the set up day. That would probably run until early evening. She could grab the items on Sun’s list on the way back. And then maybe...she’d follow her tonight? Not that it would show much trust in her guest. Did she deserve any trust though? Horrible curse aside, they hadn’t exactly met on the best of terms. And the blood drinking….   “No easy answers here,” she frowned. But spending all day here debating it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Quickly getting cleaned up and dressed Deep Digger headed off to work. - - - - Things were still in somewhat of a disordered state at the Historical Society when she arrived. There was an undercurrent of nervousness in the greetings she got from the staff. Everypony was still clearly on edge from the search for Sun yesterday, like she was still going to be hiding in a broom closet or an air vent. She decided to check on Far Sight before the National Museum's courier showed up. Her pegasus co-worker was scribbling away at his desk when she arrived and seemed oblivious to her presence until she knocked on the door frame. His head snapped up, his pen falling from his mouth. “Oh...sorry Digger. I was just distracted.”        “Understandable,” Digger nodded, wandering over to her friend’s desk. “Everypony seems distracted and on edge. I think it’s pretty clear that whatever that body is, it’s not here.” “Clearly. Is what you’re working on related to it?” He nodded sharply. “Of course,” he tapped each of the documents he was working on. “Press release, report for the Manehatten police, copy of the report for the Royal Guard and a letter to Princess Celestia. We have a dangerous escaped entity here. We need to get the word out.”   Digger nodded but internally her mind was grappling with her earlier debate all over again. Guards and police combing the city for a monster would not end well for anyone. With Sun’s paranoid attitude, she could just see violence breaking out if she was caught poking around the city or they somehow tracked her to the apartment. There would probably be a great deal of screaming, violence and breaking of both ponies and properties. So, some manner of disguise was added to Digger’s mental checklist. She had briefly considered trying to talk Far Sight out of it, but it was quickly dismissed. He wasn’t the kind of pony to back down and it would make her look suspicious. “Well, I’ll leave you to that while I suffer through our visiting exhibit setup. Has the courier arrived yet?”     Far Sight blinked at the question, mind scrambling for a moment. “Actually, yes. She’s up in gallery nine already. Jumped right into it with the handlers.”   “Time to go make nice then.” She set out, taking the employee set of stairs to the third floor, before hooking a right and winding through the galleries to number nine. It was abuzz with activity as handlers trotted to and fro, putting up ponyquins, lifting glass display cases into position, and stretching a painting into place on its frame. It was obvious who the courier was amongst the hustle and bustle. She was only kirin in the room, one of the so called “dragon ponies” of the far east. The fine scales that covered her body in place of a coat were a glittering jade green, while mane and tail were a rich, ruby red. Like a unicorn, she was horned. Unlike a unicorn, she had two that swept back towards her tail and that had an almost corkscrew shape to them. She stood in the middle of the room, keeping a firm eye on everything going on around her, bedecked in a golden silk dress, covered in intricate flower shaped embroidery. Digger strode forward, putting a smile on her face. “Hello! I’m Deep Digger. I hope that our employees have been helping you to your satisfaction so far?” The kirin turned to her, smiled back and dropped into a deep bow. “Despite some of their tongue wagging, they have indeed Miss Digger. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Bright Dawn.” Digger raised an eyebrow. “Tongue wagging?” “I hear that you’ve had some kind of monster in your building,” she said with a slight smirk. “So, nopony is showing any discretion at all?” Digger sighed. “All of this is going to be great for our attendance rates.” “I wouldn’t be so ready to declare doom and gloom already. The world is always full of monsters. But the sun hasn’t stopped rising yet.” “You seem rather blase about the situation.”   The kirin smiled giving a slight nod. “It is not an unknown occurrence in Cathay. Which is why I ask...may I see this casket that your monster was hidden in? As one professional to another?” For a moment Digger considered the request. What harm could letting her see it do, really? The vampire wasn’t currently inside it, after all. “Very well. Follow me.” - - - - Bright Dawn examined the sarcophagus very closely, making several passes as she drilled down on every detail. Digger noticed that she seemed to be paying particular attention to the carvings that ran down its sides. Though as those were the pieces most striking features currently, that wasn’t all too unusual. “Amazing,” Dawn said as she finished her investigation. “This really is an amazing piece. Where did you find it?” “It was brought in, actually. Some fishers were lucky enough to catch it in their trawling net.” Bright Dawn snorted. “Really now? And I imagine they extracted a hefty price from you for the trouble.” “That’s the type, isn’t it?” Digger asked. Something was beginning to bother her about Dawn and her motives though. While the questions could be just because of professional curiosity, the strange nature of everything involving Sun was beginning to make Digger a little suspicious. Plus, she had promised Sun that she’d only tell Twilight Sparkle about her. “Yes, I suppose it is,” Dawn answered. “Anyway, I suppose I should bring up the real reason I wanted to see the sarcophagus. The actual grand opening of the fashion exhibit is a few days away and some of the who's-who of Equestria have been invited. I am not eager to see it spoiled by a runaway creature. I,” she tapped her horns, “have some skill with dowsing and other minor divinatory magic. With a little bit of time, I might be able to find your missing monster before the opening.”   Well, this just made her previous problem all the worse. But she couldn’t really say no either. “Alright then. If you want to help, we’d certainly be foolish to turn it down. Far Sight’s pulling together our response. I’m sure he’d be glad for the assistance.” Bright Dawn bowed her head. “Of course. I shall speak with him at once. Your handlers should be able to finish the setup in the meantime.” Digger glanced towards the door, wheels already turning in her mind. “I’ll be in my office then. If you need anything.” Dawn nodded absentmindedly and Digger rushed to her office, closing and locking the door behind her. At Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, she had taught classes in magical history and development. As such, she had collected a great many books detailing spells and rituals from a wide variety of cultures across the world. Grabbing one from a shelf, Digger began to read. Maybe with some luck she could kill two birds with one stone.