The Moon Shall Rise From Hell's Ashes

by TundraStanza

Ch. 6: Your Tail Is Red, So Beautiful

Chapter 6: Your Tail is Red, So Beautiful

---{Dilan Shier}

Two days ago, I was concerned about being in the body of a black horse. Yesterday, I was concerned about wearing the form and voice of a pony that was considered armed and dangerous to the locals. Neither of these past couple of days prepared me for the concern I had today. Getting kicked out of Hell by a screaming woman was perfectly reasonable. I could accept winding up in a world where magic was commonplace and friendship was one of its most powerful forms.

A tail changing from purple to red was crossing the line!

So it was kind of puzzling why my only reaction was to stroke a hoof along it making sure that it still felt like it did for the last couple of days. It didn’t feel any hotter, so it couldn’t have been on fire. I was also doubtful that I was turning into a cardinal for no reason. I even tried touching the tail with my mane to see if that did anything. The response was inconclusive as my mane remained purple and the tail remained red.

“Do you have any idea what’s happening to me, Spirit Sword?” I asked.

The addressed vampire pony simply harrumphed. I would have asked Faith Shield, but he ran off. I wasn’t sure why, but I thought I heard the words “spare” and “armor” muttered. The smell of a restroom left when he did, so I couldn’t investigate that anymore.

I also still had a headache. I would have pinned that on the ice cream, but the earlier back pain didn’t match the diagnosis. Why did this world have to be so complicated? It was frustrating enough being somebody else.

“Could you at least get me some aspirin, please?” I asked while holding a braced hoof against my helmet, “I’ve got a headache, something fierce.”

Spirit Sword snorted, but then he nodded to a clean-cut stallion in the room. Said stallion responded with a slow nod before galloping away. The maid pony from earlier chose that moment to trot out of the dining room as well.

Before I could ask what was going on, Spirit trotted over. His golden glare was averted as he reached a wing down to his side.

That pouch is so small, I thought, I didn’t see it strapped to him before.

“Remove your helmet,” he told me even though his eyes were still looking off to his right.

“Huh?” I blurted.

“That wasn’t a request,” he added.

“Uh, okay.” I nodded quickly. The mistake of that action was that doing so made my head briefly hurt worse. In hopes that I wouldn’t make this guy angrier than he was, I pulled off the blue metal headpiece. It landed with a loud bang next to me.

Darn it, I thought with a wince. As if my headache wasn’t bad enough without the ringing noise.

The pain suddenly halted. I felt something relatively cold and soft against my forehead. I opened my eyes to see a black, leathery limb. Glancing up, I saw it was holding a small, white cloth against my head. Looking forward, I saw the top of the vampire’s head was at my eye level.

“Hold still for a minute,” ordered Spirit, “Retlaw will be right back.”

“Retlaw?” I echoed.

He sighed. “The butler pony.”

“Oh.” I nodded in understanding.

“I said, ‘Hold still.’”

“Right, sorry.” I quickly feigned an extreme interest in the banner over on the opposite wall. Though, that interest was quickly replaced by confusion. “Wait, what happened to keeping identities confidential?”

“A certain partner of mine decided that that policy was too hard to uphold.” He gritted his fangs.

“Faith Shield?” I hazarded a guess.

“No, Iron Bagel.” He rolled his eyes.

Okay, I deserved that sarcasm, I admitted, You don’t usually have more than two people when it comes to partners in any sense of the word.

After a while, the clean-cut Retlaw returned with a small bottle in his mouth. Spirit took the bottle and held it in his hoof. Using his other hoof, he uncapped it before proceeding to shake a couple blue pills out. All of this was going on while his wing still held the white cloth against my head.

This guy has an amazing sense of balance, I marveled.

“I’m not feeding you,” he said.

“Huh?” I then noticed that he was still holding the pills in one hoof.

Oh, right, I realized, I’m supposed to take those.

I held up my own hoof before he placed the pills on top. Trying not to think about the phantom fingers that were holding things in place, I plopped the pills into my mouth. After I heard the sound of my own swallowing, Spirit pulled his wing away. He twisted the cap back onto the bottle before hoofing it back to Retlaw.

The pain was starting to return. But as soon as it started, it stopped again.

“Wow.” I chuckled. “Advil’s got nothing on this.”

Spirit Sword gave me a weird look before looking to the open doorway. When I looked that same direction, I caught a glimpse of the other vampire pony guard and the maid before they slipped out of view.

“How long have you been standing there, Faith?” called Spirit.

“N-No, I just got here,” his partner called back.

“That wasn’t really a yes-no question,” I pointed out.

The stammering vampire slowly trotted into the room. His sheepish smile did not match his slit, golden irises and shiny fangs. Spirit’s accusatory glare wasn’t faltering, however.

Faith let out a submissive sigh. “For the last five minutes.”

I didn’t know what I expected. I guess Spirit didn’t know what he expected either, because he rolled his eyes and went back to staring at me with the serious look from earlier today.

“Maybe he was right,” Faith muttered.

I turned my head to look at him. “About what?”

“Did you use any hypnosis spells recently?” he asked, “Spirit rarely uses his personal temp-ice-fabric for any pony, even for himself.”

Temp-ice-fabric? I wondered.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Spirit closed his eyes. “I don’t succumb to simple sleep-inducing magic of any kind.”

“So then why did you help her?” Faith inquired. “You seemed adamantly against offering her help before.”

Spirit opened his eyes and looked straight at his partner. “I took a precaution. A headache would cause any magical misfire to be less predictable and more dangerous. At least if she’s in control of her head, the risk is a known variable.”

“I don’t even know how to ‘fire’ magic in the first place,” I pointed out.

“All the more reason to get prepared for that chance now,” insisted Spirit.

“Sure, whatever, Sword.” Faith gave up.

The resulting silence got awkward after about thirty seconds.

“So,” I interjected in hopes of changing the subject, “Can anyone tell me what’s happening to me, specifically my tail?”

“No clue.” Faith shrugged one hoof-shoulder. “Maybe it’s possessed by a demon pony that turns red whenever it gets angry.”

“Shield,” Spirit interrupted, “I told you to stop reading so many horror dramas on your off-hours.”

“Hey, we all need a hobby,” defended Faith.

As they began a new argument, I tuned them out. With a little encouragement fed into my nervous system, my tail flowed around until I could see the smoky limb in front of my face. It was still as red as it was a minute ago.

An angry demon, huh? I thought, I wouldn’t put it past the devil to leave some trace of himself on my way out of his domain. Still, I don’t know for sure.

“Wait, I think I’ve got it!” exclaimed Faith, interrupting my thoughts.

“Got what?” Spirit looked at him incredulously.

But Faith’s attention was focused on me. “This happened right after you ate that rose petal sundae, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “Why?”

Faith grinned. “I have an idea.”

---{Dilan Shier (some time later)}

The sound of my own chewing was a lot louder than it usually was. After swallowing, I let out a sigh.

“So, did it work?” Faith asked.

I lifted my tail for all of us to see.

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s still red.”

“Nuts, I thought I was onto something.” He frowned.

I almost stuck my tongue out in disgust.

---{Princess Luna 3rd P.O.V.}

“I don’t even like violet petal sandwiches,” she said.

Their walk down a crystal hallway was abruptly halted, when all eight of their hooves stopped in place.

“What?” Celestia asked while turning to look at her sister.

“I… I don’t know why I said that,” Luna responded with her eyes open wide.

An awkward silence passed between them.

“Let’s go home,” suggested Celestia.

“Yes, let’s,” agreed Luna hurriedly.

---

Author's Note:

See, this is why you should avoid the mistake I'm making of submitting a story before it's actually finished.
You let one thing distract you here and you let another assignment eat up your time there.
Next thing you know, bam! Months have passed where you can't crawl out of hiatus.

Comments

[Zaralann]

Nice chapter.

[azereath]

good to see that this updated again

[The Random Lord]

I know how you feel mate same things happened to me more than once
but now I know to never submit a story without completing at least 75% of it first

[JBGrim]

I hear that

[nighters]

so has any stupid daring colt tried to hit on the nightmare? there all kind of ponies out there after all just saying.... some colt dig the bad mare type.

[Viceroy]

More story now plz

[Fresnor]

3865506 Sounds like a job for Cloudkicker.

[FOXTrot2]

5306856
Sounds like a mission for Twist