Rising Shadows
Part 7: Rising Shadows
Canterlot Castle by far the most beautiful and majestic place in all of Equestria. Which is fitting, considering that it houses the Princesses. The throne room is an stunning example of the sheer magnificence of the palace. The stain-glass windows depicting past events shine brilliantly in the daytime, projecting its images on the floors at certain times of the day. Because of the design of the castle, one’s eye invariably rests itself on the throne on which Princess Celestia sits. While her powers and stature alone commands respect and humility, the throne seems to amplify this effect, almost as if it declared in a loud voice, “here sits a goddess amongst ponies.”
It was in this room that Rainbow Dash was trapped with Princess Celestia and Shining Armor. Dash was chained to a heavy iron ball and her wings bound to her sides. Princess Celestia wanted the matter to be settled privately between her and Rainbow Dash, but Shining Armor was extremely insistent about having someone around to protect her, just in case.
“Rainbow Dash, born in Cloudsdale, resident weather pegasus of Ponyville,” read Shining Armor, “Bearer of the Element of Loyalty, is hereby charged with Assault and Battery against Royalty...”
“Now there’s something I didn’t expect to hear in a millenia.” Princess Celestia mused to herself.
“...and defacement of a public park.” Shining finished, rolling up the scroll.
“Now that I did expect to happen eventually.” Celestia smiled to herself.
Shining Armor glared at the chained pegasus as he spoke coldly, “How do you plead?”
“Guilty as charged.” Rainbow Dash replied, “Also? Totally worth it.” Shining Armor could not stand to hear such blatant foolishness without slapping himself on the head.
Looking at Rainbow Dash, she shook her head, “And now for the question of the day; what to do with you.” Celestia got up from her throne and began to pace around the room, “Now please try to understand my position Rainbow Dash. I want to be both fair and loving to all my subjects. However, there are times when those two objectives butt heads against each other, especially in times when I have to punish those who committed wrongdoing. For example, if I pursue too much on the side of justice and fairness, I run the risk of looking like a tyrant who enjoys execution. On the other hand, if I act too much on my merciful and loving side, I look like a namby pamby princess who sits around doing nothing but eat cake. With that in mind let’s look at the crimes you committed, shall we?” Princess levitated the scroll before her. “‘Assault and Battery against Royalty’, that’s a big one. That can put you down for a life in prison sentence.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill her...”
“I know, that’s why it’s ‘Assault and Battery’ not ‘Attempted Murder.’ Now, if it was the latter, you would have a death sentence looming over you. Moving on is the ‘Defacement of a public park.’ That one you do not have to worry about too much, it usually carries community service directly proportional to the amount of damage you did. Remind me again how much she did Shining?”
“About half mile radius of severe damage if I recall correctly your Highness.” Shining replied.
“Eugh, that does sound quite a bit. That’s, what, 3000 hours?”
“4000 hours actually”
“Goodness gracious Rainbow Dash, what do you have against plants?” Princess Celestia said, faking shock. Walking back to her throne and sitting on it again, she resumed, “Now, as for how I will actually punish you... Hmm... Just keeping you cooped up in prison will do us no good.” Celestia thought out loud. “Ah! I got it,” she exclaimed, “50,000 hours of community service...”
“Of what? Planting flowers?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Don’t interrupt me Rainbow Dash.” Celestia sternly replied, “50,000 hours of community service protecting Twilight Sparkle and protecting others from her, or until the point when I deem it unnecessary. Also 2000 hours of community service ‘planting flowers’ besides.”
“WHAT?” Rainbow Dash shouted.
“It’s only 2000 hours, it’s half than what you were supposed to do.”
“No, the other thing!” Dash screamed, “Are you crazy!?”
“Ah yes, that.” Princess Celestia said, “I thought it was a rather fitting punishment, considering the circumstances that surround this incident.”
Rainbow Dash huffed, “Luna deserved every-”
“Deserved?” Princess Celestia flatly stated.
Shining had a sudden sinking feeling that he should leave the room, or failing that, take cover.
“This isn’t about what Princess Luna has done Rainbow Dash, rather it is about what you have done.” Princess Celestia said, getting up from her throne, “Despite her most recent bout of self-loathing would suggest, Luna didn’t ‘deserve’ what you did to her. Was it her fault that vampires exist? Yes indeed, but you had neither the need nor the duty to bestow your form of justice upon her, because I had already judged her and then banished her a thousand years ago. Presently however, she has done far more for Twilight Sparkle than what you have accomplished thus far. She freely gave information about Twilight’s condition to you, and the proper procedures to insure that she will not devour every pony on sight. It was only by your buffoonery that your life, as well as everyone else’s, was endangered. And then you compounded the problem further by assaulting the only pony who has any idea of how to fix this. Thanks to you, she has to stay in bed, unable to search for clues for a cure, or find the current location of the vampire. The vampire, I feel that I should remind you, was the one who converted Twilight in the first place, not. Princess. Luna. Perhaps if you had stopped to think before you act, you would not have to be punished at all.”
Not once did Celestia raise her voice, but the room had begun to feel much warmer than it was supposed to be, and Princess Celestia herself started to smell faintly of smoke. “Remember this the next time you think to yourself ‘totally worth it’, because in all manner and forms, it was not.”
There was a knock on the door. Resuming her place at the throne, Princess Celestia chimed, “Come in.”
The guard opened the door and walked in, “Princess Celestia.” He quickly addressed, “I-uh... hope I’m not interrupting anything, your highness.”
“Oh no, in fact I was just finishing up.”
“Ah, yes of course. Princess Luna has awoken, your highness.”
“Ah, excellent. Shining?” Princess Celestia said. Shining Armor peeked from behind the throne. “Please take care of Rainbow Dash. I want her to be ready to leave for Ponyville within the hour.”
“Of-f course your highness.” Shining Armor said, quickly removing himself from his hiding spot.
Rainbow Dash tried, she actually tried, to articulate a rebuttal. But in the process only sputtered and stuttered tidbits of words she would’ve used, slowly coming to the realization that she had nothing to stand on, and she started to agree with what Princess Celestia had said.
Luna stared up at the ceiling from her bed. Not that she can actually do much of anything else, considering that some of the bones in her ribs, wings, and back were either cracked or broken and were held in place by casts. “So this is what it’s like to be in a modern hospital.” Luna thought to herself. She remembered a time when ponies understood very little of the equine body, or how to heal it. Even the exceptional ponies who had their talents in the medical sciences had a rather primitive understanding of how the body worked. Death or permanent injury was a common symptom of having to go to the doctor, as limbs being hacked off while the vict- er- patient was still alive being the most common (and disturbing) prescription. The sight and smell of blood, along with the screams of pain were all too common back then.
Back in the present, Luna began to worry if someone died in a hospital from sheer boredom, or had gone insane by the sheer emptiness of the room. Everything was so... white, clean, sanitary. The walls and ceiling were devoid of blood, the curtains hide no rotting body from view, and not a single rusty saw was within sight. The sound of ponies screaming in pain as apathetic doctors cut them apart was long ago replaced by the ticking of the clock on the wall. But Luna couldn’t see the accursed thing, and the only function it’s ticking performed, it seemed to her, was to hasten her descent into madness.
The sound of the door opening and the following hoofsteps broke Luna free from her seemingly endless torture.
“Dearest sister, how are you?” the sound of Celestia’s voice rang in Luna’s ears, like the sun welcoming the earth with warmth and light.
“By the blackest of nights, I never thought I would ever enjoy the sweetness of your voice!” Luna declared, “Do you honestly subject your citizens to this form of cruelty when they become injured!? I swear, this place was starting to look like the moon all over again!”
“Umm...” Princess Celestia paused, somewhat stunned by Luna’s outburst, “I was informed that you had woken up not less than five minutes ago.”
“FIVE MINUTES!?!?” Luna’s abrupt usage of the Royal Canterlot Voice had shattered the glass on the infernal and insidious ticking device of Luna’s endless torture (aka, the clock,) and nearly deafened a certain nearby princess.
“Ow.” Princess Celestia held her hoof to her ear, recoiling in pain, before checking to see if they were bleeding.
“Oh, sorry.” Luna sheepishly apologized, “So um, any idea on how long I slept?”
“Half a day.” Celestia replied, “While you were sleeping though, I received another update on Twilight.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it’s bit of a follow up report and clarification on the details of what Rainbow Dash had told us. Twilight said that she wasn’t aware that she was scaring Dash, and insisted that she was simply trying to help by taking her to the bathroom to cover the wounds.” Princess Celestia said, levitating the scroll that she had tucked under her wing.
The sparkling midnight blue aura of Luna’s magic wrapped around the scroll as she took it to read it herself. “Of course she believes that.” Luna said as she skimmed through the letter, “I mean no offense to her or to you dear sister, but I doubt that a happy ending would’ve been the result had Rainbow Dash failed to escape. Not with Twilight Sparkle cradling and caressing her friend’s wounded cyan body, her muzzle mere inches away from the cuts. She might not wish to tear Rainbow Dash apart or sink her fangs into her body, but even the slightest and well meaning of kissing and licking of the wounds would be enough to drag Rainbow Dash with her into the darkness.”
“Hm,” Celestia nodded, “Though that’s not the only thing I thought would interest you. There’s a postscript that says Twilight has begun to see messages by Bleeding Heart in her diary. Notably, Twilight mentioned him by his actual name, not by the pseudonym that he told her before.”
Luna’s eyes ran along the bottom of the letter, reading every single word in the postscript. “Oh no...” Her eyes widened horror as she lost her focus on the parchment.
“What? What is it? Is this about the vampirism?” Celestia asked.
“Oh yes.” Luna replied, “The good news is that Twilight Sparkle isn’t insane, as her friend Applejack fears... yet.”
“Yet? You mean...”
“The bad news is that she probably will, provided that we don’t put an end to Bleeding Heart one way or another.”
“I... don’t believe I quite follow you sister,” Princess Celestia nervously asked, “How is this going to turn her insane?”
Luna took a deep breath. “I’ll be completely honest with you, I may not have experimented on vampirism as much as I should’ve before skipping to... you know, trying to kill you. So there may be vital details or workings that even I’m not aware of, okay? What I did manage to get to work is that vampires are psychically linked to me and the vampires that sired them. They don’t even have to be unicorns amazingly enough, but it comes to them naturally. This ability is limited in range, about a 15 mile maximum radius between me or the vampires. What I can do with it is that I can see, hear, or feel anything that my vampire senses.”
“As if you were right beside them?”
“As if I was them. This also means that I can listen in to their deepest and hidden thoughts. I mostly used it as a way of relaying orders, highlighting targets, gathering intel, that sort of thing. However, should a vampire somehow rebel against me, I could override their very body, and bend it to my will. I’m... actually not sure if Bleeding Heart can do it as well... but... it’s a hypothetical.”
“Uh huh.” Celestia said thoughtfully, “Is there any way to suppress any of this?”
“One can try, but it would be rather... difficult. It’s like some infernal machinery THAT WOULD NOT STOP THAT BLASTED TICKING NOISE!!!” A stray thunderbolt struck a pegasus guard outside, rather than device Luna despised. “There is another way though.”
“What is it?”
“If I were within range of Twilight, I could attempt to override or stalemate Bleeding Heart’s control, freeing her. Though given my present state, I might not be able to help. I’m not even sure if I actually have access to the psychic link anymore, considering that I do not have the dark magics that I had as Nightmare Moon.”
“So the worst case scenario is that you can’t do anything at all, and then Twilight Sparkle goes insane.”
“Oh no, the worst case scenario is if Bleeding Heart somehow manages to reverse engineer the psychic link and override me, turning me into a glorified meat puppet.” Luna replied. She paused, “...And then Twilight Sparkle goes insane.”
“Now that is absolutely, positively comforting.” Celestia groaned, as she rested her head on her hoof, “We have no cure, no idea on what Bleeding Heart is going to do, or where he will strike, you’re in no condition to help anyone. Am I forgetting something?”
“Hope.” Luna replied simply, “We still have hope.”
Princess Celestia stopped and stared at her sister. Realizing the simple wisdom in her words, her face softened into a smile again, “Then that will be more than enough for us to survive.” She walked towards the door, before stopping again, “Try to get some rest. I’ll send for some servants to provide some entertainment to help pass the time. Perhaps a book or a game.”
Luna laid down on her bed again, shifting into more comfortable position. “Thank you sister.” she whispered.
“No, thank you for reminding me.” Princess Celestia said, as she walked out of the room.
A cold wind blew that night, howling and chilling any pony who walked in the moonlight. Only the foolish or the brave, or the foolishly brave, would even dare to enter the Everfree Forest alone at night. Even in the daylight the forest held beasts that could easily kill and devour a pony. Deep in the heart of this forest rests the ruins of Everfree Castle.
In time long since passed, Everfree was actually a city, an equal in glory and power to Canterlot. It was said that the town was founded on the very plot of land that Chancellor Puddinghead had originally staked her claim. Twice its castle was the arena where Nightmare Moon was defeated by the Elements of Harmony. The first battle had devastated the castle and the surrounding town when the Sisters clashed, fire and thunder from the heavens hearkened the end of time. Ever since then, the town was abandoned, and nature reclaimed the land. In the thousand years since then, it hid almost all traces of the town, and the castle is but a faint and crumbling shadow of its former glory.
So what better place for a vampire to hide than here?
The vampire gazed towards the moon. He recalled the years long past he would just sit and stare up, counting the days until they numbered the stars in the sky, waiting for her to return in glory. A night that never seemed to happen. He noticed a silhouette in the moonlight, flapping its bat-like wings. He smiled as the figure came closer, recognizing the being. The bizarre pegasus flew down, landing next to Bleeding Heart, and bowed down.
“Is everyone informed?” Bleeding Heart said, not bothering to turn towards his minion.
“Yes my lord Sanguine. Everyone should be here and ready before the week is over.”
“Excellent. Just in time for a very special anniversary.”
The bat-pegasus nodded and flew off to attend to other duties. Bleeding Heart continued to stare at the moon. “One week... Aren’t you proud of me Luna? I’m doing this all for you.” He whispered to the darkness.
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New Chapter!
This one is a bit... expositiony in some ways.
can i shoot an ice arrow through his head? i wanna make him look funny.
o and twi is already going crazy.
now just three more days till lord whatshisname wins over the element of magic, unless luna arrives and calls off the attack and revers engineers the curse so it doesn't make the vampires blood thirsty virmin that need to be incinerated. now i wish that twi could kill the one who turned her.
I waited two weeks for this chapter to come out. TWO. WEEKS. And all we really got was exposition.
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awesome chapter!
RD got a great punishment!
and bloody "whatshisname" is an evil, insane, maniacal douchbag who needs to be put out of his misery!
and finally: THAT TICKING NOISE!
Maybe you could add some sort of backstory to Bleeding Heart?
1032715
I want a bad ending with pony slaves and the mane 6 minus Twilight becoming blood farms.
OH HELL YES
(Pardon my little spat of role play between me and my own character)
Mist: Bleeding Heart, you have no idea what hell you are about to unleash on yourself.
Me: You got that right
(Okay, my role playing is done.)
All I have to say about this is, well done.
2725095 You would desire a dreadful ending, whereas most readers would likely desire a happy ending. I will not judge, but I for one desire a happy ending.
957161
Much Agree
2725095
That would honestly be kind of cool, but only if the Mane 6 were Twilight's blood farms. God, we're dark people.
Tick, tock, Tick, tock... "Oh that infernal ticking of a clock makes me want to eather run it over with Truck or blow out my eardrums with the Sweet sound of Metal!
*Chuckle*
By "take cover" I assume you mean NOT move behind any physical object, but raise his shield? Since I rather suspect that that is studier than any of the pillars in the room.
Well, that is a reasonable area to search, especially if he is over-confident enough to STAY in that range.
Well, that gives a reason why even after she is healed she might not want to get within range to do that. Were you trying to keep your options as a writer open depending on where the plot ended up taking you?
Some place less predictable? Not exactly a tactical genius, this guy... maybe go kill a manticore and take its den to hide from the sun ya numbskull? DO make sure to KILL it though, because if it escapes Fluttershy might get wind of it. Come to that, I guess if animals instinctively avoid the castle then that would be a rational option.
I don’t know what but something about this has me laughing so hard I cried