Chasing Eternity.

by the frank

9. Oh Shit!

Sneaky was not completely unfamiliar with being shaken awake by the mistress, but to her relief it had been a while since last time. But as uncomfortable as it was, she knew better than to protest and she held back a yawn as she tried to get some order in the hysterical flood of words the mistress spewed at her.

“...and we can only pack what's absolutely necessary… Oh, why haven’t I arranged my wardrobe for dire emergencies… You need at least three different jackets and I… hmm… perhaps the blue one, that will look good against the night sky… Well don’t just stand there, get a coffer!”

“Whu?”

The mistress rolled her eyes and frowned. “Have you heard a single word I have said?”

“A few of them, mistress, but not all.”

“...THAT part of your brain works at least I hear.” Rarity leaned closer to sneaky and said, slowly and cold. “Listen carefully, thrall. I will only say this once. We have to go.”

“We have to what?”

“I will not repeat myself.”

Sneaky looked at her mistress. “So…the plan failed?”

Rarity looked away. “It did NOT fail.”

“And yet we have to run. Like I said.”

Red eyes, fangs out. “Be silent, thrall. You did NOT say that. You said that my plan wouldn’t work.”

“Well, we have to flee, don’t we? In my experience, that means it didn’t work. I mean… when I was out d… doing business… It happened that I got caught and…” The mistress waved her off.

“We are NOT fleeing!” She paused. “ This is a retreat!”

“And that is different how?”

“Do you HAVE a deathwish, thrall?”

Sneaky did not have a deathwish, and on one level, she was afraid of the mistress and what she was capable of. But at the same time, there had been very much bark and very little bite from her. Maybe it was the feeling of when everything was hopeless, it didn’t matter what you did. Maybe it was the growing irritation with the mistress treating her like garbage that talked. Maybe it was just her being tired and the mouth awake before the brain. She looked the mistress in the eyes and spoke.

“Mistress. You have spent the last month threatening me, and sure, I have been afraid of you. I still am, at least a bit. But no matter what you’ve said, you have not touched me nor hurt me, not once. Not even the ponies you have fed from have really been hurt. You always leave them alive and with a few bits to buy a sandwich. I don’t think you have it in you to kill.”

Rarity took another step closer to Sneaky, who swallowed. This is it. Thank you mouth. We played and lost. Her red eyes seemed to reach the bottom of Sneaky’s soul, but suddenly she turned her head away and looked at the floor.

“...You are right. I don’t. Or well… I don’t. He on the other hand...”

“He? What?” Sneaky put her head ajar. “Mistress, can you please explain everything to me? I won’t mind helping, but I need to understand.”

Rarity walked over to her daybed, lay down, and signed to Sneaky to sit down with her.

“Yes, I suppose I owe you that. Very well, thrall. Let me tell you a story. Many many years ago there was an old mare who was very much in love… and so very much a fool…

----

Anno Novus Regno 98.

Canterlot, a shady back alley.

Grey Matters shop of extraordinary and fantastic objects was about to close for the night. No sales today, but you couldn't always be lucky. Grey Matters was - surprice!- a grey unicorn stallion and he had been in the game for many years. Even on the slowest of weeks, there would always be a sucker ready to pay a LOT of bits for either crap or… even some of the more sinister stuff. Like that unicorn two months ago… Grey smirked. He remembered her so well. Old and wrinkled, gray mane. She also had quite a bit of trouble walking, if he remembered correctly, which he usually did.

“I need to live forever,” she said. Perhaps any other story would raise an eyebrow to that exclamation, but for him it was just Thursday. He’d barely listened to her rantings about “true love” and, “poor darling”. Instead, he grinned when he had realized that this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of a certain bottle… and she had been all too desperate to ask any important questions. He had Hmmm’d and huffed a bit and made a big show of looking over his desk and drawers. In fact, he knew exactly where to look, he even had to avoid looking in the right place a couple of times to make sure he didn't go too fast. All the time the old mare stood shaking and nervous, waiting for some kind of result. He smirked again. Too easy . Finally he decided it was time, let out an “Ah, yeees!” and placed the bottle on the desk. She had stared at it, as if she were disappointed. And sure, the bottle was a pretty ordinary one. A green ex-wine bottle. So then he shook it a bit, making sure she saw the red, thick fluid on the inside, and the slight flashes of yellow as the magic flew past the edges.

“This bottle will help you. Take it home, pour some of it in a small glass and drink it on a night with a full moon. And then wait three days, and the matter should be solved to your satisfaction. You have to keep the bottle of course, but that is hardly a matter. Just a formality, if you ask me.”

She still looked sceptical, but that was all in the game. “How does it work?”

“Ah, you see, this bottle is the home of an ancient spirit. It’s the soul of a Zebrican Shaman. It’s well over seven hundred years old. The bottle needs to be refilled every hundred years or so, or the spirit will die… unless of course, you can provide a new vessel for it. The body of a living pony would fit perfectly! The spirit is kept alive by the vessel, and in return it gives the vessel, you in this case, almost eternal life and good health. When you take the sip, you provide space for the spirit inside you, giving you what you want.”

“Just a small sip, you say?”

He smiled. “Just a small sip. Sure, if you drink a bit more the spirit will be more powerful, and the effect will last longer but that’s only natural.”

“And you are sure it won’t… reverse?”

Ah yes. The vanity of ponies… He smiled again. “Oh, but ff course, if the spirit should leave you, you lose everything. But I shouldn't worry about that,” He quickly added when he saw the worry in her eyes increase. “The only thing that can make it go away is a spell so powerful that not even princess Celestia can wield it. Also, a new vessel is not necessary, just keep the bottle filled and you should be fine.”

She began to stare at the bottle with fear, but also hope. She scraped the floor with her hoof a couple of times, and then she spoke. “Will… will it make me Young and beautiful again?”

“AS I said.”

“But the bottle is yours. Have you been drinking it?”

“Of course.”

“...You don’t look very young to me.”

Grey cleared his throat. “Maybe I just drank a little to get the general magic, but trust me, it does indeed work. Do you know how old I am? 135!”

“Really?”

He smiled his most toothy smile. “Really. Take a look at this.” He showed her his licence to conduct trade in manehattan, issued to mr Grey Matters, Manehattan, ANR 23. The official royal stamp was there. Sure, the licence had not exactly been about conducting the business he was up to these days, but the royal stamp still worked as a way to seal an hard deal. He saw how the doubt disapperad from the old mares face. “I take it. And the bigger the sip the better the effect?”

“Yes, that should be it, yes.”

She gave him the bits and left.

---

“Who was that mare?”

Rarity hmpfd. “Really, Sneaky?” When the other mare just stared at her, she rolled her eyes.

“It was a most desperate pony, driven to her wits end by love and desperation, as only true love can do to anypony…”

Sneaky swallowed. Frankly, this sounded as weird as everything else the mistress had told her or planned. But most of the time it had been as she said so… She nodded, and kept listening.

“She didn’t want to leave her. Twilight was -IS- an alicorn. And while not immortal, she lives for very long. The mare saw it in her eyes. She didn’t want her to go. What was she to do? Just die and leave her?”

“Well…yes? What other choice is there? I mean… save for the princess, most ponies are m…”

“THAT WAS A RETHORICAL QUESTION, THRALL! OF COURSE I COULDN’T LEAVE HER! THAT WAS WHY I BOUGHT THAT DAMN FLASK!”

Sneaky starred at her. “Are you saying that you…”

“Yes. I was once married to the princess.”

“So… The pony in the story?”

“ YES, It was ME of course. I was trying to be sublte!”

“So… you… How old were you?”

“I will NOT honor THAT question with an answer. Just know that I was old enough to not be in this world for much longer. And I… I couldn’t leave my Twilight alone…”

Sneaky was silent as the mistress continued. “As a princess comfort I had my ways of hearing stuff. I had heard about Grey from various sources. I had to keep my silence to Twilight of course, I wanted it to be a surprise. And sure. It was true. I became a young mare again, as you can see. But it did come with a few unexpected sideffects…Now where was I… Oh yes.”

----

Greys mind had stayed on the mare the whole time it took to close his shop. Well, it WAS his biggest deal yet and even if he fancied himself of being hardened and unmoved, the relief of getting the bottle out of his possesion WAS a relief. It was merely months away until the next blood moon and he didn’t want to go through that again. He had most of the stuff locked away when he heard hoofsteps on the pavement outside.

The next minute the door flew open and a unicorn mare entered. She had white fur, purple mane and red flashing eyes. Grey didn't recognize the unicorn at first, since there was an age difference of sixty years, but he assumed pretty much correctly who she was. “Ah, miss… Rarity, was it? Satisfied with your purchase?”

“Scoundrel! ‘Umbug! Gombeen! Worthless piece of shyte, ye are!

“Now, now, miss. You got what you paid for. You are young again, and you will live for… a very long time. As long as you keep the bottle. Ah, but you have to pay tribute to the spirit of course. Nothing special, just some royal blood now and then and you’ll be fine.”

Rarity glared at him. “You COULD have mentioned that I wasn’t supposed to drink it all!”

Grey starred at her. “You… yo drank it all ? Not just a sip as I said?”

Rarity nodded, and the refined accent with a touch of old mare was gone, replaced with a rather sloppy hayrish. “Yer just had a sip and yer look like shyte. Oi wanted to look faboulous for me twilight! Of course oi drank it all! Imagine the surprice when oi noticed dat oi apparantly am technically DED!” Grey swallowed and took a few steps back to his hidden drawer with insurances. He put on his best smile and said, “Well, how else would you expect to live for decades? Ghosts and ghouls are dead, and Alicorn are out of my reach.”

“Yer as thick as manure but only ‘alf as useful!” She paused and drew a breath, trying to control herself. When she once again began to speak, her voice was back to that first, refined accent, but her eyes still short daggers.“I have NO intention to spend the rest of my existence as a ghoul, especially not married to a… NOT IMPORTANT. Turn me back!”

“My dear miss, I…”

“TURN. ME. BACK!” She was awfully close to his face now, and her breath bore traces of blood and meat. What in the world WAS she? He turned his head away from her.

“Ehrm, if I remember correctly, I said the only cure was a really powerful spell, that I don’t know. And we don’t do returns.”

“Well, there must be something you can do! You made me like this! What did you think T… would say if she saw me?”

“If your girlfriend…”

“Wife.”

“Sorry, wife, loved you, she probably could accept you, being a ghoul.”

“You don’t seem to get this, mr Matters…” Rarity looked at him again, with eyes red like blood and large sharp fangs. “I have become an fecking VAMPIRE! I have spent the last few weeks holding back a wish to go on a KILLING SPREE! How the hay will she accept t hat? There aren't any chains to hold me! I’ve tried! I ate a whole hoofball team last month when I finally got out!! If this keeps going I need to move my grave to Manehattan to get away from the vampire hunters! By hoof!” She opened her mouth and showed her fangs. “Turn. Me. Back. Or else…”

Grey took a few steps over to a locker with a red heart sign on and grabbed a small medallion from it. He put it around his neck and held it up in front of her, immediately she hissed, and backed away. “I would take a few more steps back if I were you. This garlic is not something you want in your eyes, and is also mixed with a few ounces of silver. It will not kill you, but it will hurt. Severely.” He turned around, marking the conversation as over. “Thank you for your interest, the door is there. Good night.”

“So…You are going to dispatch me, just like that. Very well. I hoped it wouldn't have to get this far. But you leave me no choice. Goodbye, Mr. Matters.” Her voice was low, not more than a whisper. Like she was sorry for him, or something. He shrugged his shoulders and heard her walk to the door. But then, instead of the sound of the door opening, he heard the click of the lock. And when he turned around, he almost screamed. She had changed… Her eyes were red as a flaming fire, and her mouth was filled with sharp fangs. And when she spoke, her voice had changed. Now it sounded like a rough mix of three voices at once with her own somewhere in the middle.

“Well, since you are so uncooperative, I guess I have to be more persuading? I guess I choose a good night to come. It’s the second full moon, Mr. Matters… I am sure you are quite accustomed to what happenes then.”

She lounged for him, and only a quick jump to the side saved him from being smashed through the wall. He leaped to his emergency locker, searching desperately for something that could save him. A powerful kick in his side sent him rolling over the floor, and the next second she was over him, tearing the skin of his neck aiming for his throat. She gnarled and snarled like a manticore and he tried to keep her at bay with his hooves, but he failed miserably. As he tried to wiggle away from her, something fell to the floor. The medallion. He realized that he actually had a weapon against her, but he had only one shot. He took the medallion in his magic, quickly floated it in front of his mouth and blew the content right into her face. It was his own mix, 80/20 of dried garlic and powdered silver, a vampire's nightmare. She screamed, and tried to shake it off her, and so he had the chance to get out of her grip and back to the locker where he produced a small blue bottle. He opened it, and threw it right into her face. Dew from the leaves of the tree of harmony. The power would have rendered her harmless, but this would kill her.

“You’ve destroyed my mane.”

Or perhaps not.

“First you throw rubbish at me, then some sticky fluid. I will never get it out.”

In a flash she was over him again. The first blow cracked his leg, the other cracked a few ribs. Then she pinned him against the wall.

“Last chance. Tell me how to change me back, and I may let you live.

“How…” he coughed, and spit out some blood. “How did you… survive… the dew?”

She snorted, “You are looking at a vampire demon, darling. It takes harder stuff to get to me. Now I ask again. Change me back.”

His brain rushed, but it all was blank. There was no cure! That was the point! But… something! Anything! Anything that would stop this monster from hurting him. A small part of his mind whispered that he probably deserved everything, but he wasn't very keen on listening. All he had was his usual drivel about ‘not even the princesses could remove the spirit’ but… The princesses! Alicorn blood! That was it!

“If… if you… if you drink the blood of an alicorn… it will satisfy the spirit…”

“So you're telling me that I have to kill my own wife?”

Wife? Just who was this pony? His mind rushed over it, that was a question for later. Now it was all about survival. “No! No! Just… just a little. It will probably… keep the spirit under control… for at least a year.”

“Well, darling. That was not so hard, was it? Thank you, However…”

He closed his eyes. This was the end, he knew it.

“You suggest that I hurt my Twilight. You pig.”

She then sank her fangs in his neck. He screamed, but soon all was silent. Rarity left the shop and began to wander away.

---

“You…did… that?”

Rarity nodded. “Yes. Or… not exactly me. I made my body the vessel for the spirit. The spirit itself only required blood. But a spirit mixed with the body of a pony… Voila! VAMPIRE! I… I am myself. Most of the time. But the spirit lives inside me and when the thirst becomes to much…”

Sneaky nodded. That WOULD explain why the mistress had such an uneven temper.

“I hate that I need to feed but if I don’t… The spirit gets more control. If I kill someone, I am free for longer time. But as I said, I don’t like it.”

“So… the tomb I found in Manehatten…?”

“I could have settled for a nice flat, buuut… Vampire chic was all over the fashion world at the time. And here I had the chance to live a la mode! So, I purchased a nice cosy tomb I meant to have as my headquarters.”

Sneaky winced a little at the word “cosy” but she had to admit that it was more like an apartment than a tomb.

“My plan was to lay low for a while. I knew what to do, but… To go back to twilight? I couldn’t. I had to think of something else, a solution, a cure… anything. Before I could go back to her. But… I made a little mistake.”

“A LITTLE?”

“Shut up, sneaky. Just because I won’t kill you doesn’t mean that breaking bones is of limits. I… I killed a pony.”

“You actually killed one?”

“Do you HAVE to repeat everything I say? YES I killed A PONY. As I said, by doing that, the demon was off my back for a long time. And I needed that peace to relocate and rethink my moves. Unfortunately… The huinters was not of my trail.”

“...Are there really vampire hunters?”

“No officials of course. Just amateurs and… well, loonies. I suppose that was my luck. The found me, traced me and tried to do away with me. But the stake didn’t kill me… The spirit didn’t allow that. It just rendered me immobile. A skeleton. AND the rascals tried to blow up my tomb. Not sure why they failed, but they seemed to be a large gang of morons so I can’t say it surprised me.”

“Alright, so… But you have been out with the princess now, haven’t you? If you told her this…”

“If I told her this, she would forgive me. OF course she would. She would let me live in the castle, star in her chambers, not rest until she had found a cure. I couldn’t do that to her.”

“Mistress? Isn’t that… a really stupid thing to do?”

“Thrall. In three days the demon will take full control over me. It been over 100 years. The time is up. It needs blood. Blood from an alicorn. It will stop at nothing and it has tremendous strength. You think the guards can hold me back? Twilight? Princess Sunset herself?”

Sneaky was sure the mistress was exaggurating but… she defintely believed this herself.

“No. I have to go away. As far away as possible.”

“But… when you tried to get close to princess Twilight…”

Rarity nodded. “The spirit was stronger when I was first resurected. Since then… It has regained more of myself. I can’t do this to Twilight. Not to anyone. I need to go. And so do you.”

“I?”

“You are still my thrall, thrall.”

Sneaky rolled her eyes.

“Now get a cart. I will arrage the packing.”

“Mistress… We DO have an emergency coffer. “

“Yes, thrall. for EMERGENCIES. THIS is a DIRE EMERGENCY and I had NOT planned for that! Now GO!”

And sneaky left.

Rarity spent a stressful 30 minutes trying to get it all done when sneaky returned.

“Back already? Good.Now, load this on…”

Until now she hadn’t noticed the tense look on Sneakys face face and the fact that she wasn’t alone… Three royal guards, all with stern and cold faces, uttering words that made Raritys soul freeze.

“Contessa Rareza y Pomerance. You are coming with us to the palace. In the name of the diarchy you are under arrest for conspiring against the crown.”

Author's Note:

Yeah yeah... I know... I feel ashamed... But you see, once I had made up my mind...

YOu know what? Just read the blog-post.

Comments

[Xalok]

Well Rarity you know what your best choice is, but don't trust yourself, for as you were told, you do not need to kill a Alicorn just a small sip. But that needs you to trust yourself, and right now you don't.