Gloaming

by Rambling Writer

15 - Planning Ahead

“Alright, Swan,” said Clearwater as we left the station. “What’s wrong?”

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” I asked unconvincingly.

“You just sighed, and it sounded like a sad balloon committing suicide.”

“…Uh.”

Clearwater scowled and rustled her wings. “Well, it did! Seriously, what’s up?”

There are two sets of vampires who want to kill me for two different reasons and I’m lying to you through my teeth right now. “I dunno. Monday blues, I guess.”

“You’re going way beyond ‘blue’. More like ultraviolet. Was the research that bad?”

I looked up. “Hmm?” And remembered, just in time, that I’d supposedly spent most of the afternoon doing research at the library. “Oh, uh, yeah. Terrible.”

“Bummer. You need a small night out? Just spending a few hours with a friend? I’m free.”

“Not right now, no. I’ll let you know if I need it later.”

“Alright. You need anything, anything, I’m here.” Clearwater lightly slapped me on the shoulder. “Pomeroy too, if that’s what you want. I don’t want you up and burning yourself out just because you were too proud to ask for help.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t. But thanks for the offer, anyway.”

---

There was an extra raincoat on the floor when I got home, and I’d barely stepped inside when I heard voices: Levanta and one I didn’t recognize. I had a brief moment of panic before I realized it wasn’t Speckle’s voice. Besides…

“C’mon! Corvallis is way hotter.”

“Yeah, but Prescott’s cuter and he’s on the track team!”

I didn’t think Speckle would be talking about something like that.

Levanta was sitting at the coffee table with an earth pony about her age who had a very slicked-back mane. Paper littered the floor around them. They were both wearing fetlock pencil holders and were drawing things on their own clean sheet of paper. Levanta noticed me and waved. “Hi, Mom! This is Babbling Brook. Clearwater’s daughter, you know? Hope you don’t mind.”

“Are you ma-”

“Yes, I’m making an extra serving for dinner.”

“Then as long as she’s out of here by ten, we’re fine.” I nodded at Brook. “Hello. Pleased to meet you.”

Brook glanced up and quickly waved at me. “Hi, Ms. Dive.” She quickly went back to her drawing.

“You didn’t have a hard time finding us, did you?”

Brook giggled. “Of course not,” she said. “Your house is the only one in town with a ‘For Sale’ sign in front.”

“Seriously, Mom,” said Levanta, “are you gonna take that down or what? It’s been a week.”

“I’ll get to it eventually,” I replied. “Tomorrow.”

Levanta rolled her eyes and whispered something in Brook’s ear. I’d bet money it was something like, But when it’s tomorrow, tomorrow will be today, not tomorrow. So I sometimes procrastinate. Sue me. “So what’re you two working on?”

“Me, portraits,” said Levanta. “Her, perspective. Those’re the things we suck at. Mom, you should- Brook, show her that picture you drew of me.”

“I don’t know,” Brook said quietly. She looked away, but not fast enough to hide the blush. “I- don’t think she’d-”

“It was awesome.” Levanta punctuated her words with a flare of her wings. “She needs to see it. Stuff like that’s the reason I wanted to start drawing in the first place.”

“Alright.” Brook leafed through a small pile of papers and pulled out one. She held it up for me, her eyes averted and her ears back. “It’s- I drew this as a warmup,” she said. “It’s just Levanta.”

I was expecting something rough, but decent. What I got was a very, very good portrait of Levanta. The lines were sharp and crisp, the shading was better than I thought was possible with a pencil, and she’d perfectly captured Levanta’s slightly scraggly mane. I whistled. “This… this is great. You should be proud of yourself.”

Brook didn’t look at me, but I could see her smile. “Thanks.”

“How’s the investigation going?” asked Levanta.

My throat suddenly felt very small. “It’s… going.”

---

I’d lied before, I’ll admit. But at least then, it was my (stupid) choice. Here, I wanted nothing more than to tell the truth, I couldn’t do so, and I couldn’t even hide behind the “sorry, I’m not allowed to say” of a nondisclosure agreement. I could barely sleep that night as I kept imagining what was going to happen when the whole charade inevitably collapsed around me.

I needed to talk to Homeguard. I’d convince him to let me tell the truth if it was the last thing I did. Sometime in the middle of the night, I realized that if he and Hailey really were keeping watch over me like some kind of cross between stalkers and guardian angels, I probably could just walk outside and scream that I wanted to talk, but I was tired and I did my damnedest to get some sleep.

My mind felt soupy as I dragged myself to the police station. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress, the lack of sleep, or something else. I vaguely decided to do the same thing I had yesterday: claim to go to the library for research when I was actually talking with Homeguard. Maybe I’d also crash at his house for an hour for some sleep.

But I’d barely set foot in the station when I was intercepted by Cascadia. “Hey, Swan? Got time for a quick word?”

Once she’d pulled me into her office, Cascadia drummed a hoof on the folder in front of her. “You mentioned the possibility of the animals being used for blood magic on Friday, right?”

“Yeah…” I said cautiously. For all I knew, I had set Cascadia on the path to discovering vampires by accident. The last thing (well, given the circumstances, more like fourth-to-last thing) I needed was her discovering I’d started lying to her.

“I did a little bit of research over the weekend-” She tapped her folder. “-and I’m beginning to think you might be right. Somepony drains animals of their blood, and because they’re an asshole, they beat up the animal for fun. Maybe not in that order. And blood doesn’t keep forever, hence the continuous killings. I was thinking of asking the Court for a magic professional on this.”

“Okay…”

“But you’re the pony who’s in the thick of it. You’re the one who knows everything, and I don’t want to jump the bolt. So, tell me: how certain are you that a monster’s responsible? I’d rather not waste time pulling some arcanist out here from Canterlot only to find we were way off-base.”

In all honesty, I owed her the truth. She deserved it. But between Homeguard’s trust and Tributary’s threat, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “I’d like to assume it’s a monster,” I said. “A non-pony monster. But if we can’t turn up anything by the end of… next week, I think, send out that letter.” And now I had two weeks to cobble together some story that wasn’t complete trash, that could stand up to scrutiny. Yeah, right.

Cascadia looked skeptical, but nodded. “If you want to wait that long. If it were me, I’d send off for her at the end of this week, but…” She shrugged. “You know better.”

And yet I was still lying my ass off about all of this. I was this close to just spitting it out entirely. I needed to discuss this with Homeguard. Good thing I was planning on talking to him today anyway.

---

Homeguard was waiting the moment I was out of sight of the police station. “Is something wrong?” he asked as we walked down the empty road. “You-”

“We need to tell them,” I said flatly. “The cops, at least. That you’re a vampire. About Ri-.”

“No,” Homeguard said immediately through clenched teeth. “We shall not-”

“Maybe it’s easy for you,” I snapped, “but remember what I told Crystalline? I’m here for a job. Right now, thanks to your rules, I can’t do that job. Cascadia’s going to ask for a magic specialist in less than two weeks if I don’t bring in an answer. Face it, vampires are going to be revealed whether you like or not. Whether Crystalline likes it or not.”

“And Crystalline almost certainly has scriers watching you right now,” Homeguard snapped back. “Yes, there are vampires whose power is some form of remote viewing. And you are already a potential threat to their ever-important secrecy. Make no mistake, you were lucky yesterday. You were very, very lucky. It is not just for me that I want you to keep quiet. Should attempt to notify anypony-”

“They’ll come here and kill me. I know.” I glared in a random direction on the off chance that was the direction they were watching me from and kicked a rock into the woods. “Fuck keeping secrets,” I muttered. “Are they the real reason you didn’t want me to reveal your vampirism in the first place?”

Homeguard sighed. “Crystalline is… violently protective of our secrecy. It is the sole thing they value above all else. What other rules they enforce are all in service of secrecy. I suspect that, had we not intervened and River killed you, they would have killed him for being so careless in leaving the corpses of his animal victims around.”

“What a relief,” I muttered. “What’s up with their mystery fetish?”

“I…” Homeguard twitched his ears. “Pardon?”

“I mean, it’s- Why hide?” I asked. “Because ponies will be scared of you? Less than a year ago, the entire changeling race — you know, the guys that are like you but with love instead of blood — claimed to have an overnight change of heart and every princess ever believed them. And they were right.”

“There- There is a distinct dif-”

“They found an alternate food source. You have an alternate food source. If you stick to animal blood, I’d bet money that most ponies would accept you, sooner or later. And unlike changelings, you can personally wait for ‘later’ as long as you want.”

Homeguard didn’t say anything. He stared off into the forest, as if deep in thought.

“…Does Crystalline give a reason for all the secrecy? Or is just vague ‘ponies are scary’?”

“They…” Homeguard said slowly. “…claim that… ponies will never accept us, but-”

“That’s vague ‘ponies are scary’! Not even they have a reason for keeping this all a secret!”

“Unless…” Homeguard pawed at the ground. “Unless their actual reason is not the one they give us. Many high-ranking members of Crystalline were willing servants of Sombra, and you saw how they acted towards you. Ponies might be able to accept me, but them…” He stared at a blade of grass, deep in thought. “Perhaps… vampires in general are not the ones they are protecting.”

“They might not even be protecting themselves,” I added. “It could be a way to hold control over vampires. You know, ‘Don’t step out of line or we’ll kill you. Here’s why that’s okay.’ I mean, why are they the ones setting themselves up as royalty? How come no one else has tried to challenge them?”

“They have some of the most potent vampiric powers known,” responded Homeguard. “To attack them would be like attempting to attack Celestia.”

“Oh. Great.” I should’ve known. It’s always something like that. “So… if they weren’t around-”

“I do not think I would reveal myself,” said Homeguard. “I am not completely certain that you are not a special case, and my very nature requires the death of others. It is not a situation that tends towards a happy resolution.”

“Well, can’t you just decide to tell somepony, have Hailey see into the future, and then change your mind based on what she sees?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Hailey.

I jumped about three feet in the air. “Where did you come from?” I yelled as I got to my feet.

“I was following you two in the woods,” said Hailey. “You never noticed me, and once you started talking about me, I just walked out. Easy.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Just… don’t do that again, okay?” I slapped some dust out of my mane. “Why doesn’t it work like that?”

“Well, see, my mind isn’t like a TV, where I can just choose to tune it to whatever channel I want to get visions on.”

“…What the heck’s a teevee?”

“Ooo, right. Future thing. Hasn’t been invented yet. Sorry, forgot you didn’t know that. Anyway, I tend to get visions on important things in my life. But, really, on the whole, it’s kinda sporadic.”

“So lemme get this straight,” I said. “You got visions about me ordering cheese wontons and talking with Crystalline… but trying to see what happens when Homeguard reveals that he’s a vampire to everypony… you can’t see?”

“Fine. In long: visions for stuff more than a day in advance tend to result from decisions with major repercussions. The wonton thing was less than twelve hours away, so that wasn’t hard to see, but I saw you talking with Crystalline, ’cause, I dunno, having your whole fate decided right then is kinda important, and I only saw it once Crystalline decided to come here. But if Homeguard thinks he’s going to make a musical about his vampiness or not based on my visions, then he hasn’t made that decision yet, so no vision, so no decision, so nothing!”

“Well, that’s stupid.”

“You have no idea.”

We kept walking. “Look, you guys,” I said, “even if we don’t tell anypony about you two, I’m in trouble. I’ve got two weeks to come up with a good story for the predator deaths, or else an arcanist is going to come out here. Once she does, it’s only a matter of time until you’re found out.”

“And if the attacks simply stop?” Homeguard said tentatively. “What then?”

“No change. The Court will still want to know what happened out here. Look, I- We need this fast. I don’t want to keep lying to everypony while they’re waiting on me.”

Homeguard and Hailey looked at each other. “Homeguard?” Hailey asked. She twisted a hoof into the ground. “Maybe she’s right, an-”

“We cannot!” said Homeguard. “It is-”

“At least-”

“No. Not while Crystalline still persists. This discussion is off the table.”

“Then you’d better think fast,” I said. “Because we’ll need a story as tight as a drum to keep other ponies away from here.”

“We can talk about it at our house. Let us stop there.”

---

Homeguard reached across the coffee table and pulled a certain sheet of paper towards him again. “And you are absolutely certain we could not claim it was a splintercat?”

I groaned and rubbed my mane. “Well, maybe, at a big stretch. There aren’t any records of splintercats attacking anything that big, but they are cranky from running into trees all the time. Maybe if… one, I don’t know, turned rabid or something-”

A rat-a-tat-tat as Homeguard quickly tapped the table. “And what would cause it to turn rabid?”

Maybe it was because animals didn’t like vampires, but Homeguard’s knowledge of biome dynamics and taking care of animals would be hilariously outclassed by a sunblasted undergrad. “Bitten by an animal with rabies. Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor?”

“When I first became a doctor, bloodletting was still a common practice and perfectly logical. The medical world can move swiftly, and I do not spend every waking second keeping track of the latest discoveries.”

I grunted. After fruitless hours of this, I’d been deprived of what sympathy I otherwise would’ve mustered. “But while a splintercat running full-tilt into an animal would explain the broken bones, it doesn’t do anything for the lack of blood. I can’t think of anything for that, whatever lie we tell-”

“Whatever story we tell.”

“-whatever lie we tell will have to cover that. I mean, the bodies were drained; that’s not the sort of thing that can just happen.” I hung my head in my hooves and groaned. “Son of a bitch, why didn’t you hide the bodies afterwards?”

Homeguard bared his teeth and folded his ears back. “Are you implying that I am responsible for River’s indiscretions? That I should have coddled him, taken care of-”

“It doesn’t seem like you tried very hard to keep the deaths a secret!” I stood up and jabbed a hoof at him. “There were half a dozen before I came! Honestly, what did you do? If anything? Anything at all?”

“I warned him that there would be consequences!” yelled Homeguard, also standing up. “I notified Crystalline of his actions, I repeatedly told him that he needed to be more cautious in-”

“So you talked to him? Great.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m glad that you tried nonviolence, but after he still didn’t-”

“Why did Crystalline do nothing?”

The shift was so sudden it cut me off and took me several moments to realize it wasn’t directed at me. Homeguard was staring off into space, his forehead furrowed in confusion or anger (or maybe both; I couldn’t tell). “Why,” he repeated, “did Crystalline… do nothing?”

“Are… they…” I swallowed and clopped my hooves against each other. “Are they usually prompt?”

“Quite,” whispered Homeguard, still not looking at me. “They act with utmost speed once they hear of a potential leak. Their arrival yesterday was unexpected solely because I knew not that they were aware of you, not for its suddenness. Yet… a vampire not hiding his kills, animals or otherwise-”

The door banged open; Hailey strode in. She tossed me a chocolate bar from under her wing. “Here, Swan. Food for the living. Thought you might need it.”

I did, though more as comfort food than nutrition. I devoured it the way a crow would devour carrion: noisily and with zero dignity. Dignity was for idiots, anyway.

But even as I lost myself in that cocoa haze, I couldn’t miss that Homeguard had started looking nervously at Hailey the moment she walked in the door. Once she thought I wasn’t looking, she trotted up to Homeguard, deposited a newspaper in front of him, and leaned in close to him. They started exchanging hurried, whispered words; I couldn’t pick anything specific out, but I could definitely hear them saying something. Hailey kept tapping on the paper, and Homeguard kept shaking his head. Hailey pointed at me (I quickly looked down), but Homeguard very vigorously shook his head and-

“What’s up?” I asked.

Both Homeguard and Hailey flinched. Homeguard quickly brushed off an invisible fleck of dirt. “Nothing to be concerned about. I do not wish to worry you.”

“And now that you’ve said that, I’m worried.”

Hailey gave Homeguard a Look and passed the paper towards me. A bold headline screamed NUMEROUS DISAPPEARANCES ACROSS SEADDLE; POLICE BAFFLED. “That’s probably Speckle,” said Hailey darkly.

“What?” I skimmed the article. Over ten missing pony cases in the past twelve hours — no leads — all across Seaddle — no similarities between victims — no known motives. “What makes you so sure?”

“Well, look.” Hailey pointed to various parts of the article. “A single disappearance is one thing, but a dozen in one day? Totally a vampire. We’re in the news a lot more than you would think, just not as vampires. And this happens just after Crystalline decides to leave you alone. Too coincidental. Definitely Speckle. She’s up to something.”

“What’s that something, then?” I asked.

“In the past,” Homeguard said, “vampires and covens have warred for feeding grounds. There once was a tactic where a vampire would turn large numbers of ponies at once, convince them she was their friend, and, after sufficient training, unleash them on her rivals, overwhelming them through numbers.”

“A… a vampire army?” Son of a bitch.

“‘Army’ is probably a bit much,” replied Homeguard. He tapped the over ten missing pony cases sentence. “‘Gang’ or ‘posse’ might be more accurate. However, after large versions of this tactic devastated certain sections of Equestria — I believe your history records it as a particularly virulent plague — Crystalline outlawed its use and any further attempts were violently stamped out.”

“Which makes Crystalline ignoring this suspicious,” said Hailey. “If they ignore it. They probably haven’t heard about it yet. And to answer your question, she still wants to get to you about River, so she’s probably hoping her posse will overwhelm us once they’re trained a little.”

“But why would Speckle make-” I caught myself. An army just to get to me. I was never, never going to get a break, was I? “But I’m not even the one who killed him! No offense, but-”

Hailey waved me down. “Doesn’t matter. You’re just a thing to her, a bug to be squished and have its guts smeared all over. You annoy her, so she wants you dead.”

“Super.”

“Velcome to the Vonderful Vorld of Vampires.”

“Do not alarm yourself,” Homeguard said. “Hailey and I are still here, and if this scourge somehow escapes Crystalline’s notice, we shall take care of it.”

My ears went up and I raised my head. “What? You’ll go to Seaddle and stop-”

“Uh, dude,” said Hailey flatly. “Serial killer running around, and he’s a vampire preacher. He cares a lot about the common mare, and if protecting them means laying the smackdown on other vampires, he’s gonna do it. When he goes, I’ll help with the laying, smacking, and downing.” She grinned. “Been too long since I’ve done that.”

“Thank you, Hailey,” Homeguard said with a sigh, “for that riveting description. But she is right,” he said to me. “Just because I myself do not eat ponies does not mean I can tolerate murder on this scale. We have… dealt with similar incidents before.”

“So, if you’re basically swatting other vampires away from their favorite food, how often do you make them drive you away?”

“It is…” Homeguard twitched his ears and rubbed his neck. “Convincing them to not feed on sapients is an uphill battle. Some vampires agree with us, others do not. We win some, we lose some, as is said.”

“And if worst comes to worst and a fight breaks out, you’ll be okay? There’s about a dozen-”

Homeguard smirked. “They will have been vampires for less than a month. Hailey is well over half a millennium old, and I am almost twice that, in addition to our own powers. We will be able to handle ourselves quite well.”

“Good, good.” It was still odd to think of Homeguard and Hailey fighting that many vampires by themselves. They just looked so unassuming. I guess that was how vampires had managed to hide out for so long, anyway. If you looked like a vampire, what good was it to claim you weren’t a vampire?

“You know,” mused Hailey, “‘Vampire Preacher’ would be a totally awesome name for a rock band.”

“Back to possible solutions for our problem here,” said Homeguard. He tapped a page of notes. “There is a chimera about a hundred miles north of-”

I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not. Cascadia’s already ruled that out herself, and the wounds are wrong, anyway.” And so I threw myself back into the grind.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

“They have some of the most potent vampiric powers known,” responded Homeguard. “To attack them would be like attempting to attack Celestia.”

"Again, changelings."
"You know what I mean."

So she can see the invention of televison, but not how Homeguard revealing himself might play out... Frickin' drama-sensitive clairvoyance. (Also, talk about being blessed with suck. How many decades has Hailey waited for her favorite shows to be made?)

In any case, very nice to see the characters think, ask questions, and draw logical conclusions. Particularly regarding the masquerade, especially since by Homeguard's own testimony, the diarchs already know of vampirism. Though they may not appreciate just how many vampires are in Equestria.

Looking forward to more, especially as Homeguard grapples with Crystalline's bizarre sense of priorities.

[Bugsydor]

What is Crystalline planning? Do they want a war?

[redmar]

If Crystalline doesn't stop Speckle the best thing to do would be to break the masquerade. If they're not consistent in enforcing their own rules they need to be removed from the equation.