• Published 31st Jul 2018
  • 1,160 Views, 186 Comments

Gloaming - Rambling Writer



While investigating a series of vicious attacks on animals in an isolated town, a wildlife expert is plunged headlong into a hidden world of monsters.

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28 - Standing in the Sun

The downpour summoned by the weather pegasi made short work of the burning station. Turns out living in a town where rain is scheduled about eighty percent of the time means they’re really good at gathering and dispensing rain quickly. Who’da thunk?

The ponies spread out quickly, spreading the news to the other groups still in Delta and letting the ponies in the shelters know it was safe to come out. Within minutes, I could hear sounds of celebration all across town. Cheers, hollers, whoops, even a few bangs as some unicorns let off some makeshift fireworks. I leaned against Cascadia and together we limped towards Levanta’s shelter.

It wasn’t until we were halfway there when I realized what she was doing. “Hang on. You’re the sheriff,” I said to Cascadia. “Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, organizing ponies or something? I can walk there.” Technically.

“They can organize themselves for fifteen minutes,” Cascadia said, waving a hoof. “It’s not like there’s anything going on we need to handle. Let them have their fun a little. Besides, I owe you. You really saved our butts.”

“I burned the police station down.”

Cascadia glanced over her shoulder at the smoke still rising from the smouldering building and chuckled. “Okay, right, yeah. I don’t know how insurance is going to cover that. But-” She grinned at me and tapped me on the chest. “You killed a vampire chimera. You freed Homeguard from a vampire’s control when everypony else was helpless. You killed another vampire in the process of burning the police station down. And even before that, you went against his wishes and told us everything you could about Crystalline. If it weren’t for you, probably everypony in the town would be dead right now. I can let a little accidental arson slide.”

“It sounds a lot cooler when you say it.”

“That sort of stuff always does. You were making it up as you went along, weren’t you?”

“Kinda.”

“That’s what all the best action heroines do. You know how clumsy and lucky you were, but I sure don’t. Really, helping you find your daughter is the least I can do.”

“Well, then, thanks.”

There were a crowd outside the shelter, everypony hugging or talking or laughing or somehow releasing their joy. I even saw a few dancing. I lightly pushed Cascadia away. “I got it from here.”

“Take care,” Cascadia said with a nod. “And remember to get that cut taken care of.”

“Hmm?” I glanced at the cut on my side. It was still bleeding, although parts were scabbing over. Not too serious, but it could still make a mess. “Right. I’ll do that.”

I turned my attention to the crowd. I couldn’t see Levanta in it, but given how many ponies there were, that meant precisely nothing. She might not even be on the ground. “Levanta!” I yelled. “Levanta! It’s your mom! I’m-”

Something fell on me. Most of my weight was forced onto my bad leg and I felt like my ankle was getting crushed in a vise. “Motherfuck!” I shrieked in combined surprise and agony.

“Moooooom. Language.

I finally realized the pony hanging off me was Levanta. She hugged me tightly, and I hugged back, careful not to aggravate my fetlock any further. “Sorry,” I said, “but I broke my ankle.”

Levanta quickly detached herself. “Sorry,” she said. “I- just- Did you really kill a vampire chimera? Bay says you did, but…”

“I stabbed it through the heart with our ‘For Sale’ sign.”

Levanta’s jaw dropped. “Holy crow.”

“What?” I joked. “Didn’t you think I could handle it?”

“…It’s a vampire chimera, Mom. I know you’re a ranger, but dang.”

“I also burned down the police station.”

“…Uh-”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

I heard Bay yell, “Hey!” She zipped out of the crowd and landed next to us. “Did she tell you?” she squeaked. “About the chimera? Did she did she did she? It was awesome!”

“Yeah,” Levanta said with a grin. “Sounds like it.” She glanced at the crowd. “S-so, uh, if Crystalline’s gone, what now? Do you… want me to come home or… something?”

I guess a night of vampire slaying had made me more lenient. Maybe it was just the overall upbeat atmosphere. Maybe the adrenaline crash was hitting and I simply didn’t want to bother. “I’m going home to sleep, but you can stay up. Just don’t stay up too long, okay? We do need to go back to regular time sooner or later. And don’t do anything stupid.”

Levanta’s ears went up and her tail twitched. “Really?”

“Sure. I think it’s okay, if only for tonight.”

“Cool! Thanks, Mom!” Levanta jumped on me (I winced as yet more weight went on my ankle), hugged me, then dashed off into the night, closely followed by Bay. Part of me wanted to go with her, but another part had run out of youthful energy like that a long time ago. I slowly limped home.

The ashes of the dead vampires were still spread across the lawn. In particular, the chimera’s pile of ashes nearly came up to my fetlock. I wondered how long they’d be there. Would wind blow them away? Would rain wash them away? How easily? They couldn’t be stuck there, right? I’d never dealt with ashes much before. I paid them no mind as I entered my house; I was too tired.

I stumbled up the stairs, limped to the bathroom, and stripped off my clothes. I poked at my cut. It twinged slightly, but not too badly. Luckily, as a ranger, I knew more than basic first aid and always kept supplies around. I had it bandaged, beginning to end, in less than a minute. Thank heavens for spells that made long dressings themselves sticky, or else I’d have used up a year’s supply of band aids covering the cut up if I wasn’t able to wrap bandages around my trunk. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything about my ankle at the moment; I didn’t have any splints. I loped back into my room and finally rolled into bed.

Since the only thing I really needed to worry about was my ankle, for the first time in weeks, I slept like a sunblasted log.


I woke up feeling oppressed by the lack of responsibility. Delta’s animal problem? Solved. Vampires willing to kill me to keep their existence a secret? Solved. A vampire willing to kill me because I was vaguely involved in the death of her boyfriend? Solved. Lying to Cascadia about Delta’s animal problem? Solved. Vampires coming to kill the whole town? Solved. I had nothing I needed to take care of.

I rolled over in my bed and my ankle screamed. Stupid of me to forget that.

But my ankle was okay as long as I kept it still, so I spent the next half-hour or so sleeping in without any stresses whatsoever. I could almost feel my brain unravelling; after spending the last few weeks having it wound tighter than a drum, it was a nice feeling. Eventually, I decided it was time to face the real world again; if nothing else, I needed my ankle splinted. I hobbled down to Levanta’s room and quietly peeked in. She was flopped out on her bed, snoozing soundly. Bay was at the window, staring out. “Hey,” said Bay. Her voice was a little flat.

“Hey. Can’t sleep?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but it was a lead-in to conversation.

“No. I haven’t needed to sleep since… since I…”

“Yeah.” I limped into the room and sat down next to her. “Are you handling it okay? You seemed alright for the past week.”

“Once ponies were being nice, it- it was kinda cool,” said Bay, sounding almost guilty. “I couldn’t get tired, I didn’t need to eat, I couldn’t get hurt, and I-” She looked at me with big eyes. “I could see a whole new color. I don’t- I don’t know how to describe it. It’s literally like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Interesting. Neither Homeguard nor Hailey had ever said anything about that. “Was it infrared?” I suggested. “Or maybe ultraviolet?”

“I, I think it was UV,” said Bay. “It, it made flowers look different, and I heard in school that- that bees can see UV.” She swallowed. “So being a vampire was cool at first. But when the shelters were opened last night, me and Levanta and some of our friends, we went to a candy store that somepony had said they’d open. I tried some chocolate and- it tasted terrible. I tried other stuff, but nothing tastes good anymore. Nothing but- but-” She folded her ears back and looked down.

“Blood.” It was better to come out and say it.

“Y-yeah.” Bay ran a hoof along an unruly bang and looped it over her ear. “And when Levanta fell asleep, I started thinking. And- I’m not going to see my mom and dad again, am I? Or any of my friends. ’Cause Homeguard keeps saying we have to keep ourselves secret. Even though Delta likes him just fine.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” I said, “and I was going to try to persuade him to talk to Princess Twilight or somepony about revealing vampirism to Equestria at large. Maybe you’ll be able to see them again, but that’s a very big ‘maybe’.” I didn’t want to get her hopes up in case this crashed and burned, but I was pretty confident it’d go just fine. If I could convince Homeguard of it.

“Yeah, right,” Bay said with a snort. “And then I kept thinking, and- I’m stuck like this forever. Not just ‘a really long time’, literally forever. I- I wanted to be a wood carver when I grew up, but now I’m not gonna grow up, all because-” She stopped and sniffed. She whispered, “I-I don’t wanna be a vampire anymore.”

I squirmed internally. She was a kid. She shouldn’t have to through with this. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “but you can’t go back to being a pony.”

“I-” Bay wiped at her eyes. “I know.”

After maybe a second, I reached a hoof around her neck and pulled her close to me. She flared a wing, scooped it around my body, and wrapped her front hooves around my free leg. My broken ankle throbbed and Bay’s body was deathly cold, but I barely noticed either of them. They didn’t matter at all.

“I can’t cure you,” I said, “but I promise you, I’ll do the absolute best I can to make sure you don’t need to hide. Just because things can’t go back to the way they were doesn’t mean you need to abandon your old life completely. I swear, I’ll get Homeguard to talk to somepony if I have to drag him, kicking and screaming, to Canterlot myself.”

Bay rubbed her face into my leg. “Th-thanks.”

I twitched a little. “Careful, that’s my bad leg.”

“Sorry,” Bay said, loosening her grip.

“You need anything else?”

“N-not right now.”

“If you do, just let me know.”

“Uh-huh.” Bay glanced at Levanta, who hadn’t so much as twitched. “Is she always this heavy a sleeper?”

“You have no idea.”


Homeguard was waiting for me when I headed downstairs, a saddlebag at his side. “I hope you do not mind my entering,” he said, “but Hailey said you would be stopping by for medical assistance, and I decided it was best to cut out the middlemare.”

“Nah, you’re fine.” I dropped onto the couch. I dropped onto the couch and held my hoof out. By now, the area around my fetlock was quite swollen. “Broken ankle, didn’t have anything to splint it with.”

“Hmm.” Homeguard took my hoof in his. I braced myself for pain as he handled it, but he was incredibly gentle and never aggravated it. Of course, he was a doctor. “I would have to see an X-ray to know for certain, but I do not think it is too badly damaged. Can you put weight on it?”

“Only technically,” I said. “I can walk to the doctor’s office, but-”

“No, that shall not be necessary,” said Homeguard, lightly putting a hoof on my shoulder. “If you spare me a moment…” He rooted through his bag, then pulled out a few packets of single pills. “So long as you do not stress it unduly and take one of these every morning, I do not imagine you requiring anything more than a splint and an immobilization boot for long.”

“Really? What are they?” The pills didn’t look particularly special, but that meant precisely jack squat.

“Healing accelerants,” explained Homeguard. “The enchantments within them will temporarily increase the rate at which your body heals itself and even prevent it from healing improperly. So long as you do not make the injury worse, your leg will be as good as new within a week rather than six or seven. Hailey and I had bought a plethora of them in case last night had been more violent than it turned out to be.”

“Huh.” I worked one pill out of its case and examined it. It looked like an aspirin in every way, but it felt slightly tingly. “I thought this sort of thing was only available to aristocrats with more money than sense.”

Homeguard smirked. “I live with somepony who can accurately predict the future. You would be surprised at how often her visions pertain to the stock market. Trust me, in spite of our modest living arrangements, Hailey and I are quite well off.”

“Well, thanks.” I didn’t need any water; I just put the pill on my tongue, tilted my head back, and swallowed. I twitched; it felt like a spark had landed in my stomach. “One every morning?”

“For a week, and you ought not to put too much stress on that hoof.”

“I know.” My hoof still burned. I should’ve put an ice pack in the freezer yesterday, but I was too tired. I’d do it once Homeguard was gone. “So, um, did you find any vampires last night?”

Homeguard dug through his bag again and laid out a set of splints and some bandages. “Tributary and a few others remained unaccounted for, but Hailey thinks it highly unlikely that they shall return, and I agree with her. Perhaps Rebirth would have returned, but the vampires that fled have a modicum of intelligence. Speaking of which, I noticed Cascadia had stolen Sombra’s horn from Rebirth-”

“She threw it in the fire, but we both agreed to look for it once the fire was out.”

“Good. Something like that will not be difficult to find, although I doubt it survived. Now, if you would please hold your hoof out…” I did so; Homeguard put the splints in place and wound the bandage around my leg, securing them. “Tell me if it gets to be too painful.”

“Yep.” Fortunately, it was just tight enough. “So if the vampires last night made up most of Crystalline, what’re vampires going to do now? There’s a big power vacuum.”

“I do not know,” Homeguard said with a sigh. “It will take time for the news to spread, and it is entirely possible that vampires will not believe it. For Crystalline to have dominated the scene for over a millennium, only to be destroyed in a single night by mere ponies…”

“And if the vampires do believe it?”

“I cannot say. Again, Crystalline was destroyed by ponies.” Deeming the amount of wraps to be sufficient, Homeguard snapped the bandage off and secured the end. “Obviously, you are not the weak, helpless prey Crystalline said you were, at least not while prepared. But while vampires may continue to hide to protect themselves-”

I coughed. “Yeah, about that…” I took a deep breath. “I think we should tell one of the princesses about vampires. Delta took it alright.”

“No,” Homeguard said so quickly I knew he hadn’t really thought about it. “Delta- Delta is- a- special case. I cannot imagine- ponies accepting- monsters who drink blood.”

“Is that all?” I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes. “Look, let’s just go to Princess Twilight. Isn’t she running a school or something that accepts changelings and griffons? She’ll understand if nopony else does.”

Homeguard opened his mouth again, then closed it. Was I finally getting to him? “That… sounds…” He shook his head, as if he was confused. “While I… would certainly enjoy not having to hide myself, I… I do not think that revealing myself now is the best option.”

“Why not?”

“Be- Because… it…”

“Give me a reason why we shouldn’t go in the next sixty seconds. One you haven’t given to me before, since they obviously haven’t convinced me.”

I stopped talking. Homeguard stayed silent. He opened his mouth a few times, but never managed to say anything. The clock kept tick-tick-ticking loudly. I counted off the seconds, and when sixty went by, I nodded. “We’re going. Not today, maybe not this week, maybe not even this year, but we’re going.”

“No,” said Homeguard. “We are not going.”

“We’re going.”

“We are not going.”

“I’m going to keep pressing you until you cave, you know.”

“I have lived in excess of a millennium. You wearing me down is… highly doubtful.”

“We’ll see.”


The ease with which Delta slid back into its normal routine was both surprising and not. On the one hoof, holy crow there were vampires here. On the other, the only vampires still here are Homeguard and Hailey, and they’ve been here for years already, so what’s the big deal? The adults tried to get back into their rut as soon as possible, and for the most part, succeeded. The kids, on the other hoof…

When Levanta came back from school the first “normal again” day, she was complaining. “There were vampires here two nights ago!” she said as she dropped her bag on the floor. “Vampires! How am I supposed to concentrate after that?!”

“By concentrating,” I said from my place on the couch. It was the best I could come up with; just because I didn’t have anything to worry about didn’t mean sitting around did wonders for my body. “When would you start again otherwise?”

“Well, I don’t know!” Levanta protested. “A week? We worked all last week! We need a break!”

“I worked more than twice as much as you and the only reason I’m not up and working is because I can’t be.” I waved my bandaged hoof at her.

“You’re an adult! You don’t get to have breaks!”

“But if your teachers are adults, then they don’t get to have breaks, which means their charges don’t get to have breaks, which means-”

Levanta snorted. “Very funny, Mom.” She slung her backpack back over her withers and made for the staircase. “Anyway, got some homework, ’cause apparently that’s required, according to you…”

“Think you’ll need any help?” I wasn’t sure how much good my help would be, but I could offer it.

“Nah. The only class I really have homework in is biology and I learned a lot from you.” At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and looked back at me. “Do you need me to get you anything?”

“Not until dinner,” I said, shaking my head.

Levanta nodded and turned back to the stairs. She stopped again. Then she dropped her bag, trotted over to me, and grabbed me in a hug. “Love you, Mom.”

I hugged her back. “Love you too, hon.”

“Thanks for keeping me safe,” she whispered.

I squeezed. “Sure.”


Two days later, I felt well enough to limp to the police station as long as I took it slow. My hoof still twinged a tiny bit when I put weight on it, but it was healing well. To my surprise, the station seemed intact. A closer look revealed that the ponies of Delta were really speedy when it came to construction. After the last week, that wasn’t that surprising.

Parts of where the interior had been burned and replaced still had the smell of new paint, while others hadn’t been touched up yet. A few plastic sheets and paint cans were sitting at the border of painted and not-painted. The layout, at least what I saw, was the same as before. Cops and firefighters brushed back and forth past me, mostly with papers. There were a few nods, but mostly, they were preoccupied with whatever work they were doing.

I pushed into Cascadia’s office. She had several large stacks of paper on her desk and kept glancing at the papers in one stack, jotting stuff down, and moving them to another stack. She looked up and motioned for me to sit down. “What’s going on?” I asked as I took a seat.

“We’re checking to see what files we did or didn’t lose in the fire,” Cascadia said as she skimmed through her papers.

I cringed. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“It’s alright,” Cascadia said. “So far, it’s looking like we didn’t lose much. It seems my predecessor had the filing cabinets fireproofed. And all the important stuff’s in the town hall, anyway.”

“Good,” I said, nodding. “And how’s the town holding up? After… you know, everything.”

“Fine. Fine,” said Cascadia. She paused. “I think. There might be a pony or two who’s going to break down in the next week, but don’t worry your tail over that. The biggest thing now is handling the companies who want to know why we missed last week’s lumber shipments.”

“Is there anything-”

“Unless you’ve got any experience with corporate negotiation, no.”

“Then, no. What’ll you say to them?”

“That it’s classified.” Cascadia looked up. “ ’Cause it is, right? Homeguard probably doesn’t want the whole hemovore thing getting out just yet, and it’s technically part of your investigation, so…”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I had the authority to classify anything or even how I’d go about classifying it in the first place. I’d never heard of any ranger who had needed to. But it was as good an excuse as any. “Sure. It’s classified.”

“Great.” Cascadia paused again and coughed. “So, uh, I’ve never worked with a ranger before. What’ll you do now?”

“Stay here until I get called out to some other town to investigate some other issue with animals.” I shrugged. “Really, a ranger’s mobile position. I’ve moved over a dozen times since I’ve started. Still, the law means I can’t be called out for another year at least, so you’re stuck with me until then.”

Cascadia bit her lip and looked up as she drummed her hoof on the table. Then she said, “You’re not averse to getting small animals to hibernate, are you? Because trying to corral all the rabbits and whatnot around here for that is a pain.”

I nodded. “Easy-peasy. After vampires, spending a week tucking bunnies in would be heaven. It’s a routine part of being a ranger.”

“It’s not scheduled for another moon or so, but great.”

“Speaking of work, I was wondering if you had any sort of paperwork for me. Normally, I’d do a patrol of the area to get a better idea of it, but…” I held up my splinted leg and grinned apologetically. “And I don’t really like just sitting around.”

“If mind-numbing paperwork’s all you want, go talk to Blue Canary. She’s running the whole show right now. Get a bunch of files, briefly record what they cover, rinse and repeat. Right, down the hall, records room a few doors down.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting in the cafeteria, examining arrest records from several decades ago and jotting them down. Hardwood, 968 CE, drunk and disorderly… Coriander, 971 CE, shoplifting… Sweet Ivy, 970 CE, assault…

I suddenly realized Homeguard was sitting across from me, going through four or five files in the time it took me to do one. “Hello,” he said. “I presume your healing goes as planned.”

“Yeah, those pills’re working great,” I said. Time to press the issue of the week. “How’s Delta treating you?”

“Boysenberry is peeved that I technically cheated on a drinking game several years back,” he said eventually, “but… apart from that… Many of the firefighters I worked with vouched for my character, and as it was never an act…”

“So what do you think?” I asked. “Are we going to see Pr-”

“No,” he said reflexively. He looked me in the eye. “Not yet.”

I looked straight back and smiled aggressively. “I’m not going to let up anytime soon, you know.”

Homeguard’s smile was both less and more aggressive at the same time. “Neither shall I.”


“How did I let you talk me into this?” Homeguard asked as the train steamed up to the platform.

“A metric crapton of needling,” I said, “plus some genuinely persuasive arguments. And it only took, what, a week?”

With no train stations in Delta, we’d needed to go to Seaddle. Ponyville was halfway across the country and even Homeguard would have been hesitant to run that far. The pills Homeguard had given me had worked like the charm they were; after only a week of healing, I could put weight on my “bad” hoof without it feeling like it was going to split in two. I avoided galloping, but couldn’t feel any damage from the hundred-plus-mile walk we’d just done.

“Again, must we do this now?” said Homeguard. “I would- prefer to- adjust to the new situ-”

“Again, it’s been a week. You’ve adjusted.”

“I was jarred out of a rut I have been in for beyond a millennium. I have not yet fully adjusted.”

“Tough shit. If I don’t take you now, you’ll never go.” But I knew Homeguard was only spitting out his responses thanks to habit. If he hadn’t been, he would’ve lowered his voice so his “millennium” comment wouldn’t have attracted any strange looks as passengers filed out of the train.

“Perhaps,” said Homeguard, “but I- I doubt that we should go so big so quickly. Could we not talk to a lesser authority?”

I tilted my head a little. “Is this about approachability?”

“To- a- certain extent.” Homeguard looked away. “One way or another, she is a princess. I cannot imagine she would take kindly to absolute strangers stopping by unannounced.”

“Did you know that, for the first year or so after she became a princess, Twilight still lived in a library? And that school she established, she runs it herself. It’s not just something she threw money at to get started. If half the stories I’ve heard about her are true, her reaction to us breaking into her castle would be to ask us what we wanted for lunch.”

“P-perhaps,” said Homeguard, still resolutely looking away, “but she is- she- I doubt that-”

“Oh, come on,” I said as I stepped into the train. “You’re overreacting. Twilight’s not worth making such a fuss over.”

Author's Note:

I've got author's notes on the whole fic and how it connects to Twilight right here if you're interested.

Comments ( 24 )

Turns out living in a town where rain is scheduled about eighty percent of the time means they’re really good at gathering and dispensing rain quickly.

There is the question of why rain is scheduled eighty percent of the time, but that's the weather bureau's problem.

If half the stories I’ve heard about her are true, her reaction to us breaking into her castle would be to ask us what we wanted for lunch.

After checking to see if they're there to try to conquer Equestra, and if so, if they've made an appointment. :derpytongue2:

Fantastic work all around. A perfect demonstration of how the strongest form of criticism is making something better than the original. Thank you for it.

“Oh, come on,” I said as I stepped into the train. “You’re overreacting. Twilight’s not worth making such a fuss over.”

Is this a subtle jab at those that make a great deal of Twilight Sparkle, the Twilight series, or both? Or am I reading too much into it?

9261564
All of the above, especially the mutually-exclusive ones. The second, mostly. To be honest, while the series is bad and has some disturbing moments, a lot of it is blown out of proportion and not really the abomination against humanity a lot of people paint it as. (Until you get to Breaking Dawn. *shudders*)

9261577
Ok.
Great fic, by the way :D

This isn't the last chapter, right? I BADLY want to see how Twilight reacts. Man this is SUCH a great story, and I'm really enjoying reading the journal entry about where you drew your inspiration. A very nicely-done experiment on taking a story you didn't like and finding a way to turn it into a new story that you do like. :Dd Great job, Ramble!

9261426
The question of why there is so much rain was actually answered in an early chapter! Lemme see if I can find it...

HA, it's actually the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH of the entire story! XD

Delta was the kind of quiet, content little town where nothing really happened and that suited everypony just fine. It ran mostly on lumber, with a little mining on the side, making it a very blue-collar sort of place. It rained a lot, but that couldn’t be helped; as the winds came down from the North Luna Ocean, they carried a lot of water in them, and the Weather Department had to dump it all somewhere. It was voluntary on Delta’s part, since a big, steady supply of water helped the trees grow quickly. It wasn’t growing explosively, but it was dug-in and thriving; it’d take a lot to dislodge these lumberers.

So when the murders began, I was called in.

9261759
Oh. Right. :twilightsheepish: I thought I remembered it being mentioned somewhere.

Very entertaining story.

9270191
One that deserves a sequel.

Thanks for braving the depths of Twilight to cobble together this gem from its bones. It's been great.

This whole thing was a super interesting project that resulted in a pretty darn good fic. Glad I found it and thanks for writing it. My only real complaint was that it seemed a bit short for what it was, but even that makes quite a bit of sense consider that one of the bigger criticisms of the source material that you're writing this from (if I remember correctly) is how things tended to get dragged out too long or otherwise spent too much time in exposition.

In any case this definitely didn't overstay it's welcome and it wrapped itself up quite nicely.

9433343
The source material was very slow (at one point, five pages are used to say nothing more than "gawd, he's hawt", and I am not exaggerating), so I definitely erred on the side of "faster". It's also a little bit of personal preference; I can tolerate bad fast pacing far more than bad slow pacing.

9433388
Yea, perfectly understandable. I don't fault the story for it or you for writing it that way, but if there was any specific weakness to it then I would say it would be around some things that felt like they might have been missing. And to be perfectly fair, you specifically covered most of the things that I would mention already in the blog post where you explain how the source material compares to this directly.

(at one point, five pages are used to say nothing more than "gawd, he's hawt", and I am not exaggerating)

That's... impressive?

Well written, good pacing, and fairly entertaining!

I don't know if I'd call this a personal complaint or if I should congratulate you, but I found this Swan just as unlikable as the original. Her daughter was only slightly better and Homeguard came off much the same as Swan, but the only complain I can come up with there is the daughters name. "Lavanta" doesn't sound very pony. Haily and Clearwater were great.

These are all just personal nitpicks, however! I loved the story, really.

I got 14 chapters into this before I even realised that it was a rewriting of Twilight. I think I love what I've read even more now.

...

Done reading now. I absolutely loved this story, but that pun at the end ruined it, 0/10, 0 stars, F-, see my after class /s

Man, that was fantastic. The one sitting (or one laying in bed, rather) kind of reading.

The nail gun, the for sale sign, the flare gun - loved all of Chekhov's stakes. That pacing was fantastic, and we got to have both a slow, rainy, unnerving small town as well as really great action when the fireworks really started to kick off.

I had this saved for just the right evening for quite a while, and I'm glad I read it.

Not even a love story and still a better love story than twilight

I loved the story, got me captivated by second half. My heart goes out to Bay. Have you though about revising the story and adding some short continuation. I am dying to know what would happen if Bay gets reconnected with her family. As she was supposed to be hidden for time being authorities probably ruled her dead with rest of the victims.

I really liked this story! The twists were done very well and there was a thriller vibe through it all. Well done!

>Those closing lines

Great story, top marks from me. You used your Chekhovs... For Sale signs absolutely brilliantly, and gave the entire cast of endlessly likeable characters a chance to shine during the gripping conclusion.

Just an all around excellent read. It's pretty easy to point and laugh at Twilight, it's such a safe literary punching bag that ragging on it has basically lost all lustre over time. It can be pretty easy for people to punch down on 'shit writing' for being 'shit', while contributing nothing really meaningful to the discussion themselves. What you've done here instead...salvaging the good ideas from it and re-working them in service of something better than the sum of its parts, is a lot more respectable.

I'm ranting. Thanks a lot for writing this one.

I was tense throughout that Swan would get bitten anyways.

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I have actually seen Candle Wick used as a pony name for a John Wick expy. It was only a drabble that's part of a huge 200+ chapter fanfic though.

This is a good ending and I greatly enjoyed the story. A lot better than the Twilight Saga from what little I know about it.

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