Heir To Darkness

by Leafdoggy

Chapter 4: History Lesson

The second floor landing wasn’t much of anything. A long walkway covering three walls of the room, lined with doors and bookshelves and nothing else of note. Most of the bookshelves were stuffed full, although a few were notably barren. Here and there a book stood out against the rest, be it from strange, glowing text or a bewildering scent. The rest blended together into nothing more than a colorful wall.

None of the doors stuck out to Fluttershy. She walked the whole length of the walkway, checking every door on the off chance that one of them was her bedroom, but they were all just normal wooden doors. No carved glyphs, no ominous shaking, just plain, indistinguishable planks of wood.

With nothing else to go on, she chose a door at one of the far ends and went in.

The hall beyond was warm and lavish. The carpet running its length was a deep red, and stood out against the midnight blue of the walls. Torches ran along one wall to give light, while the other held paintings, family crests, statues, and a myriad of other decorations with absolutely no connecting thread between them.

Notably, though, there were no doors.

The flickering light of the torches cast dancing shadows around the room. Paintings flashed from lit to covered in the blink of an eye. Perfectly normal vases and urns were warped and cracked in the darkness behind them. Statues were flooded with life as the flowing light gave movement to their rigid limbs.

Fluttershy gulped and started to walk.

As she did, her own shadow joined the silhouetted revelry. It danced and played, leaping around the hall and toying with everything there was to see. Its carefree prancing seemed detached and alien to Fluttershy, much like everything else in this castle.

The hallway was long, and as she walked Fluttershy had nothing to do but look at the decorations and think. Few of the things that hung on the wall were of note. She didn’t recognize any of the crests and had little interest in studying the landscapes. It was too dark to appreciate the intricacies of pottery and other craftsmanship. That left little to linger on past the few paintings that weren’t just fields and houses.

They were interesting enough in their own right, though. There were the expected ones, the portraits of Dracula and another pony who, judging by his deep scowl and scarred face, Fluttershy assumed to be her father. There were other vampires, too. They were all adorned with placards, but they were of little use. Dracula’s was labeled as The Lady, which was reasonable enough, but the familiarity ended there.

One of the larger portraits, nestled between one of Dracula and another of her father, was of a white stallion with a sunken face. Even in caricature, the sadness in his eyes brought a pang of empathy to Fluttershy’s heart. The edges of the painting had started to wither away, and the streaks of canvas that had no paint gave the feeling that the world was falling apart around him.

That painting was labeled The True Heir.

Fluttershy didn’t linger on The Count. She had no interest in meeting his icy stare. Past his painting was a litany of ponies with titles like The General and The Architect, all old and stoic ponies who likely worked for The Count. In fact, none of the paintings struck Fluttershy as ponies who would belong working under Dracula.

As she walked, the far end of the hallway started to open up. At first, she had assumed it was a far off corner, but it was becoming more clear with every step that she was coming up on a massive room. She wasn’t close enough to make out what was in the room, but she was starting to see the bottom edge of a truly enormous picture frame.

She passed more and more portraits, and soon the cold, unflinching faces started to blend together in her mind. She was growing increasingly convinced that these were all ponies who served The Count, and as she went along their positions only became more trivial.

By the time she approached the end of the hall, she was hardly glancing at the portraits anymore. It was only by chance that a peculiar one caught her eye.

There wasn’t much to take in, but it still stopped Fluttershy in her tracks. On the wall, positioned just the same as every other portrait, was one final painting. It was the same shape, had the same dark, dull background, and by all accounts should have been another portrait, but it wasn’t. There was no pony, just an empty frame labeled The Visitor.

Fluttershy stared at it curiously for some time, but soon enough her curiosity shifted back to whatever was at the end of this hall of history, and she pressed on.

What she stepped out into was the largest gallery she had ever seen. She’d been to art galleries all over with Rarity, but they paled in size compared to this. It didn’t have the most paintings, in fact it held only one, and it had little in the way of amenities, but there was no doubt it was larger than any other.

All to store one portrait of mind boggling size. It was easily three stories tall. It must have taken decades to paint. It was the most beautiful, well crafted portrait ever made, and it was of a pony she didn’t recognize at all.

It was just a mare. A short tan mare with a bright smile, blue eyes and a mane that, strangely enough, looked just like Fluttershy’s. There were no bat ears. The teeth that showed through her smile were dull and flat. She was, by all accounts, just a mare.

Fluttershy’s eyes were locked to the mare’s as she slowly walked closer. She passed by a bench set up at the perfect distance to admire it, and kept moving closer. She’d seen a glint of gold below the frame, and she had to know what it said.

The placard matched all the rest, but somehow it seemed like more. More substantial, more important, just… More.

It read Mother.

It all became clear, yet at the same time nothing made sense. This was Dracula’s mother? Had she loved The Count? It was hard for Fluttershy to see how that could be, but at the same time it was hard for her to see The Count getting a painting of this scale made. If one had happened, then why not—

“Fluttershy?” A voice came from behind her.

Fluttershy yelped, which became a gurgle, which quickly became a cough. She’d been so caught up by the painting that she’d forgotten the wound on her tongue, and when she coughed blood splattered out onto the wall and stained the placard.

The pony behind her gasped, and was already rushing over when Fluttershy turned around. “Fluttershy, are you alright?”

Fluttershy recognized her right away as Sable Spirit, the orange unicorn who had once been empress to a nation, and now lived as the castle’s sole gardener.

Fluttershy nodded and did her best to smile casually. “I’m—” She coughed again, then swallowed hard. “I’m alright. I’m just, um… Looking for my room.”

Sable Spirit nodded. “Right, The Lady mentioned something about that. Well, this isn’t it.” She smiled softly, then peeked past Fluttershy at the blood on the wall. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Fluttershy nodded and scratched one of her legs nervously. “It’s just, uh, a scrape.”

Sable Spirit narrowed her eyes. “A scrape, hm? Can I see it?”

Fluttershy pursed her lips. “It’s kind of gross.”

“I can handle it. Show me your tongue.”

Fluttershy looked down at the floor. Her neck was hot, and her heart was pounding. “I, um…”

“Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath, sighed, and reluctantly stuck out her tongue. The deep slits showed no signs of healing, and within seconds a thick line of blood dropped from her tongue and onto the floor.

Sable Spirit tsked and shook her head. “She didn’t tell you anything, did she?”

“Um…”

She sighed. “Put your tongue away before you bleed out.” Fluttershy shut her mouth and swallowed again. “You can’t just go slicing into yourself whenever you want. You might be a vampire, but you still need your blood to stay in your body.”

“I d-” Fluttershy held up a leg to cover a cough, and it came away red. “I didn’t think it would bleed this much.”

“You don’t have normal fangs,” Sable Spirit told her. “They’re kind of… Venomous.”

Fluttershy’s eyes went wide. “I thought biting was safe!”

“It is,” Sable Spirit said, “if you actually know what you’re doing. It just stops clotting and does… I don’t know what exactly, but it makes it feel good instead of hurt.”

Fluttershy nodded slowly. “I think I get it.”

“That makes it dangerous, though,” Sable Spirit went on. “If you don’t know how it works, you won’t know when to stop, and most ponies can’t feel when they’re running out of blood. You could seriously hurt somepony, or worse.”

Fluttershy swallowed and frowned. “B-But I came so close to biting Pinkie…”

“It’s hard to know what The Lady is thinking, sometimes.” Sable Spirit moved back to the bench and waved Fluttershy along, and they sat down together. “Perhaps she assumed you had the good sense to have a third party present, or maybe she just didn’t care.”

“That seems… Harsher than I’ve seen her,” Fluttershy said.

“Harsher than leaving you to electrocute yourself in the middle of the night?”

“I… Guess not,” Fluttershy said.

“She’s got high hopes for you,” Sable Spirit said. She gestured up towards the painting. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice the similarity.”

Fluttershy frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, there’s no doubt you remind The Lady of her mother. I think she’s probably decided that if you can’t live up to her image, you don’t deserve to be a vampire.”

“I can’t just go back, though, it doesn’t work like that.”

“I know. As does she.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath. She swallowed again. “So that’s the real reason she’s testing me?”

“Oh, everything else she said was true,” Sable Spirit said. “This just means that she may be harder on you than is strictly necessary.”

“I see…” Fluttershy looked up and locked eyes with her massive doppelganger. She knew it was a trick of the light, but she couldn’t help but feel like Dracula’s mother was smiling more brightly than before.

Comments

[Cross Lament]

I do hope at some point in this story Fluttershy delivers to Dracula a very firm scolding.