Heir To Darkness

by Leafdoggy

Chapter 5: Things Start Looking Up

“Alright, well, we should be getting you to your room.” Sable Spirit stood up from the bench and waved for Fluttershy to follow her.

“You’re going to show me where it is?” Fluttershy asked as they started to walk back down the long hallway.

“I was never told not to,” Sable Spirit said. “Besides, at the speed you were going, it would be weeks before you found it on your own.”

“Weeks?” Fluttershy’s face sank. “How hidden is it?”

“Oh, it’s right off the grand staircase. It just isn’t on a lower floor.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy gulped. “Well, hopefully it’s at least a nice room.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Sable Spirit told her. “The Lady is going to be harsh towards you, yes, but she recognizes the importance of having a comfortable place to go back to. A safe haven of sorts.”

“That’s good…”

As the conversation lulled, Fluttershy found herself looking back at the paintings. A legion of harsh, cruel ponies glared back at her. Somehow, the hot malice in their eyes and the deep creases in their brows seemed even more intense than they had before.

“Why don’t you have a portrait?” Fluttershy asked.

“Oh, I do,” Sable Spirit said. “The Lady’s hall is on the far side of the castle, mirroring her father’s.”

“And the, um, ‘True Heir?’ Does he have a hall?”

Sable Spirit pursed her lips. “No, I’m afraid that portrait is just about the only trace of him left in this house.”

“Oh…” Fluttershy frowned. “Is… Was he The Lady’s brother?”

“He was, yes.”

“What was he like?”

“That, I’m afraid, I could not tell you,” Sable Spirit said. “He was before my time, and I’ve learned not to speak of him around The Lady.”

They reached the trio of portraits showing the family and stopped in front of them. He looked so young to Fluttershy. If she didn’t know of their lifespans, she would have guessed she was her age when the portrait was drawn, and he had none of the sharpened vigor that was so clear in his father and sister.

As they were standing there, a chip of paint fell off the portrait and plunged to the floor.

Sable Spirit sighed and turned to walk away. Fluttershy decided not to press the issue and followed close behind.

The first thing to hit Fluttershy when the door opened up to the grand staircase was the sound of the fountain. She recognized it in an instant, the soft splashing beckoning her to come down and have another taste.

She tried to throw the idea off, to tell herself that she’d already had her fill, but the sight of the blood splattering the wall in the gallery popped into her head. She’d been losing blood all night, and it would be so easy to replace. All she needed to do was to withstand a little jolt, and then she—

“Fluttershy?”

Sable Spirit’s voice knocked Fluttershy back out of her thoughts, and she realized she’d climbed up to lean over the railing of the balcony to get a better look at the fountain.

She pushed herself back and scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. “Sorry…”

“You’ll get used to it,” Sable Spirit told her.

“Mhm…” Fluttershy hummed noncommittally.

“Come on, go find your room.” Sable Spirit walked up beside Fluttershy and directed her vision straight up. “I haven’t been up there to check, but I was told you’ve been put in the room at the very top.”

“What? T-That high?”

“Afraid so. I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

“Mm…” Fluttershy swallowed and rubbed her legs together. “Couldn’t I just sleep in the servants’ quarters or something?”

“Not unless you want The Lady to take a week trying to get you over your fear.”

A shiver went down Fluttershy’s spine at the thought. “Alright, fine. I’ll manage it.”

Sable Spirit smiled at Fluttershy and gave her a quick hug. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I think The Lady is right about you.”

“Thank you.” Fluttershy smiled and nodded politely. “I’ll see you soon, probably.”

Sable Spirit nodded back, and Fluttershy looked up into the darkness above to try and steel herself. She could hardly see more than a few stories up without any light, and she knew it went far higher. For all she knew, it could be as dark up there as it was in the throne room.

Still, she had little choice. With one final, heavy gulp, she sprang up into the air and flew into the unknown.

It was a massive relief when, a few seconds into flight, more stairs and walkways started to appear in the corners of her vision. The idea of fumbling around in the dark again, this time trying to find a door in midair, was truly horrible. At least she wouldn’t have to do that, so long as this kept up.

Once she was in it, it became impossible to have any sense of how high she was. The bottom floors had vanished from sight faster than she’d hoped, and the twisting knot of walkways and balconies made it next to impossible to keep track of what was where. They were all completely indistinguishable from one another. There were no railings, no embellishments, just solid, utilitarian planks and stairs running between doors.

Still, all she had to do was go up. That wasn’t a problem. Here and there she had to take wide, swerving turns to avoid pieces of the architecture, but it was hardly a problem to correct her course right after and go back to flying straight up.

At least, it was easy at first.

At some point, a wide walkway spanning the full breadth of the room appeared right above Fluttershy. It was nothing new, and she just turned to the left to move out of its way, but as she turned she saw something, hardly a shadow, that dropped down the right side of the walkway just as she came up the left.

She stuck her wings out to stop her flight, but she was too close to the walkway and one of her wings clipped it. It didn’t hurt, but it did send her spinning out into the darkness. By the time she recovered and found what she thought was the same walkway, the mysterious shape was nowhere to be seen.

She stayed there for a moment, slowly flapping her wings as she mulled over what had happened. She tried to make sense of the shadow, or remember if she had heard anything, but came up with nothing but a formless mass and the far off, disembodied splashing of the fountain.

In the end, she decided there was nothing to be done about it, and set off once more on her journey upwards.

As she rose further and further, she started to feel unease creep into her mind. Every turn to avoid something made her tense up, getting ready for the shadow to spring up again. Every noise, every distant flap of wings or closing door, suddenly felt so much closer. So much realer.

She wasn’t alone in this castle, she was realizing, and she had no idea what that meant.

She pressed on, reminding herself of Sable Spirit’s words. Her room was a safe haven. If Dracula intended it as such, surely the other creatures living here would follow her word. If she could just make it to her room, she’d be safe until morning.

When she finally saw an end to the darkness, hope swelled in her chest. She was almost there. All she had to do now was find the highest door, and—

As she whirled around, her eyes landed on a huge, stone statue. Three stone gargoyles stood upside down, seemingly spitting blood onto the ceiling.

Her heart sank.

Just to make sure, she stopped flying completely, and sure enough she started to fall upwards. She righted herself and, dejected, landed on the cold tile.

Somehow, she’d wound up back at the bottom.

She must have gotten turned around when that shadow jumped out. How far up had she been, she wondered, how close to the end? She could have been mere feet from the top, or she could have just begun. She wasn’t sure which seemed worse.

Before she could ponder that very long, she saw it again. A strange shadow, some shapeless being, had been sitting perfectly atop the gargoyle statue. It was only when they leapt back and flitted down behind it that she realized they were there.

“H-Hello?” Fluttershy called out. Her hooves were shaking, but she made herself move closer to the fountain. “Who’s there?”

There was no response.

“You can just talk to me,” Fluttershy said. She made it to the fountain and began to walk around it. “There’s no reason to hide.”

Still, nothing. When she made it to the other side of the fountain, they seemed to have disappeared.

“Hello?” Fluttershy called again. “Please, just come out and talk to me.”

There was a flap of wings, and the shadow shot up from the other side of the statue. They were a blur, too fast to see, and before she knew it the shadow had vanished into the darkness above.

Fluttershy hummed nervously. “Okay… Well, I guess I should try again.”

Once more she launched herself into the sky. She flew faster this time, more impatiently, and tried to shut out everything else. She didn’t want to get distracted and turned around again.

It was a short flight. It seemed hardly even a quarter of the length the first had been before the ceiling came into view. It didn’t take her long to figure out why.

She was back by the fountain again.

She groaned in frustration. She knew she hadn’t turned around this time. She wasn’t a strong flyer, but she was at least good enough to go up. Something else was going on here.

Still, she didn’t know what she could do about it.

She decided on one final flight, where she would be as absolutely sure as possible she wasn’t turning around. She moved into a corner of the room, hoping that keeping her eyes on that would help keep her level, and flew up once more.

She moved more slowly this time. If a walkway was in her way, rather than fly around she crawled across it so she could be sure she only crossed the edge once. She kept an eye on the doors, to make sure they were all on the right side. She wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

She was a few minutes into the flight when the shadow first sped through a corner of her vision.

Her heart leapt into her chest, but she forced herself to ignore it. She couldn’t take her eyes off the wall, not even for a second, lest she be turned around again.

She had noticed the shadow, though, and doubt started to creep in. She didn’t know how confident she was that the shadow hadn’t distracted her for too long.

Just to be sure, she decided to test it. Just like before, she stopped flying completely, testing to see which way was down.

She fell up.

She growled under her breath in frustration as she turned around and started flying the other way. When she started up again, the shadow darted past her again, but all it took was a quick drop to tell she was still going the right way.

The shadow started to get more daring, more distracting. They would appear on the other side of walkways she was coming up on, peering over at her, only to be gone when she got there. They would fly right to the edge of how far away she could see and keep pace with her. Once, they flew over her head so close that her mane flapped in the gust of wind.

Every time the shadow showed up, Fluttershy stopped and tested her orientation. More times than not, she found herself going the wrong way.

She had long since lost track of how long she’d spent flying when she decided she needed a break. With heavy breaths, she climbed up onto the first walkway she saw and settled down to catch her breath.

The shadow set down on a walkway some ways away. They weren’t even trying to hide anymore.

“What do you want?” Fluttershy called out between breaths.

They didn’t answer.

Fluttershy sighed and shook her head before lying down and resting her chin on her legs. She yawned, stretched out her wings, and without meaning to started to drift off to sleep.

She was woken up not long after by a sudden tug. Her eyes snapped open and she looked around, convinced it would be the shadow, but she was alone. Just her, the open air, and the walkway that was quickly falling away beneath her.

It took her a moment to realize what was happening, and when she did she just gave up. She hadn’t even been moving that time, she didn’t see what options she had left. So she let gravity take over, only using her wings to steer as she glided slowly back down to the floor.

It took less than a minute to reach the ground, which only served to make Fluttershy more frustrated. She trudged over to the fountain and leaned on the rim, staring over the edge at her bloody reflection.

“Yeah, it’s not a great place to take a nap.”

Fluttershy yelped and leapt back away from the fountain. The yelp turned into a cough as blood splattered out of her mouth.

On top of the statue, a pony laughed. “Wow,” he said, “she chose you? What a mess.”