Good Boy

by Tums Festival

Crypty's Spooky Spaghetti

Crypty laughed. "Ah, what the hell? I have time. Though you better get comfortable, because I never did like cliffhangers. Easier to just use a support beam. HeheheHAHAHA!.!.!"

Vinyl looked like she wanted to die again. “Crypty… why?”

"When you least expect it, expect it!" she cackled. "But hmmm… where to begin? Ah, I know. Do you know how the feud between vampires and werewolves originally started? I bet you'll be surprised. It actually had to do with a much larger conflict: The War of the Two Sisters."

"The war of the wah?" Vinyl blinked.

"Not many ponies these days have heard of it. See, everypony thinks the battle between Nightmare Moon and Celestia was just a quick fight between them. And in a sense, it was. But Nightmare wasn't stupid. She knew to truly defeat Celestia, she'd need an army to… pacify her followers. So before she faced her sister, she recruited all of the creatures of the night she could. And almost everyghoul heeded her call."

She raised a bony hoof. "Save for the vampires. They stood… aloof."

"And I take it the werewolves weren't too happy with that," Octavia said.

"They took a special offense to it," Crypty said. "I'm not biased, though. Both sides were in the wrong. And to continue the feud to this day… idiotic, to say the least." She then cleared her throat. "Anywho, my people, the thestrals, also joined Nightmare Moon's crusade. This included yours truly. See, back then I had a bit more life in my step, hehe. Not to mention, a bit more naivety. I truly believed Nightmare Moon was going to make things better for all ponies. So like the rest of my tribe, I got armor fitted, my spear sharpened, and prepared for battle."

--

1013 Years Prior

"During the early stages of the war, before Celestia even knew Nightmare existed, my tribe was nicknamed The Shadowbolts. And it was part of a much larger fighting force, The Big Dead One. We, heh, had quite a few necromancers in that one. Not that we minded much. Their skellies worked as canon fodder while us thestrals handled the more… ambitious actions.”

A group of thestrals gathered around one of the innumerable campfires scattered on the edge of a great forest, Canterlot looming beyond the far side of it. Many were just now waking up, the moon having just risen, and leaving their tents. This included a particular white-maned bat pony: a younger version of Crypty.

It was slightly unusual to be up this early, but the barks of their chieftain were calling them to attention. So they lined up in a single file line in front of him, the light of the fire’s flame dancing off their fur.

“Listen up, everypony!” he called, his voice on par with thunder. “Orders just came down from the Grand Admiral himself! The march on Canterlot begins soon!”

There were a series of happy chirps, high pitch screeches, and regular ole’ cheers.

“The daywalkers were stronger than us, given most of their troops were flesh and blood, while many of ours were… well, as I said, bonely barely alive. Hehehe.

Still, what we lacked in strength, we made up for in strategy.

Nightmare Moon’s number two was a military genius. A career admiral before we thestrals were barred from the Equestrian military (a story for another day), but one just as effective on land as on sea. He viewed war as a form of art. And as we all know, kiddies, the best art is rarely ever simple.”

“Settle down, settle down,” the chieftain grumbled. “This isn’t going to be a straight-forward process, especially for us. Parts of the Big Dead One are going to be doing timed flanking maneuvers.”

“With all due respect, chief,” Crypty asked. “The enemy lines stretch beyond the horizon. How could we possibly flank?”

The chief smiled, pointing to the vast forest behind him. “We’re going to be going through there. The Hollow Forest.”

Nopony said anything, but there was clearly tension in the air.

“According to our scouts, they don’t have many troops stationed near the other side. If we use the forest for cover, we can punch through em’ before they know what hit them.”

“A-And the forest?” another thestral asked.

The chief already had an answer prepared. “Leadership believes that if we use our echo-location and work together, we shouldn’t have a problem navigating it. Any dark creatures within we should be able to tame, recruit, or… otherwise deal with.” He then gave them a stern look. “I don’t want to hear any complaints about this. If you have any worries, leave them here now. Because we’re going in at high moon. Ready yourselves."

***

“Most ‘bat ponies’, as the ignorant called us, tended to live in caves. Hollow Shades was one of our few top-side settlements. The forest nearby had a reputation as grim as the Everfree Forest does today, however. Anypony who went in had a fifty-fifty chance of never coming back out.”

As the moon kissed the top of the sky, the Shadwbolts, now wearing light, leather armor and wielding crossbows, spears and swords flew low into the woods together. The trees were tall and ancient, and the canopy would have made seeing nearly impossible if not for their various torches.

And their natural night vision, of course.

In the distance, other groups were moving into the woodlands as well - hundreds of silhouettes against the backdrop of the stars and darkened grass.

***

“I guess the idea was ‘safety in numbers’. And for a little while, that seemed to be true. About a quarter way through, most of us were less worried about the forest and more about the battle ahead. There was one thing that was a little odd, though: the smell of cinnamon filling the air, though nopony knew where it was coming from.

We found out the hard way.”

“Ack! By the night, what is this thing?!”

“Can’t… move…”

“Kill it, night damnit! Kill it!”

“AAAAAAAAH!”

One by one, torches dropped to the ground. And if the brush wasn’t damp, it almost certainly would have started a forest fire. That was the least of a young Crypty’s worries, however. The real fright was the reason for it.

With almost no warning, a long, snake-like skeletal creature had begun grabbing her fellow thestrals, before dragging them, screaming, into the darkness of the woods. It happened over and over and over, and while some struggled and some attempted to hack at it with their swords, nopony was able to stop it.

Finally, Crypty was the last one left. But she wasn’t alone. The skeletal creature came for her; one with a pony’s skull at the end of it. Petrified, she couldn’t bring herself to act against it. And before she knew it, the creature began to wrap around her…

***

“We hadn’t gotten far into the forest when we came under ‘attack’ by your new friend. Even with our echo-location, nopony saw it coming. He was lightning-quick, and gave us the surprise we originally intended for the enemy. Before we knew it, almost every one of us had been grabbed by it and carried it away.

I remember his hold being tight enough not to let me loose, but not tight enough to hurt me. I reationalized it by thinking, ‘maybe it didn’t want to spoil its meat’..."

Crypty was whipped through the forest, her bony captor moving faster than the fastest pegasus she had seen. Tree limbs and leaves brushed against her, but otherwise, the creature seemed to be taking care not to harm her. This process lasted a mere minute, before a familiar sight glowed in Crypty's slit-like eyes.

It was the smoldering campfires of where they had gathered. The creature had brought her back where she had started.

She felt herself hit soil. The creature had dropped her. Deposited her, more like, given it was only a tiny fall. And before she could even react, it had sped off back into the woods.

As she stood up and regained her composure, she began to notice she wasn't the only one this had happened to. Her entire tribe was with her, scattered about the area, but to her relief, very much alive.

"Regroup!" she heard her chief barking. "Regroup on me!"

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she took flight towards his voice.

--

Present

"As it turned out, I had it all wrong," Crypty smiled. "Long Horse wasn't interested in eating us. He didn't seem to want to hurt us at all. It was something else. When we regrouped, we argued for a bit, eventually agreeing he probably just wanted us out of the forest for whatever reason. Maybe it was his home? Maybe he was an adamant ecologist and didn’t appreciate us chopping through the brush? We didn’t know.

What mattered though was given how tough he was, there was no easy way we were going to get past him. So my chief made the call to stay put. Our tribe's contribution to the flanking maneuver wasn't happening."

"So wait," Octavia said, dismayed. "You're saying Long Horse actually made a huge effort… not to hurt you?"

"Mhm. And it wasn't just us, either," Crypty said. "About a quarter of the ghouls who went into the woods were taken back out by Long Horse. He even did this a few times to a small dumb few who decided to go back in."

"So Long Horse didn’t wanna hurt anyone that day," Vinyl scoffed. "Doesn't mean he isn't dangerous."

"And why would you think he's dangerous?" Crypty asked, giving her a pensive look.

Vinyl glanced about, thinking. "Well… I…"

Crypty laughed. "I'm just messing with ya', kiddy. May be a cliche, but it's natural for ponies, or even ghouls in your case to fear what they don't understand."

"Guess there's not much hope for me and Tavi, then, huh?" Vinyl sighed.

"Hang on there," Crypty smirked. "I don’t know why you want their approval so much, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. While what I said was true, it's also natural for ponies to try to understand what they don't understand. Ya’ understand? If they're smart enough, and if you give em' a little shove, they eventually might just figure it out. And many times, they’ll like what they see."

"A little shove?" Octavia pondered.

"That's what Long Horse did for me, at least," Crypty grinned. "Literally and figuratively. Whether he cared what we thought about him, I don’t know, but he did more than just disrupt a military operation. You see, when the dawn came the next day, we got word the attack was a success. We pushed the daywalker lines back towards Canterlot. However, three quarters of the flanking force - the ones Long Horse didn't carry out of the woods…”

She took on a hushed, haunted tone. “... were never heard from again."

"Hah" Vinyl cried triumphantly. "So Long Horse is evil! I knew he was a chud, not a chad!"

"Vinyl" Octavia sighed. "Does that make much sense?"

"Course it does! Who else would have done it?"

Octavia gazed at her blankly. "Why would Long Horse go through all the trouble to carry so many out of the woods, apparently quite delicately, just to kill the rest?"

"Maybe he just wanted some witnesses left to tell the story," Vinyl said. "I dunno. How should we know how it thinks?"

"A reasonable assumption," Crypty said. "Buuuuut not when you know the whole picture. For one thing, we did find a single survivor. He was bruised and battered, and could only say one thing about his attacker before he was passed out: 'Cat'."

"So?" Vinyl asked.

"Why would he say 'Cat' instead of 'Snake' or 'Bone Horse' or something?" Octavia asked.

“Hmph.”

"Clever kiddy," Crypty said. "Annnnd as it turned out, back in those times at least, there was a legend about something strikingly similar to Long Horse. Some of the older thestrals began telling it to us after the fact. In those, he was said to be a kind of omen of bad things to come, but wasn't the bad thing himself. Are ya' picking up what I'm putting down here?"

Octavia nodded, but Vinyl remained skeptical. “I still dunno…”

Crypty leaned back. "I admit, the tale leaves a lot of questions. But I truly believe Long Horse had saved my life that day. My entire tribe's. If he didnt start snatching us, we might have run into that 'Cat', whatever that was. And we know how that turned out for the others."

Octavia couldn’t help but shiver.

Crypty, however, seemed to be feeling the opposite, as she soon smiled warmly. "Anyway, I’m glad you told me about all this. It’s nice to hear that he's back. Like I said, he hasn't been seen in eons, as far as I know. Some said that he was a traveller: a cryptid that could move between different worlds. If that's true, maybe that's where he's been all these years? Off giving a helping hoof to other poor, unfortunate critters in the dark of the night. Good boys like him can’t help themselves."

Octavia looked at her curiously. "By ‘other worlds’, do you mean like that mirror world Princess Twilight said she visited?"

"Possibly," Crypty shrugged. "I can't give ya' all the details, kiddy. I'm just going off old stories and what I saw." She bobbed her head back and forth slightly. “Of course, they also say he’s a dream-walker. Can show up in somepony’s sleep and warn em’ about things there. Like Luna only delightfully creepier. So maybe that’s what they meant by ‘other worlds’. Beats me.”

Octavia raised her eyebrows. ‘That would explain a few things.’

Crypty raised a hoof. "I can tell you one thing, though. If Long Horse really is an 'omen of doom', it isn’t him you should be worried about, if you catch my drift."

Octavia's eyes widened. "Ponyville…"

"I still dunno about Long Horse," Vinyl said, her arms folded. "But yeah, we should be heading back. Just in case." She gave a warm, fang-toothed smile the wise-cracking bar keep's way.. "Thanks for this, Crypty. And for the drinks!"

She cocked an eyebrow. "Those weren't free, you know. But I can look the other way for now. At least until you fill up the old… bit coffins. HeheheHAHAHA!"

"Faust damnit, Crypty."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ominous. And I mean that literally. Long Horse is an omen of something far worse. The question is what. And if Vinyl can fully internalize how the spooky thing may not be evil in and of itself.

[Alondro]

The chief smiled, pointing to the vast forest behind him. “We’re going to be going through there. The Hollow Forest.”

Ah, I'll bet the Menos weren't too happy about that!

*crickets*

(That one otaku, "I get it!")