Chapter 1--The Proposal
Derpy Hooves set down the package at the front door.
She checked her watch. Ahead of schedule! It was a good day. And since it was Saturday, it would be a short day. Perhaps even a muffin day!
She happily bounced down the stairs.... and ran right into Berry Punch.
Who was, of course, completely trashed at ten in the morning on a Saturday.
Berry Punch grabbed Derpy's head in between her hooves, her own eyes more unfocused than Derpy's. "Nurse Redheart?" she asked.
"No, silly filly. I'm Derpy!" Derpy proudly proclaimed.
Berry Punch visibly deflated, but recovered quickly. "That's ok... You're pretty cute, too," she said, leaning in for a drunken kiss. Derpy could smell the alcohol emanating from the mare, and quickly decided on an alternate course of action.
Flee!
She literally flew as fast as she could towards the center of town, heading for the clinic.
Berry Punch resumed shouting. "You can't just love me and leave me!" she whined, as she half walked, half stumbled after the quickly departing mailmare. "I thought we had something!"
* * *
Berry Punch stumbled into the clinic, where Derpy had just finished explaining the situation to Nurse Tenderheart.
Berry Punch prodded Derpy. "You're still cute," Berry mumbled, as she slid up next to her and leaned on the counter. She turned to Tenderheart. "When's Redheart back?"
Tenderheart, showing all the professionalism of her older white counterpart, did not acknowledge the stench of alcohol or Berry's brusqueness, but instead smiled brightly. "Oh, she's at the school right now, she got called in for a quick situation at the talent show practice, but I think we could squeeze you in right now?"
"Nah, I'mma wait for her," Berry said, or rather, slurred. She walked back into the waiting room, and promptly collapsed on a chair. She turned towards the little green filly staring at her. "Wha'chu lookin' at?”
The filly quickly returned to her blocks.
Tenderheart looked at the mailmare. "She's made progress, but Redheart's still the only one she trusts," she said, by way of explanation.
Derpy nodded, then gasped in horror at the clock. "I'm late!" she cried, darting towards the door, hitting the wall, and knocking off a wall plaque before escaping.
Tenderheart smiled. Another normal day in Ponyville.
* * *
Redheart walked in to the clinic, mumbling under her breath.
"Broken wing, already underdeveloped, covered in tree sap--and they were indoors! It was an indoor practice! How is that even possible? What is this I don't even..."
"Oh, Nurse Redheart, Berry Punch is here to see you."
"Somepony say my name?" And Berry Punch quickly transferred herself from laying on the chair to.... well, she attempted to stand, but ended up faceplanting on the floor. She pushed herself up. "Can I see you, like, right now? It's kindof important."
Redheart looked at who was next. Fluttershy dropped her gaze and hid her wrapped hoof. "It's nothing, really... she can go first."
Redheart decided that whatever the vampony had to say, it was very important, because normally she wouldn't try to roll over waiting patients like that. Even vamponies have hearts.
Kindof. In a metaphorical sense, of course.
* * *
Inside the office, Redheart looked at Berry Punch. "Well?"
Berry Punch still kept on the loopy smile, but her eyes.... they were wildly trying to communicate something....
Oh, right.
Redheart quickly cast the muting spell.
No sooner had she finished than Berry Punch slammed her against the wall. Her eyes were desperate. "You gotta help me!" she said.
"All right, with what?" If nothing else, Redheart prided herself for her professionalism under all circumstances.
"It's the most terrible thing imaginable!"
"All right, Rose, out with it," Redheart smiled.
"I wanted to feed on Pinchy last night!"
Redheart blinked, the smile completely gone from her face. Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it. Berry had repeatedly sworn—sometimes accentuating every word with an angry hoof in Redheart's face—that she would never drink from her daughter, and having her admit to having this thought meant something was wrong.
"You...."
Berry Punch repeated herself, accentuating each phrase. "I wanted. To feed. On Pinchy. I went into her room, watched her sleep, listened to her blood, the filly...." Her voice cracked. "She smiled in her sleep and snuggled herself deeper in the covers. It should have been so cute. And all I thought was, I bet I can get some blood without even waking her up."
Redheart removed herself from Berry's grasp and, using her magic, lifted her on top of the table. She quickly retrieved a blood bag. "Ok, the first thing you are going to do is drink this."
"I'm not thirsty," Berry Punch said, waving a hoof dismissively.
Redheart's eyes narrowed. "Drink it."
"Not. Thirsty," Berry maintained.
"Drink it."
"No."
"Drink it."
* * *
In the waiting room, Ruby Pinch was playing. Having woken up, she found herself alone, but breakfast already made. Correctly assuming that her mom would be at the clinic with Redheart, she had walked here herself, and Tenderheart had told her to make herself at home. Which, considering how often she was here, wasn't an entirely foreign thought.
"It's nice that mom has a friend to help her stop drinking," Pinchy thought happily, as she helped the green filly from earlier put the finishing touches on her block house.
* * *
"Drink it."
"No."
"Drink it."
"Fly off."
"Drink it."
Redheart had pushed her too far. One moment, the nurse was standing in the middle of her office; the next thing she knew, she had been forced up against the wall, with the visage of an enraged Berry Punch filling her view.
“No! I am Berry Punch! I mix drinks, and I do a freaking good job of it! I am a good pony! I do NOT need blood! I am NOT a freak! I am NOT a monster!”
Redheart kept her voice steady as best she could, even as black spots swam in the edges of her vision and she struggled for breath. “Says the pony currently choking out her only confidant?”
There was a brief pause, and then recognition and horror crossed Berry's face as she realized what she was doing. Stunned, she dropped Redheart and stumbled backwards. She knocked over a stand of medical tools, tripped, and fell on her back amid a shower of metal. She groaned sadly. “What is wrong with me?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically, as she rolled to her belly and buried her face in her hooves.
Redheart massaged her bruised neck gently, before walking over to Berry, kneeling down, and wrapping a forearm tenderly around the distraught earth pony. “You're trying to avoid what you are. I've been watching you, Berry. These past few weeks you've been drinking less and less. You've been staying out in the sun more often, and you've been drinking only one bag a session for these past two weeks when you used to go for three, sometimes even four. That's like trying to run a race without getting enough sleep, or trying to make a plant grow without water. Your body just can't take it. You just need to give your body what it needs.” She found the dropped blood bag with her magic, lifted it up to Berry's front, and tore the corner off for her. With a look of utter defeat on her face, Berry slowly reached for it, took hold of it, pulled it shakily to her lips, and began to drink.
Redheart watched. She listened. She heard the moan of satiation that Berry Punch tried to hide, she saw how her ears went back in ecstasy, she noticed that her hips shifted as her whole body relaxed. Redheart lay silently, not moving as Berry drained the bag. When it was empty, Berry Punch set it down, only to see another waiting in front of her with the corner removed. Moving slowly, reluctantly, almost dream-like, she reached out, took hold of the bag, brought it to her lips, and began to drink again. So, too, with the third bag Redheart gave her, and the fourth. On the fifth, she began to slow, but she did empty the bag.
Redheart kept her foreleg firmly around Berry protectively. “Berry...”
“Don't say anything,” Berry said, dropping the empty bag in disgust.
“I'm proud of you.”
“...what?”
“You kept in control last night.”
“Control. Yeah.” Berry was less than convinced.
Redheart began rubbing her back comfortingly and spoke gently. “You could have fed on Ruby. Your body certainly wanted to. But you didn't. You can stay in control. But you can't squash these instincts any more than I can stop myself from sleeping, or keep a pegasus from flying, or stop ourselves from wanting company.” Redheart smiled wryly. “So civilized... and we still have a herd mentality.” Redheart paused as an idea occurred to her.
Berry snuggled closer to Redheart, who dutifully leaned in closer. “I'm still worried about slipping further,” she confessed.
Redheart thought for a moment. “Maybe you need a vacation.”
Berry raised an eyebrow. “Because wandering around, not working, pretending to be drunk, crashing into things and swatting ponies on the flank isn't vacation-y enough?”
Redheart might have suppressed a smile. “Not quite what I meant... You know we were previously herd beings, right?”
Berry briefly debated making the obvious pun, but finally decided against it in favor of another. “That's where every pony was a part of a gang, right? Their own Little Pony Pandilla,”
Redheart raised an eyebrow. “I'm surprised you know that word.”
Berry shrugged. “Eh, you meet a lotta different ponies as a bartender.”
Redheart conceded this point, and continued. “Well, every time a pony would move, she had to re-enter the herd, re-evaluate her life, re-figure out where she stood. Basically, she had to find herself again.”
“So...?”
“Maybe you need to find yourself again.”
Berry sat up, looked down at her plum coloring, and poked herself experimentally. She looked up at Redheart with a playfully sarcastic salute. “One blood-drinking freak found, sir!”
Redheart skipped over this. “You could go move to a different city for the summer. Just for something a little different, something to shock your system. You may find it will help.”
“I 'may' find?” Berry's voice was flat. “You want me to uproot my life--”
“Just for the summer," Redheart comforted.
“--on something that may not even help?”
“It might not... but it might. At least give it some thought, all right?”
Berry breathed out in an attempt to calm herself. "All right. I'll think about it." She stood up to leave.
"Um, Berry?" Redheart said.
Berry looked back to find Redheart staring at her flank. She gave it a cheeky wiggle. "Like what you see?"
"I'm going to need my tools back."
Berry looked back to see various metal tools--all of them quite sharp-looking--sticking out of her body, remnants of her run-in with the stand earlier. "Huh," she said. "Didn't notice that."
* * *
Applejack trotted through the trees. It may have been dark outside, but she had a lantern; and besides, she knew her land and she knew her trees, and so didn't have any problems navigating. It was an earth pony thing.
She slowed as she felt foreign eyes on her. She scanned the dark treeline, but saw nothing.
“I know yer out there,” she said around the handle in her mouth. “Show yerself, or do Ah have t' come and get you mahself?”
Only a brief rustling answered her, and then a flash of movement retreating deeper into the orchard.
Applejack shrugged. “Too fast fer a pony.” She dropped the lantern quickly to call out another challenge. “Tha's right, ya better run, ya thievin' varmint! If'n I catch you swipin' any of our apples, yer' gonna get bucked into next week!”
She picked up the lantern again, and, with her head held high, she returned back towards home.
Berry Punch listened to her go from her hiding spot in a tree. She released a breath she had been holding, even though her vampony body hadn't needed air for a few years now and could easily have gone another year sans breathing.
She walked slowly through the orchard, less cautiously now that she knew that she was alone. She walked until she found a deeper area, with old, thick trees.
The history of Equestrian worship is an interesting subject, having its origins even further back than the unification of the tribes. While pegasi praised the bringer of the sky, and the unicorns the Source of all magic, the earth ponies communed with the earth mother. She was their grounding source, their foundation in times of trouble. Princess Celestia may have claimed to be the embodiment of all three races, but she was accepted as a demigod by the earth ponies only after their observation of her solid, calm demeanor and ability to tranquilly defuse volatile situations.
But before that, all earth ponies communed with the Earth Spirit, the strange force that somehow connected, but was one with, every earthy thing. Somehow it could answer questions and give guidance, to be a better part of the circle that was existence.
Of course, no one had practiced such things for many years. And, in all honesty, Berry Punch wasn't sure what she believed anymore. Turning into a being you only knew from myths and legends will do that to a pony. But frankly, she wasn't sure what to do, and it couldn't hurt to try.
After all, if you become a thing of myths, why not try to see if the other myths are true as well?
She leaned forward and dug her hooves into the ground, not stopping until she was forehoof deep in the earth. She felt the ground, breathed in its scent, and attempted to become one with it.
Half an hour later, she straightened up. Strange as it was, she now felt that she knew what to do.
Her only issue now would be convincing Ruby Pinch to take a summer vacation away from home.
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Not bad, I can see you tried. But ehh?
1245390
You'll have to be a bit more specific than that... I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong.
1245463 I don't really see anything wrong with this. But it just seems odd. Never really imagined Berry Punch as a vampire.
"Yeah... I'm gonna... gonn- HIC suck your HIC ... your... Oh God."
fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/268/0/7/berry_punch_drunk_by_miketueur-d4auu52.png
It's not bad, but how is she going to drink her delicious booze if she's carving for blood?
1245491
...I like that picture a lot more than I should...
I was going to bring that up later, actually. I figured trying to get drunk out of her mind would be the first thing she'd do. (Un)fortunately, as part of the curse, her body "resets" itself every thirty seconds or so. Very handy for eating contests, spicy food challenges, healing, and surviving poisons; bad for trying to get drunk.
"Berry Punch resumed shouting. "You can't just love me and leave me!" she whined, as she half walked, half stumbled after the quickly departing mailmare. "I thought we had something!""
I am amuse.
Tenderheart smiled. Another normal day in Ponyville.
Okay, I'm getting to like these little vignettes. Berry Punch's antics are fun, but I appreciate the insights into wider life and ponyvillians they grant indirectly. You have a knack for characterization.
Redheart decided that whatever the vampony had to say, it was very important, because normally she wouldn't try to roll over waiting patients like that. Even vamponies have hearts.
Wait...what? How did Redheart know that Berry had become a vampony? This is a crucial connection that should have been established earlier on.
It's interesting that Redheart is the first pony she brings her concerns too. However,
Redheart blinked, the smile completely gone from her face. Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it.
If Redheart already knows she's a vampony, then she WOULD be expecting a reaction like this. What gives?
Berry Punch repeated herself, accentuating each phrase. "I wanted. To feed. On Pinchy. I went into her room, watched her sleep, listened to her blood, the filly...."
See, this is a problem. We shouldn't have Berry Punch saying this. We should be there with her. We should have had a scene with Berry leaning over her own window, watching her own child, smelling the heat and carbon dioxide in her breath, listening to every artery flex, and wanting it so bad. Having Berry tell somebody else about it isn't the same. This is a scene that should have been presented to us. "Show, don't tell" and all.
"Not thirsty," Berry Punch said, waving a hoof dismissively.
Redheart's eyes narrowed. "Drink it."
"I'm not thirsty," she maintained.
"Drink it."
"No."
"Drink it."
"No!"
"Drink it."
Again, we need less dialogue, more description. Get us inside her head. Help us understand why she's not drinking it. Also, I though that the "pink filly going back to her blocks" earlier on might have been Ruby, but then decided that if she was, the characters would have recognized her as such. This is misleading your audience, in a bad way.