Darkness Rising

by SkyHighFlyer

Chapter 24, Forgiveness

Gradually, the next week passed and Rainbow slowly became more accustomed to her changes. After they got back Twilight had explained to Silver Wing what had happened, right in front of Rainbow. Silver didn’t take the news very well, and left as soon as she could. Rainbow didn’t actually know him, and couldn’t say that she was saddened by his death, but she could feel for Twilight. His death also inspired new fears in Rainbow, fears that she felt justified Twilight’s actions more than they already were.

Silver Wing had help put things into perspective for the entire day. Everything Rainbow could ever want to know about vampires, Twilight, and the history of Equestria was free for her to ask about, and some of the things she learned were hard to believe, but in the end she understood that she was hearing nothing but the truth.

She had finally accepted that her life wasn’t quite going to work out how she had planned. She couldn’t go out in the sun, so her dreams of joining the Wonderbolts were out of the question, as was her love of flying. She could finally get the hang of night flying, but it just wasn’t the same when nopony else could see her.

Eventually though, they had gotten to the point where Rainbow was ready to learn how to feed, the same lesson Fluttershy had gotten. She was taking it better, but she didn’t like the thought of leeching off of some innocent pony like that. What was worse was that Silver had explained to Rainbow that ponies like her were the ones that tended to like it the most. She was most likely to become one of the vampires that would begin to disregard the lives of her prey, and the thought alone terrified her.

It was only a small comfort to hear that it wasn’t a guaranteed outcome, and it did little to mask the fear that she would become just like the vampires who made ponies fear them in the first place. Twilight didn’t bring it up, but she shared the same concern.

Unlike Fluttershy, Rainbow didn’t have any serious objections to Twilight’s proposal. Knock somepony out and feed from them, then cover up the evidence and leave before anypony noticed. She didn’t like the idea, but wasn’t going to argue with somepony she was willing to acknowledge as more knowledgeable than herself.

Twilight had insisted on bringing Fluttershy along for the trip, even when Rainbow said she really didn’t need to be there. Regardless of her objections, it was comforting to have her with them as the train left the station in the middle of the afternoon. She grew more accustomed to being around Fluttershy in the recent few days, after getting the chance to see how little she changed. Her newfound confidence was a positive improvement and the only major change at all.

They boarded a train to Appleloosa. It was out of the way, and it wasn’t the friendliest of territories. The buffalo were at peace, but there was still the risk of bandits or the occasional unfriendly pony wandering the streets at night, drunken to the point they did quite know what they were doing.

The selection of ponies wasn’t as important since they weren’t trying to find a volunteer like last time. The whole point of this was to get Rainbow blood, and teach her how to feed. They had already emphasized that she may want to look into the possibility of a willing donor, or even more than one, in case this method wasn’t as reliable or practical. For physically active ponies, or ponies who pushed themselves to perform feats such as the sonic Rainboom, feeding would be a more frequent occurrence, just as it would for intense magic users like Twilight. It had come up as a conversation point that Rainbow might even be able to travel between cities under her own power, at the expense of a lot of energy to get their faster than a train. Both Fluttershy and Twilight, assuming that she ever learned how to fly, could do the same thing, but Rainbow wouldn’t have any difficulty pushing herself that far.

“So, I wasn’t quite sure what we could do on the train ride, so I brought some things along to choose from,” Twilight said, trying to bring up a conversation after the tired silence they had endured for the first ten minutes. “When Fluttershy and I did this, we got into rune magic. I doubt you’d like it, or be very good at it, but I brought it along anyway, just in case.”

They didn’t need to worry about being overheard or seen, as there was only one other passenger on the entire train. The train to Appleloosa only ran every few days, and it didn’t leave unless there were actually passengers willing to go there. The other pony on the train was somepony who lived in Appleloosa, returning home from a visit to Canterlot. They had talked briefly, but under their disguises they were unrecognizable. Twilight and Fluttershy had their preferred disguises that they used any time they went out, and Rainbow had been quite creative with hers, tailoring each aspect with wonderful precision and artistic flare. In the end, Twilight wouldn’t even be able to differentiate between Rainbow and the pastel green mare sitting beside her in the train unless she already knew that they were the same pony. She had chosen on a pink mane, slightly lighter that Fluttershy’s and her eyes were the same light pink, only of a slightly darker shade.

The only sign that could give her away was her cutie mark, which was hidden underneath a new cloak that Twilight had obtained using a favor owed to her by a tailor in Canterlot. It would have been easier to simply go to Rarity, but with Rainbow still not making public appearances after a month they were getting very suspicious and Twilight wanted to avoid giving her any more evidence to use against them.

“What’s rune magic, and how can I use it if I’m not a unicorn?” Rainbow asked, not bothering to even look at Twilight.

Hiding her annoyance at Rainbow’s rude behavior, as she had been doing for the entire week, Twilight replied, “Rune magic doesn’t need a horn, but it does take a lot of precision. If you get the hang of it you can do amazing things.”

“It’s really fun,” Fluttershy added, “it can take some time to get right, but if you know what you’re doing you can do thing I never though a pegasus could do.”

Twilight shook Rainbow. “Remember that time we went to Manehatten for the Wonderbolt’s show with Luna? The explosion on the train, that was Fluttershy.”

That caught Rainbow’s interest, and she looked at Fluttershy curiously. For the most part, Fluttershy had an amused smile that said she found the event funny. “Twilight was the one who put too much power in it, but I drew the rune.”

Rainbow paused for a moment, and gave it a bit of consideration, but in the end she said, “Maybe some other time... any other suggestions?”

“What about our ancient language?” Fluttershy asked, earning a bemused look from Rainbow.

“So now there’s an entire language you expect me to learn, are you expecting me to do all of this?”

“No,” Twilight replied, “well, at least not right now. Give it a few hundred years, you’ll probably get into most of it.”

That made Rainbow worried. A few hundred years was a long time, even for somepony who didn’t age. It didn’t catch her off guard, she did think about it before now, but the fact that she had hundreds of years’ worth of things to learn was startling, even if the immortality did seem kind of cool.

“I tried to bring as much as I could, but unicorns get the most things to learn, with all the dark magic there is to study,” Twilight said. “Rune magic and our language are the big things, but there’s also plenty of things to learn about your vampiric abilities, and over five thousand years of history to catch up on. Just in case, I also brought a few Daring Do books, you know, for if you didn’t feel like doing anything else.”

Without even pausing for a moment to think, Rainbow replied, “Give me one of the history books, it’s not like I haven’t read all the Daring Do books before.”

Twilight gave an uncomfortable look at her seeming disinterest with anything else, but regardless, she opened her saddlebags and retrieved a large number of books, laying them out on the seat beside Fluttershy.

Rainbow stared in shock at the pile of books. Not only were their six entire books, they were massive. Rainbow had to learn a little history when she was in flight school, but all the books she had back then combined were barely a fraction of even one of the ones Twilight had brought with her.

“This isn’t all of them, but these were the ones I found the most interesting. You can pick out whichever one you want.”

Rainbow looked over her options. Each book covered a surprisingly small time period for their size. It took a moment of looking through the books, but she settled on the one detailing the time just before the three tribes came together. The books were written by vampires and had the vampires own history in it, this book more than most because of how the ponies lived in that time period. Small, isolated villages and no real order as opposed to how vampires lived in clans back then, still small and isolated but with greater communication. They often terrorized the villages and ponies, if not picking them off after dark then using fear as a means of asserting influence. Several clans were even known to have demanded sacrifices from the villages in their territory, unleashing horrors and dark magic or just simply killing ponies or crops if they refused.

As the train ride went on and the others took the time to sleep, Rainbow continued to read the book with rapt interest, and more often than not a sense of horror. The things these vampires did to ponies when unchallenged were horrific. Sure, the society of vampires back then was interesting. With the only means by which vampires could die being exposure to sunlight and starvation, the clans never fought, being unable to do any damage to each other. They would go after resources and villages under the control of another clan when a territorial dispute arose, but it was all rather civilized.

The things they did to the ponies of that time however were beyond brutal, even to the point of being so evil that it could not be described in the Equestrian language. The ones that were killed outside their homes were often the lucky ones. The ones who were captured, and sometimes the ones that were offered as sacrifices that were taken back, were subject to far more cruel fates, things Rainbow didn’t even want to think about yet were described in vivid detail.

And despite how horrific these things were, Rainbow couldn’t help but feel a strange satisfaction from reading about them, and though she was absolutely terrified of that feeling, she just couldn’t find the will to stop.

It wasn’t until almost the next morning that the train arrived at its destination. Rainbow was barely a quarter of the way through the book, though between the size of the book and Rainbow’s slow reading speed it was less than surprising. Regardless, she had been enjoying herself. After the initial shock of the book’s contents had worn off she actually began to enjoy reading about the less gruesome aspects of that time, and though it still disgusted her, the darker parts had a unique appeal to them. Many times over the course of reading the book her mind wandered back to the things Silver Wing had told her, about how when ponies like her were turned, they the ones turned out to be the least compassionate and merciful. She had shrugged it off before as something that would never happen to her, but now she wasn’t as sure of herself.

Reluctantly, she marked her place and returned the books to Twilight, asking to be promised that she could read the book some more on the way back.

They disembarked and made their way to a secluded place just outside of town. Once there, Twilight asked, “Do you have any preferences for how you want to do this?”

Rainbow shook her head. “No, let’s just get this over with.”

Twilight gave her an encouraging look that said this would go alright, but Rainbow’s outlook wasn’t changed.

“Well then, let’s just wait for somepony to wander off on their own and go after them, do you have any objections?” Twilight asked, putting a hoof on Rainbows shoulder in another attempt to reassure her. Rainbow shook her head again.

“Alright then,” Twilight said awkwardly, “let’s go.”

They had all been here before, and they all knew the layout of the town. Twilight led them to the path between the town and orchards, and the waited patiently for somepony to make their way out, being careful to make sure they weren’t seen.

It was nearly two hours until sunrise, so not many ponies would be out this early, but after nearly twenty minutes their patience was rewarded. A young mare was making her way out to the orchards for an early start that morning, and Twilight was satisfied with the conditions. Nopony else was around to witness what they were about to do.

The area they were in was completely open, save for the rock they were hiding behind, so Twilight signaled Rainbow to jump out and attack the moment she passed. Rainbow seemed to understand the unspoken instructions with an overwhelming dread. It was time to do this and there was no way out of it.

They waited until the mare was just passing their hiding place before Rainbow quickly rushed out behind her, grabbed her, and bit into her neck before she could react.

Everything seemed to slow down in that moment, when the horror of what she was doing and the wondrous feeling of tasting blood for the first time both caught up with her simultaneously. For just that one moment, she felt both at the same time, but the horror was soon overtaken by the pleasure of the experience and the thrill of the moment. Just as Fluttershy did before her, Rainbow was experiencing the euphoria of feeding for the first time, and she loved every second of it.

All her hesitation seemed to flow away, and with nothing but the intent of getting more blood she began feeding faster, oblivious and unconcerned about the harm she was causing the mare she was feeding from. Even as Twilight and Fluttershy shook her violently, she didn’t stop, or want to stop.

It wasn’t until the flow of blood slowed and eventually ceased that she came down from the high, and realized what she had done. Her prey was dead.

In that short moment, all the horror of her action caught up with her, and she slowly began backing away from the lifeless body in front of her, unable to look away from the macabre scene before her yet also unable to accept what she had done.

She was a killer, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to accept that.

Ignoring whatever Twilight was saying at the time, Rainbow fled, not caring where she went, just as long as she could get away from everypony.

It took Twilight and Fluttershy nearly twenty minutes to track her down in the vast arid plains. When they did, Twilight came up behind her and tried to put a hoof on her shoulder, but Rainbow aggressively turned around, revealing her tear stained face.

“This is all your fault!” Rainbow said with pure anger and contempt, masked only by her sadness. “You did this to me, you’re the reason this happened.”

That was what it took. For the first time, Twilight felt she had truly destroyed her friendship through her actions, and her regret then could never be matched.

Her own eyes filling with tears, she put her hooves around Rainbow. “You’re right, this is all my fault. I’m sorry Rainbow, I should never have done this to you. I should have tried harder, done something else. I’m so sorry, Rainbow, I’m so sorry.”

Though Twilight couldn’t see it, Rainbow smiled at that. She moved one hoof to return Twilight’s embrace. “It’s alright, I forgive you.”

Pulling back, she said, “But, you just said...”

“Silver told me everything, and I know why you did it,” Rainbow interrupted. “I forgave you a week ago Twilight, I’ve just been waiting for you to admit you were wrong.”

“So, you don’t hate me?” Twilight asked hopefully.

Rainbow still smiled. “I hate you more than I can put into words Twilight, I really do. I forgive you though, and I won’t let what happened break up our friendship.”

“Thank you Rainbow!” Twilight said, burying her face into Rainbow’s fur with a joyful, genuine smile, tears of joy flowing freely.

The tender moment seemed to go on forever, and neither of them wanted to interrupt it. Eventually though, Fluttershy said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but it’s nearly morning. We need to get on the train home soon.”

Finally, they let each other go, and with renewed faith in each other, they made their way back to town just as the first rays of light came up over the horizon.

Comments

[Cakebomb]

5189304 It's a reference to a game called Ultima 9, which apparently fucked all previous canon according to one review.

[Bloody_Tofu]

Um.... Did they forget to take care of the body?

[SkyHighFlyer]

5190770 Yep, and that will come back to bite them soon.

[you know i really hate 2]

it kinda bugs me how rainbow gets to be a psychotic bitch, but its twilight's fault.

twilight would be well within reason to take far more offence with rainbow and rarity's actions/attitudes. so far u have had them calling twilight out for not trusting them, yet shown them to have no trust in twilight and a complete, borderline sociopathic, disregard for her and her privacy.

jus sayin. fuck rainbow.