> Only This Between Us
>  by applezombi
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The first time I suspected anything was after the incident in Manehattan.

            	I mean, how could anypony not be suspicious?  I was nearly robbed at knife point, after all, and I didn’t even hear about it until the next morning.

            	It was a moonless night, I remember that clearly.  I was on my way back to Miss Pommel’s place (she has such a delightful little penthouse now, the boutique is really doing quite well!) after closing up shop.  The streets were mostly empty, which was odd for Manehattan.  I suppose everypony felt the same sense of foreboding I did.  Perhaps I’m just being dramatic, and it was simply the cold wind that kept blowing.  Whatever it was, I was practically alone on the streets that night.

            	Mind you, I didn’t feel alone.  I remembered glancing over my shoulder to check behind me.  My fur was standing on end, and I kept getting the feeling that somepony was following me.  I never saw anything, of course.  Well that’s what I keep telling myself, though maybe there was a dark figure perched on a lamppost, or dangling from a tree branch in the park.

            	All the product of an overactive imagination and a too-dark night, I told myself.  Besides, nothing happened.  I had a good laugh about it with Miss Pommel when she let me into her penthouse later.  She even teased me a bit about being a small-town pony afraid of the big, dark, scary city.  All in good fun, of course.  I didn’t realize anything had happened until the officers had visited me the next morning.

            	It was a down-on-his-luck griffon, they told me.  Cold, homeless, desperate.  He was following me from my boutique, intent on robbing me of my purse and whatever bits I had.  Only for some reason he decided not to, flapped himself over to the nearest precinct, and confessed to the whole ill-conceived plot.  The poor creature seemed to have been on some sort of illicit substance; he had no recollection of what made him change his mind, but by the time he was speaking with the officers he was blubbering and whimpering with fear.  In addition to his confession, he kept mumbling about ‘dark wings, dark wings on the wind’.

            	The whole thing was very unsettling (I would rate it at a one and a half pints of ice cream level of upset) but I mostly put it out of my mind until I returned to Ponyville.  I didn't think about it again until strange things started to happen at home, as well.  Nopony seemed to notice, but something was going on.

            	I first confessed my suspicions to my dearest friend (but always just a friend, alas!) Fluttershy.  We were at the spa (as usual) only to find that Lotus, one of the dears that ran the place, had been briefly hospitalized with a sudden case of anemia.  I had the same crawling feeling, a raising of hairs along the back of my neck, which made me think of the night in Manehattan.  I told the whole story to Fluttershy, including the bit about thinking I’d seen dark figures perched on lampposts.  She was suitably terrified (in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have shared such a frightening story with her?) but was able to calm down when I changed the subject.  After all, it would break my heart to hurt her.

            	That wasn’t the end of it, though.  It didn’t happen often, but perhaps once a month, during the new moon, I would feel the same strange impression.  Like I was being watched.

            	No.

            	That’s not quite right.

            	I wasn’t being watched.  I was being hungered after.  Hunted.

            	I have been told I have an overactive imagination before, but this time I wasn’t just being paranoid or melodramatic.  Something was happening.  I decided to take a page out of Shadow Spade’s novels and investigate myself.

            	The first pattern was the patients with anemia.  And yes, I said patients.  It was always one a month, always on or near the new moon.  Nopony remembered what happened, only that they’d been outside, usually close to their home, and they’d simply passed out, often to wake up in the hospital the next morning.  Nopony was ever in true danger, certainly not enough to warrant any sort of official investigations.

            	Then I noticed the second pattern: the victims themselves.  They were often mares of elegance, of refinement and grace.  Many had white coats.  Most were unicorns.  As I looked over the list of the victims (don’t ask how I managed to get my hooves on it; a mare has to have some secrets!) I came to a frightening realization.  Whatever was out there was after mares just like me.  Or maybe, just me.

            	The feeling I felt, of being hunted?  It was real. 


*   *   *   *   *


            	“Rainbow Dash, if your absurd weather patterns get me gobbled up by some kind of night creature, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you,” I cursed to the sky, resisting the urge to shake my hoof at the offending clouds.  It wasn’t their fault, after all; they’d just been put there by the weather team.  Rainbow Dash had no idea she’d put a kink in my plans by throwing off my sense of the diminishing daylight due to overcast weather conditions.  But it felt good to blame something for my current state of disarray.

            	I was in a hurry, for obvious reasons.  I’d been in Twilight’s library, spending far too much time with her collection of books.  If she was suspicious about the titles I’d been asking about, she didn’t say anything; after all, she knew I sometimes received creative inspiration from the strangest of places.  When she offered to let me stay the night, because the sun had set, I nearly tipped my hoof in my panic to get home.  Perhaps she was a little concerned, but she wouldn’t bother me about it until tomorrow morning.

            	If I was still around tomorrow morning.  It was a fact that may have been partially dependent on whether or not I could make it into my home in one piece.

            	Just like that night in Manehatten, there was nopony out.  My galloping hooves beat against the cobbled streets, echoing into the too-quiet night.  There were a few lights on about me, shining brightly into the streets and casting long shadows, full of potential.

            	“Now Rarity,” I told myself, shivering.  It was cold.  That’s why I was shivering.  “You’re just letting yourself get worked up.  There’s absolutely nothing…”

            	A door a few streets down slammed shut, filling the night with a loud bang.  I leapt into the air, letting out a startled shriek and freezing in my hooves.  It took a few seconds for my heart to start beating again.

            	“S-see,” I told myself shakily.  “Absolutely nothing to be…”

            	This time the noise was subtle.  A rustling of something in the air, the sound of wind over leaves.

            	Or wings.

            	I began to gallop again, only this time, the shadows were moving.

            	“It’s just the wind,” I told myself.  “The wind, moving signs and branches and weathervanes about.”  I glanced at the shadows in question as I sprinted past, gasping for breath.  The wind played along, blowing all of these things to make the shadows dance and writhe.  The rustling continued, though I could barely hear it over the sound of my own pounding heart.

            	Something brushed gently against my tail, and I nearly fainted, spinning about to look.  There was nothing behind me.  The wind tickled at my ear, and I whimpered at the cold sensation running down my spine.

            	“Rarity…” it seemed to whisper as it danced over leaves and stones and the fur now standing attention all over my back.  It was a sweet voice, one of the sweetest I’ve ever heard.

            	“No,” I shook my head in denial.  I was so close.  Once I was inside my house, I’d be safe.  I wasn’t safe.  Some deep part of me, some buried prey instinct, confirmed my deepest, panicky instincts.  “No, it can’t be true.  We fixed this.”

            	The wind laughed.  Or maybe I was just delusional at that point, but I didn’t think so.

            	“I’m not broken, Rarity.”

            	That time I knew I heard something.  With a yelp of despair, I took to my hooves in a panicked sprint, running as fast as I’ve ever run before.  Something was right behind me, leathery wings beating the air as it followed with tinkling laughter, just behind me, just brushing at my mane and tail.  I knew it was there, but I didn’t dare turn to look.

            	“Please tell me I didn’t lock the door,” I began to beg.  “Please please please…”

            	I reached the front door of the carousel, reaching out with my magic as soon as I saw the latch.  It wasn’t locked.  With a cry of triumph I yanked it open, rushing inside just ahead of my pursuit.  I felt the wind brush against me as I slammed the door shut, leaning against it and gasping for breath.

            	Now I got to see if there was any validity to those silly stories I was reading in the palace library.

            	It took a good twenty minutes for me to calm down.  I kept expecting somepony to knock on the door.  Or perhaps even tap at the window, but there was nothing.  After a few minutes, I began to laugh.  Of course, I was being absolutely silly.  This was all just in my head, something I was making up.  Once again, I was letting my imagination get the better of me.  I kept telling myself that as I drew a calming bath.  Spa treatments, even ones administered at home, were always a good thing.  I even decided to break out my good lavender and vanilla bath salts.

            	I soaked in the lovely scented water until it started to go lukewarm.  Reluctantly I pulled myself from my tub and floated a large, warm towel over, drying off quickly so that the chill air couldn’t seep through my wet fur into my bones.  And of course I took the time to style and curl my mane.  One shouldn’t spare the effort, especially when one might be expecting company.

            	After I was presentable, I moved onto my wardrobe.  Unless my guest disappointed me, I would be entertaining tonight, so I wished to dress my best, as well. Dress after dress got shoved aside, until I found what I was looking for; a shimmering, scarlet affair, with tiny straps and a tight waist and hips that hugged my curves and showed off my figure delightfully.  The color choice may have been a bit on the nose, but I felt the risk may be worth the payoff.  I looked incredible. 

Besides, it could turn out that this was all still some paranoid delusion.  If it was, I promised myself, I would be reporting to Princess Twilight first thing in the morning for a thorough examination.

            	Next came hoofwear (dark tights with ruby flats) and then makeup (blue grey smokey eye, perfect lashes, and crimson lipstick) and I was ready.

            	“Oh, Rarity,” I muttered to myself, nearly jumping at the sound my voice made echoing in the empty boutique.  “It’s almost like you’re getting ready for a date.  Now you just have to settle down, relax, and wait for your beau to come…”

            	The tapping at my bedroom window made me yelp with fear again, my heart pounding.  Who would possibly be tapping at a second story window?  My heart knew, even if my mind didn’t want to admit it.  It, after all, still wanted all of this to be a delusion.  I did my best to keep my heartbeat and breathing under control, walking over to the window with a rolling, swaying  gait.  It was the kind of walk a mare used if she wanted to draw the eye of every suitor in the room.

            	“Rarity…” whispered the darkness just outside my window.  Indeed, with the light from inside my room, it was nearly impossible to make out anything more than a menacing shadow curled just outside.  With some trepidation, I lit my horn just briefly enough to turn out the lights in my room.

            	Suddenly, my caller was visible in all her sensual glory.  Perfect yellow fur, leathery bat wings, eyes crimson with hunger and half-lidded with desire, and gleaming white fangs that poked out of lips that looked just a little too wet, and just a little too red.  She’d dressed up for me, too, slipping into a black cocktail dress slit high enough to show the hints of her butterfly cutie marks.

            	“Good evening, Fluttershy darling,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice even.  “Whatever do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

            	“Can you let me in, Rarity?  I’d like oh so much to come in and speak with you,” she purred, her voice muffled by the closed glass of my window.  It was Fluttershy’s voice, yet not.  There was a confidence there that I was unused to.  And there was something else.  A husky sort of hunger, boiling just below the sweet surface.  It made me shiver, and only partly in fear.

            	“I would love to let you in, dear, but isn’t it ever so late?” I asked.  “Can’t it wait for the morning?”  If what I’d read was true, she couldn’t come in unless I invited her.

            	“I know it’s late, Rarity, but I’m so hungry,” she cooed, and this time she licked her lips, her tiny pink tongue darting over her lips and fangs in a gesture that was far from acceptable in polite society.  I had to force myself to close my mouth and return my brain to working order.  “I’m so hungry, Rarity, and you went to so much trouble to get dressed up.  Was it for me?  Because you look delicious.”

            	Context aside, a girl does like to be praised for her efforts.

            	“You don’t have to let me in,” she changed tactics, pressing her hooves and chest against the window, her lips just brushing against the glass.  It fogged slightly as she breathed against it.  “You could come out here.  With me.  Please, Rarity.”

            	I reached out a hoof, tracing it on the opposite side of the glass from her own.

            	“You don’t know how much I’d like to,” I whispered.  She shouldn’t have been able to hear me, but her ears, slightly tufted now, perked towards my lips, so I knew she could.  “I’ve been waiting for you to say things like this to me for years, Fluttershy.  You have no idea.”  Ever since we’d met, almost, I’d desired the beautiful mare.  Always silently, always at a distance, always with the safe, comfortable designation of friendship, and nothing more.  “But you’re not yourself right now, are you?  Not all the way.  Are you still in there, Fluttershy?”

            	“Of course I’m still here, Rarity,” her sweet voice was somehow sultry, low with desire.  “But if it’s answers you’re looking for, I’m going to need something from you, in exchange.”

            	“I won’t invite you in,” I insisted quickly.  Fluttershy laughed, an elfin sound that reminded me of bells.

            	“I’m not surprised.  No, I’ll want an answer for each one I give to you.  Like Truth or Dare.”  Her hoof trailed idly in the fog her breath had left behind, tracing across my window as if to touch hooves with me.

            	“Very well,” I said carefully.  “What…”

            	“Nice try, Rarity,” Fluttershy interrupted.  “But I already answered one of yours.  So I’ll go first.”

            	She was correct, and it was only fair.  But she was trying to trick me into something, I could feel it.

            	“First question, Rarity.  What do you think I am?  I think we both know the answer to this, but I want to hear the word on your lips.”  She dragged out the last words, making the whole sentence sound suggestive.  My face was heating up.

            	“Vampire,” I whispered.  Fluttershy laughed again.

            	“Perhaps,” she mused gently.  “Not always, though.”

            	“What do you mean by that?” I demanded, then flinched at her victorious grin.

            	“That counts as your question.  And by that I mean, I’m not a vampire all the time.  Only one night a month.”

            	That confirmed something I’d suspected.

            	“My turn now.  How long have you suspected?” she asked.

            	“Since Manehattan,” I admitted.  “That was you, right?  With the griffon?”  As soon as I’d spoken, I moaned in dismay.  I’d just done it again, and she laughed.  It might have been worth it to hear the laugh again.

            	“Yes, it was me.  What I am comes with certain powers, which includes the ability to manipulate a weaker mind.  Not that I would ever try with you, darling.”  My own endearment seemed to dance off her tongue, and I shivered.  I didn’t believe her in the slightest.  “Why haven’t you shared your suspicions with our friends?”

            	“Pass,” I whispered.  I knew it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t want to answer.  Not this.

            	Fluttershy clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

            	“That’s not how the game works, my dear prey.  If you break the rules, you have to pay a forfeit.”

            	I’d never agreed to that, but I was sure she’d find a way to collect anyways.

            	“Because I’m in love with you,” I breathed.  I’d never said it out loud.  I’d barely even let myself think of it.  “I can’t bear the thought of you being harmed, even if by accident, even by the good intentions of our friends.  I had to find out for myself, first.”  I raised my voice, just barely above a whisper, for my own question.  “Why didn’t you catch me just outside when you had a chance right now?”

            	“Oh, that?” Fluttershy shrugged.  “The thrill of the hunt, dear.  Like a cat and a delicious mouse.”  I gulped.  Underneath that red gaze, I certainly felt like a mouse.

            	“You’re lying,” I said, shaking my head.  My thoughts were hazy, like they were when I was on my second glass of Marelot.  For some reason I wanted to open the window.  Wasn’t it hot in here?  No.  “There’s more to it than that.”  I tried to focus on her answers.

            	“You don’t believe me?” she pouted, her lips pressed together endearingly.  For a brief instant, it broke the façade of dark seductress and I saw the creature underneath.  My breathing sped up, and I moved my hoof away from the latch.  When had I reached for that?

            	“No.  Don’t make me demand my forfeit,” I replied, and she laughed again.

            	“Very well.  I didn’t strike then because I can’t bear the thought of you coming to harm, either.”

            	That was true.  I was sure of it, and I didn’t even need Applejack there to confirm it.

            	“My turn next,” she said, blinking slowly.  I realized I’d been staring into those red eyes the entire time.  “Why did you dress up for me?”

            	“Because I’m curious.”  This time I didn’t hesitate to answer honestly.  “Part of me is terrified.  My hooves are shaking.  But there’s another part that wants to throw open the window, dive into your arms, and let you drink until you’re sated.”  My heart was pounding again, and I was sure she could hear it, even though the window.  Her tongue darted along her lips again, confirming my suspicions.

            	“I promise you,” she whispered, forcing me to lean forward until my forehead was pressed against the cold glass just so I could hear.  “If you let me in, we would both be deeply,” she trailed a hoof against the glass, right where my lips were, “…deeply satisfied.”  I let out a small moan.  My self-control held on by a thread.  I needed to know what her fur felt like under my hooves, or the feel of her lips on my neck.  The sharp, sudden, delicious sting of her fangs finding my life’s blood.

            	“Why haven’t you hurt anypony?” I barely managed my question.

            	“Because I don’t need to,” she replied instantly.  It wasn’t enough, and she must have seen the dissatisfaction in my gaze.  “And because it would have disappointed you.”

            	“I believe you.”  My heart soared at the answer.

            	“One last question,” she breathed.  “If you could ask any boon from me tonight, what would it be?”

            	“A kiss.”  The words were out before I could drag them back.  A slow grin spread over those luscious lips, and she leaned forward.  I gasped as she pressed her lips against the glass, hesitating only for the briefest of instants before I pressed mine back in the same spot.  I felt the glass heat up, and for an instant I imagined it wasn’t there, that I was pressing my lips against the warm, red flesh of my friend, my lover.

            	“Whatever you wish, Rarity,” her voice tinkled with amusement.  “Until next time.”

            	I blinked, and she was gone, except for the faintest trace of red lipstick on the glass.