The night was the worse kind for a tale about either birth or death that day. The sky was cloudy preventing a pony from seeing the stars shining down upon the land beneath and the moon’s gaze was not upon the world that night. On the outskirts of a large village a hill rose from the grass covered plain it occupied reaching toward the heavens above as if to beg its attention for a moment. Upon this hill covered in moonflowers and other night flora one could spot a middle aged unicorn staring above at the sky.
The unicorn who gazed lost into the sky above possessed a pink coat and a cutie mark of a field of five stars. Her mane and tail flowed with a pale color bearing a small purple stripe through her mane. Her eyes, normally purple, were somewhat pale and dulled as they searched the heavens above perhaps unable to see what she sought out. This unicorn’s breathing was hitched and ragged occasionally interspersed with a gurgling sound which was not such a surprise given the wound that any observer close to her could see went through her barrel.
“Oh dear Moon, are you there? My eyes are dulled with fatigue and my time draws short. Stars above, is your light still shining down or am I seeing the other side already? My battles and trials have ended and my village and friends are safe from the roving dog beasts that had beset us and yet I dare not return home to join in the coming revelry. Magic has aided me all my life but here it fails as I lay dying. Please Moon, Stars, nay the Night itself, let me gaze upon your majesty just one more time before I depart. Let not this despairing sight be the last thing my eyes see before they never more open.” The unicorn begged and pleaded to the universe around her with what few cobbled bits of energy she could spare. Her soul itself crying out for one more moonrise before it departed.
A voice unlike any she had ever heard began to drift into her ears as a soothing wind blew by. The voice was beautiful by anypony’s standards and contained both cold precision and wild passion in equal measure. “Oh noble daughter of magic, why do you despair so when you have created a new magic and have proven yourself to all with your valor? Instead of seeking loved ones to share in your final moments you stand out here begging for one more moon rise.”
The unicorn looked around spooked at having heard this voice upon the wind. “I do not desire to burden my allies with my final moments and ruin their happiness at the end of this conflict. To whom do I now speak that would know so much about me?”
“I am the moon, the stars, and the very night itself my child. Your soul’s plea has caught my ear and I am willing to grant your request. If you will tarry upon this plane for a moment longer, I have something I would like to discuss with you.” As the voice said this the unicorn noticed that the wind that had been blowing through had removed the clouds above and now the moon waxed full gazed down upon her and her alone upon the hill. As its light settled upon her and the hill the moonflowers began to bloom and, as if timed to match the opening buds, stars began to occupy the dark above around the moon.
The unicorn wept upon seeing the beauty of the night once more. She knew now that she could leave this world happy having seen her beloved moon and stars again. However the night had a request of her and she was more than willing to listen as it had granted hers. Steeling what little life and energy she had left she settled onto her flanks and gazed above. “I shall try to stay long enough. You have been so kind to me this night and it would be terrible to repay that kindness with departure.”
“Thank you, my little pony, for staying. It is very rare for me or my sister to encounter any who will talk to us in these times. Let me begin with a question. How would you like to see the moonrise again tomorrow? And perhaps the night after? I would hate to see your fire and leadership fade from this world before my sister rises from her bed.”
The unicorn did not hesitate to answer. “That would be a wonderful thing I think. To see the moon and stars again without fear that it will be for the final time. Though that would be impossible I think.”
“Not so. I can heal you but it comes at a price. If you accept you will likely never see the day again. You will become one with my power but the light of the sun shall likely weaken and possibly harm you. However, you will forever more be assured to gaze upon my greatest lights without fear. Will you accept?”
The unicorn could not believe her ears. A chance to remain in the land of the living and see yet more beautiful nights was grand though the loss of the day sounded like a major downside. She coughed and noticed yet more blood on her hoof. It was likely that her lungs were beginning to fill up with the stuff at this point. There would not be much time for an internal debate. Agree and live to see another night or reject and die. Perhaps the price of the day is worth living into tomorrow and she owed the night for its kindness of granting her last request as it was. “I will accept your proposal.”
“Very well then. Prepare thyself.”
From the moon dropped what had the appearance of a single tear containing darkness and light in equal measure upon the unicorn. The moment it contacted with the dying unicorn her body began to burn from the inside. She could feel her wounds sealing off and her strength returning to her formerly useless limbs. Her magic once more began to replenish itself now that her body wasn’t subconsciously redirecting it toward a futile attempt to heal herself. In that moment she also felt the night around her on a level she never had before. She could smell all the little details that her nose never noticed before ranging from the flora about herself to the now active party in the village behind her. The formerly dim night now looked as if it was the middle of the day even though she could still pick out the proper colors. Her hearing had altered to the point that she could hear the fireflies as they floated about on the plains surrounding her hill.
“There. I do believe it is done. How do you feel, my darling child?”
“Better than I ever have. Oh Glorious Night, I thank you for this boon.” The unicorn had by now stood up and was twisting and prancing about in happiness at her body’s continued health. “My only problem is I do feel a bit weak. Perhaps I need to eat or sleep to recover from this.”
“Oh dear, I did not expect that.” The moon almost seemed to move closer to the land below for a moment. “It would seem your blood loss has had an unexpected effect on my blessing. You need new blood, my dear. Without it your body will begin to seize up. You will live but you will not be able to do much else but lay there. Easily fixed though. My purview includes all things that stalk the night and I think you will find you now have instincts your kind never possessed. Follow them my dear and you will be right as rain.”
The unicorn was somewhat alarmed at this but after a moment decided that she would make do. She had likely done worse to survive before during the war for her village’s sake. “So just follow my instincts, you say? Very well, I shall. I ask Moon, Stars, Night, what may I call you?”
“It shall be many years yet before your kind shall know my name however due to your rebirth as one of my children I shall answer you. My name is Luna. We shall be close, you and I, I can feel it. Perhaps someday we may eventually be able to walk side by side in your world. May I ask, little child of the night, what is your name?”
“I look forward to that day Luna. As for my name, you may call me Twilight.”
Author's Note
I had to get this out of my head. This scene has been plaguing me for at least a year. I'm not as happy with the dialogue as I hoped I would be but making it more flowery like I wanted would likely have made it confusing for some people. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this interesting for anyone out there reading it.
“And that was when Aberash drove the wedge of wood deep into the Queen’s heart while chanting a blessing of the sun.” Rarity finished telling the story she had recently heard from Zecora to her audience. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack nodded along to the story paying close attention as they all awaited Twilight’s arrival at an outdoor diner.
“I recall a similar story being spread around at flight school when me and Flutters went there concerning such a thing. They said that a female vampire once made her home in a mountain near Cloudsdale’s usual circuit during the months of October and November. I don’t recall much else about it.” Rainbow added in looking to the others.
“I… I remember the stories. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after hearing about them. They said she would take straggling young pegasi and do things to them.” Fluttershy sunk her head below the table they were all sitting around.
“Probably just something the teachers tacked on to try and spur you little ‘uns to work harder.” Applejack weighed in. “Personally I’ve dealt with vampires before and they aren’t that bad. Leave a mess and care little for what is around them but they don’t scoop up just any old thing either. Then again those are vampire fruit bats so perhaps a vampire pony would be different.”
“I don’t know about that. My granny told me stories that sound very similar. Apparently back in her own grandmother’s time there was a terrible war between the griffons and Equestria. Apparently at some point in the middle of the war a dark castle appeared not far out from where my ancestor’s lived and from it appeared waves of vampires that swept over the battlefield.” Pinkie looked somewhat serious for once.
“Yeah, I heard tell of that too. Granny Smith was telling me about that as she was just a kid at the time it happened. Supposedly the vampires drove the griffons back and at first everyone thought we had won but then they turned on us ponies too. Apparently it is what helped our two races bury the hatchet as we joined together to kill them off. She says that Celestia herself took the field in the final battle and it lasted for days before the vampire’s queen fell to her.”
“Well that is dreadful. I was hoping that it was just some old tale of Zecora’s but now that you all have mentioned that I recall hearing similar stories before. Do you suppose it is always the same vampire?” Rarity asked of the group at large as they began to consider the different variations of the tales.
“Well that would depend.” A new voice interjected itself into the conversation. “First were all the physical descriptions of this ‘vampire queen’ the same? Second, do any of the stories account for a way she might have survived other than being an ‘immortal demon’? And lastly whether these tales are really stories of what they appear to be or revisions and imaginings of Princess Celestia’s fight with Luna?”
The group turned and gave a collective greeting to Twilight as she took a seat at the table with the others. “So, let’s get this resolved before I start on why I asked you all here. It might help get us all in the mood for solving some puzzles anyway.”
“Well in the account that Zecora told me this vampire queen was a unicorn with some rather unique magic. Now that I stop and think it sounds like her magic wasn’t that different than Sombra’s really. Aside from that she supposedly had a contagious bite that would turn any into another vampire rather than the usual nasty method. She was of a dark coloration with the usual stripes so many of us ponies have in her mane, perhaps purple or some sort of black. Zecora said that even the one who had fought her could not say what color her coat was exactly due to them fighting on a moonless night. Oh, and eyes that would turn those it glared at into mindless puppets for a time. The rest of the story seemed to detail how the vampire queen had mostly kept to herself in the zebra lands until they encroached on her little castle. Supposedly the first ones there had come to her castle seeking something of use since they had assumed it had been abandoned.” Rarity thought a moment longer before remembering one final piece of the story. “She also supposedly had a giant dragon that would carry out her orders. Supposedly he was lulled to sleep before the battle took place. I don’t think the story detailed any way she could survive given that it ends with a wooden alchemical stake through her heart.”
“From what I can recall the one we heard of sounds similar including the dark magic. The thing was in the version we had heard she could fly though I don’t know if that was from wings or some sort of air walking. Fluttershy says she heard that the queen walked on the air and would run down her prey to spirit them away while I recall having heard she had wings not unlike those guards of Luna’s. You know the leathery bat like ones. Supposedly she was wicked fast too which was why some of us little runts would make runs toward where her castle supposedly used to rest when Cloudsdale hovered around it. She was similarly dark in color in the stories we heard as well.” Rainbow pitched in for the Cloudsdale account.
“The version we heard never detailed how she was defeated. Supposedly she was run off by some royal guards in the version we heard. They did say that some evidence of experiments were found in her castle. So many that they burnt the place to the ground and salted the mountain upon which it rested. Nothing grows there anymore by the way and ponies have taken to calling it Bald Mountain.” Fluttershy would rather not recount some of what they said the experiments entailed. She figured Twilight could come up with ideas of what a wicked creature would do to ponies as experiments.
“The story from my Granny Pie was that the vampire queen was very hard to find. She never left her castle until the war started and even then she only took the field near the end. Before that she unleashed a horde of vampire ponies that had traits of both the bat ponies and unicorns. There were even some that had trace elements of other creatures in them. Supposedly at some point in the war vampire griffons even began to appear and they worked alongside the vamponies. She told me that her granny had seen the queen in person once. Supposedly she had been wounded in the battle and had landed near where she lived.” Pinkie actually had to stop for once and take in another breath of air before continuing. “According to her story the vampire queen was a dark purplish color all over. She couldn’t see her cutie mark as that was a section of the queen that had been sliced to ribbons in the battle above. She said her granny would never forget looking into those slit glowing eyes as they seemed to strike a griffon dumb and it flew straight to her. The queen simply sank her fangs into the griffon and began to regenerate her hp, mp, and body.” Here everyone kindly ignored Pinkie’s random terminology. “When she finished she tossed the griffon into the air with her magic as wings burst from her back that looked very similar to those of a griffon and took back to the field.”
“Yes, I heard tell similar from my granny. Supposedly during this great battle the vampire queen was very hard to take down because she could heal herself with just a few drops of blood and then usually would be strengthened in some way. Strength from Earth ponies, magic grew stronger form unicorns, and she would get faster or even the ability to fly from pegasi.” Applejack thought for a moment. “The story about her in the war though was that Celestia herself killed her. Supposedly jabbed her horn through her heart and then channeled solar magic or some such into the creature.”
Twilight thought for a moment about all their accounts. “Well the stories all seem to be interrelated but I’m not sure. On the one hoof the descriptions almost match save for the presence of extra limbs here and there. On the other in most of these instances she was slain in rather definitive ways. Not even Tirek could recover from having his heart pierced and he is pretty much an all out demon according to the legends.” Twilight hummed to herself for a few more moments.
“I can’t believe them as anything but old stories or propaganda. Not to throw off on your grandparents, girls, but I have read up on that war and there is no account of any such events in any of the books. In fact the only thing similar is that some rogue group of mercenary ponies showed up and then started trying to force payment for their protection in a small area of the country at the time. They say the leader was a female though that was very gifted with illusions. Perhaps she used some of the superstitions of the time to make herself more effective? On the bright side at least these aren’t more stories to make Luna look bad.”
“Twilight, darling, are you sure? I find it rather unsettling to hear the similarities myself.” Rarity asked.
“Yes. Besides, we all know there is no such thing as vampires just as there aren’t ghosts, curses, or hexes. Even if such stories were and are true, what does it matter? She sounds good and dead at least twice over.” Twilight nods to herself as if she considers the issue resolved. “Besides we have a job to do now that we are all here. Who would like to help me explore the castle in the Everfree?”
Author's Note
Not the best chapter out there I'm afraid. Sorry if this isn't up to snuff but it demonstrates why I never use the rest of the mane 6. I can't really find a way to give them proper voice so it always feels flat when I write for any of the rest of them. I was supposed to have put this story out 6 months ago but I held it off because I could never get the right tone for the rest of the mane 6 to kick it off so I went with my initial idea of the story of Twilight upon the hill as the start. Hopefully the next chapter will be better what with there being less talking by the others and more shenanigans in the castle. Here's hoping.
