Underworld: Equestria

Chapter 11: Canine Comparison

“I really don't see why any of this is necessary,” Lucian groaned as he sat back in his chair and stared at Luna, his arm outstretched in mid-air as a pearly nurse cleaned the dried blood from his wound, the princess of the night watching on intently from beside him.

“It is necessary because I deem it so,” Luna said dryly in return as she glared at him. “You for one may be perfectly fine wandering around with a potentially infected wound. I, however, am not.”

Before either could say anything else, the nurse cut them off with a polite ‘ahem’, causing both the lycan and the alicorn to glance down at her.

“Well… to be honest, Princess, I actually can’t seem to find any open wounds,” The nurse said bluntly, showing them both she had cleaned away the last of the dried blood from Lucian’s arm, and revealed the flesh had healed over. “I mean, given the amount of blood I don’t doubt there was one… but it seems it’s healed already, and since there’s no inflammation I highly doubt there’s any risk of poison or infection.”

The nurse’s words allayed all of the night princess’s fears, and allowed a sigh of relief to pass from her royal maw; the stress of seeing her friend get hurt, and potentially poisoned, had been weighing heavily on her mind for the last hour since she had brought him to Ponyville General Hospital; but now at last it seemed those fears had been thankfully found to be pointless, and hence she could rest somewhat easy.

She still admitted it had been an utterly unnerving experience; above most all other things Luna hated hospitals, because they reminded her of the pain and suffering her subjects often endured though either their own or somepony else’s fault, and to have the lycan, who she cared so deeply for, sitting in one such sterile aqua coloured room while he was attended to by a nurse... it just about made her feel sick.

“I told you I heal quickly,” Lucian chuckled smugly, rising from his chair and giving Luna a mischievous grin as he stretched, the dark alicorn simply rolling her eyes, smirking, and shaking her head in reply to the lycan’s comment.

“I know you did,” she sighed gently, walking over and nuzzling Lucian affectionately on the cheek. “But can you really blame me for worrying about you after what happened?”

“Of course not,” he grinned with a shake of his black locks before looking down at himself. “Although you should be worried about Rarity’s reaction to my clothes; given how much these are apparently worth, I very much doubt she’ll be glad to find out they’re ruined.”

Luna nodded before gingerly running her eyes over his attire, which now looked like two coloured canvases splattered with immense amounts of green ‘paint’.

“I’m sure she’ll get over it.”

Abruptly, the nurse loudly cleared her throat, and from behind them flicked off the light switch with her hoof, a subtle indication they both knew that meant since everything was taken care of, it was time for them all to leave; the two had been lucky enough to find one of the nurses still present and finishing up some paperwork despite the late hour, and given Luna was a princess, it didn’t even take a moment to convince the slightly startled mare to have a look at Lucian’s arm.

And as they made their way through the winding corridors, Lucian guessed all she wanted to do after the unexpected experience was to go home and sleep.

“Thank you again for everything,” the lycan said as the nurse finally led the two out the main door and back into the realm of the open night. The mare cast a smile in his direction before closing the door, heading back down one of the hospital corridors, and eventually disappearing from sight.

Silently, he grinned and turned back to Luna, only to find her standing perfectly still on the hospital pavement, and looking up at the diamond studded blackness that was her night sky, the stillness of her expression and dark eyes suggesting she was almost in a trance.

It was a strange and almost eerie sight to the lycan to see her so still and lost in her own thoughts, made more so by the way her mane floated and danced on a breeze that was none-existent.

“Are you ok?” he asked tentatively as he came over and joined her.

She was silent for a few moments before sighing, looking back at him and answering, and when she did the lycan could see the edges of her eyes shimmering with tears.

“I just… ugh, I’m just sorry about what happened back there Lucian. I had no idea there would be changelings hiding in the ruins of my former home…”

“So why blame yourself then?” Lucian chuckled, running a hand gently through her mane and down her neck to calm her. “Luna, I am fine, as you have seen, and I believe you're allowing your emotions to get the better of you when there is no need.”

“I know I am! Celestia has a habit of making that rather known to me when I do,” she snorted in a slightly annoyed tone as she pulled herself from his grasp, her dark eyes meeting his own shimmering blue ones as her snorting stopped and she relaxed once more. “It is just hard for me Lucian… hard for me to watch those I care about get hurt after being alone for so long.”

The lycan couldn’t help but wince deep inside at the words as his last memory of Sonja filled his mind, the memory of seeing her bound in place directly in front of where he had been chained by Viktor, so that he could hear her painful screams and see her flesh burn as the sunlight washed over her body.

Shuddering, he shook away the vile memories before anger could overwhelm him. There were certain things he no longer wanted to remember, and nor did he need too.

“I know all too well how that feels Luna… to feel helpless,” he said at last, running his fingers through his locks of matted black hair. “As you know I loved Sonja with all my heart, and I was forced to watch her die… so like you I hate seeing those I care about get hurt, but I understand that sometimes there is nothing I can do, and that I believe is something you must learn.”

Luna was watched him in silence for a few moments before nodding in understanding, knowing that although she was over a thousand years old there was still much for her to learn.

“I guess you are right,” she smirked as she returned to him. “So then, I believe it best if we leave this unfortunate event behind us and enjoy ourselves. The night is still young, and as immortals so are we.”

“Hmhm, I couldn’t agree more.”

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As Lucian soon discovered, Ponyville was a far different place after dark, the bustling vibrancy the town portrayed during the day replaced by a much more quiet and intimate atmosphere, one that he personally found to his liking as he and Luna wandered without any set direction while they exchanged small talk.

The normally cramped Mane street was almost bare under the stars and soft white light of the moon, occupied only by the ragged lycan, Princess Luna, and a few other pony couples who seemed to be either heading out to dinner, or returning from an evening out; Lucian couldn’t help but feel a little surprised to see the ponies they came across usually shy away from him and Luna as they passed by, normally either distancing themselves, or outrightly changing direction when they came too close.

For a time he believed it was perhaps the fact he was splattered with changeling blood, but that thought was put to rest after he removed his vest and wrapped it under his arms, but the ponies continued to avoid them.

After a while, Luna too became obviously confused, but by the time she had the two of them were wandering alone through the tranquillity of Ponyville Park, and Lucian had realized that it was not her, but him they were avoiding.

“It seems I may have made a bad first impression,” The lycan growled with a shake of his head and a glance over his shoulder at the lights of the small town, drawing an odd look from the alicorn next to him. “…the day I came here, a group of young stallions were causing trouble, so I dealt with them, but in doing so I showed the local ponies what I truly am. I fear they do not trust me as such because of it.”

Luna simply smiled and nuzzled his side affectionately. “You acted with their town’s wellbeing at heart Lucian, and that I believe is all that matters, and soon as these townsponies did with me they will warm up to you… beside, I personally believe half the problem is that you look like a diamond dog.”

"There's that name again," he growled. "Would you mind explain this to me, because right now I have no idea what you're referring to."

“A diamond dog,” Luna went on. "Hmm, I assumed Twilight would have told you a bit more about them. Well, diamond dogs are a group of canine creatures that inhabit the rugged mountain regions of Equestria, and as it were, other than the fact they eat gems, strongly resemble what you and Raze look like as a wolves.”

"Yes, Shining Armor and your sister seemed content to mention them when we first met." Lucian sighed and rubbed his brow with his free hand, remembering the words, but more so the disgust. “And from what you’ve just told me I take it ponies and diamond dogs don’t get along?”

Luna bit her lip before answering, the regal princess of the night feeling a little uneasy under the gaze of the lycan’s crystal blue eyes.

“Unfortunately, you are quite correct in that assumption. As you already know, we ponies are predominantly creatures of love, friendship, and peace... but diamond dogs, on the other hoof, are quite the opposite; creatures of greed, conflict, and war, and it is that difference that tore our races apart."

Luna snuffed a yawn before continuing. "As it was, Lucian, diamond dogs and ponies once living side by side in a state of... well, something close to harmony anyway, but years ago, whilst I was still trapped in the moon, Celestia had a falling out with a diamond dog alpha male about what she perceived to be his kinds’ brutish behaviour, saying that if they wished to remain a part of Equestrian society they had to stop their constant in-fighting… but as wise as my sister is, she never fully understood what she was saying.”

“So what happened?” Lucian asked, seating himself down against the rough trunk of a tree, with Luna in turn sighing and looking up at the cloudless sky as she did the same.

“Well, to put it bluntly, she forgot she was talking to a diamond dog and not one of her subjects... and that in saying they had to change their behaviour was not only considered an insult by the dogs, but also a direct attack on their culture; you see, much like dragons or griffins, the strongest dog becomes the alpha male.”

“And the strongest dog is determined by fighting and conflict,” Lucian finished for her, the princess nodding her approval of his statement.

“Yes, so to say the alpha male, Iron-Fang, was fuming would be an utter understatement. If not for the fact he knew of Celestia’s powers… and that the dragons were at the time very much looking for a reason to raid the dogs gem stores, he probably would have threatened all-out war against us. But, instead, the diamond dogs chose to simply but totally disappear from pony society, and return to their own underground cities.”

Lucian fell silent for a few moments after she had finished, his mind locking away the information as he mulled over his thoughts of such a race so like his own; if he were human he would have called them animals, but then again, he was a lycan, and had once similarly but wrongly referred to werewolves as animals.

If not for them the lycan’s would never have been freed from Viktor’s slavery.

“But if the dogs disappeared from your society years ago, why then do ponies in the modern age fear them so much?” he asked as he began to stroke her neck. “And more to the point, why those ponies in a town such as this?”

Luna once again sighed in annoyance; this time, however, she shifted so her head rested across the lycan’s lap and her front hooves across his thighs before answering his question, the princess enjoying the warmth that radiated from him; it really wasn’t a dignified position for a royal to be seen in while out in public, but she knew they were alone, and even if the two were spotted really wouldn’t have cared.

“The same way your kind were granted a stigma of being the creatures of evil by humans, Lucian. The diamond dogs are, well, in general, not a bad race of creatures, and do not seek to harm our subjects, but over the years some have captured stray ponies and put them to work in their tunnels… and as it was, Rarity was unlucky enough to be put through such an experience when she ventured into their territory in search of gems, so Ponyville holds a particularly large disdain for them.”

Lucian nodded in understanding as he remembered the rebellious lycan’s he had dealt with over the years, such as Taylor and Pierce... who despite working together enjoyed nothing more than trying to tear each other to pieces in their free time. It always seemed the case that the minority ruined it for the majority.

The lycan stroked his short beard as he pondered. “Has anypony ever tried to perhaps make amends for the misunderstanding?”

“Celestia has tried Lucian,” Luna replied with a tone of slight frustration, flexing her neck so she was looking up at his face. “But the diamond dogs did not wish to hear her. They are, to put it bluntly, a race of stubborn and prideful warriors, and hence will only listen to the words of another warrior they see as worthy, not some ‘peace loving pony princess’ as they say.”

“They are sounding more like lycans by the second,” Lucian thought with a smirk as he stared up at the white waxing crescent that was the moon, a brilliant glowing shape that matched the one on Luna’s flank perfectly.

"I wonder how a diamond dog would perceive me."

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Notes:

As I hinted in a few comments some chapters back, I will be introducing a diamond dog in the next ‘proper’ chapter (which will explain why they were included in the character tags)