The Hellraven

Out of the blue, Celestia felt a single instance of fear, malice, and darkness wash over her. A single black wave.

It was so brief, really it was more of a passing shock than anything to be truly noted.

But it had still happened, and it still concerned her.

The eerie dark...feeling lingered in the back of her mind as it struggled to comprehend just what had happened.

=======

"Oh my gosh! I've got to tell Sweetie Belle and Applebloom!" Mr. Grimm smiled happily, being led by the ear by an excited little sunset sanquine filly.

"Mmm? That sounds nice." He stated, his eyes closed as he let the filly lead him via hoof. Only catching bits and pieces of word through the little one's blistering manner of speech.

Sometime after his little performance, the raven had taken off. Mr. Grimm paid him no mind. It liked to do that sometimes, and truth be told, he'd prefer it not to interrupt his time. Of which he was enjoying.

That was, until he bumped into somepony.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry." He stuttered, opening his eyes in a panicked moment.

"Umm...Mr. Grimm?" Scootaloo pipped, turning around, he gasped and hastily scrambled to his feet. Underneath him was the giggling filly.

"For a full grown stallion, you really don't weigh much do you?" She jibbed, he blushed, eliciting another bout of giggles from his younger.

"If by that you mean I have a proper diet as a Gentleman should, then thank you." He bowed comically. Scootaloo, while not understanding the context of the joke, still understood that it was a joke, and laughed at such. Falling on her back with all fours in the air laughing her head off at the stallion's choice of words.

"Oh boy Mister. You sure do speak funny." She chocked out, the occasional giggle escaping her lips as she whipped tears of laughter.

Playing along, Mr. Grimm gasped in mock horror.

"Young miss! How dare you accuse me of my speech!" He put a hoof to his forehead while turning away.

"Oh mercy me! I curse the day Fortuna has forsaken me! Casting me into this land of vile barbarians waggling their crass tongues!"

His melodramatic acting sent the little filly into yet another bout of laughing fits. For his part, Mr. Grimm simply smiled and chuckled. A strange feeling arose in his chest. And for a moment, he stopped to seriously ponder what it was.

That moment however, was cut short.

"Mmmmmmmmmm." Turning back to the stallion whom he'd bumped. Mr. Grimm flinched and jumped back a bit. The other simply kept staring, directly into his eyes.

The other stallion had a simple grey coat with very light eyes.

But that wasn't his distinguishing feature.

The most notable thing about the grey one was the fact his muzzle was stained with jelly.

A lot of jelly.

"Um...may I...help..you?" Asked Grimm cautiously. The stallion only came closer, all regards for personal space thrown out the window.

For a long second, the two simply locked eyes. One set wide with panic and fear, the other narrowed with...sick pleasure.

Neither one of them spoke for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, the grey one opened his mouth.

"I like stallions."

==========

Rarity, a lady of pomp and circumstance was a delicate flower with petals that could steel in the face of adversity if the need arose. One who's versatility was only surpassed by her generosity, she was a creator and an artist. Her canvas was the mannequin, her paints were the sequins, the stitching machines and the fabrics. The burgundy and the sarsaparilla. The fuchsia and the dappled red setting sun. Truly what she created were fashionable masterpieces.

Artistic endeavors that would leave her soul soaring and her heart a flutter with the beauty. Currently she was in such a state, her magic working almost on it's own as she hummed and sashayed around the lounge of Carousel Boutique. Ribbons and fabric alike were cut, scissors gliding through the fabric like a kite through the breeze. Machinations working in perfect unison as they stapled, nailed, sewed, and brought together seemingly innocent pieces of different cloths to create the most cutting edge of clothes. The most daring and defying of dresses, the harmonious and harrying of hats. Truly a trend setter, Rarity stepped back after half an hour of being "in the zone" to admire her work.

Or she would have if a certain pale white stallion hadn't come barging in, as if the hounds of hell were chasing him.

Panting and leaning against the door, he whipped his sweat covered forehead with a hoof. The limp hair simply falling back into place along his forehead.

Rarity couldn't help but shrivel her nose at his appearance, he looked disheveled, and for some reason...unhealthy. Very sickly, unnaturally pale.

His eyes were sunken and black as the moonless sky. The patches of skin under his sockets were a deeply bruised purple, not helping the fact was his high cheekbones.

Really he looked more like a vagabond than a gentleman.

"I'm terribly sorry for interrupting you Miss...umm."

"Rarity." She stated plainly, still unaware of his intentions.

"Ah! Ms. Rarity. I am terribly sorry for my sudden interruption." He paused for a minute, taking in the sites of Carousel Boutique with it's fine dresses and suits.

"...And appearing in...such a way to you." He lowered his neck. Quickly perking up however.

"Though I must ask of you kind lady, would you please let an old tramp such as myself stay for a while? I've run into a very terrible fate in the streets. An awful stallions seeks Celestia knows what from me and I'm terribly scared it isn't something I'm willing to give." He elaborated skittishly, taking his hat off and nervously playing with the rim as he twisted the hat round and round.

Even if the deepest parts of her soul cried out to kick him out and hide in the nearest closet. She hadn't been knighted the Element of Generosity for nothing.

"Of course darling! Make yourself at home! I'll just put some tea on." She chirped, giving a reassuring smile before trotting off. Happy to leave his presence if only for an instance.

============

"A journey you say?"

"Yes indeed. An adventure of the mind and spirit across many lands. Friendly and otherwise."

The two had been talking for a while, Rarity had become enchanted by the mysterious stallion's mannerism and way of elocution. He had a lilting accent, though from where she couldn't place. All that she knew of it though, was that it sounded very familiar. Perhaps late late victorian.

"Do tell me more of your stories!" She hummed, taking a sip of her lukewarm tea. It'd cooled during his riveting recounting of a run in he had with a cannibalistic tribe of Zebras.

"Well, if you insist, I remember once my sortie into old Stalenvselle."

She giggled before stopping suddenly, her eyes wide.

"...If I remember, Stalensvelle was burned to the ground not 400 years ago." She blinked very rapidly for a few minutes before giggling slightly.

"Oh! You must be talking about the ruins! I've heard they've become popular once more!" She chimed.

In her peripheral vision, she saw the setting sun, now not more than a few strands of light reaching across the Twillght sky.

"Oh deary dear deary me! It's already nighttime!" She nearly shrieked in panic.

The stallion however, hadn't moved an inch.

"No. Not the ruins. The town."

That last sentence drew the fashionista's attention from the time, to the topic.

"The town?" Sitting back down, she noticed the intense look of thought painted across the stallion's face.

"Yes. The town."

The candlelights seemed to dim, the sound of chirping crickets, a common noise in Spring faded away.

All that remained was a deathly, and eerie quiet.

"Yes. The town." He repeated quietly once more.

========

It's a funny thing, loosing consciousness. One minute you could be perfectly awake, upright and dandy. The next you could be sprawled out over a work bench, drool coating your newest project. Rarity was such a case, often working late nights to ensure her clothing was fit to be worn by a queen.

During the years, she had grown to know the warning signals of loosing consciousness, the most prominent of them being the sensation of slipping.

And that's what she could feel. That slipping feeling as if she was loosing control over her own body.

One minute she was staring into the downcast face of her guest, the next she found herself floating over a quaint little town.

But there was something deeply amiss.

It was night, from what she could see, the town was late victorian with quaint cobblestone housing and shoddy stone pathways.

But as she gazed on, she noticed something; there was nopony in site.

Out of the shadows came a single pony.

"Here ye here ye! Ponies of Stelensvelle! Plague spreads to Stonecolt and Stalliongrad! Read all about it! From what she could see from her ethereal position, Rarity observed a little cart hitched to the stallion. A bell hung by a black collar chimed and tinkled in the night.

He stopped once to cough.

If she could, Rarity would have gasped,the tan, almost cappuccino stallion gasped for air as a fit of coughs ravaged his body, blood flying from his opened mouth.

His legs began to quiver as he held one hoof up to stem the flow of blood as he collapsed, his lungs heaving.

Then, she began to notice them.

The boils. The little pink spots of pus that seemed to pop up from beneath the coat hairs. Then she noticed his ribs as he turned onto his back, moaning and coughing. His ribs were visible against his stretched and malnourished skin. the bones and tendons of his legs visibly straining to keep the body alive. Writhing in the streets.

From the  dark, she heard clopping.

And soon, the tall dark figure of a pony appeared, a tall Gibus upon his head as  he strode calmly over to the stallion.

Oddly enough, as soon as he appeared, the mist thickened until it nearly blocked the faint lamp light.

From what she could see, he was wearing a coat that expanded at the back, an upturned collar reaching up to the middle of his hat blocked her from seeing the face and any defining features, but she knew it was familiar.

Underneath his nightblack coat was a vest, golden strings linked together by quicksilver linkets gave him an air of power and of Lordship.

But she knew he didn't need it.

"P-p-please sir. H-ha-have mercy." The smaller stallion noticed. His mane sticking to his scalp with perspiration as he pleaded, his eyes filled with tears as his master towered above him.

"Very well." And with that, the cape disintegrated in a flapping mess of wings and beaks, of talons and screams they were upon him.

She heard the caw of ravens.

And the writhing mess exploded into thousands of them.

The smaller stallion screamed once, his eyes wide in fear.

And in seconds tehy were upon him, the thousands of them. The taller stallion sighed once, placing his hat on his chest in memorial as the still-living stallion let out one pained cry of agony, and fell silent. Blood oozing from the still covered moshpit.

After a few minutes of this, the ravens/cape flew into the air, spiraling as they let mortal eyes observe what they had done.

The stallion's dead carcass was nothing mortal eyes should have ever observed. All forms of sickness had ravaged him. His skin was covered in boils, bruises, and black spots. His hairs of his mane had turned deathly grey, simply falling off his head. The liver spots sickly in all their shades of bruised purple, red, and blue.

His eyes had turned milky and yellow. Signs of cataracts and jaundice. His bones were pushed further against the skin. Almost as if the life and water had been evaporated from his very skin.

The keratin of his hooves was cracked and brown, the undersides seemed to be rotten as the disgusting mixture of dead meat and blood flowed freely from his cracked and broken hooves.

The taller stallion sighed again as he lifted his two front hooves in the air, almost as if he was raising a newborn foal.

The corpse rose in the air, supernatural blue light coursing from behind it's eye sockets.

"My carrier, it is time." The dark stallion muttered in basso profundo.

Thick tendrils of blue aether shot out from the corpse as it opened its mouth wide. Wider than it should have. The jawbone probably broken as the lower half stretched to the dead one's chest.

Almost as if sentient, they shot off, into open windows and through doors. Down chimneys and through mail flaps.

He lowered his front legs as soon as the deed had been done, turning and walking away as the first cries of agonies echoed through the night.

He kept walking, even as  doors opened and crying women and children flailed into the street, eyes rolled into the backs of their head as sacks of pus began bursting all over their skins. Some even began disintegrating, the skin peeling back to expose raw muscle to the night air.

Some even ran out on fire, blisters popping and bursting as they dropped and began rolling. The dark blue ethereal fires burning their very souls.

He kept walking, almost as if he couldn't see the hell wrought on these ponies by his acts. Others still came from their houses, covered in flesh eating beetles and spiders. Some even swatting at bees and locusts.

Others still tried coming out of their houses and businesses, only to be dragged back screaming by wispy blue tendrils.

And the dead kept filling the streets, the nauseating smell of burning flesh chocking some and making others faint. The disgusting scent of urine and fecal matter stung and tainted the night air as even more voided their bowels in their last few moments of life.

Still others came forth from their houses, one lady in a sunflower bonnet clawed at her eyes and throat as maggots emerged, the little white bugs digging holes in her skin like worms in apples.

And yet he kept walking.

Finally, when he'd gotten a good distance away from the town, he turned back. Blue and red fires burning the roofs and ponies alike.

"Living in filth, you have stained the souls of those you've raised and those you've met. In fire you burned your souls until they were blackened husks. And thus, this is my sentence to. You live as you die."

With that sentiment passed, he turned back to the darkness of the forest, walking off as ravens circled the air, cawing like wailers at a funeral pyre.

=======

Rarity awoke, gasping for air. She shivered slightly as the horrors of her dream replayed over and over again in her mind.

Sitting directly across from her, was her guest. The stallion.

"Do not think less of me for what I am Ms. Rarity. For I am merely the messenger. Night is my emissary and harbinger. Sickness and death are my tools and damnation is my cloak and shield. I am the darkness to the dark. I am the black knight and left hoof of the scale of justice."

"Y-y-y-you!" She finally managed to stutter.

He simply hung his head.

"ITS YOU! THE VAUDEVILLE BARON!"