Gel could feel the mare under him was slowed by his mass; he tried to keep up and move with her, but she was faster than him. The stallion quickly made a decision and, when her wing-claws raked at the other vampire, barely connecting, he flowed.

"What is this trickery, Mother?" Dark End recoiled from the changeling flowing over him. His wings were quickly fouled and he began to thrash and writhe, but no amount of speed or anger freed him from slowly being covered in black goop.

"Now, Mademoiselle." Gel's voice was tinny, but Maddie recognized not only him, but what he meant. Racing in, she darted snout first at her child's throat. Dark tried to twist, to wrench free and away, but with his wings and two legs useless, all he managed was an ungraceful flop. Blood flooded Maddie's throat and she clamped her jaws tighter still.

Dark knew he was beaten, but his eyes picked out his revenge, born on blue wings, being brought back. "One, two, three heartbeats to daze." His voice faltered, it had been more than three since his mother started drinking. "F-F-Four, five six to… to sleep." His tears started, dripping down his pink cheeks, he knew the little rhyme she had taught him was useless with another vampony, the content of their veins was too much of a mystery. "Seven… eight… nine to leave… night…" Dark closed his eyes, the weight of them too much to bear. The world slowed to a crawl and he couldn't end the rhyme. Peace fell on the stallion, a peace he hadn't known for many years.

"Ten, eleven, twelve. An ending made." Maddie's mouth dripped with the blood of the stallion she had called son, the monster she had made. "Gel, please let him go."

Gel couldn't feel any movement, none at all. A part of him hated ending the life of even the monster, but the more practical part won out. Flowing away and rebuilding his changeling form, he looked up to Dash.

"She isn't breathing and…" Rainbow's eyes were full of tears, the mare she was carrying was half stained red with her own life-essence.

Maddie shook her head, she knew what was coming. "No… no! Not again!"

"Do it, please. Whatever you can do. She is barely a mare, barely adult, she had a whole life ahead of her. Maddie." Gel reached a hoof out to the vampony. "I know you can do something!"

"She will be a monster." Mademoiselle turned her head, trying not to look at anypony but the almost-expired alicorn. "Your word, prince, if this turns bad you have to be the one to end her."

"JUST DO IT!" Gel's emotions burned hot. "Please…" His voice had dropped to an almost-whisper, but he watched as Maddie approached Dash and Sunset. "Please."

The rest of the world faded away for the thestral; she could feel only the weak heartbeat of the bright mare, she knew how easy this would be. "Normally, I would drain you almost to death." She leaned in, lapping the wound her son had left. "Normally I would have nothing to do with this."

"Please?" It was Rainbow Dash who begged now, but if the vampony thestral heard she gave no indication. Lifting a wing-claw to her foreleg, Maddie sliced her own flesh. Crimson, almost dark enough to be black, the oozing wound slowly dribbled blood down. Maddie directed her foreleg over Sunset's mouth and pressed her limb to the pallid lips.

The mare didn't suck, not yet. She was barely still alive and so the blood of the vampony slowly flowed down her throat.

Beside the two mares, locked in what seemed like an intimate position, Gel and Rainbow watched. The first growl from the alicorn had them both lifting their heads, shock in their eyes. Then Sunset, weak as a kitten, lifted shaking hooves up to grip the leg in her mouth. The two watched her throat work as the thestral over her wept blood-red tears.

"The arteries in the leg are thick, but my blood moves slowly. A recent meal has left me quite full. We should let her feed." Mademoiselle brushed the flame-red mane back from the terrified-looking Sunset.

Looking up, with the strange mare's leg in her mouth, Sunset couldn't fight the horrible instinct within her to keep sucking, to keep swallowing. She felt the horrid sensation of blood pouring into her, it was all the more horrible because it felt good. It fed her, it filled her. Pain had been her world, she had watched as Rainbow Dash had picked her up, but from there she had fallen from consciousness. Now she was fully aware.

"Be calm, my daughter." Maddie leaned in, kissing Sunset on the forehead. "I am a weak old mare, that I would let a stallion talk me into trying again. Prove me wrong, hold on to what you were, you are going to need it."

"So apart from his terrible taste in mares, tell Trixie about this prince." Trixie let the stallion pampering her replace the circles over her eyes as she settled back again.

"Gel? Darling, where to start?" Rarity was in her element, she was in the spa and being tended to while talking gossip. "Stands tall enough that you know he is more than just a pony, carries himself like he knows somepony is always watching… he is the absolute symbol of what a changeling stallion should be."

"Changeling? The Curious and Intrigued Trixie was not aware they had spread their little hooves this side of Canterlot yet." Trixie had already gotten the shock of the day, she would be immune, or so she hoped, to anymore.

"Oh no. Gel, Twilight, and Applejack are their own little thing, even the Queen of the Changelings herself considers him to be free of any hive requirements. A rumor is that they are siblings." Rarity lifted her paw up to inspect the work on her nails, sharp and neat, they had a thin gloss coat of oil over them. She reached up to the stallion and gave his ear a rub.

"Applejack!" Circles of fruit flew again as Trixie barely stopped herself from rushing to her hooves. "Trixie leaves for a year or two to get over her problems and the whole town goes crazy!"

"Not even the half of it, if you ask me." Starlight's mane had been rinsed and washed, a mare was working on her tail now; part of the unicorn had to wonder why she had never gotten into this more often, until her more rational part piped up, suggesting that it probably wasn't free.

"Oh, Trixie does." Trixie let the fruit circles be replaced for the third time. "Hold a moment, the Observant and Focused Trixie saw Rarity in the town square, on her way here!"

Rarity grinned, keeping her tongue from lolling. "That would be the Rarity from the mirror world, a nice mare, if a little new at what the world has to offer. She has barely left school and was asking me for ideas on starting a business…" The unicorn paused, thinking hard. "Maybe I should employ her, if only to be my face while things… progress."

"Why don't you tell everypony?" Starlight melted suddenly, all her muscles going slack, as a stallion began to shine her horn. Considering Rarity had managed not to loll her tongue, Starlight was doing a very good impression of a diamond dog, considering the silly look she gave.

"Because it-" Rarity was cut off.

"Because she is scared, Trixie doesn't blame her. But Rarity, you know what the Wise and Helpful Trixie thinks? She thinks that if your friends welcomed a changeling prince, welcomed an enchantress, AND welcomed the Greatest and Most Powerful Trixie back, they would not blink at their friend's problem." Trixie blinked under the fruit, her own brain barely catching up with her. The angry mare who used to inhabit her head just shrugged from the darkness of her mind.

Rarity blinked too, amazed at the words coming from the former villain. "That… that is a lovely thought, but-"

"She is right." Starlight Glimmer was barely getting herself under control, her horn was glossy and pristine, but she felt like the stallion had done something completely inappropriate. "It isn't your fault, Rarity, just explain to them and they will understand… as you did when Twilight explained about me."

With a great mouthful of food for thought, Rarity reclined fully, letting the stallion work over her back legs… feet, or whatever. "I might…"

"Oh, what time is it? The Rushed and Harried Trixie must get her stage show set up before the afternoon is up. I really wished my new act was ready, but poor Terrance isn't feeling up to more practice." Trixie sat up, the poor attendant finally gave up on the circles for her eyes.

"Terrance? New act?" Starlight Glimmer looked over to the blue unicorn. "What is it?"

Trixie was in her element. "The Amazing and Resourceful Trixie is attempting to recreate the greatest acts in history. She will be shot from a cannon, into the mouth of a vicious, pony-eating manticore-"

"Terrance?" Rarity smiled.

"He is vicious, he didn't even pick up after himself yesterday!" Trixie tried valiantly to defend her friend. "But yes, Trixie will dive into his mouth, letting him chew her up before magically appearing in the box beside him, unharmed."

"Wow…" Starlight blinked. "How do you do it?"

"Trixie is not sure. She thinks her Astounding and Clever idol, Hoofdini used some illusion when he performed the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive." Trixie waved a hoof. "It is the last part she and Terrance are unsure about."

"You don't know how to get from the manti… Terrance, to the box?" Starlight lifted a hoof to rub her chin. "What about if you teleported?"

"Trixie knows some great tricks, on stage, but only really amazing unicorns… and alicorns, can teleport, Darling." Rarity gave a soft sigh as her tail was being brushed, she closed her eyes in relaxed bliss.

"Unfortunately, Rarity is right. The Weak and Useless Trixie is not capable of such grand magics. She is a stage performer, but that is a different kind of magic to what such a spell would require." Trixie hated having to admit such a thing, but part of her recovery had involved getting used to her limitations.

Suddenly, Trixie vanished in a puff of magic, appearing on the next table over, before the magic repeated and she was back where she started. "You might not, but that doesn't meant there isn't a mare here that does." Starlight smiled to Trixie, lifting her perfectly hooficured hoof up.

Trixie was almost too shocked to realize what the unicorn meant. She hesitatingly lifted her hoof up and bopped Starlight's. "You would do this for the Shocked and Hopeful Trixie? She has never been anything but a solo act…"

"I find myself between villages to mind control right now." Starlight grinned, seeing an answering one on Trixie's face. "And I would love to help you with the trick, so long as Terrance is okay with it?"

"Trixie believes Terrance will be happy. He wanted to see the world, you see. The show wasn't really what he wanted, but he was glad to do a little work to realize his dream." Trixie's mind raced with possibilities, other tricks she could make up, that could be solved with a little… well, a LOT, of magic.

Sunset woke up in a dark room that seemed lit by unseen sources. She lifted her head and felt all the aches and pains of nearly dying wrap around her. She almost blacked out again, but the voice was impossible to deny. 'Come, daughter.' The words were not heard with her ears, but something much deeper within her.

"Come." Mademoiselle reached a hoof down to the alicorn. "Come and let's greet your friends."

"Friends?" Sunset had mental flashes of her friends from school. "They-" She stopped, the events of the night pouring back. "I died."

"You hadn't until I was done with you." Maddie felt a hoof catch her own and she pulled, easily getting the alicorn to her hooves. "But you were so close even I thought it was too late. How do you feel?"

"Hungry." The word defined more than before, for Sunset Shimmer. It wasn't just a vague need, it was an ache, a hole inside her that demanded. "Blood."

"Blood." Maddie nodded. "You need it, but I will not have you feeding on ponies yet."

"Then-" Sunset's question was cut off as the leg that had lifted her was cut, by the vampony's wing-claw. Something rose within Sunset, something she could only identify as that word. Hungry.

Mademoiselle felt the tugging at her unlife's essence. She felt the lips of her new daughter around her leg, felt her fangs sink into her flesh. "I will not let my child kill, I will not let her take a life." She stroked the fiery mane of Sunset's with a wing. "Your prince demanded I do this and, seeing the life still within you, I have to agree with him. Don't tell him, my filly, don't tell him yet. He must learn how his commands can lead to odd situations."

Author's Note

Oh darn, that got amazingly emotional there, I didn't know Maddie had it in her. Also, we see some reasons come out, for some of the horrible, terrible loose ends that No Second Prances left.

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