Dawn of the Chiroptera

Chapters

Bats In The Belfry
Going Batty
Batting Average
Up To Bat

Bats In The Belfry

This tower had once been the home of the princess.

It's something that Luster Dawn would occasionally find herself contemplating. Before Princess Twilight Sparkle had ruled in Canterlot, she had lived in Ponyville, and before she'd moved to Ponyville, she'd lived in one of the high towers near the palace, apartments set aside for mages and scholars, and on occasion, apprentices. The shelves now piled with her own personal books had once held Predictions and Prophecies, the tome that had spurred a then-unicorn to study, and then to face, Nightmare Moon.

There were also a number of scorch marks that came from the fact that Ambassador Spike used to live here as well, which Luster Dawn had found with plant pots and other decorations strategically moved to hide them. It helped to equinize the place, for her. Before, it'd felt like Princess Twilight offering her her old apartment was a sign of holding her to an incredibly high standard, but instead it reminded her that her mentor had once been an ordinary mare. Well, as ordinary as having a marked talent for magic and a dragon for a little brother was, anyway.

She did occasionally wonder if she should move to Ponyville herself, though. The friends she'd made at Princess Twilight's urging were there, after all. Then she'd remember what she'd been taught about how friends didn't need to see each other all the time to maintain those friendships, and set the thought aside again. The trains between the two cities were much faster than they were in her mentor's day--hay, when the princess had first gone to Ponyville she'd needed to do so by sky chariot, as the cross-Equestrian railroads were still in the process of being built--making it so much easier to visit.

Still, the tower could get very quiet, and Luster was especially aware of it as she carried a half-dozen books on potion-brewing to her desk, placing them down next to her box of takeout from her favourite Minoan restaurant. Maybe she should get a pet, like a cat or a bird, something that she could talk to and that would vocalize back. Mages did sometimes keep animals around that they could explain complicated problems to in the hope of leading themselves to the solution, and Princess Twilight had mentioned once having a trained owl.

Pushing the thoughts away for now, she opened the first of the books, but Luster had barely gotten a few pages into Supernaturals: Natural Remedies and Cure-alls That Are Simply Super before she sensed a surge of magic. There was no mistaking that signature, nor the flash of light outside of her windows, and so she had time to shut the book and get partway to the door before she even heard the knock. Opening the door and looking up had her staring into the cheerful face of a very familiar pony. "Princess! What brings you here?"

"Do I need a reason to visit my apprentice?" Princess Twilight asked with faux innocence, as Luster stepped back to allow her into the room.

"Technically no," Luster said as she hopped into a nearby chair, and watched as the princess took up every inch of the nearby couch and then some. "But going by the track record, I'm guessing you either have an assignment for me, or you wanted to check up on how things are going with me and my friends."

Princess Twilight laughed a little as her wings awkwardly tried to find a position to sit in that was comfortable. "Oh nothing as formal as that. I was actually wondering if you wanted to come with me on... call it an errand?" She squirmed a bit, her ethereal tail partly phasing through the couch cushions in a way that was distractingly bizarre to look at. "I'm visiting somepony tonight and dropping something off for them, and thought you may like to join me." She shrugged a bit. "Of course, it is Nightmare Night, so if you have plans, that's alright."

Luster shook her head. "I don't. My family really hasn't done anything for Nightmare Night since I was too big for gathering tribute." She nodded toward the stack of books. "And my friends are all going to visit their families. So I was just planning to do some light reading." She smiled. "I'd be happy to come with you on the errand. Who are we going to visit?"

Princess Twilight chuckled. "You'll see when we get there."

A hospital done up in Nightmare Night decorations was still a hospital, and as locations went, one was low on Luster Dawn's list of places she would want to be. She didn't like hospitals, and had never met anypony who did. She'd rarely been in them and, destiny be kind, she hopefully wouldn't ever need to get overly familiar.

Outright healing magic was an extraordinarily rare art, so all the spellwork used to assist with health was subtle, built into diagnostic devices or woven into potions. It was a topic that her education would no doubt touch on, but she would much rather study it from a library rather than be walking the stark white hall full of sterile scents and with the constant buzz of magic leaving an irritating presence at the base of her horn.

Would she have given a different answer if she'd known this would be a hospital visit? Possibly, but at the same time it piqued her curiosity regarding who Princess Twilight would be visiting. She doubted her mentor would have referred to going to see an ailing family member as merely an errand, after all, or invited Luster if that were the case. She was keeping tight-lipped as she led the way, however, the giant of an alicorn occasionally stepping out of the way of a doctor, nurse, or patient, paying each a polite nod. Her horn nearly scraped the ceiling, reminding Luster that the palace was the only place really built to proper scale for alicorns.

She'd heard that Duchess Celestia was even taller, but couldn't picture it, not when Twilight already towered over her fellow ponies. Those long legs made for long strides, and Luster kept waffling between a walk and a trot to try to keep up. Hovering in the princess's magic was a bottle, and inside swirled a viscous red liquid, alongside a sealed travel cup from Pony Joe's. The bottle was apparently what they were dropping off, but she'd kept tight-lipped about the contents as well, leaving her apprentice very much in the dark.

Once, Luster had asked the princess why she gave out so little information when asking something of her. She'd simply replied that she'd learned from the best, and Luster had been left to wonder what that meant.

The various decorations in the shape of skeletons, pumpkins, ghosts, and spiders did their best to soften the harsh edges of the environment, but the efforts were in vain. Luster quietly noted that the staff and patients in this wing of the hospital were unicorns and earth ponies, not a single pegasus to be found, and that, at least, tracked with what the princess had told her once she'd revealed they'd be going to a hospital: "Don't worry, Luster, it's not contagious to anypony but pegasi." That told her nothing of what "it" was, or why Princess Twilight's intervention was necessary in the first place, but perhaps seeing the pony in question would help clear things up.

With that thought in her mind, they turned a corner, and she saw Princess Twilight check the number of a room and head inside, gesturing with a wing for Luster to keep back for the moment. Past wings and flowing mane and tail, she couldn't see much, but she could hear a young-sounding voice give a giddy cry of, "Princess Twilight!" followed by, "You brought my medicine?"

The potion bottle floated down toward the hospital bed. "It's right here, Redeye. I made it cherry-flavoured this time."

"Thank you, Princess!" There was silence, presumably due to the foal drinking the potion, and then the empty bottle floated back up again. "That tastes much better than the daisy flavour." The young voice then turned all the more excited. "Did you bring candy too? For Nightmare Night?"

"Candy might be a bit much for your tummy right now," Princess Twilight said in the gentle tone that Luster had heard her use many times before with younger students. The travel cup floated down as the potion bottle tucked itself into star-emblazoned saddlebags. "But I brought some hot cocoa, with lots of whipped cream."

"Thank you thank you thank you!" There was a sound that Luster guessed were hooves fumbling with the top of the cup. "You're my favourite princess ever, Princess Twilight!"

"Oh?" She gave a small chuckle. "Did I replace Luna?"

"Luna's my favourite former princess," the young voice corrected.

"Oh, my mistake." There were more mirthful chuckles, but soon she stepped slightly away from the bed, allowing Luster to spot a nest of blankets and a few shed, dark blue feathers "I have one more surprise for you, Redeye. I brought somepony new to for you to meet." She gestured with her wing again, and Luster obediently stepped in, getting closer to the bed and spotting the small filly among the blankets with her hot cocoa. "You, I, and my apprentice, Luster Dawn, are going to all spend Nightmare Night together."

The filly in the bed waved, and Luster tentatively waved back. The pegasus foal certainly matched her name, her eyes a bright red that stood out sharply against the deep blue of her coat and the silvery shade of her mane and tail. Luster could only really see her face and forelegs, and so couldn't tell if she had a mark, and Redeye's wings looked to be mostly buried in the blankets, the strongest sign that she had wings being the shed feathers on the bed and on the floor.

There were... a lot of feathers. Luster didn't know a lot about pegasi, but she was pretty sure this was beyond what was normal for molting, especially for a small filly who likely didn't have very large wings yet.

"Do you like Daring Do?" The chipper question cut short Luster's observations, and she found herself looking back into inquisitive crimson eyes.

"Um...yes?"

The cocoa cup was put down, nearly spilled--a helpful extension of the princess's magic averted disaster--and a thick book was extracted from the blanket nest and displayed proudly. "Momma brought me my favourite Daring Do book this morning!" Redeye's gaze went back to Princess Twilight. "Can you read it, Princess? You do really, really good voices."

"Of course I can." Luster watched her sit on the floor, as none of the seats within a standard hospital room were going to fit, and Princess Twilight's magic gathered up the book as Luster herself hopped into a nearby chair. "Let's see now... Oh, this one is a good one." She cleared her throat. "Daring Do and the Mysterious Isle, chapter one..."

Going Batty

"Daring Do saw the clouds above, and knew what she had to do. She wouldn't let anypony, or anyone, threaten her newfound friends..."

Luster had never been very interested in adventure stories, and so only half-listened to Princess Twilight's reading. It wasn't a problem with the genre, precisely, just that she'd never developed a taste for fiction. Daring Do stood above many by being the embellished stories of an actual figure, but embellished was the key word. She'd read the more direct and factual accounts of Daring Do Dazzle's escapades during her International History classes, and so Ms. Dazzle making up details to make the tale larger than life didn't capture her attention much.

Redeye was another story. The pegasus was watching Princess Twilight, absolutely enraptured. Her empty cocoa cup was still clasped between her hooves as she leaned toward, her wings having partly emerged from the blankets. Some glossy blue feathers were still clinging to them, but not many, and the grey-blue skin beneath the sparse plumage was visible. Something about the skin didn't look quite right, either, though Luster couldn't quite put her hoof on what was wrong.

A unicorn nurse was in the room, gathering up discarded juice boxes and a container of pudding that looked to only have had a single spoonful taken from it. She was moving quietly, doing her best not to disturb the trio, but she and Luster made eye contact briefly and shared a polite smile.

While she wasn't overly interested in the novel, Luster did have to admit that Redeye was right about Princess Twilight's ability to read aloud. She switched easily from a steady, narration-friendly cadence to an array of character voices and back again, giving everyone from Daring Do herself, to her newfound allies on the mysterious isle, to the villains, their own distinct sound. Despite herself, Luster found her ears perking with each change, attention piqued every time a new voice took the stage.

She imagined the princess had honed the skill with her niece, Duchess Flurry Heart, who Luster had also extensively read about during International History. Being the first born alicorn in well over a thousand years tended to result in a place in the history books, to say nothing of what had come to be called the Crystalling Crisis. There had been some talk of the Crystal Empire royal family coming to Canterlot for Hearth's Warming, and Princess Twilight had offered to introduce the pair, something that Luster still wasn't sure she wanted to take her up on.

"She flew up in a flash, seizing the first cloud she could reach, reared up and--Redeye, are you okay? Does your tummy hurt?"

Luster, who'd still been focused on the half-revealed wings, suddenly snapped her head toward Redeye's face. Her features were scrunched up, and her cup, no longer just held between her hooves, was being clutched tightly to her abdomen by her forelegs. The question made her ears flatten, and she at first gave a small, "No..." Then a sound emerged from her stomach, something that could be said to resemble a growl of hunger, in the same way an Ursa Major could be said to resemble a teddy bear. Redeye let out a whine as her ears flattened further. "...A little bit..."

Princess Twilight looked toward the nurse who was already moving over. "Can you bring her some juice boxes?" She looked at Redeye, seeming to be studying something about her, and added, "At least six." The nurse nodded without a word and hurried off, leaving the three alone in the room, and Redeye starting to tremble.

"M'sorry..." Redeye murmured, and Princess Twilight opened her wing, draping it over the bed. The little filly leaned into the feathers, even as her eyes squeezed tightly and her face was stuck in that pained grimace.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Redeye," the princess soothed, as she carefully slipped a bookmark into the book--Luster had long stopped questioning why she carried spare bookmarks in her saddlebags, accepting it as an eccentricity that their immortal monarch was entitled to--and set it down. "It's okay to tell me when you're hurting."

Another little whine escaped the shaking pegasus. "...Will you read the rest of the story?" she asked, quietly.

"As soon as you drink your juice, I will, I promise."

Luster found herself moving from the chair to the bed, settling next to Redeye and reaching out a hoof. She didn't know what precisely was wrong, but she knew pain when she saw it, and when her hoof touched Redeye's side, the empty cup was dropped and she latched onto Luster instead with a whimper. Luster froze, briefly, and then cautiously started stroking the silvery mane, and heard the sharp breaths of a pained pony start to smooth out.

The blankets had fallen away more, during all of this, and the position allowed a much closer look at the wings. The skin looked thick and leathery, nothing like what she'd been taught in biology. Pegasi had rather thin skin on their wings, usually a bit greasy-looking from the oils that kept their feathers healthy. The wings also looked a bit oversized for Redeye's body, though she supposed, as a unicorn, she wasn't the most qualified to make that judgement. Still, something about it was sitting in her mind, telling her that this seemed familiar.

Her thoughts were cut short when the nurse returned, carrying several juice boxes and lining them up in a row. Princess Twilight gently nudged Redeye away from Luster and toward them, but she didn't need much encouragement. Luster watched the little filly's eyes open, widen, and then her practically attack the first box in her reach. She fumbled with the straw of the apple juice, nearly striking herself in the frog of her hoof with it, but once it was in its proper place she drained the box in record time, and was on to the next.

Orange, pineapple, peach, and blueberry were all mercilessly emptied of their contents, and then Redeye seemed to finally calm, sipping at the final box of raspberry juice as she blinked up at Princess Twilight with an owlish look, as if she'd forgotten the last few minutes had even happened. The princess smiled back at her gently. "Feeling better?" Redeye nodded, the straw never leaving its place between her lips. "Good. Want me to finish the story now?" That question got all the more enthusiastic of nodding, and the Daring Do book reopened.

Luster couldn't even pretend she was paying attention to the book anymore. Instead, she kept looking from Redeye with her juice box, to the nearly-naked wings.

Oversized, leathery wings on a red-eyed pegasus.

It couldn't be.

Luster's limbs felt leaden as she hopped down from the hospital bed, and she wobbled on her hooves for a few moments before she found her balance. It was nearly time for Princess Twilight to raise the sun, and Luster's body was crying out for her to find a bed to make up for the lost night's rest. The princess had merrily read throughout the night for Redeye, and now went about tucking the squirming filly in, who looked like she wanted to protest and stay up several more hours.

"There we go," Princess said with a smile as the glow around the sheets faded. "Snug as a pig in a blanket, as my friend Applejack would say." She lightly brushed Redeye between the ears with the tip of her wing. "Now, you be good for the doctors and nurses, and make sure to tell somepony when you need more juice."

"Okay..." Redeye's face scrunched up, but this time it didn't seem to be pain, or at least not physical pain. "...Princess Twilight?"

The princess, who'd been starting to back up from the bed, stopped in her tracks. "Yes, Redeye?"

Large, bright eyes started to glisten with tears as the words that nopony wanted to hear from a foal left Redeye's mouth. "Am I dying?"

Luster's heart stopped, and Princess Twilight was instantly at the bed again, both wings reaching out toward her. "Of course you aren't." She pulled Redeye out of the carefully-tucked blankets and into a wing-hug. "What in the world makes you think that?"

It was nearly impossible to see Redeye in the princess's embrace, and Luster found herself silently counting the number of shed feathers left behind. "Because... because I-I keep taking my medicine like you say, but..." Her words were punctuated with sniffles and sobs. "My feathers keep falling out and my tummy keeps hurting and it doesn't feel like anything's getting better. And... and... I was thinking about my great-nana and how she stayed in the hospital and had lots of medicine but she never came home..."

Luster grimaced. A small filly didn't understand the difference between an ordinary hospital visit and palliative care, and it was no wonder such a thing may come to mind if she'd already learned that not everypony who got sick got better. She was thankful that the princess was there to comfort her, as she wouldn't have had a clue how to navigate this, especially since she had no idea what kind of condition this was.

Sure, she'd read something about this before but... that was an old pony tale.

Princess Twilight held the crying foal, even as her sobs turned to wet-sounding coughs. "Redeye... You're a big filly, so I'm going to talk to you like a big filly, okay?" There was a tiny sound of affirmation within the huge wings. "You are going to be okay, and the medicine is doing things to help you, but you're not a normal kind of sick."

She very slowly moved to place Redeye back into the bed as she continued. "This is a magical sickness, and even when you're better, there's going to be some changes that don't go away. Just like how I changed from a unicorn to an alicorn, a long time ago." Tips of long feathers moved to wipe away tears from her face, then gently tap her on the snoot, prompting a slightly gurgling giggle. "But those changes won't stop you from growing up and learning things and playing with your friends."

"But I don't..." Redeye gave a yawn. "I don't have any friends... We just moved before I got sick and I don't know anypony..."

"Yes you do," Princess Twilight said with a smile, as she started to re-tuck the pegasus in. "I'm your friend, Redeye."

"You are?"

"Of course."

"Are you my friend too, Luster?"

"Um." Luster blinked furiously at the attention suddenly on her, meeting the expectant gaze of both the filly and her mentor. "Yeah, sure, of course we're friends."

Smiling, Redeye's gaze went back to Princess Twilight. "Are you gonna come back soon?"

"I'll be back next week, just like always, and with a new batch of medicine," the princess assured her as the now-smiling filly was once again snug in the hospital bed. "What flavour do you want me to make it this time?"

"Hmmm..." Redeye's ears twitched this way and that in thought, until she said, "Grape, please?"

"Grape it is." Princess Twilight gave a nod, and resumed backing up out of the room. "Now you get some sleep, and say hi to Luna for me."

"I will..." Redeye yawned again. "G'night, Princess Twilight... G'night Luster..."

Soft goodnights were given in return, and Redeye was left to her sleep as mentor and apprentice were again strolling the sterile halls. Each step seemed to add extra weight for Luster, but if Princess Twilight was feeling any fatigue from the all-nighter, she didn't show it. She continued to nod and smile at the ponies she passed, greeting the tried night shift and the just-arriving morning shift with equal grace.

All the while, the question weighed on Luster's mind, and she wasn't sure she should ask. It almost felt like an invasion of privacy, to do so. She'd been asked to keep a sick filly company, and she didn't really need to know the nature of the illness to do that. All the same, though, there had to be a reason that Princess Twilight was personally delivering medical potions and staying up all night reading with Redeye, as well as a reason that she would ask Luster to join her. Not to mention everything she'd said to Redeye about said illness.

A permanent change. Like unicorn to alicorn.

"I really appreciate you coming with me tonight, Luster," came the soft words that broke her from her musings, and she looked up into Princess Twilight's warm smile.

"It was nothing, Princess," she replied quickly, and it truly did feel that way. She hadn't done anything, not really, not even been the one to read the book. "I'm already ahead in my studies, so taking a night away from it is no big deal. But..." She faltered. It seemed like a good time to ask, and curiosity and uncertainty warred together for a time before she hesitantly added, "Why are you coming here to see her in the first place?"

"Because I was asked to." The princess politely stepped past an earth pony in a wheelchair, being pushed by a unicorn nurse, giving them her classic nod and smile and only continuing when they'd passed by. "Most conditions treated in hospitals are relatively mundane. They can cause a lot of trouble, but they're doing it without any magic. Magical illnesses are a lot rarer and harder to deal with, and for those, you need magic of your own to counter it. And well, if you need a powerful mage..."

"Going to the Alicorn of Magic is a safe bet," Luster finished. "Still, don't you have somepony else you could--"

"I have personal experience with this one." Princess Twilight's head was hanging low now, the smile gone. "I could get somepony else to help me, and I did get help from an old friend in putting together the potion recipe, but... most ponies have never encountered this. I have."

Luster's teeth came down on her tongue. Not enough to truly bite it, but just to hold back words. The silence stretched on, until she decided that it was better to be scolded for her insensitivity than to let the awkwardness hang in the air. "What... is she sick with?"

Princess Twilight's head didn't rise, but she gave a sad little smile. "You remember my friend, Fluttershy?"

"...Yes. But--"

"Years ago I did something that had unforeseen consequences, and Fluttershy's one of the ponies who got the brunt of it." She sighed, and then Luster caught hints in her voice of the tone that the princess got when it was time to lecture. "Let me tell you a bit about fruit bats..."

Batting Average

It's a simpler time, if simple could have ever applied after that fateful Summer Sun Celebration.

Twilight Sparkle is still far from taking the throne. Her transformation is still recent, as is her discovery of what she's the alicorn of. The Tree of Harmony has yet to ask much of her, to start sending her across the country and beyond, and so her adventures still mostly take place in the little town where Princess Celestia once sent her with the instruction to make friends. She and her friends have transitioned from writing letters to writing down their findings in a journal, one that they will almost publish.

Celestia has tried very hard to let them all have normal lives, for as long as possible. That will be steadily harder as the years go on.

For now, however, barring the ascension and a handful of clashes with ancients evils, it's a simpler time. Her friend Applejack has a problem, and in trying to help her, Twilight has made a mistake.

Fruit bats are curious creatures. One of many animals that is magical in nature, it sustains its appearance by feeding on fruits. A starved fruit bat starts to slowly change back to something more like its less magical cousins, its bright colours fading away and its recognizable features shifting. A lemon fruit bat will turn from yellow to a dull grey or brown, or an orange one will see its rind-like ears turning to soft fur and flesh.

If saved before it can starve to death, its plant features will manifest again, but it may not end up looking as it did. A grape fruit bat starved to the point where all grape similarity vanishes and then given apples will quickly become an apple fruit bat, as its magic has been told that grape camouflage is now useless to maintain and it must adapt to a new food source. This drastic shift will usually only happen when food is scarce, however, which is why Applejack's orchard hosts so many varieties in its colony, such as something so foreign to the orchard as strawberries. The mismatched appearance to their food source hasn't harmed their survival, and so, they stay as they are.

Vampire fruit bats are different.

Few have done research as to why and how they evolved, their own branch splitting off from the same trunk as better-known fruit bats. They are closely related, but look entirely different, the vampires looking much more like ordinary bats save for their long fangs. Their magic is more subtle, swapping the ability to blend in with their food source for something more symbiotic. As they drain the fruits of juices, they grant vitality to the seeds and supercharge the parts of the fruit left behind to make them into more potent compost. An orchard they make into their buffet will see stronger trees and greater harvests for years to come, ensuring that the colony can return at a later time and have even more to drink.

It's a subtle magic, but it is magic. And therein lies the seed of Twilight's mistake.

Her first plan had been to cast a spell on the bats to make them disinterested in the apples, but that hit a snag immediately. Namely that she needed the bats' full, undivided attention, and to demand such a thing from a wild animal was like asking a cat to bark. She'd thought she had the perfect solution, however, in Fluttershy's stare. It was a strange talent, one rarely seen in pegasi, and save for the notable immunity of a certain draconequus, had never failed to get results.

Then Fluttershy had flat-out refused to use her stare to this end, and her foolproof plan fell apart at step one. There had been begging, pleading, cajoling, and the constant reminders from Applejack and Rainbow Dash both about harvest sizes and cider season. Fluttershy had been firm that trying to change the fruit bats' nature was wrong and she would not be part of it. She would do her best to learn the nuances of the bats' language and encourage them to move on to another source of food, but that would be all. She had put her hoof down, no was no, and she would not be budged.

She had also reminded Twilight what had happened when she had tried changing the parasprites' appetites, and that stopped even cider-thirsty Rainbow from continuing to badger her.

So Twilight had tried something else, casting a spell on the trees instead. Starting with the one holding Applejack's prized giant apple, and moving on from there. The spell was simple; if a hungry bat got too close, it would repel them, making them suddenly decide that the apples didn't look appetizing. Nothing that would change their nature, just a proximity-triggered illusion that fooled their senses into thinking the fruit wasn't ripe. Simple yet effective, and she'd been a bit embarrassed over not having thought of that first.

The mistake of it comes in two parts: Vampire fruit bats are magical, and vampire fruit bats aren't very smart.

Fluttershy is trying to herd them away from the affected trees, but try is the key word. She's still learning how to talk to them, and communication doesn't equal control. They haven't been eating the apples, but they keep seeing them, smelling them, diving for them, then setting off the spell and losing interest. Over. And over. And over. She's trying to encourage them toward the Everfree and the wild fruits that grow there, but their increasing hunger just sends them toward the food source that seemed unripe a few minutes ago, but is clearly good to eat now, until it isn't again.

Magical creatures, doused with a spell from a powerful alicorn over and over. Hungry animals who'd started nesting in the trees with their young, increasingly irritated by the pegasus trying to get them to move along. Vampire fruit bats aren't aggressive, usually, their primary way of defending themselves being to spit seeds, hiss loudly, and then fly away. But Fluttershy's been coming close to them, increasingly desperate to help them get to a food source they can actually eat, there are pups...

She's far away from the farmhouse, and so nopony hears her yelp of pain when the mother bat bites her.

There are hasty apologies given as she lands, for having gotten too close, with assurances that she'd meant no harm and they're very cute babies and she'd love to show them all where some juicy blackberries are to feed them. She ends up flying home and tending the bite, just like any other she's gotten while working with animals. She's up to date on her shots, has a stockpile of disinfectant, and despite how frightening the large teeth are, it was really a warning nip, not too deep.

She decides not to tell her friends about it, because Applejack's already angry at the bats and she'd likely blow a bite, that was Fluttershy's own fault for being careless, out of proportion.

The nightmares for the next several nights, of her being chased by a bat-like beast, are easy to dismiss. She's stressed, and she's no stranger to stress-induced bad dreams.

Shedding feathers can be a stress response, too, and besides, she's due for a molt. It means being grounded for a week or so, but she travels on hoof more often than by wing anyway.

The hunger pains... probably just mean that she's been working too hard and forgetting to eat enough. She can pick up some food at the market and make herself a big dinner.

Food like... big... sweet... juicy... apples...

"That's not Fluttershy... That's Flutterbat!"

"Within a couple of weeks, the bats had moved on, but then she was doing nightly raids on Applejack's orchard herself." Princess Twilight's ears drooped with a deep sigh, followed by a small shake of her head. "We ended up calling it Chiropteran Equine Disease, when all was said and done."

It was just after sunrise in Cantlerlot, and the two were seated around a table piled high with doughnuts. Princess Twilight had always sworn that Pony Joe's was the best place for doughnuts and hot cocoa in the city, and even after the original Pony Joe had long retired, the establishment kept up its high quality. Alicorn physiology required a lot of food, and so while Luster nibbled at her one jelly-filled confection, Princess Twilight had been pausing between parts of her story to steadily pick off close to a dozen, with several more awaiting a similar fate. It wasn't the healthiest of breakfasts, but given that Luster was intending to collapse into bed the moment they returned to the palace, she figured this counted as more of a midnight snack.

"Chiropteran..." Luster breathed the word in disbelief. "So... bat ponies are real, not some kind of old pony tale?"

"Bat ponies as a secret tribe of pony or a creation of Nightmare Moon? Are just an old pony tale." Despite herself, the princess gave a nostalgic sort of smile, her mug of hot cocoa--it had extra whipped cream and sprinkles, just like every time they visited--floating up to allow her to take a sip. "Trust me, I asked Celestia and Luna a lot of questions before I took the throne so there wouldn't be any surprises they forgot to tell me about. It would be just like my old mentor to neglect to tell me about a whole demographic until a representative was walking into the throne room." She gave a chuckle as she set the mug down again. "A lot of the wilder stories are just that, stories. But as a form of vamponyism? They are absolutely real."

That begged a question, and since her mentor was full of answers right now, she let it slip out. "...How many types of vamponyism are there?"

"We'll get there in your education," Princess Twilight said with a wave of her wing, and breezed on as she lifted several fritters. "At any rate, the disease is incredibly rare, because it takes a lot of unusual circumstances happening with exactly the right timing to set off an outbreak. Vampire fruit bats so rarely bite ponies, they need to have been exposed to a lot of outside magic in a short period of time for it to do anything, and the bites only affect pegasi, not anypony else."

One of the fritters, separated from the herd, vanished with a few bites. "So few studies have been done on them, but our leading theory is that it's meant for transforming other types of bats into vampire fruit bats. Turning what was a rival for territory into new blood for the colony instead. But the extra magic makes it able to jump the species barrier to ponies. I did research afterward and found some old stories that might've been accounts of previous outbreaks and fed into the bat pony myths.

"When it comes to Fluttershy, we managed to catch her and..." Princess Twilight paused, the fritters left to hover in the air next to her as she seemed to be lost in painful memory, until she shook her head again to banish it. "Anyway, once it starts changing a pony, it's a lot easier to transmit between ponies. A bite's not necessary, just proximity. A few other pegasi started to get the same symptoms, so once my friend Zecora and I put together the cure, we gave the potion to everypony in town just in case."

Another fritter vanished in the face of the princess's appetite. "Fluttershy does still have a couple of remnants. I don't think you've seen her fangs, because she's good at hiding them when she smiles or talks, and her wings...They typically stay feathered now, but when she's hungry enough for fruit, they start to revert to bat-shaped, quickly."

Luster nodded in understanding. Transformative magics, caught soon enough, could often be reversed, partly if not fully. Morphic imprints of their true form lingered, and it was just a matter of tapping into that and imposing the old form over the new. An all-at-once enchantment could usually be countered with the right spell, and the more gradual changes tended to require a potion. The flipside was simply that an imprint of the new form could also linger after reinstating the old, which explained the fangs and the occasional return of the wings.

All of it was Transmutation 101, really. It was still a bit mind-boggling that a vampire fruit bat biting a pegasus could set off such a transformation in the first place, because it sounded like something out of those bad weretimberwolf novels that had been all the rage a few years back--she'd ended up explaining, in detail, to her friends all the many magical rules those novels regularly broke--but she'd seen Redeye's wings for herself, and the ravenous appetite for fruit juice.

Thinking about the filly again had Luster lifting her own cocoa--it was exactly how she liked it, no whipped cream and no sprinkles, just a tiny bit of cinnamon added in for extra zip--and taking a few sips as she asked, "And with Redeye?"

Princess Twilight sighed a bit before she said the next words. "Foals are more magically malleable, especially before their marks. Their imprint isn't fully formed, so it's easier to slow or stop changes than reverse them. And she was hiding her symptoms for days because she didn't want to get in trouble for going near a bat-infested orchard her parents told her not to."

There was something melancholy in her voice, like it had been when she'd been explaining the mistake she'd made in exposing the bats to her spell, and it made Luster wonder if the princess considered a simple law of how transformation magic worked a personal failing. "Luckily, the town she lives in is mostly earth ponies, including her parents. She's an outbreak of one, and when she stabilizes, her wings will be permanently bat-like, she'll be living off mostly fluids, and she'll be nocturnal, but..."

A small smile came back, and the last fritter fell to the dread alicorn in a futile last stand. "Otherwise she'll be like any other filly. She'll grow up, get her mark, and find her place like everypony else. Just while having different active hours and a specialized diet."

Luster hummed in thought at that, and took a few more bites of her doughnut. She lifted a napkin and wiped away the jelly before speaking. "But still, being so different from everypony else, that's bound to cause some problems. Especially since bat ponies are so rare."

"That's why she could use some friends to help her along." Princess Twilight's wings opened, gesturing between the two of them. "Like, say, a member of the royal family and her apprentice. I've heard that opens a lot of doors."

That made Luster blink. She had never thought of herself as having much influence. The friends she'd made down in Ponyville just treated her like any other unicorn from the city, and she'd never attended any event frequented by the nobility where she may be able to throw her status around. She could do so--Princess Twilight had made clear that if she ever wanted to attend the Grand Galloping Gala, all she had to do was ask and as many tickets as she needed would be hers--but she'd always been more focused on her studies than any kind of schmoozing.

It did make some sense, though. Princess Twilight herself had been the apprentice of Duchess Celestia, back when they'd been Lady Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia. Luster rolled that thought around in her mind, then found herself squinting suspiciously at the alicorn gorging on her mountain of pastries. Was that her plan as well? Take on an apprentice, teach her everything she needed for leadership, and then pass on the crown, as well as the sun and moon, when she was ready? She wasn't sure how she felt about that, if so.

"Something on your mind, Luster?" came the innocent-sounding question, and she wasn't sure how much of her emotions had leaked through in her expression to prompt it.

She sipped more at her hot chocolate, and instead asked, "Is that why you brought me to see her? Helping me make a friend?"

"Oh no, you've been doing just fine on your own." Princess Twilight waved a hoof as she spoke, then devoured a doughnut dripping in maple-flavoured icing while two more awaited their fate. "I asked you because you hadn't told me beforehoof about any plans for the holiday, and I thought you could get away from those dusty old books for a bit."

Luster couldn't help the snort of mirth. "Who are you and what did you do with the princess?"

Laughter broke out from both, and once it'd faded, the two returned to their treats and conversation started to drift. They talked about Luster's friends, and Luster managed to get Princess Twilight to tell her a firsthoof account of Duchess Luna's first ever Nightmare Night, which soon turned into more holiday stories across the years and the calendar. By the time they were leaving, Luster couldn't stop smiling.

Some part of her mind still lingered on the unspoken question, but she supposed if her mentor did have grand plans for her, she'd know soon enough, and she'd only be hoofed over responsibility when she was equipped to handle it. She also decided that if she did become a princess, she liked the idea of being the sort who would take time to go to a hospital and read to a sick filly, even when all Princess Twilight had strictly needed to do was brew and deliver the potion.

Yes, the future would come when it did, and Luster would see whatever came her way through. But first, it was time to go home, and take a long nap.

Up To Bat

For Twilight Sparkle, the old road to the cottage brought back so many memories. Fluttershy didn't live there full-time anymore, having moved in with Discord not long after Twilight had moved back to Canterlot, but she'd never sold the property, continuing to maintain it as a home away from home. It was quieter than it had once been, most of the animals who'd once crowded onto the property now living at Sweet Feather Sanctuary, but many of the birdhouses had become generational homes, the descendants of the birds they'd originally been built for coming back time and time again to raise their chicks. Even with some of the seasonal migrators already having taken off for the south, plenty of year-round nesters were still present, and so the air was still alive with all manner of song, which grew louder as Twilight set hoof on the bridge.

The original birds had known her, and had a special song to alert Fluttershy that one of her friends had arrived. These ones did not know the alicorn, and so the chorus was more chaotic, merely a warning that somepony was nearly to the cottage's door. Redeye, prancing at her side, had her tufted ears perk at the birdsong, and she started to enthusiastically whistle along as their hooves clipped their way along the stone bridge to the other side. Once her condition had stabilized and she'd stopped transforming, Redeye had regained a lot of her energy, enough to get up earlier and spend a little time in daylight; Twilight would have to lower the sun soon, but the little filly had been up long enough to have a big breakfast and take the sky-chariot ride to Ponyville.

She grew a little more subdued as they came to the door, and before Twilight made any move to knock, she looked down to see scarlet eyes staring up at her. Redeye spread her large, leathery wings, flapped them twice, and folded them again, before asking softly, "Are they nice?"

Twilight smiled. "Oh yes. I used to live in Ponyville before I was crowned princess, and I know for a fact that all of these pegasi are very nice." She opened one of her own wings, gently patting Redeye on the head. "I think you're really going to like Fluttershy."

Her horn lit, and tiny sparks of magic bounced off the wooden door in a distinct rhythm. Anypony coming today would know that knock, though Twilight would be the only one to perform it with a horn. She could hear murmuring within, catching a hint of Fluttershy's voice, and then the door slowly opened, revealing her old friend. "Oh, there you are, Twilight. I was just telling everypony you'd be here with our newest member."

In many ways, Fluttershy still looked like she did the day Twilight had first stepped into Ponyville. Her coat was still the same butter yellow, her mane--she wore it up, now, and today's hair accessory looked strangely similar to poison joke--and tail the same soft pink, without a hint of grey. Her body still had its same physique, with the subtle muscle all over that had come from spending so much time ground-bound running after and carrying animals. There were a few extra lines on her face, but she had aged so gracefully that it left Twilight wondering if Discord had been weaving any subtle magics to keep his dearest friend in peak condition.

However, there were a few ways in which she was not at all the pony Twilight had first seen conducting a chorus of songbirds. Teal eyes were now bright red, her gentle smile held long fangs, and her featherless wings were held open welcomingly. She'd been steadily learning to master the transformation and invoke it willingly instead of succumbing when hungry, and Twilight could see that the effort had paid off. There was no sign of the mindlessly-ravenous Flutterbat from that night in the orchard, just kindhearted Fluttershy.

Behind her, Twilight spotted more ponies. Cloud Chaser and Flitter were chatting over glasses filled with bright red juice, while Blossomforth had her foal curled up on her back. Already Twilight could tell that most of the downy foal-feathers were gone from the little colt's wings, leaving behind the telltale leathery skin, and they were bigger than they'd been when she'd last seen pictures of him.

The Bat Ponies Of Ponyville Club was growing, and with Redeye, would likely need to change its name.

Redeye didn't seem to have spotted the others yet, however. She was staring at Fluttershy with wide eyes, as the older pegasus knelt down to address her. "You must be Redeye Flight. My name is Fluttershy."

"Wow..."

And here it comes, Twilight noted with a small smile, before the torrent of words surged.

"You have wings like me! Can you fly with them? Can you teach me to fly with them? I've been trying but things don't move the same way they did before and Momma doesn't want me to jump off the roof again to practice. I smell juice! Do you have pomegranate juice? I tried it a few days ago and it's my new favourite juice. Are there--"

Twilight and Fluttershy met eyes, and each nodded to each other, before Twilight turned to stroll away. She barely got far however, before there were hurried hoofsteps and a pair of small forelegs wrapped tightly around one of her back legs, followed by a pair of wings. She looked back at the filly hugging her, and met those big, bright eyes again. "You'll come back and pick me up after, right?"

"Of course I will," she said gently. "You just write a message on that scroll I gave you." She nodded at Redeye's tiny saddlebags. "And it'll poof over to me and let me know to come get you."

"Okay..." She gave Twilight's leg one more squeeze before she let go. She looked up at Twilight, then at Fluttershy's smiling face, and back again, then turned to trot back to the cottage. "Bye Princess Twilight! See you later!"

"See you later!" she called back, and chuckled as she crossed the bridge again, heading back into town where she knew sights both familiar and not would be waiting for her. She could get some sweets from Sugarcube Corner, say hello to Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake while she was at it, and maybe take a stroll by Sweet Apple Arces to spend time with Applejack and her family as she waited for Redeye's message. Many things had changed, but so much hadn't, and she always treasured every visit to Ponyville that she had a chance to make.

And speaking of changes...

Blossomforth's son stuck in her mind. She'd been the first of the original pegasi caught in the Ponyville outbreak to have any foals, and while the colt had seemed to be an ordinary pegasus at first, with his recent changes, he had proven that the condition was hereditary. Like Cadence giving birth to Flurry Heart, the transformation had resulted in deep changes, ones that didn't end with the ponies themselves. It had given Twilight a lot to think about, as had being contacted to help Redeye when she'd fallen ill.

Her research pointed to there being previous outbreaks in the past. Surely ponies had survived, with either their communities coming upon the right ingredients for the treatment like she and Zecora had, or perhaps the ponies even fully adapting to the form and overcoming the juice-hungry beast within to regain their minds on their own. There were so many remote settlements in Equestria where such an outbreak could come and go and be kept mostly quiet, only leaving behind folklore. Those ponies could have descendants, ponies who had never had contact with vampire fruit bats at all.

There could be other bat ponies out there. Even if there weren't yet, there would always be accidents, careless ponies like Redeye who stumbled into just the right series of factors. The more pony-maintained orchards replaced wild spaces, the more it was guaranteed that Chiropteran Equine Disease would keep appearing.

How large would the population be in a hundred years? A thousand?

She paused on the road back to town, closed her eyes and lit her horn, sending the sun descending beneath the horizon, off to warm the other side of the planet. She then called on the moon, bidding it to rise high in the sky, bathing the path in silver. She could hear the calls of night birds as they roused, and she was sure many other animals were starting their long, active night. Like bats.

She didn't know exactly what the future held, but she wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle if she didn't stand by, ready to help. Her and her successors both, as Luster Dawn would be meeting Redeye three nights from now to tutor her in her schoolwork and the young unicorn... she had potential, enough that Twilight hoped that she would follow in her hoofsteps and earn a set of wings.

Equestria would be a haven to all creatures, including bat ponies, so long as Twilight stood vigil. After all, she understood what it was like to one day be different than she was before.

And just like then, she would make for absolute certain that everything would be fine.