Renoir looked through the eye slot at the lycan, who was currently motioning to her mouth. She was hungry, the vampire knew that much, but why should he give in to her demands? Because the mage only had a few living friends, and he might lose a very important one if he caused any harm to her. Of course, that didn't mean Renoir couldn't have some fun before he fed the werewolf.

“Say please.” Judging by her inability to ask for food, it was unlikely that Glade could speak when she was in this form. At least the Ring was working again, and Renoir knew it was because of the lycan's reply. A gesture she had learned from her Imperial forebear, the pegasus lifted her middle claw, an obscenity that Reman hadn't explained. Glade actually thought it meant no. “Very rude, but you're thinking again, that's good.”

“If she's back to her regular self, let her out.” Luna wasn't one for joking, her headache did nothing to make things better.

“Fine, spoil my fun.” The vampire stick his tongue out at the alicorn, but unlocked the closet as she commanded. Renoir never had the patience to deal with loud women, and long ago learned that doing what they say makes them shut up faster. When the bronze door was cracked enough for the werewolf to escape, she did just that, and Glade trotted to her fellow equines after reaching freedom. “Can any of you cook?”

“Are you hungry?” Fluttershy didn't answer Renoir's question, instead, she posed her own. When the wolf-like pony nodded her head, the yellow pegasus immediately rushed to her aid. The vampire shared a look with Princess Luna, and in a rush of what some would confuse for telepathy, they silently agreed that Luna would look after Glade for the time being.

“Fluttershy, perhaps you should gather the others and take them to the dining hall.” The Element of Kindness complied and went on her way, leaving the immortal, the vampire, and the lycan to their own devices.

“You have something for me to do, don't you?” Renoir didn't really believe the alicorn would have the gall to order him around. The dark blue pony looked the Breton over for a few moments, before taking a deep breath.

“Of course I do, you're in charge of cooking.” Luna had a smug grin on her face, she'd learned that trick from her sister, taking Celestia's example of Reman asking how he could leave his cell. When the human looked as though he was going to make an excuse, the royal mare was ten steps ahead. “We don't have thumbs, so you're the only one who can handle the pots and such.”

“I hate you so much right now.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

It was at this time that Fluttershy regretted not memorizing the layout of Reman's half of the outpost. She was completely lost, the Dwemer weren't the best when it came to making distinct passageways, and she didn't have the faintest hint of where her friends were.

“Hi, Fluttershy!” Pinkie's head appeared from one of the pipes, the frazzle maned pony had Gummy on her head, which was odd, considering that she was upside down. The Element of kindness nearly jumped out of her skin, but quickly calmed when she realized who it was.

“Glade's back to normal, so everypony is supposed to meet up in the dining hall.” At this, the Element of Laughter floated down from the pipe, and motioned for her animal-loving friend to follow. It seemed the pink party pony knew her way around, and Fluttershy couldn't really argue with Pinkie, she just had a way of things. With a new sense of direction, the two mares began to walk through the winding halls and corridors, searching for their fellow Elements.

“Applejack's still at the door, so we just need to find Twilight, Rarity and Dashie.” How did Pinkie know all of that? She had her methods, and nopony would ever take them from her, not for all the candy in the world. After the two took a few steps, a metallic scratching echoed from the pipes overhead. “That's Spinny, my new friend.”

“Spinny?” That noise didn't sound like any animal Fluttershy knew, but Spinny was the sort of name one gave to a pet. The yellow pegasus quickly got her answer when a bronze spider climbed out of one of the steam vents, and sure enough, something that resembled a gyroscope was spinning on its head. It was obviously a machine of some sort, though Pinkie must have confused it for a living, flesh and blood organism.

“I was playing hide and seek with Gummy, and Spinny just started following me around.” Pinkie shrugged, not really feeling the need to elaborate on her story.

“Let's just keep moving.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Things were awful, simply horrid. Rarity was in a dire emergency, a matter of life and death. With a dull thud, the white unicorn collapsed onto a pile of clothing.

“I'm out of yellow thread!” The fashionable pony was sobbing into a coat she found, feeling her situation was truly grim. Wasn't it? To make matter worse, her mascara was running! Things couldn't possibly get worse for her, not even if the universe hurled its ugliest stones. A simple knock on the door ended the melodrama, and snapped the seamstress back to reality. The white unicorn walked to the bronze door, curious as to who could, or would, be knocking. Before her hoof even reached the pull bar, a yellow and pink head appeared. “Fluttershy, darling, there's no need to knock.”

“Glade woke up, Luna wanted me to let everypony know to meet up in the dining hall.” The Element of Kindness was doing marvelous when it came to speaking, she had an unfortunate habit of keeping a low voice, even around friends. There was no such submissiveness present, Fluttershy was at a regular conversational volume.

Rarity knew right away that her friend had a juicy secret, the sort no tabloid could hope to match.

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Rainbow Dash rubbed the large bump on her skull. Of course, Reman slept on a rock, no wonder he had been so uptight at Jorrvaskr. The polychromatic pony hadn't slammed into something that hard since she kicked a mountain. The dizzy flier wobbled to the door, too off balance to use her wings, even the door slightly confused her. She hadn't even taken two steps into the hall before a grating, annoying noise assaulted her ears.

“My goodness, darling, what happened?” Yep, Rarity was the first to comment on the fact that Dash looked horrible, it seemed that she was always in character. The white unicorn was flanked by Pinkie and Fluttershy, and those two were being followed my a robot spider... thing. This was definitely not Rainbow's best day.

“The bed is a lie.” The blue pegasus nudged her head towards the door, and winced at the pain it caused her bruised cranium. Concerned, the seamstress looked into the barracks, and gasped at what she saw.

“A rock!?”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Twilight was making leaps and bounds in her research, if she was only speaking in a theoretical sense. The lavender mage had barely been able to understand what she was reading, what Princess Celestia had taught her, all of her own work, was completely useless when applied to Nirn's magic. There was talk of extensive meditation, fasting, even self harm, and those were just to help apprentices study! The orange book was definitely meant to be accompanied by a teacher, which Twilight didn't have at the moment. This book that claimed it didn't exist was mocking her, she knew it was, using the intelligence it was incapable of having. Unless, of course, somepony had altered it to be self aware, in which case, the Element of Magic was furious with him or her.

Perhaps she should read one of the other tomes, like Conjuration, or Restoration, there had to be something in those books that she could use. But that as only the voice of doubt, trying to keep her from knowledge, from power. With the knowledge held in this library, a pony of Twilight's talent could rule a nation, even all of Equestria! She could overthrow Princess Celestia, banish her to the sun for all eternity, and make everypony's lives some much happier. And once Equestria was in her hooves, the Nirn would be ne-

“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie came out of nowhere, she tended to do that a lot. The Element of Magic blinked a few times, before coming back to solid ground.

“What happened?” The lavender unicorn looked around, she knew that she was in the animonculory, but things got fuzzy from there.

“Glade woke up, that's what! Come on, everypony's going to the dining hall.” Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity walked into the room, followed by a machine of some sorts. A construct that Twilight instantly recognized as a Dwarven Spider, a type of animonculus that served as servants and janitors. She was about to say something, before Dash interrupted her with the last question anypony expected to be asked.

“Where is the dining hall, anyway?”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Well... that was certainly something else, not that this was any less strange, but the earlier conflict was still fresh in the Breton's mind. Lynette sat at a campfire, writing in her diary about the day's events, with Reman snoozing across from her. They'd found a horse tied to a tree near Ustengrav, and had ridden the equine for about forty miles before the Imperial decided to take a nap, while behind the reigns. Maybe the fight with that Nord had taken its tole on him, but it had a delayed reaction. Either way, the lycan was out like a light, dead to the world, but the rise and fall of his chest proved that he was very much alive. Four years, and Reman Tullius still did his best to protect his loved ones, despite being a werewolf, he hadn't changed a bit.

It had certainly been a long time since the two had last seen each other, if one left out the massacre at Lynette's camp, long enough to grow apart. Technically, their engagement had ended after the Imperial had been declared dead, officially dead, anyway, and the archer had moved on with her life. As odd as it was to think, Lynette was glad that Reman had put things behind him as well, he passed the woman's test back in Whiterun with flying colors. Pretending to fall asleep on his shoulder had been the perfect way to determine how he felt about her. At least the Imperial was still keeping his word to her father, she giggled at the thought.

Those two thought they'd been so discreet about it, Lynette had found out about it almost immediately, her mother had told her. Movement from across the fire drew the Breton from her thoughts, Reman was waking up from his power nap. The Imperial was already at the stolen horse before Lynette could get her pack on, ready to hit the road.

“Come on, we've still got a while to go until we get there.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Dinner was prepared courtesy of Renoir Belmont, vampire and wizard extraordinaire. However, he wasn't a master chef by any means, especially not when it came to vegetarian meals. Stupid froufrou ponies and their delicate digestive systems, couldn't handle the tasty foods. Everypony was about halfway through the first bowl of stew, with the obvious exceptions of Renoir and Glade. The former had opted for dry rations from his personal quarters, and the latter was on her third helping of the vegetable meal. The lycan used her claws to lift her bowl to her face, she still hadn't reverted back to her regular form, but the mare didn't seem to mind.

“So, Renoir, what do you do for a living?” Rarity was trying to make pleasant conversation, and she was genuinely curious about the vampire. Mostly because there had been a lot of things written about them in popular fiction in recent years, and she was hoping to learn more about the living dead.

“Magical research, dungeon crawling, that sort of thing.” With the crimson and black that made up his eyes, it was almost impossible to tell where the Breton was looking, but the Element of Generosity felt his gaze upon her. The vampire punctuated his answer with another bite of the dried fruit in his hand. Where one would expect him to ask a question of his own, Renoir simply looked at her, expectantly.

“Um...” Rarity looked away, trying to figure out how to word her next query. Thankfully, Pinkie Pie asked her own question before the vampire's gaze became too much. Unfortunately, the Element of Laughter asked the very same thing Rarity was going to, worded in the most offensive way one could.

“Do you really drink blood?” The undead man blinked a few times, taking in the obvious question, in truth, no one had ever asked him that. He thought about how he should answer, before he realized that a simple nod would suffice. At that, the polychromatic pony sitting next to the pink ball of energy raised her own query.

“Ever killed anypony when you drank from them?” Luna looked like she was about to reprimand the Element of Loyalty for her rudeness, but a raised hand from Renoir stop her. More surprising, the vampire started to chuckle a bit, like the question was amusing in some way. Perhaps, to him, it was, because his answer seemed to be a purposeful attempt to scare the colorful equines.

“Yes, I've gotten carried away before, but only once.” To add to the image, Renoir smiled a toothy grin, his fangs glimmered in the room's light. Only Dash really reacted to the display, and she seemed more than a bit put off by the show of predatory prowess. It wasn't a roaring werewolf, it may have been infinitely more subtle, but nowhere near as unsettling. The room sat in silence for a few minutes, and nearly achieved relaxation, before a certain purple pony seemed to snap.

“I'm completely stumped on your magic, I admit it!” Twilight seemed to be an odd mixture of hopelessly beaten and defiantly angry, not at the man she addressed, but at the arcane arts she was trying to learn. Much to her chagrin, Renoir smiled wider.

“Yeah, that happens when you aren't accustomed to our ways.” The vampire knew exactly what she was referring to, after all, Alteration was the School most requiring a teacher, and every reference Reman had about it was on the lowest shelves of his library.

“Can't you help me?” While Twilight didn't want to turn to anyone but Reman for help, they were his books after all, the Element was in a stalemate with a book that technically didn't exist. This certainly wasn't the sort of situation she ever saw herself in, what would her teacher say if she saw her now?

“Reman knows more about Conjuration and Alteration than me, but if you need help with Illusion, Restoration, or Destruction, then I'm the one you want.” Renoir would have taken a moment to say that Reman wasn't a pushover when it came to Destruction, but a noise caught his ear. Glade must have heard it, too, because her head popped up from her bowl, her ears were standing erect and she was intently facing one of the walls. “Relax, it's probably nothing.”