The night was cloudy, blackening the forest like a mourner’s shroud. For Renoir, the blackness was a hazy blue, as clear as a sunny day was for mortals. His eyes flicked over the treeline, scanning for anything that may have posed a threat; aside from a handful of dangerous, wild animals, there was nothing much to worry about. He cast his gaze to his two companions, Steel Marrow and Fluttershy, and was not surprised to find they were affected by his hunter’s sight. Every major blood vessel glowed within them, giving them a wire frame against the blue background; if he looked down, he would see the same for each of the carriage’s occupants. Such was a vampire’s night vision, and precisely what made them such dangerous foes to hunt after sunset.

“Quite a nice night,” he said, blinking away the blue glow that haunted his eyes. Neither pony asked how he could see to judge the night, and he wasn’t telling; it was as good an arrangement as any. Marrow nudged a bottle to the vampire, who knew what he wanted and obliged, taking the glass flask in his hands and heating it with his pyromancy; apple cider, especially when warm, did wonders on long nights. “I wonder if our prisoners are doing well,” he said, passing the hot drink over to Fluttershy, who was bundled in a blanket that was slowly icing over. As if to answer him, the nord from earlier struggled against the chains binding him to the carriage’s roof; his other compatriot was imperial, and couldn’t handle the cold too easily, so he was stuffed in a luggage compartment held closed by a pair of sleeping werewolves.

“Settle down,” Marrow grunted, shooting the chained man a look he was sure could curdle milk. Honestly, the stallion was sure that if these Dawnguard were professionals, then they should have understood that if they were going to be killed, they would not have been taken captive. “Honestly, you whine like a foal at the dentist.”

“Maybe he’s just scared?” Fluttershy asked, knowing how she would feel in such a situation. If the Dawnguard hunted vampires, then they knew how the disease spread, and that meant they knew the precise danger they were in while captive. Almost as if to spite her, the nord shouted into his cloth gag and struggled against the chains. The touch of cold steel on his throat made him stop; Renoir had a knife pressed to him, and didn’t look like he was in the mood for games.

“Scream, and I’ll do more than gag you,” he said in an even tone that implied hidden anger; it didn’t take the others long to realize it was an act, and that he took no enjoyment from scaring the man. The nord nodded and whimpered a bit, like the fight he had made such a show of had left him. Scowling at the shamelessness of the act, the breton unwrapped the bandana holding the wag of old sack cloth in his prisoner’s mouth. “Now, you attacked this carriage because of me, and my friend inside was attacked by your colleagues a few weeks ago, so you’re going to answer me one thing, and I’ll make sure we let you go at dawn.”

“And what is that, sir?” he asked, spitting out the gag. With his voice, Renoir placed the slayer at maybe seventeen, old enough to be a man in Skyrim, but far too young to have the experience necessary to hunt the undead; he certainly didn’t have the talent for it, so that left a few disturbing thoughts about the Dawnguard swimming about in the vampire’s skull.

“Why the increase in activity?” he simply asked in response. “You’ve attacked a non-vampire and an innocent carriage, for what?” he asked again, this time louder. The young nord tried to make himself as small as he could, cowering as he tried to find the right words.

“There’ve been attacks all over Skyrim, and not just isolated settlements, either.” Now the boy had confidence enough to look Renoir in the eyes as he spoke. “Riften was hit by a few older vampires, right in broad daylight, and we’ve even heard of a few attacks Cyrodiil and High Rock.” Now, the breton was interested; he’d never heard of such activity, least of all from a species that needed stealth and secrecy to survive. “Is it really so hard to blame us when we came across your wagon and saw it covered by strange creatures? We thought they were daedra, or thralls of some kind; is it so wrong that we made a mistake in trying to help the world?”

“Help the world,” Renoir said back, an odd tone entering his voice. “Kid, you’re a warm body, meat to be fed to these animals while your masters try to find the root of the problem.” He spoke from experience, having grown up in a clan devoted to hunting the undead; his own family treated him as such when he proved to have little talent for certain magics or weapons. “At dawn, I want you and your friend gone, and I’d better never see you again, understood?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

Susanne Tullius tied her fiery hair back as stood in front of the mirror in her room. She’d received word from her mother that her little brother would be arriving in County Kvatch within two weeks, along with her father and grandfather; which meant she would need to do the same. Despite being married into House Aegian, she was still a Tullius through and through, and parading front of a looking glass made her feel a little less like the warrior she had been raised to be.

“Good morning, love,” her husband, Gregor Aegian said, wrapping his arms around her waist as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “It’ll be good to see your family again.”

“Yes, it will,” she said, slipping on an undershirt to protect her skin from the next bits of her wardrobe. Gregor never liked seeing her put it on, not since she’d married into a family of jewelers and merchants, but he realized it was a House Tullius tradition that would not carry into his family, even though they shared blood now. Over the first garments, she slipped on a shirt of mail and buckled the plates of her greaves around her shins. The polished cuirass, thigh guards went on next, followed by the plates for her arms and gauntlets. She ended her dressing with a white, silken tabard bearing a crimson diamond on the front. “Did I ever tell you what I love most about wearing this armor?”

“I don’t think so,” Gregor replied, a bit sad to be cut off from the view of his wife’s body, but more than a bit proud to see her as she was meant to be.

“When I wear this helmet, no one would think this Whitestrake is a woman,” she cheekily said, holding up the winged, full-faced helm her family had own for over two hundred years.

With dawn came the release of the prisoners, as difficult as it was to let them go after all the trouble they caused. But, they had at least been gracious enough guests to donate their armor and weapons to the Equestrian government as a sign of good faith on behalf of the people of Skyrim. The two surviving Dawnguard slayers had been set free three miles south of Falkreath, where they made a speedy retreat to safety while the Equestrians and their guards made their way to the south, where they would use a mountain pass to cross into Cyrodiil just north of Chorrol. As the adventuring party rested in the morning’s light, they set about their camping duties; for Fluttershy, this meant filling the party’s canteens in a nearby stream.

It was peaceful work that pleasantly reminded her of home, of her cottage outside Ponyville, of all her animal friends. A pang of sadness ran through her, a brief worry the critters had thought she abandoned them, but she pushed the fears aside and focused on the moment, on her part in making sure the trip to Cyrodiil left everypony healthy enough to return to Equestria. She reached for the next skin, and was surprised to see they were all filled; she must have lost track of time recollecting. Still, loss of time or no, the forest was beautiful in a forlorn way; the little patches of light that filtered through the canopy danced with the shadows and played tricks on the eyes, but Fluttershy sensed no malice behind it, no fearsome predator lurking just out of sight. Then, she saw it, or perhaps it saw her and allowed itself to be seen.

A creature of some sort, nearly human looking, carved or grown from roots and branches in a way that made her seem like a plant. Buzzing insects surrounded her and she glowed with an inner light that blended into the green haze of the forest; she was breathtaking to behold, and moved with a fluid grace that was entirely too amazing to be mundane. For the briefest of moments, their eyes locked, and the strange creature vanished into the brush without a trace.

“That was a spriggan,” Renoir said, nodding his head to the area the creature disappeared from. “Guardians of the forest, or so they’re called; they’re usually aggressive, too, so it’s strange it didn’t attack you.”

“Maybe this one was friendly?” she asked, stuffing the canteens in her bags. As much as the spriggan had been a joy to see, there was a schedule to keep, and she felt it best to get on things. Renoir looked a bit puzzled behind the ceramic skull he wore, but nodded his head as if he hadn’t considered such a thing possible. Fluttershy bit her tongue to keep from reminding him that it likely wasn’t the strangest thing to ever happen to him; she just put on her saddlebags and smiled at him. “I bet the others sent you to check up on me, so we probably shouldn’t keep them waiting, right?”

“Perceptive as always,” he replied with a grin of his own, though his gaze never left the treeline. Spriggans were forest spirits, and represented untamed life in its purest form; they were the opposite of the unlife vampires suffered, and were much more in line with werebeasts. As such, Renoir respected the spirits that inhabited the wild reaches of Tamriel, but with that respect came the desire to avoid them entirely, or burn them; he wasn’t too picky about which came first.

They made their way back to the carriage in time to see Bitter Springs and Applejack strap themselves to the front to give the usual drivers a rest. Everyone stood around, checking equipment, keeping watch, and generally doing their assigned jobs. Princess Celestia, however, found the time to cast a curious look the vampire’s way; she didn't even look at Glade and Reman that way, so he felt a bit special in the most sarcastic of ways. Of course, he played the silent victim and bore the death glare he knew was in no way directed at the buttery pegasus who hummed as she distributed the water.

“I’m starting to respect you, Renoir, so please don’t do anything to jeopardize that,” the alicorn said, barely motioning her head in Fluttershy’s direction. “I can tell you two are friends, but I must ask you not feed on her.”

“It’d take a while for me to lose that much control,” he replied, removing the gifted mask and letting the scalding sun touch his face. “I’m not one to take advantage of kindness,” he lied, knowing completely that he had killed numerous people of dubious guilt by exploiting such a human concept. “Whatever you fear happening shall not come to pass, I assure you.”

Celestia looked at him for a moment, sizing him up, and realized she may have misplaced her distrust. Her age had bred contempt within her, contempt for Equestria’s vampires, for herself, and for her failings in both regards. She was a prideful mare, and had been for long enough to see a dozen empires rise and fall, but even she knew when she made a mistake, however long it took to realize it. Begrudgingly, she sighed, and looked the breton in the eyes as an equal for the first time. “When we get a moment, I’d like to explain a few things, and maybe we can reach an understanding.” It wasn’t the apology she knew Renoir deserved, but the vampire seemed about as interested in receiving one at the time as she was in giving it.

“Hop in, everypony,” Applejack called from the carriage, waving her stetson to make herself more visible. “Th’ map here says we can cross the mountains in three days at most, so we’d best get to it.”