6. Orchid

“Quit shoving me!”

“I would have thought you’d go faster with your girlfriend’s life on the line, big sis.”

Vinyl growled to herself and wished she knew a spell to make skulls spontaneously implode.

Vellum skipped from step to step, balancing on only one hind hoof each time. She twirled, scraping the low ceiling with her outstretched wingtips. “This staircase stinks really bad. Rats have died up here. I can smell the musk and rot. How can you stand it?”

“My sense of smell isn’t what it used to be.”

The rhythmic creaking of the wooden steps ceased. “Seriously? You gave up that too?”

“I gave up a lot of things. Some of them were way before I cursed myself.”

She wasn’t looking over her shoulder but she didn’t need to. She could feel Vellum’s eye-roll like she was twisting the optic nerves herself. “Oh get over yourself, big sis. There’s no need to talk all overdramatic.”

Vinyl gritted her teeth. She said nothing of what it had been like to suddenly reduce her physical senses to those of a mortal pony after decades of vampiric power. She remained silent on the shock of losing her increased strength, how normal pony speed and endurance had taken months to get used to, and how returning to the natural eye colour she had inherited from her mother also came with feeling blind at night. For everything she had regained – sunlight, real food and privacy in her own head being the topmost on her list – she had not realised what living like a mortal actually meant until the curse was cast and she was reduced to a mewling, weak bundle barely able to stand on her own.

She pushed open the cockloft door, lifting herself bodily into the attic. Vellum flew up behind her. The sound of her feathers hitting the joists was loud as a thunderclap in the small space.

“I take it back. Up here smells way worse. Dead rats and old vomit.” She sniffed. “Lots of old vomit.”

Vinyl had cleaned it up every time but she had never perfected a way of recasting the curse without so much pain that she threw up. By the tenth year she no longer passed out, but the throwing up was a constant. At least up here, Octavia could not smell it. Vinyl couldn’t smell anything more than dust but she didn’t doubt Vellum’s words.

She crossed the floor to the eaves. The sky outside the tiny window there was starry and beautiful. Vinyl barely noticed as she unhooked the catch and pushed the window wide. In a quick, practised move, she swung herself out into the night and scrambled up onto the roof. She grabbed hoof-fuls of thatch to keep herself from falling to the street below and hauled herself to the right place.

Wingbeats behind her signalled Vellum had followed. “For a second there I thought you were doing something stupid. This house isn’t huge but if you’re really as weak as a mortal that kind of fall could kill you.”

Vinyl ignored her. Her horn ignited in a soft glow. Extending her telekinesis, she dug into the straw, feeling around for her prize. In less than a minute her magic touched oilskin and she pulled out the tightly wrapped shape. Turning, she slid to the end of the roof and skidded right off the end. One forehoof caught the window-frame and a burst of telekinesis propelled her back into the attic.

“That was kind of impressive,” Vellum observed. “For a dumb mortal. Daddy would be really unhappy if I let your brains go splat on the ground after we spent all this time looking for you.” She alighted on the floor, sending up a cloud of dust that made her cough as she spoke. “Is – kaff – is that the book?”

“Yes.” Vinyl stroked the slick oilskin, bound by string she had enchanted herself to repel rodents.

Vellum approached with supreme confidence, steps not faltering despite how Vinyl’s hackles visibly raised. She plonked her rump down and tilted her downturned face so their eyes were forced to meet. Vinyl found herself staring not at a manic grin, as she had expected, but at an expression she had rarely seen on her sister’s face before. Vellum looked … the only word that really fit was ‘troubled’.

“Big sis, I don’t understand. Why did you leave us? Weren’t we a good enough family for you? Didn’t you love us anymore?” She bit her lower lip. Vinyl was suddenly assaulted by a memory of a much younger, smaller Vellum doing that when she came home from an unsuccessful hunt and worried that Voron would be mad at her. “You just … disappeared. Poof, just gone. I thought you were dead. You went out hunting one night and never came back, and Daddy couldn’t feel you anymore. I cried over you. I missed you. And Daddy … he got so mad when he thought you were dead. He was proud of you. He wanted to find whoever killed you and rip them apart.”

For taking what’s his, not because he actually cares, Vinyl thought.

“And instead, here you are, alive and living with a mortal – living as a mortal – hobnobbing with princesses at royal weddings and … and … I don’t understand why.” A plaintive note etched Vellum’s voice into a wistful, far too young whine. She sounded like a foal asking about death for the first time and not settling for the happy lie she was given.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Vinyl replied bluntly. She had spent too long and too much energy distancing herself from all this to let watery eyes and childlike questioning shake her resolve now. She lowered her gaze, refusing to meet Vellum’s even when her sister’s gripped her jaw to force her head level.

“Why not? You’re so stupid! We’re so much better than mortal ponies, but you chose to live like one? You actually chose to be weak and slow and blind and deaf and … prey?” Incredulity. Disbelief. Evidence that Vellum would never – could never – understand Vinyl’s motivations. How do you explain to an eagle how much better it is to give up its claws and wings and mastery of the skies and instead be a rabbit, living underground, feasted on by every predator out there?

Vinyl remembered the scream of a long ago rabbit as Vellum tore its guts out and laughed. Her heart chilled at the memory.

“I chose to be free.”

“This isn’t freedom! You chose to be one of Celestia’s servants.”

And there was the other reason Voron had come for her. Even worse than someone else taking his possessions was one of his possessions choosing to belong to someone else. He would never see being an Equestrian as being free. Celestia’s ponies were her possessions and that he could not allow for his own flesh and blood.

“We should go back to the basement. Voron’s waiting.”

“Daddy,” Vellum corrected.

“Voron.”

“Daddy! Even if you turn yourself mortal, it’s still his blood in your veins, Vanelda!”

“My mother’s blood is in me too. She was mortal. And one of Celestia’s ponies.” Vinyl briefly lifted her gaze, allowing Vellum a good look at her pink irises. “She named me Winter Song.”

Vellum stared back at her with abject disgust and absolutely no comprehension. “You’re so … ungrateful!”

“Ungrateful?” Vinyl echoed, despite herself. “Ungrateful for what? Him taking me from my home? My life? Taking away my future? Killing my mother?”

“For him giving you a better life, a better future! For making you better – making you more than you were! For him giving you powers and abilities beyond anything you could have achieved without him! For making you a part of something so much bigger than being an ordinary pony in an ordinary life destined for an ordinary death!”

Vinyl sensed they weren’t just talking about her anymore. These didn’t sound like Vellum’s words. She was parroting Voron. Her voice had climbed in pitch as she spoke, tiny bits of spittle flying from her mouth as her words became more impassioned and she was shouting directly in Vinyl’s face.

“He made you! He made both of us!”

“No.” Vinyl worked hard to keep her own voice steady. She couldn’t afford to let Vellum fly off the handle now. A fight up here would be a Very Bad Thing for Octavia – as well as Vinyl herself. Vellum was stronger, faster and if she lost control, as she was prone to do, she would not hold back until one of them was on the floor.

“No?” Vellum repeated.

“I made me. I’m not Winter Song or Vanelda anymore. I’m Vinyl Scratch. I chose this name like I chose this life. Nopony gave it to me or forced it on me. These were my choices and I’m going to live with them no matter what kind of loyalty you think I owe … him. Sharing blood with somepony doesn’t mean you owe them your life.”

Vellum pressed their snouts together, growling deep in her throat. Vague luminescence bathed her eyes. For a moment Vinyl thought she had pushed things too far, but Vellum pulled away as if an invisible piece of elastic had snapped her backwards.

“Come on,” she snarled. “Daddy’s waiting for us.”

Vanelda had adopted a routine over the past seven weeks. She attended every one of Professor Orchid’s twice-a-week magic classes and afterwards would copy out her notes from spidery to neat hoofwriting while whatever music group followed the class held their rehearsal. Nopony ever told her to leave. In fact, many times other ponies also stayed to do their own work. It seemed that as long as they didn’t talk, anypony and everypony was welcome to watch. Sometimes it was a jazz group, sometimes the orchestra that had played on that first night, and sometimes a choir whose choirmaster was so exacting that he stopped them to yell every thirty seconds.

When not attending classes or revising what she had learned, Vanelda let herself into closed bookshops to help herself to their wares, or hunted to sate Voron’s hunger and keep herself alive. The university campus proved a windfall for a lazy hunter – or one who would rather spend her time reading and practising spells. The many, many parties meant even more drunken students whom nobody questioned when they turned up unconscious during their trip home. She could skim a few pints from several ponies per night – enough to sustain herself and Voron without actually killing anyone. The alcohol in their blood had no adverse effect of vampire biology and Voron was so preoccupied with his courting that if he noticed the extra tang in his meals he never mentioned it.

Magic was as fascinating as it was intoxicating. There was so much more to being a unicorn than she had ever considered for herself. Intellectually she had known that other, mortal unicorns could do more with their magic than she did, but she had never considered their skills in the context of herself. Now a whole world of possibilities were beginning to open up to her. Her actual knowledge remained small, and she had applied little of what she had learned for fear that she would mess it up and Voron would find out where she had been sneaking off to. Yet her desire to learn more increased with each day and she stashed each new book in a hidden stockpile away from their den.

It was in the seventh week that things changed.

The orchestra was once again in session, today playing something bombastic that made Vanelda’s hooves tap as she scribed. Sometimes she consulted her latest book to make sure she had spelled a word correctly. The conductor tapped his stand when the orchestra came to an end, reeling off improvements that needed to be made and praise for individual musicians.

In the lull, a shadow fell across Vanelda. She looked up to find Professor Orchid standing over her. She startled in her seat, inwardly cursing herself for not realising she was being watched.

“You sure do get absorbed in your work,” Professor Orchid observed mildly. “I been watchin’ you for a good twenty minutes an’ you never so much as looked up once.”

“I … um …” Vanelda wasn’t sure what to say. Since the first class she had not spoken directly to the teacher. Words failed her now, morphing into a series of guttural noises that might have been syllables before the life was squeezed from them by her nervously convulsing throat.

Professor Orchid quirked an eyebrow. “Cat got your tongue?”

Vanelda swallowed. “Sorry.”

“Why be sorry for not noticin’ me eyeballin’ you? There are much better things to be sorry for.” The quirked eyebrow descended to become part of a frown. “Sneakin’ into a magic class when you ain’t a student, for example.”

A chill rushed down Vanelda’s spine.

“Fourteen evenin’ classes,” Professor Orchid went on. “An’ an hour or two after that each time where you stay in this here theatre an’ do even more studyin’. Yet I ain’t never seen you in one of my actual classes. I thought maybe you were just an appallingly bad student, but that just didn’t match up with the way you listen so intently to every word I say in this here room, nor with how you bury yourself in your work after we’re done. I wish all my students had that level of dedication – I wouldn’t need to hold no evenin’ classes at all if they did. So I checked the registers. They come with photos, y’know. Didn’t take long for me to look through ‘em all. A white mare with a white mane, white tail an’ bright red eyes ain’t exactly easy to overlook. I’m willin’ to bed you’re the only albino pony in the whole university. Except you ain’t a part of the university, are you?”

Vanelda felt like she had swallowed sand. She tried to say something but her mouth just opened and closed around the thought: ‘No, not yet! Don’t send me away!’ It was too soon. She wanted to learn more. She had thought she would at least have until Voron made them move on from Trottingham.

Professor Orchid stared at her, expression inscrutable.

“I …” Vanelda struggled against the emotion clogging her windpipe. “I’m …”

“You’re what? A freeloader? A sneak-thief? A charlatan?”

Her face fell into her own upturned hooves. It was over. Her magical education had barely begun and it was already over. If she was lucky, she would be allowed to leave and not have to run for it. Professor Orchid could not catch her at full gallop – no mortal pony could – but if she chose to use her telekinesis there was no guarantee Vanelda could escape that, vampiric strength or not.

“All of them,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I … didn’t mean to. The first time was an accident. I got lost on campus and wandered in by mistake.” Sort of, but she didn’t mention that part. “And then I … I wanted to know more. I … didn’t finish school. I didn’t know any of this.” She waved a foreleg at her notepad, bulging with paperclipped worksheets and extra paper from past classes. “I just … wanted to know more. But you’re right – it wasn’t my place. I’m not a student here.”

“Most students here have paid a lot of bits for their education. It don’t seem very fair that they’re doin’ that while you waltz in an’ freeload yours.”

“I know.” Vanelda rose to her hooves. “I’ll go. I won’t come back, either.”

“No, no, don’t be so hasty.”

She froze. “What?”

Professor Orchid shrugged. “Tuesdays and Thursdays are catch-up lectures like this. My schedule on weekdays is pretty darn full with other commitments, but how do Saturdays sit with you?”

“I … what?”

That eyebrow quirked up again, accompanied this time by a small smile. “Weekdays are workdays. Ain’t nopony can tell me what I can on weekends though. If’n I choose to spend a couple givin’ some pro bono tuition to a promisin’ young magic user, then who is anypony else to tell me I can’t?”

Vanelda could barely believe what she was hearing. “You … want to teach me?”

“Tutor you. One on one. At least for one lesson. I’m curious to see what kind of aptitude you actually have. The material we’ve been coverin’ in these classes ain’t beginner magic, an’ if you didn’t finish high school, I’d be curious to see how you coped with it.”

High school? She had never been to any school. Her mother had taught her basic reading, writing and arithmetic but there had been no school in their village. “I had to read up on the basics after the first class,” she admitted. “Then go back and reread my notes. They made a lot more sense the second time around.”

“We’ll see.” Professor Orchid clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Saturday. My office. It’s on the third floor of the Starswirl Building in the middle of campus. 3pm.”

Vanelda’s heart sank. “I … I can’t come in the daytime.”

“Oh?”

“My family …”

“Oh. They don’t know you’re here?”

She shook her head. “My father would never approve. It’s … he’s kind of … the reason I ended up in that first class. I didn’t mean to. I was just … I saw him out with a lady friend when I wasn’t supposed to and … when I … I mean I … it was an accident. I didn’t even know what this building was, let alone that you were running a class. But when I heard you teaching … I wanted to stay … I… I’m sorry.”

She had no idea why she had poured out so much. She clamped her jaws shut, in case her wagging tongue decided to just blurt out she was a vampire and was content to wait quietly in her seat for the baying crowd laden with torches and pitchforks.

“Hm.” There was that frown again. Professor Orchid would be so much prettier if she smiled more and frowned less. She had an actual groove between her eyes from the ghosts of frowns past. “Interestin’. All right then. When can you come?”

“Sunset.”

She let out a bark of laughter. “Quite dramatic. Sunset it is then.” She stuck out her hoof. It took a moment for Vanelda to realise she was expected to shake it. Tentatively she did so, but froze up again when Professor Orchid stopped and stared at her again. “It would seem appropriate for you to give me your name. I can’t go on calling you ‘that albino mare who likes magic an’ music’.”

“Oh! Um … Vee.”

“Vee?”

“Yes. That’s what I go by. It’s … short for my real name.”

“And your real name is?”

“I’d prefer just Vee.”

“An’ I’d prefer to win the lottery an’ lounge about eatin’ grapes while a handsome stallion rubs my tired hooves, but that ain’t gonna happen neither.”

“I…” Valenda bit her lip and averted her face. She let go of the hoof still trying to shake hers. “Then … I’ll have to thank you for your offer, but I … I can’t take it. I’m sorry.” She got up. “I’ll leave now.”

She got past Professor Orchid and was halfway up the stairs to the exit when the older mare’s voice brought her to a halt.

“Well … all right then, Vee.”

“What?”

“Sunset on Saturday.” Professor Orchid trotted away as if completely disinterested in the fact that she had just changed another pony’s life. “Don’t be late. Oh, and be ready to try casting Pearl Shine’s energy manipulation spell from today’s class. There will be a practical test. These classes are all well an’ good but they don’t lend themselves to practical work an’ that’s just as darn well important as knowin’ which researcher researched what an’ when an’ what they called it once they were done researchin’.”

Vanelda stood in stunned silence while the orchestra began to play once more.