Authors Ramblings: Woo-hoo! We finally delve into why Red Storm is a demigod, why he’s a prince, and why he hates his family! Read on...

My mind swims as I regain consciousness. Eyes fluttering open, I adjust myself to the light in the room. Standing over me is a gorgeous mare in a nurse outfit. It seems that even after such extensive trauma, I am still capable of experiencing lust. Before I can open my mouth, the mare noticed me and immediately backed off. As she retreated to the doorway of the room, six other mares came into view. All of which were equally stunning. Looking around, the thought crossed my mind that I was in fact was dead, and in some sort of pony heaven. That I was surrounded by angels who were here to sooth my mortal woes and aches. Alas, even in my numbed state I quickly spotted two I.V. stands, one on my left, and one on my right. The I.V. on my right was filled with blood, and it's twin contained a clear liquid. Anesthetic… That would explain why everypony here looks so beautiful; I’m high as a kite right now. I take a second look, and I realize that the six mares were my friends Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight Sparkle.

“Who…whooo won the race?” Were the first words out of my mouth. Fluttershy stepped forward, and on the mind-numbing drug, she looked like a goddess. Her beauty easily out shined that of all the other mares in the room, and I had to fight down the urge to kiss her, in my drunken-like state.

“Rainbow Dash won, but you came close. You came in a tenth of a second behind her. Unconscious, and covered in your own blood. You actually started to bleed around halfway back to Town Square, but I guess you didn’t notice... Once Rainbow Dash did her Sonic Rainboom though, you almost seemed to explode! I- I mean we were so worried.” I waved her off before saying:

“I did that on purpose... Ssort of. I needed speed, and mimicking Rainbow Dashh's 'Sonic Rainboom' as you call it seemed like... a good idea.” I saw Pinkie Pie giggle at my slurred speech.

“He-he! He sounds REALLY drugged out, and that’s funny!” everypony in the room looked at her sideways, while I swatted at some non-existent stars.

“So how are you feeling?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking very worried.

“Tipsy! But overall ok… But my question is why is there a blood bag in my arm?” I asked, pulling it out. A bit of blood squirted out onto my foreleg, but I paid that no mind. I opened my mouth wide before announcing: “It should be in my MOUTH.” And with that, I stuck the tube in my mouth before starting to suck out the precious liquid. Everypony in the room stared, horrified (Especially Rarity) as I drank the whole thing. When I was done, I felt renewed. Yanking out the anesthetic, I called out to the nurse in the doorway.

“That was delicious! Nurse! Bring me another!” I threw the empty blood bag to the floor, and the nurse wasted no time in leaving the room. Meanwhile, all six of the remaining mares stared, gawking. Even Pinkie Pie.

“Ya… ya’ll just drank that there blood like it was some grade-A cider!” said Applejack, stunned. “And yer eyes… they’re RED!” At that I was slightly perplexed, and it showed. Twilight floated over a mirror, not once closing her jaw, nor blinking. I looked into the mirror, and just as Applejack said, my irises had turned a blood-red colour. I chuckled at this, while Rarity swayed back and forth nearly fainting from shock.

“That’s normal whenever I drink blood.” I said, the anesthetics purged from my system due to my returning strength. “My family aren't called the Sanguine Nobles for no reason! We of the Sanguine house have greatly enhanced healing when we drink blood, among augmented strength, dexterity, and speed. Unfortunately, our eyes also have a tendency to turn red. Of course, that is a rather small price to pay compared to the benefits.” At that moment, the nurse returned with another bag. Flapping my wings, I lunged out of bed and grabbed it with my teeth. Tilting my head back, I unsheathed my fangs and bit into it hard, draining the contents directly into my mouth. I spit out the perforated bag and turned back to the nurse, blood dripping from my sharpened teeth. The mare in front of me looked horrified, and was shivering in her shoes.

“Why thank you Miss…?”

“Red-Redheart. Nu-Nurse Redheart.” She stuttered, terrified.

“Thank you, Nurse Redheart. See me for a nice tip once I head out. Bits, of course,” I added with a wink. She just nodded her head slowly before stepping backwards back into the hall. I closed the door behind her. Then, I turned back to my friends. They seem to have been affected slightly less by my monstrous transformation, but were still very clearly unnerved at my feral behavior.

“I’m sorry about that, ladies, but I must ask you to excuse my behavior. It is rather unbecoming of a Prince. Even one afflicted with the Sanguine Curse.” I emphasized this last word, which caught Twilight’s attention.

“I’ve heard about that,” she said. "Isn't that what gives you and your family all of your powers? I nodded, before saying:

“Of course you have heard of it. But I doubt you know the story behind it. So allow me to enlighten you.” I licked the remaining blood from my lips and began my tale:

“You see, it all began during the first Nightmare Moon Crisis. Nightmare Moon needed allies to spread her eternal darkness. She needed an army. After one of her first confrontations with Celestia, she left Equestria and went overseas to gather followers. There, she found a two-bit kingdom whose name has been lost to time. The ponies in this kingdom ponies were stuck in a rather primitive era, and they still believed you could make it rain by making live sacrifices. But they didn’t want to risk losing the favour of their gods, no, so they sacrificed ponies. So when Nightmare Moon arrived, they saw her as a god. Sure, you can say she technically is, but let’s not get side-tracked here.”

“So she comes along and offers the king, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Redmane, power beyond his comprehension if he helped her conquer the Eastern lands. He of course accepted this deal. Even in her weakened state, they brought the “Old World” as it was known to its knees, and Redmane became the most powerful king in its combined history. But when he asked for his prize, she gave it to him all right. Along with a nice, fat curse.”

“She ‘blessed’ him with a sharing of blood. He was from then on imbued with half the powers of a Celestial Noble, but at a terrible price. He essentially became an immortal, but he had to feed on the blood of other ponies if he wanted to keep his state of immortality. He quickly wound up killing all of his servants, and also went quite mad in the process. However, one day, his wife, the queen, gave birth to two foals. One was a unicorn filly, and the other a Pegasus colt. Both as black as night, with eyes as red as blood. He named the filly ‘Scarlet Drop’ and the colt ‘Red Mist’.“

"The filly grew up to be a very powerful Unicorn, even more powerful by far than the most powerful in all the lands. And then the colt grew up to become the fastest flier in the entire kingdom, and was as strong as an ox. After Redmane was usurped by his children (they staked and burned him for the record), they took his throne, and formed the Sanguine Kingdom. For centuries the Sanguine Kingdom was ruled by the Sanguine Nobility, and it became an extremely prosperous kingdom. It became wealthy from trade with other nations, and was free of war, plague, or famine. But one thing remained: the blood rituals.”

“The sacrifices continued after all that time, but were no longer for Nightmare Moon. Now they were directed at the mighty rulers, the Sanguine Nobility. What would happen is that every month, a random pony of mid-age, from a random town, was brought to the capitol, Redmane Keep, and slaughtered as a sacrifice to the King and his family. And before you ask Rainbow Dash, no, there was no in-breeding in the Nobility. The King would choose a mare to be his bride, and on their wedding day, bestow the ‘gift’ of the Sanguine Curse on her by feeding her a drop of his own blood. These sort of rituals went on for centuries until it came to my sister and me.”

“You see, my father, Red Wing, was unique. Unlike his father and all of his fathers before him, he was greedy, wanted to expand, and rule the Northern Lands too. So he changed the ritual. He made my mother, Scarlet Glimmer, queen my injecting her with his blood, instead of feeding it to her as we had been doing all these years. Now something you must understand is, Red Mist and Scarlet Drop were the only ponies in the family to have naturally red irises. My father, however, killed his father by drinking his blood. Then, not only did his irises turn permanently red, they became cat-like slits. So when he injected my mother with his blood, her eyes turned to slits as well. When he had my sister and me however, we had normal irises, as always. He saw this as a sign of weakness, being a raving lunatic and all, and made us train as warriors since birth. Truth be told, my sister is several years older than me, and had a head start. But that also meant my father could turn her sooner too. He fed her his blood at the age of 30, and she became just like him. Twisted. Cruel. And Evil.”

“I fled home because I didn’t wish to go through the same ritual as my sister, and because I just needed to get away from the madness. Sure, I drank the sacrificial blood when they told me to, but I never liked it. I only did it just now because pumping it into my foreleg wasn’t helping. So there you go, the horrible history of my horrible family. Any questions?”

Author's Notes:

To anyone wondering about how everypony mentioned in this chapter looks, I got you set.
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=pony+creator#/d47efz4 Go here, and put in these codes for the respective ponies.
3X1P2S5010191919FE171700010FE0000RF1837206000001G1000000FE00000L107F3FCC004CB2 = Red Wing
4Q0J2S4010191919FE171700000FE0000RB1B3C204040011F17F00005900000L11000000FE0000 = Redmane
4K0J284010191919FE171700000FE0000RB1B3C504020001R1000000FE00000L11000000FE0000= Red Mist
4G2T0K62000D0D0CFE000000211FE1212KH18372040000033100073F7300FE1C107F3FCC004CB2= Scarlet Drop
That's OCD for ya. Thanks for reading!