I woke to a gentle prodding. Suppressing a maddening urge to yawn, since Vamponies don’t do that, I opened my eyes and saw Octavia, who was freshly showered. She looked at me with the Vampony equivalent of a cocky smile, and I frowned, confused.

“What’s got you so… happy?” I asked.

“It’s midnight. You slept in.” She replied.

I could feel my eyes widen. To sleep in was a thing I hadn’t done in over 7 years. I always rose before sunset, to make sure I was clean and scent-free. More than once I was surprised by an early visit from some Celestia be damned sales-Vampony, and it wouldn’t do to be caught before I was ready.

The fact that I had slept in could be caused by one of a few reasons. It could have just been because of the dream, which broke my usual sleeping pattern. It could be because I was very tired. But I had a good idea what the real reason was. It was because I felt safe. I felt safe enough to sleep fully, deeply, as opposed to my usual very light sleep.

“Alright, up. It’s getting harder and harder to give a reasonable excuse to Brandon and Mark for them to leave the house.” She said. “You still smell fine, so straight to the music room today, and then we’ll have to prepare for school tomorrow.”

I sat there as she untied my hoof. How could I possibly feel safe? I just had a dream of being eaten by the girl, and in response I sleep deeply right next to her? I shook my head. That couldn’t possibly be the reason.

Another thought occurred to me, but I dismissed it as well. I had only fed her twice at this point, and although I knew I would have to slow her down soon or face the consequences for having a lowered amount of blood, I doubt it could be manifesting itself so early.

I got up and followed her down the stairs. She still had me leashed, although seeing as it was just the two of us, I honestly didn’t care all that much anymore. “What did you tell them this time?”

“I told them to stock up on our usual sex gadgets: lubricant, basic toys, fuzzy cuffs, gags, thick bed sheets, a new mattress…” She gave me a sheepish Vampony smile. “We get pretty rough. I usually need a new bed at least once a month, not because the old one breaks or loses its comfortableness, but because it starts growing mold… We provide it with too many fluids.”

I’m pretty sure I gaged, and I knew she heard me, because she went on. “That’s why we have extra thick sheets and multiple layers of them too. And one of the two of them will wash them after every time. And yet, somehow, the bed still gets drenched every time. But that’s a conversation for later.”

We had already arrived. She was eagerly standing at her usual spot, a couple meters away from the table, and smiling. I sighed and trotted up to my end, which already had the glass and knife. She had lowered the walls, thankfully, so hopefully we would be in and out quick.

I did my thing; no point in delaying it, right? The blood began pouring out, as it had for the past two days, but something was wrong. The cup wasn’t even half full when I started getting dizzy. My vision flickered and the world began to spin around me. I couldn’t feel my hoof, although I did hear the sound of glass breaking. Next thing I knew, the floor was rushing up to give me a kiss!

I didn’t even close my eyes. A split second before I would have hit, I stopped moving. Something lay me on my back, and I stared up at the ceilings, all four of them. They were trying to run as far away as they could from each other, but a vortex kept pulling them back every few seconds. I smiled and cheered them on in my mind, telling them to push harder! They could escape the evil vortex.

Somewhere nearby, I heard frantic breathing. The lights were too bright! They hurt my eyes, so I turned my head. I was now looking at the floor, the far glass wall, and the special cellos that were mounted on their stands in the middle of the room. They gleamed black, light and shadow working together to create an amazing show for my eyes. I tried to magic one over to me, but for some reason, my magic wouldn’t come.

My head started hurting. I tried to clutch at it, but only one of my hooves moved. I closed my eyes to try and block out the pain, but it wouldn’t leave. I started groaning, and the voice grew more agitated. It kept saying things like “Vinyl” and “Die” and “Blood”.

I could feel myself getting tired. Maybe a nap would get rid of the annoying voice and headache? That sounded like a good plan, so I let my body go limp.

*****

My head hurt.

My hoof hurt.

Everything hurt.

I couldn’t move; my body was being sluggish. I tried to lift my throbbing head, only to be hit with a wave of nausea and pain, so I put it back down. My shades were gone. The light, miniscule as it was, was hitting my eyes too hard, so I closed them again. I could hear the sounds of frantic trotting about; the clopping off hooves on a hardwood floor, although they were distant. A moving hardwood floor, or maybe it was just my head that was spinning.

I lay there for a minute. Gradually, the clopping sounds died down, until they faded into silence. The world began to slow, slowly, gradually, and then faster. I opened my eyes to see only one light shining, only one ceiling above my head, which still ached. The world was still around me, and I cautiously slid my hooves towards my head.

I heard a slight movement off to my left, but I was in too much pain to care. My hooves felt wet, or at least my right hoof did, so I brought it up in front of my face. The hoof was bound in some form of red bandage, and the fur around said bandage was matted and soaked, and also red. As I followed it, the red seemed to be present on most of my foreleg, tapering off at the bottom half of my upper foreleg.

I dropped my hoof back to the ground. It landed with a very slight splashing noise, as it there was some sort of liquid on the floor. I turned my head, because for some reason a liquid was more interesting than the sound of movement, and saw a small pool of red on the floor. How curious; perhaps it was this that matter my fur.

I looked back at the ceiling. It was a dark, dreary gray, as was the light shining slightly to my left. I followed the motion, my eyes traveling across the ceiling to the wall, or rather, to the sky beyond. It was dark out. I could see the moon, which was getting low on the horizon. Hun, was night just starting? Or maybe daybreak was coming?

A heard another noise. It was coming from lower along the sky, so I followed it down to buildings, and then a bit further, until I saw a pony. She was a grey earth pony, with charcoal black hair and brilliant violet eyes. Eyes which were staring back at me, wide, eager, fearful, hungry. They looked so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew them from.

I continued to stare at them and they at me. When I blinked, the hunger surged, and was then beaten down by fear, concern and control. They didn’t blink, or at least, they did it so rarely that I missed every single one of them. It started coming back to me; those eyes belonged to somepony important to me. A pony who was keeping an eye on me. A female grey earth pony, black hair, violet eyes…

Oc…tacia? No, that wasn’t right… Octavia? Maybe; it sounded familiar. Maybe she could help me understand why I was stuck on the ground, in pain and very confused.

“Hhhhh-” I tried to say hey, but my mouth was dry and, unsurprisingly, in pain. Octavia reacted though. Her eyes gleamed, hunger, lust, fear, concern, envy, restraint, desire, control.

“Hey.” I managed it this time.

Another battle of emotions, and this time relief came out on top. “Vinyl…”

“Octavia, why does my body hurt?”

She was breathing shallowly, I realized. I could barely see the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes showed that she was fighting to stay put, despite concern for my wellbeing. Her next words were forced and seemed painful. “You cut yourself. You were going to feed me, and as you were filling the glass, you fell over. The glass broke and needled your right hoof, and you would have slammed your head hard if I hadn’t caught you.”

It took a few minutes for the words to sink in and make sense. My brain still wasn’t running at full speed. I did understand what the red on my right foreleg was though. “What happened next?”

“I bandaged your hoof. I don’t know why you fell over, but I knew that it was wasting precious blood, so I picked out all the glass and tied the rag around the affected area. There was blood all over the floor by then, and your leg, and it smelt so good…” The hunger in her eyes was slowly rising up again, breaking and scattering the concern. “I wanted to drink it all up, and I did get some. But then I remembered I had a fresh source right next to me.” She shook her head, and the hunger vanished again. “I ran away, quickly cleaned it out of my fur. Brandon and Mark got back, and I told them to leave until dawn. I made sure they understood not to come anywhere near the house. I came back, and you were still unconscious, lying in a pool of blood. I wanted to help you, but every time I moved closer, I couldn’t without slowly wanting to eat you alive. So I sat, and I waited, and waited, and now you’re awake and I can’t stand it anymore! I want to want to eat you so bad!”

She stomped on the ground and a heard the sound of tile smashing. “I’m going to move away, far enough so I can’t smell it. Clean it, clean it all! The whole room, bleach it. Overpower the blood, or I won’t be able to stop!” She started backing away. “Don’t leave my sight. Bleach the room, then wash your hoof and put the cologne on and make sure there’s NO BLOOD!”

She kept backing up, her eyes locked on me, until I could barely see her. She was across the terrace, up against the fence that separated her land from the fields beyond. I couldn’t see any more than a silhouette, and yet I knew those razor sharp eyes were locked right on mine.

My body still ached, my head pounded and my hoof screamed, but I forced myself up. I saw the bleach she was referring too, as well as two buckets of soapy water. I got to work, washing the floors. I pressed hard on the brush, scrubbing like a maid. My hoof continues to shriek in protest, and I ignored it. My brain was up to date, and I understood that, once again, my life was in danger. I haven’t been very lucky over the past few days…

I scrubbed and scrubbed, my injured hoof burning as the fumes of the bleach touched the cut. It felt like a fire was in my skin, on both hooves, on my knees, in my face, but I pressed on. Only when the floor around where I fell was gleaming did I finally poor the first bucket of soapy water down the sink that was, for some reason, present in her music room. I took the bleach and poured it all over the floor, scrubbing again, even harder than before. I made sure to run over each area twice, and the spot where I had fallen three times. I cleaned the glass and bleached the rag. When the floor, the rag, the desk and every single trace of blood was gone, I washed it out of my fur. I spent at least fifteen minutes scrubbing my hoof, being extremely careful not to re-open the wound. I then re-bandaged it, using triple the usual thickness of bandage and more cologne then any one pony should ever wear. My hoof still burned, even more so because of the treacherous soap in my cut, but I endure, because once again, Octavia had saved my life.

And the whole time, I made sure to not move too fast, not slip or block the line of sight.

I thought back on what she had said. She managed to catch me and save me from a concussion. She extracted the glass and saved my hoof from permanent damage. She bandaged me to prevent my body from bleeding to death. All this, she did while inhaling the scent of freshly spilled blood. Was this friendship? If this had occurred during the first feeding, would she have tried to save me, or would the temptation have been too much? Was this the first act that signaled a deeper bond than predator and prey?

Finally, after much toil and pain, I waved her over with my left hoof. She approached cautiously, sniffing and taking a step, sniff, step, sniff, step, until she was less than a meter away.

“Are you okay?” She asked. Her eyes displayed genuine concern; her body language showed that she was hesitant and fearful. He sharp fangs and clenched teeth exposed her hunger.

I nodded.

“What happened?”

I looked her right in the eye, wanting to make sure my point got across. “I don’t know. If I had to guess, it was blood loss. I’ve lost at least a litre of the stuff over the last two days. I knew I would feel the side effects eventually, but that was fast. The stress was probably a contributing factor. In any event, if I cut myself for you again without some time to make more blood, I’ll die for sure.”

Her face was grim. “You understand what you’re telling me, right? You’re basically saying you’re not able to feed me. The whole reason I kept you alive, and you tell me you can’t do it anymore.”

I nodded. “I can still do it, but it will not be nearly as often. Once, maybe twice a week at most. I’m throwing myself at your mercy. You promised to be my friend. A friend would be content with this new arrangement, because she would still get her meal, and be able to keep her friend.”

She hissed and stomped, rage in her eyes. “Do you understand what you’re doing to me?!” She shouted. “You’ve fed me a piece of heaven, and now you’re trying to take it away!” She grit her teeth and growled. “And now I have to choose between getting my heaven once a week, or getting a pile of heaven once, and then never again!”

“Could you continue living?” I asked. “Right now, you’re having trouble dealing with going down to a single meal a week. Could you live the rest of your life without pony blood if you can’t even go 6 days deprived of it?”

She roared at me and pounced. I was caught completely off guard, and fell underneath her with a squeak of fear. “If you die, I will not be tempted every day by your mouth watering scent. I will not be forced to look at you neck and know what is flowing just inches away from my nose. I will not be terrified of having another pony find out what you are and try to steal you away from me!”

Her teeth snapped closed inches from my muzzle, and I whimpered. She stood over me, growling every time I twitched or took too deep a breath. I waited, completely oblivious to what was going through her mind.

Her growling slowly died down, her stance lost its tenseness. I watched as she regained her composure, and her eyes went from rage and hunger to an emotionless blank slate, and then to sadness.

She lay down on top of me, pressing her body to mine. I hadn’t noticed before, but she was cold. Not cold like ice, nor like stone, but she wasn’t as warm as I was. She covered my chest and legs, and took my head in her hooves.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. I was just feeling deprived and hungry and scared and all that. Look, I don’t want to eat you; I want to be your friend. I really do. But it’s hard. I know I don’t seem like it, but I really am a nice Vampony. I’m trying to see you as more than food, and I’m succeeding; it’s the only reason you’re still alive. But it’s going to take time, and effort, and I might break down like that again. I don’t want to kill you, and I won’t kill you, I promise, but you may have to deal with more of those, and when they come, I’ll probably turn into a major bitch. I’ll probably treat you like dirt and make arrogant demands and piss you off to no end. I want to apologise for that now, so you’re ready and aware that when it happens, it’s me doing my best to try and hold the Vampony inside me, to make sure you live, and trying to slowly gain control over my natural desires. I guess what I’m trying to say is, do you still want to be my friend?”

I took a moment to consider that. So far, all she’d brought me was pain. I mean, yeah, I was still alive and, yeah, it could be much worse, but was it worth it? She said she would get better, and I didn’t doubt that if I lived, with time, she would improve. But how much pain was I prepared to endure to make sure I continue living? How much abuse was I ready to put my body through, as well as my mind? In the end, unless I was ready to end it, there was only one answer I could give.

“Yes, yes I do Octavia. There’s nothing I want more, except to keep living. But I have needs too. I need blood, and that means I can’t feed you every day.”

She nodded. “I get that, and I’m sorry. We’ll figure this out…”

For now, I still valued my life over being eaten. I’m not sure why; I didn’t have much to live for, or anything, for that matter. But maybe, just maybe, there was something. Maybe one day I could live under the rays of the sun, in a veranda on the balcony. Maybe one day I could get mixing tables and make music like I had been raised to. Maybe one day I would find that stallion who would give me my first child. Maybe there was a cure, and Octavia and I could be real friends...

Maybe.

She was silent for a moment, and laid her head next to mine. She let out an exhausted sigh, and I felt her relax on top of me. “Tomorrow, we’re going to get up like we usually do. I’m going to give you that dress to cover the bandages and the rest of your body. You’re going to take a super long shower, clean yourself until there isn’t a speck of dirt, wear twice the usual cologne, and refresh your spells. You won’t leave my sight, you’ll wear the collar all day, and you’ll do all that while trying to attract the least extra attention possible. We need to work together to keep up the ruse. Tomorrow, you’re my slave. Everyone at school will know, because that’s the story we’ll tell them. Is that okay with you?”

“Do I have a choice?” I said lightheartedly. I felt a small smile against my cheek, and I gave her a quick pat on the back.

We closed up the music room walls. “You know what? Tomorrow, I’ll show you why I got this baby.” She said, flaunting her treble clef cutie mark.

“I’ll look forward to it; it’ll mean the school day is over.” I laughed, and she smiled, like a Vampony should.

We each ate our meals, and I had a shower, with Octavia, as usual. By the time it was done, Brandon and Mark had tempted fate and returned to the mansion. I sat on the bed and held out my hoof, and with the cuffs firmly attached, my mistress sought out her dicks.

I finally got to listen to my music. It was a huge, satisfying achievement, a great way to end the maelstrom of a day I just had. When Octavia trotted back in, topped up on meat and cum dribbling out of her backside, I smiled at her. She gave me a small one in return and took her shower. I turned off my Ipone, and she got in her bed.

“Good day, Vinyl Scratch.”

“Good day, Octavia.”

Author's Notes:

A big thanks to ScribbleScript for a brilliant increase in quality to a few parts of this chapter, as well as a fresh and different perspective on the relationship between our two favourite musicians.

Comments, I love them, always reply to them, and thank you immensely for them

Also, sorry for my slowness.

-Mavinator5