A Bedtime Story

[12:45 AM] Solana: Tell me a story?
[12:47 AM] Jachra: Hmm
Once, long ago, a young mare was woken in the night. A stallion stood on her balcony, and and his hoof rapped against the glass.
Solana listens
[12:49 AM] Jachra: Terrified, she stood up from her cushions and bid him to depart. No strange pegasus had ever come to her balcony before few would be so rude. The young stallion said that he would go, but that he would be back again the next night. She asked him not to do any such things, but he had already spread his wings and gone.
[12:50 AM] Jachra: The following morning, she found that the cows hadn't given as much milk, and they complained of feeling tired. She told her mother about the visitor, and that very evening locked shutters were added to her balcony doors. They said the visitor was accursed, and that she must not let him in.
[12:53 AM] Jachra: On the second night, the visitor came again. Again he rapped on the glass of her window, and this time, when she woke, the mare said nothing. She waited for a while, but, though she could not see him, she knew he was out there. Carefully, she crept to the window and peered out through a lowered slat, seeing the young stallion there, waiting patiently. As their eyes met, he asked if they might talk a while, but she begged him to leave and so he did, promising to be back the next night.
[12:54 AM] Jachra: On the second morning, the neighbors complained, saying that their livestock had been bitten and made pale, and the girl's heart was filled with fear. She dared not say what she knew of the visitor, that he visited her of the evenings, lest they think she brought him upon them - and more secretly still, feared that it might be so.
[12:56 AM] Jachra: On the third night, the mare got no sleep at all. She waited by the balcony, and sure enough, the stallion came again. She asked why he was haunting her - why her, of all the people in her village, she of no special beauty or intellect and he said he had no interest in her body and little enough in her knowledge. Instead, he said that he had seen her at the market, in guiding foals across the stream when it ran deep, and in the long, quiet moments she took to herself. He wanted to know what she was thinking.
[12:58 AM] Jachra: After a moment's hesitation, the young mare admitted that she was lonely, but felt no great motivation to get out and meet new people. She had her books and her own little world, enough that she was rarely bored, but she spent so long dwelling, making herself sickly with the constant worry.
[1:00 AM] Jachra: Realizing how much she'd said, the mare then begged the stallion to excuse himself, to not prey on her people, and he promised her he would not, so long as she told him stories. He did not say it with cruelty, or as an ultimatum - it was more as though it sated him as much sa the blood ever had.
Solana yawns and nestles
[1:02 AM] Jachra: Eventually, the sun began to rise, and the stallion left, leaving the mare tired but elated. Sure enough, the following morning, no disease was reported on the cows and their milk became less sour. A warning stood on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't find the word and left it be - afraid her mother might bar her balcony or remove it entirely
[1:03 AM] Jachra: For severn nights, the girl talked to the stallion, telling him every little thing she could think of in the hopes that he wouldn't harm those she knew or the ones they had charge of. When she finished, he would thank her and leave.
[1:04 AM] Jachra: On the eighth day, she was very tired, and her head ached fiercely, and she asked the stallion if there was aught _he_ would like to talk about. Intrigued, he told her of his youth, of growing up in this self-same village when the steam was more of a river, and how the others of his village shunned him for his wings
[1:10 AM] Solana: What was wrong with his wings?
Solana noses
[1:14 AM] Jachra: Daring to look, she saw that indeed his wings were most unusual, a trait she'd missed in her panicked state. Instead of feathers, they were a lovely velvety purple, the color of time, of the night sky
[1:15 AM] Jachra: She said she didn't see what was wrong with them, and he was upset, asking if she was just humoring him because she was afraid.
[1:15 AM] Jachra: And she asked him to return tomorrow, and she will tell him a story and he can tell her one, and he can judge how she feels then.
[1:16 AM] Jachra: Agreeing, the stallion left, and again for a week they shared stories. She found herself intrigued to hear about his life and his adventures beyond the village, about how the thirst for blood drove him away from others only to be inexorably drawn back, and he seemed to relish every little detail of her life, or the stories she read him from her books.
[1:18 AM] Jachra: At the end of this time, when he came again, she opened the door and shutters of her balcony, looking at him with new eyes, the eyes of a mare whe likes a stallion, and invites him into her room. Part of her is afraid, sure that this is what he's been waiting for all along, that he will pounce on her and devour her family, but he seems reticent, uncertain, and asks that he should leave, which she grants.
[1:18 AM] Jachra: Upset, her mother asks her what is wrong, but she says little, mumbling into her morning milk.
[1:20 AM] Jachra: For a week, the stallion doesn't come, and she's afraid that she was the one who broke the spell, that he'd left to another village far away. She stayed up on the balcony, watching restlessly, until her own feathers began to drift away, her eyes shining in the dark.
[1:21 AM] Jachra: On the eighth day, when she stood waiting on the balcony, the stallion came, alighting beside her. He admitted that he had been certain that she was making fun of him, that no one would ever be interested in him in such a way, and she placed a hoof to his side and kissed him - gently, just a brush. He flinched at first, but came back, kissing her in turn, until they were both flush.
[1:23 AM] Jachra: They did nothing more, merely talked quietly for a time, enjoying the night, and after he left, the mare slept through breakfast and lunch, and upon awakening found herself hungry, but no food would sate. A mare she knew cut her hock, and she licked up the blood eagerly, frightening the mare, who ran to tell her parents.
[1:24 AM] Jachra: That night, the mare welcomed the stallion into her room, and they kissed again, and held one another, telling stories all night long. Over the course of the week, her feathers molted away, and the suspicious glances came thick and fast, the angry rumblings, wondering if the creature had been among them all along
[1:24 AM] Jachra: By the eighth night, she had none left, and when she welcomed the stallion into her room, they came to know one another as mares and stallions do.
[1:26 AM] Jachra: When the sun rose, she slept through it once again, and did not hear the boards being pounded over her windows. Frightened, she found her family fled, a note left, saying that it was all they could do to keep the village from burning her out. Terrified, she pounded at the windows, but she hadn't eaten and had no more strength.
[1:27 AM] Jachra: When night fell, the villagers were waiting, with torches and pitchforks, and the stallion dare not alight on her balcony. Furious, he landed on the roof, and promised them that should anything befall the mare he loved, if they did not release her, then every night hence he would take one of them, until none would remember the village but the rats in the walls, and they speak to no one.

Hearing him, the mare woke from her fitful rest, and asked him to relent, her voice pleading.
[1:28 AM] Jachra: Her mother, so torn by her plea, raced forward and ripped the boards apart with her bare hooves.
[1:28 AM] Jachra: When her daughter emerged, she spread her wings, as pale as milk, and rose to meet her lover in the sky. They twirled there, for a time, he sharing his strength with hers, and she sharing her love.
[1:29 AM] Jachra: When the sun rose, they were both gone.
[1:30 AM] Jachra: And never again did any in the village see them - but some years later, a filly and a colt came by the house of the mare who had left, and were seen there from time to time. They were accounted eerie and strange, but little note was taken, even when a cow or a young stallion was found pale and tired the next day.
[1:31 AM] Jachra: In the house they built, far from there, the stallion and mare lived happily, wandering far and wide to seek new tales to tale one another, and their house became legend for its books as much as its dark, quiet splendor. A visitor could come during the daylight hours and borrow them, if they were quiet and respectful and returned them in due course.
[1:32 AM] Jachra: And if they were brave enough, they might stay and be hosted for dinner to be regaled by the mysterious prince and princess of the night - in exchange for a drop or two of blood.
Solana 's eyelids droop
[1:32 AM] Solana: and they had many colts and fillies, and the house was a live at all hours of the evening.
[1:32 AM] Jachra: They did indeed~