“Wish we had something to eat,” Babs said as a sort of bland acknowledgement of hunger.
“We just had breakfast.” Apple Bloom looked over at her cousin and giggled.
“Yeah, I know, Cuz. I mean something … else.” Her tone was as vacant as her tummy as she thought about the food of her home that didn’t consist solely of apples. She knew her family here had special occasions where they had something besides the red, tree-grown fruit, but they were rare. Apples were just bland when you ate them for every meal.
Apple Bloom, Babs Seed, and Scootaloo scurried into the hole of the broken piece of lattice of Carousel Boutique after Sweetie Belle. The crossed wooden structure had been damaged by something, an animal presumably, that had chewed its way underneath the floor of the building and the Cutie Mark Crusaders meant to find it. The four fillies barely managed to squeeze through the wound on the usually unblemished structure and they grunted and groaned as the earth below them seemed to press their bodies against the sturdy wood that served as the floor of Rarity’s home and business.
“I hope it’s not something wild like an opossum,” Babs said, pronouncing the silent o in her eastern accent.
“What’s an opossum?” Scootaloo queried, staring towards the caramel-coated filly and getting only a too-personal gander at her slightly heavier backside.
“She means a possum, Scoots. It’s spelled with an o at the beginning but nobody says it that way.” Apple Bloom corrected Scootaloo, feeling the need to support her kinfolk. She turned and looked back to Babs’ freckled face and smiled. “I reckon y’all’s way of saying it is right.”
Babs grinned a little, her confidence was a pane of glass and could shatter, even by accident, if treated incorrectly.
Sweetie called from the front, her little legs working to propel her forward beneath the house. “Whatever it is, it’s probably just lost. We could help it get home.” her voice crescendoed and snapped like a rubber band.
The girls crawled around for a little while, some places were too tight for Babs’ larger frame and others too constricted for any of them. The framing of the house extended below and it formed a kind of labyrinth beneath the house. They decided they could work best if they split up and the group broke into groups of two at a fork to hasten their search. Babs and Apple Bloom went one way and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle went the other.
The Apples crawled for about thirty minutes, finding blocked passages and retracing their steps to try a new venture. It was fun exploring and they felt like adventurers in a forgotten crypt, just like Daring Do. They made up playful names for each other; Manehattan Babs and The Appleoosan. It was fun for a while but they dead-ended again before long and, having searched each available path, decided to find the other two. It didn’t take long because Scootaloo screamed suddenly as they began their departure into the break where Sweetie and Scoots had separated from them.
The scream died off almost immediately as it began and they hurriedly crawled, see where hooves had dug into the dirt before them, easily providing a guide to their friends. The pair made a turn and saw Sweetie Belle making a strange face and Scootaloo sitting on her haunches with a thick spread of rouge embarrassment maring her orange face. This little alcove was in a dip just large enough for them to sit instead of crawl and they rose from their bellies, smeared with dirt, and looked questioningly for a moment. “What happened?” The Appleoosan asked.
Sweetie made a sour face, she almost looked peaked as if her tummy wasn’t feeling well. “Scootaloo found the animal. I think it used to be a rat.” She moved, allowing the newcomers to see the bottom half of the creature, the top cleanly severed and spilling rich pink and purple entrails onto the soil in the small wooden corner. There was very little blood. “Scootaloo ummm … she found it by sitting on it. That’s why she screamed.”
Scoots made a face and looked away, all of her bravado was for nought at this moment.
“Wow… it looks like something ate it. Winona sometimes will eat them, but not often.” Apple Bloom was more rural than any of the others and looked on the creature without disgust but with a little curiosity. She looked to her cousin and shrugged. “Well, whatever was after it trapped it here, I guess. Might as well bury what’s left so it don’t make your house smell, Sweetie.” Seeing none of the others make a movement to dispose of the body, she rolled her eyes and began tearing a hole in the dirt with her hoof. Babs quickly began to help and Sweetie followed her. Scootaloo was the last to join, the raspberry color of shame finally beginning to melt from her features. It took a few minutes but they made a fairly deep hole and Apple Bloom slid the remains into the hole and they covered it and were silent for a moment out of respect for the unfortunate animal.
“Oh yes, darling, that hat does look absolutely fabulous on you!” Rarity’s voice was only slightly muffled and the fillies could easily understand her. They looked at one another and then up towards the floor in unison.
“Wow, the floor is pretty thin, I guess,” Scootaloo commented, tapping it lightly with one hoof.
“There’s a hole in the corner where that rat was!” Babs eagerly pointed out, her hoof leading them to a small opening in the corner just above their heads. She skidded closer to it and pressed her eye against it. She could see Rarity talking to Fluttershy, smiling and turning a large bonnet to sit slightly crooked on the pegasus’ head. She was admiring the yellow pony and making small alterations with her magic.
“Beautiful. I’m sure this will do nicely,” the seamstress remarked to her friend and customer.
“I can see Rarity selling a hat to Fluttershy. Wow. You can see the whole bottom floor from here. It must be in a corner.” Babs looked for a moment longer before Scootaloo pushed her, nudging her out of the way.
“Let me see,” she said and filled the spot Babs had occupied. “Wow, you really can see everything from here. We could play spies! Maybe we could get our cutie marks in spying!”
The sale with Fluttershy was over and Rarity seemed to be chatting to the yellow pegasus. “I’m going to make something special for dinner tonight. Something Sweetie and I have not had for a while and just happened to procure today, so I don’t think I can come over tonight, Fluttershy. I’m sorry. How about tomorrow?”
Sweetie made a discontent noise and wore an expression of guilt. “I don’t think we should spy on Rarity, girls. It’s not nice to spy on people. Don’t you remember when we were Gabby Gums?”
Babs didn’t know what that meant but made a note to ask her cousin about it later.
“It’s not like that at all,” Scootaloo retorted, “we’re not making up stories about people. We’re just playing and it’s not like Rarity is going to care if we see her selling things to ponies. We could do that from inside the store.”
“Rarity doesn’t like when I help her run the store. She says she has to take care of me more than the customers.” Sweetie Belle sighed and the corners of her mouth turned downward.
Apple Bloom moved to the hole and peaked as Scootaloo moved away. “Then you’d have a chance to see what your sister does and not bother her.” The young pegasus smiled, liking the idea of spying. Scoots thought to herself, remembering something she heard about Rarity, something personal and interesting; One of those things that could be true but there was no way of knowing … unless you could catch them at it.
Sweetie looked unsure for a moment but a smile grew across her face and she moved to the hole, pushing the orange pegasus out of the way and pressing her eye to the hole. It was, indeed, in a corner of Carousel Boutique, nestled where the floor and walls met. She could see Rarity and hear her talking about her fabrics to a new pony she didn’t know. She must have been talking about something very important because she seemed to have a lot of information on the fabric and pushed for the customer to understand its value. Sweetie grinned and soaked up the information.
For hours the four fillies took turns at the hole, giggling to each other and routinely checking their flanks for cutie marks. They had forgotten the dead rat and spent the majority of the afternoon peeping at the customers of Sweetie Belle and Rarity’s home.
Scootaloo had grown bored, knowing that the good stuff would be seen after the store closed, when Rarity and Sweetie Belle were alone. She anxiously watched the dim light of the underneath grow darker, until the hole was the only light source,shooting a single beam of revealing brightness onto whoever happened to be looking through it. “We should probably head home, girls. It’s dark under here, it must be evening. I can hardly see to get out of here”
The others looked around, having been engrossed with peering into Carousel Boutique. Sweetie Belle was at the hole again and agreed. “Rarity just turned the sign on the door to closed. It must be seven o’ clock. She’ll be expecting me soon for dinner. Let’s go.”
The fillies crawled from beneath the house and laughed at the dirt on their bellies. They were filthy and would need a bath when they got home. Sweetie ran to the door and swung it open and the others heard an immediate shout of shock and disgust as the door slammed shut. Rarity had seen the brown streaked mess that was her younger sister.
Scootaloo, Babs, and Apple Bloom walked towards their side of town. It was late evening and the street lamps were turning on one by one. The sun had dipped below the distant mountains and the reddish light that painted the sky was slowly turning into the deep violet of night. Apple Bloom idly talked about what they might have for supper, projecting her hopes out into the cool air. Babs was wondering as well, her tummy growling audibly. Scootaloo, however, seemed lost in thought and interrupted Babs. “Did you hear what they say about Rarity?” The tone of her voice was dripping with inquisitive curiosity.
The Apples looked to each other and then to Scootaloo. Apple Bloom spoke for them, “No. What do you mean, Scoots? Who has been saying what about Rarity?”
Scootaloo grinned slightly, pleased to tell them. “Everybody. They say that Rarity is really …” she paused for dramatic effect, “ … a stallion.” She couldn’t help but giggle at the rumor and was glad to hear both Babs and Apple Bloom giggle as well.
“What? That don’t make any sense, Scoots. How could Rarity be a stallion?” Apple Bloom asked, the giggles just exasperating from her heart. “She’s so pretty.”
“Make-up does a lot and they say Rarity uses a lot of it to hide her masculine features.” Scootaloo pictured Rarity piling on make-up, causing a huge cloud of dust to fly around a powdery poof working overtime.
“But what about … ya’know. His … thing?” Babs was breaching the age where fillies noticed colts and felt embarrassed to ask about such sexual items, but it was a valid question.
“Well, HE, hides it with magic.” Scootaloo had hypothesized a lot about the subject, having heard the rumor a few weeks ago. “I wish we knew if it were true or not.”
Apple Bloom was a little too naive and smiled as she answered, “We could ask Sweetie. She’d have to know!”
“I bet she does but she’d never tell. It’s a family secret. I bet Rarity moved here because of it. Think about it. If a stallion suddenly became a mare overnight, wouldn’t the whole town know about it? I bet Rarity left her err… his old town to come here where nobody knew him. That way he could introduce himself as a mare and nobody would know the difference!”
“That’s funny but there’s no way it could be true.” Apple Bloom spoke but she wondered about the truth of her statement. It was possible. The rumor consumed her for a moment.
“Well, I’m going to go back under the boutique after dinner and find out!” Scootaloo exclaimed grinning at her friends, happy to have found a method of verifying the truth. “Do you want to come with me?” She looked to them, wanting their company for companionship as well as comfort; it would be terribly dark when she came back and hiding beneath a building in the pitch blackness didn’t exactly sit well with her.
Babs made an uncertain face and looked to Apple Bloom for decision, blowing her hanging strawberry mane from her right eye. “Up to you, Cuz.”
Apple Bloom grimaced and thought for a moment. “I don’t know. It don’t seem right to spy on them like that.”
“What do you mean?” Scootaloo was a little confused and aggravated by Apple Bloom’s dismissal. “Weren’t we just doing that for like half the day?” her voice held a little more irritation than she meant and Apple Bloom looked back at her with a tinge of anger.
“Yeah? Sweetie was with us then. We’d be spying on her too!” Apple Bloom was curious but she didn’t know if she should be watching Sweetie Belle like that. It was different than seeing how Rarity conducted business, that was, sort of, for Sweetie Belle. This was for their own devious purposes.
“Come on, Apple Bloom. We won’t do anything bad if we find out she’s really a he. I just want to know. There’s nothing wrong with that. Tomorrow we will help Sweetie and Rarity fix that hole if we don’t find anything out so nobody else can watch them. let’s just do this tonight.” Scootaloo was dying to know but would feel a lot less afraid if her friends were with her. She hoped Apple Bloom would concede and agree. She made a slight pout of her lips, anything to help convince her friend.
Apple Bloom sighed and looked to Babs for a moment, searching her cousin’s eyes for an answer. Babs only smiled a little and blew her hair out of her eye again. Apple Bloom uncertainly nodded. “Alright, Scootaloo, but tomorrow we help fix that hole no matter what we see tonight. We’re gonna go eat. We’ll meet you around ten, ok?”
Scootaloo beamed happily and nodded. “Sure. I’m going to go back now, so I’ll be underneath Carousel Boutique when you show back up, ok? Don’t be late.” The young pegasus turned and trotted back towards the house, leaving Apple Bloom and Babs to go have dinner.
“Wish we were having something special tonight …” Babs said.
***
It was nearly 10:30 when the two Apple fillies slithered beneath Carousel Boutique and the night had flooded the space beneath with an inky blackness so rich and viscous that they couldn’t see their hooves in front of their faces.
“I can’t see, Cuz. How are we going to find our way back to the hole in the wall where Scootaloo is?” Babs whispered, the oppressive darkness had her frightened despite being on the outskirts of town with lit roads.
“I think I remember it. Just stay close to me so we don’t get separated, Babs.” Apple Bloom sighed as she crawled on her stomach again, dirtying her belly again and after a long bath. Applejack would be upset. She wished she wouldn’t have told Scootaloo they would return.
“Do you think Rarity is really a stallion?” Babs had a slight wonder in her tone as if she were genuinely interested in the rumor.
“No. I think that is a pretty dumb rumor but we told Scootaloo we would be here, so we’re here.” Apple Bloom could hear Babs crawling behind her and remembered the turns she needed to make, feeling herself along. It took a few minutes but she saw a thin ray of light against the wooden frame. She squinted but didn’t see Scootaloo. “Scoots?” her voice was weak and tight as she strained to hear Scootaloo’s voice. All she heard was the mumblings coming from inside of the house. “Scootaloo? Are you there?” She moved towards the light and felt for Scootaloo. Maybe she had fell asleep?
“Where’s Scootaloo?” Babs whispered from behind.
“I don’t know. Maybe she went home already. Got bored of waiting for something that isn’t going to be true. Rarity a stallion… bleagh.” Apple Bloom sighed and slid to the hole. “We might as well look since we came all this way.” The yellow filly placed her eye to the peephole. Even she was curious about the rumor. She wished Scootaloo were here but she surmised that the pegasus had gotten tired or hungry and went home.
Inside, Sweetie Belle was sitting at a table coloring. Her horn blared a soft light and a crayon doodled lazily. She kicked her legs anxiously and looked up occasionally. The unicorn made a happy face, her nose tilted upward at something. Apple Bloom could smell something as well; something delicious was cooking in the kitchen. She wished she could see into the kitchen but Carousel Boutique only had two rooms on the first floor and the kitchen was the other one. “Come here, Babs. Can you smell that?”
Babs moved over and stuck her nose to the hole. “Oh wow! What is that? Mmm. Rarity was right, I guess. She said she was making something nice for dinner tonight for Sweetie”
Babs and Apple Bloom pressed their heads together so they could each look into the hole. They watched silently.
“Come on, big sister. Stop acting like that. I’m tired of playing this game.” Rarity’s voice called from the other room. It was strange, who was she talking to? There were only two siblings in Sweetie’s family and Sweetie was younger than Rarity.
The Apples watched Sweetie look up from her coloring and smirk vilely. The expression was so unlike anything they had ever seen on her before and they recoiled a little from their hiding place before pressing forward again. Sweetie pushed the paper back and popped her back with sickening snaps. “Fine. I’m kind of tired of it too. We deserve to be ourselves tonight.”
Rarity came back into the room. “Hey! You messed up my drawing. I worked so hard at it!” Her voice was still the same but tinged with the petulant tones of youth. “Sister! Why did you do that?” She slumped and took the drawing from the table with her magic, holding it in front of her and started to cry, her sobs were deep and heavy like a spoiled child.
Sweetie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to hear it. Just draw another one! Shut up, Rarity!”
“But … I worked so hard on it. Why did you do that?” She sniffled and looked hurt. “And don’t call me that name. I hate it.”
“That’s your name while we are here. Now be quiet.” Sweetie sighed. “How do you act like an adult so well when you are such a crybaby?”
Rarity looked up, picking up her destroyed picture and holding it out before her where Babs and Bloom could see it. It was a doodle of two figures on four legs but with wide heads shaped like spades and three small smiles on each head. The colors were all wrong as well, deep green and black.The hidden ponies looked to one another with weird expressions and turned back to the scene before them. Rarity was speaking again. “I have to. You said I had to or you would send me away. I love you, sister. I don’t want to go away.”
“Then be a good girl and stop crying over your stupid drawing.” Sweetie was acting completely different. It was surreal, like a dream ... or a nightmare.
“Ooooooh!” Rarity dropped her head and started crying again.
Sweetie growled and looked to the sky in question, as if being punished before looking down at the defeated unicorn. “What now?” her voice was agitated.
“You said it was stupid …” she whined in such a nauseating tone that Sweetie grimaced as if in pain.
“You’ll never be a big girl like me, Rarity. Not if you keep acting like that.” Sweetie scolded the unicorn.
Rarity wiped her eyes with her hooves and fought her way to her hooves, her sadness slowly being conquered. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“The food should be cooked, right?” Sweetie eagerly changed topics, looking disdainfully down at her sister.
“Yeah. I’ll go get it. I am hungry. We don’t get to eat good food very often.” Rarity turned dejectedly and walked out of sight, a door opened and closed and more wonderful scent hit the hiding ponies.
Babs looked worriedly to her cousin, thin lines of worry creased her face and she covered the hole with her hoof to block the sound of her voice. “What is happening? Why are they acting so weird?”
Apple Bloom wore a semi-frightened expression and shook her head. “I don’t know. Should we keep watching?”
“I … I think so. This is too weird. Maybe Scootaloo saw this and went home. I think that Rarity being a guy would be a good thing at this point.” Babs unplugged the hole and the pair peered through once more.
Rarity was back in the room and sitting next to Sweetie at the table. They were eating something but the ponies couldn’t see what. Rarity was busily stuffing her face in the most unlady-like fashion. They knew something was wrong just by her actions. She made loud sloppy noises and weird crunching sounds between moans of delight. “Mmm! Sister! This is so good. How long has it been since we ate something so … so yummy?”
Sweetie was eating more slowly, actually chewing her food. She would spear something reddish and dripping with a fork, tearing off chunks with her teeth until the fork was empty. She made gingerly smiling faces broken up by disdainful glances to Rarity. “Will you just slow down? You’re going to get a stomach ache eating like that! We don’t get this too often. We were going to make do with whatever that thing was I caught in the trap until we lucked into this one.”
Trap? Apple Bloom and Babs exchanged furtive, fearful glances to one another, each one thinking the same thing; plants don’t get caught in traps.
“Sorry, sister …” Rarity sounded sadly, as if she were used to such chidings. “It’s just so good,” she continued, “It’s so much better than that rat I caught yesterday.”
Sweetie swept her eyes to the larger unicorn, menacing her. “What?”
Rarity’s back was to them so they couldn’t see her frightened expression. “The rat I ate.” Her words were innocent, scared, and tingly. “It wasn’t the whole thing. I caught it going through that hole. You know, the one where Scootaloo was watching from?”
Babs and Apple Bloom recoiled from the hole, vanishing into the darkness, their hooves over their mouths. Rarity ATE that animal? And they caught Scootaloo watching them. Where was Scootaloo?
Sweetie snarled. “That’s sick, Rarity. Eating vermin is not right!”
Rarity started to cry again, her voice breaking with deep sobs as she was reprimanded. “But I was so hungry, Sweetie!”
“Did you break the lattice to get beneath the house too? No rat could have done that,”Sweetie demanded angrily.
Rarity only cried harder and lay her head down onto the table, her long flowing, purple mane shuddering and slowly soaking the reddish color from the food it lay in. She didn’t need to answer, Sweetie already knew the answer and began berating the bigger unicorn. After a few moments, she seemed to calm down and looked up at the ceiling as if questioning her penance again. Rarity continued to cry and sobbed violently, she must have spilled her plate as much of her white coat began to stream with red rivulets.
It took a few moments, but Sweetie began to say soft, soothing words to her sister. “It’s okay. Calm down, Rarity. Be a big girl. Anyway, your scrounging helped us get this dinner. So I should really be thanking you, I suppose.” Her eyes said different but Rarity popped her head back up from the table.
“Really, Sweetie?”
“Yes, really.” Sweetie’s eyes rolled and then flickered up and down the unicorn’s front with a look of disgust. “Please go wipe your face. You eat so messily.”
Rarity moved from her chair, turning and showing the hiding fillies her front. What should have been a light gray coat was now a very brilliant crimson, pink, and spotted with small lumps of black clinging to her fur. She looked as if she has been sliding in cranberry juice that hadn’t been strained. Her eyes seemed void-like from her tears, as if the moisture had cleaned away the white and left shiny orbs of ebony centered with tiny crystalline specks. She looked unnatural and alien to the hiding ponies. As she moved from the table, they saw their meal; the headless, golden-baked body of a filly. It lay on it’s stomach with the four legs drawn to each side and tied in place. The fur was all gone but a pair of slender wings poked from just behind the shoulder blades. The skin was slathered in butter and crispy, flecking loose in a few places to reveal a rich layer of reddish meat. In the side facing the hidden Apple cousins, a large section of flesh had been carved away revealing the tender, running organs inside the filly’s body. Deep purples, pinks, and many other colors hid within the opening and they realized the smell they had been loving was that of their friend, Scootaloo.
“Just take it off, Rarity. We’ll clean it after we eat!” Sweetie barked at her sister, apparently annoyed at the mess Rarity had made.
Rarity nodded, moving back towards the table, a pair of long needle-like talons suddenly tearing through her belly, her blood-stained coat coming undone up the middle like a suit. The flesh fell to each side of her body and the face, head, and mane suddenly came loose as well revealing a strange, shriveled black form with large insectile eyes dotted with blue pupils. A line of gaping maws lined down Rarity’s neck to her chest, or what would have been a neck. This was, instead, one single mass that connected the dome-like head that displayed a single white bone where the horn of the unicorn should be. The body shimmered like stars in the night sky, but these specks jerked in the black flesh that looked similar charred tree-bark. They shimmered and hovered in different directions, and the triple maws snapped open and closed viciously, as if stretching for the first time in a long while. She spoke, the voice like marbles caught in a raven’s craw. “Thank you, Sweetie. I hate that ugly pony flesh. I wish we could have used that purple pony’s body instead.”
Babs shrieked, her excited cry shrill and bright. Apple Bloom covered her cousin’s mouth and drew her attention. “Quiet! I know! I know, Babs. Calm down. We have to play this right or they’ll know!” Apple Bloom calmed her cousin down, her body electrified as well. The sight they had just witnessed was like a terrible dark gift. Babs calmed and nodded. The pair turned back to the hole.
Rarity’s spitting mouths trembled a few inches away, hissing angrily and making a sound like electrified chains rattling. One of her needle legs struck at the hole, barely missing the two ponies and sticking deeply into the wood behind and between the fillies.
Babs and Apple Bloom were stunned into silence, turning quickly and kicking to escape before another piercing strike could find them.
“Babs! We have to play this right! We can’t let them know! Don’t mess …” Apple Bloom stopped in her speech and stared at the magical blue light emanating from Sweetie’s horn just a few feet before them, blocking their path under the floor of Carousel Boutique. She looked unhappy, though still pony-like.
“I knew Scootaloo was a complete idiot, Apple Bloom, but I thought a little more highly of you.” Her features seemed to shiver, her skin twitching all across her body, the same rattling exuding from her, though slightly muffled. Her features were stern, serious, and angry as she stared them down, her normally ocean-green eyes fading to black, dancing with a brilliant blue that seemed to emit from within Sweetie’s head. “Come with me, girls. Don’t try to run. It will be so much worse if you run.”
***
Apple Bloom and Babs Seed cowered together in a corner of Carousel Boutique, bodies roped together tightly, their eyes fixed on the scene before them. They watched as Rarity and Sweetie tore triple mouthfuls of meat from their beloved friend’s carcass and devoured them, spilling streams of blood from the pink, undercooked, flesh across their coats. Even Sweetie seemed to forget her manners now, her eyes driving into their souls as she snapped one of Scootaloo’s vertebrae in her highest mouth. Very little remained of their friend now, just a small pile of organs and a few bones sticking with meat.
The thing that was Rarity kept looking back and forth from the table to the bound ponies as if it were some sort of game, hopping playfully in her chair. The teeth of her mouths clattered together when they weren’t full of Scootaloo’s ropey intestines. “Sister! I like squeezing the stuff from inside of these long guts. It’s so sweet and tasty, just like candy! Can I see what it tastes like from the brown one while she’s still alive?”
Babs squirmed and beads of sweat seemed to break from her forehead, her pupils becoming pinholes in a sea of white.
Sweetie still hadn’t shed her pony flesh but the rippling of flesh was constant. For a brief instant, she stopped inducing panic upon the captured cousins and grimaced at the creature beside her. “That’s shit, Rarity. You are squeezing her shit out of her intestines and into your mouth,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Oh …,” Rarity said from her top maw and focused her alien eyes on her lowest, which was busy sucking another mass down the shiny pink tube hanging from what used to be Scootaloo. It paused momentarily and then made the last few inches in a sudden slurp. “It’s good. I don’t care. I want to try it from a living pony!”
“Just shut up,” Sweetie said and hopped from the table, coming to stand a few feet from the Apple cousins. “Girls. We are friends, you know. It’s not like I wanted to eat Scootaloo but she saw Rarity eating … whatever than animal was my traps caught in the forest. We heard her scream … much like you, Babs. That’s how we found out she was spying on us.” Her tone was stern but friendly. It was as if she were regaling a fact of life instead of delivering a eulogy. “Sure, we have ate a few ponies and will eat a few more, but we didn’t really want to eat her.”
“I did!” Rarity exclaimed from one mouth, jutting a talon into the air triumphantly while sucking down the last of Scootaloo’s organs like a long noodle of spaghetti.
Sweetie rolled her eyes, looking back to the frightened Apples. “She didn’t feel any pain, girls. I promise. My fangs are too sharp for that. She just stared quietly for a moment and then slipped away. She was my “friend”, I owed her that much. She was stupid and too curious for her own good. I would never have done it had she not discovered us. You have to believe me.” She seemed as if she may have been asking for forgiveness, somewhat affected by what she had done to one she genuinely cared about.
Apple Bloom shivered and forced her eyes open to look at the mockery of friendship before her. “Scootaloo didn’t deserve this. She was just a little pony. Nobody would have believed her.”
“But she would have known and we couldn’t take that chance. Someday, someone may have believed her. Listen, Apple Bloom. I can’t make any deals with you or Babs. I won’t lie; you’re not going to get away. We’re going to eat you just like we ate Scoots.” Sweetie smiled sweetly, her throat bulging as the flesh became thin and flat from the two maws smiling from within her skin, each showing pointy teeth eagerly awaiting pony meat. “I promise you won’t feel a thing, girls. I won’t hurt you. You’re going to fill our bellies and help us grow, just like the apples on your farm, Apple Bloom. It’s nature, survival of the fittest, and ponies like you are just sacks of delicious meat.”
Babs shoved her face into Apple Bloom, sobbing into her beloved cousin and letting fear take her over. Apple Bloom spilled tears as well and nuzzle dher cheek against Babs’. “Sweetie. We loved you. We wouldn’t have … we wouldn’t have cared. You were our friend.”
Sweetie chuckled to herself and looked to her sister coming to join her, maws snapping and drooling, stained pink with pony blood. She grinned and looked upon the fillies with a smirk. “Friend? Let me drop the act for you, since you won’t be alive much longer. I have never been your friend. I’m small, I only fit in as a filly. This has always been just an act. You were all my cover and I would never have eaten you as long as you provided my camouflage. Now, however, you are no different than any of the others. I can finally be myself. Now, drop the act and get ready to die, “friends”.”
Sweetie’s small body nearly tore apart as the being within ripped through the facade, deadly, snapping maws clacking together as each step of her sticky black feet brought her closer to the live, kicking meal before her.
Apple Bloom looked to Babs, her head coming back up to face the pair of beasts before them. They exchanged smirks and Apple Bloom spoke, “Yes, let’s drop the act, Babs.”
***
Babs began slipping the pony-suit back around the frame of her scaled body, the insulation layer really added warmth to her cold-blooded form. Her spines tingled in ecstasy from the incredible heat of Sweetie and Rarity’s dark green blood. For the first time in a long time she felt full and warm. She looked with three pairs of multicolored eyes to her cousin.
Apple Bloom swallowed the last chunk of the chitinous exoskeleton that belonged to Sweetie Belle. Her dazzling eyes focused onto Babs and her vertical, head-splitting mouth quivered in titillation as her stomach swelled from the meal. Her long, crimson scaled body slithered into her shed pony-suit. Before she slid the whole thing on, the vice-like mouth twisted at each corner, forehead and chin, in what was a grin to their race. “Still hungry, Babs?” Apple Bloom’s voice was still the bright, happy pitch and tone of her pony facade.
Babs’ scales shimmered with slickness from the gory feeding and she returned the sideways smile and answered, “Nope. It’s been a long time since we had something like that. Back home in the hive, it’s not such a rare thing.”
“Yeah. Out here it’s really only for a special occasion. Today was something special.”
