Click. The chat window scrolled down another line.
SomeAwePone: going 2 ur meetup thrs?
It wasn’t actually a click anymore, not since Ron had made the switch to a silent keyboard last month. He slid his fingers over the smooth silver keys, already missing the resistance and size of the old-style Enter.
A reply faded into view.
Flutterzord: cant, rl issues
“You gotta be kidding me,” Ron muttered as he typed.
SomeAwePone: u have a life?
Ashton was going through some shit, Ron knew, but hadn’t opened up about it yet. Three weeks into the semester and he’d gone quiet. His parents had named him after Ashton Kutcher. Not because of That 70’s Show, but for his performance in The Butterfly Effect. Ash’s mistake was that he talked too much. At least he used to. You don’t tell people about your name. Dudes started calling him Butterfly, and once they learned he was a fan of My Little Pony, and of Fluttershy especially, it was Flutterboy. Behind his back it was much worse.
The chat window scrolled again.
Flutterzord: shut up dick
Flutterzord is offline.
“Come on, ragequit over that? Really?” Ron shouted, pushing back from his desk. He waited a few minutes for Ashton to join again.
Ron rubbed his eyes. I shouldn’t have said that. Some people wouldn’t hurt a fly. Ashton doesn’t understand why anyone would want to. The world could use a few more Flutterzords.
“Sorry man,” Ron spoke to the aborted chat. “I hope you figure it out.”
He could see Rainbow Dash in his mind’s eye. Who am I questions.
He picked up his Nightmare Moon plushie, squeezing the belly to find the Princess Luna figurine he’d sewn inside. Dragon Quest is a good one. Maybe someone posted it within the past few hours. He went through the usual combinations of search words, sifting through an endless list of PMVs, songs and blind commentaries.
No luck. He looked up from his screen, trying to focus outside, past the reflections in his darkened window. Someone was robot-walking down the sidewalk, trying not to slip on the frozen puddles that filled the holes in the concrete. Their breath puffed on and off, flashing in the streetlights. It had been three weeks since his own parents had driven off, waving and telling him how proud they were. He resolved to catch up with Ashton in a few days.
There were things he had to take care of himself. He leaned back in his chair, starting to think about what he was going to say at his appointment tomorrow. What to say, and more importantly, how to say it. He talked to them a lot about ponies. Ponies made sense. The staff took notes, asked questions, and didn’t judge. He’d even brought up Nightmare last Friday. There were all kinds of questions about her.
Why is she special? She has fangs and kicks flank with lightning. What are her powers? Pretty much anything she wants. What happens to her? Gets beat down by a lame-ass rainbow. As if. Why is she your favorite? Because she deserves to win.
Answering those questions had felt good, but he’d cut the meeting short. He’d gotten an idea for a drawing of Nightmare crushing Celestia’s skull, with her crown broken and her brains leaking out and infested with worms. Afterwards he’d surfed the web until he forgot about it.
He pinched the hard little bulk of the devoured Luna. The counselors had been acting funny the past few appointments. They had been ending their conversations with phrases Ron couldn’t wrap his head around. Some of it still seemed like advice. Talk of calling numbers if he needed to, of keeping the right contact information with him all the time. They were still speaking English, but not in a way that let him remember exactly what they said.
He grabbed the dog-eared slip of paper he’d left next to his monitor.
Call anytime
Campus Behavioral Medicine and Counseling
x895
Whose number had they said this was? Front desk maybe?
Ron put the note down, and fell backwards out of his chair. Nightmare Moon was watching him from the window.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he stammered as he pulled himself up. She was still there, staring at him with her insane green eyes. She grinned, displaying her fangs and jagged teeth, perfect white against the blackness of her throat. Her form dissolved into purple mist, which began to flow in through the cracks in the window frame.
Ron jumped to the door and ran, not lingering to take his sneakers and coat.
She’s real. She came to me. Is she real? Did I really just see that?
The dorm was empty. It was after eight on a Saturday – just about everyone was getting lit at their favorite bar or club. Ron charged unnoticed down the hall and through the glass double doors into the night.
He ran, his socked feet pounding the flat frosty leaves. This is the best fucking dream I’ve ever had. Nightmare Moon herself is on my ass. I should let her catch me, then give her a Flash Kick to the dome piece. She’ll want to join forces after feeling my power.
The outdoor security lights of the dorms were fading behind trees and signs in the moonlit darkness. He needed a place to confront her, to have her all to himself. The eastern border of the campus green space was just ahead, offering plenty of cover. He veered from the tracked-down path into an artificial wood of maples and oaks. He knew of a clearing nearby, still close enough to the path for an escape if the battle went south.
The black limbs of bare saplings whispered and clattered in a steady north wind. Any of them could have been the reaching hooves of the dark mare. Ron clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. “W-why the f-fuck is it so c-c-cold?” Brittle briar twigs caught on his jeans and snapped as he jogged deeper into the forest.
Just as he remembered, it was only a short way to the bare patch he liked to come to for pony time. Unlike Ashton, he knew people wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t get that the Luna toy was a variable, only there to keep tabs on what he was imagining. He broke through and stopped, coughing on the thin air, dry and cold. The frost-coated grass glistened, the tiny reflections wheeling as he searched for hoofprints.
Every last blade was rigid, unbroken. He checked the night sky behind him.
Nothing. Nothing but stars.
So that’s it? Well that was anti-climactic. Too many of his dreams ended this way. He’d be edging along the parapets of Canterlot, trying to sneak into Celestia’s bedchamber to assassinate her, only to find himself in his room back home when he climbed over the windowsill, the dresser and curtains exactly like they were when he was a kid. Or he would be running over the hot summer hills of Sweet Apple Acres, never finding the barn, never seeing anything but apple trees …
He scanned the sky again. The wind had changed. The long sigh had gained a rhythmic surge, a heartbeat. It thumped through the stripped trees and above them, as if the forest had come to some kind of dark winter life.
A sharp gust of air caused him to turn, only to see Nightmare Moon diving at him from the sky. He slid to the ground, just avoiding being snatched between two sparkling metal boots.
The creature circled above the clearing and descended, landing without a sound. She stood watching him, her spiral horn almost level with the treetops.
Ron hugged himself, hoping it would look like he had just crossed his arms. “Goddammit it’s freezing! You really had to pick tonight for a chitchat? Couldn’t have waited a few more weeks? Afraid to get your royal hooves a little muddy?”
Nightmare Moon folded her wings, beckoning to him with a long, ironclad foreleg. “What’s the matter? Is the chill bothering you? Come closer, and I promise you won’t have to bear it for long.” She waved him forward, her shifting silhouette backlit by the moon.
Ron snorted. “You’re a cartoon. Electrons pushed around by computer code. You’re not real!”
She lowered her head and advanced a step, her glowing green eyes never leaving his. “Am I not? Think, mortal. Search your filthy soul.”
Ron looked down and considered her words. How she had been designed by a genius animator. How more money than he’d made in his life had exchanged hands creating her. How she was loved by thousands, maybe tens of thousands in the way villains are, a household name for every family in the U.S. and more than a few in the rest of the world. How all of the artists who drew her and rendered her vectors, the musicians who heralded every moment of her existence, the fanfic writers spinning out hundreds of stories, spending countless hours fantasizing about Luna’s fall from grace, all were devoted to her as to a queen.
Ron glanced back at his idol, unable to meet her gaze. How many people know my name?
The dark mare’s grin spread as she began again to slink forward. “You see? Yes, I think you do. You believe.”
Ron backstepped. “But, I, we created you. We …”
Nightmare Moon’s commanding voice silenced him. “I am more real than you are.”
“No! Twilight Sparkle defeated you, broke the Nightmare spell and changed you back to Princess Luna,” Ron stammered. His foot bent sideways on a downed tree branch, stopping his retreat.
“Twilight Sparkle? Yes, I remember her, the purple whelp. I remember forcing her to watch me eat her beloved Princess and friends alive before I ate her. I remember Luna screaming at me louder and louder from where I keep her inside, pleading as our shared tongue lapped Celestia’s blood. I’m afraid she didn’t care for the flavor.”
Ron regained his balance, shouting to keep from being interrupted. “That’s … that’s not true. You’re a liar. You don’t even know your own story.”
“I made them all suffer. I tore them apart, very very slowly. And I broke Luna. I stared into Celestia’s dead eyes for hours after we had emptied her belly together, savoring the feast of pain and flesh, and the pathetic little shadow broke.” She paused and closed her eyes, as if listening to an unheard voice.
“Bullshit!” Ron shouted, “You know what? I’m gonna smack that flank and you’re gonna like it. Then I’m gonna wake up, get my shit together and get on with my day.” He strutted forward, determined to take control. The cold metal of her armor pulled the warmth from his skin as he passed, billowing vapor and crackling in the dim silver light. He couldn’t stop shivering.
Still Ron advanced on his Nightmare. The delicate wisps and curls of her mane folded around them like a vault. She eyed him without turning her head, smirking as he approached her towering hindquarters.
Ron ignored her, studying the rippling muscles of her shoulders and spiky tucked wings. Wait till I tell Ashton about this. He’s gonna be one jelly bastard. He rubbed his hands together, anticipating the slap her rump would make when he laid one across her purple blur of a cutie mark.
Too late he realized his mistake. He’d given her a wide berth, just in case she decided to jump at him, and he’d gotten too close to her mane. A tendril of the violet fog lashed against his face, creeping into his mouth as he inhaled.
He gripped his throat and choked, trying to cough out what felt like a shard of ice that had exploded into a million burning slivers in his lungs. Nightmare Moon laughed and reared, canceling out the moonlight.
Ron darted away, dragging in ragged breaths. Before he could stumble more than a few yards he heard a quick crunch of leaves behind him. Not a moment later something sharp raked his shoulder. He fell forward, driven down by an enormous dark mass.
He rolled over, kicking clumps of frozen leaves and dirt as he scrambled to escape his beloved monster. His eyes traced two lumps sliding down her throat. Down from her broad, vicious jaws, down the long neck, finally squeezing behind the dull gray chest plate. Then he felt the pain, raw and real below his shoulder blade.
“Blood,” she moaned in a low, thick voice. “Your blood, wretch. I am going to drink all of it.”
Ron reached across his chest and found the wound. Its edges were already numb, frostbitten and sloughing off in hard black flakes. He pushed himself up, backing away from the giant mare.
She was wiping her lips with an oily wing tip. Her serpentine neck curved low to the ground, her shoulders bunched and ready for the pounce. “Run little morsel,” she hissed.
“Fuck this,” Ron muttered. He jumped to the left and bolted to the trees, keeping his enemy in sight. He saw her dissolve into the burning mist of her mane as he jumped through the outlying branches.
The saplings whipped his face and chest, punishing him for his choice to flee. He was already winded. The winter had been long, and he’d never worked off his holiday gut. He windmilled his arm, trying to bring feeling back to his shoulder. New Year’s resolution, less screen time.
Something caught his ankle and tore it backwards. He fell face-first back to the ground.
For a moment it was like he was staring into the sun. His foot wouldn’t move, and it burned like he’d stepped into a pool of lava. He screamed into the stones and dirt of the dark forest floor.
Nightmare Moon re-emerged from the mist, her jaws crunching on something tough and elastic. She rolled Ron over with a flick of her hoof, chuckling and bringing her face to his while she ate.
Ron covered his nose and mouth to shield himself from her dripping slobber, still crying, trying to work his foot. He saw now what had happened.
She was chewing on a tendon, long and stringy, slick with blood and saliva. A knot of muscle dangled from the end.
“I give up! I give up! I’m sorry, I give up! I wanna wake up now.”
Nightmare Moon laughed long and hard. She pressed the heavy joints of her forelegs down on either side of his abdomen and laid down, preparing a clean surface for her meal.
“Bad ponies eat meat, Luna,” she whispered under her breath.
Raking her fangs across Ron’s skin, she started sawing through the fat and muscle below his ribs. He could feel the tiny tickling hairs around her mouth and nose. She cut up and around, drooling freely into the sagging cut.
He shrieked, pounding her shoulder and kicking his legs. “Wake up wake up wake up!”
Nightmare Moon paused, licking the tips of her teeth. Her horn began to glow a lifeless purple. “Fire consumes, ice entombs, deep within the darkness looms. Say it, morsel. For as long as you say it, you will feel no pain. Is this not your fondest wish? Say it, and soon you will be where you belong.” She ducked her head and began to lick the blood gushing from his side, purring and rasping as she swallowed.
Ron stopped kicking and whined, “Fire, fire consumes, ice entombs …stop! Stop!” He could feel his stomach getting lighter. She was pulling something out of the hole she’d made.
“Help! Help me! She’s eating me!” he screamed at the chattering wood.
Off beyond the wall of swaying trees came a voice. “What the fuck?”
Ron’s eyes shot open. Someone was out there, walking less than a hundred yards away. He pushed against the ground and arched his back, craning his neck to shout in their direction. “Help! This is for real!” Nightmare Moon leaned forward, using her weight to pin him back down. She reached over and pressed an icy, dirt-encrusted hoof over his mouth.
There was silence, then a fit of giggling. “Chill dude! She’s eating you?”
Then someone else, “Yeah, just go with it. You’ll get a happy ending, don’t worry.”
Nightmare Moon glanced away toward the voices, then back at Ron, shaking her head. She opened her mouth wide, wide enough for Ron to see the perfect void that was swallowing him. The fangs and teeth closed around his chest like a bear trap.
“Fire … fire … fire …” he sobbed. He saw the muscles in her jaws tighten. She was forcing her teeth between his ribs. Little by little they slid inward.
Her neon green eye took in his taut face as he turned it side to side, then rolled to his trembling, arching chest held firm in her jagged prison, like a mother would watch her child.
Ron whispered up at the sky “Fire consumes, ice entombs, deep within the darkness looms. Fire consumes, ice …”
The words caught in his throat. Her acrid equine musk burned his nose and throat. It was all over him, hanging in the air around them. She was everywhere, and everything. Even the pain had vanished, just as she had promised.
The pressure in his chest relaxed. She was looking up, smiling, her red-streaked drool oozing into his open abdomen.
“Please,” Ron said, meeting her gaze at last in earnest desperation.
She blew the hair out of his face, her frigid breath numbing his forehead and cheek. His tears froze, blinding him.
“More is it? Hush little morsel, don’t you cry,” she laughed. “Your life won’t end here, but then again, neither will your death.” Then the dark mare stood, her mad reptilian gaze searching the full moon. Her mouth cracked a tortured smile. Slowly she reared, lifting Ron’s broken frame between her crushing hooves, high into the light, turning her glare full in his face.
“No,” Ron whispered. All he could see was her hatred.
With a grunt she pulled him downward and buried her muzzle deep inside. Ron’s scream rang out over the trees, dying to a gasp as his breath ran thin. His body lurched and turned in her grip, her greedy jaws snapping, opening, closing, driving upward. Parts of his insides froze and broke off, shattering on the ground far below.
She guided him downward, her muzzle burrowing up into his chest as he slipped. The tip of her black horn began to jut against his chin. He clutched it in his shaking hands, pushing back in vain within her overpowering embrace.
Dark shapes blotted out his vision. Bitter cold was the only thing he could feel. No pain, no fear, no hope. Not fair, not … fair …
He turned his face up toward the moon, more not to lose the light than to avoid the sharp pinprick growing above his throat. The hard spirals ground against his jawbone, penetrating his tongue, driving all the way through and into the soft palate at the back of his mouth.
Blood sputtered from between his clamped lips. He could no longer beg. He could no longer scream. His loose fists fell against her adamantine helmet. She had eaten everything away, so that at last her icy nostrils pressed against his heart.
He had defied her, and she had stung him. He had run, and she had caught him. He had fought, and she had overwhelmed him.
I am going to die.
Her lips began to squirm against the slick, pulsing muscle. Ron hung listless in her iron grip, his arms and legs limp and blacked over with frost.
I am going to die.
He could feel her laughter, deep, shuddering inside him. She deserved his blood. Her teeth had torn through, and now his heart pumped it all into her sucking mouth.
The darkness swallowed him.
***
A light clicked on over a white resin headrest in the university hospital's Emergency Care suite. Calloused hands adjusted the catheter bandaged to the arm of a murmuring patient. A nurse attendant entered the room, her clipboard and doctor’s notes cradled in her elbow.
“Third shift for you again, Nurse Olivier?” she asked.
“That’s right. ER drama is my life. So what’s the deal with this one?”
Pages fluttered. “Uhh, severe frostbite, hypothermia, and … sprained ankle. They found him like this a few hundred yards from his dorm.”
“Just, found him?”
“Yeah. He was on the ground, muttering to himself, they said. They guessed he had about thirty minutes before he, uh, passed. He’s going to lose most of his fingers. Poor guy.”
Nurse Olivier sighed. “Well what in God’s name was he doing out there? Drunk as a fish I bet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – those frats take perfectly healthy boys and make winos out of them.” She opened the storage cabinet below the nightstand and pulled out a box of tissues.
“Winos? Like alcoholics? Uhh, no, his BAC was below test limits. He, uh, it does say he visited Campus Counseling regularly. Dispositioned as potentially unstable. Maybe he …”
The patient stirred, lifting his head from his pillow. Half-spoken words rolled out of his blackened lips. “Luna stay there I’ll find you. Yes I know it’s dark I’ll find you. Don’t be scared.”
Nurse Olivier leaned down stroked his arm, whispering pleasantries and encouragement into his ear until he went silent. She turned back to the attendant. “Shush, dear, don’t even say it. I’m just settling in this evening and I don’t want to start off on a bad note. We have enough of those as it is without you imagining more.”
“Sure, uh, let me go file these.” The door swung closed, ruffling the divider curtain.
Nurse Olivier lingered for a while longer, dispensing bath towels and fresh frocks. When she had finished, she took one last look around to assure that everything was in order, shut off the light, and left.
In the quiet darkness of his room, the patient murmured on into the night. “Don’t worry, there’s got to be a way out. She can’t hold us forever. There’s got to be a way out.”
Author's Note
Special thanks to jmj for pre-reading and offering critical advice.
Influences for this story include:
Paradise by RarityRoyale
The work of jmj in general
This wonderful song parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm9xmmvlVjQ
This image: http://jiayi.deviantart.com/art/Peek-a-boo-in-black-334952675
