Fury –or:
Fierce Deity’s Mask
Edited by: Luminous Lead
We are the Earth beneath Sky, ever-shifting; fearsome creatures of day and night, bearing sharpened fang and claw. She is gentleness, from Sky born; fluttering softly upon wings delicately feathered. And yet, She presumes to lord over us!
And lo! She does not understand us, for all Her knowledge, her focus, her discipline. How can She? For we are the masked! Our intent lies as deep as our tunnels, vast and winding. How can She know us when our very homes are beyond Her feeble reach? Very little doth She know of us, that mare, softly speaking. That voice, unrelenting in its praise—while offering us paltry rations of that which we cannot digest—endless droning, tepid singing: Songs of love; of friendship and kindness. Hah! We know not these things. Ours is a proud race of fighters, stoutly built and hunters, keenly endowed. We—
“What was that about ‘paltry rations’, Megaera?”Her brother asked.
“What,” Megaera spat, shaken from her reverie.
“Are you talking about that basket of fruit she gave us for Winter Wrap-Up? Are those the ‘paltry rations’ you’re talking about?” Magaera’s brother scratched his head. It annoyed her when he did that while talking.
“You, nameless, know not of which you speak,” muttered Magaera darkly. Warm breezes from the south washed over her back, causing fur and flesh to rise. She loved the breeze, secretly, for there was none that found the tunnels. Her brother rolled his all-seeing eyes. This annoyed her as well.
“Don’t you remember that time when she brought us those fish?” He sat up, taking the breeze and enjoying it just as she did.
Oh yes, Magaera remembered. “An insult!” Her brother sighed, threatening to roll his eyes once more. She grumbled in preparation. Then, a second voice—inflected as females’ voices tend to be—called from the tunnel entrance, seeking her brother. She grumbled again as it became clear that the holder of the intruding voice had caught their scent and was becoming louder.
“There you are, Alecto!” The intruder addressed Magaera’s brother. She only used his full name when she was searching, always searching for him. The silly girl. Alecto never wandered far from the tunnel, considering what his mate carried within her.
“Nameless!” Megaera corrected aloud as the second female’s ever-widening frame sat next to her mate.
“It’s nice to se you, too, Meg.” The female deadpanned.
“Tisiphone,” stated Megaera flatly.
“Is she at it again?” Tisiphone asked, nuzzling up to Alecto. He put his arm around her, using his other to feel the gentle, shifting swell of her belly.
“When isn’t she?” Alecto chuckled mirthlessly, kissing his mate.
“Can’t you two go do that somewhere else?” Magaera snapped.
“Well, thank goodness you two aren’t alike.” Tisiphone poked her tongue out at Megaera and nuzzled Alecto all the same. Megaera did not reply, for something stole her focus, which she did not appreciate, for it was she who was the stealer of things. So, she sat, contemplating this thing she saw, this thing that stole her focus from her ire against her brother and his pregnant mate. Slouching forward—her flexible spine curved, despite her long, lithe body—and resting her elbow upon her hand, whilst resting her chin upon her open, dextrous palm, she observed. With a free digit, she flicked her prominent fang as it poked out from beneath her frowning lips.
Alecto voiced his sister’s thoughts, “She’s singing again.” The three became silent then, their round ears perked, accepting all sounds that drifted their way. A cream-coloured figure rose from behind the small earthen cottage just atop their deep home by the creek. Megaera, her brother Alecto and his mate Tisiphone watched from the far bank as the figure rose, carried upon delicate wings. This was She, the Pegasus Magaera so despised, only this time, another figure rose with her. One of powder blue fur, distinguishable from the sky only by the prismatic mane she sported.
“And the rainbow one is with her... what was his name?” Megaera huffed, spitting into the creek.
“I believe it’s a mare, actually.” Tisiphone narrowed her gaze and held a hand up to block the sun. “ And her name is—”
“Rainbow Dash,” Alecto observed. The blue mare too, sang joyfully. Magaera, visibly, was gagging.
“Ah yes,” Megaera said. “I hate her too.” Alecto and Tisiphone glanced at her, neither willing to say anything for the onset of a grudge-ridden headache.
Tisiphone, however, lost that particular battle of wills and asked all the same. “Meg, why do you hate Fluttershy in the first place? She’s our caretaker!”
Megaera broke her furious stare from the pink-maned Pegasus, only to shift it onto her brother’s mate. “I am wroth with her, Tisi, because she insults our kind, if not by offering vegetables, the likes of which our bodies cannot endure, but also placing before us, the only meat she dares to catch; stunned fish! Stunned fish! How can she expect us to survive and thrive if she denies us the opportunity to hunt?”
Tisiphone raised a brow, despite the withering stare of her sister-in-law. “She’s never denied us the opportunity to hunt. I caught a shrew the other day with no issue.”
“Did she see you do it?” Megaera asked.
“Well, no—you know how she is.”
“Exactly: Ignorant!” Megaera said, seething. “We crave not fruit, nor veggie. We crave not the stunned fishes, for we crave live, writhing and warm flesh!”
Alecto’s stomach betrayed him with a growl. “Stop it, sis... you’re making me hungry.”
“Good,” replied Megaera. “Go and kill her rabbit. That’ll teach her to insult us.”
Alecto sat, thinking purposefully, appearing to consider it. “Hm,” he began. Then, a brief moment later, “Nah.”
Megaera shook her head, disbelief swarming her ever-quickening and ever-wrathful heart. “What! You cannot bring yourself, dear brother, to end the dragon of our enemy? To savour his flesh?”
Alecto gave his sister a glance of his own, saying, “It’s not that... It’s... ah, forget it.”
“No!” Megaera shouted—a little more desperately than she intended to—“You must tell me why. Tell me why you wish to keep allowing her to insult us?”
“Well,” Alecto began, but was swiftly cut off by Tisiphone.
“Maybe he appreciates the care She gives us, huh, Meg?”
“Yeah, that.” Alecto lowered his ears and his eyes, pawing listlessly at the grass that surrounded them all.
Megaera scoffed, lost for words, and so said nothing. Instead, she let the darkest thoughts enter her mind; darker than their deepest burrows, unbeknownst to ignorant, infuriating Fluttershy. Oh, how she hated cheerful, disruptive Fluttershy! If only she were removed, then my brother would be free of his guilt and free to hunt down that nuisance of a rabbit!
Then it hit her. Two birds, one stone: Remove the Fluttermare. Megaera smiled her most wrathful smile. This disturbed Alecto and Tisiphone, who watched her facial expressions melt and shift into their demented new form. Megaera never smiled. Ever.
“It’s so simple...” Megaera mumbled to herself.
“Come again, sis?” Alecto asked.
“It’s simple!” Megaera turned to her brother and seized his shoulders tightly, her claws burying into them.
“Ow,” Alecto said first. Then, “What’s simple?”
“So simple...” Megaera’s stare drifted one thousand yards, yet the smile remained. “We kill the Fluttering Mare, we remove our insult with her fatal injury and by doing so free ourselves from her caring dictatorship! And with that, dearest brother, so do we open the gates to her home and leave the bouncing white harvest to your waiting scythes!”
Silence pervaded in the wake of treacherous talk. Tisiphone stated firmly, if flatly, “We are not killing Fluttershy.”
“Yeah, sis! What gives!” Alecto removed himself from Megaera’s vicelike grip. Or, it would have been vicelike, had her thumbs been a little more opposable. She silently cursed that aspect of her anatomy and any ultimately responsible for it.
Megaera’s eerie smile faded, much to Alecto and Tisiphone’s relief, and returned to its usual scowl. “Fine!” she screamed. “If you’re too weak to end her rule and open the rabbit for yourself, then I will do it on my own, so all the more bounty for me!”
“And what do you plan on doing, Meg?” Alecto folded his arms across his furry chest. Tisiphone did the same.
Megaera rose and arched her back. “What you, nameless, are too weak to do: deliver.” At once, she curled her short legs and bounced away, angry vocalizations following in the wind after her: dook, dook, dook. Alecto and his mate exchanged glances before rising and following Megaera, hoping against hope that she didn’t do anything stupid.
Hope, they conceded, was dead, for Megaera had killed it, just as she planned on killing their benefactor. Swiftly, they trailed after her, their claws finding firm grip onto the grassy earth beneath them. Dook, dook, dook.
With a keen eye, Megaera began scrutinizing her handiwork. The rustling of nearby bushes stole her attention away. Dook, dook, dook. Then, Alecto burst through the leaves, followed by a marginally slower Tisiphone. “Meg!” her brother called out before skidding to a halt and gawping, wide-eyed at Megaera’s creation.
The handiwork: a branched section of lumber, buried partly in the ground with thick elastic bands to each branch of the fork—a slingshot, as Megaera recalled ponies referring to them as. Although the eyes of her brother and sister-in-law fell not upon the contraption itself, but on the payload set upon the stretched bands, secured only by a quivering piece of twine: a splitting maul, a heavy axe used in the cleaving of firewood.
“Meg…” began Alecto.
“How the heck did you manage to not only gather, but assemble and prime this thing in the time it took for us to—just now, mind you—catch up to you?” Tisiphone finished her mate’s intended line.
Megaera shrugged and said no more, except, “Do you see Fluttershy over by that woodpile? She’s searching for this very axe. She merely has to step on that inconspicuous ‘X’ and when she does, I will unleash Tartarus.” She pointed at a break in the brush where the earthen cottage of their caretaker rested. Alecto and Tisiphone glanced through it and, exactly as Megaera had described, was Fluttershy, search high and low for her wood axe, a fresh quart of wood needing to be split into kindling. Alecto and Tisiphone watched as she made her way, aimlessly, toward a bright red ‘X’ painted onto the grass. They glanced back at Megaera only to see her near the twine, her sharp claw at the ready.
“We should move,” Tisiphone whispered.
“Eep,” squeaked Alecto as they dove for the dirt.
Fluttershy traipsed onto the lethal spot and Megaera clipped the twine.
WHAM!
When they opened their eyes, Alecto and Tisiphone saw their sister pinned against the very tree that her twine was tied to, the slingshot frame now buried into the wood, the branching was deep enough to spare her head and throat a brutal crushing. The heavy axe skidded gently across the grass, coming to a rest at Fluttershy’s hooves. “Oh!” she could be heard saying with no dearth of delight.
Megaera, her hands braced against the frame, grunted with heavy effort, trying and failing to dislodge the object that trapped her. As she did so, her eyes found those of Alecto and Tisiphone, staring blankly back. “Shut up,” she muttered.
Behind a coiled tree, Megaera rubbed her hands together, having secured the knot that bound her from eventual victory. Alecto and Tisiphone watched, but Megaera was paying them no heed. The tree so coiled, not under the tension of being secured at the top to the ground, but rather from the weight of what hung suspended from the young tree: a cinderblock. How Megaera had managed this, despite the weakness of her thumbs, she did not hear her brother nor sister-in-law remark. She considered this silence a good thing, especially from her ungrateful brother, for whom she was laboring to remove the great cream-coloured cur that presided over them all.
Not for long. She smiled another wicked smile as her target approached, humming to herself, despite the basket of eggs that she grasped in her mouth. Another ‘X’ marked Fluttershy’s doom and she walked toward it.
Megaera panicked. She was not finished! But, she may not have another opportunity. For her prior humiliation, Megaera purchased justification in her haste and cut the twine.
“Oh, a penny!” Fluttershy stopped just short of the inconspicuous ‘X’, gently setting the eggs down and reaching out with her hoof.
THUNK! WHACK!
Glancing up, Fluttershy made an observation. “Hm, I don’t recall leaving that block here. I should move that when I have a chance.”
This new block accounted for the ‘thunk.’ The wagging tree an a flattened, cursing Megaera accounted for the ‘whack’. She grunted and peeled herself off the ground before retreating to the treeline, imprecations trailing after her.
“You poor thing… let me help you with that tooth ache! Open wide, now… good boy!”
Megaera couldn’t believe her luck! Fluttershy stood firm, her head slowly entering the willing alligator’s open, tooth-filled maw. Tears of pain ran down the reptile’s eyes, his feet and hands quivering with agony he felt. Alligators, true examples of instinct and reaction… besides her kind, of course, presented yet another opportunity. Megaera did not wish to spoil it, for she understood the tension that resided in the gator’s jaws. The slightest amount of pressure and the jaws would snap, taking all that sat within the gator’s mouth. At this moment, that was Fluttershy, keeping careful to stay away from her leathery friend’s sensitive tongue lest she become accidental gator chow.
Megaera sat nearby, unseen, with a small stone clutched in her thieving hands. For the soreness that took her body, she felt vindicated with yet another providential opportunity to remove Fluttershy and so open her grounds for hunting. She could almost taste the rabbit flesh that her brother so sorely coveted, but had no spine to collect. She clutched the rock and reared back. Alecto and Tisiphone poked their heads over the bank, having just found their sister, but it was too late for them to react.
Megaera, with a grunt, heaved her stone and cast it away, toward the large, flat tongue that was her target. With a wet, squishy ‘tap’, the stone landed home and the gator’s eye widened, despite the burning tears.
“Yes!” cried Megaera! “Sweet victory! That panicky pony is no—” She froze, for there was not bone-crunching snap or blood-curdling final scream, nor even a pathetic gasp to signify the end of Fluttershy. The gator sat silent, firm, mouth wide open, despite the pressure it surely felt. “—More?”
“There, there, Percy,” Fluttershy cooed, patting the gator’s snout. With a sigh, Percy the Alligator closed his mouth, tears long dried from eyes that now emanated relief.
“Well, what do you know, sis,” Alecto joined Megaera at her side, her eyes wide with disbelief and her own jaw hanging slack. “Old Percy is so scared of Fluttershy—or at least loves her enough to hold back even his instincts.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed, Mr. Exposition,” Megaera muttered, her expression darkened.
“I’ll take ‘Mr. Exposition’ over—”
“Shut up, nameless,” Megaera ordered as a very angry-looking Percy came swimming up to her and Alecto. Her brother blanched behind his dark fur, but Megaera looked unimpressed. Percy opened his jaw menacingly, teeth dripping, throat growling a deadly low rumble.
“Hey!” shouted Megaera and Percy halted. “Try it and I will crawl down your throat, rip up your esophagus and serve it to your stinking SPLEEN! Let’s see her reach in and fix that, Purse-y.” The gator recoiled, worry etched upon his face before swimming more than quickly away. Megaera huffed, kicking a nearby pebble into the pond before climbing the bank and into the treeline.
Fluttershy returned to the cinderblock, a rope in her mouth to fasten to and to drag it away… only, it was no longer there. She curiously trotted to the now-flattened patch of earth once cratered. The second her shifting mass settled onto the vacant spot, the ground gave way. A tiny yelp escaped her throat before she extended her wings, flapping her way out of the sudden hole in her lawn. Setting down beside it, she glanced down to see that it was, indeed, a deep, cavernous hole. The sunlight glinted off polished spearheads waiting, embedded a mere eleven feet down. Fluttershy silently studied the anomaly and trotted back toward her house where a spade lay in wait. “I need to be more careful,” she remarked before grabbing the shovel with an outstretched wing. Elsewhere, Megaera bit harshly down upon her tail, for it was the only thing muffling her steaming rage.
She ignored Alecto’s inquries and Tisiphone’s protests. Megaera held the object of their attention with eager, shaking claws. A steel pin and lever contrasted the green, smooth cast iron sphere beneath it. For its size, it was rather heavy. However, this object, designed for stallions of the Royal Guard, was easily twice as heavy as Megaera. And yet, she held it fast and out of her brother’s reach. Tisiphone could not be bothered to be too strenuous now.
“Just tell me, sis, how did you even get one of these!” Alecto reached for it again.
“I ordered it, it’s mine and I need not explain anything to the likes of you, brother!” Megaera spat. Then, without a word, she dashed off, having seen Fluttershy enter her home. With wild abandon, Megaera bounded across the grass, vocalizing the entire way, dook, dook, dook. She settled by the window and dropped the object, reaching for the security pin. With a click, she pulled the pin free, holding the lever down. Then, she released it and the steel flung free with a spring-loaded ‘ping’. A light hissing caught Megaera’s ear. Swiftly, she hoisted the object up and above her head. With a grunt and a scream, she hurled the object through the glass window, which shattered. A heavy ‘thud’ sounded off of Fluttershy’s hardwood floor and Megaera’s round ears perked at the sound of the sphere rolling to the centre of the house.
“Yes…” she whispered. “Three, two, one!”
Nothing.
“What?”
Nothing. No ‘kaboom’. No earth-shattering ‘kaboom’. Megaera was furious.
“Oh, SON OF A—”
“Another one!” Fluttershy’s voice, less softer than usual, carried with it a tone of disappointment and dismay, perhaps at the sight of her broken window. “I’ll have to give those kids another talking to.” Megaera heard a heft and a grunt, then started when the once-ticking sphere flew through the hole in the window, bounced off the sill and crashed down atop her.
“Ow,” Megaera groaned, pushing the cast iron ball off her. It was then that a flash of white paint caught her eye. With a critical eye, she read the stamp that simply said:
Rated G
Her expression soured. The universe was against her.
“I give up, nameless.”
“Oh? So soon?” Alecto teased. Tisiphone chuckled as she lay under the shade of her favourite tree.
“Soon!” responded Megaera. “I have been at this task for nigh on twenty minutes, brother! That’s a long investment, considering our lifespans!”
“Hey, don’t look at me. Tisi and I tried to talk you out of it from the start.” Alecto held his hands up defensively. “Not that it wasn’t entertaining, mind you….”
Megaera snapped, “I’ll show you entertaining! I’ll scruff you good!” At once, she bounded and fly-tackled her brother, knocking the wind out of him. The two crashed and tumbled and cursed and spat and hissed as only their kind do. Tisiphone rolled her eyes, ignoring the siblings in their war dancing. With a small gasp, she felt a bumping in her tummy.
“You didn’t have to keep me company, sugarcube, though I do appreciate it.” Applejack grinned widely as the young dragon sat atop her back gave a simple shrug.
“Don’t mention it, AJ. Twilight needed me to deliver this plant genetics book to Fluttershy anyway,” he said, hefting the weighty book in his claws. “I guess I was just lucky enough to meet you along the way.”
“Funny, I was just on my way to pick up Wynona from her bath day at Fluttershy’s and here you are. Kind coincidental, don’t ya think?”
“Maybe a little,” Spike thoughtfully scratched his chin. “That’s, like, the fourth time this week we’ve bumped into one-another.”
“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed. “Sounds kinda contrived to me, but I can't say I mind it, Spike.”
“Same here, AJ,” Spike winked and the pair chuckled. Then, a figure caught both their eyes on the rise before Fluttershy’s house.
“Hi there, AJ! Spike!” Fluttershy waved at them and Spike waved back while Applejack shouted a friendly response. The Pegasus met them half way and asked, “Are you here to pick up Wynona, AJ?”
“Sure am!” Applejack nodded.
“And I have the book you requested earlier,” said Spike, handing it over to Fluttershy, who accepted it with a pleased grin upon her face.
“Now would you look at that!” Applejack pointed to the nearby creek.
“Aw! They’re playing again! It’s so sweet!” Fluttershy cooed. A pair of ferrets, locked in a mortal struggle bounced and tackled one-another while a third lay nearby.
“Those two little fuzzies are brother and sister,” Fluttershy gestured to the fighting pair, hissing and spitting at one-another. “The third is the brother’s mate and she’s expecting a litter soon. Would you like to see them when they arrive?” Spike and Applejack nodded.
“Heh, they are kinda cute,” Spike remarked.
“I love how they look so happy, playing and such,” Applejack noted as one ferret took a healthy chunk of neck flesh into its sharp maw and began shaking whilst the other flopped over in an effort to rid himself of the attacker.
In the afternoon air, a gentle sound carried along the warm breeze:
Dook, dook, dook.
Fin
Author's Note
In case you didn't notice, I love ferrets and I love Greek mythology. Invoke the Furies!
