She thinks I don’t know.
Fluttershy, darling, sweet, naïve Fluttershy thinks that just because Uncle Discord hasn’t seen her change, just because nopony is courteous enough to inform him of her parasitic episode, just because none of the others know, I don’t know Twilight’s spell didn’t work. It’s my own fault, really; everypony tends to assume everypony else shares their sequential perception of time, rather than an instantaneous one. As the whole of my long, long existence unfolds before me all at once, I’m perfectly aware of how the buttery little Pegasus’s unveiling as a winged leech will play out. I just haven’t gone through the motions yet.
Nor will I for quite a while. Even if I did understand time sequentially, the tumult of her being is simply delicious. Conflict rolls off of her in waves, a violent dichotomy between her pony and bat identities, demanding she exert such restraint over something as simple as dinner. Her witless friends all nicker on in oblivion around the table as she purses her lips, hiding the fangs that sprout from her gums, holding back molting feathers that should try to expose the membranous expanse of her demonic wings, flattening ears that attempt to swell and widen, all prompted by the aromatic call of fresh fruit wafting from the kitchen. It intoxicates her, making it a feat to not pounce upon every passing waiter bearing aloft a tray of her coveted confections, for fear of gorging herself upon the succulent meat of all those melons and pears and apples. By Celestia, the tremors that rock her her tiny form as she takes in the scent of apples. Day after day she steps so deliberately on her path to town, a miracle that she doesn’t just make a buffet of Applejack’s crop, slurping and suckling the ruby delights dry as their vital juices leave her fur pulpy and matted with gore.
It’s less entertaining when you remember it’s fruit she wants so desperately to eviscerate and not ponies, but beggars can’t be choosers, spirits of chaos least of all.
Especially when more delectable than all the wants vexing her to the core, keeping her awake as her nocturnal urges drive off sleep, all pale in comparison to the other secret she’s kept. Or will keep. Apologies; tenses get difficult for me. Regardless, there’re two things that nopony else seems to realize, the first being that Twilight Sparkle did not just bounce the desire to be a fruit bat onto Fluttershy, but in fact formed a two-way conduit. The second is that the bats are, like their more tolerated kin in the western orchards, animate fruit, illuminating their feeding habits for the cannibalism it really is.
Perhaps Fluttershy does not thirst for the blood of the living, but Vampire Fruit Bats believing they’re Vampire Ponies? That is a different story.
Look. Here comes the Pegasus, calling for an wayward companion. And oh dear, she’s found it! What’s left of it, anyway. Was it a squirrel? A mouse? Only Fluttershy is sure, considering it’s the missing adherent of her menagerie. Or maybe she was just weeping openly over the shriveled husk of a fox in the middle of the forest; hard to tell with that one. Regardless, she’s quick to find out just want happened to her friend, because the bats tell her as much when she asks them. And why shouldn't they? She is, after all, one of them.
Such an accusation leaves her disquiet.
There is a natural cycle of nature. Predator, prey, and the endless links in the food chain. But bats are not supposed to take their meals from other animals, and certainly not ponies. Foul ideas hover upon their discombobulated minds, hungry thoughts, directed towards the tiny yellow filly in the pink bow on the orchard they occupy. There are notions of her being "just small enough to overpower". Fantasies of ripping the scarlet nectar from her tender young veins.
And that is simply unacceptable.
Do you want to know the best thing of all? She’ll keep that secret. A swarm of carnivorous winged vermin lurking at the edge of town and her lips remained sealed.
She’s told herself that it’s because her friend is in danger. She’s telling herself that it’s because not all the bats are afflicted by this confusion, many among them having stopped in during their migration, and shouldn't be persecuted for the crimes of a few of their number gone sick in the head. She’ll even tell herself that it’s because if they’re discovered for the parasites they are, it won’t be long before fearful eyes turn on her, cry for preemptive action against Fluttershy, scourge of orchards and cradles across all Equestria.
She’s saying all that, and not thinking about how the vampire fruit bats are still fruit. Lucious, moist, animate fruit. She doesn't think about how they need to be dissuaded from attacking anypony else by any means necessary. Her fangs just happen to be elongating. Her wings coincidentally molt and fork into powerful, leathery fingers. Her ears expand and tuft at the tips for no reason at all. And her eyes flare, away from her sea glass green, into feral, predatory red because she is outraged, not hungry.
Then she is out among the night sky, a shadow against the pitch as she follows the scent of succulent rodentia flesh.
Keening screeches stab at the night sky. The moon has waxed and waned some since her first nighttime venture to the orchard, and our huntress does not speak to herself of excuses anymore. It’s easier to simply keep her vigil in silence, from her perch within the boughs of her usual nesting tree. Not far away shines the farmhouse, the golden shine of their lamps spilling through its windows onto the yard outside. It’s on the edges of that luminous circle that she makes her hunting grounds. Even as she’s learned how best to hunt the beasts, they’ve learned to recognize the whisper of her great wings upon the air, the cracking groan of her setting upon a branch. No matter what they may believe themselves to be, Fluttershy hovers above them on the food chain. So only the most brash of their number, only the most crazed by their bloodlust dare tread. And none have ever made it as far as the farmhouse. The scarlet eyes that carve through Luna’s night see to that.
No pun intended. At the moment, anyway.
She scans the treeline, picking out ghosts and shapes of her prey, none drawing close enough that she might strike. It pains her, pangs of hunger fraying her patience, hazing her mind. Her eyes drift to the apples lilting gently in the autumnal breeze, invitingly scrumptious. Surely one wouldn’t hurt? Just one… or perhaps two. She is very hungry, after all. The pegasus leans down to the largest fruit upon her branch, where it seems to beckon with its languid swaying, mouth filling with saliva as the image of the apple overtakes all sense. Thoughts devolve into the basest of notions, a desire to feed without end and crush anypony that would try and stop her. Fluttershy reaches out with her fangs…
…and starts violently as a series of sharp yaps disrupts her reverie. She flounders, scrabbling for and failing to retain purchase on her branch, only just hanging on by the timely curl of her tail. The pegasus pretender looks out, to where Winona wags on the front porch, pink tongue lolling out in an oblivious grin. She scowls in reply, and then gasps as a black shape, winged and massive detaches from the treeline, rocketing for the Apple family dog with dark intention. To the caretaker’s horror, the mutt sees the bat. Growls. Barks. And then the beast is off, barreling right for it. The bat is already in a dive, gaining speed with every passing minute even as the idiot hound charges headlong towards her doom.
Desire is forgotten. Fluttershy’s tail uncurls and she plummets, wings unfurling as she catches and updraft and soars towards the parasite, a hiss upon her lips. She is needed. Her, not the parasite squatting in her head, and she will. Not. Fail.
And in that moment, the division of her soul upon which I feast upon, dries up.
The rodent stretches wide its maw, wheeling around to get a fix on the dog’s neck when the pegasus slams into it, her own fangs puncturing it straight through. The bat flutters in a panic, squeaking as desperately it tries to escape, but she simply bites down harder, drinking deeply of its vitals. It falters, attempts at self liberation weakening, before withering to a husk, leathery and blueberry flavored. More often than not she’d spirit the remains away to her graveyard, but this one, having threatened her dear friend, will have no such respect. In a fit of feral inclination, her jaw all but unhinges as she accommodates room for the creature’s girth. Then she swallows, the evidence of her affliction slipping down into the cavernous void that is her gullet. Fluttershy licks her chops, torn between guilty and intrigued by her newfound (read: delicious) method of disposal.
And then the door bangs open.
“Flutters?” asks Applejack from the safety of her home, “That you?”
The pegasus glances back, turning and meeting the farmer’s emerald eyes with her own sea-green orbs, feathered wings humbly folded against her body.
“Oh, good evening Applejack,” she says warmly, “I, um, I was just out for a walk when Winona came to say hello. Sorry to have bothered you.”
The earth pony chuckles. “T’ain’t ever a bother havin’ you ‘round, sugarcube. Might cold, though; y’wanna come in? Granny Smith just baked a fresh apple pie.”
Fluttershy’s stomach growls, in spite of what carnage lies hidden within. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”
It’s back. That reluctance and hunger that tears her so wonderfully in half returns as she crosses that threshold, focused upon restraint with every fiber of her being. And my own metaphysical feast resumes, but I think to myself, “It won’t last forever.” I do it because I have to, because I am already doing it, have done it, will do it. Just as I reveal her secret, as I am doing right now, and did just a moment ago. And so I decide that I will unmask her once that spring of nectar, the sweet disharmony of her twin souls, dries up. Then I will have a new pain to feast upon. My friend’s pain.
I wish I didn’t have to, you know? I hope, sometimes, that I’ll never find out she’s a bat pony. I wish that this was not happening right now. But it is. I am.
I’m just going through the motions, after all.
Author's Note
So this was written the Writing Training Grounds over at Equestira daily, but my own dissatisfaction with it and rewriting the whole thing three times made me miss the deadline. Que sera sera. Ultimately, I don't know if I'm satisfied with it.
But it did give me a chance to play with Discord and the idea I had that he, being Chaos, views time itself from a chaotic perspective. So that was rather fun.
