Two sets of hoofsteps echo down the lonely corridor. One mare turns to the other and smiles.
“You must be rather excited. Not many ponies are able to get jobs in the castle.” The mare’s frown turns sour for a moment.
“At least not anymore...”
The other mare turns away nervously. “Everypony says that work here has great security.”
Subtle scraping of armor and cries of desperation grow louder as the two mares reach a crossroad in the hallways.
A pair of guards drag a maid mare by her mane down the hall. Her hooves drag with all their might against the tug of the patrol. However, she can find no purchase against their strength.
“Please! You have to believe me! I never meant to go against His wishes! I was set up! The Head Maid told me to do it! Please! Please...”
The maid mare’s struggles ring resolutely for far too long in the ears of the other mares.
“Yes,” says the first mare, her pupils shrinking a bit, “if you have the stomach for it.”
The apprentice mare swallows the lump gathering in her throat and presses on. “How many times have you had to watch?” she asks with growing concern. “The preparations, I mean...”
Without hesitating, the older mare answers, “Too many times to count. Every few months, we’re ordered back to watch another, lest we forget our place.”
The apprentice mare’s voice wavers. “And... does it ever get any easier?”
“You’d think so,” she scoffs, “but it never does. At least not for me. I don’t know how those girls do it...”
The apprentice mare hangs her head, but the moment will not allow for it as the two mares come upon a large wooden door.
“Well, here it is.” The older mare motions the other inside. “I’ll leave you in the girls’ capable hooves.” She looks toward the door and cringes. “I don’t envy your position.”
Despite trying to enter quietly, the creak of the wooden door signals the arrival of the apprentice mare.
“Oh good,” says a white mare preoccupied with washing her hooves in a steel basin, “just go ahead and leave her by the rigging as usual, dear.”
The unusual quiet following her usual comment gets the white mare’s attention. She turns around to see the apprentice mare nervously glancing at the implements filling the kitchen. “Oh darling, I’m quite sorry about that. You must be here for the show, correct?”
The apprentice mare nods solemnly. “I-I’m the new hire, ma’am.”
“‘Ma’am’ she says,” the white mare extends her hoof in front of her, “are we really getting that old, girls?” She looks for any sympathy from the entourage of other kitchen ponies. The rest are all too busy or apathetic to answer.
The apprentice mare simply turns away shyly.
“Well, I suppose it has been a few years...” The white mare approaches the new hire, “but you can’t tell me that this skin doesn’t still look simply divine.”
Just before the new mare can answer the door flies open again, this time with a server pony escorting a silver serving cart. Atop the cart struggles a panicking, gagged mare with her hooves cuffed spread-eagle and secured in a metal contraption roughly outlining her body. The whole sight is like something akin to a plastic model.
The mare’s writhing and clanging causes the room to become a deafening cacophony of metal against metal. The server pony and the white mare share a look and the server pony positions the cart next to a metal spiderweb-like jumble of metal that hangs from the ceiling. He then nods and dismisses himself.
“Come with me, dear,” the white mare motions to the Apprentice as she approaches the struggling mare.
As she nears, the restrained mare quiets her motions. Her chest still heaves as rivulets of tears streak down her muzzle. Her speech is garbled as she softly shakes her head. A weak chime signals the ungagging of the mare through magic.
“Please,” she gasps, too hurriedly to keep her drool from pooling beneath her mouth, “you have to help me.” She looks around the room frantically and locks eyes with a blue mare in the back of the room. “It’s not my fault I lost. The others! The others cheated! Please!”
The blue mare steels her gaze. “Sorry kid, but you were the slowest mare. I tried my best to help everypony in training but... the rules are pretty cut and dry.”
“Shh...” the white mare tuts at the captive mare, running her hoof through her mane. “Don’t worry, darling. I have something that will help.”
Behind the captive mare’s gaze, a yellow mare flies over to the white mare and hands her a syringe.
“Oh, thank you!” the mare sobs, “Thank Celestia there are still-” With a practiced precision, the white mare sticks the tabled mare in the back of the neck. “Some sane ponies in Eq... uest... ri... a...”
The mare’s head slides down to rest against the tray, no longer able to hold its own weight. Her eyes roll back in their sockets as her mouth hangs open and her tongue flops to the side. The rest of her body twitches at intervals and she moans softly on occasion.
The Apprentice gasps in horror. “What... what did you do to her?”
“Oh this?” the white mare smiles.
“It’s ahn anesthetic,” an orange mare who had previously been tending to the large oven in the back interrupts, “only she kin still feel pleasure.”
“Actually,” retorts the white mare with a glare, “that’s about all she can feel. Watch.” The white mare levitates a brush to her and begins untangling the mare’s mane and tail. In response, she wiggles and groans, her breathing becoming heavier. “I wasn’t lying when I said it would help, darling.”
The white mare continues to brush the cuffed mare’s hair together, gathering her mane and tail into buns and securing them with hair ties, all the while the mare moans and writhes in her shackles.
“We better hurry girls,” the white mare calls out, “any longer and it will be just dreadful trying to get the stains out of her coat.”
With that, the oven mare and trainer mare approach either side of the secured mare’s contraption and hoist it up against the web-like rig. The white mare uses her magic to secure the two metal monstrosities together.The serving tray is pushed to the side, leaving the captured mare to hang upside down, secured by her hooves, over a basin in the floor. Finally, two plastic cones are attached like collars around the mare’s neck and tail.
“Ah, there we are. Isn’t she lovely?” the white mare turns to the Apprentice but receives no answer. Instead, the hoisted mare gurgles and spasms. “Well, at least somepony appreciates it.” The white mare glances around the room, “Now, is everypony here?.” After a quick head count, the white mare gives a stern nod.
Another chime of magic this time signals the arrival of a large kitchen knife. Floating in her magical grip, the white pony presses the knife gingerly into the lower abdomen of the hanging pony. Expertly, the knife finds its way between the mare’s skin and internal cavities.
“Ooh, this is my favorite part,” a pink mare with a limp, flat mane sidles up to the Apprentice.
The mare howls in ecstasy as her skin is delicately severed and peeled from her body. Bloody rivulets turn into streams as the knife cuts away sinew and fiber. Despite her writhing, the white mare stays her knife when it would otherwise pierce the hanging mare’s body. At this point, the mare’s lower body begins involuntarily undulating, shooting intermittent volleys of her lubricant up into the air only to fall back onto her own body, rinsing her blood and fat down along her plastic collar cone and into the basin.
Before the Taxidermist can even remove the skin of the hanging mare’s stomach, the knife and the mare’s coat are glistening red and clear and the room stinks of rusty metal and lust.
“Oh dear, you’re quite the lively one, aren’t you darling?” the Taxidermist mutters, not losing concentration for a moment. “He’s going to be very happy with your flavor.”
Once the skin is pierced and peeled down the center of the specimen mare’s body, the Taxidermist pauses for a moment and takes a deep sigh of relief. “Ahh, that’s the hard part taken care of.”
The orange mare pipes up from across the room as she continues to stoke the flames of the oven. “Speak fer yerself.”
“Oh hush now, dear. You’ll ruin my perfection.”
Throughout the short conversation, the peeled mare continues to moan and pant, gushing mare cum in spurts.
The Taxidermist wipes the sweat from her brow. “Better get back to work. It’s not a good idea to keep Him waiting.”
Immediately she resumes her work, elegantly separating the sopping mare’s neck from her coat. The Taxidermist’s knife slices just above the collar’s fastening, keeping the red flow cascading over the plastic. Clean around the entire neck, the gushing mare’s skin is severed and lifted, allowing for the first true sight of the skinless mare. Under her coat, her neck pulses and expands, occasionally hitching along with whinnies of pleasure and eruptions of fluid.
The Taxidermist trains and retrains her knife against her original split, this time cutting along each foreleg to the hoof. For each, she removes the skin in another clean circle, much like her work at the neck. Upon reaching the hind legs and the cutie marks, the Taxidermist slows her pace to a crawl. Immediately after her blade makes contact with the area, the drawn mare gasps, followed by a shriek and a torrent of mare juices. Agonizingly, the blade slips its way through the flesh until both cutie marks dangle limply from the mare’s body.
Once the mare’s final leg is salvaged from her, the Taxidermist pulls and peels the majority of her work from her specimen, leaving only the back and lower body still attached. The half skinned mare’s muscles are picturesque as they writhe in contractions and releases sporadically, a testament to the chaos her body and mind must’ve been thrust into. The Taxidermist works quickly as the coat around the back and spine come up easily, as if upending carpet. Finally, the only areas connecting the mare to her previous skin are her dock and genitals.
“Must be careful here,” the Taxidermist comments casually with a smirk, “He gets quite upset if this gets mangled.”
Gingerly, and with the utmost care for allowing the specimen to ride out her orgasms, the Taxidermist removes the labia. With a final, quick draw of her knife and a tug of magic at the base of the specimen’s tail, her coat is removed, whole, from her red, throbbing body.
“Voila!” the Taxidermist announces with a flourish. “Now to get this in the alcohol bath.” With that, she trots off to one side of the room to submerge her work.
“Reckon that means Ahm up.”
The oven mare finds her way over to the dripping, shivering mare and retrieves a nearby bucket with a perforated bottom and chains attached to the side. Wordlessly, the Trainer and the yellow pegasus hook the chains to the top of the metal rigging that the skinned mare remains bound in, allowing the bucket to dangle beneath her.
“Ya’ll ready then?” the oven mare asks with a soulless stare.
The two pegasi nod and hover poised near the hooks as the orange mare produces a saw.
“Ooh, this is my favorite part,” snickers the pink mare from earlier, taking her place astride from the oven mare in front of the skinned mare.
“Fah,” the orange mare mumbles around the saw handle in her mouth, “foh, hree-”
“One!” shouts the pink mare as she bites down on her end of the saw and drags it across the neck of the hanging mare.
As the saw’s teeth rend her flesh, the mare squirms and spasms, her moaning slowly turning to airy gurgling as her body secretes and jettisons her remaining cum. The two saw mares work quickly and, in a matter of moments, the specimen’s last bit of flesh is severed. Her head plops nauseatingly into the bucket below as the two pegasi swiftly move the bucket out from under the draining blood of the headless mare. The room is again flooded with a sickly metallic smell. The orange mare removes the plastic cone from the mare’s neck and rights her head, allowing the blood to drain through the holes in the bucket. Her face is twisted into a devilish display of ecstasy as the color slowly flushes from her face.
As the blood from the two pieces of mare drain, and the last bit of mare juice dribbles down the headless body of the skinned mare, the Taxidermist returns to inspect the mare’s severed head.
“Oh, you girls did a wonderful job with this one. She’ll be easy as pie to clean like this.”
The pink mare smiles, radiating a sense of accomplishment. “Nailed it!”
The orange mare groans and rolls her eyes. “Yah, yah... Ya’ll done with yer knife?”
“Of course, darling,” the Taxidermist replies nonchalantly as she returns to her own workstation.
“Well, let’s git her down, then.” The orange mare motions to the two pegasi and the three of them wrestle the original metallic contraption from its mount and set it down on a large steel countertop. “Thank ya kindly. Now go ahead and git that stuff boiling, if ya would.”
As the orange mare releases the headless mare from her bindings, the two pegasi lift the basin filled with the mare’s blood, fat, sweat, and secretions and set it into the oven along two specially-designed rails.
Once set, the yellow mare quickly dashes to the back of the room, cringing. “Oh, that’s the worst part.” She catches the unsympathetic glare of the orange mare and shies away, “For me, at least...”
After the orange mare positions the freed mare to her liking, she takes up the knife in her mouth.
“Ooh, this is my favorite part,” grins the pink mare.
The orange mare rears up and slices the headless mare vertically from groin to gut in a manner uncannily like the Taxidermist’s. Fastidiously, she severs one internal organ from another, tossing them into a nearby trough. Lung follows lung follows heart. Soon, the hollowed mare is devoid of all innards. With this, the orange mare liberally rubs a mixture of salt, pepper, and spices into the inner walls of the flesh. Finally, she gathers a spool of wiry thread and a large needle. Coarsely, she sews the eviscerated mare’s stomach back together along with loosely binding her legs beneath her as if she were lying down.
The Cook sighs and sets her knife down. “Best git her on a tray and in the oven then...”
“Ooh, this is my favorite part.”
About an hour passes without a word from anypony. The Taxidermist quietly hums to herself as she disinfects and cleans the decapitated head of her specimen. She sets her eyes with tiny dabs of glue and runs wire through her jaws, keeping her mouth rigid yet poseable. Her neck is set on a small stand as the Taxidermist runs her brush through the specimen’s mane once again. At intervals, the Cook dips a ladle into the bubbling concoction of mare fluids and pours it over the slowly charring flesh of the meal, basting it. The pink pony watches gleefully as the Taxidermist removes the specimen’s skin from its bath, slinging it over a nearby horse mannequin and fitting it to shape.
Finally, the Apprentice speaks up. “I... I just don’t get it...”
“What’s that, dear?” the Taxidermist asks, only half paying attention as she magically draws her needle through another seam.
“How... how did things get to be this way?” the mare sobs, “How are you able to so callously cut up and cook ponies?” The Apprentice becomes louder as she becomes more terse. “These are ponies! These are somepony’s friends and family!”
The Trainer jumps up in defense. “Oh yeah? Don’t you think we already know that? Do you think we wanted to be here, doing these horrible things?”
The yellow pegasus bursts into tears across the room.
“Then why do it?” the Apprentice retorts.
“Because He’s stronger than us,” the Cook replies curtly. “We tried resistin’ Him at first; after he stormed the castle and took out the Princesses. His response was swift and devastating.”
The mares all become a bit more sullen.
“He gave us an ultimatum: ‘Cooperate or I will hurt everything you love,’” the Trainer grimaces.
“He told us that if we took these jobs that we could keep everypony from suffering,” sighs the Taxidermist.
The yellow mare adds softly, “He would spare the masses as long as we participated in his weekly ‘tradition.’”
“And how is that any better?” shouts the apprentice mare. “What has He ever done that makes you think that He’s somehow conceding something to you?”
“We get the chance to make a difference,” the Trainer answers, getting in the Apprentice’s face. “I get to work with the contestants and kick them into shape so they don’t lose the race!”
“But somepony always loses. Somepony always ends up in here. Isn’t that true?”
“He uhh... lets me keep my animal friends...” the yellow mare answers timidly, “when He’s not hungry...”
The Taxidermist interjects, “Besides, He promised to spare the castle ponies and the stallions.”
“An’ He always keeps his promises,” adds the Cook.
“And... and you’re just okay with that?” asks the Apprentice, disheartened.
“It’s... it’s all we h-have...” the Caretaker whimpers.
“Besides,” interrupts the pink mare, “it’s fun!”
The rest of the ritual ticks by at an agonizing speed. All of the mares sit idly in tense silence as the Taxidermist puts her finishing touches on the eerily empty skin of her specimen. The Cook ladles one last cup of slime over the seared remains of the crisping mare. Soon, she is pulled from the dwindling flame of the oven and arranged on a silver platter by the pink mare. The Taxidermist levitates her finished creation onto a shallow cart which she attaches to the serving cart. Finally, she slips the mare’s head onto a set of rods in the neck of the model. In the meantime, the pink mare inflates and attaches balloons to the sides of the tray and to various parts of the specimen.
Once finished, she slides a party hat over her head and grins at the Apprentice. “Alrighty rooty, let’s go Tooty Fruity,” she chortles as she snaps a second party hat onto the Apprentice.
“Yeah...” responds the Apprentice flatly, “Sure...”
The cart rattles down the hall before coming to a halt in front a grand set of double doors. The Caterer squats on her haunches in front of the door.
“I hope you’re ready Freddie, cause here. We. Go!” she announces as she flings open the doors and blows into the noisemaker that had somehow materialized in her mouth.
As the doors swing wide, the throne room comes into full view. Torches in the corners of the room dimly illuminate its unkempt state and drab decor, as though untouched for ages. Candle flames flicker atop a large table in the center, casting a dancing shadow over the guests seated at each end. As the lights play along the faces of the diners, most of their identities become apparent. The King sits at the head of the table adorned in polished golden armor. Its slight glint, coupled with the arrangement of lights continue to shroud the King's true nature in mystery. However, visibility is afford on the others. To either side of the King sit the ghastly visages of the Princesses. White, blue, pink, and purple mare's eyes all wander aimlessly, their heads mounted to their own stiff, long-skinned carcasses. Each Princess’ horn is alight with the powerful preservation magic known only to alicorns. Their mouths open and shut but are unable to form words, concentration dumped automatically into their immortality.
The Caterer wheels the dish over to the table and places the serving tray amidst the five. She then sets the taxidermy model on the floor across from the King and wheels the cart away.
“Your dinner is served, Your Majesty.”
“Ah, wonderful. The Feast has arrived My Queens,” the King smiles as he picks up his utensils. “As always, allow me to carve the beast.”
The Caterer prods the side of the Apprentice and leans in to her ear. “We better go. He likes being ‘alone’ when He eats with the royalty.”
The two mares exit the throne room quietly but just before the doors close, curiosity gets the better of the apprentice mare as she stops the door with her hoof. As she peeks into the crack, she watches as the King feeds forkfuls of pony flesh into the open mouths of the nearly-comatose Princesses, all the while laughing and joking with his ‘company.’ She watches for far longer than she should, somehow entranced throughout the entire meal.
Once the King has had his fill, he stands and saunters over to the freshly-made, hollow pony and addresses the Princesses, “So, which one of you lovely ladies would like to accompany us to the bedroom tonight?”
