It was a foggy morning when the Griffins attacked. I could tell that something bad would happen. My prediction was proved when the princesses flew haphazardly from the city of Canterlot with about half a dozen Griffins each tearing at them with their beaks and claws. And you just know that it’s a bad day when you see your princesses killed in front of you.
My name is Harpo. I am a stallion who lived in Ponyville with my husband Frederic. They say I’m mute. But they’re wrong.
The less I say, the more I hear.
The more I hear, the more I know.
The more I know, the less I say.
That’s how I heard the Griffins about to launch an attack from the other side of Ponyville.
One Griffin leapt out and tackled an innocent pegasus, Silver Speed, to the ground, tearing her throat out with his beak. The whole of Ponyville erupted into a state of panic, ponies running for cover.
After the Griffins had attacked, leaving about a dozen ponies dead, they flew off. That’s when Octavia stepped in.
Octavia was a cellist who played in the same ensemble as me. She was also the Element of Leadership, which was why she was so good at controlling the frenzied crowd.
"Be quiet!" She hissed. "Do you want the Griffins to come back?!"
The ponies immediately settled into a nervous hush, prepared to listen to what Octavia had to say.
"I know that the Griffins have moved on, but I know it’s not safe here." She scanned the crowd with her greyish-mulberry eyes. "We must leave; go deep into the mountains."
The crowd, shaken as they were, promptly followed Octavia’s instructions to leave the town without taking anything with them; they needed to travel light.
"The crowd’s too large." pointed out Vinyl Scratch, Octavia’s wife and the Element of Creativity.
"What do we do then?" Octavia stared into her love’s crimson eyes.
"We split the crowd into two groups." Vinyl proposed.
She then arranged the townsponies into two groups, making sure to place ponies who liked each other in the same group to boost morale.
In the end, Octavia led the Sun group, which included myself, Frederic, Vinyl, Meadow Song (Vinyl’s brother), Bon Bon and Lyra.
Twilight Sparkle led the Star group, after asking Spike the dragon to send a letter from Octavia to Symphony in Canterlot and Fiddlesticks in Appleloosa to arrange their respective towns into groups and take the routes of the others into the mountains.
The group from Canterlot, Solar Flare, would join the Sun group in the Rising Talons, a dangerous part of the Crystal mountain range.
The group from Appleloosa, Supernova, would join the Star group in the Plates, a generally flat part but still a challenging climb.
"Best of luck," Octavia hoof-bumped Twilight, who nodded and took her group, which included the Elements of Harmony and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, out of Ponyville in the opposite direction from where Octavia intended to take us.
She trotted on, flanked closely by Vinyl, Frederic and myself, into the wilderness, where we had little protection against the ferocious Griffins.
It took half a day of travelling to reach the densely forested base of the foothills of the Crystal Mountains.
Octavia breathed deeply and turned to us.
"We need to climb this part and go to the right. There we will find the Solar Flare group in the Rising Talons."
Octavia trotted up the rocky path, and we followed close behind in single file.
We trekked around the side of the mountain along fairly wide ledges with wider platforms at regular intervals, while cooling winds blew our fur.
One of these platforms was the place where the first Griffins attacked.
I heard the screeching and flapping of large, powerful wings and alerted Octavia, who pressed the group against the side of the mountain.
"Are you mad?!" Frederic exclaimed. "We’re cornered; the Griffins will make short work of us."
"Stay still!" replied Octavia. "You’ll see what I intend to do."
One overly nervous pegasus, Cloud Kicker, screamed then flapped her wings hard, flying above the group in an attempt to escape.
But one foul Griffin pinned her against the rock wall with its claws and tore her throat out, propelling her off the edge of the cliff into the claws of waiting Griffins who, crazed with the scent of blood, devoured her in the air.
The Griffin who had slaughtered Cloud Kicker landed in front of us, hissing, waving his tail challengingly, stalking us.
Octavia suddenly broke away from the group, galloping directly at the Griffin.
We all expected her to headbutt the hideous hybrid, which would have been useless, but she leapt over the Griffin’s snapping beak, using her hind legs to twist in the air and land on the winged creature’s back.
She then did something that none of us had expected.
She sunk her teeth into the nape of the Griffin’s neck.
Her chisel-like incisors punctured the skin and drew blood, and her powerful molars found bone.
She bit down harder and harder while the Griffin tried to shake the grey cellist off, but the next thing I remember shook everypony.
A sickening crunch was heard as Octavia crushed the Griffin’s spine and its bloodcurdling dying shriek silenced even the wind as it echoed around the mountains.
Octavia withdrew her snout, taking a lump of flesh out with it. She spat it over the side of the ledge, revealing bloodstained teeth, like those of a carnivore after hunting down a prey animal and tearing the life out of it.
Before we could take the situation in, the Griffins who had been hovering dove down and attacked. We had to repeat what Octavia had just done.
Around me, Griffins and ponies were locked in ferocious combat, using their teeth to bite and their hooves to kick.
The Griffins still had the use of their beaks and talons and killed a few ponies.
I myself came across a terrifying, huge Griffin who leapt for my throat. I dodged its strike and stunned it with a blow from my hoof. I stamped hard on its neck and crushed its spine. As it lay gasping and dying, I remember feeling no remorse for the creature as I sunk my teeth into its throat and twisted, taking out its windpipe.
I remember the taste of its feathers and how they made me cough. The taste of flesh and blood was overpowering and I was violently sick, as were some other ponies with weak stomachs.
In the meantime, Octavia reeled as a Griffin slashed her face with its fearsome talons. The grey pony, her left eye blinded by her own blood, gave a yell and shouldered the Griffin into the wall, breaking its wings. She then took the motionless body and threw it over the edge to its death.
Vinyl was charging at another Griffin with her horn down. The horn plunged into its feathery chest and Vinyl tossed the winged predator over her head and before it could react, its skull smashed into the rock face and killed it.
However, there were still some losses. Griffins managed to claw ponies into submission and used their beaks to deal the fatal blow. Griffins carried earth ponies and unicorns over the edge and dropped them to their deaths.
Somehow, we ponies managed to kill or seriously injure all the Griffins.
The battlefield was stained with blood, sick and corpses and the air was heavy with the stink of death and vomit.
Octavia staggered onto her hooves, exhausted from battle but still going strong and addressed those of us who were alive:
"Today, we ponies have stood up to the forces of the Griffin Kingdom. However, we have suffered losses which will bear heavy on us: Cloud Kicker, Lemony Gems, Goldengrape, Charged Up, Pokey Pierce, Cherry Berry and Meadow Song."
Vinyl stood as if she’d been electrified at the news of her brother.
She wobbled over to the brown earth pony, whose throat was ripped clean out and whose head was seperate from his body.
Vinyl stood there, shaking with fear, exhaustion and sorrow. She raised her snout high and gave such a terrible yell that anypony would think that it was her dying cry, not the release of all the pain that had brewed inside her.
The unicorn slumped onto the cold rock after the shout, and Octavia sprinted over to her.
Vinyl wasn’t dead, but the freezing wind, which we hadn’t noticed during the fighting, coupled with the fact that she’d tasted blood and her brother lay dead in front of her, had made her very ill.
Octavia lifted her as softly as she could and placed her wife across her own back, trotting slowly along the path, away from the scene of pure Tartarus behind us.
We all stood and followed her. We wanted to be rid of this place, which became known then as the Tartarus Shelf.
Luckily, we found a large cave with a watering hole and a waterfall above it.
Each pony took it in turns to cleanse themselves of the gore on their fur and on their teeth. But however many times we cleaned, I knew that it would never purify our traumatised souls.
The ponies slept close together to keep warm. It was something we were used to only with our partners, but I can honestly say that I felt safer with Frederic’s warm stomach against my back with his hooves protectively around me, my own snout on the back of my sister Lyra, Bon Bon curled up in front of me and Berry Punch and Colgate curled tight around young Ruby Pinch, who had managed to survive the terrible ordeal with the Griffins, behind me.
Most of the ponies were exhausted and fell asleep where they lay, regardless of the fact that the cave floor wasn’t the smoothest surface ever. I stayed awake though, and heard Octavia speaking to the still-sick Vinyl at the edge of the group.
"Vinyl, promise me you’ll wake up tomorrow morning," Octavia whispered shakily. "I can’t live without you. If you die, then I’ll be lost."
Vinyl feebly raised her head to lick the wound over the left side of Octavia’s face, which the grey mare seemed to appreciate.
Once the unicorn was satisfied that Octavia’s wound was clean, she buried her snout in Octavia’s chest fur and fell asleep, Octavia following soon after.
I raised my head and turned it, gazing at my sleeping companions in the dim moonlight. Over the course of a day, we had returned to the wild, and even fought and killed to defend ourselves.
"Can’t sleep, Harpo?" Frederic’s breath warmed between my shoulder blades as he spoke.
"I’m just thinking, after twelve hours, we’re more like a pack of vagabond Timberwolves than anything else." I turned, and saw his grass green eyes twinkling with concern at me. "Are we ever going to be safe again?"
"Of course we are," Frederic answered. "when we reach our new home in the mountains, we will be safe from everything. A few Griffins won’t be enough to put us off track."
"That’s the spirit!" A matt-blue stallion spoke from behind Frederic. This was Bright Idea, who ran the electrical store in Ponyville. "Equestria spirit! Let’s sing a song!" He hollered into the darkness and approving murmurs came from around us as the crowd erupted into song,
"Each one of us has something special,
That makes us different, that makes us rare.
We have a light that shines within us
That we were always meant to share.
And when we come together,
combine the light that shines within,
There is nothing we can’t do,
There is no battle we can’t win,
When we come together,
We’ll be a star to guide the way,
It’s inside us every day.
See it now, see it now,
Let the rainbow remind you
that together we will always shine.
Let the rainbow remind you
That forever this will be our time.
Let the rainbow remind you
that together we will always shine."
The song sent a rush of heat through me. Even though before, most of us barely knew each other, we were all united with that one, special, unbreakable bond:
We are ponies.
After everypony had finished singing, we shuffled closer together to assert our pack friendship, and we fell asleep in companionable silence.
As I was dozing off, I heard a hushed exchange of affection:
"I love you, Octavia."
"I love you, too, Vinyl."
The next morning, we were woken by a deafening scream.
All of us jumped into action and directed our attentions to where the scream had come from.
We all turned our heads to see Berry Punch and Colgate nudging a scabby, pale lump of fur.
It was Ruby Pinch.
She was dead.
This hadn’t been the first pony we’d lost, but it was the first foal, and that hit us hard. Our morale was very low and we were wounded and hungry.
Octavia let us have a last wash and drink in the water before we set off on that day’s journey.
That day, we were going to the Rising Talons to meet the Solar Flare group.
We all set out, after Octavia had taken pains to drag Ruby’s mourning parents away.
"What will we do with the body?" Frederic asked his younger sister.
"We shall have to leave it there." Octavia replied. "The scent might attract Griffins or other predators, and we don’t need to lose any more ponies."
Vinyl Scratch had survived the night and managed to take a few trembling steps into the thick clouds that had descended on the mountain.
"We need to get on," she stated, setting off down the path, Octavia trotting over to her side and the rest of us following close behind.
Luck was with us that day as far as the Griffins were concerned. We ecountered none and our long, painful trek to the Rising Talons passed fairly uneventfully.
Once we reached the Talons, I could see why they were so named.
Several rock formations jutted up from the side of the mountains and there was a steep path from down below which joined up onto the one we were on.
We waited tensely, willing the other group to arrive soon, terrified that Griffins would dive through the clouds and catch us unawares.
Soon enough, a group of ponies came plodding up the path, headed by Symphony, a yellow violinist mare with a purple mane. Close behind her was her wife Ballad, a blue-purple lyrist unicorn and me and Lyra’s younger sister.
Following them, a group of ponies from Canterlot including Concerto, Fancy Pants, Upper Crust, Jet Set and Fleur de Lis.
Symphony looked bothered, more sullen than ever. It was obvious that the group had been travelling in silence.
Me and Lyra ran over to greet Ballad, who seemed quite relieved to see us, glad that neither of her siblings were the victims of the Griffins.
Octavia went over to talk to Symphony and we all listened in silence.
"Symphony, how was the trip?"
"Bloody horrible." Symphony grumbled. "I had to drag half of these pish-posh ponies out of their houses, kicking and screaming."
"Did you encounter any Griffins?" Octavia questioned.
"No, but you look like you have!" Symphony exclaimed, roving her teal eyes over our group. She then turned her attentions to individual ponies, because she had a degree in medicine, not that she liked to admit it.
"Octavia, that wound over your eye looks infected!" she nodded at Octavia’s eye, which had begun to grow scabs and as a result her eye was firmly shut. "If we had antibiotics, I’d be able to treat it, but it looks like you’re going to go blind, old friend."
Symphony patted Octavia on the shoulder with genuine sympathy, then moved on to Vinyl.
"You’re ill, Vinyl." she stated. "Are you vomiting? Yes?"
"A lot of our ponies are vomiting, Symphony." Frederic told her.
Symphony cocked an eyebrow questioningly. Octavia explained,
"As you know, we ran into some Griffins. We had to defend ourselves by fighting,"
"Any decent pony would. Why are they vomiting, though? Is there a sickness bug?" Symphony seemed slightly irked.
"We had to kill the Griffins," Octavia went on. "Using our teeth. Some ponies must have swallowed blood and, as we’re herbivores, they’re chucking their guts up."
Symphony looked shocked for a minute. Then, an expression of ’you can depend on me’ came across her face and she told Octavia,
"Well, if we’re likely to encounter Griffins, you can count me in on the fighting. I can down ten of those brutes!"
As Watership Down had Bigwig, we had Symphony. Stubborn, stalwart and always willing to fight.
"Come along then; we’ll freeze our flanks off if we hang around." Symphony trotted along the upwards-leading path, everypony following behind her.
By the end of the day, we were tired and weren’t expecting the Griffins to attack again.
Such was their tactic.
They dove down through the clouds, but Symphony spotted them first and leapt up high, snapping her strong jaws around a Griffin’s throat while it was still airborne, dragging it onto the shelf-like ledge.
The Canterlotean ponies were not as used to fighting as we were, and many of them were killed.
Symphony, by this time, had downed the Griffin and killed it viciously, then moving on to a Griffin which was preying on a few Canterloteans.
In the middle of fighting, none of us saw Ballad trying to take on a Griffin twice her size who was hovering just above her.
Suddenly, the Griffin dropped with all the force it could and a choking squeal came from Ballad’s mouth as she was killed.
Lyra and I rushed to attack the Griffin but Symphony beat us to it.
Furiously, she pinned the Griffin down and, using her bare hooves, snapped its neck.
At the end of the battle, we had lost more ponies than Griffins.
Symphony stood over Ballad. Tears spilled from her eyes.
"Ballad…" she buried her snout in Ballad’s mane. Sobs wracked her body as she mourned her wife. The only pony in the world who made her truly happy.
She then got up and licked the blood from her lips, pacing around, punching the rock face, swearing violently.
Suddenly she stopped and stared at Ballad strangely, in a way that she’d never stared at anypony before.
Symphony crouched and nuzzled the still body, then turning to us and asking,
"Can you please go on without me for a few minutes? I need a few minutes alone."
We did as we were asked and left the violinist with her deceased wife.
A few minutes later, as promised, Symphony caught us up.
"Your breath smells," stated Octavia, narrowing her eye suspiciously.
"It’s bound to, isn’t it?" Symphony answered, completely at ease. "I’ve just been helping you tear flesh out of Griffin brutes."
Octavia didn’t pursue that matter further, but she kept her eye on Symphony.
A few minutes later, Symphony spoke up again,
"You know how you called the site of your first battle ’Tartarus Shelf’? Would it be alright if we called the last one ’Heartstrings Shelf’? In honour of Ballad." She gazed over her shoulder at me and Lyra, as if inviting our approval.
"I think it would be a very good idea." Lyra nodded, and I agreed wordlessly.
"It’s settled. The last site of battle is called Heartstrings Shelf." Octavia addressed everypony, who murmured their approval.
That night, we couldn’t find a cave, but a very rocky shelf served as shelter for our battle-worn, tired bodies.
That night, as I was half asleep, I felt movement and saw a sillouhette rush away from the group and down the way we’d just come.
I was too tired to question this pony’s disappearance or who that pony was, but as I slept, I dreamt of a pony with the fangs of a true predator. A pony who had acquired a taste for meat, and would stop at nothing to satisfy their craving. At first, this pony fed on the bodies of those defeated in battle, but started to live by their teeth and kill those closest to it.
When I woke, nopony was missing, so I decided to forget all about the dream.
When everypony else had woken up, we continued on our way.
"We’re close." Symphony remarked. "I can just feel the blood of a new life running through my veins!"
We finally reached the top of the mountain and peered down into the bowl-like hole in the mountain that would house us, keep us safe.
The Star and Supernova groups had already got there, and as we went to meet them, Twilight ran to greet us.
"There are holes in the wall of this bowl which will serve as excellent shelter!"
"That’s very good. Have you lost any ponies?" Octavia asked.
"No, we just hid whenever there were Griffins." she scanned our group. "Oh no! You’ve had a run in, haven’t you?"
"I’m afraid so," Frederic spoke for his sister. "there have been many losses and Vinyl and Octavia need medical attention."
Twilight nodded and led them away to where the nurses from Ponyville General were talking.
Symphony turned to assure to the group that we were safe. I watched her mouth as she spoke and noticed something odd about her teeth.
"Frederic," I asked.
"Hm?"
"I know this is a crazy question, but if a herbivore starts eating meat regularly, can their teeth get sharper?"
"Yes, actually." Frederic answered. "Ponies of the Equus family can adapt very quickly, for example."
Symphony couldn’t possibly be adapting. She didn’t eat meat; she left the Griffins she’d killed.
Over the next few months, the climate changed and the planet became colder. But still the village of Montanis prospered. Economy wasn’t a subject of concern, since there was nopony else to trade with in all Equestria, but materials for building needed to be fetched and only one pony was needed for each task since they were fairly easy.
But I noticed that none of the ponies ever came back.
Symphony was usually the first to put forward her opinion as to the causes of their deaths:
"It was the cold." or,
"A Griffin patrol must have spotted them." or even,
"They must have lost their hoofing on a narrow ledge."
When the need for materials arose again, groups of at least five were sent to fetch them. Yet again, they vanished without a trace.
This went on until there were only a few of us left: Symphony, me, Frederic, Beauty Brass, Octavia and Twilight Sparkle.
Then came the tragic day of the final princess’ death.
Twilight Sparkle had flown out of Montanis to check for Griffin patrols.
And she never came back.
Symphony put forward that a Griffin patrol must have seen her before she’d seen them.
But Twilight was known as a very observant pony.
Something wasn’t right.
Before that day, Vinyl Scratch and Fiddlesticks, who had been sent to collect wood, had vanished and landed a huge blow on Octavia and Beauty Brass.
Symphony always payed them social visits.
One day, I asked Symphony where Octavia was; I needed to speak to her about something.
Symphony simply shook her head and answered,
"I called this morning. She wasn’t there."
Beauty Brass followed in her hoofprints soon after until there was just me, Frederic and Symphony left.
One morning, Symphony was talking to Frederic in the plaza while I was thought to be asleep.
I was watching.
"There’s only the three of us left here," Symphony remarked. "We might as well not have moved."
"Well, we would have had shorter lives if we hadn’t have moved." Frederic responded. Suddenly Symphony trembled violently and Frederic looked concerned. "Are you alright?"
Symphony smirked at Frederic. And I could see it. Her teeth were sharp as knives.
No longer was she simply Equus caballus.
She was an extremely rare case, a mutation, an adaption, made purely to kill and survive by herself.
She was Equus caballus cannibal. The carnivorous pony who preys on other ponies.
I watched in terror as Symphony lunged, tearing great hunks of flesh out of Frederic, devouring every morsel.
I didn’t realise I’d yelled until she pounced at me.
I could feel the searing pain of her fangs on my throat. I felt my flesh tearing away and her teeth slicing through to my vital organs like a hot knife through butter, and she pulled out my stomach, my liver and my intestines before moving on to my heart and lungs.
As I lay dying under her teeth, I realised that Symphony had killed everypony who had gone missing. She’d eaten the rotting corpses all the way back on Tartarus Shelf. She had betrayed those closest to her.
She had even eaten her own wife.
Now, I am a star pony. I watch over Symphony and I realise now that Symphony never wanted to become a cannibal. She was driven to it purely out of grief.
She’d torn the ponies to shreds and devoured them because she knew that it was what the Griffin would have done to Ballad.
She even goes out and kills hordes of Griffins with her teeth alone. But she won’t eat them.
Because the stringy, gamey taste of a Griffin will never replace the succulent, chewy meat of a pony.
I know that there are no more pure ponies in Equestria. They are all here with me and we all live in harmony.
Ballad sits by me sometimes, watching what a mess the pony she loved – and still loves even now – is in.
The withdrawals of pony meat will better Symphony one of these days and she will become a star pony, pure and just as the day she was born.
She and Ballad will be reunited and they will love again, regardless of anything Symphony did when she was alive.
But for now, I just sit in silence.
And watch.
THE END.
Author's Note
A/N: Wow. First fic I’d describe as at least semi grimdark. It was pretty obvious that Symphony was a cannibal, I have to work on making my culprits less obvious ;D
