To Build a World

“Thou hast cheated us!” Luna screamed at her sister, her voice loud, reverberating through the halls. “We demand you cease this confidence game at once!”

Celestia giggled.

“This is not a game! We demand you cease your tiresome charade immediately!”

“Oh, Luna, it is a game! That is the point!”

Luna gasped. “What? The point is not to cheat!”

“That’s not the point, Luna,” Celestia giggled again. “The point is to have fun.”

“We cannot have fun is thou doth not observe the rules!”

Celestia sighed. “Why do you speak in the Royal voice if we are not in public?”

“Why doth thou not use thine Royal Voice when thou is in public?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“She can change the subject if she wants,” Henry said, alerting the two sisters to his presence. “And besides, how many times have I told you to avoid board games?”

“But father – “

“Celestia is a cheat!” Luna yelled. “A cheat and a harlot!”

“Now, is that any way to speak about your sister?” Henry asked.

“It is when she is cheating!”

“At least she’s speaking normally now, Father.”

“Don’t antagonize her. Now calm down, both of you. Have you done your chores?” The two sisters nodded. “Celestia, did you continue your studies? Luna, did you work on your….. what is it that you do?”

“Father, it is our job to advise the citizens on issues which are of concern to them,” Luna regained her composure. “Surely thou remembers the assignment thy gives us?”

“And? What’s of concern to them?”

“A beast has been seen in one of the villages, Father,” Luna said. “A brown beast, with no hair and no eyes, with spindly limbs. We were told it does scare the children.”

“Has it caused any other problems?”

“A young mare has gone missing, Father.”

Henry was quiet for a moment. “When did this happen?”

“In the night. The mare went to bed, but was found to be missing from her room.”

“That is unfortunate. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do.” Henry turned to leave.

“But we must, Father! We must help thine citizens!” Celestia looked at Luna as she yelled after her father. Such an act was not uncommon for Luna, although this time Celestia noticed her demeanor was much more urgent, more desperate. More determined. “We have royal duties to uphold.”

“You can’t help, Luna,” Henry said. “You must not. It’s the way it has to be.”

“But why?!”

“Because it must!” Henry turned and yelled at his younger daughter. “Have you forgotten your studies? That’s what it means to be a part of the world, to be relevant, to be connected. Predation happens, Luna, and we can’t simply stop it just because we find it tragic!”

Luna fell silent. Celestia looked from her sister to her father; she could see the dark blue mare’s face contort with emotional distress. Celestia wanted, dearly, to interject, to stop what she knew would happen, but she could not find the words. She simply sat there.

Henry stopped. Without looking back, he spoke. “Luna, your sister has learned this, and you must come to accept it as well. We cannot interfere in such circumstances. That is my one demand of you.”

“How can you be such a bastard?!”

Silence. It hung around them like the most oppressive of ghosts. Its aura curled around them, invisible choking tendrils. Henry turned, and walked back to Luna.

“Father, please – “

It came fast, and to some it would have seemed to come too easy. There was no trace of emotion, no anger or sadness or anything, in Henry’s face as his hand suddenly made contact with Luna’s face. Celestia winced, and Luna could not bring herself to look at her father. Her lips trembled, her eyes closed tightly against the sting.

“You will not speak to me in such a manner,” Henry said. “I am to be respected. Is that understood?”

Luna did not speak, nor did she look at him.

“Look at me, Luna. Is that understood?”

Against every fiber of her being, Luna looked at her father. Tears blurred him, made it appear as though every part of his being was attempting to escape his form. “Yes, father. We understand thine demands.”

“Good.” Henry turned, and without another word walked away.

“Why does he have to hit me?”

Luna lay curled on her bed, Celestia sitting beside her, running her hoof through her sister’s hair. The motion calmed her sister slightly, had always made her problems that less of a burden. “Shhhh,” Celestia whispered, “it’s okay. It’ll be okay, you’ll understand.”

“No, it won’t, Tia. He doesn’t love me as much as he loves you.”

“Luna…..” Celestia could not think of anything to say. As much as she loved her sister, they were completely different. Celestia was always more of a daddy’s girl, while Luna loved to spend time with the native ponies outside the walls of their home. To Luna, Celestia knew, the natives were as good as extended family, something she cared for very deeply.

“How can you not see it? If he loved me, he wouldn’t let things hurt me, Tia. And yet, he demands I stand by while ponies are in danger, and he surely knows how it hurts me.”

“Father knows.”

“Then why must he insist we do nothing?” Tears fell down her face.

“Father told us,” Celestia said. “It’s the way it has to be.”

“According to who? Him?”

Luna trembled. She began sobbing again. Celestia couldn’t bear it. She lay down beside her sister, took her in her arms and held her close, draping a wing over them both.

“Oh, Lulu, please calm down.” Celestia spoke softly, rubbing her hooves across the blue alicorn’s back. “He loves you, I promise. And I love you. We are a family.” She fell silent as Luna dug her face even further into her chest. The sobs began to die down, began to wane into nothingness. Celestia knew that there was something more to her sobs than simply being struck by her father; she knew that her sister was, in the truest sense of the word, lonely. She was an emotional creature, and such beings desired, almost by their very nature, somebody to share their existence with. Celestia hugged her sister even tighter, began humming a nameless tune.

It was, after all, what big sisters were supposed to do.

She was hungry. Her mate was hungry, and so were his brothers. And her chicks, they were also hungry.

She could hear them calling in the distance as she walked away from the nest, her mate’s two brothers standing guard as the two alphas – one male, one female; one husband, one wife – walked through the forest. Their feet fell silent on dead leaves and trampled grasses, their eyes darting to and from one another. They were a very vocal species, but on hunts, when they were stalking, they were mutes.

Their feathers blew slightly in the breeze which brought them scents.

Prey had become incredibly scarce, and very recently two. Her family group was used to eating well, and had viciously defended  a very productive territory just beyond the limits of Ponyville. Her family group didn’t prey on ponies, they were too well protected –a social species, which was also intelligent, was an equal match against her group, and one of the main points of being a predator was not to take damage if you could prevent it. Especially when you had young offspring to rear.

The raptor stopped moving. Hunger pains shot through her stomach. She lifted her snout and inhaled. There was nothing. She looked at her mate. She growled.

They kept moving.

What must have been two weeks earlier, she had detected a strange scent. New, unsettling, it has smelled dangerous. The eggs were just about to hatch, and she had reasoned it was an egg thief. She had been wrong.

Whatever it was, it was quickly consuming prey items faster than the prey could replenish themselves. The raptor group quickly found itself going hungry, competing with something they could smell, and occasionally hear, but could never see nor confront.

For an apex predator, it was maddening. Every fiber of her being, every instinct, told her something was wrong. There was something foreign here; something alien and, at least on some level, frightening.  But raptors were nothing if not adaptable – if they could not take out the new thing that had so drastically cut down their available quarry, then they would find a new one. If not they would leave.

And thus, for the second day in a row, the alpha female and her mate found themselves at the forests edge, looking out towards the crudely constructed buildings. Her stomach turned, her killer claws twitched, dug into the dirt beneath her.

They watched, and they waited.

It wasn’t long. The two alphas, like most of their kind, were good at predicting the behaviors of their prey. They had not come to this clearing at this time by accident. The day before, they had noticed a gathering of fillies and colts wandering and grazing, some playing together, and a select few, which had caught the attention of the raptor pair, played alone. They had come out after a ringing from one of the buildings.

Today was no different. The bell rang through the air, shrill and bright and obnoxious, and the doors of the schoolhouse opened. Out poured a dozen or so small ponies, pegasi and unicorns. Like the day before, they dispersed around the grounds of the schoolhouse. They laughed, all but one. A small colt, frail, alone. Picked on by his peers because, of all the things ponies do, some of them could be considered to be quite human.

The colt was bluish-gray, with a mane of white. He pawed at the ground, took a few nibbles of grass.  With sad eyes, he looked back at his cohorts, which could have been his friends had circumstances treated him more favorably.

The raptors shifted positions, silently. The female looked at the male, gave a slight head twitch. The male blinked, began to silently move away. The plan was set. The females chicks would not go hungry tonight.

Three colts and a filly walked up to the lone pony, pompous and full of themselves. They began to speak to him, condescending and angry and mean, making the poor colt want to shrink in upon himself. The raptors did not understand the words, nor the situation – they did not know that, four weeks before, a friend (well, it was a friend at the time) had found the colt doing something only fillies did. His friend had turned on him, told the schoolponies, and everything had gone to shit for the poor colt. He stopped eating, he slept poorly. Most nights, he cried himself to what uncomfortable sleep he could find.

“Look, boys, it’s the ugly filly!” one of the colts snarled.

“Maybe she’d be prettier if we put a bag on her head,” said another.

“You know, he’d still be too ugly to be pretty,” said the filly. The ponies giggled. The frail pony shrunk in upon himself even more, sitting on the ground, looking down.

“Please…..” he murmured, “please…. Stop it.”

“What’s that? I think it’s talking.”

The alpha female shifted position, her starved muscles tensing. She focused on the frail colt. Her stomach rumbled silently, preparing for a minor feast. It was close, but not yet. She could see her lover moving through the brush, getting into position almost silently. Not that it would have mattered, the ponies were far too preoccupied to have noticed.

The bell rang again, filling the air with its shrillness.

The filly looked back. The alpha female looked at her mate. He was in position. Only a few more moments….

“Come on, let’s go. Ms. Crabapple will be mad if we’re late again,” the tallest colt, Whirlwind, said as he turned towards the school. The others followed suit, even their frail target. The tallest colt looked back. “Hey, who said you could come with us, loser?”

“Well, um…..”

“Don’t think about coming back with us, even Ms. Crabapple doesn’t want you there!” Whirlwind laughed his insult.

The attack came then. The alpha female burst from the trees, her hind limbs propelling her faster, faster. Cheetah speed. She closed in on the young ponies, almost half of the distance before they noticed her.

“Go!” Whirlwind shouted. All the ponies raced, screaming. “Help! Ms. Crabapple! Help us!”

In the distance, they could see an adult pony come out from the door and look in their direction. She looked concerned, and then shocked before she bolted in their direction. “Hang on, kids! I’m coming!”

The alpha shrieked, and the shriek was echoed by her mate, bursting from the foliage to the left of the group. He lunged forward, his jaws open and claws outstretched, snarling. The female was almost on top of the frail pony.

The pony looked back, the kept running as fast as he could. “Please! Please don’t leave me! Guys, please! Whirlwind!” His body was stressed, his poor diet and depression having taken their toll. He could feel his legs become wobbly, could feel them start to give out….

The male jumped, claws outstretched, killer claws at the ready. His mate watched, and relished the sight. She had chosen her mate well. She was proud.

He landed on the colt, his hind legs kicking into his sides as it fell to the ground beneath him. His front claws tore into the sides as his prey screamed.

“No! Don’t! Please! Ms. Crabapple – “ the colt’s voice waivered as the male moved over for his mate, who dug a killing claw into his belly, ripping it open. His innards spilled out, red ribbons and puffed balloons of meat, glistening. The female tore at it a few times with her hind leg, severing chunks of intestine, before picking it up in her jaw and swallowing. It was warm all the way down.

“Fanciful! No!” Ms. Crabapple stopped just feet short of the raptors, who greedily shoved their maws into the gaping hold of the colt.

“Make it stop!” the colt screamed. “Please!”

Crabapple took a step forward. In response, the male mimicked her motion, placing a hindfoot on Fanciful’s head. He squirmed. The male gripped for a better purchase, Fanficul screaming as the killing claw punctured his eyeball. The male screamed at the adult pony, and before long the female joined him.

Fanciful squirmed. “Ms. Crabapple! Help! Please help!” His voice was high pitched, ragged, seeping with desperation and pain and despair. “They’re killing me!”

From the schoolhouse, Whirlwind watched with his friends. Pits in their stomach began to grow.

They were afraid.

As angry as Crabapple was, she knew she had made a mistake. The raptors, while powerful, were obviously gaunt. Whatever had been killing of the animals in Everfree had taken their food away, and they were desperate.

It was not a situation in which she was happy to find herself. She took a step back, her lips quivering, her heart beating, every instinct telling her to run, every fiber of her heart telling her to save the colt that could clearly not be saved.

Fanciful began to calm a little, going into shock. He could see the mare, who was supposed to protect him, backing away.

“Ms. Crabapple, don’t leave. You’re… supposed to…..” His voiced stopped as the female stepped on his body, her weight crunching down on the ribs, which in turn pierced his heart and lungs. This was a very good situation for her and her mate. The audacity of the schoolmare had given them not one but two very delicious looking meals.

She looked at her mate, and squawked. He squawked back, repositioning himself. He released his grip on the colt’s head, his claw withdrawing from the eye socket, bringing the eyeball with it. They both knew that ponies tasted delicious, and were the only food source available. And, the mare had wandered so close to them anyway…..

Crabapple didn’t understand them, but her instincts told her enough – and they told her wrong. She saw the male take a step, the eyeball falling from his claw as the colt’s optical nerve refused to let go. She turned and began to ran, head lowered, her mane and tail flying behind her as she ran as fast as she could.

“Run! Get help!” she yelled at her charges. It was all she could do before she felt searing pain in her side and in her neck as the female toppled her. With a kick, every scream she screamed became a gurgle as the blood surged from her gaping neck. The male dug his head into her side. She could feel him grasp the liver in his jaws, rip it out. A searing, almost delicate pain tore through her.

As she went into shock, the male provided her with a final sight of bittersweet romance. The liver, you see, is the most vitamin rich organ in the body. Holding it red and dripping in his maw, he moved over to the female and nudged her. She looked at him, and he dropped the liver, nudging it towards her. He purred, his head low. The female took it in her mouth, and swallowed it whole.

The last thing Crabapple saw were her killers nuzzling their bloodied jaws together, purring almost romantically.