Once a Noble

Gris absolutely loved Nightmare night. Not only did it give ponies an excuse to be out and about late at night, but it was also the only night out of the entire year that most ponies wouldn’t look twice at the hulking mass of griffon that was him. The large griffon had found himself a perch atop a two-story house overlooking an alleyway. All around him, he could hear screams and shouts of laughter as ponies flitted to and fro, heading from door to door, knocking on each for sweets.

The griffon clicked his black beak, then shifted a little and ruffled his large wings. Any pony who would happen to look up would probably just mistake him as a very convincing Nightmare Night decoration. He had large, broad front shoulders, chocolate brown in color, and grey-black plumage and wings. Powerful, black talons clung to the gutter of the house he had perched himself upon, bending it roughly out of shape.

He stood taller than any pony, a hulking mass of bone and meat that could easily kill a pony so much as look at them. Normally, he didn’t bother with ponies, and kept himself to the confines of the forest, but tonight was the exception. Tonight, he was going to treat himself.

To Gris, Equestria was much better than the Griffon Kingdom, in every way, shape, and form. In the Griffon Kingdom, there were rules, and laws, and now, the entire land was stricken with poverty. Granted, Equestria had rules and laws too, but he didn’t care enough to actually follow them. He had been royalty, once--with people pandering to his every will and need, but when the Griffon Kingdom fell, so had his status. With nothing left to lose, and debts closing in on him from all angles, he’d left, headed for the Equestrian territories with high hopes and quickly had them dashed by open hostility. Who knew that such nice, colorful creatures would harbor such a prejudice for griffons? He certainly hadn’t known.

It hadn’t taken very long at all for him to lose sight of his already questionable morals in the Equestrian world, and being the large, intimidating griffon that he was meant he couldn’t get a job. And hey... a griffon had to eat. One thing led to another, and suddenly, here he was, perched on a rooftop.

“My my,” the griffon said to himself in a low, oily voice, beady eyes snapping to the dark shape of a pony who had just started down the alley. “First one of the night.” His eyes snapped briefly up to the horizon. “And it just got dark.” He chuckled to himself, the sound more of a rumble, if anything, then shifted his stance a little, the gutter groaning under his weight. hungry eyes watched the pony for a moment, and he slowly spread his large, dark wings. Gris pushed off with powerful hind paws, then took to the air, a couple of tiles breaking free from the roof and shattering on the concrete below as started away. Against the night sky, he was practically invisible to anyone on the ground who wasn’t looking, and he was absolutely sure that no one was looking.

The griffon circled the lone figure in the alley twice, then licked his beak and started to drop, swooping in from behind. After a few moments, he landed on all fours about ten feet behind the pony, folding his wings neatly to his sides and falling into a lazy run that sent his talons clickity-clacking on the ground. The pony he’d been eyeing reacted immediately to the sound, jumping a few inches in the air before turning sharply around. “W-who’s there!?”

Gris fought the urge to chuckle. Sharp eyes picked out a light brown coat below the ghost costume that the colt wore. There were two eye-holes cut, currently showing off his wide, green eyes, but apart from that, the costume was rather lazy. The pony remained frozen in place as the massive griffon approached him, the hoof that held up his bag of candy starting to tremble. He barely came up to the griffon’s chest in terms of size, and could have easily darted between his legs, were he aware enough to run.

“Taking the shortcut home?” the griffon rumbled, stopping a few feet short of the sheet-covered pony to look down at him. The colt remained perfectly still, and Gris rolled his eyes. “What’s the matter, kid, never seen a griffon before?” He reached out with his right hand and gingerly pinched the sheet between two talons, then yanked it sharply up and off the colt, revealing a yellow mane. “How much candy did you get?”

The colt finally seemed to budge, and he raised the bag holding his candy, then held it away from the griffon. “You can’t have it... i-it’s mine,” he said in a deeper, if not cracking voice. The voice reminded the griffon of a small teenager, rather than that of a colt. Perhaps he’d just caught a small-bodied teenager bumming candy!

The griffon lowered his head, then peered over his shoulder to make sure the alley was still clear, then he leaned in close, his hot, moist breath washing over the little pony’s muzzle. “Oh, come on, not even one piece? Aren’t you a little bit old to be trick-or-treating anyways, pony?” The griffon’s stomach gave a low, burbling growl, and he caressed his somewhat flat belly with a talon. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten?”

The colt gulped, then shook his head.

Gris grinned in response, then removed his talon from his belly and brought it ever so slowly towards the colt, who, for whatever reason, still hadn’t tried to move. The griffon almost wished he’d run, if not to make this meal a little more interesting. The colt, however, didn’t run, and a second later, Gris’ powerful talons clenched down on his shoulder. The griffon reached in swiftly and grasped the comparatively tiny bag of candy with his other hand, then yanked it away and held it up before his beak. “Come on, is this it?” He tilted his head back, opened his mouth, then dumped the entire bag into his ravenous maw. He didn’t chew, just swallowed, the bitter taste of plastic and paper-wrapped sweets lingering on his tongue for a second.

“Okay!” the pony said suddenly, starting to wiggle in the Gris’ grasp. “You can have it. You’re right, I-I’m too old to be trick-or-treating. Just let me go!”

The griffon just chuckled, then moved his hand to the colt’s middle and squeezed, lifting him into the air with relative ease. “You know, you make a pretty good kid if I don’t say so myself. Snack sized.” He gave a rumbling chuckle. “I thought you teenagers went to parties on this night.

The pony stayed quiet for a second, as if wondering how to answer, then kicked his hind legs and glared. “I-I did!” His eyes bugged out a little and he started to thrash a bit, wincing as the talons dug into his shoulder. “I mean I-I was going to... look! What even are you, the candy police!? I was just gonna get some to snack on. I’m small okay! Why not!?”

A low purr arose from the griffon’s throat. “Kid, I don’t care about the candy.” He gave the young stallion a sudden, light toss, sending him spinning in the air, and the same hand he had held him with before would dart in and grab the brown pony’s tail. He cried out as he suddenly found himself swinging upside down, kicking his hind legs, and with a low growl and a chuckle, Gris would sit back on his haunches, straighten his spine, then tilt his head back, lifting the little brown pony up over his break. “I still would have eaten ya’ even if you were a colt. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Gris opened his beak wide, giving the little pony a perfect view down into the darkness of his gullet, and finally, the little stallion screamed. Gris made sure to cut off the sound before it could go on too long, dropping the pony’s muzzle into his beak and immediately cutting the sound in half. Brown, battering forehooves smacked at the edges of his beak and face, and with a rumbling growl, Gris grabbed one with his other talon, then used the leverage to stuff him further into his beak. Were the pony in his mouth full-sized, Gris likely would have had to use some effort to swallow him, but the great thing about kids, or in this case, pretend kids, was that they were small enough to fit almost completely in his mouth.

Gris lowered the screaming, kicking pony down further, the pony’s head pressing at the back of his throat right as his rump slid past that sharp break. Gris rumbled happily, then snapped his jaw shut on the little pony’s blond tail before slumping back down and letting his talons clack to the dirty floor of the alley. Desperate hind hooves kicked at the inside of his beak, and the pony’s forehooves groped and pressed at the inside of his mouth. Gris just continued to purr silently to himself, running his tongue over the terrified pony’s belly, savoring the musky, sweet taste. His mother had once told him not to play with his food, though his food hadn’t been alive when she’d told him that. She would probably understand.

Another muffled scream left his beak, barely even audible, and at the same time, Gris’ belly growled long and loud. The griffon rolled his eyes at himself, then tilted his head back and opened his beak a few inches, letting go of the colt’s tail. Gris didn’t even have to swallow to feel the little pony slide backwards across his tongue, a little more of that tail pulling into his mouth. He stifled a pleased groan, then threw his head all the way back and gulped hard. Immediately, the little pony slid down about a foot, his entire upper body lodging in the griffon’s tight throat. Gris spared a talon to run over the squirming bulge, then threw his head forward and forced another hard swallow at the same time, like a pigeon swallowing a worm. Finally, that blonde tail disappeared into his beak around the same time that the bulge of the now-constricted pony reached his chest. Gris clacked his beak shut, grunted softly, then chuckled and stood, giving one last swallow that sent the little shape down into his chest and into his much-too-empty stomach.

Gris all but moaned as he felt the weight of the pony fill out his empty belly, and then immediately heard a quiet scream from his gut. He responded with a low chuckle, then stood with a long, pleased stretch, his belly ever so slightly rounded by the weight of the colt, an occasional bulge showing in his smooth, brown coat as his prey kicked and squirmed. “Trick or treat,” the griffon numbed contentedly to himself, then started off casually down the alley.

That pony had been a snack, and little more. There was no way he was done tonight. Momentarily satisfied, he headed for the street, wondering what he could do next, and just how much he could get away with.