Not The First

Do insane ponies know they're insane?

I pondered this every night. I lay down in permanent darkness and stared 'up', wondering if I was crazy or not. I spent my days watching water drip out of my still, drawing mandalas of death in blood-ink, or daydreaming about Ponyville. I wondered if Starlight ever even learned to appreciate Hearthswarming. If my... my eventual death would have any point, or was I cast aside as another meaningless sacrifice.

Every 'night' I fell asleep with these thoughts.

My only consolation was that my body was no longer being tortured as much as my mind. I was no longer thirsty.

I was no longer hungry.

Call me a cannibal. Call me whatever you like. I've chastised myself as worse.

That first bite of pony flesh was the worst; mostly because I didn't think to cook it. It was like gelatin made of blood and coffee grounds. Only somehow worse. I quickly remembered that griffons and dragons tended to place their meat over fires before eating it. I tried that with a small piece of flesh and found that it worked. I was able to choke it down.

That was weeks ago.

Since then, I'd discovered the optimal way of cooking pony meat for consumption. It required precise timing, flipping the chunks so that no side burned. Burning flesh smelled horrible and tasted worse than the last time Pinkie shoved her hoof in my mouth. Well, the last time I remembered. She may have done it again, to the other me.

Different parts of a pony tasted different. Easily the worst tasting parts were the internal organs. I tended to hang those out to drain and dry, and then they could serve as fuel for the fire. I found that strips from the thighs and chest were thicker and drier; chunks from my- er... breasts... were juicier and somehow tasted better. I tried not to think about that too much. It seemed weird. Then again, I was eating meat. It was all weird.