the forgotten one

“the monsters were in us all along, they just needed the clay to build them”- taken from the journal of Tacticus, in reflection of the relief of the siege of the emerald isles, the first use of the emergency powers act.

He had had this dream a thousand times, the screams of the dying echoing off the walls like an opera of suffering, the sounds of boomstick fire like the ripping of fabric, and above all the hissing fire of his own creation. Though he was not a dragon, the fire he created burned as bright as any he had seen, the poor sods unfortunate enough to get caught in the breath of his hand dragon had never lived long enough to contemplate the difference, being burnt alive was a bad way to go, so the intricacies of what was doing the incinerating was of little constellation to the cooked. Pegasus, unicorns, earth ponies, griffons, zebras it didn’t matter all fell to the flames, the ethereal screech of the fluid as it ignited upon contacting the air a powerful omen of death, the only thing left afterwards was the mouth-watering smell of well cooked meat.

But that was the past, his flamethrower long extinguished of fuel, but in this dream, he could relive his glory, a mountain of armoured chitin, the sloshing of the keg of fluid on his back giving him the dragons fire, shells bouncing of him like he was made of titanium, twas a beautiful sight. His advance never slowing, those who decided to stand and fight or were to slow to flee were turned to ash or met the crushing power of his jaws, his metal teeth rending their flesh like he was eating a sponge cake. The taste of blood getting his 3 hearts pumping, the coppery lifeblood giving him a reason to live, the urge to kill was all he had been born for and it was all he needed.

He had been a good solider, not that he had a choice in the matter, the foul rocks in his neck causing obedience through fear, and even now they chafe as a permeant reminder of his servitude. But in time the war passed and there was no need for a mobile killing machine and him and his ilk were rounded up and put down, discarded like a broken toy, fortunately for him his captors were unadapt and tasty. But that was a story for a different day, and for now he was content to bask in his combat prowess, the battle of the emerald islands filling his dream as if it was happening right now, and not long in the past, the memory as fresh as the day he had lived it.

Celestia he loved this bit, the impact of him smashing through a barricade, sending a hapless sentry who was perched on the top flying, landing with a wet splat a good 30 yards away, the thick black smoke of burning debris clouding his vision causing him to flick his eyes to heat vision. The blackness suddenly becoming clear as a summer morning, his way unobstructed, the scattering infantry falling back, leaving their wounded like cattle to the slaughter, he was still sure to this day that they wet themselves when they heard him introduce their abandoned friends to mister sunshine.

As he neared the rapidly closing gate, they had formed another line and were returning fire again, the hard slaps of boom stick fire like hail, and the pattering of a hoof cranked heavy boomstick like that of a strong rain. The fire doing little but piss him off as he broke into a sprint, his massive body capable of short bursts of speed that these unlucky basterds were about to find out.

Reaching the gate, they had just a instant to dunk fire tar on him before he slammed through the oak, the sticky black fluid instantly ignited, unfortunately for them it just meant that instead of a crocodile troll charging them they had a flaming crocodile troll charging them, the pitch doing nothing but further adding fuel to his blood lust, not that he could feel it, the sensation nothing more than the feeling of feathers on the skin.

Letting loose a primal roar he lunged forward, seizing an unprepared pony in his snapping jaws, the mare powerless to stop him, as he simple flicked his head and swallowed her whole and very much alive, taking her in a single gulp armour and all. Her bulge rippling his scales slightly before coming to a rest in his stomach gently wriggling, not that he noticed as he was busy ripping the rest of her squad apart, a head, a couple of legs, and a few torsos, all coming away like those of a set of dolls, as he gorged himself on their severed parts, his actions rapidly diminishing the combat effectiveness of the unit. In no time his scales were drenched in blood and there wasn’t another soul present other than the 2 or 3 ponies he had swallowed alive slowly going still, as they suffocated in his stomach entwined with the viscera that was their compatriots.

Patting his stuffed gut, he knew he still had more space, but this thought was interrupted by the loud sounds echoing off the horizon.

BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM

The sounds like thunder, as steel rain began to fall from the sky, levelling fortifications all around him like they were made of wooden blocks, kicking up the mud causing it to fall like rain, his vision going cloudy in the mist of loam.

BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
CLOP
CLOP
CLOP

And with that his eyes flickered open, the sands of time lost to him until he next wandered into slumber, the sounds of artillery replaced by the clopping of hooves on the street above, signalling the start of another busy day in Manehattan.

Rolling from the mass of debris he called a bed, his neck cracking in the process as the wandering obedience geodes were forced back to their normal spots, the crick in his neck disappearing as they settled in their normal place, he groggily got to his feet. His massive frame filling most of the chamber that he called his lair, bones littering the floor, a few scattered skulls peaking over the couple of inches of murky water that never seemed to drain from this stretch of the sewer. A few bones that were precariously placed on the floor were shattered as he stretched and prepared to head out.

The growl of his stomach told him he was hungry, not that he needed reminding, the flesh of rats was only good for abating the voices for so long, he needed pony flesh, lest he slump into his primal urges. Grumbling to him self he set off wading through the sewers, the septic environment serving the purposes of his swamp, the heat of the decomposing sewage giving him the thermal energy he required in the morning to jump start his metabolism, the consistent environment meaning he could remain active even in the depths of winter, so he could hunt whenever the feeling struck him.

As he moved through the snaking tunnels, at some points having to go on all fours to continue he heard the city, the sounds of ponies yelling, the roar of machinery in the factory’s, and the sound of music. It was at the sound of music where he stopped, the sweet melodies usually indicating a party or at the very least the presence of liquor, the beverage prone to lowering ponies guard and making them easier to hunt, the flat toothed prey animals really shouldn’t damper their senses when their unnatural predator was on the loose.

Pausing he took in the music, the dimples on his wide face practically allowing him to see the music, the organs a remnant of if he was naturally calling for a mate, allowing him to seize up competitor males. He didn’t speak the new tongue well, but he could tell by the choruses tune it was some kind of female power ballad, indicating the ponies gathered around were a mob of mares. Listening for a moment he heard the gentle laughter, of about 6 or so mares all chuckling at some no doubt witty comment, like a group of flamingos.

For a moment he paused by the manhole cover, gauging the sunlight, finding it to be the mid-afternoon, the sun sitting in the sky cheerful as ever, providing the fire to the land allowing life. Pressing his hook clawed hand to the metal plate he gently applied pressure to the slab and pushed it gently clear allowing hi to poke the eyes mounted on the top of his head through the precipice and scan the surroundings. He did so carefully as he was sure to stand out in a crowd, his monstrous bulk making him both intimidating and naturally scary to the prey fears of all pony kind.

As his eyes adjusted to the intense light, unlike the cool dim of his subterranean home, he found himself in a lush green garden, in some public park. Lurking menacingly, he scoped out this new hunting ground happy to find the manhole cover surrounded by dense foliage, giving him lavish cover for which to hide his muscular frame. Emerging from the hole he was grateful his body had remained streamlined for swimming, as he passed through it without much issue, just having to point his snout to the sky to allow his long face to cross the threshold.

His natural moulted brown skin colour offered him some level of camouflage, but his pale underbelly was a dead giveaway, so going flat to his belly he slowly drew closer to the sounds of his imminent dinner.

“And then Snowheart accidently took some of Screwballs medication, she gave herself a double dose, to quote her exactly “I can taste the sounds”” said a chuckling white earth pony mare, her light pink hair tied in a bun, her eyes closed as she giggled at her friend’s expense, Snowheart clearly being the yellow mare who had suddenly gone quite red, but even so had a smile on her face.

“O stop Redheart your embarrassing her” said an orchid mare, her face chubby, making her look like a fine main course, her cute freckles offering her no reprieve, and instead making her look all the tastier.

“How about that time in med school……” started a cobalt blue mare before Redheart pushed a hoof to her lips, her cheeks flushing red, as whatever the mare was going to say was a very humiliating affair.

“Now, now Tenderheart we don’t have to mention that, otherwise the girls here will know about what happened in los Pegasus” said Redheart with a giggle, evidently remembering it as a humorous affair.

“Redheart we were all there, seeing as the trip was for Sweethearts weddings hen do” said Tenderheart pointing to the chubby pink mare, the action causing Redheart to feel the fool as she had just remembered all her friends had been there for Tenderheart making an ass of herself.

He cared little for this bickering banter, the chit chat irritating him to an unhealthy degree, he was waiting for the opportunity to strike, as he had slowly inched his way towards the mares who were sprawled out on a large picnic blanket, its red and white checkers no where near as colourful as the mares reclining on it as they nibbled at their sandwiches.

Then he heard a sound to his right, glancing over he found a lone glamorous ocean green Pegasus mare leaning against a large tree that stood at the edge of the tree line, casually flicking through what looked like a fashion magazine, in the most obnoxious way possible. She was wearing clothes and jewellery, but that meant little to the crocodilian, they would digest with her or be ejected in a stool a few days down the line, though they would dampen her taste, which was a shame, but he inhaled his prey anyway, so it was no great loss.

Rising onto his hindlegs, the bones creaking as his muscle structure realigned, his body worn, but if he had known he would have lived this long he would have treated it better, but his mind was set on another task that his animalistic instincts deemed higher priority than his weary bones.

Leering over his prey, the mare’s ears gently twitching in the soft breeze as she flipped through the magazine with nary a care in the world, each page only getting a brisk glance before she discarded it with a humph, as she found it distasteful and was swift to turn over the page giving the same result like a faulty lie detector. Her eyes only breaking from the pages when a glob of his saliva fell in a strand hitting her red shirt clad shoulder as it trickled in strings from his maw. Her eyes then wandered to it, giving it a look of disgust and slowly creeping upwards, going wide upon seeing him a moment before his jaws snapped shut over her like a bear trap.

Retreating into the foliage, meal in tow, he flicked his head back, bouncing the mare into his gullet that managed to get a solid connection to her head and short red mane, and then it was just a simple couple of flicks of the head to down her, the light marine green mare disappearing with no effort, this was why he preferred mares as prey as they had smaller frames, so they went down easier and he could fit more in, their small shoulders fitting snuggly into his jaws unlike the often obtuse boxy build of stallions.
Feeling his first course slide down and settle in the gut, the mare already protesting and wriggling enthusiastically, clearly not happy with her new scenic view, he returned his attention back to the group of mares enjoying their soon to be ruined picnic. The massive reptile then melded back into the underbrush, and moved his way back towards the remaining mares, crawling towards them offering as small a profile as possible, using a flowerbed to mask his approach. The gabbing mares blissfully unaware of what was coming for them, the gap rapidly closing as he stalked his quarry, the weak struggles of his first meal making him want to add more sensation to the mass of squirming flesh, as he was sure to gulp down some air to prolong their pointless acts of defiance.

30 yards

20 yards

Looking up something didn’t feel right, the birds had stopped singing, the giggles of her friends filling the space, but it wasn’t sitting well, like some ancient prey sense was triggering, the feeling causing her ears to swivel like radar scanning for a discrepancy that might cause her to change her actions.

10 yards

“You okay Redheart?” asked Snowheart, noticing her friend suddenly going quiet, unlike her normal self especially with such rampant banter going around the group.

5 yards

“Yeah its noth…” she started a smile already on her face to discern her friends concern before, the group was hit by a train of muscle and anger. It happened in an instant, her body locking up as a creature that could only be described as a foal’s nightmare towered over her fangs barred, some metal gleaming in the light others an off white and covered in plaque. With two powerful swings of its arms it grabbed Tenderheart and Snowheart, lifting them effortlessly as they helplessly writhed in his steel grasp, suspended above the ground their hooves trying to run but finding no land to sprint on.

Sweetheart was not as lucky and the creature had slammed its jaws over her enveloping the entire front half of her body in its gnarled flesh, leaving her round rump, mulberry tail and thrashing hind legs the only part of her not encased in the crocodilian abomination.

For a minute he paused savouring the taste of the rotund mare in his wide maw, her taste flowery but with a hint of medical antiseptic, an odd flavour and something he hadn’t experienced in a long time, then he realised that all 3 mares he had seized had matching cutiemarks, the red cross a symbol of a nurse pony. His mind was distracted from pondering this as the pink maned mare in front of him let out a scream, and he realised she had failed to flee, and had remained rooted in place when he had seized her friends, how convenient, now she would share their fate.

Looking up in terror Redheart saw the creature staring right at her, its yellow eyes piercing deep into her as it sized her up like a lump of meat, the only movement a subtle bobbing of its head as it “S”ed its stubby neck pushing the screaming Sweetheart into its waiting gullet, her friend causing the scales on its throat to stretch exposing pink flesh in between the armoured scutes.

Falling backwards she tried to crawl away, her hooves digging into the well-cut grass as she tried so push herself away from it, to get help, the madness of what she was seeing overloading her system, the normally calm and collected nurse now sprawled out on the grass scrambling away from a monstrous golem, she didn’t get far.

As she turned to run she felt a firm foot on the small of her back, the monster simply placing a clawed foot down on her back, using his weight to force her down into a submissive position, as simultaneously it had a rolling gulp, and the bulge that was Sweetheart could be seen travelling down its throat, disappearing for a moment behind the ribcage before reappearing when it joined the jostling mass in his midsection.

And then the true horror of the situation struck her, it could have crushed her like a bug, but instead it was holding back, showing restraint, a cruel sentience was behind those reptilian eyes, it wanted its prey alive, it wanted to feel her struggle in its stomach. As she was contemplating this it tossed Tenderheart into its mouth, the blue mare practically disappearing in a single gulp, her pale green tail the only part of her not yet enveloped in flesh, the length of hair rapidly growing shorter as the lump of meat it was attached to flowed down the rippling gullet to be deposited in the now quite full stomach.

Hand now free he reached down and picked up the mare under his foot, well with the other hand tossed the yellow mare into his jaws, wolfing her down effortlessly, the mares like gummy bears, sliding down easily, their taste fruity but stained by anaesthetic and other medical chemicals, no doubt accrued from their work in some local hospital. The white mare in his grasp was of average build, her mane bun becoming unravelled as she struggled, the pink hair rustling in the warm air, as the sensation of her friend’s tail sliding in tickled his tonsils.

Looking in terror as the cerulean grey tail disappeared, Redheart could not look away from the maw as it approached, like sea cavern opening up to accept her as she was gently pulled towards the threshold, the crocodile hissing in what seemed like satisfaction as Snowheart settled into her new home, the writing mass of living ponies bulging its gut greatly, as the struggled against the stomach walls and each other’s bodies.

And like that Redheart felt the wetness of saliva on her face, and was soon riding down the tight waterslide, the flesh surrounding her warm, its peristalsis strong, and she was yanked in a single gulp the sounds of lungs and 3 thumping hearts filling her ears, in any other situation she would have been fascinated by this first had experience with anatomy, but right now she just felt like pissing herself in fear.

Her isolation was soon replaced by cramped overcrowding as she was thrust into the crammed to the brim stomach. Her face finding its way under a pair of what felt like limbs, the stomach pitch black and the only sensations audio and tactile. In the stomach personal space didn’t exist, the mares were forced upon each other like sardines in a can, their bodies interlocking like living jigsaw pieces, as the stomach settled to solving the puzzle of fitting them into the smallest space possible, as it set to work slowly grinding them to chyme.

It was a humid, fetid sack of desperation, all the mares struggling, their flailing limbs striking against each other as the stomach simply rolled over them like a chef kneading bread, the abhorrent smell added to by the uric smell of urine as someone had lost control of their faculty’s and let the yellow rain fall. The smell of rotten flesh was upon Redheart’s nose like a swarm of flies, the no doubt remnant stench of the monster’s previous meals, all in the same situation she was now in, and soon she would share their fate.

Her thoughts were temporarily distracted as she felt her face forced into the vaginal folds of one of her friends, she didn’t know who it was, but their acid drenched tail caressed her face like a spider’s leg, sending a tremble up her spine from the strange sensation, the lengths of wiry protein sticking to her white fur in a sodden matted mass.

The sudden yelp above her told her she had had her muzzle forced into the birth canal of Tenderheart, the stomach seemingly intent on shoving her entire cranium up a second tight Shute of flesh before she died. She had not expected this day to end like this, her and her friends becoming a broth of pony flesh, mixed and pumped through the bowels of some massive reptile, she was a nurse she knew what happened to food, and right now she had been relegated to that lowly rank, her humanity stripped from her in less then a minute, to the beast she and her friends was nothing more than a tasty snack.

Placing a hoof on the rump that was surrounding her head, she somehow found leverage and pushed her head out of the love tunnel, her face now coated in her friend’s musk, her makeup running down her face tainting her medicinally clean fur. gasping in the stale air, now able to breath freely, she felt a gently plodding like the listing of a ship, in a gentle tide, a left right rocking sensation, that after a moment and a sudden unintentional headbutt from Snowheart, she realised was the monster walking back to what ever hellhole it had crawled from, now doubt setting out to bunker down and sleep its mare stuffed gut of like a Heartswarming dinner.

“We have to get out of here” screamed Snowheart, the notion earning a mewl of terror from a as of yet unseen mare buried at the bottom of the mountain of mare flesh, her screams intermittent but clearly the sound of someone in pain, as the crushing pressure of the stomach was magnified as the acid was getting to work on her soft skin, the epidermis turning red as it was sluiced from her body.

“Struggle, maybe it will force it to hack us up” yelled Sweetheart, the words barely audible over the suddenly much louder organ, its movements gearing up as more peptides were washed into the sack like a second rinse of a washing machine. Hearing this rally cry the 5 mares began to do their best in a vain attempt to escape, but in honestly it was nothing more than a gagglefuck, a stray hoof winding Redheart as her diaphragm was hit and she began to suffocate, unable to draw breath, as she through her lack of movement began to sink into the mass of writhing ponies, all desperate to live.

Just as she reached the bottom of the stomach her friends pressing down on her she had a revelation, she didn’t want to die, she wouldn’t die, no not like this, she was going to live, the boilers of her heart firing as she began to fight back, kicking and clambering, coughing up what ever was leaking into her lungs. As she began to climb her way to the king of the hill position of this Jenga tower of mares. she was doing it, a stray hoof or head here slowing her progress, but she overcame the obstacles adrenalin fuelling her oxygen deprived body, and before she knew it her mind clouded vison blurry, she felt her muzzle press against the sphincter she had entered from.

To him all he felt was an intense and uncoordinated act of defiance, the struggles offering him some pleasure as it tickled his nerves, this was his favourite part as it was one of the only times he felt anything, his external nerves hardened and resistant to stimulation this was the closest he would ever get to what he assumed the embrace of a lover felt like.

Reaching the man hole, he simply dove into it, and found himself stuck like a cork in a champagne bottle, his now much larger gut blocking his return to his subterranean domain. Squeezing his gut to protesting sounds from the mares within, a few bones cracking as he shattered their bones like twigs to try and reduce his stomachs circumference. he was having no luck, until he felt a mass force its way back up his throat and with a pop he fell into the sewers below, landing on his gut and with a hack ejecting one of his meals, the rest screaming in pain as no doubt they had suffered some compound fractures from the immense weight suddenly dropped on them.

Rising to his feet, remaining on all fours, he rose to reclaim his meal, the white mare a mess, her pink hair looking like it had been caught in a torrential typhoon of digestive fluid hanging wet to her body. She looked pitiful hacking as she practically vomited up a pint of fluid, the caustic fluid having singed her upper lungs as she had begun the first wash of many his stomach had had planned for her.

For a moment he considered gulping her down, but he was sated, for now, and it would be fun to have something to chuck in his stomach after he was done ejecting what was left of her friends in the next few days, would also save him going hunting if the need for food struck. so, opening his mouth, he gently grasped her in his maw as to not break her and began to scarper back to his lair, having to take a slightly different route as he factored in his now wider girth.

She was limp, but he could sense her heartbeat on his lips, so she would stay fresh for at least a day or two, the mare making coughs and rolling in and out of consciousness as she had practically drowned in his stomach before he had chucked her back up in an equally grimy setting.

In no time he was back to his humble abode, the sounds of bones hidden beneath the water line snapping as he placed his weight on the concealed rods of calcium, the remnants of previous meals giving his lair a morbid vibe, like one had entered the underworld, it worked wonders scaring off the sewer workers, so he guessed it was pretty scary. Tossing the mare into a holding cage he had constructed from bones in his free time, the idea striking him a few years back when he had captured an entire fraternity of stallions who had been doing some stupid initiation, he had butchered them but in doing so he could only savour a fraction of their meat, this way he could keep a larder for future feasts.

As he crawled onto his bed to start sleeping of his meal, he heard the mare say something her voice trembling.

“What are you?”

For a moment he paused, enjoying the pulsing of his stomach, the mares within still very lively as they had yet to expire, he gulped a little sewer air as he pondered his answer renewing their struggles with false hope, the mares moving in the stomach like the gel in a lava lamp, rising and falling as they hit the strong acid, causing them to scramble over their former friends, who were now nothing more than obstacles stopping them escaping from the boiling broth. In time one or two would expire leaving the others to sit atop them waiting for their friends to liquidate and plunge them into the soup that was their friends in a now liquid state, all of them loosing their forms and becoming nothing more then a unified log.

“I am Gnarle, and you, you are food” he hissed, the water around him vibrating as he made a territorial display to further frighten the now very lonely mare, as he rolled on his debris and drifted off to sleep in full view of Redheart who would have the pleasure of observing her friends get turned to slop over the next few days, knowing her fate in its entirety before she has a retake for her ownplunge, and live what she had observed.

The fear always made them taste better, he thought, as he was lulled into a dormant state as his body prioritised its digestive faculty’s. as his mind drifted it left a whimpering Redheart, the mare basted in her fear, the hormones giving her a strong scent, her sweat marinating her fur, as she subconsciously prepared herself for when he could eat her at his leisure, he would eat her slow to fully savour her, unlike her friends who had been inhaled with only a passing taste like sweets from a bag.

Hours later, in another place, this one a lot more regal and clean then the bustling city, Celestia sat at her meeting table, the carved mahogany inlayed with ivory and ebony, the spiralling pattern radiating from a large sun in the centre, a moon retroactively inset pairing it, symbolising her sisters return. She had felt a feeling she hadn’t felt in a long time when she had opened the letter from her faithful student, it was uncertainty, and it didn’t sit right with her.

She had been sat here for hours flicking through documents, the unplanned variable unexpected, but she had sent Luna to deal with it, and hopefully that worked out. What was bugging her more was the reports of a crocodile troll loose in the sewers of Manehattan, the creature deeply unnatural, seeing as it was her wizards that created it centuries ago. The missing person report stack was huge, going back several years, but for now the denizens of the city were happy to chalk the rumour of crocodiles in the sewer up to urban legend, even with the mounting body count.

The fact something, she had had a hoof in making was on a killing spree, bothered her deeply, if it wouldn’t create a scandal she would have sent in her specialists, but a bunch of robed ponies showing up was sure to draw eyes, and there was no way she would delve the depths to fight it in conventional magical combat, that was sure to end badly.

With the clocks passing 2 AM, she was about to turn in, when she heard the glass veranda doors that lead to the rooms accompanying balcony gently open, the sparkle of magic filling the room as a familiar dark mare entered, her belly large and gently wriggling under her, a curled-up form clearly visible under her conditioned fur.

“Please tell me you didn’t eat him” said Celestia with a groan, immediately thinking her sisters less than stellar people skills had failed her, and she had wolfed Ratway down to end negotiations.

“Sister please, when it comes to feeding I have some self-control, not like you and your cakes” said Luna, a burp escaping her lips with a few damp loose pink feathers, telling Celestia that the stomach contents defiantly wasn’t the earth pony stallion she had feared. Leaving the feathers to flutter to the ground, Luna pulled out the chair at the other end of the table and took a seat, her horn glowing slightly to manipulate the dreams of the pony within as to get her desired level of wriggling.

“Must you do that in a way that others might see?” asked Celestia, making note of her sister’s nonchalance at displaying her meal, the pony within clearly visible, no attempt to mask it with magic even attempted. Her sister didn’t seem to care and was much more set on selecting a fine wine from the liquor cabinet, settling on theCheval Blanc, with she gently began to suckle directly from the bottle, as no glasses seemed to be present.

“Don’t get so high and mighty sister, at least I taste them, savour them, appreciate them, you just take them in like you draw breath” said Luna, giving Celestia a stab at her sporadic feedings.

“How did your meeting go” asked Celestia, not biting at her sister’s banter, instead eager to hear how she dealt with the echo.

“Went fine, he knew his place” she answered vaguely, the answer bothering Celestia as the last time something had gone fine, it was when Luna had clogged a toilet with what was left of a saddle Arabian serving girl.

“So he agreed to my terms?” asked Celestia, intent on tickling a little more information from her sister, who seemed to be going a little red as her meals struggles slowly increased, the weight forced onto her private parts from the sitting position she had assumed.
“yep, his position caved like a pile of leaves” said Luna, as she began to pick her teeth with one of the feathers she had burped up, trying to dislodge a few loose hairs that were sitting between her well-polished teeth. Pondering this for a moment Celestia suddenly had a flash of brilliance that would deal with both of her most pressing issues, a smile creeping to her face, drawing Luna’s attention as she waited to see what her sister would say, the legitimate smile easy to differentiate from her put on smile for photos.

“I regret to inform you but your journey may have been unnecessary my dear sister, I think I have devised a more permanent solution to this little problem and another that is much more pressing” Celestia said as she hovered a file over to Luna, the blow hitting the princess of the nights self-esteem slightly as she had felt she had done a good job, only to have it undermined by the good old big sister knows best routine, as she attempted to micromanage things without telling her. Then she read the files title and realised she couldn’t have thought of a better plan herself.

“A crocodile troll, in Manehattan” said Luna not quite believing it, as she had not heard that species mentioned since her banishment and was convinced that they had been mopped up after her exile.

“If I send the lost soldier in, and he gets devoured, I can then send in my agents to capture the troll under the pretence of finding the charge of my dear student, it removes both from the equation” said Celestia proudly, as she conveyed her plan to her sister, just in case they weren’t on the same page.

“Makes sense” agreed Luna, before taking another sip of wine, the flavour of the Pegasus mare in her gut now stained in the wine, giving her periodic burps a new level to their aftertaste.

“It will be the morn soon” said Celestia, scrawling down a letter to Vanity, the mare more then fitting for the job at hand, she could make a more refined plan tomorrow, but for now this would do.

“Raven” called Celestia sweetly, before a moment later her diligent secretary emerged, her eyes heavy with bags, but dutiful as ever, having been ordered to remain outside until relived of her duties.

“Take this to the mail room, then get some sleep, I need you prepped for tomorrow your preliminary schedule seemed quite hectic” Celestia said, before giving a smile, as the mare scurried off with the message in hoof. The moment the door had been pushed shut Celestia returned her attention to her sister, who had been looking at Raven like an owl does to a mouse.

“Will I see you in the morn for pancakes?” asked Celestia as she pilled up the files with her magic and got to her hooves.
“Unlikely, I think I will be full for a few days” said Luna caressing the writhing bulge of her gut, eager for her sister to depart so that she may do some very questionable things in isolation. She didn’t receive a verbal response but the look on Celestia’s face was that of disappointment, their duties had made things difficult and they barely spent any time together outside of monarchic duties.

“Sweet dreams sister” said Luna just before Celestia reached the door, causing her to freeze at the door, at the normal parting words, having a different meaning from the dream master.

“You to” she said and then with a ping from her glowstick the door opened, and she walked out, her hoof coups clopping on the vacant castle, the only ponies present being guards who saluted her as she passed.

Before long she had wandered to her apartments and made her way inside and just as Luna had promised her dreams were as sweet as ever, her sister banishing the nightmares as always. Deep down Celestia knew it was her sisters attempts to repent for her crimes as nightmare moon, but she would never confess to it, but 8 years without a nightmare was a hell of a correlation. One day she would have to thank her for it, but for now she would play coy, and continue their relationship as normal, lest she think her big sister had gone soft.

And with a few gentle snores the princess of the sun got her beauty sleep, until the need to rise the sun returned and she would have to rise from her slumber.