Author's Note

Mature/Gore/Death/Violence/Dark/Horror/Sad/Historical

TRIGGERS/spoilers: incest described, inbreeding mention, child death 'on-screen', abuse of a corpse, non-explicit mention of mutilation, 'on-screen' mutilation, brainwashed children(?)

An unnamed pegasus filly in the Tribal Era is more than proud of her race. She's willing to do whatever it takes to truly join the esteemed Flock of soldiers who fight the earth ponies and unicorns. There is a ritual, a beloved rite of passage, she is all too eager to take part in.

My first sorta-true grimdark story. Experimental kind of style. Bewarb. I thought about calling this one 'Coda of Blood and Clouds' but I dunno. Nothing really stuck.

Untitled #4 [Gore/Violence/Death] [One Shot]

I am a Pegasus. I know eight winters.

This is all I am. My name is a reward.

I have known the Flock since birth. I am of a broodmare I have never known.

The Flock does not abide by weakness. Those who show it are cast from the cloud's edge.

I do not cry. The weak cry.

I have heard their mewling myself. My fifth winter task was to toss a weak newborn.

Every task is an honor. I have succeeded in them all.

I am always eager to taste the wind. What I hunger for most of all is battle.

To slice the flesh of an earth-worm is to bless the ground. To see blood on one's face is a strong mark.

In the dirt they live. In the dirt they die.

I shall cut the air with blades. I shall clean them of sullied flesh when all is done.

In the Sky we live. In the Sky we thrive.

I hear the worms dirty their blood. Their foals are not from family blood.

I hear tales of how our stallions show their mares what is right. They use them up and show what is right.

Earth-worm mud ponies are fools who lack family broodmares and studs. The wretches raise their own dirty-blooded foals.

I am a Pegaus. I am better than any mud-worm. May my wing-blades raze their wrongs.

I am a Pegasus who thrives of the mud-wrestlers food. They are powerless. But the horned ones are not.

A horn-head mare is hard to break. That is what our stallions say. I think a blade is all that is needed.

Magic is housed best in them. That is what the Esteemed Ones say. Their word is All the Flock needs.

I heard that unicorn filth still reap mud-wrestler harvests. This means they are weak. They trade their land with ponies.

Like earth-worms they join their stallions and mares. They have no other means to trade land. The Flock needs none of this story nonsense.

In the Flock nopony belongs to nopony. In the Flock the city is for all. Only those faced with being Fixed are not wholly shared.

Those who are Fixed know blade, coal, and more. Coals are heart-fires flown from the ground.

I am not Fixed. I know soldiers who are. They do not become family broodmares and studs.

Earth-scum and unicorns both have dirtied blood I am eager to spill. Eight winters is too old not to have stomped a face in. I must act on the stories.

I must have boasts of my own. I must slay their weaker magics. The Flock walks the Sky!

There is none past the Flock and none still past the Esteemed Ones. They know all our city's movements. From birth I have served them.

The need for war is deep in me. I must be made ready by a soldier higher than me. I must face another who seeks the same.

If I am able to feed the clouds with their blood in the place only the war-bound know I will be ready. I must show loyalty without question. I always have.

There are no blades, no armor, nothing else in such a ceremony. We have wings, hoof, and teeth. Magic rings in my bones and wings. The Pegasus I face is a filly like myself.

I can tell she is Fixed. Her tail is pressed between her legs. It is a weak instinct to cover the scars of those of unworthy blood.

The Esteemed ones watch with faces stronger than any stone. Their faces are cut from wind and storm. Their bodies are scarred with battle.

They await our moves. Victory at all costs. I know this.

For my whole life I was made for war. I am of the Flock. I am War.

My fellow Flock members cannot be here. To want is wrong but I want them to see me. My victory and war cry were meant for them.

This is the day that foals yearn for. This is what adults are proud of. Everything after is a notch in their armor and a scar on their pelt.

My mark is a chipped stone spear-head. As stone is fetched from the ground to make our tribe victorious I shall cut through her skin. Her flesh is week with her bad blood.

I do not dance. I do not waste. I am a Pegasus and we are always above everything.

Those below us will be crushed. One day there will only be the strong and the Sky. Fighting is so one day no unicorn and mud pony will hoard food.

Bruise. Blood. Bite. Slash.

Kick. Scream. Howl.

The crack of her wing is my most favorite sound. I am sure she loves how her teeth have ripped out a chunk of my ear. Mine have yanked bloodied feathers from her wings.

She wants to move away. I spot her limp. In her back leg is a flaw from a filly Fixed with coals flown so carefully to the city.

Such an obvious burden makes me think about how she masks it. Her broodmare and stud must have been weak to let a filly like her fight a filly like me. Her reason for being Fixed is so clear that winters after it happens it shows.

I buck at her side. It is puffy with bruises unlike any other I have given somepony in training. She is weak and unworthy of the Flock.

Just like any other soldier I will get rid of her. My world fades to her screams. I kick and kick again until she is down.

An Esteemed One cheers with the noise that comes from another bone breaking. This is glory. This is the War I long for.

With great leaps and as many pumps of my wings as I can do I advance. She has fallen upon the clouds moaning as new red coats the old red of this sacred place. There is thunder in my hooves.

I toss my mind to the wind and think of flight. With more winters my flight will grow stronger. I will brave storms, winds, snows, and all.

I already know the weather anypony in training knows. I have seen the weak plummet to the ground under the weight of training armor. I am strong and bellow with a leap forward.

She is screaming as I leap upon her again and again. I hear splinters unlike anything that would happen if I stood on cloud. I jump with everything I yearn for in war.

My howls are louder than the last of her calls because I do not hear them. My eyes are closed and I feel things under my hooves. I shift with how she breaks.

The Esteemed Ones are roaring with everything I want them to. I can feel my hooves sink in something rick with warmth and raw. Something hard and broken jabs at my drenched legs.

All around me is warmth. Pulpy bits and hunks are below my uneven stance. War whoops ring and wind brushes my caked mane.

That wind is different from our city's cold gales. It touches all of me that is not steeped within a filly that no longer breathes.

My legs are heated with the fire of her insides that remind me of the sloshy mash in my rations.

When I open my eyes air is strangling my throat even when my mouth is closed. The Esteemed Ones shuffle among themselves. There is a trampled and beaten mess that I stand in reeking of sickness.

Rattling pains my chest. I crumple within her hot and broken body. What is left of her only lets me kneel so much.

I am cramped in what has yet to be a shell of her with her hot blood coating me thickly. Flesh and parts I cannot name and describe churn. Not all of them are broken.

I am unable to howl and my head is filling with something. The Esteemed ones are changing and their faces are showing something. I am filled with tight cowardice.

Over and over I can only see this filly and this flesh at my hooves. The Esteemed Ones see weakness. I know not if I have these parts in me like the weak one at my hooves but if I do I want to pull them from my mouth and feel no more.

No more of this. My body is being bitten by something not the cold and from the inside. I think of all the winters I have seen.

I will be taken to the clouds. I am called a filly but I am no filly. I have not been a filly since I was torn from my broodmare.

This is not a filly at my hooves. She was a mare as young as I. Soldiers, the true soldiers, call us 'filly' until we pass this and it sticks to our own tongues like the blood on my skin.

I know her blood has touched my own and my wounds. I can see the Esteemed Ones flying towards me with grim purpose. They must be close enough to know my weakness.

Upon my cheeks are spots like the water-weakness that spills from the eyes of infants and cowards. The soldiers assigned to train us in our earliest winters are experts at striking it from our faces. But I have always had two spots like this weakness upon my face.

I am a Pegasus mare of eight winters. Tomorrow my wings will be tied to my sides and my hooves shall leave the clouds. Any others of my broodmare and stud will follow.

This is not my victory.