Lungs Without Air
B_25 & Anonymous
The sands, warmed by sunlight, soothed his aching muscles. Lucious Winds groaned in satisfaction as he stretched against it. It'd been long. Far too long since he'd gone to a beach. Even longer for this one, which bore countless childhood memories. And even longer than that since he returned with his mother.
He lifted an emerald hoof above his eyes to block the sunlight. Though it had dimmed as the distant mass kissed the watery horizon—its final bouts of brightness still nearly blinded him. Everything was warm. Winds sporadic. Cool, not cold.
And though all of this should have allowed the guard to relax... peace wearied him. Was it shot nerves and requested paranoia of being a high-ranking official? Nothing but trees and their cottage marked the private beach. Everything was in his head. There had to be a way to clear it.
Luscious hunched forward on the sand, straining his chiselled abdomen as he rose. He gazed off into the waters, catching the first striking of waves. One hoof rising then dropping, another coming on the other side, a perfect stroke followed by a perfected form.
Active and healthy mothers weren't common with grown sons... but for this, Luscious was glad to be a part of the uncommon. He rose onto all four hooves while waving another to grab her attention, smiling, the heat of sand fading to the warmth of the rays washing over him.
The lemon hoof of his mother curved through the air—then ceased. It pulled beneath the surface in a slip not possible at her angle. Luscious narrowed his eyes, laughing uncomfortably, expecting, hoping for a prank or a joke or something of the sort then to follow.
She would come up any second now, like she always did, no matter the years, teasing him endlessly with his love for her. Hooves behind her ears and her tongue sticking out at him for always being too concerned. Just the way it ran with him. He was always on the lookout for trouble. Always ensuring nothing would come of harm to anyone—even if he endured torrents of stress for it.
But his mother didn't rise. She didn't come soaring out of the water with a grace only a mare like she could provide. Rather. Where she’d been before going under came the rising of bubbles. One then two with three followed by four. Miniature waves broke the surface while something heavily fought beneath the thickness of the all-consuming liquid.
Then her arm broke through. It waved around in the air... but she wasn't waving. Rather it shot sideways, twirling when it could, struggling to inch upward as it was so easily yanked down. Luscious shook his head and glanced left. The wooden walk-way to over the water. He broke into a dash toward it as once.
His mother wouldn't risk such a prank. Not one this complex. And even if it was... much better to look like a fool than to actually be one. Luscious’ hooves thundered in creaks against the wood as he sprinted across its length. He prepared for a dive upon reaching its edge—slicing into the surface like a thurst of a spear.
The water consumed him. Its warm touch caressed his every pore as he submerged. His blue eyes glinted within the pools, narrowing, then widening at the distant sight. Ten or twenty feet below. The descending form of his mother, weighed down by something great, writhing in place, pulled just the same.
Her violet mane was billowing in a curved wall far below, obscuring most of her form.. It flourished in place, inching in curves as strands slowly reached out—only for the whole to be yanked, in one great pull, ever downward. This time, however, the wall of hair dragged from left to right and fell away from the body of his mother.
There was something long and black wrapping itself around her body, limbs of ebony tucked around her appendages, low and around their base. Her legs kicked in a restrained space, unable to affect the water beyond a dull swishing, doing nothing to touch her assailant. Bubbles gushed out from her muzzle. Frantic eyes moving around in a panic. Unable to fight, unable to move, drinking in water instead of breathing air, sinking only deeper, aching lungs burning hotter.
Luscious lost his breath to a scream—despite his training—in seeing his mother's descent. His hooves swatted through the water and his legs joined and kicked in similar unison. He was going faster but not fast. Nothing compared to the two bodies sinking deeper into the abyss that was the lake.
His narrowed eyes blurred around the corners of his gaze, but through the haze, the creature could be made out. The holes within its limbs sold the story of it being a changeling. One of the stranglers from the failed wedding takeover? But why would it come after him? He broke a few into a cell. But enough to be warranted such a hit?
The next discovery slashed that thought process. The changeling peered out from behind his mother's head, its eyes vacant, only a green glow emitting from the sockets. It grinned, slowly turning its neck, exposing the gills stacked across its length. Only the horror of the duo brought pleasure to its being.
His mother seemed to notice this for, when her head leaned back, her eyes saw the same sight. She screamed and, though water held them all, different droplets entered its mass. She cried in sensing her fate. Her limbs, struggling in kicks to try and break free... slowing before stopping.
Luscious cried another shout with a burst of bubbles streaming from his muzzle, his diving form causing them to rise against his cheek—exploding on impact. He fought harder to swim faster, though his chest nearly collapsed in the building pressure from both deeper water and the harder exertions on his body. Inky-blackness developed in the corners of his gaze, and he had to fight to keep himself awake.
“Seems like the little hero took his time in arriving to the crime!” The changing spoke all around, from every angle and direction, an illusion not possible. It released bubbles from its gills, all of them floated upward, seconds later broken by Luscious’ diving form. They burst with chuckles and laughter all over his form. “Guards only become renowned heroes when they have proven to all they are not afraid to die.” It chuckled once more. “Don't think your personal life is much to live for, huh?”
Luscious bit the insides of his cheeks, both to stop from speaking and to express the rage at hearing the changeling's voice. His mother and it sunk so quickly and so passively, all while he himself fought so hard and swam so fast, his best nothing to their lack of an attempt.
“How do you hurt a hero that doesn't care for his job or his life?” The changling grinned as he made his first move. He pulled back, twirling both bodies into a flip—drawing a yelp from a mother. Her hooves beat wildly as a thick bubble of air floated out from her lips. “The innocent that surround him. Something about how they don't deserve something so atrocious just makes the affair juicier.”
His blackened hooves pressed to the struggling muzzle of the mare, coming to press upon her chin, holding her horrified expression to gaze up at her son. He was high above, fighting so hard against the water that separated them, losing speed every foot descended.
The changing spread his wings and flapped them against the water, shooting them into a dive, all while a wall of rock sprawled out behind them. Halfway down its length came the sprouting of a cave. A tight entrance which the duo shot into.
Luscious glanced over his shoulder, seeing rays of sunlight glittering over the ceiling of the lake, the calm rushing of waves sinister in their own way. Cowardice within, given strength from the lack of air to his brain demanded he swim back up. Leave and get air and maybe risk coming back down again.
But his heart refused to come back to a body.
Even if swimming into that cave meant there would be two. Better both dead or sacrificing himself for her to be alive—then coming out of this solo. The water chilled within the cave, its rocky walls tightening with the further he went.
Luscious could spot them in the distance. The changeling lit his horn not to aid himself or anyone else, but to illuminate the current horror. His mother was lying backward, yanked back every few seconds, her cheeks puffed, eyes wide, face pleading.
There was something about her desperation slicing at his heart. How one of her hooves would raise into the air, reaching for nothing, whisked back by the second. Her lips parted in desperation for breath. That, somehow, trying to breathe would result in oxygen—simply because she needed it.
But he watched Luscious as the poor mare breathed in water. Of the current rushing into her snout and inside her mouth, swallowed into her lung and stomach, filling her with torment. Every cry for a breath choked her further with water as she drank and drank, fighting to get something out of it, a whisper of air—only for none to appear.
Everything about her screamed for help. Those hooves were reaching for him... despite that distance in-between. Her mane floated over her eyes just before they rolled up. Everything about her thrashing like the final burst of something savage then savagely dying.
“To think such a hero would be able to save everyone—but his family.” The changeling was inside his head now. Its magical hold unable to be broken regardless of how many times Luscious shook his head. The same kept true for the muffled cries of his mother faintly echoing off the rock walls of the cave. “All that training... all the fighting... just to be unable to save your own mother—the very mare that brought you into this life, that loved you enough for you to keep living it.”
The changeling was devouring the heightened love that came from the two. The poor ponies trying to reach the other for different reasons. Their love reaching its highest for both feared this being their last encounter. Every pricking of its words raising that love even higher—all so it could devour more and more.
“Your mother's heart is slowing now... becoming fainter, cooling across her chest... like ice spreading over her body.” Streams of bubbles were rising from the corners of her lips as her body became limper. She was still there, in the recesses of her own body though slipping away from its control. “Soon she'll cold all over. Her corpse set at the bottom of this cave. Left to rot, never to resurface. Not a bad spot for a coffin, hey son?”
Luscious kicked harder despite it not making a difference. The last look in his mother's eyes before they vanished beneath her mane asked to be saved. They didn't know why this was happening, pained and tortured with a body full of water and so devoid of air. The surface of her body cold while everything within was set ablaze. Unique torture she'd never dreamt of existing but now endured to the fullest.
Every so often, her voice broke through. As they were nearing the cave was when her sounds came. Little bubbles bursting with syllables spoken from her tongue. Asking for help. Wanting to be saved. Needing for the pain to be gone away. Of fighting her hardest and for those attempts to be mocked and manipulated by the changeling of utter power in this situation.
No matter what happened, he would be on top. Her turns and wiggles were held within his grasp, the rubbing and writhing of her body merely enjoyable as it rubbed against his frame. Sometimes her screams would result in a large bubble that he would drink in. Her muzzle throwing back, mane billowing over her muzzle, its reaching stands pressing over the closing walls.
Finally, however, the two entered a chamber within the rock—one shooting upward to the surface. It was closed in like a cylinder with faint light illuminating the spire. The changeling pulled its wings into its back and floated the two vertically.
The mother struggled once more within his hold. She must have sensed the light, the faint touching of warmth for her body sparked into life again. Her limbs spread wide and she attempted to swim up. Every try, however, she floated an inch up—only to be yanked down again.
Her hair floated beneath her but, when she rose, it did too. It filled the sides of the space easily and continued to expand. Her legs kicked wildly as one of her hooves reached for the distant ceiling so very much far above. It was hopeless, and yet, that was all she had.
“I can fell all the changes happening in your mother's body,” the changeling laughed from over her shoulder, keeping her down while she attempted to go up, granting her maybe a foot before a powerful pull brought her back again. “It's not even her anymore. The animal at the back of her brain is taking control again. It wants air... even though it knows it can't get any.”
Luscious could feel his own lungs burning to the point his mouth opened. He tried to breathe only to drink in the pouring of water, it filling every part of him, causing him to sink with its weight. His body sunk and cut on the roughness of rock that now composed his flooring. Lifting his head, he was left to endure the sight and the situation.
“I'll make you a deal now, one that's fair—because there's still a chance the two of you have enough oxygen left to make it to the surface.” The changeling chuckled as the mare was now frantically kicking her legs and arms, choking as her body was devoid of air now, forced only to drink in more water. It clogged her snout and muzzle and gushed through her ears. The worst kind of torture possible. “Right now, the animal of your mother realizes it can't get any more delicious air no matter how hard it tries. It knows the conscious part of your mother won't be making it out of this. So it's letting her indulge in her final moments—wanting to save her enduring her final seconds.”
Luscious couldn't swim anymore. All he could do was reach one arm out, grabbing at the moss covering the surface of a rock and then pulling on it. He shot forward decently but shortly. Enough only to cover a foot or so. He cried more bubbles as he attempted to grab another rock.
“You may want to look forward—this may be the last time you make genuine eye contact with your mother.” Luscious didn't want to, but he looked up. His mother floated in place while continuously choking on water. Drinking more of it to comply with her pleading lungs. Thinking that, after one more cloud of air, some sort of pocket from above would appear to save her. “Will her final moment be spent looking at the surface she'll never reach—or dying to the view of the son that failed to save her? So much for being a hero if you can't be one to yourself or your family, huh?”
When his mother finally lowered her muzzle, the surrounding mass of her hair did the same, let down by some invisible force. Her cheeks were puffed all the way and red lines marked her eyes. She was still chocking in place, her arms released enough to hold her throat as if that would do something to save her. As if it would somehow help.
Luscious pulled himself to the opening of the chamber just as the light left her eyes. The changeling even detached from her body, freeing her form from his vice grip—as it would make any difference now. She lurched forward in the final woe of being consumed by the water. Everything about her filled.
In reaching out a hoof toward her son, a final trio of bubbles came bursting out from her lips—and then no more. Nothing. Her muffled screams had come to cease. The cries of her eyes now dry despite their surrounding. Nothing about her lived or moved, but rather, wavered in place by the natural waves of the water.
And slowly, her body started to sink.
“What are you going to do, hero? Your mother isn't gone yet—just the unconscious part of her body being kind.” The changeling sunk next to her, grinning, laying back and crossing his arms against the back of his head. “You have my promise I won't do anything here. I'm actually rather amused to see if you'll pull this off—as nearly dead as you currently are.”
Luscious was near the opening of the chamber, pulling himself forward, rock after rock, losing bubble after bubble, the scream, cries, horrible goodbyes of his mother still echoing off the surrounding walls. She still laid vertically, descending ever so slowly, the bottom of her hair inching upward—but never floating above her head.
In a twisted way, she looked like an angel, one drowned, pained as deceased as the pressure of water, the glowing of lights through visible waves filtered the view. Her passed out form sunk to the opening of the chamber. One of her hooves floated forward as the speed of her descent held her hoof up and out. Luscious held out his own—inches from touching.
Until something invisible rose in-between.
Luscious rose from the ground as the final kick of adrenaline entered through his blood. His hooves beat toward the opening he now hovered before—only to feel a thin, invisible wall blocking his path. The sensation of magic brushing against his furs.
No no no! It's something that shouldn't have been possible... something that should have been happening. The poor pony beat his hooves on the invisible barrier, no longer caring for his own life nor the air escaping him. Currents of bubbles full of air. Of no use to him but plenty to her.
All they did, however, was going to waste.
His mother lurched forward as her hooves kept pressing against the lax flesh of her throat. It wasn't even a matter of trying to breathe anymore. That hope had died long ago. Rather it was the air swallowed into her stomach and inhaled into her lungs. The organs inflated from the liquid, fighting to expel it. How could something so cold, chilling their coats, suddenly start to burn upon being taken in.
“So useless of a guard, aren't you?” The changeling effortlessly glided to the side of the entrance. He leaned against the curved wall of rock, chuckling, the gills on the side of his neck flexing. “Unable to save your own mother from a single kidnapping. Not fast enough. Not strong enough. Or maybe you were? Maybe you could have been a bit better.”
The changing glanced over at the drowning pony. While her hooves keep pressing and wrapping around her own throat in the desperate attempt to expel the liquid seeping inside of her so easily... her hind legs kicked and spasmed and moved if only to discharge her unending tension.
Her body gave its final kick. Brilliant light filtered around her, flickering, accentuating the beauty of the tragedy. The furs of her coat lifted from the natural clashing of the water. The tuft on her chest pulled down on by something invisible. It all looked so beautiful.
It was in her final spasm, the kicking of her legs, holding of her throat, praying for the choking to end... that it did. Her body burned with cool waters. The sea was composed inside of her now, expanding from within, pushing out but unable to escape.
Slowly. Ever so slowly after the intense kicking... it ceased. Her body leaned forward slightly as all the water and the lack of air claimed her frame for its depths. She fell forward in a slow descent. Her mane billowed behind her head, reaching high and far and wide, covering vastness with longer than long strands. There was a current to the hair. Moving and waving and rising and dropping all on its own. It had its own rhythm, cadence, guided by the happenings of the sea.
Luscious was crying though none could tell the difference. He too, lost his air as his stream of bubbles had ceased. The polished stone scratched and cut at his belly and chest though the raw pain and loss of blood affected him not. He was a goner. Moments from meeting the same fate as his mother—even though he'd already prepared himself to meet her fate for her.
“Now wouldn't you know it? You had some leftover air after all—didn't you?” The changeling laughed to itself. Lowering its head, one of its hooves rubbed at its chin. An idea sparked brightly enough as for the glow of its eyes to then burn through the waters. “Don't tell me now! You were going to pass some air off to your mother then keep just enough to face me?”
The changeling rolled its head back and unreleased intense laughter. “That means you could have caught up to me at the start! I didn't even know you were keeping some of the stuff stored.” It cackled as its head fell again. “That means you could have surprised me with an attack! Broke my neck or something like that. Fighting the two of you? Wouldn't have worked.”
It pointed a hoof as the limp body of the mother fell against the limp barrier. “But your one chance to beat me? You just exhaled it now, uselessly, while watching your mother died! To think we had anything to worry about you from the start!”
Luscious gazed at the limp body of his mother. Her face was downcast and her eyes lost to the world. They'd rolled back at the intensity of her torture when death had sliced its scythe over her being. But now she was here, barely, to say farewell.
Though her eyes had been glossed over by the seawater, dimmed from the lack of life, and covered with red webbing across its orb—they still flicked up, ever so slightly, implying life. Weakly, one of her hooves raised and dropped against the invisible glass.
Luscious did the same. Dead and lost to the world, no reason to live and no point to fight then raised his foreleg. He wanted to touch her hoof or at least have the impression of doing so before leaving forever. But as his hoof raised to press against hers...
Her body fell back.
It was slow and graceful. Everything was muffled and the heavy washing of water echoed the only sound to their ears. She descended flatly to the depths of the chamber, her hair rising up, almost like a coffin around her being. Even when she dipped below the edge of the entrance, her hair kept floating up for a few seconds longer.
Until floating down with her.
There wasn't anything to say or do. Not with her gone and the changeling impossible to fight. What point was there fighting now? All that training and notions of duty—gone. His mother was one of the subjects he promised to protect. But what point was there in existing in a world where there were so few he cared about.
“Think you're going to die now?” The changeling floated over to the entrance, its horn glowing, the wall between them ceasing to be. Not that there was any threat to him down. Only a body colliding with the bottom of the cave and summoning a great splash of sand out from a corpse. “That I killed your mother seconds before you? Not all changelings are powered on love.”
It dipped next to the fallen guard. Nothing could be done as Luscious's vision deepened into inky-darkness. Starting from the corners of his vision, it concentrated inward from all around, crawling to the center of his sight.
He felt another body draped over his own. “Some of us feed on despair.”
Luscious couldn't recall what occurred next. His vision had gone dark and his ears deaf from the water then welling within their depths. Lungs burned and ached and were sliced open with a hot knife. Water by the gallon compounded in every inch of his being as the sea attempted to make him of its own.
Yet somehow he lived.
Warm sand wasn't what he woke up to. Only the coolness of grains and the lazy lapping of the waves. No rays of sunlight. Only the glow of a bright moon. Luscious turned to his side, coughing a gushing of water after water. Wheezing air. Oxygen.
“It would appear you're awake!”
Luscious fought himself onto shaky forelegs to glance up at the figure in the distance. His vision wobbled to the sides and what laid between swam up and down. But the creature that murdered his mother burned itself into his mind. Like a monster of horror one can never forget.
“But from the look on that sad little muzzle of yours—I garner I've done you no favour on this.” It chuckled and drew a line in the sand. “Think about how badly your mother wanted you to have what she couldn't? They never use that phrase so literally or based on current events. But I'm sure she would have found this oxygen rather delicious!”
Luscious took a step forward—collapsing onto his chest, smacking against the sand.
“I've done you the ill-favour of leaving her corpse exactly where she died.” It cracked its head left and right as if growing bored with it all. The end to its story. Excitement gone and only clean-up remaining. “I'm not sure what her wish for burial was—but having your tombstone be the sea isn't a terrible thing to have.” It then nodded. “Terrible way to go. But not a terrible place for the decease to linger.”
The changeling then turned away. “If you decide to bring her up, do it soon... unless seeing a mangled corpse is your desire.” Its wings fluttered out. “I do not care what you do either way. Only know this. You are alive so I may feed on your despair until your time has come.” Its head tilted over its shoulder, granting a final grin. “And if you think of trying to make trouble for my kind again... I know where your sister lives.”
The villain flew away and then did so in glee.
The hero slumped against the beach and did so with despair.
