Author's Note

Hey, guys.

I'm going to be honest. I didn't expect this update. I didn't expect to suddenly crank this out in the time I have. Because it still feels like I'm yanking a scream out that can't be voiced. It still feels like pulling a knife out of my lungs and trying to not react.

I don't know where this story is going to go. I fucking don't. Things aren't the same. Everything's turned upside fucking down, and I want to scream and cry and laugh at the same time. The loss still fucking hurts. All this time, all these months, and it still fucking hurts.

I don't know what she would have wanted. I don't have the right to assume or speak for her. I only know that I still want to write. To keep moving on for the sake of what's left, and to stand by and respect who's left.

I am angry, I am depressed, and after so many months I'm still grieving because I still think of her when I sleep, when I see a couple laughing, when I see my family enjoying themselves, when I play games, when I listen to music, when I write any of the stories I worked on with her, that I talked to her about, that she helped with. Every passion I shared with her.

But I still want to keep going.

...I've rambled long enough. Point is, the chapter's out, and I hope you all enjoy it.

11 - Rage of The Women: Direction (EXPLICIT)

[WARNING: CONSUMPTION OF SENTIENTS AHEAD]

It was not a sight I wished any to see.

The crunching of bone 'neath my jaws. The blood of the damned, the sinful, and their meager souls leaking through my jowls and down my throat.

The taste of their follies on my tongue, the thrill, the sensation of their fear and last moments condensed into their flesh and mortal ichor…

...my delight at the consumption.

It was all I could do to hold back until privacy had been given, until I had the meal my Furnace yearned to burn to myself.

Tearing into the belly of one Half-born, I pulled out their entrails with practiced ease, and proceeded to consume.

Their memories filled me, and were swiftly burned and consumed by my metabolism into fuel for my regeneration.

The sound of steps drawing closer on the stone drew my attention.

“Unless you wish to see the consumption of corpses, I would steer away, visitor,” I glanced behind myself. “A Demon Beasts’ meal is a gruesome thing.”

“As we know, Forefather of Wrath,” replied the melodic undertones of an Abyssinian.

I lowered my claw from the Half-born’s entrails. “...Child of The Mother. You should know well I dislike titles, even less so that which you just spoke.”

“Apologies, My Lord, but-”

“Even moreso that title. I am lord of none but myself. Those who follow me follow of their own accord,” ‘Much as I detest the notion.’ I snorted, but stood all the same from the corpse pile, licking my claws clean. “You have an urgent matter. Speak it.”

I felt their shifting more than heard it. “...We would deign to know your will for coming here-”

I snarled, my tail slamming upon the floor. “Dispense with the formalities, and for the love of everything in existence, cease your prostrating!” Rounding on the feline, I bared my teeth. “Speak to me as equal, and I will do you the same courtesy. I am the better to none; I am a Demon for gods’ sake! Look your demons in the eyes and face me, child!”

Fear shone in her eyes. It irked me. No.

It infuriated me. I’d seen it far too often.

“Y-Yes, Your-” she paused, steeled herself.

I snorted. Good. A start.

“...How may I address you, then…?”

“...Horus,” I added after a moment of gritting my fangs in anger at her hesitance. Uktannu, why must all your children be so damnably reverent?! I am a DEMON!

“Just Horus…?” she ventured.

“Just. Horus,” I echoed. Feeling her fear and sensing it, I waved her off. “I came for retribution upon the Godsdamned. The women wish only the same. Our goals aligned. That is all.” I raised a brow at her. “Now will that be all, child?”

She fidgeted, gaze lowered. I raised a brow. "What?"

Slowly, she raised her head. "What will happen to my people, My Lo- Horus?"

Her eyes still shone with fear, but…there was steel there. The steel one bares against tyrants.

I snorted, smiling. "Good. Keep that steel tempered in the face of even Gods, child, and you will find respect in Heaven and Tartarus alike." Tail flicking, I continued ignoring her confusion. "You wish an answer? You gave it. They are your people. Lead them. Rebuild with them. Toil with them." I shrugged. "I bear no weight in the decisions of mortals or immortals. They make their own weights and apply them to what they will. I go my own path. You must go yours."

The wide stare she bore was amusing. "Do not forget that Wrath is more than not a single-minded emotion and drive, Abyssinian." Crossing my arms, I gave her an expectant look. "Is there anything else?" She continued to stare. I rolled my eyes. “Cease your staring, you’ll only receive nightmares in return.”

Shaking herself, she quickly recovered. “My Lo- Horus,” she retried, and I nodded. “We…do not have sufficient grain or meats. I was…hoping you might deign to share some, if you have any…”

“Do your Sages not have the favor of Her embrace? Can they not ask for a bountiful harvest?” I queried.

“They are Footpathers, they…have not the right to attune to the Well,” she answered.

I swore, glaring at an image of the Great Mother across the hall. “Exclusion of rights to travelers.” I spat. “I did not agree with Uktannu on that manner ages ago and I do not now. Such tribalistic, barbaric, archaic ways have no place in any world.” My rage flared, but not my aura. I spared a glance to the Abyssinian. “Your name?”

“...Anatu Beltis, My Lo-” I narrowed my eyes. “-Horus.”

I closed my eyes, allowing my rage to dim. “Mmm…an old name. Powerful. Respected.” ‘A shame the lunar deity of this world may not recognize it now.’ "I will see what can be done." I answered after a moment's muse.

"Thank you," She bowed her head, and I snorted. "If I may…your compatriots have been looking for you as well, My Lo-er, Horus."

I grunted. "Very well. I will find them shortly." I turned my back. "Now, depart. Or must I repeat my earlier warning?"

"No, sir," she replied. I scowled as I heard her stand. "Thank you for your time."

As she left, I bit into the leg of a Caribou soldier, grumbling about the unnecessary honors bestowed upon me.

I was lapping the last of the blood from my maw when I reached the chamber where my fellows were resting. An Earth Sage, bearing green robes tinged with earthen paint, passed me by as I entered the doorway. One of the Footpathers, judging by the colors.

Turning my attention back to the room, for once I neither saw nor heard a heated argument, but a tense silence as my fellows sat cross-legged in the meditation chamber.

Four grand pillars stood at each corner, their bases and the walls and ceiling made of hand carved granite, granting no joviality to the room. The center of the floor where the Movement’s leaders sat similarly granted only comfort of packed earth and soil, bare of any grass.

I approached the impromptu circle they had arranged themselves in, their ears flicking towards me as I did.

“You’re late,” Starlight stated.

Redheart’s nose wrinkled, shooting a glance to Starlight, then back to me. “I…trust the meal was good?”

"...Yes," I replied, seating myself among them. "What is the situation?"

"Food," Redheart answered.

Rubbing her muzzle, Starlight continued, "Food was problem enough back in Ponyville, but here they've got a shortage and winter is coming up."

Bon Bon nodded, her muzzle twisted in a scowl. "And we're low enough on our own stores from the train's food carts."

I nodded. "I take it the Footpather told you of their side?"

Zecora nodded as the others scowled or grimaced. "They cannot grow food for themselves or another. They must survive off the land as it is, by a tenet of their Mother."

"So we're sitting here trying to figure out options. Word is there's a city run by the Sages not too far from here - if we had a carriage. Right now, we have the train, which doesn't go there," Lyra summarized, crossing her arms.

Raising a brow, I asked. "Do we not have those who can fly?"

"We do." Starlight nodded. "We sent Myrtle there with Titania, but the issue is feeding everyone for the days they'll be gone."

I frowned. "We do not even have the food to feed all our number?"

"Not if we add this town to it, no," Bon Bon nodded.

My gaze turned to the soil beneath us. I closed my eyes as thoughts turned to memories of a garden too far removed from this time.

And a woman whom helped in it's growth.

I still remembered her price.

I shook my head, opening my eyes and standing slowly to my feet. "I will return."

"You have an idea?" Zecora asked. "A panacea?"

I shook my head. "A plan. Whether it will be panacea to our efforts, to these people…that is not up to me."

Turning and striding back, towards the doorway, I heard the Agent call, "Are you ever gonna be not vague?!"

"Concision is a virtue, Agent Sweetie Drops," I replied as I approached the railings of the great spiral descent that was The Well.

"As is private humour," I allowed myself to quietly murmur. The Well's bottom remained out of my sight.

I allowed that to comfort me as well, in spite of the action I was contemplating. No. The action I was taking.

My joints and sinews tensed with the thought of it. The rage that would surge forth. And whom that would be against, regardless of relation.

I closed my eyes, remembering the few aside from my angels I mourned.

In spite of my demonhood, they still haunted me.

That rage, I allowed to spur me forward into action.

Placing claws upon the stone railing, I vaulted, allowing the depths of The Well of Days Long Past to intrude their sanctity, their infused auras of divinity, into my mind and body as I plummeted.

All cries of alarm from those above ceased to exist in my senses.

What remained was the tumble into what had passed so long ago.

I woke in a field of brambles and rosemary, rising to the satisfying scratch of their points upon my hide.

The Fields of The Mother stretched out before me, and once again, I'd been granted my own portion of the field. A sore thumb of brambles and briars in a sprawling plain of roses, tulips, dandelions, and daisies.

"You truly came." Her voice chimed behind me. I turned as she settled into a restless seat upon the soil, continuing. "You made me wonder about my prediction when you killed Aspen."

I grunted. "Fate and predictions are fickle as their mistress."

She smiled, nodding. "Unless you treat her well. But more so I wonder why you'd come at all," settling into a kneel in the brambles next to me, I regarded the form the Mother bore in the presence of my old race.

Whilst still garbed in the robe colored after damp, fertile earth, her form was human in entirety, and of a tan one would gain only after many years of life toiling under the sun.

And she still smelled of the old flowers.

I scowled. "You still remain the most fiendish torturer I've met."

"Do you truly miss your home so much?" She asked, leaning only a tad forward, never revealing her eyes.

I averted my gaze. "You know your answer."

"Horus…"

My scowl remained, and I growled as my ears flattened of their own accord. "I know your price, Uktannu. Painful as it will be, I will pay it."

"Horus…they were your-"

"Are. They remain my family, Uktannu. Do not placate me with platitudes and philosophies of your mysticism," I snapped.

"...and the two you recently met?" She asked, gold and platinum earrings dangling free from the confines of her shadowed hood.

I bristled, remembering the pale blue hair, the devilish, infectious laughter. "Do not manipulate me, Uktannu. You are friend, but you are not in rights to-"

A hand on my cheek. Her grip, and her green eyes glaring into my red. "-Do not. Do not become that, Horus." She pulled me closer. I had no strength to refuse. "You are my child, same as any who walk upon my body." Her embrace was firm, yet gentle.

I did not yield.

"The Half-Born are not children. They are blights. Pus. Pox," I hissed.

Her hand through my fur. Scarlet lightning crackled. She did not shy away.

"Why do you fight this when you have already come? Already chosen?" She queried, soft, like wind through grass and caressing downpours.

"You know why," My voice wavered. The memories were surfacing.

"Let them," she breathed into my ear, like warm air upon a chilled day. My fangs bared. My claws tightened into fists. “Let it free, Horus. Remember them.”

My heart burned, my body shook…and the memories took me.

And so did the Rage.

The brambles bloomed into blazing spheres taking the names of flowers. A swipe turned them to just flames of black and unholy anguish.

Her screams as they used her. Their laughs. Their chuckles. The stench of their bodies. The pain. The fear.

A slam as my tail cratered earth like a meteor. My claws on my head as she released me.

All of it, every portion of the image enraged me. But what enraged me most was how I was not there. How I did not stop them before it happened.

How I broke my promise to my own daughter.

The sky tore. The air rippled, steamed.

I remembered how they would tell me summonings simply worked that way at times. Sometimes demons were summoned from Tartarus and chained or used for one purpose or another. There, they took it as a fact of life. Another challenge to overcome. Another blip of amusement in their laughably long lives. Some took it with disgust.

I took it with insult.

The Red Thunder stormed over the field, blood rain pouring down. In it all, I knelt, snarling, growling, as Uktannu simply looked on.

When I began to change, she still looked on. When my spine shuddered and snapped and my skin burned and burst with pain, she looked on as new hide, new scales, took their place. When I howled to the skies and the blood dripped from my face, she still looked on. When I raged at how I’d failed my daughter, my wife, when I trampled the Fields, burned them with abyssal flame, atomised them with the thunder of hells, froze them with the anguish of grief, she still remained, looking on. When the ground shook and crimson took my sight…I saw only two others looking on.

My Rage encapsulated me as the days long past filled my mind. My heart burned and blazed, throbbed, clenched. Roars of a thousand beasts of legend filled my ears. Roars of the old destroyers, the ancient fiends.

My vision remained obfuscated by their memory.

I remembered their laughs. Their smiles. Their gentle breaths as they slept. Their giggles. The drops raining down my face lost distinction. Their grins. Their eyes lighting up as they spoke their passions. The lightness of her tone as she teased me. Her warmth as she held my hand with her tiny one. The weight I shared with my wife. The jokes and labors shared with her family. The pain on their faces, in their tones, at her departure. The rage at my absence that day, at our home. The confusion on our daughter’s face.

Her blood on that sweater.

Her mind on that disgusting stone floor, twisted and broken beyond recognition.

Their spirits, tainted by men too far gone in their ambition, their pride, their dogma, their schemes and plans and desires.

My chest throbbed with pain. My throat tore with Wrath.

The Hellish answered with roars, wing, flame, madness, and apocalypse.

And wastelands were born.

I awoke to the smell of asphodelus blooms and my own blood. Opening my eyes, I saw Uktannu’s face, smiling gently down at me. Sadly.

I ignored the burning streaks still on my cheeks. “Was that payment enough, Uktannu?”

A tear dripped from her eyes onto my muzzle, fresh as rainwater. “It was.” She nodded. Slowly, she brought me into another embrace. She sobbed. I still ignored what burned down my cheeks.

“Thank you, Horus,” she breathed.

“You thank me for my rage?” I asked. I did not move as she ran a hand through my fur, static with flittering Dracophages and Hellbugs.

“It is how you care,” she wept. “And knowing you still care, my friend, after all this time, is the best payment I can ask.” She pulled away, smiling, tears in her eyes. I returned the embrace at the sight. I remembered the pits I’d seen in the Half-Born’s lands. The yawning chasms. The molten red spilling out from beneath, melting the snow. The entropy visible in the barrier placed around Abyssinia. The poverty and oppression prevalent in the village.

I still remembered.

Mortals are not the only ones who can be raped. Mortals are not the only ones who can suffer loss.

Uktannu still wept. I still raged.

The asphodelus flowers still swayed in the wind.

And our hearts were still torn.