Dubious Dabbling

“I...I really don’t think this is a good idea…” Grim stammered, glancing from her guest to the open tome lying on her counter. After only three afternoons of hanging out with the promiscuous mare, she found herself talked into trying something she’d probably regret.

Rolling her eyes, Leech looked over at the mare. “Have you ever heard of a summoning ritual working? I’m guessing it’s supposed to be symbolic or something,” she groaned, inspecting their preparations.

Several lit candles sat at intersections on a very ornate diagram on the floor. To her surprise, the ritual had only required coal dust, candles, and an exceedingly intricate sigil to be drawn on the ground. She kinda figured it was all a bunch of bull, given the relative simplicity of the stuff, although she figured it’d be a fun experiment to try with her new friend.

Trotting back over to the book, she gave it one final once over. “Alright, so, now I’m supposed to sit in the middle and…” she muttered, consulting the text, “envision the blood black nothingness while awaiting her baleful gaze?”

Grim nodded, unable to quell the unease welling up within her. While it was true that she’d never seen or even heard of any sort of successful summoning taking place, the grimoire smacked of eldritch and forbidden magic - still, she had to admit, she was more than a little curious about what, if anything, would happen.

Backing away from the dark lines and runes on her living room floor, she watched as Leech stepped into the circle. The monochromatic mare eased herself down, resting on her haunches in the center of the diagram, and closed her eyes. It may have been her imagination, but she could swear she noticed the candles flicker for a moment.

‘Why’s this stuff always gotta be clichéd and shit? Kinda surprised this didn’t require the blood of a virgin or something,” Leech thought to herself, trying and failing to focus on the blood black nothingness - whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

She couldn’t see shit, and it was dark, but that’s only because her eyes were closed. Adjusting slightly, attempting to make herself comfortable, the carpet brushed against the frog of her forehoof - at least, that’s what she’d assumed it was. What she’d thought was the soft warmth of the carpet felt off, almost as if it had become whetted somehow.

Opening her eyes and moving her hoof towards her face, she went rigid. Gone was the dimly lit living room of Grim’s apartment, replaced by a sea of dark, shallow water - no, not water, it was slightly too thick to be that. Scanning the horizon, looking for any sort of distinguishable landmark, her efforts were found wanting. Peering upwards, she spotted what appeared to be a fully eclipsed sun hanging low in the sky.

Though she’d never subjected herself to any sort of psychedelic substances, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been furtively dosed with something. Slowly standing, as the murky substance sloshed around her hooves, she spun in place. Surrounded by nothingness as far as the eye could see, the only things present were the all consuming liquid and the sun overhead - at least, that’s what she’d thought.

Though there was perilously little to look at, and the world was deathly silent, Leech couldn’t shake the sensation that she was being watched. It was odd; she didn’t quite feel like she was threatened, although the notion that something was observed was unsettling. Scanning the distance, she took a breath to steel herself.

“You can come out, you know. It’s not like hiding is doing either of us any good,” Leech loudly stated, her voice ringing out over the still expanse.

She wasn’t sure if she was going insane or not, which was an all too real possibility, yet she saw no reason not to test her hypothesis. Unsure if she was suffering through some exceedingly vivid hallucination or if she’d been inexplicably whisked to some strange expanse, she silently awaited a response. Just as she feared she would be left without a reply, something answered her.

It started as a ripple appeared in the watery substance ahead and slightly to the left of her. First one bubble drifted to the surface, followed by a second and third, until the liquid was roiling and seething in the area. Defying all logic, the liquid roiled and swelled in place to form a mound of churning fluid. Black as pitch, the stuff grew and ballooned outward until it was roughly the size of a carriage.

Faced with the small hill of boiling tar-like stuff, Leech took a step back. The feeling of a presence grew stronger with every passing moment, doing little to calm her mounting anxiety. As she gazed upon the unsettling mass, her pupils shrank to razored slits; from within the core of the tumultuous heap, a quartet of lights appeared.

“Child…” a voice rasped, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere, “we knew you’d come back to us…”

Frozen in place, Leech eyes never wavered from the four glimmering jewels in the swell. Though the voice was distinctly feminine, any similarities to that of anycreature she could imagine ended there; it almost sounded like there was some strange, harmonious fluctuation of voices, with some growing louder and others softening periodically - all told, it was slightly unsettling.

To make matters worse, the glittering lights inside of the mounded liquid languidly moved. Drawing nearer and nearer to the edge of the surge, blinking randomly, what could only be described as a face emerged from the fluid. Not dissimilar to a pony’s visage, yet lacking any mouth to speak of, a creature strode forward.

Staring in wonder at the strange being, Leech was at a loss. The thing, whatever it was, was bone dry despite having just surfaced from the pitch black substance. Covered in a hibiscus colored hide, with a flowing mane and tail of burgundy, it impassively gazed over at her with a tetrad of amber eyes.

She wasn’t sure what in the hell she was looking at, but she knew good and god damned well it wasn’t any pony - sure, it might vaguely look like one, although that clearly wasn’t the case. Sporting two eyeballs too many, not to mention the utter dearth of a mouth or sinuses, the thing definitely had a disconcerting look to it. As it took a step closer, she held up a hoof.

“Just, gimme a second here,” Leech mumbled, closing her eyes and scrunching her snout.

Bereft of much formal education, she’d honed her survival instincts and street savvy to a keen edge - still, in all her years of wandering Equestria, she’d never been in such a peculiar situation. Faced with something so utterly bizarre, her mind desperately tried to make sense from what was going on. Considering it hadn’t seen fit to dispatch her, she saw no harm in starting with the basics.

“And you are…?” she casually began, letting the question hang.

It paused and cocked its head to the side, as if curious. “You may call us Four Eyes. It is -”

“Four Eyes?” Leech balked, thrown off by the nonsensical name. “Is that a joke?”

“At times,” Four replied, a touch of mirth in her immaterial voice. “It amuses us and is appropriate. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I mean, I guess,” Leech relented, shrugging. “And this we business - is that the royal we, the ‘for we are many’ legion we, or the crazy ‘there’s a voice in my head’ we?” she pressed, her curiosity steadily gaining ground. If Four’s body language was any indicator, she wasn’t in any immediate peril.

Thinking for a moment, Four nodded. “Yes…”

“Alright...Well then, since you want to be all mysterious and stuff, what’s with the no mouth?” the unicorn inquired.

“We have a mouth, observe…” Four whispered. What started as a small seam above her jawline spit, revealing an unfathomable muzzle filled with tendrils and viscous sludge. Holding her mouth open, allowing some of the thick slime to drip to the not-water in which they stood, an amused look met her quartet of asynchronously blinking eyes. “So full of questions, just like the last time…”

“Wait, last time,” Leech blurted. As disturbing as the hellish maw before her was, the notion that she’d somehow met Four before was all too fascinating. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I had...”

“You were quite young, so small that your little legs could only just allow you to scamper about and lead you to trouble,” Four chuckled, closing and sealing her mouth to its nigh nonexistent state.

The mention of her as a child, something she knew next to nothing about, immediately caught Leech’s interest. Her earliest memories were of growing up in an orphanage, never having known her parents, so any information about her past was wildly compelling. Squinting over at the creature, looking and listening for any signs of deception, she cleared her throat. An entire wellspring of questions leapt to her thoughts, so settling on one wasn’t easy.

“What do you know about my childhood?” she flatly asked, attempting to select one pair of eyes to stare at.

“We know much, even though we can not freely share it,” Four admitted. Averting her gaze, she shifted in place. “Before you ask, you must know that we made a promise…”

The statement struck a nerve with Leech, teasing her with unknown elements about herself. “What the hell?” she grunted, frustratedly taking a step closer to the creature. “Do you have any idea how shitty that is? It’s like a cock tease - no, worse than a cock tease!”

“We’re sorry,” Four apologized. “Our promise -”

“Oh bull shit! If you weren’t supposed to tell me about myself, you wouldn’t have said we’d met! Either you're a shitty liar and you’re just screwing with me or you’ve already broken your precious promise!” Leech angrily interrupted. “Listen, it doesn’t bother me that you’re a what-is-it possible hallucination, but don’t dick with me on this! If you aren’t going to answer my questions, just let me -”

“Your godfather,” the being quietly uttered, her strange voice no fainter than a subtle breeze. “We swore that we would ferry you away, to keep an eye on you, and give you a small blessing, yet he made us agree not to speak of him or of your childhood…”

The mind blowing words completely eclipsed the fact that she was standing face to face with some eldritch creature. Giving herself a moment, Leech digested what she’d just heard. There was a lot of information to process and that wasn’t even touching the subject of her otherworldly company. Knitting her brow, she closed her eyes and focussed.

“What can you tell me?” she inquired, trying to reign in her exasperation.

“We can show you any number of things, of various possibilities and horrors and delights of which you couldn’t possibly fathom,” Four purred, her demeanor abruptly changing.

The suddenness of Four’s shift in behavior struck Leech as off, despite the thing’s seemingly alien nature and mannerisms. Though there was no denying her reluctance, a large, overpowering part of her was fascinated with the prospect of unfathomable knowledge. There was some slim chance that she could learn something useful, even if it wasn’t pertaining to her history, so she resignedly shrugged.

There was a distinct chance that she was imagining everything anyways, so any potential benefits outweighed the risks. Even if she really was in some plane far departed from Grim’s apartment, there wasn’t much she could do to get back - if she could get back at all. Seating herself, resting her rump in the shallow and bizarrely warm liquid surrounding them, she looked up at the remarkably amiable abomination.

“Sure, why not,” she defeatedly sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“A kiss from us will impart more than what many mortal minds can comprehend,” Four hummed, suddenly looming over the pony. “Embrace it if you so choose, but know that what you see may yet come to pass…”

The nebulous and slightly troubling statement did little to deter Leech; she’d already experienced a metric ton of weird shit in the last few minutes, but she felt reasonably certain that adding a bit more couldn’t make matters worse. “Fuck it, you only live once,” she murmured, closing her eyes and puckering her lips.

“An incorrect statement, although we appreciate your intrepidity…” the being snickered.

Something warm and moist caressed Leech’s cheek, followed by a similar sensation against the underside of her jaw. With her curiosity getting the better of her, she cracked one eye open; the sight which awaited her was, to say the least, somewhat jarring. Like gazing at something from the abyss, Fours descended upon her.

The creature’s jaw was hung wide, far wider than it had any right to be, and was brimming with writhing tentacle-like appendages. Virtually sheathing the unicorn’s muzzle in the undulating mass of appendages, she pressed the slithering tendrils into the mare’s pursed lips. Torquing her head, administering a nightmarish mockery of a french kiss, she closed her eyes.

The moment the first wriggling tongue wormed into Leech’s gullet, her world was torn away. There was no soft farewell to the world, utterly lacking the gradual fade from consciousness - no, this was something altogether more hellish. Wrenched from reality, she felt as though her very soul was swiftly and brutally excised.

The entirety of her existence was thrust into what she could only liken to a sanity shattering maelstrom, bombarding her every sense with a madness which rent her asunder. It was the epitome of chaos, giving her fleeting glimpses of moments which seemed to simultaneously last lifetimes and flit by in the blink of an eye.

…

Resting upon some great, padded armchair, sat a parody of Leech herself. With one long, slender hind leg crossed over the other, she rested her head against one hand. It was odd - while she realized that it was some form of herself, she struggled to wrap her head around what she was seeing. Her colorations and markings were unchanged, although her morphology was strikingly different.

As cool as a cucumber, the mare reclined, splayed her legs, and hitched one knee over the arm of the chair. The scene was mute, devoid of any sound whatsoever, although her movements left little room for doubt. As she pointed one slender finger to her dark and slick nethers, while her off hand moved to cup one of what appeared to be bosoms on her chest, a figure shuffled into view.

Bearing a similar structure to this Leech, the newcomer was impossibly muscular and sported a titanic stallionhood on her groin. Bowing in supplication, the azure dickmare shuffled towards the seated unicorn, leaned in, and began to lick at her master’s loins. Ignorant of the exact circumstances, it was clear to see which of the two controlled the situation.

Rolling her head back, relishing the sensation of a well trained tongue servicing her marehood, Leech sighed contentedly. A wave of pleasure struck her, traversing the veil and leaving her to shudder. Reaching down, digging her fingers into the submissive dickmare’s hare, she pulled the obedient woman into her crotch. The influx of bliss sent ripples through her, causing her perception to distort and flicker.

Squeezing her thighs around her partner’s head, as her delicate clit was suckled upon, everything shifted. Not unlike a record skipping to a different track, instantaneously transitioning to something wholly different, the shift was a discordant assault on her very being.

…

Lying on her side, atop a bed in a dimly lit room, a foal nursed from her teat. Timeworn and world weary, crows feet rested at the edge of Leech’s eyes. Her breath fogged the chill air, as she tucked a blanket beneath herself and the small bab. Curling around the little one, sharing what body heat she had to offer, she tenderly stroked her unkempt, periwinkle mane.

Her...Yes, Leech somehow knew the foal, her foal, was a filly. As the inexplicable realization settled upon her, a deluge of thoughts swept through her mind: concern of if or when she would next find food, pride that she’d been gifted with such a precious babe, and an unbreakable resolve that she’d give her daughter everything she never had. Smiling warmly down at the little one, her stomach grumbled.

Though there was an undercurrent of worry, something told her everything would be alright. She’d suffered through worse and come out all the stronger, this time would be no different. She wasn’t just trying to survive anymore - no, now she had a charge far more valuable than herself. Though she knew not how she’d persevere, for her child, she was sure that she would.

“Sssssssh,” she sighed, as the filly fussily wriggled and unlatched from her nipple.

Looking through the window, past the tattered curtains of the dingy chamber, she watched the snow softly drifting outside. She’d have to go out for provisions again, especially if the winter was going to be as harsh as the papers said. Though she hoped the bakery would let her pick up a few hours, she wasn’t above walking the streets to make a few quick bits; she took no joy in it but for her she’d do what needed to be done.

Peering down at the filly, sweetly bringing the squirming foal to her face, she embraced the babe. After so many years, so much time spent aimlessly wandering, she’d found a purpose. They relied on one another, even if it was in wildly differing ways, and she couldn’t be more content. As the sweet scent of lilac tickled her sinuses, reality lazily spun and dissolved away.

…

Her body slammed against her crimson foe, sending waves crashing wildly in every direction. She was back in the shallow waters of perpetual twilight, dominion of her nemesis Four Eyes. The creature flailed, hammering a hoof to her jaw. Something cracked in her skull, sending a searing lance of pain through her. Leaping back, blasting the foul beast with a burst of sorcerous fury, she squared off against your opponent.

“You dare think you can challenge us?!” Four’s voice boomed, from everywhere and nowhere at once. Any vestiges of sanity fled from her eyes, replaced by a sickly, all consuming light of malice.

“You don’t deserve this,” Leech hissed. Armored in the bleached bones and tanned hide of a great wyrm, with the carefully carved, fanged skull served as her helm. Viscous, green ichor seeped from past her lips, before she spat the foul substance to the ground.

“As if one who would forsake their very species would be a worthy successor,” Four laughed, bitter contempt dripping from her omnipresent words.

“I was never one of them, you made sure of that,” Leech growled, her eyes glowing from within the hollowed sockets of her helmet.

Snarling and baring her fangs, her jawline shifted. Parting at her chin, unfolding in some outlandish, horrifically impossible fashion, her mandibles extended to either side of her face and split her neck down to her bosom. A trio of vascular, wet appendages emerged from her gullet; slick fluid oozed from their lengths, hissing and spitting as it dribbled to the oily liquid around her ankles.

Issuing an unholy, bellicose roar which resonated through the plane, brilliant amethyst energy cracked about her frame. There was to be no guile, no delicate dance of tactics or whit; she only had one chance to win and she was going to pull out all the stops. Summoning every ounce of her sorcerous might, she charged.

Four responded with a wicked howl of her own, as she stormed to her opponent. A foul aura surrounded her, evaporating the murky waters surrounding her. Pitch-like sludge wept from her eyes and gaping, tendril filled maw.

The two raced towards one another, their powers mounting to a nigh inconceivable level. Their bodies and energies collided, detonating with cataclysmic force. As they clashed, fighting with every weapon in their otherworldly arsenals, a small realization came to Leech - only monsters could kill monsters.

Unsettled, regretful, and confused as to what lead to the epic confrontation, the world once again shifted. Questions ran rampant in her mind, yet it mattered little. The struggle faded from view, the sounds died, and she was whisked away from the existence she’d stumbled into.

…

Standing just inside the doorway of a cramped little room, Leech surveyed her surroundings. As she scanned the chamber, finding fully stocked book shelves, a sofa, and a desk festooned with doodads and tools, her eyes came to rest on a seated figure. Hunched over a desk, the monkey-like thing furiously clickety-clacked away on something.

Covered with garments, from burnished head to shoed toe, a look of consternation sat on its oddly flat face. Grizzled and sporting a stubble of hair about his jaw and chin, it appeared to be a male, although she couldn’t be completely certain. Muttering about contrivances and of what hue a pastel equine would be, it turned, reached for a steaming mug, and paused. As its hazel eyes looked down upon her, a confused look crossed its face.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he grunted, somewhat nonplussed.

Locking eyes with her, he raised a hand, extended one digit, and Clicked something on his desk. The reality winked out of existence, like the flick of a switch, as quickly as it had appeared. A feeling of weightlessness overtook her, as she tumbled through the abyss - that was, until it came to an abrupt stop.

…

The sensation of something grabbing the nape of Leech’s neck was unmistakable. Quite literally yanked from the tumultuous void, she found herself standing in a field - well, no, not standing; she was held a foot or two above the grassy ground below. Shaking off the chaotic transition, she wildly took stock of her surroundings.

An expansive, lush grassland surrounded her, though that isn’t what caught her interest. Towering above her, many times larger than she, loomed a grand creature. It took her a moment to piece together what she was looking at, yet the mismatched limbs and appendages were a dead giveaway. As she was lowered to the earth, she shied away from the draconequus.

It was unmistakably male, considering its strong jawline and physique, yet that was trivial information. Seating himself in front of her, he gazed down upon her with glimmering, magenta eyes. Despite his imposing size and physique, his posture was relaxed and lent him nonthreatening, almost kindly air.

Easing herself down, opposite the colossal beast, Leech looked him over. Covered in a combination of cream and chestnut hued fur, he was a jumble of parts; he had two legs of a large cat, while the rear pair were those of a zebra and dragon, ram-like horns, and an extraordinarily long fluffy tail. As her eyes wandered up to his smiling face, some distant memory flickered to life.

Though she couldn’t put a hoof on how or why, she could swear she knew him from somewhere. Locking eyes with him, seeing the compassion held there, something clicked into place. The breath hitched in her chest, her lip trembled, and her heart fluttered. As he slowly shuffled closer, extending one pawed forelimb towards her, she leapt to her hooves.

Pouncing on him, she buried her face in the great tuft of fur on his chest. His scent stirred something within her, teasing her with some long forgotten familiarity. He draped his head over her shoulder, softly holding her to his bosom, as she sniffled. She did know him, of that she had no doubt, and his kind touch rekindled a dormant memory which had been long forgotten.

She was safe, she was loved, she was home…

…

“NO!” a voice boomed, splintering her reality - or so it thought.

Turning her head to the sight, clinging tightly to the fatherly creature before her, Leech screwed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to go, not after only just recovering what she’d thought was lost forever. He would protect her, he wouldn’t let her -

“Enough! Foolish, FOOLISH child! We should have known you would have an eye on her…” Fours raged, plucking her from the world as a filly would catch a moth. “Return now, we have much to do…”

“No!” Leech screamed, uselessly clawing at the ephemeral vision from which she’d been torn.

“Yes. You blindly fumble with powers you do not know,” Four’s disembodied voice resonated, tinged with remorse. “We will meet again - now away with you…”

…

“Leech! Oh buck,” Grim fretfully muttered, shaking the limp unicorn on the floor.

Only a second after the ritual had begun, something had gone awry. Leech had shivered in place, whimpering, orgasmically groaning, and weeping in tandem. To say it was unsettling would be a gross understatement, yet the episode was perilously short lived. Collapsing in the circle, the mare was unconscious.

Grim took some small solace that her friend was breathing, but that wasn’t much. She’d tried shaking her, slapping her, and even splashing some cold water on her face - nothing had the slightest effect. On the cusp of running out for help, wondering how in the hell she’d explain the situation to anypony without sounding mad, a cough drew her attention.

“Leech?!” she gasped, watching the mare sputter a stringy black substance from her mouth.

Even before Leech oriented herself, she scrambled for the book. She wanted - no, needed to go back. Rolling to her belly, heaving the sludge from her lungs, she feebly crawled towards the grimoire. Just out of reach, the tome was kicked away by a mossy colored hoof.

“I don’t know what in the hell happened but you are not going to do whatever you think you’re going to do,” Grim firmly stated.

“I...I…” Leech croaked. Like a dam bursting, a deluge of emotions hit her all at once: resentment, regret, loss, affection, the mental anguish magnified her physical weakness. She was so dizzy she could barely see straight, her body ached from head to hoof, and it felt as though her heart had been broken. Curling into a fetal position, she silently sobbed.

“I’ll - uh - you can just crash here tonight,” Grim floundered, unsure of how to handle the bizarre situation.

Whatever Leech had gone through must have been rough, even if it had only lasted for a split second. Scampering off to her bedroom, to fetch a spare blanket and one of her two pillows, she made sure to gather up the therimore. Whatever had transpired, her friend was not in the shape to suffer through it a second time.

Lying there, her maddening thoughts adrift in a tempestuous sea, Leech was lost. What had begun as a fun evening with her newfound companion had spiraled out of control and left her with more questions than answers. She’s seen so much, experienced things that defied explanation, yet none compared to the last encounter she’d been robbed from.

The draconequus, with all of his warmth and kindness, shone through like a beacon. Something told her that she had to find him, even if she wasn’t sure how. There was so little to work from: no name, no location, and she wouldn’t know where or how to start looking, but she would all the same. She knew - KNEW he was out there somewhere waiting for her.

Forcing her muscles to comply, she willed her body to move and shakily got to her hooves. “Grim,” she rasped, unsteadily shuffling to her host’s bedroom, “I think I’m gonna head home.”

Dropping the linens in her sorcerous grasp, Grim wheeled around to face her guest. “No, you can’t. For buck’s sake, you can barely -”

“Look, you can either walk me home or I’ll do it myself,” Leech grumbled indignantly. Languidly turning towards the door, she stumbled towards the exit.

Abandoning the blanket and pillow, Grim trotted over to Leech’s side. “Fine,” she sighed, moving ahead and opening the door, “but I’m keeping the book until you come to get it. I’d really, really rather you not go meddling until you’re a bit better off.”

“Mmmph,” Leech grunted, displeased but too tired to argue. As loathe as she was to admit it, Grim had a point. Though it was only mid afternoon, she felt exhausted in every conceivable way and was in piss poor shape to do anything but rest and recuperate.

Shambling out of the cramped apartment, with her acquaintance by her side, she carefully traversed the stairs leading to the street outside. As she trudged along, one singular thought occupied her mind - how she’d find her way back to the loving creature she’d been so unjustly separated from…