The Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER: A Candy Mare Tale

Once again, the Guardians, Commander Hurricane, and the royal sisters gathered at the meeting table in the main pavilion.

"Welcome back everypony," greeted Celestia, far too cheerfully for the wee hours before dawn. "I hope you were able to get some rest and calm yourselves." That last bit was clearly aimed at Princess Luna, as it was accompanied by a pointed glance in her younger siblings direction.

If the younger of the royal sisters picked up on it at all, then she pretended not to notice it well. Indeed, at the moment even responding to Celestia's exuberance seemed to be beneath her. But Luna did at least appear to be a little less agitated than she had been before. She now sat in stony silence, as still and statuesque as a a work of art sculpted from obsidian.

Sadly, the Guardians of Harmony did not appear even remotely as poised as the royal sisters.

Despite Stygian's insistence to the contrary, Flash Magnus had decided to wake the other legendary ponies so they might defend the camp from the Candy Mare's psychological attack. They had spent several fruitless hours stumbling around in the dark, chasing after screams and whispers that faded away to nothing. Each time they had thought that they had at last run the candy cannibal down, all they would find would be a jack-o-lantern grinning mockingly in the snow. As Stygian had predicted, it had been a lost cause. The Candy Mare was merely toying with them, trying to get inside their heads to stoke their anxieties and paranoia. As a result, now it was the Pillars who slumped at the table, exhausted and in moods most foul. Comparatively the royal sisters looked as if they had just stepped out of a long relaxing stay at the spa.

"I'm sorry your grace, but I'm afraid that we found rest to be as elusive as our prey," began Starswirl, rubbing his brow with one hoof, "We can hear the Candy Mare, and at times see her, stalking the edges of our encampment. Unfortunately she melts away at our approach like morning fog. Would the same could be said for the voices of the dead that she has employed to taunt us with lies and half truths."

"The things they says are not entirely lies," whispered Mistmane, sounding for the first time as frail and old as she looked, eyes haunted. "It's as if the dead speak through her, fragments of their real memories playing back events that really happened, but twisted in ways that are as disturbing as they are at times compelling. Of course, they are not the words that our friends would say - Not face to face. Not if they still lived. But even I find myself listening more intently than I should to their babble. More than once, I thought I could even see them, moving through the trees. So lost, so cold, so lonely... And so very hungry..."

"Hush now," Mage Meadowbrook held Mistmane in a tight hug and stroked her hair, smoothing down a few errant strands that stress and fatigue had put out of place. As she did this, the earth pony hummed a soothing folk tune and rocked the elderly looking mare gently. The unicorn closed her eyes and gave a shuddering sigh. The healer then turned her attention back to Celestia as she said, "You can see that it has taken a toll on us, but we're not the only ones that have been effected. The soldiers are restless. Many are losing their nerve. It's clear that they want to flee, but with that beast out there just waiting to pick off anyone that strays from camp, no one dares to be the first to try. We're like sheep huddled together against the cries of the wolf. The howling is all around us and getting closer by the moment. It won't be long before those weakest mentally break."

Even here near the middle of the encampment, the laughter and shrieks of the dead carried, though their actual words were blessedly muffled. Celestia and Luna glanced at one another, as if noticing the cacophonous noise for the first time.

"I understand. Then I shall deal with this posthaste!" declared Celestia, rising from her seat, as if she were ready to charge off to battle, "No one, be they mare or beast, shall torment my little ponies so long as I am here!"

"With respect, dear sister, I don't think it's wise for you to fall into the Candy Mare's trap," interjected Luna, clearly choosing her words carefully. "While I too wish to do something to assuage the fears of the soldiery, running yourself ragged chasing after phantoms is not the way to do it. The Guardian's have demonstrated that truth rather eloquently. But perhaps there is another way?"

Princess Celestia seemed taken aback, surprised at her sisters words. "Oh! I suppose you're right. But then what do you suggest?"

Luna's graceful expression turned a little sour as she said, "That you do that thing that everypony seems to be convinced that only you can do. Dawn isn't that far off anyways..."

If she noticed her sisters ugly look, then the princess of the daylight hours also did a magnificent job of not showing it. Instead she only smiled. "Ah, of course! It's a little early, but I think an exception can be made this once..." Saying that, the princess's horn began to glow as Celestia spread her angelic white wings wide. A brilliant glow suddenly spread over the hills of snow and, though it was not yet due, the sun burst over the horizon at the monarch's command.

As if someone had flipped a switch, the distant sounds that had haunted the night ceased, fading away to nothing. The peaceful calm of morning replaced the long nightmare of the night, dispelling the aura of unease and apprehension that had haunted the camp but mere moments ago as easily as a lantern might banish a shadow. Against all odds, there was even the welcome refrain of bird-song as snowy little bundles of feathers awoke in the trees. It was as if all the horror of the prior evening had been naught but a fever dream that had finally broken, it's last vestiges melting away in the golden rays of dawn.

"A most welcome reprieve, I am sure," Somnambula acknowledged with a tired smile. "But does not the Candy Mare hide herself away during daylight hours? Surely she will now go to ground, hiding herself away someplace we know not where. Would not it have been better to keep her close by? How will we find her now?"

Rockhoof cleared his throat, "In the saga's of my clan, such unnatural creatures were often unable to show themselves under the light of the day star. It's glare would cause them great agony and rob them of their power. They would seek an abode to dwell in, until the return of the eve when hunger would bring them forth again to bedevil the lives of those who yet breathed the air of the living." As tall as the stallion stood, it seemed that his height was not enough in that moment, as he clambered on top of the meeting table and began to scan the horizon while shading his eyes from the light of the rising sun. "Shroud eaters and shape changers of the Candy Mare's ilk tend to crawl into the burrows and burial mounds of ancient kings. In a pinch they might bury themselves deep in the soil of battlefields once drenched in the blood in ancient times, but I know of no such nearby battle sites. Rather I suspect there is a crypt or cemetery nearby in which she will take shelter. The smell of old death is comforting to the living dead and they are drawn to such resting places, though the repose of the truly dead be denied them. But they'll take the next best thing if they can get it."

Flash Magnus ear twitched. Though he didn't understand everything his brawny friend had been talking about, there was something he had said that caught his attention. "Hey, isn't the former castle of King Bullion nearby? If I'm not mistaken we're very near the heart of what used to be unicorn territory. It may not be an old battlefield or some ancient kings final rest, but if the castle still stands then the undercroft is probably still accessible as well. Those catacombs were one huge charnel house, if memory serves. It sounds like that would be prime real estate for the kind of creature Rockhoof describes, if the Candy Mare does indeed share such traits in common."

It was Commander Hurricane's turn to perk up. He he quickly rummaged inside his saddle bag and produced a weather worn map which he spread across the table. After a few moments of intense scrutiny, a grim smile twisted the un-scarred side of his face.

"You're right. Castle Bullion is less than a days trek from here," he said as he thrust his wooden hoof at a spot on the crinkled map, "Even shorter as the pegasus flies! If we leave now we might even over take her and cut off her retreat!"

"I wouldn't count on that commander," cautioned Stygian. "In the folklore that I have studied, the dead are known to travel quite fast. It would be best to fully prepare to face the fiend in it's lair, should the castles catacombs prove to be such. Going off half-cocked would likely only get you and anypony else who went with you killed..."

"I believe that somepony here said that they were ready for me to produce some results," Hurricane reminded the assembled ponies. "All I'm suggesting is that we act with haste. I may not be the warrior I once was, but I've got at least one fight left in me, and I plan to bring it to whatever we might find lurking in that castle!"

"Though it is perhaps not your place to say so, Stygian, I do agree with you," spoke Starswirl, eyeing Commander Hurricane. "It would be easy enough to catch up to the Candy Mare, but what then? Even if we were to corner her, a trapped rat is twice as dangerous. We need to formulate a plan of action before setting out to storm the castle, so to speak."

"Do you not already have such a plan prepared?" asked Princess Celestia, surprised at her mentor and former teacher showing such hesitation.

"Alas, your grace, not as such," the bearded unicorn admitted, furrowing his brow. "I have been working on a spell that I think could end this nightmare once and for all, but it requires harnessing an enormous amount of magic for it to succeed. Even were we to muster all the might of every unicorn in the Royal Guard, it still might not be enough. Truthfully, even if your royal sisters were to lend your aid, the price of invoking such powerful magic may still be too steep to pay as it could put all of our lives at risk. Until such time as preparations can be made to safe guard Equestria's future, I'm afraid the only plan I have is one of last resort."

"Perhaps we could try my plan then?" asked Stygian timidly, though he quickly grew more confident as he continued. "If you recall Flash's account of his fight against the Candy Mare, she was vulnerable to his artifact. Though a shield is designed primarily for defense, Flash said it actually managed to hurt her. Imagine if we had an entire army equipped with copies of the artifacts that you all wield! Surrounded by warriors equipped with weapons of that nature, even the Candy Mare would not stand a chance!"

"Oh Stygian, we've been over this before," Meadowbrook shook her head sadly. "You know it's impossible."

"Our artifacts contain the concentrated elemental forces of magic that binds our world together," spoke Starswirl as if he were repeating a refrain he had reiterated many times before."To try to duplicate them, to dilute their power, would not only potentially render them useless but it could also harm the delicate balance of the unfathomable forces that govern our world! Is your heart so clouded by your desire to have an artifact of you own that you would allow your envy to bring about an even greater disaster than the one we already face?"

"It is not envy that drives me, but my desire to help!" croaked Stygian, his words raw with emotion. "If you would only listen to me then we could -"

"That's enough!" Thundered the unicorn sorcerer, the leader of the Guardians putting his hoof down. "If you truly wish to help, then help us by putting aside such folly and instead come up with a plan of action that involves less risk!"

Without warning, an object ripped through the top of the pavilion tent and crashed down into the table with enough force to crack it in two!

Ponies were sent flailing as their chairs tipped backwards and flames spread inside the tent from the tipped over brazier. It took a moment for everypony to right themselves but Flash Magnus was the first to act, quickly darting about the tent to extinguish the errant flames which he smothered with his shield. Rockhoof chipped in as well, using his shovel to scoop up the burning debris and toss it out into the snow, then smother any lingering fires beneath spades full of earth. While the stallions dealt with that problem a gasp, followed swiftly by a shriek of horror, let everypony know that there was yet another crisis brewing.

The scream had come from Somnambula whose wide eyes and trembling hoof were pointed to what lay sprawled in the shattered remains of the meeting table. The other Guardians gasped as well when their eyes fell upon the blood smeared, limbless torso of a mare that lay in the wreckage. She had been mutilated nearly beyond recognition, the stumps where her legs had once been had clearly been gnawed down to the bone while the rest of her body seemed to have been abused in like manner, stripped of all dignity. The victims head was the only thing still attached to her body, though loosely as her neck hung from her shoulders by a thread of flesh, her features partially hidden by the helm of a royal guard.

From what they could see, the solider's jaw had been bitten off, leaving her tongue to hang limp and lifeless from her throat. Twin tracks of bloody tears stained the corpse's twisted face, her eyes gouged from their sockets and the viscera left to drain from the wet, sucking wounds that had been left in their place. The teeth marks around the circumference of those raw red holes, as well as her lack of eyelids, seemed to indicate that her eyeballs had eaten directly from her skull, likely sucked from their sockets while the sentry had still yet lived. What further ruin the dead pony's helmet hid, the gathered ponies could only speculate, but it was likely no less a horrifying sight than what they could already see peeking from behind the metal.

Long gashes also covered the pony's body. At first it just looked like random abuse inflicted on an already mauled body, but on closer inspection the slashes spelled out crude words that still dripped with fresh blood. The message, written in pain across a broken chest and down to a slit-open belly read, "Are yOu A PrINcEss? LeTs Fly tO tHe CasTLe! CoMe AloNe" The last had been underlined so deeply across her stomach that it had disemboweled her, opening her wide so that her intestines dangled in long ropy strands between the stumps where the mare's legs had once been.

Stygian turned to vomit at this grizzly display, and no one there could blame him.

"Well, I guess this confirms it at least," said Flash Magnus with a grimace, the first to recover from the shock. Perhaps he was becoming inured to such horrors? "It would seem that Castle Bullion is indeed our next destination."

"Surely not!" cried Meadowbrook, doing what she could to sooth the openly weeping Somnambula. "It's obviously a trap."

"A trap it might be, but if we want to stop things like this," Commander Hurricane gestured to the unfortunate former guard pony, "Then we'll need to go there. We'll need to put an end to this madness once and for all!"

"No, 'we' don't need to do anything of the sort," spoke Princess Celestia, her tone serious and brooking no disagreement. "It's me she wants. She's calling me out. Too many of my subjects have lost their lives hunting her. It's time that I take matters into my own hooves and face this fiend one on one! As ruler of Equestria it is I, and I alone, who must brave this horror. "

"What!?" cried Luna, taken aback. "And what about me? Am I not a ruler of Equestria too? Surely I should go with you! Or do you think I am too cowardly to join you? Worried I'll 'let my fears get the better of me' again?”

“Be still, little moon! The message says to come alone,” replied Celestia, turning to stare down her sister. “Besides, it’s imperative that one of us stays behind. That way, should the worst befall one of us, our subjects will still have the other to care for them.”

“Then I don’t see why I should have to stay behind instead of you,” answered Luna flabbergasted. “If I'm just the spare then let me do this in your stead! Look what that abomination did to this poor mare! What if she were to do something like that to you and fling your corpse in our midst for all to see!"

"There would be bedlam," nodded Starswirl in agreement. "Perhaps instead we Guardians of Harmony should go in your stead? Our passing from this world, should we fail, would at least have less of an impact on the populace. If she expects one pony and instead comes up against our combined might we may take her by surprise."

"Is that really the wisest choice?" asked Mistmane, her eyes locked on the poor unfortunate sentry who had been slain to serve as a message to them all. "Can we truly face such cold brutality with nothing but the hope of 'surprise' on our side?"

Mistmane brushed a stray lock of hair out of the corpse's face, the mare's body shifted, slumping to one side with a bone crackling snap. Her helmet slid off of her then to reveal that half of her head was missing, cracked like an eggshell, so that her skull let the light of the sun shine through her empty eye sockets and the ragged hole in her throat. The triangular wounds in her face eerily resembled the vacant glowing expression of a jack-o-lantern, lit up by that suddenly less comforting light.

As if that had been some kind of trigger, the edges of the pony's wounds began to sizzle, wisps of smoke rising from all over her body. Without further warning the cadaver jerked upright, letting loose an unearthly scream that was one part primordial fear and one part unbearable agony! It started to thrash it's stumps about in horrifying convulsions that sprayed black blood in every direction, as if it were trying to scramble out of the daylight.

"Get back Mistmane!" cried Commander Hurricane in warning as he swiftly interposed himself between the unicorn and the suddenly reanimated corpse. But as he did, a huge insectile limb burst from one of the ghoul's stumps and passed smoothly through his armor and the full length of his body! The crystalline blade was composed of purple rock candy, and the scent of sugaered plums flooded the area as it shook off the commanders blood. It must have been razor sharp, for Commander Hurricane didn't even seem to flinch as it had cut through him.

Hurricane stood transfixed, a gurgling choking sound coming from his throat as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then, agonizingly slowly, the officer fell apart in two perfectly bisected pieces as blood exploded into the air. The halves of his body spread apart displayed his perfectly split anatomy, his heart was still beating nestled in the left half of his body, furiously pumping blood onto the ground. It seemed there would be no more fighting for the old soldier after all. The Candy Mare had finally taken everything from him.

Chaos erupted as each pony sprung into action!

The candy ghoul sprouted more long purple limbs before scuttling crablike backwards into the scant amount of shade that the pavilion still offered. As it's empty head lolled backwards, long sharp teeth sprouted from inside it's hollowed out brain-case. With a slobbering, fleshy roar, it lunged from it's cover and aimed an attack straight at Princess Celestia!

Before it's wicked, new-grown fangs could close around her royal face, a shovel collided with the ghoul's fragile skull to deliver a shattering blow! Shards of teeth and bone rained down on the ground as the candied monstrosity squealed in fresh anguish. Rockhoof was not finished, however, as he put his strength behind his magic shovel to jab fiercely at the crustacean-like beasts midsection. This elicited an evil hiss from the reverent as it pulled away from the earth pony, spitting up sizzling black slime and more broken teeth as the blow connected with her disemboweled belly.

"Guardians, protect your Princesses!" bellowed Starswirl as he raised his own artifact, the tome of sorcery, and unleashed an eldritch blast at the unclean abomination.

The monster reeled, half it's already ragged body scorched by the explosive magic, but it dodged a second blast and twirling out of harms way at the last second. It moved more gracefully by the moment, almost dancing as it dodged the Pillar's attacks, candy continuing to flow over it's body and hardening into an exoskeleton that seemed to strengthen it's muscles and re-enforce it's movements. Horrifically twined smiles stretched on either side of it's face as, wailing like a banshee, it launched itself once more but this time aiming for Princess Luna!

Before it could land with all four snapping scythes, the candy ghoul came up short as it's razor sharp limbs smashed against the metal of Flash Magnus's shield. It scrabbled and scraped against the slick surface of Netitus, but seemed repelled by the metals enchantment. Instead it was pushed back and landed in a tangled heap of mewling cries and smoldering torment as it was force backwards into the sun that beat down from above. The face of the former mare's dangling head seemed to be twisted into a look of despair as it's candy coating ignited under the day stars glare, the plum scented shell melting like hot wax.

"Together! As one!" shouted Starswirl, and as he did each of the Guardian's of Harmony raised their artifacts into the air. The totems floated free from their grasp and began to glow in every color of the rainbow. A light of the same kaleidoscopic color burst forth from the enchanted items and fell upon the ghoul like a heavy rain, pinning her in place so she could not escape to the solace of the shade again. Held beneath the unrelenting sun the ghoul's legs curcled up like those of a dead spider, and her flesh swiftly putrefied and blackened, before at last she crumbled to dust. When all was said and done only a shadowy smear on the ground marked where the briefly risen dead had been.

"Well done everypony,"cheered Stygian, breaking the silence that followed. Although he too fell silent when he saw the cost of their victory, "Poor Commander Hurricane..."

"He died a heroes death," declared Rockhoof as Mistmane and Starswirl used their magic to cover the pegasi's bifurcated remains respectfully with a bit of torn tarpaulin.

"There is no greater love than that shown by one willing to lay down their own life for a friend," whispered Celestia. tears stinging the edges of her eyes. "Too many of our friends have lost everything fighting this depravity. We will move out, in full force, trap or no trap! We will bring everything we have to bear against this madness! We will bring an end to the Candy Mare!"