Cockatrice

by Shejwjeh

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Rarity
Length: 1395

Rarity was supposed to have a quick trip through the Everfree. Unfortunately, she gets lost.

Rarity needed to go through the Everfree, just for a quick trip. However, some creature attacks her, and she loses the path. Once the sun sets, she is left stranded in the middle of a dangerous forest. As she tries to escape, something with the head of a chicken and the body of a snake makes eye contact with her, and she can’t run away.

Published 2023-02-20 23:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-02-20 23:40:01 UTC

The Encounter

Rarity slowly made her way through the forest. Her ears flattened against the side of her head, and her horn alight with the tiniest bit of magic, just enough so that she could see right in front of her.

It had been a long day. She left for the forest in the morning, just when it was bright. She had planned for a quick trip, there and back. But she had gotten lost. And for hours she stumbled through the forest, looking for the path, or at least somewhere to rest until morning.

All the stories were true. The Everfree was famous for being chock full of dangerous creatures. The path was supposedly the only safe place. Though Rarity had lived just next to it her whole life, and had only seen timberwolves. She thought that the stories about ridiculous monsters were simply that, stories. However, Rarity’s convictions were soon proven false.

She decided to heed the advice of the stories, and stay on the path. Not because she believed straying from it would be dangerous, but because navigation would be difficult through dense forest.

She stayed on the path, and for a while everything was peaceful. She actually enjoyed the the quiet forest. That all changed when she was attacked by some creature. She didn't know what it was, but it was twice her height and had a wingspan rivaling Princess Celestia's and it had huge claws which is used to grab her.

It pulled her off the path. When she tried to use her magic to fight back, it wouldn't work. She tried all the self defense spells she knew, but they wouldn’t even leave her horn. All the while the creature was using it’s giant wings to fly forward. Straight into the dense forest and away from the path. The thing wa a huge, yet somehow it effortlessly dodged all the trees and leaves and plants. She panicked, flailing her hooves around and screaming. Then an idea came to her. Her horn was mainly an instrument for magic, but it also had another, physical property. It was sharp. She thrust her horn into the creature, again and again and again until it collapsed.

Then, she was stuck in the middle of the forest. No way to know how to get to her destination, nor to get home. When the creature had flown her through the forest, it changed directions repeatedly, never moving in a straight line, so she couldn’t simply trace her steps back to the path. she also noted that the feeling of the creature’s blood dripping down her horn wasn’t pleasant at all either.

She took another look at the creature, wondering weather it was dead or simply unconscious. She didn’t want to find out.

After all that, it was only midday. Scared as she was, the sun was still shining, though the dense trees blocked out most of it. She hoped she could get home before dark.

Eventually, the sun set, and Rarity was no closer to getting home. The forest was incredibly dark and it was common knowledge in Equestria, that the most dangerous creatures thrive in the dark. Rarity knew this, she knew she had to hide, make herself as invisible as possible. Rarity had lowered herself as much as possible to the ground while still being able to walk. She didn’t want to, but she needed to be able to see, so she lit her horn up, a tiny bit.

She was utterly terrified. She didn’t know how to get back to Ponyville. She hoped if she had just kept going in one direction she would reach an exit, somewhere, but the dense foliage and trees, and having to be careful so that a creature didn’t spot her, made progress incredibly slow.

Rarity was getting tired. She wasn’t a night pony, she preferred the morning. Although when an idea struck, she could be pulled into the latest hours of the night, so she was no stranger to midnight. But midnight under the dense Everfree Forest was much different than midnight under the roof of Carousel Boutique.

She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep. The Everfree plants were thick and soft, she had slept in much worse places, on top of a mannequin, being one of the more common ones. But she wasn’t an idiot. Falling asleep would mean forfeiting her life to any hungry creature.

She heard a noise and froze, holding her breath as the light on her horn went out.. She wanted to call out, ask who was there, but she bit her tongue, that would only reveal her location to the predator. She wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t die here.

Her ears stood up and swiveled, searching for the source of the noise. Then she heard a flapping sound, like a pegasus, or a bird. It was pitch black, all she could see was darkness. She wanted so badly to light up her horn, to see something. But she resisted the urge, and stood still.

She felt something rub against her back, something scaly. She screamed. She couldn’t stop it. The tense fear that had building up within her all night was released, and the simple act of it brushing against her was what did it.

She lit her horn up and turned around, trying to see what brushed up against her. But it would be the last thing she did.

Something caught her eye. The creature, it’s head was like a chicken, and it’s body like a snake, was flying just above where her back had been. She and it locked eyes. For a split second, Rarity was relieved, it didn’t seem dangerous. However, when she tried to move, when she tried to lower her light spell, and when she tried to break the eye contact, she couldn’t.

She stared at the creature, unwillingly. An unsettling sensation of cold was touching her hooves on her forelegs. And it was growing.

She started to panic more. She moved her forelegs, unlike her hind legs they seemed to respond to her orders, and tried to cover her eyes. But they refused to go there, they simply refused to go near her eyes, or anywhere near her field of vision.

The edges of her vision were shrinking as well, all she could see was the creature’s eyes. And the cold was going up and up. Almost reaching her torso. Her tried to stop her light spell, but her horn didn’t respond.

All of her body seemed intent on making her stare at the creature. Her other senses shut down, she was still screaming, but her ears didn’t hear it, her tongue couldn’t taste the cold Everfree air, her nose couldn’t smell the plants, yet two things remained. Her sight, though it was severely cut off, all she could see was the creature’s eyes, everything else was too blurry. The other thing was the cold growing up her body. She didn’t understand what it was, but it felt so potent. All of it was conspiring to force her to pay attention, all of it, to the creature’s eyes.

The cold was growing. It was at her neck. She was terrified of what would happen once it reached her eyes. But she couldn’t do anything to stop it. Her chin felt cold. She hoped somepony would find her body at least, assuming the creature wouldn’t eat it once it was done with, whatever this was. It took over her mouth. She wanted to be buried in Ponyville, she wanted to die there too, but it was her own fault for going into the Everfree Forest. The coldness avoided her eyes, taking over her ears and forehead before reaching her eyes, but now her eyes were all that was left. As her eyes started to feel cold, her vision started to dissipate as well. As the creature's eyes disappeared into the blackness she wondered if her dear sister Sweetie Belle would be okay without her, then she fell unconscious.

Author's Note

Thought this idea would be fun so I wrote it in like 2 hours at 12am.

Feel free to point out any mistakes, because this was published with minimal editing and proofreading, there are probably many.

I might write a follow up if I feel like it. Hope you enjoyed.