Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville

Day ???

“Dead Hooves! Wake up!”

Waking up to the sight of a blood-stained mare looking down, an odd predatory nature in her eyes, nearly made me scream. A hoof swung out to meet her face, and was shoved back down without looking away. The action brought a smile to her face, hungry. Not the “I need to eat her” kind of hungry I felt when staring at a corpse. It was the “you’re my type” kind of hunger… I think.

It was terrifying how clear the raider nature was in this pegasus. Any other pony would justifiably shoot her or try again for another punch. Then again those ponies had a working pair of hind legs and more wasteland experience. Since I didn't, I had no choice but to just sit there and hope this was just a standard for the crazy pegasus before me. She was my legs, and if her claims about wanting to know how it felt to save somehow held true, I wasn’t as dead a mare as my name suggested.

Didn’t mean her raider nature would be kinder just cause she wanted to know the feeling.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been standing there since I…,” my words trailed off, eyes shifting from the lively violet of Willow Wisp to the rickety old boards that made up the nearest wall. “Where are we?”

“Just a little farmhouse retreat,” the bloodstained pegasus replied, pulling her head away from me. Her entire figure still towered over me, her stance giving a little reminder that she was the one in charge, not me. “You fell asleep some time after we left the bakery. This was the closest place for us to settle down while the storm passes.” She turned her attention to a window, the clouds notably less red then when I was last awake. “We should be significantly safer now. Most ash storms aren’t that long these years.”

I tilted my head. “So Equestria is finally being allowed to heal?”

“I would hardly say that. Not while master and I are around,” Willow said with an amused snort. The second sentence was quieter, the hunger that fueled her smile turning into something more resigned. “I… guess I’m free now. To an extent, at least.” A shake of her head, and she joyfully pranced over me and towards the door leading out of the room. “Take your time, get your bearings. Still some canned pastas in this place, so I’ll go prepare some bowls.”

With that, Willow disappeared out of my sight and left me alone. Alone with nothing but my thoughts and the silence of the world around me. The only sound that greeted my ears for a good few minutes was the slight whistle of the wind as it brushed against the outside of the farmhouse. I was in some random farmhouse, in a world I didn’t know, and a body that was not made to live in it.

I felt like I was on death’s row. It wasn’t a matter of if my legs were going to get me killed, but how soon. Probably as soon as Willow got sick of playing foalsitter. The novelty of saving a life would wear off sooner or later. She’d likely just leave me stranded in the middle of some field as food for some critter.

Whoever had kidnapped me and brought me to this town extended my lifespan, but not by much.

Rolling onto my side, I stared dejectedly at the old wooden floor board, the black and red of my mane blocking my vision. I didn’t bother to move it; it felt like too much work, and I was still able to examine this one particular plank with… fascination? No, not fascination. It was just a lame excuse to distract myself from destined death.

“Maple maybe? Oak? Probably not birch,” I murmured. My voice was so quiet half the syllables didn’t have any sound to them.

A groan of frustration left my throat, raw and far louder than any word I had spoken so far. Most ponies would have been justifiably happy to still be alive, but every thought I had was drowned out by a timer ticking down in my own head. The joy of still being alive was blocked out by the certainty that next time was the end. Next time a pony would place a bullet in my skull, or an axe through my ribcage, or worse.

I shivered. The thought of a fate worse than death was too unsettling. Even in my state, thoughts of the ways the worst of the wasteland could make somepony like me suffer was too much.

Forcing myself up with my front hooves, I dragged my ass over to the nearest corner of the room. The joining of both walls helped me get into a rather awkward sitting position. It wasn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever been, but it was what I had at that moment. Nothing about it made me look stronger, but it was better than nothing.

I sat there for… fuck if I know how long, but it was apparently long enough for food to be called ready. My ears turned to the door, the clip clop of hooves alerting me to Willow’s presence long before she stepped inside. As the should-be-pure-white pegasus entered, two ceramic bowls on her back, I dared to flash a smile. She smiled back.

“Probably going to taste worse than a bloat sprite rolled in shit, but it will work,” she warned me, gesturing towards the bowls with her head. With a gleeful yet cautious canter, she pranced over to me and slid one of them down her wing to me, catching the other with her left hoof. “Enjoy, blank flank.”

I briefly eyed the tombstone that she had on her own flank, then looked at my bare one. When I turned back to her so I could grab the bowl, an involuntary sigh found its way out of me.

“Fuck do you expect? I didn’t really have a chance to find out what I’m good at back home,” I responded, lifting a ravioli up with my magic.

Shoving it in my mouth, I felt myself nearly gag at the texture. It didn’t taste moldy or rotten, but it certainly didn’t taste right either. After a series of slow, horrid chews, I swallowed. I think the piece of heavily processed wheat tried to climb the back of my throat, considering I gagged even worse afterwards.

“Told you it was bad,” Willow said. I shot her the nastiest look my face was able to muster, but it didn’t scare her. The look of amusement on her face told me it did not work. “Still, it's what we got, so eat up.”

I grimaced at my bowl, resigned myself to my fate, and started eating. Each ravioli brought with it a series of gags that were quickly wearing on the pegasus before me. It must have been ravioli number seven that she swiped it away with a wing and a hoof. She wore a smile the entire time, though nothing about it gave off a friendly impression.

“Tell me, Dead Hooves,” she responded, her smile growing more maternal and unhinged at the same time,” do you value any organ in particular? Your kidneys, your stomach,” and the maternal-ness fell away to pure and sanity, “your lungs?”

Knowing my time was already short, and desperate for this to not be how I went out, I bobbed my head up and down as fast as possible. She held the bowl back out towards me, her gazing piercing flesh, muscle and bones to look at the purest essence of what made me Dead Hooves.

“Now eat. Quietly.” She thrust her hoof forward a bit more, her face the most understandable yet twisted joy she might have ever felt. The most in control she might have ever felt, and it was definitely going to her head. “Keep your whining till after you're done.”

She never finished her earlier threat, because she didn’t need to. I know what she was implying. It was fine; I was used to having no control of my own actions. The difference lay in the fact my dad at least tried to make me feel more powerful than I really was. Willow? She was just basking in a power trip that she had waited a lifetime to accomplish. I just had to live with the fact she was my only lifeline.

With her half-spoken threat hanging in the air, we went back to filling out stomachs. The pasta still tasted awful, but I held my gagging back as much as possible as we ate. There was one thing at home I missed, I guess. Dad had a little farm with tatos and carrots and the like, built in such a way that the ash couldn’t smother it. Those would have tasted at least three times better than this.

When the food was gone I set my bowl down, and took the opportunity to voice my disapproval of my meal. That came in the form of opening my mouth, letting my tongue lull out, and giving a “bleh”. Willow rolled my eyes, but since I had waited till after finishing my meal, as she asked, I didn’t find a lung on the floor and a hole in my chest.

Speaking of holes, I gave my previously injured shoulder a once over. It was well bandaged, a blotch of extremely dark red having formed where the entry wound was. I lit my horn on the bandages, believing it had done its job and that the wound would be gone. I only got as far as grasping the bandages before a cold, feathery appendage covered my horn. Turns out wings make a good magical insulator.

“I would recommend keeping it on until we either find a healing potion or get some more bandages,” Willow replied. How the fuck did this mare move so fast? “We got none of those right now. Keep that on until then.”

I nodded hastily. “O-okay, yeah, got it.” That was enough to get her wing away from me, and allowed me the chance to speak further. “So, uh, those ponies in that town there – the ones that tied it up and stabbed me – you know them?”

“Tartarus no,” she replied, a rather adorable snort escaping her.

This mare was all over the place; was she sane? Insane? Was this how all ponies in the wasteland are? I didn’t know at the time and I was terrified of the latter being true. It meant my dad was the only normal pony around, and even that was debatable. I’m pretty sure most normal ponies don’t stick their dick in a cannibal, but that was as far as his crazy went.

Willow wrapped her already extended wing around to her chest, placing it over her heart. “If I knew those ponies they wouldn’t have lived as long as I had. Hay, would have escaped sooner if I wasn’t trying to figure out why master ditched me.” The wing suddenly straightened, pointing to me. “Then you came along and, well, saw an opportunity that I’ve never gotten. Save a life and end a few more at the same time? Must be heartswarming day!”

“I’m… sure it is,” I replied, forcing a smile onto my muzzle. I needed her to like me, so my distaste of her apparent affection for bloodletting was probably not a good thing to voice. “And thanks again. You’ve given me a few more days of life at the very least.”

“It wouldn’t be called “saving a life” if you were a corpse right now.” Those words were followed by the most comfort and care her smile had carried so far. How did she manage to do so much with just one expression? “Though that does leave a question: why did they grab you? What could you do to anger ponies enough that we managed to meet in the first place?”

“I… I wish I knew,” I answered, ears folded. “Is it weird to say I’m grateful, though? I mean I know jackshit about the world. If they hadn’t come along I’d still be there with no food, no knowledge of how to grow food, and… his corpse.”

My stomach grumbled at the mention of my father. I clenched my eyes shut, shook my head, and forced down the fear that laid inside me. More than fear, actually; there was something else trying to whisper in my ear. A voice I knew from mom’s old stories. I had no choice! A pony needed to eat and there wasn’t anything around! If I didn’t do it I would be dead.

Each minute may be my last, but that didn’t mean I wanted to die!

“Do you know the ponies responsible?” Willow asked. I shook my head. “Can you think of anything you, your mother or father did that pissed ponies off?”

“Not really. I mean, mom ate ponies but she tried to hold the hunger in. She left us for my safety a couple years back, so I doubt she’d tell anypony about me and dad.” I ignored the slight horror that dawned Willow’s face as I spoke, looking forlorn into the ceiling. “Dad is a former Steel Ranger, and Steel Rangers are really good ponies. Maybe someone from back then had a grudge against him?”

“Steel Rangers are good ponies,” she mimicked back, tasting the words like they were a meal she was trying for the first time. “When he left the rangers, did he bring anything with him? Some rare weapons, a suit of power armor, perhaps a Pi–”

“Power armor. He had his power armor.”

Her eyes had trailed a bit with each item spoken, but the moment I confirmed one of her guesses as correct her eyes zeroed in on me. She tapped her hoof against the underside of her muzzle as she mumbled. I leaned in as much as I was able to without falling over, but it wasn’t enough to grasp what she was saying. Best guess I had was that she was considering whether a piece of power armor was worth killing over.

“Well you can figure all that out on your own,” she said, standing up. Her hoof placed the bowl she had been holding top-side down as she made her way over to me. “All I have to do is drop you off in Appleloosa and I can figure out more important things. Like figuring out why the master hooved me off to those ponies.”

I gave a nod, though it didn’t really matter. Her wing grabbed the gas mask I had used the day prior and flung it over to me, which I leaned over even more to catch. As my chest and stomach hit the floor, I pulled its strap over my neck and allowed it to hang loosely under my muzzle. The only filter I had was the one already in it, which was not exactly a good sign. It led to me giving a quick prayer to Celestia and Luna, in hope they would either see that I reach Appleloosa safely or make the trip to the Everafter quick and painless.

Willow took that time to quickly prepare herself for the possibility of another ash storm; while she had kept the clothing we had stolen from our captor on for myself, she had taken it off at some point between after I had fallen asleep. It took the length of my silent prayer and then a little bit more for her to be completely ready.

Once she was fully dressed, though definitely not comfortable given her clothing wasn’t designed for wings, she turned to me. “Ready?”

I only managed to get halfway through a nod before a new voice pierced our ears from the window.

“Hey, prisoner! Your yard time is up!”

Our attention turned to the window. Willow, in an attempt to get a look at whoever had spoken without being seen, got just enough airtime so that she could peek out from the window’s upper right corner. Her hooves thumped against the ground immediately after. While my heart start to thump in my chest, feeling certain based on this new pony’s words that, Willow simply chuckled.

“Ironic line for a stripe.”

While I didn’t approve of the term, the knowledge of what was outside actually caused me to beam a little. A zebra, other than my mom, right outside this little farmhouse we were currently located in. There was a brief excitement at the prospect of meeting one half of what made me “Dead Hooves” again for the first time in years! Excitement quickly squashed at the zebra’s next few words.

“That means come on out and show your face fuckwad!” they said. I had no idea what a fuckwad was but with how angry they sounded I wasn’t about to find out. “And do it quickly, unless you want to find out how a stalker causes property damage. It will hurt. Really, really hurt.”

The earlier fear compounded tenfold, and it only got worse when I saw that Willow was now the one beaming. She craned her head just enough to the left where she could see me. My heart skipped several beats at the hungry, animalistic intent that laid in her iris and pupils. I didn’t need a medical degree to diagnose her as mentally unstable.

“Well, Deady? Shall we go say hello?” she replied, that same maternal tone from earlier creeping back into her voice. “It’s rude to not greet a guest, you know.”

“Uh, y-y-yeah,” I stuttered out., shrinking as much as my body allowed me. It was not enough to hide me from her gaze.

A gathered shotgun and climbed onto a psychotic mare’s back later, and Willow and I found ourselves trotting down stairs, through a kitchen, and to the front door. Neither of us knew if the zebra outside had really set up explosives, so I was told to leave the shotgun just out of sight from the door. Close enough for my magic to reach, but far enough out of sight for me to grab in case things turned deadly.

That was probably the most surprising thing about the situation. Instead of deciding to kill the zebra, we were going to take a gambit. We knew from that stallion that talked to me when I woke up in Ponyville that I had been set up, and whoever I was being loaded off to might not know they had the wrong mare. The ever present friction between the zebras and pony tribes also made it possible that she was kept out of the loop. As for how we went about it… we were going to just tell the truth and hope their brains weren’t as malformed as a bloatsprite.

Willow opened the door at just the right speed where it didn’t seem like either of us were sweating buckets, which I was, and gave me my first glance at the zebra before us. They were a mare, the same age as me, wearing a jacket and combat vest on their front. The dreadlocks that made up her mane were cut short, revealing that her left ear was entirely missing, a nasty scar traveling from her right cheek to half way up her muzzle. Her left hoof held onto some round piece of black gum

Behind them laid the twisted form of an orchard, lightly covered in ash from the most recent storm. Dead trees covered every corner of the horizon, not a single apple in sight. The grown was similar coated in ash much like the town was, though with the ever moving wind it was quickly being blown into the distance. The magic in the ash wasn;t active anymore, making the way they constantly brushed against my face more an annoyance than anything.

The zebra ripped off a piece of it as she looked at us, and started to chew. The fire and rebellion in her eyes matched the manic happiness of Willow’s. Then she looked at me, and I once again found myself trying to shrink.

“So, you are the one the boss went through all that trouble to track down,” she replied, continuing to chew the entire time. With the way her lips peeled back as she looked at me, I was certain she wanted to snarl. “I’ll admit, you look a lot more pathetic than I imagined.”

I tilted my head at her. “Boss?”

“You don’t need to know. Earth pony!” She pointed a hoof at Willow. “Drop her. You’re not involved in this unless you resist.”

Willow and I shared a moment of understanding, knowing our educated guess had turned out to be correct. World might have ended, but the hostilities between zebras and ponies were still as strong as ever. If she knew what was truly going on, then no doubt she would know Willow was locked up with me.

Like a fish out of water, gracelessly flopped onto the ground. When I didn’t immediately stand back up, the zebra ended up raising her brow. She stepped towards me, looking past my head to my hind legs. The gears were starting to turn, but not everything was in place just yet. Her anger grew quicker than her brain was working. As long as she didn’t spit out the gum and grab her gum, I was fine.

At least, I thought that was the case.

“You’re supposed to get up,” she told me. “Come on, the longer I’m out of his sight the better reason he has to think I’ve betrayed him. So get up and–“

“I can’t walk, idiot!” I spat back at her. “Kind of hard to stand when your own body wants you dead.”

Instead of that fictional dawning of realization, she continued to chew her gum. Then, she circled me. When her body blocked my sight of Willow, her attention snapped to the pegasus instead. A feral energy had shaped their facial features into something predatory when I next saw it. Time was running short for this zebra mare.

“Is that what took you two so long to get out? Trying to pull some dirty Equestrian trick over me?” She asked. When neither of us gave an immediate answer, she pointed a hoof at me. “I want to see the bandages. Clothing off, now!”

My eyes went wide. “You think I shot myself!”

“Clothing! Off! Now!” She shouted louder.

Willow took a step forward, but I held a hoof out in a vain attempt to tell her to stop. To my surprise she actually did listen; probably a bit of conditioning kicking in from being subservient for so many years. I made a mental note to be careful about making darker jokes aimed at her, and then did as asked.

I was used to mom or dad helping me get everywhere and do anything, so declothing wasn’t that embarrassing. It was agonizing slow, especially the pants, and during the entire process I saw the zebra’s expression morph into something new. The fact I hadn’t moved my hind legs the entire time, how much I was struggling. I didn’t blame her for calling me a liar, given how we Equestrians treated her people during the war.

“Stop. Stop.” She ordered, the rage in her voice shifting into shame at the speed of light. I did as requested, letting my pants hang uselessly off my tail and fetlocks. “You… you really can’t walk, can you?”

“Eeyup,” I replied. Deciding to gamble on her shame and surprise, I brought a foreleg to my mane. “Oh, and the black in this? It ain’t an Equestrian thing.”

She took a step back, her constant chewing paused for a split second as she thought through what I said. The gears in her skull turned, and turned, and turned, and then something clicked. She momentarily spun around and spit her gum as far as possible.

“Nothing can be simple, can it?” She asked herself. She briefly bit her lower lip, shame fading back into anger. It boiled over, and she roared as long and as loud as possible. “Spirits forbid I just have one honest individual in my life! I mean, seriously, how can you ponies preach about honesty if you’re always holding a knife behind your back?!” Her words emphasized with a point towards Willow Wisp, followed by a groan of frustration as she threw her head up. “Become a stalker, I thought. See what lies outside your home, I thought. It’ll be fun, I thought. I swear, I never should have left the station.”

A decent amount of what she said went over my head, but I think I got the gist of what she was saying. The zebra moved toward me, helped me up into a sitting position, and then helped me put the clothing back on. Had me being half zebra really mattered that much to her? No, she probably just felt bad about treating me like shit.

“There. Sorry, about all that,” the zebra replied, bringing my attention back to her. “It’s, uh, nice to meet one's own out here. Even if… well…”

She motioned at everything that wasn’t my mane and tail. I sighed, expecting it but having no will to comment on how insulting it was. If the black streaks in my mane were saving my ass right now, I’ll take it. Probably shouldn’t tell her how big of an “maybe” it is that they are actually due to me being a zony.

“It’s fine. Though, uh,” I briefly turned back to Willow, and then to the zebra, “who is your boss Miss…”

“Joy,” the zebra finished, holding a hoof out. I reached out with one of my own, shaking it roughly enough where I nearly fell over. Joy was the only thing keeping me upright. “You are?”

“Dead Hooves.” I dared to smile at that moment. She was the most normal pony I’ve met so far. “The pegasus behind me is Willow Wisp.”

Willow dipped her head. “Charmed, stripe.”

Joy’s muzzle scrunched up, only moving her eyes as she addressed the blood-covered pegasus. “Yeah, really charmed.”

My ears went flat, my muzzle mouthing “no” over and over as I realized what was going on. Perhaps I should have felt a bit lucky that they seemed to hate each other more than the fact I wasn’t fully zebra or fully Equestrian, but it didn’t matter. The timer to my death felt like it had just been cut in half. Last thing I needed was to be caught in a reenactment of the Equestrian-Zebrica war.

I didn’t think, I just spoke in an attempt at self preservation. “Look, I understand we are not exactly on the best of terms, but perhaps we can save hostility till a later–“

“Oh hush, Deady,” Willow said, a hoof ruffling my mane as she stared at Joy. Her words sound so motherly, and yet it just served to make them even more terrifying. “The adults are talking.”

Joy snorted. “Adults?”

“What, stripe? Is that not accurate?”

“I’m just surprised you could manage to compliment me. Actually living up to your Elements of Harmony for once?”

“Well it is only kind to talk to a pony before killing them.” The timer cut into a quarter. “Might want to finish your last meal. Would hate to see it go to waste.”

Joy’s expression grew devilish. “Your funeral.”

As the zebra took off another chunk of gum, I attempted to make myself as small as possible. This was it, the end. Stuck between a psychopath and an angry zebra. I whispered yet another prayer to Celestia and Luna, asking that the end be swift and painless.

Then my ears gripped onto a symphony of hoofsteps not too far away. A group of ponies, five in total, dressed in the same way leather and makeshift armor as my original captors. Willow and Joy both turned to meet them, a grimace forming on the latter’s muzzle. The timer in my head cut from a quarter to an eighth.

“Alright zebra, good job corralling the merchandise,” the leader of this group said. “Now just bring them over, and we’ll make sure they don’t escape their chains.”

Joy contemplated her position for a moment, her chewing gaining an odd rhythm to it. A piece of me hoped she didn’t do as she was asked, and another hoped she would. Both seemed like terrible options, marked with either death or a fate possibly far, far worse. Judging by the side glance Joy gave Willow, it was going to be the quicker of the two fates.

“Rain check, Equestrian?”

Willow’s smile grew way too wide to be natural. “Just as long as you keep up.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Joy spat her gum in the direction of the group before us. “I will.”

She spun around, kicked up dirt, and an explosion appeared from out of nowhere. Before anypony was able to comprehend where it came from, Joy had grabbed the pistol, aimed it through the debris the explosion had kept up, and ran ahead. She was almost fast enough to out speed the pegasus that rocketed through the sky next to her. Emphasis on almost.

Just like back in Ponyville proper, Willow was frighteningly efficient. The first pony she targeted barely had time to register her, grabbing his own rifle and firing three shots leading from the back of his neck up to his brain. He dropped dead without any chance to defend himself. His armor had been useless.

All attention had turned to the bloodstain pegasus already upon them, which left Joy with no immediate resistance. Two shots went off, both hitting the armor of one light blue unicorn mare at the edge of the group. Neither made it to skin, but they did crack the rusty metal she called protection open.

Joy’s third shot was in sync with the unicorn mare’s submachine gun fire. A single bullet to a spray of bullets, one perfectly placed where the now useless armor was while the other riddled a zebra’s upper right foreleg. Joy didn’t scream, and she didn’t fall over, she just kept charging. Another shot in the same exact place finally sent put her target down.

In that time Willow had taken out two more with swift and relative ease. A stallion had managed to get a pump action shotgun out and a shot, but the pegasus was faster than he was. She forced his shot high, took five shots at the pony behind her meat shield. One pony fell to the ground, and another joined soon after as her shield received a shotgun blast through the underside of his muzzle.

In about fifteen seconds, two mares had taken down four of the five ponies before us. The last pony, the stallion that had told Joy to bring his merchandise over – which I assumed meant me in this instance – still seemed to be registering the out-of-nowhere explosion when two guns were pointed at each side of his head. He looked left to Willow, the pump-action she had stolen from her last kill aimed right for his eye. He then looked right to Joy, her hoof-made pistol aiming at the same spot.

“What. Please. No–”

His pleas fell on deaf ears. A thundering thump from a shotgun, and three more bullets from a pistol, and a stallion was replaced with a headless corpse. I followed his body as it slumped onto the ground, and the world briefly fell silent. Five dead in twenty seconds. A pegasus and zebra soaked in blood.

Either I was lucky to have them on my side, or I was lucky to know my death at their hooves would be swift. The timer to my death had been extended for the moment, so I decided that the former was worth believing.

Her adrenaline rush reaching its end, Joy suddenly winced. Where all the blood on Willow’s body was from other ponies, the zebra mare’s left foreleg was covered in her own. It had been well torn apart, and as pain flared up she doubled over. It did not stop her from briefly checking her pistol’s magazine and mumbling a swear.

What did stop her was Willow rummaging through the last of their corpses, and pulling out an undamaged healing potion. “For being a damn fine shot.”

“Heh, like I was anything special compared to you,” Joy replied, swiping the potion from the pegasus and downing it without a second thought. Once it was empty, and her thoroughly beaten limb started regenerating, she looked at the pegasus with a smile. “You pegasi are more terrifying than stories depict you. Do all of you move like that?”

“I live to kill, eat to kill, and serve to kill.” Willow’s own smile turned sly, standing proud before the injured zebra. “Master wouldn’t allow me to be anything but the best, so that is what I am. I doubt even the goddesses can kill me.”

“Now that,” Joy threw the empty potion bottle over her body, “is something every zebra would pay to see.”

While there was still clear bad blood between them – each smile carrying with it an undertone of hate and fear – I was surprised at how casually they were talking with each other. Perhaps their threats to each other had been empty? No, they definitely didn’t like each other. They didn’t seem to want each other dead at this moment, though, so the timer extended once more.

I sighed, and allowed my eyes to trail to the bodies they were bonding over. Something at this darkest corner of my brain whispered, but it wasn’t loud enough for me to know what it spoke. It didn’t need to be. My mouth watered a little just looking at the fresh meat. The ravioli earlier hadn’t filled me, but those would.

My eyes went wide, and I shook my head. Shame filled my heart as I told myself how wrong those thoughts were. At no point, however, did my stomach quiet, or the whispers disappeared. The whispers only seemed to get louder the longer I stared at any of the corpses. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had the ability to look away from them.

“Speaking of things we would like to see, how did you manage that little explosion back there?” Willow asked, both completely unaware of my losing mental battle. “It would be really useful.”

Joy chuckled. “Consider that a Stalliongrad secret. I’m not revealing that to an unaware Equestrian.”

“Oh come on, stripey. Please?”

“Nuh uh.”

“Pretty please?”

“Answer is still no-“

“Get me out of here.”

My interjection was soft, terrified, but more than enough to grab the attention of both mares. I did everything within my power to pull my eyes away from a succulent corpse to either of them. I managed to do it for a second, but like a hypnotic swirl the dead drew me back to them. The whispers were no longer unintelligible. They didn’t offer real words but they coerced my spirit to do something beyond regrettable.

My resolve was nearing its breaking point.

“Deady?”

“Get me away. I-I need to get away.” I once again managed a brief glimpse at one of my two saviors. Willow to be specific. “It’s calling me. Please. Get me away from here.”

Willow tilted her head, confused at how something dead could make me so scared. Joy, however, caught on instantly. Maybe there was some hint at the deeply-ingrained, unnatural hunger with me on my face. I remember mom’s eyes would lose their white when her urges bordered on all-consuming. The same was happening to me.

I briefly considered the possibility of her killing me. It might seem like a mercy to some zebras, but Joy’s first response wasn’t to kill me. With a limp in her step, she made her way over to me. Her head and mane blocked my vision. I should have been happy about it, but instead I felt angry. Angry, she was blocking my view of a meal.

“Oh spirits. He is real,” She said, a horrified finality in her tone. I don’t know if she needed an answer, but I nodded anyway. She turned back to Willow. “Get her out of here. There is a traders post a couple of hours away, but it should be quicker to get there if you fly.”

“Is she-“

“I’ll answer your questions later, Equestrian. Just get her out of here!”

The whispers wished to take hold of my mouth, telling her that she didn’t know what I needed. Willow, having been given an order, acted without a shred of hesitation. She flung herself at me with the speed of a bullet, tossed me onto her back, and then took to the air. Each movement was so fast that it was impossible for me to focus on the corpses that had caused the whispers to gain hold.

Whispers that faded as the wind brushed against my mane, my tail and mane flailing wildly. I wasn’t able to pay attention to anything around me with the way strands of hair battering my face, so I simply closed my eyes and held onto Willow’s neck. With sight temporarily gone, my hearing was the only thing I found easy enough to grasp. A sigh of relief left my muzzle, followed by a shiver.

“I’m sorry mom,” I muttered. “It seems we are both his now.”

Author's Note

Joy and any further depictions of things from Stalliongrad are based off of Lone Writer's All Roads Lead Home. Please give there story a look if you haven't. He's helped me improve my writing a lot since I started working on OLM, and his writing deserves more attention.