"Booked? Booked?"
The pegasus repeated the word with such venom that it was unclear whether the stallion at whom she was cursing flinched from her volume or acid burn. He nearly dropped his clipboard in fright, fumbling to catch it while tempting the angry mare to elaborate on just how gormless and useless she thought him just then. The flustered stallion straightened out, blinking a couple times rapidly as he gathered himself. "Err, yes, s-since this morning. There was a last minute—”
She glared at him, her look burning, laser-like, into him. The stallion clutched the clipboard to his chest like armor. "Last. Minute?" she hissed. He flinched. Ineffective armor.
The pegasus mare drew back like a cobra rearing, and for a moment the stallion thought he would be unceremoniously, and painfully, introduced to her hoof, until she exploded, every word angrier than the last.
"You mean to tell me that when I came here three months ago and booked the arena, I was just wasting my valuable time, because you were just going to give it away to last-minute bunch of halfwits?!"
She waited for answer in rippling, fiery silence, but none came; not like she had expected otherwise. "I have a job to do, buddy, and it ain't easy. The least that could happen is if I could get a sodding arena booked without getting ripped off!" She zeroed in close, nose-to-nose as he quaked in trepidation, and spoke in a quiet yet equally-destructive tone. "Unless you wanna do my job for me, if it's such a piece of cake! Huh, do you?"
The stammering, hopelessly-intimidated stallion spoke in a high, crackly voice. "N-n-no, Ms. Spitfire, ma'am, b-but—"
Spitfire stepped back and tossed her head, looking beyond frustrated with the same old grind. She blew out a heavy sigh. "Can you at least tell me who these other guys were?"
The arena manager lifted a trembling hoof to leaf through the numerous slips clipped to his board as the irate team leader looked away at nothing in particular, her jaw set and impatient. He settled on a page and traced along the lines of scribbly writing before finding his mark, tapping it in affirmation. "O-of course, here we are, booked by a team called the... Shadowbolts."
Spitfire scoffed as though she hadn't heard anything more ridiculous in her life. "Shadowbolts? What the hell?" She approached the manager again, whose trembling was in direct correspondence with the sneering captain's proximity. "Well, where can I find these phonies?"
"E-E-Everfree—"
Spitfire's eyes widened and she looked to the side. "The Everfree Forest?" She hadn't ever heard of a flight team setting up base in the fabled forest; actually, she hadn't realized that there existed a competing flight team to the Wonderbolts at all.
"I believe so," the stallion answered, squinting at his sheet. Spitfire had forgotten she asked a question at all.
Well, fine. The Everfree was practically a stone's throw away for a Wonderbolt, let alone a Wonderbolt like herself. The captain was certain that she could reclaim her superiority to the 'Shadowbolts' or whatever diplomatically, and if not, she could be very convincing. She was nose-to-nose with the manager again, eyes narrowed to slits. "Next time, get it right."
"Y-yes ma'am." He spoke an octave too high and a score of decibels too quiet, shrinking into the background.
Spitfire smirked as she left, feeling stronger than ever. Classic— he might as well have been a cadet.
*~*~*
No drills, no runs. Nothing but the note scribbled to herself about the one and only day's event stared back at her from her desk calendar. It was mocking her misfortune, that only event that she needed the arena for and couldn't do without. Spitfire slammed her hoof down on the desk in fury, her aviators sitting on the surface rattling from the sheer volume of her frustration.
The fire-haired captain threw herself back in her chair with a groan, both hooves shielding her aching head, massaging her temples as she traced patterns in the bland ceiling. As much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, Spitfire was half-hoping that her second-in-command would come stumbling in with his clumsy ways and tell her of some drill she must have forgotten, just to relieve her from dealing with the crap right then.
For logic she couldn't fathom, the pegasus stared at her shut door.
As Soarin' didn't come, Spitfire made up her mind; as much as she didn't want to, what had to be done, had to be done.
"Soarin'!" She locked her office door, calling over her shoulder into the deserted hallway. While he wasn't immediately by her side, the bumbling but lovable stallion was never more than a jump away, or at least within earshot. "I'm leaving for the day, you're in charge."
Her own voice, magnified between the polished, shiny floors and the pristine walls, echoed down the hall, and Spitfire realized just how peculiar the lack of activity really was. Typically, she'd expect Fleetfoot or another member to saunter through the building on their break, or a custodian, lost cadet, someone. But it seemed that, just the way the arena had been snatched out from under Spitfire's nose, so had her team.
She shook her head, tucking her keys back into the front pocket of her uniform. "Whatever."
Her own hoofsteps deflected down the bare hallway, louder than she remembered, more intrusive, invasive, almost ghostly. The pegasus pushed open the exit door and blinked rapidly, amber eyes watering in the piercing sunlight, which also worked as a deterrent, tearing her mind from the peculiarity of loneliness to the task at hoof.
As she took off, streamlined and precise as a fighter jet into the cloudless blue, Spitfire didn't even notice that the only sound in the sky, or perhaps around the entire academy grounds, was the sound of her own whistling mane.
*~*~*
Alright.
So the Everfree was a tad bit farther away than a stone's throw. Maybe a stone with jet propulsion, launched from the capable swing of that one, bulky, beefy stallion surely on 'performance enhancers.' Spitfire admitted it. Or rather, the sweat building up on the ridge of her brow from the sweltering heat of the great white ball of fiery gas that spited her from above.
As the edgeline of the blackish trees on the horizon rose into view, so did a wave of relief in the captain. As she touched down and spread her wings, it became crystal-clear why her team paid top-dollar for the aerated lycra second-skin uniforms for shows. Her officer uniform was downright sticky by now.
In a forest clearing, where her only audiences were the blackened, gnarled trees that circled around her for miles, the captain made a decision for her own good, and comfort. She unfastened the clasps on her uniform, letting the damp blue shirt slide off her glistening upper body, and find its place tossed aside on the forest floor. The breeze whistling through the trees that now rumpled her coat felt absolutely heavenly, sending a tingle down Spitfire's spine that spread her wings.
"Mmmh..." She closed her eyes and enjoyed her glorious nakedness, freedom from the oppressive constraints of the official blue fabric. For a moment, the mare forgot why she had come all this way out here in the first place.
As the breeze faded away, much to her dismay, Spitfire opened her eyes.
It wasn't the groan of the forest that struck her, but rather the lack of noise. Not a single bird, or measly critter, or even a falling leaf sounded. She was solely surrounded by the twisted, burnt arbor, extending tentacular branches to caress at her coat, trapped in a suffocated, unnatural and godless silence. A feeling of sickly dread welled like a blood pool in the depths of her stomach, and Spitfire swallowed with a grimace.
The sun had slowly begun to sink over the horizon; it seemed almost supernatural how quickly the light was receding over the ground, threatening to leave her in the pitch. With nothing but the darkened, knobbly trees forming a clawing and ominous ring around her, Spitfire was a flame in the black, daring to go out.
As her daylight time ticked away, the mare steeled herself and her resolve. She'd come for a purpose, and she, Spitfire, notorious for being a hard-ass and a bit of a punisher, did not leave a job unfinished. Ever.
The wind picked up again, rustling the bushes in front of her. She stepped back, purely on instinct, snapping a twig, and mentally berating herself for not standing firm. Get it together, Spitfire. What are you, a filly?
The bushes rustled again, slightly louder, and the pegasus spread her wings in stance, her muscles tightening at once. It was beginning to get ridiculous, and she felt more and more like she was trapped in a mediocre slasher flick.
They all die. The captain swallowed, spreading her legs apart. These kinds of films. They always die at the end.
As unwilling as she was to do so, it was a thought she couldn't prevent herself from entertaining.
And, as sudden as the rustling noise was, so was her rush of adrenaline.
"Come on!" she shouted into the foliage out of frustration, if not blind rage. "Come out, face me!"
The forest growled. The wind picked up and darkness swallowed the land, as if the gale were blowing the sun across the sky. Then, like a long refrain in an aggressive symphony, it ceased, and she was in silence once more.
A chill rolled over the forest floor, icy and demented, making the trees cringe and almost shy away as it came like a cold wave of nausea, drowning the dark greenery in a feeling of dread and sick realization. It trickled down over the knotty roots, awful and unearthly, surrounding the flame. The invisible, ghostly cloak pierced like a freezing dagger into Spitfire's spine, making her shiver, and for a moment, she wasn't sure if it was her imagination. The chill breathed into her ear like the impossible breath of a dead man, and Spitfire turned sharply, her heart hardening instantly with panic.
The fire flickered, and went out.
~*~*~
Blackness.
Choking, cloak-like murk.
She stirred as the black haze that hung over as thickly as a slimy, soaked towel became porous, and consciousness squeezed back to her in droplets. Her mind worked glacially, senses trudging back to her, dragging their feet in the mud.
Her eyes didn’t open; maybe they couldn’t. Warm blood thudding in her ears from a sluggishly-beating heart joined in the cacophonous buzz of her own tired, winded brain.
The ground felt hard. It was nearly impossible to discern anything further; she couldn’t tell if it was stony or smooth, green or ground, and she certainly didn’t know where she was. It was a magnet, and she stuck to it with heavy, metallic muscles.
Spitfire—was that her name, even? She was hardly sure—took little, testing breaths, air being sucked in short, raspy gasps like a cinderblock sat on her chest. The air was cold, and squeezed with difficulty into her lungs through swollen passages. The fusty, unpleasantly damp and earthy smell was overpowering, and the mare would have grimaced had she been able to tell where her mouth was.
Her muscles rippled in a feeble, stale attempt to clear her sandpaper throat, walls clenching together on their own accord, red, cracked, sore. Perhaps she had been screaming.
Growing up, the pegasus had heard tell of the forest. They were fables, mostly, stories forged by town elders intent on keeping naive youngsters from straying where they shouldn’t, and parents in a desperate want for new bedtime stories to scare little fillies and colts into staying cocooned in their covers. There were the near-sentient trees, faces frozen in ghoulish gapes, with hooked and knobbly branches like bony witches’ arms extending to claw at the unwary passerby.
That, actually, she knew to be true.
But what about the knurly, serpentine vines that crept over the ground, ready to ensnare and trip any living thing and drag it, kicking and screaming, to the pit? Time, magic, and logic itself fell away in the forest. The moon never did quite appear as bright, like a foggy window obscured the light enough for the shadows to sweep away a traveler before he could even lift his head. There were unearthly creatures crouching in the darkest corners under the leafy canopy, watching with dead, black eyes, emerging from the dank on spindly legs and hideously-cracking joints, bearing sardonic grins that stretched far too wide. Ripped from feverish nightmares, disgusting spider-like miscreants waited to tear soft flesh from bone, shrouded in dense foliage.
Of course, they were stories—lore, at best, made up by a bunch of farmponies and hillside hicks. They had no bearing the real world. Stories were stories. A forest was a forest. Nothing more.
As the macabre visions flashed through Spitfire’s head, growing more real as the buzz quelled, it became difficult to convince herself of the facts.
As much as she didn’t want to, Spitfire dared to open a mucus-caked eye. It was dark. She lay face-down on what appeared to be the mossy, pebbly forest floor, though she could hardly feel the texture on her numb body.
Her mind, albeit awake, was blank as a bleached sheet. Spitfire hadn't the foggiest notion of how she'd ended up so vulnerable, sprawled flat on the ground like an autumny dead leaf; in fact, she could hardly even remember the flight in.
When had she come? It must have been hours ago; the sky was an unnatural, tar-like black, not a pinprick of light--the stars feared to twinkle here--save for an enormous, eerily-glowing, white moon. Spitfire reminded herself of how strange the forest was. While it was logical that only a few hours had passed, time warped and crinkled between the trees, and it may well have been days. Weeks.
A lifetime.
Her thoughts grew irrational, and in a moment's panic, Spitfire tensed all her muscles to spring to her hooves. As she did, her body gave hardly more than a feeble twitch--which she might as well have imagined, so weak was it--and the mare realized with nauseating dread that she was immobilized, whether by her own body, or some arcane unseen force.
Freezing fear that the tough mare hadn't felt in years shot through her veins, terror crystallizing her beating heart as the severity of the situation weighed in. She could not move, trapped helpless by a dark power on the floor of a forest notorious for being the nursery of nightmares, in the dead of night with nothing but the spindly, sinister trees as her company.
Summoning up what mettle she had left, Spitfire pulled her body upwards with tremendous difficulty, miraculously finding her hooves, a struggling foal first learning to walk. She gasped and panted in strain, the pressure on her body inconceivable as though the forest itself were trying to force her back down into submission.
Around her, nothing made sense. Spitfire's vision whirled, unable to focus on one thing as the trees danced around her, cackling and mocking and screeching and laughing--oh, how they laughed--
She collapsed, her mind spinning wildly. Celestia, she prayed desperately to herself; it was all the poor mare could do. What's happening to me!?
The princess did not reply.
But the wind did.
Spitfire, sprawled flat and blinded by the ground beneath her, could only feel the ice-cold chill at the back of neck, breathing into her ear. She was unable to move away, to cover her head. She was left at the mercy of an invisible force, a truth of which she desperately tried to convince herself otherwise.
Do you want to know?
A voice apart from her own resounded in her head. It was airy, as though the wind that blew through the trees could form words, with a ghostly echo as though spoken in a cave, neither male or female, or perhaps both. The question it asked was not a real inquiry, but rather the mocking, cruel rhetoric spoken from the sadistic grin of a hyena circling its prey.
Spitfire shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cool wind. Fear blossomed in her core like a drop of black dye in water, poisoning her from the inside out. She stood on the brink of madness, teetering over the edge and sparring with the immobility, fear, and voices that threatened to send her off.
Another voice rang in her head, higher-pitched this time, probably female, but cold and supernatural all the same. Are you trapped, pony? the voice snickered devilishly.
The wind around Spitfire changed, rushing through the trees in such a terrific and strange way that the whistle almost formed words. She could hear the word 'trapped' repeated around her from every direction in every voice, all airy and fleeting, a chorus of spirits.
Perhaps it was the madness settling in.
Every muscle in Spitfire's slight but strong form was pulled taut as a bowstring. She could not and did not try to move anymore. Her body had accepted its fate.
More snickers echoed through her head, some doubly-voiced like a demon-possession, others dangerous and siren-like, and it dawned on Spitfire that she hadn't made a noise for quite a while now. Her tongue was cracked and dry, pasted to the roof of her mouth.
Hmm... The clear female voice let out a closed-mouth giggle. Helpless pony. She cannot move. So helpless...
The trees whispered again. "Helpless, helpless, so, so helpless..."
A third voice joined the rest in Spitfire's head, a low, growling male voice. Such a pretty pony. So pretty and weak. Such tender— It paused, and Spitfire felt something that made her heart seize; something was stroking the back of her neck, running down her spine. Thin, rigid, horrible. She wanted to cry. —flesh..
Her sight blocked by the ground, Spitfire could not see the entities move above her, but she felt them. Every time one of them moved, a fresh wave of goosebumps rolled over her, brought on by the gust of cold air. Her captors were immaterial, certainly not equine, and doubtfully even of this realm.
They snickered again. I smell her... A fourth voice. How many were yet to come? I smell her fear—it is so thick. She is so afraid. Sweet pony... This voice was androgynous, dry and raspy, and echoed like all the rest.
Mmmh, I smell it, yes. So sweet, I want to have it. I want to taste it. the first voice, the doubly-toned voice, spoke with the sickest relish. "Just... one... lick."
In all the nonsense and horror transpiring around her, Spitfire was now quite sure she had snapped; the last, disgusting phrase she could swear was not in her head, but rather, whispered right into her ear.
"Mmmhmmhmm... just one lick, just one, only one lick..." The trees concurred, cackling cruelly.
Spitfire squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she possibly could, revolted and shamed, desperately trying to take herself away from the predatorial, black-eyed entities that raked across her back.
Look at how she cringes. Poor pony, so afraid... The female voice recognized. Feel the blood run under her skin...
"She is so soft, and so warm..." the low, rumbly entity spoke aloud, his voice blending smoothly with the groan the wind made.
Something dragged across her flank, over her cutiemark. Many appendages, all connected to one, like a gnarled hand. Bark-like.
Spitfire's eyes shot wide. She refused to believe it. She dared not to believe it. It was impossible.
Feeling her ripple underneath it, the thing's touch left the trembling mare. You do not like this form, pony? the deep voice asked coldly.
"She does not like it. She does not. Look, how she curls!" The trees laughed.
For the first time in what seemed like an age, Spitfire peeled her tongue from the top of her mouth, trying to draw out words from a muddy mess of garbled nonsense. "What..." Her voice was dry and weak. "...are you?"
A chorus of humming snickers sounded among the four main entities. Spitfire doubted for a moment that they would tell her, and were laughing at her like she were a filly with a curiosity too great for her own good. Then, the female voice spoke, aloud. "Spiritus Silva, we are the Phantoms of the Forest."
Phantoms. The word rammed Spitfire in the gut. The magic that trapped her to the ground, that broke her mind, was not Celestial magic.
"An ancient race," the raspy voice joined in. The mare could feel the voice move over her, coming close to one ear, then the other. "We are an ancient race. Guardians of the forest, we have many names."
Curiosity and a spark of her old self lit inside the desolate mare. "Does Celestia know about you?"
The wind picked up again, and so did the mocking cackles of the phantoms. Every last thing in the forest laughed along in a macabre display of amusement. "Celestia, O precious pony princess! What does she know, nothing, she does not know! Jestful, how jestful, such an ignorant pony princess, such a stupid pony princess, what power does she hold!"
Spitfire again began to feel the stirrings of sickness in her stomach as the unseen spirits continued to blaspheme the princess. When the name of the monarch meant so little to them, what chance did she have? She was lost.
"Guardians of the forest, we are the heart of the trees, lifeblood of the trees..." the doubly-voiced groaned, almost drowned out by the chorus of concedence from the surrounding arbor. This time, when the trees spoke, it was not the ghostly, overlapping voicing from before, but one chant, in perfect, terrifying unison.
"We are the trees."
One chant. Then silence.
Ten thousand trees.
Despite everything, one more question preyed in her mind, and Spitfire could not stop herself from asking. "Then..." Her voice was almost silent, quavering. "Why has no one heard of you?"
A fifth voice spoke. It was more sinister than any of the rest; low, raspy, every word like the growl of a sleeping Ursa. Quiet in tone, it was a coiled snake that promised docility but threatened poison and harshness and a strength to be reckoned with.
"In death, comes silence."
She had expected it. Spitfire was realistic—she did not live under any illusions. Her heart sunk, however, it was not from the terror that had overtaken her from her first venture into the trees, but from a deep, profound sadness. Leaving was never a path for her, Spitfire realized. How she wished she could see her teammates, her family.
If only for the last time.
She buried her face into the earth, eyes clenched tight. "She cries, she cries! Weak pony, such a broken pony..." They screeched amongst one another, the slightest semblance of pity nowhere to be found.
They laughed and mocked her, each sound a slash to her bared heart. Spitfire had never felt more cornered like a dumb animal in her entire life, lorded over by cruel and pitiless spirits whose only motive was destruction, of her body, and of her soul.
She lifted her head, groaning weakly in strain; it was almost impossible, and took every fiber of strength left in her to resist the mighty force that kept her glued to the foul ground. Spitfire searched for her wings, unfurling them with spectacular difficulty, her goldenrod feathers crusted with dirt and left as a pittance of their former sleek, strong beauty. She slowly pulled her hooves in, drawing them to her chest, pushing against the ground like a tortoise. Millimeter by millimeter, she moved.
It was useless, so useless. Every part of Spitfire’s rational brain screamed at her about how stupid she was for thinking she could drag herself to freedom right under her captors. She could have given up, thrown herself back down in a cloud of dust and filth, and welcomed her end. She could have thought of her family, until she thought no more. It would have been easy.
So easy.
Spitfire felt her lip tremble as she furrowed her brows, eyes stinging with the dirt encrusted on her eyelashes, face sooty and scraped, entire body aching and crying in protest, but she was strong. The well of emotion and power that filled her chest was overwhelming, every bit of life and every bit of energy she had left pushed up from the depths, manifesting in a lump in her throat as a tear streaked down her cheek.
The phantoms, obviously distracted in their own lurid glee, failed to notice the despairing mare inch forward in one final, fruitless attempt to escape. Her last stand.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, she rose.
And like a feeble candle-flame, she was extinguished.
Thud!
Blinding, stinging pain struck Spitfire as she was hit in the back of the head by her overlording entities. She collapsed back into the dirt, head down, eyes shut in pain, feeling a bruise beginning to flower where she was struck. One more blow, and whatever fire she still clung to for dear life trickled out of her like the blood she sputtered from her mouth.
Just like that, her body, and her spirit, gave up.
Spitfire fell quiet, her eyes dry as a desert while her head was swimming. She breathed slowly and heavily, her lungs crackling, nose swelling as she spat out another little pool of blood.
She could feel the spirit above her drape itself over her body, no longer in its tree form, but back as a weightless cloak. The pegasus stared straight ahead of her through slitted eyes, too beat to open them any wider.
Her ear twitched. The phantom drew right up to her, so close that she could smell its rancid breath, and spoke the words that filled her gut with sandbags.
“Hope,” it snarled, “Hope does not blossom here.”
Spitfire was lost, completely lost. She had no idea how long they would keep her alive, toying with her, before finally taking her life. She felt closer and closer to death with every severe, crushing word they uttered.
"Why don't you—" Spitfire paused, wheezing. She lifted her head a tiny amount, turning over her shoulder ever so slightly.
There was nothing she could see out of the very corner of her eye, whatever shapes lost to the black background, but Spitfire knew she was staring right at them. Right into them.
A fire burned way back, behind her eyes—bright, furious, angry—where the window met the soul. "Why don't you just kill me."
Her words came growled and gasped, muffled by the dirt, but powerful.
The spirits fell silent for the first time. The forest itself waited. The fire behind her eyes grew brighter.
"Ahahaha, patience, pony!" They erupted into laughter, and for the umpteenth time, Spitfire felt stamped out. "Eager pony, no patience to live!"
As suddenly as their laughter had burst forward, so was the silence that swept the phantoms. The elusive and dangerous fifth voice spoke again. Spitfire was beginning to figure which among them was in charge, probably the most vicious. Feral.
"She hurries to die."
Small, throaty giggles rose again from the lesser phantoms, joined by the surrounding trees. They grew louder and louder. "Hmmhmmhahaaha," the ghostly female voiced, ice-cold. "There is no need, brave pony. All things end, all in good time."
Spitfire put her head back down into the acrid dirt. Torture, then. They would break her, hurt her as they wished, and dispose of her body when they grew tired of their games. She would be absorbed by the forest floor, as discarded and crumbled as the dead, shredded leaves.
She closed her eyes in agony. "Why wait?"
The low, growl-voiced demon whispered luridly into her ear. "The Trees are mighty," it began, voice like slowly-rolling thunder. "Mighty, but they are cold. Hard, and cold."
Her stomach wrenched.
The spindly, grotesque appendage began to stroke down her back again, following her spine. It was lighter than before, and slower, playing with its food. "It is not often that such a warm, soft creature comes to us. Such tender skin, such a strong heartbeat."
It continued to stroke her, dragging lasciviously down on 'heartbeat'. Spitfire almost retched.
Her ear began to feel warm; the creature's breath came from right next to her. In the background, the mare could hear the quiet, greedy jeers of three other phantoms.
"The Spiritus Silva do not parley with the vices of the flesh," the voice continued, its voice dripping with some gargled lust. "But when such a delicate pony with such sweet blood walks so willingly to us..."
Spitfire no longer felt the cool forest air at all, only the hot breath of the phantom as it growled unctuous words into her ear. It was right there. Right there.
"...it can be so delicious and tempting." The twisted, rigid hand grasped her flank, nearly breaking the skin as it kneaded over her cutiemark.
A wave of nausea so potent and globular rolled over Spitfire like corn syrup; she squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced, mouth clamped as her stomach contorted.
Celestia, no, she begged. Let me die.
Her wings began to unfurl out of sheer terror, feathers bristling. Too late did Spitfire notice, it was the worst thing that could possbly have happened.
"...Watch, look, behold the pony's wings unsheathing! Hahaha..." A cruel cackle from the androgynous double-voice. "...She enjoys it, depraved pony..."
"She will not resist..." The raspy voice agreed. "It is a shame." It too laughed, laden with morbid glee.
Wherever the rigid finger stroked, Spitfire felt as though a rash spread in its path. She wanted to sink into the ground, and wait for the end. The gnarled hand continued to roughly handle her flank, tugging her tail aside, as another twisted itself in her mane, forcing her head down.
"You will not fight? So weak..." The low voice sneered. "...So weak, she has already given up."
The mare's muscles down her back rippled, trying to shy away from the disgusting touch. She longed to attack. She longed to run. She longed to kill.
Her body did not move. The Trees raked down her flesh, and Spitfire grew angrier than she had ever been in her life. How could this happen? How could her own body betray her, immobilize and leave her when she so needed her strength? No talk of magic could soothe her rage; fury bubbled to the surface in torrents.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" She roared. Spitfire screamed into the ground, angry, in pain, desperately afraid. She screamed until her lungs were fit to collapse, until the earth shook, every bit of rage forced into the mighty roar.
The spirits did not stop. Not even for a second.
"She does have fight left!" The female mocked, "...You have not given up your pitiful hope, pony, you have not? Even the angriest flame can be smothered." It circled around Spitfire, who gasped for breath. "WIND!"
At the command of its elemental, the wind obeyed, picking up to a frightful gale, howling through the trees. The mare was forced to put her head down again as sand and dust blew at her.
"...Stay down, pony." The frosty female continued. "You will stay down."
For a moment, quiet fell again. It was thick and eerie; the high-pitched ringing in Spitfire's ears was much more dreadful than the rush of the wind.
The ground began to writhe. The mare thought she was imagining it in her delirium, but it became more and more intense, until she could no longer deny it. The ground was definitely writhing. She lay on a pile of snakes.
No, not snakes.
Vines.
Thick, mossy tendrils slithered on the ground, over rocks and cracks to the defenseless pony. Unable to move away, Spitfire's breath hitched in her throat as they ensnared her, wrapping several times around each of her limbs, splaying and spreading her out. One more wrapped around her tail, her last covering, and pinned it to the side. She was fully exposed.
"...Fight now, pony..."
More laughter.
Spitfire struggled against her bonds, flexing her fatigued muscles to no avail. With every attempt, it seemed, the vines tightened their grip.
The female-voiced spirit let out a low hiss. Instantly, the bound mare felt the tickle of a vine creeping up her lower leg, leaving goosebumps where it went. Spitfire feared from within her gut where it would go.
The vine reached the top of her leg, trailing around the base of her tail. It felt muscular and heavy, full of potential harm and wicked intent that was dictated by its phantom master.
Just then, Spitfire's eyes shot open, her pupils shrinking in shock.
The vine moved down from her tail base, tracing the junction between her legs. She was drier than June, completely repulsed and horrified by the deviation of nature that violated her. Undeterred, the tendril continued, rubbing against her like sandpaper. Already, Spitfire was feeling raw.
Distracted, she hardly noticed the other vine until it wrapped around her neck. "Mmmf!" Spitfire grunted as a second tendril thrust itself down her sore throat, a little drop of saliva gathering on the corner of her lip.
She tried to pull her head back, gagging and retching, before dropping in despair again, and allowing the unnatural vine to probe her mouth. It tasted foul and musky, like wet soil. As much as she wished to bite the infernal thing in half, the skin was far too thick for her flat teeth.
"...Do not gag, pony, the Vines cannot be stopped..."
The first vine, busy trailing up and down her crevice, paused, and for a moment, Spitfire didn't feel it. When the sensation returned, however, the mare prayed harder than ever before.
It pushed against her hole, stretching the delicate ring of flesh. Spitfire struggled against the hideous tentacle in her mouth, taking short and loud breaths through her nose, pushing and pulling at her bonds. Fury at her totally helpless situation built inside her again. Paired with shame and fear, it was a mix strong enough for the ghosts to smell.
She screamed in pain against the vine in her throat as she was roughly penetrated, deeper than she had ever dared to take it before. It rammed into her without a drop of lubrication, grinding against her insides like a piston, in and painfully out, over and over. She groaned in agony with every thrust. The vine did not care.
Easily as thick as a small branch, and unrestricted by length or mercy, it went deeper and deeper, roughly meeting every last nerve inside her. The tapered end flicked and swirled back and forth against her cervix madly. Spitfire felt like she was getting brutally tongue-rutted by an enormous lizard.
The plant vibrated and shuddered in obscene pleasure, its assault growing more vigorous. She was nothing but a conduit for the vines now; they put in pain, she gave them pleasure. It was sick. Spitfire begged for it to end.
The vines that bound her too began to tremble, somehow all connected to one body. The forest itself moaned.
But oh, how it hurt. Spitfire felt like several layers of skin had been rubbed clear off her insides. She could feel the blood throb in every little vessel, and the vines were so close to shredding her.
Even in unthinkable pain, Spitfire did not cry. She stared straight ahead, eyes narrowed to slits. Her amber irises glowed like dying embers, infernal with hatred.
With every grunt of hers, the jeers from the spectators grew louder. Spitfire felt like a mouse being wholly devoured by a snake, every bit of dignity stripped from her.
She snarled into the tentacle, ears down flat and wings apart and bristling.
She was earth-shatteringly furious. Powerlessness reduced her to a boiling pit of rage. Spitfire felt loathing drip from every pore, and the vines, the phantoms, the entire earth upon which they existed became the anathemas of her life.
The vines continued to spear her from both sides, but the mare hardly felt the pain anymore. She could taste her own blood in her mouth, pushed in with the tentacle from her bloody nose, and it gave her strength.
Even if there was nothing left for her, Spitfire would die fighting.
She clamped her jaw down with rhinoceros strength, severing the vine in her mouth. It dropped limp to the ground, and she spat the rest out, coughing it into the filth where it belonged.
Her face hit the ground.
One of the spirits had intervened, slamming her back down harshly. It leaned down to growl in her ear, "Fool."
Spitfire jerked violently, trying to throw the phantom away from her. "Get...off...me!" She growled, snorting in strain.
She was rammed into the dirt again, her cheek slashed sharply. "...You will stay down!" The raspy-voiced shrieked, grinding her face into the ground.
Suddenly, the pressure left.
Quiet fell. Spitfire held her breath. She knew what was to come.
"...Fool, pony. You do not know pain." The dangerous voice spoke, quiet and poisonous as ever.
"But you will learn."
The vines receded, releasing Spitfire's legs. They shrunk away, back into the shadows, as if in flight.
As if in fear.
The trees, for the first time, were dead silent. There were no more laughs and jeers from the phantoms. The wind, left masterless, no longer blew.
Every force in the forest had been frozen. Spitfire was alone.
...
A heavy sound echoed behind her. It came like a slow rumble, paired with loud rustling and the hefty crunches of whole trees being snapped in two. It was unearthly; the force it must have taken to break entire trees was inconceivable to Spitfire.
Anger deflated from her, and her blood ran cold.
A tremendous roar shook the trees. The ground that still held her quaked as thunderous steps surrounded Spitfire. She put her head down, knowing that, fully immobilized, her end had come.
"YOU WILL KNOW PAIN."
The bellow of the beast was loud enough to wake the devils of hell. Spitfire did still not raise her head.
"THE FOREST BELONGS TO THE TREES AND THE WOLVES, ALL WHO COUNTER IT SHALL LEARN PAIN."
Wolves.
Wolves.
No.
Twigs and branches snapped and creaked as the beast circled her, snarling. For the first time, Spitfire saw the entity.
It stopped before her, lowering its head menacingly, crouching like before a hunt. Eye-to-eye level with Spitfire, it was easily double her size, triple, hunched and sinister like a guardian of Tartarus.
It growled, the sound low and threatening, originating from deep within the network of criss-crossing branches and bark webbing. A beast rejected from the lowest circle of hell, it stared at her, breath heavy and animalistic. Against all will, Spitfire lifted her head and met its glare with her own through narrowed, heavy eyes. Amber, fiery with ferocity and pain, stared into the empty, soulless pits of the abyss.
The beast gave another giant roar, latching onto her with its jaw and slamming her head back into the ground as she let out a cracked cry of pain. Black spots flowered in Spitfire’s field of vision, blood pounding in her ears and temples. She blinked, a drop of blood falling from her eyelashes, caught as it ran down from an injury just under her hairline.
Her ears screeched, the ringing in her head the only sound she could hear, one steady, hypersonic scream in numb, suffocated silence.
The wolf moved around her, stalking to the back. It pulled her tail hard and snarled, and Spitfire wasn't sure whether she would be eaten, or worse.
Her head spun wildly, eyelids drooping and vision blurring and clearing alternatively. Every bit of her either seared, stung, or throbbed with pain. The mare’s wings lay unfolded and limp to her sides, dragging in the dirt as her head was slammed down yet again, the pain in her forehead doubling.
“BOW.” The wolf commanded her in a booming voice, grimy twig claws scraping her cheek.
It moved its claw, and Spitfire lifted her head ever so slightly, hovering above the ground. As soon as she did, she was pushed down again, harder than before. The agony each time was excruciating; as the blood rushed to her pinned head, it throbbed with a vengeance, a headache greater than a blow with a sledgehammer. She needed to lift her head, just a little.
“BOW!”
Spitfire whimpered, taking sharp breaths through her nose as she struck the ground again. “Please,” she beseeched, her voice a hoarse, pleading whisper. “Please, I-I can’t.”
She met the ground again, choking on a mouthful of dirt and dead leaves sprinkled with droplets of her blood as her head threatened to explode.
“YOU WILL!” The beast roared, hammering the quavering mare into the ground with skull-cracking power. “YOU WILL SUBMIT. SUBMIT TO ME!”
Broken, bruised, beaten and bleeding, Spitfire could not resist any longer. Her head stayed on the ground, too heavy to lift again.
She barely registered her tail being yanked again, hard enough to tear a chunk of formerly silky, smooth orange hair out. Spitfire could feel it tickle her leg as it fell, discarded, to the damp ground.
She felt the beast fold her thinned tail and hold it against her back, out of the way, as it grasped her flanks with both wooden claws, pulling at her sensitive flesh. The acerbic and repulsed feeling crept up her gut again, and Spitfire was no less resistant, even if her body felt like it had gone through a taffy-puller.
Something rigid, foreboding, and enormous prodded her from behind clumsily. It only took one touch for Spitfire to realize exactly what it was, and for fear to penetrate her heart as harshly as her sex was about to be.
No.
The object prodded her again, a bit harder, trying to find its leverage.
“No.”
The beast didn’t listen. It stayed mounted on her, its branch of a phallus circling around her red, raw hole. Spitfire felt the thickest dread well up in her chest, and in the split second that the wolf paused, she screamed into the ground.
She knew it was hopeless. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. But somewhere, in the depths of her being, Spitfire would not just allow herself to be taken without resistance.
Without hope, she was nothing.
“NO!”
The tip of the beast’s massive dick pushed against her tiny opening, stretching her beyond her limits and further, her skin almost tearing to accommodate the monstrous branch. It entered her slowly, forcing its way inside with the subtlety of meticulously tearing out stitches without a drop of anesthetic.
Spitfire made a noise in her throat from the unparalleled pain, feeling herself get split in such a way that she did not believe it was possible for any more to enter her. Although she guessed it was only maybe two inches deep, it felt like the mare was being violated by the balled fist of Satan, punching right into her core.
With every millimeter the merciless beast pushed forward, her soul was slashed into another scrap.
Another centimeter. Then two. Spitfire’s face was frozen in the most utter despair, teeth clenched so tightly they almost welded together, eyes glued shut.
Still, she did not cry. Hurting and defeated, but dry in body, and in spirit.
The beast, obviously fed up with waiting and without a single bit of empathy for the suffering pony beneath it, finally took the leap. It thrust itself in fully, as far as it could get before smashing her innards to mush.
Spitfire screamed. It echoed through the forest, louder than she ever thought possible, cracked, deep, primal. She felt every nodule and rough twist in the branch as it decimated her, and the warm trickle of liquid that ran down her slit as her insides were shredded.
She was not aroused, not in the least. Spitfire dug her snout into the ground, her lungs almost popped. The liquid, crimson with a heavy metallic scent, pooled on the ground under her forcibly-spread legs. Faintness fell over the mare with the abhorrent realization of what it must be.
Tap. The sound of another drop falling was quiet.
The beast drove itself into her again and again without a single pause, and no sign of exhaustion. It grabbed her tail in its jaws, wrenching its head back and pulling fiercely, snorting and grunting through its snout like a steam locomotive. It pistoned in and out, accompanied by a heinous sloshing sound, the sound of a mare being liquified from the inside out.
Spitfire’s head pounded hard. Her vision clouded with black spots. Her perception faded and warped as a light sensation fell over her, and she could no longer find her hooves. The ground seemed to disintegrate below her, shifting and preparing to suck her into the void.
The thrusts into her numb, destroyed sex grew faster as the wolf grabbed onto her wings with both claws, reigning her as it wished. She could hear her fragile wing-bones crack and give, but the pain registered as dull, blunt. Her mind had long since begun to fade, and sensation was beginning to leak from her body like blood from her many injuries.
The thrusting changed. Instead of a steady, rough in-and-out, the beast drew back slowly, and slammed in. Each slam yielded another spread of warm liquid that matted the once-golden coat between her thighs, and Spitfire was sure it must have hurt terribly.
She no longer knew.
Something strange happened to her. As the beast continued its ramming, Spitfire felt more and more powerfully. The rhythmic pounding inside her was like a hammer, taking blow after blow at some sort of blockage in her spirit. Her soul was a thick sheet of ice, under which a well of emotion more intense than any she had ever known swirled. Each slam was a crack in the ice.
Just as suddenly as the feeling began, the barrier of emotion shattered.
Fury, hatred, shame, disgust, horror, sorrow, longing; every emotion she had stuffed away crashed over her like a tidal wave, sweeping the last of her sanity away with it. Spitfire reared up her head, wailing into the night as her soul twisted and squeezed in agony.
Anger. How, of all the things that could have happened to her, she ended up here. It was so unfair. She was furious at the world, at fate, at destiny, from taking everything the mare had once held dear and ripping her away from it.
Hatred. She hated her body, used and unwanted. Her spirit was trapped in the prison of broken bones and gashes. Spitfire hated herself just as much as she hated those who had inflicted this torture upon her.
Shame. Violated and tossed, like garbage.
Disgust. The sound of her own blood dripping down her legs. The feeling of her tail being clamped in the jaws of a demon from the pit.
Horror. The unshakable notion that death was near.
Sorrow. Her wings, splintered to bits, representing the loss of her livelihood and dreams of the skies. All the things that she promised herself she would achieve one day, and never did.
Longing. Her family, that she would never see again. Her team, that would miss her as much as she missed them.
The wolf snarled again, a jet of hot breath blowing over Spitfire’s back. She lay her head down.
A dam inside her erupted.
Vivid memories that burned like white-hot pokers seared through her mind. A fire-haired filly, trembling and in a cold sweat, being soothed by the gentle touch of her mother, carried away from nightmares. Fear, terror would always wash away from her mind, sand cleaned off a smooth stone.
Spitfire had not thought of her childhood in years. It seemed like another life.
The wolf ravished her from the back, its snorts becoming more frequent, more fervent. It entwined its claw in her mane, wrenching back her head, as the other dug into the flesh of her flank.
She remembered her mother, so vividly. Spitfire remembered how soft her chest was to rest her head on, and how lightly she would comb through her hair. Even as a filly, it was wild. Her mother had always said it made her special.
“Everyone at flight school said I look silly.” A little golden filly sat in her mother’s lap, enjoying the comb that ran through her mane, but wearing a pout with her hooves crossed in front of her chest.
“Spitfire, dear.” Her mother spoke with the softest voice. The filly turned around, finding her mother’s face with large, innocent eyes.
The older mare, smiling a small smile down at her daughter, put a hoof under her chin and lifted her face gently, so their eyes met.
“Your mane is beautiful, my darling,” she said, brushing back a stray strand, before continuing, “But it is not all. What make you special, dear, what makes you special like no one else—” She cradled the filly’s head in both hooves, warmly and tenderly. “—Is your strength. Always be strong, Spitfire, no matter what.”
She wrapped her hooves around the filly, pulling her into a hug. Spitfire buried her face into her mother’s mane, swearing to keep her scent with her forever. The older mare closed her eyes, feeling her daughter’s little heartbeat against her chest, and whispered into her ear.
“Always remember that.”
The wolf sped up even faster, and more black patches painted Spitfire’s vision. She was beginning to disappear, to fade. She closed her eyes.
She remembered the songs her mother used to sing to her, how sweet the tune was. She knew exactly how her mother worried sometimes about the bits of grey hair in her mane, and how she would always reassure her of how beautiful she was.
She looked just as beautiful adorned with flowers at her service. Spitfire wished she could have told her.
She missed her so much.
A howl ripped through the night air as the beast drove the mare into the ground, her body limp as a rag doll. Spitfire did not fight anymore; she watched her own life through closed eyelids.
“Your favorites, just for you, Mom.” A teenaged filly arranged a delicate bouquet of long-stemmed white roses in a lovely crystal vase on the shelf. Her mother turned her head tiredly from the bedside, smiling as softly as she always did at her daughter.
“Thank you, baby.”
Spitfire sat on her bed, looking at her mother’s face. Every day she grew weaker, her eyes looked a little bit more sunken, her wrinkles a little deeper. She was still so young, but her body so frail. The young mare swallowed a lump in her throat. “Dad never stops talking about you. He really misses you. I really miss you too, Mom.”
“I miss you too, Spitfire, and your father.” The weak mare’s hoof lifted to her daughter’s forehead, pushing back a strand of hair, just like she used to. “Do you remember what I told you, dear?”
Spitfire sunk over her mother’s form, putting her head to her chest, feeling her breath in and out slowly. For the very last time.
“I remember.”
The beast gave little roars periodically, mixed with grunts. Spitfire now breathed in and out heavily. She no longer felt the wolf behind her, only the darkness in front. Soon, it would all be over.
The day was lightly-breezy and quiet. From the arrangements of flowers dotting the scene, white rose petals swirled around with the wind.
Spitfire kneeled, running her hoof over the smooth grey stone, feeling the weathered, engraved exterior. She traced the words written in the rock, coat gently rumpled by the soft breeze.
Faithful wife, beloved daughter, loving mother.
Spitfire spoke in barely over a whisper. “I promise to always stay strong, Mom.”
“I promise.”
The wolf slammed into her harder than ever. Once. Twice.
Thrice. It stopped, drew her tight, digging into her flesh, and howled, throwing its head back.
Spitfire felt a warm liquid coat her insides, torrents of it. It glazed her mangled, shredded body, the vile substance completely filling her, seeping out of her. She was used.
A tear rolled down her cheek from under her closed lid, landing with a quiet pat on the forest floor. “I promise.” She repeated aloud, in the softest whisper.
A sharp blow to the back of the head caused a flash and a throb of pain through her body, vision almost completely blocked by blackness. Her ears rang; the sound of liquid hitting the ground almost inaudible.
Another blow came down on her head. She felt the warmth of liquid gathering under her mane, running down the back of her neck.
Thud.
Thud.
Two more strikes, and Spitfire was drifting to sleep. She felt so tired.
A gentle hoof caressed the back of her head, soothing away the pain, stroking her hair. The mare looked up, blinking away the black spots as her vision and hearing returned to her.
“Spitfire,” her mother reached out to her, beckoning to her to take her hoof. She smiled. She looked so beautiful. “Baby, hush, it’s alright.”
The mare bent next to her daughter, brushing her hair back as somewhere, Spitfire was hit again. “Shhh, it’s alright, it’ll all be over soon.”
“Mom,” Spitfire croaked out, another tear spilling out of her eye. “Mom, I missed you so much.”
Her mother draped her hooves around the golden mare’s shoulders, resting her head on her daughter’s. “I know, baby, I know. You were so strong.”
Thud.
“I love you, Mom,” Spitfire whispered, a drop of her own blood hitting the ground.
“I love you too, Spitfire.”
The wolf reared back its claw once more, ready to strike for the final time.
Spitfire smiled, watching her mother, who met her gaze.
Thud.
The pony’s head dropped, her body fell. Her heart gave its final beat, and then was quiet. The forest became one noise less, the only sound remaining was the patter of crimson droplets on dead leaves. She was discarded.
The wolf gave a final snort, straightened, turned, and walked away, vanishing back into the trees. The last of the wind left with him, and it was absolutely still.
Spitfire reached out to her mother, taking her hoof in her own. She came close in an embrace, finally free from pain, free from hurt. She felt strong.
“Mom,” she began.
Her mother brushed her daughter’s cheek with a hoof ever so lightly. “Yes, baby?”
“I think I’m ready to come home now.”
