Steel unload, fire blow, filthy animals, beat them low
Skin and bone, black and blue
No more this sun shall beat unto you

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The forest is dark, evil, and mysterious. The forest floor is dappled with the mid-day light peaking through the trees, and you can see something move. Blinking a few times, you can now see the life of the area around you. Everything looks the same, except for now anything that has a pulse is surrounded by a golden glow. A large rabbit is hiding in the bushes directly in front of you. Your mouth waters at the idea of fresh life to consume, and in the moment you find it funny that such a jumpy creature can't notice quite a large animal like you. Without warning you pounce and the rabbit never saw anything, even as it died. It got crushed under your clawed foot. Three inch serrated claws on each of your four toes. Spearing the dead rabbit on one of your them, you throw it into the air and catch it in your mouth.

Your head itself should be qualified as a wonder of nature. A massive lump of skin and teeth with rounded corners and, like the rest of your body, covered with short velvety fur, and has a maw filled with teeth as strong as tungsten. Your mouth can open wide enough that your bottom jaw almost touches your neck, and has fangs on both the upper and lower jaw that protrude from your mouth by several inches and sport horrifying serrations. The real horror comes when you look inside the maw though, your inner gums are lined with small teeth that curve inward. A long serpent-like tongue that can wrap around things and pull them deeper into your bear trap of a mouth. The poor rabbit gets shredded in a few seconds, and is sent down your throat in a few bite-sized chunks.

As you walk back home you use tongue to lick the blood off of your teeth, and jump into a pile of leaves. The pile of leaves is suspended by a web of roots, and after you break through it without problem you start falling down a dark hole. The rest of your body is muscle under overly stretched skin, all of the muscles are defined clearly, and now your skin starts to change. The soft velvet fur that covered your body a few seconds ago has turned into thick scales that engulf your body like a suit of armor. You land on a pile of skeletons, stand up, walk off the pile and look back at it to see what the clan had been eating lately. As your skin goes back to the short fur, you see that the pile is mostly made of deer bones along with a few various other animals thrown in.

Most of the others look like you, but are smaller and have different colors on their bodies. Your body for instance, has a black and white pattern much like that of a tiger, while others have solid colors or different patterns. In this place, you are king and no one disrespects you. The females almost immediately start to rub against your sides looking for attention, but by now you would think they would have learned to stop trying. The single most powerful female will be yours, and only that one. Being the strongest member of the clan you have the right to choose who you want, and you don't want someone worthless to bear your child.

"Back away from me, or you won't have any hope of staying in this clan." You growl with a deep and primal voice.

This message gets them to leave your sight and scatter for the other males. Your species is just barely surviving, and you will not let something like this ruin it. It is truly sad, the way that your species develops. Sixty percent of the time the female dies after child birth, the ten or so runts that are produced will get eaten by their brothers and sisters, and by the time the creatures reach adulthood, only about two of the new generation remain. There are safety precautions of course, all of the females are taken away from danger to be taken care of properly, and the adults get banished for eating the children. But other than that, there isn't much you can do. The cavern itself is carved out of simple rock, with various tunnels leading to different rooms. As you start to lie down on the massive rock podium in the center of the cave you hear a voice.

"I challenge you for the position of king!" It snarl echoes throughout the rock network.

"What are the terms?" You yawn as if you're bored.

"The first to get pushed into the main entrance tunnel, gets banished!" It yells again.

As everyone clears out, you can see your opponent. Dark black coat, with cracked teeth. He looks small compared to everyone else, almost the size of the females.

"Bring it then, short stuff!" You bellow into his face.

You leap off of the rock and almost land on top of him, but he was to fast. Instead of getting crushed he gets claws to his side. He rushes around and gets under you, but you try to sink your teeth into his back. When your teeth bounce off, you realize that he has already had time to armor himself. As he starts to carry you over to the main entrance you switch from fur to thorns that dig into the spaces between his scales. Kicking him out from under you, he starts to disappear. Another one like you then? You start to blink and try to recall the hunting sense, but by the time you see him you can't dodge. He hits you like a truck, and sends your body flying through the tunnel entrance.

Just like that, your entire world comes crumbling down. You are banished from the clan, never to set foot into the tunnel system again. As you walk out with your head down, and your heart filled with shame, you see something strange. A side tunnel that you hadn't noticed before, maybe you could escape through here without getting caught. You start the long walk through the pitch black tunnel and after a long time you see an exit. You didn't know how long it took to finally see some kind of light, but you knew it had been at least six hours considering that you could see moonlight peeking through the rubble at end of the cave.

After you move away the fallen rocks, you gasp. The mouth of the side tunnel ended on a platform looking out on a massive settlement of creatures. You think it's called a city but you don't care at the moment. You see lights brightening the windows of small residences, massive towers built high into the sky, and, blinking a few more times, food. Live food. You had never seen these things in the forest. They were smaller than you by quite a bit, but were still large in their own right. You got a bit worried and blinked a few more times, now you can see everything that makes them a threat. Mainly just the hooves and some kind of weak armor, You can also see exactly where to bite to kill them.

You leap the hundred or so feet, land on top of what ever creature this is, and shred its armor with your claws. It yells loudly so you rip its throat out and eat it, but it is too late. More of these creatures come running up the steps, but you don't notice. You start tearing out chunks of flesh and piling them into your maw, while pulling apart the creatures spine to get the meat off of it. Blood pumps out of everywhere and the surrounding guards just stare in shock at the sight. This massive monster they have never seen before is ripping apart a pony and eating him. Blood and organs make a squishing noise as they hit the stone steps of the bridge, and soon their friend is nothing but a pile of white bones on the floor, not even red bones, the monster cleaned the blood off. As it finishes licking the blood off of the floor it looks up, and starts to jump. It is instantly shocked with enough magic to kill a pony, but somehow doesn't die. They should probably take it to see the princesses.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

You start to come to, and you hear muffled voices.

"I haven't seen one of these in a long time." Says a gentle voice

"Nor have I sister." Says another slightly less gentle voice.

"What are we going to do Luna?"

"I say we kill it."

Hearing this you bolt upright, open your mouth to show all of your teeth, and hiss. You have heard of these creatures before, but only in stories. Alicorns, ponies, pegasi, unicorns, It shocks you, but not enough to impair you. You knew that there had to be others out there but you didn't do anything because you had a clan to protect. You can still smell the blood and you start to lick it off of your fur, for the taste more than anything else.

"See sister! We should kill it, it has already killed one of the guard!" Luna seemed very afraid of you, but calmed down quickly.

"We can't just kill it, we have to fix it. I wasn't even aware that this species existed any more, and if it is almost extinct then we can't let them die Luna." The white alicorn said.

"But what if Crysalis hears? What then?"

"She won't hear about it. We'll send him to Fluttershy, and she will teach him to get along with the ponies."

"And if she fails, we will have lost an element, let loose a murderous creature, and Crysalis will have our hides." You are surprised by how calm this discussion is.

"I say we try it." The white one says implying that she is done arguing.

"Fine." Luna sighs.

You are shocked by whatever that force is again, and you black out.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

When you wake again it is morning, and you close your eyes due to the sun streaming through the window. When you finally adjust you look around, a small cottage with a few small touches that just make the place look comfortable, then you smell something, a rabbit. You blink few times and once again you can see the golden glow. Only now there are a lot more than one, there is a chicken's nest outside, along with a few other tasty things, but you also notice the pegasus and decide not to try anything. You see it walk into the room that you are sitting in.

"Oh you're awake. Would you like something to eat?" She says in a small voice.

Creamy yellow coat, pink flowing mane, shy voice, lives on the ground, and takes care of animals. This will be fun.

"My name is Fluttershy." She says trying to spark a conversation.

You start changing into something different, growing smaller, large round head morphing into something more like that of a pony, legs becoming long and slender, torso shrinking, a tail growing made of hair, and a mane growing out of your neck. You stand up as a large pony that retains the same black and white pattern. As she gasps you say,

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Winter Knight."

Author's Note

Tell me what you think guys. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.