Carrion
By: mfrey8
Proofread by: stormsrevelations
Chilling wind assaulted Twilight’s face as she made her way toward the beaches of Everfree Lake. Her eyes watered and her back ached from the heavy load that burdened her. The body of a stallion, still alive, lay sprawled upon her back. Twilight could feel his slow, laboured breathing, and once in awhile he would erupt into a giggling fit. She could barely wait to be rid of him. The skin under her fur was as dry as a desert. Her legs hurt and she craved water. She repeated the phrase "it's almost over" in her mind.
Twilight began trotting at a quicker pace. The day was almost done, and she needed to complete her task before sundown.
By the time she reached the beaches, the sun was already making it’s slow descent down the horizon, and she was greatly craving a rest. She gently set the stallion down on the beach and began taking off her saddle bags. This gave her time to catch her breath. The stallion twisted and turned on his sandy bed as Twilight searched for the materials she needed. He was a troubled child trapped in an adult's body.
“Don’t worry, my angel. I’m going to make it all better.” She said this without looking up. She did not want to show her face of disgust.
Twilight pulled a length of rope, a shovel, and a canister out of her packs. She walked over to the edge of the beach, vaguely aware that the stallion was now drunkenly singing “skip to m’ lou” behind her, and looked for a large branch to suit her needs. Something picked at her nerve every time he struck a stressed syllable. "Skip to m' lou ma daaaarlin!" She found a branch under a large yew tree and brought it back to the beach. She began to dig, using her nerve as a tool more than her shovel.
She placed the branch in the hole so that there was enough underground to hold it in place. She estimated, and filled the sand and dirt in around the branch. She tested it with her weight to see if it would hold. Stable.
Twilight walked back over to the stallion, who had stopped singing and was now trying to lick his elbows, and picked him up. She forgot how heavy he was and almost stumbled over with him on her back.
No time for mistakes Miss Sparkle! There’s work to be done!
She brought him over to the branch and leaned him against it. For a moment, she thought that the branch might overturn. It tilted back and creaked as his weight shifted onto the protruding object, but it stopped and made an angle a little less than eighty degrees to the ground. Twilight uttered a sigh of relief. The cleansing could now begin.
She grabbed the rope from the area where she set down her saddle bags and began tying the stallion to the branch. His eyes darted from one place to another rapidly and he was giggling uncontrollably. By the time Twilight finished tying him in place, he had mostly calmed down. She grabbed the canister from the area where she set down her bags. She twisted open the top and sniffed the contents of the canister. She recoiled suddenly and nodded her head in confirmation. The artist had her paint at the ready.
“It will all be over soon...”
She splashed the contents of the canister onto the tied-up stallion, who reacted by blowing a very stressed raspberry. Gasoline began to mix with saliva. Paint mixed with an essence of life and fragility, tainting it with it's artificial glamour.
Twilight lowered her head and closed her eyes. An image popped into her mind and she focused on it. Suddenly, she felt a flash of warmth close in around her.
Mission success!
She opened her eyes to witness the outcome of her toils. The artist finally finally observing their sculpture fresh out of the furnace.
Ten paces in front of her resided a fireball. The stallion was now enveloped by the fire to the point where she could barely make out his features. He made no effort to escape, but what he did do was laugh. He laughed and laughed, continuously louder, continuously harder. To a normal pony, this sound would send chills down one's spine. But Twilight didn't mind. In fact, the sound was quite satisfactory to her. She marveled at her creation.
Twilight sat down and made herself comfortable in the sand. She felt no remorse, no guilt. Why should she? Her actions were righteous. She performed swift justice.
She watched as the stallion’s fur began to disappear, and his skin began to slowly char. She watched as his flaming eyeballs fell from their sockets, revealing two soulless apertures. She watched as blood flowed from his still laughing mouth. She watched all this with great satisfaction. Her work of art was coming to life right in front of her. She began to feel euphoric.
“It’s all over, brother. It’s all over.”
When the laughing finally stopped, the sun had set behind the trees on the other side of the lake. The only things illuminating the area around her was the flaming corpse in front of her and the light reflecting off of the full moon. There was no sense on staying any longer, so she rose, and looked up at the stars. She thought about her friends, the ponies she had loved and the ponies who had once loved her. The body of one of those ponies was laying in front of her right now, but his soal was somewhere else.
You’re with them now, don’t worry brother.
Twilight Sparkle turned around and began her trek back to Ponyville, where yet another day would be spent alone, with the books she now called her family.