“Do you remember that time you ate a bird?”

Twilight looked up from her breakfast of slightly overcooked daffodils and grass and glared across the table at Spike, who was rising from his chair to bring his dishes to the sink.

“I did not eat a bird.” Twilight held a steady, eyes-narrowed stare at Spike as he ran some cold water over his plate.

“But I remember it,” Spike said. He turned off the water and shook off his claw, sending a few drops over the counter. “There was even that picture that went around town. I mean, you weren’t eating the bird in it, but it was pretty obvious you were gonna—”

“Spike. Listen to me.”

Twilight Sparkle stood up from her chair with a grating creak against the floor. Her horn shone briefly as she walked towards Spike with a deliberate pace. Spike’s damp claw found the back of his head, and he scratched it with a nervous look on his face.

“I did not. Eat. A bird.” Twilight’s horn shimmered, and Spike tensed, though no glow of magic neared him.

“But I—”

“I swear, you and everypony else in town have the worst memory. How could a pony just eat a bird? They’re too big, for one thing. I’m not a python. And where did the bones go?”

“Well...” Spike scratched his head for a moment before lowering his claw to his side. “But I swore...”

“This is just a remnant of what we call mass hysteria. Somepony says they saw or heard something and suddenly everypony saw or heard it, and some ponies go on to make awful images like that one that got around town before I spoke to the mayor myself about putting a stop to its slanderous circulation. I did not eat a bird.” Twilight’s horn glowed brightly before suddenly extinguishing to its normal dull purple. Twilight leaned close to Spike’s face and saw the lump move down his throat as he swallowed.

“Understand?” she asked.

Spike nodded.

“Sorry, Twilight. I guess I just remembered wrong.”

Twilight held her glare for a moment before a smile washed over her face, taking with it every trace of the ire that had been there a moment ago.

“It’s no problem. Could happen to anyone.”

And with that, Twilight returned to her chair to finish the rest of the breakfast. Spike stood in front of the sink for a second and watched her. After a moment, Twilight looked up and smiled at him. Spike smiled back, then trotted off towards the stairs and vanished up them shortly thereafter.

Twilight Sparkle had not eaten a bird.

She had eaten other things though.

The fact of the matter was that, in the often thrown-around picture of her standing by a picnic blanket with her friends, about to launch into a tearful remembrance of her early years with her BBBF, a bird had perched on her hoof. She had been in the midst of a meal when the message that inspired her song had been delivered, and true to the fact, not too much later she had even used a sandwich to parody her brother’s awful lack of openness about his coming marriage. But she hadn’t gotten a chance to eat the sandwich.

She had thought about eating the bird, but only in an abstract sort of way. The same way you might think about pushing a pony standing near you in front of a carriage, but you weren’t really thinking about it. Twilight had imagined opening her mouth like a giant snake, distending her jaw and taking the whole of the cute little birdie’s body between her teeth, swallowing it without even chewing and letting her stomach do the rest of the work. It looked delicious to her, for an instant. Something about the meatiness of its breast she imagined beneath its feathers, the fullness of it as it puffed out on her hoof. She’d heard of ancient tribes eating things like chicken and geese, and for a brief moment could see what they might have liked in the idea.

But she hadn’t eaten the bird.

It hadn’t left her though. After that day she’d gone to Canterlot, and shortly after that foiled a changeling plot to overtake Equestria. All in a day’s work. But the thought of the bird had stuck with her, and as was her nature, she’d begun to dwell on it. Was it just the bird that was appealing? There was something painfully mundane about grass and hay and flowers for every meal; Twilight wondered sometimes how ponies kept from going insane with such a limited diet. Surely there was more to life than greenery?

There was junk-food, of course. She and her friends had gotten drinks before she had confronted the faux-Cadance about her disguise. Milkshakes, thick and creamy and delicious. Twilight’s was strawberry.

She’d hesitated to throw the cup away when she was done. There was still a little bit of strawberry there, stuck to the inner rim of the cup.

Well, she could lick it off.

But the milkshake had been in the cup for a while. There might be some flavour left there.

She could still remember, even today, the hot, sweaty shameful excitement that had overtaken her. The way she’d glanced from side to side as she took the rim of the milkshake container into her teeth, braced down, and with her eyes closed, pulled. Ripped. Chewed. And, shaking, swallowed.

It wasn’t a bird. But it wasn’t grass either. It was different.

And it was good.

Twilight hadn’t finished the cup, but she’d taken a few more bites before dashing off to an ill-fated confrontation with her sister-in-law’s doppelganger. The events that followed were enough to put the idea out of her mind for a while.

But not for forever.

The next one had come at home. She was stocking the fridge, as was a necessity when getting new groceries, or simply assessing which ones needed to be acquired in the first place. In doing so, she’d found a bag of apples that had hidden behind a jug of milk, long-forgotten and well past their ‘use by’ date. The bag smooshed against her hoof as she moved it, and she stuck out her tongue at the sour smell.

But... the regular apples hadn’t been that good to begin with.

Once more, the flood of hot feelings inside had washed over her. She’d checked over her shoulder to make sure Spike was nowhere to be seen, then pulled the bag closer.

It had a nice plastic cover too. The apple in the corner didn’t look that bad. It was only half brown, really. And there were no fruit flies in the fridge, so it couldn’t be unhealthy, per se. Just overripe.

The plastic was cool on her teeth as she brought it up. The first bite had squelched in her mouth. It was sour, like the wine she’d sampled at her parents’ last dinner party.

But her mouth watered as she swallowed it. The core was less of an obstacle than usual, and in a way, eating it felt like she had well and truly defeated the apple. The plastic was just a nice garnish.

Twilight hid the bag in the crisper and promised to return to it later.

That was when she noticed something else, as she kneeled on the kitchen floor with pungent brown fruit-juice dripping from her chin. She licked it up, and felt a shiver run through her body. She noticed, then, that there was something wet dripping from somewhere else too. All over the kitchen floor.

It had taken her by surprise, and she’d shut the fridge and jumped up instantly to examine herself. When her hoof found the source of the dampness, she gasped openly. Spike came down the stairs at that ill-timed instant, and she blocked him with smalltalk while angling to run up to her room.

It was exactly what she thought. She was wet. And, for some reason, she couldn’t keep herself from shutting the door and finding the familiar position on her bed, bent over like a stallion was behind her while her hoof worked its magic on her special spot.

She’d never cum that hard before.

The next time had been a bit more mundane. She was helping Applejack with some simple farm work, holding a ladder while Applejack repaired a rafter. Fairly boring, but with a reward of cool apple-juice afterwards. Applejack’s toolkit was out, and within foreleg’s reach, as Twilight was also tasked with handing supplies up to Applejack. She relayed nails and implements without fuss... but as her hoof ran over the various toolbox compartments, she stopped when she noticed the small container filled with tiny, metal screws.

She felt it then. The flush. And, while Applejack was humming to herself and hammering away at barn-board, Twilight had snuck hooffuls of screws and swallowed them whole. They grated her throat as they went down. Even more shameful, she had felt the dampness again. It was wrong, so wrong, but she had snuck more than just mouthfuls when Applejack wasn’t looking. It was almost a game. But the finish line was no obstacle: Twilight came in Applejack’s barn with her friend feet away, staring obviously at her handiwork as Twilight rubbed herself out of sight and bit down hard on her lip to keep quiet, the taste of metal lingering in her mouth.

From then on, it had become an obsession. She’d considered birds again, but decided there was more to find that didn’t involve hurting something. Or breaking her jaw.

Scraps of paper were commonplace, though not as thrilling. Some old ink tasted faintly of spice, and she’d gone through an entire small hardcover novel before realizing the typeset might be toxic. Her lurching stomach had confirmed her suspicion, and led her to a lurching heave over the toilet, spewing balled up parchment into the cool bowl. She’d sprayed all over the bathroom floor in the process, which was no worry, because Spike was expecting to have to clean up anyway. He was so nice that way.

There was more: after various attempts at melting it, she’d eventually filed down a piece of silverware and drank it with a blend of old bananas like a smoothie. The mix was chunky, but very satisfying. Later in the same week, Spike dropped a glass in the kitchen; Twilight had hurried to sweep it up, and rubbed herself harder than ever as the viciously barbed dust went down her throat. The coughing blood afterwards had been worth it, though Twilight had made a note to be slightly more careful in the future.

After a few weeks of lucky happenstance and good ideas, Twilight had realized she might have a problem—but acknowledging it didn’t mean she felt like stopping. If anything, it only spurred her to new heights, and within a few days of even stranger searching and experiments, Twilight felt bored.

Then she had remembered dumpsters.

Which is what she had planned for her afternoon.

Whistling a soft tune to herself, Twilight cleared her plate into the compost bucket by the sink. She eyed the soggy eggs-hells inside, but shook her head and rinsed her plate promptly. No need to spoil her appetite.

With her breakfast abandon and behind her, Twilight left in search of her real, proper meal.

The alley itself was a blessing. Nevermind the fact that garbage was collected in such a large bin in the first place, but putting it out of the way as a necessity meant nopony was likely to come by. Nevertheless, Twilight spared a glance in either direction before she lifted the metal lid with a glow of purple.

The smell leapt at her instantly, strong enough to make her knees quiver. The sun had been out lately, and hot. The dumpster was like a giant metal cooking pot filled with a delicious gumbo waiting for Twilight’s attention.

Twilight peered over the edge of the container. The whole of its contents blurred into a single, amorphous entity, a blending together of broken furniture and used diapers and packaging and food and compost and simply garbage. It was perfect.

Twilight took another look around before heaving herself over the dumpster’s lid. She couldn’t believe how big it was. Surely, this was the treasure trove that had been in her dreams. She felt the soft, unsavoury crunch of the uneven base beneath her hooves, and reached out a foreleg against the warm metal to keep herself steady. Properly situated, she began to scan the heap for a likely looking candidate. There was so much to choose from...

But one jumped out at her almost immediately. It was too perfect.

It didn’t look like a brand she was familiar with—it might even be foreign, for all she knew. Vegetables didn’t have that look to them, even mulched into stew. Twilight’s foreleg shook as she reached towards the metal can, turning it to try and make out the label.

It felt full as she picked it up. As she held the label closer to her eyes, something at the can’s head moved.

It was open.

Twilight looked around, despite being shielded by the alley and the dumpster, and lifted the metal lid with a small lilac glow.

Oh.

There was stew inside. It had gone bad, there was no question. But, to someone else, for once other than Twilight, it had gotten very good. There was something else inside the can.

Maggots.

Twilight’s whole body shook as she removed the rest of the lid, setting it gently to the side of her body in case she wanted it later. Sure enough, there was an unfamiliar brown mixture inside the can, complete with chunks and blobs and bits of things Twilight had every inclination to believe were much more substantial protein sources than the grass she’d shovelled away after breakfast. And, there definitively in the form of something richer, were tiny white bodies wriggling on the surface of the mess. And throughout, no doubt. They were burrowing into the glop, squirming and searching for delicious rotting meat to sustain themselves.

Twilight held the can to her nose and inhaled deeply. The smell was no doubt strong enough to melt something inside her sense-receptors.

She had to. Of course she had to.

The whole of the can felt alive as Twilight raised it up. She couldn’t tell if it was the movement of its contents, or her own nervous shaking, or perhaps both. She tensed and closed her eyes as the metal neared her lips, then opened them a fraction of a second before tilting her head back. She pulled the can away and took a deep breath. Again, she brought it closer.

This time she kept her eyes closed. The metal was warm against her mouth. She could feel one of the maggots dancing on her lower lip.

The chunks and fetid juice slid inside her mouth, as too did their passengers. She took a full mouthful before beginning to chew.

Putrid. Rancid. Like juice-filled candies bursting on her teeth. And the smell filled every one of her senses. She could feel it oozing from her skin. She wouldn’t be clean for weeks. Her tongue was dead inside her mouth, soaking up every tantalizing inch of the disgusting flavour, the mucus-like texture, the bits and bobs and chunks and slimy, wriggling mush as it slid down her throat.

Without even touching herself, she felt it. Her legs gave out and she fell face first into the pile of garbage in front of her.

She heard the sound as she went too, like she was wetting herself. A stream, so thick, like a cream, began to drip from between her legs. She opened her mouth and then closed it in an instant, trying to keep herself quiet, muffling her noises in the pillow of filth and trash as she let the last bits of the maggot-stew into her stomach, and came, so hard. She could tell without looking that it was oozing from her, viscous, more substantial than it had ever been. She creamed on the hot metal floor of the dumpster, the maggots that were still alive shivering in perpetual confusion as they went down her esophagus. Her whole body writhed as they did, thrashing back and forth as she came. She shoveled another mouthful of the stew inside, and redoubled her orgasm, still no need for touching. She shook, and shivered, and came, choking on the rest of the can as she guzzled it, making sad slurping noises amidst the sudden crying that had overtaken her, the agony of her ecstasy, and the dripping still of juice from her cunt as she came.

She was certain then, with no doubt in her mind: there was no reason to confine herself to grass and vegetables when there was a whole world of delicious sensations to be explored.

Twilight Sparkle had not eaten a bird.

But, she might find one at some point, and what would happen next was anypony’s guess.