"Why didn't you just burn them all, Cor?" Courage walked along, following Sir Thunder Hoof at Corignis' side. "I would have thought you could have just blasted them all away?" Ahead a castle was visible, but being stuck on their hooves meant that distance took time to eat up.

"Of course I could have. I got some of your magic, remember?" Corignis reached a leathery wing out to brush down Courage's spine. "But this is Gluttony, we shouldn't eat here. A drained succubus is a hungry succubus."

"Succubus?" Thunder stopped and turned on the two mares. Narrowing his eyes, the oversized stallion let out a sigh. "Who am I to judge? I am sure you are both terrible monsters and just wish to enslave the whole Circle to your evil ways." He couldn't see it, but he assumed both mares rolled their eyes. "Doesn't change how I treat you. Until you give me a reason to distrust your motives, you are my guests."

As Courage watched, Thunder took another perfect hayburger out of his pack and started eating it. She stared for a moment before she had to ask, "Where do you get hayburgers? And you pulled a pizza out before!"

"Mmmff, lofn ftowy." Sir Thunder ate fast, but still savored every bite. "I held out a long time. I starved myself down to skin and bones… worse than even those monsters back there." Trotting along, Thunder let out a deep sigh. "Gluttony doesn't let you die, not from hunger. You waste away more and more until even those cannibals would ignore you. Every day was a pit of… a pit…" With a sigh he reached back to the pack and pulled out a small pile of donuts.

"So you ate something?" Corignis had to fight from doing more than just stroking Courage's back; she really wanted to play.

"Did I eat something?" Thunder liked the donuts quite a bit, and not just because of the flavor. "Of course I ate something, I ate everything anypony offered me. I ate and ate and ate. I left my deathbed with a distended belly and a hunger for yet more. Like every other denizen who tried food here, my backpack appeared then." He gestured back at the thing. "Nopony knows where they come from, but my theory is they are shards of the Circle itself. Whenever you are hungry—all the time by the way—you can smell just what you crave inside."

"Corignis would end up with a bag of dicks." Courage covered her snout with a hoof the moment she made the joke. She looked at Corignis and saw the big smile on her friend's face.

"Well, Bale's pack would be full of books. I swear, you are the only succubus who ever spent so much time reading." Corignis leaned close to Courage and hugged her against her side.

The three entered relative silence (punctuated only by Sir Thunder's eating), right up until they reached the castle. The three hunkered down on the last ridge overlooking the plain. "A siege?" Sir Thunder Hoof almost exploded into action. "Of my castle. Well, at least we won't want for food." He popped another doughnut into his mouth and started to chew it angrily.

"Anything that would destroy them all would take too long and too much power." Courage tapped her chin with a hoof. "What do they," she waved her hoof at the horde of cannibals, "do apart from eat?" She was trying to stir up some creative solutions by brainstorming.

"Torturing ponies. They claim it 'tenderizes the meat.' " Sir Thunder's face twisted into a grimace of disgust. "And they have this 'Guard' group. Basically, the bullies. If we could break their backs, the rest would likely just shove off."

"She's got an idea." Corignis grinned. "Look at the way she is smiling. When Bale smiles like that at you, you run." She stuck her tongue out at Courage.

"Do you?" Thunder's mouth felt empty; reaching up with his magic, he pulled a grilled cheese sandwich out.

"Yeah, I think I have something. Low on magic usage too. More of a curse really." Courage grinned as she looked over the fields of emaciated ponies. "Would you like to see it?" She looked to Sir Thunder.

"I am to act as the moral compass to a succubus now, am I?" Thunder Hoof followed Courage's gaze. "They lost their souls to this place long ago. They are not ponies anymore; they are monsters."

Courage wove the first part of the spell, binding it in mid-air with thick, black runes. "We start with an old, but good spell. Want-it need-it. I hear a princess once mistakenly used it on a random curio. The town where she lived nearly ripped itself apart trying to get to it." She built an enchantment next, a very nasty multi-folding one, layering it over the want-it need-it. Tapping the enchantment caused it to unfold and wrap the spell up tightly in fresh, glowing runes.

"Contagion?" Corignis recognized some symbols Courage had used in the enchantment used. "You are making that spell contagious?" She noticed as well that Courage's eyes had taken a green and red hue.

"With this lock." Courage wove another enchantment. This one fit to the first like the key to a lock, which is exactly what it was. "The contagion will only trigger on whoever eats the flesh of the infected." She smiled at the spell, floating mid air and looking a lot more deadly than it had any right to be.

"Are you going to cast it or what?" Corignis rolled her eyes at Courage's flourish. "I didn't even know you could enchant a spell like that." She watched the magic shoot off and angle towards a target that was yelling at a lot of other cannibals in the siege camp.

"Bang, perfect." Courage lifted her hoof up and pointed. "And in three, two, on—"

"Too slow. Look, it started already." Corignis watched as the pony who she guessed was the camp leader was suddenly attacked by those around him. If only one or two of the magically compelled ponies had rushed in, the big stallion likely could have dealt with them, but he was dragged down in a grand melee.

Courage watched what she had unleashed. She trembled in shock at how violent and bloody things turned. Images burned in her brain of ponies falling on each other in the only way these knew how—with their teeth.

"Hey." Corignis pulled Courage closer with a wing. "They are monsters, you are just putting them down in the quickest manner you can." She pressed her head against Courage's cheek. "You aren't like them. You will never be like them." The soul Courage had shared with her was hard at work—its chief weapon being empathy. The emotional blade was sharp and long. "You don't realize it, Bale Fire, but there is a huge part of the Pit that is a less terrible place because of you. That spider monster, the fighting pits, even Alphias seems more relaxed."

"That is amazing." Sir Thunder Hoof bit into another pizza. "Oof an fem fun!" He climbed to his hooves, hefting the bulk of his body up and retrieving his weapon. "Pweef fom on." Stepping forward, he was in clear sight of the swarm of cannibals now, not that any noticed him.

"Hold on, we need a shield against the spell." Courage got up and nuzzled Corignis on the cheek. "Come on, let's go with him." Together, they trotted up beside Thunder, and Courage cast her protection spell.

"You are both fine maidens…" Thunder Hoof paused a moment while both Courage and Corignis chuckled. "You don't actually have to giggle when I say that. I know it isn't true, but it makes me feel more comfortable. I can only assume the world has changed a bit since I…" He visibly fumbled for words. "Since I died."

Courage was unsure how to take it. She certainly wasn't a maiden, but a compliment was a compliment, and it really seemed like he was being sincere. "Thank you, Sir Knight." It was the best she could do. "I am… I am from a more modern time, it is true." She thought to all the fancy science that was bandied about in Equestria. "I hope to be returning soon. Is there anything I could tell your—"

Thunder hadn't realized he had moved. He was suddenly staring at Courage's face, desperation etched on his own. "Please don't. Please don't tell anypony what my fate became." He was on the edge of begging. "My whole life I fought to rise above what I did. To have failed would spoil my memory." He blinked as Courage kissed him chastely on the nose.

"Then I will not track down the grave of the brave knight who protected me and my… sister." Courage's eyes flashed to Corignis.

" 'Sister'?" Corignis snorted. "Is that all we are after all this? I have part of your soul, you took part of my demonhood. We share a stallion, Bale." Corignis stepped closer to Courage and nuzzled her ear. "We carry his foals. We are as much mated to each other as he is to us."

"This is totally not the place to get sexy, Corignis." Courage wasn't really wrong; they were walking past the fetid remains of dozens of cannibals. She looked around and felt any libido she had melt away. "Come on, Sir Thunder Hoof, your home awaits."

"Thank you. This…" Thunder gestured around the quiet plain. "This would have cost lives to deal with. If you could teach us that spell, I am sure we could find a good use for it in the future. Uh… it doesn't need that particular type of magic to cast though, does it?"

"Oh! No, that is… that is just how my magic works now." Courage blushed at the firm proof that she had studied maybe a little too much of the darker magics.

"Ho there!" Thunder pulled a fresh long-sandwich from his pack and waved to some ponies on the wall. "I have returned and broken the siege!" At his words, cheering broke out from the large shapes on the wall. "Open up!"

Loud clunks sounded, Courage looked to Corignis and they each shrugged as Thunder led them through the opening doors. "I went to Canterlot once, but this castle is something else. Is it all made just for defense?"

"The exterior is a little austere I will admit, but within is my home. Stout foundations and solid walls, that is how you keep your ponies safe." Sir Thunder Hoof smiled at the portly guards that trotted up to him. "How goes?"

"Sir! You came just in time, they were threatening to undermine the walls!" One of the big guards sketched a salute with a hoof that didn't wobble, despite the extra mass on it. "What did you do that made them turn on each other like that?"

"That was thanks to a master magician. Bale Fire?" Thunder turned and smiled to Courage. "Please, you are safe now. If you don't mind, though, I think we might need to have a feast to celebrate." The moment he mentioned "feast" a huge cheer went up around all the gathered ponies.

"Water, water, all around…" Corignis gave a sigh. "We need to get ourselves out of here as quickly as we can. I am hungry and horny."

"Remember what is the next one up? We probably aren't going to be able to feed there, either." Courage tried to ignore the cheers of the ponies jostling around her, but their merriment was just too much. "Ugh, come on, Lust can wait for one day."

"I don't know if you are joking, or even if the joke is a bad one." Corignis moved smoothly in behind Sir Thunder Hoof, pulling Courage along with her in his wake. "There is probably some trick here we still haven't encountered. Each Circle has one for demons to be able to move on; Gluttony is probably 'don't go crazy and kill all the ponies and eat them for a day,' or something."

Author's Notes:

Sir Thunder Hoof, you are indeed beset by most trying times. How do you keep yourself from despairing in this darkest of cold places?

"I hold myself to the standards I did for most of my life." Thunder plucked a burger from his pack. "Mmfmf refura effafife," he gulped down the mouthful, "regular exercise that is, and a strict code of honor." The stallion looked at the rest of the burger in his magic with a mixture of adoration and melancholy. "Some standards needed to relax..." He took another bite.

~~~~~+++++~~~~~

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter. (note, the commissioner will answer questions in the comments, since this is their OC)

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