“On’t oroh. Dohn’t oh. Don’t go.” I pleaded of the fading fire, its former occupant long since gone. The musculature of my face was so different from what I was used to. Enunciating words was a struggle, but one I was trying to overcome. And so, I practised speaking sentences until the embers of the campfire faded to glowing coals and the only thing illuminating my haunting form was the beaming moon. Perhaps it was better that way, that I didn’t have to look at myself very clearly.

“Uant ooh eeeeeh yurh frenh!” I was trying to say that I wanted to be the little ones’ friend. They could use one, I reasoned, shooting a glance at the armoured thing and its now cloven weapon. I could show them that I was to be trusted and, maybe then, I could work out something for myself.

Some dark part of my psyche knew I was lying to myself. I could “do something” about this? I raised a clawed hand up above my head to the moonlight. I was lost, I was certain that my stretch of the wood had no pegasi lurking about in it, and I was a monster. The best I could hope for was that I was hallucinating in a mental asylum right now, awaiting drugs that could bring me to some semblance of sanity. I dipped my head sullenly, hallucinations never felt this real…

“Wanth ooh eeh yurh friend!” I gave it another shot. There wasn’t all that much else to do. For some reason, this body of mine didn’t seem to tire out in the evening. Was I experiencing cosmic jet lag, or did bony monstrosities just not get sleepy? I couldn’t sleep, and what point was there in trying to reach out and communicate with others when I couldn’t string a sentence together. What else was I to do? It wasn’t like I had a riveting conversation partner. I snorted, looking once more at the biped that had tried to kill the little orange pony.

The armoured thing, its purple flesh was splaying out of its shredded armour, no longer contained. It really didn’t look so different from a human, once it was freed of its armour and you saw its succulent flesh. My ears twitched as I heard a light pattering from below me, and I realised that trailing drops of saliva were pitter-pattering against the ground, originating from my own mouth.

Gods have mercy on me, I wasn’t thinking about…? Slowly, tentatively, I lowered my maw towards the still corpse. Dagger like teeth hovered just over the ripe flesh. Ever so slowly, I extended a salivating tongue to just get a taste.

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Time escaped me in my reverie until I heard a twig snap behind myself. Turning my bony neck around in a wide arc, away from my feast, I greeted the newcomer with my skull.

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Ponies, more ponies had come to visit me. The haze of gluttony fading fast from my mind, I quickly became coherent enough to realise how compromising the position I was in looked. As they stepped into the clearing, the moonlight shone down upon a trio of ponies, these ones bigger than the little orange foal I had saved earlier. A purple pony with a horn (a unicorn?) took the lead, brilliant violet and pink streaks accenting her otherwise purple mane. Given how the other two ponies stood behind her, she seemed to be in charge of this little group. To her left, an orange pony with bright blonde hair and an honest to gods cowboy hat stood. She didn’t have a horn or wings, but I had seen Earth horses put a dent in metal, and she seemed as capable. Finally, a sleek rainbow pegasus flitted back and forth, keeping herself agile and shying away from being in one place for too long. I could see them, but they could see me. I opened my jaw to say hello.

“Celestia’s light, it’s eating that thing!” The purple pony shouted, preempting me.

My pointed skull bobbed about, looking between the ponies in various states of shock and disgust. I needed to explain myself quickly. I took a step closer.

“On’t oh! Don’t go!” I rasped, the teeth of my bony face clattering against each other with each word. I was vaguely aware of a chunk of ambiguous purple meat sliding off one of my teeth and slapping wetly against the ground.

“Stay back girls!” The purple unicorn with highlights in her hair shouted, splaying her four hooves out in determination. I watched in fascination as she swung her head, as if cracking a whip and her unicorn horn started glowing a bright purple, briefly illuminating the terrified faces of her friends from the darkness. Was this a thing unicorns could do?

Suddenly, like a firehose spraying, brilliant purple light erupted from the pony’s horn, washing over my face in a tide of raw, painful energy. A ghoulish howl escaped me, shrieking into the night and briefly silencing the beasts of the forest. It hurt, it hurt. I could smell lightly burnt flesh and hair, the malodor was made all the worse by the knowledge that it was my own burnt body.

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“That didn’t knock it unconscious!” I heard the purple pony bleat, while I hissed and shielded my charred face with a claw, “Rainbow Dash, go to Spike now and have him contact the princesses!”

“But-” I heard one of the ponies protest, still hiding my face behind a claw.

“Now!”

Lowering my claw just in time, I saw the rainbow pegasus shooting off into the sky fast enough that a rainbow contour was left in her wake. Giving me no time to appreciate the spectacle, the purple unicorn started charging another blast. I let out a low groan as the stinging of the first shot reminded me to avoid a second. This encounter had run its course, I had to get out of here now.

The night was deep, the forest thick, and my body didn’t tire. The last I saw of the ponies was them flinching as I bolted away with a speed that belied my body’s size, before I turned my head and made my escape into the woodline. Sliding in between trees, the underbrush around me was briefly lit as a bright purple blast of light shot just over my shoulder, striking a tree in front of me.

I whined softly, clasping at my face as I disappeared into the night.

“Beeh Peeh” I whimpered, hopping over a log. That hunger, that gluttonous haze that consumed my mind was still there, but it had been sated for now. I repeated the line to myself, it didn’t define me. I could make this better.

“BP” I grunted, finally happy with the word. I still had my name, I was still human.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Moonlight Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 29 Minutes