In Which Bacon Is Eaten Before It Is Made
Here I sit under the late afternoon sun, amongst my kind’s once-enemies, in the most backwater town they have to offer; even though I can see noble Canterlot from here—where my mother is getting ready to meet the Princesses—this Earth pony hamlet seems frozen in time. Probably on purpose… dumb traditionalist Earth ponies.
Mom had tried to insist that she stuck me down here because I need to reevaluate how I view ponies, but I know she just doesn’t want me to accidentally cause some international incident in the capitol. -as if ponies would actually hold a cultural misunderstanding of mine against my entire country! Even if I am to inherit the throne, they’re all so soft and forgiving. I can’t imagine Celestia being much different, especially after she forgave Luna for nearly dooming the planet. “Being a sister” doesn’t explain that!
Whatever. I know I could just fly up there whenever and no one would (or could) stop me, but that would cause an intranational incident with Mom—I’d rather be bored than in trouble with her! So here I lay on a cloud, staring at the uniform blue dome above and, most importantly, not being sucked into the painfully dull life below, as some pink wacko had tried to do to me yesterday, just after I had arrived.
Bored bored bored bored bored… I almost regret not attend that party.
…
“Ha! Nah. Of course I don’t!”
With nothing in the present to hold my attention, I turn to the past, particularly, the friends I’d been forced to leave behind. Even if ponies were capable, they’re just too “friendly” to spar—what do they think friendship with a griffon means!? Then again, if they were capable, maybe they’d be less friendly, or more friendly-in-the-way-griffons-are-friendly. Of course, for that to happen, they’d need talons or claws instead of hooves… at least on the forelegs, ‘cause you can’t really call something without any hooves a “pony”. -then get rid of the Cutie Mark nonsense: Force them to actually find their talents instead of them just being served on a silver plate as soon as they do anything remotely connected to their “fate”. Yeah… -and a beak! Well, I guess they can keep the teeth instead of a beak, since the muzzle is also kind’a important for a “pony” look, but make ‘em sharper… Carnivorous! Naturally. -or at least omnivorous. Give ‘em all wings—no more unicorns and definitely no more Earth ponies… Maybe some unicorns, since they have spells to make things fly, walk on clouds, and stuff, which is kind’a cool. -for, you know, ponies.
If only if only if only if on- hold that thought!
A wisp of a most amazing scent graces my nostrils: A scent I had expected I left back in Ugriff: Bacon. -but this is nonsense! Ponies don’t eat meat, and pigs-! Pigs they, ugh, befriend in their useless pony-friendship way. Well, most of them; some farmers manage to get over their pony-disgust of meat-eating in order to run a business of raising pigs specifically for sale to the carnivorous allies of Equestria. -but to butcher, carve, and cook it themselves?! Unthinkable. They even serve their cats and dogs semi-vegetarian diets!
I flip over and rise into a crouch, scanning the crowds and buildings below. No matter how I try to convince myself that brush of scent—already gone—was just my imagination as I thought about alternate-universe-carnivore-ponies, I know I’ll have to investigate to truly settle my thoughts, but how? Even as the Princess of Ugriff, I can hardly demand everypony tell me what they’re cooking for lunch… Then again, I don’t have to ask if I peek through their windows, but ponies are weird about that kind of thing. Why keep your curtains open if you’re going to get upset at someone looking in your home?! Crazy herbivores…
Actually, speaking of “herbivores”, there he is! The one I’d heard about and, naturally, liked instantly: The (real!) Carnivorous Pony! Yes, the one that had, when he was a colt, visited Ugriff and, in the naïveté of youth, sampled a strip of bacon—real, pig-flesh bacon—and, most of all, liked it enough it became his Cutie Mark! He eventually invented vegan-bacon, but back when the only choice was pig-flesh… It was the only time I had not looked down on an Earth pony with scorn. In fact, he was my first chickhood crush: How I had wanted to zip out the castle, find him, and tickle light scars into his pudgy pony belly, marking him as mine, but mother put her paw down. -on my throat.
I absentmindedly rub the pain that’s more than a dozen years gone now as I watch Pan Sizzle (yes, that’s his name—I more often think of him as The Carnivorous Pony, so it took a moment for his real name to come back to me) trot along, appearing preoccupied with how absentmindedly he return’s other ponies’ greetings. Hopping from cloud to cloud, remaining quite hidden from the grounded who so-unwisely never look up, I pursue Sizzle, and soon find out he’s not actually heading into, or even through town, but skirting the edges, heading from the farmlands just outside town to the infamously dangerous and avoided-at-all-costs Everfree Forest. Even I, a proud griffon, get a strange tingle in the spine as I watch him approach and eventually, hesitantly disappear into the strangely-shadowed entrance. Why would a road even lead into that place?
I shrug, and dive into the canopy.
Landing, I’d like to tell myself that that sudden chill of terror is only a deep instinctual need for a griffon to be able see the sky, but the fact the fear grips me before I can look up is making that little self-deception mighty hard. Out here, at least, away from the smells of what passes as “civilization” for Earth ponies have disappeared so that it’s far easier to zero-in on the cooked scent of bacon over the raw, natural odors of the forest.
With the skills my mother and personal instructors have ingrained in me, I step just off the half-overgrown path (again I ask: Why is there a road here?!) and slink through the bushes, stalking my prey. Yes, prey. I had heard also of Sizzle’s amazing salty, greasy taste, which practically infuses his body thanks to his constant cooking of bacon, vegan or otherwise. I just want a taste, though; of course I’m not going to eat him! No, he’s way too thin for that. -and, if all I’ve heard is not exaggerated—or only a little so—then he’s too tasty to simply eat, too. Yes… A living, concentrated “essence of bacon”!
When my reverie ends, my beak is dripping, full of saliva, and I’m hiding behind a trunk, right next to Sizzle, who is now standing, frozen, looking around with eyes wide. I swallow, then grin even as my beak fills once more, and rapidly. As he turns towards me, I pull my head behind the tree, waiting now for the sound of hoofsteps, and as soon as the first one hits, I slip behind him, timing my steps with his, taking long strides to catch up. Just as he pauses once more, ears swiveling, no doubt having detected the “doubling” created by my footsteps, I’m practically right on top of him. Before he can look around, I lean over him, lick his back, leaving a long streak of saliva.
Heaven!
He tastes even better than I dared imagine, including just these last few minutes, as I smelled him for the first time. His aroma! Falling from the high of his taste, I mean to dig my beak into his fur and take two great, big lungfulls, but he’s gone! -but not too far for me; in only a few bounds, aided by powerful thrusts of my wings, I leap, catching his behind (but being careful with my talons!), sending us both tumbling thanks to my haste and bad angle. (Ugh… if Mom ever hears of this, I’d have to take remedial lessons!)
We end up sprawled in a patch of big, blue flowers. I, naturally, land on all fours over him, and he ends up on his back, belly exposed. He cringes, eyes screwed shut, and I decide to let him marinate like this, the sweat of his fear intensifying his scent—again, I drool, and it splatters his chest, which seems to be what makes him finally peek up at me, then he blinks a few times, relaxing, and all that he has to say is, “Oh. Uh…” With that, he greets me the griffon way: He grips my torso with his forehooves and tries to flip me over—amused, I eventually let him, and he blushes and pulls his head back, but I immediately reassert myself before his embarrassment or whatever can really take hold. Ponies… No, I really shouldn’t be thinking like this. At least this one knows and tries! -and smells and tastes like bacon.
With him now effectively trapped/not afraid and running away, I enact my previous plan with one small change. Digging my beak into the thicker fur of his chest, which is now gently dampened by an interestingly greasy sweat, I breathe in deep, then hold it just to the edge, I’m sure, of giving myself oxygen deprivation-related brain damage; letting it out in a long sigh, I nearly fall onto him from my euphoria-weakened legs. Done restricting myself to smell alone, I stick out my tongue as far as I can and lick him up and down and side to side, practically painting his belly with the amount of saliva pouring from me.
Soon, he starts to wiggle, then speaks. “Uh… Uhm, hi? Who are you? My name’s-”
I lock onto his eyes, which silences him as I lick him over a few more time before pulling up and swallowing a big glob of saliva that had absorbed his taste; I notice how he stares at my neck, and how he swallows himself, but not with fear. “Oh, who I am doesn’t matter, at least not to you, and your name doesn’t matter to me, unless it’s ‘Bacon-Flavored Morsel’. Is it?” I hear his breath catch, and a magnificent blush blossoms and ripens before he shakes his head. Then, I make a show of looking around, and when I look back down, I know he must have been following my lines of sight. “Well, it seems we’re quite… alone.” If he can blush any redder, I don’t know; I pull back, take note of the bulging sheathe, and lick one last time, from the inside of his right thigh to the underside of his chin, avoiding said sheathe and accompanying sac entirely, but still he shivers when I get close, and as I lower myself, carefully only barely touching bodies, I whisper, “I could even-”—I fit my beak over his muzzle for just a moment before pulling back in a flash, but even if he wished to, he can no longer pretend how much he wants it—“-eat you, and nopony would know or suspect me when there are things like Timber Wolves and Manticores and Changelings around to take the heat off a civilized, if… chubby, griffon.”
Taking one foreleg in my right talons, I guide his hoof over my midsection, making sure he knows, even if it didn’t register to his mind before, that I can hardly be described as “chubby”, at least as I am now. His only response is to groan as I feel his erection grow between us, but he finally speaks when I release his leg, which he continues to rub over me, each circle going a little lower than the last and a little faster than the last, perhaps subconsciously. “Mph! I guess… you… could.” On the last word, he shifts his hips, trying to hide a half-hump by turning to the side, only pressing himself more firmly against me, which he quickly corrects by slamming his behind back against the ground and sucking in his stomach, which is largely ineffective in minimizing contact considering how skinny he already is.
I redirect his hoof to rub against his own nearly-concave stomach, brushing and pushing against his now-full erection. “-or I could take you away and hide you away somewhere a simple, worthless Earth pony can’t escape from… and fatten you up first.” He shivers harder than ever and once more stops himself mid-hump, but this time his response is a little less receptive.
After a long and unexpected sigh that makes me pull back, uncertain as to crossing some line (and I was having such fun, too!), he spins onto his belly and crawls out from under me. “That is… quite a plan, but I’m on a bit of an important mission, you see, retrieving some medicine for a friend of mine. So, I should really do that firs-” Quick to understand what he’s offering, I grin once more, first earnestly, then quickly shifting to play-malicious, clamping a talon around his muzzle, cutting him off.
“Only if you come back… tomorrow morning.” I try to make it sound halfway between an order and a question, and I suppose I must have at least succeeded on the latter, given how he makes a little affirmative sound and tries to nod, but I hold him steady. “Good… You better show, because I think you, of all ponies, know that you don’t want a griffon hunting you.” I open my beak wide: wide enough to take his muzzle into my beak with room to spare. His eyes instantly widen and lock onto some space in my maw—my throat?—and once more gulps, but again not in fear, I’m sure. While this whole thing had been fun, all of his reactions upto and including now is making me begin to wonder whether this is really a game for him, but… he couldn’t really want to be eaten, could he? Ponies might in general be crazy, but this? -but that’s it: “in general”. There are (relatively) sane ponies I’ve met, so what about the other side of the bell curve? Did I honestly run into that one pony with a weird, fetishized death wish? If I did, I suppose I could get a good meal out of this; everything I said, while meant to be playful, had still been truthful—there would have been no playfulness without it, after all. -but this pony! It has to be him!? How often is a pony like him going to come along!? Not twice in my life time, I’d bet…
Gah!
I need to settle my mind.
“You know,” I say, “I’m not joking. If you come back here, I’ll be like a Timber Wolf in every way: no one will ever see you again except as my fat, and they’ll never know…” I urge up a little burp and breathe the rank and carnivorous smell into his nose, staring straight into his eyes, looking for some tell: He breathes deeply and glances quickly between my still slightly open beak and my eyes. Could that be worry? I finally release his muzzle and open my beak, as wide as I can this time: quite wide enough to work down a pony (and by that I mean a normal-sized pony; this thin wouldn’t provide any challenge), which is to say, wide enough I can no longer see him. I wait, counting down from thirty in my head, and when I look back up, he’s gone; I breathe a sigh of relief that’s bigger than the situation seems to warrant, but I’m all too happy I won’t lose the pony I dreamed of for so long.
Taking flight once more over the forest and turning to Ponyville, I shiver thinking about my near future with the pony I had thought of for so long, our meeting by such chance! Then, as I consider looking for some cloud to make for my bed this night, I shiver once more, this time because of a patch of sharp cold between my hindlegs. Glancing under myself, I roll my eyes. Of course I would have made myself wet! -but then I grin. I know that, for this village’s size, Ponyville actually has a halfway respectable spa, which presents a new game: Will anypony be brave enough to mention my “condition”? This is the best kind of game: amusing no matter the outcome!
Already holding in a laugh, I dive, spinning down towards a distinctive roof. I angle myself to shoot through the door, and with griffon-reflexes, open the door just before I crash through it, then flap furiously to stop without scratching the floor with my talons (dumb, expensive pony-buildings; if they just used clouds for everything, any repair would take only seconds). I get in a couple pre-chuckles when I look up and see the no doubt previously immaculately styled manes of the two spa owners now completely wind-swept: an improvement!… -if they were pegasi!
The blue one recovers first. “Ah! M-miss!” She greets as she pats at her mane. “Welcome to the Ponyville Spa! How may we s-” She pauses for half of a second, and I know that’s when she must have gotten a whiff of my smell, “s-serve y-you?”
The pink one just blinks, blank, before trying to flatten her mane, which she stops when she, too, finally catches my scent.
Putting on my best griffon princess non-expression, I calmly answer, “I require a bath. What can this… establishment offer.” I try to imitate my mother’s disapproving tone (which I’d certainly heard enough times), and I like to think I succeeded, telling by how the two are so quick to dismiss my “offensive presence” to assure me that I am in a place of utmost “chic”, as ponies say.
“Your demand is our desire!” the pink one says somewhat robotically—it’s obvious that for all their “chic”, they’re still not used to truly noble demands—as she grabs a laminated “menu” from the counter (no matter what I say about ponies, their ability to speak so clearly while holding something in their mouth is still impressive).
“Baths are on the third page!” The blue on informs, voice a little shrill.
I glance over the surprisingly numerous options, and one catches my eye: a so-called “Magical Healing Soak” that uses a combination of herbs I’d not heard of in all my time learning and experiencing proper noble bathing habits. I inwardly shrug, thinking it can’t be bad at least, then point to what I want.
“Ah! Excellent choice! -but it is… expensive,” the pink one says, looking me over, eyes settling on my behind for a fraction of a second.
“Whatever. My mom, the griffon queen, will pay for everything.” I shrug before throwing a bag of coins on the counter, then grin, knowing they won’t care about anything I do for as long as Mom’s bits last.
- - - -
As soon as the griffon opened her beak wide, wide… wide! Wide enough, it seemed, for me to step into, I (quietly!) took off, speeding up as I got further away. I sighed in relief when I felt I was far enough away to slow to a trot. Safe from what? That griffon had just… come on to me so strongly! I doubt I could have stopped myself from leaping down her throat if I spent another second in her presence, but I know I couldn’t just then; she’ll need to wait. Not only so I can retrieve Apple Bloom’s medicine from Zecora, but to retrieve a certain… “gastro-exploration aid”, for I doubt the griffoness would prefer to try to pass a full-sized pony… That, and even I’m not entirely certain just what might happen if I were to ever be eaten without the Shrinking Violet’s help, by which magic might not just shrink, but protect from certain harm as well… Not a chance I’m going to take!
Hmm… Shrinking Violets, Shrinking Violets… Something about those plants are stuck in my mind! Perhaps I saw one just now? It certainly wouldn’t be surprising, what with the Everfree Forest being where they grow, and all. Beyond its appearance and effect, though, I suppose I really don’t know much about the plant with which I’ve had so much experience.
Finally, I look back, knowing the griffon could be trailing me silently if she wished, but she would be hard-pressed to hide her bright gold and bronze colors in this dank, dark place. As I’m looking back, I accidentally step over a partially-overgrown part of the path; plants brush my underside and-! With a jolt, I hop forward, out of the patch, and look under myself straight at my “other self”, still ready for action. I really need to stop thinking about anything remotely connected to that griffoness’s offer before I reach-! Great. Too late: Zecora’s hut comes into view. At least she isn’t the type to gossip, or even care about such at all, but I’ll really, really need to get rid of my underbelly salute before reentering Ponyville.
Zecora, just as I hoped, made no comment on my state, and even managed to completely ignore it, barring one glance and a quick turn to her shelves that I suspect she did to hide a blush. The bottle of Apple Bloom’s medicine secured in a little pouch around my neck (how short-sighted of me to not borrow one of the Apple’s saddlebags), I head off once more, now forcing myself to think about little A.B.’s cough, relief flowing as my blood returns to its normal/socially-acceptable places. I still pause when I come to the spot the griffon had pounced on me—I’m left with no uncertainty with the evidence of a patch of blue (blue! Now I remember there was something blue!) flowers with a large swath of destruction through the middle.
Wait! Shrinking Violet! Except… I’m not shrunk. Huh… Well, I’d be the first to admit I’m no botanist, so this must only look similar to an untrained eye, like mine. I shrug and move on, once more not thinking about the griffoness or Shrinking Violet or getting swished around that bigger-than-normal beak of hers or- crap!
I’m nearly out of the forest, too; I can see the sunlight shimmering beyond the exit just ahead! I need to stop this, quick! Maybe… I look down at the pouch containing the medicine: surely a little taste of medicine—notoriously nasty tasting—wouldn’t hurt and would be just the thing I need to buy a ticket out of Erectionville. I grimace just at the thought of it, recalling the strange, sickly-sweet mix of smells in Zecora’s hut as I tug at the drawstring and- ah-ha! Just the thought of tasting that stuff helped! I sigh once more and, despite knowing that running where predators might be is dangerous, run the rest of the way out of the Everfree and all the way to Sweet Apple Acres.
Thankfully, the Apples are pleasant company, providing the all-too-welcome distraction known as conversation. Even more thankfully, Apple Bloom’s cold symptoms are all suppressed (as if there had ever been any doubt in Zecora’s skill in the first place), so she feels well enough to join the supper I had been adamantly invited to—not that I put up much of a fight!
Indeed, they’re such lovely company that when I finally glance out a window after another fit of laughter, I see only the darkness of the night, and even getting up and looking out, I see not even the barest hint of any dusk sunlight, but even the light of the gibbous Moon, I know, won’t be enough to ward off the braver carnivores from venturing beyond the Everfree, especially with such an easy (if thin) meal is so close and out in the open, unaccompanied. “Ack! How did I lose track of time like this?! Pinkie must be so worried. I got’ta-!”
“Woah, there, partner!” Applejack leaps forward, taking my head in her forehooves, not letting me look at anything but her eyes. “Pinkie? I bet she already knows, and if she really is worried? She could zip on over with… her Pinkie-ness.” A.J. let’s out a reassuring sort of chuckle at this; I can’t not agree with that kind of logic, and already start to relax. “That’s it. Come along.” She starts to guide me up the stairs. “You can saw the log in one a’ the guest bedrooms.” I just nod along now, suddenly realizing how tired I am—the last thing I note before I fall asleep is that the Apples must have built their house so big to accommodate their positively giant family whenever they have one of their common-enough reunions.
- - - -
XXX
- - - -
I don’t sleep for long, though, before the return of Apple Bloom’s cough wakes me; I stumble out of the surprisingly big bed (large enough to hold a branch or two of the Apple family tree?), half ready to give her her next dose when I hear a door being opened somewhere in the house, coming from the same direction as A.B.’s coughing; the house falls silent again soon after, leaving my drowsing self pushing stupidly against the door. A few seconds later, I remember the doorknob, only then do I realize there’s no more need for me to be up. I almost slam the door in annoyance, but I’m too weak from sleepiness to really put my (admittedly atrophied) Earth pony strength into it.
Sighing, I shamble awkwardly back to my bed, feeling as if a weight is hanging under me, swinging back and forth, intent on pulling me off my hooves. Indeed, I all but fall against the bed when I reach it, letting the “weight” body-check me, making the sturdy looking wood bedframe rattle. I heft myself back up with quite a lot of trouble, but eventually wiggle and roll back into position, then pull the blanket over myself with another sigh.
As my breathing slows, I start to feel really hot; I shove the blanket away and start getting comfortable again, but the sudden thought that I might be catching Apple Bloom’s sickness knocks me suddenly wide awake. I try to keep my eyes clenched shut, thinking to myself, “sleep… sleep,” over and over, but slowly, I start to overheat again, even uncovered. “Gruh!” grumbling, I slam my hooves against the bed like a toddler, making it shake and squeak and groan under me, before launching myself off the bed to open the window.
-or at least that what I intended to do, for instead I merely push myself a few inches, and the bed groans as if in pain, bouncing and wiggling fiercely, as if a boulder had fallen on it. “Ever better,” I mutter, imagining the disease taking away my strength and making me dizzy, but such thoughts are fleeting when I move my hooves to shuffle off the bed, for they contact my belly where my trim abdomen has no right or way to be! Disbelieving, I rub over the impossibly now-bulbous flesh, feeling my hoof rubbing my belly, and feeling my hoof tracing along a quite rounded blob.
Finally, my denial mostly overcome and dreading destruction, I lift my head up with no accompanying weakness or dizziness to look down at myself. “Urk!?” My throat gets caught, both a scream and a gasp fighting over my only means of vocalization, leaving me gaping, silent, as I look over my now-vast torso. The gasp wins out when I finally realize, by the light of the moon, that I’m growing still fatter!—I try to dismiss it, but even under the weak light I cannot dismiss just how much warmer all this “instant insulation” is making me, nor the occasional straining of the bed underneath as the weight—my weight!—upon it grows.
“Wha-?” I let out weakly; I know Apple family dinners tend to be “ample”, but not like this! I didn’t even eat all that much! I-!…-couldn’t possibly eat this much… Could this instead be some kind of weird dream? Always possible, I suppose, but that’s “Conclusion Z”, only to be seriously considered after I’m sure I’ve ruled out everything else. Next? Something from the Everfree Forest? Knowing about Shrinking Violets and Mirror Pools and all sorts of other strange magic things, I wouldn’t put it past the forest to contain something that makes one fat at a mere touch, even hours after contact.
-and it’s showing no signs of stopping, or even slowing! I can’t begin to guess the amount of weight I’ve gained just since I had become aware of the fact I am and had been gaining… All of that means, I think, that I better find help before I’m rendered immobile. However, this is easier thought than done, for though my torso had been the center of the most growth, I realize, as I continue wiggling toward the edge of the bed, working up a sweat, that my legs, neck, and even… hips and buttocks are not spared, making movement even more difficult than I had just thought a second ago.
More than that, the bed creaks and shakes ever more ominously below me as I race the growth of my body, hoping I can “use” the fall from the bed to the floor to get my bulk on my legs, for I’m sure I cannot simply stand as I am; I don’t even know how I’m going to walk, but I forcefully don’t think about that. One step at a time here, Pan, or rather, “one wiggle at a time”. Interestingly, just as I turn this into a mantra, moving starts to become slowly easier. I grin at my own strength-of-will, but when I once more shift my legs, I notice it’s still yet larger; I can only assume I must now be growing muscle instead or in addition. “Huh, well that’s… lucky? -good, I guess.” I shrug, now definitely noticing the rippling of new muscle in addition to the wiggling of new fat.
Finally, I pull myself off the bed and stand; even with the boon of strength, however, I find that the growth of weight is yet greater, leaving me capable of nothing more than waddling, even if my legs weren’t being pushed apart by mass. I take a moment to find my new balance and steel myself for the doubtless awkwardness of asking for help, then begin my way across the room. Lowering my head against the struggle (as if about I’m about to ram the door), I realize how my recently acquired gibbosity renders me nearly unable to lift my belly from the ground: Only another inch or so and I would be dragging more than walking. Thankfully, though, it seems I’m done growing for now.
At this I close my eyes with a sigh of both relief and exhaustion, but when I open them again, ready to rise my head and face my strange problem with a determined glare, I note that I look a little more pale than just a few seconds ago. My coat had always had a washed-out, cream-like appearance, so I’m sure only I would be able to tell the difference now; under the paling power of the Moon, I try to convince myself it’s just a trick of the light, but I simply know myself too well to not be stopped by confusion. Running a hoof over the fur, I find it feels different as well: a little more coarse and a little more sparse. I quickly deduce that this, likely an effect of the same thing that just made me fat, is almost certainly going to progress as well.
I continue on, and when I finally reach and open the door, I see that my fur, still thinning out, is now revealing quite a lot of pink skin underneath. Closing the door behind me with a little struggle, I glance up and down the hallway I find myself in, not knowing where I, or anypony else, may be, and soon simply push open the already-ajar door directly across from me. It’s a bathroom, rustic and plain as everything else “Apple”, but with a mirror along one wall (a trailing thought tells me Rarity probably had insisted on it in foresight of sleepovers), and the space is just a little cramped. As much as I wish to get help as soon as possible, my infamous curiosity—which once lured me to eat a strip of real pig-flesh bacon (something most ponies, I’ve since learned, can’t even imagine without getting nauseous), thus earning my Cutie Mark—pulls me all too compellingly to view exactly what the Everfree Forest had done to me. However, worrying about the small space and my recent enlargement, I think ahead, turning around to back myself in, my broadened belly barely passing the door, then kick shut.
Yet again, I freeze. Though I had certainly felt every gained ounce just trying to get from my bed to here, to actually see what had actually happened to my body is something else… This is what I imagine most mortal ponies would look like trying to match Celestia’s intake of cake! Jokes aside, I can barely recognize myself as the protuberant, pink—for my fur had indeed continued to thin—sac of fat staring back at me, and if it were not for my Cutie Mark, I’m sure I- wait! My Cutie Mark! Even as I watch, already knowing the helplessness, it fades, not just from the mysteriously disappearing fur, but the leftover fur’s color fades just as the rest, leaving not a trace in less than a minute!
The transformation doesn’t stop, and a transformation I know it is, now. Before I can even begin to panic at the loss, my mane and tail go the same way, retracting into my skin, also paling, but this time not so much, leaving the barest hint of the once muscle-red and fat-pale yellow. Other than this, my mane retracts until it’s the same length as the rest of my fur, and thins out to the same consistency, but my tail is left almost bare, and what it reveals would have made me scream if it hadn’t made my blood freeze first: short, thin, curled, and pink.
A pig! That’s what this had been leading to this whole time! I would have groaned if still not rendered quite frozen; it seems like some kind of sick idea of a joke, turning me into the animal whose tasty flesh I had loved the moment it touched my tongue—turning me into… pre-bacon! At this point, all my muscles lose tension, and I, unprepared, fall the now very short distance onto my stomach, barely feeling any difference beyond the relief for which I hadn’t known my legs longed. Sure enough, when I also allow my head to sag upon my padded neck, I am granted a first-row seat to my hooves’ turn in this madness. Like every other process, I don’t feel anything as I watch them shrink and split; the only sensation I’m left with is decreased sensitivity that comes with the loss of the frogs.
“Pig!… a pig. Pig,” I whisper to myself, the draining shock leaving me in wonder, shaking my head, at this weird, powerful effect; it almost makes the Shrinking Violet look like a trick for entertaining foals. I raise myself up (as much as I can, now) on my new toe-like hooves, glancing back up at the mirror in time to watch my neck shrink and shift, and I think, If this continues, I might not even be able to recognize myse- oh… “N-Oink! Oink?” No! I meant to say no! Lifting a hoof to my throat, all too late, I realize that where I am is just as important as what I’m turning into: I know that the Apples, though they use their pigs mostly for truffle hunting, aren’t averse selling them to butcher … and I just lost my ability to speak: to communicate my predicament—a predicament that would have been difficult enough to believe even if I could actually tell about it… Maybe, if I can just find somepony before the transformation completes! Why did I have to be so stupidly curious and waste all this time watching this curse cloak my identity!?
Knowing I’m racing against this thing, I, of course, mess up immediately, trying to open the door with my now-frog-less, and thus gripless, hooves. By the time I try to open the door with my teeth, the first thing I notice is how strange the knob feels in my mouth—or rather, how strange my half-transformed muzzle feels around the knob. No matter how panicked I am, however, my muscles simply cannot ignore completely the weight now restricting them; perhaps all I can hope for now is that somepony hears my frantic hooves scrabbling and maybe- … I cringe, but cast off my pride and begin oinking madly, each sound—a sound that no pony should be able to produce—making my ears twitch.
I only stop when I have to pause to open the next door, and by then the tip of my nose is turned up at the end, no doubt sporting two huge nostrils. Beyond the door, however, is a bed! -with a blanket on it! -with a pony-shaped lump under it! However-however, all my racket has not caused a dent in this pony’s slumber, but I know I can’t just keep looking—the transformation is almost done: I have to wake up this pony! I try to stomp my weight down as heavily as I can, now oinking more loudly than I thought possible, but still the pony only begins to move when I slam myself against the side of the bed.
“Hn-mm?” The now-revealed Big McIntosh rolls over, but doesn’t even blink. Just as I try to jump my forelegs onto the edge of the bed—still very much feeling the unusual weight I just gained—my vision blurs and distorts into near blindness, leaving my quite unable to aim my hooves where I want to fall, so I freeze up, slamming a considerable amount of bulk against the surprisingly sturdy floor. Once I can see again, I only take a millisecond to deduce, blinking, that that must have been my eyes’ turn to be rendered inequine. I nearly fall, crying, wondering what else could be left to recognize me by but my ears, and how should a still half asleep pony be able to see that my ears are wrong then connect that to me missing from my bed, but I can’t give up, no matter how slim my chance may now be! I’m not going to be treated like a pig for the rest of my life, especially with a-… I shiver—-a griffon in town! -and if she doesn’t get me, Gilda makes often-enough visits now, to say nothing other potential carnivores visiting Ponyville, so how long could I expect to last, being obese even for a pig?!
I jump once more and this time land where I intended before, jostling Big Mac enough to make him finally squint his eyes open. Just in time, it seems, as similarly to my sight, the squeaking of the still-settling bed suddenly cuts off—surely deafness signaling the transformation of my ears—and I see his lips move. Is that my name? Did he see me in time?! I can’t imagine what else is left for the Everfree’s magic to affect, except… -except, perhaps, my mind, effectively killing me, turning me into nothing more than money for the Apples and a meal for some lucky creature… which might yet happen anyway! Come on, hearing!
“S-wha?” My heart must have stopped sometime ago, I realize as I stare into his eyes, hoping and, if that hope proves false, imploring him to understand, to see the intelligence now trapped inside. “Why are you in here?”—My heart leaps!—“How did’ja get out’ta the surround?”—and falls, hitting my stomach so hard it nearly slips into my intestines, past the point of return. I’m not done yet! “Gggghuuuuh!” He sleepily growls as he stands and stretches. “Tha others better not’ve gone too far… ghmmm-hmph!” he grunts after leaping smoothly over me and landing, somehow, without a sound (maybe some manifestation of his Earth pony magic?). I back up off the bed, falling much more loudly, but before I can turn around, A rope flashes across my vision and, before I can even register what happened, a lasso tightens around my throat and pulls me around.
“Yer not gon’na give me any trouble, are ya?” Big Mac mumbles to himself—I am not going to delude myself in this very definitely dangerous situation!—as he leads me out of his room. No matter what, though, I don’t have much of a choice but to follow him as he leads me with the improvised collar-and-leash, no matter how humiliating it is. As we pass my room, I try to move towards it, but Big Mac—surprisingly lucid—catches me preemptively out of the corner of his eye. “No, ya don’t. Ye’r not botherin’ Mister Pan.” Not that lucid, apparently, if he doesn’t realize that “I” should have been awoken by my piggy racket long before he, what with his deep hard-working-farmer’s sleep.
On almost every step down the stairs I wobble, only avoiding falling by pure will, and only after we reach the bottom do I think that maybe falling would have actually made a good plan: If I made enough banging and crashing on the way down, waking everypony, then surely the Apples would notice my absence? I shake my head; either way, it’s too late. -and if all my squealing and oinking hadn’t done anything, how could I expect a pig falling down stairs to be any better at waking them?
With no other plans, I follow Big McIntosh close enough for the rope to be quite slack; he even gets a hint of a smile and mumbles, “E-yup. No trouble…” Thusly we reach the pig surround in no time at all, and we both find it (just as I expected) in a clearly not-broken state. “What?” Big Mac actually drops the lasso, mouth catching flies. “-then how?” He turns to point at me, but before I can even begin to scheme another way to communicate my equinity, he turns back to the surround and scratches his temple, but soon shakes his head. “I’m too tired for this. I’ll figure this out tomorrow.” It seems Big Mac only likes to talk to himself…
He takes the rope up once more, leads me over, and opens the gate, and I, reluctantly, allow myself to be led in to join the “other” pigs, a few flicking their ears and raising their heads sleepily at us, but most remain snoring, and those that rouse lay still again within seconds. As Big Mac loosens the lasso, I consider making a break for it through the gate sleepy Big Mac had left open, but I shake my head. Where would I go, and what would I do when I got there? No, I’ll just have to wait out this indignity and hope the Apples notice I’m missing, that they have one extra pig, and put two and two together before something regrettable and permanent happens. Even worried about such, however, I can only think of how tired I really am as I lay down; it only makes sense, though, I suppose, if I add up my interrupted sleep, the transformation, and all the stress of worrying. I only remember yawning once.
- - - -
XXX
- - - -
As next I blink awake to the sound of voices, I can only wonder how the Sun had not woken me much earlier. One-… no, both of the voices sound familiar, though one I had only heard once before, and yet now it seems slightly different… no more playfully threatening, but instead just-. Oh, no. Once again my sleepiness is knocked out of me by a worrying thought, yet this time I am correct: There, standing with Big Mac, both looking into the pig pen—looking at me!—is the griffon I had “met” last night, and I can only imagine one reason a griffon would be here, speaking with the owner of these pigs… “these pigs” from which I am now indistinguishable!
Before I can even begin to think of any way out of this, the griffon points at me, and if I had any doubt about what that gesture means, it’s dashed by Big Mac’s nod and a bag—presumably full of bits—that the griffon produces. Now full of panic, I struggle to stand, but the new body to which I’m still not accustomed slows me significantly; if not for the current situation, I might have sweated with embarrassment instead of exertion as I wiggle awkwardly in trying to roll onto my stomach. When I finally stand, I find myself snout-to-beak with her, having not heard her approach in focusing on my effort, but I barely register this in comparison to that smile. It’s different than the one from when she had approached me when I was a pony, and the little hope I had left is gone: She doesn’t recognize me—of course she doesn’t—because that smile means I’m no longer her plaything, but her meal.
We lock eyes for just a moment; I frozen in fear, but I hear her take a big breath—taking in my scent. The next thing I know, I blink, and that fraction of a second, I tense, attempting to prepare myself for escape, but then when my eyes open, I’m looking into the griffon’s throat: She’s lowered her head to be on eye level with me, so I can see quite far into that tunnel of smooth muscles, which shift and flow like a strange sea as she breathes out again, and her tongue twitches, drenched with anticipation.
I would have yelped and jumped backwards had I been able, but this body turns it into a squeal and I just fall on my rump as my back legs give out from the shivering I hadn’t realized until now. In the interim, the beak opens even wider and, having witnessed what griffons are capable of a couple times, I know what’s about to happen, and I wonder whether I would prefer this or being consumed more… traditionally. Of course I’m given no say in the matter, and before I can even try to stand again, the beak (or rather the entire griffon, but that is all she’s become to me now) launches forward, going so far with that one stroke that my nose already touches that point where the gullet narrows into the esophagus; the pounding of her heart and the whooshing of blood also suddenly overtakes my hearing.
She takes only a second or two to taste me—the tongue wiggling side-to-side under my chin and neck—before she pinches my neck with her beak, and I wonder for a moment if she might actually end me now, but she merely pulls me towards herself, and I know she’s pulling her neck back into a resting position before she opens her beak slightly then jerks it forward again. As she rests her neck again, she swallows and now the whole front of my face is pressed against muscle, and I can feel the strength of it even as it tugs futily against my muzzle: each squeeze uncomfortably tight. -and hot. Compared to the morning air, already the humid heat of the inside of the beak suffuse my head, having me swooning until my crumpling forelegs, let my chest flop onto the tongue, shocking me back to wakefulness.
I evaluate my position as she swallows two more times, bringing my head fully into the esophagus—each squeeze now threatening to bring on a headache. No one seems to recognize me, and it could be days before anyone realizes what could have happened, and by then I’d have already left this griffon by her other end! I can’t let this just happen! Squealing again, I throw my rear side-to-side to prise myself free, and at the same time, press my forehooves against the beak, pushing it away from around myself. However, the throat proves its strength by clamping down, the sudden pressure almost making me stop.
If my attempt at escape affects the griffon at all, her reactions that I can feel don’t show it: Calmly—so it seems to me—she takes my forelegs into her talons and suddenly presses them against my neck. I, not realizing in time her plan, instead help her shove my legs into the beak, and the now-pressing tongue keeps me from reversing. Then, in one smooth motion, she takes my flanks in between her talons and simultaneously lifts her front half upwards until she’s perpendicular with the ground… with my body ready to fall straight down her throat!
She doesn’t let me falls too fast, however; she keeps a tight grip on my rear and every few swallows she pauses to lick at my chest and—all too soon for me—my belly. I’ve left my squealing and settled for whimpering instead (or whatever the pig-equivalent is, but I’ve stopped caring). Now, my thoughts turn to my last hope: That, despite all appearances, it had all been part of the she-griffon’s sexual play after all. She had threatened to hunt me if I didn’t keep our “appointment”, yes?! -and-… and the Poison Joke! If she knew the effect of the Poison Joke, she would have mentioned it to me if it wasn’t part of some plan to make me helpless in some way, and if she didn’t know, then she should also be affected because she also wouldn’t know the cure!
Now assured, I fall relaxed, and even smile as the griffon squeezes and pulls me slowly deeper inside herself. I revel in the tight and wet, allowing these sensations to suffuse me as the undulating muscles deliver me into a world where only they exist. So entranced am I that I don’t even realize my arousal until my erection hits the tongue, and even then it feels distant, tacked-on compared to the massage of the esophagus almost completely encasing my rounded torso. Speaking of, a number of jolts—like earthquakes, but all around me—seem to threaten to expel me from my pleasure, and for a moment I worry the griffon might’ve bitten off (or rather, not bitten, thankfully) more than she can swallow, but a second later I realize she’s only laughing.
When the world around me that is a griffon’s insides calms again—as calm as such does get—I am given some respite as she adjusts her grip from my flank to behind my buttocks. Then, with finality, she shoves hard and after the bright burst of pleasure caused by such a move, I note that all the is left is my rear hooves on the back of her tongue. With the phlegmy, saliva-ish slime coating me, I can only tell I haven’t yet ejaculated by the begging for release that yet tugs at my groin. Oh! Why hadn’t I done something like this before!?
Expressing a complete lack of concern for my desire just as she had expressed for my person by turning my into little more than another strip of meat, she closes her beak around my hooves, and swallows with no ceremony, taking me fully inside of her and leaving me with no recourse; I’m entirely at her mercy, hoping she knows what she’s doing. This hope quickly becomes all the more real and immediate for me when my expanded nostrils poke past the sphincter to the stomach and I get my first whiff of that ghastly sac where so much meat before me had met its fate—some of them also still just as alive as myself, if this griffon is anything like the others I’ve known.
The squeeze of that ring of muscle rolling over me would have made me gasp if I hadn’t been mindful of the stomach acids my face is being shoved into. As I’m forced into that surprisingly stretchy sac, I imagine if I had still been a pony I would have also been forced to curl in on myself by those muscles that wrap around me now, but my new, rounded form is not so flexible, so the only way I’m notably restricted is my legs being pressed into my belly.
As things seem to be finally settling down, I feel the griffon move—awkwardly—sending me swinging; the unexpected stimulation of the fleshy stomach floor shifting side-to-side against my erection sends me over the edge, and when I return to myself, I hear someone (MacIntosh?) speaking, and then the griffon responding, but over her heartbeat and through all the flesh imprisoning me, I can’t make out anything other than that her tone seems to express satisfaction, then she begins moving again. I wait for some signal that the game is over, but all that comes is a belch, and as I just begin to process I might have misinterpreted, I feel that thought leave me into some fog. Several things then happen in quick succession: There’s a sudden shift in gravity as she lays on her back, a drumming sound and vague slapping sensation (from what I imagine is her patting her bulging stomach), and a last belch just as I blackout.