//------------------------------// // The Last Meal // Story: Tales of a Hidden World: Book 2 // by Braininthejar //------------------------------// The parasprite flapped its wings, thrashing against the wires of the cage like an oversized moth. The flame illuminating the hut cast wild, flickering shadows on the walls. Busara ignored it. He once again leaned over the table, opening his mouth. The pain was excruciating, his jaw vibrating with torment each time he dragged it along the metal file, but he ignored that too. He had no herbs left to sedate himself with, but the pain was a part of the ritual. The old zebra let it flow through him, hardening his determination with every move. Almost there. A few more, and I will be ready. He straightened himself and spat some blood onto the floor. The night outside was moonless, perfect for the spells he was about to weave, perfect for revenge. For Fali, Udadisi, Nzuri… He let the memories pass in front of his eyes, remembering every face from his family, letting them flow through him and stoke his anger. He was never a singer, and his current injuries made every word painful, but as he prepared to return to the file and continue his work, he opened his mouth and wailed, foul curses flowing from his lips. The parasprite stopped thrashing in its cage, and looked at Busara curiously. The zebra returned to the file. Excruciating minutes passed as he kept working. Finally he stepped away, and looked into a broken mirror he still had among his tools. Just as he had expected, he looked horrible. There was blood on his mouth, staining his lips red and dripping onto his chin in several places. When he smiled, he could see the effect of his work; his teeth were ruined, filed to wicked points, unsuited for eating any normal food. But there was no normal food anymore. The Shattered had made sure of it. The parasprites they created, the strange small monsters that multiplied at an unbelievable rate, turning every plant they could eat into more of themselves. First the fruit disappeared, then the foliage hiding the zebra warriors. Then the stalks and the grass, until they found themselves trying to defend a wasteland. Animals started to die, first the herbivores, then the predators that ate them, then even the scavengers, the least picky of the meat eaters. The zebras had some supplies, enough to last them for weeks when the disaster struck. Some of them ran. Were they the smartest, or the most cowardly? The majority stayed, determined to defend their homeland. But soon it became apparent that the enemy was not coming. The blimps would hang in the distance, always watching, but they wouldn’t engage the defenders. They were waiting, Busara realized, waiting for the famine to kill everypony. All that’s left is a desert. Nothing to conquer, no point in even ending the war anymore. Nothing but death. Had they planned it this way from the start? Had they wanted to wipe out the zebras? Or did they just lose control over the horrors they created until there was no point holding back? He should have seen that coming, really. The decision was logical, a cold calculation to minimise the risk and maximise the death toll. But he hadn’t. Even after all he had seen, he couldn’t anticipate such an atrocity. And now everypony who stayed was dead. Busara knew. As they died he had stayed with them, protected by the favour of the spirits, his magic magnified by the magical trinket he had taken from a slain enemy. The stone now hanging in a silver gorget on his neck, a vivid pink quartz, was Inspiration - one of the artifacts similar to the ones the Imperial ponies used to commit their blasphemy. Busara looked down on the crystal. There was now a drop of blood on its surface, the light inside distorted by the stain, as if trying to avoid it. The shaman clenched his jaw. He hated the thing. When he took it as a trophy in the battlefield, off the body of a white mare who had succumbed to poisoned darts, he clearly recognized its power. The crystal filled his body with magic, and his mind with ideas. It served him well in the war. But when the cursed enemies stooped to killing the land itself, there was nothing he could do. If I had unicorn magic, I could create something edible, he thought angrily for a thousandth time. But the spirit magic doesn’t work that way. He tried everything. He even tried to learn to cast spells the unicorn way. But it was too little too late. He could make the power nourish him, but he failed to do the same for others. He even tried giving the necklace to his niece Udadisi, hoping to save at least one life, but that didn’t work either - the filly had no idea how to awaken the power within the crystal. Busara closed his eyes. Enough. Blaming myself won’t help. It’s not myself I’m trying to target. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He focused on his anger again, thinking of the enemy blimps hanging impassively overhead. Of the faces of his tribe, thinner and thinner, less and less numerous. He stepped away from the table and walked outside. There, they all waited for him, a circle of zebra skulls surrounding a fire in the middle of the now empty village. There were other skulls, of various species, gathered around it in bigger circles. Busara walked among them, making sure not to step on any, and added the last of the gathered wood to the fire. It is almost done, he thought in the direction of the most familiar skulls. Walking back inside, he looked around for his tools. He no longer needed the pigments. He passed the writing table - they had eaten the paper long before, except for the old notes Busara’s apprentice took when he escaped. Perhaps we should’ve all left… no. The world is ending anyhow. Mwandishi wanted to save my writings, but what good will the prophecies do if they’re coming true already? He sighed, and turned away from the table. This is not how the spirits told me. But that just means worse is still coming. We will be struck down by those monsters, before the world is struck down by the gods themselves. He spat again, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. No more distractions. He went to a rack where his ceremonial clothes were waiting. There was a shimmering cloak stitched from parasprite wings, back from the day when they got desperate enough to try eating the parasprites, only for the Imperials to take their swarms away, using strange music to lure them away and burn them before they could endanger their own lands. There was a ceremonial hat made from vulture feathers and a skull of a starved jaguar. Busara put both on, slowly, feeling some of his doubts ebb away, as the spell he had been preparing started taking shape inside his head. The crystal on his neck flashed once, and then turned dark. The cloak billowed, despite there being no wind. Busara felt the power coursing through him, along with the feelings embedded in his clothes - the hunger of the dying predator; the hunger of a waiting carrion-eater; the mindless gluttony of the insatiable swarm. He felt the dull pain of hunger in his own stomach intensify, and the blood trickling from his chin now mixed with saliva. He grabbed the parasprite cage, and left the hut. There was nothing there he’d care about anymore. He walked into the circle, and stood in front of the fire. He took a breath, and focused. His mind, trained through long years of practice, supplied the right words. “Hear my voice, spirits! I call to you! By all the pain we have suffered through By all the harm done to me and to you It is time for our foes to suffer too!” he intoned, dropping the cage at his feet. The shadows around the fire changed, stretching and shifting. The lines on the sides of the huts turned into distorted shapes of skulls, then skeletons, then emaciated animals. Busara continued his spell. “I call you spirits! Come! Come to my aid! If our fate is to die and to fade Before our souls can to rest be laid Let us teach these monsters how to be afraid!” The shadows rose, and Busara felt the feelings in his head coalesce - he could now hear actual voices, a growing noise of shouting zebras and screaming animals. His stone flashed again, the pink light darkening into angry red. Busara felt growing pain in his joints and his vision swam. The shadows formed a ring of darkness around him. They had gained enough substance that he recognised the familiar faces; his sister Fali, her husband and daughter, the old chieftain of the tribe, and the warriors, the toughest zebras, who were the last to die. He could see their gazes boring into him, waiting, their mouths opening and closing. More shadows appeared, more zebras, then the beasts, buffalos, jaguars and lions. The crowd was growing with every second, the shadows passing through each other as they exhausted the available space. Though none of them moved, the shifting darkness made the bonfire in its center look like the eye of a storm. Busara took a breath once more. “They brought us death, and they brought us pain Even the land itself they drove insane It is time of reckoning for their pride and their greed For the famine they brought us… now let us all feed!” He kicked the cage at his feet, tipping it over and breaking the door. The parasprite inside flapped its wings desperately, but before it could fly out, Busara stuck his snout inside the cage, and bit down. The creature tasted like an overripe fruit, its skin giving way easily under the shaman’s pointy teeth. A part of him, small and fading fast, was disgusted by the taste. The rest was too hungry to care. He bit off a large piece, and swallowed. His belly seemed to cave in in an instant, the hunger crossing through maddening pain, and beyond, a hunger of a starving herd too large to count. He kept biting, blood splattering on his snout, swallowing without chewing until the parasprite stopped struggling, and disappeared in his jaws, wings and all. The pain intensified, Busara’s skin stretching on his bones, his body growing thinner by the second. The bonfire exploded and went out, the shadows flooding the empty space. *** Busara opened eyes that weren’t his. He could still see his own body floating in the air inside a swirling mass of shadows, his cloak flapping on the wind that wasn’t quite real, the light of Inspiration a tiny red pinprick in the darkness. But at the same time he could see the night around him with thousands of eyes, hear with ears beyond counting. In an instant he was every shadow, the thousands of his own desperate last breath echoing around him, their anguish his anguish. Their hunger his hunger. He looked around, and saw a shape across the night sky; a small flying ship bearing the crests of the Alicorn Empire, a golden flying alicorn over a red, blazing sun. He could smell the blood of the crew, hear their every breath. There were so few of them… this will only be a start. He extended his will, and the towering mass of shadows rushed forward, a cloud of blackness blotting out the stars. Fast as wind, it reached the airship, and spilled onto the deck; Busara could see the horrified expressions of the three unicorns standing on guard duty. Then the land of the zebras opened its mouths to feed.