“Ponyfeathers, get that away!” I shrieked once again, pushing her talon away from my form. Celestia forbid, I didn’t even want that stuff on my hooves, let along inside me. If I had my magic, I swear, I’d toss her into the jungle.
""Eat it, Sparkle!"" She shoved the dripping slice towards me and I cringed away from it once again. It was still before the height of the day, and I had started to feel the onset of my hunger. I hadn’t moved far to find something to eat before Ker’iah tackled me and dragged my body back to the tent.
Currently, I found myself in some disagreement with her, one neither of us seemed to be backing down from. “I said, no. I won’t be eating meat. I’m not a gryphon. I don’t do meat!” I shouted back at her. “Just let me find something I can eat myself.”
Ker’iah sighed softly, setting down the strip and stretching her talon out to grab her bag. ""Fine, if you want to find something, let’s go and find something then,"" she muttered, opening the tent and slipping outside.
I tentatively followed, shaking my hooves as I stood up, and parted the tent before seeing her tail disappear into the foliage. I trotted behind her, tilting my head. “Where are we going?”
""To fix this,"" she murmured cryptically, not pausing in the slightest.
“You’re not too mad, right? I mean-” I paused my sentence as her face turned back to look at me.
""Not mad, just… annoyed I guess, "" she sighed, pushing through another couple of branches. Eventually we ended up in a clearing, not too unlike the one we were making our residence in at the moment. I watched her circumnavigate the area one time, pulling a few clawfuls of plants from the branches and brush before setting them between us.
There were at least 8 different types of vegetation, each in a pile before me. “What is this?” I asked, glancing between the piles and her. Next to them, she laid a strip of meat.
""Dinner. Your dinner, to be specific. Sparkle, there are many things you have no idea about, and you’ve given me no choice but to prove things to you."" She pointed a talon down at each pile. ""Each of those are the most common plants in this jungle, what most people in your diet would consider… food.""
I nodded slowly, mouth watering slightly from the mention of food again. “Alright.”
""And each of those will kill a pony sized creature in minutes if they are eaten. Each and every flower, berry, and leaf would,"" she said, suddenly pushing her beak towards my face.
She held up a collection of berries in her claws, letting them hang right below our faces. ""Relas is a brush present everywhere here, and is also very common as decoration for gardens. Its berries contain a toxin known to corrupt the consumer’s wellspring, not simply damaging it, but devouring it to fuel the plant’s growth.""
Ker’iah sighed, letting them fall back into the pile. She lifted another, this time a flower, vaguely reminding of a rose.
""A’sya’s Camellias: a flower commonly found in the jungle and other woods. Unlike the flowers most ponies can eat, this one has a strong aphrodisiac that renders anyone who eats them into a lust-driven state for a week, even subverting the flight instincts of Zebras. While not lethal, it distracts the mind to the point the victims die trying to buck their own predators.
""You know why I’m telling you this right?"" she asked, gazing back at me. ""Even if we ever leave this jungle, we won’t be finding much food in any towns. A lot of Ep’rus is agricultural, but we are in the middle of a war. Wars aren’t pretty. People don’t get the food they want or need anymore.""
She pushed the meat closer towards me and a cold sweat started to drip down my face. The gryphon looked dejected at this point, and stared at me with a mix of frustration and expectation.
I stared at the strip of flesh. It used to be part of something. A deer, a rabbit? Who knew other than the gryphon in front of me. I forced out the emotional part of me. Her logic was flawless; even in nature, an herbivore would turn to eating meat in cases of starvation.
To think the mare who took on Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis would be stopped by piece of meat and a growing pain in her belly.
""Twilight..."" she breathed, pulling herself to my level, our faces nearly touching right above the meat. She moved it slightly closer to me, until it was inches from my lips. I could start to smell it now. The blood dripping off of it, the white fat lines through it.
I winced; I had to shut off my eyes from it. I thought of Spike, my adopted brother. Dragons ate meat in addition to gems, though we had never given him any. I knew that at some point, he’d try it, and he certainly wasn’t a monster. Neither were the gryphons. Nor Ker’iah.
I reached down slowly. My tongue was curled up in the corner of my mouth, trying to avoid touching the meat as my teeth sank around it. I gagged, trying to force myself from dry heaving as I pulled it inside my jaws.
The introduction of the meat was flooding my senses, violating them with its disgusting scent, flavor, and texture. I felt sick; my teeth bit into the strip instinctively, and I regretted every second of it.
It was like rubber in my mouth, disgustingly chewy, but I ignored the horrific feeling in my jaws. I forced myself to swallow the vile substance, followed immediately by a series of coughing, half to get the taste out of my mouth and the other half to try and force it back up my throat.I could feel my stomach twist, but my cursed anatomy couldn’t cough it back up.
I ate meat. I devoured a living creature.
…
How would I ever look at Fluttershy again? All her animals... I was a murderer.
No, I couldn’t say that. I glanced back up at Ker’iah; she seemed nice most of the time, she wasn’t evil. I thought of Spike once again. I couldn’t ever say that about him, about them, I’d be calling the entire gryphon and dragon races evil. I couldn’t force myself to call them that. Ker’iah had taken me into her tent for a month now and tended to me.
A shiver ran down my spine.
A month. I must have eaten during that time.
“This wasn’t my first time eating meat, was it?” I wasn’t as… plump, dare I say, as I was in Ponyville anymore, but I wasn’t showing any signs of starvation. “You force fed me while I was in a coma, didn’t you?”
Ker’iah hesitated for a moment before nodding. She scratched the back of her head, looking away from me. ""Soup, a recipe of my own, modified to take into account our… surroundings."" She was terrified of how I was going to react, wasn’t she?
I paused to think for a moment. She had done so much for me, how in Equestria could I have even thought for a second to call her a monster? I could feel the tears swelling in my eyes now.
""I-I’m sorry if I forced you to do that, don’t worry, I...""
Something compelled me to wrap my arms around her. I noticed the knot forming in my throat, and was unable to hold myself back from sobbing. “Th-thank you. Thank you so much.”
I could feel a hesitant claw wrapping around me. I knew in the back of my mind I was suprising her, she probably expected me to hate her. She had been unsure; so was I. I burrowed my tear-stained snout into her feathers, my breaths coming quick, each one followed by a sniffle.
I didn’t speak. She didn’t speak. I just cried softly into her shoulder, tears of mourning over my friends: the girls, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining… Spike. I may never see them again. I had eaten meat, indirectly been responsible for ending the life of a creature to survive. But there were tears of joy, too. I had someone, someone who cared for me, even if I hadn’t care for myself.
-o-0-O-0-o-
That day was a wake up for me. I was no longer in Equestria. I’d have to adapt, even if my heart told me I was changing into something I had feared of ever becoming since I’d seen the likes of Nightmare Moon and Discord. Part of me died that day. I may never get it back again, even if I do manage to return to Equestria.
It would be another month or so of trying to swallow the strips whole, ignoring the chewy texture and the slimy blood-stained coating of each piece. I can’t remember the exact number of days that passed before I stopped noticing it. I was starting to care less about it. Licking the blood off my lips, tearing into the flesh of an animal like it was normal.
To any pony reading this, I don’t blame Ker’iah for what she did. She dragged me through hell herself, struggling to fight her every step of the way. But the two months I spent in the jungle have changed me. I don’t think I am quite an equestrian anymore. Definitely not the friendship loving mare I was when I teleported inside these woods weeks ago.
-o-0-O-0-o-