Tartarus.
Most ponies will only have heard the legend and dismiss it as a fantasy. Few know of it as a real place, where the most heinous and horrific of creatures are banished for crimes unspeakable. Fewer still have entered its elusive gates, carved of black obsidian, its channels and engravings glowing red as though the blood of profane gods flowed down its surface. Of all alive today, only a handful have entered this hellish place and returned with souls intact.
Tartarus was more than a tiny room with a few bare cages; it was a city-prison. While prisoners were confined for eight to twelve hours of the day, they were otherwise mandated into a strict parole schedule, with a mere hour or two of free time for those who were on good behavior... well, good by the standards of world-ending tyrants and soul-sucking monsters.
The wardens had long since realized that drunken prisoners were not only far less of a threat, but also much happier than sober ones, and thus less likely to cause trouble. As such, during lunch hour, most prisoners were allowed to choose their favorite pub and get utterly plastered, so long as they were somehow able to remain in accordance with their parole afterward - such as if a sober friend were there to guide them in the right direction.
And in one such pub - The Eternal Regret, it was called - four miserable creatures convened around the table, well-fed and - except for the smallest of them - drunk off of their butts.
“Th’ Holler King’s a feckin’ douche,” Chrysalis hiccuped, her flagon held unsteadily in her sickly green aura. She’d only had one glass, but alcohol fell right through her. “D’... d’ any of you know th’ Holler King? That feckin’ douche?”
Cozy Glow, the sole sober member of their party and only pony filly in Tartarus, scowled at her and sighed, but knew it was useless to object to her language. She’d had to listen to this for weeks and was resigned to hear it for eons.
“Aye, I know the Hollow King!” concurred Tirek, who held his liquor well - in his hand, at least. “The Hollow King attended the coronation of Princess Celestia! He thought it was a wedding and tried to kiss her. More than kiss her, actually...”
“Tell ‘em my brothas!” squawked King Sombra. His voice got higher-pitched and squeakier the drunker he got. “When the Holla King take hisself a crap, a new Tree-a-Harmony is born. True dat!” Cozy winced and let her face fall onto the table with a soft thwump.
Sadly, Cozy knew they were expecting her to chime in too. Without lifting her face from the table, she sighed. “The Hollow King is my dad. He might be your dad, too, actually.” she delivered in a low monotone.
“D’d I ever tell youshe,” Chrysalis slurred, “’bout da time da Holler King did a birfday party f’r lil’ Thorax?” Her eyes went teary in reminiscence.
“Wish I could eat the Hollow King’s crap,” Tirek interrupted. The others furrowed their brows and looked at him, blinking.
Chrysalis brandished her flagon once more. “He crasheshesh’d through da wall, juggled da hashlin’s like bowlin’ pinsh, ‘n’ tole me ta suck hish dick,” she hiccuped. “And I woulda, but it wash way too big.” As she spread her forelegs out to illustrate a great size, Cozy wished it was possible to die in Tartarus.
“To the Hollow King!!” the three yelled, and clanked flagons. Cozy looked up with exhausted, half-lidded eyes and clinked her empty hoof instead of a flagon, then put her face back down.
“The Hollow King once shoved a huge dragon up the arse of an Ursa Major,” Tirek claimed. He punched his empty hand through the air with a twisting motion to illustrate the proper technique. Cozy saw it with one eye and wished she hadn’t.
“Tha Holla King, smart mo’afucka that he is, can solve any damn Sudoku puzzle in three seconds... wiff him ding... a-ding-dong... his ding-dong dick!” Sombra squealed. Chrysalis put a hoof to her temple, annoyed by the high-pitched sounds.
“When the Hollow King eats spicy food, the restaurant burns down.” Cozy mumbled. She wished the pub would burn down too, with them in it, but they were already in Tartarus, so it was probably fireproof.
“Th’ Holler King ate a whole cake beforr we tol’ him there wash a shtripper in it,” Chrysalis added.
“Have I told you about the Hollow King’s grRrRreatest battle?” Tirek roared, standing and gesturing illustriously. Cozy groaned.
“Sometimes at tha supahmarket I lick tha fruit ‘n’ put that shit back on the stand,” Sombra said. The little filly lifted her head to slam her face into the table a few times.
“It was against the reindeer of the frigid North,” Tirek narrated. “With a single emission of his rear, he rendered the species extinct, and now there are no reindeer in all the land. To this day, the mists of the north are deadly.” He chortled heartily. “I hope one day to match this feat!”
“To the Hollow King!!” they yelled again, with Cozy joining in half-hearted. She put her hoof into the mix without raising her face.
“Tha Holla King don’t never knock befo’ enterin’,” Sombra said. “Bitch caught me jackin’ off once.”
Cozy really hadn't ever needed to envision that. “When the Hollow King goes to watch a sports game, he picks up the arena and holds it in his hand,” the just-about-broken filly phoned in.
“When th’ Holler King drops his pantsh, hish cock ‘n’ ballsh carve canyons ‘n’ raish mountainsh!” Chrysalis yelled. Fuck, she was way too focused on this particular facet of the “Holler” King. Goddamned tramp.
“The Hollow King has sworn off of liquor, for he wishes to have full clarity to enjoy the screams of those he maims,” Tirek bellowed.
“I ever tell y’all ‘bout the time me ‘n’ Holla went lookin’ fo’ hos?” Sombra squeaked.
“I’m about to shit myself,” Cozy grumbled. The others, after a confused delay, scooted away from her and bunched together.
“That man seriously fucked e’ry bitch in Limbo, straight-up fact,” Sombra attested. “Mares, stallions, shee-it, foals too. He fucked ‘em so good that time don’t work there no mo’. The Pillars is lucky they weren’t in that mo’afucka yet.”
Cozy broke. She just utterly fell apart mentally, and began to cackle manically as the others shrieked “To the Hollow King!!” once more. She’d had it. She gave up. She was throwing in the towel. She slammed both hooves on the table and tossed her head up with a stink-eye and a huge, toothy grin.
“The Hollow King tried to pimp me out the day I was born!!” Cozy shrieked.
“Th' Holler King got me pregnant with my whole hive jusht by lookin' at me funny,” Chrysalis nodded several times, apparently hoping her gesture would add credence to this.
“There’s no sphinx alive who can outsmart the Hollow King, for he kills all who might and wears them as slippers,” Tirek growled.
“Holla Holla Get Dolla mugged an ol’ lady fo’ her coupons,” Sombra exclaimed.
“Guess what the Hollow King did at my cute-ceañera!!” Cozy demanded shrilly. Her hooves were trembling with rage.
“I fucked a rabbit,” Chrysalis interjected. The others gave her the once-over. She could probably fit the whole damn rabbit right up in there.
Cozy didn’t care anymore. “He shit on it!" She was smacking the table with her little mad hooves. "He shit directly upon the general ontological concept of my cute-ceañera! He ruined my fucking cute-ceañera!! That fucking douche!!!” The others blinked at her, completely uncomprehending.
Thunderous footsteps rocked the pub, the paintings shaking and tumbling from the walls, the glasses dancing across bars and tabletops. Cozy slapped her hooves to her mouth, her eyes wide, pupils shrinking with horror. The door to the pub exploded open, and viscuous shadows made of the deepest darkness with fringes of fiery purple flooded into the room like black water, licking at the hooves of everyone within, filling their ears with ghostly cackles and the wails of the damned.
A glowing face with a jagged mouth like a jack-o-lantern’s manifested, seeming to fill all the great cosmos with its maleficent grin, and a deep voice boomed out, echoing across the great nothing as though all the world were formed of his will and demand alone: ”WHO DARES TO SPEAK SO FAMILIARLY OF THE HOLLOW KING, HE WHO KNOCKS NOT, CARVER OF VALLEYS AND MOUNTAINS, BANE OF THE NORTH, DENIER OF LIMBO’S TIME. HMMMMMMM?!?!”
Chrysalis, Tirek, and Sombra hugged at and tumbled over each other in their panic. “Oh shit! The Hollow King! It’s the fucking Hollow King!” They all yelled in a cacophony; Sombra punctuated their terror with an "Aw hell naw."
Cozy nervously waved from under the table. “Hi daddy. These are my friends.”