I trekked across the countryside aimlessly, looking for a suitable place to take shelter.
Ugh! Utterly useless, utterly and completely USELESS! This body, this blasted equine body was nothing short of terrible. What kind of a god would give such frail bodies to a sentient race like this?
Oh yes, my father. I sighed.
I hadn’t been on this planet for more than twenty-four hours (that’s what unit of time they used right?) and I already felt weak. Hauling the still unconscious body of that pink colored unicorn wasn’t helping either. Maybe… Maybe this race wasn’t worth the time and effort, maybe they were just like all the other life forms I had defeated.
But… they had the power, or magic as it was. The very fact that many of these creatures possessed this ‘magic’ was reason enough to keep going.
And, I considered, I felt this weak, perhaps not because of the frailty of the vessel, but instead because of the strength of it. Maybe it saw me as a parasite, which I admittedly was, and was trying to flush me out. If that were the case, then these creatures would easily be the strongest for me to take over so far. It certainly felt like the body was fighting to take control of itself. I felt clumsy still, as if I didn’t have full control over the brain’s motor controls. And most importantly, the power outlet that this creature had, its ‘horn’ as it was called, was unusable. Originally I had thought that it was because the power left with the disembodied consciousness that I saw back in the white room, but I realized that the power was still here. It was stored in the horn, blocked from my use. And there was plenty of the power. It was giving me a headache.
All of these things to consider, I had so many questions. And that’s why I carried this pink unicorn. I needed to study her. I needed to figure out why I couldn’t consume anything.
I realized that if I didn’t feed soon, than I would continue to weaken, and I could, in time, wither away. Forget the whole domination to please my bastard father, I knew that I had to feed if I wasn’t with him. I would fade into oblivion if I didn’t.
Such is the fate of a being like me who leaves the void, who leaves the infinite presence of the infinite power.
This was the first time I had ever considered my own mortality. This brought about a feeling I had never experienced for myself, though I had instilled this feeling in many creatures. Fear… Fear for my own life. I was suddenly overcome with instincts of self-preservation. I was willing to do anything to stay alive.
And for that moment, I forgot about everything else. I forgot about my father’s hatred of me, I forgot of all the times I killed, all the times I consumed and conquered. All I thought about was what lay ahead, and how to survive.
I forced my mind to focus on my objective, figuring out a way to feed. I had been traveling for a while now, this world’s sun cracking up on the horizon. It cast a dim reddish light that allowed me to see the full area around me. I was, conceivably, in the middle of nowhere. This would be as good a place as any to settle down, at least temporarily.
I had been using my power to carry the equine across the grassy planes. I knew that I needed to conserve my power, but with out hands, claws, are any other form of useable appendage, carrying it manually was out of the question, and I wasn’t about to use my vectors to carry her as that would drain even more of my power. I lay the mare on its side, down in the grass before me. The body remained motionless, save for the breathing, which caused its chest to inflate and deflate. There were two scars on her body from where I impaled her on my vectors. Of course I promptly sealed the wounds before too much blood had left her body.
I… I rather admired this piece. It… er… she was beautiful in her own way. I stood there, my stance awkward from the battered and unkempt vessel that I used, staring at this majestic creature. She brought back memories, old ones, of the lands I had been through and the creatures I had seen. For some reason, the image of one of those hairless monkeys came into my mind. I pondered for a bit as to why I was reminded of them. They didn’t look any thing similar. But yet both had a sort of inherent nobility, at least in the way they looked…
Even through my admiration of the species, I hadn’t forgotten what I was here for. I was here looking for survival...
No, I was here to win my place by my father’s side.
My mind had gotten off track again…
Again I forced myself to concentrate on the matter at hand (or hoof.)
I let a smile creep its way onto my body’s blank-eyed face. I enjoyed experimentation like this, especially when the stakes were high. And they had never been higher for me. After all, my very existence depended on it.
***
I really was at a loss at where to start my research. I put a forehoof on the pink pony’s horn and tried to send some of my power through it. The results I yielded didn’t show much. I sent a bit more power, to see if I could stimulate a reaction. This time I could feel something. I felt something pushing back on my power. It was, I was almost certain, the pony’s magic that pushed back. The magic seemed to have a mind of its own. Even though the mare was clearly unconscious, it still fought to protect the body from my intrusion. So, I figured that it wasn’t just the mare whose body I was in that did this. I considered the possibility that all these magical ponies had the same anomaly. Maybe… maybe the reason I was unable to feed was because of the nature of their magic. It acted alive. It had a mind of its own.
This whole idea perplexed me. And it left another question unanswered. If the reason I was unable to feed was because of the magic that these ponies possessed, then why couldn’t I consume the powerless one that I killed earlier? I felt the same push when I tried to consume him, resisting my power’s advances. I hadn’t sensed the magic in him, so if it was magic that was keeping me from feeding, then what was in this powerless creature. For some reason I was reminded of the power damping effect I felt when I had gotten close to this planet.
I started to grow frustrated. I indeed had a problem. I was unable to feed on this planet. And on top of that, there was no way for me to leave, to find some much weaker race to prey on. No, I was too weak at this point to evacuate the body and make it to freedom. In fact, if this body were destroyed, I probably would just dissipate almost instantly. Normally I would have been able to body jump but again the same problem persisted. The only reason I was able to enter this vessel I realized was because of the state I found it in.
To be a weak god among powerful creatures… I sighed
I had thought about dissecting the mare, as it would have provided some insight to the workings of their body. But having conquered so many species, I pretty much knew the anatomy of most beings with out cutting them open.
I was, however, planning on dissecting her horn. But that would have to wait for a later time. I needed to find a more suitable place to hold out. I let my body flow with a bit of my power. I cast the power at the pink mare, encasing her in a red glow. Doing this I was able to will her into the air. Using my power made it rather easy to carry her, but it had the cost of draining my power. But with out any efficient way to carry her otherwise, I was forced to spend my energy on lugging this pony around.
At the rate I was using my energy, I figured that I would have maybe a few weeks before I would fade out and die. (This was another mystery about this place. Normally, in the vacuum of space, I could survive for hundreds of cycles before I needed to feed.) And while I still had these few days, the body I was in still felt the fatigue of the adventure that we had been on so far. It was another reason to find a decent shelter. That way I could fall unconscious in a safer area.
So I traversed the planes of this world again in the hope of finding some shelter. I didn’t really know what I was looking for; the area I was in was flat for as far as I could see and while I could certainly sense the presence of magic, it was far away. I decided to follow the magic, at least for a bit. I figured that it was probably some sort of settlement or village. Perhaps I could possibly set up my hideout somewhere on the outskirts of the place.
***
Ugh I was getting tired. I strained my vessel’s eyes trying to keep them open.
The sun had been about halfway through the sky. It beat down pretty hard making the journey quite exhausting. Up to this point the land had been mostly rolling hills of grass, but now off in the distance I could see what looked like some farmland. In addition, I was approaching a road of some sort. It was a dirt path, covered with ‘U’ shaped prints. They were, I realized, hoof prints.
“Ugh…” a voice came from somewhere real close. I had just started following the road making my way closer to what looked like another farmhouse when the voice sounded. It startled me a bit. The pink mare I had been carrying had finally started to wake up. She started moaning. I could tell she was in pain. I may have mended the wounds, but on the inside she would still be feeling the damage I did.
I stared at her for a moment, watching her squirm. She was only half conscious, not at all aware of her situation. Before long I would need to put her in stasis…
I veered off the road levitating the mare with me. There was a small ditch with some brush that I would be able to use to conceal myself while I put the mare into a stasis.
Once we were out of site from the road I lay the pink mare down in the bushes. She started becoming more aware of her surroundings squirming more and more. She began whimpering. The pain of the two holes in her body was starting to grip her. Her half open eyes filled with pained tears. It was hard for me to watch. A growing feeling in my mind told me to quickly put her in stasis so she wouldn’t feel the pain. But I knew that wouldn’t be enough. I had to heal her wounds completely.
This planet is making me go crazy! Just hours earlier I had squeezed the life out of a living creature, and I relished every second of it. So where was this feeling coming from? Why did I all of a sudden care that this poor thing was in pain? Was I really planning on even keeping her alive anyway?
I tried not to think about it too much. I put a hoof on her chest. I conjured up the familiar warmth into the tips of my hooves. After some time had passed, my hooves glowed white with power. Then I released the power into her chest. Her body started to spasm as if she was being shocked. A moment later she went still. I had accomplished what I had intended. I put her into stasis, while some more of my energy worked hard at mending the holes in her chest. There at least she wouldn’t be in that much pain. She may be a little stiff but that would be unavoidable.
I left her stiff in the bushes while I staggered sleepily into the middle of the road. I was going to pass out. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to heal… the… pony…
I nodded off for a second before I looked back up… I was… too… tired…
The last thing I saw was something heading towards me on the road as I passed out.