Chapter 1: Things Fall Apart
It couldn’t have been a better day for a picnic. The grass of the countryside was dyed a lush deep green, complemented by the white/red tile pattern of the picnic blanket where the Sparklemesh’s kin was presently sitting, enjoying scrumptious PB and Hay sandwiches. “…and then they took my lunch money and then they threw me in the mud and called me ‘Shining Faggot’ and…” The lesser of the 2 Sparkle children was in the middle of recounting his most recent “I got bullied today” story. Upon completion, Momlight Mommor burst out laughing. “Wow honey, our son really is a pathetic little shit isn’t he!” Dadlight Daddle laughed in agreement. “We should have gotten him aborted when we had the chance!” Other Child hung his head low, Liquid sorrow forming on his eyelids but not flowing down his cheeks, lest his mother see it and flog him again.
“Well we better get going” Dadlight Daddle said, looking towards the setting sun. “Looks like Luna’s taking over for the night, let’s go, I know a shortcut through the forest.” He magicked Sparkle-mesh onto his back and began heading towards the forest. Momming Mommor piled all of the stuff onto Shining’s back and followed the pair. It was at this point where Shining took out a razor blade to begin unceremoniously slitting one of his hooves. He mumbled incoherent nonsense to himself. He stopped though when he saw how far ahead his family was. He ran after them, leaving a small trail of blood behind him. When he finally caught up, his mother and father were talking about nothing while Sparklemesh was reading a book. Halogenated Hydrocarbons: A Foal’s guide! The cover said. She had gotten up to the page discussing common uses of trichloromethane when all of the sudden her father stopped. “Whatever you do, don’t move.” Her mother and brother stopped as well. She looked up from her book to see a trio of timberwolves circling them.
“Well well well, Lookie what we have here, Dogwood?”
“My my Gnarles, It appears to me that we have a family of itty bitty ponies. One of whom was kind enough to leave us a trail, isn’t that sweet?” Dogwood said, facing towards Shining Armor. Momming Mommor made a mental note to get him castrated if they survived this.
"What do you suppose we should do with them Timberton?”
“We should like, I dunno kill em and stuff dude” Said Timberton.
“Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m starved!”
One of them pounced, landing directly on Sparklemesh and her father, pinning both of them to the ground. Sparklemesh held up the book to defend herself, but it was in vain as the timberwolf clawed through it with ease and tossed it aside. She watched in horror as the book was thrown, torn pages falling out of the book as it flew. Overwhelmed with grief, the infant began wailing at the top of her lungs. The other timberwolves ceased their attack momentarily to look at the child, then the book, then the culprit of its destruction. “Gnarles Barkley! What have you done!? You’re desecrating the grave of leader’s brother!” said Dogwood. “Dude, that’s not cool.” Said Timberton, not really contributing to the conversation. The trio began to panic. “Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit! What are we going to do?”
“We could bury it!”
“No, he would smell it, why don’t we hide it?”
“Dude, like, that’s even worse brah”
“Why don’t we burn it?”
The 3 wooden canines turned toward the new voice. Sparklemesh had stopped crying and was now speaking to the much larger creatures before her.
“If we burn it and scatter the remains, that will get rid of the smell, and your leader will never find it.” The lavender foal exclaimed.
The timber wolf tree-o huddled up.
“Our meal ticket might be on to something here”
“It certainly is worth a try.”
“But Dudes, how will we even get the fire? We can’t even carry it without getting narly burns.” Said Timberton, the impromptu voice of reason
“That’s okay, I know a fire spell!” said the young Sparklemesh, who had somehow magically appeared atop Timberton’s head.
“Oh that’s wonderful! Now quick, use it before leader finds the evidence and uses our intestines as dental floss.” Said Barkley
The exalted filly hopped off of Timberton and began casting a spell. She closed her eyes as her horn began to glow. After about 10 seconds, Timberton fell over began shrieking in agony. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” said the other 2, who shortly after were on the ground wailing in pain. The other members of the family, who up until now were frozen in fear, looked on in confusion at what was happening. All became clear however, when a few small holes appeared on Gnarles’s right foreleg. “TERMITES!!!” The 3 wolves began clawing furiously at their wooden hide, trying to remove as many the bugs as they can. “Get these things off of me!” one yelled. The termites however, were not affected, and continued their feasting, gnawing on the nerves and joints of the timberwolves, and soon chunks of the beasts began falling off, revealing large clusters of the parasitic insects. As Barkley began to stagger, some of the insects began falling out of the wound and quickly scurried over to the other parts of the beast and proceeded to gnaw new holes into the wood. Their howls became gargled, however, when the termites gnawed through their larynx. The 3 Canines were unable to breath, and eventually they suffocated to death and fell to the ground, shattering into countless pieces. One of the wolves’ termite infested head rolled over to the mighty infant, the fluorescent lights in the beast’s eyes flickering for a few seconds before shutting off completely. Our hero lifted the spell, causing all the termites to disappear in a puff of magenta smoke. Sparklemesh turned toward her kin, who were once again cowering in fear. Clearing her throat before speaking, the mighty infant addressed her family.
“Stupid doggies broke my book.”