//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: The Eyes Are Blind // by Fe94Knight //------------------------------// Chapter fourteen The night is young while the cooling breeze brushes past several trees, and out of the forest onwards to the field as several elk graze on the grasses before they are covered in snow by the fast approaching winter. Stocking up on whatever nutrients they can before the impending season beckons them to hunker down. Paying attention to the greens that they find, they never notice the slow approach of a single alicorn princess as she prowls her way through the tall grass. Stalking her prey, and reminiscing on the old times. “It really has been a while sense I’ve done this?” Luna mutters under her breath to a pony that isn’t there, “I mean the last time was before being banished, and the practice withered away centuries after that. Long before my return.” Black ink patches cover her face while the already darkened mare blends in to the surroundings. The herd in front of her moving slowly through the field. As Luna follows close behind them, stalking her way in between trees, and ducking behind them as she goes on. “This is going to be interesting trying to explain to Tia,” Luna ponders. Finding it rather hard to hold back a chuckle. The mare giggles softly to herself, as she hushes up upon the noticing of several ears from her prey perking up from her sound. Waiting till they die down a bit before continuing her spiel, “Midnight better appreciate this one. Usually it’s the colt who is supposed to get the mare a meal.” A slight rush of blood beckons uncouth thoughts to fill her mind as the depraved princess continues with her dirty work of trudging through the forest. Ducking in, and out of trees while at the same time the ideas continue their onslaught. “Though I would hardly count this as a first date,” she rolls her eyes. Until other questions start to hit her, “I wonder if he would share. I mean I miss the taste here and-” Luna bites down on her tongue hard to discontinue the pressing matter. ‘Not the time or place for that, no. After all, Celestia would probably give me a mental exam if I even mentioned wanting to try it again, or having a minor infatuation for the bloody stallion,’ Luna pauses for a second as she realizes what she just thought, quickly face hoofing herself there from her cover. She drags the hoof across her face while pushing them to the back of her mind. ‘Bad thoughts bad thoughts,’ she blocks them out, ‘Though I do have to say. He is quite the gentlecolt. At least when his mind isn’t completely lost,’ A creeping smile for the mysterious stallion washes over her more than she realizes, “I do hope he enjoys this,” Luna finalizes as she makes a move. In an instant she leaps out of the tall grass, and darts towards her prey. Several of the elk instantly notice the attacker, and shoot off towards the forest to lose her. Though being chased by a pony that has wings, and a magical horn at her disposal. Is more of a formality for her, as Luna keeps some sport in her hunt. Sticking only to the essentials. Using her hooves to carry her form instead, and a single sharpened dagger tucked under her wing. Many of the elk race ahead of one another knowing full well that they don’t have to out run the pony attacking them. Just each other as they choose self survival over protection of one another. Soon enough her aqua eyes are set on a single one drawing itself further, and further to the back of the group. Becoming separated as time goes on. The heavy panting caused by every step it takes growing more, and more apparent as the princess closes the distance, and lands a solid flying tackle on the creature. Downing it not with her superior weight, of which she has none, but instead her speed while they tumble for a bit before Luna comes out on top. “Ha! I do still have it in me!” The lunar princess exclaims in the heat of the moment, while almost forgetting what she is about to do. “Princess Luna?” The elk glances up. Fully expecting to feel a pair of claws, or teeth in its neck by now but only finding the voice, and form of a pony that he knows as a co-ruler of the land he dwells in, “What is the meaning of this? Why did you attack me?” “Well…ahh sir,” The mare falters. Having forgot the fact that the animal clearly can speak to her as well as she can do to it, “Oh this is awkward…” Luna runs a hoof in her mane, pushing it out of her face. Without another word she whips out the dagger from its sheath, and Luna digs it in to the elk’s chest between his ribs. Watching as the shock filled expression covers his face at the brutality of a princess so well loved throughout the land. “B-b-b-but why?” His eyes slowly glass over in a final breath. As death takes him from the surface of the planet, and brings him to its domain. Luna draws out the knife from his flesh, and wipes it clean on her coat. Covering his eyes while running her hoof over the eye lids to close them, “Sorry about that, but it’s the circle of life you know? Besides the colt does need this food that no pony seems to understand…” Levitating the kill in to the sky. Luna does the same with her wings, and in a few seconds both the mare, and the fruits of her night hunt are on their way to the castle, “Well no pony but my guards or I would understand at least.” ____________________ Celestia takes her time making her way about the castle at this hour. To her it’s just a sleepless night like she used to have years ago when the kids were young, and herself a few years younger. Even though it looks like she hasn’t changed for a millennia. Passing by several guards as they drop to a bow, and salute her as need be. She beckons them to all rise as she passes by and continues with her waltz. ‘It is far too late to be a getting this kind of attention from the guards,’ She rubs her temples to try, and ease herself down, ‘I mean I am a princess after all, but still. After eleven at night just say something simple like ‘good evening your majesty’ and that would do great.’ The sharp clatter of metal hitting another metallic object beckons the attention of the celestial princess. Stepping closer, and closer to the sound. It eventually draws her to one of the many kitchens in the castle. Though right now, this isn’t the time she would have expected one to be in there working. “Weird? Didn’t the cooks already go to bed?” She pushes open the door, and peers inside. Only to find one of the more gruesome sights in her years. Half a carcass lies on the table, picked clean, degutted from the open wound in the gapping chest as the chest cavity remains cleaned out. Clearly an elk by her own view, or at least what’s left of one. The skin has been peeled off, and tossed away while the horns are cut away as well. Only the eyes glare eerily back at the stricken princess while she starts to dry heave from the painful spectacle that she has had to bear witness to. Though the worst part is not what Celestia saw to begin with, but what she turns her to see now. The once beautiful dark blue coat, which would glimmer in the night sky, is now soaked in the blood of another creature as Luna sharpens a knife on a file. Bringing the edge cleanly in to the missing half of her kill while she starts to whisper a simple tune in her head while swaying her hips left and right with the lyrics. ‘What is this place filled with so many wonders, Casting its spell that I am now under. Squirrels in the trees, and the cute little bunnies. Birds flying free, and bees with their honey, Ho-o-o-o-n-ne-e-e-e-y-y! O-o-o-o-o-o-oh-h-h! What a magical place, and I owe it all to the Pegasus race. If I knew the ground had so much up its sleeve, I’d come here sooner, and never leave!’ Luna switches from singing in her head to out loud as she remains oblivious to her sister’s presence, “Yes, I …love…every-y-y…thing-g-g-g-g!” She turns around with the blade in her magical grasp. Meeting her sister’s stricken, horrid, and sickened glare with a way to cheery smile on her face as she drops the blade instantly with a clank to the ground. Mustering only an awkward grin that stretches to either side of her lips, “Well… shit.” “What…are…you… DOING!” Celestia yells out at the top of her lungs while stomping a hoof in the tile floor, and cracking it in half. “Probably muttering a lovely little song Fluttershy taught me, at the worst time possible,” She kicks the ground a bit at the error while the sweet song might as well be peppered with as much blood as she is, “That was needless to say, not the best idea I’ve had.” “You… y-y-y-y-you killed an innocent creature!” The eldest starts to rant, and rave as she stutters. While near steams of smoke, for concern of what her younger sister had done, are left shooting out of her nostrils, “What is wrong with you?!” “Calm thine tongue sister!” Luna shoves a clean hoof, literally, in her sister’s mouth just to shut her up so she can speak her own piece before being blown out of the water for a few more minutes. Watching Tia now wipe off her tongue with her hooves to try, and get the possible taste of another creature’s flesh from her mouth, “now… please before you almost kill me for this, or give me a mental exam, let me explain.” “What could you possibly have to say that would give me reason to allow this???” She closes the door to the kitchen. Locking it now so they don’t get any other intruders. “The colt? Midnight?” Luna’s face takes on a slight rosy appearance while she fights to get the words out altogether, and hopes that her darker coat hides the expression on her cheeks the more they fill up. Celestia nods in acknowledgment of who she is talking about. Pondering it over from when they met, “You have to have noticed his appearance when he was brought in?” Celestia thinks for a moment while even recalling Twilight’s observation on the stallion, all the while adverting her gaze from the carcass as best she can, “Well he looks like a Lunar Guard. What does this have to do with murder though?” “Not murder sis,” Luna corrects, “It’s hunting.” “Come again?” “Oh come on,” Luna rolls her eyes at the obvious over look by her equivalent, “You should remember something about my guards. Something… bloody?” Tia freezes for a second, knowing full well what her sister means. Already feeling the muscles in her stomach turn. It’s not that she hated the Lunar guards, oh no, after Luna’s banishment she showed no malice towards those that protected the night mare. Celestia even kept them around, they were better guards at night than her own after all. Why waist the talent. Though all that said, some of their ‘eating habits’ she wasn’t necessarily to fond of. “B-b-but we haven’t done that for… centuries?” Celestia tries to remember the last time any of Luna’s kind partook in the taboo like act. “Well this colt needs it,” The night mare cleaves another leg off of the body past her sister, as she leaves the conversation. Dropping it on the grill that has been lit to make the meal for its intended recipient. The steady sizzle of the meat now fills the room with an aroma that even Luna has missed to some extent. ‘A small dash of pepper, a little garlic salt, and…’ She dips a ladle in to a vat. Taking out a generous portion of blood, and spilling it over the cut to add another level of flavor, and to cauterize the seasoning in to it, “…a dousing of blood,” The fumes reach Celestia’s nostrils as they flare open as a result from the attack on her senses. Even with her own distaste in the act, Tia still has to give credit where credit is due, “Well… you still can cook a mean cut,” The odd grin on Tia’s face grows ever wider as she remembers more of her sister’s expressions when the colt was brought in. Playing a devilish game on the seemingly smitten sibling, “Isn’t the colt supposed to do this for the mare?” “That’s what I was thinking!” Luna blurts as her mouth snaps shut. Instantly regretting the outburst as the cheeks of truth on her grow ever brighter over the course of a few seconds. Celestia only giggling lightly to herself while avoiding the larger puddles of blood on the ground. “Oh come now sister. The few words that you got out when I met him, were even laden with rapture for the colt,” Tia hoists herself up after clearing off a counter to take a seat with the sibling of the night, “If it wasn’t for the fact that he desires for the flesh of others, I’d say he was quite the gentlecolt when I met him. Well mannered, polite, and dare I say it handsome.” “What’s wrong with eating flesh?” Luna muses for a second. Watching the clenched jaw on her sister’s face while she tries to hold back her obvious reservations about the subject. “Oh you know how that gets to me.” “My guards used to do it for centuries,” Luna brings up, “it just hasn’t been like that for a while.” “And that is why I am just a little off about the matter,” Celestia levitates a slice of cake out of a fridge across from them, as she takes a bite out of it. Stopping at the following statement from her sister that even starts to turn her blood cold. “Sometimes I miss it…” Luna slips while she pouts over the meat cooking. The saliva working its way through her mouth as she watches it. The memories she has formed over the smells of the cooking of another animal’s flesh, and even the hunt itself, coming back to her one after the other. The bonds she made with her own guards when they would come out and hunt with her, glad to be with their princess in less than a formal setting, still fresh in her mind. Something that she herself misses more than she realized after her thousand year banishment. With all these memories coming back to her, it isn’t a surprise that a single tear runs its way out of her eye, and down her muzzle. Now only being brought back in to the real world by a white hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry sister,” A deep sigh is followed by a gulp from the deepest part of Celestia’s throat, as she starts to taste the foul food choice from just saying it, “I know you desire to taste it once more in your life, and if it would make you happy. Then I see no reason you can’t dine together… I certainly won’t view you any different,” Tia reassures her, before making her own jab at her sibling, “though it is a rather vulgar choice for a first date.” “I will give you that he is cute!” Luna shouts out in her utterly useless defense at the moment while forgetting to end it there, and not continue, “And he is quite the gentlecolt when he hasn’t lost it, and polite, dreamy golden eyes… large muscular frame… wide leathery…” The sudden appearance of Celestia’s widened pupils, and ever growing grin begs the mare to shut her trap as she stammers, and fails to come up with any sort of rebuttal. “As I was saying,” Tia starts to giggle at her sister’s foolery, “Dine with him on the flesh if you’d like. I know you used to do the same with your past guards before the practice was phased out,” The solar goddess drops down to her four hooves. Instantly being caught in the warm embrace of her sister’s own wings, and hooves to bid a farewell for the moment, and give thanks. “Thank you for the blessing big sister,” Luna snickers for a moment before adopting a serious tone, and face to go with her next few words, “Seriously though, thank you.” “Don’t mention it, but I would keep this to yourself for the time being,” Celestia takes her leave for the night, and heads back to her nice little tour of the castle. All the while Luna takes the cooked meat off the grill. Looking back at the remains that still are on the counter. The princess notes in the back of her mind that another kill may be in order for next time, just to keep it on hoof in case his craving comes back soon. ‘We both are starving to have something that we enjoy,’ an eerie smile strikes up on the seemingly psychotic mare while she laps her lips from the morsels below her on the tray, ‘Well he needs it more than I do… I just want to taste it again.’ Cleaning up what she can at the moment, and making sure that some of the actual cooks won’t uncover the remains of her rather untraditional meal. Luna marches down the halls with a covered tray in a light blue aura to the colt that seems to have caught more of her attention than she realizes or cares to admit openly.