//------------------------------// // Chappie 13 // Story: Confession of a Soul Mage // by SoothingCoffee //------------------------------// The mind.   It was one of those complicated thing in the world. It was one of the things that many researchers work together—even with Elves— to gather the pieces of puzzles, and put it together. And I had no small doubt that the gods themselves were as clueless as mortals.   And I’m as clueless as the next person. I’m not a researcher, after all. I’m a runesmith with a rather vast knowledge on how to kill other people. I’m also a Soul Mage, if a barely qualified one. Still, I knew some knowledge about the mind. Any mage worth their salt should. Any mage who wants to defend their minds from invasive probing and forceful takeovers would.   I know that the mind is a great complicated thing. How could it not? It’s where you store your memories, where your emotions come from, and help to decide whether or not that wound on your stomach is fatal. The mind, however, is also a great horrible traitorous thing. It could let others takeover you, let others freely read and take your memories, and tricking you into believing that the hallucination dragging you is your sister, and definitely not a hallucination.   As I glared at the shaking Merry, her back pressed to the dirty doodled wall of the alley, and eye brimming with shades of fear. Looking back, I should’ve noticed sooner. She was too much like Lily. True, she wasn’t human, but I could see a part of Lily in her eye; a soft-hearted but confident little spitfire.   In other word, in this dark, grim, and impossibly nonsensically chaotic place, plus just like how I first met Festive Slug and her merry little band of little shape-shifting slugs, it all seemed too fucking convenient.   A deep growl escaped my throat as I stepped— stomped—forward. “Are you real?” I hissed, stressing the last word with a slam of my fine hoof to the paved ground.   The ‘filly’ flinched, almost jumped, in surprise. I took a small note of her sheathed sword as her head shook like a southerner visiting the north. “I-I don’t know,” she answered, her tone desperate as she stared warily at me.   I thought about her answer for a short moment. She seemed honest. But then again, at that point, the line between an honest answer and a lie was blurred and nothing really mattered. I just needed my godsdamned answer.   With that, I took another stomp forward. “Who are you?” I growled, pressing the urge to beat her senseless so that I could take the information out of her the easy way. But then, she may just be a figment of my imagination, so that was a moot. Not that it mattered.   If I had thought she couldn’t look even more pitiful, then I was wrong. The shakings of her body increased, she pressed her body to the wall, and shrank as small as possible under my glare. “I-I-I don’t know!” She stuttered, shouted; tone growing more and more desperate. “I don’t know!”   I ignored her answer, and took another advance to her. Belatedly, I noted she was just within the edge of my hoof reach. “What are you?!” I asked once more, feeling a bit more like a broken record than I’d like.   In an act of complete desperation, her head moved quickly to the hilt of her sword. A loud smacking sound echoed the walls as my hoof told her why that’s a bad idea. Red hoofmark—definitely a bruised— marred her face as her neck snapped to the side, thin line of blood tricked down from her split lips as she turned to face me, her good eye looking elsewhere but mine as she tried to choke down the sobs.   “Answer me,” I regarded her coldly. Was it a morally good idea to interrogate-slash-intimidate what possibly or may not possibly be a figment of my maddened mind with the personality of my long-dead sister, mind and body of a child, or both? Perhaps not, but then again, nothing I had done ever was. “Or I will repeatedly force your face to befriend that friendly wall behind you, take your soul, defile it, and slowly burn it to oblivion.” At the very least, when I was done with this place, I could blame it on the madness rearing its pus-filled, shit-covered rotten cock up into my rectum.   She cringed, sniffling pitifully. “I-I don’t—“she clenched her eye shut, flinching away from me”—know.” She paused, expecting something. When that something didn’t come, she continued, “I’m just Merry Hearth, but I’m not. I’m not Merry Hearth, but I am Merry Hearth...” she trailed off, taking a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what I am. I just want to help.” She added the last part with a small voice, and I only heard it because of my proximity with her.   My breath hitched on my throat, the blood in my vein warmed as my hoof fell to the ground with a crunch. She flinched at that, but opened her eye just a peek still. That was good, I thought. I hadn’t gone mad, yet. Did I trust her answer too easy? Considering my previous experience and fallacy with the ink-work monsters, absolutely. But I was grasping at strings, for something to prove that I wasn’t going to go screaming and making out with that nice grey wall.   I met her eyes, muscles relaxing but ready to strike. “Why?” in a way, I already knew the answer. But as the old saying goes, ‘I’ve been wrong, before.’   She blinked. “W-what?”  She shook her head, pausing to steady her breath and shaking the tremble in her voice. “B-because it was the right thing to do? Because it’s something that Merry Hearth would do. And because...” she trailed off, her eye glossed over, staring at the empty air behind me.   I raised an eyebrow, glancing back, finding only empty space and the grey wall painted with doodles. I turned to Merry.   She shook her head suddenly, giving me a careful look. “... I just want to help.”   I looked at her eye hard. Perhaps harder than I had done with people I had met before, something that I thought I should do more, given how I had been lied more in a day here than in a year. There wasn’t any dishonesty in her eye, nor tone. “I... see,” I sighed, looking up at the black sky, before back to the filly, giving me a strange look. “Lead the way to the Clock Tower, then.” I nodded at her, stepping back to let her free.   She blinked, then again, giving me a look over. “Just right that?”   “Yep.” I answered truthfully, and we stared at each other’s eyes—eye, in her case— in uncomfortable silence.   After what felt like hours, she finally fidgeted and broke off the stare to the side. “What are we doing then?”   “Are you deaf, girl?” I asked, perhaps more biting than I had meant, considering her flinch. I sighed. “Just— let’s go to the Clock Tower. You do know the road...” I trailed off, noticing her nervous fidgeting at the mention of the Clock Tower. “Right?”    She shrugged uncomfortably, looking elsewhere but me. “I have a vague clue,”   I sighed harder, staring up at the black sky; all it needed was a rain, and it would be the perfect day—or night. “And when I thought things would be better,” I lamented bitterly, turning around and limped towards the alley’s exit, the pitter patter of hooves behind me told me that Merry was following. “We’ll try our luck, then.”   “Very encouraging,” I heard her mutter behind me.   The street was as I remembered it as I took a turn left. Lampposts standing on the either side of the road, illuminating the dark place with flickering lights. Dead buildings glared at us condemningly, a few flickering lights on their windows marked by the shadowy silhouette of the not-ponies.   I had probably come here from right, but at this point, I didn’t care. If I hit a dead end, then that meant it’s time to open another house, and hope that I would be facing a simple house, and not the maw of some twisted creature.     “P-Psyche?” The Merry-yet-not-Merry behind me called out, her hooves pattering hurriedly until she was next to me, a contrast of her yesterday attitude as she kept glancing at my hooves—my limping hoof, to be precise— awkwardly. “Do you need help?”   I snorted, watching over the windows and grey buildings. It was getting colder, I noticed. “I don’t know whether or not you’re trying to be sincerely mocking, or mockingly sincere,”   She winced. “I didn’t mean that... I just... want to help. If—” she looked away from me”—you don’t want me to, then I’ll...” she trailed off.   I sighed. “Just... keep a watch. We’re treading in a zone of danger, here.”   There was lull of very much needed silence as we continued onwards. Our hooves clacking against the paved road, and the filly beside me hesitantly closed the distance between ourselves until our fur met each other. I raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. Let kids be kids.   I shuddered suddenly as I felt the air around me becoming colder. My breaths were visible as I let fire ran its course into my vein, warming me up to an accepted degree. I looked beside, noting with a frown as I saw her walking normally, almost looking like she didn’t realize the air around her.   “It’s cold.” I stated, staring at the filly for a reaction.   And a reaction I got. As if a switch was turned, her eye widened in horror, cold visible carbon dioxide visible from her muzzle. “Oh, drat,” I heard her mutter under her breath. I glanced to back to the road, feeling that familiar dread as I watched the road darken into pitch black, “Um, Psyche, I think we should run. Like, now.”   Before I could ask further on her, laughter, manic laughter boomed behind me. My eyes widened, glancing back, I saw rows after rows of twisted pony-like creatures laughing and marching at us. Their eyes were large and wide—more than normal ponies should— with visible veins threatening to pop behind them, jaws unnaturally unhinged and stretched into a wide smile, revealing rows after rows of sharp teeth, and the gaping abyss leaking with coppery sludge staring at us.   “Run!”   I couldn’t remember whether it was me or Merry who said it. But the moment it rang in the air, my legs pumped, fires flared within my veins as I galloped forward, ignoring the pain on my barely-alive hoof, before quickly falling into its grave as I bit a scream, a loud crack coming from it.   Merry was there by my side, here eye wide in horror as it stared at my dead hoof, before she turned back to the road. I could hear her mutter ‘Not again’ repeatedly under her breath.   I gritted my teeth, the road was the same. I felt some bout of cold dread as I realized we were probably trudging through an endless looping loop. It was possible. It may just be possible that the street itself was a trap for the horde behind me.   I risked a glance back. They were singing the cruel music of madness, laughter rang throughout the air as their mouths shook in that unnatural way, the coppery goop in their mouths trembling as they fell to the ground.   I gulped, and for a brief moment, I considered throwing Merry behind for them. And I would’ve done it. I should have done it. She’s not even the real Merry, and for all I knew, she wasn’t even alive. My life was more important than hers. There was still Ruby needing to be fixed, and Nero still waiting—   No. I crushed the voice immediately, gritting my teeth as I turned forward. That was the madness speaking, and I drew the line when it was the madness speaking. Endless road ahead; I tried to look for an alley to hide, but no such luck there, as always. I considered opening one of the building, but I pushed those aside, I doubted inside would even be safe.   I tried to look for solutions as my breath turned ragged. A flash of something hit me, and I grimaced as I skidded to a halt. Merry looked shocked, but I ignored it as I quickly turned around, facing the laughing horde.   Scowling, my hoof quickly reached into my bag. As quick as I could, I pulled another bag from it, a smaller bag, a bag filled of doom. A bag filled of souls. And I forced my magic into the bag, reaching towards the dozens of murderers, rapists, vampires, and monsters of the Dark, and I twisted them.   If I could understand souls, I would have probably heard screams of pain, screeches of agony, whimpers for reprieve, and cries for it to end from my bag. What I was doing, if it was discovered back home, would be considered as the worst crime ever done in five decades, condemned into the worst unusually cruel punishment in the Rule Book. What I was doing, if the gods were to see it—excepting the mad ones— would make them sneer at me, and curse me thrice over if they hadn’t.   Still, as I forcefully pushed the souls together, fusing them with my all of my magic, I didn’t care. The only thing in my mind was my magic, and the approaching horde in front of me. I broke the already broken souls again and again until they forgot their sense of self. The monsters were getting close, only a twenty meters from me, and threw the bag at them.   I stumbled back, my skin pale as I felt like I had been sucked by dozens of ugly-as-fuck succubus. It was only the small hoof holding me that kept me from tripping—and probably will never get up. I staggered for a moment, giving the pale Merry a thankful look—why does she look horrified?—, turned around and galloped away, Merry hurriedly following behind. “What did you do!?”   I ignored her as I concentrated my focus on the world. Already, I could feel the abused wife beginning to weep as the abusive husband caressed the woman’s hair in a rare show of sobriety and kindness, trying to lull me into sleep with sweet words. Such effort would’ve been appreciated were it not for the horde of monsters trampling the ground behind me.   My pace became less of a gallop and more of a drunk trying to run as I felt the loss of my mana slapped me like a rotten cock from my previous stunt. And it would’ve been gone to waste if I let that soothing feeling to viciously drown me into Sleep’s ample bosoms. My eyes swam around the rows of building as I tried to find a spot to hide. Or something.   There! I could see a conveniently placed alley a couple buildings ahead. I glanced behind me, and it may be just my magically exhausted mind, but were they slowing? I viciously shook my head, immediately regretting it as I felt my abusive husband suddenly whipped his cock into the almost-sleeping wife’s loose vagina. Small blessing, I suppose, as it kept me slightly more awake.   As soon as the alley was within my range, I immediately threw myself into it. A feminine yelp was all I could hear as I felt hard surface hitting my head—or maybe it was my head hitting the hard surface. Buzzing sound rang into my ears as I felt my body hit the paved side road. My head, especially the fore part, felt like it was lodged with the back part of a hammer, and slowly pulling chunks of my flesh, before replacing it with a miner drill and slowly tried to force its way into my brain.   I groaned, tears of pain leaking from my eyes. I tried to move my limbs, to no avail. Opening my eyes gave more result as I found myself staring at Merry’s pale face.  I saw her mouth flapping like an overused vagina, the laughter of the twisted creatures became nothing more than white noise as I tried to move my neck, stopping and flinching as I felt it crack. Immense pain immediately seared it with its cum.   “Ouch,” the word slurred out of my mouth, not unlike a mother enjoying things she shouldn’t. “That’s not good.”   Suddenly, I felt hot white light radiated over my side, before washing my body with its painful burn. The ground shook wildly, the screams of hundreds pierced through my concussed daze was the only clue of what had happened. I closed my eyes immediately, relishing in it, before opening them, only to see the sickened face of Merry staring at what was left of the horde.   She stared at me, mouthed something, before gulping. She stepped out of my view, and for a few minutes, I had thought she had abandoned me, left me for other things to feast on me. Then I felt something tug on my hoof, and I was dragged away to somewhere, my back scraping against the ground.   The last thing I saw before I fell to unconsciousness was the calm black sky, somehow managed to sneer at me.   ()_()_()   Moving, dragging, and scrapping. I didn’t know how long it lasted, but something was moving me through the scruff of my hood. The black sky was like a moving picture as my eyes opened, rare prickles of star that I had noticed now seemed glared back at me like I was the vilest being alive. My back hurt as it was dragged through the gravel road; the only thing keeping my back filled with cuts and wounds was the outfit that I had enchanted with various protection runes.   I tried to move my neck. Tried, being the keyword as I felt something restricting it from ever moving. My hoof went to the thing restricting my neck, feeling the hard and rough surface. I sighed, wincing as I felt my broken hoof stumbled to the ground; at least I wasn’t going to die anytime soon. I dropped my hoof and let it being dragged by whoever was dragging me.   Suddenly, whoever dragged me halted, and carefully lay me to the hard cold ground. The sweaty, pale, and concerned face of Merry Hearth entered my view. “You’re awake.” I bit the inside of my lips from retorting her statement. At least she had the modesty to look sheepish. “Right, that was stupid. So,” she bit her lips, staring at her hoof. “Are you feeling alright?”   What have you done? Rang clear in my mind. I tried to voice it, only to produce something akin to a grunt and a throaty noise. I clammed my mouth shut, then opened it again to say something. My lips moved, and tongue twirled, but not a single word came out. With dread, I realized, I couldn’t speak.   I closed my eyes, inhaled a deep amount of air, and thought of something positive. I was alive, if broken. That was something. I opened my eyes again, and grunted angrily—hey, I could grunt. Hurray—, glaring at the girl with the fiercest of glares I could give while being crippled.   Flinching, the girl glanced at me. “I don’t know,” she took a breath. “I really don’t know.”   A lie. Finally, a lie I could see. I glared at her, stamping my hoof to the gravel road as I growled a throaty growl. One that, as loathe as I admit it, won’t be far from a mutt defending its position and rear. She flinched again, this time looking away from me. “I… did something,” she answered, her voice faint that I won’t probably heard her if she wasn’t so close to me. She wasn’t lying, but I didn’t want obscure truth. I wanted the truth truth. So I growled once more, and that growl turned into a snarl as my lips peeled back-- And Merry flinched back, her hooves raised to protect her from the never-coming attack. “Please don’t hurt me!” I stopped, my heart beating a mile per second as the snarl was replaced by a frown. I looked at my hooves, at hers, then I sighed. I grunted softly, and moments later Merry dropped her hooves to the ground, staring at anywhere but me. “I couldn’t tell you what I did,” she mumbled, her tone almost fearful sounding. “I just… I just saw you were dying, and I-I tried to save you. So I did something so that you won’t die, but it wasn’t free. It took your speech, and…” she gulped, her eyes trailing to my head. My forehead I belatedly realized. “And y-your horn.” Immediately, she closed her eyes. Slowly, I touched my forehead, flinching as pain shot out upon contact. But there was no horn there. Not even a stump; just a smooth surface of blood-caked white fur. I dropped my hoof, sighed. It’s not like I was using it anyway.   There were a lot of questions swirling in my head. From what had happened since I passed out, how long had I passed out, what happened to those creatures, how did Merry know what Equivalent Exchange, how did she do said magic in the first place. Is it even real magic?   Alas, I couldn’t ask those thanks to my muteness. So I simply sighed, staring at the black sky.   “You’re not angry?”   I was. I was angry. I was angry by how messed up my situation became. I was angry how Nero wasn’t with me. I was angry how I wasn’t in my original body. I was angry that I became a cripple that needed the help of a filly to move around. I was angry that there’s a demon plunging a town of innocents into this fucked up dimension.   I was angry of a lot of things. But there was nothing I could do. So I simply sighed, and used what movement I could gather on my broken and restrained neck to shake my head.   I heard Merry stepped away from my view as I stared at the black sky once more. The ground scrapped by me again as Merry bit down the scruff of my hood, and dragged me. The still black sky turned into a moving picture of blind blackness.   Quietly, almost inaudible to my ears, I heard Merry whispered a word under her breath. “Thank you...”   I grunted softly, regardless it was meant to be heard or not. After a moment, I realized something crucial, and I grunted questioningly.   “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, her voice muffled by my hood. “I’m hoping to find a safe place.”   I scoffed, before grunting again.   I heard her sigh. “I know. But I can hope, right? It’s better than doing nothing.” She replied demurely.   I hummed in agreement, before grunting, pointing at one of the building.   “No.” Her answer was curt, a reminder of the first time I met her. “It’s too dangerous, and...” she trailed off, and I could imagine her looking up at the same black sky as she slowed down. “You were so close to death, you know?” her voice was faint, quiet. “You were bleeding a lot from your head, and I saw your soul slowly slipping out of you. It was terrifying. I don’t want to see that anymore.”    If I could speak, I’d probably told her not to knock it off, and not to be stupid and also how the hell she was able to see my soul slipping. As it was, I merely sighed, and hummed a flat tone.   “I know,” she said. “I know it’s impossible. But I still want to believe that it’s possible. My... teacher used to tell me, ‘You should never stop hoping’, and I think I won’t.”   Aside from the occasional clacking of her hooves, and the scrapping sound of my back against the road, silence reigned between us. There we were, a filly that may not be a filly, and a man cursed out of his luck. If there was a joke of that, I wouldn’t be surprised.   “You should rest,” Merry’s muffled voice broke the silence. “I’ll wake you up when it’s safe.”   I looked to my right side, watching the grey identical buildings went by as I was dragged along. There was part of me that wanted to stay awake, for what, I don’t know. Yet, the small part of me, hidden in the back of my head told me that I should just sleep.   And I was tired. Already, I could feel my eyelids weighing down, gently pushing me into sleep. I yawned, staring back at the black sky, and the back of my eyelids as I closed them, drifting to sleep for the much needed rest.   ()_()_()   I was standing between the line separating two parts of my mind. Furrowing my brows, I turned to the left; the rows of wooden bookshelves stood there like an army of stoic men. Turning to my left, I felt my skin pale when I saw the blood red tainted sky. It was moving. Oh, it was slow, slower than a humping slug, but it was moving. And as I looked up, I realized what had caused it moving, and for the first time in many years, I felt fear.   There was nothing holding it at bay.   Hypothesis of what happened swirled like a hurricane in my mind. Each of them worse than the previous and with each of them, questions came for answers I didn’t have— didn’t want to have. It was terrifying. I had once thought that ever since I took a look into those cursed green eyes, that they would be the only thing that would instill fear in me.   I was wrong. I imagine, if I wasn’t in so much fear, I would’ve felt sick from my own admittance. It felt like the spiritual equivalent of getting a kick into the crotch, and a slap with a wooden cane to the cheeks, followed by a shove of thousand needles into my urethra.   The sound of feet slamming the marble floor snapped me from the awful feeling I felt as I jumped around. And straight into staring the angry countenance of the goddess of soul; the question: Could this go any worse? Went quickly answered as the angry goddess threw her hands out toward me at the empty air, and I was flung backwards.   My back slammed onto the brick wall sprouted from the ground, knocking the air out off my lungs, and would probably break my bones if I wasn’t in my mind. The thought of how the brick wall came to be in the first place was indeed a horrifying thought.   In a blink, the enraged goddess was suddenly standing in front of me; her hands went around my neck, choking me as it tightened. Despite my current predicament, I couldn’t help but notice the slightly haggard look on her face, the small bags under her eyes, and the snarl as she peeled back her lips. At that moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if her hair became a tongue of fire.   “How dare you,” she grounded out, her voice was fire. And I could only choke on my spit as I clenched my hands around her wrists, a wasteful effort to escape her tightening grip. “How dare you defile my arts, to pervert them, to make a sick travesty of them? How fucking dare you!” As her eyes met mine, I only saw thundering fire in them. “I have let you too loose on handling my arts, mortal. I have tolerated you when you played around too much with my arts. I have watched you twist my arts, dirtying them with every hand you get around them. I have let you play with powers beyond yours, powers that never meant to be in your hands.” She pulled my head, before slamming it back to the brick wall. The mind was the only thing that was keeping me alive. “But today, Cain, your action today took the cake—“   “It was my only choice—“   “Don’t you dare use that on me!” she roared, slamming my head to the brick wall once more. “I don’t fucking care even if it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. What you did, what you have done,” she closed her head towards mine, her eyes held so much fire, I felt the world around me burn. “I should’ve killed you. Almost did.” She hissed. “Be thankful of that creature of yours.”   Her hands loosened suddenly, and I fell to the ground, gasping and heaving for air--that I didn’t need-- as I rubbed my own neck. Comfort, I admit, was rising up in my priority charts quicker than a virgin would cum.   She leaned down, her head staring down at my face. “But I won’t.” She turned around. “You are in luck, Cain. You are lucky that you are an important pawn in a game bigger than your head could ever handle,” she glanced sharply at me. “But do not think I will let you be unpunished,” she then pointed at the sky above the crystal trees. I felt my skin paled as I saw what she was pointing. The world felt like it had stopped in time as I stared in horror at the slowly, but faster, encroaching red tainted sky high above. I was half aware of Psyche saying something, but it went past my ears as I leaned back to the brick wall. “Tick tock, Cain, your time is running out.”   As the world around me slowly fade, starting out of the Library, to the Crystal Meadow. The last thing I saw as the goddess turned around was her vindictive and cruel smirk.   ()_()_()   I shot up with a gasp, ignoring the shooting stab of pain from my neck. My fur drenched in sweat, and my heart was drumming through my ears as I quickly looked around for Merry. I was in a dark room, as dark as any others. On my left, I could see the dim silhouette of a queen bed, with nightstands beside it. On the opposite, I saw an old wooden dresser, and an equally old wardrobe standing inches away from it.   A warm and slightly fuzzy touch to my right hoof nearly made me jump. I looked to my side, seeing Merry lying there, asleep. Her face, though slightly hidden by the dark, was visibly haggard; perhaps more so than the red haired goddess. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if she immediately collapsed the moment we entered the room.   Psyche’s words reminded me of my predicament, and my hooves when around her shoulders and shook her awake. The girl woke up immediately, exhaling a deep breath and her eye wide as she stared at me. “Psyche?” She asked, perhaps a bit too sleepily. I shook her harder to get rid of that remaining sleep off her. “W-what?”—I shook harder—“Stop it, I’m awake! What do you want?!” She shouted, her tone tired and frustrated.   I did, and I grunted loudly. Time was running out, and I gestured at my broken, dead, and limb hoof, then at the cast on my neck—how she got the cast, I had no idea— and made a crossing gesture with my fore-hooves. I hoped she understood what I meant.   Her eyes bulged wide. “W-what?” my eye twitched in annoyance, and I shook her again. “Stop it!” She shouted angrily, putting both hooves to mine as I stopped. “I get what you mean!” she inhaled a deep breath. “But why?” she shook her head angrily. “Never mind that, how?”   For a moment, I pondered whether I shook her too hard, before I grunted angrily, and pointed at my forehead, where once a place for a stub of broken horn, now a clean if caked white fur. Then I gestured my hoof towards the chest. Inaccurate, but it was where people generally believe the soul is placed.   She squinted her eyes, and it didn’t take long for her small brain to compute what I meant. Once she did, she looked like she had been slapped to the face. “W-what? Why? I can’t just do that!”   Growling angrily, I slammed my hoof to the hardwood floor. She flinched, but the hooves on her shoulder kept her from moving. I then made crossing gesture with my hooves, and as I created a ticking noise on my throat, I made use of my hooves unnatural flexibility and made my left hoof move like a ticking clock.   “No time...” she scrunched up her nose. “No time for—“My hooves went to her shoulder, and this time, she immediately shut her mouth. “Equivalent Exchange is not free!” she immediately shouted.   So it’s called Equivalent Exchange, I mused at the fitting name. Rolling my eyes, I tapped my left eye, and then I tapped at my right ear. It was going to bite me in the ass, I was sure, but it was better than the consequences of doing nothing. To wait for my inevitable doom, uncertain of what’s happening to the world outside. To let the demon take more innocent victims that doesn’t deserve such fate.   Her fur paled visibly, an impressive feat, considering the lack of light. “Y-you want me to—“   I grunted loudly, giving her a nod.   “B-but— That—“   I cut her off with a grunt and a slam to the floor.     She looked at me, then at my eyes. Not a moment later, she closed hers, and it took minutes—or maybe it was seconds— before she opened her eyes. There was determination in them, mixed with a large amount of nervousness and fear. She gulped. “Fine,” she took a shuddering breath. “Just... lie down, and make yourself comfortable. I’ll do the rest.”   Since I couldn’t exactly move without help, I simply did as she had told, and laid myself on the spot. Staring at the wooden ceiling, I gave the girl a nod as she came to view from my side.   “Are you sure?”   I grunted in reply, albeit a bit impatiently. Time was ticking, after all. For all I know, I only had thirty seconds before I went mad. Or perhaps I already was mad by denying myself of being mad. Who knows?   The girl put her hoof to my chest, pressuring it slightly. It felt oddly comfortable, reminding me of that familiar pressure when Nero decided to use my chest as her bed. I felt more, than saw, a dim glow coming from her hoof.   “This is going to be painful.” And oh by the gods, it was.