The Gift Horse

by Autumnschild

Chapter 3

Twilight Sparkle was trying desperately to think up a plan, but all the shouting just wasn’t helping.

“WHERE DID THE WORLD GO?!” demanded Pinkie Pie staring into the blackness beyond Sugarcube Corner’s door. She reached a hoof out and tapped where the ground should have been. Should have been. “THERE WAS A PONYVILLE HERE, BUT IT’S GONE NOW!”

“I… I CAN’T FLY. I CAN’T FLY!” shrieked a furiously flapping Rainbow Dash, jumping up and down as hard as she could.

“Any ya’ll feelin’ particularly drained alluva sudden?” asked Applejack with heavy lidded eyes.

“OF ALL THE POSSIBLE THINGS THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING!” Rarity was somewhere off to Twilight’s left, sobbing her eyes out.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh—” if the shivering lump desperately hugging her right was of any indication, Fluttershy was still with them.

Twilight fought through the lethargy that pulled at her senses, and pushed as much magic as she could muster into her horn to light the… light the...

Twilight’s eyes went wide and she tried again. Still nothing. It was like all of her magic was just gone. Like it was never there in the first place. “I HAVE NO MAGIC!”

The screaming ponies were struck mute when a sudden chill filled the otherwise still air, followed by a thud from the nearby pantry. A loud ominous thud followed by a bone chilling cry.

“What was that?” asked Rarity quietly as she nervously trotted in place.

Twilight shook her head, “I… don’t know. It doesn’t sound like any animal I know.”

Fluttershy shook like a leaf, “I-it’s the Gift H-h-h—” was all she could manage before she shifted into squeaks and eeps.

Pinkie Pie looked at the closed pantry door, next to the front counter of Sugarcube Corner, and rubbed the top of her head in thought. Then she looked back over to her horse catchers. Her, completely-stationary-and-aimed-at-the-front-door, horse catchers.

“Oopsies,” she said.

Rainbow Dash, still flapping as best she could but getting nowhere fast, looked over her shoulder at her cringing friend. “Whadda ya mean, ‘oopsies’?”

Pinkie Pie sat down and tapped her forehooves together “I… I thought the Gift Horse would come in through the front door.”

Twilight, having some time to adjust her eyes to the darkness, looked down at the bases of the two horse grabbers and noticed that they were both thoroughly bolted to the floor. “They don’t turn! Why don’t they turn?”

“I thought it would come in the front door!” Pinkie Pie fired back.

“But it’s in the closet, innit?” asked a sleepy-eyed Applejack, who was trying her absolute best to stay awake.

“Pantry,” corrected Pinkie Pie.

The strange voice cried out again, this time making different and yet still wholly alien sounds.

“So you didn’t build them to turn?!” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Who enters a house through a closet?!” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Pantry!” The other girls corrected in unison.

“WHATEVER!” shouted Pinkie Pie.

The monster in the pantry called out, from its tone, there was no mistaking that it had heard Pinkie Pie’s sudden outburst.

“What’ll we do?” whispered Rainbow Dash between rapid breaths.

“Maybe y’all wanna take a nap?” said Applejack, curling up on the floor with her sleep mask on.

“You can do what you want,” said Pinkie Pie as she slapped on her blindfold. “But I’m going to sit right here and get my present.”

Before anypony could object, there a click; The sound of somepony turning a doorknob. Twilight swiveled in place and stared in dread as the pantry door began to open. Before she could get a good look inside, there was a second click. A mechanical click. And her vision was filled with blinding light.

Fluttershy, in a blind panic, ran off as best she could, only to collide moments later with an equally frantic Rarity, knocking both girls to the floor in front of the counter.

“Arg! My, eyes!” cried Twilight as she rubbed and blinked away the spots in her eyes. But the sight that greeted her eyes made her wish she hadn’t.

It was the Gift Horse, and it loomed over the sleeping form of Applejack. With one of its large terrible eyes, it stared at an oblivious Pinkie Pie, and with the other it watched Rainbow Dash. Truly, this creature was the stuff of madness and nightmares.

Its head was horse-like in nature, lending credence to the name Gift ‘Horse’. But that was where all familiarity ended. After that, it was all ‘welcome to crazy town’.

The monster stood on two impossibly long legs, covered in plaid pants. It hunched over to move about, but at its full height it must have stood at least six feet tall. Six feet! The impossible creature crept along on its two legs with the troubling grace of a natural-born predator.

It had a pinkish-tan hairless torso and two limbs, like bone filled tubes of taffy, jutted out of its brown furred horse neck and swung about with unnerving ease. At the end of each limb were fleshy claws that curved and curled as they gripped its portable light source and gripped the handle of a large burlap sack.

The disconnect between the familiarity of the creature’s head, and the unnatural nature of the rest of it was almost too much for Twilight, who struggled to keep from fainting at the sight of it.

Its breathing was hollow and heavy, and even when it jabbered on in its guttural alien language, its mouth never moved. It just hung open in an expression of perpetual surprise. But the worst part of it all? The worst part was the eyes. The eyes never blinked.

Twilight tried to look away to save what was left of her sanity, but she couldn’t. Celestia help her, the Gift Horse was entirely upsetting and extraordinarily fascinating.

---

Rainbow Dash stared at the two hoofless legs of the Gift Horse. They ended in long fleshy slabs with five little nubs at the front of each one. It was super creepy, but she knew that if she looked at the rest of it, then she’d probably go crazy like Applejack’s cousin’s Uncle’s boyfriend, or whatever.

She watched it walk up to Applejack and leave a gift in front of the sleeping mare. That was pretty cool. Then it got up to walk over to her. That was definitely not cool.

“T-twilight? It’s coming over here. What do I do? What do I do?!” asked a hiccupping Rainbow Dash.

“I don’t know!” replied her friend. “Just… don’t look at it. And don’t make it angry!”

The Gift Horse took another step closer and barked some gibberish at her. Rainbow Dash flared out her wings and lowered her head.

“Go away!” she threatened as menacingly as possible.

For what it was worth, the Gift Horse did take a step back. And then aimed its light at her. Rainbow Dash watched in horror as the portable spotlight lit up a circle of her flesh, going this way and that, looking for… something?

Then it fell upon her cutie mark and the monster muttered something to itself before rummaging through its sack once more. Rainbow Dash trembled and fought against her equine instincts to flee, choosing instead to stand her ground and defend those she considered most precious to her.

A box filled her vision. It wasn’t as tall as Applejack’s present was, but it was longer. And it was covered in happy clouds and rainbow wrapping paper. A little girly, but she appreciated the effort.

“Hey, cool!” she said looking up with a smile, “Tha—“

“Rainbow, no!” squeaked Twilight. But it was too late.

Rainbow Dash buzzed her wings uselessly as her eyes traced the monster’s every line and curve. Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and Equestria’s fastest flier passed out on top of her present.

---

Pinkie Pie sat there with a grin on her face. She was finally going to get a gift from the Gift Horse! All these years of planning and psyching herself up for it had finally paid off. She could feel the creature get closer with each of its curiously heavy sounding hoofsteps, and with each step her curly tail swished left and right.

The creature stopped in front of her, and she heard it kneel down. Her senses were invaded with the scents of rubber and… aftershave? She laughed as the two smells mingled and tickled her nose. The bizarre creature snarled at her in its alien tongue, but Pinkie Pie just kept on giggling.

Soon there was the sound of rustling. Then lifting. Then something cool and papery was gently pressed against her chest. Pinkie Pie gripped the box and grinned like a maniac. “Thank you!” she said in a sing-song voice.

She felt the monster pat her on the head, before she heard it rise to its hooves again. Listening hard she could hear the sound of two fleshy sounding hooves walking away. Just two. She couldn’t help but chuckle at that, “Wow, you must look super weird.”

---

Huddled together by the counter, Fluttershy and Rarity squeaked and shivered as they waited for the creature to make its way over to them. Surely this would be the end.

“Y-you know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Rarity,” whispered Fluttershy.

“Oh, Fluttershy… There’s something that I have been meaning to tell you as well.”

“You go first.”

“No, no I insist, you go first.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t Rarity.”

“Very well, on the count of three, then?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“One… Two… Three.

“I love you.” “I’ve been charging beauty products to your spa account for yea… wait, what?”

Rarity blinked at her beautiful yellow friend, and pushed herself out of their hug. “I’m sorry come again?” Something tapped Rarity on the shoulder, but she brushed it off. “You’ve been doing what, now?”

Similarly, something tapped Fluttershy on the wing, but she couldn’t be bothered at the moment, “Oh Rarity, I… I just don’t know what to say. I m-mean I’m flattered and all, but—”

Both ponies felt that curious tap-tap-tapping again, and they could ignore no longer ignore it. They both looked up from each other and shared a gasp. They’d forgotten the Gift Horse, but it did not forget them. It handed each pony a present.

“Bwah-wha?” asked Rarity, before fainting.

“G-g-g-gffffffffmmmmah,” agreed Fluttershy, as she fainted, too.

It nodded at the two sleeping ponies and turned around to look for the last one without a gift. The purple one watching nervously.

Curious, they usually fainted as soon as they saw the mask.

---

Twilight eyed the creature as it strode over to her, dragging its burlap sack behind it with clear purpose. She looked left and saw a still blindfolded Pinkie Pie hugging her unopened gift. She looked right and saw the unlit fireplace. She started walking backwards as she spotted the other unconscious Elements of Harmony. This wasn’t looking good.

She continued to back up, and it continued to follow her. Suddenly, her hind end bumped up against the unexpectedly cold glass of the window behind her, and she unfurled her wings with a gasp. Much to her surprise, the Gift Horse grunted something and stumbled backwards, falling on its posterior.

It sat there in silence for a moment, and the two creatures from different worlds stared at each other. Then, curiously, it grunted something and gestured at her with its bony appendages.

“Are… are you asking me a question?” Twilight hazarded to guess.

The Gift Horse cocked its head at her in response. It didn’t ask its question again, instead choosing to crawl over to her on all fours. Twilight was cornered and had nowhere to run. She tried flapping her wings, but it looked like she was just as grounded as Rainbow Dash.

Twilight hyperventilated as the alien creature from beyond the pantries of Sugarcube Corner reached out for her. It was going to touch her. She squeezed her eyes shut and found herself praying for a something, anything to save her. Even Discord would be a welcome site at this point.

Then she felt it.

The strange warmth of it, as it lightly grasped her horn, and flexed her right wing back and forth. She could feel its hot breath on her face, and she fought against every urge to simply let go of consciousness and let the blissful ignorance of sleep sweep her away. Then it stopped.

The monster grunted in what sounded like understanding, and she heard the sound of crunching paper. A package was pushed up against her forelegs, and she opened her eyes. It had the most wonderful magenta wrapping paper, covered in glittery stars.

“Ooh!” she praised, temporarily forgetting the terror that loomed over her, “Thank you very—”

She did it. She cursed herself as she did it. She looked up and into the maw of terror itself. What she saw then, she’d never forget for the rest of her days.

Beyond the rubbery teeth of this holiday monster, was a second mouth far back where the throat was supposed to begin. This mouth was small and smooth, smelling of fresh aftershave. Beyond its second set of pink lips was a plethora of teeth, some of them looked like small fangs, perhaps canine in nature. Then she caught a small flickering of light just above the second mouth, further up in the head.

She steeled herself and gazed upon those hidden liquid pools so far inside the skin of this alien creature’s head.

The Gift Horse had a second pair of eyes. They bored into her own, betraying an intelligence that the unblinking pair on the outside of its head seemed to lack.

The second mouth spoke to her in the monster’s alien tongue, and she could no longer bear the horror of it all. Twilight Sparkle fell unconscious.

Comments

[Legioner8]

That reminded me
"There was a hole. It's gone now" - Silent Hill 2