• Published 14th Feb 2017
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PaP: Bedtime Stories - Starscribe



Earth used to have humans living on it. Now it has ponies, some of which used to be human. It will take ten thousand years for every human alive on earth to return. A lot can happen in that much time.

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Unexpected Predator

Stephen did not like where they were taking him.

Stephen did not like much of anywhere the prey took him, except when they let him loose in the forest to hunt. Yet no matter how many times he tried, he couldn't get away from the big male, the one with the spike on his head.

Stephen remembered what it was like to live out in the forest, where there was ample hunting and little challenged him. Even the towering wolves had kept their distance, as was proper. Stephen was too small to hunt the things they killed, and they were too large to care about what he could hunt best. It had worked forever.

Now he was somewhere else. By reflex, Stephen clawed at the thick metal collar around his neck, tugging at the chain. He rested in the center of something he didn't understand. Like ground, only ground that moved. The prey had trapped him here days and days ago. There was plenty of room on the moving ground to walk in a small circle, to stretch, or to preen himself. There wasn't the freedom to go run off and explore.

The prey pulled his ground-that-moved past forests he had never seen. A million new scents assaulted him, including many of forest unclaimed by any as powerful-smelling as he was. Yet no matter how many times he strained, the thing on his neck wouldn't come off. He couldn't pull it off without damaging the feathers on his neck, he had tried many times. He coudn't bite through the cold rocks that made such awful noise when they jostled together, couldn't shatter them against the ground-that-moved as rocks should be. Couldn't escape.

He couldn't imitate the sounds the prey made, and had no desire to do so. He could let them know of his displeasure, and he had. The prey gave him food to placate him, as they always did. There was no justice in the world, that these prey with no talons and no beaks could produce an endless supply of delicious fish from somewhere he couldn't see. So many times he had begged them to show him how they got it, and always they denied him.

Stephen loved the taste of fish, but he was a terrible fisher. Rabbits and squirrels were easier. Not prey as big as the ones that had brought him from his territory, spent so long making noises at him, until at last they'd given up and trapped him on the ground-that-moves. Where was he going? Stephen had no idea. He would let the prey live so long as they kept giving him fish. Even so, he was considering what he would do to them if they trapped him much longer. There was so much meat on them, he suspected he could eat them forever.

Then they brought him to the mountains.

Not the kind of mountains he could always see far away, with their stone peaks often covered in snow even when it was hot. These were... different. Much smaller, yet they seemed so much taller. Towering over his head, as high as the birds flew above. Higher than Stephen had ever dared climb in even the tallest trees. He could not fly like the birds, even if he had wings like them. How did they know where to go?

The smell of prey went from a small thing to a very big thing. Stephen cowered in the center of the ground-that-moves, hiding his face behind one wing and trying not to be seen. He could smell so much prey... more prey than he'd ever seen. More than the ones who lived in the empty-square-tree near his forest. More even than the forest of empty trees they had taken him when they lured him back.

The prey had made hollow mountains. There were many holes, and when he looked up he saw more of them inside. Herds bigger than the flocks of birds that sometimes flew over his forest. Herds bigger than the biggest schools of fish he had ever seen. Even in the dark, the time the prey seemed so scared, there were many of them walking between their mountains. They stopped to make their noises with the ones who brought him, communicating who knew what terrible things.

Was this Stephen's punishment for hunting near them? Did they take him here to eat him? It seemed hard to believe. The prey that took him had been so good before. They gave him a warm nest, they gave him fish, they made such pretty sounds. Would they really eat him now? How would they do it without beaks?

They wandered for a very long time, until they came to one mountain that was not as tall as the others, but seemed more special. It was made of solid white rock, and like the other mountains it had way too many straight lines. There were not so many openings though, and he wondered if maybe it wasn't hollow. Many prey waited here, and they had to get past a lot going the other way to make it to the opening.

The male got off the ground-that-moves and came around to him. Immidately Stephen rose to his claws, hissing and clawing to keep him away. The male made sounds--not mad sounds, not hungry sounds, just sounds.

Stephen let him know just what Stephen thought of coming here, loudly. Many of the prey stared, some backed away. He smelled their fear. Frightened prey always tasted best.

Stephen had come to expect things around the male that did not make sense. The thing around his neck let him go on its own, and all those loud rocks keeping him prisoner fell to the ground. Stephen made to leap for joy... and found he couldn't. He tried to roar, to claw at the male... but he couldn't. His eyes widened as he moved up into the air, past the crowd of watching prey. He couldn't even yell, couldn't get his revenge... he couldn't do anything.

The female prey followed behind him, making her soothing sounds. The sounds she always made whenever they did something stupid and made him mad. Those sounds sometimes made him feel better. They didn't this time, not as they went into the huge empty mountain, and the sky was gone. Stephen found there was one thing he could do was cry.

Yet he was also a predator, and so he watched. If he needed to escape, he would need to know what this hollow mountain looked like, so he could find his way out.

As usual, the prey used too much light. His eyes hurt at first coming in to see such light. How the prey made light during the night he didn't know. This kind was different than the light the other prey kept in their tree. It did not flicker and change, and it wasn't warm. It came from above, from markings on the roof of the great stone cave, and it never changed. It was too yellow.

There were not many of the prey inside, as there had been outside. Could it be their den, where they took their most precious kills? At least if he was going to be eaten today, it would be good to be treated as the prize he rightfully was. There were three different tunnels in the cave, two big ones on the sides and one small one in the middle. They went to the small one.

More prey waited at the end of the tunnel, different than the ones he had seen before. These prey lived in something shiny and hard, and he could only see their faces. It was the same kind of rock that had kept him from escaping on the way here, impervious to his claws or his beak. These prey also had very sharp claws, and watched him like the wolves of his territory back home. I hope they run slow inside their rocks. It would be his only chance. Like the wolves, he could never fight them. Only show submission to something bigger and earn his place.

But that assumed he would get away.

Past the prey that acted like predators, the cave got very big. It was so high up that he couldn't even see the top, it was so dark up there. The openings that weren't openings couldn't let in light when the sun wasn't up. But there wasn't fake-light in here either. Only one, at the far end of the hall. There were so many things in here he didn't understand, bits of rock and tree and shiny things that filled most of the space but that he could find no names for. Only a dull ache in the back of his head, something he had banished forever ago.

At the end of the cave was a big, empty bit of tree for prey to sit on, and something sat on it. That was where they prey that brought him was going. Maybe when they got there, he would be free to eat them for what they did. He would fight them at least, it was only fair.

The one on the small tree looked like prey. Prey had such silly colors--the male who brought him was purple, so obvious Stephen had seen him easily through the forest. The female behind was almost as orange as the sun. This one was green, so green that Stephen easily could've missed her if she were standing still in the woods. Stephen approved of that color, it was a good choice.

She was bigger too--as big as the male, though she smelled and looked like a she. Green wings almost as big as his, though they were folded. She had no beak, no tallons, but she did have a spike on her head like the male. A bigger one.

She did not smell like prey. Stephen's eyes widened as he took in the smell, and primal fear overtook him. He struggled more vigorously against his invisible captivity, still with no avail. His claws didn't even twitch. Nothing moved except his eyes, and he couldn't scream. He couldn't bow, couldn't get away.

She smelled like the big thunderstorms that knocked down trees. She smelled like the light the prey kept in their hollow tree, but bigger. She smelled like a wolf so big it filled the sky. Her eyes saw him. She made noises, different than the noises he heard before. He knew them, even if he didn't want to. They weren't sounds at all, they were words. "Let him go." Each sound came with a flood, a flood of feelings Stephen did not want to remember.

He fell. He landed upright by instinct, arching his back. He cowered, tucking his tail and making his wings as small as they would go, exposing his throat to this strange prey-looking thing. Like the wolves, it would not do him any good to run away.

The prey made noises back to her, and again Stephen could slip into blissful oblivion. He could start to forget the terrible things he didn't want to remember. The things he had pushed away forever ago. Back when he was still Stephen.

They made noises for a long time, and Stephen thought that maybe he would get away. Maybe the prey would make so many noises that the big one would forget him and he could escape. But no... as he started to back up, he felt something pressing on him again. Different than before. It pulled him by the scruff, and his whole body went limp as he was dragged. The invisible something dragged him past the prey, to the bottom of the little tree where the other one sat.

This is when they eat me.

"I am sorry," said the big one.

Stephen knew what sorry was, and he didn't want to. He cried again, and didn't even care that they could all smell it. "NO!" He remembered no. He didn't want to. He tried to get away, but this time only his legs wouldn't move. He could still struggle, still cry, still flap his wings. But he couldn't run.

"You are comfortable this way," said the big one. "I am sorry to take that from you." The spike on her head got very bright, and Stephen screamed. It was like when he fought the wolves, all over. Pain that made his eyes water, pain that made him scream and shout and claw at the ground. Pain he couldn't stop. Stephen fell into her eyes.

Stephen was somewhere else. He was smaller, though not too much smaller. His feathers were all gone, his fur was gone. He had clothes instead, and was locked into a booster seat in the back of a car. There were two people in the front seats. Mom. Dad. They looked like him--no claws, no wings, just clothes. They laughed and joked with one another. Stephen's dad was driving. It was early in the morning, but all the cars were going the other way. Stephen liked that best, because it meant they could go fast.

"My God," Someone sat beside him in the car. Not the monster-prey, though she had the same eyes. She looked a little like mom, but not as old and not as pretty. Long brown hair, plain features, but still those red-brown eyes. "I am sorry you had to live through this, Stephen." She was sitting in the seat beside him, though she was a grown-up so she didn't have a carseat. She wasn't wearing her seatbelt either.

"What..." Stephen could talk again. It felt very strange, to remember things so old and far away. His mouth felt strange not to have a beak. "What did you do?" His voice sounded high, and he was very small. Eight. I just turned eight.

"I'm amazed you survived, Stephen." she said. Her voice didn't match her body. It sounded like mommy--a grown-up who knew things. A grown up Stephen could trust. "Do you remember where we are?"

He nodded. "Coming home. From... Disney World..." it was such agony to think. His eyes wattered, his arms shook, yet the memories came anyway. They were forced on him whether he wanted them or not. All of Stephen's little boxes, where he put all the things that hurt, they were all dumped out in front of him. He started to cry again, covering his face with both arms. "Stop it! Leave me alone!"

The girl put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Stephen. I can't."

"Why?" He shouted through his tears.

"Because if I do, my spell will be incomplete. You won't change."

"I don't want to change!" he pushed her off, pushed with all his young strength.

She let go, but she didn't let him push her very far. Grown-ups were so strong! "Your old self does," she said. "I'm putting him back together."

"No!"

His scream didn't help. Stephen saw everything whether he wanted to or not. He remembered school, remembered Mrs. Harper's third-grade class. Remembered his parents. Bedtime stories, his favorite food (not just fish, salmon!), the glasses he used to wear, playing minecraft. He remembered being bored at church on Sundays, remembered family reunions and Christmas trees and his cat named Flowers. Stephen remembered himself.

He was still in the backseat of the car. Only it wasn't moving anymore. There had been a flash, screaching tires, his mom screamed... then a jerk. Now he was in his booster, trapped in clothes that felt wrong. His mom and dad were gone, and something else had taken their place. Prey, he would've called them. Now they looked like something he'd seen in a petting zoo at Disney.

Except that, like the car, they weren't moving. They were in a forest. My forest. Smoke rose from the front of the wrecked car, where the engine had been crumpled against a tree. The windshield had been crumpled beyond recognition, as had the rest of the car.

The girl still sat beside him. "You never should've had to see this." she said, still human even though he wasn't anymore. She pulled him out of the belt, where he had remembered clawing his way out before. Held him in her lap as he cried. "I'm sorry to make you remember. Life might be easier for you if you forgot again, but I won't do that?"

"W-why?" he looked up at her, brushing away his tears with one leg. Humans were so big, so unnatural... and the smell was like nothing he remembered.

"The ones who brought you here... they came to me so I could help you."

"I don't want... don't want to hurt this much."

"I know," she held him up, and suddenly there was no car, no forest, no bodies. She wasn't human anymore either, but the gigantic monster he had thought would eat him. "I will take some of it from you, Stephen. If I didn't, you might slip back eventually into the thing you were. I will take the pain, but not the memories. No child deserves to lose his parents."

"W-what... how..." so much didn't make sense. Even with all his memories forced upon him again, Stephen didn't understand. She was nothing like the things he remembered. She did not belong in the world he had left behind.

"I am a princess, Stephen," she said, as though she could hear his thoughts. "I know your pain like it was my own. I will give your my understanding of the way your mom and dad would feel for you, right now. I will give you their understanding."

Stephen felt love as he had never felt it before, filling him and filling him until he threatened to explode. Not simple affection--it was hope for him, hope that he would make something good in his new world. Prayers for a future he could take, if he wanted. Laughter from his mother, whispered encouragement from his father. Confidence in his abilities and pride for his resilience.

The festering wound of Stephen's mind scarred over.

He still cried. Cried as he opened his eyes, and saw the prey who had brought him as he had not seen them before. They weren't a potential meal--they were another mom and dad, one that had discovered him in loneliness and pain and brought him here to heal. Stephen rose, and found he was no longer restrained. He ran to them, and embraced them as he had never done before. Stephen remembered what a hug was.

"Thank you," he said, through the tears. They didn't even seem all that surprised to hear him.

The monster sitting on the thing Stephen now knew was called a throne spoke before the others could, her voice no longer seeming so terrible. "Make it count," she said, rising to her hooves and turning to leave. "Don't let yourself forget this time."