RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 7 draft 1

Rarity clutches the grass, its green rubbing on her white sarong that spreads onto Applejack’s legs. They watch sunlight pierce the thin cloud cover that reveals a sapphire blue sky.

The heat of summer has died down in the coming dusk and birds and animals chirp happily around the trees of the forest edge nearby. The green leaves rustle in the wind and the smell of dust from the ploughed field nearby teases her nose.

“Where are we?” Rarity asks.

“Home, if you want it to.” Applejack replies as she twiddles with a grass leaf between her fingers.

Rarity rolled over, laying her cheek on the grass and dirt below. The smell, the texture and feeling, it was wonderful. Coarse, sometimes smooth, earthy and rustling.

She played with an end of her sarong. Silk. She brought it to her face and rubbed her eyelids in it. Applejack chuckled.

“You do like to show ankles for a city girl.”

“I hope you like it,” Rarity breathed back until a sigh overtook her.

“Something’s wrong, sugar?”

“I want to stay here. Forever.” She ripped some of the grass out and brought it to her nose. “The dream is so much better than life.”

“Maybe. But you can’t stay here. For now. They’re going to need you.”

“I need you.”

“You want this,” Applejack said arching her arm across the landscape. “But you don’t need it. Your friends need you.”

⇜⇝

Rarity woke up to the sound of crackling fire. A stranger had joined the group in her slip.

Its face, if it had any, hid under a dark, muddied hood. The stench of decay assaulted Rarity’s find and she watched in terror as its back vertebras jutted through two ripped holes in the cloth below the shoulders. Rarity's eyes grew wide. She saw torn up wings with strings of flesh attached extend out to stretch, only to fall back on the creature’s back. They ebbed and flowed with each breath it took.

It didn't sit like Tempest or Trixie, themselves frozen as they dared not look away from it. Curled under its tunic, it stood on all fours, or three in the case as Rarity noticed one of its front legs bend to press against the hood. It held something against its forehead.

Rarity looked down. Under the fire’s light, the front limb ended with a scarred, gangly human hand, coloured with shades of brown and bleached piss. Decay and sewers, smells that singed her nostrils like in the Canterhigh mines when tunnels got closer to the surface. The thing sat closest to the exit. The realisation thunked down deep in Rarity’s mind as she saw she couldn’t dash before being in reach.

Rarity threw a look at Tempest, to beg her to do something. Her purple friend eyes welled up, scared to act. Rarity followed the direction of Tempest's stare. A ball of lead dropped in Rarity's stomach again.

Tempest hadn’t been looking at the hooded figure, but what stood behind it.

Rarity looked in horror at the entrance of the cove. She then knew the reek of rot wasn't from the invitee but what lay beyond the threshold. The beast, the actual beast, was back.

Its torn up head from the dynamite blast heaved, oozed, drooped and spastically sagged from side to side. No eyes, no muzzle, merely the broken edge of a jaw where a few sharp teeth still pierced pus-filled gums. Its throat hugged the small entry to the cove. Earth had found a gullet that hungered for lost folks.

The visitor coughed and a handful of ash fell to the ground from its hood, blowing around its hand and even reaching the fire where the heat dragged it up like dust motes in the wind. The one that touched the fire fizzled into a bright colour Rarity had never seen. A lighter shade of Tempest’s mohawk.

Trixie was slowly moving backward, till her back touched the wall behind. Tempest’s hand moved in a crawl trying to sneak her dagger out of her belt.

Rarity let out a nervous laugh. “Eh, welcome in our humble… domain?”

Trixie and Tempest threw her a soul shattering look. Rarity replied with a silent grimace that tore her face. Her heart was booming in her chest and the rush of blood thumped against her eardrums.

“Thanks,” it said.

It was a she and Rarity irked away as she sat back on her haunches drawing a hand out to poke her fingers directly into the fire. The flame danced away, as if to avoid the touch, but the she-thing clutched her hand in the air above the hearth and drew the fire to her.

Flames jumped over the stone perimeter, lighting invisible fodders till it reached the visitor’s lap. The flame licked and jostled on her hand and robe and nothing caught ablaze.

She opened her hand and the fire sucked itself back to its living space. Rarity watched the light show recede and glanced back to the invitee.

Her face was well hidden under her hood. She brought the hand that’d just held the fire to her lap. Her other hadn’t moved. She held the back of her hand against her forehead, pressing the hood in between. It was cracked, blackened fist, dead, burned to a crisp in a long-extinguished fire.

“He’s angry. And he’s dying,” she said.

“Good!” Tempest snidded, pointing the hooded figure with her knife. The visitor’s wing bloomed and snapped back down on her back. She shirked away and shrunk under her hood. “May it die quick. We’ve got places to go.”

The beast growled, spitting out red and black phlegm into the cove, landing against the hood and about. The globes that fell into the first sizzled into a sewer stench that took hostage Rarity’s throat.

“Do you hate him? He’s just a beast.”

“He scarred me,” Trixie said, showing the scratch on her forehead. “We did nothing to it. He attacked us first.”

“He belongs here, in the forest,” she whispered back. “You, we... don’t.”

“We?” Rarity inquired.

She nodded. Her valid hand crawled to the ridge of her hood and dragged it back as she kept her other hand clasped over nothing against her forehead.

A cracked, ashen face glanced back at the trio. Tired eyes hid behind a messy, splattered mess of a pale hair. Her lips curled over broken teeth, if not canines, and her eyes gleamed with sagacious perspicacity in the fire light. She looked to Rarity with a smile, then with a growl to Trixie and Tempest. She stretched her blackened wings, occulting the beast behind. The flames in the hearth waves up and back, stretched out to the wings as if called to a better home.

Tempest took to her knees and leaned over, extending her dagger over the fire. “You better stop your hexes, right now.” She heaved pain breath.

The visitor coiled back into its tunic, a sadness ripping through her quivering lips. “You’re afraid of the dark.”

Tempest faltered, nearly dropping the knife in the fire. “No, I’m not.”

“If you’re afraid of the dark, I can give you the light.”

Tempest’s hand retreated and pointed down. “I’ve got the light right here. I don’t need any shenanigans from a forest vagrant!”

The visitor’s shoulders dropped low and she hunched over, showing her shaky wings.

Rarity stared at Tempest, pleading silently for her to stand down. She turned to the visitor and extended her left hand. “I–” Words died in her breath.

Starting from the tip of her fingers up, crawling beneath the witch’s brand pulsed a pure bluish white glow that shone through the cove. Trixie cowered from the light, hiding her eyes behind her hand. Tempest gaped and dropped her knife.

Rarity watched her arm, heeding the gentled burn that agitated beneath her skin and funnel itself up to her shoulder and chest. She withdrew it away and the glow died.

The visitor herself looked aback. She looked up from the hand to Rarity’s eyes and Rarity could see a warm behind the mangled smile she received.

Rarity held her hand up and slowly lowered it towards the visitor and as it neared her direction, the pulse came back with blinding strength.

The winged woman shifted on her behind, scraping the dirt under her robe as she crept to Rarity to stop mere inches from her extended hand. The mangled hand reached to her palm and Rarity winced away.

The visitor grazed her fingers over Rarity’s wrist and forearm. No arm or pain came, only the fluttering feeling a canary’s feather against her skin.

Rarity opened her eyes and looked up into the unknown woman’s sheepish eyes.

“My name is Rarity.”

“And I am Fluttershy.” Her smile grew wider, revealing the jawline. Rarity tried to mimic it but let out a laugh instead.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity laughed, pointing at her teeth. “It’s just…”

“I understand.” Fluttershy smiled, lips and eyes closed. “Thank you for inviting me into your home.”

“I didn’t agree to this deal,” Tempest protested, her words pushing Fluttershy back from Rarity and in front of the beast again.

Trixie tugged at Tempest’s denim. “Maybe we should be gentle with the lady with the big scary monster on a leash?”

Fluttershy caught the whispers. “He’s not leashed. He comes and goes as he pleases. He’s the master of his own fate and life. I am no zookeeper.”

“What is it?” Rarity asked, fumbling over her words. “What is he?”

Fluttershy sighed, turning around to give a tooth a pat. Her wings scraped at the fire but didn’t ignite, the feather throwing embers against the wall.

“He’s an old creature from before the great chaos,” she said, sadness tinging her voice. “We once called them wolves, then timberwolves when the magic came, and finally as the world shattered and leyline were mangled, monsters.”

The beast shivered, retreating at the touch for a moment, then pressing forward against the walls of the gullet as if to request a scratch.

“This one is the last of its kind.” She hunched over and rasped, trickles of ash catapulting out of her throat and mouth.

Rarity cringed away as the dust spread in motes to her feet. She forced herself to utter. “Do you need help?”

“No, it is fine,” she said with a toothy smile. “Thank you.”

She grabbed the ash in her free hand and crushed it, letting a small trickle of dust filter through the bottom of her fist like a minute glass.

“You’ve been tasked to seek me and others, Rarity,” Fluttershy whispered. “I see your hand as I see my eyes. We’re marked.”

“The light?” Rarity breathed. “How do you know?”

“The light indeed.” She turned to watch Rarity, her sparsely lit eyes shining with lighter shade of magenta. “I too was gifted with the light. But mine doesn’t seek like yours. It just allows to see and connect.”

She rummaged through her robe and retrieve a hand lighter with a rusted, smooth wheel. It was similar to the size of the dynamo Tempest had gifted Rarity. She threw it into the fire and a blue tint raised from within the burning twigs and ripped logs.

“Thank you again.” Rarity sputtered. “For keeping the beast at bay.”

“He belongs to this forest, you don’t. You all belong behind walls with other humans.”

“And you,” Trixie asked with a shaky voice.

“I have no place to call my home, no friends to call my own.”

“Well,” Trixie chuckled. Rarity did too, following Fluttershy’s cryptic answer. “I guess you’re welcome around the fire. Better be here than…” Trixie pointed down the breathing open oesophagus of the beast. “Down there.”

“You said you have a light like Rarity,” Tempest mubbled with an unsure tone. “Are you a witch?”

“I’m no witch,” Rarity breathed, indignant.

“Yes, you are.” Trixie smirked.

“Please, stop fighting,” Fluttershy requested with a meek voice. Still, everyone lowered their voice and listened. “I… My light cast away pretense.”

“What do you mean?” Rarity asked.

Rarity saw Tempest’s scowl, she was clearly not buying the visitor. Tempest’s voice rose, jagged with the tone of a forewoman who’d dealt with death. “Show us.”

“Are you sure?” Fluttershy gulped. “You may not like what the light has to share.”

“Show. Us.”

Fluttershy sobbed and the blackened hand she held up to her forehead opened. Her burnt fingers opened to a flaming eye that cast blinding fire and light into the cove.

Burning. That’s all Rarity could feel. She heard screaming, closing her eyes to evade the burning eyes. She peeled, or felt so, she couldn’t tell. Her skin burned layer after layer as even her eyelid couldn’t contain the sight. She could see the sphere, the eye piercing through her skin and eye, deeper inside her skull and mind.

The light washed over her light a wave of heat and as the burn soothed into a warm breeze of a summer she’d dreamed, Rarity opened her eyes.

There was no shadow where to hide. The cove was a bright yellow of flame and light. Fluttershy’s wings ablaze cast themselves up to the ceiling and the eye in her now burning hands sizzled as it twisting round between Tempest, Trixie and Rarity.

Trixie wasn’t a teenager anymore. Older, battle-scared and covered in a long robe adorned with gold, silver and gems, regality wrapped her. She looked down scared at her finery and the missing fourth finger on her left hand. The sword at her side, thing and stringy, felt more honary than practical.

Tempest had regressed to her child feature, young enough Rarity wasn’t yet born. She was crying as her scars were gone and she could see, with both eyes as the old gash that once cut her eye had disappeared in the light.

Then Trixie and Tempest looked up at Rarity, fear struck their face first, quickly followed by marvel.

Rarity frowned as she lifted her hands in front of her. Callus were gone, and so the scars, she was watching thin beautifully trimmed hands of a refined woman her long arms had lost their muscle tautness and her beaten skin turned silky shone white like a diamond in the light. Something rubbed her back and she reached out. She pulled back a strand of lustrous purple hair she twirled between her fingers, they gave a scent she’d never smelled and glimmers she’d never seen in them.

She wished for a mirror and turned to Fluttershy, maybe her eyes would reflect who she were. But Fluttershy was eyes shut, crying as her hand scorched, cracked and blistered under the light.

“Fluttershy, stop!” Rarity called, fighting the better of her nature as she wished to bask longer in what she was seeing. “Stop…”

Fluttershy’s charred hand snapped shut, bleeding and burning with a smell of burnt meat. Trixie was back to her teenage self and Tempest’s head, scarred hung low, miserable.

“I am sorry.” She crawled under her robe and threw the hood over her head and hand and it tainted with dark as blood dripped over her crossed legs and the dirt below.

“What did I see,” Tempest blubbered, heaving.

“What could be? What could have been, or what could still be?” The light just burns away conceit and pretense.” She swallowed with difficulty, as if to pass a stone. “I call it help.”

“How is this help?” Tempest cried only for her voice to die in a sob. “Showing us the past, or something that may have never existed.”

“Are you a witch?” Trixie whispered. “A goddess?”

“I am neither. I just give to the lost.” Fluttershy turned to Rarity and crawled to her.

Rarity shirked away, hesitated as Fluttershy, like a mangy cat curled to her side. Rarity opened her hand and gave the woman, or a girl, now Rarity could see how little and puny she was, a pat on her wings.

Her hands came back coated in ash and grim and her fingers brushing against the remnants of flesh dragged it along like the sagging skin of an elder woman.

“How old are you?” Rarity asked.

“The deadwood has little concern for time,” she replied. “You sought me, even though she didn’t know. But I see that despite your doubt and pain, the light may have nothing to give you.” She removed herself from Rarity’s touch and stood, taller than Tempest, slender and thing like a twig ready to snap. Her wings mangled themselves into her back and she snaked away, towards the beast’s maw. “The light had nothing to give you, and you granted me shelter. Maybe I can give to show that I belong.”

Shrinking to a girl’s size, Fluttershy snagged one of the monster’s teeth in her hand and looked back. She never opened her blackened hand on her forehead, she smiled, then she climbed up into the mangled jaw. “The city is back up the trail, you will meet merchants tomorrow. They’re on their way.”

Trixie gasped, Tempest retched and Rarity watched as Fluttershy rubbed a cheek against the pus-covered remnant of the inside of the maw.

She purred motherly, “It’s time to go, sweety.” She turned back, her eyes yellow with flames, her mouth a burning beak. Rarity believed she was still smiling. Fluttershy basculated inside the mouth and her voice echoed. “Hush now, quiet now.”

She was engulfed in flames and the beast sobbed a guttural complaint as the fire spread. Fluttershy had disappeared inside and, as the fire raged, fatigue snatch Rarity by surprise, she closed her eyes and drifted away as the smell of ash and the lullaby of death danced in the air.