Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Blade

There was very little light in the room. As little as the thick drawn curtains allowed in, and even less than that as a veil of thicker bubbling shadow settled over the gaps. Some of it had condensed on the walls, sliding down to the floor as thick black wetness that pooled in the corners of the room and left dark marks where it slid, like slugs had passed there. Sparse black feathers were in the room, some floating, some immobile on the ground. The ceiling was a mass of writhing black tentacles, occasionally dripping down a few oozing droplets.

A pattern drawn in white and red chalk over the moquette decorated the floor, lined with symbols and sentences in arcane tongues even the one who'd traced them didn't properly understand. Barbed wired stuck out in places along the pattern, sprouting through the floor like a weed growing in it. Small skulls of tiny animals like rats and birds grew on its spikes like fruit on a tree.

Pinkie lay in the middle of the room and the pattern, naked, shivering, holding herself in a fetal position. A cloak of shadowy feathers occasionally manifested over her, then dissipated like smoke moments later, undone by the increasing quaking of her body. She bled, sometimes, dark red blood slipping out of her wounds and flowing along the chalk pattern. Other times she had no wounds. Her breath was ragged, difficult, struggling always like something was fighting against it.

Shadows swirled and twirled and coalesced into a raven's head beside her own, hollow eye sockets staring at the skin pulled taut over her skull. Her breathing quickened, her eyes darted around before finding the emanation. "I don't want this anymore," she said. Her hands clutched nothing but themselves as she held them between her chin and neck, her nails dug into her palms and when she bled she bled there too. "I can't take it anymore. I can't go on." Her voice was shrill, hoarse, her cadence was erratic.

The darkness did not answer. Its tiny raven head tilted to the side, then shred itself into whisps of black smoke. They flowed unnaturally towards her face, like snakes slithering through the air. Some entered her, through her nose or eyes or ears, some merely passed over her, wrapping themselves around her neck and shoulders and upper arms. Besides herself Pinkie stopped shivering, as a deep dark warmth spread over and into her.

A few minutes passed in silence. The girl swallowed. Slowly she raised herself, one hand pushing up. She sat, still naked, panting and beginning to sweat. Her eyes were wide, pupils unnaturally dilated even given the darkness of the room. Her nails began to turn black. Her breathing slowed. She looked upwards as thick tentacles reached down towards her. They touched her and passed through her chest, and a mantle of oily blackness spread down from her shoulders.

Pinkie stood up. Darkness poured over her and wrapped around her, and barbed wire rose like vines over her body. Her eyes closed, and shadows enveloped her fully.

Comments

[Speckle]

Oh sh--!

Pinkie...what have you done...?

[Saix]

I hope she can still be saved.