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01-26-2014, 12:51 PM
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The painted filly had led Moniz from one darkness to another. Admittedly, when the pony mare was ushered towards the hole that pierced the land’s outer crust, she had reacted with thinly-veiled skepticism. She was a mare, a creature of grasslands and wide open spaces, not some naked mole rat hiding from a vague and unknown evil in the world that sprawled beneath the world. The hole led to the bowels of the known universe, and Moniz knew that the bowels were where the shit comes from: a place from which to be expelled, not to enter of one’s own accord. That slick path streaked with the skidmarks of countless hooves certainly reeked. It reeked of fear and the stench of too many bodies sharing one finite space for too long, of disagreement and anger and resentment and most of all, of genuine, profound terror. The strange heat and humidity of mortal life rotting away below ground gave the hole the distinct, unpleasant impression of a few too many nights of Mexican food, heavy on the refriend beans and tabasco sauce. And so Moniz hesitated, torn between her instinctive revulsion and her morbid curiosity of what unknown evil could possibly yield such horror. She had hovered in the late afternoon shadows that played around the hole’s rim, her black-tipped ears pulled forward to whatever lay beneath, magnetically drawn to the desperation below her. The fight-or-flight response of her reptillian brain was screaming at her to turn tail and seek out some other shelter, but her desire to watch worlds fall apart and the ruination of relationships anchored her. Finally, late afternoon shifted to darkness all too suddenly, and the pony lost the luxury of choice. There was nothing to do in the real world’s night: at least this shadow world held some faint promise of entertainment. Her decision made, she tumbled haphazardly downwards, her hocks dropped to balance her as she slid recklessly through the slick mud. As her eyes adjusted to the ethereal light of a world that never saw the sun, her other senses compensated for her diminished sight. Murmurred conversations echoed cavernously from somewhere further ahead, but the low rumble that churned out of her gut earned her immediate attention. The only thing that could distract Moniz from the fun of a terrified shitshow acted out by her brethren was her desire to eat, and the long notes of her intestines squeezing against empty air noisily made that desire known. Thus, her nose took over, carefully picking out the scent of edible organic matter somewhere amidst the thick odor of fear – a fear that was delicious in its own right, of course, but that failed to satisfy the way a thick mouthful of lush grass could. Her nostrils flared widely, and she ducked off to her right. There was plenty of fear to feast on later. Dessert. Moniz’s small gray hooves poked through the delicate mosspillows that carpeted the floor. At first, the otherworldly blue-green glow that oozed into the corners of her field of vision seemed like nothing more than a brief trick of her pupils’ dilation, but its stubborn persistence as she drew nearer proved to be no illusion. When she was close enough for the vines that fell from the ceiling to caress her well-padded back, she accepted this new reality: the foodstuff glowed. Her stomach rumbled insistently, undeterred. As long as it tastes good, she thought happily, snaking her thick neck up as far as she could reach and clipping off a low-hanging flower between her teeth. The petals burst over her pallette with a honey sweetness so rich, a moan of gluttonous pleasure rippled out from her chest. The sticky syrup that had trickled out when she ripped the vine smeared her lips like a gloss, drawing her tongue out of her mouth to sample the rich sugary juice. Her pulse quickened with delight at the discovery of this further delicacy. Now unencumbered by any sense of modesty, Moniz began to snatch thick mouthfuls of the vegetation that fell like gifts from above, noisily chewing and groaning with the sweet bliss of her indulgence. @[Fig] |
