>It was a cool, windless spring night in the Everfree Forest.
>The air felt incredibly still and, save for the intermittent chirp of an insect or rustling of a small critter in the undergrowth, carried uncharacteristically little noise.
>The full moon itself hung low in the sky and bathed the impenetrable canopy of the wood in soft pale light, the darkened silhouette of the mare trapped within on full and remarkably clear display.
>In spite of the forest’s long-standing reputation as an unmapped dwelling for all manner of eldritch horrors, this particular night seemed almost…
>Serene.
>In the view of a naïve simpleton, it might have seemed like a wondrous occasion.
>The mighty Everfree, momentarily pacified, carried a natural beauty like no other place on the planet, after all.
>With a more grim and worldly appraisal, however, it appeared that the entire ecosystem was waiting with baited breath.
>Shuffling its metaphorical feet in dreadful anticipation of the moment the serenity would finally break.
>For a time, it seemed the concern would be all for naught.
>The close moon tracked lazily across the sky as hour after hour ticked by, and it truly appeared as if a rare uneventful night would come to pass in the vast expanse of trees.
>But of course, it was not to be.
>From an indeterminate point in the thicket, a shrill scream of absolute terror pierced the quiet, followed in turn by a guttural and most definitely enraged roar.
>As if on cue, a cacophony of noise burst from every corner of the untamed wilderness.
>Hundreds of birds rapidly hooted and chirped, insects signaled wildly to each other in a maelstrom of indiscriminate buzzing, and patches of brush shook violently as dozens of critters chattered fearfully to one another.
>The mass panic, while logical through the lens of base instinct as a response to a terrifyingly loud noise, became exceedingly puzzling given a moment of thought.
>Why would so many animals attempt to communicate a dangerous presence all at once, especially when said presence had just loudly declared itself to the entire forest?
>Well, the answer was actually quite simple.
>There was something else stalking the forest that night.
>Something far more subtle – and infinitely more dangerous – than anything careless enough to make a sound.
…
>Anonymous, a human male of about five years of age, was fleeing for his life.
>Tears streamed down his face and panicked sobs wracked his lungs even as he gasped desperately for the air he needed to maneuver through the thickets and brambles of the Everfree as fast as he possibly could.
>In dogged pursuit was a decidedly-incensed grizzly bear mother, uprooting saplings and stomping thick hedges flat in her attempt to maul the strange creature that she saw as a threat to her cubs.
>Were it not for the almost unnaturally-dense ground foliage endemic to the forest, she likely would have succeeded in said endeavor with laughable ease.
>As it stood, the child was able to leverage his small size to keep a hairline lead on the massive predator, capable of weaving around and through obstacles where the grizzly had no choice but to smash through everything.
>This small advantage was of little respite to the terrified boy’s mental state, as his adrenaline-addled mind could only register the violent thrashing of brush and earth-shaking stomps that seemed to grow minutely closer with every second the chase went on.
>He had no idea why this was happening to him, neither why he had fallen asleep without warning during his usual meander through the small wood behind his house nor why he had awoken in the middle of a bear den in the dead of night.
>Everything around him, right down to the very air he was breathing, was alien and unfamiliar; there was surely no area in the small tract of land he was used to that even resembled this place.
>He wasn’t even sure where he was going, simply following whatever path stood a chance of taking him away from the immediate threat to his life.
>In fact, in the rolling sea of uncertainty, there was one thing Anonymous – or his body, at least – was absolutely sure of:
>He was tiring out.
>The mixture of adrenaline and fight-or-flight reflex was a potent thing, but pure survival mechanisms could only carry a human child so far in a footrace against a grizzly bear.
>Inch by agonizing inch, the predator gained on him.
>Eventually, the boy decided that he’d felt the bear’s rank breath on the back of his neck one too many times, and switched from aimlessly running to searching for a hiding spot.
>Coming upon a small, moon-bathed clearing in the center of which rested a log with one end propped against a boulder, the boy summoned what little strength remained in his underdeveloped legs and sprinted towards his one chance at salvation.
>Just meters away from the shelter, the bear got close enough to lash out with a paw, grazing the child’s shoulder with its claws.
>Anonymous cried out, more in renewed fright at making physical contact with his pursuer than in pain, but nevertheless kept up his sprint.
>He dove into the log’s opening and immediately retreated further in until he hit rock, and turned to face the previously-open entrance that was now fully blocked by the grizzly’s bulk.
>Before he could even use the brief respite to calm his rapidly-beating heart, however, the bear tore into the decaying wood of his hiding place, turning the log that had seemed so solid and immovable in a child’s eyes to mere splinters with its raw strength.
>Anonymous whimpered, fresh tears running down his face at the realization of what he’d done.
>He wasn’t sheltered at all.
>He was trapped.
>The angry bear’s jaws would be upon him soon, and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.
>A foreign feeling washed over him, that of somber resignation.
>Even though his young mind had little concept of death, he instinctually recognized that he was about to die.
>Absent of any other options, he simply curled into a ball at the furthest end of the log, shivering and crying quietly to himself, trying to mentally shut out the sound of the big brown meat grinder ripping and tearing its way to him.
>To that end, he clung to the one solitary shred of hope that he had left.
>The hope that his parents would come to his rescue.
>He shut his eyes tight and focused on that thought, repeating it over and over in his head.
>Young though he was, even he knew it was a futile hope.
>He couldn’t even recognize where he was himself, so what chance did his parents have of ever finding-
>Abruptly, the violent cracking of wood and menacing growls of the bear stopped, replaced by something more akin to a low-pitched whimper along with the milder scratching noise of claws dragging across the log.
>Anonymous opened his eyes and dared to look towards the log’s entrance, expecting to see the terrifying face of the enraged grizzly.
>Instead, all he saw was its paw, cutting deep grooves in the log’s inner wall as it was dragged back towards the entrance, supposedly still attached to its out-of-sight owner.
>Submissive groans, supposedly originating from the very same bear that was growling and roaring menacingly only a moment ago, continued from outside the opening.
>With a loud squeak, the remaining paw was yanked from the log with finality, and the guttural whines from the bear faded somewhat as it was… dragged, by the sound of it, further into the clearing.
>Brief sounds of a struggle made their way into the boy’s shelter, before a sharp and visceral snap that made him wince echoed through the small field.
>And then, all was quiet.
>Sniffling and finally daring to slow his breathing, the human child crawled, slowly and carefully, to the entrance – now the exit, he supposed – of his hiding place.
>He shuddered as he picked up a new noise, far more muted and less menacing than that of the grizzly’s pursuit, but infinitely more unsettling.
>The tearing of flesh and cracking of bone, coupled with an exceedingly odd slurping noise that sent shivers down his spine.
>He knew he should stay hidden, remain unnoticed until whatever was making those noises left the area.
>But his curiosity was piqued, and a curious child is not easily swayed from taking inadvisable actions.
>Cautiously, he chanced a peek out of the shelter, directing his vision to where the source of the strange racket lay.
>What he saw was a sight that very few beings had ever been privy to, much less lived to tell about.
…
>The scene was, to put a blunt term to it, “uniquely horrifying”.
>By itself, the messy and tactless manner in which the unfortunate bear’s corpse was being eaten easily qualified for the latter word.
>Its assailant’s jaws tore into it with reckless abandon, indiscriminately ripping chunks of flesh, fur, bone, and viscera from its rapidly-decreasing body mass each time they clamped down.
>Liters upon liters of blood spilled – “splattered”, more accurately – from the carcass, painting every blade of grass in a three-meter radius a rich shade of crimson that shone brilliantly under the intense moonlight.
>A gruesome display, all things considered, but gruesome displays within the wider natural world were hardly an uncommon occurrence.
>The victim here had likely done similar things to dozens of other animals itself, as a matter of fact.
>It wasn’t the sheer brutality that made this particular case of predation bizarre, but the predator.
>In the first place, a full-grown grizzly bear is seldom the type of creature that one would expect to be preyed upon by… well, just about anything.
>And yet, the thing feasting on this specimen was…
>A pony, of all things
>Although the way it – “she” – protectively slouched over the body as she feasted was more akin to a big cat, her form was undeniably equine.
>Some of her other outward features, however, denoted that she was something a bit more than just a carnivorous horse.
>Most immediately striking was the appearance of her coat; though appearing stark-white at first, closer inspection revealed it to be of an opalescent quality, reflecting a subtle rainbow flare in the vision of all who laid eyes on it.
>Her mane and tail were less hair and more… something else entirely, arranged neatly into a sparkling off-RGB spectrum and undulating gently in a breeze that couldn’t be felt.
>Massive feathered wings jutted from her sides, half-extended in the moment like a posturing bird of prey, and a long ivory spire extended from the crown of her head.
>Stylized images of the Sun adorned her flanks, completing the image of peaceful astral divinity that her entire being seemed geared towards.
>An image that was promptly shattered as she reared her head up, slit yellow eyes half-lidded in saccharine delight as she chewed intently on a particularly tough hunk of fat and muscle, fur soaked from head to hoof in coagulating blood.
>She swallowed, letting out a groan of indulgent satisfaction and slowly running her tongue over her gore-covered lips.
>A broad grin broke across her face as she closed her eyes fully to savor the taste, shuddering with an intense wave of pleasure as the iron-tinged red ichor sated a hunger deep within her that nothing else possibly could.
>This expression revealed two rows of sharpened teeth, accentuated by a pair of long, thick fangs that gleamed like polished pearls against her crimson-matted muzzle.
>She knew deep down, of course, that she had no right to be happy about any of this.
>The barely-recognizable pile of entrails laying before her was emblematic, in a way, of just how far her condition had deteriorated.
>When her… “affliction” had first taken hold close to a thousand years ago, the hunger had been laughably easy to manage.
>There was a time when she could simply pluck a rat off the ground or a bird out of the air and be perfectly sane for weeks at a time.
>But it didn’t last.
>Decade by decade, the hunger grew worse.
>The volume of blood she had to take in to remain functional increased exponentially, and the pool of creatures from which she could reasonably feed continued to shrink.
>The grizzly she had shred to pieces, for example – over 40 liters of blood and a quarter ton of edible meat – would only tide her over for a month, perhaps two if she could catch a bird or two on the way back home.
>She didn’t know what might happen should she attempt to refuse or ignore the hunger past the point where she reasoned that it would be unbearable, and she never wished to find out.
>Ponies might die if she conducted such a careless experiment, and no undeserving pony would EVER die at her hooves so long as she knew she could help it.
>Her eyes peeled back open as she remembered the resolution, her involuntary grin replaced with a tight-lipped frown.
>She glared up at the low-hanging moon, more specifically at the dark outline of a pony pockmarked on its surface.
>She felt as if the image was sneering self-righteously at her.
>”’A fate worse than eternal banishment’ indeed, little sister.” she murmured to herself with a huff.
>Indignant, she craned her neck back down and cracked a rib open with her teeth, sucking it dry of marrow in seconds.
>She scowled, feeling no small amount of shame in how delicious it was.
>Somewhere behind her, a twig cracked.
>The alicorn whipped around in an instant and adopted a defensive stance, wings spread and hissing menacingly in an involuntary threat reaction.
>A scavenger that had wandered too close? A sudden gust that hadn’t reached her? A predator looking to intimidate her away from her kill?
>None of the above.
>Nothing but a strange, alien-looking biped standing a few meters away.
>Realization dawned on her.
>She knew that the grizzly bear had been pursuing something when she had finally caught up to it.
>After all, the thing hadn’t made any attempt at all to hide itself in volume or in scent.
>No, its existence had just been forgotten to her in the heat of the moment.
>Slowly, she rose and folded her wings in, adopting a more regal and commanding air with her nose pointed up.
>She took a tentative stride towards the creature.
>Anonymous, the human child who had been cautiously inching closer to his unlikely savior for the past five minutes, took a shaky step back in response.
>The towering equine was staring him down, its shrunken black slits in glowing pools of yellow boring holes through him.
>He felt an entirely different fear from that which he’d experienced running from the bear.
>The kind of fear that causes one to freeze like a deer in headlights.
>His limited vocabulary didn’t have a word for it, but he knew it now all the same.
>Dread.
>His vision clouded and his lip quivered, and a cold shiver ran down his spine, threatening to make his legs give out.
>Every single fiber of his being screamed at him to turn tail and run from the slowly-advancing horse, that she would most certainly kill him if she reached him.
>And yet, he did not retreat another step.
>Even as the pony drew all the way up and lowered her head, bringing her muzzle inches away from his face, he did not move a single millimeter further in the opposite direction.
>His fingernails dug into his palms and tears tracked down his cheeks as he met the terrifying gaze of the alicorn head-on, the iron-tinged scent of fresh blood covering her stinging his nostrils.
>The pony blew a snort in his face and bared her fangs slightly, clearly bemused with the fact that he hadn’t made himself scarce yet.
>He whimpered in response, but otherwise remained rooted to the spot.
>She cocked her head at him, raising an eyebrow inquisitively, and questioned him in a gentle but dispassionate voice.
>”Do you understand me, little one?”
>His breath hitched in mild panic as she spoke, but he nonetheless nodded frantically in the affirmative.
>She closed her eyes momentarily, then straightened her neck back up as she opened them to look down at the child.
>”Then I must ask, why do you not run? You are obviously terrified beyond belief, and justifiably so. In fact, that considered, why did you leave your hiding place and attempt to approach me at all? You could easily have just waited for me to leave. Do you have some sort of business with me?”
>All questions Anonymous was asking himself at that very moment.
‘Why aren’t I running away? Why did I leave the log? Do I have anything to say to her?’
>All of which had the same answer.
‘I need to thank the person who saved me.’
>Without warning, the boy rushed forward and wrapped his arms around the pony’s forelegs, burying his face in her chest.
>Her fur was unpleasantly slick with blood and carried a stench to match, but he didn’t care.
>In the end, he was a boy, alone in the forest and fresh off a bear attack.
>He would latch onto any guardian he could find.
>The alicorn flinched and arched her neck backwards, taken aback by the child’s boldness.
>What on Earth could have possessed a child to act in such a way when confronted with as scary a face as hers?
>”I- uh, you- what are you-“ she stammered before freezing stock-still.
>She sniffed the air, and her pupils narrowed into thin vertical lines.
>Blood.
>Her gaze shot to the boy’s right shoulder, where a small gash was trickling a slow and steady stream of the sticky red substance.
>Tuning out the muffled sobs of the child crying unrestrainedly into her chest, she carefully lowered her head to inspect the injury more closely.
>Just a flesh wound, by the looks of it.
>He probably couldn’t even feel it.
>She involuntarily licked her lips, lapping up a not-insignificant amount of fresh drool.
>The hunger still ate away at her core; she had only gotten about halfway through the bear’s carcass before being interrupted, after all.
>She mentally berated herself for the temptation, remembering that the grizzly was still very much extant and edible just paces away.
>She would just shoo this little critter away and get back to fee-
>Bah, where did she get off pretending to have restraint?
>Her self-imposed restriction on prey only extended to ponies by her own definition, and it’s not like she was dealing with a pony.
>So what if it could understand what she was saying? Squirrels could do the same thing!
>She’d outright killed and devoured creatures that had exhibited far more sapience and lucidity!
>There wouldn’t be any harm in a little ta-
“Th-thankyouf-forsavingm-m-me.”
>The alicorn’s rabid self-justification stopped mid-track at the vocalization, and she realized with a start that her tongue was lolling out of her mouth and very nearly in contact the child’s open wound.
>Flustered, she shook her head and snapped back to attention, asking for clarification.
>”C-c-c-come again?”
>Anonymous looked up at the pony and sniffled, eyes swollen from an extended bout of crying and face smeared with gore from where he had nuzzled aggressively into her chest.
“Th-th-thank y-you f-f-for saving m-me.”
>The divine-looking equine processed that statement for a moment, drawing a blank to its meaning, before a wave of understanding washed over her.
>She HAD saved the child’s life, hadn’t she?
>She’d killed the bear that had been intent on killing him, and…
>And…
>And selfishly deprived an unknown number of cubs their mother and caretaker.
>Only to turn around and seriously consider devouring the very soul she had rescued in the process.
>She looked back towards the unrecognizable mess that had been the grizzly, then down at the bloody and tear-streaked face of the boy at her chest, then up at the mare in the moon.
>A second pit, deeper than the hunger could ever be, formed in her stomach.
>’Skies above.’ she thought to herself, her heart melting and causing uncharacteristic tears to well up in her catlike predator’s eyes.
>A change overtook the pony, the matronly emotion stirring in her chest momentarily overwhelming the hunger pangs shackling her soul.
>”I… suppose I did save you, didn’t I?” she said, the rhetorical question nevertheless being answered with a nod from the boy.
>The solid yellow drained from her eyes until all that remained were a pair of rich violet pupils backed by plain white sclera, and she blinked rapidly a few times to readjust.
>Her fangs shrank back into her mouth and flattened into unremarkable herbivorous teeth, which she clacked together twice to reaffirm they were shaped correctly.
>Seemingly minute physical changes, but ones that made a world of difference.
>The alicorn’s face appeared naturally softer, and she looked like the very picture of serenity and grace even matted down in coagulating scarlet liquid as she was.
>It was the form she was most well-known for, and the one no other pony had yet seen.
>That of Princess Celestia, Regent of the Sun and Royal Sovereign over all Equestria.
>But for now, that title and the reputation preceding it meant very little to her.
>What mattered more here and now was her role not as a political figure or a demigoddess, but her more humble role as the savior and protector of the child embracing her.
>Without a word, she brought her seraphic wings down and around the boy’s form, at the same time wrapping her neck around his back, finally returning his hug in equal and greater measure.
>”What is your name, little one?” she inquired softly.
>The human’s breath hitched again with a sob as he answered.
“A-Anonymous.”
>She hummed at the answer, gently stroking his hair with a wing.
>”Well, Anonymous, I commend your bravery in approaching me during a… weaker moment, shall we say. As for your rescue, think nothing of it. I was simply doing what anypony else would’ve done.”
>She doubted many other ponies could kill an 800-pound grizzly bear with their bare hooves, but that was besides the point.
>He sniffled again, and commenced an attempt to bury himself deeper in her chest fluff, murmuring his muffled thanks on a repeating loop.
>The princess chuckled, glad that he was winding down into more conventional child mannerisms, and pressed her neck into him a bit tighter.
>She would come back to the clearing for the rest of the bear later – she found the idea of letting the rest of its corpse go to waste distasteful.
>But her priority had shifted over to bringing this ‘Anonymous’ back to Canterlot as soon as practicable.
>It was the strangest thing, though, how focusing on the strange creature made it surprisingly easy to force the hunger to the back of her mind.
>Perhaps, if his family or place of dwelling couldn’t be found…
>Well, that would be a concern for another time.