Songs of Innocence

Chapter 91: A Storm is Approaching

Cherry Hill Ranch, Dodge Junction

"You okay there?" asked Cherry Jubilee, with a hint of suspicion. The strange stallion she had so generously welcomed into her home to avoid the violent storm from last night was now stumbling about her cherry orchard, almost drunkenly. Occasionally, he'd lower his head to the foot of a tree and... feed on something.

The entire truth of his behavior was only slightly less enigmatic than what the southern belle could understand. She had a creeping suspicion that he wasn't normal - she actually began to speculate if he somehow rose the lightning storm through witchcraft last night - but the reality was that although his appearance was the spitting image of one, he was not even a pony.

His charisma and supposedly high status - as the name he gave her was Black Pharaoh, suggesting his preposterously ancient history - earned her trust, yet tension between them always seemed to be uncomfortably high due to his general strangeness. He could apparently see despite the bandages around his eyes, and his jewelry was just like a prince, maybe even of the town of Somnambula, yet he couldn't afford a place to stay last night? And the way he spoke... it was like he was a zombie being controlled by something much more charismatic than it; and everything that came out sounded charming, but it was all said with a strained, almost disinterested voice.

Perhaps she was just on edge from the night terrors she was suddenly tormented by last night, but she felt like she needed to figure out what was going on with this suspicious pony before he left, or did Celestia knows what!

"Pardon me, but what're ya doin' there, darlin'?" she asked, cautiously trotting towards the pony as he continued to... Well, she found out what he was doing, and it wasn't pretty.

He turned his head away from his feast, and stopped Cherry in her tracks with a soul-piercing eyeless stare. In his mouth were several half-eaten wasps, some of which hung out of his mouth, creating a frightening fusion of strange and disgusting. And he looked none too disturbed by the fact that he'd been caught doing such an act. He said not a single word. Perhaps his silence was for the best too, because Cherry was so horrified, she wouldn't have understood a single syllable. Her eyes were widened, and she was frozen with sheer confusion.

And eventually, the stallion swallowed the wasps as if they were just one of the cherries grown on the farm, and after that unapologetically disgusting act - the cherry on top, if you will - he finally spoke. "You're awake. I was just about to come see you." he said, lacking a single drop of the charisma he shewed last night. After a few full seconds of silence following what he said, he didn't take a breath before speaking again, in that same soulless tone. "I should take my leave. I don't want to be late for the gala."

Gala? But the Grand Galloping Gala's not happening for days! Just what's with this pony?! He's stranger than that Pinkie Pie gal, and that's sayin' somethin', Cherry thought to herself. She wouldn't dare try to get answers to her questions, though.

The stallion stood back up, and said one last thing to her. "Things are going to get strange around here. But you will be fine, as thanks for your hospitality. I hope we meet again." He then said nothing more, as he began to unceremoniously wander off into the distance. He suddenly lacked his drunken stumbling, which Cherry shuddered to imagine was because he'd... had his breakfast.

And so, the stallion disappeared from her vision, and her life, leaving her with questions whose answers she probably didn't want to know. She was just glad that this strange bug-eating pony was gone now. But there was one thing she wanted to know the meaning of, despite what horrible answer it may have... What did he mean, things were going to get strange...?

Later, in a deep jungle of the Sundown Lands

Hlanith was a lush jungular land where no secrets were not kept close to its only inhabitant, M'basui Gwandu, called the River Abomination by his unseen brethren; the whispers of whom he could hear sometimes on the breezes that brushed the sides of the wenge trees. Risen from the shallow streams of the murky waters, he was born to no parents, with a repulsive form of a giant spider with a dark-skinned humanoid body on its underside; hence his title. It almost made it look like he was wearing the giant spider as a coat, some would say.