Crack Attack: A Collection of One-Shots and Other Disturbing Shit

Fifty Shades of Carno (Carnobo)

As always, everything I post is parody and nothing more. Please don't take this as advice or as me condoning this behavior. Many thanks to Choco and stream chat for this entire thing. Set to the song "The Things We Did" by Approaching Nirvana.

He walked into the blinding light of the bedecked mansion, shielding his eyes from the unearthly glow after his arduous trek across the beach in the cool nighttime air. As if the darkness wasn't already difficult enough to maneuver through, a fog thick enough to touch had descended upon the grand estate, leaving him stumbling grumpily through the soft, wet sand along the black water's edge. Even the foglight-esque glow of the manor was invisible from fifty feet away, let alone across the turbulent waters. This trip would have been a tenth as displeasing if his companion had been there alongside him, soaring contentedly through the opaque air.

He was in no mood to deal with any more problems tonight. Tonight, he had had his share of disappointments and sorrows. He was at the edge of his patience just as Lachlan was at the edge of glory and, of course, death. Tonight was not his night, surely. He still mourned the recent passing of the lost Pretzel, that rare and radiant quetzal that all manner of horrid creatures had sought to steal away from him from the moment he had first laid eyes on it. At last, they had won.

The bird ruffled his sun-yellow feathers and carefully removed his glinting helmet, setting it aside on the scratched table top to repair. That was when it caught his eye. Lurking in the corner, ever-present, always eating, never sleeping... it watched him. Its massive, scaly tail thumped persistently, insistently against the sturdy wooden wall of the mansion, begging for his attention, perhaps his mercy.

There was no mercy to be found here tonight, lest for such an ungainly sight as that. Choco met its blank, unknowing stare and peered into its miniscule eyes, all of the glow of life sapped from them. The creature was as good as dead in its dusty corner, its beady eyes permanently squinted in the harsh, unnatural light. Its bony horns scraped gently across the ceiling as it shifted uncomfortably in its confining hole in the wall, the deadly keratin spikes carving yet another pair of uneven lines in the wooden ceiling. Both bird and dinosaur remained frozen in place, one by his thoughts and the other by its wall.

"It was your kind that did this. You're a monster." A tiny, glinting eye scans the expansive room eagerly, looking desperately for its next meal – or perhaps an escape route? "Look at me, Wall Carno. You know what this means, don't you? You have to pay for their transgressions. Someone needs to learn some self-control." The dinosaur could never admit it to itself or to the chattering argentavis crowd living two floors above it, but it secretly looked forward to its nearly daily dose of fresh chocobo salt. The sting was just enough to bring meaning back into its empty life, the guilt-induced meal following just enough to fill its roaring stomach. Wall Carno couldn't survive without Choco's undivided attention.

"Rrwoooooorrrr," the carno begged, swinging its horns hopelessly from left to right in the air and taking a splintered chunk out of the ruined ceiling. Both knew that it was pointless; its horns would never be able to reach him, anyway. It had no choice but to remain still and suffer the abuse of the salty, salty bird. It tried to bring its vestigial arms up to the back of the wall to brace itself for the impact but they were still too short to reach.

"This is for Pretzel, you fleeping nerd herder." He drew back his hardened, armored fist and delivered a pitifully weak punch to the side of Wall Carno's face, sending a light stab of pain vibrating through the massive carnivore's skull. The bird turned away from the destroyed corner and slowly made his way up to the dark rooftop, bracing himself against the harsh, cold wind as he walked between the crowds of startled, unsettled argentavis to the edge of the landing platform, staring out at where the colorful and dangerous inlet would be, if he could somehow see through the layers of impenetrable fog. He could taste the salt on the air, just as trails of bitter, sodium-filled tears began to trickle down his feathery cheeks. "My Pretzel... It's all my fault... PRETZEL! NO!!!"