Author's note: Here's my second attempt at a songfic, using the Ramones' 'Pet Sematary'. This fic, unlike the previous ones, is supposed to be more of a plot-moving-along piece, rather than humor. Fluff should play a bigger part in the next fic, so never fear, chipmunk fans. ;) Onto the fic!:
"For the gods' sakes! Does no one around this citadel listen?"
Riptide looked up from attempting to meditate at the still, spring-heated pool in the temple complex. "Not when they've heard you ranting about it for the past few months."
Horus snorted, shaking his head as he paced back and forth. "But it fits. It fits exactly what's been recorded about them in the past. 'For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon ponykind, an unholy flesh eater-'"
"'-With the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility.' You've said it before. But in case you haven't been outside recently, we have snow here. And besides, that's the exact same thing you said about Lampy."
"I still believe that that creature is somehow connected to the evil that dwells within the-"
"Give the poor damn lamp a break."
"Hrmph. Regardless of what part the lamp-beast may play in such things, I'm certain that this creature fits the descriptions."
Riptide tilted her head as she eyeballed the other unipeg. "You said it was just a dark colored earth pony, right? Sure that you didn't see someone running by? It was kind of chaotic that night."
Horus arched an eyebrow, stopping his pacing for a moment and beginning to walk out of the cavern. "As far as I am aware, there are no residents here who can phase through solid objects. Nor are there any without symbols."
Shaking her head slightly, Riptide turned back to the pool. "Good luck finding anything."
Elsewhere in Icestorm Point, Wraith was-as usual-wishing for something, anything, that would help in his current situation. At the moment he was desperate for something to block out the singing.
"Th' church bell chimed, it rang twen'y-nine times, fer each man on the E'mun' Fitshgeraaaalld!"
Wraith sighed as he glanced to Blizzard, who was at the moment collapsed on the floor and singing a very off-key rendition of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. "Are you sure that you wouldn't just rather rest, sir?"
"'m not dead yet! I feel fine! I feel.." There was a long pause as Blizzard paused to try and collect his thoughts, searching for the right word. "..happy!"
Sighing again, Wraith glanced to the newly recruited ambassador sitting by the cavern entrance and giving the king a worried look. "He's not this bad, usually. Really."
Still elsewhere, outside the citadel and in the forest…
Under the arc of a weather stain boards,
Ancient goblins, and warlords,
Come out of the ground, not making a sound,
The smell of death is all around,
And the night when the cold wind blows,
No one cares, nobody knows.
She was hungry.
Her stomach-what was left of it, she supposed-did the closest thing it could to a rumble. The rabbit she had devoured a few days earlier had been only a few bites, and she had already licked off all the remnants of blood and flesh off of her muzzle long ago. Sniffing at the ground, her ears pricked up as she caught the smell of something alive. Picking up her pace, she set off after the scent, ignoring the bare bones littering the ground outside the caves. The occasional egg case that sat on the ground failed to open as she passed. Nothing lacking in the right body temperature could cause a reaction in the egg. A long, low hiss caught her attention, causing her to pause in mid-stride.
Slinking out of the underbrush came a gaunt, pale green shape that stayed low to the ground, eyeballing her suspiciously. She smelled wrong; she knew that. But her shape was right, and a meal was a meal to the predator..
The lean, predatory pony lunged towards her with wrinkled back lips, revealing sharp canines and molars designed for crushing bones. It wasn't expecting to see the flash of another set of wolf-like teeth, or a snarling shriek in response. There was short, noisy scuffle, and she began to eat.
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again.
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again.
In the treetops above, Lord Fluffypants peered intently at the bloodied snow below. A chipmunk minion skittered out after him, peering down as well. "Squeak?"
"…I'll leave that one alone. Back to coming up with plans for FIREY CHIPMUNK DEATH!"
With that, the two rodents scrambled away, towards an area where they would have less of a chance of being eaten. Below them, the surviving pony finished her meal, tearing off a large chunk of flesh to hide for later. Twitching one ear back at the caves, she set off at a swift trot, her hooves thudding dully against the snow. Above her, a bird spread its wings and took off into the air, gliding gracefully through the trees.
Horus was in another section of the woods, walking along the tangled tree branches and watching the forest floor for anything of note. So far, he had seen nothing but a wolf, several deer, and a small horde of chipmunks. It was nothing out of the ordinary. The sound of flapping wings caught his attention, and his ears twitched as the falcon landed on the tree branch beside him. "Hm?"
Ra squawked, spreading his wings and flapping several times before taking to the air again. Horus peered at the falcon for a moment then leapt off the branch, gliding after him in silence.
Follow Victor to the sacred place,
This ain't a dream, I can't escape,
Molars and fangs, the clicking of bones,
Spirits moaning among the tombstones,
And the night, when the moon is bright,
Someone cries, something ain't right.
"'A scrapping we will go! 'A scrapping we will go! Hi ho the derrie o, 'a scrapping we will go!" Stormbringer's singing was off-key as she flew towards the wreck site of the Mechaponyzilla, Lampy draped over her neck. The animate appliance joined in the singing cheerfully, his voice just as off-key as the pegasus'. In the brush below them, the pony shuddered. By the rainbow, their singing was awful. She crept towards the front of the brush, low to the ground as she lay in wait and watched. Stormbringer folded her wings back, dropping down onto a large, rusting hunk of metal that jutted out from the snow. Her ears twitched forward as she surveyed the site, on the lookout for any pieces that we small and light enough for her to drag back to the citadel. "Too big..too small..too damn heavy.." she muttered as she inspected the scrap.
In the brush, the pony was getting bored by the other equine and the strange, talking lamp she carried. Slowly getting to her feet, she cast a glance over her shoulder at the pair and then slunk off. She wasn't hungry yet and she didn't particularly feel like killing for sport at the moment. Ears laid back, she slunk back into the forest quietly, heading off towards the closest thing she had to a home.
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again.
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again.
Horus landed with a thudding of hooves again the stones that littered the field. Attempting to follow the tracks Ra had lead him to had been a bust, but he had a feeling that heading here might produce some results. The snow covering in this field was lighter than the surrounding areas, and it was ringed by large stones, each bigger than a pony. The earthly remains of various creatures littered the ground and protruded from the snow, ivory against blinding white. He paused for a moment as he peered down at one nearly complete skeleton. The snow and much of the surrounding dirt had been scraped away, exposing the cracked and stained bones. It was a pony skeleton-most likely an adult pegasus, judging from the shattered, thin exposed bones lying next to the skeleton's scapula. A sound from the brush a few feet away caught his attention, and his ears pricked forward as he went on alert.
The pony halted as she caught sight of the unipeg standing in the field, blankly staring in her direction. She had seen that one before. He was the one that had seen her as she slid through the wall and the pile of rubble, then chased after her, shouting about demons and other unnatural beasts. The unipeg had nearly caught her, too. This one was trouble and had to be dealt with before he started chasing after her again. Crouching down, she wrinkled her muzzle back and began to slink out of the brush.
The moon is full, the air is still,
All of a sudden I feel a chill,
Victor is grinning, flesh rotting away,
Skeletons dance, I curse this day,
And the night when the wolves cry out,
Listen close and you can hear me shout.
Horus flattened his ears back as he caught sight of what exactly was coming out of the brush, moving more like a predator than an equine. The pony looked close enough to what he had seen on Christmas eve in coloring, true, but there was one major difference between the pony he had seen that night and what he saw now.
This pony was rotting.
In the moonlight, the creature was mix of bone and stubbornly clinging tissue. A good deal of flesh and hide was gone from the skull, and blank, empty eye sockets stared out at the world. The rest of the creature's body looked as though it had been mauled-the throat had been ripped open, and the bloody ribcage had been exposed on both sides. Part of a pelvis jutted out of the skin, and the legs were mauled as well, exposing-and sometimes leaving only-bone in places. A low, drawn out snarl rattled from the ruined throat as the undead beast was still for a moment, and then the creature pounced.
Horus was surprised by the speed of the movement, and swiftly found himself on his back, staring up at the snarling creature above him. He blinked, surprisingly calm in the face of impending death. The moon passed behind the clouds, and he watched in silence as the creature's face went from a half-decomposed skull to the intact pony's face he had seen before, with eyes lacking in pupils and bared, wolf-like teeth. Drawing in as much breath as he could with the undead pony's heavy hooves on his chest, he twitched his ears forward. "I must say that I am not terribly pleased to be graced with your presence, either."
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again.
I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary,
I don't want to live my life again, oh no, oh no
I don't want to live my life again, oh no, oh oh,
I don't want to live my life again, oh no no no
I don't want to live my life again, oh oh..