Descent (Gilda/Anon) - Part 4

>“Hey, Anonymous.”
>You manage a small groan and shift your weight so that your back is to the sound.  Everything feels so nice, such a pleasant nap.  The sun on your face…
>“Anonymous?”
>The grass underneath you…
>“Quit being cute, Anon, it’s time for lunch.”
>Mm, food.  You crack open an eye, and are met by the brilliant blue of the sky.  What a beautiful sight.  A maple tree arches over your head, the leaves rustling as a quiet breeze whistles through.
>Beside you a woman sits, with a soft smile on her face and a picnic basket resting on her lap.  Your mind feels sluggish and heavy from your nap, so you simply watch as she reaches inside the basket.
>“Come on you, the food’s not going to stay good forever.”
“I suppose not.  I’m really thirsty.”
>She hands you a bottle of water, which you open and chug without a second thought.  The sensation of liquid sliding down your throat is a welcome one.  As you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, however, you notice that the lingering thirst hasn’t been quenched at all.
>Well, you know you’ve drank, maybe it’ll just take a couple minutes to catch up with you.  You slide closer to the woman.
>What was her name?
>“Anon, here, have something to eat.”
>Ah, food.  You’re sure that, thing will come to you.
“Don’t mind if I do!”
>Placing a hand into her basket, the woman pulls out
>Stones, countless stones, pebbles and rocks rolling from her hand and piling against the grass below.  Despite that, the mass in her hand never reduces in size, a perpetual waterfall of sediment.

>You shake your head and take another look at the turkey sandwich.  It’s perfect, served on brown bread with plump seeds decorating the crust.  A dribble of moisture escapes from the slices and begins to roll down the side.  Squished in between, actual fresh hunks of bird, not sliced or preserved.
>“Well?  Go on, take it!”
>She smiles and shoves the sandwich into your hands.  You take a bite and give her a slight grin.  Truth be told, it’s delicious, still moist, the tang of mayonnaise offset by the subtle fruity hints of the tomato, leaving crisp lettuce to bring it all together.
>“Isn’t that simply divine?”
“It’s wonderful.”
>As you take another bite, she reclines back on her elbows, going further into the shade of the tree.  She turns and regards you again.  Despite the fact that you can’t see her face, you feel her smile.
>The two of you sit in silence for a while, enjoying the warmth of the day.  The wind whistles through the trees.  You sigh as she lays her hands on your shoulders, but make no move to throw her off.
>“You’ve got so much tension.  Just relax, we’re together now.”
>A small grunt is all that you can manage as she begins to work your suddenly stiff muscles.  Closing your eyes, you take another bite of your sandwich.
>“Anonymous?”
>The wind whispers as you chew and swallow your latest bite.  The sandwich has taken on an unwelcome texture.  The feeling is similar to grinding grit with your teeth, dirt and sand scratching their way down your still dry throat.
>You shudder and reach for another bottle, draining it quickly.  Your thirst still persists as the leaves rattle incessantly, murmuring
>“Anonymous.”

>Behind you, the fingers begin a frantic dance, sliding in and around before backing out and repeating the process.  It is becoming less enjoyable, now more distracting and painful.
“C-could you ease up a little?”
>“Oh, but I must see to you, Anon.  You have to be ready.”
“Ready?  Ready for what?”
>From the clear blue sky, the sound of thunder cracks through the day, howling.
>“You stupid ape!  You promised!”
“I promised…”
>“Promises were made to be broken dear.”
>The woman’s nails dig into your shoulders.  You cry out and turn to face her.
>Her nose, short and elegant with an aristocratic upturn, begins to recede into her face.  Great clumps of her hair drift away on the wind, revealing her ears.  They too were in the process of being absorbed back into the rapidly smoothing head.
>The pert lips, which had promised you rest and more, pulled back into a sort of sneer before they vanished, allowing you a glimpse beyond the jagged picket fence into an eternity of darkness stretching from her growing maw.
>“Promises, promises, promisies.”
>She repeats, a liquid chuckle bubbling up from the abyss of her once-mouth.
>“Make me promises, Anonymous.  Stay with me and make me strong.  Let me show you eternity and the power within my reach.  What is your promise to her?  A selfish creature whose name you can’t even remember.”
>Her voice has taken on an oily tone, smooth and easy to get lost in, with a quiet gas leak hiss lurking just beneath.  But, what was the promise?  And who did you make it to?  As your mind slogs through the thick underbrush, you look to her eyes.
>“Isn’t it easier to start over?  Don’t fight me, Anonymous.”

>Aside from her mouth, her eyes remain in place but altered.  Now overly large and milk pale, they shimmer in the light, unblinking from her lack of lids.  Her otherwise featureless face has takes on a tired grey tone as the last of her hair drifts away.
>It is easy.  Despite the fear tying your stomach in knots, remembering is so difficult.  If you made a promise, if you stayed here, wouldn’t that be easier than going back to, wherever you were before?  After all, it had been a dark, terrible place, full of pain and quiet suffering.
>Even still, your conscience nags at you.  You already had a promise that you needed to see through.
“There’s someone who needs me though.  I can’t just leave them.”
>The vacant eyes continue to stare at you as the wind whistles again through the air.  With an audible squick, her white eyes shudder, forming tumultuous rapids as they dribble down around her mouth.
>Thick chunks of what was once her head join in the journey, drawing stuttering slime trails down her body.  Her shoulders have lost definition, what little remains of this woman seems to be pooling itself underneath her.  The fluid quivers and shakes, sprouting a multitude of grasping fingers.  At last, reason finds you; a scream swells in your throat, catching on the muscles, cutting off your air.
>Grey tendrils squirm against the scratches in your shoulders.  You shrug them off and roll away from her.  A sliver of ooze stands pillar-like from her squishy body.  On this post, rests her non-existent mouth, her voice no longer smooth and honeyed but marshy, thick and squelching.
>“Anonymous, I need you!”

>She burbles, ambling toward you on a thousand unseen legs.  Dozens of malformed hands now grope for a chance to touch your skin, trailing ooze across the grass.
>Your fingers dig into the dirt as you scramble to your feet.  The soft grass protests, growing hard in your grip as it slices into your palms, but you ignore it as you flee.
>“I need you, Anonymous, don’t fight me!”
>Each step becomes heavier as the thirst roars in your throat, shoes scraping against the ground as your legs slosh through the thick air.  The squicking sound edges closer while moisture beads up on the back of your neck.  A moment of clarity strikes you.
>Trapped in a life or death scenario, your mind has concocted a way to deal with the ever present sense of death.  Utilizing the fact that Equestria is heavily steeped in magic and filled with more unknowns than you could ever imagine, you have created a shadowy monstrosity that you can blame.
>This is all a dream.  You are safe and sound in the altar room, as safe as you can be when stuck underground, dying of dehydration.  And despite the fact that you’ve cracked, you are not alone.  She’s there, she’s kept you in one piece and she can help you now.  You take a deep gasping wheeze.
>The breath of air proves difficult to swallow, take every chance to catch and twist and turn, fighting against its very nature, as if it were directly opposed to keeping you alive.  With a solid push, your lungs inflate and you cry out.
“Gilda!”

>The wind snarls in response, drowning out your shout.  As you lift your weighted legs again, you feel the moist touch of your pursuer grip your ankle, and then slithering under your feet.  You stumble and collapse, slamming your chin against the fragrant earth.
>Pushing against the ground, you scramble forward on your hands, even as its grip solidifies and begins climbing up your legs.  Yanking you back to the ground, precious air blasts from your chest.  Limbs too heavy to move, you wheeze in again as it crawls across your back.
>It’s frantic as it slides over your body, millions of tendrils adhering to your body as it climbs higher and higher.  Convulsions shake your body as it crawls across your chest and back, the slivers of goo now becoming barbed under your skin.
>As it rises over your chin, it gives you one last, long look at it.  You can’t stand the sight and slam your eyes shut, but the image persists.
>The barely there liquid white eyes observing everything, smaller now, the creature’s mandible unhinged at an incredible one-hundred and twenty degrees, stretching even further still as you watched.  Within the depths of her maw, the swirling abyss of the infinite, miniscule shadowed hands reaching for you.
>You hear the air snap as it lunges forward, covering your face and slithering down your throat.  You gag and feel your stomach churning in an attempt to expel the intruder, but it continues on, leaving you blind as your oxygen starved body heaves for air.

>Another convulsion rocks through your body as you feel the thing inside you.  It seems to slow, but you still feel consciousness slipping away.  Several more blows to your chest follow in quick succession, causing you to sputter in spite of the amorphous blob in your throat, lungs and stomach.
>As you hack and attempt to spit, the world comes into focus.  Gilda is sitting over you, a sad grin on her beak behind the damp feathers around her eyes.  She gives a rather unladylike snort, phlegm and all, before tapping her clenched talons against your chest.
>You wince, noticing how tender your chest is.  Her voice is hoarse and cracking as the tears start up again.
>“You, stupid ape.  You were going to die on me, weren’t you?”
>Turning your head, you cough again and prepare a witty response.  Until you see the grey thing hovering along the edge of your vision.  Her teeth clack together once as she fades back into the stonework.
>
>Anonymous is beginning to scare you.
>Forget that, he’s been scaring you for a while, seeing things in dark corners, his constant whimpering when he sleeps, that bit just now where he lay unmoving for five whole minutes and now the screeching.
>The near-death scare frayed your nerves enough and now he’s howling like a timberwolf.  You do the only thing you can think of, clamping your talons over his mouth and trying to muffle the sound.  It helps but he’s still shaking and screaming.  Unable to take any more, your blood boils as you join the din.
“SHUT UP!”

>He quickly grows quiet and you pull his head up against you again.  You slide your foreleg under his chin, supporting him as your talons move upwards, sliding through his hair.  His breathing accelerates and his eyes begin to dart around at the touch, but you keep a firm grip on him as he gives a few weak tugs to escape.
>After a few moments, he settles down and arches into the touch a little.  It’s rather disgusting, touching his hair, filled with grit and who knows what else after three days, or is it four, down here.  Not that you’re in much better shape, your coat, like his hair, is matted and unruly in places, but the comfort of touch seems to be working wonders.
>Should you really be surprised?  You’re both social species, relying on group support as much as your own individual efforts in order to survive.  Up until tonight you believed that he might fare better on his own than you would, but you doubt that now.  You clutch him tighter against you and he doesn’t resist.
>Your motion may have been instinctive, but you’re well aware of it.  Something has gotten inside him and you can feel it trying to drag him away from you.  You’re holding him close in an attempt to stop it, to keep him nearby.  But how long would he stay, until you died?
>What then?  He would be left alone with his madness.  Despite your initial distaste for him, he seemed a genuine individual, honest, kind and loyal to a fault.  Your heart ached at the thought of leaving him to suffer.  But your selfishness wouldn’t allow you to let him go first.

>To die alone, away from the land you were born in, with no family or friends to see to your death rites would leave you an exile.  In death, you would be a stranger to those who might recognize you and denied entrance to the Roost.  You would stand before the gates of Tartarus, forced to wander its depths alone for eternity.
>So the stories go.  A griffon that died alone, without comrades or family to see to their last rites is doomed to spend eternity separated from their kin.  He was all that you had left in the world.  Even if he wasn’t much, you would not die alone.  You could enter together.
>But would you recognize him?
>That strange thought rose unbidden and stoked the uncertainty higher.  Even if you did meet him again, the eyes of the dead see differently.  Would he look the same?  Would you pay attention to someone you didn’t recognize?  You would still be alone.
>Anonymous looks up at you in confusion, his face partially hidden by your plumage, as your chest shakes.  A bitter laugh burst forth as you closed your eyes and held him tight against you.
>He makes no move to speak and you feel the silence overtaking you again.  In the stillness, he wraps his arms around you.
>“I don’t think I’m going to sleep again.”
“I hope not.  You scare me when you sleep.”
>The sensation of his lips curling against your fur causes you to shiver.  He breathes deeply and you watch the tension leave his body.
>“I can’t take much more of this.  I don’t know if I’m losing my mind, or if we really are stuck down here with something, terrible.”
>You sigh and relax your grip, though he continues to hold tightly to you.

“You’re over thinking things.  There’s nothing else down here, just you and me.  I think I’d know if”
>“But you even said that you didn’t know where the idea to kill me came from!  What if there is, only I’m more susceptible to it than you are because there isn’t any magic where I’m from?”
>He’s pulled his face from your chest now, though you can still feel the heat tingling on your feathers.
“What if it’s, a ghost?”
“That’s impossible.  All lost souls go to Tartarus, regardless of if they have unfinished business or anything else.  There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
>“And in my world there’s no such thing as ghosts either.  But there’s also no magic, sun-raising ponies, griffons, manticores, or dozens of other things that are ‘normal’ to you.  Would you really feel like you can say that something doesn’t exist knowing that?”
>Despite the fact that he’s irritated, he makes no further moves to pull away.  You’re all he has as well, the one thing keeping him… keeping him what?  Sane?  Alive?  You really don’t know.
>“So, you really don’t see them, the things lurking in the shadows?”
>You shake your head and smile.
“Afraid not, scaredy cat.”
>“They’re going to kill me.  Once you go, there’s not going to be anything keeping me on the level and whatever it is, real or not it’s going to kill me, like it almost did just now.”
>He shivers, hiding his face deep in your plumage, his hand clinging to your fur.  You grit your teeth as his nails dig a bit deeper than you would like, but don’t say anything.  He relaxes after a moment, mumbling
>“I don’t know if I can take that, I’d rather go out on my own terms.”

“What if we did it together?”
>You let out a weak cough as you bring your fore foot up to your beak.  The words came out without any thought.  You’d considered it, certainly, but talons were awkward when it came to suicide, generally more uncomfortable than deadly.
>Still, to say it without hesitation… oh what ever.  It’s clear he was thinking about it too, so you may as well be open about it.  Despite his raised eyebrow, you continued.
“You and me, we kill each other.  You don’t have to face the darkness and I don’t die alone.  It’s about as much of a win-win as we’re going to get.”
>He opens his mouth and you promptly stick a talon vertically against his lips.  He closes them.  Despite the dryness, they’re soft and it’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation.
“But, you have to agree to do something for me first.”
>You wouldn’t consider this if it wasn’t dire, if you didn’t feel like eternity was staring you in the face.  No more pride, no more family, just a roaming emptiness was all that you had to look forward to.  You couldn’t stand that.  So you had to say it.
“Bond with me so that we can find each other in Tartarus.”
>His lips purse a slightly and despite the serious nature of your comment, you smile, noting the sensation.
“If you want me to say that there’s something down here tormenting you, okay, I can do that.  If you bond with me, then we can both leave together, as soon as you’re ready.”
>“But,”
>Rolling you eyes, you shush him again.
“No buts.  I don’t care if you think it’s real or not.  Possible eternity with me, or possible eternity trapped by ‘shadow-things’.  Pretty one sided decision.”

>
>The whole Tartarus thing sounds like a joke.  You’re familiar enough with it, it’s a general catch all for where creatures in this world go when they die.  Some species have a specific afterlife, but Tartarus is a place for lost souls.  In your world, it’s a place of torment.  Spending the rest of eternity suffering with Gilda doesn’t sound like a picnic.
>On the other hand, whatever’s in here has made it abundantly clear that it isn’t in any mood to be friendly.  You still feel the occasional wriggle under your skin, like the hooks left maggots that have just begun to feed.
“So what does that mean?”
>She brightens visibly at that.
>“It’s a ritual that adventurers and warriors would share between them when they would be far from home, in case they died.  It just means that we’re comrades.  No matter what happens, we have each other’s backs and we’ll always find each other, even if it takes a while.”
“All right, what do we need to do?”
>“Give me a couple pieces of your hair.  And don’t interrupt.”
>Your left eye twitches as you yank out several strands and hold them out to her.  She plucks at her coat for a few moments before coming away with her own hair.  Taking both sets, she twists them around one another.  Turning both ends up, she makes a simple knot from the bound hair, held loosely in place, holding it up to your face.
>“The symbol of our bonding.”
>She lifts your hand to her beak, placing your fingers against it before setting one of her claws against your lips.
>“Anonymous.”

>Her voice is low and reverent, her eyes expectant.  When you don’t make a move, she glares a little bit and tilts her head.  Eventually, she gets fed up and whispers
>“Say my name.”
“Gilda?”
>She smiles and nods, removing your hand and her talon, her foreclaws busying themselves with preening her plumage.
“By acknowledging each others names in life, may we recognize the other’s voice after we depart.”
>Gilda gives a quiet grunt and pulls a feather out, holding it out to you.
>“This is a part of me.  With it, we will seal our bond.  I also need a part of you.  What do you have to give in return?”
“Uh…”
>She’s smiling, waiting.  You reach up for your hair, but she shakes her head.  Leaning in close to her, you hiss through your teeth
“I don’t exactly have any other removable parts.”
>The grin fades in an instant as realization settles in.  She glances over you, frantic, her eyes settling on your fingers.
>“Then, just give me one of those!”
“I’m not going to cut off my finger for some stupid ritual!”
>“Well I have to have something!  We can’t bond if we don’t give the other a part of ourselves.  And do you really need to have ten of those things?  Just, just give me the stumpy one that’s hanging off to the side.”
“I need my thumb!  What’s wrong with hair, we used it for binding.”
>“Exactly, we can’t use the same thing twice, that’s like sacrilege!”
“Okay, so what about blood, folks use blood in rituals all the time.”
>“What am I supposed to do with your blood?  Blood is impersonal and in order to finish this I need something that is distinctly you.”

>Silence settles in as the two of you think.  You’re at a loss.  Aside from your hair and blood you don’t really have anything you can just ‘take off’, and there’s no way you’re giving her a finger.  Plus she’d have to bite or claw it off.  Even if you are going to die, you’d rather it be as painless as possible.
>You notice her gold eyes glinting and glance up at her.
“What?  Did you think of something?”
>“I sure did.”
>A smile spreads across her beak.  She leans in closer, brushing her cheek against yours.  You become acutely aware of a pressure over your crotch.  Glancing down, you see her claw has made itself sung and cozy over your dick.
>“Get your pants off.  We’re gonna use your seed.”