“Fine,” you answer. “I don’t have trouble eating somepony who tried to get me killed, whose name I don’t even know.”
 
 
“So you say,” says Aurea. The arrow on your neck flouts back into the quiver on her flank. “Just to make sure though we’re going to help you a bit.”
 
 
Corona lights up her horn again, and a fir aura surrounds the tied-up pegasus, lifting him from the ground. “Head first or feet first?”
 
 
You feel less than comfortable with the idea of being fed this way, but it doesn’t seem wise to start arguing now. “Uhm… feet first?” you answer, incapable of facing the pegasus’s terrified expression head-on.
 
 
“You wouldn’t happen to be a virgin, would you?” Corona queries. “In terms of cannibalism, I mean of course.”
 
 
“Uh… I am,” you confess. You hope that your flaming blush doesn’t give away what kind of virginhood you had first thought she meant, and to which the answer would’ve been the same.
 
 
“We figured,” Aurea muses. She tours around you, stepping lightly despite her added weight. There’s no more imprints to be seen on the smooth, beryl-coloured fur; only the audible murmuring of a satisfied stomach doing its work. You flinch as the gorged belly brushes your flank. “Don’t be jumpy, hun! The first time’s always the most interesting…”
 
 
“For the prey, certainly! jokes Corona. You join their giggle with an awkward chuckle.
 
 
“Open wide now,” she continues, revolving the pegasus and placing his stretched-out hindlegs before you. “I’ll keep him steady so you can forget everything else and focus on the taste.”
 
 
Quietly you obey, staring at the two quivering hooves. Taking them in your mouth is the first time you taste equine flesh. All kinds of questions as that raises, now it’s not the time to ponder them, you decide. After timidly licking over the frogs you swallow his ankles. They taste dull and salty for the most part, probably because the pony hasn’t washed himself very recently. You wish he had.
 
 
Corona follows you progress attentively, stuffing the restrained pegasus into you at your own pace. Once your saliva washes away the thin layer of dirt and sweat, you find the flavour of his coat actually pretty good; not as good as your favourite dish (beet pie with cream), but it’s certainly something you could grow used to. Then, right as you get to his knees, his pleads make you come to second thoughts.
 
 
“Fuck’s sake, no! I don’t wanna die -- not like this! Please, please, I’m sorry I attacked you; I didn’t have a choice; I told them it was a bad idea! Oh my sky, oh my sweet skies, no!”
 
 
The tone of his voice is simply desperate, ripened by fresh panic. You pause out of instinct, but then you see the look on Corona’s face and realize this is all part of the test. You have no choice except to devour him alongside his begging, and although it does add a sour aftertaste to the meal, you’re not about to become one yourself because of it. Frowning in determination you swallow again, pulling his knees inside your mouth and his hooves down your expanding throat. He lets out a sudden scream. Corona smiles approvingly.
 
 
“Cute and attentive,” says Aurea. “This one’s a keeper, isn’t he?”
 
 
“Truly,” Corona echoes. “Proper gentlecolts are so hard to come by these days. Robbing defenseless ladies on the road? Such manners!”
 
 
“At least they know how to help a girl to a dinner,” yawns Aurea, settling by the grass on her side to observe the scene with a strange glint in her eye. A sideways glance reveals to you how tenderly she caresses her belly, as if stroking it was the most pleasurable thing in the world. You also can’t help but notice the unabashed looks they both keep giving your figure.
 
 
The pegasus bandit curses, spits, shouts and pleads so incessantly you almost, almost start developing immunity towards it. By the time you take in his skinny buttocks, Corona begins peeling the mail shirt and ropes off him. It’s then he gets really loud. You try to block your ears, focus instead on the aroma of his thighs, slurping over the toned muscles with gusto. By accident you steal a lick of his sheathed cock, immediately retracting your tongue in shame. Irrational, yes, considering you’re about to get as intimate with him as physically possible, but there are some things that defy reason that way.
 
 
“Halfway done, champ,” congratulates Corona. “Give the bastard the ride of his life!” urges Aurea. Their evident enthusiasm arouses mixed feelings in you to say the least. It’s like they’re getting something more out of this than simply getting to know if you are who you say you are. The suspicion is unsettling, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. You just wish the ordeal to end already: your jaws are aching magnificently for all the chewing. You would’ve never believed eating a pony would mean this much effort.
 
 
“I’m sorry!” cries the pegasus as his wings, saturated with saliva, slide against your palate. “I’m sorry! I’m begging you! I’ll be your slave for the rest of my life! Don’t do this! Please!”
 
 
“Aww, perhaps you should have thought about the consequences of becoming an outlaw anterior to the act,” says Corona with poorly feigned pity. You see her give a long, wet stroke of her tongue to his muzzle. “Ahh, why couldn’t you end up in my belly? The one I got used pig grease as an aftershave, I swear!”
 
 
“Mine was alright,” comments Aurea. “For a dirty pegasus, at least. Ugh, I hope I’m not going to cough up a clump of feathers in the middle of night.”
 
 
“If you do, try to make it outside the tent this time, dear. Yuck!”
 
 
“Says she who can’t keep down one scrawny philly for a full hour…”
 
 
“She had a dyed mane! You know how that upsets my tummy.”
 
 
You listen to their argumentation in awed shock. How many ponies have these two eaten exactly? They discuss it like a casual hobby. And does it hurt to vomit that much feathers at once?
 
 
The brigand’s front legs folded neatly to his sides, all that’s left of him outside you are his slim shoulders, which bulge your cheeks painfully as you draw them in. At this point you’re not even relishing the aroma anymore, the bare physical side of the feat sufficing to tax your enthusiasm. Never before have you had a meal of this size. You imagine your belly reaching to the ground already with so much wriggling meat filling it. Without Corona’s help you don’t know if you could’ve made it this far.
 
 
“Ready for one last heave?” the unicorn asks.
 
 
You nod stiffly, all drained of strength. The pegasus is putting up one last fight, thrashing his neck sticking from your throat this way and that. Inevitably like a steam piston, Corona pushes his whimpering face between your jaws, where the slimy shadows finally overcome him completely. With a relieved snap you clamp shut your teeth after his muzzle, roll your tongue over the morsel one more time, then gulp the biggest mouthful of your life. A noisy ball travels down your throat, its terrified features clearly present past your fur, to finally vanish into your massive gut.
 
 
“That was… wow…” you manage, swaying gently. A belch like a roar of thunder catches you unguarded, exploding from your mouth uncontrollably. “Uh, excuse me…”
 
 
“It’s alright, hun,” Corona says, wiping the few drops of spit and wads of pale fur from her cheeks. “You did very good. As a matter of fact, you did so well I think you’ve earned a little reward for yourself. Wouldn’t you agree, sister?”
 
 
“You said it!” cheers Aurea, ceasing rubbing the parts south from her belly. She gets up, a lustful gaze locked on every tremor the suffocating, digesting pegasus causes in your midsection. Humming, she presses her cheek against the imprint of the pegasus’s rump.
 
 
You’re about to recoil from the touch when Corona grabs you by the neck and pulls you into a deep kiss that apprehends you like a sinkhole. While you stare dumbfoundedly at her closed eyes, Aurea samples your neck as she might a lollipop. Before you know it, the two mares push you onto your back, Aurea starting to knead your sloshing belly with her hooves while Corona’s buttocks eclipse your vision. All your spinning mind hears is “Mind the teeth, hun” before the wetly winking lips of her marehood greet your muzzle. The rest is a honeyed blur.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***
 
 
 
 
 
 
When you wake up it’s evening, presumably of the same day still. There’s a couple of other facts of which you are by default aware without being fully conscious to realize that you are. First, you’ve been tied into a pole in the middle of what you recognize to be the wooded, rocky hills south of Backbuck. The ropes chafe uncomfortably, especially around your belly, which is still bloated. Your head feels like during your nap it was borrowed for a soccer match, and the lingering fragrance of some exotic, strange liquid in your mouth doesn’t help any. Finally, there’s the dragon in front of you, whose noxious breath washing over you is what woke you up.
 
 
In old mares’ tales dragons are always bulky, large as mountains and mean to the core. This one is rather sleek like a wolf in midwinter, it’s serpentine body about as long as the tallest pines around and covered in oil-black scales shining in the dusklight. Thick smoke cascades from between its onyx lips which, there’s no mistaking it, are drenched in blood. The horned head tilts to the left, and you can see your colorless face reflected in the yellow lizard’s eye.
 
 
“What are you?” the monster rumbles. More suffocating vapours blow on your face, stenching of charred flesh. “A compensational sacrifice from your wretched village?”
 
 
It’s right about now that your mental gears start turning again, but when they do they’re suddenly about to derail immediately. Your spine hands you a couple of options which your reason leafs through at random, incapable of deciding if this is just a nightmare or a nightmare turned reality. Either way you have the nasty idea it’s too late to decide anything now except whether you’re going to meet that smouldering maw willingly or not.