The meaty tendril extending out from the wobbling ground beneath us lunges forward, before I have time to react any further than just pulling back a step and lowering my head. Out of my forward raised eyes, from my lowered gaze, I see the thing fly towards my face. I see the red, gaping meathole lurch and shudder as Misses Sunflower misses the mark and instead of my throat, wraps her razor sharp maw around my horn, which was pointing straight towards her. Her wet, gooey flesh slapping against my skull beneath, as she takes the entire thing down her throat at once, spittle flying from her mouth onto my coat below, staining it as she lets out a strange, throaty noise I’m going to spare you the details of. And no, it’s not like that, guy. Come on. I can’t help it that these things keep happening to me, okay? It’s not a metaphor or innuendo, it’s just a clear breach of my personal space and I would appreciate it if you take it seriously.
In a second I can feel her teeth grinding away, the jagged razor teeth that line her mouth and throat all the way down to the ground which she sprouts out of. Out of the ground that her meaty, red roots dig through like veins holding a tumor in place on the side of a body. It’s all meat. The flowers. The dirt. Everything is made out of meat. There is an angry yelp on my back, as I try to shake the horrible creature off of me. Something presses off of the top of my hind-quarters and a moment later I see the thief jump over my head, grabbing the body of the tendril-flower mid-spring, as she rips it off of me. Teeth scrape and shatter into jagged pieces as Misses Sunflower is dragged off of my horn, as she is wrenched down to the ground by the screaming elf, who has one hand on the flower’s neck and the other on her dagger.
Misses Sunflower writhes and spasms, the tiny series of tendrils that make up her leaves now flailing around wildly, like an electrified corpse, as she tries to escape the grip of the leather glove compressing her neck tightly shut. Ah. Should I intervene?
A new, disgusting, wet splurch squelches out as the thief presses her dagger vertically into the throat of the flower from the front, just below her ‘face’. Hmm. Guess it’s too late for that intervention. The flower writhes and screams a wet scream through its suffocation, as the dagger slowly runs down the length of her stem. Down the span of her neck as she is flayed open from the front like a gutted fish. One long elongated slit from the top of her neck all the way down to the ground. But it’s slow. The thief makes it slow, as she holds the creature down, choking it just tightly enough so that it can stay alive while she slices the struggling body open. All the while the calliope churns out more music, more madness as the melody of the miller continues on unhindered.
Once the elf reaches the bottom she gets up, presses a single boot onto Misses Sunflower’s once so beautiful face and then stomps the other one down into the evisceration over and over along the length of it. Crushing the many teeth, shattering dozens of them with each stomp with a series of wet, bone-snapping cracks as she keeps screaming some unintelligible, angry shouts. All the while Misses Sunflower is screaming too beneath the other boot pressing down on her eyes. I just stand here and watch horrified as wet, red goo splatters all around myself, not sure how this all morally weighs out in the end.
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A minute later all that is left is a flattened patty of flesh and bone-shards and smushed eyes that was once Misses Sunflower along with a wet, panting, red-coated elf girl, who has seemed to calm down just a little now. Her screams having turned into strange, angry grunts mid-mutilation. She turns her head towards me, her eyes wide and furious. The white of her pupils stained with blood that isn’t hers. Instinctively I flinch, stepping back again a step as she turns to walk back towards me. As I see a familiar, lifeless, lunatic gaze stare me down, her face now turns blank and emotionless together with her giant, round, now red-tinged eyes. It’s like she’s a puppet, just some doll animated to motion.
Her glove touches my forehead, as she looks at the slight ring of cuts around my ground down and scraped horn. Thankfully it doesn’t really hurt that much. Turns out our horns don’t really have that many nerve endings. But the skin around it does sting a little, but you know, I’ve had worse. Her blank, pale face shifts into a more recognizable expression of worry that I don’t feel suits her honestly. I wish she wouldn’t be worried, I’m fine. Can we just go? I think I just want to go honestly. I look down at the mangled, butchered corpse below us. The still somewhat twitching meat that was Misses Sunflower.
She seems to be thinking. The thief that is, not Misses Sunflower. Her expression changes again as she nods to herself, as she says something to me I can’t understand. Walking around my side, she climbs back up onto my back and holds on again around my neck, restarting her humming of the tune that is very much out of sync with the howling calliope of the miller that I can hear as always. But I can hear it now, closer than ever. Louder. I look around as to where the noise is coming from, turning my gaze again, I look down at the gaping hole where Misses Sunflower connects to the meat of the ground. Strange, frothy white liquid bubbles out from below, like boiling puss as the sound of the calliope rings out from beneath it. As if her body was a wet cylinder of a pipe-organ.
A hand rubs my head and then points past me, down the way, so that we can continue on our little adventure. Happy to get away from the spluttering, wet, bubble blowing corpse of Misses Sunflower, I look down the way the hand guides me towards and begin walking without looking back. Doing my best to ignore the strange, wet sounds squelching beneath myself as I walk. As the path too becomes wobbly and soft. As the calloused skin that was the road begins to peel away as well, like the grass all around us.
We round the bend and I stop, pulling together again in fear as my unicorn body reacts to the sight of the enemy. As I round the bend and see a very confused hero looking up at me, not a meter away, staring lost at the thief on my back. The monk and priestess sharing the look. Only the excitable wizard-girl runs forward, squealing at the sight of me in all of my glorious, unicorn splendor. I twitch as she lunges forward and wraps her arms around my neck, squeaking in delight.
Fearing the worst, I turn my head and look out of the side of my eye at the thief on my back. At the elf who is taking deep, slow breathes. Oh boy. Her eyes are locked on to the wizard, her single hand holding against my neck pressing in tightly. She exhales once, letting out a long drawn breath and the tension in her body seems to lessen somewhat. Her eyes look away from the wizard, as she turns to the priestess and asks her something.