Daisy the devourer had eaten so much, yet she remained unfulfilled. The gnawing void inside called out for more of the strange rainbow light. She felt as if she were on the edge of a breakthrough, of becoming more.

The horse walked through the city streets in search of essence. Just as she was about to give up and return to the restaurant, Daisy heard voices.

“I'm telling you, there's a spirit beast on the loose,” a man in a black robe told his companion as he walked past her, “I can feel its aura.”

Daisy licked her lips. The man was full of that wonderfully tasty rainbow light. She could smell it radiating from his core like a gateway to summer.

The man stopped and turned to look at her, somehow sensing her gaze. Daisy slowly drew back her lips to show multiple rows of razor sharp teeth. “Hello,” she said softly, “The light inside you burns quite brightly.”

Gona Di had not been expecting to come across a spirit beast masquerading as a common horse. He told his companion to run and prepared for battle. It felt strong, but he was stronger.

“Your reign of terror ends tonight, foul creature. No horse, not even a spirit beast such as yourself, can hope to defeat a disciple of the Rock Mountain Mollusk Sect.” He gracefully transitioned into a martial arts pose, his right leg ready to deliver a lethal kick.

Daisy the devourer turned away, then lashed out with a kick of her own that crushed the man’s rib cage. He made pitiful wheezing sounds as she went in for the kill.

“You fool! You mistake me for a mere horse?” Daisy asked as she approached the dying cultivator, “I'm your worst nightmare!”

***

Pinky was not happy to find out her horses were missing. Between that and the loss of her warehouse, the kitsune was starting to think she was cursed.

Zane was more concerned with the terrors he might have unleashed. In theory they were now someone else's problem. But he wouldn't rule out them returning home for snacks.

“We should probably bar the doors and not go outside until the morning,” he said.

Pinky nodded. “Yeah, that's a good plan.”

They made sure the restaurant was locked down and took the extra precaution of wedging furniture in front of the doors. Then Zane realized the walls were made of thin wood. There was no point bracing the door if the corrupted horses could come through the walls.

He sighed, “Why couldn't we have picked a building made of stone?”

Pinky pointed to the stairs. “Let's try and get the high ground. That way if anything breaks in from below, we will hear it first.”

The chef couldn't see anything wrong with that plan. He walked upstairs to see what they were working with. Zane broke the paper seal on a door marked “Employees Only” and opened it.

He frowned as the entire building began to shake. Well, that isn't good, Zane thought.

***

The restaurant awakened to find it had visitors. Miracle of miracles, one was even a chef. It turned its attention to Zane, waiting for a command.

The young man wasn't sure if he would ever get used to the feeling of having a building paying attention to him. A blue eye appeared in the middle of the door and looked at him expectantly.

Zane slowly backed down the stairs. He had zero intention of sticking around to find out what all that was about. “Pinky, would you be so kind as to help me open the front door?”

The Kitsune didn't need much convincing. They pulled the furniture out of the way and ran out into the night.

Zane had half been expecting the restaurant to try and stop them from leaving. He turned to face Pinky. “What the fuck was that?”

She looked at the building critically. “Well, I'm no expert on real estate. But, I think we just found out why the building is so cheap.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

A whinny from a nearby alley caught their undivided attention. A familiar brown and white horse stepped out from the shadows. She had grown since the last time they saw her.

“What a wonderful night to go out for a stroll,” Daisy said.

The chef regarded his creation. She pulsed with essence, more essence than would have come from eating three coreless bodies. The horse had been busy. But was she dangerous to him?

Before Zane could do something drastic, Daisy resolved the situation for him by kneeling. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good horse. Good girl.”

Daisy stood up to her full height. “Do not mistake me for some beast of burden, Awakener. Your lesson has made me much more than the base clay you sought to shape with light and blood.”

“Are you going to attack me, or Pinky?” Zane asked, deciding to get his main question out of the way.

“Nay,” the horse shook her mane, “You are the ones who knew me before I was enlightened. You are my pack. One does not eat members of their own pack.”

“I think you mean ‘herd’,” Zane corrected.

“No. I'm probably sure she doesn't,” Pinky pointed at the horse's teeth, “Those hooves look nasty too.”

“Yes,” Daisy practically pranced with pride, “My teeth are sharp and my hooves are twice as deadly. Do I not look beautiful, Awakener?”

Zane put a core in the palm of his hand and held it out like a sugar cube. He wanted to find out if this thing was evil or just a megalomaniac like all other cultivators seemed to be.

“Oh yes, Master! Thank you for this gift of light and energy.” Daisy leaned in close and opened her mouth, letting small tendrils of shadow creep out towards the core. They wrapped around it like the tentacles of an anemone. The horse swallowed her treat and let out a happy whinny.

The chef took his hand back, surprised he wasn't missing a finger. He supposed that was as good a proof as any that Daisy wasn't going to try and eat them.

Now, if only he could say the same for the restaurant, he thought.

***

They had left Daisy to “guard” the restaurant while they found a hotel. Zane had a vague hope in the back of his mind that the two problems would cancel each other out. He wasn't entirely comfortable around the awakened horse yet.

Despite her recent misfortune, Pinky was feeling pretty good as she watched Zane pay for their rooms. The fog had receded away, and even though it was night, the world was a little warmer than before. She chalked it up to Zane's cooking.

Somehow the young man's class allowed him to amplify the wild essence in his ingredients. Pinky checked her stats and saw that she had a full two points worth of essence available.

The kitsune almost spent them right then and there, but she paused. If essence was what kept the fog at bay, what would happen if she went back to zero?

Pinky shuddered at the thought as she followed Zane down the hall to their accommodations. He opened the door to reveal a room with two beds.

She looked at him with curiosity. One bed would have meant he was trying to sleep with her. Separate rooms would have indicated he wasn't interested. But what did two beds in the same room mean?

Pinky glanced at Zane. He was good looking, no doubt about it. But she was on a self assigned cleanse. The kitsune had decided to take a break from her bad habits. That meant no more screwing around, and absolutely no sleeping with fuckboys.

The chef produced a bottle of plum wine from his pack and summoned two glasses. “Join me for a drink before we crash?”

The kitsune shrugged. One glass of wine before bed couldn't hurt.

***

As things progressed, one glass turned to two. Then Zane opened another bottle, which had contained some kind of hard liquor made from apples. In the spirit of making bad decisions, Pinky had suggested they finish it. Things got hazy after that.

They woke up the next morning fully clothed, but with pounding hangovers. Pinky looked around for some water. “Oh my god, I'm going to fucking die.”

“No you're not,” Zane rasped as he took a sip from his water skin before handing it over to Pinky, “Dying hurts less.”

The chef thought about the pills he had gotten from the apothecary. They were supposed to eliminate toxins. Maybe they would work for his hangover?

Zane took a double dose and washed them down with some water. “I hope this place has invented frozen mimosas and bacon sandwiches. Because I fucking need one of each right now.”

“What are those?” Pinky asked.

“Medicine, from the apothecary,” Zane explained.

She made a grasping motion so he tossed her the bottle. Pinky caught it and poured out two pills. She swallowed them and winced. “I feel fucking rough. How long did they say this was going to take to kick in?”

Zane wasn't sure. He had stopped listening after the apothecary started talking about “purging the body's impurities”. “I dunno. Should be pretty quick though. She said to make sure I was laying down before I took them.”

Pinky panicked as smoke started flowing out her mouth. “Zane, what exactly did you just give me?”

The young man began to sweat. He knew from his experience in the celestial casino that smoke was bad. People weren’t supposed to smoke, smoking killed. They had commercials about it and everything.

“Ok, I don’t want you to worry,” Zane said, trying to keep his voice calm, “But I think you might be about to explode.”