The Toy Castle, chapter 5
Dead Herd
“Am Snowcone suwe?”
“Am suwe.”
Her rest had been brief, only enough to let her pains fade to aches, but Snowcone didn’t have the luxury of a long sleep. Not yet. The two talkie foals had helped clean her fur and wounds as she slept, but she couldn’t ask more of them than that. The two remaining chirpies, one purple and one blue, were getting weaker and she couldn’t risk any more deaths. She had to get them out of there.
She had limped back to the main hall with its big staircase, and now pointed the foals to the hallway she had entered through. Gently, she gave each foal a chirpy to carry. “Dat way am gawden… Hewd waiting thewe. Shud haf howe smaww enough fow babbehs tu go thwu. Pwease, teww hewd to wait a bit wongew.”
She didn’t know how much time had passed, trapped in the dark room and sleeping off her wounds, but it must have been a lot and if the herd left without her, everything would be for naught. Rusty nodded and began to walk down the hall with Reddy in tow, and Snowcone sadly watched them go. Part of her still wanted to go with them, to ensure nothing bad happened on the trek out to the garden, but her hooves and hind leg stung with every step she took and she wasn’t very keen on running back and forth needlessly.
The two foals were talking as they walked, and suddenly Reddy pulled his chirpy foal off his back. He gave it to Rusty and then turned, rushing back to Snowcone.
“What am Weddy doing?” she asked. “Go with Wusty.”
“Weddy wowwy bout Snowcone!” the foal retaliated. “Wawa huwt Snowcone, twap in meanie pwace. Wan hewp!”
Snowcone couldn’t argue. If not for the foals, she would still be trapped - maybe forever, forced to eat dead foals to survive. A pit in her stomach, she sadly relented. She couldn’t do this alone.
Reddy lit up, pleased as punch. “Weddy stwong! Wiww hewp wots!”
“Thank yu.” Snowcone looked around - they had already tried the stairs and both doors, so where could they go? Over half the lost children were still missing, and she couldn’t imagine the rest had vanished. As her gaze scanned over the surroundings, though, she noticed it.
Just beside the stairs - where there had previously been an empty wall - sat a new door, wide open and beckoning. Snowcone hesitated at first; it was too similar to the open gates and front doors that had caused her all this grief. Yet, there was no other way forward. She gathered up her courage, ushered Reddy close with her tail, and gingerly entered.
To her surprise, what they entered was no hallway. It was another open room, the floor cold and tiled, full of cabinets and metal things. Hanging on the walls out of her reach she could see sharp blades and somewhere was the sound of dripping water.
Accompanied by a heavy drop was the sound of a startled cheep, and Snowcone froze. A foal. A foal in water.
“Babbeh?” asked Reddy as though it could answer, while Snowcone hurriedly looked around. She strained her ears to hear - drip, peep, drip peep … There! It was above them, on a counter above her reach. She tried to climb up, but there was no way she could haul herself up high enough. She couldn’t even get her snout up onto the counter. She could barely see the source, a crooked metal thing dripping water into a metal basin, but it was much too far to reach.
“Hewp babbeh!” called Reddy and before Snowcone knew it, he was scrabbling up her back. She cringed as he moved across her wounds but tried not to yelp, then the foal had climbed up on her snout and hauled himself onto the counter. Too late Snowcone thought of the worst, of losing the talkie foal to a sea of water, but he was out of reach before she could snag hold of him.
“Waaa! Wots of wawa!” cried Reddy, and for a moment Snowcone choked on her own breath. Wawa, here? No, no, she wasn’t ready, he -
Oh wait, real water. Regular water. She coughed as she tried to resume breathing, only able to wait as Reddy climbed into the basin. Then, carefully, a tiny orange chirpy foal was rolled up to the edge of the counter.
“Snowcone weady?” Reddy called. Snowcone nodded awkwardly.
“W-Weady.” Gently the foal was rolled off the counter, and Snowcone caught it in her mouth. The poor thing was damp all over, and she held it to her fluff to warm it up as Reddy carefully climbed back down her back.
Her first thought was to get the baby out to the garden, to send Reddy with it to the herd, but as she glanced to the door she had come through all she saw was a plain wall. Her heart dropped.
Nowhere to go but forward.
She should have expected it. Inviting doors were nothing but trouble in this place - all she could do was hope Rusty had gotten out okay, that the front doors weren’t shut as well. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Snowcone made sure to dry both Reddy and the orange foal and then kept moving.
The next room was wide open, much of it occupied by a long table set at fluffy height and the rest coated in fancy decorations. For the first time since she had entered this place Snowcone forgot her worries; lined up on the table was a fancy feast, berries and fruit accompanied with shallow dishes of water and other liquids. There was cake and cookies and even large pieces of tender meat and mystery bags.
Snowcone gorged herself on the fruits and water, while Reddy helped himself to a cookie and the orange foal got to drink some milk. It was nice to get a break, and aside from pulling Reddy away from trying a sweet-smelling green water the herd’s smarty had once warned Snowcone of, she was able to recuperate just a bit more.
“Weddy am weady tu go?” she asked once finished, but Reddy was sniffing at the mystery bags. “… Weddy?”
“Smewws nice,” said Reddy, pawing at the bag. No sooner had he done so before it popped open with a puff of white - he jumped and scrambled backward as a white little creature raised its head out of the bag. A little creature that then chirped.
Snowcone couldn’t help a giggle. It wasn’t a monster, but another foal! The herd shouldn’t have had any white foals, but as she pulled the little one free the bag tipped over, spilling white powder with another big puff that turned Reddy’s snout pure white in an instant.
“Yu otay?” she asked amusedly as she let the new foal have some milk, with Reddy just sneezing and shaking his head hard in reply. She considered cleaning up the foal, but it seemed just fine with its new coat and so she let it be for now. It blended in well with her fur, so it’d be safer like that anyway.
Like before, there were two doors to choose between, set on opposite walls. Snowcone picked the right one, if only because they were closer to it, and so the little group entered another hallway.
It didn’t look much different from the others they had taken in either content or color, and yet it wasn’t the same. None of the doors were open, the path was crooked and the air cold; Snowcone could soon see her own breaths, the chill numbing her wounds, and as she finally saw an open door an uneasy tingling began to crawl along her fur.
There was something bad beyond that door, she knew it, and there weren’t even any sheltered side rooms this time. Carefully giving the orange foal to Reddy, Snowcone steeled herself and stepped inside.
To her surprise, nothing seemed immediately wrong - there were fluffies all around her, all of them pure white but none paying her attention. She looked around, spotting a blue unicorn sitting off to the side, but before she could approach him Reddy’s distraught yelp reached her ears. She turned to him at once to see the little foal struggling at the doorway, a white fluffy blocking his path.
“Nu,” it said simply. “Wiving fwuffies nu entew.”
Living… fluffies…?
Snowcone looked again at the fluffies around her. They were pure white, and yet she could see through their fur to the walls beyond. They had no eyes, only a vague darkness where eyes should have gone. Some of them carried wounds, only visible as red marks or drops of blood. Their hooves didn’t always touch the ground. They were like pieces of wind, and the air that touched them as cold as snow.
A heavy shiver rushed through her body as she realized these fluffies, too, were unnatural. The spirits of the dead, trapped all in the same place.
She wanted to run out, leave before she too became a spirit, but she had to look for foals. She quickly scanned the room and again her eyes fell on the blue unicorn. He looked ragged, his fur and mane a tangled mess and his gaze empty, but he wasn’t see-through. Lying huddled against him, matching his colors almost completely, was a blue talky foal that Snowcone instantly recognized. The toughy Ron’s only daughter, Bluey.
“Bwuey,” she called quietly, hurrying over to the two. She glanced to the unicorn, but he didn’t lash out at her - he just looked through her, a gaze not unkind but just… not quite there, tired and distant.
“… Yu awive?” he noted, his voice quiet and almost dusty. “Nu am ghost.”
It took Snowcone aback, and all she could think of in reply was a nod.
“Dis babbeh am youws?” asked the unicorn, nudging Bluey who at once rushed into Snowcone’s hooves. A shadow of sorrow fell over his expression. “… Was nice. Tawking tu babbeh.”
“Bwuey wiked tawkies tu Smawty tuu,” assured Bluey, “bu’ wan go home.”
“Can yu go home?” asked the unicorn(Smarty?), tilting his head to the side.
“Ye! Sno’cone am hewe!”
The foal declared it as though she was some hidden trump card, as silly as it was. Snowcone didn’t correct her, just sweeping the foal along with her tail as she gave Smarty a grateful nod. “Thank yu fow keeping Bwuey safe.”
“Of couwse. Smawty keep aww of hewd safe.”
Snowcone lead the way to the exit, but as she walked through a white fluffy suddenly shoved Bluey back, blocking her path. “Nu weave.”
“Wha…” But … That made no sense. Snowcone had left just fine, why couldn’t Bluey? As she re-entered to pick the foal back up, a second question made itself known. If Reddy couldn’t enter, why could Snowcone? What made her different?
She tried it a couple more times, and sure enough the ghosts didn’t seem to see Snowcone at all. Part of her began to fear that she had died, but then she had a thought - she took the white foal, coated in powder, from her back and held it through the doorway. No reaction. Pulling it back, she then brushed all the powder off - revealing the baby’s natural bright pink fur - and tried again. At once a ghost had blocked its path, shoving it out of her hooves and to the cold floor. “Nu weave.”
It was color. None of the ghosts recognized her as a live fluffy because of her white fur.
The thought put some bile in her throat, but it also provided a solution. “Weddy, go back tu big foodie pwace! Bwing back white baggie thingy!”
As Reddy nodded and ran off, Snowcone sighed and glanced back to Smarty. Seeing him sit there all alone, guilt tugged at her heart and Snowcone sat next to him. “Snowcone find way out. Smawty wan come?”
“Nu weave hewd,” replied the unicorn with a shake of his head. His distant gaze passed over the ghost fluffies. “Dis aww Smawty’s fauwt. Wan stay wif hewd.”
“What Smawty mean?”
For a brief moment, Smarty just closed his eyes, then he exhaled and watched the floor with a haunted gaze. “Wost awmost aww hewd tu hoomans. Made mistakes. De west of hewd hide in big castwe gawden, bu’ den got twapped… Went into castwe tu find nummies.” He shook his head. “Nu went good. Aww of hewd but Smawty take fowevah sweepies.”
“Snowcone am sowwy…” Snowcone started, but he continued as though he hadn’t heard her.
“Den Smawty saw Wish Munstah. Munstah say cud gif Smawty anyfing… Su Smawty ask fow hewd back.” Lifting his head, Smarty looked out over the many ghosts. “… An’ dis am what munstah gif Smawty.” Finally his gaze passed back over Snowcone, a look full of only guilt and grief. “Nu make wishies. Nu fwom Wish Munstah. Pwease.”
There was nothing she could say. As Reddy slowly returned with the bag of powder, all Snowcone could do was nod and go back to her foals, leaving the old smarty to his sorrows and his dead herd.