Wawa’s Visitors, chapter 2
The Herd
“W-wan… Wan be stwong! Wan be stwongew than any munstah, and nevah be scawed again!!”
Although she was gone, Mayflower’s presence lingered around every corner. While Wawa had once been content to walk in circles, now her questions intruded on his thoughts again and again.
How had he come here? Where was his family? Why did he know things about the castle he had never been taught? He couldn’t even recall growing up; his childhood began and ended at a single memory, encompassed by the Wish Granter’s smile as it heard his words.
He tried to ignore it at first. Each room and passage in the Castle had changed with Mayflower’s appearance and they had yet to change back, so Wawa had much to explore. Some rooms were wholly new while others had disappeared, and the same thing had happened to the cursed - the doll-filled room of a crying brown fluffy had vanished, replaced by ghosts who refused to let him pass, and that was only one of the many changes.
But even as he explored Wawa felt acutely aware of which paths lead to the Wish Granter’s room, reminding him of the things he shouldn’t know, and when he had found all there was to see his mind filled with restlessness. Though he tried to reach the freedom beyond the outside garden’s brick fence, nothing let him pass and the never-changing skies made him uncertain if it was truly outside at all.
With every step the questions grew louder and when he could no longer endure the gnawing at his thoughts, Wawa finally confronted the Wish Granter. “Why nu can wemembew? Who am Wawa’s famiwy?”
But the Wish Granter just smiled, its shadowed figure watching him with eyes that saw through his heart. “You have made your wish.”
“D- Dat nu am faiw! Wawa nu agwee tu dat!”
“You have made your wish,” was all it replied. Its voice the same, its smile the same, but the words stronger and the air colder. Wawa wanted to back down, he truly did, but anger and overflowing questions made him stomp his hooves.
“Nu! Wan memowy back, nu agweed tu take memowy away!”
“You have made your choice.” Though the smile didn’t vanish the creature’s eyes narrowed and the air grew colder than snow. Frost tinted the floor and pillars, and as Wawa tried to back away he found the thick serpentine tail of the Wish Granter behind him. More extending than moving from its spot, suddenly the Wish Granter was encircling him with its snout inches from his own, looming so large and heavy that he shrank back into the shape of a tiny foal. The creature’s very voice was frosted. “Do you want to undo it?”
“N-Nu,” he whimpered weakly, trying to somehow make himself smaller still as he pressed against the tail blocking his path. All too harshly he realized what easy prey he would be if his boon was taken, what a pitiful fate he’d meet if trapped like the others.
“Good.” In an instant Wawa was allowed to tumble back, the Wish Granter back in its spot as though it had never moved. It smiled pleasantly through the still-cold air. “Because you cannot.”
Wawa fled, and from that point on, he never asked again. It didn’t mean he never wondered; sometimes he amused himself by trying to imagine what gruesome fates his parents had met. Had they been crushed and turned to dolls? Drowned or eaten alive? Which of the gored corpses in the Cannibal’s room was his mother?
Of course, there was no point in wondering. After so long, every corpse had the same faded colors and any distinguishing features were buried amongst dirt and blood. But it was a way to occupy himself as he waited for a new visitor to come by, and to keep his questions from getting too loud.
And then finally, after an eternity of wait and wander, Wawa stepped through a doorway to find the wrong room. His heart fluttered with anticipation; he had not stepped into the room of his new visitor, but he knew he couldn’t be far away. And as he searched, every sense on high alert, he soon heard the voices of his new visitors.
Voices… Plural.
“Smawty bwing hewd tu bestest housie!” one spoke louder than the rest. Smarties, herds - Mayflower had talked about both, groups of fluffies with strong clever leaders.
Gently Wawa stepped through the doorway, peering curiously at his new visitors. There were seven in total - three stallions, two mares (one of which was noticably fatter than the other), and two smaller fluffies that had to be foals. They were dirtier and scruffier than Mayflower had been, busy snuffing around and taking in the colorful surroundings with awed delight. Wawa planned to simply watch the group from some distance away so he could study their interactions, but after just a few seconds the fatter mare’s eyes locked onto him.
“MUNSTAH!!” she suddenly shrieked, her stubby legs flailing as she hurried to hide behind the others. “Nu huwt soon-mummah, pwease!!”
Taken aback, Wawa recoiled somewhat. A monster? Him? The concept was so absurd that he couldn’t help but laugh. How could he be a monster? He was someone who could defeat monsters. “Nu be siwwy, Wawa nu am munstah! Am pointy-wingy fwend!”
His response seemed to confuse the now very alert herd, but one of the stallions - a red unicorn - stepped forward and lowered his head in a glare. “Munstah nu twick Smawty!” he hissed. “Smawty gib munstah wowstest huwties!!”
With that declaration the smarty charged, horn at the ready. It was both predictable and slow; Wawa neatly stepped aside and dug his own horn into the smarty’s shoulder as he neared. The unicorn yelled as the two untangled, his hooves unsteady, and Wawa took full advantage of it to tackle him to the floor.
“Nu am munstah,” he repeated happily as he pressed a hoof onto the smarty’s chest, just to make sure he would listen. “Wawa am fwend! Can hewp hewd get awound castwe.”
As he let his assailant go, Wawa glanced to the rest of the herd. They were all staring wide-eyed, stunned with horror at their beloved leader having lost so easily, and as Smarty scrabbled back to his hooves he leered at Wawa once more.
“Nu need da hewp of pointy-wingy munstahs,” he sneered, ears flipped back as he limped back to his herd. “Smawty wiww wead hewd thwu dummy housie wiffout any dummy hewp.”
Hmm. Wawa smiled, simply leaning his head a little to the side as he sat. “Weww, if yu am suwe. Wawa wiww be neawby, just in case yu change yu mind.”
Whether he was included or not, he already looked forward to seeing how these fluffies would fare.
It didn’t take long for the first casualty to happen.
It was in the Toy Room, the brown fluffy’s cursed room with its many corpses stitched into stuffed toys. The herd was taking care to avoid touching any of the toys, whimpering and shying away, but the brown fluffy just sat and whispered to himself and Smarty couldn’t let that slide.
“Dummy poopie fwuffy!” he confronted it. “Why am woom fuww o’ scawy toysies? Teww Smawty about dis ‘castwe’!”
The fluffy didn’t answer of course - Wawa had tried to converse with him before, but he never had anything to say except a pitifully repeated mantra of ‘wuv fwends’ - and soon Smawty lost his patience, striking the fluffy upside the head. “Nu ignowe Smawty!”
Although it wasn’t a hard strike, the act of violence woke the dead. Every stitched toy began to move with malice, sending the visiting herd into a panic. And as they struggled to all escape, shoving the mares and foals along, one stallion tried to stall by running the other way.
It was a successful tactic but once separated he couldn’t rejoin the group. Wawa simply watched from the entrance as the toys struck the stallion down, desperately reaching for the retreating herd until taxidermied hooves crushed his ribcage.
Careful not to be too obvious, Wawa simply walked past the living toys and watched the remaining herd from a distance. They went from hallway to hallway, no longer happy but instead fearful, looking for sanctuary.
“Nu, nu wan!” complained the smaller mare as the group found another locked door, this one a kind Wawa had never seen that was accompanied by a strange hole in the wall. “Am onwy widdwe babbehs! Bwubewwy nu wan wose babbehs!”
“Fwuffies tuu big tu go in howe, onwy babbehs can go!” Smarty shot back. “Nee’ pwess button somehow. Do yu wan be stuck in meanie castwe fowevew?”
“W-Weww, nu, bu’…” Blueberry faltered, looking to the group’s two foals. “… Bwubewwy undahstand…”
Even Wawa didn’t know what this particular puzzle entailed, so he listened attentively as one of the two foals crawled into the hole. He couldn’t hear much, but soon there was a scream and the sharp snap of something breaking, and then Blueberry burst into tears.
“Babbeh!” she cried, shoving her face into the hole. “Nu, nu! Babbeh!”
As the non-smarty stallion hugged her close, Wawa made a guess that those two were the parents. In turn, Smarty’s mate had to be the pregnant fluffy.
“Second babbeh, am yu tuwn,” Smarty told the remaining child, heedless of the despair he was causing. “Go pwess button.”
“Pwease nu,” begged Blueberry. “Why Bwubewwy babbeh? Tuwip haf babbehs tuu!”
“Nu! Tuwip babbehs tuu smaww, nu am as stwong ow fast as Bwubewwy’s babbehs!” the smarty shot back at once, bristling. Wawa tilted his head to the side, squinting. Now that they said it, the fat mare DID have two tiny foals on her back… Huh.
Blueberry’s remaining foal raised her head. “Nu wowwy, mummah! Babbeh am fastest babbeh, wiww be otay!”
And so she, too, went in. Soon the door began to open with a creaking, stone-like noise, but then screaming once more came from the wall. The foal’s front legs poked through the hole and Blueberry managed to pull her child out, but even from afar Wawa could tell that her lower body had been twisted in half.
Still, Blueberry refused to accept what had happened. She carried the child in her mouth as they walked on, even as the foal’s movements slowed to nothing and she stopped breathing.
The next death was in the garden. As they looked for a way to cross the shallow stream safely, Smarty refusing to let his pregnant mate wade across the water, the tired Blueberry was talking to her reflection. It consoled her and listened to her sorrows until she leaned down to thank it. When she did, the waves raised and cradled her head before suddenly grabbing hold, dragging her face below the surface. The other fluffies panicked; both stallions grabbed hold of her tail and pulled as hard as they could, but by the time they tore her free from the water it was too late. Blueberry had been drowned.
Her mate wailed, hugging her body tight as if it would bring her back. Smarty and his mate tried to take him along, but he refused to leave his lost family and soon, they decided to move on without him.
Wawa contemplated what to do but the stallion didn’t seem about to move anytime soon, so he decided to follow the smarty once more. The stallion didn’t even look up as Wawa passed, left to grieve over the bodies of his loved ones.
He would later be found dead, killed by a trap while trying to escape the castle.
Perhaps it was because they were so few now, or because they were his mate and children, but the smarty grew more careful as the small group went on. He kept his guard up and tested the path ahead, carefully leading his small family through one trap, then another.
But with caution came awareness, and he gradually became aware of Wawa following their steps.
It was in a kitchen room that he suddenly turned, sneering straight at Wawa with his eyes narrowed in a glare. “Gu way, munstah! Nu need munstah hewp!!”
Wawa chuckled as he sat down. It was just so amusing and interesting that the smarty was this stubborn even after losing his friends, he couldn’t help it. “Nu wowwy, Wawa am onwy watching.”
The unicorn’s eyes narrowed further. “Smawty nu twust munstah. Can keep speshuh fwend an’ babbehs safe wiffout hewp. An wiww gif munstah fowevah huwties if munstah nu go away!”
“Wawa undahstand.” Getting back up, Wawa smiled kindly and walked away. Honestly, this was for the best. Even from his position in the doorway, he’d been able to smell the rot and death. They were near the cannibal’s room, home to the most annoying cursed in this castle, and Wawa had no qualms about avoiding that particular encounter.
Besides, just like before, he could sense a better path. A locked door had opened to let Wawa through and he soon emerged on the other side of the cannibal’s room, still well within the disgusting smell of death. There he sat down and listened.
He didn’t have to wait long for the screaming to start. As expected, the slowed waddle of a pregnant mare just wasn’t enough to escape a monster, but then the smarty’s voice cut in with an enraged howl. “Weave speshuh fwend awone!!”
In the loud scuffle that followed, battle cries and thuds that ended in the blood-filled gurgle of a fluffy whose throat was torn open, a fattened mare stumbled through the doorway.
She hadn’t escaped unharmed. A huge chunk had been ripped from her side, leaving a thick path of blood with every step, and her limbs failed to keep steady. As she collapsed her two foals tumbled forward onto the floor, and her hazy gaze tried to lock onto Wawa.
“Pwease … hewp babbehs …” she gasped, struggling to stay awake through the bloodloss but already fading.
Wawa approached and studied the tiny foals. They couldn’t be older than he had been when he made his wish. They looked pitiful, whimpering and sobbing at the horrors they had witnessed, one looking up at Wawa with tear-filled eyes. “P-Pwease hewp… famiwy, babbehs…”
If they reached the Wish Granter, they would ask for their loved ones back. For safety, for strength. They would make the same wishes that had tortured others, or the same plea that Wawa himself had made.
As he looked down at the tiny beings who resembled his unknown childhood, all Wawa could see was competition. And without a word, he placed a hoof onto the closest foal and pressed down.