Wawa’s Visitors, chapter 4
“Friend”
The Wish Granter’s grin stretched beyond the limits of its face as it spoke. “Your wish has been granted.”
It wasn’t long before Wawa regretted his actions. Having tasted something like friendship, the silence of being alone hit harder than he thought possible. He had been too quick to discard the Coward; he should have kept the shadow of a colt around. Let him starve. Lead him in circles. Broken a leg or kept him trapped so that even if their friendship was ruined, Wawa could have kept him alive.
It was a mistake. A mistake he would not repeat.
Lost in his thoughts, Wawa barely even cared about exploring the castle’s changes this time. He wanted someone to talk to. Someone to interact with. The silence was oppressive and he hated it, just as he hated the endless stress of waiting for a visitor that would only run through and be killed. Like all the others, he knew his next visitor would be unable to be reasoned with. Refusing to listen. A temporary sunbeam too eager to vanish into the abyss.
To tide himself over Wawa tried to spend time with the other Cursed, but it didn’t help. Normally, there were at least a few Cursed that could provide Wawa a brief sense of companionship but none were accessible in this layout; only the insane and the unreachable, both options worse than staying alone.
His scrambled, swirling thoughts could not calm; not until Wawa made a decision. The whirlpool of his mind calmed into a clear pool as he decided he would keep his next visitor. No matter who it was, no matter if they accepted him, the next fluffy he met was one he would befriend… One he would not allow to leave nor die.
No matter what.
Wawa spent much time contemplating how to go about things. He already knew his next visitor would not be as complacent as the Coward had been. That shadow of a colt had been an anomaly, just like …
What was her name? The eager fluffy with the flower in her mane… Marigold, Maple Leaf …?
He supposed it didn’t matter. None of the names mattered in the end.
Nothing mattered except but for the next visitor.
He was a smarty.
Wawa could tell even from afar; the unicorn that had just arrived wore brown fur and a dark gray mane, but he carried himself with the tell-tale signs of a leader. Wary, suspicious, yet confident and focused.
How curious, then, for him to have entered alone.
“Hewwo!” Wawa stepped into the visitor’s sight and watched how his new friend recoiled, the smarty watching him apprehensively.
“… Who am yu?”
It was spoken too flatly to be a question, really, but Wawa chuckled anyway. This was a good sign; a smarty who didn’t immediately jump to violence. “Fwuffy am Wawa! An’ yu?”
“… Smawty.” The smarty approached with careful, deliberate steps, glancing the alicorn over.
“Anyfing othew than Smawty?” Wawa asked kindly as he sat down, tail shifting in a light wag. “Wawa meets wotsa smawties… Gets hawd tu teww them aww apawt.”
There was a moment’s hesitance, then: “Just Smawty.”
How boring. Wawa hid his dismay at this answer, instead nudging the conversation onwards. “Otay. But why is Smawty awone? What about hewd?”
Again the smarty hesitated, making a move to reply before faltering and glancing aside. He tapped his hooves at the carpet a few times, weighing his options, before finally speaking. “… Hewd am outside. Hewd’s babbehs disappeawed; Smawty am hewe tu wook fow them.”
Oh. A baby seeker, then. Again Wawa felt a pang of dismay - that was his least favorite kind of visitor. If fluffies had no reason to enter, the Castle sometimes baited them by stealing away foals and loved ones, hiding them within its halls like a cruel game.
It always made Wawa uneasy, as he had to clean up the bait once a visitor had died. If he overlooked even one foal, it could lead to a wish…
But he didn’t let any of this show, instead adopting a thoughtful expression as he tapped a hoof at his snout. “Babbehs … Oh!” Acting as if he’d just had an idea, Wawa held his hoof out for the Smarty in a gesture of goodwill and smiled brightly. “Wawa knows aww about castwe, can hewp Smawty find babbehs! What do yu say?”
Smarty stared for several long seconds, debating with himself, before exhaling and giving in. “… Otay. If Wawa can hewp Smawty find babbehs… then wiww team up fow now.”
Delight fluttered in Wawa’s chest at the response. Smarty or not, his new visitor was well on his way to becoming a precious friend.
At first Smarty took the lead, and Wawa allowed it. After all, smarties liked to do that - charging in head-first and relying on their own heart, not the input of others. Wawa had met enough of them to simply enjoy their company and act as an advisor. So he smiled and tagged along with a cheerful trot, providing tips when asked and suggesting little things that would keep his new friend from the “right” path.
It was a period that lasted only until the first foal. Wawa’s happy demeanor fell at once when they saw it; a little yellow thing lying alone in an empty room, the floor checkered with strange patterns. A trap room.
“Wait!” Wawa protested as Smarty moved to enter, but his new friend didn’t listen - before Wawa could stop him, the brown unicorn ran into the room and with a ‘click’ depressed one of the tiles.
Wawa lunged and managed to snag hold of his friend’s tail, yanking him back as hard as he could. The smarty was thrown back out and hit his belly hard, legs splayed as the room’s ceiling slammed into the floor inches away from crushing his snout.
A few moments passed in silence. Smarty stared numbly at the fate he’d almost suffered, while Wawa was too busy catching his breath to speak. Finally, staring at the solid slab of rock where an open room had once been and his voice hollow with shock, the brown unicorn spoke. “Wha… happened…?”
“Is a twap,” Wawa explained. “If you step on a bad tiwe, yu get cwushed.”
The slab unleashed a grinding sound as it slowly retreated back into the ceiling, allowing the two to try again, but there was no point - the yellow foal had been crushed in the trap, only gore and fragments of bone left where it had been sitting. Wawa watched Smarty’s reaction closely as he saw what his recklessness wrought, whether he would break down in despair or dismiss it as a necessary casualty, but neither happened.
Instead, the Smarty let out a weary, pained sigh. “… Wiww be mowe cawefuw fwom now on… Thank yu.” Wawa could see the sorrow in his friend’s eyes as the unicorn stood, but it was drowned out by something he couldn’t quite make out. Determination, maybe. “… Wet’s go, nee’ find othew babbehs befowe anyfing happens. Nu wan wose any mowe babbehs.”
It was a surprisingly composed, yet heartfelt response. Wawa however just nodded lightly, and took the lead as the two begun to move once more.
Even though Smarty now followed his advice, even though he could stop and chat with his new friend as much as he wanted, Wawa’s paranoia soon dug in deep. It was the foals’ fault – Smarty told him there were six foals lost in total, and the more time he spent relaxing, the more time those horrid foals were given to find the Wish Granter. And Wawa could see the urgency in his new friend’s eyes, promising that only brief breaks were allowed, that he would not accept giving up on his quest to rescue those he cared for.
Wawa needed to leave Smarty’s side to solve this problem. And yet, after the earlier incident, he dreaded leaving the brown fluffy alone. He had almost lost his new friend once – he couldn’t let it happen again. He wouldn’t.
And so Wawa walked and talked with the unicorn, acting sweet and heartfelt as he always did, yet glancing to Smarty again and again as he searched for any opening to leave. He knew what he wanted to do, he just needed the opportunity to do it - and it was when they reached the next foal that he saw his chance.
“Wawa nu can weach dat high,” Wawa lied as he stared up at the structure, a maze of paths and platforms made of debris and furniture. He had seen this room before, a maze of climbing and falling that could injure but not kill. Sometimes it was the only way forward, but this time - like the crush room - it held only a foal at the end.
“Smawty’s got dis,” assured Smarty as he began to climb. Wawa paused for a moment.
“Hey, Smawty?” he then asked innocently. It may be his last chance to know. “Do yu stiww nu wan to teww Wawa yu name? Yu not-Smawty name?”
Smarty stopped and stood still for a second, hesitating, but finally replied: “Smawty name am Coconut.”
“Otay!” Wawa beamed. Coconut! That was good; much better than simply calling him Smarty. “Coconut, Wawa am going tu seawch ahead. It’s bettew than just waiting hewe.”
“Otay. Dun be too wong.”
“Nu wowwies!”
Wawa smiled happily as he trotted onward, his pace soon increasing from a brisk walk to a gallop. He had his chance, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
Finding a foal wasn’t too difficult, as he soon found a dark green furball of a baby trapped with a forgetful white Cursed and a maze of spikes. Rescuing it was no harder, thanks to Wawa’s instinctive castle knowledge, but he didn’t bring his new boon back to Coconut.
Instead, Wawa took the paths only he could traverse. He looked through the locked paths until he found a long open hallway, where swing music played from the ceiling and no clear danger existed.
It was a trap room, though it may not look like it. Wawa had rarely seen it in use, as it only appeared to herds, but he knew its mechanisms well. And abusing those mechanisms, it was here that Wawa placed the foal - breaking its foreleg to ensure the little creature wouldn’t crawl out of place - before returning to Coconut’s side.
The brown Smarty was holding his own rescued foal and walking with a limp when Wawa returned, piquing the alicorn’s attention. He put on a false look of concern. “Awe yu otay? Yu weggie seems huwt…”
“Smawty faww,” Coconut mumbled around the foal. “Am going tu be fine. Did Wawa find anyfing?”
“Weww… Wawa heawd babbeh. Came back tu teww Coconut.”
It caught Coconut’s attention in an instant and his eyes shone. “Show Smawty the way.”
“Of couwse!” Wawa smiled cheerfully as he started to walk, leading his friend along. Though he knew the path should have been locked, the doors were kept open by what Wawa had done; the Castle prioritized letting Coconut reach his foals, and thus Wawa had forced its layout to change ever so slightly. To close some paths and open others.
Good. His plan would have been for naught otherwise.
Soon they reached the hallway, and Coconut almost ran ahead the moment he heard the foal’s pained chirps. He barely managed to stop himself, instead giving Wawa a worried look that silently asked if it was safe.
Wawa didn’t tell him, of course. Instead he put a hoof to his mouth and leaned forward a little, eyes wide with mock worry. “It wooks wike dat babbeh’s huwt…”
That did the trick. Thinking it safe and worrying for the foal, Coconut rushed in and triggered the trap - a cage slammed down hard around the brown unicorn, the green foal’s head fatally crushed by its edge. Gasping in utter horror, Coconut dropped his foal and recoiled, but the cage was so small he just slammed his back into the bars.
Looking around with wide eyes, the smarty’s gaze soon landed on Wawa and he reached out pleadingly. “Wawa! Hewp, wet Smawty out!”
Wawa gave him a pleased smile.
“Wawa …?” Coconut’s pleading expression slowly faded and Wawa could see his friend’s heart drop. But he simply chuckled and then walked off, tail wagging.
“Wiww be back watew.”
Behind him Coconut shouted and struck at the cage as Wawa began his hunt for the remaining three foals. He started from the end and searched thoroughly, until to his horror… Wawa suddenly found himself staring down a new visitor. A mare.
“Hewwo,” she said uncertainly. “Fwuffy am Wiwwow… A-Am wooking fow fwend, Smawty came hewe wooking fow babbehs but nu come back. Haf yu seen Smawty …?”
Oh, no. No no no. Wawa fought to keep down his panic; a new visitor this soon? That meant the castle layout had changed, and he no longer knew where Coconut was. If he spent time with this visitor, his friend might die of starvation - and if he chose this Willow as his new friend instead, if she found Coconut, she would realize what Wawa had done. She would free him or take revenge for his death. Even if she looked friendly, Wawa’s paranoia and dread spiraled, and he knew he could not waste time on this mare. Not when he still had to find the foals, not when he had Coconut to care for, not when she would find out what he had done.
“Yus!” he answered the mare’s query on autopilot, nodding hurriedly. If she noticed, her concern overrode her suspicion. “This way, wiww show yu!”
Wawa hurried off and Willow followed close behind as he sought out the first dangerous room he could find; a room reeking of blood and death, littered with corpses and the single grayed cannibal that had killed them all. It wasn’t until she had stepped inside that Willow parsed the horrors and recoiled, but by then it was too late. She cried out and covered her eyes as the Cannibal Cursed laid eyes on the two, lunging for the mare while ignoring Wawa with an excited cry of “Nummies”.
Wawa only stayed to ensure the visitor had her body torn open before moving on, searching at a hurried pace.
It took over a day for Wawa to find his friend again, Coconut glaring at him from his cage with shallow, heaving breaths. He looked weak from hunger, yet his defiance and hate was clear as day.
“… Munstah,” he snarled. Wawa guessed that he had seen the green baby’s broken leg.
Oh. That was an idea!
“Hewe,” Wawa said, shoving the baby’s corpse into the cage. “Fow nummies.”
In an instant, Coconut’s angry expression changed to horror. “What?!”
“Babbeh am dead awweady, yus?” Wawa indicated to the little foal that lay starving by Coconut’s side. “If yu nu eat babbeh, it onwy means yu an’ dat babbeh stawve.”
The despair was obvious on Coconut’s face, but after several long moments he relented. He tore open the dead foal’s body to allow the living one access to its blood, and as he unwillingly ate Wawa laid next to his cage.
“See? Dat’s bettew, wight?” he chuckled, and Coconut gave him a dark glare.
“Hatechu,” the unicorn snarled. Wawa’s smile faltered for a moment, but he shook it off; that kind of setback was fine, after all.
Coconut would come around.
As Wawa tracked down two of the lost foals he brought their bodies back for Coconut to eat, and he used these feeding times to talk with his new friend.
Coconut only replied with hatred and snarls, but Wawa didn’t much mind - any reaction was better than the blank stares and monotone sobbing of the Cursed. And if Coconut refused to speak with him, the food was left outside his reach for a few more hours until he gave in.
The smarty was stubborn and spiteful, but the desperation always broke through eventually. Even when the little foal by Coconut’s side succumbed to hunger, unable to survive on blood alone, he regretfully ate its corpse.
Wawa watched with interest and amusement as with every visit, Coconut’s ribs showed more clearly and his fur grew more matted, stained with blood from meals and escape attempts alike. Even after Wawa finally found a food source, he only brought his friend little scraps of meat - it was no longer a matter of desperation or lack of food, but of trying to break this stubborn fluffy’s will. To break down his hatred so that they could be friends properly.
When he finally found the last foal, Wawa brought it to Coconut alive. It was only as a means of keeping it fresh, but it had been days since he last visited his friend and he found the smarty pacing blindly in his cage. His eyes were glazed, mindlessly searching for anything to eat - and as the foal reached out for Coconut’s aid, Wawa had an idea.
He set down the foal and at once it ran to the smarty’s side, squeezing into his cage to get comfort from someone it knew and trusted.
… And Coconut lunged at it, ripping into his protegee and eating it alive. It was only afterward that the glaze left his eyes and Coconut stared down at what he’d done, breath shallow and quivering as it all sunk in.
Wawa couldn’t help but laugh at it. His friendship attempt had twisted into creating his own Cursed, and somehow he didn’t even realize the difference.