Note: This chapter contains heavy spoilers for chapters 1-7 of The Toy Castle. I recommend you read the main story first!
Wawa’s Visitors, chapter 5
White Pegasus
As long claws grazed his sides Wawa felt the budding of wings he’d never had, growing and settling along his back.
“Co-co-nut.”
Hearing his name Coconut cringed, the brown unicorn’s hackles rising, but he did not unfurl nor look at Wawa. It was frustrating - no matter what Wawa said or did, his friend refused to accept him. Still, ignoring the darkness coating his heart, Wawa tried to reason with the caged visitor as he lay next to the metal bars.
“Wawa am doing yu a favow, yu know.” Wawa watched his friend’s back, letting his expression soften. “Fwuffies who make wishes nu can weave. They suffew fowevew an’ evew with nu way tu stop it.”
Coconut knew what wishes were, of course. Wawa had told him. He enjoyed having someone to talk to, and even if the replies were steeped in bitterness and loathing, they were unique and alive. So Wawa told his unwilling friend about everything; other visitors, the Cursed, his own past and sorrows. And he often urged Coconut to talk about the outside world, as that fluffy with the flower once had, though it rarely yielded any results. (What was her name? Flora? No, it had two words…)
There were only two things that Wawa did not tell his conversation partner of. One was the mare named Willow - Coconut already had reason to hate him, and he didn’t need more. The other thing was the Wish Granter.
Sure, he’d hint at the Wish Granter’s presence. He couldn’t deny its existence when it was so integral to everything around them. But what it looked like, how it acted, the way it spoke and the way it grinned - these were things that Wawa could not put to words. Things that made his fur crawl and his hooves scrape at the floor.
It was the Wish Granter, and that was the only way he wanted to describe it.
“If Wawa wet Coconut go, Coconut wud go make wish. So nu can wet dat happen,” Wawa continued. No reaction. Pushing down his growing frustration, the alicorn decided to force a response. “Dat’s why Wawa nu wet anyone make a wish. Even if it means cwushing babbehs. … And giving babbehs tu a hungwy Smawty.”
“Munstah!!” roared Coconut and slammed against the bars as he sprang to life, his eyes wild with rage. “Yu feaw wish!? Onwy wish Smawty wants is tu kiww Wawa!”
Finally a reply! Wawa chuckled, smiling pleasantly to his friend. “Yus, Wawa knows.”
Coconut’s eyes narrowed with a snarl, but Wawa just smiled. That wish was obvious. After all, it was what anyone would have wished for, and that made it rather ineffective as a threat.
He still hoped for the unicorn to accept him as a friend. Until then, no matter how annoying it was, he just had to settle for hate.
“Coconut.” … “Co-co-nut!”
“Answew!”
“Say sumthing!”
Damnit, damnit, damnit!
Wawa slammed his hooves into the carpet as he walked, the soft surface doing nothing to calm his frustration. He hated this!
It had been too long. No more visitors had arrived for far longer than normal, as if Coconut’s presence prevented it, and Wawa feared nobody else would ever arrive. All he had was that useless smarty, and that was no longer enough!
Because somehow, somewhere along the line, the caged fluffy had realized Wawa preferred spite and anger to getting ignored.
And he had decided to take full advantage of it by curling up and pretending his captor didn’t exist. It grew more and more difficult to get a reaction until nothing Wawa did worked anymore - even now, when Wawa knew he was starved to near death, trying to taunt or bribe a response from his friend did nothing. It made the smarty no better than the other broken inhabitants and Wawa absolutely hated it, feeling completely alone again for the first time in ages.
Again he kicked the carpet, which was much too soft to react in any good way just like everything else in this damned castle. He hated it, hated hated hated it, if he ensured Coconut didn’t die the fluffy could at least be a little grateful –
A far-away sound snapped Wawa out of all his thoughts, and he froze in his tracks. Raising his head, he was met with the sight of the castle’s main foyer, yawningly empty yet much too close to the castle entrance. Had his surroundings changed? Had he lost himself in his thoughts so badly that he lost track of where he’d walked?
“Babbeeehs… Hewwo?..”
That confirmed it, Wawa’s eyes widening as his frustration dispelled. There was a new visitor. Shaking off any lingering annoyance, Wawa fluttered his wings and happily went to greet his new friend.
Her name was Snowcone.
Wawa liked her, at first. She was a white pegasus, earnest and afraid. Just like Coconut she was seeking the foals stolen from her herd, but her personality was the complete opposite - reminding him more of that fluffy with the flower than anything else, mixed with a little bit of the Coward.
And it felt nice. Despite her uncertainty she was kind, honest and easy to talk to, with no trace of the hate he’d become accustomed to. Wawa smiled at her sparkly-eyed gaze when she saw the foyer’s colorful appearance, and actually flinched when she tried to cheat a puzzle and was rewarded with a sharp piece of wood through the back.
She surprised him, in a way. Lying there, bleeding and in tears, she still cared more about a foal getting hurt by her blunder.
It was interesting - she was determined to help the foals even if it meant danger or pain, as though nothing else was important. Not her fears, not her own health.
At her request, Wawa lead her up spiderweb-cracked stairs and across a network of thin planks and platforms, much like those where he had killed the Coward, until they reached a plank too thin to carry them both. Snowcone continued alone to help a red talkie foal, and as she returned the thin path broke under her weight; she was left barely clinging to a ledge above certain death, whimpering as the panicked foal in her mouth cried and flailed. She could easily have dropped it to save her strength, and yet she refused to let go even as it thrashed and squirmed.
Wawa considered his options as he watched her struggle. If he let Snowcone fall, then he would be free to hunt down her other foals at his leisure. It would make it much easier and faster to ensure nobody reached the Wish Granter.
Yet, he liked her too much. This kind pegasus who combined cowardice and determination, willing to die just to avoid betraying her protegees. Wawa wanted to keep Snowcone as a friend, the way he had kept Coconut, and so he made his decision; reaching down and pulling the white mare to safety.
But as he lead Snowcone and her by now four foals back down to safety, Wawa made the mistake of asking just how many there were to find. And as Snowcone began to count - three blue, four talkie, two yellow, two pink - that well-worn anxiety started to grasp Wawa’s heart. The more colors Snowcone counted out, the more suffocating Wawa’s fear grew until in the end she had counted out twenty foals. Twenty.
Wawa couldn’t waste time playing or lounging with his new friend once he knew that. If he was babying Snowcone, locating that many foals would take too much time; and if they were left unattended that long, one may reach the Wish Granter.
So he suggested splitting up, at least for a few rooms. While Snowcone searched one path Wawa took on the other, killing and disposing of any foals he found. He had hoped to go unnoticed, but Snowcone returned long before he’d expected - moments after he crushed his third foal, a shrill cry of ‘munstah!’ made him flinch.
Only a little down the hall, frozen in horror, stood Snowcone with a posse of babies - having caught him red-hooved, standing over a freshly killed child. Wawa had to think fast, blaming a monster that he couldn’t stop, and saw Snowcone’s heart shatter at the realization she had lost a foal.
At once, Wawa knew he couldn’t team up with her again. She’d never let them be apart, and he couldn’t use the same excuse twice. So although he would have liked to spend more time with her, Wawa made the decision to lock Snowcone away.
It wasn’t difficult. Wawa had learned long ago that fluffies were not natural liars, and more importantly, that they believed he was not a natural liar.
So when Wawa told her of a foal in a basement that he needed help to reach, Snowcone believed him despite the blood on his hooves. He held the basement door open and waited for her to enter, and when Snowcone hesitated he instead tackled her inside, the door snapping shut as she fell down the basement stairs.
He took a moment to listen and watch for anything more before moving on. Several foals had been on her back as she fell, which was less for Wawa to find, but there were many more to hunt down and he didn’t want to waste time.
He had liked her, at first. He truly had.
Wawa didn’t hate Snowcone until she tore out his wing.
How she had escaped the basement, he didn’t know. Wawa had checked the halls near the Wish Granter and then searched for foals in earnest, humming and singing to himself to lure them out of hiding. Some were beyond his grasp, but in a storage room he had finally caught hold of a foal.
It was a yellow chirpy, blindly crawling toward his voice, and he grew delighted as he dragged it out onto the floor; but as he raised his hoof to crush the little pest, a hateful shriek made him flinch and then Snowcone slammed into him.
Disorientation made it hard to throw her off, the pegasus fueled by rage and adrenaline. She bit into and tore at Wawa’s left wing, and when he finally managed to grab hold of her tail and hurl her off, it was with the gruesome snap of ripping flesh and breaking bones.
Wawa’s heart whirled with different feelings as he steadied himself, shock and pain and anger all converging into hatred. It wasn’t just that she had harmed him; it was how she did it, pouncing on him out of nowhere. It was the fact she’d taken a wing, something given to him by the Wish Granter. It was the way she wasn’t even a monster, just a regular fluffy, something with no right to cause this kind of damage. And it was her expression, a deep-seated rage and hate much too similar to the face of that damned smarty he’d never managed to tame.
“Munstah,” she sneered, her darkened gaze challenging him to run or fight, and Wawa lunged at her in turn.
Both fluffies fought with clouded hearts. Wawa wanted revenge, to tear out pieces of her the way she had done to him, rather than going for killing blows. Meanwhile Snowcone snapped at him like a crazed wild beast, biting at his limbs and lunging for his throat at every opportunity. The two tumbled over each other and broke apart and flew together once more, until finally Wawa managed to slam his opponent into the floor and pin her onto her back.
He hated it so much. He was bleeding, tasting blood and pain alike from his injuries. Yet despite being worse off, Snowcone couldn’t care less. Her white fur was dirty and matted with red, blood pooling from a ripped-open ear and half-torn wing, and yet she still held that defiant glare. As if killing her would do nothing.
“Munstah,” she whispered darkly and Wawa pressed down, feeling the bones as they strained and threatened to break under his hooves. He could kill her right now. He could take away that spark of life from her gaze in an instant.
And yet he stopped, knowing it wouldn’t work. She would stare at him in defiance until her body went cold, leaving him no satisfaction and no outlet for this hateful anger. Ironically, killing her would let her win.
His eyes wandered as he sought an alternate solution, and his gaze fell on the foal she’d attacked him for - held tight in the forelegs of a red talkie foal. All at once things fell into place; when he trapped Snowcone, the red foal she held when dangling over that ledge had been missing. He hadn’t spent too much time on finding it, knowing he had so many others to find, but talkie foals were heavy enough to open the basement trap.
Below him Snowcone’s breath hitched and he glanced down. She was looking at the foals too, her hate replaced with shock.
Of course. She didn’t care for herself, only the foals. He’d almost forgotten. Yes, if he wanted to break her down, it wasn’t her he should be focusing on.
“Dun be siwwy, Snowcone,” he chimed with a wide smile, bringing her attention back to him. Sure, he could have rushed over and crushed those foals then and there, but that would only leave him open to another sneak attack. “Thewe’s nu such thing as munstahs. Onwy fwuffies.”
After all, he was no monster. He was a fluffy once, just like all the others in this cursed castle. And as a cruel plan brewed in his head, Wawa stepped off of his victim with a final kick and walked away.
She was going to regret hurting him.
