[mature] to love what death can touch; ROUND IV

[feast]

<center><link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Halant|Kristi" rel="stylesheet"><link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cormorant+SC|IM+Fell+Great+Primer+SC" rel="stylesheet"><div style="width: 550px; background: url('http://i.imgur.com/dA69zKb.png'); padding-top: 10px; background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-color: #0b0b0d; border-radius: 300px 300px 0px 0px;box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #000000;"><center><div style="font-family: 'Cormorant SC', serif; font-size: 40px; color: #2e2d29; line-height:30pt; padding-top: 40px; padding-right: 110px; align:center; text-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #e0dcce;">feast.</div><div style="font-family: Times; color: #acacac; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 2px; line-height: 10pt; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 220px; letter-spacing: .5px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #e0dcce;"><i>death inspires me,</i></div><div style="font-family: Times; color: #acacac; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; line-height: 10pt; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 90px; letter-spacing: .5px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #e0dcce;"><i>like a dog inspires a rabbit.</i></div><div style="width: 500px; margin-top: 280px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 10px;  font-family: Times; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #777776; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 140%; text-align: justify; border-radius: 0px 0px;"><center><div style="width: 500px; border-bottom: 1px solid #0c0c0e; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #e0dcce;"></div></center>Feast is fast becoming used to the screams that ring through the cavern and the prison that holds him. He is content to munch on a mixture of stale hay and grass, and sip from a puddle of brackish water. His needs are met and there is a song in the agony that pervades the air with it’s howling noise that he listens to, even sleeps to, having grown accustomed to it. Screams like these never sounded half as sweet to him until now. Perhaps it is the last lingering taste of power that he’d had that muddles his senses and renders him a sedate captive as he waits.

He never has to wait long because the dark god’s voice rings out to him -

“To escape,” he says, “you must destroy the thing that you love.”

Feast narrows his black eyes; he doesn’t love much - Famine, his twin and Sinew, his mother. That’s about it. Maybe even the little fanged sister, Femur. Could it be one of them that comes to him? He can see light in the darkness then the light is blocked and he tenses, the expectation is that it will be either the twin brother he faces, the mother that bore him up from that original darkness, or the littlest sister that he feels some shred of fondness for. Lo and behold, it is neither of them! Much to his surprise!

What blocks the light is none other than himself - - an exact replica that still retains the wing he had given up in the dark god’s last test. His mouth drops open as he stares in shock at himself. Feast loves only himself? The realization makes sense… but not so much in that he only loves himself, just that he loves himself best - better than he can love his twin, his baby sister, or his mother. That rationalization strikes him as accurate as his doppelganger matches him look for look, but then the look changes and Feast #2 begins to sneer.

“You never loved them, don’t lie to yourself.” says Feast-copy to the original.

“You only think you loved them but love is for losers. Are you a loser?” his tone is goading, and it sounds like Feast but also isn’t Feast - it is Famine’s voice, as if it pulls on the shreds of attachment he still has for those few he counts as family and gives importance to.

Feast stares at himself, still aghast at how real and solid this personification of himself seems to be. It shouldn’t be but it is but the goading gets into his gut, curdles there and he sneers back before answering in a growling tone, “No!” It has more vehemence than he meant to muster. “I just didn’t realize I loved myself more.” here, his tone grows more sinister and whatever decency had ever existed in his eyes dies the way that light does when swallowed up by darkness. How fitting.

The original Feast advances on the duplicate Feast, taking one step after another forward now that he realizes the stall he’s been kept in has been opened. More of the dark god’s tricks, even though he cannot recognize that this too, is one of them - this mirrored self that glares back at him in challenge. However the duplicate Feast does not begin to shake or cower, nor does he back down - he bows up, puffs out his chest and arches his neck, blowing hot harsh breath after breath out of his nostrils as he builds up to a snort. Come to me, his mannerisms seem to say and the original Feast can do nothing but obey some deeply bred instinct to face off against another stallion, even if that stallion is himself.

Original Feast paws a hoof at the stony ground and only stops when he is nose to nose with himself. Both of them squeal and flag their tails and it appears that they will fight but then, both of them grow so very still and that it is almost hard to see if either of them is still breathing. It grows very quiet and then! - duplicate Feast makes the first strike by snapping his yellowing teeth near original Feast’s delicate nostrils. Feast jerks his head back, squealing again and he is incensed, maddened by how he must fight himself but he does.

Each of them mimics the other, a beautiful pantomime of flesh and fighting as they rear back on their haunches, lock forelegs and bash their skulls together. Teeth nip at tender parts of the skin and hooves scrape along ribs and flanks; kicks are thrown out as they spin and whirl and somehow a cloud of dust has been raised up from along the cavern floor. It gets in their eyes and lungs as they battle each other - as Feast fights himself again and again, until at least, they stand there in a face off, sides heaving and both of them grunting just a little.

“I’ll kill you.” he vows to himself.

Feast #2 grins recklessly at the original Feast, “You can’t kill what you already are.”

The original Feast has no idea what that means - not yet anyway, but it gives him a new sort of endurance and he lunges at himself, rearing up and then coming down with both hooves on his own skull. The pain the duplicate feels is felt inside the original and he sinks to his own knees, sickened by it. Original Feast has almost crushed his duplicate’s skull - almost, but stunned him enough to leave him unable to rise up and fight again. He clambers to his feet, a feat that is near impossible given the immense amount of pain he is since he is battling himself and feels every blow and every wound twice over that they’ve given to each other - to himself.

Feast groans but stands, even if slightly swaying, above himself. There is a glimmer of victory in his black eyes as he looks down upon himself and the bloodied wing spilling feathers across the cavern floor. He is not done - not yet, and he begins by breaking the wing off his opponent in a slow torturous way that so Feast #2 screams time and time again and by the time his screaming how grown quiet, the original Feast has a headache that won’t go away but he figures that is the price he will just have to pay. An ounce of pain for every ounce of flesh he extracts from himself. If anything, it was like reliving the last round in which he gave up the wing in the first place - having it broken off and the feathery nub on his wither stings with an old familiar pain all over again.

“Killing me is killing you.” scoffs Feast #2 through a miasma of pain.

Feast gives no answer to himself. This is what the dark god said he must do - kill that which you love and since it seems that Feast loves only himself the best, he must finish the job. The blow to the head and the breaking off of the wing had not been enough to slaughter himself but it had been enough to sharpen his resolve with every sharp stab of pain felt by them both.

Then he thinks back to an earlier test where he ate his older half-brother’s heart and it comes to him then, that this is what he must do. So he sets about with blunt teeth and hooves not meant to cut as he works on shredding first the stomach open to the point that he disembowels himself and this is a new agonizing sensation as he steps on his own guts spilling across the floor. He then works his way up towards the chest, still ripping and tearing as best as he can but it a clumsy and tedious job and he has no idea how much time has passed. Time here though, has no meaning.

But now he must break through a different cage - one of bone, as he reaches the ribs and can see inside, the still beating heart because despite it all, Feast is still not dead - not yet. He will be soon enough! Because the triumphant light in his eyes grows brighter, more feverish as he paws and stomps his way forcefully into the chest cavity and he can hear himself groan and moan and scream every now and then. Those sounds seem to come from his own throat and the pain almost makes him black out - he can barely see the Feast on the ground that struggles and struggles again, then goes still.

All he can focus on now is the heart.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It is a slow beat that slows even further and Feast nuzzles it tenderly as if it was a newborn foal. He draws his head back a few inches then strikes hard and fast with mouth open and teeth bared. Feast rips the heart from Feast’s gaping bloodied chest and shakes it about like a dog with a bone. He lets it drop upon his own side and begins to eat it piece by piece. Feast feels a certain terror in this as he consumes himself - his own heart, and the heart inside him begins to slow down to a stutter that is not natural. Am I dying? Is his final thought before he blacks out.

The original Feast and his duplicate blur together until there is but one Feast on the ground, bloodied and unconscious and barely breathing. It makes no difference if it is the real Feast or not - there is one there, in Carnage’s lair and he’d killed himself because that was the only choice he could make. Make or unmake. Well, he’d unmade himself as the dark god had suggested.

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Feast killed himself if it wasn't obvious because I like hardcore torturing my ponies. <333