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No Accounting for Instincts

"So, what do you need me for? Alchemy is not exactly my forte, you know." Rune Chisel wondered. Originally the green-furred earth pony was just here to deliver a few ingredients he had enchanted to his friend Ruzeth. A bit of rune magic works wonders to increase their potency. But he became quickly roped into agreeing to help out by the excited zebra and was following him into the backroom of the store.

"Ah, nono, I'm already done with that part." The potion-brewer was hurriedly tidying up his laboratory, moving aperture and loose ingredients to the side. It wasn't exactly orderly, but in the end, it created some free room. Only a sizeable cauldron was left standing and taking up space, but that thing was too heavy to be easily moved anyway. Ruzeth then pulled two potions, one being green and the other a dull grey, off the shelf and passed the grey one on to Rune. "All that's left to do is the testing. This will be great! I've worked so long on this!"

This was a bit much for Rune. "Now hold on and calm down first. In not gonna chuck an untested potion without knowing what it does." After all, Rune knew from his own experiments that first trials usually meant first explosions. "Some explanation wouldn't hurt"

But the zebra didn't seem fazed by Rune's reluctance and had already uncorked his bottle. Still, in frantic excitement, he assuages him."Huh? Oh yes, it's a transformation potion I have developed and don't worry, you will be completely fine, I promise. In fact, you aren't even the one who will drink it!" The zebra pointed at the bottle Rune was holding, "That in there isn't even a potion, its an alchemical nullifier, and that's the reason I need you here, as a safeline. As soon as you think the transformation goes... haywire, just chuck that potion onto me and everything should return to normal, simple as that." He finished and downed his potion before Rune could ask any more questions.

Its effects started to show almost immediately. Ruzeth's body was enveloped by a white light as it slowly began to morph. Rune Chisel let out a sigh and shook his head. As much as he liked Ruzeth, he always felt overwhelmed whenever the zebra discovered something new and had one of his bouts of overexcitement. But things are as they are, there was nothing right now he could do about it. And to be honest, part of him was quite interested in the experiment's results. Over the next few minutes, Rune witnessed the transformation, nervously fidgeting with the nullifier and hoping his friend would be alright. Under the glow, the zebra's body shifted and moved, however it was hard to make out what was exactly happening, just a warping of his general features. Although Rune was certain he spied something that looked like wings. The golden rings usually adorning Ruzeth's mane and tail clattered loudly as they fell to the floor.

Then, with a short white flash, the glow disappeared and in place of the zebra was now a dazed gryphon. A curious one at that, in Rune's opinion; quite a departure from their usual look. Its feline side was that of a snow leopard: essentially trading his white, black-striped fur for a white, black-spotted one. The avian side was mostly warm grey in tone, except for the area around the beak and reminded Rune a bit of a finch. At least, he was sure he had once seen a few that looked similar. Still, the former zebra was still about a head smaller than the earth pony. Whatever the details might be, the transformation seemed to be a full success. "It worked! So that was what you were working on? I can certainly see many uses for this." Rune began but Ruzeth didn't respond. The gryphon was still slowly shaking his head and mumbling something under his breath, quite obviously still in a daze.

"Oh," Rune exclaimed and quickly put down his potion and rushed towards Ruzeth. He gently put a hoof and the gryphon's head and tried coaxing him out of his stupor. "Ruzeth, you okay there? Looks like the transformation did quite a number on you." But the stallion got no answer. Rune almost considered just getting the nullifier and applying it to his friend, but on the other hoof, a second transformation might make things even worse. But hopefully, that wouldn't be necessary. Slowly but surely, Ruzeth seemed to come back to consciousness. His swaying soon stabilized until the bird suddenly opened his eyes. "There we go! Feeling better...?" Rune began but his words quickly faltered. There was something deeply wrong with the look the gryphon was giving him. Something wild, feral and hungry shone in the catbird's eyes.

"R-Ruzeth?" Rune stammered as he backpedaled from the gryphon, but he already knew he wouldn't get an answer. The feline predator's muscles tensed visibly under his skin as he prepared to pounce. Now Rune realized beyond any doubt that the transformation must have failed after all. Wait, the nullifier! This epiphany brought Rune out of his shock and he turned around scrambling towards the bottle. But, turning your back towards a predator was always giving them an opportunity to pounce. The earth pony could only take two steps before the gryphon impacted him; two claws pinned him to the ground. The ravenous beast wasted no time going to work. Ruzeth's beak opened wide and thrust onto Rune's flanks, cramming the stallion's entire backside into the wet hole.

Warm flesh was enveloping Rune, rapidly climbing over his body as the bird took aggressive, unrestrained swallows. Muscles pulled and pushed, roughly constricting onto his body as more was dragged into the wet abyss, easily pinning his hind legs to his sides. But he wasn't giving up yet, the bottle was just in front of him; his hooves almost touched it. Mustering all his strength the earth pony crawled forward, slowly dragging the still swallowing bird with him. It was a constant gain and loss: whenever he got one bit closer to it, another gulp pulled him back again. But he came so close that he just couldn't give up and so kept trying. Ruzeth's beak had conquered his barrel and was now scarfing down his shoulders. With only his head and forelegs left outside, Rune made a last rush forward, putting everything he had into it. His effort was even strong enough to pull him a good bit out of the predator's throat. At last, he managed to touch the bottle. With full force. Sending it flying and rolling around the room, far away from him.

With a lost expression on his face, Rune stared after the bottle; his whole body frozen in dejection. Of course, Ruzeth wasn't idle. The predator, quite annoyed at his meals antics, redoubled his efforts and finished his meal off with three large gulps. Rune caught his last glimpse of the world when his head was pulled into the throat where darkness and wet flesh surrounded him. He was pressed deeper and deeper down the tight tunnel, retching at the stale stench of salvia filling this tube and desperately struggling against the downward pull. Things became slightly more bearable for him as his body began to fill up the gryphon's crop, at least somewhat alleviating the tight pressure onto him. But, this was only short lived. The gryphon struggled quite a bit with having a meal larger than himself hanging from his throat and had not yet the experience to help alleviate this. So instead of postponing the inevitable any longer, Ruzeth put a claw onto his throat, pressing down and, at the same time, the muscles surrounding the pony sprang to action. They shoved and squeezed on Rune, eventually pushing him through the relaxed sphincter right into the eagerly awaiting stomach.

A caustic stench and a pool of burning acids awaited him in there, greedily starting to work onto his body. Rune howled in pain, writhing around and trying to squirm out of this situation but to no avail. He could push against the muscles all he wanted, yet the rest of his body was still steadily filling the churning chamber. Ruzeth's gut swelled greatly beneath him as the poor stallion reached his final destination. Soon it even touched the floor and lifted the bird's hind legs up into the air. It took a bit of effort to balance himself out, but Ruzeth managed and quickly found himself resting on a comfortable belly bed. For Rune, it even became harder and harder to move; after all he was bigger than his predator and this didn't leave him with much moving space. Ultimately he was forced into a cramped fetal position with warm unyielding flesh pushing onto him from all sides. He tried to loosen the bundle he was pressed into but even his legs were stuck and could do nothing more than wriggle. The only struggle he could manage right now was a rather pathetic writhing and shaking, barely even visible on the catbird's belly, where only the occasional twitch within the tight bulge showed itself.

The helplessness of his meal was quite to the satisfaction of the feral gryphon. Seeing that his prey had no chance was pushing just the right buttons in his instinct controlled mind, his chest filled with pride at conquering such a sizeable meal. He even bent down and gave his churning gut a playful nuzzle and started kneading it with his claws. For Rune things were less pleasant, as the gut churned and groaned around him, while it steadily produced more acids. The caustic fluid drizzled down onto Rune, dragging lines of pain over his body as it flowed down onto him and into the growing pool under him. His body was already covered in multiple, bleeding wounds and his fur fell out in droves. The parts of his body that were trapped under the acids were even worse off. It had been pure agony as these parts were digesting, eventually making way to a feeling of numbness as his skin and nerves were destroyed. It would have been a dreadful sight, as only softening flesh remained, looking more like minced meat than part of a pony, and even that was currently getting liquified and eaten away. And yet, the rising acids forced more and more of Rune's body to experience this torturous ordeal.

"Ruzeth. Ruzeth please snap out of it. Please I beg you, don't do this to me." Pleading was the only option Rune had left, a faint hope to somehow bring Ruzeth back to reason. But right now, the former zebra had not the mental acuity to understand him. To his feral mind, Rune's words were no different from the pony's screams. Instead of doing anything to help, the catbird let out a long, drawn-out yawn and adjusted his posture again, this time shoving his heavy gut into a good position to rest his head-on. "Come on, Ruzeth I know that you are in there. Get me out of here before its too late." While Rune would plead a while like this, the lack of any response quickly extinguished his hopes. To make matter worse, as soon as he fell silent he could clearly her Ruzeth's faint snoring and the soft rush of wind through the gryphon's body. The bird had just fallen asleep, no longer caring much of his meal, content to just nap it off. Up until now, the stallion's mind was too busy panicking, but in this moment Rune just felt betrayed, not that it would matter much in the end.

Without much fight left in the pony, Rune just stayed mostly still, only occasionally twitching, trying to endure the pain and wait for his end. "Blasted earth pony resilience." He grumbled darkly under his breath. A pegasus or unicorn would long have passed out, yet here he was, still conscious and unable to even hasten his own demise. At least the pain was somewhat lessened, if only due to the destruction already done to his body. In the end, he had to endure the groaning and churning process until the acids almost had almost reached his head. Finally, a welcome faintness started to spread through him and, as the acids rose over the rest of him, everything grew dark. With a few last twitches, he expired.

Ruzeth on the other side was content and pleased. A full gut, loudly groaning and rumbling with the last movement of his prey, gifted him such wonderful dreams. Truly a peaceful, restful night. But more importantly, the sleep gave his mind the chance to rearrange itself and sort out the unknown, confusing instincts. Slowly but surely, Ruzeth's mind got back under control. Just as with his mind, Ruzeth's body was busy processing something too. What was left of Rune was brutally assaulted, broken down and claimed. Flesh eroded away, becoming nothing more than a sloppy soup. Just the same fate as the earth pony's fat and muscles suffered. What was left of the mass of flesh rapidly collapsed upon itself, bones stripped clean of fur and flesh. Now, with gluckering and sloshing, the stomach started to pump its meaty prize deeper into the body, while the gryphon's gizzard sprang into action, kneading and compacting the grim mass of bones of fur, making sure that whatever liquified nutrients were left got extracted and forming the undigestable rest into a tight firm ball. Once its task was gone, the freshly formed pellet was pushed and pulled upwards, dutiful muscles depositing the ball of waste to rest snugly in the gryphon's crop.

The first rays of the sunrise crept over the room, wandering over the fattened up gryphon. A good layer of padding had settled both onto Ruzeth haunches and gut, the only thing left of Rune aside of the bulges both in the bird's throat and lower belly. With a wide-beaked yawn, Ruzeth finally rose from his slumber, groggily stretching himself like a cat before fully getting up. "Urg, what happened? Did I pass out?" Ruzeth shook his head and tried to remember what had happened. Everything was hazy, though the only thing that remained relatively clear was a memory of him testing his newest potion together with Rune Chisel. Right, the potion! The former zebra quickly examined himself, noticing with glee the feathered wings and patting his new claws over his beak. The excitement was enough that Ruzeth started skipping around, eagerly testing out his new body. "Yes, YES! It worked. Rune where are you? You have to see this." But...something felt off. Not only was his belly oddly chubby, slightly swinging around with every step he took, he also got the feeling that something was moving around in his throat. And indeed a quick poke was all he need to confirm that something big was stuck in there. The poke also was the last straw his body needed to start the process of getting rid of the thing.

The bird suddenly felt his throat moving and shifting, steadily forcing the large object out his throat. Not wanting to ruin his floor, Ruzeth sprinted to the nearest suitable object to get rid of the thing, his large cauldron. He was already hacking, feeling whatever it was entering his throat when he reached the cauldron and could put his head over it. Just in time. While it required some effort and pushing the entire thing was rapidly vacated from his body, landing with a hollow -clung- in the cauldron and leaving a bitter taste on his tongue behind. "By the spirits, what was that?" Ruzeth spat out as he inspected the freshly deposited pellet. A white skull grinned back at him, covered by spit and saliva. The skull and countless broken bones were entangled by a mess of green-colored fur and hair. A very familiar shade of green. "R-Rune, what...oh no, what have I done."

The grisly sight was enough to unlock Ruzeth memories. It was still unclear but the gist of it was obvious. The hunger, the swallowing, the content feeling of a full, gut all pointed towards one answer. Even worse were the memories of Rune's pained screams and the satisfaction he himself had felt upon hearing those. "Nonono, that can't be... Rune I'm sorry." The former zebra pranced agitated in front of the cauldron, not wanting to see what was inside it, yet also not wanting to go away from it. "I will fix that, don't worry. I ...I will come up with something. And I will fix the transformation potion. This won't happen the next time; you will see." Yes...yes that might be it. As grizzly as the pellet was, it could be just the thing he would need to bring his friend back.

But before Ruzeth could run off and gather his potions, another feeling demanded his attention. While his body had gotten rid of one part of the waste, his other side was now demanding the same attention too and his agitated state was just hurrying this along. "Spirits, not now." The bird looked around in panic as he considered his options. But all his thoughts of just running outside or to his toilet were useless, he had to go now. There was only one valid option nearby. "I'm sorry Rune." Ruzeth mumbled as he turned around and plopped his rump down onto the cauldron. A loud fart, greatly amplified by the metal bowl announced the arrival of the brown tide. As bad as the pressure was, Ruzeth had feared something worse but the logs came out surprisingly well. His gizzard had done well to free the mess of all undigestibles and every turd was smooth and firm, easily sliding out of him and landing atop of the pellet. The two wastes Rune had produced were united again. The gryphon led out an immensely relieved sigh as he vacated his bowels, more and more piling atop the pellet, quickly and completely burying it. He didn't know how long he sat there but it almost felt like he was dropping his own weight in shit right now. This might even be somewhat close to the truth as he felt the heat and humidity rising up closer to his butt.

But even this ordeal came to an end. By the time he was done almost the entire cauldron was full of crap with wisps of steam rising from it. "Whew, that...that was new." Ruzeth sprang from the cauldron and shook himself in relief. "Well, where was I..oh yes, I need the pellet." The bird turned around towards the cauldron just to stumble away in revulsion. Hacking and retching at the stench emitting from the full pot, he stared with disgust back at the brown mess, should he really fish around in that, just to retrieve the pellet? Ruzeth hesitated, maybe that can wait for a bit, he was sure it would be more bearable if he let it rest for some time.

A few hours later Ruzeth returned and the entire thing was still as rancid as before, the only thing that waiting did was to stink up his house. And, to be completely honest with himself, he had no idea what to do with the pellet anyway. Sadly, Ruzeth shook his head: the dead are dead and the only thing left to do was to give them their burial. Before the stench could infest his house any more he threw one of his blankets over the cauldron and started to drag the entire thing towards his garden. At least he wouldn't need to buy a coffin. On the bright side, Ruzeth was sure that fertilizer made from an earth pony would do wonders for his crops.