The Creature and Her Companions

There was a creature in the fourth deepest forest that was extremely quiet.
None of the others could avoid speaking to her, but the only sound that returned was the smearing slippery sound of decomposing leaves under their claws, and paws, and hooves.

It wasn't silence, though: you could hear her breathe. Or at least, her snout flared gently, like a time-lapsed video of a traitor's head exploding from the impact of a bullet. The frames went by, redder and redder, and then it was rewound as she inhaled. Her nostrils shrank.

She wouldn't speak; she feared her own voice. The inactivity of her throat left room for colonization.

"How was your day?"
"Just fine," the browning leaves would reply. "Just fine, just fine." Always, and
unwavering.

They couldn't tell her hooves were bleeding. Her majestic mane was stitched in place to stifle the growth of her own sinewy hair.
They wouldn't tell her eyes were black and crusted half shut, with ants trailing to and fro from the colony in her throat.

"I'd have saved this for you," a fairy whispered, "but it is for my race's survival."
"That's fine, that's fine," the blackening leaves would beg.

Her snout would heave with dedication.

In the fifth deepest forest, and the sixth and seventh, and tenth, purple eyes peered at her. "Have you ever seen such beauty?" they would ask. "Can you not marvel at such serenity?"

Those in the eighth and ninth deepest forests chattered with clarity, "No, no, she is desperate." Their eyes, grey and transparent, reflected no light. "She is too quiet. The slippery leaves speak her lies."

An innocent scorpion crawled up her leg, and into her bristling coat of brilliant black. It severed her heart from her chest and began to carry it away.

"You shouldn't do that," she broke the noise.
The scorpion stopped. The ants panicked and killed their queen. Blood oozed and flowed from the creature's teeth and tonsils and gums and tongue: the ants drowned, and begged and gasped and drowned again.

The eyes from the forests turned away, and closed, and wept, "We have never heard such a beautiful voice."

The guilty scorpion returned her heart, and stung it back together.
He shed his skin and fell to the floor, and was comforted by the withering leaves.

The creature stood in awe of her own voice, and her heart seized upon itself, full of venom.

In the passing days, she rested her hooves and reclined upon the faceless forest carpet, eyes rolled back deep, deep into her thoughts.

The fairy returned with a share of what she declined to offer before, and rubbed it on the creature's head. "I could but spare a little; perhaps it is enough."

The forest shifted a little that day. The deepest forest stirred, just a little.

Just enough.

The ground split open, and as the creature fell into the pit, she rested thoughtfully through the air. Her black coat shimmered, and her hooves cracked more, she tore her mouth with a slight smile, peaceful, engaged and soon to be married with death.

The Earth swallowed her, and shuddered as the innocent venom spread into its core.