>>191509"If you don't consider all that I have offered you, all that I have hopefully shown you to be helpful, Miss Ring... No, no I don't believe we shall be meeting together in-pony. Not every creature makes that journey to the better tomorrow. Some are willfully left behind."
Static quickly overwhelms the radio until it is turned off only a second later. The wind moves again and with it, a new spray of fine mist blankets all in sight. But the tendency of the wind is to clear out the fog, and visibility in the greying, twilight sky is increasing even as the sun goes down.
But ten or so yards from Posey, several tendrils of black smoke do
not move with the wind, but hang in the air, and thicken, as if they were tears in the very fabric of space and time. What is seen next is a larger figure exiting from this smaller space that bends over itself like the distorted view of an object through curved or broken glass; as if in a reverse implosion.
From these black cracks that hang in the air, a vaguely quadrupedal figure appears some fifteen above the ground. "Quadrupedal" is incorrect; the figure is clearly hexapedal, like an insect, or a pegasus, or a griffin, or hippogriff. Indeed, that last trio of mammalian and avian creatures is the closest analogue, with it possessing the concave belly of most ungulates or carnivora, and a head that reaches out on an extended neck almost like a bird, but with a head like that of a Saddle Arabian horse, with a long, thick muzzle that rounds at the end. The end of said "muzzle" has no nostrils, but only round depressions where nostrils should be. The thing is rather large, at least as big as a large griffin, and probably more than twice the size of a pegasus. Curves along its back show allow multiple sets of shoulders to be seen under its skin, even as no ribs may be seen. From a distance it's hard to tell just what precisely covers the body. It is grey in color to be sure, but is it scales? Fur? Or is it skin? The best guess is an elephant-like skin, but imperfect dimples and rises give at least the false impression, if not reality of fur. Likewise, raised sections of what must be fur rise like short sails along the backbone of the creature, giving it the appearance of a dragon's spikes, or the sails of an antique reptile.
Yet by far the most distinct aspect of this sudden interloper is certainly its six limbs. It has no legs, no hooves, and no claws. It has instead, six wings, one pair where each set of legs should be and a third just before the front shoulders, like a six-winged seraphim angel. All of the sets of wings have what is more or less a decent enough mimicry of feathers, though no pony present could doubt that a closer look would show these simply to be very many oddly shaped flaps of skin attached to a leathery wing. These "feathered" wings more or less resemble those of a griffin of hippogriff, rather long from tip to tip but not very thick. They all move in sequence up and down as the creature tries to maintain itself in the air.
Its eyes are black, save oddly enough for the actual pupil which is a milky white. It hovers there for one, then two seconds. It moves its head like a bird scanning for prey, side to side, the tiny white pupils scanning around, until it sees Posey. It opens its mouth. It has no lips, no visible teeth, and only black can be seen inside its only-partly open mouth - though no one can say what better lighting would reveal. It makes no sound, but a spark can be seen within its open mouth.