Chapter Text
This is officially going into ‘the Top 10 Worst Days of my Life’, Idia decided. The Headmage sunk even further down on Idia’s already quite long list of “People I Dislike for Various Amounts of Reasons”. What the mage in question had done to deserve such a position on this document you may ask?
A Club. Exchange. Program.
Every sane person’s nightmare, in Idia’s humble opinion. Being forced to participate in the activities of a club you deliberately chose not to attend? What kind of maniac could ever enjoy something like that?? BIG no from Idia, were anyone to ask him.
Unfortunately (which is a word Idia normally doesn’t associate with the lack of conversation), no one had asked for his opinion on this particular idea. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
So, here he was, standing amidst other students he barely even knew, getting a seemingly hour-long lecture on horses and what not from Riddle.
Idia couldn’t care less, too busy freaking out. He’d rather be anywhere else. Even introducing other students to the Board Game Club would’ve been better, but Azul snatched that position away before Idia could even think about applying for it himself.
Sneaky bastard — next meeting he’ll get a taste of my revenge. For real. No patch updates. No nerfs. He’ll be thinking twice, no, thrice even next time about-
Nevermind, Azul wasn’t worth getting angry in public over and risking any more attention with an additional orange color on his already way too attention-grabbing hair.
‘But Idia, it’s just one day! And it’s only horses!’ one might argue. And yes, were it anyone else, such a day might’ve been categorized as simply ‘bad’ and not ‘catastrophic’.
Alas, as always, Idia was everything BUT an average person. And horses HATED him. Not in a ‘I don’t like you so I’ll bite you and refuse to follow all commands’-way. Horses actively FLED whenever Idia was even remotely near them and when no opportunity for an escape was in sight, they’d, honest to the gods, throw tantrums.
This was the last place Idia wanted to be, he’d even take basketball over this, which says A LOT. Even Ortho, normally so determined to get Idia outside of his room, thought of this as a bad idea.
Despite that, the headmage wouldn’t budge and once Riddle found out which club Idia was sorted into, he made it his personal mission to make sure Idia took part and didn’t ‘neglect his duties as a Housewarden and fellow student’. Ugh.
Riddle was still saying something about saddles and treating the horses according to very specific rules and Idia couldn’t do anything but dread the moment the lecture would stop and they went to get the horses. Huh. It’s not often Idia found himself hoping that Riddle’s speech would go on for longer. He actually never did before. Today was truly a day of many things Idia hated.
How would I even explain myself? ‘Hey guys sorry, my family’s patron and the literal creator of all horses have some unresolved familial issues, so I suffer the consequences by being every horse’s personal enemy!’ That’s ridiculous!!
He couldn’t be known school-wide for being the horse-terror! If he turned into a school legend as ‘some Ignihyde weirdo, who scared all the horses away like he was the grim reaper’ he wouldn’t be able to step a foot outside his room! Ever!! (Not that he did that much anyway, but that’s not the point!!)
After what seemed like an eternity (and yet too short for Idias liking) Riddle finally wrapped up his TED talk and started marching them toward the actual nightmare beasts, which were grazing just behind the stables, looking calm and content with life, unlike a certain blue-haired individual.
As soon as the small group stepped into their line of view it was as if a switch had been turned. All the horses suddenly turned their heads to the students and stared. Yeah, no, even Riddle looked freaked out—and that guy lectures lions about rules. That’s not normal.
“Do they…always have such an eldritch reaction to people…?” asked some poor Scarabia student, who was seemingly starting to regret coming here as much as Idia was.
“No, they normally barely care, even when we’re right next to them and putting on saddles.” Riddle replied very reassuringly (not at all). ‘Well, this is going well!’ Idia thought.
“…Maybe the horses are in a bad mood? We should just go back…” added a fellow Ignihyde student, who instantly climbed up the Dormmate-Appreciation-Chart Idia had. Preach, bro! Maybe if we get enough people to agree, all this will be cancelled and I’ll buy you snacks of your choice just for your bravery today!!
“There’s no need. I think they may be spooked by the amount of strangers here”, Riddle replied, “perhaps we should approach them in smaller groups.” Please don’t say Shroud, please don’t say Shroud- “Shroud”, gods be damned!! screw this RNG!, “come with me. You’re the only other Housewarden here, try to set a good example and don’t argue.”
If Idia somehow thought the day couldn’t possibly get any worse, he was proven wrong right then and there. Approaching the horses? Basically by himself?? That’s a dead giveaway to whose fault it is that the horses seem to have a collective consciousness!!
Still, with absolutely no room nor motivation to argue with Riddle in front of a bunch of NPCs (minus the Ignihyde student, he’s become a minor character in Idias life now), he followed Riddle over the field towards his demise.
The closer the duo came to the horses, the more agitated they seemed to grow. Most of them had their ears pulled back and swishing their tails nervously. Seriously?? Me being here isn’t that big of a deal guys! You worry about the literal lion in this school less!!
Even Riddle was starting to sweat, which was like… unheard of. The guy treats rule-breaking like a capital offense, horses acting weird shouldn’t even make him blink.
“Stop”, Riddle suddenly said, “if they’re this nervous and we don’t know the cause, it’s dangerous to get too close. We don’t want to stress them out even more.“
Well it’s only one of us unaware of the cause. If you had let me stay back we’d all be fine and dandy but nooooo.
Idia stopped and took a closer look at the beasts in front of him.
His breath hitched. No. He knew that horse. That thing.
The same grotesque, glitchy nightmare that had haunted his worst dreams for years—only it wasn’t a dream. He’d seen it once before. Back home. In S.T.Y.X.
He and Ortho had been wandering through the lower labs one afternoon, doing their usual “harmless exploration” (read: breaking every rule on the safety board). The room they found was cold, huge, echoing—a tank in the center filled with black water that shimmered like oil. Idia didn’t even remember what the project was called. Something vague like Phase Integration Chamber. Whatever. He remembered the creature more than anything else.
It was just… there. Standing on the water like it was solid ground.
A horse. Or something wearing the shape of one.
Its eyes were too dark, too focused, intelligent in that wrong way that made every neuron in Idia’s brain scream “this shouldn’t exist.” Even Ortho, usually fascinated by everything, had gone quiet. They didn’t move. The horse didn’t either. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity in loading-screen time.
Then it screeched.
Not a whinny, not anything animal—it sounded like tearing metal, like something forcing its way into the world through bad code. It lunged. Idia and Ortho bolted, alarms blaring in Idia’s brain if not the facility itself. The thing chased them down corridor after corridor, hooves clanging on the metal floors like it knew the place better than they did.
They finally slammed themselves into an empty test chamber, sealed the door, and called security. By the time anyone showed up, the horse was gone. No tracks, no footage, no readings. Just two terrified brothers and a handful of techs insisting nothing had been there in the first place.
For years, Idia had told himself it was a hallucination. A data-glitch in his brain. But standing here now, with that same monster glaring at him across a school field, he knew better.
WHAT IN THE SEVENS NAME IS IT DOING HERE?!
Idia was quite the expert in the mythology of his homeland, knowing just as well that most of the tales were, in some form, the truth about the past. So he also knew exactly who to blame for this situation.
Why the god of the seas sent this monster after Idia was probably just godly logic combined with the F-tier luck that he had.
And maybe the fact that his family had served Hades personally for generations now. How exactly that caused beef between the other gods and himself was beyond his comprehension however. Acting like I CHOSE to be born like this… stupid S-tier gods, thinking they can decide anything about everything…
Whatever curses Idia might’ve wanted to yell at the sorta sea-uncle really didn’t help his predicament. The very angry-looking magic horse was still in front of him, looking like it’s been grinding domains for the last 100 years just to enact revenge. You showed up at my house?? HOW HAVE I DONE YOU WRONG???
With all the courage he could muster and without taking his eyes off of the Horse, Idia asked Riddle: “Riddle, are you VERY sure none of these are Eastereggs?? Have none of them spawned here that you don’t recognize..?”
“What…?” Riddle was visibly confused. “What are you-?” he cut himself off as he too saw the horse in question. Had it always been there?
Riddle counted all horses 3 times over and sure enough, instead of the 12 horses he knew, there were 13.
“Huh?”
Despite his confusion, Riddle took a moment to muster the horse’s behavior. His eyes widened in realization, yet all he could do was yell:
“WATCH OUT!”
The beast of a horse suddenly ran at them, causing the other horses to scatter from fear as well.
Idia, seeing the wild beast rapidly approach like all those years ago, took off as if his life depended on it (it might’ve actually, if you asked him).
He sprinted past the rest of the students, who jumped out of the way in terror and quickly took a turn right into the stables.
He slammed the doors, heart pounding—then froze. The damn thing was inside. What, did it just clip through the wall? What kind of bugged-out boss fight was this?!
“EEEEK!”, Idia screeched this time, giving the horse serious competition with otherworldly noises. Great, it’s hacking reality now! WHO CODED THIS NIGHTMARE?!
Just as quickly as he had entered, he opened the door yet again and ran out, hoping for any kind of salvation from anyone at all.
Alas, salvation never came, seeing as life hates Idia and wants him to suffer above all. He ran for his life, causing the horses that have previously thought they escaped to run around in fear as well.
It took multiple desperate laps around the building and desperate cries for help from Idia for any of the students to actually unfreeze from their shock and attack the thing that was very clearly not a horse.
After being hit with a particularly strong fire spell by Riddle the creature turned into mist and disappeared, leaving behind a bunch of panting students and a very close-to-passing-out (or possibly away) Idia.
Riddle, feeling partially responsible for the incident, sent Idia back to the main building with the other Ignihyde student to accompany him. Apparently the others helped Riddle calm the horses or whatever. Idia didn’t care — he was too busy trying not to flatline from stress.
Safe to say, the story spread like wildfire and only a day later you couldn’t go anywhere at school without someone talking about “the horse monster that chased the poor Ignihyde housewarden around the school field”.
Idia got a few days off for “physical and emotional recovery”, as if he wouldn’t have stayed inside his room the next month anyway, but who was he to complain?
The only upside? Crowley promised not to repeat it (yeah right), and no one noticed that horses apparently despise his entire existence. So no “Horse Reaper” nickname—for now. Small victories, considering he almost got unalived by divine DLC content.
(Although Idia would argue that this entire experience was arguably way worse, no matter what Ortho had to say.)