The nightmare always started the same way: the man and the woman would be sitting next to each other.
The scenery was never consistent. Sometimes they would be in a car - the driver switching at random as they drove to nowhere - and sometimes they would be in a house sitting in front of a fire that cooled them after a hot day. The location never mattered. It all fell away in the end no matter what is was.
This time, the two sat at a cafe drinking a bagel and eating coffee.
Their forms were also inconsistent; sometimes both would be human, sometimes both would be ponies. Sometimes they’d be the opposite of each other and sometimes they’d be pony and human at the same time. The forms didn’t matter to them in this nightmare: this was the only time they had to be together.
The conversation varied every time the saw each other. They’d talk about the weather, the food, or books that they’ve read. They’d talk about the lives they lead now and the lives they left behind. Blank Slate would talk about his patients, or Cameron would talk about the music he missed; Astrid would talk about her students, or Lieve would reminisce about televisions shows they’d never see the end of.
They’d stare at each other and take in the other’s appearance, longing to embrace that which they lost so long ago. But they would never think to reach and touch one another. Whatever force that caused them to live this constant, ever changing moment again and again prevented them from reaching out to feel if the other was real.
So they talked. They talked for hours, or they talked for seconds. Their time together in this nightmare was as warped as much as everything else in here. Eternity stretched between moments. Yet the melancholy nightmare would come to an end, when it did the dream would begin.
They both knew when the transition occurred, and neither could stop it. Both had tried, in the past, desperate for a few more precious moments with the one they once loved. Nothing they tried ever postponed the inevitable.
It started with a light. It would appear in the distance, speeding towards them. Carried on the hot wind were the sounds of a lively afternoon and the smell of of desert. The light incinerated everything it touched, leaving the earth scorched in its wake.
Once they saw the light they turned to run, footsteps and hoofbeats becoming interchangeable as the light grew closer. They always knew it would catch up to them. They knew it was pointless to flee every time they tried to out-drive, out-run, or out-swim it. The two only ever had enough time to say three little words before they were devoured.
The light burned them. They were always human when it did. The energies in the light scorched the skin from their bodies, molded the tissues into inhuman shapes, broke and melted bones until they matched the world they were soon to be thrust into. The pain of the experience wiped the details of the prior dream into a vague blur.
The dream always ended the same way. A colt and a filly were separated from each other.
Despite its many positive uses, a train horn was a terrible way to wake in the morning.
Raising her head from the pillow, a woman saw a mare in the reflection of the carriage window. Dark orange coat, forest green mane, blue eyes; it took the woman a moment to recognize herself. It’s only your reflection Lie...Astrid. You see it all the time.
Astrid sat up and stretched as much as she could in her tiny train suite. She had left for the Crystal Empire the day before and would be on the train for another day still. It gave her time to think, though, and she was grateful for it. She dreaded the upcoming confrontation, still undecided on what she wanted the result to be.
The book hadn’t helped in that regard either. So much of that book was nothing more than philosophical introspection disguised as a work of fiction. How the book had gotten popular enough to warrant the radio interview she did not understand. Yet, it did have information on Earth in it. Information that no Equestrian should know. She would be upset if one of her family members had spread her stories of home without her permission. If this author was a thief that stole her story from her, she would deal with him as a true griffin would: with swift and fierce justice.
Or, she would try, at least. It’s hard to sink your talons and beak into a dirty rotten thief when you’re an earth pony. Besides, the last time I tried to solve my problems the griffin way I was almost fired. She huffed an irritated breath. It’s not like the principal told me that it was only a drill. Astrid was still upset by that; it didn’t help that the vice-principal still got skittish around her. His leg healed up just fine.
Regardless, she found it unlikely that her adoptive family would spread her foalhood tales. They never believed her stories of Earth and told her to stop telling tall tales, until even she didn’t believe her memories anymore. She could ignore the dreams that left her feeling like she belonged to a different world: Astrid grew up a pony among griffins - she always felt out of place.
The book, however, brought too many memories back: memories of Earth, of family, of love. The terrible dreams that ended in pain. If it was true, if all of it was true, then she would have someone who knew what it felt like to be from another world. Astrid would no longer be alone in remembering a world that was so different, yet so similar. She wouldn’t be alone in forgetting her own face every morning.
And if it turned out to be a coincidence, that her dreams were just dreams? She could finally put everything behind her. She could throw away The Guide and forget humans. Astrid could stop loving a name she forgot every morning.
Yet she still remembered The Lie she told herself, and she remembered hearing Blank Slate say the same Lie on the radio. As much as she wanted it to be a coincidence, Astrid prayed to every goddess she could think of to ensure that Blank Slate was who she had been waiting for over the past twenty-five years.
Before any of that happened, though, she needed to get some coffee.