Waking up for the Equestrian dream

by Jack Kellar

Chapter 1

The kiss broke with the muted sound of a gun’s hammer being de-cocked. Black hair, pale skin, cherry-red lips, azure eyes. There lay the modern Snow White, hunted by the evil sovereign until the moment she was finally stricken down.

Unlike the fairy tale, however, the kiss she received as she lay wasn’t one of life, but instead a late, and final, goodbye.

As my eyes shifted away from her resting spot, black spots began dancing at the corners of my eyes. My already damaged eardrums couldn’t catch a single sound other than the booming cracks of thunder overhead, muffled like the sound of bombs detonating above a shelter. My legs were weak. My stomach burned. My head pounded.

Ever since the warehouse where Annie Finn had died, when the ends of the threads forming the Cleaner Case fell in my hands, until this very moment, I had barely stopped. But now, after remaining on its feet for night after night, with the few and far between pauses far from enough to restore even a fraction of its strength, and sustaining injuries that would have stopped it entirely if it wasn’t for the numbing doses of painkillers I forced it to ingest, my body was dangerously close to quitting. I couldn’t blame it.

The floor steadily changed under the soles of my shoes, from marble to concrete, then marble once again, and finally, carpet. Without knowing how, I had ended up in an employee wing whose existence I had no previous idea of. Then again, I should have expected it – what kind of king lived in a castle with no servants to tend to his needs? Certainly not the kind Woden fancied himself to be, even before cancer made those servants a necessity.

At a certain point, my knee bent much farther than I expected it to. I tried to will myself back up, but the exhausted muscle wouldn’t have any of the pep talk I tried to give it. Out of choices, I crawled to the closest door and opened it. It was a maid’s bedroom. I believe it took me minutes to crawl onto the bed and take a sitting position, but I couldn’t say for sure. A glass jar full of water on the nightstand granted me the luxury of not having to ingest the pill dry.

As I lay down on the simple cot, I looked out the window. Behind the glass, the night sky was clear of the storm clouds, a single star twinkling right in the center of the frame. I felt a connection with it: we were both alone in a sea of darkness, far away from any sources of light, stuck in a point until we gave out, either dying of old age or being sucked into a black hole.

I couldn’t help sticking a hand out in a gesture of caress. Could I ever have peace once again?

Immediately after that, feeling like an idiot, I rolled to face the wall. The sirens didn’t bother me as I drifted off. The cops would find me one way or another.

In real life, there are no happy endings.

---

I found it strange that I wasn’t on my feet when I became aware of my dream self. Instead, I was in the exact same position in which I was when sleep claimed me, this time lying on a crimson carpet, facing steps leading to an elevated chancel. It puzzled me. I wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination ever since 1997, and hadn’t visited a church in many years before that. Yet, I was in a cathedral.

Sitting up proved to be a painstakingly slow task. That was strange as well – though I had been buried under a stack of boxes, fallen off a red trail to a dark pit with a depth I couldn’t possibly measure, and been shot so many times I didn't care to count, I had never experienced pain in my dreams. But this time, the constant acquaintance of mine was there to greet me with a hug and words of how it had missed me. I didn’t return the feeling. Nevertheless, I fought through it until I sat upright once again, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand.

My hands fumbled with the inside pocket of my coat, my nails getting snagged up on more than one of the several bullet holes that riddled it, until the sensation of the plastic bottle met my fingers. Two to ease the ache. I didn't question how I had the painkillers with me; the subconscious is a twisted place, a web of thoughts and memories where logic has no country.

This time, I wasn't alone. As I rubbed my fingers against my eyes, they came into view. I couldn't see their shapes, blurry as fingerprints on the shot glass after you down its contents and contemplate its bottom. However, I could see their eyes. I wish I couldn't. They stared with an intensity that I could only describe as soul-unveiling. It was impossible to stare back; I averted my eyes with a shiver, self-consciously pulling my coat closed over my bandages as I did it.

For a moment, I sat where I was, staring into the bottle of analgesics, the label reading like ancient runes for all my brain saw of them. My mind was elsewhere, a graveyard shift detective trying to piece together a jigsaw when it couldn't even find the corners. Maybe the cops had found me, and I was in an ambulance being shipped straight into the nearest hospital, and this hallucination was prompted by the morphine the paramedics had used after seeing the results of the night's events.

The figures remained where they were, boring holes into my spirit with their silent gaze, making me feel like a recently-dead sinner in front of a tribunal of angels as they decided the final verdict – which wasn't a far off possibility. I couldn't stand it, I had to move away from them.

Vlad's last present decided to make itself heard as I attempted to stand, the raspy voice leading the chorus of protests sung by broken stitches, strained muscles and sore articulations. It didn't come as a surprise to me when I fell back on all fours as I tried to turn away from the eyes. My hands didn't impact with the soft texture of the carpet; instead, they collided with a solid dark pink surface that I was sure wasn't there half a second ago.

I could hear voices from behind me.

“… I don't know what to say, Princess. It’s never been stated that a changeling can turn into anything that wasn't an equine.”

“If it serves as any comfort, Twilight, I'm just as puzzled. Cadance, do you-”

“It's hurt!”

That was the last thing I heard with any coherence; the rest dissolved into nonsensical mumbles that grew quieter by the second.

My cheek touched the glassy wall under me when I couldn’t prop myself up on my arms anymore. It was warm.

---

For the first time in over half a decade, I didn't come awake with a jolt. I didn't have it in me to open my eyes, not that I had to in order to figure out where I was: the beeping of the ECG and the pungent smell of antiseptic, along with the now-dulled pain, were all the hints I needed. Since I knew the reprieve would be short – my ticket out of jail had been taken to Woden’s grave along with him – I decided to relax as best as I could. I might as well make the best of it before I was dropped off in a cell at Southport.

Somewhere in the room, a young woman was mumbling. I focused on her voice. “... at least thirty perforations by metallic projectiles of unknown origin, and severe internal bleeding.” She sounded more sad and concerned than I would expect from any nurses in New York, or at least those used to receiving patients in situations worse than mine at least twice every day. Maybe she was a green one, fresh out of a medical academy and not used to the happenings of the Big Apple's health centers, still getting used to the scent of blood that didn't run in classrooms and laboratories. “Just what have you been through? How are you even alive...?”

“They weren't packing hollow-points.”

I amounted the silence that followed to the girl being confused at the attempt of a joke. I didn’t know I was only half-right. “... you can understand me?”

I shifted on the bed, away from a point that was poking my back. Aside from it, the mattress was very smooth; too smooth for a hospital cot. “Why shouldn't I? Did I suffer any brain damage?”

“Uh, no, it's just...”

“Just what?” Something was off: a nurse wouldn't beat around the bush this much if things were on the ordinary. The sand had glued my eyes shut; at the same time I moved my hand to wipe them clean, I tried to sit up. A set of elastic restraints on my wrists and neck made sure my time was wasted. “What the hell-?”

Almost instantly, the woman's presence was right over me like a mother hen shadowing her chick. A flat, solid object pushed my head down. “No, nonononono! Easy, easy. You're too badly hurt to be trotting around, you know.”

I didn't find the pun, as odd as it sounded, funny enough to react to it. Being tied to a bed like a dangerous lunatic didn't exactly make my mood soar. “Was this really necessary?” I asked, pulling on the bonds on my wrists for emphasis.

“Well... we didn't know if you were dangerous, or in league with the changelings, so we decided to play it safe. It doesn't sound like you are any of the two, but...”

Alarms were screaming inside my head with the intensity of klaxons even before she finished the first sentence. Forgetting about the predicament I was in, I tried to reach for my face again, with predictable results. I groaned. “Can you at least untie one of my arms? I want to be able to wipe my eyes clean, at least.”

“I’m sorry, but no, it’s a straight order from the Princess. I can clean them for you, if you wish.”

I accepted, and a few seconds later, a wet cloth was being dabbed over my eyes. I took the moment of silence to organize my thoughts, now that I had something to work with. I wasn’t in the government’s hands: there was too little noise going on for wherever I was to be a state hospital, and from what this caretaker said, she worked for someone in particular who called him or herself ‘Princess’. Whoever this was, they didn’t know anything about me or my past history, and were afraid I was involved with a rival faction, the "Changelings".

That raised a number of questions as well. The way the woman that tended to me talked made it sound like the gig was far from being small time, yet none of those names matched anything from the investigations of gang warfare or organized crime that I knew of. Why Princess would rather keep a grey piece on her board instead of discarding it straight away was another mystery – any don that prized his safety would have a loose cannon sleeping with the fishes faster than Edward Robinson could say the word 'liability'.

Adding to the pile was the apparent ignorance of my identity. In 2001, the name Max Payne had been featured in the national broadcast, in different ways before and after a certain one-eyed senator intervened. If Princess was tuned in to the news like any organized crime boss would, they would have linked my face to the Aesir Crisis straight away.

The girl broke me out of my thoughts as she moved to the other side. “Do you have a name?”

Sending an unassuming person to make just the right questions was an old but effective tactic. It seemed Princess wasn’t as naïve as I had been led to believe so far. Had it been someone that didn't know the dealer's ace in the sleeve, they would have gotten their answers – the girl was nice company, the kind that can make even a paranoid shut-in feel comfortable. I had to be careful not to make a faux pas. “Depends on who is asking.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, forgive my lack of manners. I’m Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but you can call me Princess Cadance, or just Cadance if you'll like.”

It goes without saying that this made the confusion return with a vengeance. What she had just said was far past the realm of reasonable nicknames and code talk, and into the grounds of complete lunacy. My eyebrow arched almost without command, my mind too busy reviewing the analysis I had just made.

“There we go, you can open your eyes now.”

I did. Unlike anything I expected, the ceiling was up high, a light purple backing decorated with gold trim, covered in pictures of stars and stylized horses. I turned my head to the side, and was met with a vision I thought had been left behind in the last nightmare. I couldn’t turn my head away fast enough.

“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t answer. I could still feel the gaze on my back, sharp like a spearhead. “Please, what's wrong?” she insisted. “Why won't you look at me?”

Of all the poisons that can afflict a man's mind, panic is one of the worst. It's a cloud that paralyzes, cuts the brain off from the body and takes both for itself. Divide and conquer. The owner of the eyes took notice of the process before hyperventilation could take its toll, though, and a thin object touched the side of my head. Almost instantly, it was gone, along with the weight that had settled on my chest. Out of my range of sight, the same object she had applied to my front before wrapped around my jaw and pulled my head back to her. There was no resistance to the motion.

It's hard to surprise a police officer with more than half a decade of work in New York City. What I saw accepted the challenge and breezed through it.

"Princess Cadance" was as far from a human as the caricature of a winged unicorn could be.

Comments

[Jack Kellar]

Well, boys and girls, this is it! Enjoy, if you can.

I gotta say many thanks to Rust, Muppetz and Clonehunter, for reasons that are rather easy to figure out after you read this wall-o-text up there. You guys were responsible for much of my drive to write, and great sources of inspiration as well. To anyone else, seriously, go check those dudes out: they're awesome.

Oh, and for the one that thumbed this down without leaving a comment explaining the reason...
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/22126204.jpg
Or, in clearer words, go fuck yourself with a rusty pipe full of dirty water.

[Mr Aquila]

638400 very welldone
you got max just right

[Ponytime]

Moar!

[onsholo]

lol poor max he is in for a BIG BIG change in his life style and i dont think he will like it much

[Bendita Locura]

All of sudden, it became clear why you enjoyed my Manhunt crossover. Not that I blame you, for I also like Max Payne. It's definitely an interesting story.