Dream A Little Dream Of Me

by horizon

1. The gems glitter like blood in the sand (Titanium Dragon)

Adagio Dazzle

The gems glitter like blood in the sand
Sparkling freedom, calling to me.

He told me they would only grow with discord
He laughed when he told us that
I heard they turned him to stone.
But according to the ponies who saw him
He’s still laughing.

I wonder if he thinks we’re going to help him?
Like anyone would be that stupid.

Almost as stupid as the ponies.
They didn’t even realize
There was a monster there
Until it was too late.

It was easy getting her to run.
I told her that they knew
That they had seen her
That they would hunt her
Unless she hid with the ponies.

I didn’t expect her to kill that bat
But that was easy, too.

When the other bat found her,
And heard about her princess
I told her that one of the other bats did it
To buy favor with the bonehead.
“I saw it all from the water,” I said,
And she believed me.

All they needed was one more spark.
It was too bad only that old pony
Was down by the docks.
She was always good for a fight.

It would have been better
If it was that singer
Who got Sonata to sing
But she might have seen
And never forgave me.

I need her.

Tonight, the gems glow.
There’s no escape for them.
No ships are coming.
Nothing but fighting.
And nightmares.

I heard that the other princess
Is weak from fighting her sister.
All that is left watching the ponies
Is some old unicorn
Whose beard drags on the ground.

They say he is a great wizard
But these stones are full
Equestria is full of strife
The bats are fighting the birds
And the boneheads.

And all I can do is laugh
And sing.

It will be easy.

Comments

[Dubs Rewatcher]

This piece is very reminiscent of Horizon's own poetic style, so if you were shooting for regularity, author, you succeeded. There are some hauntingly lovely lines in here as well—like that first stanza. Oof.

I must wonder, though: just by virtue of being in this contest, is this story implying that Adagio is the nightmare? How could that be possible? Perhaps I'm missing something in the piece, but I don't think it's explained at any point how Adagio gained the power to perform dream incursions—or that she even has performed them.

[AugieDog]

Adagio says she did it:

As part of her plan to stir up the strife the sirens need to power their gems, and from here, she's on to conquer the world!

I like how the implied changeling is just another pawn here, and I agree with Dubs about the lovely writing. Pinning the blame on a character not mentioned in the original makes me wrinkle my nose a bit, but still, this is one that answers my basic question quite nicely.

Mike

[Titanium Dragon]

6462285
Adagio is mentioned in the original, specifically in Sonata's chapter.

[Titanium Dragon]

A free-verse piece, this sort of matched Horizon’s general style, but feels much more straightforward. I really liked the opening lines of this, and would have liked to see a bit more evocativeness there.

Adagio is clearly very pleased with herself here – she keeps emphasizing how stupid the ponies were, when (ironically) we know that Adagio’s own quest ends in ruin.

This makes a lot of things clear that weren’t clear in the story itself, though – here, we see a lot of clues pay off:

Littlemoth was a changeling
Littlemoth murdered the batpony she is imitating
Littlemoth is Palei Hantu
The nightmare was another batpony
The nightmare attacked Shooting Star because it thought Shooting Star killed Littlemoth
The murderer was a kelpie, but not Sonata, fitting the location and suspicions of the folk
Adagio has a clear motive – wanting to power up the gems for her conquest of Equestria

I liked some of the other worldbuilding here – the idea that the gems which reward discord were made by Discord is a reasonable idea. Adagio’s ultimate motive is to go conquer Equestria while Celestia was out of commission after her fight with Luna, which actually makes for excellent timing as well as explaining why Starswirl in this world took them out – Luna was banished and Celestia was in mourning.

I liked that despite it all going according to Adagio’s plan, it is obvious that in reality, it is mostly Adagio being an opportunist, and I think the whole thing hangs together.

If I had a complaint, it would be that the nightmare is given short shrift – while the story implies that the second bat pony is the nightmare who attacked Shooting Star’s dream, it isn’t very explicit in the piece, and it would have been nice to see a bit more out of that.

[Sypher]

I like the idea that the chaos surrounding the colony is due to Adagio trying to power up her gems. Definitely not something I thought about when I was brainstorming. The addition of changelings into the story is what I believe to be one of the best ways to make sense of the original as well, so points for that. Stylistically, I find the poem does quite a good job in remaining true to horizon's writing style.
However, while making Adagio the villain of the story was a good idea, I believe the contest specified that the final chapter was supposed to be the Nightmare's point of view. There doesn't seem to be any indication that Adagio has seen the dreams of the other residents. Additionally, I find the references to Discord and Starswirl, the latter especially, to feel out of place in the setting. horizon's take on Myinnkyun is very self-contained and rather isolated from the events of Equestria (containing only very minor references to the metropolis and Luna's banishment). If I read this chapter immediately following Sunspot's, it would shatter a lot of the immersion in the setting.

[Bad Horse]

6463409 This is a solution that I'd say was clever if someone came up with it to wrap up horizon's story. But I'd be pissed about it for being much too complicated and coincidental if horizon had written it that way from the start.

[Titanium Dragon]

3ʳᵈ > How Adagio met and communicated with the changeling is never discussed. Since Hantu lived in the jungle, far from the beach, it is highly improbable that Adagio could have been the pony to convince Hantu to leave the jungle. The intent was probably that Adagio was using Nightmare powers to contact her, but this is not made explicit. It is also not explained why Adagio would have made first contact with a changeling in hiding in the jungle, even if she did have Nightmare powers.

The story takes place on an island. That means that there is water on all sides. The town is only on one side; it is not around the entire circumferance of the island.

The story does explain why she made contact:

It was easy getting her to run.
I told her that they knew
That they had seen her
That they would hunt her
Unless she hid with the ponies.

She made contact with her to sow discord.

5ᵗʰ > In the story, Dawn Patrol and the Nightmare are the only characters to learn about Nightmare Moon. Dawn doesn't even tell Littlemoth, because on Night 15 she still does not know why the boats aren't arriving. While it is possible that Dawn told the "real" Littlemoth this, his dream strongly suggests he didn't. Either way, it certainly isn't possible that somepony "heard about her princess" after Littlemoth was murdered, much less heard the news from a changeling who has been living in the jungle long enough to have married a moo cow.

The Kelpie, unlike the ponies on the island, can interact with the ships, so it is plausible that Adagio would know for the same reason that Dawn Patrol did - she talked to someone on a boat.

6ᵗʰ > A changeling taking the form of a minotaur, a creature about four times as massive who is not a quadruped, seems highly improbable.

We have no knowledge of what limitations there are on changeling shapeshifting. Also, I'm not sure if we've ever seen any minotaurs in the show other than Iron Will.

7ᵗʰ > It isn't at all clear how Adagio telling Hantu that a nightwing killed Peridot gains her favor with what I presume is a reference to either a nighthorn (probably Shooting Star) or a regular unicorn (perhaps Cabotage).

Adagio didn't tell Hantu what happened at all. I'm... not even sure where you got this from. The relevant bit:

When the other bat found her,
And heard about her princess
I told her that one of the other bats did it
To buy favor with the bonehead.
“I saw it all from the water,” I said,
And she believed me.

This is talking about another "bat" (batpony, presumably) who Adagio lied to, and told another bat did it to buy favor with a unicorn (unspecified which one, though there's a few possibilities in the story).

9ᵗʰ > In the story, Sonata is hunted on Day 15, so she doesn't go to see Adagio until at least Day 16 when Myinnkyun is about to fall. This means Adagio must have been manipulating things prior to speaking to Sonata about Sailcloth (in Sonata's dreams it is clear she has not mentioned her relationship to Adagio) and obviously prior to Adagio murdering Peridot. While Adagio could have witnessed Sonata with Sailcloth, she never mentions that she did. This makes Sonata's role in the story an unlikely coincidence.

Uh, no? Sonata's dream didn't make it clear that she didn't mention her relationship to Adagio - indeed, it specifically notes that Adagio had warned her about ponies, which suggests she may well have mentioned it previously.

[Titanium Dragon]

So, this was my entry! Also the first one to actually get entered in. It was written... quickly. I had fun with it, though, and I had so much fun with it, I, uh, might have overlooked something.

6462190
6463442
You know, like the fact that it was supposed to be from the point of view of the nightmare.

So not sorry; I totally would have done it anyway after I got the idea in my head.

As far as Adagio's role goes: honestly, I thought everyone would make that assumption. You know, bunch of discord in the village, sirens are powered up by discord...

Then again, I suspect that's my uh, meta-thinking at work. Bradel once mentioned that I really, really love to write things based on details from the show, and it really just goes to show here again as I come up with an answer based entirely on meta-knowledge.

6462285
6464638
Thank you for your feedback! I really appreciated the comments.

And the same goes to Trick Question as well. I totally missed an important clue (namely Shooting Star's presence on the docks) which I really should have incorporated.

Ah, well, Hindsight.

Thank you guys for reading.