Tic-Tac

by eraser

Prologue. Luna vs. a Lucid Dreamer (version 2).

Author's Note:

In the middle of the story this chapter didn't feel right, so I turned it into a prologue. Enjoy some brutal human-on-alicorn action. (In a completely non-sexual sense )

The viewpoint protagonist is introduced in chapter 1. The CMCs appear in chapter 2.

"Calm"'s description isn't set in stone yet. He looks like some well-known stallion. Which one? Suggestions are welcome.

Update 2015-12-26: Hopefully, a better explanation what was Luna doing there.

Princess Luna peered through a window. For some reason this dreamer seemed to focus on inanimate objects much more than on ponies. The building and furniture looked quite solid, while all ponies including the host herself looked like blurry blobs. Of course, a dreamwalker as powerful as Luna could bring them to focus with a bit of concentration, but she didn't want to risk forcing her preconceptions upon this dream. If her ideas were not quite right, at best she'd miss something important, at worst she'd also force the unlucky mare to watch this botched dream. Mare... That reminded her. Twilight wrote that their guest was not a pony, but a lot like a pony. What could she mean? Solving this riddle justified some interference.

Moon princess looked at the most solid of blobs weaving between tables. Under her stare the diffuse blotch quickly solidified into a pony-like shape. Yes, Luna guessed right, the dreamer was a donkey. Just as Twilight described her — beige, with chestnut mane. Hadn't she seen donkeys before to describe one in such vague terms? One thing less to worry about, but it didn't explain the feelings of despair that had attracted Luna's attention yesterday.

In her dream the mare was working as a waitress. Probably this was her workplace before the accident. She wore a long sleek dark blue dress peppered with cyan flowers. The narrow hem almost touched the floor, but the long slits on both sides allowed her shapely legs to move freely. Luna feasted her eyes upon the way the waitress gracefully moved between the tables. The way she swivelled in narrow passages, too narrow for anypony, constantly almost-but-not-quite falling, balancing up to five trays full of plates... This wasn't something the princess saw every year.

This performance was fun and perhaps educational, but Night Princess didn't enter this dream to watch it. She had a foreboding this idyllic place was going to sprout a nightmare strong enough to reach the waking world. Any second now. But where was it hiding?

“We shouldn't waste resources on epoxys!” an elderly stallion shouted behind her. “They don't live long.”

She looked back. A trio of blobs, a bit less transparent than most, was approaching the restaurant.

“Cut most branches? No wonder you find nothing,” his younger-sounding companion said derisively.

“If we keep all the rubbish we get the combinatorial explosion too soon,” the third blob, also young, tried to pacify them. “But he's right. Let's follow several branches a step further. Or two.”

Their conversation made no sense, which was no surprise. But if they were audible, and even possessed some rudimentary personality, they must be important to the dreamer. Perhaps they were the bringers of nightmare.

And the blobs continued to argue:

“Who's gonna sieve them? You?” The old one didn't yield easily.

“Yes, if necessary.” Whoever was going to be sieved, they better beware, for the second voice promised no mercy.

The first blob, whom Luna dubbed “Stubborn” opened the door and entered the restaurant. The second one, “Angry”, followed. Suddenly the third, “Calm” stopped at the threshold blocking the door. He had no face, yet Luna could feel him face her and eye her confusedly.

“What's up? Anything wrong?” Angry hurried back to him.

“No... nothing.” The blob wobbled, which probably was its way of shrugging, and followed Stubborn, who already was settling by a vacant table.

Luna sat in wait by the table too. She could feel Calm shooting glances at her, while Angry did his best to avoid looking in her direction. Stubborn was obliviously lecturing them about something radical. It did not take long until the dreamer approached them. But she didn't come to take their order.

“Your remedy didn't help!” she half-whispered half-shouted accusingly. “The nightmare didn't stop.”

The word “nightmare” put the princess on full alert.

“And my hallucinations keep getting worse.”

The dreamer's attention was solidifying the blobs. They were stretching, taking distinct forms of ponies. Only the forms felt wrong.

“I've told you already, yesterday I felt as if somebody's been secretly watching me all day.”

They were anything, but ponies now. Tall, heavy, menacing. Luna could dispel them easily, but she wanted to see where this was going.

“Well, right now that watcher no longer bothers to hide. Here it is — a small dark horse, right by your table.” The dreamer pointed at Luna.

“How does a horse fit this place?” asked Stubborn. Now he looked like a clothed monkey without a face.

“It's smaller than a regular horse,” the dreamer replied hesitantly. “About as long as your table.”

“Still, it should block passage between tables. Doesn't it?”

“Yes, it does. Haven't you noticed nobody walks over there.”

“Actually, that's right, nobody walked there as long as we were here,” calmly remarked Calm. He now had a monkey face, only with moustache, beard and thick brows. He seemed oddly familiar, as if Luna had met him lately. “How long has it been there?”

This monkey needed a lesson in good manners.

“'Tis impolite to refer to a mare as 'it'...”

“She talks!” Stubborn had just noticed her.

“You!” Angry stood up on his hind legs and stepped toward Luna. “It's been you all this time!”

Luna could swear she never met him before.

“You've been standing behind my back all day, watching me! And yesterday! And all those forty-eight-hour shifts! All those years I thought I was going crazy! What the hell do you want from me?!”

Time to dispel this thing. Luna focused on erasing it from this dream... and nothing happened. She'd done it countless times without effort, yet tonight she failed. The nightmarish creature moved his forelegs with an obvious intent to strangle her. Or maybe sieve, whatever he meant by that.

Luna knew when to retreat. This nightmare was too strong, caught her off guard, but next time she'd be ready. She dodged the creature's grasp and darted away, at the same time exiting the dream. When the world around her already started to fade, she felt being grabbed by her ethereal tail.

Luna phased into the waking world madly galloping and frantically beating her wings. The creature clung to her tail like his life depended on it. She could feel and hear him hitting the furniture, but he never let her go.

“UNHAND US, KNAVE!” she demanded.

If anything, the creature only tightened his grasp. In desperation Luna turned toward a balcony and jumped over the railing. She felt the creature pulling her down, making her strain her wings, but then the weight disappeared. She looked back. The stowaway still held her tail, but now floated in the air like a balloon. A balloon shaped like a fully clothed tailless monkey, with only a head and forehands visible. His angry determination was replaced with a silly grin.

“I crashed out again! It's just a dream!” and his laughter boomed over sleeping Canterlot.

He released her tail, yet continued to fly after her. Then he spread his forelegs like wings and soared upwards, looped around Luna and sped away laughing loudly.

Luna tried to shoot him with magic, but he dodged effortlessly. Night Guard unicorns joined her efforts, but were no more successful than their princess. Flying guards tried to chase him, but he was too fast for them. He dived and rocketed and looped and spun never stopping laughing. For him it was just an easy game. When the sky started to get too crowded, he dived toward the train depot, disappearing under one of the cars.

The guards cordoned off the depot and combed every inch until sunrise, yet found no trace of the intruder. Princess Luna personally oversaw and directed their efforts. They did everything ponyly possible, but the creature eluded them. It did not walk through the cordon, it did not fly away, it did not hide anywhere in the depot, it did not tunnel its way to freedom, it just vanished. Luna tried to enter the same dream again, but by then the waitress has already woken up. Her last hope now was contacting the dreamer for any insights about this nightmare.

Comments

[Blaze the draconic mage]

Am a bit confused but it's very funny so far

[eraser]

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In short: Luna entered Sunny's nightmare, which reflected her life in another world. Then it got interwoven with hallucinations of a sleep depraved man Sunny knew there. Then he fell asleep and got pulled to Equestria when Luna ran away.

("Sunny" is the waitress introduced in the following chapter. She will get this nickname in the 3rd chapter when I get to finish it.)