Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 15

“Aurora!” Luna calls out from behind me, so I turn around to see her at the entrance to the balcony I’m currently standing on.

“Yeah?” She looks like she has something important to tell me.

“I was looking all over for you!” she laughs, coming out onto the balcony and putting her front hooves on the railing. “Watching them set up the carnival for the Summer Sun Celebration?”

I just smile and nod, not even saying anything. The Summer Sun Celebration back home is going to be nothing like the one in Canterlot! In Coltlumbus, most ponies just have their own parties and then watch the sunrise in their yards or on their front porches. Mom and dad don’t even let me stay up all night, so it’s not even like I’ve ever had a proper Celebration before.

A smile of her own grows on Luna’s face, though she starts shaking her head lightly. “Unfortunately for us, however, the Summer Sun Celebration is also a time of great work for the Dreamstriders, especially here in Canterlot. Here, ponies have parties and festivities the entire week leading up to the actual Celebration itself, and many of them last late into the night or even into the next morning.” Her smile fades as she looks to me. “Can you guess what that means?”

I don’t really know where she’s going with this, so I just shrug. “It’s a lot of fun to live in Canterlot?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Many ponies are very tired the week preceding the grand ceremony, and when that is combined with their bright and cheery moods from all the celebration, it means they are easy targets for demons. There is much more for them to prey on when they enter their dreams, and because they are very tired, their minds’ natural defenses are less capable.”

Upon hearing this, my ears droop and I just rest my chin on the railing. Who would have thought that a week of parties would just mean more work? Not even fun gets to be fun.

“I just figured you should be up to date on our responsibilities,” she says, taking her hooves off the railing and walking back to the doorway back into the castle. “I will not have you Dreamstride every night, though you will be doing so more than you have been recently.” There’s a small twinkle in her eye. “And after the Celebration is over, I was thinking you could go back home for the summer?”

Just the thought of that makes me smile. Hearth’s Warming break was the last time I was able to be home, so it’s been nearly half a year. I get to write letters all the time and Luna is nice to be around, but I still miss everypony back home.

“One more thing,” she says before she gets entirely in the castle. “They let the ponies who work in the castle and their families attend the carnival for one day before it opens to the public, and they don’t have to pay anything to get in, eat, ride any rides, or play the games. I suggest going when they open that up so you do not have to spend any of your bits.” She takes a few more steps, then quickly snaps back to me.

“Oh, and try and win one of the sun necklaces from the ring toss booth. Celestia has always been just terrible at that game, and she wants one of those necklaces oh so badly.” She winks. “Help another little sister annoy her big sister, will you?”

“I’ll try my best,” I laugh.

---

Man, sentry duty is really, really boring.

I thought something with a name like ‘sentry duty’ would involve me running around and rooting out demons that have nested themselves in ponies’ dreams, but Luna just told me to sit at the mouth of Canterlot Cave and watch for demons. I guess I’ve been able to practice my Demon because a few playful demons have been running around, but they’re really excited so they don’t have a lot of time to sit and chat. I think they were saying that this time of year is one of the best for dreams, but I didn’t understand every word they were saying. I guess it would make sense.

Out of boredom, I decide to pick up a pebble in my hoof and look at it. Feels just like a pebble in the awakened world, which is really weird. I thought everything in this world was supposed to be made up of magic, but it feels dry and smooth like any old pebble.

I look up and chuck it at one of the trees in the small forest, and it bounces off and makes a noise just like I thought it would. Well, I guess that experiment is over. Turns out rocks are rocks, no matter what world they’re in.

“Hello?” a weak voice calls from outside the cave. That’s weird, it doesn’t sound like Luna’s voice.

“Hello?” I call back. “Is somepony there?”

“I don’t know where I am,” the voice whimpers. There’s some sniffling that sounds like they’re about to cry, so I get up and walk to the source of the noise, and there’s a little earth pony filly with a soft red coat and a gold mane sitting down and crying in the grass.

“Who are you?” I ask, walking up to her and looking down.

She grabs one of my forelegs and rests her head on it. “I don’t know where I am, and I’m scared.”

“How did you get here?”

She rubs her nose with her hoof and gets a little bit of snot on it. “I don’t know. I fell asleep, and I woke up here and I can’t find my mommy and daddy.”

I look down at her, and now she’s using my leg to rub her nose on. Gross. “Do you live in Canterlot?”

She nods.

“Well, I can help you get back there.” With a smile, I squat down to her level and hold her hooves in mine. “It’ll be okay, I know how to get you home.”

She stands up, then rubs her eyes again. “Okay.”

When I get up as well, I take her hoof in my own and walk back towards the cave. “My name’s Aurora, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Rosemary,” she says. “Where are we?”

“You’re just having a nightmare,” I lie. That’s not the truth, but I guess you could argue I’m not exactly lying either. She had to have been dreaming to get here, but then the question is how she got into the dream world. I guess Luna once brought me into her dream from mine, so somepony must have done that to her. I don’t think there are any demons that do that, but Luna did once tell me that there are probably demons we don’t even know about so it could have been one of those.

“What’s this?” Rosemary asks once we get to the mouth of the cave.

“You just have to find the one that feels right to you,” I say, leading her by the hoof into the cave with all the puddles of mist leading to dreams. “That’s how you get back home.”

She takes her hoof off mine and walks to some of the dreams, then stops after a few and points at the one in front of her. “I think it’s this one.”

“So it feels familiar?” I clarify, going up next to her.

“Yeah,” she nods.

“Okay, just hold on tight.” I pick her up and go into the dream, going through the mist and gently floating to the ground. When we land, a nice strong smell of spice hits my nose and makes me hungry.

“We’re home now, Rosemary.” I wait for a response, but don’t get one so I look around and can’t see anypony in what looks like the restaurant we’re in.

“Father!” a completely different pony’s voice calls from through the door leading to what looks like the kitchen. “Did you move my mango sharbat? You know I’ve been wanting to introduce it ever since we opened the restaurant!”

A unicorn mare with a dark purple mane and adorned with gold jewelry walks out of the kitchen looking confused, and when she looks at me, her confusion looks like it gets worse. “And who are you?”

“I’m Aurora,” I say. “Are you Rosemary’s mother or something?”

“Rosemary?” she asks. “My name is Saffron Masala. I don’t know any ponies by that name, and I certainly do not have any children.” She walks up to me and looks down. “And why are you even in here? We’re not open this late. Where are your parents?”

“There was a little filly that came in here recently,” I tell her. “Maybe four years old, red coat and a gold mane?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “I don’t know every pony that comes in here. If she was with her parents, she’s gone now; we closed nearly two hours ago.”

All of a sudden the earth shakes, causing some of the rugs hanging from the rafters and other ornaments on the wall to fall to the ground.

“Baap re!” she exclaims. “What in all of Equestria is that?”

“It’s just, uh…” To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what’s going on. I have no idea where Rosemary is, and I have no idea who this pony is if she doesn’t know her. Is it possible I brought her into the wrong dream? I’ve never asked what would happen if one non-Dreamstrider were to go into another pony’s dream, so I guess this could be what’s happening. “I’ll be right back!”

Before the mare can successfully ask me anything, I jump out of her dream and run up to the mouth of the cave to light up my horn.

I hope I can remember exactly how this spell works. “Luna!” I yell in Demon. “I need your help!”

I really hope I did this correctly, but all I can do it wait for her to fly here and see if I was right. I know she said that she usually doesn’t patrol for demons too far away from the Canterlot Cave, especially with me still being kind of new at this.

After maybe a couple minutes, she comes zooming in and lands right in front of me, breathing a little heavily. “I got your message. What is it?”

“I think I brought somepony to the wrong dream,” I tell her.

“You…” She just stands there, clearly thinking something over. “I...fail to understand what it is you did.”

“There was a little filly wandering around here that didn’t know where she was,” I start to explain. “I brought her back to her dream, but I think it was the wrong one because there was another pony there that didn’t know who she was and then everything started shaking, so I left and called for you.”

“You lead her into a dream?” she yells, much angrier than I anticipated.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Which dream was it?” she asks, storming past me. “Which dream did you let her in?”

“It was…” I look out over all the dreams in the cave, but they all look identical so I can’t tell which dream is which. “I don’t know.”

Not even saying anything, she closes her eyes and lights up her horn. A little ball of light comes out of her horn after a few seconds, so she opens her eyes and goes to the dream that the magic light is hovering over. She disappears into it, so I guess I should follow her.

Once I end up on the ground of the dream, I can look around and see that one of the walls of the restaurant is gone and the world is now a bright, harsh red. Luna and that other mare are nowhere to be found, so the only thing I can think of is to go through the hole and try and find something. Some ponies are yelling from the street, so I turn there and look at all the ponies just staring up at the roof of the restaurant.

“You!” the same mare from before calls from the crowd as she marches up to me. “What is going on?”

Before I can think of anything, a beam of magic shoots down from the restaurant’s roof into the crowd, not hitting anypony but getting pretty close to a few of them. When I look to where it came from, I can see Luna on the top of the building, horn all alight and a determined look on her face.

“Luna!” I call up to her. “What’s going on?”

“Not now!” she yells back. She powers up her horn again and shoots it at one of the ponies in the crowd, a shorter and heavier unicorn that looks kind of like the mare that’s next to me. Instead of being hit by it, he turns into a cloud of mist which floats a few inches to the side, but when he comes back he looks like the mare now.

“You’ll have to catch me!” the former mist pony yells in a perfect copy of the mare’s voice. She turns around and starts running, and Luna outstretches her wings to take flight and chase her. I try to follow them, but the real mare grabs me by the shoulder and holds me back.

“I need answers,” she insists. “First off, why did my father just turn into me, and second, why is Princess Luna chasing him?”

“I don’t know, but I have to go help her!” I throw her hoof off me and start running down the street in the direction I think I saw them go.

After a few blocks, I can see Luna flying above the buildings, slowly scanning the area with her eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the mare slowly moving down an alley, her eyes to the sky as she inches forward.

Instinctively, I shoot her with a stunning spell, knocking her over stiff as a board. “Luna!” I yell to her. “She’s down here, quick! I stunned her!”

Without even so much as a second thought, her head snaps to where I am and sees the mare lying on the ground, then shoots her with the same spell as before. She turns into mist, but unlike last time, it floats up out of the dream instead of turning into another pony.

“Meet me outside,” she demands before floating up and out of the dream. Judging by the tone of her voice, she is definitely not happy with me. But I have to face her eventually, so I jump up and start floating out of the room as well.

When my hooves land on the ground of the cave, I look down because I don’t want to look Luna in the eye. “What is it?” I ask.

“What is it?” she repeats. “Do you not know what it is you did? You put that mare in serious jeopardy by doing what you did!”

“What happened to that other filly?” I ask.

“Aurora, think for a moment,” she says, abruptly changing the subject. “How many ponies are there in the world that know how to travel between the awakened world and the dream world?”

“Five, right? You, me, and those other three Dreamstriders.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “They can move between worlds, but only you and I know how to do so. I never mentioned bringing a pony through, and you did not do so.”

“So then who was that little filly I saw earlier?”

“‘She’ was a demon,” she says, the anger in her voice intensifying.

“But how? She looked exactly like a pony!”

“Exactly. It was a silvertongue demon, a habitual liar that can mimic ponies perfectly. You should have known when you saw a pony that was not me walking around the dream world.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. All I tried to do was help a little filly who was crying because she couldn't find her parents.

“You were at least right to call me,” she sighs. “Silvertongue demons are very dangerous; not only do they give the dreamer nightmares, but they open the way for many other malevolent demons to enter a pony’s dreams. If that demon were left unchecked, that mare would have been plagued by awful nightmares and who knows what else because of all the demons that would have flocked to her.”

“So...what now?”

“You go back to sentry duty,” she says, pointing back towards the mouth of the cave. “And under no, I repeat, no circumstances, do you let in a pony that is not me.”

“But how will I know it’s you?” I ask. “How will I know if it’s really another demon disguised as you?”

“I will be able to get into dreams very easily,” she answers. “Everypony has natural defenses against malevolent demons in their minds, and they will need to get past that. I assume you and the silvertongue were touching each other when you entered that other mare’s dream?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Why?”

“That is how it was able to get in without having to remove those barriers. As Dreamstriders, we have the mark of a benevolent demon on us. Ponies’ minds will not try and keep us out, so it used that to its advantage by having you touch it and therefore letting it bypass her dream’s defenses. If you are unsure if it is really me should I show up, let me in and observe me; if I enter a dream easily, it is me. If it seems to be doing something to the dream, it is a demon. Is that clear?”

“It is,” I nod again. “Luna, are you mad at me?”

“Somewhat,” she responds. “We all make mistakes, although the one you made happened to have the potential of being very costly. I am just glad you chose to seek out my help instead of trying to fix it yourself, which could have just made the problem much worse.” Spreading her wings, she walks out of the cave and looks back. “I must return to patrolling the dream world, and you must get back to sentry duty over Canterlot. Remember: no malevolent demons are to get past you, and the only pony allowed inside is me. Are we clear?”

I nod, then go back to the cave’s entrance when she flies away and sit down. Right back to boredom, like nothing just happened.

I really hope Luna isn’t too mad at me.

Comments

[vampnyx]

Pls continue this is a really good story and the story is really creative.