Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 18

As I skim through my grimoire of demons, a small smile grows on my face; I can understand as much as I did before. Or at least, I think I can. With something as weird as trying to read Demon, it can be hard to tell what level you’re at since some days you can understand more of it than others. Still, I can understand something, which is more than I could have said a few days ago.

I can hear our big grandfather clock downstairs chime, telling me it’s now eleven at night. It’s getting late, so I should probably head to bed. But that just gets me thinking; should I rest another day, or should I try and Dreamstride so I can figure exactly what caused me to feel ill? I keep going back and forth because on one hoof, I don’t want to bring myself any harm, but on the other hoof, something caused my weakness. And not just me, either; dad also feels kind of weak, and I saw Cressie the other day and she seemed a lot less energetic than she usually is. Luna told me I was responsible for Coltlumbus, so I guess I should go try and figure out what’s going wrong for the sake of our town. And I know a decent bit about Dreamstriding, so worse comes to worse I could always protect myself and get to safety.

After turning off my overhead light and flicking the switch on the lamp on my nightstand, I pull the covers over me and close my eyes. I haven’t needed the low level of light to get into my dream in a while, but I should probably do it tonight since the pulling in my mind has been a lot weaker in the past few days than it ever has been. All my Dreamstrider abilities went away, even. I always took being able to see really well in the dark for granted, because I got up and went to the bathroom one night and could just barely make out everything around me. Walked face-first into my bed frame because it was so dark. No idea how anypony lives like that.

It takes a few tries, but eventually I manage to grab onto the pulling and start pushing myself into my dream. For whatever reason, it’s a lot harder this time than normally, kind of like when I was first doing this. Guess my magic isn’t totally back after all.

Before long, I trip and fall out of my bed and onto my floor. This is definitely my dream; I can feel the dream magic floating around in here. And sure enough, once I look up to my ceiling, there’s just gray mist. Now for what’s probably going to be the hard part: actually getting from my dream into the dream world. The first jump goes poorly and I don’t get my hooves right as I land so I just slip and land on my side. The second jump goes pretty much the same, but this time I’m able to catch myself and not just fall.

Third time’s the charm. I take a deep breath, go down close to the floor, and jump...only to just go a few inches up and land back on the floor. I was totally sure that would work.

Fourth time’s the charm, I guess? I take more deep breaths and concentrate even harder, and this time I jump straight up and out of my dream, my hooves soon landing on the fallen blue leaves that blanket the outskirts of the forest where Coltlumbus is. There’s very little activity here, and there’s a lot of tension in the air. The ambient magic of the dream world is heavily influenced by the surrounding area, which means something bad must be nearby. It’s not as bad as the blood demon I found in the forest, but it’s still not a good feeling. Feels kind of like when I accidentally let that silvertongue demon into that one mare’s dream back in Canterlot.

I try to speak some Demon to anything that might be in the area, but it just comes out like a regular shush. I guess my ability to speak Demon still isn’t totally what it used to be.

My heart sinks as a chill passes me over. Something’s here, and whatever it is isn’t friendly at all.

“Who’s there?” I ask in Equestrian. That one silvertongue demon is the only one I’ve ever met that knew Equestrian, and I feel that was a special case. Still, whatever this is might hear me and come out, at which point I would hopefully know what to do.

One of the bushes a little ways away from me starts rustling, and my thoughts speed up. I probably don’t want to be standing right here, right? There aren’t many good places to hide around here. I suppose I could always try to teleport onto a branch of one of the nearby trees, but my teleporting skills are really kind of hit-or-miss. I’ve only practiced them in the awakened world though, so there is the possibility that it would be easier here due to all the extra magic. Worth a shot, I suppose.

First step in teleporting is to fill my horn up with magic, but not prepare any specific type of spell. Then, envision where I want to go: a branch that’s not very far away and high enough up that I wouldn’t be seen easily but is still strong enough to support my weight. Next, try and displace my magic, focusing on the spot I want to move to. Finally, the actual teleportation spell itself. I only move a few inches at first, but the second time I reappear on the branch. Normally I’d be really excited that I managed to teleport, but I have more pressing issues.

As I lay down on the branch to make myself even harder to see, the rustling from the one bush is getting louder and louder. Before long, a giant spider as tall as an adult pony but twice as wide comes into my vision. But it’s not just any spider: this one has a lot of eyes all over its body, all looking around in different directions.

Unfortunately, one of those directions happens to have me in it.

As soon as one of its eyes looks at me, every other one shoots directly to me. There goes my stealth, I guess. I’ve seen this type of demon before somewhere. Where, though?

While I’m trying to rack my brain and figure out where I know this thing from, it charges at my tree and starts climbing it. Teleporting would take too long, so I jump down and then shakily make my way back near the dreams.

The thing must be way faster than I thought, because it tackles me before I can get back to my dream. Luckily for me, I’m a youngest sibling, so I know a little bit about escaping from a creature that’s much larger than me and wants to pin me to the ground. I narrowly escape its hold on me and look back at it. All its eyes are scanning me in unison, clearly trying to get a read on me. I might be imagining it, but I swear I can see something different in each one of its eyes.

It shrieks loudly before charging again, and I have enough time to get a shield spell up before it hits me.

“What are you?” I yell at it while it’s attacking my spell with all eight of its legs. It doesn’t respond, instead just shrieking and continuing its attacks.

I can’t hold my shield up for much longer, but I can actually use that to my advantage. Right as I let my spell down, I step to the side. The demon falls forward, and I quickly turn around and buck it as hard as I can, which probably isn’t very hard but it’s at least something.

When I turn back around to face it, it tackles me again, and this time I’m face up. It starts drooling on my face, but it seems to have learned its lesson from last time and secured me on the ground pretty good. I don’t think I’d be able to wriggle or fight myself free. Good thing I’m a unicorn, then.

With a flash of light, I teleport myself onto the spider’s back and grab on for dear life. As I bring my head down, I get a good look into one of the spider’s eyes. And I can see dad in it. He’s with a mare, too.

It’s hard to get a good look at the image since this giant demonic spider is trying to buck me off its back, but I manage to see that the mare is mom. Or it looks like her, at least. They both look a lot younger than I’ve ever known them, almost like the pictures I’ve seen of them in college. They’re in some room that I don’t recognize, sitting on a bed near the window. Dad looks like he’s telling a story, and mom can’t seem to stop herself from laughing.

Suddenly, it hits me where I’ve seen this demon before: I saw it on the page in the grimoire where I learned about soul sickness. And I wasn’t able to read anything about it at the time, but I distinctly remember Luna teaching me about demons that look like spiders and destroy our dreams. This thing is a devourer demon, a giant spider that eats our dreams and leaves us feeling ill and weak. It gets bigger with each dream it eats, and they all become eyes on its body. This one must have eaten a dream dad had about dating mom in college.

I think I remember how to cast the spell that banishes this thing. Every time I try to do it, though, it just keeps trying to buck me off and disrupts my concentration. There has to be a better way to do this. I bet if I could just restrain its legs, then I could get off of it and concentrate enough to banish it.

First, I have to get off this thing. To do so, I just channel a burst of magic into my horn and let it in no particular spell. That stuns it and gives me enough time to teleport in front of it and start charging my shield spell again, as well as another spell in the background.

The demon wastes no time with charging me after it’s recovered, and thankfully by then I have the shield spell fully charged and deployed so we’re back at it flailing its legs trying to get at me. My secondary spell is ready, so I shoot it out of my horn and aim it at the demon’s legs. It works: my light blue magic turns into a shimmering chain that snakes its way around all its other legs and binds it.

Just to be safe, I back up before casting my banishing spell just in case the chain gives way. Once the spell hits it, it starts shrieking even worse than before before starting to dissolve into gray mist. Some of it starts just going up into the sky, but some of it starts going towards the dreams behind us. A bit of mist goes into my dream, and a lot of other bits into some other dreams. I can’t help but smile as I see this happen: this is the first time I’ve really done much on my own, without any help. Not just Dreamstriding stuff, either. Mom and dad think I’m not responsible to do much on my own because I’m just nine, but I just got rid of a giant demon spider and did it without anypony else’s help.

Speaking of mom and dad, I wonder if he got his dream back. It is kind of late and I don’t see any dreams just hovering around like there’s no dream to go into, so my guess is everypony with a dream that got devoured is currently asleep. Honestly, I want to go into his dream and see if it restored with the one he had stolen from him. I’m not quite sure if that’s how dream restoration would work, but I guess I could go find out.

It’s pretty easy to find three of the dreams in the cluster that feel familiar, so one of my family members isn’t asleep yet. One feels a lot more like my dream than the others, which means it’s one of my sisters’. Luna tried to explain why that works like that, but all the magic she started explaining got way too confusing for me.

To figure out which of the remaining two dreams is dad’s and not mom’s, I have to close my eyes and really focus. A little bit of magic builds up in my horn, and while I have no idea what it means, it feels almost like my blood is separating itself into the two halves of my body. My left half feels like mom, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and the right half feels like dad. Guess dad’s dream is the one on the right, so I go up to it and walk in.

The ground squeaks when I land, so I look down and see some old hardwood floors beneath my hooves. There’s a little bit of noise coming from the room on my left, so I inch forward and try to listen carefully.

“Cuddling?” a mare’s voice that sounds a lot like a younger version of mom asks while trying to keep some laughter in.

“Not even kidding,” a stallion responds, his laughter sounding really similar to dad’s. “I wake up and I’m cuddling him on the kitchen floor, and he’s got the most stupid fucking smile you’ve ever seen on his face.”

“How’d he react when he woke up?”

“Wouldn’t know. I got off him as quietly as I could and came here, but I think Strawberry Seed saw me as I was leaving. If he does know, it’s because she told him.”

“I told you not to touch the 190-proof stuff she brought last night,” she laughs. “You were already feeling it pretty good after playing Hurricane with Ball Lightning, almost pure alcohol was the last thing you needed at that point.”

“I’m fine now, by whatever miracle. Starving, though. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“It’s eleven. I told you I was working this morning, that’s why I couldn’t stay long last night. Had to open the library at six. And you know I hate going anywhere on an empty stomach.”

“Well, I’ll make me some breakfast and you some lunch,” he says as I can hear a few hooves go onto the creaky floorboards. “Who goes to the library at six on a Saturday, by the way? I’m pretty sure there were still some ponies at our house at that time.”

“I don’t know,” she replies as a second pony’s worth of hooves gets up. “There were three this morning at opening, one more than usual. Think they were there last night, went to the main library at closing, and came back to the library of public studies when we reopened because they liked it better.”

As the door to the room swings open, I power up one of the memory-erasing spells Luna taught me without even thinking. This one just makes them not notice me, unless I interact with them or do something really loud or something like that.

The ponies that walk out look a lot like mom and dad, just younger like in the demon’s eye. They don’t seem to notice me, instead just walking towards the kitchen to my right. It’s kind of weird, actually. I know I’m technically not meeting them and they’re just visions in a dream, but I did just see my parents dating before they got married and had my sisters or me. When they go into the kitchen and start talking in there, I jump out of the dream and back into the dream world. There’s really no reason for me to stick around, and I probably shouldn’t have even been in there in the first place because he wasn’t in any danger at that point.

A cool breeze blows through my mane as I land back in the dream world, causing a smile to grow on my face. The moon here is really bright tonight, casting its silver light all over the world. The blue leaves and grass are dancing gently in the breeze, making a nice and soft rustling noise.

It’s been a difficult past few days and fighting that demon was really scary, but scenes like this remind me why being a Dreamstrider is so great. I can see why Luna loves the dream world so much.

She was right: words cannot describe this world.

Author's Note:

One year ago today I published the first chapter of Dreamstrider. I would just like to take this moment to thank you—all of you—for being with me as I tell this story. Whether you're reading this on the day it's published or at a later date, I want to thank you for getting this far and would love to welcome you to join me as the story continues.

Have a glorious day.

Comments

[Dlaf rferg]

I wonder how powerful that demon was..

The more powerful, the more impressive that feat of Aurora's was.