Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 26

There’s a knock at my door, pulling me out of the restful sleep I was having. Is it morning already? I don’t want to get out of bed, I’m comfortable here.

“Aurora,” Dew Drop calls from the other side of the door, “you in there?”

Instantly, my eyes jolt open. I forgot that she was coming today! Good thing she came, because otherwise I might have completely slept through my train to Manehattan. When I open the door in my magic, she walks in and shakes her head at me still in bed.

“Tell me you’re packed, at least,” she says.

“Packed and showered last night so I can just get out of bed today and go down with the station with you.” After stretching a little, I hop out of bed and onto the floor while taking my suitcase in my magic. “You excited?”

“Yeah,” she smiles. “It’ll be nice to go do this, since I won’t get to at any other time. I don’t know why Snowy was so weird and didn’t want to have us for siblings’ weekend last year, so I’m glad she decided to have us this year.” As we walk out of my room and I close the door, she shoots me a wink. “And I’ll have to have you sometime when I’m off at school.”

We start walking out of the Dreamstrider offices, and she lets me lead since I know how to get out of the castle. “Do you know where you’re going to school yet?”

She nods. “Promise not to tell mom and dad?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not official.” She groans. “They still want me to hear back from places that have taken months to get back to me and I never really wanted to go to anyways but applied to to get them out of my mane.”

“So where will you be?”

“Right here in Canterlot with you,” she smiles as she pats me on the back. “University of Equestria at Canterlot.”

I can’t help but break out in a huge smile. That’ll be awesome to have her so close to me! I know she’ll be busy with school and I’ll be busy with my work, but just having her nearby will be nice. Maybe mom and dad will come visit a lot more since there’ll be two of us here. If we could get Snowy here as well after she graduates, they’d probably be here all the time to see us.

“So you’re excited, huh?”

“Totally.” I just can’t stop smiling! I was always a bit closer to Dew Drop anyways since she’s closer to my age, so secretly I’m glad that it’s her and not Snowy that’s going to go to school in Canterlot. Seven years apart is a pretty big gap, but it feels like so much less compared to the nine years between Snowy and I.

“Changing subjects,” she proclaims once we’re outside and walking to the train station, “I want to get breakfast at the station before our train, if you’re cool with that. I ate before I left Coltlumbus, but that was a few hours ago. And since mom and dad gave me some money to have for food and the like while traveling, I figure why not use it?”

Almost as soon as she mentions breakfast, my stomach growls. I may have packed and showered last night so I could just get up and go this morning, but I didn’t think to get up earlier to eat. “That sounds good.”

“Perfect! Any good places around here?”

“What?”

“You know. Any good places for breakfast around here?”

“I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten breakfast outside the castle, to be honest.”

“Ooh!” She points towards a diner down the street, probably completely ignoring what I said. “Horsefeathers. Doesn’t dad say that was his favorite place to go when he was a student?”

I shrug. “He’s never talked much about his time as a student with me, much less the places he liked to eat.”

“Pretty sure this is it. Mom says he always wanted to come here when he was drunk because apparently they have great pancakes. Turns out that’s the only food he ever wants when he drinks too much.”

Thinking of dad drunk is a little weird for me because I’ve never seen him like that, so it’s just not something I can picture. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anypony get drunk. From what I’ve read in my books, ponies either get really mean or really weird when they’re like that. I wonder which he was. Probably weird, since he’s not mean to begin with and mom probably wouldn’t have liked him if he was.

---

As the train is pulling into Manehattan Central Station, I look out the window onto the platform. I see Snowy real quick, but she’s further down than where we’ll be getting out.

The doors open, and Dew Drop gets up, grabbing her bag in her magic as she does so. I do the same, and after fighting through a crowd of ponies we’re on the same platform we were a little over a year ago to first move Snowy into college.

“Dew Drop!” I can hear Snowy’s voice call from further down. “Aurora!” She starts fighting through another crowd of ponies towards us, and when she gets to where we are, throws her forelegs around us in a big hug. “How are you both?”

“I’m good,” Dew Drop replies, returning the hug. “Did I tell you I’ve made an unofficial, don’t-tell-mom-and-dad-yet school decision?”

“Oh?” Snowy’s ears prick up. I know Dew Drop applied to Manehattan College, and knowing Snowy, she’s been trying to convince her to come here.

“UEC. Sorry, but your dream of us being Manehattanites together is probably never come true.”

“We could always both end up here after graduation. And UEC? Pretty bold move becoming a Clover, given both our parents not only went to, but met at the University of Canterlot.”

“They were excited when I got in,” she shrugs. “And they said they’d send me there if that’s where I wanted to go, but made it very clear they weren’t going to start rooting for my hoofball team.”

“Diehard Windigoes fans the both of them,” she laughs. “And you, Aurora? How are you doing?”

“I’m doing good. Not much new for me, just what I’ve told you about in the couple letters I’ve sent.”

“Well, it’s good that nothing’s going wrong.” She breaks off the hug, then starts leading us through the station. “I hope you two are excited. There’s so much to do here in Manehattan, and even though we only get a weekend together, I know there’s plenty that we’ll be able to do.”

Dew Drop and I just exchange glances, then we both smile a little bit. “Yeah, I’ve always wanted to come here. Especially since we didn’t have any time to go into the city and do anything when we were here last.”

“We’ll go by campus and have you drop your stuff off there, and then I can show you around.”

The rest of the way to campus, Dew Drop is asking all kinds of questions about college and Snowy is answering them, so I just take a few moments to look at the scenery around me. It’s the same route we took to campus last time we were here if I remember correctly, but it’s still neat. Manehattan is a lot more crowded and busy than Canterlot, but the ponies passing by us look a lot more like normal ponies than really rich, upper-class ones.

I wonder what that’ll mean for Dreamstriding tonight. Luna said if I felt up to it to do some here tonight, so at the very least I should do a quick survey to make sure there aren’t any really bad demons I need to be worrying about. Luna does a quick survey of here every night, but it’ll be good to have me here so I can conduct a little more thorough search. Plus, demons can pop up all the time. Just because it’s clear when she comes by doesn’t mean it’ll always be clear during the night.

Before too long, we get to the circle of dorms I do remember from last year. Instead of going to the one in the middle, however, we go to the one on the far right, which is only three stories tall or so. The inside is pretty similar to what I remember of her dorm last year, and we have to go all the way to the top floor to find her room. There room’s a tiny bit smaller than her one last year, but not by much. There’s only one bed, but she does have a small couch.

“Enjoying having a room all to yourself?” Dew Drop asks as she puts her suitcase on top of Snowy’s perfectly clean desk.

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “Neighbors aren’t so great. I was warned that being on a floor of all single rooms would mean nopony ever interacted with each other, but oh well. I’ve still got my friends.”

Dew Drop asks something about living at college, so I place my bag off to the side and decide to try Snowy’s couch. It’s pretty comfortable, actually. It probably isn’t big enough for both Dew Drop and me to sleep on, so I guess we’ll have to figure something out for that.

“Ready to head out?” Snowy asks after a few minutes.

Now that I realize it, I almost dozed off. My eyes were closed, even. Guess I must be a little more tired than I had thought.

“Whenever you guys are,” I respond.

I swear I can see a tiny smile on her face as she goes to her closet and sticks her head inside. “Alright, just give me a sec. And close your eyes, both of you.”

Dew Drop and I look at each other in confusion, and Snowy pops her head out of the closet. “I said eyes closed.” Dew Drop shrugs and closes her eyes, and I do the same. After a few seconds wait, I can feel something warm and soft wrap around my neck and get tied, almost like a scarf. “Alright, you two can open them now!”

I open my eyes and look down, and I was right: it’s a scarf. Mine is purple and Dew Drop’s is a soft blue, both with a block M on them like I see everywhere around campus.

“I know it’s only a little cold,” Snowy explains, “but I decided to get you both Manehattan College scarves. Do you like them? I think they both compliment your manes and coats very nicely.”

“Thanks,” Dew Drop responds, tightening hers a little. “Now I’ll have to get you one from my school, when I go.”

“I don’t have a school,” I laugh. “So all I can do is say thanks.”

“Can get me one from the castle,” she suggests playfully as she walks outside her room and waits for us.

“Does the castle even sell scarves?” Dew Drop, walking out into the hallway with me. “That’s where all the important stuff happens, and where all the important ponies do all the important stuff. They’re not selling scarves.”

“It was a joke,” she sighs while closing the door.

“Then make it funny.”

Just like she always does, Snowy mutters something under her breath while Dew Drop smiles. She always knows just how to annoy her.

“So where are we going to first?” I ask.

“Library.” She tests her door to make sure it locked, then walks down the hall. “It’s really neat, and an awesome place to go study. Really big for a small university, too. And they’ve got this really cool section on magic you’d probably enjoy, Aurora. They have this rare book section I’ve been dying to get in and see, and I heard there’s allegedly even a book in there on Dreamstriders that’s written in some language they’ve been trying to decipher for ages, but haven’t made any progress.”

“A library?” Dew Drop repeats. “You’re bringing us to a library?”

She giggles. “When you enter college, you’ll start to appreciate a good library more than you do now. Plus, the gym nextdoor has a really awesome smoothie place, so I figured we could go check that out after and get some.”

“Let’s just go get smoothies, then,” Dew Drop suggests. “I can go to a library any time, but you know what it’s like trying to buy a smoothie in Coltlumbus. I can either pay a normal amount of bits and get the trots, or I can pay a stupid amount and not.”

“You’ve got a point,” she agrees. “These are also kinda expensive, but at least they’ve got a lot of selection. They’ll make you fat, though.” She laughs a tiny bit. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing they’re in the gym.”

When we walk outside, the cold and gray sky starts dropping a few tiny white snowflakes on us. They all melt when they hit the ground, but it at least looks kind of pretty, even if the snow is very light. Dew Drop looks like she has a bit of disgust on her face at it; she always did hate the winter. If she thinks back home is bad, she’s going to be in for a pretty big surprise in Canterlot.

It’ll be nice to have her there. Now that I’m not a little filly anymore, she and I don’t actually mind spending time with each other. Plus, with two of us in the same city, mom and dad are probably going to be visiting us a lot more.

These coming few years are going to be exciting, I can tell that already.