Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 28

“Snowy,” Dew Drop says, holding a hoof up, “it’s not as b—”

“Dew Drop,” she cuts off. “On the bed. Now.”

She pushes her lips closed, clearly understanding exactly what it is Snowy’s saying. She gets on bed and hangs her head, and Snowy looks at me next. She doesn’t have to say anything: I get up next to Dew Drop without a fight.

“Dew Drop, what were you thinking?” Snowy yells. “Sneaking out at night just to go mess around at the library and try to take ponies’ things?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything!” she defends.

“Then why in the fuck did you sneak out of my room, go all the way across campus, take our little sister with you, and just start taking things for no reason?”

“I have my reasons!” she yells.

“Snowy,” I speak up, “it was—”

“Be quiet!” they both yell at me at once.

“Don’t yell at her!” Snowy yells at Dew Drop. “It’s bad enough you dragged her along and got her arrested!”

“Snowy, come on, I think—”

“Celestia’s teats, Dew Drop! She’s ten! Use your fucking head for once in your life and realize not only that going and doing dumb shit at the library couldn’t end well, but dragging your ten year old sister along with you only puts her in trouble, too!”

“Fine, I fucked up!” Dew Drop yells, her voice cracking a little bit. “That what you want me to say? That I’m just a fuckup?”

“Oh my god,” Snowy mutters as she puts a hoof on her forehead. “No, it’s not. Stop being so melodramatic.”

“I’m not being melodramatic, you’re just being really stuck-up and making a bid deal out of nothing.”

“‘Out of nothing’? You got both of you arrested! If that cop hadn’t decided to be nice and just let you off the hook, you could be in a holding cell right now! And trust me, a holding cell near MU on a Friday night is the last place you want to be.”

She scoffs. “Of course you’d know.”

“My roommate last year got really trashed, got caught blowing some random stallion on a park bench, and I needed to go get her,” she corrects. “Stop trying to redirect this conversation. You made a decision that’s stupid even by your standards, and it blew up in your face.”

Dew Drop turns her head, clearly not wanting to look Snowy in the eye. This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen from either of them. I wonder if the filial demon got to Snowy while she was sleeping. Maybe it sensed she’s my sibling and decided to target her.

“And you!” she yells, turning now to me.

“Me?”

“Yes! She may have made the most bone-brained decision I’ve ever seen come out of her, but why in Tartarus did you go with her?”

Just like Dew Drop, I try and look away so I don’t have to look right into her eyes, which are filled with anger. “I don’t know.”

“You, like her, need to think things through before you act. First, you should have realized what she wanted to do was incredibly fucking stupid. Second, why did you leave my room to go dicking around a city you don’t know when you’re not old enough to do so?”

“‘Not old enough’?” Now I’m angry, so I snap my head back so I can stare right into her eyes. “I’m old enough!”

“You’re ten! That is nowhere near old enough to go wander around Manehattan at night. You may be smart and responsible for a ten-year-old, but at the end of the day, you’re still way too young to do anything like this. Mom and dad don’t even let you wander Coltlumbus in broad daylight, why did you think Manehattan was better?”

“Not responsible? I’m the head of an official office of Princess Luna, and better yet, that office’s job is to literally kill demons! Thousands of ponies are under my protection, and you know what? That’s why we went to the library! Because there’s a demon I needed to kill right now in the dream world, and I had one of two options: sit in the dream world and keep trying to contact Princess Luna, or go find out how to do it myself. I have no idea when or even if she’s going to be Dreamstriding tonight, so I had to go sneak into the restricted section and Dew Drop offered to help me do that by distracting the pony at the desk there who checks IDs.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me? You know I’m a student here and have an ID, right? All of this could have been avoided if you took the ten seconds to wake me up and explain what it is you needed!”

Dew Drop and I just look at each other. She does have a point.

“Of course neither of you thought about that,” Snowy sighs, now sounding more disappointed than angry. “At the very least, I hope you two learned something. Next time, think your fucking plans through before acting on them. Now I’m going to bed again, and I think both of you have had enough fun for one night. Aurora, if you’re going to sleep with me still, scoot over so I can get in.”

Without saying anything, Dew Drop gets off Snowy’s bed and onto her couch before laying down, facing the back of the couch away from us. Snowy flips the overhead light off, then climbs into bed and closes her eyes. I lay down next to her and close my eyes, then push into my dream and finally jump into the dream world.

I search for a minute or two, then find a patch of dirt that is big enough for me to write all the charms there with my hoof. I list them all in what I’m almost certain is the correct order, then sit down and close my eyes. Fighting like that really got me worked up, so I’m going to need to meditate for a little while before going after this demon.

---

I don’t really know how long I’ve been meditating because it’s hard to tell time both while meditating and in the dream world, but there are even more dreams than when I started, so my guess is it’s still night. That’s good. The filial demon will be trying to move between a lot of dreams, so it’ll be easier to catch him in this trap. But first, to find the perfect one to set this trap over. Even if it goes really fast, the demon won’t be able to go after every dreamer in Manehattan with a sibling in one night, so it’s going to have to prioritize. Unfortunately, I can probably guess two of the ones it’s going to want to go by a lot: Snowy’s and Dew Drop’s. They both have two siblings which means there are more relationships for it to sour, and there’s a lot of underlying tension between them, which will just make it that much easier and more fruitful for it. Dream magic also runs strong in them, for some reason. I’m not sure if that’s a result of me being so close to them or if they were really close to being Dreamstriders, but that magic makes them very attractive to demons of all types: benevolent, neutral, and malevolent alike.

I take one last look at the list of runes I wrote into the ground before walking around, trying to find my sisters’ dreams. Even though they’re a lot easier to find because they’re my siblings, I’m still searching Manehattan in the middle of the night; there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dreams scattered all around this mountain. It takes me a few minutes to find them, but I find two dreams side by side that are definitely theirs. But which to set the trap on? If my guess is correct and Snowy did have the demon in her dream while we were at the library, it would be better for me to set the trap on Dew Drop’s dream. The demon might come around again and go into her dream, but I don’t want to have to sit around and hope for it to not decide to go after Snowy again.

If I remember correctly, filial demons like variety, so it’s more likely that it’ll go after Dew Drop than Snowy. Guess I’ve made my decision. After studying them both to figure out whose dream is whose, I go into the one that feels like Dew Drop’s. Not long after my hooves hit the ground, I feel a hoof tap me on the shoulder. When I turn around, I see a pony that looks like Dew Drop, only a lot younger. Like, younger than me even. She doesn’t even have her Cutie Mark yet.

“Who are you?” she asks.

I look around, trying to figure out where she’s dreaming of. “I’m, uh…” I’ve never been to this place, but I recognize it from pictures as the pool at dad’s parents’ old house that they moved out of when I was really little. It looks almost like our entire family is here; grandma, grandpa, our aunts and uncles, and even all our cousins.

“You’re…?”

Mom’s sitting in a lounge chair and looks a little bit pregnant, so this is probably before I was born. Makes sense, since I don’t see me anywhere. “I’m Aurora.”

She studies me, almost as if she doesn’t believe me. “I don’t know anypony named Aurora. Why are you here?”

I try to think of something to tell her, but then I remember that this is a dream; even if I were to not erase her memory of me, she’d probably just wake up and think it was a really weird dream.

“I’m your sister. You don’t recognize me?”

She looks at me again, and it looks almost as if her mind is telling her that I’m familiar but knows that I don’t belong in this memory.

“You’re not Snowy…”

“You don’t even recognize your own sister, Dew Drop? Go ask mom or dad about me, they’ll remind you.”

She walks very slowly towards mom, keeping an eye on me the entire time. Mom asks her what’s wrong, so she turns around and starts telling her something. I always know that dreams aren’t real, but sending my sister to go talk to my mom about me while my mom is pregnant with me has got to be pretty high up on the list of weird stuff that I can do.

While she’s distracted, I run off to the fence and start casting runes on it. They’ll go off whenever the demon enters her mind, which I hope is sometime soon. It’s entirely possible that it won’t even come into her dream and continue to run around in Manehattan all night, but maybe with me inside this dream, it will be too good for it to pass up. It saw me earlier so it knows I’m here; hopefully it’ll love the chance to corner me and defeat me.

Now just to wait. It would be pretty weird to go attend a party where one of the guests is my mom who’s pregnant with me, so I guess I’ll just stay around the fence. I sit down and put my back up to it, then watch everypony going around and doing their own stuff. Dew Drop jumps in the pool and almost splashes Snowy, causing her to walk away from the pool and go sit down next to our cousins. Come to think of it, she’s with all of them. That’s both good and bad, I guess; Dew Drop always complains whenever we get together with our cousins on dad’s side that they only really spend time with Snowy, which means that the demon should be able to sense that and be more likely to come here. But on the other hoof, I can’t help but feel bad for Dew Drop. They never do anything with me either because I’m so much younger than them, which means Dew Drop and I were stuck together. And now that I’m older, I can understand how frustrating it must have been to not be able to get away from somepony who’s seven years younger than you. If I had to always be around a three-year-old, I’d probably go insane.

None of the adults seem to be doing much with her, either. Dad’s sitting with his brothers and grandpa on one end of the yard, and mom’s with grandma and our aunts on the patio, leaving her all alone.

All of a sudden, the clouds move in front of the sun, and the temperature drops a lot more than it should. That might be a good sign. The other dream I was in with a filial demon was one covered in ice and snow, so maybe that’s what this one likes to do?

I get on my hooves and start walking back towards the pool, and by the time I’m off the grass onto the patio, there’s already frost crunching under my hooves. This is definitely it.

“Come on out!” I yell. “You can’t hide any more!”

“That’s what you think,” Snowy says as she turns around, an evil smile on her face. She stomps a hoof on the ground, making the ground erupt in shards of ice and flash-freezing the pool just seconds after Dew Drop is able to scramble out.

Almost immediately, there’s an extremely loud screeching that hurts my ears a little. Snowy looks around with worry on her face and tries to run away, but thousands of tentacles cover her completely. After a few seconds they reposition themselves, and I can see the demon in its true form: a body like an eagle, but three snake-like heads with long necks separating them from the body. They’re flailing around uncontrollably, but before long, the tendrils come back and hold them in place.

“I knew you couldn’t resist my sister’s dream,” I tell it as I power my horn up with the spell to banish it. “You didn’t think I’d know how inviting they are to demons? So much magic like mine, just waiting for you.” Before it can respond, I shoot the spell at it, causing it to start turning into mist and floating out of her dream. Once it’s all gone, the tendrils go back into the ground, taking the ice with them and melting the pool so it’s liquid again.

“What just happened?” I look behind me, and Dew Drop is standing all alone on the patio; our cousins and all the adults are no longer here with us.

“You were having a nightmare,” I tell her. “It was caused by some sort of dislike or hate you have towards your siblings.”

“Yeah,” she mutters. “I remember this summer. Snowy was being annoying as always and hogging all our cousins all for herself, and all the adults were swarming around mom and dad because they found out that they were going to have Aurora. It was when I first realized that I’m just forgettable, because nopony even seemed to notice me the entire trip.”

“I’m sure you’re not forgettable,” I comfort her. “I’m sure your sisters don’t forget you. I bet they both think about you a lot.”

“Sure,” she laughs. “Snowy is excelling at one of the best colleges in the world and is meeting all sorts of important ponies because her special talent involves working with gems, some of the most expensive things money can buy. Aurora is a Dreamstrider, working directly with Princess Luna because she’s one of two ponies in the entire world that can do what she does. I’m a high schooler from a tiny town who can hardly practice her special talent because the majority of the ponies she knows only know what ecology is because of her. I wade through swamps and observe bugs for fun, I have the least interesting Cutie Mark in the world.”

“But you love doing it,” I remind her. “Your sisters probably aren’t thinking about how others see them when they’re performing their special talents, they’re just enjoying doing it. And it’s not like what you do is unimportant; Equestria is a beautiful place, and without ecologists making sure that everything in nature is as it should be, we’d lose all of that.”

“Unnoticed until I stop doing everything I do,” she paraphrases. “Kinda the story of my life.”

“You should be open with your sisters,” I suggest. “They notice and appreciate what you do, and they love you. And they want to see you succeed just as much as you do.”

“They wouldn’t really care that much.” She shrugs. “With all the stuff they have to deal with on a daily basis, they wouldn't want to sit around and listen to their sister complain about how she feels left out. Too...I dunno. Too touchy-feely, too beneath them.”

“You’re here having a nightmare,” I smile. “At the very least, Aurora helps ponies with their nightmares all the time. She’d understand.”

“She’s still a kid, too. So I bet she wouldn’t mind talking about it.”

“The longer you go without talking with them, the worse it’ll be, the more nightmares you’ll start having. Pushing all that negativity aside only makes it stronger.”

“I’ll try to find some time,” she sighs.

I give her a hug, and she returns it. If I were Luna, I’d alter her dream to bring everypony back and give her a good dream, but I don’t know how to do that, so I can only hope her mind can do that itself. Guess my work here is done, then, so I stop the hug and exit her dream.

Once I land back on the mountain in the dream world, I close my eyes. There’s still a lot of tension in the magic here, but it’s gone down since before killing the demon. Unfortunately, filial demons have a little more staying power than some demons; siblings are always a part of our lives, and no matter what, we’re going to have some anger towards them.

I just hope Dew Drop feels better and talks to me about everything she’s going through. I had no idea she felt that way, honestly. She’s never given any signals that anything was wrong. If she was upset, why wouldn’t she mention it to any of us?

I turn around to take another look at my sisters’ dreams, but there’s only one now. Did one of them wake up? The one that’s left feels like Snowy’s, so that means Dew Drop is awake. I should probably get back to my dream then, see if I can find her and talk to her.

It takes me a while to get back to my dream in this ocean of gray mist, but I get there eventually. Once I enter it and push back into the real world, the feeling of Snowy’s heavy sheets surrounds me again. I crack my eyes and look around her room, and I can see a tiny bit of light coming from the door to the hall. Opening them further shows me that the door is open ever so slightly, and when I look at the couch, it’s empty. She must have gone somewhere, then. It might just be to get a drink of water or to go to the bathroom, but I feel like I should go find her.

Carefully as to not wake Snowy, I get out of bed and open the door before looking both directions down the hall. She’s on the right, sitting halfway between us and the stairs at the water fountain. She’s not crying or anything, but just sitting there, staring at the wall. I suppose I should go talk to her.

“Dew Drop?” I speak quietly as I get closer to her. She looks at me with her empty eyes, and I can tell they become even emptier upon seeing me.

“Hey,” she sighs. “What are you doing up?”

“I’m just up.” I sit down next to her. “What are you doing up?”

“Think you know the answer to that,” she says as she puts a hoof around me and pulls me in closer. “I just thought it was a really weird dream, but looking back at it it’s pretty obvious it was you.”

“It was that obvious?”

“I recognize my own sister. It was weird, though. Like, the entire time, I recognized you but at the same time I didn’t because I was dreaming about a time before you were born.”

“Do you remember what we talked about?”

She answers me with a tiny nod of her head. “Yeah. Thanks, I guess. So that, was it just you doing your job, or was it you speaking truthfully?”

“Truthfully. Take dad’s side of the family, for example. Sure, our cousins pretty much only want to do stuff with Snowy. And I get that you probably hated spending time with me because I’m so much younger than you, but it meant a lot to me. When I was really little, I never really understood that you spent time with me because they were leaving you out, I always thought you spent time with me because you wanted to, and I really appreciated that since otherwise I’d have to either be alone or do everything with the adults. Even when we’re not visiting them, you were always the one who spent more time with me, and I feel like we’re close. I really am excited that we’re going to be in the same city for the next few years, and I hope we’ll get to see each other a lot.”

“God damn,” she chuckles as she wipes her eyes. “You’re good. Can tell what Princess Luna sees in you.”

“I’ll be sure to introduce you to her. Mom and dad and Snowy haven’t really ever met her outside the time she came to Coltlumbus to get me, so you’ll have that on them.”

“I’m sure Snowy would go nuts if I got to meet one of the Princesses before her.” Her smile grows even wider. “Sounds like a plan. We should probably get back to bed, though. Had a long day, and I think tomorrow’s also going to be pretty long.”

“What time is it, even?” I ask. “I think it was around 1:30 when we came back, but then I meditated before going after the demon.”

“‘Dark o’clock’, as dad would say.” Silently, she laughs and shakes her head. “I have no idea, didn’t check her clock before I head out. If I were to guess, I’d say maybe around 3? Definitely way past your bedtime, young mare.”

“Okay dad,” I tease before standing up. She shoots me the exact same look I’d expect him to give me if I talked back to him, then giggles and stands up as well. While we’re walking back to Snowy’s room, she puts her hoof around me again.