Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 32

“Is he here yet?” Snowy asks excitedly as she runs up to the bench I’m sitting on.

“No,” I groan back. “Coltlumbus station isn’t very big, you’ll be able to see him really easy when he gets off the train. Not like there are many ponies coming into town.”

She sits down on the bench next to me, not taking her eyes off the platform the entire time. “I just don’t want to miss him, you know?”

“Because he’d get back on the train if he didn’t see you, right?” I shake my head ever so slightly so she doesn’t see me doing so.

For the first time since I think we got here, her eyes peel away from the platform only to become glued to me instead. “You don’t think he’d do that, would he?”

“No,” I sigh, “he wouldn’t. Which is why not seeing him the exact second he steps off the train is not the end of the world.”

“Just making sure!” She takes her eyes off me, then smiles broadly when a train whistles in the distance.

While she jumps off the bench and starts squeeing, I begin to wonder what’s gotten into her. Sure she’s gotten maybe a little too into a boyfriend before, but this is a whole new level. It’s basically been all she’s talked about for the past few days, and it seems like she can’t even hold a conversation about something else. No matter what anypony tried to talk about, she always managed to somehow crowbar the fact that her boyfriend was coming to visit into the conversation.

By the time the train actually stops, she looks like she’s going to burst with excitement. The doors open, and a stallion with a pale green coat and a soft blue mane walks out.

“Jure!” Snowy almost screams the second his hooves touch the platform. Before he can do anything, she runs up and hugs him tightly.

“Hey there,” he laughs as he returns the hug. “Good to see you, too.”

They just seem to be hugging, so I guess I have to go introduce myself. As I get close to them, he looks down at me. “You’re Aurora, right?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “You’re De Jure?”

“Can just call me Jure.” He tries to exit the hug, but Snowy’s still holding on tight. “Snowy, you can probably end the hug now. I know you’re excited to see me and everything, but we still have to walk to your house. Can hug me as long as you want there.”

She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because if anything, her hug seems to get tighter. “Snowy!” I yell at her.

“Fine.” She unwraps herself from him, but not before planting a quick kiss on his cheek. “I’m so glad you got to come visit us, I’ve missed you so much!”

“It’ll be nice to meet everypony,” he replies before kissing her as well. “So Aurora, how come it’s just you here with her?”

“Our dad and other sister are both at work, and our mom’s in Fillydelphia at a wedding for some obscure family member,” I tell him. “I was just sitting at home and reading, and she basically ran into my room and told me that today was the day you were finally coming. I don’t think she would have stopped until I agreed to come with her, so here I am.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” He walks over and hugs me, and almost right as I return the hug, Snowy jumps in and starts squeezing us hard. Before long, my face is buried in his chest, and I’m getting a mouthful of hair.

“Isn’t he great?” Snowy asks. “Now do you see why I love him so so much?”

“She’s just met me,” he says, turning my head so I’m not buried in his coat. “I think we should go to your house first, then we can work on getting to know each other a little better. That sound good?”

In response, she puts her head on his shoulder. “They’re going to love you, I promise! Dad’s always said he can’t wait for the day that he meets my future husband, and today’s the day!”

“Future husband is maybe getting ahead of ourselves a little bit,” he laughs nervously.

“What?” She almost immediately breaks off their hug, then looks at him with tears forming in her eyes. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Breaking up with you?” he repeats. “Of course not! Snowy, you know that I love you very much, but we haven't even been dating a whole year yet. I have absolutely no plans to leave you, I just want to give this time.”

Seeing she still doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer, he walks up to her and brings her back into a hug. “Snowy, I wouldn’t travel halfway across Equestria to spend time with you and your family if I wanted to break up with you. I just want to take this relationship one step at a time, and right now, that step is meeting everypony else who’s close to you. I don’t know if marriage is in our future, but if it is, we’ll cross that bridge together when it comes. Alright?”

“Alright,” she sighs. Seeing that she doesn’t seem totally convinced, he leans in close and kisses her. She doesn’t seem to respond, but when he does it again, she returns the kiss. I have to admit, it is kind of cute to watch them, hooves around each other, kissing in the middle of the train station. It’s like something out of those old romance movies.

“Believe me now?” he asks after pulling his lips away from hers.

Not saying anything, she giggles and starts kissing his cheek. He just pets her mane a little bit, then looks down at me. “Sorry for holding you up. It’s just been a while since we’ve seen each other.”

I simply shrug. Not like I really had much going on today, anyways. And besides, now I can say that I’m the first one of Snowy’s family that he met. If they really do get married someday, I can always tell everypony that it all came down to me to make a good first impression. And judging by the fact that he’s still here and cuddling with Snowy, I’d say I did that job pretty well.

---

“Do you girls need anything before I go to bed?” dad asks as he walks over to the couch where I’m sitting.

“We’re good,” Dew Drop says, not looking up from the record collection she’s going through. “Mom didn’t happen to take some of her records to Fillydelphia, did she?”

“I don’t know, but keep it down if you do play something. I’m going to go read, and I think Snowy and Jure are already asleep.”

Once he turns around and goes upstairs, Dew Drop turns to face me and smiles. “Yeah, ‘asleep.’”

“What?” Now I’m confused. They went upstairs a while ago, why does she think they’re not asleep or at least trying to be?

“You saw them when they went upstairs together.” After placing a record on the player and turning the volume down low, she walks to the loveseat and sits down. “And you have to have noticed the way she’s been staring at him so dreamily all day.”

“And…?”

“Come on, Aurora,” she laughs. “You’re a big filly now. Two ponies in love, one of them has been giving the other googly eyes all day, and they walked upstairs together to ‘go to bed.’”

“But they’re not in the same room,” I point out. “He’s in hers, and she’s in your room with you.”

“Yeah, because that’ll stop them.”

“So you think that right now, they’re upstairs...you know?”

“I don’t think they’re having sex, I know they are. Or at least, they were.”

“How do you know they are?” I ask as she takes a sip of her tea. “Did you...see them?”

With a shake of her head, she puts her drink back on the coffee table. “Nope, but I could hear them. Snowy’s a moaner, and I heard that. Also heard him shushing her, probably because he doesn’t want to be caught by his girlfriend’s father the night he met him.”

I’m not sure how to really respond to that, so I just start fiddling my hooves together. “How do you, like...know that she moans?”

“Caught her once in high school. You were at some thing at school with mom and dad and I was out with friends, so she thought I would be gone for a really long time. She was practically begging me not to tell mom and dad.” She giggles, which I don’t really think is the right reaction here.

“You didn’t tell them, right?”

“I’m not that evil. Besides, that was when she was dating Fraser Fir, and I didn’t hate him as much as some of her other high school boyfriends.”

“You hated all her boyfriends? I didn’t think they were all that bad.”

“More or less, and in my defense, they did get worse her senior year when you were in Canterlot. I love Snowy to death, don’t get me wrong, but she does have a little bit of thot in her. That tends to attract some less than desirable stallions.”

“Some thot?” I repeat. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Well for starters, it’s something you keep between us, alright? Snowy and Jure especially don’t to know that I said that. And it means a mare who’s a little loose.”

“Loose as in, like...down…?”

“Not quite,” she laughs. “Loose as in they don’t really hesitate to find somepony and start having sex with them. She kind of was a serial dater in high school, and I think sex got introduced earlier than usual for most of them. As such, the stallions she was bringing home weren’t really the cream of the crop, and a lot of them were just looking for somepony to sleep with. Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of stallions in small towns like this are, so she had no shortage of boyfriends. Be glad you’re in Canterlot, because high school is a nightmare if you look nice but want something more than just puppy love and sex. Speaking from experience, of course.”

“Do you not like Jure? I thought he seemed nice.”

“Quite the opposite, I actually like him,” she smiles. “First time I’ve said that about one of her boyfriends. He isn’t a moron, actually seems to have aspirations besides getting near my sister’s tail, seems to legitimately like Snowy for who she is and care about her, and is pleasant to be around. I can see what she likes in him. Plus, she can be kinda high-maintenance at times, and he seems to be pretty chill. She needs somepony like that.”

“She does really seem to like him…”

“She seems a little too invested in him,” she points out. “Yeah she kinda had some of that puppy love when she was in high school, but this is something else. It’s almost like she can’t even separate herself from him. But the weird part is, he isn’t reciprocating it. The times before where she got virtually consumed by whoever she was dating, it was because they were either reinforcing it or it was because they too were clingy. Makes me wonder why she’s gotten just so obsessed with him, especially because I got the vibe from how he’s been acting is that this is worse than normal for her.”

“What if…” I just kind of trail off as thoughts start running through my head.

“What if…?” Dew Drop asks after a few moments.

“I dunno, I’m just thinking.” I kind of blankly stare for a few seconds, then get off the couch. “I might have an idea about what’s going on and how to stop it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She doesn’t really seem to be trying to get any more information out of me, so I just walk upstairs and go into my bed. I can’t hear anything from Snowy’s room where Jure is sleeping or from Dew Drops room where Snowy is at least supposed to be sleeping, so maybe they really are asleep and not with each other? I hope so, because everything about this is all pointing to a love demon intensifying her feelings for him. It probably wouldn’t come out while she’s awake, so I need her to be asleep if this is going to work.

The door to Dew Drop’s room is cracked slightly, so I walk over and open it ever so slightly so I can see inside. Luckily, Snowy is all curled up in the blankets on the air mattress, and I can hear her breathing very heavily. I don’t know how long she’s been asleep, but with any luck, it was enough time to lure whatever love demon has been after her out.

After closing the door, I go to my room and into bed, where I hop into bed and enter the dream world. It must be a lot later than I thought, because there are more dreams than I think I’ve ever seen here. I blame my sisters, they always manage to make me stay up way later than when we’re not all together.

Thankfully, though, we still live in Coltlumbus, which means I can see all of the dreams here. From a distance it looks like there’s another pony just sitting by one of the dreams, which immediately tells me that I’m right about a love demon. It’s not Luna or Moonlight, I can tell that, which means it has to be some form of demon. As I walk closer, I can see that it’s kind of what you would expect from a mix between a pony and a snake: very long body, no legs, but still looks like a pony sitting down.

It’s staring at a dream and doesn’t seem to notice me, but I still get down low and try my best to sneak up on it. If it sees me and just gets spooked, it’ll run away and I’ll have to try this again. I can’t just scare it off, I have to make sure it doesn’t return. Especially because they almost always travel in pairs, so the other one must have been looking around for Jure’s dream. If I scare just one off, the other will probably come looking for his.

Before long, I’m right behind it and can almost feel the love it’s intensifying. It’s definitely Snowy’s dream it’s messing with, alright. But the weird part is, it doesn’t feel like it’s linked to another dream, which must mean that Jure is still awake. That’s good, because now I just have to undo what this demon’s done to Snowy, not try and undo what’s been done to both of them.

Unfortunately, that still means I have to undo what this demon’s done to her and her feelings towards him. Normally I enjoy helping ponies get rid of demons and undo the damage they’ve caused, but the best way to counteract a love demon is to cause an argument between the two ponies. And it can’t be just any superficial argument, it has to be something that runs to the core of their relationship and makes them really angry at the other pony.

At the very least, it’s easy to feel all the emotions Snowy feels towards Jure because the demon is still here and is actively tampering with her dream. Slowly, I move to a more comfortable position and just stand there, waiting for the demon to find and pass over her feelings of anger and rage towards him.

I’m going to really hate doing this to my own sister.