Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Epilogue

I take a sip of my tea as I lean back against my desk, looking out the window over Canterlot. I can do that, since Luna’s tower is nothing more than a pile of rubble now. So is a lot of the city.

“Hey, Aurora?” I hear Moonlight’s voice behind me ask worriedly. I know where this is going.

“Yes?” I ask, turning to face him.

“So I’ve talked to the rest of the Dreamstriders, and…” He just pauses for a few moments. “What happened in the dream world?”

“You’re going to be a little more specific,” I reply weakly, remembering every crazy thing that happened in there.

“None of us can Dreamstride anymore,” he says, the worry clearly rising in his voice. “None of us feel the pulling. What’s wrong?”

“She...closed down the Avenues.”

“The what?” he asks with a slight tilt of his head.

“It’s…” Shit, how did she describe it? “It’s like...the link between our world and the dream world. Or links, I guess. We all have one, non-Dreamstriders included, but only we can travel down them.”

“So nopony can dream anymore?” he asks to confirm my story. Even I have to admit it sounds weird. Still not sure what kind of weird stuff she did, or even what makes an elder demon an elder demon beyond just the name.

I stare into my tea mug. How do I tell him? How do I tell myself? “Not necessarily. Luna left hers and mine open.”

“So you’re...the pony in the entire world who can dream?”

I nod a little, not bothering to look up from my tea. The steam rising off it into my face is soothing me, somehow. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t want to look him in the eyes.

“Can you fix it?”

“Not sure,” I shrug, trying to keep some tears from pooling up in my eyes. I sigh and turn around, then wipe my wet eyes onto my hoof. “I need some time alone.”

“You sure?” he asks, some sorrow clear in his voice.

I put the tea mug on the ground and stand up. “Go tell everypony they can go home. Tell them they have to, on my orders.”

“Are you sure?”

I think it over for a few seconds. “No. Not about anything. But please, just go.” I don’t hear any hooves moving away from me. “Tell them I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For…” I stop myself. “I don’t know. I just am. I’m sure they’ll need an apology sooner or later.”

His hooves start moving away from my desk, and I take my opportunity to quickly grab my tea and slip away into my room. I can’t have them coming to my desk and asking what’s wrong. Especially not Astraea, she’s too young to hear that everything’s hopeless. She might not even pick up on the fact that something’s wrong, if I’m lucky. Moonlight could probably spin something for her. Or he’d just tell her outright. But a giant demonic spider being led by a thousand-year-old stallion trapped in another plane of existence probably trumps breaking her innocence. She seemed sheltered anyways, so her parents will probably feed her some lies and she’s naive enough to eat them.

I’m so cynical now, I hate it. I get up on my bed and start thinking about all the Dreamstriders. I really should have apologized to them in person. But maybe it’s better this way. Maybe when I fail, they’ll believe I was fighting for them and still believe in me. If I told them I was clueless, they’d just be scared. They look up to me now, and a leader needs to inspire hope, even if she herself has none. Because if you have to die, better to do it with a smile on your face than a knot in your gut.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths as I pull the covers over myself. At least I still feel the pulling; if I didn’t, then I couldn’t convincingly lie and say I tried.

I push through to my dream and hop through to the dream world, in the same cave I’ve become so familiar with. It feels like a second home, even though it’s really dark and dingy, and the only thing above me is a massive rock face.

“Aurora?” a masculine voice asks from behind me. I know it’s not Shooting Star’s, but that doesn’t stop me from whipping around and powering up my horn with a torture curse, even though he deserves far worse. It's a demon with the top half of a minotaur, but then it just turns into a floating cloud at the waist. I don't even remember the last time I saw a wisdom demon, and this one seems to be almost waiting for me.

“Please, I am not your enemy,” it says in perfect Equestrian as it puts it hands up.

“You speak Equestrian?” I ask it. I don’t think I’ve ever met a non-silvertongue demon who could speak Equestrian.

It nods and then inches closer to me, but I don’t power my horn down. “My name is Starry. I am a close friend of Luna’s.”

“Really?” I study it a little bit. “How can I trust you?”

“You cannot,” it says, defeated. “I am not able to provide any proof of my friendship beyond my word. But were I to give you a reason to trust me, it would not be trust then, would it? Trust requires you to be confident that I am not lying.”

I change the spell in my horn to a paralyzing curse, and it comes closer to me more comfortably. “I can sense your anger has receded, but not gone away; this is acceptable. I only wish to help you.”

“You’re a wisdom demon, right?” It nods. “So how do I reopen the Avenues?”

“I do not know how,” it admits. “However, given that it was an elder demon that controlled them, another elder demon would be the best one to ask. I do know of one, although it is not exactly in a safe place.”

“How ‘not exactly’?”

“In the ruins of Lakos, near the forest of Arianrhod. Luna told me you were familiar with the forest?”

I nod. “Yeah. My hometown enters near it.”

“The forest is treacherous, though you should be able to pass through it. I have friends who have lived there for thousands of years; seek them out, tell them you are a friend of mine, and they will show you the way. Normally I would warn about the silvertongues, but every Avenue but yours is closed, so their web of lies becomes much easier to unravel.”

“That it?”

“The ruins may or may not be within blood demon territory. They have been known to frequent the area, but they have also been known to leave it deserted. I am not sure which is true now, so you will need to stay on your guard.”

“Okay.” I look at it, and I can sense that its smile is genuine. “Thank you.”

“One more thing, this one much harder for me to tell you.” It purses his lips a little, and I just get worried.

“What is it?” I ask weakly, fearing the response.

“The Avenues, by nature, remain open. As you have observed, our worlds are codependent; if one of our worlds were to simply vanish, the other would crumble.”

“Yeah?”

It fidgets its hands together. “Although both our worlds remain in existence, they are separated from each other. If you do not open the Avenues within fourteen days, both our worlds will be damaged beyond any repair.”

I can feel my heart sink as it says that. “Why?”

Instead of an answer, it moves to the entrance of the cave and beckons me over. It seems nice enough, so I power down my horn completely. We walk outside and it points over the area, which has a few playful demons just lying on the ground looking extremely bored.

“Those playful demons will likely be the first to die,” it says somberly. “They are not very powerful, and they require almost constant energy. Without young foals to dream with, they will lose all their energy, and eventually, their will to live. They will continue to sit there until Baku comes by and eats them, or the Nightmare will warp their minds and souls so he can use them as cannon fodder when he invades your world.” It looks down at the ground. “Even I will succumb to it, eventually. I am more powerful than a playful demon, but I am a demon nonetheless. I feel disconnected, and can feel a few facts already beginning to slip from me. Eventually I too will be warped beyond recognition and forced to fight for a stallion who is not even of my world.”

“They still have me!” I point out.

“A few demons will survive thanks to you, but it will not be an existence worth living,” it shakes his head. “They will be on the verge of death, and they will wish for it to come. Demons thrive on variance, and you are but one dreamer; you will not be able to provide enough variety for us to be strong and content.”

“But what about the dreamers? Sure we might be damaged by no more demons, but we’d still be pretty much fine, right?”

“The magic in this world is strong, and it continually bleeds through to yours. You would lose much of the ambient magic present in your world, and without demons helping you and shaping you, your kind will slowly lose the things that make their lives worth living. They will become mindless drones, pushed only by survival. No happiness, no friendship, no love. Perhaps they will not even try to survive. Perhaps like us, you will simply lie down, never to get up again.”

“I could just open and then close the Avenues, right? Fast enough for Shooting Star not to slip through?”

“I wish it were that simple. No, for every day they remain closed, they will need to be opened for one. I would not suggest opening them as soon as you can, however. Though we will both be damaged, we will be able to recover. Even those twisted and warped by the Nightmare will feel their true self, which will triumph over anything another thrusts upon us. And once we feel ourselves again, we will return to interacting with your kind.”

“Do you have any other advice?” I ask, hoping he tells me the secret to killing Shooting Star, or maybe Baku. I’d even take a blood demon.

It shakes his head. “Sadly, I do not. I have told you everything relevant to your quest; I will go and seek out my fellow wisdom demons and see if they know anything that could be of use. Though I fear I know the most of any of them.” It pats me on the shoulder. “I wish you luck.”

As it leaves, I take a few steps forward and feel the dream grass on my hooves. It’s cold, and not the good kind of cold like it usually is. It’s like running in the snow with bare hooves, like a high fever whose chills can’t be cured by all the blankets in the world. A few of the playful demons look up at me, but then just put their heads back down. Normally I’d ask if they’ve seen anything fun, but I know they haven’t. No need to remind them, they already know.

When I get to a small clearing in the trees where a few rays of moonlight are shining down, I look up. I can’t see the moon, but I can see a star. Only one star, hardly visible in the pitch black sky.

Just looking at the star causes a weight in my chest unlike anything else I’ve ever felt. That star is trying to hold on in a dark sky, the only one of its kind, with no aid from the moon or other stars to light up the sky.

All alone, a single dying light surrounded by an ocean of darkness.

Just like me.

Author's Note:

Interested in the sequel? Click here for more information...

Comments

[Dlaf rferg]

Oh sweet jeebus, I hope there's a sequel. This seems very... depressing, and I don't want it to end this way.

[OkemosBrony]

9161054
Don't worry, the story doesn't end here! Can read all about it in the corresponding blog post.

[Solid Punch]

Dear author, you really overdid with the "excited" word. It's kinda everywhere, in each chapter, universal question and universal answer.

Also, when "banishing" demons became "killing" demons? You may want to do something about that.

But I liked the story, thank you for writing it!

[Solid Punch]

Stopped reading at chapter 38, it's getting too dark for me. Cutting tongues and such stuff. Also, it's a plot hole: if no one can speak except Listener, and Listeners are rare and there was a time when they had no Listeners, there's no one who can pass language and teach to understand spoken language. This is first plot hole, and second is if Listeners are Dreamstriders, why Luna haven't felt the birth of current Listener? The second hole might not be a hole if addresed in furter chapters, but I can't read further, so... That's it.

P.S. There's another, minor plot hole earlier, when Aurora started asking question with the intention to provoke fight between sister and her coltfriend. Started out perfectly good and reasonable, and then BAM! Sudden explosion from said sister. Too sudden, unprovoked. There was no buildup of tension, nothing. So I recommend you do something about it. Maybe add some more dialogue with more and more tension before exploding, or maybe make Aurora search her dream beforehead to find already existing tension points, like the ones demons feed off. And use that as detonator in the dialogue.