Life Is But A Dream

by Cosmic Charlie

Chapter 9

Pinkie Pie gently nudged her sleeping friend. “Come on, Twilight, get up! Rise and shine! Up and at ‘em!”

Twilight groaned in response. It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately. She peeled her eyes open to reveal Pinkie grinning her usual giddy grin.

“Good morning, Twilight! I mean, good afternoon, Twilight! You’ve been asleep for a while. I think you were just having a nightmare.” She giggle-snorted. “Night-mare! Get it? Oh! Except it’s the day time, so I guess it must have been more of a day-mare. I think I had one of those one time. Or maybe twice-“

“Pinkieeeee…” Twilight cut her off, an annoyed edge already on her voice. Amazingly, Twilight had time for a pleasant deep breath in silence. This felt like a victory in any conversation with Pinkie Pie, and she decided it was time to open her eyes and sit up. She’d had enough of picturing that dream. She was still in Fluttershy’s cabin, though Fluttershy herself seemed to be gone. “A nightmare? I do remember feeling-”

trapped

“-a little freaked out by something. Oh well, it was just a dream, whatever it was.” She definitely remembered the dream; she could recall every detail. She recalled that her idea about what was and wasn’t real had recently been flipped on its head and shuddered.

I’ll be watching you

“Okay, Twilight. Now that you’re awake we can get down to business. We have lots to do and not a lot of time to do it.” Pinkie looked around conspiratorially. “Well, technically we do. But still!” Before Twilight could respond, Pinkie continued. “Fluttershy is still out doing us some favors. If I remember right, she’ll get done just as the sun is setting. That’s when you and I need to be at Sugarcube Corner.”

Once again, just as Twilight was about to ask a question, Pinkie gave the answer. “There’s a portal there we need to use to go three weeks into the future. There’s something we have to get there that we desperately need. The only trouble is, it’s really hard to reach the portal we need to come back to today. Well, actually, we’ll be coming back to last week. In order to get to THAT portal, we have to use another one, which is over by Ponyville Tower in three weeks. That portal leads to… well, I’m not entirely sure. But the good news is that the portal is a lot easier to reach in that time. We just have to get to it and we’ll come back to last week. We actually arrived here last week, and everything went well, but in order for us to have done that we have to do it now. It’s a little confusing, but you understand, right?”

To her credit, Twilight did understand. It was certainly confusing, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Her inquiries into time travel spells had yielded a lot of speculative literature about the nature of time and space, as well as those precious few practical applications that the ancient unicorns dared to attempt and record. None of those books had ever expressed the notion that persistent time-space portals, usable by anypony, could possibly exist, let alone that they always have. It seemed very strange that such a thing never piqued the interest of any academics throughout Equestrian history, at least as far as she could tell, and Twilight was no stranger to Equestrian history.

The two ponies stepped out of Fluttershy’s cottage and carefully closed the door behind them before starting off down the path toward Ponyville. Pinkie had more to say, which did not surprise either of them. “Before we do all that, there are a few stops I gotta make. Spike and Rarity are on their way here to find you, so you stay here and meet them. Tell them you and I were planning a surprise for Spike, and he can’t find out what it is until the day comes. That should keep ‘em busy. After I show up in a few minutes, we’ll leave together, okay?”

Twilight had long since suspended her disbelief about the strangeness of Pinkie Pie, and merely nodded her consent to this plan. She was ready to go along with whatever came next, but once again she felt the question bubble up inside her and once again it burst out.

“Pinkie Pie, would you please tell me what’s going on here? Not a single thing has made any sense for far too long and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” She suddenly felt that now was the time; she didn’t want to lose this momentum. “Now tell me exactly what we’re doing or I’m not going any further.” Twilight sat herself sternly and made a show of getting comfortable. She grinned competitively at Pinkie, daring her to defy this.

Pinkie Pie happily conceded. “It would be a lot more fun just to show you, but if you insist. We’re going into the future to get a super deluxe potato launcher Fluttershy is ordering for me, but won’t arrive until then, and we’re gonna need it super-duper soon, so we gotta go get it and bring it back, because Twilight, you’re gonna be glad we had it, and on top of that- OH! It’s time, Twilight! They’re coming!” Pinkie suddenly galloped away, leaving Twilight with more questions than answers yet again. A quiet zapping noise came as Pinkie ran behind a tree some ways off the path.

Twilight turned to see Rarity and Spike approaching on the path. Upon seeing her, Spike shouted Twilight’s name and began running down the path to see her. Twilight smirked and used her magic to transport him to her and save him the sprint. She exchanged knowing glances with Rarity, who followed hers up by silently mouthing “What happened?” Twilight soundlessly responded “Tell you later.” Rarity looked a bit insulted but smiled anyway and, seeing Spike safely back with Twilight, started to make her way back.

Spike spoke first. “Twilight, am I glad to see you! I went to see you off at the train station but you never showed! What’s the deal?” He frowned, clearly hurt.

“I’m sorry Spike, I never meant to hurt you. You see, Pinkie and I were planning a surprise for you, but you can’t know what it is or it wouldn’t be a surprise. You understand, don’t you?”

“Yeah, in that case, I guess I do. What kind of surprise is it?”

“Spike!”

“Hey, can’t blame a guy for trying.” He climbed onto Twilight’s back and yawned. “I’ve been walking all day, Twilight. Can we just go home? I could really use a nap.”

“We sure can, Spike.” Twilight knew she was supposed to wait for Pinkie Pie to return, but Spike was a bigger priority at that moment. She couldn’t just leave him alone again without warning. Spike curled up on her and began trying to nap. Twilight began taking smoother steps to keep from shaking him too much.

As she walked, she got lost in thought and decided to wander off the trail for a little while to clear her head. I could use a nap, too, now that I think of it. As she crossed a small clearing, she suddenly felt her hooves contact nothing but air beneath her. With a quiet zap, she and Spike fell clear through the forest floor and disappeared.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A potato suddenly materialized high above ancient Equestria, and began to free fall toward the ground. As it fell, it picked up tremendous speed, incidentally becoming the first potato to reach its terminal velocity in the history of the world, and it would remain the only one for millennia to come. Any spud, no matter how hearty, would certainly be mashed after such a fall. Just as it plummeted through some low cloud cover, however, it disappeared entirely without a trace, never meeting its all but guaranteed demise at the unyielding hands of gravity.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A moment after tripping, Twilight stood herself back up, chiding herself for walking with her head in the clouds. She looked around for Spike and found him sitting up on the ground, rubbing his eyes.

“What gives, Twilight? I was almost a… sleep.” His words slowed as he looked around and saw where they had landed. Twilight saw it too, if the terror and confusion in her eyes was any indication.

“Uh, Twilight? Where are we?”

The world around them was nothing like the one they had inhabited mere moments ago. Rather than gentle woodland, they found themselves standing in dense, dark forest not unlike the Everfree. There were unfamiliar noises all around them, from strange insect clicks to loud, peculiar bird calls, to the occasional and thankfully distant deep growls and screeches. A snake hissed somewhere behind Twilight and made her jump, taking a defensive position in front of Spike, her eyes wild in search for the danger. She saw nothing. She stooped down and trembled, horn glowing preemptively. It felt as though the trees were closing in on them, reaching out menacingly. She remembered what Pinkie Pie would do in this situation and tried to force a laugh, but she was interrupted by an alarmingly close vulture, cawing accusations at them.

“I don’t know where we are, Spike. Stay close.”

Comments

[fallen starr]

This is getting better. Silly Twilight, you screwed everything up. Why not listen to auntie pinkie....

OMG IS PINKIE REALLY FLUTTERSHY'S AUNT?

*talks to self* No, that's silly...

But seriously, great update!