Chapter 5
The woods were thick with the scent of summer on the path to Fluttershy’s cottage. Wild garlic added a spice to the loamy odor of wet earth. Somewhere off to the south I could hear the river’s faint babble. I kept to the shade where I could, darting around the patches of sunlight poking through the elms’ sweeping canopy. A bit of woodsorrel caught my eye, creeping onto the path, and I nipped it from the stem. It was sharp, citrusy and delicious.
I stopped at the edge of the meadow. Some new scent caught in my nose, and I froze. Iron and salt. Blood. I frowned and looked around. Ahead, in the grass, a scattering of gray down and feathers stirred in the wind.
Huh. Not all the animals were following Fluttershy’s rules. I skirted the messy patch and approached her cottage. Now that I knew to look, I could see her bright yellow form resting atop the grass roof. Her long mane and tail fluttered like a banner in the gentle wind. I took off with a hop and glided toward her, riding the meadow’s rising thermals up to the level of the roof. A pair of red-breasted swallows rode at the tips of my wings and darted into the shadows hanging beneath a gable.
Fluttershy’s ears pivoted as I landed, and she turned her head just enough to give me a small smile. There was no flock of birds attending to her this time, only a single enormous black raven that stood a yard away. Its beak looked nearly the size of my hoof. I paused, uncertain.
She must’ve noticed. “It’s okay, Twilight. Mister Raven is my friend.”
“Sorry.” I trotted over, careful not to crush the grass stalks with my hooves, and settled down beside her. On the opposite side of the raven. “He, uh, startled me a bit.”
Fluttershy turned back to the woods. “Ravens are misunderstood. They’re very intelligent and friendly.”
“True,” I said. “They also eat the dead.”
“It’s their nature, Twilight.” Fluttershy’s voice held a hint of reproach, as though I were a toddler who’d said something rude. She held a hoof out for the raven, and he tilted his head, inspecting it this way and that. He tapped it with his beak, then hopped up with a flap of his huge wings. Her leg dipped under his weight. “He didn’t choose to be this way, any more than you or I did.”
Right. My feathers stood on end, and I had to force them back down flat. “I passed a dead bird on the way. Our near the edge of the meadow.”
A tiny frown marred her lips. “I know. I saw it this morning. I’ll give whoever did it a stern talking-to when I find them.”
“You think it might be that new animal?” I turned to gaze into the forest. As always, its thick shadows stole all sight beyond a few yards. They looked cool and comforting. “The one you were looking for earlier?”
“I’m not sure. But if she felt comfortable enough coming near my cottage to take a bird, I wish she had taken the time to say hello, too. Then I could have explained my rules to her.”
“And hoped she listened?”
“Most do. The ones that don’t aren’t welcome here.” She leaned down to brush the raven’s head with her muzzle, and the sudden proximity of her eyes to that huge chisel beak sent a shock of panic through me. But the bird merely nuzzled her back, and she whispered something to it beneath the range of my hearing. With a flap and a flutter and scattering of loose black feathers it jumped from her hoof and soared down into the forest, quickly merging with the shadows.
I watched it vanish, then sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so morbid. How are you?”
“I’m good. Very good.” She stood, stretched her wings out wide, then settled down again beside me, so close our barrels and feathers rubbed warm against each other. She leaned over and brushed her cheek against mine. “And you?”
“Good.” I smiled for the first time since reaching the cottage. The raven’s absence seemed to lighten the mood. “Allergies are acting up a bit, though. I might need to get some eyedrops.”
“The cedars are blooming. Do you think that might be it?”
“Maybe, I—” A memory of last night flashed through my mind, of a dark dream and deserts and blowing sand and a blinding sun. I blinked my scratchy eyes to chase it away. “It probably is. Anyway, uh, do you remember that thing I asked about last week?”
It was a moment before she nodded. “Dreams, right?” When I nodded, she continued: “Oh, I did dream something last night, Twilight! And it was so unusual that I knew you’d want to hear. I was…” She trailed off, her eyes losing their focus, as though gazing at something distant.
I leaned forward. “Yes?”
“Um. This is silly.” She ducked her head and covered her muzzle with her hooves. “I forget.”
I had to snort at that. “It happens to me too. I’ll have a dream so vivid it feels like I was really there, terrified, burning, whatever. But even when it’s so bad it wakes me up, I can’t remember it more than a few seconds later.”
“It still feels silly. All I remember is that I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was around ponies, lots of ponies, but no matter how many ponies were watching me, I wasn’t afraid.”
I set a hoof on her shoulder. “Do you still feel that way around ponies? You know you don’t need to around us, right?”
“I know. And it’s not like it used to be. I remember before you came here… Well, those days are gone. But I still don’t like it when I have to meet new ponies. Or talk in front of a crowd. Or talk to new ponies in front of a crowd. Especially that. Oh, and parties.”
“Well.” I crossed my forelegs and set my chin down on them, so our heads were more level. “If you can dream that you’re not afraid around ponies anymore, maybe it’s a sign that you don’t need to be.”
“Or it’s just a dream.”
“Or it’s just a dream,” I agreed. When she had no further reply, we went back to watching the woods beyond her cottage, interrogating the shadows for any sign of the animal Fluttershy was so certain lurked within.
* * *
Starlight was still researching when I returned that evening. Dozens of books lay open on the library’s tables and cushions and floor, and a small galaxy of paper notes floated in the air, suspended by her magic. I ducked beneath them, careful of my horn, and made my way to the center of the maelstrom.
“Hey,” she said, barely looking up. “Any luck?”
“Eh.” I settled down on an empty piece of floor beside her. “Maybe? A few ponies dreamed different dreams. More said they couldn’t remember. Almost like they didn’t want to answer. Am I asking the wrong questions?”
“Dreams are sensitive,” Starlight said. “They’re us at our most exposed. It takes a certain amount of charisma to convince ponies to share them.”
“Maybe we should switch roles, then.”
“Ha. Once upon a time, maybe.” Starlight made a little note and closed her book. “That was part of getting ponies to join Our Town, you know? Getting them to share. To open up. Find out what makes them tick. But most of all, to find out all the ways they’re broken. It’s amazing how much ponies will tell you if they think you care.” She lowered her head as she spoke, her horn flickering, and the countless pages hovering in the air began to sink.
“Uh…” I hadn’t meant to bring up Starlight’s past, but now that I had, I didn’t know how to stop it. I took a hesitant step toward the table.
She continued. “And once ponies have shared that much of themselves with you, it’s too late to stop. Their trust is like a hook in their flesh, just waiting for you to reel it in. They can’t escape. You own them.” She finished with a grimace, and her words were filled with so much self-loathing I could almost taste it.
I was supposed to say something here. Something reassuring, something humorous to break the sudden tension. Then we could laugh and compare notes and pretend this conversation never happened. But I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say to my student and my best friend.
So she kept talking. “Ponies are easy to manipulate if you know what demons are haunting them. Given that, I hope you understand why I shouldn’t be the one of us who goes around asking ponies about their dreams.”
I nodded. That was easy enough to respond to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.” She let out a huff. Her horn sparked back to life, and all the dismal papers leaped back into the air, swirled around her, then coalesced into a neatly stacked sheaf on the table. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said all that.”
“It’s… You’re allowed to feel bad about what happened.” I scooted close enough to drape a wing over her shoulders. It was all afluff with nervous energy, but in my brief experience with having wings, non-pegasi couldn’t read the emotional state of feathers. There was probably a journal article waiting to be written on the topic. “As long as you also remember that it’s in the past. That you’ve changed, and we’ve all forgiven you. Even the ponies in your… er, Our Town have forgiven you.”
“I know.” She let out a sigh and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Thank you. For saying all that. It’s just been on my mind all day for some reason and I had to let it out.”
“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She held still for a moment, long enough that I started to wonder if I was supposed to do something in response, but then she straightened and leaned away. My shoulder felt cold where she had been. “Sorry. Again, I mean. But, uh, all that is to say I think I’d rather stay here for now.”
What an odd reversal. Once, I’d felt safest in the library. Now, Starlight retreated here. I shook my head to banish the melancholy thought and grasped for something to cheer her up. “Say, Trixie’s still arriving tomorrow, right?”
Starlight’s face brightened. “She is! Do you mind if I skip the research tomorrow? I was hoping to, uh, spend some time with her.”
Right. Spend some time with her. To borrow a phrase from Rainbow Dash, even my virgin tail knew what that meant. For a split second I fell prey to that most terrible of emotions – envy, not for Trixie, whom I felt no connection or attraction to, but rather the fact that even a pony who had been so overtly villainous as Starlight could find a lover so easily while I plodded through life with my books. I had more luck with centuries-old ink than living stallions.
Just as fast, I banished the thought. It was beneath me. I had friends that I cared about and cared about me in return. And one of them needed me right now.
“Of course.” I waved a wing. “Take all the time you need. I know she’ll be glad to see you again.”
“Yeah.” Starlight smiled a silly little smile. Clearly her mind was elsewhere in that moment. “Hey, maybe she can help us with our research?”
“Uh.” How to be diplomatic? “Maybe?”
A moment passed. Then Starlight snickered. “Okay, maybe not. But I’m still taking some time off for her.”
“I think we’ll be fine with that.” I tugged her notes out of her magical grasp and began leafing through them. “After all, we’re in no real rush. We have an endless number of nights’ worth of dreams to study.”
* * *
I dreamed again of the desert that night. I dreamed of my shadow, of painting it larger with my tears. I dreamed of the impossibly bright sun. I dreamed of blindness.
And I slept in, because why not? Starlight was taking a day off – I could too. And it wasn’t like being the Princess of Friendship carried any real duties with it. As long as the world wasn’t ending or monsters weren’t rampaging across Equestria, my time was basically my own. I didn’t even cook breakfast for the castle. Spike or Starlight did that.
By the time I dragged myself out of bed, the sun was well over the horizon. The town outside my balcony was already murmuring with life as ponies went about their day. It was bright outside, with just a few clouds drifting in thrall to the wind. Another fine day. I squinted at the scene, then shuffled off to the bathroom.
The castle came with showers already installed. I’m not honestly sure how that worked – like, did the Essence of Harmony or whatever intuit that I wanted an in-suite bath with an enormous sink, a linen closet the size of my foalhood bedroom and a glass-enclosed shower large enough for an entire hoofball team to use at once? Because that’s what I got. I felt lonely just using it.
Whoever had designed the bathroom clearly meant it for an alicorn much larger than I. For a moment an old memory flashed before me, of my mother giving me a sweater for my birthday that was several sizes too large. We all laughed, and my father said, “She’ll grow into it.”
Memories. For not the first time, I wished ponies weren’t so deeply enslaved by them.
But at least the castle had an endless supply of hot water. We weren’t even sure where it came from. There was no cistern on the roof or anything resembling traditional plumbing. Just a set of stylish brass nozzles wrought in the shape of roosters’ heads that poured out limitless water like it was rain. And we had yet to receive a bill.
I stepped into the cavernous shower and turned the dials to start the water flowing. Soon steam clouded the glass, and I let my wings relax, drooping along with my head down almost to the crystal floor. The water sluiced over me, washing away yesterday’s grime and my memories of the dream. Already the day seemed brighter.
My eyes itched, though. I resisted the urge to rub them and tilted my head back. Warm water sprayed my face.
Somepony knocked on the bathroom door, and a moment later it cracked open. Cloud of steam billowed out, and the glass walls of the shower stall began to clear. I shook myself and stepped out of the stream of water. “Yes?” I called.
“Sorry.” It was Starlight’s voice. Hooves clip-clopped closer, and she slid the glass door open enough to poke her head in. “I just heard you get up. Do you want any breakfast? We’ve already eaten.”
I shrugged. “Whatever’s leftover.”
“Fruit, then.” She paused. “Are you okay? You look a little tired.”
“Just got up.” Obviously. I managed not to say that part out loud. “Didn’t sleep too well.”
“I’ll make some coffee. It’ll be waiting at the table!” She slipped out as fast as she came. The steam swirled around her like mist, and then she was gone.
“Tease!” I shouted after her. But I had to smile. Coffee was good, but far better was a friend willing to make it for you.
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That slight bleedover Twilight seems to experience with her eyes worries me, especially in combination with the recurring dream.
As for fluttershy's beastie, I hope there isn't somepony out there dreaming they're a cat and eating birds.
Still, whatever effect Discord's little trick had, it seems to START subtle at least
9541474
It's just like Plague Inc.
You start off slow and inconspicuous but once enough people fall into your grasp, you just bum rush 'em.
Now I'm wondering if part of Discord's trick with the dreams is to compel ponies not to talk about them.
9541678
Nahhh. Unneccesary effort.
Probably
If the dreams are embarassing/gross/personal enough, they'll compel themselves
There's this constant, underlying dread in this story that I haven't felt reading anything else. Like train crash in slow motion, but the trains haven't crashed yet
For some reason, with twilight brutally honesty in ch1, flutter's somewhat... "open ended" invite in ch2, and luna's teasing of twi in ch3, and this in ch5, is making me think twi is going to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
She just spend the last minute explaining the exact reason for why she said all that. Twilight may not be doing the manipulating and the in-reeling consciously but ... yeah. Apparently Starlight doesn't notice when she is in that situation herself.
Love the chapter, the mystery is well maintained. For all we know Discord really can't influence dreams and Twilight is worrying about nothing (as she is known to do) and everything "wierd" have just been coincides. Or not.
9542023
This!
Good job.
9542023
The trains haven't crashed yet, and you're not even really sure they're going to, but they absolutely look like they are because they're on the same track and what else could they do?
Maybe slow down, so that there aren't too many casualties.
Not sure if you meant this to be a moment of levity by reminding me of Mood Wings, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
Twilight does seem to be in denial about remembering the content of her dreams. I suppose we'll see how much further it goes. Including the eye damage.
9541664
And then Greenland and Madagascar close their ports. Though I suppose that's where the metaphor breaks down.
I maintain that the Tree expected a lot more people that Twilight and Spike to move into the castle when it grew it. There's no way they can be using more than a fraction of all those rooms in there.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if she's living in what were meant as guest quarters or something similar while the actual royal suite is still gathering dust in some unmapped corner of the castle, untouched since the day it was grown.
Grow into it indeed. I think Twilight will be in for a few growth spurts in the coming years or decades... if this business with her eyes doesn't get in the way first.
[quote Their trust is like a hook in their flesh, just waiting for you to reel it in. They can’t escape. You own them.]Ah, but you see, I never trust. Oh true, I dump massive amounts of my information onto everyone I meet.
But that's not trust. There's a reason I need as much of myself in their minds as possible. Someday soon the reason will be understood. But by then, of course everyone will understand our plan.
Right? I dream a lot of different things that I wouldn't dare open up about because of how sensitive the subject matter is.