Isn't it great to have the power within your dreams? Where you can change whatever you want? Fly? Swift Quill had this power, just like everypony in their dreams. By day, she is an office secretary. But by night, she is a goddess.
A depressed office secretary, Swift Quill, begins having strange dreams where she is floating over the surface of a planet. She waves oceans into existence, and creates mountains with a thought. She spends her days trapped behind a desk, and at night, she is a goddess. But sometimes, such great powers come with great responsibility.
The first things that Swift could see upon awaking in the morning was the rays of the Princess' wonderful sun. Ugh, she hated it. Waking up was just one of the annoying things she has to go through, not to mention work. But now the sun just decides to show up here and blind her eyes! She never bothered to close the curtains by any means, because sometimes she just liked to stare at the moon looming overhead. The dreams she was having were quite phenomenal if she said so herself. But those were going to have to wait until tonight, because now Swift had to go do her so said occupation; being an Office Secretary. Yeah, it wasn't very fun for her, but it was something at least. She wanted to become a psychiatrist. Unfortunately, the lack of bits were a problem when it came to setting up her own office in the city of Canterlot. Things here were very expensive to buy to say the least, and it was almost impossible to find room for her to set up shop.
'BEEP BEEP BEEP!'
Blast that alarm clock! That's the noise she never likes to hear, because that meant the day was starting! And she hated the day! Sighing to herself, she slowly sat up from the bed she was laying upon and looked around her. The small house in which she occupied was not a very big one. But from what she could see right now was her bedroom of course. A small desk in the corner, the walls painted bright brown, the light cocoa carpet covering the floor with all of its softness, and her bed on which she was now sitting on. Nothing special.
'BEEP BEEP BEEP!'
With a loud, frustrated groan, Swift brought her hoof up and slammed it down on the alarm clock. It stopped its beeping and went silent, now sitting on the night stand adjacent to the bed. She glared at it for a while, thinking evil shouts at which she could curse upon, but that was stripped away as she read the time. 5:43 A.M. Oh hay, she was going to be late for work! Frantically kicking the covers off her, she jumped off the bed. But this resulted her to just crash into the carpet face first. Not minding that, she quickly got back up onto her hooves and ran into the bathroom, before looking into the mirror. Her Earth Yellow coat was what seemed to be clean, so she could skip that step. Her cutie mark of a small quill with ink coming out of the tip seemed to be in order. But her Copper colored mane was another story. It was all tangled around each other, spraying everywhere in the opposite direction of her skull, and it just seemed flat out of normality!
Still panicking about the time, she quickly grabbed the comb with her hoof. She wished she was a unicorn so this would be easier, but being an Earth Pony was good enough she would think. None of the extra bones. She was getting off track! Quickly, she took the comb and started to cling onto the hair monstrosity and put it back forwards to its original design. Quickly darting out of the restroom, she looked at the clock still sitting there menacingly on the nightstand, mocking her that she was going to be late. It read 5:50 A.M.
What!? It took her that long to fix her mane!? Never mind that, she had to go go go! Scanning her eyes over to find the door, she galloped over to it and swung it open. Slamming it behind her, she looked up and down the road of the not-so-busy streets of Canterlot. It wasn't too crowded, considering she was living near the outskirts of the city as oppose to living near the castle. Swift noticed the crossroad signs that were hanging up next to her and she glanced up at it. Hayming St and Chocolate Rd.
Alright, her workplace wasn't so far from here. Just a few minutes and she should be able to make it on time! Her boss would kill her if she decided to go ahead and show up late! Looking down the street once more towards the general direction of her work, she put on a full gallop down the road. Upon doing this, she managed to accidentally bump into a few citizens, and gave her apologizes to them as she dashed by. The occasional 'hmph!' or 'My word!' was heard. She wasn't too far now, just around the corner- Aha! There it was! The building wasn't fairly big, but wasn't to small either. Feeling a lot more better, she continued her run towards the building, and she eventually got close enough to read the name of the building; Kraig's Shipping Co.
The place was kind of self explanatory. A shipping company would ship things, but here was Swift stuck behind a desk to work out the paperwork and take calls. Not the most interesting or exciting job, but it was all she had. Finally reaching the glass doors, she crashed into them, causing the doors to swing open. As she entered, she took quick breaths trying to get regain herself. She looked up at the clock above the main desk in front of her; 6:01 A.M.
She was late.. Again.. This wasn't the first time. Usually she was the goody-two-shoes and always came on time, did her job, and left. There was the occasional waking up late and showing up late excuse, and some other times it was just because she did not feel like going to work at all. That put a heavy weight on her, because her position was starting to slip from her grasp as it was.
"Late again, are we Miss Quill?" came a heavy voice over to her left. Glancing over quickly, she saw the one and only Kraig. His build not so muscular, but he could perhaps win a few fights if needed. His color style wasn't much different from Swifts, but the mane was more flicked up in the front.
"Yes... Terribly sorry about that, Kraig." said the sweet and calm voice of Swift.
"Mr. K! If you please!" He said, his voice rising slightly from annoyance.
"Terribly sorry Mr. K.. I'll get right to work then, yes?"
"Indeed. There are a few files on your desk that needs to be sorted and dealt with. Many shipments were called in here not too long ago, so we need them to be going ASAP. Once you are done with that, I need to see you in my office." And with that, he turned around and marched off into the opposite direction back towards where his office was.
Swift stood in her current position for a while, before turning her glance over to the main deskpony. Brass Pageant, was her name. And it kind of lived up to it, as she was quite beautiful to win first at a pageant. Her flowing violet mane was clean as always, and her fuchsia colored coat was brilliant in the sunlight. Wanting to actually have something to at least get her mood up, she trotted on over to the desk and peered over.
"Hey there B.P! How's life going for ya?" asked Swift, not really being professional at the moment. She would always act like this around Brass, just because she has known her since school days. They've been best friends since then.
Brass quickly looked up from the small piles of paperwork she was reading, seeing Swift she smiled. "Oh hey! Nothing too interesting at the moment. Because you know, nothing ever happens. Wait! Actually, something interesting did happen! I found this absolutely dreamy stallion! I think he might be the one!"
Swift couldn't help but chuckle lightly at that. "You really think so? I mean, you seem like the perfect mare to-"
"Oh, I wasn't thinking about me with him. I was thinking about getting you a coltfriend!"
Swift blinked and tilted her head, "Come again?"
Brass laughed and continued to smile brightly, "Oh come on! You heard me! You really need to get some sort of stallion in your life to give you that extra push, you know? You can't just stay single for the rest of your life! Where's your sense of love?"
"I don't have time for them. Besides, why are you asking me this when you are also the one who hasn't gotten their true love yet?"
"All in good time, my dear. All in good time."
Swift sighed and looked back up at the clock once more, before back down at her friend. "Well, I need to go do my job. I'll talk to you some other time."
Brass waved her hoof slightly and nodded. "Yes, yes. Go do your things. I'll be here if you need me!"
Swift gave a small smile before nodding politely, and striding on past the desk and towards the long hallway. Small rooms were on each side of the hallway, and they all were occupied by some pony who was just spending their boring and dull life in there. But it had to be better than the one she was living. All she did was work, sleep, repeat. She eventually found the door with the small copper title on the door; Secretary Quill.
Welp, time to waste some more valuable life time. She sighed quietly before pushing the door open and closing it quietly behind her as she entered her own office. Looking over to the desk, she could see a large stack of papers on there, next to the already messy papers that were still needed to be filled. Who knew that she would have to file this much?
She just couldn't wait until she got back to her nighttime spectacles of dreaming.
Swift laid her head down on her desk, completely exhausted from all of the work she had been doing for the past hours. It seemed like days to her, and she was sure that time was just starting to slow down. Her job was quite boring if she said so herself, but it was something she could do to get some bits at least. Not to mention that she was pretty good at it.
As she was starting to slowly drift into sleep, she heard three steady knocks come from the door, and this caused her to jump slightly. She swung her head over towards the source of the noise and sighed. Whoever was coming in here had something to say, because she had this thing where she recognized what kind of knocks meant what. Swift straightened herself out, fixing the small mess she had on her desk which was piled with small stacks of paperwork that she had yet to finish. The good news was that she was managing to finish more work from all of the late ones, causing her to catch up with the newly assembled orders.
"Come in!" She called out towards the door, ready for whomever was going to reveal themselves. Surprisingly enough, Mr. K trotted on it, closing the door behind him.
"Hello there, Miss Quill. Have you finished all of your assignments that were given to you for today?" He asked her firmly, gazing over her desk to see if anything was out of place. He was a little bit of an OCD freak if he said so himself, but that wasn't the case right now.
Swift nodded, looking over her desk proudly. "Yes sir. I completed all of the paperwork you gave me today, plus some old ones that were needing to be finished. If anything, I think I've caught up." she stated quite proudly, a small smile creasing on her face as she looked at him.
Mr. K nodded slowly before looking up at the clock and back to Swift. "And you did remember to come by my office after you were done with it, right?"
Swift froze in her seat, and slowly turned her gaze towards the clock to read what it said; 4:45 P.M. It had come to the point where she didn't even know what it was she had been doing since she got here. All she could remember was arriving, doing a few things which she couldn't recall, and then lead up to this moment where she was laying her head on her desk. Was her job really that boring?
"Well uh, you see sir.. I had been caught up doing so much of the work, that I may of lost track of time and forgo-"
"That's not an excuse," he interrupted, "You and I know well that you didn't simply forget. You are the hardest working one in the business as of now, but I've noticed that you have been slowly decreasing on turning in your work, let alone arriving late. Care to explain why?" After saying this, he made his way towards the chair across from the desk and took a seat. He slowly crossed his hooves, giving Swift a hard and intimidating gaze. This caused her to gulp, as she knew that one slip up could cost her job just like that, and finding a replacement wasn't very hard to do. She knew she had to give a legitimate answer if she wanted to save her flank.
"Well, the truth is that-"
Suddenly, another knock was heard coming from the door, cutting off Swift mid-sentence. Before she had time to respond to the knock, Brass Pageant was already in the room.
"Hey Swift! I'm just letting you know thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat..." She held out the word for a while as she saw Mr. K sitting down in the chair, giving her a look that practically told her to get out. This however, she ignored. "I was just here to tell you that it's time for us to go... And that perhaps I could escort you home?" She asked slowly, smiling awkwardly towards Swift.
Swift had never felt so relieved to hear that. She quickly rose from her seat and nodded politely towards Mr. K. "Sorry about this inconvenience, but I'm afraid she is right. We can continue this conversation some other time." She quickly trotted around her desk and next towards Brass, before nodding and they both exited the room.
The two ponies trotted down the hallway, not really speaking to each other after that slightly awkward incident that had just occurred. Swift, however, decided to break the silence.
"Thanks for saving my flank back there. I didn't nearly have a good enough excuse to give him back there."
Brass chuckled slightly and shrugged, "Don't mention it. I didn't even know what you two were talking about in there, but I don't want to budge in on your personal business with you two. I just came by to talk to you while you walked home. You know, just a little friendly chat?"
"I guess we could do that. I have nothing else better planned anyways." Oh, but she did. Swift was just ready to go home and pass out on her bed, ready to be taken away from deep sleep. Even the thought of it was making her sleepy.
"Good. So about the whole coltfriend thing." She started off, smirking slightly as she turned her gaze over to look at her best friend.
Swift snapped out of her thoughts and raised an eyebrow at Brass, "Please tell me we are not going to talk about that. I'm not interested in that sort of stuff first off. I like to be alone, and just rest by myself without anypony else to get in the way. I mean, who needs a coltfriend when you have food!?"
"I guess that's a fair point," Brass admitted, "But you do have to agree that you are a little bit lonely sometimes. You just need that extra push in the right direction, perhaps start a family or something of the sort. You can't just live all by your lonesome!"
"Try me." challenged Swift, as she trotted up to the door and held it open. "Besides, I think I will manage quite well on my own. I have my own rules, and I don't have to share anything. It's a win-win situation for me."
"If you say so! But don't come running to me when you decide that you need somepony in your life to tell you from right to wrong!"
"Don't worry, I don't plan on it."
Mr. K just sat there in the chair, staring at the door as the two ponies left. A few thoughts were surrounding his mind right now, and some of them he knew he was going to regret doing. Although, it may be for the best, even if it didn't seem like a very bright idea. It was for her sake if anything, and he needed to do it sometime. Only two words could relay in his head in which he was going to tell her the next time he had the chance.
Swift was laying down quietly on her bed, staring up at the ceiling as she did so. It's been about an hour or so after Brass left, so Swift had all this time to do whatever she wanted. But what did she do? Absolutely nothing. Yeah, that seemed to be something she was getting used to most of the time. She was really wanting to sleep right now after such a long day at work, but something seemed to prevent her from doing so. She wasn't sure what it was, but she wanted it to go away so she could just get some shut eye at least. She would be happy for even just five minutes of it.
She decided to throw every thought out of her head, so that he mind was just blank for the while. This was usually what she did when she couldn't sleep. If her mind was clear, then that meant that she had a faster way of just drifting away from reality as the new ideas crowded her head. It seemed like a silly routine, but it worked for most of the time when she needed it to. After laying there for about five minutes, she could already feel her eyes get a little bit droopy, the ceiling slipping away from her vision as her eyes were being taken away by darkness.
It wasn't before long until there was another light. But this wasn't an ordinary light like a lamp or the sun. No, this was something else. Before her, was a small round like object floating in the abyss. Nothing to spectacular, no color, no life, no nothing. It was just a ball. This confused her for a good moment, not really sure what it was she was dreaming about right now. She tended to have many lucid dreams rather than forgetting them in the morning when she would eventually wake up. She remembered every dream. It was as if it was a gift given to her by the goddesses themselves. That wasn't the case now. The case was that there was just some random ball sitting in the middle of nowhere with nothing to occupy it. That had to change.
Swift floated closer to the ball, and it got bigger, and bigger. It got as big as she was, before it stopped growing. She was now hovering over the said ball, about her size while she looked over it. Upon further inspection, she noticed that it seemed to be spinning very slowly. Was she on something? Was this some sort of sign?
Being the curious pony she was, she lifted her hoof and slowly guided it towards the glowing orb, before her hoof touched the surface of it. There was a loud 'splash', and she jumped at that. Next thing she knew, the orb was Ocean Blue. It didn't take long before she noticed that it was... Water? Did she just engulf the whole thing with water? This was quite strange, and exciting all the same. She looked at her hoof to see that it was not wet like she would have thought when touching water. Even more curiosity got to her, and she slowly moved her hoof back towards the sphere and poked it again, her hoof going in the water. She felt some sort of pressure push up against it, and she moved her hoof back to observe what it was.
A loud rumbling noise was heard, and something began to submerge from the water. A large mountain-like object was coming from the ocean! As it got to its peak, which wasn't too high, thick black smoke started to come from the top of it. Before she could react, a loud 'boom' was heard, and the mountain erupted with little splooges of orange coming from the top. Of course! It was a volcano! It scattered all around the mountain before eventually making contact with the sea. Almost instantly, every time the lava would hit a piece of the ocean, it would turn into stone rock, as if land. An island, perhaps? It continued to spread for a while, before it took a pretty good chunk from the.. Planet? That's what it seemed like for the most part. Yes, she was going to call it that. After the volcano took a pretty good chunk from the planet, it remained still. Undisturbed as if it didn't go off just now. The land was as black as charcoal, and there seemed to be no life what so ever. Could she perhaps make that happen?
Everything seemed to appear with just a simple touch of the hoof. She thought perhaps it was something to do with mind powers, or something of the like. Besides, this was a lucid dream, so anything could happen under her command. She took her hoof and waved it in a small circle motion, causing the planet to spin faster and faster after each twirl. She continued spinning it until it seemed to reach maximum speed. After a good spin, she started to slow it down by spinning her hoof in the opposite direction. This was amazing. This was so unreal, yet it felt real all the same. Perhaps that came as a perk?
Nevermind that, she had more things to do. She inspected the planet closely, specifically where the chunk of land was. It needed more.. Green. Trees perhaps? Maybe even life? Thinking about this, she started to visualize a full grown coconut tree, and slowly moved her hoof to a random location on the land, before placing it gently on there. As she moved her hoof back, she realized that the said tree was now there. It was like a white dove in a flock of crows, as it stood out from all of the black and showed its beautiful green leaves. She needed more of this if she was going to really bring this place alive.
She put her hoof back near the tree, and started to drag it around the land. One after another, another tree would take the place of the hoof as she ran it across the earth, trying to make it seem as lively as possible. Taking about three-fourths of the land, she finally stopped, studying over her accomplished actions and taking in the beauty of what seemed to be nothing but dead rock.
She scanned the outside of it, noticing that the ocean was just clashing up against the raised rock island. That didn't look so good. To fix this, she put down her hoof once more and fantasized a beach with many ponies sprawling around it, taking their foals and families to go see the wonderful ocean and shore that was on the outskirts. And seemingly enough, sand started to stretch across the boarder of the island, and it started to engulf the whole outside with just beachy goodness. After going through the whole circumference of it, she floated backwards and took a good long look at her masterpiece that she managed to create in about ten minutes. Yes, it was quite beautiful if she said so herself, for being a starting planet.
Now all that was needed was some sort of intelligence.
