Dreamer - Chapter 1
She was beautiful. No, more than just beautiful. Breathtaking. The way her pale pink mane tumbled past her shoulders. The way her ivory coat shone in the sunlight. They both served to suck the breath out of his lungs as he gazed in awe at the perfect figure in the distance. Truly she was the daughter of Fleur de Lis. Where else could she have gotten her flawless poise? Her glittering smile? Her bright, sapphire-blue eyes that pierced his heart and-
THWOCK
…
Grass. It tickled his nose and brushed softly against his face. The grass was springy, still damp from the last remnants of dew, and smelled fresh and clean in the warm sunlight.
…
Why am I thinking about grass?
Dreamer blinked. Lifting his head out of the grass, he gave the mare next to him a questioning look.
“How did you do that?”
A pair of cloudy, topaz eyes turned his way. “Well,” she said, “I lifted my hoof, and then I smacked you in the face. Was there something I missed?”
He blinked again.
“You’re blind.”
Open Book cocked an eyebrow over one of her sightless eyes. “Your point being?”
If he had thought his friend could see it, he would have shaken his head in wonder. He let his voice communicate his disbelief instead. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“I try.”
The silver colt folded his forehooves in Open Book’s direction. “You mind telling me why you hit me?”
The unicorn shifted slightly on the grassy lawn, her black coat shimmering in the noontide sun, and a cocky smirk on her face. “You mean besides the usual reasons?”
“Yes, besides those.”
“You were doing it again.”
Dreamer sighed explosively. She could be so difficult sometimes. He massaged the bridge of his snout with one hoof, his plaintive exasperation saturating his tone for his friend’s benefit.
“Doing what, Topaz?”
Her smirk widened at the sound of her nickname. She gestured toward the shape of Pale Rose in the distance, (Celestia knows how she figured that out), explaining as she did.
“That thing you do when you think all those mushy thoughts about a filly that doesn’t even like you.”
Dreamer bit his lower lip. The two were sitting on the warm grasses of Canterlot, drinking in the warm summer air, and shooting the soft breeze that floated gently by. Across the path that led up to the bustling city, the white pegasus in question was oblivious to the young ponies’ gossip, and daintily picked the gorgeous flowers that grew upon the banks of one of the royal cities’ many streams.
“But none of them are half as beautiful as you, my sweet,” Dreamer murmured to nopony in particular. Unfortunately for him, Topaz picked up the sweet nothing with her sensitive hearing. She laughed, and it was the sound of bells.
“You can be a real Casanova, huh? Funny, I never really pegged you as the romantic type. Always seemed more the pony that trips over their own hooves to get a filly’s attention before you even know if the feeling’s mutual.”
He snorted derisively. “Oh, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes, “and your love life is totally spotless, right? You’ve got half the colts in town tripping over their hooves trying to win your heart, and none of them even know you’re into ma-”
Dreamer was suddenly silenced as Topaz plunged her hoof into his open mouth, effectively shutting him up as she whispered furiously into his ear.
“Would you keep it down?! I am not, okay! You keep shouting stuff like that around and I’ll be the laughingstock of Canterlot by tomorrow morning!”
Dreamer spit her hoof out, wiping his mouth with mock disgust. “Bleh. Tastes like denial, if you ask me.”
It was Topaz’s turn to roll her eyes as she said, “Oh, ha ha. Very funny. Listen, Dreamer, I am not into mares. Never have, never will be, got that?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “If you say so. I’ve just been noticing all those looks you give that purple unicorn that lives in the tower, what was her name, again? Starlight Glimmer?”
Her response was immediate. “Twilight Sparkle.”
Topaz realized her mistake too late, and clapped her hoof to her mouth in horror.
If Dreamer’s smug grin was any wider, it would’ve touched the horizons.
The black coated mare groaned in frustration and stood up. “Ugh. Spare me. Let’s just get out of here before the whole city thinks I’m chasing after Celestia’s star student.”
She strode off with Dreamer trailing after her, the young colt still grinning like a madpony.
“Aww. That’s so cute! Topaz and Twilight, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-”
THWOCK
“Okay, seriously, how do you do that?!”
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Dreamer said his goodbyes to Topaz as she closed her front door. Walking the blind mare home had become somewhat of a ritual between the two ponies, and today was no exception. He smiled to himself as he set off for his own home, knowing full well that Topaz could find her own way home without any help from him, and that his escort was just a friendly gesture.
His smile faded somewhat.
Friends.
All he ever had was friends.
It was why he found himself so entranced by Pale Rose. Young love. It sounded so cliche, when he thought about it, but the idea intrigued him nevertheless. Growing up in Canterlot meant he was always exposed to wonderful literature, and more often than not, his favorite stories ended with the hero saving the day, and getting the girl.
Dreamer sighed heavily as he walked. In books and stories, love was easy. It was something that the characters find by just walking out their front doors into some chance encounter, or something that was right in front of their noses the whole time. He had walked out his front door many a time, and all he usually ran into was the wall-eyed mail mare on her way to a delivery. Similarly, every time he crossed his eyes, the only thing he usually saw in front of his nose was a wall, and he usually proceeded to run into that as well.
SMACK
He crossed his eyes.
His front door, this time, but he suspected a wall would come along at any moment.
He pulled the door open with his teeth and cursed, perhaps for the umpteenth time, the fact that he was not a unicorn.
Dreamer’s parents gave their usual grunts of acknowledgement as Dreamer entered the house, and promptly returned to arguing over proper silverware placement. It was all the young colt could do not to roll his eyes, and decided to just head up to bed, despite the sun only beginning to set.
His room brought him no small amount of solace from the weight of his longings. It was a place where he could think properly, without any distractions from the outside world.
So Dreamer thought. He thought long and hard, about nothing really in particular. Life and love and running into walls. Those things seemed to inhabit his thoughts of late and he wondered, not for the first time, if he was overthinking them all.
But wasn’t that his special talent? He glanced back at his cutie mark, a white thought cloud, and pondered its meaning. To be honest, we wasn’t entirely sure what his special talent was. He remembered clearly the day he had gotten his mark.
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Sobbing. The sound of sobbing reached his ears on his way home from school.
A filly, maybe only a year or two older than him was weeping brokenly in a dingy looking alley.
Dreamer came to her side, brushing away her tears with a gentle hoof, noticing how her dark fur was matted with the dirt of the alley.
“What’s wrong?”
The filly sniffled and wiped her eyes. She replied in a small, broken voice.
“The other foals. T-they called me names. Ripped my saddlebags. Made f-fun of me.”
“Why would they do that?”
She looked up into his eyes, and it was then that he noticed that her topaz pools were clouded over. He knew the answer before she gave voice to it.
“I c-can’t see.”
“Oh.”
She swallowed hard and wiped her nose, her setting her jaw in what she hoped was a defiant look.
“Y-yeah, ‘oh’. So what? You g-gonna make fun of me too?”
Dreamer cocked his head and looked at her with wide eyes.
“Why, of course not. I can’t see either!”
The filly’s jaw unlocked and hung open. Her lower lip started to tremble. “R-really? You’re blind, too?”
The silver colt’s face broke out in a grin.
“Nah, I just run into stuff all the time.”
She blinked at him several times.
Then she snorted, giggled, and finally collapsed into fits of laughter.
Dreamer’s grin grew wider, and he pressed on with a reassuring tone of voice.
“No, really! Can’t see a thing! Watch!”
Doing a neat about face, he turned and walked straight into the alley wall, bouncing off with his tongue sticking out in comical dazedness.
This sent the blind filly rolling around in paroxysms of giggles, making her sides heave with exertion.
By this time Dreamer was chuckling as well. and the young ponies didn’t stop laughing until they were out of the alley and onto the street.
He told the filly that his house wasn’t too far from here, and that she could come and play if she wanted. She took up the offer immediately, saying that she needed a distraction from the days events anyway.
The two strode off together, chatting amiably.
“By the way, I never asked your name.”
“It’s Dreamer.”
“Hmm. Dreamer. Not a bad name, I guess.”
“What about you?”
“Open Book.”
Dreamer furrowed his eyebrows.
“That’s kind of a long name, don’t you think?”
Open Book shrugged. “I guess.”
They walked in silence for a few moments.
“What about ‘Topaz’? Cuz, you know, the colour of your eyes.”
She stopped, and Dreamer stopped with her, watching her face with interest.
Open Book mulled it over for a while.
Then she smiled gently at him.
“Topaz it is, then.”
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The Dreamer of the present smiled as well. The two friends had been so engaged in conversation that they didn’t notice the cutie mark on his flank until several hours later. It wasn’t until a few years had passed that Topaz had gotten hers, a scroll with the outline of a pony on it, and discovered her talent of being able to read the ponies around her, despite not being able to see them.
He frowned as he realized that he still had no idea what his own mark meant, something that had troubled him ever since he had gotten it. He sighed and laid back on his bed, gazing up through the slanting window set into his wall.
High above him, the moon shone brightly in the night sky, the lonely looking image of a pony clearly visible on its alabaster surface.
As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if that pony was searching for the same answers he was.