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// 6 - Testing 
// Story: Perchance to Dream 
// by David Silver 
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Luna led me along with an energetic trot full of purpose. "I know precisely what to do," she repeated as she went. "But you have to at least give me the benefit of a chance. A pony can remain resolute on any matter of things if they wish to be. Are you willing to at least entertain me?"

I raised a brow as I went, uncertain she would have much chance. I'd lived all my life, while I'd been a pony for, what, a few days? "I'll hear you out, Luna." That was the least I could do. Luna hadn't been bad to me at all. Of course, she was also a figment of my mind, so maybe she'd find some argument that could get under my skin?

Luna stepped into a small office-like room with a single desk, but a very overburdened shelf full of scrolls and books. "This is the primary census taking room." She settled behind the desk. "I wish to ask you some questions."

Questions? "I thought you wanted to prove something."

Luna's horn glowed as the book on the desk, the largest, flipped open. "I shall. Question one, city and precise time of birth."

I blinked softly, trying to recall that. It'd been a while since I needed that information, and it didn't want to come to me.

Luna could see the confusion written all over my face. "That's alright, question 2, the names of your parents, maiden names please."

"Patrick!" I blurted out almost defensively. That was my father.

Luna nodded. "Last name?"

Last name... Last name... why wasn't it coming to me? Oh. I suddenly relaxed. It was a dream. Facts about the waking world can often become distorted. The brain worked in weird ways. "I'm afraid the dream is fogging up the details."

Luna leveled a silver-clad hoof at me. "Which dream? You certainly did not seem uncertain when you were kissing my sister. What prompted that?"

I blinked at her. "True Shot told me to, and that he did have feelings for her. I wasn't lying."

"The dead do not speak." Luna nodded. "Unless you are the dead. Funny how you recall that information... Let us continue." She flipped the page. "You live at: Please provide specific street address if your city has such."

I felt anger rising in me. Why was she grilling me? "I have a very nice house."

"We are certain you do. Where is it?"

The address didn't want to surface anymore than my parent's names. "Look, it's hard to remember that while I'm asleep."

Luna cocked a brow. "And yet you remember other things just fine? Speak truthfully, how did you meet Celestia?"

"She came in the garden after I burst out of the statue. I tried hiding from her."

Luna nodded. "There are three kinds of ponies, those are?"

I blinked. "Four."

"Hmm?"

"Four kinds. Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, and the ones with all three. Five if you count your guards as distinct from pegasi. Do you?"

Luna smiled deviously. "Very astute of you." She tapped at the book. "Where do you work?"

"Stop it!" I drove a hoof into the ground with a loud clop. "I work where I've been working for years. We're about to put the lid on a huge deal and I'm one of the main people responsible for it. If it wasn't Christmas weekend, I might even have stayed at work to get it done."

"Does it have a name?"

Confusion, anger, and a little shame built up in me to dangerous levels. I could hear my heart thudding in my furry ears. "Stop it!"

"What city is it in? What city do you live in?" She leaned forward, her face set as if to deliver the final blow. "What is your own last name?"

"Shot!" I blurted out, a thin line of spittle hanging from my snout. She had literally worked me into a frothing lather.

"Linda Shot?" Luna was calm and collected. She watched me with patience even as I fell apart.

That didn't sound right. Nothing sounded right. "Leave me--"

I sat up like a bolt from the bed I didn't remember going to sleep in. "--alone!"

My heart was racing in my chest. My human chest, and my human bed, and everything else around me was as I remembered it. I slid down to naked feet, my naked legs shaking. It was quiet, too quiet. I hated it, and I loved it. Luna wasn't there, driving me crazy. How dare she! I looked around my bedroom before storming out into the living room.

As if this wasn't real?! I remembered it all! I grabbed a plaque off the wall that declared me employee of the quarter.

Which quarter? I'm not sure what brought on the question, but I started looking at the plaque more closely. It didn't have a year or quarter specified. It just said 'of the quarter', as if there were only one. I dropped it like it was on fire.

"No! No no no no!"

I raced for the phone and got to mashing buttons. It started to ring in my shaking hands. "Pick up, please..."

There was a soft click. "Linda?"

"Dad!" Oh thank all the gods I could name. "Dad, please."

"What's wrong? Linda? Tell me."

"N-nothing, everything! Please... What's mom's name?"

The line went quiet.

"Dad?"

I heard a click.

I drew in a ragged gasp as the phone fell from numb fingers.

Another thought came to me and I raced outside in my pajamas. I didn't care about that, or the biting cold of winter. I had to see it! There, on the front of my house, the number. I knew it was a number. It was clearly a number. Why couldn't I read the specific digits? I gaped at the front of my house, staring at those numbers.

"A lie..." Everything? Everything...

I would have collapsed there on the spot, if not for the biting cold that made me stagger back inside. I slammed the door shut behind me and collapsed against it. "I'm not a lie..." I had a life! It was a long one, a productive one. I had done and seen things. You can't just... suddenly say it's all been fake.

Ding. My computer made a soft sound that noted an email had arrived.

Desperate for validation, I scrambled over to it and clicked on that mail without even looking at the header.



Hello Linda,

I'm afraid the client cancelled at the last second. It's not your fault, but we really needed that client. We're closing up. That was make or break and, well, guess it's break. We'll be sure to report you as a glowing candidate for any future jobs you apply to.

Merry Christmas,
Karl Paolo, CEO



Linda's fingers slipped off her mouse. She was fired. "Merry... Christmas..." It was Christmas, and she was unemployed and out of luck. Well, that, or she was a handsome pony archer that had wild dreams of being a human woman. One or the other. Both were terrifying.

Moisture fell on Linda's shaking hands. She was crying. Why shouldn't she be? No matter which way she sliced it, everything was coming apart.

A new thought came. "I can prove it!" She stood, shaking like a leaf, and approached the kitchen. She drew out her sharpest cutting knife, the sort reserved for big roasts and birds. She watched the light play off that razor's edge. It would only take a single cut, then she'd know... She'd know for sure. All uncertainty would be dashed, washed away in red.

She clenched her teeth and her fingers, blade dancing in her shaking grip. Just one... cut... Suddenly the ringing in her ears she didn't realize was there broke. "What am I doing?" I asked myself, suddenly back in my own body. I dropped that knife on the counter with a little yelp.

"Look, girl, relax," I scolded myself. "Stop... However bad this is, not like that." I closed my eyes a moment, forcing my breathing down, calming my racing heart. "We've been through worse. We'll get through this..." I remembered back when I had to spend practically a whole quarter of college living on the street and/or crashing on couches of friends. It had been rough, but I had made it.

I smiled a little, comforted by the memory. "I'm not a lie..."

With sanity returning, I moved for my computer and pulled up my bank account. I had enough to float a few months without worry. "You're freaking out about nothing." Not nothing, but something we could handle. I was no slouch, and I could get another job, after the holidays blew past. "In... out..." I coached myself, taking slow breaths and centering my frazzled nerves.

Suddenly I was in stone, but only partially. My head was free, and my body was still stone, entirely. I couldn't feel any of it. Luna was there, and a purple alicorn beside her. I tried to escape, but couldn't. I was stone, all stone! I freaked out, but my breath barely came at all. How could it? My lungs were stone!

Luna came close swiftly. "Shh, relax, please, relax. We'll have you free shortly."

The other one's horn was glowing brightly. Was she working on freeing me? I felt like I was half dead, which I sort of was. My vision swam with spots. I needed to breathe and I couldn't!

The magic pressed down, slowly returning more and more of me to flesh as I whimpered nigh-silently.

Just as things began to dim, blessed breath washed into my returned lungs. I gave a croak of a gasp, slumping as I gulped desperately for that air, each and every mouthful.

"W-what?" I asked.

Luna gestured at the other. "Meet Princess Twilight Sparkle, a most talented spellcaster. She has had personal experience with petrification and knew a spell to cure it. She is doing that now."

Twilight nodded a little, but her eyes were focused on me and her horn glowed with magic. She was still working, clearly.

Now that I could feel my heart thumping violently and feel my chest expand and contract in the gentle motions of life, I could try to control myself. I wasn't dying... "Why?" Tears stung at my eyes. It was too much. Everything was too much.

Luna softly tapped at my side. "We had not finished our conversation. I also wished you to meet Twilight. She is a good pony, an avid scholar, and perhaps she can bring to light what has been hidden from us both. Are you well?"

"No!" That much I felt clearly. I was far from alright. "My father hung up on me, my job fired me... You keep asking questions."

Twilight's horn dimmed as the last of me was freed from stone. There was no shell that time. She had restored me completely. "Hung up on you?" she asked. "Oh! I heard that before. You were using a phone?"

I blinked at Twilight. How did a magical horse know about those sorts of things. "Yes?"

Twilight bobbed her head. "We have those, but they are far less prevalent than in the human world. Luna said you believe you're a human?"