//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: A Hoard of No Account // by Goat Licker //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle found the entire case interesting. Her attempts at explaining the situation, especially concerning Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s simultaneously conflicting memories, were no more successful that Broad Way’s reasoning. Then she used the word aporia and Rainbow Dash declared that she had enough, didn’t care anymore, and was no longer going to worry about it. “I mean, how could anyone explain that, anyway?” Dash said, looking between Twilight and Fluttershy. Discord appeared with a flash, supine on a ratty chaise lounge, in the middle of the cutie map. “Memory believes before knowing remembers,” Discord said, knitting a pink and yellow sleeper that could only be worn by a bulbous multi-tentacled infant. “Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” Of course no one in Equestria could possibly know that he was quoting from William Faulkner’s A Light In August. Discord’s quote was met with irritation and suspicion, and ignored. He merely smirked, and disappeared back to whence he came. ... Rainbow Dash's dreams still worried her about it, though. She would be back in the waiting room, waiting for the squawk of the invisible receptionist announcing her name. She would then be subjected to a barrage of questions she didn’t understand, while a haze of confusion swept around her. She’d wake up irritated and annoyed, and would spend most of her day in doldrums. One particularly bad night had her approaching a panic attack, and was only averted by the appearance of Princess Luna. “Can you help me?” Rainbow Dash said, putting a familiar hoof on Luna’s withers. “I can’t stand having these dreams anymore.” “I can put a stop to these dreams of yours, if you wish,” Luna said. “But please keep in mind you keep having them because of some unresolved anxiety you have with the situation in Mantaray. Simply ending them would perhaps lead to some future psychic backlash.” “So basically, ‘face your dreams and conquer your fears’, or something like that.” “Precisely,” Luna said. “And fear not; I will always intervene if they are too much for you, but ending them properly is up to you.” Rainbow Dash spent the next day with determination, ruminating over what it was that really bothered her about the whole situation. It was more than just having conflicting memories, which were only weird. She figured it out some nights later, waking up with a start from her dreams about the waiting room. She poked a hole through her floor and flew down from her cloud mansion, heading straight for Fluttershy’s cottage. The moon was at its apex, shining through the midnight hour, but Rainbow Dash could find that cottage with her eyes closed. She pushed open the window to Fluttershy’s room, and waited in the dark. The bedsprings squeaked, sheets rubbed against each other, and Fluttershy whispered, “Dash?” “Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. Rainbow Dash heard Fluttershy pat an empty space on her bed, and Dash scooted in, pulling the sheets over her. Their wings relaxed and touched, and Fluttershy’s warmth was comforting after flying through cloud and wind on the chilly night. It wasn’t uncommon for Rainbow Dash to visit Fluttershy for comfort during the night—she had been doing it at least since their teenage years, when life became more complicated and confusing for Rainbow Dash—but it was their secret. Rainbow Dash just knew she would die of embarrassment if the rest of her friends found out she did this. She lay on the plush mattress—even Fluttershy still had that pegasus desire for the softest bed available—and asked, “What if we’re still in that hoard, and all of this is just a dream? What if we never escaped, and just think we did?” “Oh, it’d be worse than that,” Fluttershy said. “I wouldn’t be real, and you’d be all alone.” “Oh gosh, thanks a lot,” Rainbow Dash said. Fluttershy meeped and apologized. “Well, I know my words probably don’t mean anything,” Fluttershy said, “but I’m nearly one hundred percent sure that we’ve long since escaped from that hoard, and are actually in Ponyville.” Rainbow Dash was silent for a while, hoping that her trust in Fluttershy would alleviate her fears. “I’ll take your word for it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, what else can I do? I’d make myself sick worrying about it. I already worry about it too much. All those dreams...” “Come to Mantaray with me,” Fluttershy said. “Let’s visit the town. Let’s go to Pinnacles Cave and back to that vault. L-Let’s actually go down into that... that pit again. Just to make sure.” “Why not? I mean, maybe it’ll help.” “Oh, how wonderful,” Fluttershy said. “I have a trip planned tomorrow afternoon.” “Heh, you were really taken in by that town, huh?” “I made some friends there. I mean, when I was the dogcatcher.” “Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s weird how you couldn’t warn us about the hoard, you know.” “I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said. “I didn’t actually remember it until the day it happened.” Rainbow Dash laughed softly, with a volume appropriate for the late night. “That’s so weird, but I’m over it now. It’s just... the whole job interview thing.” “Mmm,” Fluttershy said, and now her breathing slowed, and Rainbow Dash felt her body rise and fall gently, flowing through her wings as they lay across Rainbow Dash’s barrel. When Fluttershy was fully asleep, Rainbow Dash gently removed herself from the bed and the cottage, shut the window behind her, and flew back to her cloud mansion. ... When Rainbow Dash awoke that morning from unsettling dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into radicalness and awesomeness. “Just like every morning,” she said, as she hopped out of bed and flew outside, meeting a high sun and short shadows. “Noon, I mean.” She flew to the train station, ready to meet Fluttershy and make their trip to Mantaray.