“Spike! I’m home!”
Twilight bucked the front door of the library shut and paused, expecting a response. When she heard none, she figured that he was asleep and walked the few feet separating her and the remnants of the questionably successful summoning.
It appeared that Spike had cleaned up nicely. He had removed the furniture that had been damaged, straightened up the kitchen, and reshelved the books to the best of his ability. The glass enclosure was still in the room, and though he had swept up the glass shattered by Riven’s escape, it didn’t appear that he’d done anything else with it. There was, however, a scroll taped to one side, which upon closer examination revealed itself to be a list of book titles.
“Must’ve been what he couldn’t salvage,” she thought glumly. She’d inquire what came of the damaged books tomorrow, but for the now the mere thought that some of her precious charges had been destroyed made her guts churn. “I’ll remember you always, my pretties.”
Twilight’s horn glowed and the nearby lamp — which Spike had undoubtedly left on for her benefit — blinked off. It was replaced by a softer glow that illuminated her path up the stairs and into her bedroom. Shaking off her saddlebags, she noted a sleeping Spike with a smile, and joined him in dreamland.
His dreams would be anything but peaceful, however.
Spike had a very active imagination, which occasionally interposed itself with the waking world. One night he would be a dashing cavalier, rescuing his fair maiden from the hooves of an evil wizard atop his trusty purple steed. Both the maiden and the wizard changed roles quite frequently; the wizard could be any of the teenaged dragons he met during the last migration, or one of the stallions around town. The maiden was most commonly Rarity, though her role was occasionally filled by one of his other mare friends. Of course, he’d never tell any of them that.
The commonality was that he always won. His subconscious recognized the rather subservient life style he lived day-to-day and so graciously gifted him with all of the respect and prestige he so desperately desired. Tonight was a bit different, however.
It started out as expected. The noble knight charged through a forest, sweeping aside Diamond Dog henchmen like moths. Sir Spike’s skill and precision with his lance was unparalleled, and only one such mongrel had been able to scramble back to his feet and call to his master through the nearby clearing.
Sir Spike, of course, cut that straggler down and approached his arch nemesis. A blue-robed stallion with a wormy black beard and a stupid miter cackled at him. The two exchanged no words, but in this situation, none were needed. Behind the wizard was fair Rarity, trapped in a bronze cage and imploring her hero to rescue her.
Sir Spike obliged and charged the evil-doer. A few lightning bolts arced from his hooves but all missed the mark, and once Spike was sure the hapless fool was no more, he threw down his weapon and gallantly moved to release his princess...
Or he did until a column of midnight blue fire engulfed her cage, immolating its prisoner and reducing the structure itself to molten slag. A now normal sized Spike couldn’t even process what he had just witnessed, and instead looked up at the source of the attack. Standing taller than Canterlot Castle was a dragon plucked from his nightmares; a void against a green meadow and a sunny day, which too began to twist and distort.
The dragon dropped a mighty claw down on the remnants of Rarity and brought its featureless black head in line with the petrified adolescent, who couldn’t have made a sound even if he wanted too. Still, he had yet to experience the true horrors of this creature, for now it spoke, and any semblance of innocence left in his youthful body was abducted and mutilated before his very eyes.
“SHE CANNOT SAVE YOU!”
Spike didn’t understand the message but his slack jaw mouthed the words “who?”
“SHE CANNOT SAVE ANY OF YOU!”
Spike fell to his knees and shut his eyes, ignoring both the tears and… other fluids… that he was leaking. He flattened his spines against the ground and silently prayed that what came next would be over quickly.
It wasn’t.
The creature inhaled and bathed Spike in unholy flames, and he felt every lick. The bubbling of his skin, the charring of muscle, and even the calcification of his bones.
The pain was so far beyond anything he’d ever experienced that his mind didn’t register that he was being shaken. Not until what seemed like an eternity of agony passed by, and his own hoarse voice caught in his ears.
“SPIKE! SPIKE, WAKE UP, BABY! PLEASE!”
Twilight had been trying to rouse her number one assistant for the better part of five minutes, though she found herself considering him closer to a surrogate son ever since she saw the terror in his face. He had been crying so hard the tears ran dry, and had soiled himself to boot, but she cared for none of that right now. She just wanted to wake him from something that was scaring her almost as badly as it was him.
When Spike’s eyes finally did snap open, he began to repeat the shadow dragon’s words while attempting to claw his own eyes out. Twilight restrained him as best she could with a magical field and rushed him out of the library, Ponyville General her destination. She didn’t have time to reference her books.
The sun was cresting over the mayor’s office.
Sassafras, the Apple family’s pet rooster, awoke the household with his song. Applejack yawned and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with one hoof and stretching with the other. She rolled out of bed and made her way to the shower, her unsecured mane and tail dragging behind her. She would never admit this to anypony — especially not Rarity — but she was quite adept in mane care, her own being a rather stubborn customer. It demanded at least thirty minutes of maintenance every morning lest it become an uncontrollable mop the entire day, which made the already laborious task of applebucking that much harder.
She shut the bathroom door behind her with a loud yawn and slapped on the shower’s faucet, letting it warm up a bit. Applejack was not a vain pony and very rarely did anything to improve her physical appearance. She simply placed no value in the physicality of things, preferring to love and appreciate folks for what laid beneath the skin. But this morning her somewhat ghastly countenance drew her to look at the fogging mirror, and was quite startled by what she saw.
It was her but… not. Her coat was pale, her eyes the color of ink, and her mane so spiky she swore she had been struck by lightning. After that the image changed to Sweet Apple Acres’ southern field and a scene she remembered well. An old barn that had burned down about ten years ago…
“To the day,” she breathed, at first merely surprised at what she saw, but she soon realized what would come next, for this had been a memory that haunted her without fail every day since that ill-fated evening.
She saw Granny Smith holding Applebloom, still just a foal, and beside her was Big Mac. She saw the barn burning and her father running into it, dodging falling planks in a desperate attempt to locate her mother — his wife.
“No…” Applejack recoiled and collided with the drywall behind her, but the scene didn’t change. In fact, it was more vivid now, for what was once a view obstructed by the flames, she now saw her pa clutching her limp ma, and then a burning beam crushed him flat.
“NO!”
Applejack’s prodigious strength ripped the towel rack clean off the wall and hurled it through the mirror like a javelin. It predictably shattered, but beyond it was an empty void.
Then she heard the bath water overflow. She turned and beneath it and the steam filling the room was Applebloom, face down in the water. “Celestia, no!” Applejack pulled her sister out of the water and fell onto her haunches, examining the lifeless filly with desperation and eyes wide with fear. “I can’t lose you too, sugar! I can’t! Wake up! WAKE UP!”
And she did, violently. Applejack’s strained scream and restless turning had bucked the baseboard clean off her bed, and in a moment of clarity she rolled off before the entire frame collapsed underneath her. Panting heavily, she swallowed deep gulps of air and tentatively approached the ruined bed, as if it was the cause and might yet snap at her. She quickly yanked her precious hat out from under the blanket and put it back on her head, then nearly jumped out of her skin when her bedroom door flung open and Big Mac entered, immediately scooping her into a hug that she hungrily returned.
“I had the dream again, Big Bro,”
“Ah know,” he whispered, stroking her mane.
“No you don’t. It was worse than it’s ever been.” She sobbed into his mane, her words uncharacteristically weak. “It’s never been that real.”
“Ah know,” he repeated. “Ah had the same dream… jus’ now.”
She pulled away just far enough to look him in the eyes. “You… you did? B-But… how?”
He shook his head, and with the first clear glimpse of his face, Applejack could tell that her brother had seen the same terrible images; the stress and terror was etched into his normally youthful and powerful features. “She’s fine, though,” he promised, pulling her in close again and kissing her withers. “Ah just checked on ‘er.”
Applejack shuddered but was relieved. She knew that neither of them would be able to get any work done today, so perhaps it was just best to spend time with the family… and check on Ponyville’s newest arrival. She seemed an amiable sort. No reason to be unneighborly, after all.
She could see the sun through her window now, and Sassafras’s song told her to wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up!
“Princess! WAKE UP!”
Luna snapped awake, her throne tipping as she did. One of her two bat-winged guards caught it before it fell, however, and Luna returned to an attentive, albeit confused, state.
Before her was a lobbyist, one of many that graced both her court and her sister’s. He was a stout, portly pegasus that didn’t share the concern of Luna’s guards. Rather, he just looked annoyed that his undoubtedly important plea was going unheard. “Princess, did you hear me? I need those bits lest I and my clients be forced to endure another week without my gourmet iceberg lettuce!”
“I must find my sister,” Luna groused, rising to her hooves. She walked straight at the viticulturist and when it didn’t appear that he would move of his own accord, the Royal Canterlot Voice reminded him of his folly. “MOVE YOU SUPERCILLIOUS SWEATY SLUG OF A STALLION!”
Luna left her audience chamber at a brisk pace, urgent but unwilling to fall at her sister’s hooves like a filly incapable of handling some insignificant task on her own. Though what she was truly seeking was advice, for her vigil over the night had just revealed to her an all-to familiar presence, one that she thought would never trouble her again.
“It cannot be,” she intoned, doing her best to convince herself as well as she’d have to convince Celestia. “’Tis impossible.”