//------------------------------// // Enter Sand-Mare // Story: Scoopful Of Dream // by Isseus //------------------------------// Ash was floating in the warm, deep waters of almost falling asleep. In the real world, she felt her small body grow heavier, her own breath lighter and shallower. Her hind leg gave a small twitch, her body signaling it was ready for a well-earned rest. And inevitably, like every night, the thoughts came, like nasty little bubbles of thought floating up from the depths of blissful, restful sleepy sea. "You're alone," one of them said as it popped right next to her ear. "They always pick someone else," another said. "Boring!" "Average!" "Nopony will ever notice you." The bubbles kept coming, shaking her back to the realm of the waking. Ash tried her best to ignore the thoughts, concentrating once again to her nightly ritual. One of the few things she remembered of her father was teaching her how to relax herself after a long day of playing and studying. She could almost hear his soothing words. "Relax your hooves, feel them grow warm and heavy. Feel the warmth slowly build up and flow into your body. Feel the sleep flow into every part of you, from your belly to your back, and finally up your neck and into your eyes." Ash did it faithfully every night, and most of the time it even worked, but she knew it wouldn't. Not today. There'd been another couple today, another choice, another family being born, happy tears and hugs, but not for her. Not for the boring little ash-coloured filly that never stood up. She'd been in the line more times than she could remember, or cared to either. It was easier not to care. Ash tried to shake her head a bit to find a better position on her pillow, but all it did was shake her even more awake. With a heavy sigh, she opened her eyes. In the dim light of the bedroom, she could easily make out the bottom of the bed of the foal sleeping above her. All around her, the quiet noises of a shared bedroom in night-time floated to her ears. Tiny snores, the creaking of a bed as another foal tired to find a better position, someone muttering a few words in their sleep. At first it had been awful to try and fall asleep around so many others, but she'd gotten used to it. She'd had to, anyway. Ash sat up and looked around. Her bed was the one furthest from the door, the other seven beds in the room occupying one wall of the long room, the other side reserved for a bookshelf, a few tables, but mostly it was empty space for playing during the day. She could just about make out a few scattered toys littering the floor in clear violation of Mrs. Shallot's wishes of a clean room before bedtime. The door to the hallway outside was slightly ajar, allowing a tiny sliver of dim light to creep into the room. That's where Ash was headed for now. A little night-time trot, maybe a glass of water, something to take her mind off of things. She threw her blanket off and rolled off the bed, landing on all fours. Yawning, she silently crept through the room. She easily dodged the few building blocks on the floor, the most uniquitous trap of a foal's bedroom in the dark. Out the door into the dimly corridor she went. A light was still shining through the window of another door further down the line, probably Mrs. Shallot doing some late-night paperwork that she could finally get done now that there weren't any foals around being, well, foals. That wasn't Ash's destination, though. Instead she crossed the hallway and entered the door with the picture of a filly on it. She prodded the wall in the dark until she hit the light switch, and had to blink as her eyes adjusted to the brighness. There were a few foal-sized stalls on the back wall, but those weren't Ash's destination either. She climbed on one of the stepping stools next to the sinks and turned on the water. A tired filly looked back at her from the mirror. She could basically imagine what it said in her papers somewhere in Mrs. Shallot's office. Ashley Cream. Aged ten or something. Nopony knew for sure, because there were no papers to say otherwise. That's why her birthday was the first day of the year, same as many other foals there. Even her real name had been lost, the one she was now stuck with given just by her appearance: Boring, dark gray coat, a dull cream mane cut short and brushed to the side, just like every other filly there. No cutie mark, because there was nothing special about her. Bleary, reddish eyes, with clear darker patches underneath stared at her from the mirror. She looked tired, but that was nothing new; she always looked like that, even after a full night's sleep. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection and splashed some warm water on her face. Face wet, she instinctively looked around herself before she leaned down and took a long sip straight from the faucet. Ash could feel her thoughts calming down a bit, like her night-time strolls usually did, and she yawned. She jumped down from her perch and returned to the corridor, and back into her shared bedroom. She should have probably waited for a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but she was pretty sure she could remember where everything was. First she had to go around the— THUMP! "Oww!" a strange voice said. "Huh?" Ash replied in confusion. She was sure that there hadn't been anypony there, especially a full-grown mare like the one sitting in front of her, probably knocked onto her rump from their collision. "Sorry," she said in a whisper. Their eyes met, and the mare's grew wide. With a quick movement of a hoof, she pulled something out from behind her back and threw it in the air. It was a sparkling dust that she threw above her, and right before Ash's eyes, the mare vanished. She blinked a few times to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. "Where'd ya go?" she whispered loudly, but got no answer. She tried to scan the room, but now that her nightvision had returned, she was definitely alone. "What the hay?" she asked to the empty room. If her muzzle wasn't still slightly sore from the bump before, she would have been sure that it was all her imagination. But right then, she heard another yelp of pain ahead of her, followed by a loud crash as the building blocks claimed yet another grown-up victim. The mare had appeared again, this time flat on her face between two of the beds furthest from the door. "A-are you okay, Miss?" Ash asked as she carefully trotted next to her. Around her, she could hear the other foals stir from their sleep from the noise. The mare had pushed herself up and was shaking her head, her white mop of a mane waving around messily. As the colt on the bed next to her sat up, she quickly grabbed Ash with one hoof and stuck the other in one of the several pouches tied to her vest and produced another hoof-ful of that strange dust into the air, this time landing on the both of them. The colt looked right at them, right through them, then around himself in confusion. As Ash watched, the mare holding her dug up yet another hoof-ful of dust, this one the colour of deep black, and blew it gently straight into the face of the colt. The colt blinked a few times, yawned, and laid back down, his head barely hitting the pillow before he was already snoring gently. "Wow, what did you do?" Ash asked. "Sleep dust," the mare answered. Ash's eyes grew wide from realisation. Walking around bedrooms in the middle of the night, blowing dust on foals to make them fall asleep. "You're the Sand-mare!" she said in a loud voice. The mare smiled. "You caught me." There was something else Ash caught too—The glint of long fangs as the mare smiled. She squinted her eyes to have a better look at the mare and could make out long ears with tufts of hair sticking through her messy mane. "Wow, are you a batpony?" The mare's eyes narrowed a bit. "Thestral. We're called thestrals. Calling us batponies is like calling unicorns 'hornponies'" To accentuate her point, she gave a tiny, indignant wave of one of her large bat-like wings. "S-sorry!" Ash quickly blurted out. Then she suddenly realised she'd probably been talking really loudly. She looked around her, but the other foals seemed to have calmed down and fallen back asleep. "Don't worry," the thestral mare said. "They can't see or hear us. I tossed some hiding dust on us both." Without hesitation, Ash crept up to the sleeping colt and talked right into his ear. "You really can't hear me?" she asked loudly, but the colt didn't stir. "YOU CAN'T HEAR ME!?" she shouted, and when the colt refused to even twitch, Ash backed down with a giggle. "That's so cool," she said. As she looked at the smiling mare, another question popped up. "I can see you though." The mare nodded. "Yes. We're both hiding with hiding dust so we can see each other." She smiled. "And no, you can't have any for playing hide-and-seek." Ash deflated a bit. "As if I needed it for hiding," she said. The mare misinterpreted her words as indignation. "So I guess you're really good at hiding?" Ash sighed a bit and looked away. "It's not like I wasn't good at hiding, it's that the other foals usually forget I'm even playing and don't come look for me." "Oh..." was all the mare could say. She looked around her and remembered where she was. "Right" They sat in silence for a few moments. "Well, I guess you should be heading off to bed now too, my little filly," the mare said. "Ashley," Ash said. "But everypony calls me Ash." "Well, Ash, it's bedtime. Is this your bed?" the mare patted the only empty bed in the room. Ash climbed onto her bed, pulled her blanket over herself and lay down. "Are you going to blow sleepy dust on me too now?" "That's the idea," the mare said as she gently tucked Ash in. "Don't worry, you'll think this was just a funny dream in the morning." "Umm..." Ash started. The mare pulled some of the black dust from what Ash now realised was a little pouch tied to a dark blue vest the mare was wearing. "Yes?" the mare answered. "Could I get a little bit of that dust for later? "Having trouble falling asleep?" "Well, yeah. It's just that sometimes when I try to fall asleep, I can't stop thinking about stuff and then I can't fall asleep at all." The mare stroked Ash's mane. "That's more common than you think, but I'm sorry. Sand-mare use only." "Okay," Ash said. "Well, uh, good night?" "Good night, Ash," the mare said, as she gently blew the dust into Ash's eyes. Ash blinked a few times, then let her eyes droop shut, at least happy to be able to fall asleep. A moment passed. Another. Yet another. Ash opened her eyes. She could see the sand-mare walking away from her bed, this time careful not to step on any other toy hazards. "Umm, Miss?" The mare froze and turned around. Ash sat up on her bed. "How long before it starts working?" she asked. The mare returned back to Ash's bedside with what Ash could only think of as 'in a slight rush'. "It should work immediately. Maybe I didn't dose you with enough or something. Hold on." The mare pulled another, yet a lot larger, pile of dust from her pouch, and unceremoniously blew it into Ash's face. Ash blinked a few times, but didn't feel any drowzier than before. She opened her eyes again. "Umm..." The mare's unceremoniously pulled the whole bag, string and all, from her vest and promptly emptied all of its contents onto Ash. After a few moments the dust finally settled and revealed the filly, still bright-eyed and utterly awake. "Anything? Not even a little bit sleepy-weepy?" "Sorry," Ash said. "That much sleep dust should have put a hippopotamus asleep, nevermind a little filly," the mare said. Then she looked at her empty bag and seemed to realise something else. "My boss is gonna be so cross." "Sorry," Ash said again. It was what adults usually wanted to hear from kids anyways. "No, it's not your fault, I mean, I don't think so," the mare said. "This has never happened before." She sat down next to the bad and rubbed her temples with her forehooves. "And now I'm behind schedule, out of dust, and leaving someone awake to boot." From her voice, that last part seemed to be the worst offense by far. "And I even promised Rem I'd cover her shift later on." After a moment she nodded to herself. "Guess I gotta go back to the Dreaming..." she said, and put a hoof onto Ash's shoulder "...and you're coming with me." Ash couldn't believe her ears. "I'm what?" "You're coming with me to the Dreaming. If anything, I can show my boss that sleep dust doesn't work on you so maybe she'll blame the lab ponies for making a bad batch or something." She felt Ash shake under her hoof. "Oh, hey, I didn't mean... It's not a scary place or anything, okay?" "That's..." Ash said, before she launched herself into a huge hug around the mare. "...SO COOL! Can we go already!?"