//------------------------------// // Love and Nightmares // Story: Lure of the Flower // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// The dream faded. Constant beatbox music beat and boxed her brain. A flurry of colours resolved into dancing ponies. Gradually, she became aware of the hard table underneath her, and realized she’d slouched over it. Someone was shaking her, and she shot to her hooves at once amid Doc’s spluttering. “Roseluck!” he said sternly. “Roseluck! This is no time to be drifting off –” “It’s the Tantabus.” “What?” he said. She rounded on him. “I saw the Tantabus!” “What do you mean you saw it?” “I saw it! When I…” Uncertainty crept up on her. “When I was dreaming.” Doc sighed with relief. Close to, he smelled faintly of sweat and male musk, which started to blend in with the overcrowded air all around them. Her nose was stung by little irksome worries on the scent. “Roseluck, don’t scare me like that,” he said, putting a hoof to his chest as though to steady himself. “Haven’t we got enough on our plates without you jumping and yelling like that?” “But… I saw it. It must’ve been the Tantabus!” “You can’t just assume that. It might have been a dream version of your own devising, perfectly normal. The dratted thing has been on your mind recently. I expect the stress didn’t help, either, though obviously I’m no expert on dream interpretation.” Roseluck winced and licked her lips. “But it felt so real. At least, after it showed up. Before then, it was just…” She refused to share the specifics. She hadn’t known him that long. “It was just a normal dream.” “Ah, well, heightened senses often accompany acute psychological arousal.” “Not like that!” “Roseluck, please! I simply don’t want to see you work yourself up and charge off without thinking!” Goldengrape poked his head into the conversation so suddenly they each backed off fast. “What’s going on? I can hear you across the dance floor. And what was all that depression stuff you were asking Pinkie about?” Roseluck’s lungs heaved with the effort of restraining themselves. She could still see the dark shape of the Tantabus, spreading wide, jolting her fears so harshly she’d all but screamed, and even now her gaze twitched from corner to corner, almost certain in its paranoia that she was being watched. Besides, it was better than looking at Goldengrape’s widening face, though she smelled the confusion bubbling under his dance-drenched and overpoweringly merry musk. His ears, having risen like excited dogs waiting for treats, now drooped at the realization that the cupboards were empty. “Daisy’s OK, isn’t she?” Roseluck opened her mouth. Telling Doc was one thing; that was a discussion between equals, or at least between what she hoped might one day be equals. But they didn’t see Daisy as the blossom of the world, hadn’t spent countless sunny days strolling the park with her or gabbling on to her about the latest gossip… and that was all Roseluck knew about what they got up to when they were together. How the heck was she supposed to tell him? Too late, she realized she’d paused for far too long. “I mean, I know she asked me to keep away,” Goldengrape said in the rush of words she’d never heard before, as though he were about to start babbling. “I just thought she wanted some alone time, I thought it’d be OK after a few days, she said she was going to sort some things out and I thought she meant the business and you know I only get in the way and I just –” “Goldengrape,” she said soothingly. “– I just wanted to respect her wishes, you know couples start fighting because they get in each other’s way, I thought she just needed space, she’ll be OK, I thought she’d be OK, is she OK?” Before Roseluck even dared to answer, he slid slowly from poised uncertainty to a frantic, all-over-the-place horror. He didn’t pace; he simply went from right to left to some random direction as though trying to catch out an escape hiding around him. It occurred to her that Daisy was either very, very lucky to have him, or beyond cruel in her incompetence. “She’s… sleeping,” Roseluck managed to say. Hope gleamed in Goldengrape’s eye; he stopped moving around. “Again? Oh, thank goodness. I know about that. Any idea when she’ll wake up?” Roseluck forced herself to keep talking. “Well, that’s the thing. She’s been sleeping for a… for a while?” The gleam faded. “How long?” Roseluck mumbled the answer. From a world far away, the DJ switched from one mind-numbing track to another, equally mind-numbing track. Laughter was muffled. The ponies and the lights became meaningless blobs shifting randomly as though they were surrounded by nothing but chaos. “Three days!?” Goldengrape stared at her. “We’ve kept her fed,” said Roseluck instantly, but she spoke as though throwing the words out before they could climb back in and smash up the furniture again. “And we’ve been trying to find out why, me and Doc. We thought – He thinks it’s just depression, and maybe something in her head –” She slammed her mouth shut. You utter moron, Rose! “Something’s in her head?” repeated Goldengrape, sagging slightly at the knees. Doc leaped forwards. “Well, yes, we proved its existence earlier while investigating, but-but that’s not automatically cause for alarm.” Seeing the growing terror on that puppy-dog of a face, Roseluck wanted to kick Doc. The two of them had been all over the place, messing about, and here Goldengrape’s expression struggled to capture in a few seconds what that would have meant to him over the hours. She put a hoof to her own cheek to keep her own terror pressed in. Goldengrape finally found his tongue. “Not cause for alarm!?” “Well, of course not. There’s always the possibility Daisy is having a visit from dear Princess Luna –” And that Luna’s sucking her brain dry, thought Roseluck. Goldengrape turned white. Up till now, she’d only believed that happened in books and stories, but the natural pale gold of his coat actually turned paler, as if the hue were fleeing his body and running off to hide. “It can’t be Luna,” he said through a throat that sounded tighter and tighter. “She’s at the conference.” “What conference is this?” said Doc. “The conference Princess Twilight’s at right now. I heard it from Pinkie Pie. It can’t be Princess Luna because she stops dream-hopping when she’s busy with a conference. She can’t be in Daisy’s dream. Not for three whole days. That must be something else.” Something else. Something eating Daisy from the inside out. Something with no mind of its own, and it can’t possibly be Luna. The words echoed around Roseluck’s head. There was just Goldengrape and Doc, and no universe beyond that except for the one conjured inside her head. And she saw the Tantabus, leaping at her face again. Whatever Doc said, if that was merely a dream then Twilight’s castle was merely a pebble. Vaguely, she was aware of Doc and Goldengrape arguing, but the mumbling punched her mind as cotton cannonballs and left neither sense nor solace. As though waiting for any defences to go down, details she’d barely noticed now stampeded over the walls of reality. Three days of seeing Daisy on the bed, the “nur nur nur” mocking them, the eerily glowing flat line, Nurse Redheart painting a picture of old Mister Greenhooves crying out in his sleep that he was being hunted, and then… Oddly, the mutated giant rose, snapping up the Tantabus. Niggles became tremors became quakes of excitement. Thanks to Luna, everyone knew how the Tantabus worked. It ate guilt. It corrupted dreams, just like those corrupted flowers. It wanted to escape to the real world. So why had it pounced on her? And why had the supposedly corrupted rose turned on it? And why, said a cold, cruel voice in her head, would you feel guilty, Roseluck? She was shaking. But not from guilt: this was raw, red-hot, and seconds away from thrashing and screaming. Her gaze locked onto Doc. Her ears rose as a wave threatening to crash. “Let’s not rush things,” he said calmly. “Consider things from the objective point of view. It’s perfectly possible that Luna could be… attending dreams during the conference. That leads us to –” “NO!” Roseluck snapped. Blinking, he turned to her. “No!” She caught Goldengrape’s pleading face and continued, “Doc, I’ve had enough. I’ve just had enough.” “Oh Roseluck,” Doc said soothingly, “my dear, dear Roseluck. We’ll get to the bottom of this –” “I meant with you! Look, I’m angry and frightened and I’m not sure I’m not about to burst into tears at any second. I don’t want to go from one place to another like a sightseeing tourist. I don’t want to ‘consider things from the objective point of view’ like this is a game. I don’t want to waste time talking about what might be true or could be true or would be true. I want Daisy back.” Both stallions exchanged glances before she drew herself up. “Haven’t we done enough? There must be a Tantabus! Something’s consuming Daisy, something that shouldn’t be there, and whatever you're trying to say, it’s definitely not the only princess in the world who can visit dreams without a big, scary helmet.” “You mean,” said Doc, and he was so calm that she suddenly wanted to strangle him, “you believe the error bars are loose enough to err on the side of caution?” “What!?” she shrieked. “Oh. You’ve checked your p-values are tight enough for the purposes of a planned careful analysis of the evidence?” “What are you talking about!?” “You know p-values. How likely you are to be wrong, and all that?” He took a deep, insulting, frustrating breath. “If we consider –” “NO! No more delays! GOSH, why do you DO this to me, Doc!?” Roseluck’s teeth tightened so hard that her lips contorted under the strain. “Listen to me! It’s already nearly sunset. Daisy is not going to last much longer. Please!” At this, Goldengrape shouted loud enough to crack his voice, “Daisy’s in trouble!?” Finally! Tears of relief fought to get to her eye. “And Lily’s in there too. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s wandering around a dream, and that, that, that thing is in there with them.” For a moment, she panicked. He was surely going to ask what she meant by that. But no. Goldengrape’s stretching face crossed a threshold and collapsed. Hardened. Cooled. “I’m going,” he said at once. “I can’t stay here partying like a gormless idiot. That’s not how a boyfriend’s supposed to act! Roseluck, where’s Daisy right now?” “At home, in bed. We kept her there –” “Then let’s go! I’m not letting my last moment with her be the moment I made that stupid promise! Come on!” Oh thank you thank you thank you! They both surged forwards. Doc barred the way. “Goldengrape! Roseluck! Be reasonable!” She stepped right. He blocked her way. She stepped left. He jumped forwards and blocked the way. “What are you going to do?” He blocked her again and again. “What’s your plan?” “Doc!” Goldengrape made a grab for him. “Move it!” “We’re getting Lily out of there!” Roseluck growled and raised a hoof to push him away. “And stop blocking me!” “And what about Daisy?” said Doc. “We wake her up, one way or another!” Finally, Goldengrape ducked around him and galloped for the door, but Doc was fast enough to grip Roseluck by the hoof and hold her steady. “Listen,” said Doc, holding her struggling leg firm. “If it is the Tantabus, then think! What’s the one thing you need to do to stop it?” “Let me go!” She already saw Goldengrape vanish through the door. “Consider the dominant dream theories! This is not some random monster – stop struggling, blast you! – that popped up magically. According to Kind Expression’s Theory of Transcript and Translate – no, listen! – the contents of the subject’s inner symbols and metaphors turn into the transcript for a dream, which in turn is translated into real life experience upon awakening.” With a cry of frustration, Roseluck broke free. “What are you talking about!?” “I’m talking about the mechanism by which dreams turn into reality.” “Doc, please.” Frowning, he clicked his tongue impatiently. “The coma, Roseluck! If Daisy’s being hunted, then the endgame of the dream will become the endgame of reality. And to stop that, you have to target it at its source. At what those inner symbols and metaphors mean.” “Please!” “In other words: if you don’t solve Daisy’s inner problem, she’ll end up like Mister Greenhooves!” Roseluck stopped trying to sidestep around him. Already, she could imagine Goldengrape halfway along to the florist’s. All she could manage was: “She won’t.” “She might. That’s the worst-case scenario, since we don’t have time to speculate.” “You worked that out in one go?” “Strange as it may seem, I am capable of getting to the point sometimes.” Roseluck even felt her mind collapsing under the weight of all that thick, suffocating stress. “We need magic! That’ll sort this out! Get Twilight! I don’t care if she’s busy! Just get her!” Doc narrowed his eyes. He drew in a pontificating breath – “No!” snapped Roseluck. “Don’t you dare say it!” “Please, Roseluck! I assure you from the bottom of my heart I am just as good with my form of –” “Daisy needs help, whatever form it takes! And I don’t care if you don’t like magic! I don’t care how we save Daisy. Not with science strapped to her head or a magic horn being waved about. It doesn’t matter. So long as we save her!” Her insides quaked and boiled, while her eyes felt as though they were on fire. She trembled against the urge to breathe her way into a panic. Never had she so viciously, screamingly, desperately wanted to hit him. And yet as she watched, Doc stared at her as though, for the first time in his life, utterly incapable of understanding what was so blinding and obvious to her. He had the beginnings of a gape, and made no movements when she stepped around him. Time to go. No more delays. Not from Professor Pedantry. She hurried out, barely noticing the shrieks and cackles of the party ponies until they faded almost to nothing. Grass squelched beneath her. Dark clouds hovered overhead. Yet even as the peace went to sleep around her, against all that, she never heard any frantic hooves following her. She looked back. No sign of Doc. If she hadn’t been galloping at top speed, she would have sighed deeply. He should have rushed after her, he should have called her name over and over, he should have joined her side and matched her gallop for gallop across the grass as though in an ancient ceremony together. He should have brought violins and soft focus and the dulcet, dreamy tones of a really good actor about to convinced every female watcher that this, this was the stallion they secretly ached for, and would never get. But he’d had his chance. He’d had too many already. Beyond the edge of the clouds, one slit of light showed time descending with the sun. Gold fought its corner against the encroaching darkness. I’m coming, Daisy. I’m coming, Lily. Just hold on until I get there. Please hold on. Please, please, please tell me I'm not too late.