Dan sat waiting patiently. He had been up for hours and sitting more or less by himself for the majority of that time. It was coming up on nearly four in the morning and still no sign of Melissa, and he was long past worried. Lavender didn't keep a strict overnight schedule, in fact it was kind of hard to tell what her sleep schedule was, but she was in another room sleeping right now, and Rudra was in the front lobby acting as both doctor and receptionist at the moment.
He wished he could easily turn the television off. It was playing The Last Unicorn yet again. Wasn't the world tired of this stupid movie yet? He knew why they were playing it; the movie was to encourage ponies think about rehumanization. Fuck the networks and their damn anti-pony agenda. He didn't want that kind of think put in his face constantly. If ponies hadn't already lost their interest in watching television this damn movie playing constantly would certainly give them the extra push to abandon watching the tube.
His ears went erect as he heard the sound of a door opening nearby. It could be Rudra or Lavender, but hopefully it was finally Melissa.
A moment later his door opened and Melissa walked in. She looked at him with a look of pure exhaustion. "Sorry I'm so late. It's been a very long day. Felt like the longest day of my life."
"I was worried about you," Dan replied. He stopped himself from saying he was worried she had chosen not to come back.
Melissa came over and sat down on the bed next to him. "Yeah, I really didn't plan on being out that late. Tattered was giving me an orientation to what I needed to be doing. I'll be starting work this afternoon, so I can't stay up too much longer."
"Oh," he said in disappointment. "I guess you won't have time to talk then."
Melissa suprised him by climbing into the bed with him and wrapping her large body around him. "I have a few minutes. Do you want to hear about my day?"
He shuffled over so he was cuddled close to her and she pulled him in for a hug. "I'd love to hear about your day."
She kept hugging him as she began talking. "We'll, after I left you I met Tonya and Megan and spent time with them for a while. Tonya is a pegasus and she's odd, it's hard to tell if she is just carefree and ignorant or if it's all an act. I'm leaning on it's just an act. She behaved like the world was some technicolor wonderland most of the time, but a few times that dropped and she was suddenly a completely different pony for a moment or two."
"What about Megan?" Dan asked.
"Megan seemed okay," Melissa said as she rubbed Dan's belly. "She's ambitious from what I can tell, one of those go-getter types. She seemed really protective of Tattered, and didn't like that Tattered kept secrets from her." Melissa paused in her rubbing. "Speaking of which. Tattered said you were going to see about whether you were able to dreamwalk into my dreams. How did that go?"
Dan wanted to flip over so he could look Melissa in the eyes, but he didn't want to give up being held close to her; instead he just stayed still as he answered. "I was told that it was possible, and that I would be allowed to do it. You have to consent and be in charge of the dream, otherwise I'll be punished."
"Any chance you can tell me who will punish you?" Melissa asked hopefully.
Dan frowned he hated denying Melissa anything. "I can't, it's a rule."
"Damn fucking night ponies and their secrets..." He heard Melissa mumble. It was bad enough that he was disappointing her, but it felt worse hearing another reminder that she wasn't a night pony anymore.
"I'm sorry, if I could tell you I would," he said quietly.
"You can tell me, you just aren't," Melissa said with a slight snap that made him flinch. He then felt her sigh. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be angry at you. I don't know anything about the situation, and I'm just frustrated."
"It's okay, I understand," he said quietly. "But on the bright side, I can dreamwalk into your dreams...if you want me to."
"I do want that, don't doubt it for an instant," Melissa said as she hugged him tight again. "I have control of how the dream goes, you say?"
"It has to be you. I don't know how much of a lucid dreamer you are, but you're the one who has to dictate how things go once I come in," Dan said. He was enjoying the warmth of her against him. He could almost forget she was a human.
"I am really tired, and I'm supposed to report to work at noon to relieve Tattered. Care to try now?" She asked with a hopeful tone.
"It's still too early for me to fall asleep yet, but you get your rest and I'll join you as soon as I can," Dan said, cursing the fact he was wide awake and it wasn't yet dawn to make him sleepy.
"Oh...well, I guess I should let you go then..."
As she was moving to release him he cut her off. "No. Please, just keep holding me. I'm not going anywhere. I like feeling you there, it's comforting."
He heard and felt her giggle. "You'll be my misshaped teddy bear? Guarding me from monsters as I sleep?"
"Always. I might not be as physically up to things as others, but I'll always be here to guard and protect you while you dream."
He felt her yawn. "Then stay with me, and I'll see you when you fall asleep after the sun rises."
"Good night, Melissa."
"Good night, Dan."
Within another minute her breathing slowed down and he could just barely make out a small snore that would have been undetectable to human ears. The only way his pony ears could pick it up was he was so close to her. She was sleeping contently, probably for the first time in the last month.
As he listened to her and felt her warmth and breath on him he felt content himself. Melissa was happy, and she was happy holding him. He'd never let any human hurt her again, nor any pony. If there was anything he was going to commit himself to doing going forward, that was what he would commit to.
He felt a warmth on his flanks and saw a brief flash. He gently turned his head to look at them, careful not to disturb Melissa. On his flanks now sat a cutie mark, a teddy bear sitting the on the hook of a crescent moon.
Sarah Tanner laid in the guest room of her father-in-law's house looking mournfully at the latest rejection letter for sponsorship of her digs from a university. With a sigh she gently levitated it over to a box that held several other such letters, as well as rejection letters from the government saying she couldn't visit Equestria to access their records.
Harold walked in, and she had smelled him long before he appeared at the door, despite him doing everything he could to be quiet.
"You're looking pretty down, another university turn you down?" Harold said as he walked over to her.
"Yeah, they did," she said as she laid her head down. She flattened one ear and looked at Harold out of the corner of her eyes. "And you better take a shower before you think of laying down next to me. You're covered in sweat and other things and smell terrible."
Harold raised a hoof to the back of his neck and rubbed it. "Sorry, was just eager to get back to bed after helping fix that water heater. Still can't believe it was that loud to wake us all up."
"Go take a shower and then come back to bed. I'm going to try to get some sleep. Tomorrow I have to start trying again to find a sponsor."
"Sarah, I know how much you want to get back to doing what you were doing as a human, but the economy has taken a big hit and these universities just aren't going to have the money to fund you, even if they are willing to work with a pony."
She already knew that, but hearing it said out loud still made her feel worse.
She resisted the urge to cry and spoke with resolve. "All I can do is keep trying. This is my life, Harold, it's what I have always enjoyed doing. If becoming a pony isn't stopping me from continuing my passion then I'm going to find somepony that's able to fund me."
She waited for him to suggest she try going off and doing digs without funding again, despite how many times she had explained that wasn't going to work. There were permits, equipment, and workers to pay. Things like carbon dating and so on cost money to do. There were permissions to dig she had to obtain from tribal leaders and others who owned the land, and getting those typically required her having a lawyer negotiate on her behalf. Plus, after what had happened on her last site she was going to get security from now on, because that kind of thing would not be allowed to happen again if she could prevent it. Someway-somehow, she needed to find a sponsor.
"Alright," Harold finally said. "By the time I'm done showering it will be nearly dawn. I might just stay up and get an early start. I'm going to do one last check on Jenny and Bob before I do that, just to make sure they got back to sleep alright."
Her ears perked up and she sat up and looked at her husband. "I've been busy and distracted, how are they doing lately?"
The question was left unsaid that she really wanted to know, but Harold picked up on it.
Harold's ears dropped. "Jenny is still set on rehumanizing, and Bob still seems like he isn't in any hurry to give any answer on that."
She looked at him with sympathy. "How are you taking Jenny's decision? I know you were hoping she'd come around."
He shook his head. "It isn't the fact she wants to rehumanize that bothers me, it's the fact that if she does she most likely won't be able to stay with us. I'm literally losing my little filly. Not just in a sense of her changing back to human, but her not being here at all anymore."
Sarah's own ears sagged. She didn't like that fact either. Eileen had already agreed that she'd take legal custody if Jenny went through with this, and she trusted her sister to do right by Jenny. Eileen had really done a lot to turn her life around in the last few weeks. The ETS pandemic may not have turned Eileen into a pony, but it had still indirectly changed her, and for the better. Sarah had a newfound empathy for how her sister felt about Bob now. It was for Jenny's own good that Eileen take custody, but it didn't mean it didn't deeply hurt.
She bit her lip then put on a brave face. "Whatever Jenny or Bob decide to do, I'll respect their wishes. Eileen will make sure they visit us often. All of them will still care about us and will want to visit us. She trusted us with Bob for a long time, we can trust her with Jenny--and Bob too if he also ends up deciding the same. We were never going to have them forever, this is just them leaving the nest a little sooner than expected." She brought a leg up to wipe her eyes as she finished speaking. Secretly she hoped Jenny would change her mind, but she was going to support Jenny no matter what.
Harold looked down at the floor. "That's true I suppose. I'm just not ready to let go. We were finally starting to connect and now she's going to be leaving. I'll smile and support her, but it's going to break my heart. Laura is already out on her own, soon we won't have any of them with us."
Sarah could only agree. "Laura wants to be called Sunrise Storm, or Sunny now; try to remember and respect that. We might not have done a perfect job raising all of them, but I'd like to think we did a good enough job they're ready to be without us if need be. I'm going to cry like a newborn foal when Jenny leaves, but we'll still be here if she needs us."
Harold nodded and started making his way to the door, sniffling as he went. "Get your sleep, I'll make sure you're awake well before noon." He did one final look back at her though. "I love you."
Sarah smiled at her husband. "I love you, and we'll always have each other. Now get a shower, my strong pungent stallion."
Harold left and she laid back down to try to fit in a few more hours of sleep.
Sarah was dreaming, and she knew it. From a young age she had always been a bit of a vivid dreamer. That didn't really detract from the dreams though.
She was sitting very contently in a nest in a tree, like some giant four-legged bird. She sometimes wondered if pegasi had birdlike thoughts that encouraged dreams like this, but she would never dare ask her daughter about something like that. Being a unicorn just made the situation odd if not for the fact it was a dream.
Sunny was flying around the tree from branch to branch like she was some giant bird. The weird part was Jenny was doing the same thing, and Jenny was in her human form flapping her arms like they were wings--because this was a dream that somehow worked, even though it was comical to look at. Upon further looking around she saw both of them had their own nests off in other branches.
Empty nest syndrome was already taking effect on her dreams it seemed.
As she thought of that she suddenly found a giant egg in the nest with her. She wanted to laugh at the implications, but honestly the thought of having a new foal had crossed her mind since it became increasingly clear Jenny was probably going to rehumanize. She'd dismissed the idea each time. She was too old to be having new foals, there was a moderate likelihood that sometime in the next ten years she'd become a grandmare, scary as that possibility was to contemplate.
Maybe she could just talk about it with Harold. There was no harm in just talking about it, right?
A voice startled her as it began talking from somewhere above her. "You know, I didn't expect to find you in a bird's nest in a tree; an ancient temple, a dig site, something more mundane and domestic, not a tree."
Sarah looked up at the source of the voice. There was a midnight blue night pony mare smiling down at her from atop a different branch.
The mare winged her way down to Sarah's branch and looked around some more. "I had thought for a moment that I had just transitioned over to some other dream of Sunny's after coming here. I wasn't sure I'd be able to track you down based on just her thoughts about you. I'm Rosetta Stone, I'm your biggest fan."
Sarah blinked as she recalled the name and connected it to a pony rather than the object which graced the mare's flanks. Sunny and Luna both had mentioned a night pony named Rosetta Stone. Sunny said that pony had visited her dreams, which meant the Rosetta Stone in front of her was probably not just part of her dream.
"Um...hi, I'm glad to hear that somepony appreciates my work," she said slowly. She wasn't lying, she loved hearing that her work was respected. That didn't make this less weird though, or less an invasion of privacy. "Why are you in my dream?"
Rosetta grinned like a filly getting candy. "I was hoping that I could help you somehow. I'm a big history buff myself and I've been excited about your work since I first learned of it. I really am eager to see what you'll do next since it was confirmed you were right."
That hit her hard. She shook her head. "I don't know to tell the truth. Every single avenue to continue my research seems to be blocked at the moment. Short of doing trespassing and unpermitted work I can't find a way of continuing my work. I have the magical capabilities to continue working, but I don't have the money or political clout. You'd think humans would be eager for me to continue to find out what went on with that first contact centuries ago, but the economy says otherwise."
Rosetta's ears perked. "It's money you need then? I might be able to help with that."
Sarah frowned at the night pony. "I've already gone to most of the universities that sponsor these kinds of things. I've been told there's no money. The same thing from the government, with an extra hint that they aren't excited to help out a pony. Unless you're rich I doubt you can do much to help."
"Well, I'm not rich..."
Sarah nodded at the expected answer, letting her posture slump some more.
"But I do have family members who are rich who I could convince to help you," Rosetta finished.
Hope suddenly reignited in Sarah, and she tried not to let herself get too excited as she looked back up at her fan. "How rich are we talking? These kinds of things are not cheap. I have to pay a crew of workers, order expensive tests, buy equipment, pay for permits, it all adds up to a huge bill really fast."
"My sister makes several million dollars a year," Rosetta said with a smile.
Sarah's ears dropped again. "That might not be good enough for the scale I need. I might run a cost of several hundred thousand dollars myself for the amount of things I will have to pay for. Not only am I paying for people and equipment, I have to pay lawyers to negotiate things on my behalf if I don't have a university that has their own legal team and reputation to back them."
Rosetta's face fell and she looked down at her hooves. It was a nice gesture on the night pony's behalf, but it likely wouldn't be enough.
The night pony chewed on her lip and flicked her tail a few times then took a deep breath. "I do have another option, that has more money than my sister. She is probably vestedly interested in your research too, at least she will be once she hears about it. I don't want to go to her, but she'd fund you with whatever you need, she could fund millions a year if it came down to it."
And just like that hope blazed right back to life. "Who is that? How can I get in contact with them?"
The night pony looked like she had in a bad taste in her mouth. "My future mother-in-law, Sunset Blessing. She's got the resources you would need, and she has some pull with the government that could be useful. I would be cautious with her though."
That name stank of being a Shimmerist. Any pony that held Sunset Shimmer in high regard immediately put Sarah on edge. Sunset Shimmer had done so much damage to her family. Sunny might have mixed feelings about the pony, but Sarah's feelings were clear.
Still, it was a chance of getting money for her digs. This Sunset Blessing might be a Shimmerist, but she wasn't Sunset Shimmer herself. There was no requirement that Sarah like her sponsor. She could also see where a rich Shimmerist would be interested in her work.
"If she's a Shimmerist I won't be thrilled about her help." It then occurred to Sarah that for all she knew this night pony was one too. Hoof was already in her mouth for that though. "I'd still be willing to take it if she's willing to offer a sponsorship. I'm not in a position where I can be picky about those kinds of things. I just don't have options."
Rosetta nodded. "I have a hard time trusting that mare, so I'd be cautious with her. She's a Shimmerist and a plotting, conniving bitch, but I do think she'll take interest enough to see that you're funded. I can act as a go-between." The night pony let off a bitter chuckle. "She's likely going to gloat about me coming to her asking for help, I kind of accused her of being sexually attracted to foals a little while ago."
Sarah laid her ears back. "Is she?"
Rosetta shook her head. "I doubt it. I was angry and just screaming insults at her. She'll listen to what I have to say though, if only because my fiancée will guilt trip her into it if she doesn't."
"You said she has pull with the government. How does she manage that if she is such a blatant Shimmerist? Just being a pony gets me roadblocks from them. I don't see how a Shimmerist would do better."
Rosetta shrugged. "Don't ask me. I just get told that it's because she's effective doing what they want. She's actually got human soldiers at her beck and call. They keep on handing her more and more power too. She's probably the most politically powerful pony in the southeast at this point."
That made her realize another thing she was worried about. "There is another thing I need. Once I get working again I need somepony to keep copies of my research and reports safe. With what I'm doing I could run into the government trying to suddenly erase my work. I need security for my sites as well."
The night pony laughed. "I'm sure Sunset Blessing will be all too overjoyed to keep copies of your work safe from the government. Problem will be getting her to let it go if you need her to. I can help with that though. I'm more than willing to keep copies of your work if you need backups. Sunset Blessing will have to pay for the security though."
"And you're sure she has the money for this?" Sarah asked.
"I have no idea where she gets all of it, and don't want to know, but she has it in spades. Money doesn't seem like an object to her." Rosetta confirmed.
Okay, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. There was a lot to be wary of with this Sunset Blessing, but this was her best chance to continue doing what she felt she was born to do.
Time to work out the details. "When can you get back to me about her? Where even are you?"
"Riverview, South Carolina. It's the back end of nowhere," Rosetta answered. "I can get to you again tomorrow or the next day. Just sleep in each day so I can catch you. If you get up too early I likely won't be able to fall asleep early enough to dreamwalk to you. If you don't see me tomorrow, I'll be here the next day for sure."
Two days at most and she could have a sponsor. Maybe not the most desirable sponsorship, but a sponsorship none the less. Hopefully within a month or so she could be making arrangements for her next project. She could barely contain her excitement.
She walked down the branch to the night pony and grabbed her up in a hug. "Rosetta, I can't thank you enough. You have no idea how much this means to me. You're welcome in my dreams whenever you want, provided you don't overdo it."
Rosetta grinned again like a filly. "So, does that make us friends then?"
Sarah smiled back. "We're good friends, and I look forward to spending time with you and working with you."
Sometimes all you needed to turn around your luck was some good sleep.