//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: Realms Undreamed Of // by Ardashir //------------------------------// Twilight supposed she must have slept that night in John’s cabin with her friends nearby, but she wondered how afterwards. She and her friends were given some of Evadare’s quilts to cover themselves with and blankets to lay on the floor for pallets. Dash grumbled about wanting to use a handy cloud, but Twilight and John both warned her that after their little visit she’d better stay with them. “Okay,” Dash grumbled. She flew laboriously over to drop down between Applejack and Fluttershy. “Bet I can’t get any sleep, though.” In a few moments she snored like a train. “Now I wonder me if the rest of us will get any sleep,” John said, but he smiled to say it. He looked at her, and the worry she felt must have been obvious. “Just better sleep now, Twilight,” he told her. “Worrying all the night nair helped with any problem I air heard of.” “He speaks truly, Twilight,” Luna said softly where she lay beside her. “E’en an alicorn needs rest.” She yawned and froze. “How long has it been since I truly felt tired? Long before my exile… I must needs reclaim my lost power.” Luna pulled the quilt over herself and slept, a blue spiral horn poking out of a bulging bedroll. I hope it’s that easy, Twilight told herself. She laid her head back, feeling the warm comfort of her friends against the night’s chill outside, and slept. She dreamed, but to her relief they were normal dreams. At first. Her playing with little hatchling Spike as a filly, with her friends, and more. Then it went to her coronation and she saw everyone cringing away from her. She started to ask what was wrong, and then she noticed her reflection. She had the ebon coat of a Nightmare and the slit-pupil eyes of a Shonokin. The Shonokin leader she’d spoken to stood behind her, with a bit and bridle on her and some cord around her throat that choked her. Every time she tried to say what she wanted to say, he yanked on it and she demanded, “Bow to my master!” And her friends and family all bowed and scraped before her as the Shonokin began putting similar cords on their necks as well. Twilight awoke with a start to find her friends rising. They looked as tired as she felt, yawning and shaking their manes. She wondered what dreams they’d been having. Even Luna looked a little haggard, her mane hanging loose. “Rough night, girls?” Twilight asked. “I’ve had better,” Rarity said. “Oh, not the accommodations, but my dreams…” She shook herself. “You too?” The others said, and then looked at each other in surprise. Twilight gulped. “What did you girls dream about?” Twilight listened as her friends told her about their nightmares. It was the same or near the same in every case. Applejack on her farm, Rarity in her boutique, Fluttershy with her animals, and always with the Shonokin menacing them and theirs. They sounded similar enough to hers to make her worry. “Was it the Tantabus and the Shonokin?” She asked Luna. “Mayhap,” Luna responded. She flapped her wings out once and folded them. “Or it could but be our fears tormenting us in our sleep.” Before more could be said Twilight heard noise from the rest of the house. Dishes clattering, chairs scraping on the wooden floor, and best of all the smell of fresh cooked food. Eggs and bacon and more, and that strong aromatic smell she associated with that ‘coffee’ drink Sunset Shimmer introduced her to on the Canterlot High earth. “Young ladies,” Mister Manco stood over them. He opened the shutters on one of the windows. The dawn light came in, golden and warm against her skin. “The sun’s up, and it was time we got something warm and good inside ourselves before we did any real planning.” Breakfast followed, apples and oatmeal for the ponies, eggs and bacon and something John and Evadare called a hoecake that tasted wonderful to Twilight. Oh, and coffee too. Twilight took one good swig and felt it grab hold of her insides. “That’s the way Evadare and I like it,” John told her. “Black as pitch and strong enough to float an axe in. It puts some life in you.” “It sure does,” Twilight said, coughing as her eyes watered. One good thing, it drove those memories of her nightmare out of her head. She drank again, more carefully, and sighed to feel the dark bitterness warming her insides. “Girls, you might want to try this, a little. It does help wake you up. Like Equestrian tea, but stronger. And bitter-tasting.” John and Evadare both looked a bit surprised, but they took a small bowl and filled it for the ponies, one after the other. Twilight watched as her friends almost jerked awake from the drink. “I thought yerba mate was strong…” a suddenly-twitching Rarity whispered. “I think I wanna find that stuff when we go back home,” Dash said, her ruby eyes wide. Her wings popped up and spread wide, prompting Rarity beside her to try pushing one out of her face. “If it works like this here, I want ta know what the Equestrian version does.” “It’d probably make ya explode,” Applejack said. After that no words until they finished eating and set everything aside. The ponies helped with the dishes and cups as best they could. To their annoyance, just holding things with their hooves was somehow harder than back home. “Yow!” Applejack yelled as she dropped her third dish. Evadare stiffened and relaxed as AJ caught it with her mouth before it hit the floor, teeth scraping on it. “Doggone it,” AJ mumbled around the stoneware, “what th’ hay is wrong with me? Now Ah can’t even hold a dish!” “Ladies,” John said, taking another pair of dishes from Pinkie Pie and Rarity as they had similar difficulties, and setting them down in the sink, “I know you just want to be helpful, and we’re rightly grateful, but right now it might help best if you just stepped outside for a moment.” The girls waited unhappily outside. It felt chilly, not unpleasantly so but enough to make Twilight shiver. The trail leading back through the woods looked like any she’d seen in Equestria; the trees and flowers might be a shade less brilliant in their colors, but not especially so. And that hoofprint still showed like a small pit before John’s door. She and the girls avoided it. Twilight didn’t want to think about having to fight Nightmare Moon again, especially when she had allies as dangerous as the Shonokin. Like it or not, you’ll still have to do it, though. As she worked that thought over in her mind John and Mister Manco joined them. “We’re sorry, John,” Fluttershy said in her soft voice, and the others added shamefaced apologies along with her. “It just feels so hard to hold something in our hooves here.” “I noticed,” he said and looked at Twilight. “You reckon that’s because of the way magic is different here, like you said?” “What?” Twilight blinked. That hadn’t even occurred to her. “Maybe. I didn’t think it would affect things like that, though. Even granular jamming in the frogs of our hooves? This is amazing! I never would have imagined that just going from one world to the next would make basic manipulation difficult! I –“ She paled as a new thought hit her. “What if it starts affecting our minds, and makes us as, as non-sapient as your world’s ponies?” Her friends set their ears back and snorted, eyes wide, even Pinkie Pie. “Oh dear! Could, could it actually do that?” Rarity gulped and closed her eyes, furrowing her brow as she concentrated. “Forty lines to the hoof, ten hooves to the length, two hundred lengths to the furlong, twenty furlongs to the league, Equestria was founded one thousand four hundred and fifty-three years ago by the Solar Calendar, my sister’s name is Sweetie Belle…” “Be at ease, good Rarity,” Luna smiled. “Were such possible, ‘twould take longer than a single day and night. And ye possess the Elements. I doubt any of ye could be so easily affected so long as you bear them.” Twilight relaxed, seeing her friends set their ears back up as well. But their coats twitched here and there, like flies were biting. In spite of Luna's words they didn't feel completely assured. “Getting down to business,” Mister Manco said. “Now that we have a good idea where the Shonokin are, how do we make sure of it? The only way I can see is scouting them out.” At those words everyone fell quiet; a faint breeze whispered through the trees like they shared secrets neither ponies nor humans could know. The early morning sunlight shone on the leaves, making them into little emerald jewels like Twi remembered some ponies using for decorations on their front walks back in Canterlot. "Must we?" Fluttershy asked with a gulp, looking around. "I'm afraid so, Fluttershy dear. We need to know what those brutes are planning." Rarity nuzzled her, before asking in a worried tone. "But who goes?" “No need for air other person here to be risking themselves,” John finally said. “I'll be a-going to have a look at that old town.” He turned to go into the cabin, only to freeze as both Manco and Luna shook their heads no at him. “That would be the purest foolishness, brother John, and you know it,” He held one finger up, like one of Twilight's old schoolteachers about to make a point. “You've hunted and been hunted before, and you'd never take a foolish chance any other time.” “I've gone through the woods so quiet no soul knew I was there,” John responded. Twilight caught the annoyance in his voice. “I'll not be risking air other here just to be keeping myself safe.” “'Tis not a matter of keeping thyself safe, Goodman John,” Luna swatted her tail against her flank and cutie mark. Twilight remembered Celestia doing much the same when she felt the need to slowly and carefully explain something. “The Shonokin began all this in hopes of destroying thee. Their plans have grown grander since then due to my own mistakes, but they would still delight in gaining vengeance on you. And you are the most knowledgeable among us, even allowing for Chief Manco,” she nodded at him and he nodded agreement, looking grim. “If aught befalls the scouts we send, thou art the only one fit to save them.” John looked from her to Manco and then all around. Evadare didn't bother to hide her relief as she stepped out of the cabin. Twilight didn't blame her. She knew how she'd feel if it'd been Shining Armor making such an offer. John still looked angered at letting others take what she thought he must see as his risk, so she quickly spoke to head off more trouble. “John, you know it's true. Remember when we went to Sunny Town in the Everfree? How you stayed in the middle of us all?” Her friends nodded. John looked sour. “I know you don't like depending on others so much, but one of the things friends do is help each other. I'm alive right now because of what you did in the dream realm, so,” she gulped, “let me be the one to go and scout the Shonokin now.” At first everyone just looked at her in dismay. The clearing went dead silent. When some bird gave a short, harsh cry almost like a laugh in the distance, she almost jumped. Then: “Sugarcube, ya can't be serious 'bout that!” “Young lady, have you actually considered this decision?” “Twilight, thy offer is nobly meant, but dost thou understand what may happen?” “Twilight,” John took her hand, “you mean right well, but I don't see how I could be letting you do that. Besides, the Shonokin saw us together, so why wouldn't they know you right off?” “They saw pony me,” Twilight raised one hand and ran it along her human face.”Not human me. To them I'd just be another human, and provided I didn't say anything suspicious, why should they suspect anything?” “Just because you're human, doesn't mean the Shonokin would let you stroll around their own lair,” John warned. He looked past her to Mister Manco, who looked grim as he said, “If I recall some of what I've heard about the Shonokin, you being a young woman might make it the worse for you if they caught you.” “John speaks the truth,” Manco said, arms folded, his voice deep like it came from a pit. “No one has ever seen a female Shonokin, and to go by what friends of mine who met them have told me, they – use, human women to reproduce.” “Huh?” Dash looked around. Twilight wondered if she felt as pale as Evadare looked as Dash added, “Whadda ya mean, 'use'...” Her ruby-red pupils shrank as it suddenly hit her and the rest of the ponies. Half-choked snorts came from Rarity and Fluttershy. When Dash spoke again, her voice held a shiver. “Y'you mean they just take mares and – ear-bite them?” “Ear-bite -- ah, I have seen horses. I think I understand. So far as is known, yes,” Manco nodded, his voice still deep and full of warning. His hand moved from his chin to to the small dark stone pendant at his neck, like he asked protection. “We think so, anyway. I've never heard where a woman that the Shonokin took away was ever seen again.” Twilight wondered what he meant. And then her head spun as it sunk in. On one level her mind told her that what Chief Manco said was no worse than the chance of dying, which she'd faced before, but at the same time something twisted in her belly at the thought. She shivered at a chill that did not come from the air as she looked at her friends. Luna looked not quite angry or disgusted, but a bit of both. Applejack snorted, her ears pinned, but the rest of her friends showed muscles twitching along their necks, fighting to keep their breakfasts down. Dash stared and worked her jaws in an attempt to speak for some seconds. She finally shuddered and got her words out. “No way are we letting you do it, Twi!” “There's no other choice, so no arguing!” Twilight snapped back. She felt a pang as Dash gave her a hurt look. “Look, one of us has to make sure that the Shonokin and the Tantabus are there. We don't have the time to check everywhere they could be hiding. They know John, we can't send you or Luna, a human can get through without being noticed, it's got to be me!” “You an' me.” Applejack strode up. She looked at the uncertain John and Manco. “John, ya told us once about some critters here that look kinda like Earth ponies, but ain't? Well...” She took her hat off with a toss of her head and removed the ribbons from her mane and tail with her teeth, shook both out until she resembled one of the feral paleo-ponies of Equestria's distant past. “Ah can follow Twilight ta this town, an' once Ah'm there Ah'll just keep mah distance and watch what goes on.” She looked at Twilight and shook her head no. “No use disagreeing, sugarcube. Ah ain't about ta let ya walk into that den of snakes without anypony around ta fetch help. Besides, ya go alone, an' they catch ya, then what?” “She's speaking the honest truth there,” John said, nodding unhappy agreement. “I'd feel the better if I were there with Twilight, but if I can't, I'd rather it was someone I could trust like Applejack.” “Or me?” Chief Manco stepped up beside Twilight. He nodded his head down the road. “That town of theirs is a few miles from here, brother John, and while you and these ponies can walk it with no trouble, it'd be best to have a way to get out quickly.” “That means a truck or the like,” John frowned. “I don't have one, wouldn't even know how to drive one.” “Maybe you could ask Duffy Parr at Sky Notch?” Evadare spoke up, drying her hands on her apron. “You know him, and he trusts you. He runs the gas station and has his own truck. He could stay quiet about these ponies.” “Maybe, and maybe not,” Chief Manco said. “But no need to go so far. I have my own old pickup truck here.” He indicated the four-wheeled wagon with a locomotive cab instead of traces, back behind the cabin. “Twilight here can ride in the cab with me, and Applejack can lay in the back if she doesn't mind laying on cold metal.” “Ah can handle a little cold,” Applejack stomped one hoof for emphasis. It thumped on the packed dirt underhoof. “But just the three of you, Mister Manco?” Rarity waved her hoof to include the rest of the ponies with herself. She stepped closer to him as she spoke. “I mean, shouldn't the rest of us try and stay close by? If you meet the Tantabus, and she has all the power of Nightmare Moon, you may not have a chance to escape.” “Miss – Rarity, is it?” Evadare waited for Rarity's nod, and then said, “Miss Rarity is right, John. You-all are taking one big chance here. Maybe you could try calling some of those men you and Chief Manco talked with in the past about some of the things you've seen? That Mister Thunstone, or Judge Pursuivant, those two youngsters Hal Stryker and Lee Cobbett that studied here once or twice?” John seemed to consider it. He looked at Chief Manco. His frown deepened the wrinkles etched in his face by time and the elements. In the end both shook their heads no. “It's a good idea, but only if we lose.” Chief Manco smiled and patted Applejack on her head. AJ snorted and stepped to the side. He laughed softly. “My apologies if I patronized you right now, Miss Applejack. But you ponies are a lot to take in all at once. Judge Pursuivant is a wise man but he’s almost ninety, Thunstone’s my age and recovering from surgery, and Cobbett and Stryker… They’ve all seen plenty of strangeness themselves, but they'd need explanations that there might not be the time for. Besides,” and he sounded hopeful, “Your Nightmare doesn't seem to have learned how to use her power here yet.” “Your words are wise, Chief Manco,” Luna stepped out onto the red clay road and looked up at the darkening sky. The Moon Princess always seemed to be in shadow… Then Twilight remembered – she’s lost most of her power; her presence shouldn’t be dimming the light. “Our time may be short…” Luna’s voice choked off. “Shorter mayhap than e'en we know!” Everyone and everypony looked up, through the trees. The clear sky was dimming like a heavy cloud cover or at sunset. Twilight saw the shock on the faces of John and Chief Manco. “Does your sun normally set at nine in the morning?” Twilight asked, dreading the answer she expected. “Not in this world,” Chief Manco called back to her as he rushed onto the road with John and a small herd of panicked equines, snorting and whinnying at each other. “All o' ya, hush now!” Applejack looked into the sky, her face set and grim. “This ain't no time ta chatter!” Indeed it wasn't, Twilight thought. She looked into the sky and saw something that even she knew of her brief knowledge of this world was impossible. Above the trees, a cloudless sky showed deep indigo, like the beginning of night. To the east, the sun which rose and set without a Sun Princess to move it seemed dim and veiled, not orange-tinted like seen through smoke but rather like a curtain was being drawn across its face. And low in the west, the moon – the one John once told her had men walking on it (something that had drawn a wistful smile from Princess Luna), was brightening as the sun dimmed. Now it outshone the sun, bright as a full moon in Equestria, and a familiar outline appearing on it. Familiar to her and any Equestrian pony older than a newborn foal, anyway. It didn't belong here in this world. It was the Mare in the Moon. “Will they steal even my image and use it as a thing of terror?” Luna snorted in fury and pawed at the dirt underhoof. “I shall make these beings rue the day they made an enemy of me!” John stood stock still. Twilight saw how he and Evadare held hands, though by the way his fingers twitched she guessed he wanted to be calling on his music right then. She even heard the words softly under his breath. “Three holy kings, four holy saints, at Heaven's high gate that stand...” Mister Manco spoke too, his words a soft chant in a language that didn’t come through the Universal Translator casting. “Wahkonda di diu, wah pah din a ton hie. Wahkonda di diu, wah pah din a ton hie.” He caught her curious stare, and softly added, “It is a prayer from the Ghost Dance. The old Lakota who taught it to me said it means, 'God, a man in need, I who sing am that one'.” “I think it worked, Mister Manco,” Rarity's voice sounded relieved as she pointed her horn at the sky. “See? The moon – it's getting dim, isn't it?” It was. Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding to see the moon dimming back to normal, the image of Nightmare Moon turning back into random patterns of light and dark as the near-black sky once more became blue. They all stood there as the sun brightened to what it had been. Birdsong restarted. Twilight only now realized it'd stopped before. “She wants us to know she did it,” Twilight whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself. “She knows we're here and that we're going to fight her.” “In which case,” Chief Manco said, his voice harsh now as he headed for his truck. “Let's not disappoint her or the Shonokin.” Twilight started to follow, stopped and looked at Luna and her friends. “Applejack, you'd better get in the back. Remember, no talking even if someone speaks to you.” The palomino nodded and trotted off after Mister Manco. Twilight saw him help her into the wagon bed, then enter the cab through a door which closed with a crunch. As she wondered how long it would take the vehicle to get steam up, something mechanical groaned and it started with a vroom! followed by a rumbling sound as it creaked onto the clay-surfaced road, condensate steaming from an exhaust under its rear. Its finish was worn, its sheet-metal sheathing dented here and there. She turned and spoke to her friends. Dash frowned almost the same way as John, like she felt cheated or just angry her friends were going to be maybe getting into killing bad trouble. Pinkie smiled hopefully, and Rarity stood close by Fluttershy like she either sought or gave comfort. “Girls, Princess Luna, please stay with John and Evadare," Twilight said as she walked to Chief Manco's wagon. "We'll let you know about the Shonokin as soon as we come back.” If we get back, she thought. If the Shonokin and the Nightmare don't kill us. The other cab door opened with a creak, and with that cheery thought in mind, Twilight got in. Mister Manco maneuvered a lever beneath a ship-like steering wheel and they were off, jolting down the rough road with trees passing along either side. Looking through the cab’s rear window, she watched the five ponies and two humans by the cabin until a turn in the road hid them from view. And ahead, a dark road under dark trees leading to someplace that from what she'd seen and been told by everyone she knew here might be as bad as the realms of King Sombra or Queen Chrysalis. But I got through both of them together with my friends, she thought. So the same will happen here, too. Won't it?