Muffins with wings took off and flew away into the sky. For some reason I didn't pay this much mind.
I was looking at the school foals in the park, gawking at my owl and making me feel awkward with them asking what his name was when he didn't have one.
A goat with rather dainty looking hooves came cavorting down the path, calling out "Beast-kin? Where are you?" over and over again, with a sense of urgency. When he laid eyes on me, his eyes went from showing urgency to hellbent rage.
As I turned to run from him, Scraps rolled over the hill with a barrage of arrows and Speaks with Talons following close behind. Scraps carried something past me with great fear fueling his strides. I tried to follow him but I tripped, finding myself landing on a seat in the local princess's castle.
The spellbook found in my lap mocked me with a laughter in the flutter caused by the unnatural turning of its pages. I ran from it, but found myself facing Zecora across from a massive active fire pit with no wood inside it, pleading to me not to let my primal fire consume the world. The flame between us changed to a brilliant white and grew so large it would have easily been taller than any tree in the forest.
The flame then blinked out, revealing a night landscape. I was in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by many corpses of many races. Some stirred, and threw raspy moans of unintelligible accusations at me.
In the attempt to flee yet again, I found myself in a field of rotting berry plants, only the berries were heads of ponies, eating each other.
Finally, the Draconiqus Discord himself stood in the middle of the field, his firmer back limb standing squarely on yet another corpse wriggling around under his lizard like talon. In his arms he carried a small yellow pony, curled up and facing into his chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks and his claw gently stroked the pink mane as I approached him.
My heart sped up as I approached, knowing fully well what this was, and what was about to happen next.
The head of the pony in Discord's arms rolled backwards, limp, until I was face to face with a twisted version of Fluttershy, as pale as death and its eyes devoid of any expression.
"You told me," the aberration of Fluttershy called to me in a whimper. Not in rage. Not in accusation. Just in a confused and mournful whimper that made me want to literally rip my heart out from the pain of betrayal I felt inside my chest.
"You told me you cherished life. So why?"
Several of the corpses appeared around me, and started dragging me down into the ground as Fluttershy's aberration futilely begged them to stop. Even in this nightmarish state, I could only see her as kind.
I struggled for a moment against the pull, but only a moment. Was this what was meant to happen? Where this dream was leading me? Did I even care if it wasn't?
I let them drag me into the ground with their undead grasp. Within seconds, my knees were submerged. My hips, my waist, and finally my arms folded up on my chest followed, leaving only my shoulders and head above ground.
A thunderous voice from the moon shouted, "Enough!" and a dark blue flame passed over me. The undead dissolved into nothingness and I felt myself being lifted from the dirt.
We hovered in the air with her guarding me as I came to my senses and I threw a mental wave of my regained willpower out to my surroundings.
The terrifying landscape faded away, leaving only my familiar little island of reflection beneath me as Luna called to me, "I see that the dream still haunts you, but your will finally became too shaken to drive it away tonight."
I winced up as we got back to our usual seating positions.
"It's not that I was too shaken. Rather, I finally had the will to let the dream play out to the end."
Luna started to open her wing like she always did, but closed it again and dipped her head in understanding. "But not enough to take the shock?"
I nodded. "The shock that came with finally accepting what I did."
"..." Luna said nothing, knowing I needed to say what she suspected for a while now. She needed to let me say it in my own words. Words that came from me. Words I couldn't deny were the truth.
"I practically preached how I viewed life as sacred."
I shook and sobbed, finally letting it all out instead of trying to use logic to force it inside to be chewed over. The logic side of my brain had finally run out of appeals and there were no alternatives. I now knew, with no doubt whatsoever, why I hated myself:
"And I defiled it, knowing what I was doing was wrong. I took the easy way out."
I turned to Princess Luna, briefly glanced down at her wing and back up to her face with a quiver to my lip.
With a bittersweet smile, she opened it again, allowing me to finally come in for a hug.
She stroked my back and rocked me back and forth as I sobbed. "And so the monster has come to terms with its guilt," she softly whispered, "Now the wound can finally start healing."
I sobbed and nodded. At some point I began to speak again, but I was quickly interrupted.
"I lost my way. It all started on the day that the Fey-"
"We can start reliving trials that brought the real torment tomorrow, Moss. For now, just cry."
To be continued in Meta Gamer in Equestria: The Blight of Bane.