//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: The Archetypist // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// That night I dreamed of the desert. It was dark, so dark I could barely see the dunes around me. Not that there was much to see – by the sound and the scent, I could tell the sands extended away from me in all directions. The heat baked into my coat and flesh after just a few seconds, and my hooves stung from the scorching touch of the sand. Dry air licked the moisture from my lips, cracking them, and I squinted my eyes shut against the wind. Why do we walk where we do, in dreams? What drives us forward? I lowered my head into the wind, set a course by the shadows of tall rocky spires around me, and pressed onward. The loose sands shifted beneath my hooves, stealing my steps, forcing me to trudge as through deep snow toward my unknown goal. There were colors in the darkness. A shifting, bruise-colored rainbow, melting like the afterimage of the sun on my retina. I blinked around at the shadows as I walked, desperate for something solid to latch onto, but my blindness was near complete. There was only the moon – no, I realized, it was the sun – high overhead, and darkness everywhere else. I stopped upon a plateau and gazed out at a dark wasteland. Sightless, I stared up at the sun. The sun stared back, piercing me, and I realized it was not darkness that blinded me but the light. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I used them to paint my shadow larger and larger, sweeping out with a brush made from my tail, until all the sands around me were colored with them. If I could keep doing that, I could build a shadow large enough to hide from the sun, and then I could see again, and I could find my way out of the darkness into the— I woke into the faint illumination of my castle. Its crystal walls were never fully dark – even in the complete absence of external light they offered a faint purple glow, the same color as my magic. Useful when using the bathroom at midnight, though Spike complained that it was a bit creepy. There was something in my eye. Dust, or an eyelash. I blinked, trying to clear it away, and eventually gave up. Exhaustion won out over irritation. I closed my eyes and set my head back on the pillow to sleep. * * * Starlight had coffee waiting in the kitchen when I woke. I trudged toward the scent like the living dead, grappled with the cup, and managed to take a swig without spilling too much on my chest. Things got better after that. “Morning, sleepy head!” Glimmer said. She set a pancake-heaped plate in front of me. “Dream anything weird last night?” “Maybe? I can’t remember. I think…” I took a bite as I tried to peel back the fog of memory. As always, the fragments of my dream seemed to drift further away the harder I tried to remember them. “Something about not being able to see.” “Hm.” Starlight peered at me. “Your eyes look a little irritated. Maybe that’s it?” “Allergies or Discord. Two great choices.” I sighed and took another bite of my pancakes. “How about you?” She shrugged. “Same. I… I might have dreamed about my old town, but… well, maybe not. It never sticks, you know?” “All too well.” I pushed the empty plate away and stood. “Okay, I’m going to do some more interviews. Want to come?” She shook her head. “I thought of a few other leads, actually. I’ll be in the library, tracking them down. And Trixie should be arriving tomorrow morning, so I want to get a few things ready for her.” Part of me, a small selfish part of me, wanted to drag Starlight along as I went about town. I could use her help talking with ponies – dreams are highly personal things, and Starlight was a master at getting ponies to open up with themselves. Important trait for leading a cult, I supposed. And part of me wanted to steal her efforts away from anything to do with Trixie. But I also knew how immature that was, and how much it meant to Starlight to see her friend again, so I put on a smile. “Take as much time as you need,” I said. “I don’t think weird dreams are going to end the world overnight.” Ponyville was already bustling when I made it out of the castle. The usual hub and bub of the crowd filled my ears, and I found myself smiling despite the lingering itchiness in my eyes. If there was a better town in Equestria to live in than Ponyville, I hadn’t found it yet. It was an hour shy of noon when I finally reached the Boutique. Rarity was one of those rare ponies who would gladly talk my ear off despite any lack of interpersonal skills on my part, and she’d mentioned having unusual dreams before. An easy source of data, I hoped. I checked to make sure her “Open (and fabulous)!” sign was hanging in the window, then pushed through the door. It wasn’t Rarity who greeted me. Instead a smaller, squeakier version of the fashionista was in the lobby. “Princess Twilight!” Sweetie Belle said. She put down her book and bounced over to me for a hug. “Hi! How are you? Are you here for Rarity?” I returned the hug with a nuzzle. “I am, actually. Is she around?” Sweetie shook her head. “Nope! She left me in charge while she went to buy more supplies for that!” “For—” I turned to follow her hoof, and my question faded into silence. I stared, mouth still open. By the mirrored alcove stage, draped upon a ponyquin, was the single most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It was orange and yellow and red and black, done in a thousand shimmering scales stitched together with exquisite precision. A pattern, subtle and nearly random at first, slowly resolved as I walked closer into the plumage of a monarch butterfly. It flowed over the ponyquin’s shoulders and flanks, with ruffled frills that called to mind wings rising from the withers. It wasn’t merely a dress. It redefined everything I thought a dress could be. I could barely imagine a pony – a fleshy, flawed, clumsy animal – daring to wear such a creation. “She…” I forced myself to blink. “She made this?” “Uh huh!” Sweetie bounced around me over to the ponyquin, and for a horrifying moment I thought she would dare to touch it. But she stopped at the second-highest tier on the stage. “She’s been working on it all morning! Then she ran out of gold thread and had to go out.” “Ah, unfortunate.” I managed to tear my gaze away from the dress. “If you see her, would you tell her I dropped by to chat? She can come by the castle anytime she likes. Or I’ll just come back later.” * * * A pair of red admiral butterflies kept me company for lunch. As I was not a flower I didn’t have any nectar for them, but I remembered reading somewhere that butterflies desperately needed sodium, so I spilled out a little salt onto the table by the placemat and dotted it with condensation from my lemonade glass. Sure enough, they alighted beside it, sipping at it with their long needle tongues. They were polite guests and didn’t interrupt as I watched ponies go by the streetside cafe. The waitress let out a little coo of surprise when she saw the butterflies. She set my daisy sandwich down and asked if they were bothering me. I reassured her they weren’t, and we all went back to our respective meals. My eyes were itching still. The sunlight seemed to be irritating them. I rubbed them with my hoof and tried to remember if I owned a sunhat or shades. Maybe I could borrow some from Spike. “Do compound eyes get allergies?” I asked the trio of butterflies. They didn’t answer. Wait. I squinted. Sure enough, one of these things was not like the other. “Discord,” I growled. “What?” the miniature draconequus asked. His sinuous body, barely an inch long and sporting a pair of butterfly wings, fluttered over and perched on the edge of my plate. Despite speaking with a mouth smaller than the head of a pin, his voice was quite audible. “Can’t I join a friend for lunch?” “You’ve been abusing our friendship the past few days,” I whispered. It wouldn’t do for the other patrons to see their princess arguing with a butterfly. It might start rumors. “And what’s with the get-up?” “I like butterflies. They’re my favorite spider. Something about metamorphosis appeals to me.” He fanned his wings gently, showing off their spots. “I do wish they had more teeth, though.” There was an image I didn’t need. “We spoke with Princess Luna yesterday. She said your little plot with dreams is a waste of time. Ponies make up their dreams out of whole cloth every night. There’s no such things as archetypes.” “I’ll accept that Luna knows a thing or two about dreams,” he said. He fluttered into the air, bobbing and weaving before me. A few of the other cafe-goers noticed my unusual guest and started to point in our direction. “But I’m optimistic! The early results are promising. How did you sleep last night?” “Fine. Just fine. No dreams to speak of.” He didn’t answer, but I swore I saw the world’s smallest smirk twisting his face. After a few more flaps he came apart, each wing fluttering off like the petal of a flower caught by the wind. His body vanished into smoke. I heard a low laugh that might’ve just been the blood flowing through my ears. “Not friendly at all,” I mumbled. I glanced down at the two remaining butterflies to make sure they weren’t imposters. Everything seemed in order. I took a few breaths and focused on my heartbeat. Slower. Slower was better. “What was that?” The sudden, brash exclamation startled me back into the now. The cafe patrons had gone back to their business, but a new pony stood at my shoulder, peering down at my plate. The pleasant scent of hay and sweat and a sun-baked coat flooded my muzzle. “Hi Applejack.” I smoothed my ruffled feathers down with a hoof. “Sorry, was a little spaced out there.” “S’fine.” She slid into the seat opposite. The table shook, and my two butterfly friends took to the air. We watched them beat their wings in silence until they settled back down. “Not disturbing you, am I?” “No, of course not. Would you like to order something? I was almost done but I can stick around.” “Naw, I’ll grab something back at the farm. Thanks though.” All that was left of my sandwich was the crust. I hadn’t planned on eating it, but it felt silly to be doing nothing with my food. I picked it up and nibbled at it. “How’s everypony back home?” Applejack smiled. If ever there was something guaranteed to put her in a good mode, it was talking about her family. Well, that and apples. She could go on for hours about apple trees. “Good. Mac’s out for the week, visiting Sugar Belle. Meeting her folks for the first time, too.” A big milestone, that. “How do you think he’ll do?” “Fine, s’long as he doesn’t get tongue-tied. You know how he is. But I think he and Sugar Belle have their hearts set on each other, so what her parents think prolly ain’t gonna matter much. If they’re anything like her, though, they’re sensible, down ta earth folks, and they’ll like Mac for who he is.” I nodded along, though only half listening. Is there a word for the sadness you feel when you realize your friends are growing up, and things can’t go back to the way they were before? I patted my feathers down again. “Sounds like they’re getting serious.” “Yup. I expect a wedding soon. Or a foal.” A little frisson of surprise shot through me at that – not because we didn’t all know Big Macintosh was sleeping with Sugar Belle, but that Applejack was so casual about its eventual outcome. She could be a fierce defender of her family’s honor. “You have a preference?” I ventured. “I’d like to see them married, obviously. Granny just wants some more foals running around. Apple Bloom could go either way. She wants to be a flower filly at the wedding, but she wants to be an aunt too. Got her all excited.” “You know, I never got to be a flower filly? I am an aunt, though. It’s nice. I recommend it.” “Yup. ‘Specially nice when you don’t have to look after the little critters yourself.” The conversation lulled at that. I ran out of crust to nibble on, and my lemonade was nothing but melted icecubes. I took a sip anyway to have something to do with my hooves. “Hey, uh, I do have a question for you. Kind of a personal topic. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.” Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Go on.” “Have you had any odd dreams lately?” She tilted her head. “Ain’t all dreams odd?” “More than usual, I mean. Something new.” “Hm.” She scraped at the edge of the table with her hoof, grinding off a few loose splinters. “Maybe? Hard to remember dreams. They…” I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” “Sorry, just… thinking something stupid. No, I ain’t had any weird dreams. Why?” “It’s probably nothing. More nonsense from Discord. But if you do dream anything weird, let me know, okay?” “I can do that, I guess.” She stared at me for a few long seconds, intense in her silence in the way that only earth ponies can be. “What about you? Everything alright?” “Sure. I mean, yeah. Everything’s fine.” “Mhm.” Applejack stole my glass and popped one of the half-melted icecubes into her mouth and crunched it down. “Yer eyes look a mite irritated. Allergies?” “I think so.” The sudden urge to rub at my eyes nearly set me to shivering. I barely mastered it. “It’s that time of year, right? I think the cedar trees are flowering.” “Might be. Don’t much care for cedars. They’re uppity. If cedars was ponies they’d all be unicorns.” That… I blinked a few times, pondered a rebuttal, and gave up when nothing came to mind. I did know some pretty ‘uppity’ unicorns myself. So I went in a different direction. “You haven’t seen Rarity, have you? I stopped by the Boutique earlier, but only Sweetie was home. And is there anywhere you can buy gold thread in Ponyville?” “Gold thread? Never had to buy any myself. Might be a Canterlot thing.” Well, it would be a few hours before Rarity came back, then. But there were other ponies I could talk to. I set a few bits on the table, and our conversation turned to more mundane things than dreams. Around us the cafe ebbed and flowed with ponies, and eventually my two butterfly friends ascended to ride the wind away. I could barely imagine a pony – a fleshy, flawed, clumsy animal – daring to wear such a creation.