//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Dreams 
// Story: Wild Magic 
// by Detsella Morningdew 
//------------------------------//

I was back in my apartment.

I ripped the blanket off, and sprang to my feet.

I felt great, but heavily disconcerted. That had to have been the most realistic and painful dream I had ever experienced. And the longest, too. I've certainly had some weird, super-realistic dreams before, but this one took the cake.

It didn't fade away, either, as I got out of my nightclothes and dressed for the day. Was it a vision or something? Did it mean something that my subconscious want me to know?

I walked over to my little kitchen and got out a frying pan to make some eggs. I had heard some interesting things about dreams, and what your brain could do with memory. For example, every background face in a dream was someone you had seen before, even if you didn't have any recollection of the actual event.

Still, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I had never gone hungry before. In all cases, that should have been a new experience. At the same time, it was easier to believe that I had dreamt the last month rather than I had actually traveled to another world. Actually became an unaging fox yokai from Japanese mythology.

I put a little onion powder and salt into the eggs.

I pulled out my phone and checked the date. Saturday. No work today, which was good. That doozy of a dream completely messed with my internal clock.

I turned off the burner and scooped the eggs into a bowl. I opened the silverware drawer, and got a spoon.

I took a bite, then meandered over to the small three-person dining table. The eggs were good. Nothing too special. I didn't feel like doing anything fancy this morning. But good.

"Impressive."

I looked up, and blinked a few times. Hovering above my table was some... somepony.

What's going on?

She was a dark blue, and her hair was full of stars. More than that, her presence was very noticeable, in the way that makes it hard to dismiss as a lack of sleep or delusion.

"I... I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are. Quite intricately, I might add. Is this what your home was like?"

I dropped the spoon. It clattered very solidly with the glass bowl. "Yes. This was where I lived. You really are here, aren't you? Not just part of my imagination?"

"I am really here, yes. Your dream looked... odd, and I had to make sure it wasn't anything dangerous."

"Is it?"

She smiled. "No, no. It simply has been too long since I've met another Dreamwalker."

"Dream walker? What do you mean? Like how you are showing up in my dream?"

"Yes. The clarity of your dream is a clear indication that you have the ability. If perhaps not the knowledge. Were you not able to do so before your transformation? From what I have heard, such things do not change your spirit."

"No, the world I lived on did not have magic at all. Maybe I had a few lucid dreams, but nothing more than that."

The alicorn, which I was almost certain was Celestia's sister, Luna, nodded decisively. "Right. It is reassuring to know that you had some ability, even if the world you lived in was not suited for your skills. Come with me for a moment."

A hole appeared in the middle of my apartment. I couldn't see through it - it was a brilliant white. But somehow, I knew it was a hole. Luna stepped through it. And after a moment's indecision, I followed.

It looked as if I had stepped into the depths of space, if space was more... blue. The hole behind us blinked out of existence. Still, it felt more as if the hole filled up rather than just closed.

Luna looked at me expectantly.

"Why is it so blue?"

She frowned. "Normally ponies are much more impressed. Are you sure you haven't been here before?"

"No, I'm sure. It does look beautiful. It just looks so much like space, that the difference was particularly noticeable."

"Space? I don't think I understand. Space is the in-between where air resides, is it not? It is true that the Dreamscape is the in-between for the mind, but that is not something that I had perceived just by looking at it."

I put a paw to my face. "I'm sorry. I don't even know how your world works, if the sun and moon are so different. 'Space' has another definition where I'm from, and it means the area beyond our planet's atmosphere, where there is a total vacuum, and nothing that hinders us from seeing the stars."

"Your kind can go past the stars? I thought you said they had no magic?"

"Past the-" I gasped. "Your stars are really close? But... right, your Sun is a lot different, too."

"What do you mean?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Princess. It would take a lot of time to explain. Our worlds work very differently. I could probably answer a lot of your questions, but we would quickly get into areas I know little about. Just trust me that I have seen similar sights to this one, impressive as it is. It is rather different being surrounded by it, rather than seeing photos."

I suddenly realized that I had reverted to a fox.

Luna noticed my surprise. "This is the in-between. No illusions or fabrications are allowed here. If it were not so, nightmares would be able to make my job significantly more difficult."

"Ah." I sighed. "Well, I suppose it's for the best. If I won't be able to be a human again in real life, staying as one in my head probably would hurt more than it would help."

"Not necessarily. All <kitsune> I have met personally have had limited shapeshifting ability. And even if you prove untalented in that area, all have talent with illusions."

My ears perked up. "Wait, you know about fox magic? Is there anything else you can tell me about it?"

"It doesn't work quite the same as unicorn magic, so other than walking with you in a dream, I cannot teach you properly. I can tell you that you should start with illusory fire. It is the most common among the foxes I knew, and from what I understood, it is as simple as levitation for a unicorn."

"Interesting."

"Certainly. It is also the only kind of fire magic I'd trust not to harm my own ponies in a battle. Though for us, it takes quite a bit of skill."

I blinked. "Wait, so it's combat magic? Not, like, intimidation or something?"

"No. Many called it fox-fire, due to its strange properties, but it was eventually reproduced by unicorns as well. It seems that <kitsune> have a particular talent for making illusions feel real."

The world around me started to waver.

Light?

"I think I might be waking up."

Luna made an annoyed noise, but nodded. "I had hoped to show you more of your gift, but it appears we have run out of time. Time is so inconsistent when one is asleep."

Light!

I could barely make out shapes anymore. "Thank you anyway!"

I woke up.

"Light! What are you doing down there?"

I looked up, and instantly hit my head on something solid.

Ah. The underside of a bed.

...Why am I under the bed?

"Um... I have no idea."

It felt good.





My seeming unconscious desire to be in small spaces would have to wait. It was breakfast time, and I wasn't going to take advantage of her anymore. (Though I did use her fridge to store my muffins.)

If I really wanted to, I could probably have gotten away with a muffin breakfast, but the only thing I had eaten yesterday were two muffins. While filling... I probably needed something more substantial.

Like fish.

I waved at a few ponies who were outgoing enough to greet me on the street, but I didn't stay to chat. I wasn't ravenous, but I had learned very early on that while hunting, you are always going to be out at least two hours longer than you'd like. And I didn't even know how to fish.

Okay, like, I knew how to fish with a pole. But most animals that ate fish, fished just fine without one, and I highly doubted that ponies would fish just for sport.

The river itself was actually quite promising. Not only did Fluttershy think there would be fish there (and I was inclined to trust her), but the river itself was quite large.

Now that I was actually looking closely, I could actually see a few every once in a while. The only difficulty was getting the fish without, you know, being swept away and drowned.

I mean, I was probably in better shape than if I had been a human, since I couldn't swim at all before, but I had a feeling that a slightly-more-efficient doggy paddle wouldn't exactly do me much good.

Why am I doing this again?

Right, right. Food.

...And because I would much rather not depend on Fluttershy's kindness.

My paw shot out at a fish. It was a lot faster than I was honestly expecting it to, but I still managed to miss. The second try probably hit it, actually, but it was hard to tell, because the fish swam away like nothing was wrong.

Right. Not having fingers is actually a problem here. How exactly do bears do this, then? I looked down. Yes, I technically had claws. They weren't exactly the long, retractable claws designed for catching things, though. That's what my teeth were for.

The problem was that I had to be fast, and being fast at shoving your head in a river meant the rest of you was fast at being shoved in a river.

Maybe an underhand thing? Or rather, underpaw.

"You're really bad at this, aren't you?"

I looked around. Behind me, floating to the right, was another winged pony - a pegasus. She was light blue, and had the most singularly impressive multicolored mane I had seen yet from the ponies. Maybe she was part tropical bird?

"Yeah, I really don't know how to fish without a fishing pole." I grimaced. "To be honest, I'm not all that great at that, either."

She looked at me oddly. "Fishing pole? Well, Fluttershy did say you weren't exactly the normal foxes she talks with. And um... like... I can understand you and everything. But yeah. You aren't the worst pony I've seen try and fish - you got the speed down better than most pegasi. But you got the angle all wrong."

She hovered over to the center of the river, looking down intently for a few seconds, before lashing out with a hoof and batting a sizable one up into the air and over to the riverbank.

"See? Easy as pie."

"I can't fly."

"Oh, right. Not exactly used to ponies other than pegasi being that interested. Well, it's more or less the same thing, but, um..." She looked at the river, then back at me a few times. "Maybe try to aim for the opposite bank? No, that's kinda far. Uh, I guess the only way I can think of is if you are really fast, and cup your... paw, underneath, and then hit it out of the water." She nodded to herself. "Yeah. That seems like it would work."

So, basically what I was about to try before she showed up. Still, she tried.

"Thanks. What's your name?"

She gasped. "You don't know my name? What, you live under a rock?"

"Um, no, but I lived in the forest. I just got here."

She put a hoof to her face. "Right, yeah. That makes sense. Anyway!" She flapped her wings suddenly and forcefully, corkscrewing into the air with a flourish. "The name's Rainbow Dash! Soon to be a household name throughout Equestria!"

If it's "soon to be," why did she expect me to know it already?

Still, despite her obvious grandstanding, she wasn't nearly as annoying as someone like her would normally make me feel. Her smirk was not the "I'm better than everyone else" that I would have expected, but seemed more of a... persona.

It probably helped that she told me she was friends with Fluttershy, if I were to be completely honest with myself. Usually, the people that bragged the most had the least talent, but if Fluttershy liked her...

I mean, that aerial flourish was impressive to me, but I wasn't a pegasus.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Shining Light."

"No relation to Twilight's brother, obviously."

"Is he a fox?"

She grinned. "No. If he was?"

"Still no."

Rainbow laughed. "I like you. Anyway, I'll leave you to fishing. If I leave the weather work past lunch again, Mayor Mare will have a fit. Good luck fishing!

"Oh, and keep the one I got out for ya. Think of it as a 'welcome to Ponyville' present."

She zipped off.

Okay, so that was a bit more impressive.

Huh. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen her actually land.

I picked up the fish in my mouth and started walking back towards the library.