My mom had managed to keep me in school, even while we were homeless. Social services was iffy about ponies being required to attend school back then, they were iffy about everything involving ponies, so I technically wasn't required to go. She later told me that she was always terrified that some teacher was going to try to make her lose custody of me, but she had to risk it. It wasn't just important to get me an education; it was also important because it came with guaranteed meals for me, along with having a place she was sure I was safe when she was working.
I don't remember too much about my first school. I remember little things. I remember that I was always the only pony in my class. I think there were two or three other ponies at the school (depending on the year), but they were always in different grades. I remember that I sat off in a corner, separated from all the other kids in class. I remember that I always had to sit by the teacher at lunch, and I had to stay with her during recess, rather than play. It was lonely, that was what I remember.
The first place we moved, after my mom started working for PonyCo, was Frackville, in Pennsylvania. It was an almost all human town, but PonyCo was setting up a factory there to make accessories for their straps. It seemed strange that a town full of humans would be getting a factory to make pony tools, but my mom said that it meant a lot of jobs for the people in town. This particular factory did a lot of the smelting for the metal tools, and ponies didn't like being around all the smoke that came from this type of factory.
We moved there in the middle of the school year, and that meant that my first day of school had certain ceremonies that all new students had to go through. This time I really was the only pony in the entire school.
I remember the principal walking me through the halls on my first day of school there. I remember how my hooves seemed to make more noise than normal as I walked through the halls, and the janitors and rare students on a bathroom break all stared at me as I passed. They all kept their distance from me, backing up against walls as the principal and I passed. It was like I had a contagious disease or something.
The principal led me into a classroom. All the kids in class stared and whispered among themselves as he led me up in front of the class.
"Good morning!" He said loudly. Like he was in a big auditorium, instead of a classroom. "Today you're being joined by a new student. This young lady is Rebecca Riddle. I know she is a little different than all the other students at this school, but I hope that you make her feel welcome."
A few muted hi's and hellos came from the class.
He got a serious expression on his face. "I feel bad having to say this next part, but feel that it needs to be said up front. Rebecca may not be human, but she's not an animal. She's just another student, here to learn. Also, nothing she can do can turn you into a pony. There will be harsh disciplinary action taken to anyone that treats her as an animal or infected, do I make myself clear?"
The class gave a mixture of yeses, okays, and yes sirs, not quite in chorus. I didn't know before that anyone would actually feel that way about me, so his defense of me didn't make me feel better. I had already been nervous after all the looks I'd gotten in the hall, and now my anxiety was peaking.
He turned to me with a smile. "How about you introduce yourself, and tell us a little about yourself."
I normally was thrilled to meet new people, but the principal just implied that these kids might not like me because I was a pony. I know humans get nightmares about having to stand naked in front of a classroom. Well, I'm a pony, so I'm almost always naked, and I'd just been put on the spot to talk to all these human kids about myself. The nakedness didn't bother me, but my younger self in that moment could easily empathize with that kind of anxiety. I wanted to duck behind the teacher's desk so they wouldn't see me.
I just stood as tall as my tiny legs would let me and waved to the class with a wing. "Hi, I'm Rebecca. I just moved here."
Silence greeted me, and I struggled to figure out what else to say. "Um, I like our new house, because we never had a house before."
Some of the kids snickered, and I thought that must be good. Laughter was always good, right?
My confidence picked up. "I like to draw, and have lots of crayons. I don't have other toys, only my teddy bear, but my mom says that I'm going to be getting lots of toys, because we moved here."
No real reaction greeted this, and I tried to think of anything else to say. "My best friend is Miss Seapony. She comes and has tea parties with me in my dreams. She has another name, but I never get it right. Yinny? Yanny?"
The teacher let off a gasp, which confused me. The principal suddenly looked much whiter than before. "Yinyu Wu Yan? Is that the name?" He asked me.
I nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah, that's right! I just call her Miss Seapony. She likes green tea with orange spots."
That seemed to distress both the adults a great deal, but they didn't say anything angry to me. "Thank you for sharing, Rebecca. I think that's enough for now. Miss Narrowski will show you where you can sit."
The kids in my school never seemed to understand who Miss Seapony was. Some of them tried to make fun of me for having an imaginary friend, but the adults always hushed any discussion of her right away. I knew that the adults knew that she was real, but it took me many years to learn why they reacted like they did.
We had the remainder of the chocolate cake, but even Mom being super proud of me wouldn't encourage her into helping me convince Dad to make more. They said I was breaking my diet plenty as it was. A possible promotion to one of the most powerful beings in the universe should have earned extra cake in my mind, but I didn't pout… much.
Okay, I actually gave my stepdad my biggest, most sad looking puppy dog eyes-- but it didn't work.
We did sit down and talk. There were the expected questions. They asked if I knew that I was possibly getting an offer to become a Dreamwarden. The truthful answer was no. I had no idea if they had still wanted me after Miss Seapony wasn't going to be able to retire. They asked what I would do as Dreamwarden-- and that was a tough one to answer. I just want to help bring joy and inspire creativity, like I got my cutie mark for wanting. I was unsure how I was going to do that as a Dreamwarden, but I was sure that I could figure it out. They asked why the Dreamwardens wanted me, and not someone else. That I was unsure of, and would have to ask.
There were also much harder questions. How was this going to impact my personality? I had no idea. I didn't believe it would. How was this going to impact my safety, and the safety of my parents? That was another hard one. Only a few people should know what I was after it was done, so no one should know who to threaten, but it was still uncertain how well that system was going to work. I really didn't want anyone trying to hurt my parents.
Then there was the biggest question of all-- would I say yes or no? If you asked me with the prospect of it being years away I would definitely say yes, but the suddenness of this made me second guess that. There was also the issue of Miss Nightmares, and the terrible thing she had done. I didn't want to believe it, but I needed to find out.
I went to bed early. I even told my parents that I really needed to talk to Miss Seapony. It took me a while to fall asleep, because my mind was racing, but sleep eventually came.
Over the years I have gotten very good at controlling the settings of my dreams. It is just something that comes with having been a dreamwalker for most of my life. This setting I made someplace secure, my room. I sat on my dream bed, and waited. I didn't have to wait long.
"You're here early, Rebecca," Miss Seapony's disembodied voice quietly said. "But I can understand why."
I didn't look around for the source of the voice, I knew Miss Seapony would appear when she was ready. She did this sometimes when she was sad, or embarrassed. "Why didn't you just tell me that you were wanting me to become a Dreamwarden, and become one now?" I asked. I couldn't keep the anxiety I had been holding back all day from getting into my voice.
"Psychy Wikey just told us two days ago that he was going to call it quits. That was when the decision was made," Miss Seapony replied. "We felt it was best to break the news to your entire family at once, so that they had no doubt this was a serious offer."
I pouted. "You could have told me first."
Miss Seapony finally appeared in front of me, curled up on herself like a coiled up snake. "It was a group decision, heavily influenced by Psychy Wikey's opinions. You can take that up with him." Miss Seapony uncoiled herself, and gave me a sad look. "But that's not what we agreed to discuss tonight, is it? You want to know about that trial."
I gave a stiff nod. I was terrified of the answers that might be coming, but I needed to know.
My friend sighed, and lowered herself to the floor, laying on it. "Come lay next to me, and let me tell you some uncomfortable truths."
I hopped down from the bed and did as I was asked. Miss Seapony wrapped a fin over me and looked down at me like my mom would when telling me something sad. "Rebecca, we all screwed up. It wasn't just Phobia, although her round of torture on that poor mare was well beyond what any of us, but Sha'am, had ever done. We were all so scared, and overwhelmed, back in those days, and Sha'am convinced us that we had to be harsh and cruel-- tyrants-- in order to get all the night ponies in line."
She looked so sad, I couldn't bear it. "You said you pretended to be a monster back then," I said, comfortingly.
She shook her head. "There is a fine line between pretending to be something and becoming the thing you are pretending to be. I didn't try to stop her. I actually defended her actions."
I flattened my ears. It couldn't be true! She continued on. "I was secretly horrified by what was going on, but did everything I could not to show it. As it kept going on and on, with no end in sight, I couldn't keep that act up. I started praying for the pony to end it. That's the thing about Miss Nightmare's powers, they're about making you confront truths, and forcing you to face your fears. Once you do those things her powers have no more hold on you. The poor mare finally did it, although it felt like it took an eternity for it to happen. Miss Nightmares even kept telling her what to do, over and over again."
Miss Seapony closed her eyes, and bowed her head. "I still defended her after that. I didn't want to. I knew it had gone too far. All of us, except for Sha' am, knew it had gone too far, but we were afraid to back down once something was in progress, because it would make us look weak in front of the night ponies. Miss Nightmares was just as disgusted and sickened by it, she cried onto her spouse's shoulder immediately when she woke up. Poor Kriky spent an hour straight vomiting after he woke up-- he never could take violence, and I had to spend a long time helping him cry it out. Mr. Potty-Mouth called us all… some not nice names for letting it happen, and Sha'am called us all weak for getting so upset."
I felt like crying, knowing that it had happened. I didn't want to think about this anymore. I liked happy things, but I had to know more. "Did it happen any more?"
She shook her head. "We still tried to intimidate some, for a while, but only Sha'am did horrific things like that from then on. We eventually got her to stop, after it became clear she was causing far more harm than anything else, but it took Miss Nightmares threatening her. It has been almost fourteen years, but I still don't know what Miss Nightmares threatened Sha'am with that intimidated Sha'am that much."
"So she really is more terrible than Sha'am?" I asked, still scared of when the time would eventually come I had to meet her.
Miss Seapony hugged me closer. "Miss Nightmares might look thin and delicate, slow to anger, and she might even cry more than the rest of us too, but she's the last Dreamwarden you want to get on the bad side of-- if she feels like she is forced to take action. She is not a bad pony. She was the one that pushed reforms, reforms that even I didn't think we could possibly do, but somehow she managed to make happen. I think she has more of Luna in her than the rest of us, at least when it comes to determination to make things happen…" Miss Seapony looked around the room, then leaned her head in close to me to whisper. "Don't tell her I said that. We don't want her getting a big head."
I nervously squirmed underneath her fin. "When am I going to meet her?"
Miss Seapony smiled. "She says she is going to make arrangements so you can meet her, without drawing any attention to you. I'm not sure how yet, but she says you'll find out about it tomorrow. She isn't asleep right now."
"But you can meet us," a new voice said.
Two new figures appeared in the room. The first was one that it was hard to tell was a pony, because he was on fire. He didn't seem to particularly care that he was on fire, nor did anyone else, so I didn't ask about it. The second was a tall lady with wings, purple hair, and pony ears. She was wearing an orange robe, and holding a long bronze staff.
Miss Seapony gestured at them. "Meet Mister Potty-Mouth, better known as Ghadab, and the Angel Lady, better known as Arbiter."
Arbiter gave a little bow. "Pleased to finally meet you face to face."
Ghadab just stared for a moment before finally giving his greeting. "You're fat."
The tall lady reached a hand out and swatted Ghadab on the head. "Can't you make it thirty seconds into a conversation before insulting someone?"
"But she is fat," Ghadab grumbled.
"I prefer, pleasantly plump," I said with a grin.
Ghadab pointed at me while looking up at Arbiter. "See! She is not insulted! That is good. Ones such as us shouldn't have thin hides."
I stood up, and wiggled my belly under me. "Mine's definitely not thin."
That caused Ghadab to laugh. "I like this one! You should take lessons from her and the whore, you insufferable retainer! You attempted murderer! You tone deaf songstress!"
"Take that last one back! I am not tone deaf!" Arbiter yelled. "You wouldn't know the difference between a baritone and a tenor!"
"If I didn't know the difference before I certainly wouldn't be able to learn it from you," Ghadab yelled back.
Arbiter put her staff under Ghadab's chin. "Take it back, or I'll show them a vision of how badly you sing songs from The Hobbit."
Ghadab stepped back. "You wouldn't dare!"
Arbiter narrowed her eyes. "Try me."
Ghadab flicked his tail, or at least, I thought he did. It was hard to tell through the flames. "Alright, but you are still an insufferable retainer and attempted murderer."
Arbiter seemed to settle down, and crossed her arms, still holding that bronze staff. "That's fair."
"Miss Arbiter? What's the staff for?" I asked, wondering what super magical powers it had.
The angelic looking lady lifted her staff. "It makes me look important. Everyone looks more important if they are holding a staff. People will ignore you sometimes, but when you walk in holding a staff they'll listen to you."
I considered this advice. "But I have hooves, I can't hold a staff like that."
Arbiter frowned. "Well, you'll just have to come up with some other way of looking important. This way was taken by me anyway."
Miss Seapony floated up. "So, now you've met the three actual ghosts; me, Mister Potty Mouth, and the Angel Lady." She turned to Ghadab. "Can you please turn off that fire? I'm the one who burned to death, and I'm not fond of seeing that imagery."
Ghadab's flames immediately ceased, revealing a night pony with sand colored fur and a vibrant red mane. "My apologies, you cum drunk whore. I wasn't thinking. We rarely make avatars together anymore. Please forgive me, sister."
Miss Seapony swam over to him, and wrapped him up in a big hug. He just kind of accepted this with a flat look on his face, hanging limply in her embrace. "Apologies accepted, brother."
When they released their hug, Arbiter bonked Ghadab on the head again with her staff. He put a hoof up to his head. "Hey! What was that for!"
Arbiter pointed at Miss Seapony. "For calling Yinyu a whore."
"She is a whore!" Ghadab protested, and then got bonked on the head again.
"Be nice!" Arbiter hissed.
Ghadab flapped his wings. "She was a very talented member of an escort service. Does that satisfy you, little sister?"
Arbiter smiled. "That's better. I'm going to teach you manners yet."
As I watched all this, I couldn't help but smile. Sure, they weren't what anyone would expect out of some of the most powerful beings in the universe, but there was a sense of family between them. I could imagine myself being part of this. This might not be so stressful… depending on how the meeting with Miss Nightmares went.