//------------------------------// // Chapter 26 // Story: "Little Pony" // by ButterscotchFTW //------------------------------// When I awoke I was greeted by nothing but silence. The first thing to pop into my head was confusion, why is everything so silent. It’s as if I we- my eyes widened and I pushed myself up and onto my feet. My eyes met a wall of darkness that followed my their rapid movements, I tried moving but everything was still flooded by darkness. My breathing picked up and I took a moment to bring a hoof to my chest and tried to calm myself down, panicking would not help me in this situation. I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes.  Only it felt as if I wasn’t taking in any air, I was confused again. My eyes opened and I lifted my hoof from my chest and up to my mouth. I breathed on it to check, and to my surprise. I couldn’t feel any heat nor feel the actual gust against my hoof. I took a moment and sat down, trying to gather my scattered thoughts as they all tried to make sense of where exactly I was and what happened.  The last thing I remembered was falling asleep on mothers back an- I stopped for a moment before realizing something.  “Am I dreaming?”  Correction, would this count as lucid dreaming since i’m consciously aware of the expansive darkness all around me? Wait, don’t you immediately wake up when you realize that it’s all a dream? I stopped and waited a few moments, to see if anything would happen because of it. Three seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two minutes. Huh. Nothing happened.  To be honest it’s interesting, when I usually fall asleep I never really dream. No less, I even realized I fell asleep because it’s already the next day whenever I open my eyes. But I guess this is an exception to all of that.  “Well. Uh, echo?”  I frowned as my voice wasn’t projecting around the room. If this is how I’m going to have to wait until I wake up the- a small flash of blue light interrupts my endeavors. I paused and blinked before turning my attention downwards. Eyes widening at what I saw.  “What..?” Sitting just a few feet away from me was an amazon Alexa, or echo. Whatever you call it, I’ve never even used one before. But there was one here, right in front of me! How did it get there in the first place?  “Uh.. hey Alexa, what’s my name?”  I waited for a few moments as the flashing blue lights started back up and illuminated a small part of the room, a very familiar female voice projecting from the small cylindrical box.  “I am currently talking to Speckles.”  Oh. Alright then. I guess it works like it would on Earth.  But back to my main thought. If this is a lucid dream and if this Alexa is proof of that. Then I could theoretically imagine anything I want and make it appear in my dream. Right? Wait. I stopped and thought about something, just as a test to see if it- Oh my God! There sitting in front of me was something I’d always imitated using back when I was on earth. I stood up from my sitting position and reached forwards, grabbing onto the hilt of the object and sliding it into the grasp of my hoof. I tilted the cylinder around in a sort of inspection before my eyes fell upon the button that would make or break this dreamed up object. I anxiously pressed the button at the base of the hilt an-  *SWOOSH* “Holy shit.”  ".." "Holy shit!" The light of the purple saber outshined whatever the Alexa projected by a longshot, my happiness knew no bounds at this point. With no one here to judge or laugh at my antics I did what anyone with a working lightsaber would do.  *SWISH* *SHING* *SWOOOSH* I stopped in my tracks and looked around at the very empty expanses of my dream and squinted my eyes as a thought drifted in. Could I possibly change how the scenery looks in my dream? If that was possible. I looked down at the purple lightsaber in my hooves and felt a grin etching its way onto my face. Then I could quite possibly complete anything I want. I started remembering what the place actually looked like in the back of my head, flashes of bright red and orange magma started forming on the otherwise empty floor I was standing on. Rocks started lifting from the ground and forming hills and inclines, shifting the flowing magma as a large flow was created, leading to a large waterfall esque drop at the end. I didn’t realize I was bouncing on my feet until I looked down, I was standing at an elevated position overlooking the river of magma. A floating platform popped into existence just a ways away from where I stood, hovering ever so closely to the magma below.  With that I moved onto the best part. A bundle of shadows crawled from the unchanged ceiling and floated downwards into a collective at the base of the floating platform, culminating until finally a bright blue glow shot out from within the cloud. Followed by the dark lord himself. Well, when he was still Hayden Christensen and or Anakin. The shadows slowly dispersed from around him and floated back up to the ceiling, leaving me with the almost lifelike version of the chosen ond staring daggers at me.  Could you pass out in a dream? Because that’s what I felt like was going to happen. All of this excitement and sudden shock of endorphins was concerning, but all of the possibilities at hand staved it off. Keeping my bouncing to a minimum, I fixed onto Anakin with the most serious face I could pull off at the moment, opening my mouth and saying.  “It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground!”  His posture shifted and both hands were on the saber “you underestimate my power!” he bent his knees and I shifted accordingly, readying the imaginary saber in my hooves.  “Don’t try it!”  He tried it.  -------- Where a ponies eyes closed for a peaceful slumber, the princess of the night's eyes stayed open. Waiting with a mug of coffee in her hooves for a disturbance to make its way to her through the many strings she has attached to the dreaming realm. She waited for any of the sort so she could act accordingly. Though tonight she was distracted with a peculiar pony, a foal no less. Mainly with the fact that she could not enter nor even break through any of the barriers his door had formed, almost every single dreaming pony had a door of their own, her and her sister included. It was very uncommon and albeit rare for a pony to have as much resistance as this little foal does, along with the peculiar fact that she'd never laid eyes upon his door until as of a few days ago when she convened with her sister.  Now that she does realize it, she has every single ponies door catalogued and memorized, every path and every way to enter. All with many a milenia of practice. Though it still majorly confused and frustrated her that she couldn’t enter his dreams without causing damage to him. Despite the vast resources she held at her hooves, she could not come up with a solution to this problem. All she wanted to do was check in on the little foal and see if there were any traumatic effects from his encounter with the changelings, it left a sour taste in her mouth at the thought of not being able to assist him.  As her mood started to dampen, and the effects of the coffee wearing out she found herself wondering what exactly she was to do. A sudden pulling feeling in the back of her head snapped her to attention, the mug practically falling out of her grasp and onto the floor. Confusion was at the front of her mind before switching to excitement as she realized what that meant. The spell she left on the foals door had at last found and entry point, she must tell her sister at once! With a perfected grace she was gone from her room in a flash. Appearing and promptly crashing down onto an unsuspecting sleeping princess Celestia. Whos eyes snapped open and let out a noise of surprise. "Agk--!" "Sister, sister I've done It!" The younger of the two didn't realize her sister was currently trying to push her off, too content with her news as she bounced up and down happily. Her grin faltered and she looked back down at her sister. Tilting her head as to why she didn't give a response before widening her eyes. "Oh! Sorry!" She rolled off of her sister and onto the floor with a small thud. Her sister finally being able to let out the breath that was denied from her, sitting up in her bed and inhaling then exhaling deeply. Fixing her younger sister with an unamused expression, rolling her eyes as Luna was now standing at the side of her bed with a hop in her stance. "...Truly Luna, was it necessary to jump on top of my bed and almost asphyxiate me?" "Indeed it was sister! For I have great news!" Celestia huffed before slowly making her way out of her bed, stepping around Luna and yawning lightly. Luna was quick to follow her older sister and stopped with her mouth open, ready to say something but stopped. Her eyes were drawn to the very prominent moon sitting at the top of the night sky. "..Astounding work as usual Luna. Though, please do regal to me what was so important that it didn't require the royal soup can?" She motioned to an old soup can attached to a string going across the top of her room. A small grin forming as she stretched her body of its exhaustion. "Tsk. Sister, now is not the time for joking! For I have found the answer to the problem regarding the foal!" The solar diarch paused in her downward dog position. Turning her head to gaze up at her sister. A look of curiosity now present. "Have you really?" "Yes indeed, the lingering spell I left behind has produced great results. For what was once a fortress of solitude has shifted and now beckons my presence!" "Don't get too excited now Luna. This still is a delicate situation, and we will need to approach this situation with a grain of salt." Celestia finished. Raising herself back up to her towering height. "Sister, I don't think a grain of salt would be useful or rather necessary for our excursion?" Luna finished with a confused tilt of her head. Celestia sighed. "It's a figure of spe-" To be continued.