Her Eyes Reflect The Stars

by Lynwood


The Concerning Dream

I'm standing in nowhere. There's nothing but blackness all around me. I'm scared, but I don't know why. I don't want to be here.

Then the air begins to smell like rotting meat. I gag and swivel my head around, looking for the source, and it doesn't take me long to find it. There's a changeling standing not too far away from me. A mare, I think. Her carapace is an unhealthy black and her legs are far, far too long, riddled with countless holes. She's facing away from me.

I stare at her, but I get the sense that she's waiting for me to speak. "H-hello?" I ask, struggling to repress a gag.

She coughs. "No, no, perhaps later, yes," she says. She's a lot closer now. The smell is overwhelming.

"W-what?" I say, retching. "What do you want from me?"

Her head slightly turns towards me. I can't see her face; it's hidden by her frill, which is disgustingly long and falling across her neck like a mane. For reasons I can't describe, the tiny motion nearly makes my heart stop with fear.

Rainbow Dash is shaking me. "Gah!" I say, throwing out my hooves. "Stop it! What the hay?"

"Holy Celestia, dude," Rainbow says. Her eyes are wide. "I thought you died. I couldn't wake you up at all!"

"Ugh." I groan and roll over onto my hooves. "What time is it?"

"It's like, an hour past the wake-up alarm." Dash points at the crack of gray light coming from the train car's sideways doorway. It's a little brighter than normal.

I groan again and stand, trying to stretch the soreness out of my legs. "Damn it. We have to get moving."

Pretty soon we're packed with the bare minimum and heading out. We hide our little stash, just in case, and we're on our way.

The next few days pass without a notable event. As we travel, I keep thinking back to the dream, and the terror that I felt. It seemed so real, and the uncanny length of the changeling's legs sticks in my mind.

Our travel is unhindered until we come to a little canyon pass. There's a Child there. We wait for it to wander off until Rainbow spots that it's got one of its seven legs jammed underneath a boulder, for whatever reason.

"Whatever," she whispers, "let's just go around."

I shake my head. "This is on the route. On the way back, we'll need to be taking the quickest possible path. Going around will take her too long." I turn my head and carefully remove my zapper from my pack. "I can take him out now."

"What's that?" Rainbow says. "Have you had a weapon all this time?"

I roll my eyes. "It's low-powered, for one Child at a time only. Don't forget, we're in a hurry both there and back."

I strap the zapper to my hoof and walk as quietly as I can towards the Child on three hooves. It's focused on its stuck limb, trying to pull it out from beneath the boulder with slow, rhythmic tugs. I notice that its cutie mark is a faded image of an apple inside a horseshoe.

I'm practically right next to it when it notices me. It tries to lunge, twisting around its caught limb, and falls to the ground with a wet snap.

Now's my chance. I jam my zapper against its head. Zap, it goes, and ejects its brain out of its skull.

"Wow," Rainbow says.

I give her a glance. "Let's keep moving."