Your Faithful Student, Buggy Brush, Chapter 10: An Exhausting Night
From between the trees of what seemed to be the Everfree Forest echoed the gallop of a pony, running as fast as his hooves allowed him to. The moon was high in the sky, its glow being denied by the highest trees and the fog, making the ambience darker and harder to navigate through, of course the amount of logs, branches and mud didn’t make it any easier. The pony was suddenly stopped by a log getting in his way, making him trip and fall. The trees started to get closer to one another, making a big circle which limits were denoted by an intensely dark shadow. This movement at least allowed the stallion to have a clear view of the full moon, a bright and really beautiful moon. The pony was trapped there, he knew that, until out of nowhere one of the trees started to grow bigger and bigger in the shape of a brush that then let a drop of paint fall, turning into a pony.
“Do not fear, my friend,” said Buggy as he walked towards the frightened earth pony.
He didn’t seem much younger than him, maybe a couple of years. His mane was an absolute mess and you could see the fear in his eyes very clearly. He was shaking as he looked at the unicorn with confusion.
“W- who are you?? You’re not Princess Luna.”
“I’m not indeed, but I’m her assistant.” -He extended a hoof to the pony as a gesture of courtesy and to help him get up, yet this didn’t seem to notice- “The name is Buggy Brush and I’m pleased to-”
He couldn’t finish the sentence before being interrupted by a noise from the outside of the circle. It didn’t sound like anything you’d hear in a forest, yet being the Everfree, you never know. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be touching the ground, as they heard no hoof steps, but the sound of something going fast enough to cut between the wind. The 2 stallions froze trying to locate the source of the noise.
“You heard that too, d- didn’t you??”
“Yes, I did hear it.”
The young pony’s gaze got lost as he started staring at the view. Buggy Brush tried to remain as calm and comforting as Luna taught him and, with decision in his eyes, he walked towards one of the barriers of the circle while lighting his horn. He wasn’t entirely sure from where the noise came from yet, but they weren’t going to find it out by standing there trying to guess.
“What do you think you’re doing??” whispered the earth pony.
“Getting to the bottom of this.”
“It’s dangerous!”
“Don’t worry, we are in a dream. Whatever it is, it can’t hurt us. I’ve got this.”
With his horn fully lightened, Buggy walked to the edge of the circle, but, as soon as he placed one hoof outside of it, the wind started to blow with an unnatural strength. It didn’t have a specific direction, it seemed to be coming from everywhere and going everywhere. The trees grew taller and taller until the top of them were too high to be recognizable by their eyes, and the moonlight disappeared once again, leaving them in the shadows with just a green source of light coming from the unicorn’s horn. This was odd, he had been in some nightmares before, but nothing quite like this. This just felt… different.
Before he could react, the other pony jumped at him, hugging his back legs. He was shaking even harder than before, even making Buggy shake. He tried to hide his own uncertainty to calm him down, then the noise started again, this time coming from somewhere above them.
“Ok, whatever you are, we’ve already had it with you! Come out now or else!”
His attempts to intimidate the mysterious creature fell flat as nothing changed. He then challenged them again, and once more, lighting even more his horn this time like if he were charging a laser beam.
“I tried to warn you!”
He took a step back closer to the other stallion before he shot a laser beam. It was time to see if Darky’s training about the matter was worth it. He was sure it was going to bounce everywhere until it hit its final target and, if it somehow ended up going back down, he preferred it hitting him than the other pony. You can’t feel pain in dreams after all, right?
The laser went from one tree to another over and over again, until it went away between a bunch of them. That didn’t seem to have affected whatever entity was surrounding them in the slightness. The two of them looked at each other and Buggy tried to give him a reassuring smile that the earth pony could clearly see was fake. He felt so bad for having gotten somepony else into this.
Suddenly, the noise grew stronger and it sounded somewhat faster.
“Shit,” exclaimed the unicorn as quiet as possible so his friend wouldn’t hear his preoccupation.
He wasn’t sure how to handle this, but he knew they should run away from there. If they were lucky enough, the creatures would either stop following them or get lost between the density of the forest. He grabbed the other pony’s arm to make him stand up and started running, letting him go after some steps so he could run in 4 hooves. He ran really fast, it was a little hard for Buggy to keep up to his pace, but he managed to.
Just as they were afraid of, the thing was following them. It wasn’t circling above them anymore, now it was chasing them. They tried turning abruptly many times so the creature would get confused and lose track of them, but it was still there, behind them.
After running for a long while, Buggy’s legs were tired and he had to stop to catch a break. When he did, he realized he wasn’t being followed anymore, the creature was gone, but so was the other pony. At some point of the escape they should have started running in different directions, resulting in them being separated now. He was alone, in somepony else’s nightmare, completely surrounded by darkness.
“Hello? Somepony??” he yelled waiting for an answer, only getting his own echo as one. The only good thing about this is that not being constantly chased by something, he had some time to think what to do.
“What even is this? This doesn’t feel like any nightmare I’ve been before. This feels so… real.”
He looked down at the necklace on his neck.
“Shouldn’t this give me total control over dreams and nightmares? Maybe I should do the spell once more?”
He did the spell Luna taught him again and tried to change the scenery. Nothing changed. He tried to bright up the entire forest up and disappear every tree. Nothing changed. Even with his mentor’s power, he wasn’t able to do a thing in order to affect the nightmare. He was completely powerless in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere. He wasn’t even sure he was able to wake up, yet he could not try it leaving the other pony trapped here.
He had rested enough to regain his stamina, so he started running again, this time looking for the owner of this nightmare. Despite his horn still being lightened, this time it was more difficult to see, and he started feeling as if the trees were also moving in different directions. It was an absolute chaos in the darkness, slowly becoming darker and darker and him getting more and more lost in nothingness itself. He tried looking in every direction, but nothing he could see made sense. There wasn’t even any noise anymore aside from the one of his hooves and he felt like if the silence itself was deafening. It was an infinite maze constantly shifting, no starting nor ending point. After some minutes that felt like hours, he started to feel watched, somepony or something was watching him and, distracted by that, he tripped and fell. Once he stood up, he couldn’t keep running, one of his front and one of his back hooves hurt, so, while still being afraid, he tried to behave like if he wasn’t, ready to shoot a laser beam to whatever it was that tried to hurt him, until…
“Buggy Brush!”
The calling of his name made him jump. Even though it startled him, he couldn’t be more relieved to hear that voice.
“LUNA! Thank hoofness you’re here!!”
“What is going on? I felt something unusual in this nightmare and I came to check. I knew you were here already, but I could not find you, and I am unable to stop whatever it is that it is happening!”
“I’ve tried it too! I even used the spell again in the necklace like you taught me, but for some reason it isn’t working!”
Luna didn’t answer, she noticed something. She felt a presence too, she couldn’t tell from where it was coming, but she was sure they were being watched. She looked everywhere trying to find anycreature in the darkness, but didn’t find anything.
“We need to get out of here and find the pony who this nightmare belongs to.”
“I thought you were able to just locate them with your magic to appear wherever you need.”
“I normally am, but my magic is not working here.”
She turned around and opened her wings.
“Hop on!”
“What?”
“We’re going to fly to the top of the trees. That should make things easier.”
He jumped to the alicorn’s back.
“Hold tight. We are going to go as fast as I can.”
With those words, the Princess blasted off in a vertical line. Buggy has never gone at such speed before in his life and Luna certainly haven’t tried to in a long time either. He was sure if she kept accelerating, she could easily make a Sonic Moonboom.
The trees didn’t seem to have an end since, no matter how high they flew, they couldn’t reach the sky. They only knew they were moving since, at that point, they couldn’t see the ground either. After a good while they finally came out between dark blue leaves at the very top of the sky, being showered in the moonlight once again. They were too high to be able to see anypony on the ground, so they needed to find a way to find the dreamer. That is when Buggy noticed something that quickly pointed out with his hoof.
“What is that?”
“What is what?”
“The trees, they’re darker over there, you see?”
“Yes?”
“Those are way darker that the ones below us.”
She focused her look on the spot.
“You think the pony could be over there?”
“Maybe not the pony, but whatever creature it is that is messing with this nightmare.”
Luna noticed more trees around that area were getting darker, like if they were forming a path, chasing somepony. The unicorn noticed too and, after a quick exchange of looks, she flew again as fast as her wings allowed her until they reached the darker tress, then started to descend diagonally to intercept them.
Once closer to the ground, they could see clearer and they were right, there was the pony and there was the creature, finally visible for them. It was a shadow-looking smoke beast without a consistent shape and it seemed to have some… stars? This was awfully familiar. There was no way it was that, was it?
Buggy suddenly, in an adrenaline rush, felt the urge to do something.
“I’m going to jump at it.”
“WHAT?? Why would you do that??”
“It’s a dream, I can’t get hurt, right?”
“I think…?”
“Alright then. I’ll shoot a laser beam at it to distract it, so you could take it by surprise and finish it.”
“Are you sure about this?”
He did his best efforts to stand up on her back.
“Yes!”
He then started charging a laser beam and, with all his strength, he jumped at the monster while shooting a laser beam at it to catch its attention, landing just in front of the earth pony. He looked straight at it while Luna, from behind, was ready to send it to oblivion.
“Behind me, now,” said the unicorn.
The pony did as he said and he levitated his necklace in front of him, creating a magic force field, then Luna, with a single laser beam not only obliterated the creature, but half the forest behind of them. The monster finally was gone, the noise was gone as well, the only thing remaining being the darkness. Buggy made a final attempt at correcting that and tried to change the landscape once more, this time succeeding at it, vanishing every single tree around them. Just three ponies standing below the moonlight.
“Now this is better.”
The earth pony bowed to Luna and thanked both of them for saving him from the smoke entity, she answering with a genuine comforting smile.
“What’s your name by the way? You didn’t tell me earlier.”
“Oh, right. My name is Donut Glaze. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s a pleasure for me too! That was kind of an interesting first meeting, wasn’t it?”
Donut laughed at the comment, finally being able to feel relieved.
“Well, that was intense.”
“Intense is quite the understatement. Even if it was a dream, my wings are sore from that much flying.”
“Thanks for helping me with that.”
She giggled covering her mouth with her hoof.
“Why are you thanking me? You are the one willingly helping me with my duties.”
“Yeah, but that was supposed to be my nightmare to solve this night, and you had to come and save me from it.”
“I could not have done it on my own.”
“Ok, let’s say we’re even then, or we are going to be doing this for the rest of the night.”
They shared a laugh, then went into complete silence.
“Did you notice anything strange with that monster, by the way?”
“Now that you mention it, yes, I did.”
“It looked really similar to the one you told me about time ago.”
“The Tantabus?”
“Yes, that one. And I’m sure it must be the same that manifested in my nightmares that time too.”
“It could be.”
“Should we worry?”
She took some seconds to think.
“The sun should be rising up soon and there are no more nightmares to tackle tonight. What if for now we just rest and try to relax a little? That really was one of the most exhausting nightmares we both have had to deal with, a little break would be nice. What do you think?”
“I 100% agree with that. We should get some donuts though. The entire thing really made me hungry and made me start thinking of donuts.”
“How is any of what happened related to donuts?”
“Donut Glaze”
“What?”
“His name, Donut Glaze.”
She giggled once more.
“Did somepony mention donuts?” said the alicorn’s older sister coming from behind the throne.