A blue and rainbow blur flew over a white room while other phantom figures gathered around a small bed. Wish was standing, silent and immobile, off to the side, watching it all. The colorful phantom had no such restrictions—she screamed and cried a cacophony of noise, trying to reach the others in the white room but getting nowhere.
From the tiles on the floor, a black liquid began to seep in through them. Wish felt the cold numbness of the liquid as it reached her hooves, her knees, her body, her chin. The other phantoms in the room were being swallowed up by it, melted down into it. As they went, Wish could barely make out a small figure lying on the bed.
It was her.
The black liquid reached her mouth and poured into her body.
The pegasus phantom, it reached down to try and scoop her off the bed. To try and save her from the black liquid as it filled up and attempted to drown the room and the ponies inside.
Syringes came from the walls with red eyes twitching and blinking all over them. They impaled the colorful phantom all over her body. Legs, wings, head.
The black liquid at last reached Wish’s eyes.
Wish woke up in the middle of the night with a cold shiver and tears running from her eyes. She turned around and started pummeling her pillow with her hoof before pulling it over her head and screaming into it. After that she threw it across the bed and lied down in the middle of the large mattress, panting and whimpering in exhaustion, fear, sadness, and sympathy for the rainbow pegasus.
“Why? Why is any of this happening?” She asked the darkness.
A few flashes of lightning outside the window made Wish flinch and she rolled over to put her back to the large window. She could try and get out of bed to see what time it was, but what was really the point of that? The darkness was still all around her and it would be hours before Dotty came in trying to wake her up.
The worst part was, as tired as she was she was still afraid to close her eyes and go to sleep.
If she didn’t get anymore sleep, Dotty would surely notice the bags under her eyes. Maybe Wish didn’t even care if she did. However, those thoughts ended up being moot, as she slowly drifted back off to sleep without even noticing.
Wish stepped over the cold stone floor in a dark and quiet room. She was compelled to walk on even as her brain told her legs to stop, to run back. They didn’t listen to her. Her mouth wouldn’t open, only her eyes were under her control as they darted back and forth inside their sockets, trying to find or see anything or anypony that could help her.
Nothing. There was nothing that could give her salvation down here.
Down here. Where was here? How did she know she was down deep below the ground?
Needles had sewn her lips shut. Needles had sewn thread through her limbs and forced her to move like a puppet on strings. Pulling her forward. Making her do and see things she didn’t want to.
A torch lit up on the wall. Followed by another, and another. The fires lit up the room for Wish, allowing her to finally see around her. There was nothing along the walls, only cold black stone.
Above her, the sound of a chain rattled.
Wish fought the strings pulling and controlling her body and barely managed to tilt her head up to look above her.
Ponies wrapped in chains hung off the ceilings. Unmoving. The chains wrapped around their legs, or wings, or horns, or necks, or bodies. Holding them there. Imprisoned. Wish’s eyes were now glued on them as she passed beneath them. Their eyes were the only thing about them that moved as well, all were locked on Wish. Watching her. Silently pleading for her to help them.
But she couldn’t. She was merely being pulled along as well, just as helpless, just as in need of rescue.
Wasn’t she?
Black tears started to pool at the eyes of the hanging ponies, they dripped down and fell to Wish like raindrops.
An unceasing torrent. Wish’s eyes couldn’t close. Her head couldn’t move. She had to watch the black rainfall the entire time. Hear the sound of the heavy droplets hitting the stone floor. When she tried to blink, she realized that needles had sewn her eyelids open as well. She was pulled along like on a conveyor belt beneath the dozens, hundreds, of chained ponies. The black tears from them formed rivers and lakes along the floor.
As soon as Wish passed by the last of them, the needles and threads pulled her head back down and made her stare straight ahead once more.
There was something coming up. Something the threads were pulling her legs towards.
A room. A cell. Bars of steel went from floor to ceiling at the end of this darkness. Wish could see something inside the cell—somepony.
A blue and rainbow pegasus, chained up, suspended in the air. The chains coming from the walls pulled all her limbs taught. Her head was hung low and her rainbow mane covered her face.
Wish tried to scream out for her but it was muffled behind her sewn lips.
She was pulled right up to the bars, her front hooves lifted like a marionette’s and forced to grasp the bars as she looked in at the helpless pegasus. Wish wanted to help her. She wanted the pegasus to help her. Which of them could help the other? Both? Neither? As Wish tried to fight the needles and threads that made her into a puppet, tried to call out for the pegasus, a white smoke drifted from behind her and passed through the bars.
Wish cried out with black tears falling from her eyes as the smoke coalesced into a monstrous figure. A grinning red mouth, glowing red eyes, tendrils emerging from all over. The monster wrapped its tendrils around the pegasus, restraining her more than the chains already were. As soon as the pegasus felt their touch, her head snapped up and to Wish’s horror she saw that her eyes and lips were sewn up tight just as hers were.
As much as Wish could see that the pegasus wanted to struggle and fight back with the fire in her eyes, it was impossible. The monster opened up its mouth—its teeth were needles dripping black.
The black rivers from the other crying prisoners started to flow through the bars and circled below the pegasus. Syringes full of a glowing liquid popped up from them, all of them going right towards the helpless pegasus.
The bars dissolved and Wish felt herself fall forward and into the black river. The needles and thread restraining her disappeared and she fought against the current, trying to swim, to keep her head above it. As she tried to fight her way to the pegasus, a white tendril caught her and wrapped itself around her body.
Wish could only watch as the syringes stabbed into the pegasus.
She was helpless. Always helpless.
The painting of her and her father standing in front of their old house back in Ashen Birch Thicket was starting to take form. Wish had decided to do the hard part (for her) first and made the house and background. Now she was getting close to finishing up the outline of her and her father, then the more minute details could be put in.
Dotty stood across from her at her own easel, humming along as she painted a still life of a bowl of fruits that was on the table between them.
“Are you almost done?” The maid asked her.
“Getting close,” Wish replied.
Dotty nodded, a polite, though small, smile on her face. “And you’re sure all you wanted to do was paint today? You didn’t want to go to class or go out or anything?”
“I’m sure. I’m just… tired,” Wish responded quietly.
There was an uncomfortable silence between them for a moment before Dotty spoke up again. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“No. But thank you,” Wish shook her head.
“Okay,” Dotty nodded and got back to her painting.
It was about 15 more minutes before Wish was finished with her painting. The very last thing she did with it was adding smiles to her father and herself. After that she sat in front of the easel, just staring at it for a while. Slowly she forced that same smile onto her face. That was all she needed.
“It looks very good,” Dotty said as she looked over Wish’s shoulder at it. Like pretty much always, she had her usual happy smile on her face. “Are you happy with it?”
“Yep,” Wish answered. “What about yours?”
“Oh it’s just another still life. Nothing to really say about it,” Dotty shrugged.
Wish giggled slightly, almost for real. It was nice to know that even with everything else, Dotty was always the same. She took her painting off the easel and set it down on the table. If anything else, at least she had another gift for her father. She was still just so tired today though. That hadn’t been a lie. While Dotty tidied up their paint brushes and other tools, Wish sat back on the couch and rested her eyes. She didn’t want to do anything. Anything at all.
“Dotty?” Wish said with her eyes still closed.
“Yes?”
“Can you get me some chocolate cake? I really feel like that right now.”
A giggle. “Of course I can. I’ll go get it right away.”
“Thank you...” Wish sighed in exhaustion and relaxed back into the couch as best she could. She heard Dotty walk over to the door and exit her chambers, leaving Wish alone. Breathing in and out through her nose, Wish thought if maybe she should’ve just gone to class or done something else anyways. Something more active. Instead here she was, tired with nothing to occupy her mind. The smiles on her and her father’s painted faces were vivid behind her eyelids. Almost taunting her.
Wish stood beside a larger phantom as they stared out together from the castle’s windows. Down below, an unending line of ponies walked through the streets. All of them with their heads hung low and black bands around their necks. Chains connected their hooves to each other and forced them along. The dark sky spread overhead to every horizon, the black clouds spiraling out from directly over the castle’s towers.
There was no light. There was no joy. There were no smiles.
Wish looked up at the one standing beside her. It wasn’t the white monster—but a formless black mass that for some reason made Wish feel colder than she ever had before. A tentacle of darkness came from the black phantom and laid itself out across her shoulders and held her close in a display of affection. But it brought no comfort to Wish.
A noise was coming up from below, and Wish realized that it was the collective mutterings of all the ponies. They recited the same thing in unison, unceasingly as they walked and their chains rattled together.
They were asking for help. Begging for help.
From who? Wish wished she could help them. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything.
The black mass pulled her closer.
She needed help too. She was the helpless one. She was trapped just as much as those ponies. Would they help her? Down far below, she could see something she shouldn’t be able to. The blue comet, the rainbow. Wish begged for it to help her and the other ponies. It couldn’t.
It needed a pony to help it too.
Wish jolted up with a start from her napping dream on the couch. She was sweating again and breathing heavily. Outside the large window in the main room another bolt of lightning flashed. Fear and confusion were muddling her mind until she remembered where she was and what had happened. She had fallen asleep, on accident after finishing up her painting.
“Um...”
Wish looked over at the voice and saw Dotty standing next to the couch with a chocolate cake balanced on her back. She nervously smiled at Wish but it never reached her eyes. “I brought cake...”
“T-Thank you, Dotty.” Wish gulped and tried to calm herself down.
Now Dotty had seen her like this and she knew something was wrong. Would she say anything?
Would Wish say anything? It was just a nap but she had yet another nightmare during it.
“Do you want me to cut it for you?” Dotty asked her.
Wish sat there staring at her, blinking. Before her on the table was her painting. Her happy painting. Naturally she had drawn it to be a bright and happy day. She had painted in the green grass and pretty flowers that sat around and outside her house, and the bright yellow sun overhead. It didn’t reflect the truth. None of it reflected how she really felt. It didn’t acknowledge the nightmares that still plagued her, and the sense of helplessness that dragged her down everywhere she went no matter what she did.
“There’s something else I want to do today now,” Wish told Dotty.
As Wish and Dotty walked past the two guards standing in front of the maw that led down to the dungeons, they shared an uncertain glance with each other but neither one of them spoke up. It seemed just Wish’s presence was enough for them to accept it. Dotty on the other hoof was dreadfully nervous and had been the entire trip down here so far. That didn’t change as she and Wish walked down the steps and then made their way even deeper below the castle, going to their final destination.
“Um, W-Wish? Should we really be doing this right now? Don’t you think you should have told your father that you wanted to see the prisoner again?” Dotty asked her as the two went down the narrow hallway.
“Maybe. But all I’m doing is talking to her. It shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”
“W-Well… perhaps...”
“Besides, I don’t want the Head Inquisitor bothering me and tagging along either. If I told my dad about this, he’d probably make her come too,” Wish looked at Dotty and raised an eyebrow at her. “You wouldn’t want her to come with us either would you?”
Dotty blanched and quieted up after that.
Wish was pretty nervous on the inside as the both of them descended the last flight of stairs to actually make it into the dungeon. She just did her best not to let it show. Right now she was trying to be strong, stronger than she had been lately. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore, or weak, or helpless. The power those nightmares and the Head Inquisitor had over her were things she wanted to surmount. That was another reason she had decided to come back down here.
The Inquisitor at the desk at the front end of the dungeon was surprised to see the both of them as well. He was the same pony Wish had seen here both times before.
“Is the Head Inquisitor here?” Wish asked him.
“No, she isn’t.” he answered. It was the first time she had heard him speak.
Good. Wish thought and then looked up at Dotty. “Dotty?”
“Yes?”
“Stay here.”
Her maid’s eyebrows shot up into her forehead. “Wait, what?!”
“I want you to stay here. I’m going to talk to the prisoner alone,” Wish told her.
“Um, I-I um, really don’t think I should let you do that. Y-Your father probably wouldn’t want you unattended when talking to that dangerous prisoner a-and he-”
“There isn’t any danger. All I’m doing is talking to her. She’s chained up in a cell, what’s she going to do?”
Dotty started to nervously sweat. “W-Well yes but still, why would you want to talk to her alone anyways? I should really come with you. I mean there shouldn’t be anything you need to say around her that you can’t say around me too. Right, Wish?”
“Maybe. But I still want to talk with her alone. Just me and her, nopony else. And that’s what’s happening, Dotty.” Wish said. She looked up resolutely into Dotty’s eyes.
“O-Oh dear...” Dotty chewed on her lip and pulled at the ends of her mane. “O-Okay but… not too long. Just talk for a little bit, please?”
Wish smiled. “I promise. And… um, you also promise you won’t tell my dad or the Head Inquisitor?”
Dotty sighed in distress but managed to nod. “Yes...”
“Thank you, Dotty,” Wish then looked at the other Inquisitor. “That goes for you too, by the way.”
He nodded swiftly. Probably more worried about saying anything to Vox that could get him on her bad side. Either way it felt good to Wish to be able to actually assert herself like this. So many ponies doted on her, but none of them really listened to her. Getting Dotty to actually give her space gave Wish a boost of confidence that she sorely needed. And she really did need to speak to Rainbow Dash alone. She couldn’t have Dotty or anypony else leaning over her shoulder… she wasn’t sure of everything she might say, and she also needed Rainbow Dash to trust her and feel like it wasn’t a trick or part of an Inquisition.
Wish didn’t know if she would.
“You’ll have to take a candle with you,” the Inquisitor said before Wish left. He pulled a candlestick with a handle out for her and lit it with the torch on the wall, hoofing it over to her.
Wish nodded and started walking down the long dark corridor between the cells to reach Rainbow Dash’s solitary cell at the back of the dungeon. With candle in hoof she had no problem seeing ahead but it didn’t give enough light for her to see into any of the cells around. Which was honestly probably a good thing. She didn’t need to see anything else horrible right now, she needed to keep focused on Rainbow Dash.
At the end of the corridor she reached the familiar bars and door that held Rainbow Dash inside. This time Wish would only be standing outside them. The glow from her candle illuminated the bars, and herself, but she couldn’t see inside the cell without putting it a little closer.
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Wish’s face, her mouth was dry as she tried to find the words to speak.
“H-Hello, Rainbow Dash. Are you awake?” Wish asked the darkness.
Silence.
“Umm… i-it’s me again. Do you remember me?”
Silence.
“R-Rainbow Dash-”
“Yeah, kid. I’m here. And I remember you,” the raspy voice came from the darkness.
Wish stiffened up and moved the candle through the bars, setting it on the ground between them. The light from it lit up the chained down Rainbow Dash and Wish saw her ruby eyes staring at her. It was a little intimidating and Wish suddenly found herself unable to speak again. There was too much going through her mind.
“Just you today?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Um, y-yeah...” Wish nodded and quieted down once more.
Silence again grew between them.
“Sorry,” Rainbow Dash suddenly said.
“Huh? What?” Wish looked up in confusion at her.
“For the nightmares. The crazy mare with the torture obsession said you were having nightmares because of me.”
“O-Oh. Well, that’s not really… they started when you came here but they’re not your fault. You don’t need to apologize for that. I-I’m sorry for you being stuck in here...”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Yeah well you don’t need to apologize for that either. Something tells me it’s not a little kid’s fault that I’m chained up like this.”
“Maybe… but I still know the ones who chained you up and kept you here...” Wish glumly looked at the floor.
It was silent for another moment before Rainbow Dash broke it. “So… you’re really Dreamweaver’s daughter?”
“Yeah,” Wish nodded.
“Huh, kind of a surprise. Definitely didn’t figure him to be a father.”
“Did you meet him?”
Rainbow Dash attempted a shrug, but it was hampered by the chains and her position. “Once, when I first got brought down here. Heard about him from a few ponies before that.”
“Who?”
Rainbow Dash blinked and raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, I’m not really sure if I should say. You seem like a nice filly, but can I trust you? Why are you down here again anyways?”
“I just...” Wish shrugged, not sure herself. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Alone?”
“What? Did you want Vox to be here with me?”
“Good point,” Rainbow Dash laughed, and coughed. “Oof...”
“Are you okay?” Wish asked, concerned.
Rainbow Dash merely raised an eyebrow at her.
“S-Sorry, dumb question...”
That got another small laugh from the pegasus though. “Forget it, kid, I’m messing with you. So come on, why’d you really want to talk to me alone then?”
“Well… why should I tell you that if you don’t really trust me or anything? You wouldn’t answer my question...” Wish frowned.
“You’re the one who wanted to talk,” Rainbow Dash “shrugged” once more.
Wish sighed. “Fine. I just… thought I needed to. And I wanted to make sure you were okay. And… I think if you weren’t, that I wanted to help you. I-I don’t know, really! I just keep having these nightmares a-and I-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, kid.” Rainbow Dash said. “Look, sorry for pressuring you. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know you were struggling with anything like this. You okay?”
“Pff, the same I’ve been since coming here,” Wish answered.
“How long have you been here now? In this castle, I mean.” Rainbow Dash asked.
Wish shrugged. “I don’t know, almost a year now? Maybe a whole one even. Everyday sort of blends together and I can’t remember some stuff too well. My father, the Queen invited him to stay here permanently after he came to give her and the castle some psychiatric service or something. That’s what he told me. We came here right after the Queen’s doctor or something like that died. I dunno what the whole story is, the Queen just liked my father so much she gave him a whole tower and I’ve been living here too, getting food and whatever else I wanted pretty much.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” Rainbow said. “Seems like something that would be the dream of most ponies.”
“I… I think I’d end up having nightmares about this castle even if you didn’t show up. Sooner or later,” Wish said. “Almost right after we got here… everything changed.”
She looked at Rainbow Dash but the pegasus only quietly waited for her to continue.
“T-The sky went dark, my father and so many other ponies started acting weird. The King and Queen too. These weird black bands on our necks appeared… I just don’t understand. And nopony would ever give me a straight answer. M-My father too just… I dunno. I don’t know what’s going on,” Wish shook her head, a few tears starting to form at her eyes.
“What about your mom? Did she come with you too?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Wish shook her head. “My mom’s dead.”
Rainbow Dash winced. “Aw geez, I’m real sorry, kid. I didn’t-”
“You don’t need to apologize for that either,” Wish shrugged and let out a big sigh, she looked tired more than anything. “That’s not your fault. It happened a few years ago anyways. Still doesn’t stop me from hating how the Queen acts around my dad...”
“Sounds like there’s a lot going on here...” Rainbow Dash muttered.
Wish raised an eyebrow at her. “Did you already know about some of it? You said others told you about my dad… and you must’ve talked with Vox a few times.”
Rainbow Dash bit her lip and stared off into space, debating with herself. “I know a few things, kid. Probably more than you actually...”
“Like what?”
“Uhhh...”
Wish snorted in annoyance and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I get it. More stuff you can’t tell me?”
“Not your fault or anything but I just don’t want the wrong ponies to hear what I have to say,” Rainbow Dash said.
“… you mean my father. So you think I’ll blab all this to him and he’ll do something you don’t like?” Wish frowned.
“I don’t mean to badmouth you or your father—but yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Rainbow nodded.
“Well what do you even know?!” Wish yelled and grabbed the bars in front of her. “W-Why should I trust what you have to say? I can say the same exact thing about you! Why’d you try attacking the castle? Why are you still locked up in here? What are you doing so far away from your home? I’ve never even heard of that place you said you’re from!” She grit her teeth as tears started to fall freely from her eyes. “W-Why do I keep having nightmares? Why don’t they stop? Why are you… how come when I see you in them I feel relieved and safe and all warm inside? I-I know it… I’ve always known the nightmares won’t stop until whatever’s happening in this castle—in all of Hoofica stops.” She collapsed to the floor in front of the cell. “I know that I need to do something… but I c-can’t.”
“I know it,” Wish said, sniffling, as she stood up. “I know you’re a good pony… I knew it even before I came down here the first time. And I know I should help you out of here… b-but...”
Rainbow Dash sighed as she listened to Wish pouring her heart out. She took a deep breath and glanced aside. “I could get out of this cell anytime I wanted to anyways...”
“Huh?” Wish blinked in surprise.
“Er… forget you heard that,” Rainbow Dash grimaced.
“But you-”
“Look-” Rainbow Dash cut her off. “You said you know I’m a good pony? Well I can tell you’re a good kid too. If you want to talk more… if you want me to trust you on all this, then come back tomorrow. Alone. And we can talk some more.”
Wish looked up into her eyes for a moment. Despite everything the pegasus had been through, her eyes still shone with a strength that Wish could only dream of having. “O-okay. I should probably be getting back anyways. And my name is Wish, you know?”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “Heh, yeah, I remember.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then. Goodbye,” Wish said and got her candle, turning around and beginning to walk back out of the dungeon.
“Hey kid.”
Wish looked over her shoulder at Rainbow Dash—or at least the darkness that now once again concealed her. “What is it?”
“That psycho mare. She asked you if you were happy after seeing what was done to me. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”
The filly froze up and she looked away, her mouth opened and closed a few times before she started walking again. “I-I have to go… I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Inside the highest tower of Hoofica Castle, Dreamweaver stood in his lab, facing the massive apparatus that took up the back part of the lab. The curtain was pulled to the side, revealing the entirety of the strange object. Most of it was simply an enormous glass sphere with valves, pipes, and wires connected to the metal stand held on the bottom of it. A single steel pipe, several inches wide, with a closed faucet at the end and a valve on top came from the middle of the glass and stopped at pony height right above the floor. And at the top of the sphere multiple electrodes were stuck into it while arcs of electricity sparked and jetted between them.
An impossibly dark black liquid, darker than any ink or shadow, filled up the sphere.
There was only the smallest amount of space left at the top that was still empty. And even as Dreamweaver watched, the surface of the black liquid bubbled and ever so slightly encroached on that empty space.
“Almost time. My dream is almost here,” Dreamweaver said with a vacant look on his face.
Outside, lightning struck.