Hitting the Town
The rest of the day passed without much of anything happening. Silver Quill and Twilight spent most of their time relaxing, quietly reading and enjoying the peace and quiet, only stopping to eat. Spike, true to his word, spent most of the rest of day in his bed, happily asleep.
Silver turned in for the night at around 11. His eyes were drooping, and it got to the point that the words on the pages he was reading had started to blur together into an incomprehensible mess. This was usually the signal his brain sent him to tell him that it was time to hit the hay.
And so, he said his goodnights to Twilight, and went up to what he hoped would be a restful sleep. Unfortunately, his unconscious mind had other plans.
He had the exact same dream as before. The dream of running through a forest, being unconsciously drawn to his clearing, and then falling face first into the water for no comprehensible reason.
Silver’s night was filled with troubled moans and restless tossing and turning. Not even the sound of the crickets chirping outside the window to his room was able to give him peace as they have always done in the past.
Despite this, he managed to sleep. It was a very fitful sleep, one that probably wouldn’t amount to feeling well rested, but sleep all the same.
“GAH!” yelped Silver Quill as he started awake, sending his hooves thrashing about and his blanket even more so. His eyes darted around in a an instinctive fight or flight response, trying to determine the situation and whether he was in any immediate danger.
After several seconds of panting, he threw a hoof over his eyes and groaned as he fell back on the bed.
“Blood and bone…” he swore quietly. “That damn dream again…”
Silver lay there quietly, thinking. The dream, already starting to slip away from his memory, seemed to have been filled with all sorts of symbolism, but he couldn’t make heads or tails about it.
“Maybe I should see if I can find a book on psychology, or on dream reading or something. I am in a library after all…” he muttered to himself. With a grunt he rolled himself out of bed and began the morning ritual of fixing the bedspread and his extremely disheveled appearance.
“I seriously hope this isn’t going to be a regular occurrence.” He said as he tore his brush through the knots in his mane, drawing it back to its straight and neat form.
Silver Quill concluded with his grooming and made his way downstairs. He didn’t feel at all rested, but he knew that attempting to get some more sleep would be completely futile. Besides, it was already fairly late in the morning and he didn’t want come across as lazy by waking up at 1 o’ clock.
There was nobody downstairs, but Silver noticed that there was a note sitting on the kitchen table, written in dark green ink and loopy script. He walked over and picked it up with his magic and began to read.
Dear Silver Quill,
Spike and I will be gone for most, if not all, of the day. We’re going to the Everfree Forest to do some on the site research of the peculiar weather patterns there. We’ll stay very near to the edge of the forest, so if you by any chance are going to worry, don’t bother, because we will be perfectly fine. I know that you, as a fellow bibliophile, will be careful with the books, so I’m not going to bother reminding you to be. Feel free to take whatever you like out of the fridge or cupboards and don’t feel obligated to stay in the library if you feel like getting some fresh air.
Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle and Spike Draconis
Silver Quill crumpled up the note and threw it in the trash bin. He looked lazily around, and his gaze was met only by rows upon rows of tomes of all sizes and colors. He shrugged to himself half heartedly.
“Alright, I can spend a day alone, no problem. First things first though, breakfast.” he thought.
Silver opened up the fridge and cupboard doors with his magic, pulling out milk and a bowl from the fridge as he browsed Twilight’s stock of breakfast cereals. He decided on Raisin Grain, his mother’s favourite cereal, and filled up the bowl.
Once he topped the bowl of raisins and oats with milk, he sat down at the table and slowly ate. As he ate, he thought about what he was going to do today.
“I could try to get some writing done, but I don’t think it would amount to much. Maybe I’ll just spend the rest of the morning reading, and then I’ll take a walk around town or something.”
Silver nodded to himself, and finished off the rest of his cereal. He took his bowl to the sink, cleaned it, then placed it on the dish rack to dry. With his morning hunger sated, he went over to the bookshelf labeled Informational. After a bit of perusing, he came across a book that looked like it might fit his needs titled Dreams: the Window to the Mind and Soul.
He took the book off the shelf, making sure to remember the exact place where he found it, and eased himself into the same plush armchair that he sat on yesterday.
Silver quickly located section dedicated to interpreting dreams and started reading. From what he could tell, dream interpreting was all about noticing and understanding the symbolism that appears in dreams, so that was what he tried to do. There was an entire list of different types of symbols that commonly appeared in dream, but he only focused on the ones that affected him.
Being chased is one of the most common dream symbols in many cultures. It means you are feeling threatened, so reflect on who is chasing you (they may also be symbolic) and why they are a possible threat in real life.
“But I have no idea who is chasing me, or what for that matter.” He murmured to himself.
Water comes in many forms and can symbolize the subconscious mind. Calm pools of water reflect inner peace while a choppy ocean can suggest unease.
Demons are sneaky evil entities which signify repressed emotions. You may secretly feel the need to change your own behaviours for the better.
Falling is a common dream symbol that relates to our anxieties about letting go, losing control over a situation, or somehow failing after a success.
Forests represent the unknown. They symbolize the feeling of being lost and of losing ones perspective (can’t see the forest for the trees).
The passage of time, or a series of events, can represent time passing or a series of events in real life or of a change in ones mental or emotional state.
Silver squinted at the book he was holding in his hooves, as though it was withholding information from him that he was trying to interrogate out of it. Once it became apparent that his attempts were futile, he sighed and shook his head.
“This either makes no sense, or I’m just not smart enough to make any sense out of it.” he grumbled. He slammed the book shut and levitated it back to the spot he took it from.
With another weary sigh he stood up from the armchair and looked out the window. Outside, he could see a group of 3 little fillies frolicking and laughing as they played. Ponies walking by smiled at the sight of them, letting their carefree and innocent attitudes warm their hearts as the bright sun warmed their bodies in the slightly chill autumn air. Silver couldn’t help but smile slightly as well.
“I think a walk through town could do me wonders right now, probably would help clear my head.”
With a decisive nod, he fetched his saddle bag, opened the front door and stepped out to savor the day to the best of his abilities.
Silver Quill shivered slightly as he stepped out of the magically heated library into the cool autumn air. He sighed contentedly, letting the cool breeze flow through his mane and coat, invigorating him with a new sense of wakefulness.
He started off at a brisk pace to get himself warmed up, then slowed down to a more comfortable walk as his body temperature regulated. He nodded and smiled politely to the ponies that he passed, some of which he recognized from when he first arrived, and even fewer whose names he remembered.
He occupied himself by trying to mentally make a map of Ponyville as he walked, noting particular landmarks and streets as he formed his own unique way of not getting lost. He was walking by the Ponyville clocktower when his attention was drawn to a voice from above.
“Oi! Silver Quill! Whatcha doin’ down there?”
Silver looked up to see the pegasus with the prismatic mane, Rainbow Dash, leaning over the edge of a small cumulus cloud and looking down at him. He waved a hoof up at her in greeting.
“Oh, hello there Rainbow Dash. I was just out for a little stroll, getting some fresh air and all that.” He called up to her.
Rainbow Dash, from what Silver could tell from the distance she was away from him, had an incredulous look on her face. “Pfft, a stroll? You gotta be kidding me!” she shouted back down. She leaped off of her vantage point on the cloud gracefully drifted down to meet him, landing in front of him without even kicking up any dirt.
“There are much better things you could be doing on a day like this than taking a little stroll.” She said with wry sneer. Silver raised an eyebrow at her and decided to take the very obvious bait.
“And what, Ms Dash, would that be?” he asked dryly
“Simple,” she replied smugly. She struck a dramatic pose with her head held high and her wings flared out. “You could watch me perform some spectacular, awe inspiring, make-you-trip-over-your-own-hooves-in-shock stunts!”
Silver could feel a small bubble of laughter forming in the pits of his chest, but made sure it didn’t surface. Instead, he allowed an expression of interest form on his face.
“Well, I would hate to inconvenience you from…whatever it is you were doing.”
Rainbow Dash made a noise that sounded like something between a snort and a chortle, a snortle, and waved her hoof in the air dismissively.
“Nah man, I was just taking a nap cuz I had nothing better to do.” Faster then Silver could react, she zipped over to his side and wrapped her foreleg around his neck in a friendly, albeit rough way. “But lucky for you, I just got the urge to practice some of my newest and most spectacular stunts, and you” she poked him in the chest “get front row seats!”
Still suppressing a snortle of his own, Silver Quill nodded politely. “Well Rainbow, since you just ‘happened’ to have gotten a hankering for some adrenaline, I would love to watch.”
Rainbow nodded, more smug than satisfied. “Of course you would.” she replied with a confidant flip of her mane. She let him go from her friendly headlock and started to walk in the direction of a wide open field next to the Everfree Forest, motioning for him to follow. Silver merely shook his head in disbelief and followed.
Rainbow Dash and Silver Quill stopped in the middle of the field they were standing in, sandwiched between Ponyville on one side and the forest on the other. Rainbow was casting an experienced eye to the sky, and nodded.
“Yep, the conditions are perfect for my routine.” She commented happily.
Silver trotted up next to her and looked up at the small cumulus and cirrus clouds that dotted the wide expanse of blue. “If you say so, Rainbow.”
Rainbow Dash set herself in a wide, almost predatory looking stance with her head low and her wings flared for takeoff. “Oh, I know so, bub. Now hold on to your horseshoes cuz things are about to get awesome!”
With a mighty flap of her powerful wings that sent a short burst of wind all around her, flattening the grass and sending Silver’s mane in disarray, Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky like a cannonball. Silver had to whip his head skywards just so he could keep her in sight, giving himself a slight case of whiplash.
Rainbow Dash very quickly reached the peak of her ascent. From where he sat, she looked like a mere speck of blue that, if he wasn’t careful, he could lose sight of in the backdrop of the sky. He briefly wondered what it was like to see the world through her eyes, so high in the atmosphere, but dismissed the thought as he focused on Rainbow Dash when she started to move.
Rainbow Dash started fly in a horizontal. She started of slowly, although Silver suspected that the word slow for her held a very different meaning than it did for him, and quickly picked up speed.
Pretty soon, all Silver could see was the blur of her striking mane and tail in the sky as she flew round and round, making a large, rainbow colored donut. All of the sudden, she broke away from the circle and flew off into the distance, leaving her rainbow colored blur a short distance behind her as she went.
Silver’s eyes widened as he watched Rainbow perform an incredible display of flips and loops at a speed and angle that suggested such a thing shouldn’t be possible. He watched in awe as she shot up into the large cloud floating right above him and completely obliterated it, sending puffs of white drifting off in every direction.
He gasped as Rainbow did one last loop and plummeted towards the ground. She pressed her hooves in and angled her body so as to provide the least wind resistance as she speared downwards, and Silver got more and more nervous as she didn’t make any effort to pull up.
150 metres away, Silver chewed his lip nervously. 120 metres away, he started to sweat. 90 metres away, he had to force himself to resist the urge to warn her, telling himself that the winner of the best young fliers competition knew what she was doing.
70 metres. 50. 30. Rainbow Dash still hadn’t made any effort to change course, and Silver Quill’s hooves were making deep furrows in the dirt as he pawed the ground nervously. His eyes never left her speeding form as he mentally prayed that she really did know what she was doing.
Silver’s heart nearly stopped at when she was 10 metres away from becoming a Rainbow colored smear that Silver would have to explain to Twilight, and most likely, the authorities later. But Rainbow Dash, going against all laws of physics, pulled off the impossible.
She flared open her wings, catching the full brunt of her fall with them. Silver, even though he didn’t have any wings, winced. That much force on the wing joints of most pegasi would be more than enough to tear them clean out of their sockets. Good thing Rainbow Dash wasn’t most pegasi.
Rainbow Dash pulled off an instantaneous 90 degree turn as she changed direction, now flying horizontal to the ground and flying in his direction. Silver let go a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.
The speck that was Rainbow Dash rapidly grew in size as she got closer and closer to his position. Silver watched in awe as she zoomed past overhead, faster than his eyes or his head could follow. He could hear a sort of screaming whistling sound coming from her tearing through the air at speeds most ponies could only dream of reaching.
Rainbow continued horizontal to the ground for a few more seconds, then pulled up and flew back off into the sky. She flew up and backwards, angling herself into a wide loop. When she started the descent of the loop, she twisted her body and started to spin at dizzying speeds. The rainbow trail she was leaving started to spiral behind her. She continued this until she got close enough to the ground, where she opened her wings to slow her descent, and landed gently a few hoofsteps away from Silver Quill.
She looked at him expectantly with an eyebrow raised, but Silver Quill sat in silence. Finally, he shook his head and cleared his throat.
“Well Rainbow Dash, when you say something is about to be awesome…” he looked up at the sky and at the clouds lazily drifting by, as though the dazzling display that just happened right next to them meant nothing, then back down at her. “You certainly mean it.”
Rainbow Dash broke into a wide grin as she trotted over and hoofed him in the shoulder. “You know it.”
Rainbow Dash and Silver Quill started walking back to Ponyville when Rainbow commented on how her performance made her hungry and they both agreed to get something to eat. Silver Quill listened as she rambled on and on about which Wonderbolt was, in her opinion, the best. Strangely enough, that honour jumped from one member to another as she spoke of them.
Eventually she just threw her hooves in the air in exasperation. “Gah! I just can’t decide which one I like more, they're all just so cool!” she cried.
Silver chuckled and nodded his head knowingly. “I know that feeling.” He commented wisely.
Rainbow cocked her head, looking at him curiously. “Oh really?”
He nodded. “Mhm. I’ve never been able to decide who my favourite author is, no matter how hard I tried. On one hoof, Velvet Word writes some of the most gorgeous sentences I’ve ever seen. On the other hoof, Dream Weaver writes the most riveting stories, and on yet another hoof, Jade Redmane is the unofficial master of the fantasy genre.”
Rainbow Dash blinked several times, not quite sure what to say. “Uhhh…right. All I got out of that was you like books a lot.”
“You could say that.” He replied cryptically with a small amused smile.
Rainbow Dash looked at him for a few more seconds before giving out a small huff through her nose. “Has anypony told you that you’re kinda weird?” she deadpanned at him.
Were it any other pony, Silver may have gotten slightly insulted, but he knew that tact wasn’t really a strong point of hers and that she was just speaking her mind, so he just shrugged. “Somepony might have mentioned it once or twice.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Silver Quill only shook his head and continued walking.
They reached the Sugercube Corner, the place that Rainbow Dash insisted on eating at and where her and Twilight’s other friend, Pinkie Pie, worked.
Rainbow Dash’s stomach rumbled at the sight of it, and she licked her lips eagerly at the though of the food waiting for her inside. “Oh man,” she started. “The cupcake unlucky enough to be put in front of me won’t have any idea what hit it.”
She quickly trotted through the front door with Silver Quill walking in behind her. The sweet smell of bread and icing immediately assaulted his nose, making his mouth water even though he wasn’t that hungry.
“Hey Pinks!” Dash hollered as she and Silver sat down at an empty booth, drawing the annoyed gaze of several of the other patrons. “We’ve got a code blue here!”
Pinkie Pie’s chef hat wearing head popped out of the entryway to the kitchen with an aghast look on her face. “A code blue!? Oh, don’t you worry Dashie, I’ll fix that in a jiffy!” Her head disappeared back into the kitchen, only for her walk out seconds later with an entire tray of multicoloured cupcakes balanced on the top of her head.
Rainbow Dash giggled as Pinkie wobbled over to where they were sitting, swaying to and fro in an effort to keep the precariously perched tray of treats balanced on as it sat on her poofy mane.
“Here you go Dashie! The Cupcake Cornucopia Deluxe!” she announced proudly. Rainbow Dash gave a muffled thanks through the cupcake that she had somehow crammed into her mouth.
Pinkie giggled at her friends voracious eating, and turned her attention to Silver Quill. “And what can I get for you Silver?” she asked him brightly.
“A cup of hot cocoa please, I had a late breakfast.” He answered.
Okie dokie lokie, hot cocoa coming right up!” she chirped before bouncing off into the kitchen.
Silver turned back to Rainbow Dash who was in the process of stuffing another cupcake into her mouth before she even had the chance to fully swallow the first one with crumbs flying out as she chewed.
“She even eats fast.” Silver thought to himself.
She noticed him watching her and her voracious eating and gave him a cheeky grin. Silver only chuckled and shook his head in mock despair.
“So,” he began, hoping to encourage Rainbow Dash to slow down before she choked through starting a conversation. “What’s a code blue?”
Rainbow Dash gave a mighty swallow and a light laugh. “Oh, that’s just our code word for ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse, so you better feed me before I do.’ It’s just something silly we made up for laughs.”
“I…guess that makes sense.” Silver’s attention was drawn to Pinkie Pie walking over to their booth with a tray holding a steaming mug resting on her head.
“Here’s your cocoa!” she said as she dipped her head and slid the tray onto the table. Silver took the mug in his grey telekinetic aura and took a sip from it, relishing the warmth of it sliding down his throat.
“Mmm, thank you Pinkie. you definitely know how to make a mean cup of cocoa.”
Pinkie giggled as she grabbed the tray in between her teeth. “Thanks!” she chirped, her voice slightly muffled by the tray in her mouth. She quickly flipped her head to the side, sending the tray flying into the air where it flipped once and fell back down onto her poofy maned head.
“Hey Pinks, why don’t you sit down with us?” Rainbow suggested with a smile.
Pinkie smiled gratefully, but shook her head. “I’d love to Dashie, but I gotta work. Them cakes aren’t gonna bake themselves!” her face turned contemplative for a moment. “But what if they did…”
She chewed on her lip thoughtfully for a moment, no doubt concocting some crazy scheme to see if it really was possible to get a cake to bake itself, then brightened as her focus returned to Silver Quill and Rainbow Dash.
“So yeah, sorry guys, but duty calls! Maybe some other time, huh?”
Before Rainbow Dash or silver Quill could answer, a voice came from behind the counter where a short, plump light blue mare stood. “Oh, don’t worry about that Pinkie,” she called in a kindly, motherly voice. “Go on and sit with your friends, we can hold down the fort by ourselves.”
Pinkie’s face lit up, and she quickly bolted back to the counter to unload her tray and chef's hat. “Thanks a bunch Mrs Cake!” she said before rushing back to their booth.
She quickly shoved Silver aside and deposited herself next to him with an excited grin. “So!” she chirped. “What have you ponies been up to?”
Silver Quill sat back as he listened to the two mares talk, occasionally contributing a sentence or two. He sipped at the cocoa with a smile on his face as he felt a warm sensation blossom deep from within his belly, and not because of the hot cocoa.
“I think I’m beginning to understand what you were talking about now, Mother. I only wish you were here with me to see it.”