Chapter Sixteen
The Dream
I hadn't been sitting on the couch for very long at all when Joy came through the door, sighing as she made her way to the couch. Seeing me waiting for her, she beamed and sauntered towards me, magically shucking off her bags as she took her place next to me.
"Hey there, Dave. So, tell me more about this promotion of yours. They are making you a manager of an entire shift?"
Right to the chase, same as ever.
"Yeah, of the night shift. I'll only have one other pony on my shift, but that should be plenty. I'm actually very excited about this new arrangement since it gives me the opportunity to be the leader I know I can be."
I could feel the words coming out of my mouth, but there was something wrong with them. I truly meant what I said, yet the words still seemed to ring hollow in my ears. For whatever reason, my heart wasn't in it. I started to think about what it might have been that had me in this funk, and I didn't have to think too hard about it before I zeroed in on the culprit. The fall earlier had apparently shaken me more than I'd realized. I knew that I wasn't going to be perfectly fine and dandy, but I didn't really expect it to throw me off like this.
Realizing that I'd spaced out again, I blinked my way back into the conversation. Joy was staring at me with a bemused look as I scrambled to piece together whatever it was that I'd missed while I was out. Drawing a blank, I gave her my best "lost" expression and hoped that she'd fill in the blanks. Luckily, this was rewarded with a kind smile.
"Welcome back. Have a safe flight?"
At the mention of flight, I felt an icicle slide down my spine as I gave an imperceptible shiver. My heartbeat began to increase and my chest felt like it was a few sizes too small. If I didn’t do something to head off the incoming anxiety attack soon, things would get… unpleasant. Inhaling deeply, I chuckled a bit to hide my anxiety and fixed Joy with a warm smile as I tried to be nonchalant.
“Yeah, I was just lost in thought is all.”
“You know, you really need to be careful in unfamiliar territory. Who knows what could be out there.”
I had a legitimate chuckle at that one, and was delighted to feel the tightness in my chest slowly fading. Sure, today had sucked after that whole falling-to-my-near-death thing; but even after all of that, it only took a little bit of Joy in my life to raise my spirits. By the time morning rolled around, I figured I’d have the whole event behind me; nothing more than a learning point and a memory. I looked back at Joy as she smiled at me, and I couldn’t conjure a more wonderful sight. I smiled as I teased her back.
“Ouch, love. Why are you such a meanie?”
She grinned at me, something that I found lovely beyond measure. “Truth hurts, now stallion up. Back to the topic at hoof, what makes you think you’ll be a good leader?”
“Well, do you want the long answer or the short one?”
“I’ll take the short one; I’m getting sleepy.” As if to prove her point, a long yawn escaped her.
“As you wish. I know that I can be a good leader because I’ve been a leader before. I don’t care where a pony ranks in the hierarchy of things; I always try to see the pony, not the position. That, combined with a good work ethic and ability to prioritize, is what makes me a good leader.”
Joy, bemused, cocked an eyebrow at me. “Okay, mister leader, I have a question for you.”
“Oh? About what?”
“Nothing much, I was just wondering how long you stood in the mirror practicing that little speech.”
“Surprisingly, I got it memorized in less than five hours. Pretty amazing, right?”
We simply looked at each other for a second or three before we lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. Yeah, that was a good feeling right there. At that moment, the troubles that weighed heavy upon my shoulders were lifted by the sweet melody of laughter, a burden no more.
The rest of the evening passed in the usual way, as Joy and I unwound to the sounds of a record player and the gentle rasp of a brush passing through an azure mane. Sleep welled up from the darker corners of the room and gently carried us off into a world resplendent with wonder.
Once more my dreams took the shape of the aether; I soared among clouds of purest white as they hovered in stark contrast to a sky set ablaze by the fall of day to night. Far below, the verdant meadow was blanketed by deepening shadows. The lengthening darkness masked the warm hues of the flowers, muting them into much cooler and dimmer shades of their former glory. I briefly searched the ground below for Joy’s lithe form, though I was unable to find her in the light of dusk. Once the luminous disk of the moon was overhead, its delicate light would lend itself to the search. Until then, I would content myself with the freedom of flight on such a wonderfully temperate night.
Spotting a single cloud lingering far above the rest, I was suddenly possessed of the notion to sit upon it and survey the land below. With a grin on my face and a smile in my heart, I happily began my spiraling ascent to this most lofty of perches. After what seemed like an eternity, I still had yet to reach the cloud. Somewhat confused by this, I looked towards the heavens to see how much farther there was to go. In the singularly frustrating fashion that can only dreams can manage, the cloud was just as far out of my reach as it had ever been. Annoyed and determined, I sped towards the cloud with all my might.
I rocketed yet farther into the indigo of the night sky, feeling the atmosphere give way to the insistent beat of my wings as it slipped round my streamlined form. The wind roared in my ears, playing me the beautiful melody of the sky, as sung by the chorus of a thousand howling voices. Squinting my eyes against the sting of the wind, I could see the cloud getting closer by the moment. What I'd taken to be a relatively small cloud a short distance higher than the rest turned out to actually be a fairly large cloud, one that was far higher than I'd expected. The air around me was increasingly rarified and frigid as I climbed. The wind that slipped past me was no longer the warm air of a summer night, but the icy gale of a winter storm. The wind nipped at my flesh, thousands of razor sharp teeth cutting their way to the bone. The song of the wind was no longer beautiful, having become perverted and bastardized by my defiance of gravity. The soft howls had become vengeful shrieks of enraged windigos, seeking the flesh of whoever was so bold as to trespass in their dominion of the frigid altitudes. The shriek of the wind was matched by the screams of my muscles and of my tormented lungs, fighting for oxygen but finding none in the thinning atmosphere.
In spite of the mounting odds against me, I would not turn back so soon; the cloud was just in front of me, just beyond my reach. I would make the cloud, I knew that I could. In spite of my confidence, I could feel the altitude taking its toll upon me. I was beating my wings faster and faster to make up for the thin air, and was breathing harder and harder because of the same. My momentum was eroding as rapidly as my breath. The stars began to blur and move of their own accord, swimming betwixt folds of abysmal black in the deepest part of the night sky. The cloud was mere meters away now, close enough to touch. So far above the ground, the cloud was unshielded by the mountains below and was thus gilded in quicksilver by the austere light of a guiltless moon.
As the last of my momentum bled away and the blackness began to creep into the edges of my vision, I swiped a hoof in a desperate, last-ditch effort to catch the cloud and arrest my fall. I merely caressed the lowermost wisp of the cloud, a sliver of silver trailing from the tip of my hoof like a playful wraith. As I hung in the empty air for an eternal instant, I cast my gaze to the horizon and the magnificent lunar orb that hung there. Carried upon the pale beams of moonlight came the peace and the coolness of night, reassuring me that no harm would come to me. For an instant, I knew peace as I lingered upon the edge of the world.
And then, I began to fall.
I began to sink back towards the ground, once more a prisoner of gravity. My determination and stubbornness would be the death of me, and this would likely be the beginning of my end. As I'd flown ever higher and finally swiped out at the cloud above, I'd wound up with my back towards the ground. My zealous ascent had robbed me of oxygen and strength, leaving me unable to so much as flap my wings to save myself. Thus, I began to plummet towards the meadow below with my back leading the way. In the vacuous, hypoxic atmosphere, there was nearly no wind resistance to slow me as I fell, and I gained speed at a horrifying rate. And just like that, I was reliving the waking nightmare from that afternoon. The critical difference this time was that there was no Coach to bail me out. I was falling to my death ever more quickly and there was nothing to save me.
Deep down inside I feel to scream, but this terrible silence stops me. For the first time in my life, I am paralyzed by fear, completely unable to move under the weight of my terror. I want to kick my legs, to scream and shout, to fight with everything I have to recover, to survive. I can do nothing but plummet at an unholy speed towards certain death. I had a revelation that further compounded my despair; Joy was in the meadow so many kilometers below and would witness my plummet as I pierced the air and then the ground, leaving naught but a crater smattered with viscera and brown plumage.
If I could give voice to my lamentations, I would have screamed loud enough to shatter the heavens. If I could manifest my despair by weeping, I'd flood the earth with my tears. I was helpless to do any of this, however, and this only served to further compound my grief and frustration. I passed through a cloud as I streaked towards annihilation, and its soft form was torn asunder as my speeding form punched through it; the puff of vapor was simply no match for my inertia. Passing through the cloud was my signal that the end was nigh. Just as the condemned man will hear the creak of the hangman’s opening of the trapdoor just before the world falls out from under him, so too did I know that the end was upon me.
In the last instant before I was to crash into the ground and be rent from this life, I caught sight of the moon as it peaked out from behind the mountains. My last thought flashed across my mind in the form of a prayer, sent out to the luminous orb and the goddess of the same name.
“Luna, I give myself to Thee.”
There was a flash of light that seemed to come from everywhere at once as I struck the ground, the blinding flash of every single nerve firing off at once in a final moment of harmony in annihilation. The end, however, was not the end; at least, not what I expected the end to be. Immediately following the flash, there remained the sensation of falling, though with a disorienting twist. Not only was there the new sensation of being squeezed from all sides and crushed against something soft, but there was also the distinct sensation of decelerating. In fact, not only was I slowing down, I was nearly at a standstill. The slower I moved, the greater the crushing pressure became until equilibrium was reached. As I came to a stop, I was sure that I was going to be crushed into a paste under the tremendous pressure bearing down upon my form. Equilibrium can never be sustained in a universe constantly in flux, and the same was true in my plight as well. My inertia had been dissipated, and I was now being extruded from whatever I'd collided with, though at a much lower rate of speed.
My terror had been supplanted by curiosity, and I fought to look around me and take in my surroundings. There was, however, nothing to see but the inky blackness of the deepest night surrounding me. The walls were closing in around me, squeezing my wings to my sides and confining my limbs in such a way that I was powerless to move. Just as the claustrophobia was setting in, I was suddenly freed of my constriction with an audible “pop” as I was ejected into the air. Of their own accord, my wings popped open and arrested my ascent almost instantly. Whatever had been constricting me had apparently also been blinding me, for I could now gaze upon my surroundings.
I was about ten meters above a large cloud bank, almost entirely flat for as far as my eyes could see and gently glowing as they absorbed the light of the moon. Hesitantly, I set myself down on the cloud, breathing a deep sigh of relief as its springy surface held my weight with only a slight give. Taking a massive gulp of air to try and chase away the terror still within my breast, I sat down heavily on the cloud and hunched forward with my head held low. I stared at the undulating surface of the cloud beneath me, taking many moments and numerous slow, deep breaths in an effort to chase away the lingering fear. It was of no use, though; the fear within had formed an icy lump on my heart that refused to be vanquished.
Sighing in anger and frustration, I flung myself onto my back, instantly gripped by terror as I was overcome by visions of myself falling through the cloud to the ground below. Even as the ripple of terror passed through me it spread into the cloud underneath me; transforming it from the soft and supportive mass that it had been into the cold and damp mist that it ought to be. As it had robbed the warmth of the cloud, so too did my fear rob the cloud’s substance; once more, I was falling backwards towards my doom. A mere second had passed before I was again enveloped by the light from everywhere, something that had completely taken me by surprise. I wasn’t traveling fast enough to do much more than break something, let alone obliterate myself against the ground. So where did the light come from? Even as I was contemplating this incongruity, the soft surface of a cloud appeared beneath my hooves, just as warm and firm as it had ever been.
I couldn’t help but look down at it skeptically, trying to decide whether or not it was liable to go all “intangible” again. My wings spread from my side, just in case. As they did so, my left wing tip brushed up against something. Turning to look, I had to stare for a second before things clicked into place.
No more than a meter-and-a-half from me stood Luna, in all of her Magnificence. I simply stared at her with a blank expression, my mind completely incapable of processing the sight before me. Was this a dream? Had I died and had my soul committed to Luna’s charge and custody? These were questions for later, seeing as how I was facing the more immediate issue of what in the hell I was expected to do in the presence of a Princess. On a whim, I snapped my wings to my side, my hooves together, stood up to my full height as I turned to face Luna, and finally snapped a crisp salute. I stood there, as immobile as a statue as I waited for some indication of what to do next.
My salute was met only by a raised eyebrow, as if it were completely unexpected. A tense moment passed in silence, Finally, Luna gave a slight nod at me, and I took this as a signal to drop my salute. I stood in as close an approximation of the position of attention as I could manage as a pony and waited for something to happen. After yet another moment of tense silence, Luna spoke up.
With a voice as soft and smooth as silk, she spoke. “Art thou well? Wait, I meant to say, are you okay?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Princess Luna raised an eyebrow at this. “Majesty? To whom do you refer when you say ‘Your Majesty’? Surely, not I.”
“Negative, Your Majesty. I do indeed refer to you, Your Majesty.”
She waved a hoof at me, dismissively. “Well, cease it at once. You make me feel more ancient than I care to. Why ponies insist on ‘Your Highness’ this, and ‘Your Majesty’ that, I’ll never know. My name is Luna, not ‘Your Majesty’ or any other pompous title.”
“As you wish, Your… as you wish, Luna. Though, I feel that the title of ‘Your Majesty’ is more appropriate. Permission to speak freely?”
“You may speak in whatever manner you deem fit. Pray tell, why is a title more appropriate than my name?”
I relaxed a little, sloughing away from the position of attention into something a bit more natural as I made my reply. “Thank you, Luna. Well, the simple answer is that I find you to be majestic in a way that words fail to capture appropriately.”
It was true, what I said; I simply cannot convey the presence of this mare. I knew not whether I be awake or dreaming, but in whatever state I might be, Luna’s presence was palpable. She had an aura of regality about her, and this was only amplified by her physical traits. Every curve and form of her body was simply elegant, stirring feelings within me that I cared not to dwell on. Voicing this to her might not have been a good idea though, for she was now regarding me with a critical look. In her many years, she had doubtlessly been in the presence of numerous suck-ups, seeking to gain favor with their compliments. She had also obviously been pursued by her fair share of suitors, and if I was correct in my guess, she was trying to decide to which group I belonged. The moments seemed to drag on forever as she simply held me with a level gaze, one which I did my best to return without seeming arrogant. Her eyes locked on mine, the light of the moon playing across her features and causing her eyes to twinkle. The effect was simply hypnotic, and I found myself staring deep into those cosmic pools. I blinked some dust from my eye and nearly jumped from my skin.
“Huzzah! I’ve won!”
Apparently, we’d entered a staring contest at some point, a contest that I'd lost. Luna’s sudden outburst was followed by a smile, throwing me for a loop in light of the awkward silence that’d preceded it. I gathered my thoughts as best I could for a moment before I asked the question that had been bothering me since I first laid eyes upon Luna.
“Luna, may I ask you a question?”
She smiled at me, the picture of grace. “Yes; and you just used it up. Well, this has been a pleasant conversation.”
I was at first unsure of how to react to this. How was I supposed to respond to that? And what comes next? I was again fixed with a raised-eyebrow-gaze, as if Luna was waiting for something.
“Was that… was that a jest?”
Luna facehoofed. I, Dave; of the clan Stupidus-Humanus, had just compelled a living deity to facehoof. I wasn’t sure whether I should be proud or ashamed, but until such time as I came to an appropriate answer, I was going to stick with ‘proud’. I beamed from ear to ear, hoping to play it off as a joke of my own in the event that it wasn’t well received. When Luna dropped her hoof, she was sporting a slight smile, and I took this as a sight to continue.
“Well then… excluding the previous two questions, may I ask this question and a follow-on question?”
She simply shrugged. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”
“Very well then. Luna… are you really here, or am I dreaming?”
Luna put her hoof to her chin for a moment, deep in thought… or so it would seem. Her smile grew a bit wider, which gave me pause.
“Obviously, you are dreaming, Dave. But whether or not you are actually in the presence of a Princess, or if I’m simply a figment of your imagination? Well… what do you think?”
“With all due respect, Luna; if I knew what I thought, I wouldn’t have asked. I take it that you aren’t going to give me a straight answer, right?”
“Tsk-tsk, Dave. You didn’t ask permission for that question. How unbecoming.”
Luna was caught up in the midst of a giggle-fit, and I was becoming frustrated at my inability to ask the questions I needed to so that I could get a straight answer. As I struggled to out-think Luna, I grew more and more frustrated as I went down one dead-end after the other. Had I been paying attention, I might have noticed the way that everything was losing definition and form, slowly muddling together into a swirl of shades and gradients. By the time I realized what was happening, only Luna’s smile remained, floating amongst the wraiths of color in a pretty darn good impression of the Cheshire cat’s grin.
I awoke with a start, annoyed at myself for waking up without getting an answer. If anything, I was even more unsure whether the whole thing was a dream or not. Looking at my watch, I had a whopping three minutes before my alarm was to go off and signal the start of the day. Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and staggered to my hooves to go use the latrine before my alarm sounded.
As I made my way to the bathroom, I ruminated on how this was such a crappy way to start off the day. Little did I know, this was only the beginning.
~*~*~*~*~*~ 04:27, Saturday: 1 April. (Day 20) ~*~*~*~*~*~
When the hell did that mare have time to do this? Does she ever sleep?
I grumbled to myself in a most discontented manner as I dried my face off for the second time. Today was April fool’s, and Joy had apparently been up all night. After doing my business, I'd gone to wash my hooves only to find that the faucet had been modified to spray the operator in the face as soon as it was turned on. Wide awake but disoriented, I grabbed the hoof-towel to dry my face off. As I did so, I became aware of the fact that the towel had been well and truly saturated with talcum powder as I became a very clean-smelling ghost. Bracing myself for the incoming deluge, I turned on the faucet and rinsed off as much of the powder as I could. Pulling a towel from under the sink, I discovered a rubber snake that had been left atop the linens. Taking a moment to thank my lucky stars that I liked snakes and wasn’t a jumpy pony, I picked up the serpent and slung it over my shoulder as I checked the towel for further pranks. Satisfied that the towel had not been booby-trapped, I dried the rest of the way off and wiped away the residual powder.
I quietly made my way back to the couch, finding Joy still fast asleep from her late-night hijinks. Since my alarm had sounded while I was in the bathroom, I was faced with the task of waking Joy in its stead. I had the perfect plan.
Placing the snake on the pillow by Joy’s head, I reached my wing over to her and gently flicked her nose with a feather. As soon as she began to stir, I began to make a low hissing noise. She cracked one eye halfway open, searching for whatever was making that strange sound. As soon as her eye focused on the snake, a few things happened at the same time. First, both of her eyes shot wide open and grew to the size of dinner plates. Second, her legs began to spasm and twitch very rapidly in no particular order or pattern. And finally, her horn began to glow, an azure glow that also surrounded the snake.
The very next instant, Joy was shrieking loud enough to wake the dead, she was flying backwards through the air from the spastic lunge her legs had choreographed, and the snake had embedded itself in the wall from the force that Joy had tossed it with. I forgot how to breathe for the next ten minutes or so, managing a gasping inhalation every so often in between laughs. Joy had stopped screaming and was regarding me with an expression which promised retribution by the time I'd gotten myself under control, and Dawn was standing at the edge of the living room wearing curlers, a robe, and a frown. At the sight of Dawn, I lost it again. Dawn, apparently satisfied that nopony was being horribly murdered in her living room, rolled her eyes and turned away with a sigh. My ribs were absolutely killing me from laughing so hard, and some of the tears in my eyes were tears of pain by the time I managed to stifle myself.
Joy had collected herself from the floor and taken up a position in the corner of the bed, favoring me with a dour expression. I smiled at her, still giddy, and tried to figure out if she was just grumpy or genuinely upset at me.
“Good morning, sunshine. How are you?”
Her only reply was a squinty glare in my direction, and my smile faltered. So, genuinely upset it is.
“Joy? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to upset you, I just--“
“I didn’t get to see you fall for my pranks, you jerk. How’d you wake up before me without your alarm going off?”
I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn't mad at my hijinks. “Oh, I’m sorry about that… if it’s any consolation, I fell for them hook, line, and sinker. I had a funky dream and woke up a bit earlier than usual, that’s how. My alarm went off in the bathroom.”
“Dang, all of that work and I missed it. Just my luck. What kind of funky dream? Disco-funky?”
“Huh? No, not quite that funky. Dreams of falling and not falling, tricky clouds, and arguing with myself.”
She put a hoof to her chin, smiling. “So… a dream about an average day for you?”
I shrugged, grinning. “More or less. I woke up when I lost the argument.”
“When you lost the… you might be the only pony I’ve ever met who can argue with themselves and lose. You are something else, Dave.”
I flashed a smile and struck a pose as I flexed for her.
“You are absolutely right I am. Something else, indeed.”
Joy facehoofed, and mumbled out from behind her hoof.
“Something else… I never said it was something good, you goof.”
I simply puffed out my chest and smiled. Joy’s mane was hanging in front of her eyes as she hung her head in the midst of her face-hoof. She looked up at me over the top of her hooves, her mane parted just enough for her to see out from under it. She saw me striking my pose and couldn’t help but smile and blush at me as she buried her face again. The diabeetus hit me hard; it was almost as if I'd done lines of hundred-percent-pure, uncut Coltlumbian cane sugar off of a mirror in a gentlecolts club to the beat of disco inferno. Yeah, just like that. I simply smiled at her as I felt my heart melt away and pool in a puddle on the floor. Once again Joy looked over her hooves at me, and as soon as she saw my smile she blushed further and hid behind her hooves again with an even wider smile. Right in the Diabeetus.
I leaned forward to kiss her, entirely unable to contain myself even a moment longer. I gingerly brushed her mane aside with my hoof and placed a kiss on her forehead, eliciting a little mew of contentment from the mare. My heart exploded so hard it killed everypony in town and within a twenty- kilometer radius thereof. I stepped away from her to collect myself before I really did have a heart attack or something. After the events in the bathroom and the prank that I'd pulled, the both of us were pretty well wide awake. Despite the fact that this was a weekend and we really didn’t have anything to do for a few hours yet, I figured we could go ahead and get started on PT. I'd planned to wake up at about zero seven for this, but having forgotten to reset my alarm, I had to make adjustments in my plans.
Once Joy was properly prepared for the day (and still sporting those awesome leggings) we ventured into the back yard for a series of exercises that I lovingly refer to as “The Ab-literator”. Starting with fifty oblique crunches per side as a warm up, and then moving into pyramids of fifteen side-knees, crunches, sit-ups, frog kicks, straight leg raises, and the supine bicycle, you were in damned good shape if you could finish the exercises at all. For those unfamiliar with the concept of pyramids, you begin at one repetition of each exercise. Upon completion of each set, you add an extra repetition for the next set, all the way up to fifteen and back down again. All told, it is two hundred and forty reps in each exercise. Nearly fifteen hundred repetitions in all. I had made it all the way up and was working my way back down when I hit the wall at twelve. I simply could not make my legs go up anymore. Just shy of a thousand reps overall, and I was done. Joy had died out before hitting ten sets, though she valiantly kept going as best she could.
I called the session to an end for a five minute water break, advising Joy to stretch out her abs for the next exercise. As the five minutes came to a close, we began the capstone of the Ab-literator; walking the plank. Simply put, we would keep out back straight as we supported ourselves on our rear hooves and elbows. This is the basic plank, nothing special. To “walk the plank”, we would alternate the regular plank with the single-leg plank, which is where you lift one hoof off the ground and hold it in the air for thirty seconds before returning to the plank. Thirty seconds to “recover”, and then the action is repeated on the other side. Four on each side and we are done. Neither one of us was able to make it past the first set before we sagged to the ground in defeat. Joy’s a tough gal though, and she never allowed herself to simply lounge on the ground; she would go down for a few seconds before she shakily elevated her midsection again. Finally, the clock signaled the end of our self-imposed torment, and Joy and I took a moment to simply flop onto the grass and lament our poor abdominals.
The Ab-literator had lived up to its name. Joy and I were well and truly smoked from the exercises, having reached total muscle failure multiple times. We both knew that it was going to be a long day and that we were going to be sore for a few days afterward, but neither of us minded. After all, there are few things that can compare to the feeling of a really good burn.
After showering, breakfast, and a little couch-surfing, Joy got up and started to head upstairs. I sat there for a second, wondering if I was missing something before I called out to her.
“Uh, Joy? Where are you headed?”
“Upstairs to get my bag. I have class soon.”
My confusion was complete, as evidenced by my head tilt. “Wait, class? But… it’s daytime. And Saturday.”
“Yes, I am aware of this. I have night classes, but since I’m in the fast-track course, that includes Saturdays as well. Such is the price of graduating early.”
“Oh… well, alright. What am I supposed to do all day, without you here to inspire me?”
She shrugged, turning once more to the stairs. “I dunno… survive? Hold on a tick, I’ll be back in a second.”
Joy’s steps could be heard as she made her way up the stairs, and again a moment later as she came back down with her bag. I checked my watch and was a little shocked that it was already zero eight thirty. My, how time flies when you are subjecting your body to voluntary torture.
“So Joy, all I have to do today is survive? That’s my goal for every day. Class starts at nine?”
“That it does. I have the same goal, though I get the feeling that I have a lot fewer instances that require me to stick to it than you do.”
I had to concede the point. “I do seem to have a knack to be in the right place at the wrong time.”
“Yeah, try not to do that today. I’ll be back in time to make dinner, so make sure you are still alive and kicking by then.”
I shot her my winning-est smile. “I’ll do my best, dear.”
“That’s all I ask. Alright, I’ve got to head out now to get a good seat. See you later, gator.”
“In a while, crocodile.”
Joy was chuckling as she closed the door, and even I had to crack a smile at the vintage farewells. So, what to do, what to do… Derpy had her routes until after lunch sometime, so that ruled out flying lessons… Joy was in class and obviously unavailable… my bit-pouch would be empty if I spent the day at Berry’s… I was plumb out of ideas. I sat down on the couch in defeat, deciding on a whim to dig through my saddlebags for inspiration. About ten minutes later, I had pulled an improbably large amount of assorted junk out of these saddlebags, and there was yet more rattling around in there.
“What in the hell are these things made out of? I halfway expect Pinkie to pop out of this thing, this is ludicrous.”
Talking to yourself isn’t normal, but on ponies it is. Bah. I'd have to get everything out of these things sooner or later, so I stuck my arm into the bag to fish for whatever was still rattling around in the bottom of the sack. I was only mildly shocked when my arm kept going into the bag, passing the point that I was sure I'd have hit the bottom and then some. I was nearly shoulder deep into the bag before I touched the bottom of it, sitting in a slight shock as my first-hoof experience with broken physics. I quickly fished out the emerald that had been rattling around in the corner of the bag and then filed the whole thing in the “locker of things not to think about”. Packing the things back into the bags in a somewhat less haphazard fashion than they had been before, I sat down to twiddle my thumbs as I figured out what to do next. I was of course reminded of the fact that I had no thumbs to twiddle, eliciting from me a defeated sigh.
As my eyes wandered the confines of the home that had become my own, a speck of green caught my eye. I'd left the emerald on the table when I was repacking my bags. I pondered just where exactly I'd picked up an emerald in the first place, coming up entirely blank. I picked up the strange green stone, turning it over in my hooves as I marveled at the way light was caught and reflected by the facets. The effect was entrancing, and I looked it over for a good minute or ten. The thought occurred to me that I should take it to a jeweler to have it looked over. Immediately following that thought was another, compelling me to browse wedding rings while I was there. Yeah, I'd been here just under three weeks, and that was a little too soon to be marrying anypony. Still, it couldn’t hurt to look. That, and I'd have to save up for a good, long while in order to purchase a ring once I'd picked one I liked, plenty of time to decide if this was really something I wanted to commit to.
The method by which I would conceal my growing horde of bits as I saved for the ring posed another set of problems. I wondered for a moment if there was a bank anywhere in Ponyville that I could open an account. Unsurprisingly, I again drew a blank. Today was starting to look like a day for window shopping and exploration. Grinning, I scooped up the emerald and set off to a jewelry store I'd seen a time or two in my misadventures throughout the town.
A half hour later, I'd finally found it: a small boutique with lush red curtains in all of the windows, the only indication of its name was the word “Diamond’s” in elegant script on the door. From within, I could hear a steady beat thrumming, something which sounded an awful lot like club music to me. I thought nothing of it as I made my way inside. Just inside the door was a very small foyer, adorned in a modern Spartan sort of style with a small desk in the center of the far wall. Behind this desk was a very attractive mare reading a magazine with a bored expression. This didn’t look much like any jewelry shop I'd ever been to, but then again, I'd never been to a pony jewelry store either. I approached the desk with a smile, and the mare behind the desk finally put down the magazine to greet me.
“Good morning, Sir. Welcome to Diamond’s, where you can have whatever you like.”
“Good morning to you as well, ma'am. I came for an appraisal, and to browse your selection for something… special.”
“An appraisal? Well… I suppose we could do that. I’ll have to get Diamond out here for that. In the meantime, you mentioned perusing our products?”
“Yes ma’am I did. Are they on display?”
At this, the mare behind the counter gave me a strange look, batting her platinum blonde mane out of her pale blue eyes. She looked as if she were trying to measure me up, to figure out if I was up to no good or something. Her response was a little tense, but still friendly.
“No sir, we prefer to keep the models in a more… intimate setting. Feel free to browse our catalog, though; we can take you into our viewing room of you find something that strikes your fancy. I’ll just give Diamond a ring and ask her about the appraisal while you browse.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
The receptionist simply gave a slight nod and passed a brochure over the desk to me and gestured to a small bench on her right. I walked over and took a seat and I began to flip through the magazine. My first impression was one of mild confusion and desire; the first page was a full page photo of a striking mare in a red cocktail dress, doing her best to melt the camera with a sultry gaze. Around her neck there was a triplet of fine pearl necklaces, each glinting softly in the light. She wore some elegant silver earrings with what appeared to be diamond accents, and a slender gold chain around her left forehoof topped it off. As I flipped from page to page, it was more of the same. Every photo was of a different (and equally stunning) mare adorned in various jewelry, though none wore rings. I was about a quarter of the way into the pamphlet when I heard a door open in front of me.
Along the far wall of the foyer, a door that I'd missed when I came in slid open to reveal a simply stunning mare adorned in most unusual garments. Her outfit appeared to be composed primarily of latex, and it was so tight as to leave nothing to the imagination. It sported a seemingly random assortment of delta rings and straps, which I found to be oddly familiar, but where I knew them from was a mystery to me at that time. This mare’s coat was as black as a moonless night, with a mane that was an almost-as-dark shade of purple. Her eyes… oh, her eyes. They were silver and pale blue, and they sparkled as if lit from within. They looked for all the world like a pair of diamonds in the night sky, and there was no doubt remaining; this mare was Diamond.
I quickly rose to my hooves and gave a bow; it seemed the appropriate thing to do at the time. Diamond looked at me for a second before introducing herself.
“Subservient; I like it. Good morning; my name is Diamond, and I am the owner of this establishment. My associate tells be that you came here for an… appraisal?”
“Good morning, Miss Diamond; my name is Dave, and yes I did.”
I reached over to my side to excavate the emerald from its place within my saddlebag when Diamond’s voice rose again, lilting musically against the beat of the music from the back of the establishment.
“Yes, remove those unsightly bags that I may get a better look at you.”
“Pardon?” I think I missed something here....
“There is no need for pardon if you do as I ask. You wished for an appraisal, did you not?”
I rubbed a hoof on the back of my neck. “Well, I did… but I can’t see how this has anything to do with that… “
“Question not my methods. If you desire your appraisal, drop the bags and simply obey. Otherwise, you may take your leave now.”
I was more than a bit confused at this, and I was beginning to feel more than a little uneasy by this point, but the odd combination of shock and curiosity prevented me from asking any more questions. Wordlessly, I dropped my bags, taking care to set them down so that the emerald didn’t shift within.
“Very good, Dave. Now, stand up tall. Straighten your back. Straighten your back, enough of the slouching. That drives away clients. Now, spread your wings for me.”
Spread my… why? I was now completely baffled, and I wasn’t even trying to hide it. I felt a hoof poke into my side, just behind my mark, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I jumped a little at the unexpected contact, turning to face Diamond and demand an answer.
“Hey now, what’s going on here? I came here to get an appraisal, not be poked and prodded.”
Her glare adopted a decidedly frosty quality at my interruption. “So, you came to do the poking then? Then why waste our time asking for an appraisal if you were here for the service and not a job?”
Things were starting to come together, and I have the feeling I'd made a terrible mistake somewhere. “I… what? What service? All I wanted was to get this emerald appraised and look at wedding rings, not look for a job. What kind of crazy jewelry store is this?”
“Jewelry store? Ah, that explains it. Mister, this isn’t a jewelry store; it is a companion service. When you came here asking for an appraisal, Crystal assumed you were looking for employment as an escort and called me out to give you a look.”
Everything fell into place as I blushed so hard my cheeks were on the verge of ignition. The club music in the back? Quick tempo and hard bass-line, good to keep pace to. The magazine full of gorgeous mares in evening clothes? Those are the “models”. And finally, the oddly familiar latex getup? Gimp suit for a dominatrix. I could try to figure out just how in the hell I'd been such an oblivious naïf later, once I'd gotten the fuck out of this place of debauchery.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake, and I’ll be leaving here. Good day to you both, and if anypony asks I was never here.”
“Pity… you would have made a fine addition to our selection, especially with that physique. And you’ve never been here, nor have any of the other clients.”
“I’m not a client. Okay, thanks, bye.”
I took my bags in my teeth and hightailed it out of there, taking to the sky as soon as I was clear of the door in an effort to get as far away as possible from this establishment before I was seen. As soon as I was in the air, I encountered a new problem for me; I no longer knew where I was. I'd familiarized myself with the town from ground level, and to see it from above was more than a little disorienting. I was able to pick out the shape of the market center from where I was and decided to set down over there to gather my thoughts.
I landed on a side street about a block away from the market so that if I had any difficulties landing, I would be less likely to hurt somepony else. My head was still spinning from the encounter, and I decided it would be best to grab a bite to eat and mull things over. I bought a sandwich from the first vendor I came to, not caring what was on it or how much it cost me. I grabbed the hoagie and made my way to the farthest, most remote corner of the diner and sat facing the wall, doing my best to portray somepony who wanted to be left alone.
I tasted not the hoagie as I lost myself in thought. How could I have not seen the signs earlier? What if somepony saw me go into or come out of there? What would Joy have to say about this? Should I tell Joy? How could I not tell her? But if I do, what sort of other questions will it raise? What is my cover story for this?
My head was spinning and buzzing as the questions kept piling up by the second. I needed to think about something else before my head exploded. Seeking a distraction, I found my mind wandering back to the dream I'd had that night, and specifically the pony therein. Had it really been Luna? As much as I wanted to believe that I had truly been visited by a goddess incarnate, I knew that I was not nearly lucky enough to have such a thing happen to me. Yet, despite my attempted resignation, I was still possessed of a sliver of doubt; maybe… just maybe… I really had been. My contemplation of the dream sequences skipped past this for the time being as I pondered the rest of the elements of the dream.
Some of the imagery was pretty obvious, even to me. The highest cloud represents my overzealous aspirations and the pursuit of the unobtainable. The story of Icarus came to mind, as one who sought to venture into the realm of the gods was made low by his irreverence; so too was I. The fall was also pretty easy, as it played on the terror of the day’s events. With the obvious out of the way, I was left to speculate on the rest. In my best guess, the reason that I kept falling through the cloud is because my fear influenced the dream and corrupted it; making the cloud as cold and vaporous as the nightmare itself. The white flashes might have been Luna teleporting me onto the cloud from where I fell, though I had no real evidence for this. Well, as real as evidence in a dream can be, at any rate.
And just like that, I was back onto the topic of Luna. On one hoof, I can see why she would be there like that as she rescued me from my nightmares. On the other, I’m pretty sure that I’m entirely unworthy of her presence. And the strange way that she acted, shunning her title in favor of her name, also seemed incongruous with what I expected of her. However, by not acting the way I would have expected her to, it lends credibility to the idea that this was an actual visit.
The more I thought, the more my head hurt. Really, I should know to leave the thinking to the smart ponies. I rubbed my temples as I once again changed my train of thought onto another track, the dilemma of whether or not to tell Joy. And if I did tell her… how would I tell her? I pressed a hoof against my forehead and rubbed it in small circles, trying to persuade it not to explode as thoughts raced by at a blistering pace. Finally, I decided that honesty was the best policy in this situation. Better to come right out and tell her than have her find out in an unregulated or controlled way from a third party somewhere down the line. And, since tact wasn’t really my thing, I would just be up-front about it and hope to dodge most of the things chucked at my head.
Oddly, as much as I knew it was most likely going to suck telling Joy about my misadventures today, I still felt relieved that I'd made a choice. For better or worse, I'd made my decision and eliminated the uncertainty. It was strangely liberating, not to be chained by indecision; I found freedom in my resignation. In much better spirits now, I was able to think a little bit more logically, and was able to stumble upon a solution to at least one of my unresolved issues. As I left the diner, I stopped and asked the waitress if there were any jewelry shops in town. She listed off a few in order of proximity to the diner, and offered her suggestions for which one to visit. I thanked her with a large tip and set off towards the recommended jeweler.
A few minutes later I was standing outside of another shop with a sketchy sounding name, though this one had no curtains over the windows and there were several pieces of silver on display. Breathing a sigh of relief, I entered the Emerald City. I was greeted by a lovely mare of a delightful green hue, who approached me with a smile and introduced herself.
“Hello, Sir! My name is Emerald, or Emma for short, and I welcome you to my shop. How can I help you?”
I was a bit caught off guard by the perkiness of this mare at first, but quickly returned her smile and her greeting.
“Hey there, Emma. I’m Dave, nice to meet you. I was wondering if I could get an emerald appraised?”
After the last episode, I made sure to indicate quite clearly that I was here to get a gemstone appraised, and not myself. Emma’s eyes lit up at the mention of her namesake, and once I removed the stone from my saddlebag she was nearly salivating. The emerald was quickly encapsulated in a green glow and levitated before a set of very green eyes. Emma looked the stone over with the practiced eyes, mumbling to herself in hushed tones. A few seconds later the stone was returned to my possession as Emma beckoned me to follow her to the counter. Taking her place behind the counter, she sighed deeply before fixing me with an almost pained look.
“That emerald you have there is the single finest Dragonfire I’ve ever seen. Immaculate clarity and color, and the facets are unbelievable. It saddens me that it isn’t in my collection.”
“Actually, I was hoping to work out a deal; a trade, if you will.”
Emma’s eyes were sparkling in a disturbingly accurate imitation of a real emerald. She waved her hoof at me, beckoning me to continue.
“Well, I just happen to be in the market for an engagement ring and a wedding ring set.”
“You’re in luck. I think I might just have one or two lying around for you to look at.”
With that, she gestured at a display case that ran the entire length of her shop. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I suddenly had the feeling that this was going to take all day. It was very quickly established that I knew next to nothing about buying a ring for a pony. I had no idea what sizes were like, whether it would be a horn-ring or a hoof-ring, what her birth stone was, any of that. Emma was trying to be helpful, but after an hour of blank stares she was getting a little frustrated at me. Just before her patience ran out, we settled on a design. It was silver and gold in the shape of vines wrapping around a heart, with over three karats of diamonds alone, in addition to numerous other stones. The accent stones would be Joy’s birth stone (once I figured out what it was, anyways), and would be arranged as flowers on the vines. As for the size issue, I figured it would be more than a little suspicious if I asked Joy what her ring size was. In lieu of this, there was an expensive alternative; the self-sizing ring.
During the smelting process, the ring was enchanted with a simple spell that allowed it to shape itself to a perfect fit for anypony. Despite being a reportedly simple spell, the only ponies who knew the spell were in the bloodline of the smelters and were not keen to share their secrets. Thus, pieces with this enchantment on them were highly prized and expensive items. Having settled on a ring design and establishing a value for the traded emerald, coupled with a hero’s discount (against my will), we were left with a pretty dang heavy balance remaining on the ring. A little bit of math was endured, and a payment schedule was worked out. So long as everything went to plan, I'd have paid the rings off by the first of October. Six months was still somewhat rushed in my opinion, but I planned to have a year-long engagement. That way, we had plenty of time to make the arrangements and coordinate the various intricacies of a wedding.
After signing the contract, I stepped out into the warm afternoon air. I wasn’t concerned about Diamond’s, about falling, or even about possibly being visited by a goddess in my dreams. No, at that moment my mind was dwelling not in the present or the past, but in the future. I was lost in my fantasies of proposing to Joy amidst the burning colors of autumn, of asking her to be my wife for now and forever more. Sure, that day was a long ways off… but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t be looking forward to it. As my mind concerned itself with matters of the heart and the future, my legs moved of their own accord, carrying me into a part of the wilderness around Ponyville that I'd not been to before.
I came to my senses standing under an ancient oak tree, its gnarled branches casting a shadow ten meters out from the trunk. The tree stood alone on a small hill in the middle of the valley floor, surrounded by a splendidly green meadow. The meadow ended in wood line several hundred meters away, and the hills that nestled the valley were blanketed by trees. All it took was the mere contemplation of the scene under the influence of autumn, and there could be no doubt. This is where I would propose to, and a year hence, wed Joy. Overcome as I was by the beauty in all things, I simply sat in the shade of that oak tree, losing myself in the song of nature.
The sun shone brightly upon all of creation, and birds sang sweet melodies to the wind; the breeze carried with it the promise of a life that had not yet truly begun, and the slender blades of grass sighed with the contentment of the world. I knew then that I was on the right path, that I was fulfilling the plan that had been laid out for me.
I thought of Joy, and I smiled.