Chapter Four: Sleeping Around Town
As the Sun slowly rises over the distant hills and not-so-distant buildings of your new home, you know this means only one important thing for you....
Sleep...
With the house now sparkling clean (mostly) from the endeavors that took place only hours ago, you can feel the bags under your eyes beginning to form. You had gotten, what, four... five hours of sleep before hoof? A little below average for you, but it was something.
Good thing Mom would be going out into town sometime this morning for job related purposes, which was not too far off from how it went back in Manehattan. This meant the whole house would be yours to enjoy a quiet, nag-free slumber in before she got back.
And speaking of...
You turn towards the stairs leading down from the second floor (which is a rather nice luxury, you must admit) once you hear your name called to find the cream-colored pegasus trotting down. To put things in minor perspective.... she looked as though she was hit by a train.
A train loaded with dubstep, party balloons, and spiked punch.
“You look well.” You can’t help but crack a coy grin.
“I’ve been better, thanks,” she mumbles, her minty eyes barely visible as she heads for the kitchen, snatching what was left of the OJ carton from the now spacious fridge— and bringing your not-so-old life in Manehattan into consideration, it almost felt as though nothing had changed. You weren’t exactly sure if that was meant to be a pleasant note or...
Anyway; you levitate the groggy mare a glass cup from the newly furbished cabinets as she “gracefully” plops herself into a seat and pours the freshly-squeezed beverage. “So, can we both agree to nothing like last night as long as we stay in this house?”
“Hmm... I’ll get back to you on that once this hangover wears off,” mom replies in an expectedly grumpy tone before taking a lengthy sip of the juice, her lips leaving the see through cup with a cool breath once the entire glass had been downed in a single gulp. “But you can’t say a little loosening up wouldn’t do you any good every once in awhile.”
“That’s what you think....” you let out under your breath. Besides, who was she to talk? She could probably get on your case for nearly hours over when the last time you even talked to another mare could have been. At least she had nothing to stand her ground with this time, to which you can’t help but mentally smile.
A few minutes pass as mom munches on her toast in silence before asking you to hoof her the newspaper, despite it being noticeably out of date. “Speaking of,” she starts, thankfully forgetting today’s snippy comment about relying too much on your magic. “I’ll be trying for a job in the journalism industry. It might be a slow few weeks at first, but you can bet it’ll bring more bits on the table sooner or later.”
Honestly, you can’t seem to find any doubt in her on that department. She definitely reads the paper enough to at least have knowledge of how it works. “What gave you that idea? Please tell me you didn’t see the idea in a dream—”
“That was one time! How was I supposed to know the restaurant idea would- nevermind,” she huffs. “A cute mailmare suggested the idea to me the day we arrived. The poor dear wasn’t the greatest flier due to her condition, but I’ll be Celestia’s uncle if those bubbles on her flank didn’t have at least something to do with her plo-... ahem, personality.”
It was a good thing you hadn’t just eaten, or...
“Plus,” mom starts with a confident emphasis, “I’ll have you know that I worked in the Journalism business back in the day. Not too shabby I’d say, before—...” And there went the confidence as fast as it came, and before you knew it, mom was deathly careful not to continue on with that sentence; but you didn’t need to know thaumaturgy to figure out how that sentence would have ended:
Before she met your father. Before you were born.
The silence shatters with a small- and fake- cough from mom into her hoof. “Well, you know what they say, the early bird gets the worm!” she exclaims half heartedly as she gets to her hooves and makes her way towards the front door. “Buh-bye, hon. Or should I be saying goodnight? Oh, and don’t forget today’s mail!”
Kachak.
Seconds tick away once the door shut, leaving you alone in your new home to only guess what had just happened. At least you finally have the house to yourself, to which the only logical answer to how you should take advantage of this precious moment can be summed up with one word:
Sleep.
With each step up the staircase, you wander deeper and deeper into your subconscious. Was all of this worth it? Is a new town really going to be the product of a new life? Or would you be a catalyst to what will further reveal itself as a mistake...?
As you trot into your new room, you envelop your glasses with your magical aura, levitating them over to the windowsill. At the same time, you throw yourself onto the stacked mattresses with sheets that you call your bed—
Wait a minute.... windowsill means window. The simple word brings upon the paranoia of somepony being able to watch you shamefully slumber. But this is an easy fix. You close the blinds, cutting off any source of light from the outside world. You prefer it that way.
As you lay there in the semi-dark staring at the ceiling, your thoughts swirl about your head. "This house is... nice, I guess." you muse. "But different." Is different good? Is your 'good' different from another pony's 'good?' Of course it is, you definitely aren't like other ponies. That's why you don't fit in. It doesn't bother you nearly as much as it should've, considering you never belonged in the first place. you are content. Or at least you think you are.
You’re beginning to confuse yourself. You shouldn’t be the one complaining in the first place; you could have prevented all of this if your pathetic habits hadn’t fed into these events. If you slept like everypony else, you would have been awake enough to notice the fire that could have gone worse than just burning your kitchen...
You clench your eyes as hard as you can and roll onto your side, digging your snout into your pillow. You didn’t want to think about anything anymore...
Only sleep....
….
Tink.
Your ear twitches, and you groan as you hear a muffled shout from somewhere outside. You’re exhausted. You’d practically spent the whole night cleaning for Celestia’s sake. ‘All I want is a few hours... please, just go away...’
“...pplejack, you know that I always take a nap after my morning routine! I thought you’d be, I dunno, happy it’s not on your property for once!”
“Mah problem is that yer not fully healed yet, Rainbow Dash! Y’all need ta stop showboatin’ fer just a single minute, and see that if you don’t get better, Scoots will think she’s hurt ya a lot worse than she did!”
You groan as you roll onto your side and clutch your pillow over your head, but the two keep at it. After counting to fifty three times and only hearing their argument become more asinine, you finally can’t take it any more. Throwing open your window, you stick your head outside, squinting against the brightness of the sun. And others (mom) wonder why you’re not a morning pony... “Can you two please have your shouting match somewhere else? Some ponies like to sleep for more than two hours at a time!”
Applejack, who is standing on the street below, looks up at you, her mouth agape. Rainbow, who is leaning off the edge of a cloud, has a similar expression.
The country pony regains control first. “Wait... Rainbow Dash! Don’t tell me y'all are just sleepin’ here because the new stallion lives here-”
“WHAT?! No, it- it’s not like that at all, I’m telling you! Geez, do you think I choose where a cloud drifts? Well, yeah, normally I would, but come on, I can’t control a cloud’s movements with a damaged wing-”
“Then why were you flyin’ on that same wing earlier today, hmm? Don’t that seem a mite strange, Rainbow?” You can hear the growl underlying Applejack’s words.
“Ugh, just kiss and get over it, why don’t ya,” you grumble to yourself as you slam the window closed. With those two going at it, there’s no way you’re getting any more sleep.
Stepping out the back door, you can still hear the two shouting at each other from the other side of the house, so you continue ambling along until both distance and the idle background noises of a small town cover their argument.
Not long after, you find yourself in a meadow somewhat removed from the town, with its edge bordering a dark forest. Groaning, you lay down and place a hoof over your head, reveling in the tranquility and the shade of a small weeping willow. It's almost no time at all before your soft snores are mingling with the mild springtime air.
---
“Hmm... Maybe it was jus’ me n’ all, but shoot did he look plum tuckered. Think th’ guy got any sleep las’ night?”
“Now that you mention it, new guy looked like he’d tip overrr aanny....”
“...RD, why’re y’all smilin’ like that?”
“Oh, no reason. Though I’d imagine it would be kinda difficult to sleep with a certain orange mare ”keeping him company”-”
“Now that
"Opal? Opal! Come now, this is not the way to treat a lady, running off like this! Fluttershy, dear, have you seen her?!"
You wake up to somepony yelling, and you sigh into your foreleg. Another one yelling. Greeeaaat. Shifting from your side onto your hooves, you look out from the comforting shade of the willow and into the bright meadow where a white unicorn and a yellow pegasus are searching around every which way. Behind you, you hear some rustling and a low yowl.
Turning, you see a cat that is completely drenched in water, giving the white mare in the distance a glare. "Easy there, puss. C'mere, ya cat. I'm trying to sleep." You try to stifle a yawn as you pick the cat up in your magic and push the branches out of the way as you stumble into the noontime sunlight. "Missin' a cat, you two?" You call out, a yawn puncturing your question.
Opal glowers at you as Rarity and Fluttershy trot closer, both visibly relaxing. "Oh, thank you, darling! This naughty little thing has been running around and getting absolutely filthy all morning! Fluttershy and I were trying to clean her, but she's been absolutely dreadful!" Rarity sighs, wiping at her brow. "Thanks to you, we've found her much quicker than usual... By the way, why were you under that tree?"
Sitting down with a yawn, you start running a hoof over Opal's damp fur, getting a happy purr for your efforts. "Well, I didn't sleep much last night, and some of my neighbors were yelling right around when I was trying to get to sleep, so... I kinda looked for a quiet, out of the way place to take a nap."
As if to clarify your point, a yawn makes its way out of your mouth, where you cover it with a hoof. "'Scuse me," you mumble self-consciously.
The idea of bringing your glasses along had slipped your mind, so you’re sure the bags forming below your squinting mint eyes are exposed. "Oh, never mind that; you look absolutely awful! Here, let's get you to a shower. Fluttershy, your courage is much closer, would you mind..?"
Fluttershy, who had been cooing at a chipmunk that has a rather large collection of walnuts, looks up in surprise, her wings unfurling slightly. "Oh! U-um, well, I-I guess I don't mind," she squeaks out, her cheeks coloring.
Feeling the heat in your own cheeks rising, you turn away slightly. "No... th-that's okay, I, uh, I can just get one at home..." You levitate the cat into Fluttershy's hooves before turning away. "W-well, I'll talk to you two later, bye!" You hurriedly trout away, your face colored quite a bright pink.
"Well, shoot. I was really hoping to get to know him a bit better..."
"Um, Rarity, is it a good idea to be inviting him to our homes so soon? I-I mean, we only just met him..."
"Oh, Fluttershy~! You know I have an eye for this sort of thing; have some faith! I promise, this won't be anything like our last appearance on the dating scene, just you wait!”
....
Stepping out of your shower, you shake your head and get most of the water out of your mane. After drying yourself off, you put your glasses back on and head into your room. You're still exhausted, and honestly, you'd rather sleep in your own room than outside.
Groaning as you slump onto your bed, you thank the stars that those two mares are gone (or, at the very least, quiet), as you can’t hear any yelling coming from across the street. You’re alone again, with no distractions. Sleep drifts comfortably over your mind, like an extra blanket in the middle of winter.
....
A fresh aroma burns it’s way into your nostrils. With one strong whiff, you drift back to consciousness. Lifting yourself up and out of bed, you groggily drag yourself to the stairs as the fragrant aroma gets stronger and more overpowering, as well as more familiar. The scent beckons you into the kitchen, your nose leading you to a basket of freshly baked muffins, the whole lot of them still hot from the oven.
You rub the crust from your vision, but the muffins do not vanish. Moving closer to the bundle of pastries, you gently grasp a single muffin in your hoof, the temperate warmth transferring into your hoof, and bring it to your nose.
“Blueberry....” Wiping your now watering mouth with a foreleg, a monstrous growl escapes from below. It was about lunch time. You slowly, almost reverently bring the muffin to your mouth—
“Goooooooooooooood MORNING, slowpoke~!”
You start hacking up little pieces of muffin as you choke in surprise. At least the pink pony is kind enough to pass you a glass of water to sooth your throat after almost coughing up a lung.
Pinkie’s ears fold back, following the pair with shamefaced smile. “Please don’t hold anything against the poor muffins I baked, they are for you after all....”
A series of heavy gasps for air later, your breathing begins to soften just enough to give you faith to form coherent syllables.”W-Whaau.... w-why are you-”
“P-Pinkie? Is everything okay in there?! I thought I heard choking!”
It takes you a moment, but you quickly recognise the voice just behind your front door. The knob is lit up with your magic and give it a turn, pulling it open to meet eyes with the waiting lavender spectator your suspicions confirmed you about.
You mentally sigh. After running into all six of the Element Bearers again, you can’t help but feel as if you were a pawn in some great chess game that was shoving them into your life. And you were about to be swapped for a rook. “W-Welcome... Twilight, was it?”
“That would be correct,” the adorkable mare responds with a neighborly smile as she trots over to you and the pink pony stuffing her face in one of your muffins. “Pinkie Pie! We came to deliver those, she payed for them and everything!”
“Ah waff onry tasht teshten, hunesht!”
“Excuse me?” You raise a brow, not at Pinkie’s full mouth speech, but towards the face scrunched unicorn staring daggers at her friend. “If you wouldn’t mind, who payed for the sweets basket?”
Twilight turns to you, replacing her irritated frown with another friendly grin. “Oh, why your mother of course. She dropped by Sugarcube Corner to order a batch of muffins so you didn’t “starve yourself”....”
You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, earning you a giggle from Twilight. “T-Thank you... though I’m pretty sure I could’ve made my own bucking food if it came to that, mom.” you irritably mumble to yourself, finding the floor much easier to make eye contact with. Shifting your vision back to the unicorn’s violet eyes with a roaring yawn, they, along with her expression, are laced in what you best guess is concern.
“You look.... tired... Very tired.” Twilight frowns, her tone doing well to match the look on her face. “I hate to pry, but... you have gotten some sleep since we’ve last met, right?”
“I-er-um...-y-yes, I’ve... managed,” you groan; considering this mare just flat out asked something like that, you must look worse than you thought. It has grown to be a challenge not to clench your eyes tightly shut due to how heavy they were feeling, along with your haunches literally aching to lay on something soft and mattress-y. You’re not particularly keen with concerning a pony you’ve known less than twenty-four hours with your unhealthily adjusted habits, more-so a pony you could honestly care less about getting to know better.
It was your mess; you’d live with it alone.
“Oh...’kay,” she replies, obvious to even you she hadn’t bought a word, only dropping the lecture to hold up on her self-made “no prying on the new guy” deal. You respect her for that much at least, though you’re disappointed with your lying skills rusting up as a result of your recluse lifestyle. “In that case, consider it just a question! I’ve seen what depriving yourself of sleep can do to someponies, and it doesn’t exactly make tasks like say- for example, bucking and harvesting an entire apple orchard any easier for yourself or your friends....“
You were clueless as to what she was going on about now, though the mere mention of ”friends” makes you cringe. Despite all that went down the night prior, you presume the dreamload of advice Princess Luna had given you was probably for the wrong sap.
“Sorry to eat up at your time, we should probably get going.” Twilight Sparkle nudges the shoulder of the entranced poofball mare, who- from the looks of it just finished rearranging the kitchenware on the counter into that of what you figured was a smiley face (or maybe a cupcake...). “We’ll leave you to your privacy. I enjoyed this little visit!”
“Enjoy the muffins, I know I would!” Pinkie calls back with waving as though her foreleg would pop off at any moment, both some ways out the door and entering into the Ponyville streets.
With one last wave, you give a good “Thanks again!” call before eagerly shutting the door on not only the two mares, but the rest of Ponyville...
“I’m not the only one who noticed, am I?”
“He did seem a little wobbly, and not like a rocking chair where it’s supposed to be all wobbly n’ rocky!” Pinkie hums to herself, leaving Twilight to roll her eyes. “He’s still all nervous around us, too! I didn’t think it was possible for anypony who looks like they’re about to pass out to be all fidgety. Oh, and blushy!”
This incites a giggle from Twilight. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the only one who noticed…”
....
The clock on your wall reads “2:31”. Normally mom wouldn’t be home for likely another seven to ten hours, but here already with a new job in Ponyville, you doubt it would be more than a few hours tops.
Despite being the very same stallion who had been pulling all-nighters- albeit of a lesser caliber- since he was in his teens, you’re not confident you would last much longer. You also don’t want to tempt fate by trying to get to sleep again, else you’d be likely to get another visitor.
Eyelids growing heavier by the second, it seems your weren’t going to be given any other choice; with the combined comfiness of both the position you’re laying in and the couch itself lulling you further, you decide to just give in and let everything fade to black…
Trotting further away from your new home, you find yourself in a deep valley, almost a canyon. Your hoofsteps echo, clipclop, clipclop, as you continue on, only the stars above keeping you company. You look up, and you’re in a meadow, on a mountain. Ponyville is far below, but Canterlot is still far above, looming and lurking like some indifferent beast of untold age. The stars rain softly out of the sky, draining from the void into the field, surrounding you with their light and warmth, both of which are tempered by the indifference of the vacuum from where they descended. “Luna,” you breathe out, wonderment filling your being. “Again with this... And it’s only been a day, at most...”
The Princess of the Night looks upon you with a reproachful scowl. “And should I be happy to hear of your friendships with the Elements, or at the very least, other members of Ponyville’s citizenry? Or should I bring upon you my wrath for harming or scaring them away?” Luna trots past you languidly, her muscles supple beneath her coat. “Or have you squandered this day as you have every other day of your life?”
You huff in annoyance. “I didn’t get any sleep after the party Pinkie threw, so I tried three different times to take a quick 3 hour nap, or something. Each time, those mares of yours kept me awake. I’m only asleep now because the purple unicorn and puffball pinkette left, and I’m not expecting Mom to be back for a few more hours.” Snorting at how ridiculous your situation is, you turn back to Princess Luna and stiffly bow your head. “Pardon my outburst, Princess. I’ve been under duress.” Just because you weren’t good with mares didn’t mean you weren’t good with superiors.
“Be that as it may...” Luna trailed off as she turned to take in the view of Ponyville. Curious as to what’s got her attention, you look as well. There, where your new home is, all you can see is a burning apartment building, with ponies passing it by, strolling leisurely through the night as a mare’s screams echo through the valley, chilling your blood. “... It seems that you have yet to forgive yourself,” Luna remarks, as if commenting on a misplaced cloud covering half her body from the sun’s warming touch. “You mustn’t take all the blame; surely you didn’t cause the fire through active thought. Nay, I see it clearly, your mind was busy elsewhere; you hardly remember it, don’t you? You’re seeing phantoms, young stallion, and until you can look at a mirror and smile, I doubt you’ll ever find the warmth of friendship.”
With nary another word, Luna’s body dissolves and with a burst, begins falling towards the empty sky, once more populating it with the myriad stars. For a minute, a second, a year, a moment, an eternity... you simply stand there, watching as more and more buildings down in Ponyville become copies of your own. Finally, you open your mouth to speak. “But if I can only expect coldness from myself, what right do I have to steal another’s warmth?”
“—and so you know what I says? I says to her, “Bran cupcakes? Just what kind of nutritious and high in fiber business do you think I help run here, lady? This ain’t a retirement home, bubsy; you either buy something that’ll be sure to rot your teeth to the core or I’mma haveta—”
“Errr- despite how enthralling this little chronicle of yours may be, darling, I don’t exactly recall any of this ever…”
“Pinkie, this here story’s soundin’ cheesier than a plate o’ nachoes that fergot the chips.”
“That’s definitely an... interesting way to put it, I suppose. I’ve never read that one in any of my books on metaphors before.”
Come on now, Luna. That nosey princess can’t still find amusement warping just your particular dreams as she so please….
“Um... I don’t really think it’s so bad—”
“C’mon, guys, it’s not that bad. It’s not ‘Daring Do’ awesome or anything, but even Twi’s made me read worse.”
“Fake or not, keep going, Pinkie! Living in Manhattan for thirty years, It’s nice to hear a story that doesn’t end with somepony getting roughed up, shanked, or… other alternatives.”
...Or maybe she didn’t.
Your eyes snap open, a wave of memories prior to your rest crashing into you with enough force to jolt your entire torso awake with you.
“Welcome to the living world, sleeping beauty,” mom calls out from over the couch... “With all the muttering you did in your sleep, it was almost like you were trying to join in on the conversation for once.”
Hesitantly turning your head, a group of giggling mares- mom included, all sitting around your coffee table, cards in one hoof and muffins in another, was among the last thing you expected to see.
This definitely wasn’t a dream anymore, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be able to feel your heart ready to burst from your chest and join their game of Blackjack. This was on an entirely separate caliber to make this sentation come to life:
A nightmare.