If you would ask me, what the strangest feeling is, which I have ever experienced, I would answer 'getting turned into stone'. It was this indescribable feeling of immobility coupled with a certain warmth. There is more to it, once the stone reaches your head. When you become this immovable statue, every sense fades. You don't see, you don't hear, you don't feel, you don't taste, you don't smell. Basically, nothing exists for you anymore. You are alone with yourself; You become much more self-centric; You think about what happened, what you did and who you are.
After a long time – or at least what you perceive as such – your brain starts to go to places, imagines things. My mind started to wander off, into places, I had never seen. I was already confused, when I realized the truth: At some point, I must have slipped into sleep. I had the realization, when I suddenly felt a form of gravity again, which had been absent while my whole body had been numb. I enjoyed moving, which sounds strange, but after being imprisoned in your own brain, it is one of the best possible feelings.
There was an idea slowly developing in my brain: In this world, I was still able to move freely, to use all my senses. If in this dream I still had my mobility, my ability to cast magic, wouldn't I be able to get into other ponies dreams? If I used just any spell, could I affect reality after all? How could I reverse the effects of the Elements of Harmony, though? That would be impossible.
Before trying out, I decided to have a look around. Because of my inability to cast anything before slipping into sleep, I had not ended up in the dream world, but instead inside of a dream. Twilight was there, but she did not seem too happy. She was running from somepony. I tried to evade her path of escape, but she mimiced the evasion and ran into me nonetheless.
“Ahh. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Just for a moment, I was thoroughly confused. Did she not realize, who I was? I mean, not many ponies look like me. Then I realized it: She was actually not the dreamer of this dream. She was just the projection of the dreamer of what Twilight was. When a bolt of fire struck right next to us, Twilight began running again. I watched her running through the forest for just a heartbeat and then turned around to see, who was actually chasing her. A blue unicorn with a lightblue mane.
“Hey, stop that!” I yelled, more of a reflex than something that actually made sense. The dream Twilight was not really real, so why should I have cared? The dream Twilight had not even known, who I was, because the dreamer had not known, that she had actually met me. Although that was a reason to just ignore the issue, there was better reason to not ignore it: The effects of the Elements of Harmony were irreversible, at least for me. However, maybe Twilight Sparkle could remove it herself. Of course, I did not know, in what relation the dreamer stood to Twilight, but I had to risk it. There was just one question left: How should I get Twilight to remove the spell? This Twilight didn't even know about casting it nor did I look very stone-y.
The dreamer just galloped onward, trying to hunt down Twilight. When she nearly had passed me, I noticed an amulet around her neck. I remembered the form of that amulet. I had seen it before, in a book, but what had been its purpose?
Ruby amulet? No, definitely not. Ancient amulet? Of course not. Alternative amulet? Probably not. Alignment amulet? Too ridiculous. Hmm... I got it. Alicorn amulet. I should have paid more attention, when reading that book, but it had been such a nice summer day and I just had to watch the giant crow fighting with that squirrel; Such things don't really happen often.
I decided to follow the dreamer, until I would remember more about the amulet. What was special about this dreamer? The speed? Average. The size? Also average. Maybe intelligence. Maybe just power.
“Trixie. You have to stop!”
It was Twilight's voice, although much more powerful than in reality. She must have had a better time before I had met her.
Seeing no other pony around in this dream, I had just assumed that the dreamer had to be this pony called Trixie. She continued throwing balls of fire and energy towards Twilight, until one actually hit. Twilight screamed in pain. Guessing by the amount of used magic and no signs of exhaustion, the alicorn amulet – if that even was the right name – was really an amulet of immense power. The biggest weakness of amulets however is, that they hang loosely around your neck. Everypony can just get rid of it and then you are suddenly as weak as everypony else.
Around that little fact my plan revolved: I would cause a distraction, then try to get the amulet from behind. A small spell – a flashing light - deeper in the woods actually caught Trixie's attention. She turned away from Twilight, trying to make out the source of the magic. I started to gallop towards her, getting closer and closer, I jumped, and I actually caught the amulet on my horn; A masterly artistic performance. Instead of just being ripped from her neck, the amulet clung to her, stopping me at once. Now I was in an awkward position.
I decided to better get the hay out of there, which was the best decision. Immediately a giant lightning bolt crushed into the ground, where I had just landed two heartbeats ago. Taking the amulet off was obviously impossible.
“Why are you doing this Trixie?”
Twilight yelled, but there was no answer. Somehow we had to get rid of the amulet. If however it just clung to her body, there were only two possible solutions.
Solution 1: She had to take it off herself.
Solution 2: It was impossible to take off, which basically would mean the defeat of Twilight and after that action probably me too.
It was still questionable, how we could get her to remove it. It took me too long for my liking to get the answer, because I had used the same technique before already. If this was all not real and just a dream, maybe I could use the logic of the dream to my advantage. The problem with this was just: The dreamer had to believe something to happen. I had to make it believable.
“Hey Trixie. Your alicorn amulet is nice, but haven't you heard of its greatest weakness?”
Silence, not a good sign.
“It may grant you immeasurable power, but there is a way to reverse the effect. All I have to do is to reverse time itself.”
I knew, that I could never do that and wasn't even sure if anypony could ever do it, but she only had to believe I could. I started creating a spell, that did nothing but making light, which changed in color, ornamented by small orbs flying around it and some other magical effects. However, after a while I made the change of color and the other effects slower, then, I started to speed the same changes up again, but reversed. I also had to imitate backward noises, and for that I remembered parts of the song of DJ-Pon3.
Luckily - ! - Trixie fell for it; In the end, she reversed her own dream. It was weird to feel yourself going backwards in time, thinking backwards. sdrawkcab txet a gnidaer ekil tsomla s'tI. Thankfully, Trixie created the parts, where I was not actually there and made it look for herself as if I was just standing at the same position.
When we arrived at a small shop in a town unknown to me, she made it stop. She had obviously just purchased the amulet and it was not around her neck yet. I used my magic to snatch it from her and made it disappear.
Suddenly, Trixie started to burst out into tears:
“Thank you. It is a nightmare to be forced to do this. I...I...I could not control myself.”
She was shaking all over her body. I had been mistaken: This was no dream, this had been a nightmare all along. I had really not expected this outcome. Was she lying, or was that really the truth?
Well, the problem was solved for now, but how had this all actually helped me? I was still encased in stone somewhere, still unable to really control my magic. Then came a good idea.
If Discord had actually managed to get free, maybe it was possible for me, too.
Especially, considering that Twilight and her friends had been through a lot of trouble in the recent days.
“Twilight?”
I knew she was the only pony, who could in any way; She had created it, although not really this dream she. I at least hoped, it would work that way. The dream Twilight turned around to me.
“You have to help me! By reversing the time, I have used too much energy. I am going to turn into a statue, if you don't help me.”
This was my only chance, I could just hope, I didn't overdo with the dream logic here. It sounded pretty ridiculous, but hay, it was a dream. As long as Trixi believed it all, it didn't matter. The real Twilight would have known, but it was a dream Twilight. In addition to my worry about credibility, I now actually started to turn into stone. Damn dream logic, you have to watch out for everything. If Trixie believed, that in her dream I would turn into stone, I would turn into stone in her dream. I could just hope, that Trixie also believed, that dream Twilight was strong enough to get me out. In reality, I was quite sure, Twilight would have never been strong enough to reverse the effects of the Elements of Harmony. Nevertheless, this was a dream.
The feeling of immobility slowly crept up my legs, into my body - again. Slowly higher and higher, until again, there was just nothing, but this time actually nothing nothing, not even thoughts.
In hindsight I realized why: How should Trixie have known, what happens to ponies encased in stone? If she didn't know that, neither could she simulate it in her mind, nor was it really important for her, what I did or thought while being just a mere statue for her. Her brain didn't think about the possibility, that being encased in stone was not the end.
The sound of crushing stone was the first thing I heard. Just my right eye had a small gap to look through; Still, the same dream. It took me less than a heartbeat to take further steps. If I wanted this dream Twilight's magic to actually affect the magic of real Twilight, I had to get out of the dream while the magic was still working. I pulled my magic together and made something fall out of a shelf right next to Trixie. That it had been a potion was nothing but pure luck. If there had not been a shelf of potions in this shop, what would I have done? Then again, how many mystical artifact shops do not have potions? Trixie started to wake up and the dream began to fade. Another piece of stone fell down, I could see with both eyes now.
The whispy dream lines started to surround me and they got more and more opaque. Everything turned into the light-blue-ish color of the dream lines. Would it actually work? Was the dream magic strong and real enough? I threw myself back into reality; Darkness; Still the same warm immobility; Nothing had happened.
I waited.
Every beat of my heart seemed so loud, that it could actually burst through the stone.
1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... still nothing ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8... 9... 10.
This would not work, the dream magic was not strong enough. It was just impossible to reverse such a massive spell, even if it had not been used directly on me. I was getting more and more impatient; If it would have been possible, I would have screamed in anger. I would have to go back into another dream and try other things or be encased forever. I started to calm down, count to ten. Relax. WAIT!
My heart was still beating too loud. My heart was still beating, too loud; Too bucking loud. The realization of that fact made my heart stop for just a moment: It had worked. If I could hear my heart beating to loud, that meant I could hear. However, if I would have been fully encased in stone, I would not have heard anything.
By concentrating, I slowly noticed other noises. Chirping of birds, just loud enough to be heard, but too quiet to really give anything away. I concentrated on every sound I could hear, sucking them in. Then, there was another feeling.
A breeze of wind was actually passing my ear and my leg, and my ... horn.
I was almost exploding in satisfaction and joy and happiness. I had actually done it. Yes!!
Okay, calm down. I was still encased in stone with the rest of my body.
Suddenly, I picked up the smell of the stone surrounding my nose. That got me to another interesting realization: If I could smell and feel the stone around me, that meant, that it actually was only normal stone. The magic of the stone, however, which prevented every sense of mine, was broken. That meant, all I had to do was break free. I tried to move as much as I could, knowing that using magic was too dangerous for myself right now. Slowly, bit by bit, parts of the incredibly thin stone crust crumbled and fell down. It was impressive, how actually just the magic itself holds you back, not the ridiculous crust of stone. No stone could hold beasts back like Discord.
Soon, I could actually see again. I was still in the hospital, which was now more debris than building. Nopony was anywhere close, but hey, I was bucking free! I looked around, just because it was great to be able to. After another minute or so, I could actually shake my head. Another minute, until my right front foot was free and another couple of minutes for my left front food. It took another hour to get the rest of my body out. I jumped around, even sang a song, just to celebrate actually being able to do all of that.
Now it was time to fix the real problem. Although a giant shadow had been destroyed, we still had not found the source of all this desperation. Afterwards, we would have to fix the thing with the magic. I only had to find Twilight first.
'Only' - It's not like she had left a note or anything in case, I would casually abuse the power of imagination to free myself from an impenetrable prison.