//------------------------------// // A Dreamy Night // Story: Scarred Vinyl // by Belgianchief //------------------------------// I had tried to sleep after that fiasco, but sleep eluded me. So I decided to turn on some music and tried to relax. It didn't help. Every time I started drifting away, The image of Pinkie lying on the floor below me flashed through my mind. Every time it struck me with a pang of guilt. I wouldn't have been surprised if I never slept again. Not that I slept much anyway. Yup, this was going to be one of those nightmares that would keep haunting me for the rest of my life. I sighed, now wanting to get away from this all, from everything. Then I remembered that I was completely broke. I was going to be stuck here, not even going to be able to fix that railing which would remind me of that image every time I went up or down the stairs. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten at all today. I walked to the kitchen, but I really didn't want to put in the effort to make anything, so I just had a slice of dry bread. I heard the clock ding 9 times. I still had some time before I normally went to sleep so I went outside, to the river, to take a cold bath, hoping that it at least would relieve some of the stress. When I arrived at the river, everything seemed pointless. I walked over to the edge, and saw my reflection staring back at me with a bruise on its forehead. I rubbed it, to test whether it hurt or not. It stung. "I must have hit Pinkie real hard..." Again, a pang of guilt struck me as if it were a thunderbolt, and the image of Pinkie flashed in front of my eyes again. I sat down with a deep sigh, right on the riverside, my hooves in the cold water. Suddenly, even the thought of a swim didn't appeal to me anymore. I didn't know what to do right now, or even in the future. I laid down on my back, my head in the grass. Luna's moon looked down on me, as well as the yellow stars in the otherwise fully black night. "How did you survive 1000 years on your own? I'm alone for 2 years and I have no more feelings, I'm nothing more than an empty shell, only destroying other ponies' lives as I'm destroying my own." I pleaded to the moon. Pinkie Pie flashed in front of my eyes again. I went back inside, put on a record and just listened, as I drifted away to sleep. When I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved. I walked past the record store and heard a whisper. I immediately knew what it was. It was the whisper of music. It felt so warm, I had to go inside. "Hey Vinyl, feeling the music again? By the way, I heard you had a great gig at the Gala", the shopkeeper said. I nodded and said "Just gonna look around a bit." "Just do what you gotta do, I can trust you." He could. Music was my soul, I would never do anything to hurt it. It was my life, I lived for it, and I felt it existed for me to perfect it. I felt it was my job, my duty, to alter the music as best I could, so it could be enjoyed more then it already was. Feeling all the music, knowing what music needed to be played when, and how it should be played. Next thing I knew the shopkeeper yelled: "Hey Vinyl, It's closing time!" I cursed to myself, for I should have been home hours ago. I hastily ran out the shop, said bye to the shopkeeper, gave him some tips about the music and made my way towards home. The thought of being late for dinner was not one I liked, for two reasons. Gran's cooking was the best, so I wouldn't miss it for the world. And gramps, however cool he was with everything, couldn't stand ponies being late. I'd received many a spanking back in the day. With that in mind, I picked up the pace. Halfway home, I smelled something, a light scent of smoke. It was going to be cold tonight, So ponies were probably heating up their stove. I ran up the hill looking over my home, and I froze. My house was on fire. I stood there for what I thought was an eternity, scared enough to run away, but brave enough to go and help. Coming back to my senses, I ran as fast as I could, but when I got close to the driveway, the house, my home, collapsed. I looked everywhere around the house, yelled at the top of my lungs for my gramps and gran, but they weren't there. All I found were two old pictures, one of my parents and one of my grandparents. When the fire brigade arrived, they managed to put out the fire quickly, but it was all too late. Everything I had, Everything I knew, was lost. They told me my grandparents were most likely too old to get out of a fire of that size on their own. Then I knew, if I was there, they would have made it out. But I wasn't. Because I was in some stupid record store, they died. Because of music, they died. I stood up, ran to the town, up to the record store, smashed in the window and destroyed all the records. "Quite the violent dream" I heard a voice whisper in my ear. I jumped and looked to see Princess Luna standing right behind me. "Princess, I... What?.." I looked around. I could suddenly see that I was nothing but a third-person spectator in my own dream. "How did you get here?" I turned to her face and, remembering who I was speaking to, I quickly added "Your Ladyship" "Please, titles mean nothing in a place like this. As for how I got here, I rule Equestria by night, and therefore take care of it's ponies. Because most ponies are asleep at night, and therefore I cannot take care of them as effectively, I have the ability to enter one's dream." "Why wait so long before coming to me then? I mean it has been a couple of years since you were released from Nightmare Moon?" I asked, getting annoyed. "Even though titles do not matter, I would respect some common courtesy. I am still your princess, even though we are in your dream. As for your question" she continued, seemingly ignoring my apologies, "Even though I can enter every ponies dream whenever I want to, would you not consider it rude for me to transgress on something as private as one's dreams, without them inviting me first?" "I never asked you" I countered. "I don't mean you're not welcome, I mean..." I stopped. What do I want? I mean this is my mind, which is kinda private, and I wish no pony saw this... "Whatever secrets you have will be safe with me." I gave her a look of doubt. "Yes, I can read minds, at least in conversations through the dream world. As for your invitation..." She brought up a sphere, showing me looking at the moon that night. "How did you survive 1000 years on your own? I'm alone for 2 years and I have no more feelings, I'm nothing more than an empty shell, only destroying other ponies' lives as I'm destroying my own." "I assumed you had invited me." It's a clearly an excuse, and a bad one at that, but I suppose she is the princess, and if she wants to visit my dreams, I can't really do anything about it. I looked up at her to see her frowning. "Oh right, you can read minds, Princess. I'm sorry, I'm not really used to controlling my thoughts." She waved it away, clearly teasing me. "Let's get to business then, shall we?" "Uhm, business?" I didn't quite know what to expect, this being my first time in... Where were we anyway? Where my dream was playing not a few minutes ago, now was... nothing. A black void, going as far as the eye could see, in every direction possible. I turned around looking for a way out, but all I could see was nothing. "This is your mind. I think I have never seen such an empty place before." She was talking in her teasing, playful voice. "Also, it's been the first time that I've actually seen it empty here, usually, this place is crowded with horrible memories." "Wait, I thought you said that you didn't intrude on ponies' dreams unless they invited you. How have you been here before?" "Did I really say that?" It made me smile, I guess even she couldn't resist peeking into ponies' minds. The thought made me blush. "Don't think about anything you don't want me to see! Remember I can read your mind." Luna quickly said. I quickly emptied my mind before I got to some humiliating dreams that I'd rather not have the Princess see. "Now, you want to get rid of those nightmares right? Well then, have a seat." Suddenly two seats and a table appeared out of nowhere, they just popped into my mind. "Would you like something to drink?" I just stood there, dumbfounded. "Coffee it is then, because I don't think you are that sophisticated that you would drink tea" Luna said with a smile. "And let's do something about this grim background" And sure enough, a kettle and two cups appeared out of nowhere. The black everywhere had made place for the garden at Canterlot Castle. The strange thing was that it felt like all of this had always been there, and nothing was conjured at all. "It isn't. Now come take a seat please." Luna said "Oh right" I sat down in front of the princess, and sipped from my cup. "How is the coffee?" It was excellent, not too strong, not too weak, yet a very powerful taste. Just the way I liked it. "Perfect. I had no idea you could conjure up coffee that great, I always thought conjured food was the worst." Luna chuckled. "I didn't conjure it." I was confused. Luna continued "Conjuration is the skill of magic that converts magical energy into matter. Usually it takes too much energy to make something out of pure magic, so the course of action is to dismantle a magical item into magical energy, then using that same magical energy to make the item you want. The more details, the more magical energy required. Even for an alicorn as powerful as me, conjuring all these items would have been too much." "How did all those things appear then, if they are not conjured?" Luna took a sip of her cup. "It's the power of imagination." I gave her a sceptical look. "Go on, try it. Try making a cake, I love cake with my coffee" I still did not quite believe her, so I quickly thought of a cake, covered in whipped cream. Nothing happened. I sighed. "I tried it, it's not w-" Splat! Luna spat out her coffee and fell off her chair laughing. Clearly not even she had seen the cake pop into existence, a couple of feet above my head. "You... Hahahaha... You need to specify the... location where the cake appears. Else it will just pop somewhere in your mind." She was panting, trying her best to catch her breath. I was not going to let her off that easy. "And of course, I had to take a cake with whipped cream!" I heard the laughing well up again from under the table. I waited for her to climb back onto her chair. When she looked at me again, tears in her eyes from all the laughter, I licked my face. "Hmmmmm, it's still warm." This made her fall off her chair again. "S-S-Stop, you're killing me. Hahahaha!" I imagined a paper towel -on the table- to wipe all the whipped cream from my face, and waited for Luna to recover. When she got back up her chair, I asked her how this was going to help me with my nightmares. "This alone will not be enough to help you with your nightmares. The second thing you have to learn is how to step back from a nightmare. All you have to do to step back is to remember that you are in a dream. This is not as easy as it sounds, since all nightmares start happy and fun, and they start the same way aswell. But only in the happy part you can step back. Once you get to the bad parts, the mind is lulled into believing the dream is real aswell and you can't step back into it, unless you are aided by somepony. Do you understand?" I nodded slowly, still thinking things through. "Good. Practice." She touched me with my horn, then a dark blue flash. I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved. I walked past the record store and heard a whisper. I immediately knew what it was. It was the whisper of music. It felt so warm, I had to go inside... I was pulled out. "That was too far. Try again and remember." I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved. "This is a dream!" I spinned round and round and round... All of a sudden I stood right next to Luna. She was levitating a bucket in front of me. I gratefully took it from her and threw up. "That was excellent. Are you ok?" I waved her away. "I'm fine, just a little dizzy." "The more you do it the better it gets." She touched me again and again, pulling me back whenever I needed and kept handing me buckets until I had gotten used to the spinning. "Ok, I think I got it now. Say, how long have we been doing this?" "About five minutes. The mind works in mysterious ways" Luna said smiling, clearly seeing the confused look on my face, mouth agape. "So, what do I do after I step back from the nightmares?" "You imagine!" I looked at her, confused. "Do I have to do everything for you? Fine." She cleared everything and yelled "Music!" Suddenly the entire, well, mind, was transformed into one big party. I was behind the turntables, playing my favourite music. Everypony was cheering, dancing, having fun. When I looked around to see Luna, she was gone. I woke up. It was still early in the night. I looked up to the moon and whispered "Thank you, Princess Luna, you are always welcome in my dreams" I went back to sleep, with a smile on my face.