“Yeah, there’s no mistaking it,” Luna said. “That is definitely Celestia. This dream has a different feeling than the others we’ve seen, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.
“Well, there are three types of dreams: fantasies, nightmares, and flashbacks. Each type gives off a certain flow of energy. All the dreams we’ve seen so far were fantasies, whereas this dream is a flashback. Still, though…”
“What?”
“The way the castle is decorated… I don’t remember it looking like this.”
“Maybe this memory happened while you were banished.”
“That seems most likely,” Luna nodded. “While I am unfamiliar with the decorations, I do know what part of the castle this is. It’s the last main hallway before the infirmary wing.”
Luna and I then looked at Celeste, and we were taken aback by the uneasy look she had.
“Is she sick or something?” I asked.
Luna examined the look on Celeste’s face for a moment. “I cannot tell from mere observation, but she does seem rather despondent.”
“Hmm…”
I debated with myself over whether or not I should keep watching Celeste’s dream. While it would be respectful to her privacy if I simply minded my own business, I had just intruded on several dreams within the past hour and a half…
Well, at least it felt like an hour and a half.
What would be the harm in looking to see what memory my aunt is reliving? Besides, if I stayed outside the portal, she wouldn’t even know that I was watching.
And so Luna and I continued to watch Celeste’s memory.
She walked through the main entrance of the infirmary wing. When she did, the receptionist flinched in surprise and cleared his throat.
“Oh! Princess Celestia! The doctor is waiting for you in the third examination room,” he told her.
“Looks like you were right about Tia being sick,” Luna commented.
“We’ll see, for now,” I said, still not sure if I was right or not.
Celeste nodded her head at the receptionist and continued towards the exam room, knocking on the door once she got there.
“Come in.”
Celeste entered the room to see a mare with a pale purple coat and a snow white mane and tail. She was wearing a doctor’s coat and a pair of glasses, and she was holding a clipboard in her hands. “Good afternoon, Princess,” she said.
“What did you call me for, Crystal Cure?” Celeste asked with a hint of impatience.
“Well, there’s no easy way to say this…”
“Just make it quick, will you?”
Crystal Cure winced at the princess’s passive-aggressive tone.
“I’m sorry,” said Celeste. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
“It’s okay,” the doctor told her with an understanding smile. “I don’t blame you after what you’ve just been through. I don’t know many mares that have maintained a happy mood after a miscarriage.”
My mouth, as well as Luna’s, fell open in shock at what we heard.
“A… a miscarriage!?” Luna exclaimed.
“I don’t believe it…” I said, more to myself than to her.
“To think that Celestia had been hiding this all this time!”
“Can you blame her, though? I’d keep that a secret, too.”
We continued looking into the dream, and Celeste was looking at the ground with a sorrowful look on her face.
“I’m sorry Princess,” said Crystal. “Forgive me for being so blunt.”
“It’s fine…” Celeste sighed. “So, why have you called me here?”
“Well, as you know, the intense trauma during labor and the subsequent loss of the foal ended up severely damaging your uterus, and we had to perform some reconstructive surgery to fix it. I needed to wait until you were fully recovered to run some tests on you.
“May I ask what these tests are for?”
“They’re to make sure that you haven’t suffered any obscure damage during foalbirth.”
My aunt let out a sigh. “If I must…”
All of a sudden, the image in the portal flashed white, taking me by surprise.
“Wait, that’s it? What happened?”
“Flashback dreams don’t cover every minute detail of a memory,” Luna explained, “thus the dream will occasionally flash forward like this. The image will return soon.”
Not a second later, the image came back, just as Luna said it would. Auntie Celeste was still in the examination room, only this time she was alone. She sat on the examination table as she swung her legs back and forth, most likely waiting for the doctor to return, which she did a few moments later. Crystal Cure entered the room with an emotionless look on her face, and she tried not to look at the princess.
“So, what did the results say?” she asked.
The doctor didn’t respond.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine…” she responded. “It’s just that I’ve looked at the results, and… I’m not sure how to tell you this…”
“Whatever it is, Crystal Cure, I’m prepared to face it.”
Crystal paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “Well, after examining you, I saw how scarred your womb was from the surgery, and… I’m afraid that your injuries have affected your ability to bear foals.”
Celeste’s face became more worried than before. “How so?” she asked fearfully.
“Well, you’re still able to conceive, but the likelihood of the foal surviving past thirty weeks is… below ten percent.”
It was at this point that my aunt began to shiver. Despite that, however, she still looked for a glimmer of hope.
“I can still try, can’t I?” she asked.
Crystal Cure frowned. “You could, but I cannot recommend that in good conscience.”
“Why not? There still is a chance of success, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but the consequences of failure are much too severe to take such a risk. By the time the foal dies, it would be developed enough to require surgery to remove, and the procedure would damage you even more, possibly even rendering you unable to conceive. Not only that, but if, by some miracle, the foal does survive past thirty weeks, carrying it past that point will cause you tremendous pain due to your scarred womb. The pain would be so severe that it would not only cripple you, but kill the foal as well, and that’s if you’re lucky. Worst case scenario, the trauma would kill you.”
The princess froze when she heard this, and so did Luna and I. My aunt was just told that she couldn’t have a kid, and even if she tried, doing so would cripple her, kill the foal, or kill her and the foal. It was practically a no-win situation.
“My word…” Luna lamented.
I was practically speechless. I never would have guessed that Auntie Celeste was hiding such a tragic memory within her. I looked over at Luna and saw that she was wiping tears from her face. Seeing such a scene would cause that reaction in anypony.
Just then, the memory flashed white again, and when the image returned, Luna and I saw someplace totally different from the castle infirmary.
“I don’t recognize this place at all,” said Luna.
“I do. It’s the hospital back in my hometown,” I explained.
“But why would Celestia have a memory of this place?”
“I think I know why.”
Auntie Celeste walked down the hall hurriedly, looking in various directions as though she was looking for someone. She finally stopped when she saw somebody she recognized.
“Hector,” she called quietly.
“Is that your father?” Luna asked. I didn’t blame her for not recognizing him right away. Unlike her sister, Luna hadn’t seen my parents much.
“Celestia? You’re here!” dad said with a smile.
“Just like I said I would be. Am I too late?”
“No. Maria’s still in the delivery room. The doctors asked me to stay out here while they delivered the baby.”
“Thank goodness. I thought that I was running late.”
“Wait, this is the day you were born, isn’t it?” Luna asked.
“Looks like it,” I said.
Just then, a doctor walked out of the delivery room with a smile on his face. “He’s here,” he told Dad and Celeste, and they happily rushed into the room, where my mother was waiting with me in her arms.
“He’s sleeping,” she whispered as Dad and Auntie Celeste entered the room. Dad walked over to Mom’s side and she handed me to him.
“Hey there, son,” he whispered, and my eyes slowly fluttered open.
“Aww! You look so cute!” Luna squealed when she saw my baby self, and I blushed in embarrassment.
Dad looked at Celeste and smiled at her. “Do you want to hold him, Celestia?”
“Me? Really?”
“Of course,” said Mom.
Celeste smiled as Dad handed me to her, and she looked down at me with a warm expression. “Hello there, little one,” she told me as she tickled my nose with her finger. My baby self grabbed at her finger with his little hands, gripping on the soft fur coating it.
The princess giggled and moved her face towards mine, scrunching her nose. “You are such a cutie!” she cooed, and I reached out to feel her muzzle with my hands, making her giggle even more.
“You two have already decided on a name for him, right?” she asked my parents.
“Yeah. We’ve decided to name him Marcus,” Dad answered.
“He really seems to like you, Celestia,” Mom commented. “It’s like you’re his auntie.”
Celeste smiled and looked back at my baby self. “Yeah… I’m your Auntie Celeste,” she told me as she tickled my little nose again.
“So that’s how she came up with that nickname,” Luna said.
“Yeah… I actually thought Celeste was her real name until I was three,” I explained. “I tried growing out of it when I turned thirteen, but she wasn’t having that.”
Luna giggled. “I can relate. Celestia would sometimes get upset if I didn’t call her ‘Tia’ for a long time.”
All of a sudden, Luna began to shiver, and a look of horror appeared on her face.
“Oh, no…” she said.
“What is it?”
“The flow of energy coming from this dream is starting to change. Its pattern is starting to resemble that of…”
“Of what?”
“A nightmare.”
Right when Luna said that, everything around Celeste began to disappear, leaving her inside a black void with nothing but my baby self in her hands.
At least… that’s what it looked like.
Celeste looked down and saw that the bundle in her arms was empty, and she dropped it in shock while letting out a yelp of fear.
“What in the world?” she said confusedly. She looked around in a panic, and the look on her face became more and more anxious and desperate. “Marcus!” she yelled. “Marcus, where are you!?”
She began to run through the void, attempting to find some trace of me, and after a few moments of searching, she finally found me, only this time, I was my current age.
“Marcus! Thank goodness!” she sighed in relief. “I thought I had lost you!”
The me in her dream didn’t respond. Instead, he kept his back turned to Auntie Celeste.
“Marcus? Are you okay?” she asked, and she reached her hand out to touch him, but he turned around and grabbed her wrist tightly. Celeste’s eyes widened in surprise, and she was even more surprised when she saw the look in the dream Marcus’s eyes.
They were pitch black.
“Don’t… touch me!!!” he yelled at her. His voice sounded like a mix of me at my current age and me as a child, resulting in a twisted, demented cry.
“Marcus?” Celeste said with a shiver. “Is something the matter?”
“You’re what’s the matter! I’m sick of you always being on my case! I can’t go five minutes without having you check up on me!”
“But sweetie, I only do these things because I love you.”
“Well, you’re suffocating me! You may think you’re doing what’s best for me, but all you’re doing is annoying the shit out of me!”
My aunt’s breathing became labored, and she struggled to from words. “Marcus… I really don’t appreciate you using that kind of language against me…”
“AAAGH! Will you stop trying to be my mother!? Take a hint, princess!”
“Take a hint? What do you mean?”
“I. DON’T. NEED. YOU!!!”
Luna and I looked on in horror at what was unfolding before us. I was starting to get angry. I would never say that to Auntie Celeste’s face like that! No matter what difficulties we had, I would never say something that harsh! Even when we had that fight after the Nightmare Night party, I never felt that I hated Celeste.
My aunt tried to get ahold of the nightmare Marcus, but he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving her behind in the dark. Celeste stood there, alone, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to fall. She fell to her knees and hunched over, weeping in agony over the pain in her heart.
“I can’t watch this,” I said. “I have to go in there!”
“Marcus, don’t!”
By the time Luna’s warning reached my ears, I had already attempted to cross the portal, only to receive a strong electric-like shock to my hand.
“Agh! What the hell!?”
“Celestia’s nightmare is so strong that it’s emitting a lot of excess energy,” Luna explained. “It takes a strong enough dreamwalker to enter a nightmare like that.”
The princess took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and she reached out to stick her hand through the portal…
Only to be shocked by its energy, as well.
“What in the world? Why is this nightmare so strong?”
“You mean you can’t go in?”
“I’m trying-AGH! But I can’t-AGH! Break through!”
I groaned and began to rack my brain over how I could save Auntie Celeste from her nightmare. Every second I wasted in the dream world was another second of her suffering!
Just then, I got an idea.
“Luna! Wake us up!” I said. “Once we’re back in the real world, I can go to Auntie Celeste’s room and wake her up the old-fashioned way.”
“Good idea!” she said, and she took my hands and lit up her horn. Everything went white for a moment, but then we found ourselves back in Luna’s room. I immediately climbed out of bed, and was about to head to the door when…
“Hold on Marcus,” Luna called. “Don’t forget that you were just sleeping. You aren’t in the best condition to run all the way to Celestia’s room. Let me teleport you there.”
“Thanks, Luna.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The princess lit up her horn once more before aiming at me and zapping me with her teleportation spell.
I found myself outside Auntie Celeste’s bedroom, and I didn’t think twice before barging in and rushing to her bedside. When I got there, I saw that my aunt was tossing and turning in her bed, whimpering and sniveling at her nightmare.
A look of sorrow befell me, but it quickly turned into one of determination.
“Auntie Celeste! Wake up!” I called, but she wasn’t waking up. “Wake up!” I yelled again, but there was still no response. I furrowed my brow in anger and grabbed my aunt’s shoulders to stop her from moving around…
and then I shook her.
“Auntie Celeste, listen to me! What you’re going through isn’t real! It’s only nightmare! Now WAKE UP!!!”
The princess’s eyes shot open, and she let out a loud gasp as though she had been drowning. She continued to breathe heavily as she looked up at the ceiling, and then she turned to look at me.
“Marcus… is that you?”
“It’s me, Auntie,” I told her as I helped her sit up.
Tears were falling from her face as she tried to talk to me. “I… I was having this nightmare. You were there, and you were so angry…” It was at this point that she started to hyperventilate, her breathing becoming erratic and uneven. “You started y-yelling at me, and you… you said that you d-didn’t need me anym-more.”
I put my on hand on my aunt’s back and the other on her chest, just below her neck. “Auntie, you need to breathe, okay. Just relax. You don’t have to say anything.”
With me supporting her, Celeste’s breathing became more even, and she began to calm down. I wiped the tears from her eyes, but more came falling down.
“Don’t cry, Auntie,” I told her. “I don’t want to see you cry.”
“I can’t help it Marcus,” she whimpered. “You told me that you didn’t need me anymore, and that I did nothing but annoy you.”
“But Auntie, that was just a nightmare. It wasn’t real. You know that I would never say those awful things to you. I don’t think that you’re annoying, and I’ll always need you.”
Celeste sniffled and looked at me. “How did you know?”
“Huh?”
“How did you know that I was having a nightmare?”
I sighed. “Luna and I came across your dream while we were dreamwalking. When it turned into a nightmare, we tried to save you from there, but I ended up having to pull you out from here.”
A small smile creeped its way onto her face. “Thank you…” she told me, but then the smile disappeared as quickly as it came. “So I guess you saw my memory. You know which one I’m talking about.”
“Yeah… that memory… I’m sorry, Celeste. Luna and I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on you.”
My aunt sighed. “Well, what’s done is done. We can’t change anything about it.”
“The foal you lost,” I said, trying to be as sensitive as possible, “was that Orion?”
Celeste looked at me in shock. “How did you-”
“You accidentally called me by his name a month ago,” I explained.
“Oh… I remember that, now,” she lamented. “Orion was the name I was going to give my son.” She then looked at the clock which read twelve-thirty AM. “Today would have been his birthday.”
I let out a deep breath. “I think I finally understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why you’re so protective of me. You look at me like a son, and you’re only being protective because of your motherly instincts.”
“Not even that,” she said. “When I held you in my arms the day you were born, I felt like I had been given a second chance. I felt that if anything were to ever happen to you, I wouldn’t know what to do. Sure, I wasn’t really going to be a mother, but it was the closest thing I had to ever being one. You were the son that I never got to have, and I sheltered and spoiled you so much because I wanted to make the most out of every moment I had with you. I cherished the relationship that we had.”
“Have,” I corrected. “I’m still here, and I’m still your nephew.”
Celeste looked at me, and she finally showed me a genuine smile, one that lasted for longer than a mere moment. “That you are,” she said. “Are you sure that you’ll always need me, though? I mean, you’ll eventually start your own life, and you’ll have a wife to take care of you.”
I chuckled and held Celeste close to me. “Even so, there are still some things an auntie can do that a wife can’t. I’d be lost without you, Celeste, and you know that.”
I then hugged my aunt as tightly as I could, and she reached her arms around to hug me back. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as tight as her usual hugs, and yet I still felt the same amount of love and affection in it, if not more.
“Tell you what,” I said, “how about we spend the entire day together, just you and me? We can go out into the city in the morning.”
“I’d like that a lot, Marcus.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I smiled as I let go of my aunt. “You want me to spend the night with you tonight, just to keep you company?”
Celeste laughed. “No, thank you. I think I’ll be fine.”
“Okay then,” I said, and I turned around to head towards the door, but then…
“Marcus?”
“Yeah?”
Auntie Celeste looked down shyly and said “On second thought… maybe I could use some company tonight.”
I smiled warmly and approached the bed, climbing in next to her, and I fell asleep with my dear Auntie Celeste holding me close to her.
Like she would her own son.