//------------------------------// // Chapter Three: Sleepless in Error // Story: The Adventures of Princess Erroria // by Secondbestscribe //------------------------------// The ice-cream was good. Great, in fact. Parasol had a rocky road that she drowned in chocolate syrup, and Alula had her absolute favourite ice-cream flavour of all time ever: vanilla. While they spooned the snacks into their mouth, Alula listened to - and often interrupted - Parasol's recount of her day at the weather factory. Alula wasn't clear on the details, but there seemed to be some kind of romance rhombus going on between her and Flitter and Thunderlane. "I mean, just because she's his younger brother's foalsitter doesn't justify anything! She's probably just foalsitting Rumble because she wants to suck up to him! I mean, what does she have that I don't?!" Angrily, Parasol shovelled a huge dollop of rocky road into her mouth. Alula blinked at her, confused, then snickered. "Well, she probably doesn't have a fuse shorter than Snips!" Parasol opened her mouth to yell, then remembered she had rocky road in her mouth and went to stop it from spilling out. Alula snorted with laughter at the sight of her sister struggling with rocky road ice-cream and chocolate syrup oozing out from the corners of her lips. In the end, they finished their ice-cream and went home, laughing and joking in the way sisters do when they're full on ice-cream and not, thankfully, lactose intolerant. Alula challenged Parasol to a race to Cloudsdale, which Parasol agreed to, but lost on account of her particularly filling rocky road and chocolate syrup. "Thank Celestia for vanilla!" crowed Alula, raising her hooves to the sky as if appealing to some higher being. "Shut... up..." panted Parasol, leaning against a nearby cloud and huffing. "Mum and Dad'd ground you for giving me lip like that," teased Alula, flying circles around Parasol as she found her bearings on the cumulus streets of Cloudsdale. "Again..." hissed Parasol, "shut... up..." Alula continued to tease her until they reached their house - one of many pegasus dwellings nestled alongside the thoroughfare of Cloudsdale. Parasol, still muttering to herself, got out a key and unlocked their door. Alula pushed past her playfully and began bouncing on the couch. "You..." snarled Parasol, "are so mean..." That night, they had a dinner consisting of pizza, courtesy of Private Pansy's Pegasus Pizzaria. It was delicious, just like every other pizza from Pansy's, and was a family-sized one fully loaded with veggies of all kinds. Alula and Parasol constantly fought over the slices with more mushrooms, but would force the ones with tomatoes onto each other - now that Alula thought about it, Mum and Dad hated tomatoes too. It seemed to be a kind of family trait. Then they watched mild horror movies, which left Parasol shaking and Alula rolling her eyes. Afterwards, they had a quick chat, then Parasol kissed Alula's forehead and closed the door behind her. Alula fell asleep, and she dreamed... "Where am I?" Alula spun around, blinking in confusion. She seemed to be standing beneath a dark-blue sky, with black-and-white tiles stretching out to either side, as far as her eyes could see. "H-hello?" There was the voice again. Somehow, it was familiar, like somepony she had known well but had forgotten over the years. It seemed to be coming from behind her, so she turned around and looked for the speaker. "Anypony?" Then it hit her. That was her voice. Shuddering, Alula began to walk forward. Anything was better than just standing still, after all. So she trotted across the checkerboard expanse, looking for the speaker who had Alula's voice. But the scenery did not change. Above, purple clouds swirled, and Alula was reminded of her parents, and how she wouldn't see them until the holidays, and she was suddenly very, very sad indeed... "Hello? Who's there?" "It's me," said Alula, and found that the not-her didn't sound exactly like her, just similar enough to fool even her. "Alula. Who are you?" There was a pause, and then the not-her answered. "My name is Erroria... Princess Animatia Erroria. Are you a princess, Alula?" Alula laughed. "No, Princess Animatia Erroria, I'm not. But what's a princess doing in my head?" The air rippled - no, not at all. The air glitched, twisting in upon itself then righting itself quickly, almost embarrassed. "I don't know," whispered the princess. "But you can call me Erroria..." Alula frowned. "Erroria..." The word didn't flow off the tongue. Rather, it seemed to inch nervously to the edge, then close its eyes and jump off. "Oh, hang on... I'll just..." Again, the air glitched, but the spastic movements seemed to be centred on a point a few feet in front of Alula. The air twisted again, and a few phrases of random code flashed across the sky, then a filly just like Alula appeared. Wings, mane, no cutie mark... But there was one difference. She had a horn. "Hello," she said softly, looking up. Alula looked into eyes the same shade as her, but as she looked closer, she saw that the air around Erroria was glitching too, with code flashing around her and bright colours shuddering and blinking in and out of existence. "Well," said the stunned Alula, "that was... unexpected." Erroria smiled weakly, then the air glitched out again. There was a brief span of darkness... ...then Erroria's eyes were the bright red of a traffic light, surrounded by screen-black... ...then everything began to go the colour of vanilla. While Alula fell asleep - no, while Alula woke up, she thought sleepily that mysterious dream sequences were so very cliche indeed... Alula woke up.