The Mistress of Dreams
Chapter 3: A Question of Time
The mansion was at the center of Piflin 85’s memories, far more vivid to her even than her own plum coat and star-with-constellation cutie mark. Again and again it appeared in her memories as a filly. The mansion was forever unchanged, while seasons swirled around it and an endless stream of forgettable ponies popped in and out of view.
Two of those ponies were Piflin’s parents, but they were seen the least of all. “The business won’t take care of itself,” one or the other of them said once, before excusing themselves once again.
In their wake, Piflin 85 was the ruler, and the mansion was her palace. At her command, she was showered with gold to adorn herself, with delicate dresses to wear, and offered the finest and grossest of foods to eat...or to roll around in, if she felt like it. Nopony dared complain.
But that all ended at the fence that surrounded the mansion. Outside the fence, she had to establish her importance, to bend the wills of the other fillies, so they would treat her as the unnamed ponies inside did.
~ ~ ~
Piflin 85 was sent to school, but nothing she saw there made any sense. Her teachers tried to tell her that she wasn’t the center of the universe, that she needed to know useless facts and figures if she wanted to run her parent’s company wisely. But the company was not for ruling wisely, that she knew from watching her parents. The company was where the megabits came from, and happiness came from megabits. Nothing else mattered.
There was another pony at the school, a quiet little mouse of a filly, who always had the right answers, and who had parents who were always home. Piflin hated that filly, hated her with a cold white fury, and plotted every day of new ways to make her life miserable. Maybe if she made her miserable enough, then the voices in her head would go away. The voices that wondered if maybe she wasn’t as special as she thought she was.
One day she set fire to the filly’s books. Ancient spell books and histories and illustrated guides to foreign lands, all converted into worthless ash in a matter of seconds. Oh did she laugh at the sorrow on the filly’s face that day! But that was only the beginning, because the next day—
No! Never! I am Twilight Sparkle—Twilight Sparkle! That monster is not me, and these memories are all fake!
Nearly a minute later, the dragons turned their eyes as one from their ponies to Florlet. They seemed to cower from the blank gaze of her dragon.
“Finished?” she asked.
The dragons nodded.
“Very good,” ‘Rarity’ replied curtly. “Now please keep them immobilized while I explain. It will make things much easier for everypony involved.”
The unicorn walked out so that she was standing between the ponies and the window they had been starting at. With a glow from her horn, the drapes were drawn, removing that strange vision of the city from sight.
The dragons positioned the heads of the frozen ponies so they might all look upon their mistress. This was the point when they noticed that they were all now dressed in a variety of fancy dresses, covered by thick beige raincoats and accompanied by thick rubber boots. Each coat included significant padding in the saddle area.
“Now then,” the white unicorn addressed them. “What happened last night was that your memories of who you were had been accidentally overwritten by the memories of the ponies we were pretending to be: The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, from hundreds of years ago. Your dragons have just now erased those false memories entirely, and replaced them with the knowledge of who you truly are.”
She’s lying, thought Twilight to herself. She didn’t erase my memories of being Twilight Sparkle, and as for this ‘true’ identity, she deliberately crafted it so that I would never accept it. What about the others?
Her eyes drifted over the faces of each of her friends. Rainbow Dash’s eyes had a twinkle in them, like she would have busted out laughing if she wasn’t immobilized. Pinkie Pie was unquestionably still Pinkie Pie, in a way that defied understanding. Pinkamena seemed to be herself, but Twilight hadn’t known her for very long. Vinyl Scratch seemed off somehow, or rather, she looked “on”, more like her hyperkinetic stage persona than the calmly pessimistic mare that was Twilight’s occasional business partner. Only Applejack definitely looked different—a certain steely resolve that always lurked behind her eyes was gone, replaced by a most unexpected softness.
Twilight guessed that Rarity’s dragons had attempted the same personality take-over that she had fought off, and only in Applejack’s case did Rarity misjudge the false personalities she was deliberately failing at implanting.
This left one important question: If not them, who was she trying to fool with all this?
Florlet gestured at “Twilight”s dragon. “Let her talk,” she ordered.
The dragon moved the claws that were still embedded in the purple unicorn’s head slightly.
“What is my name?” the white unicorn asked her.
The purple unicorn took her time looking around her, at least as much as she could with an immobile neck. Nearly a minute later, she looked the other unicorn straight in the eye and calmly said, “You are Florlet 17, CIO and Chief Technologist of the Optiscan Corporation.”
As Twilight had expected, Applejack was the only one of the ponies who visibly accepted this statement, which she had pulled from her false memories.
“Very good,” Florlet said with a nod. “And you are...?”
“Piflin 85,” she said with obvious distaste. “The richest pony on Equus. My fortune comes from a series of cheap plastic surgery salons dotting the entire continent. This technology is the reason we currently resemble the historic Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”
“Excellent,” said Florlet. “Dragons, please release your ponies. You are dismissed.”
One by one, each dragon removed the glowing claws from their ponies’ skulls, and quickly re-covered them with their black gloves. All of them except Piflin’s dragon hopped down from their chairs and quickly made their way out of the room in single file.
“Now then,” Florlet continued, “do any of you have any questions?”
“What exactly is the Optiscan Corporation?” Piflin’s dragon asked.
“Anypony?” Florlet asked, pointedly ignoring the dragon.
“Why don’t you answer Spike’s question?” the purple unicorn asked.
Florlet put a hoof to the base of her horn in exasperation. “Don’t refer to your dragon by name,” she said wearily. “It gives them ideas above their station.”
“R...rarity?” he asked with a crack in his voice.
“That’s Miss Florlet 17, Dragon!” she snapped, although her eyes were on the black device on the ceiling rather than on him. “You will show the proper respect to your mistresses, or you will be reassigned to the gem mines. Is that what you want?”
The dragon spent a few moments blinking tears out of his eyes before responding. “No, Ma’am,” he said coldly.
“Pick up your gem and join the others in the Monitor Room,” Florlet instructed him.
Spike glared at Rarity, but as he did so he studied her. He thought he saw a quiver of compassion in her eyes. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he needed to imagine it, to keep at least a spark of hope in his heart.
Without a word, the dragon picked up his gem and looked upon the gem shaped like the historic Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark. Apparently, it marked him as Piflin’s property.
Realizing the implications of this, he turned to Piflin 85. “Madam, by your leave?” he asked stiffly.
Some sort of invisible communication passed between the two of them.
“Of course...Dragon,” Piflin said with a conspiratorial smile as her dragon left the room.
~ ~ ~
“As you know, Optiscan is my family’s company,” Florlet said after the dragon’s departure, answering his long-deferred question. “They manufacture the monitoring devices that maintain law and order in the Equestrian Republic. It’s not a line of work I’m particularly proud of, but I’ve been able to find a way to use the resources available to me to pursue my own line of interests.”
Piflin looked closely at the black bulb on the ceiling, and was just able to make out a miniature camera behind the dark glass rotating and focusing on her. She looked away in a panic. “I believe her!” she exclaimed. The look in her eyes was one her friends had run into before: Trust me, I’ll explain it all later.
The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever. Do you need the rest of our stories?” She continued in a bored tone without bothering to wait for an answer. “Jalpek 7. President of Equestrian Airlines.”