The Mistress of Dreams
Chapter 6: The Policy of Truth
Applesauce sat patiently on a bench at the back of the flying bus. She knew her stop was the end of the line, so she had plenty of time. Squeezed in around her were nearly two dozen ponies.
Applesauce didn’t mind. Her research into Applejack had revealed that the pony, like so many other earth ponies of her generation, suffered from claustrophobia. Applesauce felt a tiny little feeling of superiority over the legendary hero. Applejack might be better than her in every significant way, but she’d never survive a two hour bus ride in Ponyopolis.
As she was waiting, she allowed her eyes to roam over the advertising on the inside of the bus. There was a complex work of modern art, using colored lines to represent the pointlessness of everyday life. It happened to double as the route map for Ponyopolis’ transit system.
Applesauce examined the diagram carefully for a few minutes before noticing a minute gray line leaving the tangle of other routes to end in an arrow and the words “To Canterlot”.
She stared at that little annotation in wonder, her mouth in the shape of an “O”. It had never occurred to her that Canterlot was a place that one could actually travel to.
She got up and walked over to the pony driving the bus, a dour slate-blue pegasus stallion whose license identified him as Captain Linwurst 86. “Excuse me, Captain Linwurst, but is this the Gray line?” she asked.
“It is,” the captain said, with a voice like gravel being poured over hot asphalt.
“Is Canterlot on the Gray line?”
“It is.”
“So when are you stopping there?”
“I’m not,” the driver said.
“Why not?” Applesauce asked.
“Because you want the Express if you want to go to Canterlot.”
“Well, where can I get on the Express?”
“Baltimare. The Express goes straight from Baltimare to Canterlot.”
“Baltimare?” The name seemed utterly foreign to the little orange mare. If Canterlot was a far-off place, Baltimare might as well be another planet to her.
“Yup, Baltimare.”
“Well, how do I get to Baltimare?”
“You can’t,” the driver said with finality. “You can’t get there from here.”
“Oh,” said Applesauce quietly. “Thank you for your time.” She turned to go.
“Hey,” Captain Linwurst interrupted her. “Do you want the opportunity of a lifetime? It’s not Canterlot, but it’s the next best thing.”
“What is it?” asked Applesauce.
“Tours of the homes of the rich and famous. This very bus, every Canterday afternoon at two hours after sunrise. Two hours that you’ll never forget, and only 50 bits per pony. What do you think?”
“Now wait a moment,” the earth pony replied. “Did you get permission from these celebrities to drive by their houses?”
“Hey, it’s a free country,” Linwurst said. “I don’t have to ask their permission to fly through the nearest public airspace.”
“If you’re sticking to public airspace,” Applesauce said, “then you’re really not going to be able to see much of anything. All in all, it doesn’t sound like your tour would be worth 50 bits.”
“No, it isn’t,” Linwurst said with a grin. “But it’s a strict no-refund policy, so if somepony’s not smart enough to ask the right questions, then I get to profit from their stupidity, eh?”
Applesauce began to laugh along with the driver as he celebrated the prospect of getting one over on the common pony, but suddenly she stopped. For some reason she couldn’t understand, something that always made her feel happy, being better than other ponies, suddenly made her stomach feel sour.
With a confused frown, she made her way back to her seat.
~ ~ ~
Nearly an hour of travel time passed, and the majority of Applesauce’s fellow passengers got off at their stops. Feeling bored, the earth pony allowed her eyes to wander over the walls of the bus once more, until she spotted an arresting image: a happy pony couple in spacesuits, looking out into a starry sky. “The future awaits you—on the Lunar colonies!” she read the text out loud.
“Why, I’ve got one of my nieces living up there!” a green-coated mare the same general age as Applesauce said proudly.
“Oh, you must be so proud,” Applesauce replied.
“Have you got any pictures?” asked the only other passenger of the bus, an elderly stallion.
“Well, let me see...” the mare said, digging through her saddlebags. “Mind you, I only have holopics of her from before she left.”
Applesauce’s attention remained fixed on the advertisement. She wasn’t entirely sure if stars really looked like little white crosses on a jet black sky, as the ad promised. She had never seen anything other than pollution-clogged skies for the entirety of her brief life, despite living on the edge of the city. But then again, nopony lived outside the cities. Nopony knew why the countryside and mines were left to the machines, but they were. It was like everypony knew that the whole planet hated them for how they had betrayed their stewardship over the centuries, and now they huddled together in the cities to be safe from Mother Equestria’s vengeance.
Now Applejack, the character she pretended to be for a couple of hours each week, she knew what the stars looked like. She liked to sit on a hill on Sweet Apple Acres after the chores were done and gaze up at the heavens. It seemed like there were more stars in the sky than leaves on every tree in Equestria. Than hairs on every pony. Their number was too high for even Twilight Sparkle to ever name. Applejack’s ma, before she passed, had told her that every shooting star was a wish, and every permanent star was a wish come true. Applesauce wondered what it meant that nopony could see the stars anymore. Nopony except the settlers...
“I wonder what’s happening on the colonies,” she said out loud.
“Hmm...dunno,” the stallion replied. His coat was thin and the color of fading newspaper.
Which was another thing that existed in Applejack’s world and not Applesauce’s.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any news out of the colonies,” the mare added. “I hope things are going well for my niece.”
“Oh, I do hope the War hasn’t turned against them,” the stallion said.
“Oh, that would be horrible!” the green mare exclaimed.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Applesauce said. “Maybe you ought to write her and see how she’s—”
Applesauce stopped speaking at that moment, because the two ponies she was talking to were no longer available. Instead, they were busy having their memories reset by the dragons on their backs.
This caused Applesauce to realize that the dragons had had no part in the recent discussion, something that was rather unusual, since they usually knew what was going on long before any pony, and were usually never reluctant to share what they knew.
The next thing that Applesauce realized was that she was not being reset along with the others.
“Dragon?” she said softly, prodding her back with one hoof. “Are you awake back there?”
“Sure I’m awake, Mistresss,” her dragon drawled in that funny accent that she shared with Applejack.
“Shouldn’t you be...” She waved one hoof in a vaguely sinister fashion.
“Not for you, Mistresss. Florlet’ss orderss.”
“Huh,” Applesauce said, rather disappointed. “Well that just makes everything more—”
“Why, I’ve got one of my nieces living up there!” the green mare suddenly exclaimed. Both she and the stallion were sitting comfortably on their benches, acting like nothing unusual had happened. After a few seconds, she turned to look intently at Applesauce, like she was expecting a specific reply out of her.
“Oh!” Applesauce exclaimed. “You must be so proud?”
The dragon atop the green mare rolled her eyes.
“Uh, have you got any pictures?” the stallion asked, breaking the lull in the conversation.
“Well, let me see...”
“Now that is why I’d prefer no special treatment,” Applesauce said accusingly to the dragon on her own back.
“Pon-3?”
“Yes, Miss Florlet?”
“I’m afraid you’re not fully realizing your potential in the world of dreams.”
“What do you mean?”
“Music. The dreams we’ve been working on over the past few hours have been devoid of music. But music is your passion, yes?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Music reaches directly into the emotional part of the brain, you know. Short-circuits logical thinking altogether. I know that for me personally, I cannot hear ‘When the River Meets the Sea’ without thinking of my parents and...my sister. I simply have no choice. And dreams are a purely emotional landscape. Do you get what I am saying, Pon-3?”
“I’m...beginning to get an idea.”
“Good. Then let’s put those unique abilities of yours to the test. Applesauce here is going to sleep. I’ll hook you up to the Projector, and then I want you to make her dream...something interesting. How about if you put a little fear into her heart? Nothing extreme of course, nothing traumatizing. But don’t use visual stimuli. I want you to shape her dream with music alone, music from your own mind. Do you think you can do that?”
“I...I can try.”
“Excellent!”
Applesauce was working in her garden. Towering around her in neat rows were the hydroponic tanks, one for each of her crops. She was wearing her waterproof white suit, peering at the gauges through the clear plastic of her helmet. She failed to notice the lack of a dragon on her back.
She stopped as one of the gauges appeared to be bottomed out. She tapped it a few times, just to be sure, then with a mental shrug began the arduous process of climbing the ladder mounted on the outside of the faulty vat. Reaching the top, she hooked her forelegs into an oversized valve and walked around the top of the vat several times, until the latch finally disengaged and swung downward. Tapping the side of her helmet to activate the hornlight, she poked her head into the hole. “Well, well, well,” she said as she observed the low level of the nutrient broth. She smiled to herself as her voice echoed within the chamber several times. She turned to open a smaller valve.
Can’t an Apple dream about anything other than her job and/or family?
Standing invisibly on the top of the next vat over was Pon-3. She started thinking of fear, of what it felt like to be afraid, and what she thought the universe felt as it induced fear in her. From a deep inner part of herself, she felt a sinuous melody spring to life, like nothing she had ever heard before, but aching with an irrational familiarity. She channeled the melody to her horn like it was magic, and the resulting theme seeped into the background. She could no longer hear it, but she could feel it, and it was indeed fear. It felt like falling, like losing control and watching the shadows in the corners rushing out to feed on your weakness.
Applesauce tumbled into the vat with a helpless cry.
Pon-3 popped over to check on her. She wasn’t exactly sure how she did it. It was just that she needed to be there, and if she was able to run on air it would take three measures of the music in her head to cross the distance. So she skipped over those three measures, and suddenly she was there, with no time having passed.
“Halp!” Applesauce cried out. Her eyes bugged out as it appeared like the walls of the vat were crumpling in around her.
Climb! thought Pon-3, as she reached out towards Applesauce. A phantom keyboard appeared before her, and after a moment she began to translate that thought into a melody. Again, this was like no song she had ever heard before, although it reminded her of an old dragon march.
The walls around the drowning pony seemed to regain their solidity, as Applesauce was filled with a sudden determination. She was not going to die, not here, not while her family needed her! With a mighty lurch, she kicked herself over to the ladder attached to the inside of the vat. Slowly, with many stops to catch her breath, she pulled herself back up and out of danger.
That was incredible! Pon-3 thought to herself. I’ve never had that kind of control over anybody’s life before, not even my own! It felt good to her to get some kind of payback for the way that Applejack had manipulated her back in Twilight’s dream...
Wait, how am I remembering that? Pon-3 asked herself in confusion. Most of each dream so far faded from my mind soon after it ended. Are those memories something Rarity gave me along with the fake memories of being Florlet’s apprentice?
It was at that moment that the dream ended, as Applesauce reached safety.
“Is it always that easy?” Pon-3 asked incredulously from her harness inside the immense Projector.
“No, of course not,” the voice of Florlet purred into her ear. “It was just that poor Applesauce was in a uniquely vulnerable spot just then. Her emotional armor was lowered. Frankly, you’re going to need something a lot better than music to get past most ponies’ mental defenses.”
Applesauce awoke with a start. Feeling the warmth of her husband beside her, the mare lay still and waited for her heart rate to reach manageable levels. Putting on a light housecoat, she slipped out of bed.
She made her way carefully through the house, pausing for a few seconds outside of the nursery where Pepin and Charles were sleeping. She opened the door and peered in at the two small bundles, growing and shrinking slightly with every breath. With a soft sigh of happiness she closed the door.
~ ~ ~
A few minutes later she was in the exact spot where her dream had taken place. Silently, she looked around her, taking in the dim lighting around her and, over a nearby hill, the glow of the city. With no preamble, she broke out into a trot, rapidly climbing the hill to look out at the panorama of Ponyopolis. She had only been running for less than a minute, but it was a cold morning, and she hadn’t gotten in much exercise in the past couple of days, so of course...
Applesauce winced as her left rear leg seized up in a knot. Lying on her back, she methodically used her other hooves to massage the knot out of existence. She had had these leg cramps all of her life.
...Yet it had never hurt like this. She was sure of it. And that brief run—it was more exhilarating than her memory of when Tannic had proposed to her. What was happening to her?
Applesauce’s mind whirled, jumping from memory to memory. Her own memories as Applesauce seemed to wither in comparison both to what she had experienced since she awoke from the simulation, as well as her false memories as Applejack. As Applejack, she had remembered tastes and smells more vivid than anything she experienced as Applesauce. She knew the feel of Apple Bloom’s head under her hoof, and where her ticklish spots were.
She knew that Tannic was ticklish, but where? She couldn’t seem to summon up the information. They had gotten married under a sycamore tree. But sycamores were extinct, weren’t they? And her sons, her sons that she hadn’t seen all day today because Tannic put them to bed while she was still pretending to be Applejack...
What color were their eyes? What kind of mother was she if she couldn’t even remember the color of her own sons’ eyes?
Who was taller, her mother or her father? And what did their voices sound like? And how did she discover that she was good at hydroponics? And why did her passion for it seem so paper-thin, like everything else in this perfect little—
Timid little Applesauce shook her head, her mind breaking into shards like candy glass, and a confident and wiry earth pony rose to her full height.
Oh Rainbow, Applejack thought to herself as she wiped the non-existent tears from her eyes, why do you always have to be right about me?