The Mistress of Dreams
Chapter 10: Enjoy the Silence 04
The clock tower in Ponyopolis’ town square had stopped at 12:30, precisely.
It had stopped because a dragon had toppled the tower.
The downtown district by this point was nearly devoid of ponies. Nearly a hundred towering dragons wandered around, pushing over or squashing buildings that reminded them of their lifetimes of abuse. The Equestrian air force had tried to overpower them, until Phil had taught the other dragons the trick of draining the magic out of their planes. The pilots were allowed to glide away on wilted wings, to tell the others the uselessness of fighting the inevitable.
The green dragon that had once belonged to Pinkie Pie had named himself Muscie, and Muscie was now dancing his way down the boulevard. “We are the masters of Equesstria,” he said in his new bass voice. It was the most blasphemous phrase he could possibly imagine. He looked up to see if he would be struck by lightning for saying it. When nothing happened, he said it again, with more confidence: “We are the masters of Equestria! We are the masters of Equestria!”
The dragons around him took up the words with their dragon-deep voices. “We are the masters of Equestria! We are the masters of Equestria! We are the masters of Equestria!”
The very pavement shook with the words like it was the world’s biggest speaker.
“Beautiful! Beautiful!” cried out Rosig Rache the griffon, as he flew down onto a pile of rubble.
“Rosig! Rosig!” the dragons cried out, gathering around his miniscule form.
“Haven’t I delivered on my promise?!” he shouted into a megaphone.
“You have! You have!” the dragon multitude replied.
From the skies descended a veritable army of griffons. They settled on every imaginable perch.
“Who are they?” asked Phil.
“Those are my brethren,” Rosig replied, “the griffons who had been forced to work the gem mines all these years. With your rebellion, they are free, free to work for you! You are now gloriously gigantic, and will need small creatures such as us to help you with the small tasks, the sorts of things you used to be ordered to do!”
The dragons laughed at the prospect of having things done for them for once.
“Oh, Rosig,” Muscie called out. “Thank you ever so much. But are you sure you wish to undertake this burden?”
“Oh of course! The ponies are not to be trusted, but you can trust us! We are your sservants!”
And in his innermost heart, where no dragon could see, Rosig laughed and laughed and laughed.
“...And now that you know how not to be seen,” Florlet 17 concluded, “you have learned everything about dreams that I know. Congratulations, DJ Pon-3, you are now a fellow mistress of dreams.”
“Excuse me, Mistress Florlet,” Pon-3 said politely, “but something appears to be happening.”
“You need to be more specific,” said Florlet.
“We are in the Dreamscape. We should be feeling the dreams of those ponies who sleep through the day, and the faint echoes of the daydreams of the ponies who are awake. But all I hear is silence.”
“Yes,” Florlet said with grim finality. “That’s because the world I have created is finally reaching its inevitable conclusion.”
“Begging your pardon,” asked Pon-3, tossing her head nervously back and forth to try and desperately pull any additional sounds out of the suddenly dead Dreamscape, “but which world? The world you manipulated to become its master, or the world you invented in order to help us?”
“Ah, Pon-3, how very perceptive of you. We are indeed, at the end, and I need you to give me one of your devastating assessments. Like you gave Twilight in Ponyville.”
Pon-3 broke into a cold sweat. “Ah, that’s really more Vinyl’s specialty, to be honest.”
“Pon-3, you are selling yourself short!” Florlet exclaimed. “You are Vinyl’s sworn protector, are you not? Until the lot of you manage to get your act together, that is.” She laughed at her own joke.
A stone-faced Pon-3 failed to join in.
“This dream needs to end,” she told Pon-3, suddenly serious. “I made my deal with the Emperor, and it is time now for me to pay my price. One dream where I try to train you while he tries to ensnare you, but on one condition: that I not be allowed to continue on with the rest of you. This will be my last dream.”
“What are you saying?” Pon-3 blustered.
“I need you to kill me, Pon-3. I need you to spill my blood upon this technological altar. I am the living symbol of the enslavement of the dragons, and the perversion of the ponies. Neither of these can be reversed, without my corpse. It is to be an act of political theater, and what am I, if not an actress upon the stage of every dream that ever was?”
“You...you were speaking in character just then, weren’t you?”
“Pon-3!” Rarity ordered. “Get on with my execution! You are the jealous commoner, the lone consumer among a pack of rabid robber barons. Serve your narrative function, and end my life!”
Pon-3 backed away, panting faster and faster in fear. “S...send her away, first. I can feel her staring at me. Judging me.”
Rarity glanced up at the unnatural dragon perched on her back. “But of course. Sweetie Belle, please go play in the control room.” She watched the little dragon walk in a way that was far more pony than dragon, until she had pulled the door shut behind her.
She turned back, to see Pon-3 levelling her horn at her. “Sing,” the DJ demanded in a low voice.
I coughed on a bit of nonexistent dust and took a breath. “When the mountain touches the valley,” I began in a shaky voice, “all the clouds are taught to fly.” As I continued, a ball of pure white magic at the tip of Pon-3’s horn grew, and grew, and grew. If there was ever a time when the blind pony wished she was able to cry, this was it. But from the trembling in my voice, it was clear that somepony was crying enough for both of us. She joined me on the final chorus, with that fine contralto voice that I always tell her to use more often, “When the river meets the almighty sea.”
We finished my song, and my friend’s magic sent me home.