The Mistress of Dreams
Epilogue: Just Can’t Get Enough
Vinyl Scratch was the last pony to appear in the waiting room, her head bowed. The other ponies waited a few seconds before asking the inevitable question.
“Rarity’s free, she’s out of the dream,” Vinyl told them. “I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing. It was the only way the Emperor would allow her to end the dream. You do believe me, don’t you?” She sounded like she was on the verge of sobbing.
“Yes, we believe you,” said Applejack, nuzzling the distraught unicorn.
“We have to believe you,” said Spike. “I was holding Opal’s paw at the end, and she’s not here.”
Vinyl lifted her head. “You’re going to have to repeat that last part,” she said, “because it sounds suspiciously like you were getting ‘pals-y’ with Rarity’s pet cat.”
“It wasn’t like that at all!” Spike protested, turning beet red.
~ ~ ~
Several minutes later, the others had finished filling Vinyl in on what they had done in the dream.
“And Pinkie?” she asked.
“Well I’m here, and Pinkie’s...not,” said Pinkamena. “But don’t worry, she’s still alive, I know it. Think of it as a time out. We’re down a player.”
“Two players,” noted Vinyl grimly.
“Two players,” said Pinkamena. “Rarity got suspended, and Pinkie’s in the penalty box for playing fast and loose with the laws of physics. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve sure been tempted to put her in there for years!”
The others laughed uncomfortably.
“But we’re a stronger team than we were last period,” added Rainbow Dash.
“And we’ve picked up some very useful intelligence from our mole,” said Twilight. “Or am I mixing metaphors? Spike, what game is this?”
“Table tennis?” Spike guessed. “We’re not very good at sports.”
“What? No!” Rainbow retorted. “I was talking ice hockey!”
“Is that the one with ‘sudden death overtime’?” asked Spike. “I hope you weren’t going to compare Fluttershy’s dream with sudden death overtime.”
“My world is empty without you, babe,” sang Pinkamena. It could only be Fluttershy’s favorite song, the one that would let them into her personal dream world. “My mind and soul have felt like this, since love between us no more exists.”
“I take it back,” Spike said glumly. “Walking around in Fluttershy’s head...it is sudden death overtime.”
Now, while I’ve got that song circulating in your head, let’s step through the Credits and Acknowledgements, shall we?
First of all, my thanks go to GreyNoise, who acted as last-second editor for this story. Any plot holes remaining, though, are entirely my fault.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is copyright Hasbro, with extra credit given to Lauren Faust for creating Friendship Is Magic, and for the crew at Studio B for keeping the dream alive for four years now. The characters of Rarity, Spike, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie/Pinkamena, Fluttershy, Vinyl Scratch/DJ Pon-3, Opalescence, Princesses Celestia and Luna, the Cake and Apple families, the concepts of poison joke (curses and nicknames taken from the episode “Bridle Gossip” [written by Amy Keating Rogers]), the Sonic Rainboom, bits as a unit of currency, Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Cuteceñaras, Hearths Warming (when all fictional wars are promised to end), the locations of Equestria, Ponyville, Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Baltimare, Sweet Apple Acres and the Everfree Forest are all taken from that source, with any deviations from that source being my doing. Spike’s two catchphrases in Chapter 2 are taken from the episodes “Boast Busters” (written by Chris Savino), and “The Best Night Ever” (written by Amy Keating Rogers). The characters that are original to me in this story consist of Cecil the magical talking room, the Dragon Emperor, Applesauce’s husband Tannic and sons Pepin and Charles [which is to say the Frankish kings Pepin the Short and Charlemagne], Captain Linwurst 86, Professor Stein, Waking Terror, Phil the Dragon (although there’s a bit of Phil the Satyr from Hercules [1997, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker] in there), the Ancients, Ponyopolis, and the concepts of the Etheric, the Equestrian Republic (although I am hardly the first to imagine it), Equestrian Airlines, The Second Great War (between ponies and dragons), and the specific mechanism used to transfer magic between gems, dragons and ponies.
The title chapters are all names of songs by Depeche Mode [“It’s No Good” (1997), “New Life” (1981), “A Question of Time” (1986), “Master and Servant” (1984), “Precious” (2005, and in my opinion their best music video), “Policy of Truth” (1990), “Behind the Wheel” (1987), “Everything Counts” (1983; at 2:52 I swear the song quotes My Little Pony), “Enjoy the Silence 04” (2004) and “Just Can’t Get Enough” (1981)], with the exception of “Vicious Lies”, which is a Depeche Mode pony pastiche by d.notive. “Precious and fragile things,” from Chapter 5, are the actual opening lyrics to the song “Precious”.
The imagery and basic ideas for this story is cobbled together from multiple science fiction sources: From the movie Blade Runner (1982, directed by Ridley Scott), the cover image, the spinners, the notion of life being better on the Lunar (off-world) colonies (“The future awaits you—on the off-world colonies!”), the never-ending rain (which the film’s inspiration, the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [1968, written by Philip K. Dick] says is mildly acidic), and Rarity/Florlet 17’s hairstyle (from Rachael in the film). From the film Dark City (1998, directed by Alex Proyas) comes the iconography of the dragons (as Strangers) re-writing the memories of everypony else with a memorable command (“Restore!” here, “Shut it down!” in the film), the way that memories are presented as a series of images appearing in a too-fast succession, the idea of Canterlot (Shell Beach) being inaccessible except via an impossible to board “express”, and in fact the entire opening scene with Spike in Chapter 2. From the novel The Dream Master (1966, written by Roger Zelazny), the notion of a world where somebody able to control dreams with a Dream Projector is the de facto ruler of the world, and how he is eventually toppled by his jealous blind apprentice, who can only see in dreams. From the novel The Space Merchants (1953, written by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth), the idea of corrupt advertising agencies able to get away with anything in a world ruled by corporations (source of Coffiest’s slogan), where the Moon (Venus) is held up as a paradise, but one lone pilot knows better, and where the “Consies” (Conservationists) are held in the same contempt as Communists in the era when the book was written. From the Doctor Who serial “The Power of the Daleks” (1966, written by David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner) comes the phrase “We are your servants”, used by a deceptive group to proclaim their innocence—it was memorably reused in “Victory of the Daleks” (2010, written by Mark Gatiss) for pretty much the same purpose. (The use of sibilance by the dragons throughout most of the story is to suggest that the phrase is coerced.) And finally, the phrase “we are the masters of Equestria” and how it is used was taken from the Doctor Who serial “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (1964, written by Terry Nation), although Philip Sandifer appears to be the only person I’ve encountered so far to believe as I do that the Daleks are saying the phrase in disbelief, at least at first.
The futuristic names for the ponies, for reference, are as follows: Florlet 17 was played by Rarity, Piflin 85 was played by Twilight Sparkle, Jalpek 7 was played by Rainbow Dash, Applesauce 103 was played by Applejack, DJ Pon-3 was played by Vinyl Scratch (and vice versa), Lunesta 1 was played by Pinkie Pie, Haphastia 16 was played by Pinkamena and Rarity 15 was played by Fluttershy. Their dragons are modeled after who or whatever was closest to them: Rarity’s dragon resembles Sweetie Belle, Rainbow Dash’s dragon resembles Scootaloo, Vinyl’s resembles Octavia, Pinkie Pie’s resembles Gummy, and Pinkamena’s resembles a rock. The colors of the dragons’ claws are supposed to be the colors of their ponies’ magic auras. For non-unicorns, I used the primary color of their cutie marks.
“Optiscan” is the name of several different companies and products. None of which are intended as the model for the evil, evil company in the story. “Holopic” and “televisor” are likewise generic but strange terms for holographic photographs and televisions, the words selected to give the reader the same odd feeling of encountering strange technology as the ponies would be feeling at that moment.
Celestia searching for Luna as the subject of Pinkie Pie’s dream is specifically referring to my earlier fanfic “Masquerade”.
The name Rosig Rache is a two-language pun of “bloodhound”.
The use of “The Hundred” to refer to a part of the government comes from Ancient Greek history.
“I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king [queen] of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams”—Hamlet (c. 1599, written by William Shakespeare), Act II Scene 2.
The planet Aladan is a thinly-disguised version of Caladan, from Dune (1965, written by Frank Herbert), but with psychics transplanted in from another part of that book. “Judge Ender” as an alias of Pinkie Pie is taken from two characters as unlike her as possible: Judge Dredd and Ender Wiggin.
“Cat Skills” are the Catskills Mountains of New York, the birthplace of a generation of American comedians in the first half of the Twentieth Century.
“Canterday” as a day of the week is taken from this Pony4e post, invented by Baxil.
Pon-3’s fear theme in Chapter 6 is the theme from Vertigo (1958, directed by Alfred Hitchcock), composed by Bernard Hermann. The theme that inspires Applesauce to save herself is the theme to Starman (1984, directed by John Carpenter), composed by Jack Nitzsche.
The games in chapter 7 are a mix of real and renamed arcade video games from the 1970’s to the present: Breakout (1976, Atari, aka “Wall-Bounce”), Asteroids (1979, Atari), Dance Dance Revolution (1998, Konami, aka “Dance Dance Restoration”), Pong (1972, Atari, aka “Ping”), Lunar Lander (1979, Atari), Centipede (Atari, 1981, aka “All the Bugs”), and Arabian (1983, Atari). “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” is the name of a piece of modern classical music composed by John Adams in 1986. 4’33” is the name of another such piece composed by John Cage (1952). The game at the end is Spore (2008, Electronic Arts, aka “Seed”), not actually an arcade game. The worlds referenced in the game attract mode are Arrakis (from Dune, aka Barchan, which is a type of desert dune), Krynn (the planet for the Dragonlance setting for Dungeons and Dragons, created by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman in 1984), Vulcan (from Star Trek [1966, created by Gene Roddenberry], aka 40 Eridani A after the real-life star where the fictional planet was located), Earth (aka Terra), Kamino (from Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones [2002, directed by George Lucas], aka Amino), and Calidan (aka Aladan).
Rarity’s story about the sleeping god is taken with little change from Chapter 4 of Through the Looking Glass (1871, written by Lewis Carroll): Dee and Dumb are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Luna is Alice, and the Great God Elle (Lauren Faust with her red hair) is the Red King.
“Jus’ fine” is a line by Applejack from “Look Before You Sleep” (written by Charlotte Fullerton), and “I’ll make a friendship problem” is a line by Twilight Sparkle from “Lesson Zero” (written by Meghan McCarthy).
“Feel the fizz of Coo-Coo Cola” is from the Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers episode “The Case of the Cola Cult” (1989, written by Kevin Hopps).
The “surely you’re joking” bit is from Airplane! (1980, directed by Jim Abrams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, who also wrote it).
“Superbus” is a reference to the disaster movie parody The Big Bus (1976, directed by James Frawley), which actually isn’t any good, so don’t watch it.
Rainbow Dash outed as a “Firefly”: this was from my earlier fanfic “Accelerando”.
“...and face painting for the fillies!” It is something of a private joke with me that every occasion I encounter, from a kid’s birthday party to the swearing in of the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, always ends up having “face painting for the kids!”
“Cutting, cutting, cutting” is from the introduction to the Lumberjack Song in Episode 9 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969). Rarity’s song is “When the River Meets the Sea”, written by Paul Williams for Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1978, directed by Jim Henson). Finally, Fluttershy’s song is “My World Is Empty Without You” by The Supremes (1965, written by Holland—Dozier—Holland), with an extra-depressing arrangement by mosogotam.