For the second time in as many days, I was awoken by somebody abusing my door. While Daring’s knocks had held confidence, each of these strikes were reserved, with a long pause between each impact. Faint mumbling reached through the door, and I would have hesitated in opening it if the voice didn’t sound familiar.
“Princess Purple?”
Twilight Sparkle had seen better days. The bags under her eyes could have been used to carry luggage, and Rarity would have had an aneurysm if she saw the state of Twilight’s mane. Despite how exhausted she looked, she couldn’t stand still and constantly looked behind her like she was expecting to see a poorly disguised surveillance van.
“Really? You’re calling me that again?”
“I was asleep. Give me a break.”
She shrunk back like she’d woken up Celestia instead. “I’m sorry… I saw the lights and thought you were still awake. Sterling, I’m sorry it’s two in the morning, but I need somepony to talk to.”
Rubbing my eye with a fetlock, I sighed. “You didn’t have to wait until two to show up.”
“I would have been here ten minutes ago but I accidentally—can I come inside? It’s a little chilly out here.”
Actually, the weather was quite balmy. There was no way she would have felt cold unless she was carrying her own chunk of everfrost.
“Yeah, of course.” I didn’t know what she thought she saw, but it would have been poor manners to abandon her to it.
Twilight smiled appreciatively as she walked past. The light spilling from the doorway didn’t spread far, but the moon did a fair job of illuminating things. For once, I wasn’t the one seeing things in the shadows, but seeing Twilight so anxious was even worse.
A pained yelp drew my attention as I closed the door. “Sterling, what’s all this junk over the floor?”
“My leg exploded.” It was not lost on me how interesting that comment would have been out of context. “It happened right before I went to bed, so I was just going to clean it up in the morning. Did you step on something?”
“I’ll be fine. It surprised me more than anything else.” The various pieces of shrapnel around the living room jerked into the air and moved through the air like a fleet of metallic hummingbirds. Twilight sighed with relief as they fell into the trashcan with a clank.
“Are you tired? You’re usually much better at levitating things.”
“No—well, I am tired, but that’s not it. Ever since… then, I’m having trouble moderating how much magic I expend on any of my spells. Like I’d started saying earlier, I was late because I… accidentally teleported to Vanhoover.”
If I remembered correctly, Ponyville to Vanhoover was a two-day train ride. “I think you overshot a tad.”
“That’s not even the half of it. Instead of teleporting right back to Ponyville, I ended up in Canterlot Castle somehow. Princess Luna says ‘Hello,’ by the way.”
“I don’t really know what I can do to help if you’re having magic issues.”
“That’s not it at all. That nap I took after you and Celestia left me in the hospital only lasted fifteen minutes before I woke up screaming, and I haven’t been able to sleep since then. I can barely handle being in the dark—it’s like a canvas for my nightmares.” Twilight practically fell onto the couch as she sat down, looking to me with bloodshot eyes that would have given anything for rest. “I don’t even know what to do anymore.”
There was plenty of space left on the couch, but sitting right next to her felt like what she needed. “I don’t know where to start, Twilight. There isn’t something I can say to just make it better or help you sleep. I can listen, and I can fill in the blanks of what you saw or felt, but I’m worried I won’t be able to help enough.”
Twilight trembled lightly as she listened, and a bit of it showed in her voice. “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do either. I have books on psychology and mental trauma back at the library, but they’re so… uninformed.”
“I can understand why they wouldn’t have a section on reliving the last moments of another universe or two.”
“None of them do, but that’s not what I was getting at. I’d never realized how idyllic Equestria is, because it was all I knew. I had no frame of reference. Now though—” Twilight sighed, slumping even further “—now I know what happens when the monsters win.”
“Then it’s a good thing we won, so nobody else has to find out.” I bumped against her, grinning, though it faltered slightly when she gave a start. “You’re safe here, Twilight. To be fair, you’d probably be safe in a lot of places once you get that power under control. Can’t think of too much that’d mess with somepony who can throw a mountain at them.”
She gave a half-hearted snort, and the faintest of smiles graced her muzzle. “Yes, I am the mightiest of librarians.”
“And don’t you forget it.” Suddenly, I was much more concerned about making sure my library books weren’t overdue.
Twilight’s jaw popped as she yawned. “Sorry, I’m just so tired. All I want to do right now is sleep.”
“That’s a good place to start then. Back when I had to go into the nightmares—I’m sorry Pinkie dragged you and Spike into that last one for some reason—I had to explore the dream and figure out what my hangup was. We can’t do exactly that, since we’re not going into them, but we can discuss individual memories that stand out. Unless you have a better idea.”
“No, that’s about what I figured we’d end up doing.” Twilight shuffled her hooves nervously, like she needed to build her courage. “Do you have any relaxing tea blends?”
“Maybe? I’m sure I have tea somewhere around here, but no clue what kind it is. You’re free to look through the cupboards and put this off just a bit longer.”
Twilight chuckled sheepishly and trotted into the kitchen and out of sight. The sound of creaking cupboard doors and rustling foodstuffs was only interrupted by the occasional grumble of “How does she find anything?”
Sleep was just about to drag me under when Twilight said, “Found it! Ooh, lavender.”
“Of course that’s what you picked.” I was sure that on the other side of the wall, she was rolling her eyes. “Need any help?”
“No, it’ll just be a moment.” True to her word, she soon walked back into the room and set two cups of steaming tea on the table. I still knew absolutely nothing about tea, but I had to admit it smelled awesome. “What’s in this bundle of cloth on your table? I didn’t think natural magic could feel cold.”
“I’ll tell you about it later. You have your tea, so now we’re dealing with the whole reason you’re here. I’m sure you’d like to sleep again, right?”
Twilight stared into her tea like it held the answer to life, the universe, and everything. “Alright. Which one do I start with?”
As much as I wanted to help her, I wasn’t looking forward to playing nightmare roulette and potentially reliving things I’d forgotten for a reason. “If nothing sticks out, just go with the most recent, I guess.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It always starts with somepony—’somebody’ would be far more accurate—else dying. Different people, different places, but little else changes. I don’t know how much time I spent doing nothing but crying over the body. Then, they wake up, except it’s not them anymore.
“Sometimes, it’s over in seconds and the memory disappears just as I feel their teeth press against my neck. Other times, they take a chunk out of my leg, and the disease slowly squirms through my veins. I was lucky the memories were close enough to dreams that I couldn’t actually feel their pain.” She shuddered. “I’d probably be a gibbering mess if I could.”
“Hey,” I said quietly, leaning against her, “that’s not going to happen here.” If even one infected showed up, I was going to show Equestria the meaning of overkill.
“That wasn’t even the worst part. Recently, I’ve been seeing… my family and friends in that position. You showed up once or twice.” Her last sentence was barely audible.
I might have chuckled if she weren’t so upset. “See, that’s just wrong. I was entirely prepared to kill myself if I was bitten.”
“How could you say that?” Twilight pulled away like she’d been struck, and I yelped as I fell towards her. “How can you even consider suicide as an option?” she asked, roughly uprighting me.
“Because being bitten is already a death sentence. The least you can do is make sure you don’t come back and start attacking survivors.”
“But what if it doesn’t kill you? What—”
“There is no ‘if it doesn’t kill you,’ Twilight. It has a one-hundred percent mortality rate. The moment it gets in your bloodstream, you are a danger to everyone around you. I don’t like the idea, but it’s the best course of action. We’re getting a bit off topic though. Twilight, you don’t have to worry about it here, and that’s that.”
“I want to believe that, I really do, but there was once a time where I thought it was impossible to travel between dimensions.”
She had a point, and there was probably nothing I could say that would make her think otherwise. If the dead walked Equestria, Twilight’s nightmares might very well become reality. If I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen, I could at least give her the knowledge she needed.
“If it happens, aim for the head. Destroy the brain and you’re safe.”
“What?”
“That’s how you get rid of a zombie. If the brain is destroyed, the body won’t reanimate.” A small voice in the back of my head whispered magic might complicate things if it’s the source of the infection, but that was something for me to worry about, not her. “Decapitation isn’t enough, since the body will become useless, but the head will still be a minor threat.” I giggled at a memory that had resurfaced at the mention of decapitation.
“I don’t get what could possibly be funny about cutting off something’s head.”
“That’s a story for a different time.” It was a good one too, as messy as it was.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you know what to do if it happens. So you know how to stop it from spreading further, one infected being at a time. So you can stop that situation from ever happening. Take your pick. I don’t know if it’ll stop that particular nightmare, but it’s a start.”
Twilight sighed, and this time, she was the one who leaned against me. “I think I understand what you’re trying to do, but what about them? They’re still dead.”
“Well yeah, but it’s still just a dream. If you’re worried about your friends, pretty much all of them are nearby. If you’re worried about your parents, mail them a letter. Heck, you could probably teleport right to their door. It’s a dream that can’t hurt you. And if it happens for real, you now know how to make it impossible for it to hurt anyone again.”
“I guess that does make me feel a bit better. With any luck, it should help with the nightmares.”
“Did you happen to ask Luna about it when you saw her earlier? She would know a lot more about fixing nightmares than me.” Considering most of what Twilight knew about zombies was people getting killed by them, Luna was probably the second most knowledgeable pony on the subject, and she’d forgotten more about nightmares than most ever learned.
Twilight shook her head slowly. “She has her hooves full with nightmares caused by the voidlings, and she could barely take the time to tell me that much and reaffirm that I was to see you about it.”
It was my turn to sigh. “I’d like to think they know what they’re doing, but I don’t know…”
For whatever reason, she didn’t reply. It was possible she was doubting Celestia but was too scared to admit it. I knew she respected her mentor, but not if it was just a healthy appreciation or full on hero worship.
“You haven’t touched your tea at all. Is something wrong?” she eventually asked.
I snorted and waggled a hoof at her. “Yeah, these things. I don’t even know why I own teacups that break if you drop them.” In truth, I was just wary of holding something fragile after the earlier incident with the prosthetic. It made me feel dirty hiding things from her after she’d bared some of her fears, but it wasn’t an issue worth bringing up. Yep, that’s what I was going with.
“I’ve seen you hold a teacup before. It was clear you weren’t used to it, but you never actually dropped anything.”
“Yeah, but I had both hind legs to stabilize myself back then.” It was a flimsy lie, but at least it made some sense.
She scrutinized me for a few moments and then nodded. “I should have considered that before pouring you some. I’m sorry.”
Actually, no. I wasn’t going to let this turn into one of those “why’d you hide something from me, I thought we were friends” things. “Actually, that’s not the whole truth. Or most of it. I… saw something while I was tinkering a few hours ago, and it surprised me so much that when I turned to see it, I slipped with the thaumite I was working into the prosthetic.”
“So when you said your leg exploded…”
“Yeah, that’s what caused it. Sorry I didn’t mention it right away.”
“It’s alright. I’m not going to hold it against you. What did you see?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t actually there, of course, so I saw nothing when I tried to get a closer look. It didn’t move, it just vanished. I can’t even tell you what species it was supposed to be. I’m worried that if I handle anything delicate, it or something else will show up again.” A knot grew in my throat as I thought of my usual shield for hallucinations. “If Dave was still around, I wouldn’t be concerned with anything I only thought I saw.”
“Do you want to talk about him? Even if I heard that thing talk about what Dave actually was, I never got the opportunity to have a civil conversation with him.”
“I don’t really care what Grue said he was. Dave was more than just the scraps that were scooped out of my head so I could be an unwitting, interdimensional smuggler. He was my best friend.”
Twilight remained silent, and the only sign that she heard me was the wing laid across my back. We sat like that for a while, with me trying to regain my composure and Twilight’s gaze alternating between her empty teacup and the bundle of cloth on the table.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“A bit. Thanks. What else did you want to talk about tonight?” Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too much more. I was about ready to fall asleep right there on the couch. It didn’t help that Twilight was pretty warm.
“I think we’ve talked enough about the serious stuff for one night.” The bundled everfrost was wrapped in purple and floated towards us. “How about we talk about this? Does it have anything to do with the rumors that Daring Do was spotted flying in this direction?”
“She was here for a meeting with me. I’m supposed to develop temperature shielding for an airship capable of making it over the Crystal Mountains.” I stifled a chuckle as Twilight’s eyes bugged out. “Save your questions for later. I won’t be going on the trip, just designing the spell pattern and training the mechanic that will be on the final crew. The workers will be building the ship around here, in the Gem Hills. And yes, Daring Do actually exists.”
“I knew the last one.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “She was in her office one of the times I visited the Historian’s Guild. She’s a bit rough around the edges, and come to think of it, she reminds me a lot of Rainbow Dash. I wonder if they’re related.”
“I thought the same thing.” My hooves trembled slightly as I picked up the teacup. My throat was parched, and Twilight probably had more questions than feathers. “Mind spotting me? You might actually be able to catch the teacup if I drop it.”
If I was going to be stuck with hooves for the rest of my life, I needed all the practice I could get, so why not get it when I can use magic as a safety net? Maybe I could get to the point where a little scare wouldn’t cause me to undo an entire night of work.
Careful. Careful. Oh shi—the teacup slipped from my hooves just as it got to my muzzle, splashing a bit of tea that inevitably found its way into my eyes. Twilight gasped, and I felt the wind from something shooting past my head like a bullet before crashing into the ceiling. The teacup hadn’t been rated for high speed collisions, and as such, it shattered spectacularly, drizzling us with tea and ceramic shards.
“What just happened?” Using my foreleg, I wiped most of the tea out of my eyes. It didn’t sting like shampoo, but it still wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“I’m so sorry!”
“Twilight, what just happened?” I enunciated each word slowly and clearly while I did my best to brush cup chunks out of my mane.
“It surprised me and I put too much magic into catching it and I’m sorry!”
“Relax. I am way too stunned and-slash-or tired to be mad. Also, it’s amusing when you panic.” At least the cup didn’t suffer.
“You really aren’t mad? Well, that’s a relief. I thought for sure—oh, your couch is soaked. Let’s get up so I can dry it off.”
“What about drying us off?”
“I’ll take care of that next.” Her horn lit up once again.
Then my couch burst into flames.
“No more helping!” I shouted as she started apologizing frantically. I was worried that if she did any more, some of the laws of reality would be rewritten. It was Twilight’s fault I couldn’t have nice things. “Go find a fire extinguisher!”
“A what?” she called from the kitchen
“Godammit, Equestria! I can’t reinvent everything!”
Looking around for a way to get rid of the fire without risking Twilight sending the couch through the wall, my eyes fell upon the wrapped-up everfrost. I figured it was worth a shot, because it wasn’t like it would hurt the everfrost.
Biting wool was surprisingly unpleasant, and I could feel it rubbing against my teeth as I tossed the whole bundle into the flames. Almost instantly, the fire started to die down as the enchanted ice sapped its heat. There wasn’t nearly as much mist coming off the everfrost as before, which made sense with the fire drying out the air.
“Neat.”
“What did you do?”
“Fixed it with the little gift Daring Do left behind. Twilight, everfrost. Everfrost, Twilight. I didn’t think this through very well. It did what I wanted it to, but I don’t have anything to pick it up with now.”
“I’d use magic, but it’s making me shiver just from looking at it.”
“You shouldn’t be using magic until after you’ve had some sleep. I’m going to grab some towels for us to dry off with. They shouldn’t burst into flames, but you can’t be too sure.” I smirked at her as I left the room. After all that drama, I needed a break.
“I’m not going to hear the end of this, am I?” she called after me.
“You lit my couch on fire!”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Here, dry yourself off. The tea smells nice, but I don’t think you’d want to smell like it all the time.”
I tossed the towel over her head, giggling as I heard a quiet “Really, Sterling?” from her.
While we were drying off, I yawned, which made her yawn, which started a yawning marathon that reminded us how tired we were.
“I think that’s as dry as I’ll get. I’m going to head home and try sleeping again.”
“No way you’re teleporting home after that fiasco. You’ll end up teleporting my house into the ocean or something. You can sleep here. I have a bed”
“That would have put out the fire at least,” she mumbled, scrunching up her face in thought. “Alright, but where are you going to sleep?”
“The cou—fuck.” I didn’t have a second bed in the house either. A guest room would have been a decent addition, but any improvements to my home could wait until every pack member had a better home than a pile of stones shaped like a hut.
She spoke again as the two of us walked towards the bedroom. “You’re not going to sleep on the floor, and I doubt you’d let me do it either. We can share the bed, Sterling.” At my incredulous expression, she rolled her eyes and added, “Don’t be so immature. Two ponies can share a bed without engaging in, umm, adult activities.” If anything else was going to catch fire that night, it’d probably be Twilight’s cheeks.
“That wasn’t it at all.” Yes it was. “I’m just worried you’ll blow me up in your sleep or something.”
She let out a frustrated sigh as she curled up in the middle of the bed. “Goodnight,” she said with all the subtlety of a grizzly going into hibernation.
Instead of getting irritated that there wasn’t any space that wasn’t practically next to Twilight, I pretty much threw myself onto the bed. She grunted at the jostling, but her eyelids didn’t so much as flutter.
Lying on the mattress reminded me how tired I was, as every bit of my body protested the night’s activities once it realized I could finally pass out. If anybody woke me up before I was damn good and ready, I’d introduce my hoof to their head.