Two Years Later
The sight of a dragoness playing tag with two fillies and a colt greeted Cider Press when she entered the back room. The earth mare smiled as she saw a silver dragoness intentionally walk right passed a pair of giggling fillies in an obvious hiding place and go straight for the colt that was flittering about the room on his leathery wings. After two flaps of her own draconic wings she was floating in the air and shot her tail out and grabbed the colt by his hind right leg and pulled him into her waiting forearms, once he was in her grasp the dragoness blew a raspberry int is stomach and caused the colt to laugh.
“Go find your sister and Juicy,” said the dragoness as she landed, “mommy has some things to do with friends, so none of you leave this back area and stay away from the cellar, kitchen, and any door that leads out of the back room.”
“Yes momma,” said the colt and green filly in unison.
At the same time Apple Juice said, “yes missus Silver, Ah'll be good an' keep them out ah trouble.”
“An' lead 'em inta some that hasn't been mentioned yet,” said Cider, “no taking the twins out ah this room, Juicy.”
“Yes momma,” said the earth filly.
Silver rolled her eyes and grabbed her deck and bag of bits off the table with her and strolled into the commons with Cider Press. At their table were Guard Wind and Night Spell.
“Just you two today?” inquired Silver Fall, “how come?”
“Something about weather coordination updates,” said Guard Wind, “they told us about it last week.”
“So, why not bring another Guard that's in on the secret that's off duty?” inquired Silver Fall.
“All the other Guards in on your secrets are currently either on active duty or in the midst of reassignment,” said Night Spell, “we got lucky with mandatory leave when they noticed we didn't file for time off, ever, and just left on the days we were slated to be off work. I'm not off night duty just yet, but with all these changes in the Guard I'm not sure how long that would last. There's talk among the higher ups about the Princess making a bunch of unusual preparations and policies. It's like she's preparing for some kind of event that we haven't seen before, but that's just rumors around the Guard barracks. It's probably one of her fabled stress freak outs, rumor has she has one every decade or so. Nopony's confirmed it, it's probably just ponies trying to undermine the good the Princess does for the nation.”
“I see,” said Silver, “I heard she held the Summer Sun Celebration in Manehattan last year, or was that just a rumor?”
“Manehattan wishes they could host the event, but the Princess keeps vetoing that idea on grounds there isn't enough open space to properly host the event, well that and it's kind hard to watch a proper sunrise in that city if you aren't on on top of one of the high rises,” said Guard Wind.
“He's right,” said Night Spell, “it was in Filly-delphia, and they just barely make the qualifications these days. After this year's the Princess is only going to host it rural communities and Canterlot.”
“Well then,” said Silver as she shuffled the cards, “maybe in a few years she'll host it in Mustang, wouldn't that be nice. She usually just visits once a decade or so.”
“Well yeah,” said Night Spell as Silver dealt everypony seven cards, “but we're just guards, the Princess does all the deciding on the event. It's next month, the location she's chosen is still not announced, she's never gone this long without announcing to the Guard where the next celebration site,” everypony picked up their dealt cards.
“The winds are approaching their time of change,” said Silver looking at a pair of Princes, three Aces, a Two and and a King, all off suite, “and when they change they will bring changes that have not been seen in the land for a long time, powers thought lost or mere story will make themselves known and when the winds calm the nation will enter into an age that it should have a long time ago.”
“What are you spouting now?” inquired Guard Wind.
“Sorry,” said Silver, “it was something from a dream I had last night, I had a similar one before I had the twins. I'm unsure of what they mean, maybe if somepony who knew more about dreams helped me.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Night Spell, “nopony has a special talent that relates to dreams, I checked after I started having this stream of nightmares last year, thankfully they only lasted about a week. Raise 4.”
“Yeah, but don't you... I'll see that and raise 6... think it would be nice if somepony was an expert on dreams,” said Cider.
“Maybe,” said Guard Wind, but what would the identifying mark regarding a dream specialization even be?”
“I'm all for that sort of thing, raise 3,” said Silver Fall, “but the truth is, excuse me a moment,” Silver left the table for three minutes before returning, “Juicy almost did something we didn't want her to, the truth is that with as many ponies as there are in this nation it's hard to just state there is nopony with that kind of specialization! You just checked Canterlot and some of the major cities, but the truth is you would have to look through every town and city in the whole nation to be sure. That was a daunting task a hundred years ago, how difficult do you think it is now?”
“I guess you're right,” said Night Spell, “it's just the techniques my parents and grandparents taught me for combating bad dreams didn't work on any of my nightmares.”
“Then how about next time you try to command the dream,” said Silver Fall.
“How do you do that?” asked the three ponies at the table.
“If you're aware you're dreaming you can do it by just thinking about it, because dreams are actually very malleable. A dream is shaped by your thoughts, memories, hopes, and fears. All you have to do is repeat a mantra while going to sleep that reminds you that dreams can be shaped by your will. A nightmare is nothing more than your fears and anxieties given form inside your mind-scape.”
“What's a mantra?”
“It's a kind of chant that's usually said over and over by somepony for one reason or another,” said Silver, “in the case I'm providing it's what is also known as a 'mind over matter' chant. Anypony can do a chant, it's a rather simple task. Cider could you check on the foals?”
“Certainly,” said Cider as she slipped out of her seat and headed to the back room, a few minutes later she was back and said, “good call, they were trying to get into the apple-crumble cookies I made yesterday,” she slid back into her seat.
“It amazes me at well you two can just change your attention while keeping the flow of game,” said Guard Wind, “take two,” he tossed two cards face down on the table. Silver dealt him two cards from the top of the deck
“Take one,” said Night Spell as she gently placed a card on the table with her magic. Silver dealt her one card from the top of the deck.
“Dealer takes one as well,” said Silver as she laid a card on the table and and drew a card.
Three hours later a sizable pile of bits was on the table center and it was time show their cards, this one game lasted longer than anticipated.
“Read them and weep,” said Guard Wind revealing his hand “three Kings, two Aces and a pair of eights high.”
“Three pair with a Princess high,” said Silver as she revealed her hand.”
“Four Knights and three Nines,” said Cider revealing hers, “we all got some good cards dealt, but this game Silver wins.”
“Last I checked you had the better hand,” said Silver, “unless there's rule to this game I don't yet know about.”
“No she's right you have the best set of cards this game,” said Night Spell.
“Fine, don't tell me why you're saying this,” said Silver as she gathered the cards and began to shuffle, “two more games and we're done!” Night Spell and Guard Wind groaned while Cider clapped her fore-hooves with glee.
“The next game passed in silence, Silver got a runt and with discard-and-draw that didn't change, so she folded. The game went by almost in the blink of eye, or it felt that way anyway. As expected Cider won that game, the following game brought same result with Night Spell almost beating the mare because they had nearly matching hands and what decided it was the high cards (a Knight for Night Spell and a King for Cider Press).
After the game Nigh Spell cast her illusion spell on the twins and they followed their mother home.
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“Steel Wing, you know the rules,” said Silver Fall (in her pegasus form) as she pulled the colt away from the window, “you're not allowed near the window if it's not Nightmare Night, if you do it any other time then somepony that doesn't like to think about such things will see you and freak out.”
“Bwut, mommy, Mwy want thoo gwo woutside and pway im duh cwouds,” came the colt's voice.
“You might get that chance some day,” said Silver as she set the colt by his sister before going back over to the window and closing the drapes, “but for now the ponies in charge of this town don't like to see evidence of what mommy really is when they trot around town. On Nightmare Night they chock it up to us dressing up our foals.
The Summer Sun Celebration had come and passed, Silver hadn't heard what town they had held it in. It had been months since she was able to have a game with her friends, but for some reason after the Summer Sun Celebration they had all gotten really busy. Nightmare Night was now just a few weeks away. Steel Wing got excited because this would mean he could go running around town and his mother wouldn't try to keep him away from the doors, windows or other ponies.
Forest Snowfall however was more concerned with what her mother was up to. Silver had brought home a host of paints, an easel and some painting canvas. The drogoness had been spending the past few months alone in a locked room with the items and the filly wanted to know what her mother had been spending months on with items in question. She had even pestered her mother about the items and what she was doing, only to have her mother say something about showing her what her grandfather looked like. This confused Snowfall to a series of ends, mostly because she always seemed to see both her grandparents every three to four months. In fact Nightmare Night was one of the times of the year her grandparents came to visit.
“I have surprise for you two,” said as she took them towards the living room.
“What is it?” cried Snowfall with excitement.
“Pwobabwy swumthing swoopid,” said Blue Steel as they trotted next to their mother.
When they walked into the living room area a moderately sized framed painting of Silver's father was on the shelf. Both foals stopped at the sight of it and in unison said, “WOW!”
“That's my dad, Guiding Guardian,” said Silver, “it's his memorial picture, it's an old tradition where he came from.”
“Whem cam we mweet him?” asked Snowfall.
“You can't, he passed on to the next world when I was ten years older than you,” said Silver, “I haven't seen my mom since I was cast out by her family. I might show you what she looks like some time in the future.”
“What do that mwean?” asked Steel.
“Your grandfather, my dad, is dead,” said Silver bluntly, “and my mom's family didn't like me, at all. They held me to their standards and didn't think change anything. Long story short, you'll never meet my dad and the chance of you meeting my mom are not likely to happen. Sorry you two, the only grandparents you'll ever get to really know are your dad's parents. But at least I can show you what my parents looked like and tell stories about them.”
“Well I guess I'll start with how my father died, I know it's probably terrible story that will give you nightmares, but it's a story I've decided has to be told to you. You see it all started when a dragon named Inferno Rage challenged my father and...”
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Three hours later Lightning Twist trotted into the living room to see the foals curled up next a now fully dragon form Silver, all three were sleeping soundly together. Lightning smiled and just slid a blanket over the three before making sure to close and lock all all the doors into the living room and and make sure all the blinds were closed.
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Nightmare Night was finally coming. Just one more week and they would be able to go outside for the night. Snowfall wanted to dress-up for the event, Steel Wing had no intention of slapping a costume on. Snowfall was juggling between Princess Celestia, a book and a winged cat. Silver thought all would be acceptable, but Snowfall was having trouble deciding between the three and a week was barely enough time to get on of the three made to her features. After several hours of arguing with her brother over the merits of dressing up for Nightmare Night she decided forgo her costume, mostly because of her realization that her inability to decide on a costume until last minute.
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Nightmare Night came and passed, the twins got decent hauls. Steel Wing ate almost half his stash in one go almost as soon as they all got back to the house, Forest Snowfall by a massive contrast passed her bag to Silver Fall and asked her mother hide the candy somewhere her brother wouldn't be able to get it. The two seem to not be able to get along, but they can't think of doing things too far apart from one another. The following day, where the 2 woke up at almost two in the afternoon, Silver spent most of it telling them stories that she enjoyed (and now thought of fondly) from her father. Blue showed a great interest in tales of warriors and great battles, while Snowfall showed more interest in tales of how things were not always what they had seemed on the surface.