A single silver-cladded horseshoe came down on the starry road, and light rippled across the path. It was a gentle light, weak and only an echo of something much greater.
Another step was taken, another wave of light washed over the stars. She had come. She, wrapped in the nebula, a darkest regalia on her person, She who walks in dreams walked in her domain under the firmament.
Yet, a subtle expression of worry remained etched across her face. Her gaze was wary, careful, floating over to the spheres of her subjects’ deepest fears and greatest desires. Her movements were slow and deliberate, as if she was waiting an attack at any moment.
A disturbance had shaken this immaterial realm to its core. Something or someone had had a hoof in it. And her duty was that of Warden.
She continued onward, glancing at the dreams closest to her in search of a source, but no evil was within her sight. Nonetheless, a small smile graced her features when an orb she looked at displayed an orange filly hugging her idol. A larger one came when an echo of it was seen in a cyan mare’s dream as well.
Her heart aching, she resisted the temptation. A threat might require her attention; there was simply no time, even in a place such as this one.
Her slow trot took her to another portion of the field of stars, one bathed in purple shades of light. To her left, a deafening rumbling marked the passage of a world-sized tempest, but she barely acknowledged it. What little reached her was not worth her attention either. The pull within was growing stronger. She could feel the source, and in the distance, her eyes caught sight of a star pulsing quickly.
A nightmare.
In other circumstances, it would be a simple matter to channel her power and bring an end to the fears of dreams. However, what made things complicated were the thin lines of light that hung just over the star, as would a net or a predator’s paw.
Her mouth twisted into a snarl, and she folded almost protectively over the dream of her subject. This she could not allow, and this she would not let continue. Power rose within her, coming in waves and torrents to coat the star under a protective shell.
Yet, she still took every precaution to avoid touching the tendrils herself. Her younger years had taught her much, and restraint was one of them. She did not wish to bring about another Tear or Shredding. Not in this place, not with so many of hers vulnerable.
There was light at the tip of her horn, and strain tensed her muscles. This would be a delicate work, yet also one that required haste. She was not certain she would be able to do both.
Her knowledge of the Ethereal Realms was unequaled within and without the Mortal World.
But this, she did not know of.
~~
I was running.
“Oh God!”
The path was darkened, difficult to see under the foliage and easy to stumble on. The branches were long and reached across my only safe way to scratch my clothes. The only sounds were steps, sobs and howls to the moon.
“This can’t be happening!”
The hunt was alive.
“It can’t be real!”
And I was running for my life.
Shadows moved between the bushes on each my sides, always at my height, always reminding me that I could only keep moving on the path. Deviating meant a swifter death than the one creeping on me. The howling behind was steadily becoming louder, a reminder of the inevitable. I was keeping ahead, through some miracle or another, until my foot collided with a root sticking out and my whole body tumbled head over heels.
(Of course I tripped.)
The hit splayed me on the dirt, chin first, perhaps. I was lying on my chest, but the moment I had fallen had been hazy, almost like it hadn’t happened.
But the fear was still very real. It rose to greater heights still, when the thought came to me that I had momentarily passed out. Faster than I ever remembered doing, I tried standing up.
I was on my knees when the growl reached me, and everything went still.
Blood froze in my veins, stiffening my entire body. Any second now, and it would be the end. In my mind, I was still reviewing every possibility.
There was no path anymore, only the trees and the bushes and the monsters ready to leap out. The third one had reached its comrades and readied itself to end my life.
(Details. It had to be in the details.)
I was cold, hungry, barefooted and carrying nothing except my clothes. I had nothing useful within arms’ reach beside blades of grass and twigs. I could barely see well enough to know where my soon-to-be killers would spring from.
My heart sank in my chest.
There was nothing I could use. All I could think of were insignificant, meaningless details.
I had tripped, but there had been no pain. None. Adrenaline was pumping in my veins faster with every one of my maddened heartbeat. I could feel the panic; it was in everything I looked at. In the shadows of the trees, in the breaking of branches, in the glow of the wolves’ eyes. I could not see anything else but those two shining yellow circles beyond the trees, nor could I even feel my own body. I could not feel a thing, other than panic, fear, terror.
I was going to die.
And my last moments were going to be filled with nothing but this numbing, abject horror. Everything else was dulled.
Even things that shouldn’t, a little voice said in my mind, and the thought gave me a pause.
Without my noticing, something in the air changed as I pondered this newfound question.
No ache in my legs from running at full speed despite my lack of athletics. No burning in my lungs. No shortness of breath. No cold sweat.
No pain despite the fall.
No shoes despite the fact that I had been outside.
How had I even gotten into a forest? My apartment was in the middle of the suburbs. A nice little flat I shared with a crazy roommate, all in cheap furniture, frozen food and beer. The typical student deal, with a typical landlord and a typical part-time job to pay for the bills.
So how had I even gotten lost in the forest that had to be miles away from my home? No matter how hard I thought about it, there was just no answer coming. My mind was a complete blank. There were hours missing from my memories.
Why? Why, why, why?! What stupidity had brought me in this place with naught but the clothes on my back in the middle of the night?!
The wolves still hadn’t attacked me.
Spinning on myself, I looked in their direction, convinced that there would be a pair of jaws leaping at me. It was not only a lack of balance that made me falter, when no attack came. I was still standing in the woods, the three pair of eyes still trailing on me, but not coming closer. Whereas they had been chasing me before, now they were hesitant, and it struck me as odd.
Finally, I could look at the animal chasing me, and things clicked.
“Timberwolves don’t exist,” I said in the ensuing silence.
Rays of moonlight suddenly shone with greater strength, falling down from the heavens to shed away the darkness shrouding my pursuers, and their bodies looked wrong. They were of twigs and wood and leaves, with joints that were not joined together and fangs that were stakes protruding from a log-like jaw. Their breath was a noxious cloud that smelled of nothing.
But more so, the true wrongness was their complete lack of depth.
To look at them was to look at a drawing come to life. Even with shades and moonlight contrasting on their forms, I could not in any way see them as tridimensional creatures. Only an elaborate optical illusion at best, but nothing that could live.
The realization hit me like a truck, and I started laughing. “This is a dream.”
In that split second of understanding, I had known what would happen next. Everything had become clear, like a veil being lifted, and it had made me grin to see the monsters coming out of their lethargy. I had allowed it to happen, in a way.
“This is my dream,” I told the leaping timberwolf.
My fist flew into its wooden jaws with greater strength than I had, and instead of the cracking of my bones, the yelps of a canine’s agony rang loudly into the forest. Even that didn’t last long, with the timberwolf’s body coming apart. They were such fragile things.
Even a pebble could tear them into pieces, I thought, looking up. Which was what the wolves did when they saw a large shadow start to cover them.
Unfortunately for them, neither had the time to jump out of the way. Their entire bodies were grinded into dust by an unexpected pair of meteors. Truly, no place on this good earth was completely safe from cosmic accidents.
I looked at the house-sized rocks that had ended my would-be assailants’ lives, a grin slowly overtaking my face. Elation bubbled up inside me, and I glanced up to the moon with a weakness in my knees. Perhaps it was just my mind reeling from the shock, but damn, that had actually been on par with a heart attack. Doubtlessly, my body would be covered in cold sweat when I awoke.
For now though, I could just rejoice in taking control of my dreams for the remainder of the night. After a brief encounter with some timberwolves, those regenerating bas-
Oh, right… I realized, turning to look at the body of the first beast.
The broken twigs twitched while an unearthly glow started to seep out of the pieces of wood. Every tree nearby shook on its foundations, branches pulled by an irresistible force, roots pushing against the earth. A shiver went down my spine when a few leaves brushed past my cheeks, all floating in the same green-yellow light.
Before my eyes, the forest’s material collapsed unto itself, slowly remolding into a vaguely familiar shape, one whose head dominated even the tallest tree, one whose body eclipses the moon in the sky.
A giant timberwolf, not unlike another I had seen before, loomed over me. Dark promises shone in its glowing gaze then, but the power it had on me had dwindled at the same time as the fear. Was that all my subconscious was capable of at this point? A bigger wolf?
“Two can play that game,” I said, and met its challenge. If they wanted to play it that way, I would make sure they would regret it.
My form changed. I did not grow bigger, far from it, but my limbs were reshaped at once. Things were a blur, something vague and impossible to feel right, for even my subconscious could not fathom what a transformation truly was like. The bones in my joints creaked and whined while they changed, the muscles protested and the way my face stretched was just plain weird, yet… I felt little of that. I had not even the pain to show for it.
But when it was done, I was standing on fours hooves and mine was a most cocky grin.
“I’ll show you how it’s done!”
It was easy.
When he roared, I jumped. When he lashed out, I put up a shield. When he struggled, I came down on his body like a burning comet.
Black of body and red of mane, I was a shining beacon of overly edginess. With my supreme power, I could make quick work of anything I wanted to. And I did. Standing on the charred remains of the King Timberwolf, I reared in triumphed and boasted to the moon, “One more win for the overpowered original character! Hell yeah!”
It bore repeating. Lucid dreams felt absolutely awesome for the ego. I could recall now why I had looked into it in the first place. For as long as I slept tonight, I would be in complete control of my dreams and what direction they could take. If I wanted to experiment in remaking the universe, I could, and not just because I was currently a trotting cliché!
I was the god of my dreams, and turning myself into an alicorn was just a perfect way for my mind to express how much of a Gary Stu that made me. Technically, I could easily have things unfold just like I wanted them to, with no effort on my part too.
“Well, what next?” I said to myself. “There are so many things I could try right now.”
The blood in my veins was still pumping fast, and there was a shiver shaking my feathers. The possibilities were literally endless; they only needed be chosen to become ‘real’. What then? A superspy’s newest mission, me taking over the role of a main character in an epic role-playing game, the newest galactic overlord defending the worlds against the chaos? As soon as the ideas came to me, I discarded them. They were good, but not perfect.
In the end, the answer was right there, in front of me.
“Equestria, huh?” I muttered, looking at the hooves I’d given myself. “That could be fun. Elements of Harmony, epic quest and falling in love with Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. All in a cutesy setting. Yeah, sounds good to me.”
I shot the darkened forest one last look, and there was no need convincing myself to leave it behind. I could do without this place, thank you very much. Closing my eyes, I felt the temperature change from chilly to comfortable as a shift in the air. Next, to actual arrive somewhere…
Soooo… I thought, shuffling through a few memories, Equestria, Equestria, Equestria… Ah, there!
On that moment, the atmosphere shifted, tilted into something different. The cold moon above suddenly ignited, transforming the night into day with a burst of flashing fire, shining on the lands and me in one fell swoop. And my body suddenly felt emerged under ice. Eyes widening, I gasped, stumbling, out of breath and choking. The world kept changing, yes, but so unlike it had always done. Whereas before they would always stretch or collapse into newer shapes and colors, the landscape broke apart into cascades of dust. I was standing, one knee in the ground, in a circle of white dust as wide as a clearing, with nothing beyond.
A slight tremor rippled across the ground, moving pebbles with clicking sounds, and I could not help take a step back. Just changing a bit slowly today, s’all, I told myself as the grains went from white to more vivid beige. I even felt almost comfortable enough to grin, but then… then came a word so loud, so mind-numbingly loud, that it tore through the sky and ripped it asunder.
NO.
Darkness came.
I saw nothing, heard nothing but a too high-pitched noise ringing and ringing, and felt nothing but the cold and the night and the cry reaching deep under my skin. Its echoed did not stop, kept on growing stronger, threatening to split my head open and to tear my dreamself to shreds as surely as it did the world.
I might have screamed. I might have thrashed, I might have struggled. None of it was known to me.
But one moment I was drifting in nothing, the next I was standing in an idyllic place.
“What…” I shook my head, gritting my teeth and flinching at the muffled ringing in my ears. “What was that?”
Breathing fast, I looked down to the grass under my hooves and up to the sun washing me down with heat. Twisting, I turned around, my grasp on things still too weak to understand where I was. Yet, my frantic examination came to a halt before the scenery I was a witness to.
Before me was the sea. A vast, nearly endless body of crystal-like water, clearer than it had a right to be. A home not mine, never to be mine and in size that was humbling ever in a dream.
My mind was sent flying, my bodiless consciousness being suddenly made to seek the sights that came in hundreds. Shards of colors reflected on the surface, breaking apart the images of fishes, corals and debris into mere fragments that I could only weakly attempt to remake under the shining surface of the sea. Brown scales, red scales, green scales, fins, tails, eyeless or limbless, flat teeth broken into fangs. Then, with strength that lifted the waters between us, a darker shape grew bigger under me. And bigger. And bigger still with some details becoming visible. An impossible long tail swung underneath that form. A parting increased the form’s width, two long curved fangs now within sight of me, and a pair of slitted yellow eyes looked straight at me.
I came to my senses reeling, sand sliding beneath my body. A yelp echoed in the air, and, feeling the salty wind of the sea brushing inside of my mouth, I realized the outburst had been mine. I was still on the beach, still a pony and still very much alive.
That was… weird.
Had I subconsciously wished to have an out-of-body experience? And what had that thing been?
Gulping, I shot a fearful look to the sea, now more of a trap than a site of wonder. With all my strength, I hoped that this would not turn into another nightmare. It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t, but then again… the way I had gotten here…
The waves broke unto the sand, splashing loud and far before claiming back whatever debris they had carried previously and swallowing them under the surface. Each time, the noise seemed too loud, too much like a roar to allow me peace of mind. Was this really Equestria?
“Did it work? Was that just me losing control?” I asked the empty air, which was another worrying detail. Normally, when I was having a lucid dream, I liked making background characters appear just to hold a conversation. Here? Nothing. Just the wind and the waves. “Hellooooooo? Is there anypony around?!”
My ears twisted on my head, trying to catch anything similar to a voice. I needed not make so much effort, in hindsight.
“Help!” shouted some woman.
To my shock, they just appeared right there, right in front of me.
I stood there, stunned by the strange flat characters running across the beach. Without my prompting, my eyesight zoomed unto the two of them, the first of which I knew had fur, but looked uniformly colored, like another drawing. Yet, this time, that was not what my mind focused on.
Kicking sand with every step, the young unicorn mare was galloping as fast as she could. Her breathing came in shallow pants, half cut by sobs, and glittering drops fell from her cheeks without pause. Behind her, looming, there was a monstrous crab, tall as a house and furiously chasing after her.
For a split second, I saw the forest again, and yellow eyes growing closer and closer…
“Have no fear!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “I will help you!”
Dream, my dream, this is still my dream. I am the one in control!
A giant crab really wasn’t that creepy. In comparison. This one even ran forward instead of sideways. Scientific inaccuracies made it less scary. Fact!
The less realistic the monster, the easier to convince myself. When I willed my wings open, I flew. Knowledge of their use was not needed, it all worked if I decided it did. Dream logic.
I landed on my hind legs, causing a shockwave to lift up the entirety of the sand on the beach.
“Fear not, for your savior, Sir Doom Mac Darknight, has arrived!” I shouted, only for the whole thing to fall flat in a pregnant silence.
Okay, not even god-like powers could convince people that was a good name. Luckily, no one but me would ever know this had happened. The only witnesses were a crab and a mare, and no one would listen to them back home. Of the two, only one would get out of this encounter alive. So, yeah, all working out pretty well so far.
The dust settled down; the giant crab coming forward with its pinchers clicking with an implied threat. It advanced more slowly in face of a newer threat, or maybe that was time dilating to allow me a better look. The crab’s shell looked matted even under the sun’s rays, patches of sand still sticking to its body. Its legs carried it closer, its weird mandible thingies rubbing together.
“You cannot win,” it said with a deep reverberating voice, “your stubbornness will only delay the inevitable. I shall feast on this insolent creature who has poached my hunting territories and nopony, not even you, will be able to stop me.”
One eye twitching, I pointed my horn at its body.
The rest turned horribly graphic. I had a vast repertoire of horror stories, dark adventures and pure gore fests to fuel my imagination. Being turned inside out was that crab’s least of worries. Being burned alive was second lowest as well. There was just a part of me that had rejoiced and refused to stop after being told ‘no’. My dream, my rules! No more fear for my life tonight. I was sick of it.
So, yes, maybe – just maybe – I was taking my frustrations out on that innocent crustacean. It might have been chasing a damsel in distress at the time, intent on killing her and eating her corpse, but a few things I had done could be considered overkill in retrospect. The cycle of resurrection and violent deaths was one of those things.
I’d be kinder on the next giant crab I met, I decided.
Leaving behind the crushed remains of the monster, I turned to look at the mare my lucid dreaming had saved. The experience likely had been traumatizing, for she flinched when I moved closer. Her pupils had shrunk to tiny dots in her eyes, and her legs were shaking.
“Customary heroic greetings, milady,” I said with a noble and rich tone, kneeling. “May I hope you were not hurt by this foul monster?”
“I-I… no…” she stuttered, seemingly unable to quite process what had happened.
“Good,” I said, rising to my full height again, feeling a bit playful.
Laughing on the inside, I took a pose, rolling the musculature of my handsome built and flexing my wings like I would biceps. A slight shake of my head made my mane whip into the wind, and sparkles of pure beauty floated all around my face. My smile turned blindingly pretty. “It would have been such a shame if a pretty thing like you had suffered.”
But instead of showering me with gratitude, the mare winced, her eyes narrowing in pain.
That… wasn’t what I had expected. Was the color scheme really that irritating for the eyes?
As if reading my thoughts, the mare suddenly looked mortified by her reaction. She stepped forward, ears drooped down and lowering her head in a posture of humbleness. Her horn spluttered to life then, cursorily brushing against me in search of possible injuries, while her mouth started running just a smidge too fast.
“O-oh Celestia! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… sorry, I can’t… That was mean, and you just saved me, a-a-and I can’t believe I did that. Celestia, I’m sorry! I swear, I’m really really sorry. H-here, let me just–”
With a flinch, I stepped back away from her. My skin still tingled where her magic had last touched me and a shiver ran down my spine. The backside area was off limit, at least until she turned into a human woman.
“Alright, alright, citizen of Equestria.” I raised my hooves to placate her. “I was only passing by. No need to adore me.”
But it would be nice. A hamac, a handful of grape, a palm tree fan; the worshipping gig. Being an alicorn has to pay off. Make me your king! Come on, dream, you can do it.
The mare blinked slowly, as if coming to her senses again. With any luck…
“You saved my life! I… I cannot let this debt go unpaid!”
Jackpot.
“Yes, I suppose I did.” I did a wing shrug, glancing at the fleshy soup that had been a living creature before. “It may have been motivated in part by me dreaming of fighting a giant crab for some time, but yes, I did save you.”
Bowing, she kneeled so low her horn touched the sand. “Will you at least let me show you my gratitude?”
I grinned. This is getting interesting.
“By all means, show me, Miss…”
Here, I paused, wondering what her name could possibly be. She was a lithe mare, thinner than the norm I recalled without being alicorn-like alas Fleur-Dis-Lee. Her mane was a bit ruffled, likely from the chase, and her cutie mark seemed to be a large fish. No, nothing was particularly impressive about a small grey mare like that.
“Small Pond,” she helpfully provided, and I felt the urge to snicker at my own poor naming sense.
At least, I managed to keep it under wrap. Dream extra as she might be, it still felt a bit impolite to laugh in her face about how bad I was at puns. Cleverly, I placed a hoof in front of my mouth and motioned for her to go on with the other. Balance was not needed to stand anyway.
Small Pond either did not notice or was not programmed to care. “We only need to go back to my village and I will be able to give you something in return for your help.”
Nodding, I invited her to take the lead, which she did in the space of an instant. The longer time went on with the giant crab still dead, the more her confidence seemed to return. Together, we went on trotting for hours and days.
Though, honestly, it felt instantaneous to me.
One second, we had been trotting together on the beach; the next, we were arriving at the entrance of a coastal village. Of course, Small Pond did not notice the transition. She simply trotted ahead of me without a care for the mechanics of dreams, like the fact that the sun had set over the horizon twice during our trip and that neither of us had gotten hungry, thirsty nor had a need to execute any other bodily function. That had been a bit too fast for me; I would have appreciated getting a moment to smell the flowers. Equestria, guys. Dream Equestria, but it was Equestria nonetheless.
Frowning, I focused my attention on the collection of houses before us. Small Pond seemed to pause in mid-step, but a closer look revealed that none of her hooves were touching the ground. Her face was frozen in a relieved smile, and her eyes were looking straight at one of the bigger houses. Hers? Probably. They looked rather similar to me.
It was a bit strange, to be honest. In a normal dream, I wouldn’t question the lack of depth that came up over and over, but this village looked more like a picture of a village to me. The houses, most of them elevated about sand-level, seemed glued in front of each other till the very moment we passed them by. Then, they were flat but from another angle. It was like that for all of them, for all of those houses of knitted bamboo and palm tree leaves. It was the very picture of a tropical beach town.
This village is not in the show… I thought, trying to recall a name that might fit it. Nothing came.
A strange blurry smudge was covering the welcoming sign near the road, hiding what was likely yet another horse pun.
Well, it does look like it could be… Good work, Subconscious!
Satisfied, I went to poke Small Pond’s shoulder, who suddenly started moving again as if time had never been stopped.
“Wel–…” She looked behind her, then back to me. “How did you move so fast?”
“Alicorn,” I said with a cocky shrug.
“Right. I had forgotten about you, the secret prince that Celestia was hiding from everypony,” she said. “With how many new alicorns show up, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were to become the next one.”
I blinked. What?
That… hadn’t been in the script at all.
“Well, nevermind that. We’re here, my hometown. Good ol’ Horseshoe Bay.” She gestured to the houses around us, then resumed her trot toward the big home down the street.
Now much less confident, I followed in her hoofsteps, trying to figure out the meaning of her innocent comment. It sounded like dream logic, to roll with the punches and accept at face-value, but that hadn’t been what I wanted out of her. And with that in mind, it was easier to notice some of the villagers’ strange attitudes.
Like that old stallion picking grains of sands one by one and building a monument from them, or the group of foals playing guards and thieves with real spellstaves that shot laser beams.
Admittedly, that wasn’t quite how a pony should act, but it also reminded me of a previous dream of mine. I had been a store clerk forced to count lettuce until dawn; failure to do so would have unleashed a zombie apocalypse. Wisely, I decided to leave those ponies, and any other weirdo I might notice, to their dreamed tasks.
Small Pond finally reached the larger house, which seemed to be the size of a castle now that we were closer, and she headed straight for a podium standing in the middle of the road. Reaching inside, she took out a megaphone and casually broke my eardrums.
“Everypony, please, listen to me!” she said with the strength of three Sonic Rainbooms.
I blinked and there was a crowd in front of us.
“Two days ago,” Small Pond spoke to them without missing a beat, “I was attacked by a giant crab while looking for seashells. It would have taken my life had it not been for the intervention of this stallion.”
Loud cheers erupted from the mass of blank-stared ponies, all of them acclaiming my name and those of my ancestors in various states of euphoria.
Not to be outdone, the lucky pony created to be saved by my awesome self shouted above the crowd, “I have brought him here with me today, in the hopes that you would show him the way Horseshoe Bay thanks their benefactors! So, please, give a warm welcome to Sir Doom Mac Darknight!”
Spotlight descended from nowhere to illuminate my body, and the light reacted with some hidden power of mine to make me shine like a thousand stars, but without harming any innocent pony’s eyes. Silence fell, as the crowd looked at me as one.
They.
Winced.
Yes, it was how I would actually reacted to being shown something so pastel and flashy, but this was starting to get plain weird. My own ideas on how to get welcomed by a town after saving a citizen did not involve this kind of reactions. There were more flower bouquets and nubile beautiful villagers thrown at me.
Heck, if this stupid on-the-fly cliché was so much trouble, I wasn’t going to stay like that! So, discreetly, while every pony was paying attention to Small Pond, I focused, scrunched up my face, and willed my hoof to change from black and red to more unassuming colors. That much would at least put the locals at ease, or so I figured, but there was another problem.
I stared longer, even giving that leg a little shake in the air, with a creeping feeling of unease.
Why aren’t my colors changing?