//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Dream of Shadows // Story: Acceptance // by Meatabex //------------------------------// I tossed and turned. Shaking my head, I mumbled. What had happened? My mane was no longer wet, but instead back to its usual dryness. I looked around. I was lying on a cot made of some grassy material. “It is not the first time that folk have asked me to cure poison joke,” a voice, with what sounded like a Caribbean accent, called out from behind a massive cauldron. The large cistern was in the middle of the room that I inhabited, and hung around the walls were various seemingly cultural objects. “Apparently, you must’ve stepped in something,” the doctor muttered, and I turned to look at him. All the magical fantastic feelings that I got from looking at him the last time I had seen him had disappeared. It was just Doctor Whooves now. “And that stuff made you faint, so I brought you and Derpy over to Zecora over here. She’s a zebra, actually, I find it really interesting that there are other sentient creatures on this planet...” I looked to the ground, embarrassed by what had happened. He looked at me. “Oh, sorry, you must be getting bored by my ramblings. Anyways, we’re safe, right now, and hopefully, we’ll be able to get back to Ponyville soon.” “Um, ok.” I nervously shifted around on my cot. “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened...” “Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” he said calmly. “it was the poison joke that you stepped on!” “Poison what!?” I asked incredulously. "When Poison joke is up to its antics It can turn the shiest of mares to romantics." A striped head emerged from behind the cauldron, and a short striped mohawk-type mane followed. Zecora was obviously a zebra, no doubt about it. Around her neck were a group of golden rings. As she crossed around the massive pot, I could see there were similar bands on her right foreleg. On each ear, an additional two rings hung. Her mane was also a striped black and white color, white closer to the underbelly, and black plastering her back. “The enchanting plant basically plays jokes on anypony unfortunate enough to walk over it,” the Doctor explained. “Like you. You basically let your emotions do... what they did...” “Yes,” I giggled nervously, “I’m really sorry. I’m not like that at all, you know?” “Yeah, I can...tell...” he lowered his head uncomfortably. I also lowered my head in shame. “I go back to finishing the cure, just in case, to be sure.” The striped animal ducked into a storeroom. Deep inside, I was trying to uncover my feelings. Did I really like the doctor? I mean, I was nervous, if I had recalled, from when I first met him. Was the poison joke just causing me to express my innermost thoughts? Or maybe, it had reversed my strange abilities, causing myself to amplify my own feelings instead of others? Or perhaps, had I felt it all along, and just decided that the secluded environment was a good time to reveal it to him? I remembered how I chased after the doctor when he had left to go after Derpy. At first, I believed that it was for Derpy’s sake, but now I wasn’t sure. I had been nervous to let him go, because he knew about Earth, and was certainly not from Equestria. “So,” I tried to start a conversation again, “how’s Derpy?” “Oh!” the doctor seemed happy with the change of subject, “she’s doing fine. In fact, she should be waking up around now, I suppose. She doesn’t have any bad injuries, just a few bruises.” “What happened between you two, if you don’t mind me asking?” I sat up in my cot. “I mean, she said if it weren’t for her...” “Oh, yes...” the doctor coughed, and cleared his throat, “yes, well, when I first arrived here, I was stuck in the forests for a day, and I was hopeless. Finally, Derpy showed up, flying through the forests like it was no big deal. That’s when I first learned she was a mailmare. She was delivering mail to Zecora, and then led me to Ponyville. She was also the first one to introduce me, and got me a house! I really deserve to thank her more than I did.” “So then,” I asked, “why did you become so upset with Derpy not cleaning your house up?” “Situations, of course,” his eyes suddenly became rather shifty as he looked from Derpy to Zecora, who was busy mixing some herbs up in the giant pot of hers. Turning to me, he whispered: “I had just figured out why my space-time machine had stopped working. The gyro stabilizers in the lower mechanism just weren’t at the correct mercurial capacity, which threw off my calculations by a long shot. Enough to land on this planet, Equestria, or marked by my star chart as EQ-U327R14. How ironic!” “But how did you end up as a pony?” I pondered, “how did I end up as a pony?” “I have no idea,” he muttered, “it may have something to do with the environmental pressures, or something. I have a theory a virus was programmed to re-activate our dormant DNA so that it would begin to shape us like how we are.” “Oh,” I guess it made sense, but I had not paid attention in my chemistry class, so I had no idea what Doctor Whooves was talking about. I was slightly confused still, as to why I was a girl. And as to how I appeared in Equestria without a time machine, which was how the doctor supposedly got here. “But, I didn’t have a time machine...” “Yes, that is strange,” he mused. “A human from your time period would have never possessed the technological advances required for space-time travel. And in any case,” he continued, putting a hoof to his chin, “the time machine wasn’t with me when I appeared on Equestria. I assumed that it had burned up in the atmosphere, but now I’m not so sure, as the heat would’ve killed me as well.” “Wait, so you don’t have the machine?” I slumped back into bed, defeated. “That means I’ll never be able to get back home...” “Well, that’s why I was so excited...” the doctor mumbled sheepishly, and my ears perked up. “Earlier, I was able to replicate the time traveling properties in a test chamber with a parasprite,” I looked up, confused, and he explained, “oh, a parasprite is one of the local critters around here. Don’t worry, they’re not endangered or anything. Rather, they’re a common pest, and I can only hope I didn’t throw off the ecological balance of any planet by introducing it. But still,” he cleared his throat, “um, well, it seemed to have worked, as the parasprite vanished without any trace elements of any kind. Although, this could have been easily emulated by bombarding the parasprite with antimatter.” “Which does, what?” I asked. “Oh, antimatter just destroys any nearby matter, resulting in a brilliant flash of energy and radiation, which was exactly what happened,” the doctor explained gleefully. “Um, cool,” I was still confused. “So it basically destroys anything it touches?” “Exactly!” he exclaimed. “Oh,” I tried to hide the fact that I was freaking out that the “time machine” could potentially zap me into oblivion. “So, now what?” “Assuming that you’re telling the truth, and you are from Earth,” the doctor continued, “it would be wise to stay around Ponyville until I manage to fix up a new time machine. Hopefully, I’ll be able to return you back to your regular time, although your form,” he gestured to my hooves, “will likely remain the same.” “I can’t do that!” I cried. I couldn’t go back to Earth as a pony! First off, some government or other would probably capture me and use me as a science experiment or some other. Second off, how would I be able to return to my normal life as a pony? I couldn’t risk it. “There’s gotta be a way for me to become human again!” I flapped my wings furiously. “Don’t panic!” the doctor said frantically, “chances are that it’ll take years to finish the time machine-” “What?” I spat. “Years? How long exactly?” The doctor gulped. “Around five years.” I turned away, facing away from the doctor, and slumped even further down. I couldn’t deal with being a pegasus for five whole years! “And by then, we may find a cure for...” His talking was drowned out by my thoughts. Already, I felt like the world was trying to kill me, it was bad enough that I had accidentally expressed feelings for somepony I barely knew... wrong feelings, too... Even as I thought by myself in my lament, I still debated to myself whether I meant to say and do the things I did to him. It did feel good at the time... but it was something I’d never done before, who was to tell me if it was right or wrong? And was it even real, or was it a dream? I then remembered. I can read pony’s feelings, right? I focused on Doctor Whooves, and tried to pick out any feelings or sentiments emanating from him, but I felt nothing. I sat up. “What happened after I blacked out?” I asked. “Well,” the doctor coughed a little, “after you fainted, I just dragged you and Derpy to Zecora’s, here.” I remembered Derpy again, and looked around for her. Spotting her on a nearby cot, I sighed. I was glad she was alive, and returned my attention to the Doctor. “Was I awake or anything?” I asked. “Not really, although now that I come to think of it,” he muttered, “you were saying something over and over again in your sleep. I can’t remember it.” “Oh,” I didn’t know I talked in my sleep. “Did you... step in the...” “Oh no!” he laughed nervously. “I skipped by the area. There’s only a rare patch near the entrance of the Everfree, and you just happened to go into it.” “Oh, well,” I shifted my legs nervously, “did it... really... happen...?” My voice dried up, and I looked up at him, heart pounding. “Oh...” he cleared his throat again. “I... do believe so... that you... erm...” “I’m so sorry,” I hid under my hooves. I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t bear it. So it was real. I began to cry. It was so embarrassing. I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t right. “No, no no no no,” he shushed me, and grabbed a handkerchief to dab my eyes, which were streaming with tears. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” For a long time, we just sat there, the doctor occasionally dabbing at my eyes with the cloth. As soon as I calmed down, he took the handkerchief away, and held my hooves with his. “You’ll be alright. You’ll be fine... shhh....” My thoughts had now consumed me, the fact that I really did do it, combined with the possibility that the doctor would hate me for the rest of his life. In fact, it was certain. The doctor hated me. I hated myself. I was nothing. “It’s not your fault.” He repeated it, almost for his own benefit, it sounded, as much as for mine. “I don’t think any differently about you.” “You... don’t?” I whimpered. It was as though a fire had rekindled in my heart. I hugged him fiercely, and he, surprised, patted me on the head.  There was still a cold area, though, where my darkest question remained. I knew I had to ask it, or it would forever dampen my insides. “So... did you... like it?” I whispered. I could barely hear myself. “What?” he asked. “Did you... like... the...” I stopped, and just sat. He understood what I was trying to say. I tried to feel if there were any emotions coming from the doctor, but I couldn’t. It was strange, like a shield was in the way of his mind. “I mean... it was,” the doctor was about to say something, but then a yellow and grey blur flew caught him around the back, and tugged him to the floor. It was Derpy. I suddenly felt lucky that I hadn’t said it out loud, because Derpy would’ve heard, and I didn’t feel comfortable sharing the kind of information with anyone else at the moment. Laughing, Doctor Whooves got up, and hugged the mailmare, who giggled, and returned the hug. “Derpy,” he said, “I really missed you. I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I didn’t mean to.” I felt a stab of pain. Why was I feeling pain? I shook my head. Then I realized the pain was envy. I was jealous of Derpy. I wished I was the one hugging the doctor. “It’s ok,” Derpy chirped cheerfully. “it was my fault, running into the forest, getting mad at you, and everything.” The doctor, in all his cheerfulness, managed to shoot a quick smile to me. I smiled back, not sure what it meant. “Well, you two managed to drag me out into the Everfree, which is a record, I think.” Derpy gave me a sheepish smile. “Actually,” the doctor corrected, “I had to drag both of you out of that forest.” “Wait,” Derpy’s smile disappeared. “What happened to Leafwing?” Shudders of nervousness tingled through my body. I made a quick scared glance at Doctor Whooves, as if to tell him not to tell the truth. He looked at me knowingly, and, turning to Derpy, cleared his throat to speak. “Well, Leafwing fainted after meeting the Manticore. It was rather,” he glanced at me again, with a glint of awareness, “shocking.” He’s talking about my kiss. I realized. But... what does he mean? “I think she... burnt out in the heat of the moment.” I ducked my head below my hair, as if to hide my humility, but my cheeks flushed and grew warm. How could he? He betrayed me! I know Derpy knows now... I felt absolutely terrible. Why would he go and be so blunt about what happened? “That makes sense!” Derpy laughed. “It’s ok Leafwing! It happens all the time to me.” Her laugh killed me. Now she was making fun of me. She was insinuating that it had happened to her too, and all the time as well, huh? How could he? I thought, I’ll show him! And her! “Really...” I said indignantly, and quickly got up onto all fours. “HOW COULD YOU?!?” I yelled, facing the doctor. “Huh?” Derpy and Whooves both said simultaneously. “Now Derpy knows!” I retorted. He seemed increasingly confused. He was a good actor, but I knew better. “You backstabbing freak!” “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Leafwing,” he stammered. “I think the poison joke is still affecting you-” “Poison joke?” Derpy asked, worried. “Oh no...” “I’m leaving,” I started. The doctor stood in front of me. “No,” he said sternly. “You can’t go. The herbs haven’t taken full effect yet-” I wasn’t sure how, but at some point my wings had started flapping, and I cleanly flew over him. “I’m leaving,” I growled, “and I’m not going to burn out ever again. Not in front of you.” Then I turned to Derpy, “and you can stop making fun of me, you...  you... flirt!” In a blind rage, I stormed out of the shack. I thought I heard them calling after me, but I didn’t stop. Their voices were drowned out by my increasingly painful thoughts. He doesn’t care... he never cared. I shouldn’t care. As I moved farther and farther from the hut, my thoughts slowly turned from envy and rage to self-hatred. No, it’s me. I thought. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve known I was gonna get hurt. The Doctor was right. The poison joke is still in me. Derpy didn’t know, I was being paranoid. It’s my fault. I thought I had a chance. In my rage, I had stumbled back into the thick forest, and now, I had no idea where I was. Tripping over another stone, I slammed into the floor. My vision blurred, and I realized that my tears were clouding my eyes. I coughed, and wiped away a tear, only to have more well up. Wailing, I galloped as fast as I could, trying to distance myself from the slowly decreasing sounds of those ponies that hurt me... that I hurt... I couldn’t go back now. Not after I yelled after them, and wrongly too. I deserved to live in the forest for the rest of my life. They hated me, I hated myself. Surrendering myself to my feelings, I collapsed to the floor, convulsing in cries, hiccups, and weeps. Eventually I trailed off into a trail of useless gibbering. ----- I woke up. I had fallen asleep while crying, and now, I had found myself in a shaded place. My coat felt slightly wet, and I realized that the cave felt rather damp. I got onto all fours, and looked around. It seemed I was in a small cave, and the entrance in the front opened up to the forest. Somehow, I must’ve had wandered in here while crying. I looked around at the rock walls. Many had carvings of various animals on the walls, probably from indigenous ponies or some other. However, one carving on the far side of the cave caught my eye. I wandered over to it, eyes adjusting to the darkness. As I got closer, I recognized the shapes. Immediately, I backed away a bit in shock, and gasped. Humans. There were carvings of humanoid creatures all over the walls. Most were upright, holding primitive spears, and wearing crudely drawn clothing. However, one on the bottom looked almost like... a normal guy. He was wearing a beanie cap, and a striped shirt with jeans. Surprisingly, for a cave drawing, it was drawn rather well, with all body proportions correct. In fact, it almost seemed realistic. This was really strange. Twilight said that there was no such thing as a human, right? The ponies didn’t seem to have any records of humans. So then where did these come from? I looked at the leftmost carving again, which was the one with the spear. Suddenly, a shadow began to appear, closing in on the left of the carving. I whipped my head towards the cave entrance. Something was closing the hole! I ran to get to the entrance, but I was too late. A boulder was quickly sliding into place, blocking my exit. My muzzle smacked against the rock, and I flew back. Growling, I flapped my wings, and leapt back onto my feet. Slamming my body against the rock edge, I pushed as hard as I could, flapping my wings for extra propulsion, trying to keep the remaining space open. “Ugh!” I pushed harder, but in vain. As the crack of light slowly vanished, I found myself in pitch-blackness. My heart rate increased, and my eardrums thumped as my veins and arteries coursed in panic. “Let me out!” I screamed. A tiny echo sounded back. I was alone. Fear began to climb down my throat, and I choked as I tried to cry out. As abruptly as the boulder began to move, a flame burst in the center of the cave, lighting every nook and cranny of the area. I blocked my eyes to shield from the light, but once my eyes got used to it, I looked at it again. It was a strange green color, which created distorted shadows from tiny rocks and pebbles around the flame. My figure cast a long shadow against the wall. Looking at the dark shape that trailed my body, I realized something was really wrong. My shadow was the shadow of a human. I looked around again, in shock. Now the cave paintings were looking distorted. Many of the humans began to shift in the flickers caused by the flame. Some started to look scared, surprised. Some began to drop their spears, others opened their mouths in silent screams, some putting their hands to their mouths in shock. The one with the beanie cap, though, was the strangest. Its eyes began to turn blood red, and droplets of the same color began to permeate through his mouth onto the floor. The droplets hit the floor, and I noticed they were real. Soon, the droplets became a stream, and the stream produced a dark pool below the paintings. Backing up as far as I could from the blood, my flank pressed against the wall behind. But it was useless. The liquid crawled towards my hooves. I flapped my wings recklessly, but I couldn’t control them, and I plummeted into the pool. Somehow either the bottom of the cave had disappeared, or the blood was some kind of portal. Either way, I found myself holding my breath as I tried to swim back to the surface. However, I couldn’t claw my way up, and, legs flailing, I slowly sank farther. As I looked down through the red tint, I could see darkness reaching up to grab me. Screaming, but only producing bubbles, blood began to gush through my throat, into my lungs. Gnashing teeth, terrible eyes, black coat... “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Screaming, I thrashed about. I opened my eyes. It was all just a terrible dream. But it seemed so real. I shook my head, and my frizzy mane got in front of my face again. I noticed my mane was curly, wet, and much more unkempt than from before I had left the shack. I had to have stumbled through some hard brush and cried into my mane while I was sleeping. Remembering the events from yesterday, a sinking feeling pounded my stomach again. I couldn’t go back to Zecora’s hut. I glumly crept my way past bushes and trees again. A new sense of shame was coursing through me as the sleepiness cleared. I was ashamed of myself. I had abandoned two ponies that had obviously cared for me, and accused them of doing things they obviously hadn’t. My head was hanging so low I almost didn’t notice a patch of blue flowers along a path. It was those flowers. “Poison joke,” I muttered. “I wish it never existed-” Suddenly, I remembered something that Doctor Whooves said. There’s only a rare patch near the entrance of the Everfree, and you just happened to go into it. The entrance to the Everfree couldn’t be far away! I could make it back to Ponyville! I sped up to a fast paced run, following the path as though it was my lifeline. I went so fast, I didn’t see the object up the path. “Ow!” Hitting the object, I rolled across the ground, stunned, and tried to get back onto my feet. The object yelped out in pain. Strange. I looked up. The object was Lyra Heartstrings. “Lyra!” I leapt up, and tackled her to the ground. “Lyra! I missed you so much!” I half choked. “Leafwing!” she seemed delighted to see me. I hugged her tightly. She squeaked something unintelligible, and I finally released her. “What’s going on? What happened while I was gone?” I asked. She had a mixture of relief and terror plastered on her face. “I’m so glad you’re here, Leafwing,” she whispered. “Things had gone from bad to worse...” Her eyes darted from side to side, then she grabbed me, jumped behind a bush, pulling me along. “I’m not sure what happened,” Lyra started, “but yesterday, just when Vinyl, Bonbon, Octavia and I were planning to go into the forest to save you guys-” She looked around, and poked her head over the bushes to see if anypony else was around. “Where’s Derpy? And that Doctor guy?” “They’re safe,” I fibbed, not sure if they went out to the forest to look for me. “They’re at the zebra’s hut thing, last time I saw them.” “Oh! Zecora! I’m glad they’re ok,” Lyra breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, things went downhill after you three left. We were getting ready to find you guys, but then this strange dark cloud came down onto the town!” My stomach immediately felt queasy. “It came from the sky, and immediately it scared me, so I ran away, and I’ve been hiding here ever since.” “Black cloud?” I asked, worried. Lyra nodded. A black cloud. The idea made me shudder. I knew where I’d seen those before. “Wait, you’re saying it scared you?” Lyra nodded again. “I didn’t know what it was,” she continued, “but it really was scary. Kinda had a creepy feel to it, kind of like when before we knew Princess Luna, and she came to Ponyville.” I had no idea who this Luna pony was, but I shrugged as though I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Yea. So where are the others, then?” I asked. “I think they’re still in town,” Lyra shuddered, “but I have no idea how or why they’re still there. It’s creepy!” I thought about those ponies. Prim and proper Octavia. Brash and bold Vinyl. Responsible and sarcastic Bonbon. I couldn’t leave them. They were my first friends here that I really trusted, and I wasn’t going to leave them now. “We have to save them,” I said grimly. “We can’t just leave them in there!” “But it’s scary...” Lyra mumbled, shaking slightly. Her ears flopped to beside her face, and she seemed like the epitome of sadness. “We can do it,” I urged. “Remember how you said those six ponies always solved problems and saved the day?” “Y...yeah?” “I’m sure they’ve seen worse things than this.” I actually wasn’t sure if that was true, but I was running out of ideas, and Lyra didn’t seem too happy about going back to town. “I don’t know about that...” Lyra pressed her back farther against the bush. “Come on!” I was suddenly frustrated. “How could you abandon your friends like that? You’re not even going to try to save Vinyl, or Octavia, or Bonbon?” On Bonbon’s name, Lyra’s ears perked up. “You’re right,” she murmured quietly, and I could barely even catch what she said. Before I could say anything else, she began to sob. “How could I! How could I -sniff- just leave her like that? We were best friends, maybe... more, but -sniff- now I left her...” I hugged her, dabbing away her tears with my hooves. She was now trying to control her hiccups, which were starting to send her into minor convulsions. When she finally calmed down a little, I stood up. “You didn’t leave her. At least, not yet,” I comforted, dabbing another tear away. “you can still go back. If you want to, of course. I won’t stop you if you want to leave.” She continued to hiccup, staring at the flowers nearby. Obviously, she wanted to be left alone. Defeated, I stood up, and took a few steps towards the black cloud resembling Ponyville, when a voice interrupted me. “WAIT!” I turned to see Lyra walking out from behind the bush. “If I don’t go back,” she cried, “I’ll never be able to forgive myself.” She put a hoof onto my back. “I’m coming.”