Small Fry gulped down, trying futilely to calm down the mad thumping of his heart in his chest. In front of him, her tail of stars blazing and flicking, Princess Luna trotted with thunderous steps toward the end of the hallway. She gave no sense of stopping soon, despite the heavy bags under her eyes.
One well-meaning orderly attempted to inquire about her health and received a look of thunders and darkness in return. Nopony else showed half that mare's bravery afterward.
Together, Small Fry and Luna entered a small, dimly lit room. The flickering white light fizzled under the weight of one alicorn's power. The few flowers on the bedside table wilted, and a small card with a fried fish for a signature clattered to the ground. But those details did not register to the princess. "With you here, we may proceed."
The stallion nodded sharply.
“Inside the dream, you will need to focus. It is likely your surroundings will blur your mind into accepting everything as the tacit reality. Always aim to find discrepancies in what you see and experience. This will be your anchor to your mind. The shape of written words is a good clue for you. Remember it.”
Small Fry's eyes flickered to the figure on the bed before he took a deep breath. "I will, Princess," he said, but then spoke again with a lower pitch, darker voice, "that monster will not keep her under his control."
“Avoid him!" The order snapped like a whip. "Whatever you do, you must not let the dreamon come close to you. I have never met one as powerful as he, and his kind’s specialty lies in enthralling innocents.”
The stallion gulped at the implied threat, but he nodded all the same. At this, the princess briefly showed a small smile, before the serious of the situation returned in full force.
Small Fry was all too aware of his princess' grim state of mind. "H-how will I recognize him?" He forced out despite a stutter.
A shard of fondness shone in Luna's blue eyes. She laughed softly. "Believe me, fair subject, a dreamon is unmistakable within the dreamscape. They exist on a different level of perception than mortals. No disguise could ever hide one, no matter how clever or devious."
With great solemnity, she gestured toward the figure lying in the bed.
“Remember, your goal is to find your sister and break her away from her nightmare. The dreamon’s power will weaken drastically if we can get her to awaken. Leave the rest to me.”
Again, the stallion nodded in spite of his obvious anxiety. He raised no objection, but fixed his sister's body with a frightening intensity. The thought of her name came to him in echoes, both calm, joyful, or burning with rage. His heart skipped a beat in his chest, as he remembered the sound of breaking plates and raspy, ill-spirited comments.
And now, with her lying down in that bed, did it not seem so pointless? He bit his lips, barely restraining from drawing blood. Failure was not an option, neither of them would consider it.
Dark feathers rested on his back, warm and gentle. Looking up, he saw Luna's face, carved out in ice. “I will find him. He will get no chance to push me back this time. I will know his strength. I will not be taken by surprise again. But we must act swiftly.”
Small Fry spoke a few words of agreement, and placed himself near his sister's sleeping body. That was all the signal Luna needed.
Filaments of light spun from the tip of her horn and flew toward the stallion's forehead.
He blinked, then fell asleep.
--
I scowled at the smoking, smothered remains of the five shellfishes on the beach. This was an infestation! There was something fishy going on, pun not intended. Those things periodically swarmed the beach for the single-minded goal of pursuing a lone mare, whom, I might add, was obsessed with being in distress.
My eye twitched as said damsel called that idiotic name out loud, and with such cheer in her voice to boot. “Prince Sir Doom Mac Darknight!”
“William,” I corrected sharply. “Forget that stupid name, just go with William.”
The mare winced, taking a step back in the face of my anger. The wide smile she had previously sported had slid off her face like water, and her front legs folded under her.
“My… my apologies, Prince William,” Small Pond replied quietly, her ears flat.
The sight of her softened the burning anger in my chest, and now something twisted oddly in my stomach at her embarrassment. Wow, way to be a jerk, William. It's not like you told her that's your name before, right?
"Sorry about that," I muttered, grimacing. I really was just a big idiot sometimes. Wait, no, why am I--? Dream NPCs, William, they're all figments of your imagination glued together by your subconscious or something.
And the fact that a mare's sad face had any sort of effect on me should really be more worrisome.
Putting on an arrogant, carefree grin that I really did not feel, I nodded toward the unidentifiable remains in the background. “You know, I’m really starting to wonder what is up with all those giant idiots chasing after you.”
Startled, Small Pond tried to gather her wits at the sudden change in my tone and demeanour.
“I… I don’t know either, my prince,” she said, shifting on her hooves, her eyes darting toward the carcasses. No, she likely didn't know, but something had lit up in her gaze then. Something familiar.
She was not being entirely honest with me.
“Why were you even here in the first place?” I rolled my eyes before fixing her with a frown. “You’d think you would have learned by now that you are shellfish bait.”
Not that I minded too much one of the few opportunities I had to blow off steam, strangely enough, but the repetition did make it a bit dull. And I guess it also worked in getting me to play hero a bit, one of the few things that did in this sucky dream.
"I don't know..." The mare looked down, her brows furrowed together. For a short moment, she seemed unable to quite see me, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. "I... There was something I wanted to do. I was walking in the streets, just like everypony else. The next thing I knew, everypony had disappeared, and I was being chased by..." She pointed to the burnt shells with a trembling hoof. "...By those."
Her words brought forth a shiver in me, as they slowly sank in and slithered on top of my back like a cold hand. In my ears echoed a faint growl, and before my eyes flashed memories of tall looming trees and branches scratching my face. For a moment, I was unable to speak, for fear that the fear would rumble in my voice.
She, fortunately -- unfortunately? --, mistook my silence for incredulity.
Her mane almost touched the sand. "I swear, my prince. I did not seek them. I was not being reckless."
And while she bowed, I fought back a wince.
Her shows of guilt were starting to get to me, a little. I had not really meant it as an accusation. Heck, even if she had had autonomous thoughts and feelings, which I still doubted, that did not equal her being responsible for a series of crustacean attacks. Doubly so when she was the victim of the attacks.
"That's..." I scratched the side of my head. "It's, huh, a... good thing."
Blinking, Small Pond looked up without a word, gaping like a fish.
An uneasy silence fell between us.
Her insistent staring made my tail flicked, and damn that felt weird... and awkward. It was like a piece of my spine was moving, and maybe it was, was it? The idea just wormed itself into my brain and it started eating at me, a bit stupidly. How long had it taken me to be amazing at everything pony? But that had been the point, maybe I was just overthinking it, I had been talking to Small -- Oh God, she was still staring! Heat radiated from my face as I struggled to put on a charming grin and knew the edges of it were shaking miserably.
"So, Small Pond," I said, a hoof rubbing against the back of my neck, "what do you do as a day job around here? I can't imagine there being that many options in a small town like Horseshoe Bay..."
Smooth like a baby's butt... idiot.
At least, Small Pond didn't seem to take offense, pulling her lips together to ponder the question. And with a nonchalant wave of her hoof, she shrugged. "Oh, it's a bit one note, Prince William. It all relates to fishing, one way or another. I don't mind too--"
Her words got strangled in her throat, coming off as a raspy wheeze, and her whole chest heaved in a sudden retch. And there, her eyes shrunk to the tiniest dots, and she threw her head to the side.
"Whoa!" I jolted, unable to decide if I wanted to get closer or away from her. "Pond, you getting sick?"
A squeak. Short. Quiet. Easily lost amidst the waves crashing on the beach.
"No, I..." The hint of a smile almost made it to her lips, fake, artificial like one would show in the hopes of fooling a worried loved one. The thought might have been flattering, at another time, another moment, if even that hadn't been interrupted by what she did when her eyes went back to me.
She.
Flinched.
At this point, no. Basically, NO. That wouldn't slide! “Why did you do that?" I stomped, the feathers on my wings standing straight. "Is the sun too bright or something?!”
And as I said it, I realized that the sky was in fact void of both sun and moon. The infinite spaces overhead shone dimly with a green hue, yet I could not spot the source of their lights. Glancing down, I saw Small Pond blushing until she was beet red, and despite my ego's rambling, I doubted my general awesomeness had anything to do with her reaction.
"Pond?" I called at her lack of responses.
“N-no, it’s not that,” Small Pond said, pawing at the ground. “It’s… promise you won’t be mad?”
Her face was white.
This was something that would make me explode.
“…Okay, now I’m really starting to wonder what’s up with that reaction. Tell me. I’d rather not have everypony walk on eggshell every time the topic is brought up. What's the reason?”
Small Pond weakly smiled, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. Tough luck there, for I was not about to let her go without some sort of explanation. One was nothing, two was a coincidence and three was a pattern.
“It’s… your face.”
My mind buckled.
“Pardon?”
Small Pond's shaking hoof reached for my chest, but the cold sweat rolling off her brows spoke of her true feelings. “Your face… it looks wrong.”
Okay, yeah, I heard right. Also, what?
“So I’m ugly?” I repeated, staring at her with wide eyes. A profound sense of incredulity slipped in my brain as I thought that, no, this dream could not possibly be heading into this direction!
But Small Pond shrank on herself in shame, her face red and her ears low.
“N-no…” Her pale blue gaze met mine, and she spoke up with a hint of desperation in her voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! Please don’t be offended!”
Admittedly, that was kind of hard to do! I might have thought of myself as a ridiculous cliché thing, but it was also supposed to be the good-looking kind. Now she was telling me that I looked butt-ugly and every single pony that had winced to my face had been resisting the urge to puke at the sight of me.
So, yeah, maybe my feathers were rustled and my panties were tied in a bunch! Sue me, bastards! “Then what is it?” I stomped. “Either my face is wrong or it’s not!”
“It’s–!” The mare stuttered, stumbled on her words. She could not even find the strength to deny it! “It’s like… looking at a foal’s doll. It looks… similar. There’s no detail at all. It’s like a generic, cut-out sculpture that was unfinished. And… it moves – well, err, of course it moves, it’s your face. Oh Celestia, I can’t believe I said that after you saved me so many times! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! You just look fake!”
The biting sarcastic reply died on my lips.
“Huh?” I couldn’t quite understand how she meant. I had seen my face, compared to somepony else in a few mirrors and pools of water. Honestly, I had never been able to tell the differences between me and other stallions like that. "Fake? Like... a mannequin?"
A quick trembling nod. "Or a statue. It's just almost like a pony."
This is the first time I dream of something like this… To the best of my knowledge, there had never been a single lucid dream of mine that had played on my perception and that of the dream NPCs. They saw me in a different light? No, more than that. They saw me from a different kind of sight. That was an epic level of perspective switch, like trying to see like a fly. And something like amazement thrummed in my chest. It’s like… the idea didn’t come from my brain.
Small Pond stared at me, and I could not help stare back. Her mane danced in the wind, but what fascinated me most was her coat. Her unmoving, uniform, cartoonish coat. She had fur, but it did not ripple with the wind.
I was feeling the breeze stroking my back and my legs.
“Do I see like a pony or like a human right now?”
And as I put that question into words, I could feel a change in the air. I could breath perhaps just a little easier, or some strands of my mane would be pulled by the oceanic salty breeze just a little more. A thin, transparent veil had been lifted.
“Prince William?” Small Pond asked, pawing at the ground twice.
Wait...
"Why did you do that? The..." I gestured to her legs and her head. "The sort of tapping and nodding."
A high pitched whinny rose from her throat, and I was taken aback at how much of an animal she was.
"O-oh, I was just..." Her tail curled between her legs. "Sorry, was I not supposed to talk to you?"
"Have I ever done that?" I felt just about ready to throw up. "I mean, have I ever shown you 'normal' body language?"
"No, y-you haven't..." Her eye lit up as realization dawned on her. "It's like you're always standing still. Like you're skipping parts of the words, or just stop without finishing a sentence."
"But you still understand me, don't you?"
She froze on the spot, and I knew that I had struck bullseyes. Ponies communicated through complex body language on top of words. It had never really crossed my mind before now, but that was plausible enough. Yet... now the one that was supposed to be just a prop for my heroic quest had introduced me to two layers of perception that I had never considered before. In a way that was consistent with what had happened in this place so far.
...That wasn't how my dreams worked, how lucid dreams went. Either I lost control and couldn't do shit when things went to hell, or I was god-emperor. The quirks in the middle... they had never gone this way.
The sand under us turned to glass, then took on an alluring metallic luster. In It, one could see the shapes of two ponies, as if the looker was beneath them.
There was a face. My face. McDoom Knight Stu's. And it fit.
The angles fit, the shape of the skull fit. What I felt, the movements of my jaw when I talked, all of it, like it was my own face. The reflection grinned, its -- my -- eyes wide, and once more I held my hooves in front of my face. The dark stumps didn’t change, didn’t so much as twitch as I tried to will them into hands, and I stared with a strange creeping feeling in my mind.
Where the fuck am I?