“Welcome back to my “Waiting Room,” as I call it…”
Luna’s blue-green eyes fluttered open and adjusted to the dimly-lit, blank, grey expanse stretched before her.
“Where shall we begin?” she asked, turning to face her companion.
“Well, let’s think for a moment: other than Dew Drop, we don’t have any evidence of the killer striking since your return a couple of years ago. So I suppose we need to reach back at least that far.”
He stared up at the featureless white sky and muttered to himself for a few seconds.
“Alright--Golden Leaf. Here we go…”
A doorway appeared a few feet in front of Luna. She stepped toward it, and it swung open silently. Reaper followed close behind.
An old, pale blue mare lay on a bed, surrounded by the blurry faces of other ponies, hovering just out of reach. Sounds of crying came from several directions, and Golden Leaf struggled to speak.
“It’s OK, little one--it’s my time to go. I’ll miss you all terribly…” Her breath came in ragged gasps, and everything suddenly stood out in stark relief, as though caught in a flash of lightning.
The faces became crystal clear, and Golden Leaf sat up, smiling.
“I’m glad I got to see you all one last time, Racer, Glimmer, Firebrand…”
Her cloudy hazel eyes grew wide as Reaper stepped to her side.
“Off we go, now, Golden Leaf.” He touched his horn to her forehead, and the faces dimmed and resolved back into those of her bedside family.
Her body went limp, and faded slightly as Reaper simply dissolved as though made of smoke.
The ponies’ weeping faded to a whisper as the door closed directly in Luna’s face.
“So,” Reaper began, “did you get a good look at the ponies she remembered at the last moment?”
“Racer, Glimmer and Firebrand, she named them,” replied Luna. “Yes--I saw.”
Reaper chewed his lip briefly, and stared into the distance. “I don’t know who “Firebrand” was. And as that final vision faded, his face became the face of Golden Leaf’s son. Maybe it was a nickname? Maybe she was mis-remembering?”
He continued as Luna closed her eyes and furrowed her brow.
“Racer died about 20 years ago--mining accident. Glimmer died about 5 years ago of old age. Golden Leaf clearly recalled all three as youths or young adults, so Firebrand could fall anywhere in the last 70 years, if he existed at all.”
Luna brought a hoof up to her muzzle and tapped her lower lip.
“This was a true vision,” she said at last. “Firebrand did indeed live. I recall the dreams…”
“When do you last remember a dream of his?”
“It is hard to pin down. I was often distracted as Nightmare Moon, and took little note of dreams in which I was not, shall we say, active.”
“So, no nightmares for him?” Reaper asked, skeptically.
Luna’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, I’m sure there were. Give me a moment to think.”
She chewed lightly at the inside of her cheek and stared at the ground. She snapped back up to full height.
“Come,” she said coldly, “let us see what visions I can conjure!”
The featureless grey and white world around them was shrouded in a swirl of blue-black smoke. When the smoke cleared, they were standing in the great hall of a long-ruined castle.
Reaper looked around, and rolled his eyes. “Really,” he said archly, “your old, broken-down castle?” This is where you come to “get away from it all”--the ruins of your past?”
She glared at him and spoke sharply: “where better than here to sift through Nightmare Moon’s ruins, and the ruin she wrought on others?”
Reaper shrugged. “I suppose. So now what?”
Luna nodded toward a long, tattered banner hanging from a high arch: “Watch.”
Images flickered across the surface of the banner, as though cast by an antique projector. Firebrand’s face and form flitted in and out, accompanied by other ponies, in a multitude of places and times.
“How will we know where the end is?” Reaper asked, squinting intently at the rapid unwinding of Firebrand’s dream history, looking for clues of violence.
“We must step in, Harbinger. Only from the inside will I be able to unravel this tangle of threads.”
Reaper and Luna appeared suddenly through a pale rift torn in mid-air, just outside an arena. The sounds of cheering could be heard.
Both ponies looked around, searching for clues as to location and time, and to see if they could spot Firebrand. The cheers grew louder. Luna and Reaper trotted toward the arena.
As they entered through a low entryway, Luna cried out, “there he is!” and pointed above the arena, where a brick-red pegasus was flying loops and rolls through a series of flaming hoops.
“Firebrand, I assume…” Reaper said, stepping through the passage and toward the front of the grandstand.
“Well, we have the right pony, but not the right time. This isn’t his death, nor does it appear to be a nightmare.”
Luna agreed: “Indeed, this seems to be a fantasy of pure joy and perfection. We will have to skip forward a bit…” She closed her eyes tightly and lifted her horn toward Firebrand’s streaking form.
As the world swirled and rushed by, Reaper’s head swam, and he stumbled sideways a bit.
Now Firebrand was descending rapidly from a cloud of flame and smoke and debris, which seemed to be taking on the form of some sort of tentacled monster. He cried out as the ground rushed up at him suddenly, and he lost control, unable to check his descent. He smashed into the earth with a sickening thud as the flaming debris monster engulfed him, choking out his screams.
A pale, silvery moon rose in the background.
Firebrand lay on the ground, broken, scorched and bleeding. “Celestia, help me!” He cried out weakly.
The moon laughed; Luna stared silently, tears welling in her eyes.
The world suddenly flashed by again, blurring years of dreams and fears, until it stopped again.
Reaper had kept his eyes closed this time, and was less disoriented, as he scanned the new scene. He and Luna were on a beach, palm trees gently swaying, Firebrand, old and scarred, was slumped nearby in a wheelchair.
A nurse pony cantered up to him and kissed him on the forehead. “Can I bring you anything else, Firebrand?” she asked.
Reaper perked up his ears. “Is that Golden Leaf?” he asked.
“It would seem so,” replied Luna, “re-purposed in this dream as a nurse.”
Nurse Golden Leaf slid around behind Firebrand’s wheelchair and began to nibble on his right ear.
“The doctor says you can walk, now. Why won’t you walk?” She whispered into his ear.
Reaper and Luna moved in a bit closer in order to hear Golden Leaf’s low tones.
“You know I can’t walk, Goldie! Don’t give me that shit! I’m lucky I can still breathe after all these years trapped in a wheelchair, stuck on ventilators, jabbed full of needles!” shouted Firebrand.
“I should have died in that building! I’d have gone out a hero, not a fucking basket case!”
“All the ponies you saved owe you their lives,” replied Nurse Golden Leaf. “They are all extremely grateful!” She moved from his side and stepped in front of the wheelchair.
She turned her back to Firebrand, and sidled backwards a pace, hiking her pleated white skirt over her back, and raising her tail. She looked back over her shoulder into his eyes.
“Let me show you how grateful we all are…”
She swished her tail in his face, fanning him with her intoxicating, musky scent.
She took a half step forward and dipped her shoulders down, elevating her rump.
“All you have to do is walk…”
Reaper raised an eyebrow. “You sure we’re at the end, here Luna? Doesn’t really look much like a nightmare!”
Luna choked back a cry of anguish and directed Reaper’s gaze to the moon which had just appeared above the beach.
“It will, Reaper, it will!” she cried as dark clouds suddenly rose above the shoreline.
Firebrand had pulled himself up out the chair, and was mounting Golden Leaf, eyes closed in ecstasy, scars falling away, healthy lungs filling again with cool sea air, shattered wings rising majestically above his thrusting form.
“Oh, Blessed Night, why?!” Luna screamed as she dashed away, down the beach, tears streaming from her eyes.
Reaper furrowed his brow and started to walk toward toward Luna.
She shouted back over her shoulder, almost incoherently, “NO! You must watch, for I cannot!!”
He noticed the clouds were suddenly collapsing over the scene, just as the fiery debris had done earlier. He glanced quickly at the coupled shape of Firebrand and Golden Leaf, and saw the mare’s features suddenly twist, and darken. Her coat turned bluish-black, and a dark, shining horn emerged from her forehead. Her eyes blazed sadistically with a blinding radiance, and she laughed as Firebrand gasped in horror and lurched backward, sprawling on the sand.
Nightmare Moon shook her rump playfully at Firebrand and smirked. “Thank you for the ride, cripple! Now enjoy your “happy ending!””
She shot into the air just as the cloud collapsed like a wall of infinite blackness, blotting out everything, swallowing Firebrand’s screams, Nightmare Moon’s harsh laughter, and Luna’s distant sobs.
Reaper swam desperately through the maelstrom of blackness, trying to get a bead on its source. His sword sprang from its scabbard, slashing the darkness, cleaving brief, pale openings, but to no avail. As quickly as the cloud wall had thundered down, it was gone, as was Firebrand, and a moment later, the dream itself.
“Shit.”
Reaper sat alone in the pitch black, waiting for the ruined castle to reassemble around him.