“-and that is how a pair of dice reflects the nature of life.”
With her ending remarks, the entire classroom erupted with the sound of cheering and the thundering of hooves hitting the thin floorboards. Some of her classmates even gave a standing ovation to her presentation.
“Thank you, Appleteeny for providing a sufficient state mandated show and tell presentation. Your ability to construct a meaningless narrative about a cheap pair of dice will be quintessential for your success as a future tax paying citizen.” The teacher briefly looked down at a clipboard on her desk. With a pencil in her telekinetic grab she made a small mark on the sheet before looking back up. “Swift Justice, it is your turn. If you do not comply, you will be given an F. This F may result in you becoming homeless, drug addicted, or worse, an art student.”
Swift got up from his desk with his saddlebag gripped in his teeth and trotted to the front of the classroom. With all eyes on him, he began to sweat. He leaned the saddlebag against the front of the teacher's desk and pulled out a small darkly stained wooden hammer.
“T-this is my dad's old gavel. He got a new one and gave this to me, and, um...” He was about to continue before he noticed every colt and filly in the room looked as if they were either holding their breath, or repressing a curl at the end of their lips. It seemed from every corner of the room there was the sound of suppressed laughter and giggling.
“What?” Swift looked all over, behind him, at the teacher, and finally he looked toward his flank. Covering his rump and cutiemark was a starch white pair of underpants. The previously restrained laughter started bubbling up and growing into full blown hysteria, not even the teacher held back.
Swift grew confused, and nervous. “This doesn't make any sense!” His voice barely pierced the surrounding laughter. Swift forced his eyes shut. He wanted to curl up into a ball, but his rationality prevailed. “I'm wearing more clothes than most of you!”
Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Swift peeked through the cracks of his eyelids. The previously crowded classroom was now empty except for the unicorn teacher who was frozen in place still in her pose of hysteria. Swift's ears perked up at the echoing sound of hoofs against tile growing louder. The entrance door to the classroom door was slowly and elegantly opened by a blue aura. From the door entered none other than the princess of the night herself, Princess Luna.
“Fear not pony, We have only come to quell your nightmares and hopefully not exemplify them.”Luna casually scanned the room and lit her horn for a moment before gazing toward Swift. “The dark energies here are strong. Subject, you wouldn't by happenstance have come into contact with enchanted jewelry, evil goddesses, or aged dairy products, would you?”
Swift nervously rubbed the back of his temple. “Erm, maybe a bit of all three?”
Before Luna could prod him any further, the laughter that flooded the room earlier came back, but only from one source, the teacher. When she realized the room was all but silent but her, the teacher looked around the room in confusion before finally resting her gaze on Luna. The happy mood the teacher previously held quickly soured.
“You dare disturb my masterfully crafted nightmare! This dream was absolutely essential for, um, character development. Now Swift here will forever be an idiot thanks to you.”
Luna's horn began glowing again yet nothing seemed to happen as a result. Luna trotted toward the unicorn mare suspiciously with her horn still lit. “And what exactly was this all important lesson you were attempting to teach? That wearing undergarments in public is more shameful than nudity?”
The teacher got out of her seat and steadily backed up from the alicorn looking threatened in the process. “Er, um, no. It was a metaphor for, um... solidarity?”
Luna shook her head in disappointment. Finally, her lit horn fired a spell which made a quick flash. The whole room melted away turning into a dark void without any point of reference for what direction was up. Not only did the room melt away, so did the teacher, but instead of disappearing, she was instead replaced by the tall, dark blue alicorn, Nightmare Moon.
“What the hell Nightmare! Did you read the contract? There was a clause specifically stating the contract would be void If any mind manipulating magic was used!” Swift narrowed his gaze of Nightmare who seemed unfazed by his statement as her vision was still locked onto Luna.
“Firstly, I didn't read the contract. Secondly, I didn't even sign the contract. I just scribbled nonsensically on on the line and put a dot at the end.”
“That counts!”
“Bull crap! I've done that for years to void many peace treaties, it doesn't count!”
“No I've done that to void peace treaties, you curd!” Luna interjected. “We don't know what is going on here, and We don't want to know, We are however obligated to destroy you, Nightmare Moon.” Luna looked toward Swift. “And throw you in prison for your apparent association with this terrorist.”
“I'm not a terrorist!” Nightmare defended. “The last time I blew something up, I was a part of you, Luna.”
“Well, you were the one who wanted to blow things up, Nightmare. I was essentially a bystander.”
“That's a lie and you know it. You wanted to blow things up equally, if not more than I did.”
“That's it!” Luna spawned a sword from thin air and held it up to Nightmare's neck. “We are sick of your mind games! En garde!”
“Nope!” With a flash from her horn, Nightmare created a portal, and before Luna could act, Nightmare jumped through the portal and disappeared. Luna stretched her hoofs prepping herself to follow after her evil counterpart.
“Wait! What am I suppose to do?” Swift called out.
“It's a dream, do whatever, go flying, it doesn't matter.” Luna jumped through the ethereal passageway which closed immediately behind her.
"But I'm a pegasus, I can already fly!" He called out to the now even more empty void around him.
Swift had never been that creative, at least not in an artistic sense, so lucid dreaming had never been his cup of tea. Alone with no ideas, Swift began to kick at the ground of questionable existence. Heeding the princesses words, Swift willed a book into existence and flipped to the first page. He then realized that reading in a dream was impossible, so he angrily tossed the book a few feet and decided to take a nap. He then realized that a nap in a dream made no sense and was also impossible, so instead he decided the best course of action was to roll around miserably until the dream ended.
Two ponies wearing blue and yellow jumpsuits stood on stage. Standing on a false balcony, the two of them looked out onto a watercolor horizon.
“Who would have thought that the apocalypse would make the sunset even more beautiful,” The pony on the right said.
“Yes, and who would have thought the sunset would make your eyes all the more beautiful,” The one on the left said. They each made eye contact with each other as their muzzles grew closer and-
“Just bucking kiss already!” Cap yelled from the empty stands as he noisily munched on a bucket of white chips. “You've been teasing it for, like, half an hour. Just do it!”
With little to no warning, a portal opened up in the empty space above the stage. From the portal two darkly hued alicorns ungracefully flew out, landing center stage with the two stage actors breaking their fall. They both stood up and assumed a fighting stance. The odd occurrence reinvigorated Cap's interest in the happenings on stage. So instead of intervening, he instead leaned back into his chair further and happily munched on his snack to watch the events play out
“Apologies Nightmare, but outrunning this fight isn't an option. We will fight, and we will kill you,” Luna said again spawning her ethereal blade once again.
“I swear, it's always fighting and melodrama with you. Also, your use of the royal 'we' was both confusing and made you sound like an idiot.” Nightmare yanked out a wooden panel from the ground and used her magic to instantly fashion it into a razor sharp blade. “With your intelligence in question, killing you might be easier than expected.”
“Whoo! Cat fight with swords!” Cap hollered from his seat.
The fight began with Luna immediately taking the offensive by striking hard and fast. Nightmare could do nothing but parry the blows. Luna went for a jab and with no way to parry, Nightmare swatted the blade with her left hoof. Nightmare saw her opening and immediately thrust her sword forward. Before the blade could make contact with Luna's skin, it poofed out of existence in a tuft of blue aura. With Nightmare defenseless, Luna realigned her blade and heaved her incorporeal blade into Nightmare's chest.
“Ack! You filthy cheater, you stabbed me!” Nightmare felt her new found wound as the ghostly blade slowly dissipated from the cavity.
“You sure whine a lot for a simple scratch,” Luna said plainly.
“Uh huh, a scratch I can fit my whole bucking hoof into! See?” Nightmare stuck her hoof into her chest wound and it began squirting matte black goo. She then began to move her hoof around creating a steady sloshing sound.
“Stop that,” Luna protested while holding down her gag reflex.
Nightmare ignored Luna's discomfort and continued. She began to insert and reinsert her hoof which created the sound of wet flatulence.
“Please, for the love of Xenu, Stop doing that.”
“It's my chest wound, I can do whatever I want with it,” Nightmare said as she continued to fiddle with her insides. “In fact, I think this is a good place for my house keys.”
“As the creator of that particular wound, I can dictate what happens to it and I say leave it alone!” Luna commanded.
“It's my body, you can't dictate what I do with it!” Nightmare stopped playing with her hole and threw a punch at Luna's face which she just barely dodged. Soon the two of them were rolling around on the floor exchanging punches, biting each other, puling at each other's hair, and whatever else they could pull off that could inflict harm on each other.
From the stands Cap watched fully amused. His friend Swift walked walked up to Cap's right and also watched the fight in full amusement.
“Hey Swift, how's it going? You do something with your hair?” Cap asked between the loud crunching sound of his snack between his teeth.
“Cap, I'm in a pair of tighty whities, and I'm eight years old.”
Oh, didn't notice. So, what brings you here?”
“I got bored of my dream so I decided to pop in to see what I was missing. I'll admit, I am not disappointed”
“Yeah, you know, cat fights aren't usually my kinda thing, but this is kinda hot.”
Swift sat in the closest empty seat. “Yeah, I guess you can't go wrong in a battle between two eternally young immortal goddesses.” Swift shifted around in his seat briefly. “Though, I got to wonder; If this is all a dream, doesn't this make all the fighting effectively pointless?”
Cap shrugged Then stuffed a hoofful of white chips into his mouth . “Yeah, probably.”
“Hey, whatcha eatin'?” Swift asked casually.
Cap looked down at his snack bucket. “Eggshells.”
“Why?”
“No idea. They kinda taste like marshmallows.”
The night for the two stallions was far from satisfactory. Despite getting a full night's rest, they felt exhausted from what transpired in their dreams. They lacked the usual awake awareness they usually held and instead moved and acted like zombies. Despite their apparent exhaustion, they still went to work and currently sat in their office conference room waiting for their first, and most recent client who arrived on the dot at eleven-thirty with some reluctance in her step. She sat down in a chair adjacent to the two businessmen.
Swift cleared his throat. “Even if it occurred in a dream, you have declared your contract false. Due to this, I have no obligation to continue servicing you unless you sign a new contract with a full, genuine signature.” Swift pushed a new recently scribed document toward the black mare and hoofed her a pen.
Nightmare scowled. In the end, she signed the contact. A part of her actually enjoyed her time with the two stallions. It was especially amusing to play around with their emotions.