//------------------------------// // Patrol // Story: Do Not Go Gentle // by ShinigamiDad //------------------------------// Luna settled gently in front of a fountain in Fillydelphia, with Reaper appearing beside her moments later. He looked around to get his bearings. “Why Fillydelphia?” he asked. Luna began walking toward a young mare who was clearly struggling over a pile of books and papers: “I have not been here in a few days, so there is a better-than-usual chance that the ponies here may be experiencing troubling dreams.” She pointed toward the panicked, lemon-yellow earth pony, who was losing control of the now-growing, sprawling collection of notes and schoolwork: “Poor Sunny here, for instance.” Reaper nodded: “I understand. So I guess it’s time I fade out, and start patrolling a bit on my own. I’ll circle back in a bit.” As Reaper faded to a mere shadow, Luna turned away and addressed a now-hyperventilating Sunny: “What is it, Sunny? Are you concerned with your upcoming exams, again?” “Oh, Princess Luna!” She cried, “Thank the stars you’re here! I just can’t get any sleep with all this worrying, and I know I’ll do even worse on the exam if I can’t get some sleep!” Luna smiled: “Sunny, let me help clear your mind by clearing away this schoolwork…” Reaper lost Luna and Sunny’s conversation as he trotted away down a dark alleyway that suddenly appeared in the distance, to the left of the fountain. He heard scuffling and angry shouting as he rounded a corner, and saw a pair of unicorns slashing at each other with their horns, circling each other, with hate burning in their eyes. “I’m sick of the shit you keep putting the folks through!” said the first unicorn, a dark red stallion. His adversary, a pale blue mare spat back: “You don’t care, you lying fuck! You just want their bits when they die, and you’re going to smear me all you can to get them!” She then shot a bolt of magic at the stallion: “So, if you mean “telling my side of the story” when you say “putting them through shit,” you’re damn right!” The stallion ducked the bolt, and charged his opponent, horn glowing: “Your side? You mean the side where you’re drinking all our inheritance, you drunken bitch?" He threw himself at the mare, knocking her to the ground, firing a blast of white-hot energy at her face, point-blank. Reaper moved in a bit closer, trying to stay in the shadows, attempting to discern exactly who the dreamer was, and who was the dream. “How does Luna keep this stuff straight?” He mused as the mare screamed and writhed, her face melting away. The stallion slashed repeatedly with his horn, opening great flaming gashes across the mare’s neck and shoulder: “Just die and leave everypony in peace, you pile of shit-trash!” A grey mist began to form along the ground; Reaper pricked up his ears and leaned in closer to the now-dying mare. The red stallion straightened up and stood tall over the mare’s wrecked, blood-smeared body. He spat on her burned-away, bleeding face: “What a waste of a sister!” The stallion walked away, and faded as he passed Reaper, a cold wind dissipating both the red unicorn and the grey mist. The mare lay motionless for a moment, then began weeping. Luna appeared a moment later and knelt next to the bleeding, ruined unicorn, touching the burned face, and gashes with her horn: “Shhhh, Azure Glaze! When will you face your drinking problem in the light of day?” Azure Glaze sobbed: “I can’t tell anyone! My parents would be furious!” Luna shook her head sadly: “Then I fear you will revisit this gruesome fate. Perhaps it would be best if you awoke for a bit.” Azure Glaze closed her eyes and put her head back down, then she, too dissolved, leaving Reaper and Luna alone in the alley. “I thought I might be onto something,” Reaper said, “especially when I saw that grey mist start to build.” Luna shook her head. “I fear many of the malevolent mists and fogs and shadows are legacies of my reign as Nightmare Moon. It is one of my duties to clear them out whenever I encounter them, usually after a bad dream, such as this.” Reaper sighed: “Great. So even now, Nightmare Moon’s running interference for Grey Thorn!” Luna’s ears dropped: “I suppose in a way, yes. I am sorry…” Reaper shrugged: “It’s OK, Princess. I know you’re working your tail off to make up for the past, and I’m here to help. I just wish we didn’t have so many obstacles.” Luna nodded and smiled wanly: “Agreed. Shall we return to our patrols?” “Sure!” Luna’s horn glowed a deep green, and Reaper found himself in a wooded area, surrounded by the sounds of crickets and running water. He walked slowly through dense, ankle-deep grass. The scene was oddly-lit, with deep shadows being cast by an indeterminate light source--neither sun nor moon we in evidence. Suddenly he heard sounds of struggle: grunting and brush being trampled. He picked up his pace and headed toward the sound: “Here we go again!” He broke through a screen of shrubs, and saw a pair of interlocked forms in a low dell--an earth pony and a pegasus. Reaper closed in slowly, looking for evidence of too-dark shadows or overly-dense fogs. He stopped when he realized what he was actually seeing: a large, seafoam green earth pony stallion was mounted over the back of a pale, pink pegasus, thrusting, sweating and panting. Reaper chuckled as he heard the mare moan ecstatically, her wings held low, but spread out and swept forward: “Well, I seem to have covered the drinking, fighting and fucking so far. Guess I need to go find a picnic-slash-hoofball dream so I can check off eating and playing!” He watched appreciatively as the pegasus began to rise off the ground, her lover still deep inside her, flanks pumping, his forelegs locked between her shoulders and wings, her mane clamped between his teeth. “That’s some imagination!” he said, “I wonder which of them is the dreamer?” As he was pondering this, Reaper heard a gurgling sound, and noticed rivulets of black water leading down to a small stream in the dell, which exited through a shallow cut. He furrowed his brow, and ignoring the cries of the climaxing ponies above him, began following the water. He passed through the defile and noted the water was actually flowing slightly uphill toward a stand of tall coniferous trees. It was noticeably darker now, and the air was still and chilly. Reaper approached a large tree, and could hear heavy, labored breathing beyond, but the ground on both sides of the tree sloped away steeply, and were covered with loose soil and stones. He faded to near-invisibility and walked into the tree’s trunk, where he was stopped cold. “Dammit!” he muttered, “Can’t phase completely here…” He stepped gingerly around the right side of the tree, and saw a looming black shape that defied his attempts to circumscribe it--there was no defined boundary, and he found it hard to focus on it. The shape--which was now clearly the Void Reaper and Luna had seen in several visions--hovered off to the side of a gasping, prostrate earth pony. A figure stood slightly behind the Void, obscured by its impenetrable blackness and attendant veil of dark mist, which was working its way into the surrounding grass like oily feelers. Reaper licked his lips slowly and worked his sword slowly out of its sheath. He cut around the trunk, scattering rocks and twigs, magically extending his blade out before him. “Luna!” he shouted, “Get over here! I have him!” “What do you think you have, errand colt?” said a soft, low voice, as the dark mist wreathing the Void suddenly lashed out, obscuring Reaper’s vision, making it impossible for him to spot the taunting pony. “I think I have a Starswirl wannabe whose time has run out!” Reaper shouted, lunging toward the last location he could recall, that of the fallen earth pony. The Void loomed suddenly before him its blackness infinitely greater than the blinding fog. Reaper reared back, horn blazing, sword glowing an unearthly violet, and stumbled over the apparent victim. As he fell back, he glimpsed an arc of blinding, blue-white radiance, like a bolt of lightning, lancing down from above the treetops, illuminating everything, save for the heart of the Void, in shades of ghostly white. Luna’s voice boomed out as she shot down from the sky like a meteor: “Hold, murderer! You shall not take another life while I hold dominion over the dreamscape!” Her hooves threw up sparks as she struck the ground with a crack like thunder. Reaper narrowed his eyes, and looked away from her silvery glare, then lurched forward so he could shield the stricken earth pony from both the killer, and Luna’s naked power. The low, soft voice spoke clearly, with malice: “Another time, Nightmare-Who-Was, and Death’s Lackey. I am a patient stallion.” The Void’s cloud of dark mist swirled suddenly, and collapsed inward, enrobing a pale, unicorn-shaped figure, whose horn burst forth with a brilliant golden glow. Luna and Reaper blinked to clear their dazzled eyes, and the Void and its attendant were gone. Luna bent down and helped Reaper roll off the unfortunate light tan mare, who sat up weeping and coughing: “Are you harmed, Caramel Gloss?” Caramel cried out happily, “Oh, Princess Luna--thank you! I thought I was…” Words died on her lips as she glanced to her right and saw Reaper standing above her, bringing his sword back toward his side in a dark, ominous arc. The mare let out a blood-curdling scream and promptly fainted. Reaper sheathed his sword and sheepishly backed away a step: “Sorry--I forgot to fade out. Like I said, I’m not used to spending significant time in the dreamscape.” Luna sighed and bent forward to investigate the stunned mare, who began to shimmer, then disappear. Luna stood back up and turned to Reaper: “The shock must have awoken her. I doubt she will sleep again this night.” “It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t sleep tomorrow, either!” remarked Reaper, “I hope she never knows how close she came to being erased.” “What would that thing have done, do you think?” Luna asked, poking tentatively at the ground where the Void had been. Reaper shook his head: “Not sure. Grey Thorn seemed almost to be in contact with it, as though he was guiding it. Or…” He furrowed his brow. Luna cocked her head slightly: “Or what?” “Or maybe he was restraining it.” Luna’s eyebrows jumped: “Perhaps he is having trouble mastering it now?” Reaper shrugged: “All I know is it seemed far less, how should I put this, integrated this time.” “Integrated?” “It was just looming, almost straining to get to its victim,” Reaper explained. “When we saw it consume Zephyr, Grey Thorn was across the room, and the Void was slowly working its way into and behind various dark forms. But not this time.” “No,” Luna agreed. “It almost seemed ravenous. And did you notice that Caramel Gloss was young--as young as Dew Drop?” Reaper nodded: “Yeah. And we've now returned to the question I asked a while back: what’s changed? Why Dew Drop?” He looked up at the stars glittering overhead, mirroring the subtle, twinkling pinpoints in Luna's dark, flowing mane: “Will you be alright here? I need to head back for a bit and debrief Twilight.” “This is my realm. I am never in danger here.” Reaper faded away: “I hope it stays that way…”