//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Nightmares and Awakenings // Story: Post-Traumatic // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// Rarity was back in the hut. Everything was gray and bleak and ugly, Rarity herself most of all. She was an animal, a thing that inhaled and exhaled, drank foul-tasting water and ate tasteless hay, and in due course excreted the resultant wastes from her other end. She did this until she knew in her heart that she was nothing and nopony, just a brute beast whose only purpose was to serve the ends of Starlight Glimmer, and the great multi-bodied entity that was Our Town, of which Starlight Glimmer formed the head. When she realized this, they finally let her out to serve the community. She worked under Dashing Cape, the stallion whose name was a perhaps a crueller mockery than most of the names of the adults in Our Town, because all he could make were shapeless, vaguely-rectangular sheets of sackcloth. She had once found them very ugly, but now they were no uglier to her than was anything else in her meaningless world. She had an Idea: she made tunics and jackets of the same fabric: the better to keep the Equal Ponies warm in the winter. Starlight praised her notion, and everypony smiled at her. The garments were hideous, but then so was everything, so it didn't matter. Every three weeks her cycle came, and she suffered a vague discomfort in her private parts. She knew, of course, how this discomfort might be relieved, and sometimes did so, alone in her narrow, uncomortable bed. She thought of nothing much in particular when she did this: it was merely a physical sensation to be produced by rote physical exertions, relieving a physical need. At such moments, a Pony might have imagined a tender and passionate lover, but a beast neither needed nor was capable of such emotional illusions. She also emitted marescent during the three days of her cycle, and the stallions noticed, and looked at her with a dull sort of interest. Sometimes, they even showed a bit. Ponies might have been embarrassed by this, but they were also mere beasts, and this meant no more to them than it did to her. She did not care enough to show any interest in return, and mares always chose, so she remained unmated. Eventually -- after months or years of her new gray life, she did not know, because she bother any more to pay attention to the passage of the days and seasons -- she tired of her tri-weekly discomfort and hollow relief, and decided to mate. She did so by the most obvious means: when her cycle came again, and Dashing Cape gazed at her with a vaguely-aroused expression, she swished her tail between her own haunches, passing it over her moist privates, and flicked it gently across his nose, giving him a good long whiff of her marescent. Then, she turned her rear toward him, twitched her tail aside, and looked at him inviting over her shoulder. It was a behavioral display as old as the Primal Plains, and it had just one meaning: Mount me. It was also an extremely vulgar and immoral display for any mare to make to anypony save her beloved, which Dashing Cape was not: he was a hearty, jovial and friendly stallion, especially by the muted standards of the Equal Ponies, and Rarity liked him full well, but back when she had been a Pony she would never have been willing to give herself to him. However, that was when she'd still imagined she had a self to give, and that self Fabulous. Now she was but a beast, and beasts are far less complex in their emotions. He mounted her. Rarity had not been virgin for a decade; she had also not had full intercourse for nine of those years, so it was slightly painful. It was however slightly more pleasurable, or at least relieving; her instincts told her that this was what she was supposed to do when in estrus. Dashing Cape was her ally and comrade, and he was far from cruel: he supported himself and moved in such a way as to avoid hurting her. Nor was he exceptionally kind: she was not, after all, his beloved, merely a mare who had emitted the right scent and given him the right signals. There were neither fond words nor tender caresses, merely an opening and positioning and entering, mechanical friction reduced by natural lubrication, an itch being scratched by that friction; some mutual heavy breathing and grunting, a sensation of being flooded within, and then it was over and done with. It had been a simple biological function, no less and certainly no more profound on either of their parts than eating one of Our Town's tasteless meals. Afterward, Dashing Cape was friendly toward her, perhaps slightly friendlier than he had been before. He neither despised nor loved her for what had passed between them; he presumably felt a certain increased positive affect associated with her presence, now. Such would be the normal conditioned response of a beast to receiving pleasant stimulation. He seemed happy. Or, at least, content. Rarity was not. She felt nauseated at her own actions. She felt as if she had betrayed somepony or something, though she could not imagine whom or what. Surely it could not have been herself, her own sense of Fabulousness. Starlight Glimmer had taught her that any such self-image was naught but a hypocritical lie; she was nopony, and contained nothing special. This truth, once acknowledged, made her life much easier, since she no longer wasted her time and effort aiming at any ideals beyond simple survival, simple Sameness. Still, the sensation of sickness would not abate, and she took to her bed, pleading illness, which was also a good way to dissuade Dashing Cape from offering to join her -- though she could not understand why she right now could not bear the sight of him. She was ahead of her work, anwyay -- even Equalized, she was still a very precise and rapid telekinetic -- and she felt that she needed the rest. She napped the rest of the day, and awoke in the evening, and lay on her straw-stuffed mattress under her blanket of surplus sackcloth, and she could not help but think of a huge double king-sized bed with a down mattress and silk sheets, such as she might have slept upon a lifetime ago. And someone -- image of a pair of slitted, alert archosaurian eyes, a shimmer of scales -- with whom she had never shared that bed, but might have wanted to, someday, had her life remained Fabulous. Dangerous delusion, self-lie, he wasn't even a Pony. What would have been the point? Though the stories she'd read had caused her to believe that Dragons and Ponies might be inter-fertile ... And thinking about that, she realized that there was a possible consequence to what she had done with Dashing Cape, aside from the strange self-loathing that she felt rising from the forgotten depths of her soul. She might have made herself pregnant. She thought of the possibility of a foal, young and innocent and new to life, laughing and playing, because such was foalish nature, imagining itself unique and special, because nopony had told it that there was anything wrong with doing so. A foal, loving and trusting its mother. Loving and trusting her. The possibility filled her with a transient happiness -- until she realized the rest of the foal's fate. Growing up in Our Town, gradually learning the limitations of its life. Learning that it was not special, not unique, that it was useless to strive, futile to dream. Realizing its Talent, manifesting its Cutie Mark, only to have both ripped away by Starlight Glimmer, forever suppressed by the Sameness. Growing to adulthood, in a world with neither love nor marriage, eventually mating out of base biological instinct -- as she had just done -- reproducing genetically so that yet another generation could be born to hopeless, loveless despair, forever and ever, generations of meaningless lives, from now until the time that somepony stronger than Rarity finally smashed Starlight Glimmer's dreary dream. Which would doubtless happen someday, but probably not before the last drop of what had once made Rarity Belle so Fabulous was squeezed out of her soul by the Sameness. She felt a rush of energy -- and a painful pressure on her flanks. Her horror at her own actions, at the future to which she was submitting, had briefly brought her back to herself. She had to escape, for she knew that this surge would not last long. Already, she could feel her will fading, her strength lessening as the Sameness sapped her spirit. A failed escape would be worse than no attempt at all, for she would be recaptured and re-educated even more thoroughly. This might happen again and again, her will being weakened more and more each time, until there was nothing left of the old Rarity, until she was naught but a helpless husk of her former self, kept alive and enslaved, a womb to breed new generations of slaves, and a horn to clothe them. She must not let this happen! But how to get away? Starlight would send the Pegasi after her -- even under the Sameness, Night Glider was a swift flier and expert tracker; and the others would follow, swarm her, bring her down. With but a fraction of her normal energies, Rarity knew that she would be but a mediocre fighter. She was no longer Fabulous. She would be overcome by the odds. It seemed hopeless. Then she remembered Fillydelphia -- and that there was another way out. Ignoring the pulse of pain at her flank, she reached out with her powerful and precise telekinesis -- she knew that she could maintain this for only a short time, under the suffocation of the Sameness -- and the sharp shears she used to cut the sackcloth came to her, limned in the glow of her aura. She regarded the shears. Well-made -- they had been bought outside Our Town -- and honed to a razor's edge, by a seamstress who was no longer Fabulous, but still a perfectionist in the few aspects of her life she still could control. They would do. For a moment, she considered using them to fight -- but they would be a puny weapon against the magical might of Starlight Glimmer; and if she used them on anypony else, she would simply be slaying one of Starlight Glimmer's other victims. She had no right to choose death for any of those victims, save one: Herself. She turned the shears in her aura, pointing them directly at her heart. Even with the Sameness sucking at her soul, she still had the skill and strength to end her life, either instantly or by wounding herself beyond anything the pathetic medical facilities of this Talent-drained village could hope to muster. All she needed was the courage to strike true. She knew that she had the courage. As she prepared to strike, she briefly wondered why she was doing this, whether her situation was really hopeless. She cast her gaze to her window. Outside the stars shone; the Moon was rising. It occurred to her that elsewhere, hundreds of miles to the southeast, Manehattan glittered bright and beautiful in its sparkling waters, a jewel in its bay. She suddenly wanted to see that great city again, to live. She wondered if death were really the braver choice. Something seemed wrong with her mind. She felt her Sameness Marks throb, and imagined that it must be due to Starlight's spell. Though it never felt like that before, came the stray thought. She dismissed her doubts, and once again prepared to strike. At the last moment, she mourned one bright dream, that would now never have the chance to come true; and she fixed almost desperately on his image. I'm sorry, Spike! she thought -- and something hissed in pain and rage, and swirled at the corners of her vision. She whirled in confusion, to see the mass of animate void, blacker than midnight, that roiled and flowed back into cohesion in the corner of her room's ceiling, its two -- or were there three? -- yellow eyes glaring at her in hatred. She shrieked, and whipped the shears around to point straight between the vile orbs, and cried out "What on Earth are you?" and in the instant of asking that question she knew, knew precisely what this was -- and that it had come not from Earth, but from the Moon, and before that from a dreadful domain of dead stars and eternal dark despair. "Night-Shadow!" she named it, in a voice full of loathing. She knew its kind far better than did most other Ponies, even among those who even knew they existed -- for she had once -- for a brief but terrible time in her life -- been ridden by one. The creature hissed again, and abruptly flowed toward her, extending pseudopods of seething darkness. She remembered the counter to it just in time, and concentrated hard. The image of Spike, holding the Fire Ruby, his eyes full of love for her, leaped into the front of her mind. She felt a warm rush of Love within her. The ebon tendrils struck her -- and splashed away into steam. The Night Shadow squalled, and shrank back before Rarity's Love for Spike. "Why are you here?" Rarity demanded. *... help you ...* came the single comprehensible thought amidst a snarl of alien static, sounding like the telepathic version of a badly-garbled telephone connection. "Help me?" asked Rarity suspiciously, pointing the shears right at the Shadow, though she was far from certain that mere metal could do anything effective to its alien substance. "How?" *... captive ... need power ...* it attempted to explain. "You offer me the power to escape Starlight Glimmer?" Rarity asked. "Of what sort?" She narrowed her eyes at the thing. *... us .... together ... Nightmare ...* "No!" Rarity knew now what it offered. The Night Shadow's magic, combined with her own, would no doubt be stronger than Starlight Glimmer's. The last time she had become a Nightmare, she had been stronger even than the unaugmented Princess Luna. The promise was genuine ... ... and false. The Night Shadow, once she allowed it in, would possess her, ride her, drive her to its evil ends. When she had been a Nightmare, she had betrayed the Realm ... fought her friends ... she had even hurt Spike. To be thrall to a Night Shadow was even worse than was the Sameness! The Night Shadow hissed in rage at her rejection. Its mind-voice shrieked through a shower of static. *... Dragon ... hates ... you want ... can have! ...* it pointed out.*... Why ... die? ... "Just a mo-ment," Rarity interjected, her tone sing-song. "Even if my darling Spikey-Wikey ..." she saw with satisfaction the Shadow squall and shrink at the little flare of Love that the thought of Spike sparked in her. "Even if he were cross with me like that, that would have been for something I did after we defeated Starlight Glimmer and left Our Town. So -- how am I once again her captive?" The Shadow snarl-squalled, then hiss-rattled. *... ambush ... tricked ... misfortune? ... it asked hastily. Rarity raised an eyebrow. "That seems rather improbable. And how have I been in this place for months and months with nopony to come looking for me? I have friends -- very much including my darling Dragon -- who wouldn't simply let me rot in durance vile." She sniffed herself. "And I can't smell Dashing Cape on me any more ... and I don't remember bathing before I went to bed." She spun the shears in her aura. "No more weakness," she observed. A quick glance at her right flank, where three familiar blue diamonds were emblazoned. "I've got my Cutie Mark back!" she crowed in delight. Realization struck her. "This is all a nightmare!" Rarity declared. "I was never back in Our Town! I'm sleeping safe in my own bed in Ponyville! And I never --" Her eyes narrowed, and she almost growled at the Night Shadow. "You vile thing! You tried to convince me that I -- and his capes were atrocious!" It was not really about the capes, of course, but Rarity did not deem it worthwhile to discuss sexual morality with a formless horror from beyond the stars. The Night Shadow let out a shriek impossible to describe in terms of any equine vocal equipment. It quivered with rage, and gathered itself up to attack. Rarity prepared for battle, her aura grasping various objects about the room. And the Moon exploded. Or, to be more precise, it flared into a great pale lovely light, cool and silvery and greatly cheering. Even more cheering was the Shape which formed from that moonlight: a dark blue Alicorn, blue mane glistening with stars like a personal night sky. Her beautiful blue eyes blazed with wrath as she regarded the Night Shadow. "Foul fiend!" Princess Luna shouted. "Thou darest to torment mine own friend? Back, begone to the oblivion that spawned thee!" A spray of silver-pinkish energy washed from Luna's horn and played across the Shadow, who wailed in anguish, shivered and burst apart. The fragments fell into the sky, somehow drawn upward into the orb of the Moon. Rarity was not exactly sure just how Luna had accomplished what Rarity had just seen her do --- the kind and level of magic employed was far beyond anything the fashion designer had ever formally studied. She had sensed the side-scatter from the spell, and it felt somewhat similar to the Love Rarity had previously employed to hurt the Night Shadow, but far more powerful, and the emotion pulsed in a way which Rarity would have had no idea how to perform, even if she had known how to channel that sort of thing through her horn. The Love seemed fierce and protective; Rarity briefly wondered if this sort of amative analysis was what Fluttershy could always accomplish with her empathy. Regardless of how Luna had done it, she had certainly helped out Rarity in her time of need, and done so in a highly-impressive manner. This deserved recognition on Rarity's part. "Oh, bravo!" cried Rarity, clapping her hooves together. "Magnifique! You certainly showed that Night Shadow what for!" A complex series of emotions flickered rapidly across Luna's face. Then she smiled, inclining her head to Rarity, and said: "'Twas nothing, Lady Rarity, but Our duty to any Subject of the Realm, who by her own fealty hath the right to expect Our protection, from these vile enemies of all Ponykind." For a moment, Rarity felt sadly unappreciated. Then Luna smiled warmly, and added: "Let alone a Lady to whom I owe mine own personal gratitude many times over, for helping liberate me from Nightmare, for being a true and loyal friend to Princess Twilight Sparkle, and for thy many signal services to the Realm, and personally to my Sister and own self, not the least of which has been thine own great artistic Talent. Thou art brave and good, Rarity Belle. It is mine own honor to help thee -- and thou art most truly Fabulous." "Why -- why thank you, Your Highness," replied Rarity, bowing low to the Moon Princess, her cheeks warming at the unexpected and effusive compliment. Rarity had never been particularly close to Luna, beyond speaking politely to her at royal functions, and occasionally helping provide the Princess' wardrobe, and it was really nice to discover that Luna thought so highly of her. "I require further words with thee," Luna said. "But first -- carefully and gently -- pray put down the shears." "The shears?" Rarity had almost forgotten that she was levitating them, so far distant were her thoughts now from her former black despair. "Why, certainly, Your Highness," she said, precisely laying the shears down on a night-table, the dreamscape having morphed the chamber into her own bedroom at the Carousel Boutique in the meantime. "Will that do?" "Right well," replied Luna, looking very relieved. "Rarity -- you were sleepcasting." Sleepcasting was a potentially-dangerous sleep disorder, in which a Unicorn actually cast the spells she imagined she was casting in her dreams. Rarity remembered what she had been dreaming, regarding those shears, and gasped in horror. "Goodness gracious!" she cried. "I might have killed myself!" "Indeed," agreed Luna, her expression sober. "Though 'tis more likely thou wouldst merely have been wounded, as thou art not a trained sleepfighter." "Thank you even more, then," Rarity said. A thought struck her, and she cast down her gaze. "You saw my dream, then." There were parts of it of which she hadn't wanted anypony else to know. "Enough of it to understand the nightmare," replied Luna, her voice ringing clear. "Thou wert trapped in Our Town, facing the prospect of spending the rest of your life there: mating, foaling, raising children into slavery. To an emotionally-sensitive artist like thyself, this would have been even a worse Hell than it would have been to most Ponies." Her tone of voice gentled. "I understand thee, Lady Rarity. I am in mine own way an artist, and hardly dead to the softer emotions. I, too, would have been badly shaken by that dream." "Then you do understand," said Rarity. "Your Highness," she remembered to add. "I apologize that you had to see the, well, really embarrassing part of that dream." "When you mated with Dashing Cape?" asked Luna. "Lady Rarity, 'tis nothing. I have been dreamwalking for many, many centuries, and I have seen many, many, many carnal dreams. If they seriously embarrassed me, I could scarcely do my duty. 'Tis normal for Ponies to experience their sexual fantasies in their dreams, whether they be bright or dark ones. Or even extremely dreary ones." "Indeed," said Rarity. "So dreary that I preferred death." She looked at Luna, troubled. "Am I sane?" Rarity asked her. Luna smiled. "I may not be the best Pony of whom to ask that question," the Moon Princess pointed out. "Thou might recall the circumstances of our initial meeting." "Oh, pish tosh," said Rarity, waving a hoof at her and smiling. "You just weren't quite yourself at the time, darling. We all have bad days." She wondered for a moment if she'd gone too far -- for a moment, Luna's expression was unreadable. Then she smiled wryly at Rarity. "Indeed," said Luna. "My bad day simply lasted a bit more than a millennium. But it has passed." She looked more cheerful for a moment, then more serious. "Lady Rarity, I would wager that thou hast known times of pain and tragedy in your life, perhaps more severe in some ways than some of thy friends. Though, in other ways, I would wager that thou might be surprised by what they have endured, and the extent to which they would sympathize with thee, and be willing to help thee with thy soul's burdens." "Ancient Alicorn wisdom, Your Highness?" asked Rarity, arching an eyebrow at her. "That," replied Luna, "and some fundamental logic. The Night Shadows flock around thee, seeking a lodgement through thee in our world. They torment thee more grievously because they have found a weakness to exploit, a flaw in thee through which they hope to corrupt thee. Understand: they cannot possess thee unless thou is open to them in some measure. They have possessed thee once before, and they hunger to do so once more." "I'm the weakest link," said Rarity sadly, looking away in shame. "Mayhap," said Luna, and then touched Rarity's chin gently with one hoof, turning her head up and looking directly into her eyes. "But know this, Rarity Belle, thou art strong indeed by any normal standards. There is merely a flaw they have found, perhaps by fortune, of which they know they can make use. And they will keep trying to use it again and again, until you acknowledge it and heal, bar them entry. "And Rarity -- be not ashamed that thou art flawed. For I am flawed, and the Night Shadows took advantage of my flaw to seduce me to treason and the betrayal of everything and everypony I loved. I have sinned greatly; committed terrible crimes: worse than any that I think you can now imagine. Compared to mine own self, thou art innocence and loyalty personified. Dost thou despise me?" "No, of course not!" cried Rarity. "You're ... you're simply wonderful! I admire you!" There was no calculation in that; it was the free expression of her heart, her response to the love and friendship Luna was demonstrating to her. Luna smiled. "Perhaps more praise than I truly deserve, but I shall gladly accept it from thee." Then, her expression becoming more serious. "Then, Rarity, if thou can find it in thyself to admire me, do not despise thyself. I see thee with an eye jaundiced by viewing many centuries of evil and suffering and treachery, and I say unto thee: thou art brave, and good, and high of spirits, and thy heart is pure." "Thank you, Your Highness," replied Rarity. "I ... I wish it was easier to feel that way about myself. I ... I'm not always as confident as I make myself out to be, you understand?" Luna replied "The same is true of mine own self, Lady Rarity, at times. I remind myself that these times that the murk will pass; the night will once again become clear and bright and beautiful. And ..." she looked very seriously at Rarity, "... I spend time in the company of mine own friends." Rarity smiled. "I am fortunate to have such friends as I do -- they make me feel more fabulous." "There is one friend in particular," Luna said, "who is quite worried regarding thee. He stands without thy home right now, and I fear thou didst shriek aloud when thou didst fight the Night Shadow. If I were thee, I would wake and open thy doors to him. He means thee only well, but if he imagines thee in peril, no mere wooden doors will serve to check his passage." Luna smiled at Rarity. "For who would be foolish enough to attempt to bar her door to a Dragon ..." Luna faded into mist on those last words. CRASH! There was a sound of splintering wood, and Rarity came awake with a start. At first she could see only blackness, and that briefly worried her, before she realized that she still had her sleeping-mask on. She lifted the mask, and found herself, as she expected, in her bedroom back in the Carousel Boutique. She had known this, but still -- after that terrible nightmare -- it was a great relief to confirm that she was not the slave of Starlight Glimmer, not the lover of the stallion who simply happened to be the most conveniently situated, not about to kill herself to avoid bearing foals into a life of pointless suffering. She was herself, Rarity Belle of Ponyville, and she was still capable of Fabulousness! "Rarity!" came a very familiar voice. "Are you all right? If you're in trouble, I'm coming to save you!" Dear Spike, she thought fondly, a warm happiness spreading through her soul. My hero. He's smashed my front door. Even that last realization could not diminish her joy. For, abruptly, she had an image of a determined, purple little armored archosaur, bashing and clawing and breathing fire to demolish whatever defenses Starlight Glimmer might throw up, wading through an entire village if need be to rescue his love. And she knew that, as long as Spike drew breath, she would never be without hope of salvation. "I'm all right, Spikey-Wikey!" she called out, before he could wreck any more of her home in his attempt to help her. She rolled out of bed, drew her pink night-robe around her, put her hooves into her house-slippers. There were some minor crunching and splintering noises from downstairs, then "Oh, okay! I heard you screaming ..." Rarity opened her bedroom door, stepped out and looked down from the railing into the main chamber. Though she of course expected it, still her heart leapt at the sight of the small purple-and-green Dragon that stood just within the door, brushing wood splinters off his lovely rain-glistening scales. He turned his head up to meet her gaze, and his dear features were the most handsome imaginable to her, for it was Spike. Her Spike, she could not avoid thinking. "Spike!" she cried happily, and, casting aside much of her dignity, cantered down her curving grand staircase toward him, her robe land nightgown lifting and fluttering around her as she ran, in a manner which she certainly had to admit was tres dramatique, and which in her mind was accompanied by a great rising orchestral passage, with multiple violins emphasizing the theme of her love. It's rather a pity real life doesn't include musical accompaniment, she thought briefly, and then she reached Spike, and had no thoughts to spare for anything else. She stretched out a foreleg to embrace Spike. Then, at the last moment, she remembered what had happened before, and she hesitated. Only for an instant, but it threw off her rhythm; her talent, exquisitely-attuned to all sorts of social pattern, made her immediately aware that what she had done constituted a subtle rejection of Spike. She was painfully aware of her faux pas, but it was too late ... she'd emotionally pushed him away, again ... ... and Spike, completely ignoring this, leaped, flinging his arms around her neck, pressing his cheek against the side of her throat right where she was so wonderfully-sensitive, and Rarity gasped at the sheer joy of his presence, his reality, his enthusiastic caring for her, in such colorful contrast to the apathetic gray squalor of the nightmare. She did not need Fluttershy's amatopathy to sense Spike's love; it was utterly-evident to Rarity in the tenderness of his touch, the happiness on his face, and the faint, exciting tang of dragonmusk, rising to reinforce his always dear and welcome scent. Rarity's foreleg almost reflexively came around to hold Spike, to press him into her chest, and her neck curved around to press her own cheek against the rear of his own head, feeling his quivering spines as a pleasant roughness, soothingly scratching her hide through her hair. Spike accepted her, and he admired her. She was so glad of his friendship, so lucky to have his love. She held him tightly against her. and her own happiness was almost unbearable. She closed her eyes, and tears of joy flooded down her face. For a long time, Rarity simply held Spike, luxuriating in his love. She sank to her belly to put her head on a level with his, wrapped her other foreleg around him and stroked his back gently with her hooves and aura. She kissed his cheek, very delicately, and trailed her lips down his neck, just to what would have been perhaps the edge of indecency, had he been anatomically-identical to her Kind, and perhaps was anyway, since he had been raised in Pony body language and might well have understood the implications. He responded to her touch, pressing his own head into her, kissing her throat and the side of her neck, also treading right on the edge of what was permissible, given that they had not declared any love, either to each other or to the wider world. He knew the moves of this dance, Rarity knew, for the very good reason that she had taught them to him over the winter. He did not mind pacing out the measures. As always, he had learned rapidly from Rarity. She was aware that she was being even more romantically-aggressive than before, but now they were in private What was more, she was doing it competently, seductively, in tune with Spike's own natural rhythm, once again attuned to her Talent and to her beloved alike. She could tell by the quickening of his breath, the way he touched her, and the increased emission of dragonmusk that she was arousing him, giving him pleasure. Beloved, thought Rarity. That is what he is to me in my private thoughts. And I know he loves me in return. Why can't I just say it? Why can't I tell him outright that I love him, instead of simply implying it, by actions which could instead be interpreted as mere shallow hedonism, a lack on my part of decent morals? But she knew why. If I tell him that, I'll have to mean it. I will not tell Spike I love him and then drop him for the stallion of my dreams. I will not treat him as Rush Rocks treated me. She knew this was sophistry on her part, and of the worst kind. In both directions. Their feelings had already gone far enough that she would hurt him if she dropped him. She would hurt herself if she did. That was the problem: she needed him, and yet she could not promise to him. She could not ... it occurred to her that what she was talking about was an Understanding, or as the country-Ponies put it, an Intention. No, she told herself. I can't mean that. He's still just a colt ... this isn't that serious. She was lying to herself, and she knew it. Spike finally pulled back a little and looked at her, concern on his face. "What's wrong?" he asked her. "Wrong?" Rarity said. "Why, nothing's wrong ... I'm just glad to see you." "No, not that," Spike said. "There's nothing wrong with that." He, too, would not explicitly state that they had almost been making love. "You were screaming before. That's why I ..." He suddenly realized what he'd done, and said sheepishly. "Um, sorry about the door." She glanced at the door, which had been broken off its bottom hinge and partly splintered through in a roughly Spike-sized area. She'd need to be a new one. "Oh, think nothing of it, darling," Rarity reassured him. "I was thinking of changing it anyway -- it was clashing with the new decor." "Okay," said Spike. "Why were you screaming?" "Just a bad dream," Rarity said. "Just ..." she lowered her head, tired of trying to evade his question. She looked him directly in his handsome green eyes. "I'm lying," she said flatly. "It was a bad dream, but it was not just a bad dream." She gathered up her courage. "I was in Starlight's village. Her slave. I had to live there; I had found a mate," that was the closest she was going to explain that part of the dream to Spike, "and I realized I did not want to raise up foals into slavery. So I ..." she winced, "... in the dream I was going to kill myself. But I was sleepcasting, so I really picked up my shears and pointed them at myself." Spike gasped, started to move toward her. "There's more," Rarity said, motioning him back. "It wasn't just me making the dream. One of them was back." "You don't mean ..." Spike said. "I do," Rarity nodded, her expression grim. "A Night Shadow. It wanted to merge with me, tried to trick me into thinking the dream was real and my only escape was to become the Nightmare." At Spike's look of extreme alarm, Rarity explained: "It didn't trick me. I figured out it was a lie. I fought it -- and I don't know who would have won, because Princess Luna saved me. Destroyed or banished it, I'm not sure which." "All right, Luna!" said Spike enthusiastically. "I'm worried," Rarity said, drawing her night robe tight around herself and shivering, but not with the cold blowing in through the broken door. "I think that my experience in that hellish little town damaged me more than it did the others. I'm tired, but I'm afraid that if I go to sleep again, the Night Shadows will return." "Can you block them somehow?" Spike asked. "Love repels them -- if you think of somepony you love, that should keep them away. And Luna once told me they run out of strength pretty fast if they don't have a host, which is why they usually can't take anypony who doesn't actually invite them in, at least with some part of her mind." Rarity nodded. "I wasn't sure what I'd do, but now that you're here ..." She paused, realizing that this was not exactly the kindest thing for her to ask. "Spike -- would you sleep with me?" "Um ... huh?!" Every single part of Spike's crest snapped up to rigid attention. "Are you sure ...? ... I mean of course I will, Rarity!" "You do understand what I actually mean, Spike?" Rarity asked. "I mean, physically sleep beside me in my bed. I didn't mean ..." "I didn't think you did," Spike said. "I wouldn't imagine you'd want me to ... well ..." his voice trailed off, and he looked away, his face flushing deep purple. You'd be surprised, Spike, at what I might want, even if it was a terribly bad idea, Rarity thought. You have far too high an opinion of me. In fact, your opinion of me is one of the major reasons that makes me be better than I am. But of course, she didn't say it. "Spike," she said instead, "I didn't mean -- I've never meant, that you're not the most handsome and amazing and wonderful Dragon ... or being of any sort, really ... that I've ever known," she almost cooed at him. I just mean that, right now, all I want is your companionship, to help protect me against the Shadows. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Spike drew himself up in what was meant to be a heroic manner. "Of course I do, Rarity," he replied, his eyes shining with love for her. "I'll make sure that nothing and nopony -- or noshade -- can harm you in any way!" Rarity smiled warmly at him. She did not feel in the slightest like laughing at him. For she knew that, beneath his exaggerated gesture, he was a hero, who would do anything to protect her. She remembered how he had come to her rescue on the dream-Moon, when the worst had happened, and she had been in thrall to the Night Shadows. She remembered how he had dreamed himself a giant, smashed through the Shadow-guards, and reforged the Fire Ruby with the power of his love. I'm waiting for the image of a perfect stallion I devised when I was a child, Rarity realized. The image I followed to my own near self-destruction in Fillydelphia, and later to my embarrassment with Blueblood and Trenderhoof. Why am I even still doing this? What Pony could I possibly meet who would understand me, care for me, protect me more thoroughly than my Spike? The longer she knew Spike, the less important this image of a perfect stallion seemed to her; the more important the reality of the Dragon. She seriously considered giving herself to Spike in truth. He's still too young, she reminded herself. It would be monstrous. Perverted. Wrong. A betrayal of my friendship with Twilight. That was her last defense, and she was standing behind it. For now. At least until he got a bit older. They cleaned up the foyer, which was covered in wet splinters. Rarity put the door back in place and temporarily re-hung it on its hinges, manipulating it with her aura. Spike heated the key parts with his breath focused in a pinpoint blue-white torch, then shaped them, nonchalantly handling the red-hot metal in his bare claws. They hammered some plywood into place over the hole in the door It was a less-than-perfect repair job -- the door looked shabby now and she'd still have to replace it -- but at least there wasn't a hole in her front door letting in the chill and damp anymore. Rarity got towels and helped Spike dry; she restrained herself from helping him in ways which he might have perceived as erotic. She made and served him some tea; they used up most of the biscuits remaining after her earlier meeting with Fluttershy. I am really going to have to go shopping tomorrow, she thought. After all this they were both really tired, and went to bed. They got under the blankets, and lay a bit awkwardly on opposite sides of Rarity's big, soft four-poster bed. Spike very obviously did not want to do anything that even seemed like making a pass at her, while Rarity did not entirely trust herself to refrain from doing so for real. Dear Spikey-Wikey would be terribly shocked if he knew some of my thoughts, Rarity mused. I'm glad that he shows absolutely no sign of telepathy. In the legends she'd read, some Dragons could read minds. Happily, they were both very tired, and soon dropped off to sleep. Rarity awoke in the early dawn to a warm, dry, scaly little form hugging her side and snoring. She looked at the Dragon with an expression of absolute love, which it was really quite a shame that he wasn't awake to see. She smiled, and hugged him back, and then didn't let go, because she rather liked how he felt in her embrace, especially sleeping. She was still very tired, so she slipped back into sleep. At various points during the night he and she must have rolled into various positions, because when she woke again he was hugging her from behind, still snoring. She considered detaching herself from him; it was full daylight now, and she was normally a very energetic Pony, but being hugged by Spike felt so nice that she instead drifted off to sleep again. If there were any Night Shadows prowling about, they stayed away from Rarity, protected as she was in the warmth of Spike's love. Late that morning they awoke together, drowsing side by side. She made herself get out of bed, and Spike followed her into the kitchen, where she made coffee and they ate the absolute last of the biscuits. "I'm sorry for the simplicity of the fare, darling," she said. "I need to go shopping today." "It's no problem," said Spike. "If I'm really hungry I'll make myself a second breakfast at the castle." She wasn't sure what to say to Spike beyond such trivialities. In the nine years since Rush Rocks had betrayed her, she'd never had full sexual intercourse again, but she had sexual affairs, of varying degrees of physical participation, with various stallions. A few times she'd even wound up in bed with them. She'd never slept with them. She'd never actually slept with any male, aside from Rush Rocks. Until now. Why did it make such a difference? Why did it make her feel as if he was hers, and she his, even though they'd never ... it was something about the intimacy. The trust involved in falling asleep in bed with a male, whether stallion or drake. The belonging one felt, when one woke up in bed with someone else. It was almost like being a small filly again, and sleeping with her parents -- but Spike wasn't one of her parents, and she viscerally knew it. She couldn't get past the later betrayal and anger and hatred to remember if sleeping with Rush Rocks had been like this. She remembered him always poking at her, even when she was tired and just wanted to sleep, as if he was scoring points off her in some pointless game which only one of them could win. His love was zero-sum, maybe negative-sum, she thought, in the terms Fluttershy had taught her. Spike -- his love is positive-sum. We both win. There was no way she could say this all to Spike. She was embarrassed by the intensity of her own emotions. But she had to say something to him. He'd been with her instead of taking care of Twilight; he'd exposed himself to possible criticism and embarrassment, she understood this well -- and he'd done this all to be with her, and to protect her. She knew he'd enjoyed sleeping with her as much as she had, but she also knew that he was at least somewhat aware of the potential social consequences. "Thank you, Spike," she said. "For ... protecting me last night. For being there for me. For ... well for being you, Spikey-Wikey. You're my hero." It came out awkwardly, compared to her normal smooth synchronization with social rhythms, but she was on territory she hadn't been on for almost a decade -- actually, territory she'd never been on, but only thought she'd explored, even back then. Spike suddenly hugged her. After a startled moment, she returned the embrace. "Any time," Spike said. "I ... I wish I could ... never mind." It gave her an idea. "We will again sometime, darling," she promised him. "In the meantime ... well, you'll see later." She smiled archly at him. "I have to go see about Twilight," Spike told her. "She's probably back from talking to the Royal Sisters now." He'd mentioned in passing, earlier, that Twilight had written to and was going to have a conference with Celestia and Luna, so this came as no surprise to Rarity. "I'll come to the Castle to see Twilight too, after I perform a few errands," Rarity told him. "I'll see you then." She saw him off at the door, and kissed a hoof to him as he departed. "Until later," she said, and felt briefly, strangely shy. After Spike left, the first thing she did was hunt among her fabrics. She found some peluche, in the exact shade as her own off-white body; some indigo yarn, two azure buttons, a few other odds and ends. Humming happily to herself, Rarity began to make a plush toy.