Ode to Disturbances
Canterlot castle. This is the name of the castle on mountains I ended up in after I ended up forcing Bill Cipher, an interdimensional being to join me in my attempt to save my world.
Sadly it seems like I’ve ended up bringing trouble with me into this one.
“So” a voice said. I looked up to stare at the young alicorn called Twilight Sparkle, she seemed nice. Wasn’t too bad on the eyes that’s for sure, same could be said for her friends but I suppose right now isn’t the best time to have my mind wander on unnecessary things at this moment.
“So why were you falling from the sky like that?” Twilight asked as she and the others lead me up to what would be my temporary room. At least that’s what I presumed since I very well couldn’t stay in a room with royalty in this castle all day.
The Princess- I mean Celestia hadn’t really elaborated on how long I would be staying in this room. She simply told me to get some rest with that kind smile of hers and then excused herself from us stating she had other royal matters to attend to.
These group of mares I’d witnessed die moments ago were now leading me to my soon to be resting quarters.
“Um Hailstorm?” Twilight said. I stopped noticing the look they were all giving me.
Looks like I let my mind wander again. “Yeah sorry, what was the question again?” I asked with a small smile.
“Why were you falling from the sky like that?” she reiterated.
I shrugged, not really sure what to say. Unlike pathological liars I don’t have the ability to come up with a easily believable and convincing lie in a matter of seconds so there was not much I could say at this moment. And I highly doubt telling these equines I’m a human from an alternate dimension would help either way.
Twilight and the others waited for me to say something aside from just my shrug.
Sighing, I shook my head. “Is my room up ahead those stairs?” I asked using my head to gesture towards the stairs in front of us.
The group of mares didn’t respond immediately, Twilight and Applejack both looking displeased with how I had switched topics, so quickly but for their sake and my own I’d really rather not wander in my greatest blunder ever.
“Yeah it’s just up ahead” Twilight said with a frown, turning around she continued to lead the way up the stairs. I caught a skeptical look from the cyan pegasus named Rainbow Dash before waiting till they were a few inches ahead so I could maintain my distance.
Once up the stairs Twilight’s horn became caked in orchid aura, turning the knob and opening the door for me to see. I whistled, the room was rather quite large. Even if I had been in my human form it still would have been somewhat large. Not as large as my room back on Earth, but just sufficient enough to live in even in human form.
“Thank you. And” I turned to Rainbow Dash. “Thank you especially for saving my life. I’m indebted to you and your friends, including the princesses for giving me this room to stay in temporarily.”
Rainbow Dash smiled, I could see a faint sign of blush hit her cheeks. Strange with the way her body language came off I thought she was the boastful overconfident type.
Oh well this side is just as cute as well I suppose.
“It’s not a problem” the white unicorn said with a smile. “We’re just glad to see you’re alright. Now Twilight we really must go, the princess said she had something she wanted to discuss with us before we return to Ponyville tomorrow.”
“Right, of course let’s go girls” she said turning around, but not before she gave me another long look of curiosity as I watched her and her friends head down the stairs all saying their goodbyes.
The pink one called Pinkie Pie had said she wanted to throw a party for me later, for my rescue and welcome to Canterlot. I humbly declined, much to the mare’s disappointment, but reassured her that I would certainly join her in a party another time.
She seemed to have regained her bouncy attitude immediately.
Shutting the door, and laying on my bed I simply let out a long due sigh.
Silence passed for a few seconds which allowed me to gather my thoughts.
So...this is Equestria huh? From what I can tell this world seems to be full of Equines and other mystical creatures as the dominant sentient race. Obviously they seem to have their own systems considering the fact that they seem to have a diarchy, and aside from that this world seems to have magic.
Although that last bit was pretty obvious since Twilight was able to open my door with her horn.
I wonder what else they can do in this world a yawn escaped my mouth as I stretched. I suppose having a near death experience and saving your home world at the same time, while dooming another can make anyone pretty sleepy in a few minutes.
Getting as comfortable as I could in the bed as I layed on my back I tried to let my muscles relax a bit. It took a while but eventually my tense muscles relaxed a bit and loosened. I sighed again, recalling that skeptical look Rainbow Dash had given me when I didn’t answer the question on all their minds.
“I suppose I’ll need to give them some sort of explanation eventually huh?” I shook my head staring at the ceiling again. “I should really stop talking to myself”, another yawn. “It’s not right.”
Stretching one last time I could feel sleep working it’s way into my system before eventually my eyelids began to feel heavy. I blinked a few times, before finally shutting my eyes.
“Hopefully I won’t have to worry about any nightmares. After all...how could they get any worse?”
///O\\\
Laughter. The same creepy insidious laughter that I had heard before that reminded me of only one being in existence the could hold such a natural laugh, that gave off such a dark and disturbing feeling.
Bill Cipher, was somewhere in my dreams.
It was dark at this moment, I couldn’t see anything at all. That is till I heard something drop and dangle in front of me.
“Go on, pull the switch” a voice said.
I shrugged. I’m already in hell so why not? I pulled it and the entire space brightened.
Standing before me was me. In my human form. And surrounding us was a house or rather wall of mirrors. Each reflecting a version of myself, either in human form or I suppose what I should call pony form.
At the moment my dreamself was in human form, why that was so is beyond me but I assume I’ll find out as I continue through this dream.
The mirrors had all of a sudden disappeared and so had the human version of myself when I came to the realization I had reverted back to human form. Moving onward through the abyss, I could see a light ahead.
I walked towards it, but every step I took seemed to only lengthen the distance between me and the light.
Minutes passed and it only continued, to stretch farther and farther away from me. This was starting to get annoying, as was that annoying laughter that seemed to echo throughout this domain.
“You better run Hailstorm!” Bill’s voice stated. “You’ll never reach the light if you don’t make a dash for it!”
I growled, going into a jog. Surprisingly the light stopped.
No way. “Yes way” Bill’s voice responded. I picked up the pace. The door of light got slowly closer.
No f-ing way! I picked up the pace some more, now breaking into a run. And I don’t know when it happened but I had suddenly reverted back to my pony form. The light had was now only a few feet away. I was almost there.
Then it hit me. The light enveloped my vision, everything went blindingly white and then I found myself in a room, that was devoid of anything save for the single light that shined directly on me and only on me, leaving everything else dark outside the light.
Raising a hoof to block the light so I could clearly see I found once again my glasses weren’t the greatest shield against these kind of things so raising a forehoof to block the light a bit was my best chance.
Squinting through the brightness I could now see a figure in the shadows. It looked like a smaller version of a horse. A foal maybe?
My ears twitched when I started to hear whimpering coming from that very figure, surrounded by the shadows. In what I could only assume would be said to be the shadow realm at this point. The whimpering and sobbing was still present, but it wasn’t as creepily loud as I had expected it to be in this empty space.
“Strange” I said pushing my glasses up with my hoof.
I didn’t move, continuing to listen to the sobbing foal that was being covered in shadows. There was only one clear reason why I wouldn’t move. Every sense told me not to.
I’ve seen enough movies, been through enough of these nightmares and apocalyptic scenes through these dreams to know what happens every single time someone or something cries in the dark in a plea for help to know what exactly is coming. I’ll get shocked awake, or see something much worse.
However this curse seemed to have different ideas because the next time I blinked, I wasn’t as far away from the crying foal as I had been. She was just an inch or two away from me, her purple aquamarine tail being the only thing I could see.
I sighed, taking a step towards her, the light illuminated the weeping foals body as I drew nearer and on it I saw no marks of injury on her. I felt relief, at least she was not hurt.
“Hey” I said gently, my hoof now a hand as I gently touched the filly’s shoulder. “What’s wrong why are you crying?”
The foal sniffed, and looked at me. Her coat looked very dirty, the kind of dirt that only accumulated when you were on the run or running away from something. I felt kinda bad for her so I knelt down on my knee gently patting her head.
“What’s your name?”
She sniffed. “Starlight”
“Starlight? Well you’ve got a nice name. What are you doing here, aren’t you scared?”
The foal shook her head as she dried her tears. I raised a brow in confusion.
“Then why were you crying?” The foal sat up and scooted closer to me, seeming to relax a bit when I patted her head a bit more.
“It’s because I had a plan ruined, but that doesn’t matter right now. I’ve got something to tell you. A message.”
“From who?”
She remained silent for a few seconds staring at me. I could feel the awkward tension rising as well as strangely the heat in this space, till it felt like the place was actually on fire.
That’s when Starlight smiled, a wide smile that to me seemed more fake than amiable. “From Bill.”
My hand froze on her head, my eyes immediately trailing down to the young filly’s cutie mark to see a triangle with a bow-tie and eye on it. The filly however gently moved her hoof under my chin and turned my shocked face towards her sweet smiling face.
And as I stared into her persian blue eyes, I noticed that she now seemed older. Almost my age or possibly just as old if not a little older.
She cleared her throat, the light that had been shining on us went out, replacing the entire domain with a ruined Canterlot castle around us, and destroyed areas everywhere. Flames erupting from the surface around us as if to make sure they had ensnared us in it’s trap to prevent any form of escape.
Starlight gently patted my chin, making my eyes turn away from the destruction around us towards her.
“You don’t need to worry about that” Starlight said. “If my plan goes through then everything will be perfect. No one will have to worry about-”
“What-- is the message?” I asked with now narrowed eyes.
Whether the unicorn cared or not for my interruption she did well in hiding it with her smile. She nodded, then shut her eyes.
And then they glowed yellow. Reflexively I moved away seeing Bill now had possession over the mare’s body.
And so the two began speaking, as one.
“Day by day it draws near,”
Bill laughed and it echoed throughout the ruined city as he and Starlight continued.
“You’ll come to see that which you fear.” The mare said moving closer to me as I backed away at the glowing yellow eyes moving towards me like a predator trapping its prey.
“For as you wait, you will see,
Those once your friends are now your enemies- The Elements of Harmony.
Challenges come your way while I watch from the sky,
Because soon enough you’ll watch their demise.”
Bill had now left Starlight’s body and divided himself around me so I could not retreat any further. Feeling both fear and anger starting to course through me as I watched that eye- those eyes and the mare’s nearing me I began to feel my heartbeat quicken just a bit faster. I moved a hand to try and stop the advancing mare from coming closer but she caught my hoof, inching to my once again pony form with a pleasant smile on her face. As Starlight’s muzzle stayed inches away from my own.
She continued the message, every word, every syllable allowing me to feel her warm breath on me.
“And then all alone you will be.
For it is simply your destiny.
Trapped in this world filled with doom.
“For you shall stand before many fallen tombs” Bill finished for her.
And as the mare continued to hold my hoof and stare at me with what I could only assume was a reassuring look that all would be alright. Bill’s body grew and grew till his shadow was well cast over me.
“Remember Hailstorm” he said to me, his body and voice growing darker by the second.
“I’ll be watching you.”
A bright light flashed, before my eyes consuming my vision, as both Bill and the mare called Starlight disappeared with it. In a matter of seconds all was lost, and I could feel myself returning to the real world.
Damn I hate being right.
///O\\\
*** ***** ***
I felt a tap on my shoulder and lurched out of bed, with a start. I had to rub my eyes since I still could feel lingering sleepiness around me, but when I looked around I could see standing before me was the dark winged unicorn I had seen defeated in my previous dream before awakening in front of the castle.
“Are you alright?” Luna asked with concern.
I was stunned, looking outside I could see that it was quite dark out and the only source of light in my room was the moonlight that came from a window only a few inches from my bed.
I turned my attention back to the worried winged alicorn before me, she was uncomfortably close to my face so I backed up. Holding both hands out to warn her that I was not used to this kind of close contact.
I froze, now seeing my own hands. I had hands?
Indeed I did, flexing all my fingers, then my toes I had indeed regained my human form. It was...uncanny, disturbing almost. Ok, so it was really disturbing, I clearly recalled being a stallion when I went to bed, and possibly dying a stallion in that dream before I awoke.
The winged unicorn was still staring at me with concern, she had something suspended in her magic and it was floating towards me.
“Here, your glasses” she said. Thanking her I took them putting them back on to get a clear vision of who I was looking at.
“Wow” I accidentally said. “You look beautiful.”
The mare smiled, waving a hoof with a confident grin and very faint red touch to her cheeks. “It is not everyday we get complimented, especially by such a creature of your stature. However”, her kind smile retracted into a serious stare.
“We wonder why we were unable to peer into your dreams.”
I blinked my mind still adjusting to the regal being before me, but clicked when she said ‘peer into dreams.’
“Wait” I said raising a hand. “You’re telling me you can look into others dreams?...Can all unicorns do that or is it just?”
She smiled. “It is only me, do not fret Hailstorm.”
“You know my name? I suppose Princess Celestia informed you?”
“My sister did indeed.”
No surprise there. “Forgive me for asking but what is your name?”
“You may call me Luna.”
“Well” I bowed my head slightly in appreciation. “Thank you for waking me Luna. I have had quite the night terrors in the past but none so bad as this.”
“Oh I agree” Luna said moving closer to me. “We have never seen an equine change into a different form the way you did, tonight. Unless you are some sort of changeling?” she asked me with a raised brow and somewhat cold look in her eyes.
I shook my head. “I do not know what Changelings are but I assure you I’m not one of them now...what do you mean by ‘change’?”
Luna pointed to my feet with her forehoof, and I moved them away to the ground so she could sit on my bed.
“You see as the princess of the moon” she said with a small gesture to her flank. “It is our job to make sure we overlook the dreams of all our subjects.”
“Isn’t that stal-”
“We have checked and it is not stalking.”
I raised a skeptical brow, but she ignored it. “We were trying to look into your dreams. But found we couldn’t, something blocking us from doing so. It was something we had never seen before.
“So we decided to check up on you, see how you were going thinking you were awake. Only when we looked at you from above we found a light coming from your room.”
“I see...so I suppose whatever that light was, is what had me change back into a human.”
Luna nodded, still sitting by my side. And after a few minutes of silence the mare said.
“What did you dream about?” both concern and interest in her voice.
Glancing over at her through my glasses, I didn’t respond immediately. “Would you believe me if I told you?”
Luna let out a small rather cute giggle. “Before I would not, my sister telling me that an earth pony falling from the sky was something I had trouble wrapping my head around. But after meeting this pony in person and watching him revert into, well this new form I must say it wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
“Fair point” I replied. “I suppose I will tell you then.” Crossing my legs and turning to Luna I began explaining the dream to her. What I saw, stressed a bit on the mare to see if she knew who that was, and continued on to the end even going as far as to restate the message.
“Day by Day it draws near,
You’ll come to see that which you fear.
For as you wait, you will see,
Those once your friends are now you enemies- The Elements of Harmony.
Challenges come your way while I watch from the sky,
Because soon enough you’ll watch their demise.
And then all alone you will be.
For it is simply your destiny.
Trapped in this world filled with doom.
For you shall stand before many of tombs.”
Once done reciting and writing it down I studied the dark blue alicorn’s expression. It was very grim.
“This is quite disturbing Hailstorm.”
“Tell me about it, I just had to experience it.” She went silent for a couple more seconds before hopping off the bed.
“Did you come up with an idea?” I asked as I watched her head towards my door.
Luna looked back at me with a small smile. “Perhaps, tomorrow you will be heading with Twilight and the rest of the bearers of the elements.”
“That reminds me, what are the elements of harmony?” The look I received upon question, made me wonder if I had asked a foolish question. However the surprised look the dark alicorn gave me was soon dismissed when she seemed to take into account I was most likely not from this world.
“The Elements of Harmony are the strongest form of the magic in our world. They are the friendship of magic. And these elements: honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, laughter, and magic are wielded by six mares.”
“Those mares being Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Am I right?”
She nodded. “You are correct. But one thing is not clear to me Hailstorm.”
“What’s that?”
“Princess Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the bearers do not know you that well. What do you think it means that you will become enemies?”
A burst of light suddenly enveloped the room, and Luna had to shield her eyes, with a wing as my body reverted back into it’s pony form.
With a sigh I tossed my glasses over to the bed my vision now much clearer without them on. Looking out to the city of Canterlot I heard Luna’s silver like regal shoes click on the ground till they came to a halt beside me as we both stared on outside to the night.
“In all honesty I’m not sure” I said after a few minutes of silence. “But whoever Starlight is, and whatever Bill plans to do I need to make sure I keep an eye on those mares when I leave with them starting tomorrow.”
Luna nodded patting my shoulder gently with a warm smile. “And if you need any help do not hesitate to ask.”
Returning her smile I nodded back and watched the alicorn beauty trot out of my room, before the door closed on it’s own. Most likely with Luna’s magic. Turning my attention back outside I stared at the night sky for a few more seconds before retiring back to bed.
“Looks like I won’t be getting anymore sleep for the rest of the night.”