//------------------------------// // Day? 15: As sunlight pours // Story: A mare and her dog // by cammera //------------------------------// Applejack woke up. She felt drained. The ceiling was unknown, yet familiar: ground-covering plants of thick, glossy dark leaves, intertwined and shaped by rings made of curved branches as thick as her leg, a column in the center of the room (Seemingly a tree with its lower branches cut) keeping the upper rings in place, and smaller pieces of curved wood keeping the lower ones. While there wasn't any hole in the vegetal wall, some sunlight entered through the semi opaque material. Twilight had once told her in a letter that technically (A word that, in most of her friends, was a mental switch to turn off the brain and nod every few seconds) northern zebra domes didn't have a ceiling, as they were domes, so she had woken up to unknown horizontal walls. The though got a small smile from her. She looked around, and made a double take at the old zebra that sat near the bed. "You are real" she said, then remembered "You are real", she repeated in Tharatean. "I think so" the zebra nodded. Neither said anything for a moment. "What happened?" asked Applejack. "You entered a turaerla neh domain" she said simply. Applejack gave her a puzzled look.Neh. Someone had called Winona like that after she had stolen a sandwich, but that hadn't been a situation to ask questions. "Turarla neh?" she asked. "A..." the zebra tapped her chin for a moment "A man-neh" Applejack's expression didn't change "Neh is... evil spirit, rot-soul?" she made a face, trying to find the right words "Discord used to be a neh, and Tirek and Runsa still are" Applejack though about it for a moment, then asked "Demon?" in all the languages she know how to. A moment later, when she tried a zebra dialect, she nodded. "What you found was a man-demon. A... demon-of-sex" she added in the same dialect Applejack had used "It, or he, keeps going until you die" The moon shone over her "Everything kept going back to the same moment" Applejack shuddered "I'd just forget it, but when Winona bit me it started to fail" The zebra nodded, "It's what they do, they talk and learn how you work. And the pain of a wound makes it impossible to make a complete reset" Applejack tried to get up, but the zebra stopped her. "You rest," she shook her head "Tomorrow you'll be fine, but rest today" "Tomorrow?" she shoved against the zebra "No, I have to move" she said, jumping from the bed and searching for her bags. The zebra scowled at her, glaring in the way only old people can, "You spent a day in bed, and still are tired. Go back there" "What!?" Applejack exclaimed, taken aback "A day!?" she ran around the room, searching desperately "It's always just a day and then they build up and you take a month more..." she said angrily, not caring about languages, when a harsh hoof took her by the mane and dragged her to the bed. She glared, pointing at the bed "Go in now before I curse you, missy" Applejack tried to stand against the glare, and after nearly a minute of valiant trying, went to the bed. "Good" she turned and exited the room. Applejack tried to get up, but a wasp of white light appeared, floating in her way every time she tried. Despite it not having eyes or even a face, Applejack was pretty sure she was being glared at again. A few minutes later, the zebra entered with a bowl, followed by Winona. "Drink" she gave her the bowl, then sat besides the bed. Applejack though about protesting, but upon smelling the soup her stomach growled. Winona, her tail waving madly, tried to jump to the bed and was glared into submission by the zebra. "Does this cost me?" asked Applejack, the spoon nearly in her mouth. "I already took some money, don't worry" Applejack gave her a wary look, but drank the soup. She'd check it later. "And who are you?" she asked when the soup was gone and Winona had been petted adequately. "Nanda," the white wasp appeared again, flying circles around her head "And this is Fret, he refuses to go" she added tiredly. "He?" she gave the wisp a good look, trying to find out what it was. It did seem familiar... "He is a spirit, and gets angry if I call it an it" the wisp reddened for a moment, shaking angrily in front of her face "What? You are!" replied the mare angrily "You've been for nearly forty years!" The wasp made a point of, rather than disappearing outright, flying slowly out of the room through a wall. "Husbands" grumbled Nanda to no one in particular "All the same, even the dead ones" Applejack tried to say something, but closed her mouth. "Are there more?" she asked after a moment, grimacing. "Seven of them, six divorced," said Nanda with a mixture of pride and bitterness "Tried to convince me that necromancy is bad, all of them. Except for Fret. He was a sweet one" she smiled fondly. "No, SpirWait necromancy?" Applejack put some distance between herself and a zebra that suddenly seemed to have a rather dry skin "Are you dead?" she asked in a small voice. The zebra laughed loudly before answering. "No, dear, not yet. And no, he died of age" Applejack let herself relax a bit. Nanda did seem like something of a hag, but the friendly sort. "And there are more spirits, but they are shy" explained Nanda when Applejack didn't answer "Necromancy isn't bad, I deal with bad spirits or help good ones to go on" she stood "Now sleep, they may appear in your dreams, they like to help people with nightmares much like your moon-queen" she said with a small smile. She walked out of the the room, taking Winona with her, and a few minutes later Applejack was snoring softly.