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// 168 - In Your Dreams 
// Story: Putting on a Silver Robe and Wizard Hat 
// by David Silver 
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Silver slid up onto Carrot Plate's back, his forelegs hugging around her barrel in a monstrously suggestive embrace. "Is this what you want?"

Carrot shuddered and wailed, and Silver slid down from her. "I thought not. Will you tell me what's going on, for real? I'm not angry at you, and I don't intend to force this on you."

She spun on him, eyes wide with fear. "You... please. They'll be angry at me if they see you rejecting me."

Silver held up a hoof. "They can't see you here. We're in your dream." But he was no alicorn of dreams. He had no lunar magic, and could not simply dispel the fog of sleep from Carrot's mind.

She shivered softly and glanced around with obvious nervousness. "How can you be sure?"

Silver made his horn glow quite brightly, so she could see it easily. "I'm casting a spell that makes us invisible to them. They'll only know what you tell them, and you don't have to tell them anything. Now who's pressuring you?"

Carrot looked to him, trembling like a leaf in the breeze. "Do you promise? Do you swear? Are you just... toying with me, like..."

Silver raised a hoof and place it on her snout. "Whatever you tell me here will be between us alone. Tell me what's going on."

"My father." Carrot frowned a little. "He said I 'know' you... and you'd be interested... He said I should try to join your... herd."

"And you're not interested." Silver sat on his haunches.

Carrot tensed. "I raped you! I attacked you... You should hate me forever, but... you keep insisting you forgive me, and even if that's true, I... marriage? My father's nuts." She threw a leg wide. "Do you see a wife when you look at me?"

Silver saw a scared young mare. "I do forgive you. I meant it, and I mean to prove it. Would asking you on a date make your father happy?"

Carrot blinked at him. "But... I don't..."

"We won't do anything but talk and eat. My wife, Night Watch, will be there. We'll have a nice time, and you can go home and talk about how impressed I was with you. Your father should relax then, right?"

Carrot frowned a little. "But then he'll want me to finish what I started."

She had a point, and he frowned. Politics was annoying, but it was to be his world, for better or worse. "I've made it public that no new ponies can join my herd at this time. Would he not have some patience?"

The dream abruptly ended, throwing Silver out of her door. His wings spread with the sound of feathers as they went bolt stiff, keeping him from slamming into the ground and narrowly avoiding the ejection migraine. He turned back to her door, but he refused to open. She was awake.

"This is not your realm."

Silver span around to see Luna looking at him with a calm expression. "The dreams of ponykind are mine to patrol. When you used it to seek me out, that was one thing, and loved ones, another, but she is neither of those things."

He took an uncertain step towards Luna. "I didn't mean to--"

"You are an alicorn, truly?" She looked back at his wings. "Sister mentioned it, but you have appeared as such in dreams before."

Silver blinked softly. "I am, truly. I'm not a prince though."

"By what measure are you not?"

He made a broad wave. "I plan to earn that title first. I won't have it given to me."

"We can be friends now, without complication." Luna smiled a little.

Silver winced internally, "Have you heard?"

"About your herd? Word gets around, but that is immaterial, as are we. In the world of dreams, herds mean little. Come." She turned and began walking away.

Silver swallowed thickly with building nervousness. Would it be wise to follow Luna? Would it be wise to spurn her? He fell in behind her, hooves silent in the world of dreams. "You've come and gone a lot."

"I'm sorry." Luna looked over her shoulder. "At some points it was my weakness, and others, your brash nature, but we can put that behind us." She turned to a door and her horn glowed as it opened. "My dream. Follow me." She stepped in and vanished.

Silver glanced about once more before he took a step forward, and the world vanished around him. He was in a dark place. He recognized it as Luna's bedchambers. She was laying on her side, pillows scattered about her. The air was thick with a soft perfume and her eyes bore into him with a smoldering desire. "My stallion."

He froze. "Luna, too fast!"

She tilted her head faintly. "It wasn't too fast when you did it?"

Silver's ears pinned on his head. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be sorry, come here." Luna's magic wrapped around him, drawing him closer. "We can finally both have what we've wanted without regrets. I made you what you are. You are my pony in many meanings of the phrase. Will you begrudge me this, and yourself?"

It wasn't that Silver didn't still have feelings for Luna, or didn't find the mysterious night princess attractive. In fact, some parts of him were quite excited to give her exactly what she asked for, but others... "We're both waking dreamers. We can't just dream of infidelity and wave it off as the idle workings of our minds."

Luna perked an ear at him. "Does it bother you that much?"

"Yes!" Silver sat before her. "I want to be a good husband, alicorn or not."

Luna sat up slowly. "And if she consents?"

Silver thought of Night Watch, and her recent fury towards Luna. "You have quite a battle ahead to convince her to adore you as she once did. You hurt her in ways that don't easily heal."

Luna gave a soft cluck of her tongue. "I will speak to her... I want to be angry at you, neigh, furious, but your refusal has good reasons. I won't fault my stallion for being a good husband." She was suddenly close to him and kissed his snout. "Go and sleep."

He was back in his dream room, seated on his human bed. He was alone with his own troubled thoughts.

He awoke in the warm embrace of his wives and nuzzled them both to waking. He was ready to tackle the day, but Samantha had other ideas. "It's time for a new experiment!" she declared boldly. "Do you wish to take notes, Night Watch?"

Night raised a brow at her. "What experiment is this?"

Samantha gestured at herself. "The effects of relationship physical consumation with minimal experience with the participating female, especially when an alicorn is involved."

Night flushed brightly. "You don't need me to watch that!"

Silver joined the blushing, looking between the two mares, unsure of what to say.

"You don't need to, but I'd feel safer." Samantha lowered her head a little. "Please?"

Night's expression softened as it turned from a plea for science to a much more personal one. "I'll support you."

Silver's opinion didn't matter too much, not that he didn't want to do as Samantha wished. He gently pulled her close and they warmed up by mutual grooming before proceeding to the actual deed. She was inexperienced, as promised, but Night held her and whispered encouragements even as Samantha and Silver did as spouses do.

By the time they began to slip from bed, there was a subtly different energy between them. Samantha was fully inducted into the herd, her connection to Silver made physical, but her trust in her alpha mare shown and returned. All three loved one another deeply and well.

With his wives happy, Silver decided to broach the topic. "Remember Luna?"

Night raised a brow. "She's difficult to forget."

That much was true. Silver glanced away a moment. "She's probably going to speak to you."

Night frowned at the news. "She's going to ruin what you're doing, you mean. Now is not the time." She frowned all the more. "I'm not sure there ever will be another time. Rather convenient for her to come trotting back to us after you've grown more to her liking."

Samantha tilted her head a bit. "She did kidnap my favorite subjects and left one of them in unsatisfactory health care arrangements."

Night pointed at Samantha. "That's a lot more mild than I would have put it, but yes, that right there. And don't even start with you not holding a grudge about it. I know you don't, doesn't matter." She pointed at herself. "Good thing you have wives to hold grudges for you. Samantha, keep her away from Silver in any non-professional capacity, you got that?"

Samantha saluted sharply. "As you command, my alpha." She smiled. "I never tested if my deterrants operate on alicorns before! This will be worth taking notes about."

Silver couldn't help but quirk a smile at Samantha's eagerness. "Don't hurt her. She may have made mistakes, but she's not a bad pony, or our enemy." He didn't get much chance to say anything else. He felt a sudden pinch in his left flank, glanced over to see a slender dart embedded there, then flopped forward bonelessly, consciousness stripped from him.

"Hmmm, it works on him, but he's a new alicorn, so I can't call this test conclusive. Besides." She thrust a hoof up. "If you can't repeat it and get the same results, science has not yet been performed!"

Night blinked down at the knocked out Silver before shaking her head at Samantha. "Please try to avoid knocking our stallion out. He does have work to do." Night gently propped him up against the wall and plucked the dart free of him. "How long should he be out for?"

"Assuming my measurements of his bodyweight are accurate, four minutes and twenty-two seconds, with a margin of error of plus or minus five seconds." Samantha looked quite proud of herself. "It shouldn't have any side effects, but I'll ask when he wakes to be sure."

Night kissed Samantha's cheek. "I meant it, keep Luna away unless it's official business. Accepted or not, Silver has more authority now, so you just say you're doing it in his name and nopony should give you too much flack about it." She rose to her hooves and moved for the door. "I have some training to do, but I'll meet Silver at his office when I'm done, so be sure to tell him that."

"He'll be safe with me," promised Samantha before delivering a soft kiss to her comatose stallion and settling patiently to wait for him to stir.