Dreamflow

by KitsuneRisu

The Fourth

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The Fourth

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She didn’t even have to wait this time. Her hoof fell, almost on cue, to the rolling sounds of thunder in the distance. Almost immediately she snapped back into place, the colours slotting back into the lines and everything shifting back to how it was meant to.

She could feel now, she could think, and she had, as Pinkie put it so many times, awareness.

There was no time to lose.

She shut her eyes.

She was in a house – a regular house in what might have been Ponyville. It was a lovely little cottage, just the kind that she might picture if one had to ask her to think of a regular homestead, but this one was adorned with things that ought to have been in a much higher class of residence.

There was a manticore head over the fireplace and lavish banners that hung in purples and golds. But there was also a simple rug over the wooden floor and very modest furniture.

It was a home bought by a laypony but decorated by the bourgeoisie.

Applejack’s eyes flew open and that was exactly what she saw.

She found herself standing right in front of the main door of the house, facing it. Expecting something. The dream told her that she was to open it at the ringing of the bell.

Applejack took a step back.

Not just yet.

Not just yet.

It was only a few minutes into the dream, in whatever passing of time that dreams employed, and thus far there had been no fluctuations in her heart – it was lacking the impact of emotion that the previous dreams had.

But it would be quite naive to think that all her problems were solved and this was a nice proper dream, one bereft of torment.

Oh no. The torment would come. But she was starkly ready for it. She was prepared.

She felt her rear nudge against something solid that pressed cold against her flank.

And there it was. She had been expecting it for some time now. And it was a good a time as any to make an appearance.

It came a lot earlier this time around, but perhaps it was only because she knew what she was looking for. It was the kind of thing, she realised, that was like an object sitting in one’s peripheral vision – always in sight, but not truly seen it unless attention was paid.

The door stood by itself in the middle of the room, a walnut slab of wood nestled in a frame of polished oak. It was very prim and proper this time around, much unlike the wilder, more feral nature it took in the previous dream.

It was a little smaller as well, and its demeanor was more befitting the decor of the room. But it was unmistakably what she was looking for. It exhumed feelings of oddness, and Applejack had that strange idea that it did not belong.

This was, of course, on top of the very fact that there was a single door in a frame that had escaped the clutches of a wall and had rooted itself to the middle of an open space, where it stood on the carpet, next to the couch.

Applejack circled it, inspecting it. Like its predecessor, it had no means by which to be opened. It almost looked as if someone had boarded up an archway, but it radiated a beckoning warmth.

She turned away, regarding the rest of the room. It was as it was painted in her mind, and nothing else was out of sorts. There were other entrances in the room to pitch-black wells of nothingness.

But outside...

There was an outside.

Applejack found herself standing by a window, staring into the town. She could see it all, even from her limited scope. She knew about the buildings that lay scattered, running staggered down a single, wide road. It was a street of cottages all squashed together in a row, sitting and waiting for the odd traveller to come by.

The road trailed until it hit a pure wall of white, where it, and everything around, was cut off abruptly.

Applejack also knew that she wasn’t supposed to leave the house. Her role was here.

So why then, were all the other houses even there?

But for the moment she had a decision to make, and only one thing that she could inspect at a time. The dream would always remain. But the door... the door had to have her priority.

With a hoof firm of conviction, she pushed against one side of the cold, flat surface.

And then her brain started buzzing.

There it was, like a siren calling out, like a fanfare announcing an arrival. The dream had started. It started in order to call her away. It started in order to tell her not to touch the door.

The clock had begun to tick.

And all of a sudden, Applejack found herself without the luxury that she once had.

Very soon, the dream would encroach. It would push and nudge and suggestions would be thrown. There would reach a time when suggestions turned to orders, and the dream would ultimately come to an inevitable close.

As Applejack learned, even control extended only so far in the one direction. Slight deviations were possible, but still she found herself bound to the rules of the world she was in.

And time was running short.

She wanted to gasp in shock, but the act was meaningless here. She found it fit to focus her attention on more pressing matters and rushed up to the same window that looked upon the rest of the town.

At the end of the street, a splash of black against a canvas of white, stood a figure. Tall in stature, strong of girth – it was clearly a being that bespoke authority and power, but it was nothing more than a hole cut out from the rest of the world.

The silhouette stood, regarding the dreamscape that lay itself out before it.

It was hard to understand what she was seeing, but the dream’s inherent knowledge let her know that what she was looking at was not only alive, but a pony as well. But nothing about its physical demeanor would have allowed anyone to guess that.

No matter how it moved, or no matter how it was viewed, all that could be seen was its dimensionless, flat edges, and more times than not, the overlapping of shapes folded it into an incomprehensible mess.

But the dream had assured her. This was a pony.

And it had begun to move.

Applejack threw her hooves against the window, the glass shuddering silently. With no latch or grooves, the window wouldn’t open. The walls were solid, and the portals in the back to the empty depths gave no opportunity to leave.

Applejack’s eyes moved to the door.

Would it be that obvious?

Once again, it was about the rules of logic applying itself differently. She knew what her role was – she had a door to open at the ringing of the bell. That meant that she could open the door. Had to.

She’d assumed that the door would only open then.

But...

A hoof was placed, softly, on the handle.

It swung open.

The shadow had made its way down the street now. Stopping at every door, pausing at every junction. It jumped from place to place, like a phantom, its movements never really matching up with what it seemed like it was supposed to do.

But it never passed a house by, and Applejack knew it would be only a matter of time before it finally reached the house that she had just escaped from.

The houses. There must have been a reason why the shadow was interacting with them. There must have been a purpose behind its odd behaviour. Applejack drew her gaze across each of the doors that the shadow stopped in front of. And with time running out, she made a decision.

She rushed, cantering up the street, zooming up to the houses that the shadow loitered at.

There was one point where she had to pass it by.

Applejack felt that singular, focused wave of fear sweep past her once again, the moment she stopped next to the shadow. The form, devoid of soul and identity, looked down at her.

It was only a head taller, and not much larger, but it turned, for just a moment, regarding Applejack and giving her the same concern as a god to a stone, and in that, it became the frightful maw of a beast.

But Applejack couldn’t move, couldn't look away. There was morbid attraction to it, like a pony staring into the eyes of death or at the birth of all things. It was an unfathomable calling of the unknown, and Applejack was trapped within it.

The shadow didn’t change its form, but Applejack thought that she could see a thousand beasts all rushing toward her at once, followed by the beckoning of a thousand doves.

But it turned away.

It turned away and broke the chains. It had lost interest, or had finished studying Applejack, or whatever it had been doing, and had released her hence from its influence. It moved on to the doors. The houses. It kept going with its staggering jumps, leaving Applejack wrestling with the aftermath.

Discomfort and fear and a nervous energy kept her at bay for the briefest of seconds before she rushed to the first house along the line.

It was a house like any other.

It was a house like all others.

Like a grotesque set of conjoined children randomly connected together in a chain, the houses overlapped, corners sticking into walls and entire facades merging save for a shift along an axis.

But each and every house, if set apart, was the same old brick house with the plain brown face, the two windows, and the door. Long, thin cords hung from the walls, red lines of rope that were attached to a bell from within.

One would pull it if one wanted to engage with the pony within.

Behind each window darkness lay. It was not for sight that the houses were made.

Applejack turned to the shadow, already two houses ahead. She observed as it moved up to the door and rang a bell that wasn’t there. She watched as the shadow dipped its head and stepped back. She looked as it moved on.

Applejack pushed her own head toward the door, thrusting it forward.

Like someone turning up the volume on a stereo, the noises came. It was only until she had her head pressed against the door completely did she hear it fully – the sound came from everywhere, surrounding her like a bubble.

Voices.

But not quite.

What she heard were murmurs. They certainly weren’t in any conceivable language. In fact, it was doubtful that it was any sort of meaningful communication at all. When the words are removed, all that’s left is the sentiment, and the sentiment came through clearly – they were the whispers behind closed doors, realized through this strange metaphor.

Applejack turned, and, in a jump, she was at the second door, catching up.

She pressed her head to this one as well, and here, there were screams. Muffled, yet clear. Robust, yet echoing layers into itself. It was a lonely scream made out of many voices that sang a single note, shrilling and warbling and contorting as it went along in an unabated deluge.

Applejack turned her head away, and the scream in her head faded into quiet.

The shadow, as she saw, was nearly at her door. She had only time for one more herself.

She jumped, and the third door was within earshot.

This one heralded forth the slamming of wood against wood, as the door she stood behind slammed shut. Of course, it was never truly open in the first place, nor did any associative action lend itself to the idea that the sound should be taking place.

But the door sounded tightly shut, a single, prominent time, and it fell upon the ears of Applejack. And when she moved her head away and toward the door in succession, it triggered once more, and each time hence.

There was no time to meditate upon what it meant.

The world fell upon her and buried her for just a moment.

She felt the town cave in, pressing against her skin, engulfing her body.

She felt the overbearing need to close her eyes, and the dream willed them shut. True darkness fell across her sight, and in the instant that it came, it left just as quickly. She was back in the place that she was assigned to.

Her home.

And she was ready to open the door.

The shadow passed by the window. Applejack wondered if, looking in, she too would see only a black canvas. She wondered if she only made sense when she was standing here in the room. She questioned if she was merely a tool of the grand idea, a cog in the great machine.

A flower in a garden, stifling itself against the breeze.

The bell rung.

The red cord was pulled.

The door opened.

And Applejack once again felt that overbearing pressure, as her heart paced and her mind floundered in acid.

Her face remained stoic as she grimaced inside, her heart gritting itself against tightened lungs.

And she stared into the depths of the shadowy figure, that starless space, that faceless void.

She looked up and it looked down.

Applejack turned to the vase she held balanced in an upturned hoof.

It was a gorgeous thing. Crafted with a specific precision that Applejack was not all that accustomed to; it looked paper-thin, yet held all the hallmarks of fine Canterlot design upon its lithe frame.

Swirls of daytime varnish were painted over a midnight clay in a dance of the universe where the two forces of light and dark clashed and collided. Speckled stardust and tenebrous clouds wrapped over the image, bringing the galaxy to life with twinkling brights and sullied spots of the nether.

Before she knew it, before she even had the chance to change her mind, her leg was stretched out behind her, the vase planted firmly on the edge of her hoof. In panic, she searched frantically for to stop the act, but the act was written, and all acts had to be carried out.

The vase had already been thrown, on a course straight toward the shadow, when Applejack put her hooves up in a gesture that came far too late. But the porcelain urn disappeared as soon as it hit the face of the creature, and it was of no more importance, as if she had merely dropped a rock down a deep, dark hole.

But for the act, and for the act alone, did she feel terribly about it.

She wanted to bow. She wanted to scrape her Stetson against the floor in frank apology, showing her remorse for what she had done.

But the dream held her fast in chains, and she could do nothing but feel the shadow approach, floating through the door and reaching ever closer to where she stood.

The shadow leaned down, and soon, all vision of the room bled out, pushed away from the edges as the void spread across her field.

The last thing she heard was the heartbeat in her ears, pounding out a reverberation that cried to the stars.

The last thing she saw was the fluttering of the wings of birds, a shining beacon of light, and the emptiness of all things that ate all else.

The last thing she felt was a great sorrow, caused by the death of a thousand suns over.

And then, once again, darkness took her away.

“I’m gettin’ tired of dyin’.”

“Well, that’s something you don’t hear every day!”

“Yeah, well, this ain’t normal circumstances, is it?”

“Peach or Strawberry?”

“Beg yer pardon?”

“Smoothie.”

“Oh. Uh... either one, I s’ppose. I can’t decide right about now.”

“Apple crumble?”

“Pinkie, d’ya know how many apple-related products I eat? I go out to avoid ‘em. Granny has a... uh... limited range in her kitchen skills, if ya know what I mean.”

“Oh, but that can’t be true! I’ve been to your big backyard grill parties before! Delicious roasted corn, and yams and...”

“Big Mac.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Um... tell ya what, just get me somethin’ interestin’, alright? That ain’t fruit-related. That’d do me jus’ fine.”

“Pineapple mango, comin’ up!”

“No, Pinkie, I said...”

“Yeeeeees?”

“Nevermind.”

“So, how’d it go?

“Same old. I’m gettin’ mighty sick’a wakin’ up my family at night.”

“Because of the death and stuff, right?”

“Yep.”

“Dying’s no fun!”

“Understatement of th’ year, Pinkie.”

“Here you go!”

A huge glass of fluffy yellow juice deposited itself on the table.

“Thanks, Pinkie. So... I don’t think I’m makin’ much progress.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Things just didn’t work the way we figured. I thought I was supposed t’ be able t’ break out of the script or somethin’, but I just kept gettin’ dragged back by the dream. I tried to check stuff out, y’know? The door. It was there again. I’m sure it’s been there before, too. Each time I see it I remember bits of it in other dreams and stuff. But when I touched it, the dream started ringin’ alarms and moved on without me.”

“Well... I don’t mean this in a bad way, but that sounds like you just didn’t have enough control. Are you sure you were lucid?”

“Definitely. I could think and reason and all that stuff. It felt even more real than the last time, Pinkie, almost like I was actually awake. And I did have control, too. I could go where I wanted. I could do what I wanted. It was really only when I started touchin’ the door when... the dream stopped listenin’ to me, I guess. But even then, I could still do my own thing... for the most part, at least.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, it was as if I was still runnin’ the script. I kept gettin’ these feelings in my head that I had to be here or do that or go there and do things. And when it came that I was supposed to do somethin’ specific, there I’d be. No matter where I was before, I’d just be... where I was supposed t’ be, and I’d be doin’ it. I didn’t have no choice in the matter.”

“And that would suggest that you had no control!”

“But... during the parts where I didn’t have no... instructions? I was free to walk around and look at things, and poke things and all that. I could go anywhere that was created, and I could interact with stuff.”

“Well. That’s... that’s weird.”

“What is?”

“Either you can control it or not. I mean, it’s your brain, in the end. The dream’s still made from the same brain that’s experiencing it. If you don’t like things, you can change things. You shouldn’t be both in control and not in control at the same time. If you flip a coin, it either lands heads or tails. It can’t be both at the same time.”

“What if it lands on its edge, Pinkie?”

“Now, that’s just silly, Applejack. Coins don’t do that. Do they?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do they?”

“N-no, Pinkie. They don’t.”

“Applejack, do coins land on their edge?”

“Pinkie! No! No they don’t! Why are you gettin’ so worked up about that?”

“The idea’s blowing my mind, Applejack!”

“I was just kiddin’! Calm down, now! Serious time! Serious time!”

“Oh! Right! Serious time! Serious Pinkie. Got my Serious Hat on.”

Pinkie put a sailor cap on her head.

“Serious Hat.”

“T-that’s nice, Pinkie. But you were sayin’ this thing ain’t right?”

“It doesn’t seem right. As I said, you can’t be both in control and not in control of your own dream at the same time. So this is really odd.”

“W- well, then...”

“It’s another big mystery!”

“It sure is. And that weren’t the only thing. I wasn’t able t’ figure out the source of all them bad feelings, neither.”

“Aww, you didn’t? But... was it the same this time around as the other nights?”

“Yep. Exactly the same, Pinkie. Terror and sadness. One after the other. I’m not sure if... I’m s’pposed to be afraid or if my brain’s tellin’ me there’s something I should be scared of or...”

“Hm... let’s not worry about the fear bits for now, Applejack.”

“Alright, if you think that’s best.”

“I think it’s more important to focus on the thing that’s getting you up. What about the sadness? What did you feel?”

“Same deal. Sudden sweep. All in the last few seconds of the dream. I’m beginnin’ t’ think that... it’s just sad because of how... thick it is, y’know?”

“Thick?”

“Well, that ain’t th’ word. But...”

“Hey! Applejack!”

“Whut?”

“Try a metaphor!”

“A... metaphor.”

“Yep! I love ‘em!”

“I know you do, Pinkie.”

“And it makes things easier to understand!”

“Not always, Pinkie.”

“Go on, try!”

“Well, no. I mean, I’ll just describe it as it is, a-”

“Please!”

“I jus-”

“Oh, go on, then! Come on, Applejack!”

“Alright! Sheesh! Pinkie! You have your hat on and everything!”

“Yes, but I’m deadly serious about this.”

“Alright. Now... what was I talkin’ about again?”

“The sadness.”

“The sadness. Right. Well it was... hoo, boy. What do I even...”

“It’s easy!”

“Oh, right. I got it! Yeah. I got somethin’. It was like... takin’ a swig of lime cordial.”

“I get it!”

“You do?”

“Nope!”

“Pinkie...”

“Explain thy metaphor, Lady Applejack!”

“Well, you know what cordial is, right? Concentrated juice stuff?”

“Of course I do, silly. I’m a baker!”

“So normally, if you wanna have a good old lime drink or... or whutever, you’d mix the cordial with some water, or soda, or what have you, right?”

“Yep!”

“And it goes down smooth, right?”

“Right!”

“But the sadness... it was like... it was like drinking the cordial straight from th’ bottle.”

“Meaning...?”

“Meaning, Pinkie, that it was concentrated and thick and...”

“...annnnnnd?”

“And I... why do I even need t’ explain this? Ain’t the point of the metaphor to do the explainin’ for me? If I have t’ explain it afterward, why didn’t I just skip it in th’ first place?”

“Wait a minute!”

“What?”

“Wait! No! I mean... keep going! There’s a reason!”

“What reason? This is... this is real silly, Pinkie! I ain’t one for makin’ no metaphors! I tell things straight, and you know that!”

“There’s always a reason.”

Pinkie smiled.

“Is there now?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thinking laterally helps.”

“With what, Pinkie? That was just a long road t’ travel just to get here, and we arrived in the same place anyway! I could’a saved a lot of time if I just told ya straight, right?”

“Mmm hmm!”

Applejack frowned.

“Pinkie, now you’re just gratin’ my radishes.”

“It’ll come!”

“What will? All I did was just talk about cordial an’ drinkin’ it from the bottle and... how is this relevant? How does this help? And the metaphor ain’t even really that good, neither! I mean, what pony in their right mind would drink cordial straight? Somepony’d have to be forcin’ that stuff down your throat, and...”

“Mmm hmm!”

“And....”

Pinkie giggled.

“... Pinkie, what... what if... but... no, this ain’t really possible, is it? It’s such a weird idea...”

“What’s your idea?”

“Okay, you can stop that now. I already know you got it back then.”

“Oh, but it was really great fun watching you figure it out! But yes. I think so too. Maybe the sadness... isn’t yours.”

“How could it not be mine?”

“I don’t know! But look at the facts. Funny things are happening in your dreams. Things that you can and can’t control at the same time. What if you’re trying to dream normally, but... but something’s pushing into your head? What if your mind is being invaded?”

“B-by what...?”

“By mind invaders!”

“Pinkie!”

“Sorry! I don’t know! But... the fear... maybe that’s your subconscious telling you that there’s a weird foreign entity in your dreams!”

“Where... where did you learn the word ‘entity’, Pinkie?”

“I dunno. Where did you?”

“Fair enough.”

“Maybe that thing is trying to push the sadness on you, and your brain’s warning you with fear! ‘Keep away!’ And all that!”

“I... I don’t know, Pinkie. That’s mighty scary.”

“Well, if something’s trying to push its way into your mind, then... it’ll leave clues, I think! It’ll leave connections. You have to think, Applejack. You said earlier the door was there again.”

“Yeah! It were there again, for sure! I couldn’t open it again. And touchin’ it...”

“It started the dream, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe... maybe what’s behind the door... is what it’s trying to stop you from getting at?”

“You’re saying that... in my dreams, Pinkie, I’m dreaming of a big un-openable door that I’m not supposed t’ open, and when I try, a big nightmareish dream demon... thing comes and stops me?”

“Maybe.”

“Pinkie, I don’t think I wanna go back to sleep tonight.”

“Applejack, come on. Cheer up. Please.”

“You can’t just say that, Pinkie! Do you know what you’re sayin’ to me? Do you even know how... scary this is?”

“I’m sorry. I... I didn’t mean to take it for granted.”

“I... no... I didn’t mean t’ shout. I’m just... this just... ain’t cool, Pinkie.”

“Understatement of the year?”

“Heh... yeah.”

“I’m here for you, A.J.”

A pink hoof slid across a table, draping gently over an orange one.

“Alright, Pinkie. Alright.”

“Are you alright to go on?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“Were there any other things that kept popping up in all the dreams? Think hard.”

“No... I don’t think I remember...”

“Anything, Applejack. Things. Items. Sounds. Smells.”

“I thought smells don’t really exist in dreams.”

“They don’t. Not really. If the dream needs you to taste or smell something specific, then yeah, you’ll get the idea of having tasted or smelt it, but you never actually experience them. So... did you get the idea of smelling or tasting anything?”

“Not that I recall.”

“How about images? Things that stick out? Designs? Colours? Symbols? Repeated items? Fr-”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“I’m... I think... I think I remember something. I don’t... remember if I remember, if that makes any sense, but... hold on...”

Pages flipped as a diary was read.

“Red.”

“Red?”

“Everything is really dull in there, isn’t it? Blacks, whites... browns... dark stuff, or bright stuff, but... very washed out. Like when Big Mac does the laundry. Everythin’ ends up pale.”

“Yep! That’s how it is!”

“But there was always something that stuck out for me. Something super clear.”

“Red?”

“Red. There’s a red... thing... in all the dreams. I... I remember now. I can remember! Pinkie! I remember! This is really, really weird!”

“It’s weird that you’re remembering?”

“Yeah! It’s... it’s almost like, the more I think about it the clearer it gets across all the dreams...”

“Hm. Well... normally, lucid dreams are easier to remember than regular ones. Do you think... whatever it is is also making you forget?”

“I don’t... I don’t know, Pinkie. I don’t even really wanna think that there’s something there, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. But... well. Um... tell me about the red things?”

“Well, In the first dream... it was... it was a root? I think. A flower. Yeah, that’s right! When I pulled it up, there was this really shiny red root that connected to another flower. And... and th’ second dream had... a red net. The net I caught the moon with. Look, I wrote it down, even. Red net.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Pinkie spied the jottings on the journal.

“Keep going, Applejack.”

“Third dream... well... the red leash that killed the bird, and last night...”

“What? What was it?”

“A red doorbell cord. But...”

“But what?”

“That’s the funny thing about this last dream, Pinkie. Somethin’ that still don’t make sense. I could only see that red doorbell from the outside. But I don’t think I was meant to go outside. Dreams only make what they’re supposed to make, right?”

“That’s right.”

“The dream... made other things. Things that weren’t part of the instructions. Why would it do that?”

“Are you sure you weren’t supposed to be part of it?”

“I’m pretty sure. All I was supposed to do was stay indoors the entire time and answer the door when the bell rang. Nothin’ I did or had to do involved the outside. But... the whole town was made. I went explorin’. Saw a lot of stuff that I couldn’t have seen from inside the house. And...”

“Yeah?”

“The house wasn’t even made fully. The back rooms had no form, either. It’s like... as if... I was supposed to be outside, but... I wasn’t. Like my role was switched or somethin’.”

“Wait, Applejack! I don’t even know what happened, yet! Tell me the story!”

“Oh yeah, alright. Sorry!”

“No problem!”

“Well, so, it was me in a house, right? And... I was supposed to wait for... oh.”

“W-what?”

“You know that mind invader thing?”

“Y-yeah?”

“I think it was... there.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“I... I guess I should’a told you earlier, huh.”

“You guess?”

“There was this... shadow pony... in my dreams. He was the one who was supposed to ring the doorbell. That was the whole dream, really. I was t’ answer this door... this thing was on the other side. It made me... when I looked at it, I felt sick. Like I wanted to run, but I didn’t. As usual.”

“Go... go on?”

“It was like... a cut-out. Like someone had cut him out of th’ world. But when it moved, the shape moved along. It was really just like lookin’ at a silhouette and nothin’ much else. No features... no form. Just a shadow. And...”

“And...?”

“I had this really weird feelin’ looking at it. It weren’t like... normal. Oh! Wait!”

“What?”

“I just remembered! The fear, Pinkie! I got real scared when I looked at it. But also... also a bit of the sadness. So... so maybe you were right! Maybe... but... oh, it’s all so confusin’!”

“Alright. Alright...”

Pinkie frantically rubbed her brow.

“Oh, what do I do, Pinkie?”

“Tomorrow. We’ll go see her tomorrow.”

“Who?”

“There’s one pony who can help, Applejack. I’ll make arrangements, and we’ll go see her tomorrow, alright?”

“Twilight?”

“No. Well, it’s... Princess Luna.”

“Princess Luna?”

“Yeah. Scootaloo told me about something that happened to her once! Apparently the princess knows about dreams and things; she helped Scootaloo get over her own nightmares, or something!”

“I...I don’t know, Pinkie. I ain’t got nothin’ against her and all, but... she’s... y’know...?”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t mention it before. But maybe this is... maybe this is a good thing?”

“I don’t really... you know. She ain’t easy to approach. I ran into her on Nightmare Night, you know? Was kinda awkward.”

“But we ought to go see her. If she can help a little filly like Scootaloo, I’m sure she’ll be happy to help you!”

“Alright... but... but let’s give this one last try, alright? I... I really don’t think I should be botherin’ her. You know. She’s a princess and all, and...”

“I get you! Alright. We’ll give it one more go. But tell me all about the dream! From start to end! I think I know what you ought to try to do next.”

“What?”

“Well... if there’s a weird thing walking around in your dreams, and it might be the source of these bad feelings...”

“Yeah?”

“Time to figure out what it is!”

Comments

[a3V]

you have your hat on and everything!

Uncapitalized 'y', there.

[Borg]

I have a new theory! The bunny is 'Shy. She is the wrong choice. The fishmoon (moonfish? But that's actually a thing) is Dash. She is the wrong choice. The bird is a third wrong choice with an identity I have yet to determine.
Other than that, though, my night seems to have just been wasted. I didn't think of anything else.

but this one was adorned with things that were ought to have been in a much higher class of residence.

Words. You can never have too many of them, right?

Long, thin cords hung from the walls, red lines of rope that were attached to a bell from within.

Which means it is the shadow's prerogative to pull the red string. Always before it has been AJ who holds the cord. Why the change?

Another theory for consideration: this is Luna's subconscious intruding upon AJ's. Luna is lonely and longs for companionship, but she is afraid to open up to anypony because she fears rejection, and probably loss as well. She is the bunny, wary to approach another. She is the fishmoon, fighting not to be caught. She is the bird, lashing out at those close to her when they cannot help but hurt her. She is the shadow, forever on the outside looking in.
This theory would presumably imply Luna has a crush on AJ.

It seems like this dream was more Luna dreaming about AJ than AJ dreaming about Luna. Not like the others. Though perhaps that's just because this time AJ could see what Luna was doing before the dream dictated that their paths cross.

Oh, but it was really great fun watching you figure it out! But yes. I think so too. Maybe the sadness... isn’t yours.

Pinkie seems to agree . . .

“There’s one pony who can help, Applejack. I’ll make arrangements, and we’ll go see her tomorrow, alright?”

“Twilight?”

“No. Well, it’s... Princess Luna.”

This could be quite interesting, if I'm right. It ought to be interesting if I'm wrong, too. And informative, either way.

[Graphite Scribble]

The imagery you use for dreams is very interesting, and it really captures the technical aspect of what a dream really is: a mismatch of memories and ideas you already have.

I notice a pattern; the dreams all have AJ acting first. Like how she plucked the flower, or caught the fish, or how she was supposed to kill the bird, or how she threw the vase at the pony creature.
It feels almost as if the dream is only retaliating, even though that's ridiculous. Maybe the dreams represent guilt about something that was not your fault.

[KitsuneRisu]

3247783
Hey there! Dreams are always a fun medium to write about, for SURE. I enjoyed myself slapping this together.

Serious Pinkie had to be, really. As much as crazy Pinkie is always fun, the story did need that level between fun and laughter and the slightly more dark bits, and a slightly muted Pinkie fit the bill perfectly. Besides, I chose Pinkie across from Applejack because I think they compliment each other very well and aren't very often used. It was fun to develop a sort of growing blossoming friendship as a very underwritten side plot.

And thank you for the comment on the imagery. People seem to like it! I did a bunch of research and just wrote about how I feel my own dreams actually carry out, and there you go. =)

Nice catch on the pattern, too. But don't worry! Soon the truth will be unveiled. And you are curiously close to the theme. =)

[Servant Phoenix]

...By mind invaders

Jeeeeeez, I was just joking with Inception.

“I’m gettin’ tired of dyin’.”

Twilight: Tell me about it...

Princess Luna

Cause there is no dream-fic without the princess of the night. And that's how it should be

By the way, as a non-native English speaker, I have to check a dictionary for every 10th word during the dreams. I very rarely have this problem with other fictions on fimfiction.net. Which means... Your story is not just entertaining, but helps me improve my English even more. Thanks.