Windcatcher

by Makitk

Chapter 9

Wind and I could not get back up on our own four hooves fast enough, trying to save face with princess Luna staring down upon us.

She was an imposing figure, especially with the both of us being mere fillies. I felt ever-so-small in her presence.

Wind almost immediately fell back down in a submissive pose the moment she was standing upright, but I could not take my eyes off of Luna.

I had never met a princess before, but here she stood several heads taller than me, and I could feel the aura of royalty radiating off her.

"Catch, bow down," Wind bit to me, but Luna blinked and then shook her head as she overheard.

"Oh, no need for that," she protested. "We are not in the waking world and merely here to sate our own curiosity. Please, disregard formality. What are your names?"

"Windcatcher," both Wind and I spoke at the same time.

Luna looked at Wind, at me, then back at Wind. "We... see."

"Well, I guess that's Wind, and I'm Catcher," I tried to explain. "I can't remember what my name was before this."

"Wind and Catcher," Luna repeated, looking at each of us as she spoke our nicknames. "But also Windcatcher."

"Ever since she took over my body, yes princess," Wind added, daring to come up a bit from her submissive pose.

"A magic spell gone wrong," I explained with a wry smile. "It's a bit of a thing a friend of Wind is working on solving,"

"Taking over," Luna started, confusion clear on her face. "You are not natural twins?"

I glanced sideways at Wind, catching her looking sideways back at me. We did both look like filly versions of her. We could be mistaken for twins.

"No, princess Luna," we both answered in unison, putting our attention back on the alicorn in front of us.

"That is what we surmised, considering how you entered your dreamstate together as one mind," Luna started. "It is far too close a connection for you to be twins."

"And your minds, they speak of distrust of one another, but also a desperate need to find that trust; the reason you are here as foals playing an innocent game, no doubt," she considered.

Luna took a look around the area. "What better way to find that trust than to imagine growing up as siblings, playing an innocent game in the safety of an otherwise empty meadow?"

"Er, yeah," I started, looking around as well. "I don't think this is on me... I didn't actually grow up as a filly."

"But you are one nonetheless," Luna decided, turning her attention back to me.

Those blue eyes of hers drilled deep into my soul, pulling at something hidden deep. A memory of a small girl playing with the little toy ponies in her bedroom.

"Ah, but not quite the same as we thought," Luna realised.

I sat down properly, shaking my head. "What was that?"

"What room is this?" Wind asked beside me, looking around herself and I turned away from Luna to look around as well.

The meadow had made way for the inside of a small children's room; Luna taking up most of the space within. There was a children's bed, toychest, toy ponies strewn about, and I recognized it instantly.

"My old room," I breathed out with no small measure of surprise.

"Your room?" Wind repeated, taking a few steps away from me toward the collection of toy ponies.

"Y-Yeah," I stammered. "I must've been six or seven years old when we moved away from this place because dad got a new job in another state."

Luna moved a picture over and I knew it well; mom, dad, and me at a local themepark, with three-year old me wearing the cutest little outfit.

"These are not ponies," she pointed out, hovering the picture closer to me. "But you are."

"That little one on the photo is me," I stated. "I was born a human, not a pony."

"Yet you played with toys who look like ponies," Wind remarked, looking my toy collection over in earnest.

"Yes, every girl I know used to have them," I explained. "I don't know why we're here?"

"Because you wanted us to see this part of you," Luna explained in a gentle voice. "This dream is yours to control. The both of you shape this dream together. I had no part in its creation or where it is going now."

"What do you mean 'together', princess?" Wind asked, daring to step closer to the alicorn.

"Your minds are entwined, entangled, the dream you are having made from the both of you together rather than one of you inviting the other in," Luna explained. "It is a state we normally see when magic is involved."

"Magic was involved," I pointed out. "We were merged together by a magic spell gone wrong, so now we both are Windcatcher."

Luna sighed and put the photo of me and my parents down where she found it. "Then, in all likelihood, you will experience more dreams like this together."

"We don't plan to stay merged together or anything," Wind rebutted. "Triple Lightning is working on a spell to pull us apart again."

"We have heard that name from our sister," Luna mused. "They have a haphazard way of using their magic."

"Oh dear," I chuckled. "Don't tell me she blew up something in that royal archive she was talking about?"

My joke fell flat as Luna stared at me with all seriousness she could muster. "Exactly."

"Ah," I coughed uneasily.

"Sounds like Triple alright," Wind laughed.

"Enough about your friend," Luna decided. "We sought you out because of your strange ways of entering the dream space. We believed perhaps one of you was a dreamwalker, like ourselves."

She looked us over again. "That does not appear to be the case, but now we know why you are sharing your dream like this, we shall have to move on to aid other ponies in theirs."

"And that's what you do, is it?" I asked curiously. "You just go from dream to dream?"

"If we are needed, yes," Luna agreed. "We thought you were in need of our aid, but you seem to be doing quite well on your own. Call to us if you have a nightmare."

"Thank you, princess Luna," Wind offered with a bow in the direction of the alicorn.

I mimicked Wind's actions and repeated "Yes, thank you for checking to see if we were alright, princess."

When I turned my head up again from the bow, Luna had disappeared.

Wind snorted lightly, then pranced up toward me. "So this is how human foals grow up, then? Doesn't look that different from how foals in Equestria grow up, just without the human toys."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Oh, haha. Make fun of it. You know you're in a fantasy land for us humans. You came to look at comics drawn up about you, and you know I know that."

"Right," Wind agreed. "But you don't see the faintest trace of a joke in this? You, as a filly, playing with ponies only to now be one?"

"That's on you," I pointed out. "You and Triple are more responsible for our current situation than I am. I didn't ask for this."

The room around us darkened and the sound of thunder came from outside.

"Okay, I'll take that," Wind sighed, stepping forward enough so she could put her left cheek to mine. "I think I'll join you in hoping we'll remember this dream."

Surprised by the sudden nuzzle, I leaned in against her.

"For what it's worth; I'd give you control of our body if I could. Heck, I hope Triple succeeds in giving us both a body, soon," I remarked warmly. "I don't like the idea that you're bored out of our skull while we're awake."

"It could be worse," Wind offered up. "I could be stuck having no way to talk with you or anypony at all."

I realized how true that was.

"Yeah, and you do have some ways of interacting with me. I can hear you, feel you, and... don't poke me in the side," I started listing, but stopped as I felt Wind's hoof prodding at my right side.

"I'm not," Wind pointed out, breaking away from me so I could see her hooves were properly stood on the ground.

Another poke in my right side, and I involuntarily moved sideways from it. "Oh. Oh, I think someone's trying to wake us..."

I blinked my eyes open to the third prod from Cirrus' hoof in my side. "Mwha?"

"Hey," Cirrus chuckled as she stopped poking me. "It's morning, sleepyhead. If you could be so kind as to roll off the bed so we can all get up and get some breakfast?"

I tried to find my bearings, my legs stiff from the hours of resting in the same position.

"Wind?" I mumbled, looking around.

"Here," I heard from behind me, her voice as groggy as mine must have sounded to Cirrus. "That was a rude awakening. You disappeared and the room caved in around me."

I rolled off the bed and onto my four hooves, shaking my head a little to get the drowsiness out. "I'm sorry. But, hey, we remember the dream."

Cirrus watched me from her position on the bed, shaking her head lightly. "It's curious to watch you talk to yourself, Windcatcher. You simply must try to not do that in public."

"Point taken," I agreed.

"What dream?" Triple asked from behind Cirrus, pushing her girlfriend forward a bit by stretching her legs out.

Cirrus huffed at being shoved aside like that but made her way off the bed as well, and I stepped out of her way.

"Nothing," I lied to Triple. "Just a weird little experience to add to the other weird little experiences we've had so far. Don't worry about it."

Triple clambered off her own bed as well and narrowed her eyes at me. "Why do I think you're hiding something from me?"

"It must be nothing if they say it's nothing," Cirrus decided, walking up to my right side and laying her left wing over my back.

Triple eyed the both of us with some confusion. "What happened overnight that you're suddenly best friends?"

"I'm wondering that as well," Wind muttered in the back of my head.

"The poor dear was twitching and mumbling all night," Cirrus Uncinus revealed, smiling empathically in my direction. "Not like you would have heard it; you could sleep through your dad's experiments going wrong. A few twitches here or there won't wake you."

I looked curiously sideways at her. "I was twitching?"

"And mumbling, yes," Cirrus nodded in return. "How is your wing feeling?"

I tentatively moved my right wing in the space between us, under Cirrus' outstretched left one.

"Still sore, tense, I'm definitely not going to be using it any time soon," I pointed out.

"I had to put my own wing over you during the night because you tried to flap yours several times, I do hope you don't mind?" Cirrus revealed.

"And what was that about any 'funny business', then?" Wind scoffed from somewhere on my left side.

"I didn't intend to," I spoke to Cirrus, ignoring Wind's comment.

"It's fine. Princess Luna visited me in my dream and told me to watch over you," the other pegasus whispered to me.

There was a sound of something falling over to my left and I turned my head to look at it but the room was empty there.

You giggle softly to yourself as you recall the event.
"Oh, ha ha. I was shocked to my core; a princess intervening on our behalf?" Wind mutters, definitely embarrassed.
You put the pencil down and smile. "You falling over was comedic gold."
"Can I just put forward that we only woke up a short while before that and I did not have my balance back yet?" Wind protests.
"Weak excuse," you throw back. "Should we consider the party at this point or continue writing?"
"We are getting peckish. We should at least go out there to get some snacks in us," your twin suggests. "Maybe we could dip in and out, sneak some back into the room before Triple notices us?"
"Good idea," you agree.