Reflections

by loopsorspool

After Image

"Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."

"I hope it's soon, it's so strange."

"We are here, this is a house," she guestures with a hoof at a thing of such size it blocks out the sun. It ominously loomed over us with its fourteen lopsided eyes, it's mane of a golden flowing to the sides, it's rough skin criss-crossed with wooden beams giving sinister shadows over it's sideways mouth. Felt Cloud approaches the beasts mouth, pushing on it's mouth revealing a cavernous maw with a tongue of a lumpy surface, it' wretched carved wooden teeth held the attention firmly. My tounge becomes very dry, I can feel myself become less tired as something flowed through me.

"What is this monster? It's scary, make it go away!" I say as as I hide my eyes behind my hooves, if I can't see it it can't see me, right?

"What monster? I don't see anything monster like."

"You can't see it‽ It's right there, with it's terrible teeth and fourteen piercing eyes! It's evil!"

"What? Fourteen eyes? Teeth? I have no id-... Oh, you mean the house, ok I got you. It's not a monster, not even alive, ponies live in these, they protect us from from the cold and rain."

"That's a house? It's so big! How how does something so evil looking protect us? And what is rain?"

"You walk in and what ever is outside of it stays outside. And rain... Let's see... Rain is, hmmm. Rain is water falling from the sky. It's brought by the pegasi. It's to help plants grow."

"But don't ponies water plants? Why does the sky need to water them as well?"

"That... Is something I don't know, you should ask a gardener, there is one here by the name of Chrysanthemum. She tends the castle garden, she would know. But we would have to do that tomorrow. It's late now, time for bed."

"What do we do when it's time for bed?" Then in a quiter voice, "Is it scary?"

"No, not at all, in fact it's relaxing. We put on comfy clothes, brush our teeth, lie down on a comfortable mattress and go to sleep under our blankets."

"That sounds nice and all, but what is sleep, and does it require darkness?"

"No, you can sleep when it's light out, and sleep is... Well, um... When you are tired your eyelids become harder to keep open, then you yawn a few times, and you go to a place called a dream, it's a nice place most of the time, but things don't work like they should. Some times dreams are tying to tell you something about yourself or others." Felt explains as best she can, at the look of confusion on my face, she realizes she may not be able to explain this abstract concept. "You can experience it tonight, and don't worry, I'll be right beside you." At that I start to worry, I can't explain why, but it seems like it may be scary.

"Ok, I'll try not to be scared."

"Good, now let's brush our teeth!" And that's what we did, of course there was a good long portion of time where Felt Cloud had to explain why where was two other ponies in the bathroom with us. Then there was trying to figure out how to get the other ponies in the bathroom to brush their teeth too.

"Sorry about your eye," I say, flinching a little at the thought of the horrible toothpaste tube conundrum.

"It's ok, now just put this on," she hands me what she called a night shirt, in an attempt to do it right before she shows me, I hastily through it over my head and try to get myself in as best I can, but I promptly get ensnared by the evil thing.

"Help!" Felt turns to me.

"How did you even do that‽" she asks, of course a bit of a giggle and some panic are in her voice.

"I don't know!" I say, my voice only slightly muffled by what is most likely not a neck warmer like I though it was. It's a bit of a struggle but we, quiet miraculously manage to get the night shirt on how it's been made to be worn. After that we head to her room to go and do this 'sleeping' thing. Her room had this odd color about it. It was light and fluffy, like a cloud but it wasn't white it was... Something else, pink maybe? Oh well, doesn't matter, we got into the bed together, it was rather small, I fell I might have fallen off if it wasn't for Felt hugging onto me. It wasn't long before Felt stopped moving, her foreleg fell limp around me. She started making this strange noise, like she was trying to swallow a few unhappy bees. I tried to do what she did, I go as limp as I can, it does do anything, it feels good though. I could feel my eyes unfocus and I became less aware. Is this what sleeping is like? I hope not, it's scary, what is something snuck up on me? I started to worry but I couldn't get myself to do anything but let it happen. Then everything when black. Suddenly I found myself in a feild, grass as far as the eye could see. I began trotting around, looking for any way to get back to that bed I was on with Felt.