• Published 23rd May 2014
  • 3,631 Views, 401 Comments

From Dusk to Night - KuroiTsubasaTenshi



Trouble. It follows me around like an unwanted pet. The kind of pet liable to maul my friends' faces. So I tried to face the demon alone. But no one can face life alone and my friends... They're less fragile than I gave them credit for.

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18 - Realities

Up until now, I’d thought I’d lost all sense of time. I was wrong. My mind had become a black hole, sucking in my senses. Before, bringing them to bear had been ‘merely’ difficult. Now, I wasn’t even allowed to try. Despite that, by some miracle, I still had the click clack of the train wheels. But something about it wasn’t right; it was too same-y, like I was still in the library, listening to a broken record of a train.

The loneliness was closing in, holding me fast against myself. It was almost maddening.

Then Night Flurry’s voice cut through it all. He was distant, the sound of a whisper, but without the inflection. I could barely understand one word at a time. But with him came a reassuring warmth. He could have just been a dream, an illusion. It didn’t matter.

“... think … … like … I … clinic... … ?”

I got the gist of it. I wanted to nod, but, of course, I couldn’t.

He continued to speak. Nothing else stuck out, or fell together quite so nicely. It still didn’t matter.

Terra spoke next, her words just as lost as Night Flurry’s. Yet, they carried a similar warmth with them, wrapping around me like a blanket.

Their voices alternated, some topic bouncing between them for many, uncountable iterations—enough that I feared that they too had become a part of the repeating record.

However, the next time it should have been Night Flurry’s turn, Terra spoke again, this time a little louder. And again after that.

There was still generally no form to her words, but every now and then, she’d become clearer. I caught some shop jargon here and there. Each word made me relax a bit more. I still had no sense of time, but at some point, I no longer felt lost. It was almost like things were normal again—just Terra and I having a pleasant, mundane conversation.

---

The sound of wheels on the tracks had stopped and I didn’t remember when. It had reached its destination, whether that was a real place or the end of its existence in my dream.

I thought I heard Night Flurry shout my name, but he was so distant that I wasn’t even sure it was a shout.

There were more murmurs. Always with the murmurs. They continued for several minutes, growing louder, but not clearer.

I felt myself being lifted up, the freaky touch of unicorn magic sliding across my coat as it levitated me through the air. Not that I have anything against unicorn magic, but flight by magic other than that of a pegasus has always felt completely wrong.

The landing was about as gentle as it could be. My legs, then the rest of my body, pressed up against a surface that was perfectly level and spacious, but decidedly not cushy. It had the approximate feel of wooden planks, but I couldn’t be sure. A stiff, plastic-y tarp of a blanket brushed across my back and over my head. All sound became even more muffled, with, much to my annoyance, all conversation blending together into a long string of incomprehensiveness.

Aside from my inhibited hearing, I couldn’t say I was particularly uncomfortable. After all, I’d spent more than a few afternoons lazing in the back of my dad’s wagon. In fact, as the floor beneath me lurched forward, the sensation was almost nostalgic. The steady crunch of wheels grinding over dirt road touched my ears, and I couldn’t help but smile.

We couldn’t have gone more than a few blocks, but the change was marked. The cart stopped bouncing, its wheels gripping something smoother and sturdier. Gone too, was the bustle of the station, even if it had been an incoherent mishmash. Other than the muted sound of the wheels, everything was silent—eerily so.

As I listened in vain, the endless quiet lulled me into an uneasy haze, then sleep. Inexplicably, the darkness became darker.

---

“How is... this place… I-it’s so… big.” Terra’s disbelief was almost tangible, like the words themselves were reaching out to touch the massive room.

The floor was made entirely of polished marble, with trails of light sliding across the floor and out the half-drawn curtains. Even with the plush, red curtains in the way, the visible parts of the windows were easily four times taller than me and about twice as wide. Outside was nothing but blue, with a tiny of line of a horizon where sky met ocean.

On our right was a full bar that boasted a long row of crystal glasses, the kind of glass my dad sometimes sold individually for several hundred bits. The counter was some kind of sturdy, expensive wood that I couldn’t quite identify. The stools had cushions so thick that, had they proper backings and foreleg rests, they could have been thrones.

A thick, woven rug sat in the centre of the room, just beckoning everyone to flop down. I almost might have if the colours hadn’t distracted me. Whatever they were trying to form, I wasn’t getting it. Figures that a fancy rug would incorporate some kind of abstract art.

As if the rug and stools weren’t enough, the cushions on our left had to outdo both of them put together. They were huge, easily twice my mass and just looking at them, I knew they’d form to the exact shape of my body the second I sat down.

And that was just the main room. Beyond both the bar and the cushion sanctuary, additional corridors ran off around the bend, no doubt leading into a labyrinth of excess.

I wasn’t sure when we entered or even how we planned to afford it, but we were unmistakably in a penthouse suite.

Shaking my own awe off, I turned to Terra. Perhaps she knew why we were even here. However, if she did, it would have to wait. She was frozen in place; not an inch of her moved, not even her eyes. Given that her coat was also glistening about as much as the marble floor, I was almost concerned she was going to end up in the clinic for a heart attack or dehydration, if not both.

“Uh, Terra, you okay there?” I asked.

Shallow breaths escaped her lips as she let her rump fall to the floor, but otherwise, she didn’t respond.

“Terra?”

She opened her mouth, but it didn’t close. Not a single sound came out.

Reaching out a forehoof, I prodded her in the shoulder. Once. Then again. Still nothing.

“Um… Terra?” Night Flurry asked from in front of us. But that couldn’t be right. My head snapped forward and sure enough, he was there. I didn’t know how I'd missed him.

Terra jumped, almost tripping over herself as she got back on all four hooves. “Huh?”

“H-help with D-Dusky?” he asked.

“Help? With what?” I tilted my head. “If anything, it’s Terra who could use some help.”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, I can help,” Terra said, like I wasn’t even there.

“Um, hello?” I prodded her again. She didn’t so much as flinch.

“Pfff, yeah. ‘S’like you ain’t ever seen a full cooler before.” Mahogany laughed from behind us. I spun around. The door was still closed.

How? Am I going deaf? I wondered, poking at my own ear.

“That’s not what I was looking at and you know it!” Terra grumbled. “Not like you’ve ever seen one either.”

“That’s besides the point.” Mahogany scrunched his muzzle as he waved a forehoof.

Terra was lightning fast, responding with an intense glare. “No, it’s the whole point.”

Night Flurry trotted over to the cushions. “Over h-here.”

“Er, right. This is more important. Sorry, Flurry.” Terra’s anger was gone, replaced in its entirety by concern.

“Hey!” I shouted. No dice.

Why aren’t they talking to me? Am I dead? A ghost?

Nothing made sense. It was all wrong. The world ended.

---

Once, as a filly who was high on the discovery of her budding weather control skills, I’d gathered as many of the smallest clouds I could find. It was a lot of work, but once I’d shoved them together into some sort of deformed super cloud, I proceeded to flop on top, letting the endless fluff embrace me. It was perhaps a bit too comfortable, as before I knew it, I’d whiled away the entire afternoon.

As Night Flurry’s voice pulled me back to semi-consciousness, or whatever state-of-mind it was, that’s how I felt. Whatever I was lying on, it was quality.

“I guess we made it. Pretend vacation, right?” He let out a laugh, the sort of half-forced chuckle that wanted so much to be genuine, but only served to highlight how uncertain it was.

Vacation? I wanted to ask him so many things, but my body was heavy and useless again. My lips got maybe an inch open, just enough for a small sigh. Frustration welled up inside me, though only briefly—it was exhausting, even though I was lying half-conscious in a boneless heap. Letting it go was a necessity.

As I turned my attention back to not-anger, I heard a deep, uneven sniff, the kind that comes with holding back tears. When Night Flurry finally spoke, his voice was just as uneven.

“Y-you... you nearly died, Dusky. A-and I know... I know you're going to be okay, but..."

Suddenly, he was crying. Not just sobbing, but a full-on meltdown. Still, he kept going, somehow managing to get some words in here and there. “I-I don't want to lose any of my friends… Dusky... I...”

I didn’t know how bad off I was, but I wanted to reach out, to hug him, or even just touch his shoulder again. Anything to reassure him. Twilight is good at what she does, after all. Of course, my body was about as useful as ever. My forelegs flopped out in front of me and took root. As I struggled against their weight, I faded away.

---

To say I felt sluggish was an understatement. Everything was silent—eerily so—as I pushed my bleary eyes open. The scent of seawater lingered in the air.

Even with my blurred vision, the room looked nothing like mine.

My eyes snapped open and everything came into focus.The room was rectangular, its soft blue walls adorned with a variety of pictures and seashell decorations. There was an untouched bed to my left and a large window, curtains drawn to a crack, to my right.

My best guess was a hotel room. Not a suite, but nothing short of a standard double at a four-star establishment.

I didn’t know the why or the how, but my first instinct was to secure the room. Just because it was nice, didn’t mean there couldn’t be danger or that I wasn’t a prisoner.

The majority of the tension left my body as I noticed Night to my right. He was facing the window, staring at the slit of visible sky.

“I imagine you’ve been to tons of beaches. This is probably nothing new to you.” He spoke in a contemplative way, as though he didn’t expect me to respond.

Bits and fragments of dreams flashed through my mind. Night’s voice. Strange places. I couldn’t be sure if it was real. I couldn’t be sure this was real.

“I... I can’t believe how much I’ve seen, just recently. Places I’d have never dreamed of going to just a few months ago. It’s... it’s fun. Even when the circumstances aren't the best. It’s just taking the time to enjoy the little joys of someplace new and... and it's the ponies who go with you that make the trip really special.” He turned to me, a sort of sad smile on his lips—and stopped dead. His eyes brightened considerably as the realization took root. “Um… D-Dusky?!”

I smiled clumsily, my body a tad sluggish again, now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “Good morning, Night.”

“Morning!” He tensed, jaw working as though he had a billion things to say, but no idea what to say first. Then he moved with remarkable speed, wrapping me in a tight hug that said it all.

As I hugged back, the warmth of his coat against mine, his scent drifting up to my nostrils, I just knew it was real. I nuzzled into his forelock. I wasn’t alone anymore.

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