Dreamweaver

by Blue Blaze {COMET}

Act I: Sleeping Beast, Part 1

“Are you going to bed already?”

I turned around to look at my mother peering in from the doorway to her bedroom. She stared at me, traces of concern in her expression. I let my grip slide off of the doorknob to my own bedroom, looking at the floor for a moment before answering.

“Yeah.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tell her, scratching the back of my head. “Just a bit tired, is all.”

She gave me a warm smile. Her baby blue nighty and sleeping cap matched well with her orange coat and eyes as she leaned against the doorframe. “School getting to you?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

“Teachers being annoying?”

“I’m not tired of school, mom.”

She got off of the doorframe and took a few steps towards me. I was the one tired, but I could see dark circles under her eyes too, her age evident in the wrinkles slowly forming at the corners of her eyelashes. Most say that I look nothing like my mom at all, what with we being completely opposite colours of each other and all. But I got my dark blue coat and black hair from my dad. I’ve always had to explain that the only reason I was a unicorn was because of my mother. My bright orange eyes were also hers.

“Is there something else bothering you?”

“No, mom. Don’t worry about me. Nothing’s wrong with me.” I explain to her.

Her mouth tightens in a straight line. She won't let me leave just like that. It wasn't that simple.

“I’m fine. I’m just tired. Honestly.”

She finally walks across the hall up to me, a tiny solemn smile on her face. “Oh, sweetie,” she says, caressing my cheek. “Are you sleeping well?”

“Dreamweaver, mom. Duh.” I deadpanned.

She snickered. “Well, I guess not. But, well, you know how I worry about you."

“Mom, stop. I've already told you I'm fine.” I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oh, you're just so big and strong already. I can't believe how responsible you've gotten. Time really does fly."

There was a little bit of sadness on her face. I felt sad too. "You know you can't protect me forever."

Her sigh was filled with melancholy. “I know. But for now, you’re still just a teenager, and I’ll protect you with all my might for as long as I can.”

I smiled. “Mom.”

She pulled me into a hug. I wrapped my upper legs around her, her motherly love getting to me.

“Honestly mom, I’ll be fine. You know I’ve been doing this for four years now. I’m a professional. Heck, I’m the only professional that exists out there in this field! I’m not the Dreamweaver for nothing.”

She pulls back so we’re face to face. “I know. Just tell me you’ll be extra careful out there, ok? And come back to me in one piece?”

We nuzzled noses. I finally got back to my door, opened it and looked back at her anxious face. “I will. Trust me.”

She nodded. My head swung back to face the inside of the room. As I pushed the door closed behind me, I heard my mother’s voice again.

“And don’t work yourself too hard.”

I smirked.

“I won’t.”

---

The Dreamscape.

The realm of dreams.

The plain of souls.

My domain. Or, mine until Nightmare Moon escapes in about 450 years and tries to take everything over again. Hopefully by then Princess Celestia finds out a solution to the problem and gets reunited with her sister once again.

I usually have a hard time describing the Dreamscape to my friends at school whenever they ask about it. I try to describe it to them in a way that will allow them to understand. The standard description is it looks like outer space, except with dreams as the planets and no sun. But it’s much more than that. The Dreamscape is more like a state of existence than a place to describe. When I’m there, I can feel the dreams wax and wane through the cosmos of energy, pulsing with activity inside of them, the stronger dreams dwarfing the dreams teetering against the waking world. When I close my eyes, I can feel them there. The dreams, I mean. I can feel their locations, how far apart they are and how far I am to them. I have a constant mental map of where almost everything is, from the adventurous dreams to the strange dreams that make no sense, and the nightmares. The only things I can’t detect are dreams that are too far out of my sensing scope to view, but I can zoom in and out of the picture as much as I want. The thing is, zooming out too far is a bit sickening, and everything starts to blend in as a mess of vomited colours after a while.

Although, technically I’m not supposed to tell anyone about the Dreamscape, or the fact that I’m the Dreamweaver. But I think I can trust my friends enough to keep it a secret from anypony else. Who am I supposed to trust besides my friends? Hmph, said Stainless Steel. He got what was coming to him after he attempted to rat me out on the local newspaper. Good thing I told Princess Celestia instead of giving him nightmares for the rest of his life. That would have been a real mess.

But anyways, it was another night, another shift in the Dreamscape. I had just fallen asleep; my consciousness getting pulled to the Dreamscape mere seconds after my head hit the pillow. I had already pulled myself from my dream in the Nightmare Fields (my personal dreaming realm, named after my wonderful past experiences) into the Dreamscape and was surveying the area. Simply existing in the Dreamscape is a wonderful feeling. You float there, no worries in the world, no pains of your body hindering you from a relaxing experience. There are no sounds except the ambiance of the universe as wisps of passing dreams fall across the plain like shooting stars. You don't breathe, as there is no air to fill your lungs, and yet you don't choke on emptiness. You keep living, experiencing, existing in the outer dimension. It is such a freeing feeling to be in the Dreamscape, and I never get tired of being in it.

No wonder it was my destiny to become the Dreamweaver.

I opened my eyes, inhaling metaphorically. Well, time to get to work. I push myself forward slightly with my will, propelling me forwards a few feet. I found out shortly after my very first visit to the Dreamscape that in order to move around, I had to exert the tiniest amount of will to push myself. Wherever I wanted to go, I simply needed to wish to go there, put some effort into my wish and I would whisk off in that direction. Of course, the first dozen times I did it I went rocketing off into a direction, eventually ramming into a dream and materializing in it, but I mastered self-control soon enough.

I floated forward, steadily making distance across the grid as I looked around, searching for nearby threats. My number one priority as the Dreamweaver is finding nightmares that ponies are having and dispel them by safe means. That usually requires me to solve some sort of problem the dreamer is having, which is usually causing the nightmare. It's like a jigsaw puzzle; you have to take all the pieces and put them together to solve the entire picture. Only here, instead of puzzle pieces I'm dealing with I instead handle real cognitive problems that live under the surface of dreams. Sometimes I can’t figure it out in one night, and have to return the next to try and combat it again. Other times, I can figure it out and bring peace to the dream in no time flat. Of course, time flows differently in the Dreamscape and I can find myself here hours longer than there are in a day, so time isn't really an obstacle.

After looking around for a bit, I closed my eyes and opened up my mental view, sensing around for nightmares in the area. There were no nightmares of the sorts nearby. Of course, there were probably nightmares around somewhere in the space, but I wasn’t near enough to sense them. I didn’t worry about it. I could only do so much at a time. I was only one pony, after all. Princess Celestia had to help me figure that one out though, and many nights were lost with me waking myself up because I was worried sick that I couldn’t do my job properly because there were no nightmares to be seen in the area at the time. The Princess informed me that if anything, I was doing a spectacular job instead of a terrible one, considering the rate of nightmares was at an all-time low. I didn't know how she got that data, but I didn't doubt the princess one bit.

There was only one thing to do in a situation like this. Peering over to a nearby dream, I got a sense of mystery and interest, colouring the dream's orb a mixture between green and orange. It wasn't an actual combination of the two, it was simply green in one instant and orange the next. Colours in the Dreamscape are a relative thing, as you don’t really see the colours with your eyes, but rather feel it. Oh sure, you can still see the round spheres that encompasses the dream, but you don’t see the colour. It’s hard to describe. Instead of identifying a dream as a colour, you can just take a look at it and say “That feels green, of wonder and mysterious elements between the roots and laws of nature.”

I willed myself over to the dream. I could tell there was a dual sensation of excitement and confusion from the world beyond. It wasn't super happy go lucky, like the blue dreams were. I had a feeling there would be a lot of questions in this one. I pushed forward, approaching the planet as I moved myself across the cosmos. I closed my eyes for one short second before entering the dream, opening up my overall view and comparing the tiny size of my own entity entering the threshold of the massive beast in front of me.

I touched the membrane and everything became a rush of blurred lights. I was in.

---

As I entered the dream, everything around me was a muddy grey. I couldn’t tell was anything was yet, but I patiently waited for the rest of the scenery to fill in. Sometimes entering dreams is a bit slow, as parts of your soul are catching up to the part that’s already in the dream, flowing quickly like a stream to your conscious self. The fog around me wasn’t ominous, but murky and humid like a hot summer night. My senses returned to me as I smelt fresh rain in the air, the scent of water mixing with dirt and dust wafting through the open. I found myself on solid ground, which was an important detail to make. Too many times I have found myself freefalling through nothing, landing myself in another stars-forsaken Pegasus flying dream. For Pete’s sake, you’d think that Pegasus ponies would be content enough flying around in real life without having to fly around in the dream world as well!

I looked down, cracked pavement beneath my hooves. I was suddenly aware that I was standing in a street filled with many tall, sandy brick buildings that touched roof-to-roof. They were all more or less apartments, and I could barely make out the corner of the block behind me to be a drug store with an aging sign illuminated by some kind of light behind it. The apartments were right up against the pavement, the stairs leading to the front door giving no room for a front walkway up to the house. The buildings looked fairly new, but cheaper than middle class. Colours in the dream were a bit muddled with extra shades of grey, making the atmosphere seems mysterious and covert.

I immediately noticed a crowd of ponies off in front of me all encircling around a certain building. They all varied between the three races, but a majority of them were citizens in clothing gawking at the building in front of them. Most of them were whispering to each other behind strands of police tap covering up the very front section of the apartment. The stallions wore top hats and ties and the mares had their hair up in odd designs, from beehive towers to ringlets cascading down the side of their heads. Their appearance pretty much solidified my conclusion that the dream was taking place in one of the bigger cities of Equestria. It could be Manehatten, or Vanhoover, maybe Baltimare. It didn’t really matter, as I would probably never figure it out by the end of the dream. But, it was important to note the scenery, as the dreamer chooses specific locations for specific reasons.

There were police ponies in uniform standing outside of the building, keeping the public away from inside. Five were at least around the perimeter, and police carts were stationed on the road and partway onto the sidewalk so that the police could slap tape around the perimeter. Reporter ponies aggressively leaned over the crowd already looking onto the scene, their hats and coats fluttering behind them while large square cameras with lenses sticking out of the front took pictures of the building in question. On the roof above the eighth floor I could barely make out Royal Guard Pegasus ponies flying about, taking in the crowd and making sure that nopony shifty would approach the cite. That made me raise an eyebrow. What was the royal guard doing with the police? Regardless, at first glance you’d think that there’d be quite a commotion outside the target location, with all the ponies outside discussing the inside. But, in actuality there was no sound coming from the populace. They were all shifting around in their groups and their mouths were moving, but no sound came out. The dreamer wasn’t in the area, otherwise there would be a lot of noise coming from the bunch.

I figured as much that the amount of ponies in front of me wouldn’t have enough detail to have voices. The details of the dream directly correlate to the strength the dream has, and I was surprised already to see so many little pieces and touches to the sleeping illusion before spotting a limitation. Power in dreams comes from the emotional impact it has on the dreamer, as well as how deep in their sleep they are. I have entered dreams that lay across the energy spectrum, from weak dreams that teeter between rest and waking reality to sleeping beasts. The most powerful dream I have come across was no doubt Princess Celestia’s dream, although as an Alicorn she already has advantages most don’t have.

Seeing as the ponies already have a lot of thought put into them, they must have been important for some reason. It was a bit obvious that the main attraction was occurring inside the apartment, and no doubt I would find the dreamer involved with the crime scene. Everything began to seem a bit sour to me. I didn’t enter a nightmare for sure, but anything involved with crime couldn’t have been good. I couldn’t tell if it was a really bad robbery, or a murder. I walked towards the scene hoping it was the former.

Getting past the herd of onlookers was a breeze. As I guessed, they may have been staring at the building and whispering to each other, but that was their only command. They couldn’t react, and instead only performed a list of actions in a never-ending cycle until the dream either ended or changed drastically. I trotted right around them and ducked under the police tape without anypony batting an eyelid. I could have walked through and nothing would have probably happened, but it was still a good habit to act in dreams like you act in real life. Sometimes you forget to differentiate between the two. Walking towards the sidewalk and ignoring the police, I peered into the open front doors, trying to get a sense of what was going on in there. All I could see was a thin hallway with old yellow paint on the walls and a metal staircase that hugged the wall on the right and traveled up. I squinted, and summoned energy, preparing to cast a spell.

Even though I snuck past the common folk in plain sight, if I accidentally bump into the dreamer, they won’t be happy. Oh sure, their dream will turn into a lucid dream, which can create all kinds of amazing situations that the owner of the reality can bend to his or her own will, but most ponies don’t take too kindly to one invading another, especially since Dreamweavers are unheard of these days. Don’t get me wrong, ever since I became a Dreamweaver my presence around Equestria has definitely elevated to a point of a certain amount of awareness among the public, but Princess Celestia hasn’t made any official statements. She has implored me to keep hidden, as normally invading one’s mind is strictly forbidden and can lead to capital punishment, but because I’m the Dreamweaver I get special privileges to view the minds of sleeping ponies, as long as I use my powers for good. Disrupting one’s dream is unpleasant and definitely the opposite of good, so I have to avoid as much contact as possible.

As I need to stay out of sight, the Princess has taught me a hoofful of spells that’ll allow me to avoid confrontation. As I brought energy into my horn, I closed my eyes and pictured the spell in my head, weaving the aura that came from my soul into a net of arcane static, forming a specific pattern that fell over my body. A spell I like to cast often in these dreaming worlds allows me to become an object in the background, making it very difficult for anypony to actually look directly at it, much less interact with it. If you cast it on yourself you become a blur in the distance, blending in with scenery like dust floating in sunlight pouring from a window. Others are hard-pressed to notice you in a crowd, against walls or slinking in corners. That doesn’t stop them from noticing you if you stand in plain sight, though, or if you interact with something like a door or a small item.

As the Dreamweaver, I end up doing a lot of Soulcasting in order to execute spells; that is to say, use my soul as a base energy for spells instead of the normal arcane energy. Soulcasting is pretty much a lost art, as it isn’t necessary in reality because of the saturation of Mana in the air. Instead of mixing the Aura in my horn with the Mana, instead I combine Aura and my soul (which contrary to popular belief are TWO different things) to get an end result. The most important thing I need to remember though is my energy usage. Because of the need for Soulcasting in the Dreamscape, I got to pay attention to how much power I draw from myself. Another reason Soulcasting is not solemnly used is that it is dangerous. Because the main source of arcane energy is from the soul of the caster, every time a spell is cast, they basically rip a part of their soul out to use as the base. Not to worry though, as the soul grows back after time and after doing activities that exemplify how life feels like living, but if one Soulcasted and went a bit too far with the output, well, let’s just say that they would be worse off dead. Since I’m in the dreaming realm instead of reality, the consequences are much, much worse.

I wouldn’t wake up, at all. And I would be stuck in the Dreamscape with half a soul for all eternity.

As a cloak of static fell over me from my spell my vision blurred for a moment before focusing, the sign that I had a successful cast and I was ready to continue onward. Like I predicted, the police standing near the front door didn’t react to a colt suddenly becoming blurry and out of the picture. I peered into the open door one last time, making sure I wasn’t missing anything. After, I trotted up the steps and into the building.

The inside of the building was dim with aged lights. There were lightbulbs attached underneath the staircases above me, but their light was stained yellow from time and gave a lemony glaze over the shiny walls. There was a hallway that went straight down through the apartment from the door, but it faded into nothingness the farther I peered down the corridor. That part of the dream wasn’t important, so I started climbing the stairs, keeping my eyes peeled for any more signs of the dreamer. I got to the fourth floor without seeing anypony until I peered into the door for the floor and saw a police officer and a Royal Guard guarding the hall as lookouts. That mystery was a tough one. I opened the door from the staircase and continued, hoping the door's movements wouldn't alert me to their presence. It didn't.

I crept slowly along the red carpet, the walls’ green paint peeling off of the plaster. The apartment, I realized, looked worse for wear. Sure, it didn’t look entirely run-down from outside, and it didn’t occur to me that it was located in a poor area, but age certainly took its hold on the appearance of the structure. I wondered what significance it had to the dream, and more importantly, the dreamer. Despite being a master of dream traveling I still have no idea what half of the things in the dreams I see actually mean. Many elements that occur in a dream have different meanings, from a butterfly resembling carelessness in the world to a baseball hurling through the air resembling how the dreamer tosses and turns in bed. Figuring out ponies in person is hard enough, but getting into their mind and trying to figure it out from there? Forget it.

The pair of lookouts stood at a corner at the end of the hall, watching in case anypony tried to sneak into the crime scene, namely me. Thank goodness were just more backstage props, because they didn’t blink when I had entered the hall and didn’t turn their heads as I shuffled past, getting a good look at the guard. He seemed like a normal guard to me, with the enchanted equipment to make him look like any other white stallion with deep blue hair. His normally shining golden armour was a bit dimmed and muted though, much like most of the ponies that stood outside in loud silence. There was no shimmer in his eyes, no signs of actual cognition in that existence of his. Most puppets in dreams look like this, although we don't ever notice when we're actually in our own dream. We're always too busy with our own distractions to notice the actual lack of depth in the environment we're in. Only when we're truly aware of our state of consciousness we actually get that we're in a dream and not is all that it seems. The more important a puppet is to a piece, the more lifelike it looks. It still looks completely unnatural and creepy when compared to the dreamer in the dream though.

I continued down the hall to spot an open door halfway through the space, with another guard-officer duo posted at the entrance. They stood at stark attention unmoving, waiting for something to happen that gave them cause and reason to act. Inside the room I heard yelling, which was the first instance of actual audio I had heard in the realm. Not even my hoofsteps made a noise up until this point. I could only make out some of the words, but it sounded like a heated argument between two bigwigs. If I had to guess, they sounded like either a politician and a police sergeant, or two police stallions verbally duking it out. One of them barked an order at another, and as I was feet away from the doorframe a young stallion in a police outfit swung himself around the corner, holding his cap in one hoof for a moment before sprinting full-tilt right at me.

I barely had enough time to fling myself against the wall so he could pass. At first it was an instinctual thing: To get out of the way of something fast coming at you. But it was also important because he looked more solid than the other ponies I had scene and would probably have disrupted the dream if he bumped into me, bringing the dreamer’s awareness to me and completely screwing the reason I went here in the first place. I was thankful that I had enough reason in me to dodge in the first place instead of passing him off as deadweight in the realm. I turned back at him as he followed the corridor in a hurry, becoming a bit faded after he reached past the corner with the guard and the police officer that were standing watch. After catching my breath and letting my heart slow, I turned my head towards the room and entered.

It was a crime scene, alright. There were police officers littered in the area, with royal guards added in to spare. The room was small, the walls covered in brown wallpaper stained with age. The wall turned to fine wooden paneling a foot above the ground and was lined along the floor, the boards pointing up. The floor was also wooden, the oak shined in the small amount of light coming in from the windows on the opposite side of the room. There were doorways on both the left and the right sides of the room, one leading to a tiny kitchen and the other seemingly leading to a bedroom. The plush, green chair one corner of the room had a circling red carpet underneath and the sunset-shaded lamp standing on the second-hand three-legged table at the opposite side hinted me that it was a living room. There was a coat hanger immediately to my left, with a leather jacket hanging on it and black rubber boots beneath. You could see the sky from outside with the blinds of the windows rolled up, the storm clouds above looking menacing yet subdued.

The main attraction was lying right in the middle of the floor. With all of the stallions puttering around the perimeter of the room, I could clearly see the body of a pony placed right on the boards of the floor, her eyes closed, blood painting her yellow coat. She was beautiful, her blonde hair matching her coat, falling in ringlets down onto the ground, slightly suspended by its roots on the top of her head. She had long, luxurious eyelashes that were tightly knit under her brow. I couldn’t tell if they were fake or not, but they definitely complemented the ruby lipstick she wore. The simple, pure white summer dress draped over her body was embroidered at the back neatly, pictures of banks of roses cut into the fabric. Her tail was lengthy and also curled, matching her mane perfectly. She would have looked like a supermodel if it wasn’t for the bloody hole torn in her side.

It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but there definitely was a wound just above her stomach before her neck. There was a gouge in her dress dipped in crimson that drew a bloody line across her otherwise prim and prime dress, falling across her back and onto the floor in a dribble. The trail continued before stopping a foot north away from the body, with no signs of where the killer went next. There was a tiny pool of drying blood that was underneath her, still fresh enough to reflect the light of the lamp. I was thankful that smell wasn't a common sense used in dreams, because I was certain that in any other situation I would have smelt fresh death in the room. I felt the heat rush from my face as I took a cautious step back.

It was a murder, a murder in a dream. I’ve seen many horrible things in my time as Dreamweaver, but it never gets easier seeing the loss of pony life in a dreaming world. Sure, it may be fake, and maybe nopony died here, but the fact was I couldn’t tell whether or not the victim was made on the spot just for the dream or if the dreamer had based her off of someone they knew in real life. Or they had known. And even then, the point that the dream put got to me crystal clear. The main setting in the dream was that somepony had died in an apartment, and the dreamer was somehow involved in the events after. My skin crawled as I considered the possibility of the dreamer being involved during the event and the dream simply contemplated the events after. I thought that I didn’t enter a nightmare, but instead a dream that was adventurous and had mysterious elements at best.

That must have meant that the dreamer wasn’t focusing on the murder itself, but something around the murder. They weren’t concerned about the dead body in the center, but instead what was happening around it, and wasn’t stressed with the loss by any means. Maybe they were hardheads, veterans to the situation from their real-life job and they simply weren’t affected anymore. Maybe they were insane, not caring about the murder and instead found something else of worth in the dream. I highly doubted it. I searched around the room some more, paying closer attention to the entities that existed in realm. I knew that the dreamer had to be close, I just had to find them first.

Near the kitchen door were two police ponies, comparing notes from a notepad and pencil, their voices being projected in the background as murmurs of unimportance. I would only be able to hear what the dream wanted the dreamer to hear, so there would be no point trying to listen in on their conversation. There was a large guard looking at the window, rubbing his forehead with his helmet beside the green chair. A hardy, pissed police officer was gritting his teeth looking at the western wall, a faint growl emanating from his voice.

And as I turned my attention to the bedroom door, a guard came out of the bedroom. Standing beside the door on guard, no mistake, was the dreamer.

He was looking at the two larger stallions in the room, glancing in their direction a bit nervously. Unlike all the other guards in the dream, his mane was a flamboyant green instead of the military standard blue. Still, his coat was white and he adorned golden armour, but his horn was alit with a white energy and a crossbow was held in his magical grip in front of him, floating steadily as if it was weightless. His eyes were orange, dull but much brighter than the other occupants I’ve encountered. Just the way that he stared at the police officer and the guard at the window I could tell that he was the dreamer. He had more of a concerned look to his face, his posture less perfect and his eyes betraying his duty. I could have cast a spell just to make sure to check for his aura, but what’s the fun in that? Besides, I’ve gotten so good at telling dreamers from dreams that there would be no point.

“I can’t believe this.” the chief stated. “Remind me why you’re here again?”

The captain of the guard turned around dramatically. “This case holds very valuable information for an important investigation involving the crown!”

“But could you go about your business without getting your hoofprints everywhere?” the chief asked, dry in his tone.

“We haven’t touched a Celestia-forbidden thing.” the captain said distastefully. “Besides, why don’t you give us a break? We’ve got the resources to make a cleaned-up job of this. We’ve got professionals. We could finish it up here in a matter of minutes and you could be back at the police station handling other calls.”

And I was right. The dreamer wasn’t worried about the murder at all. He was much more worried about his boss and the police chief squaring it off in the middle of a crime scene. The police chief bore his teeth in a scornful frown. I saw the dreamer swapping his gaze between the two rapidly, sweat rolling down his cheek. It was a high-strung situation, for sure. I didn’t know what was going on, or if it mattered, but I wondered if there was an actual point to the argument, or if it was just all moot. They should have been working together, not being disrespectful like this! I edged just a bit closer to the bedroom door, keeping my flank pressed against the wallpaper.

“You don’t understand. This is none of your business.” the chief stated.

“It is much our business as it is yours calling your colleague to fetch donuts at a crucial time like this. Is that what you do when you’re strung up? You devour pastries by the dozen?”

“You don’t know our ways. You couldn’t possibly imagine. You fancy, coat-less cowards have been sitting up all prim and clean in your castle up on the mountain, having tea and crumpets while officers like us have been working our flanks off to keep some measure of peace in the city!”

“'Our ways?' What do you mean 'Our ways?' What ways are there for the police to investigate a crime?”

"We have our ways. It wouldn't be anything you would know about. You may be trained, but I bet you have absolutely no experience dealing with the worst of the worst! Murderers, thieves, and gang violence probably doesn't occur in Canterlot, does it?"

The captain's eyebrows furrowed. "You have no idea what you are getting in to. Back off."

“I’ll back off when the victim isn’t my niece!” he yelled, the force of his voice visibly pushing back the captain. The two officers winced. The dreamer and the other guard that was beside the entrance had dropped their jaws. The captain was wide-eyed, his mane frazzled. The officers beside the kitchen looked up from their notes and their whispering. They went completely silent and wide-eyed, staring at their boss like he’d been slapped in the face. I swear there was foam dribbling out between the police chief’s clenched jaws.

I peered back at the body. The cold, empty eyes stared at the ceiling.

Sweet Celestia.

Was this a dream? Was this really a dream I was witnessing, or a memory?

“Chief.” a voice said near the room entrance.

Everypony’s gaze turned to the source. There was a unicorn standing in the doorway with a trench coat clinging onto her body. She entered the room, her golden eyes directly on the police chief’s. Her natural maroon coat could only be seen by the bottoms of her foreleg sleeves, as her rear legs were draped over by the coat’s tail, with her own long tail poking out in-between. I couldn’t see her cutie mark, and she wasn’t wearing a police uniform. My mind instantly went to a PI. She definitely looked the type, even though she didn’t look grizzled at all. Her long eyelashes were highlighted by the deep red lipstick she wore, and her mane flowed down the back of her neck, bangs parting at the horn atop her head.

Aaaaand the dreamer was drooling like crazy.

Ok, so he wasn’t literally drooling, but from the cross-eyed, glazed over stare he made at her I could tell we had a ringer for a love interest. I couldn’t even tell if it was a real interest or not. It’s a real shot in the dark whether or not a pony in a dream was based off a pony from real life. She could have been made just for the dream for all I knew, and the dreamer would have fallen head over heels for her anyways, because he isn’t thinking straight. When you’re dreaming, you don’t think. You absolutely don’t think. You just do, because your subconscious is controlling everything for you, and your conscious is just there to enjoy the ride. Or not. You probably won’t remember the dream once you wake up anyway.

“Rose.” the chief said, clearing his throat and looking away, embarrassed.

The captain looked skeptical. “Who is she?” he asked the chief.

“Red Rose, PI for the Manehatten Police.” the mare said, stepping in to take command of the situation. “Ironhide, I’ve found evidence for the case, and I’ve left it outside. I could get it for you right now if you want, but I can see that you’re having a bit of a… argument, here with the good captain.”

“No, no. Go get what you’ve found.” Ironhide said, waving her off dismissively. He still couldn’t look at her straight, and his voice was a bit scratchy.

Red Rose smirked. I could see the glint of a rascal in the shine of her eye, and she turned around and promptly left. I looked right. The dreamer was staring in the direction that she exited, googly-eyed with weak knees.

“Sargent.” the captain called. The dreamer immediately snapped out of his trance and stood up straight, assuming the correct guard position again.

“Yes sir!” he answered.

“Don’t let me catch you staring at her ever again.” the captain commanded.

“Yes, sir.”

The guard near the entrance began snickering under his breath, totally breaking Royal Guard protocol. I may not be a Royal Guard, but I’ve been around them enough to know that this is totally not what they’re like. All those years circulating between my home town and Canterlot Castle have gotten me acquainted with the staff of the place, and I can safely say that the Guards of the Royal Crown are some of the most disciplined ponies I have ever seen. When they’re on duty, when they’re on the lookout and posted in their assigned position, they don’t move an inch. They done move a single inch, and only speak back to you if you are A: a pony of higher stature than them and B: actually talk straight to them. Otherwise, they don’t interact with you. They don’t look at you, they don’t react to your movements. I’m bewildered as to how they can protect anything by doing their best impression of a statue all the time, but if they’ve been doing in for the past 80 years like Princess Celestia told me they have, well, I can’t really judge a working system.

The dreamer has clearly never seen the Royal Guard in action much, much less has been in it. This goof is only dreaming about being in the guard because that is where he is placed according to his subconscious. And he was going ga-ga for that mare! I could feel the heat rise in the environment when she entered the room! That wasn’t a good sign. I avoid pink-tinted dreams at all costs for a reason, and dreams can segway anywhere from an adventurous dream to a pleasant, calm dream and anywhere in-between. I was considering finding the Exit (Exit with a capital E because it is the literal doorway out of the dream) as fast as I could, but then decided that I wanted to see the end of this crime drama. Maybe it would work out. Dreams are great stories that way.

The chief fixed the cap on his head, turning towards the window. “Damn it, where’s Silver Badge with the donuts when you need him?”

The captain grinned. “Cat got your tongue, ‘chief’?”

“That lady has been the reason for many sleepless nights, Golden Shield.” he answered, his voice not recovered yet.

“Hmph, and I thought cops were supposed to be professional.” the captain scoffed.

Ironhide grunted in response, tilting his hat over the top of his face.

I suddenly realized the corners of my lips were pulling into a small grin. I was finally enjoying myself. Exploring dreams was one of the fun things you got to do as a Dreamweaver, and dreams will solemnly let you down. They’re always interesting in one way or another, from the creative depth philosophical dreams have to the action and intensity of adventure dreams. Of course, technically I’m invading on somepony’s inner most private thoughts in one of their most vulnerable states, but I’m smart enough to stay out of harm’s way. For the most part.

But then I remembered the dead body on the floor. My smile soured.

“Chief, I’m back with the evidence–”

I didn’t even turn my head in time. There was the sound of a string letting go, then a deep, resounding thwack. A stallion’s scream was thrown into the air and the dream suddenly became all blurry and skewed as time slowed down.

My eyes widened as I saw Red Rose re-entering the room with a folder in her orange magical grip, with a crossbow arrow stuck right in her chest. She was looking down at it, shocked, as her horn faltered and let the document to the floor. I checked back to see the dreamer’s crossbow fall to the ground with a clatter, his legs failing him as she slid to the floor in a slump. Everypony in the room was in shock. The chief yelled out in surprise. The captain rushed to her aid in a flurry of feathers from his wings along with the other two police officers in the room. The guard beside the door had jumped back, unbelieving, his eyes locked with the newest victim.

Blood seeped from Rose’s wound into her trench coat, the bolt embedded right into her chest. Bull’s eye. Her eyelids fluttered as her pupils rolled back into her head and she collapsed on the floor. The captain didn’t manage to catch her and time and her head painfully bounced on the floor with an audible crack. Three of the ponies rushed her, and all I could do was watch as the dreamer sat on the floor, stunned with horrific realization.

“What have you done?” Ironhide demanded to know, his gaze boring right into the side of the head of the responsible. Mr. Crossbow didn’t look. He shook his head, back and forth, muttering words underneath his breath.

“Oh my Celestia… Oh my Celestia…”

The colours of the dream were getting sickening. Everything took a tint of dark red, light leaving the area with bitter darkness replacing it. The corners of the room were no longer visible, and the furniture disappeared for no reason. The clouds outside turned a bloody red and the buildings across the street were cast by a deep shadow. I couldn’t see the crowd outside, but I could only imagine what they looked like. Stains on the walls began dribbling from the ceiling, moisture ruining the wallpaper black. The room abruptly aged 50 years, and utter terror filled my heart.

“Sargent!” the captain yelled, staring right at the dreamer. His eyes were a terrifying, demanding yellow burn. “What were you thinking? Are you out of your mind?”

“It was by accident!” He cried, tears freely flowing. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”

“She’s dead…” one of the officers announced. Red Rose’s corpse rotted on the spot, her coat tearing with years of use and her skin hugging her bones tightly, void of liquid. Her empty eyes were sunken as the colour of her irises began to slowly drain as tears falling down her face to the floor. The colour dripped onto the wooden boards, reflecting a multitude of colours. Rainbow tears. Suddenly, Red Rose was a pure white Pegasus with a natural coat, her mane a rusty shade of hay that has passed its expiration date.

“What have you done?”

“You monster!”

“I can’t believe you did this!”

The room turned to a cacophony of accusations and shouts, all aimed at the same pony. There was so much hatred and confusion and pain that rushed suddenly into the dream I was seeing stars, the room tilting continuously so I couldn’t see straight. I stumbled, hitting the wall behind me for balance as I tried to bring myself together.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the dreamer repeated.

This was becoming a full-fledged nightmare, fast.

Author's Note:

This took me a while to write. And after a month of work, I really only have 8 000 words to show for it. Well, it was 8 000 before I cut it. Oh well. I mostly write in bursts, getting a lot of work done in two weeks and then taking another two off. Sometimes four weeks.

I had a bit of trouble finding myself with this one. Going into act two was a doozy for me, as I knew I needed to raise the bar even higher. The story was finally moving towards the main plotline, and I had to raise the stakes if I wanted to keep the story moving forward. We're not exactly there yet, but we're getting closer and closer with each chapter!

Halfway through writing this, I realized that I was focusing too much on the mechanics I had set for the story's universe and didn't pay enough attention to what I was actually typing down in my document. I had to re-write a few scenes, particularly the intro with Lucid entering the first dream of the night. I had to remind myself of Show, don't Tell. The chapter is really a balancing act between providing exposition but at the same time not making it a total information dump. I also had to keep Lucid in character before the story went from a story to my own personal log of story lore.

Third, I had a bit of trouble keeping a good tense. Going into act two, I knew that I wanted to have the rest of the story in present tense with past tense in to describe some actions, but after looking at it the present tense just looked stupid to me. Of course, the first sequence with Lucid's mother was nice, so I left that in, but everything after I had more or less changed to past tense, or at least tried to. I might have missed a thing or two.

The dreamer was originally supposed to be posing as a reporter just outside a big premier of some kind of production. Lucid would have to push his way past large crowds of ponies just to get to the dreamer, and to an extent, the main attraction. That idea slowly evolved into a crime scene, keeping the tone of lighting and location the same. I thought I could get a lot more out of a crime scene than a premier, even though I had an idea that somepony was going to get murdered, either way.

Once again, I originally had a different plan for writing this chapter. It was supposed to be longer, stretching to the end of the dream sequence. But as I reached the end of the murder scene I had realized the word count I had written and had to let off the gas pedal a little bit. Splitting the dream into a chapter should ease up on the pacing a bit. You guys will just have to wait a little bit longer before we get into the real meat of the story.

I pretty much don't have any pre-readers anymore. One dropped the project completely and the other hasn't read anything in two months.

Comments

[Alcatraz]

Aaaaand the dreamer was drooling like crazy.

LOL!!!

'Tis a good chapter overall, but there were a multitude of full-stops that should have been commas following dialogue. The only other thing was it's a bit too large for such a small amount of content. You could do to cut between 1k-1.5k words and still tell the same story/message in a shorter package.

What I did get from the chapter is the dreamer seems to have experienced a horrific tragedy, namely the death of a relative and they feel responsible for it, like the dreamer could have done something to prevent it.

[Alcatraz]

I put your story in my group

Also, join my group

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