A Light in Dark Places

by Lucky Dreams

Ocean

Silent fury blazed through Apple Bloom. How dare the storm taunt her so! Test her, tease her, torture her. “How dare you?” she said, she spat; but she covered her mouth, adamant that she wouldn’t let the storm win at this game… and she was prepared, was she not? Her sister’s lantern shone over the control panel, a light, a light for her in dark places…

The ocean was simply water. Just water! Showers and bathtubs, puddles and splish-splashes. Why should she be afraid of it? “Not never, no never. I’m no more frightened than of the sun freezin’, or of lightning and thunder, or of the ice-wolf back in that there bed-cave.”

“What of wolves in the water?” asked the storm.

Apple Bloom ignored it. Gritting her teeth, she pushed on a lever, smacked some buttons, twirled a knob, raised the periscope, started the engines, dive, dive, dive! And with a lurch, her bedroom sank below the waves, deep into a vast nothingness ruled over by the Lord of Silence.

The wailing of the storm dulled.

Dimmed.

Died.

Apple Bloom sighed happily, certain that no storm with a heart of terror and voice of evil could follow her into the hug of the ocean. “I’m snug in the sea,” she said. “That’s what counts.”

More than snug, it turned out.

More than warm and peaceful.

Before her eyes – here! Against the odds, at the very bottom of the sea! – the night sky dazzled. Constellations swarmed in the currents, faint stars and bright stars, and brittle stars, and starfish with glowing arms. There were a hundred of them, those twinkling little lights; then there were a thousand, then a million more, a million billion trillion more. More stars than she had ever seen, more, more than she had ever dreamed in her life, a flood, a torrent, a deluge of sparkles.

Apple Bloom gaped at this twin of the night sky painted by the creatures of the sea. Peering close, she spied glowing jellyfish with long creeping tendrils, softly, softly blue. There were eels and shrimp, squid and octopuses, all decorated with gleaming dots. They swam about in pairs and in groups. They linked fins. They held tentacles. An astonished Apple Bloom gazed upon a dance of scales and stars.

At once, she understood the meaning of it: every fish she saw was a girl-fish, and they were all sisters, each and every one. In their own mysterious ways, the creatures down here spoke the language of sisterhood. They swam the language of sisterhood.

A tiny sea-pony sped in front of the submersible-bedroom. Apple Bloom pressed her snout to the window. Under her breath, she sang:

Sweet little fish,
Sleep
Sleep
Little fish.
It’s bedtime under the sea.

But before you sleep, little fish,
I wish
Wish
Little fish,
Would you please sing a story for me?

A tale of sisters, one little, one big,
And Little ran away from home.
For there was a storm,
And in the dark and cold,
She was scared right down to her bones.

Yet what of the ending?
Tell
Tell
Little fish.
Tell Little Sis what to say!

She’s lost and alone,
She needs to go home,
Yet wants to endure until day,
Little fish.
She wants to endure until day.

Sweet little fish,
Night
Night
Little fish.
Dream dreams specially for me.
Dream in a bedroom under the sea.

With a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth, Apple Bloom could only watch as the sea-pony was joined by its twin, and then the pair of them danced into the stars, those sunken shipwrecked stars shining deep beneath the waves. She was more confused than ever. Oh, what to do! What to say! What to say and what to do, “I wish, I wish that I knew,” she whispered, despairing on her chair behind the steering wheel.

“What should I do?” she asked to the fireflies.

“What you feel you have to, Apple Bloom,” was their response.

What did she feel, though? Apple Bloom rubbed her forehead, thinking, thinking, thinking over whether she ought to prove her bravery and hold tight until dawn, or else sail back to Applejack: for lost in the ocean though she was, she was sure that finding her way back to her older sister would be easy. The way home shone in the pit of her heart.

… NO!

No no no!

“I’m not gonna run to her. I ain’t a baby, I ain’t scared, I swear that I’m not.”

“Are you sure, Apple Bloom? Are you certain?”

Wolves in the ocean, jaws in the night. The voice was darker, deeper than the ice-wolf’s. Dark like the wilderness stretching past the reach of the most distant stars. Deep like packs of miserable shadows lurking near the bottom of ocean trenches, waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting lights unfortunate enough to find themselves lost in the gloom. Pressing her hooves against her ears made not a shred of difference: it was the loudest voice in the whole wide world, a voice fit for the ocean.

Apple Bloom stared as the stars scattered into the blackness: fish swam for their lives before the owner of the dark voice. They swam, and then the stars were no more.

Darkness.

Apple Bloom pushed pulled wound wheeled yanked cranked bashed mashed at the control panel, but it was hopeless. The bedroom was too slow to escape. Too clumsy. Too cumbersome.

And now through the window she saw…

A body larger than hills, mountains, islands, continents.

Fangs too many, each one as long as a tree and as thick as their trunks.

Scales, scales, scales, some of which glowed the colour of blood, so that decorating the monster’s body were twirling swirling galaxies – galaxies formed from nothing but red stars.

“Apple Bloom,” said the star-beast, causing Apple Bloom’s stomach to turn inside-out then outside-in. “You cannot escape your nightmares. We’re going to get you. We’re going to EAT you.

Swallow you whole,
Gulp you down,
Crunch your bones,
Spit you out.

So many ways to eat your food.
So many ways: which do I choose?

Noshing and gnashing?
Splitter and splatting?
Munching or mashing?
Chomping or champing?

Sleep little girl in your bed in the sea,
Sweet little girl, so perfect for tea!

Tell me, girl, are you much of a swimmer?
If not I shall eat you for dinner!

Tender dreamer especially for me,
Tasty sweet girl under the sea.”

The monster lunged at the bedroom, and no time to run, no time to steer out of the way! Apple Bloom shrieked, “APPLEJACK! HELP!”

“Applejack! Help!” cried the fireflies.

“Applejack! Help!” sounded strange voices in the corners of Apple Bloom’s mind – or perhaps, she wondered later, they weren’t so strange at all, but the voices of her loved ones watching over her. Not that it mattered, of course, in a place where Applejack could no more hear her than hold her or hug her or kiss her.

Yet…

The language of sisterhood is spoken not with words, but with hearts and magic…

The language of sisterhood knows no boundaries, and sleeping and waking are of little concern…

Far away, far, far away, to wherever the storm had blown the rest of the house, Applejack dreamt. She dreamt of sailing in a boat carved from an apple; by her side, in the sunlight of that mysterious sea, sat her little sister at the rudder. But Apple Bloom’s smile fell. It fell, though the sun shone brighter than ever, and its warmth was purest joy.

On the control panel, the lantern of fireflies flickered—

“Applejack,” said the Apple Bloom in Applejack’s dream. “Help!”

The lantern glimmered—

Understanding passed over Applejack’s face. She held her dream-sister close, and said, softly, “You’re in trouble, ain’t you. I don’t know how, I don’t know where, and I know now that I’m simply dreamin’. But wherever you are, sugar cube, whatever scrape you’re in, know that I love you. You’re safe, ’cause I’m watchin’ over you. I’m sending you all my love, and I love you with all my heart and more; I love you the whole world, and the sun and the moon, and all the planets and all them stars twinklin’ up there in the night sky.

“I love you.

“I love you.

“I love you…”

And the lantern SHONE.

The fireflies burned with the fury of Applejack’s love – love felt from across the sea and over a hundred miles away – and it was a light stronger than all the stars in the ocean combined. Apple Bloom shielded her eyes. The monster got the full blast of it through the window – the worst pain imaginable for such a creature of darkness. It thrashed about, blinded, screaming, agony, pain, sore, hurt, ache, torture.

Then a moment of stillness, a hint of a moment, a whisper of a moment; it was enough. Apple Bloom seized the lantern, rushed to her bed, and hissed to herself, “Hurry, hurry!”

(“Scurry, scurry,” the fireflies chimed in.)

Unscrewing one of the bed-knobs, she revealed a tiny wishing star no bigger than a hoof and long ago plucked from the night sky. A curious object. It had been placed there by Applejack in case of emergency, on the day of Apple Bloom’s birth, in fact. A gift. A blessing. A way to forever tell her, I love you, I love you.

“I ain’t scared, I swear it,” whispered Apple Bloom to the little wishing star. “I’m a big filly, and I can take care of myself. But get me outta here. Please!”

The star-beast roared, and the deep quivered and the darkness quaked. Yet it wasn’t the roar that caused Apple Bloom’s heart to pump slush and ice throughout her little body, but that the star did nothing.

No wish is freely given.

Wishes require sacrifice. They need the wish-granter to give something up, or else they have no power; right then, with seconds to spare, all Apple Bloom had to part with was the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth.

And the truth was this: “Okay, I’ll admit it,” Apple Bloom whimpered to the star, and she said it with a shake and a sniffle, a sob and a snivel. “I am scared, I’m so, so scared… but not of that there monster, or of the storm, or even of the sun freezin’. I don’t know what I’m scared of. But it’s rightly weighing on my mind, whatever it is...”

There was a pause filled with fangs and roars and a hundred thousand red glowing scales. Apple Bloom held her breath. Was the truth enough? Was it enough to save her?

At last – “Oh thank you,” cried Apple Bloom, “thank you, thank you!” – the star twinkled to show that it had accepted the payment, then sank into the woodwork. Soon, the whole bed was enchanted with its magic. The blanket, the pillows, and the mattress became silver-white. The frame was golden. Then the bed rose into the air and smashed through the ceiling, carrying them up, up through the water. Seconds later, too blinded to have noticed Apple Bloom’s escape, the monster swallowed the bedroom in a single gulp, before vanishing to the dark pit from whence it came.

Apple Bloom didn’t see this. She didn’t look back, but fixed her eyes upon the roof of the ocean. The bed shot through the roof and soared high, high, high above the storm clouds, beyond waking and dreaming, and past the place where the sky bleeds into space.

Comments

[Ice Star]

OHMYGOSHSPACE!