Like a Dream

by Opium4TmassS

Dreaming the Dreamer

It was a beach. It was not a beach.

It has everything that was defined to a beach. White gritty sand composed of rock and shells that covered everything, forming tiny dunes taking their shapes from the rushing of the wind twisting and turning it along. Littered with blankets and parasols along the area, added with a beach ball that slowly made circles in a puddle. As waves of a blueish-green ocean hit the shore in a relaxing rhythm that was calming and therapeutic. Under a day so bright that the stars and moon were clearly visible moving across the sky, as plastic seagulls with fixed wings flew in an endless circle.

Princess Luna walked along the shoreline, listening to the soft crunching her hooves made on the sand. She had tracked that being to here, this point in time and space. Unsure of what it was or what it was doing, Luna felt it was her duty to Investigate. Since she had a kingdom to protect with her sister Celestia. Granted other than the Tantibus their wasn’t too much danger here but still.

Ahead of Luna, between the continuously rising Canterlot castles made of sand, only to be destroyed by the rushing water, to once again rise up over and over again. she could make out something. Luna wasn't sure what it was but their was a something their. Sitting from what it looked like. It didn't feel hostile or dangerous, but still Luna kept her guard up just in case. You never knew what to expect in places like this. As a whale jumped out of the water. twisted in the air to disappear back into the ocean and splashing her. Luna wondered how long has it been since she had been to a beach? Wondering if all beaches were like this?

"Is this what this is?" said a voice in the air, "This is called a beach? Is it just the water, or the sand, or just everything that gets that name?"

No presence was close to her but at the same time their was. Luna knew dreams followed no set logic like the real world but still it wasn't a pleasant feeling knowing that someone can be close to hugging you and yet still be miles apart at the same time.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I'll wait till you get closer."

As she walked on, the figure started to take more shape and definition. It was strange creature.

"I'm a she, a girl actually." said the voice helpfully. "I know I said I'd wait but I just wanted to help."

"What are you?" asked Luna in puzzlement.

"I am me. What else can I be?"

"She means what kind of being are you." said another voice in the air. "Are you animal, vegetable or mineral."

"I don't know what they are. So how can I tell her that? I am a girl, does that help? Or rather I am an appearance of a girl. And you are a talking pony. Were you always a talking pony or just here are you one? "

She or rather the image of she as she pointed out, was sitting on the sand with her back towards Luna, Carefully building a castle from the sand. she was hairless except for the top of her head were her mane was placed into short blond pigtails, which fell just past her neck. She was dressed in some kind of bright yellow cloth that covered her body, but was opened around her limbs leaving her freedom to use it.

"Its called a swimsuit." said the new voice in the air. "They use it to properly clothe themselves when they swim."

“I tried pulling on it a few times but it seems stuck to me. How strange is that.”

"Do you have a name so I can properly address the person or persons I'm talking too." said Luna.

"Name? To call me?" asked the Image of the girl. "Isn't girl a name? Isn't beach a name? Why do we need another name for something we already have a name for?"

"It's is proper to have an individual identifying word or words when talking to another." said the other voice Luna couldn't see that the moment. "That is why I am called Id."

"Oh! I never thought of it that way." said the girl "In that case call me Mercy."

"Why Mercy?" asked Luna.

"Dunno, I just liked the way it sounds. Also this is Id." said Mercy pointing to the small crab crawling on the castle. Luna hadn't noticed it before.

The girl stopped building and turned around to face Luna, making Luna gasp and take a step back. She was young, with a face covered in freckles. Mane plastered to her head, with light skin, not colorful like the ponies she has been around. But what surprised Luna was her eyes. White pupiless eyes that saw nothing, but at the same time saw everything, Staring at her, over her, and at the same time through her.

"Please to meet you. Is that what you're supposed to say Id? When you meet someone you are supposed to say please to meet you?"

"That is correct Mercy. Common courtesy is the best way to go when meeting someone new." responded Id

"I see you're building a castle." Luna said trying to get closer to the girl, to make friends. "Can I join?"

"I would like that talking pony. Wait is that right? Should I just keep calling you talking pony? Is that the correct name for you?" Mercy said with a worried look on her face. "I wouldn't like to offend someone I just met."

Luna smiled. "My name is Princess Luna, but you can call me Luna, and no it wouldn't offend me." she said sitting down next to the girl, as they continued making that castle of sand, listening to the waves wash ashore and the cry of the birds overhead. Figuring how to get her to open up and talk more. She was curious of this creature, curious of Id.

As they sat their Luna noticed the girl wasn't grasping sand to build the castle as the first thought. But rather she was actually tearing off the reality of the dream and attaching it to her creation. Leaving small black holes in the artificial reality. As Mercy continually chatted about everything and anything.

“I was once in a world where all the water was made of butter. How odd was that place." said Mercy patting the fabric into the castle, watching it get bigger and more complex.

"What are you doing?" asked Luna.

"Building a sandcastle, I thought that's what we were doing."

"You mean altering the fabric of dreams." said Id. scuttling to the top of the construction. "That was something she could always do. Ever since I found her floating in the between, she could do this."

"Can you do this?" Mercy asked

"Sort of." said Luna. "I can work with dreams, although nothing like that.”

“That's a shame Luna the talking pony.” said Mercy.

“You said you found her between dreams?” asked Luna, “Just what is that?”

"Imagine a giant bubble.” said Id waving his claws around. And in this bubble there are millions of tiny bubbles, constantly being blown, floating around, and popping. Think of the tiny bubbles as dreams being blown, being dreamt, and finally awakening. but between the dreams there's an infinity of nothing. That's where I found her. pick me up Mercy."

Mercy obediently extended her hand over the castle letting the crab walk onto it, and bringing it to her shoulder, as she got up.

"That is where I found her, a something in a nothing."

"Do people have picnics here?" asked Mercy. "I remember picnics on a beach, but I'm not sure if it's a real memory or a made up memory. Sometimes my memories are made up, Sometimes they are real. It's hard to figure out the real from the made up, memories I mean."

Luna was confused by this strange creature jumping from conversation to conversation, going with any piece of thought that popped into her mind regardless of what she was talking about before.

"Wait! what were you doing in the between dreams as you call it."

"I was their, floating. There wasn't much else to do." Said Mercy absently fidgeting with the top of the sandcastle she had made.

"What about before the nothing? What were you doing then?"

"I...I...there wasn't a before the nothing." said Mercy putting a hand on back of Luna's neck. "Their was nothing before the nothing."

Her touch was warm and electric, and cold at the same time. Luna could feel her mind slipping away to somewhere else, as it drifted away from the here and now to a memory.

It was black here, an empty space, a true definition for the word of nothing. Their was only her and the blackness surrounding her. Mercy wondered if she should be scared, but their was nothing to be scared of. But at the same time she felt incredibly sad and confused and didn't know why. Feeling as if something terrible happened but couldn't understand the who or the what of why she should be feeling this way.

"Hello?" she calling out in the nothing. "Is there anyone their?"

Nothing answered because their was nothing to answer.

"Can someone answer me? What is going on?"

The silence answered her back.

"Please?" feeling the weight of something terribly wrong resting on her shoulders but unable to understand why.

"Why are you here?" said a voice in the nothing at last. "I have never seen anyone here before. What are you?

"I don't know. What are you?"

"I am Id, a state of consciousness, a thought of self awareness if you prefer. Can you tell me what you are or what you are doing here?"

"I can't remember. I'm sorry I can't remember anything. There's just here and images in my head."

"Images in your head? Memories you mean?"

"I guess so. If that's what their called. I don't understand them. They show me things I have done but they're all jumbled and in pieces, and at the same time I don't think I really did them. It's all so confusing. When I try to think about them it hurts me as if something is all wrong and I don't remember why."

She felt the sadness grow more acute as the pain of these real/not real memories overcame her. Everything felt wrong and painful, making it worst was that this was beyond description or understanding. Only an intense feeling of a great loss, and a desire to not be alone.

"Id?' she asked.

"Yes?"

"Can you help me?"

Their was a long moment of silence. Making her nervous that it might have left. "Id are you still here?"

"I'm still here, I was just wondering." said the nothingness around her. "Let me take you someplace."

Even though their was nothing to judge, she felt that they were traveling a great distance at a great speed. Finally stopping at a rectangular object in the blackness surrounding.

"This is called a door. It is a gateway. It will take you places."

"Where will it take me?" she asked.

"Everywhere."

"And what is behind it?"

"Everything."

Luna gasped returning back to the hear and now with a gasp, seeing the girl had now vanished but was replaced with a yellow alicorn with the same pupiless eyes occupying the space that once held the girl. Now staring at her with the same blank expression. Her cutie mark was a full moon with a silhouette of three stars in the middle of the moon. "I thought it would be easier to show you rather than tell you. I'm sorry if I startled you."

"What are you?" asked Luna

"A dream I think. A dream of a dream inside a dream, dreaming of dreams." said the girl now alicorn twirling around and around in a sing-song "I am Mercy. I am me." Stopping as Mercy looked at herself, "So now I am a pony just like you, I have never been one before. I like this. What is this on me?" asked Mercy pointing at her cutie mark. What does this picture mean?”

“Its called a cutie mark it shows your talents.” said Luna

“So does this mean I'm part of the moon? Or the Sky? Or the moon and the stars? I have been on a few moons before. One of them has a giant tree that made these strange fruit that was bigger than moon. That was pretty strange to be on a moon with fruit.”

“No Mercy.” said Id, “I think it's more of an abstract symbol than an actual meaning.”

“I like that word.” giggled Mercy sitting down in the sand hugging her tail.. “ABSTRACT! ABSTRACT! abstract. aaaabbbssttrraacctt!” she sang over and over, swinging her head around. “That is such a funny sounding word. I have a tail now I see. Do tails do anything?”

“How did you do that Mercy?” asked Luna. “Change your form?” asked Luna

“I’m not sure myself how it's done. Id explained it to me. He’s much, much better at that kind of thing.”

“We assume the dominate personality of the dreamer. In other words the dreamer creates our form.” said Id, “Although in Mercy's case, their are a few similarities in every dream world we enter.”

"It seems my eyes are always the same and I am always a female.” said Mercy, “ I asked Id what is a female is and he just told me later. I wonder why?”

For a crab, Id gave Luna a look that said a lot of giving Mercy that kind of information at this point in time.

“Probably a good idea.” said Luna agreeing.

A loud noise rattled the created reality stopping Luna from all the questions she so wanted to ask. As the world they were in shook. Over the ocean a part of it began to bend inward as something big from the outside worked at it trying to get in. Receding then coming back again, and again, until finally a hole opened over the water showing the nothing beyond. Spider Like creatures poured forth, infesting the dream. They were black and flat with four legs ending in sharpened points, they had no faces but each had a smile plastered on each of their faces.

"They found us!" yelled Id, "RUN! NOW!"

"Wait who found us?" asked Luna galloping hard to catch up with the other two racing across the beach. "What are they? What do they want?"

"It's the Carney. It has found us again." yelled Id, claws dug into Mercy as she galloped away. "I hoped we had lost the creature when we came here but it tracked us."

Two enormous appendages appeared in the hole ripping it even wider as a giant version of the spider like creatures appeared. The opening was still to small for it go get through, but it was only a matter of time. "GET HER! STOP HER! BRING HER TO ME!" it yelled at its army. "DON'T LET HER GET AWAY AGAIN!"

The two ponies galloped onwards, trying to put as much distance as they could from those monstrosities. Not paying attention to their surrounding Mercy stumbled into a small hole that had opened up underneath her. Screaming out as one of her legs fell into it. "I can't get up. Their holding onto my leg I can feel them holding on." she cried out. As she tried to unsuccessfully to get up

Luna tried to dig out her leg, but it was useless she could only dig into the sand not into the dream fabric that the others could. "They will not get you." she growled at the incoming. "I will defend you." as she squared off ready to face the enemy. shooting at a few that had gotten close.

"There's a better way." said Id, "But you have to trust me." as Id pointed at the captured leg. "You have to do it."

"I can't!" cried Luna in shock.

"Trust me! Better what they would do to her, to all of us if they catch us."

Faced with those things speeding towards them, with a feeling that no matter what, they can't have her. Luna lowered her horn and pointed at the stuck leg. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me please." and shot a beam of magic at it. Her beam cut through her leg instantly, disappearing back into the abstraction of dreams, freeing Mercy.

"Thank you." said Mercy getting up, reaching her front hoof in front of her feeling around.

"I'm so sorry. I wanted to help." Luna said awash in guilt of what she had to do.

"That's okay it had to be done. Now if I could just...ah there it is." as Mercy ripped out a fabric of the dream, Luna could see the waves still in motion from the torn piece. Placing it over her missing leg and shaping it to a replacement that was identical to the one that was lost. "There that's better."

"Mercy! Hurry!" yelled Id. "Carney is almost through."

The Carney worked on the tear, opening it up even more. Letting the demon swing his knife like leg dangerously close to them.

Luna didn't know what to do or what was happening, feeling she needed to do something but wasn't sure what or how to do it. Their was far too many of them to face. And you can't just keep running away from them, sooner or later they will catch her. She wasn't sure what, but she knew it would be very bad. Not just for them but for Equestria as well.

An Idea formed in Luna's head. It wasn't the best idea but under the circumstances, it was the best for what was needed at the time.

"Wait! She called to Mercy who had widened the exit large enough for her an Id to escape. I have a better plan. grab my hoof and hold on."

Mercy looked at Id for advice. “I think she has a better idea this time.” it said.

Obediently doing what she was told her hoof clasped Luna's as they flew up in the air.

"Princess Luna!" gibbered the creature with a voice sounding between insane laughter, and pure rage, through the dream opening. "You may not know me but I know you. I'm only going to warn you once. Leave her and go away, because if you don't I will come for you all and I will do horrible, horrible things to you and your precious Equestria. I promise you this."

Its words chilled her to the bone but she knew she couldn't let her go, flying farther and faster away from them.

"LUNA!" yelled Carney

"NOW!." Yelled Luna. "WAKE UP!"

Princess Luna stifled a scream as she almost jumped out of bed. Her heart was still racing, sweat was dripping all over her body, and she could still hear the faint screams of rage from the Carney over the loss of his prize fading away. But a more important question was did it work?

"Yes it did work." said the voice of Id in her mind. "If your plan was to take us to your dreams."

"What is this place? Why is everyone ponies?" asked Mercy, "Who is Princess Celestia? And what is a sister? I see a lot of her in your dreams."

"Never mind that for right now just make yourself comfortable. I need to do a few things and I'll meet you again tonight." replied Luna getting up from her bed. Their are so many questions that needed to be answered and so many answers that needed to be found. But right now she knew that she needed to keep this strange person, now pony, Mercy, safe from harm. With purpose strides she proceeded out of her room and straight to the library.

---

None of them noticed the other small hole that appeared in the dream beach as Carney chased down Luna and Mercy. Looking humanoid in shape, changing appearances to a pony silhouetted in the blackness, almost invisible except for the pupiless eyes staring at the everything in front of him. Wanting to find Her. Mercy! Hoping with hope, that she could make everything right again. She had disappeared before he could make contact, leaving him with nothing but the howls of rage from the creature nearby at losing his prey. He was unconcerned about him, having never experienced danger before. All he wanted was to find Mercy to turn it all back to the way it was.

She was gone but he could sense her location and knew he could find her. It was only a matter of time. Turning around he squared his shoulders and left sealing the hole he had come out in. As he followed the trail to Equestria.