336 - In the Dread of Night
With the door closed, the interior of the freight car was pitch black.
Fencer let out a slow breath as she settled down, her back pressed firmly against the far wall of the car. Nearby, she could hear the soft breathing and shuffling of her friends getting themselves situated. None of them said anything; they all had too much experience with hiding in dark places to make any unnecessary noise. Once the train started moving, eliminating any possibility of someone outside the car hearing them, they’d have a chance to strategize their next move. Until then, it was time to rest.
It’s a good thing none of us snore, thought Fencer ruefully. Before Vanhoover’s fall, she wouldn’t have thought that sleeping silently was something you could deliberately teach yourself to do. But when your life depended on it, she’d discovered, it was actually an easy skill to pick up. Sort of like how she’d taught herself to fight with knives, quickly gaining sufficient prowess to be able to dispatch a ghoul easily. Or one unarmed crystal pony.
That last thought made her tense. Stop it! she ordered herself savagely. Pillowcase forgave me! He and Cozy both forgave me! But although the memory of the crystal ponies making peace with her was still fresh in her mind, Fencer could still feel her thoughts turning back to the horror of when she’d maimed Pillow and left him for dead, as well as when she’d held him hostage later in her foolish attempt to take Lex’s horn. Both felt more visceral, more real, than the unexpected compassion that Cozy and Pillow had shown her just over an hour ago. It was like she was still back there, hiding from the ghouls and not caring who she hurt…
That’s it, she realized grimly. That’s why I feel like this. Raising her head, Fencer looked around despite not being able to see anything in the gloom. Right now, she and her friends were all hiding out in an enclosed space with no light, not daring to make a sound in hopes of avoiding detection. It’s just like when we were hiding out from the ghouls.
The thought was an unpleasant one, doubly so for the fact that her friends were doubtlessly struggling with the same anxiety that she was right now. All because she’d wanted to go back to Vanhoover in the first place. And now I’m getting my wish, she thought bitterly, unpleasant memories and all. For a split-second, she considered making a soft light with her horn, hating the thought that she’d led her friends into a circumstance that mirrored the worst part of their lives. But she fought the urge down, not wanting to get them caught after everything they’d already done for her. Besides, she sighed to herself as she laid her head back down, my horn hasn’t completely recovered yet. Hadn’t one of the doctors said something about not using too much magic? Not that it mattered very much now, after how she’d attacked that army of ghouls back at the camp. But Lex and Sonata had augmented her then, so maybe it was better to leave it alone after all? I should have just asked Cozy or Pillow to heal it.
It was her last thought before she finally drifted off to sleep.
Fencer’s eyes snapped open immediately, her entire body on alert as she sprang to her hooves. “You guys!” she hissed, her voice a sharp whisper. “You guys! Wake up!” She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she knew with absolute certainty that something had. Something very bad. “We’re not safe!”
But nopony answered her.
Terrified by the silence, it took Fencer a moment to process that the lack of sound was absolute. She couldn’t hear her friends’ breathing. Which meant that they were either gone, or-
A hoofstep fell nearby.
Managing to choke down a scream, Fencer turned toward the sound. She opened her mouth to ask who it was, but the words wouldn’t come. As quietly as she could, she started to back away, moving in the opposite direction from where it had come-
Another hoofstep. This one from somewhere behind her.
Immediately coming to a stop, Fencer belatedly realized that she couldn’t feel the wall against her back anymore. No! she thought in a panic. No no no, I didn’t move that far! Carefully, she tried to make her way back-
This time the hoofstep came from right next to her.
“Pony can’t run,” came a sing-song voice next to her ear, “pony can’t hide, pony can’t see though her eyes are wide.”
This time Fencer did scream, throwing herself in the opposite direction from the voice. Galloping full-tilt despite not being able to see where she was going, she could already feel her body stiffening, muscles refusing to respond and turning her wild rush into a slow shuffle. No no they didn’t hit me they didn’t get me why can’t I move gotta get out!
“Pony can’t flee,” came another lilting voice, “pony can’t fight, pony can’t make it out to the light.”
Almost sobbing with terror, Fencer tried to force her legs to move, to carry her further away from the monsters chasing her. She could feel them working, but it was like they’d fallen asleep, barely able to move. Even so, she kept lurching forward, turning in random directions in a vague hope that she’d be able to get away-
There was a door ahead of her.
Plainly visible despite the darkness, Fencer ran for it, throwing herself through it…and emerging into a long hallway, completely shrouded in darkness. The only visible feature was a distant staircase, leading up toward an open doorway, the distance making it into an upright rectangle of solid white. Without hesitating, Fencer plunged forward, knowing that it was her only chance.
But she had barely taken a step when the darkness on either side of the long corridor began to roil, seething with the shadowy figures of ponies. Their voices were raised in a cacophony of horrible rhymes, reaching out for her with hooves and teeth. In an instant, Fencer knew that they’d never let her make it to the door.
Screaming in frustration as much as fear, Fencer didn’t question where she found the knife. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” she bellowed as she swung it, her telekinetic aura doing nothing to brighten the hallway as she slashed at the dark horde. Amazingly, the wild attack seemed to drive them back, the path in front of her somehow staying open as the twisted shapes of her enemies went flying.
It’s the gems, she realized disjointedly, spotting the sparkling jewels orbiting her head. They’re giving me strength! I can make it! With a renewed surge of desperate hope, she flung herself forward, breath heavy as she lashed out wildly, sending group after group of attackers flying. She knew they were hitting her – they had to be, despite her not feeling anything – but somehow she wasn’t slowing down, her body moving quickly now as she tried to cross the endless distance. Just a little more…just a little more…
Suddenly she was there.
Bounding up the staircase, Fencer flung her knife at the last of her attackers, sending them careening through the air as she plunged through the doorway, emerging into the plaza at the center of Vanhoover. Despite the night sky hanging overhead, the full moon lit up the square brightly, letting her see clearly as she stumbled forward, panting for breath and not even noticing that the floating gemstones were gone now. I did it! I made it!
“What have you done?!” roared a familiar voice from behind her. “How dare you!”
Turning, she saw Lex a few feet from her, glaring at her in righteous rage. His floating scythe was by his side, its tip pointed at her menacingly. The sight made her shrink back, shaking her head. “What are you doing? I saved everyone!” she waved a hoof at the crowd of ponies that was behind him now, all of them looking at her with pity. “I saved them all!”
“Liar!” boomed Lex. “You killed him!” One hoof raised to point behind her. “Look at what you’ve done!”
Feeling her stomach twisting as a horrible suspicion came over her, Fencer slowly turned to look at the last of her enemies she’d dispatched on her way into the plaza. But there was only one there now…a crystal stallion, his legs slashed as he lay on his side, unmoving. Woodenly, she marched over to her victim, not wanting to see what she’d done to him but unable to stop herself.
Pillowcase’s eyes were still open, and they turned to look at her as she moved to stand over him. “F-forgive you…” he rasped. “I…forgive you…”
The words brought Fencer no comfort. If anything, they condemned her, and she stumbled back. “No…please…I just wanted to live…”
“Pillow…” called Cozy mournfully, moving to kneel down by her fallen husband’s side, looking up at Fencer with tears in her eyes. “How could you?” she asked sadly. “How could you do this?”
“I’m so sorry!” sobbed Fencer. “I was wrong! What we do, the way we treat other ponies, it always matters!”
She didn’t have a chance to say anything else as Lex strode forward, raising his scythe in his purple aura. “You will be MADE TO PAY!” he howled, swinging the scythe straight at her face.
The blow flung her across the plaza, landing in a heap by the fountain at the center of it. She barely had a chance to pick herself up when she heard another familiar voice. “You forgot the most important part,” intoned her father sadly, standing across the fountain from her. Despite the distance being less than a stone’s throw, it somehow felt like she was a million miles away from him. “You forgot the gate.”
The sight of him made her struggle to rise. “Dad!” she called, managing to get her legs under her. “Dad, don’t go!”
But she’d barely started to move when she heard screaming, looking around to see her friends backing away from her, terrified looks on their faces. “Run!” shrieked Slip ‘n’ Slide.
“She’ll kill us all!” wailed Hopscotch.
“Save yourselves!” hollered Turbo, desperately waving at them to run away. “It’s too late for me! Save yourselves!”
“Wh-what are you doing?” moaned Fencer, trying to get her hooves under her. “It’s me. It’s G-, Gard-” The words wouldn’t come, the name getting stuck in her throat and causing her to choke. With a sickening feeling, she tried to speak again. “Fencer,” she whimpered. “I’m still Fencer.” Hanging her head at the admission, she caught sight of her reflection in the water of the fountain…and recoiled.
Her mane hung about her in tatters, clumps of it having fallen off of her. Her coat was filthy, with large parts of it having sloughed off entirely, leaving bare patches of skin, muscles, or even bones. Her legs were nearly skeletal, the flesh dried and clinging to them like old rags. Worst, however, was her face: her eyes were sunken and yellow, her teeth filthy and pointed, and her horn was broken near the base.
She had become a ghoul.
“This…this isn’t me,” she wept. “This isn’t who I am anymore!” But she could already feel them circling around her, all the ponies she’d wronged. Pillowcase. Cozy. Turbo. Lex. They and so many others were all there, waiting to show her how she had become as monstrous and evil as the creatures she hated. “This isn’t why I wanted to come back!”
“ENOUGH!”
The female voice that rang out wasn’t one that Fencer was familiar with, but it resonated with power. In an instant, everyone around her was gone, blown away like mist in a hurricane by the force of that one word. Blinking, Fencer belatedly realized that her appearance had changed back to normal, but she was given no time to contemplate that as the moon overhead rippled like a reflection on the water. An instant later, a pony emerged from it.
Although they’d never met, Fencer immediately recognized the alicorn that slowly landed in front of her, wings folding at her sides as she touched down. How could she not? Her return had been among the most important events to happen in the last several years, with every newspaper carrying her picture at the time and on many occasions since. More importantly, her presence here explained everything, including where “here” was.
A dream, realized Fencer, suddenly feeling more lucid than she had a moment ago. This was all a dream. No, it was all a nightmare! By itself that wasn’t too unusual; she’d had many nightmares since Vanhoover had fallen, and she knew that her friends had as well. She’d had particularly bad ones every time she’d slept during the brief period when Lex had cursed her. But this had never happened before.
“Forgive me for being so late,” said Princess Luna. “The dream realm is vast, and recent events have left many of my subjects in desperate need of my attention.”
“You’re really here,” murmured Fencer, still unable to quite believe it.
“Indeed,” answered the princess solemnly. “But while I cannot tarry long, I wish to speak with you regarding these events that haunt you…”
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From her dreams Luna can probably guess that Fencer was in Vanhoover, but probably not much more detail than that. I doubt Luna knows that Fencer had a curse put on her by Lex, for example. It will be very interesting to see what Fencer reports.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say Garden/Fencer has a tantabus of her own but I suppose one's own guilt and fears come somewhat close to the real thing though the end with Luna's appearance was unexpected as I thought it'd end up the same way it did when Turbo and the others tried seeking her out. (Especially due to her and Celestia's coming meeting with Lex)
Guess after the scare with Nosey's own nightmare, Luna didn't want to take any chances with this one.
Luna is performing espionage!
A wild Luna appears.
Or is she currently just slightly peeved?
Fencer and Luna meat at last but will Luna be able to help Fencer?
or is this something Fencer has to face on her own?
yes Pillowcase forgave her but she has a long way to go before she can forgive her self.
9511741 Presumably you're right, though don't forget that Cadance sent a hasty letter to Celestia and Luna about what happened at the Canterlot train station. It doesn't seem too likely that many salient details were included in there...but it's not like Fencer knows that. So this might very well turn into a situation where both parties don't realize just how much the other doesn't know. Throw in that Fencer is probably emotionally off-balance at the moment and, well...things could go any number of ways.
9511758 I really wanted to include a call-back to Turbo's plan to try and contact Princess Luna in the wake of Lex having cursed Fencer, but I just couldn't find a way to work it in. Fencer, you'll recall, wasn't informed of Turbo's plan, and the rest of her friends aren't here in her dream. She might tell them about it after she wakes up, and they'd likely mention it then. Of course, that ended up being pointless anyway; Turbo knew that was unlikely to succeed because Princess Luna hadn't come into their dreams despite the fact that they'd all surely been having plenty of nightmares since Vanhoover's fall.
As for why Luna's here now, it's probably just a coincidence; she's still trying her best to patrol her subjects' dreams to remove nightmares, after all. But I wouldn't be surprised if the realization of just what Fencer was dreaming of caught her attention. That meeting is very soon now, after all.
And no, Fencer doesn't have her own Tantabus; fear, guilt, and shame can make for a good nightmare all on their own (as you noted).
9511833 Well, more like information-gathering. She's largely made up her mind about Lex, but she knows that there's still more about him that she doesn't know. Maybe Fencer will convince her that Lex isn't a villain in waiting?
9512010 So you're saying there won't be a song?
9512135 Hopefully Luna will be able to help; she does seem to care about the welfare of her subjects, and I don't think she'd be the sort to say that Fencer should feel horrible over what she did. And if she can get some information on Lex, that'd be even better.