Oneirophobia

by Valorousspectre

The Mysterious Stranger

Chapter one: Mysterious Stranger.

Lightning.

The discharge of magnetically charged particles in clouds meeting their polar opposites in clouds. A curious concept normally, and one a certain purple librarian had put a great deal of time and energy into studying. But right now? She couldn’t care less for any of it. Why? Simple.

The damn noise woke her up.

Grumbling, she rolled over to watch the pouring rain hitting her window. The sound of pattering rain had always had a lulling effect on her, the sound of thunder and lightning significantly less so. In fact, it had often had the opposite effect on her, keeping her awake. And it annoyed her. It annoyed her greatly. She was tempted, if but for a moment, to walk out and simply magic the storm away. But she knew the pegasi had not only went to a lot of trouble to put this together, and tampering with the weather on such a large scale could potentially spell disaster for all of Equestria as she knew it. So, sorely tempted as she was, she stayed indoors and under her warm blankets…

Until the knock came at the door.

Groaning in frustration, Twilight Sparkle rolled out of her bed to go and find out who on Equestria would not only be up but be knocking at her door at this hour. She flung the door open and glared sullenly at the stallion at the doorstep.

“Yes? What do you want?”

The brown stallion smiled sympathetically. His voice was oddly musical as he spoke.

“I’m sorry to disturb you; it’s just the storm’s gotten worse. Is the library open? I could use some shelter.”

It was only then that Twilight noticed his condition. The stallion was shivering, evidently from the cold, and his coat, mane (which seemed to be stubbornly hanging over his eyes) and tail were damp, or at least partly wet from spray. Her irritation passed as she sighed and stepped to one side to let him in. With a polite thank you, he trotted into the library common room and promptly curled up beneath the main desk. Resigning herself to him staying the rest of the morning there, Twilight shrugged to herself and went back to her room.

She was too tired to deal with this stuff right now.

~*~

Three hours later, Twilight let her eyes crack open once more. She was still tired, and the thunderstorm was still raging on like it had only just been started. Resigning herself to a miserable day, Twilight got out of bed.

“Spike? Are you making breakfast?”

Silence. Grumbling as she began to brush her mane, she called out again.

“Spiiike! Are you awake yet?”

Faced with the lack of response yet again, Twilight turned to look at Spike’s little bed to find it empty. She sighed, cursing her impatience.

“It’s alright Twilight, he’s probably already making it.”

She made her way downstairs, trying not to stomp her way down the stairs. She couldn’t smell anything cooking and that was unusual when it came to Spike. He liked to cook things. He liked the idea of using heat to create things. Probably had something to do with the fact he was a dragon.

Confused and still more than a little irrationally angry, Twilight stomped her way down the last few steps and into the kitchen.

“Spike! What are you-“

She stopped mid sentence. The kitchen was bare, nopony was in there, and no dragon was either. Grumbling that her breakfast be later than she was that morning, The angry librarian went looking for Spike. She stalked through the library like a vengeful cloud of doom, searching Spike’s favourite hidey holes, even the ones she let him think she didn’t know about. Under the table, in the gap under the floorboards in the guest room, behind the third bookshelf on the right where the back of the shelf had rotted away. Every single haunt he had was searched, and still she couldn’t find him. Finally giving up, deciding he must have gone to see Rarity again, and made her own breakfast. Cold cereal and milk later and she figured it’d be best to make a new schedule for the day.

And thus she located Spike.

He was in the basement. Used as both a storeroom and the most common place for Twilight to perform her magical experiments, the basement was the most private and the strongest area of the interior. Built out of pure stone, the walls were created (and later magically enhanced) to withstand a high magnitude earthquake. The enchantments that Twilight had later woven into the walls themselves were specifically designed to not only enhance the strength of the walls, but to add a massive resistance to magical energies. This prevented her from ever uprooting the tree or blowing it to pieces in her magical experiments. Not that that happened.

Much.

Spike was curled up on the floor and the tan stallion was standing beside him. Spike looked to be asleep and, had Twilight been in a better mood, peaceful. The stallion’s horn was glowing. In the split second before she said anything, her critical eye analysed him. As before, he was nondescript. Two tones of brown, mane fell over his eyes and, strangely, a dreamcatcher cutie mark. He’s the kind of stallion you’d forget the moment he left. Around his neck rested a smooth, perfectly round stone inscribed with swirling patterns.

“Hey! What are you doing to Spike?”

Her tone was perhaps a little more aggressive that she’d meant it, but she was in a bad mood so she didn’t really care. Neither of them reacted anyway. The stallion didn’t seem to hear her, and Spike merely giggled in his sleep. Not one to be laughed at (when she was in a bad mood anyway), Twilight grunted in frustration and yelled at the pair. For a long moment, neither reacted once more and Twilight was just about to forcefully cancel any magic the stallion was using when he retracted it himself. His eyes fluttered open, a brilliant sky blue. His only stand offish feature. For some reason, they annoyed Twilight all the more.

“Oh, finally decided to join us have you?” She asked acidly of the calm stallion, who merely looked at her as though she was being silly (which, admittedly, she was.)

“I’m sorry, did we wake you? Your assistant insisted that this room was soundproof.”

“It is,” She replied, “And no you didn’t, however you did prevent him from making me something to eat, AND you put the books you read back in the wrong locations!”

His brows rose in slight surprise at her vehemence and Spike yawned and started to stretch, beginning to awaken.

“I apologise for replacing your volumes in the improper spots, I meant no disrespect. They couldn’t have been off by any more than a place or two.”

To be honest, only one book was out of place, but Twilight seemed bent on making him feel as guilty about this as possible. Something that didn’t seem to be happening, and therefore was irritating Twilight more and more.

“Well they were! Now what were you doing with Spike? What spell were you casting? Why?”

Spike’s eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Twilight, almost smiling before noticing her seriously annoyed expression and recoiling away from her, hiding behind his tail. The stallion, to his credit, seemed unfazed by her irritation.

“I was merely sharing dreams, ideas and such things. Many of them were quite amusing. Jokes, stories. It’s amazing how much can be done in dreams in such a short time.”

Twilight glowered angrily at him. Spike remained behind his tail, and he merely looked at Twilight in what could almost be described as amusement. Twilight, having finally processed what he just said, found herself almost automatically scoffing. She’d spent several years in her youth researching dream magic and divination and had eventually decided the entire venture was pointless.

“Dream magic? Divination? Useless spells and uses of magic that haven’t even an ounce of use to the magical community.”

This seemed to strike a nerve and the stallion looked affronted by the blatant insult. His eyes narrowed dangerously and he brushed his mane out of his eyes once more.

“I’ll have you know that I specialise in the field and it’s far from useless. I have utilised its special and unique gifts many times to much success. Just because your mind cannot see past the end of its nose in the complex field of dreams doesn’t mean you should condemn the art as useless my narrow minded librarian.”

Twilight bristled at his insults.

“Narrow minded!?” She screeched incredulously, “I have studied almost every branch of magic there is and know and can use at least a few spells from all of them I’ll have you know! Including the more complex, true arts such as thaumateurgy, Druidic Sciences, Illusions, Transmogrification and transmutation!”

“And yet you still could not quite grasp the irrational, illogical and completely symbolic realm of dreams because your mind runs on a single, rigid track that cannot bend and cannot comprehend the idea that something so illogical could have such meaning or power. Dreams and visions so chaotically pieced together or so illogically linked to have such powerful meaning or such great, undeniable power.”

The rant Twilight threw at him after this went on for several hours with many, multiple references to various very important scholars, quotes from very thick tomes written by very clever ponies and their assistants and the stallion probably would have fallen asleep through it had her voice not been rising several octaves every few sentences. The town was lucky the room was soundproofed via magic; otherwise there was a very good chance that the entirety of Ponyville’s windows would have shattered under the strain.

Spike had snuck out of the cellar the moment the rant started. There was no way he was staying for it.

~*~

Somewhere within the confines of the patisserie paradise, cocoa coated, sugar surrounded establishment of Sugarcube corner, a bright pink ear twitched and a bright blue eye opened, shining with an ominous mischief that could scare even the most perverted of pranksters and trickster.

It was an eager shine. A hungry shine. The shine of one that sees all, knows all and does what one pleases.

It was a dangerous sign that all ponies that lived within the area had come to fear.

~*~

“DID I HEAR A NEW PONY!?”

Cut out from her two hour long (so far) rant at the plain brown pony before her, Twilight’s eyes went wide as suddenly, from under a very flat sheaf of paper that had fallen upon the floor, a very pink, very excited and incredibly bouncy, pouncy, trouncy, flouncy pink pony with bright, electric blue eyes pounced upon her quarry with a squeal of glee and a shout of consternation and shock that was much more akin to a stallion’s c…

Wait. It was the stallion crying out.

Never mind.

The stallion hit the floor and looked up at the pink pony above him with a mixture of awe and fear.

How the..?

“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie and you’re a new pony! I know you’re new because I know everypony in town and I mean EVERYPONY! Oh! That reminds me! You’re new which means you don’t know anypony which m-“

The stallion cut her off in a pained voice.

“Please Miss Pinkamena, no parties. I’m really not up for it right now. And I can’t dance anyway.”

Pinkie pouted and Twilight tilted her head.

“It’s PINKIE silly! Not Pinkamena! And can you read my mind? Huh? Is that how you knew I was gonna say party or was it a lucky guess? Ooh! Are you like, a circus psychic pony? I like the circus, it’s lots and lots and LOTS of fun!”

“Pinkie.”

Pinkie stopped and looked over at Twilight.

“What?” She asked brightly. Twilight sighed.

“Your reputation has obviously preceded you. He just knew you’d want to throw him a party is all. Probably because he’d been told somewhere on the road that you’d do so.”

Her tone was one of pent up frustration and resignation, knowing that getting angry at her would accomplish nothing.

“Now if you’re quite finished interrupting me, I was talking to the pony you’ve pinned to the floor, so please get off of him and Go AWAY!”

Twilight yelled her last few words before a powerful lethargy fell over her and she started. Or, she tried to. More she sort of had a dim recognition that she shouldn’t be so…

In moments she was asleep, as was the excitable pink pony, crashing like those who spent the entire night on a sugar high. The stallion pushed her off of him and stood up and sighed.

“Talisman, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

Comments

[Evening Storm]

this guy is cool I can tell this is going to be a very great story

[TheHappyBrony313]

more!!

[Zero_Starlight]

You forgot to omit the bit about this being an old story. This IS the updated version, I believe.

- Zero