The Starlit

by Tzelael

The Waking Dawn

Several minutes after the signal fired up into the air, Onyx soared closer to the treetops, listening in closely to the noises beneath the trees, and of course that trademark smell. She hovered just far enough to see the two figures running, though this time she saw the Dreamer chasing Underhoof. Looks like things were going according to plan. Unfortunately, in an effort to keep himself from being caught by the Dreamer, Underhoof constantly weaved and swerved in between trees, making it difficult to keep up with him. She shouted down into the trees to try and grab Underhoof’s attention.

“HEY! What’s the plan, boss?!” The Dark Blue Pegasus Mare hovered and swerved to try and match Underhoof’s movements, flying upward in an attempt to avoid any stray branches.

“Trying to get it out of the forest!”

“I can see that... What next?”

“Actually, I need you to scout ahead! Find me an open space that I can use!”

Onyx complied immediately, flying as high up and as fast as she could. She took a look across the landscape back to the outskirts of Ponyville. She vaguely caught a glimpse of some figures moving toward the forest, though keeping a cautious distance. Onyx spat a curse under her breath and started flying low again, shouting down to Underhoof.

“Boss! We’ve got civilians where we found the Dreamer! I think all that noise the creature made earlier got some unwanted attention.”

“What? Now?! That was three hours ago! Don’t normal ponies, oh, I don’t know, SLEEP?!”

“I don’t think we’re that lucky here, boss,” Onyx saw an opening and dove down into the forest and started running next to Underhoof. “By the time we get there on hoof, they’ll probably have dispersed. Just in case, though, I know another open space we can use.” She began to run through the woods, leading Underhoof to the location that she mentioned, realizing that she didn’t have to be ordered to do so to realize that it was the best course of action.

* * * *

“I think I may have our ticket out of here.”

It’s been several minutes of dead silence since Twilight told Melodious the good news, having racked her brain together over the riddle posed to her by the dream-image of Discord. Of course, Melodious could hear her thinking as though she was speaking out loud, though said nothing, since it all just ran together as Twilight remained silent. He finally spoke up, calling across the wall.

“What might that be?”

Twilight’s floodgate of thought suddenly broke. “Okay, that thing we saw earlier was a creature called the Sleepless Dreamer. It does devour us whole, yes, but well... Do you remember feeling tired, kind of drained after waking up from one of those nightmares?

"Yeah, I do, now that you mention it."

"I think that was because it was, well, feeding on our Fear, kind of like a Changeling feeds on Love, except instead of shapeshifting into a loved one, it captures us and makes us live out nightmares. It keeps us unconscious in a sort of dream state so we don’t resist it physically. That explains why we can hear each other’s thoughts and know things about each other before we say them, we’re in a sort of collective consciousness... Or unconsciousness.”

Each word zoomed out of Twilight’s mouth like the Wonderbolts racing around a derby, Melodious taking some time to try and make sense of everything she said...

“So you’re saying that even the room here, this is a dream too?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. It’s more like an Unconscious Lobby. We kind of wait in this state before we get thrown into another one of those nightmares.”

“And that makes this... Sleepless Dreamer thing our Bell Colt who takes us into our Nightmare for the moment.”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell, the Nightmares are private until we think about them outside the nightmares themselves.”

Melodious grunted with understanding. “I suppose that makes sense... But you said earlier that you had a way out of here?”

“Well, yes. I remember when I mentioned that I crushed this thing underneath a tree branch, you started laughing and the room started to, well...

“Melt.”

“Yes! Since this thing feeds on fear, by contrast, laughter and happiness would be unpalatable. So if we start thinking really happy thoughts, it might spit us back out!”

Considering the solution, Melodious’ voice replied rather slowly, lined with both hope and apprehension. “Well... I suppose that makes sense. Explains a lot, but happy thoughts in this place, well... They don’t come eas-” Suddenly, he was cut off... Twilight gulped to herself, closing her eyes shut and telling herself to concentrate on something happy before she was whisked away to her own nightmare.

She thought of Pinkie Pie and the parties she’d be throwing at the time, all the silly pranks she’d be pulling on people, all the inane insanity that would just come spewing out of her mouth whenever she opened it. She opened her eyes and before her was the image of Pinkie Pie, the skin on her neck hanging limply open as half-coagulated blood dripped from the wound, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like a bloated, dead fish. Her breaths became labored as she stepped back and realized that Melodious was right...

Trying to find happiness here was going to be very difficult.

* * * *

Another two hours passed, the stars slowly disappearing from the sky as it loses its black hue, and the blue of the heavens becoming more visible to the east, though the light of day remained hidden behind the horizon. The Sleepless Dreamer’s pursuit of Onyx and Underhoof had continued, though the creature began to slow down for just a moment, seeming to be giving up the chase, and so close to the forest’s edge, too. Onyx turned back and cursed under her breath, shouting at her leader.

“Underhoof! It’s slowing down, and we haven’t even made it out of the forest yet!”

The Unicorn slowed down in suit, looking over Onyx for a minute. “I’ve got something that will probably encourage it to keep moving... Check your satchel.”

The pegasus mare reached into her bag and pulled out one of the strings hanging out of her bag with her teeth, pulling out a glass bottle with a foggy, white liquid inside it. She quickly realized what it was and raised a questioning eyebrow at Underhoof.

“A Flashbang? We want it to KEEP chasing us! And I’m not sure if you noticed, but that thing doesn’t have any eyes!”

“Just throw it!”

Onyx grumbled with the string in her teeth, the creature slowly getting closer to them. While she backed away cautiously, she examined her surroundings, looking for something hard to throw the glass bottle at... She settled on a tree next to the creature. Like she said, it didn’t have any eyes, so what difference would it make if it didn’t land in front of it? She spun in a circle, releasing the string as the bottle sailed toward its target, quickly closing her eyes before the bottle smashed against the tree. The liquid, once released and heated by the impact, suddenly burst into a white light with a loud CRACK through the air!

The Sleepless Dreamer released its ear-shattering shriek as its body seemed to lose cohesion, looking less like a pony and more like a melting wax sculpture. It slunk toward the two, not walking so much as sliding across the ground, wheezing out another one of its shrieks, though far less intense after its body had become more like gray spa mud.

Underhoof and Onyx started running again, the unicorn stallion grinning to himself as his white, milky eye and his good, hazel eye both looked straight at Onyx. He nodded in approval. “Good job, kid... Now I know how to kill it.”

* * * *

Twilight screamed in pain as she writhed around in the bed, panting as sharp pains stabbed her straight through her chest. She couldn’t distinctly remember what exactly happened, but she vaguely recalled numerous horrid images, though none of them were remembered very clearly. With her thoughts organized and her heart rate slowing down just a bit, she came to realize that Melodious experienced the same thing. Of course, he was still screaming... Apparently the creature was focusing on him, though for what reason she couldn’t tell. A tear trickled down her eyes down the side of her head.

”I’m going to die... I’m going to die in a pile of goo shaped like a Pony...” Suddenly, with that thought, she started giggling, the room around her rippling, but she barely paid it much mind. She’s staring death in the face, what does it matter if the room wiggles a little?

”Now that I think about it... It is kind of funny... I mean, what are the odds?” Her thoughts turned the snickers into a light chuckle. ”What kind of world is this where somepony can be eaten by a giant pile of shapeshifting slime? Heheh... I mean... Hydras and Dragons are one thing, but living, pony-eating snot? Are all supernatural monstrosities this silly?” Her laughter became far more raucous, the room seeming to lose cohesion in much the same way, the walls melting and the door seeming to flop off of its hinges. Opening her eyes, she saw the room wobble and melt... Sure, it was pretty scary, but Pinkie Pie laughing at her fears suddenly came to mind. She was no longer able to contain her musings in thought, the sentences becoming intertwined with raucous laughter.

“For Celestia’s sa-a-ake... Hehehe... What else is out there? Killer Cookie Dough? A Pudding Poltergeist? Demon Muffin Monkeys?” Twilight’s eyes shut as more tears streamed down her face, her belly rippling with laughter as the room around her seemed to disappear. Twilight didn’t notice, nor did she care... She wasn’t thinking about her situation anymore beyond how unbelievably stupid it was. Each new thought hurtled her into hysterical laughter, when the whole world around her blacked out again, the room liquefying and catching her in a slimy, gooey torrent.

* * * *

“We’re almost out!” Underhoof declared as he and Onyx charged out toward the forest’s edge. The Sleepless Dreamer continued its pursuit, shrieking at them with its full pitch as it regained its previous coherence. Once it got out of the forest, it extended some of its monstrous tendrils to lash out against its attackers, the appendages nearly making contact, but suddenly stopping before Underhoof and Onyx had a chance to jump away.

The creature’s “Mouth” began to form again, the area where its jaw would be melting open while the tendrils dropped lifelessly to the ground, splattering like trails of curdled milk. The body of the Dreamer bulged out toward the middle, its torso undulating in a way that could only be described as “Heaving.” Once its mouth dropped to its maximum, pony-devouring length, a large, purple mass suddenly shot out of the creature, accompanied with a great deal of the gray, rancid ooze that comprised the monstrosity.

Twilight slid along the wretched slime, still giggly from the method she used to get out. She got full whiffs of the stench of rot, her laughter interrupted by several successive chokes and coughs in which she spat out some of the rotten slime. Onyx charged over to her, leaning down and making sure she was still alive.

“Looks like Nightfall’s okay, sir.” She looked down as Twilight kept laughing, barely managing to choke out a strange set of words.

“K-Killer Cookie Dough...” She started laughing uncontrollably, followed by several wet coughs where the gray ooze was sent flying away from her muzzle.

“Well... Relatively okay.”

Underhoof turned over to Onyx and Twilight, breathing a sigh of relief that his newest acquisition didn’t die in her first mission. “Get her out of here as fast as you can! I’m finishing this bastard here and now!”

Twilight groaned, Onyx sliding her forelegs underneath Twilight's as she began to flap her wings. “C’mon, kid, we’re getting you cleaned up...”

Twilight coughed and tried to speak, her mind screaming out the name but her voice only feebly wheezing it out.

“Mel... Melo...” Onyx couldn’t understand what she was saying, too occupied with carrying the slimy, ooze-covered Twilight off the ground. She looked down, seeing Underhoof confronting the creature, a yellow light shining off his horn, and then shimmering around the Sleepless Dreamer that consumed her earlier. Turning over to the east, she saw Celestia’s sun slowly rising, the rays reaching out of the horizon.

Onyx was still fairly low to the ground, allowing Twilight to see the Sleepless Dreamer in a panic, screaming as the sun’s rays began to touch its slick, reflective skin, but it didn’t scream with the same voices it did before; it began screaming with ponies’ voices. The voice changed as the creature melted away, its forelegs desperately reaching out and reforming, feebly slamming against the bounds of the force field created by Underhoof. Twilight drifted off to sleep while being held by the Pegasus mare, though before she did, it used an all-too familiar voice that pierced through the air, and while she fell into unconsciousness, her heart sunk as the sound faded into silence.

* * * *

“Looks like she’s waking up.”

Twilight’s eyes slowly slid open, the blurry images of Underhoof, Onyx, and another of the ragged Starlit ponies who just walked off. Onyx smirked and lightly nudged Twilight completely awake.

“Rise and shine, kid. We got the bastard.”

Twilight groaned, rubbing her hooves over her eyes to wipe the sleep out of them, taking a second to figure out what exactly Onyx meant. “The Dreamer’s gone?”

“Dead as a doornail... Or as a pile of evaporated goo, anyway.”

Twilight heaved a sigh of relief, glad that the nightmare creature was done away with. Her stomach then sank, shooting up from what was apparently a towel on the ground.

“What about Melodious? Did he make it out?”

Underhoof lifted his head toward Onyx, then nodded. He turned over to Twilight, his eyes narrowing as the white eye looked past her, the hazel eye focusing straight into her. “After the creature died off, the substance that made it up evaporated. A body that matched Melodious Score’s description was found, though his heart stopped. He didn’t make it, he was dead when he got out.”

Twilight’s own eyes widened, her mouth dropping open as she sat up. She breathed heavily, Onyx slapping her on the back in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. “Hey, kid, take it easy... Sure, he’s gone now, but at least the Sleepless Dreamer won’t be hurting anypony else anymore. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Twilight nodded slowly, feigning taking Onyx’s words to heart, though it wasn’t what she was thinking about... All she could remember was a set of words that she didn’t want to repeat in her mind again, but stung her deeply regardless.

“Underhoof, sir... I... I need to file a report for the Princess. Can I... I don’t know... Can I head back to the Library?” Her voice shook with uncertainty and a deep-seated despair, desperately needing to head back somewhere familiar.

“Time off?! Hey, you barely just got here, why can’t you stay with the rest of u-” Onyx’s outburst was interrupted by Underhoof holding his hoof up.

“Onyx, she didn’t come here the same way the rest of us did. She’s not used to this yet.”

“No one else has ever taken leave before, though, sir! Why does she get to?”

“She’s not used to this life. She only just became a part of us, and besides... She’ll be called away often anyway. She is the designated Envoy to the Princess, after all.” Underhoof looked over to Twilight and nodded slowly. “I hereby grant you... Leave, Nightfall. I will tell our Courier to carry you back to Ponyville.”

Twilight simply bowed her head and went out to the edge of the shanty-town, waiting for the carriage to arrive to take her over to Ponyville. Onyx, meanwhile, approached Underhoof, her face twisted in displeasure.

“She’s getting off the hook, just like that? She gets upset over someone dying in a mission and she gets a free pass?”

“She helped us take down the Dreamer.”

“That’s not the problem! She’s not used to people dying, and if she wants to survive, she needs to learn how to deal with it, and that’s something she can only really learn with us!”

“She’s one of us now, whether or not she is always with us. She’ll get used to it... We all do, eventually. You and I, and all of the others... We just got used to it sooner. Besides, she’s got family and friends out there, and we are the only family and friends we’ve got.”

Onyx’s mouth hung open as her brow creased together, as though watching a foal ask a bully to hit him again. “Don’t you still have a fa-”

“Onyx.”

The Pegasus Mare huffed and unfolded her wings after she was interrupted, looking over Underhoof, her eyes narrowing at him. “...Can I at least keep an eye on her just to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid?”

Underhoof nodded slowly, looking out to the edge of the forest. “Just be sure to keep your distance.”

With a nod, Onyx spread her wings and soared out of a clearing between the trees, Underhoof heading toward the wagon at the center of the Shanty-Town, his eyes looking up to see the high noon sun filtered through the tree branches.

* * * *

After leaving the black box of a Carriage, Twilight smiled and released a sigh, a smile creeping on her face for just a moment as she saw the library, the candle on the front door welcoming her home. She pushed the door open, both the bottom and the top halves slowly opening. She poked her head in, catching a glimpse of Spike arranging the bookshelves.

“I’m home,” Twilight declared inn a tired, gravelly sing-song voice. Spike stopped dead in his place, the book he was about to shelf hitting the wooden floor with a thud.

“Twilight?!” The violet baby dragon dropped the rest of the books and slid down the ladder, running over to the door. He threw the rest of it open and hugged her foreleg. After rubbing his face in her leg for a bit, he came to realize that her coat was unusually sticky, then pulled away just long enough to look at her mane.

“... I’ll start a bath for you.” Spike ran down to the basement, the sound of running water already calming Twilight’s nerves as she sat down in front of her bedroom vanity. She snickered at the image she saw in the mirror, her mane sprawling out in several different directions, clumps of it sticking every which way like the back of a porcupine. She giggled to herself... Apparently the remains of the Dreamer were really hard for the Onyx and Underhoof to get out of her mane. Remains...

”No, Twilight... Don’t even think about that. Not now.” She sat down at the vanity and employed some of her magic to lift up some parchment, a quill and an inkwell. She lifted a hoof to hold the inkwell in place, popping off the cork with her teeth and gently setting it to the side. She dipped the quill in the ink, beginning a letter.

“Twilight! Your bath’s ready!” Spike called out from the basement. His tiny figure waddled up the stairs and looked out the doorway. Twilight smiled and put the quill away in the inkwell... She desperately needed the comforts of home, lifting herself up from her seat, her eyelids relaxing at the thought of her troubled mind temporarily put at ease with the filth of the previous day’s work being washed off.

“Be right there, Spike.”

Comments

[DoomManta]

What kind of world world is this where somepony can be eaten by a giant pile of shapeshifting slime? Duplicate word

[Tzelael]

782925 Fixed. Guess I should be glad that the only complaints I'm getting are about typos.