• Published 22nd Dec 2016
  • 5,490 Views, 1,260 Comments

Perchance to Dream - David Silver



Linda settled for bed, only to awaken in the middle of a garden of statues of horses. She was one of them, only not so stone. When she eventually slumbered there, she returned home. Living two lives, can she make sense of it all? Fix it, or enjoy it?

  • ...
42
 1,260
 5,490

PreviousChapters Next
84 - Friendship in Darkness

I had cried. There is only so much of that you can do, at least in one burst. A hollow sore feeling had replaced it. I felt terrible, but I wasn't sobbing anymore. I had moved onwards into a sullen misery.

Twilight gave a little smile. "Feeling better?"

Spike elbowed her. "Does he look better? Hey, uh... Linda." A little part of me smiled. Spike could be really thoughtful at times. I didn't want to be True Shot right then. "Want something to drink? I bet you could use something."

Twilight tilted her head off a bit at Spike. "Does he have a comfort drink I wasn't aware of?"

Spike shrugged at that. "I was thinking something sweet with a little hint of cider might be just the ticket."

Hard cider? I sagged a little. That actually did sound like a fine idea. "Thank you, Spike." I forced my way onto my hooves, my shivering down to a mild occasional twitch. I had to approach this reasonably. "Twilight?"

"Mm?"

"Can you use me?" She looked baffled and maybe a little embarrassed. "Not like that, to reach back onto Earth. Can you scry with me while I'm awake here?"

Spike was rushing off to get that drink, leaving Twilight tapping the ground thoughtfully as her eyes went skyward. "Well, I don't see why not... Provided you're still... linked." She cringed as she said it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything."

"You did." I huffed softly. "But I'm too tired to care right now. If you can, we can dispel this nice and fast. Just take a peek. I'm either sitting in a morgue, or a hospital bed. Either way, at least we'll know."

I felt Twilight's hoof touching my chest and realized I had started trembling again. "It's alright." She smiled at me gently. "No matter what, you do have friends. You're not alone in this."

Was Twilight a friend? I barely knew her! I barely knew Spike, or any other pony in the entirety of ponyland. They were all extremely kind strangers that had accepted me too easily. No. I was letting myself fall into dark... darker places. I shook it off with a loud equine snort. "Thank you, Twilight. What do we need to get started?"

"I was thinking maybe you should relax first?" She waved a hoof after where Spike had gone. "Let's get you that drink, let you rest and recover a little before we throw any other potential shocks your way."

I didn't feel like sitting down, or relaxing. "Have you heard from Trixie, or Starlight? Are they alright?" Even if I was... they didn't deserve to be ignored. "I don't hear the pager going off."

"Pager?" Twilight lifted an ear. "Oh, that. I put that away. The ringing wasn't telling me anything new and won't until we get this straightened out."

How dare she ignore the girls! Well, that's what I had thought for a moment, but it quickly passed. What she had done was perfectly reasonable. I was the one being unreasonable.

Spike came hurrying back with a mug of something warm enough to be putting off some steam. It looked lovely, and my twitching nose said it smelled nice as well. I sat on my haunches and wanted the cup badly enough that my magic grabbed it from his surprised hands and brought it right over to me. "Thanks, Spike. You're the best." I carefully took a sip, a new taste slid over my tongue. It was like a cider tea. It was warm but wasn't too hot, which meant I had no good reason to hold back, so I didn't, chugging it down rapidly. I sagged with it gone. "That really was what I needed..."

He gave a thumbs up. "No problem. So, Twilight, how are we fixing this?"

Twilight's wings spread partially before folding back, clearly being forced. "That's easier said, Spike." Her tone was also forced. "I mean, that's easier said than done. There... Linda, let me talk to Spike a moment."

She meant alone. Alone was a thing I didn't want at that specific moment. "Go ahead and say it."

Twilight frowned faintly. "If... Linda can't be used as a contact point, Starlight and Trixie are entirely cut off."

"That's not true." Spike was eyeing her like she was missing something really obvious. "You already have that key."

"I... do?"

He waved with a flourish towards where I assume she'd hidden the pager. "You've been avoiding the thing with a link between worlds for a while now? Come on. I can't be the only one that sees that. You can reach them whenever you want. I just figured you just weren't..."

Twilight sank to her haunches, her mane frizzing as if the emotional weight of that realization was destroying her grooming. "Oh... yeah..." She gave a little hysterical laugh. "Of course..." She brought up a hoof to rest her face in. "Of course... Spike, can you get it for me?"

"On it!" He rushed off in a flash of little scaley feet.

I glanced after him before looking towards Twilight. "He can be a clever little thing, can't he?"

She withdrew from her hoof shell. "He really can be." She smiled as she tried to get herself back into order. "I'm lucky to have him. How did I not think of this earlier?! He is right, of course. That cube is a perfect device for this operation. So long as it's in both worlds, we have a link. I suggest we check in on the girls right away, next time it rings, which I doubt will take long."

That was, at least, doing something. I nodded firmly and gave an agitated swish of a tail, which was not a thing I was used to doing. I glanced back at the rebellious limb and it swayed as if to taunt me. For just a moment, making it move under my own power was all that mattered, at least until I heard Spike rushing back.

He burst into the room, the cube held high in his hands. "Here we are!"

It rang out as if in celebration of its arrival. Twilight released a short chuckle. "That didn't take long at all. Let's see what's going on." Her horn glowed, taking the cube from Spike and setting it down before her eyes closed with concentration. A mirror I had succeeded in paying no attention to lit up a moment before an image appeared in it that wasn't the room we were sitting in. Starlight, in human form, was nearby, shaking the other half of the cube. "C'mon! Twilight! Come on..." She slumped, head thunking against the desk she was seated at.

"She's not going to answer." Trixie poked her head in from the left, poking in from out of frame. "We've been pressing that thing all day. Maybe it's broken? Trixie could not say." She turned directly for the mirror, running a hand through her hair, but she saw us, instead of her reflection. Her eyes widened a moment. "Or maybe she will?"

"What?" Starlight looked over at Trixie, saw past her to us, and sprang to her feet. "Twilight! True! Oh, thank Celestia!" She rushed for the mirror. "What's going on?!"

Twilight held up her hooves. "Good to see you too. We were hoping you could tell us that, actually."

Starlight pointed past Twilight, at me. "She went swimming and never came back! At first I thought it was just a crazy human trick, but when I pointed it out to her family, they started getting worried, really worried, and then I got worried, and you didn't answer, and..." She stomped the floor loudly. "That wasn't funny! Where did you go?!"

Twilight leaned just so to get in the way of me and Starlight. "Linda's been through a lot, and we're still trying to figure that out. Are you and Trixie alright?"

Trixie made a dismissive wave of a hand. "Trixie is fine, but she fears the party will be canceled, and then she will never have a chance to amaze all these people with her tricks."

Starlight gave her friend a shove. "Only you would be focused on that right now. Linda!" She tried to look around Twilight at me. "What happened?"

I stepped forward around Twilight. "I swam out too far, and I ran into a sea pony."

Starlight blinked. "Sea pony?" Her hands fell to her side, more confused than upset. "Really? Like a pony fish?"

I wobbled a forehoof at her. "More like a pony dolphin. Very cute." What pony was not cute? I had not seen many. "I got her... Oh! Twilight, where is she?"

Twilight shook her head. "I'm still inspecting her to make sure the transport went smoothly. Better safe than sorry. A minor imperfection in stone is easily ignored, but in a living pony, it can be a big concern. Let's put that aside for the mo--"

"Trixie wants to see." She leaned in on the mirror. "She has not seen a sea pony before."

Starlight rolled her eyes and nudged Trixie back a little. "They just said she's a statue or something. You'll have to wait. Alright, so you got her back to Equestria, good job. So, why aren't you here?"

Spike suddenly landed on my back. He had mounted me like a knight of yore, though he was a bit small for the task. Even as I wriggled, he slid up and whispered into an ear, "It's alright if you don't want to go over that right now."

"N-no... it's alright. I made it back to land. Twilight saw that." My teeth were clenching as I spoke even as I tried to fight it. "I thought I was home free, but it was night, and I started freezing right away, still wet from the water." A hysterical laugh burst from within me. "Maybe I should have just rolled around in the sand until the water was pulled away. Why hadn't I thought of that." I stumbled in place, trying to get control of myself. "A-anyway, if that wasn't enough, I cut my foot on something in the dark. I was exhausted, freezing, and bleeding by the time I..." My tongue felt dry, too dry. I couldn't talk anymore. I couldn't finish that thought. "I'm not dead..."

Twilight extended a wing suddenly, thwacking me right across the face as she barred me from the mirror. "Alright! Well, we're still looking into that. I'm glad you two are alright. Signal me if anything new comes up. Bye!" With a twinkle of her horn, the image was dismissed without time for counter-byes to be given. "Linda, I know you're in... an awkward place right now. You can stop trying to act brave."

Spike patted my withers gently. "Awkward? I'm not sure that's the word I'd use. I mean, I get it... I've had some of those thoughts before."

The idea of it angered and confused me in almost equal measures. "Spike, you are a sweet and innocent thing, so I won't throw you across the room, but how can you, dear resident of this seemingly idealistic world, understand even a fragment of what I feel?"

He shrugged softly. "Well, see... I mean... not exactly like that, but not knowing who you are, where you're going... I can feel that. I mean... I don't even know who my parents were." He sagged on my back. "I'm a lousy dragon, as dragons go... I'm a chancy pony, as ponies go. I'm less than either, but I do my best to make it work." He held up a hand at Twilight. "Before you cut me off, I know you try to be... good, but this is the time for honesty, not pretty words. Not knowing where you are sucks. Not knowing where you're going can be even worse. I can't claim I know exactly what you feel, but I at least know some of the... what, texture? I know it, and I'm sorry you're in that right now." He flopped down on my back and hugged my neck from behind. "I'm here for ya."

At least I had Spike...

Author's Note:

Starlight and Trixie are in one piece, that's good, right?

You could have your story written by joining the atreon!

Join my discord to chat!

PreviousChapters Next