Rescue
Language check. Anything wrapped in [ ] in this chapter is dream-speak, anything wrapped in < > in this chapter is spoken Equish, and everything else is in English.
"Okay everybody," Joyce said, her voice cutting above the general chatter in her backyard. She realized the problem the moment she looked around at the mix of ponies and human/bat ponies: there was two different groups, and not all of them spoke the same language. "This is going to be a problem, we don't all speak English or Equish. Uh… <Not all of us speak the same languages>."
"J-Joyce, I think I can help, but I need everybody to go to sleep." Dream seemed to be acting a little odd, looking a little spaced out.
"Asleep? Dream, are you alright?" Hands moving automatically, Joyce checked Dream's nose and pulse.
"Kinda. Well, yeah. Maybe…" Shaking her head a little, Dream suddenly seemed more focused. "But I need everyone to go to sleep, and if they will let me, I can help." She smiled up at Joyce.
"The Rainbow Serpent is going to help?" It wasn't a huge jump of reasoning for Joyce. If what Dream had said about the being was right, they had most of their power in dreams. "I guess we can't do much else but ask them."
Joyce cleared her throat again, and everyone present actually fell silent. "I need you all to trust Dream,"—she put her hand on Dream's shoulder—"and she will help this go a lot easier. She can help, but only if we are all asleep." The mental jump to another language wasn't instant, but Joyce had been practicing. "<Dream Thunder is going to help us all talk together, but she can only do it if we are all in a dream>."
Everyone in the crowd looked around at each other. There was a lot of shrugging (a wonderfully universal gesture), but few grumbled about the request—it was hard to grumble at an adorable filly who looked so nervous.
"Will it hurt?" Paul Harrison rubbed his head.
"No, you will just sleep. But you will all be able to talk together, like a big shared dream." Smiling, Dream Thunder ruffled her wings a little. "<Oh. I was just telling him, it won't hurt, and everypony will be able to talk together in a shared dream>."
More murmurs ran around those assembled. Most of the ponies took Dream's offer at face value, and arranged themselves to sleep on the grass, which left a lot of the not-quite-humans following suit once they realized that they were likely to miss out.
Joyce raised an eyebrow at Dream. "You really can do this?" She began to sit down on the rough grass, then lay to her side. Oddly, the normally less than comfortable position felt like the softest bed, and a yawn came to her unbidden.
"I don't think it is me who will be doing it. Snaky said I would be a [focus] of their dreams." By the time Dream Thunder finished talking, no one around her was awake anymore.
Blinking her eyes, Joyce sat up and stretched her wings. She looked down at herself, not seeing the half-transformed creature, but another bat pony like Dream. She didn't just feel better like this, she felt right. Dream appeared beside her, and Joyce reached a wing out to hug the filly against her. "[You did it]!"
Shaking her head, Dream Thunder was pulled into the wing-hug and laughed. "[Well, it was mostly Snaky doing it]."
"[MY NAME ISN'T SNAKY]."
Everyone who had been slowly waking into the dream jerked up at the voice. It wasn't loud, it just had weight behind it. The only problem was, the voice of the Rainbow Serpent didn't come from a specific location: it was just everywhere.
"[Okay. So we worked out how to get you all able to talk. So talk]." Dream gestured at all the ponies—and everyone was a pony—with her free wing.
"[Okay everyone, listen up]." As Joyce spoke, pointed ears all around twitched and turned towards her. "[Thanks to Dream and her big friend, this will be a lot easier to manage. So, things got a little strange today, and I think there is someone important who needs to explain to us what is going on]."
A tingling ran through Joyce, and she had the sudden issue of trying to work out how to address a supposed god. "[Rainbow Serpent. Dream Thunder said you were stopping the magic from pouring out more. Could you explain that a little further]?"
"[IT'S SLOSHING]." The Rainbow Serpent's voice was no less intense. "[I TRIED TO STOPPER IT AT THE MINE, BUT THERE WAS TOO MUCH]."
A little in awe of the voice, Joyce had to shake herself to be able to think more clearly. The Rainbow Serpent had tried to stop the magic, but couldn't. "[Are you alright]?"
Joyce held back a gasp as her dream-self was pulled away from her backyard. A rush of sensations and movement flooded Joyce's senses, but before she could feel sick it all stopped. Power roared around her, like the air itself was thick with static electricity or a summer thunderstorm. She started looking up, and up, and up. "[Uh, hi]!" It was the stupidest thing Joyce could think of to say, but it was the only thing she could think of to say.
"[A MEDICINE… WOMAN]?" The voice paused, waiting for Joyce to nod her pony head. "[THE MAGIC REMADE MORE THAN MEN. ONE NEEDS YOUR HELP]."
The moment she felt the words, Joyce's instinct to help overrode self-preservation and awe in one go. "[Where are they? Do you need me to go there in the—the waking world]?" Joyce felt a sense of a purr, like a giant feline, then movement again. This time she could track where she was: two hills deep into the ranges, near a small water-hole.
Looking around, Joyce finally noticed two nostrils sitting up out of the water. There was a little fur on them, and she was sure it wasn't anything she had seen before. "[What is it]?"
"[BUNYIP]." The word reverberated around the dream-plane. From the water, the beast walked as if it were on the end of a leash being pulled against its will. "[THE MAGIC BRINGS CHANGE. NOT ALL CHANGES ARE SO GENTLE. THEY NEED YOUR HELP]."
Joyce approached the creature as soon as enough of it was out of the water to see its limp. A strange shimmer seemed to pour over the bunyip, and for a moment Joyce could see a terrified kangaroo, then the image solidified back as the monster. It stood, when it was out of the water, taller at its shoulders than Joyce's head. Large teeth filled a mouth that hung half open. The body of the creature resembled another beast that hadn't been seen in decades: a Tasmanian tiger—thylacine.
"[If you don't eat me, I can help you]." Joyce approached the bunyip, and reached one wing out to it. The huge head reached down and sniffed her outstretched limb.
"[FIND HER. SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP, AND WON'T HURT YOU]."
With only a moment to catch her breath and remember the place, Joyce woke up and gasped. All around her people and ponies were sleeping. She had a brief thought as to waking them, but shook her head. "I need to help that—that bunyip."
Rushing inside her house, Joyce ignored the stacks of salad bowels, and found her medical case. "I'm going crazy. Joyce, what are you doing? You are going to run into the bush at the behest of the Rainbow Serpent to save a bunyip with a sore leg. Those damn psych doctors might have been right…" As she spoke, however, she made her way back outside and past all the sleeping residents.
The going wasn't easy, not with her three-quarter-formed hooves. Joyce grunted a little with each step, and the grunts turned to mini growls once she met the first foothill.
Of course, it wasn't too easy. Joyce had to duck through a barbwire fence, dodge around a whole mess of bull-ant nests, and as she got over the first hill found herself plunged into a high-magic area. Away from town, the magic seemed wilder than the calm bands of Equestria taken from Stonecrop.
A tingling in her feet drew Joyce's attention down for a moment, and she could see her almost-hoof slowly pull together and firm up. "Oh shit, what the—" Leaning forward, the medical case under her arm, Joyce started running on her newly formed hooves.
She ran and ran, but kept her target ahead of her until, finally, she was racing down the side of the second hill and saw the water-hole. The bush was quiet around Joyce, and the disquieting feeling of her body changing seemed to stop. "I know you're in the water. I'm the one from the dream, the one who can help."
Joyce's eyes were locked on the surface of the pool. The bunyip in her dream had been big enough to take her head off with one bite, but the Rainbow Serpent had promised her she would be safe. "I just want—"
She didn't get another word out. The slightest hint of movement in the scrub behind her alerted Joyce, and as she turned a pair of strong jaws started to come down around her midsection. The bunyip was huge, hungry, and she was prey-sized.
Thunder cracked, and from a clear sky, lightning came down like the thunderbolt it was. Joyce's heart skipped a beat, and to her shock the bunyip let go of her and dove backwards.
"Okay, that's it! If you want help from me that's all well and good, but you do not eat me!" Stomping forwards, adrenaline fueling her rage, Joyce poked one forehoof at the bunyip's huge snout and dented its nose a little. "Bad bunyip!"
As she smacked the huge predator on the nose, Joyce saw it shuffle backwards, and saw the damaged leg. Panic that had been overwritten with rage was now flooded by concern. She grabbed her medical case back up and moved around the startled bunyip.
The big creature seemed frozen in shock, and didn't even react when Joyce came to its side and began feeling its sore leg. As she probed, the bunyip's head turned and loomed behind her, jaws agape.
"This is broken. No wonder you are so sore and can't move properly." The bones under Joyce's wings moved, and she knew the bunyip was turning, moving. "Stop right there!" Her voice, like that of any doctor or vet, stopped her patient in their tracks. "Get over on your side, I'm going to need some things and you need to be off that."
The bunyip resisted Joyce's efforts to push it over at first, but then it stiffened, and flopped over obligingly. Tilting its head up to watch, it had no idea what the little needle in Joyce's wing-grip was until the sting of it bit through flesh.
"There." Joyce squeezed down on the tiny Syrette of morphine, giving the full dose to the bunyip. The drug would act fast, and she watched as the formerly angry beast suddenly turned fussy. "Feeling better?" Surprising herself, Joyce reached a hoof up to the bunyip's inquisitive snout and rubbed it. "This is going to feel really bad, but I have to get this straight."
Standing back up, Joyce stretched her legs and stood up. Looking around, she spotted what she was after. "Stay there, okay?" She looked at the bunyip's face, noting the teeth showing, but there was no malice in the look it gave her. "The big guy said you were a girl, huh? I wonder if you want a name?"
Walking to her target, Joyce collected two straight, heavy branches and turned around. The bunyip kept staring back at her, and in the look she saw confusion, hunger, a touch of panic, but above all was trust. "One hit of morphine and you are suddenly my best friend? With a nasty break I can understand that."
Bracing the tibia wasn't as hard as she would have guessed, and her patient lay peacefully for her to do it. As she worked, Joyce felt bones popping in her own back. "Just wait a little more. Let me get her all bandaged before whatever is going to happen, happens." It was strange working with her wings and forelegs, but for the first time in her life Joyce had enough limbs to actually get a job done.
With a strong bandage wrapping the lower leg of the bunyip from knee to ankle, Joyce used a tube of superglue on the end of the bandage to secure it. Holding the end until it hardened took long enough that the popping in her spine stopped, but Joyce was slightly hunched forward.
Letting go of the bunyip's bandage, Joyce tried to stand up and, of course, failed. She barely balanced on two legs for a few seconds before crashing forward, and almost landed on the bunyip. "Oh fuck it, why now?"
Her shirt hung loosely around her barrel, and her pants were no longer holding her hips, instead hanging around her back hooves. Noticing movement from her patient, Joyce jerked her head up to glare at them. "Don't you dare move yet."
Sliding out of her clothes took a few minutes, but soon enough Joyce was not only fully a bat pony, but was also naked. Well, fur stood for something, or so Joyce convinced herself. Bundling her clothes up and on the medical case and lifted it under one wing. Curling her long wing-fingers around the case, she held it, snug, to her side.
"Okay. You are going to be running around on that leg, diving into the water, basically everything that you shouldn't do." Joyce looked up at the tooth-filled maw of the bunyip. "This's crazy already. What's one more crazy thing? Come on." Turning her back on the bunyip took a lot of bravery, but Joyce had to make her way out of the bush.
She managed ten steps before she heard a branch break behind her. Joyce tilted her head and looked back with one eye. "Well? Come on. You're keeping your weight off that leg, which is good." Marching on all-fours took a lot of Joyce's focus, but every few steps she heard breaking branches behind her.
Leading the bunyip over the first hill, Joyce was halfway out when movement beside her caught her attention. That huge, gaping mouth was practically level with her own head. "The biggest animal I have ever dealt with is a cow, you have one of them beat by about half again in size. Big softie, though." Reaching out one wing, she hooked her thumb-claw behind the bunyip's ear and began to scratch them.
Unlike Joyce's children (and other ponies she had managed to test) rubbing the bunyip's ear didn't cause them to go zombie-like, but the big creature did relax and walk close at Joyce's side. Walking—avoiding any other gait—Joyce had to appreciate the stability four legs gave her on the rough ground. She crested the second hill, the last of the ranges, and looked down at the town.
Cowwarr was mostly quiet. She could see all the residents in her own backyard curled up and asleep. "I guess I won't be in this meeting after all. Let's get you down there and settled. I have some meat in the freezer; I'll thaw that out for you. Something tells me you aren't going to be a herbivore."
As they neared the house, Joyce felt the bunyip pull its head away from her. She looked up and saw the creature sniffing at the air. "Just a bunch more ponies, and a few humans—part-humans." Joyce froze, watching the bunyip's demeanor change from relaxed to completely focused. She tried to trace its line of sight and saw her own daughter: Lyra.
Joyce moved as quickly as she realized who the bunyip was focused on. Her hooves stumbled, but she broke into a gallop, pumped her wings, and shot forward. The speed of a mother rushing to protect her child, even in an unfamiliar body, trumped that of a large predator.
Spinning around, at the edge of her backyard, Joyce wheeled and faced the bunyip. "No!" Her voice was firm, and Joyce spread her wings (dropping the medical case and her clothes).
Slowed by its sore limb, the bunyip bunched up its one good back leg and prepared to jump over Joyce. It's eyes were locked on the mint-colored creature that stood out so vividly among the rest. The smack to its nose startled the bunyip, and it froze in shock at the surprise the impact caused it.
Joyce had a perfect view of that huge, slobbering mouth as the bunyip looked down at her. Her heart raced, and she felt like she had to run from the huge predator. "No! Bad bunyip! The Rainbow Serpent said you would not hurt anyone, and I am holding you to it! Back off from my family!"
The bunyip stared down at the pony that had made its leg hurt less. Confusion reigned, but it saw the pony had her hoof raised again.
Panting hard, Joyce watched as the bunyip shied back a step, then another. She saw confusion and fear on the bunyip's face. "I'll get you food, but you can't hurt my friends and family." She stepped up closer, this time offering her wing to the bunyip. The huge head leaned down, and a tongue entirely too big to be real licked along her wing membrane. "If this is an apology, I accept. No harm done." Joyce stepped forward and reached her other wing up and to the side of the bunyip's head, her thumb rubbing at one of its ears. The beast dropped to its belly before her.
With everyone still asleep, Joyce folded her legs and curled up beside the bunyip's head. She kept a thumb at its ear constantly to keep it distracted. "Yours was a little more sudden than mine, I guess, but we are both a little different."
The lines of the bunyip, now Joyce could really examine it without it immediately threatening her, really matched up with a typical marsupial look. Bunched and powerful back-legs that were tipped with a good set of claws, a tail that looked to be heavily muscled. "If I had to guess, I would say you were more like a Tasmanian tiger now than the kangaroo you started as. From herbivore to carnivore." She kept her voice low, calming.
She lay, relaxed, helping the bunyip have some peace. A screech pierced the air, and Joyce lifted her head just in time to see Tufts flapping towards her as fast as he could fly. "What's—"
"My darling!" Tufts let out another war-kee. "I'll protect you!" His attempt to dive-bomb the monster he found slobbering all over Joyce was halted by a patch of darkness that wrapped around him.
With Tufts trapped in her wing, Joyce juggled the bat and attempted to keep the bunyip calm. "I have it all under control, Tufts." Despite her reassurance, Tufts seemed determined to save her. "Tufts, if you don't calm down I am not buying mangoes for a month!" Her threat was doubly hollow now, her mouth actually started to water at the mention of fruit.
The struggling stopped. "No mangoes?"
Joyce had picked well, she had Tufts' full attention. "None. And I don't think we will need grapes anymore ei—"
"I'm sorry!" The most pitiful little sob came from Joyce's wing. "Just don't—just don't take it out on my kids. I'm all they've got!"
"Wait, what?" Lost, Joyce opened her wing to see Tufts smiling wide out at her. He was holding onto her much larger wing, and using his own wings to push himself up to look at Joyce.
"Their mother is—she's a heartless beast!" Rocking his head from side to side, Tufts winked at Joyce. "Threatening to take away a bat's mangoes; there is no worse punishment."
Joyce lifted her wing up and, for lack of another convenient manipulative limb, nuzzled against Tufts' side. "Silly bat."
"What happened? I saw the monster charging at everyone through the window, and lost sight of you as I tried to get outside." Tufts turned his head and let out an angry kee at the back door of the house. "By the time I worked out how to get free, you were laying here, and it was trying to eat your wing!"
"Like this?" Joyce held her free wing up to the bunyip again, and it licked at the soft membrane. "She's scared and hungry. She thought Lyra was food, I said no."
"Wait a second." Tufts, hanging upside down, looked all over Joyce, even using his thumb to hook her wing up so he could study her closer. "You're a bat pony now! Fully, I mean." It was a moment for celebration so far as Tufts was aware. He leaned back on the grip his legs held, and flapped his wings for all he was worth.
The huge, long tongue of the bunyip's snaked out and licked Tufts, surprising the bat.
"Hey! Now it's trying to eat me!" He quickly tucked his wings back in and climbed around Joyce's wing until he was snug against her side. "Eat her first! She is bigger and has more succulent wings!"
Joyce knew Tufts was fishing for outrage, but didn't want to give the bat the satisfaction. Instead, she changed tack. "You think my wings are succulent?" She held her wing up and feigned admiring it.
"Oh, uh…" Tufts looked at the huge bat wing stretched out. "My darling, your wings are curved to perfection, and they block out the sun most well. Perfect for a,"—Tufts yawned—"a bat nap."
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new pet acquired! Or hopefully not. Still, this could mean a drastic change in the ecosystem if the common animal is also subject to the transformation.
The potluck where nopony ate anything! Well, meeting is important first, companionable company can be had after the serious stuff.
To Rose: hold onto your rock, the storm isn't over yet!
Keep going! ;)
two vary good chapters and i can see things are going to move vary fast for a bit.
8580813 They are going to move both fast, and slow. I don't want to rush the story, and will make sure to cover it from as many angles as it takes to show everything. That said, we are already in the planning stage of the sequel.
8580194 Wild animals are not pets. Also, everyone is waking up, and the dream just made them hungrier! Oh, and your question isn't a question.
8580862
It might not be a question, but can certainly be reacted to. 😜
8580862
sequel? ok i gather you are filling in back story and rounding things out before you close this ark totally.
i like this plan.
From the more chaotic feel of the high magic zone where Joyce found the bunyip, it's beginning to sound like the Equestrian magic field is interacting with and reinvigorating Earth's dormant field, in this case restoring Aboriginal magics and native Australian mythical creatures.
8584087 Close. Such things will get explained (partially by the color-noodle).
8581417 All stories need an ending. This one's end will be the beginning of another.
8584204
aww yes i know this is how you wright and it works so good for you.
tuffs never change