Dream Post
Language check. Anything wrapped in [ ] in this chapter is spoken dream-speak, everything else is in Equish.
"Hiya Dream. Whatcha building?" Pinkie Pie's eyes glittered at the sight of Dream Thunder working with a pile of wood and bolts, all while wearing the cutest expression of consternation.
"My bed has been feeling really uncomfortable lately." Measuring one of the lengths of timber, Dream Thunder stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth in thought for a few moments. "I just can't work out how to build this!"
Pinkie walked around and stood beside Dream to look at the wood. "Oh! You are trying to build a stand so you can hang upside down like a bat?" At Dream Thunder's incredulous look, Pinkie Pie just giggled. "You can't just throw stuff together and have it work, silly. There needs to be a plan for these things.
"Here!" Pinkie Pie plucked a pad of paper from her mane, and passed it to Dream, then did the same for a pencil. "Just draw what you want it to look like."
Flopping down on her belly, Dream Thunder set the pad before her and started to sketch. "I need it tall enough to let me hang, and sturdy enough that I don't knock it over while on it." She drew an upright piece of wood, and then another coming out perpendicular at the top. She added a cute little picture of a bat pony hanging from it by their tail.
"You hang by your tail?" Pinkie Pie looked back at her own rump and twitched her tail. "That might just work."
"It does. I tried the first time by hooking my legs over the clothesline,"—Dream pointed at the rotary clothesline in the middle of the yard—"but that didn't work so well." She rubbed her nose at the memory of waking up and falling off the clothesline. "Here, watch what I do."
Stretching her wings, jumping, and flapping just once, Dream Thunder was high enough to reach the clothesline and wrap her tail around one of the sturdy bars. The world inverted as Dream hung from her tail. "See?"
Pinkie stared up at Dream, and in the mid-afternoon sun she watched the bat pony curl her wings around her body, yawn, and close her eyes.
Dream yawned and stretched her wings and legs out. She hadn't realized she was so tired, and even just a little nap had felt amazing. She tilted her head back at the sound of singing just in time to see Pinkie Pie finish off the bat-stand.
Her song winding down just as she finished tightening the last bolt, Pinkie Pie stepped back from the stand. "There. That should be perfect for Dream."
Focusing to relax her tail, Dream dropped to the ground with an audible PLOP. "You made that?" She walked over to Pinkie Pie, staring at the stand. It looked as much as Dream's drawing as a hat rack resembled a single stick. There was support at the base, braced with angled pieces of wood, and even the beam at the top of it had an angle piece to brace it. "This is amazing!"
Pinkie Pie's eyes sparkled as she heard the heaping praise from Dream Thunder. She bounced around to behind the stand. "You really like it?"
"When did you learn to make things like this? It's amazing, Pinkie!" Dream barely managed to pull her attention away from the stand long enough to dive at Pinkie Pie and hug her tightly.
Happy enough for hugs, Pinkie Pie squeezed Dream back. "Born and raised on a farm, remember? When things need to be built, a pony has to build them herself. I built my first rock-coop when I was six!"
Dream blinked and drew back a little to look directly at Pinkie's face. She tried to determine if her friend was making a joke, but there was no indication of it. "Like a chicken coop, but for rocks?"
"Yup!" Pinkie giggled. "And it was the best ever: not a single rock got out!"
"None got out?" Dream, having had experience with Monty Python and The Goodies, managed to keep her giggle back for nearly two seconds. "Pinkie!" She fell sideways, losing the hug but laughing loudly—accompanied by Pinkie Pie.
Rolling around on their backs laughing for a while, Pinkie and Dream slowly relaxed and found themselves staring up at a darkening sky. Dream was the first to speak. "You're going soon, right?"
Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yup! I just know a town out there needs somepony to make them all smile. I might try Canterlot first. There's a loooooooot of ponies in Canterlot."
"Yeah. And a lot of them need a laugh, I think." Dream looked across at the stand Pinkie Pie had made. "I should test it out before I try actually sleeping on it."
Rolling back to her hooves, Dream looked up at the bar that, if Lyra were still Mike, would come up to his shoulders. "Here goes." She jumped, turned mid-air, and her tail hit the bar at the top. Wrapping tight around the bar, Dream's tail seemed to stiffen a little and held her in place.
Pinkie Pie got up and walked to stand beside the stand. "See? There is a little room for you to grow, too." She pointed a hoof at the gap between Dream Thunder's nose and the ground. "Plus the top has a few extra holes so you can put the bar up higher."
"This is really awesome, Pinkie. I'm going to test it out tomorrow." Rocking to test the stability, Dream found the platform unmoving. "You'll take care of Lyra, right?"
Nodding sharply, Pinkie Pie wore her most serious face. "I'll stay with her until she gets settled. I don't think my place is in Canterlot, though."
"But you're going there first anyway?" Dream twitched her tail and turned her body just right that when her tail-hair unwound from the bar, she landed just right on her hooves. "To keep Mike company."
"Lyra Heartstrings." Pinkie Pie lifted her hoof up to boop Dream on the snout. "And yes. Lyra helped Marble come out of her shell a lot, and we got our cutie marks together. I get a shiver every time I think of us being too far apart. I don't know exactly where, but I am sure we will end up living nearby."
"I sometimes feel like I want to go with her, but this is my home now—where I belong. I can feel it." Looking up and down at the new "bat bed," Dream reared up and used her forelegs to grab it. "Can you give me a hoof getting it inside?"
"Of course I can!" Pinkie Pie giggled and grabbed the other side. Lifting together, Dream and Pinkie got the stand in the back door of the house and all the way to Dream's bedroom before a screech got their attention at the doorway.
"You got me my own perch for your room? This is awesome!" Tufts launched himself into the room, needing just one flap of his wings before his legs caught on the perch and he slipped down into a hanging position.
"Tufts! It's not for you. This is my perch." Despite her protests, Dream reached a wing up and scratched Tufts behind one ear. "You should have seen it outside. With the sun out, the moment I flip upside down I practically fall asleep!"
With his eyes closed, displaying every indication of batty bliss, Tufts gave a soft kee of happiness. "Of course you did. You're a bat, and my daughter." Tufts puffed his chest out and, despite the excellent ear-scratching going on, looked around. "But where is the fruit? What if you need a midday snack?"
Dream didn't think long on the problem. "I'd get up and go to the fridge for a banana." She paused a moment and sighed. "Tufts, would you like a banana?"
Spreading his wings, Tufts kept hold of the perch as he flapped his big wings and keed loudly. The moment Dream held her wing-claw up, he transferred his grip to that and swung down. "You have the best ideas!"
Pinkie Pie, having watched the interaction with a big smile on her face, started giggling. "He has you wrapped around his hoof. Err, wing—claw—thing." She added another titter for good measure. "I should probably go home now, it's getting dark and all."
"Thanks again, Pinkie." Dream stood back from the door to let Pinkie Pie out first, and then followed her with Tufts still hanging from her wing. "I'll let you know how the stand works tomorrow afternoon at school."
"Sure thing!" Pinkie Pie made her way down the hall ahead of Dream Thunder. She waved into the kitchen. "Bye everypony!"
"Going home, Pinkie?" Lyra, working at the stove, looked back over her shoulder. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."
To a chorus of farewells, Pinkie Pie left the house.
"Mum! Mum! Pinkie made me a stand to hang from. It's really cool, and adjustable, and everything!" As she spoke, Dream opened the refrigerator and pulled out a banana.
"Did she, dear? How does it work?" Candela was grading practice tests, the last her students would get before their final tests for the year. "And you better not eat that banana yourself."
Dream sighed. "It's for Tufts."
"It's for me! All mine!" Tufts flapped a wing, trying to reach out and grab the peeled banana before Dream could get it to him. Unfortunately for Dream Thunder, Tufts managed it.
"Tufts!" The big smear on Dream's fur made her groan. "That's it. You get to hang in here while I go clean up." She carried the unrepentant bat over and hung him from his kitchen perch—with his banana of course—and headed back out to clean up.
When she reached the bathroom, Dream Thunder looked around for a moment. The range of soaps and washes was similar, but not the same. Lyra's—then Mike's—shampoo and deodorant were missing, and it was so obvious the nice guy she had met only a year ago was now someone different.
She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Everything changes. It's like yesterday is just a dream, [but the opposite is true, too]." She looked at her face in the mirror. Her fur was no longer the lighter tones of a storm. Dream was tinted in dark colors, with a red, ruff of a mane.
Washing up was simple with her bat wings. Dinner was relaxing, and most of the evening she spent studying. With her days turned around in a nocturnal pattern, she was more comfortable, but she missed having Lyra and her mother asleep for most of the time she was awake.
Two AM swung around before Dream knew it, and she walked quietly to her bedroom. The moment she saw her new stand, she got an edge of excitement. It was better than anything she could have designed herself, and she thought she would have to do something for Pinkie Pie to make up for it.
Doing her little jump once she was under it, she spun and her tail connected with the wooden bar. Inverting was almost like a switch in Dream's head. One moment she was a little tired, and the next she pulled a wing around her head to sleep. She didn't even hear Tufts wing his way into the room and roost beside her.
Dream Thunder opened her eyes in the dream, and froze.
"[She is my daughter, and I don't care what a useless scale-brain like you has to say about that]!" Tufts was hanging from a conveniently large tree, and was arguing with the Rainbow Serpent.
"[I GAVE HER DREAM MAGIC. YOU JUST GAVE HER FORM]." The voice practically shook the dream-realm with its intensity. "[TJINIMIN, WE AREN'T THOSE BEINGS. YOU DIDN'T STEAL MY MAIDENS. I DON'T HOLD THAT GRUDGE]."
Lifting her wings up to cover her ears, Dream Thunder huddled down to the ground as the booming voice, for the first time, held more than friendliness—the Rainbow Serpent was upset.
"[Yeah, you would say that. Fact is, RS, you were the second god here, which makes me in charge]." Flapping his wings, Tufts arched his back so that he could look up at the huge snake from his inverted position. "[So do what I say]."
The huge coils in the distance shifted and moved. Magic sloshed in the middle, messing up the neat gaps between sections of one town and another for a few moments. "[THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. WE BOTH NEED TO TAKE CARE OF THEM]."
"[That's what I mean! You can't just sit back and stick your tail in the levy while hoping no more comes through. It's going to flood out again. It's just a matter of t]—" Tufts froze and turned his head down to look at Dream. "[And now you have scared my daughter]."
With Tufts' words aimed in her direction, Dream eased her wings back and looked up. Tufts was looking down at her, but something seemed very strange about him. "Who—[Who are you]?"
"[YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL HER YOUR NAME? TJINIMIN, HOW COULD YOU LIE]?" The sharpness was gone from the Rainbow Serpent's tone, but it did sound disappointed.
"[They didn't ask my name]." Tufts took a big breath and reached up to tap the branch beside him with one wing-claw.
Dream felt invited, and seeing no other option, spread her wings and flew up to land on the branch beside Tufts. "[What are you talking about? What's your name? I don't understand]."
Tufts shot the Rainbow Serpent a nasty look, then spread one of his wings out and around Dream. Despite his formerly diminutive size, he seemed to grow and become big enough that he matched her and then some. "[My name is Tjinimin. I was just having a gentle conversation with Yingarna over there. She seems to think she can leave your protection up to me while she does a terrible job at holding back the magic]."
"[YOU ARE BEING UNREASONABLE. I DID WHAT I COULD, GIVEN THE SITUATION]."
"[I don't understand. What do you mean she—she's a she]?" Dream got a nod from Tufts. "[Okay. So why is she doing a terrible job]?"
"[So many questions]." With a sigh, Tufts squeezed Dream a little in a tight hug. "[This is your last for tonight. You need to dream, Dream. The reason Yingarna is doing a bad job is because she is like a Goodie, trying to stick her biggest finger into a hole in a dam. What happened to The Goodies when they tried that]?"
"[Water went everywh]—" The wing pulled tighter around Dream, and she felt her mind settle further into her own, true dreams.
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Mmmmm.... So holding back the magic is basically impossible due to pressure, and trying to do so will only stress the points out more... So what really need is a proper Gate to provide the strong anchor against the edges and a means for safe regulated expenditure while ensuring proper entropy balance (with regards to magic anyways). Either that or sever the bridge and cauterize the rip. That would be sad...
To Celestia: are you going to visit that soon?
Keep going! ;)
8647118 No comment on Tufts? 🦇
I am learning so much about Australian mythology through this fic. Granted, most of it is through wiki, but just going 'thehell is a Tjiminin?' is as good a place as any to start.
8647267 Good to hear. It is an amazing and varied mythos, and there is more to come yet. A great place for some basic facts on gods: http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/australian-mythology.php
Hm... God of Fruits and Batty Pones.
8647288 Used to have quite the thing for parrot girls, too.
8647141
Eh, he's distracted in the mortal realm, we'll leave him alone. 💆
Hmm... It might make for some interesting geography, but the best solution to the "magic issue" that I can think of would be to shunt/suck the affected area entirely into Equestria and seal the hole behind it. Right now a lot of the problem is that part of the town is in "low magic" Earth and other parts are in "high magic" Equestria. Nature abhors pressure differentials, and there's only so much even gods can do against the fundamental laws of the very forces that make them up.
Also, apparently "Tuffts" is a god. That explains the attitude, at least.
8647435 And he is the oldest! 🦇
8647468
By what, a week?
You'd think being gods would preclude petty sibling arguments, but just about any mythology will show you that it most certainly does not.
8647501 A few months. As for rivalry, Tjinimin chased after the Rainbow Serpent's consorts (parrot girls). When he was forced away, he got angry and stabbed the Rainbow Serpent, who got so angry that they stole fire from the world and dove into the ocean. Pilirin brought the trick of making fire to humans, but Tjinimin realized he screwed up and swore off parrot girls.
In this chapter the Rainbow Serpent is easily able to separate the myth from the reality, and tried to tell Tjinimin that they are NOT the myths, but bats gonna bat.
8647512
Eh, I think Tjiny already knows he's to the "real deal" and is just arguing for the sake of it (and of course, because he thinks RS is doing something stupid; gotta try and keep his little sister from messing up too badly).
He strikes me as a bit stubborn, but definitely not stupid.
Also, was the Rainbow Serpent always "female" (insofar as eldritch dream-deities have genders), or is that just an affectation of the present incarnation?
Because, uh... parrot girls.
8647542 The original Rainbow Serpent was female, yes. She had a son, who is also known as the Rainbow Serpent (considering the age of these myths, you have to wonder if Christianity is a reworking of this). There was also an interesting aspect Tjinimin revealed here, about truth and questions.
ok so way is it so bade if the Rainbow Serpent just does not pull her proverbial finger out of he dam and let the magic flow??
8649710 Well, you know how the world is full of humans? That wouldn't be the case anymore.
8650070
like i stated this would be so bade how??
i think most would agree a planet filed with pony's would be much better.
8650535 I highly doubt that. There are other problems with magic flowing out, and you will see those soon (although you have seen at least one example of the problem already).
8650550
vary true.
8650550
Temporary ones.
No, my imagining is that magic is rushing out because equilibrium. Nature abores a vacuum so my guess is that if Equestria and Earth were allowed to equalize, the result would be less magical than Equestria but more magical than "Not at all". And that just seems sad all around.
What we need here is a bigger cork! I mean this is a cartoon.
8655548 The creator of the entire world would find exception to you calling her a cork in the first place, and probably to implying there is a cork bigger than her.
8655551
Of course she isn't a cork! Corks are more porous than giant nope-rope.
8655553
8655553
what about this nope rope?