Dreams and Talks of Things Past
The voices of insects and birds sang throughout the breezy night air. The crescent moon's light crept along the landscape and dimly lit the meadow that Rich and Coal resided in. The stars shone like moondust in the sky, as if there was a snowfall happening in space. Richard felt privileged to be witnessing such a marvelous sight. Richard watched the star's little show and sighed to himself as he lay his head on the grass.
Sleep seemed to elude him, due to his horse's dire condition, and the fear of some animal sneaking up on them. Ominous fog fell upon the meadow, with shadows twisting along the ground, touching every sliver of land it could find. Fear began to creep into Richard as the sleepless night went on. For the first time in a very long time, Richard Emmerson, the man who charged and killed his way through the Indian Wars, never backed down from a fight, and took no crap from anyone, felt terrified. Here he was, stuck in an unknown land, with many things trying to kill or capture him, animals that talked, and monsters of all different kinds. This world was all so bizarre to him, like he was having a weird dream from which there was no waking. It was so vastly and astronomically different from everything that he had ever witnessed. He feared the unknown that lay inside and outside of the forest. His rifle had been his only constant companion, comforter, and reminder of the things of his past, as well as his only defense against these creatures. Through the night, he cradled it in his arms as if it were his own child, clinging to it for safety from whatever monsters that lay inside those forest borders.
Finally, the grasp of sleep seemed ready to take him, and Rich silently fell into his slumber, escaping his fears for another night.
Luna walked through the inky black landscape of dreams, smiling and humming a tune. All had been well in today's dreams. She had only a couple cutie mark nightmares to chase away from a certain few fearful fillies around Ponyville. Her work was finished and it was time to leave for the waking world.
But she was slightly confused when she spied a portal into another soul's dreams.
"That's odd," she muttered to herself.
She had taken care of most of the dreams today. Perhaps it was just a last-minute nightmare that some foal was having. No matter. She would just fix it quickly, give the foal some reassuring words, and then head on back to the real world. She trotted into the portal and entered into the dream.
The landscape was somewhat open, with plains spreading across the land. The land was somewhat hilly, with many small ridges and hills littering it as Luna walked through it. She came to a ridge and spied a disconnected creek cutting through the plains and separating the soil into a makeshift peninsula. In this small peninsula around the creek were weirdly shaped huts of some sort. They looked like ice cream cones that had been turned upside down and were being held up by long, thin poles, all collecting at the vertex of the cone. Thin, brown two legged creatures would walk in and out of the conish huts, carrying various types of food in.
Nothing too out of the ordinary here. Weird creatures, but no matter. But where is the dreamer? Luna looked all around, trying to pick out that unusual glow that a dreamer would carry.
Suddenly, she spotted more of these creatures appear from the top of a hill overlooking the plains. They rode on top of what looked like very large ponies and wore dark blue uniforms, making them easy to spot in the high morning glow of the day. More and more appeared over the horizon and looked down into the small village of creatures. There was a bellowing war cry, and they charged down the hill. Some of the bigger creatures in the village, Luna assumed they were the males, went in their homes and grabbed weapons of some sort and began to fire them. Screams and fearful cries rang out from the children and females as they ran into their homes to escape the army after them.
Luna finally set the dreamer in her sights. It was the creature! The creature they had been chasing! He was riding inside a group of cavalrymen charging down the hill with the rest of the army. There was a certain boynishness to him, as his early youth still showed on his face. His group soon met the villagers and began the fight.
As they reached the village, a man popped out from one of the cone shaped huts and fired at the group. The shot hit one of the troops, and he quickly fell off his horse and down to the earth. The dreamer, seeing his friend fall, became enraged and charged at the shooter. He brought down his saber upon him, and he fell in an instant. Not content with his death, he dismounted from his horse and ran into the hut. Instantly, Luna heard screams coming from the hut that fell silent as soon as she began to hear them.
It was a slaughter, something that Luna had never imagined could happen. The attacking army soon encircled the village and closed in on the occupants, entrapping them. Many of them ran through the place, killing anything they could find, men, women, and children. The dreamer was taking part in all of this, mercilessly and effortlessly massacring the population. Some of the villagers began to escape and the army went after them.
"Leave them!" Luna heard from one of the bearded creatures, whom she assumed was the commander, "No use in expending more energy for a couple more Redskins."
The army began to file through the village, searching for their own dead and cleaning up the bodies of their enemies. Dead bodies lay piled up by the sandy creek and on the dirt of the ground. Wreckage of the cone houses lay scattered chaotically around the battlefield, some burning, some drifting away in the creek. Luna spied the dreamer, however, silently observing the village on top of his horse. His commander soon trotted up to him and began a conversation.
"This mission was a complete success. Good work out there, Lieutenant," the commander soon joined the dreamer in looking at the ruined village.
"Just," the dreamer was hesitant, "Just doing my job, Colonel."
They spent a couple more moments in silence before the colonel began to reach for something on his person.
"Here, Lieutenant. I want you to have this," the Colonel handed over a decorated curved sword which Luna could only assume was his personal saber.
"Colonel, I can't take this. This is yours," The dreamer put his paws up to reject the colonel's gift.
"Rich," the dreamer slightly recoiled back upon hearing his name, "I'm old, Lieutenant. I'm going to be retiring soon back to my farm in Ohio, hopefully when once we beat those Rebels , and you've shown many qualities of a good soldier. Character, decisiveness in battle, a good relationship with the enlisted. You are a great soldier, Rich, and I want you to have this to thank you for all the good you've done for this fair country so far. I wouldn't be surprised to see you become a major, maybe even a general one day," The colonel handed the saber over to the dreamer, now known to Luna as Rich.
"Now you take care of her now, Rich," the colonel rode off to oversee other events.
"I... I will, sir," Rich looked back
The dream started to flicker and slowly began to fade. The creature was waking up and soon would be gone. Luna quickly opened up a portal back into the real world in her bedroom. Upon reaching there, she slowly replayed the events she had witnessed in her mind. She soon began to cry for those who had been killed, especially the children.
She came to a realization that the dream was not some concoction of a nightmare, but a memory.
How could have such a thing ever have taken place? she wondered.
Her mind kept drifting to the scene. That scene. That massacre at the sandy creek.
Richard awoke from his dream, rubbing his eyes in an effort to wake himself up. He turned towards Coal, and was greeted with the sight of Twilight, tending to his wounds.
"Oh, good. You're awake. I'll be with you in just a sec. I'm applying some disinfectant to his wounds and we should be able to wrap them up nice and snug," she had a weird tube in her mouth that was squirting out a weird gelatin into Coal's cuts and gashes as he slept peacefully.
Upon finishing her work, she set the tube down on an old tree trunk, and trotted over to Rich. Out of nowhere, she summoned a scroll, quill, and ink and sat down, holding up her quill and scroll, ready to write.
"How the hell did ya did that?" Richard pointed at the scroll.
"A simple summoning spell. It's quite trivial if you ask me," Twilight scrunched her face in slight smile.
Rich confusingly stared at Twilight as he tried to comprehend what she had said. "You know what? I'll ask you again when I'm not waking up," his stomach grumbled as he sat up, "Or hungry."
"Oh! Speaking of which, I've got the food that you wanted," Twilight reached her muzzle into her saddlebags that she was wearing and pulled various things, some of them being, an apple, carrots, some other fruits, and strangely, hay.
Richard stared at the foods that he was given and looked up at Twilight. "You couldn't possibly have any meat in there, or maybe that bacon I was talking about?"
"Umm, no. We don't eat meat in our society. And I couldn't find any of this "bacon" around here. Did you mean hay bacon?"
"No. Bacon," Richard said as he picked up the apple.
"Well, what's bacon?" she sat down and picked up her scroll and quill once more.
"It's only God's greatest gift to mankind, Miss Twilight," Richard said as he bit into his apple.
"Bacon. God's greatest gift to mankind," she said as she wrote down each of the words.
Twilight scribbled out a few more notes before looking back up at her new project.
"So, onto my questions," Twilight looked up expectantly at Richard, "I've honored my part of the deal, so it's time for you to honor yours."
"Fair enough, Miss," Richard replied, and reached for a orange.
"So first, what are you?"
"I'm a man. Next question." Richard bit into his orange after he finished peeling it.
Twilight was silent for a moment, and waited for more. "That's it?" Disappointment was apparent in her voice.
Richard frustratingly tore himself away from his orange. "Well what did you expect, Missy? Da Vinci's finest? I'm eating here."
Notably sarcastic and uncooperative, Twilight noted on her scroll.
"Fine. That'll do for now. Anyway, where are you from and how did you get here?"
"I hail from the nice ol' territory of Colorado. Recently became a state," he dug back into his orange like a hungry lion.
"Where is this Colorado?" Twilight's nerdy smile began to graze across her face.
"Well, we should be in lower Illinois right now, so it's very far west of here. Probably take you, oh maybe, a week, if you double time it," Richard pointed his now juicy finger towards the west.
"Umm... I don't know what this "Illinois" you're talking about is, but we are definitely not in it right now. We're in Equestria," Twilight said as she wrote down everything she had been told.
"Huh... Equestria. Sounds like a stupid name for a country if you ask me," Richard reached for a carrot and laid down on the grass.
Twilight was somewhat puzzled by Rich's demeanor. "Do you need some time to adjust? I mean, if I were in your shoes, I'd find that hard to understand."
"No, I don't. I'm pretty sure that there are no talking horses and mythical creatures straight out of a fantasy book inside the US," Rich said as he took a bite out of his carrot.
Strangely ok with realization of a whole new world, Twilight wrote.
"So, how did you get here?" Twilight asked.
"Now that," Rich sat up quickly at the question, "is something that I am not quite sure about. But I'll tell you what I know. Maybe you can help me get home some how."
"So! I was scouting out a ridge, looking for some lost animals for a person in the town I was staying in. There was this little ripple in some bushes and it looked real weird. So I decided to check it out, then I'm blinded, and now I'm in a talking horse land," said a exasperated Rich.
"Oh be honest with yourself, Rich. You like me this way," Coal had woken a few seconds earlier.
"Hey! Go back to sleep and rest! I need you healed up!" Rich pointed his finger forcefully towards Coal.
"That's quite... umm... odd, Richard. I'll have to look into that," Twilight said as she wrote down his account.
As Twilight wrote down, her gaze eventually fell upon Richard's rifle, which was now snugly fit into his right hand.
"What is that thing?" Twilight eyed as if it was going to go off merely by her gaze.
Rich suddenly felt a little conflicted about what to say. He started to fiddle with his rifle as he thought. He could show her how it works and possibly pass on the knowledge of guns to these ponies. Maybe he could have his own ammunition factory if he taught them. But were these ponies really ready? He could do more damage than good by passing on what he knew. Well, better safe than sorry.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to disclose that just yet," Rich said as he strapped his rifle to his back.
"Why not?" Twilight slightly pouted.
"When I think you are ready to know, I'll tell you. But for now, I'm not going to say," Rich shook his head.
Twilight wrestled with the thought of pushing for more info, but eventually, she chose to leave it.
"Alright, that's about enough time I have for now. If I'm gone any longer, I'm sure the town will start raising hell with my absence," Twilight moved to get up from her spot and start walking.
"Here, let me walk you back. As a little thanks for the help you've given me and Coal," Richard got up as well and started for the wooden bridge.
"Oh, thank you," Twilight smiled.
"Coal, you be safe. I'll be back soon."
The pony and man walked across the bridge and into the forest. They walked in silence, enjoying the chirping of the birds of the noon. It was nice for Rich to get a quiet moment, with everything that happened and with all these night terrors he would get. Listening to the birds was quite therapeutic, and Richard was happy to enjoy the moment.
"Pretty isn't it?" Richard said while looking up at the high canopy of the forest.
"Yes, it is," Twilight joined Rich with looking at the canopy.
"Hey, sorry if I was a little callous with you in the beginning. Didn't really sleep that well yesterday," Rich said.
"Oh, it's fine. I've dealt with much worse in my experiences. All is forgiven," Twilight smiled and turned to her front to see the end of the forest and the beginning of the fields that lead to Ponyville.
Twilight walked out of the forest and started to trot back to her town. However, Richard stopped at the forest's edge and watched as the pony went. Twilight stopped as she noticed Richard was not following her.
"Hey. Why aren't you coming?"
"I'd like us to keep this little meeting a secret, Miss Twilight," Richard said as he adjusted his hat.
"Why? You can come with me. I can introduce you to everyone. Everyone will like you."
"Well, for one, Coal's injured and I gotta take care of him. Two, I'm a solitary man, Miss Twilight. Towns aren't really my place. And let's be honest. You and I both don't know how your people will react to me, with everyone being on high alert cause of me."
"Wait, how did you know that?" Twilight became a bit suspicious.
"Not important. Point is, I'm not coming today. Maybe some other time," Rich started to turn back to the forest.
"Wait! I almost forgot. I wanted to give you something nice before you go," Twilight reached into her bag and pulled out a muffin.
"Wow. Thanks. It's been a real long time since I've had anything sweet," Rich stepped out of the forest to grab the cupcake.
"TWILY! GET AWAY FROM THAT THING!"
Twilight quickly turned to see Shining Armor careening towards them, horn charging up.
Quickly, Richard reached for his back to grab his rifle and began shouldering it. Shining, however, fired a blast of magic at Rich and it hit his rifle, knocking it off to the side.
Rich became stunned for a second, allowing Shining to barrel into him, knocking him to the floor. He landed on his stomach, facing away from Shining. He abruptly grabbed a handful of sand off the ground and threw it into Shining's eyes, blinding him. Richard sprang up, taking advantage of his opponent's blindness, and kicked Shining in the stomach. As he was starting to walk away, Shining tripped him with his hoof, and clumsily clambered on top of Rich, charging another spell. Before Shining could unleash his spell, Rich pushed Shining's face up as he started to fire. He grabbed Shining and threw him off of him. As Shining was starting to get up, Rich knocked him down, got on top of him, forced his hand down on Shining's muzzle, and unsheathed his hunting knife, ready to kill.
"RICHARD!"
Rich stopped himself and looked over at Twilight, reason slowly starting to leak back into the man's mind. Seeing what he was about to do, he slowly let go of Shining's muzzle and got up off of Shining Armor. He walked over to where his rifle had landed, grabbed it, went over and took the cupcake from Twilight, and began to walk into the forest.
"That's why I'm not coming."
Richard walked back to the Castle, never looking back.
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nice~!
nothing more to add there!
Shining....
You're an idiot
Don't rush in before thinking over, if the situation you see, is looking peaceful...
This is getting good
Keep it up good sir!