The Dream

by Mithrandir

The Dream

Twilight sat up in her bed with a gasp, eyes streaming with fresh tears. It was the dream again, that dream. This was the seventh night in a row she had been jolted awake, and it was beginning to take its toll. Her eyes were veined and red; her lids wrinkled and puffy. She vaguely recalled the second day of torment, where she pored over tomes and tomes of neuroscience texts. Supernatural things held no respect in Twilight's logical eyes, but a week of recurring nightmares could no longer be chalked off as 'random neuron firings'. With biochemistry unable to help her, she had turned to psychology. Three days ago she began to read up on dream theory, but any attempt she made to turn up why she was sleepless had been fruitless.

"Those eyes. . ." She thought to herself. The cold, burning emptiness of those orbs flared before her as she reminisced about her dream. Twilight closed her eyes, trying to forget the image, but that only made it worse. Like a scared little filly she cowered under the covers and trembled. After a few minutes the fear abated and Twilight steeled herself.

"No. Dreams aren't real, therefore, He isn't real. My inate fear of this dream is simultaneously increasing the likelihood of me having the dream again. What a vicious cycle. . . It just feels so. . . real", She rubbed her neck where crooked fangs tore away flesh, just minutes before, " I need to forget about it, but why does that seem so hard? Should I tell my friends? No, no, they'll think i'm crazy! They can't know."

"And what good will that do, huh?", the voice of Rainbow Dash echoed in her head, "You and I know very well how bottling up feelings turns out", Twilight could imagine Dash's eyes slanting for emphasis, "Breakdown."

"Yes, but-"

"But nuthin', sugarcube", Applejack's voice interjected, "Yah really think we haven't noticed yet that yah ain't been sleepin' lately? We're gonna ask about it, and lyin' ain't gonna help yah one bit."

"No, but what can you guys even do to help me? Nothing I've done has made Him go away!"

"Think about it, Twi!" Pinkie Pie popped up to give her two bits, "Nightmares are like little horror movies, and those are just plain silly! Next time you dream, you should remind Him that you're the nerdy one, and the nerdy pony never dies in the movies! HEY!"

Twilight grinned to herself, she could vividly picture Rarity shoving Pinkie out of the way to speak.

"Never mind her, dear, this is serious business. Believe it or not, even refined ponies such as myself get worried and afraid sometimes. Shocking, I know, but I find that when emotions are getting out of hand, the best thing to do is simply walk away and focus on something else!"

"But this is a dream, I can't just CHOOSE to not have it. . ."

"Maybe you do have a choice, Twilight. If I am not mistaken, you've spent the past week trying to explain, prove and make concrete something that is not concrete at all. Just let it go. . ."

Rarity disappeared from her thought and Pinkie popped up again:

"Some things can't be explained, remember? Like what does Princess Celestia really put in our tap water? Quit shoving!"

"Heh heh, yeah", Twilight felt Rainbow Dash give Pinkie a hard gaze, "And you can't let those feelings stew, you'll worry forever!"

Applejack spoke next:

"So be honest with us, let us help you out. We'd want the same thing."

A quiet soothing voice whispered almost as if it were right next to Twilight's head:

"Now relax, get some good rest and you can talk to all of us tomorrow . . ."

An invisible blanket of warmth descended on Twilight as a sense of calm beckoned her to sleep.

"Thanks Flutter. . .shy. . ."
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

The bedroom was silent, save for the quiet breathing of a comfy dragon. Pale moonlight descended through the window, illuminating the warm blue blankets that covered a serene purple unicorn. Twilight's sleeping form lay peacefully still as she dreamed of pleasant fields and warm sunshine. She stirred briefly and let out a contented sigh; the curled silhouettes of her friends watched over her and comforted her as she slept through the night.

Comments

[ARBPW]

>Check your formatting, a lot of it is all over the place.
>You say it's a one shot... it's pretty short, and it says 'chapter one', so is it?

Other than that, it was ok.

Short, sweet, but begging for an expansion. The only problem with expanding it is the bigger odds of grammatical errors, and being accused of "padding it out," or putting in too much filler. That said, you should only expand or continue it if you feel like it, or if it gets a lot of comments asking for one. Definite 4.5.

This could be expanded upon.

[Mithrandir]

48437

This is what I get for trying to type it directly into fimfiction, my usual plan of action is to write it in a notebook, proofread it, type it, proofread it, then submit it. This one went right from my notebook to the website, I may fix it up, most of the mess came from the dialogue indentations, thanks for the input!

[Mithrandir]

48437

Fixed the chapter thing as well, don't want to confuse people more

[Mithrandir]

48630

Yeah, it probably could be expanded upon, but you're also right in that it would end up being filler. I have a rough draft for a 10000+ word tale that is my next goal, but college is kicking my ass and I don't want to botch it. Ugh! To make a long story short *cue rim tap* this story is brief for a reason, if enough people think it needs improvement I will probably work on it, I'm glad to see people interested but I don't see this expanding a whole lot. ironically I wish I had let this sit a little longer, but as they say, "they can't all be zingers"

[576-Belligerent-Coil]

D'awwwww!

I love the ending, wrapped up the whole thing nicely.
If there's one little criticism I have, it's just that I never got to find out what HE was. Other than that, love the idea, nice characterization.
's the kinda story I can get into: nice and short, but interesting enough to hold my attention.

EDIT: And yeah, I think it could definitely warrant an expansion, if only to use it as an inspirational rapture. Series of little stories, maybe... then you add a common thread between the dreams and you have a big bad guy on your hands...

...I let that get out of hand. Forgive me. :P

[Mithrandir]

464298

No good criticism can get out of hand! Thanks for the comment, it reminds me that people actually read stories that aren't new or dominating the front page. To respond, I wrote this as simply a vignette, a brief glimpse into a little story. The problem I have now is that I have roughly 15k of one story written up that I can't seem to finish (school is my excuse but I think i'm just worried that my first attempt at an OC is a gary stu and I can't continue with the plot), plus another rough draft that needs to be typed up and expanded! I guess all this isn't really meaningful, I very well could expand this story, but I think I just need the motivation to finish all the other things I started before I can cross this bridge. Thanks for your interest though, you'll be the first to know if I get around to a continuation!

[576-Belligerent-Coil]

464576
imho, you shouldn't worry if you think your character is a gary stu. I mean, the worse possible thing that could happen is that it gets a negative reception. Then, it just serves as a learning experience. Chances are, though, you're just being too critical of yourself, and everything will work out. I mean, 15k words is pretty deep into a story, and that shows some dedication. If you put a boatload work into something, someone's gonna get something out of it. Now, that's not really a rule to live by, see Sonichu and various other long-winded fics that are terribly written failures and shameful wastes bandwidth, but most of those rabble have unforgivable premises and worse writing. I don't know what your story's about, but you're not a bad writer, so far as I can see.

Maybe you could just find a good stopping point towards the beginning and post the first chapter. Might give you a means to test the water, so to speak.

[Mithrandir]

464719

Hmm, that's not a bad idea, I do think I will wait until school ends, but maybe its about time to break it into chapters. Thanks for the input, I feel like I can do this now, haha

[576-Belligerent-Coil]

464801
No problem, man! There's nothing worse than a story dying in the womb.

[Mithrandir]

465261

True dat, to work!

[Midway Bridge]

I rather liked the vagueness of this... it lets the reader form their own ideas about it.

[Mithrandir]

529761

I'm glad to hear it! I'm usually torn over whether my writing actually achieves it's goal. I think perhaps that my stories read more like screenplays, which can be good or bad, but it does make me doubt the quality of my writing. Ach, i'm rambling, thanks for reading!

[Starlight Nova]

I like the story, really, I do, but... How did this get accepted? It's less then one thousand words long!

[Mithrandir]

5504686
Eons ago, the laws of the universe were wild and free, and extremely short stories could be written by writers everywhere.
I think I wrote this story in 2011.