A Little Night Magic

by Ironthread

Preludes and Nocturnes

The two glasses clinked as Dreamcatcher placed them on the heavy oak table. He proceeded to pick up a beautiful glass decanter and lovingly pour brandy into each. One he slid across the table, the other he lifted to his lips and sipped, savoring the flavor.

“I had this vintage once in Canterlot. Must’ve cost Fancy an arm and a leg, but he was offering it at the open bar.”

“It is quite unique.” His guest replied. “We shall have to look into procuring some, someday.”

“I knew there’d be something here that you like.”

“You have indeed changed our mind about this… Alcohol. It was not as prevalent in our day.”

Dreamcatcher sat back in his seat. Across from him, sitting in an easy chair he had once tried out in a Los Pegasus furniture store, was the Princess of the Night. They were good friends, despite never having met while conscious. In dreams, however, they had whiled away many a night talking, eating, and drinking, sharing their favorite memories of food and drink long since consumed, experiences of many years ago.

“They say there’s a new princess around.” Dreamcatcher commented, though he knew it was true.

“Ugh. Yes, our sister’s protégé. Honestly, she finishes one spell - using slant rhyme, I might add, which is questionable practice when it comes to magic - and all of a sudden she’s sporting a fancy new pair of wings. As if we weren’t being ignored enough right now.”

“Not a fan?”

“No, we have no objections to Twilight, but honestly, our sister is not the most… attentive. I am beginning to remember why we became Nightmare Moon in the first place.” Luna grumbled, the last sentence somewhere between a joke and an admission.

“Oh, now don’t say that. Neglect, I always say, is the sincerest form of trust.”

A baffled look overtook the face of the Princess of the Night.

“Oh, come now. If someone doesn’t pay attention to you, it just means they think you’re capable of handling yourself.” Dreamcatcher explained, his tone only half serious.

Luna laughed. “Indeed.”

Suddenly, Dreamcatcher heard a ringing in his left ear.

“Apologies, your highness, but I do believe I will have to go.” He managed to get in, before disappearing as he woke up.

***

Dreamcatcher grumbled as he tried to escape his sheets. One foreleg made it far enough out to just miss turning off his alarm, and Dreamcatcher winced as the clock hit the floor. By the time he had disentangled himself, Dreamcatcher was ready to smash the thing to pieces.

“You,” he grumbled, looking menacingly at the clock, “just have to ruin all the fun.”

It did not respond.

***

The moon was new that night, but Dreamcatcher still moved with grace along the shadowed streets of Ponyville on his way to Sugarcube Corner. By the sparse light it merely resembled an inky splotch against the horizon, albeit an oddly shaped one. After some practiced movements with his keys he opened the door, the bell ringing lightly and the “CLOSED” sign swinging gently as he entered.

The stairs to Pinkie Pie’s room - where else but within the giant cupcake that crowned the store - were dim and calm. Pink wallpaper contrasted sharply with the pale blue starlight that shone through the one window and onto the opposite walls. Dreamcatcher ascended quietly, almost like a shadow as he slipped past the door to Pinkie’s room and sat down by her bed. Closing his eyes, he began to sing a sweet but mournful lullaby.

Soft as night and swift as shadows,
Long are the days we labor in.
Now sleep tight and dream of meadows,
And a dance to dance therein.

Pinkie stirred at the sound, but did not wake, still curled up and smiling in the traces of moonlight left, despite the new moon.

Tell me now your secret stories,
Ones long trapped within your head.
Tell me now forgotten whispers,
Ones you take unto your bed.

At this, Pinkie stirs once more, but with more purpose this time, rolling onto her back and opening her mouth slightly, one hoof dangling off the edge of the bed. Dreamcatcher notices it, but does not stop in his song, deciding it is not of particular concern. Instead he moves fluidly into the final verse.

I will draw from you these tales,
I will ask of you no more.
I will see the truth within you,
See you safe to distant shore.

As he sings this portion, soft light blooms across Pinkie’s form, before slowly drawing in toward her open mouth. There the glow brightens slightly and, as the final notes die out, forms into a single strand of apparently solid light, twisting slowly as though alive, floating through the air gently as if in water. It is no brighter than starlight, but Dreamcatcher ushers it away quickly nonetheless.

***

The light drifts aimlessly through the air of the kitchen while Dreamcatcher searches through the pantry. He sighs.
“You know,” he says, to nobody in particular, “Mr. and Ms. Cake do their best, but even they can’t seem to keep things stocked for long in the face of Pinkie Pie.”

After checking the sugar bowl, the sugar jar, the sugar bag, the backup sugar bag, and the sugar sack, he finally finds the remaining supply of sugar in the store in the backup sugar sack. He pulls out of his saddlebags a beautifully polished volumetric flask and funnel. Taking out both, he sets the funnel in the neck of the flask and carefully pours in sugar until just reaches the marked line on the neck.

Turning around, Dreamcatcher slowly approaches the floating wisp of light, now spinning in playful circles. He brings the mouth of the flask up close beneath it and, humming the same tune he used before to draw it out, urges it gently to enter.

It seems almost to understand his intent, and slowly moves down into the flask and curls up in the neck. As soon as the last of it enters, Dreamcatcher pulls a rubber stopper from his bags and quickly seals the flask. The wisp, however, does not notice, as it has already settled onto the top layer of sugar. Dreamcatcher watches as the light of the wisp fades, sinking into the sugar and causing the whole flask to glow slightly. When he decides the process is complete, he gives the flask a few shakes for good measure, removes the stopper, and pours in carefully into a jar he had previously placed on the table. He closes up the flask once again, stows it and the funnel carefully in his bags, and trots contentedly from the room. On the way out, he collects the money waiting for him on the counter and pulls out a piece of paper and pencil from his saddlebag to write a new bill.

---

For services rendered on the twenty-ninth night of spring, fourth year of the reign of the two sisters:

Task: The production of “double-sweet” sugar for baking purposes.

Components:

- The retrieval of a dream from Pinkie Pie - 23 bits.

- The infusion of retrieved dream into a total of 12 hooffulls of sugar, provided by the customer - 12 bits

Subtotal - 35 bits
Tax - 1.30 bits
Total - 36.30 bits

Sincerely,

Dreamcatcher

Author's Note:

Not really sure where I'm going with this but I like the character and i like the atmosphere. Feeling like I lost it a bit at the end, I'll probably revise it at some point. Comments and criticism are welcomed and encouraged, doubly so for ideas on where to take it. And yes, the title is a reference to Sandman.

Comments

[CoffeeBean]

I say you take this story into the long run and have Luna take him under her wing as her own student. I've always liked the idea, and you've got the perfect setup for it. That, and it would play off of Luna's distaste of how Twilight came to be a Princess.

This was quite a neat little tale, and I'll be interested to see where you take it.

[CoffeeMinion]

This is a really interesting start. It could go almost anywhere from here and I'd like to see how it turns out. I like the almost menacing feel to what he does with Pinkie and the preparation of the sugar... it feels unclear if we're dealing with a good guy or a bad guy, and it helps set up the mystery.

With that said, I do have a few nits to pick here:

First is that some general formatting cleanup could be in order. There's a mixed use of indentation and non-indentation of new lines, and some occasions where there are blank lines between paragraphs and others where there aren't. My general preference is for non-indented lines and always including a blank line between paragraphs, but I feel the specific choice matters less than consistency. Also I think you might get good mileage out of the [ quote ] and [ hr ] tags to express some of the different things you do in here, such as the lyrics and the scene breaks.

Second is that you switch from past tense to present tense during the Pinkie scene. It's consistently past tense prior to that point, and consistently present tense afterward. Again, I have a general preference for one of them (past) but I feel that consistency is more important.

Third is that the first two scenes don't feel very connected to the third scene. The first two set up a friendship with Luna and show the difficulty our protagonist faces in maintaining it, and they're a strong way of setting the tone for the story. The third scene is strong as well, again because of the creepy/menacing aspect I mentioned above. I might even say that the third scene would be the stronger way to start it; we get to see the protagonist doing something unexpected but ultimately not harmful (that we know of), which could capture interest. But there's a pretty big shift in tone from the almost comedic aspect of the second scene interrupting the first, to then having a much darker and creepier third scene; I would argue that's a hard leap for the audience to make, because we don't know the protagonist very well yet and we're trying to build a sense of who he is. (That reminds me: do we get a description of him?)

There's one final thing that I feel needs to be called out: the author's note. It's fine and fair having one, but never give away your uncertainty about where the story is going. Or, I'd urge you to make sure you have a destination in mind for the story, even if you're very flexible about the intermediate steps it might take to get there. I feel like that makes for a decent compromise between the competing plan-everything and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants philosophies to writing.

Keep it up.