and Disasters.
The townsfolk were going about their business with many hours still left in the afternoon. Bonbon and Lyra trotted past, chatting amiably. Smells from Sugarcube Corner wafted out, as well as some baked goods from Applejack’s apple cart. She waved, and they waved back.
“Applejack!” Pinkie cried, zipping up to the cart. “I completely forgot today was the day! Did you bring me that pie I wanted?”
“Granny’s home-baked apple with extra cinnamon? Sure did!” Applejack pulled a pie out from under the cart, still warm, and passed it to Pinkie. Bits flew through the air as Pinkie nabbed it and scoffed it in one easy go, turning back to her companions.
“What?” she said, face covered in pie.
“Focus, Miss Pie, we must focus before it is too late.”
“What’s goin’ on, y’all?” Applejack asked, trotting up next to them.
“We need to capture a dream for Pinkie. She’s been possessed by a dream-eater,” Twilight explained. “It… eats dreams, obviously, and it’s getting stronger. We need to get it out of her before…” Twilight stopped, then looked at Luna. “What happens if we don’t get it out of her?”
“The dream-eater will reproduce, sending a copy of itself to ponies nearby through dreams. There will be no dreams for any pony so possessed, and where there are no dreams, there can be no happiness, because nopony will strive for anything. Equestria will become a land of faded hopes and dead-eyed creatures that want for nothing but want nothing.”
Spike gulped loudly. “That’s bad.”
Luna nodded slowly. She picked up an apple from the cart in her magic and sliced it with her magic. She slowly plucked out one slice after another. “If all you want is survival, are you really a pony? Without goals in life, without plans and desires and dreams, there is nothing but the creature. The animal.” The core was all that was left and she lowered it down to eye-level for the others. “This is an apple, but do you want to call it that?”
“That’s an apple core, Princess,” Applejack said.
“It is what remains of the apple when everything delicious, tasty, and fun is gone. You cannot make pies with it, you cannot make applesauce, you cannot make candied slices or fritters with this, but it is still an apple. Is that what you want?”
Pinkie looked like she was about to cry. “No fritters or pies or candied apples? That’s horrible!”
“Hence why we must destroy this creation.”
“Well, shoot, if all you need’s a dream, I can do that!” Applejack said. “I’m a pro at grabbing naps whenever and wherever I can! Work does that to a gal.” She winked at Twilight.
“Then if you could please, Miss Applejack,” Luna said. “We need a dream to come for you so Pinkie may capture it, then we can meet this creature on the only plane where we might combat it.”
Applejack flipped her cart sign to closed and plopped down next to the wheel. She doffed her hat and laid it over her eyes. “Easier than catching a snake and tyin’ it into a pretzel!”
Spike made a confused noise. “Is… is that easy?”
Twilight shushed him. “Hush, Spike, let Applejack sleep. We need a dream, and she can’t sleep while you’re talking.”
But Applejack could, and she did. In the middle of the busy marketplace with ponies bustling to and fro, she passed into slumber and began to give out a cute little snore. Twilight stared at her, impressed, Pinkie whistled. Luna just smiled.
“I sometimes watch her daydreams while I sleep myself. She dreams mostly about apples and family, if you were curious,” Luna said, putting a hoof to smiling lips.
“I could have guessed, I suppose,” Twilight said. “How long until a dream—”
“There’s one here!” Pinkie said. Her body shuddered and her ears twitched, twisting back and forth at the tinkling sound that would herald the arrival of the dream. Everypony looked around, but only Pinkie and Luna’s eyes latched onto the dream as it floated toward them. “It’s a dream still, not a nightmare,” Pinkie said. She looked at Luna. “Do I have to eat it? She’d enjoy it…”
“Yes, Miss Pie, you must. This is our only chance of defeating the dream-eater inside you. Now come, catch it when it comes down, with your mouth, mind you.”
“I know…” Pinkie said sadly “I bet it’s about apples. Applejack loves apples.”
“She very much does, but this is to help you. She’s sleeping to help you, now, catch it!” Luna pointed at the dream, which was fluttering slowly downward in a lazy circle as it descended to Applejack’s head. When it got close enough, Pinkie Pie leaped and nabbed it in her mouth. She landed next to Applejack with the dream and looked at Luna proudly, then fell over asleep.
Inside Pinkie’s mind, she was at Sweet Apple Acres. She wasn’t surprised to find herself there, as Applejack was always thinking about home and the family. Sometimes she suspected Applejack must dream about Ponyville since she came in to sell apples there all the time, but to find her at her home was the typical place.
This Sweet Apple Acres looked even more beautiful than the normal farm. The crops that were growing were even larger and more robust than usual, the carrots were the size of Pinkie’s entire hoof, and the lettuce was bigger than her head. The apples on the trees that dotted the landscape as well were huge, larger than a hoof, but a little smaller than a pony’s head. Someone could feed off this farm forever!
But this was a business trip, such as it were! Pinkie had a job to do, and by golly, she’d do it! “Princess Luna!” she called out, hoping to find the princess and get this done so she could go. “Princess Luna I’m in the dream, where are you?” She got no response, so she hopped about the farm, admiring the plants until the princess arrived.
“Wow-ee! These plants are so big!” Pinkie giggled as she rolled around on top of a pumpkin big enough to build a house out of. She slid down the stem to the ground and bounded over to the potatoes, which were big enough to crawl inside if she could only find a way to bake them. One of them was shaped like Granny Smith, and Pinkie laughed as she poked it in the nose, only for its facial expression to change to surprise.
“Granny Tater!” Pinkie shouted, then tapped her chin. “Or Tater Smith? Potato Smith? Potato Granny? Granny Potate?”
The Granny Smith potato grimaced and made an angry face and looked down at Pinkie. Its lips moved about, but no sound came from it. “Potatoes don’t talk, silly Granny!” Pinkie laughed. Its face got even angrier and it shifted, then turned into a regular potato, if a large one.
A tearing sound from behind her, like roots being ripped from the ground, made Pinkie turn around. Granny’s face was now on the pumpkin, scowling down at Pinkie. Roots, branches, and the large stem bent and twisted together to make up the body of the pumpkin pony that was now looming over her. “Don’t touch my garden!” The pumpkin’s flesh tore open as it spoke, vomiting pumpkin guts and seeds the size of ponies! Pinkie jumped in surprise and ran.
She hadn’t made it five steps before a blast of magic beamed from the sky and vaporized the pumpkin Granny. Luna winged down next to Pinkie and lifted her from the ground. “Miss Pie! I am here! I am sorry for the ugly mess,” Luna rolled through the air, dodging a pumpkin seed that flew past them. “but I have located the dream-eater! We must make haste before it consumes this dream!”
“Wow-ee! You just blasted that thing away! Poor Granny Pumpkin, though… Pumpkin Smith? Pumpy Gran? Granny S. Pumpkins? Where did the S come from and what would it stand for? Probably Smith?”
“Miss Pie, focus! We’ve danger at our backs and at our fronts, and not just your life, but everypony’s life is at stake. If you have no sugar-coated, cotton-candy dreams, how will you provide such to others?”
Pinkie’s face went stoic and she held her hooves out in front of her, pointed ahead. “You’re right! I need to do this and pay attention! For my sugar-coated, cotton-candy dreams!” She blew a raspberry and focused on the horizon as they lifted up, and up, and up into the dark sky.
“Now pay attention, Miss Pie. I will need your hooves to assist, as it is your dream-eater. Listen to me close.”
“Okay!”
Luna held her as they flew up, the farm spreading below them into a peculiar design. The shape of the trees took on a grinning rictus, tree-teeth smiling up at them as leafy eyes blinked. Its mouth opened, tearing apart the Apple Family home and barn and swallowing the pieces. Pinkie frown and gave a cry of dismay.
“Focus, Miss Pie. That is not really the Apple Family home, you are in a dream. That is merely the nightmare the dream has become, as the dream-eater senses us. We need to find it and kill it before this gets worse, but it cannot eat the dream without removing us from it!” Wind whipped at them as they flew, the angry clouds seeming to scowl and growl darkly.
“How would it remove us if we don’t wake up?” Pinkie shouted.
“If we die here, or receive a dangerous shock, we will awaken! Even I am not immune to such things, though I have many abilities to combat them!”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Pinkie yelled as a gust of wind pulled at her mane. “I’m not a princess of dreams!”
“Do whatever you can think of, Pinkie! This is a dream!”
“A dream, but what does that mean?”
“It means I want you to use your imagination! I have been asleep, dreamless, for over a thousand years, but you’ve lived a life filled with fun, entertainment, and entertainment! Use your cotton-candy dreams!”
“My cotton-candy dreams? How will they help?”
“I mean your—”
Something dropped out of the dark cloud above and hit Luna. She was speared out of the sky and dropped Pinkie, driven down, down, down toward the earthy maw of Granny Smith far below them. The rooted trees tore open, awaiting her as she screamed out of sight, faster than Pinkie could fall.
And fall she did. Pinkie waved her hooves helplessly as she screamed down, following Luna toward the ground below. She scrambled to try to remember what Luna had said. Use her what? She hadn’t had the chance to finish. Use her something that could help her fight and certainly not wake up in the middle of the dream, Luna had been very clear about that. She needed to stay asleep, and she couldn’t hit the ground or she’d wake up, so…
Use her cotton-candy dreams!
Pinkie imagined a big huge pile of cotton candy way down below for her to land in. It would be sugary, sweet, and most importantly; soft. She’d land in it, everything would be fine, and then she could punch the dream-eater in whatever passed for its nose!
Sticky fluffed sugar encompassed her in a delicious embrace. It collapsed under her, arresting her fall with its sweetness. She was rocked back and forth by the shaking ground. Granny Smith farm was shouting angry words in a booming voice that Pinkie couldn’t understand. She was mad about them coming, and intended to eat them all.
Pinkie rolled out of the cotton candy, grabbing a hoofful to eat as she walked. She stared around, trying to place herself.
She was looking for a dream-eater, but she didn’t know what one of those might look like, or what they might act like besides… well… eating? Eating like she was eating her cotton candy dream. It was tasty, but would a dream-eater enjoy cotton candy? Did it even taste real food or only food in dreams?
The ground shook underneath her. A great crack from Granny Smith’s earthen smile ripped up the land toward her, swallowing trees, the cotton candy, and her. Pinkie fell into blackness.
It was blackness that didn’t go away for some time. On several occasions Pinkie felt strange, like she was being stretched thin, almost torn in two. It felt like she could just blink and she would be back at home in her body, laying on the street with Applejack, but nothing happened.
No matter how many times she blinked, all she saw was the darkness that wasn’t dark, lit by something unseen. In all directions she could see the debris from the Apple family farm falling around her. Carrots, lettuce, trees, apples, and buckets littered the sky, and Pinkie Pie was falling with them. Falling into nothing.
Something moved around her in the dark. Her mind returned to the dream where she had been floating through Ponyville and the giant shark-creatures had tried to eat her. She spun about and pulled out a giant sun umbrella just as the debris parted and the shark jumped out at her. Its teeth caught on the fabric and metal arms, holding its mouth open and pushing her along. Pinkie giggled.
“Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on thee? Or is it me? I can’t remember!” The shark made no sound, but disappeared in a cloud of acrid-smelling smoke. It, and the darkness, blew away in an unseen wind, disappearing into the dream, leaving Pinkie alone on the platform for the Friendship Express.
“Oh, well I like trains,” Pinkie exclaimed when she figured out where she was. She looked down the tracks both ways, but saw no train, and when she looked up and down the platform, she saw no other ponies. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, ponies can go anywhere they want in a dream however they want, no need to wait for a train.”
Despite the statement, she didn’t fly or run off herself. She stood, waiting for the train to come in the dream, because Pinkie just liked trains that much. She loved the way they tooted and the sound of the wheels on the tracks. She liked the smell of the smoke and the fun rocking back and forth of the train as it chuffed merrily down its path. She hummed to herself while she waited, occasionally mumbling half of the words to a song she couldn’t fully remember having heard before.
“I wonder if that’s a song I made up in my dream or maybe a bunch of songs all smushed together like a big old pile of gum? It’s a dream, and I’ve heard some pretty great songs in my dreams before. Can’t ever remember any.” Pinkie pulled on her cowlick, letting it twang back up to the rest of her mane.
A rumbling heralded the approach of the Friendship Express. The tracks vibrated, carrying the sound ahead of the train while the platform itself rattled. A discarded hayburger wrapper rolled past with the wind pushed ahead of the train, and Pinkie stood up to get a better look, shading her eyes from the sun.
A face came roaring down the track. Not Granny Smiths face anymore, but a different one that shifted its expressions from one second to the next. Attached to it was a smokestack that belched horrible green smoke into the air that turned into bats and flew away in all directions. One of them screeched past Pinkie’s head and poofed into the air, gone completely. It shouted at her.
“Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie!” It shouted so loud that Pinkie had to cover her ears from the horrible noise.
“What? What do you want?” Pinkie yelled back. “Are you the dream-eater? Cause you’re mean and I hate you! Stop eating my cotton-candy dreams!”
The train just kept yelling “Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie!” at her as it approached. The tracks behind it shattered into pieces and disappeared, flying away like the bats its smoke became, while the train’s head opened its mouth and swallowed everything around it. The fence next to it disappeared into its mouth while it shouted her name, and houses were even pulled in. It was trying to eat her!
Pinkie thought it would be better if she didn’t get eaten, so she left the platform. The Friendship Express wasn’t an angry and terrible doom-train that ate houses, this was the Unfriendship Express, driven by the dream-eater guy who was a big jerk! He couldn’t follow her on roads, so she left.
The splintering sound of wood announced the death of the dream train platform, but the puffing sounds of “Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie!” turned toward her. She turned to look and saw the flying train tracks swoop back down in front of the Dream train and created new tracks that followed Pinkie into town. A cycling terror of tracks and shouting train came roaring down main street after Pinkie, determined to gobble her up!
She ran!
Pinkie hoofed it into town, running past all the familiar houses that were sucked into the too-wide maw of the dream-eater express. She tried to remember what Princess Luna had told her to do, and although she imagined some cotton-candy again, the dream-eater just ate it right up without a care. She was supposed to use her cotton-candy dreams to fight back, but what in Tartarus did that mean for a train? It wasn’t working, unless she was supposed to use something else?
Pinkie imagined a lollipop the size of a house and it appeared in front of her. She cleared it with a super-high leap and laughed as she sailed through the air above the sticky confection. She landed easily and stopped to look at how the dream-eater would deal with a lollipop bigger than two houses!
The crunch and crackle of candy being eaten sailed through the air to her ears and her mane drooped. “Aw, no. I worked hard to make that and he’s just crunching it to pieces,” she lamented. “You’re supposed to lick a lollipop, you meanie!” She turned and ran again, not waiting for him to eat his way through.
“if a lollipop isn’t going to work, maybe a muffin.” Poof! A muffin fell from the sky to land past the lollipop. “Or maybe a cupcake!” Poof! A cupcake rolled out from between two houses to block the street. “And regular cake! Pop and juice, hay steak, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake!” Food dropped from the sky, spilled out of windows, grew from the ground, squeezed itself into existence from nowhere in the dream world as Pinkie blocked the dream-eaters path with all her dream creations. But nothing stopped it. It just chewed through it all on its way to get her, so she had to keep running.
“I’m not getting tired, but this is dumb and boring! How do I beat up or stop a dumb ol’ dream-eater if all he does is eat things?” The road answered her question as it cracked and split apart to reveal dangerous and ugly muscle pulsing underneath. Stones ripped apart and a giant hoof flew upward, carrying Pinkie into the air on top of it. She clung to it out of fear more than anything, the blue limb rising into the sky.
“You will bow to me!” a great booming voice called out. From much farther north Pinkie could see Luna’s head and crown rising from the ground, spilling destroyed houses and city streets from her. The angry voice of the train kept shouting from behind her as it tooted merrily along through her food obstacles, seemingly unaware of Luna’s sudden appearance. Unaware or uncaring.
“I am the Queen of Dreams, and my will shall not be denied!” Luna shouted. Pinkie tried to cover her ears with her hooves, but she let go of the limb and tumbled back down to the ground. She landed on the tracks in front of the dream-eater train, maw coming at her through the cakes as it consumed everything in its path.
Pinkie hopped to her feet and ran, the tracks building themselves before her as she hoofed it across the empty expanse Luna had left behind in her rise from the cobbles. The tracks cared little for geography and just built, no matter which way Pinkie ran. They floated up when she jumped, went left when she tried to leave the tracks, and down underground, dragging her along with it. The mouth of the dream-eater opened wide, eager for her as its meal.
A giant blue hoof smashed the train. A muffled boom went off as the boiler exploded underneath it, sparks and soot flying in every direction. The voice went quiet, but it never stopped, and the second car in line slowly morphed into a copy of the engine, mouth appearing first so that it could yell “Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie!”
“No! You will address me and my might first, you cursed little thing!” Luna smashed the next car in line, destroying each of them until only the caboose remained. She got her wish as it turned to look at her.
“Princess Lunaaaaaa!” The caboose shouted and changed, warping out of the way of the giant hoof as it smashed down. Pinkie bounced with each slam as it wiggled back and forth, avoiding her blows.
It changed into a catapult and launched a rock that Luna easily grabbed out of the air with her magic. She hurled it back and the thing shifted away again, changing into a ballista. It fired a bolt, only for that to be returned as well. It changed into a phoenix and flew at her, but she seized it in her magic and squeezed.
“You intrude upon my domain, interloper! You consume the prizes ponies have earned for their sleep and take away their inner desires. See the mistakes you have brought upon yourself and perish!” Luna’s magic grew darker and the phoenix crackled in her grip as its bones broke. It screamed in apparent pain as she crushed it, until a beam of harsh light pierced the dark clouds.
The beam drove through Luna’s chest, sizzling with power. Steam rose through the air from where it passed as it evaporated the coming rain and consumed the ground where it struck. When it disappeared, a hole was all that remained of the Mega Luna’s chest. She fell and her magic dissipated, releasing the phoenix.
“Pin…kie. Good… luck.” Was all Luna managed to say before she disappeared, fading into the air of the dream.
“Princess Luna!” But she was gone.
A second phoenix flew down from the clouds and caught the first one. They merged themselves together to become a larger phoenix, both burning brightly. “Pinkie Pie-!” it shouted, beams of light firing from its eyes. “Pinkie Pie—!”
Pinkie ducked down into the hole with pieces of discarded train track around her. Without the dream-eater to guide them they were just broken and twisted metal now, no use to anypony. She tried to remember what Luna had told her. She remembered the comment about the cotton-candy dreams, but all that had done was get them eaten. It was a hungry beast, and it wasn’t going to be stopped by a little food, nor a lot, apparently!
“Use my cotton-candy dreams. Dreams of fun and parties and all the good things that this thing is trying to take from me.”
“Pinkie Pie—!” A sizzling beam of light blasted down, melting metal and burning railroad ties nearby. Pinkie flinched, but remained hidden. Maybe it couldn’t find her here.
The beam burned closer and Pinkie shrieked as she realized it wasn’t going to miss her. This was a dream-eater, and it probably knew where everything was! “I wish I was somewhere safe instead of here!” Pinkie closed her eyes.
The sound of storms and rain and the awful sizzling went away. Instead, Pinkie heard birds chirping and a gentle rustling of the wind. She opened her eyes and found herself in Sweet Apple Acres, untouched by a giant Granny Smith and pristine.
It lasted only a moment before a fire ripped through the trees. The dream-eater burst out of thin air in the distance, eyes locked on Pinkie Pie. It opened its mouth and that horrible beam came out, scorching the grass and burning the trees. The acrid smell of smoke filled with the sweet scent of apples filled Pinkie’s nose. She leaped out of the way of the beam, further than she should have been able to, and landed lightly on a tree branch that was too small for her.
“Stop it! You meanie burnies! You unhappy bad dreamies!” Pinkie shouted. Another beam lanced down and Pinkie jumped again, prancing on the tip of a leap. The beam burned through the dream-woods, setting fire to them. Pinkie seethed. “You’re ruining everything! You big… wet blanket!”
A giant blanket, dripping wet, appeared above the phoenix. It fell over it, despite its attempt to swing out of the way. The sopping bedspread dropped over them and into the forest, smothering much of the flames that licked at the apple trees. Smoke rose, and everything went silent once more.
Pinkie stared at the blanket. Her angry frown turned slowly up into a grin, then a smile, then she laughed. “Hah! In your blazing face, firebird! Pinkie Pie defeats the birdies with night time! A soggy night time at that!” Pinkie broke out into a song about water and how it was wet as she danced along the tips of the rustling leaves.
The *whumpf* of something made the wet blanket shift. It shook, and trees rattled in their roots. Pinkie stopped her dance to look, and the entire world cracked in half. The sky, the ground, the trees, and the blanket, snapped in half and swung down, like the lid of a hatch, dropping Pinkie and the birds into darkness. A deep, quiet laugh followed them as they fell.
Pinkie lost the sensation of falling halfway through the drop. There was no wind rushing past, no pressure pushing up on her innards, and no sensation of her stomach being in her throat. All that existed was darkness, and Pinkie herself. She couldn’t even see the birds anymore despite them being made of flame. No light, no stars, no moon, no wind, nothing. Just Pinkie and the darkness.
But there was sound.
Not willing to give up her position when the dream-eater was out to get her, Pinkie instead decided to imagine herself as a spy. If thinking of a wet blanket brought out a wet blanket, she could get those cool goggles she’d seen Bon Bon with sometimes. All green and glowy and awesome.
With a *pop*, they appeared on her head, and she twisted the knobs on them. She’d taken them one time and stared at the moon. That had been a bad idea. Right now, with nothing and just darkness all around, they weren’t so bad. They didn’t really help, as darkness filled with nothing but darkness didn’t give the goggles anything to show, but they were fun, and made her feel better.
Rooms appeared around her as she watched, not being brought into focus by the goggles, but being drawn into existence like a pencil would sketch a picture. Doors, halls, carpets, paintings, beds, couches, lamps, it didn’t take long for Pinkie to realize it was Sugarcube Corner that was being created in front of her. She recognized all the pictures hung on the walls, and the beds and crib that belonged to the Cakes. It was the familiar home, and she recognized it. She knew what the dream-eater was doing.
“I get it, and I don’t like it. You’re a meanie McMeanostink, and I’m gonna beat you up if you try to use my second family against me.”
Despite the warning, Mr. Cake came lurching out of his bedroom. He was empty-eyed and wide-mouthed, black holes where they should be. His jaw jutted out obscenely with ragged, blackened teeth. His mouth grew in size, then shrank again, a moan issuing from nonexistent lips. A centipede crawled from his eye socket, traveling from one to another, then out his nose and into his mouth.
Pinkie Pie stared, lips drawn tight. She drew in a deep breath, opened her mouth, and laughed. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Mr. Cake came toward her, hooves stumbling on the wooden floor, until he was within hooves’ reach. Pinkie drew back her hoof, laughed once more, “Ha!” and decked him in the head! Her hoof stung from the impact, and Mr. Cake staggered back.
“I warned you, Mr. McMeaniestinks! This is my second family, and you don’t get to mock them with me around. Not while I’m still holding on to my cotton-candy dreams!” Pinkie roared. She reached into her mane and pulled out a color string of ribbons. It grew longer and longer the more she pulled, a seemingly endless supply of ribbons.
Mr. Cake stumbled back to right himself and came at her again, endless maw gaping like a fish. Pinkie just stuck her face in his and laughed. His teeth grew in size and sharpness, but she wrapped her string of ribbons around him, winding his jaw shut, then hogtied him.
Out of the bedroom lumbered Mrs. Cake, morbidly obese and shaking the floor as she tromped up. Her eyes were red and crusted with slime, while her mouth drooled endlessly. Pinkie Pie reached into her mane and pulled out a picture of the real Mrs. Cake, and waved it at her.
“Don’t you be messing with me, dummy! Mrs. Cake is a beautiful woman who’s proud of herself, her accomplishments, and her motherhood! You’re just trying to make fun of her, and I won’t stand for that!” Pinkie smashed the picture on Mrs. Cake’s face and the obese monstrosity deflated, shrinking into a flopping, rubbery shell of itself. Pinkie sneered down at it and laughed again. “Ha. Ha. Ha! Granny Pie doesn’t like you, and neither do I!”
Crying came from the next room down the hall as Pumpking Cake and Pound Cake rose from sleep. Pinkie stood ready, but what came out of the room wasn’t a monstrous, terrible creature or a horrifying face, it was just the twins, crawling on the floor as foals were wont to do. They stumbled, they tripped, and they flopped about as they came toward Pinkie, who just backed away, waiting for something to give way.
But nothing did. The twins were, for all intents and purposes, acting just like foals. They cried, they wailed, they screamed as they wandered over to the prone forms of their monstrous parents. “Uh, kids? Don’t touch those, those aren’t your parents.”
They didn’t heed her. Pound Cake picked up a flap of the deflated Mrs. Cake and rubbed it on his cheek, while Pumpkin Cake crawled into Mr. Cake’s gaping mouth and curled up to cry, nestled in his jagged teeth. Pinkie felt a surge of guilt, and tried to beat it back.
“I didn’t hurt their parents! This is a dream! This is just a nasty, cruel, meanie-dream!” Pinkie shook her head, trying to drive back the wicked thoughts. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she shouldn’t feel guilty, but their crying was burrowing into her brain, seeping into her ears no matter how hard she plugged them. Children crying. Sad children. Children she had made cry.
“You’re a wicked, nasty, awful creature dream-eater! I hate you! I don’t make foals cry!” Pinkie squeezed her eyes shut and plugged her ears. The vision of the dead Cakes are their crying foals appeared instead in her mind’s eye. She couldn’t shake it, couldn’t escape it, and couldn’t fix it. She’d done that to the Cakes, and now it was her responsibility.
A rumbling started and the house around them began to fall apart. The Cake twins’ crying was rattling the glass in the window panes and shaking the foundation. Nothing was escaping their weeping, it seemed. Not Pinkie, not the house, not anything. Pinkie opened her eyes and stared.
They were so small, and so innocent. They didn’t do anything, but she knew they were the source of the danger, that the dream-eater had taken them to use against her, and it was working. Pinkie had no choice.
Pinkie couldn’t let the dream-eater escape, but she couldn’t kill them. They weren’t monsters. At least, they didn’t look like them. It probably knew that. It knew what it was doing, and Pinkie hated it for it. She stepped closer, staring down at Pound Cake, nestled in his father’s mouth, and she imagined.
A cotton-candy field, filled with sweets of all kinds. Milkshakes rose above muffins and cupcake mountains, in the distance, a fizzy soda rainfall. Sugarcubes and cookies lay stacked to make hills, and sitting at the top of one—a gingerbread house, mortared with icing.
In Pinkie’s mind, at her feet sat a little gummy bear, staring up at her with his little gummy eyes. Nearby, another one, sugary and sweet, and dripping syrup from its eyes. She reached down to pick up the one in front of her and held it up in front of her face.
“You’re so delicious-looking. I could just… eat… you… up.” The landscape in front of her shivered, and the decaying house appeared for moment as Pinkie took a bite out of the gummy bear. The background noise of her cotton-candy dream lessened, the intense whining that had been present now smaller, quieter, and less intense. Pinkie kept eating, imagining the sugary sweetness covering her tongue.
The other gummy bear began crawling away, but Pinkie pounced on it. “Oh, no you don’t! You’re coming with me to my stomach!” Pinkie bit into the gummy bear and stared at her cotton-candy dream, admiring the delicious clouds and cookie hills, staring at anything but what she was eating. When she finished, with syrup staining her coat, Pinkie sat down and sighed.
Then she woke up.
She was in the middle of Ponyville, laying with her head in Applejack’s lap, with Luna, Twilight, Spike, and several other ponies staring at her while they slept. Luna helped her up and looked at her with a curious look in her eyes. Her tight-lipped mouth parted as she spoke.
“Are you well, Miss Pie?”
Pinkie stared gormlessly for a moment. Her mind was awhirl with thoughts, but she remembered her cotton-candy dream and smiled brightly. “I’m great! Thank you, princess! Will I see those dreams ever again?”
“I believe… you defeated the dream-eater, though possibly in a very unconventional manner.”
“Oh? But I did what you suggested, Princess, I used my cotton-candy dreams!” Pinkie did a spin on a forehoof and bounced happily.
“Yes… yes you did.” Princess Luna stared at her with an expression that hinted at fear.
Pinkie smiled wide. “I think I’m hungry again! Who wants fritters! Applejack, wake up, I want fritters!”
“Huh, wha? Oh, sure Pinkie. Lemme just stretch here.
Pinkie decided to treat everypony nearby to fritters, because if anything was going to be enjoyed, it was going to be food. Pinkie knew that much. Her and her cotton-candy dreams.
To be continued...
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Why is she scared? Clearly I missed something.
Oh joy...
9254436
Pinkie was out to defeat a dream-eater. She beat it by eating it. The suggestion would then be that Pinkie is a dream-eater eater, or she is the dream-eater in the first place.
Or, if you like, she just ate babies. That's bad too.
9254626
Oh...holy shit. I assume she's the only one that actually saw the Gummy Bears then? While the others straight up saw her eat babies?
9254666
Yes. She imagined it. That is stated explicitly.
She ate the babies and ate the dream eater? Wow. Talk about irony.
Holy shit, that cover art is terrifying. Give whoever made it a nice pat on the back.
So, the way to defeat a devoured of something is to devour it instead? Whee.