The Archetypist

by Cold in Gardez

Chapter 1

“Do you know what archetypes are?” Discord asked me one morning.

Nine times out of ten I ignored the draconequus when he appeared in my castle library. It wasn’t out of disrespect for him or a lack of courtesy. As much as my personal feelings for Discord may be conflicted, nopony has ever accused Twilight Sparkle of being a deficient host.

No, I usually just didn’t notice him. Reading books does that to me. Also, it’s amazing what you learn to ignore when you live in Ponyville.

But this? A thoughtful question? About archetypes? I set my book down on the crystal table and looked up at the ceiling, where Discord was sitting upside-down in contempt of gravity. He was smaller than usual, not much larger than a pony, and not wearing any of his silly outfits or masks or what have you. Just looking at me, waiting for an answer.

Huh.

“Archetypes?” I said. “Like, literary archetypes? The lean warrior pegasus, or wise unicorn mage?”

“Hm, no.” His head tilted in thought, and kept tilting, and his snakelike body twisted and twisted on itself. He curled into a ball, then kept winding further and further, tightening with each rotation until his coiled frame squeezed into a solid knot of fur and scales and claws, and his skin grew so taut it ruptured like a burst sausage, and he fell as rain onto the table in front of me, splattering me with drops of chaos. I recoiled – they smelled of liquorice and starlight.

As quickly as he’d come apart, he came back together. The fluid drew in on itself, unwetting my poor book (to my mild relief – drying spells are a pain) and growing into a new draconequus on the table. He reclined on it, his head resting on an upturned claw, a thoughtful look on his face.

“The other type,” he continued. “The ones in dreams.”

“Dreams are more Luna’s thing than mine,” I said. I brushed my chest to make sure there was nothing left of him on me. “But I’m familiar with the idea. Innate images, concepts or ponies that seem to appear in stories across cultures and times. And, like you said, in dreams. Allegedly, anyway.”

“Allegedly?”

I shrugged. “They’re just a theory, not something with an objective reality. They can’t be measured or tested or written about in articles for scientific journals. They’re a curiosity, certainly, but so what if maybe we all dream about shadows sometimes, or weird trickster spirits?” I finished with a pointed glance in his direction.

He raised his misshapen arms in mock surrender. “Hey, don’t blame me for that. Like you said, dreams are Luna’s thing… for now, anyway.”

I sighed. Subtle. “For now? Thinking of branching out?”

“Oh, it’s crossed my mind,” he said. “Dreams have always fascinated me, you know. So chaotic. Everything’s up for grabs in dreams, and nopony ever realizes what’s going on. They just take the chaos in stride and run with it, sometimes in fun, sometimes screaming in terror. It’s exhilarating!”

I pulled my book back toward me and opened it again. We’d been speaking for nearly a minute, which meant Discord was due to get distracted by something new and vanish. “I’d leave dreams alone if I were you, Discord. Luna doesn’t like it when outsiders trespass in her realm.”

His expression soured, and the taste of lemons flooded my mouth. “That’s rather exclusionary, isn’t it?” he grumped. “Don’t dreams belong to all ponies?”

I pointed a wing at him. “Your dreams belong to you. Mine belong to me. But dreams as a whole? The dreamscape?” I spread my wings wide, encompassing all of creation. “That belongs to her.”

He grinned. His expressions were always icky things, filled with snaggleteeth and serpents’ tongues, often more than one at a time, but this was an especially disquieting smile, a leering, knowing smirk flowing not with humor but joy. It shoved me back on my cushion like a physical blow.

“Your dreams?” he said. “Do you dream of books, Eggplant? Or slide rules, maybe? First place in spelling bees? All the major nerd archetypes?”

“My dreams are my business,” I said. “And books aren’t just for nerds, thank you.”

“Of course, of course. Books are for everypony, like the sign says.” He waved absently at one of the motivational posters plastered to the crystal wall, part of the Equestrian Library Association’s annual membership drive and which did, in fact, note in balloon-shaped letters that books were for everypony. “Anyway, thanks for the time, Sparky. I’ll be on my way now.”

“Right.” I stood, because it was the polite thing to do. “And you’re not going to mess with ponies’ dreams?”

“Mess with? No, no, scout’s honor.” He covered his heart with his right paw, saluted with his left, and held his right up as though taking an oath. Yes, I’m aware that’s three paws. “I just want to play around a bit. See if I can make dreams a bit more exciting than they already are. An experiment. You like experiments, don’t you?”

“Don’t bring science into this. And don’t make me call Fluttershy on you.”

That blow landed. Discord flinched, and his eyes grew wide. But just as fast he was back to his usual mocking smile.

“Oh, no need to get her involved,” he said. A flash of light filled the library, and when it cleared only his shadow remained, slinking across the crystal floor toward the exit. His disembodied voice rang from the library walls. “Ta-ta.”

“Wait!” I called out, and to my surprise he did. The shadow froze, looking like a puddle of spilled ink. I hadn’t expected him to obey, and now we both waited in silence while I gawped like a fool.

Finally, “Yes, Sparky?”

“Uh.” I cleared my throat. “What… what do you dream of, Discord?”

He laughed. He spoke, and as he spoke the shadow bubbled, lifting into the air and evaporating into nothing. “Who’s to say I’m not dreaming now? Perhaps you are my dream.”

Silence followed. I waited, because sometimes Discord liked to pretend to leave only to walk back in the door a moment later, but it seemed I was truly alone. I heard the faint sound of running water from somewhere in the castle as Spike or Starlight Glimmer went about their day.

I picked up my book, set it on a reshelving cart, and went to look up everything the library had on dreams.

* * *

I’ve never felt pain in my dreams. It’s like the sensation just doesn’t exist. Which is probably fortunate when you consider all the terrible things that happen in our sleep.

The first few weeks after I became an alicorn, I was plagued with dreams of falling. There I would be, up in the sky, soaring alongside Celestia and Luna and my friends and my brother and Spike and my parents, giddy as a filly with a new book, and then my wings would just come off between flaps. Like they weren’t glued on well enough or the new bones needed more time to harden.

Fun fact. After they come off, your wings actually manage to fly by themselves for a few seconds. Separately, obviously, going in wildly different directions, but the lift-generating surfaces still have air flowing over them and until they begin to tumble they actually become more efficient because, after all, they’re no longer having to hold the rest of you up. This is interesting from an aerodynamic perspective but quite terrifying from a falling perspective.

You don’t quite realize you’re falling yet, either. You feel that hollow in your gut, like your intestines are trying to move into your lungs, but you’re not sure why. After all, when the ground is ten-thousand feet away, it takes quite a bit of falling before anything looks different. To the falling mare, the only change is that her wings are no longer a part of her and they’re suddenly way up there, getting further away, and the wind is now coming from the direction of the ground rather than the direction of flight, and after a few confused, horrified seconds, you come to the realization that this is because the ground now is your direction of flight. And because time flows weirdly in dreams, the ten-thousand foot fall is over in seconds, and you have only a brief moment to contemplate your imminent reunion with the earth and to wonder what happens after you die.

Death doesn’t hurt in dreams, though. One of Luna’s less appreciated gifts: there is never any pain in her realm.

But I have caused pain.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I am not a good pony. Not the pony I want to be. I have destroyed precious things and wounded my friends with my carelessness. For years after being accepted as Celestia’s student I had nightmares about turning my parents into objects from a still life – cups and trays of fruit and candles and skulls. Nopony punished me for it, because I was just a filly out of control, but neither was there a kindly god to undo my work. So I lived the rest of my life in a quiet house tending to rotting fruit and dusty skulls and unlit candles.

In dreams I have sated my selfish desires through lies or theft or violence or worse. And because dreams always feel real, for that moment in the dream I am the thief, the liar, the rapist, the murderer, the cannibal.

In every dream, in the red moment after each of my crimes, I am filled with horror. Guilt wells out of my throat like acid, burning me. I loathe myself so endlessly and deeply that I think, just for that moment, like death might be the most suitable release.

So which is the real me? The monster, or the penitent mare who follows? If dreams are a mirror, what are they reflecting?

I woke sweating that night after Discord came to my library, chilled despite the hot summer air, my heart hammering and my blood singing from some dream that slipped away from me even as I tried to grasp at its shreds. I remembered, briefly, the faces of those I have vanquished or destroyed – Sombra and Tirek and Nightmare Moon and even Discord’s shocked visage frozen in stone. My soul ached, and then the sensation was gone, replaced with relief. It was just a dream.

I am still a good pony. I repeated that to myself as I lay back onto the pillow. It was cold and soaked with sweat. Outside my window night still reigned, and the stars had yet to fade from the east horizon. Dawn was hours away. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to return.

Dreams are where the dungeons in our minds overflow.

Reading books does that to me. Also, it’s amazing what you learn to ignore when you live in Ponyville.

Comments

[Chillean]

Oof, that last sentence was heavy, I hadn't read one of your fics in a little while and I'm glad to see a new addition!

[Alondro]

Alondro grins as he reads Twilight's insecurities, "She, like so many others, is vastly weaker than me. And, like them all, she will fall before my inflexible might."

Alondro... fears... NOTHING. But everything fears Alondro!

[Gravity012]

Dreams. I’ve heard some people dream in black and white. I don’t know for sure, because I’m not other people, and any facts about what happens in dreams aren’t really facts. This is because the memories of dreams are so easily manipulated. As for me, I dream in color. This is both a blessing and a curse. Some dreams are good, some annoying, and some terrifying.

I remember I went to space and explored the stars once. Another time, I went through a whole day of school only to wake up and realize I still had to go to school. And others....leave me paralyzed in fear, or horror, even as an adult.

My dreams are so vivid that, like the school dream, I think they actually happened sometimes. And others, I know are dreams and yet they still amaze and terrify me. There is nothing like watching dinosaurs chat about life while eating cheeseburgers and drinking coke. Or watching your family be swept away in a rogue tornado.

Dream are windows into our minds. I find that mine show my deepest desires. And not always directly. For example, if I hit someone with a car, it doesn’t mean I want to hit someone with a car. The feeling of horror that comes after indicates not wanting to hurt someone. If you killed someone in your dream, and then felt awful, that wouldn’t mean you wanted to kill someone. It would mean you didn’t.

Yes, dreams are windows into our minds. And this is both a blessing and a curse.........and this is the longest comment I have ever wrote.

[Antiquarian]

“Dreams are more Luna’s thing than mine,” I said. I brushed my chest to make sure there was nothing left of him on me.

Man. Twilight is not phased by much anymore is she. Ponyville will do that to you.

[Antiquarian]

So which is the real me? The monster, or the penitent mare who follows? If dreams are a mirror, what are they reflecting?

Well, bit of psychology here, in case anyone reading this story is having a struggle similar to Twilight's: the real you is not the one who has the base thought but the one one who chooses to reject it. Everyone has impulses to do evil things, but the mark of freedom and maturity is the individual with the strength to choose doing otherwise. Thus, people can be tempted and even dream of doing the vilest of things, but so long as they do not indulge in these vices (which, a the lower levels, may include spending a chunk of time deliberately dwelling on it in one's imagination), then they are not evil people. In fact, if some of one's deepest fears are that they might be evil, that might arguable be a good sign, if such a thing fills them with dread.

Even at at theological level, most Christian denominations strongly assert that temptation, however graphic it might be, is not sin. Only indulging in that temptation is sinful. Many have even gone on to note a sort of heroic virtue that comes from enduring the suffering of such temptations while not being consumed by them, offering such temptations up as an offering to God. More than once I've heard theologians point out to me that even Jesus was tempted (most notably in the desert).

So I sympathize with Twilight, I really do, because I used to make a lot of mistakes in my life and I had to learn to come to grips with the fact that those temptations would remain with me even years after I stopped letting them rule me. But she doesn't need to feel guilty here. Now, on to see if the story takes that path or not.

[redsquirrel456]

So which is the real me? The monster, or the penitent mare who follows?

You're both, which is why dreams come to life are terrifying. A dream is just a noun. Whether it's a good dream or not depends on the dreamer.

[Sypher]

So I lived the rest of my life in a quiet house tending to rotting fruit and dusty skulls and unlit candles.

Gosh this is an awesome sentence.