Marshmallow Dreams

by Halira

Chapter 1: Average Start of the Day

Some people say life starts at conception, others say at birth. They will argue about whether it came with the first beat of your heart or the first breath you took. For me, I believe life begins when we get our first memory. I'm not talking about the first thing we learned, but the first thing that stuck with us; that left such a powerful impression that years later, we could still recall it, even if much of the memory was recobbled together and only fractionally right. It was the beginning of our reality, the start of what makes us-- us. There was life before that memory, but that life wasn't us.

My first memory came ironically, or perhaps unironically, from a dream. I was four years old. How do I know I had this dream when I was four? Simple, my mom told me, and it is well documented historically. It was no ordinary dream; it was a vision. It was the last night of ETS before the cure came, and the night a little human girl became a little pegasus filly. I can't remember anything that came before that dream, so I must assume that I didn't yet exist. There was some young human girl named Rebecca Riddle there, but this was the birth of Rebecca Riddle, the pegasus. If you live long enough, you can be lots of people, and I sometimes wonder how many I will be. Sometimes we have to be more than one person at once, and that gets hard.

Most of my early memories are dreams, rather than things that happened out in the waking world. I don't know why that is. Maybe it is because I didn't want to accept the reality around me when I was awake. After all, there were terrible things all around me, so I focused on my dreams. My dreams became more and more elaborate, a reflection of the world I wanted to live in—a world of smiling sunflowers, singing dogs, and warm and toasty beds. I met my first ever friend in my dreams, Miss Seapony. You might know her by a different name, but she'll always be Miss Seapony to me.

My first super vivid memory in the waking world came when I was about seven years old. That was three years after ETS. My mom and I were in a hotel room, it was dirty, and people were yelling in the next room over. My mom, who had caught ETS years before, but rehumanized, was doing her best to distract me from the yelling going on next door. We spent a lot of nights in hotel rooms like this one if we were lucky. If we weren't fortunate, we spent the night in the car. I spent many days in the car, and my mom would tell me to keep the doors locked and not let anyone in. She would say to me that if anyone tried to break into the car just to run away as fast as I could; don't try to fight them, don't try to save our possessions. She would say that the car and the stuff in it were not as important as me. Then she would go off to work, so we could eat and maybe spend a night in a hotel.

My mom was telling me all about how she was going to be a great ballerina, and someday someone would give her a great dancing job, and we wouldn't have to spend nights in hotels like this anymore. I snuggled up to her as she brushed her hands through my snow-white feathers and corn colored mane. I had absolute trust in my mom that she'd make those dreams come true. I didn't understand that the dancing my mom did was stripping at a gentleman's club. I didn't know or understand that my mom was almost to the point she might take me to social services because she was scared of not being able to keep us in hotel rooms through the winter and snow. I understood just one thing, and it was something real, that my mom loved me absolutely.

There was a knock on the door, and my mom tensed up. She told me to hide under the bed, and if anything terrible happened to run. Otherwise, I needed to stay there until she said to come out. I did as I was told, peaking as much as I could towards the door while remaining hidden. My mom went to the door and peeked out the eyehole, then called out, asking who was there. A voice responded with something, a female voice. My mom cracked the door open and spoke to whoever was outside. They talked for a minute, then she opened the door all the way and let a pony inside.

We lived in the middle of Massachusetts at the time. There weren't a lot of other ponies than me around that area. ETS hadn't gotten that well spread in our region, and most of the people who caught it ended up rehumanizing, like my mom. I had seen only a couple of other ponies in my life up to that point. This was a green earth pony mare, with a short cut purple mane. She was bundled up in a sweater, and I got the impression she didn't like the cold. She and my mom talked a little while. My mom then told me that I could come out. She introduced me to the mare, but I don't recall her name.

They talked for a while longer, and then we all left. My mom took us to a much nicer hotel room that night, nicer than anywhere I'd ever been. It had clean white sheets, a high ceiling with no dark spots on it, the place was warm and bright, and the room smelled funny (I'd never smelled a hotel room that didn't reek of piss before this, although I didn't understand that fact either). The entire place was like a palace from one of my dreams. My mom then told me that we would be moving far away, and the nice mare was going to be giving her a new job, and soon we'd have our own house. My faith in my mom had never been in doubt, nor had my faith in the fact that the world could be like a dream. This was the foundation of who I was in the waking world.

Since then, I've been just a regular pony, living an ordinary life, doing all the typical things that everyday people do… except for a few itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie details.

---

My alarm clock woke me up, as it usually did, and I reached out a wing and tapped the top of it, as I usually did. When I did, the radio came on, as it always did. A happy-bouncy song from sometime in the nineteen-seventies or eighties started to play. I got up and stretched my legs, my wings, my neck, and my tail. I fluttered my ears a little and shook my head to clear my mane from my eyes. Then I hopped out of my bed and shook my rump in concert with the beat, singing as I walked to my window to see what the weather was like that day. It was bright blue skies, and I took the time to smile and greet the sun.

Still bouncing along to the rhythm, and adding some clumsy dance steps to the mix, I exited my room for the bathroom. I turned on the shower and continued to dance and hum my music within it, stopping my singing so I could brush my teeth. I couldn't hear the music that well over the running water, but that was okay. I could listen to music in my head. I finished with my shower and climbed out onto the waiting towel on the floor. I hit the button for the big blow dryer on the wall and let its warm airflow all over my fur, feathers, and mane for two minutes. I'm not sure if it would dry faster if I didn't spend my time dancing, but that wasn't going to stop me. I stood up on just my hind legs and shook my tail while the dryer got my chubby underside. I'm not the slimmest of ponies, and my two-legged dance didn't rank high on the list of graceful things in the world, but I didn't fall over. When I finally felt dry enough, I shut it down and went to brush my mane and fur, and preen my feathers.

I noted to myself it was almost time to empty my preening bin again, after adding a few more feathers to it and tried to remind myself that I needed to do that later, even though I had done the exact same thing yesterday. I'd get around to it sooner or later, but I had plans for today and wanted to be out and about soon.

The radio was on a timer and had just shut off. That brought a temporary halt to my dancing. How my belly stayed big was a mystery for the ages, because I enjoyed bouncing and dancing whenever I could, and got a lot of exercise as a result. I'd started putting on pounds back around the time I was twelve (I'd been scrawny as a young filly), and they only had gone up with the years. My big belly didn't bother me too much. In my view, it just made me more cuddly and huggable-- like a giant fuzzy marshmallow, but it would be nice to be a little more aerodynamic. People who saw me fly said I flew like a bumblebee, and I couldn't keep pace with other pegasi, or even keep up with leathery-winged night ponies for that matter. I was the slowest flyer that I knew.

I went back into my room and picked out a lovely purple ribbon from the open drawer of my dresser. It took a minute for me actually to get my mane into it. Humans and unicorns were so lucky. They could do this kind of thing easily with no help from anyone else, while I had to try to twist my body around in yoga positions to pull my mane back with a ribbon. My parents were probably already at work, so they weren't about to help. I hoped whoever I ended up getting as a roommate at the college would be willing to help me with this once I moved in.

Having gotten myself dressed (as much as I typically got dressed anyway), I went out to the kitchen. There was a note on the refrigerator:

Hi, my little sunshine,

I won't be home until an hour or two later than usual. I'm just getting some things done before my vacation time starts tomorrow. I left you and your father plenty of stuff to make salads, and you need to make enough for six because we're going to have some guests over tonight. I need to stress that these are really important guests, some of the most important we've ever had over, so be ready.

I expect you to lay off the ranch dressing; you're supposed to be on a diet, young lady! No sweet snacks either. Remember, we are supposed to be taking you to the doctor tomorrow-- you're going, no arguments-- so don't make any plans that will interfere with that.

I hope you have a fun day visiting the college, meeting who you'll be roommates with, and getting your books. Just be home in time to help your father prep dinner. I'll be sure not to be late.

Love Mom

The doctor's trip wasn't necessary. Mom had this idea that because I was going to be living in the dorms that I needed to be on birth control because being out on my own would suddenly turn me into a sex monster or something-- not to mention being sure I'd be trying marijuana and getting drunk, possibly joining a cult or something. I rolled my eyes at her unfounded fears, but whatever made my mom feel better. If she wanted me on birth control, it wasn't that big a deal, even if it was unnecessary. It did make me think to take a quick sniff under my tail since I'd forgotten to do so, and I didn't smell any of that time of month mare funk. I was pretty sure I was a few days away from that coming up again, but it could always come early or late. I'd put some deodorant on, just in case.

I wondered who the guests were. Maybe someone from either my mom or stepdad's work? We had guests on and off for dinner, but typically my mom told me who they were. This time she didn't even mention if they were humans or ponies, so I'd know how big of meals I should be making. My stepdad probably knew, but it left me wondering. He'd be back home before me. I'd give him a call before I came home to see if we needed anything from the store. He usually tried to spice up dinner a little more than mom did and might want to add something else to the menu.

After eating a pair of carrots for breakfast (and resisting the urge to grab a slice of very delicious looking fudge cake), I went back to my room to finish getting ready. Maggie should be calling soon to tell me she was on her way. It was a shame they couldn't have us as roommates, but in addition to being male and female dorms, the dorms were separated into pony housing and human housing, mainly so they could keep appropriate furniture in each room without having to move it around. It would be nice to be able to drive myself too, but seating for winged ponies was already restrictive in pony cars, and I found the driver's seat cramped and uncomfy. I'd dropped out of driver's ed the first day they had us get into a driver's seat.

Returning to my room, I put on my phone band and scrolled through the contacts using my feathers. I tapped the screen to give it an order to call Maggie and then waited while it rang.

"Hello?" Maggie's voice said groggily over the phone, quickly followed by a gasp. "Oh, crap! I'm sorry, Bec, I overslept."

I giggled. "It's okay. How long do you think you'll take to get ready?"

"Um, ah, give me an hour-- make that an hour-and-a-half. I want to make sure I don't show up at the school looking like a zombie. Sorry, I was up late, writing."

I shrugged, even if Maggie wouldn't see it. "Hey, have to ride that inspiration when it hits. Is that the Star Trek fanfiction you were writing before?" Maggie was a huge Trekie. They rebooted the Star Trek universe last year, and it had gotten trendy. It had some old characters, kept as the original races, and many new pony characters-- as well as some updates on the lore.

"Yeah, writing a love triangle between Picard, Riker, and Data."

"Ah, that's an interesting triangle," I replied, bemused. "Can't wait to read it." Maggie had a thing for shipping guys together. I rarely questioned it and tried not to laugh at her tastes.

"I'll give you a call when I'm about to leave. Sorry again, and see you soon."

Well, that left me with more than an hour with nothing to do. At the same time, it was an opportunity. No one was home, and no one was going to see me for at least an hour, if not more. That meant I could flex my abilities a little and not have my parents yell at me or have Maggie find out what I could do. I just had to be careful to make sure no one spotted me.

With a tap on the radio, I had music again; I winced when an old Twisted Sister song came on. I liked Twisted Sister, I liked most music from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, but it wasn't what I needed to get in the right mindset. I flipped the radio off, and instead pulled up something from my playlist on my phone-- an old Bob Dylan song, Hey Mr. Tambourine Man-- that was more the right vibe.

I sat and gently swayed in place with the mellow tones of Bob Dylan's voice, closing my eyes as I did. I let myself become more relaxed, reaching a point where I was neither truly asleep nor genuinely awake.

It didn't take long before I was sitting opposite myself, watching myself zone out in a trance at the music. I lifted a hoof to double-check myself and saw nothing. That was good; it meant that no one else could see me either, only the part of me seeing swaying in tune with the music. I gave myself an invisible smile and then willed myself upwards and through the ceiling.

I quickly moved through the crawl space and up through the roof to the bright morning air, as immaterial as a ghost. I was capable of making myself seen and heard if I wanted to be, but I was utterly incapable of touching anything. I'd tried doing this once during a flying competition since I could move extremely fast like this, but the other flyers had caught on that they weren't feeling any air gusts coming off my wings. I had to abort and disappear as soon as I found somewhere safe to disappear unnoticed. My mom had heard about it and had given me an earful about it. No one was supposed to know that I could do this. There were only a few ponies in the world who could, and all of them tended to keep quiet about being able to. It would draw unwanted attention to me if anyone found out. Not that I altogether avoided doing it. I just had to be careful.

I took the opportunity to gain some height so that I could see around my neighborhood. It was average suburbia, with all new housing that had gone up in the last few years. Far in the distance were the trees that gave the town its name, Skytree. What caught my attention was the house across the street from mine. It had movers moving things into it. That house had been empty for most of the last year, so it was nice to get new neighbors at last-- even if I would be moving off to the college dorms.

Letting curiosity get the better of me, I swooped down and took a closer look at the things that were being moved in. It seemed to be a mix of pony-sized things and human-sized, which indicated a mixed family-- like mine. I didn't see any toys or anything that would indicate foals. Everything was in darker colors. Some of the objects were kind of weird-looking, and it took me a little bit to figure out they were for someone who was physically disabled. I zipped around, passing straight through the movers, as I looked at various items.

My nosey search of my new neighbors' stuff came to an abrupt halt when a big multicolored seapony with wings appeared right between one of the movers and me. The mover didn't notice her, since she was even less there than I was, but it was kinda funny watching her finned tail go in and out of the human mover's arm.

"Spying, Rebecca?" Miss Seapony asked as she crossed her fins and raised an eyebrow.

I pretended to settle on a nearby couch, even if I couldn't touch it. "Just being curious. I won't use any information I gain, and won't mention to anyone what I've seen."

The mover walked through Miss Seapony and obscured my view of her briefly before she moved back through him to be seen. "You'll find out about these two tonight so that you can avoid spying. There's too much chance you'll learn something that will influence your opinion of them early. Just wait till tonight."

That made me frown. "I will? I thought you couldn't tell me things like that."

She smiled at me, she had fangs, but I never found them scary. "I can say when they are here at my behest."

Okay then. Only there was only one reason Miss Seapony would have asked someone to move here. "They're here because of me? Why?"

"You'll see," she replied nonchalantly. "Just be on good behavior, and try to make a good impression. They're here to protect your family."

That confused and worried me. "Why do we need bodyguards? No one knows about me. I'm not even anything to know about yet."

"Just taking early precautions," Miss Seapony replied. "I hate to sound too businesslike with you, as our friendship is real, but you're an investment, and protecting our investments is important. I want to ensure you and your family are safe when the time comes to cash in that investment, and we don't make any noticeable moves that would give you away when we do." Her expression turned sad. "I wouldn't want anything bad happening to you or your family, even if it wasn't tied to that. I love you like I love one of my own foals. If I could, I'd die again for your sake, if it came to that."

"Okay," I replied warily. I trusted Miss Seapony. I knew that whatever the reason, she'd never want me hurt. "Just don't let them get in the way of my groove."

My oldest friend laughed. "Your groove is safe. Now head home, and quit spying." My phantom friend then vanished.

I gave one last brief look around, and let off a non-existent sigh. Then I opened my eyes back up in my bedroom; the music had gone through two more songs on my playlist—still lots of time to waste before Maggie called. Maybe I could have just a tiny piece of cake without ruining my diet. I changed songs and danced back to the kitchen.

Author's Note:

Prologue:

In March of 2023, a flu pandemic, unlike any other, spread across the United States and then to the rest of the world. At first, it seemed like just regular garden variety flu, but it wasn't. 

The first warning that it wasn't normal was it didn't result in any deaths, even among the very weak or elderly. This was a good thing, but it was also a sign that this was not normal, as even weaker flu seasons always resulted in some deaths. The second warning was that those that recovered not only from flu but from other long-standing ailments. 

Then the changes started happening. Those that recovered from the flu began reporting their hair changing colors and their eyes changing colors. This was followed by growing tails, having ears change shape and location, fur started growing, and losing height. Over two weeks, and with accelerating pace, those who had caught the flu transformed from humans to equines—the earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, crystal ponies, and night ponies. It was called ETS, Equine Transformation Syndrome. 
Contact was made with Equestria, and it was discovered that a bioterrorist from Equestria seeking to make more ponies had been responsible. With the help of Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, ETS was brought to an end, but the damage had already been done. By the time it was brought to an end, there were over five-hundred million transformed worldwide, with over a hundred million of those in the United States alone. Some converted back to humans with the Equestrians' aid but most staunchly insisted on remaining ponies.

Since then, there has been a transition period where the Earth is adjusting to there now being two intelligent species that call it home. New powerful beings, the Dreamwardens, have arisen and taken claim and mastery of the new magical dream realm. New philosophies and religions have come into being. Magic is now considered reality, and politics, as they were before, have been upended. It is the post-pandemic works, and it is trying to establish a new normal. 

This is an ongoing series with multiple authors.

Comments

[badninja]

This could be interesting. Let’s see how life is going to go for her.

[Direct Access]

I had just opened it, but i am already severely repulsed by strong manipulating vibes and use of mature themes in E category fanfic.
Plus, i kinda don't like stories that assume you also know what they mean. Like requiring to read unrelated stories.

[Numinos]

Ah, so that's who this story about. Intriguing : )