Marshmallow Dreams

by Halira

Chapter 124: Sing the Songs of Our People

I could tell I was still alive, breathing heavily, but alive. I was aware of many things– dreams, more than I could count. Some of them stood out more, ponies who were lonely, misfits, and lots and lots of foals. I wanted to reach out to each of them. It was a powerful drive, and hard to resist. I needed to resist, I wasn't public yet

"Welcome, little sister," Miss Seapony lovingly said.

There was no avatar. There was nothing in the void, but I was aware of each of the others. They were all here with me. They were more than here with me; they were part of me. Not in any figurative sense, no, we were one being in multiple parts. Christian theology suddenly made a lot more sense in this context, not that I was converting.

"You aren't suddenly feeling the desire to have a wild sex party with your friends, are you, glutton?" Ghadab asked sardonically.

I normally would have objected right away to that, but considering what I'd just gone through, I needed to consider what I was feeling. I inherited stuff from the others, right? How did I feel about that suggestion?

"No," I answered after thinking about it. "I don't think I have any desire for orgies or wild sex with strangers. I actually think that is kinda gross. You could get some sort of disease doing that."

"Well, poo," Miss Seapony said with disappointment. "And it seems you got at least a little something from our human brother."

"Good. Someone else needs to care about sexually-transmitted diseases. My skin crawls just thinking about them," Avtandil said. His voice sounded like he said it with a shiver.

"She didn't get the libido. You owe me a song, Ghadab," Arbiter said smugly. "You know the one."

Ghadab sighed. "Right now? We didn't say when I would have to-"

"Do it, you flaming bush!" Arbiter commanded

"Fine," Ghadab snapped. "I'm a little teapot-"

"With appropriate av-at-ar," Arbiter hummed happily.

"You didn't seriously bet on whether she would inherit Yinyu's full libido, did you?" Psychic Calm asked tiredly.

"You bet we did!" Arbiter cackled. "If I lost, I would have to sing one of his silly prayers to Allah, but I won, and now he has to be a nice little teapot."

"I do have a much stronger desire to do nasty things in bed with my boyfriend than I did before. Does that count?" I asked, hoping to spare at least some of Ghadab's dignity. I wasn't lying, not that I could. Part of my mind was going through a series of very x-rated fantasies about what Russell and I could do. There was a lot of chocolate and licking involved. That was certainly new and not entirely unwelcome.

"That has to count for something," Ghadab pleaded.

Arbiter grumbled. "You get out of the avatar, but I still want the song. You aren't getting out of this without a song. I crave music."

"Does it count as music coming from Ghadab?" Phobia asked in a bored tone.

"Close enough," Arbiter answered.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Ghadab lamented. "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout. Tip me over and pour me out!"

This was not how I pictured my first few moments as a Dreamwarden. I honestly couldn't say this was in any of my fantasies about how this would play out. If anyone was going to be singing, it would have been me.

"That was beautiful, brother. If I had eyes, that would have brought tears to them," Miss Seapony said.

"Tears of pain, maybe. That was horribly off-key," Avtandil said. "Did you need to punish us all with that, sister?"

"It was soooo worth it!" Arbiter giggled. "But he's right, Ghadab; never sing again."

I felt a dark disturbance in the dream realm.

"Oh! Where's there's a whip, there's a way! Where there's a whip, there's a way! Where-"

"Don't you dare, Ghadab!" Arbiter hissed. Of course, Ghadab would sing something Lord of the Rings related. He had an obsession with that story.

I couldn't leave my new brother hanging.

"We don't want to go to war today! But the lord of the lash says nay nay nay!"

Miss Seapony joined in. "A crack on the back says, we're going to fight. We're going to march all day and night and more-"

"See what you started!" Avtandil shouted. "Was it worth it, Arbiter?! And now there's three of them who will indulge in this nonsense!"

"I'd rather be singing a good old hobbit song, but what's a pony to do?" I innocently asked.

"Hahaha!" Ghadab cackled. "The glutton is growing on me!"

"Perhaps you should consider getting that removed if true," Phobia said.

"Et tu, Phobia?" Arbiter asked sorrowfully. "They are destroying music!"

"I think that song is meant to be sung terribly, and on a loop. My mother once told me she and her sisters sang it during the car ride through Kansas when leaving Colorado," Phobia said.

"Sunset Blessing's villainy is greater than I realized," Avtandil cried.

"If you are all done blowing off the stress that had built up while worrying about my replacement's ability to keep breathing through the binding, perhaps we should get down to some serious business," Psychic Calm said.

"Was it that bad?" I asked.

"We were afraid you were going to have a heart attack. Diet, Rebecca, starting today," Miss Seapony said firmly.

"I'm not making promises I can't hold to, but I will be calling someone about dance classes. I was told they are excellent workouts," I replied. My friends and family must have been extremely worried, maybe still worried. I felt out in the dream realm. I didn't need any explanation on how to do it; it was instinctual. I felt none of my friends' minds. Nobody had fainted I suppose. Well, Russell or Maggie could have. Since they had no magic I would have no way of knowing until I woke up. My parents were a possibility too. Living Dreamwardens had a hard time finding dreams outside their species.

"Exercise is better than nothing," Avtandil conceded.

"Getting to business," Psychic Calm said. "I have had a plane waiting ready to leave for New York for the last few days. Weather permitting, I can leave within the next hour and be through the portal by noon. News crews can be alerted. The government has already made a list of select press passes to issue to cover my departure."

"If you don't run into any charity cases before then like Krik did," Arbiter said with annoyance. "His decision to take pity on that filly caused it to be almost a week where there were seven of us. I'm shocked that the government didn't take issue with us."

"The Saudis didn't like it. They made quite a lengthy speech about it, bordering on calling a jihad," Avtandil said disparagingly. "It's the first time I ever heard them and the Iranis make a joint statement in agreement on something."

"Who cares?" Ghadab asked dismissively. "Those countries are already practically in jihad against ponies. The entire Muslim world shames Allah."

"We want to make some headway in trying to undo that hate and that incident didn't help," Avtandil said crossly.

"They were just looking for an excuse to complain. You didn't speak up at the time, germaphobe," Ghadab growled.

"I was freshly raised! I didn't want to overstep myself," Avtandil angrily fired back.

"Let's just try to avoid another such incident," Arbiter said.

"If I trip over any half-feral fillies on my way out, I will have someone wash them up and send them after me when they've been thoroughly disinfected, I promise," Psychic Calm said.

"Was that a joke, Psychy Wikie?" Miss Seapony purred.

"I mean what I say," Psychic Calm said in a calm monotone.

"Ooohhh, I'm going to miss your emotion-filled voice," Miss Seapony said mournfully.

"He speaks in a monotone," Ghadab muttered.

"It's a calm emotion, and I'm going to miss it!" Miss Seapony cried.

"Do you want me to make an avatar for you to hug?" Psychic Calm asked, still very monotone.

Miss Seapony appeared within the void, not as a seadragon, but as a regular night pony with fur the color of an overripe orange. "Yes, please," she whimpered.

Psychic Calm appeared, again, as a night pony, this one with fur like burnt toast. Miss Seapony immediately threw herself against him, hugging him with her wings and forelegs. They were not by themselves for long. Phobia and Ghadab's night pony forms immediately joined in the hug. A moment later, Arbiter's pony form appeared and wrapped her feathery wings around the rest.

"Oh, alright," Avtandil said.

A man appeared, I knew it was him, but for the first time, he was not wearing any mask, goggles, or gloves. He had a rather plain, chubby face, with a small scar on his chin that was barely noticeable, short dark hair, and brown eyes. He walked through the void to them and gently, almost hesitantly laid a hand on the group. Was his fear of germs so strong that even gently touching others in a dream takes a great force of will?

Phobia Remedy looked up at me. "I know you are a new member of the family, but you are welcome to join us. Psychic Calm is your brother too. There's a chance this is your last opportunity to see him."

"Don't worry about intruding, I cried for Sha'am when she departed and joined in the lament for her. I had hated her up until I became a Dreamwarden, but losing one of us, even having been a Dreamwarden for only hours, felt like losing part of myself," Arbiter said.

"I had thought they were exaggerating, but Krik's departure to Equestria felt like part of my soul suddenly went missing," Avtandil softly said. "If you look at my memories, you'll know how I felt. I hated him, but I cried."

I remembered. Avtandil had been a hacker, living in Tbilisi. There had been a human with mind magic that had used his magic to seduce women, including his younger sister. The men of the city had realized what this human had been doing, and vigilante groups had been raised to seek the seducer out and enact their own justice. Avtandil had been the ringleader of one of these groups, organizing and directing from his computer. They captured their prey and brought him before Avtandil, but as Avtandil was about to enact his justice, the OMMR raided their base, seized the human that had seduced and raped Avtandil's sister (along with many other women and girls).

Avtandil tried to stop them. He didn't trust the justice of the OMMR, and he turned the vigilante efforts towards the OMMR, directing raids from his room to retake the villain and punish him. This went on for days, and the vigilantes enacted a lot of damage to the OMMR and their efforts. However, the OMMR eventually located where he was operating from, and decided to cut off the head of the band.

He was dragged into a warehouse and put down on his knees before Krik. Avtandil had shouted obscenities at the Dreamwarden, and Krik sat in silence, not flinching, not batting an eye as Avtandil exhausted himself. When Avtandil had shouted so much that he was gasping for breath, the seducer was then dragged into the room.

Before Avtandil could react, the seducer pulled a jagged piece of tile from his sleeve and charge Krik. Krik sat impassively as the seducer came close, then at the last minute, Krik jumped into the air, bucked the villain in the face, and came down hard on the human, ramming a hoof into the seducer's neck so hard he shattered the man's windpipe. Avtandil watched as the man died on the floor and Krik wretched and vomited in a corner. Krik could never handle violence well, but when called upon, he was among the most brutal there was.

Avtandil was merely fifteen at the time, and teenagers have complex and often complex and contradictory emotions. The seducer was dead, but Avtandil had been denied being able to carry out his vengeance himself. He detested Krik for stealing what he felt was his right, and found the breath to shout obscenities at that night pony as Krik continued to empty his stomach in a corner, adding to Avtandil's contempt. He had been a germaphobe even then, a side effect of having lived in fear of ETS, and then catching ETS on the last day of the pandemic. The warehouse was filthy and the night pony was vomiting, add that to his anger at his lost vengeance and the teenage mind twisted that into hate for Krik.

A guard walked in front of the yelling Avtandil and tossed a manilla folder at him. He instructed him to read. Curiosity overriding obstence, he did. It detailed a series of strange emotional attacks that had been occurring in Krakow, Poland– many young girls had been hurt. The guard smirked and asked him what he was going to do about it.

And so Avtandil was conscripted into the OMMR. He hated Krik, but he did the night pony's bidding, helping track down dangerous mind magic users, and organizing teams to capture them. There was none more shocked than he when years later he was told he was among the candidates to replace Krik when the aging once-KGB agent retired.

All of this memory I recalled in a mere fraction of a second, as vivid as if it had happened to me. I could do the same with the important life events of all the other Dreamwardens as well, and through a thousand little memories and moments my sense of love for Psychic Calm, my brother, grew, and so did that love grow for all the others too. I had not been there for these events, but my memories of them were vivid, and what they had endured over the years, both joyous events and tragedies, I endured as well.

Overcome with emotion, I created an avatar of myself and through myself into the group hug. Then the crying began. I don't know who started the crying, but it spread rapidly, and before long, we were all crying. Our brother was leaving!

We hugged for some time, feeling sorrowful feelings, but also love for one another. It was kind of cozy, even if none of this was physically happening.

"We don't hug enough. Why don't we hug more?" Ghadab said with contentment.

"You're in a pleasant mood," Arbiter observed.

"Very pleasant, very happy," Ghadab hummed.

I remembered something important. "You know, I've got a funny story to tell."

"I like funny stories," Ghadab said, still seeming very content.

"While I was being bound, I ran into Sha'am Maut," I said, sounding as casual as I could about it.

Ghadab shifted seemingly starting to get uncomfortable. "I don't remember any particularly funny stories from our bitch sister's life."

"This is more funny-weird than funny-haha," I clarified.

He tried to settle back into the hug. "We all experience past moments and memories from each other and Dreamwardens who are long gone. It is not weird to experience some memories of hers. I recall much of her life. Don't make me think of it; it ruins the vibe."

"Yeeeaahh," I replied, trying to figure out how to lay this down gently. "I did experience a memory of hers during my focus, a surprisingly happy one for her, but then a few parts of the focus later I had an actual chat with her very aware and very aware of my soul– you know, the part of her tucked away in Moses's head?"

"Glutton, is this where I start to dislike you again?" Ghadab growled.

"I hope not. We're going to be spending a lot of time together," I answered.

Everyone broke from the hug but kept our avatars going, still in the same forms. We didn't have anyone to impress here.

Arbiter gave me a concerned look. "I guess our happy moment is spoiled. Let's cut to the chase. Rebecca, what did you do?"

"Um, well…" I had an idea. I was a Dreamwarden, I could just give them a full view of the memory. I willed it into existence against the void and everyone watched it like they'd watch a movie.

When it ended. Psychic Calm rubbed his chin with a wing. "That could have been much worse. I don't like that an Oath has been added without thorough debate, but this is for the rest of you to determine how to deal with. I will not have any bearing on such decisions."

Phobia nodded. "We understand. I don't see any immediate harm to the Oath. I had considered proposing a much more severe Oath, but was unsure of proper wording."

"It adds a vulnerability to us," Arbiter said. "There is another way for mortals to defeat any Dreamwarden Rebecca passes that Oath onto, doubt."

"Is another way to defeat us a bad thing to have around?" Phobia asked.

"And you shouldn't refer to them as mortals. I'm mortal and very much intend on staying that way. Even you have a lifespan, sister," Avtandil reminded her.

"Yinyu and Ghadab don't, and mine is self-imposed, but point taken," Arbiter conceded. She fluffed her wings absently. "We still need time to consider whether Rebecca should be allowed to pass on this Oath or if it should begin and end with her. Luckily, we have time. I don't think you are retiring within the next few years, Phobia."

Avtandil coughed, a completely unnecessary gesture for a dream avatar, and everyone looked at him. "I might be next in line…not very soon, but I might go before Phobia. The thought of dying and ending up in your state frankly terrifies me, and there are so many diseases and viruses out there. I intend to fulfill the mission entrusted to me first, and that will take years yet, but I might go before Phobia, depending on how soon she feels like going."

"I want to meet my grandfoals before I go and see them develop their unique personalities. My foals are barely teens, so it won't be soon. You all know my current preferred replacement is still but a toddler," Phobia replied. "I don't mind you skipping me in place, brother. I understand your fear."

"This Oath only impacts Rebecca for now, so let's table discussion of it until we are closer to needing to talk about the next Dreamwarden to be raised," Miss Seapony said.

"Agreed," Phobia said with a nod. "Moving on to the next business, we won't have time to gather the world leaders we agreed to inform about the identity of our new sister, but my sister-in-law has a stage set up and we can do a video introduction of Rebecca with a secure government channel. If Psychic Calm is leaving by noon New York time, I propose doing Rebecca's introduction an hour later."

"Can we push that back another hour?" I asked. "I don't want to rush to finish my lunch."

Phobia curled an eyebrow at me. "How about I ask Wild Growth to have lunch prepared for your arrival and you arrive early?"

"That works," I replied. Wild Growth's food had to be better than cafeteria food.

"That's settled. So only three points remain that need to be addressed, and only you can address them, Rebecca," Arbiter said.

Yea for pressure. "Okay, what are those?"

Phobia answered for her. "First, we need you to decide if you are staying in college for your full four years or not. We had anticipated that would be your intent, but we need confirmation from you that this is so. We don't know if your mind changed on the matter after the binding. It means some extra work for me for the next four years, but nothing I can't deal with."

"I'd like to finish my degree if that's alright," I answered. "I can help out if you need me to. My duties are more important than my degree."

Phobia waved it off. "Finish your degree. You can do your regular Dreamwarden duties while asleep without interfering with that, but be ready for me to run you ragged after you graduate."

Well, that was something to look forward to.

"Don't get it in your head that Miss Nightmares can boss you around," Miss Seapony said briskly. "She is not the boss of you. We're all equals here. You can object to or refuse any request she or any of the rest of us makes, or make your own requests of us– which we can agree to or refuse. The only thing you absolutely have to do against your will is anything that we all voted on since votes are binding, but I don't see us having many votes like that. Despite how some of us try to dictate how the rest of us will do things, there is no leader here."

I smiled at her. "I'll keep that in mind." I looked at Arbiter and Phobia. "What're the next two things?"

"We'll need you to come up with a speech for the leaders," Arbiter answered. "Nothing fancy. You just need to introduce yourself, give your title, tell what you generally intend to do as Dreamwarden, that sort of thing. It's a courtesy. You'll need that for your introduction tomorrow. What is your title?"

I raised my head proudly. "I am The Marshmallow, Warden of Creativity!"

"You're really going with Marshmallow, glutton?" Ghadab asked.

"The Marshmallow," I answered, stressing the first word. I turned into a big puffy marshmallow version of myself.

Ghadab rolled his eyes. "Is that going to be your go-to avatar? It's accurate at least. You do know you are supposed to look different than your physical form, right?"

I giggled but kept the avatar as it was. "I can come up with something. I'll see if Blanche can help me write it so it sounds formal enough. What else?"

Miss Seapony looked away. "Last, but not least, you might want to wake up. My agents tell me that there is a standoff going on around your sleeping body. They've had to step in."

My eyes widened. "Why wasn't that the first thing to mention!" I didn't wait for a response; I willed myself awake.

Comments

[Kairee]

The dynamic between them is... really interesting. The entire gamut of emotions. Kin and family; yet different.

And so Rebecca is finally Named. That is going to lead to some doubletakes.

[badninja]

I hope her friends laugh when they find out about her avatar.

[Chrome Masquerade]

Sing the Songs of our People

Reminds me of

https://m.