Marshmallow Dreams

by Halira

Chapter 17: Continuing to Dream

Questions are powerful things. Someone asking a question can change the course of history. What would the world be like if no one ever asked how do we get across that big body of water? Or whoever first asked is this fair? Or why don't we dunk our cookies into some milk? These are little things, but they lead to much bigger things. When I was a young filly I asked a question, and it changed the course of my life.

I was dreaming, and having a cloud party. What's a cloud party? That's when you invite all the clouds over and have cake and ice cream of course. What else would a cloud party be? All the clouds were wearing top hats and monocles, because that made it a high class party. I was sitting on a floating toadstool in the sky, having a conversation with Mister Storm Cloud and Mister Cumulonimbus about important things like whether tabby cats or orange cats were cuter kittens, when Miss Seapony arrived at my party and grabbed a large chunk of pineapple left-side-up cake and ranch dressing ice cream.

She gobbled down her food as she came over to me one mighty bite. She licked her muzzle and raised an eyebrow at me. "Salad dressing as ice cream? It works in a dream, but I'm not sure it would work in the waking world."

I giggled. "But ranch dressing is great! How is the cake?"

The massive dream avatar turned it around in her mouth. "Tastes like pineapple. Although it definitely looked different."

Mister Cumulonimbus reached a cloudy appendage up and adjusted his monocle and top hat. "Miss Seapony. Perhaps you can settle this pressing discussion. Which is cuter, an orange kitten or a tabby kitten?"

She spread her fins wide. "The orange kitten, although I'm biased. My fur is orange, so I am partial to the color."

I examined her closely. "But Miss Seapony, you don't have any fur. You just have scales."

"Well, I don't keep it with me here, but in the waking world I have orange fur and a red mane," my friend explained, and then created a cup of tea and sipped from it.

One of my ears flicked. "You look different when you're awake?"

She nodded to me, and looked at the two clouds. "I wanted to clarify that tabby kittens are cute as well. I think it depends on the owner. If you love your kitten you will find it cute no matter what."

"Hear, hear! Wise words, Miss Seapony," Mister Storm Cloud said with a pump of his puff. He then started leaking rain, and reached down to cover himself. "Oh my, how embarrassing."

I didn't pay much attention to my dream friend as he tittled. I was more focused on what Miss Seapony said. "Why do you look different?"

She smiled at me. "Because I'm a Dreamwarden and I choose to. Ponies need to recognize that I'm something different here in the dream realm. If I appeared in my waking body I would look pretty normal. In the waking world I am very normal, but here I'm something extraordinary. This is the true me, the extraordinary me."

"Can I be extraordinary?" I asked.

"You are extraordinary, Rebecca. Don't doubt that," Miss Seapony assured me.

I shook my head. "But I'm not like you. You can be whatever you want here. You can visit anyone, anywhere. You know everything."

She raised a fin in objection. "Not everything, and knowing things is not all it's made out to be, especially when you can't use that knowledge. You should be happy being yourself."

"But if I was like you I could help make everyone happy," I countered.

The massive seapony froze in place and then drew close to me, looking me in the eyes. "Is that so? Is that what you would do with power such as mine? Just find ways of bringing joy?"

I looked her in the eyes, unafraid. "Yes! I like people being happy. People being happy makes me happy. You've always been really nice to me, and I'd never have met you if you couldn't do all the cool things you do. There have to be a lot of other people that need to have a friend, but I can't meet. You can meet them."

She pulled back, grabbed Mister Storm Cloud, and sat on him. "I'm friendlier than my brothers and sisters, but we have a history people do not forget. I have been a monster in my time, and people will never forget that."

"Well, I'd be something friendly, and try to be everyone's friend," I insisted, giving my wings a quick snap to punctuate my words.

"Some people would not want to be your friend. What if they didn't?" Miss Seapony questioned.

My ears sagged. "I wouldn't make them do what they didn't want to do, so I guess I'd leave those ones alone. I'd still try to be friends with anyone that wanted a friend."

"What if you had to choose?" She continued. "There are a lot of people in the world, and only so much of you to go around. Even I can only reach so many people at once, unless I die, which I'm not so keen on doing. What if you had to choose?"

My ears sagged further. "Um, I don't know. I guess try to pick out the ones that needed me most."

Miss Seapony flicked her tail against the cloud, making Mister Storm Cloud rain even more. "And what does the world get out of it? All the power of a Dreamwarden being used just to make a few people happy seems like an underuse of power. Miss Nightmares makes Sha'am find aid for those in danger of dying. She does this on a grand scale. Mister Potty-Mouth says that he has big plans once he dies to help victims and law enforcement. Wouldn't those be a better use of power?"

"Those are good things," I agreed, "but one person can make a difference. Maybe being that friend that person needed makes them better, and they make other things better for everyone else because of that. Friendship changes everything."

My friend just sat silently watching me. Mister Storm Cloud spoke up from below her. "Don't mind me down here. I'm happy to be providing a service."

"You are doing an excellent job, my friend. Even if you are wrong about tabby kittens," Mister Cumulonimbus said as he adjusted his hat again.

Miss Seapony glanced at the cloud in the top hat and smirked. "I do love your dreams, Rebecca. We are having a serious discussion, yet your dreams seem unimpeded by it. There's something to be said about never losing your dreams." She focused on me. "Something to be said indeed. You dream so simple yet so big. Perhaps one day we will see how your dreams turn out. I must be going for now. I have much to think about."

Little did I know at the time that I had set myself on a path that few ever walked. Just by asking a question, being asked a question back, and giving the answer in my heart. I asked if I could be like Miss Seapony, and so I would be given my chance to be.

---

Julie opened the door to the dorm room and smiled at me. "There you are! I was wondering when you'd finally drop by today. Come on in. Nightscape's here too, but she's sleeping. Don't worry about keeping quiet, she'll sleep straight through anything."

I stepped in and looked at the curtains middle bunk of the triple bunk bed. "Are you sure? I don't want to be rude and wake her up."

Julie waved one of her wings. "Believe me. We had a clogging team practice down the hall once, mostly earthly ponies. It was so loud I could barely hear myself think, and Greta got so many complaints she had to tell them to leave. But Nightscape... slept right on through the entire thing like it didn't even happen. If she could sleep through that she’s not going to wake up from any noise you’ll make."

I giggled. "Guess night ponies are just deep sleepers."

She nodded to me, but raised up a wing to cover a whisper. "Fair warning, don't try to prank her in her sleep. I once tried to set a prank up right over her as she was sleeping, and she woke straight up and smacked me silly with her wings. Those things hurt! Anyway, she doesn't wake up to normal noise, just tunes it out, but if there's anything her brain registers as 'wrong' she'll be up and wide awake in a second; normally ready to attack something and ask questions later."

"She won't get that way with having a new roommate walking around the room, will she?" I asked, giving her bed another concerned look.

Julie shook her head. "Naw, she didn't have a problem with me last year when I was the new one, or our old roommate before she graduated, and Felicia was always either streaming videos or playing music with no headphones. Nightscape's brain is kind of wired to be expecting roommates to be walking around, talking, and generally making noise."

I relaxed and stopped worrying about keeping my voice down. "Alright. How are you doing today? So far I've crashed into the building, got my birth control prescription, and met some new friends, including a partial. I also met our RA, Greta, but I'm not sure if she likes me yet. Meeting a griffin and a partial on the same day was really great."

Julie blinked. "What a thorough report. My day hasn't been half as interesting. Just took a morning flight after I woke up, and have been lounging around here waiting for you to show up since then. You said you crashed into the building?"

"Don’t worry, it happens all the time. Just some broken feathers, no big deal."

She used one of her huge wings to lift one of my wings up. After a quick inspection of my wing she let my wing go and gave a small frustrated whinny. "Take it from an athlete, you need to take better care of your feathers. You said you have trouble flying as it is, don't make it worse by dismissing broken feathers. You may think it’s not a big deal to break a few, but we need them. They're part of what helps channel our magic, like hundreds of little unicorn horns."

"Night ponies fly fine without feathers, better than me," I countered.

Julie shook her head. "Night pony wings work differently than ours. They are designed to work without feathers. Our wings are designed to work with feathers, and we need healthy feathers to be at our peak performance."

"I just end up crashing a lot," I explained. "I'm supposed to fly a certain amount every day, right? I can't really avoid breaking feathers if I do that and crash. It's not my fault, it's my magic; I have MPDS."

She cocked her head. "What in the heck is MPDS?" She then took a few steps back. "It isn't contagious, is it?"

I shook my head. "It is what I was kind of telling you about before. MPDS is short for Magical Prepubescent Dreamwalking Syndrome. It means that my magic is all blahflablahba because I started dreamwalking too young."

"Is blahflablahba a scientific term?"

I lifted my head high. "It should be!"

She lifted up one one of my wings again and gave it another critical look. "Be that as it may, you aren't making things any easier with all these damaged feathers. I have special oils for my feathers you can try. They help keep feathers from breaking under stress. That's helpful for ponies like me who really push my wings hard, but you might benefit from them too. It might not stop all the crashes, but it might help reduce the number a little."

I raised my left wing up and looked at it. I did end up having to preen a lot of feathers every day (which reminded me I needed to dump my feather bin still). My flying would never be perfect, but any improvement was improvement. Plus, having more feathers in good shape just looked better in general, and though I wasn’t known for my conventionally good looks I still had some personal pride. I was still a pegasus, and pegasus with no ego at all wasn't much of a pegasus.

"Sure," I replied as I lowered my wings. Then realized I had gotten distracted. "Um, can you tell me all about it the day after tomorrow when I actually move in. I was just stopping by to get my key. I told my friend I'd be back in less than an hour, but then I almost flew into the Remembrance Monument, and there was the crash into the building, and then I talked to Russell, and then talked to Greta, and now I’m talking to you. I need to hurry or she'll finish lunch without me!"

"Oh my! That would be a tragedy!" Julie said in mock horror, looking at my extra padding with a smirk. She still walked over to a nearby desk and scooped up a key off it with her wing. It was a typical pony door key, which means they are a little bigger than human door keys just to make them easier to manipulate. My mom calls them toddler training keys, but I don't know why. The key passed from her wing to mine, and I stuffed it in my little carry pouch.

"This key is mainly for the start of the semester and as a backup," Julie explained. "In about a week Greta will come by and program the lock to read your cutie mark if you bump it against a certain part of the door. They wait to make sure everybody is moved in first before they send RAs out to set that up. Keep the physical key on you after that, because if power goes out or if you are really dirty the scan thing doesn't work. Not sure how it tells what it's scanning to tell the truth, but it can tell the difference between a real cutie mark and a fake."

I nodded. "Okay, well, I'll get flying then. Can I go out from the balcony?"

She gave me a flat look. "Yeah, I have it unlocked while I'm here, but are you sure? You said you tend to crash."

"Not every time," I answered as I headed towards the balcony.

"Knock yourself out then." She paused as if considering what she just said, and then lifted a hoof. "Don't knock yourself out! Have a nice, safe, and happy landing!"

I was already out the door to the balcony. It was wide enough for maybe four ponies to sit comfortably, or one pony and another pony with their wings spread out. Wiggling my rump, I jumped into the air, beating my wings just hard enough to get me over the edge of the railing. I evened them out so I could simply glide down. My path did try to dip and sag a little, but I was able to adjust my weight so it more or less evened out. As I got down near the ground I did a few beats of my wings to try to slow down and lowered my legs.

My legs came down and I wanted to jump for joy at my perfect landing. Take that expectations! However, there's this little thing called momentum I had forgotten about.

TROTTA TROTTA SHISHH SPLAT!

Well, I hadn't crashed while flying. I'd crashed while trying to slow down on the ground, doing an awkward canter, and then planting my face in the grass. I casually observed that this was very well kept grass, so nice, green, and soft. Whoever kept care of it deserved a raise.

I picked myself up and shook the loose grass out of my fur and feathers. Time to go run and see if I could still get lunch.

Comments

[Chrome Masquerade]

"Here here! Wise words, Miss Seapony," Mister Storm Cloud said with a pump of his puff. He then started leaking rain, and reached down to cover himself. "Oh my, how embarrassing."

That would be 'Hear, Heat!'

[Kek lel]

I love this story

[PonyofEntropy]

Awesome update. Keep up the good work. Enjoying the story greatly.