• Published 30th Mar 2020
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Marshmallow Dreams - Halira



Rebecca Riddle seems to be your typical human-turned-pegasus in a world of both humans and ponies, but she has a secret double life, and there is nothing typical about her other life.

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Chapter 4: Things We Just Don't Talk About

When I was eleven years old, someone important to me died.

I was in my friend Mandy's dream. Mandy and I had lived next door from one another in Virginia, one of the many places my mom's big boss had made us live, and then later move away from. We did get to eventually settle for good in Skytree, but there were a lot of places in between where we had started and Skytree. Each one of those came with more friends that I had to say goodbye to. Mom told me that we were going to be getting our forever home eventually, but sometimes dreams took some time to come completely true. I could accept that. I accepted a lot of things, but I always hated saying goodbye.

It was a normal sort of night. Miss Seapony hadn't been around when I first fell asleep, but that wasn't unusual; Miss Seapony didn't always show up. Because my family moved around so much she had taught me two years before how to dreamwalk, so I could visit all my old friends still after I moved. There had been a lot of time teaching me how to find each of my friends' dreams, and I had been told that I wasn't to go visiting other people's dreams without her there, or the angel lady would show up and send me back to my own dreams. I kind of wanted to meet the angel lady, but I didn't want to be sent back to my own dreams either. That was like being sent to my room without dinner, which was just about the most awful thing I could think of.

Mandy was my age, and had just gotten her cutie mark, a needle and thread over an outspread wing. Mandy had learned how to sew using her wings, and was telling me all about it. I was listening with joy and enthusiasm, telling her how happy I was for her, and daydreaming about the day I might get my own cutie mark, when Miss Seapony came.

I didn't notice Miss Seapony at first, Mandy did. Mandy jumped away and screamed, and I turned to see my best friend. Miss Seapony looked faded, tired, not her normal self at all. I could tell that there was something wrong. First I had to take care of Mandy.

I went over to Mandy and rubbed a wing against her, while she stared in horror at my other friend. "Don't worry, Mandy. This is Miss Seapony, she's my friend. She's the one that taught me how to talk to you in dreams."

"She's big, and she has s-sharp teeth," Mandy whimpered, pointing a wing at Miss Seapony accusingly. "That's not a pony, that's a monster!"

Miss Seapony actually flinched at what Mandy said, which is something I couldn't imagine her doing. She then shrank her size down, so she was no bigger than me or Mandy. That seemed to calm Mandy down a little, but not completely.

The fact Miss Seapony looked so sad was getting too much for me. Mandy seemed calm enough, for the moment. I hurried over to Miss Seapony. Mandy would understand that Miss Seapony wasn't a monster when she saw me talking to her.

"Miss Seapony, what's wrong? You look sad, or hurt. You don't look right."

Miss Seapony stared at me, and I could see tears in her eyes. "I've had a very bad day today, Rebecca. I can say with perfect honesty that it was the worst day of my life, and there will never be another day of my life that will be worse."

I went up to my oldest friend and gave her a big hug. Miss Seapony seemed surprised, but embraced me as well. She laid her head on my shoulder, and did something that she'd never done before and has never done since, she started sobbing. She sobbed so hard that her whole body shook, and I could feel her tears on my fur. It was just a dream, but it was as real as anything in the waking world.

"What's wrong with her?" Mandy asked. She crept forward, concern outweighing fear. It was hard to be afraid of a monster that was sobbing like that.

"I don't know," I replied, then hugged my friend tighter. "What's wrong?"

Miss Seapony drifted out of my grip. By drifting out of my grip I mean she became immaterial and there simply wasn't any way of gripping her. She sat back and looked at me, wiping her eyes with a fin. "I think we should go see your mother before I tell you. This is not going to be an easy thing, and I think she should be there when I tell you."

I had never dreamwalked to my mom before. I understood that I probably wasn't going to be the one dreamwalking her tonight; Miss Seapony was going to be taking me into her dreams.

"Say goodbye to your friend, Rebecca," Miss Seapony instructed. "You can see her again tomorrow."

I looked over at my still wary friend. "Sorry, Mandy, I've got to go. I'll see you again soon."

Mandy crept a little closer, but came sort of the distance she needed to hug me. "Just don't get eaten!"

I didn't get time to reply back, as Miss Seapony whisked us away. We were suddenly in a different dream, that felt a little funny. It's hard to say what felt funny about it. It was like a constant sound just outside my ability to hear, or a breeze on my feathers that wasn't there, or like something was always right outside my field of vision.

Miss Seapony caught onto my discomfort. "This is a human dream. Human dreams operate on a different, let's say frequency, than pony dreams do. You can feel that difference while in it. The magic attached to this dream is very weak, and you won't be able to find this dream again without me. Until today, I wouldn't have been able to find this dream either."

The dream didn't seem to be anything. I just saw fog. "Where's my mom?"

"We are on the edge of the dream. I am waiting for a friend to explain things to your mom before I take you to see her."

"Oh," that was all the reply I could think of. Miss Seapony's depressed mood had me really worried about her. She was never like this, and she was my friend. I wanted her to be happy.

The fog suddenly dissipated, showing what looked like the front door of my house. "We can go forward now. She should be waiting. Arbiter has alerted her of our arrival."

"Who's Arbiter?" I asked, as we approached the door.

"The angel lady," Miss Seapony replied. "She's my younger sister Dreamwarden, and she has tended more to dreams like this one since joining our ranks, dreams that don't have much magic."

"Is she going to be there?" I had never met the angel lady.

"She is always around, as I am now, but she is going to be keeping out of sight. This is a personal conversation, that she has no desire to intrude upon. She likes to be in the background, giving aid unseen, unless something requires her to speak directly to a dreamer."

"Oh," I replied again.

We went through the door into what looked like our living room, except with just the tiny bit off being off that said this was a dream; light that came from nowhere, none of the little imperfections the room normally had, and some details missing or different. My mom was there sitting on the couch, and she turned and looked at us as we entered.

"Hello, Miss Riddle, you know who I am," Miss Seapony stated, not making it a question.

My mom squeezed her hands tightly together. "You're Yinyu Wu Yan. I guess it's nice to meet our benefactor at last."

I looked up at my friend, ears flattened. "What's she mean, benefactor?"

Miss Seapony looked down at me and brushed a fin against my mane. "Years ago, I saw the situation you and your mother were in, when you were homeless. I had to obtain your permission to seek help for it, you might not recall me doing so, since you were so small. Once I had it, I asked one of my sisters to request the aid of Wild Growth, as a personal favor. She was the one that gave your mother her job."

"Oh," I said yet again. I smiled up at her. "That was really nice of you! You must help lots of people like that."

To my shock, Miss Seapony shook her head. "Unfortunately, the world is far too big, with too much suffering, to help everyone so much. And you're so very special Rebecca, that I need to admit, I had an ulterior motive for helping you at the time, but it no longer seems to have any meaning."

"What were you trying to get out of my daughter?" My mom said, her voice was harsh, like she was angry. I was confused, why was my mom angry?

"An heir," Miss Seapony said quietly. "I saw in your daughter all the qualities that I wanted in whoever succeeded me. She could be trained and prepared for years, so she could be more ready than any who came before to step into the job. A smooth transition to a better, kinder Dreamwarden, when I chose to move on to Equestria. She would have to accept it, of course, but I had such high hopes."

My mom's tone didn't lighten. "You say that in the past tense. Has she displeased you? Are you just going to cast her aside as useless now?"

"No, she has only continued to verify what I first saw in her," Miss Seapony replied. She then sank low to the floor. "What has changed is I am no longer going to be able to move onto Equestria. It will no doubt be on the news when you awaken. I have brought Rebecca here because I need to tell her what has happened to me, and it's a very hard subject, one that you should be present for. I am trapped in the dream realm forever now. Do you understand why that kind of thing happens, Miss Riddle?"

My mom looked confused for a moment, then brought her hand up to her mouth with a gasp. "Oh my! I…I don't know what to say."

Miss Seapony gazed forlornly at my mother. "So you do understand. I am many things, Miss Riddle, but one of those things is that I am your daughter's friend, her oldest friend, other than you. I need your help, to explain what has happened."

"I don't know if we should have this conversation with her," my mom said, looking more and more concerned.

I cowered down on the floor, not likely that both my mom and Miss Seapony were so upset. Had I done something wrong? "What's wrong? I don't like this."

Miss Seapony kept staring at my mom. "She will hear of it one way or another soon enough. It is better that she heard it directly from me, and better that you are right here to help her understand and comfort her. I care deeply about your daughter, as if she was one my own foals. I am even now trying to comfort them as well, and the experience has been far more traumatic for them. Help me make this less so for her."

"What's going on?" I whimpered.

My mom came over to me and pulled me into a hug. "My little sunshine, we need to talk. We need to talk about what happens sometimes when bad things happen."

And that's when I learned that Miss Seapony had died, and was now a ghost… you'll need to excuse me; I don't want to focus on this memory any longer.


I spent a little while talking to Julie. In addition to getting to know one another, we discussed what I would be bringing in, my actual move in date, and went over some basic 'house rules'. Nightscape slept through the entire time, as was typical for a nocturnal pony, and operated on a schedule very different than either me or Julie.

Some interesting things I learned were that most pegasus students tended to just fly in and out of the balconies when coming and going from class. They typically only used the elevator or stairs when visiting someone elsewhere in the building, when going down to the gathering area below, or when carrying around a delicate project that they wanted no risk of falling from a five story height. Julie was more than a little shocked when I told her that I would probably use the elevator most of the time, at least when carrying my stuff for class.

"But, what pegasus doesn't want to fly as much as they can?!" Julie exclaimed, spreading her wings as if to remind me we had them. "I know you're a little…"

"Fat," I supplied.

Julie looked embarrassed. "I was looking for a nicer word. But, being that shouldn't interfere with you being able to fly that much."

I flapped my wings a few times to get into a small hover. The rules forbid flying in the halls or common area, it didn't forbid flying inside of rooms. Julie wouldn't even be able to reach her bed without flying. I took to the air and kind of dipped up and down, while wavering left and right, before finally settling back down.

Julie blinked. "Your weight actually causes you to have that much trouble flying steady? I don't understand. You're not the only heavy-set pegasus I've ever seen, and those other ones didn't have that much trouble."

"My pegasus magic is kind of weak all around," I explained, as I gave my wings an extra flap or two before settling them back to my sides. "I've got next to no weather magic, and I feel like I'm walking on a waterbed when I cloudwalk."

"Oh, you're one of those ponies with lower magic, like PREQUES two or whatever," Julie said sympathetically. "Sorry, I didn't realize."

I shook my head, then grinned. "I'm actually a four-point-one. My magic just mostly got put into other things. I can dreamwalk as well, or better, than most night ponies, and I'm licensed by the OMMR."

Julie gave a worried shuffle of her wings. "So you can do, like mind magic, and stuff?"

I shook my head again. "No, no mind magic, at least, not like you are thinking. I'm not allowed to actually say what I can do. I can show you my license, if you want."

I opened up my travel pouch and pulled the small card out from it with my mouth, and transferred it to the cup of my wing. I then passed it to Julie's outstretched wing and waited for her to read it.

"One ability licensed, ability classified, assessed one-two-nine, personally monitored by the Dreamwardens, refer all requests for information regarding ability to the Dreamwardens," Julie read aloud. "What does that number mean?"

I took the card back from her and placed it back in my pouch. "Each number is ranked one to ten, one the lowest, and ten the highest. The first number says how much direct damage or harm my ability can do. The second number says how prevalent the ability is in the general population; two means exceedingly rare, in this case there are like a dozen ponies who can do it. The third number says how strong I am at the ability out of those who can use the ability."

Julie gave a partial frown. "And you can't say what it is?"

I shook my head a third time. "Nope, Dreamwardens say no can do. I can say that if I ever look completely zoned out, and staring off at nothing, I might be doing it, so don't freak out. I'm not sick or anything. If you really need me when I'm doing that, you can get my attention by giving me a little shake."

"And the Dreamwardens themselves keep track of you?" Julie asked, mulling things over.

"Yep," I said with a nod. "They're immediately aware of every time I use it, and watch me the whole time."

"So, it's some dream realm thing then," Julie concluded.

"I can't really say, sorry," I apologized. "I can't accidently hurt you or anything with it. You don't need to worry about it."

Julie gave a flick of her tail. "Just weird having a roommate that has some super-classified magic ability she can't talk about. I guess It's no problem, but I think you should keep that to yourself. I feel like I'd rather not have known about it."

I looked down. "I understand, I just felt like if we were going to be roommates you should know, in case you ever caught me using it and got confused or worried."

"When you're zoned out, right?"

"Right."

Julie smiled at last. "Okay, that I can understand, because I might have worried. I can understand now why you told me. Can I tell Nighty about it later, or do you want to be the one to tell her? I won't tell anyone else."

I thought about it. "You can tell her. Just make sure it doesn't get spread around. I really did tell you just because we'll be living together, and you might see me doing it. Even my best friend doesn't know about this, since she'd never be in a position she'd see me doing it. I only do it when I'm in private."

"Understood, just as long as it isn't hurting anything, it will be fine," Julie said, fully releasing her tension. "Did you want a tour around campus? Do you have time today?"

My eyes went wide as I checked the time. Luckily a full hour hadn't passed yet, but it was getting close. "Um, can we do that tomorrow? I've got to run and meet my best friend. I told her I'd only be an hour. She and I were going to come back tomorrow afternoon to check out the sororities and clubs."

Julie looked at the time, and gasped when she saw it. "You'd better run then. Yeah, I'll be here tomorrow afternoon, and you can introduce me to your friend. I'll have your key for the room then. I was supposed to have that today, but they were running behind. Go on, hurry so you don't keep her waiting."

Author's Note:

Art of Miss Seapony (Yinyu Wu Yan).

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