• Published 10th May 2020
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Pandemic: Starting Over - Halira



A unicorn with an unscrupulous past finds herself as a guardian to five orphaned foals. Now she must help them after their world has fallen down, and they must help her become a better pony.

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Chapter 30: Night With Phobia

The remainder of the day and night passed with little to note. Lántiān took her flight, and I used the opportunity to test the tracking app. I was a little surprised exactly how much area the filly could cover in a brief flight, and it made me mildly jealous of pegasi. I wished I had that level of mobility.

Her brothers and daughter gave me no trouble while she was gone, and I even pulled out the Transformers toy and played along with the colts. They insisted on making it the monster for their turtles to fight, but if that was the way they wanted to play, then that was the way we were going to play. Of course, none of the turtles were prepared for the mighty power of Qīng Yǔ—who marched into the action figure battlefield and proceeded to savagely club everything with the stuffed Fluttershy she held in her mouth. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Autobot didn't stand a chance against such an onslaught.

After Lántiān returned and Mèng woke up, I ordered some Chinese delivery. Once it arrived, my eldest charge proceeded to lecture me, at length, that the food should not be labeled Chinese, and doing so was a grievous insult to her heritage. The colts and Qīng Yǔ all seemed to enjoy it. It wasn't the best Chinese delivery I'd ever eaten, but not the worst.

Josie arrived earlier than the previous night, and didn't recognize me initially, at least until I started talking and she got a look at my cutie mark. That made me feel better about my dye job. I still needed to do something about covering my mark, but it seemed the new coloring would do the trick. I informed her that we would be at a new location tomorrow and that I would email her the address as soon as I had it. She, in turn, informed me that she had sought out Mèng during the day, but it had taken her a while to find him in the dream realm. Yinyu had not bothered her after her arrival, and she was reasonably sure she had gotten through to him that she was going to try teaching him English. Still, with a three-year-old, it was impossible to say if he understood.

With all the foals, except for Mèng, in bed, it was time for me to go to bed and have another fun-filled night of Tonya and Yinyu inevitably yelling at me.

I'm not sure how long it took me to get to sleep. It couldn't have been long, as I didn't recall laying in bed for a long time. The setting I found myself in was my bed in my room, only a distorted version of my room. If I hadn't developed some vivid dreaming skill after many visits from Tonya and other Dreamwardens over the years, I might have thought myself still awake. As it was, I wondered why they didn't bring me somewhere grander.

There was no bedroom door, only the closet door, and the edges of it were glowing. That meant my host wasn't Yinyu or Tonya; it was my daughter.

I sat up in bed and glared at the door. "I know that's you, Phobia. Your preference for this particular type of theatrics is too well known. You've gotten predictable."

There was no response. The edges of the door kept on glowing. I gave an exaggerated sigh and got out of bed, and marched over to the closet.

I threw open the door with my magic. "Really, Phobia, I don't see the point-" The door opened up to just a regular closet, with no sign of Phobia. "-to all this… Where the heck are you?"

"Boo."

I about jumped out of my fur as I turned to face my daughter standing behind me. I nearly had another heart attack when I saw just a massive shadow with glowing eyes.

"Phobia!" I screamed in indignation. "Is that really necessary?! Are you trying to have your poor old mother die of fright in her sleep?"

She shifted into a close match of her natural form, except she made herself a unicorn instead of a night pony. "I have a reputation to maintain, and it is customary for me to give a little scare to whoever I visit, or at least try to—some are braver than others, and some are so distraught that giving them a little jumpscare would be downright cruel. Your heart is still in great shape, Mom. If it weren't, then I would take more care with you."

"My heart won't stay in good shape if you keep doing that," I muttered and then looked up at her horn. "Why are you a unicorn?"

She shrugged. "Typically, after I've given someone a scare, I immediately shift to the form of something more familiar, which includes the form of their tribe and species. It helps with demystifying fear if I am similar to them."

"That sounds like psychological hocus-pocus to me. Does it work?" I asked in a doubting tone.

She shrugged again. "I've had some successes with it, but it isn't universal, nor do I expect it to be. Everyone is an individual, and what works for one person doesn't work for every person."

I'd never gotten many visits in the dream realm from my daughter. She preferred to visit me in person or give me a call rather than see me in a dream. In the past eight years, I think Phobia had visited me in dreams no more than two or three times, counting this visit. I heard things from others about her visits, which is how I knew about the whole closet thing. I had never been much a fan of being dreamwalked before, except for Tonya, and figured Phobia knew that and avoided doing it out of courtesy, but I had expected her to do it when I moved away. Those late-night visits never came, till today.

"So, you're going to adjust my compulsion?" I asked.

She nodded. "That is what I was asked to do. Yinyu, Arbiter, or Ghadab could have just as easily done the same, but the government gets nervous when trusting dead ponies. It is irrational, considering they have no problem turning to Arbiter or Ghadab already for other services, and may yet do the same for Yinyu. Psychic or Krik could have done it as well, and there would be strong merit to having Krik in particular deal with it, given he is the Warden of Silence and the world's foremost keeper of secrets. They felt it might be better if I just did it, though, since I am more familiar with you."

I gave her a flat look. "I love you, but a yes or no would have sufficed."

Phobia seemed to relax some, and before that moment, I hadn't realized she'd had any tension. "I love you too, Mom. I don't think I tell you that enough. Although, I'm not sure how often you should tell someone that you love them before it gets to being habit rather than heartfelt. Yinyu's death has made all of us who remain alive think of our mortality more and those that we care about. I've been thinking of all my family, as of late, and that includes you." She took a deep breath, unnecessary though it may be in a dream. "I'm sorry for being so long-winded. I like to make sure I communicate myself clearly. I also have a lot on my mind."

I laughed to myself. "My daughter, one of the most feared demi-gods in the universe, and still unsure if she's able to make her points without a load of explanation. You'd do that sometimes when you were a kid too, and I always found it endearing—except for when I was in a hurry."

"And now you're raising foals again," Phobia replied with a smile. "How is that going? How do you feel about them? Do you like them? How are they coping with Yinyu's death?"

I blinked. "Um, you're a Dreamwarden; you know the answers to those questions better than I do."

"I prefer to hear answers from people rather than read people's minds," she said. "Yinyu, Ghadab, and Arbiter can't help but read minds, but I try to keep out of them as much as I can. I see too many things I prefer I didn't when I do, and it feels like I lose some ability to relate to others when I know what they are thinking, like they are less individuals and more just predictable characters doing predictable things. They become less valued as people to us, and we lose our sense of joy, wonder, empathy, and expectation. No, Mom, I don't want to read your mind. I prefer to interact with you as Dreamwarden as little as possible. I'd rather be your daughter. I feel sad that I must interact with poor Jessie as much as I do in the role of Dreamwarden, but am trapped by necessity."

I thought about Tonya and how different she seemed. She was still Tonya, but there was a distance there that went beyond merely her being only able to communicate with me in dreams. She wasn't just Tonya anymore, she was Arbiter, and I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about Arbiter. That also made me think of the foals and their relationship with their mother. Was Yinyu becoming something alien from the mother they knew? Phobia had become different when becoming a Dreamwarden, but not to that extent. How much of what made the Dreamwardens themselves died with them when their bodies died?

"You aren't going to let yourself die and be trapped here, are you?" I asked in a low, worried voice.

She shook her head. "I have no plans to, but I can't predict the future. I can do everything I can to make sure I get to retire to Equestria safely before my time has come, but there is always the possibility of tragedy. Krik has now begun making plans for his departure to Equestria, and we have already begun our search for his replacement. He plans to leave within a year. Yinyu's death hit him hard. Psychic is musing about retirement as well, but he doesn't plan on going quite yet; a few more years and he may leave as well, and I'll be the last living Dreamwarden still on Earth out of the original six. I was the youngest, but in a few short years, I'll be the oldest living, since the new Dreamwardens will almost certainly be younger. We'll bring them in young, so they can serve for decades and still have time to retire safely with decades left to live. Currently, I'm planning on retiring immediately after the primary crisis has passed."

I frowned. "How young, and what primary crisis are you talking about?"

Phobia looked down. "We're looking at younger twenties and even teens. The knowledge to do the job comes with the job, and there is no way of getting relevant experience. We want them young, have something unique they can contribute, and be of good disposition to handle the burdens of being a warden. As for the crisis, doom is coming, Mom, doom on a scale you cannot imagine. For all my efforts to reform the Dreamwardens' image, my primary concern is doing all I can to help prepare the world to face the coming apocalypse. If we fail, whether I retire or not will be irrelevant, because there will be no more dream realm, because there will be no more magical life—or any life on Earth, likely not in Equestria either if any of the randomly occurring portals can provide a path between our dimensions."

My eyes bulged. "What! What could possibly… " Then it came to me. "The Devourers, the magic eating death robots from space, I thought they were just a story, or at the most, something that was so far away it was pointless to care about them. They're the only thing you could be describing."

Phobia gave me a sad nod. "They aren't just a made-up story to scare foals, they're real, and they'll be here sooner than anyone expected. We realized this days before the Cataclysm."

I thought back to what was going on with Phobia back then. It had been such a busy and hectic time, but I remembered something odd that had happened involving the Dreamwardens that I didn't have the time to care or worry about back then. "Which is when you also put an abrupt halt to that project you had me working on. You needed to shift priorities, and whatever that project was, it ceased to be important."

"That project was a possible long-term solution to the Devourer problem, one we might revisit if we can survive the first wave. It wouldn't help us in the time we needed it, not with them coming in our lifetime," Phobia explained. "Unfortunately, we do not have the needed centuries we thought we had; thankfully, a little filly made us realize that all our best estimates and models on how long the Devourers would take to teach us were drastically incorrect."

"Jessica…" I breathed. "Little Jessie figured this out?"

"To be fair, she combined research from various other researchers. There was quite a buzz about it. Both from researchers wanting her to properly give them credit for their work, and for what it demonstrated and predicted. I know you were very distracted at the time," Phobia replied. "They've been running repeated tests with what she demonstrated, and those tests have consistently shown she is right. They may soon be putting it down as the sixth law of physics, Middleton's Law."

I shook my head to clear it. "I'm thrilled for her accomplishment, but what about the Devourers? I understand why there's been no public notice about this since it would create wide-spread panic, but what are you doing to stop them?"

"That is not something I'm at liberty to discuss," Phobia said in a neutral tone. "I'm giving you a great deal of trust by even letting you know about the threat. I know you won't say anything to anyone. Just know all that can be done to prevent it will be done, and if we fail… well, you won't have time to panic. We'll all be dead before you realize we failed. I'm not going to speculate or give you any indication of how likely we are to succeed. This is still many years away, and many things may yet change. You should live your life like no Devourers are coming."

"Because I should be living every day like it was my last already," I said with a small smile. "I trust you, and Tonya, and even Yinyu. I know you'll do everything you can, and if you fail, then there was no way it could have been done. I'll pray to God to give you all the help he can."

Phobia stood up straight. "Now, let's get onto the business reason I am here. I'm going to adjust your compulsion; you're being given a lot of leeway and trust in this. The new wording has been reviewed by the Pentagon, the president, and the president's advisors. It has not been reviewed by the United Nations, as you are a US citizen, and this is considered a United States matter. It is only happening because Princess Twilight Sparkle has insisted that she needed your expertise to be available. I am also required to inform you that your phone calls and communications will be monitored to ensure that there are no leaks of information regarding transformation magic. Refusal to have your communications monitored or attempts to subvert monitoring will result in returning to the previous wording and possible federal criminal charges. Monitoring of your mail may result in delays of mail delivery. Disclosures that your compulsions have been adjusted are not public information, and will not be made public information. Declining these terms before the agreement is in place will result in the withdrawal of the agreement to change your compulsion and no adverse action. Do you understand and accept monitoring requirements?"

I sighed. I hated her having to interact with me in an official manner, but she was an official. "I agree."

She spent the next several minutes outlining the differences in the compulsion and making me go over disclosures. There were no signatures since verbal agreements done in the dream realm in front of a Dreamwarden counted as legally binding. Most people were incapable of reading in the dream realm anyway—writing appeared as gibberish. The rare few who could read in the dream realm couldn't make written contracts either since there was no way of converting a document from a dream to the waking world.

Still, it was done quickly enough, and I found myself free again to work on transformation magic.

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