Night Terrors

by TikiBat

Chapter 4: The Observatory of the Future

Scarlet looked down at Silver, who was still wrapped up in their blanket and laughed. “I’m going to go get ready for work, wanna join me in the shower, or do you want to just relax for a bit?”

Silver reached a sluggish hoof up to his head and rubbed his temples. “As much fun as that’d be, I’m kind of feeling a little out of it… mind if I just rest here a little longer?” He flashed her the most adorably pitiful puppy dog eyes that he could muster.

Scarlet flashed him a sympathetic look and nodded. “Still feeling that exhaustion?”

“Mhmm,” Silver weakly replied. “It’s a lot worse after waking up… it should go away soon though… I hope.”

“Well, why don’t you just take a sick day then?” She suggested.

“Hm?” Silver raised an eyebrow. “But there’s still some work to be done… and I know I’d just be bored here all day.”

Scarlet shrugged. “You never take sick days and only ever take your vacation days at the end of the year. I think Tinker’s going to be fine with you calling off one day.”

Silver was going to counter back with an argument that this was a SPEC project and needed to be a priority but instead hesitated, not wanting to get into the details of the highly secretive project they were working on. “I know… it’s just…” he sat there and fought through the mental fog to come up with an explanation. “It’s just… one of those important projects.”

“I see…” Scarlet slowly replied. “Well you’re clearly not in a position to go work on high-security projects and I think Psychic would understand if it’s the kind of projects I think you’re working on.”

Silver’s eyes widened as he listened to her rather accurate assumption. “How do you…”

“You talk in your sleep,” She quickly replied, snickering as she took in his frazzled expression.

“I…” he stammered out. “It’s... “ Silver just couldn’t seem to find the words. “Really?!” he finally blurted out.

Scarlet giggled to herself again. “Yep, but if it makes you feel better it’s all nonsense that no one who isn’t kind of in the know already would understand. You mention a weird project coming from SPEC, a company run by Sunset Blessing— who’s Phobia Remedy’s mother, and when you couple that with the fact that you’re buddy buddy with a few of the wardens who sometimes drag you away to secret meetings… I mean it’s a pretty clear assumption to make if you’re someone like me who sees more of this than anyone else would.”

Silver blinked a few times and sat in a baffled silence for a few long moments. Finally he found his voice. “Okay, but I kind of need you to not talk about that to anyone… or we could wind up in big trouble.”

Scarlet nodded. “Don’t worry, the secret’s safe with me. Some of that’s information I learned in a dream and I’m not going to go break their rules lest I want to go relive some horrible death in a dream with Sha’am again.”

Silver cringed back. “Please don’t give me that mental image, it’s hard enough dealing with that myself, but just imagining you going through that…” he just simply couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Sucks, I know,” Scarlet bowed her head. “Words can’t convey how much I hate her, and there’s so much more I’d like to say to her, but for our sake I won't.”

Thoughts about Sha’am Maut, the Warden of Death and the often excessively harsh punishments that she was known for handing out for even minor infractions filled Silver’s mind, and just imagining Scarlet experiencing her own death or some other horrible twisted pain— even if in just a dream, made him both sick and angry. Neither feelings were helpful in his current state though, and he knew that he just needed to let it go for the time being instead of letting it rile him up.

Silver meekly frowned. “I don’t like her either, but let’s just keep avoiding her like we’re doing. I haven’t run into her in a long while, and I’d rather keep it that way,” He closed his eyes and sat there for a moment. The urge to bad mouth Sha’am was almost overpowering, but he continued to fight it off and instead decided to change subjects. “You’re right, you know that?”

“About?” She asked.

“About me needing to just take it easy and relax. Even though it’s just magic exhaustion, it probably won’t do me any good to go work on some advanced project without a clear head. I’ll give Tinker a call and let him know.”

“Good,” Scarlet smiled, hesitating for a brief second. “So… what is it you’re even working on?”

Silver looked up at her, considering whether he’d be crossing a line by explaining or not. “Can you promise not to tell a soul?”

Scarlet nodded. “I’ll take it to my grave.”

Silver held for another moment and considered what he was about to say. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of explaining what they were working on. However, Scarlet was probably the only pony in the world he could trust, and knew that she knew how important this kind of information was, and the repercussions of revealing any of it.

“Okay. I trust you…” he paused, taking a small breath. “I can’t go into anything about the tech we’re working with, but we’re working on some big AI thing.”

“AI thing?” She asked. “What does it do?”

Silver shrugged. “It thinks. I don’t know what it’s really for, and I don’t think we’re working on the full end product, just one small part of it.”

“So it’s a brain?” She asked.

Silver looked off to the side and considered her question for a moment. “I guess so? It can track data you feed into it and build models of outcomes. It’s kind of amazing really, gives you the potential probabilities on each outcome and tracks a whole bunch of other related data like moon phases, celestial coordinates… stuff that you’ll actually probably get brought in to consult on someday… so that’s kind of why I’m being so open with it too,” He paused. “I don’t know what they want to get out of this, but we basically made two incredibly expensive and hard to make processors that run all of the basic calculations— one to send back to SPEC, and one for us to continue to experiment with. I wish I could explain more because it’s so cool, but I’m honestly a little in the dark about all of it too.”

“I see…” she grimaced. “So you’re making a doomsday predicting machine then?”

Silver froze for a moment and cocked his head to the side. “I didn’t think about that but it probably could predict the outcomes of some disasters… that might have to be something we look into eventually.”

“But not today,” Scarlet reminded him. “Because you’re going to take it easy for the next few days.”

“Next few days?” Silver sat up in bed.

“Yep!” Scarlet replied. “I know you’re eager to get back to working on your big scary doomsday machine, but you definitely need to be in a good mental space and not exhausted before doing that,” A slow grin started to cross her face. “But look at it this way, we get to hang out together a little more, and you always like that, right?”

Silver smiled. “Okay, fair point.” He let out a small groan as he reached for his gauntlet. “NAVI, call Tinker.”

Calling Director Tinker… Please stand by. Came the robotic reply from Silver’s foreleg-mounted communication device.

---

Silver could hear the shower running as he hung up the phone and slipped his gauntlet off of his foreleg. With a small sigh he tossed it over to a plush cushion in the corner of the room and rolled back over in bed. His brief conversation with Tinker had been short but pleasant, and even though the pegasus was completely understanding, it still didn’t stop Silver from feeling a little guilty over the fact that he probably could have handled himself just fine at work.

“Maybe Scarlet’s right… maybe I am working too much,” Silver thought to himself.

Slowly shaking his head, he just relaxed his muscles and let the calm sounds of the running shower pull him into a peaceful moment of zen. While he didn’t drift back into sleep or enter a waking dream, he still felt as if he was getting at least a small fraction of the rest that his mind desperately needed.

His ears perked up as the sounds of falling water suddenly stopped and the curtain was pulled open. Silver peeked out from under the covers and smiled as he saw Scarlet trotting towards him, a towel draped over her body like a blanket.

“Got the day off then?” She asked, lifting the towel up and drying off her mane.

“Yep,” Silver slowly nodded.

“And I’m going to guess that Tinker was more than okay with it?”

Silver let out a small sigh and then grinned weakly. “You got it.”

“Perfect!” She cheered. “So what’s the plan then? Just lay in bed? Or do you want to go sit down in the park with Orion?”

Silver shrugged. “I dunno to be honest… I really don’t want to waste a whole day just lying in bed so I guess that means that Orion’s gonna have a real fun day.”

Scarlet nodded. “I had a good feeling you’d say that,” She paused for a moment. “So… I was doing a little thinking in the shower, and maybe it’s time you take a little field trip?”

“Huh?” Silver sat up in bed and adjusted himself. “What kind of field trip?”

“Well…” Scarlet started. “It has been a while since you’ve visited the observatory and I thought that you might like to tag along.”

Silver raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What happened to me not working today? Isn’t that what this was all about?”

“Who said you were working? Orion’s my little stargazer after all, so that just leaves you to sit back and watch,” She stuck out her tongue.

Silver rolled his eyes and smirked. “Cute. So this turns into a little impromptu family outing?”

“Nope!” Scarlet replied. “I still have work to do, but that doesn’t mean you two can’t keep me company during it.”

“Isn’t that going to be… distracting?”

Scarlet let out a small chuckle. “I don’t think having you around is going to be distracting at all…” She paused, a devious smirk spreading across her face. “Well, unless you want to wear the cute socks I got you so your hooves stay warm while we’re there.”

“Ha, good one,” Silver laughed. “I think I’ll skip on those tonight if that’s alright with you.”

“Awww,” Scarlet flashed Silver her best puppy dog eyes in revenge for the ones he had given her earlier. “I think it’d look cute though.”

“And embarrassing,” Silver countered. “So my answer is a hard no, nice try though.”

“Fine,” Scarlet laughed. “You win this round. At least you’ll get a chance to watch Orion name all of the stars he knows.”

“That does sound pretty cute,” Silver said with a smirk, pulling himself out of bed.

A very harsh feeling of vertigo caught him off guard, but he did his best to keep cool. It wouldn’t be very nice to throw up his dinner and give the two of them yet another thing to have to work on during the night.

“Oh believe me, it is,” She confirmed, laying a hoof against his back for support.

Silver nodded and steadied himself as his brain adjusted to the sudden change in position. “So, just thinking ahead… what do you want for dinner?”

“You wanna cook something other than what we talked about before?” She asked.

“Well…” Silver meekly shrugged. “I’m home with you guys tonight… I just thought maybe we could do something special.”

With Scarlet taking the lead, the two started down the small hallway and into the kitchen space in their home.

“I dunno if you’d like my idea or not,” Scarlet said with a grin.

“Try me,” Silver confidently retorted.

“Baked tarantula,” She fired back.

The world seemed to fade out around Silver as his eyelid started twitching. “I… okay you’re gonna have to cook that one then because I’m not going to be able to make it through that.”

“Oh, but I thought you liked baked tarantulas?” She mused.

“Sure, when I don’t have to see their little tarantula bodies and legs,” He shivered at the thought.

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you from the big scary tarantulas,” Scarlet promised while she started rummaging around for a pan and some ingredients for their usual breakfast.

Silver breathed a sigh of relief before flashing her an embarrassed grimace. “Thanks… it’s uhh, just my night to cook I guess.”

She gestured down towards the stove and smiled. “Then how about we trade. You work on breakfast, and I’ll work on dinner. I wouldn’t want my exhausted stallion to have to fret over cooking something he has a genuine phobia of anyways.”

Silver smiled and pulled her into a tight hug. “Sounds like a plan,” He looked over towards Orion’s room and then back to her. “Maybe I should go get Orion all ready too.”

“Breakfast after a shower it is. I’ll go walk Cosmo in the meantime.”

“You’re the best,” He smiled.

“We’re the best,” She corrected as she gave him a kiss. “Now hurry along, I can’t wait to show you around the observatory.”

Not needing to be told twice, Silver trotted off towards Orion’s room. While Scarlet excitedly ran over to their dog, who clearly seemed excited at the sudden change of routine.

---

While the Eclipses only lived a short flight away from Scarlet’s observatory, Scarlet often took a longer, more scenic route. Tonight was no different, and Silver couldn’t help but smile as they took an extended walk around the lake’s calm waterfront, interspersed with short flights every now and again. Because of Orion, their flights rarely got any higher than a few feet off of the ground, but Silver loved it regardless.

“You know, we really need to get a sitter for Orion sometime and just take a long night flight again.”

“Like we used to when we first met?” Scarlet asked with a nostalgic glimmer in her eyes.

“Oh yeah,” Silver replied. “It’s been way too long since we’ve done that.”

“We have our little diablo to thank for that,” Scarlet teased Orion, who laughed in his adorably innocent way.

Silver paused and got down to his level. “That’s right, but he’s a good little diablo now, and I know he’s going to love going on flights with us someday. Isn’t that right Orion?”

“I wanna fly!” He cheered.

Silver smiled and wrapped his forelegs around Orion, pulling him closely and holding him tight. “Alright little buddy, we’ll go on a quick flight, and then you can show me all of the stuff you’ve learned from mommy, sound good?”

Orion excitedly nodded his head, though Silver’s grip held him as tight as ever.

Scarlet laughed and shook her head. “You two are too cute. I can’t wait for you to see what he knows.”

“Me neither,” Silver replied. “I’ll make this quick so we don’t take too much time away.”

“Don’t fret about it,” Scarlet started. “We’ve got all the time in the world, so don’t rush through a cute memory like this.”

That was all the permission Silver needed, and with an affirmative nod, he took off into the sky above the lake. Orion cheerfully squealed and hollered, clearly enjoying every swoop, rise, and dive that Silver was making. To any human or flightless parent, the act would look irresponsible and outright dangerous, but Silver knew his limits, and Orion knew how to behave when up in the air. Silver also only ever flew with Orion at higher altitudes when he had someone spotting him from the ground, and when he was over the lake— because he knew he could easily handle a safe emergency landing there if the situation called for it.

However, an emergency landing wasn’t required, and in no time at all Silver had safely landed with a slightly less energetic Orion, and the three were on their way once again.

As Scarlet’s observatory started to come into view, Orion’s energy started to return, but clearly he knew that he needed to keep calm, and Silver could only imagine that Scarlet had emphasized the importance of being on his best behavior to the young colt.

“You guys have been busy at this place, eh?” Silver commented as he took in the two under construction annexes next to the main observatory building.

“It’s no Griffith Park,” Scarlet commented. “But it’s ours, and it’s perfect for everything we’d ever need to do.”

“Except map out Equestria’s stars,” Silver replied with a smirk.

“We can’t do that yet, but who knows…” She winked. “Maybe we’ll get to take another field trip soon.”

Before Silver could reply, Scarlet pushed open the doors and Orion ran inside with a childlike glee that was as if it the most amazing place in the world for him— which knowing how much Scarlet loved to teach him and how much he had picked up already, it probably was.

“Evening Scarlet,” Came a soft feminine voice.

“Hey Sarah, how are you two tonight?”

“We’ve been good,” a male voice answered back.

“Nice to see you too Tyler. Have you two checked out the new construction yet?”

Sarah smiled. “Just got popped over to the eastern observatory, Tyler and I were debating on who gets dibs on it.”

“And who gets dibs on it then?” Scarlet asked.

Tyler shrugged. “We decided to duke it out at the rec center’s game room, there’s not a ton there and it’s small, but we figured that it’d be a fun way to choose who gets what workspace,”

“Is that the place run by Sine Wave?” Scarlet asked.

“Yep, and she seemed pretty happy that someone else is stopping by there. She always seems like she’s outgrowing that space, but still manages to cram in her collection,” Tyler replied with a grin. “Makes me wish she’d branch out into a bigger building.”

Scarlet shook her head and laughed. “You two are wild. Just make sure the projects stay on track and I don’t care where you’re at… but I’ll tell you what, maybe I’ll stop by to watch your tournament.”

“It’s tomorrow over the dinner break,” Sarah added. “We’d love to have you.”

Tyler cleared his throat. “We might get some practice in tonight,” The human trailed off for a moment as he checked his watch. “Speaking of which, we should go finish up moving some research to the archives so we don’t miss that.”

Sarah glanced at her own watch and nodded. “We can chat some more later, take care Scar,”

“See you two in a bit,” Scarlet cheerfully replied.

While her two human coworkers walked out of the main observatory room, Scarlet began to prime the large central telescope. With some well practiced maneuvering, she began to type in spatial coordinates with such a ferocity that Silver almost had to double take to make sure he wasn’t imagining how fast her typing was.

“Your typing is amazing,” He simply commented.

Scarlet peeked up from her terminal and shrugged. “I had to practice a lot to keep up with Tyler and Sarah. Not that they’d look down on me for being a slow typer or anything, but when you’re working with astronomy nuts like I am you need to make sure you can note down research and ideas quickly. We obviously still record all of our notes digitally, but typing them out helps too, especially when we need to work fast and don’t want to read out coordinates into a voice recognition software.”

“I see,” Silver seemed astonished by her work regardless. “So what’s on the agenda first?”

Scarlet typed out a few more commands and hit enter, and in a moment the telescope came to life, turning and rising into position at a newly formed hole in the ceiling.

With a smile, she waved him over to the telescope’s viewfinder. “We stargaze… just like we did back in the day.”

“Just with very expensive giant telescopes this time…” he grinned. “I promise I won’t break this one.”

Scarlet laughed, remembering what had happened on the night that Silver had expressed his feelings for her and the subsequent tension that he felt when he had accidentally broken her prized possession; a telescope that had an immeasurable amount of sentimental value attached to it.

“This one would take a lot more than working at a scrap yard to repair, just keep that in mind.”

Silver nodded and leaned over the viewfinder, using a hoof to help focus the lens. With a few precise movements, the constellation Orion came into crystal clear view. His heart skipped a beat for a moment and he looked back over at her, the sentimentality of the stars she had chosen clearly standing out to him.

“It’s our constellation,” He gushed. “Gosh you’re too cute, you know that?”

“I couldn’t not choose Orion first,” She laughed. “That’s kinda my go to in here and Equestria.”

“They have an Orion constellation there too?”

Orion having heard his name twice now, perked up and ran towards the telescope, hopping up and down with an adorably innocent expression of pure happiness on his face. “My turn, my turn!”

Scarlet let out another laugh. “There’s so much more I could tell you about Equestria’s stars, but I think I’ll save that for later. Right now it looks like our little star hunter wants to show you what he’s made of.”

“Is that right?” Silver asked. “Well then let's see it!”

Needing no further permission, Orion giggled and started wildly pointing to the different bright beacons in the sky, naming each and every one he landed on, and making both parents well up with pure pride in the process.

---

Sitting out on the balcony built into the side of Scarlet’s observatory made it perfectly clear why Scarlet spent so much time there. Even though it wasn’t all that far from the rest of the city, it was built up on an elevated hill which gave the observatory staff a beautiful panoramic view of the whole Oasis. Silver couldn’t help but audibly gasp the first time he took that view in, and even a few minutes later he found himself doing it again. While he had been to the observatory plenty of times, he had never been there since they had built the new annex.

“Now you see why I love it here so much, eh?”

“Yeah,” Silver broke from his trance and laughed. “I thought my office had a good view, but I didn’t realize you’d one up me like this.”

“Truth be told, I didn't even think about that when they were building the new extension. I just wanted to have a nice balcony I could go sit out on while I worked on paperwork.”

“Well it’s totally you,” Silver took a few more bites of his sandwich. He looked over towards Orion who was enjoying his own lunch while staring at the city in awe. “And It seems like Orion’s a fan too.”

“He’s always like that though,” Scarlet laughed. “Not that it isn’t cute though.”

“Well I’m sure he’ll wind up with his own office here sooner or later.”

“Maybe he’ll take after you, you never know,” Scarlet offered.

“You think?” Silver asked. “Because what I saw inside there made me so proud,” He gestured back towards the door from Scarlet’s office to the Observatory proper. “He’s such a smart kid and I know he’s going to make such a great astronomer.”

Scarlet shrugged. “You never know though, you’ve been filling his head with so many ideas and stories, he could be anything he wanted to be,” She got up and trotted towards Orion. “Orion, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A space pony!” He cheered.

“You do?!” She excitedly asked him. “Well did you know that daddy was helping make a rocket ship part a while ago?”

The young colt’s eyes opened in glee. “Really?!”

“Really!” Scarlet smiled. “So maybe someday he’ll help build the rocket that’ll take you to the moon.”

Silver couldn’t help but smile. “That’s right. I can’t wait to see what you’ll do someday.”

Orion ran over and hugged Silver. “I love you daddy.”

Silver’s heart melted and he pulled Orion into a tight hug. “I love you too Orion.”

Orion smiled and ran over to Scarlet. “I love you too mommy.”

“I love you, my little star hunter,” Scarlet pulled him close. “You’re going to be our little space pony someday, and daddy and I are going to be so proud of you when you do.”

The colt happily squeaked and curled up next to his parents, quickly slipping into a short nap.

“See?” Scarlet replied. “He’s going to really take after both of us, and I know he’s going to make us proud.”

“He already has,” Silver looked up at the bright stars above him and began to trail off, their bright shimmering beauty reminding him of the weird jarring feeling he felt during his dream when those stars had been so dim and practically absent.

Scarlet seemed to pick up on the sudden change of mood and rested a hoof on his back. “Everything okay?”

“Huh?” He asked. “Oh, no I’m fine.”

He wasn’t all that convincing, and he knew that Scarlet could see right through it. She always had an eye for that kind of thing.

“Okay, so what’s really bugging you then?”

Seeing the futility of brushing it off, he simply told her everything. “I just had another weird dream yesterday. We looked around this ancient looking gateway thing and popped into Somewhere. We went inside of it and… it just gave me a weird vibe, as dumb as that sounds.”

“Do you think it’s connected to that other weird dream you had the other day?”

“The one with Sapphire’s nightmare?”

Silver nodded. “Mhmm. I don’t know if they’re really connected, but I’ve just had this weird feeling ever since. I tried dispelling the gateway, but it just didn’t budge. I thought about asking Sapphire if she had some latent dream magic or something and maybe that’s why my dreams have felt so weird ever since… but then I realized she wouldn’t have any idea whatsoever about that.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “That sounds pretty weird. Did you talk to one of the wardens about it?”

Silver shook his head. “Not yet, but I should. I just want to make sure it isn’t some side effect from the exhaustion.”

“That’s good and all but a warden could tell you about that too.”

“True,” He nodded. “I’ll do that tomorrow then.”

“Until then though, keep taking it easy, you’ve only got a couple of days left until Psychic said you’re good to go, right?”

“Mhmm,” He answered.

“Perfect,” She smiled. “Then you have an excuse to take a couple more days off. So why don’t we finish our lunch, then you can keep me company while I work on some stuff.”

Silver almost considered declining, but figured that a couple more days to just relax wouldn’t hurt. He smiled and looked back at Scarlet. “That sounds nice.”

Scarlet took a few more bites of her sandwich and looked back out over the dimly lit city in front of them. After a few long moments of silence she stood up stretched before trotting in place for a moment.

“Welp, I should probably get back to work, but if you want, you can take Orion over to that couch and just take it easy.”

Silver nodded and carefully lifted up his sleeping foal, carrying him over to the aforementioned couch, and gently setting him down on one side of it. Right away the colt curled up in the corner and went motionless again, and another moment after, Silver was curled up on the couch too. As much as Silver hated calling off work days, the time spent with his family was a more than fair trade off, even if he was only relaxing on the couch in Scarlet’s office. He still had his worries about the strange sub-dream space he had discovered, and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it or how he’d ask about it, but one thing was clear enough in his mind…

He needed to know more about that gateway, and would probably be restless until he got closure on it— be it through it’s removal, or further exploration… or perhaps something else entirely…

Only time would tell, and he knew that sooner or later he’d get the answers he needed…

Comments

[ProgAltRocker]

Precious bat family time, I love it