The Heart of a Healer

by beyondthegrave

Nightmares

Mystic was in a mental daze as he stood there and stared at the photo. He felt a migraine coming on as memories from the day mixed in with the details of his recollection. He was utterly conflicted and confused as he tried to reconcile the blank spaces in his memory. There were pieces, fragments, he was certain of happening. Sunny bumping into him with his sled, her apology. Mostly, everything with Sunny was a lot more vivid and concrete.

With Firelight, it was different. The events were far more hazy, and he was unsure of what had happened between them. He recalled his kind and jovial nature, and how safe he felt around him. Most importantly, he knew his father had called him his soldier that day, and he never said that lightly. It was a special term of endearment he used whenever Mystic had a hard time with something. The problem was that the only thing Mystic remembered having difficulty with was his stupid jacket zipper.

Mystic shook his head. It was just a zipper. He tried to dismiss what he heard as a false memory, but it was unshakeable, and his stomach churned. The uncertainty surrounding the memory made him feel sick.

Mystic ignored it though, letting his thoughts twirl and spin as he paced again, pondering what his father wanted from him and mentally berating himself since he stupidly couldn’t remember. If only he were here and not out, working, apparently.

That was, at least, what Sunny told him he was doing, but it reminded him of a rumor he overheard. Mystic didn’t think Sunny or Firelight were the type to—well, Mystic didn’t want to repeat what he had heard, but sometimes when a parent is away for long, it's because one of them is doing inappropriate things with another pony that they like more. He kicked himself for that line of thought, since if they really didn’t love each other, then they would have broken up a long time ago, he figured.

Mystic conceded that he didn’t know everything about his parents, but it was the best justification he could come up with at the moment. He was still at a complete loss, and thoughts raced through his mind he didn’t want to believe. He wished his search for wisdom wasn’t so fruitless, but it was, and wished he didn’t have more questions than answers, but he did.

Mystic huffed with frustration and stomped a hoof onto the ground. He took a deep breath, and wanted to scream. He forcefully pushed his bedroom door open and stepped inside, slamming the same door behind him. He thought about his homework for a moment but realized he could care less about it. All of the day’s reflection had worn him out and he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

Mystic went over to shut the blinds, and as he turned towards his desk stand, he grimaced at his nightlight sitting there and quickly flipped off the overhead lamp. “Come on! You don’t really need that thing anymore, do you?”

Mystic, resisting the urge to turn it on, climbed into his bed and covered himself with his sheets. "Get a grip, already."

For a while, as he lay there alone in his dark room, everything was fine, until the innocuous sound of the apartment’s radiator hummed, and his chest shocked him with an intense flurry of pain. He clutched his blanket, and his hooves shook involuntarily.

“No, it’s nothing.. It’s nothing.. It’s..” Mystic mentally repeated to calm himself down. He shut his eyes, but the darkness was still there, like a looming storm siphoning away all his remaining courage, creating a growing sense of unease that formed from the corners of his mind.

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Sunny was not taking the day’s events well either. The way Mystic acted around her was concerning, to say the least. She wanted to check up in him, but she was just afraid. Afraid she might say the wrong thing and lose her temper. Sunny’s mind spun and dark thoughts that still lurked around in the depths of her psyche arose.

Sunny decided to retire early for the night and attempted to sleep, but her nagging worries and fears followed her there, directing her subconscious towards visions of the past. She pushed and pulled the covers off her bed, restlessly motioning like a pony fighting off some invisible specter hovering over her.

“You can’t be serious!” she heard herself say enraged.

When Sunny heard those words, she immediately knew what her mind had in store. It was the night after they received that letter from the school. The argument still felt like it happened yesterday.

“Sunny,” she heard Firelight say shakily as his dark blue form began to take shape. “Y-you n-need to understand, I-I just wanted t-to.. Honey, please calm down. We can talk about this,” he pleaded.

Sunny dreaded having to see her husband so distressed and wanted to scream at her past self for losing control of her emotions.

“Calm down?! How can I calm down when you’re clearly not thinking straight?!” she said as she approached him angrily. Sunny saw herself get right into Firelight’s face, and not gently at all, place a hoof on his shoulder, shoving him back. “You’re something. You know, you really are incredible! You know what your problem is? You don’t think!” she said, pointing at her skull. “Nothing you say is rational!”

“I’m doing my best, alright?!” Firelight glared, stood up tall, and made himself appear bigger than he felt. In response, Sunny lit up her horn and made an illusory fire dance in the pupils of her eyes, an intimidation technique she accidentally discovered.

“You CLEARLY aren’t! Need I remind you of the stunt you pulled with him the day after his sixth birthday?! I was blatantly worried and you assured me everything was fine. I mean, I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that you trusted your six year old child not to tell his own mother or the fact you actually told him to stay quiet to, to, to what? Shelter your ego?” she spat.

Firelight took her pause in thought as a chance to defend himself, “No!” he shouted. “I-It was an accident and you know it! I-I never wanted to hurt him! Sunny, I-I thought you forgave me,” he said, forcing back tears.

“Yes. I did forgive you, even after you insisted on continuing your magic little training sessions,” Sunny said, narrowing her eyes in anger. “You are just.. so naive and foolish! What other reason could you possibly have for not wanting him out of that school and taking him away from this wretched town?” she said incredulously.

“Sunny.. I, well, speaking of…” Firelight gulped, and a bead of sweat ran down his muzzle. He knew this was the worst possible time to bring up the topic, but he had been putting it off, out of fear of her reaction. “I-I have this assignment with the guard’s medical battalion. It’s a big opportunity for me and.. I-I need your support. I need to be here on call.”

“Oh that’s great, Firelight! ” she shouted insincerely. “So, that’s what this is about. Tell me, how’d you manage that? With your history of reckless endangerment?!”

“Sunny, ALL I’ve ever wanted to do is protect and prepare him for the real world!” Firelight shot back spitefully. “Perhaps, if you compromised for once in your life, we wouldn’t be having this argument! You know what YOU are? Impossible! I swear—”

“Oh, shut up! You and your talk of preparations. All you’ve ever done is scare him senseless. Do you think I told the psychologist he has an overactive imagination for no reason? Or are you that dense? I did it for your sake because I trusted you, remember?! Don’t you dare tell me I’m being impossible! I have compromised, and you’ve given me nothing but regret in return.”

Sunny’s words rang out and struck Firelight deep inside his heart. Firelight hung his head low in despair, feeling scorned by the mare he loved so much, “I-I gave y-you Mystic,” he said sadly, barely managing to speak, as his vocal muscles tightened.

Sunny paused in thought, letting her rage consume her. “And you sure showed him how much you cared didn’t you? You know what Firelight, just go. Go then, while I take care of him like I always do! Go ahead since your job is all you ever think about anyway!!” Sunny screamed in utter frustration, spurring the fire contained in her eyes to leap out and engulf him. Sunny did nothing to extinguish it, as she shamefully saw him only as an object of her ire. So, she stood there, ashen and alone, in the wake of the inferno's devastation.

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In a blur of distorted images, suppressed memories of Mystic’s old school flashed around his mind in a twisted slideshow-esque collage. He heard voices call out to him that grew in veracity, and in an instant, the images morphed until a clearer picture he could recognize materialized. He was in a library’s stacks being led down an endless maze of bookshelves by a group of four slightly older foals.

“Come on, Mystic Heart, if you’re so smart, then show us your vast knowledge,” one of them snickered and put a hoof over his mouth, while another placed their hoof around his shoulders and aggressively guided him through more corridors, making random left and right turns until they were secluded.

Mystic hoped he’d never have to hear the sound of their sinister voices ever again, their giddy laughs still tormenting him, despite how hard he tried to forget. He could do nothing but watch himself scan the words of that spell they chose for him, written in some ancient dialect he could barely understand.

“Yeah we ALL want to see it in action,” the one to his left said gleefully.

The ponies surrounded him, enclosed him in a circle, and after ensuring he was trapped, they shoved a book into his hooves, giving him no choice but to read it.

“W-what’s this going to do to me?” he asked, cowering before them.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fun,” Mystic gulped at the pony’s menacing tone as beads of sweat ran down his face. He reread the spell repeatedly, trying to make sense of it.

“Well? Are you done? Clock’s ticking,” their ringleader asked impatiently.

“Hang on, maybe he needs some encouragement. You can do it, Mystic! We believe in you!” the others cheered on, laughing mockingly.

The bullies repeatedly taunted him and the cacophonous din of their laughter grew louder and more abrasive. Mystic saw himself trying to flee but was shoved back inside, overwhelmed by the entourage. “W-will you let me go if I do?” he said, and they nodded ominously.

“F-fine!” he said indignantly and glanced down at the old tome.

As he read it, he absorbed the raw energy emanating from the book and cast the spell. He felt its magica course through him, causing a pins and needles sensation on his skin. It spread across his body and he began to feel numb. This he expected, he knew the body needed to adjust its sensory input levels to adapt to disruptions in its auric fields. The issue with this being, Mystic had no idea how long the adjustment period would last for this spell. Plus, the magic he was taking in was intense, and its effects were unfamiliar to him.

Eventually, the numbness dissipated but an absolutely awful soul-crushing feeling of dread followed. Nothing felt real, and it made him wish he tried harder to escape. His vision drifted in and out of focus and he suffered depth of field distortions, making his tormentors appear larger than life, allowing him to see every minute detail of their cruel victory written over their faces.

The visual distortions spun and made him feel nauseous, but he nearly forgot the stomach-churning pain when his hooves and bodily extremities became see-through. “Help! PLEASE!” he yelped out in sheer panic as they faded away, but his pleas failed him, and then he experienced something entirely different—the cold.

An icy chill enveloped him and the sound of his voice morphed into an disorienting shrill noise in his ears as the colors around him rapidly shifted into darker hues until everything was totally black and silent. At this point, the darkness itself had become a suffocating fog, a thief to not only his vision but all his senses. It was the worst, most isolating feeling he could possibly imagine.

Confused and afraid, he aimlessly wandered around, unsure of how to proceed—every step increasing his panic.

“Where am I?” he thought aloud, desperately hoping somepony would hear him.

Mystic tried to cast a basic light spell, but no matter how hard he tried, it failed every time, making his heart palpitate in terror.

When his vision eventually returned, he saw the monstrous forms of two older ponies approach him, and a chill ran down his spine. It was his parents. The green eyes of his mother, and violet eyes of his father were dim, and they had a sad, tired, disappointed expressions on their faces.

“M-mom, D-dad? W-what’s going on? What’s wrong with my magic?” he asked, horrified.

They said nothing, shook their heads, and silently encroached into his personal space. Mystic desperately tried to get their attention and called out to them, but they either couldn’t hear or were refusing to speak to him. When he realized this, Mystic took a step back as their shadowy figures passed through him entirely.

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Mystic jerked himself out of his nightmare, shot up in his bead, and wiped off his wet forehead that was drenched in a cold sweat. Mystic could hear his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and before he was fully consumed with panic, he frantically leaned over to turn on his nightlight.

The dull glow it gave off provided him some relief, but he was still terrified. He felt like he almost died, and it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real. It reminded him of everything he screwed up, and he began to sob, unable to hold back the well of tears that he had been forcing back since last morning.

Needing to know he was safe, he sought his mother for the comfort only she could provide. Mystic warily crawled out of his bed and nudged open his door, making his way across the hall to where Sunny slept.

Mystic’s hoofsteps creaked on the wooden floorboards, and Sunny stirred from the noise, opening her eyes rapidly—a protection-induced response she developed from being awoken in his I-can’t-sleep-alone phases.

Sunny sat up, and through the murky light of her bedroom, she saw Mystic’s shadowed shaking form in the doorway, front legs wrapped around himself. She could tell from his breathing that he had been crying recently.

"M-mom.. I-I had a bad dream," he said in a brittle tear-choked voice.

Sunny’s heart clenched at the sight of his little body approaching her bed and she lifted her blankets in invitation. "Come here, sweetheart," she said gently, but with an urgency in her tone.

Mystic stumbled his way toward her, and Sunny tightly took him into her hooves, lifting him onto the bed. Once he was next to her, Sunny embraced him and Mystic gladly did the same.

“I’m sorry you had a bad dream. What was it about?” she asked softly, hiding the anguish in her voice. How much more deception could she justify? In the past, she was able to allay his fears by assuring him that none of it was real or have him reframe it in a more positive light.

“I-I dreamed that.. that..” he said, but the thought of his nightmare overwhelmed him, causing a new wave of anxiety to crush his fragile state of mind. Mystic’s body quivered in fear as he heaved against her chest and began to sob for the second time that night. The fresh stream of tears he produced wetted and matted her mane and coat in the process, but Sunny didn’t even notice.

"Shhh, it's alright my baby. I've got you now," she cooed and kissed his muzzle, reassuring him that he was safe. Mystic, in turn, buried his head in his mother’s chest, letting out soft, muffled hiccups as she leaned over to rub comforting circles on his back.

Several minutes passed as Sunny gently rocked and soothed him. His tears slowed to occasional sniffles, and an intimate silence fell over the room. The sight of her shaking and sniffling foal painfully stung her heart with guilt. No matter how comforting her lies were, she knew that she couldn’t allow them to go on any longer, for both their sakes. And for Firelight’s sake.

“Mom, c-can you sing to me?” Mystic asked through chattering teeth. “Of course I will, dear,” she said quietly. “Always.”

Sunny held his hoof and Mystic’s eyes drifted between half and fully lidded. Sunny picked up on his tiredness and motioned for them to lay down. After they shifted to laying on their backs, Sunny allowed him to cuddle up next to her. Mystic yawned and she smiled, beginning to sing him a sweet serenade she had learned from her mother during her foalhood.

Mystic couldn’t recall the number of times he heard the tune, but each time he heard it, it always made him feel like Sunny had cast a circle of protection, preventing any worries he had from entering his mind for the time being. The more he listened, the more it reminded him of simpler times when his nightmares could be forgotten by the calm, reassuring words his mother provided.

Sunny felt Mystic’s small body nestle up against her withers, and she gently pulled him closer as she sang. Sunny’s calm, reassuring voice perfectly complementing the comforting heartfelt lyrics that told of guardians who kept watch through the night.

As she finished the final notes, Mystic became still, his breathing deep and even. Yet, uneasy whispers lingered in the back of her mind as she watched him sleep, reminders of secrets that she knew could not remain hidden any longer if she still wanted her son to find solace in her embrace.