Nightmares of Wonderland

by SpiderSilky

After This I Won’t Mind Tripping

Starlight’s instinct was to use her magic to levitate herself, but she was spinning head over hooves so fast as she fell that she couldn’t concentrate enough to cast the spell. After a moment Starlight remembered that she couldn’t use her magic anyway. Though as all this happened, she was screaming in fear, preparing to hit the cold dirt bottom of the hole with deadly speed and being unable to stop it… after what felt like a minute passed, she realized this was too long and deep for it to be any kind of creature-dug hole, and it must have been bottomless. She shouted in frustration.

“Am I ever going to hit the bottom?!”

“Wait… Starlight?”

She couldn’t turn her head to look as she was tumbling down, but she recognized the voice. It was Sunburst. But he didn’t sound like before, all uptight and demanding. Instead he sounded a lot more like himself, if a little tired. He hadn’t been screaming like she was, he had been silent, so she hadn’t noticed him falling alongside her. He must have been knocked out in all the confusion somehow, and only woke up when she shouted.

“Sunburst? You fell in here too?”

“Fell where? What’s happening, Starlight? Where are we?”

“I don’t really know, I woke up and you and Spike were there, but you were both acting strange—”

“Why am I wearing this frilly… thing?”

Starlight couldn’t help but chuckle, despite the situation. “It’s good to have you back. The real you, I mean.”

“Can you cast a spell? Get us out of here?” He sounded more panicked than before. Starlight remembered how frightened and confused she had been too, at first. Not to mention that both of them were currently plummeting to nowhere. So she stopped laughing. Wishing she could do as he said and explain everything from the safety above ground.

“I wish I could, Sunburst. But for some reason, my magic isn’t working.”

She heard sparking, and felt a small aura of magic beside her. He was trying to cast a spell.

“Agh…!” He exclaimed, his voice tight with frustration. “It’s no use, my magic doesn’t seem to work either.”

Before Starlight could respond, she gasped, feeling a gust of wind from below. She yelled as she was turned right-side-up, and the skirt of her dress filled with air, and puffed out like an umbrella. Her head was still throbbing, and it took a second for her sight to stop spinning. When she looked to her right, she noticed Sunburst was in the same situation. In the darkness, she could see his silhouette doing the same motions as she had just gone through. His own dress was doing the same thing, and now they were both floating down much more gently.

“Are you doing this?” Sunburst asked.

“No…” She trailed off. She didn’t see the glow of a magical aura around Sunburst’s horn, so she knew the other unicorn was not the source of it.

“After this I won’t mind tripping over my cape as much,” Sunburst said, as he tried to steady his breathing.

“You mean your dress?” Starlight ribbed with a smirk, covering the fact that her heart was still racing and her breath was as unsteady as the other unicorn’s.

“Is that what I’m wearing? It’s so… bulky,” he said with annoyance. “Yours at least seems practical. Wait — why are we wearing dresses?”

“It’s hard to explain… I’m not even sure why all this is happening. Like I said, I woke up and you were acting strange. I saw Rainbow Dash and she disappeared through a burrow hole, and now we’re falling down that hole, and we can’t use magic.”

“Hmm…” Starlight immediately recognized Sunburst’s tone of voice. He was deep in thought, though she couldn’t see his expression clearly in the darkness. She wished she could cast a simple light spell so they could see each other.

As she thought that, something came out of the darkness below them. As they fell closer toward it, it came up to Starlight’s side. She reached a hoof out to it, and felt a ring attached to a chain. When she put her hoof through it and pulled, hoping it was something that she could hold onto to stop falling, instead there was a click, then a bright glow. She shut her eyes and turned her head away quickly from the sudden blinding light, and when she was able to look again, she realized that it was a lamp sitting on a table. She knew little about decoration, but she could see from the tattered pattern on the lampshade and the dusty wood carvings on the table that they must have been old. And what was stranger… Neither of them were attached to anything. As they floated down past the table and lamp, she couldn’t help but keep staring. It was standing on nothing.

“Curious…” Starlight muttered.

“Hm, what is?” Sunburst turned his head, and noticed the hovering table. The mare was not surprised that he had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed the whole interaction, she knew just how focused Sunburst could get inside his head.

With the light — that now seemed to follow them even as the lamp disappeared above them — they could see that they were not falling down a tunnel of soil. At least, not anymore. They were surrounded by stone, and even more furniture. As they fell further they saw candelabras on dressers and bookshelves next to fireplaces. Both unicorns were silent with confusion and awe. They passed a mirror hanging in front of them, but it showed their reflections upside-down, floating up. While Starlight was preoccupied watching what she could only assume was an uncannily detailed funhouse mirror, Sunburst had found a nightstand with books on it. He picked one up and opened it, hoping for some answers, but his glasses almost floated off and he had to let go of the text to catch them and affix them onto his muzzle again. While he was busy with that, he landed in a rocking chair, and as he held onto the arms of the floating furniture in surprise, Starlight watched this and snorted in laughter.

“You look just like an old mare!”

“I’m not in the mood for — Woah!” He slipped out of the chair as it rocked forward, and his dress puffed up again as he floated back down to Starlight.

“Sorry, it was just the chair, and the dress, and the bonnet, and your glasses… hahaha — Aah!” Starlight had to take a moment to laugh, wiping her watering eyes with her hooves. But she was cut short when she felt herself falling faster, her dress tightening as she was squeezed through a tight space, pressed uncomfortably against Sunburst. She heard him screaming as well… but once she had opened her eyes, they had finished going through the strangely confined part of the tunnel, and their dresses had caught them once again, floating down the hole which was now back to the same size it had been before.

“This must be some kind of magic.” Was all the stallion could say after the frightening moment had passed.

“All of it? That would be some powerful spell.”

“It’s possible. You’ve casted spells as powerful as this before.”

Starlight couldn’t argue with that. She was one of the most skilled unicorns she knew, other than Twilight. If she could turn back time and change the future, perhaps another talented unicorn could have created this illusion. She doubted it was Twilight, unless her alicorn tutor had somehow botched casting a spell and trapped them here on accident. She would not believe that the Princess of Friendship would do anything like this on purpose.

“You’re right, it is possible.”

As they had been talking, they had both been spinning very slowly. Turning onto their sides. Now they were both upside down, dresses still puffed out, still floating downward and somehow not plummeting at full speed. Starlight wanted to comment on how strange it was, but after everything that had already happened, she decided that it went without saying.

“But how come we can’t use—” Sunburst couldn’t finish his thought, as the two of them stopped suddenly. Starlight could see the ground, but everything was still upside-down. More importantly, she saw a bright blue pegasus with a rainbow mane, clip-clopping down the hallway as she hopped like a rabbit.

“Dash!” Starlight cried out, but the pegasus took no notice of her. “C’mon Sunburst, we have to follow her! Dash, wait! Please!” Starlight called, and looked up to realize that her tail had gotten caught on a curtain rod. She did not stop to think about it. She was able to kick the hook to free herself, then tumbled down, galloping after the pegasus.

“Why does this feel familiar…?” Sunburst muttered as he got himself down, only for his dress to fall over his head, burying him under layers of fabric. When he pushed it out of his face, he followed after his best friend, feeling a bit ridiculous as he held up some of the dress with his hoof to keep it from dragging. He realized that his bonnet had fallen off completely, and he stopped to pick it up off the ground and carry it along in his free hoof. It was the most practical part of the outfit after all, since it kept his mane out of his eyes. He would have to ask Starlight how to tie the bow.