> Dreamweaver
>  by Blue Blaze {COMET}
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Act I: Sleeping Beast, Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you going to bed already?”

I turned around to look at my mother peering in from the doorway to her bedroom. She stared at me, traces of concern in her expression. I let my grip slide off of the doorknob to my own bedroom, looking at the floor for a moment before answering.

“Yeah.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tell her, scratching the back of my head. “Just a bit tired, is all.”

She gave me a warm smile. Her baby blue nighty and sleeping cap matched well with her orange coat and eyes as she leaned against the doorframe. “School getting to you?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

“Teachers being annoying?”

“I’m not tired of school, mom.”

She got off of the doorframe and took a few steps towards me. I was the one tired, but I could see dark circles under her eyes too, her age evident in the wrinkles slowly forming at the corners of her eyelashes. Most say that I look nothing like my mom at all, what with we being completely opposite colours of each other and all. But I got my dark blue coat and black hair from my dad. I’ve always had to explain that the only reason I was a unicorn was because of my mother. My bright orange eyes were also hers.

“Is there something else bothering you?”

“No, mom. Don’t worry about me. Nothing’s wrong with me.” I explain to her.

Her mouth tightens in a straight line. She won't let me leave just like that. It wasn't that simple.

“I’m fine. I’m just tired. Honestly.”

She finally walks across the hall up to me, a tiny solemn smile on her face. “Oh, sweetie,” she says, caressing my cheek. “Are you sleeping well?”

“Dreamweaver, mom. Duh.” I deadpanned.

She snickered. “Well, I guess not. But, well, you know how I worry about you."

“Mom, stop. I've already told you I'm fine.” I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oh, you're just so big and strong already. I can't believe how responsible you've gotten. Time really does fly."

There was a little bit of sadness on her face. I felt sad too. "You know you can't protect me forever."

Her sigh was filled with melancholy. “I know. But for now, you’re still just a teenager, and I’ll protect you with all my might for as long as I can.”

I smiled. “Mom.”

She pulled me into a hug. I wrapped my upper legs around her, her motherly love getting to me.

“Honestly mom, I’ll be fine. You know I’ve been doing this for four years now. I’m a professional. Heck, I’m the only professional that exists out there in this field! I’m not the Dreamweaver for nothing.”

She pulls back so we’re face to face. “I know. Just tell me you’ll be extra careful out there, ok? And come back to me in one piece?”

We nuzzled noses. I finally got back to my door, opened it and looked back at her anxious face. “I will. Trust me.”

She nodded. My head swung back to face the inside of the room. As I pushed the door closed behind me, I heard my mother’s voice again.

“And don’t work yourself too hard.”

I smirked.

“I won’t.”







The Dreamscape.

The realm of dreams.

The plain of souls.

My domain. Or, mine until Nightmare Moon escapes in about 450 years and tries to take everything over again. Hopefully by then Princess Celestia finds out a solution to the problem and gets reunited with her sister once again.

I usually have a hard time describing the Dreamscape to my friends at school whenever they ask about it. I try to describe it to them in a way that will allow them to understand. The standard description is it looks like outer space, except with dreams as the planets and no sun. But it’s much more than that. The Dreamscape is more like a state of existence than a place to describe. When I’m there, I can feel the dreams wax and wane through the cosmos of energy, pulsing with activity inside of them, the stronger dreams dwarfing the dreams teetering against the waking world. When I close my eyes, I can feel them there. The dreams, I mean. I can feel their locations, how far apart they are and how far I am to them. I have a constant mental map of where almost everything is, from the adventurous dreams to the strange dreams that make no sense, and the nightmares. The only things I can’t detect are dreams that are too far out of my sensing scope to view, but I can zoom in and out of the picture as much as I want. The thing is, zooming out too far is a bit sickening, and everything starts to blend in as a mess of vomited colours after a while.

Although, technically I’m not supposed to tell anyone about the Dreamscape, or the fact that I’m the Dreamweaver. But I think I can trust my friends enough to keep it a secret from anypony else. Who am I supposed to trust besides my friends? Hmph, said Stainless Steel. He got what was coming to him after he attempted to rat me out on the local newspaper. Good thing I told Princess Celestia instead of giving him nightmares for the rest of his life. That would have been a real mess.

But anyways, it was another night, another shift in the Dreamscape. I had just fallen asleep; my consciousness getting pulled to the Dreamscape mere seconds after my head hit the pillow. I had already pulled myself from my dream in the Nightmare Fields (my personal dreaming realm, named after my wonderful past experiences) into the Dreamscape and was surveying the area. Simply existing in the Dreamscape is a wonderful feeling. You float there, no worries in the world, no pains of your body hindering you from a relaxing experience. There are no sounds except the ambiance of the universe as wisps of passing dreams fall across the plain like shooting stars. You don't breathe, as there is no air to fill your lungs, and yet you don't choke on emptiness. You keep living, experiencing, existing in the outer dimension. It is such a freeing feeling to be in the Dreamscape, and I never get tired of being in it.

No wonder it was my destiny to become the Dreamweaver.

I opened my eyes, inhaling metaphorically. Well, time to get to work. I push myself forward slightly with my will, propelling me forwards a few feet. I found out shortly after my very first visit to the Dreamscape that in order to move around, I had to exert the tiniest amount of will to push myself. Wherever I wanted to go, I simply needed to wish to go there, put some effort into my wish and I would whisk off in that direction. Of course, the first dozen times I did it I went rocketing off into a direction, eventually ramming into a dream and materializing in it, but I mastered self-control soon enough.

I floated forward, steadily making distance across the grid as I looked around, searching for nearby threats. My number one priority as the Dreamweaver is finding nightmares that ponies are having and dispel them by safe means. That usually requires me to solve some sort of problem the dreamer is having, which is usually causing the nightmare. It's like a jigsaw puzzle; you have to take all the pieces and put them together to solve the entire picture. Only here, instead of puzzle pieces I'm dealing with I instead handle real cognitive problems that live under the surface of dreams. Sometimes I can’t figure it out in one night, and have to return the next to try and combat it again. Other times, I can figure it out and bring peace to the dream in no time flat. Of course, time flows differently in the Dreamscape and I can find myself here hours longer than there are in a day, so time isn't really an obstacle.

After looking around for a bit, I closed my eyes and opened up my mental view, sensing around for nightmares in the area. There were no nightmares of the sorts nearby. Of course, there were probably nightmares around somewhere in the space, but I wasn’t near enough to sense them. I didn’t worry about it. I could only do so much at a time. I was only one pony, after all. Princess Celestia had to help me figure that one out though, and many nights were lost with me waking myself up because I was worried sick that I couldn’t do my job properly because there were no nightmares to be seen in the area at the time. The Princess informed me that if anything, I was doing a spectacular job instead of a terrible one, considering the rate of nightmares was at an all-time low. I didn't know how she got that data, but I didn't doubt the princess one bit.

There was only one thing to do in a situation like this. Peering over to a nearby dream, I got a sense of mystery and interest, colouring the dream's orb a mixture between green and orange. It wasn't an actual combination of the two, it was simply green in one instant and orange the next. Colours in the Dreamscape are a relative thing, as you don’t really see the colours with your eyes, but rather feel it. Oh sure, you can still see the round spheres that encompasses the dream, but you don’t see the colour. It’s hard to describe. Instead of identifying a dream as a colour, you can just take a look at it and say “That feels green, of wonder and mysterious elements between the roots and laws of nature.”

I willed myself over to the dream. I could tell there was a dual sensation of excitement and confusion from the world beyond. It wasn't super happy go lucky, like the blue dreams were. I had a feeling there would be a lot of questions in this one. I pushed forward, approaching the planet as I moved myself across the cosmos. I closed my eyes for one short second before entering the dream, opening up my overall view and comparing the tiny size of my own entity entering the threshold of the massive beast in front of me.

I touched the membrane and everything became a rush of blurred lights. I was in.







As I entered the dream, everything around me was a muddy grey. I couldn’t tell was anything was yet, but I patiently waited for the rest of the scenery to fill in. Sometimes entering dreams is a bit slow, as parts of your soul are catching up to the part that’s already in the dream, flowing quickly like a stream to your conscious self. The fog around me wasn’t ominous, but murky and humid like a hot summer night. My senses returned to me as I smelt fresh rain in the air, the scent of water mixing with dirt and dust wafting through the open. I found myself on solid ground, which was an important detail to make. Too many times I have found myself freefalling through nothing, landing myself in another stars-forsaken Pegasus flying dream. For Pete’s sake, you’d think that Pegasus ponies would be content enough flying around in real life without having to fly around in the dream world as well!

I looked down, cracked pavement beneath my hooves. I was suddenly aware that I was standing in a street filled with many tall, sandy brick buildings that touched roof-to-roof. They were all more or less apartments, and I could barely make out the corner of the block behind me to be a drug store with an aging sign illuminated by some kind of light behind it. The apartments were right up against the pavement, the stairs leading to the front door giving no room for a front walkway up to the house. The buildings looked fairly new, but cheaper than middle class. Colours in the dream were a bit muddled with extra shades of grey, making the atmosphere seems mysterious and covert.

I immediately noticed a crowd of ponies off in front of me all encircling around a certain building. They all varied between the three races, but a majority of them were citizens in clothing gawking at the building in front of them. Most of them were whispering to each other behind strands of police tap covering up the very front section of the apartment. The stallions wore top hats and ties and the mares had their hair up in odd designs, from beehive towers to ringlets cascading down the side of their heads. Their appearance pretty much solidified my conclusion that the dream was taking place in one of the bigger cities of Equestria. It could be Manehatten, or Vanhoover, maybe Baltimare. It didn’t really matter, as I would probably never figure it out by the end of the dream. But, it was important to note the scenery, as the dreamer chooses specific locations for specific reasons.

There were police ponies in uniform standing outside of the building, keeping the public away from inside. Five were at least around the perimeter, and police carts were stationed on the road and partway onto the sidewalk so that the police could slap tape around the perimeter. Reporter ponies aggressively leaned over the crowd already looking onto the scene, their hats and coats fluttering behind them while large square cameras with lenses sticking out of the front took pictures of the building in question. On the roof above the eighth floor I could barely make out Royal Guard Pegasus ponies flying about, taking in the crowd and making sure that nopony shifty would approach the cite. That made me raise an eyebrow. What was the royal guard doing with the police? Regardless, at first glance you’d think that there’d be quite a commotion outside the target location, with all the ponies outside discussing the inside. But, in actuality there was no sound coming from the populace. They were all shifting around in their groups and their mouths were moving, but no sound came out. The dreamer wasn’t in the area, otherwise there would be a lot of noise coming from the bunch.

I figured as much that the amount of ponies in front of me wouldn’t have enough detail to have voices. The details of the dream directly correlate to the strength the dream has, and I was surprised already to see so many little pieces and touches to the sleeping illusion before spotting a limitation. Power in dreams comes from the emotional impact it has on the dreamer, as well as how deep in their sleep they are. I have entered dreams that lay across the energy spectrum, from weak dreams that teeter between rest and waking reality to sleeping beasts. The most powerful dream I have come across was no doubt Princess Celestia’s dream, although as an Alicorn she already has advantages most don’t have.

Seeing as the ponies already have a lot of thought put into them, they must have been important for some reason. It was a bit obvious that the main attraction was occurring inside the apartment, and no doubt I would find the dreamer involved with the crime scene. Everything began to seem a bit sour to me. I didn’t enter a nightmare for sure, but anything involved with crime couldn’t have been good. I couldn’t tell if it was a really bad robbery, or a murder. I walked towards the scene hoping it was the former.

Getting past the herd of onlookers was a breeze. As I guessed, they may have been staring at the building and whispering to each other, but that was their only command. They couldn’t react, and instead only performed a list of actions in a never-ending cycle until the dream either ended or changed drastically. I trotted right around them and ducked under the police tape without anypony batting an eyelid. I could have walked through and nothing would have probably happened, but it was still a good habit to act in dreams like you act in real life. Sometimes you forget to differentiate between the two. Walking towards the sidewalk and ignoring the police, I peered into the open front doors, trying to get a sense of what was going on in there. All I could see was a thin hallway with old yellow paint on the walls and a metal staircase that hugged the wall on the right and traveled up. I squinted, and summoned energy, preparing to cast a spell.

Even though I snuck past the common folk in plain sight, if I accidentally bump into the dreamer, they won’t be happy. Oh sure, their dream will turn into a lucid dream, which can create all kinds of amazing situations that the owner of the reality can bend to his or her own will, but most ponies don’t take too kindly to one invading another, especially since Dreamweavers are unheard of these days. Don’t get me wrong, ever since I became a Dreamweaver my presence around Equestria has definitely elevated to a point of a certain amount of awareness among the public, but Princess Celestia hasn’t made any official statements. She has implored me to keep hidden, as normally invading one’s mind is strictly forbidden and can lead to capital punishment, but because I’m the Dreamweaver I get special privileges to view the minds of sleeping ponies, as long as I use my powers for good. Disrupting one’s dream is unpleasant and definitely the opposite of good, so I have to avoid as much contact as possible.

As I need to stay out of sight, the Princess has taught me a hoofful of spells that’ll allow me to avoid confrontation. As I brought energy into my horn, I closed my eyes and pictured the spell in my head, weaving the aura that came from my soul into a net of arcane static, forming a specific pattern that fell over my body. A spell I like to cast often in these dreaming worlds allows me to become an object in the background, making it very difficult for anypony to actually look directly at it, much less interact with it. If you cast it on yourself you become a blur in the distance, blending in with scenery like dust floating in sunlight pouring from a window. Others are hard-pressed to notice you in a crowd, against walls or slinking in corners. That doesn’t stop them from noticing you if you stand in plain sight, though, or if you interact with something like a door or a small item.

As the Dreamweaver, I end up doing a lot of Soulcasting in order to execute spells; that is to say, use my soul as a base energy for spells instead of the normal arcane energy. Soulcasting is pretty much a lost art, as it isn’t necessary in reality because of the saturation of Mana in the air. Instead of mixing the Aura in my horn with the Mana, instead I combine Aura and my soul (which contrary to popular belief are TWO different things) to get an end result. The most important thing I need to remember though is my energy usage. Because of the need for Soulcasting in the Dreamscape, I got to pay attention to how much power I draw from myself. Another reason Soulcasting is not solemnly used is that it is dangerous. Because the main source of arcane energy is from the soul of the caster, every time a spell is cast, they basically rip a part of their soul out to use as the base. Not to worry though, as the soul grows back after time and after doing activities that exemplify how life feels like living, but if one Soulcasted and went a bit too far with the output, well, let’s just say that they would be worse off dead. Since I’m in the dreaming realm instead of reality, the consequences are much, much worse.

I wouldn’t wake up, at all. And I would be stuck in the Dreamscape with half a soul for all eternity.

As a cloak of static fell over me from my spell my vision blurred for a moment before focusing, the sign that I had a successful cast and I was ready to continue onward. Like I predicted, the police standing near the front door didn’t react to a colt suddenly becoming blurry and out of the picture. I peered into the open door one last time, making sure I wasn’t missing anything. After, I trotted up the steps and into the building.

The inside of the building was dim with aged lights. There were lightbulbs attached underneath the staircases above me, but their light was stained yellow from time and gave a lemony glaze over the shiny walls. There was a hallway that went straight down through the apartment from the door, but it faded into nothingness the farther I peered down the corridor. That part of the dream wasn’t important, so I started climbing the stairs, keeping my eyes peeled for any more signs of the dreamer. I got to the fourth floor without seeing anypony until I peered into the door for the floor and saw a police officer and a Royal Guard guarding the hall as lookouts. That mystery was a tough one. I opened the door from the staircase and continued, hoping the door's movements wouldn't alert me to their presence. It didn't.

I crept slowly along the red carpet, the walls’ green paint peeling off of the plaster. The apartment, I realized, looked worse for wear. Sure, it didn’t look entirely run-down from outside, and it didn’t occur to me that it was located in a poor area, but age certainly took its hold on the appearance of the structure. I wondered what significance it had to the dream, and more importantly, the dreamer. Despite being a master of dream traveling I still have no idea what half of the things in the dreams I see actually mean. Many elements that occur in a dream have different meanings, from a butterfly resembling carelessness in the world to a baseball hurling through the air resembling how the dreamer tosses and turns in bed. Figuring out ponies in person is hard enough, but getting into their mind and trying to figure it out from there? Forget it.

The pair of lookouts stood at a corner at the end of the hall, watching in case anypony tried to sneak into the crime scene, namely me. Thank goodness were just more backstage props, because they didn’t blink when I had entered the hall and didn’t turn their heads as I shuffled past, getting a good look at the guard. He seemed like a normal guard to me, with the enchanted equipment to make him look like any other white stallion with deep blue hair. His normally shining golden armour was a bit dimmed and muted though, much like most of the ponies that stood outside in loud silence. There was no shimmer in his eyes, no signs of actual cognition in that existence of his. Most puppets in dreams look like this, although we don't ever notice when we're actually in our own dream. We're always too busy with our own distractions to notice the actual lack of depth in the environment we're in. Only when we're truly aware of our state of consciousness we actually get that we're in a dream and not is all that it seems. The more important a puppet is to a piece, the more lifelike it looks. It still looks completely unnatural and creepy when compared to the dreamer in the dream though.

I continued down the hall to spot an open door halfway through the space, with another guard-officer duo posted at the entrance. They stood at stark attention unmoving, waiting for something to happen that gave them cause and reason to act. Inside the room I heard yelling, which was the first instance of actual audio I had heard in the realm. Not even my hoofsteps made a noise up until this point. I could only make out some of the words, but it sounded like a heated argument between two bigwigs. If I had to guess, they sounded like either a politician and a police sergeant, or two police stallions verbally duking it out. One of them barked an order at another, and as I was feet away from the doorframe a young stallion in a police outfit swung himself around the corner, holding his cap in one hoof for a moment before sprinting full-tilt right at me.

I barely had enough time to fling myself against the wall so he could pass. At first it was an instinctual thing: To get out of the way of something fast coming at you. But it was also important because he looked more solid than the other ponies I had scene and would probably have disrupted the dream if he bumped into me, bringing the dreamer’s awareness to me and completely screwing the reason I went here in the first place. I was thankful that I had enough reason in me to dodge in the first place instead of passing him off as deadweight in the realm. I turned back at him as he followed the corridor in a hurry, becoming a bit faded after he reached past the corner with the guard and the police officer that were standing watch. After catching my breath and letting my heart slow, I turned my head towards the room and entered.

It was a crime scene, alright. There were police officers littered in the area, with royal guards added in to spare. The room was small, the walls covered in brown wallpaper stained with age. The wall turned to fine wooden paneling a foot above the ground and was lined along the floor, the boards pointing up. The floor was also wooden, the oak shined in the small amount of light coming in from the windows on the opposite side of the room. There were doorways on both the left and the right sides of the room, one leading to a tiny kitchen and the other seemingly leading to a bedroom. The plush, green chair one corner of the room had a circling red carpet underneath and the sunset-shaded lamp standing on the second-hand three-legged table at the opposite side hinted me that it was a living room. There was a coat hanger immediately to my left, with a leather jacket hanging on it and black rubber boots beneath. You could see the sky from outside with the blinds of the windows rolled up, the storm clouds above looking menacing yet subdued.

The main attraction was lying right in the middle of the floor. With all of the stallions puttering around the perimeter of the room, I could clearly see the body of a pony placed right on the boards of the floor, her eyes closed, blood painting her yellow coat. She was beautiful, her blonde hair matching her coat, falling in ringlets down onto the ground, slightly suspended by its roots on the top of her head. She had long, luxurious eyelashes that were tightly knit under her brow. I couldn’t tell if they were fake or not, but they definitely complemented the ruby lipstick she wore. The simple, pure white summer dress draped over her body was embroidered at the back neatly, pictures of banks of roses cut into the fabric. Her tail was lengthy and also curled, matching her mane perfectly. She would have looked like a supermodel if it wasn’t for the bloody hole torn in her side.

It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but there definitely was a wound just above her stomach before her neck. There was a gouge in her dress dipped in crimson that drew a bloody line across her otherwise prim and prime dress, falling across her back and onto the floor in a dribble. The trail continued before stopping a foot north away from the body, with no signs of where the killer went next. There was a tiny pool of drying blood that was underneath her, still fresh enough to reflect the light of the lamp. I was thankful that smell wasn't a common sense used in dreams, because I was certain that in any other situation I would have smelt fresh death in the room. I felt the heat rush from my face as I took a cautious step back.

It was a murder, a murder in a dream. I’ve seen many horrible things in my time as Dreamweaver, but it never gets easier seeing the loss of pony life in a dreaming world. Sure, it may be fake, and maybe nopony died here, but the fact was I couldn’t tell whether or not the victim was made on the spot just for the dream or if the dreamer had based her off of someone they knew in real life. Or they had known. And even then, the point that the dream put got to me crystal clear. The main setting in the dream was that somepony had died in an apartment, and the dreamer was somehow involved in the events after. My skin crawled as I considered the possibility of the dreamer being involved during the event and the dream simply contemplated the events after. I thought that I didn’t enter a nightmare, but instead a dream that was adventurous and had mysterious elements at best.

That must have meant that the dreamer wasn’t focusing on the murder itself, but something around the murder. They weren’t concerned about the dead body in the center, but instead what was happening around it, and wasn’t stressed with the loss by any means. Maybe they were hardheads, veterans to the situation from their real-life job and they simply weren’t affected anymore. Maybe they were insane, not caring about the murder and instead found something else of worth in the dream. I highly doubted it. I searched around the room some more, paying closer attention to the entities that existed in realm. I knew that the dreamer had to be close, I just had to find them first.

Near the kitchen door were two police ponies, comparing notes from a notepad and pencil, their voices being projected in the background as murmurs of unimportance. I would only be able to hear what the dream wanted the dreamer to hear, so there would be no point trying to listen in on their conversation. There was a large guard looking at the window, rubbing his forehead with his helmet beside the green chair. A hardy, pissed police officer was gritting his teeth looking at the western wall, a faint growl emanating from his voice. 

And as I turned my attention to the bedroom door, a guard came out of the bedroom. Standing beside the door on guard, no mistake, was the dreamer.

He was looking at the two larger stallions in the room, glancing in their direction a bit nervously. Unlike all the other guards in the dream, his mane was a flamboyant green instead of the military standard blue. Still, his coat was white and he adorned golden armour, but his horn was alit with a white energy and a crossbow was held in his magical grip in front of him, floating steadily as if it was weightless. His eyes were orange, dull but much brighter than the other occupants I’ve encountered. Just the way that he stared at the police officer and the guard at the window I could tell that he was the dreamer. He had more of a concerned look to his face, his posture less perfect and his eyes betraying his duty. I could have cast a spell just to make sure to check for his aura, but what’s the fun in that? Besides, I’ve gotten so good at telling dreamers from dreams that there would be no point.

“I can’t believe this.” the chief stated. “Remind me why you’re here again?”

The captain of the guard turned around dramatically. “This case holds very valuable information for an important investigation involving the crown!”

“But could you go about your business without getting your hoofprints everywhere?” the chief asked, dry in his tone.

“We haven’t touched a Celestia-forbidden thing.” the captain said distastefully. “Besides, why don’t you give us a break? We’ve got the resources to make a cleaned-up job of this. We’ve got professionals. We could finish it up here in a matter of minutes and you could be back at the police station handling other calls.”

And I was right. The dreamer wasn’t worried about the murder at all. He was much more worried about his boss and the police chief squaring it off in the middle of a crime scene. The police chief bore his teeth in a scornful frown. I saw the dreamer swapping his gaze between the two rapidly, sweat rolling down his cheek. It was a high-strung situation, for sure. I didn’t know what was going on, or if it mattered, but I wondered if there was an actual point to the argument, or if it was just all moot. They should have been working together, not being disrespectful like this! I edged just a bit closer to the bedroom door, keeping my flank pressed against the wallpaper.

“You don’t understand. This is none of your business.” the chief stated.

“It is much our business as it is yours calling your colleague to fetch donuts at a crucial time like this. Is that what you do when you’re strung up? You devour pastries by the dozen?”


“You don’t know our ways. You couldn’t possibly imagine. You fancy, coat-less cowards have been sitting up all prim and clean in your castle up on the mountain, having tea and crumpets while officers like us have been working our flanks off to keep some measure of peace in the city!”

“'Our ways?' What do you mean 'Our ways?' What ways are there for the police to investigate a crime?”

"We have our ways. It wouldn't be anything you would know about. You may be trained, but I bet you have absolutely no experience dealing with the worst of the worst! Murderers, thieves, and gang violence probably doesn't occur in Canterlot, does it?"

The captain's eyebrows furrowed. "You have no idea what you are getting in to. Back off."

“I’ll back off when the victim isn’t my niece!” he yelled, the force of his voice visibly pushing back the captain. The two officers winced. The dreamer and the other guard that was beside the entrance had dropped their jaws. The captain was wide-eyed, his mane frazzled. The officers beside the kitchen looked up from their notes and their whispering. They went completely silent and wide-eyed, staring at their boss like he’d been slapped in the face. I swear there was foam dribbling out between the police chief’s clenched jaws.

I peered back at the body. The cold, empty eyes stared at the ceiling.

Sweet Celestia.

Was this a dream? Was this really a dream I was witnessing, or a memory?

“Chief.” a voice said near the room entrance.

Everypony’s gaze turned to the source. There was a unicorn standing in the doorway with a trench coat clinging onto her body. She entered the room, her golden eyes directly on the police chief’s. Her natural maroon coat could only be seen by the bottoms of her foreleg sleeves, as her rear legs were draped over by the coat’s tail, with her own long tail poking out in-between. I couldn’t see her cutie mark, and she wasn’t wearing a police uniform. My mind instantly went to a PI. She definitely looked the type, even though she didn’t look grizzled at all. Her long eyelashes were highlighted by the deep red lipstick she wore, and her mane flowed down the back of her neck, bangs parting at the horn atop her head.

Aaaaand the dreamer was drooling like crazy.

Ok, so he wasn’t literally drooling, but from the cross-eyed, glazed over stare he made at her I could tell we had a ringer for a love interest. I couldn’t even tell if it was a real interest or not. It’s a real shot in the dark whether or not a pony in a dream was based off a pony from real life. She could have been made just for the dream for all I knew, and the dreamer would have fallen head over heels for her anyways, because he isn’t thinking straight. When you’re dreaming, you don’t think. You absolutely don’t think. You just do, because your subconscious is controlling everything for you, and your conscious is just there to enjoy the ride. Or not. You probably won’t remember the dream once you wake up anyway.

“Rose.” the chief said, clearing his throat and looking away, embarrassed. 

The captain looked skeptical. “Who is she?” he asked the chief.

“Red Rose, PI for the Manehatten Police.” the mare said, stepping in to take command of the situation. “Ironhide, I’ve found evidence for the case, and I’ve left it outside. I could get it for you right now if you want, but I can see that you’re having a bit of a… argument, here with the good captain.”

“No, no. Go get what you’ve found.” Ironhide said, waving her off dismissively. He still couldn’t look at her straight, and his voice was a bit scratchy.

Red Rose smirked. I could see the glint of a rascal in the shine of her eye, and she turned around and promptly left. I looked right. The dreamer was staring in the direction that she exited, googly-eyed with weak knees.

“Sargent.” the captain called. The dreamer immediately snapped out of his trance and stood up straight, assuming the correct guard position again.

“Yes sir!” he answered.

“Don’t let me catch you staring at her ever again.” the captain commanded.

“Yes, sir.”

The guard near the entrance began snickering under his breath, totally breaking Royal Guard protocol. I may not be a Royal Guard, but I’ve been around them enough to know that this is totally not what they’re like. All those years circulating between my home town and Canterlot Castle have gotten me acquainted with the staff of the place, and I can safely say that the Guards of the Royal Crown are some of the most disciplined ponies I have ever seen. When they’re on duty, when they’re on the lookout and posted in their assigned position, they don’t move an inch. They done move a single inch, and only speak back to you if you are A: a pony of higher stature than them and B: actually talk straight to them. Otherwise, they don’t interact with you. They don’t look at you, they don’t react to your movements. I’m bewildered as to how they can protect anything by doing their best impression of a statue all the time, but if they’ve been doing in for the past 80 years like Princess Celestia told me they have, well, I can’t really judge a working system.

The dreamer has clearly never seen the Royal Guard in action much, much less has been in it. This goof is only dreaming about being in the guard because that is where he is placed according to his subconscious. And he was going ga-ga for that mare! I could feel the heat rise in the environment when she entered the room! That wasn’t a good sign. I avoid pink-tinted dreams at all costs for a reason, and dreams can segway anywhere from an adventurous dream to a pleasant, calm dream and anywhere in-between. I was considering finding the Exit (Exit with a capital E because it is the literal doorway out of the dream) as fast as I could, but then decided that I wanted to see the end of this crime drama. Maybe it would work out. Dreams are great stories that way.

The chief fixed the cap on his head, turning towards the window. “Damn it, where’s Silver Badge with the donuts when you need him?”

The captain grinned. “Cat got your tongue, ‘chief’?”

“That lady has been the reason for many sleepless nights, Golden Shield.” he answered, his voice not recovered yet.

“Hmph, and I thought cops were supposed to be professional.” the captain scoffed.

Ironhide grunted in response, tilting his hat over the top of his face.

I suddenly realized the corners of my lips were pulling into a small grin. I was finally enjoying myself. Exploring dreams was one of the fun things you got to do as a Dreamweaver, and dreams will solemnly let you down. They’re always interesting in one way or another, from the creative depth philosophical dreams have to the action and intensity of adventure dreams. Of course, technically I’m invading on somepony’s inner most private thoughts in one of their most vulnerable states, but I’m smart enough to stay out of harm’s way. For the most part.

But then I remembered the dead body on the floor. My smile soured.

“Chief, I’m back with the evidence–”

I didn’t even turn my head in time. There was the sound of a string letting go, then a deep, resounding thwack. A stallion’s scream was thrown into the air and the dream suddenly became all blurry and skewed as time slowed down.

My eyes widened as I saw Red Rose re-entering the room with a folder in her orange magical grip, with a crossbow arrow stuck right in her chest. She was looking down at it, shocked, as her horn faltered and let the document to the floor. I checked back to see the dreamer’s crossbow fall to the ground with a clatter, his legs failing him as she slid to the floor in a slump. Everypony in the room was in shock. The chief yelled out in surprise. The captain rushed to her aid in a flurry of feathers from his wings along with the other two police officers in the room. The guard beside the door had jumped back, unbelieving, his eyes locked with the newest victim.

Blood seeped from Rose’s wound into her trench coat, the bolt embedded right into her chest. Bull’s eye. Her eyelids fluttered as her pupils rolled back into her head and she collapsed on the floor. The captain didn’t manage to catch her and time and her head painfully bounced on the floor with an audible crack. Three of the ponies rushed her, and all I could do was watch as the dreamer sat on the floor, stunned with horrific realization.

“What have you done?” Ironhide demanded to know, his gaze boring right into the side of the head of the responsible. Mr. Crossbow didn’t look. He shook his head, back and forth, muttering words underneath his breath.

“Oh my Celestia… Oh my Celestia…”

The colours of the dream were getting sickening. Everything took a tint of dark red, light leaving the area with bitter darkness replacing it. The corners of the room were no longer visible, and the furniture disappeared for no reason. The clouds outside turned a bloody red and the buildings across the street were cast by a deep shadow. I couldn’t see the crowd outside, but I could only imagine what they looked like. Stains on the walls began dribbling from the ceiling, moisture ruining the wallpaper black. The room abruptly aged 50 years, and utter terror filled my heart.

“Sargent!” the captain yelled, staring right at the dreamer. His eyes were a terrifying, demanding yellow burn. “What were you thinking? Are you out of your mind?”

“It was by accident!” He cried, tears freely flowing. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”

“She’s dead…” one of the officers announced. Red Rose’s corpse rotted on the spot, her coat tearing with years of use and her skin hugging her bones tightly, void of liquid. Her empty eyes were sunken as the colour of her irises began to slowly drain as tears falling down her face to the floor. The colour dripped onto the wooden boards, reflecting a multitude of colours. Rainbow tears. Suddenly, Red Rose was a pure white Pegasus with a natural coat, her mane a rusty shade of hay that has passed its expiration date.

“What have you done?”

“You monster!”

“I can’t believe you did this!”

The room turned to a cacophony of accusations and shouts, all aimed at the same pony. There was so much hatred and confusion and pain that rushed suddenly into the dream I was seeing stars, the room tilting continuously so I couldn’t see straight. I stumbled, hitting the wall behind me for balance as I tried to bring myself together.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the dreamer repeated.

This was becoming a full-fledged nightmare, fast.

> Act I: Sleeping Beast, Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The room was shrinking smaller and smaller, almost becoming claustrophobic. Everything became dark and terrifying, glaring red eyes stared from the darkness. The ponies in the room began to grow disfigured, their limbs stretching unnaturally as their eyes grew slanted and their teeth pointed. Their pupils morphed into thin slits and the iris shrunk, the white in the eye becoming bloodshot and red. The uniforms of the police officers and guards melted off their forms and their colours bleached, leaving their coats pale white. Their necks grew and became hunched, gangly as they leaned over their victim.

“You monster! You monster! You monster!” They repeated over and over.

I could feel the terror that quickly escalated in the dream. The dreamer was sweating, looking unbelieving into the monstrous creatures that stared him down, boring into his psyche and leaving him hopeless, witless, and defenceless. His eyes darted from side to side, backing up to no avail into the apartment wall behind him, with the wallpaper torn and curled and the wood rotten and toxic. His breathing was quick and sweat fell off of his temples like trickling taps. The mood in the space was infectious, and I found myself suffocating under the fear that was exempted.

It was crushing, demoralizing as you found yourself utterly helpless in a world that was supposed to be your own. Your subconscious would constantly fight against the forces that drove you to madness, but you yourself would be trapped against something completely unrecognizable, something utterly featureless that fills in with your innermost fears. You lose all your strength and you feel choked, your neck constricted as your heart beats a hundred an hour. Nightmares were a veil of darkness and pain that draped over you, blinding you of any sight and freedom of movement.

That is what a nightmare is.

You are trapped. Constricted. Limited.

You are your a prisoner to your own torture and method.

I was almost incapacitated. The force of the nightmare was swift and strong, surprising me without enough time to brace myself. A tidal wave of emotions plowed me with the velocity of a moving cart and I staggered back, catching myself against the negative energies. Even though I was simply a spectator in a mess of confusion and fright, I was still vulnerable. I could still feel harm, because I was not a background element of the dream. I was a real thing, a real entity was a soul, and therefore I could be harmed. It wasn’t guaranteed as the Dreamweaver to become immune to any and all pains in dreams. You fight against the nightmares, but the nightmares also fight against you.

I had lots of experience under my belt. But the crippling loss of happiness, calm and order never got any easier to handle. Under the many types of nightmares I have seen and handled, they never got any simpler. They were always the same, and I always had to get past all the pain and suffering to get to the center of the problem. I had to find my strength and see the light in the darkened path, or create it myself. I could feel everything the dreamer was feeling, and there I found the power to keep on going, because the dreamer was powerless to save themselves.

But I could save them within a heartbeat.

A name. I needed a name. I started searching within the dream, used my magic to make a tiny cut in the consciousness of the dream and looked for something of familiar significance to the dreamer. My horn was ignited and an invisible wind whipped around me as I took a solid stance, holding my ground and closing my eyes as I concentrated. The gale passed over my mane and threw the hairs of my tail around like a flag in a storm. My magic passed over the contents of the dream, and I peered into the knowledge of the master of the realm. I could see flashes of colours over my mind’s eye, yellows and pinks and purples that all mixed in a beautiful array of emotions and memories. I couldn’t directly look at memories, but I could find patters. Sometimes in the background of lights, I could find a repeating element, something that was common with the rest of the content. It wasn’t always a happy element, but it was associated with the dreamer since the beginning of their existence.

I was the Dreamweaver. I could control other’s dreams. I was the master of dreams and the mind of others. I had the power to dictate the results of a dreamer’s state of mind. I could look through their mind, and had the proper tools and knowledge to do so.

I finally found something. It popped out at me like an underlined phrase on a parchment.

“Neon Sparks!” I called out to the nothingness. I knew the dreamer would hear me. I poured more energy into my horn, lighting up the shadows surrounding me to some extent as I grit my teeth and prepared another spell. Light can push away the darkness. When you are alone and afraid, and the black of night has come to get you, find the light and follow, and you will be safe right away. That’s a saying Princess Celestia taught me, along with a specific spell. It allowed be to become a beacon of light, so whenever someone was lost in their dreams they could find me.

She called it the moonlight spell. I gave it a different name, as it originally was created by her sister.

I call it Lunastasia.

I opened my eyes and a pale round orb formed on the tip of my horn, balancing there, wisps of light pouring from it in several directions and scattering in the moving air. The disfigured monsters that looked ready to pounce at the dreamer coward back in shock and fear, screeching at the sudden illumination. The dreamer opened his eyes for a split second, not looking directly at me but instead staring in the general direction the light was coming from. I could spot him at the corner of my eye, and I poured more magic, more soul into my next call.

“Neon Sparks!” I shouted. “I call to thee!”

The monsters around me shouted, realizing that the nightmare was slowly getting solved by a force that was unknown to them. They shivered, then screamed again and tried to tower over the dreamer once more, putting more effort into spreading terror around the dream with their powers over malice and hatred. The light on my horn flickered for a second, and I grunted in strain. The darkness suddenly became much heavier, much thicker, and I had a hard time keeping Lunastasia up against the pressure. The dreamer curled back, retracting his hooves away from his assaulters and closed his eyes, the fright in the atmosphere too much for him to handle. I could hear sobbing, and when I checked there were tears dripping down his cheeks. The pony freaks called out once more.

“Neon Sparks! I call to thee! Answer me and find yourself in the light!” I repeated.

It wasn’t working.

The nightmares were coming closer and closer to the dreamer. I couldn’t deter them forever, and the dreamer was paralyzed in a trance of horror, not able to hear my calls. I tried again, with more spirit and power.

“Neon Sparks! I am here! Come to me and come away from the darkness!”

No answer. I could barely make out the outline of the dreamer a few feet away from me, the haze of shadows becoming thicker and thicker. It was almost suffocating to be in, the darkness pressing against my neck and limiting my breathing. I couldn’t breathe properly. Even though it was only a dream, what you feel in a dream can be linked to what you feel in reality. I felt weak, moving towards dizziness with all the arcane energy I had been outputting. I didn’t know what to do. The monster closed in on the dreamer and opened their maws wide, their teeth getting longer, ready to chow down on the innocent before them.

“Who are you?”

I looked up, towards the distance in the darkness. A voice spoke out to me. I heard it, even though it was distant and echoes around me, turning the words into a bit of a bouncing mess. I was certain I heard it. Its voice was familiar. It was the dreamer’s voice, for sure. I reared up on my hind legs, kicking the air and letting my aura surge into my horn for one last attempt. The nightmares collapsed on the dreamer, and I couldn’t see him anymore. Everything became dark, and silent, where the apartment was suddenly not there anymore. There was nothingness, and an almost overwhelming sensation of loneliness washed over me.

"Neon Sparks! I call to thee!” I screamed into the void. The power of Lunastasia was getting overwhelmed by the lack of light in the dream, and was slowly dying to the point of being extinguished. “I call to thee! I am the Dreamweaver, Lucid Dreams, and I call to thee!”

I slammed onto the non-existent floor with all I could muster, and a ring of light formed around me in a perimeter for a split second.

“Come to me!”

Suddenly everything was filled white. There was a bright flash that filled the air, illuminating anything and everything in its path. I squinted, the strength of the crashing light almost blinding me. There were no monsters anymore. The dream was empty, but instead of nothingness the area was filled with hope and courage and motivation. The dreamer was missing. Instead, I saw a young stallion stare at me from afar, his body outlined like a stencil sketch on an easel, magnified as his bright orange eyes stared at me as if he was the sky itself. He towered over me, even though he was sitting down. He was the god of his own realm, after all. Neon simply peered onto me with a mixture of curiosity and realization in his expression. He no longer was afraid, simply questioning, and was not worried about the monsters coming for him. Realization came to him, and even though he didn’t wake up physically he found himself through me in the darkness.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

And then reality folded on itself.





I found myself floating in the Dreamscape again.

I veered around wildly, trying to get a grip on my surroundings. One minute I was fighting off a nightmare and failing to do so and the next I was back in the realm of souls proper. Everything seemed to be normal; dreams floated around in different colours, the cosmos in the background was peaceful and silent and ambience of wind chimes and glittering star falls filled the space. I was slowly flipping upside-down, a tiny bit of motion put into my being for some reason. There really was no sense of up or down truthfully, but as my view rotated slowly I thought back to the dream.

The world turned white. The world turned white and I could see the dreamer – no, Neon, looking at me with wonder. I had to think for a bit whether or not I had truly solved the nightmare. Sure, he finally woke up at the very end fearless (and if he didn’t I would have been booted out of the dream while it was still surrounded in darkness, feeling sick after the fact), but what had caused that sudden onslaught? Why did he shoot at that PI? Was he so jumpy and nervous that his body did things before he thought about them? Was it a sign for things he has done? For things he wants to do? What does Red Rose represent in his life? What did the crossbow represent, and why was he a posed as a Royal Guard?

As usual, there were so many questions left unanswered. Solving dreams always left me a bit confused, just because of the mysteries that were still left inside of them. It was none of my business for sure, but a part of me is left wondering if I could have done more to help the dreamer if I simply could figure them out more.

I searched around for a new target. There was no sense in wallowing on the unknown and what could have been known. There were too many other ponies that needed me for me to waste time thinking about it. Sure, it may have been a waste of time to visit that dream when I could have been floating around in the dreamscape, waiting for a nightmare to appear, but where is the fun in that? Besides, I didn’t want to think about the previous dream too much. The nightmare stuck out in my head like a sore hoof. It was hard to forget things like that, the fear that rooted you to the spot, the uncertainty and lack of hope weighting you down until it crushed you whole. I hated nightmares with a passion, and thinking about them didn’t give me any more joy than having to fight them off one by one, pony by pony. The more I moved on, the more opportunities I had to forget the entire mess.

I closed my eyes and scanned the area with my omniscient sense of the Dreamscape. Sure enough, there were not one, not two, but three nightmares within my area. I got a general sense of direction, opened my eyes and turned towards the nearest one.

I could see it from where I was. The black orb swirled around its own negative energies, creating a world of fright and torture. It was a completely darkened part of the Dreamscape, blocking out any and all light that would touch it with its membrane of shadows and gloom. There were tiny planetary rings encircling it, disappearing as quickly as they appeared and forming under the force of the rotation of the nightmare. They were like cuts in the cosmos, visually harming the Dreamscape in an attempt to disrupt the peace of dreams nearby it. It must have been a freshly created one if it was creating rings. I figured that I had enough time to stop whatever was going on in there and get to one of the other nightmares before their dreamers woke up in a state of sweat and panic.

I willed myself forward, rocketing off towards the direction of the nightmare. It wasn’t that far, and I closed the distance with ease. Kilometers became meters, meters became feet, and feet became inches. As I approached a wave of blinding doubt flew over me, and I almost hesitated to go any further. I grit my teeth and pushed onwards, ignoring the pangs of warning that my brain was giving me and shoved them to the back of my head. There was a dark murk that was emanating from the nightmare, another sign of its newly created existence. Shooting through it, I reached the edge of the nightmare.

Without any fear, I penetrated the surface.





Everything around me was a foggy haze of blue as I materialized. Details began to fill in as my eyes took account of what was around me. I was clearly standing up, which was always a good thing. Beneath me was a tiled stone floor that ended off in an edge a few feet in every direction. At first I thought that I was on a platform, but then the fog dissipated and soon the platform turned into a staircase traveling upwards. The inside turn of the staircase was barred off by large metal bars, painted an elegant onyx that shimmered in the light of the area. It stretched upward, and with it the stairs behind me. I was on a flat portion of the stairway, but after I peeked around the turn and peered down the steps I found that the flat was looped around after every ascent or decent of steps. The stairs were completely black too, nails hammered into their metal sides at intervals.

Then, all at once, my surroundings became clear to me. I was in a very, very large room, almost like a chamber that had walls far off in the distance, miles and miles away. The walls had painted windows placed into jagged blue stone pieces that fit in like a jigsaw. The painted windows were absolutely beautiful, casting various colours of yellow, red, green and blue over the entire dream. Sunlight poured through the windows, and the colours of the rainbow mixed with themselves, creating shimmering shades of each other that floated in midair through the dust floating in the expanse. The paintings were of Celestia and Luna, ever gracing their land with power and love. Towns and cities on large grassy backdrops had smiling ponies playing underneath a watching Celestia or Luna, who smiled and brought up the sun and moon respectively. All of the windows were of peace and happiness, but not all were of one of the two royal sisters. That got me confused though, as no one should have known about Luna. Nightmare Moon wasn’t being depicted in the pictures, but Luna as I remembered her those four years ago instead flew up above the clouds, her starlit mane fluttering in the wind and raised the moon high in the sky for the nighttime to being.

I peered up, wondering how far the ceiling was but the stairs blocked my way. Nearby were separate sets of stairs that moved up and down the dreamspace, some sets larger than others. I suddenly realized that the blue hue that had covered my vision hadn’t gone away, so that was a constant that the dream had decided to keep for the dreamer to experience. There were bridges of polished stone in-between stairs after each set, allowing access to and from staircases. I saw one was directly beneath me, and I hopped down onto a bridge to get a better view of the stairs around me.

I looked up and saw the stairs go forever on into the distance. The steps stretched onward and onward until I could only see specks that I thought were the steps continuing. I peered down over the ledge of the bridge to see the ground level beneath me, but like the walls, the floor was several kilometers down. Then I realized that neither the stairs nor the bridges had railings on them. One false step and I would need to make a hasty exit out of the nightmare, using up a lot of my aura in the process. I may have been immune to three-story drops, but anything beyond that hurts the soul a lot. Then I thought about the dreamer. What if they were scared of heights? That may have been a reason as to why such a beautiful place was home to a nightmare in progress.

I mean, it didn’t make too much sense. The chamber was one of the most poetic dreams I've seen in a while, with scenery of the likes you connect with a famous, aged painting from the past. The stairs kept going on forever, their iron surfaces reflecting the lights through the windows. The lights weren’t blinding of any sorts, and the tone and atmosphere of this nightmare was so different compared to the other nightmares I’ve experienced. Normally I’m fighting for my life in someone else’s nightmare, combating the forces of darkness that the dream throws at me as I attempt to get to the dreamer to either wake him up or make them dispel the dream themselves. But here? There were no monsters in sight, no sense of impending doom or hopelessness. Here, there was quiet and calm, with no sense of fear whatsoever. I did mark the blue lens that overcast everything I saw to be a bit odd, though.

The dreamer was nowhere in sight, which was typical when I enter a dream. I began walking to the other side of the bridge, minding my step and keeping my eyes to the floor until I could get to safer ground.





The journey took forever.

I found myself walking for an insurmountable period of time, wandering around aimlessly through the dream searching for the dreamer. I couldn’t guess where he could be, as my sense of direction was thrown for a loop with the thousands upon thousands of staircases I was surrounded by. There really were no hints in the dream as to where they could have been. Nothing existed in the realm. There were no ponies wandering around, no Pegasi swooping low from step to step, no signs of any sort of pseudo-life whatsoever.

The dream only existed as means to occupy space. It was the oddest nightmare I have ever encountered. But at the same time, it kind of reminded of me in a sense. All dreams are unique to their dreamer, and as an extension all nightmares are unique. However, my re-occurring nightmares in the Nightmare Fields were unusual all in their own, as I found myself there every single time I found myself asleep. I got the same feeling coming from the Stairway Cathedral, as I had so suitably dubbed it. It felt as if this was a hub for many dreams, and that the dreamer had been here many times before. The dream was strong, with all the tiny details that made it look like a beautiful painting, but at the same time it was very weak, as there were no objects, no elements that presented themselves in the area. My gut was telling me many things at once, and I learned to trust my gut above all, for it cannot lie to you when you are constantly surrounded by veils of illusion.

I was in a bit of a trance. The lights and the windows and the polished stone floors were so magnificent that I almost didn’t mind wandering aimlessly. Everything was almost pristine perfect, and yet had a flourish that commanded an art style to encapsulate its design. All the staircases were identical, with the same corners and the same inside metal bars and the same length and height of slope, but they were all different in that they didn’t repeat over and over as the same design. All the stairs were varied and unique, with their own bridges to cross the great chasm below and their own reprieves where there were no steps and instead a simple flat of floor hugged against the roundabout of the metal bars inside of the turn. They were unique for a reason, but Tartarus if I knew why.

Suddenly, a pit in my stomach dropped. I glanced down at the stairs I was currently traversing and suddenly I had a great urge to get off of them as fast as possible. My heart began to race as I rapidly backed up to the top of the steps, not wanting to go down either. The fear of traversing downward absorbed into me, and I grew clammy with heavy breaths. I sat down and rubbed my eyes. What the heck had gotten into me? Why did I feel so scared of stairs all of the sudden? It took a few dozen seconds, but I finally cleared my mind enough to realize it wasn’t me who was scared of the stairs, but it was the dream itself imposing the fright onto my soul. It was the only logical answer. I had been traversing countless stairs for several minutes before terror hit me. I’m not scared of stairs at all normally. But now, I was very very nervous at the prospect of taking inch by inch downward. The dreamer was near, and it was only time before I found him.

It was when I peered up at the gigantic window painting of Luna in her night sky when I heard the clacking of hoofsteps behind me. I turned around and peered up, searching for the noise. My eyes widened when I locked onto target. Finally, I had found them.

There was a class of schoolcolts and fillies walking down the stairs single-filed. They all wore dark blue uniforms, trotting down in a mindless trance. All the children were alike in behaviour, staring straight down towards their destination, never blinking, all hoofsteps in unison with each other. It was a bit unnerving, seeing minds that should have been so free acting like they were all one. It drove a small shiver down my spine, and I looked away for a moment just to spot a gap in the pattern at the top of the staircase.

There was a colt, looking down the start of the steps with obvious hesitation. He was the last in line, and right behind him stood a stern looking schoolteacher, half-moon glasses sitting on her snout, blank, white eyes glaring through them. She had a fierce-looking meter stick folded beneath her foreleg, and she scowled at the child in front of her. The colt was a pearly white with round blue irises beneath thoughtful, scared eyes and a navy blue mane. He tried to back away from the start of the steps, but the teacher behind blocked him. He checked behind his shoulder to see what blocked him, blanched, and turned his head back in front of him, shaking his head.

He didn’t want to go down the stairs. The dreamer didn’t want to go down the stairs for a specific reason. His hooves scrambled against the floor as he tried to get away from the top, but the teacher behind him gave a forceful behind him and he tumbled forward, barely catching himself on the first of the steps before tumbling down in an uncontrollable roll. He reached to his right, trying to catch himself on the metal bars, but the gaps between the steel were too thin for his hoof to fit around. I suddenly realized that there were no railings to the stairs, so there was nothing for him to grab on to if he fell suddenly.

I sprinted forward, spotting the nearby staircases and planning a route to get to him. I didn’t cast any spells to hide myself, as I found there was no point. I already had a feeling of what was going to happen and I raced to prevent the event before it was too late. The dreamer slowly descended the steps, purposely keeping his head facing right away from the railing-less left side, away from the pit that was miles beneath him. He traveled slowly with care, make step by step every few seconds. He tried to stop at some point, but the teacher behind him kept insisting he make progress. The class was already at the bottom and rounding the bend to continue their decent. His expression screamed nauseous, his legs shaking and threatening to give out just so he didn’t have to move anymore.

Admittedly he was much far above me, and the only reason I could see him from this angle was because of the horizontal distance between us. He was far off in the back, but close enough that only two staircases were the obstacle that kept me from him. I went up, not daring to go down and sprinted up the stairs while keeping a close eye on him, trying my best to not slide off the edge of the floor. The sunlight kept pouring into the Staircase Cathedral, dust glittering in the dissonance of existence and the ambience of the world kept its calm despite the severity of the situation.

Suddenly, as he took another step, the stairs beneath the colt let out a metallic clang and flattened instantly, becoming a sharp slide down. The teacher and the rest of the students were gone without a trace. The colt let out a shriek which echoed and bounced between the pillars of staircases, abruptly becoming much louder and clearer. He reached out towards the metal bars, trying to find some purchase as his hind hooves pressed against the ground in an attempt to stop. It was no use. He swiftly slid down the ramp, gaining massive speed in a frighteningly short amount of time. I rushed to the side of the staircase, facing him.

I watched as he failed to stop himself and tumbled right off the side of the staircase, screaming at the top of his lungs as time slew down in the dream. Every moment, every second he was falling, was torture for him. He flailed his limbs about, desperate to find a way to stop himself, to keep himself away from the flat expanse below. His eyes were wide and terrified, only a cry of help escaping his lips.

I was too late to get to him.

But a thought occurred to me and I realized I had one more chance to make it.

I took a few careful steps back to the edge of the flat and launched myself into a full-tilt run across the 15-feet of space I had before the flat turned sharply to the left, upward and onward. Reaching the end, I flung myself off the platform towards the colt, hanging in the air for a moment before taking a nosedive down, making myself thin against air resistance and getting my magic ready for a spell.

At first, I thought I had been too slow to leap. The colt was falling fast already and I had barely started to accelerate. He passed me, and as he fell his eyes met mine, pleading in desperation for me to get to him, to save him from a terrible fate he could barely imagine. My muzzle faced down and I became as aerodynamic as a pencil, shooting straight down with speed. Wind rushed past me and my eyes watered as the air wailed in my ears, pressuring against my eardrums in a constant rush. My aura reached up to a point and I released the power, feeling a new sensation spread against my back. Newborn light shined brightly from behind me, and I saw the colt catch his breath for a brief second, wide-eyed, forgetting about the danger he was in.

I flew downwards to catch him. We were falling faster than I thought, and suddenly the grey floor that was so far below seconds ago didn’t seem so far away now. I threw my forelegs out towards him and kept my hind legs close, angling my head down and trying to keep my burning eyes open.

The back part of my mind wondered what would happen if the colt did hit the bottom. Would the dream disappear instantly? Would it not? I almost paled at the thought of turning into a thick red paste against the concrete floor that I was rapidly approaching.

“Gotcha!”

I had scooped up the colt in my hooves and pulled sharply up, ignoring the strain it had on my body to attempt to throw my momentum so suddenly. Curving flat, I rapidly approached a nearby platform and attempted to land. I wasn’t too familiar with the physics of flight but I had been in enough Pegasus dreams to learn a thing or two, without much panic and injury mind you. With the colt still in my front legs, I planted my back hooves on the floor and anchored them, scrapping the pristine, glassy stone as I put pressure against it.

I barely managed to stop myself before flinging off the other end of the platform. I reeled up on my back legs and teetered at the edge, wobbling and trying to catch myself as I tried to look past the colt in my possession down to the ledge and see how close I exactly was to falling again. After a second of balance, I took a shaky step back, then another, before I planted my behind squarely on solid ground. I let out a sigh of relief, and the colt hugged the center of my body, sobbing.

“There there…” I comforted, running my hoof through his mane. I could feel his tears soak into my coat, but I didn’t mind. He was sniffling and tired, and just needed somepony to comfort him for the meanwhile.

After a few moments, he backed away and peered up at me, tears clinging on to his lower eyelids. His tail rubbed against my leg as he continued to sit on my lap. I wasn’t that much bigger than him, but at the moment I felt as if I was a towering giant compared to the soul that rested on me.

“A-A-Are you here you here to t-take me away to T-T-Tartarus?” he asked, threatening to break into sobs again.

That was not the first thing I expected him to ask me.

“No, I’m not here you take you anywhere. Why would you think such a thing?” I asked.

“M-My ma always told me the Stallions of Tartarus would t-t-ake bad ponies away to Tartarus for all eternity…”

My eyes widened. Then I realized that the dark blue gossamer wings that had grown on my back had not helped my case, nor was the fact that I had a very dark coat for a pony and my eyes were so bright orange they almost burned like a crimson fury. I folded my wings, an embarrassed smile forming on my face.

“Are you a bad pony?” I tentatively queried.

He sniffed, and I feared that he would start crying again. “I… I… I…”

He was unsure of himself, and didn’t look like he wanted to say anything more now that he knew I wasn’t going to take him down Under anymore.

“I’ve been a bad friend!” he cried out, more tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Shh. Shh.” I whispered softly, wiping the tears away with my hooves. He was afflicted with sniffles and hiccups. “What makes you say that?”

He took another moment to collect himself. His worry was evident in his eyes, and I hoped that he had enough trust in me, a pony he didn’t even know existed, to tell me his troubles and let go of all his worries. “I… I got into a fight. A fight with my best friend, Canvas Brush. I was walking home with him and we started to say a lot of mean things to each other. I got so mad at him! He was being so mean to me and all I wanted to do was be his friend!”

“What did he do?”

“He’s been ignoring me for the past month or so.” he explained, rubbing his foreleg. “We’ve been friends since I was four, and yet only now is he acting like this. He’s being so weird! I can barely speak to him without him trying to ignore me! He’s even getting other friends to play with during recess, and they all go and play hoofball! I hate playing hoofball.”

Hoo boy. I’ve heard this one before. Saying it wasn’t going to be easy for him to listen though. “Well, maybe he just wants to move on.”

“Huh?” he questioned.

“Maybe he just wants to move forward in life. Maybe he is changing, or wants change, and one of those steps of changing is to distance himself from you and get closer to things he wants to try out.”

“But why would he want to do that? We’ve been best pals since forever! We never get bored of each other!”

“It’s hard to explain.” I said. “Ponies change over time. You’ve might have seen it before with your classmates or your parents, but habits and ideas change. With change comes difference and evolution. It’s not an easy thing to handle, especially if someone you like makes a change you don’t like.”

“So what do I do to stop it?” he asked me with curious eyes.

“You can’t.” I simply stated back.

“But why?”

“You can’t control anypony else more than you can control yourself. You shouldn’t try to control others. You need to let them take their path, accept it and let go. Have you said sorry to him yet?”

He stared bashfully at the ground. “No…”

“Well you should say sorry to him.”

“But It’s hard!” he cried. “How can I say sorry to him after what I did?”

“You just say sorry. You walk up to him, don’t think about it too much and say the words ‘I’m sorry’.”

He buried his head in his hooves. “How can he forgive somepony that… that punched him?”

That made me frown. “You punched you best friend?”

“I’m sorry that I did!” he cried, clinging on to his head for a moment before throwing his hooves down in a fit of guilt.

“But you’re telling me that you’re sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong to me. You need to tell him that your sorry, not me.”

“But I can’t.” he muttered, poking his hooves together.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. It’s too scary. I’m scared.”

“Now you’re just being silly.” I said. “You need to pony up and tell it to him. Nopony has gotten anywhere in life being afraid to say a few words to their best friend.”

He sighed, trying to screw his muzzle into something besides a frown. “I guess you’re right.”

“Say sorry first. That’s all that matters. After that, you’ll just have to see what happens next.”

The surroundings of the dream were slowly changing. The floor beneath us was becoming a dark green, blades of grass flattened against our weight. The platform became the edge of a hill that sharply rolled down to a beach down below. The beautiful walls of the Staircase Cathedral faded away to a night sky, clouds rolling in the distance. The atmosphere glittered with stars, sparkling and shining happily in their own peace. A slightly chilling breeze floated in, counteracting the warm air that had materialized out of nowhere.

“What if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore?” he asked, worried.

In the distance, a very large dock held home to a bustling, bright carnival. On the planks of wood there were orange and red stalls, dimmed by the night yet illuminated by the lights of the nearby rides. There was a Tilt-A-Whirl spinning near the southern edge, cups spinning with the giant plate beneath it. A vertical drop machine towered over the park, launching ponies up high in the air before falling back to the ground, a luxury for those who didn’t have wings. I could see a tiny mouse roller coaster wind around at the far end of the park, its cars traversing quickly upon the winded path. There were sounds of laughter and excitement coming from the carnival, and a smile formed on my face as I saw the sunset peaking from behind the gigantic Ferris wheel, peaking behind the horizon just before sinking to say good night.

Water splashed calmly beneath the planks, and the dock seemed to be solid against the pushing tide, never moving, never breaking.

“Well then you just move on and find another best friend that won’t ignore you. At the end of the day, there's always new ponies to meet, new people to befriend. You just gotta go and try to find the right one.” I answered.

The sun went from its warm burn to a glowing pearl of light, slowly overwhelming the dream with life and white. There was a tiny smile on the colt’s face as he stared into the backdrop, and the comforting sensation of success washed over me. This nightmare went much better than the last.

“Mister?” he asked. The carnival was overtaken by the sun and faded like a stencil drawing being cleared on an easel. These were the last moments he had with me before his dream would change to something more peaceful, more calming.

“Yes?” I answered. I felt a bit too young to be called mister, but I realized that he had no other title to call me by.

“Are you me?”

“What?” I asked.

“Are you a part of me? Like, am I talking to a figment of my imagination?”

I smiled. “No. That would be a little bit farfetched. You probably wouldn’t be asking that question if I was. I’m the Dreamweaver, little guy.”

And there I felt it. I felt a creeping fear crawl up the bottom up my spine, sending shivers across the surface of my skin. My eyes widened, and I felt a presence invade the space that was neither mine nor the dreamer’s. The only things that were left in the dream were the hill and the colt, but something else had appeared last minute. Sweat formed on my forehead and I nervously guided my magic outward, trying to sense the interference with my extended senses.

There was something that was overtaking the dream. I could feel it invading the mind of the dreamer, capturing the realm for its own. It came over like a great tidal wave, pushing against the forces and elements of the dream and turning them stark black, filling the spaces with a rage unlike anything I have ever known. I glanced at the colt. He didn’t seemed to be aware of anything, and as the dream disappeared I doubted that he would ever have a chance to recognize the third sentient that was occupying his space.

A shadow of doubt and fear cast over me. The invading entity was completely alien, and looked nothing like a pony’s soul. I was afraid to reach too far out towards it in fear that it would envelope me with its dark energies, completely obliterating my mind. It was evil and wrong, and bile surged up the center of my chest before I forced it back down, trying to keep my composure while the dream finished up its existence. Every time I checked in its direction, every time I tried to look with my mind’s eye, all I could see was anger and hatred that commanded an atmosphere of terror and malice. It didn’t belong here, nor did it belong anywhere in Equestria’s realm. It was completely unnatural, and the darkness that it created was absolute and corrupting.

And then, the dream ended.





I was in the Dreamscape again, but panic overtook me. I looked over my back to see the same wall of pain pushing forward, it’s large mass taking much of the dreamscape’s three-dimensional space. As I looked at it, I realized it had no features. It was simply a blob of black, a pulsating, stretching form of reckoning that seemed to scream and shout with its existence. I choked up and began backing up. It was moving so fast! I couldn’t believe its speed, overtaking leagues of the plane, taking up space as dreams were either consumed or pushed away. It was like a fog spreading doom over a countryside, an omen of bad things to come.

I pushed myself backwards, gaining velocity while retreating from the threat. It was a disease in the dreaming realm, an outsider that didn’t belong, a cancer of all souls! I have never seen anything like it. It disgusted and horrified me at the same time, and yet I could not identify it. It was like the worst nightmare I have ever seen. My heart leaped up my throat, and for a few moments my chest refused to contract.

I peered at it with my all-knowing third eye, and immediately I was overwhelmed by the negative energies it gave off. It almost invaded my mind and soul, and I winced in pain and held my head as I shut my eyelid. A sharp shock rocked my head, forming into a migraine, and I closed all eyes and blocked myself to the world. For a few moments I felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing and repaired my soul as I tried to find myself again floating in the expanse.

Unfortunately, that also meant that I had no idea where I was going.

It was too late to turn around as I rammed straight into a random dream, entering it.