Fantasies and dreams are not meant to be real, but an entire town clearly didn’t get the memo. Now, Luna has to save the citizens of Horseshoe Bay from the mistakes of one from Beyond.
Dreams can take strange turns, but lucid dreams are not supposed to. That’s the whole point, to change the dreamworld through lucidity. However, when he tried messing around with his own subconscious, William signed up for far more than he ever thought he was going to.
Now, Reality seems to be following arbitrary rules, cartoon logic and the fact that he cannot change back from his ridiculous alicorn form is just vanilla icing on the bizarre cake.
And unbeknownst to him, a certain Princess is infuriated by the intrusion in her domain. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
That awesome piece of coverart was drawn by the equally awesome mix-up, that you can also find on his dA account here.
A single silver-cladded horseshoe came down on the starry road, and light rippled across the path. It was a gentle light, weak and only an echo of something much greater.
Another step was taken, another wave of light washed over the stars. She had come. She, wrapped in the nebula, a darkest regalia on her person, She who walks in dreams walked in her domain under the firmament.
Yet, a subtle expression of worry remained etched across her face. Her gaze was wary, careful, floating over to the spheres of her subjects’ deepest fears and greatest desires. Her movements were slow and deliberate, as if she was waiting an attack at any moment.
A disturbance had shaken this immaterial realm to its core. Something or someone had had a hoof in it. And her duty was that of Warden.
She continued onward, glancing at the dreams closest to her in search of a source, but no evil was within her sight. Nonetheless, a small smile graced her features when an orb she looked at displayed an orange filly hugging her idol. A larger one came when an echo of it was seen in a cyan mare’s dream as well.
Her heart aching, she resisted the temptation. A threat might require her attention; there was simply no time, even in a place such as this one.
Her slow trot took her to another portion of the field of stars, one bathed in purple shades of light. To her left, a deafening rumbling marked the passage of a world-sized tempest, but she barely acknowledged it. What little reached her was not worth her attention either. The pull within was growing stronger. She could feel the source, and in the distance, her eyes caught sight of a star pulsing quickly.
A nightmare.
In other circumstances, it would be a simple matter to channel her power and bring an end to the fears of dreams. However, what made things complicated were the thin lines of light that hung just over the star, as would a net or a predator’s paw.
Her mouth twisted into a snarl, and she folded almost protectively over the dream of her subject. This she could not allow, and this she would not let continue. Power rose within her, coming in waves and torrents to coat the star under a protective shell.
Yet, she still took every precaution to avoid touching the tendrils herself. Her younger years had taught her much, and restraint was one of them. She did not wish to bring about another Tear or Shredding. Not in this place, not with so many of hers vulnerable.
There was light at the tip of her horn, and strain tensed her muscles. This would be a delicate work, yet also one that required haste. She was not certain she would be able to do both.
Her knowledge of the Ethereal Realms was unequaled within and without the Mortal World.
But this, she did not know of.
~~
I was running.
“Oh God!”
The path was darkened, difficult to see under the foliage and easy to stumble on. The branches were long and reached across my only safe way to scratch my clothes. The only sounds were steps, sobs and howls to the moon.
“This can’t be happening!”
The hunt was alive.
“It can’t be real!”
And I was running for my life.
Shadows moved between the bushes on each my sides, always at my height, always reminding me that I could only keep moving on the path. Deviating meant a swifter death than the one creeping on me. The howling behind was steadily becoming louder, a reminder of the inevitable. I was keeping ahead, through some miracle or another, until my foot collided with a root sticking out and my whole body tumbled head over heels.
(Of course I tripped.)
The hit splayed me on the dirt, chin first, perhaps. I was lying on my chest, but the moment I had fallen had been hazy, almost like it hadn’t happened.
But the fear was still very real. It rose to greater heights still, when the thought came to me that I had momentarily passed out. Faster than I ever remembered doing, I tried standing up.
I was on my knees when the growl reached me, and everything went still.
Blood froze in my veins, stiffening my entire body. Any second now, and it would be the end. In my mind, I was still reviewing every possibility.
There was no path anymore, only the trees and the bushes and the monsters ready to leap out. The third one had reached its comrades and readied itself to end my life.
(Details. It had to be in the details.)
I was cold, hungry, barefooted and carrying nothing except my clothes. I had nothing useful within arms’ reach beside blades of grass and twigs. I could barely see well enough to know where my soon-to-be killers would spring from.
My heart sank in my chest.
There was nothing I could use. All I could think of were insignificant, meaningless details.
I had tripped, but there had been no pain. None. Adrenaline was pumping in my veins faster with every one of my maddened heartbeat. I could feel the panic; it was in everything I looked at. In the shadows of the trees, in the breaking of branches, in the glow of the wolves’ eyes. I could not see anything else but those two shining yellow circles beyond the trees, nor could I even feel my own body. I could not feel a thing, other than panic, fear, terror.
I was going to die.
And my last moments were going to be filled with nothing but this numbing, abject horror. Everything else was dulled.
Even things that shouldn’t, a little voice said in my mind, and the thought gave me a pause.
Without my noticing, something in the air changed as I pondered this newfound question.
No ache in my legs from running at full speed despite my lack of athletics. No burning in my lungs. No shortness of breath. No cold sweat.
No pain despite the fall.
No shoes despite the fact that I had been outside.
How had I even gotten into a forest? My apartment was in the middle of the suburbs. A nice little flat I shared with a crazy roommate, all in cheap furniture, frozen food and beer. The typical student deal, with a typical landlord and a typical part-time job to pay for the bills.
So how had I even gotten lost in the forest that had to be miles away from my home? No matter how hard I thought about it, there was just no answer coming. My mind was a complete blank. There were hours missing from my memories.
Why? Why, why, why?! What stupidity had brought me in this place with naught but the clothes on my back in the middle of the night?!
The wolves still hadn’t attacked me.
Spinning on myself, I looked in their direction, convinced that there would be a pair of jaws leaping at me. It was not only a lack of balance that made me falter, when no attack came. I was still standing in the woods, the three pair of eyes still trailing on me, but not coming closer. Whereas they had been chasing me before, now they were hesitant, and it struck me as odd.
Finally, I could look at the animal chasing me, and things clicked.
“Timberwolves don’t exist,” I said in the ensuing silence.
Rays of moonlight suddenly shone with greater strength, falling down from the heavens to shed away the darkness shrouding my pursuers, and their bodies looked wrong. They were of twigs and wood and leaves, with joints that were not joined together and fangs that were stakes protruding from a log-like jaw. Their breath was a noxious cloud that smelled of nothing.
But more so, the true wrongness was their complete lack of depth.
To look at them was to look at a drawing come to life. Even with shades and moonlight contrasting on their forms, I could not in any way see them as tridimensional creatures. Only an elaborate optical illusion at best, but nothing that could live.
The realization hit me like a truck, and I started laughing. “This is a dream.”
In that split second of understanding, I had known what would happen next. Everything had become clear, like a veil being lifted, and it had made me grin to see the monsters coming out of their lethargy. I had allowed it to happen, in a way.
“This is my dream,” I told the leaping timberwolf.
My fist flew into its wooden jaws with greater strength than I had, and instead of the cracking of my bones, the yelps of a canine’s agony rang loudly into the forest. Even that didn’t last long, with the timberwolf’s body coming apart. They were such fragile things.
Even a pebble could tear them into pieces, I thought, looking up. Which was what the wolves did when they saw a large shadow start to cover them.
Unfortunately for them, neither had the time to jump out of the way. Their entire bodies were grinded into dust by an unexpected pair of meteors. Truly, no place on this good earth was completely safe from cosmic accidents.
I looked at the house-sized rocks that had ended my would-be assailants’ lives, a grin slowly overtaking my face. Elation bubbled up inside me, and I glanced up to the moon with a weakness in my knees. Perhaps it was just my mind reeling from the shock, but damn, that had actually been on par with a heart attack. Doubtlessly, my body would be covered in cold sweat when I awoke.
For now though, I could just rejoice in taking control of my dreams for the remainder of the night. After a brief encounter with some timberwolves, those regenerating bas-
Oh, right… I realized, turning to look at the body of the first beast.
The broken twigs twitched while an unearthly glow started to seep out of the pieces of wood. Every tree nearby shook on its foundations, branches pulled by an irresistible force, roots pushing against the earth. A shiver went down my spine when a few leaves brushed past my cheeks, all floating in the same green-yellow light.
Before my eyes, the forest’s material collapsed unto itself, slowly remolding into a vaguely familiar shape, one whose head dominated even the tallest tree, one whose body eclipses the moon in the sky.
A giant timberwolf, not unlike another I had seen before, loomed over me. Dark promises shone in its glowing gaze then, but the power it had on me had dwindled at the same time as the fear. Was that all my subconscious was capable of at this point? A bigger wolf?
“Two can play that game,” I said, and met its challenge. If they wanted to play it that way, I would make sure they would regret it.
My form changed. I did not grow bigger, far from it, but my limbs were reshaped at once. Things were a blur, something vague and impossible to feel right, for even my subconscious could not fathom what a transformation truly was like. The bones in my joints creaked and whined while they changed, the muscles protested and the way my face stretched was just plain weird, yet… I felt little of that. I had not even the pain to show for it.
But when it was done, I was standing on fours hooves and mine was a most cocky grin.
“I’ll show you how it’s done!”
It was easy.
When he roared, I jumped. When he lashed out, I put up a shield. When he struggled, I came down on his body like a burning comet.
Black of body and red of mane, I was a shining beacon of overly edginess. With my supreme power, I could make quick work of anything I wanted to. And I did. Standing on the charred remains of the King Timberwolf, I reared in triumphed and boasted to the moon, “One more win for the overpowered original character! Hell yeah!”
It bore repeating. Lucid dreams felt absolutely awesome for the ego. I could recall now why I had looked into it in the first place. For as long as I slept tonight, I would be in complete control of my dreams and what direction they could take. If I wanted to experiment in remaking the universe, I could, and not just because I was currently a trotting cliché!
I was the god of my dreams, and turning myself into an alicorn was just a perfect way for my mind to express how much of a Gary Stu that made me. Technically, I could easily have things unfold just like I wanted them to, with no effort on my part too.
“Well, what next?” I said to myself. “There are so many things I could try right now.”
The blood in my veins was still pumping fast, and there was a shiver shaking my feathers. The possibilities were literally endless; they only needed be chosen to become ‘real’. What then? A superspy’s newest mission, me taking over the role of a main character in an epic role-playing game, the newest galactic overlord defending the worlds against the chaos? As soon as the ideas came to me, I discarded them. They were good, but not perfect.
In the end, the answer was right there, in front of me.
“Equestria, huh?” I muttered, looking at the hooves I’d given myself. “That could be fun. Elements of Harmony, epic quest and falling in love with Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. All in a cutesy setting. Yeah, sounds good to me.”
I shot the darkened forest one last look, and there was no need convincing myself to leave it behind. I could do without this place, thank you very much. Closing my eyes, I felt the temperature change from chilly to comfortable as a shift in the air. Next, to actual arrive somewhere…
Soooo… I thought, shuffling through a few memories, Equestria, Equestria, Equestria… Ah, there!
On that moment, the atmosphere shifted, tilted into something different. The cold moon above suddenly ignited, transforming the night into day with a burst of flashing fire, shining on the lands and me in one fell swoop. And my body suddenly felt emerged under ice. Eyes widening, I gasped, stumbling, out of breath and choking. The world kept changing, yes, but so unlike it had always done. Whereas before they would always stretch or collapse into newer shapes and colors, the landscape broke apart into cascades of dust. I was standing, one knee in the ground, in a circle of white dust as wide as a clearing, with nothing beyond.
A slight tremor rippled across the ground, moving pebbles with clicking sounds, and I could not help take a step back. Just changing a bit slowly today, s’all, I told myself as the grains went from white to more vivid beige. I even felt almost comfortable enough to grin, but then… then came a word so loud, so mind-numbingly loud, that it tore through the sky and ripped it asunder.
NO.
Darkness came.
I saw nothing, heard nothing but a too high-pitched noise ringing and ringing, and felt nothing but the cold and the night and the cry reaching deep under my skin. Its echoed did not stop, kept on growing stronger, threatening to split my head open and to tear my dreamself to shreds as surely as it did the world.
I might have screamed. I might have thrashed, I might have struggled. None of it was known to me.
But one moment I was drifting in nothing, the next I was standing in an idyllic place.
“What…” I shook my head, gritting my teeth and flinching at the muffled ringing in my ears. “What was that?”
Breathing fast, I looked down to the grass under my hooves and up to the sun washing me down with heat. Twisting, I turned around, my grasp on things still too weak to understand where I was. Yet, my frantic examination came to a halt before the scenery I was a witness to.
Before me was the sea. A vast, nearly endless body of crystal-like water, clearer than it had a right to be. A home not mine, never to be mine and in size that was humbling ever in a dream.
My mind was sent flying, my bodiless consciousness being suddenly made to seek the sights that came in hundreds. Shards of colors reflected on the surface, breaking apart the images of fishes, corals and debris into mere fragments that I could only weakly attempt to remake under the shining surface of the sea. Brown scales, red scales, green scales, fins, tails, eyeless or limbless, flat teeth broken into fangs. Then, with strength that lifted the waters between us, a darker shape grew bigger under me. And bigger. And bigger still with some details becoming visible. An impossible long tail swung underneath that form. A parting increased the form’s width, two long curved fangs now within sight of me, and a pair of slitted yellow eyes looked straight at me.
I came to my senses reeling, sand sliding beneath my body. A yelp echoed in the air, and, feeling the salty wind of the sea brushing inside of my mouth, I realized the outburst had been mine. I was still on the beach, still a pony and still very much alive.
That was… weird.
Had I subconsciously wished to have an out-of-body experience? And what had that thing been?
Gulping, I shot a fearful look to the sea, now more of a trap than a site of wonder. With all my strength, I hoped that this would not turn into another nightmare. It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t, but then again… the way I had gotten here…
The waves broke unto the sand, splashing loud and far before claiming back whatever debris they had carried previously and swallowing them under the surface. Each time, the noise seemed too loud, too much like a roar to allow me peace of mind. Was this really Equestria?
“Did it work? Was that just me losing control?” I asked the empty air, which was another worrying detail. Normally, when I was having a lucid dream, I liked making background characters appear just to hold a conversation. Here? Nothing. Just the wind and the waves. “Hellooooooo? Is there anypony around?!”
My ears twisted on my head, trying to catch anything similar to a voice. I needed not make so much effort, in hindsight.
“Help!” shouted some woman.
To my shock, they just appeared right there, right in front of me.
I stood there, stunned by the strange flat characters running across the beach. Without my prompting, my eyesight zoomed unto the two of them, the first of which I knew had fur, but looked uniformly colored, like another drawing. Yet, this time, that was not what my mind focused on.
Kicking sand with every step, the young unicorn mare was galloping as fast as she could. Her breathing came in shallow pants, half cut by sobs, and glittering drops fell from her cheeks without pause. Behind her, looming, there was a monstrous crab, tall as a house and furiously chasing after her.
For a split second, I saw the forest again, and yellow eyes growing closer and closer…
“Have no fear!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “I will help you!”
Dream, my dream, this is still my dream. I am the one in control!
A giant crab really wasn’t that creepy. In comparison. This one even ran forward instead of sideways. Scientific inaccuracies made it less scary. Fact!
The less realistic the monster, the easier to convince myself. When I willed my wings open, I flew. Knowledge of their use was not needed, it all worked if I decided it did. Dream logic.
I landed on my hind legs, causing a shockwave to lift up the entirety of the sand on the beach.
“Fear not, for your savior, Sir Doom Mac Darknight, has arrived!” I shouted, only for the whole thing to fall flat in a pregnant silence.
Okay, not even god-like powers could convince people that was a good name. Luckily, no one but me would ever know this had happened. The only witnesses were a crab and a mare, and no one would listen to them back home. Of the two, only one would get out of this encounter alive. So, yeah, all working out pretty well so far.
The dust settled down; the giant crab coming forward with its pinchers clicking with an implied threat. It advanced more slowly in face of a newer threat, or maybe that was time dilating to allow me a better look. The crab’s shell looked matted even under the sun’s rays, patches of sand still sticking to its body. Its legs carried it closer, its weird mandible thingies rubbing together.
“You cannot win,” it said with a deep reverberating voice, “your stubbornness will only delay the inevitable. I shall feast on this insolent creature who has poached my hunting territories and nopony, not even you, will be able to stop me.”
One eye twitching, I pointed my horn at its body.
The rest turned horribly graphic. I had a vast repertoire of horror stories, dark adventures and pure gore fests to fuel my imagination. Being turned inside out was that crab’s least of worries. Being burned alive was second lowest as well. There was just a part of me that had rejoiced and refused to stop after being told ‘no’. My dream, my rules! No more fear for my life tonight. I was sick of it.
So, yes, maybe – just maybe – I was taking my frustrations out on that innocent crustacean. It might have been chasing a damsel in distress at the time, intent on killing her and eating her corpse, but a few things I had done could be considered overkill in retrospect. The cycle of resurrection and violent deaths was one of those things.
I’d be kinder on the next giant crab I met, I decided.
Leaving behind the crushed remains of the monster, I turned to look at the mare my lucid dreaming had saved. The experience likely had been traumatizing, for she flinched when I moved closer. Her pupils had shrunk to tiny dots in her eyes, and her legs were shaking.
“Customary heroic greetings, milady,” I said with a noble and rich tone, kneeling. “May I hope you were not hurt by this foul monster?”
“I-I… no…” she stuttered, seemingly unable to quite process what had happened.
“Good,” I said, rising to my full height again, feeling a bit playful.
Laughing on the inside, I took a pose, rolling the musculature of my handsome built and flexing my wings like I would biceps. A slight shake of my head made my mane whip into the wind, and sparkles of pure beauty floated all around my face. My smile turned blindingly pretty. “It would have been such a shame if a pretty thing like you had suffered.”
But instead of showering me with gratitude, the mare winced, her eyes narrowing in pain.
That… wasn’t what I had expected. Was the color scheme really that irritating for the eyes?
As if reading my thoughts, the mare suddenly looked mortified by her reaction. She stepped forward, ears drooped down and lowering her head in a posture of humbleness. Her horn spluttered to life then, cursorily brushing against me in search of possible injuries, while her mouth started running just a smidge too fast.
“O-oh Celestia! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… sorry, I can’t… That was mean, and you just saved me, a-a-and I can’t believe I did that. Celestia, I’m sorry! I swear, I’m really really sorry. H-here, let me just–”
With a flinch, I stepped back away from her. My skin still tingled where her magic had last touched me and a shiver ran down my spine. The backside area was off limit, at least until she turned into a human woman.
“Alright, alright, citizen of Equestria.” I raised my hooves to placate her. “I was only passing by. No need to adore me.”
But it would be nice. A hamac, a handful of grape, a palm tree fan; the worshipping gig. Being an alicorn has to pay off. Make me your king! Come on, dream, you can do it.
The mare blinked slowly, as if coming to her senses again. With any luck…
“You saved my life! I… I cannot let this debt go unpaid!”
Jackpot.
“Yes, I suppose I did.” I did a wing shrug, glancing at the fleshy soup that had been a living creature before. “It may have been motivated in part by me dreaming of fighting a giant crab for some time, but yes, I did save you.”
Bowing, she kneeled so low her horn touched the sand. “Will you at least let me show you my gratitude?”
I grinned. This is getting interesting.
“By all means, show me, Miss…”
Here, I paused, wondering what her name could possibly be. She was a lithe mare, thinner than the norm I recalled without being alicorn-like alas Fleur-Dis-Lee. Her mane was a bit ruffled, likely from the chase, and her cutie mark seemed to be a large fish. No, nothing was particularly impressive about a small grey mare like that.
“Small Pond,” she helpfully provided, and I felt the urge to snicker at my own poor naming sense.
At least, I managed to keep it under wrap. Dream extra as she might be, it still felt a bit impolite to laugh in her face about how bad I was at puns. Cleverly, I placed a hoof in front of my mouth and motioned for her to go on with the other. Balance was not needed to stand anyway.
Small Pond either did not notice or was not programmed to care. “We only need to go back to my village and I will be able to give you something in return for your help.”
Nodding, I invited her to take the lead, which she did in the space of an instant. The longer time went on with the giant crab still dead, the more her confidence seemed to return. Together, we went on trotting for hours and days.
Though, honestly, it felt instantaneous to me.
One second, we had been trotting together on the beach; the next, we were arriving at the entrance of a coastal village. Of course, Small Pond did not notice the transition. She simply trotted ahead of me without a care for the mechanics of dreams, like the fact that the sun had set over the horizon twice during our trip and that neither of us had gotten hungry, thirsty nor had a need to execute any other bodily function. That had been a bit too fast for me; I would have appreciated getting a moment to smell the flowers. Equestria, guys. Dream Equestria, but it was Equestria nonetheless.
Frowning, I focused my attention on the collection of houses before us. Small Pond seemed to pause in mid-step, but a closer look revealed that none of her hooves were touching the ground. Her face was frozen in a relieved smile, and her eyes were looking straight at one of the bigger houses. Hers? Probably. They looked rather similar to me.
It was a bit strange, to be honest. In a normal dream, I wouldn’t question the lack of depth that came up over and over, but this village looked more like a picture of a village to me. The houses, most of them elevated about sand-level, seemed glued in front of each other till the very moment we passed them by. Then, they were flat but from another angle. It was like that for all of them, for all of those houses of knitted bamboo and palm tree leaves. It was the very picture of a tropical beach town.
This village is not in the show… I thought, trying to recall a name that might fit it. Nothing came.
A strange blurry smudge was covering the welcoming sign near the road, hiding what was likely yet another horse pun.
Well, it does look like it could be… Good work, Subconscious!
Satisfied, I went to poke Small Pond’s shoulder, who suddenly started moving again as if time had never been stopped.
“Wel–…” She looked behind her, then back to me. “How did you move so fast?”
“Alicorn,” I said with a cocky shrug.
“Right. I had forgotten about you, the secret prince that Celestia was hiding from everypony,” she said. “With how many new alicorns show up, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were to become the next one.”
I blinked. What?
That… hadn’t been in the script at all.
“Well, nevermind that. We’re here, my hometown. Good ol’ Horseshoe Bay.” She gestured to the houses around us, then resumed her trot toward the big home down the street.
Now much less confident, I followed in her hoofsteps, trying to figure out the meaning of her innocent comment. It sounded like dream logic, to roll with the punches and accept at face-value, but that hadn’t been what I wanted out of her. And with that in mind, it was easier to notice some of the villagers’ strange attitudes.
Like that old stallion picking grains of sands one by one and building a monument from them, or the group of foals playing guards and thieves with real spellstaves that shot laser beams.
Admittedly, that wasn’t quite how a pony should act, but it also reminded me of a previous dream of mine. I had been a store clerk forced to count lettuce until dawn; failure to do so would have unleashed a zombie apocalypse. Wisely, I decided to leave those ponies, and any other weirdo I might notice, to their dreamed tasks.
Small Pond finally reached the larger house, which seemed to be the size of a castle now that we were closer, and she headed straight for a podium standing in the middle of the road. Reaching inside, she took out a megaphone and casually broke my eardrums.
“Everypony, please, listen to me!” she said with the strength of three Sonic Rainbooms.
I blinked and there was a crowd in front of us.
“Two days ago,” Small Pond spoke to them without missing a beat, “I was attacked by a giant crab while looking for seashells. It would have taken my life had it not been for the intervention of this stallion.”
Loud cheers erupted from the mass of blank-stared ponies, all of them acclaiming my name and those of my ancestors in various states of euphoria.
Not to be outdone, the lucky pony created to be saved by my awesome self shouted above the crowd, “I have brought him here with me today, in the hopes that you would show him the way Horseshoe Bay thanks their benefactors! So, please, give a warm welcome to Sir Doom Mac Darknight!”
Spotlight descended from nowhere to illuminate my body, and the light reacted with some hidden power of mine to make me shine like a thousand stars, but without harming any innocent pony’s eyes. Silence fell, as the crowd looked at me as one.
They.
Winced.
Yes, it was how I would actually reacted to being shown something so pastel and flashy, but this was starting to get plain weird. My own ideas on how to get welcomed by a town after saving a citizen did not involve this kind of reactions. There were more flower bouquets and nubile beautiful villagers thrown at me.
Heck, if this stupid on-the-fly cliché was so much trouble, I wasn’t going to stay like that! So, discreetly, while every pony was paying attention to Small Pond, I focused, scrunched up my face, and willed my hoof to change from black and red to more unassuming colors. That much would at least put the locals at ease, or so I figured, but there was another problem.
I stared longer, even giving that leg a little shake in the air, with a creeping feeling of unease.
The lump of flesh and fur stayed obstinately black.
Come on, be the color of ash, of silver, of iron, or heck, pink. Pink, you can even go pink, if you just decide to freaking CHANGE!
Still black.
Okay, what is the deal here? I should be able to do this easily. It’s one of the first things I learned. Also the coolest, but not the point here.
My eyebrows furrowed together, I twisted my hoof around, hoping to see a difference in the colors. As far as I could tell, there were none. But why? I wanted it to change, I was aware I was in my dreams, and there weren’t any typical distractions that would make my mind go wild.
Until the moment there was one, that is.
“Please accept this humble token of our gratitude,” said a soft grandmotherly voice.
Hiding the still black hoof behind my back, I grinned so widely it hurt at the wrinkled old blue mare before me. And I was unsure of what to make of her. She seemed somewhat tired, what’s with the half-drooped eyelids and her slumped posture, yet the fridge she was carrying couldn’t be light.
A second later, while I was busy picking up my slacked jaw, she proved her elderly vigor by kneeling. The large grey contraption on her back slid much too fast to be natural, and it smacked into me straight in the face.
Hard.
“Holy… cow…” I gasped, crawling over the sand. The lack of sensations in my hind legs was worrying, to say the least. Typical, really. The little old mare proved more trouble to me than a giant timberwolf or a giant crab. “D-do you work out…?”
The grandma placed a hoof in front of her mouth, a quiet chuckle reaching my hyper sensitive ears. “Oh my, what a flatterer…”
…There was red on her face. There were two very visible patches of red on her cheeks.
“Well,” she said, her voice croaking raspily, “I could show you a good work out…”
She… proceeded… to… wink.
My eye twitched, the only part of me that was moving at all. On the inside, a strangled scream rumble throughout my mind. It carried in spirit a message not unlike ‘Nope, nope, nope, eeeeeeenope! Nope, pass, nope. Oh GOD no! NOOOOOO!’
I nearly collapsed when she left.
Looking at the large queue of ponies all waiting to congratulate me, I felt ants ran up my legs. Little steps carried me in a quick back and forth pace near the podium, all the while I was frantically trying to see Small Pond somewhere in the crowd. I might have spontaneously decided to accept a simple ‘thank you’ as payment of my services. Really, no need, I was ready to say, a hero doesn’t brag or something!
Except, Small Pond wasn’t anywhere, and the next petitioner in line came to give me his gift with a long bow. Then, he dropped a cardboard box on the ground and left without a word. Staring, I couldn’t help but follow his form as it faded into thin air. All that was left of that stallion was the gift box at my hooves.
It was a nice one too, I decided. All nicely wrapped in the seconds it had taken to hear the news of my heroism. With an apparently exclusive Power Ponies Sixth Edition Cover. Yada yada. Collector’s edition didn’t mean much when waking up destroys the item.
Just another waste of a perfectly good run.
Can’t it go any faster? I wondered. I don’t have all day.
Some distant part of my brain screeched a word of warning, as the laws of Murphy were unaffected by non-verbalization in dreams. I was, for lack of better words, already inside my brain.
Unfortunately, I realized my mistake too late, for the ponies in line suddenly moved as one and proceeded with the fastest possible method of fulfilling my wish. My ears flattening on my skull, I watched as the sky darkened with thousands of objects in all shapes and form. Giant shadows spread over the entire town, eclipsing the sun and the clouds and the stars altogether. Blue was no more the color of the vault of heaven. Polka dots gift paper, rose red and dull grey replaced it for a grand total of fifteen seconds.
And during half of those precious seconds, I could only stare hard at the stupidity unfolding and bite back a curse. Seriously? No, seriously?! Was that how my dream would end? In such a stupid way?!
Something burned under my skin. Something hot, boiling, angry. I felt it flow through me, fast, relentless, and I pushed it all toward my horn. Blinding light shone then, crimson red, pulsing as a heartbeat.
“I. Am. Flawless!” I shouted to those would-be killer gifts.
At least for tonight.
I delayed the apocalypse, with a spark that flew off my horn, and fizzled throughout the air. It rose and rose fast, the speed of sound or faster. Booms shattered the air thrice, before the twitch of red magic reached the first gift and expanded into a net large enough to cover the town four times over. Afterward, it was only the matter of closing the tendrils of magic over the mass of presents and lowering them to the ground without sacrificing any innocent under their weight.
I managed.
Next to me, a pile of trinkets of all sizes and usefulness shadowed the plaza with its monstrous height and width. They ranged from the typical and traditional to the bizarre. What was I even supposed to do with a picture of a seashell grinder?
I threw it back in the pile with the rest.
Wondering if I should not just give it a rest and find another setting for my dreams, I faced the few remaining ponies around with a half-smile.
“W-well,” I said, my tone being slightly shakier than it ought to, “I would like to thank all the inhabitants of Horseshoe Bay for their generosity. I will be sure to sell off whatever gift I cannot take with me at an auction and use the profit for my benefits. None will go to waste, promise.”
“But we already gave you all our money!” pointed out one of the few remaining pony, and as I glanced in that direction, I indeed noticed a giant bag with a dollar sign painted on it.
Isn’t that convenient?
Sighing, I grabbed said bad and stifled a fake yawn. This little ordeal had left me surprisingly drained. I hadn’t really taken into accounts the various absurdities that were sure to show up. Hindsight and what they say about it. I shrugged, then cast a look over the streets.
With a small stomp, I straightened my posture. “Show me… all your hotels!”
The ponies didn’t answer, but the town did. Before my very eyes, the scenery changed. Houses passed me by in blurs of beige and yellow, swirling around me, turning into a sandy maelstrom. I was but the unfortunate passenger, up to the point it ended abruptly.
I hadn’t moved – not like that –, though I was now facing inlands rather than the sea. A more accurate way to describe it would be to say that the world had shifted around to push all of the desired hotels into the same area. The strains mark in the sand probably meant it was all ready to slingshot back into position as soon as I was done. If I focused, I could almost see the proverbial elastics holding the whole thing together.
‘The whole thing’ being three hotels, of similar height and width, albeit the one in the middle had cleaner walls. At a first glance, of course. Otherwise, only the insignias could differentiate them from each other.
“Huh.” I blinked. “Wasn’t actually expecting there to be more than one here. Small town, you know?”
For the shortest instant, I got the strange impression that the hotels were judging me. They weren’t doing anything, they just stayed standing very still.
Musing it over, I tried for a hopeful inquiry, “The best one then?”
This time, I felt an outright resistance.
A tangible shift in the air, a slight distortion, like the intense heat of a flame, curved the straight lines of the three buildings and made them all seem to be leaning toward me.
“Come on,” I coaxed the buildings. “Be honest here, I’m not judging anyone.”
There was a shiver in the air. Then, the two hotels on each side disappeared, leaving only the biggest to stand in front of me. It seemed to inflate ever so slightly, puffing with pride and shining down beaming rays of happiness. The setting sun reflected well in its dusty windows, giving it a warm orange shade.
Smiling, I trotted inside, levitating the bountiful bag of bits behind me. From the first step in however, the smile was a little harder to maintain.
Clearly, whoever was cleaning outside was not paid to do inside. A thin layer of dust covered most items in the entry hall, reception desk included. A small cuckoo clock ticked on the wall and provided the only source of noise in the room. Thankfully, no spider web completed the picture. That would be the last straw.
“Huh, hello? Is there anyone here? A pony, a griffon, a dragon, whatever? No?”
No answer.
Talk about customer service.
Aiming with my horn, I grasped a bell on the counter and shook it. Its chime was both clear and strangely off. Just a pitch wrong. It was hard to pinpoint how, exactly.
What wasn’t hard however was to see just how little the owners of this place cared for customers! I pursed my lips together, tail flicking on one side and the other. Nopony. Just the tick-tock of the clock, again and again. I shook the bell harder, making sure the ringing came loud and clear and unmistakably fast.
The reception remained annoyingly empty and I was growing self-conscious of this stupid game.
Scoffing, I glanced to the blackboard on the wall, searching for a price of sort. Unfortunately, the only thing there was just a mess of chalk and dust. Either someone had terrible hoofwriting or there was a child on the loose. My jaw clenched, I emptied half my purse over the counter. A random number of bits rolled over the wood, clinking together in a scatter of metal. I didn’t bother counting.
If they wanted the right amount, they should be there to tell me what it was.
With a scowl, I made my way to the back of the room, where I noticed the hallway leading into the rooms. Conveniently, all the doors were opened and I got to choose.
The royal suite was mine.
Smirking, I trotted inside, taking in the scenery of luxurious furniture and opulent décor. I loved it, it was just right for someone of my stature. I froze halfway to the bed, my ears twitching.
There were… sounds… coming from the bathroom. The first, foremost and least worrying was that of running water. Droplets falling by the thousands onto porcelain or flesh. A stream hot enough to send off steam over the door, as I could see it now. The part that bothered me was the… the grumbles, the growls and something disturbingly similar to children’s giggles.
The door opened on its own, creaking on its rusty knobs. Shadows started to creep out of the frame, slithering across the floor in my direction…
Oh God, oh GOD! Not a lucid nightmare. I do not want a freaking lucid nightmare! Go away, go away, go away, for the love of Luna’s plot and Freddy Krueger’s face, GO AWAY!
“S-s-stand back!” I stuttered as the door fully opened on the occupant of my bathroom. With so much light flooding out, only the crudest of its shape could be seen so far. Along with another thing.
It waited.
It remained where it was, standing, dripping wet, as if waiting for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I scattered backward, wings fully extended, and a strangled cry got caught up in my throat… all at the sight of the mass of black strings, ink and fabric in the shape of man.
It was tall, taller than the doorframe itself and could only pass through it by folding itself in two. And it did so, stiffly, like a badly articulated puppet, like a doll. Its face was not one, just a burlap sack that crawled with centipedes. I saw it looking at me, with its eyeless face and a strange moan echoed in the room.
A question. It had asked a question.
“A-a-a-ah, see, n-needed… r-r-r-r-room…”
A putrid corpse-like breath washed over my face, and I felt my head spin. Oh, fuck, I was going to be sick, and get eaten, and be sick while being eaten. Teleport. Teleport, damn it!
Magic fizzled out at the top of my horn. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t ignore the giant thing slowly stretching one of its thin legs to come closer. With every inch it moved, shreds of black fabric fell to the floor, and twitched and slithered like snakes.
Frozen, I stood still, a whimper rising out of my throat, as the thing moved closer… closer…
And passed me by without even a hint of interest toward me. It walked its own puppet-like way, next to me, with a nauseating smell following it, but no attempt on me.
On its way, it moved a stringy hand-like appendage as if waving at me. Twitches ran under its face, bulges that converged to a little over its chin, and I saw mandibles dig a hole that became its mouth. On a perfectly neighborly tone, it spoke with a voice that was screeches and gurgles, “It’s fine, William. I was just going to haunt the staircase anyway.”
I plastered a wooden not-smile on my face, the stiffest and fakest thing that I had ever done, as I looked at the thing leaving the room. I did not move until the floor stopped shaking with its progress. When it did, I made my way to the bed and slumped on the mattress.
As of right now, stairs were officially non-existent in this dream of mine. Not one of them was allowed to subsist. In fact, there was no such thing as ‘under-the-bed’ or ‘inside-the-closet’ either.
I flinched at the thought of a hand of strings grasping at my ankles. My wings might have folded over me, as if I were to be hugging myself in fear. Lies.
A few minutes, by my perception, went by while I listened to the monotone rhythm of the reception’s clock. It seemed as if, with that faint noise, my heartbeat slowed equally to match it.
My back firmly on the mattress, I gazed on the ceiling with a curious feeling pulling at my gut. It wasn’t… fear or anything – not like my encounter with that String-man –, just a puzzling churn at the bottom of my stomach. Discomfort. Itches.
I lifted a hoof over my face and frowned. If I pushed, they were almost phantom fingers coming out. Yet, far from quenching that nagging feeling, it only amplified it. Tingles were running up my legs, trying and failing to reconfigure them into something more… human. Urgh, why was I thinking about that? I should have been resting for the coming adventures or whatevers.
Small problem: I was not tired. I’d been doing lots of stuff, yes, including a few that could deserve the word ‘epic’, at least in my own humble opinion. I had only been going through the motions when I had decided to get some rest.
Dreamers don’t need rest.
I don’t feel tired.
But I went to bed anyway, didn’t I?
I tossed, rolling in bed to find a comfortable position, head on the pillow, careful with the horn and the head of the bed, lying on one side without squeezing a wing, tail curled or uncurled and so and so. By the end of it, I was just about ready to disintegrate the bed.
Growling, I finally rolled onto my side and my gaze fell onto the window. The sight made me still. I blinked slowly, taking in the pitch black darkness outside. It hadn’t taken that long! But it was still dark, with no star in the sky, just obscurity across the land… washing over the town… covering everything under its black blanket…
I wasn’t in bed anymore. My flanks were sliding on a sand hill.
What?! I jumped to my hooves, twisting around and nearly tumbling from lack of balance. Where w-? What had I just-?
Still in the village. Unless there was another town that looked extraordinarily like Horseshoe Bay and I had spontaneously teleported there.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad. I was merely half-lost in the middle of the night. In a dream where I had previously encountered at least two monsters. I could still hear the gurgles and the screeches…
No! I shook my head. Control, I had to keep control. Inside of me, my resolve hardened. I wouldn’t be pushed around, not in this place.
It was the town’s square, with its incredibly useful fountain and what I knew was the mayor’s house at the edge farthest away from me. There wasn’t a pony to be found here though, not at this hour, and most amazingly, one thing I noticed about the town at this hour was the silence. That absolute stillness in the air that surrounded me, stuck to me, clung to my skin till I made a sound. Then it was a detonation that carried for miles, but even that did not chase away the stillness for long. Everything always returned to being absolutely silent.
My eyes swept over my surroundings, jumping at shadows, and a hint of red glow surrounded my horn. The image of String-man remained at the back of my mind. I knew something was going to happen. Silence was a terrible thing in dreams.
I stilled as I heard sobs, and very slowly looked around.
There was a mare with a frazzled mane and an unsteady nurse cap staring at the water.
“What am I doing here?” she growled at her reflection. “I have a purpose. I’m not here for no reason!”
She struck the water, splashing some on me. However, as the reflection broke apart in ripples, she started to grasp at its image, digging her hooves into the water, in and out, again and again.
“I had a purpose,” the mare repeated frantically. “I’m telling you! I was meant to do something!”
I felt a pang of sadness at her words, and I attempted to give her my best smile.
“Well, huh, just relax a bit,” I said, stroking her back with my wing, “I’m sure it’ll come back to you. Relax. You’re on the seaside, it’s a nice quiet little place. Just listen to the waves or some other New Age crap like that.”
She threw my wing off her, batting it away with a hoof and jumping aside. Her breathing was growing faster, shallow, and her frown was digging deeper into her forehead.
“No, no, I can’t relax! It’s a matter of life or death! I know it is. I cannot lose time. Do you hear me?!” She suddenly reached forward, grabbing me by the shoulders while her tone grew increasingly high pitch. “What do I need to do?! TELL ME! YOU HAVE TO TELL ME!”
She shook me, hard. Her demands came again. Disorientation settled in, my sight reduced to her furious foaming face with her screeches reaching new levels of loud.
Ears rolled back, I snarled and almost sent her flying.
“What the hell, mare?! I was just trying to help.” I stomped, prompting her to yell again her inane mantra. That broke the dam. “I don’t know! I don’t freaking know and I don’t really care! That’s not my job, it’s YOURS! And, well, even if you did remember now, you’d be too frazzled to be of any use, so get some rest and give me a break! Now!”
She dropped to the ground like a stone, asleep.
~~
The light of high noon filtered through the opening of the door, brightening up the dark room enough for the newcomer to see ahead of him. The unicorn stallion glanced around, his nose scrunched up at the enclosed air, and took another step inside.
Letting out a sigh, he rolled his eyes as he walked the distance from the door to the single bed in the room.
“Sis?” the stallion called, gently poking the unmoving mare. “Come on, little sister, you haven’t shown up at work this morning. You have to get moving now.”
The mare remained unmoving.
“Seriously?” her brother grunted. “What did you even do last night?”
Smirking, he glanced to the window and the large curtains blocking out the light. Bubbles of magic popped at the tip of his horn, a combination of cyan and teal, then gathered around the sheets of cloth.
“You asked for it,” he said as he pulled them wide open.
There! That should do it, he thought, shielding his eyes from the sudden flow of light flooding the bedchambers. She’d always been woken up like that before, and the change intense even for him. He only had to await the explosion that was sure to come.
It didn’t.
The grin he had been wearing slipped off, and he started shaking his sister’s body more strongly.
“Come on, wake up! Small Pond, get your lazy rump in gears!” A note of worry appeared in his voice. “Small Pond! Wake up! Small Pond!”
~~
The rooster had cried some time ago, summoning the sun with it. The horizon had lit up in artistic shades of green and purple for some reason. Even Celestia’s toy celestial body seemed the wrong color. Last I checked, emerald was not the right color for dawn.
It changed nothing. I had still erred for hours just trotting around town. Whatever I had tried to make time move forward had failed, remaining obstinately night and snoozing time. Then, everyone had started acting like computer programs, glitching in and out of existence at the worst times.
I kicked at the sand, sending a bit of dust in direction of the village behind me. “Is it just me or is this dream starting to get a bit long?”
So far, the whole experience had only been confusing. When I decided to dream of Equestria, I meant for it to be fun, not… whatever this is.
Seriously, things were like a regular dream, except with me aware and unwilling to eat the pony-flavored mushroom samba.
I sighed, stretching my wings slowly. This had only been a waste of a dream. Still, before I awoke, I could still try to test my god-like ability to fly. Pulling off a Sonic Rainboom should be enough to cheer me up. So, cracking the joints in my shoulders and knees, I gave my wings a first testing flap.
A ridiculous amount of dust flooded my sight, causing me to cough loudly as I inhaled too much of it. Okay, less awesome next time…
But there was no next time. I was interrupted.
“Do not even think of fleeing! I will not let you!” boomed a familiar voice. “Release my subjects at once, Dreamon, and I might be merciful!”
My eyes widened. That… that had sounded like…
“Huh, w-what?” I asked, gazing at the dark blue alicorn staring me down. “Luna?”
Her body stiffened, and her tone came out dry, “Princess Luna, Dreamon. You would do well to remember my title.”
I grinned. “Niiiiiiiiiiiice, I think my subconscious needs a reward.”
Luna’s beautiful blue eyes slowly closed and opened, a little wider than the norm, and both her pupils were aimed right at me. She seemed fascinated, as she should be. I hadn’t imagined a puff pastry. I was the stallion at the moment, and if things turned out right, I’d also be the man that nailed the princess.
Unable to resist, I waggled my eyebrows at her. She was a horse now, sure, but she could shapeshift and I had seen the fanarts. “So, what are you here for?”
Tempestuous, impatient, she stomped a hoof on the grass. “You know full well the reason of my presence here!”
Staring at the spot she stomped, I felt some heat go straight to my face. She doesn’t lose time, does she? “Well, I hadn't dreamed of it yet, but...”
Oh come on, William, you can be more seductive than that. You got the grandma in one line.
Forgetting my shyness, I posed and flexed a wing. Cocking a smile, I tried for a sultry look. “Do you like what you see? I mean, clichés are stupid, but there can be a little drop of good in them, right? Is this to your taste? I could change for you, babe.”
Luna’s eyes slowly widened as her jaw proceeded to open wider and wider.
Yup, she was under the charm.
Or so I figured, until I saw a flash of light and heard a thunderclap.
I was on the ground then, a strange stinging sensation in my chin and a booming womanly shout in my ears. “Enough!” Luna stomped.
Ouch. No, actually, that hadn’t hurt, but still. Had she shot a bolt of lightning at my face?! What the hell?! I could not shake off the confusion. She should have been under the charm easily.
“Did you honestly believe you could get favors from me in exchange for the freedom of mine subjects?!” She spat on the ground, which actually hurt more than the bolt to the face. “You foul beast!”
Dejected, I looked down and kicked at the ground. Why was she even here? There was just no way. I had completely lost control. “Damn it! I knew nobody liked red and black alicorns!” I took a long breath. “Huuuh… do you… happen to work out?”
Luna’s horn lit up again, and her eyes flashed white. “Stop stalling! Release them!”
I tried to step up, to reach for her with one stretched hoof. I really did try. She thought I was doing something wrong, which was bull, and she wanted to help her subjects, which was good. Of course I’d try helping Luna. “Who are you tal-?”
It just never occurred to me that she’d swing a sword at me.
I heard the sound of sharp metal drawn from the scabbard, the sound of it cutting through the air, and the sound of slashing. I heard it all in a split second, where nothing made sense and only my body knew how to move. My chin touched the grass. Little strands of red hair floated down from my head, cut off. “Okay, no, too much!” I shouted, jumping back. “Get away from me!”
“You will not escape!” Her wings spread wide. She was in the air, blinding blue light swirling around her head. It lashed out in quick burst of lightning to the side, yet always returned to the gathering point. Her powers focused in one place, crackling like thunder and the storm. Even the air around me felt charged with static. Luna was not kidding anymore. “You’ve sealed your fate, Dreamon!”
The confusion turned to something else. I didn’t want this to happen. My dream. My rules. But I had only spent my time getting tossed around ever since I chose Equestria. It plain sucked. She should have been kind, she should have been awesome, but some masochistic part of my brain apparently liked to berate me better. Every hit to the ego was just a slap to the face, and I was plain sick of it.
No.
More.
Wings flared, my voice rumbling with anger, I bellowed, “GET LOST!”
Luna’s eyes widened, apparently aware of what was happening. She dove, charged in a desperate attempt, but she was too slow. The air bent around her and swallowed her away.
I was alone again, standing in a dumb empty field with just a slightly faster than normal pulse. It truly started to sink in. Had that really happened? Did I fail to impress a character I had dreamed of? In my own lucid dream?! How had I even managed to do that?!
I had to be more self-loathing than I thought… Nobody was that pathetic!
“Yeah, great job, subconscious,” I grumbled.
~~
In the darkest of night, a cry of rage pierced the tranquility of Canterlot Castle.
It was the question at the front of my mind. I just couldn’t quite decide why. It ticked and racked at some deep parts of my brain, and I just couldn’t quite brush it off like that. I needed to know why?
So I paced on the beach, muttering to myself about the strange encounter.
“She just pops out of nowhere to accuse me of something, calls me a... a what exactly?”
Of course, it’d be easier to remember if I had actually listened to what she had been saying. I might have been distracted. Come on, come on, brain; work for your bread for once!
My gaze went upward to the weirdly colored sky. There wasn’t even a trace of the power she had called forth a few minutes ago. It was all gone, like the rest of her. It was to the point where I was starting to doubt the memory of the event. It would be just like my brain to spazz out and make me believe that had happened. Luna, appearing out of nowhere in my dream to come and defend her subjects? Right. Sure… well… maybe. Protecting those under her crown, that’s what it had been about. She was the shield against nightmares. But why would she have attacked me?
One ear twitching, I looked at the black stump below my eyes. That muzzle of mine was black as the darkest night. On the opposite side, a few rogue strands of red inched at the tip of my snout. My horn still felt heavy on my forehead, the weight of my wings were camped against my sides…
“DAMN IT!”
I knew it! Turning myself into a walking cliché was just asking for a disaster and attacks on my person by every pony with actual taste. And they had! Okay, mildly, with restrained disgust rather than outright accusations, but nopony could actually stand to look at my colors in broad daylight. Curse me and my clever self-deprecating subconscious. That was why Luna went ahead and attacked me like a nightmare monster!
I paused. A thought had occurred to me in the middle of my rant. A silly, stupid and childish though.
Putting a hoof to my chin, I looked down at the beach. “Like, her actual duties?”
Luna protects the citizens from their own dreams. She goes on to protect them and impart wisdom as to the nature of their fears. It would be what the actual Princess Luna would do, in the event that I was really in somepony’s dream. Of course, I wasn’t part of a pony’s dream, but if that had been the case, maybe it would have been…
Similar?
Identical?
Wouldn’t that mean…?
“…No way,” I said, waving a hoof dismissively at my own childishness.
This was all just a lucid dream of mine. It wasn’t actually real. I would do well to keep that in mind, lest I lose control even more badly than how it had gone so far. No one needed to have a couple of monsters chase them or be the subject of a princess’ wrath.
Even if it had been kind of cool-looking… I mused, remembering how the heavens had darkened at her command. I could do that too if I wanted to! Just, I hadn’t had the chance to do so before! The important thing was that we all knew I could have, and that it would have been pretty damn cool to face Evil in an alicorn tag-team with Luna.
A good natured chuckle rose in my throat. “Getting way too into this, William.”
Grinning, I turned to face away from the horizon, into the Equestrian mainland and spread my wings.
~~
The first one to notice the twinkling star in the distant dawn was Old Mayor Mane on his way to his office. He had thought it only a trick of light, a reflection or perhaps a particularly bright star leftover of the night that had ended mostly peacefully. By the time he had reached the small plaza, a frown deepened his wrinkles as he wondered if, perhaps, the star hadn’t grown in size.
Not far away, a mare with her foals stopped her trot, her ears flicking as she caught noise of a faint whistling in the air. She turned around, puzzled, and a few of her neighbors did so as well, the curious sound growing more distinct.
“Look!” screamed a filly.
But most ponies did not have the time to. A violent explosion of sand blasted the plaza, throwing some passerby off their hooves in the shockwave and hiding its source within a cloud of dust. Screams rose, and panicked ponies started to gallop away.
Few stayed, their whole bodies slowed down and hesitant. They gazed at the unknown, iris shrunken, images of monsters floating in their heads. When the dust settled down completely however, the ponies had to fight a recoil not of fear but shame. They first stared in uneasy silence, before somepony uttered the first words and sparked a wave of frantic whispers and shouts.
“It’s the princess…”
“Princess!”
“It’s Princess Luna!”
“She has come to help!”
“Celestia’s sister is in town!”
The alicorn’s brows furrowed together at those latest words, her eyes seeking their speaker without success. The small crowd that had gathered was moving in a flurry of ponies toward her, all of them showing proper reverence. The rest seemed to be galloping across the main street to spread the news of her arrival.
A small smile curled her lips upward. She could take care of that.
“GREETING, OUR SUBJECTS! WE HAVE COME TO PUT AN END TO THE ENDLESS SLEEP PLAGUING SOME OF YOUR BRETHRENS. GUIDE US TO THEM!”
Her subjects stared at her, at the tip of her horseshoe she had impetuously pointed toward the sky during her grand declaration. They blinked and wondered, but not one to push through the ranks and acquiesce to her request.
Her nostrils flared subtly, and she looked over the onlookers. “Well?”
Finally, the ponies parted aside to let one of their own come through. He was fair, she thought, perhaps thin for a stallion, but with a sizeable horn that dipped almost to the sand as he bowed.
“Princess…” the unicorn said, looking up hesitantly. “Please, help me. My sister slept through all of yesterday. She won’t wake up no matter what I tried…”
She tried to keep her expression as regal as ever, for the situation was dire. Still, the small victory had almost sufficed to make the corners of her lips curl upward. She had not been mistaken.
“Show her to me.”
He was eager to do so. He turned on his hooves almost instantly, almost too quickly to show proper deference toward his princess. In this situation, however, Luna could hardly blame him.
His steps were fast and hers, wide. It was a matter of minutes for them to trot throughout the small coastal town until they had arrived to an unremarkable hut near the town’s sole restaurant. There, he parted open the front door and nearly galloped through their small and heavy living room. Luna followed with a little more caution, taking care not to knock over any of the furniture with her mane or tail.
“There she is,” he said, the fear letting a hint of hope shine through. “She’s all yours. J-just help her, your Majesty.”
Luna took the first step in, and was struck by the scent of stuffiness, by the staleness of the room. It reminded her of old spells that could put objects into stasis and protect them from time. A similar sentiment came to her at the sight of the room. Nothing was out of place, but a certain stillness had already started to take hold here.
The only thing that was not immobile was the stallion’s sister. Her chest moved up and down, in a slow rhythm that should be reassuring. She seemed so incredibly peaceful, but more striking than that was the air of familiarity that made Luna hesitate in her steps. There was a certain quality to the sleeping mare’s magical aura. It was not that it felt unique, rather than it having been known to her hours earlier.
Her eyes paled, glazed over with a faint light, as she looked at the form of her unconscious subject. Radiance came from the shape of mare laid in front of her, of a truly splendid shade of white. A long time ago, both her sister and she had been brought to tears from such a sight. A long time ago…
Today, in this very place however, what she saw made her tail lash in a flurry of stars. Another light circled the mare, a strange, dim light, of a nature Other than what she knew inhabited the mortal world. Threads of that corruption were diving into that purity, feeding the rest of the construct into a slowly tightening net. A few tendrils leaned away from the body, some inches away from the bedroom’s window…
“P-Princess?” came the timid question of a stallion.
Blinking, Luna stopped looking and glanced to her sides, where her subject had called for her. His ears were flat on his skull, and his tail flicked nervously. He gulped down when the full force of her attention bore down on him.
With a mental sigh, she forced herself to calm down and swallow the burning need inside. “I know of your sister’s current condition. It angered me, but there is no reason to believe she cannot be saved.”
His words came quickly, and, to her satisfaction, without the slightest hint of hesitation. “What can I do to help?”
“For now?” she glanced at the opened door. “Make sure none of your neighbors bother me while I work. If any of them report to a case similar to your sister’s, allow them to wait in your home until I have completed my spell. Tis a delicate working I will attempt.”
The stallion spared a look to his sleeping sister, before nodding and solemnly placing a hoof to his chest. “I swear you will not hear a thing from anypony until you’ve finished.”
Luna nodded as she sat by the bedside, waiting for him to leave. It did not take long; he scrambled back to another room, closing the door with a soft creaking. Afterward, she could tell little of his presence. True to his words, the house had fallen into complete silence, with the sole exception of the muffled noises coming from outside. With a deep breath, she focused her power to the tip of her horn.
Light descended from it to grasp at the tendrils. There was a brief moment of resistance, but a single burst of magic blasted apart the obstacle. From that point on, she worked her way into the bewitchment. She dove further and further past the defenses, past the creature’s hunger, past the veil of fear being nurtured, and deep within the very core of her subject.
And for a long time, the Princess’ body remained as immobile as the sleeping mare, with only the light of her horn to hint at her consciousness.
The sun had risen well past the horizon when, at long last, Princess Luna, Warden of the Ethereal Realm, looked up and smirked. “Let us see what you will do next, insolent creature.”
~~
My thoughts had drifted away from the Luna incident, and even the quaint town I had left behind, by the time I had reached the level of the clouds. From that vintage point, the world below only looked like the playground of a child or a game. Life was barely more than moving colored dots, and each had its task, as insane or convoluted as they might be. It made me smirk. I was above that.
In passing, I rained unholy judgment upon a threatening lobster running after somepony on the ground. It was good target practice for the doubtlessly epic quests I would finally get to start. Who wouldn’t want a black and red alicorn that could snipe a lobster’s head off from a miles’ distance?
Granted, those weren’t credentials that one heard often, but all the more reason. They could boast to having a truly unique companion. Plus, I could fly! Loop-the-loops and barrel rolls were but the tamest of all tricks I could do. I was lord of the skies and physics was as good as my personal bitch!
Something though… something felt missing. Not that this wasn’t an amazing experience, in fact, it was everything I thought it would be. And, honestly, that was precisely what was wrong. There was strong wind over my whole body, the sight was incredible and the weightlessness tasted of complete freedom of mind, will and physics.
But I couldn’t help think it was fake. These feelings only had any strength when I remembered them. They were as good as gone the second I stopped thinking of them. My mind couldn’t truly recreate something I had never done.
“The sky’s the limit,” I whispered, the irony not lost on me.
And cursed some more when I saw a giant obstacle right in front of me.
I came to a stop, pulling back and flapping my wings harder, but that was forgetting the strength of an alicorn-slash-cliché and the shockwave sent me flying backward. I uselessly batted my legs in midair, a lifetime of reflexes taking over. Now on my back, I realized how hard it was to flap my wings in reverse without looking.
Of all the times for gravity to start working again, it had to be at its most ironic!
“ENOUGH!”
The fall stopped brutally, and floating with most of my muscles paralyzed, I twisted my body to be back in position. At least, I wasn’t in danger of falling anytime soon.
Letting out a long sigh, I turned to the thing that had been the cause of my discomfort.
A wall of black stretched across the horizon, over the land and the sea, as far as my eye could see. It was no mere construction, nothing build by the effort of men – or ponies in this case. I felt like an explorer that had suddenly discovered why all maps ended. That was the nothingness I was staring at.
“That wasn’t here before…”
I would like to think that I would remember the largest structure I had ever seen in my life, even if this was merely a dream. Granted, this last fact gave me a good enough explanation. Still, there was something weird about that thing. From up close, I couldn’t tell apart what served as the material. It was a purely uniform and smooth surface that made me think of a skyscraper, just… without the support beams.
It reflected nothing.
Pure black.
A true void, more so than even the greatness of space. There was absolutely nothing beyond that. I knew it. Everything about this was just nothingness. It likely could never exist outside of this realm… It was… so strange… almost… enticing…
What the…?
I flinched, pulling back my hoof to my barrel, only just now realizing it had been outstretched toward the wall. Underneath, the beats of my heart had quickened.
“I’d better look somewhere else.” I turned, sending a glance to my right. “There’s probably something more… something. There’s got to be something somewhere else.”
With a few unsteady flaps of my wings, I flew away from this place without looking back.
~~
Midday had yet to come, but news of her presence had been so spoken that quite literally everypony in town was aware of it. Petitioners were waiting by the dozens right outside the town’s . Amongst them, there were even a few griffons and thestrals, to her surprise. She dearly hoped that they hadn’t all come for the same problem. It might make her prey dangerously powerful.
Frowning, Luna glared hard at the stubborn mare still sleeping peacefully. Her net had been thrown, but the fish wasn’t biting. Yet. She had to tell herself that. Patience would bear more results than rash actions.
This one was the anchor. That much was a certainty to her. If she could ensure that she woke up, the dreamon would be left without a hold in the material world and would be forced back to the Ether. Any other enthralled would be saved in one fell swoop.
Her horn glowed bright, she knelt. Her magic surrounded the mare on the bed once more, strengthening the hold and cutting off any excessive corruption trying to reach out.
Unbeknownst to Luna however, a solitary strand of light had slithered outside the room, cut from its source by the use of her power. By all means, in all likelihood, the rogue fragment should have faded away on its own harmlessly.
Yet, while the princess had worked on her task, a young pony had been trotting by, eyes to the ground, ears flat, and with a detestable weight on his little chest. Tears brimming in the corner of his eyes, he did not notice nor feel the latching cold circling his left hind leg.
~~
The wall stretched on for dozens of miles. From one side of the horizon to another, all with a slight curve that, after hours of wasted flying, I had realized meant it was a circle. Height was a lost cause as well. My sole attempt at space exploration had ended with a pointless near crash against a ceiling blacker than ink.
The worst part was the stealth. I hadn’t been dreaming when I thought it had come out of nowhere, it did. The wall remained invisible until I came close enough, then sprung up like a trap.
“Oh come on! Now you’re just being obnoxious, brain!” I had shouted when a particularly vicious crash had been only narrowing averted. “If you want me to die, just rain hellfire from the sky and unleash the Apocalypse!”
What my brain didn’t know was that I would fit right in, what’s with my own hellish motif.
Yet, no apocalypse could be detected by my magical might, only more dangerous crustaceans running after ponies on the beach. It was an infestation at this point. Oh well, I considered it practice for the seafood brochettes I was planning for tomorrow. The rice and the seasoning were both ready. All that was missing was the main piece.
The image made my mouth water.
Wow, this was starting to suck so bad I needed to fantasize about my next dinner. William, get a lucid dream grip, please.
Both my front legs slapped my cheeks, painlessly, and I shook my head some more. “Right, epic stuff, epic stuff,” I repeated, looking over the landscape and its desperate lack of wars and dragon fights. “Where can I actually find epic stuff?”
There, in the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a settlement of sort. The blocks and the dots moving in-between had to be a town and–
A blink.
My hooves were on solid ground. The buzzing noise of everyday conversation rang to my ears. There was even a faint smell of salt and fish in the air.
I blinked some more, trying to process it.
“Prince Sir Doom!”
A young colt not yet old enough for a cutie mark pulled at my wing quickly, making a vicious attempt to get my attention, and I would have been hard-pressed not to give it. Now, where could the fun be at?
“Hey, kiddo,” I greeted absentmindedly. “What’s up?”
“Whales!”
I paused and looked down at the colt. His eyes were clear and his smile, filled to the brim with wonder. They were also focused not on my form, but on something higher up, which was what made it click for me.
With a sigh, I twisted my neck and turned to glance at the sky. My theory proved correct, as I was treated to the sight of a dozens of whales’ rainbow underbellies. A melodic sound rose in the air, with long and haunting note that reached to the very depths of my heart. It asked a question of me: a strange question, blurred by a veil on my senses, but I felt it stretching a phantom hand toward me.
The majestic giants threw their shadows over the town for a minute at most. I could have sworn it. But even after their disappearances over the horizon, most dream inhabitants needed more time to return to their activity, least of all me.
H-huh… At least it was pretty, I thought, shaking my head.
“So, you wanted something, kid?” I asked the colt still dreamily staring after the flying beasts.
My voice did not seem to register, though I couldn’t blame the little guy. That had been a neat sight even for me. It had been vastly more interesting and exotic than a bunch of familiar-looking houses of with palm tree leaves roofs and…
Wait…
A horrible realization dawned on me, and I grabbed a random passerby’s shoulder. “Say, this wouldn’t happen to be–”
“Welcome to Horseshoe Bay!” shouted a hundred ponies.
“You know, I’m really getting annoyed here. I know I’m probably being impatient, but give me a break here. Doesn’t matter if I can get what I want in my dreams if I just wake up before it even happens, and believe me; I’m not getting the same satisfaction in my waking everyday life.”
The two eyes fixed me blankly.
“Look, is it really too much to ask for something exciting? I know our relationship has hit a snag and I am sorry to say you bring nothing of interest to it. Maybe if you were not so fugly, but that’s a question for another time. Right now, I just want to do something. I feel like I’m stuck in a weird cage right now. Not saying you’re caging me, baby, it’s just everything else here.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. Not a sound came out.
“I know, I know, we shared something special once, but it’s over now. If I keep this up, I’ll really go crazy. Feels like it’s been days now – and technically it has been that, since I gave the whole ‘moving the heavens’ thing a try.” The simple reminder quickened my heartbeat. There was so much power at my disposal! I could do quite literally anything! “…Except, leave. And get ponies to do what I want. And not face an army of vicious crustaceans. I swear they hate my guts now.”
For a second, I stared into my reflection. Even deformed by that subtle curve, the image that came back was one of an outright manly if terribly colored stallion. Now, the manly part, I didn’t mind much. It was the whole cliché thing that really grated my nerves.
“And can someone tell me why I can’t change my body anymore? I did it easily before but now it’s like that piece of my brain exploded and took all the prototypes with it. But it wouldn’t be so bad if I could just leave this place. It’s boring and I know String-Man is still hanging around.”
A long shiver rippled across my fur and I shot a few suspicious glances around. He was watching, I knew. He had to have wizened up about the disappearances of all staircases in the universe by now.
As no monster-that-should-not-exist-ever jumped me from behind a random passerby, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was moronic to think about the String-Man, for it would be about the best way to summon him. Dreams. They worked in completely bitchy ways. Especially nightmares. They just… no, not thinking about it anymore.
Calm, gotta get calm again. Deep breaths.
My heartbeat back to normal, I focused on the fishbowl held between my hooves and the confidant it contained: Mrs. Fish. Said little red scaled companion opened and closed its mouth without a word, cueing me to keep on talking.
“It’s just… disappointing, you know? I expected so much more when I got control over my dreams, now it’s all just… slipping away.” My ears drooped down in a splendid imitation of a horse’s. Mrs. Fish continued to imitate a fish and stared with dead eyes. “Okay, I’m clearly not meant to be leaving this place. My only question is thus: why?”
The word hung up in the air, lost between the crashing, rushing walls of water on the beach and the small talk of the dream props all around. Bubbles floated from Mrs. Fish’s mouth to pierce the surface of her small aquatic kingdom and I suddenly felt rather stupid playing this game.
With a sigh, I got up to my hooves and made to explore more of the same old Horseshoe Bay. “…Yeah, I guess it’s not something a fish could answer. Still, thanks for listening.”
“Glad to have been of help, my prince.”
~~
“It’s been days!”
“He won’t wake up, Sail Wind!”
The stallion’s voice came out strangled, weak. “What are you talking about? Just take him out of bed and be done with it. He’s going to be late for school.”
“I tried and he’s not waking up, I tell you!” The mare’s voice broke, her hooves slung around her husband’s shoulders. “We should go talk to the princess! Now!”
He backed away two steps, looking at her with widened eyes. “T-that’s crazy, Rain Bow! The princess said the outbreak was under control!”
“You’re impossible! If you won’t help our son, I will do it myself!”
The door was slammed. The house fell silent.
The brown stallion looked back, cold shards of ice in his chest, and made his way to a chamber on the side of the room. The door creaked softly, and on the bed, there was a small foal, the pride of his life, the most precious thing, sleeping.
It should not frighten him so.
“Come on, champ,” Sail Wind stroke his son’s blonde mane softly. “Your mother’s just worrying too much, right? You’re just a bit tired. You’re not… you haven’t caught whatever those other ponies got…”
The colt kept on dreaming, and the father wept.
~~
“Goodbye Horseshoe Bay!” I shouted, hoping with all my might that this would clue in my brain about what I wanted.
Adventures were what I wanted. Epic thrilling battles which would challenge me just so were what I wanted. Saving the world and ultimately get the girl, also fully acceptable.
But really, meandering and loitering in a small fishing town was NOT what I wanted.
Spite still clawing at me, I may have kicked a bit of sand with a hind leg, which might have caused a landslide, but this was a dream with no consequences. Really, the fact that I was an alicorn should prove the point nicely.
Though, the flying pigs in the background were a nice complementary argument. Their melodious singing was only equaled by the rainbow whales from… a week ago? Wow, had there really been that many sunsets here?
Mulling it over, I shot a glance at the sun on the horizon, braving its light and its fires to get my answer. After a good fifteen minutes of intense staring, the sun blinked and whispered ‘six’, proving once and for all it was a gracious loser.
So, six days of doing nothing in Horseshoe Bay? Thank God for dream time, I would have gone nuts. The thought almost made me laugh, but a long shrill scream cut it short.
“HEEEEEEEEELP!”
I stood speechless, staring with wide eyes at the all-too familiar scene of Small Pond being chased by a giant crustacean, this time a shrimp. My mind reeled in indignation, calling itself out on this blatant and redundant recycling of plot hooks. Once was cool, two was okay, but three was pushing it big time.
Without even looking, I scoffed at the lack of challenge this would present. More like a chore. No, really, the sea monsters were just everywhere in this dream, thankfully none as creepy as… whatever thing I’d first seen here.
Shuddering, I pushed back the memory of those giant yellow eyes and forced myself to focus on the task at hooves. Not that I really needed to. A single bolt cut through the air and hit the shrimp in the face, sending ripples of energy across the beast’s face. Its head rolled back, unable to even roar its pain as its skull gave out under the pressure and its content spilled out unto the sand.
I scoffed, willing the corpse to disintegrate before its soiled content could mar my body. Good riddance, again.
“P-Prince Sir Doom!” Small Pond called out, her legs unsteady and her cheeks darkened by trails of tears. “Y-y-you saved me yet again! I can’t… I can’t thank you enough.”
The poor mare fell onto my shoulder, still shaken by the experience. Admittedly, anyone not a Gary Stu could be scared by a giant monster chase scene on the beach, with no one around to help.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grunted, awkwardly patting her back. “No need for that. It wasn’t exactly an encounter that would give me any xp at this point, you know?”
Stiff, her words of gratitude pausing, Small Pond untangled herself from me and stared.
“…No?”
“It’s…” – player character, important people, sapient life form…– “alicorn talk. Don’t bother yourself with it. Just keep doing… err, whatever it is you do normally. Though, if you could stop being chased by sea monsters on this beach, I’d appreciate a lot.”
Her breath got caught up in her throat, while her brows furrowed together. Slowly, she asked, “Are you… leaving then?”
“Yes, I must leave. Solemnly.” I threw my leg to my forehead, dramatically playing my part in this fantasy, that of the tragic but ultimately awesome and handsome hero. “With all the right procedure so this place won’t be a bitch about it. Again.” A bit more manly weeping for good measure. And fake regrets. Bitch please. “There are others in need of my protection, mayhaps a rich widow queen that awaits only the great prince that would save her kingdom and all this beautiful imagery.”
Small Pond did not, contrarily to my reasonable expectations, hug me and wail about the injustice of fate and the likes. The news struck her silent, but only a vague sadness shone in her eyes. She disliked it, likely for the multiple rescuing that I performed, but her heart wasn’t in pieces.
Then, for the briefest of instants, the way she looked at me changed. Not the blank, blind, blatant adoration that others showered me, but a spark of suspicion. In contrast to the rest, that minute detail shone like a thousand fires, and I caught myself wondering what she was thinking. What gears turned in that cute head of hers.
Fear struck hard and swift. Small Pond, the mare in front of me, looked not the part of a dream construct. I used every ounce of my willpower not to think of her as a person.
“Release them, Dreamon!”
My ears ticked as I felt cold crawling up my legs. Nah, it couldn’t have been… This was just a weird dream.
Right?
Small Pond looked down to her hooves, a blush on her face and a hoof pawing at the sand. “It’ll be sad to see you go. You’ve done much to help me and Horseshoe Bay, but whatever it is that calls you away, I’m sure it’s… for the greater good.” Her soft blue eyes glistening as she looked up, the mare put on a brave smile. “Well, have fun, my prince.”
Quick as a dream sunset, she leaned in and left a kiss on my cheek. A light giggle rose from her throat, filling the air, and she turned back to the sea with a wink.
“I’ll think of you,” she sighed.
Without a glance back, I took off at full speed, my face somehow burning red through my black fur. I just knew it, and the realization felt like claws ripping inside my lungs. What the fuck had that been?! Why… why had I liked it?
I needed to leave. I needed to leave this town and its general area right now!
Sceneries scrolled under me and by me in flashes, by the strength of my wings or my will I did not know, but the beach and the sea were already miles behind me. What awaited further was the same as before, and its sight could not dampen this feeling of urgency.
“Let me pass!” I growled at the void.
Silence replied. No. I will not.
Red lightning arched and crackled from the tip of my horn and struck the walls. Thunderous explosions shook the air and rippled in smoke and darkness, but the obstacle gave no indication of crumbling. Black nothingness stared back mockingly at me, and fire started to pump through my veins.
Magic came out of me in streams of crimson and inky flames. It swirled upon the walls, a maelstrom, the eye of a hurricane, red dancing in greater and greater circles still. It eclipsed the sun and the stars alike, filling the sky in a vision of nightmare. Until I was all but spent.
And the walls stood strong.
There was nothing else. No other sense mattered, but the sight of a void that barred me from my desires.
“I am in control!” I bellowed, every word echoing a thousand times, shaking the very base earth. “I am the Killer Game Master, the Insane Programmer, the Fickle Author! This dream is mine, and my will shall be done! I WILL NOT BE DENIED BY AN INVISIBLE BARRIER! LET ME THROUGH OR BREAK!”
The world stilled. An intangible power ran through its veins, rushing as the torrents of rivers, as the blood of the land, and it rose, pure white, over the façades of the barrier. Rumbles shook the air as my will came to be done.
In flashes, I saw beyond the darkness a field of stars, painted upon a canvas of shining blue. Spheres of light shimmered, and a handful suddenly burst open.
“What the…?”
The wall cracked, a faint shining flaw on its surface, and for a moment, I felt a savage grin of triumph. But it was short lived, spoiled as a few pitch black forms fell out, as if pushed from the other side, and the wall healed.
Half a dozen blobs floated while I stared with my jaw hanging low. “Wha-?”
The darkness suddenly faded. Six tiny ponies, two with a horn on their forehead, one with wings, stared blankly around themselves, not noticing me, or the height they were at.
And with the strength of a rampaging dragon, I realized with horror what would happen.
The dream acted like a bitch. An absolute bitch that I recognized in my worst nightmares. It waited, for that delicious moment of pure, abject realization. Not from me. From them, the foals. One by one, they looked down, paralyzing as the far distant image of the ground registered, and it was not until the last one had stiffened and cried that the dream gave out and Gravity attempted to claim them.
My horn already glowed bright, when I stilled, struck by an incredibly cold thought.
You can’t crash into the ground in a dream. You can’t crash into the ground in a dream, it’s just not possible. You wake up, back arched, if it happens, but you never live the fall.
The whispers in my ears grew darker.
They’ll wake up if they’re real. But this is my dream. Who cares?
I waited, staring at the falling figures, at the twists of their frail bodies into the wind. They could not fly. Their minds were probably a blank landscape, terror ripping away everything else. Their legs flailed futilely. One had wings, a soft shade of orange, a streak of sunset following as he dove to the hardest to catch up on a younger filly.
I stayed immobile.
Watching.
Hearing.
Foals that screamed and cried and pleaded. It would be okay. ‘Mama!’ They were a dream construct, an image my mind conjured. ‘Dad!’ No danger there. None at all. It was fine, really. They were just…
‘Ashes, help!’
Foals…
‘I’m coming, Lily!’
They were just…
Screams. Tears.
Falling to their death!
My resolve broke apart with the roar of a burning fire. How could I?! They were foals! HOW COULD I?!
Ultimate power flowed from every inch of me, the strength to boil the seas and rewrite history, to revive the dead and raise nations, all of it, every single drop of it coming together through the will to save the children.
“FLY, YOU FOOLS!”
Time stopped. Gravity perished. The foals froze in midair, their eyes mad with fear, their mouths wide open without any sound coming out. A strange unearthly, otherworldly, serenity shone down upon six of them, and it seemed as if divine favor befell them all.
With a series of strange goofy ‘pop’, wings sprouted from their backs and the dream went on.
But the screams cut short, the poor things shaken as they suddenly started flying.
Relief washed over me.
The children would not fall.
And I would not get my answer. Certainly not. The foals’ wings were acting almost as independent entities, guiding and carrying them with a swift grace that no first flyers would have. Of the lot, only the pegasus colt had any true control over his trajectory, but right now, he was hugging the filly he’d been desperate to save. Neither of them flapped, but then again, neither of them fell.
A low chuckle went past my lips.
“Curse my soft squishy heart; I just let a perfect experiment pass me by,” I muttered halfheartedly, looking at my hooves. They trembled. How terrible to have lost the confirmation that I was just a bit nuts and paranoid, right?
The screams of the foals still rang to my ears. Distantly, I wondered if I would override my conscious knowledge that horses couldn’t throw up. My heart had jumped so high in my throat it could talk to my brain and give it the asskicking it deserved.
Never again. Fuck the experimental method.
“Are… are you the one that saved us?” squeaked a powder blue filly.
Blinking, I looked up to see all the kids flying around me. Had I subconsciously made them come here to me? They still looked like they didn’t have a clue on how to fly, two fillies shooting a few confused glances at their new wings.
“I don’t know.” I grinned, turning on the full strength of my charm on the poor foals. “I really just told you to fly. You saved yourselves is more like it. You’re al-”
The air left my lung in a wheeze, a foal-sized bullet hitting my lungs head on and throwing tiny legs around my shoulders. “It was so scary!”
Sobs shook the nameless filly, and I could feel my resistance melting away. An all too real warmth seeped into my coat, in the middle of my chest. The irritation faded beneath my skin as I could not help but smile and stroke the child’s mane. “There, there, it’s okay. It’s over now. It’ll never happen again.”
They sensed, if not understood, that I spoke the truth. Chains seemed to grow over the wall in the corner of my eyes, a net to prevent such an accident from ever happening again. I did not care if it screwed over my ambitions for now, I would never let this sort of thing repeat.
Minutes passed with the filly still in tears, her friends either sobbing or weeping quietly. Despite my best effort, it took more time than not to calm them. They wanted their mommies or their daddies, not a big stupid alicorn like me.
But when after one loud screech from a panicking colt ripped my heart in half, I did try. What harm could it do? I didn’t really know their dream parents, whoever they’d be, except that didn’t really matter, right? They’d just latch onto them and be happy. The only problem was…
It didn’t work. The patch of thin air I’d chosen to transform into their parents remained insolently amorphous. I focused, gritted my teeth and swore – mentally, of course –, but nopony appeared out of thin air to console the kids. And they were getting suspicious of me now.
“It’s okay.” I said with way too much enthusiasm. “It’s all just a dream, kids. You’re going to wake up soon, and then you’ll be with your parents, right as day. And they’ll be really happy to see you, and they’ll give you all a big hug and maybe even some hot chocolate to make it all better. But right now, you’re asleep. So, what do you say we play fun games together in the meantime, okay?”
Cheers erupted all over.
Right choice.
“To the cloud field then!” I called, willing a random spot in the sky to be filled with the most amazingly complex cloud slides I could imagine.
The little ones’ wings fluttered, and excited chit-chat floated over our little group as they started going on about what great things they were about to do. It truly made me feel a thousand times more heroic than a silly final battle with a demon god. Even in a dream, the little things mattered…
Just as I started to follow the foals though, a hoof grabbed my right wing and I turned around. Forest green eyes stared back, but the colt himself looked uncomfortable, a blush tainting his face dark green.
This one was older. A year or two above the rest, at least.
“Thanks,” muttered the colt – Ashes, if I heard right. “For saving my sister…”
“Don’t mention it,” I ruffled the top of his head. “As far as heroes go, you’re a better one than me. She’s lucky to have a good big brother like you.”
The colt grinned at that, bashful and confident at once.
He rather reminded me of…
“Prince Sir Doom? Can we start now?”
I was brought out of my reverie, realizing that all six foals were staring at me in wonder or curiosity. Again with the interruption? Why, that was almost independent. My subconscious had to be getting sneakier, what’s with the cutesie little things it threw at me. Like those kids, and their big puppy eyes.
“Of course. It’s a really fun ride to get there, promise.”
The foals all cheered, hugging each other or my very own legs. There was such a sweet, innocent joy to them, something I hadn’t really felt in a long time. Of course here would be the place for me to relive it.
She walked a brisk pace from the reception desk to the right wing, a tablet held at her side by an orange aura. Four pairs of ponies looked up from their chairs as she passed them by, and her heart flickered at the sight of their tears. She pushed forward – there was no other choice at this moment. The door awaited, closed but unlocked, not unlike a sweet trap that would chew her up and spit her out.
Her breath short, Nurse Bitter Pill swallowed and trotted in. The only other conscious pony in the room rested on her haunches, a strand of her ethereal mane falling over her eyes. She did not react to the sound of the nurse’s hoofsteps, engrossed as she was in her task.
Princess Luna stared down at the sleeping foals in the beds with little strength left in her. Light flickered at the tip of her horn, fizzling out of existence. An insult toward the gods echoed on the wooden walls while she scrunched up her face and brought forth more magic. Trails of pale blue floated around the unconscious forms of two foals, neither of which so much as stirred from their slumber.
“H-hello, Princess Luna.”
“Hello,” came the curt, dry reply.
Awkward silence slipped between the two. One, pudgy, short, squirmed on her hooves, suddenly very interested in the report she was bringing with her. The other blinked some fatigue away, faltering despite not moving in the slightest. Her gilded silver horseshoes shook against the floor.
“What says the doctor?” she asked through gritted teeth.
The answer died on the nurse’s lips. There were results to be spoken of, of course, but in her heart, Nurse Bitter Pill knew that now was not the right time. A far more distressing issue needed to be addressed now.
“…You should rest.”
Lightning flashed in the princess’ mane, and her hoof came down on the floor with a crash of thunder. “It is not I that needs help!”
The nurse scrambled back, her ears flat, mumbled excuses coming out of her mouth as quickly as she could pronounce them. Her knees went weak, and she stumbled into a bow low enough for her muzzle to touch the cracked floor.
The ringing in her ears had not died out when she saw tall, thin legs shuffled about right before her nose.
Princess Luna closed her eyes and sighed. “My apologies. Thine… your concerns did not warrant such a volatile reaction.” Turning, she glanced at the filly on her right. “Tis but one more thing that should not have happened while I was here.”
Breathing again, Nurse Bitter Pill straightened and massaged her chest in the hope of calming her maddened heart.
“I… I understand, Princess.” She nodded quickly. “We are truly doing everything we can to solve this problem as quickly as possible.”
The papers floated up to the exhausted princess, who clumsily picked them up. Her eyes darted across the lines in search of a particular piece of information. She needed to be more subtle, more precise in her traps, else the dreamon might elude her again.
Seeing her subject nervously waiting, she lowered the tablet for a moment. “Did you?”
“Doctor Clean Bill has run the tests…” Her tail flicked to the side, and her voice rose in pitch somewhat. “He has found them all in perfect health, except for their inability to wake up. It’s the same for most of the patients, but one of them has started showing signs of deterioration.”
Princess Luna’s ear ticked. “Who?”
“The very first pony to fall prey to this affliction, Princess.”
For a second, it seemed as if she would slump down, crumble, under the weight of the events. “This should have never happened. I underestimated him and they paid the price.”
“Princess, this is not-” the nurse froze at the look of dire warning that crossed Luna’s face. “…What do you recommend we do?”
Silence fell. No noise came between them beside the faint shimmer of magic and the wrinkle of sheets when a foal turned in their sleep.
She stared at them, at the results of her pride and her folly. How bitter the reminder of her flaws. Had she thought herself infallible? Ah! Celestia would laugh, certainly. But more strongly her voice would be, when she pointed at their subjects. There was still a task to do, and no amount of self-pity would help them.
Luna, Warden of Dreams, looked at the foals once more and the spark in the haunted teal eyes hardened into a slimmer of ice.
~~
“More grape, Your Highness?” asked a sensual voice to my right.
Wordlessly, I opened my mouth and waited. A light delicate touch brush against my lips as a sweet piece of fruit slid on my tongue. Fighting a laugh, I savored every inch of the treat, lying beneath the great palm tree fans that sent a cool breeze over my fur.
No, it was not rest, it was lazing around. Nuances. All babysitters would know and understand the feeling of exhaustion that boggles down normal human beings after a day at a waterpark, be they made of clouds and gumdrops. And as a currently superior being, I felt none of those things. I just wanted to lie down in the sand for a little while.
I love being awesome.
How else would one explain the royal treatment I was getting? The citizens of Horseshoe Bay at least knew my place in the dream world. They welcomed us with trumpets and fanfares, as was right, and then led us all to the town’s square for an unofficial celebration. Confetti flew, music echoed and parties were thrown. More or less.
Heck, the foals had been getting their own town’s wide game of ultimate laser tag.
I was fairly sure none of them had ever played that game with actual laser guns before. Still, they took to it alright, if I were to judge. Once they had stopped tripping over their hooves and their allies and the sand and… okay, the design of the guns was not very well thought-out.
I snickered as a bunch of foals tumbled head over tails in a big melee, red rays of light striking in all directions to destroy the town. Amidst the chaos, shrilled demanding screeches pierced through. “Commander down! Commander down, you useless rock candies! Help your supreme commander!”
A tuff of pale pink hair pushed through the pile of foal limbs, followed by the rest of the pinker body of a filly. Cotton Candy, that sweet little unicorn.
“They’re getting away, stupid! After them!”
Well, until she got into a role, that is.
I was not surprised when the majority of the foals galloped as fast as they could after their enemies. Even a dream construct knew better than to say no to Cotton Candy’s diabetes inducing face.
Huffing, she looked at her disappearing army with a long-suffering sigh and followed.
But her movements became strange then. Sluggish. Her little legs were tense, and what muscles she had were tense like strings. She smiled still, but the rest of her belonged to a different pony.
I let out a soft gasp.
She turned instantly, her vivid magenta eyes looking straight at me. But they were clouded, dimmer, a shade of grey, almost. More like… less… A dream again. Something twisted in my chest at the thought, cold seeping through my coat.
Cotton Candy. The same filly I had entertained for a few hours in the clouds after putting her through that free-fall incident. The very same child that had clung to me as we went down a big slide of nimbuses.
Was she… gone?
No, I shook my head. That couldn’t be. The very idea was ridiculous! I’m dreaming! …But why do I care then?
Without thinking, I rose from my place on my throne and started to walk forward, intent on catching up. But there was another voice at the back of my mind that was asking a dangerous question. Why? It was just a dream, right? So what did it matter if the NPCs stopped acting human-like? So what if they stopped… being… if the light left their eyes and their smiles became fake…? That didn’t matter in the long run.
It was just me here. Not another soul, except those I made up.
Droplets hit the sand. Red, crimson little dots marred the beach, falling as if flowing from my own eyes. R-ridiculous! I wasn’t even-
“Huh, looks like you’re just a little crybaby with four left hooves,” rose a snide boyish voice.
I twisted, a snarl on my mouth, the sting of pride just twitching beneath my skin. Who dared?! My gaze swept the plaza, searching for the one, but no pony looked at me, even hinted at their previous mockery. What I saw, however, were two teenagers standing over a cream-colored foal on the ground.
“Hey!” I called, my tone rumbling in anger. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
Some part of me expected them to be cowed, to immediately turn around and look guilty, but that was forgetting where I was.
The two burly colts faded into the air, their images distorted before they ceased to be. The one on the ground though remained.
Shaking. Sobbing.
I blinked, shaking my head and the memory of the ghost-like bullies. My legs carried me quickly, until I could kneel by his side. “Are you okay, kid?”
“Aaah!” cried the colt, scrambling away a few feet before calming down. “S-s-s-sir Doom!”
A deep, DEEP melancholy washed over me. Contrarily to my expectations, the name had gotten old in the span of… however long I had been here. To see a little guy like him, still so defensive, still so frightened, really did not help.
Next time, I’m not going for irony.
“Just William, please.” I picked him up the ground with a gentle hoof. “And your name is…?”
The colt’s breathe hitched up, pushing a strand of brown hair away, before he looked up with glistening chocolate eyes. “Sea Salt…” he replied weakly, his tail curled over his cutie mark.
My eyes followed.
A salt shaker tilted over a fork marked his flank. Nothing to be ashamed of. As far as I could tell, at least. I guessed it meant something like cooking or critiquing food. Just a pinch of salt there, it adds to the flavor, and other such comments.
“Well, what’s wrong?” I asked, putting my fat rump on the ground next to him.
“Huh… w-well…” he started slowly, his eyes darting over to the few dream ponies happily going about their businesses.
Oh, I thought, and kicked myself for not thinking about it sooner. Power flowed into my horn, the world flashed around us, and Sea Salt jumped, startled.
We weren’t in town anymore.
Lush green grass stretched as far as the eyes could eyes, and each strand, each blade of grass danced under the salty wind. No house, no pony could be seen neither west nor east, not toward the sea or deeper into the mainland.
I grinned. “This better?”
Sea Salt nodded dumbly, his mouth opened a fair bit larger than I thought he meant it to. It made a small childish part of me pump its imaginary fist in the air. Go, team Gary Stu.
“So, how about you tell everything to your good prince William?” I placed a wing over his back and smiled. “I know I can solve any problem you have here.” The best part is that it’s true.
The colt bit his lips, his ears ticking. Nervously, he looked back, as if trying to make sure the bullies hadn’t mysteriously appeared near us. As if I would allow that to happen. There was nothing but us for miles.
Sea Salt took a deep breath and grabbed my right leg with all his strength. “They were making fun of me because of my cutie mark!” he shouted as quickly as he could. “It’s stupid! It doesn’t fit me at all!”
Frowning, I spoke, softly, “Do you believe that?”
“Y-yes.” He sniffled, clinging harder. “I want to be a chef. I want to cook good food for mom and dad and everypony else.”
A weak wave of crimson magic ruffled the colt’s mane. Feathers closed over him and hugged him tightly. “That’s a very nice job. So, why is it wrong with your cutie mark?”
The colt’s tail twitched, and he buried his muzzle into my leg. “I’m just an earth pony…”
Some part of me inside broke.
My voice was but a whisper. “What has that got to do with anything, kiddo? Why would that be worse than being a pegasus or a unicorn?”
Sea Salt’s grip loosened, just a little. His eyes, damp and red, refused to meet mine. “Earth ponies aren’t good enough with the… the delicate stuff.” He put up his hooves together to try mimicking building something. “Just falls apart… when… when I try…”
The poor colt squeaked as a strong and firm wing grabbed his back and forced him against my shoulder.
“P-P-Prince William?”
Never again, I thought, snide words echoing at the back of my mind. Not here, not for this little guy.
“You’re going to listen to me very carefully, Sea Salt.” I moved away slightly, enough to lock gaze with him. A low rumbling growl threatened to come out of my mouth. “That was wrong! Completely wrong. On the wrong-o-meter, that scores an absolute one gazillion point. There is nothing wrong with being an earth pony. Got it?”
“Clear Coast and Fish Net…” he stuttered. “T-they said I’d never become a chef and they’re right! I’m just a dumb earth pony…”
I shook my head strongly, fire in my chest burning more strongly than ever. “Nope, utterly wrong wrong wrong, Sea Salt.”
“…The only chef in town’s a unicorn.”
“Puh-leaze!” I cocked a sly grin, and took on the tone of conspiracy. “That’s ridiculous. I know of amazing earth pony bakers. Heck, I know of a great mule baker too, who made a moose out of chocolate mousse. Does that sound like an easy thing to do?”
The gears behind his eyes turned, the image of the mousse moose a shadow in his mind. Something tugged at the corners of his lips, and it seemed like he was fighting a smile of his own.
“No…”
“Indeed not.” I nodded, quite literally exuding confidence. “So, who said that you had to be a unicorn to be a good cook? What chef said that, hmm?”
To this however, Sea Salt reacted not in the way I thought. Instead of gratitude and laughs and hugs, the colt’s newfound confidence popped like a balloon.
“Mister Small Fry,” he muttered, his ears drooping and his heart heavy. “He’s Miss Small Pond’s brother.”
Those last words caught my attention against my better judgment. I don’t recall seeing her brother before, nor her mentioning him. Then again, his parents clearly did not love him to give him that name, so… Ah, not important right now!
I stood up, taking a few steps away from Sea Salt. His gaze followed, curious in spite of himself, but too timid to dare speak up. My hooves stopped on the edge of a small cliff, just before the beach. Wind brushed against me stronger than ever before, and the sight ahead all but demanded fascination. The sea stretched across the horizon, swirling and rolling with waves under the setting sun, its depths colored by streaks of red and orange amidst the great marine blue.
This was still just around Horseshoe Bay, yet it was also the first time I had seen it. There were likely many more sights worthy of the attention, around this tiny town.
“Look,” I called Sea Salt to my side. “About your dreams. About your cutie mark. I know it seems bad now, but I’m telling the truth. It’s not something that’s closed to you. Earth ponies definitely can be good chefs, cooks or whichever you want. Just because this guy tells you it’s not doesn’t mean you can’t find someone else to teach you.”
The little colt snorted bitterly, his brows pulled together into a frown.
“He’s the only one I can ask here…”
For the first time since coming here, I was struck speechless. Truly, I did not actually know of the little guy’s situation, and here, empty reassurances might hurt more in the long run. What could I actually say that would help?
My dark red eyes trailed on the poor boy’s form, going from his depressed frown to the mark that seemed the source of his joy and despair. What happened to you?
I froze on the spot. What was I doing? His past? What past? This colt, real as he felt, only existed within this dream of mine! None of this actually mattered! If I wanted, I could just fly away and nothing of value would be lost, nothing terrible would happen, because this was all happening in my head!
“Is it… true?” Sea Salt asked, tugging at my right wing.
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t paid enough attention to him with my thoughts in shambles. “Huh, what is?”
“That…” The colt blushed and looked down. “That you can give wings or a horn to a pony.”
The temperature dropped. Thoughts of leaving and rebelling were blown out of my head in one fell swoop, and my mind reeled as his question sank in.
“It’s…” I paused, the words not coming out right.
No… that’s just wrong. I can’t… he shouldn’t…
He wants to change who he is. He’s not happy. He asked to become another kind of pony. That’s what he wants. Why is it wrong to wish to be something more than you are?
My gaze fell to my stupid, clichéd pitch black legs. Yup, that was me, William, the idiot who played alicorn. But it wasn’t a terrible thing, just something a bit selfish, a bit naïve, and here and now? Ultimately harmless.
In the corner of my eye though, there was the desperate bullied kid, that hoped to escape his fear by becoming someone else.
“It’s… true,” I finally said. Slow. Hesitant as if he were stealing a dark secret from me. “I can put wings on somepony, I already did. Probably wouldn’t be too hard to try with a horn either.”
The positively radiant smile that stretched his face then… it broke my heart into pieces. He shouldn’t want that. Even as an outsider, as a human, it felt wrong.
“But…” His face fell, and I forced myself to continue. “…I don’t know if you ought to change so easily.”
And he pleaded then, tears gathering under his big chocolate eyes, his lips quivering. And begged on his knees and cried onto my fur. The dam had burst, Sea Salt held nothing back, not when I had dangled his hopes so close and yet still out of reach.
Why? I thought, a cold hand tightening its grasp around my throat. It’s only a dream, right? What would be the harm if you did give him this?
“Please!” Sea Salt sobbed. “Prince William, please! I am sick of being singled out! I don’t want to be boring and useless anymore! I want to cook! I want to be good! And cool! A-a-and… Please!”
My heart sank. It wouldn’t be this easy, of course. Heartaches are never easy to overcome. Even like this, I couldn’t cure this child’s trouble for him with just a pep talk.
But there was another way.
I knew what to say. The words had come to me, cruel and merciful, when he had pleaded to change. They had suddenly stretched across my mind and there was nothing else for me to think. They made my voice weak, made it trembling and hoarse, but they fell like the crack of thunder above the winds and the cries.
“Do you want me to change your cutie mark?”
Sea Salt stared. He blinked. And nothing but a faint squeak came out of his mouth while his tail curled over his mark again, this time not in shame. “N-no,” he said faintly. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask again, please don’t.”
It should have been happier. That moment of realization should have been so much more. Possessiveness was written all over his shimmering gaze: ‘Don’t take it away. It’s what I love doing the most.’ Yet that only compounded the problem, didn’t it? He wanted to cook, but didn’t have any faith that he could do it.
And dear oh dear, I couldn’t accept that. Not here. Not in this one place where I had the power to matter.
“There is… something I can do, Sea Salt.”
He flinched and closed his eyes, his face crunched up almost comically. Droplets still followed the damp trails of fur on his face, but his chest no longer heaved.
I waited a moment, a silent prayer on my lips, and I reached far for the will to do this.
Red light washed over him, a blanket of power and change slowly covering him from head to hooves. Sea Salt made no sound, gave no indication that he felt what was happening, but the light became of startling strength, like a second, edgy sun. Even I had to look away, a leg in front of my eyes. But when I looked back, the process was over.
His muscles had grown, his muzzle had become more prominent and he could almost directly look me in the eyes without straining his neck. Where his built had been scrawnier, it was now muscled and honestly impressive.
It was thus unfair that when he opened his eyes, it was his jaw that dropped in shock.
“You’re smaller,” he said with a low-pitch voice that made me chuckle.
“Yeah, no, try again, kiddo,” I laughed and made a mirror appear.
He startled, running to hide behind me in the face of this new ‘threat’. My complete lack of reaction however coaxed him from behind my wing, and he slowly peaked over the ridiculous reddish black feathers. The reflection in the mirror froze as I stepped away, and it was only one former colt staring at the stallion in front of him.
“That’s me?” he asked, incredulous.
Perhaps in my grand generosity, I had given him as many advantages as I could think of. He’d be a real charmer if he grew up to be like this, that’s for sure.
“Eeyup. Looking good, Sea Salt, don’t you think?”
Speechless.
“That, Sea Salt,” – I pointed at his chest, at his muzzle – “is who you might become, if you work toward it. Do you feel the strength in your limbs? The talent at the tip of your hooves? Or the wisdom in your head? It’s all there. Everything you could learn, it’s there.”
A faint glow shone from his cutie mark as Sea Salt looked down at his own hooves in wonder.
“When you wake up, you will not remember it.” His childish deception looked almost comical on that grown ass stallion in front of me. It made it easier to grin. “But you will know there was a time you could do it. And from there, it’ll be only up to you to chase that ideal again. There’s more than one path to your dreams, boy.”
“I…” He fumbled, his eyes wide. Yet, with every passing second, the realization sank in. The shaking stopped, his muscles relaxed. And he reared, a loud and vibrant neight of triumph echoing around us. “I’ll do it, Prince William! I’ll go show them all!”
“Attaboy, Sea Salt. Go knock ‘em dead!”
He stopped dead in his track. “What?!” he shouted, his voice growing nearly as high-pitched as it had been before.
I facehoofed. “Figuratively speaking.”
That only made his confusion deepen. “Huh?”
Right. Colt.
“I meant… look, it’s just a saying. Don’t actually do it, just go try to get that pony to teach you cooking. He can’t tell you ‘no’ now. I’ll be rooting for you.”
The sun had nothing on the pure radiance that was Sea Salt’s grin then. “Even if you’re not real, you’re the best prince ever!”
I blinked, and he was already well on his way back to town. Somehow, the sight of him, all grown-up and galloping on the beach, had my chest brimming with warmth. His bullies better watch out, Sea Salt was a whole new pony now.
“Huh,” I said to myself, “I really am rooting for him…”
That should have made me feel silly instead of proud. Intense as it had been, the conversation with Sea Salt could only be one more thing to forget once I woke up. Or maybe it would be that one moment I remembered. Or anything in-between, perhaps.
Right now though? I felt like a bigger hero than ever before.
Small Fry gulped down, trying futilely to calm down the mad thumping of his heart in his chest. In front of him, her tail of stars blazing and flicking, Princess Luna trotted with thunderous steps toward the end of the hallway. She gave no sense of stopping soon, despite the heavy bags under her eyes.
One well-meaning orderly attempted to inquire about her health and received a look of thunders and darkness in return. Nopony else showed half that mare's bravery afterward.
Together, Small Fry and Luna entered a small, dimly lit room. The flickering white light fizzled under the weight of one alicorn's power. The few flowers on the bedside table wilted, and a small card with a fried fish for a signature clattered to the ground. But those details did not register to the princess. "With you here, we may proceed."
The stallion nodded sharply.
“Inside the dream, you will need to focus. It is likely your surroundings will blur your mind into accepting everything as the tacit reality. Always aim to find discrepancies in what you see and experience. This will be your anchor to your mind. The shape of written words is a good clue for you. Remember it.”
Small Fry's eyes flickered to the figure on the bed before he took a deep breath. "I will, Princess," he said, but then spoke again with a lower pitch, darker voice, "that monster will not keep her under his control."
“Avoid him!" The order snapped like a whip. "Whatever you do, you must not let the dreamon come close to you. I have never met one as powerful as he, and his kind’s specialty lies in enthralling innocents.”
The stallion gulped at the implied threat, but he nodded all the same. At this, the princess briefly showed a small smile, before the serious of the situation returned in full force.
Small Fry was all too aware of his princess' grim state of mind. "H-how will I recognize him?" He forced out despite a stutter.
A shard of fondness shone in Luna's blue eyes. She laughed softly. "Believe me, fair subject, a dreamon is unmistakable within the dreamscape. They exist on a different level of perception than mortals. No disguise could ever hide one, no matter how clever or devious."
With great solemnity, she gestured toward the figure lying in the bed.
“Remember, your goal is to find your sister and break her away from her nightmare. The dreamon’s power will weaken drastically if we can get her to awaken. Leave the rest to me.”
Again, the stallion nodded in spite of his obvious anxiety. He raised no objection, but fixed his sister's body with a frightening intensity. The thought of her name came to him in echoes, both calm, joyful, or burning with rage. His heart skipped a beat in his chest, as he remembered the sound of breaking plates and raspy, ill-spirited comments.
And now, with her lying down in that bed, did it not seem so pointless? He bit his lips, barely restraining from drawing blood. Failure was not an option, neither of them would consider it.
Dark feathers rested on his back, warm and gentle. Looking up, he saw Luna's face, carved out in ice. “I will find him. He will get no chance to push me back this time. I will know his strength. I will not be taken by surprise again. But we must act swiftly.”
Small Fry spoke a few words of agreement, and placed himself near his sister's sleeping body. That was all the signal Luna needed.
Filaments of light spun from the tip of her horn and flew toward the stallion's forehead.
He blinked, then fell asleep.
--
I scowled at the smoking, smothered remains of the five shellfishes on the beach. This was an infestation! There was something fishy going on, pun not intended. Those things periodically swarmed the beach for the single-minded goal of pursuing a lone mare, whom, I might add, was obsessed with being in distress.
My eye twitched as said damsel called that idiotic name out loud, and with such cheer in her voice to boot. “Prince Sir Doom Mac Darknight!”
“William,” I corrected sharply. “Forget that stupid name, just go with William.”
The mare winced, taking a step back in the face of my anger. The wide smile she had previously sported had slid off her face like water, and her front legs folded under her.
“My… my apologies, Prince William,” Small Pond replied quietly, her ears flat.
The sight of her softened the burning anger in my chest, and now something twisted oddly in my stomach at her embarrassment. Wow, way to be a jerk, William. It's not like you told her that's your name before, right?
"Sorry about that," I muttered, grimacing. I really was just a big idiot sometimes. Wait, no, why am I--? Dream NPCs, William, they're all figments of your imagination glued together by your subconscious or something.
And the fact that a mare's sad face had any sort of effect on me should really be more worrisome.
Putting on an arrogant, carefree grin that I really did not feel, I nodded toward the unidentifiable remains in the background. “You know, I’m really starting to wonder what is up with all those giant idiots chasing after you.”
Startled, Small Pond tried to gather her wits at the sudden change in my tone and demeanour.
“I… I don’t know either, my prince,” she said, shifting on her hooves, her eyes darting toward the carcasses. No, she likely didn't know, but something had lit up in her gaze then. Something familiar.
She was not being entirely honest with me.
“Why were you even here in the first place?” I rolled my eyes before fixing her with a frown. “You’d think you would have learned by now that you are shellfish bait.”
Not that I minded too much one of the few opportunities I had to blow off steam, strangely enough, but the repetition did make it a bit dull. And I guess it also worked in getting me to play hero a bit, one of the few things that did in this sucky dream.
"I don't know..." The mare looked down, her brows furrowed together. For a short moment, she seemed unable to quite see me, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. "I... There was something I wanted to do. I was walking in the streets, just like everypony else. The next thing I knew, everypony had disappeared, and I was being chased by..." She pointed to the burnt shells with a trembling hoof. "...By those."
Her words brought forth a shiver in me, as they slowly sank in and slithered on top of my back like a cold hand. In my ears echoed a faint growl, and before my eyes flashed memories of tall looming trees and branches scratching my face. For a moment, I was unable to speak, for fear that the fear would rumble in my voice.
She, fortunately -- unfortunately? --, mistook my silence for incredulity.
Her mane almost touched the sand. "I swear, my prince. I did not seek them. I was not being reckless."
And while she bowed, I fought back a wince.
Her shows of guilt were starting to get to me, a little. I had not really meant it as an accusation. Heck, even if she had had autonomous thoughts and feelings, which I still doubted, that did not equal her being responsible for a series of crustacean attacks. Doubly so when she was the victim of the attacks.
"That's..." I scratched the side of my head. "It's, huh, a... good thing."
Blinking, Small Pond looked up without a word, gaping like a fish.
An uneasy silence fell between us.
Her insistent staring made my tail flicked, and damn that felt weird... and awkward. It was like a piece of my spine was moving, and maybe it was, was it? The idea just wormed itself into my brain and it started eating at me, a bit stupidly. How long had it taken me to be amazing at everything pony? But that had been the point, maybe I was just overthinking it, I had been talking to Small -- Oh God, she was still staring! Heat radiated from my face as I struggled to put on a charming grin and knew the edges of it were shaking miserably.
"So, Small Pond," I said, a hoof rubbing against the back of my neck, "what do you do as a day job around here? I can't imagine there being that many options in a small town like Horseshoe Bay..."
Smooth like a baby's butt... idiot.
At least, Small Pond didn't seem to take offense, pulling her lips together to ponder the question. And with a nonchalant wave of her hoof, she shrugged. "Oh, it's a bit one note, Prince William. It all relates to fishing, one way or another. I don't mind too--"
Her words got strangled in her throat, coming off as a raspy wheeze, and her whole chest heaved in a sudden retch. And there, her eyes shrunk to the tiniest dots, and she threw her head to the side.
"Whoa!" I jolted, unable to decide if I wanted to get closer or away from her. "Pond, you getting sick?"
A squeak. Short. Quiet. Easily lost amidst the waves crashing on the beach.
"No, I..." The hint of a smile almost made it to her lips, fake, artificial like one would show in the hopes of fooling a worried loved one. The thought might have been flattering, at another time, another moment, if even that hadn't been interrupted by what she did when her eyes went back to me.
She.
Flinched.
At this point, no. Basically, NO. That wouldn't slide! “Why did you do that?" I stomped, the feathers on my wings standing straight. "Is the sun too bright or something?!”
And as I said it, I realized that the sky was in fact void of both sun and moon. The infinite spaces overhead shone dimly with a green hue, yet I could not spot the source of their lights. Glancing down, I saw Small Pond blushing until she was beet red, and despite my ego's rambling, I doubted my general awesomeness had anything to do with her reaction.
"Pond?" I called at her lack of responses.
“N-no, it’s not that,” Small Pond said, pawing at the ground. “It’s… promise you won’t be mad?”
Her face was white.
This was something that would make me explode.
“…Okay, now I’m really starting to wonder what’s up with that reaction. Tell me. I’d rather not have everypony walk on eggshell every time the topic is brought up. What's the reason?”
Small Pond weakly smiled, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. Tough luck there, for I was not about to let her go without some sort of explanation. One was nothing, two was a coincidence and three was a pattern.
“It’s… your face.”
My mind buckled.
“Pardon?”
Small Pond's shaking hoof reached for my chest, but the cold sweat rolling off her brows spoke of her true feelings. “Your face… it looks wrong.”
Okay, yeah, I heard right. Also, what?
“So I’m ugly?” I repeated, staring at her with wide eyes. A profound sense of incredulity slipped in my brain as I thought that, no, this dream could not possibly be heading into this direction!
But Small Pond shrank on herself in shame, her face red and her ears low.
“N-no…” Her pale blue gaze met mine, and she spoke up with a hint of desperation in her voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! Please don’t be offended!”
Admittedly, that was kind of hard to do! I might have thought of myself as a ridiculous cliché thing, but it was also supposed to be the good-looking kind. Now she was telling me that I looked butt-ugly and every single pony that had winced to my face had been resisting the urge to puke at the sight of me.
So, yeah, maybe my feathers were rustled and my panties were tied in a bunch! Sue me, bastards! “Then what is it?” I stomped. “Either my face is wrong or it’s not!”
“It’s–!” The mare stuttered, stumbled on her words. She could not even find the strength to deny it! “It’s like… looking at a foal’s doll. It looks… similar. There’s no detail at all. It’s like a generic, cut-out sculpture that was unfinished. And… it moves – well, err, of course it moves, it’s your face. Oh Celestia, I can’t believe I said that after you saved me so many times! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! You just look fake!”
The biting sarcastic reply died on my lips.
“Huh?” I couldn’t quite understand how she meant. I had seen my face, compared to somepony else in a few mirrors and pools of water. Honestly, I had never been able to tell the differences between me and other stallions like that. "Fake? Like... a mannequin?"
A quick trembling nod. "Or a statue. It's just almost like a pony."
This is the first time I dream of something like this… To the best of my knowledge, there had never been a single lucid dream of mine that had played on my perception and that of the dream NPCs. They saw me in a different light? No, more than that. They saw me from a different kind of sight. That was an epic level of perspective switch, like trying to see like a fly. And something like amazement thrummed in my chest. It’s like… the idea didn’t come from my brain.
Small Pond stared at me, and I could not help stare back. Her mane danced in the wind, but what fascinated me most was her coat. Her unmoving, uniform, cartoonish coat. She had fur, but it did not ripple with the wind.
I was feeling the breeze stroking my back and my legs.
“Do I see like a pony or like a human right now?”
And as I put that question into words, I could feel a change in the air. I could breath perhaps just a little easier, or some strands of my mane would be pulled by the oceanic salty breeze just a little more. A thin, transparent veil had been lifted.
“Prince William?” Small Pond asked, pawing at the ground twice.
Wait...
"Why did you do that? The..." I gestured to her legs and her head. "The sort of tapping and nodding."
A high pitched whinny rose from her throat, and I was taken aback at how much of an animal she was.
"O-oh, I was just..." Her tail curled between her legs. "Sorry, was I not supposed to talk to you?"
"Have I ever done that?" I felt just about ready to throw up. "I mean, have I ever shown you 'normal' body language?"
"No, y-you haven't..." Her eye lit up as realization dawned on her. "It's like you're always standing still. Like you're skipping parts of the words, or just stop without finishing a sentence."
"But you still understand me, don't you?"
She froze on the spot, and I knew that I had struck bullseyes. Ponies communicated through complex body language on top of words. It had never really crossed my mind before now, but that was plausible enough. Yet... now the one that was supposed to be just a prop for my heroic quest had introduced me to two layers of perception that I had never considered before. In a way that was consistent with what had happened in this place so far.
...That wasn't how my dreams worked, how lucid dreams went. Either I lost control and couldn't do shit when things went to hell, or I was god-emperor. The quirks in the middle... they had never gone this way.
The sand under us turned to glass, then took on an alluring metallic luster. In It, one could see the shapes of two ponies, as if the looker was beneath them.
There was a face. My face. McDoom Knight Stu's. And it fit.
The angles fit, the shape of the skull fit. What I felt, the movements of my jaw when I talked, all of it, like it was my own face. The reflection grinned, its -- my -- eyes wide, and once more I held my hooves in front of my face. The dark stumps didn’t change, didn’t so much as twitch as I tried to will them into hands, and I stared with a strange creeping feeling in my mind.
His body felt adrift at sea, rocked to the rhythm of the waves.His lips parted, he felt neither air nor water rush into his lungs, and didn't understand. At first, he thought a tsunami had washed the town clean off the shore and dragged them all into the blackened depths. But his hooves stood on solid ground, and around floated a smell of spice and grilling oil.
He blinked. He hadn't... Where was he again? Ponies were talking all over, their words indistinct noises ringing in his ears. The place, candles cast a weak orange light over wooden tables, glistened across the curves of the empty wine glasses.
His ears ticking, he snorted and searched for the waiter with a scowl. He must have said it a thousand times already, wine was to be served right after taking the orders! Now, where was his lazy staff?
"Small Fry!" shouted a stallion that seemed vaguely familiar.
Small Fry blinked again, and the stranger stood straight, ready for action.
"I am going to be cooking with you today!" He grinned and tapped his barrel. "I'll be doing everything so right you'll beg me to return!"
"We don't need new hired help!" Small Fry snapped. "We have everypony we need, we deal with demands without trou--"
He stumbled on his words, his tongue suddenly held against his jaw by weight that hadn't been there before, and he tasted something dry and inky. Sputtering, spitting, Small Fry grabbed onto the strange visitor and coughed up orders after orders. So many of them. How had they gotten so late?
"Food! Food! We want food!" cried out the dozens of ponies while banging on their tables.
Quickly, the restaurant's reputation was on the line!
No, no, he had something to do first. He remembered that much. What had it been? Something... something about Small Pond. Not cooking, he- he wasn't supposed to be cooking. To order...
The stranger grinned a bit wider, saying something in a quick, vibrant tone, and made for a spatula laying on the counter. Without a need for word, he slipped into the role of a sous-chef perfectly. A white apron materialized out of thin air to hug the sous-chef's frame.
Small Fry looked down on the counter and blinked at the sight of three of his signature dishes waiting to be picked up. Right, they had clients. With great taste, he said to himself as the smell of his personal blend of spices drifted in the air.
"Lobster for table two!" Exclaimed his sous-chef, and another dish joined the five on the counter."Pick it up, guys! We've got another table that just arrived, and it's a doozy. Fifteen from Manehattan!"
Small Fry's heart nearly seized in his chest at the sound of that. The special guests! How could he have forgotten they were coming today?! Oh Celestia... they had everything in the pantry, right? Yes, they had to! He had checked just yesterday with Small Pond.
A trembling hoof on his chest, the stallion took a deep breath, then shook his head. No more time for doubts. This service would break or make their reputation. "Sous-chef, you are going to take care of the Crab and Shrimp Special for table seven while I start up on the appetizers, you hear me?"
His sous-chef's eyes gleaned under his brown bangs, as an almost wild grin tugged at the corner of his lips. "Yes, chef! Count on me, chef!"
Nodding, he twisted a hoof and gestured toward the prepping table. For a split moment, he felt as if the stallion rushing to begin cooking should be worrying him, but he could not, for the life of him, put a hoof on it. Sharpening his knives, Small Fry let his eyes wander toward the back door, hoping with perhaps too much optimism, that it would creak open any second now.
Where was his sister? She should already be here with the shellfish for the lunch hours...
~~
The hooves brushed against my shoulders, gentle. "Prince William, I don't understand. What are you trying to say?"
What was I trying to say indeed? That being able to understand one another is crazy, if we are indeed different species meeting in this dream. But, what if, just what if, there was something to skip the language barrier? The words and the gestures not mattering so much as the ideas? Why, then, there wouldn't be a problem if Small Pond understood despite my skipping over syllables and sounds.
No, no matter how I tried to look at it, I could only think of this as a dream.
But is it my dream?
Gulping, showing a calm I did not feel, I quietly stepped closer. "Small Pond, would you be willing to help me with a simple task?"
Taken aback, the mare stared just for a second, before she blinked.
"O-of course, my prince." She nodded, her face a pleasant shade of red. "You've saved my life so many times, it would be unworthy of me not to return the favor in any way I can."
...My legs shouldn't feel like stone. My lips shouldn't feel glued together.
"Anything," Small Pond insisted.
A long steadying breath flew past my parted lips. I could do this. I'd put down every doubt I had had to rest, and I could silence the voice in the back of my head crying about a river in Egypt.
"Small Pond, please, think of something that only a pony would experience."
Her ears drooped as her whole expression dimmed in confusion. "I... what?"
"Just think!" I cried out, my voice booming into shockwaves. "Can't you do that?!"
And immediately afterward, I froze, the outburst shocking even me. Why? It... that was loud enough to break pieces of the cap in the distance.
My face burned. In the ensuing silence, I could see Small Pond's eyes glisten and her chin lower.
Why am I so stupid?! "I'm sorry, Small Pond. Please, don't... I just really need your help. It can be anything at all. Just... "
"It... is fine," she said slowly, a hoof hovering over her chest. "It's my fault. Just tell me what you expect of me."
O-okay... let's work with this.
"Imagine," I leaned closer, my mouth inches from her ear. "You are the only pony in a crowd. Griffons walk in the street around you, their claws slinking against the dirt path, lifting dust off the ground."
Small Pond shivered, and in the air, I caught a faint noise like a bird squawk.
Deep breath.
"Not so far away, loud confident voices claim the perfection of their products. You turn your head just enough to see the horns peak out over the crowd and recognize minotaurs."
A shiver ran down my spine as a faint presence brushed againtst my leg. Words, whispers, seemed to spring out of the water splashing on the beach. Strangers surrounded us.
"The sky darkens, Small Pond. Yet, there are no clouds, no pegasi to change the weather. But do you feel it, this newfound warmth in the air?"
Small Pond's breath itched, her legs tensed like strings.
"This shadow in the sky, flying so high above, speaks of an immense creature of fire and greed. It is a dragon, eclipsing the sun and every other in the plaza. And you think, in awe or fear, that no pony could ever match its majesty."
She whimpered, and so engrossed by my own story, I nearly missed it. But her head tilted, leaned against my shoulder for support, and, truly, I felt ashamed. Tone it down a bit, William.
"Err... sorry," I whispered into her mane, my wing stroking her back. "I only meant to make it a vivid experience."
Small Pond chuckled, her breath tickling my fur. Then the warmth I had spoken in story became rather real to me. Focus, William. Don't get distracted.
"The point I was trying to make is... well, all of them are so different from you, yet you all live in this world, breath the same air, walk the same roads. So, what is it that ponies experience that griffons don't? What do you do that their bodies cannot? Can you think of anything a griffon would never be able to experience?"
My words hung in the air heavily, weighting upon the wind, the water and the sand. And from those echoes came one voice that reminded me of Small Pond's, her words childish and light, "I'll go to Canterlot and see the Princess someday!"
My companion remained immobile, her eyes closed,a pause between every breath, and every time, the air shimmered in anticipation.
I could feel it, the same power around us, the images and the sensations turning to whisp of smoke under her grasp, and her focus, growing.
Another breath...
Then, quite suddenly, there was a weight against my legs.
The spell broke pretty damn hard there. No mystics, just two idiots on a beach with a reputation for sea monsters.
We both looked down at the bowls of.. .straw, perhaps, before our hooves, Small Pond's eyes shining with a few more embarrassed tears. She shrunk on herself, groaning.
"It's silly, I know. Food. I couldn't think of anything else."
And how didn't I think of that before?
"No," I cut her off with a wave of my hoof, "this is a good idea. Taste."
"Really?" she asked, undisguised hope in her voice. "B-but what did you need them for?"
The bowls slid in the sand, pushed by a crimson glow. Grinning, I trotted up the small hill and looked back to her. "I would like it if we shared. Wouldn't that be interesting?"
Small Pond's eyes briefly went wide through shock. Had she...? But as soon as that thought formed, she was back to normal, an easy smile on her lips, hints of admiration in her looks to me.
We took place in the grass, because stability and because nopony wanted sand on their tail or butt. As anything, the second I remembered, the dreamworld would make a point of being as unpleasant as possible.
So...
Us...
Standing on all four, bowls of hay -- Small Pond said when I hesitated -- before us.
My heart currently could compete with Fillysecond in terms of speed. And possibly Radiance, from the way it seemed to materialize up my throat.
For a second, I glanced to my left, where Small Pond had already begun eating the hay she had remembered. I gave myself a mental kick to the head. I couldn't balk now after all this fuss.
Slowly, I lowered my head closer to the bowl, my muzzle inches away from the meal and the smell caught me off guard. If this were real, it looked as if this would have made my mouth water.
Come on!
I took a bite, burrowing my mouth into the straw-like stuff and chewed and... swallowed. And, the reflex threw me off, the sensation of my head almost upside down, swallowing up the neck still attached to the rest of my body, like a horse. Food moving as it should, no, not, food moving upward toward my stomach, that shouldn't...!
It wasn't an effort, it was natural, oh God, that wasn't right. I didn't know how that was supposed to be like!
And the... the flavor was... It wasn't oat or grain, not vaguely like bland cereal and milk. Not whole grain bread or whatever healthy choice there was. It was none of these. Sparks jolted through my mouth and went straight to my brain, and the first impression it gave was one vivid word: new.
I spat out what little remained.
I fell back on my ass.
"So that's what hay tastes like..."
~~
In her bed, patient zero trashed violently.
~~
The words kept coming, unbridled, unbidden. "That was new. I never tasted, never even tried something like that. For God's sake, it tasted good, I almost want more and I'm not even hungry."
I stared blankly into the moonset and its icy glow across the ocean. The spears of white streaking through the waves deserved to be called 'beautiful', by someone who wasn't feeling like the world had crashed down on them.
“Obviously, things aren’t what I thought them to be.” An empty laugh bubbled in my chest. “This is insane. What is going on? What happened?”
"Prince William?" timidly called Small Pond.
"Don't."
If this wasn't my dream, if I was somehow trapped somewhere else, what did that make of ponies like her?
"Can I...?" she asked, a glimpse of her fur coming into view.
And, I couldn't explain it, but the sheer idea of her, of them all, made my chest burn and my mind go red. My hooves shook onto the ground, my fucking hooves, and they itched badly with the desire to pummel something.
"No," I grunted in a clipped tone. "Leave."
"But--"
"I want to be left alone, Small Pond."
The air rippled--
She was gone. Where, I couldn't be sure, but it would be far away from me. I was alone.
No pony, no monster, just one thoroughly confused human. Dreams expressed your subconscious. They unloaded information at random during the night to better classify what was learned through the day. It was nothing new, even if they were confusing and illogical at best. Imagination alone could limit them.
I could feel a dream headache waiting to pounce on my unsuspecting body. "...How could I discover the taste of something in a dream? What's with the discrepancies, the stuff that never happened in my other dreams, like the layers of deceptions?"
With a muffled cry of rage, I buried my face in my hooves.
Alright, alright, there had to be a better explanation, one that was a great deal more intelligent than me deciding I was not dreaming after all. Was that an antelope chasing after a giant flying letter "A" while singing opera? Yes, yes it was. Thus, this was a fucking dream, case solved!
"Your face looks... fake."
Snarling, I threw streams of fire and lightning into the ocean, bellowed rage and despair in hazy darkness, flipped the earth upside-down, and...
And I collapsed in the sand, in the mist of vapor, under the uncaring eye of the moon. The throes of anger still strangled me, every word I said, choked out. "What kind of bullshit is this?! Stop. Just fucking stop, William. Wake up, this isn't fun anymore!"
The waves still clawed at the shore and the sea breeze still brushed my fur. And nothing, nothing of this changed. I was not lying in my bed, I was on a beach in a mad world, a parody of a stallion.
I swallowed and smacked my lips, but the taste of hay still lingered. The bowls of hay rested just uphill of here...
"I need a change of scenery."
Horseshoe Bay appeared before me. I was no longer lying down, but standing, and I pushed forward, too fast, too frantic for a goal.
The streets slid past me, each one house exactly like the previous one. Ponies trotted and went to their tasks here and there, none seeing me, their silhouettes at most ghosts.
To her, I look like I'm missing something, even if we look pretty similar side-by-side... What does that even mean?
I was pondering a trip to see where little Sea Salt had gone when the base of my horn tingled.
My legs locked into place, my hooves almost sliding on the ground. Seconds later, a torrent of light crashed straight where I was headed with enough strength to push me back three ponies length. The blue bolt of magic fizzled into the sand, and a familiar sense of dread built at the back of my head.
Wincing, I risked a look behind me, aaaaand yeah, alicorn of the night, floating in the air and looking ready to blast me to kingdom come.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding m--"
Wait... the thought struck me, does that mean this is the real Luna?!
I didn't have the time to decide, as with one mighty flap of her wings, she rose higher into the sky, turning it black and twisting the air around her. The sand shaking beneath me, I saw her eyes turn pure white.
"This will be your last and only warning, dreamon!" she bellowed, her voice reverberating. "Release your hold on my subjects or face your destruction!"
Dreamon, again with that word. But if she's real, then she's probably right. If she's real, she might be able to help. I'm not holding anyone hostage, but…
"Wait, please! I think this is a misunderstanding!"
The foals. In free-fall, calling for their parents and crying.
I felt the ground open up under me. I brought them here!
"There is nothing to discuss, monster! Release them now!"
Lightning struck just next to me, lifting enough dust to cause me a coughing fit. "L-listen! I'm..." The dust racked up my throat. "I'm not..."
"Enough lies!" Luna yelled.
And, my doubts pulling me apart, I could think of nothing as my doom stared at me from above.
Then a cupcake hit her between the eyes.
It... it stayed there a few seconds at most, then slowly slid off, and dropped onto the sand, leaving a trail of neon pink frosting over Luna's face.
"Hey!" called out a juvenile voice I recognized. "Are you bullying Mister William?!"
Four foals, three fillies and a colt, came running in the streets and stopped right between Luna and me.
"I..." Luna stuttered, landing on her hooves without grace. "This is..."
Another small figure galloped from under a bush, their face an adorable little orange scowl.
"Leave him alone!"
To describe the silence that followed that liner as 'being able to hear a pin drop' would be an insult to its sheer quality. Libel, slander. For the world of dreams obeyed to the will of those that knew of it, and Luna's widening eyes showed a shock so great the clouds in the sky trembled.
So gobsmacked she was that a fly lazily flew to her mouth and gazed into the abyss.
For a couple of seconds, before an exhalation of searing hot air pulverized it.
A look of terrible rage flashed upon Luna's face, whose thunderous gaze conveyed every ounce of her anger toward me. How dare you?! it said. Even the most innocents?!
My tail curled between my legs. Oh fuck. I was most likely very screwed. Already, lightning crackled at the tip of her horn, ready to fry me to a crisp.
But that was forgetting the very important little details here. Namely, the foals themselves.
"If you're not gonna be nice, go away!" the little filly screamed as she cupped a bit of mud and threw it at Luna.
If she had been even half as surprised as me, it would have hit her square in the face.
“Nay, children!" She pleaded, a hoof forward, her magic extinguished. "His siren song must not be listened to! He seeks to enthrall you to eat you. As we speak, he drains vital energy from your dreams and increases his power!”
I flinched. Memories of those kids, playing, hugging me, returned and something tightened my throat. They did not deserve any of this. They did not deserved to be... trapped.
I shot a frantic look at the skies, wondering if the void would show up simply if I thought of it. Would it take the foals back, if I tried to force it open again?
"That's all made-up stuff! He's super nice and he gave us wings to play in the clouds!" The littlest filly, hanging to her brother, screeched at Luna.
The poor princess really looked like the world had turned upside-down, and her frazzled expression tugged at something in my chest. “He brought you here!"she rasped, her voice breaking. "It is his fault that you were taken from your parents! He needs you to stay asleep to steal your lives! He would starve otherwise!”
"Nu-uh!"shouted the foals.
Luna's words didn't faze them. Immediate kindness won over their doubts so easily. But that... that was was hard to stomach. I didn't really deserve their protection. I had brought them here! And in return, they shielded me from a princess' wrath.
Except one little colt. The pegasus, the very same that had dove down to try and save his little sister, slowly turned his head toward me. "Is it true?"
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I didn’t have it in me to lie to these foals.
And the thought hit me, making me want to just shake my head and scream. It... it wasn't... real.
Why then? Why do I keep trying to justify myself to those dream NPCs if I really think they are nothing but figments of my imagination?
And the answer that should have come easily faded away.
"I... I don't know."
This was so surreal. I didn't know what was going on! I could have been hallucinating in a coma for all I knew. Maybe not, last experiment oblige, but the tangible truth was that I had no clue whether or not Luna's ranting was accurate.
Ashes' brows furrowed, his muzzle scrunched up as he saw my turmoil and my hesitation. Without a word, he pushed his sister forward, away from me.
The two cut straight into the line of foals, and surprise struck them silent. Luna, sensing a change of heart, dared not speak a word.
We all stared. The duo trotted slowly, the colt forcing his little sister toward their princess despite her protests that I was kinder. Every one of their steps echoed by a beat of my heart, every one an explosion in the silence.
When they arrived by Luna, I could not look away if I had wanted.
"Can you wake us up?" Ashes asked quietly.
Luna smiled in pure relief.
I felt it. In the span of an instant, I felt the very moment Ashes and his sisters were gone from the dream. And in my chest, there was suddenly a hole. My mouth turned dry, as if I had not drunk anything for days. A loud, rumbling sound shook my belly, and the pang of hunger stabbed through my abdomen so hard I folded in half.
I crumbled to the ground, my head heavy, my thoughts in shamble.
He would starve, she said.
"Prince Mac Doom!"
The world blurred. The air felt heavy, each breath like drinking water, each harder, shallower.
All I could see were the foals, crying around me, their little hooves pressing against my sides, and Luna growing closer, clad in darkness and storms.
And at the front of my mind was birthed a burning fury. "DISAPPEAR!"
Horseshoe Bay's streets were empty.
But there was no relief to be had, for my insides writhed in shards of ice and fire.
It’s a dream! I can’t feel hunger! I’m not… The rumble echoed again. My guts were twisting and turning and churning, God. GOD! I’m so fucking hungry. Why is this happening?! It’s a dream.
IT’S A DREAM!
"Is it?" I heard myself mutter. How did I know?! I'd never felt hungry here before, true... Not a lot of living things could go on without eating for days, so dream? Maybe? But now there was a hole inside my chest, howling to be filled.
"WHAT'S GOING ON?!"
Nopony answered. Nopony noticed a stallion in agony.
The thought faded. Who cares? my own voice growled. It mattered not. There were whispers in my ears, the same word, repeating. Eat. You're hungry. Eat. It's unbearable. Eat.
I would go insane if it went on.
My sight blurred, I stumbled through the town in search of something, anything to keep the monstrous, all-compassing need at bay. Right now, I could eat absolutely, truly anything if it meant this horrifying hole in my stomach went away.
Anything!
Some small, colorful things moved in the corner of my eye.
Anypony…
My mouth watered at the thought of the foals still around.
~~
The heavy drawer crashed into the wall, shattering on impact and spilling its contents like blood and organs from a wound. And still the broken pieces, shining in blue light, gathered and held together, until they cracked and splintered smaller still.
"HOW MANY TIMES WILL YOU OVERTHROW ME, DREAMON?!"
The roar shook the entire room, and its shivers spread through the entire room.
"I ALMOST HAD THEM!"
Gilded hooves struck at the wall, strong at first, then weak, rasping as a sob cut short the next raging cry.
Princess Luna's body slid down the wall, her face a mask of grief and anger, her mane disheveled and unmoving. The taste of victory had turned into a bitter paste, an horrid mixture from the ashes of her hubris. He had been thrown off by the sudden loss of his victims, had felt the horrible tearing of an innocent from its clutches. The dreamon had been lying on the ground.
And if she had not celebrated so quickly, if thoughts of vengeance had not filled her head instead of concerns for those still in his thralls... her subjects deserved a better princess.
When one orderly rushed inside the bedchambers with a grin of incredible joy, she felt as if her soul would break.
"The foals!" he shouted, blind to the weakness that strangled her. "Princess, half the foals woke up! You saved them!"
How many more did she still have to rescue?
"The parents have already been informed. They're crying and thanking you from the bottom of their hearts."
Luna almost managed a smile. "Order them to leave the town till the crisis has passed," she said, her voice distant to her own ears. "Their foals are still vulnerable if they fall asleep in the monster's reach. Spare no expense, the Crown will shoulder all costs so their families are safe."
"Of course," the young stallion nodded, scribbling everything down on a medical report. "I will make preparations to tell the rest of the families to prepare as well."
In her mind, something creaked and cracked.
"At this rhythm, two more spells should awaken every last patient."
Twice more? Her body felt as if weighing a block of stone. The dreamon had either evaded or subverted her agent within the dream. If this failed next time as well...
"No..." she whispered, trembling and cursing the tears that gathered in her eyes. "This cannot go on."
The orderly stopped cold in his track. “Princess?”
Gone was the cheerful optimism. In its place, caution and worry stared her down.
"Send... Send for my sister, ask for her assistance and that of her prized student."
He stared, incomprehending.
"Go!" She stomped a hoof into the floor, and cracked it.
The poor stallion scampered, crying out for an emergency messenger. The door wavered on its hinges, before slowly closing in and sealing the chamber from the rest of the hospital.
The Princess of the Night, left alone with the sleeping mare and the constant beeping of machines, frowned, deep in thoughts. The foals had been freed, but... their words... It could not be possible… tricks, likely. Mere lies and conjurances designed to lowered a prey's guards.
Scowling, she shook her head and sat down. There were no such things as kind dreamons.
That was the word she always used. The one she called me.
The trickle flow of red pooled at my feet. Hooves. Things. Drops marred most of my face at this point, bits of flesh flying off to the sound of ravenous snaps of my jaw. Its sweet, nectar-like taste splashed on my tongue, familiar and foreign at once.
Dreamon.
And, without prompting, I fell onto my sides, head swimming. Light. Heavy. The village around me seemed nothing but a faint blur of beige and green. And grey, where my head laid upon a fountain's edge. Heaving breathes slipped out of my lungs while I rested and tried to swallow more of the fruits stuck in my throat.
No matter how many meals I conjured from thin air, the pit in my stomach only seemed to grow larger every second. It wasn't fruits it wanted. Not anything I would consider a meal, really.
“He seeks to enthrall you to eat you,” had said a desperate princess to a bunch of foals gathering around him.
“No,” I said at the same time my stomach yelled 'Yes!'
Meat... I had yet to try it. A low growl stirred in my guts at the simple thought of it, and that much was enough to make me fear what... what I might do if I saw some.
“Get yourself together, William!” I growled.
Yet my limbs still felt too heavy to move. Weakly, I pushed myself off the stone ledge, only to stumble some more, dizzy. I lied half over the edge. Outside of a dream, I would have fallen in. Those dark waters would have gladly welcomed me.
Two slitted eyes opened to stare right at me.
My heart jumped in my throat, and I stumbled back, but somehow, somehow, not far enough to detach my gaze from the reflection in the fountain. My neck refused to turn, my eyes, to look away. I felt transfixed by the vivid yellow irises looking back from beneath the water.
Something lingered in the shadows of the fountain, now so deep I could not see the bottom.
“Aren't you hungry?” it asked in a caring whisper.
Yes.
The water curled, almost like coils, almost slithering, and the whisper became a hissing sound. “Why aren't you eating then? There's plenty of prey to go around, isn't there?”
Liquid dripped from my lips, drop by drop, into the fountain. My gums ached, as if the teeth in my mouth shifted, sharpened. There were preys around. My heart fluttered. There were... preys... ponies...
Preys...the word came as did the image of Sea Salt, crying.
I struck at the water, uncaring of the cold that dripped from my leg and face. A shout rose from my throat as I struck again. Again, until the shadow and the eyes had gone. Only then did I let myself slid down against the stone.
I just wanted this nightmare to end. I wanted to fucking wake up and be in my bed, not fighting a voice in my head that said children looked fucking delicious!
“Why won't this end?!” The air shivered at my shout, houses all blurred together. “I'm done! I''m done, just... just let me wake up already!”
None deigned answer me. Of course not. What great authorities were there here, besides the princess that was convinced I was a monster? Who else? I wondered, before the light of the sun was obscured by a silhouette next to me.
Unable to move, I stared at the pair of twisted feet inches from my shoulder. Without my leave, my eyes followed the curves of the inky black sticks that served as legs to this creature, up to a waist that was crawling things and hanging strings.
A long clawing shudder broke apart my resolve.
Looming over me, dripping worms and centipedes onto my face, the smooth pitch black head stared right into me.
Wordless gasps choked out of me. My whole body stayed absurdly still, each of my limbs wrapped into chains of ice. I was sinking. Worms dug into my flesh as surely as they did the earth that was slowly crawling onto me. And my eyes, my eyes were wide open, unable to look away from my nightmare made manifest.
The String-Man moved with a creaking sound, joints tensed, strings and rust. His head grew in size, or came closer, looming, shadowing everything but itself to me.
He smiled.
Terror swallowed me whole
The world flashed away, my body barrelling straight into the wall of void. Shocks and numbness jolted throughout my shoulder, my chest and my neck, half of me folded in reflex. My hoof rasped against the smooth surface in spite of the blue lightning running to meet it. I wanted it.
The stings pushed back the lingering feeling of the crawling things on my skin.
A smile of crawling worms.
What little I had of restraints shattered.
“Let me out!”
I stood on my hind legs and struck at the black wall with all my might. The impact resonated up my legs, shaken to the bones.
“Let me out!” I yelled again, my voice breaking.
He was out there. He was out there somewhere, anywhere, perhaps close. And that thought came with shivers and twitches at the back of my neck. They could have been his fingers; they might have been the dripping strings of oil stroking my skin, running in the tracks of my tears.
“Let me out!”
My legs sank into the void.
--
In other circumstances, Princess Luna would have found the lack of decorum and fanfare accompanying her sister's entrance inappropriate. Now, she welcomed the expeditive nature of their arrival. From between the time she had felt the teleportation magic and now, little more than minutes had passed.
“You have made haste. Thank you, Sister, Twilight Sparkle.” She nodded to both mares, then cast a solemn look to the sole bed in the hospital room. “I have come across a particularly tenacious dreamon while performing my duties. Though it pains me that it comes to this, I must request your help to terminate this threat to our subject. He...” She faltered, her hooves shaking and her glare hardening. “He must be stopped at any cost.”
Princess Celestia made to help her stand, but Luna flared her wing, and spoke louder, anger rumbling through every inch of her.
“T-this creature has been feeding off this mare, and many others, since before my arrival in this town. He mocked me at every turn and even enthralled the foals that he snatched. I have freed some, but many more remains and I do not know if my remaining power will suffice to beat back this threat. His feeble ruses and attempts to pass off as innocent cannot be listened to!”
“Luna,” Princess Celestia began with caution, “have you foregone sleep since you discovered this issue?”
Luna stilled, cut short in her tirade. For a moment, her mouth stayed open, gaping, before she closed it with an audible 'pop'. She averted her gaze from her elder sister's.
“I had to. There was not a moment to lose. Many more of our subjects remain trapped and more may join them without our intervention.” At her words, her fellow princesses exchanged glances and nodded. They had been informed of the sickness seemingly spreading. Yet, to see such a simple gesture seemed to drain the Princess of Dreams of her fighting spirit. She slumped. “There is also the matter of the dreamon's web. This one seemed particularly adept at catching dreamers unaware and bringing them in. I could not risk even a short moment of rest, lest I open up myself to his evils and become vulnerable for an attack?”
The words had been spoken with such quiet, laced in equal fear and regrets. The burden of her duty had weighed the bombastic princess down to a tired mess. Her pride laid bleeding before her junior and elder.
Princess Celestia's words were warmth, kindness. “Luna, you know better than anypony the consequences of a lack of sleep. Allow Princess Twilight and myself to take over this duty of yours while you rest.”
For a moment, a light of interest flickered in the dark mare's gaze. The temptation must have spoken to her with an entrancing voice, for it looked as if the princess wanted to lean into her sister's embrace and let her worries melt away. But a harder, stronger part of her refused.
In one deep inhalation, Princess Luna's bearing settled. It did not matter then, that her mane was dishevelled and near still, that her eyes were laced with dark bags, that her limbs trembled from exhaustion. She carried the air of royalty as if the world itself needed bow before her. If Twilight Sparkle hadn't been witness to it, she would not have taught such drastic change possible so quickly.
“I shall rest later, Sister. This is not the purpose for which I have called you and your student. I am of need of assistance with my tasks. The dream weaving has become dangerously tedious for me as my magical power dwindles. The barrier I have laid and my attempts to salvage our subject have taken much of me. The ideal would be for you two to cast the spell as I do and join force with me to expel the dreamon once and for all.”
For a moment, silence befell the room. Blood rushed to Twilight's face, as she made a small, embarrassed “oh”.
The Princess of the Night felt her brows raise in slight surprise – and disappointment. "Have you not studied oneirism, at least in passing, Twilight Sparkle?"
"No, the... the subject never came up..." Twilight's eyes drifted toward Celestia, who seemed uncharacteristically downtrodden.
“I never felt deserving to teach this kind of magic. I could never bring myself to do it,” she said slowly. Past memories flashed in the depths of her magenta eyes, each with greater weight than the last. “It was always your domain, Luna. You were the shepherd of dreams. This much I could never bear to take from you.”
Despite the bitter news, despite even the urgency of their situation, a hidden part of the Princess of the Night felt elated. How could she not, when the words were ever a reminder of her bond with her sister, never strained in spite of a thousand years broken apart?
“I see...” she replied instead, with slow and careful consideration. “Then... perhaps we may-”
A blood-curdling scream drilled into their ears.
On the bed, the mare seized, her back arched, tubes and restraints strained to their limits.
All three princesses jumped into action, their horn at ready with light and sparks, but they stilled to the sight of pitch-black smoke rising from their subject's eye sockets.
“Get back!” Princess Luna was at the front, her wings spread and her horn blazing. “The dreamon is trying to escape my restraints!”
Twilight watched in fascination, behind a shimmering golden barrier discreetly conjured, as the Princess of Dreams answered the call of her duty.
Blue light shone unto the thrashing mare, the screeches becoming as wails and whinnies. Small Pond fell back onto her sheets, tears stain on her cheeks, her movements as weak pawing. Above, the smoke gathered, and a silhouette of stallion's head looked them down with large white eyes.
Princess Luna dug her hooves into the floor and ground out, “You shan't prevail. You shan't escape either! You are done tormenting our subjects!”
The stallion's head rolled back, muzzle upturned, and opened its mouth as if to roar. Howl. Scream. No sound reached her, but empty white sockets fixed her with an eyeless stare.
Twilight's wings clamped on her sides, her steps faltering before she could muster back her reactions again. And briefly, the shadow focused on her. They stared through the barrier, and her heart jumped in her throat, shock rippling through her. That couldn't have been...
Another shout by Luna preceded a thunderous boom, and a flood of light.
The creature dwindled into nothings, black smoke spiralling back into the convulsing body on the bed. Small Pond jerked, then became immobile.
In the silence that befell the room next, all three alicorn mares stared at the sleeping pony.
--
I lied on my back, groaning, unable to tell when I had fallen, only that I had.
I was so close...
A sob shook me. I had been right on the verge of escaping. I knew it. I'd felt air on my fur, not as an aside, as an addition that I thought of, but as a fact, an inescapable fact of every living moment. I had smelled something aseptic, sterile and depressing as a hospital bedroom. I had heard beyond the immediate thing this world seemed to deem noteworthy, but the faint hum of machines, or the screeching of horseshoes on wood, or the faint echo of a heartbeat maddened.
I had been so close...
But the light had pushed me back. It had struck me as a thousand blows straight to the chest.
The gaping wound slowly closed. Itches ran over my skin in that spot. Another day, I would have just scratched and found something more soothing, but the first image that came to mind was that of my hoof sinking into the wound.
If I had been awake, that definitely would have warranted a shiver – ah! Here it comes.
Only when I thought about it, only when my mind reminded this place that's how it was supposed to go. Well, except for pain, but seeing that sort of gorey hole in my body, I felt rather grateful for the lack of any pain.
Could I even stand anymore?
The tall string-like silhouette against the sunset had yet to move, but it would eventually.
“Shit.” That was a mistake.
As if summoned, he appeared in a wisp of freezing air.
I was on my feet on the spot, but too late.
Crawling lines of black coiled around my hooves. They held me as would fingers, bound me as would chains. And with them came a sickening cold that was winter unleashed and inferno blazing.
My legs jerked, unable to push past the pooling ink on the ground. With each, I sank deeper. Struggling as a fly in a spider's net. Soon, not even my wings could spread out.
“Let me go!” I screamed. “Lemme...”
Aching filled through my jaw, stinging throughout my gums as my teeth shifted. Not a lingering thought, but one so strong that it stuck out at the front of my mind.
Not painful. Nothing here ever is.
But I longed for it. Through the haze and the fog, I longed for that signal of pain. I'd have taken the comfort of not being still dreaming. Of not sighing in relief every time I managed to stave off the pangs of hunger racking through my body. Of not feeling my wings molt with an acute accuracy, down to the smallest pinch in a limb I never had before tonight.
Then... then it was over. Beads of sweat rolled over my brow, stinging against my too large eyes, coating my fur slick underneath the weight of metal I felt. Spiked protrusions stood from the plates of purple armour covering my body.
Panting, I risked a glance back.
No feathers to shift around, but a thin, membranous red skin.
I could only think one word. Dreamon.
In a dream, you can be anything you want. You can change it all, if it displeases you. If you think hard enough.
...I didn't think I could come back from this.
Dreamon.
He will eat you all!
Dreamon.
This is your fault! You are doing this!
Dreamon, dreamon, dreamon.
“A steed for a demon,” said the String-Man with a wave of skeletal fingers.
It was the mockery, the laughter laced within his words, that made my blood boil. He did this to me. He threw me in the darkness.
For a blitzing moment, I was unafraid, rearing and shouting. “I am no mount for another to break and bend! Neither demon nor men will ride me! Least of all you.”
I was upon him, horn swinging at his wrung, scrawny neck. The sickening noise of skin pierced. Screams over screams. Strings circling my neck, squeezing, but feeble, snapped with a click of my fangs. He and I, vanished into the haze. Blood boiling. Pumping in my veins as liquid fire. Flying off wounds and flowing red and black in my mouth.
Blood. On my tongue, on my face, splattered over my armour.
Dripping off my sides as if I had been bathing in it. Oozing onto the sand, colouring it a muddy maroon. So dark it might have been black.
“You are as yourself.” The words were a wheezing whisper, hissed between crackles of spiders' mandibles. “Congratulation.”
I recoiled from the twisted corpse underneath me. My wings flapped, but my hooves felt glued to the ground. Since when? Since when had I been standing in gore and maggots?
The String-Man's body looked as if it had exploded outward, and swarms of insects fled, their tiny legs crawling over my armour in a thunderous, all-compassing explosion of clicks and chinks.
“Go away.” I shook my head, spitting the lumps of blackened flesh out. “This isn't happening! I'm just dreaming!”
The eyeless face twitched, and rose perhaps an inch at most, but he had me enraptured, entranced and unable to control the tides of this nightmare.
“Somepony is.”
And I was flung aside, thrown with such violence the world became naught but indistinct colours and speeding blurs. And I reached forward with a hoof, praying, begging, that some angel or demon would take me away. Anywhere. Away. Somewhere. AWAY!
I came to my senses, within a cloud of dust, as if I had landed on sand.
Soon, when the sight was cleared and the dust settled, a small high-pitched voice called, "Prince William? Is that... you?"
No, no, no, no, yes, no... NO, NO!
An incoherent replied to her. My tongue stuck to my palate, as fear rolled through me. If I opened my mouth now...
The filly moved closer. “Are you alright? Was there a monster?”
The wide green eyes shone with such innocent and earnest worry... and yet, my thoughts drifted to the hints of plump flesh underneath the fur.
Waves of nausea came crashing down on me. God, I could not be thinking this! It was wrong, so emphatically wrong that I could wish for Princess Luna, here, right now, to appear and blast me to kingdom come. I felt dizzy with disgust, and hunger.
Why? I swore under my breath. Why, now, of all times, were my senses so vivid? Why could I hear, the beat of that filly's heart under her skin, the little breaths of air that brought faint hints of chocolate and milk scents? Her last meal before going to – her last meal.
My mouth felt dry. I was parched. I needed to drink something – red, the colour flashed to mind, not a ridiculous crimson as my mane, but the dark, rich, mellow dark shade of red. If I opened my mouth, if I closed my fangs on a – little – spot of fur, then I'd be able to taste... I needed to eat. I had to eat. I was going to die. I would die if I did not eat now.
My legs stayed locked as pillars of stone dug deep into the sand.
Leave, kid, for God's sake, LEAVE!
I could not move. If I tried moving, then I'd... I'd...
The foal took a step back, ears folded atop her head.
“Are you... drooling?”
~~
It sank into the neck. Blood splattered but he did not flinch. He never had. It had been his very nature to do these things. He could take in the unblinking stare without a care in the world.
His knife slid underneath the skin, and with another skillful push, parted it from the flesh. Then, to his astonishment, another piece of fish slid on the counter, right next to his. The dark pink flesh seemed to glow under the light of the candles on the walls, and the stallion on his side looked at him with a childish grin.
Hopeful for approval. Validation.
Small Fry's ear ticked as a stray thought wormed itself past the facade of every day work.
His sous-chef...
What was his name?
They'd been working together for hours – days – weeks – forever –, so it should be on the tip of his tongue, shouldn't it? Truly, it should, if the sight of a cream-like coat and soft brown mane on this stallion just ticked at the back of his mind. There was a familiarity to him, hints in the sometimes shyness that emerged when the stallion looked like he might commit a mistake.
“How many tables left...?” Small Fry heard himself say.
“Oh, just the delegation from Canterlot!”
His eyes darted back to the dining room, and his heart skipped a beat at the sight of so many posh ponies. His ears drooped as he held back a wince. How could he have forgotten? Their order waited on the countertop, just in front of him. All demanding his specialty.
“How many fishes do we have left?”
Enormous deep blue carcasses hung from the hooks in the cooling chambers. One could not walk through the small alleys without brushing some fish's skin or some seafood's shell. It brought a proud grin to his face, the sight of their restaurant so well-furnished. His little sister was unequaled amongst all the other f--
...Had she even entered the restaurant since he started cooking – weeks – hours ago?
He was in the dining room, his maitre-d'oeuvre passing him by with a polite nod. He was looking at the many ponies, seated at every single table, and he could recall dozens of customers sitting in each before.
They hadn't restocked.
He hadn't seen Small Pond in forever.
The whole restaurant froze to the resounding sound of plates crashing onto the wooden floor. Those ponies, they looked at him with expressions that were just a little too much, a little too appalled, too concerned, too much. And his sous-chef... ah... his sous-chef looked scared.
Small Fry snarled.
~~
The filly was taking steps backward.
I was moving forward.
“P-prince... William?”
My eyes focused on the speed of her legs, on the widening of her innocent little eyes. How the life danced. How much vitality could a young body hold. How much?
The hunger crawled up the back of my neck as a mass of fangs. Each sunk a little deeper, under the mane, under the skin, scraping on my skull, then pushing, forcing its way in. Trails of drool spread in-between my fangs, dripped from my chin onto the sand. An inhuman growl rose from my guts, in echoes and distortion. I could hear the String-Man laugh when my prey fell to the ground.
The filly was crying.
“No, no, no, mommy...” she sobbed. “Mommy!”
The filly was crying, and I felt my body still.
The dream remembered. Words could be law, and laws had been passed. The landscape seemed to spread before me, vast in space and time, and yet closing in on me. For an eternity and less than a heartbeat, the hunger within me vanished. Instead of it, words. My own, in a faint echo.
“Never again,” I whispered, amazed. “Never again.” Not the foals free-falling. Not Sea Salt questioning his worth. Never again will I let a foal cry in my presence.
Never again, and their promise was a rampart upon which the most savage broke. They might roar and rampage, they might screech from the deepest recesses of my mind, but my body became my own again, and my will slithered through.
“TAKE THEM, LUNA!” I hollered to the skies over my every instinct. “TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME!”
The fangs turned inward as a staggering rage battled my relief. No! screamed the monsters, and the hunger, and a little desperate piece of me. They were for us. They had to be consumed for us to survive!
But they were powerless. The cowering filly disappeared into thin air, and thrice more, agony stabbed through my heart.
I collapsed, my body weighted down by my melting armour.
There's the price...
Alone, in the middle of a deserted street where there had once been foals and parents mingling about the stalls and the houses. Alone with the torturous demands of a need growing, and nothing to answer it with.
Was I going to die here? Alone on the sand, under the eyes of the sun and the sea?
...So I never did get to have that adventure in the end. No princess to save, no evil to defeat. Just a long night of attrition near the sea... Well, it could have gone worse. The children were safe. That was something, right?
Tears rolled on my cheeks. I missed my crummy apartment.I missed my idiot roommate and his insane theories. I missed sitting on our couch and laughing over the newest episode of our favourite shows.Which one were we even at? The one before the finale, right? Ah... it didn't really matter anymore.
Dreams, dreams, dreams. I never really got it, did I? Maybe I would wake up after all. Probably not. Sorry, Mom, Dad. I hope the insurances will cover up my student's loan... Sorry, Luke, I guess we won't be working on your electric go-kart project together after all. Sorry, Lisa, best of luck for your next final. Sorry, Isabella, Grant, Monique, Ted. Sorry.
This was such a stupid death! As a walking cliché, with the most eye-killing combination of colours, lying in the sand because I wouldn't eat some talking animals. Hell, I would bet Luke had eaten horses before, the crazy bastard.
Will they cry when they notice I'm gone?
But, even as I let my senses drift, one voice arose, nasal, shaking, and with such pep that I felt almost insulted. “Oh, there are so few ponies around here to help one poor old mare cross the street.
It wasn't me that stood then, but the dreamon. I couldn't find the strength to resist anymore. I... I wanted to live...
The old grandma from before, the wrinkled blue mare that had hit me in the face with a fridge. The one that had flirted with me. She was there. Alone in the streets, and talking as if she wanted me to notice. Hoping. Wishing.
The monster in my chest fumed, displeased with such poor energy to pilfer. Its disappointment made my limbs lumber, but I still took the staggering steps toward her. The determination I had displayed earlier was crumbling. The foals, I could not. Them, I could not.
Anypony else, however...
My stomach was collapsing on itself. I would die soon. That thought I knew with a certainty like iron.
“Hello, Granny,” I greeted with a pitiful, rasping noise.
In the blink of an eye, the old mare swirled around, acting surprised to hear anypony answer her at all. And, as her gaze met mine, something in the air changed. It wasn't a cue from the dream, nothing so esoteric. Yet my back felt heavier than if it had still been carrying the armour.
Did she notice? With my wings clasped on my sides and my mouth closed, did she notice the marks of a dreamon?
Her face lit up like the sun. “Harpoon! It is you!”
Harpoon? I only had time to wonder.
“Granny, I-” I tried to say, but her vice grip yanked half of my body so hard I nearly flew. “Whoa!”
“It's so good of you to come home.”
I jerked, casting a wild look at my surroundings. I hadn't noticed when they changed.
In lieu of a street on a beach, around us were a damp hut of wooden bamboo. I recognized nothing of it but a faint familiarity with the hotel. And yet... here, I could believe somepony lived.
There were little things, little fragments of memories that hung around an old mare's house. A half-melted candle on the table, a pair of cooking pans, an antique-looking brown couch, a dark blue and white striped-uniform hanging from a door handle.
The most prominent, the one thing on which every pair of eyes had to look at, clung to the fridge's door. It was a little square of paper, shining, in pristine condition. Compared to anything else, it seemed a miniature sun, casting light where even the dusty furniture could not shadow.
A mare and a stallion looked back, their smiles radiant, and the stallion's dark grey hoof wrapped around the blue mare's shoulder. Behind that paper frame, they would never move, and yet I'd think them alive. One of them certainly was.
Granny was humming cheerfully, every one of her step like a jump. She had springs for legs, for sure. And even her wrinkled face could appear young with such a joy.
She called me Harpoon.
“Remind me…” my voice trailed off, suddenly weak. “…How old am I?”
The mare's hooves stilled over the teacups. Had the room gone grey? The photograph's shine had dimmed. Granny looked back, and for the shortest time, I could have sworn that there had been a light of recognition flashing in those old green eyes.
Granny stepped close quickly, her frail forelegs circling a single one of mine. “Oh, Harpoon, you poor dear…” she whispered with tears in her eyes. “Is your memory acting up again?”
I wanted to smile, to be brave or kind, but I couldn't, not with such a punch in the guts.
“Yes, I’m sorry, dear.”
“Oh...” she said quietly, before letting out a little laugh. “Why would you ever apologize, my sweet stallion? This was never your fault. The doctors said there was nothing to do.”
“Will you help me remember then?” I did not know why I said that.
But once Granny guided me by the hoof to an old sofa, I found I could not resist anymore. She had me sit down next to her, close, her head touching mine as would lovers'.
“This… this is the picture we took on our first anniversary.” Her frail hoof rasped against a glass frame that had just appeared, tapping just below the faces of two much younger ponies smiling toward the camera. “You flew off the handle when the photographer protested against the lighting. ‘That’s not why we’ll care about this picture!’, you said. Oh, you were so right…”
The walls blinked out, glimpses of the sea and a boat's deck filtering in our ghostly surroundings. And yet, they couldn't scare me. How could they, when they carried such a gentle air?
“It's your warmth I care about.” She leaned in just a little closer, her fur brushing against mine. “It's the sound of your voice when you were hollering at that poor photographer. It's us, together on the boat. It's... it's you, Harpoon.”
I hugged her.
That... What else could I do?
I hugged her. I wished the warmth of her husband back to her. I wished the whispers of love from that guy to return to her mind. I wished, I begged.
I ordered the dream to change, to make thin air become her husband and give her the affection she longed for. But the hut did not twist, no one stepped out of nothingness for a talk and a kiss. The only voice I heard was that of a monster wishing to eat.
Granny gently pushed me away. My mind cried out in relief and anguish at once.
“I am sorry about that little bout of flirting with the prince the other day…” she muttered, looking down and sighing. “It has been so long… I did not mean to disrespect your memories, dear. Will you forgive this old mare her moments of weakness?”
Should I have not laugh? Something so trivial, a harmless bout of teasing? And yet in the regret carving her wrinkles deeper around her eyes, only the utmost serious transpired. They must have loved one another so much...
Swallowing, I struggled to put on a gentle smile. Somewhere in my chest, a cold hand tightened its hold over my heart. “O-o-of course I will. You’ve always been such a good wife to me. I could not take away your little fantasies. That’s harmless. I’m sure the prince would say the same.”
As if sensing the irony, Granny chuckled, and leaned her head into the crook of my neck.
“Harpoon… will you leave me again?”
A cold more vivid than even the String-Man's touch ripped apart my heart in my chest. It was so cruel, I thought. Cruel of this dream, cruel of me. She asked little, but the truth would claw its way to the surface sooner or later. The masquerade should end. By my hooves.
I couldn't. I truly and well couldn't. “You’re the one that will join me soon, dear,” I whispered, taking her hoof with mine. "We'll be together. You don't need to fear loneliness. It'll end, when you're ready."
The hope in her eyes killed me.
“Then… please, will you give me a kiss for good luck on the road?”
A childish part of me paused. It made my eyes linger on the dry lips that had asked, on the creaks and nooks in her face, on the discoloured fur over her skin. There was nothing to be attracted to in her, but the thought itself flickered into nothing. What did it matter? Granny wasn't asking for that.
Beyond her appearance, beyond the strange flatness of every dream inhabitants here, beyond the age that had carved wrinkles and discoloured her fur, there had been a woman, a mare, a person. Someone old, that had lived and now waited for the time to find the ones that had departed early; someone. Someone.
Not a prop. Not a silly joke. Not an old person that had just appeared already old, one day. She had lived. She had lived for long, and was alone now. Had been alone, for a long, long time.
The last of my pretense fell. I blinked back the tears. And gave her a smile with as much tenderness as I could give. "Of course, you silly mare."
My lips brushed against hers, slowly, without haste or passion, but carrying the very core of love that I hoped she felt. In that old mare, there was a simple desire and a tragedy that would follow so many. And if, in those final moments, she wished for a reminder of the one she had loved so long ago, then I would give that to her.
And once we had broken apart, her peaceful smile made it entirely worth the effort.
“Thank you, Mister William,” she whispered into my ears. “That was very kind of you.”
I froze, stilled, my blood like ice in my veins and feeling like a child surprised in the midst of doing something forbidden.
“Granny…” I said, trying not to shrink on myself in shame.
A little frail hoof pushed against my mouth.
“Don’t…” she whispered, “I… I feel like… I might be able to make it to him now. There is nothing... to apologize for...” Her eyes drooped as she sought the comfort of her couch. "You've just... helped an old mare remember... what it is like to be loved..."
She shouldn't be tired, not in a dream. The fridge she had readily carried on her back flashed in my mind, and a bitter memory of its collision with me came with it. Petty. How petty that thought, and I viciously forced it down. All that remained was a faint longing for the strength she had had back then. The frail old lady lying now would break at the touch of a breeze.
"Good luck... you silly colt..."
She let herself fall back on the couch.
I blinked.
I blinked, and she was gone.
The decrepit couch had nopony lying on it. I could not hear, nor see, a hint of her presence. I needed neither. A horrifying sentiment of contentment settled down through my body. And the realization struck me more strongly than Luna's anger had ever managed to. Granny had not woken up. She never would.
The hole in my stomach had been filled. The twisting and aching had gone as surely as Granny had.
I was left alone with my tears and the weight of the world on my shoulders. That shouldn't... that shouldn't have happened.
And I could not think further, for the world exploded into a flurry of new sensations.
~~
They were nearly done. Scribbles and scratches of chalk drew the last lines around the bed, surrounding the sleeping pony with a closed runic circle. Half of the symbols, she didn't recognize. The scientific part of her mind begged for more information and faithfully committed every piece to memory.
Twilight dared not break the silence however. The very air felt heavy with tension, and her heart beat had been going at a slightly unhealthy rhythm since she had took notice of the immense emotional maëlstrom raging underneath her elder's skin.
She was mad. Absolutely Loco in the coco, or so Pinkie Pie would say.
But the doubt gnawed through her mind. Perhaps it was nothing of note. Perhaps indeed, it would be a waste of precious time, but her instincts disagreed. From what little she had gathered, this could not be unimportant.
So she spoke up.
“Princess Luna...?”
Both Princesses paused in their preparations, though only her beloved mentor seemed tolerant of the interruption.
“What is it, Twilight Sparkle?” Her moment's hesitation drew a bigger frown from the dark mare. “Speak! We have little time to waste.”
Besides them both, Princess Celestia watched with a careful frown, yet did not intervene. She only motioned for her student to speak her mind. Trust your instincts, she had told her once.
“I noticed, the smoke-stallion...” Twilight stumbled onto her words, feeling her cheeks heating up under scrutiny from the Royal Sisters. “I... That is, I saw the dreamon's face.”
The two much taller mares leaned closer, a look of interest on their faces. Even the frantic Princess of the Night had paused, her mouth pulled in a thin line.
Twilight took a deep, calming breath. “It looked... terrified.”
She expected a pensive reaction, perhaps even one of annoyance or dismissal. In fact, her thoughts had been to mentally prepare herself not to take anything said to heart. Princess Luna had clearly been running herself ragged trying to solve this whole problem on her own. Twilight could easily sympathize with that, and tempers would obviously run high in such circumstances.
But she hadn't expected the booming shout that rippled through the air and shook the walls themselves. The sound was primal, the purest rage, the truest anguish; it shattered her thinking mind, leaving naught but a flash of fright at the front of her mind.
She flinched when vials exploded against the walls, squeaked when the patient's information clipboard flew off its place on the foot of the bed.
The clipboard stopped in midair, now surrounded by a soothing golden light.
“Luna, calm down,” her sister said in a tone that brokered no compromise. “You will injure yourself, or somepony.”
“There is no time, Tia! We cannot afford to wait or plan!” Luna rounded up on her elder sister, eyes wide and febrile, and her mouth down-turned into a snarl. “I've been blind, twice fooled by a mimicry! I cannot believe myself! How could I have not realized it?!”
“You are exhausted. It is sheer stubbornness that let you keep this up, Luna.”
“I cannot fail them, Celestia!” The starry tail lashed out, knocking over some vase on a drawer. Its crash against the ground as completely overshadowed by the rising volume of the arguing siblings' voices. “They rely on me! You have said it best, this is MY domain, MY responsibility!”
For the first time since her arrival, the Sun Princess' mask of careful, attentive worry cracked, and beneath flashed a fiery anger. “This is not Fickle Heart, Luna!”
Princess Luna's jaw drop, her eyes wide, her pupils shrunk in shock.
Twilight seized her chance, fearing what would happen if she didn't. “What... what did you realize, Princess Luna? What does it mean if that creature is afraid?”
Celestia and Luna alike turned their attention back on her, with a slight pause, as if they had forgotten her presence. Her words seemed to slap back a sense of their situation back into the sisters.
Abrupt the words that came spilling from the Night Princess' mouth then, and sharper still their meaning. “Think, Princess Twilight! Dreamons are creatures that exist in a realm of thoughts. They are not physical, they have no bodies to threaten, only their sense of self within a world that they can change at will. The average dreamer will never realize they have even fallen asleep, will never know they were in terrible dangers.”
“Then what-”
“Think!” The silver horseshoe slammed into the floor, and white light flashed with the shortness of the princess' order. “Most never fear me! This one was no exception. On our first meeting, he made sexual advances on me instead of fleeing! Dreamons fear but one thing!”
Twilight Sparkle's breath itched, her thoughts hardening around a terrible thought. But if it made Princess Luna swear a storm, if it made a creature of nightmare flee, then it seemed not only possible, but probable.
“You don't mean...”
Luna's eyes hardened onto the frame of the mare sleeping in the bed. No traces of the dreamon's shade lingered upon Small Pond's unconscious body, yet the pale blue eyes saw something deeper still.
There could be an eternity in a heartbeat. Stars might die, world might rise, within the time it took for a heart to cease to beat. For the moment life became death. For the instant the soul flickered.
Around me, wooden walls fell, crumbled, disintegrated. Above me, palm leaves flew with a wind that blew nowhere. Under me, grains of sand slid down the slope of the beach, near the splashing waves of clear blue water.
An eternity in a heartbeat.
My head rolled back, slowly, every thought twice as fast as the slightest twitch of my muscles. The falling walls stood near frozen in the air, as my gaze glided over them, over the slightest details I could recall with the faint echos of another's voice.
“We'll need to take down this one, Orchid,” grumbled an unseen stallion. “When I get back, we'll take a few days and finally fix that damn corner. No more stubbing our hooves on that twig.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I couldn't tell why.
The plank was still there. It had still been standing.
My eyes rolled back, my sight blurred.
The shade had fallen over us both so soothingly, tempered only by the dancing lights of the candles on the bedside table. His face framed in the shadows, he leaned in to kiss my cheek, and whispers words with a hunger to them that settled in the lower parts of my belly.
“I love you, Orchid.”
Words came out, breathed to a ghost. “I love you too, Harpoon.”
An eternity in a heartbeat. The moment the world shifted forever, and one person was gone. How many tears had fallen for his funeral? When the news had come, when the announcement had been given, I hadn't realized. How many ticks of the clock had come and gone while I didn't know, while I stayed blessedly ignorant of the truth?
While the world still had meaning.
My husband had died. Oh Harpoon...
With a startling clarity, like a rush of adrenaline spiking my blood, I felt my heart beat for the first time. A thrumming hum. A beat pulsing in my ears. My chest throbbed. Breathes rushed in and out, shallow, fast, as everything came to me in pinprick focus.
It wasn't the hut anymore, but the plaza, where Fish Stock put on his stall and waited for my arrival with a familiar grin. Where I sometimes stopped by for that dear old Anchor, or the Net sisters and their shining wares. The two mares had a knack for showing me just the kind of little nothings I would ask Harpoon to buy.
So many memories. So quickly, they brought another sting to my eyes, and I rubbed the tears out. Silly old mare.
Mare? the thought came to an abrupt end with a sickening lurch of my stomach. The faces muddied, as I reached out a black – blue – hoof toward the unmanned stall. This wasn't Horseshoe Bay. Not the one I had known.
Since when did I even know Horseshoe Bay?
I jolted, senses alert again, with the ghostly feeling of ice against the back of my neck. The shades evaporated, morning dew under the glare of Celestia's summer sun. No, the circle in the sky was green, and shimmered peacefully like a gem at dawn.
“Why?” came the confused word.
I had a hoof to my chest. Strong beat, pulses under my fur and my skin, waving into the sole of my palm. There it was, the proof that I lived.
“Sea Orchid,” I gasped. “Her name was Sea Orchid.”
It was her name. Not mine. My name. What was it again? William. William, I repeated with a frantic energy. Orchid had died. I stilled lived. Orchid had died.
Whose fault was that?
The houses blurred past me. When had I started running? Heat spread through my limbs, through my lungs as my breathing accelerated. A hotel, tall, imposing, zoomed right next to me. A statue. The hut that Anchor lived in. The school house, and all the cutesie little ones. A house. Another house, another, another. The whole lot of Horseshoe Bay, gone by.
I hadn't even thought of opening my wings. Did I have wings? Of course not, I've been an earth pony my whole– Leather. Feathers. I heard a flap as muscles attached to my back stretched. Which one, right now?
My hooves skidded across the sand until they came to a stop.
My fur is black. My fur is black, black, blackblackblack... blue. BLACK! My fur is black.
I nearly smiled. It had dawned on me a second too late, or too soon.
For a fleeting instant, being able to call my fur black had been a triumph. Now, cold sweat glided on the back of my neck.
“I don't even have fur! I'm human!” Those useless stumps of black furred flesh did not turn back into hands. “This isn't me! It isn't! Fuck Doom Darknight! Fuck Prince this and that, I'm human!”
With a shiver, the fur on my body straightened, in a motion like a wave at sea, and hardened, and curved. The blackest of it seemed to melt together. Covering me were now spiked plates that glinted an ominous purple. Dozens of them shielded my body from unseen threats.
I recoiled, and the armour gave a series of clicking sound where every plate collided. I blinked, and my sight felt cut through by the visor of my own helmet. I stretched my wings, and I felt on them the weight of bladed plates, ready to slice into the next threat.
I swallowed as if my mouth had become filled with molasses. Was it a finger of bone that scratched at my throat? A phantom chord of leather dug into both sides of my mouth, like reigns for a cavalier. And I knew in my heart what dark hand held the string that wanted to strangle me.
“He's dead,” I growled despite my hammering heart. “I killed him. I know I did.”
Orchid's dead, protested a silent shadow. It left me staring agape, unable to focus, to muster my objection. It left me with tears pooling under my eyes.
“I never meant to...” I choked on a sob. “I just wanted... I meant to...”
Help. Heal. Maybe even save her from that terrible loneliness. The thought might have been naïve, but where would it ever work if not in a dream? I hadn't meant to take anything from her. I was supposed to give.
“Thank you, Mister William,”she had said with that tired old smile. “That was very kind of you.”
I froze solid. Orchid's eyelids had fallen shut after that, but the look of content hadn't left.
My legs felt like jelly. I fell on my backside right where I had stood before. The scenery blurred again, shuffling, until something of stone pushed against my back.
By my side, I could see the faint outline of a dark grey stallion, his faint smile digging a few lines around his eyes. If I focused, I could remember the feeling of warmth that came when he put his leg around my shoulder, the faint blush that came to me as I let my cheek linger on his chest.
We had made promises here, in front of the plaza's fountain. It was the silliest thing, Harpoon told me every time, a fountain not a hundred lengths from the sea. But we had smiled together here all the same. We had sat by the calm, unmoving water, drinking the sight of us reflected within that small pool.
After a moment's hesitation, I took in the strange reflection.
The helmet was the first thing I threw aside with a jerk, freeing my flowing blood red mane. It felt a fierier sort than before, something waving from power rather than the cliché. I narrowed my eyes, who had changed to reflect a snake's. But, as I blinked, the red receded, only colouring my irises instead of the sclera. A soft gasp escaping me gave me a glimpse of flat teeth again. And yet, even then...
I could see why everypony had flinched.
Where there should have been curves, flattened fur or wild strands, there was only the smoothest plastic-like skin of a doll. What little imitated the shape felt painted on, but there could be no depth. My whole body jumped out from the rest of this dream, like a third dimensional shape in a flat world, a molded sculpture of clay next to a drawing. A crude, lifeless amateur work.
The less said of the feeling that crawled up my spine at the sight of my mouth dropping, of that artificial shape moving while knowing it was my fucking face... the better.
This is me, this is what I look like, a fucking pony ken doll.
“I don't have to take this.”
I could picture Harpoon so clearly. Orchid had drunk the sight of him at every occasion. Flutters had gone through her chest as they did now to me. She loved everything of him, from his looks, to his voice, the sight of his muscles rolling with every step... the swish of his tail, and what was hidden beneath.
Was it vain? Certainly. Was it unnecessary? In the grand scheme of things? Probably. But I wouldn't suffer looking like a monster. I wouldn't put up with that damned, plastic face any longer. I... I wasn't a monster, damn it!
“I promised.”
Cheeks burning up, I forced a glare toward that foolish image, and felt my face change.
~~
Within the hospital's walls suddenly rang a hollow laugh. Nurses and doctors alike paused and looked back in worry toward the source of the sound. The closest ponies felt the urge to run, as a primal fear sparked in their chests. The sound rang around them, surrounded them. Bitter, heavy, laced in a dark sentiment a thousand years old.
At the sight of the stormclouds simmering behind Luna's scowl, Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but clamp her wings against her side. For a moment, she had been reminded of another dark alicorn, one with slitted blue eyes, with a near identical growl built at the back of her throat. But the darkness was turned inward.
“The dreamon I met was but a trap. A lure!” The glare she sent the sleeping mare would have made a grown dragon cry. “He must have been bound to the dream in order to spread the influence and serve as a decoy for me. Now that he did his task, he is being cut off from the original prey he went after. The spawning nightmare must be ready to drain every pony still trapped, and the weaker one attempted to flee.”
A silence blanketed the air between the three princesses, as the growing gravity of this situation settled in.
“I must dive in once more,” Luna said, suddenly somber. “There is too little time left if there are multiple dreamons infecting our subject. I must wrestle control away from the greater dreamon at once, then destroy the lesser.”
“Luna, are you certain?” the Princess of the Sun asked, her gaze trailing over the bags under her sister's eyes and the locks of her dishevelled mane. Luna hated the feeling, like having open wounds prodded. “Is this the best course of action?”
“The theft of memories has begun, Celestia. That dreamon tried to manifest!” She pointed to Small Pond's sleeping form, and the smoke-like monster flashed back into their minds. “There is little time left. Her heart is ripe for the picking. She won't survive the day without our intervention! Those dreamons must be purged now! We must do it. We cannot delay any longer.”
There was hesitation in Twilight Sparkle's gaze. “What should we do?” she asked, and Luna gave pause.
She sensed the emphasis, the gentle reproach. One purple hoof carefully stepped on – never beyond – a line between them. Nothing had flowed outside the frame, nothing had yet escaped her control and authority.
“If it is trying to flee...” began Twilight. “Then...”
As her breath hitched, the Princess of Dreams realized that she did not want to hear it. That some part of her wished not to stop, could not stop. If she allowed a moment's rest, her body would likely collapse. Too many still counted on her and her powers to allow the possibility of failure.
Of misjudgement. Ponies counted on her.
“Princess Luna!” shouted a nurse barging into the room. At the startled looks she received, the nurse blushed a deep red and bowed. “Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight,” she added quickly. “You must hear this. The foals have awoken!”
“All but one have been saved!” The nurse shook, her expression a relieved smile. “We've already begun feeding them sweets and fruit juices to help replenish their strength.”
The princesses scampered, moving in a flurry of colours so fast the nurse struggled to catch up. At the head of the procession, galloping, was Luna, a lost look on her face. Conflicting emotions lit up her eyes, confusion and relief, and hope, a terrible, disquieting hope.
When she came upon the door the nurse pointed out, she opened it with a powerful swing, and the doctors and nurses all looked up with startled gasps or yells. The ones nearest to their rulers parted the way in; the rest returned to their charges as soon as they heard the various mumbles and moans of the foals in the beds.
The alicorns surveyed the victims. Was it really possible? thought Luna. After all these efforts, after struggling to release but half of them, they awakened without outside intervention?
She felt a movement behind her, and with a quick glance, realized that her sister was looking at the one filly in need of reassurance. Despite the doctor's best effort, tears rolled out on the child's cheeks.
“Report, immediately,” Luna commanded, and the soft green stallion was all too happy to oblige.
“The colt named Sea Salt has yet to awaken, but every other foal that had been admitted stopped dreaming on their own a few moments ago.” Clean Bill paused to offer his clipboard to his princesses. When their eyes fell on the paper, he pointed to a line on the report. “We've detected little ill-effects on any of them, besides the expected fatigue. We're already remedying to this with a balance of revitalizing spells and sweets to quickly replace the energy drained from them.”
The filly on the bed let out a loud sob, and the doctor's ears drooped down.
“It'll be okay, Lilypad,” he murmured with a gentle wipe of her tears. “It's over now.”
No, not yet. Luna tensed at his words. Already, her mind worked in overdrive to figure out the dreamon's play.
But little Lilypad shrunk underneath the covers, hiding her head. The words came after, trembling, ashamed and afraid. “He looked hungry. He... he...”
Immediately, the three princesses became as rigid as metal, and their countenances were as unyielding. An adult pony would – and indeed Clean Bill flinched – be scared, but the foal did not even realize. She was lost in the recollection of the frightening nightmare.
“He was scary.” She sobbed. “He had big fangs, and his eyes were... were...”
“Hush now, little pony.” Princess Celestia's magic ran through Lilypad's mane. “The dream is over. You are awake and the mean nightmare cannot hurt you anymore.”
Moments passed quietly as the filly held onto her princess in complete abandon. Her tears dried under the calming influence of Celestia's humming. After, Lilypad shuddered, but held herself with some confidence.
“Prince William wasn't mean.”
Princess Celestia's smile carefully remained intact. “What was he like?”
“Fun, and nice, and he took us on some slides and gave us ice cream and... and...” The filly scrunched up her muzzle, then aimed a look at the Princess of Dreams. “He said 'take them, Luna. Take them away from me.' That's when I woke up.”
Beneath her fur, Luna's face went pale as a corpse.
“This... This cannot be true.” Her own voice felt like cracking glass.
The foal said something. Luna knew from the way the little filly jumped over the covers and her lips moving. A protest of sort, at being called a liar so thoughtlessly.
Luna could not hear a word. She could not bring herself to even care about the look of concern that Twilight Sparkle wore.
She stared into the pavement. Bore a hole into it. Looked and looked beyond. “It must be an attempt to startle me.” Her voice seemed alien. Muffled. “It wants to crawl under my skin and strengthen its stranglehold on the dreamer.”
The insolent stallion must have been laughing himself into a stupor at the thought of her.
Her fury turned to fire, and, as Celestia – perfect, kind, trusting Celestia – came closer with an arched eyebrow, Luna's blood boiled.
“Dreamons are not kind! I know them. It has always been my duties and dreamons never were kind! They steal and break and devour! They are parasites, thieves, destroyers. I have fought thousands, bargained with few and none kept their words! It must be false, Tia!”
Two pure white hooves stopped on her shoulders and held her straight. “Luna, you are frightening the foals.”
It punched the air out of her lungs. Nurses and doctors were whispering and singing to the little ones, holding them in their forelegs, smiling despite the sweat rolling down the back of their necks. Luna's legs threatened to give out under her, vertigo pushing a dizzying weight on her.
The world had turned on its head. The dreamon had captured her and subjugated her. This was his tricks, his evils. Ponies looking to her, trembling, cowering. As if her coat was still of the blackest night. His evils, she whispered frantically.
Her eyes went to the nearest window, and an abject taste of ash and sweet wine filled her mouth. Bright blobs of orange and red fought over the horizon's skyline, but her sister's duty had not yet ended for today. The sun remained, as did its precious light.
“I...” Precious light, laughed a hidden part of her.“I... I only meant...”
“You meant nothing of it,” replied her sister, still firm, but with softer eyes. “You meant only good perhaps, but this is not the way to reach it. Look at yourself, little sister.”
Yes, look at yourself, Luna. Look. See the one reflected in those eyes full of fear. It is not her, nor is it the dreamon. This is not a dreamon's trick. You know how to identify a dream. The files had been laid before her. Every word had been clear, precise, ink over paper. They held the name of the filly, and the others, that cried at the sight of her raging screams.
Her evils, came the bitter thought. Her temper running afoul, her stubborn streak the size of Canterlot Castle. They looked at her, not at the shadow that haunted her own nightmares.
“Princess Luna!” screamed a doctor barrelling into the room.
Together, the alicorns turned, and the pony blushed beet red at the weight of each gaze upon his head. Yet, Luna noticed in passing, his focus did not divert toward her sister, as most ponies tended to do. His grimace was meant for her, and his falling heart as well.
This one would bring no news worth celebrating.
Moments later, they were gathered around a lone bed.
“I have failed.”
Luna said nothing more. 'I have failed,' simply, a statement of fact. And it settled on her traits then, a touch of ice. Of cold. Of darkness. The Princess of the Night seemed a sculpture of brittle steel then, her expression unreadable, her stare distant, her mouth a thin line.
She had no reaction to her sister's wing falling over her shoulders, nor to the compassionate words that came with it. They didn't reach her. Each one slid off her skin without even a trace. Both her eyes were affixed on the recently deceased. She carved every detail into her mind.
“They said she passed roughly around the time the foals woke up,” Twilight mentioned as they exchanged a look. The question laid beneath the word.
Luna sighed, momentarily wishing that this could be over. She would give her left ear for a decent night of sleep, guilt-free, duty-free. But she couldn't, and she looked back with a solid stance. “By draining a pony of their life, a dreamon achieves great power. But this one was...”
Feeble. She did not want to think the word, but it fell at the front of her mind all the same. The deceased's limbs stretched bone-thin, her cheeks almost caved in, and her paling fur unable to hide the wrinkle skin beneath. The ordeal had devoured what little the poor old mare might have before it finally claimed her.
“Who... who was she?” Luna heard Twilight Sparkle's solemn voice say.
The mare's file floated in the air, held by a cloud of golden magic. “Sea Orchid, born seventy-seven years ago.”
They turned toward the Sun Princess together, the same surprise in their eyes.
“Did you... know her, Princess?”
A sad smile appeared on Celestia's face as she shook her head. “I knew of her. She was the wife of Vice-Admiral Steel Harpoon.”
Luna's eyes darted downward as her lips moved at a furious pace. No word were formed, but her frustration grew more obvious as the wrinkle of her brown deepened. Surely, after all this time since her return, the name would ring a bell in her head, at the very least! A vice-admiral!
She startled when her elder sister placed a hoof on her shoulder. “He died a few years before your return. I believe the reports mentioned he had begun suffering some form of dementia. He passed away at sea, and her name hadn't been mentioned to me since the funerals.”
“Surely...” Luna heard herself protest. “There must have been...”
“It was a small event,” were all the words the Princess of Day would say on the matter.
She moved a little closer to the deceased Orchid, and gently placed the blanket over the frail frame of the body. She did so slowly, without her magic. Neither her sister or her student could tell what thought reflected deep in her eyes. The quirk of her lips upward made a smile, but one tainted by melancholy, and longing.
“The sea orchid blooms only in the richest waters of the corral reefs, near Griff Port. It can only thrive surrounded by life.” A spark of amusement made her smile truer, as Celestia glanced back to Twilight. “It is sometimes called the flower of friendship. Did you know this, my faithful student?”
The purple mare shook her head slowly. “I hadn't come across this fact yet, Princess.” She bit her lips. “But... I'm not sure I understand—”
“Why are you telling us this, sister?” Luna cut in, her brows furrowed. Unlike her younger fellow, she did have an inkling of what brought that lesson about. “It was her name, we know.”
“She was an old mare,” the Eternal Ruler of Equestria said. “She had no foals, no family left.”
“Speak plainly.”
“She must have felt quite lonely, for all these years...”
Outrage burned in her veins, the reserves of her well of mana swelling suddenly as clouds nearby rumbled. “We cannot let it go unanswered, sister!”
“We won't,” the Princess of the Day replied with a hint of a frown, “but we must consider how to protect our living subjects before thinking of avenging the fallen ones.”
Anger flashed deep in Luna's gaze. “Is this so, sister?” she asked, her voice frosty.
“You will receive no gratitude from the dead.” This time, Celestia did not meet her eyes, nor those of Twilight. “We must first focus our efforts on the living. Luna, it is all I can ask of you.”
Luna found herself fighting her heart for the dying embers of her fury. She grasped at them, trying to hold them still, to cradle them to her chest and lean on them. Without that sudden pumping of adrenaline in her veins, it was impossible not to see the shadows on Celestia's face.
“C-can we?” Twilight cut in with a thought toward the crying Lilypad. “Do we have the means to protect them? Princess Luna was saying the lesser one gave her...” -- she glanced back to the fuming dark alicorn -- “...troubles. And if her deduction is right, there is another, even stronger.”
“We know a few things, my faithful student.” The Princess of the Day straightened, hints of weakness gone. “We know that one of the dreamons, if there are indeed more than one, drained Sea Orchid of the last of her life. This power, however, was insufficient to break Luna's quarantine seal. More or less simultaneously, most of the foals have been thrown out of the dream realm. One of them witnessed him giving them back to you, sister, apparently before he succumbed to his instinct.”
Twilight Sparkle glanced between both her elders. “This sounds... premeditated.”
The Princess of the Day hummed in agreement, to her sister's irritation. She could see the idea worm itself into the Princess of Magic's mind, and to her dismay, Luna felt a little voice at the back of her head whispering the same words. Where was her determination? Where was her promise to fight till the bitter end?
What would Fickle Heart say?
Biting her lips, Twilight turned to her, voice trembling. “Princess Luna, I know this is not my place, but... could he be reasoned with? If he let some foal see that he was hungry, but would fight it,could it be him trying to broker a truce with you?”
Twilight Sparkle looked at her with a strange hope in her gaze. Luna felt tempted to glance back at her sister, see what she thought of the idealism and naivety of her protégée. But of course, she dared not. Celestia had likely engrained the belief of fundamental good in the Princess of Friendship. Second chances, given out as if they were confections and treats.
And of course, this whole conversation had begun following Celestia's lead. Her perfect sister's mysterious plans, her all-knowing words, her discreet push in the right direction.
A glimpse of purple light seemed to reflect in the corner of Twilight Sparkle's eye, from the crown on her head. The Element of Magic. Friendship.
Like a crown of flowers, offered freely despite screams of eternal night hours before.
The aloof feeling she had nurtured cracked.
“They...” the words ground to a halt in her throat. How many dreamons had she faced in her time? Since her return alone? A few dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred, though none quite as powerful.
No, that wasn't the right word for such a creature. This dreamon wasn't more powerful. Truth be told, he seemed only middling in strength. But his reactions... his thoughts...
She saw him fallen in the sand, behind the enthralled foals. Pathetic, afraid. Pleading. A misunderstanding. He'd claim there was more to it than she knew. She remembered his eyes widening at the foals now. He hadn't known they would step in.
He hadn't known. It hadn't been malice.
Could it be? Truly?
“Princess Luna?”
“I... I do not know, Twilight Sparkle,” she admitted, and it was akin to leaving a festering wound open to cold air and dust. How much remained unseen by her bullheadedness?
Most of the foals freed. The false alicorn must have been the one. Of the two, he had to be the pawn. Hay, between her first and her second attempt, he had lost most cockiness.
If he had found the ploy, and realized his role...
It could be an attempt to appease her. It had shot itself in the hoof with its initial arrogance, but realized its mistake. He. Him. She would bet that if the creature had a gender, it would indeed be a 'he'. There was something almost boyish to the false alicorn's behaviour.
And something terribly not.
“He fed off one of our subject, enough that she passed away.”
Her sister's voice replied, with too neutral a tone to be real, “But if there are more than one dreamon, are we certain that this was the stallion's, this 'Prince William's', doing?”
She didn't have an answer. Dreamons were not kind. Dreamons ate and took and tormented as they pleased until they died – by her hooves most of the time. The flash of fear Twilight Sparkle claimed to have been witnessed to should signify the presence of a greater beast than the one she encountered. It could not have been anything else.
By her own logic, Luna was forced to acknowledge her sister's point. Assumptions had not allowed to seize victory yet. Rather the opposite, in fact. If there existed a chance that the lesser dreamon cooperated with her in exchange for his life, then perhaps, perhaps it would be their best hope to free the last few victims.
“Have you decided, Luna?” asked Princess Celestia, a note of concern etched on her face. “Twilight and I will bow to your decision in the end. This is your domain, and your area of expertise.”
Luna had learned a long time ago to read her sister's poker face. For a princess, for any ruler, the ability to twist the truth into a greater purpose was as vital a skill as any. Her sister's perfect reputation was one such lie, but her words just now hadn't been. And Twilight Sparkle looked back at her with eyes full of uncertainty, but she saw no defiance in their depth, only deference.
Despite the previous failures and the call for help. Her choice. Her responsibility. All she ever wanted and all she ever feared. For a second, Luna could have laughed. What little remained of her frazzled nerves hardened. They would overthrow at least one dreamon in the coming hours, the lesser one capable of pushing her back.
Luna glanced at the unmoving body. The wrinkled face showed naught but a last sense of contentment. Her mouth had taken the shape of a small smile in her last moments. A twitch of envy and regret pinched at her chest before she squashed it.
“Aye. I have decided, and I will require your help,” Luna replied without looking away from the dead mare.
Justice would prevail.
~~
The difference freaked me out.
I could see it. On my legs, the strands of fur, the individuals that formed a slightly wavy ebony black coat. Still, I remembered distinctively the chubby, almost blob-like limbs that I had had before.
Had my legs changed or had my sight? Both?
Had Horseshoe Bay always looked like an actual village instead of a weird cardboard cut-out of a vacation paradise? Something that could be lived in, rather than the postal card that it had felt like before? Not an image, but a place.
I shuddered as my nostrils tickled. The scents of sea salt and fish had grown exponentially. Every time I blinked, a small part of me expected to see a fish shoved into my face, for such a strong scent could not have been the simple lingering perfume of this town. Not... not when I had been here for some time now.
Years.
It felt as though I ought to know this little town inside out. The ponies I could likely call by name from sight alone. But, I realized as I caught a glimpse of a mare walking down the street in a daze, not everypony. The colours of her coat and mane brought a faint feeling of recognition to the back of my mind. Hadn't I already seen that mare here before?
“Hel-” I started to say, only to stop in shock.
Being calmer than before, the strange sensation that hit the inside of my mouth popped at the front of my mind like firework. What shape was my tongue even in now? What was a pony's tongue like?
I brought a hoof to my mouth, pressed it against my lips. The touch itself felt gentle, the tip of my hoof surprisingly squishy. Before... before it had always seemed to have been hard as a real horse's.
A hoof's touch could be surprisingly gentle... tender...
“Shhh,” said the dark stallion with a small smile. “Don't worry, Orchid. We'll work things out.”
I shuddered and shook my head, hoping to chase off the phantom sensation on the back of my neck. Focus, William.
I waved a hoof at the intruder. “Hello.”
“I was supposed to be doing something...” the mare stated with frantic looks to her surroundings. It was hard to tell if she even noticed me. “I had something to do.”
My eyes focused on the small bead of sweat curling at the edge of her brows. She looked too single-minded to care. Every inch of her body tense, it seemed as if she would pounce if she ever remembered. Something to do...
About what, I had an inkling.
“When did you come back from work?” I asked in an even tone.
She looked back, her brows furrowed, a pause in her steps. The way her mouth first opened and closed gave me hope that I had startled her out of her obsessive thoughts. “S-some... time ago.”
Yes, she had to be one. Well, time to use one of my own tricks.
“Do you remember closing the door when you left the house? Did you lock it?” I pressed on, watching for signs as her eyes darted up and left. Imagination, gotcha! “Was your house red?”
Startled, the mare nodded too quickly. “Of course,” came the words, with so little weight to them.
“I thought you said it was green?”
Her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes darted right and left as she seemed to pull into herself, her muscles about to spring like coils. Breaths came out of her mouth is rapid succession, confusion and panic settling in.
“No, no, it... it doesn't matter,” she hissed, “I wasn't. I hadn't left work or home. Neither. Both are wrong. Wrong. Wrong!” She clung to the word with renewed hope.
It was amazing that I hadn't noticed before. Even if I hadn't understood back then, this could not have been a dream npc. Not a mindless goal, not an automation, something programmed, but a spark in her gaze. A drive, and a desperation.
I closed in the distance between us. "You have a purpose, right?"
The mare jumped at least three feet in the air, and lingered there for another five seconds, to the clock. With a loud bump and a cloud of dust, she fell back, and looked at me, her eyes wide.
A muffled squeak passed through her mouth, and her tail twitched violently. I saw her eyes fly to my horn, then my wings. She had more awareness than most, it seemed. The moment I took a step closer, she scampered back.
I knew it. "Was the purpose to save ponies from me?" I asked with an even voice.
The mare froze stiff. "W-what? I... I don't..."
She was trying to look as discreetly as possible for an escape route. For a second, I worried that she might just vanish and reappear somewhere else. That couldn't happen.
"You do,” I said with a firm nod. "You have a purpose and you asked me what it could be, before."
The echo of my words died down on their own, slowly drowned out by the singing of the rainbow whales flying overhead. The haunting melody, so pure it should drive away the slightest hint of darkness, only felt like a cage that imprisoned us both. We couldn't move if we had wanted, and the mare heaved.
"It's you," she replied in a faint voice. "You're the reason Miss Pond wouldn't wake up. I..."
So, it is her. That would explain a lot.
Keeping my expression as neutral as possible, I gestured to the purple sky and the green sun. “Why are you here, Miss?”
Suspicion lowered her brows, and the muscles in her legs tensed. She seemed ready to bolt at a moment's notice.
But what I noticed then wasn't the fight still in her, it was the trembles in her. A blackish purple had carved crescents under her eyes. "I was supposed to keep watch over her during the night shift. I... I fell asleep during my break." She broke out a sniffle, unable to take it any longer. “I failed. I left my patient without supervision.”
And I could see the guilt worm itself deeper under her skin, weighing on her head, on her ears.
Well, I couldn't let that stand, now, could I?
“Don't worry,” I whispered, a wing around her shoulders. “I'm sure somepony tried to wake you up. Nopony else could awaken anyway.”
Her muzzle wrinkled, a small frown on her face. “Why are you saying that? You're... I know it's you.”
I took that hit less gracefully than I would have liked, my heart skipping a beat with fear and guilt. My reassuring expression faltered before I reigned those feelings in. Not the time.
“If it were up to me, this wouldn't have happened at all,” I said without room for discussion. “I swear it. This is as much my nightmare as yours. You don't need to be afraid. Nopony's gonna blame you. They'll be too glad to have you back.”
Her eyes went wide with the realization, and her hoof jerked in my grip.
I grinned in earnest. “You heard me right.”
“Thanks...” she whispered, sagging against me, drained of what little fight she had left.
The first thought that came to mind was about how vulnerable she looked. Almost broken, defenceless. And with that train, a familiar itch ran across the curves of my wings.
I gulped.
“You might want to wake up now.”
As the words rippled through the air, her form shivered and flickered. She evaporated, like morning dew under the sun. I took a moment to stare at the empty spot, wet spots under my eyes, then curled on myself to rub my aching stomach.
~~
On her bed, surrounded by worried family members, Nurse Band Aid jolted herself awake with a cry of shock.
~~
"Who are you?!"
"I'm Sea Salt." The stallion’s ears flattened on the sides of his head."Prince William helped me a bit so I would show you I can be a good cook."
Small Fry didn't know what to say to that. The Sea Salt he knew was a colt not taller than his barrel. The stallion in front of him... bore a resemblance. He could admit that.
An emotion not unlike shame pinched the back of his conscience at the thought of the colt. He hadn’t meant to be harsh, only imprint the importance of his warning.
Yet, that much Small Fry pushed aside, in favor of a far more pressing worry.
Who the buck is Prince William?
But he needed not answering to that question. His mind had jumped to the obvious conclusion, and his teeth grounded together so tightly he felt shock at the lack of pain.
That monster. It had to be the monster that trapped his little sister in an endless dream.
Small Fry rammed into the door of his own restaurant, into the streets that lacked the telltale scent of salty water and fish, into a simile of his hometown with pure rage etched onto his traits.
Where?!
He had been given a mission, one he had gladly accepted. How much time had been lost because he had stayed behind in his restaurant, cooking for elites, celebrities and royalty that didn’t exist?!
He was supposed to look for his little sister.
“A strong shock might be enough to startle your sister out of the dream fog that clouds everypony’s action.” He remembered the princess telling him. “As her brother, I expect you to be qualified for this. If she becomes lucid, she may resist the dreamon longer. It might give me an edge against our enemy. She has power here too.”
And he had been wasting time cooking fine meals. Small Fry already knew he wouldn’t forgive himself for this blunder. He could only hope he hadn’t been too late.
Horseshoe Bay zipped past him. His heart told him to look elsewhere. Memories of a little filly staring at the waves pulled at his heartstrings. She would be there. And his running came to an abrupt stop when he realized that he had been right.
He could see Small Pond, aware, standing instead of lying in that damned hospital bed. She was there.
On the docks. Between two boats rocked to the rhythm of the waves stood a mare with a coat just like his. His sister’s fishing boat was tied to the dock, but her gaze lingered over the taller of the two, over the Equestrian flag tied to the highest mast. She mouthed words he could not hear at this distance.
One of her hoof nearly grazed the galleon’s sides.
The sound of a sailor shouting brought him out of his daze. "Sis!" he called at the top of his lungs.
Pure shock carved itself on her face, and something else beneath it all. Small Fry didn't give it a thought, closing the distance with wide strides over the sandy road. She was there! He’d finally found her!
My limbs, my head, my guts. All of me. Something growing closer to pain, but not quite there. The need pressed at the back of my mind, filling my ears with whispers.
Parts of me looked to the ocean, and wished its waves were greater, their splashes grander. Sound to wash away sound. But the bay remained stubbornly calm, as peaceful as the moment I first saw it.
I trotted faster. This was near the place. A rocky formation I remembered loomed over the beach in the distance. In other circumstances, I might have worried I wouldn't reach it before...
My stomach growled, the noise so distorted, so deep, I felt a tinge of cold fear rolling on my spine.
There had been so little life left in Sea Orchid. I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to cry. It hadn't lasted me long. Tiny sparks of anger brazed in my chest if I thought about it. Death, for so little? Wasn't that a big fat joke?!
“I love you, Orchid.”
She had been loved, damn it! She had had a stallion to share her every thought, her every desire. She had been someone! Not just an automation! Someone!
Every other step, my ears ticked at the phantom sound of metal clicking against another. I wasn't wearing that armour, but I could still feel it sticking to my fur. A monstrous thing had lodged in my heart, confident in its coming time.
Then echoed a feminine scream, and I shook off the pangs of hunger. Before my eyes, Small Pond materialized, in full gallop, face marred by streaks of tears and mane dishevelled. Hot on her steps, a royal blue creature roared, raising two pincers the size of doors in the air. It was close. Close enough to snap at the tip of Pond's tail and cut off a handful of hair.
“Prince William!” she cried, her face suddenly lit up with such shine. “Please, help me!”
I took in the familiar scene, theso familiar scene, and scoffed.
“No.”
Small Pond's eyes widened to a truly comical extent, near bulging out of her skull. Her mouth fully opened to speak, she quickly closed it again. And there, her hooves tangled together, bumping on the sand. Small Pond splayed across the grains on the beach with a cry of horrified shock. Behind her, the shellfish monster shot forward, its pincers gleaming under the sun.
A bolt of crimson lightning sent it scampering back a respectable distance.
“You,” I growled at the snarling lobster, “quiet.”
Its beady eyes seemed to darken then, its pincers closer and bigger than before. They clicked, as if baiting my neck to be placed within their tender care. And truly, I wished I could have cared.
My voice strained from the thunderous eruptions I reigned in. “You know how many of your siblings I killed in horrible ways. Save yourself a good deal of agony and be quiet for a little bit.”
The pincers stilled. A rumbling growl rising from its guts, the creature shrunk back. Weariness sparked in its eyes, and its gaze shifted between Small Pond and me. Its mandibles clicked quickly.
Small Pond hung closer to me.
“Prince William,” she whispered, looking at me as if for the first time. The sense of familiarity had gone from her eyes. Dread and worry shone on her face. “Please...”
This wasn't like me. I could tell, she was thinking it. Prince William was a nice and boastful stallion that saved the damsels and dudes in distress without a second thought. Hell, for a moment, even the strong resolve I drew upon faltered. Was this influenced by my newfound hunger? Or was it the strings in the dark my mind insisted upon seeing?
But no, on this, I refused to hesitate any longer. Here and now, I knew right and wrongs, and I had the decency not to lie about them any longer.
“I always seem to find you here, Small Pond,” I said, pretending not to hear her gasp.
Because... because this was where I drew the line in the sand. How many times had we done this before? Thinking back, I couldn't even be sure. It had become a habit, something far from noteworthy, and now the thought brought me a special kind of shame.
I hadn't helped Small Pond at all.
With a growl, I rounded on her, wings flared. “Why aren't you crushing that lobster into the ground? You've seen me do it.”
She looked at me as if I still resembled a mannequin, and a somber feeling clawed at my insides. At the tip of my horn, magic sparked and sizzled.
“I... I can't...” she sobbed.
A sort of madness seized control of my senses, and our surroundings blurred.
“You can!” I jumped forth to grab the sides of her face. “You absolutely can! You're dreaming, Small Pond! Do you hear me?! You're dreaming! What does one tell a foal when they wake up from a bad nightmare?!”
Small Pond's face was white under her fur. Her eyes were jumping, darting over every inch of me in search of the old William. The one she could cower behind and safely ask to destroy her fear. She paled further, when she found no sign of him. Lives were at stakes, hers included. I couldn't afford to play nice anymore.
“Tell me!”
Her muscles went slack, and she would have fallen if not for my grip. “You say... it can't hurt them...” Each word, bitten out through tears. “It's not real.”
“Then why?!” I pointed a black hoof at the giant lobster. “Why do they scare you so damn much? You fish them every day!”
Small Pond froze. Not for the harshness of my tone nor the anger rumbling in my chest, but the root of it in my words. I'd said the wrong thing, and my brain went into overdrive trying to figure out which part it had been. She fishes them everyday?
In the corner of my eyes, I caught a sudden glimpse of royal blue. Startled, I barely add time to conjure a barrier before two razor sharp pincers struck them with a resounding crackle of thunder. Heat pumping in my veins, I stared at the sharp tips inches from my cornea. In my hooves, Small Pond remained as unmoving as a statue. I wouldn't get anything of her.
“From Hell's heart,” I growled while a ragged lance materialized in my hoof, “I stab at thee!”
The lobster, in all its berserk rage, didn't see me coming.
The barrier went down.
Guts and blood rained over my body. I did not flinch.
The lance slipped out of the carcass, fell onto the sand, disappeared. So did the corpse.
Only the shallower breaths I gulped in could indicate this even happened. Or, perhaps, that was the pressure of fear pushing me farther than I should go. It boiled inside me. Begging to be let out. Granny was dead, and I had been dying before that. Luna was right, everything she said, about the dreamers and me. It was kill or be killed in this realm, and I was covered in blood.
“I am a dreamon.”
Small Pond's gaze broke away from the spot the lobster's corpse had been in.
“W-what?”
A strange smile showed on my face, and I chuckled under my breath. “I'm a dreamon. A pony-eating monster that lives inside dreams. I don't know how or why it happened, but that's what I am now.”
She tried to form words, her mouth moving silently. Her hoof raised, as if to ask a question.
“I... I don't understand...”
Neither did I, for that matter, but the words were spilling out of me like blood from an open wound. “Granny Orchid is gone. It's my fault. I didn't mean to, but I did it. She vanished, right in front of my eyes. Because of a kiss.”
“Granny Orchid?” she repeated, her ears drooped to the side.
“Yup. She's gone.” I pushed forward, despite the itch at the tip of my muzzle and the sting in my eyes. “A... a kiss... and she thanked me, damn it! She said I was kind!”
Small Pond stared down at her hooves. I could not see her face anymore, hidden by the falling strands of her mane. What did she think of me?
“You're in a dream, Small Pond, your own dream, and you're in danger because I could eat you. You need to wake up before it happens.”
“It's... I don't believe you.” She shook her head, hard enough her fringe flew to the side. “Prince William, I'm not afraid. You are kind. You said you wouldn't help but you did.”
I bit back a scream of frustration. A stinging feeling erupted in my bottom lips, where I had bitten with sharper than equine teeth. Her trust in me was the very reason I hadn't wanted to help her. She had just been the damsel to my shining heroic knight, and who would believe the paragon to be a dangerous monster?
At the back of my mind resonated a raspy chuckle. It'd be easier, said a voice like the String-Man's. And with a shudder, I clamped my wings against my midsection. No.
It would have to be the hard way, I decided then. My stomach growled louder in protest, but I gathered what little of my determination I could. Like the others. I only had to will it.
I was working up the nerves and the guts to try, when my breath stilled in my lungs and a sudden heat flared up around my heart. No. The word had come and hammered down into my will from the purest, most basic instinct I had. NO. Others had been fine, but I shouldn't force Small Pond out. I shouldn't even think about it.
Separating a person from their dreams was a bad idea.
It wasn't this simple. Not if I wished for her to still be herself on the way out. And, with a flicker of warmth near my heart, I realized that I wished her to be nothing else than Small Pond. Fishermare, her own pony.
Said mare was gazing at me with a slight frown, hesitant, biting her lip.
So, she was bullheaded, but caring. What a coincidence. So was I.
“You were lying,” I said, stern. “You are afraid. This whole place is proof that you are afraid. I just killed a lobster that scared you out of your wits.”
“I...” She tensed, her frown turning into a scowl. “I am not afraid.”
“Tell me.” It wasn't an order this time. Maybe a demand, or a plea. “What are you afraid of?”
She shook her head. “I'm not. There's nothing to fear in Horseshoe Bay! I'm happy where I am!”
My heart skipped a beat. Gotcha! “Nothing to fear except the shellfishes. Why are you scared of them? What makes them so scary? What are they?”
Her eyes searched for an exit.
Sand rose into walls around her. The only way out was through me.
She looked like she'd rather die than try. She backed slowly, until her tail touched the sand and there was nowhere to run.
Her teeth sunk in her bottom lips, so hard I winced. A trail of blood dripped off her chin.
The sight of it made my heartbeat faster, unease spread to the tip of my wings. “No... nopony will know. Just tell me, acknowledge it. You're afraid of those shellfishes for a reason, a better one than just them being big in this dream. What are they?”
“No!” Tears fell into the sand and mixed with the pooling red. “Don't make me say it! It's wrong!”
“WRONG IS YOU DYING, POND!” I shouted, screamed, hollered, so loud my throat felt raw, because I couldn't, I couldn't let it happen! I wouldn't watch her blink out of existence, never to wake up again. Granny... Granny alone had been too much! “WHY WON'T YOU SAY IT?!”
Before my eyes, I saw the trails of tears in her fur darken. They spread over her, mingling over her frame, through her body. Her legs shook, and her back began to cave. Each 'no' she frantically whispered added to the weight on her limbs. The trails took on a solid shape, like chains of a deep purple iron, and from each link in the chains oozed a sickening fear.
The sensation struck me straight at the heart, and my stomach lurched. It felt like the String-Man was holding me. It felt as if I would die from the fright.
In my veins came rushing a stream of fire. Stomping, I bent the dream to my will. “WHAT IS THIS?!”
Air turned into flesh, glistening red under the sun and the moon. It shifted and twisted and hardened, suddenly a creature under a carapace, six-legged, looming above us both.
The crab's pincers grabbed Pond at the throat.
“WHAT IS IT?!”
I watched, my heartbeat hammering in my ears, the faint glaze over her eyes dimming. Her mouth moved, without a sound. Small Pond's chains splintered, and she fell to the ground, free from her restraint and the summoned crab's grip.
It hissed, shaking on all six legs, before its shell burst open in another shower of gore. There was no time to shield myself from it. A splatter of blood hit me straight in the face, blinding me in one eye.
“Damn it,” I swore, one hoof rubbing my face.
When I could see again, all of my anger felt blown away by the sight in front of me. I had yet to meet the stallion fading in the air, but one glance at Small Pond, and I knew. The resemblance was just too strong.
My voice felt strange to my own two ears. “Your brother? Small Fry, right?”
Small Pond laughed, sobbed and nodded.
Could it be? Truly? “I haven't metyou inside the town, have I?”
Always on the outskirt. Always on the beach, fleeing for her life from a shellfish. The only time she hadn't been, she had led me to Horseshoe Bay, then disappeared.
It felt like a puzzle piece falling into place. And now, I realized that there had been others.
"You never went to Canterlot, did you? Not there, nor any of the other places. When we spoke about sensations and things only ponies would experience, I heard your voice. When you were a kid. You wanted to see Canterlot. Have you ever actually left Horseshoe Bay?"
My question startled her. Too much. Small Pond made a visible effort to gather herself, to protect her heart laid bare.
“I'm a fisherpony, one of the best,” she said with a quiet confidence. “Of course I leave town with my boat.”
Parts of me wanted to smile at the way she held herself. At her pride. But I couldn't bear to, not with the words at the tip of my tongue. The facade was so fragile a breeze would break it.
“But you always land back here.”
Her tail violently flicked to the side. She looked back to me with wide eyes. “I... you...”
Softly, I lifted her chin, feeling as if she would break like fine china. “Am I wrong?”
“I want out! Can you understand that?!” she screamed. Every inch of her broke out with unrestrained frustration, and she shoved me away with surprising strength. “I suffocate every breath I take in this damnable town! My cutie mark is a mobious salmon! It's the largest fish in the celestial sea, and it goes crazy in shallow water! Doesn't that tell ponies something about me?! Isn't there one pony that see that?”
One pony. Anypony at all. But really, what she meant was for one particular pony to see it.
“Your brother doesn't,” I breathed out in a whisper.
Small Pond plastered a bitter smile on her face, and looked me dead in the eyes. “He's just so bucking happy here! It's his dream, opening the first gourmet restaurant in our little village. And I'm glad for him. It's amazing that he actually did it! But he needs fresh product often, the best one can find.” Her expression fell. “He... he needed, no, needs me.”
Water droplets splashed against the side of my face. Seafoam glided over the beach, far enough to reach our hooves, and leave muddied sand. Like lost souls, seashells followed the height of the waves, and disappeared into the blue.
“So that's it. The monsters. They keep you from the sea. And you can't attack them, because deep down, you know they are your brother. You can't bring yourself to stop coming here or fight for your own dream.”
Small Pond buried her face on my shoulder, and I felt it become damp.
“Please don't tell Fry,” she whispered. “He can't find out.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Why would I tell him? I never even met the guy.”
From the look on her face, Small Pond wanted to melt into words of gratitude and shame. But she never had the time to.
“No need,” said a stranger's voice behind us, “I'm here and I heard.”
In a distant part of my mind, I recognized this from my own nightmares. This was the masochistic part of someone's brain that wanted the realization to sink in. The part that turned despite screams not to. I saw it reflected in Small Pond's eyes.
He was here.
Her brother. The real one, not an afterimage hidden in her fear.
My first instinct was to close my wing over Small Pond and bring her against my shoulder. I heard her breathing, so fast, so shallow, her mind in the full throes of panic. This was her worst nightmare, in a way that couldn't have been more accurate if I had tried to engineer it.
Small Fry was glaring at me, but I could feel the hurt radiating from behind his mask. His sister had confided her worst fears to a stranger. She'd hidden it from him, and she burned from the shame.
If there had ever been any time for me to meddle, it was now.
Yet I couldn't speak. Her fur had started to glitter. Gold specks tingled at the end of strands of her pale fur, weakly at first, then with a radiance that seemed to push darkness away. My chest tightened at the want that suddenly seized me.
A trail of drool dripped from the forked ends of my lolling tongue. Alarms should have rung inside my head, but a fog had fallen on my mind. I was leaning over Small Pond, clicking the fangs I suddenly had.
Dreamon.
The air around us shifted.
And my breathing suddenly seemed to slow down, heavy. The hunger, pushed back. Once, I heard a pulse, blood pumped into my veins, a part of me waiting for the next beat. Small Pond and Small Fry stood still before me, unblinking. Despite myself, I found my head turning left, an instinct speaking to me with a startling clarity.
The heartbeat that was to come never did. Mind-numbing fear swept it away.
My limbs refused to move. All I could take notice of was the water exploding as a dark green shape burst through. I did not understand. Rows upon rows of curved fangs came toward us all, so wide they could sink into half the beach itself. Screams rang inside my head, screeches and shrieks for flight. Burning heat filled my legs and wings.
But the shadow already loomed over me. I'd never make it. The jaws spread so far apart they scratched the sky. That's how it ends, huh?
“Prince William!” I heard a shout, and felt my insides jumbled.
My hooves skittered on the sand, vainly grasping for a hold. The sea and the land felt like blurs on both sides of me, and in front, I saw only a shape in the form of a mare shrinking. Above her, fangs attached to a scaly mouth.
It slammed down into the ground with enough force to send a house flying. I barely even felt it, but I thought I would double over when I realized what had happened.
She pushed me.Small Pond wished me away from that.
Dust settled down, the shadow within becoming visible to me, to the stallion I noticed at my sides. Under the suddenly cloudy sky, only hints of its scales were visible.
The reptilian head slunk away beneath the water. Just like that, Small Pond was gone.
“Sis!” roared Small Fry as he charged the waves. “Pond!” He coughed out a mouthful of water. “Pond, I'm coming!”
Then, a stronger wave lifted him off his hooves. I stared without a word as he crashed down on his back, legs in the air. It didn't seem to even slow him down. Small Fry rammed into the next wave and pushed through. His cries of rage kept coming.
He was struggling, spitting seawater with every other breath, twisting and turning to catch a glimpse of the monstrous creature that had taken his little sister. His screams of anguish broke. He kept calling for her, but his body failed him. Racked with sobs, the stallion could only whisper words I was too far to hear.
Silence fell, and shattered again with a heartbreaking cry of rage.
I... couldn't move.
When Small Fry's voice died out, he dove beneath the sea.
Why wasn't I doing the same? Where was my courage? Where was all that bravado about princesses and damsels and monsters to exterminate with a broadsword? Small Pond had willed me away from the monster's jaws! And I couldn't even help her brother look for her! Move, I told my shaking legs. Move, you fucking hooves! I fucking ate the String-Man, I can get a fucking grip and move now!
“You wish to save her,” rang a strong, crystal-like voice.
I whirled around, an adrenaline spike in my blood. That voice was known to me, and I could only lament my terrible luck that she came now of all times.
With an elegant flap of her dark wings, Princess Luna landed two ponies lengths away from me. Despite the lack of thunderstorms, blades or bolts of magic, I dared not yet relax in her presence.
I was the kind of monster she hunted after all.
“Fear not.” She seemed calm, with none of the storm ready to bring me down, and it was then that I understood she had not meant her previous comment as a question. “If I had wished you destroyed, I would not have announced my presence this time.”
“P-Princess Luna...” The words failed me. What had it been? Why... why had Small Pond saved me? “I don't get it.”
“She saved you.” Luna's brows furrowed together, and I felt a sliver of ice grip at the back of my neck. “She saved you like the foals did. The dreamers like you, dreamon.”
“I care for them. The... the hunger I feel...” My hoof stomped the sand. “It's not right. I don't get why, but I've never been this,” – quickly, I gestured to my whole body – “I've never wanted anyone to be hurt.”
“We shall see.” Her words grated against my skin, harsher than before. “My sister is artificially extending our subject's life, but it is only a temporary solution. For now, we must put all differences aside and quickly come together to exterminate the spawning nightmare.”
Wary, I looked Luna up and down in search of a hint. “That thing...? What does it spawn?”
Luna's sky blue eyes bore circles of ice into my flesh. I found no pity in them, nothing at all that spoke of mercy or even compassion. There, the naked truth stared back. “You. I would think.”
My mind went blank.
Taking deep breaths, the princess turned her head, her forbearance strained. “I can tell now. You are not the one anchored to the dream. Your presence is too fickle. You are not rooted in my subject's fear.”
Horror made my mouth dry. “I... I don't understand what you're saying. It brought me here?”
As my words reached her, Princess Luna startled. Her surprise was plain on her features as she looked at me, her voice, breathless. “Did you not realize at all...?”
“I said I wasn't a dreamon before! And if I can believe I am one now, it doesn't change the fact that I wasn't born like this!”
“Nopony ever is.”
Her words were as a chime ringing. They stole my breath from me. Stole my thoughts. Stole the warmth and the memories. I couldn't have spoken if I had wanted. And this, like so many other things, was taken from me.
Hell broke loose with the ear-splitting sonic boom of thunder.
Beneath my hooves, the sand slid in cascades toward the raging sea. Waves ten meters high crashed against each other, and the green sky had so darkened it had become a void of pitch black.
At once, the sea receded. Fled as if afraid of the two alicorns before it. Drew back, further until the beach stretched near the horizon.
“Brace yourself!” Princess Luna shouted.
Her words made something click in my head. Oh fuck, I thought as my legs turned to jelly.
On the horizon, the sky had turned a strange, dark shade a blue. The exact same as that of the sea, moments ago. And it was rushing toward us.
I believed my fear total, my horror unequalled, until my ears ticked at a noise beneath the thunderous rumbling.
A whinny. An inelegant, awkward cry, that came from a spike of fear. High-pitched, it drilled into my eardrums, and I cast frantic looks to our surroundings. It had reminded me of the colt that had kept too quiet in shame of his cutie mark, but now was faced with the fury of the sea.
Why was he here?! I asked myself in panic. Why was Sea Salt still here?!
He would not drown. I had the intimate conviction of that fact. No one would drown inside the dream. And yet, I pushed harder forward. Sea Salt's outward appearance hid his true age well enough, but I couldn't forget.
And no foal deserved to be subject to the fear of drowning. Nightmare or not.
“Sea Salt!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “Where are you?”
“Prince William!” he called again, and I whipped my head around. The cream coloured stallion was running up the hills of sand, past sliding, broken huts and ships. “Help!”
Above him, the wave seemed to close down as the mouth of a monster.
“No.”
Simple the word, strong the meaning. In that one sound, I poured the whole of my will. I refused. I rejected the waves and the sea and the cruelty of the nightmare. It would not happen again!
Fire lit up within my horn, and spread outward with a flash. Red sizzled over the surface of the tidal wave, the water frozen on its rearing howl. My knees buckled under the weight that crashed atop of me, yet my stare burned into the ascent of the unruly wave.
You are not taking him! You won't be taking anyone else, you hear me?! Never!
The stallion-colt shot me one wide-eyed look. It was all it took for the words to spill out of my mouth and resonate with the dream itself.
“Wake up!”
Hunger clamped down on my midsection hard. So strongly I blinked stars out of my sight. So viciously I heard an onslaught of angry whispers, and a rumble from the pit of my stomach.
The power of my will faltered. The dizzying nausea seized me at the throat right as my ears picked up the thunderous noise of rushing water.
As cold washed over me, so did silence.
I was lifted from the sand, swept aside by the might of the ocean, lost within a lightning fast current.
My legs batted the water in vain. Useless. Too weak to make a difference. I spun to the whim of the wave. A veil of shadowed blue covered my eyes. My horn sputtered useless sparks that were immediately swallowed by the sea. With frantic flaps of my wings, I tried and failed to return stability to my world.
My hooves reached outward. Hopefully toward the surface. I couldn't differentiate between up and down anymore.
When an eternity had passed, the pressure pushed against my back. The wave that had swallowed the land had begun returning to the ocean, and dragged me with it. I was left drifting, a puppet without strings.
The strength to fight it crumbled.
My eyes were transfixed on what I knew to be the outline of the horizon. There, the water seemed the clearest shade of blue, gradually darkening in the depths until it grew pitch black. But what I saw chilled me to the core. Onto that canvas, a monster laid in satisfaction.
Its head held an angular, yet smooth, form. Up to the moment it split apart and stretched and stretched so it seemed it would swallow Horseshoe Bay itself with one gulp. Debris floated away from its rampage, mere specks next to its ridiculous girth. Houses couldn't even compare to one scale on its serpentine body.
I felt my gaze glided over its sinuous length, and a numbness spread to my whole being. Whales and giant squids alike struggled within the smallest of its coils, their bodies twisted by the monstrous pressure upon them. Beasts greater than both, thrice their length and width, could do nothing but let out mournful howls into the great blue and wait for death. The Nightmare ensnared them all.
As far as I could see, all across the water of the ocean, the Nightmare's body stretched, twists and turns making a painted window of the horizon itself. It seemed without end, mightier than even the limits of my imagination, and at long last, its coils lost themselves into the abyss, too deep for even light to dare enter its lair.
A part of me cracked. Luna's words had ceased to make sense. I couldn't be a dreamon. I could never compare to this.
This was a Nightmare, the purest fear. The most primal.
An absurd chuckle broke through my lips. Luna wanted to kill it. She wanted me to help. I'd feel shame, perhaps, if we were faced with anything else. But I couldn't muster the courage to even move.
Small Pond is there.
“Prince William!” I heard again, and my limbs trembled at the memory of being pushed out of the way of gigantic fangs.
I couldn't... I had to do something.
Echoes reverberated inside my skull. Traces of the William I had been threatened to resurface, enough for my mind to fight the numb veil shadowing my thoughts. Sweating despite the cool water surrounding me, I mustered what conviction I had left, and let the power spread into the dream.
In the abyss, power stirred. Mad as the thought obviously was, I could have sworn the coils within the darkness slowed in hesitation. Shadows rose from the depths, twirling, encircling the scaled form of the Nightmare. They became as claws, talons to grip and crush the titanic serpent.
They splintered into pieces.
Someone screamed in agony as burning hot nails were hammered at the base of my horn. And just as suddenly, the silence returned, my throat bloody raw, my body floating limply to the whims of the sea.
Everything blurred. Did I lack oxygen even in a dream? Was that possible?
In the distance, circles of light pierced through the darker waters. Two dots a shade of yellow seemed to materialized from a painted frame of nothingness.
Like stars on a canvas. Like spotlights searching for a prisoner.
I found it in myself to laugh, hearty bellows that scratched my irritated throat. Was there anything else than me in these waters? What else could it be after, but the one that had just failed to even inconvenience it?
My gaze met yellow eyes over the abyss.
Then, I saw nothing but a gaping maw full of fangs.
I could see nothing. I could hear nothing, smell nothing, touch nothing, taste nothing. I floated alone in nothingness. The darkness stretched forever. I was alone. My wings were enlacing my midsection, my chin touching my chin, my tail curled over my belly.
I was alone.
Safe.
I was safe.
The voice repeated.
“Stay,”it said, and I knew its concern was true.
The outside was scary. Flashes of bright colours and deafening noises came back to me, alien. Incomprehensible. And, a strange feeling in my chest, I fought back to return to the darkness. The nothingness was safe.
Safe, repeated through my mind. The void stretched forever without any foreign presence. Only me. I'm safe here. Away from the...
From the what?
The thought gave me pause. Something to tick and poke at the back of my head. I felt myself move, uncurl and test the void with my gaze. What is scary out there?
The flashes returned, with strength so great I needed to avert my eyes.
No. Not those,I told the darkness. Those had been aggressive, in-your-face, but they hadn't been so much scary so much as startling. What part had been scary?
“Everything,” the voice said. Then, sensing my dissatisfaction, it shifted and grew closer. Close enough to be at my sides, to lay a hand on my shoulder and squeeze gently. “The Strings, the wolves, the alicorn, the hunger.”
Snapping teeth. Fangs that were the colour of bark, and saliva, that of a fluorescent slime.
A part of me scoffed. Feathers ruffled, chest puffed. A part of me with a name: pride. The wolves aren't scary. I killed them.
I caught glimpses of glowing eyes, glaring through the dark of a forest.
Annoyance ticked at my brows, furrowed, and this time, the insistence curled my lips.I killed them.Broken birches laid on a bed of leaves, broken skulls ten feet away from broken torsoes.
Now, the hesitation filtered through the air. The presence in the darkness moved more slowly. Its invisible hands hands brushed against my sides, as if wanting to touch me but uncertain as to how.
Phantom lines dug into my skin, circling my neck, strangling.
The String-Man is dead. A corpse laid beneath me, of ink and crawling insects. I'm not afraid of dead things.
Blue eyes. Blue light. Thunder and shouts.
Luna wants to work with me. I'm not scared of an ally.
Agony rippled through my mind. Molten lead poured on my forehead, at the base of my horn, and dripped into my eyes. I trashed. I rolled onto the ground, screaming, shrieking above the sudden berating growls that rose from the nothingness.
Claws seemed to dig into my chest, pushing apart organs, seeping deeper into me, until they grabbed my stomach and squeezed.
My mind went dark. I could see nothing. Hear nothing. Smell nothing. I writhed. My fangs sunk into thin air. My claws tore at walls in the dark. My wings flapped in thunderclap of leather. I wanted. I hungered. The need grew from the bottomless pit clawed at. It was an impulse that filled every corners of my mind to the point I could think nothing else. Eat. Eat.
Bite. Eat. Tear. Eat. Rip. Chew. Bite. Eat. EAT.
The shadows became ponies. Small, little, fragile things laying on their backs. Fear in their eyes. Whimpers in their throats. A name on their lips. “Prince William...”
I wiped the drool dripping on my chin. The hunger hammered at the front of my mind. I needed to eat. Dreamons ate the living. They feasted or died. It was a natural thing, it said to me. And my lips moved to repeat the words.
“Take them...” flew out of my mouth instead.
The hold on me splintered into pieces. A shriek reached my ears, one so distant and bestial that I knew not its origin. The presence had faded. And my mind had cleared to a newfound, but oh precious truth.
The hunger was scary, but I did not fear it.
The void did not stretch forever. It was clinging to my skin. It was suffocating me.
I pushed with all my might, pushed so hard the muscles I did not know I owned burned from the effort. I could feel my whole body straining, and my whole body was that of a sailor stallion with years of experience.
Then came a sickening crunch, and the facade gave in. The tip of my hooves surged through, suddenly cold but caressed by a hot wind. A frantic part of me pushed at my hind legs, refused the embrace of the now slime-like liquid, and spread the rift wide.
I fell out with a screaming gasp.
My wings flapped, sending drops and chunks of slime off my feathers. My chest rose in fast, heaving breath, snorts pushing away bubbles of ink from my nostrils.
“I... I did it.” I panted.
The only thing I should fear was myself. And how could I ever escape myself?
Jaw clenched, I probed my teeth with the tip of my tongue. Flat, for now, I realized with a shudder of relief. I could be a dreamon, a true beast of shadow and fear. Prince William, please! had screamed the foals.
The foals lived.
I could be myself. Could I escape that?
“No,” I told the crawling shadows, and with a stomp, sent them packing. “I can't...”
What did hiding do for me? Burying my head in the sand hadn't helped. If I had believed Luna right away, the foals wouldn't have ever been endangered in the first place. Granted, the whole thing was as unbelievable as they came, but hadn't there been a nagging feeling at the back of my mind? A little voice to tell me things weren't as they seemed?
Lowering my head, I sighed. Maybe there could have been something, maybe not. The past was in the past, and even in a dream, I doubted we could rewind time to that. Small Pond would have still been sleeping for... what, days? The energy drained from her wouldn't be coming back. Just like...
My stomach twisted, and I felt a pang of hunger and guilt. No. Nopony would be coming back even if we did try to turn back time.
“I can't change the past, nor who I was, but I can decide what I will be.” I cast a cautious look to my surroundings, beyond the immediate shadow. It was there, I knew, but a cold finger ran down my shoulder at the thought of piercing through that darkness. “I will not be afraid.”
Without giving myself time to think, I forced my horn to become lit with a red brazier.
The walls of the caverns were a dark pink under the crimson light. But that shade was no trick of the light. Those walls weren't of rock or metal. They were of flesh.
The Serpent had eaten me.
“I will not fear,” I said with a strong, unshaken voice.
A hissing rasp carried on the putrid breeze, like a ghostly presence whispering in my ears. Go back to sleep, my child.
“Can't hear you,” I grunted, false cheer heightening my pitch. “Not listening!”
Now, internally, I was freaking out, but... okay, I was also freaking out externally. This was a part of people's anatomy that I had never wished to get a closer look of, especially not from the inside. But alas, there I was, jumping at the puddles of ink-like acid, wondering if being digested was an active or passive process when it came to the metaphysical.
Oh, that was a bad thing to wonder when I might have first seat for that little spectacle later.
I started trotting. At a peaceful pace, as if nothing weighted down on me. The situation might be urgent, but if I galloped, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop. The careful hold I kept over my emotions would shatter. So, I went slow, as if exploring, as if a genius spelunker inside a particularly hot and disgustingly pungent cavern of red clay.
Somehow, that particular image didn’t help much. It still felt like monsters in the dark would jump me as soon as my horn’s magic gave out. Reflected glimpses of light became like the glowing eyes of demons, the flashes of teeth of a monster. Was the rasp sound in the wind the breath of a creature following me?
Stay safe, the hissing voice repeated to me. Return.
“Return or be killed,” I muttered. Classic, but a stubborn part of me overrode the fear and looked back to the shadows. “Return and be killed. I know where I am. I will get out.”
The rasp was anger now, shivering and quivering in a rage only it could see. Guttural growls licked at my ears, indistinct whispers wormed themselves in. The drips of acid and blood faded with my hoofsteps. I could only hear the wind. The rage and the contempt and the black, oiling feeling of a predator looming a struggling prey.
“Get away.”
That hadn’t been me.
“Get away...” a mare's voice said. “Get away from me...”
Could it be? No, of course it had to be. Who else was there in here?
“Leave me alone...” the voice begged with a distinctively familiar tone.
It was her!
My legs moved on their own. The walls on my sides blurred while the wind became raging, slapping me in the face.
“Small Pond!” I shouted. “I'm coming, Small Pond! Don't give up!”
Her voice echoed throughout the air, less than a whisper. “Please...”
It whipped my blood in a frenzy. I would not – I could not let her down now. I had to find her. She was close. I knew she was close. I could feel the gold. I could hear sobs.
My gallop came to an abrupt halt. The sight before me hit me like a slap in the face. If not for her cries, I could have missed her entirely, lost as she was in a cocoon black as a moonless night. Only her head stuck out of the mass of blacked tendrils. Only that little glimpse of her remained, and all I could see of her was a heartbreaking despair.
She hung her head low, strands of her mane half-obscuring her face, ears drooped. The sight of her like this reminded me of a puppet without strings. Without the faint shimmer of gold covering her, one would be hard pressed to say if she still lived.
“Please...” she murmured. “Leave me alone.”
Something cracked in my chest.
“Take my hoof, Small Pond,” I beckoned her with a sad excuse for a smile on my face. “It's going to be alright, you just need to come with me instead of staying alone in the dark.”
She couldn't stay much longer. The moment those sparks of light died out, so would she.
I swallowed, licking at my lips. A small part of me shivered at the foreign feeling, but I clamped down my focus on Small Pond's face. She refused to meet my eyes and the shadows inched further through her fur. They crept just over her chin now.
My heart skipped a beat. Think, William. What could I do? If nothing changed, the darkness would claim her for good. And then... the Serpent would win. It'd eat her, her brother, Luna, me. It probably wouldn't stop there. Without Luna, I'd bet the barrier would clear out, and the path to the stars would be opened.
The quick glimpse of the starry fields beyond the dream floated at the back of my mind, and with them, a handful of youthful voices. My next heartbeat came with startling strength, a throb that spread through my body, from the sole of my hooves to the tip of my horn. With it, a heat. A fire.
“You know what? You're right.” I gave a weak laugh. “It is hard to trust a stranger. And that's ultimately what I am to you. I never did tell you much about me, did I?”
“William?” Small Pond's voice was suddenly stronger, unashamed and even confused.
For a moment, it had stopped being about her, the ashamed sister tormented by her heart's desire, and started being about the stallion that kept saving her life. Around her, the darkness shivered, receded. Small Pond looked at me with hungry curiosity.
“Did I ever get to tell you that I'm no alicorn at all?”
“You...” she stumbled, looking left and right, shaking her head as if to search for the memory. “You said something, maybe. I'm not sure anymore... You look the part.”
I had to grin. An emotion so childish grew within me, and I examined my feathers with careful disinterest. “It's true. I may look the part, but it's all an elaborate optical illusion.”
A fleeting smile graced Small Pond's lips. It looked the part of a smirk, the kind that told people 'yeah, right' with the subtlety of a truck honking down a busy street.
Still, she humoured me despite her exhaustion. “What are you then?”
“Human.” Dreamon. “I'm not exactly here by choice. And by here, I mean trapped in a dream like everypony else. Or heck, more precisely, here, as in within the guts of a ravenous serpent the size of the damn ocean. However, I would probably stay around you even if given the choice, so don't worry about that, Pond.”
Some red touched her cheeks, and I very deliberately ignored that. Around us, the walls of flesh still oozed that sickening ink. The light of my horn kept it at bay, for now. There were more pressing matters. Obviously. Like getting Small Pond out of that cocoon before it swallowed her whole.
“What else is there to say about me?” I mused out loud, with as playful a tone I could manage. I will not fear, the words repeated at the back of my mind, I will not let fear control me. “There isn't much, actually.You'd be shocked at how boring I can be. Guess what I am studying to become these days.”
Now she looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
“I'm not joking. Take a wild guess,” I urged with a smug shrug. “You won't get it right.”
She frowned, so incredulous. “...A royal guard?”
Now, I'd admit, that was kind of a boost for my ego. And I could use it right now.
“Nope. An accountant, can you believe that?” At her jawdrop of disbelief, no, she couldn't. “Of all the things I could be, I chose to go with that. My friends never let me hear the end of it. And, I mean, okay, I kind of get their point. I'm just good with numbers, and I don't mind a desk job so this is fine for me.”
“That's... There's no way! You're all knights and ladies and 'I'll save you'!”
“Well, it is a power fantasy. Sure, my normal life isn't much in the way of excitement. But this?” – I gestured to myself and our surroundings – “This is the kind of adventure I dream of. Maybe not in those exact details – I could do without being eaten –, but I just want to save the damsel, kill the monster and head off in the sunset for a happily ever after. You hit the bull's-eye there. I know it's silly, but everyone needs something like that, right?”
Yes, she wanted to say, but did not. It was right there, on the tip of her tongue, I knew. But the shadows clung to her like chains. Her heart was not a thing so easily freed. Not yet.
Small Pond bit her lips then, seemingly in deep thoughts. “Why are you here now?”
“I'm not sure. I was having a nightmare.” I frowned, at first. When her expression turned sympathetic, I shrugged with my wings and put on a brave face. “Nothing special. I was running in the woods, with timberwolves chasing me.”
It hit me as it hit her. Really? her eyes conveyed. I could admit, the coincidence felt uncanny. The both of us? I wondered what that said about me when Small Pond had been hiding a whole mess of insecurities and bitterness under the guise of giant shellfishes.
“Hmmm, you know, maybe I also have a big brother that unknowingly stifles my dreams until my subconscious imagined him as a trio of wolves.”
She chuckled. It was a little thing, barely a few seconds long. But I heard it clear as crystal and so did she. It felt as the turn of a key in a lock. With a moment's hesitation, she reached forward.
Her right front leg was stretching against the shadow's hold. And Small Pond did not even seem to notice. “So, what happened next?” she asked. Curious, concerned.
Oh, I couldn't resist. Both wings flared, a winning smile on my face, I wiggled my eyebrows. “I decided that an alicorn could kick any timberwolf's wooden ass, so that's what I became.”
“Celestia...” she groaned, freeing another one of her hooves to hit her forehead. “You're serious, aren't you?”
I looked her straight in the eyes, and this time she did not look away. “Dead serious. You can't beat your fear by running.”
She stopped smiling.
Grim, I offered her my hoof once more. “Small Pond, you have to stand up. I'm not going to pull you out. You have to do it yourself.”
Fear glinted in her gaze. My pitch black hoof seemed to be the waiting jaw of a monster to her. To grasp it would be to let its fang sink into her flesh. Her legs stilled within the embrace of the darkness.
She took it.
The cocoon unravelled around her. Strands and whole blankets of nothingness fell like petals of a twisted flytrap. Small Pond stumbled and clung to my hoof, looking so small and yet so solid in that one moment. Her fur matted with slime, she closed the distance between us in two strides.
And the snarling shadows hissed as they retreated back further in the leviathan guts of the Serpent.
I could not and did not hold it back any longer. With all my heart, I hugged her. Wings, legs, face. Full body hug. She had tried saving my butt at the expense of her own. “I'm glad you're alright, Pond,” I whispered, my voice thick and trembling.
She buried herself against my shoulder, her shapely form warm against mine, and a gentle smile on her face. “Thank you, Prince William.”
Feeling unexpectedly bashful, I rubbed at the back of my head. “Just William is fine.”
“William...” she said slowly, rolling my name on her tongue as if to test it. A small smile tugged at her lips.
I felt my breath get stuck in my lungs, and I hastily cleared my throat. “N-n-now, about... er... about those pleas for me to get back, were you trying to save me? Or was it just an excuse to hide?”
She flushed.
“It wasn't. Pr-... William, you're...” Small Pond sighed. “You're a friend, and I care about you.”
The words left a pleasant warmth trailing through my chest. Friend.
It was the oddest thing, I realized with a quiet chuckle. How had I even made a friend through such a nightmare?
“Then, am I allowed to return the favour?” I asked with a pointed look. “Can I care for you too?”
With a touch of apprehension, she nodded.
“Caring means I'm not letting that wound I saw fester any longer. It helped chain you down into this nightmare. It's... You didn't want to leave. You liked the nightmare better. What's so different from the waking world?”
She inhaled deeply, then...
“Nothing.”
I nearly growled in frustration. She still tried to stay her tongue? Had she really not learned what I was trying to tell her?! But... then I saw the look on her face.
And the emotion died in my chest before it could fully bloom. Understanding made me gasp. Small Pond hadn't deflected my question. Her voice, though quiet, had carried nothing but sincere disappointment.
Nothing would change for her, once she woke up. She could hardly feel the difference.
“I'm starting to feel...” Her gaze was distant. Glazed over. I hardly could see my own reflection in those dead eyes. “...Like I'm dying a slow death. Just going through the motions. Forgetting what it means to live. To dream. I see the ocean every day, I see the horizon calling me, and every day I have to resist the urge to follow. It's like diving to swallow sea water when there's a bucket full of fresh drinkable water on deck.”
“Pond...” What could I say to that? It hurt to see the life going out of her eyes, to see her become this wooden, unliving mare.
Her next words were so quiet I nearly didn't understand them. “I can't do it anymore.”
A shrivelled hand had shoved a dagger of ice straight in between my ribs. I knew her meaning. Granny Orchid smiled at me, asked for a kiss for the road, faded. And I saw with an extraordinary clarity Small Pond on the deck of her ship, alone at sea, just before she jumped overboard.
I herded her away from the cocoon of shadows. I pushed her away with harsh shoves. I pushed as if the depths of the sea were just behind us. She did not fight it. Her body moved without any sort of resistance, or will.
I hated it.
To keep my tone even had become a torture all on its own. Yet I refused to show Small Pond anything but a friendly face. “Well, even if you forgot, it's never too late to remember.”
My horn flickered, a flash of black before the red, and my ears flickered to catch the noise of crackling fire.
“William, is that...?” Small Pond's shock was so great she forgot her tiredness.
But truly, I could understand. Even if I was the one to conjure them, it was surreal, absolutely fucking surreal, to have marshmallows roasted on a campfire inside a digestive tract. The walls of flesh throbbed, the dark pink floor twitching, with an imperceptible attempt to push us back into the mass of writhing shadows. I will not be afraid.
Despite the cold sweat rolling on my temple, I sat down on a random log, and grabbed a marshmallow stick. “Where do you want to go?”
Small Pond sighed and let herself fall right next to me. “Anywhere. Everywhere. I don't want to stay in Horseshoe Bay all my life. I'd like to start with the celestial sea. Maybe find my cutie mark's namesake. I haven't even seen one of those yet. I don't sail far enough to.”
“Sounds nice. One should know themselves and all that philosophical wisdom.” The good humour didn't last. “I sense a 'but' though.”
“But there's Small Fry. He's family. He's my gentle big brother, he's always looked after me. I can't abandon him, can I?” She looked down. In the corner of my eyes, I saw chains slithered near her back, ready to strike as would snakes.
A bolt of red lightning incinerated them.
"Honestly?" I shrugged, giving her a shameless grin. She squeaked when I brought her closer to me with a pull of my wing. "I don't know, Small Pond. But then again, neither do you."
Her jaw slackened. "W-what?"
"You've never told him how you feel, have you? It's always been this fear about something you're so sure of. It's always been something you've kept hidden, because of how unworthy the thought made you feel."
Small Pond shrunk on herself, and I felt unease pool in my chest.
“You can't go on like that. Look at where it's left you: the belly of the beast.” Despite all tenets of sanity, I actually chuckled. “It's quite frankly the lowest point possible in either of our existences. Stuck inside the digestive tract of a titanic dreamon. If I didn't feel so numb, I think I'd be screaming my lungs out.”
Small Pond held the roasted treat closer to her mouth, but didn't bite into it. “I'm sorry...”
That made my ears tick. “You have nothing to apologize for, Pond.”
I brought her closer, in an attempt to comfort her, but she pushed away.
“I know,” she said, a cross look briefly appearing on her face. “I... I know, Prince William, but I am sorry that this happened to you. You did not deserve any of it.”
It near brought tears to my eyes.
“Neither did you,” I breathed out. “This isn't anything that someone deserves, Pond. You did not call that monstrous dreamon to you. Your fears and insecurities aren't wrong. They're bad for you, but you shouldn't feel terrible just because you have them. Love... I guess love is a shackle as terrible as fear.”
Understanding dawned on her face. She looked at me, truly looked at me, and I could not quite tell what she saw. Not a mockery of a pony that would make her flinch. Not a dreamon, nor a human. Maybe... maybe what she saw and gazed at in wonder... was just me.
“You did not want to be an accountant, William.”
Her impish smile startled the warm fuzzy feeling out of me, and in its stead left a bubbly laughter just waiting to erupt.
“Again, with this? Even here, in the land of ponies and magic?” I threw my arms-slash-forelegs in the air. “What's with people and not letting me bore myself to death?”
Small Pond punched my shoulder lightly, eyes twinkling, smile wide. “I guess they just like you.”
“Impossible!” I bellowed to the heavens. “No one likes an accountant in the making!”
She laughed with me, loudly, freely. The sound was a melody, a little something to keep my heart warm. I loved to see her this way. Finally.
When her mirth subdued, the joy remained, and a light of a greater thing still twinkled in her eyes. “I d-”
A sickening squelch cut her off, as we jolted away from each other. Together, we turned to the nearest wall of flesh. Slowly, a bump appeared on one membrane, a growl getting louder the bigger it became.
It tore apart, flesh broken, blood gushing, when a horn gore through it, followed by a roaring stallion.
At that point, my eyes more or less bulged out of my skull.
Small Fry blinked out of existence, inches from the fleshy ground. Instead, he appeared on his hooves, as if he'd never fallen, despite the grime and blood covering every inch of him.
“Pond!” he cried out as soon as he saw us.
“Fry!” his sister called back, so immensely relieved despite all her previous insecurities.
The fair stallion near barrelled into her, catching her in a crushing hug, unspilled tears in his eyes. He whispered a handful of indistinct words in her ear, just before he turned a heavy glare in my direction
“You, stay back!” he snarled, his face transformed into a mask of brotherly fury that made me flinch.
Normally, I wouldn't be afraid, but this stallion had just punched and bitten his way into a high-end dreamon's intestines. It wasn't exactly normal as far as I could tell.
Luckily, someone else could take offence on my behalf. “Fry, don't-”
“Sis, you okay?” he breathed out, taking her face in his hooves. “Thank the Princesses, you're alright. I was so afraid.” He seemed colt-like now, every one of his emotions so clear-cut. “When I saw that snake, and you threw us off, and, and you didn't do it for yourself! I thought I had lost you.”
He inhaled sharply, his forehead gently pushed against hers as if making sure that she did indeed stood there.
“You can't imagine what it was like, looking for you in the sea, not knowing if you were still alive.”
Small Pond's forelegs pulled him into a gentle hug. “I'm sorry for making you worry...”
Small Fry chuckled, fondness all over his face. “Everything's okay now.”
My eyes glided from that touching reunion to the path from whence he had come. The tear in the flesh remained, a constant flow of a bright red blood escaping from it. Now, it wasn't in me to question the logic of dreams anymore, but I was absolutely certain that Small Fry hadn't been eaten. Which could only mean...
“You conveniently made us an escape route as well?” Man, that guy was full of surprises. And good ones so far! “I might just have to kiss you, Small Fry.”
Either he had no sense of humour, or that particular expression was unknown to Equestrian, for Small Fry jumped back a good feet. “Don't you dare!”
A wicked idea wormed itself through my brain, and I grinned.
“Too late.”
Small Fry made a strangled squawk against my lips, not too far from Small Pond's dying whale cry at the sight of us. A vague nausea fought with the repressed desires of a certain old mare inside me. The dizzying feeling only worsened when new images exploded inside my head. A calming heat curled in my chest, near my stomach, and next rose a strange urge to purr.
I broke apart from Fry with a jolt. I'm taking too much!
The electrifying touch raced across my skin, from my lips down my neck, lower, over my barrel, then in a straight line over my belly. And there it settled between my hind legs with a jolt. Damn! I blinked back stars and day skies and hotel rooms, and a bunch of mares. Without dwelling too deep on that last part.
“Okay, so I might have lied, but I really wanted to get feelings back into a certain part of my anatomy.” Which had happened, mission complete. The fact that my stomach didn't feel quite like a gaping pit at the moment hadn't been the main factor.
Small Fry laid on the floor, traumatized.
Small Pond alternated between outrage and a very obvious desire to laugh her rump off. “...What?” Her voice trembled. “Feelings where?”
“Oh, don't worry about it.” I waved a dismissive hoof. “It's all dreamon talk, you wouldn't get it anyway.”
Small Fry's hoof collided with my face and lifted me off the ground.
Admittedly, I deserved it entirely.
In midair, my wings flared open. It slowed my ascend to a stand still, and there I chose to stay. Just for a minute or two. It might allow me to filter a bit the... uncomfortable memories I found myself assaulted by. Turned out trying to revive feelings in my loins involved sex. Who knew?
“What the hell?!” Down there, Small Fry frothed at the mouth. Again, I understood. But it was also kind of hilarious.
Cautious, I landed only after Small Pond placed a hoof on her brother's shoulder and pulled him a few steps back.
The cries of pleasure rang faintly in the back of my brain. Heat puffed in my chest, in my face. I hadn't thought this through. This wasn't the time to be thinking of sexy times with mares and... and... and I recognized those two. Well, Granny would.
“Wait... both of the Net sisters?”
Small Pond frowned. “What?”
I felt my jaw drop. The details had focused. Their ghostly images didn't stack. They hadn't simply switched places in my mind, colours of their coats and mane and tails mixed by a blurry memory. “At the same time?!” I gasped.
Small Fry turned a very interesting shade of crimson.
“What?! Fry?! Celestia! I'll never be able to shop at their stall again!”
Even in the bleakest moments, laughter had a place. Ponies understood that. The six great virtues of ponykind. I admired that. I loved the joy that bubbled inside me, just to see Small Fry spluttering and Small Pond crying for brain bleach. I clung to it like a lifeline. God, I wanted them both safe and healthy by the time this was done.
“This is pathetic, William.”
Cold blew away the silliest thoughts with a whisper. The smile was wiped from my face in an instant. But instead, the fiercest urge made a low growl rise from deep in my guts.
A mangled black leather shoe stepped into the ring of light.
“This is not who you are.” Skeletal fingers reached out for us. “You are so quick to forget. Do you really not recall the taste of life?”
My blood froze in my veins. Yes, replied a treacherous voice in my head. It was an experience beyond my wildest dreams. And I was too late to squash that hesitation. He saw.
The String-Man's smooth, featureless head emerged from the darkness on its thin pale neck. Black oil dripped from his chin, onto an open ribcage where only a mass of writhing bugs moved.
“You do,” said his gravelly, moaning voice.
Fury exploded inside me. “Leave!” Jets of flame flew past his head. “Do you hear me, monster?! LEAVE!”
The air rippled at my order, carried my will, struck at him. It slid on the String-Man like water. He stood, motionless, his arms slack, his absurdly thin fingers touching the floor. A silent challenge radiated from him.
“What is that thing?!” the siblings cried out, and I suddenly remembered their presence.
“That's the String-Man!” I pushed them with my left wing. “Stay behind me! I'll protect you!”
“The what?!” Small Pond screeched, her grip on my wing painful. “I don't understand, William!”
The String-Man's head tilted in an abrupt jerk, as if its neck had given out. His eyeless stare seemed affixed just past me. “Is this your ruse, William? Do you make them seek you before you eat them?”
A harsh curse came out of Fry's mouth, and Small Pond's grip slackened. Yet, I dared not take my eyes off the nightmarish creature to check on them. A mistake now would be fatal.
“The String-Man, Pond.” I growled, my horn lowered and ready to unleash any number of destructive spell. “He's a man made of string, and other nasties. Not an imaginative name, but it does the job describing...”
Realization washed over me like a crashing wave.
She did not understand because...
Small Pond is a mare.
It couldn't be... The thought seized me and I jolted as it surged through my body like wildfire. Suddenly, my senses were acute. The pungent smell that drifted through the serpent's bowels carried a hint of rot and sour. Clicks rang when the thin fingers of the String-Man touched. Under his smooth, featureless face, I could see twitches, like mandibles, legs, stingers.
Maggots.
I saw Small Fry in the corner of my eyes trying to step in front of his sister. She looked past him, she stared at the horror, and to her it was nameless.
The String-Man was a tall, bipedal creature that knew my name, in the dream of an innocent mare. The part she hadn't understood was him being a man.
“You're my nightmare,” the words came out in a single breath.
I took the first step forward. He was my nightmare. The only one that could have spawned the thought of him was me, because I alone knew what a man was. In the world of Equestria, no one else could have imagined the String-Man. Not like this. And if I squinted, I could recognize the parts my brain had pilfered off horror stories and the likes to create him.
The burlap sack on his head ripped at the level of his mouth, and clicking mandibles peaked out. In the back of my mind, some part of me understood that it was a smile.
“Or am I more than that?”
The wings on my back flapped with a thunderclap, and I felt the hot, acidic air bore into their leather.
“Enough of these lies!”
Fangs sunk into flesh. I tore at the burlap sack that made up its head. I clawed and bit at the oily, inky skin and ripped it to pieces. Black dust floated off the wounds. Worms crawled out, and those fell apart from the snap of my jaw, their blood a bitter taste. The String-Man himself made no move other than moan and gasp, as I stripped away layer upon layers, until I could see, truly, what was underneath.
Not the swarms of insects, not the nothingness of a smooth, doll-like head, not even a seeping horror.
A skull's empty sockets stared back at me.
I could no longer breath. I had been able to do so underwater and trapped in grim, but now my lungs were burning and my sinews flaring as I stared down at the black hole in the skull's head. Bugs crawled out.
A corpse. The String-Man is a rotting corpse.
I scampered away from the bloodied, formless mass of strings. Without a word, I turned my back to Small Pond and her brother. Then, I emptied the content of my stomach on the floor.
Chunks of black congealed blood splattered my forelegs. Worms crawled out of some. More chunks followed. The foul substance covered the inside of my mouth.
I could not breath through the rough heaves that wracked my body. Tears blurred my sight.
“Do you not recall the taste of life?” I heard him ask again as the taste of rotten meat and crushed shells lingered on my tongue. I stumbled away from the mess with my head swimming. “I'm okay,” was all I could say while wiping out the slime sticking to my cheek.
My companions didn't run to hug me better. The two of them kept a respectable distance, their body language very defensive. Small Fry especially tried to block the sight of his sister from me, his glare piercing despite the slight tremble that I noticed in his legs.
“Is... is it dead?” Small Pond squeaked.
Maybe it was dead all along. “Yes.”
The String-Man was dead. I had killed it twice. Perhaps it would come back again, if I conjured it. Some hidden part of me called to him. My nightmare. He had to be my nightmare. Small Pond couldn't fathom him. I encountered it first, alone, away from any other.
I had dreamed of him. How else could I be overpowering him so easily? But he made the armour cling to me. It was his strings that lifted me up like a puppet, that threw me into the shadows. It was him. He made me a dreamon.
“Nopony ever is.”
Dreamons weren't born, according to Luna. I'd been made a dreamon, by this piece of my nightmare. By him or by the Serpent? Which was the true creature that had turned me into what I was now?
He was a walking corpse.
Yellow eyes searched through the ocean's water.
“Nopony ever is.”
Were all dreamons like me? Worse, was I like all other dreamons?
I eyed the walls of flesh through the flickering light atop my horn. Was that the sight Granny had seen? My abs clenched suddenly, the urge to throw up greater than ever. I remember the taste. A sweet and gentle flavor. Hints of the sea breeze, the faintest traces of mango and a flowery smell.
Ache spread through my gums and my teeth.
We had to get out of here. I had to get out. Now.
The drops of sweat glistening on my fur turned into shards of ice as I searched for the tear that Small Fry had made.
I could not find it.
Small Fry and Small Pond were right there. The sparks of light on Pond's fur carried a hint of spice and sweetness.
I will not be afraid. I will not run.
If someone had been able to punch and bite their way in, what could stop them from doing the same for the way out? It may be scary, but I am not afraid. If the way closed, what stopped us from punching it down again?
Us, I answered but the confines of my mind. The only limits existed within our imaginations, or our wills. And right now, the desire to leave this place in one piece...
A new weight settled in my grip, a very comforting weight. The urges could be set aside with this kind of support. It would be fine.
Without looking down at the blade, I fumbled for the chord. The chain stayed firmly aimed at the exterior, despite the ponies behind me curiously inching closer to get a look at what I was holding.
“...What's that?”
“This, my dear Pond, is my chainsaw.”
The motor roared to life. Its vibrations climbed up my hooves and legs up to my shoulders. In the corner of my eyes, I noticed the shadows fleeing. Oh yeah, they had better run.
And then... then I pondered. Was it really the best my imagination could do? Even Small Fry had managed to dig his way through with nothing but his teeth and his overprotectiveness.
The weight in my hooves increased, and the fleshy intestine walls suddenly glistened with pink light. I didn't need to see my reflection to know that on my face was plastered a truly magnificent shit-eating grin. “Actually, scratch that, it's my laser chainsaw.”
Both siblings stared with worried looks on their faces.
“That's...”
A flick of my hoof revved up the engine. Its snarling dragon snore noise was true music to my ears. All that power, right there, in my grasp. “It's the same, but better. Trust me.”
“I don't,” Small Fry grunted.
Well, that was more or less the answer I expected. So, I cackled and brought down the chainsaw upon the walls of our prison.
With one last panting grunt, I pushed through the wall of squelching flesh and climbed over the giant green scales. Buzzing softly, my laser chainsaw slid down the slope of the Serpent's body, only to disintegrate midway through.
It was just as well, I couldn't really hold on to it any longer.
“Sweet... sweet... freedom,” I gasped, lying on my back, taking every breath as if it had been my last.
Not every day you fought your way out of a digestive track with only a laser chainsaw and your courage. I wouldn't even be appreciative if it happened once a decade. I had had my fill of guts and desperate struggling through pulsing pink flesh. I'd reckon Pond and her brother thought the same.
These two were climbing out of the wound by now, Pond pulling her brother up with both front legs. It was only natural, seeing as she was the fisherpony and she swam better. Except... we weren't underwater, I suddenly realized.
Startled, I rolled off my back and stood, my eyes over the edge of the coils. I would only need to stretch my hoof to touch the clouds. How high did the Serpent's coils rise? I simply had to look. And before me, across the endless ocean, I saw. I saw the water obscured from the web of coils. I saw the Serpent's tail batting at a net of light and freeing itself. I saw the dream obscured and, with a skip of my heart, I saw the next big thing to threaten our newfound freedom.
“Giant coil alert at five o'clock!”
My choice of words had been poor, admittedly.
“What?” the siblings asked, blinking.
No more time, I thought as I charged.
“JUMP!”
Had we been awake, the pain would have rung through my wings and my barrel, right on the spot where I had tackled the two. Had, if, should... all hypothetical and very intangible compared to the vast emptiness below my hooves. Even with the eyes of a fake alicorn, the Serpent's body could look as small as pieces of string from this high up above.
Or as immense as the flank of a mountain looming right above us.
Both sides of the Serpent collided with an ear-splitting crash, close enough for the rush of wind to nearly shake Small Pond out of my grip.
Nearly, but both Small Fry and I swung ours hooves around to catch her and keep her with us.
“We're gonna land!” I told them, aiming for a slowly moving coil a few leagues below.
We landed without much trouble, my glide slow enough for them both to walk off of me. Still, the relief I expected didn't come. Our eyes were stuck on the giant walls of scales that had crashed into each other, as if they would give chase and try to squish us like bugs. They didn't.
“So... we nearly got crushed to death... again. But we're good!” I laughed. Whoa, that got the blood pumping for sure. Nothing quite like a sudden brush with death to wake up a man. Hypothetically speaking.
Not that my amenable companions shared my totally normal good cheer.
“I hate you.” Fry growled. “And everypony like you, but especially that fat snake.”
Fat was an understatement. Disproportionate would have been one too. It seemed to occupy half the scenery with its ever moving body. One jerk of a coil created explosive sounds, as if the sound barrier strained to hold the titan back.
And failed. The Serpent ravaged to its heart's content.
Its outstretched neck would fling across the sky, one large column of shadows. Its fangs would rip into empty air, just barely missing a fast moving blue dot. But sometimes, sometimes the Serpent would keep its mouth close over a spot and pull with all its strength.
And the horizon would let out a chilling ripping sound, like fabric torn apart by careless hands.
Threads of light wove into the rifts, sealing them shut. They glowed once, a faint shade of purple, before settling down as stitches in the sky. The Serpent's sudden hissing hinted at their usefulness.
And yet, the cold felt well and truly stuck in my chest.
Luna held the sky together, yes. How long would she be able to, with the Serpent trashing and chewing the fabric of Small Pond's dreams?
Small Pond... I shot a worried look to the mare. How well was she holding up for now?
She was breathing a bit hard, her mane was half-covering her face, but she shot me a tired smile when she noticed my concern. A small part of me wanted to shiver, and my tail flicked to the side in a nervous gesture that I knew came from Granny. No matter. The golden light still sparked around Small Pond, though the most uncomfortable presentiment was growing in my guts. It couldn't last for much longer, could it?
My gaze eyes darted to my right, to the fight of titans. It hasn't noticed us yet. But it would, eventually, it would sniff out Small Pond's energy again. It would be inevitably drawn to her. And that time, we wouldn't get a second chance to escape.
The Serpent let out an unearthly roar, so far that we only caught its echo. But my legs locked into place when the scales under us brushed against the sole of my hooves. Oh fuck...
“Hold on to me!” I called out, and when they didn't immediately obeyed, my voice snapped like a whip. “Did I fucking stutter, guys?! To me, now!”
Two hooves, both rough though different, grasped at my stretched wings. The next moment, the scales beneath us rose with the jerk of the Serpent's body. Pressure shoved the sole of my hooves upward, my joints creaking from the strain. I flattened. The acceleration had been so brutal it felt as if I had been thrown chest first onto a brick wall.
Stars and black spots blinked in and out of my sight.
A mare was screaming in my ears. Someone was pulling on the primary feathers in my wings.
We were sailing through the air, underneath arches of green or white scales, above furious waves. And then, we were beneath. In cold, dark green. In a curtain of bubbles, floating to the surface.
The others were already swimming upward, toward the flashes of light, away from the great twirls of darkness that I knew to be the Serpent's body. For a heartsplitting second, I remembered the yellow eyes across the blue, and twisted my neck around to send frantic looks to the depths.
I found myself hovering above the water, wings flapping slow, and I did not remember how it happened.
Small Fry's head popped out of the sea's surface with a loud, needy gasp. “I never want to be this covered in blood and guts ever again.”
Next to him, floating to the waves, her forelegs grabbing onto a large plank of wood, Small Pond aimed a skeptical look his way. “You fillet the catch of the day yourself. Remember?”
“Shut up, Puddle. I'll use magic.”
I stifled a snort at Small Pond's grumbled “You already do.” For somepony who had been so terrified of leaving him on his own, she sure didn't have a problem cutting him down to size.
Still, there were a few bigger fishes to fry – I'm a genius –, so I lifted both ponies in a cloud of red light and landed on the plank. From my hooves, a spark spread on the wood, and the plank twisted. Its ends stretched, its belly thickened. Inches from me, a pole sprouted and let go of a large white sail. In moments, our boat was ready, and my companions were freed from my grip.
They fell on their rumps with twin yelps of shock.
And they cried once more when the surface of the water next to us burst and a tall shadow rocketed through. For a split second, I feared the Serpent had detected us, but the figure was much too small, and its tail slapped aside the droplets of water. The fish's leap showed us its white belly, in contrast to its navy blue back and head. Its movement held a certain grace, a deadly kind of grace. Its sword-like nose gleamed with the promise to skewer us.
It was not to be.
The fish' corpse exploded into a cloud of dust, right against the tip of my glowing horn. Unseen power shielded my eyes from the particles. Wouldn't do to be blinded in the middle of this madness.
“You wanted to know why I chose to become an alicorn in my dream?” I turned to give the siblings a knowing smile. “This is why: power. I am in control here. It doesn't matter who challenges me, my will shall never break. I can do anything! Dreamon? Alicorn? There are no differences between the two here!”
And, as I said it, I stomped both my front hooves into the boat's deck. A shockwave rippled from the tip of my hooves, into the air, and my will carried on. Winds swirled at the tip of my horn. Howling screeches rode atop the air currents, lightning crackled. Power pumped into the vortex with each pulse of my blood.
There was a flash.
The boat's deck stabilized. The waves no longer rocked it to their chaotic rhythm. We could not even hear the splashes of water against its hull. I'd cut us off from the rest of the world. My power encased our embarkation with a bright red hue.
“The sea obeys my command, the sky lighten at my order. You two are protected, because I want you safe.” Smug, I knocked a hoof into the shimmering bubble keeping our boat stable. “Can you imagine a greater rush than this?”
Small Pond smirked.
“Well...”
I turned on her in mock outrage, ready for a nonsensical argument about my very normal megalomania. The first word didn't even make it past my lips. They were otherwise occupied.
For a split second, my mind flashed to Harpoon, Granny Orchid's husband. My body seemed flooded by the familiar sensation, by the warmth and the jolts of electricity going up to my brain. Small Pond... Small Pond was kissing me!
Old instincts took over my mind, and I leaned against her, leaned into her kiss. She tasted of spice and salt, a delight, I found myself thinking. Not a thing of sweetness, but a kick, a push for a greater wildness.
Small Pond broke us apart first, breathless. A pretty coral red lit up her face, her glance to me bashful, and hopeful. She... She actually liked me this way. This wasn't a fever dream.
“Oh...”
There was a whoosh of air. And my face became as if lit on fire.
The siblings looked at me with tilted heads and curious eyes. “Why did his wings do that?” asked Small Pond.
Her brother narrowed his eyes at me in suspicion. “No idea,” he said slowly.
Good news, wingboners are not actually canon! Bad news, I have a wingboner anyway. From the way Small Fry's gaze darkened, I would say he was guessing the source of my obvious unease. He stepped closer to his sister, with a clear warning to me in his protective stance.
Considering she had initiated, it may not have been the right way to go about it. But then again, Small Fry was glaring at my wings. If only the metaphor hadn't been so obvious.
Down, you stupid wings. I scowled at the offending appendages. Stop being cliché about this! I don't need to flash the whole world with my interest!
“Ah... hehe...” I chuckled, scratching at the back of my head, drops of sweat rolling on my neck. “Why, huh, I guess it was a bigger rush.” Of blood. To certain parts of my anatomy.
Small Pond's head tilted aside, her eyes drifting to my wings, and then dipping a little lower, and for the love of God, I had never wished for a distraction as badly as this. Ever.
So, it stood to reason that I felt the air shift and the sparks tingle at the ends of my feathers.
I take it back! Stupid is better than death! I shouted mentally, but Small Pond and her brother had decided to look up, as if they had felt the presence too.
Through the barrages of storm clouds and lightning strikes, large shadows broke through the canopy of the sky. Though rather indistinct from afar, the creature's tail dipped beneath the cloud line and we got a glimpse of a multicoloured fin. Others dipped lower, enough for their ivory underbelly to contrast with the darkened storm clouds. Their swimming continued uninterrupted, defiant of the total chaos beneath them.
It lasted a few seconds at most, but it left me feeling a mixture of amazement and confusion. Here and now, that touch of wonder hadn't been fully squashed. There had been nothing of a nightmare about those creatures.
“They're whales, right?”
“Flying rainbow whales, yup.” Small Pond nodded, her gaze full of a childish wonder. “They are said to live near the Summer Islands on the other side of the world. I promised myself I would meet some of them one day.”
That's the spirit, I thought with good cheer. Finally, she was starting to think of her dream the right way – and no longer paying attention to my wings. Her every desire were as tangible as me or her in here.
But not everypony smiled at this new snippet of information being shared. Small Fry was staring at her. He seemed to be carving the sight of his little sister in his brain. I knew he was seeing her the same way I did. I knew he saw the mare on the verge of freedom, smiling wide, leaning on the rail of the ship despite the violent waves. And his ears drooped on the side, a faint blush on his face.
Well, I decided right then, that wouldn't do. I knew a guilty stallion when I saw one, and I would rather not. There were no worse time than in life-and-death situations to let yourself, and others, down.
“And now, you have seen them, Pond.” At the roll of her eyes, I shrugged. “Technically. What else do you want to do?”
“What I want...?”
Her eyes glazing over me, Small Pond trotted to the front of the boat. The wind didn't reach through the barrier, but her mane moved as if it did. Just faintly, in echoes so weak I wondered if I imagined them, I heard seagulls screech and ponies laugh, fins striking water and ropes wheezing under strain.
“There's... there's so many things...” she whispered, as if she didn't quite allow herself to wonder.
Nope. With a knowing smile, I pushed a little. “Name them, Pond. Give them name. Give them substance. What is it that you want to do?”
At first, she didn't react. Her desires seemed overwhelming. To long for them each day had made them less and less precise. They had been a want, a need even, but what, precisely had they been, before the darkness settled in? To define them now... Small Pond bit her lips. Was she really allowed to? Her gaze seemed to ask. I nodded. Obviously, else I wouldn't be asking her to. Right?
Though she wasn't looking at him, I could feel Small Fry's tension and hesitation. He wasn't losing even the tiniest morsel of this conversation. He was finally seeing his sister.
“I'd like to see the world.” She allowed herself a dreamy look, then took the mast and spun around it once, hoof on her brow like a pirate before her captain. “Travel the four seas, meet an exotic stallion on the way, discover a few treasures, maybe chart my own maps of the unexplored smoking ocean near the dragonlands. Be the first to set hoof on an island.”
“Well,” I said with a cheeky grin, “you already have the 'meet a handsome stallion' down, so we can work on the rest.”
“Yeah, he's right!” Small Fry said with an obviously fake cheer. His sister looked at him with no small amount of shock, as did I. Until he added, “so you should scratch that off your list, Puddle.”
“Oh, Celestia!” She threw her forelegs in the air. “Fry, I'm an adult. What does it matter if I meet a nice special somepony in a harbour somewhere?”
“It matters if that 'special' somepony takes advantage of you and never shows up again!”
“Excuse me?!” Her shriek drilled into my ears. “Who went with Cast Net and Drift Net at the same time again?!”
Ah, siblings. I shook my head, all the while trying and failing to hide a large smile. Those two really must have cared for each other a lot. Clumsy as it was, I could get Small Fry's point, same as his sister's. They cared.
And there, the smile slipped. I had to trust that it would be enough. I had to.
“Hey, Small Pond,” I called, my heartbeat quick despite the calm mask I wore. “Do... do you trust me?”
Her answer came quick and unyielding. “Yes. I do trust you.”
“But do you trust me with your fears?” Small Pond flinched, and while I understood, her reaction left with a knot in my guts. Above us, the storm kept raging; faintly, Luna's voice thundered to the still trashing serpent. “Pond, do you think you can leave that in my hooves? All the little doubts, the moments of frustration and anger, the near explosions, everything. Do you think you can do that? Think of them, remember what it is like, and give them up.”
“... I'll... I'll try.”
Small Pond's face scrunched up as her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. I could imagine her facing the dark memories, looking at them again, in the light of her new knowledge. Yet no hope softened her desperate grimace. She placed her hoof on mine, her fur feeling soft as silk to me.
“Here, let me take it.” I whispered, gently. “Put it in my hoof, and trust me.”
Something opened up, with a strangely mundane 'click', and I felt myself reel from a rush of dizzying terror. It was in the air, on my skin, in my blood, cold and crawling and screeching. Suddenly, Small Pond's hoof was an anchor in a tumultuous torrent.
She trusts me.
I drew upon the nauseous source, willing it to surge past her defences.
Amongst the sparks of light, past the veil of her fur, a spot of pitch black marred the purity of her mind. It festered upon the most luminescent desires and tainted them with its shadow. Behind every little want and need, the echo of that darkness grew. There was not one thought she had allowed herself without the guilt and the shame.
Oh, Pond, I thought, and made a promise.
In our hooves, a dark substance gathered. Smokey, almost wisp-like. Little words drifted from its center, taken by the winds, with the same will to entrap and ensnare. Those I batted away with a flap of my wings. Yet even without, what remained in our grasp sent goosebumps up my foreleg.
Clamping down on the treacherous weakness, I growled and forced my thoughts upon the substance. It was an anchor. A weight so terrible it had sunk a brilliant, brilliant mare to the lowest of despair.
I showed it a flash of razor sharp fangs, and my order slammed into the mold of clay. To Small Pond's surprise, a blade erupted from the substance, a long, thick arrowhead linked to our combined hooves by a shaft of ebony wood. I recognized the shape as that of a lance. It grew and grew bigger still, greater than the mast of the boat, thicker than the width of a house, its head an enormous shark fang. It towered above all three of us. Even half sinking in the sea, it dwarfed everything but the Nightmare's head in the distance.
Cold radiated from its shaft, and poor Small Pond shook violently in its shadow.
“Ah. Well, ain't that a heavy burden on your mind, Pond?” My cheerful smile cracked. I couldn't. The confidence I projected felt fragile before the pangs of guilt in my chest. “It must have been hard to walk with that thing weighing you down. How did you ever manage?”
Small Pond let out a mournful cry.
“What do you intend to do with it?” Small Fry cut in.
His frown hadn't lightened. There was still suspicion in his gaze, though not quite the same as before. It felt a more brotherly shade, a mundane sort of worry from a brother with a pretty-looking sister. He didn't look at me as he would a monster.
“What will I do?” My mouth twisted into a savage grin. “Kill the serpent with it, of course.”
“You'll never manage!” Small Pond yelled. Was it worry for me, trembling through that shrill tone? “It's too heavy to lift! Nopony can!”
And, like the last of her strength had been drained, Small Pond let herself fall down on her rump. Fry galloped to her, but she seemed not to hear him nor his words.
A feather caught the underside of her chin, and with a gentle touch, lifted it until her eyes were locked with mine. Only then did I let myself show her a confident, amused smirk.
“See, that's the thing. That kind of burden...” I turned to stare Small Fry straight in the eyes. “It's the one that can only be eased by friends and family.”
He understood. It was an impulse that ran under his skin. Of course he would catch my meaning right away. From the frantic energy I felt in him, he probably would have ended up trying the very same thing sooner or later.
“How can I help?” he asked, fire in his eyes. “Tell me.”
His sister slowly turned to him, lost. “Fry...”
Quite suddenly, their touching moment slipped my mind for more pressing matters. An immense weight was bearing down on my horn and my legs. One of the Serpent's coils had collided with my barrier, and was pushing us through the water as if we were weightless. It hadn't even noticed us. Not with Luna still sending bolts after bolts of magic at its face.
The boat skidded on the waves, bouncing in ridiculous skips like a thrown stone.
With a low growl, I swung my horn, and the barrier flashed a deeper, opaque red.
And maybe, just maybe, I kinda gestured for them to hurry it up a little.
Small Fry took his sister's head in his hooves. “Come on, Puddle, you know me better than that. I'd carry the world on my shoulders if that's what I needed to do.” He chuckled, as is knowing a joke nopony else did. But it flickered away quick, his gaze filled to the brim with absolute sincerity. “My dream isn't more important than you. Please tell me you know that.”
I waited as he did, unable to speak, hoping. And like him, I felt my muscles stiffened and my heart break.
Fry's voice cracked. “Please! Pond, I want you happy! The restaurant doesn't matter to me if you're sad! Do you hear me? It doesn't matter! You can leave, I'll be okay on my own! So stop, Pond, please, stop!”
One gentle grey hoof found its way onto his lips, and he was made silent. Though his eyes screamed, Fry held on to his breath, to his heart, long enough to feel his sister lean against him.
“Thank you...” she whispered into his shoulder, half sobbing and half laughing. “Oh, Fry, thank you so much!”
“There, there,” he said, a hoof patting her back, “it's alright, sis. Everything's gonna be alright.”
My breath itched up in my throat. Strands of my fur stood straight on ends, while the base of my horn tingled. Small Fry had meant it. He had meant it so much that the air had stilled and the dream had shifted ever so slightly in response to his will.
I found myself looking at the lance. It had lost its grim aura. In its stead, I could sense something fiery surging underneath its carved motifs. Something powerful. Meaningful. Yes, it would do nicely.
Time to slay the snake, I thought. Once it's dead, things will settle down a bit. Small Pond will wake up, her brother too, and they'll finally have the talk they should have had for years. Once I kill it...
“You know what?” I turned back to them, and it was all I could do to dodge the urging stare they sent my way. “I had an even better idea.”
I pulled Small Pond's hoof until it touched the base of the lance's handle.
“Take it. You'll be the one to slay your dreamon.” I didn't flinch at their combined shout of indignation and shock. I kept the unfailing smile on my face, and spoke with as much sincerity as I could put in a single sentence. “Else, well, it doesn't mean much, does it? It's gonna come back. Face your own fear, Pond.”
Her hoof quivered against the shaft of wood, but did not move.
“I can't carry it. It's too heavy.”
She wasn't even trying. Old eyes like Granny's would remember what it looked like, when a pony grasped firmly at an object, whatever it was. Small Pond's hoof was pressed against the lance, just enough to say it touched it. Nothing more.
“Grab it.” She shrunk back. The fear in her gaze struck me right at the chest. How easily the insecurities came back. But, wasn't that reason enough for her to be the one? “Trust me, Small Pond. Trust your brother. We're here, with you. We already know what you fear, and you know what? We don't judge you.”
“I'd have rather you told me earlier, Puddle,” Small fry grunted, looking away with a mighty blush spread over his face. “Never wanted you to feel bad over me.”
“Come on, Pond. Trust us. You can. This is your dream on the line. Remember the sea. Remember the mysteries of the world waiting, and the port cities you will sail to, and the exotic stallion you will meet. How badly do you want that? Is this truly enough to make you renounce those beautiful places to see, those people to find?”
There was a different grief on her traits now. The beauty she had found before was turning to ashes and dust. She wanted to grasp at them, but her body refused to obey.
“Sis, he's right,” Small Fry said as if it cost him dearly. “He can't do it for you and neither can I. It has to be you. Don't think about how hard it'll be, don't wonder what's going to happen if you fail, just... try.”
Small Pond's hoof rose above her head, and with it, the skyscraper-like spear followed.
She did not get the awe in our eyes at first. She didn't get to see it from our angle, a thin, slender mare like her, carrying a weapon so large it made her look the size of a flea. But we did. We did and we grinned so hard Small Pond had to realize what was going on. She looked to her hoof, and flinched, as if the lance would suddenly weight what it looked like it should. Her amazed eyes turned to me when it didn't.
I responded with a cheeky grin. “Isn't it light?”
She chuckled. She laughed, higher, crystalline, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She laughed and bellowed and fell back on me with a long sigh of content.
My cheek brushed against hers. “A laughter shared is heightened. A burden shared is lessened. Love is great like that.”
She smiled, eyes shining in the light, and such tenderness to her gaze that my heart skipped a beat. “You might be a dreamon, William, but you're not a monster.”
I choked. A weight I hadn't known I carried had been shattered. All those creeping thoughts in the dark, all of Luna's accusations, all the taunts of the String-Man, they had burdened me. Made me wonder if perhaps that hunger was bigger than me. I could fight it. I knew I could fight it, but no one else seemed to.
Small Pond believed in me. She... she actually believed in me.
Gently, she reached for my hoof and I jolted back at the sudden rush of levity that a simple contact with her brought me. It felt... it felt golden, and in more ways than one. From my very own skin shone the same soft glow that still surrounded Small Pond. Upon my wings, upon my barrel and my chest, golden plates hung, radiant. Their glow cast a kind light over my fur, turning into a gentler shade of somber grey.
I gazed in wonder at my own hooves, unable to detach my eyes from the rubies embedded in the plates. Each one reflected back the amazement held in my deep red irises. Even my mane, before reminiscent of a bloody mist, resembled the fires of the sun. There was nothing of darkness in me anymore. I looked the part of a goddamn knight in shining armour.
Warmth fluttered in my chest. Is this how I look to you, Pond?
Yes, her smile told me in earnest. She did see me as this creature of light. I wanted to hug her, so much the pangs of desire startled me.
“Oi, I ain't here to hear you flirt, Puddle!” Small Fry called out. “Again!”
Shaking my head, I willed my blush to disappeared, and Small Pond hung her head, her ears drooped.
“Sorry,” she whispered, quietly enough that her brother would not be able to hear. “It isn't exactly the best time for this, is it?”
“Ehhhhh...” I scratched the back of my neck, and nodded toward the stream of lightning rushing toward the Serpent's head. Its roar of pain made our boat rattle. Its tail swung through the air so fast and strong that the clouds split above it. “I don't mind.”
Small Pond's head snapped to me. I winked.
With a flick of my horn, I lifted both Small Pond and her brother onto my back. They – Fry more so than Pond – scrambled their hooves across my armour for a better grip. Eyes still on the titan's head hissing toward Princess Luna, I waited to feel them stop moving.
“I'll have to drop the shield, alright? Both of you, hang tight, especially you, Pond.” To which she responded by holding her left hoof tighter over my armoured shoulder. My grin widened as much as Fry's scowl intensified. “It's gonna get messy. Steady...”
The barrier fell. We soared.
We shot in a straight line for the sky. Above the madness and the violence of the trashing dreamon. A streak of gold marked our progress, like the tail of a comet through the night sky. My wings flapped, and with each beat, I pumped more and more of that determination. We would see through the night. This wouldn't close the chapter of our lives with the Serpent winning. So I forced us ever higher, past the coils flinging in front of me, past the waves that were the claws of a monstrous will, past even the flash of Luna's magic. Past it all, until only the clouds could greet us.
And their inhabitants, I thought with a wry smile. Pond radiated joy, as a gentle giant broke through the veil of vapour. Its long face glided past us, its skin softly glowing the shades of the rainbow. One eye the size of a house fixed us with an insistent stare, but my heart felt at peace. Its mourning song seemed so much grander than the chaos below. I found it easy to let my wings surf on the air current the whales created.
“If it can even be a tenth of this...” I heard Small Pond whisper through fresh tears.
“It'll be, sis,” Fry whispered back. “But first, we'll wake up.”
The quiet vow repeated in my mind. They would wake up. Both of them, safe, as happy as they could be. I let the whale's song sink in, added its melody to the promise.
Till my ears ticked at a noise not unlike chirping.
Are those... goldfishes?
They were. Fishes that swam through the air as if it were water, their toothed-mouths opening and closing fast, their vitreous gazes looking at us dead on, their scales in shades of gold much like my armour. I barely had time to savour the irony before they crossed the distance separating us.
“Hold on!” I shouted right as I accelerated. Yet no matter how hard I flapped my wings, no matter how many turns and twists I took around the raging clouds, the swarm followed right after.
Power tickled at the base of my horn. A blast of fire might do the trick. Something like a summoned predator or a vicious rain of anvils. But in the corner of my eyes, the spear Small Pond kept at hoof's reach shimmered with its purified strength. If I damaged it in the struggle... The Serpent was so close!
There was a glint of silver.
“Don't falter!” Small Fry commanded, his horn aglow with turquoise light.
The fishes' flight had faltered, their formation no longer a straight, impeccable arrow of death. Speckles of golden dust fell out from their fins, and their cries were panicked as the silver glint zipped through their swarm.
“They're not gonna get close to Pond!” His shout carried in the whipping wind. “Don't worry about them! I know my way about fishes!”
Blood pumping like never before, I willed my wings to carry us faster, for the wind and the sky to soar past us in blurs and flashes. The clouds parted before us, cut right at the tip of my horn, swirling around the lance with the rainbow shine of the flying whales about.
And finally, that shine seemed to reflect in the Serpent's dim yellow eyes. Finally, it took notice of the preys it had lost, of the defiance they had with a slow turn of its reptilian head. Good. The most savage part of me wanted it to know. It wanted it to feel, and suffer for it.
“You know the words...” I said to Small Pond.
Her eyes jumped back to me, a glint of surprise in them. Did she know the words? I thought she did, rather. She had been witnessed to the slaying of many, many shellfishes. She had seen me break apart the shells and burn their eyes and fling a lance through guts.
She knew the words.
“Together!” Small Pond suddenly shouted.
And I grinned.
“From Hell's heart...”
Pond's grip on the lance tightened
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Our surroundings blurred. I could only see my target. We were zooming straight at the underbelly of the trashing serpent. Focus... Willpower shaped dreams. Wish it...
It had trapped me here.
It had trapped so many.
It had tried eating Small Pond.
And the rage came. Staggering, blazing. Every ounce of it poured into the motion. Every little bit given to her.
“I STAB AT THEE!”
Small Pond struck true.
Light blinded us. Noise deafened us.
For a staggering moment, our senses were overwhelmed. Something in the dream had broken. Something on a fundamental level. Rooted out. Severed as if snipped by a blade. And we were falling. My wings flapped, slowly, uneven. Falling, into the clouds or the water.
Ringing, deafening. The world overcome and flooded with static. The sea and the sky were one, and two, and the same blurring sight of grey, distorted. Pieces of the storm clouds fell from up high, and left in their place holes in the dream.
The anchor had been severed.
And the Serpent's fury rang loud over the chaos.
Its roar shook the skies and the seas, ripped them asunder from the sheer force it held. Waves crashed against us, covered us in salt and blood. We couldn't move. And still the sound shook us to our bones. It rippled and clawed its way inside our heads and filled them so we had no thoughts but the roar. And the roar was a cacophony of fury, heart boiling fury, and something else.
Was it fear? An abject mixture of pain, shock and worry. The lance had plunged deep within its flesh, straight through the scales it thought invulnerable, and none of its trashing coils could ever relieve it of that pain. Small Pond had driven the weapon through it.
In a thousand years, had it ever been inflicted such a thing as a wound?
A part of me that was nothing of light awoke from its slumber. Drooled and licked its torn lips and razor sharp fangs. The scent of blood tickled my nose.
But what struck my addled mind was the sensation of a grip lost, a pressure lifted. In its stead, I could only feel cold and a desire for that hoof and the mare attached to it to return.
The softest of grey fur slid right before my eyes, down. Down. Down, toward the raging sea and the raging snake.
“Pond!” I cried out, but she didn't hear. Didn't give sign that she focused on anything but the dreamon below.
Small Fry's hooves bore into the plates on my back, urged me forward.
I was diving. Winds slapped me in the face, dried my eyes and pushed at my wings. I was diving, faster. Faster to the beat of Fry's frantic whispers and the faltering light on Pond's horn.
It could see.
The malicious glint in the yellow eyes was fire. Hunger had left its insatiable guts for the briefest of moments in its long life. It was revenge it craved, for the mare that was smaller than its scales but had driven agony in its body.
The jaws parted. Thousands of thousands of fangs awaited to welcome the falling mare.
The sight that I was gifted next would be forever carved in my brain. For each piece of the sky that had fallen, the hole would become a window. The morning sun filtered its ray and broke the darkness of the battle. Suddenly there was light, so much light, Small Pond seemed ablaze, riding a star. Wisps of flames licked at her sides, twin trails of her burning power, in imitation of wings.
It was her, and her alone, that struck the final blow, that shattered the nightmare.
“LEAVE US ALONE!”
And our wills were shaken, cracked by the cry of the dream world's mistress. The titan below felt shrunken, its hunger and rage insignificant. It could not dive fast enough. None could have.
Torrents of flames and light descended upon it, and Small Pond reclaimed control of her dreams.
I met her, Small Fry still on my back, with a slackened jaw, atop the charred remains of a creature whose sheer size made my brain hurt. And by all that was good in this world and the next, I... I thought I had never seen a more amazing sight than that little grey mare laughing, wrapped in the morning light.
“I... I did it, William!”
A smile came to me through the tears of pride. Yes, yes she had done it. I felt a rush of warmth and affection like no other before. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to say so many things, the best things. Small Fry certainly had no reservation and galloped and tackled and hugged his sister in a combination of loving and harsh words, that always ended up the most affectionate ones.
And yet, through the overwhelming happiness, we still heard the whoosh of air and the clink of metal produced by the silver horseshoes' landing.
“Princess Luna.”
I did not know who said it, but we turned together to greet the Princess of Dreams.
Though dishevelled, a somewhat heavy gait to her steps, she had lost none of her regal composure and cut straight to the chase. “You did well. All of you. The threat has been vanquished, of that there is no doubt, but there is not much time left. You two must leave.”
While Small Fry gave out a loud whooping 'YES!', his sister glanced back to me. I saw understanding dawn on her. Waking up meant saying goodbye.
That... that was fine. We'd been aiming for this since I realized the truth of this world and my new nature.
I'd miss her. Now that separation stared us back in the face, I could feel an acute pain unlike anything a dream should let me experience. A part of me that was so very young and hopeful pushed the words near my lips. If it had to pass, then at least, not without the truth being out there.
They were on the tip of my tongue. Frozen. Pulled back at the very last second.
It couldn't be taken back. It was one of those things that changed the world forever, even just a little. And really, to a dreamon that only lived in dreams? She could do better than that... she ought to.
She was going to say it. She was going to, and I'd never be able to bear what needed to be done.
She opened her mouth, but I spoke first.
“The dream is over. Wake up.”
The siblings vanished, the pain of betrayal all too clear on Small Pond's face.
I surveyed the flooded dreamscape with a cool, detached glare.
Without the storm and the battle agitating it, the sea was a peaceful sight. As far as the eyes could see, clear blue water hauled back and forth. The only black spot on that idyllic painting had to be the giant corpse still afloat. The Serpent's charred remains cut a pitch black line across the ocean. Its head lulled to the rhythm of the waves, its tremendous eyes forever closed.
I hadn't been able to awaken. Some part of me knew deep down that I wouldn't. Small Pond was awake, so it stood to reason that I would have too, if it had been possible. All it meant was that the rumbling of my stomachs would keep growing louder, would grow more demanding.
Dreamon. I hated the word, I really did. The only thing I thought I could hate more was the corpse with the lance sticking out of its lungs.
It robbed me of my life. Of my family, of my friends. I'd never see them again, because of this monster.
Being skewered on the insecurities it fed from seemed too kind a fate. Much too kind. It made my heart sing a dark little song to remember the fiery fate Small Pond had bestowed upon the Serpent.
The whispers were growing. My neck twitched, an itch in my muscles spreading. My wings were flexing, testing my weight, their strength. I raked my right hoof over the blackened scales. From the blackest parts of me, I could feel the urge rise. Luna wasn't here to watch. She'd gone back to the realm of the living with my friends almost as soon as they had disappeared.
Slowly, I ran my tongue over my lips. I was not surprised, nor worried, to find it forked. The cold dancing over my skin was all too familiar. The armour that weighed me down did not emit any sort of radiance. Not this one.
But in this moment, alone, cold and feeling the sting of injustice digging deep through my mind, I did not want to be a great knight in shining armour. I did not feel like any kind of hero. I just... I wanted something to ease that anger.
To lash like a beast until the hurt went away.
To eat.
Scales broke under my bite, flesh and ashes slid down my tongue.
In my guts swelled power. It filled me to the brink, pulsing with every beat of my heart, faster with every gulp of tangy flesh. Not enough, hissed the voices in the back of my head. More! And my fangs ripped greater chunks, even as I drowned in the blood that seeped from the wound.
I feasted with vengeance on my mind, uncaring of the consequences.
The memories came with slithers and hiss, and a world so tall and strong I would hid under the cover of leaves. My coils circled the branches, the bark. I could climb the trunks as I would the legs of great beasts, and hid in the foliage. Shadows mingled with the spots in the pattern of my scales.
A tall prey passed by. Large. Plentiful. But dangerous. An irritated part of me produced another hiss, and the pull of hunger battled with the instinct of safety. There might be another prey soon. An easier one.
There might not be another.
I struck. Fangs outstretched, coils unfolding in a spring. A sharp, loud noise, the prey's howl of anger. Its muscles were hard as stone, resisting my attack. It fought. It buckled.
For a moment, a quick fading moment, I could not feel the earth, the pulses of beating creatures, only the wind, strong. And my trashing found nothing but emptiness.
Then the world broke apart in a flood of rushing water. Cold. Danger. My tail straightened in a futile attempt to grab onto solid ground. The shore grew distant, and my mind clouded. I felt sluggish. Slow.
No, that was bad. Slow meant no prey. Slow meant death.
Death.
The darkness appeared sprinkles with dust of light. The obscurity wasn't all-compassing. And the weight of water on me had disappeared. I was not in the forest, not in the water.
I hesitated. The hunting ground was different. I could no longer feel the wind, taste the scent of leaves in the air, feel the steps of preys. Instead was an unknown tingle. A hint of fear covered it up. Instincts surged through me.
Fear was of preys.
I hungered.
My coils strangled the orb of light. Fangs sunk into the flickering light. Like a ripe fruit, layers peeled off. Beyond its skin, relents of fear and will and denial. Shouts of 'no' and 'leave me alone' resonated, and I recognized the sounds for what they were. Preys.
Preys, and a predator. An instinctive fear flared up in my guts as I sensed the hunting ground ripple, and a prey-looking creature stepped out into the light. Cold crept up on the path. I had to hide away. From the cold. From the dark-blue predator.
There were other preys. So many unsuspecting, fat little preys. Going about their existences without an eye or an ear open for their death.
I slid over the hard ground, and struck.
Ate.
Bones gave out beneath my coils.
Ate.
Shrieks alerted me to fleeing horses.
Ate. Swollen. I should be swollen, instincts said. I was not. No, I wasn't slow and lumbering. I was strong, strong. My coils could snap the little ponies in half without effort. A single bite from my jaws ripped through flesh and bones.
I ate and ate and ate and ate and ateateateateateate.
The preys kept shrinking. I could not find any bigger. I needed more. Things with beaks like the sky predators. Dying by my fangs. Things that stood upright. Things that were scaled like true beings but with limbs and fire in their guts.
Easy.
The predator had disappeared. It never returned.
I lurked beneath the depth. Preys appeared on the near earth when I wanted. The water was a home. An acceptable nest, without need for the sky fire. The cold no longer slowed me down. I could force the cold away by not wishing it here. Wants became true.
The hunt still pulsed in my blood. The need to chase after the preys bore into me. I wanted the hunt. I wanted the preys to know before they were eaten. And they always did. They ran. This one ran.
I wanted it, and around us, the claws that could not be seen gripped the fleeing creature.
But the hunting ground blurred for a moment. The need had fetched farther, through a wall that led outside the balls of light. Vibrations in the ground. Quick ones. Little noises like preys about to die. The thought made my muscle tense in anticipation. Yes. Yes, I wanted the runner.
Another prey then stumbled beyond the surface, drifted like a lazy bird on the waves. It was different, its smell unknown to me, its form strange. I could not see it clearly, but I sensed its presence. My neck stretched as I unhinged my jaw.
But the prey turned into a horse like the others, though with both wings and horn. It blinked out of range.
A dissatisfied rumble shook my insides, but I let my body curl back into the dark. The female prey was running. She'd be rip for eating soon.
Soon.
I fell away from the mountainous corpse, on the sea.
The water surface did not break. It had taken the consistency of glass.
Trembling, I wiped the dark blood from my face, then rose on unsteady legs. So agonizingly slowly, I distanced myself from the charred reptile. How many? The question rung in my head, and terrified faces flashed one after the other. My ears hurt from the screams, going on and on, and on.
How many?
There were voices, and words I could not catch, and dozens of ponies, and zebras and griffons and dogs and bovines and dragons.
How... many...? I glanced at the Serpent, my insides frozen into a block of ice, my heart right up there in my throat.
And I became aware of a watchful presence at my sides.
“Since when have you been here?” I muttered.
Luna didn't miss a beat. “Since I confirmed that all of my subjects had been saved. You are the last living creature in this crumbling dream world.”
Good, I nodded, good. I liked the sound of that. Everypony, safe and sound. Happy ending. We could celebrate with ribbons and confettis, and...
I made a muffled grunt and heaved.
Everypony had been saved. Ah, haha, I was going to be sick.
“You want to know something funny?” I cried out, head hanging in my hooves. “It was not on purpose. The Serpent didn't snatch me up for some grandiose plans or something. I was just having a dream about being chased, and I was thinking of Equestria, and I wanted to be there!”
I felt Luna's eyes narrow in confusion behind my back. That piece of the puzzle, I did not feel like giving right now. It'd be too much like reminiscing, too much like thinking about what I had been robbed of.
“It thought I was Small Pond at first,” I said, not even recognizing my own voice. Was it really me speaking? “It tried to eat me like the rest. I just got lucky. It was a real fucking glutton, that thing. Ate hundreds and thousands.”
Luna flinched as if I had slapped her. I knew I should have considered her feelings a bit. The only words she ever told me were about her duty to her ponies after all. But, that was the thing, she'd never really considered mine.
So, a dark little part of me didn't mind too much letting her stew on the aftermath of the Serpent's existence.
“It was ancient,” the Princess of Dreams acknowledged, pain hidden in her solemn words. “Perhaps the oldest of your kind left. For it to have lived so long... I expected no less. I will always regret not finding out about it sooner, but now that its death is confirmed, there is little else to say.”
I could agree to that. The past seemed a terrible thing to delve on right now. I would rather find a future for myself, thought even that might be something of an ordeal. Patches of the landscape were gone, swallowed by the void. Cracks ran into the red sky, flashes of lightning running between them. And dust seemed to rain from them, as if the fabric of the dream itself had begun to unravel.
Luna followed my gaze and cleared her throat.
“The dream will remain somewhat habitable up until our subject forgets. For the average pony, the memories fade within seconds of awakening. The mind, I find, is often purged of the ideas that clustered it before sleep.” Her words made my heart skip a beat. Would Small Pond forget this? Would she forget about me? Princess Luna, as if reading my thoughts, spoke with a twinkle of amusement in her voice. “In the case of a dreamon's victim, they will remember for quite some time if they realized the danger they had been in.”
I snorted. “I think we have that covered.” With maybe a bit more force than necessary, I stomped down on the Serpent's scale. “I mean, we fought that dreamon together. She...”
A cold feeling washed over my coat at the last look of pain she had sent me. I had to. Those words were a promise she couldn't afford to make. Less so when there remained so many uncertainties about my future.
Yet, I could still smile. I could still cradle that little piece of warmth her radiant memory offered. “Small Pond really amazed me. She did it. She actually killed that monstrosity on her own. I... I feel proud just thinking about it.”
Her gaze slid on the Serpent's carcass, and she nodded. “It is a feat worthy of praise and songs. I will make sure that it is remembered, one way or another.”
I heard the promise for what it was. “...Thank you,” I whispered slowly.
We shared a moment of silence, letting the dust settle, so to speak. My knees felt like jelly, soft squishy jelly, and I sat down. It was finally crashing down on me. The big dreamon was dead, the others were safe. We had done it, through imaginary tears and imaginary blood. And where did that leave me?
“Fear still follows you,” Luna stated mildly.
Of course it does.
“I am tired of fear,” I said, feeling empty inside. My future had slipped through my hands like sand. “Of fear and sadness and shock. No more. Please, if you have any pity in you.”
“Mayhaps if we could afford it,” Luna replied, her glance toward the horizon, away from me. “It is here.”
Almost despite myself, I looked. A spot of black contrasted with the waves of transparent glass.
The silhouette did not move. It remained cut into the red of the sunset by a frame of shadows. And by the time I had blinked, it stood before us. As still as a statue.
I could already hear his taunting words, his groans and moans just over the clicking of mandibles. He'd be amused. After all, wasn't I sitting down next to the mare that had sworn to eradicate me and my kind from existence? All the while throwing his strings at me in the hopes that the puppet would return to its master.
“Is this what you see?” Luna's words brought me out of my thoughts.
“A shadowy figure made of strings and bugs?” I asked. “Yeah. I can't shake it off. I've killed it twice before and look at it now. Good as new.”
What was it going to take to chase him off? What part of me couldn't let go? I refused its orders and its claims! I refused to be a monster in the dark!
If Small Pond, whose fears had had years to take root in her mind, could face the Serpent, why couldn't I throw away my nightmare? I looked at the sand, trying not to snarl. What made me so damn inadequate? I didn't fear him! I didn't!
Luna's voice was faint. “Even I still have nightmares of Eternal Night, young dreamon.”
I snapped my head in her direction, eyes wide. Had she just...? No, there was no way... not to me. She hated my guts!
All of my incredulity must have been written over my face, for Luna took one look to me, and snorted bitterly. “I am not unfamiliar with the fear of oneself. In fact, I have forbidden myself from ever forgetting the consequences of my past follies. During my first month back from the moon, I hid my face from the enormities of my rash actions. Equestria, and the world at large, nearly brought to ruin by my designs.”
I swallowed. “How?” I asked. But did I really need to?
“The truth set me free in the end,” she said, and marched upon the String-Man.
It didn't react. Faint blue shimmers pushed away the oily black. Threads of light sewed together the shredded mouth. The insects that hoped to swarm Luna evaporated as embers fell at her hooves. She marched upon the String-Man with regal strides, and unmade him.
The strings had thickened. Flattened. Each of them seemed akin to rolls of white gauze, hanging from the frozen monster's body.
Bandages. The String-Man was covered in bandages.
I felt a stone fall heavily inside my chest.
His limbs had been cocooned in the tightly roped bandages. An inattentive observer might have thought him an injured man, from afar. The sight, somehow, appeared more gruesome than its bare, skinny arms. As if he had stumbled out of a hospital before being discharged.
The String-Man is a walking corpse. He is not a dreamon.
He was my nightmare. I knew it in my guts. Yet a piece of the puzzle was missing. What did I have a nightmare about?
“Nopony is ever born a dreamon, that's what you said, right?”
Luna glanced back to me, paused in her spellwork.
“Indeed.” She nodded, her attention back to the frozen nightmare. “Dreamons are echoes of much sadder creatures.”
The air around me had become cold. A little voice in the back of my head whispered that I should leave now. There wouldn't be a way to turn back if I stayed. Things would change. I knew. I felt it coming.
In the time it took me to blink, the String-Man had been made to lie down on his back. Its body rested on a plain bed, and Luna's magic surrounded him.
His deformed limbs shrunk. Suddenly, they appeared as normal as any other man's, tucked within the confines of a sharp-cut black suit, hands held together just over his chest.
It had lost the burlap sack. The top of his head was covered only by a turquoise blanket, the exact same shade one found in hospitals. Luna stripped the corpse of that veil with one look. Underneath, the String-Man's features had appeared.
It was no longer a skull, but a normal, perhaps even average human head. He looked paler than a healthy man, for certain, with a cold shade of white for its skin. Even beneath the short brown stubble that marred the man's cheeks, it looked near bone-white. He looked rather peaceful this way. Someone, something, had closed his eyes, for decency's sake, but I did not doubt that they would have been empty, glazed over. Probably as brown as his cropped hair.
The String-Man was a corpse.
I looked back to Luna. “That's my face.”
An incredulous snort escaped me. Oh. So that was the bottom of it. Oh... oh God...
“Dreamons are the last nightmare of the dying. They feed on life, because they exist on stolen time. All those beasts merely delay their natural demise.” The cyan of Luna's eyes seemed cut from ice, and yet I could not find it in me to fear her anymore. Sadness hardened her scowl. “Perhaps they are as lost as other dreamers, never to realize their own evils. But they never stop.”
My hooves had found their place over my ears. A voice like mine sang a childish “lalala” to bury, without any success, the rest of Luna's explanation.
I knew what she was going to say.
“You are dead, William.”
All fell into silence.
I threw up a chunk of serpent meat the size of my own head.
The hoof that found the small of my back surprised me. It traced soothing circles over my fur, nothing of the cold left. There was a gentleness to its touch, a light that glinted in the horseshoe.
The words were quiet. “I cannot return you to your body; no more than I could bring back to life the recently deceased.” Luna's eyes closed, and her voice trembled in disgust. “The most foul arts alone might, but you will not find a living necromancer in all of Equestria. The practice has been long since eradicated. And you would find such an existence vile. Even more than the one you possess now.”
I still don't want to die! sprung from my though in a shrill shout. No, no, that wasn't right. I was already dead, just... like a zombie or a vampire or a lich. I was part of the fucking undead! How?!HOW DID I DIE?!
The glass beneath me blurred. I... What had happened? How did it happen? Did it hurt? Suddenly, I was running my hooves over my chest, over my face, expecting to find a blatant bleeding wound. I would have seen it before, the rational part of me thought of the reflections in the water. But the frantic movements of my legs wouldn't stop. They had a life of their own. Where? Where was the proof that I had died?!
I snapped my head toward the peaceful corpse of the String-Man. My corpse. It was the strangest sight, one that had me dizzy and grasping at the hospital bed he was lying on. My face, eyes forever closed, limbs stuck in rigor mortis. And blood... blood seeping from the pants legs.
“William,” Luna called my name. “It is only a reflection of your fear.”
Which was why it had only taken to calling me a dreamon after I had started having doubts on Luna's words. My brain pushed a few more pieces together. I'd been goofing around in the Serpent's guts, but I had still been afraid. Only a reflection.
“I... I have to let go, right?” I sniffled, rubbed a hoof on my muzzle. “The String-Man is me, dying or dead. I'm just in denial.”
I pulled back the pants and stared at the ankles on that human body. On it, there were a row of puncture wounds, and shreds of flesh missing.
My breathing grew heavier. I still couldn't remember it happening. I had died and I didn't even realize. I had died in my twenties, my studies not even over, without ever getting a real job and a house and a spouse. I had had years in front of me.
No longer, living nowadays was just fantasy and hunger. The two pillars of my existence. I wanted to hurl. Without a sound, I fell on my rump, and wept.
Luna let me. I would be grateful one day, for that little bit of respect. She let my dread, horror and anguish bleed out of me like venom from a wound. She let me curse and spit and rage till I felt nothing.
Till, finally, a single word could be pushed out of my throat, as raw and coarse as my shredded heart. “Why?”
“Dreamons have plagued the world since the first minds opened to the fear of death.” She never looked more vulnerable, nothing like the furious mistress of dreams and storms. Nothing like the demanding ruler wishing for her subjects' safe return. She... she looked tired, to the depth of her soul. “I have fought many, so many. Countless. When I was younger, I did try to parlay, to help the deceased pass into the shadowlands and everything that is beyond.”
The sentiment might have been noble, but I knew that it would be doomed to failure. Even a thinking dreamon would reject that offer. Choosing death was the unnatural path. “You tried...”
“Yes, I tried.” She clung to those words. “If only to honour the ones they had been in life. I tried even in the face of refusal and battle. I tried. Until a stallion named Fickle Heart paid the price of my mistake.” Her eyes misted over. “Then... then I could never again take the risk of being deceived. It felt too terrible to open up my mind to the concept of mercy and suffer the betrayal again.”
Somehow, my hoof found its way to her shoulder, gentle, though Luna flinched regardless. Her eyes looked at me with something new within, almost curious.
Her voice was but a whisper. “I wonder... if I had given you a chance... if I had been less abrasive...”
“If I had been less lecherously obnoxious,” I added with a sly grin.
To my great amusement, Luna let out a snort. “Aye. That might have helped. I truly believed you wanted to bargain their lives for sexual favours.”
Chuckling, I ran a hoof through my mane. “Not my finest moment. Still, you were ready to put my ass on fire last time. What changed?”
There was a moment when it seemed she wouldn't reply.
Her eyes were misty. “I was asked to choose. What mattered more? That I had been right all along, or that I might have stumbled into a way to save those that needed me?”
For a moment, I was struck silent. They must have loved or hated her a great deal to ask this of her. I had trouble imagining any pony demanding this of her, the Night Princess and diarch of Equestria. Only her equal might.
And, remembering the blaze that had taken Pond over, I knew there could only be one. “I think we know what mattered to you in the end.”
Luna nearly smiled. Her sharp nod hid any curve on her lips. “I had help, but in the end, I decided I would try. It was not the wrong choice, it seems.” Her eyes bore into me, no longer of harshness, no longer of ice or fire. She looked at me with regret and gratitude dancing on a glint of azure. “You... you helped free my subjects. You helped her shed the shadows weighing her down. So, yes, I believe I own some blame for how this went down. For that, and for how I ended up treating you, I apologize. You did not deserve such scorn.”
And Luna did one thing I had not expected to see of any alicorn ever. She bowed. One knee to the ground, head dipped in respect, and wings outstretched to her left.
It shocked the words out of me. “I... Princess... don't.” I bid her to rise. “Please, it's okay. It was a weird situation for everyone.” Red coloured my cheeks as she remained formally bowed. I racked the corners of my brain for a way to get her to stop, until it slapped me in the face. “You're forgiven, Princess Luna!”
Now, she smirked, mirth very obvious on her whole demeanour. “I never thought the night would come that I would beg for a dreamon's forgiveness, and do it sincerely.”
I chuckled. “Well, I never thought” – I would die – “I would talk to the real one. So I guess we're even.”
It was meant as a joke, but the twinkle in Luna's gaze told me she had taken it otherwise.
“Even?” she mulled the word over. “I would like that.”
A rare smile showed on her face. Not a sarcastic or grim one. One with a certain beauty, that transformed her whole face into that of a truly striking mare. I surprised myself to feel my tail flick aside nervously.
I wanted to smile back. The corners of my mouth rose too. Even with the Princess of the Night. Maybe her equal, in some ways. She had certainly begun treating me as such.
No lie, no complacency, no condescension.
I trusted her enough to be truly honest.
So, I asked, half of me screaming to bite my tongue, “What's going to happen next?”
“I... I do not know.” Luna hung her head. “I have been convinced of my infallibility on the dreamscape for so long now. It is... disorientating to admit ignorance of any kind.”
And that's when it sank in. Dreamons weren't meant to linger. Equestrian magic had never managed to save one. Luna had never done it before. This was unknown territory for us both.
Moments passed, the silence growing heavy between us. It seemed to buzz in my ears, to drill into my head as if to cover my thoughts in a blurring outline. With so much stolen from me, I truly stood on the edge of a precipice. My future had crumbled, everything I ever thought I knew about it gone. What would there be for a dreamon?
One glance to the String-Man, and I knew.
Perhaps Luna knew as well. An insidious thought had wormed its way in her mind. It was written all over her face. “Were you the one that consumed one Sea Orchid's life?”
I choked. If I had been drinking anything, it would have sprayed all over the glass.
“Yes. Accidentally.” Because I could not lie about that. Granny hadn't deserved to be lied about. She left gently, and my hooves did the deed. “...Are you going to kill me now?”
Luna hid her face in her hooves, a slight trembling shaking her body. Through this, she mumbled, “It couldn't have been easy...”
“Has it ever been?” I asked with a poor imitation of a smile.
She refused to look at me. “I cannot allow you to roam free through the dreams of subjects I have sworn to protect. You have proven as valuable an ally as I could have hoped, but not even you trust yourself with the instincts of the undead.”
Despite a small grimace, I nodded. She had a point there, and we both knew it. The fangs and the leather wings came without resistance, if I asked.
“I am unsure on how to proceed from this point forth.” Slowly, she rose to her hooves, testing her muscles as she did. Her wings extended fully with a few tentative flaps. “I... I need to consult with my sister and her student.”
Don't leave me alone! I thought desperately, but I held my tongue. Luna only received a nod from me. I didn't trust my voice not to betray me.
So I sat, and waited as the cracks on the landscape spread further while my only companion disappeared in a flash of blue light.
~~
What fished her out of the abyss of her own mind was a sound. A beeping. A persistent, repetitive little noise, that came and came back, with clockwork regularity. A beeping, like her own heartbeat. And that struck her as odd. How could one still have a heartbeat with a broken heart?
Small Pond's mind felt like swimming through a vat of ink. Her limbs were glued to her sides, unable to help her fight through the molasse-like substance pinning her on her back. She drifted, lost.
“The dream is over.”
Her eyelids fluttered. Rays of light pierced through the abyss.
“Wake up.”
Her back arched, sensations flooding her mind all at once. The light had become a sting and a blur, her head was sunken in a soft surface while her hind legs pressed against cool metal bars, the air smelled of antiseptics and something familiar.
She was at the height of her senses, assaulted in every direction possible, her eyes wide and grasping for any information. She was at the height, and her back winced and trembled, and at once she crashed down on a comfortable mattress.
Oh, she thought as her mind made the connection. She was in the hospital, and somepony's hoof was holding hers.
“Finally,” said her brother as he rubbed at his eyes. “You took your time little sister. I was afraid you would not wake up after all!”
“Fr... Fry?” Her voice felt so weak. It tore from disuse. How long... how long had she been asleep?
“It's just like you to oversleep after staying in bed for days.” He laughed, a little too heartily. Small Fry's laughter had always been a more subdued thing than that. “Typical Puddle. Making me worry like that after burning a giant snake to death. You just can't do things in the right order, huh?”
A feeble giggle pulled at her throat. Her poor big brother must have been worried to death if he was rambling like that.
But laughing did more than strained her abused vocal chords. With a blush, Small Pond shrunk on herself. Her hind legs crossed as she suddenly realized the sharp pressure on her bladder.
“...I really need to pee, Fry.”
Her brother blinked, then facehoofed.
“Right, right, of course,” Small Fry fumbled, “let me call the nurses. They said they'd be around to help with you waking up. Shouldn't be hard to get one. There's a couple of things they need to take care of real quick. Something about stretching so you don't get cramps all over.”
True to his words, a nurse with her red mane in a bun and a spectacular grin entered not a minute later. Nurse Lucky Star swiftly took in Small Pond's appearances, her mouth running so fast neither sibling quite processed what she said. At least, she agreed to help find a bathroom for her patient. Small Pond filtered the inane chatter, the cries and exclamations over her miraculous recovery. Truly, Princess Luna had surpassed herself, just as everypony was starting to lose hope. What a load of drivel. Instead, she left her mind wander back to him.
She had been convinced he was about to say the words. Right up until the moment he had stopped, looking like a deer in a headlight. Her heart had skipped a beat. She knew the doubt and the regret then etched on his face. He... he had...
With a steadying breath, Small Pond swallowed back her tears. Her brother was still watching like a hawk, and she knew the nurse would drop the meaningless talk in a second if she cried.
Celestia, she needed to get to that bathroom.
Ahead, next to her chamber's door, Fry was frowning, trying to read her thoughts and emotions. He paused just as he was about to open the door for them, blinking then turning back. “Do you want me to accompany you?”
“No,” she instantly replied, then regretted. Her brother's wince made a string tighten around her heart. “I... Fry, I really do not need you to help me to the bathroom. I will die of embarrassment if you try.”
For a split second, her brother looked like he wanted to fight her on that.
“Okay...” He nodded quickly, taking deep breathes. “I'll be waiting here. We have a lot to talk about, don't we?”
Small Pond returned his shy smile, squashing the uncertainty that lingered in her chest. He knew. They'd even talk about it in the dream, but the miles-long serpent fighting a princess and threatening their lives had made things a little more hectic and abridged than they ought to be.
“Yes. I promise, Fry; there's so many things we need to clear out.”
The happiness in his gaze was tentative, cautious. She understood the feeling well. She would talk, that much she promised to herself as much as to her brother. William... William had been right about this.
The thought made her flinch, then urge the nurse to get going.
However, trotting was harder than she had thought it would be. A minute into it, and she could readily admit that the nurse's steady hooves might be the only things keeping her from falling over.
One leg, in front of the other. Four steps before she felt dizzy. The nurse's soothing words ringing in her ears. She could do it. Just a little more effort, and she would be able to go back and rest.
Rest was the last thing on her mind however.
Voices caught her attention from a door they passed by. “He remains trapped in that place for now. He didn't seem to want to escape when I left.”
He? she wondered through the haze of her thoughts.
When the nurse told her they had reached the bathroom, Small Pond nearly didn't hear her. The words were ringing to her ears, painfully so. He. He. He. Like a puppet, she stepped into the damp little bathroom, and, with a surprisingly strong kick, slammed the door shut before the nurse could follow. She was not that far gone.
And her bladder needed serious relief.
When her body had cleared that ordeal, when that pressing order disappeared from the urges directing her, part of the haze seemed to lift. And comprehension struck her like thunder. He was trapped. Left behind.
“The dream is over,” she muttered and shot a few frantic looks to her surroundings. What could she do?
The magnificent thing about Horseshoe Bay's hospital (more like a clinic, to be honest) was the size of it. Namely, two floors, at most, and even if she had been on the highest floor, most ponies in town learned how to safely land on piles of sand.
The window sill creaked as loud as a bird's squawk, and Small Pond's companion knocked at the door. “Miss Pond? Is everything alright in there?”
“Yes!” she scrambled to reply.
Galloping full speed despite her screaming legs, Small Pond repeated the words. “He remains trapped.”
They had been talking about William.
The haze of her slow awakening had fully disappeared, but in its place were dozens of inquiries fired at her mind. Where was he trapped? She was awake. He'd made sure that she woke up, first. She had to get to him. One way or another. He had helped her and her brother. He had done everything that could be done. And he lo–
Didn't say the words.
He regretted. With all the charm of a coltish stallion, so terribly earnest in all he did, yet bringer of a pain like none before it. You can't, he said with his eyes. Don't say it, you won't be able to take it back once you do.
Small Pond charged through the hospital's doors, cutting a straight line through the lobby with her heart pounding like a mad beast trapped within.
She wanted to say the words. She had never... it had always been part of the dream. To meet a nice stallion under the moonlight, to dance with him in an exotic bar, and whisper it to one another with only the night as a witness. She had dreamed of it for years, like everything else. She had always wanted to have that.
She needed to say it. He would do with it as he chose, but Small Pond knew she could not rest until then.
Fat droplets of sweat rolled on her brow, even as she swept the hallway with her gaze. Where had it been? Between her room and the bathroom, ponies had been talking about her stallion. She needed to find her room first, and avoid Fry. He'd never let her out of his sight if he knew she had ditched the nurse behind. And just as well, she would have to make sure the nurse wouldn't be seeing her outside that bathroom.
Easier said than done, when every other step made her dizzy. When her legs were made of lead. But if she gave up now, there would be no other chance.
And eventually, she did stumble upon the right door, the same dark green bamboo wooden door, hiding the same voices and the same topic. Refusing to listen to the voice of reason and propriety, she flattened her ear against the hospital door, just in time to catch a regal, poised voice.
“-- is dangerous, certainly, but not more so than a changeling. Is he?”
Another voice, this one far more familiar, replied with a perfect deadpan delivery. “Need I remind you what happened the last time you underestimated a changeling, sister?”
There was a moment of pause then, and she could imagine that the previous voice's owner was composing herself.
“Princess Twilight has reported that Ponyville has successfully integrated a changeling to its population. There has been no incident reported so far, and most of the citizens have completely adapted to its presence.”
To this strange revelation, another voice, younger, nicer if Small Pond could comment, added, “It attended the wedding of Mr. Cranky and Mrs. Mathilda. Did you notice it?”
Instead of words, she heard a rasp grunt of annoyance. That certainly answered the inquiry.
“Dreamons can feed on each other, correct?” the younger voice asked. “I speculated as much when you revealed that the weak ones fear their superior. Would that be possible for him?”
Why were they talking about ways for a dreamon to feed? Fatigue was catching up on her again, now that she had ceased her mad run for this place. And her addled mind refused to process the information. Would it be possible for William to feed on weaker dreamons?
The oldest, most mature voice chimed in, and Small Pond pictured the pony as frowning. “I am somewhat concerned about the moral implications of this course of action. If we gave this dreamon the benefit of doubt, I would also offer the chance to others, not make them fuel for one.”
“You need not worry, sister. That solution would not be practical regardless. Dreamons might be naturally spawned undead, but that does not make them common. They are created through specific circumstances. Happenstance.” No, the word could not be right to Small Pond's ears. They hadn't met through coincidence. Fate had a much truer ring. “I have seen many in my days, but I also have centuries of experience to draw upon. Today was a rare event. Two dreamons chasing the same prey.”
Small Pond felt a white hot fury fill her veins. That monstrous snake would never compare to William! How dare she?! Her hooves trembled. They itched, and she felt a bloodlust like never before.
Her hooves trembled over the door, and she could not imagine it being from her weakness. Anger had built a dam in her mind, it would only take that one drop too many, then it would burst and she would break down that door with her own two hooves.
The voices continued, unaware of Small Pond grinding her teeth a few ponies length away.
“He will be content for a time, but this shan't last. Dreamons' existences depends on those they feast upon. He has eaten some of the greater dreamon's remains, so he might last some time, but eventually, he will have to hunt again or let himself perish.”
Her heart stopped beating.
Somepony close by shouted, “Hey! What do you think you're doing over there?!”
The words beyond the door pierced through the veil of cold on her body. “He is different, undeserving of our scorn. I admit that. It would be a kinder fate to give him a clean death now than let him fall to starvation or madness later.”
Small Pond's legs moved before she had even time to think.
The door slammed open, shocking all three of the mares in the room. And her tired brain vaguely took notice that she had jumped in on the alicorn princesses of Equestria during a private meeting.
“Don't.” She could not say more than that. She could not think more than that. Whatever they meant to do to William, they couldn't. Small Pond knew it to the deepest corners of her soul. “Don't.”
They stared at her. Princess Twilight, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Through the absolute blank she was drawing upon, her mind still noticed a few things. The reasonable voice had to have been Princess Twilight, and she stood nearer to Princess Celestia than to Princess Luna.
The Night Princess had trouble staying awake. She seemed so different than from within her dream. She had fought the Serpent with all the grace and prowess of a warrior queen, but here, the bags under her eyes looked heavier than her body could bear. For however long Small Pond had been asleep, she understood the opposite had been true of her saviour.
“Mrs Pond, you ought to rest,” Princess Celestia reminded her with a gentle reprimand.
“Buck that, I've been sleeping long enough!”
If she still had her filters, Small Pond would have likely strangled herself for the blatant disrespect toward Princess Celestia. Perhaps she would have imitated Princess Twilight and shoved both hooves in front of her impertinent mouth. Perhaps she would be like the unconscious nurse. Yes, perhaps, but the memory of William's smile as he lifted the lance stayed with her. She had never remembered her dreams or nightmares before. Now they were all she could think of.
His coltish astonishment, painted clear on his face, when his wings gave away his thoughts of their kiss.
His boastful charge toward the giant crabs, shrimps, lobsters and other associated shellfishes.
His desperate pleas for the truth that stifled her.
His words. His voice. His tender looks and his strong legs around her shoulders.
Him.
May Celestia forgive her, Small Pond knew the meaning of her fluttering heartbeat.
“I was rather told that dreamon infested sleep did not help rejuvenate the mind and body much,” Princess Celestia mused, and Small Pond could have cried in relief at the lack of anger she perceived. “But perhaps you are to be the best judge of that, my little pony.”
“I... thank you.” She bowed her head, taking care to dip extra low to make up for her previous outburst.
Some guardian spirit might have been looking out for her, as none of the princesses appeared particularly offended.
Strangely enough, Princess Luna only regarded her with an amused interest. “Speak your mind, subject. You have the attention of your princesses.”
“I...” Do it for him. And that was all it took for her courage to return. “I came to beg you to save him. William is not in any way evil. He has been a beacon for me to follow, and without him, I would not be awake here to tell you about it.”
In the corner of her eye, as she pleaded to Luna, mostly, Pond saw Princess Twilight nod in approval.
Unfortunately, the dire look didn't fade from the Night Princess' traits. They had simply gained a hint of sorrow to them.“No matter our personal feelings on the stallion himself, we cannot ignore that he is akin to any other undead. He cannot survive without sustenance for long and the only food he can properly absorb is the life of dreamers.”
“There must be something that can be done!”
Luna's starry mane shook as the princess dug her hooves into the floor's tiles. “No power in this land or the next can change a dreamon's nature. Even the Elements of Harmony would merely purify the lost soul and make them pass on to the other side.”
In the corner of her eyes, Small Pond noticed a glint of purple light coming from Twilight Sparkle's crown.
“No powers, no magic. But what about him?” The junior princess came to Pond's rescue with inquisitive and thought-out words. “This William can control himself, Princess Luna. He freed the foals of his own free will, remember?”
And it was the strangest thing then. Small Pond swore she had seen some hope in the gaze of the dark princess.
Strange, for it was gone the next moment, killed in a bitter haze.“Aye, but he consumed the life of Sea Orchid in exchange.”
Granny... thought Small Pond with a hoof to her chest. The old mare had been childless, but that didn't stop her from treating most ponies Pond's age as her own. Briefly, she wondered how she had reacted to William, who bore a striking resemblance to her late husband...
“Granny Orchid is gone. It's my fault.”
Gone, kissed by a ghost of her former husband, gone and grateful.
Ache was spreading through her body like wildfire. She understood. She... she understood. William was out there, nearly gone, and the pain was already unbearable.
Gone with a kiss.
Small Pond felt as if the future unfolded ahead of her. There was a shift in the younger princess' demeanour. A disappointment, a sadness. Twilight Sparkle did not rise to plead again.
“She thanked him,” Small Pond ground out through fresh tears. That could not be how it ended. She refused. She refused! “Granny told him that he had been kind. He hated that.”
Princess Celestia spoke softly. “Enough to let himself perish instead of doing it again?”
With a choked sob, Small Pond hung her head and clenched her jaw to survive the pain of her heart shattering. How could she tell them? He had been casually dismissive, when nothing mattered. Childish, focused on his own amusement and gratification. And then he had returned to save her, looking like a true pony, asking her why and bringing down the fear shackling her. He had changed. She knew why and she couldn't say it.
Yes, she wanted to scream. Yes, a thousand times yes! He would let himself die instead, and that's why he shouldn't!
“Don't say it,” his eyes had pleaded. “Don't shackle your heart to me. I won't be around much longer.”
“Please, Princess...” The exhaustion brought her crumbling down. There was no strength left in her limbs. They rushed to her, but she barely even noticed. Trembling, her hoof reached for the gem-encrusted plate adorning Princess Celestia's neck. “I beg of you... don't let the stallion that led to the turning point of my life be nothing more than a dream.”
A shaking blue wing brushed her tears away. “We cannot offer our ponies as meals to him. We do not have that right over their lives. Least of all to prolong a life already ended.”
“I don't care!” she shouted at them all, her voice so raw it broke. “I don't care what you believe is right or wrong! I... I love him. Save him. Whatever it takes, save him. There has to be a way! You don't have the right to offer somepony else's life, but you can use mine!”
Her words struck like thunder. She almost saw them rippled through the air as if they were still in the dream world. Shock painted on their faces, from the mild to the aghast.
Princess Twilight Sparkle had gone a pale shade of violet. “Small Pond, we can't–!”
With a flash of light, Princess Celestia extended her left wing to silence the others. Small Pond wasn't sure what to make of that, a frown slipping on her face as she noticed the scowls on the alicorns' faces. Princess Celestia seemed to exchange a moment of silent communication with her sister, to which the dark princess responded with a simple nod.
Once more, Small Pond was pinned by the sheer presence of the Princess of the Sun, but now glittered a new sentiment in her wise old eyes. “How far are you truly ready to go for his survival, my little pony?”
“He saved me,” growled Small Pond. It was so obvious. She felt transparent, but somehow they needed to ask. “I'll save him. How far do you need me to go?”
This time, the words were Luna's. And they were as harsh as uncompromising. “To the brink. What you sacrifice today will not return to you.”
~~
“I'm sorry. It's little comfort, but I can't do more than that,” I said as I patted Luke and Lisa in the back. Their tears didn't stop coming. “Hey Luke, you can always brag that you know an alicorn now, sorta.”
He didn't crack a smile. Nor did Isabella, Grant or Ted. My friends were gathered in a semi-circle, wearing casual clothes instead of the black suits they should have worn for the occasion. I just didn't want to see them in mourning clothes.
“I'm sorry. I love you all.”
“We love you too,” they replied through whispers. The strongest two, from the only adults I had been able to conjure.
Mom and Dad were on their knees, the same way I had seen them when my uncle had died.
It wasn't them, but that was the closest to them I would ever get. Lifeless images, bland cutout cardboard copies that would never deviate from what I could imagine, or wanted to hear. By now, my real mother would have slapped me upside the head for having the audacity to die on her.
Mom's arms were around me, gentle, hugging me for what it was worth. My wings did the same to her and to Dad. Their voices were as I remembered, though with an echo that resembled my own voice. Everything they had said had been tainted by this little detail.
I had never realized how lonely lucid dreams were before.
When they disappeared, gone as morning dew in the sun, I felt no different. I had hoped... maybe... There hadn't been any relief. Any freed feeling within. The wait wasn't any easier. Each pulse of my blood was a tick of a clock, and each brought me closer to what I knew was going to be my final fate.
How long has it been?
Maybe I could try and break the wall again. I'd almost done it once, hadn't I? I had smelled the antiseptics in the air, the clean, sterile scent of a hospital room. I had heard ponies trot around and the cries of seagulls over the beach. It had felt real in a way the dream could never quite replicate. I could try again...
And then what? asked a cold voice in my head. Gallop through the field of stars and jump inside another dream? Wait it out until the hunger returns and then rip a star to pieces?
The screams burst into my mind, each more desperate and terrified than the next. My eyes rolling back, I stumbled against a mound of glass and fell against the frozen sea. Panting breaths fogged the surface, until the reflection within was a blur of black and red. If I looked from just the right angle, with the light of the sunset piercing through, the image of me appeared bathed in blood.
“I can't live like that.”
The dream shivered in its entirety. It had been witness to that promise.
Sighing, I let myself lie down on my back. Before me, the sky in the dream world. In all its twisted glory, with streaks of red and green and yellow battling in the firmament. The constellations ran around, Ursa Minors cuddling Ursa Majors, draconequus waving cotton candy in front of a crocodile, alicorns shielding ponies with their wings. And here and there, broken pieces, holes that let through a glimpse of nothingness, and beyond that, dreams.
There was something of beauty to it, and I decided to feel glad about having that much with me in the end.
Maybe it was the last piece of Small Pond's mind remaining. The sky and the stars, just as she had dreamed them. Perhaps, the way they were in Equestria and over the oceans she would visit soon. If the rainbow whale from before had been anything like the real thing, then she would truly live something worth all the hell before. She'd be happy.
Growling, I ignored the tears sliding down my cheeks.
A knight in a golden armour. A friend. A lover. The words flickered to the front of my mind, so persistent, travelling through my wings and my horn. Can you imagine a greater rush than being an alicorn?
At once, my chest panged with the sheer burning desire within. The phantom sensation of her lips brushing against mine had me shivering. Could I imagine a greater rush?
“Yes,” I whispered to the bleeding sky and the breaking world, “a thousand times, yes. Kissing Small Pond had been.”
She had been about to say it. She had been about to tell me, and she would have never been able to leave. I wouldn't have let her.
“I don't want to die yet,” I begged the unfeeling world. “Let me just be with her, at least a little longer. I won't hurt anyone. I'll leave when my time is up, but... please...”
In response, the very fabric of the skies trembled with an ominous wince. The few clouds left overhead curved, caved as if an unnameable pressure had been put upon them. And they were torn apart, exploding with a rush of pink radiance that bathed the whole world with a warmth unlike any other.
Within the light was the lone figure of a unicorn mare and my heart, that traitor, fluttered. Hope surged inside me, strong enough to eclipse anything else, and I shot upward like a rocket. Near me, empty air cracked, rifts opening and tearing through the landscape. But all I knew and thought with such frenzy whipping my blood was a mixture of disbelief and blazing, illuminating affection.
And when I came within reach, my wings locked into place. I hovered, the pink glow shining on my fur gently, the mare finally distinct. A mobious salmon was swimming on her flank, its smile as true as the mare that bore it.
“William,” Small Pond called out, spearing through the blaze of light, “take my hoof!”
It couldn't be real. Why would she even be here?! We'd worked so hard on getting her to escape. It was all for her sake. To let her leave the nightmare. To make her--
Happy.
“You came back...” My mind must have been playing tricks on me. A last desperate ditch to make the coming doom bearable. “You were free! The world's right in front of you. Why... why did you come back?”
“You didn't let me say it!” Her voice broke. “Did... did you think that would change something? That I wouldn't want to say it if you stopped me?!”
And all those pretty little words of selflessness unravelled. Their sway on me broke. The only thing left was a staggering, dizzying happiness that I couldn't even fathom. “But... what about being free and travelling on your own and meeting all sorts of exotic stallions on the way?”
“My dreams changed! I've had enough pinning after the unattainable and refusing to take what could be mine. I love you! I want to see the world with you!” Her hoof lingered just inside my reach. “So what do you say?”
Oh, I knew the words, and they came as easy as breathing when my hoof settled in hers.
“Yes, God yes. I love you, Small Pond.”
From the pink light flew a red chain that bound us together.
Her legs leaning on the rail, mane whipping in the wind, she let out a sigh of content.
She still had trouble believing it. Weeks had gone by in the blink of an eye, her brother and her scrambling for a plan, moving around funds and getting a new contract for a fishing agreement. Fry had not stopped hovering around for the whole duration, and Celestia forbid she ever slept in.
It didn't matter that she needed a bit more sleep than before to compensate for the enchantment, Fry rained hell down on her if she did not get up in time. Of course, she understood the sentiment. Her gaze lowered, enough to catch the red glow lingering over her fur.
“This gemstone will be key to using an ancient spell known as The Lover's Link.”
Small Pond grinned, her cheeks flushed. There hadn't been any need for Princess Celestia to wink when she said it, nor for Princess Luna to grin, but they had. They had and she had needed quite a few days to get over the fact that the diarchs of her country teased her about her love life.
A few more days had helped ease that feeling, and the mute fear she had lying in her bed, waiting for sleep to take her.
She had... learned to enjoy it.
Now, she could look to the waves, and feel only wonder. Silver dots of light marked the presence of the lunar dolphin swimming through the pull of the boat. The school had been following them for near a week now, and she had taken to naming them. Her favourite, Foamy, would do tricks if she threw him one of the catches.
All the while quietly making a certain stallion slightly jealous of the attention.
Small Pond let her head lull to the rhythm of the waves crashing against the hull, while in the distance, an otherworldly roar resonated through the air. In the dark, with only the magic of her horn to light her surroundings, she never would have managed to see it regardless. Yet, it made her heart beat just a little faster, and her anticipation for the next day grew stronger.
Not that she wasn't also looking forward to going to sleep either. The gem's heat against her skin sent a pleasant tingle through her body.
“Wear it at all times. There is never a valid reason not to. No emotion, no conflict, no order warrant you take it off. Guard it with your life.”
So far, there hadn't been any trouble on that front. Sailors had all sorts of precious ornaments. The other three mares on board all had an earring of bronze or silver. If she said she was keeping it, the rest of the crew wouldn't care as long as she did her job.
And for the most part, it was the stuff of dreams. Every breath she took felt rich with the scent of salt and freedom. Sometimes, as she did tonight, she lingered on deck past her work shift, just to take in the immensity of the waters around them, knowing that it was all for her to conquer. She didn't care if it made her look naive to the ponies that were still hard at work.
Poor Cabin Colt huffed past her, his short black tail flicking to the side. Last night, the teenaged colt had drunkenly tried to compliment her. His mistake had been trying to cup her necklace in his hoof, saying it was only half as beautiful as her. His cheek still displayed Small Pond's hoofprint.
“He will be bound to the gem. Do not let another being touch it.”
She had had, in truth, no choice. But that did not mean that she hadn't enjoyed it a little. She was, after all, a taken mare, even if no member of her crew seemed to believe her entirely.
With a wry smile, Small Pond trotted down the stairs, and saluted an aging stallion with a greying mane on the way to her cabin.
“Weren't there two of you?” the sailor mumbled, eyes darting past her in search of an elusive second pony. Had he directed his gaze to the wooden wall near the mare, he might have noticed an alicorn's shadow laughing.
“What are you talking about?” she replied with a small giggle. “Are all those years up there finally wearing down on your eyes, Far Sight?”
“Pffft, as if.” The middle-aged stallion looked to the sky in exasperation. “The day I go blind is the day this ship sinks.”
“I don't doubt it, Far Sight.” Small Pond pressed a hoof against the stallion's back, only half-joking. He had always had a keen eye from what she heard, and just this trip, he had helped them avoid getting caught up in some dangerous waters.
And she couldn't help a twitch of worry at the thought of a shipwreck. The waves might sweep them off their hooves, thrown them into the depths. They might break the chain.
“If, by happenstance, you lose it, he will be forced to manifest. That must never happen.”
Her hoof clutched the precious necklace against her skin, pushing it so her pulse rippled on the silver chain. She hadn't needed to be told. The thought of the gem lost – thrown overboard and floating down into the abyss – made her chest painful. William...
No, she told herself. One could not live in fear, he oft repeated. Fear dragged her down in chains. No more. The sunset ahead invited her and her crew toward new horizons. A few more days now, and they would land at Talonshore. She'd finally see the harbour most griffons merchants hailed from.
“Come on, Puddle,” she muttered to herself, her voice taking a deeper inflection,“are you going to start living a little, or do you need your big brother to push you on that boat?”
Small Fry had grinned wide the whole time he said it, more so when she had sputtered in outrage at him. The warmth of his parting hug to her had lingered for days. “I believe in you, sis. Knock 'em all dead.”
Even the begrudging agreement that William wasn't that bad a choice of stallion, once one looked past the nightmare-like powers and hungers, stayed with her. Her lover had rather been surprised when they'd talked about it later on. Maybe he didn't – or refused to – imagine what could happen at night.
“He will live on through your dreams, Small Pond. Know this: you will never meet him in the flesh. We understand your feelings for him, but remember that he is still only a creature of dreams and nightmares.”
Small Pond pushed the door to her cabin open with a faint amusement. She had been living in her nightmares for years before meeting her stallion. The future did not scare her anymore.
The mare settled down on her hammock with a content sigh. The ache in her limbs subdued, as it always did when she prepared for sleep. Above her, the swinging lantern projected its pale light over the rest of the cabin. She reached for it with one hoof, pausing only when she could feel the gentle warmth of the flame within licking at her skin.
Her eyes flickered to the shadow beneath her. A phantom touch rolled over her shoulders, caressed her cheeks, and she quieted her fast beating heart. The ruby on her breast gleamed.
