The colony of Myinnkyun is tearing itself apart after the suspicious death of an old merchant. Piece together its final days from the dreams of its inhabitants.
The colony of Myinnkyun had enough problems without Peridot vanishing — trade ships were disappearing, and the island's native minotaurs had launched an attack on the city walls.
But now there's talk that she was murdered, and the city is about to tear itself apart before its enemies have the chance.
One part Spoon River Anthology and one part Rashomon, this story invites you to piece together the story of Myinnkyun's last days — and Peridot's final night — from the dreams of its inhabitants. "Dreams cannot lie," the Nightmares say, but everybody has a different understanding of the truth ...
Now with an official epilogue, thanks to the contest!
Highly Recommended by Present Perfect! "Once again, horizon attempts something ambitious and in doing so effortlessly shows us how to write a story."
Rated ★★★★★ by Louder Yay!"If you're in the market for something truly original and are willing to work for your reward, drop everything and read this."
Praised by Cold in Gardez: "Dreams is the best story I've read in a long time. It deserved to win the last Writeoff, and if it had been a prose story instead of a poem, it probably would have ... but it wouldn't have been the work of art that it is."
Recommended by Titanium Dragon: "Really, you don’t need to be a connoisseur of poetry to appreciate this – the form of the poetry didn’t matter so much as the mystique it lent the piece."
Praised by Skywriter: "This story is destroying me right now. I mean, I'm just sitting here at my desk crying because of it. I don't know what else to do."
Rated Why Haven’t You Read These Yet? by PaulAsaran: "Poetry isn't my medium … [yet that] does nothing to dissuade my satisfaction with an ambitious concept and a fascinating delivery."
Reviewed by Chris: "The more you put into it, the more you're going to get out ... if you're looking for something opaque, surprising, and even poignant—and especially if you enjoy piecing together stories for yourself—consider this highly recommended."
"The Nightmares say that dreams cannot lie, but they have never heard the siren song of the dream of Myinnkyun." Do you like it? When I write my history of the settlement, I think that must be the opening line.
The colony has let so many down.
The Princesses chartered Myinnkyun to spread friendship overseas, but all that came of that dream was six foalish idealists in a circle of mud-huts, until Petal Pusher realized that the Maregui Archipelago lay outside Qilinese waters but close enough to prepare the poppy-draughts they craved.
"Friendship!" came the cry, "Friendship and profit!" And the scent of easy bits lured hundreds into our box-trap, until the trade of poppy-draughts to the natives for gemstones angered the Mooken, tripping the trigger and snapping closed the gates of the city walls.
Myinn-kyun, they call this place, pony-island, but we ponies huddle within our cage, waves lapping at our hooves, staring at the impenetrable jungle of the island proper,
dreaming of the profit we were promised, dreaming of the friendship we're told we're spreading, as our neighbors vanish into the ocean in the dead of night.
We are not being told the truth about Peridot's death, I fear. It is not that the Nocturne did not have their reasons to lure the loathsome shrew to where the kelpie could pull her from the docks, but why would Peridot trust a Nocturne enough to follow one anywhere? I think there is some pony with a guilty conscience, and if the entire garrison is caught up in pursuit of the kelpie responsible, no justice will be done.
As disturbing as it is to invoke a scion of the Dark Princess, lest one of them listen and appear, perhaps Myinnkyun could do with a Nightmare to uncover the truth.
But then, what would my own dreams look like? Would they see me as I am, noble chronicler of history, unafraid to chase the truth an ocean away from Equestria,
Or would my skeletons come tumbling out from a thousand closets: that I married you for money, that I sleep with stallions on my many expeditions, that I falsified a discovery to discredit Deep Digger?
Would some traitorous voice blurt out to my inquisitor that I find all Nocturnes abominations of nature and judge the Dark Princess for twisting the bodies so of all three noble tribes?
Would they smile a dark smile upon learning that secret and arrange a reason to cast the blame on me?
That is the problem with dreams, you see: a dream cannot lie, but what lives inside may have precious little relation to the truth we are here to seek.
Murder! That's what comes of all this mingling: Mayhem, miscegenation, and murder!
You turn your back for just one day and some idiot sailor is kissing a kelpie, then before you can shame him back home, she pulls a pony into the sea!
Oh, of course I knew she would be trouble long before Majority said so; it's a big, big world, with a thousand races who just don't understand our cherished pony values. Why, didn't you hear that two days before Peridot was drowned, a group of tuft-ears all but assaulted her down at the common-house?
If you ask me, they're all in on it together. The Guard should throw the whole lot straight into the stocks, not that they ever will, not after hiring one of them to keep the others pacified. And now they sit on their hooves as Mooken scale the walls and kelpies pull upstanding citizens straight into the bay! What do we even pay taxes for? Why isn't that layabout Sunspot being held to account!
Everything would be different if we'd just stayed in Equestria, but we're so far from Everfree that we can't even celebrate sunrise and moonrise when the Princesses awake. I've a mind to leave on the very next boat, and leave Myinnkyun to the savages and tuft-ears!
The first casualty of the Battle of Myinnkyun was my music, torn from my bow and launched like an arrow, and a fiddler's days are numbered when his songs are no longer his own.
Two nights before she vanished, in the common-house near the docks: "Play!" cried Peridot, old eyes scowling, calling a slow ballad of love long lost; But the fire of the bottle was in Shooting Star, and he levitated me two bits, calling a march to stir the blood.
Peridot stayed my bow, declaring that she would not see her taxes spent on such an affront to melody, so Hotspur trotted next to the guard and hoofed me civilian bits for a march.
"I see how it is," Peridot told the nocturnes, "the freaks stick together," and silence descended as she paid me triple to make the march Iter Solis Invictus.
I must leave on the next boat, I think, or be the musician who played the song nopony wanted, the musician whose fiddle was in demand to make the others suffer.
Shooting Star and Peridot glared at each other for the length of the tune.
Thank the stars for Potluck, who next called Morag's Reel, and for Littlemoth, stepping up to dance, drawing the gazes of the room like a lightning-bug upon a darkened stage, golden eyes hiding among flaring fans of leather wings and the streaming arc of her mane, until Dawn Patrol fluttered to her flame and revelry retook the battleground, pony and Nocturne whirling together.
I could not leave on the boat the morning after Peridot vanished. There was none.
Neither will there be music, I think, until I fiddle the shanty to fill the sails with Myinnkyun at my back.
Ai. Ai! I'm cursed! It's a curse, it's the only explanation.
Two missing boats in a row, and now Peridot falls into the bay on a late-night walk. Not that I'm not glad the witch is dead, but suspicious suicides are never good for business.
Never mind Majority and his talk of murder, whipping up panic to distract everypony from our crippling taxes. How can anyone believe his overheated tripe? The old witch once tripped over her front porch steps and accused me of sabotaging her storefront with my magic! She didn't need help falling off a dock.
Ai, I suppose I should be glad he's not pointing the hoof right at me, a week after I shouted at the town meeting he should lower taxes just to shut the old witch up.
And now she's gone, and I get a double share of Myinnkyun's import trade, which—let me multiply— since the HMCS Pegafore and the SS Tradewind have both vanished into the Brahmin Ocean, is two times zero, meaning ZERO!
No income since Summer Sun yet I still have to pay duties to keep the garrison drunk while an army of sand-crickets assault Myinnkyun's towering walls with chirps of song! Ai, ai!
Damn Peridot for dying on the night that I bedded Littlemoth!
To have her sneak into my shack after the honoring of moonrise, to have her share my cries as our tangled bodies sung carnal hymns to each other and our Lady Night, to pin her with my body until dawn's rosy muzzle peeked from the covers of the slumbering horizon, as she clung to my drained form as though to anchor me from the calling of the tides…
And then to have Hotspur dash in with the news that Peridot was missing, her front door wide open and her bed made!
I recognized the panic in Littlemoth's face. To be blamed for something you could not have done, based only on the fear in ponies' eyes.
She knew she would be suspect, having humiliated Peridot by calling a dance and setting the room to revelry after the old witch called the March of the Sun to spite the Nocturne there.
I have heard that same arrogance from ponies thinking themselves kinder than Peridot for wrapping the hoof of intolerance in a velvet shoe. I have heard the lies that swirl out of Quote and the gossipmongers when they think us out of earshot.
I am sick of the looks, sick of the whispers, sick of the job openings that vanish when I enter,
and sick of the desperation that forced Littlemoth to sneak back out my window and pretend away our tryst so she could feign devotion for the Guard pegasus who might keep her safe.
Even though Peridot was drowned by a kelpie, they say we were behind it, that the monsters conspired to avenge the witch's insults.
Let them accuse us.
Let the Guard come, shackles in hoof.
If they wish to oppress us, they will quickly discover what monsters we can be.
How could it be true? How could the shining-eyed kelpie with laughter like sea-bells and a muzzle cool and salty with the sweetness of the sea… How could you…
Where are the innocence and the endless curiosity and the boundless generosity and the delight at my gifts with which I fell in love?
How could our memories— the taste of shared lotus-flower, paid for by a sea-melody, taught with patience in the stolen moments when the sailors left the docks for the confines of the common-house, taught with patience to a wretchedly atonal pony, blundering through the harmony as your throat shaped air-sculptures, rich, ephemeral, enveloping my eardrums with a love as endless as the sea —how could they mean nothing?
You killed Peridot!
—No! You could not have! Not my Sonata, whose very name must be sung: So. na. Ta. I know your song, Sonata, it is curled around my mind rich and sweet and innocent, and the memories of our laughter peal the bells of Peridot's funeral dirge.
But you pulled her into the bay, they say, so the Guard pegasi flew to hunt you.
I need to know why, Sonata. If we meant so little, if I meant so little.
I cannot live like this. I will wait for an explanation on the still and silent docks where no boat has landed since the Night of No Moon, and if your answer is to pull me into the embrace of the depths until the air flees my lungs, then I shall be the next to die.
[All I did was tell him I wanted more time! Like, he makes me laugh and loves my crappy singing and his tongue is so warm and smells of spiced tea, but he's a unicorn, he can't even breathe underwater! How was I supposed to say yes just like that?]
[He said he'd hire out on a line-ship and earn big money as a trader and buy his own little island and we could share a lagoon, but, like, that's a lot to think about, you know? And I've never thought too fast. I needed some time!]
[But I came back two days later to say yes and he wasn't there and he sicced the guards on me!]
[How could he? Is that really how ponies are, all smiles while they get their way, then murder you the instant you hesitate?]
[The spear's barbs still scream above my left pectoral fin, near where I bit through the shaft when the pegasi tried to pull me to shore. I dodged their nets and dove, trailing the thick brine of blood and the thin brine of tears, and now I hide in the grotto beneath Myinnkyun Point until the wound closes and the sharks swim away.]
[I'd better go see Adagio. She warned me about ponies. She's so smart, she'll know what to do.]
Cabotage is STILL talking of taxes yes even at a time like this well it's only to be expected with the missing boats I'll pressure Sunspot about them again tomorrow
the important thing is to keep the complaints from growing one lone voice is a crank but two voices equals a minority
thank the stars that Peridot was the other loudest voice Andi's all caught up in the drama over her murder and I shouldn't have any trouble planting thoughts in her ear
I suppose the missing ships are a blessing in disguse as ponies want a strong leader in a time of crisis maybe a speech to pull us all together shaming those tuft-ears into pulling their load should be popular with the merchants
if the town seizes Peridot's estate I can shuffle the bits to cover my debts then tell Sunspot to fire one soldier and lower taxes before the next election (that'll play well with voters)
though timing will be tight I'll have to let the kelpie scare fade away again which means I'll have to keep Sunspot chasing the Mooken and keep panic at a dull roar
"Chance smiles once upon the lucky," they say, "and the second time upon the fool." I have thrown away my mahua bottles. Now is no time to be foolish.
I was convinced that the Mooken were wild foals' tales, told to scare open the purse-strings of the fat and lazy.
"Without the walls," they said, "without the garrison," they said, "the first Myinnkyun was found silent and gutted, absent even of corpses." From this, and fables of minotaurs in the tawtwin, came the new Myinnkyun, huddled on the tip of the island's south peninsula, a hundred acres of surrounding brush fired and plowed into bare sand, keeping the shadows of the jungle far away from our little lights.
Why wouldn't I enlist for the watch? Paid to drink and gamble as the stretch of sand lay silent and birds trilled from the jungle beyond.
But two weeks after the night without a moon, as I lay in my cot opening a bottle instead of pacing the wall, came a great shout from the rampart.
When I dashed out, hastily buckling my armor, a minotaur was sprinting away across the sands, carrying a watch-spear stolen from my empty post, and dozens of ponies were staring up at the wall, drawn by the commotion, whispering about what might be outside.
Sunspot galloped up to demand an accounting, so I told him I threw my spear at an attacking Mooken. Dawn Patrol said he came outside just in time to see the Mooken run away, and so I escaped discharge for spinning tales with drink on my breath, taking only a turn under the lash.
And now Peridot.
I have thrown away my mahua bottles. To be foolish now is death.
Yet my heart whispers that we cannot out-gallop folly. How can a garrison save us when earth and sea conspire to bring a second end to the colony of Myinnkyun?
We have built walls against the land, but we cannot hold back the ocean!
<I am a dedicated bull, Palei Hantu. When I caught you bedding my brother and you ran from his hut, did I not chase you across the island to the realm of the Myinn?>
<Did I not follow you out of the jungle and sprint across the sands as you climbed their wall, even though the chief declared the four-legged ones [manyekyaungg]?>
<Did you not believe that I would have pursued you into that dread realm, had not the Myinn guard who sat up startled after you vaulted the rampart shouted and flung his spear at me?>
<I snatched it from the sand as I fled from his fellows, gladly taking upon myself the curse of [dharat sattu], and that is how you may know that I will follow you to the end of your days.>
<I will wait at the edge of the jungle, eyes burning in the shadows, clenching the tainted spear, until you climb back over the wall or the guards tire in their rounds that I may climb the wall again,>
<or until I hear your screams as the Myinn tear you limb from limb.>
<How long can you hide, Palei Hantu? Your spirit does not burn like mine.>
Hooves stamping the rhythm of the reel, flanks swaying, tail lashing, until I close my eyes and she is ripped screaming hurtling through the void sister bowing crowned head as her cries fade into the silent arc of the moon
I shove Littlemoth from my thoughts and suddenly can see the mob behind her, the stiff and ghoulish form of Peridot holding a torch.
I can't I can't I can't let them know.
screaming hurtling through the void sister bowing crowned head How could Princess Luna snap?
"Rumor is," Sextant said, "she felt like ponies didn't love her." I guess that explains the night without a moon, when it chased the sun over the horizon and we saw a skyful of brilliant stars: the lightgivers were warring over Equestria before Celestia banished her sister.
Back in Equestria, Sextant said, the Night Watch and Nightmares rose up against the rest of the Guard, and even the civilian Nocturne hoisted arms.
"Well, we've had none of that here," I said. "Not with so many dead of marsh fever. You'd better make for Maretaban and let the sickness run its course." I watched his ship come about, and flew back to Myinnkyun to finish my patrol.
Cabotage said he was expecting a trade ship from Ponsylvania, so I scared them off too. As soon as word of the war spreads (screaming hurtling through the void) They'll chase Littlemoth and …
I can't.
I can't save them all, and I can't watch Myinnkyun turn on them, but I can show Littlemoth the love Celestia couldn't show Luna. I can take her hoof as I did in our dance, as I do in our tender moments in passing in the streets, and we can wing over the walls and brave the jungle. If we can make it past the Mooken we'll fly down the Maregui to the maneland.
Just as soon as I can get off patrol. Just as soon as I can get her alone.
Fecking pikers, 's all they are. Too good for us, unless it's to use us to fight for'm.
Pin a medal to y'chest like the weight o' the bronze balances out the missing leg. "Hero of the Poppy Wars!" all the unicorns cry, then they walk right by when y'just want a bit for another bottle to dull the pain.
Always knew Peridot didn't give a shit about us, calling the March of the Sun for the town's one Night Guard. Feck you too, y'fat cow. I ain't one o'the Nocturne but us Guard stick together. Spend a week shovin' pigstickers into waves of charging qilins and see how far y'taxes take ya. 'S just you and y'mates on the line that bring y'home.
Feck 'em both. Gonna wake me up by trippin' over me at half past midnight stumblin' toward the docks, least the damn hornheads could do is share a bit for another bottle to get me back to sleep.
Don't act so surprised. The Night Guard is trained to notice dream incursions. Who—
Save your lies! Answer my question—who are you?
Nnh—
Feisty, aren't you? But you're not going anywhere.
Can't say I was expecting a Nightmare, on top of everything else going on in this stars-forsaken colony. Listen: We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I may not have the skill to trace you from here, but I can buck in the door of every Nocturne in town until I find you. So save yourself some trouble and—
I shouldn't say she deserved it, but Peridot deserved it. Complaining about taxes as if I'm not scrambling to keep every pony in Myinnkyun alive on a beltstrap budget!
I'd laugh at how she was killed by the natives that she isn't paying the garrison to repel, if that didn't also mean we're all downright fecked.
The Mooken have been watching from just beyond the firelight since we cleared the sands, but now they're on the move. Controlling the kelpies to kill us from within, and stealing spears as links for sympathetic spellcasting, to ruin our fighting force before the invasion. An island full of minotaur shamans, and what magic have we got? A captain ten years out of shape; whatever crazy black-magic powers Shooting Star never talks about; and that useless drunkard Spotlight, who no more fought off that Mooken than I swam here from Equestria. (I'd have him in a cell for deserting his post if his sire wasn't the mayor.)
With some reinforcements perhaps we could wait it out, but I didn't act fast enough.
I had hoped that killing the kelpie in the harbor would prevent her from calling more of her kind for the Mooken to control, but since they're already sinking inbound ships, it's clear: we've only got one chance.
Press-gang every able-bodied pony, march into the jungle, and slaughter the Mooken before they can slaughter us.
Coy to the bitter end, I see. This is always the dance we do (did?) but we both know you are not to be pitied. You knew the nature of this dance when it first began from the band's first notes, when they struck up "The Colt Who Loved the Inquisitor" you knew this dance. I do not know what poor soul will find your missive while sifting through the ashes of Myinnkyun, or what she will feel when she does probably sorrow that this letter will never find its mark. She need not fret. She does not know us. To you, my love, I say, "Confession received." I knew all already. I loved you still.
* * *
The truth is this: We all burn with needs, my love, yours no more shameful than anyone's.
—a scout who'd ruin a merchant to prevent a war —a politician who'd foment rage to win an election —a dancer who'd conspire with a monster to hide her perfidy —and a golden kelpie lurking beneath the waves basking in the rumble of an approaching storm
* * *
Rosetta I am called, for like the fabled translating-stone I open the doors of language. I know and understand the lowing of the Mooken the mad chitter of the Protean and the seductive keen of the Siren (a convenient gift, for my occupation; it is helpful to know the words of the dreams that I see) but I have also come to know that language is a trivial thing a fine suit of clothes we wrap our needs in So we can imagine there are higher and purer motives for them So we can imagine we are more than beasts who feed
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say:
—a Protean insect, nourished by the love of a Mooken bull (who himself does not yet realize his mate is long dead slain by the fangs of the very beast he lies with) who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and who does not yet know how the betrayal of trust can turn sweetest love into bitter, unpalatable hate sending her fleeing through the jungle to the as-yet-untainted well of Myinnkyun where she adopts a new face and tries to pierce him who once pierced her with a far different spear
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say:
—a golden-eyed mare, nourished by the love of a sun-blind scout who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and in her eagerness to taste both night and day forms a pact with the Protean little realizing how high the price would become or how deadly are the storms that rise from the beating of insect wings
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say:
—a Siren, nourished by the gentle strife of a quarrelsome village who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and who does not yet realize that a roaring bonfire of hate (while warm at the time) consumes all and leaves nothing but cold ash in its passing. "One death will fan the flames higher," she says and, taking a cue from her younger blue cousin (who seeks, improbably, to make harmony with the land-ponies!) comes to an old, troubled merchant-mare lured to the docks by the Protean's friendly but stolen face and with her song makes her want the quiet of the deep, smothering water more than anything in the world more than life
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say:
—a night-colored princess, nourished by the faint praise of a job well done who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and (you can see where I'm going with this, I think).
* * *
Everfree is in ruins. Even now the Inquisition turns inward trying desperately to find the distinction between those loyal to the Night, and those loyal to its banished Princess. (It is an impossibly narrow divide.) I do not fancy they'd like what they'd find should they turn their gaze on me. Therefore will I become the smallest of poppies complete my paperwork with a minimum of fuss and not remark overmuch on loose ends. (Shall I ever know how Peridot woke poor Tommyrum in the dead of night and yet saw sun before the dark took her? Perhaps not; when all about is chaos, closure is more dear than truth.) So on the matter of Myinnkyun, I will write: "Colony destroyed by animal attack." Because it is true. Because we are — all of us — attacking animals. The Protean who fed on love The Siren who fed on hate And everyone in between who fed, alternately, on both. I feel no guilt, because none of it will matter; all will be ruin before any force can be mustered. The walls of Myinnkyun torn down, the Mooken decimated, the two sirens swum away, one fat and gleeful, the other destroyed and you, my love, lost forever in a literal pipe-dream regretting such little things. In a mind so full of burdens, I hesitate to add one more but I will because I, too, am a beast with needs.
This is what I ask of you:
Let go.
Let go of all that weighs you down.
Know, at the last, how small it all is.
and once, one time, before the coming of the dark,
