Go With the Flow
She was lost.
Sweetie Belle had underestimated how vast the dreamscape was. What had started as a mindless wandering away from the girls ended up with her in some part of the dreamscape that was far away from the doors to ponies’ dreams and was still teeming with wildlife.
And it was beautiful.
Suspended in an ethereal floor of woven ley lines, Sweetie gawked at the myriad of dream critters floating about and swimming around, all glowing soft blue, simply enjoying their lives without higher thought processes. An ethereal mist blocks her vision from anything further than twenty meters away, but she could still see translucent tadpoles the size of her face wriggling their teeny tiny tails and glowing flagellates as big as herself whipping their flagella.
A tadpole swam close to her at face level. Sweetie could feel curiosity radiating off of the cute thing as an arcane disturbance, so she flashed a smile. “Hello, Mr. Tadpole!”
The tadpole tilted its head. Or rather, its entire body, since that was all there was to the creature.
Sweetie offered a hoof. “I’m Sweetie Belle!”
The tadpole swam away, leaving Sweetie behind with folded ears and a frown. “Aww.” Just as quickly, Sweetie perked up and waved a hoof. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Tadpole! Have a nice day! Erm, night!” She paused. “Wait, how does the day and night cycle work in the dreamscape? It’s not like there are a sun and a moon.” She looked up and, sure enough, the sky was devoid of anything but little twinkling lights.
She was lost, but that was okay. She took a deep breath of dream-air and trotted off to a random direction with a smile on her face a bounce on her steps. The dream creatures moved away as she got close, keeping a safe distance but not actively fleeing.
Quite fortunate, she must say. Who knew which of the creatures were carnivores? Even the flagellates looked like they could swallow her whole!
A few more steps away and Sweetie spotted some sort of… a glowing rug? A glowing rug made of shinies! Where the ethereal floor was, there were glowing circles and feathers, together creating a mosaic picture of a worm-like creature. A crescent piece of shiny was at the head, opened like a mouth waiting to feast.
The shiny glowed as Sweetie stepped on one. She giggled and stepped on another. She laughed and jumped, then tumbled and yelped as the rug moved. She rolled and landed on her head, then picked herself up and froze in place as she saw the rug—nay, dream creature—aiming its mouth at her from a top angle.
Sweetie Belle forced a smile. “Uh, please don’t eat me?”
The creature tilted its head.
“I-I’m Sweetie Belle.” Sweetie made a waving motion with her wrist. “Mr. Snake? You’re not going to eat me, are you?”
Not that she was in any danger other than violently waking up, but it’d be nice not to be eaten!
Mr. Snake lowered his mouth.
She snapped her eyes shut. “Eep! Uh, hi?” She opened an eye and saw that the creature had stopped, now watching her intently. She could feel the snake’s senses taking information on her dream projection, pure curiosity, no intent to harm nor flee. Sweetie slowly reached out with a hoof.
Mr. Snake retracted before Sweetie could touch it, aligning his head with the rest of his body then started swimming forward. Sweetie sat on her haunches and let out a breath.
Mr. Snake’s movement was oddly stable and smooth, although she guessed that dreams didn’t work like reality. As they moved faster, the tadpoles and flagellates scurried away, hiding behind the everpresent mist.
“Where are we going, Mr. Snake?”
The snake kept on swimming.
“Are you taking me to your home?”
He kept on swimming.
“You’re not going to feed me to your children, are you?”
Swim.
Sweetie huffed. “I’d really appreciate it if you don’t eat or feed me to something else.”
Swim, swim.
“Can you understand me?”
The snake paused and craned his body back to stare at her.
Sweetie swallowed. “I take that as a yes?”
The snake continued swimming.
Sweetie sat on all fours and sighed. “What are you? Luna never told us about creatures like you before.” She poked a piece of his body and its glow briefly brightened. “What even are you made of?” She’d later learn that Luna did name them “shinies”.
A tadpole appeared from behind the mist. The snake jerked forward, making Sweetie grip into his rings. He opened his mouth and, in one swoop, devoured the tadpole.
To the untrained eye, it looked nothing more than a flash of light. To a unicorn’s eye, it was a bite shredding and ripping apart the intricate ley lines woven into sentience. It was the same pattern Sweetie could see in everypony and every living creature, and now she could see the internal designs in much more clarity than she could ever hope for.
Sweetie felt her dinner back in her throat. Her real body was probably struggling really hard to not stain the new bedsheet she had just replaced yesterday.
Light flashed behind her and she looked back, finding that the snake’s body had more shinies than before.
“You eat tadpoles?”
The snake paused for a bit before he continued swimming.
Sweetie patted him. “I-it’s alright. It’s not your fault you’re born a carnivore.” Or is it? she thought to herself. There wasn’t telling whether the snake became as he did because of forces outside his control.
A flagellate came to view this time. Sweetie closed her eyes just as the snake jerked forward and she tried her best to ignore the sickening crunch that followed. Another light flashed behind her. Sweetie shivered and shook her head.
The snake took a dive downward, passing through the ethereal floor and tingling Sweetie’s fur as she passed through. As she looked around, she could see more tadpoles and flagellates moving about, hurriedly scurrying off into the mist.
Sweetie tapped the snake. “Mr. Snake, are you going for dinner?”
The snake answered by pouncing on a tadpole.
Sweetie snapped her eyes shut. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
As the snake kept on feeding, Sweetie thought of what the snake actually was. Was he a newborn monster slowly feeding on other dream creatures to become an abomination? Was he some sort of rogue experiment by Luna, similar to the tantabus? Was he just a sentient magic carpet?
Should she trust him?
She sighed. Life could be simple.
Sweetie had been with the snake for quite some time now. He had grown a few extra feathers along his sides from all the little creatures he relentlessly murdered.
A question came to Sweetie’s head. “Can you fly, Mr. Snake?”
The snake ignored her.
Sweetie chuckled. “I guess that was a stupid question, wasn’t it? Of course, you can! It’s a dream!”
The snake dived deeper down into the abyss, where the mist began to clear and Sweetie could see a few specks of light moving in the distance. The snake seemed to be eager for those lights.
“Are those your friends, Mr. Snake?”
A spinning cluster of thin, elongated shinies appeared out of the mist. A ring shiny was at its center, and it was one of the faint lights from before. It was a jellyfish!
Sweetie smiled and waved a hoof. “Hello, Mr. Jellyfish!”
The jellyfish turned red and started spinning rapidly.
Sweetie whimpered. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude!”
Mr. Snake jerked forward and, before Sweetie could blink, snapped his mouth around the ring shiny of the jellyfish. The ley lines keeping the shinies together broke apart and reassembled themselves, creating tadpoles and flagellates which the snake happily snacked on.
A shiver ran down Sweetie’s spine. “T-that was…”
A quite horrifying sight. It was like seeing a surgery in progress, but unlike surgeries, he deliberately severed the ley lines apart to dismantle any consciousness it had. And Sweetie saw it with her own eyes instead of just imagining it from stories.
Although, to be fair, it was all happening inside her head one way or another.
Another jellyfish came to view. The snake swam faster.
Sweetie felt that she should do something. She could grip him and yell how it was wrong to kill others, but in the wild, was it really? The snake could only survive by killing other critters.
But they could be friends! Dogs and cats could get along just fine, why not a dream snake and a dream jellyfish? “Mr. Snake!”
The snake stopped all of a sudden, throwing Sweetie a few segments forward. Wow, he’s growing longer, too! The snake spun around and stared at Sweetie.
“Why don’t you just leave them alone?” she pointed at the jellyfish. “Mr. Jellyfish isn’t doing anything wrong, right? We can go somewhere else and eat tadpoles!”
A tadpole swam by and was eaten by the jellyfish.
“See? We have common ground here! You both eat tadpoles!”
The jellyfish turned toward them.
Sweetie swallowed. “S-see? He’s coming to say hi!”
The jellyfish spun and its shinies glowed bright red.
“Uh, maybe that’s how he’s being friendly? You know, different cultures and all!”
The jellyfish jumped at them. Sweetie shrieked and closed her eyes shut. Mr. Snake jumped back at the jellyfish.
There was a bright flash of light. When Sweetie opened her eyes, the jellyfish was nowhere in sight and the snake was staring at her. His shinies were glowing a deeper blue and dimmer than usual.
Sweetie felt a pit in her stomach. One of his shinies in the front was gone. Did the jellyfish eat it from him?
Sweetie stared at her hooves. “S-sorry. I didn’t know…”
The snake straightened himself and continued swimming.
Sweetie huddled into a ball and sighed. Life could be simple.
The snake continued swimming about slaughtering jellyfishes and tadpoles and flagellates. He grew more shinies as he ate more, and at some point got the eaten shiny back.
Sweetie found herself hard to concentrate on what’s happening around her. A few flashes of light here and there, a few tadpoles swimming past her every once in a while before getting devoured by Mr. Snake.
“Mr. Snake?”
The snake swam slower.
“You’re not mad, are you?”
The snake continued swimming.
Sweetie folded her ears back. “Sorry.”
The snake dived deeper. The mist cleared more and Sweetie could see almost twice as far as the first time she got there. More of the jellyfishes came to view at once, some of them already eager to attack. There were even other smaller snakes there, trying to eat the jellyfishes. And is that one trying to eat the other snake? Oh my Celestia it is!
Sweetie whimpered and tried to sink herself into Mr. Snake. Maybe she can turn invisible if she tried hard enough. It was a dream, after all.
But it was outside her own door. It was just as real as the waking world.
Mr. Snake, being bigger than everything else around, quickly pounced on a jellyfish too preoccupied with another snake and killed it in one swoop. He even got the snake too for good measure, and the two disintegrated into smaller critters.
Monster, Sweetie kept hearing inside her mind. Well, it’s not his fault he’s a snake! she kept screaming back.
Another snake swam at them. It was smaller than Mr. Snake when Sweetie first met him, but it was definitely much faster. “Mr. Snake, look out!”
Mr. Snake turned around just quick enough to snap his jaws around the other snake’s body before it could do the same to him. It wriggled frantically as it tried to get its mouth around his shinies.
Mr. Snake crushed the little snake’s shinies. There was no horrible noise to accompany it, only a flash of light as its ley lines disintegrated violently, some ceasing to exist altogether and some barely made it to weave themselves into two tadpoles. Mr. Snake gobbled one and ignored the other, letting it swim away to be a victim for another snake or jellyfish.
Sweetie snapped her eyes shut and let out a shivered breath. Life could be simple.
The snake dived deeper and the mist cleared even more. There were a lot of the smaller critters there: tadpoles, flagellates, even baby jellyfishes that didn’t seem hostile. It was like a gathering place.
Looking down, Sweetie could understand why. There was a giant serpent down there, twice as large as Mr. Snake. The critters probably thought it was safer there with Mr. Snake than with the monster down below.
A monster that was a little more harmless than the other monster.
A spark of hope lit up as she saw that there were other snakes there, and they weren’t eating each other, not even the serpent. “Mr. Snake, is that your mother?”
Mr. Snake kept on munching on the little ones.
“Your mother won’t eat you, right?”
Mr. Snake ignored her.
“Or maybe that’s not your mother and you’re trying to eat her?”
Mr. Snake snapped his jaws a little too hard on a tadpole.
Sweetie whimpered. “A-are you sure? She looks s-scary.”
Mr. Snake slowed to a halt. He craned his neck back and stared at her intently.
Sweetie swallowed a lump on her throat. “M-Mr. Snake?”
The snake aligned himself and stared down.
Sweetie took a deep breath. “A-are you sure about this?”
Mr. Snake dashed downward, right on top of the serpent. Before any of the creatures know what happened, Mr. Snake got a bite out of one of the serpent’s shinies.
The serpent jerked away. Just as quickly, it turned around with its shinies glowing red.
“Mr. Snake, it’s coming back!”
Mr. Snake swerved but it was too late. The serpent got a bite out of two of his shinies, and the rest of his body dimmed before he dashed away.
“Run away, run away!”
Mr. Snake turned around. Before his shinies even lit back up, he dashed into the serpent once more from the back, getting two of its shinies.
As the serpent dashed away, Mr. Snake turned to his side. When the serpent turned around glowing red, he swerved and dashed the other way, taking his tail just barely out of the serpent’s reach. At the same time, he managed to snatch two more shinies out of it.
The serpent dashed faster away and turned almost without pause. Mr. Snake couldn’t get himself out of the way and got three of his shinies eaten.
Sweetie Belle was in the way. She jumped and barely got away from the serpent’s maw, then tumbled down as she fell from Mr. Snake’s back.
Sweetie picked herself up. Mr. Snake was dashing away from the scene. There were a lot of snakes there, and the serpent was still trying to turn around. Would it go for her because she was on Mr. Snake's side? Would it fear her because she was an anomaly among the dream ecosystem and go for her first? But she wasn’t really his friend, was she? She was just hitching a ride for Celestia knows why.
But if she wasn’t Mr. Snake’s friend, would he go for her too? Would Mr. Snake think that she deliberately climbed down him to ally with the serpent because it looked more menacing than him? And what about the other snakes? What did they think?
There was a war going on. If she didn't choose a side she'd just be everyone's enemy. But if she did, she'd be in a war! But she needed to choose a side if she wanted protection. But she didn't want to be in a war! But she didn't want to die either. But war!
Sweetie covered herself with her hooves. Why couldn't life be simple?
The serpent coiled back. It looked a lot more upset, and it was looking straight at her.
Sweetie looked the other way and found Mr. Snake. Even from the distance, she could see that Mr. Snake was also going for her.
Now would be a really good time to wake up.
The serpent reached her first. Instead of being crushed, Sweetie felt herself getting picked up, hurriedly but also carefully. Was it trying to save her?
And then Mr. Snake came, and he pounced at the serpent head-to-head. The serpent, surprised, also dashed forward, in an incline to match Mr. Snake’s downward trajectory.
Sweetie was caught between the jaws of two monsters. Time slowed down as she felt her dream projection slowly getting its ley lines snapped and cut from outside in. She felt the previously gentle touch of the serpent instantly turned razor-sharp, cutting through her neck like it was nothing. Then Mr. Snake’s crescent shiny come down at her head, slicing it clean and through.
Sweetie woke up full of sweat and gasping for breath.
“Sweetie?”
Sweetie nearly jumped again before she saw her sister standing next to her bed. “R-Rarity.”
“Are you alright, sweetheart? Did anything go wrong on your patrol?”
Patrol? Sweetie kneaded her forehead. Right, I was on dream patrol tonight! “No, just some… unforeseen… stuff.”
Rarity draped a hoof over her. “It doesn’t look like it was just something.”
“W-well, it’s nothing to worry about now, at least.”
Rarity stared at her for a few more seconds before nodding. “Alright, you’re better at this than I am, I’ll trust you with it.” She slid away from the bed and trotted to the door. It was a lot more simplistic than the one in Carousel Boutique. Was she not at home? “You’re almost late for college, Sweetie. Want me to cook you breakfast?”
“College?”
Rarity stopped and turned around. “Why, yes. It’s still Friday.”
Sweetie smacked her face with her hoof. She was in an apartment somewhere, and Rarity was visiting. “Right, I—” Sweetie sighed.
“Is something wrong, Sweetie?”
“No, no, I just… I sometimes make myself younger in dreams. Kinda forgot for a second.”
Rarity chuckled. “Oh, now you want to be young again, don’t you?”
Sweetie giggled. “Don’t we all? Especially—” she coughed “—a certain unicorn?”
“I have the power to decide what you’re going to have for breakfast, you know?”
“Fine, fine,” she said as she relaxed back to her uncomfortable bed, trying to forget about the looming dread of getting dropped out to that one assignment she had been setting aside for months. And of what kind of future was there for her other than being a teacher at the school of friendship; she sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Teaching was terrifying.
Sweetie smiled and sighed. Life could be simple. Mr. Snake’s sure was.